Warnings.

Posted on November 27, 2020 by Pat Greene

The experts are giving us clear advice this Thanks giving: stay home, don’t have your family visit. Their warnings are laced with equal parts concern and incredulity that people would do such dangerous things as fly right now. In some cases, the pundits seem to imply that the people who are traveling must be MAGA-hatters who don’t believe the virus is real or at the very least not very smart.

“Remember, this is temporary,” they tell us. “There is always next year.”

Is there?

We feel some days that we are living in end times. More than a million of our fellow Americans have come down with COVID-19; more than a quarter of a million have died. and the curve seems to be climbing unabated. That’s aside from normal causes of death: cancer, car crashes, heart attacks, suicides, strokes, etc. None of us are vouchsafed a single minute. Tomorrow I could be hit by a bus. The day after, you could have a fatal heart attack.

The nature of the pandemic only intensifies the sense of urgency. If you die from COVID-19 you die alone. And the people who love you are robbed of the experience of saying goodbye in person as you slip from this earth.

We need each other. We need the people in our lives who add depth and love.

I understand this. The Red-Headed Menace and his partner, The Very Smart Partner, quarantined for two whole weeks so that they would be able to join our household bubble for the holiday. I understand the caution, too. Had they not been able to quarantine, we would have simply dropped off the turkey and trimmings on their doorstep. It’s not worth the risk.

I do not want the experts and tv anchors and newspapers to stop warning us. The pandemic is real and dangerous, and we need to be careful so that we can avoid taking this third wave worse.

I just want them to be more compassionate about it.

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Micah

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Pat Greene

My sister the Trump supporter texted me last night. We didn’t talk politics; instead we talked about my nieces and how my grand-nephew was entering first grade and how that seemed absolutely impossible and how he looked like the Red-Headed Menace.

It brought up for me the issue once again of how to interact with my sister. I know people who would urge me to cut “those horrible people” out of my life. I don’t want to do that. I do love my family, as much as I think they’re wrong. And increasing divisions in this country strikes me as counterproductive. So I think of Micah.

 The verse from Micah in the sidebar has been instrumental in influencing my political worldview. But lately, I’ve been wondering what it all means, especially in the context of today’s political and societal landscape.

Micah 6:8 clearly lays out three requirements for goodly living. To take the last one first, we are commanded to “walk humbly with your God.”  How is one supposed to do that? Is that walking humbly with respect to other human beings? Is it not using God as a smokescreen for things you would do anyway but which you want to wreath with a shroud of sanctity?

I also hit up against what do you do if you struggle with God, or even you don’t believe in God at all. Then the first two requirements for Godly living become paramount.

“To do justice” (also translated as “To act justly”) seems pretty straightforward. You act in accordance with what you understand as the just action to take. You support Black Lives Matter, if that seems important to you (as it does to me). You protest unjust action by the government, even if it’s just a letter to your congressperson. If a company acts in ways that hurts society, workers, or customers, you boycott.

But it also means justice in small ways. You give credit to the coworkers who came up with that great idea. You hold the youngest child accountable for his actions, especially if he tried to fob off responsibility on his older brother. You talk to your kids about justice, and about how privileged they are, and how important it is to always remember that.

You tell the truth as best you can, no matter how difficult.

Do I do these things? No. Do I come close? I try. I have the most difficulty in speaking the truth in uncomfortable situations. I work on it, but I am silent all too often. I never lie, but I bad at confronting people – including my family. (I blame my Southern upbringing for that.) I am struggling with it. Writing in this blog helps: I find it easy to speak the truth, to “do justice” here. And sometimes what I write here gives me the courage to speak out in other places.

And there is “love mercy” (or “love kindness).  I find the difference between the two translations confusing. Kindness is extended to everyone, regardless of status or relationship. Mercy is extended to those who need it: those in trouble, those in need of forgiveness. In some sense, people have to earn mercy. I have always preferred the translation of Micah which called for mercy, and it only occurred to me recently that it was because it required less of me.

But kindness or mercy run smack into justice. I can see where telling someone the truth, even if they don’t want to hear it, can be merciful or kind, depending upon how it is done. But justice sometimes requires anger. Protesting in the streets, speaking out loudly, cleansing a temple – they’re necessary, but how can they be merciful? Or kind?

I will continue to ponder Micah 6:8. I will be just, and kind where I can. Whether I can walk humbly with God remains to be seen.

I can but try.

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Elections checklist, update (reprise).

Posted on October 4, 2020 by Pat Greene

I was planning to run this on October 1st, but lost track of time, given everything else that is going on. Mail-in ballots have already gone out in a lot of states. (Sorry to spam you, but this information is important.)

Checklist to help make sure your vote gets counted:

For statewide requirements (registration, absentee ballots, etc.) check fivethirtyeight.org

  • Make sure your registration is up to date NOW. If there are problems, or if you have changed your name, address, or party affiliation since you last registered, reregister ASAP. That includes Americans living overseas, either civilians or military.
  • Develop a plan for voting: If possible check to see what options you have for voting: early voting, absentee/vote-by-mail, etc. Your registrar of voters website should have this information. Decide — will you vote by mail? At the polls? Early? If you choose to vote early, when will you do so? How does the pandemic affect those plans? Given the issues with the postal service consider early voting or vote by mail. Given the pandemic and the machinations against voting by mail, we’re all between a rock and a hard place.
  • Unless your state/county automatically sends out ballots to all voters (Washington, Oregon, some counties in California) determine what the first and last dates for requesting an absentee ballot are. Send in your request ASAP — now, if possible.
  • Know when ballots are being sent out. If you do not receive yours within a few days, call the registrar of voters.
  • If your state requires an excuse in order to get an absentee ballot, find out what excuses are acceptable and whether you might fulfill the requirements. Talk to your doctor if necessary.
  • Find out if there are other restrictions on voting. Alabama, for example, requires two witnesses or a notary. Alaska requires one witness or a notary.
  • According to the Washington Post, in many states the USPS will be unable to handle the ballots in a timely manner. If this is still the case in October, IF POSSIBLE DO NOT MAIL YOUR BALLOT. Find out where you can drop ballots off. Can you drop them off well before election day? Does your county have drop off boxes? Where are they, and what hours are they available? Can you drop them off at the registrar of voters office? Can you drop them off at the polls?
  • Return the ballot as soon as you can after you receive it.
  • If you will need help either filling out or dropping off the ballot, check and see what the rules are about this. Some counties and states make various accomodations for the disabled. They should be listed on the registrar’s website. Contact the registrar of voters if there is a problem.
  • If you do choose to use the USPS, check the front of the ballot. Some ballots require extra postage. Make sure to use an extra stamp or two to make sure the ballot gets to where it needs to go. If the ballot needs to be in by election day (or sooner) not simply postmarked by election day, make sure you leave enough time for it to get there. Given the issues with the mail, allow a lot of time. Again, it is best if you send it in as soon as possible after you get it.
  • Before you drop it off, either in a dropbox or in a mailbox, MAKE SURE YOU SIGN THE BALLOT.
  • Some counties and states have ways to check where your ballot is in process. (E.g. using bar codes or numbers on ballot stubs.) If that’s possible, after a couple of days check up on your ballot.
  • Develop a plan for going to the polls. What are the polling hours? When will you go? How long can you afford to spend there? Does your county have early voting locations, and would that be more convenient? If you are voting in person on election day, find out where your polling place is, and how to get there, if necessary. Is there an ID requirement? If so, make sure that you have the i.d. at hand.

MOST OF ALL, VOTE.

VOTE AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED UPON IT.

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Farewell, RBG.

Posted on September 21, 2020 by Pat Greene

I don’t know what I could say that others have not said better. I will miss her, and her pragmatic support for women and LGBT+ rights. (She performed the first same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court.) She fought the good fight as long as she could.

I wish I could be in Washington for the lying in state. I, and so many of my friends, owe her so much. As I understand it (not being Jewish), the Jewish response to death is “may her memory be a blessing.”

That it will be. Goodbye, good lady.

Posted in SCOTUS | Leave a comment

Small victories.

Posted on September 18, 2020 by Pat Greene

I am not sure I have mentioned it before, but I have tremors. In the past couple of years, they have gone from moderate to significant. (Both typing and eating have become difficult, although still possible. Between tremors and recurrent vertigo, I cannot drive.) I tell people to think of me as Katherine Hepburn in her last few years, but without the looks, talent, or money.

I still wear earrings. It takes me quite a while every morning to get them in, but I don’t want to lose the muscle memory it takes. Not to mention that if I don’t, the holes in my ears close up, and with the tremors I don’t want thave them re-pierced.

A couple of days ago I found a very long-lost earring. I liked these earrings: 10 mm light creamrose faux Swarovski pearl (because Swarovski is the best) and 6mm dark indigo Swarovski bicones. They match my hair. (Did I mentioned I dyed my hair blue? It was that or get a tattoo, and the tattoo parlors were closed.)

These earrings had been gone long enough that the sterling silver ear wires were tarnished. Putting tarnished ear wires in your lobes may be perfectly safe, but it makes me nervous.

So I changed out those wires for surgical steel. It took me twenty minutes, three different wires, and the ball and spring were sort of mangled in the end, but the earrings are wearable.

I used to bead and wirework. It was my chief creative outlet. I can’t do that, now: the last attempt drove me to tears. So even attempting this simple repair was a big deal. Before the tremors, it would have taken me two minutes — five at the outside, nowhere as long as it did today.

So I fought a simple battle, and won.

Go me.

Posted in Health, My life and times | Leave a comment

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Pat Greene

Just four years ago…

We were a nation that valued truth telling … before Donald Trump.

We were a nation of laws… before Donald Trump.

We were a nation that believed in the Constitution and separation of powers… before Donald Trump.

We were a nation where the press, if not revered, were at least respected… before Donald Trump.

We were a nation that valued science… before Donald Trump.

We were a nation where the presidency was about public service, not about getting as much as you could for yourself and your kids… before Donald Trump.

We were a nation where the Department of Justice worked to further the best interest of the country, not the president… before Donald Trump.

We were a nation where white supremacists kept out of the limelight… before Donald Trump.

Oh, there were exceptions, of course. There always are. But there was not the wholesale attempts to undercut the entire underpinnings of civilized society.

Conservatives often talk about returning to a better time in America. They are usually referring to the 1950s, when minorities knew their place and women stayed within their proper sphere, the kitchen and the nursery. Now, though, liberals, too, talk about returning to a better time in America. In this case, though, they mean before 2016… before Donald Trump.

We have to succeed.

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Decisions, Decisions.

Posted on August 26, 2020 by Pat Greene

One of my goals for today was to clear out my overstuffed closet so I can put things in there without having to exercise my biceps. Then I had he notion to clear out my similarly stuffed bookshelves.

The Terry Pratchetts are not going anywhere. Well, okay, the Night Watch Pratchetts are going nowhere; nor are Thief of Time or Reaper Man. Or the Moist van Lipwick books. Or The Truth. (Well, one of the copies can go.) Especially not Monstrous Regiment, which may be my second favorite Pratchett after Night Watch. But I never really liked Mort or Hogfathet or Moving Pictures. Or Unseen Academicals.

Needless to say, any book even remotely concerned with art (with the exception of Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word, which I was singularly unimpressed with) is firmly attached to its shelf. Museums, art fraud and forgery, Nazi looting — it all stays.

I am not teaching Scripture classes, I don’t need four bibles and two bible encyclopedias. I am culling down to one of each. I feel guilty, though.

I am letting go of my “Corruption in Big Cities” set (two about Chicago, one about Hollywood and the William Desmond Taylor murder, and one about Storyville in New Orleans.) I’ll probably keep Devil In the White City, by Erik Larsen. (I also have Thunderstruck and Isaac’s Storm.) All of them hardback and pretty thick.

When I cleared out those, I found my small stash of science fiction — several by Connie Willis, a couple by John Scalzi. I wondered where those went — although not Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is with my “books I loved to reread” group along with Pratchett’s Night Watch and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I even named a cat after that book.

Should I reread Doomsday Book? Probably not right now.

There are books I feel guilty about getting rid of because they were gifts, and in some cases mark me as an intellectual. I am still getting rid of Mark Twain’s collected letters, though. It’s a good four inches thick.

I should probably wait to get rid of my copy of the Mueller report until after the election or Trump leaves office, whichever comes last.

I am a quarter through the books and have only culled a dozen of them. I really need to get more aggressive and disciplined in weeding things out.

Sigh. Thank goodness for Kindle.

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Posted on August 7, 2020 by Pat Greene

Happy Birthday to the Red-Headed Menace! I can’t believe you’re all grown up.

Posted in Kids in all their glory | Leave a comment

Trumpsters.

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Pat Greene

I have been struggling with my feelings about several of my relatives. I feel they are good people, who have been there for me when I needed me. They are against the death penalty. They have never expressed racist comments in my hearing. They are not anti-immigrant.

They’re voting for Trump.

I know, only white supremacists could vote for Trump. Only people who feel no pain at kids in cages. Only completely soulless monsters. I see this all the time on Facebook.

Except maybe not. What — or who — could cause conservative but otherwise caring people to support a morally challenged pathological liar?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

These members of my family are strongly — one might say rabidly — anti-abortion. Control of the Supreme Court, and therefore reproductive rights, rests on the shoulders of an eighty-seven-year old woman with a history of cancer. If you honestly believe abortion is murder, as my relatives claim to do, you can overlook a great deal to possibly get control of SCOTUS.

They can deplore the lying. They can be appalled at the white supremacy. They can be saddened by kids in cages. They can be concerned about the federal response to COVID-19 (although believing that it is really the governor’s fault your state is a hot spot).

Then the equation kicks in: there were 600,000 abortions in the U.S last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. And before that. What are a few thousand kids on the border against those numbers? An anti-abortion Court won’t stop all of them, but if Roe v. Wade were overturned…

In all likelihood RBG won’t survive the next four years. Biden will name someone young, who will protect reproductive choice for years. Trump, on the other hand, will name someone like Kavanaugh: young, conservative, anti-abortion.

I don’t know what to do with this. I think I understand their motivations, but I can’t bring myself to respect their choice. I’m sure they feel the same about me. But I do know that simply dismissing them does no good.

Because what ever happens, when this is all over, we are all going to have to live with each other.

Posted in Personal Relationships, Politics | Leave a comment

Elections Checklist

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Pat Greene

I will be repeating this several times before the election:

  1. Make sure your registration is up to date NOW. If there are problems, or if you have changed your name, address, or party affiliation since you last registered, reregister ASAP.
  2. If possible check to see what options you have for voting: early voting, absentee/vote-by-mail, etc. Your registrar of voters website should have this information.
  3. Develop a plan for voting: will you vote by mail? At the polls? Early? If you choose to vote early, when will you do so? How does the pandemic affect those plans?
  4. Unless your state/county automatically sends out ballots to all voters (Washington, Oregon, some counties in California) determine what the last date is that can you request an absentee ballot? Send in your request well before that date (as soon as allowable would be good).
  5. If your state requires an excuse in order to get an absentee ballot, find out what excuses are acceptable and whether you might fulfill the requirements. Talk to your doctor if necessary.
  6. If you suspect that the USPS might not be up to the job of handling all the ballots, find out where you can drop ballots off. Can you drop them off well before election day? Does your county have drop off boxes? Where are they, and what hours are they available? Can you drop them off at the registrar of voters office? Can you drop them off at the polls?
  7. If you choose to use the USPS, check the front of the ballot. Some of them require extra postage. Make sure to use an extra stamp or two to make sure the ballot gets to where it needs to go.
  8. Before you drop it off, either in a dropbox or in a mailbox, MAKE SURE YOU SIGN THE BALLOT.
  9. If you are going to the polls, find out if there is an i.d. requirement and make sure that you have the i.d. at hand.
  10. Find out where your polling place is, and how to get there, if necessary.

Most importantly,

VOTE

Posted in nothing special | Leave a comment

Just stuff.

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Pat Greene

Sometimes, when everything is going to hell, it’s important to remember what good there is in your life. So, in more or less random order…

  • Hamilton.
  • The Avengers movies
  • Fantasia (& Fantasia 2000)
  • Disney+
  • Art
  • Amazon (don’t judge me)
  • Facebook groups
  • Intelligent friends
  • Within that group, the alums of my college and law school
  • That I was able to reconnect with a close friend from college after eight years
  • Coursera and edx (and free online courses in general)
  • Blogging
  • The Cooking Channel
  • Alton Brown
  • That my kids are all grown up so I won’t have to start homeschooling (I know my limits)
  • The New York Times Mini Crossword
  • The Museum of Modern Art
  • Google Art & Culture collections
  • Wikimediacommons
  • Good doctors
  • Good medicine
  • That I caught my tooth infection before it got too severe
  • Medical and dental insurance
  • That I have had the opportunity to travel so extensively
  • That the Rocket Scientist and I had our trip to South America just weeks before the coronavirus hit.
  • That the Rocket Scientist fixed the dryer with twelve dollars worth of parts thus saving us from having to have a hundred-dollar service call
  • New skills: baking bread.
  • People who take COVID-19 seriously.
  • That my family insists on me staying put and not taking chances, given my risk factors.
  • That live in an area where people have no problem wearing masks.
  • Horse racing
  • The color blue
  • The roof above me
  • The food in the pantry
  • The fuzzies: Penwiper & Pandora
  • The Not So Little Drummer Boy’s Sweet & Charming Girlfriend (Fiancee?)
  • The Red-Headed Menace’s Really Smart Partner (Note: the SCG is also smart, and the RSP is also sweet)
  • My family
  • Love
  • Life

Things are still terrible, but I think I feel a little better

Posted in nothing special | Leave a comment

The best thing since…

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Pat Greene

On Saturday I baked my third batch of bread. Each batch makes two loaves. Because they have no preservatives if they don’t get eaten quickly they mold, so we gave a loaf to the Red-Headed Menace and his Really Smart Partner (RSP).

Because they are homebaked, we need to slice them ourselves. I cannot slice an even piece of bread to save my life. Either it is two inches thick, or so thin it tears before I can finish cutting it.

I really wish I could take the loaves somewhere and say “Here, can you slice this for me?” I don’t think bakeries would do that though.

Thing is… it is much better bread than the sliced type you get in the store. I wouldn’t trade it. So I guess it is a better thing than sliced bread.

Next up: cinnamon rolls. At least those won’t need to be sliced.

Posted in Family, Food | Tagged | Leave a comment

Broken.

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Pat Greene

I can’t really identify the last straw. Maybe it was the Administration deciding to have hospitals send COVID-19 data to HHS instead of the CDC. Maybe it was the threats leveled at schools who don’t physically open in the fall. Most likely it was…

Federal law enforcement being sent to a city that doesn’t want them, to inflame tensions and grab peaceful protesters and putting them in unmarked vans and taking them away. And reports that these tactics will be used nationwide.

I know we have to fight. I know that’s how the bastards win, by creating more and more outrageous situations so that we become inured to the slide into authoritarianism.

What’s next? Personally, I believe that those same shock troops will be used to interfere with people’s right to vote. Can’t happen? So many things have happened that would normally — or used to — be unthinkable that nothing seems off the table now.

I just can’t think. I try to keep abreast of what’s happening, but the circuits of my brain that sort out reality from paranoid delusion have burned out. Before 2016 — or even before 2018 — if you told anyone what has been happening this year, they would have suggested you seek help from a mental health professional.

I respect all of you that stay strong, that keep fighting. I’ll toss some money towards organization that are doing the work to make a better tomorrow, that are helping to keep us from just sliding into a dictatorship.

That’s all I can do right now.

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Guilty Pleasures.

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Pat Greene

In 2017, I spent four days in a Spanish hospital, laid low by pneumonia (my second bout in three years — one of the reasons that my family will not let me go to the grocery store). When I got back home, I was weak for a good six weeks. I spent a lot of time mindlessly channel surfing.

One day I chanced upon Saratoga Live, live coverage of racing from Saratoga. I love horses, and it was amusing — as much for the ads for stallions as anything else. One particularly caught my eye, for a horse called Data Link. “With no Mr. Prospector within four generations, Data Link is perfect for your outcrosses.”

Really, I thought. I know race horses tend to be inbred, but how big a problem could this be? So I kept informally checking pedigrees, and it did seem a lot of horses had Mr. Prospector blood.

I decided that I needed to be more systematic. I made an Excel spreadsheet of every horse that ran in any race the last week of the Saratoga meet, plus the horses that had run in the Triple Crown races, and a couple of Breeder’s Cup races. It came out to over 250 horses. I ran all the pedigrees back four generations. (Yes, it’s geeky. Don’t judge me.)

Something like seventy-five percent of the horses I tracked had Mr. Prospector blood. Wow.

It turned into an obsession — I started watching the races, both at Saratoga and elsewhere, but more interested in the post parade and seeing who the sires are than seeing the actual races. (Tracks are running races without people in the stands.) I am learning which sires turn out turf horses, which ones dirt, which ones sprinters, which ones distance runners. I am learning more about the horses (did you know that turf runners tend to have bigger feet than dirt runners?).

I have fun looking at the horses’ names. My favorite is a horse sired by Freud out of a mare named Plinking — Plink Freud.

I do watch the races, although I speed past all the talking heads going on about each horse’s chances. I don’t particularly care who wins, rooting for 1) a horse I have seen run and that I like, 2) a horse sired by a horse I like (the American Pharoahs turn three this year) or 3) the gray horse. (If there is more than one gray horse, then the prettiest gray horse.)

I don’t bet. I know myself well enough to know that I would run through a lot of money if I did. No, it’s better to just be a spectator.

What the hell, it’s better than binging on Tiger King.

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Relativism

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Pat Greene

I need to stop reading Facebook. It’s bad for my blood pressure. It’s not my friends but sadly some of their friends which cause me such heartburn.

Usually these days it’s about wearing masks. Some of my friends have friends who think that either 1) wearing masks is an infringement upon their liberties, 2) a plot by the libs to make them look ridiculous, or 3) totally unnecessary, or 4) all of the above. I just snort at them and move on.

But sometimes there are friends of friends who I think are intelligent (and who, their conservative views notwithstanding, I respect) who say absolutely awful things. Last night I hit something which would have had me screaming had I not been afraid of waking other people in my house.

It started with a meme purporting to show all the terrible things Obama did with the implication that he was just as bad as Trump. The list ran from the truly horrible (Fast and Furious), to the sad but overblown (the administration’s actions during Benghazi), to the actually good (DACA). I would have shrugged it off except for the guy who said “Obama did bad things; Trump did bad things. Comparing them doesn’t do anyone any good.”

What the everloving hell?

That is whataboutism. That is moral equivalency. That is intellectually bankrupt. To shrug off any comparison between the two is to ignore the fundamental ways in which this country has been damaged by the current President.

Obama did some bad things, I’ll admit. The commenter and I probably disagree on what those bad things were (other than Fast and Furious), but even though I am a fan I can admit he and his Administration were not perfect by a very long shot.

But Obama never used the Presidency for his and his family’s enrichment.

Obama did not have his Administration toss out as many environmental protections as possible, to the benefit of wealthy cronies.

Obama respected expertise, be it from the intelligence officials or scientists. When presented with an issue by either of those, he acted appropriately. He never pretended he was smarter than people who had made their field their lives’ work.

Obama didn’t want government scientists to change their results to conform to his political views.

Obama didn’t undermine citizens’ respect for government by lying — demonstrably — time after time after time. (Fun fact: of the 814 statements of Donald Trump reviewed by fact-checking site Politifact, seventy percent of them were mostly false, false, or Pants on Fire. Of the 602 statements of Barack Obama that they reviewed, that number was twenty-three percent.)

Obama did not ask a foreign power for help in the election. Not to mention help from an authoritarian dictator who had every reason to undermine American society.

Obama did not seek dirt on a political opponent as a condition for helping a country.

Most importantly, Obama never posed a threat to representative democracy.

Obama never spoke out against a free press.

Obama respected the separation of powers. When Congress sent a subpoena to present or former Administration officials, they showed up. (Just ask anyone who sat through the eleven hours that Hillary Clinton was grilled on Benghazi.) They did not ignore them.

Obama never inflamed partisan passions by his actions. He never held important meetings at the White House where the members of Congress from the other party were not invited.

Obama did not speak as though the Supreme Court was a lapdog. He did not insult justices who did not agree with him.

Most corrosively, Obama did not view the Department of Justice as his own fiefdom, to be used to protect his friends and punish his perceived enemies. Obama respected the independence of the DOJ and the FBI (or James Comey would have never had that press conference that may well have cost Hillary Clinton the Presidency).

All of that, and so much more.

It does not help to dwell a long time on Obama. That I’ll agree. But from time to time it’s important to remember the difference between the two men, if for no other reason than to remind us what we’ve lost.

Or if comparisons to Obama are just too much, how about comparisons to Richard Nixon?

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