Yesterday sucked. Not only was it the first day back from a three-day weekend, but I then got stuck doing something tedious and time consuming that I couldn’t start until five o’clock, which meant I didn’t get out of my chair until six. And, in preparation for what I had to do, I was in the chair all day long with barely a piss break or two. By the time I got home (to raucous thunderstorms), my back was killing me, and it’s killing me now. I had to self-medicate with beer, stayed up too damn late, slept until six o’clock this morning (which is very late for me), and currently feel like crap. This blows.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of “Game of Thrones” (I have to watch it in secret, of course), and after the first season, I went out and bought (and read) all the books (OK, I didn’t really go out – I got them on the Kindle). Anyhow, I had no idea that the author – George RR Martin – was a lefty. It appears he’s not a fan of voter suppression.

…I would be remiss if I do not at least make passing mention of how depressed, disgusted, and, yes, angry I’ve become as I watch the ongoing attempts at voter suppression in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Iowa, and other states where Republicans and their Teabagger allies control key seats of power.
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It would really be nice if there were still some Republicans of conscience out there who would stand up and loudly denounce these efforts, a few men of honor and integrity for whom “win the election” does not “win the election at any cost.” There were once many Republicans I admired, even I disagreed with them: men like Everett Dirksen, Clifford Case, Henry Cabot Lodge, William Scranton… yes, even Barry Goldwater, conservative as he is. I do not believe for a moment that Goldwater would have approved of this, any more than Robert A. Heinlein would have. They were conservatives, but they were not bigots, nor racists, nor corrupt. The Vote Suppressors have far more in common with Lester Maddox, George Wallace, John Stennis, and their ilk than they do with their distinguished GOP forebears.

The people behind these efforts at disenfranchising large groups of voters (the young, the old, the black, the brown) are not Republicans, since clearly they have scant regard for our republic or its values. They are oligarchs and racists clad in the skins of dead elephants.

I like the dead elephants thing. But, Henry Cabot Lodge? You admired him, George? I mean, you’re no spring chicken, but Henry Cabot Lodge has been dead for, like, 88 years.

Oh well, I suppose I ought to get back to work, here.