Wednesday, November 6, 2019

 Well, that was invigorating.



 About two hours ago, round 3 p.m., I got a call from my aunt to go check on my uncle who was burning a field. My uncle is 75 years old, has had two heart attacks and god knows how many stents put in, and they'll still have to pry the shovel out of his hand when the Lord calls him Home. Before I got my shoes on, my aunt called me back and said my cousin was in the community to help.

 Well, I got sit down to pound this out and Momma called, saying the aunt saw a fire truck coming to the Valley and was in a higher than usual level of hysterics. So, I go out to where he was burning the field. See, that's something that needs doing in the Fall after the last of whatever crop is grown there is gathered. You burn off the whole field and the disc it up, getting it ready for Spring planting. My uncle has done this I don't know how many times. Hell, by the time I'd left for college, I'd done it no telling how many times.

 I get there and, sure enough, there is a Dorsey-Friendship (maybe 15 miles away) fire truck. Seems the wind shifted and the fire had gotten past the field lines. No houses or people were in immediate danger, but it is connected to a cut-over and the fire getting into that would've been a bit of no good.

 But between the six or seven of us, we got it put out and my uncle is okay. Furthermore, my aunt is apparently calmed down to her normal level of squirrel. The excitement never ends down here in Peaceful Valley. And now I smell vaguely barbecue flavored.

 Anyhow. We've all recuperated and rested from last night's election. I'm still sore as dammit from sitting on that metal stadium chair, but it was an interesting election all the way around. Andy Beshear beat incumbent Republican Matt Bevins for governor of Kentucky, and both legislative houses in Virginia flipped, putting the Commonwealth completely under Democratic control for the first time since before the Democrats of the time became Republicans. Furthermore, the were significant Democratic wins in state legislatures and city mayorships across the county.

 Now, so far Bevins has refused to concede and critics are worried the GOP will resort to dirty deeds to snatch the governor's seat back, and with good reason. There's a 5,000 vote margin seperating the two candidates and all the precincts have checked in. In a contested election, things are thrown to the both Houses of the General Assembly. Apparently they're trying to throw Libertarian votes to the Republicans, so this bears watching.

 Down in Mississippi, the Republicans made a clean sweep of the state elections. They won commanding victories in all but one of the contests. Interestingly, that one was human ham mold Tate Reeves' win over former AG Jim Hood. As is the GOP's wont, Reeves painted Hood as a wild-eyed, Obama-loving liberal when, in actuality, Hood's fairly conservative, particularly on issues like gun control and abortion rights.

 However, the entire race and last night's election was very tight. Reeves never had more than a five-point lead over Hood in the polls and the final numbers boiled down to  46,519 votes. Reeves won both the popular vote and number of precincts, so he's got the win, but the disparity between the rest of the races and the governor's is striking.

 Now, one really wonders how much Trump's holding rallies in Kentucky and Mississippi helped, if at all, Bevins' and Reeves' chances or, indeed, if they actually hurt them. According to FiveThiryEight - which is just fine when Nate Silver sticks to math and doesn't try to be a pundit, 'cause he sucks at that - support for impeachment currently has a 48.3% plurality in favor of impeachment as opposed to 44.8% against it. Furthermore, while no one is surprised that 83.6% of Democrats are down with impeachment, it's interesting to note that 45.6% of declared Independents are for it, as well.

 Add that to the massive boos Trump got at the Nats' game and that UFC fight, it probably doesn't stretch credibility that support is growing stronger, even more so that it was against Nixon when investigations started on him. Trump, of course, keeps screaming "coup", probably because one of his babysitters told him to use that concept and he thought it was for real, the dumb son of a bitch, as well as claiming access to unseen polls that say we all love him and, indeed, think he should be king.

 Of House Democrats, who would do the impeaching, 227 are in favor, along with independent Justin Amish, with eight saying "no or not now". None of the 183 House Republicans do, surprising nobody. In the Senate, things are a little different. While Mitch McConnell says an impeachment trial "would not lead to removal" if held today, there's evidence that Trump's support in the Upper House is on shaky ground.

 I say Lindsay Graham's the canary in this particular coal mine. So long as his lips stay firmly attached to Trump's butt, removal would be a tough nut to crack. Don't think Trump has anything on him nor ask if nefarious forces behind Trump's election has either. He's simply a gutless party hack and has been one since he was elected. He knows the base is still ride or die for their Blind Idiot God, and all the retweets from 2016 aren't going to shake that devotion.

 However, should Trump's popularity among the faithful ever start to waver - and it wouldn't have to much - he'd be pulling Graham's knife out of his back before he knew what to do. Believe that. Okay, let's call it a night. I need to get rid of this smokey smell.