Today, Judge Timothy Walmsley sentenced the three men convicted of murdering 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery on February 23, 2020, as he jogged through a primarily white neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia. Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan chased Arbery in their trucks, cornering him on a suburban street. Travis McMichael shot and killed the unarmed Arbery, while Bryan filmed the encounter from inside his truck.
I can’t believe Roberts said this “the pandemic sounds like the sort of thing that states will be responding to or should be, and that Congress should be responding to”, and then attacked the Federal government for responding. The rest of his statement should have been, “Given the complete failure of said states and Congress to act to protect the health and safety of their citizens in this pandemic, it is not only important but utterly necessary for the Federal government to intervene. Let me be clear - the states and Congress have failed. That they are suing the Federal government instead of thanking it is a travesty. Case dismissed!”
If you go by the current logic of Robert’s and the bought and paid for right-wing SCOTUS they should shut down the court. The states can regulate everything, they each have a Court. Now that we’ve determined we don’t need Federal government for that let’s go a step further. Make each state handle everything on their own. The people they put in office will have no say in anything outside their state. Oh, and wait, that’s too much governing from Albany to say what Buffalo or NYC should do so each place needs isolated government.
We won’t need federal Congress anymore, send them home. We won’t need a President, each Governor will independently lead their 1/50th of the country. All financial resources will come from their own citizens. No more tax money coming from CA or NY where everyone complains about high taxes. We’ll use that money for ourselves.
The only thing we’ll have at a Federal level will be a representative to oversee Federal lands. Just some small agencies.
This all just sounds ridiculous and you all just thought I was quiet for over a week and must have gone crazy.
But this is exactly what Republicans want to happen. When it does they’ll want to do away with their state government with the exception of banning abortion and voting.
Sorry for the rant. My grandson is doing two 4 week accelerated college classes. One of them is sociology and I’ve been reading the book and helping him study. I am learning so much even though I took this class myself 40 years ago. Things have changed and now that I have more real world knowledge everything I read is so fascinating and relatable. I discuss it with him and try to help him relate. Yesterday’s readings were on mass media and social media and liberals vs. conservatives. Everything I read is what we see happening in front of our eyes.
This professor is doing an excellent job with online education. Thank you to Heather and all the teachers out there that work so hard to expand our world!
Kentucky has a state wide population of nearly 4.5 million. The population of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, is 7 million. It irks the heck out of me that a senator from such a puny state has the power to dismiss/ignore facts, squelch legislation, select SCOTUS nominees and basically run his own power plays on the tax dollars that my region and state as a whole gives to the federal government when his tiny fiefdom takes far more than it pays into the system. SMH…
As a KY resident (anti-Rand/McConnell) I agree, but the ignorant rural constituency truly believe he doing great things for the Commonwealth. One only needs to look at this state to see how McConnell would like the entire country to be like.
Without FDR's Tennessee Valley Authority, many in that area which also includes a big chunk of southwestern Kentucky and parts of five other southern States besides Tennessee, would still be using kerosene lanterns and candles to light their lives. They used to support Democrats but that party's turning away from racism made them into Republicans who never ever did anything to benefit them, and never will, but it enables them to feel superior to people who benefit from the Democrat's safety net, which they forget also benefits them. They will never learn.
It's our compromise-laden horse and buggy Constitution that permits it. But fear not, there will be a new one, including fully representative democracy this time around, but only after the nation recovers from the damage to democracy the 'Founding Fathers' compromises have brought about. (Maybe not in our lifetimes.)
The Constitution was a brilliant conception in the context of the late 1700s. However, besides the compromises you reference, the framers made it too difficult to amend. They could not envision the enormous changes that were ahead, including the growth of the country, geographically and the number of people. Nor could they envision the complexity of challenges we face today.
The idea of the Supreme Court interpreting the original intent of the Constitution to serve the nation of the present is ludicrous. It's a grievous flaw. Another flaw: assuming that Congress would be made up of elected officials committed to governing through constant compromise. Essentially, Republicans have hacked the Constitution by refusing to govern in good faith.
I totally agree on the distribution of tax dollars. If they want to run their own states don’t call home for help whenever it goes bad. The Texas electric grid problem should have been fixed with TX money. The unvaccinated shouldn’t take the medicine or hospital beds of the vaccinated and so on. Kentucky shouldn’t take any help from Democratic states. Then go do whatever you want.
That applies to pretty much every Red State. At least half of the American population lives on the Coasts - more than equal to the rest of the States - paying the bulk of Federal Taxes, while being severely under-represented in Congress.
But you forgot about the military? An enormous part of the Federal government. How would they fit in your scenario? 50 independent state military organizations? Who gets the nukes? All 50? These crazy people don't have a long view to see how starting down a path is a straight line to chaos. Though have to admit, living in Illinois, another state that sends more to the Federal government then it gets back, that part sounded attractive.
Oh I did! Being a veteran I don’t know how I didn’t stick them into the Republican scenario. It definitely would be chaos. Maybe someone should ask Empty Greene what happens to the military when Georgia divorces the rest of the country. I served at the base in Valdosta. It has expanded many times over since then. Imagine if they closed up and went to a state that doesn’t want a divorce.
I just think the term “Empty” for her fits so well. She’s an empty vessel that fills up easily with conspiracies and propaganda and she should be emptied like the trash. She’s a danger to society and I don’t understand why people think anything she says is worthwhile. She’s racist, anti-Christian and a bigot and hypocrite.
Securing the nation's safety and security from foreign (influences)(threats)(commerce) would easily be the only responsibility of a federal government in a confederacy. It could never be used to settle domestic issues or threats between states. Aren't most military bases now located in conservative (Republican) states?
Leadership and staffing are assigned to those bases. Most officers and noncoms have had training at one or more of the 5 largest training location (4 of 5 in the Southern military communities). The culture comes to the base and supported by a conservative base city. That is the experience of my family members.
I cannot envision a federal government, foreign affairs or the military under a 'national' government if the states separated individually, according to region or political persuasion can you?
This wouldn't work because of the vast array of differences of ideologies, practices, and wealth in state. Florida and Texas and N. Dakota would never work with liberal states to manage our military.
Sharon I can appreciate your frustration. The issue of federal vs. states rights was a critical issue in the replacement of the Articles of Confederation (unanimous state votes required) with the Constitution. The 10th Amendment accorded to states whatever rights not given to the federal government. The ‘nullifaction’ issue in 1831 prompted President Andrew Jackson to mobilize troops to block John Calhoun on ‘states’ rights.’
Whatever we think of the current Stench Court, we can not simply surrender and encourage states to do whatever they wish. This would fragment the United States.
Even the Stench Court has a constitutional obligation to distinguish between states’ and federal rights. Be careful for what you wish for.
I live in Texas and since I vote for people who serve at the federal level I want to vote like my friends in Oregon...by mail and on ballots that are sent to me without having to request them and getting to use ballot boxes. Instead I get to provide all my personal information on the outside ballot envelope (it will be publicly available upon request after the election). Our redistricting is being challenged in court. Our experienced County election judge and her staff have done a great job and have worked valiantly. Our primary is March 1. This is why we need Federal oversight. The voters in all states need fair and free access to voting. Sorry for the rant. Texas is my home and I am doing what I can to make it better.
Sorry Keith, I’m not wishing for it. I was trying to point out how ridiculous these red states talking of “divorce” and SCOTUS trying to say it’s up to the states actually sound and the impression that this is their goal. After all, they’ve manipulated things at the state level so they have all the control and can’t do it as easily at the federal level.
Me thinks that the goal among conservatives is to achieve a confederacy of states, rather than a union. It was the dissenting opinion in 1789 and has remained the belief of conservatives since that time and the intent of the founding fathers so argued by originalists. The current Republican Party is merely the mantle, the robe, for local authority, a nation of self-directed states.
Except when truly local governments want to impose a mask mandate (e.g., St. Augustine, FL) and the Governor signs an Executive Order making it illegal.
Year is 1789. Can't edit posting. And I am not advocating for that position. Also, not all states in the Confederacy in 1865 were equal in influence and leadership in all things important (military, trade, foreign relations, culture). Those got carried out in a couple of states/capitols.
What's next? Fifty different state passports to travel the country? I doubt there's ever been a Supreme Court that is this radical. It's hell-bent on transforming the country into a place that no one alive today or even in recent generations would recognize. The court is trampling upon decade upon decade of prior rulings establishing the authority of the federal government.
Imagine a country in which its 50 states essentially can do their own thing. A country in which 23 states are fully controlled by Republicans, a party that cares not a whit about fighting climate change, protecting minority and voting rights, and a host of other critical issues.
The Supreme Court is creating fiefdoms. What's next? Gov. Abbott becoming Lord Abbott?
Not for nothing am I calling them out as the STENCH BENCH. With three who should not even be there (the last three appointed), two who lied under oath during confirmation hearings, one who is yet to be investigated for his assaults on women, another whose wife is guilty of sedition, the entire Catholic cabal, the "federalist" bunch who do not even believe in the very Constitution they profess to support, there's really no need at all for them, in my opinion. They have made a mockery of law and do not deserve to wear robes of any sort, except the white kind. I can smell them from here, when the wind from Lord Abbott is not blowing in my direction. His own stench is pretty awful, let me tell you!
Well, there was the Supreme Court that did uphold Plessy's arrest for going into the white train compartment and also noted that "separate but equal is all good with us".
Maybe that Supreme Court and this one have some similarities.
Well, we in CA, have been talking about seceding from the Union. We fight for climate change, fight for abortion, the right to vote, the rights of LGBTQ, etc. We harbor the tech world and clean energy facilities as well as great colleges.
We--Californians--also pay Red States and give them minority rule over the majority. We can even afford to "rent" the military from the (former) US government to protect our international trade. Let every State remit 15% (max) to the vestige of the federal government to "provide for the common defense" and be done with it.
I suggest David Pepper's book, Laboratories of Autocracy because it not only verifies the argument you presented as the Republican plan for their war on democracy, it and published reviews of the book show how Democrat operatives are complicit in letting them do it. What Democrats in Georgia are doing is the best thing possible. They are working to hold their own party operatives accountable, something that Democrats have failed to do with their ridiculous "vote for the lesser evil" admonitions and adhering to the "nothing will fundamentally change" insanity. That steered the country into the situation of rule by the minority in which we find ourselves in which we now realize we will soon have nothing more to lose. That is Dangerous with a capital D to all of us.
Pepper was in great interview yesterday on Sirius Radio.
We'd see the end of states such as Kentucky and other low income states sink and give up without the federal dollars keeping them afloat.
We'd see Hawaii fade due to cut or rapidly increasing costs of goods they need imported there. We'd see tiny civil wars break out and rapid migration of state's citizens and erecting of border walls. It would be completely nuts.
Hawaii would be happy not to be part of the United States. They didn’t want it in the first place and after living there for a few years you can see why. We have done everything to wipe out their cultures and traditions and shove our religion down their throats which is amazing when you consider why people fled to America in the first place. We stopped them from practicing their arts unless it was done in a hotel for the benefit of tourists. I met some very interesting people willing to tell me their stories. I wish I would have gone out everyday and written them down. It’s the first place I really experienced prejudice for being white. In even Korea they did not feel this way. I don’t blame them.
I think there would be regionalization. California and Washington both have strong financial vested interests in Hawaii remaining successful and free of foreign interference; they could contribute to Hawaii paying to "rent" the military to protect the islands. (They could probably pay that "rent" by selling just some of the land the military is still hanging onto there.)
The Ununited States. Coming from Canada, where the threat of Quebec separation has hounded the country from its inception, it has continued to chase its tail throughout my lifetime. My first thought when I moved to the States, (most countries call it that) was that each state has its own flavour, it's own nationality. Fifty different countries.
There's something very basic & tribal about human nature. It just doesn't seem to work very well when the tribe gets too large. Although, like this group, there might be possibilities if there's a common foundation of higher thought & intelligence. I suppose that's what the framers had in mind, although humans, I've found, can be very disappointing.
Judy Does increasing size lead eventually to breakdown? This certainly was true with Athens and the Delian League, despite Athens’ draconian response towards possible deportees. The Greek city states never, for an extended period, worked together. The transition from small hunting tribes to larger populations with an ‘agricultural surplus,’did not lead to permanent larger entities, with the exception of Egypt.
Empires rise and fall. China is a prime example of an ebb and flow, while other empires seem to rise then fall. In the American colonies, the first unifying move was the Articles of Confederation, with unanimity from states for any action. Thanks to Rogue Island, they couldn’t agree to impose taxes. The drafters of the 1787 Constitution clearly did not envisage a country of 50 states, including two non contiguous states, nor the increasing non-Western Europe diversity.
The Civil War was a major effort to split the United States. Back when I rated the credit of Canadian provinces, I was aware of ‘Quebec Libre’ (de Gaulle I found galling on this subject). Nearly 50 years later, this appears more aa threat than a reality. In the United States, it would be difficult to carve off a separate nation. A number of the Southern states are dependent on the surplus taxes from other richer states. Intercontinental free trade has been a hallmark of our economic expansion. The federal military seems essential compared to state National Guards.
Despite the rumblings in various states (Texas?), I can not imagine how these malcontents could ever work out a viable confederation much less a workable constitution.
I applaud your wish for a Platonic foundation of ‘higher thought & intelligence.’ Of course Plato, not trusting the ‘demos’ who condemned Socrates, his teacher, to death, sought rule by philosopher kings. Ain’t going to happen. Czechoslovakia can split into Czech and Slovakia, with a rational division point geographically and economically. The United States will remain with 50 diverse states, despite my personal wish to cut loose Texas, Florida, and perhaps a few other states.
Yes, thank you for all the illumination, it is such a public service and should be required reading for every US citizen! Regarding the above post, Justice Roberts might want to read up on how the Afghani people are fairing with their "lone wolf" government.
Well, now it’s really apparent that Roberts is of just average intelligence. Average. Mediocre. And the questions asked and statements made about the pandemic by justice Uncle Thomas and dingbat Barret expose that they are at most village idiots, only appointed to the highest court to serve their political handlers, bending their legal opinions toward only Libertarian doctrine, and in opposition to founding principles of common sense, common good, and democracy.
We are in historical times of rapid disease spread. Covid 19 is now the most contagious disease ever known to the human race. Without the right Public Health mitigation we are headed for perpetual wave after wave of overwhelmed hospitals, school closures, labor shortages, etc etc. Even with vaccines “herd immunity” can take decades to achieve, and without vaccines in some cases 100s or thousands of years. Sadly, we are at a point that to resume normalcy and end the pandemic, we are going to need 95%+ vaccinations. This is our hard reality and we need to face it. This will require mask mandates to slow spread and vaccine mandates to end the spread. These are Epidemiological facts. Mandates will require majority rule. And that is what is at issue at SCOTUS right now. Minority rule vs Majority rule. If Minority rule allows for people to kill Ahmaud Arbery and get away with it, it also means 250,000 to 500,000 Americans dying of Covid 19 every year for at least another decade. I quess this is my message to Joe Manchin and Kristin Sinema.
We have seen historically, the lack of healthcare in small towns and rural areas. If COVID keeps devastating hospitals and healthcare systems, we will see the closing of bigger and bigger places. The staff alone is nearing their wits end on this pandemic. I have a friend who says that working with belligerent patients with COVID who are unvaccinated and refused to wear masks is a very different story to most of them. She says doctors and nurses are getting very low on compassionate care and attitudes. Her hospital has been overwhelmed with COVID illness and 84% are unvaccinated.
Soon hospitals will have so much staff out sick they won’t be coming to work, this will essentially close a lot of if not majority of hospitals. The deaths will soar for both Covid and other ailments. We need both a mask mandate and a vaccine mandate to get out of this. The alternative is: next variant, repeat above.
It also seems that the most dangerous occupations in the US are now anti-vax podcaster or radio host. Astonishing how those dots haven’t been connected by people who see pedophile pizzarias as a reality.
There is so much that today’s LFAA demands emphasizing. Your comments bring light to much of it.
In the case of the sentencing of Arbery’s killers, here is the text of my Letter to the Editor of our local paper. It is a poor attempt to address the difference between accountability and justice and point out that violence is a very poor solution to any problem.
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Violence is Never a Good Option
The three men found guilty in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced on Friday, 7 January, to life prison terms, two of them without the possibility of parole. This delivers accountability to those found guilty of his murder. However, Arbery is still dead and his family is grieving his loss. All of this is a terrible and senseless tragedy for all those impacted by this terrible crime sparked by racial animus. We can and we must be better than this.
Violence is never a good option. When you as a civilian look down at your hands and see them holding a gun as the solution to any problem, you are the problem.
________________________________
A good friend I asked to review the letter before sending it thought my point was about my objections to the death penalty and felt a life sentence without parole was a more appropriate punishment.
Here is my reply to her to attempt to better explain the intent of my letter.
__________________________________
I agree with your view on the death penalty. The Hammurabi Code of 282 Laws now almost 4000 years old that commands death as an appropriate penalty for any crime should be relegated to nothing more then a historical bookmark for the Babylonian times in which it was drafted. Just as we no longer tie people up and drown them in a river or place them in slavery for crimes it is way past time to have a more enlightened system of criminal punishment and accountability.
However, the point of my letter to the editor is a much larger one. People talk often about justice for the victims of such crimes of racial animus. Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and so many others and more importantly society did not get justice with this verdict. The three men who killed Arbery, and in the case of Floyd’s killing, Dereck Chauvin, got accountability. Justice is about equality for all under law. Society continues to deny that equality to far too many. Arbery and Floyd and so many others are still dead. Too many families still grieve unnecessary losses. And today in our own neighborhoods and communities unequal treatment of “the other” continues and in many cases is even institutionalized by our society.
My own statement on this is a poor attempt to echo the distinction between justice and accountability made by many more eloquent than I after Chauvin’s conviction in the killing of George Floyd. See this article:
I also tried to make the point that violence is a very poor solution to any problem. “When as a civilian, you look down at your hands and see a gun as the solution to any problem, you are the problem.” Just as the death penalty, a violent solution, shows society is the problem when imposed to deliver “justice,” so resorting to violence of any kind to solve any problem is wrong and unlikely to resolve whatever challenge it believes needs to be addressed.
This is not merely about guns. It is about forsaking the power of non-violence for a much less powerful solution - violence.
I despair this societal problem that has always existed and will continue long after I depart this earth. It may indeed be insoluble. But if I can enlighten even a few to understand it, perhaps I can make a very small difference somewhere.
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The distinction between accountability and justice is unrecognized by most. I despair that my poor attempt to raise awareness of this will go largely unheard.
On the issue of Conservatives' attempts to dismantle the “administrative state,” this too is a problem I feel will get much worse. This problem speaks to the larger problem of conservatives' and progressives' contrasting views on the appropriate role of government at every level.
It is my own belief that the Preamble to our Constitution expresses this well in a quite eloquent and concise manner.
"We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
This describes precisely the role of governments at every level. When legislatures fail to address these needs, it is left to the executive branch of our governments, at every level to fill that breach. The purpose of the judicial branch should be enablement not obstruction of these missions.
I strongly suggest Conservatives return to the Preamble’s definition of the whole of government’s role and judge their views on the administrative state’s efforts in light of those words.
Bruce, Your comment, including the link through 'wellandgood' to 'The Verdict in Derek Chauvin’s Trial Highlights the Painful Difference Between Justice and Accountability' is a most worthwhile addition to HCR's Letter today. You have awakened us to the differences between accountability and justice in several ways. Deep thanks for this valuable lesson.
Eloquent. I too think the preamble is one of the most historic statements of intent and believe achieving justice, given that intent, gets so muddied up with accountability (persecution) under laws written to sidestep justice for adherence to intents of the minority, the ruling class. Laws are never made by the poor or by the persecuted, but by those who control power and resources, and history shows us that the more local such control and power rests, the narrower and swifter the laws are written and enfoced to protect the interests of the few who believe they are doing what's best for the ruled.
I made this point in response to Keith's post, but think it applies here as well, Bruce:
Me thinks that the goal among conservatives is to achieve a confederacy of states, rather than a union. It was the dissenting opinion in 1887 and has remained the belief of conservatives since that time and the intent of the founding fathers so argued by originalists. The current Republican Party is merely the mantle, the robe, for local authority, a nation of self-directed states.
If Congress did what it is there for, every level of local government would function better for human citizens, not just sewer rats and industrial poisoners...
Let's not forget the many states and cities governed by brilliant leaders who are anything but destructive finders-keepers-Conservatives.
You do grasp the point. Justice is about equality under law, fairness, loving one's neighbor, compassion, and empathy. It is not about criminal punishment when someone violates a rule or a law. The reason justice is portrayed blindfolded is to show that all should be regarded as equal under our laws. America, in my own view, has a perverted view of criminal "justice." Most believe it is about punishing wrongdoers rather than working to achieve fairness and equality for all under our laws and in society at large. Clearly, conservatives so offended by the idea of critical race theory, a topic of discussion until recently only in advanced elective law school classes, do not get the idea of justice. But then they seem to understand so little about almost anything.
This is a rather long and complex issue for this forum, but I have spent much time and energy during my lifetime advocating and working for change in the area of social justice. It is one I am very passionate about. I remember once telling my young daughter that policemen in Britain did not typically carry guns. My daughter's response at that time was "is Britain even on this planet?" We have had many discussions since then about the meaning of justice and she is now, as an attorney, also a passionate social justice advocate and very much a supporter of criminal justice reform.
“The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; … By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. … Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.”
[Excerpted from The Hidden Words, No. 2 from the Arabic]
Gandhi, MLK, I and many others will stand on my original statement. While I respect your views, I continue to believe in the power of non-violence despite many who may not understand or believe in that power.
If I had been the lawyer arguing when the Chief Justice said that, I hope I would have had the presence of mind and the courage to say, “But, Mr. Chief Justice, people are dying out there, in great numbers, every day.”
And some people thought that Chief Justice Roberts was a positive force on the Supreme Court! His role in degutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 may historically join the Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson as the most dreadful rulings by the Supreme Court. This is underscored by how the Republicans, at the state level, have run rampant in enacting legislation to deny access to voting to a large number of non-white voters. This is further reflected in flagrant state gerrymandering, which renders a number of congressional districts as non-competitive, by carving off bizarre Republican enclaves,
Now Roberts seems likely to acquiesce to Republican briefs requesting the Supreme Court to sharply limit the federal government’s ability to enforcement vaccines during this pandemic emergency.
Roberts is the Chief Justice of the Stench Court including several of McConnell’s slipped-in-justices. He has ample time to reflect on how history (read Linda Greenhouse) will rate his Stench Court.
The Democrats were unable to pass a strong federal voting act. Now they are quibbling about the much weaker John Lewis voting bill. AT A MINIMUM THEY SHOULD SLICE THE FILIBUSTER AND ENACT THE JOHN LEWIS BILL. It’s not effective in disassembling the already enacted state voter restriction legislation, but at least it is a positive murmur, when legislative shouting is not possible.
Roberts only act of courage. Which, I personally believe, came only after he witnessed the world's disdain and dismissal of the US Supreme Court after it "handed the Presidency to the majority of sitting justices' party."
Roberts was never a "moderate." He has always been for dismantling anything and everything related federal restrictions/laws on voting, he is and always has been against a woman's right to control her own body or demand equal pay for equal work (up to the employers), he's anti-union, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-federal regulations of industry. He's only sorta-kinda-wink moved "moderate" because he is well aware the legacy of the Roberts Court is that it was bought and paid for by the Republicans, and he wholly supported the delegitimizing of one branch of of the US government. This way he can pretend it wasn't his doing.
Eons ago Senator Munchkin, in scuttling a strong voting bill, indicated that he would support the much weaker John Lewis voting bill. At that time, it was assumed that he would support slicing the filibuster for this purpose. Now it seems that we are in a game of Ally Ally In Free, with Munchkin and Senator “bipolar & bipartisan” spinning the bottle incessantly.
So out of touch. Gorsuch, Roberts, Thomas, Barrett, Kavanaugh, Alito - the lot of them. Living in their confined, privileged little worlds, cnvinced that their twisted, right-wing Catholic value system is both proper and superior. Their ignorance is appalling, but they are so insulated they’ll never know.
Which is amazing considering the issue with Kennedy was they thought the Pope would rule our country. Seems like the religious right is doing a good job destroying it with their narrow views.
Annette Has anyone reported on whether the Stench Court has required that all employees have been vaccinated? If so, are there any penalties for those employees (including justices) who refuse to be vaccinated? Wouldn’t this be considered a SC precedent?
I don't want to defend Gorsuch but Sotomayor incorrectly claimed that 100,000 children in the U.S. with Covid-19 are in 'serious condition.' The question is: Where did they get their information? Both are wrong.
We read about this somewhere this morning. Her numbers are correct. She’s talking about the number of children that have gotten Covid and now have long Covid or other debilitating affects that will last through their lifetime. Even shortening them in my personal opinion.
Kids. That can mean 1 to 1 day short of 18 years old. The first danger is viral bronchitis, which can lead to viral pneumonia, and what follows that? Usually bacteria pneumonia. Then MSIS, and a host of other long term syndromes.
Is it moral to risk your kids health or ask others to risk their kids health?
“The ultimate test of a moral society is what leaves touts children”- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I trust Justice Sotomayor’s ability to read as many studies as needed to make informed comments. Even if she made a quantitative or other error, the public should cut her some slack, she’s arguing to protect children from a real disease that a lot of people says does not exist.
We already had the scenario of the federal government of tfg saying COVID was the states problem. That led to states bidding against each other for then scarce resources. The virus is a worldwide problem because it respects no silly human boundaries.
I was astounded he said that too. And it is ironic that two of the lawyers had to appear virtually. Here we see the legacy of the Federalist Society and the awful Mitch. Will the Chief Justice be ready to go in history as the head of the court that undermined efforts against the virus which is just one of its and his many failures.
Republicans are not worried about the Dems’ voting rights legislation. Here’s what Hugh Hewitt (right-wing opinionator for WaPo) said in today's column, “…the GOP need not worry about the “voting rights protection” bills now being bandied about. The 6-to-3 conservative Supreme Court…will strike them down, just as it will strike down a number of other laws in the current or future terms.”
The operative words are "should be." But what if the states are not, which as we painfully know is the case with so many of them. What happens if the next pandemic — there surely will be one — is as contagious but far more deadly? Will my tombstone say: "Died Before His Time. Supreme Court Said It's OK." Assuming the majority rules against mandates, it will be sanctioning death and misery on a mass scale. That's not hyperbole. Will those justices find enough solace in their unrelenting narrow interpretation of a document written 234 years ago to feel no guilt over the many millions of deaths?
Michael, I'm not a rose-colored glasses human. We need to be as prepared as we can be and we need to organize as well as work together. The goal being how our circumstances could be made better rather than worse in the near future. Under the very difficult circumstances we are in, I do not think imagining the worst gets anywhere, except in preparedness. It seems to me that you have drawn an inescapable black box. How is that useful to you, and how to you imagine it helpful to others? Warnings with suggestions for avoidance, for preparedness for a better sense of reality aimed at those who may be in denial, I understand. I may be missing something but do not get the point of your comment.
I define community as including any place I can get to in 24 hours. That why Texas towns are 22 miles apart, a one day ride on a horse. Now with air travel we can get almost anywhere in the world in under 24 hours other than some very remote areas. Hong Kong is 19 hours of flying from Boston to Hong Kong. For me, that means we need to rethink states rights versus federal rights when we have corporations which are larger than most countries, when we have existential issues like a world-wide pandemic and climate conflagration to deal with, when we have fundamental rights to protect. There needs to be federal and global coordination of the response to COVID, for example, and to voting rights. This is much like the states are not allowed to put tariffs on other states and the federal government has the responsibility for foreign affairs rather than 50 states doing their own treaties. States rights does not mean the obliteration of federal oversight and coordination and protection of fundamental rights of a democratic republic.
'DON'T COME TO ATLANTA WITHOUT A PLAN TO PASS VOTING LAWS,, GROUPS TELL BIDEN AND HARRIS'
'A coalition of Georgia voting rights groups says President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should skip traveling to Atlanta next week unless they come with a concrete plan to pass federal voting laws immediately.'
'The statement was signed by the Black Voters Matter Fund, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, the New Georgia Project Action Fund and the GALEO Impact Action Fund, an organization representing Latinos. The groups reference Biden’s win in Georgia, plus Democrats’ victories in the January runoffs that gave the party control of the U.S. Senate.'
“Georgia voters made history and made their voices heard, overcoming obstacles, threats, and suppressive laws to deliver the White House and the US Senate,” the statement said. “In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises. Such an empty gesture, without concrete action, without signs of real, tangible work, is unacceptable.”
'The White House announced Wednesday that both the president and vice president would visit Atlanta on Tuesday to talk about the importance of passing new voting and election standards. But such legislation has stalled in the Senate, with Republicans using the filibuster to block debate and a 50-member Democratic majority unable to reach agreement on how to change Senate rules so that the legislation can pass by a simple majority vote.'
'The White House did not have an immediate response to the criticism from the voting groups. Press Secretary Jen Psaki during her daily press briefing reiterated statements Biden said in the past about supporting a Senate rule change to get voting bills passed, which is a priority for him. But the administration has not shared its game plan for overcoming the hurdles that remain.'
'There are two bills these activists would like to see become law, especially ahead of the legislative session in states such as Georgia where Republicans could attempt to pass new laws that reduce access to the ballot or make it more difficult to vote.'
'One proposal, named for the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, would reinstate federal oversight before states and local governments that reach certain criteria are allowed to change voting or election laws. The other would make Election Day a holiday, limit voter purges, allow people to register to vote and cast a ballot the same day, and create national standards for redistricting, early voting, drop boxes and voting by mail.'
'The statement from the voting rights groups says that they will “reject any visit by President Biden that does not include an announcement of a finalized voting rights plan that will pass both chambers, not be stopped by the filibuster, and be signed into law; anything less is insufficient and unwelcome.”
'James Woodall, the former president of the Georgia NAACP, is among the signers of the statement. He said Biden and Harris are welcome to visit Atlanta, but what is really needed is that they work harder on Capitol Hill.'
“The White House must respond to this current attack on democracy, and coming to Georgia for discussions is nice, but what we need is urgent action in D.C.,” he said. “We need to see the passage and signing of both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”
'FULL STATEMENT'
'Georgia voters made history and made their voices heard, overcoming obstacles, threats, and suppressive laws to deliver the White House and the US Senate. In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises. Such an empty gesture, without concrete action, without signs of real, tangible work, is unacceptable. As civil rights leaders and advocates, we reject any visit by President Biden that does not include an announcement of a finalized voting rights plan that will pass both chambers, not be stopped by the filibuster, and be signed into law; anything less is insufficient and unwelcome.
'Georgia will not be used as a two-dimensional backdrop, a chess piece in someone else’s ineffectual political dealings. Georgia voters are more than just convenient props in a political image game. Georgians are fighting every day to protect our freedom to vote from unrelenting attacks. We are tired, but we persist in doing the work. In the past year alone, voters and advocates have fought an onslaught of devastating anti-voter proposals, and have organized in the aftermath of the passage of SB 202. Right now, advocates and local leaders are fighting to stop the closure of 7 out of 8 polling places in Lincoln County — where over one-third of voters are Black. Just next week, the state legislature will convene, with Republican leaders already proudly touting their plans to attack voting access, push to ban drop boxes, and erect new hurdles in the path of voters. And the voters and advocates in Georgia remain, ready to do the work to try and slow them down and stop them from taking away their freedom to vote.'
'So as President Biden and Vice President Harris plan their visit to Georgia, our message is simple: We have voted, we have advocated, and we have organized. We have done the work. Now, it is time for you to deliver, and for you to do the work. We need President Biden and Vice President Harris to demand we restore the Senate and pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act NOW.'
'We reject any political visit that does not also come with policy progress — with signs of clear work done, of something accomplished. We reject any visit that fails to begin with the question “How does this serve the people of Georgia?” It is time for final action on voting rights, and Georgians are waiting.'
'Voters Matter Fund'
'Asian American Advocacy Fund'
'Woodall, former Georgia NAACP President'
'GALEO Impact Action Fund'
'New Georgia Project Action Fund'
The mission for all of us, our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, colleagues and everyone we can reach is to express to President Biden, Vice President Harris and all of our elected representatives the urgency for passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. It is the first priority in the NEW YEAR for all citizens in support of FAIR AND FREE ELECTIONS in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The preceding article By Tia Mitchell, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was copied almost entirely in full. The links below to articles about this story are paywall, (on a website) an arrangement which limits access to users who have paid to subscribe to the site.
No President can pass legislation. He can try to convince. He can bargain, he can negotiate. But he can't legislate. A President can enforce laws but he or she can't make them.
President Biden has been pressing for the passage of these laws for a very long time - he has been very vocal. Should he threaten violence? What else can he do, pray tell, when the two Democratic Senators who CONTROL the Senate act like Radical Right Wingers? What?
There will be no legislative progress until Manchin and Sinema are convinced or replaced. Gaining a real Democratic Majority in Congress should be our focus.
Neither you, nor I know the full extent of Presidential power. People were astounded by the accomplishments of FDR and LBJ. We must act as the voting rights activists are in Georgia right now. May it not rest with them; the people may march to Washington, D.C. and in front of the offices of Manchin, Sinema, and any other holdouts to the passage of national voting rights acts. Free and Fair elections and democracy in the USA will not survive without such passage.
Fern, FDR had both houses of Congress as Democrat.
Reason: The consequences of 10 years of Republican Policy, from 1919 to 1929, generated poverty at an amazing pace called the Great Depression and everyone knew that Republican Policy had to go. So it did.
FDR had power because the people gave it to him through both houses of Congress.
“The 1964 election gave the Democratic majority the most lopsided plurality in history and created a Congress with the largest Democratic majority since 1936. Lyndon Johnson’s landslide win over Barry Goldwater, combined with a decidedly liberal Democratic Congress, set the stage for an ambitious legislative agenda. For the first time since the 1930s, the Democratic Party had enough seats to overcome the Southern conservative coalition that had continually blocked liberal legislation. Johnson was quick to seize the momentum and called his key legislative liaisons to the White House just 10 days after his inauguration. In this meeting, the president exhorted his charges to make haste with his ambitious plans”
Yep, we can celebrate having a Democrat in the White House, but with a 50/50 Senate, and conniving minority leader creating such a divisive atmosphere, monumental legislation like that of the past will, unfortunately, not be enacted, no matter how much it will benefit the country as a whole.
Both FDR and LBJ enjoyed huge Democratic majorities in Congress. Democrats held more than 60% of the seats in the Senate and the House during both FDR’s and LBJ’s terms in office. If Democrats held similar majorities today, we would not be having this discussion. BBB would be passed. For the People would be passed. Biden is accomplishing a great deal given the constraints of a 50-50 Senate.
With all due respect, because I know our concerns and values are aligned, I beg to differ. We do know exactly what the full extent of "Presidential powers" are. They are in the Constitution. And if there were ways that Biden could draw upon past relationships, don't you think he has been doing that every day since January 20, 2021?
FDR and LBJ accomplished a lot. But the Congress was of a different construction then.
And there was a LOT they did not do. FDR turned away a boatload of about 900 Jews fleeing Hitler. He had no support to save them and they died. LBJ was a civil rights hero because he wanted to be on the right side of history. He understood legacy. But he was historically a bigot. And he conducted a brutal and savage war against the Vietnamese.
I write to Biden about voting rights and other issues every week. But he is not a king.
Most knowledgeable citizens do not consider the president a 'king' or care to. We are familiar with the American Revolution. You may lean on the Constitution as the 'originalists' do, although, I gather from other comments of yours that you don't limit yourself to that persuasion. Speaking of persuasion, perhaps, Biden and others the administration have or will figure out what 'powers' may be used to bolster Biden's persuasive ability. Mobilization of the people is another form of persuasion. Faults in FDR and LBJ do not appear to me to have relevance in this consequential matter.
I agree Fern. IF we can somehow get this on the floor of the Senate and the administration uses the bully pulpit of the executive branch, the tarnishing of their records in broad daylight may change two or more votes and that is all we need. I felt that Biden timed his "calling out" of Trump well. May he do it a thousand times more in every way possible in the coming months. EVERY time the former president is mentioned his name should be preceded by and followed by LOSER. He is, was, and always will be a LOSER. (and a sore one at that.)
Except we all just witnessed the Republicans then in control of the Senate to allow the then sitting President wholly negate the separation of powers and duties defined in the Constitution to take "the power of the purse" away from the House. The full extent of Presidential emergency powers, had they ever been invoked in full and equally supported by the Republicans, would have made Trump a dictator. Trump was too stupid to know how to do that, but the next Trump won't be.
I never heard about the FDR story. But LBJ and bigotry yes.From what little bit I’m catching onto the real ‘Steal ‘ will be the Redistricting . Not sure if that was one of the things already lost in 2013 ? I had to cut back on my Researching as my eyes are being effected.Maybe U could search it out ? It’s still in a fight in the Courts I believe.
Marcia, read Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "No Ordinary Time." Sadly, there was a great deal of antisemitism in the White House and the nation at large. My dear mother-in-law told me that, in the 1950s, living in Washington DC, she had to take her children to a much farther away beach than the Delaware beach closer to home. The signage at the beach: No Coloreds, No Jews, No Dogs." My father-in-law, who grew up in the Jewish Foster Home in DC, assisted Superintendent Floretta McKenzie in desegregating the DC schools in the 60s.
Fern I watch PBS. Think it was Thursdays ? They have the two guys that give opinions. I caught just the tail end of it. But the one guy said “ The problem won’t be so much in the Voting, or Counting. It will be the redistricting and how the Electoral College Votes ? And then he said “ from there Congress Cert. will prevail as normal. “It made sense to me because on 1/6 those that were ‘Debating ‘ the Election were just all about how “Special Rules “ were made because of CoVid. I don’t hear them gripping about CoVid ? But boy do they want that Redistricting. Wish I could give you more on it. As I said I came in late on the discussion. But I think it may still be on the PBS App ?
Brooks is also not entirely wrong about the Democrats. Why wasn't the Democrats' very first act--even before the stimulus--to change the Electoral Counting/Certification Act? Now Jamie Raskin is complaining it may not be worth doing anything because the next Congress can just change it back or ignore it--a Constitutional Amendment is needed. Yes, a Constitutional Amendment may be needed, but passing a law that can be taken to court to try to protect has great merit.
The real power resides in the needs, wants, and desires of the people. The Presidency is more than an administrative office. The needs and wants of a people can be known and unknown by the populace. While powers of the presidency can be limited by Constitutional structure, the leader that can recognize, connect with, and seek to fill those needs, has unlimited power as they seek to unleash human growth and potential. For good, this is leadership. So framed this way, what is the limit of leadership power when every individual is given equal opportunity of reaching their full potential and contributes their best for the benefit of all?
FDR struggled to assume the mantle of leadership, he was a gentleman, not a brawler (and not a very experienced politician when he took office). LBJ was a right dirty bastard - grabbed reluctant Congressmen (almost all men then) by their figurative family jewels and squeezed them until they caved. It’s misguided to compare Biden to either of them.Joe doesn’t have the reservoir of power from the huge Democratic majorities that both FDR and LBJ enjoyed.
Many confuse moral leadership with personal qualities. Every human has failings, but that’s not the same as a leader creating a moral vision, inspiring moral actions of their government to act on the behalf of the population for their protection and benefit. Through our history, many times the people are not aware of what is in their best interest. A moral leader is both a teacher, Counsleor, and a good family friend.
“The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.“- FDR
Over the last 20 years, states have put barriers in front of the ballot box — imposing strict voter ID laws, cutting voting times, restricting registration, and purging voter rolls. These efforts, which received a boost when the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in 2013, have kept significant numbers of eligible voters from the polls, hitting all Americans, but placing special burdens on racial minorities, poor people, and young and old voters.
The Brennan Center fights vote suppression on every front. Our lawsuits have blocked or weakened some of the worst suppression schemes, including Texas’s strict voter ID law. And our groundbreaking research has helped win the battle for public opinion. We have shown that voter fraud and illegal voting — often cited to justify regressive voting laws— aren’t a systematic and widespread occurrence; racial minorities are much more likely than whites to lack accepted voter ID; and that there is a growing threat of voter roll purges, which risk disenfranchising large numbers of eligible voters.(Brennan Center for Justice)
Continuing Threats to Free and Fair Elections
Without dedicated and knowledgeable staff ready and willing to run elections, easy access to a secure ballot cannot be guaranteed for anyone.
I asked my daughter about ID in New York because you can’t do anything without a state ID and proof of vaccination. She said the state issues everyone an ID no matter your status. So if here in Texas you might be considered an immigrant or more likely an illegal immigrant, you would still get a state ID if you lived in New York. Can’t do that in Texas! Immigrants hide from the system. There are areas where they have like checkpoints to see if people have correct documentation for being in the US. And Immigration follows children home from school to try to catch their parents! Imagine if we could reach those newer Americans to get vaccinated and even vote.
I read something a couple days ago that said you have to prove proficiency in English to get a drivers license in Oklahoma. It was in sociology so I’m trusting that to be true. What I haven’t researched is if you have the same issue getting an ID and how that affects your ability to vote. This seems exactly like a method meant to suppress the vote.
Texas does have a bit of a problem with illegal immigration given its proximity to the border, the large inflow over that border, the limited physical and monetary extent of the Texas Public school system and the requirement that illegal kids be permitted to attend schools.
When I attended my rural school in East Texas my class size was probably 16 or so.
Now? Rural Texas public schools are overflowing with poor kids from illegal migrants that speak no English. This is bad for both the immigrants and the people who actually are paying property taxes to fund the schools.
1. There is not enough money to cover all the kids because less than half of the kids parents are paying property taxes.
2. There is not enough room in the classes for all the kids.
3. There are not enough teachers for all the kids even if they all spoke English.
4. The language barrier in the absence of giant English as a second language classes is significant and leave the migrant kids basically using the Public School system as babysitting.
So, where illegal migration is relevant, if YOUR child was in a Texas Public school, you might be pretty worked up about trying to limit the 80,000 to 200,000 migrants A MONTH down there.
I know a lot of young people who are citizens but whose parents live here in NY without papers. They are going to school and/or persuing trades. Anybody who pays rent is by default paying property taxes. Think about big cities where most people rent apartments - this is such a canard.
In Texas the farmers provide "high density housing" on their farms for the migrants.
So, the rural schools that were once sparsley attended, are packed with illegal migrant kids, and, yes, the land they are packed onto is taxed at the same rate as land where four people are living.
This is exactly why I don’t think a federal holiday to vote will be effective. The white collar workers already are allowed time to vote without loss of pay. But, our on the ground workers in grocery, retail, construction and other businesses that operate on an hourly or by-the-job basis will still have to work. If they don’t they won’t get paid. They’re the ones that need that pay just to survive.
“There will be no legislative progress until Manchin and Sinema are convinced or replaced. Gaining a real Democratic Majority in Congress should be our focus.”
Exactly. When Manchin was asked about passing progressive legislation he said the solution was to “Elect more liberals “.
But that's only the start since any legislation passed by Congress risks changes made by future Congresses' legislation. And any legislation can be negated by the SCOTUS. As I said elsewhere today, it's the Constitution, Baby! But that will take years to fix. Meanwhile, voting rights are the priority.
If Biden makes voting rights a top priority, he might see his popularity numbers go up. Once the people are behind him, Manchin & Sinema may be forced to vote Yea. This is all
I would think that if either Manchin or Sinema ran again as Dems, they might be primaried out, especially with Sinema. She has changed so dramatically in such a short time. From Green Party affiliation to Democracy obstructionist, such an ungrounded chameleon she is. Manchin is a known and predictable sort, and seems poised to ditch the Dem Party altogether.
Biden would do much better if he would stop threatening violence against other nations and turn his sabers into plowshares. I'm pretty sure you know where that comes from.
Wow, Richard. I don't "know where that comes from". Did you not notice that Biden decided to end military involvement in a bogus 20 year war? Did you not notice that in his communications with Putin he "threatened" economic penalties for an invasion of the Ukraine - NOT military intervention? Is there an instance of "threatening violence" that we have missed?
Thanks, Bill. But I must tell you that he and recent U.S. presidents are now using what is known as hybrid war. That is drones, and sanctions, in particular. Both of which caused a different kind of violence, the former that often misses targets and kills innocent people, and the latter which kills by starving folks. Also, Biden and his predecessors continue to load up on nuclear weapons, which could kill us all.
Yes. But Biden perhaps less with the drones and more with the sanctions which do indeed hurt the vulnerable in many cases.
The types of sanctions currently threatened by Biden and company are focused on Putin himself as well as his inner circle of Oligarchs.
There is a world of people who wish to undermine our legitimacy as a democracy. Putin is but one. How do we respond to those threats? How do we deal with Xi and his genocide? I don't know. I am a peacenik by nature but am a defender of what fragile democracy we have. I think Biden is doing the best he can with what he has to work with. But I am open to new ideas.
Hi Fern, thank you sooo much for this post! In my experience, when a politician states there is a plan for something but won't reveal the details, it actually means there is no plan. This may or may not be the case here. It could also mean the plan/negotiations are at a delicate phase that could be derailed if revealed too soon, or there is a trap about to be sprung, and revealing the plan would be akin to revealing battle plans during a war (and a war this is). Biden has proven surprisingly adept at "herding cats during a hurricane", more so than any president in my memory - which stretches back to LBJ, though DDE was in office when I was born :)
BTW, I read the article on JD Vance you posted a link to. He is a class warrior who will probably become mired in the culture wars/outrage politics that is now the fashion of his chosen party. It's a pity, because class really is the animating force behind most of the inequities in our political/economic system. Racism, sexism, consumerism, etc., have successfully masked it here for centuries. It has also been truly mitigated by things like access to land, the Civil Rights Movement, Labor Unions, the GI Bill, Land Grant Colleges, and the social safety nets created by the New Deal. We are losing all these things. Without the safety valve they provide, I fear not just for our Republic, but for our society itself.
Steve, you summarized our difficulty so well. JD Vance has an important perspective to share, but he couldn't stand up to the 'cult'. Who can? The fascistic propaganda is successful because the people have been screwed for the last 45 years, at least, and vulnerable to white nationalism, strong-armed tactics, victimization (true in their case) and easy answers.
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger can. So can Democrats. So can we. They are seduced by the power of the offices they hold, and have given up their souls in exchange. (Can you tell I’m disgusted and angry with their cowardice? They know. They know, and the do not care.)
Steve, your first line made me think about that excellent, best ever healthcare plan that the former guy and the GQP was going to put out.................when? Ever?
Steve, The link below is to an interview with a Professor Stanley, in which he talks about the autocratic behavior happening now in the USA. He explains the psychology and the strategy behind anti-public health behavior, corrupting the laws, etc. Ted Keyes provided the link. After watching it, I asked if I could copy the link because I'd you to see it. It is below. Let talk when it's convenient for you.
Thanks for the link Fern! This interview was base on an article that appeared in the Guardian on 12/22/21. Here is the link. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/america-fascism-legal-phase Professor Stanley was able to name the Facist strategies I recognized, but could not name. We know what the Trumpist/Facists want to do. Knowing is one thing, stopping them is quite another. In Holland, it took a broad coalition ranging from Catholics to Communists. We need to focus in a similar way, and "stop being distracted by shiny objects" (your phrase - I love it!).
Why don't you reread the article H.A. Voting rights advocates are telling Biden to come up with a plan to pass the national voting rights acts. They want Biden to come to Atlanta with plan, not for a press opportunity. No one is suggesting that voters stay home, except for the Republicans. making it very difficult for minorities and others to have access to the vote.
That lie of progressives electing Trump spread as fake news was thoroughly debunked years ago by good data . Readers, please share the study whenever you see the lie posted.
Had it not been for progressives voting for Clinton in 2016, thanks to the leadership of Bernie Sanders, Hillary would have also lost the popular vote in a landslide as well as the electoral college. If anything kept Democrats from actively voting, it was believing the hubris spread by corporate media like the New York Times telling subscribers that the election of HRC was already in the bag.
Realize that Bernie had about 45% of the delegates at the 2016 Democratic Party convention, which represented a HUGE number of voters. After HRC and Wasserman Schultz violated the Party Bylaws and rigged the election midterm for Hillary, Stein was the only viable progressive candidate option left to rank & file Democrats. Had Democratic progressives staged a protest vote, the Green party would have surged above past votes for Stein. In 2016, the vote count showed the Greens still showed up by themselves for Stein. This happened at the same time that the Libertarians drew several times more votes from D. Trump than J. Stein drew from Clinton. Third parties ultimately in sum only helped HRC.
But Ed, in the few states that counted in the end - Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania - Stein’s votes would have allowed Clinton to win. She had already won more votes nationwide, by a large margin, and I agree that the DNC really hurt us by making Clinton inevitable.
"But Ed, in the few states that counted in the end - Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania - Stein’s votes would have allowed Clinton to win. She had already won more votes nationwide, by a large margin, and I agree that the DNC really hurt us by making Clinton inevitable."
So the urban legend claims. However, I think it is a disingenuous argument and here is why. Stein's voters voted for the progressive agenda championed by Sanders like universal health care, which Democrats' operatives had overtly rejected and even sneered at. There was no reason for Stein's voters to have voted for Clinton. It is more likely that they would not have voted at all or perhaps protest-voted (based on anger, not logic) for the other third party, Libertarians. OK, but just suppose all of Stein's voters, ALL of them, had voted for Clinton. In all three states, Libertarian turnout was 3 to 3.4x that of Stein's Green Party. If you are going to add third party candidates likely voters to the hypothetically popular vote count of the two major cartel parties, putting all of the Stein's votes in Clinton's and all of Johnson's votes into Trump's would mean landslide wins in all three states for Trump. I don't think one can argue that popular support in 2016 really leaned toward favoring the Democratic contenders of any of these three states.
The popular win by Clinton is nothing to brag about. Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes but won California by 4.3 million votes. One could thus argue that she won CA but lost the rest of the country by 1.4 million votes.
My opinion is that the DNC in 2016, as led by Podesta and Wasserman-Schultz, destroyed the credibility of the Democratic Party. After that, even the Democratic Party voting "in solidarity" for Clinton, which we pretty much did do, wasn't enough to prevent Trump. The Independents that we Democrats needed could no longer trust a party exposed as rigging its own primary. Unless our Party regains credibility, we will get killed in the coming elections. Many independents will be just voting against the Party, not just for or against our candidates.
I am certain that many Americans agree that first priority of Congress should be the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. The are the doors which must be opened, but the key to the lock on those doors is doing away or modifying the filibuster. Without that, voting reform won't be passed. It is a poison pill to Republicans guaranteeing defeat for many of them so they universally oppose it. That the SCOTUS was able to weaken the 1965 Voting Act in 2013 in Shelby vs. Holder, strengthening States' ability to restrict voting, suggests that legislation is not the final answer.
The "Founding Fathers," in order to get the Constitution ratified in 1789 bought the votes of Southern States by avoiding the slavery issue. Reversing that through the demanding Amendment procedure was difficult (13th, 14th & 15th Amendments) and still allowed States to restrict voting in various ways, as HCR points out today. Lurking behind this is the simmering need for a new Constitution to replace the patched-up 1789 document which gives far too much power to States, resulting from that trade-off regarding slavery. The existence of State laws regarding tax avoidance, guns and abortions are, for example, results of this. It isn't just voting rights, but that's where it must start.
Once that door is opened, who knows what will happen. Those representing the majority should not compromise as was done in 1789 in Phiadelphia, which was the cause of the Civil War and many of our present day problems.
Unfortunately, there is no ability to have a "concrete" plan to pass Federal voting rights at this time with Democrats and Republicans each having 50 Senators, and two Democrats and all 50 Republicans are holding up the voting rights bill as well as refusing to modify the filibuster rules.
Each state where Republicans hold minority rule and pass laws to restrict voting, persecute, intimidate and replace nonpartisan election officials with Republican officials, and set their Republican controlled legislatures up to to overturn elections is a state where the citizens of those states should make all hell break loose against Republican lawmakers. There is no excuse for Americans not to apply themselves at the local level.
Yes we should apply pressure at the Federal level. But Republicans have been winning against democracy at the state and local level with their political messaging, with their permission to run down and kill blacks, with their laws and execution of laws, with their blind eyes to injustice and to their support of America's caste system that starts in each community, spreads through their states until it reaches our President, Congress and US Supreme Court.
True, no concrete plan is in evidence, but surely there is something Dems can do to pass these vital laws. What would LBJ have done? As the guys on Pod Save America said, The Democrats should get caught trying.
I think this was a brilliant move by all of the voting rights groups. People are tired…tired of being told “NO”. People are tired of Manchenema getting in the way of true democracy and fairness to all. People are tired of being incarcerated for things they didn’t they didn’t commit. People are really tired that those who have committed fraud, who tell lies, those who have murdered, those who are defying subpoenas are not behind bars and serving time in prison. Fed up and just TIRED!!
Thank you!! Democrats have been treating their party like a church in which papal infallibility of its controlling operatives cannot be questioned nor elected Democrats publicly be held accountable.
The voting rights groups are trying to pull the party out of this death spiral that we have been placed into by the utter nonsense of "vote for the lesser evil" and "nothing will fundamentally change." That has only tightened rule by a corrupt, increasingly unaccountable, and ruthlessly terrifying minority.
I know you're angry with good cause, but, Marlene, you provided me with my first laugh, which is already a long day - 'Manchenema'. Yes, ma'am, you are a wordsmith! I laughed again as I pronounced it!
Manchin gets shitloads of money from fossil fuel companies to block BBB and any other bills that they feel will hurt their wealth. He is an immense demon for the people of West Virginia and the rest of this country.
Given the significant resistance Biden faces as he tries to get legislation passed in the current environment, I am not sure I agree with the Georgia voters that declining to discuss voter rights legislation in their own state, where active voters had so much impact, is the right thing to do.
It sounds a bit too much like a spoiled child wailing that they won't eat another bite until they get (whatever they want).
Nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than getting the national voting rights bills passed. There are no Fair and Free elections in the country and no democracy without them.
I agree Fern, but, "Biden" as a singular entity cannot just do it on his own. So, penalizing him by refusing to meet with him for discussion seems, at first blush, to be punitive rather than helpful.
He needed to act sooner. Biden isn't being penalized, he being pushed to find a way to get done what absolutely needs to be done. Nothing is more important than this. It isn't the time for a press opportunity, it is time to ACT!
WE THE PEOPLE are the ones who can make their visit bare fruit. A 'March' on the capitol, which passes the Senate office building (where the port-a-potties will be positioned), and ending on Constitution Avenue.., may be what's needed. Bring your tent, wear your mask.
Fern, as I just did with Mike S I hunted down another comment so as to NOT post a reply in the thread involving David Carroll. Both you and Mike S are people whose posts I look for and read (well, most of them, to be honest I can't get through all of the astute comments so many readers post). I truly believe that DC, like an insolent child, feeds off ANY response. I swear he must type his crap with one hand down his pants. Please don't feed the troll.
To be honest, Fern, my big brother has been in a facility with dementia for two years now. He had multiple brain scans, tests, etc, they are calling it "Alzheimers" but it is atypical. He is aphasic which complicates everything. Such a long story--been typing and deleting for awhile here. Long story short, been on hospice for 6 months and was diagnosed with COVID last week, the day after I visited (wearing a brand new, tightly fitted N95 which makes it even worse as he doesn't know who I am anymore, but recognizes me as someone kind to him) I am doubtful he will survive this, and his kids and I aren't sure we want him to, if you get my meaning. I have watched 3 family members die of cancer, two in intractable pain. The journey of this disease is worse.
I was only with him 30 minutes, prior to knowing he had it but it is so prevalent now and many of the staff are out with COVID. I washed my hands 4 times while there, but in abundance of caution, staying indoors for 5 days. At the moment, he is very ill but not suffering (or any more than usual, his soul trapped in a flesh prison, so to speak). I hope that he remains comfortable.
I ranted on this forum earlier this week and then felt guilty, as most who post on here are so eloquent and, may I say, refined? Poor choice of words, I can't think of a better way to put it. And when I can't find the most definitive words to describe what I wish to express, scares the shit out of me. Dementia has never been in our family and my brother's symptoms started right about the age I am now. Thanks for your kind reply, Fern. Keep fighting the good fight.
Please stay in touch. My mother had Alzheimer's disease and my husband had dementia, which developed very slowly, and he had a beautiful spirit. I've lived with these human side effects. Don't assume that it is in your genes. You have a giving heart, which lights us all. Your love is alive and present, my dear friend.
Keep scrolling down, eventually you'll come across it. If I replied to Fern's post in that thread, it is copied to DC who then gets the jollies of his inane posts generating feedback. He isn't here daily--perhaps he's out peeping in windows or something. But he does show up from time to time. Most of the regulars on here just ignore him, but I will admit to having to struggle to not answer him. So I usually just scan past him as I look for people whose opinions I value.
"perhaps he's out peeping in windows or something." Very cute and a little humor is ALWAYS appreciated. Like you, I wonder why this character (DC)even bothers.
The notion that all these states would pass legislation to overturn elections with the intention to NOT use it is laughable. Gee Mitch, thanks for the heads up.
Thank you, Fern. I agree. I find President Biden to be way too cautious as he continues to 'namby pamby' nearly everything he does. His recent statement in which he put down #45 was excellent, but is it was at least 365 days way too f*#king late! He leans too far right on many issues. When will he ever learn that trying to compromise with a party led by an autocrat will never work? Somebody should make a loud recording that Biden will not be able to shut off as he goes to bed that tells him to get his fellow democrats to eliminate the filibuster before the party likely loses the House and perhaps the Senate in the 2022 election. Is he trying to emulate Obama's first term when that president lost control of both the House and the Senate after two years?
I think you misunderstand Biden. I don't see caution in his activities. I see action. He has accomplished with the help of Congress more than any President in recent history. But if there were a way for him to "convince" Sinema and Manchin to become de-facto Democrats, I am sure he would have exercised that magic by now.
I share your frustration (and Fern's). But if you have a path, a sentence, a paragraph, a message, a form of cajoling or any form of political pressure that you think Biden could lay on these two spoilers to make a difference... to get voting rights passed...please share it with us. Specifically, what should he do?
While I despise Manchin and Sinema, I think we need to recognize that there are 50 Republican Senators who stand in the way of passing voting rights. Let's not let them off the hook. We need to make it as uncomfortable as possible for them as well. The cowards didn't even show up at the Capitol on Thursday. Let's give them the publicity that they so richly deserve. It's not...nor should it be...only up to the Democrats.
agree. What's missing in this conversation is the responsibility of all of us, the American people, to work before and after every election to keep our voices raised and our bodies out there in front our elected representatives
As I have read somewhere, Sinema has been much more of a liberal in the past, and the Dems may be able to get her to vote 'Yea." However, for coal baron Manchin, I have little hope of converting his pro fossil fuel stance, since he makes oodles of money from other coal companies to line his pockets and do what Amway dealers are always told to do, buy a new yacht, a mansion, another fancy automobile, etc. Back in the 1970s, I sold Amway for a while and soon learned that Rich DeVos and Jay van Andel, the co-founders were deeply invested in the Republican party. The late Rich DeVos was the father of Rick DeVos who is the husband of the already filthy rich former Secretary of Education under #45, Betsy DeVos. Betsy is the sister of Erik Prince, the guy who created the private mercenary company Blackwater World Wide, that has contracted with the U.S. government to fight and kill people i Iraq, Afghanistan, and other place the Pentagon wants to decimate. Such a crew, and they claim to be Christians! WTF?
I sent a printout of Jim Barger's essay on Armaud Arbery to my Alabama mother who is 87. In return, I got her notes on it which included racist rants as well as a newspaper column with a prayer that included deviants from the "word of the Lord."
I escaped LA (Lower Alabama) but unless 'outsiders' step in, the entrenched racism will rule the day. My relatives are teaching their children and grandchildren deep racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc., and that culture is not moving. My mother asked, "Did you own slaves? Well, I didn't either." The utter ignorance and abdication of responsibility, of knowledge, of history, of reason, is stunning.
Yes, I know there are evolved folks in the American South, and I also know, up close and personally, that there is endemic, embedded racism. It feeds on the lies of the idjt machine.
Thank you so much, Kim. I’m African American and my mother was born about 50 miles inland from Brunswick. I am more than familiar with this type of tragedy; one of my uncles was lynched. My mother never knew her oldest sibling.
I plan to drop a note to “Brother James” to thank him for his splendid contribution to the upraising of this nation and to the elimination of this sick, morally/spiritually bankrupt culture of ranking by complexion.
This country––this world––cannot afford the evil “luxury” of anti-blackness and graduated criminal “justice” any longer.
His face, even more than his name, eye level or higher. Face to face. Looking me and you in the eye.
Look at me. Your brother.
If you pray, a prayer. To be with him in thought.
Then, a prayer for his killers, for the guilty, everywhere. For all who hate, hated, acted on hate. For the hellbound, for those who cursed themselves.
Oh, Mr. Willis, what tragedy, trauma, injustice, and loss. Brother James is indeed on the required reading list. The rank hypocrisy of the fundamentalists professing Christianity and believing themselves righteous is just repugnant, awful poison. Truly, we cannot afford the evil. And yet...
What a beautiful essay; thanks for posting it Kim. I think what’s important about your story is that YOU know what racism is, and that you won’t spread those ideas to those around you. It’s important every time you bring new ideas that define racism to your family, and even though your family claps back, those ideas will linger in their brains.
Remember in the olden days we used to shudder in horror at the very possibility of "brainwashing". It certainly wasn't anything that would happen here.
Just why, given the damage that he has brought to our shores, is he allowed to remain. Rupert is a foreign parasite, plain and simple, if it was growing on your body like a cancer you would have it removed.
I wrote words I should perhaps not have written, for they shared deep shock. And the moment I had written and moved to post what I had written, they disappeared. Not the first time this has happened.
I wrote, Kim, to thank you for reminding us of Jim Barger’s deep, clean, resonant, heart-to-heart message.
There are words spoken by the great Jewish sage, Hillel, and repeated in the Quran (5:32):
“Whosoever destroys one soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.”
A man IS a whole world.
And yet, in America, killing is as normal and unnoticed as breathing. For all that babbling about “the sanctity of life”. At most, we catch a breath, normal breathing soon resumes, and all’s forgotten. And for all the brave ongoing struggle of these Letters from an American to awaken our awareness, I came away from the account of this killing feeling powerless and lost.
“And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9)
Even if our lives are writ in water, may the spreading ripples from those lives be ripples of awareness. May awareness be our monument.
Thanks, Mike, but no, it wasn't that... I moved to press the Post button but at that moment my entire message disappeared.
I had difficulty posting another message shortly after this one and wasn't sure I'd succeeded until I saw it on my phone. The draft was still on my computer. Maybe it's the computer playing up. I've had the impression over the past 20 years or so that every time that I'm completely at ease with a Microsoft product, they scrap it and bring in something worse, when it's not plain awful.
For my own purposes, I've never had anything better than Word XP. I remember that a theoretical physicist I knew felt the same way...
I'm reminded of when I was a kid and American car manufacturers turned out a new model every year... So, even when they made something lovely to look at like the '48 Buick, it was succeeded by a crap design.
As we saw with Manila's Jeepneys and Havana's seemingly everlasting American cars from prehistory, unsafe-at-any-speed may have guzzled gas but was long-lasting...
No, this looks the same as what Jane DoughS reports. In my case WiFi on the phone functioned but my computer's wired up to a modem connected to fibreglass cable.
Thank you for this Kim. Jim Barger has written a stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking essay. His description of ”dayclean” will stay with me.
“But every day the sun rises afresh across our marshes and out across the ocean at the edge of the horizon. The Geechee word for this time of darkness erupting into color and light is “dayclean.”
I hadn’t heard about Jim Barger before, but upon your recommendation, clicked the link… and read the essay in its entirety. What a beautiful, soul-filled and moving piece! I found Barger’s writing elegant, eloquent and engaging. I now have subscribed to The Bitter Southerner’s newsletters. Thank you for sharing this with us, Kim!
Kim, I read Jim Barger's essay quite some time ago and thought about it yesterday after sentencing and wanted to read it again. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the author's name. And here you posted it for all of us. Thank you.
delighted to be of service...what a perfect required read. Blessings upon you, Daria! Several days ago, I posted a comment that I was going to pack my 2000 Subaru and go looking for you and the expatriate community...that may yet happen.
Yes, everyone wants to be special yes? And, in the south, one way that poor white folks can be special is to imagine they are better than poor black folks. This strategy was promulgated by rich white folks who wanted to use blacks as slaves.
But, while slavery is now sort of part of the past, the need to feel special in the poor white community remains. Hence, your grandmother's rant.
LBJ quote “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” I know this to be true.
Finally, a clear explanation for the extremely large, poor white Republiqan base, who continually empty their pockets making donations to a party that loathes them but is happy to take their money; and for why these same poor, white people ultimately vote against their own interests in favor of big business. So sad to see them being fleeced AND making sure that they can never break free from their financial instability.
LBJ spoke of the “lowest white man,” and I think he was right. But recent analysis of the participants arrested for Jan. 6 showed them far above that. Business owners, doctors, architects, etc. My theory about them is they are the kind of people who feel the need to dominate. Co-existing with equals just doesn’t cut it for them. Be top dog or be nothing. It could be they were raised that way, a prime example being our odious ex-president, who told governors during racial justice protests that they must dominate the streets with great force or look like jerks. He showed how when he cleared Lafayette Square with helicopters flying low, etc., and walked to the church where he awkwardly held up a Bible from Ivanka’s purse.
So right, Limbaugh and a zillion big mouth haters have pressed the message ad nauseam. Now it's republican orthodoxy. Ike made the German cult look squarely in the face of their evil, saying to get pictures and collect evidence because in the future, some would deny it ever happened.
Scott, I did not know this song. I'm sitting here in the sunlight, tears streaming down my face. I've been saying for a very long time that Republican power grabbers (who used to be Democrat power grabbers) are experts at riling up their base emotionally so they don't even notice that they are voting against their own interests and that Democrats need to get much better at messaging. Beloved Dylan "said" it so much more powerfully. Thank you, I'm going to work to get this song out to the public again. Blessings,
We are all far, far more than "special", we are EQUAL.
But we don't know what that means.
We don't know what that means, but my mother told me when I was 8, in 1948. And even if I couldn't understand her words then, she made me understand how deeply they mattered:
"We are all the children of the same God."
Even if that last word does not speak to you, the truth that it expresses remains unchanged. There are many ways of expressing truth.
Add the memory of Medgar Evers to our energy getting voting rights legislation passed by the Senate.
As a child in Jim Crow Mississippi, Evers walked 12 miles a day to school. As an 18 year old kid in the Army, Evers fought in Normandy in World War 2. He graduated from college, married, and in 1952, started civil rights organizing with his brother Charles, first for the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), then for the NAACP. He was turned away at gunpoint from voting in an election.
On June 12, 1963, he was assassinated by a member of the KKK, and one year later, Bob Dylan wrote "Only a Pawn in their Game." The murderer was not convicted until until his third trial--in 1994, 31 years later.
So true, and most of them have never left the South. My 7 siblings and I from rural NC are a microcosm of sorts. The half that didn’t stay to stew in the righteous hatred have a whole different take on issues. As one bro said to me after seeing my expression after he used a racial slur ‘guess you didn’t talk like that at NASA.’ Well, no. Most who had similar sentiments chose to keep quiet. Fox was made to order for making those folks the vocal haters they are today. Nixon’s Southern Strategy lives on.
Kim, I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this in such an intimate way. The arguments in favor of anti-diversity, anti-inclusion, and bigotry are always the same: "Well, I didn't do those things so I'm exempt." The growth of the radical right in Germany is playing that tune as to the activities of the Nazis. The struggle for achieving a reckoning continues.
Kim- we moved back to Atlanta in 2018 after living in Seattle for 25 years. It. Was. Shocking. I figured the south would have progressed in that time. No, it was like moving back to GA in 1940. And we are going more and more backward. Strict abortion laws and less and less gun restrictions, and then voting rights are being trampled… I’m sad and disgusted. Oh, and the family I moved back to be near- some of us are no longer on speaking terms. It’s pretty depressing.
As a resident of the Olympic Peninsula, My condolences. It must be so very sad. i'm fearful of ever returning 'home'--I'm certain I would be ostracized if not killed. It is truly no joke. Retard a terre, as the French may say. I used to return every 7 years, as that is the time it takes for a body to regenerate all the cells, but no change, no progress, no enlightenment. Truly depressing.
Agree and empathize totally. You have to think of your safety. Always. Not only because of what it means to you, but also to the ones who love you and who would be devastated if anything happened to you. Remind your friends as well of the responsibility they have to stay safe for the sake of those who love them.
Everyone is always telling me, here and in my family, to drive safely and be safe out there because I drive trucks full-time. The risk I take is inconsequential compared to the risk that you take when you go where you don’t belong. Thank you for not returning. 🙏🙏🙏
I am most appreciative of your understanding, Roland. It means much. My family called me after my father was buried, to tell me he had passed. Not that I would ever want to intrude upon their fundamentalist funeral. But the disrespect is palpable. They didn't want to risk me at their services.
I tried that in 2012, it didn’t work then and I won’t do it again since the orange turd is hero to many. . It’s hard to even have a conversation but I try.
The cult has taken over more and more and cults don’t deprogram themselves. Fox and clones have increased their vitriol, with Joe labeled a parasite, bastard president, and evil. Just the ones I saw in the last week (tee shirt, bumper sticker, and big mouthed old woman). They feed chump’s narcissistic ego and he is in his glory.
I often think of racism in a similar fashion to family addiction. One grandparent after another are alcoholics or druggies or gamblers that shake up and shape a family dynamics. Then you realize that your own father isn't an addict, but he acts like an addict. And, you are then raised in an addict's home. It's a real concept. The same is true with deep racial bias. Your ancestors were slave owners or held the idea that black people are worthless or lesser than your white privilege. It's passed down this racial bias. No, you aren't owning slaves anymore, but you wouldn't mind and you hold the mindset to do it in the southern way.
Christi, actually that is a current theory in psychology and biology: trauma gets into the DNA and is transmitted to future generations. Those of us who are Jews have the millennia of trauma encoded into us; that same is true for enslaved people, colonized people, the victims of assault: all are physically and genetically altered. there is research being done to see if those who enact trauma on others are similarly marked.
Religion plays a role too. Whities were supposed to be the Christians God loved best and they were to take a paternalistic view towards the "lesser tribe." Boy did that get corrupted to a fair thee well. I was gobsmacked when I learned that "picnic" had a connection to the fact that after church, many church people took lunch and went to lynchings. Found a pic of postcard that showed people eating lunch at a lynching. I'm sure my Mom and Dad knew of such but when I asked any questions was told " you don't want to know that old stuff."
So much fear of the "other". It seems your grandmother explains perfectly the attitude of the South. "Did you own slaves? Well, I didn't either." Amazing.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it! (George Santayana-1905). In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill changed the quote slightly when he said (paraphrased), “those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”
Yesterday I got in touch with Christiane Amapour and PBS Nightly Newshour asking them to interview Ms. Cox Richardson. We need news stories that are sourced and contextualized AND include historical information. Heather Cox Richardson, in her daily blog, does both.
Yesterday's headline--of course, somehow abbreviated-- could be "On a November day in 1861, Massachusetts abolitionist Julia Ward Howe woke up in the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C."
From January 7th blog, another headline, "Arbery murderers' use of Georgia’s citizens arrest law, dating from an 1863 law designed to permit white men to hunt down Black people escaping enslavement, failed. Now change the law!" Then within the article the excellent information give in Ms. Cox Richardson's blog could be included.
I've turned worry into anger by writing government representatives (local, state and national) and the professors in both history and political departments in the universities in my state (NC). I send the day's blog and write that I would like everyone to be aware of this source of information. For the professors, I ask that they share with their students. I've now started to write to news programs and papers. Other ideas. Please help, if you're so inclined. I'm over 80 but energized by this daily blog from which I'm learning so much.
This what you are doing is Exactly what I mean about us all making talk into action. Good on you ! PBS knows who HCR is. They have had her on before. Would be wonderful on Amanpour. This has been my ‘Mantra’. We can all do something even if it is just a small thing. I also say we need to do it as if our lives depend on it because it does. Thank You. ❤️🦋
Barbara Delighted to have you in the Over Eighty Hit Squad to Protect American Democracy club. To belong, one has to be triple vaccinated and show their Medicare card. Having experienced WW II qualifies you for Buck Rogers/Lone Ranger salon seating.
Marcia If you are triple vaccinated and have a Medicare card, you are eligible for our Mouseketeers Club, whose marvelous benefits are mind boggling. P. S. If you pass the Australia visa regulations to be certified ‘mind boggling,’ you can be elevated to the late middle age club.
I don’t live that far from TFG, bet he’s got a guy, who’s got a guy, that knows a guy, that has a guy, that will call a guy and then………on the way back from getting Bailed out of Fed court. I’ll stop at Disney and buy the Damn Rat Ears !
FYI, that guy must be this guy “Get Me Roger Stone.” Was on Netflix. Without a doubt, he has recruited every lowlife on planet earth for a Plethora of dirty deeds
Talk about dejavú Barbara, I just posted the same Santayana quote earlier today as a comment to a Miami Herald editorial opinion regarding Sidney Poitier.
Thank You for your efforts and diligence; Democracy isn’t and shouldn’t be free to nor for any of us. It is a participatory form of government which - at a minimum - demands that each of us of voting age educate ourselves and cast votes in every election in which we are legally permitted to participate … Stay Safe and healthy and have a wonderful year!!!
The Arbery case is a perfect example of white racist men off the rails. You are correct to point out how close this case came to avoiding justice. To go from almost swept under the rug to life sentences for the perpetrators is an astonishment. I live in Hamilton Co. TN, adjacent to GA, and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Congressional district, and I quite frankly feel like I live in a backwater, political wasteland. Both TN and GA have governors who are clueless, trumpy hacks, and coupled with Republican dominated legislatures, the culture here, both political and cultural, feels dark and depressing. There are two Americas, and I am not certain that this will change anytime soon. I know I can count myself amongst the majority, but where I live it does not feel that way. Angry, depressed and lost in TN.
I live in the other America and have traveled through the one you live in recently- my older brother lives in Baton Rouge, LA. It is mind boggling to see, first hand, how widespread the dark, depressing culture is and how many defend it as “normal” or good. BBB is designed to help address the darkness you and millions of others live in - and as you already know too well, Republicans don’t want to shed light for their people because those people will start voting for those who help. Time to pull out all the stops on voting rights.
Sending good cultural vibes your way, Jeff. Hang in there.
Thanks 🙏 I am not normally feeling this despondent. I grew up here and have spent all but ten years of my life here, and should be accustomed. Problem is that trumpism either halted progress or gave cover for the undercurrent of racism to go mainstream. I would nod to the possibilities of both. Not long ago I believed that it was not as much where you live, but how you live. You know, an inner attitude that would allow you to be at peace anywhere. I still feel that way, but now think it is important to be in communion with like minded souls.
Add Florida...and Alabama ... and Texas ... and others. As evidenced by their belief that sharing the video would exonerate them, the men who murdered Arbery suffer from White Privilege Syndrome. And it is the holding them accountable that others who suffer from White Privilege fear. We need more accountability.
If you are here you are not lost. The Cause to save Democracy needs every little bit of help it can get. When you’re ‘Doing ‘ it helps with the other things. See what those other majorities in Ur local area are doing. But stay safe and warm.
I feel for you Jeff. I can relate to and agree with everything you say about the feeling of the society. I have been to or through practically every state during the course of my lifetime, and when I tell people I know in California that Tennessee is the most disturbing social consciousness of all of them, and that I will never go through TN again, I get odd responses. Caveat: I have not been to Alabama or Mississippi.
I have said for decades that AL is a nice place to be FROM! It has a range of lovely geography and, on the surface, folks are friendly and helpful. I used to also say that hunting dogs get more respect that blacks and women. I don't think that's changed. I just turned 66 and, therefore, grew up in turbulent times. I went back to campaign for Doug Jones in 2017 and was not warmly welcomed. Many had already given up on me long before when I supported Obama. There are some Dems in AL. Precious few. Nixon's Southern Strategy worked.
I have been to all the states in my quest to climb the highest peak in each. Thus I have been to many, many rural areas and backcountry towns, while driving thru urban areas to get there. And yes, Death Valley on the way to Mt. Whitney. The most important part of my travels were the people I met. I remember most of them. Mississippi and Alabama are not only remembered for the huge delta area I drove through but the diner we ate it serving the most delicious caramel cake. And Vicksburg on the Mississippi. Could not repress visions of Huckleberry Finn on his raft, among those ironclad battleships. I find beauty in every state and it is a shame that the mores and traditions are less than the beauty, less than the food. In Tennessee we again ate at a diner and met folks there so much a part of the generation that passed decades ago and still clinging on. We went thru Hollers in Kentucky and saw the homes perched on the hillsides without running water and the way the locals eyed us with suspicion but they helped us with directions and jokes. Tennessee is beautiful. Not wanting to be argumentative, but just wanting to share the love of this country. We live on 20 acres 26 miles from town so I am not accousted with sickening flags every morning and Ram trucks parked in the next driveway with stickers proclaiming inane comments. I know I am lucky..
Yes! The caramel cake is worth the trip. I have a recipe for the icing if you want it. Two, in fact. Aunts from both sides of the family made it differently. It is unique to the South, I think. Good luck in your quest. Lovely description of your travels.
Place butter, brown sugar and salt in a saucepan. Heat, stirring until the brown sugar is well dissolved. Add milk and continue stirring until well blended. Let bubble (at an easy boil) for about 4 minutes stirring constantly. Set hot mixture aside to cool for several minutes. Using mixer, add confectioner's sugar and vanilla. It will turn lighter and caramelize. When desired consistency, ice the cake, placing some of the icing between layers. You can use a box of yellow or white cake mix of your choice but is best as a 3-layer cake. (I wrote this maybe 40 years ago while watching my Aunt Carolyn, who never used a recipe!)
Beautiful work Professor. Full historical context is your signature, the last several centuries, decades, years ... literally up to the last 24 hours. Thank you very much.
It might be. I occasionally see HCR's LFAA commentary showing up on the Opinion page of the Palm Beach Post, suggesting that it might appear in other Gannett (USA Today) publications as well. I'll let you know it this one does.
Really?! That makes me so happy! I know someone high up at Gannett and recommended he read Letters from an American. Maybe he listened? In any case, Heather deserves recognition and high praises!
Unfortunately, since if one were to divide the country in quarters, the largest population is in the south where that 'minority right wing' is a majority.
And there it is, my take away from Heather’s words today, my takeaway, what jumps at me?
Most of us, I sure don’t, we have little knowledge of what goes on, how things really operate in our communities, our state, our country. Most of us, we have no idea what goes on.
Heather laid it out, told the story, gave the story context, where most media fails miserably.
I mean, are you freaking kidding me? It took two and a half months between the time a man was shot and killed, and then, the perpetrator choosing to have the video of his crime published, before some accountability begins? Really, in America, 2021. Really?
We receive (and most seem happy to receive) bits and bites, nuggets of news, in some places - pure SPIN. Most of us, we never know the whole story. We only see parsed snippets and so, how can we ever understand?
You gave me context Heather. Honestly, before today, I only knew snippets about this story. I'd been fed junk food news, and so, I had little understanding.
And that is it, that’s the thing. This is what happens - every day. We’re fed junk. We consume junk. Garbage in / garbage out.
I mean, we must look in the mirror. Who’s to blame? Start with the person in the mirror. That is always - the place to start.
We get what we accept. Right?
It’s time for WE THE PEOPLE to look in the mirror, stand up, expect more, begin with self and go from there. Be better. DO BETTER.
I read this somewhere. I wish they were, but they are not my words, but I love them. Here goes…
We Are the People We’ve Been Waiting For
Thank you Heather for shining light into the dark. You help us see. Thank you.
I knew all this, so do Dem pols and many rank-and-file. We wring our hands, sign onto groups opposing the destruction of democracy, and respond to inane emails asking for our five dollars. Mostly, we wring our hands.
The NY Time or WaPo should just print her letters on a regular basis. And actually, local papers, where they still exist, would be a good place to publish them as well. They would reach a more diverse group.
We now know from the murders of both George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, that cameras or videos are essential pieces of evidence for upholding justice. Hate is and always has been rampant in our “land of the free” country. It’s way past time to put an end to being manipulated by politicians whose goals are to undermine the general population. Write, march, protest, be LOUD, just do something!
Very eloquently put, Dr Richardson, tying voting rights to the laws over everyday treatment of our neighbors. Most Americans wouldn’t make that connection.
I also saw this morning that the Governor of Louisiana posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy for the crime of sitting in the White Car of a train. The law, which was challenged in the Supreme Court - Plessy v Ferguson - was almost unanimously upheld, with one dissenting vote from Justice John Harlan. Justice Harlan stated that the Constitution is color blind, and that it was “wrong to let the states regulate the enjoyment of citizens' civil rights solely on the basis of race.”
I hope what we do today won’t take 6+ decades to correct, or 130 years to pardon.
This is one of the stories in which we can see justice is served. The local assumptions are so frightening in their assumption of moral superiority that it is sickening. The lesson is that if there is no video footage, there is likely no justice.
These congressmen and women are apparently the audience that our video posting Georgian vigilantes were posting the footage for in the first place. Those who would see the righteousness of their cause. It is that ignorant moral superiority that I am both sickened by and frightened of. While hoping that some of these people can get voted out, it seems to be less and less likely that this can happen.
No cell phone cameras, no young people recording with them, no consequences for Chauvin and the McMichaels. #MeToo would be weaker, because the white boys who make the news, like Roger Ailes, Donald Sterling, et al, are the ones who were recorded.
“ But it is also a story of local government and outsiders, and which are best suited to protect democracy.” These words. And the threads woven in the paragraphs you wrote today—Excellent column. Thank you
What is sad to me is that many of my friends, family, and neighbors are not worrying about voting rights being taken away. When asked if they knew about the states that are putting these practices in place to essentially make a citizen's vote not matter, they either say they do not know what I am talking about or they say that would never happen. When I say it is happening and tell about it they do not seem to care. These folks only worry about the issue that matters to them and where they are in their own lives. How do we get people to care about this very important fundamental right that makes this country so unique and great?
Most people go through life, deep in their own head. They don't see the link between their government and themselves. It's hard for them to imagine that they could have a connection, a common interest with someone a thousand miles away, living on the other side of the country. Medicare, Social Security, the ACA - Affordable Care Act, these are thing done collectively by our government in our common interest. They did not always exist and they could be taken away but self centered leaders who do not care, who believe in each man to himself, laws of the jungle. Wow. Not sure if I helped here, but I like your thought, your question. I ask myself the same thing. How do we help people understand and think bigger?
Most (white) people go through life, deep in their own head. They don't see the link between their government and themselves.
Because, in the Black and Latino community, definitely, everyone sees a link between government and themselves.....through the ever present threat posed by the police who are part of the government.
Mike, hunted down another of your posts so as to NOT reply in the thread where you replied to this forum's resident troll: David Carroll. I have previously likened this guy to the old heavy-breather on a landline, trying to get his jollies by riling people up. I generally skip over everything he posts. Please don't feed him. I know it is tempting, but I really believe he loves any the attention he gets and your logical posts will never convince him..
Thank you Janet. In one pithy statement, you nailed it. Most people in the US are ignorant politically. I was one of them too until recently, now I call myself a “former political agnostic.” Once you scrape through the ignorance, people fall into one of two camps. I know it sounds simplistic, and people can argue with me if they like, but it’s polarized. Either you are in favor of POC and women and non-straights having equality and full rights in a diverse society, or you are not. In 2020, 81 million people voted for Biden (& Harris) or against Trump (more of the latter), 74 million people for white superiority and male dominance. It was a referendum on everything that Trump represents. Trumps world was rejected, but not by much, percentage-wise.
Later or not at all in all probability as the Dems have to win the 2022 partial elections first. The current make-up of the Senate is not going to let them do it or do it so late that it won't count. Manchin will sit on his hands and make positive noises but will not act either on the voting bills or the filibuster....he has his well-funded retirement to protect and cares nothing of much else. The other Colorado idiot is up in the clouds somewhere and the timid little Rinos don't dare express what they know is right. If the Democrats don't take the battle back to the red states they are going to be in a permanent minority.
Given the geographical basis of the Senate, and the "political sorting" that has happened, there is every likelihood that we are looking at the high tide of Democrats in the Senate for the foreseeable future right now, with two (Tester and Manchin) gone at their next elections. We may outnumber them, but we don't outnumber them in enough places.
Understood, Stuart. And she is running for reelection in 2022 in Colorado. But here's a hopeful sign: "The path to reelection for Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican congresswoman from Colorado, could soon become a lot harder. A new map proposed by Colorado’s nonpartisan redistricting committee could force Boebert to compete against Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) in his safely Democratic district."
UPDATE: to be accurate, it is indeed good news, and I really do wish it would lead to the second sentence in your post. But right now all I can do is hope I'm wrong.
This is a perfectly clear explanation of states rights and the need for federal oversight when minority corruption interferes with the democratic process of good government. Nice piece of writing. Thank you. It is easy to see expanded variations of this militia behavior happening across the country if the results of the 2024 election are overturned by state and federal government officials supporting the losing candidates. 2025 may be a very bad year for this country.
The way HCR constructed today’s letter left me gobsmacked and tingling all over. Having a clear understanding of today’s news tying back into shameful history, I feel like I now have a much better argument to bring to my stubborn US Senator.
I can’t believe Roberts said this “the pandemic sounds like the sort of thing that states will be responding to or should be, and that Congress should be responding to”, and then attacked the Federal government for responding. The rest of his statement should have been, “Given the complete failure of said states and Congress to act to protect the health and safety of their citizens in this pandemic, it is not only important but utterly necessary for the Federal government to intervene. Let me be clear - the states and Congress have failed. That they are suing the Federal government instead of thanking it is a travesty. Case dismissed!”
If you go by the current logic of Robert’s and the bought and paid for right-wing SCOTUS they should shut down the court. The states can regulate everything, they each have a Court. Now that we’ve determined we don’t need Federal government for that let’s go a step further. Make each state handle everything on their own. The people they put in office will have no say in anything outside their state. Oh, and wait, that’s too much governing from Albany to say what Buffalo or NYC should do so each place needs isolated government.
We won’t need federal Congress anymore, send them home. We won’t need a President, each Governor will independently lead their 1/50th of the country. All financial resources will come from their own citizens. No more tax money coming from CA or NY where everyone complains about high taxes. We’ll use that money for ourselves.
The only thing we’ll have at a Federal level will be a representative to oversee Federal lands. Just some small agencies.
This all just sounds ridiculous and you all just thought I was quiet for over a week and must have gone crazy.
But this is exactly what Republicans want to happen. When it does they’ll want to do away with their state government with the exception of banning abortion and voting.
Sorry for the rant. My grandson is doing two 4 week accelerated college classes. One of them is sociology and I’ve been reading the book and helping him study. I am learning so much even though I took this class myself 40 years ago. Things have changed and now that I have more real world knowledge everything I read is so fascinating and relatable. I discuss it with him and try to help him relate. Yesterday’s readings were on mass media and social media and liberals vs. conservatives. Everything I read is what we see happening in front of our eyes.
This professor is doing an excellent job with online education. Thank you to Heather and all the teachers out there that work so hard to expand our world!
Kentucky has a state wide population of nearly 4.5 million. The population of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, is 7 million. It irks the heck out of me that a senator from such a puny state has the power to dismiss/ignore facts, squelch legislation, select SCOTUS nominees and basically run his own power plays on the tax dollars that my region and state as a whole gives to the federal government when his tiny fiefdom takes far more than it pays into the system. SMH…
As a KY resident (anti-Rand/McConnell) I agree, but the ignorant rural constituency truly believe he doing great things for the Commonwealth. One only needs to look at this state to see how McConnell would like the entire country to be like.
Without FDR's Tennessee Valley Authority, many in that area which also includes a big chunk of southwestern Kentucky and parts of five other southern States besides Tennessee, would still be using kerosene lanterns and candles to light their lives. They used to support Democrats but that party's turning away from racism made them into Republicans who never ever did anything to benefit them, and never will, but it enables them to feel superior to people who benefit from the Democrat's safety net, which they forget also benefits them. They will never learn.
They will NEVER learn as long as propaganda spews vitriol 24/7.
Did you see Fauci bust Rand Paul? :)
It's our compromise-laden horse and buggy Constitution that permits it. But fear not, there will be a new one, including fully representative democracy this time around, but only after the nation recovers from the damage to democracy the 'Founding Fathers' compromises have brought about. (Maybe not in our lifetimes.)
The Constitution was a brilliant conception in the context of the late 1700s. However, besides the compromises you reference, the framers made it too difficult to amend. They could not envision the enormous changes that were ahead, including the growth of the country, geographically and the number of people. Nor could they envision the complexity of challenges we face today.
The idea of the Supreme Court interpreting the original intent of the Constitution to serve the nation of the present is ludicrous. It's a grievous flaw. Another flaw: assuming that Congress would be made up of elected officials committed to governing through constant compromise. Essentially, Republicans have hacked the Constitution by refusing to govern in good faith.
I agree ... but neither of us will be invited as a guest speaker at the next gathering of the Federalist Society.
Likely only Lincoln recognized the danger from within. Well, FDR too since a coup was plotted in 1933 (reported by Gen Smedley Butler).
I have a friend who estimates 10,000 years
But who will do the counting? "Planet of the Apes" scenario??
I think, but I hope not
Well said, and thank you for this comparison, from someone who lives in Brooklyn, NY.
I totally agree on the distribution of tax dollars. If they want to run their own states don’t call home for help whenever it goes bad. The Texas electric grid problem should have been fixed with TX money. The unvaccinated shouldn’t take the medicine or hospital beds of the vaccinated and so on. Kentucky shouldn’t take any help from Democratic states. Then go do whatever you want.
That applies to pretty much every Red State. At least half of the American population lives on the Coasts - more than equal to the rest of the States - paying the bulk of Federal Taxes, while being severely under-represented in Congress.
But you forgot about the military? An enormous part of the Federal government. How would they fit in your scenario? 50 independent state military organizations? Who gets the nukes? All 50? These crazy people don't have a long view to see how starting down a path is a straight line to chaos. Though have to admit, living in Illinois, another state that sends more to the Federal government then it gets back, that part sounded attractive.
Oh I did! Being a veteran I don’t know how I didn’t stick them into the Republican scenario. It definitely would be chaos. Maybe someone should ask Empty Greene what happens to the military when Georgia divorces the rest of the country. I served at the base in Valdosta. It has expanded many times over since then. Imagine if they closed up and went to a state that doesn’t want a divorce.
Florida and Texas too! Big bases in both states
Texas shading purple, or am I dreaming
Did you mean M.T. Greene? Or perhaps Em Tee Greene? (Har, Har.)
I just think the term “Empty” for her fits so well. She’s an empty vessel that fills up easily with conspiracies and propaganda and she should be emptied like the trash. She’s a danger to society and I don’t understand why people think anything she says is worthwhile. She’s racist, anti-Christian and a bigot and hypocrite.
Yes, but how do you REALLY feel?
"We'll try to stay serene and calm when Alabama gets The Bomb."
There is nothing serene and calm about that scenario!
Obscure cultural reference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw
Lordy, he told us
Hilarious. Never heard of Tom Lehrer, my loss. Thanks.
Love this! Brilliant!
Securing the nation's safety and security from foreign (influences)(threats)(commerce) would easily be the only responsibility of a federal government in a confederacy. It could never be used to settle domestic issues or threats between states. Aren't most military bases now located in conservative (Republican) states?
California has many bases & it's not conservative.
Leadership and staffing are assigned to those bases. Most officers and noncoms have had training at one or more of the 5 largest training location (4 of 5 in the Southern military communities). The culture comes to the base and supported by a conservative base city. That is the experience of my family members.
Parts of California are.
I cannot envision a federal government, foreign affairs or the military under a 'national' government if the states separated individually, according to region or political persuasion can you?
Perhaps not in a pure confederacy, though we have not yet achieved a true union either. Aspiration and intent unrealized is a great motivator.
This wouldn't work because of the vast array of differences of ideologies, practices, and wealth in state. Florida and Texas and N. Dakota would never work with liberal states to manage our military.
You could be right. Not sure leadership or control would necessarily shared between states or by conservatives with liberal factions in such states.
Eact state remits 15% max to "provide for the common defense" then pays to rent the military when they want to use it.
My worry as well.
The nukes can govern themselves with local militias?
Sharon I can appreciate your frustration. The issue of federal vs. states rights was a critical issue in the replacement of the Articles of Confederation (unanimous state votes required) with the Constitution. The 10th Amendment accorded to states whatever rights not given to the federal government. The ‘nullifaction’ issue in 1831 prompted President Andrew Jackson to mobilize troops to block John Calhoun on ‘states’ rights.’
Whatever we think of the current Stench Court, we can not simply surrender and encourage states to do whatever they wish. This would fragment the United States.
Even the Stench Court has a constitutional obligation to distinguish between states’ and federal rights. Be careful for what you wish for.
SCROTUS - the R is for Republican. (Yes, I stole that from the twitterverse)
Since 2008 I've tended to refer to the "Subprime Court".
I live in Texas and since I vote for people who serve at the federal level I want to vote like my friends in Oregon...by mail and on ballots that are sent to me without having to request them and getting to use ballot boxes. Instead I get to provide all my personal information on the outside ballot envelope (it will be publicly available upon request after the election). Our redistricting is being challenged in court. Our experienced County election judge and her staff have done a great job and have worked valiantly. Our primary is March 1. This is why we need Federal oversight. The voters in all states need fair and free access to voting. Sorry for the rant. Texas is my home and I am doing what I can to make it better.
You don't need to look to a "liberal" state for an example; Utah has done mail-in voting for years.
I just know Oregon because I have family there.
Bravo!!👏🏼👏🏼
Sorry Keith, I’m not wishing for it. I was trying to point out how ridiculous these red states talking of “divorce” and SCOTUS trying to say it’s up to the states actually sound and the impression that this is their goal. After all, they’ve manipulated things at the state level so they have all the control and can’t do it as easily at the federal level.
Me thinks that the goal among conservatives is to achieve a confederacy of states, rather than a union. It was the dissenting opinion in 1789 and has remained the belief of conservatives since that time and the intent of the founding fathers so argued by originalists. The current Republican Party is merely the mantle, the robe, for local authority, a nation of self-directed states.
Except when truly local governments want to impose a mask mandate (e.g., St. Augustine, FL) and the Governor signs an Executive Order making it illegal.
Odd how that works isn’t it? Heads I win, tails you loose. All hypocrisy and double speak.
States rights, unless we need SCOTUS to install a president.
Year is 1789. Can't edit posting. And I am not advocating for that position. Also, not all states in the Confederacy in 1865 were equal in influence and leadership in all things important (military, trade, foreign relations, culture). Those got carried out in a couple of states/capitols.
And that takes us all the way back to ancient Greece and a democracy built around city-states... Talk about conservative!
What's next? Fifty different state passports to travel the country? I doubt there's ever been a Supreme Court that is this radical. It's hell-bent on transforming the country into a place that no one alive today or even in recent generations would recognize. The court is trampling upon decade upon decade of prior rulings establishing the authority of the federal government.
Imagine a country in which its 50 states essentially can do their own thing. A country in which 23 states are fully controlled by Republicans, a party that cares not a whit about fighting climate change, protecting minority and voting rights, and a host of other critical issues.
The Supreme Court is creating fiefdoms. What's next? Gov. Abbott becoming Lord Abbott?
Not for nothing am I calling them out as the STENCH BENCH. With three who should not even be there (the last three appointed), two who lied under oath during confirmation hearings, one who is yet to be investigated for his assaults on women, another whose wife is guilty of sedition, the entire Catholic cabal, the "federalist" bunch who do not even believe in the very Constitution they profess to support, there's really no need at all for them, in my opinion. They have made a mockery of law and do not deserve to wear robes of any sort, except the white kind. I can smell them from here, when the wind from Lord Abbott is not blowing in my direction. His own stench is pretty awful, let me tell you!
Well, there was the Supreme Court that did uphold Plessy's arrest for going into the white train compartment and also noted that "separate but equal is all good with us".
Maybe that Supreme Court and this one have some similarities.
Looks to me that this court can rationalize just about anything.
IF the rationalization lines up with who has paid them off, then, absolutely, yes they can.
Well, we in CA, have been talking about seceding from the Union. We fight for climate change, fight for abortion, the right to vote, the rights of LGBTQ, etc. We harbor the tech world and clean energy facilities as well as great colleges.
We--Californians--also pay Red States and give them minority rule over the majority. We can even afford to "rent" the military from the (former) US government to protect our international trade. Let every State remit 15% (max) to the vestige of the federal government to "provide for the common defense" and be done with it.
I suggest David Pepper's book, Laboratories of Autocracy because it not only verifies the argument you presented as the Republican plan for their war on democracy, it and published reviews of the book show how Democrat operatives are complicit in letting them do it. What Democrats in Georgia are doing is the best thing possible. They are working to hold their own party operatives accountable, something that Democrats have failed to do with their ridiculous "vote for the lesser evil" admonitions and adhering to the "nothing will fundamentally change" insanity. That steered the country into the situation of rule by the minority in which we find ourselves in which we now realize we will soon have nothing more to lose. That is Dangerous with a capital D to all of us.
Pepper was in great interview yesterday on Sirius Radio.
I will go look for it after I am done being a study partner in this fast-track sociology class. 4 weeks, 36 hours a week of work.
Sharon, think of the money we’ll save not sending FEMA to rescue folks!
And of course, I’m joking here too. It’s always the same with these states. “We’ll do it ourselves! Help us!!!”
We'd see the end of states such as Kentucky and other low income states sink and give up without the federal dollars keeping them afloat.
We'd see Hawaii fade due to cut or rapidly increasing costs of goods they need imported there. We'd see tiny civil wars break out and rapid migration of state's citizens and erecting of border walls. It would be completely nuts.
Hawaii would be happy not to be part of the United States. They didn’t want it in the first place and after living there for a few years you can see why. We have done everything to wipe out their cultures and traditions and shove our religion down their throats which is amazing when you consider why people fled to America in the first place. We stopped them from practicing their arts unless it was done in a hotel for the benefit of tourists. I met some very interesting people willing to tell me their stories. I wish I would have gone out everyday and written them down. It’s the first place I really experienced prejudice for being white. In even Korea they did not feel this way. I don’t blame them.
One thing I learned while in Hawaii is the second class citizenship that native Hawaiians live. It is appalling.
Or they could try to get help from foreign parties. I’m sure some could find that enticing.
I think there would be regionalization. California and Washington both have strong financial vested interests in Hawaii remaining successful and free of foreign interference; they could contribute to Hawaii paying to "rent" the military to protect the islands. (They could probably pay that "rent" by selling just some of the land the military is still hanging onto there.)
The Ununited States. Coming from Canada, where the threat of Quebec separation has hounded the country from its inception, it has continued to chase its tail throughout my lifetime. My first thought when I moved to the States, (most countries call it that) was that each state has its own flavour, it's own nationality. Fifty different countries.
There's something very basic & tribal about human nature. It just doesn't seem to work very well when the tribe gets too large. Although, like this group, there might be possibilities if there's a common foundation of higher thought & intelligence. I suppose that's what the framers had in mind, although humans, I've found, can be very disappointing.
Judy Does increasing size lead eventually to breakdown? This certainly was true with Athens and the Delian League, despite Athens’ draconian response towards possible deportees. The Greek city states never, for an extended period, worked together. The transition from small hunting tribes to larger populations with an ‘agricultural surplus,’did not lead to permanent larger entities, with the exception of Egypt.
Empires rise and fall. China is a prime example of an ebb and flow, while other empires seem to rise then fall. In the American colonies, the first unifying move was the Articles of Confederation, with unanimity from states for any action. Thanks to Rogue Island, they couldn’t agree to impose taxes. The drafters of the 1787 Constitution clearly did not envisage a country of 50 states, including two non contiguous states, nor the increasing non-Western Europe diversity.
The Civil War was a major effort to split the United States. Back when I rated the credit of Canadian provinces, I was aware of ‘Quebec Libre’ (de Gaulle I found galling on this subject). Nearly 50 years later, this appears more aa threat than a reality. In the United States, it would be difficult to carve off a separate nation. A number of the Southern states are dependent on the surplus taxes from other richer states. Intercontinental free trade has been a hallmark of our economic expansion. The federal military seems essential compared to state National Guards.
Despite the rumblings in various states (Texas?), I can not imagine how these malcontents could ever work out a viable confederation much less a workable constitution.
I applaud your wish for a Platonic foundation of ‘higher thought & intelligence.’ Of course Plato, not trusting the ‘demos’ who condemned Socrates, his teacher, to death, sought rule by philosopher kings. Ain’t going to happen. Czechoslovakia can split into Czech and Slovakia, with a rational division point geographically and economically. The United States will remain with 50 diverse states, despite my personal wish to cut loose Texas, Florida, and perhaps a few other states.
Yes, thank you for all the illumination, it is such a public service and should be required reading for every US citizen! Regarding the above post, Justice Roberts might want to read up on how the Afghani people are fairing with their "lone wolf" government.
Very interesting about creating fiefdoms.
Well, now it’s really apparent that Roberts is of just average intelligence. Average. Mediocre. And the questions asked and statements made about the pandemic by justice Uncle Thomas and dingbat Barret expose that they are at most village idiots, only appointed to the highest court to serve their political handlers, bending their legal opinions toward only Libertarian doctrine, and in opposition to founding principles of common sense, common good, and democracy.
We are in historical times of rapid disease spread. Covid 19 is now the most contagious disease ever known to the human race. Without the right Public Health mitigation we are headed for perpetual wave after wave of overwhelmed hospitals, school closures, labor shortages, etc etc. Even with vaccines “herd immunity” can take decades to achieve, and without vaccines in some cases 100s or thousands of years. Sadly, we are at a point that to resume normalcy and end the pandemic, we are going to need 95%+ vaccinations. This is our hard reality and we need to face it. This will require mask mandates to slow spread and vaccine mandates to end the spread. These are Epidemiological facts. Mandates will require majority rule. And that is what is at issue at SCOTUS right now. Minority rule vs Majority rule. If Minority rule allows for people to kill Ahmaud Arbery and get away with it, it also means 250,000 to 500,000 Americans dying of Covid 19 every year for at least another decade. I quess this is my message to Joe Manchin and Kristin Sinema.
We have seen historically, the lack of healthcare in small towns and rural areas. If COVID keeps devastating hospitals and healthcare systems, we will see the closing of bigger and bigger places. The staff alone is nearing their wits end on this pandemic. I have a friend who says that working with belligerent patients with COVID who are unvaccinated and refused to wear masks is a very different story to most of them. She says doctors and nurses are getting very low on compassionate care and attitudes. Her hospital has been overwhelmed with COVID illness and 84% are unvaccinated.
Soon hospitals will have so much staff out sick they won’t be coming to work, this will essentially close a lot of if not majority of hospitals. The deaths will soar for both Covid and other ailments. We need both a mask mandate and a vaccine mandate to get out of this. The alternative is: next variant, repeat above.
It also seems that the most dangerous occupations in the US are now anti-vax podcaster or radio host. Astonishing how those dots haven’t been connected by people who see pedophile pizzarias as a reality.
And, crazily, these people are getting ultra rich off these occupations.
*Until they die from Covid — quite a number have and will, likely.
I feel that most of these people are vaccinated. They just want to screw with the minds of the Drumplican sheep.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/supreme-court-appears-open-to-cms-covid-19-vaccination-mandate-10-things-to-know.html
There is so much that today’s LFAA demands emphasizing. Your comments bring light to much of it.
In the case of the sentencing of Arbery’s killers, here is the text of my Letter to the Editor of our local paper. It is a poor attempt to address the difference between accountability and justice and point out that violence is a very poor solution to any problem.
__________________________________
Violence is Never a Good Option
The three men found guilty in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced on Friday, 7 January, to life prison terms, two of them without the possibility of parole. This delivers accountability to those found guilty of his murder. However, Arbery is still dead and his family is grieving his loss. All of this is a terrible and senseless tragedy for all those impacted by this terrible crime sparked by racial animus. We can and we must be better than this.
Violence is never a good option. When you as a civilian look down at your hands and see them holding a gun as the solution to any problem, you are the problem.
________________________________
A good friend I asked to review the letter before sending it thought my point was about my objections to the death penalty and felt a life sentence without parole was a more appropriate punishment.
Here is my reply to her to attempt to better explain the intent of my letter.
__________________________________
I agree with your view on the death penalty. The Hammurabi Code of 282 Laws now almost 4000 years old that commands death as an appropriate penalty for any crime should be relegated to nothing more then a historical bookmark for the Babylonian times in which it was drafted. Just as we no longer tie people up and drown them in a river or place them in slavery for crimes it is way past time to have a more enlightened system of criminal punishment and accountability.
However, the point of my letter to the editor is a much larger one. People talk often about justice for the victims of such crimes of racial animus. Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and so many others and more importantly society did not get justice with this verdict. The three men who killed Arbery, and in the case of Floyd’s killing, Dereck Chauvin, got accountability. Justice is about equality for all under law. Society continues to deny that equality to far too many. Arbery and Floyd and so many others are still dead. Too many families still grieve unnecessary losses. And today in our own neighborhoods and communities unequal treatment of “the other” continues and in many cases is even institutionalized by our society.
My own statement on this is a poor attempt to echo the distinction between justice and accountability made by many more eloquent than I after Chauvin’s conviction in the killing of George Floyd. See this article:
https://www.wellandgood.com/justice-and-accountability/
I also tried to make the point that violence is a very poor solution to any problem. “When as a civilian, you look down at your hands and see a gun as the solution to any problem, you are the problem.” Just as the death penalty, a violent solution, shows society is the problem when imposed to deliver “justice,” so resorting to violence of any kind to solve any problem is wrong and unlikely to resolve whatever challenge it believes needs to be addressed.
This is not merely about guns. It is about forsaking the power of non-violence for a much less powerful solution - violence.
I despair this societal problem that has always existed and will continue long after I depart this earth. It may indeed be insoluble. But if I can enlighten even a few to understand it, perhaps I can make a very small difference somewhere.
___________________________________
The distinction between accountability and justice is unrecognized by most. I despair that my poor attempt to raise awareness of this will go largely unheard.
On the issue of Conservatives' attempts to dismantle the “administrative state,” this too is a problem I feel will get much worse. This problem speaks to the larger problem of conservatives' and progressives' contrasting views on the appropriate role of government at every level.
It is my own belief that the Preamble to our Constitution expresses this well in a quite eloquent and concise manner.
"We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
This describes precisely the role of governments at every level. When legislatures fail to address these needs, it is left to the executive branch of our governments, at every level to fill that breach. The purpose of the judicial branch should be enablement not obstruction of these missions.
I strongly suggest Conservatives return to the Preamble’s definition of the whole of government’s role and judge their views on the administrative state’s efforts in light of those words.
Bruce, Your comment, including the link through 'wellandgood' to 'The Verdict in Derek Chauvin’s Trial Highlights the Painful Difference Between Justice and Accountability' is a most worthwhile addition to HCR's Letter today. You have awakened us to the differences between accountability and justice in several ways. Deep thanks for this valuable lesson.
Exactly right, and eloquently stated.
Eloquent. I too think the preamble is one of the most historic statements of intent and believe achieving justice, given that intent, gets so muddied up with accountability (persecution) under laws written to sidestep justice for adherence to intents of the minority, the ruling class. Laws are never made by the poor or by the persecuted, but by those who control power and resources, and history shows us that the more local such control and power rests, the narrower and swifter the laws are written and enfoced to protect the interests of the few who believe they are doing what's best for the ruled.
I made this point in response to Keith's post, but think it applies here as well, Bruce:
Me thinks that the goal among conservatives is to achieve a confederacy of states, rather than a union. It was the dissenting opinion in 1887 and has remained the belief of conservatives since that time and the intent of the founding fathers so argued by originalists. The current Republican Party is merely the mantle, the robe, for local authority, a nation of self-directed states.
...Each under the direction of the local robber baron, all the way down to the biggest fish in the smallest puddle...
And yet, as I've kept repeating, there's this problem of congressional constipation so chronic and severe that it may kill the body politic: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/08/scalia-was-right-make-amending-the-constitution-easier-526780
If Congress did what it is there for, every level of local government would function better for human citizens, not just sewer rats and industrial poisoners...
Let's not forget the many states and cities governed by brilliant leaders who are anything but destructive finders-keepers-Conservatives.
You do grasp the point. Justice is about equality under law, fairness, loving one's neighbor, compassion, and empathy. It is not about criminal punishment when someone violates a rule or a law. The reason justice is portrayed blindfolded is to show that all should be regarded as equal under our laws. America, in my own view, has a perverted view of criminal "justice." Most believe it is about punishing wrongdoers rather than working to achieve fairness and equality for all under our laws and in society at large. Clearly, conservatives so offended by the idea of critical race theory, a topic of discussion until recently only in advanced elective law school classes, do not get the idea of justice. But then they seem to understand so little about almost anything.
This is a rather long and complex issue for this forum, but I have spent much time and energy during my lifetime advocating and working for change in the area of social justice. It is one I am very passionate about. I remember once telling my young daughter that policemen in Britain did not typically carry guns. My daughter's response at that time was "is Britain even on this planet?" We have had many discussions since then about the meaning of justice and she is now, as an attorney, also a passionate social justice advocate and very much a supporter of criminal justice reform.
“The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; … By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. … Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.”
[Excerpted from The Hidden Words, No. 2 from the Arabic]
"Violence is Never a Good Option"
I would amend this to:
Violence may be appropriate in cases where, should you not defend yourself, you may be harmed by violence.
Never rules out defending oneself.
Gandhi, MLK, I and many others will stand on my original statement. While I respect your views, I continue to believe in the power of non-violence despite many who may not understand or believe in that power.
I’m with Bruce on this one.
Mike, Be careful that you do not confuse defense with violence.
To defend means to shield and protect. Violent means to injure by force.
A Warrior fights for Peace.
Got it. All that good poetry is unfortunately probably beyond my writing skill Paul. :-)
If I had been the lawyer arguing when the Chief Justice said that, I hope I would have had the presence of mind and the courage to say, “But, Mr. Chief Justice, people are dying out there, in great numbers, every day.”
Yes, and then pretend to have a coughing fit.
Nice Grace! Sometimes I admit that I do something similar at the grocery store as the unmasked pass me by.
It’s also a great way to get the line moving. Not that I’ve ever used it:)
I think this one way in which Japan, Germany, & France have done and will do better.
All U Guys !😂
😆
😂
Chortle!
And some people thought that Chief Justice Roberts was a positive force on the Supreme Court! His role in degutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 may historically join the Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson as the most dreadful rulings by the Supreme Court. This is underscored by how the Republicans, at the state level, have run rampant in enacting legislation to deny access to voting to a large number of non-white voters. This is further reflected in flagrant state gerrymandering, which renders a number of congressional districts as non-competitive, by carving off bizarre Republican enclaves,
Now Roberts seems likely to acquiesce to Republican briefs requesting the Supreme Court to sharply limit the federal government’s ability to enforcement vaccines during this pandemic emergency.
Roberts is the Chief Justice of the Stench Court including several of McConnell’s slipped-in-justices. He has ample time to reflect on how history (read Linda Greenhouse) will rate his Stench Court.
The Democrats were unable to pass a strong federal voting act. Now they are quibbling about the much weaker John Lewis voting bill. AT A MINIMUM THEY SHOULD SLICE THE FILIBUSTER AND ENACT THE JOHN LEWIS BILL. It’s not effective in disassembling the already enacted state voter restriction legislation, but at least it is a positive murmur, when legislative shouting is not possible.
Robert's is a disappointment, mildly put. I can't help but see the phrase "follow the money" everytime his name is mentioned.
Oh, that’s damning.
Though his vote kept ACA in place.
Roberts only act of courage. Which, I personally believe, came only after he witnessed the world's disdain and dismissal of the US Supreme Court after it "handed the Presidency to the majority of sitting justices' party."
Grace, yes I remember it well, but times are different.
Oh, I’m not a Roberts apologist. But if Dick Cheney can show up for the Jan. 6 session, it’s upside -down world now.
Roberts was never a "moderate." He has always been for dismantling anything and everything related federal restrictions/laws on voting, he is and always has been against a woman's right to control her own body or demand equal pay for equal work (up to the employers), he's anti-union, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-federal regulations of industry. He's only sorta-kinda-wink moved "moderate" because he is well aware the legacy of the Roberts Court is that it was bought and paid for by the Republicans, and he wholly supported the delegitimizing of one branch of of the US government. This way he can pretend it wasn't his doing.
Question: How can the filibuster be 'sliced' without 50 votes to modify or kill it?
It cannot. It requires a simple majority of 51, including VP Harris.
Eons ago Senator Munchkin, in scuttling a strong voting bill, indicated that he would support the much weaker John Lewis voting bill. At that time, it was assumed that he would support slicing the filibuster for this purpose. Now it seems that we are in a game of Ally Ally In Free, with Munchkin and Senator “bipolar & bipartisan” spinning the bottle incessantly.
It's not just Roberts (deliberately not using the term "Justice" Roberts). Have you heard that Gorsuch incorrectly said that the flu kills hundreds of thousands of people every year? He is rightly being excoriated. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/justice-neil-gorsuch-slammed-after-he-suggests-flu-kills-hundreds-of-thousands-each-year/ar-AASxZDn?ocid=msedgntp
So out of touch. Gorsuch, Roberts, Thomas, Barrett, Kavanaugh, Alito - the lot of them. Living in their confined, privileged little worlds, cnvinced that their twisted, right-wing Catholic value system is both proper and superior. Their ignorance is appalling, but they are so insulated they’ll never know.
Which is amazing considering the issue with Kennedy was they thought the Pope would rule our country. Seems like the religious right is doing a good job destroying it with their narrow views.
Exactly.
Annette Has anyone reported on whether the Stench Court has required that all employees have been vaccinated? If so, are there any penalties for those employees (including justices) who refuse to be vaccinated? Wouldn’t this be considered a SC precedent?
InJustice Roberts
I did read that. Appalling that they so willing lie.
Approximately 30k Americans die of the flu every year. More when the flu has a nasty mutation then it’s 40 to 50,000 desths. CDC, AMA
I don't want to defend Gorsuch but Sotomayor incorrectly claimed that 100,000 children in the U.S. with Covid-19 are in 'serious condition.' The question is: Where did they get their information? Both are wrong.
No, she is not wrong. American Academy of Pediatrians. AMA. JAMA. And New England Journal of Medicine.
We read about this somewhere this morning. Her numbers are correct. She’s talking about the number of children that have gotten Covid and now have long Covid or other debilitating affects that will last through their lifetime. Even shortening them in my personal opinion.
This article says she was incorrect!
Sotomayor’s false claim that ‘over 100,000’ children are in 'serious condition’ with covid
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/08/sotomayors-false-claim-that-over-100000-children-are-serious-condition-with-covid/
How many kid Covid research studies do we need to post that it is a fact, kids are at risk as well as adults?
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e2.htm?s_cid=mm7102e2_w&fbclid=IwAR24lDBeLezsXrvyEUcTb4hYSPcDGOyRwMhQPhp8iDl5T9yuB7BRTMVMbu4
I didn’t see her exact statement but this NYT article talks about 4 in 100,000 under 4. Are we missing part of what she said or did she misspeak? She’s known for her accuracy. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/07/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests
Kids. That can mean 1 to 1 day short of 18 years old. The first danger is viral bronchitis, which can lead to viral pneumonia, and what follows that? Usually bacteria pneumonia. Then MSIS, and a host of other long term syndromes.
Is it moral to risk your kids health or ask others to risk their kids health?
“The ultimate test of a moral society is what leaves touts children”- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I trust Justice Sotomayor’s ability to read as many studies as needed to make informed comments. Even if she made a quantitative or other error, the public should cut her some slack, she’s arguing to protect children from a real disease that a lot of people says does not exist.
I see someone quoted her on that. But still not the entire context of what she said. I hate to rely on just parts of statement for anything.
Presently? Or cumulatively since the beginning of the Pandemic? Hmmmm
What JR said!!!!
We already had the scenario of the federal government of tfg saying COVID was the states problem. That led to states bidding against each other for then scarce resources. The virus is a worldwide problem because it respects no silly human boundaries.
I was astounded he said that too. And it is ironic that two of the lawyers had to appear virtually. Here we see the legacy of the Federalist Society and the awful Mitch. Will the Chief Justice be ready to go in history as the head of the court that undermined efforts against the virus which is just one of its and his many failures.
Pass voting rights act. Expand the court. This has to be the way out of this 40 year abyss.
Republicans are not worried about the Dems’ voting rights legislation. Here’s what Hugh Hewitt (right-wing opinionator for WaPo) said in today's column, “…the GOP need not worry about the “voting rights protection” bills now being bandied about. The 6-to-3 conservative Supreme Court…will strike them down, just as it will strike down a number of other laws in the current or future terms.”
That is exactly what striking down this mandate is all about -- taking all powers away from the President and handing it to the Court.
The operative words are "should be." But what if the states are not, which as we painfully know is the case with so many of them. What happens if the next pandemic — there surely will be one — is as contagious but far more deadly? Will my tombstone say: "Died Before His Time. Supreme Court Said It's OK." Assuming the majority rules against mandates, it will be sanctioning death and misery on a mass scale. That's not hyperbole. Will those justices find enough solace in their unrelenting narrow interpretation of a document written 234 years ago to feel no guilt over the many millions of deaths?
Michael, I'm not a rose-colored glasses human. We need to be as prepared as we can be and we need to organize as well as work together. The goal being how our circumstances could be made better rather than worse in the near future. Under the very difficult circumstances we are in, I do not think imagining the worst gets anywhere, except in preparedness. It seems to me that you have drawn an inescapable black box. How is that useful to you, and how to you imagine it helpful to others? Warnings with suggestions for avoidance, for preparedness for a better sense of reality aimed at those who may be in denial, I understand. I may be missing something but do not get the point of your comment.
I define community as including any place I can get to in 24 hours. That why Texas towns are 22 miles apart, a one day ride on a horse. Now with air travel we can get almost anywhere in the world in under 24 hours other than some very remote areas. Hong Kong is 19 hours of flying from Boston to Hong Kong. For me, that means we need to rethink states rights versus federal rights when we have corporations which are larger than most countries, when we have existential issues like a world-wide pandemic and climate conflagration to deal with, when we have fundamental rights to protect. There needs to be federal and global coordination of the response to COVID, for example, and to voting rights. This is much like the states are not allowed to put tariffs on other states and the federal government has the responsibility for foreign affairs rather than 50 states doing their own treaties. States rights does not mean the obliteration of federal oversight and coordination and protection of fundamental rights of a democratic republic.
Very well put. Unfortunately, legal thinking is not very flexible in that respect. Indeed, it often seems that judges—some
of them, anyway—delight in not letting the real world intrude.
Amen!
More Important News from the state of Georgia:
'DON'T COME TO ATLANTA WITHOUT A PLAN TO PASS VOTING LAWS,, GROUPS TELL BIDEN AND HARRIS'
'A coalition of Georgia voting rights groups says President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should skip traveling to Atlanta next week unless they come with a concrete plan to pass federal voting laws immediately.'
'The statement was signed by the Black Voters Matter Fund, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, the New Georgia Project Action Fund and the GALEO Impact Action Fund, an organization representing Latinos. The groups reference Biden’s win in Georgia, plus Democrats’ victories in the January runoffs that gave the party control of the U.S. Senate.'
“Georgia voters made history and made their voices heard, overcoming obstacles, threats, and suppressive laws to deliver the White House and the US Senate,” the statement said. “In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises. Such an empty gesture, without concrete action, without signs of real, tangible work, is unacceptable.”
'The White House announced Wednesday that both the president and vice president would visit Atlanta on Tuesday to talk about the importance of passing new voting and election standards. But such legislation has stalled in the Senate, with Republicans using the filibuster to block debate and a 50-member Democratic majority unable to reach agreement on how to change Senate rules so that the legislation can pass by a simple majority vote.'
'The White House did not have an immediate response to the criticism from the voting groups. Press Secretary Jen Psaki during her daily press briefing reiterated statements Biden said in the past about supporting a Senate rule change to get voting bills passed, which is a priority for him. But the administration has not shared its game plan for overcoming the hurdles that remain.'
'There are two bills these activists would like to see become law, especially ahead of the legislative session in states such as Georgia where Republicans could attempt to pass new laws that reduce access to the ballot or make it more difficult to vote.'
'One proposal, named for the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, would reinstate federal oversight before states and local governments that reach certain criteria are allowed to change voting or election laws. The other would make Election Day a holiday, limit voter purges, allow people to register to vote and cast a ballot the same day, and create national standards for redistricting, early voting, drop boxes and voting by mail.'
'The statement from the voting rights groups says that they will “reject any visit by President Biden that does not include an announcement of a finalized voting rights plan that will pass both chambers, not be stopped by the filibuster, and be signed into law; anything less is insufficient and unwelcome.”
'James Woodall, the former president of the Georgia NAACP, is among the signers of the statement. He said Biden and Harris are welcome to visit Atlanta, but what is really needed is that they work harder on Capitol Hill.'
“The White House must respond to this current attack on democracy, and coming to Georgia for discussions is nice, but what we need is urgent action in D.C.,” he said. “We need to see the passage and signing of both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”
'FULL STATEMENT'
'Georgia voters made history and made their voices heard, overcoming obstacles, threats, and suppressive laws to deliver the White House and the US Senate. In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises. Such an empty gesture, without concrete action, without signs of real, tangible work, is unacceptable. As civil rights leaders and advocates, we reject any visit by President Biden that does not include an announcement of a finalized voting rights plan that will pass both chambers, not be stopped by the filibuster, and be signed into law; anything less is insufficient and unwelcome.
'Georgia will not be used as a two-dimensional backdrop, a chess piece in someone else’s ineffectual political dealings. Georgia voters are more than just convenient props in a political image game. Georgians are fighting every day to protect our freedom to vote from unrelenting attacks. We are tired, but we persist in doing the work. In the past year alone, voters and advocates have fought an onslaught of devastating anti-voter proposals, and have organized in the aftermath of the passage of SB 202. Right now, advocates and local leaders are fighting to stop the closure of 7 out of 8 polling places in Lincoln County — where over one-third of voters are Black. Just next week, the state legislature will convene, with Republican leaders already proudly touting their plans to attack voting access, push to ban drop boxes, and erect new hurdles in the path of voters. And the voters and advocates in Georgia remain, ready to do the work to try and slow them down and stop them from taking away their freedom to vote.'
'So as President Biden and Vice President Harris plan their visit to Georgia, our message is simple: We have voted, we have advocated, and we have organized. We have done the work. Now, it is time for you to deliver, and for you to do the work. We need President Biden and Vice President Harris to demand we restore the Senate and pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act NOW.'
'We reject any political visit that does not also come with policy progress — with signs of clear work done, of something accomplished. We reject any visit that fails to begin with the question “How does this serve the people of Georgia?” It is time for final action on voting rights, and Georgians are waiting.'
'Voters Matter Fund'
'Asian American Advocacy Fund'
'Woodall, former Georgia NAACP President'
'GALEO Impact Action Fund'
'New Georgia Project Action Fund'
The mission for all of us, our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, colleagues and everyone we can reach is to express to President Biden, Vice President Harris and all of our elected representatives the urgency for passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. It is the first priority in the NEW YEAR for all citizens in support of FAIR AND FREE ELECTIONS in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The preceding article By Tia Mitchell, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was copied almost entirely in full. The links below to articles about this story are paywall, (on a website) an arrangement which limits access to users who have paid to subscribe to the site.
https://www.ajc.com/politics/dont-come-to-atlanta-without-a-plan-to-pass-voting-laws-groups-tell-biden-harris/7KHTSRMZORF6THXEZVY64NW44A/
https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/georgia-activists-are-cool-visit-pres-biden-vp-harris-rcna11334
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/588643-voting-rights-groups-tell-biden-not-to-visit-georgia-without-plan-to
No President can pass legislation. He can try to convince. He can bargain, he can negotiate. But he can't legislate. A President can enforce laws but he or she can't make them.
President Biden has been pressing for the passage of these laws for a very long time - he has been very vocal. Should he threaten violence? What else can he do, pray tell, when the two Democratic Senators who CONTROL the Senate act like Radical Right Wingers? What?
There will be no legislative progress until Manchin and Sinema are convinced or replaced. Gaining a real Democratic Majority in Congress should be our focus.
Neither you, nor I know the full extent of Presidential power. People were astounded by the accomplishments of FDR and LBJ. We must act as the voting rights activists are in Georgia right now. May it not rest with them; the people may march to Washington, D.C. and in front of the offices of Manchin, Sinema, and any other holdouts to the passage of national voting rights acts. Free and Fair elections and democracy in the USA will not survive without such passage.
Fern, FDR had both houses of Congress as Democrat.
Reason: The consequences of 10 years of Republican Policy, from 1919 to 1929, generated poverty at an amazing pace called the Great Depression and everyone knew that Republican Policy had to go. So it did.
FDR had power because the people gave it to him through both houses of Congress.
Biden has no such power.
Ditto with LBJ.
“The 1964 election gave the Democratic majority the most lopsided plurality in history and created a Congress with the largest Democratic majority since 1936. Lyndon Johnson’s landslide win over Barry Goldwater, combined with a decidedly liberal Democratic Congress, set the stage for an ambitious legislative agenda. For the first time since the 1930s, the Democratic Party had enough seats to overcome the Southern conservative coalition that had continually blocked liberal legislation. Johnson was quick to seize the momentum and called his key legislative liaisons to the White House just 10 days after his inauguration. In this meeting, the president exhorted his charges to make haste with his ambitious plans”
http://acsc.lib.udel.edu/exhibits/show/89th-congress/democratic-majority
He kicked arse just in time.
Rose, thank you.
Yep, we can celebrate having a Democrat in the White House, but with a 50/50 Senate, and conniving minority leader creating such a divisive atmosphere, monumental legislation like that of the past will, unfortunately, not be enacted, no matter how much it will benefit the country as a whole.
And some of the Democrats vote like Republicans.
Both FDR and LBJ enjoyed huge Democratic majorities in Congress. Democrats held more than 60% of the seats in the Senate and the House during both FDR’s and LBJ’s terms in office. If Democrats held similar majorities today, we would not be having this discussion. BBB would be passed. For the People would be passed. Biden is accomplishing a great deal given the constraints of a 50-50 Senate.
And even then, FDR and LBJ had to twist lots of arms and cut deals. It was and still is a brutal process.
Blame the two trojan horses
With all due respect, because I know our concerns and values are aligned, I beg to differ. We do know exactly what the full extent of "Presidential powers" are. They are in the Constitution. And if there were ways that Biden could draw upon past relationships, don't you think he has been doing that every day since January 20, 2021?
FDR and LBJ accomplished a lot. But the Congress was of a different construction then.
And there was a LOT they did not do. FDR turned away a boatload of about 900 Jews fleeing Hitler. He had no support to save them and they died. LBJ was a civil rights hero because he wanted to be on the right side of history. He understood legacy. But he was historically a bigot. And he conducted a brutal and savage war against the Vietnamese.
I write to Biden about voting rights and other issues every week. But he is not a king.
Most knowledgeable citizens do not consider the president a 'king' or care to. We are familiar with the American Revolution. You may lean on the Constitution as the 'originalists' do, although, I gather from other comments of yours that you don't limit yourself to that persuasion. Speaking of persuasion, perhaps, Biden and others the administration have or will figure out what 'powers' may be used to bolster Biden's persuasive ability. Mobilization of the people is another form of persuasion. Faults in FDR and LBJ do not appear to me to have relevance in this consequential matter.
I agree Fern. IF we can somehow get this on the floor of the Senate and the administration uses the bully pulpit of the executive branch, the tarnishing of their records in broad daylight may change two or more votes and that is all we need. I felt that Biden timed his "calling out" of Trump well. May he do it a thousand times more in every way possible in the coming months. EVERY time the former president is mentioned his name should be preceded by and followed by LOSER. He is, was, and always will be a LOSER. (and a sore one at that.)
Yes, Bruce! He's a BIG BIG Loser! The BIGGEST LOSER of all.
Except we all just witnessed the Republicans then in control of the Senate to allow the then sitting President wholly negate the separation of powers and duties defined in the Constitution to take "the power of the purse" away from the House. The full extent of Presidential emergency powers, had they ever been invoked in full and equally supported by the Republicans, would have made Trump a dictator. Trump was too stupid to know how to do that, but the next Trump won't be.
I never heard about the FDR story. But LBJ and bigotry yes.From what little bit I’m catching onto the real ‘Steal ‘ will be the Redistricting . Not sure if that was one of the things already lost in 2013 ? I had to cut back on my Researching as my eyes are being effected.Maybe U could search it out ? It’s still in a fight in the Courts I believe.
Marcia, read Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "No Ordinary Time." Sadly, there was a great deal of antisemitism in the White House and the nation at large. My dear mother-in-law told me that, in the 1950s, living in Washington DC, she had to take her children to a much farther away beach than the Delaware beach closer to home. The signage at the beach: No Coloreds, No Jews, No Dogs." My father-in-law, who grew up in the Jewish Foster Home in DC, assisted Superintendent Floretta McKenzie in desegregating the DC schools in the 60s.
There’s so many stories such as yours. Amazing about Ur Father-In-Law.
Fern I watch PBS. Think it was Thursdays ? They have the two guys that give opinions. I caught just the tail end of it. But the one guy said “ The problem won’t be so much in the Voting, or Counting. It will be the redistricting and how the Electoral College Votes ? And then he said “ from there Congress Cert. will prevail as normal. “It made sense to me because on 1/6 those that were ‘Debating ‘ the Election were just all about how “Special Rules “ were made because of CoVid. I don’t hear them gripping about CoVid ? But boy do they want that Redistricting. Wish I could give you more on it. As I said I came in late on the discussion. But I think it may still be on the PBS App ?
Fridays. And David Brooks is having a hard time as a Conservative; see his recent article in The Atlantic. It will take all three measures.
I saw some article by David where he blames the Democrats for letting Democracy fall by the wayside. Typical Brooks.
The Republicans sponsor and push for Fascism but Brooks blames the Democrats.
He is really a Reagan Republican at heart and is still a true believer.
Brooks is also not entirely wrong about the Democrats. Why wasn't the Democrats' very first act--even before the stimulus--to change the Electoral Counting/Certification Act? Now Jamie Raskin is complaining it may not be worth doing anything because the next Congress can just change it back or ignore it--a Constitutional Amendment is needed. Yes, a Constitutional Amendment may be needed, but passing a law that can be taken to court to try to protect has great merit.
In his recent article he attempts to show us the error of his ways. Lots of folks not accepting. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/brooks-true-conservatism-dead-fox-news-voter-suppression/620853/
And a Pollyanna.
That was it Kathy. Thanks !❤️🦋
Yes!
"Neither you, nor I know the full extent of Presidential power."
Yes, yes we do. They are inumerated in the US Constitution.
The real power resides in the needs, wants, and desires of the people. The Presidency is more than an administrative office. The needs and wants of a people can be known and unknown by the populace. While powers of the presidency can be limited by Constitutional structure, the leader that can recognize, connect with, and seek to fill those needs, has unlimited power as they seek to unleash human growth and potential. For good, this is leadership. So framed this way, what is the limit of leadership power when every individual is given equal opportunity of reaching their full potential and contributes their best for the benefit of all?
Both FDR, and LBJ understood The fine art of moral leadership.
FDR struggled to assume the mantle of leadership, he was a gentleman, not a brawler (and not a very experienced politician when he took office). LBJ was a right dirty bastard - grabbed reluctant Congressmen (almost all men then) by their figurative family jewels and squeezed them until they caved. It’s misguided to compare Biden to either of them.Joe doesn’t have the reservoir of power from the huge Democratic majorities that both FDR and LBJ enjoyed.
Many confuse moral leadership with personal qualities. Every human has failings, but that’s not the same as a leader creating a moral vision, inspiring moral actions of their government to act on the behalf of the population for their protection and benefit. Through our history, many times the people are not aware of what is in their best interest. A moral leader is both a teacher, Counsleor, and a good family friend.
I think Joe knows this:
“The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.“- FDR
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1028577
Over the last 20 years, states have put barriers in front of the ballot box — imposing strict voter ID laws, cutting voting times, restricting registration, and purging voter rolls. These efforts, which received a boost when the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in 2013, have kept significant numbers of eligible voters from the polls, hitting all Americans, but placing special burdens on racial minorities, poor people, and young and old voters.
The Brennan Center fights vote suppression on every front. Our lawsuits have blocked or weakened some of the worst suppression schemes, including Texas’s strict voter ID law. And our groundbreaking research has helped win the battle for public opinion. We have shown that voter fraud and illegal voting — often cited to justify regressive voting laws— aren’t a systematic and widespread occurrence; racial minorities are much more likely than whites to lack accepted voter ID; and that there is a growing threat of voter roll purges, which risk disenfranchising large numbers of eligible voters.(Brennan Center for Justice)
Continuing Threats to Free and Fair Elections
Without dedicated and knowledgeable staff ready and willing to run elections, easy access to a secure ballot cannot be guaranteed for anyone.
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression
https://billmoyers.com/story/voting-rights-under-threat/
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression
I asked my daughter about ID in New York because you can’t do anything without a state ID and proof of vaccination. She said the state issues everyone an ID no matter your status. So if here in Texas you might be considered an immigrant or more likely an illegal immigrant, you would still get a state ID if you lived in New York. Can’t do that in Texas! Immigrants hide from the system. There are areas where they have like checkpoints to see if people have correct documentation for being in the US. And Immigration follows children home from school to try to catch their parents! Imagine if we could reach those newer Americans to get vaccinated and even vote.
There is a majority that does not vote. This is where we need to work, as Stacy Abrams has showed us.
I read something a couple days ago that said you have to prove proficiency in English to get a drivers license in Oklahoma. It was in sociology so I’m trusting that to be true. What I haven’t researched is if you have the same issue getting an ID and how that affects your ability to vote. This seems exactly like a method meant to suppress the vote.
Denise,
Texas does have a bit of a problem with illegal immigration given its proximity to the border, the large inflow over that border, the limited physical and monetary extent of the Texas Public school system and the requirement that illegal kids be permitted to attend schools.
When I attended my rural school in East Texas my class size was probably 16 or so.
Now? Rural Texas public schools are overflowing with poor kids from illegal migrants that speak no English. This is bad for both the immigrants and the people who actually are paying property taxes to fund the schools.
1. There is not enough money to cover all the kids because less than half of the kids parents are paying property taxes.
2. There is not enough room in the classes for all the kids.
3. There are not enough teachers for all the kids even if they all spoke English.
4. The language barrier in the absence of giant English as a second language classes is significant and leave the migrant kids basically using the Public School system as babysitting.
So, where illegal migration is relevant, if YOUR child was in a Texas Public school, you might be pretty worked up about trying to limit the 80,000 to 200,000 migrants A MONTH down there.
I know a lot of young people who are citizens but whose parents live here in NY without papers. They are going to school and/or persuing trades. Anybody who pays rent is by default paying property taxes. Think about big cities where most people rent apartments - this is such a canard.
Grace,
In Texas the farmers provide "high density housing" on their farms for the migrants.
So, the rural schools that were once sparsley attended, are packed with illegal migrant kids, and, yes, the land they are packed onto is taxed at the same rate as land where four people are living.
That is a real problem.
This is exactly why I don’t think a federal holiday to vote will be effective. The white collar workers already are allowed time to vote without loss of pay. But, our on the ground workers in grocery, retail, construction and other businesses that operate on an hourly or by-the-job basis will still have to work. If they don’t they won’t get paid. They’re the ones that need that pay just to survive.
This is why we need universal mail-in voting.
The Oregon way.
Completely agree Fern.
“There will be no legislative progress until Manchin and Sinema are convinced or replaced. Gaining a real Democratic Majority in Congress should be our focus.”
Exactly. When Manchin was asked about passing progressive legislation he said the solution was to “Elect more liberals “.
...and H.A. that is why we need to see that the national voting acts are passed.
But that's only the start since any legislation passed by Congress risks changes made by future Congresses' legislation. And any legislation can be negated by the SCOTUS. As I said elsewhere today, it's the Constitution, Baby! But that will take years to fix. Meanwhile, voting rights are the priority.
Exactly!
Meanwhile, GLOBAL WARMING. . .But of course he isn’t concerned about that.
Manchin ain't a liberal!
If Biden makes voting rights a top priority, he might see his popularity numbers go up. Once the people are behind him, Manchin & Sinema may be forced to vote Yea. This is all
a political calculation for them.
...and perhaps MONEY.
I would think that if either Manchin or Sinema ran again as Dems, they might be primaried out, especially with Sinema. She has changed so dramatically in such a short time. From Green Party affiliation to Democracy obstructionist, such an ungrounded chameleon she is. Manchin is a known and predictable sort, and seems poised to ditch the Dem Party altogether.
You mean the magnets for campaign contributions from Republicans? https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/11/manchin-sinema-campaign-contributions-republican-donors.html
Jeff, you are so correct!
Biden would do much better if he would stop threatening violence against other nations and turn his sabers into plowshares. I'm pretty sure you know where that comes from.
Wow, Richard. I don't "know where that comes from". Did you not notice that Biden decided to end military involvement in a bogus 20 year war? Did you not notice that in his communications with Putin he "threatened" economic penalties for an invasion of the Ukraine - NOT military intervention? Is there an instance of "threatening violence" that we have missed?
Thanks, Bill. But I must tell you that he and recent U.S. presidents are now using what is known as hybrid war. That is drones, and sanctions, in particular. Both of which caused a different kind of violence, the former that often misses targets and kills innocent people, and the latter which kills by starving folks. Also, Biden and his predecessors continue to load up on nuclear weapons, which could kill us all.
Yes. But Biden perhaps less with the drones and more with the sanctions which do indeed hurt the vulnerable in many cases.
The types of sanctions currently threatened by Biden and company are focused on Putin himself as well as his inner circle of Oligarchs.
There is a world of people who wish to undermine our legitimacy as a democracy. Putin is but one. How do we respond to those threats? How do we deal with Xi and his genocide? I don't know. I am a peacenik by nature but am a defender of what fragile democracy we have. I think Biden is doing the best he can with what he has to work with. But I am open to new ideas.
Hi Fern, thank you sooo much for this post! In my experience, when a politician states there is a plan for something but won't reveal the details, it actually means there is no plan. This may or may not be the case here. It could also mean the plan/negotiations are at a delicate phase that could be derailed if revealed too soon, or there is a trap about to be sprung, and revealing the plan would be akin to revealing battle plans during a war (and a war this is). Biden has proven surprisingly adept at "herding cats during a hurricane", more so than any president in my memory - which stretches back to LBJ, though DDE was in office when I was born :)
BTW, I read the article on JD Vance you posted a link to. He is a class warrior who will probably become mired in the culture wars/outrage politics that is now the fashion of his chosen party. It's a pity, because class really is the animating force behind most of the inequities in our political/economic system. Racism, sexism, consumerism, etc., have successfully masked it here for centuries. It has also been truly mitigated by things like access to land, the Civil Rights Movement, Labor Unions, the GI Bill, Land Grant Colleges, and the social safety nets created by the New Deal. We are losing all these things. Without the safety valve they provide, I fear not just for our Republic, but for our society itself.
Steve, you summarized our difficulty so well. JD Vance has an important perspective to share, but he couldn't stand up to the 'cult'. Who can? The fascistic propaganda is successful because the people have been screwed for the last 45 years, at least, and vulnerable to white nationalism, strong-armed tactics, victimization (true in their case) and easy answers.
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger can. So can Democrats. So can we. They are seduced by the power of the offices they hold, and have given up their souls in exchange. (Can you tell I’m disgusted and angry with their cowardice? They know. They know, and the do not care.)
We know they are lying,
They know they are lying,
They know we know they are lying,
We know they know we know they are lying,
But still they are lying.
- Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitzyn
Becky, that is perfect.
Steve, your first line made me think about that excellent, best ever healthcare plan that the former guy and the GQP was going to put out.................when? Ever?
Me too. “Three weeks.”
Steve, The link below is to an interview with a Professor Stanley, in which he talks about the autocratic behavior happening now in the USA. He explains the psychology and the strategy behind anti-public health behavior, corrupting the laws, etc. Ted Keyes provided the link. After watching it, I asked if I could copy the link because I'd you to see it. It is below. Let talk when it's convenient for you.
https://youtu.be/1xkcCmdE1u4
Thanks for the link Fern! This interview was base on an article that appeared in the Guardian on 12/22/21. Here is the link. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/america-fascism-legal-phase Professor Stanley was able to name the Facist strategies I recognized, but could not name. We know what the Trumpist/Facists want to do. Knowing is one thing, stopping them is quite another. In Holland, it took a broad coalition ranging from Catholics to Communists. We need to focus in a similar way, and "stop being distracted by shiny objects" (your phrase - I love it!).
Thanks, Steve. I will watch the Guardian piece this morning. May I copy your comment here and link to Ted? I think it would interest him.
Certainly Fern. You and Ted are always welcome in my in box!
Thank you, kind gentleman, on this Sunday morning.
And stay home in protest and watch the Senate go back to the Republicans.
In 2016 lots of Progressive Democrats stayed home in protest and brought Trump to America.
Biden is doing everything he can do. Democrats staying home in protest is a gift to Republicans.
Why don't you reread the article H.A. Voting rights advocates are telling Biden to come up with a plan to pass the national voting rights acts. They want Biden to come to Atlanta with plan, not for a press opportunity. No one is suggesting that voters stay home, except for the Republicans. making it very difficult for minorities and others to have access to the vote.
But also a necessary piece is traveling around the country getting citizens educated and hyped.
Tell Manchin and Sinema to come up with a plan. It’s not Biden, it’s them. Push one of them hard enough to force them to change parties?
Who's the one to push them?
Exactly.
That lie of progressives electing Trump spread as fake news was thoroughly debunked years ago by good data . Readers, please share the study whenever you see the lie posted.
<https://extranewsfeed.com/setting-the-record-straight-on-sanders-voters-elected-trump-1d6876e0ce73>
Had it not been for progressives voting for Clinton in 2016, thanks to the leadership of Bernie Sanders, Hillary would have also lost the popular vote in a landslide as well as the electoral college. If anything kept Democrats from actively voting, it was believing the hubris spread by corporate media like the New York Times telling subscribers that the election of HRC was already in the bag.
I still blame Jill Stein.
Believe the data.
Realize that Bernie had about 45% of the delegates at the 2016 Democratic Party convention, which represented a HUGE number of voters. After HRC and Wasserman Schultz violated the Party Bylaws and rigged the election midterm for Hillary, Stein was the only viable progressive candidate option left to rank & file Democrats. Had Democratic progressives staged a protest vote, the Green party would have surged above past votes for Stein. In 2016, the vote count showed the Greens still showed up by themselves for Stein. This happened at the same time that the Libertarians drew several times more votes from D. Trump than J. Stein drew from Clinton. Third parties ultimately in sum only helped HRC.
But Ed, in the few states that counted in the end - Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania - Stein’s votes would have allowed Clinton to win. She had already won more votes nationwide, by a large margin, and I agree that the DNC really hurt us by making Clinton inevitable.
"But Ed, in the few states that counted in the end - Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania - Stein’s votes would have allowed Clinton to win. She had already won more votes nationwide, by a large margin, and I agree that the DNC really hurt us by making Clinton inevitable."
So the urban legend claims. However, I think it is a disingenuous argument and here is why. Stein's voters voted for the progressive agenda championed by Sanders like universal health care, which Democrats' operatives had overtly rejected and even sneered at. There was no reason for Stein's voters to have voted for Clinton. It is more likely that they would not have voted at all or perhaps protest-voted (based on anger, not logic) for the other third party, Libertarians. OK, but just suppose all of Stein's voters, ALL of them, had voted for Clinton. In all three states, Libertarian turnout was 3 to 3.4x that of Stein's Green Party. If you are going to add third party candidates likely voters to the hypothetically popular vote count of the two major cartel parties, putting all of the Stein's votes in Clinton's and all of Johnson's votes into Trump's would mean landslide wins in all three states for Trump. I don't think one can argue that popular support in 2016 really leaned toward favoring the Democratic contenders of any of these three states.
The popular win by Clinton is nothing to brag about. Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes but won California by 4.3 million votes. One could thus argue that she won CA but lost the rest of the country by 1.4 million votes.
My opinion is that the DNC in 2016, as led by Podesta and Wasserman-Schultz, destroyed the credibility of the Democratic Party. After that, even the Democratic Party voting "in solidarity" for Clinton, which we pretty much did do, wasn't enough to prevent Trump. The Independents that we Democrats needed could no longer trust a party exposed as rigging its own primary. Unless our Party regains credibility, we will get killed in the coming elections. Many independents will be just voting against the Party, not just for or against our candidates.
Thank you for posting this important news in full. Good for these Georgians. They've had enough.
I applaud these Georgians!
Support the efforts of the Brennan Center for Justice if that’s possible for you.
I do!! Love the Brennan Center for Justice. The work they do is so important.
I am certain that many Americans agree that first priority of Congress should be the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. The are the doors which must be opened, but the key to the lock on those doors is doing away or modifying the filibuster. Without that, voting reform won't be passed. It is a poison pill to Republicans guaranteeing defeat for many of them so they universally oppose it. That the SCOTUS was able to weaken the 1965 Voting Act in 2013 in Shelby vs. Holder, strengthening States' ability to restrict voting, suggests that legislation is not the final answer.
The "Founding Fathers," in order to get the Constitution ratified in 1789 bought the votes of Southern States by avoiding the slavery issue. Reversing that through the demanding Amendment procedure was difficult (13th, 14th & 15th Amendments) and still allowed States to restrict voting in various ways, as HCR points out today. Lurking behind this is the simmering need for a new Constitution to replace the patched-up 1789 document which gives far too much power to States, resulting from that trade-off regarding slavery. The existence of State laws regarding tax avoidance, guns and abortions are, for example, results of this. It isn't just voting rights, but that's where it must start.
The Koch's are big on a constitutional convention, they have an agenda all laid out
Once that door is opened, who knows what will happen. Those representing the majority should not compromise as was done in 1789 in Phiadelphia, which was the cause of the Civil War and many of our present day problems.
I have a screenshot of their agenda somewhere, I was not surprised.
God help us.
Unfortunately, there is no ability to have a "concrete" plan to pass Federal voting rights at this time with Democrats and Republicans each having 50 Senators, and two Democrats and all 50 Republicans are holding up the voting rights bill as well as refusing to modify the filibuster rules.
Each state where Republicans hold minority rule and pass laws to restrict voting, persecute, intimidate and replace nonpartisan election officials with Republican officials, and set their Republican controlled legislatures up to to overturn elections is a state where the citizens of those states should make all hell break loose against Republican lawmakers. There is no excuse for Americans not to apply themselves at the local level.
Yes we should apply pressure at the Federal level. But Republicans have been winning against democracy at the state and local level with their political messaging, with their permission to run down and kill blacks, with their laws and execution of laws, with their blind eyes to injustice and to their support of America's caste system that starts in each community, spreads through their states until it reaches our President, Congress and US Supreme Court.
True, no concrete plan is in evidence, but surely there is something Dems can do to pass these vital laws. What would LBJ have done? As the guys on Pod Save America said, The Democrats should get caught trying.
I think this was a brilliant move by all of the voting rights groups. People are tired…tired of being told “NO”. People are tired of Manchenema getting in the way of true democracy and fairness to all. People are tired of being incarcerated for things they didn’t they didn’t commit. People are really tired that those who have committed fraud, who tell lies, those who have murdered, those who are defying subpoenas are not behind bars and serving time in prison. Fed up and just TIRED!!
Thank you!! Democrats have been treating their party like a church in which papal infallibility of its controlling operatives cannot be questioned nor elected Democrats publicly be held accountable.
The voting rights groups are trying to pull the party out of this death spiral that we have been placed into by the utter nonsense of "vote for the lesser evil" and "nothing will fundamentally change." That has only tightened rule by a corrupt, increasingly unaccountable, and ruthlessly terrifying minority.
I know you're angry with good cause, but, Marlene, you provided me with my first laugh, which is already a long day - 'Manchenema'. Yes, ma'am, you are a wordsmith! I laughed again as I pronounced it!
The Manchenema Candidate!
can't beat that
😂😂
Another comic genius in the house!
Laughed out loud. Kyrsten Sinema sometimes gets translated on voice transcriptions as "Christian Enema."
Ed, I'm staying is this section! Marlene's creativity mixed a cocktail of desperation with humor.
😂😂
Manchin gets shitloads of money from fossil fuel companies to block BBB and any other bills that they feel will hurt their wealth. He is an immense demon for the people of West Virginia and the rest of this country.
Nailed it! I feel as if you have just shown a movie covering the last 3000 yrs in hyper speed, and, whap! Here we are!
Ok. We can all play this game. “I’m damned TIRED of…” Take a drink. Glass slams on table. Next?
Preach!
Good post Fern.
Given the significant resistance Biden faces as he tries to get legislation passed in the current environment, I am not sure I agree with the Georgia voters that declining to discuss voter rights legislation in their own state, where active voters had so much impact, is the right thing to do.
It sounds a bit too much like a spoiled child wailing that they won't eat another bite until they get (whatever they want).
Nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than getting the national voting rights bills passed. There are no Fair and Free elections in the country and no democracy without them.
I agree Fern, but, "Biden" as a singular entity cannot just do it on his own. So, penalizing him by refusing to meet with him for discussion seems, at first blush, to be punitive rather than helpful.
He needed to act sooner. Biden isn't being penalized, he being pushed to find a way to get done what absolutely needs to be done. Nothing is more important than this. It isn't the time for a press opportunity, it is time to ACT!
WE THE PEOPLE are the ones who can make their visit bare fruit. A 'March' on the capitol, which passes the Senate office building (where the port-a-potties will be positioned), and ending on Constitution Avenue.., may be what's needed. Bring your tent, wear your mask.
OK, understood. Thank you.
Chump and McConnell could bully the troops, Biden begs for his troops to do the right thing, Manchin and that poor excuse Sinema snicker
Fern, as I just did with Mike S I hunted down another comment so as to NOT post a reply in the thread involving David Carroll. Both you and Mike S are people whose posts I look for and read (well, most of them, to be honest I can't get through all of the astute comments so many readers post). I truly believe that DC, like an insolent child, feeds off ANY response. I swear he must type his crap with one hand down his pants. Please don't feed the troll.
When you can, I would love to know how you are doing. Being here with spirit is a good sign. Cheers!
To be honest, Fern, my big brother has been in a facility with dementia for two years now. He had multiple brain scans, tests, etc, they are calling it "Alzheimers" but it is atypical. He is aphasic which complicates everything. Such a long story--been typing and deleting for awhile here. Long story short, been on hospice for 6 months and was diagnosed with COVID last week, the day after I visited (wearing a brand new, tightly fitted N95 which makes it even worse as he doesn't know who I am anymore, but recognizes me as someone kind to him) I am doubtful he will survive this, and his kids and I aren't sure we want him to, if you get my meaning. I have watched 3 family members die of cancer, two in intractable pain. The journey of this disease is worse.
I was only with him 30 minutes, prior to knowing he had it but it is so prevalent now and many of the staff are out with COVID. I washed my hands 4 times while there, but in abundance of caution, staying indoors for 5 days. At the moment, he is very ill but not suffering (or any more than usual, his soul trapped in a flesh prison, so to speak). I hope that he remains comfortable.
I ranted on this forum earlier this week and then felt guilty, as most who post on here are so eloquent and, may I say, refined? Poor choice of words, I can't think of a better way to put it. And when I can't find the most definitive words to describe what I wish to express, scares the shit out of me. Dementia has never been in our family and my brother's symptoms started right about the age I am now. Thanks for your kind reply, Fern. Keep fighting the good fight.
Please stay in touch. My mother had Alzheimer's disease and my husband had dementia, which developed very slowly, and he had a beautiful spirit. I've lived with these human side effects. Don't assume that it is in your genes. You have a giving heart, which lights us all. Your love is alive and present, my dear friend.
Miselle, best to you.
got it.
“David Carroll,” Miselle? I’m not finding his comment.
Keep scrolling down, eventually you'll come across it. If I replied to Fern's post in that thread, it is copied to DC who then gets the jollies of his inane posts generating feedback. He isn't here daily--perhaps he's out peeping in windows or something. But he does show up from time to time. Most of the regulars on here just ignore him, but I will admit to having to struggle to not answer him. So I usually just scan past him as I look for people whose opinions I value.
Of course: I haven't read far enough. Thanks so much, Miselle, for your watching-out!
"perhaps he's out peeping in windows or something." Very cute and a little humor is ALWAYS appreciated. Like you, I wonder why this character (DC)even bothers.
Dear Fern, many thanks for sharing — my kind of breaking news❣️
This is so d@mn awesome! Go on with your bada$$ self, Georgia🧡🍑🧡!
Are you sending me to Georgia? Thanks for the laughs, Ashley, and watch
your own darn _ _ _!
The notion that all these states would pass legislation to overturn elections with the intention to NOT use it is laughable. Gee Mitch, thanks for the heads up.
Mitch loves to yank our chain, and choke us with it.
Amen GA!
Thank you, Fern. I agree. I find President Biden to be way too cautious as he continues to 'namby pamby' nearly everything he does. His recent statement in which he put down #45 was excellent, but is it was at least 365 days way too f*#king late! He leans too far right on many issues. When will he ever learn that trying to compromise with a party led by an autocrat will never work? Somebody should make a loud recording that Biden will not be able to shut off as he goes to bed that tells him to get his fellow democrats to eliminate the filibuster before the party likely loses the House and perhaps the Senate in the 2022 election. Is he trying to emulate Obama's first term when that president lost control of both the House and the Senate after two years?
I think you misunderstand Biden. I don't see caution in his activities. I see action. He has accomplished with the help of Congress more than any President in recent history. But if there were a way for him to "convince" Sinema and Manchin to become de-facto Democrats, I am sure he would have exercised that magic by now.
I share your frustration (and Fern's). But if you have a path, a sentence, a paragraph, a message, a form of cajoling or any form of political pressure that you think Biden could lay on these two spoilers to make a difference... to get voting rights passed...please share it with us. Specifically, what should he do?
While I despise Manchin and Sinema, I think we need to recognize that there are 50 Republican Senators who stand in the way of passing voting rights. Let's not let them off the hook. We need to make it as uncomfortable as possible for them as well. The cowards didn't even show up at the Capitol on Thursday. Let's give them the publicity that they so richly deserve. It's not...nor should it be...only up to the Democrats.
agree. What's missing in this conversation is the responsibility of all of us, the American people, to work before and after every election to keep our voices raised and our bodies out there in front our elected representatives
As I have read somewhere, Sinema has been much more of a liberal in the past, and the Dems may be able to get her to vote 'Yea." However, for coal baron Manchin, I have little hope of converting his pro fossil fuel stance, since he makes oodles of money from other coal companies to line his pockets and do what Amway dealers are always told to do, buy a new yacht, a mansion, another fancy automobile, etc. Back in the 1970s, I sold Amway for a while and soon learned that Rich DeVos and Jay van Andel, the co-founders were deeply invested in the Republican party. The late Rich DeVos was the father of Rick DeVos who is the husband of the already filthy rich former Secretary of Education under #45, Betsy DeVos. Betsy is the sister of Erik Prince, the guy who created the private mercenary company Blackwater World Wide, that has contracted with the U.S. government to fight and kill people i Iraq, Afghanistan, and other place the Pentagon wants to decimate. Such a crew, and they claim to be Christians! WTF?
I used to like Amway until I found out that the corrupters owned them.
Amen!
Wow Fern, once again you astonish and impress.
Thank you. Hard work, support and commitment spell Diane Love.
Tell Manchin
I sent a printout of Jim Barger's essay on Armaud Arbery to my Alabama mother who is 87. In return, I got her notes on it which included racist rants as well as a newspaper column with a prayer that included deviants from the "word of the Lord."
I escaped LA (Lower Alabama) but unless 'outsiders' step in, the entrenched racism will rule the day. My relatives are teaching their children and grandchildren deep racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc., and that culture is not moving. My mother asked, "Did you own slaves? Well, I didn't either." The utter ignorance and abdication of responsibility, of knowledge, of history, of reason, is stunning.
Yes, I know there are evolved folks in the American South, and I also know, up close and personally, that there is endemic, embedded racism. It feeds on the lies of the idjt machine.
Jim Barger's essay:
https://bittersoutherner.com/2020/ahmaud-arbery-holds-us-accountable
Thank you so much, Kim. I’m African American and my mother was born about 50 miles inland from Brunswick. I am more than familiar with this type of tragedy; one of my uncles was lynched. My mother never knew her oldest sibling.
I plan to drop a note to “Brother James” to thank him for his splendid contribution to the upraising of this nation and to the elimination of this sick, morally/spiritually bankrupt culture of ranking by complexion.
This country––this world––cannot afford the evil “luxury” of anti-blackness and graduated criminal “justice” any longer.
Your words make me flinch. We stand with you in love and solidarity.
I wrote the words that follow on November 27th. I wrote in shock. I want to write them again on February 23rd:
IN MEMORIAM — AHMAUD ARBERY
Caught.
Cannot speak.
Cannot remain silent.
How, then?
HOW?
His good face should be everywhere, his good name should be everywhere. Places. Streets. Squares. Towns. Not just in America. Everywhere.
February 23rd must bear that name.
In remembrance of him. In remembrance of the countless innocents murdered like him.
Their faces, lost. His face must stand for them all.
In Europe, they have these "stumbling stones": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein
No sidewalks. And far too small for America.
His face, even more than his name, eye level or higher. Face to face. Looking me and you in the eye.
Look at me. Your brother.
If you pray, a prayer. To be with him in thought.
Then, a prayer for his killers, for the guilty, everywhere. For all who hate, hated, acted on hate. For the hellbound, for those who cursed themselves.
In the end, a prayer—a kind thought—for us all,
Human brothers and sisters.
#
And pardon me for even seeking words.
Yes. His face haunts me. So full of beauty, his pure soul blazing through his eyes.
We needed him to carry his bright light forward. Now we must carry it for him.
His mother’s dignity in grief a testament to love.
Run with Ahmaud.
Diane, I hit the "like" button, but that action means so much more. No words can say it, but you have used words well.
Reconciliation and healing desperately needed, not white-washing. Otherwise, we remain the Divided States of America, or maybe no America at all.
Oh, Mr. Willis, what tragedy, trauma, injustice, and loss. Brother James is indeed on the required reading list. The rank hypocrisy of the fundamentalists professing Christianity and believing themselves righteous is just repugnant, awful poison. Truly, we cannot afford the evil. And yet...
A warm embrace to you and yours.
Bill, blessings to your grandparents and their perseverance. Have you or anyone written your family stories?
What a beautiful essay; thanks for posting it Kim. I think what’s important about your story is that YOU know what racism is, and that you won’t spread those ideas to those around you. It’s important every time you bring new ideas that define racism to your family, and even though your family claps back, those ideas will linger in their brains.
Remember in the olden days we used to shudder in horror at the very possibility of "brainwashing". It certainly wasn't anything that would happen here.
Until Ronnie Imported Rupert onto our shores
Just why, given the damage that he has brought to our shores, is he allowed to remain. Rupert is a foreign parasite, plain and simple, if it was growing on your body like a cancer you would have it removed.
He bought the WSJ, nobody will touch him, Goebbels clone or not.
Horribly apt.
Kim, You are doing the work, spreading the word and giving light, a beautiful mission on the part of all of us. Thank you.
Thanks, Kim. It is heartening to read how Ahmaud's community's actions led the way for justice to finally prevail.
Curious.
I wrote words I should perhaps not have written, for they shared deep shock. And the moment I had written and moved to post what I had written, they disappeared. Not the first time this has happened.
I wrote, Kim, to thank you for reminding us of Jim Barger’s deep, clean, resonant, heart-to-heart message.
There are words spoken by the great Jewish sage, Hillel, and repeated in the Quran (5:32):
“Whosoever destroys one soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.”
A man IS a whole world.
And yet, in America, killing is as normal and unnoticed as breathing. For all that babbling about “the sanctity of life”. At most, we catch a breath, normal breathing soon resumes, and all’s forgotten. And for all the brave ongoing struggle of these Letters from an American to awaken our awareness, I came away from the account of this killing feeling powerless and lost.
“And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9)
Even if our lives are writ in water, may the spreading ripples from those lives be ripples of awareness. May awareness be our monument.
May awareness be our monument indeed Peter.
Peter, perhaps you did not press the post key before you left the page and came back?
Thanks, Mike, but no, it wasn't that... I moved to press the Post button but at that moment my entire message disappeared.
I had difficulty posting another message shortly after this one and wasn't sure I'd succeeded until I saw it on my phone. The draft was still on my computer. Maybe it's the computer playing up. I've had the impression over the past 20 years or so that every time that I'm completely at ease with a Microsoft product, they scrap it and bring in something worse, when it's not plain awful.
For my own purposes, I've never had anything better than Word XP. I remember that a theoretical physicist I knew felt the same way...
I'm reminded of when I was a kid and American car manufacturers turned out a new model every year... So, even when they made something lovely to look at like the '48 Buick, it was succeeded by a crap design.
As we saw with Manila's Jeepneys and Havana's seemingly everlasting American cars from prehistory, unsafe-at-any-speed may have guzzled gas but was long-lasting...
Excuse the digression frm serious things...
I've kept my old laptop with XP on it. I use it as a table for my present laptop. I loved my XP.
I saved mine, too!
I call that set-up Micro... something else...
XP, yes! And the rest of what you say, Peter.
I had troubles posting last night too. I went to post and it was already there, like a running duplicate.
Hmmm....... are you on WiFi? Maybe it is cutting out.
No, this looks the same as what Jane DoughS reports. In my case WiFi on the phone functioned but my computer's wired up to a modem connected to fibreglass cable.
Thank you for this Kim. Jim Barger has written a stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking essay. His description of ”dayclean” will stay with me.
“But every day the sun rises afresh across our marshes and out across the ocean at the edge of the horizon. The Geechee word for this time of darkness erupting into color and light is “dayclean.”
Thanks, Kim. This is so depressing.
It is, indeed. And, 'tis most important to know what we are up against.
Yes. Know your enemy, a friend of mine used to say.
There are times I wish I didn't know them so well.
Lots to wish I didn’t know. Chump turned them into a cult of hate as bad as KKK. Cults don’t deprogram themselves
Sadly I know them too, Kim.
Ah this. Yeeeessssss.
I hadn’t heard about Jim Barger before, but upon your recommendation, clicked the link… and read the essay in its entirety. What a beautiful, soul-filled and moving piece! I found Barger’s writing elegant, eloquent and engaging. I now have subscribed to The Bitter Southerner’s newsletters. Thank you for sharing this with us, Kim!
Kim, I read Jim Barger's essay quite some time ago and thought about it yesterday after sentencing and wanted to read it again. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the author's name. And here you posted it for all of us. Thank you.
delighted to be of service...what a perfect required read. Blessings upon you, Daria! Several days ago, I posted a comment that I was going to pack my 2000 Subaru and go looking for you and the expatriate community...that may yet happen.
Come on down! 🌷
It is superb. He's touched the essence of the story, the malicious destruction of innocence and beauty. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
Worth circulating again, ty.
Glad to re-read this!
Yes, everyone wants to be special yes? And, in the south, one way that poor white folks can be special is to imagine they are better than poor black folks. This strategy was promulgated by rich white folks who wanted to use blacks as slaves.
But, while slavery is now sort of part of the past, the need to feel special in the poor white community remains. Hence, your grandmother's rant.
LBJ quote “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” I know this to be true.
Finally, a clear explanation for the extremely large, poor white Republiqan base, who continually empty their pockets making donations to a party that loathes them but is happy to take their money; and for why these same poor, white people ultimately vote against their own interests in favor of big business. So sad to see them being fleeced AND making sure that they can never break free from their financial instability.
LBJ spoke of the “lowest white man,” and I think he was right. But recent analysis of the participants arrested for Jan. 6 showed them far above that. Business owners, doctors, architects, etc. My theory about them is they are the kind of people who feel the need to dominate. Co-existing with equals just doesn’t cut it for them. Be top dog or be nothing. It could be they were raised that way, a prime example being our odious ex-president, who told governors during racial justice protests that they must dominate the streets with great force or look like jerks. He showed how when he cleared Lafayette Square with helicopters flying low, etc., and walked to the church where he awkwardly held up a Bible from Ivanka’s purse.
So right, Limbaugh and a zillion big mouth haters have pressed the message ad nauseam. Now it's republican orthodoxy. Ike made the German cult look squarely in the face of their evil, saying to get pictures and collect evidence because in the future, some would deny it ever happened.
This Dylan song, really a poem put to music, expresses exactly what you said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X0UmfBwA_U
Scott, I did not know this song. I'm sitting here in the sunlight, tears streaming down my face. I've been saying for a very long time that Republican power grabbers (who used to be Democrat power grabbers) are experts at riling up their base emotionally so they don't even notice that they are voting against their own interests and that Democrats need to get much better at messaging. Beloved Dylan "said" it so much more powerfully. Thank you, I'm going to work to get this song out to the public again. Blessings,
Do we need some aspects of the 60’s back again…. At least the truth-telling part
Maybe we all just need to accept the fact that we are not special and, instead, start treating everyone else as if they are??
We are all far, far more than "special", we are EQUAL.
But we don't know what that means.
We don't know what that means, but my mother told me when I was 8, in 1948. And even if I couldn't understand her words then, she made me understand how deeply they mattered:
"We are all the children of the same God."
Even if that last word does not speak to you, the truth that it expresses remains unchanged. There are many ways of expressing truth.
Also,
We are all the children of the same Earth.
We are all far, far more than "special", we are EQUAL."
GREAT sentence. Thank you.
You don't need God to understand that this is, statistically true.
The mean differences between all our DNA are not much really. Greeen eyes or brown eyes are still eyes.
My brain just went into a tizzy, thinking of the magats as being anything but deplorable.
:-)
That's how white folks in LA feel about blacks though, right?
So, you know what you have to do. :-)
I don't like the way "cut & Paste" reformats this. The Poem (Lyrics)can be found here: https://www.google.com/search?q=only+a+pawn+in+their+game+lyrics&oq=Only+a+Pawn+in+Their+Game+lyrics&aqs=edge.0.0i512l2j0i22i30l3j69i64.6144j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Add the memory of Medgar Evers to our energy getting voting rights legislation passed by the Senate.
As a child in Jim Crow Mississippi, Evers walked 12 miles a day to school. As an 18 year old kid in the Army, Evers fought in Normandy in World War 2. He graduated from college, married, and in 1952, started civil rights organizing with his brother Charles, first for the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), then for the NAACP. He was turned away at gunpoint from voting in an election.
On June 12, 1963, he was assassinated by a member of the KKK, and one year later, Bob Dylan wrote "Only a Pawn in their Game." The murderer was not convicted until until his third trial--in 1994, 31 years later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medgar_Evers
What a message. Thank you.
Oh.
Ah, yes, "Only a Pawn in Their Game." Brilliant.
So true, and most of them have never left the South. My 7 siblings and I from rural NC are a microcosm of sorts. The half that didn’t stay to stew in the righteous hatred have a whole different take on issues. As one bro said to me after seeing my expression after he used a racial slur ‘guess you didn’t talk like that at NASA.’ Well, no. Most who had similar sentiments chose to keep quiet. Fox was made to order for making those folks the vocal haters they are today. Nixon’s Southern Strategy lives on.
"...endemic, embedded racism." Up close and personal. It is this that stains the moral fabric of our culture.
Historical fear and loathing of the "other." Rejecting the obvious truth that the other is us.
Kim, I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this in such an intimate way. The arguments in favor of anti-diversity, anti-inclusion, and bigotry are always the same: "Well, I didn't do those things so I'm exempt." The growth of the radical right in Germany is playing that tune as to the activities of the Nazis. The struggle for achieving a reckoning continues.
Kim- we moved back to Atlanta in 2018 after living in Seattle for 25 years. It. Was. Shocking. I figured the south would have progressed in that time. No, it was like moving back to GA in 1940. And we are going more and more backward. Strict abortion laws and less and less gun restrictions, and then voting rights are being trampled… I’m sad and disgusted. Oh, and the family I moved back to be near- some of us are no longer on speaking terms. It’s pretty depressing.
As a resident of the Olympic Peninsula, My condolences. It must be so very sad. i'm fearful of ever returning 'home'--I'm certain I would be ostracized if not killed. It is truly no joke. Retard a terre, as the French may say. I used to return every 7 years, as that is the time it takes for a body to regenerate all the cells, but no change, no progress, no enlightenment. Truly depressing.
Agree and empathize totally. You have to think of your safety. Always. Not only because of what it means to you, but also to the ones who love you and who would be devastated if anything happened to you. Remind your friends as well of the responsibility they have to stay safe for the sake of those who love them.
Everyone is always telling me, here and in my family, to drive safely and be safe out there because I drive trucks full-time. The risk I take is inconsequential compared to the risk that you take when you go where you don’t belong. Thank you for not returning. 🙏🙏🙏
I am most appreciative of your understanding, Roland. It means much. My family called me after my father was buried, to tell me he had passed. Not that I would ever want to intrude upon their fundamentalist funeral. But the disrespect is palpable. They didn't want to risk me at their services.
So, yes, stay safe. One's life is precious.
I tried that in 2012, it didn’t work then and I won’t do it again since the orange turd is hero to many. . It’s hard to even have a conversation but I try.
So sad...
The cult has taken over more and more and cults don’t deprogram themselves. Fox and clones have increased their vitriol, with Joe labeled a parasite, bastard president, and evil. Just the ones I saw in the last week (tee shirt, bumper sticker, and big mouthed old woman). They feed chump’s narcissistic ego and he is in his glory.
Sharon I am so sorry you are going through that.
I often think of racism in a similar fashion to family addiction. One grandparent after another are alcoholics or druggies or gamblers that shake up and shape a family dynamics. Then you realize that your own father isn't an addict, but he acts like an addict. And, you are then raised in an addict's home. It's a real concept. The same is true with deep racial bias. Your ancestors were slave owners or held the idea that black people are worthless or lesser than your white privilege. It's passed down this racial bias. No, you aren't owning slaves anymore, but you wouldn't mind and you hold the mindset to do it in the southern way.
Christi, actually that is a current theory in psychology and biology: trauma gets into the DNA and is transmitted to future generations. Those of us who are Jews have the millennia of trauma encoded into us; that same is true for enslaved people, colonized people, the victims of assault: all are physically and genetically altered. there is research being done to see if those who enact trauma on others are similarly marked.
do we dare try to understand. White "supremacists" think they already know who really matters
Religion plays a role too. Whities were supposed to be the Christians God loved best and they were to take a paternalistic view towards the "lesser tribe." Boy did that get corrupted to a fair thee well. I was gobsmacked when I learned that "picnic" had a connection to the fact that after church, many church people took lunch and went to lynchings. Found a pic of postcard that showed people eating lunch at a lynching. I'm sure my Mom and Dad knew of such but when I asked any questions was told " you don't want to know that old stuff."
Interesting, but nausea-inducing.
I want to retch
It is retch-worthy. And it is real. Thank you for your unwavering stance in support of equality, Roland. You represent the hope of this country.
So much fear of the "other". It seems your grandmother explains perfectly the attitude of the South. "Did you own slaves? Well, I didn't either." Amazing.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it! (George Santayana-1905). In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill changed the quote slightly when he said (paraphrased), “those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”
Yesterday I got in touch with Christiane Amapour and PBS Nightly Newshour asking them to interview Ms. Cox Richardson. We need news stories that are sourced and contextualized AND include historical information. Heather Cox Richardson, in her daily blog, does both.
Yesterday's headline--of course, somehow abbreviated-- could be "On a November day in 1861, Massachusetts abolitionist Julia Ward Howe woke up in the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C."
From January 7th blog, another headline, "Arbery murderers' use of Georgia’s citizens arrest law, dating from an 1863 law designed to permit white men to hunt down Black people escaping enslavement, failed. Now change the law!" Then within the article the excellent information give in Ms. Cox Richardson's blog could be included.
I've turned worry into anger by writing government representatives (local, state and national) and the professors in both history and political departments in the universities in my state (NC). I send the day's blog and write that I would like everyone to be aware of this source of information. For the professors, I ask that they share with their students. I've now started to write to news programs and papers. Other ideas. Please help, if you're so inclined. I'm over 80 but energized by this daily blog from which I'm learning so much.
This what you are doing is Exactly what I mean about us all making talk into action. Good on you ! PBS knows who HCR is. They have had her on before. Would be wonderful on Amanpour. This has been my ‘Mantra’. We can all do something even if it is just a small thing. I also say we need to do it as if our lives depend on it because it does. Thank You. ❤️🦋
Barbara Delighted to have you in the Over Eighty Hit Squad to Protect American Democracy club. To belong, one has to be triple vaccinated and show their Medicare card. Having experienced WW II qualifies you for Buck Rogers/Lone Ranger salon seating.
The Over Eighty Hit Squad to Protect American Democracy club has mega-superpowers, clearly💙! Thank you, mentors!!
👍 They are the best.
Damn Keith ! Lower the age limits I want the prizes 😂
Marcia If you are triple vaccinated and have a Medicare card, you are eligible for our Mouseketeers Club, whose marvelous benefits are mind boggling. P. S. If you pass the Australia visa regulations to be certified ‘mind boggling,’ you can be elevated to the late middle age club.
I don’t live that far from TFG, bet he’s got a guy, who’s got a guy, that knows a guy, that has a guy, that will call a guy and then………on the way back from getting Bailed out of Fed court. I’ll stop at Disney and buy the Damn Rat Ears !
FYI, that guy must be this guy “Get Me Roger Stone.” Was on Netflix. Without a doubt, he has recruited every lowlife on planet earth for a Plethora of dirty deeds
Ain’t it the Truth Jeri .
👏🏼👏🏼😂
Talk about dejavú Barbara, I just posted the same Santayana quote earlier today as a comment to a Miami Herald editorial opinion regarding Sidney Poitier.
Thank You for your efforts and diligence; Democracy isn’t and shouldn’t be free to nor for any of us. It is a participatory form of government which - at a minimum - demands that each of us of voting age educate ourselves and cast votes in every election in which we are legally permitted to participate … Stay Safe and healthy and have a wonderful year!!!
Thank YOU. if you would help me write one related to Heather, I would love to submit it to News & Observer.
The Arbery case is a perfect example of white racist men off the rails. You are correct to point out how close this case came to avoiding justice. To go from almost swept under the rug to life sentences for the perpetrators is an astonishment. I live in Hamilton Co. TN, adjacent to GA, and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Congressional district, and I quite frankly feel like I live in a backwater, political wasteland. Both TN and GA have governors who are clueless, trumpy hacks, and coupled with Republican dominated legislatures, the culture here, both political and cultural, feels dark and depressing. There are two Americas, and I am not certain that this will change anytime soon. I know I can count myself amongst the majority, but where I live it does not feel that way. Angry, depressed and lost in TN.
I live in the other America and have traveled through the one you live in recently- my older brother lives in Baton Rouge, LA. It is mind boggling to see, first hand, how widespread the dark, depressing culture is and how many defend it as “normal” or good. BBB is designed to help address the darkness you and millions of others live in - and as you already know too well, Republicans don’t want to shed light for their people because those people will start voting for those who help. Time to pull out all the stops on voting rights.
Sending good cultural vibes your way, Jeff. Hang in there.
Thanks 🙏 I am not normally feeling this despondent. I grew up here and have spent all but ten years of my life here, and should be accustomed. Problem is that trumpism either halted progress or gave cover for the undercurrent of racism to go mainstream. I would nod to the possibilities of both. Not long ago I believed that it was not as much where you live, but how you live. You know, an inner attitude that would allow you to be at peace anywhere. I still feel that way, but now think it is important to be in communion with like minded souls.
You’re a smart man, Jeff. Regular communion with like-minded souls is essential for mental and emotional balance. Just my opinion.
Mine too, Roland.
I honor everything you just said.
"There are two Americas......". Similar to life in the South after the Civil War
Add Florida...and Alabama ... and Texas ... and others. As evidenced by their belief that sharing the video would exonerate them, the men who murdered Arbery suffer from White Privilege Syndrome. And it is the holding them accountable that others who suffer from White Privilege fear. We need more accountability.
My cousin, who grew up in OR, moved to Louisiana & refers to it as a third world country. They plan to move back to the Pacific NW when they retire.
If you are here you are not lost. The Cause to save Democracy needs every little bit of help it can get. When you’re ‘Doing ‘ it helps with the other things. See what those other majorities in Ur local area are doing. But stay safe and warm.
I feel for you Jeff. I can relate to and agree with everything you say about the feeling of the society. I have been to or through practically every state during the course of my lifetime, and when I tell people I know in California that Tennessee is the most disturbing social consciousness of all of them, and that I will never go through TN again, I get odd responses. Caveat: I have not been to Alabama or Mississippi.
I have said for decades that AL is a nice place to be FROM! It has a range of lovely geography and, on the surface, folks are friendly and helpful. I used to also say that hunting dogs get more respect that blacks and women. I don't think that's changed. I just turned 66 and, therefore, grew up in turbulent times. I went back to campaign for Doug Jones in 2017 and was not warmly welcomed. Many had already given up on me long before when I supported Obama. There are some Dems in AL. Precious few. Nixon's Southern Strategy worked.
I have been to all the states in my quest to climb the highest peak in each. Thus I have been to many, many rural areas and backcountry towns, while driving thru urban areas to get there. And yes, Death Valley on the way to Mt. Whitney. The most important part of my travels were the people I met. I remember most of them. Mississippi and Alabama are not only remembered for the huge delta area I drove through but the diner we ate it serving the most delicious caramel cake. And Vicksburg on the Mississippi. Could not repress visions of Huckleberry Finn on his raft, among those ironclad battleships. I find beauty in every state and it is a shame that the mores and traditions are less than the beauty, less than the food. In Tennessee we again ate at a diner and met folks there so much a part of the generation that passed decades ago and still clinging on. We went thru Hollers in Kentucky and saw the homes perched on the hillsides without running water and the way the locals eyed us with suspicion but they helped us with directions and jokes. Tennessee is beautiful. Not wanting to be argumentative, but just wanting to share the love of this country. We live on 20 acres 26 miles from town so I am not accousted with sickening flags every morning and Ram trucks parked in the next driveway with stickers proclaiming inane comments. I know I am lucky..
Yes! The caramel cake is worth the trip. I have a recipe for the icing if you want it. Two, in fact. Aunts from both sides of the family made it differently. It is unique to the South, I think. Good luck in your quest. Lovely description of your travels.
Kelly, can you post link to recipes here please? I finished my quest 10 years ago. Still hike and climb tho.
Family recipe, so no links:
Caramel Cake Icing
2 Sticks Butter
1 (16 oz) box of light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup evaporated milk
2 cups sifted confectioner's sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Place butter, brown sugar and salt in a saucepan. Heat, stirring until the brown sugar is well dissolved. Add milk and continue stirring until well blended. Let bubble (at an easy boil) for about 4 minutes stirring constantly. Set hot mixture aside to cool for several minutes. Using mixer, add confectioner's sugar and vanilla. It will turn lighter and caramelize. When desired consistency, ice the cake, placing some of the icing between layers. You can use a box of yellow or white cake mix of your choice but is best as a 3-layer cake. (I wrote this maybe 40 years ago while watching my Aunt Carolyn, who never used a recipe!)
thank you so much, Kelly. Will make this tomorrow after we finish the apple pie I made.
Beautiful work Professor. Full historical context is your signature, the last several centuries, decades, years ... literally up to the last 24 hours. Thank you very much.
Well said, Bryan!
This is such a powerful essay. Thank you. I too would love to see this published in major newspapers.
It might be. I occasionally see HCR's LFAA commentary showing up on the Opinion page of the Palm Beach Post, suggesting that it might appear in other Gannett (USA Today) publications as well. I'll let you know it this one does.
Really?! That makes me so happy! I know someone high up at Gannett and recommended he read Letters from an American. Maybe he listened? In any case, Heather deserves recognition and high praises!
Looks like your efforts may have paid off. In any event, HCR appearing in major national publications can pay off on Election Day. Thanks.
That would be cool but not sure I’m very persuasive. Or maybe it’s why NBC has a podcast about my school district! 😳
Yes indeed, vey powerful……..explains the tactics of the minority right wing of the country
Unfortunately, since if one were to divide the country in quarters, the largest population is in the south where that 'minority right wing' is a majority.
Another essay for the Pulitzer Prize nomination portfolio.
For next year nomination in 2023.
And there it is, my take away from Heather’s words today, my takeaway, what jumps at me?
Most of us, I sure don’t, we have little knowledge of what goes on, how things really operate in our communities, our state, our country. Most of us, we have no idea what goes on.
Heather laid it out, told the story, gave the story context, where most media fails miserably.
I mean, are you freaking kidding me? It took two and a half months between the time a man was shot and killed, and then, the perpetrator choosing to have the video of his crime published, before some accountability begins? Really, in America, 2021. Really?
We receive (and most seem happy to receive) bits and bites, nuggets of news, in some places - pure SPIN. Most of us, we never know the whole story. We only see parsed snippets and so, how can we ever understand?
You gave me context Heather. Honestly, before today, I only knew snippets about this story. I'd been fed junk food news, and so, I had little understanding.
And that is it, that’s the thing. This is what happens - every day. We’re fed junk. We consume junk. Garbage in / garbage out.
I mean, we must look in the mirror. Who’s to blame? Start with the person in the mirror. That is always - the place to start.
We get what we accept. Right?
It’s time for WE THE PEOPLE to look in the mirror, stand up, expect more, begin with self and go from there. Be better. DO BETTER.
I read this somewhere. I wish they were, but they are not my words, but I love them. Here goes…
We Are the People We’ve Been Waiting For
Thank you Heather for shining light into the dark. You help us see. Thank you.
I knew all this, so do Dem pols and many rank-and-file. We wring our hands, sign onto groups opposing the destruction of democracy, and respond to inane emails asking for our five dollars. Mostly, we wring our hands.
Right.
While Republicans buy automatic weapons of war, attend assault weapons training programs, organize militia's and get ready.
exactly, all in the open, not even hiding these days
It is legal to order and store 10,000 rounds of .222 ammunition. Yep.
hard to believe though.
'You get what you settle for.' - Thelma and Louise
This Letter needs to be published as a guest article in the NYTimes or WaPo.
It so clearly illustrates the inherent dangers of state’s rights and local law which have long resulted in what can best be described as tribal law.
Once again Heather connects to dots to show the big picture. Excellent!
The NY Time or WaPo should just print her letters on a regular basis. And actually, local papers, where they still exist, would be a good place to publish them as well. They would reach a more diverse group.
Yes, she needs to be syndicated.
Except then she would have to report to higher ups and write within parameters...
Yes. Agree.
We now know from the murders of both George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, that cameras or videos are essential pieces of evidence for upholding justice. Hate is and always has been rampant in our “land of the free” country. It’s way past time to put an end to being manipulated by politicians whose goals are to undermine the general population. Write, march, protest, be LOUD, just do something!
Very eloquently put, Dr Richardson, tying voting rights to the laws over everyday treatment of our neighbors. Most Americans wouldn’t make that connection.
I also saw this morning that the Governor of Louisiana posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy for the crime of sitting in the White Car of a train. The law, which was challenged in the Supreme Court - Plessy v Ferguson - was almost unanimously upheld, with one dissenting vote from Justice John Harlan. Justice Harlan stated that the Constitution is color blind, and that it was “wrong to let the states regulate the enjoyment of citizens' civil rights solely on the basis of race.”
I hope what we do today won’t take 6+ decades to correct, or 130 years to pardon.
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1335/john-marshall-harlan-i
Yesterday, CBS Mornings had this piece about Plessy v Ferguson and the subsequent pardon:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/descendants-plessy-v-ferguson-louisiana-pardon/
"...130 years after he stood up for the right to sit down in the whites only section of a train..."
The courtroom in which Plessy was convicted 130 years ago is to be renamed "The Homer Plessy Courtroom."
Plessy and Parks….every young person in our country should be required to study their courage.
This is one of the stories in which we can see justice is served. The local assumptions are so frightening in their assumption of moral superiority that it is sickening. The lesson is that if there is no video footage, there is likely no justice.
Yet, Now in the face of video footage, we still have congressmen describing the assault on our Capitol as a "normal tourist day".
These congressmen and women are apparently the audience that our video posting Georgian vigilantes were posting the footage for in the first place. Those who would see the righteousness of their cause. It is that ignorant moral superiority that I am both sickened by and frightened of. While hoping that some of these people can get voted out, it seems to be less and less likely that this can happen.
No cell phone cameras, no young people recording with them, no consequences for Chauvin and the McMichaels. #MeToo would be weaker, because the white boys who make the news, like Roger Ailes, Donald Sterling, et al, are the ones who were recorded.
Don’t you believe your lying eyes, or something like that. The ultimate command from evil authority.
true-true.
“ But it is also a story of local government and outsiders, and which are best suited to protect democracy.” These words. And the threads woven in the paragraphs you wrote today—Excellent column. Thank you
Yes, stunning the way this story was told, woven. Thank You Heather.
What is sad to me is that many of my friends, family, and neighbors are not worrying about voting rights being taken away. When asked if they knew about the states that are putting these practices in place to essentially make a citizen's vote not matter, they either say they do not know what I am talking about or they say that would never happen. When I say it is happening and tell about it they do not seem to care. These folks only worry about the issue that matters to them and where they are in their own lives. How do we get people to care about this very important fundamental right that makes this country so unique and great?
Most people go through life, deep in their own head. They don't see the link between their government and themselves. It's hard for them to imagine that they could have a connection, a common interest with someone a thousand miles away, living on the other side of the country. Medicare, Social Security, the ACA - Affordable Care Act, these are thing done collectively by our government in our common interest. They did not always exist and they could be taken away but self centered leaders who do not care, who believe in each man to himself, laws of the jungle. Wow. Not sure if I helped here, but I like your thought, your question. I ask myself the same thing. How do we help people understand and think bigger?
I think you meant to start your nice essay with:
Most (white) people go through life, deep in their own head. They don't see the link between their government and themselves.
Because, in the Black and Latino community, definitely, everyone sees a link between government and themselves.....through the ever present threat posed by the police who are part of the government.
Mike, hunted down another of your posts so as to NOT reply in the thread where you replied to this forum's resident troll: David Carroll. I have previously likened this guy to the old heavy-breather on a landline, trying to get his jollies by riling people up. I generally skip over everything he posts. Please don't feed him. I know it is tempting, but I really believe he loves any the attention he gets and your logical posts will never convince him..
Miselle. I understand. I will refrain from posting to his maddeningly off base posts. thanks for the ping. I appreciate it.
“David Carroll” is likely Russian govt. disinformation agent. We have several others here as well. They all have a very similar tone.
Ha.. don't confuse me with their ilk. "theMadRussian" just happens to be the name on my race-boat #12A.
“David Carroll” is likely Russian govt. disinformation agent. We have several others here as well.
Thank you Janet. In one pithy statement, you nailed it. Most people in the US are ignorant politically. I was one of them too until recently, now I call myself a “former political agnostic.” Once you scrape through the ignorance, people fall into one of two camps. I know it sounds simplistic, and people can argue with me if they like, but it’s polarized. Either you are in favor of POC and women and non-straights having equality and full rights in a diverse society, or you are not. In 2020, 81 million people voted for Biden (& Harris) or against Trump (more of the latter), 74 million people for white superiority and male dominance. It was a referendum on everything that Trump represents. Trumps world was rejected, but not by much, percentage-wise.
People don’t care where I am, simply don’t care or on board
This verdict is good news. The Voting Rights Act must pass sooner or later.
Later or not at all in all probability as the Dems have to win the 2022 partial elections first. The current make-up of the Senate is not going to let them do it or do it so late that it won't count. Manchin will sit on his hands and make positive noises but will not act either on the voting bills or the filibuster....he has his well-funded retirement to protect and cares nothing of much else. The other Colorado idiot is up in the clouds somewhere and the timid little Rinos don't dare express what they know is right. If the Democrats don't take the battle back to the red states they are going to be in a permanent minority.
“so late that it won't count.”…
Given the inevitable court challenge and the conservative makeup of the Supreme Court, we have already passed that point for midterms.
Now if Democrats can elect 3 or 4 more liberals to the Senate at midterms, maybe in time for the 2024 presidential election.
The "if" question is always interesting of course as long as it does not then regretfully become "if only..."
Given the geographical basis of the Senate, and the "political sorting" that has happened, there is every likelihood that we are looking at the high tide of Democrats in the Senate for the foreseeable future right now, with two (Tester and Manchin) gone at their next elections. We may outnumber them, but we don't outnumber them in enough places.
"Colarado" ? Is that across the river from Ahio?
I just noticed the spelling error too. Happily we can now edit. Across the river then way some...wagons ho!
The Colorado idiot is Boebert. She's in the House of Representatives. But she is still an idiot...
The other one is Arizona's problem of coursem..silly me.
They are the famous ones; unfortunately there are so many that they are hard to keep track of.
Boeberta Beretta Yep--she is an embarrassment.
Stuart, are you referring to Sinema from Arizona when you mention "'Colarado' idiot?"
Sounds vaguely synonymous...or something like that. I can never remember her name. She is infinitely forgettable. Morning Lynell.
Morning, Stuart!!
Morning, Lynell
I think he's referring to Lauren Boebert.
Morning, Ally! I was focusing on the Senate side, and I thought Stuart was, too.
I was indeed but if the dems can't control the House that won't help either.
Understood, Stuart. And she is running for reelection in 2022 in Colorado. But here's a hopeful sign: "The path to reelection for Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican congresswoman from Colorado, could soon become a lot harder. A new map proposed by Colorado’s nonpartisan redistricting committee could force Boebert to compete against Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) in his safely Democratic district."
That's another one who won't help
Can I have some of what you're smoking? :-)
UPDATE: to be accurate, it is indeed good news, and I really do wish it would lead to the second sentence in your post. But right now all I can do is hope I'm wrong.
Read Robert Hubble daily. BTW, he’s a retired lawyer in LA. His blog is called Today’s Edition.
Sooner, SOONER!
You bet, Fern!
This is a perfectly clear explanation of states rights and the need for federal oversight when minority corruption interferes with the democratic process of good government. Nice piece of writing. Thank you. It is easy to see expanded variations of this militia behavior happening across the country if the results of the 2024 election are overturned by state and federal government officials supporting the losing candidates. 2025 may be a very bad year for this country.
The way HCR constructed today’s letter left me gobsmacked and tingling all over. Having a clear understanding of today’s news tying back into shameful history, I feel like I now have a much better argument to bring to my stubborn US Senator.
But she is so concerned....
She’s mentally defective