Reflections

When I woke up Tuesday morning these was a heavy rain falling outside. While I do have religious beliefs I do not wear them on my sleeve, but that rain seemed to me to be a divine sign.

This was the first Presidential election since we moved to Texas. I decided weeks -- if not months -- ago that I was was going to vote in person on election day, dammit! While I could vote while I lived in Canada, obviously I could not do it in person. I have not voted in person for a Presidential election in twenty years.

I have voted in just about every election since moving here. I may have missed one small election that I didn't even know about until a couple of days before. In the grand scheme of things that election was probably less important than voting for Dog Catcher.

As I walked into the polling place I asked the man at the door if it had been busy. He said that by 9:30 they had 126 people vote.

My ballot had 66 things to vote on, all but one a political race. That one was a ballot measure to approve a slight increase in property taxes for flood control measures. The measure was to replace an expiring measure. They were asking for a tax rate increase, presumable because costs have gone up. I understand that costs have gone up, but so have property tax assessments.

I had a printout of what I was voting for. After I voted and printed out my ballot, I studied my ballot to be sure it reflected what I voted for. The sheet had a column listing the candidates' political party. It was easy to see that all was in order.

There were a number of judicial positions that only had a Democrat candidate. After results came in, I noticed that some of single candidate races had fewer votes than the leading candidate in two-candidate races. Perhaps many people, like me, were not going to vote for a Democrat even if they were literally the only candidate in a race. There were four races for Trustees for the local Community College District. I had no idea on those races so I did not vote for them.

There is something I do not understand about elections here. It would probably be easier to find out the Nuclear Code than it is to find out what is going to be on your ballot. That is one thing Washington State, or at least King County, was good at.

When the results came in, the local races were a mixed bag. Sean Teare, the local Soros candidate for District Attorney won. Just as before the Primary, the only legal issue he addressed before the General Elections was to imply -- but not outright say -- that he would not enforce Texas abortion laws. It was as if Harris Country did not have home invasions, robberies, assaults, murders, or any other serious crimes. He ran strictly on a platform of "protecting women's reproductive rights." Cashless bail and no prosecution for shoplifting under $1000 coming soon to a Harris County near you.

Ted Cruz won handily. One of his canvassers came to my door before the election. He asked if I was voting for Cruz. I restrained myself from shouting "Hell yeah!" He asked if he could put a sign up. I said "Sure." I never had a campaign sign in my yard before. 

Dan Crenshaw won as well. Maybe we could get a better candidate at some point, but he was what we had.

The Presidential race came as no surprise to me, not that I thought it was a shoe-in. It amazes me how so many celebrities who claimed they were fighting to protect democracy said they will leave the country if Trump won. Democracy has spoken, but they want to throw temper tantrums because they did not like the results.

The Democrats brought this defeat on themselves. The last figures I saw showed Donald Trump with over 71,800,00 votes -- a bit lower than he did in 2020. But we are still supposed to believe that Joe Biden won  81,000,000. Considering how both sides felt that there was a lot at stake in this election, that would suggest that either we would have similar numbers this year or that Ol' Joe did not do as well in 2020 as we have been told. Between Trump and Biden in 2020 there were 155,507,476 votes. In 2024, there were 138,829,262 between Trump and Harris. Considering all the vitriol on the Democrat side and the attitude of "We're not going to let it happen again" on the Republican side, do they really expect us to believe that there was more than a 10% drop in votes for the two main candidates? Mark Loftus said on Guttfeld Wednesday night, "It's nice to go to sleep and then when you wake up, the same guy is still in the lead." Amen. And that he didn't have fewer votes than he did when you went to sleep.

We can all take a deep breath, but we cannot rest on our laurels. I pray that those who are despondent will start to remember how good things were when 45 was in office, and how they are improving under 47. Maybe they will sit back and realize that Harris had absolutely nothing to offer. They were mad at Brett Baier for asking her tough questions, but they believed she would stand up to the evil in the world?

Maybe we didn't luck out on Tuesday. Perhaps it was divine providence.

Time Connections

I am fascinated by time. I can't tell you what it is. All I know is that the concept of time is perplexingly interesting.

I mentioned one of my favorite movies a couple of times here on The Table, the 1943 MGM release The Human Comedy. It gives a look back at important era in American history. Watching it today gives you a view of how the world was 80 years ago, a connection to another time. One scene is astounding on another level. In that scene, a little boy named Ulysses, the youngest in the family that is central to the film, goes to the library with an older friend, Lionel. While older, Lionel seems to be a bit slow in his metal development, hence his friendship with a boy half his age. While at the library, the boys are approached by the librarian, an elderly lady.

 

 

The boys talk with the librarian.

 

From today's perspective, this  scene provides a very interesting study in time when considering Lionel and the librarian.

The librarian was played by Adeline De Walt Reynolds. Reynolds was born in 1862, during the Civil War. After being widowed in 1905, Mrs. Reynolds survived the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. She lived until 1961.

Lionel was played by Darryl Hickman, older brother of Dwayne Hickman of television's Dobie Gillis fame. Darryl was born in 1931 and by 1943 had been performing in movies for several years.

 

That brings us to the library scene in The Human Comedy. Of the three actors with speaking roles in that scene, two of them are on a time line that connects the Civil War of 1862, through to -- this year. Darryl Hickman passed away in May, 2024. (Butch Jenkins, who played Ulysses, was born in 1937 and died in 2001.)

Between the two of them, those two actors in this scene saw the times of the Spanish-American War, the sinking of the Titanic, the introduction of radio, World War I, Prohibition, the Great Depression, the introduction of television, World War II,  the Civil Rights Movement, Viet Nam, and much more. Two people.

I can't help but be astounded by that.

 

Not another one

 A primary Election is coming to Texas on March 5. Among the many positions up for grabs this year is that of Harris County District Attorney (Houston).

The first I learned of this election was when I started seeing Facebook ads for one of the Democratic candidates, Sean Teare. So far I have seen three ads from him on Facebook and I have seen them repeated. Here are two of the ads.

I downloaded those two ads from my FB feed. It has been a couple of weeks since I saw the third ad. I could not find any of those ads on Mr. Teare's FB page. Similar to the above two ads, the third ad is about how no one should face criminal prosecution for exercising health care rights (spelled a-b-o-r-t-i-o-n). 

There is a funny thing about Leftists. They believe that "the people" should have a say in laws that are passed. That is why they want courts to cram decisions such as Roe v. Wade down the throats of everyone. When the Supreme Court decided that abortion was a matter for individual States to decide, Leftists had a fit. They believe that there is overwhelming support for abortion everywhere. They just don't like it when democratically elected representatives restrict abortion. A Democrat State Legislator wanted a Texas Constitutional Amendment to prohibit the Legislature from passing bills to restrict abortion. A poll taken in 2022 found that only 12% of Texas residents favor unrestricted abortions.

The main thrust of Mr. Teare's campaign seems to be that he will pick and choose what laws he will and will not enforce.

Where have I heard that before? That has worked out so well every place else that has been tried.

None of his ads say "I will fight crime" in unequivocal terms. 

Even if I supported "abortion rights," I would have to question why such a strong, single minded approach to the coming Primary Election. One would think that there are more pressing issues for a District Attorney to concern himself with.

On Mr. Teare's Facebook page, I saw some other things that I have not seen on my feed. Here is a post I found on his FB page.

His list of things he supports boils down to whatever a normal, law-abiding citizen would question. 

Climate Justice? Education Justice? Immigrant Justice? Whenever I see the word "justice" used in such contexts, I can't help but think that justice is the last thing on someone's mind. Health Equity? It seems more like "Let me promise stuff to people who don't have to pay for it in order to get those people to vote for me."

The group mentioned in that last ad, NAKASEC, is the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium. Among their positions is against Governor Abbott and the State of Texas for having the unmitigated gall to defend the border. They claim to be "an organization that champions the civil, immigrant, and human rights of all people."  In other words, let's milk Uncle Sugar for all that he is worth. And by Korean, is that South or North?

One thought came to mind as I thought about Mr. Teare. Oddly enough, I found that same thought addressed on Mr. Teare's Facebook page.

                        

 

II did not dig into that link, but it did show me that I am not the only person with the same idea.

Houston dodged a bullet in December when it did not elect Sheila Jackson Lee as its Mayor. My impression is that greater Harris County is more conservative than is the City of Houston. Hopefully our luck will hold out and we will dodge another bullet.

As of yet, I have seen nothing about the Republican candidate for District Attorney. That might be because he has no opponent. Hopefully we will hear more from him once the campaign for the General Elections begins.