John Hartford

Missouri Blues

I have written about the peculiar politics in the state of Missouri before. Voters passed a referendum legalizing reproductive choice in 2024 and the Governor and legislature freaked out and tried to legislate the people's will out of existence.

They said that the people were confused and had been tricked by out of state interests.

So they created a sham referendum denuding abortion rights and tried to get that to fly this year.

The proposal had been placed on the ballot by the Republican-led legislature and it would have banned abortion except in the case or rape and incest for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy or longer for fetal anomalies.

It didn't.

Republican lawmakers placed Amendment 3 on the ballot last year, arguing that voters hadn’t understood the reproductive rights amendment they approved in 2024. But Tuesday’s results were more decisive: Roughly 55% rejected the proposed ban, compared with the 51.6% who approved abortion rights two years earlier.

“It’s hard to say this time that they were tricked,” said Matt Harris, a political scientist at Park University. “ … it’s maybe close, but Missourians have demonstrated that they want abortion rights.”

The vote preserves abortion rights before fetal viability. Abortion is available at five Planned Parenthood clinics across Missouri, including in Springfield, where procedural abortions resumed this year for the first time in 21 years. 

Voters protected themselves this time, also voting for Amendment 6, which required that any legislative attempt to change or undermine a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment must receive support from at least 80% of both legislative chambers before going to voters for approval. 

The Governor of Missouri, Mike Kehoe, hates these amendments. He thinks that voters should let politicians govern, that they are too easily manipulated by outside money.

Truth is that the politicians don't respect their own citizens.

And the pro-lifers will not quit. They have an incessant need to control other people's moral decisions.

State Rep. Brian Seitz, a Branson Republican who helped lead the push to put an abortion ban on the ballot, said Wednesday that abortion will always be on the agenda in Jefferson City. 

Rather than pursuing another constitutional amendment, Seitz said he intends to focus on new abortion regulations.

“Incrementalism is key, especially in this political environment,” he said, pointing at the new makeup of the legislature, which is no longer controlled by a Republican supermajority.

That approach has a long history in Missouri. Over several decades, Republican lawmakers enacted dozens of abortion regulations that steadily eroded access to the procedure, even before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

And their strategy is to keep putting these sorts of roadblocks up year after year, regardless of what the majority thinks or believes and beat them through attrition.

State Rep. Ed Lewis, a Republican from Moberly who lost his run for state Senate in the August primary, said outside personhood bills, he foresees reluctance to attempt to legislate abortion after what he characterized as a “strong repudiation” Tuesday. 

“I don’t think there’s gonna be anything done in two years,” Lewis said. “I think that it’s just too raw, too much money spent, too much effort. We’re probably gonna have to wait and let things play out a little bit.”

But he does guess there will still be a large focus by Republicans on initiative petition reform, including attempts to limit out-of-state funding to initiative petitions efforts and raise the threshold for passage.

“I think you’re going to see this continued fight over IP,” he said. “And forcing the other side to just spend their money over and over again.” 

Congratulations to the people of Missouri who stood firm for reproductive rights. And shame on a state government that refuses to respect the will of its own people.

Glass Harp

 

The lead guitarist, Phil Keaggy, is acknowledged as one of the most underrated players of all time. Lyrics a bit midwest lame. 

Lonely in the middle.

As you are no doubt aware, all things MAGA have been soundly beaten in the last week. The repudiation of Trumpism has been total and has reached across every election booth in America.  It has been interesting to see the reaction in some right wing circles. According to them the problem is that the candidates weren't MAGA enough.

Supposedly Talerico and Hinojosa won because Rove and Abbott were RINOs and Cornyn didn't "help enough." Please. The honest truth is that Cornyn would have probably swept the floor with Talerico but Trump's hand picked candidate the Adulterer went down in flames instead.

The Iran war was a problem but there were a host of other problems contributing to the royal ass kicking, not the least of which were tariffs, gas and food prices and heavy handed ICE Gestapo tactics which contributed to labor shortages in farm states and alienated hispanic Americans.

Ultimately, those Republican candidates who hitched their wagons to Trump went down in a fiery pyre and frankly he could not care less.

Always only about him. 

Hey, he wasn't on the ballot. Those crowds of his...

You would think that a party that just absorbed such a historic ass whuppin' would engage in an honest bit of self appraisal and see where they lost their way.

Think again.

The Orange monstrosity is stepping on the gas and doubling down on the hard right plunge instead. 

Donald Trump set the stage for his administration to lurch further to the right this weekend, claiming the US had taken a “giant step back” by widely rejecting his party.

The US president’s hardline aide, Stephen Miller, will begin as White House chief of staff on Monday. He will also meet with Dana White, CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, after offering him the job of press secretary.

“America took a giant step back in History with the results of the last Election,” Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday morning, citing the sharp sell-off in global markets, fueled a rout of US tech stocks. “But have no fear, we will be back, BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

He still thinks that he is the greatest president that has ever lived and now has appointed his own little Goebbels as Chief of Staff. Ostensibly, he is a lame duck settling down in his bunker for the next two years ramming gilded vanity projects up America's posterior.

Leslie told me a joke that is going around today, when Stephen Miller takes viagra he only gets taller.

*

I look to the current political situation with a little hope but also a lot of pessimism. 

I am a centrist who gave up his Democratic registration over two years ago.

I think I know what is about to happen.

The progressive left will overestimate the strength of the election win and over reach, guaranteed.

They will forget that the election was basically about beef and gas prices and start all the stupid woke shit again, like allowing biologically born males to compete in women's sports and reparations. You like socialism? Look at the miserable records of the socialist mayors in Seattle and Oakland and get ready for disaster.

Eating the rich will not bring jobs and stability to your community as unfortunately they are the ones that usually provide jobs, not those playing in drum circles and balancing your chakras. Good luck with that.

Get ready for the progressives to stick their knives in any of the old guard that got them there, people like Schumer and Jeffries, the bearers of institutional knowledge that actually know the territory and paved the way.

And then there is Israel. My feelings on Netanyahu are pretty clear. But he still leads the only functioning democracy in the middle east, one where even muslim arabs have a vote. If the roles were reversed in Palestine, how do you think the Jews would fare?

El Sayed is the golden boy right now, polished and articulate. But I could not vote for either him or his opponent Mike Rogers, a MAGA anti abortion rubber stamp for Trump.

One of his own staff members, Mariam Odeh, was involved in some pernicious behavior that got her indicted. Some in the group talked in text mesages of poisoning jews in Michigan.

Odeh allegedly participated in vandalism and protests that included putting fake corpses on the lawns of faculty members, as well as spray painting anti-Israeli sentiments on the driveway of the president of the university at the time, according to prosecutors.

Federal officials announced Friday the addition of four more alleged co-conspirators to the indictment.

“No one has the right to threaten, intimidate, and coerce public officials, law enforcement officers, community institutions, or their families. In the dead of night, masked and hooded defendants allegedly threw noxious chemicals through the windows of families’ homes and taped demand letters to their front doors. At every step they attempted to cover their tracks and delete evidence of their crimes,” Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, said in a statement at the time of the indictment.

When the synagogue pre-school was bombed in West Bloomfield, El Sayed tried to justify the action by saying that "hurt people hurt people." Obviously you could use the same logic for every other form of terrorist activity, from 9/11 to the Achille Lauro. 

Somebody was hurting inside so they get a pass. I'm just not ready to celebrate the "armed resistance" that murdered 1200 unarmed innocent people, many of them young kids enjoying an electronic dance music concert in the Negev on October seventh either. Even if they were hurting.

It is very slippery slope from hating Israel to Kristallnacht. This is how it starts. Did you hear about what is happening in Philadelphia this week?  There is a new drive to boycott Jewish owned businesses. Thanks, I won't be joining your movement any time soon.

 ...the bike ride, which is mainly organized by Philly Bike On Your Left, is being done on the eve of the 88th anniversary of "Kristallnacht" or the "Night of Broken Glass," a night in which Jewish citizens in Germany saw their businesses and synagogues torched while tens of thousands were taken to concentration camps.

The organizers behind this bike ride claim they are not antisemitic, but "anti-zionist." A flyer for their bike ride includes the names of multiple Jewish-owned businesses, including a mac and cheese shop and a deli, with those names crossed out. The organizers said these "zionist establishments must go."

So now I get to go after the right and the left, with equal fervor, just like I always have and please nobody, as usual. 

Ellis - The New Yorker

 

Calexico

Thursday's child

Yesterday was a long day. I have suddenly developed an old man's prostate and I went to see a doctor to see what we could do about it.

I am not going to bitch too much about the interminable wait, it is a public hospital of course and some people had obviously been waiting longer than I had.

I was subjected to all sorts of gross bodily violations mostly seen in grody gay porn flicks but managed to finish up by peeing in this cone and getting the heck out of there while I still had most of my self respect and virtue intact.

Due to the particular physiognomy of my prostate I am in line for an old fashioned TURP, looks like beginning of December.

After the procedure yesterday I decided that I was close to my late sister Amie's grave and would pay her and my grandmother a visit down at the Home of Peace on Imperial Avenue.

It will be her birthday tomorrow.

Mine was today.

My routine after these sorts of medical events is to go get Chinese on Convoy but I thought that I would mix it up yesterday.

I had heard about a place in Chula Vista with the best tacos in San Diego and food far different than the normal fare Aqui es Texcoco.

It was only seven miles from the cemetery.

After a short cry I made my way down the five.

The restaurant is very clean and located in a newish strip center.

The menu is pretty amazing, dedicated to lamb barbacoa but I noticed rabbit, pork and chicken also on the menu.

Let's get real, where else around town can you find a whole lamb's head on a menu?

I asked them what they would recommend to a newbie and they emphatically suggested the basic lamb plate.

I decide to be extra daring and also order a huitlacoche quesadilla.

Huitlacoche Mycosarcoma maydis, or corn smut, is a fungus that grows on corn and tastes somewhat like a truffle.

It is a delicacy. Particularly served with cheese.

What the hell...

My food arrived with five condiment bowls of sauces, onions and limes.

In addition were fresh tortillas and a cup of a lamb consommé with chickpeas which I poured on the taco and then drank like a soup.

The food here was truly incredible for me, a lamb lover.

I was full after the lamb plate and looked at the quesadilla with dread and foreboding.

Could I take another bite?

But it was truly different and totally out of my gustatory experience and I am glad that I ordered it.

Washed everything down with a Jarritos Mandarin.

It is no wonder they have received so many rave reviews, including Zagat's best taco in San Diego award. 

Yo me gusto mucho y quiero regreso pronto.

Aqui es Texcoco

520 Broadway 5 & 6 Ste 5 & 6 Chula Vista, CA 91910

Monday I get my stints.

Jack of diamonds always gets his way.

Milo grabbed the gold...

My bobblehead from BigDave

I got back from Texas yesterday afternoon. I was gone for a while, left on October 19th, you do the math, I'm too tired.

It was a long show but a good show, I sold fairly steadily and met some nice people and new clients. Weather was near perfect with just one day of rain that I remember. Driving home was a different story but not too terrible.

I got to Round Top on a Wednesday and drove over and picked up a lovely germantown Navajo blanket that I had purchased from a friend. I love germantown eyedazzlers, they were made between 1865 and 1915 and were some of the most lovely and unusual native weavings.

Here is a picture of it on a bed in my motel room. Mint condition, with corner tassels and fringe and a very unusual yellow border color.

The wool was imported from a suburb of Philadelphia, the brightly colored commercial yard had four times the normal knot per inch count and allowed the Navajo to weave some of the most optically and visually interesting patterns that have ever been created.

I started setting up Thursday morning. 

For the last couple years I have favored a buff or sandstone backdrop paper but signals were crossed and I was instead given a bright yellow forsythia.

I thought that I would hate it but my stuff actually looked great on it so it was a happy accident and I will probably do it again.

I had about three days to setup, which is way more than enough so I had time to shop the other dealers and make some good buys including a room size Navajo that I sold to a California client.

Buying is always way more fun than selling in my line of work.

I also bought the two most beautiful aesthetic pieces of silver I have ever owned, sterling and mixed metal, replete with bugs, fish and turtle ornamentation.

Sold to a client instantly!

Steve and I also partnered a nice numbered lithograph by the latin artist Roberto Matta.

Booth turned out fine, I have gone from eighty foot of walls, to forty to thirty and now twenty but I think this size is perfect.

They threw in an outside wall which really helps.

I wasn't sure about the dealer across from me but he turned out to be as toxic, abrasive and sarcastic as I am and we ended up being a great fit together.

The show is more decoratively oriented than collector based so my inexpensive paintings sold first but I sold high end as well.

You have to bring a mix.

I have heard Roundtop referred to as the Texas Catwalk and it seems somewhat accurate.

Many of the women in Texas are stunningly beautiful and they parade through the show in similar dress.

I noticed much less ink than I see in California and far fewer full Ferdinand the bull style nose rings.

Breasts are not as augmented and eyebrows tend to be fuller and less plucked. 

There were less prairie dresses this year and possibly more plunging backlines. 

All in all, quite lovely and entertaining.

Found a great barbecue nearby in Burton, Truth Barbecue, their second location. 

One of the big Texas magazines calls them third best in the state.

I had ribs and brisket, potato salad and a root beer. 

Brisket was good but honestly the ribs were the best I have ever had.

I chatted with the owner, Leonard, for a few minutes.

Really nice guy.

I'm not going to talk to much about the food, was good and bad, ate too much beef and had some mediocre seafood.

Had two good meals at Las Patronas, quail and ribs.

Went to all my old haunts.

Did have a great steak and lobster meal at Burton Steak and Seafood with a bunch of friends and my sister Laurie, who drove up from Corpus Christie.

I love and admire my little sister.

I didn't take many pictures, was too busy, only when compelled.

Barry thought I was remiss in not including a picture of this colorful young woman who wandered into my booth. 

A lawyer no less.

We exchanged instagram addresses. Hmmm.

Room for all of god's creatures.  

Think she might have benefitted from an older fellow's wisdom and guidance.

Of course I was there on Halloween and there were some other clever if less revealing costumes walking around.

Unfortunately the show was mired in tragedy. A dealer I had known for over thirty years was murdered in a strange love triangle scenario. I think I know what actually went down but won't speculate publicly here.

He may have said something to the wrong guy at the wrong time, in the company of the wrong woman.

The deceased owed me thousands of dollars for many years, finally paid up but stiffed a good friend of mine for several thousand dollars in show fees at Napa. 

My last interaction with him was not very pleasant in Santa Barbara, he was jealous of me for some reason and decided to be an asshole.

Still it was a shame. He was finally finding his footing and building up a clientele in Texas and was robbed of his life just as he was coming into his own. Had a son and a mom who loved him and he didn't deserve to die, for sure.

I left Sunday morning, drove into a small rainstorm. I stopped at Van Horn for a night and then Tucson where I bought a lovely Kawaiisu bottleneck basket from Mark. Then on to Phoenix to spend the last night at Steve's before the relatively short third day drive home. 

Sue made a delicious ox tail beef pie with cinnamon and coriander from a recipe of Chef Ahmed, the owner of Jambo in Santa Fe.

So delicious!

Long trip, good to be home.

Bingo

 I think conservative commentator Erick Erickson said it best.

I could add a few things but why rub it in?

Remember the cowards

I am not foolish enough to make election predictions in our deeply divided nation. We will all know the eventual outcomes soon enough.

But I do predict a heaping amount of one metric in our near future, historical revisionism. The amount of Republicans who will try to tell you that they had thwarted their great leader at every turn during his tenure will be sky high.

Of course, they did it all covertly so no one on the outside would be able to tell.

The truth is that with the exception of a few outgoing retirees or lame ducks like Tillis, Cornyn and Cassidy the GOP has been conspicuously silent on all matters Trump.

People that should have stood for something, people like Mike Johnson and Thune, stood by and let the Orange monstrosity do his worst with nary a peep. Cowards.

Let's not forget.

The Rapper

Paxton Blues

I landed in my destination in Texas this afternoon after three full days of driving. I have been watching the political signage both in Texas and Arizona, saw nothing in New Mexico.

Trump's name appeared in Andy Biggs signage as Trump endorsed. Not many places where that is broadcast with Trump's abysmal polling numbers but I guess he still shines in Tucson.

I saw very little Trump signage in Texas but a lot of signs endorsing Paxton for Senate. Two for Talarico. 

Keep waiting to see one that reads "I'm voting for the adulterer."

Newen Afrobeat plays Fela Kuti

My favorite worldbeat band.

The Sirens of Elon

The world's richest man wants congressional democrats to know that he is keeping a list and they better not go after him or risk holy hell.

Elon Musk vowed to push back on Democratic lawmakers who may seek to use oversight powers against him if they're able to gain control of one or both chambers of Congress.

Musk responded to a story by Politico that detailed how Democrats have considered ways in which they could investigate the billionaire and his businesses like Tesla and SpaceX.

"Live by the sword, die by the sword," Musk wrote in a post on his X platform.

"Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets."

On the heels of being caught lying to the world about throttling Ukraine's Starlink connection, one would be a fool not to believe that the man would do anything to destroy his perceived enemies. Think of his immense power. who could stand up to it?  That is why we should never allow such power to be controlled by a private citizen. It ended up killing a bunch of Ukrainian children last week.

Think Trump is vindictive? This man will take it to a new level, he is quite deranged. Remember when he labelled the people who rescued the Thai children trapped in caves pedophiles. Something is just not right with this guy. And he has some rather peculiar habits, to say the least.

Elon Musk refers to the mothers of his 14 known children as “breeders” and is fixated with procreation, according to a new documentary on the world’s richest man.

The film Musk, directed by the Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney, was filmed over three years and charts his rise to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.

After the four-hour documentary premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, reviewers described it as a “lacerating portrait” that depicts Musk as “petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel”.

Perhaps he will reseed the galaxy with a host of his own divine offspring?

There has been talk the DOGE illegally sucked up a lot of very private and personal data from American citizens. I sure would like to know what the extent of his involvement was and if he kept anything he should not have.

The man seemingly has no boundaries, financially or morally.

I was thinking about Musk today and my mind kept going back to the 1959 Kurt Vonnegut book, The Sirens of Titan. 

It was never my favorite, some loved it, but there is a very Musk like character in the book named Malachi Constant.

A man who had it all and ultimately went to space.

Malachi Constant is the richest man in a future North America. He possesses extraordinary luck that he attributes to divine favor which he has used to build upon his father's fortune. He becomes the centerpoint of a journey that takes him from Earth to Mars in preparation for an interplanetary war, to Mercury with another Martian survivor of that war, back to Earth to be pilloried as a sign of Man's displeasure with his arrogance, and finally to Titan where he again meets the man ostensibly responsible for the turn of events that have befallen him, Winston Niles Rumfoord.

Rumfoord comes from a wealthy New England background. His private fortune was large enough to fund the construction of a personal spacecraft, and he became a space explorer. Traveling between Earth and Mars, his ship—carrying Rumfoord and his dog, Kazak—entered a phenomenon known as a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, which is defined in the novel as "those places ... where all the different kinds of truths fit together."

I would not trade places with either Musk or Bezos. Life seems to lose its moral equilibrium when a person has it all and those surrounding them often become collateral, ancillary figures.