Vote First

This week the spouse of the person third in line for the presidency got seriously attacked by a hammer-wielding, 2020 election-denying conspiracy theorist that regularly spouts racist, anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ views via a blog not like, but not 100% unlike, this one.

Now, before you go jumping to conclusions —

We here at Notes do NOT believe, as the attacker does, that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is the power behind some cannibalistic, child abusing cabal.

Nor do we traffic in the notion that non-white people, Jews or gays are evil incarnate.

And not only because the Chair is in the latter two of those three groups.

Rather it is due to the fact that we, like him, use the WordPress platform to regularly espouse our views for all the world to read, and perhaps rally behind, via our own personal BLOGs.

I was thinking about this a lot after hearing my fellow blogger broke into the Pelosi home after 2 a.m. bellowing, Where’s Nancy, struggling with 82-year-old Paul Pelosi before hitting him REALLY hard on the head. (Note: Nancy was not at home, but hard at work rallying Democratic voters far away on the opposite coast).

Nevertheless, Mr. Pelosi suffered life threatening injuries from this attack – a fractured skull and serious injuries to his hand and arm that required surgery – but it is now reported he will be okay.

This was not solely due to his doctors but also to the fact that an intuitive 9-1-1 operator dispatched the police to his home with a high alert warning.

Still, it momentarily left me wondering:

Exactly where do we stand with free speech in our presently advanced information age??

Oh, OF COURSE FREE SPEECH NEEDS TO CONTINUE! (He ranted).

WHAT ARE WE, A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY OR…..RUSSIA? (He asked).

OR A MAGA STRONGHOLD IN THE SOUTH OR MIDWEST? (He irrationally screamed).

OR THE HOUSE JUDICIARY GOP, which still has up the following three-week old tweet:

TRUMP. ELON. KANYE.

Well, I guess that post is presumably in support of the free speech rights of people like Kanye West to go, as he just did, def-con 3 on THE JEWS.

Shoot (oops), even billionaires (Note: Up until this week) get to say anything they want, like the rest of us.

Or in solidarity with Elon Musk’s plan, after buying Twitter for $44 billion, to let back on the platform many of the hate spouting, fake conspiracy-promoting users whom former Twitter execs permanently banned for life. Beginning with:

@realDonaldTrump.

Get ready America.

I don’t have answers as to where free speech ends and governmental intervention begins.

Nor do American politicians or its citizens if the last six plus years of the MAGA agenda to poison our social discourse with lies about the efficacy of the 2020 elections (and beyond), amid white power salutes and calls to lock up every elected official they don’t agree with, are any indication.

Phew, that was a mouthful.

And we’re not done yet.

Because when there is no agreement on what is true, or what is even real, it’s hard to know where to even start.

Or end.

When I was in graduate school in Chicago once upon a time in the seventies there was a big hoopla around the Nazis marching in the nearby suburb of Skokie, a primarily Jewish enclave.

It was a provocative move to cause an encounter, we were all sure, so eventually it was decided that as heinous as Nazis were, it would be against freedom and even worse for democracy to not allow this monstrous group who supported the extermination of a race/my people, to be free to express themselves in a place where my people/that race most particularly presided.

Of course, this was in an era where almost everyone believed Nazis were heinous.

A time very unlike today.

As I watched former President Obama campaigning this weekend in support of democracy and Democratic candidates in swing states like Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin he was incredibly inspiring. But his words felt almost…

QUAINT.

Oh, he made the case and then some for the imperative to vote Blue in the 2022 election and beyond.

He proved without a doubt that to not elect these representatives could signal the end of democracy, not to mention extinguishing popular social programs like Social Security. Not to mention more tax cuts for the rich and less affordable health insurance for the rest of us mere mortals.

Please don’t let this be you this November

But he was speaking to thousands of Democratic supporters who wanted to be inspired and be given numerous exciting, rational reasons to get off their phones and up off their asses to make a difference.

Still, it made me wonder if this was the only way to stop the MAGA movement for now. Get every conceivable, rational, believer in facts and democracy that we all know to move up and out to the polls, even if we need to take them there ourselves.

And to worry about how free our free speech should be AFTER this election cycle.

To forget about the lies, and hate, and crazy right wing fan fiction on social media for right now.

Unless they try to stop us from voting. And then we’ll…

Well, we’ll cross that bridge in 10 days or less. I guess.

A friend of mine sincerely asked me how I can be even slightly positive about the future of the country in light of where we are now.

I immediately responded it’s because I spend a lot of my working life around young people in college, the vast majority of whom loathe the MAGA agenda.

Deniers aside, it is a fact that 65% of Gen Zers voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and that in 2024 they will be the most powerful block of voters.

So now is the time to TALK, not lecture to them, about their fears, their truths and the truth of what is going on in the country vs. what is passing for truth these days.

And ask them to vote for themselves, or as a favor to you, if you know them well enough. (Note: Yes, guilt can work. I’m living proof!).

And then get your butt and the butt of everyone else you know into a virtual/mail-in or literal voting booth.

We can then scream, rant, chat or even blog about the distorted views and/or rights of any crazy that comes to mind after that.

Because we will still have the freedom and luxury to do so.

George Michael – “Freedom! ’90”

08.21.22

by notesfromachair

Going Nuclear

Imagine this:

A guy has super top secret information about the United States’ nuclear capabilities in his closet, the most top secret you can have, and refuses to give it back.

Well actually, at first he denies having it at all.

Perhaps a more accurate depiction of events

That is his response to the US government when they ask for its return, along with his surrender of other items and information that are merely dubbed secret.

So finally the government gets a court order to search his house for that and other stuff he’s not supposed to have in his closet, many boxes full, and they are all taken away from him.

See the guy hasn’t had super top secret or ever secret security clearance for almost two years and, even if he did, he could only possess or even look at said information in a governmentally secure and much more pristine facility than his…closet.

That’s how uber super duper national security TOP SECRET or SECRET all of this stuff is.

Oh and side note: This guy also hangs out with some of the BIGGEST power brokers in Russia and the Middle East, two countries that would do and offer quite a lot AND MORE to learn anything at all of our secrets OF ANY KIND on any level.

Now I’m not saying THAT is relevant to our guy several weeks ago hosting a bunch of those wise guys at a golf tournament he sponsored in New Jersey at another one of his closet-containing properties, where lots of games and conversations were played and had.

On the other hand, I’m NOT saying it is irrelevant; nor is more than half of the country.

Anyway, now that we have our stuff back, stuff our guy has had for 18 months plus and, really, could have given to anyone at any time for any price or just for fun and/or frolic or bragging rights, what do we do with him, this guy, our guy????

Well, I’ll tell you what we do – we invite him to be the next president of the US and, in fact, we beg him to run.

Yes folks, this is the belief of at least HALF of the voters in his political party, one of two major political parties in the perhaps now nuclear vulnerable, thanks to our guy, U.S.

And no, there is no hyperbole here.

At NOTES FROM A CHAIR, we just report the FACTS when we reference stories about US nuclear power and the GUY, or even former guy, ultimately in control of the arsenal and strategies that enable and disable it.

Okay, here’s the truth of all of my above wordsmith-ness:

I don’t like to reference our 45th president’s name because, really, the mere click of the letters and/or the thought of them (and him) make me either physically nauseous or psychically angry.

Or is it physically angry AND psychically nauseous?

Well, either is true in any moment where it is not a potent combination of all four.

So, aware of how his mere presence, image or existence gets to me, I instead try to analyze his newsworthy escapades, of which there are few despite the massive coverage he gets, in a separate, more potentially objective, third person scenario.

By calling him our guy (Note: Which technically he was since in 2016 he was legally elected {Note 2: As far as we now know} and this is still the UNITED States) it kind of evens the playing field a little bit more towards objectivity for people like me.

Of which there are also MANY.

We gain an opportunity to look at events, actions and facts without a Pavlovian instant response of near vomitus sickness or explosive, stroke-provoking rage.

In other words, it begs the question of who he is and allows us to focus on what that nameless individual whose name we dare not speak or see, has done.

Or not done.

What do you do with an individual, a mere citizen (which he is now) who has indulged the actions, or inactions, he has?

How should THE LAW treat such a person, and what do we, his fellow individual citizens, think about the WAYS in which such a person behaves?

Here is a NY Times opinion piece this weekend that uses the real names:

I suggest you answer the questions raised in my scenarios first before you attempt to read it, then decide what you think.

But maybe not before reading this, which talks more about the possible wide berth of risks for nuclear secrets of any kind leaking, with one of our foremost experts.

I educated myself with those and many other sets of articles.

Think Chip and Joanna Gaines can fix up my bomb shelter? #nuclearshiplap

Yet in the final analysis they caused me to conclude that, well, the best summary, and certainly the most succinct and entertaining, of all of the above comes from Randy Rainbow.

Yes, that’s his real name.

It fully encapsulates everything super informed me has to say on the subject so please have a listen in your safe space.

Mine’s an imaginary (Note: Or is it?) bomb shelter.

Randy Rainbow – “Lock Him Up, YESTERDAY”

notes from a chair

Tag Archives: donald trump

Vote First

Going Nuclear