Right-wingers always blame everything liberal on George Soros. I think they don’t believe anyone could protest against their ideas unless someone paid them to do it.
They don’t talk about the money poured into their side by wealthy donors. Robert Mercer probably spent over $30 million on the 2016 election. We now know that he contributed to a group that spent $5 million on anti-Muslim ads and that the group “worked with Facebook and Google ad sales teams to optimize the reach of the ads.”
Sad!
This is a good overview on the question and the issues about it.
The 2018 congressional elections have the potential to be a real catastrophe, no matter which party wins.
I expect the Republicans to keep the Senate so I am talking about the House of Representatives. Early polls show the Democrats picking up a lot of seats but the election is a long time away. I am not focused on the polls.
1) If the Republicans keep control, Democrats could blame it on Russian interference. This is different than the 2016 election. We know a lot more about Russian meddling and we also know that Trump has done nothing to stop it. Even the head of the National Security Agency acknowledges that Trump has not given him new authority to fight the Russian threat.
Republicans are also stacking the deck through gerrymandering and making it harder for people to vote. Democrats do gerrymandering too but control far fewer state governments.
2) If the Democrats gain control, Trump will probably say the elections were rigged. He said “the system”, which I assume includes elections, was rigged just yesterday. He said the 2016 election was rigged before he won. Republicans will probably also blame the media. Of course, they will blame George Soros like they blame him for a lot of things they don’t like.
If the Democrats win by a few seats, Republicans will likely blame the new Pennsylvania map which eliminated the extreme Republican gerrymandering and will result in more Democrats winning. Trump is encouraging Republicans to continue to fight the map. What if this not resolved by election day?
There are also concerns about the voting equipment. This all adds up to the potential for many people not to accept the results of the elections.
Sad!
Some conservatives are all for states rights…except when they’re not. The concealed carry bill passed by the House of Representatives would allow people from states which allow people to carry a concealed weapon to also carry it in states that don’t permit this. This is a bad idea.
I wonder if they would apply the same rules to marijuana. If you were from a state where pot is legal, you could smoke it anywhere. I bet they don’t want that so they would defend the state marijuana laws.
Note: the article I linked to was written before the Florida mass shooting but I doubt concealed carry supporters have changed their minds. In fact, Trump wants concealed carry in schools for trained people.
Trump lied in his comparison of US and Mexican border laws.
I hate it when he repeatedly claims that Democrats want open borders. That’s a lie!
Sad!
A right-wing site said the march was planned before the Parkland shooting. That is disgusting. Let’s stick to discussing the gun safety issues instead of lying about the children.
Sad!
The last square root day was 4-4-16. The next one will be 5-5-25. There are nine in each century. Now you know.
I remember where I was when I heard that Dr. King passed away. The events that I recall that way are:
| Event | Where I was |
| Assassination of President Kennedy | Fifth grade |
| Assassination of Dr. King | Junior High School |
| Man landing on the moon | My parents’ bedroom |
| Space shut Challenger blowing up | Lexington Market |
| 9/11 | Work |
The Kennedy assassination was a lot more shocking then than it would be today when there is so much gun violence. We were sent home from school. Maybe they thought Oswald was going to come to New York and shoot us.
Dr. King’s assassination was in the evening. Our junior high school had an annual event called spaghetti night where the parents came to school in the evening. That’s where we found out.
I remember going into my parents’ bedroom to watch the astronauts walking on the moon – they had a black and white TV that was probably 15 inches, certainly no more than 19 inches.
This is a fascinating chart by the Pew Research Center showing what each generation thinks were the most memorable events in their lifetime. Notice that everyone agrees on 9/11 no matter how old they were. Now we have almost a generation of people who weren’t alive for it.
I have found that there is nothing like living through an event. I can’t explain how these major events felt in a way that would really make you understand them if you didn’t live them. On the other hand, they provide a common experience for all of us who did live through them. Just as I can’t really convey the Kennedy assassination to young people, I now realize that my parents thought that we didn’t understand the Depression and World War II. They were right.
On a lighter note:
I was in a class at work about working in a multi-generational workforce. You had to write down three events important to your generation and pass your paper to someone else at your table to read.
A young black woman had included the assassination of Biggie and Tupac (which she spelled as 2Pac). An older white guy read it aloud as the assassination of ZPac. Lol. I don’t know any of Tupac’s songs but I know who he was and would recognize his picture. We should all know who important people were.
Sad! 