Please help turn America BLUE!

Halloween was great fun, and I am so thankful that our neighborhood organized such a fun, safe way for the kids to still enjoy the holiday. Making Ol’s Han Solo belt and holster was a delightfully escapist project, and he was truly thrilled with the outcome. Pics at a less important time.

The election. It’s pretty much here. I know you’re freaking out, terrified, furious, disgusted, scared, exhausted, eating poorly, sleeping worse, drinking too much, and just getting by minute to minute. Me too. But there are still voters out there who MUST be reached. The GOP is doing all it can to suppress the shit out of the vote.

Look at Harris County, Texas, for example. That’s where Houston is. Harris County is the 3rd largest county in America. It is huge. And the GOP is filing suit after suit attempting to disenfranchise voters who have cast their ballots already. Governor Abbott himself said that drive-through voting sites were absolutely legal. Now?

Thank god for Marc Elias and Democracy Docket who have counter-filed suit after suit and have so far protected these votes.

Don’t believe me or these blue-checked Twitter accounts? Read this new article from a Republican lawyer who spent “four decades in the Republican trenches, representing GOP presidential and congressional campaigns." In his words:

Nearly every Election Day since 1984 I’ve worked with Republican poll watchers, observers and lawyers to record and litigate any fraud or election irregularities discovered.

The truth is that over all those years Republicans found only isolated incidents of fraud. Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesn’t exist.

As he confronts losing, Trump has devoted his campaign and the Republican Party to this myth of voter fraud. Absent being able to articulate a cogent plan for a second term or find an attack against Joe Biden that will stick, disenfranchising enough voters has become key to his reelection strategy.

So, what can we do? If you are a lawyer, please, PLEASE volunteer your time and expertise to help ensure that everyone can exercise their right to vote. Need a way to do that? Look no further. Democracy Docket NEEDS YOU!

Hate phone-banking? Me too. Pull up your big-girl/big-boy undies with me and make calls. I’ll be dialing into PA tomorrow and beg you to help with similar efforts. Need a way to do that? Look no further. NOPE Neighbors NEEDS YOU!

So do: WisDems, SwingLeft, Indivisible, and so many more. Look specifically for ways to help in NC, PA, WI, MI, MN, GA…

Please do something. Call, donate, drive voters, bring voters in line a pizza. Doom scrolling can use up a lot of time. I know! But don’t wake up on 11/4 and regret inaction.

Vote BLUE like your lives and our country depend on it. They do.

Four days

This was the best find two days ago. I was, and continue to be, Maude. Without apology, but with appreciation for relocating cats and teaching pigeons to shit on pedestrians (of certain stripes).

I feel this is 100% true.

Meanwhile, Mom and Dad are about 50% moved into their darling rental home, have flown back to Louisiana to vote proudly for Biden/Harris, and are really such troopers.

Jack and Ol are eager for Halloween; both are participating in our neighborhood’s socially-distant, individually-wrapped-treat festivities tomorrow. After angstily detailing my kitchen cabinets today, bringing Mom and Dad to the airport, getting Ol off to school for the first time since March 13, and angstily detailing the interior of my fridge, I began obsessively, perhaps angstily, creating a bespoke Han Solo a la Solo belt and holster for Ol to wear for Halloween tomorrow. He is, as you have surmised, going as Han Solo from Solo: a Star Wars story. Jack is some character from some video game and it involves a suit and a mustache and a bullet-proof vest. #IDon’tKnow

Anyway, I guess I just needed more to obsess about as my NC voter hotline shifts got canceled (so many volunteers! yay!), so I ordered random shit from Michael’s for curbside pick-up and then got busy. I am extremely pleased so far as I really cannot even sew a new button onto anything that is then worn.

the real deal, my attempt

Tomorrow I will add snaps and figure out how to fully attach the holster to the belt and so forth, but it’s all leather and hand-sewn so I imagine it’ll last at least until next Halloween. Fingers crossed.

VOTE LIKE YOUR MOTHER EFFING LIVES DEPEND ON IT BECAUSE THEY DO! VOTE BLUE ALL THE WAY UP AND DOWN THE TICKET. THROW THE GOP BUMS OUT. WE GOTTA BURN THIS SHIT DOWN AND START FRESH, Y’ALL.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

(Can you even imagine what it would be like to sleep well and read books -actually read them- and not be freaking out all the time? I am losing the sense of what that would be like, so again, VOTE BLUE!)

17 September 2020: Some uplifting news

I have no uplifting news about Lake Charles, BUT I do have some positive feedback about political fundraising.

I assumed I’d miss the Flip the Senate event I got to co-host because it occurred while I was in Louisiana, but fortunately, my phone had enough cellular service that Mom and I snuggled in bed and Zoomed in. It was such a fabulous event. More than 1,100 blue supporters tuned in and raised over $200,000 for the Jaime Harrison, Theresa Greenfield, Steve Bullock, and Barbara Bollier campaigns. It was such an inspiring event- we were especially fired up to hear from Jaime and Theresa.

A week later, Tom and I realized we’d both donated to the “Princess Bride Live Read” fundraiser for the Wisconsin Dems. Every original cast member who is still alive, minus Fred Savage, agreed to participate, and the replacement cast for those no longer with us, like Andre the Giant, were terrifically filled (Josh Gad played Fezzik). Tom and I and the boys were still in the midst of the nail-biter US Open men’s final when the show began. So we toggled back and forth for a bit, increasingly immersed in the utterly delightful cast party that was this read-through. As it turned out, thousands upon thousands of folks logged on to watch, and despite the fits and starts of bandwidth and location challenges, it turned out to be the ultimate escapist event of joy, nostalgia, teamwork and memory. And, it raised more than $4.25 MILLION. Mandy Patinkin, oh my heart. He was sweating as he reprised Inigo Montoya.

The very next night was the monthly NOPE Neighbors meeting. Each meeting welcomes at least one current candidate for a red-to-blue flippable district, encourages generous donation to said candidate and their co-ballot peers, and educates out the wazoo. Last month we raised more than $20,000 in short order for Elissa Slotkin and the MI slate. But at THIS month’s meeting with Hiral Tiperneni (AZ-6) and Marc Elias of Democracy Docket, we raised more than $75,000 for a large slate of candidates PLUS a slate of protect the vote efforts.

Because, HELLO! We desperately need to protect the vote and go blue. So, give what you can, volunteer, engage, help, vote, work at the polls. PLEASE. Everything depends on it.