I'll know the thugs are gone when I am no longer picking up Modelo beer cans and those mini bottles of tequila shots along the road and it's back to vodka shots and Natural Ice or other similar cheap beer. They're still out there.

The good news is, IT was able to intervene and by the time I arrived to work yesterday it was ready for me to work on, significantly reducing the amount of manual data entry required of me. Out of the total of 41 complicated quotes that I needed to do on Wednesday, only one remains, but that is because IT changed some values and didn't revert them back to the original values. I emailed right away, but didn't receive a reply. Emailed again 6 hrs later, no reply. So hopefully they fix it this morning. Otherwise I'll have to figure it out myself and manually change the values, which could take awhile.

Received a card from my godmother. I'm glad I wrote her a letter. Sounds like she is slowing down, is not allowed to drive very far anymore. What I found especially interesting was she lives in a rural area in a very red state. When I wrote her, I touched briefly on what was happening here and how it was affecting my children's families. And she responded that she agrees with me, that she does not like what the demented one is doing to this country. That was pretty surprising, but hopeful.

I still need to find a legitimate organization whose mission is to protect our vote. And by legitimate, I mean one whose sole mission is to protect the vote. The demented one and his gangsters have made it clear that they will take whatever means necessary to disenfranchise voters. Last Friday, after the unsupreme court ruling against him, he again made a statement in Georgia about passing the SAVE Act and we wouldn't have to vote for 50 years. Very similar to his words to evangelicals prior to the 2024 election. The gangsters have also made comments about calling a national emergency in order to disrupt the election. And having National Guard or border patrol thugs at Democratic polling places. So every person who cares about voting needs to be aware and be ready to act. This is just another opportunity to display moral courage.

This term, moral courage, has been on my mind a lot lately. According to Oxford Review:

Moral courage is the willingness to speak up and take action for what is right, even in the face of fear, opposition, or personal risk. It involves standing against injustice, prejudice, or unethical behaviour despite potential consequences such as criticism, rejection, or loss of status. Unlike physical courage, which is about facing physical danger, moral courage is about facing social or emotional risks to uphold values of fairness, integrity, and justice.

We've seen a lot of moral courage in my community over the last few months. Doing that which makes us uncomfortable where we might otherwise be silent in normal circumstances. But these are not normal times, and the only way we can return to decency again is by digging deep and pulling out that moral courage. ​It means telling a racist coworker enough is enough. It means speaking up to those you know support unethical and immoral and inhumane behavior. It is displaying a sign in your yard or window for everyone to see. It is one person at a time finding their voice to say Enough.

I value our elections so strongly, I need to act instead of just thinking about it. Keeping it to myself is not courageous. Acting to preserve our right to vote is.