2020 Election Early Voting Dates.

Thanks to Maya Contreras for this chart that breaks down all of the early voting dates for the most important and consequential election in American  history.

If you aren't registered to vote, bust a move to do so because the deadlines to do so are rapidly approaching in many states.

 If you are registered and have a GOP Secretary of State, you may wish to frequently double check your registration  to make sure you haven't been purged from the voter rolls.

VT Day  (Victory over Trump Day) is November 3.   But avoid the long lines and handle your electoral business early .

I know I will.   In Texas early voting starts on October 13 and runs until Halloween (October 31)
And I can't wait.


Handle your business

Kamala Harris VP Acceptance Speech

History was made on Wednesday night as Kamala Harris became the first woman of color and only the third in US history to be nominated as vice president.

It was a night in which the ancestors and many peeps across America were beaming with pride as they saw her stand behind that podium in Wilmington, DE to deliver the acceptance speech.

For those of you who missed it, here's the video for it.

Not Feeling The (White) Trans Community Hatred Of Kamala Harris

I was overjoyed to hear Kamala Harris' name called Tuesday when Joe Biden announced his running mate for the critically important November 3 election. 

Sen. Harris was my first choice for president.  She has been on my political radar ever since I saw her speak on a criminal justice panel during one of Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union conversations in 2006. 

I've paid attention as she has successfully made trailblazing runs for (and won) San Francisco DA, California attorney general, and now as only the second Black female US senator in American history.

Her selection by Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate shows that he knows the importance of winning this election and recognizes Black women are the base of the Democratic Party.  Biden also recognizes the fact that without Black voters across the country getting in formation for him, he wouldn't be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.

Biden also recognizes he needs Black voters to come out in massive numbers to oust Trump from the White House.

But what has pissed me off is the massive ignorance I'm seeing so far occurring in Trans World about Sen. Harris.   There are trans peeps, especially in the sections of it who are still mad (and can stay mad) about Bernie losing, who are exhibiting an off the charts level of hatred aimed at Sen. Harris.

Joining them in the hatefest are the peeps who were mad that Elizabeth Warren didn't get chosen to be Vice POTUS.

Calling Harris a TERF?   Really fools?  That is a smear that not only is easily debunked, but is so off the charts idiotic that it makes me question the mental acuity of the people who parrot it.

I'm also not going to waste time and space in this post debating that ridiculous birther BS either.

And naw trans boo boo kitties, your dislike of Sen. Harris isn't about policy.  I see your pink and white trans flag pointed hoods showing.  For some of y'all it's about your racism you're trying to cloak in a BS policy argument but failing mightily to do so. 

So let's get to the reality of where Kamala Harris stands when it comes to trans specific issues.

Let's start with the July 2006 two day conference she organized to come up with ways to push back against and defeat the trans panic defense.   That conference was attended by over 200 prosecutors and law enforcement officials from across the nation.

In 2014, as the California DA, she supported AB 2501, a bill authored by Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla that banned the use of the trans and gay panic defense in California.

She has also as a senator filed the federal bill (S.1721) to ban the use of the trans and gay panic defense.  She has repeatedly called out anti-trams violence aimed at Black trans women, and expressed her vehement opposition to Trump's anti-trans military service ban.

As California AG, she also joined with other AG's in several states in submitting the 2016 amicus brief in opposition of North Carolina's transphobic HB 2.  She also did the same in the Gavin Grimm case and joined 11 other states in doing so. 

Attorney General Harris also joined 11 states in filing an amicus brief in State of Texas v. United States, in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas, to support federal guidance that discrimination based on gender identity constitutes unlawful discrimination based on sex and that schools risk losing Title IX-linked funding unless they permit students to use facilities consistent with their gender identity.

And yes, let's also address the persistent lie that Harris 'opposed surgery for trans inmates'.

The California AG office is the designated attorney for all California state agencies.   That means when they have to go to court on an issue, the AG's office represents them.

The California AG office is the largest state attorney's office in the nation, with five divisions and over 1000 attorneys working for it.    Harris was as AG in an executive position several layers of management above the attorneys who would try those cases.

So when a trans inmate filed a case to force the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation to allow her to have GCS while incarcerated, they were obligated to defend it.

When Harris discovered this case was happening, she worked behind the scenes to not only settle the case in favor of the trans inmates, but force the California Dept of Corrections & Rehabilitation to change the policy.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention she participated as a speaker at the 2005 SF Trans March.

I'm also tired of hearing the 'Kamala hates sex workers' BS as well.   She went after the pimps and sex traffickers, not the sex workers caught up un the system. 

When Angelica Ross and Shea Diamond both questioned her about those cases, she apologized, and took responsibility for those cases.  Ross and Diamond were satisfied with her answers, and if they were good with it, so am I.

Warning you now.   KHive is not playing with you peeps (and neither am I) when we say that ANY disrespect of Senator Kamala Harris from now until Election Day and beyond will be met with massive pushback and CVS level receipts debunking lies and fake talking points.

You wanna try us, go right ahead, but it will end badly for you.

So no, I'm not feeling the hatred that trans fauxgressives are aiming at Harris, and it needs to stop.
 

Two Trans Texans Running For The Texas Lege!

When we get to cast ballots in the general election this November, Texas Democrats are only nine tantalizing flipped seats away from gaining control of the Texas House for the first time since 2002 .

That would be huge as we go into a 2021 legislative session that will have redistricting on the agenda.

One of the things that would also be huge is if that new class of 2021 legislators had trans Texans as part of it. 

While we have actually had trans Texans serve in public office, we unfortunately have never had a trans Texan be elected to any public office in the Lone Star State. 

Phyllis Frye has been serving since 2010 as a Houston municipal judge,  and was appointed to the position by then Mayor Annise Parker 

Jess Herbst served as mayor of New Hope, TX for two years,   She was serving on city council as the mayor pro tem and took over after the mayor's May 2016 death. She unfortunately lost her bid to win a full term of her own in 2018.

In 2018 Finn Jones advanced out of an uncontested Democratic primary to take on one of the Texas trans community's biggest haters in incumbent District 94 Rep Tony Tinderholt.(R).  Jones made history as the first out Texas trans person to make it to a legislative general election race, and the first out trans masculine Texans to win a party primary . 

Unfortunately, even in a great election year for Texas Democrats, we couldn't get that electoral breakthrough we needed.  Tinderholt was one of the few North Texas House Republicans to survive the Blue Tsunami and win reelection 

So while we trans Texans are still looking for someone to make that Lone Star State history and get elected, history was made on March 3 when two trans feminine Texans won their Democratic primary races to make it to the November 2020 ballot.

In the Panhandle, Addison Perry Franks secured her spot in the District 83 general election by beating James Barrick  by a 54%-46% margin in the Democratic Primary. 

Perry-Franks will take on incumbent Rep Dustin Barrows (R) in the fall and attempt to flip the Lubbock area seat blue. . .

Meanwhile in Central Texas'  House District 17, Madeline Eden was advancing to the general election against incumbent Rep. Jon Cyrier (R), who was also unopposed in the GOP primary.   Cyrier has held this Austin metro area seat since 2015.

Eden is the current chair of the Bastrop County Stonewall Democrats and a former Democratic Party precinct chair.  She has also been endorsed by the Victory Fund.

So here;'s hoping that Eden flips that Centex seat.

And we could have a third trans person running for the Texas Lege if perennial candidate Jenifer Rene Pool wins the Texas House District 138 Democratic runoff for this Houston area seat against Akilah Bacy.

This was the seat that former Rep Dwayne Bohac (R) won by a razor thin 47 votes over Adam Milasincic in 2018, and Bohac retired when the 2019 session concluded.   This seat is seen as a prime pickup opportunity for Texas Democrats, and its a must get.

The winner in that May 22 runoff will take on Republican candidate Lacey Hull in the general.

So will 2020 finally be the year that Texas trans people get a trans person elected to The Lege?
We'll find out in November

Biden Sweeps St Patrick's Day 2020 Democratic Primaries

Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, only three of the scheduled four states held primaries last night in Arizona,  Florida, and Illinois.   But that didn't stop the Joementum that has been building since Biden crushed Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary back on February 29.

Biden didn't just sweep all three primary contests, it was a political beatdown.  He not only decisively won Florida and Illinois to open the night, he prevailed in Arizona to open a sizable lead in the delegate count.

Florida was expected to be a 'YUGE' loss for Sanders because of his pro-Castro comments during that disastrous 60 Minutes interview combined with a Latinx electorate made up predominately of Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who don't have warm and fuzzy memories of socialism.

Oh yeah, because I need to remind some of y'all who the base of the Democratic Party is, Florida also has a 16% Black population.

It turned out to be Sanders' worst political nightmare.   The Sunshine State was the big delegate prize of the evening with 219 delegates up for grabs, and Biden handled his Florida business by winning every county in the state.

Biden captured 61.9% of the vote and the lion's share of the available delegates.   It was the fourth state this 2020 primary season in which he swept every county.

It was just as bad for Team Sanders in Illinois, where 155 pledged delegates were in play.
Biden captured 59.1% of the vote and 101 of the state's counties.  The only one Biden lost was Champaign County, which is the home of  the University of Illinois 

And ahem, Black population percentage in Illinois is 14%.

It was closer in Arizona, where Latinx people make up 25% of the electorate and have been in Sanders camp for much of this primary season.   Black population percentage in the Grand Canyon State is 4.1%.

It only had 67 delegates in play, and Biden had been trailing in the state to Sanders as late as March 3.

Biden edged Sanders by a 43%-32% margin.   Arizona awards 23 of its delegates to the person who wins the statewide contest, and the other 44 are allocated based on how well you do in each of the states nine congressional districts.   Biden swept all nine congressional districts

Biden is now well on his way to capturing the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination, with after last night's  contests, 1165 delegates.    You need 1991 to capture the Democratic nomination on a convention first ballot.   Sanders has only 880 with states demographically friendly to Biden up on the calendar assuming those primaries aren't delayed like Ohio's was yesterday. 

It's past time for the Sanders campaign to assess where they are, because the unmistakable message that is being sent by Democratic primary voters is they don't think you can win in November. 

You have lost 19 contests since February 28, many by lopsided margins, and it's past time for you to consider dropping  out in order to unify the party so that Biden can pivot to Job Number One in making Donald Trump a one term impeached POTUS.

But I don't expect you to do that.

Facebook Censoring The Truth Again

The snowflakes at Facebook are big mad about two posts that have been deemed as 'going against community standards'.   Community Standards that are shifted more than Donald Trump does with the truth.

One of the posts that was blocked was one from POLITICO which blows up the prevailing media narrative that 'Bernie Sanders does well with young voters'  by interviewing a group of young Latinx voters in Florida who will not be voting for him today.

Why aren't these Latinx voters flocking to Sanders as other Latinx peeps in other parts of the country are?   Because the Florida Latinx peeps are either Cubans or they came from Latin American countries like Nicaragua and Venezuela.   They either personally experienced or hear the stories from their grandparents where socialism went horribly wrong or they dealt with authoritarian regimes.

So unlike their peeps in the Southwest, they are looking at Sanders through a different lens and set of experiences, and talk about in the article why they won't be voting for Sanders because of it.

But that POLITICO article is being taken down from people's Facebook pages who post it for the nebulous 'Community Standards' reason.

What inquiring minds wanna know is why this article is being stricken from people's Facebook pages.

The other post that is being wiped off of people's Facebook pages is one from The Root and the Very Smart Brothas looking at the COVID-19 response and asserting it's a natural response of white supremacy.

It breaks down why Republicans, and conservative white peeps in general, seem to be in knee jerk reaction mode when it comes to the coronavirus and any criticism leveled at Dear Orange Misleader in terms of how badly he and this misadministration handled this COVID-19 pandemic.

It makes the case that white supremacy is permeating through this response, and that's plausible, especially since Dolt 45 has started racistly referring to COVID-19 at the 'Chinese Virus'.

But that article is plucking some vanillacentric privileged nerves, and as routinely happens on Facebook with any post or article critiquing the behavior of white people, whiteness or white supremacy, it gets labeled as a 'violation of  Facebook's 'Community Standards'

Frankly, what they're doing is censoring commentary that is uncomfortable for them to hear, and it's irritating when they do this.   It's even more irritating when Facebook censors commentary from Black writers that is critical of whiteness and white supremacy.


TransGriot Update:   Turns out that these aren't the only articles being blocked.  Facebook is claiming it's a glitch.