The price of a (small) spruce is up to hundreds? Balsam besides. So I pine away. Eva Gabor of Green Acres didn’t have to worry about this, because I think she played the stock market well. Because of this doing, had plenty of dough. So she didn’t have to raise one herself.

To the point: Price gouging is a gift that keeps on giving, galore and they gotcha and just keep grabbing more, or keeping you from doing the same. Harris had that nagging woe natilly nailed, with her platform that had few planks because why, price of wood is so high and she was being outspent. But going back to gouging, just how can this all be? And how is it playing out in the fact that it’s much tougher to load up under the tree, or get one straight and tall, much less buy it to start with? The star on top might fade, and lights flicker away.

— Is BOGO a Christmas term? Is Two Minutes To Midnight an Xmas jingle? These are a pair of last minute holiday gift ideas that as such are beyond what’s become the usual buy $100 worth, and get $25, or even just $20: (1) At the Dairy Queen, Hudson branch only, half-off on gift certificates in virtually any domination, if you want to increase your winter chill with some ice cream. Nothing says and sells seasons like a Blizzard. (2) At Kwik Trip, a total of two BOGO tickets for Bucky Badger to their own Holiday Face-Off college hockey tournament down in Milwaukee, at the Fiserv Forum.

Or, you can just get brand-name cigs, and a two-pack and not solely in hip-hop, for $2 off, but you have to be a member of the loyalty club, so sign up! Oh yeah, the special is at Joe’s Mart on the south end of downtown Hudson, across from the DQ by the way, and let it be thus known that despite the name, I’m not a member of the ownership team  and have no vested or otherwise proprietary interest in their relatively new venture. —

The need just keeps on getting greater, for those marginally valued these days who are on the margin, right in time for the holidays and the season of give-that-killer-gift as one-upmanship concerning your affluent family, and Thank God and Goodness my very own family is beyond forgiving. They have put-up for years with my cheap White Elephant-turned-slate-gray — almost like the before-burnt color of coal that reasonably should be put in my stocking? — vague attempts at Xmas presents, all done in the name of it’s the thought that counts. But maybe if you burn that coal to a cinder — isn’t that kinda what the grinch did? — it becomes a bit whiter, to save the holiday. 

Backing up to describe the now-more-than-ever-need, when money for gifts is needed, even to be done by the needy. That nary-the-poor-price makeup note attached to the holiday card only goes so far. And I’m sure there are those who truly cannot scrounge up a White Elephant gift or dish to pass.  

I recall seeing some pretty good looking, surplus furniture being set out for free on the lawn of The Phipps Center For The Arts, and it was all snapped up before nightfall. And that occurrence was in summer.

Food pantries and various other distribution places are seeing greater and greater numbers of clients, judging from a quick survey of such entities in the area. In my apartment building, the rate at which extra produce and dry goods that’s donated by residents so their neighbors can partake has stepped up in pace month by month. Same day as placed out, it’s often taken, and people are being less and less picky. This is time-of-month dependent, as for when people get their benefit checks, or these days direct deposits — there are no more actual food stamps, just plastic swipe cards that these days hey you never know, might have a chip incumbent or included or embedded or incurred — but even that benchmark on hang-tight-until-The-First-Of-The-Month is going by the wayside. Back to the people in my apartment complex and its gathering and food table station, who will settle for cans of free generic black beans becomes a barometer. Green beans maybe not as much so. And so many more people have to resort to going on the Greyhound bus, another barometer, or maybe can’t even afford the ticket.

The Haves among the Have Nots are doing quite well, thank you, and this is shown by the fact that while some of these people are placing old (easy) chairs out on the curb for free, some are just chucking out ones that some people would take, in the dumpster, sometimes more than one at once. (I myself have picked up from the curb a usable table, and also what looked like a wooden version of an Xmas Red Ryder to stack on top, to work as an overflow food pantry, and love the two-inch-wide strips on either side of it for stuffing stuff that kept encumbering my cabinet space, like counting up cake mixes.)

All this taps at something that the Democrats should have hammered home more often: Their candidate for the highest office in the land had said, on occasion, that she would go after, like she did in her day as DA, those charging ungodly high prices. She did not say just how she would minimize price gouging, as it was called, But that would resonate, you would think, with those whining about rises in grocery prices.

But how did grocery prices skyrocket, well beyond the factor of inflation? I don’t think it is your typical grocer, or farmer, making those extra bucks, and there of course is always the middle-man. But as I now shoot oddly from the hip, unlike the accuracy of Old School Matt Dillon As Marshal, look as you needed to do, and still must, past just Big Pharma. Go also with your wrath to Big Corp — and Big Insurance and Big Legal — as in the very-large-scale producers of things like those tractors and all kinds of wagons, and lots of other implements that plow the fields, and make products like fertilizers and seed and pesticides, (and these are being rounded up these days), and the list could go on forever. And don’t forget the crazy prices of real estate, as in the land to plant on. All these things drive up the cost to produce food, and it’s the big corporations who mass produce them, then sell them, at whatever the market will bear. And if you want to try to get insurance in a fire-ravaged area, good luck in its adjusting.

These factors are going to be there no matter who is in office, and that’s the case too with all the blow-up-everything wars across the world, and natural disasters that mess with their farmers getting food on your table. And with global warming and the havoc it has reeked with what-we’re-finally-now-seeing-as-delicate ecosystems, growing conditions are impaired. Even right here in Wisconsin we have seen the records fall, or close to it, in categories such as drought and flooding. Yes, both of them, in the same years.

Top that off with massive tariffs that will mean the extra cost has to be picked up by someone, and that’s you oh Joe Consumer, and things are not going to get better soon.

What we really need to do is go after That Sticky Circumstance Of The Stock Market. No amount of dividend or shares gaining greater value is going to be enough to satisfy the typical holder of stock in what, corporations! The more they get, the more they want, and feeding this machine becomes more important than ethical behavior. Even the dough paid out to greedy CEOs, large amounts of it seen in massive market holdings of their own stock, pales by comparison with these numbers. (I’ll check out actual numbers, to see just how bad this teller impact is, in a subsequent post.)

Until then, check out the song by get-this, British-based-band Dire Straits, called Industrial Disease, becoming his country’s fall from grace as a machining powerhouse. They have seen the problem since (shortly after?) the ’70s. The song tanked in the US, but was killer on the UK music charts, as they were ahead of us in this game, in recognizing the problem, and seeing things as global before it was a buzz word.

Also, in recent times being a CEO is not a walk in the park, and many are quietly or not so much so leaving their sky-high posts and coming down to earth. But too late, they have become a tangible symbol for corporate greed, as nobody is worth that much money — although a former co-worker, this back in the ’80s, got mad at me for saying such, as her father was a big-shot and with every penny!?! I refer to multiple verses in the Judas Priest song named Breaking The Law, and others of the like from this working class band from an industrial area, cramming a lot of thought into a tune that weighs in at just over two minutes long. So when that health corporation exec was shot to death recently, does that violent act really surprise us? It shouldn’t.

Victim of Changes, sings the priest. Without warning, somethings dawning.

Star Wars are nothing compared to the Local Store Wars that have woven their way back into the Hudson Hill retail scene, tilting the landscape several blocks to the west, and not just because we’re heading back toward the river.

Another Minnesota as well stalwart, Festival Foods, has been built, complete with on-sale-only liquor, as we like Zep look to the west, and enters the fray, jumping in on opening day like a baseball game with a completely full lot, to a car, and loads of people in each and every line. County Market now finds itself needing to readjust their market position.

Family Fresh grocery was here but then it’s gone, a few years back, and now the big building across the parking lot from the Target has as occupant another retailer, or two or three, and the monopolizing effect meant that County Market, across the freeway, could jack up their prices. At least a little. That was pre-pandemic.

No more, of such stickering. So stop snickering. Festival Foods has moved in where a torn-down big motel had been, a rebuild that added at least and at last a second full-fledged grocer to the Hudson scene. Walmart, not the super kind like in New Richmond, does not count as full-fledged. And the new grocer constructed their store in a place with not much else next door.

— The newest decorating craze finds drivers pasting strings of Christmas lights onto sides mostly, but also hoods and roofs of their car or truck, and in that case payload too. The first one I saw in Hudson ran down the main drag with hundreds, including five orange ones — an odd line and color choice — across the very top of his thick visors. Some strings also spread from the high up cab across to the rear gate.

Outside the Smilin’ Moose, the painted truck passed between two different party buses, parked on either side of the street, thus taking up two of the four lanes.

Outside Hop N Barrel I saw, between parked cars, a man with a yellow construction-type jersey between a group of people, Was he in security, maybe even a designated driver — nope, he was gathering up gift boxes to be wrapped there as part of a community project. —

Within a month before Festival Foods opened, the County Market dropped prices, cents off each dollar spent there — get limit-four canned veggies for 49 cents — and brought back more frequently some old faves in its couponing, which is quite different in signature style and information delivery method from its competitor, which is often more detailed. There also are stark differences in their other retail services offered, with each store having many. (See the end of this post.) So let the Store Wars begin. And the consumer advantage is now. At both current stores.

But first I have to give County Market some love.

In early fall, I had to leave town in a hurry for a family matter, and the a.m. bus would be here soon. But the really cool coupons, mailed to me and everyone in the Hudson area so there is only one copy for each, expired later that day. So an early morning rush to County Market.

I thought I had it nailed. If I use the five-bucks-off-50-coupon once, then take the second one I found lying face-down in the parking lot, thus circle around and go to a different aisle with a different clerk …

Damn, the store was quite quiet and there was only one cashier, mainly, encouraging self-checkout. But I wasn’t confident enough for such with my use of couponing … Plan thwarted.

But still had a few minutes, though my driver was getting bored with YouTube. I thought I’d go, discreetly, to the self-checkout farthest from the main cashier area. Got most of the goods through, but then a problem, and I blame it on myself. Seconds clicking away. Turned out I coulda used an hour.

Darn if that lone clerk didn’t come over to help. She was very nice, fixed the main woe and even ran through my second dollars-off coupon without me even prompting her, and didn’t give me any quip or guilt trip, much less any lip. But she did say one of the items I was trying to bag had not been scanned, even though I thought it was, and there was no time to quibble. So I gave back my Chex mix and tried to run. Literally, in more than one way.

Now I had to lug my second batch of groceries, in addition to the first one I had stowed just outside the door. I hadn’t been bold enough to put it behind one of the bushes being sold just feet away. Meanwhile, the driver is strumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

Items fell from my arms. Pick them up, only have them drop again. And then the clerk asks to help! Exposed a second time.

Bottom line, after all was said and done, I was out two bags of Chex mix I could have eaten on the bus. And I want to make it clear this is all my fault, not the stores. But when back in town I did call to see if I could get my mix back.

Both the next clerk and earlier, the woman on the phone, were also more than helpful, and I quickly got my free one(s) — and even at its own on-special two-for-five-dollars. They said all through the process that they’d do whatever they could to help, and trust, a frequent customer, as I was called without question. How did they know?

But coming into play might be that they now had competition. And on opening night at Festival Foods, there was nary a space left in their big parking lot. Even width-wise of the store, that’s impressive.

The lines were there, long and in waiting, by the dozens for that set of cashiers to check off on the newfound food or even beer special. About seven aisles were open — and that doesn’t count the liquor store section and its tiny-plastic-shot-glass specials to sample if you were of age after coming in through its own door — and they needed all of them. There were as many as 50 with their carts backed up into the aisles.

And hands were on duty, and the guy giving out their gas-off-via-partnership-with-Kwik Trip explained things well, on the fly. The next one over gave away two different kinds of wraps, creative in their use of ingredients and bountiful with the meat in this huge store. They even had hot dogs available. Brats too, so super cool.

There were photo opps too. I got a chuckle out of the mom, with dad standing in the background, who took the non-selfie pic of her smiling little one, (like a small moose), behind the wheel of the little cart like a small car, positioned out in front of the store, parked there for at least the day or weekend as a snapshot for what there was.

Much bigger, large truck size, was the vehicle that sat out there a bit to the east, and that payload could have hauled over to the big bins and filled most of the produce department, well at least the organic section.

A driver, though, said that in two weeks, she’d only dropped off two people to shop there, despite noticing the store’s early weekend-opening traffic.

Even though the Local Store Wars have brought down prices all around, we still are seeing overall higher prices for various reasons that include price gouging by Big Corp — see my take on why coming soon — the holiday meals may still cost you, originating way back from the place it’s grown.

There was a time not too many years ago when you could get a pre-made-meal-just-maybe-warm-it-up, for a few people or more and including meat and most all the fixins, for $40. Now it will cost you, and I refer again to County Market and still a good deal, comparison-wise, at between $80 and $200. (All these figures have you save a cent, as a tip?) As a counterpoint, Festival Foods in their very-much-different-styled flyer does not actually list the main prices for their catering, and party tray, but there is the feed-a-bunch bag of pre-made BBQ ribs, killer homestyle St. Louis style, and also pristine chicken breasts, for $2 a pound. OK, again, you actually save a cent on that off each pound. Like the several couponed Festival Foods specials for just 99 cents.

But back to the here and now, going forward. County Market hawks its daily sushi, while Festival Foods its many kinds of seafood as sorry, a sea that’s very diverse, said the best in Wisconsin. There’s a Caribou Coffee at both of the locations, so apparently there’s no exclusivity agreement — unlike the evident persistance in some stores of say, beef over fowl — and the coffee shop has any number of creative and killer drink specials right now for the season. With County Market the only real game in town for a number of years, it was the one-stop place to go for scrubbing things like dry cleaning pickup and Rug Doctor rental. It also led the way in faxing, laminating and the presence of a legitimate cafe next to the coffee shop. Festival Foods offers that at its liquor store, in many cases it has the lowest legal prices, and online they can even help you pre-set your shopping list. Both the places don’t do a very good job on informing the customer of most of these options in their weekly mailings, even though there are many, although Festival Foods initially offered a rundown.

I just got, locally, a County Market gift card. The store said that it was also available in Minnesota at North Branch. It did not list central Wisconsin in the name of Wausau. Small world.

So take advantage of all of these different details, in both places, while in Hudson. If you can, depending where you are.

It has been a while since I’ve delved into the fickle whims of the fashion winds. Seems we’ve quickly gone from maillots and accompanying heels or flip-flops, to muffs to mukluks, and all this includes Macy’s style designer shoes, “decreed and degreed” by varieties in the hundreds. But in this season, it’s seldom longer such numbers in terms of temps, God help us and our gift-giving.

No word (yet) on mullet or mohawk inclusion. That is a much more hairy situation, as far as (today’s) economy, if you think as the newest hairdresser in town you’ve got game to fix it. But though, maybe Musk and his millions-times-millions can help, by providing money for startups, even if they prove to be non-starters — fantasy football and Shark Tank aside. If we can whether that bell like Designing Women …

Anyway, in less than a couple of months, give or take a weak week, as temps tussled with the gusto of wind gusts with each other’s bid for dominance, the rise before the fall, we’ve seen on the scene the transformation from the open-toed-somewhat-strappy shoes spotlighting painted nails — and not with tops of toes purple from the cold and replacing pink skin tones — then coming all the way around to mukluks. With bunny slippers, as the rabbit has it, and tennies in-between. No laces, either or also through thick and thin, needed to add to warmth just yet.

Timeliness has crapped out like an ill-forecast snowstorm concerning our weather, and what I’ve witnessed up here in western Wisconsin while writing within the warm climes of my apartment, going back only a couple of months to when seeing women finding it balmy enough to — forget lip balm — sport bare legs. Not even necessarily with hosiery.

— (Odd bedfellows? Do Kwik Trip and Macy’s, low-brow convenience and upscale department stores, respectively, go together at all? A model-tall black woman in a headshot wearing stylish shades in one of their ads, Macy’s not Kwik Trip, looked just like someone I saw pumping gas and then buying a slurpy. A better fitting model motif, stylewise, was one woman at Dick’s a couple of nights later. And anything is a good combo when considering a longtime spy-type friend, who got all around the local scene, then bolted for a top-secret-and-I-can’t-even-tell-you-just-yet CIA job, followed by a for-a-while popular radio show with another Hudsonite, although based in Madison, on modern relationships. My newly exotic friend I just noticed around the holidays happens to resemble, with the face and hairstyle especially, the perfume model featured in ad inserts wearing — what else? — string bikini and whom is just totally tanned. To seduce James Bond?) —

It was when coming out of County Market during my search for lower-price Halloween candy, it seemed like the vast majority of the dozens of such shoppers I spotted were wearing skirts short enough to show off their open-toed, clunky-heeled-but-otherwise-a-bit-strappy shoes, which thus revealed almost always carefully painted nails. Not just the smile, with eyes and ears and nose and throat, drawn on a pumpkin. No frostbite gaining a foothold on either toes or that token squash or two, like the number of feet you have if not one of those rotten bots. (My uncarved pumpkin, from a mold standpoint, is still fully intact, even though kept inside.)

It also, was only about a week ago, that I saw that harbinger of what’s usually quelled in October, a man outside with flip-flops. That small smidgen of plastic must have been cold, since this was the most frigid day next to these last two, but at least it was not steel-toed-boot-type. He had on a thin T-shirt, too, and short-pants to boot. (I gotta at least say pants somewhere in there.) It turns out he was en route back to his car, parked a few spaces (just?) up the way, and in his response to a comment about his bravery/stupidity, he noted that he had winter clothing in the backseat.

So why not just put it on first, in the first place.

I too often have worn shorts into the first week of December, but not when the conditions are like what we’ve seen in much of this month’s go-round. In the last 48 hours we have seen temps way below zero, and only hovering back around that range come mid-day, with wind chills even worse, especially when those gusts picked up. Boo be it to you, if one of those hit when you were at a crosswalk, with no backup to the blowing from buildings. And I’m still seeing T-shirts, especially among drivers, and sub-specially those with heated steering wheels, so they don’t necessarily need gloves either, except when getting out the wheelchair for a disabled client. (One of those who is always, and not with regard to temperature, sure to be wearing driving gloves, with holes for fingers and do we see a theme here, explained that it’s all actually for a medical condition, he being a medical driver. Apropo?) 

Like trends in TV-Land, there is always The Middle. And not as in finger. In this case later in fall. This was marked by the noticeable appearance of bunny slippers, but still sans ankle fabric, for a couple of weeks, then trending back toward tennies, and then returning just days ago to boots. This late week saw the manifestation of mukluk. And of course, if you don’t have it currently you can buy it, and these are the tenets. A local store has Eskimo gear, broadly, such as winter camping tents, at $30 off. At first I thought that was $30 on. As in what it takes from your wallet. Better look and check your list, twice.

She wasn’t by any means ugly, or frumpy at all, despite her quaint “Old Fashioned” shirt that was really a bulky sweater, maybe extra-long sleeves for “handling,” as per her clerking job. Neither was he, also with hard-to-miss-during-holidays hat, his happening to be cowboy size much like a Santa sombrero that really sleighs it on sight, even more than slightly, and this praise comes from an avowed hetero, so that means loads (enough to fill a ten-gallon variety of hat …)

But they both carried on an age-old tradition — OK maybe just since the last generation took root, and could go out on Santa’s again with parade newly minted town — that of sporting, and we won’t say boasting, a holiday ugly sweater. Well before the typical annual contest time for such. But it does not best the decked out on Halloween. (Although we have come a long way from, the next day, the many downtown doorsteps having only a lone pumpkin on the right side of the entry. Uncarved to befit, in decor, what will come four weeks later.)

“He” had his entryway-to-sweater-season worn during the night before Thanksgiving, that middle holiday, giving thanks for Blackout Wednesday, a not-so-keen-after shots observation in its own right, and what is to come. (Thus, a bartender and I revisited that shot-slamming scenario just last night, and she said the song of songs to inspire this activity plays on their music-run-list at least once every night.)

— This could be the latest mashup of a metal meltdown, again borrowing from classical, of a model Maiden and a modern manger general … It was up the irons a few weeks again in St. Paul, and I ran into two different couples with mostly the same concert (or non) story. One twosome was at a bar and the other at a boutique! Backstory of both: One of the spouses got to go to the recent metro mega-show, and the other ended up having to opt out at the last minute, and still shows some subtle-like-the-lyrics jealousy toward their significant other. Both recently came from the Twin Cities to party down across the river “and tell their tale wherever they go.”

This was not seen in the elaborate backdrop that is an Iron Maiden stage, although it could have been, knowing their tone, lyrically and not just sonically. In the middle of the downtown, pumped up with their decking out of holiday scenes, there are shops that go to the hilt in decorating their front window(s). One found a cool way to mix the secular and religious, much like Maiden. The sprawling Nativity scene, no doubt bigger than your actual average cave, although God could no doubt swing it with the innkeeper if he chose to, had as backdrop a guardian angel style backup from a couple of reindeer and on the side but a single Santa, (mono-thematic if not theistic), and above from bells set to carol … —

Back to the “He” man. Similar gender, to him, Santa hat? Check. Christmas colors, unevenly disbursed? Check. Checkered with also plaid and stripes? Maybe. Santa beard and/or with accompanying reindeer horns? I’ll have to think back … prelude to what I’ll say in a bit. But the brief message on his shirt was Chevy Chase-ish, as it would have been fitting when packing up the family, and possibly trying to revive grandma, with its large-lettered and thereby-it-would-need-be clever use of the prefix “un” in lampooning such as that very vacation movie. Thus Chasing Christmas … From a family sometimes poor, but never poor in spirit. And such spirits from that late-November night, granted a while back, are why exact wording escapes me.

Fast-forward, she did not have a beard, but her ugly sweater had plenty more words. It focused on the thought, maybe unintentionally, that this would be an Old Fashioned Christmas, in this the land of brandy and beer that made such drink(s) famous. Typically cool colors and big-pictured old home for the holidays design on her nowhere-like-that shirt, and yes, she wore a like minded hat, too.

“She” works at a store where the grip that comes from long-sleeve comfort is valued, and she might sell what she wore on her shirt, and it did say “to” and “from” with an oversize faux gift tag. I told her that she looked very holiday-ish, and after her thank you she noted that since she only gets to wear this outfit about three weeks a year — as need be, she has the timing down — she made sure to get it years back, about the time she was of age. I said this is like a bridesmaid dress, and you might think twice, whether naughty or nice, about buying it for just one wedding, so you’d best have a whole bunch of eligible girlfriends who might soon wed.

And she is married, and said her husband had offered to her that she was his Christmas present, which could in theory mean she could get decked out in this way 365. That mirrored the wording of what I had wanted to jokingly say to her but did not know if I could get away with it, that someone like myself could wrap her up and take her home for the holidays. So I blundered it out there and she took no offense at all at the silly comment.

And no one, at all, is sillier than those from The Isles, et all. So only in these parts could you find someone playing the bagpipes out in the old as a way to slot in Xmas tunes, like the guy in such gear just north of the middle of the downtown, on the sidewalk leaning up a foot over from the exterior wall, though standing straight up and blowing hard. West side of the street, as is typical of such acts, unless they go way up Locust. Entertaining shoppers who wandered from the east that are now really getting busy, now that we’ve gotten over the hump of Black Friday, (doin’ the Humpty Hump?)

He said that he does such gigs now and again, even when it’s only reasonably cold, and has a specialty of sorts in holiday music, adding that he starts re-rehearsing before Thanksgiving, as come the second weekend in December, you’ve got to get it right. Shoppers, as they want deals, have great expectations.

Back to the sweaters, with green sleeves. One guy had that obligatory two-inch-high side strip of dozens of designs, running just under his armpits, that appeared to be a combo of St. Nick style superhero (small figures) and snowflakes, or were they Xs? But the bank teller’s black sweater was more sporty, with two little strips of big frills running down the length of each arm. And we Must say Boo to the guy who had on just a plain gray sweater, with little sleeves and gaps where the zipper should more fully be.

Anyway, if you have any of those styles, or one strictly your own, check out the Hudson Green Mill ugly sweater contest on Saturday, Dec. 14 starting at 9 p.m., one that kicks the season for such in gear.

It’s 9 a.m., usual work starting time, on Cyber Monday, and the inch of snow seen on the sidewalk from the night before tells it all. By just who shoveled.

The cyber-hospitality industry did not necessarily lead the way for that, even with brushing with the broom, as Cyber Monday now had its biggest boom, and apparently the scant bit of snow was not seen as a barrier — hey, it’s all online baby!

— Hudson Community Action will again introduce the greater area to one of its biggest and earliest holiday festival craft fairs and bizzares, on this first Saturday of the month from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and we’ll assume it lives up to its billing, at the Hudson Middle School and with more than 170 vendors — and live music, although no bands or genres are specified on signs around town or online. Boo! (They did add in a few late posters around town the fact that Hudson holiday stalwart Colleen Raye would play.) But that vagueness of note, is also true at Jethro’s BBQ Roadhouse, just north of town, where they have band(s) each weekend and maybe even on Thursday, but all it says online for each night is “live music,” and we don’t known if that’s salsa or Latin, jazz or classical, big band or orchestra, but more likely rock or country. (We’re lazy, and we don’t like to take notebooks into live venues to take down the details, as people — and owners — can get surly.) We will note that The Luck Band played at Ziggy’s Hudson on Friday night, with Lori Bahneman ripping through such styles vocally and including as everyone AC/DC, and the guitar was virtuoistic. —

The Cyber Monday places that had their snow shoveled, pronto, and apropo, often were such as insurance agencies, even though likely not open for the day. But there was the then Smilin’ Moose, shoveled completely on both the main drag and the side-street, and one other venue with just a small strip shoveled, and a last one with just a quaint, barely-yard-large-and-big square offed and offered.

— Hey psst, a last lingering notation from Black Friday and Cyber Monday and week, etc., and how to gas up to get there, as if you didn’t know it had (passed now eventually.)

A gas card given away by the dozens from Circle K — rapidly taking over the Wisconsin scene and challenging in this end and up especially north in the Badger State, and only there can you get away with such Packer-like sacrilege — allows you to get not a mere three or four and maybe five cents off but a full ten, per gallon, EVERY SINGLE DAY!! Up to 20 gallons, through 2025, so unless you are going to Thanksgiving-type distances …

And of course, there is that snowstorm starting south and then moving northeast, dumping up to several feet, that was said in this way, if you transpose a few letters: “Wi to NY.” That is much like winter, my last name, bad spelled. And yes, there are scads of my relatives in hard-hit lower Michigan too.

One other bad misspelling. If you do not read far enough along into the grid … “Get ready to bake your holiday tr …” Would that be badly botched turkey mentioned? No, actually if you read further its token “treats.” With Christmas soon coming, and the stacking of the weeks are thusly aligned. Cookies, etc. —

All other venues as of 9 a.m., had no snow foregoing as far as shoveling. (A tell-tale truck of, I believe, an owner did pull up, likely with a shovel in back.) But wait, there was that one other exception .. At the former Associated Bank site, the downtown one, and I do not know who owns the property right now … I’ll have my fact-checkers, and they need right now considering me to be many … the newfound snow was basically gone except a newer trickle on again, both the full length of their main drag and the side-street westward. (The building has been empty for years, and you would think this a prime location, despite ongoing pasted signs on the door from Comcast saying it was their business solution — apparently did not work — and that there (still) is Wifi available.)

A side note on what’s on the sidewalk: My apartment building mega-maintenance guru, Nichole, as a counterpoint, had just finished her shoveling, at least right out front, when I began my walk.

And again then going back to black, as in our recent Friday. A slew of online ads, reverting back to that day, (dark web?), in what are more legitimate sources … tout deals that despite it being called Cyber Week, end on either that day, or Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday. Skip Sunday. As per the Bible, no commerce.

And back then there was no air travel. These days, as far as travel, every holiday trumps itself in Biblical proportions, as far as people hitting the skies and the road. And do they stay well grounded? Will drones save the day? And can the Elon oil of Musk and his air travel, up to the heavens and beyond in a spacey way, save the day, just like the now plentiful, again, stowaways as far as accommodating numbers to reach that now record airline load? And Cyber Monday was supposed to peak not long before midnight.

Back at the Spirit Seller, that was about the only place that was busy, upon their 9 a.m. not p.m. opening time, and there were — careful here — three blue collar working men would coulda come from that country just south of ours, complaining about the cold but grabbing some frosty ones anyway. I guess there would be concrete poured, or at least hash browns prepped, before snow would be shoveled.

Cyber Monday night was a nightlife dead zone, but at least all the sidewalks, et al, had been shoveled, with the brave exception of in front of the Hudson Tap, but they did have a bare sidewalk strip below their ample awning and also big bench. As white and blue balloons from the weekend were still whafting in the wind, being tethered to such, but for whom?

It has been called, also and I was amiss for not calling them out as such in an earlier post, (see it for a Saturday band buildup), Blackout Wednesday (night) and of course, Thanksgiving Eve. And at least three other gnarlier names, the next couple of days included.

So now I’ll list going back, more than a week’s worth, of some made-up names of other days we’re seeing: One of the last tariff-free and tax-addled pre-turkey-day Tuesdays, waddled like turkey-flight widespread travel Wednesday, thrusting onward into Thanksgiving, watched-with-sleepy-eyes football Black Friday, saturated super Shopping Local Saturday, retail-returning-of-relics Sunday, Cyber attack addled and airline return late Monday, taking-back-taco-eating Tuesday, leftover wings of turkey not just buffalo Wednesday, a tavern-and-bar-based throwback to Thirsty Thursday, TGIF Finally if you were (un)fortunate enough to Find Yourself With Folks, The Only Day That Matters Saturday, and FunDay SunDay if you’re not dieting yet and then light beer.

Back to Blackout Wednesday, also known as Drunksgiving, in as much as can be done post-pandemic, the eve was “sick” and a banger. Music reactors reference aside.

The night, though, started out slow, with in the block of the Smilin’ Moose, there were five open parking spaces, make that six as a car pulled out, but still inside they were shakin’ their booty to DJ music.

— Black Friday was followed by Small Business Saturday, and as origins, I must lament the demise-of-all-real-journalism as shown by an entire front page that was just a Black Friday, Black car ad in the Hudson Star-Observer. So no off-the-top news in this (former) newspaper.

The next day there were placards all over the fortunately wide sidewalks — eight in just one long block with a gap on the north end, followed by two more just across the street — as businesses competed and said, essentially, shop with me not them. (I loved most the one that hawked hot scon(ni)es on a harrowingly cold day.) Having had it, or had at it, three MILFs were heard to say, as they stepped into The 715 and that’s not an area code, “and yeah we could stop in for shots.” The nearest bar was a full block away. —

In the next block, back to Blackout Wednesday, there roamed three large conglomerations of people, and at its end the Agave was hopping. There was that one single lady, (not for long), starting to mingle in the rare open space near the enterway.

Over to Hudson Tap … Some ladies were rockin’ their look, to top it off was the one with a tan off-the-shoulder what-could-be-a-sweater, with a bare midriff, too. Then there was that one little black dress, and someone with likeminded black boots too.

Over to Dick’s. And a short-term dilemma. I saw, not at first, but following that some of the old crowd from well before the pandemic. Tom and his bro, and a trio of women, and of course Mackenzie, from the old neighborhood. And that woman I was sure I knew, but she said it was her lookalike, also out that night.

Trekking back past Agave, again, four people running across the grain of the streetlight, to cross the sidestreet crosswalk.

The next day, no one out was on the a bit snow-filled street. All was closed but the Spirit Seller, which was busy, and very especially the guy who had to dig in his pocket for the last couple of bucks. Ziggy’s, kinda across the way, and usually and historically a big-bar-night starting point, had just enough lights on, largely via beer signs shining, to mask the fact that they were not open. This being deer hunting season, it was fitting that there was an even bigger “bucking” bronco whiskey sign advertising out in back.

Then St. Croix Bakery, with sign saying they would be closed on Black Friday, making that basically in league with no one, but open again on the Saturday to follow. Some other places have made it a four-day holiday, taking full advantage. Workers have at it, with your family and friends.

Fast-forward to the weekend … Some of the same back-from-college newbies were out again at The Tap, such as one who, we joked, just couldn’t seem to stop inadvertantly positioning herself, although shifting, to be standing, or sitting, in front of one of the two server stations/computers. Ouch!

What happens when you combine a “monastic” journey with a drum championship, twice, to take in a band that tops off your turkey weekend?

That makes for a musical resume, to top that festive title held by grandma on Thursday … So whether you call it, by name, Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving or the night before, Drunksgiving, as the night and its parties have been coined, competing for your coin …

— To start, I go back again, to before Halloween, when my bro and really all members of my family went all out with the decor, and it was dominated by … scarecrow figures, some without legs because that is just not the draw.

Back to decor, there is my mom’s mosted magazine. It has on its front, fall mums, plural. And then across the way at the Legion Hall, I spotted a pumpkin that might have been carved … or maybe its just a few mold spots, this late in the season.

But to conclude this interlude, the (non?)-ultimate Black Friday offering — aside from various 15 percent warranty extensions — and get your mind out of the gutter, that’s where the dropped-leaves-in-finally-recent-days are and put your eaves asunder … As I “Filter,” the name of the company, your full service gutter protection, and who does it this time of year? Maybe those with oaks all around, as our yard once were. Recalling fondly as I give thanks. —

The MoJo Monks make a return to the Pierce-St. Croix County area, the eve of Nov. 30, and they unlike so many bands based out of the Twin Cities, actually got a lot of their musical training here. So these Knights in White Satin are local through and through, not from Middle Italy or the Mediterranean, but trained middle aged men and lead singer Meagan, playing since before Middle School, though not from the Middle Ages. Their mojo comes from varied places, but mostly right here.

See these longtime musicians, since they were little kids, as young as four and five, again live right here, near their old stomping grounds, at the GasLite in Ellsworth, this weekend. Their experience spans many decades, and for some of them started with the Stagedoor Players in New Richmond before moving on and broader as rockers, and also a Northwestern College music degree. There was a stint, as well, with the Minnesota Vikings drumline, with also a varied and hip-hop background, that even included, as mentioned above, two-time snare drum solo world title(s). The lead singer has performed at Disney World and at Christmas shows at the Mall of America.

This following a band earlier in the fall, just ready for deer hunting, called Whitetail, that has, get this, a resume that describes “hopscotching from jangle pop and post-hardcore to math rock and shoegaze!” They, from Minnesota, are sure to be back soon, as they have plenty a deer there too …

These days, a holiday shot special, Wednesday night mind you, may still cost you $5, depending on where you go, and in what city in the area. (The Wild Badger, up in New Richmond, is cheaper and you still have some selection.) But go to the Smilin’ Moose in Hudson, for example, and they amp it up as you have three colors offered, and they go with the red, but not the white and blue. You can choose from cherry, Jag as we in the county are its national capital, and the Chuck Norris version if you want to boost your testosterone ahead of eating manly turkey. (Ladies can partake, too.)

On Thanksgiving itself, it’s again rare to have a whole day open, for your whole-on turkey. Again as an example, Dunn Brothers downtown is only open in the morning, while Hudson Tap is more typical, open only in the evening, so you can take the kiddies there for games if they are amped up on sugar, not weighed down by turkey enzyme.

All this even though if you missed out, Amazon was on my cell phone as early as Nov. 1 hawking and hunting you, by giving top billing and building up their Thanksgiving groceries and decor.

What, it’s election day. Time to vote. If you can.

Now that the recount requests are (largely) in, can you say your man Hovde, it’s a good time to make a final stab at what happened on election day. And give it time, there are likely to be more legal challenges.

Come tomorrow. If tomorrow comes.

— Or if it’s frozen. Last night was the coldest of the season by far, well below freezing and even earlier than that there was snow down in Milwaukee. But no deer tracking snow up here. However, on a stroll before midnight, I got back in my building and saw the sign on the hallway door, pleading to keep the door closed when the AC is running. No need. It was wide open. —

But for now, I take you back to the Monday before the Tuesday where it all counted, and got counted, at least the first time. Early voting had just expired, for in-person absentee, on Sunday. I went over to City Hall to cast my ballot, only to be told by a clerk behind a window in a strangely quiet downtown building that they didn’t take these here anymore. I’d have to go over to the mega-new, mega-big fire station on the other end of town, a hub that replaced the fire station that had been right across a small side street, to go maga or finding that morbid and checking off on a different persuasion with a check mark.

Different districts in the city, each with more than one ward in which to show his word, sent you scurrying to many different places to vote. Whether in Old Hudson, or New Hudson up on The Hill and south, or North Hudson or eastward toward the town of Hudson, roughly along these geographic area lines.

But back to city hall … A woman in back of me was told to come back tomorrow — to the fire station — but added as she was walking back to her car that she works a full business day in the far Twin Cities and has a long commute, so she is frozen out of voting. She had taken this day off just to vote, but now it is late afternoon and time was waning. Her ballot if allowed as such would not arrive in the mail in time, anyway, and I had wondered aloud, if she mailed in with a Minnesota postmark, would it be valid? 

So my real election day that would show something actually accomplished began Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the town of Hudson precinct level, all 14 of them. All hands were on for this set of races, which by all accounts brought on a high, steady turnout, and the counting area was cordoned off with a rope-like police line before the tale of the tape would be done and tape ripped off the floor, to show more such divisions as to where you could go, and there appeared to be an extra long set of instructions to the more than two dozen ballot counters, a process that frankly seemed a little disorganized.

When the names and their tallies were read off to me and one other observer, and my hat and not just observer sign, as was written in small letters on my pocket were telltale signs, that I was with the Associated Press, the numbers came at us and the second tallier quickly and it was a mad dash to get them all down. As it was, and this shows the danger of putting too much stock into early totals, there was after all my further calculations required to gain totals from various wards, that would have to all be added up, a segment I missed calling in, but those numbers self-corrected once I go to my main county government center building. My next election night stop.

The place, which also houses the county jail, had been under construction, and now that it’s nearing completion I didn’t even recognize the interior. The deputy dejour who checked me in actually gave me a tour of the whole new digs. Where I was told to take a seat, next to one of the only two of the smallest of tables to write on, it looked alien. The new county clerk’s office was bigger, with smaller offices that were off at an angle and you couldn’ see the activity inside. When people finally traipsed out, past an old mural that showed Old School election workers processing papers, I thought maybe the time to finish is near. But there still was that one straggler precinct, one of the bigger ones.

I told the deputy that of what was left in my pocket, I was hiding illicit contraband that I was going to bury in the nearby bathroom. He laughed and said that’s one he had not heard.

I added to a clerk who skipped, briefly, for the john, you have important work to do, I can’t imagine you took time away. (Didn’t say pee.)

Finally at around 1 a.m. everything was counted, and I told the deputy that couldn’t leave until all was accounted for, that this wasn’t bad, as in earlier days names and numbers were scrawled on a chalkboard and a presidential election could go to 4 a.m.

So off to go, through a second secured area. It should be noted that this was not the the only voting site affected by construction, as County A going back by the town hall had been closed so kitty-korner across the way a round-about could be installed. Road work was put on hiatus right before election night.

Even the voting rules you abide may be confusing — or at least when showing where to go. You may have to investigate where and when you can return your mail absentee ballot at your clerk’s office, polling place or absentee counting location. They must be received by 8 p.m. on Nov. 5, in spite of any possible mail postponements, although you can track your ballot at myvote.wis.gov, except for Georgia locations. Just kidding.

The League of Women voters suggest you verify the source and date before you share information, (not that from Russia or other lands, once removed?), question the content, (like Harris adding $7.3 trillion to our national debt), never click, quote, or state in words the wrong info as it gives it traction, or engage with it publicly, rather ask that they take it down privately, (like so many purported stances on crime and the economy, such as the idea that the average American’s personal interest rose by nearly 400 percent. Cherry-picking figures? And yes average taxes dropped, but for which tier?)

A flyer by the Dems showed two children, too young to vote, walking arm and arm, and suggested scanning your weird square figure to find your polling location, or on election day contacting the central court in your area depending on your municipality (sound arduous?) Do we somewhere just have f—– drop boxes? Or wait they can be burned even if made of metal. Or can tinge a person’s signature so it looks like Jo Winte.

All the Musk millions or more, and I wonder if the Average Joe will now be able to afford more melons, could not be undone by the many musicians backing Harris. But that kind of affluence and its affect, especially on those who aspire, politically and that makes it appallingly but not yet aiding the general populace, after the general election, is a sign of the times.

Especially in the last couple of weeks legislatively, it’s proven irresistible, to those who want even more power, gained via the president. Yes there are too many positions to be filled, and I agree that not all are prominent enough to call for a need for confirmation, but the race is on for power grabbing. And being a loud loyalist and kissing up.

A spacy side note: Hopefully all this control and influence, as it’s now more than ever being spread, will spruce up space travel and even say NASA with some of that dough, coming from the tax cuts to the rich and famous. But what I want to call a warning about such excess came in the song Space Truckin’ by Deep Purple, a taken name that means a search for greater enlightenment, and the danger of too many such stars coming out. It can also be seen in Trump’s appointment picks, as they want to gain that status, as the mad race into office has already begun, even though just days old.

— We will now discontinue Joe’s Jump Around, with words and phrasings and topics, in his own, in-writing version of The Weave, for just a while. To point out that, as we near that in the near “term,” in-between season of Thanksgiving, the decore in retailers like WalMart shown its light(s), and decreed (on X?) that there be Xmas stuff up, in a full-on decked-out department, granted on that other side of the store near the also-seasonal plants to pot section, done even before that of most Halloween-ish and the eve of that hardcore decorating holiday. (Lapping Labor Day?) Retailer heaven, not hellish. —

As the Donald duped the dumb and now that it’s all done is ditching them: We’ll just pass them there. Why should I even care? He is the new Iron Man.

He did care enough, at least for show, to show up and meet with Biden. Unlike Melania, who sorta blew off Jill Biden. For whom? Word has it, to hustle off instead to a steamy video shoot with Stormy Daniels that Trump was going to “review” later. Just kidding. 

I must say that I myself have a lot of (more serious) ideas to convey, like I’m sure so many of the people Trump has now nominated for cabinet appointment, but also like them I have scant little experience. And I as a journalist, have as much to go on as that FOX news anchor who was tabbed. Can you image me running the country, not just this column?? (Although I will say that John Thune, elected by secret ballot of course, speaker of the house through a much different political process, just seems like a down-to-earth, common sense, ordinary guy, and he reminds me of my old editor/boss Doug Stohlberg, also a conservative and a Republican, but again moderate.)

Interesting that one of them, barbarian at the Gaetz, who resigned from Congress to be considered for the Trump tribe position, only to then remove himself from contention for that too, after there was fallout, then became described in news reports (prophetically) as a “former” member of that body.

NASA is not the only thing that’s out in space. Twenty-four hours on a plane can change a lot of things, and maybe people’s frame of mind can be swayed by the hunger that comes from foregoing airplane food. And say, not your chef, but your chief advisor is in the bathroom, (lady’s room?), so you can’t consult her about an appointment, and since she is a lady she might have taken a while in there … maybe doing a shakeup and putting on some more makeup .. checking her look in the mirror, her clothes, her hair, her face, no wait that would be Springsteen, and before that a reference to System of a Down, who are of the Democratic design.

And if you have disagreement with their agenda(s), and I’m also sure some of them diverge slightly and are maybe even more radical than those of Trump, where do you fit it? And do you really want a job where being a felon, like making a hit, is something you put on your resume? Hopefully more rockets being launched — beat Russia to it, like in the Cold War? — will not be the only businesses helped by the Musk machine, and their employees too. (See below).

I take a hint from a flyer supporting the president-elect right before he came so, which said that if you are not registered to vote, it is a matter of public record and knowledge, making it sound like if you choose not to cast your ballot — probably for him — this is threatening you. Fair Warning, and an Eruption of danger, and not just from Van Halen, as I’d been to the edge and I stood and looked down. I had lost a lot of friends there. No time to mess around.

So we are now talking damage control of Biden-debate-type proportions. Things totally imploding, except that like Reagan he is teflon.

And when the news spread across the world that he had beaten Harris, the veiled accolades came from leaders of other countries, basically sucking up to the new president because they knew they could control him. In my apartment building, next morning, this was not the main response. It was more like dread. One woman reported that the leader of France, contrary to his public stance, had said that this was the darkest day in history, as it was ushering in A New World Order, of disorder.

So how did he win? First, to clarify, the typical Republican stance of social security, and slashing it. They are only going after that, in most cases, for those 40 and under. So despite the fear that’s ushered in by their opponents, flipping it, if like me you’re already on the program, fear not. But people eventually may have to work longer before they join our ranks, with the reason cited being that people are living longer.

But back to the fearmongering, from both sides, and figures that were cited … It is said that the percentage that would be cut from the monthly allotment of the average recipient is 28 percent. And consider that not everyone would see a cut. It also is said that the average benefit amount lost, across all recipients, is $600. But wait a minute, if accurate, that figure would mean that there is a whole lotta money being given out to those getting distributions. So I think the figure is inflated. When looking at monthly totals, I guess me and mine would be/are really missing out financially.

I will give Trump kudos for things like touting that tips for workers not be taxed, and tariffs being applied might help economic growth in the short term, but his plans and ideas (a concept of a plan?) will likely prove to be unworkable in practice, which makes Trump much like Bernie Sanders. Did you ever think I’d mention the same two in one phrase? But it’s certain that certain sections of businesses will be decimated by the restrictions inherent in using tariffs to defend your turf, if they do lots of business with the wrong country. They are already reportedly scrambling to do the switch ups that will be needed.

And consumers will bear the brunt when buying some types of goods, as that 10 percent or more will have to be covered by someone. An example given by a friend: Say you want to buy a toothbrush that costs $1 if made in, say, China and $2 if it is American made. But now suddenly, the China version costs two dollars plus change. Any way you cast that brushstroke, the consumer loses.

But back to sucking up. At first legislators urged caution with things like making public the details of the investigation into Gaetz and girls — now a one-namer like a model or rock star — then quickly backed off, through the back door, as I’m sure they heard from Trump or his lieutenants.

Shannon Zimmerman won his recent assembly race, and the lines had been drawn on the dozens of different flyers, laying out in plastic and paper, or maybe sand if not stone, the muddled and mired Republican stance used to defeat Alison Page — and not turn the page.

These are positions that appeared to resonate in this often plush and red Wisconsin district. (In the 30th state assembly, Zimmerman won 20,308 to 17,116). Some musings on this, little tidbits, lie below. They are not a complete assessment of the victor, or the vanquished.

But do Zimmerman’s supporters know that aside from a voting percentage that quite easily placed him back in office, where he’s been since 2017, there’s another stat where he’s seen by at least some as at the 51 percent level.

— Candidate LuAnn, and I’ll call her by her first name, looks like everyone’s grandma. Who can vote against that? Don’t diss (grand)ma. But people did and she lost legislatively down in and around Milwaukee. Going against big money.

Still, she was painted as a somewhat transient flower-power liberal. Such as one you might find in ol’ town San Francisco, and she has been said to be better suited for there. But she is striving for cleaner drinking water, and should that be a super controversial issue? It is promoted on her behalf by the group Wisconsin Conservation (not conservative) Voters IEC.

Granted, she has district hopped, all across southeastern Wisconsin, at least as far as her status of residence and from where she was running, but still the message … It’s not just in San Fran.

By the way, her last name is Bird, like an old friend of mine by that name, who died way too soon. So the message simply resounds. And in her district is another Bird by the name of Shelly, a hairdresser not a rich person, so apropo. —

Back beyond the Bird, here (as an example?), is one voter’s own assembly story.

It’s approaching the weekend at Buffalo Wild Wings, a local haunt where families often gather after youth sporting events, in the late afternoon, and three people are seated at the far end. One then cast a vote not for a favorite sauce, but on touting her fave assembly pick.

The woman said, “yeah I didn’t know who they are, so I just voted for her.” Referring to Zimmerman.

She was quickly informed by the others that Shannon is a he, not a she, and then was chastised about being part of an ill-informed electorate. And how in this race super-hyped with flyers with photos of them, (and unfemale-like receding hairline), in your mailbox or inbox, could someone not know? As I’ve often said, this is like someone not having heard of the Beatles.

Unless the woman with the wings knows something we don’t. Maybe Shannon is transgender??

Based on that, granted very isolated, instance of voter apathy, in whom we elect, is it any wonder that this country is in this kind of shape? For whom the bell tolls? (Page it seems, it was for thee. Now like same-name guitarist Jimmy of Led Zeppelin, you are basically retired, for now at least from politics.)

A resident of my building even got a get-to-the-polls-postcard from Oakland, California, urging her to vote Republican with a brief notation that’s handwritten, and info typed on a sticker. Uhm, the sponsoring agency, based on its domain name, is from Wisconsin.

Zimmeran is pictured, (Shannon is shown), on an early flyer making a point to, or taking up the time of, a St. Croix County deputy, with a squad car behind them and his arms flailing beside. He did vote for a resolution to send state resources to provide help at the southern border — and not of the Badger State — that include the Wisconsin National Guard, but I don’t think it’s more such troops that are the workers needed there.

Then, the following photo dissected, is unlike most you see in political ads, this time for Page, also from college town River Falls. It shows a mom in the middle and four kids gathered around a stone monolith of sorts, although flat, that simply says “Imagine.” I think John Lennon would approve, with not props positioned but those people around a circular, (Perfect Circle?), emblem or you could call it an insignia.

Zimmerman gets kudos from me, if his typically-outside-the-GOP claim is true, that he is fighting against policies that would increase rising energy bills. But does that gut green energy, in the process? I’m not sure. Utility companies are notorious for their frequent price hikes — like you might say rental properties, which becomes a double-whammy — and when was the last time you heard the requests of one of these companies turned down by a regulatory agency? To which, who are the people who appoint its also often well-heeled members??   

But he has voted against middle class tax cuts, so if you’re in a Modern Family you will save money on your utility bill, but it’s likely cancelled out by the need to fund the tax monies that are not paid by the rich. Like the handing over of $1.5 trillion in tax breaks that reportedly would be given to big corporations and billionaires, via Trump’s plans. And Trump would likely try to end overtime pay, another hit taken by the working class, as the ultra-rich don’t need that extra money — so do triage in your touting of Trump? — again largely cancelling out his proposal that tips such as those gained by servers not be taxed. So think twice about pulling a double to gain any possible time-and-a-half.

Back to Zimmerman, he blocked paid family leave. As with many Republican candidate stances, I can see fiscal reasons for taking that side. But he mixed grievances and alleged that such a plan supports people “who don’t really want to work.” Hey, do so from home?

Page has worked in a hospital setting — good experience for a rare change if you’re going to be a government official and oversee such situations — although she’s coy about it being for the most part as a CEO. But hello Hovde, that’s business experience brought to the table, which is what the GOP is prizing.

An anti-Zimmerman ad points out that the abortion ban law enacted in 1849 and upheld is very outdated, as it was before women could legally own property or vote, and it likely would be decades before there even was any type of humane or reliable pregnancy test. Another flyer unscored the point, to say that back in 1849 it was the time of the Gold Rush, most doctors recommend opioids like heroin to combat diarrhea and cough, and cocaine was used to relieve toothaches.

So Page says, I’m through with Zimmerman, now that he’s elected, apologies to alt rock lyrics of Jane’s Addiction. She is not asking for a recount. Not GOP-type money to fund it, for starters.