The “Surrender Caucus” within the Republican Party will go down in infamy as weak and ineffective “guardians” of our Nation, who were willing to accept the certification of fraudulent presidential numbers! This claim about election fraud is disputed Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 45th President of the United States of America Washington, DC Vote.DonaldJTrump.com

All 10 living ex-defense secretaries: The election is over. Trying to use the military to dispute the result would be dangerous. The Washington Post @washingtonpost Democracy Dies in Darkness. Washington, DC washingtonpost.com

Adding my voice to others calling on pro-democracy Americans to stay off the streets of DC this week as Trump and his allies attempt to mobilize provocative demonstrations against the election results. Please do not take the bait and become part of the problem. We’ve already won. Evan McMullin @EvanMcMullin Executive Director of @StandUpRepublic. Former: CIA ops officer, GOP policy director, independent presidential candidate. pr***@*************ic.comSalt Lake City standuprepublic.com

I will be there. Historic day! Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 45th President of the United States of America Washington, DC Vote.DonaldJTrump.com

I was talking to a friend yesterday and she is worried about January 6th and the damage that will be done to the remnants of our democracy. It is scary but I also think that the press in blowing this out of proportion. I don’t think we are talking about a huge turnout here and, I think, there is an excellent chance Trump will not show. I know he said he would be there but the number of things, such as a replacement health plan for ObamaCare or One Trillion dollars in infrastructure improvements, that both Donald Trump and President Trump have said he would do in the future and didn’t must number over several hundred.

At the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, there were somewhere between 50 and 250 – depending on whose numbers you trust – white supremacists including members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and Klansmen. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous, one asshole who killed a counter protester and wounded 39 more is now spending like in jail without possibility of parole (and, so far, President Trump hasn’t pardoned him). If ten times that many people show up, that is still not very many.

I may be wrong, there are a lot of very angry people out there and they are being stirred up by Trump but I don’t think they are the real danger, I think the irresponsible Republican party leaders who are trying to join the cause are the real problem. I hope they are held accountable. In the meantime, I would like to end with one of my favorite General Ulysses S. Grant quotes.

After the second night at Goliad, Benjamin and I started to make the remainder of the journey alone. We reached Corpus Christi just in time to avoid “absence without leave.” We met no one not even an Indian–during the remainder of our journey, except at San Patricio. A new settlement had been started there in our absence of three weeks, induced possibly by the fact that there were houses already built, while the proximity of troops gave protection against the Indians. On the evening of the first day out from Goliad, we heard the most unearthly howling of wolves, directly in our front. The prairie grass was tall and we could not see the beasts, but the sound indicated that they were near. To my ear, it appeared that there must have been enough of them to devour our party, horses and all, at a single meal. The part of Ohio that I hailed from was not thickly settled, but wolves had been driven out long before I left. Benjamin was from Indiana, still less populated, where the wolf yet roamed over the prairies. He understood the nature of the animal and the capacity of a few to make believe there was an unlimited number of them. He kept on towards the noise, unmoved. I followed in his trail, lacking moral courage to turn back and join our sick companion. I have no doubt that if Benjamin had proposed returning to Goliad, I would not only have “seconded the motion” but have suggested that it was very hard-hearted in us to leave Augur sick there in the first place; but Benjamin did not propose turning back. When he did speak it was to ask: “Grant, how many wolves do you think there are in that pack?” Knowing where he was from, and suspecting that he thought I would over-estimate the number, I determined to show my acquaintance with the animal by putting the estimate below what possibly could be correct and answered: “Oh, about twenty,” very indifferently and rode on.

In a minute we were close upon them, and before they saw us. There were just TWO of them. Seated upon their haunches, with their mouths close together, they had made all the noise we had been hearing for the past ten minutes. I have often thought of this incident since when I have heard the noise of a few disappointed politicians who had deserted their associates. There are always more of them before they are counted.

I was going to write this for Winter Solstice, then for New Years, now it is getting past the time of year to look back. Still, even as the Trump Presidency and 2020 fade into the past, the tidal pull and drama of the daily headlines continue to pull me away from contemplation. I want to think about the arc and influence of this strange year but the urgency of what we were told was the most important presidential election since the Civil War has now morphed into, what we are told, is the most important Senate election in this century, is still crowding out almost everything but the present.

When I first started writing this, President Trump had gone to Mar-Largo for Christmas just like Michael Cohan predicted a month ago. Cohen, who does know Donald Trump pretty well, also said that Trump will not return to the White House but continue to play president from Florida – while he plays golf, I guess – but Trump now says he will be coming back to Washington in time for the protests over his being unable to change the election results. But, really, who knows what is future faking and what is real with Trump. BTW, Ivanka and Jared Kushner also seem to be moving to Florida, they bought a lot on a high-security island near Miami for 30 million. As an aside, the island’s elevation is five feet above sea level so I’m inclined to believe that they really don’t believe in Climate Change (although I read that the storm sewers are already running backward during king tides in the City of Miami Beach so some people must have noticed something is happening).

I’ve started falling back on the “well, taylor swift wrote/produced 2 albums in the past 9 months, certainly I can at least vacuum” lro@LRo70 science doesn’t care what you think. Manhattan, NY instagram.com/larryrowe1/

As 2020 winds down towards the Winter Solstice, President Trump is no longer the focus of the world’s attention, two, two!, Covid-19 vaccines are their way – faster than expected and faster than usual because of the same Trump – and President-elect Biden is still making noises that suggest he is serious about both diversity and climate change. Even though the pandemic is raging across the country out of control, hope for an end to this bad trip is coming back.

With everybody stuck at home, the only reason to put up holiday decorations is for ourselves; nobody will see our tree and the carefully displayed decorations but us and that gives the tree and the other decorations a certain purity.

I saw one of my favorite houses on the Noah Trevor Daily Social Distancing Show a couple of days ago and I was thrilled. He was Zooming with an actor I only know from television and the actor was in the house (on the first floor by the fishpond, I think). I worked as a carpenter for the owner and designer Allyn Morris, on a house down the street, and was in the house almost every day for several months and it was sensational. It took my breath away every time I walked in which was Morris’s plan. The street view was an almost blank facade but, when you entered, you were standing on a landing in front of a two-story glass wall facing the Glendale Freeway with the San Gabriels behind. For a long time, Morris got very little recognition but, now, he is getting much-deserved credit. It turns out that the actor is the new owner and the house looked great behind the owner. If you are at all interested in architecture, check it out here: The A.E. Morris Residence | Crosby Doe Associates, Inc.

If you’re looking for an interesting read and are still not bored with politics, I suggest What It Takes, The Way to the White House, a book about the 1988 Presidential Election, by Richard Ben Cramer written in a sort of breathless Tom Wolfe style. It is fascinating (although very long at over a thousand pages and very dense). The book follows each of the major candidates, George “Poppy” Herbert Walker Bush who, you may remember, won and Bob Dole on the Republican side; Michael Dukakis, Joe Biden, Dick Gephardt, and Gary Hart – with a cameo by Jesse Jackson – on the Democratic side as they run for the presidency but it also traces their roots sometimes all the way back to their grandparents. The book is fascinating not only because of the various candidates and not only because so many of today’s problems existed in the 80s in a nascent form, but because Cramer often presents information in a way that I haven’t thought about before.

As Bush starts to run for the Senate, he has a set of advisers who call themselves the Gee-6 who Cramer describes: The name was a tip-off: it was a play on the G-, the Group of Seven – Prime Ministers and Presidents who’d meet, from time to time, for photos and to decide what the dollar should be worth, what to do about oil, how the civilized world would fight terrorism, that kind of thing. It was the U.S., Japan, Germany Britain, France, Italy, maybe Canada was in there…pretty much everybody who can make a decent car. The meetings, the group photo, were meant to convey to the world’s unwashed that the Free World big boys, the guys with the twelve-inch GNPs bulging in their pants, were all agreed how the game should be played.

I’ve never thought of the Group of Seven that way, that arbitrary and dictatorial, before. I’ve sort of thought – and thought is the wrong word here, not much thinking was going on, mostly just taking in what I been told – was a benevolent organization keeping the world on track. And, of course, that is true…with the addition of for the benefit of the rich countries making the rules. One of the things that I’ve become much more aware of during the year of staying home is how the rules and regulations we are told is good for the commonweal are self-seving to the rule makers.

One of the signs that the Republicans really know that Biden has won is that they are now worried about the National Debt when the talk turns to giving survival money to people who are out of work, destitute, and hungry. It was not a problem when Congress and the President gave themselves a big tax cut, but giving broke, starving, people money, we are now being told, is not good for the country.

Late Saturday, pro-Trump supporters descended on the nation’s capital and clashed with counter-protesters. Among the most vocal Trump supporters were members of Proud Boys, which is considered a hate group by human rights activists. More than a dozen people were arrested and four taken to the hospital with what authorities described as serious knife wounds. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers continued Sunday to shy away from urging Trump to accept reality. Los Angeles Times, December 13, 2020.

The Supremes, by a vote of seven to two, have voted to not hear what seems to be President-unelect Trump’s last legal chance to change the Presidential election (although, apparently, Trump has taken his case to YouTube). This whole thing has been surprising and distressing to me.