In yesterday’s election in Wisconsin, the two candidates represented very different futures for the country. One candidate for the state supreme court, Daniel Kelly, had helped politicians to gerrymander the state to give Republicans an iron lock on the state assembly and was backed by antiabortion Republicans. The other, Janet Protasiewicz, promised to stand behind fair voting maps and the protection of reproductive rights.
I was stunned by Daniel Kelly's petty, bitter tirade! The news anchors had looks of astonishment on their faces when they cut back to the studio! This Wisconsinite is thrilled to have Janet Protaseiwicz on our Supreme Court.
Not sure how you wrote these amazing recaps of the daily news and then can go to sleep. These are very disturbing advancements of voter suppression. I am thrilled for the Judge in Wisconsin and the mayor in Chicago but the rest is just unbelievably disturbing.
thank you for your excellent recording of this difficult time in our history.
Today the Kansas legislature overturned the governor’s veto of a bill that will require genital inspection of students wanting to play on sports teams.
Even writing that sentence disgusts me. The holier-than-though zealots working to destroy the country in so many ways are just getting started. Unless we stop them. Wisconsin is the gold-standard model in how to so so.
If we are going to maintain a democracy..or perhaps ‘save’ our very ‘challenged’ democracy we desperately need folks like Heather who can so clearly identify the key issues, the key players, the key problems and the helpful ‘ways’ of dealing with the whole ‘challenge’.
Heather brings all that highly trained historian’s skill set and her own particular multifaceted range of concerns together to produce articles like this one and her earlier ‘Wisconsin’ segments.
It’s invaluable…no one does it better that I’ve found…..many many thanks.
Oddly, I found enough bright spots in today's letter to buoy my spirits. The youth mobilizing, Janet Protasiewicz's election, TFG fading from the spotlight in spite of himself all bode well for democracy. Oh, I have no illusions, this is still going to be a steep uphill climb, that of reaffirming and securing democracy, but it feels as though more people are getting it, that the Republicans are a toxic, vindictive, greedy lot.
It's about time we start focusing on the rise of Christian Nationalism and the imposition of minority religious views on the majority. I've been calling them the American Taliban since just after the 2016 election. On this eve of Passover, "let my people go" can be restated, "Leave the majority alone". May at least the plague of unpopularity at the polls be visited upon the American Taliban.
A few hours ago, Republican legislators in Wisconsin suggested that they will “impeach” the just elected Supreme Court Judge as a way of overcoming her election as her support for abortion rights is “corrupt.” They have majority control in the State Senate which apparently has the right to impeach judges by majority vote! If they do this, it will justifiably mark the end of the Republican Party in Wisconsin! And, I submit, it should send a message to all other purple and moderately red states that unless their own Governor and Republican legislators affirmatively disavow such reprehensible action, the fair minded and democracy loving majority of citizens in their state will throw them out of office in the very next election by popular vote! Folks, it us all coming to a head in 24--our Democracy with a big D is on the line everywhere! We all must make a major effort to preserve it! The youth vote in Wisconsin stood on line for hours to cast their votes for their new Supreme Court Jystice and all the Wisconsin media report that is why she won! Here’s the evidence: in Madison County where the University is she won by 82% to 18% by well over 150,000 vote margin! Please go to www.turnup.us/ and support their massive nonpartisan youth registration effort now in 2,000 high schools in competitive states and make a generous tax deductible contribution for their work going forward to Nov 24! It’s on the line so let’s rise up together to help our young students register and vote in a nonpartisan effort! Thank you and please let me know your thoughts?
The GOP has pulled out all the stops which they have stashed in their back pockets for just such a time as we are in. Now that the tide is turning against them they are determined to defeat democracy before we use it to boot them out. State senators in Wisconsin have apparently been talking about impeaching Judge Janet Protasiewicz. We have a monumental fight on our hands. Unfortunately they have a lot of guns.
I am not in any way a religious person, actually I'm an apatheist, with a strong belief that if there were a god he/she would not allow people to be so self-centered and stupid. Thank god, as the saying goes, for folks like Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, governor Laura Kelly from Kansas, and their kind of people. HRC it is people like you, as well as those doing the job such as Justin Kanew, who work to keep us, We the People, informed. Good on ya all! Oh, and for those who don’t know, an aptheist is an atheist who doesn’t care.
To say that the state of our country is a mess doesn't make a strong enough statement. These are terrifying times. I remember when the former president was elected and I heard people say, "How bad could it be?" and ""It's only four years." But now look where those four years have taken us. He did so much damage to our country (and continues to do) by getting three judges on the Supreme Court, by appealing to and even courting white nationalists, by encouraging violence, by cutting taxes for the rich and corporations so our economy has suffered, by allowing attacks on minorities and anyone who is different, etc. etc. He opened the Pandora's box of everything that is bad in our society and now those people will always be with us.
Now people like Dan Kelly are willing and able to get up and insult and try to belittle their opponent when they lose and some people accept this behavior as "normal". Of course we have a former president that exhibits this same behavior and still thousands of people follow him. It's NOT normal nor is it acceptable. I don't get it.
I am from Michigan , born there, raised there, and still live there. I am very proud of Governor Whitmer and for the people of Michigan for voting for democracy. But we lived for 40 years under gerrymandered districts and GOP fools "leading" our state. It has been an uphill battle that other states must also fight if we are going to have a strong United States.
Thank you Heather Cox Richardson for another letter that enlightens all of us!
Having watched (part of) Kelly's tirade, feeling disgusted that he could even garner one vote in Wisconsin, I was heartened by Gretchen Whitmer's speech as she signed the law repealing Michigan's 1931 abortion ban. Such a contrast, between a sniveling, lying Republican and a woman who, to my lights, would get my vote for the Oval Office.
Heather -- Thank you so much for your focused and important reporting and analysis. Please give us more information about the money that is paying for all the Republican efforts to undermine our democracy. How much is going to each state, to destroy local government, state government, etc. It's wonderful that the people of Wisconsin are pushing back, and hopefully others will also, and the momentum will grow. But meantime, people need to know about all the dirty money that feeds the right. The Koch operation has undermined our government for many years!!! It happens because of their money. Please help shine a brighter light on it. Many, many thanks.
Kelly is a bitter pill. This isn't the first rodeo he's lost by a double digit margin. Meanwhile, observing and participating in our increasingly polarized American experiment leaves me with a bitter taste also. Perhaps it's my age or perhaps every era faces great fronts of social despair and destruction. I'm still in it. Not going anywhere yet. Pitching up with my bitter boomer self. There are more Wisconsins afoot.
It seems to me that the MAGA Christian nationalists are the same folks spreading fear of Sharia law taking hold in the USA, not long ago. Religious extremism is a misfit here in our country, but the MAGA people won’t give up, instead they double down. How long can this go on?
I was stunned by Daniel Kelly's petty, bitter tirade! The news anchors had looks of astonishment on their faces when they cut back to the studio! This Wisconsinite is thrilled to have Janet Protaseiwicz on our Supreme Court.
Not sure how you wrote these amazing recaps of the daily news and then can go to sleep. These are very disturbing advancements of voter suppression. I am thrilled for the Judge in Wisconsin and the mayor in Chicago but the rest is just unbelievably disturbing.
thank you for your excellent recording of this difficult time in our history.
Idaho's H.B. 340, in order to vote, individuals would have to produce
A current Idaho driver’s license or ID card,
A current passport or other ID issued by the federal government,
A current tribal identification card or
A current Idaho concealed carry permit.
Notably, the bill excludes student IDs from the list of acceptable IDs for registration and removes them as an option to prove residency.
Do you understand that? You can vote with a concealed carry permit, but not a student ID. Idaho is traveling down the voter suppression trail.
If this litany of bad news wasn’t bad enough...
Today the Kansas legislature overturned the governor’s veto of a bill that will require genital inspection of students wanting to play on sports teams.
Even writing that sentence disgusts me. The holier-than-though zealots working to destroy the country in so many ways are just getting started. Unless we stop them. Wisconsin is the gold-standard model in how to so so.
If we are going to maintain a democracy..or perhaps ‘save’ our very ‘challenged’ democracy we desperately need folks like Heather who can so clearly identify the key issues, the key players, the key problems and the helpful ‘ways’ of dealing with the whole ‘challenge’.
Heather brings all that highly trained historian’s skill set and her own particular multifaceted range of concerns together to produce articles like this one and her earlier ‘Wisconsin’ segments.
It’s invaluable…no one does it better that I’ve found…..many many thanks.
Oddly, I found enough bright spots in today's letter to buoy my spirits. The youth mobilizing, Janet Protasiewicz's election, TFG fading from the spotlight in spite of himself all bode well for democracy. Oh, I have no illusions, this is still going to be a steep uphill climb, that of reaffirming and securing democracy, but it feels as though more people are getting it, that the Republicans are a toxic, vindictive, greedy lot.
It's about time we start focusing on the rise of Christian Nationalism and the imposition of minority religious views on the majority. I've been calling them the American Taliban since just after the 2016 election. On this eve of Passover, "let my people go" can be restated, "Leave the majority alone". May at least the plague of unpopularity at the polls be visited upon the American Taliban.
A few hours ago, Republican legislators in Wisconsin suggested that they will “impeach” the just elected Supreme Court Judge as a way of overcoming her election as her support for abortion rights is “corrupt.” They have majority control in the State Senate which apparently has the right to impeach judges by majority vote! If they do this, it will justifiably mark the end of the Republican Party in Wisconsin! And, I submit, it should send a message to all other purple and moderately red states that unless their own Governor and Republican legislators affirmatively disavow such reprehensible action, the fair minded and democracy loving majority of citizens in their state will throw them out of office in the very next election by popular vote! Folks, it us all coming to a head in 24--our Democracy with a big D is on the line everywhere! We all must make a major effort to preserve it! The youth vote in Wisconsin stood on line for hours to cast their votes for their new Supreme Court Jystice and all the Wisconsin media report that is why she won! Here’s the evidence: in Madison County where the University is she won by 82% to 18% by well over 150,000 vote margin! Please go to www.turnup.us/ and support their massive nonpartisan youth registration effort now in 2,000 high schools in competitive states and make a generous tax deductible contribution for their work going forward to Nov 24! It’s on the line so let’s rise up together to help our young students register and vote in a nonpartisan effort! Thank you and please let me know your thoughts?
The GOP has pulled out all the stops which they have stashed in their back pockets for just such a time as we are in. Now that the tide is turning against them they are determined to defeat democracy before we use it to boot them out. State senators in Wisconsin have apparently been talking about impeaching Judge Janet Protasiewicz. We have a monumental fight on our hands. Unfortunately they have a lot of guns.
I am not in any way a religious person, actually I'm an apatheist, with a strong belief that if there were a god he/she would not allow people to be so self-centered and stupid. Thank god, as the saying goes, for folks like Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, governor Laura Kelly from Kansas, and their kind of people. HRC it is people like you, as well as those doing the job such as Justin Kanew, who work to keep us, We the People, informed. Good on ya all! Oh, and for those who don’t know, an aptheist is an atheist who doesn’t care.
To say that the state of our country is a mess doesn't make a strong enough statement. These are terrifying times. I remember when the former president was elected and I heard people say, "How bad could it be?" and ""It's only four years." But now look where those four years have taken us. He did so much damage to our country (and continues to do) by getting three judges on the Supreme Court, by appealing to and even courting white nationalists, by encouraging violence, by cutting taxes for the rich and corporations so our economy has suffered, by allowing attacks on minorities and anyone who is different, etc. etc. He opened the Pandora's box of everything that is bad in our society and now those people will always be with us.
Now people like Dan Kelly are willing and able to get up and insult and try to belittle their opponent when they lose and some people accept this behavior as "normal". Of course we have a former president that exhibits this same behavior and still thousands of people follow him. It's NOT normal nor is it acceptable. I don't get it.
I am from Michigan , born there, raised there, and still live there. I am very proud of Governor Whitmer and for the people of Michigan for voting for democracy. But we lived for 40 years under gerrymandered districts and GOP fools "leading" our state. It has been an uphill battle that other states must also fight if we are going to have a strong United States.
Thank you Heather Cox Richardson for another letter that enlightens all of us!
Having watched (part of) Kelly's tirade, feeling disgusted that he could even garner one vote in Wisconsin, I was heartened by Gretchen Whitmer's speech as she signed the law repealing Michigan's 1931 abortion ban. Such a contrast, between a sniveling, lying Republican and a woman who, to my lights, would get my vote for the Oval Office.
Heather -- Thank you so much for your focused and important reporting and analysis. Please give us more information about the money that is paying for all the Republican efforts to undermine our democracy. How much is going to each state, to destroy local government, state government, etc. It's wonderful that the people of Wisconsin are pushing back, and hopefully others will also, and the momentum will grow. But meantime, people need to know about all the dirty money that feeds the right. The Koch operation has undermined our government for many years!!! It happens because of their money. Please help shine a brighter light on it. Many, many thanks.
We live in scary times. Republican fascism is real.
Kelly is a bitter pill. This isn't the first rodeo he's lost by a double digit margin. Meanwhile, observing and participating in our increasingly polarized American experiment leaves me with a bitter taste also. Perhaps it's my age or perhaps every era faces great fronts of social despair and destruction. I'm still in it. Not going anywhere yet. Pitching up with my bitter boomer self. There are more Wisconsins afoot.
It seems to me that the MAGA Christian nationalists are the same folks spreading fear of Sharia law taking hold in the USA, not long ago. Religious extremism is a misfit here in our country, but the MAGA people won’t give up, instead they double down. How long can this go on?