Are all young people this dumb?

“Both parties are the same.  They both have the same level of corruption.  They both take lobbying money.  It’s different lobbying, but the same corruption.”

–Max Cook, 24, college student in San Diego

“I don’t care which party I’m voting for as long as they’re representing people instead of corporations.”

–Tai Vetrone, 18, Waltham, Mass.

“The parties have gone pretty wide on the spectrum of left and right while most people are in the middle and agree with points on both sides.  I really don’t think I have a political home.”

–Patrick Tehonica, 25, construction worker in upstate New York

Wow.  As a member of the Democratic Party I will admit to a lot of mistakes in the party, but my party is not actively involved in trying to subvert the Constitutional order in this country.  Goodness gracious.  Do these people even know what is going on?  Did they hear about ICE?  Do they know about the corruption?  Do they understand who is standing with the tech bros, the AI data centers, the destruction of the environment, the end of alliances, the dismantling of research into diseases, and on and on.  My God!  This is nuts.  

Gripen jets for Ukraine

Gripen jets are made by the Saab Company in Sweden.  The jets are comparable to F-16s, but are easier to service and can take off and land on highways.  Like the F-16, the Gripen jet is a supersonic aircraft, but it is easier to load with missiles than an F-16.  By the time this deal is over, 150 of the Swedish jets will be in the Ukrainian armed forces.

Where is the U.S. in all this?  Probably giving more aid to Netanyahu, starving Cubans, trying to work out a deal to open the straits of Hormuz, and sucking up to Putin.  It is so good to see Sweden stepping up.

See Pranav Baskar, “Sweden to Send Fighter Jets to Ukraine” New York Times, (May 29, 2026), p. A10.

MPGA

Last night while driving through Weissport I saw a guy in his 20s wearing a sweatshirt that said “Make Pedophilia Great Again.”  

Christian Bartulovich nominated for the PA 122nd House District

The current representative in the 122nd House District is Republican Doyle Heffley.  This spring the Democrats in Carbon County (the county covered by the district) did not produce a candidate who had the requisite 300 petition signatures.  Six years ago Heffley sent a mailer to Democrats asking them to write his name in.  Over 300 did, resulting in Heffley running in both parties, just like elections in the old Soviet Union.  

This year anger at Heffley’s support for data center construction boiled over in Penn Forest Township and other areas of the county.  One data center has already been approved, and three more are planned.  Residents of Penn Forest approached one of their Supervisors, Christian Bartulovich, and asked him to run a write-in campaign on the Democratic side.  (Bartulovich is a registered Republican.)  

In one of the most amazing campaigns I have witnessed, a group of fairly novice volunteers put a campaign together in about 20 days, including mailers, signs, social media ads, and volunteers to stand at the polls.  Heffley got wind of the effort, of course, and sent out THREE separate mailers to Dems asking them to write in his name.  He is one of those Republicans who call the Democratic Party the “Democrat Party,” and he did that in his mailers–not a particularly smart move.  

In any case Mr. Bartulovich had more write-ins on the Democratic side than Heffley.  He will be the Democratic candidate in November.  Bartlovich also received hundreds of write-ins on the Republican side, indicating that Heffley has irritated quite a few Republicans as well.

I have met Mr. Bartulovich.  He is intelligent and listens to constituents.  That’s so different from our current situation.

What's the Matter with Texas?

In 2004 Thomas Frank wrote a book entitled “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”  His thesis was that people in Kansas were voting against their own self-interests by voting Republican.  Frank missed the point that for many people, their ideological beliefs take precedence over their economic or social interests.  I, for example, might find it in my self-interest to vote Republican.  I’m old, not an immigrant, no kids in school, fairly set financially–would it be in my self-interest, very narrowly defined–to vote Republican?  Well, don’t hold your breath.  Ain’t gonna happen.  My self-interest is connected to a different set of values.  

What I do not understand is the Republican voters of Texas who elected Ken Paxton as their candidate for the U.S. Senate in a landslide.  On what grounds–ideological, economic self-interest, love of country–would a Texas Republican prefer a crooked and dipshit politician over a reasonably decent conservative, and yet they did.  Are they blindly following Trump, and if so, why?

Something not quite right down there in Texas.

Did we win, again?

Usually when I wake up I turn on the news to see what terrible things happened overnight, and, according to Trump, we had an agreement with Iran.  Iran will open the Hormuz Strait, the UK will disarm the mines in a 1000 foot-wide corridor, and Iran won’t build nuclear weapons, although it was not clear if Israel was on board.

Then later in the day I heard the U.S. forces may resume bombing.  

And Trump is going in for a medical checkup?  Did I hear that right?

And Sen. Andy Kim (NJ) was pepper sprayed outside a detention center?

I can’t wait until tomorrow.

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.

Therapy

I needed a break.  I mowed grass, read some poetry, watched birds (hummingbird, chickadee, redwing blackbirds, downey woodpecker, mourning doves, robins, a phoebe, goldfinch, catbird, and, my favorite, a raven strutting around in the back yard).

To end the day I watched one of the most romantic movies ever–“Moonstruck” starring Cher.

Sorry to disappoint.  Tomorrow it is back to saving the world.

Not getting drunk or giving up

Here is a random selection of headlines from the New York Times on Tuesday, May 12, 2026.  Nothing special about that day–I just picked a paper at random.  

A.I. Push and Layoffs at Meta Pile Misery on Its Work Force (p. 1)

Trump Fumes at Iran Offer, Stoking Global Economic Fears (p. 10)

Conservative Group’s Links at State Dept. Raise Alarms (p. 14)

F.D.A. Moves to Allow Sale of Flavored Vapes (p. 15)

Scientists Press Congress on Trump’s Dismissal of a National Science Foundation Board (p. 15)

Cost to Fix Iconic Pool Increases Sevenfold (p. 18)

Land Conservation Rule Faces Repeal (p. 20)

Losing Science at a Federal Agency [That one is about the E.P.A. losing experts involved with wildfires, drinking water, and fertility, among other subjects.] (p. D1) 

I know we are supposed to be patient with people who voted for Trump.  I know that they were angry at Biden for failure to act on the border, for inflation, for a sense that things were out of control.  But damn it, we already had the example of four years of a Trump administration.  We already had four years of election denial.  We already had an attack on the Capitol.  We had a blueprint entitled Project 2025 which laid out the plans now being implemented.  

We are in a stupid war.  We are losing power to China.  We are trashing our environment.  We are emphasizing fossil fuels.  We are wrecking our alliances.  We are causing the deaths of Cuban children.  We are imprisoning and deporting people who were helping to build our country.  We have a President who calls his predecessors “treasonous.”  

I am so tired of this.  I am so tired of approximately four out of ten Americans continuing to support this crook and his enablers.  I am tired of ICE and Fetterman and the Supreme Court and the Republican Congress and Nick Fuentes and Marco Rubio and Kash Patel and Peter Hegseth and Elon Musk.

And no, I am not planning to get drunk or give up.  I am in this for the long haul.  I am hoping you are as well.

A Louisiana resident speaks on gerrymandering

My friend Bill sent me a Youtube link to a speech by a Louisiana resident on the redistricting in that state.  The testimony lasts under three minutes.  I recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P58otkVgZ2U 

A rumination on modern times and A.I.

I am not doing well in today’s world.  I go into a drugstore in Allentown today to buy some Vitamin B-12, and when I go to the check out, it appears that all the customers are checking and bagging their own items, paying by credit card.  I finally locate a cash register with a real live checker who takes cash.

Then I stop in at Menchies (I think that is the name–it is a soft ice cream establishment).  I have been there enough times that I got a discount by giving my phone number.  That no longer works.  You need an App on your cell phone.  But I don’t have a cell phone.  When I got out my wallet, the young clerk seemed to sneer–“Oh, you are paying cash?”

I recommend an article entitled “A.I. Is Too Good at Teaching Us to Do Things” by Carl Benedikt Frey, an economist at the University of Oxford.  Dr. Frey notes that increasingly we are expected to ,perform our own tasks.  A.I. is taking jobs away from people who once made plane reservations, collected turnpike tolls, traded stocks, managed our bank accounts, kept our medical records.  We are now expected to repair our own computers and printers.  If we can’t figure it out, there is probably a YouTube video.

Frey notes that when a company shifts work to the consumer, a paid job has disappeared.  The work is still performed, but we perform it.  Labor productivity is improved and corporate profits are increased, but you are doing the work–without pay.  And you probably aren’t doing it very well.

Christian Bartulovich

The 122nd PA House district (all of Carbon County) has been represented by Republican Doyle Heffley since 2010, about 16 years too long.  The district is MAGA country, although the Dems have been making some inroads recently. 

This year no Democratic candidate gathered enough signatures to run against Rep. Heffley.  Heffley then sent out a mailer asking Democrats to write in his name to ensure he would be running in both parties, just like elections in Russia.

Democrats are countering this ploy by running their own write-in campaign for Christian Bartulovich, a Penn Forest Township Supervisor.  Penn Forest is the largest municipality in Carbon County.  The interesting thing is that Bartulovich is a registered Republican.  

He is, however, intelligent, engaged, concerned about data centers and what they do the the environment, a real environmentalist, and willing to listen.  Tonight he was invited to speak to the Palmerton Area Democratic Club.  The questions were pointed, but I believe Bartulovich handled himself well.  I’m reasonably sure he will get everyone’s write-in who heard him tonight.  I know he got mine–my ballot was mailed in about two weeks ago.