Petition Granted
Consider this a creative subtitle
Greetings Belldumber fans, I’m back with another exciting edition of my sporadic ramblings. Life has been busy lately, I’m now living in Cape Cod two weeks a month. Expect absolutely no Massachusetts news here because I will not be leaving the hotel/hospital enough to find out.
My hope is that one of these days Einstein’s bagels will sponsor me (as I write every single edition at one) and pay me enough that I can sit at home counting my money every day. I’m not quite betting on that happening.
In sickness and in health
Let’s talk Bernie. This isn’t a good situation and I don’t want it to seem like I’m reveling in someone’s serious health issues, so keep in mind that is not what I’m doing here. Just an honest look at a serious presidential candidate.
To recap, a couple of Tuesday’s ago after a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Bernie had a heart attack. While he was in the hospital he also had two stents put in his heart due to arterial blockage.
Yes, I have barely any idea what that means either, but let’s roll with it.
Beyond the issue of a presidential candidate having a heart attack is how his campaign dealt with it. While they almost certainly knew on Wednesday, the day after his hospitalization, that he had a heart attack they refused to say anything, only releasing in a statement that he had two aortal stents put in.
This clearly obfuscates the issue, many people have these stents put in due to cholesterol and other causes without having a heart attack. The stents alone are not nearly as grave a concern as a heart attack is.
On that Friday evening, in classic Friday news dump fashion, the Sanders campaign released a statement about his discharge from the hospital with a quote from his doctors saying that he had suffered a myocardial infarction.
A myocardial infarction apparently is the same thing as a heart attack, something that I’m sure almost no one who doesn’t work in health care would know.
That’s a double whammy of a Friday news dump and release of a statement that frames a serious issue very differently than what occurred.
Simply put, a statement saying a presidential candidate had a myocardial infraction sounds way better than a heart attack. Releasing that statement on a Friday afternoon on a busy newsday makes the optics even worse.
These are all very carefully crafted PR releases, and every word in these is parsed many times. The Sanders campaign absolutely knew what they were doing, and when they wanted to release important information.
This doesn’t sit right with me and reflects pretty poorly on his campaign.
In conjunction with that, what responsibility does a campaign even have to accurately report on a candidates health?
Strictly speaking, of course, none. We don’t have to be told anything by the Sanders campaign. They didn’t have to tell us he was even in the hospital, however, the slow roll and at times refusal to share any information is indicative of poor practices and that sows distrust.
It’s something I’d expect out of the Trump campaign, who of course blatantly and repeatedly lies about his health. We know Trump isn’t close to the healthiest president ever, and this isn’t a model that Bernie should be trying to emulate.
Donald Trump is an obese liar and I would hope any serious Democrat running for office would strive to be better than that precedent.
I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with a candidate in their upper-70’s running for president. Life expectancies are getting longer and longer, which means we should expect for older presidents to be possible.
But if we’re going to have an older president, I would hope they’re straight forward and open about their health. If an 80-year-old presidential candidate shared my views and was in good health I don’t think I’d have a problem supporting them.
Bernie very obviously isn't in good health, and a 78-year-old man suffering a heart attack is undoubtedly a concern. I’d hope he understands that and if needed puts his health over what’s going to be a further prolonged and nasty Democratic primary.
If he thinks he’s healthy enough to continue, good for him, but that shouldn’t automatically assuage any fears of our fears about his health.
I don’t support him for a myriad of non-health related reasons, but the health reasons and lack of transparency just add to my concern.
Transparency and an open campaign should be hallmarks of a democratic process, and he, like his 2016 Democratic primary campaign, is coming up well short.
Petition Time
Lately, it appears, based on my twitter feed, that Ohio State has been inundated by petitioners with pro-HB 6 petitions. I don’t think I need to harp on how bad HB 6 is anymore, you all should know by now.
Apparently, to my great surprise, these petitioners are particularly aggressive and getting in students’ faces trying to get them to sign their petitions. Again, not surprised.
Here’s some memes created by the folks over at reddit.com/r/osu showing their love of the HB-6 folk:
Coming from the side who had a paid blocker charged with criminal damaging, after grabbing and chucking an anti-HB 6 petitioners cell phone, this is nothing.
As I’ve written about before, their tactics are very narrowly focused on trying to somehow peg all their opponents as Chinese nationalists and screaming at college kids. Brilliant. If you’re in such bad need of a public bailout maybe you shouldn't spend 6 million dollars a year on football stadium naming rights.
The citizens of Ohio shouldn't be on the hook due to some shitty business decisions from an ultra-corrupt energy company.
Even worse, they’re now being supported in their scheme by the AFL-CIO. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for organized labor in this country, but not when they make decisions like this.
The claim that their workers will lose their jobs if they don’t get this subsidy is a farce, the nuclear power plants are profitable, but their owners will due to anything to lie to the public and get our tax dollars.
The AFL-CIO needs to support their workers, but they don't need to contribute to a destructive and misleading effort.
Anyways, if you see anyone petitioning with the HB-6 repeal please sign it and let’s get this on the ballot. At the very least it’ll make the other side waste more of their money on ads painting citizens against corporate bailouts as Chinese stooges.
Of course, due to how much the rich want to screw Ohioans even that might not be enough anymore. The First Energy brain trust is paying $2,500 and a one-way plane ticket to any anti-HB-6 petitioner who will hand over their petition and leave the state.
Of course, the signatures they collected by anyone who accepts that would conveniently and illegally be destroyed. I don’t blame any of them who would take that, it’s a lot of money that could feed their family or something. Only the people offering the money illegally are to blame.
Being rich is literally allowing First Energy to bribe their way out of democracy. It’s incredible to see a group this corrupt do this so out in the open.
First Energy and their stooges in the legislature, led by a noted friend of the newsletter Larry Householder, don’t feel the need to hide because with full Republican control of the state they’re invincible.
You can’t be investigated if you control all the investigators.
To state the obvious, if you can afford to pay your opponents petitioners $2,500, and inundate Ohio daily with ads, you probably don’t need a public bailout.
Of course, the bailout will be going straight to executive bonuses and their next lake house purchases, which I guess is great if you’re in the Florida residential construction business.
Hopefully one day Ohioans will wake up and vote out the one-party intent on doing things like this, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Shul
I went to synagogue last Wednesday, for Yom Kippur, in the small town of Hyannis, Massachusetts. It’s a quiet sea town, right on Cape Cod, and chock full of Jewish retirees.
While there, for the first time in my life, a synagogue service didn’t start with a terrible joke from the rabbi or jump right into prayer. Of course, because of the world we live in, the rabbi had to spend 10 minutes talking about evacuation procedures and pointing out the various exists.
The same thing I’m sure played out at synagogues around the country. As Jews, we don’t get the decency of praying without passing through police barriers and learning safety procedures first.
There’s no easy solution to stop this, and I’m glad that many police around the country are working with synagogues on protection plans. With Congressional funding, the Secure Communities Network does great work in keeping us safe.
Even with that, it doesn’t make me feel much better or reassured. Ask any American Jew where they were when Pittsburgh happened and I guarantee you’ll get an accurate and precise response.
I was on my family room couch desperately calling my mom and sister, who were at synagogue in Columbus and leaving them voicemails. I’m sure that scene played out over and over across the country.
The country might have moved on to the next news cycle and the next horrific mass shooting, but American Jews aren’t ever going to forget what happened in Pittsburgh and what contributed to it.
With all that being said I don’t quite know where I’m going with this here, there’s no clear solution. I’m never usually at a loss for both good and bad ideas, but I seriously have nothing here. The easiest fix for me is lamenting about how chilling it all is.
In school we’d laugh and joke at the school shooting drills, and we thought it was funny when the teachers turned off the lights and yelled at us for talking too loud. Then Sandy Hook happened, and more and more, and I’m sure kids aren’t laughing anymore.
We never did synagogue safety drills growing up, because we never felt like we had any real reason for it. We always had police protection, and they were there for the worst-case scenario, but they mostly just ended up directing traffic.
I liked it that way much better.
It feels like everything is different now, and every single one of us knows that if a random synagogue in Pittsburgh on a quiet Shabbat morning isn’t safe then no one is.
Not even a picturesque quiet New England town on a cold rainy night felt safe. Also never one to be afraid, I still looked around and found the exits. The elderly couple next to me had a quiet conversation about who would help who to the door if needed.
It goes without say, but no one should ever have to discuss who’s walking who to the door of a synagogue, or any place. Again, no solution here but I can’t seem to get over it and I’m sure that resonates with at least some of you.
It’s not just banning guns or tracking white supremacists better, though those certainly would help. It’s a whole lot more and it seems increasingly so that going to synagogue won’t be the same again.
Finishing up
Thanks again for reading a rollercoaster of a newsletter today. More to come in the future at increasingly sporadic times.
With the big October debates this week I’ll try to get another exciting debate recap post up. Way better with the one night debate instead of two, and especially so with the debate taking place in suburban Columbus.
No trivia news today but if you’re in the Stanford/Wilkes Barre/Cape Cod/Madison, WI area please send an email and watch me dominate at any local trivia night.
Best of luck and happy new year folks.