November 5, 2024: Donald Trump Is Returned to the Presidency

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

November 5, 2024: On his 3rd try, Donald Trump finally gets what he really wants: The Presidential election, winning the popular vote, an actual majority of it, and, thanks to a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States, immunity from criminal prosecution for the next 4 years.

I had hoped that women would come through and save us. But, as is so often the case, "It's the economy, stupid." Too many women put the price of supermarket eggs over the price of their own "eggs." The Democrats did very little to point out that Trump has a record on the economy, and it was horrible.

The Hispanic men who decided they couldn't vote for a woman? Wait until they discover that the Republicans don't consider them "white."

The young, first-time-voting Arab-Americans who couldn't vote for Harris because she was a part of the Biden Administration that supported Israel over Gaza? Many of them were too young to have paid attention to the news in 2016 and 2017, and don't remember the Muslim ban, and haven't considered that Trump is a lot closer in policy to Netanyahu than Biden is. If they expected me to have sympathy for their people and their plight before, they can forget it now. Because of their votes, or non-votes as the case may be, more Americans will die than Gazans who have already died.

Trump and his Vice Presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, won 31 States for 312 Electoral Votes. The Democratic Party nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, won 19 States, plus the District of Columbia, for 229 Electoral Votes.

But that popular vote? Trump got 77.3 million votes, for 49.74 percent. It's his best performance, but, for the 3rd time, he did not get a majority of the popular vote. Harris had 75.0 million, for 48.27 percent. Harris' total was 6.2 million short of Joe Biden's total in 2020. Trump's total was 3.1 million more than 4 years earlier.

The Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, got 861,000, for 0.55 percent, a gain of 452,000 over her 2020 total. The Libertarian candidate, Chase Oliver, got 650,000, for 0.42 percent, a loss of 1.3 million for his party. (In 2016, Stein got 1,457,000, for 1.07 percent; and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson got 4,489,000, for 3.3 percent. This was enough to cost Hillary Clinton some States.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., still on the ballot despite dropping out and endorsing Trump, got 756,000, for 0.49 percent. Other candidates got 834,000, for 0.54 percent.

Put it all together, and about 155.1 million people voted, compared to about 158.4 million in the COVID-affected election of 2020. That's about 3.3 million people who voted last time, but not this time. Where did they go? Why haven't we heard from them?

Something isn't right here. Above and beyond the result. If anything, population growth, alone, should have given both Parties more votes than they got in 2020. It's happened many times before, including a few times where the nominee of the party finishing 2nd got more votes than any previous winning nominee.

Where was this "record turnout" we kept hearing about, all year long? Where are all these "newly registered voters" we kept hearing about? Where are all these "people who've never voted for a Democrat before"?

Where were all these millions of young women that Taylor Swift supposedly registered to vote at her concerts? Did they decide that their false perception that the economy was bad -- or their equally false perception of their white privilege being enough to overcome their status as women, and thus as second-class citizens in a Trump society -- was more important than any of the many reasons not to vote for Trump? Did they betray their beloved Tay-Tay, who was very open about her feelings about Trump, and her endorsement of Harris?

Maybe a lot of them went to Trump. If he did get them, it wasn't a big chunk of them, which might well have been too suspicious.

Did they register, or maintain their registration, and simply not vote, because they didn't like either candidate? If that was the case, they should have sucked it up and voted for Harris, anyway, because she's not a Fascist, a rapist, a felon, and an idiot, who sent terrorists to try to sabotage the last election, while Trump is all five of those.

Harris conceded at 4:22 PM the next day. In a speech lasting 12 minutes, outside Frederick Douglass Hall at her Alma Mater, Howard University in Washington, she told her supporters to accept the result, but to not give up the fight.

In the Congressional elections, the Democrats gained 2 seats in the House of Representatives, not quite enough to take control. The Republicans gained a net 3 seats in the Senate, to take control. Trump now controls all 3 branches of the federal government.

Three Democratic incumbents fell: Jon Tester lost to Tim Sheehy in Montana, Sherrod Brown lost to Bernie Moreno in Ohio, and Bob Casey Jr. lost to David McCormick in Pennsylvania. The Democrats got a little good news in the Senate, as promoted from the House were Adam Schiff of California, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Andy Kim of New Jersey. Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks of adjoining Maryland, defeating former Governor Larry Hogan, gave the Senate 2 black women for the 1st time.

Small gains for the Democrats aside, Trump and his fans got what they wanted. They own it all now. Whatever happens over the next four years, it is all on them.

They have bet their lives, and they have bet everybody else's lives, on Trump having a successful second term. Even though his first term was, by any rational measure, a complete disaster. The day he left office the first time, the country's economy was in tatters, it was causing the inflation you blamed on Joe Biden. Over 1 million people died from COVID, when he could have saved the vast majority of those had he taken it seriously. The crime problem had gotten worse. And he hadn't come close to solving the border problem you care so damned much about.

They decided that his first term, his various failures, his various crimes including impeachable offenses, his various bigotries, and the other evidence of his low character don't matter. They also decided that, whatever virtues Harris has, they don't matter, either. Whatever I might think of such an attitude, it is their right.

But he is now 78 years old, older than Biden was when he was elected, and he is morbidly obese. And even though that they also know that, if, for whatever reason, he can't complete this term, the Presidency will fall to J.D. Vance. I'm sure that not one of them was undecided, heard that Vance was the choice, and chose Trump on that basis. They're so ignorant that, aside from those actually from Ohio, most of them had probably never even heard of Vance before that.

But it's all on him Trump, and it's all on his voters. Whatever happens over the next four years, it's because they chose this guy.

If it works out in their favor, they are well within their rights to gloat.

If it doesn't -- if Trump crashes the economy a second time, if crime gets worse, if the immigration problem is not fixed, if there is a foreign-policy disaster, if there is another pandemic -- I am well within my rights to tell you that I told them so.

Given history, we know that a President needs to avoid a "Depression," a "Vietnam," a "Watergate," an "Iran Hostage Crisis," and a "COVID." Trump already had a "Depression," a "Watergate," and introduced "a COVID" into the discussion, all in his first term. Now, he has to avoid all of them in his second term. He could, if he had learned things.

Donald Trump is not the kind of person who learns things. Did you choose him?

Whatever happens, as was said in the first Joker film, you get what you fucking deserve.

Right before the election, the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing Trump, and actress Kimberly Michelle Vaughn playing Harris.

As they usually do with the winner of the Presidential election, Time magazine named Trump its Person of the Year for 2024, as they had for 2016. They had named Swift Person of the Year for 2023, largely for her voter registration efforts. If those efforts had been successful, she would have been a legitimate candidate for Person of the Year, although it still should have been Harris. But Trump's win makes her selection for 2023 look dubious.

*

November 5, 2024 was a Tuesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA purposely scheduled no games for the day, to promote voting. There were 11 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3 in a shootout at the UBS Arena in Elmont, Long Island, New York.

* The Calgary Flames beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 in overtime at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Matthew Coronato scored the winning goal, just 7 seconds into overtime.

* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-4 at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-0 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Ottawa Senators, 5-1 at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Minnesota Wild, 5-1 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-2 at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Utah Hockey Club, 3-0 at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg.

* The Colorado Avalanche, 6-4 at the Ball Arena in Denver.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Anaheim Ducks, 5-1 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1 in overtime a the SAP Center in San Jose. Alexander Wenberg scored the winning goal, 1:49 into overtime.

February 11, 2024: The Taylor Swift Super Bowl

February 11, 2024: Super Bowl LVIII is played, at Allegiant Stadium in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada. It becomes the longest game in Super Bowl history.

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

The game was scoreless after the 1st quarter. At the half, the San Francisco 49ers led the Kansas City Chiefs, the defending World Champions, 10-3. With 1:53 to go in regulation, the Niners led, 19-16. They were that close to their 6th Super Bowl win, their 1st in 29 years.

But the Chiefs were the defending Champions for a few reasons. The biggest of those reasons was their quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. He led the Chiefs down the field, and with 3 seconds left, Harrison Butker kicked a 29-yard field goal to send the game to overtime, only the 2nd time that had happened in a Super Bowl.

For many years, under NFL rules, the 1st score in an overtime won the game. This was considered unfair: A team could win the overtime coin toss, get within field goal range, and win by 3 points without the other team even getting the ball. The rules were tweaked a season earlier: This was the 1st postseason game to go to overtime since the NFL changed the overtime rules for playoff games, so that both teams get at least one chance to possess the ball in overtime, even if a touchdown is scored on the initial possession.

The 49ers won the toss, and drove down the field before stalling at the Chiefs' 9-yard line. Jake Moody, who had earlier kicked a 55-yard field goal, kicked one from 27 yards out, and the 49ers led, 22-19.

But Mahomes and the Chiefs responded by driving 75 yards in 13 plays, converting 2 3rd downs and a 4th down, to set up 1st and goal on the San Francisco 3-yard line. Mahomes then passed to Mecole Hardman, who took the ball into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. Chiefs 25, 49ers 22.

The game lasted for 74 minutes and 57 seconds of game time, just short of 5 full quarters, making it the longest Super Bowl ever, and the 7th-longest NFL postseason game.

Much of the hype around the game revolved around Travis Kelce, the Chiefs' All-Pro tight end, and his girlfriend, the most popular singer in the world at the time, Taylor Swift. There was a rumor going around that the NFL was going to fix the game for the Chiefs so that Swift would get more camera time, with she and the NFL boosting each other's attention grabs.

At one point during that last regular-season drive, the camera focused on one of the luxury boxes, where Swift was sitting with Kelce's family. This prompted me to write online, "This game is a nailbiter. Literally: Taylor Swift was just caught on camera biting her nails."

There were also several TV commercials featuring Kelce, some with his brother, Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro center Jason Kelce. They had been on opposite sides of the previous season's Super Bowl, which the Chiefs had won.

The Chiefs had now won 3 titles in 4 appearances in 5 years. It was their 4th title overall, in 6 appearances, plus an AFL Championship before their was a Super Bowl.

Andy Reid joined Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs and Jimmy Johnson as head coaches who had won 3 Super Bowls. Mahomes joined Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady * as quarterbacks who had done it.

In a note that stung many people in the New York Tri-State Area, Hardman began the season with the New York Jets. He left that dysfunctional franchise, then caught in the whims of aging quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and won a Super Bowl elsewhere.

*

February 11, 2024 was, like all Super Bowl days, a Sunday. Obviously, there were no other football games. Baseball was out of season. Not willing to compete much with the NFL for TV viewers, the NBA scheduled only 2 games. The Boston Celtics beat the Miami Heat, 110-106 at the Kaseya Center in Miami. And the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Sacramento Kings, 127-113 at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 38 points.

The NHL also scheduled only 2 games. The St. Louis Blues beat the Montreal Canadiens, 7-2 at the Bell Centre in Montreal. And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Washington Capitals, 3-2 at the Capital One Arena in Washington. J.T. Miller scored the winning goal with 5 seconds left in overtime, avoiding a shootout.

And in English soccer, Arsenal crossed London from North to East, and beat West Ham United, 6-0 at the London Stadium.

January 21, 2017: Women Return Fire On Trump

Demonstrators dressed as "suffragettes,"

advocating votes for women, 100 years earlier,

prior to the ratification of the 19th Amendment

An evil man as President would be bad enough. A stupid man who doesn't have a freakin' clue as to how the job works would be bad enough. A weak man who lets others push him into bad policy would be bad enough.

January 20, 2017: An evil man, a stupid man, and a weak man walked into the White House. And Donald Trump was all three. And that's no joke. But now, we all needed to walk into a bar.

Actually, what we needed was to march. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

January 21, 2017: The Women's March is held, in locations all over the world, in protest of Trump and the way he personally, and his policies in general, treat women. The largest march is in Washington, attracting about 200,000 people -- about 1/3rd as many people as attended Trump's Inauguration the day before. In total, the marches were estimated at attracting 4 million.

According to organizers, the goal was to "send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights" -- reflecting a speech given by Hillary Clinton in China in 1995.

You can read the sign held by the cosplaying protester above. Here's another, from a woman who supported various women's rights before they were enshrined into law, and had come back hard:

During the 2016 election, feminists had warned that Trump would appoint Justices to the Supreme Court that would rule to overturn Roe v. Wade and the right to an abortion. But enough people believed Trump's lies about his abilities, and about Mrs. Clinton's alleged flaws, that he won the Electoral Vote, if not the popular vote. Sure enough: Trump appointed Neal Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Comey Barrett to the Supreme Court.

In 2017, the #MeToo movement gained momentum, as women began to use social media to spread stories about how men had used whatever power they had to abuse women, from "the bedroom" to the boardroom. Time magazine chose "The Silence Breakers" as their collective Persons of the Year.

The cover showed singer Taylor Swift, actress Ashley Judd, software engineer Susan Fowler, lobbyist Adama Iwu, an immigrant strawberry picker who used the pseudonym Isabel Pascual, and a 6th woman, a hospital worker who wished to remain anonymous, and so only her right arm was shown. 

Among the other women featured in the cover article were actresses Alyssa Milano, Tarana Burke, Selma Blair, Rose McGowan; journalists Megyn Kelly (who had supported Trump on Fox News, before criticizing him and facing his vulgar wrath in a campaign speech) and Jane Merrick; Oregon State Senator Sara Gelser; and 7 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Plaza Hotel in New York, formerly owned by Trump. They also featured one man who came forward with a story of sexual abuse: Football player-turned-actor Terry Crews.

In the 2020 Presidential election,, women voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump, 57 percent to 42; unmarried women were for Biden, 62-36; black women were for Biden, 90-9; and Latina women were for Biden, 69-30. White women were still 55-44 for Trump, many of them simply voting the same way as their husbands. (White men were for Trump, 61-38.)

Women made the difference in defeating Trump. It was called "Roevember."

UPDATE: In 2022, Trump's Court appointees joined with John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in a 6-3 vote that struck Roe down. And in 2024, Trump got back in, largely because a majority of white women chose being white over being women. It was also in part because a larger number of Hispanic men chose Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, choosing being men over being Hispanic. In each case, they thought it would protect them against Trump's abuses over the next 4 years. They found out how wrong they were.

*

January 21, 2017 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Football was between rounds of the Playoffs. There were 11 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Phoenix Suns, 107-105 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Brooklyn Nets lost to the Charlotte Hornets, 112-105 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Boston Celtics, 127-123 in overtime at the TD Garden in Boston. Isaiah Thomas (not to be confused with Isiah Thomas) scored 41 in defeat.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 110-93 at the Philips Arena (now the State Farm Arena) in Atlanta.

* The Miami Heat beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 109-97 at the American Airlines Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Memphis Grizzlies, 119-95 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 118-105 in overtime at the Quicken Loans Arena (now the Rocket Mortgage Arena) in Cleveland. Kawhi Leonard scored 41 points for the Spurs.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Washington Wizards, 113-112 at the The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Sacramento Kings, 102-99 at the United Center in Chicago. DeMarcus Cousins scored 42 in defeat.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 123-98 at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver.

* And the Utah Jazz beat the Indiana Pacers, 109-100 at the Vivint Arena (as the Delta Center was then known) in Salt Lake City, Utah.

There were 11 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-2 at the Barclays Center.

* The New Jersey Devils beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1 at the Wells Fargo Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Zach Bogosian scored the winning goal, with 3:12 left in overtime.

* The Ottawa Senators beat their arch-rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 in a shootout at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

* The Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 3-2 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Dallas Stars, 4-3 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Jay Beagle scored the winning goal, 19 seconds into overtime.

* The Minnesota Wild beat the Anaheim Ducks, 5-3 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the St. Louis Blues, 5-3 at the MTS Centre (now the Canada Life Centre) in Winnipeg.

* The Arizona Coyotes beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-3 at the Gila River Arena (now the Desert Diamond Arena) in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Arizona.

* The Edmonton Oilers won their "Battle of Alberta" rivalry with the Calgary Flames, 7-3 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2 at the SAP Center in San Jose. David Schlemko scored the winning goal, with 3:42 left in overtime.