Fetterman, McCormick, and Mackenzie

I’ve worked a slew of different jobs in my lifetime.  I’m not about to list them all, but one of them was a Field Representative for a California State Senator.  I worked for him approximately two years.  The Field Office was in Santa Clara, CA, and we had a Chief of Staff, two Secretaries, and four half-time Field Reps, along with a small cadre of volunteers.  The Field Reps had different responsibilities; my areas included intergovernmental relations, the environment, and subjects that didn’t quite fit any of the other categories.

California has 40 State Senators.  That means a State Senate district has more constituents than a PA Congressional district.  We got a pile of letters every day.  One of the secretaries opened the letters and routed them to the relevant Field Rep.  It was our job to answer questions, track down info, and reply to the writer.  Letters that came in from outside the district were usually forwarded to the relevant representative–local, state, or federal–with a note on what we had done.

We answered EVERY letter.  We had polite ways of telling constituents that the Senator might not agree with their position, but we thanked them for writing.  We didn’t wait long.  If we needed time to gather more info, we wrote to explain what we were doing.  (This was before internet searches.)

In early May I wrote to PA Senators Fetterman and McCormick and Representative Mackenzie about two African boys from the Congo who were attending high school in Mississippi.  They were here legally.  They were seized by ICE.  An article in the New York Times detailed all of this.  

I asked those members of Congress what happened to those boys.  I asked them to look into it.  I pointed out that this was on our 250th anniversary.  I mentioned the Japanese internment.  You can read the text of the letter if you scroll back in the blog entries to May 4.

I have heard nothing.

Destroying planes and boats

Someone needs to explain this to me like I’m in fourth grade, because I am not understanding it.  The U.S. Justice Department indicts Raul Castro because the Cuban government shot down two planes some years ago, evidently after they had dropped leaflets on Cuba attacking the government.  The planes were over international waters.

On the other hand, the government of the U.S. has sunk many boats in international waters both in the Caribbean and in the Pacific.  The boats were supposedly carrying drugs, but evidence was not collected, and almost all the people in the boats were killed.  Since Trump is commander-in-chief, could a foreign government indict him?  

I’m not being a wise-ass here.  I really don’t see the distinction.

The Democratic "Autopsy" on the 2024 election

I have not read it, but evidently a big reason the report on why the Harris/Walz ticket lost was not released was because it was so badly written.  The Party finally did release it, but I understand the “Biden problem” was underplayed, the border issue was hardly discussed, and the failure of Harris to distinguish her policies from Biden’s weren’t examined.  The Dems put the the emphasis on how terrible the Republicans were as opposed to explaining what they planned to do.

I’m not sure we are going into the November elections in much better shape.  The Republicans have much more money, and the Dems are still picking at each other.  

On the other hand, I really shouldn’t criticize a report I haven’t seen.  I’ll hold off on further comments until I read it.  

Trump is "More Disciplined" in his 2nd term

That is what Jeff Bezos said in an interview with Andrews Ross Sorkin on CNBC.  Bezos also said, “Trump has lots of good ideas, and he’s been right about a lot of things.  You have to give him credit where credit is due.”

Bezos also said that the $35 million Melania Trump movie financed by Amazon was not an attempt to win favor.  

Really, he said that.

Info for this post is from Katie Robertson, “Bezos Praises Trump as ‘More Disciplined’ and Defends Cuts at Newspaper,” New York Times, (21 May 2026), p. B-4. 

Why we need "ranked choice voting"

Four candidates ran in the Pennsylvania 7th Congressional District primary yesterday.  Bob Brooks won, but not with a majority.  In fact, well over half of the Democratic voters preferred one of the other three candidates.  This means that Brooks is entering the November contest from a weak position.  

This is where Ranked Choice Voting would be helpful.  The voter ranks the candidates in his or her order of preference.  Mine, for example, would have been Crosswell, McClure, Obando-Derstine, with Brooks last.  Then you count the votes.  No candidate had a majority.  So then you take the candidate in last place (yesterday it was Obando-Derstine) and redistribute her voters’ second choices.  If no candidate has no majority, you do it again with the next lowest candidate until you reach the 50% threshold.  

You can also do a runoff, but ranked choice voting tends to make elections less nasty.

Four in ten Americans approve of Trump

That isn’t the way the headlines read.  The take was “Trump approval rating at lowest level in his second term.”  

That is so misleading.  If 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s presidency, that means that nearly four out of ten Americans think he is doing a good job.  Four out of ten!

What is it they approve of?  The ballroom?  Giving a million dollars to each of the people who stormed the Capitol, including the guy who shit on Nancy Pelosi’s desk?  Spreading measles?  Ending environmental protections?  Double-crossing Taiwan?  Separating thousands of kids from their parents in detention facilities?  Wrecking alliances?  The corruption?  The stupidity?  

Almost four out of ten. 

I am so not ready to have a big 250th celebration of our country.  

Signs at Polling Places

I don’t know which Democrat will win the 7th district primary tomorrow to run against Rep.Mackenzie in November, but I do know who I will vote for in November.  The Democrat.  I am a political animal, and there is no way I would vote for a Republican Congressman who would in turn help to elect Mike Johnson the House Speaker.  I vote for the party, not the candidate.  Anyone who has half a brain understands the difference between a Trump-supporting Republican House and a Democratic opposition House.  Doesn’t matter about the individual personalities.

Nonetheless, this is a low-information, low turnout election.  We have voters going to the polls tomorrow who don’t know the candidates, don’t know the issues.  So we put out signs with the names of candidates we support.  I do this every election.  I am aware that it probably won’t affect more than one in a hundred votes, but elections in a polarized America are now often won by one or two percentage points.

We covered 17 polling places in the Palmerton and Lehighton area.  We put out signs for Ryan Crosswell, and we asked people to write in Christian Bartulovich for the state house.  Our current state rep, Doyle Heffley, is trying to get Democrats to write his name in so in November we can have a Russian-style election with Doyle Heffley running in both parties.  

Democrats are asking people to write in Bartulovich to prevent that.  Bartulovich has quite a bit of support; he is dubious about A.I data centers, while Heffley is a data center cheerleader.  A successful write-in campaign is a rarity in politics, but I don’t mind tilting at a windmill or two.  

I’ll let you know what happens, although I am sure the write-ins won’t be counted for a number of days.