Honest Bumper Stickers 2020 Part I: The Pantsing Menace

So there I was minding my own business, working on my NaNoWriMo project for this month of writing, when out of the blue we get a new wannabe candidate running in the 2020 Democratic Primaries.

So here comes Mike Bloomberg, doing nobody but billionaires any favors hopping into the campaign cycle ostensibly to run on a Centrist, pro-business platform but most likely doing whatever he could to stop the Progressives like Bernie and Warren taxing the ever-loving shit out of Mikey and his billionaire buddies.

So here I am rolling my eyes at Bloomberg's tone-deaf needless sacrifice to take one for the rich white guys, because the last type of person who is going to win over enough Democratic primary voters is going to be someone who promoted anti-civil-rights BS like Stop and Frisk while encouraging Wall Street to rip off homeowners by the truckload. Christ, look at the polling already. Wassisname, the Starbucks guy he didn't even survive the first wave of Twitter outrage. There's already this hedge fund manager Tom Steyer doing his best to get over 2 percent polling (and failing). If Bloomberg thinks he's gonna cut into Warren's - or even Biden's - lead, he's let his campaign advisors rip him off for millions with bad advice.

Here's the dark secret, billionaires who may harbor non-Republican values enough to be Dems: Most of the Democratic voting base hate rich guys who refuse to pay their fair share of taxes. If you wanna do Dem voters any favors, help fund the state-level candidates who need the fcking money to break the stranglehold Republicans have on too many state legislatures.

But no, the worst part of Bloomberg's rollout had to be this:

Yeah, I know. I couldn't stop laughing for three minutes.

Sadly, it turns out the marketing logo is actually a fake, but for a day or two I was haunted by this terribly designed logo: This cluttered mess of trying to make Bloomberg's name 'exciting' by putting in two 2020s and capping it with a lame motivational "OWNING IT TOGETHER." Whoever did design this fake logo knew how bad it could get. Seriously, this looked like something that would have wowed the crowds... back in 1973.

Ah, and this kind of thing stoked my ire back in 2015/16, when all the bad campaign ad work popped up on BOTH sides of the political primaries. All of that questionable logo design - all because Obama's people figured out early the big letter O for Obama could get used artistically for genuinely eye-catching logos - struggling to try and match Obama's marketing success.

It drove me to make Honest Bumper Stickers for 2016, and now here I come for 2020, revved up to mock the ever-loving hell out of candidates I will support for the Democratic ticket (I am not at the moment in any mood to make mocking bumpers for trump: All I will make for him is IMPEACH THE FUCKER, indeed).

So here I come, walking down your street, I get the funniest looks from, everyone I meet... HEY HEY IT'S HONEST BUMPER STICKERS! ...what?

Update On The Madness Midterm

Oh No. Not Again.

(via the Tampa Bay Times) Florida ordered mandatory machine recounts in three statewide elections Saturday for the first time in state history.

Secretary of State Ken Detzner issued a one-page order directing all 67 counties to conduct a machine recount of more than 8.2 million combined ballots over the next five days in the races for governor, U.S. Senator and commissioner of agriculture.

Yes, of course, only FLORIDA could make the 2018 Midterms election cycle THIS MUCH CRAZIER.

It didn't help that the state's election services are still seriously compromised, with broken electronic machines, understaffed county offices, confusing precinct locations, long lines, and struggling volunteers (those are the ones I feel worst about: many of them are honest and capable and dealing with a lot of top-down problems).

We've got reports about the Broward County ballot not showing the key US Senate race for people to vote on, creating a massive gap of unaccounted voters.

Long before I started blogging, I lived in South Florida. I was there for the 2000 Debacle. It wasn't fun, stressful as hell knowing the fate of the entire nation hung the balance...

This election cycle, with all the other things that have happened since Tuesday, there's not AS MUCH at stake at the national level - pretty much the US Senate race between Nelson (please) and Scott (NOOOOOOO) - other than how much of a margin the Republicans control the Senate next term (if it's a 1-vote lead all of a sudden McConnell has to work harder to keep his troops in line, if it's a 3-vote margin he has more leeway). The way things are counting out in Arizona, whether Scott wins or loses becomes a bigger deal.

What *is* at stake is at the state level: whether the Republicans retain control of the Governor's seat with DeSantis or if Democrats can force a power-share getting Gillum into that seat. If Gillum DOES recover and gets the win with the machine count (it all depends on if a lot of missing ballots in Blue counties - hello again, Dade - and the absentees by mail are counted in time) this would be a bigger deal.

Statewide, the Dems will have a say in how the gerrymander efforts by the GOP are done (which bodes well for Dems). Gillum would ensure the felon re-enfranchisement amendment is enforced, improving the odds of higher turnout (which favors Dems a bit more).

At the national level, a Gillum win would revitalize an otherwise down-in-the-mouth progressive voting base. For all the wins that DID happen for Democrats and Progressives - winning back the US House, winning more governorships and state offices in the Great Lakes and Midwest states, more women and minorities in office - most of the big-name races (Beto O'Rourke in Texas, Gillum in Florida, Abrams in Georgia) did not pan out.

Beto's loss was close, but not close enough to force a recount. Abrams' run for the Governor's seat in Georgia is still in question because of the closeness of the results (it may yet - IT NEEDS TO - go to recount), but if she prevails it would be the first true big crack in the GOP Southern Strategy. A Black Woman winning in what was a solid Conservative (and historically racist) state would be almost as big a win as Obama winning the Presidency in 2008.

Gillum's win - if it happens through recount - would be almost as big as an Abrams win. Florida may STILL be a Southern state with its own dark history of racism, but the last 30 years or so has seen this state wobble between its redneck leanings or its East Coast Transplant/International(Caribbean)  leanings. That Florida may be ready for a Black man running Tallahassee (well, okay, running Florida) is a big step but it wouldn't be as Earth-shattering as flipping Georgia.

There's still a lot to worry about: there's no guarantee the recounts mean a Gillum or Nelson victory (although both would be a huge relief to me personally) here in Florida. There's every chance the Republicans still in charge of a lot of things - and every chance Rick "No Ethics" Scott tries to shoot the recount down - will mess things up to where the Supreme Court interferes AGAIN with this mess.

But after the blues of Tuesday, this bit of Hope this weekend keeps me going.

P.S.: GOD, I know as a Unitarian you don't listen to me much, but PLEASE for the LOVE OF YOU make sure the recount favors Nelson and Gillum. Please. PPPPPLLLLLEEEEAASSSSEEEEE (gives the Almighty that pleading kitteh-eye expression)

Serious Thoughts On an April Fools Day

1) The bigot law in Indiana doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon even though it's basically made Indiana the target of scorn and ire.

And the situation's getting worse.  Arkansas is looking to pass a similar-worded religious freedom religious bigotry law.  I've mentioned it before: when one Red State does something odious in the sphere of social-economic conservatism, the other Red States are certain to follow despite the consequences already shown.  (Update: the Arkansas governor is refusing to sign the bill and is asking the state legislature to re-word the RFRA to remove the discriminatory language)

2) Speaking of bad Republican acts in the sphere of social-economic conservatism, current news out of Kansas - where the Far Right governor and the Far Right legislature passed one of the deepest tax cuts agenda among the states - is that the hit to revenues those tax cuts caused are deeper than what the state can afford to cut in spending.  In short, Kansas is bleeding again, this time budget-wise.

State figures released Tuesday showed that tax revenue came in $11.2 million below expectations in March, the latest in a string of lower-than-expected tax receipts.

Lawmakers must fill a $344 million revenue shortfall by June, and Brownback has moved to plug Kansas’ fiscal hole by slashing education funding, gutting the state’s pension fund, and cutting infrastructure. Additionally, the governor has proposed new sales taxes, which disproportionately impact the poor, in order to proceed full steam ahead with his income tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

Kansas is getting to the point where there's not enough places to cut spending, and are already at the point they've cut education funds to where even (what's left of) the middle class is going to see the damage.  And this is cyclical: the cuts to public funding affects the overall economy to where people can't earn enough to get taxed, which creates more revenue shortfalls, which forces the GOP leaders to cut more funding, which... /headdesk  At some point, Kansas is going to be in worse shape than Mississippi (arguably one of the poorest and worst-funded states in the nation).

Just remember, Republicans WANT to destroy government: they want to wipe out our schools and our pensions, because those are the things they slash first in favor of giving their corporate golfing buddies not only massive tax cuts but also massive state contracts on privatized vendor services that overcharge and underserve everybody.

3) Here in Florida, the budget shortfalls are not slowing down the state legislature's love of massive spending projects that ignore higher priority needs.

4) In very local news, The West Pasco Republican club is apparently disbanding out of sheer spite between leading local figures.  Popular local figure Mike Fasano reportedly ticked off two of the three club officers, especially over Fasano's public support for Charlie Crist for governor over Rick "No Ethics" Scott last election cycle.  I've actually met Fasano years ago at a meeting: when asked about Scott's performance as governor, I watched him physically constrain himself from blurting out what needed to be said about Scott's evil ways (Fasano's career has been a more mainstream, almost moderate Republican record: he's one of the few Republicans I like).  So it didn't surprise me Fasano wouldn't back Scott in 2014.  It doesn't surprise me that the more severe members of the GOP would carry their purity purge to the point of wiping out their own groups like this.  Bad news is for my poor Republican parents, they just moved to West Pasco and were wondering about where the local GOP charter was meeting...

There Are Three Reasons This Should Be Illegal

This is NOT something I wanna be seeing this year or any other year, to be honest:

Everybody's talking up Jeb Bush for President 2016.

Already.

/headdesk

I've got Three Reasons This Should Be Illegal:

1) For the simple fact that NOBODY should be campaigning for an elected office so far down the calendar. I've railed a bit about this earlier, but I don't think I've gone into deeper discourse on it.  Campaigning outside of the particular year of election is one of the reasons why campaigning costs have gone up: effort requires revenue, so the longer the effort the more money is needed.  The more money is needed, the earlier candidates start with their fund-raising efforts to afford it all.  It's a vicious cycle in a way, especially for House congresspersons who have only two years of office and are nowadays spending more time and effort campaigning for the next election cycle than focusing on actual governance.  I've argued before there needs to be a time cap on this: all campaigning and fund-raising should only take place in the actual year of election for that office - in the case of Presidents, that fourth year of that cycle - which could go a long way to reduce the costs and thus the amount of money needed.  (It might also have the added bonus of forcing state primaries for the Presidency to be within a shorter time-frame, hopefully to just one nationwide day)

2) This is distracting from the fact we've got a President NOW who's fighting with Congress over God-Knows-Everything to get a) our economy on track b) sanity back into our taxing/revenue system and c) actually getting sh-t done for once (I swear Congress has gotten lazier than a husband getting ordered to take out the trash).   This game of "Who's Campaigning Now" seems to be a sad sick habit of our media who's more obsessed with personalities (aka "the buddies in our small circle of friends we'd like to see run the country because GOSH all Americans would LOVE our buddies!") than with policy (one word: too dry).  Even during 2016's campaign we should expect the talking head pundits to start gushing over a buddy they'd love to see run in 2020.  /headdesking times infinity  THIS HAS GOT TO END.

3) Nobody nowhere and at no time should ever discuss any member of the Bush dynasty for ANY political office.  NEVER EVER IN A MILLION GODDAMN YEARS.

I'm not a huge fan of Jeb Bush to begin with, I'll admit to that.  Having lived here in Florida, I've seen his handiwork - the push for vouchers (bad idea), the push for charter schools (proving to be a bad idea), the purging of voter rolls, the sick campaigning stance on the death penalty (this one hit close to home, though it wasn't as personal for me as it was and still is for the people who were directly affected... it's not something I think I have a right to talk about, not right now... anyway I digress), and about 50 other reasons why I'm horrified Jeb is even talked as a serious candidate.  

This is where Problem 2) becomes a problem again: these pundits have a personal connection to politicos like Jeb Bush, and so they can't see outside of their own circles why people could or would hate someone who's so "chummy".  These pundits think "oh, Jeb's a serious guy on education" when his track record has been destructive to Florida's educational system and to the kids.  They think Jeb can reach out to minority voters - especially Hispanics - but fail to realize that speaking Spanish and marrying a Latina is not outreach... and Jeb's track record on restricting voters' rights will turn off many Hispanics who see their own voting rights threatened by the current GOP.

Just being Jeb alone is a big reason why I hate him.  What will really hurt Jeb Bush's potential campaign is that last name.  His older brother George W. turned the name Bush into Mud.  Even five years after leaving office, Dubya remains a hideously unpopular ex-President (even Nixon wasn't this hated five years later).  All a candidate has to do is come up with a video ad using a picture of Jeb morphing into a picture of George W.  That's all.  And that would kill Jeb's campaign.  I'm talking a REPUBLICAN Primary candidate has to create this ad: even the GOP base would be turned off by having yet another Bush anywhere near the White House.  If a Republican opponent doesn't make that ad, you can be damned sure the Democratic candidate in the general election will: Hoover was the Democrats' whipping boy for two whole decades, for God's sake, and it worked because voters do have longer memories than the pundits realize.

So there.  Three Reasons.  If anyone starts talking up Jeb for 2016, you have my permission to arrest them.  I think you'll have permission from 185 million fellow Americans too.