So Whacked Out, I Don't Even Know Where to Begin
And an image of the General Election ballot, with links to candidates' websites
What Will the Ballot Look Like for the General Election? Plus links to candidates’ websites
Here is a link to view a sample ballot for Upper Gwynedd-6 in the general election of November 5, 2024. If you are voting by mail, please fill out the back side of the ballot and please date your ballot next to your signature. Undated ballots may not be counted this time if court challenges, which are sure to come against the Pennsylvania vote count, are successful.
Here are links to the websites and Facebook pages for each Democratic general election candidate:
Harris/Walz for U.S. President - Official Campaign Website Facebook page
Bob Casey for U.S. Senator - Official Campaign Website Facebook page
Madeleine Dean for U.S. House of Representatives Official Campaign Website Facebook page
Liz Hanbidge for Pennsylvania State House of Representatives Official Campaign Website Facebook page
Eugene DePasquale for Pennsylvania Attorney General Official Campaign Website Facebook page
Malcolm Kenyatta for Pennsylvania Auditor General Official Campaign Website Facebook page
Erin McClelland for Pennsylvania State Treasurer Official Campaign Website Facebook page
Donald Trump v. Kamala Harris
This isn’t a nationally-focused newsletter, so I won’t dwell on the almost unspeakable craziness of this year’s Presidential election. You have been living it for 9 long years, ever since Donald J. Trump descended his gold escalator to a waiting throng of paid actors shouting their “support” for his horribly racist tropes. In my opinion, the mainstream media wasn’t, and still isn’t, prepared for a popular authoritarian leader. Mainstream media has unfortunately normalized Trump’s worst tendencies in their commitment to journalistic ethics of representing “both sides” over realistic analysis of what is happening.
I think the most clear-eyed analysis of the dynamics of Trumpworld come from Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on Italian fascism in the 1930s and ‘40s. Here’s a speech she recently gave that makes the stakes of this upcoming election vividly clear:
I realize how depressing this topic is. It’s so dark, it makes you want to avoid thinking about the situation entirely. Luckily for us, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are “happy warriors” who have promised to Make America Joyful Again, while not losing sight of what is really going on. We are so lucky to have two such talented people and well-meaning human beings as Harris and Walz on the Democratic ticket this election cycle.
MAGA Pennsylvania Senators v. Sanity
Moving on to the focus of this newsletter, there’s another story from the Pennsylvania Senate that is an echo of what is happening nationally.
And again, the mainstream media portrays the story in a dull, procedural way, not helping the reader to see this story for the ramp-up to a frightening authoritarian state that it represents.
I will re-tell the story here so that the context is clear, then give you a link to the mainstream press version:
The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate recently demanded that a moderate Republican in Gov. Josh Shapiro's cabinet, Revenue Secretary Pat Browne, release tax information related to a Neighborhood Improvement Zone in Allentown. This is how crazy this story is - the PA Senate wrote the law that prohibits Mr. Browne from releasing the information. Yet PA Republican Senators are now threatening Mr. Browne with contempt of Congress if he doesn't release those same tax records.
The MAGA Pennsylvania Senators have the Pennsylvania Revenue Secretary in a classic “Catch-22” situation. He can’t comply with their demands to turn over the tax records without facing imprisonment for violating Pennsylvania law, and yet Browne also can’t resist complying without facing imprisonment for contempt of Congress. Essentially, the Senate Republicans are punishing a "RINO" for working in the cabinet of Gov. Josh Shapiro by threatening him with imprisonment no matter what he does.
Of course, Mr. Browne is filing charges in the courts to attempt to avoid this conundrum. But the fate of the beleaguered Mr. Browne in his Kafkaesque nightmare is only half the story. The larger story is MAGA-aligned Pennsylvania Republican Senators making it impossible for anyone but fellow MAGA Republicans to govern the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This is not the vividly visual insurrection of January 6th, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol, but it is an insurrection against democracy in Pennsylvania nonetheless. We need Democrats with strong convictions all the way up and down the ticket to fight the scourge when MAGA extremists take power. Please be sure to vote for every Democrat on the ticket this election cycle.
To prove my point, here’s a link the best version of this story I could find in the mainstream media, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Local Upper Gwynedd Initiatives
The Upper Gwynedd Commissioners learned their lessons from their successful but hard-fought battle to have affordable housing built near the Homewood Suites Hotel on Pennbrook Parkway off Church Road. So many MAGA sympathizers turned up at township meetings to rail against the commissioners and their proposed plan - without Democrats there at the meetings to counter them - that the bru-ha-ha even got covered on Yahoo News and on Channel 6 Action News.
Further initiatives for our township planned by the Commissioners have been altered so as not to be unobjectionable to MAGA faithful, and therefore, inconsequential.
Two initiatives that come to mind are the idea of bike lanes, which the Upper Gwynedd Commissioners reduced to “Share-Os” - basically white paint on certain wide roads such as Garfield Ave and Jackson Street. The line drawings of a bicycle are there to remind drivers to share the road with bikes.
The second such Democratic initiative was a plastic bag and plastic straw ban. Perceived by the MAGA faithful Upper Gwynedd citizens who show up at every Upper Gwynedd Township meeting as being “woke,” the Commissioners reduced the idea to a voluntary program for local businesses, in which businesses can earn a decal to place on their door if they make changes to their plastic bag use.
Voting is not enough. The lack of your presence at Upper Gwynedd Township meetings makes it appear as if the “will of the people” is whatever MAGA faithful want. It is only human for the Upper Gwynedd Commissioners to respond to the people who are there at the meetings in person, rather than to the greater number of people who are not there, and so whose voices are silent.
Here’s a link to the upcoming meetings, which take place at the Upper Gwynedd Township Meeting at Parkside Place. Workshop Meetings are for the Commissioners, though the public can attend, but can’t speak. The Business Meetings are the meetings where there is time for public comment.
https://www.uppergwynedd.org/node/166/events/upcoming