"The People Have Spoken"

The people have spoken...those were the words that Senator Warnock used at his victory celebration. Almost all elections are relatively close, and yet the victors use those same or similar words, as if they've been given a sweeping mandate by an overwhelming majority of the population. The numbers relating to Warnock's win don't indicate that Georgians en masse rose up to carry him to victory.

According to the Georgia Secretary of State office there are a total of 7,866,677 registered voters. The most recent numbers show that in this weeks senate runoff election there were 3,535,579 votes cast. So 55%, or 4,331,098 of registered voters were no-shows. Of those who did vote, 1,816,096 (51.4%) voted for Warnock. Herschel Walker received 1,719,483 (48.6%) votes. The bottom line is that 23% of eligible registered voters chose Warnock. Democrats and the media are touting the win as a great victory. Given the above numbers, to use the phrase "The people have spoken" is a joke. 

I voted for Warnock. I was tempted to write in Mickey Mouse but did not want to risk the loss of my vote being the reason for Walker being elected. The man is a proven liar. He did not graduate from the University of Georgia. He was not involved with the Cobb County Sheriff's department or with the FBI at Quantico. His lies and moral character are being challenged by several woman and members of his own family. His handlers kept him out of debates and off stage as much as possible hoping to avoid his nonsensical gibberish comments. That he has the intellect and knowledge of a primary school student and possesses no qualifications at all to be a United States Senator is painfully obvious. That 1,719,483 voted for him is an amazement to me. I cannot comprehend what form of reasoning could possibly lead anyone to do that. Or to elect Marjorie Greene to the 14th Congressional District with 70% of the vote. One might theorize that there is something toxic in Georgia's drinking water, but that doesn't explain the popularity of other 'unique characters' like Lauren Boebert in Colorado and Mat Gaetz in Florida.

Try as I may I cannot come up with a rationale that would explain why half of the voters pushed the Walker button. The only possible explanation is that reasoning is not part of the process. It is those on the far-right placing party over everything, automatically voting for the Republican candidate no matter how unqualified and/or extreme they may be. And by doing that they're destroying the very political party they're trying to preserve. It's even possible that these same people would support a candidate who proposes to suspend the Constitution. 

Oh, those poor people

You have to sympathize with the Georgia MAGA crowd. They've got a serious dilemma. I mean, if they're going to vote for governor they've either got to vote for Brian Kemp, who Trump has said is an awful governor and must go, or for Stacy Abrams, who is popular with minorities in big cities but not with anyone else. There is only one option I can think of to solve their problem. They have to break into Kemp's house and kill him with a hammer. And they could get away with it. 

The right-wing spin doctors would put out the theory that it was all a hoax...that it never happened and that Kemp decided that he couldn't win the election and has moved to Latvia. More likely they would say that the assailants were thugs hired by the Democrats. Marjorie would chime in with the story that a Ukrainian missile was responsible. Others would probably lean to a self-inflicted theory. But wait...there's a loose end. With Kemp gone that would leave Stacy to run unopposed. The MAGA crowd can't have that so they'd have to kill her too. 

Still another problem...Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump denounced him and Kemp at the same time for refusing to manufacture 11,000 votes. For that action those two men will always have my respect and my vote. The problem is that the opponent is Democrat Bee Nguyen. Looks like Brad has got to be bumped off also. And maybe Bee. 

But given the direction that this country is going, the "Election Week Massacre" as it would come to be known would soon blow over. The perpetrators would be pronounced patriots and presented with American flags, and another step would have been taken to Make America Great Again.  

Learning from history

 There's not much good to be said about being old, at least not in my view. All of life's major  milestones are past, except for the final one. You're just kinda siting around the finish line waiting to see what if anything happens next. Sure, there's still things to enjoy but for most of what life has to offer you've got the 'been there done that' tee shirt. But there is one consolation to having lived a long life. Us older folks won't be around to see the downfall of the United States of America. Can't happen you say, not the good old US of A. Well, it can happen, it will happen, and a good case can be made that it's already started. 

History shows us that in ancient times there were a dozen of so empires beginning with Egypt in 3100 bc, that ruled the known world and that lasted for at least 500 years and some much longer. The USA, at 246 years is a baby on the longevity scale. There have been some 15 empires in the AD era that rose only to fall. And a curious circumstance is that nearly all of these empires declined not because of outside factors such as a military invasion, but because they disintegrated from the inside. They turned on themselves. And yet I'll bet that at the height of their power each citizen scoffed at the notion that their country would sometime in the future be either a third-rate piece of ground or even non-existent. 

Today, on the global scene Putin is trying to resurrect the Soviet Socialist Republic; in China the Emperor has just set himself up for life; Iran and Belarus are siding with the Russian invasion, and some Republicans in this country are talking about scaling back support for Ukraine. The United Nations and NATO support Ukraine financially while condemning Russia's aggression, but stop short of fighting side by side with Ukrainian troops. In my view this situation is a prelude to a vast change in the world order, a change that does not bode well for democracy and the free world.

Here in the United States we're engaged in an internal war, a war that is testing whether democracy can survive in this young nation of ours. I've given my opinion many times on this blog as to why the war exists and each day I grow more firm in my conviction. In the beginning Germany had Hitler and his Brown Shirts challenging democracy. Today we have Trump and his MAGA cult followers. The far right has hijacked the Republican Party. Reason, responsibility, accountability, civility and moral behavior are cast aside. Lies, hate, misinformation and mob agitation have replaced them.

In many states early voting has started. Georgians will elect Marjorie Greene to the 14th Congressional District with probably 80 to 85% of the vote. She is a hateful woman who makes absurd claims, never backed with proof or logic, and whose credo appears to be 'execute the opposition'. At this writing it appears that those same voters will support Hershel Walker for Senator. That he is a proven habitual liar, is a man who can't string three words together to make a coherent sentence and has absolutely no qualifications to be a Senator doesn't matter. He is a Republican and is Trump endorsed as is Marjorie Greene. Voting for either one of them is to me the new definition of insanity.

The world is changing. The United States is changing. Neither is for the better. I feel sorry for the younger people who will have to see and experience it.  

Digging up the past in Peru

I've been sort of an amatuer genealogist for over 25 years. It's a great pastime. It's informative, challenging and very rewarding when you finally find that person or piece of information that you've been looking for for months and even years. When you first start your tree the information comes fast and furious because you're starting with yourself and incorporating people who are still living or have died recently, so records and information from other relatives are easy to get. Information doesn't come as fast as you move back through the decades, and when/if you get back two or three centuries that's when the fun begins. That's when you hit wall after wall...dead end after dead end. That's why when Maribel said she wanted to start her family tree I didn't offer much encouragement. 

It's difficult enough to locate older records in developed countries and my suspicion was that finding any sort of records in third-world countries like Peru would be impossible. As it turns out I was completely wrong. Thanks to the diligent record keeping begun in the mid-1500s by Franciscan monks in small churches scattered all over Peru, and the work of the Mormons to preserve those records and make them available to the public, Maribel's tree now has 312 people including her 9th great grandparents; their dates of birth dating to about 1630.

The great majority of the records we've found have come from churches in the Cajamarca Region, and mostly of people from Maribel's father's side. The Piura region, where her mother's people are from has been a bear for us. We haven't been able to get past the mid-1800s. I'm sure that records exist but forever reason haven't made it into the public domain. 

An interesting facet about the early ancestors from the Cajamarca region is that even though there were many churches in the towns they lived in, many of them traveled to Chiclayo to get married and have their children christened, specifically the Inmaculada Concepcion church. The church was originally a modest mud brick structure built in the 1590s by the Franciscans but soon grew to become the most prominent structure in Chiclayo. Through it's lifetime it has served as a church, college, convent, and sort of an unofficial government building for various functions. This is what it looked like in 1910:

Below is what it looks like today. A few years ago when the building was unoccupied we stepped inside and took photos. I wish we had known at the time that we were standing in the footsteps of Bacilia de Villalobos, Maribel's 8th great-grandaunt who on September 7, 1671 married Alonzo de Vera.

 

Finding the records is the first step in understanding the information. Deciphering what they say is often a challenge. Below is the christening record for Francisco Javier Aquinaga Arrasque, Maribel's 5th great-grandfather who was baptized in this same church on December 2, 1702. 

Maribel has been bitten by the genealogy bug. She is in Peru right now and has enlisted the aid of several relatives in poking through old cemeteries, church and civil records. Hopefully she'll hit on some of those elusive records in the Piura region.

That's gonna do it!!!

Trump's a goner...no way does he survive the latest bombshell coming out of testimony from the January 6th committee. That he's been exposed contemplating and committing unethical and probably illegal behavior is old news...stuff that the faithful aren't even phased by, but the latest revelation that he threw his lunch at a wall is something that even the most rabid MAGA follower has got to be shocked and sickened by. Never in modern history has a leader (former) ever done such a despicable deed. And he got ketchup on the wall to boot! Every American should feel embarrassed and ashamed. Now, Trump might claim that there is precedent for such an act and technically he'd be right.

A cave painting some 17,000 years old discovered in France's famed Lascaux Caves depicts a native chieftain identified as Nagook throwing a plate of food at the cave wall. Some experts say that the recently deciphered neolithic symbols beneath the painting read - "What?!...mammoth for lunch again?!!" Others claim the symbols say - "I did not lose!!" If the later interpretation is correct, Nagook was probably referring to the neolithic custom of electing a new chief every 24 moons, which had just taken place and which in a close election Nagook had reportedly lost, though the point is moot as Nagook had told the tribe's war chief to kill the other candidates if the vote was close.

There is some good that resulted from Nagook's food-throwing temper tantrum. Nagook's servants, being tired of constantly picking up broken pottery plates off the floor spoke with the village handyman, Amaark about the problem. Amaark had just recently found some larger yellow rocks in the river; discovered that the rocks were soft and hammered one of them into a fairly large flat piece. Nagook's servants were pleased with the new  unbreakable plates, and thus the craft of metallurgy was born. Nagook liked the shiny yellow color.

The tribe formed a committee to investigate the murders of the election candidates but soon gave up because potential witnesses either ignored subpoenas or refused to talk about the food fights in the White Cave (as they called it). Thus Nagook remained semi-officially in office to his death at which time his son took over. History has no record of Nagook's descendants, though some say their spirit is alive and well in a location in Florida.

I am not a fan of Nagook...whoops, I mean Trump, but fair is fair and if the January 6th committee can't come of with something more than they've shown so far, they can forget about the DOJ or any other agency investigating let alone prosecuting Trump. The guy is clearly illusional if not delusional but that's not a crime. Neither is throwing lunch at a wall. Still, he is a real threat to democracy. One solution might be for Trump to emulate the 5,000 confederate soldiers and officers who fled to Mexico rather than swear an oath of allegiance to the United States after the civil war. He and his MAGA followers could form their own colony. The ex-confederates named their colony Carlota (it failed and most returned to the U.S. within two years). Trump already has a name for his...Mar-a-Lago South. It has a nice ring to it.

The January 6th Committee Report

I didn't know what to expect when I sat down to watch the report last Thursday night. I thought that maybe it would be an explanation of methodology used; numbers of interviews conducted and documents reviewed, and work yet to be done. Much like one of those boring House or Senate speeches. That's not what took place. It became apparent early that this committee, charged with investigating the full spectrum of the January 6th insurrection actually has as its goal the crucifixion of Donald Trump. I found that to be distasteful, disappointing and just plain stupid. 

The appeals to emotion were distasteful. Officer Edwards testimony contained little factual evidence; most of it concerned thoughts and feelings. The 12 minute video was mostly rehash and except for establishing a timeline added nothing knew. Emotion should have played no part in the presentation. It detracted from relevant information. In my view the same applies to the overly long speeches of Chairman Thompson and Rep. Liz Cheney. The several  substantial points made by both were watered down by the expression of their personal feelings. 

Most damaging was the stupidity of blatantly targeting Trump. This committee better have a lot more evidence than the stuff that was presented in the initial presentation. An average man might be prosecuted and convicted of a felony crime based on the committee's circumstantial evidence, but this is Donald Trump we're talking about, and unless there is a smoking gun in the form of audio and/or video evidence, or corroborating testimony by multiple credible witnesses that proves beyond doubt that Trump was directly involved in the insurrection, neither the Department of Justice, the Attorney General or Homeland Security would dare to prosecute him. His influence is still too great to challenge. Targeting him has only increased his stock with politicians currying his favor, and the MAGA people who live in an alternate world unaffected by fact. The far-right spin doctors are already having a field day putting out reams of disinformation and dismissing the committee findings as "bullshit." 

The above banner was displayed three weeks ago at a faire in Chickamauga. After a year and one-half, with 50-some dismissed law suits and not one shred of evidence, the faithful are still going at it. Apparently Ivanka Trump has accepted the explanation of then Attorney General Barr that there was no evidence of election fraud. So I suppose we'll start hearing cries of, "Hang Ivanka!" 

Personally I don't believe that Trump was directly involved in the insurrection. I have no doubt that once aware of it, or maybe even before, that he welcomed it, encouraged it, and took no action to stop it because he was transfixed in front of a television watching his people storm the Capitol in his name and to his glory. To that degree he was complicit in the insurrection. And yet he is likely to walk away free. I find that troubling, if for no other reason than the precedence it sets.

Why Don't They Unite?

Many Republicans have said that it's time to stop fixating on yesterday and instead look to tomorrow. I'm sure that there are at least as many who share those thoughts but for reasons of their own are reluctant to voice them. Some of them have spoken out and have done so forcibly. 

One man who impressed me the few times I've heard him speak is Georgia's former Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan. He declined to run for reelection, instead voicing his disgust with Trump, Trumpism and partisan politics. He has founded and is focusing on the organization GOP 2.0. 

Congressman Adam Kinzinger's Country First organization, if his media interviews and newsletters are to be believed, is gathering steam and could become a shaping force in resurrecting the GOP.

The Lincoln Project has been around for awhile but seems to have been invisible lately, or at least I haven't read anything about it recently.

No Labels is another group with some heavy-hitters associated with it. Maryland's Governor Larry Hogan in the 2020 election voted for Ronald Reagan, something I had considered doing myself but ultimately reluctantly voted for Biden. Hogan may be a name to remember come 2024.

There may be other formal groups of disenfranchised Republicans that I'm not aware of. What strikes me about the four organizations mentioned is that their messages are nearly identical: look forward not backward, eliminate the extremists and tribalism, restore common sense and civility, and unite the country. One other thing they have in common is a donate button. They are competing for donations. 

Isn't being in independent groups, even with a common cause a form of tribalism? Wouldn't they stand a better chance of effecting change if they presented one united front? As individual entities they will likely fail and fade from the scene. United they could conceivably build momentum to reach a critical mass. Add a few more influential voices such as that of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and maybe Mike Pence and who knows, there might even be enough firepower to take down Trump. And with Trump down I'd like to believe that even the most extreme, such as MTG would see which way the wind was blowing and fall into line. 

Probably none of this will come to pass but it sure is pleasant to think about.