Uncle Madness wants you to
VOTE TODAY!
There used to be a joke going around that if you had a Mom there was at least one person reading your blog. In the summer of 2014 I began this blog as a way of keeping my mom up on what was blooming in my garden. After my dad died in 2007, she spent several months living with us and for the first time in my memory, started to take an interest in plants and flowers. To be honest, my mom and I never had a great relationship but at least it wasn't contentious. As long as I did everything the way she wanted and didn't offer up any resistance or opinions of my own, we were cool. Long ago, I had resigned myself to the fact that we would never be one of those cute, super close mothers and daughters I so envied but that was okay because I did sort of have that with my wonderful grandma. Luckily, there was one thing we could always agree on and that was politics! When it came to equal pay for women and reproductive rights, we were of the same mind and she was as excited about the possibility of our next president being a woman as I was.
Unfortunately, by 2014 her severe osteoporosis had confined her to an assisted living facility. It was important to her that she remained in the community where she had spent her entire life but it was a five hour drive from where I live. Thanks to the internet she was able to keep up with what was happening in my garden through my blog with an iPad and some very sweet care assistants. She never warmed up to Burt, though she liked that he played the piano, ha!
So where is this long story going exactly? Well, our unscrupulous Governor and his gerrymandered State Legislature, passed a law to combat our totally non-existent voter fraud. According to the new law, a person who wanted to vote had to either have a valid Driver's License or a special photo ID. Mom had stopped driving years ago so in order to keep voting she needed one of the new ID cards. Now this is where it gets insidious. Supposedly, in order to balance the budget, the DMV site, the place that issues the IDs, was closed in her town and the next closest place was only open on the fifth Wednesday of the month, that's just four times a year!
Sadly, she passed away before the 2016 election but I would have made sure she had an ID. Still, could it have been any more impossible? How long would those lines have been if you needed to renew your driver's license when there was only four chances each year? What about all those other people in assisted living? Why does the party that's always screaming about patriotism want to keep so many people from voting? Trump won our state by just 22,000 votes, I wonder how that happened.
Do you every wonder why there are never any laws passed that would require background checks on individuals purchasing semi-automatic weapons? Even after hundreds of people have been murdered at concerts, the movies, schools and houses of worship, no significant legislation has been enacted to control the sale of firearms.
The guy in the middle is Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin. He's happily embracing two accused Russians spies at a National Rifle Association convention. Yeah, how many things are wrong with this picture? One Wisconsin Now has reported that he's had a 25-year relationship with the NRA, beginning with his 1993 State Assembly campaign. Their contributions have now added up to $3.5 million. Sounds like they felt he was a good investment.
Alexander Torshin, the man on the left, is a member of the Russian government and the deputy governor of the Bank of Russia. He is currently under sanction by the US Treasury Department. According to reports by McClatchy, the FBI is investigating whether he funneled money to the NRA during the 2016 campaign. The NRA spent $11 million dollars supporting Trump and $20 million attacking Hillary Clinton.
As for Maria Butina, she is accused of trying to cultivate relationships with the Republican Party's presidential candidates and the NRA in order to gain access to those individuals with the best access and influence over the Republican Party. She remains in federal custody awaiting trial for not registering as a foreign agent. She reportedly used her NRA connections to cosy up to quite a few politicians and even managed to attend Walker's invitation-only announcement of his presidential campaign.
Scott Walker has always been a controversial figure in our state. Lately he has been running ads saying he will protect people with pre-existing conditions from losing their health care. Funny thing, according to the New York Times, Walker joined a lawsuit with 19 other states that could destroy major parts of the Affordable Care Act and allow insurers to deny people coverage because of their medical history. Ok.
Living in a democracy gets to be hard work every so often and it's not going to be easy to clean up the mess Trump is making of it. It's up to each of us to inform ourselves, make responsible decisions and to vote on them. As for the 52% of women in my demographic (college educated white women) who voted for Trump, all I can say is, this is your chance to redeem yourselves. So get your heads out of your asses and do the right thing!
Most polling places are open until 8:00 pm tonight and if you are in line at 8:00 pm you will still be able to cast your ballot. In Wisconsin you can register to vote at your polling site. If you have already registered but there is no record of it, you need to ask for a provisional ballot, or maybe demand it.
Thanks for putting up with my rant, or not - as the case may be!
Burt and Ivy will be back to their silly stuff soon.
Thanks for voting!
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