Inside the Belly of the Beltway Beast

Wow, it has been a while since I have written a blog entry. In fact, it has been a year, and I have a lot to fill you in on. But let's get down to what I covered via Tweets recently -- the insurrectionist Trial of Dustin Thompson, of Ohio, who entered into the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, and stole first a bottle of booze and then a coat rack from the office of the Senate Parliamentarian. Yesterday Thompson was convicted on all six criminal counts the Department of Justice had charged him with. There have now been about a half dozen January 6th insurrectionists (many call them rioters) who have been convicted following a trial. About 170 have already plead guilty. Growing up in central Ohio, Thompson was originally a libertarian with moderate political views overall. According to his wife Sarah, the two met when they were both students at Ohio State University, Thompson had a double major of history and psychology. Sarah, a democrat, was a fashion merchandising major an...

The 2020 Democratic primary has narrowed down to two long-time politicians, centrist Joe Biden and progressive Bernie Sanders. Many folks on my Facebook and Twitter feed already seem to be assuming that Biden has already won, but the primary is months from its actual conclusion. Super Tuesday has come and gone, a week prior to Super Tuesday Sanders was the clear frontrunner. Now Biden is now leading in number of delegates. The media will spend a lot of time reporting on the percentages of votes candidates will earn in any given, but it truly comes down to a candidate's acquisition of delegates. That is how the eventual nominee is decided at the party's summer convention. Immediately before and a couple days after Super Tuesday candidates quickly dropped out of the race when it became clear they had no path to actually winning the nomination. Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen Amy Klobuchar dropped out, consolidating the centrist lane of the race. Meanwhile enthusiasm remained wit...

Hello readers, please take a few minutes to read the previous blog before digesting this one. While I am definitely shifting gears, what I am writing here clearly connects to what was already expressed. I think it has something to say to progressive organizers. In my life, I have come to realize that the most paramount factor is other people. Think about it, unless you live somewhere deep in the Himalayans, and somehow have a fully sustainable yurt with near-daily air drop services -- you probably interact with a lot of different folks. You learn from them, you share good and bad times with them. You struggle and debate with them. If it's someone you click with socially, you thoroughly enjoy hanging out and sharing life together. At least, that's it in a nutshell for me.  As I previously mentioned, listening is a required part of communication. It is also socially required to show respect for your fellow human beings who you encounter. I like the old idiom, "You ar...

This presidential election year the citizens of the U.S. are faced with two of the most unpopular nominees of the major parties in our nation's history, Hillary "neoliberal warmonger" Clinton and Donald "spoiled bigot" Trump. It is quite a toxic choice for most Americans, many of whom know little or nothing about the Green and Libertarian options, which also exist just outside of the duopoly. And many who do know a bit about Jill Stein and Gary Johnson will still vote out of fear; they will cast their precious ballot for what they view as the lesser evil in order to defeat the greater evil. The truth with the American corporate duopoly running the U.S. government is that there is precious little separating the two parties. True there are some differences on social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion rights -- both reveal that the days are numbered for the G.O.P. However the Democrats, from the 1990s until recent years, have shifted sharply to the right w...