Sunday Odds and Ends

Sports: The Jets had a shot at a Monday Night Football win/upset but as usual found a way to lose at the end of the game by three. It would have been a nice moment, if with the back-up, in a bad season. The Giants did manage to win against their usual whipping boys (Daniel Jones won once when not winning against them), Washington.  This was followed by a bye for the Jets and a win -- when it looked like it would be another Fourth Quarter nail-biter -- for the Giants versus the Eagles. Only one game back and with the Eagles still looking bad and the others just bad really, who knows?  

The big news for the Mets is that they have new ownership, and with Sandy Alderson back (apparently having beaten cancer), the GM and various others are gone. The young manager is apparently due to return though his first year was not exactly great.  The new owner hopes for a World Series win in 3-5 years.  To help things along in the short term, helped by the Big V and not playing in 2020 as much as liking the team, Marcus Stroman actually took the 18.5M qualifying offer. The talk I saw was that it was figured he would not, but makes sense he did.  Nice chunk of change but hey it's only for a year and now my money, right? With Thor likely out at the beginning and so on, they still need another arm. 

Book: I was hoping for a bit more out of We the Women: The Unstoppable Mothers of the Equal Rights Amendment though it was okay.  James Madison is the "Father" of the Constitution, so the title is evenhanded though it seemed at times to focus too much on the motherhood aspect in a literal sense. That is, the needs of mothers.  The book is largely historical with the final chapters focused on the last three states that putatively "ratified" (an open question) the ERA.  It has an overall gung ho tone that was somewhat annoying, feeling too that it was aimed at young adults or something.

It does not really go in depth into the full legal consequences, basically hand-waving complicated questions like its effects on abortion rights.  Just what the somewhat differently worded ("abridged" etc.) amendment would add to the Equal Protection Clause remains to be seen.  It basically assumes that it is just to ratify forty years later without re-submission, ignoring (figure it wasn't too late) RBG herself suggested not doing so would be iffy at this point.  This is so even if she did back in the late 1970s, a long time ago, supporting extending the deadline.  Not really deep enough for me though it covers the history generally.  

Election: The results are not going to be fully official for a few weeks, and then we have the electoral college stuff, but things have settled.  Biden/Harris has not only won the necessary Midwest three (Michigan getting the most improvement), but also Arizona and Georgia. Thus, with more popular votes than Clinton as well, we basically have a switcheroo in the Electoral College, Biden likely to get two more official than Trump in 2016 because we won't have a faithless electors issue.  Heck, maybe one or more Trump electors in some other state will want to vote for Biden!  So, that's good.

It is supposedly stupid not to rest on that, but the bother is a result of our side being reasonable sorts. It is bothersome that Trump got more votes than last time and Biden did not do even better. The Trump states were generally not close except for Florida (always a tease) and North Carolina.  There is a chance that North Carolina at least is a possible get in 2024.  The bother really is the Senate though in hindsight talk of 53 votes (I really figured 51 quite possible) was a bit much. We are talking 50 now if we get both seats from Georgia. And, the Dems lost a few of the conservative leaning seats they picked up in 2018. This with Trump's handling of the Big V and everything else. 

Why in the hell shouldn't we be upset? It's a travesty really.  That is what should be the bottom line from objective sane types regarding a party that aids and abets Trump barely being harmed at the polls. They lost a non-elected seat to an astronaut whose wife is popular in the state and in blue Colorado. With Georgia pending in January.  Mark Kelly will come in early to make it 52-48 with Alabama trading Doug Jones with some embarrassment.  So, it will be 51-48 (one Georgia seat running out, the special election seat not) when the new term starts in January, Kamala Harris at some point also resigning and being replaced by a temporary pick too.  The more rabid House caucus is LARGER. FUCK YOU! 

We move on, taking things as they come. Happy Diwali!