542 Comments

I hope women heed President Biden's call to action, to vote to codify Roe as federal law. Marching is good; it isn't enough. Petitions are good; they aren't enough. We all—and especially women—must VOTE.

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Women make up more than half of the U.S. population, yet the majority of elected and appointed positions in government are held by men. Yes, women need to vote, but they must also run, win, serve, and lead. RepresentWomen works to advance women's representation and leadership in the United States. And remember this is not a “women’s” issue - all people benefit with balanced representation.

https://www.representwomen.org/

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Also, RunForSomething.net helps people become effective first-time candidates. If you are old enough to vote, and have the energy, run for something. We need you.

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But you can't be too old like me. However, I am running!

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Good for you! I'm 74 now, and I don't have the energy I used to have, so my political activity is a mix of conversations and postcards. Of course, I live in eastern MA, where we have plenty of great public officials of all ages so there is not the same need for candidates as in most of the country.

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Joan, I am soon to be 79! No other Democrat would run in our area....it is almost all Republican...Trump Republicans~

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More power to you! Every bit helps! If nothing else, it will remind the saner R's nhat Democrats are humans, and make their candidates do some work. And you never know, run on local issues, you might win.

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Thanks Debbie for the alert. I had written dot-org when it’s actually dot-net. It’s edited and fixed now.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 10, 2022

Why “especially women”?

In this election, in my opinion, my ending line is “We all, and especially MEN, must vote for the common cause of different gender, both EQUAL with EQUITY determined freely to support the common good and goals of a democratic nation.

After all, why IS it that women have been decided, once again, to a status of being owned and not equal in the eyes of the laws of men?

Salud, Mim! 🗽

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Yep. As always, women are gaslit so that we are supposed to feel responsible for the s**t that men do. Including impregnating us.

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Well, impregnating - unless it's rape or other forced sexual act - is a two-way street. BUT I do agree that men create a LOT OF SHIT in women's lives. The workplace, home, the street, everywhere we go. So there is that. I didn't much appreciate that Biden pointed to women to VOTE. I know an awful lot of very lazy-ass men.

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If I get started on the politics of heterosexual behavior and the notion of "consent," this would be a very, very long post. But while, perhaps biologically, you are correct, women's ovulation is automatic and involuntary--women cannot, as the bloviating arsehhole Todd Akin once claimed, "shut that whole thing down" at will. Men, however, can control ejaculation and can also take very easy steps not to impregnate women. Women's ability to control being impregnated is far more complicated. So no: the onus really. is. on. men. So when told to "keep her legs closed" my response is, "Keep your penis in your pants, you [expletive deleted]."

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Linda Mitchell, thank you for using one of my favorite words "of the moment" - bloviating. And it goes quite well with arsehole. Perfect with Akin's "shut that whole thing down" - which asshole men can do - their hard dick is not such a "precious" thing - happens ALL the time.

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Many many should be looking into vasectomies — and doctors are seeing a big uptick in interest.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/07/dobbs-roe-overturned-vasectomy-movement/661518/

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Yes,Florida’s Vasectomy King, “…evangelizing the procedure...”

I wonder if next the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops will pressure DeSantis to VV ( Veto Vasctectomies). Just as FCCB convinced him to VW ( Veto Women’s ) $ for long-term contraceptives.

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I know EXACTLY the four syllable expletive you have deleted. I concur, Linda.

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One of my TOP FIVE words useful in ALL languages!

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If anti-abortion advocates were truly serious about ending abortion, they would have been fighting for reversible vasectomies all these years.

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Yup. I actually had a male make that statement as to his solution to abortion! With no reciprocal responsibility mentioned for the male.

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But of course. I got taken to task recently for stating that men caused 100% of pregnancies.

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You can say, "dick"

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My expletive has four syllables. And I have learned that I have to tone down my language both here and on FB because the boyz get upset. Not that you'd notice any toning down in these posts because I have a hard time keeping my temper about this issue.

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I agree and I understand your point but he was trying to narrow the focus: women must unite and be active because so many white men support Trump and he wants to peel away white women as much as possible from the Trumplican party - remember a slight majority of white women voted for Trump - think suburban women and rural women. Hence the female focus for action. Now is a time for unity. Evil exists in this world and evil requires unity and action to be defeated - the Trumplican Party - now including Scotus (their judicial political arm) is national fifth column.

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You're probably right, Steve, that Biden was focusing on conservative women urging to vote for their own rights. He should have been more explicit and direct.

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I believe his point was that women alone can turn the tide. It was clear that men can add their voices too.

My hope is that the abortion issue will lead to a record number of women elected to Congress and other positions.

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It would be a sad day for women if the single issue that resulted in a record number being elected to Congress was abortion. Just think about that. Why can't women be equally outraged about inadequate maternity leave, childcare, education, healthcare?

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Agreed, Dana!

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Was on a thread recently where the anti-abortion person was telling women that they shouldn't spread their legs. I told him he was (once again) putting the burden on women and what about men. He agreed and wondered what men should do. i answered that he could start by examining his own post and what it implied. We got in an argument about rape and incest which remains unfinished because he said being PG hardly ever happened with rape and incest and cited something like .05 percent. I haven't had time to read more deeply, but I did read something that suggested that it was about the same for where there was consent....a little over 5%...which is quite different from .05. I asked for a cite and he gave me an anti-abortion site which I pointed out. Then he mentioned more reliable sites, but once again included one that was anti abortion. When I finally get around to answering him, I will also have looked into chapter and verse what the Bible says about abortion or doesn't as in the NT.

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Michele you are far kinder than I. When I am confronted with people like that my response is "As a man, you cannot get pregnant. So you should just shut the f**k up."

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I was on someone else's page and this person nixes certain words. I want to address his assertions first; then I will remind him about his gender.

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I suggest a kinder (if desired) response when talking to those sorts -- "you can take a back seat, thank you. This is a woman's issue."

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AMEN, Linda Mitchell!!!

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The pregnant 10 year was a rather strong argument that rape and incest result in pregnancy

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Yes, but he was talking percentages. I wanted to talk raw numbers.

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My answer to any comment/question about incidence of something happing about pregnancy is: if it happens to the woman, it’s 100%

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Michelle, check out www.my Jewishlearning.com/article/the-fetus-in-Jewish-law

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Thanks for the tip. I will check this out.

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Are you sure you weren’t talking to my friend Mike?? That is exactly the kind of condescending tripe he puts out.

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No, I can't remember his first name, but he is certainly a "Christian" and misogynist. He did respect my request for time to research more deeply. The guy's page he was on puts out lots of short bad poetry among other things.

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That’s Michael. Mike, as I know him.

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The number of women who don’t vote is much larger than the number of men who don’t vote. We will need them against a motivated right

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Of course men must vote (blue), Christine, but I wrote "especially women" because we are the ones most particularly harmed by Dobbs, which indeed decided that we "are not equal in the eyes of the laws of men."

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The male ego has screwed up American governance for several hundred years.

Now it is more than overdue for men to step aside making way for the women who wish to reinvent America.

America needs a change away from white old male bigoted blustering.

America needs the contemporary control of governance currently being successfully implemented by women's fair & compassionate, (healthcare, environment, redistribution of wealth) management and reconfiguring SCOTUS and eliminating corruption in Wall Street & corruption in military contract award criteria and eliminating filibustering & gerrymandering & lobbying. Plus eliminate unlimited Congressional term limits.

Initiate mandatory gun/rifle annual training & licensing just like car & license plate licensing.

Put love of Country & due process of law, above all else

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Not all men, George, just those standing in the way of progress or promoting return to the long ago.

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Mim Eisenberg...

Well then,

How about an astonishingly all encompassing plethora of political particiPANTS during the last two hundred years who are not female.

Eh!?

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I think we agree, George, so I confess I don't understand your question.

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Wait....it will come to you soon Mim......

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Read something yesterday that NY (?) will require potential gun buyers (can't remember if there was an age span) to be required to include their social media.

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how will that be verified ?

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I don't know....just read the article yesterday.

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Ok

It is real simple

A mandatory annual arms operating test plus a stiff fee for each gun/rifle

Then on every driver's license of a gun/rifle owner will also be a certification of the gun test results and annual fee payment

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Wow! That's putting it pretty bluntly, George, and I've thought that all along. The male ego has really screwed things up. (Pun intended.)

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Is there any other way!?

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Christine, you are so right. When my 95 year old black husband and I look at photograph-filled books of the civil rights movement he always points at the pictures and says note how many white people are in these pictures. Remember that it took white folks to win civil rights. We blacks couldn’t have done it alone.

And here we are. We need women AND MEN who think as we do to carry these elections. Not just women.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

No question that we need men and women coming out and voting to get the offices in Congress filled with people who will say yes to protections of this right (not a state approved benefit for some). IMHO, the reproductive rights fight could be THE win or loose your rights battle. Make this a state decision and all the other rights we think universal (rights to health, clean air, equal employment, voting, protections under just laws, safe food supplies, sharing in the prosperity of a growing economy, loving who you choose, public standing, opportunity whether as a musician or a scientist, the list goes on) and we start to inch toward local conventions and Sunday School teachings in some parish or some tribal theocrat determining how rights can be expressed and by whom. I'm also as old as Mr Biden and aware of how hard it is to get the Bubbas to rotate on their intellectual barstool and join the cause Christine FL is trying to keep us straight about. The needed numbers of voters are going to come from women, pissed-off women, who come out and fight with their votes. We guys with standing will be there and we will drag our sons, nephews, their guy friends, etc., but we will be the margin-added onto the wellspring of voting by women Mr Biden was calling for. In 2022 and 2024. In 2023 and 2025, we all need to be grooming the team that comes to the court to take back every one of our rights, together. Women voting Blue in 2022 (and 2024) will carry, I believe, the cause in this tournament. Gotta get more guys to step up and practice their game if we expect to gain back OUR rights. Lastly, no, we guys don't get to dump the mess our gender mostly created. We don't have the right to choose to walk away or sit on the sidelines barking into our beer. Our fight is our fight.

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Yes. 👩🏽‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏼

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My sentiments exactly.

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Exactly! Women’s rights are human rights. Think back to Martin Niemoller who, too late, reflected, “First they came for the Communists…”

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Yes--Women's rights are human rights.

Glad to see Martin Niemoller referenced. Eight years in concentration camps during WWII brought his awareness to a fine focus. His whole poem bears repeating.

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me.

So, it quickly sums up to me that the rulers of the U.S. understand that it's important to eliminate or weaken minorities one at a time. The rulers understand that keeping the assorted tribes fighting amongst themselves is the way for the status quo to maintain control. All tribes--assorted by colors, religions, genders, et al--will have to bond together to save communities, the country, and the world. Tribal thinking is too limited, and it thrives on promoting one's own tribal needs.

I believe the old adage is quite true: "United we stand, divided we fall."

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Yo Christine (FL) Quit blaming the jerks amonst us "men". A lot of men have been carrying women's concerns, often to the detriment of their careers. Women's privacy has been the direct target of women as well, particularly by those religious nuts. Today, the President made his position clear. Let's not criticize what he's done. Plenty of "men" are on board with you, but right now, the "ball" is clearly in your court.

Could you explain your statement: "common cause of separate, but EQUAL with EQUITY determined freely". Thanks.

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I just do not agree with “your court”. It’s our court or none at all.

I meant separate in regards to gender.

Salud! 🗽

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No. It's your gottdammed court. We are all trying to improve voter turnout.., yes, of course.

But, you are the ones being cut up and skewered..., not me. I just get criticized for taking a position on it. You guys/girls/women need to educate your team (which can include us). The camera is on you. It aint no puss-game...play it up. The repubs have religious clout which happens to include lots of women. Shake it up :))

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Would have been a “a moment” for Pres Biden and VP Harris to have been standing side by side at the podium… each with a microphone.

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Oh, it’s a “puss-game” all right. As usual.

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C'mon Christine, let's make it "UN" Usual...., for once.

I'm coming down to Titusville end of Aug, you live near a bar or seafood joint?

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YES!!! Thanks, Christine!!

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30 million 18-30 year old Americans are not registered to vote. That is tragic.

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This is hope! We have work to do. Pick up voter registration forms and carry them with you to the grocery store, restaurant, wherever you go, and offer them to folks, help them fill them out.

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That’s a great idea—our town clerk might give me a pile and we can spread them around the younger people.

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and older infirm citizens, please!

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Or get certified to register voters. Also, especially in Texas, check your registration! Voters have been purged without their knowledge so when they go to vote they can’t.

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Probably a good idea in a number of other states as well.

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30 million!!! The entire population of Australia as at the June 2022 census is 26,068,792. Is there time for work to be done to improve this statistic in time for the mid-terms?

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I've been working through Third Act to encourage high school seniors to register to vote online, making it easy through a QR code. In addition, checking the box on their first driving license application automatically registers them on their 18th birthday. Studies show that young people who are encouraged to register, do so, and they vote. This November, they have ever more urgent reasons to vote!

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Yes, please join us in doing it. Personally, I write postcards through fieldteam6.org, which also conducts texting, phone, and door knocking voter registration campaigns. There are many other good groups as well.

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Yes, I've also written hundreds of letters through VoteForward.org. Some people say that they would not have bothered to vote without the partially hand-written letter to nudge them!

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Even if only 2% were effective, the 15 million letters sent through voteForward in 2020 were enough to affect results. My mother and I sent 700 of them.

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I’m working on my first 200! I really like the way they are set up.

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We make a difference! Every vote matters.

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Will find that. Must do something more than postcards

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Reminder - cost of stamps are going up on Monday, July 10. Postcards stamps are increasing from 40 to 44 cents and first-class (forever stamps) are increasing from 58 to 60 cents. Stock up over the weekend!

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My added stamps arrived today. I am taking the steep increase in postcard postage as Louis Dejoy’s belief that our postcarding works.

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😁

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Ordered online last night. Postcard stamps can be very difficult to obtain in person at the post office. Anyone reading this, you can order online it is quite easy.

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Readers: make sure you order from the real post office webpage. There’s a site with a similar name and “50% off” that has terrible reviews.

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Today is last day to purchase postcard stamps at 40 cents. They go up to 44 cents tomorrow. They are “forever” stamps, so purchase what you can now.

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Yes, but not much time … the election is four months away and many states unfortunately have long registration deadlines - in Texas you must be registered at least 30 days in advance, so we barely have three months to get unregistered Texans registered! All states should have SAME DAY voter registration!

https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote

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Of course they should. Government of the people by the people? Which 'people' does it mean?

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Go where they are: TikTok, concerts, set up voter registration booths, write letters to local paper, call into radio stations. Talk to your children/grandchildren. Ask them to become advocates for democracy. Ask ESPN/CBS etc to do a voter registration public service AD on programs which get their attention.

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Contrast this with the voting laws in Australia: It is compulsory for Australian citizens 18 years and over to enrol to vote. It is also compulsory to attend a voting place on election day or to vote by mail. At federal elections, Australians choose members of parliament to represent their views and interests in the Senate and the House of Representatives. What is the penalty for not voting in Australia? The penalty for first time offenders is $20, and this increases to $50 if you have previously paid a penalty or been convicted of this offence. If you do not have a valid and sufficient reason for not voting, you can pay the penalty and that will end the matter.

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Also, Election Day should be a national holiday. This eliminates the excuse of not voting because of work.

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An Election Day holiday would work for many, but not for so many who have to work on holidays - police, fire, EMTs, doctors, nurses, retail workers, etc. Instead, require states to provide adequate early voting options. New Mexico provides early voting sites Monday-Saturday for two weeks prior to Election Day. Also, instead of the traditional vote at your own precinct, we now have “convenience centers” scattered throughout each county. It started as a way to conserve paper, with the difficulty of predicting voter turnout for each precinct and how many ballots to preprint. Now, you can show up at any center in your county and the appropriate ballot is printed while you wait. During the presidential election, our county had a running link on the website, providing an estimated wait time at each center. This is a better “no excuse” option.

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Oregon's vote-by-mail-only seems to work very well. It's convenient as can be and not easily hacked. Also can deposit ballots in drop boxes.

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New Mexico also has drop boxes for absentee ballots at each center.

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Make it Veterans Day—it’s what they fought and died for

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That is a simple key to the mid-terms and general elections, the message has to be “ vote for the world you want to live in, or live in the world that you didn’t vote for”. Choice matters, that has become apparent to anyone that has ever jumped off a bridge.

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In Texas all public high schools are required by law to make voting registration available on campus during each election season that school is in session. After I sent a public records request for the data for all high schools, you would be amazed at how many kids registered to vote. This might be the most powerful thing we can do.

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Ann Sutherland:

Reading your last line:

"This might be the most powerful thing we can do."

It is not my intention to offend.

I must, however contend something does not smell right.

Who financed this legislative initiative, who initiated the "Law"? e.g. republicans or democrats?

Let me guess.

Please.

It was the anti-voting rights, state monopolizing cult worshiping trump enslaved republicans, Eh!?

Texas being primarily anti Democratic therefore anti-feminine rights,

please note the following:

These days, especially after being daily bombarded by republican lie, after republican lie, after republican lie from every republican who ever uttered a sound, it just could be possible that this seemly wonderful "gift" of community spirited benevolence is actually another cleverly deceptive republican clandestine contrivance!

Kinda like republicans' jerrymandering bastardization or the illegal stuffing of the supreme court into ineffectuality, etc. etc., etc.

republicans desperately need to indoctrinate gullible thirsty immature minds into republican's dying cult.

republicans are fully aware of the need to keep their political greedy obese heads above the "stormy-waters" they have chosen to dive into feet first.

Because republicans are now, finally, beginning to truly regret the direction chosen...now that the "Evidence" (that they desperately chose to conceal by EVERY means possible, including Treason!), has become publicly available, even--Oh lordy lordy will miracles never cease!-- televised by fox news!!!

All this would make most objective voters doubt such a law is not anything more than just another texas republican scam!

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I’m an old white guy, but I have learned that women are smarter than men in many ways. We must vote in the mid terms this year to elect those women [and men] who will protect our country from AUTHORITARIAN types that, if elected will destroy our country.

Let’s get rid of elected officials who showboat and their testosterone thought processes making ill thought out decisions based on what’s good for them instead of what’s best for America 🇺🇸

Yes, voting is very important BUT add to that WRITING letters to the editor, speaking to your friends, neighbors and groups you belong to.

Volunteer to work the polls during the 2022 mid term elections.

Many former poll workers were threatened in our 2020 elections, simply because they were CORRECTLY doing their job. Can’t blame them since many were older & retired and didn’t want the hassle in their golden years.

EVERY voting precinct in America needs poll workers - those in their 29’s, 30’s, etc. without honest dedicated poll workers in our mid terms, those authoritarian types will do what they can to take away America as we’ve known it.

🇺🇸 VOTE - SPEAK UP - SPEAK OUT - WRITE - SERVE 🇺🇸

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Now we're cookin, Eh!? Bob!

BRAVO!

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When I was teaching government many years ago, my favorite class did not have any college prep types in it. When we talked about voting, it was clear to me that many of them were not going to vote. I felt very sad. I have no idea if that held, but it wouldn't surprise me if many of them have never voted.

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Another great avenue to register young voters!

https://thecivicscenter.org/

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Texas law requires every high school to provide opportunities for students to register to vote. Extended throughout the US, this could be the most powerful way to get students to vote. An open records request to the school district asking for voter registration activities in each school, together with the name of the individual responsible at that site and the number of students enrolled, could go far.

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fortunately most are trump followers, e.g. watching fox news then gossiping all day long...procrastinating about anything else that requires effort or education...

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Perhaps, but I don't know if you can generalize like that. There are many men who are active in espousing progressive causes. Not the Trumpers, of course.

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Yes, it is. I hope that can be at least somewhat rectified before November.

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Go an gettem! Don't try to fed them mealy baloney. Get them PROPERLY registered.

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I show my students the film “Iron Jawed Angels” (about Alice Paul) and the documentary “Not for Ourselves Alone” (about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony), then tell them to go out and vote. We owe it to these women upon whose shoulders we stand!

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This is a highly recommended book!

One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement:

Marjorie J. Spruill, editor.

One Woman, One Vote was first published by NewSage Press in 1975 and is the companion book to the PBS American Experience documentary by the same name. The 23 essays in the Second Edition focus on aspects of the suffrage movement in greater depth with an extensive opening chapter on the overall suffrage movement, "How Woman Won." The authors of the essays are scholars in the fields of History, American Studies, Political Science, and Sociology.

Maureen R. Michelson: publishing as an act of resistance | Oregon ArtsWatch

https://www.orartswatch.org/maureen-r-michelson-publishing-as-an-act-of-resistance/

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Excellent choices, Rowshan. Funny how perfected women’s balancing act has become. Acrobatic almost.

Salud, Sister! 🗽

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Salud, my sister!

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Great idea! Any strategies for a retired professor? 😊

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Please keep on urging your friends and family members of all genders to vote and remind everyone that women’s issues are universal issues — every human being is endowed with dignity and rights.

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Right on, Mim! And VOTE BLUE!

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And May your vote count. That the criminal enterprise called the Republican Party is still on the ballot anywhere is testament that nazi propaganda and strategies are alive and well in America.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

Won't matter once the Supreme Court rules to let states change the outcome of elections.

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One more reason to elect a working majority of responsible Democrats. Congress has the power to restrict the Stench Court’s jurisdiction. It has the power to expand the court, to rebalance it after McConnell packed it with unprincipled reactionaries. We need Congressional majorities who will use those powers, along with a public campaign on behalf of doing so.

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The deck is stacked, against women, and against blue voters. I doubt that republican legislatures will overturn any election in which their cronies win. The upending of our lives is done in plain sight with arrogant purpose, power.

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The difficulties - and the negativity of the press - can be discouraging. Our job is to fight back by doing whatever we can. That includes running for office, protests in the streets, voter registration, voting, public and private conversation, encouraging each other. It also includes whatever joy we can find each day.

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The Negative Press. Their survival depends on ad dollars. Ad dollars are spent by deep pocket Super PACs and direct campaign funds. The Press business model suffers when social harmony exists. Attack ads are money in the bank

The “Press” needs the country riled up. Republicans know this and feed the pig

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❤️

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Just a happy tidbit: your inclusion of "private conversation" and "encouraging each other" bore fruit for me yesterday. I have been enjoying a weekly art lesson from a dear friend who is a wonderful artist. This has been therapeutic for both of us during the pandemic; we are both vaxxed and boosted but due to my health issues and her husband's even more serious health issues, our lessons have become a time to share and vent and talk about all manner of things. We sort of danced our way around politics until recently. The spate of mass shootings, in particular the Uvalde tragedy, opened up politics as a necessary topic to discuss. My friend attended her very first Democratic Party meeting last week, plunked down her $ membership, and signed up to register voters! I felt like turning cartwheels! It was those "private conversations" and "encouraging each other" that motivated her to DO SOMETHING BESIDES WHINE! Way back when, there was a little saying that went something like "each one teach one." I think of it now as "each one reach one." Baby steps eventually lead to long, purposeful strides. Together, we can do this!

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"unprincipled reactionaries" ! Thank you! This was the phrase I've been looking for.

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This reality is what keeps me up at night.

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I love this forum, fab Linda. Last night after having an opportunity to express some very intense viewpoints of mine, I slept in this morning to an astonishing 11:00 am. I had to laugh as I looked at the time.

Let’s create our reality.

Unita! 🗽

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Me too Christine. It's a good bunch of people. Most are respectful. I do feel "our" team is very much so.

It's good for the soul to express your viewpoint. My Mom always said that.

We need to stay focused as hard as it is sometimes.

Enjoy your day, my friend.

PS I was in a forum the other evening and Daria was there as well. So good to chat with her. I miss her spot on commentary.

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Daria has taken a break from forum commentary? I miss her.

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tinfoil hattie

please refrain from promoting that disheartening rumor.

It not true...there exist today effective counterbalancing alternatives...

thank you

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Please remember that this may be the only place that some people have to vent their fears and feelings.

I much prefer the encouraging posts, and I want folks to be able to share what they need to share.

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Besides, tinfoil hattie’s fear, far from being unfounded, is a likely outcome. This Supreme Court has made many decisions with far less Constitutional justification than allowing state legislatures to overrule popular-vote majorities in state elections.

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Ally House....

We seem to embody a variance of perspective.

Your contention is a truly sad comment about the desperation some people choose to subject themselves to experience...

Why on earth such a void could even exist as a free will choice when there is such an abundance of truly gifted people readily available specifically trained and educated and devoted to helping such a lost soul as you have described. Many of such services are free!

Does not it seem completely natural to resolve such an untenable sad situation the moment it occurs?

Is it not completely normal to satisfy an urge to do something to absolve oneself from such dire straights?

Is this news letter not envisioned as a very cogent guide to historical perspectives about America's governance issues with editorials injected as juxtapositions for our considerations and educations?

Are not the truly brilliant comments offered by so very many very well read and educated enthusiasts of HCR sufficient a community of sage expositors more than sufficient to relieve any sort of related anxieties...Most believe so as evidenced by HCR's burgeoning captivated audience!

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I do not know how much despair is a “choice” that a person makes; there are times and circumstances where a person cannot believe/wish/create a positive outlook from where they find themselves in the situations we find ourselves in today.

I do not know “tinfoil Hattie” personally, nor do I know their circumstances. Despair in the darkness of our vanishing freedoms is not unreasonable.

This forum is an amazing place with some wonderful people. Not everyone’s glass is half full.

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Ally House

I hear you Ally.

The choice I speak of is not without complete trust in the only trust that can be trusted...

I pray you realize who is charge, who loves you more than anybody, who wants for you joy, happiness, comfort, and all the success possible.

I pray you trust in your faith which is exceedingly more powerful than that of which deceives you from the truth.

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It's not a "rumor," sir. Moore v. Harper. The Atlantic has an excellent article explaining just what is at stake. Perhaps these 6 will not decide to undermine our democracy forever, but I have no reason to believe that.

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It is my understanding, (primarily because of the existence of the enormously self0inflated ego known as Moscow mitch---and for good reason, Eh!?), that those wannabes warming the "Bench" are all enslaved into Deception's evilness and forever lost into darkness unable ever again to see justice, if ever they could before...Who requires any more justification then the nose on your face to smell the putrefying rot oozing from the cracks of freedoms bell!?

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And then they all move into the White House, together.

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I hope men continue to visually, and vociferously come in alongside women to codify Roe.

All men who care about women's equality must now, actively support it. Women cannot do this without men, nor should they be expected to.

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I'm a hardliner on this: any man who doesn't actively support women's equality should be judged unworthy of friendship or any other relationship. (Yes, doing this in the workplace would be challenging.) But the issue is the same as associating with racists. They are worthy only of contempt.

This is also true of men who don't take responsibility for birth control.

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That is a brave hardline, Michael. Trust me on this one, it cherishes the heart of women.

I respect your thoughts in return, my brother.

Unidad! 👩🏼‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏾🗽

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Thank you! It helps being 71 and having learned a lot, including from working with many exceptional women and from my very strong and impressive wife. We gave our son her last name, Tong, because there were no men on her side of the family to carry the name forward after her brother dies.

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For the past several decades' worth of presidential elections, *white* women have voted for Republicans. In 2016 (53%) and 2020 (55%), white women preferred Trump. Why is that? Racism? Ignorance? Fear? Greed? I don't know, but THAT has got to change! https://truthout.org/articles/yes-55-percent-of-white-women-voted-for-trump-no-im-not-surprised/

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Thanks, Cate. You know, in all these years I don't remember reading how utterly gruesome was the killing of young Emmett Till. Maybe I knew it, but suppressed it.

As for the statistics, we seem to keep overlooking that fact. Progressives must perforce double their efforts to get out the progressive white women's vote. (I will never understand why anybody votes for people whose policies go directly against their own interests. I first realized that when people re-elected George W. Bush.)

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"Voting against interests." Please check out https://www.sfgate.com/thingstodo/article/George-Lakoff-s-The-Political-Mind-3280894.php Per Prof. Lakoff, people vote by VALUES not "interests." So, if your values are: men over women, white over black, christian over other, etc., then you will vote for the people who express those values. Facts, statistics, and evidence do not really communicate values, especially if presented without a story about how they support *our* values. That's why I think all this swooning over these J6 and past hearings is wishful thinking if the testimony and facts and transcripts are not also used to hammer home the VALUES of how this admin and party are ruining care for others, freedom of thought and body, fairness, compassion, equality, etc. Read the expert. He's been trying to get Dems to communicate effectively for decades.

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The ancestors of most Hispanic people in Florida left Cuba when Castro’s forces defeated Batista. They were from the wealthy class, which benefited from Batista’s brutal oppression of the rest of the population. Most wealthy Cubans at the time were from families of purely European (primarily Spanish) descent or at least identified as people of purely European descent. That is, they are white people and not just white but the worst of that ilk, having enjoyed the privilege of abusing Cubans with darker skin when they lived in Cuba. It is no surprise that most of them are Republican scum (a redundant phrase, yes, but maybe doubles the impact).

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I've read that the swing is being driven, in part, by a very strong and long effective social media lie campaign ( https://apnews.com/article/latinos-misinformation-election-334d779a4ec41aa0eef9ea80636f9595 ) and https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-latinx-community-and-covid-disinformation-campaigns and https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/disinformation-aimed-spanish-speakers. I'm sure that's not the only thing, but it's another part of the communication toolkit that Dems seem to be ignoring or not taking seriously enough. Bernie was very popular among Hispanic voters, for example ( https://theintercept.com/2019/04/06/bernie-sanders-latino-hispanic-voters/ ) maybe because of a strong person-to-person ground game in 2020 (lessons learned from 2016). I don't know. Advertisers know you can manipulate people with false info and no rebuttal, as all of us who buy yet another plastic piece of junk we don't need at all prove every day.

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I think much of this due to the dramatic shift of the working class from reliable Democratic voters to Republicans. And this shift is tied up in the decline of labor unions, long a major goal of Republicans.

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It’s Democrats not putting enough attention into the ground game and retail politics. Knocking on doors and lawn signs actually still work better than phone banks and reading poll numbers

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You're right on. Lack of adequate outreach to Latinos may very well have lost Florida in 2020. Hurt in Texas, too.

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Latinos in Florida are a different breed of cat than Latinos in Texas. There is some hope for Texas. There is no hope for Florida. Latinos in Florida are mostly white people (Spanish ancestors) and vote accordingly.

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Yes, I've read this. Cubans in South Florida (mainly) and Puerto Ricans in Central Florida. When I moved to Oregon from the Orlando area in late 1999, Puerto Ricans were streaming in — mostly from the New York area.

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Not just Latinos, although that’s badly needed in Arizona, Nevada, and SoCal. Asians in Orange County, CA—and I assume elsewhere. Blacks all across the country.

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Yes, the ground game is of utmost importance, but the reason it is needed so desperately is because after 1964, the white working class left the Democratic Party because they did not want to allow black people in their unions. They knew Republicans would help them retain their systemic advantages and Democrats wouldn’t. As a result, they lost their unions (busted by their own man, Reagan). You’d think that would turn them around, but instead, they doubled down. They found systemic white advantages more important than unions.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

It used to be “0” percent, Cate, for or against. With vote granted, it takes much to change mindset that has been set on survival mode for so long. So important to increase the vote of young women and men who have been raised with more equity from many of their villages.

Unita, Cate. 🗽

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Some kind of powerful deceptive misunderstanding that the republicans actually care while at the same moment those same republicans twist the knife even deeper into the backs of the same women who voted for them....

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How did the material status of women’s lives improve under 8 years of Obama- Biden? Who went to jail for conning millions of crappy mortgages and lost their homes? Who benefited from and was most protected by the bailouts? Not women. “President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he favored abortion rights for women but that passing a law guaranteeing those rights was not his top priority, trying to avoid inflaming …”(Reuters) Why vote for Democrats when they do not deliver? Like any low performing employee, Can them.

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I'll never forgive Obama for not punishing those bankers, thereby setting for others a horrible example of malfeasance. We vote for Democrats because at least their platforms are humane. If you would can the Democrats, Selina, for whom would you vote?

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I stand with you re Obama. That is a conundrum (sp?). Work for the Justice Democrats? Keep my eye on the Sunrise Movement to see who they're backing. David Sirota's The Lever.com had a good panel of highly experienced activists about a month ago about the feasibility of building a 3rd party. Ploughing thro the rules to do so is an elephantine task requiring determination and persistence. The discussion came to a bit of a draw - between doing the 3rd party groundwork - and - working like the dickens to get decent progressives into the Democratic Party.

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It *is* a conundrum. As much as it would be good to add more progressives into the Democratic Party, many voters or potential voters are so turned off by what they see as Democratic inaction that they may just decide not to vote for anyone with a D next to his or her name. On the other hand, third parties do not have a good history of success in getting air time in order to rally support for their causes.

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Many women “who attend church regularly “ (Pew’s category) will answer they vote like their husbands and/or minister wants them too

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When I canvassed for George McGovern in 1972 in a trailer park in rural Iowa, one woman, when we asked who she was planning to vote for, told us, "Just a minute. I have to go ask my husband." And she did. And it wasn't for our guy.

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50 years later, that hasn't changed much in many areas of the country. Hard to believe given how much the world, and this society, has changed since then, isn't it?

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And register others to vote.

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Not only must women vote because of Roe /Wade being over turned but every other right that includes women’s right to vote. Or states that want to limit voting rights. That stops much choice of individuals if they cannot even vote. The very reason we must take action and vite democratic (including independents & republicans that understand the importance of citizens rights to vote)

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Pat, I couldn’t agree more. I am a leftist from forever, but I always vote Democratic. We must beat these backward thinking Christian fundamentalists. That’s the root of our problem. Read about Barr and his patriarchal, fundamentalist Catholicism OMG.

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I dislike labels. My party affiliation is Independent but I vote the candidate and the issue and this issue is individual freedoms including the most important - the right to vote and right to privacy of choices concerning one’s health decisions with the physician of their choosing.

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In America we vote two distinct ways:

(1). We register in the state we live in and then vote: by mail or in person

AND

(2). We vote for national candidates/incumbents/legislation with our wallet or other efforts

Democrats have a reasonable opportunity to win over the Senate majority. Here is who to support with your generous Monthly contributions.

See Link:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3527999-the-seven-senate-seats-most-likely-to-flip-in-2022/

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Thank you, George, for the link. I suspect many of us already do support national candidates, as well as local ones, but the list in the article is helpful.

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Send money directly to the candidates rather than DNC, or DCCcand DDem Senate Org. Less constraints on spending, and less “wasted” on bad strategies

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I’m wondering what the best way is to do this. I’m getting so many emails now my head spins. I don’t have a lot to contribute yet I believe every dollar counts. Any suggestions to streamline it?

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Donna Lindner

Consider this:

Just $10.00 per month for each Democrat you choose X one million similar donors =

bye-bye republicans, hello Democrats, America is saved!

See link

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3527999-the-seven-senate-seats-most-likely-to-flip-in-2022/

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One option is Emily's List. https://www.emilyslist.org/

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Go straight to the candidates—eliminate the middle

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Handed out 200 voter registration packets (targeted to left leaning democrats if lists are to be believed) between yesterday and today, will continue daily, to hopefully blanket this hateful oathkeeper county. The silent majority HAS to speak up with at least their votes.

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Lynn Duffy

Thank GOD for your love of America!

May GOD's Blessings continue to be showered upon you and all of your loved ones now and forevermore...and even longer!

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Brava!

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There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.

Madeleine Albright

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Sorry. I would say there's a special place in hell for Madeline Albright.

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We need to register people to vote, especially those who just finished high school.

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The comments on Twitter (Fox!!!) are very encouraging.

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Could you give more detail?

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And now today the Six Traitor Injustices in the Supreme Court are doing the Confederacy's bidding by declaring war on all the "substantive due process" cases giving rights through the Fourteenth Amendment.

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Suicide bombers sent in to blow up the Constitution, the rule of law and their own standing as jurists.

"(The) women of America can determine the outcome of this issue."

Is it not women that ultimately ensure survival when machismo gets out of hand?

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

I disagree. The women of America can stand up, get loud, refuse to recognize the legitimacy of a gender in bondage and considered less than in all things. However, if the outcome of this issue does not go the way of justice, then will women be blamed for the failure? Because we rolled over and did not vote or protest in numbers desired?

I expect and demand from my equal partners of a different gender that survival will be ensured when men also loudly and soundly stand up and crush white machismo that has gotten out of control in America. Once again. And for every man that respects his own personal power to vote for equal recognition for other genders or non genders.

This is NOT a “woman’s issue”. This is a grievous threat to a human condition of equality and equity that must, once again, roar its call to the ramparts and demand not just survival, but conditions in which to flourish.

In other words, as the character Slim Hiller said…. “ENOUGH”. All of us this time. Perhaps that will enact the inherent human condition intended, not invented.

Salud, Peter! 🗽

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Well said, Christina. Those who would divide us by calling this a women's issue are not doing us any favors. This is, palm down, as you said, a human rights issue. It affects people of all genders, because it puts state governments right smack in the middle of our personal lives and decisions.

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I never saw myself as being divisive, on the contrary, but it is fairly plain that I lack confidence in many, many people -- hell, just consider the bottom-of-the-barrel politicians they've chosen to represent them, in America, in Britain, in so many countries; when it wasn't the kind of devil's spawn they allowed to take power -- and it is even clearer that I lack even more confidence in males. If the world is left to their tender mercies, heaven help us...

This isn't a matter of gender in fact but of the crazy over-dominance of the masculine principle, so much so that even many feminists are enthralled by its brutal, stupid, superficial, aggressive zap-it-if-it-moves approach to every problem...

We need balanced human beings, not Action Man and Barbie! And that will take a lot of goading...

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Yes, agree totally., Peter. We start with our children. In how they play, interact, and live with each other in congruous harmony.

Unita! 🗽

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And old people like me will clamor for justice for everyone, but especially for the children -- all children, now and to come!

Just as our parents suffered and fought to bring us a better world.

What brought Americans' ancestors to the continent if not to build a better future for their posterity?

Those who have no care for others bring down a curse on all heads, beginning with their own. And, in one way or another, it is plain that our generations and too many of our forefathers have failed in this essential respect.

Yet it is never too late to turn around and do what must be done!

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Bravo Christine

Hope my comment puts a final end to the defeatism promoted in this news letter...

I Hope and pray everyone commenting in this news letter reads and monthly financially supports as many of these following Democrats as financially possible thus converting defeatism into comforting joy!

See link

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3527999-the-seven-senate-seats-most-likely-to-flip-in-2022/

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I also include US Senator race in Florida. The support for Val Demings (D) to unseat incumbent Rubio is meteoric in this past month. His tendency to be cautious, rarely espouse an original idea except supporting Daylight Savings Time, crouch in Voldemort Scott’s shadow is spurring on Demings’s support in addition to her excellent legislative abilities.

Please support! Florida is in demanding need for a reset.

Unita, George! 🗽

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Thanks for that link!

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Plainly, Christine, I did not (nor did the President) intend any kind of single-gender campaign. That would, after all, make no sense and be doomed to failure.

Rather, that women should take the lead and use their not inconsiderable powers of persuasion to full effect, arousing the couch potatoes, playing Lysistrata, campaigning not only for themselves but for the human race.

Avanti!

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

I understand, Peter. A single gender campaign is not what I am calling for either. As a woman, I can say we do take the lead on this issue and others. We do campaign for all. We do nurture. However, we also recognize the power of the pronoun “our”.

In this moment, I want to see full on a co-lead. We can not call on women “especially” anymore to to fix the inequities in the laws of white men in this country. Or a previous comment earlier stating the ball to be now in “your” court, meaning women.

No. This is either all of us side by side or nothing.

Unita, Peter! 🗽

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Agreed 1000%, old, young, all, all of us!

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Excellent, Christine. Any man who doesn't enter this fray with force and passion doesn't deserve and shouldn't receive the pleasure that women bring them. And I don't just mean sex. I'm talking about the enjoyment — and mystery — that women provide in their company. Their way of seeing and interpreting the world. And then there's the issue of the benefits many men receive from an unequal workload at home.

Applying RESIST to the home front will yield dividends.

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Yes, Michael. The mystery of women (heart) and the certainty of men (mind) is a dynamic synergy, yet easily imbalanced by unequal participation in recognizing and acting on each other’s deepest psychological need.

Such an easy fix really. But isn’t that true of some of our most profound battles.

Unita! 🗽

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Well said, Christine. Thank you!

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May I share this elsewhere?

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Of course. Because sharing is in our natures.

Salud, Maia! 🗽

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YES!

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We cannot forget that there are many women out there actively working to stay second-class citizens/ thwarting the choice to be pregnant or not. So this is most importantly on EVERYONE who believes that “We The People” have a Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. EVERYONE who believes that sex between consenting adults is private and should stay that way. EVERYONE who believes that access to healthcare is NOT a privilege, but a Right. EVERYONE who believes the State cannot commandeer your body for PARTS that serve their end.

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Does everything have to fall on the woman’s shoulders? The burdens could be shared, not shifted to the “weaker sex.”’ Snark

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Peter, Many Americans have never heard of 'substantive due process', let alone what it means. It covers rights that are not listed (or “enumerated”) in the Constitution. The idea is that certain liberties are so important that they cannot be infringed without a compelling reason no matter how much process is given.'

How such 'rights' are interpreted by the Justices on the current Supreme Court is at the heart of the controversies concerning the Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade; In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court ruled that a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks is constitutional and overturned the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973. In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the court's ruling curtailed the E.P.A.'s ability to regulate the energy sector, limiting it to measures like emission controls at individual power plants. The implications of the ruling could extend well beyond environmental policy; In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court ruled that a football coach at a public high school had a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team’s games; Second Amendment

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the court ruled that states with strict limits on carrying guns in public violate the Second Amendment.

If you would like to understand the meaning of 'substantive due process', I have provided definitions in comments on the forum today. Political ideology may influence the Justices' interpretation of 'substantive due process. To know a bit more about the recent decisions of the Supreme Court, I have gifted an article about the major Court decisions in 2022 from the New York Times. The link is below.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/21/us/major-supreme-court-cases-2022.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxfs9gGPzNiGeVTdcwqNPW9LavB-TIvA6IMYomDGSRthbdaQyXOZ_y-IaNEtwURXtqZKflY9AeX1v88SzQmYyldrrbIwPzAXLPCO_Ofstg_q-uQ6LKjG7HfybhWslcF5joJdhdkX7jHxc2qvAFOZqioJ52-MjBcwtR2wGbCeBt6T4Gl4pboX9GxLc4wYxXu5YXyiC3oLPruJdL3gBTA7OX3h94m0j6d1DOdNxPKr3LxYofcWWkqxGQyUzb9_vX8ttMtCSw7Z6srfNqgiOwd60zpg1EKZXvLDCtQWqJc7Kwz2XuHcYORtH4BgBQiE&smid=url-share

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It is many years since I studied the US Constitution, so I may be mistaken in my understanding of that text.

That said, it is surely impossible for any constitution to enumerate the rights that may in time be established to meet the needs of future generations. It is difficult enough for enabling legislation to provide for all contingencies, which is why well-drafted laws make due provision for such updating.

The intention of those drafting the US Constitution was, however, to provide a firm basis for establishing, upholding and protecting the rights, responsibilities and freedoms of citizens, not to design a poke for future pigs.

Just as there were disagreements and tensions between those who wrote The Federalist, so the drafters of the Constitution strove to allow for a range of possible interpretations, precisely so that the United States could at future times make due provision for the as yet unknown and undefined needs of American society.

It is blatantly obvious that a legal text must be interpreted in such a way as to respect the understanding and intentions of those who drafted it, above all the principles underlying...

*

COMPLAINT

Regardless of attempts to edit my draft, it is a painful waste of my time (and so of any reader's time) for me to write directly in this thread... which persists in truncating what I write.

I take this, then, as a warning to stop wasting my time and yours and either find a better way of conversing and sharing ideas or fall silent.

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FYI, 'substantive due process', Substantive due process is a principle in United States constitutional law that allows courts to establish and protect certain fundamental rights from government interference, even if procedural protections are present or the rights are unenumerated (not specifically mentioned) elsewhere in the U.S. Constitution.

NOT SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED IN THE US CONSTITUTION, Peter.

The following is the second definition I have provided of 'Substantive due process'. It is from LII. 'The LII is an independently-funded project of the Cornell Law School.'

This definition does not reflect political differences with reference to interpretations, such as 'originalists'' view of 'substantive due process'.

'Substantive due process is the principle that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect fundamental rights from government interference. Specifically, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the government from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

'The Fifth Amendment applies to federal action, and the Fourteenth applies to state action. Compare with procedural due process. The Supreme Court’s first foray into defining which government actions violate substantive due process was during the Lochner Era. The Court determined that the freedom to contract and other economic rights were fundamental, and state efforts to control employee-employer relations, such as minimum wages, were struck down. In 1937, the Supreme Court rejected the Lochner Era’s interpretation of substantive due process in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937) by allowing Washington to implement a minimum wage for women and minors. One year later, in footnote 4 of U.S. v. Carolene Products, 304 U.S. 144 (1938), the Supreme Court indicated that substantive due process would apply to: “rights enumerated in and derived from the first Eight Amendments to the Constitution, the right to participate in the political process, such as the rights of voting, association, and free speech, and the rights of ‘discrete and insular minorities.’”

'Following Carolene Products, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that fundamental rights protected by substantive due process are those deeply rooted in U.S. history and tradition, viewed in light of evolving social norms. These rights are not explicitly listed in the Bill of Rights, but rather are the penumbra of certain amendments that refer to or assume the existence of such rights. This has led the Supreme Court to find that personal and relational rights, as opposed to economic rights, are fundamental and protected.'

'Specifically, the Supreme Court has interpreted substantive due process to include, among others, the following fundamental rights: The right to privacy, specifically a right to contraceptives. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) The right to pre-viability abortion. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, (1973) The right to marry a person of a different race. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) The right to marry an individual of the same sex. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) [Last updated in April of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]'

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/substantive_due_process

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We may ask what is "substantive due process" ? The following is the definition with historical background from the National Constitution Center:

'The “substantive due process” jurisprudence has been among the most controversial areas of Supreme Court adjudication'

'Substantive Due Process'

'The Court has also deemed the due process guarantees of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to protect certain substantive rights that are not listed (or “enumerated”) in the Constitution. The idea is that certain liberties are so important that they cannot be infringed without a compelling reason no matter how much process is given.'

'The Court’s decision to protect unenumerated rights through the Due Process Clause is a little puzzling. The idea of unenumerated rights is not strange—the Ninth Amendment itself suggests that the rights enumerated in the Constitution do not exhaust “others retained by the people.”

The most natural textual source for those rights, however, is probably the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from denying any citizen the “privileges and immunities” of citizenship. When The Slaughter-House Cases (1873) foreclosed that interpretation, the Court turned to the Due Process Clause as a source of unenumerated rights.'

'The “substantive due process” jurisprudence has been among the most controversial areas of Supreme Court adjudication. The concern is that five unelected Justices of the Supreme Court can impose their policy preferences on the nation, given that, by definition, unenumerated rights do not flow directly from the text of the Constitution.'

'In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Court used the Due Process Clause to strike down economic regulations that sought to better the conditions of workers on the ground that they violated those workers’ “freedom of contract,” even though this freedom is not specifically guaranteed in the Constitution. The 1905 case of Lochner v. New York is a symbol of this “economic substantive due process,” and is now widely reviled as an instance of judicial activism. When the Court repudiated Lochner in 1937, the Justices signaled that they would tread carefully in the area of unenumerated rights. West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937).'

'Substantive due process, however, had a renaissance in the mid-twentieth century. In 1965, the Court struck down state bans on the use of contraception by married couples on the ground that it violated their “right to privacy.” Griswold v. Connecticut. Like the “freedom of contract,” the “right to privacy” is not explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution. However, the Court found that unlike the “freedom of contract,” the “right to privacy” may be inferred from the penumbras—or shadowy edges—of rights that are enumerated, such as the First Amendment’s right to assembly, the Third Amendment’s right to be free from quartering soldiers during peacetime, and the Fourth Amendment’s right to be free from unreasonable searches of the home. The “penumbra” theory allowed the Court to reinvigorate substantive due process jurisprudence.'

'In the wake of Griswold, the Court expanded substantive due process jurisprudence to protect a panoply of liberties, including the right of interracial couples to marry (1967), the right of unmarried individuals to use contraception (1972), the right to abortion (1973), the right to engage in intimate sexual conduct (2003), and the right of same-sex couples to marry (2015). The Court has also declined to extend substantive due process to some rights, such as the right to physician-assisted suicide (1997).'

'The proper methodology for determining which rights should be protected under substantive due process has been hotly contested. In 1961, Justice Harlan wrote an influential dissent in Poe v. Ullman, maintaining that the project of discerning such rights “has not been reduced to any formula,” but must be left to case-by-case adjudication. In 1997, the Court suggested an alternative methodology that was more restrictive: such rights would need to be “carefully descri[bed]” and, under that description, “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Washington v. Glucksberg (1997). However, in recognizing a right to same-sex marriage in 2015, the Court not only limited that methodology, but also positively cited the Poe dissent. Obergefell v. Hodges. The Court’s approach in future cases remains unclear.' (NationalConstitutionCenter)

https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/amendment-xiv/clauses/701

Source: The National Constitution Center unites America’s leading scholars from diverse legal and philosophical perspectives to explore the text, history, and meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

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'substantive due process'

The following is the second definition I have provided of 'Substantive due process'. It is from LII. 'The LII is an independently-funded project of the Cornell Law School.' This definition does not reflect political differences with reference to interpretations, such as 'originalists' view of 'substantive due process'.

'We are a small team of technologists who believe that everyone should be able to read and understand the laws that govern them'

'We employ technology to gather, process, and publish public legal information that is accurate and objective. Learn more about our operation here.;

Substantive due process is the principle that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect fundamental rights from government interference. Specifically, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the government from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The Fifth Amendment applies to federal action, and the Fourteenth applies to state action. Compare with procedural due process.

The Supreme Court’s first foray into defining which government actions violate substantive due process was during the Lochner Era. The Court determined that the freedom to contract and other economic rights were fundamental, and state efforts to control employee-employer relations, such as minimum wages, were struck down. In 1937, the Supreme Court rejected the Lochner Era’s interpretation of substantive due process in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937) by allowing Washington to implement a minimum wage for women and minors. One year later, in footnote 4 of U.S. v. Carolene Products, 304 U.S. 144 (1938), the Supreme Court indicated that substantive due process would apply to: “rights enumerated in and derived from the first Eight Amendments to the Constitution, the right to participate in the political process, such as the rights of voting, association, and free speech, and the rights of ‘discrete and insular minorities.’”

Following Carolene Products, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that fundamental rights protected by substantive due process are those deeply rooted in U.S. history and tradition, viewed in light of evolving social norms. These rights are not explicitly listed in the Bill of Rights, but rather are the penumbra of certain amendments that refer to or assume the existence of such rights. This has led the Supreme Court to find that personal and relational rights, as opposed to economic rights, are fundamental and protected. Specifically, the Supreme Court has interpreted substantive due process to include, among others, the following fundamental rights:

The right to privacy, specifically a right to contraceptives. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)

The right to pre-viability abortion. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, (1973)

The right to marry a person of a different race. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)

The right to marry an individual of the same sex. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015)

[Last updated in April of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/substantive_due_process

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Thanks for posting, Fern

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Thank you, G. Zinn. I'm glad you read it. We're here to learn as we protect and strengthen democracy in the USA.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

'For years when I taught campaigns and elections at Brown University, I defended

the Electoral College as an important part of American democracy. I said the

founders created the institution to make sure that large states did not dominate

small ones in presidential elections, that power between Congress and state

legislatures was balanced, and that there would be checks and balances in the

constitutional system.'

'In recent years, though, I have changed my view and concluded it is time to get

rid of the Electoral College.'

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Big-Ideas_West_Electoral-College.pdf

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Thank you, B C.

PS 'Always disappointed by the DEMS....' I am mostly disappointed by the DEMs.

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Fern. “Always disappointed. by the DEMS”….WHY?….or were they the DEMS before the Civil War? That turned

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Sorry, Bonnie, I wrote 'mostly'. Perhaps, a tad too harsh but not that far away from what I often feel.

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Please reread Bonnie. "Always" was quoted from B C's prolife. My 'often' disappointed with the DEMS is a subject that I do not have the time now to elaborate upon.

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Thanks for these two pieces of reference material! I learned quite a bit from them.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

Were they all brainwashed by watching "Gone With the Wind" as kids — even Thomas?

Having mostly grown up in the South and, especially, spending six years in Georgia going to college and working my first newspaper job there, I met a lot of people who bought into the "Lost Cause" and "happy slaves" revisionist history.

Today, with all the pumped-up, beer-bellied good 'ol boys toting their AR-15s and spewing Civil War talk, have they ever considered how Black people might respond? Including the many who make up the ranks of the military?

SCOTUS, acting with religious-fueled arrogance and blindness, appears intent on lighting a spark. The ensuing conflagration likely wouldn't spare them.

Here's a refresher course on "Gone With the Wind." Excerpt from Washington Post:

The story of the “Gone With the Wind” movie begins, of course, with the novel that inspired it. Published in 1936, Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling book offered a classic “Lost Cause” tale of crushed but resilient white Southerners, devoted black slaves and evil-minded Yankees. It traded heavily in racist descriptions and plot lines, from the “black apes” committing “outrages on women” to Mitchell’s reference to the character Mammy, her face “puckered in the sad bewilderment of an old ape.”

Ku Kluxers are the book’s heroes, helping restore order in the wake of racial chaos.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/12/gone-with-wind-is-also-confederate-monument-film-instead-stone/

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Michael, Are you, perhaps, trivializing the issues regarding the judicial political differences among the Supreme Court Justices concerning the use of 'substantive due process'; in the Court's selection of cases and in the decisions made by it. The article on which you seem to base your argument was printed in WAPO two years ago and ended, to quote:

“Gone With the Wind” reveals how a romanticization of slavery in the past translated into concrete actions to perpetuate its legacy in the present. Today, in 2020, when hundreds of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets to demand racial justice, and when the U.S. Senate is on the verge of finally passing a federal anti-lynching law, and when dozens of Confederate monuments have come down, maybe it is time to treat the film as the Confederate monument that it is, and take it down, too.'

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That wasn't my point. I thought of "Gone With the Wind" in the context of the how the radical justices are trying to undermine the rights granted under the 14th Amendment. Brown v. Board of Education may be in their sights, for example.

A lot of white people who don't consider themselves racists believe the false reality created by the book and movie. I linked to the article, without reading it in its entirety to explain how racist the story was.

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Michael, While I failed to join you with relevance to your connection of "Gone With the Wind' with 'radical' Justices '...trying to undermine rights under the 14th Amendment; and that '...Brown v. Board of Education may be in their sights...', perhaps, subscribers will be interested in knowing public opinion of SCOTUS and recent polling results indicating how overturning Roe v. Wade may affect the midterm elections.

'Public approval of the Supreme Court is now at an all-time low. '

'According to a June Gallup poll, only 25% of Americans have confidence in the high court. That’s a dive of more than 10% compared to the same time last year.'

'That poll was taken in anticipation of Roe v. Wade being overturned. It’s an opinion most Americans do not support.'

'A Pew Research poll found that 57% of Americans disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision. More than 60% say abortion should be legal in all or in most cases.'

'Analysts say the court has undeniably become more ideological and political.'

'Earlier this year, the scientific journal PNAS found that since 2020, the Supreme Court had become “much more conservative than the public and is now more similar to Republicans in its ideological position on key issues.”

'In its majority opinion to overturn Roe and Casey, justices cited that group's statements, "the Liberty Counsel brief argues abortion has ties to race-based eugenics."

'The allegations of a conflict of interest extend to the justices' political leanings.'

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3534955-confidence-in-supreme-court-is-at-lowest-level-in-50-year-recorded-history-gallup-poll-finds/

'Polling conducted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade paints a consistent picture: Most Americans oppose the decision and lack confidence in the Supreme Court itself. What’s more, there is broad concern that the court’s decision to roll back the right to abortion is simply the first in a series of similar rollbacks, potentially targeting same-sex marriage and the availability of contraceptives.'

'Unsurprisingly, given all of that, one poll found that most Americans see the court’s anti-Roe decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization as rooted fundamentally in politics, not the law.'

'... in the polls released this weekend, one from CBS News, conducted by YouGov, and the other from NPR and PBS NewsHour, conducted by Marist College. In each, respondents were asked whether the ruling in Dobbs might affect their vote in November’s midterm elections. And, as you might expect, many Americans said that it would.

'This is a natural question to ask, since it addresses one aspect of the court’s decision that undoubtedly has piqued many people’s curiosity: What might the political response to Dobbs be? Unfortunately, asking this question in the immediate aftermath of the decision, four months before the election, probably doesn’t tell us very much. Many voters will be thinking about the court’s decision when they vote, certainly. But would they have voted anyway? Did the decision change who they planned to vote for? It’s murky, and these polls shed only a very small amount of light, so I’m setting those questions aside.'

'What we can say with confidence is that most Americans disagree with the decision. In the CBS-YouGov poll (henceforth, the CBS poll), 6 in 10 Americans expressed disapproval, including 6 in 10 independents. Women were more likely to disapprove than men (they did so by a 2-to-1 margin) but even half of men viewed the decision negatively.'

'In the NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist poll (henceforth, the NPR poll), those views were broken out to measure how strongly people felt about the decision. Nearly half of women strongly oppose it as do three-quarters of Democrats. More than half of Republicans strongly support it.'

'The NPR poll also broke out its data by the extent of support respondents had for access to abortion. Nearly three-quarters of those who said they mostly support abortion rights (55 percent of the total) said they strongly oppose the decision. Those who mostly oppose abortion rights (36 percent) mostly strongly supported it.]

'Perhaps the most telling response from either poll came from NPR’s. More than half of Americans view the decision as being mostly based on politics rather than the law. Most Republicans believe it was mostly based in the law — though even a fifth of Republicans see it as largely political.'

'Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has worked to defend his court against allegations that it is infected by politics. The Dobbs decision, it seems safe to say, did not help his case.'

'Both the CBS and NPR polls asked how much confidence people had in the court. NPR found that most respondents had little to no confidence, with Democrats being much more likely to say they had no confidence than Republicans were to say they had a great deal. (Gallup polling found a plunge in Democratic confidence in the court even before Dobbs.)'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/27/overturning-roe-is-unpopular-and-viewed-largely-political/

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

I do not get your 'point'. Your comment read as a diversion to me, an aside, without a clear connection to understanding how a majority of the Justices are interpreting 'substantive due process'. Understanding what 'substantive due process' means and how it is variously interpreted by the Justices on the Court appears to be important lessons for us (subscribers).

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I'm so glad Biden dressed them down with harsh language! Thomas has gotta go! He told a law clerk he wasn't going to retire until 2034: "The liberals made my life miserable for 43 years," a former clerk remembered Thomas – who was 43 years old when confirmed – saying, according to The New York Times. "And I'm going to make their lives miserable for 43 years."

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

TC, It is crucial for those concerned with the current Supreme Court and its decisions to understand interpretations of the meaning of 'substantive due process'. How do the Justices' political ideology affect their decision making? Not all cases divide cleanly along partisan lines. What’s equally important, they also set forth judicial reasoning, which offers vital clues to differences in how justices read the law and how they might rule in future cases.

'What does substantive due process mean in government?

'Substantive due process is a principle in United States constitutional law that allows courts to establish and protect certain fundamental rights from government interference, even if procedural protections are present or the rights are unenumerated (not specifically mentioned) elsewhere in the U.S. Constitution. Courts have asserted that such protections come from the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

' Substantive due process demarks the line between those acts that courts hold to be subject to government regulation or legislation and those that courts place beyond the reach of governmental interference. Whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were intended to serve that function continues to be a matter of scholarly as well as judicial discussion and dissent.[1]'

'Substantive due process is to be distinguished from procedural due process. The distinction arises from the words "of law" in the phrase "due process of law".[2] Procedural due process protects individuals from the coercive power of government by ensuring that adjudication processes, under valid laws, are fair and impartial. Such protections, for example, include sufficient and timely notice of why a party is required to appear before a court or other governmental body, the right to an impartial trier of fact and trier of law, and the right to give testimony and present relevant evidence at hearings.[2] In contrast, substantive due process protects individuals against majoritarian policy enactments that exceed the limits of governmental authority: courts may find that a majority's enactment is not law and cannot be enforced as such, regardless of whether the processes of enactment and enforcement were actually fair.[2]' (Wikipedia)

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

Thank you, B C. I hope we have a chance to do this again on another crevice or cliff upon which the country faulted or just escaped the fall.

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He couldn't rise above retaliation.

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Kathy, Are you referring to Trump?

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No. Thomas, 45 years. I must have put my reply in the wrong place but it certainly describes Trump also.

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Which faith is that, funny person?

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I couldn't put a ❤️ here because the truth you post is so angering, but I agree 100%

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Would our response be different if the court had overturned the nineteenth amendment?

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Fortunately, an Amendment is by definition "constitutional" in all cases and cannot be overturned. The court can mess with legal cases based on clauses of the amendment, but not the amendment itself. Thus, neither the Fourteenth or Nineteenth Amendments can be declared "unconstitutional," but cases based in them can be overturned. I don't think there are any cases like "substantive due process" involving the Nineteenth Amendment, which is pretty much declarative of one thing: women can vote. That cannot be denied. There would have to be another amendment overturning it, as with Prohibition.

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I have never looked as closely at our constitution or case law as the past few years. Thank you TC for the clarification. Amazing the court can take away our right to decide for ourselves what our health care will be, but can’t deprive of us of the vote. Lucky us….

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President Biden is doing the right thing and speaking to the urgency of resisting the Trump Republican onslaught. Yet even left-leaning media is carrying a drumbeat that Democrats are impatient that Mr. Biden isn’t fighting back. Professor Richardson’s reporting what he is actually doing is a great service. Let’s hold our media accountable when it drives a false narrative that can discourage potential Democratic voters. And let’s get the vote out!

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Yes!

Indeed!

And please stop the defeatism repeatedly reinforced in the comments in this news letter...it is a disservice to the encouragement of Democrats successfully defeating the republicans once and for all.......

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George, I like to read the comments as they add substance to the letter, they often add information/news that the letters space can't provide. But, I must admit that upon occasion I feel the need to take a few days off from reading them as I can end up feeling so deflated, depressed and hopeless from the tone. I HATE the "given" that the Dems are going to lose. Let's put out into the atmosphere the energy we want to see.

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This move by the originalists on the Supreme Court could be a blessing. I hope it is a wake up call to all women and men. If the Supreme Court is allowed to control our bodies our health and our medical decisions we are doomed as a nation. The court has been packed by the Radical Right that is determined to take away women’s right to determine their healthcare. We are not slaves. Each woman is the only one who can make the decision what is best for their body and soul.

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Susan, I couldn't agree more. Not just the right wing radicals on the Supreme Court, but Republicans in office at all levels may have finally crossed a critical red line with a sleeping giant; the millions of voters who traditionally don't vote in midterm elections. And the preponderance of those voters will come out swinging against this outrage. The timing couldn't be better. There's just enough time left before November to educate our friends and relatives that may not realize the urgency of protecting the 14th Amendment. I hope everyone that has read Dr. Richardson's wonderfully illuminating piece today will forward it far and wide, with an appeal to "pass it on".

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Originalism is bs. These radical jurists are making “opinions” up out of whole cloth. They have been throwing precedents out left and right, like Scalia and the Heller decision in 2008. The court threw out over 200 years of precedent regarding guns. They are cherry-picking like crazy! Six people are holding over 300 million people hostage. Expand the court ASAP. These judges want to take us back to the 1850’s.

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Jenn, I had the same thought: six people are holding 300 million people hostage. I was astonished to read your post just now. It sickens me to think of the undoing of our fundamental rights, in front of our eyes! VOTE VOTE VOTE BLUE!

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Beautifully said, Susan. We must get out the vote and make sure it is BLUE.

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The law of physics will prevail, the pendulum has swung too fast to the right and has no choice but to rebound … and when it does it will behoove us all to work towards incremental positive change. Meanwhile, help register people to vote, talk to everyone you know about the need to vote, VOTE - 122 days to go!

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EXCELLENT

THANKS!

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Joe Biden is the most underrated president we have had since Harry Truman. Eventually, people will come to see Biden's greatness, and the breadth of his accomplishments, despite the carping and complaining of ill-mannered millennials and self-involved Leftists. Compared with The Other Guy, Joe Biden is royalty, without the snark or the attitude.

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It doesn’t help that even supposedly mainstream media seem addicted to anti-Biden attitudes. When gas prices went up, we had daily headlines about it. As gas prices went down for a month, no comment. And so forth and so on. It’s up to us to join the national conversation...

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The press requires controversy to exist as a business model. They foment their own story lines to create the divide and then breathlessly bring us “today’s “ wildfire

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'Mainstream media' is a misnomer. I see and hear about the whining and bitching about the price of gasoline by people who ought to know better, and, of course, it gets played out on the local evening news because people are attached by their in umbilical cords to driving wherever they want, whenever they want, willy-nilly. On the other hand, the local news outlets could do a better job in reminding people that the price hikes that we have all been experiencing have much to do with worldwide commodity markets, and more importantly, the actions of the oil companies to keep gasoline prices at record high levels.

Then there are those elected to Congress or to state legislatures who see the high prices as opportunities to bash Democrats or economic conditions that neither party is responsible for creating. World commodity prices are just that, worldwide. It is decisions by oil exporting countries, and the multinational oil companies themselves that set the prices for these commodities. The same can be said for agricultural commodities, like wheat.

Lastly, Republicans in particular are loath to talk about climate change which has the effect of reducing the acreage of arable land. Less food is being grown to feed more people, and increasing prices reflect the shortfall. An honest count would place accountability on economic Royalists styling themselves as conservatives, and their acolytes in the Republican Party.

In point of fact, international trade made widespread distribution of foodstuffs possible. When nations start to close their doors against international trade, foodstuff availability becomes haphazard, and people starve. Of course, that prospect never seem to bother conservatives who view selfishness is a global good. Maybe when the shoe was on the other foot they might have a change of heart, but that is doubtful. The fact remains that the prospect of food insecurity prompts people to pull up stakes and move en masse elsewhere; there is your refugee problem, staring you in the face, because you didn't have the good sense to address the problem of food insecurity when it might've been manageable.

It's no exaggeration to describe conservatism as the last refuge of the stupid, the fearful, and the incoherent. We've seen conservatism's dénouement during the recent Trump administration, from incoherency to complete and utter incompetency, and with the willing connivance of the Republican Party. I cannot imagine why anyone who has been paying the least bit of attention would not understand that implicitly. Forget about the mainstream media — they are as incoherent and feckless as the recent Trump administration.

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Wow, just wow. Nailed it

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You'll notice that today's conservatives are what we used to call 'young guns'. Arrogant jerks willing to push an argument to its limits, and as fact-free as the forum will allow. They tend to be men in their 30s and the products of rarified, and expensive, educations. Yale University seems to be their favored venue, or one of the Catholic universities that specialize in jesuidical argumentation. These men are products of an illiberal education that seem to emphasize Western Civilization, circa 1900. Of late, they are beating their drum for a return to Catholic social doctrine that went out of style with the Vatican reforms of 1963. What they mourn the loss of, and argue for in their depiction of conservatism, is the presumed primacy of their church over any other. The more their churches appear to be empty, the harder they try to conflate conservatism with Catholic orthodoxy. As for the Evangelicals, their orthodoxy is an amalgam of folk practices tricked out as religious doctrine that owes little or nothing to the Christian Bible. Conservatives dishonor America's civil religion that embodies the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and our entire history of creating a strong and vibrant country from scratch, by people who come here from everywhere in the world, based on the idea that we can unite through civility and political discourse, through shared values of liberty and expanded opportunities for all. They cling to a populism that characterized America in the first half of the Nineteen Century with little regard for the country we are now. Their cultural angst has given rise to Right Wing terrorism, and now insurrection.

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Thank you for saying this so boldly. Most of the complainers have not bothered to do the research with fact sources to know what they speak of (including lots of main stream media).

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For a Black man to claim there is no such thing as 'substantive due process' as supposed 'Originalist' Thomas wrote in Dobbs reversing Roe, contrary to the 'Originalist' intent of the 14th Amendment as reflected by Heather's sentence below, is baffling. Simply incomprehensible. What does this say about the evolution of America in the last 150 years? Heather: "But there was no way northern members of Congress were going to permit southern lawmakers, who only months before had been shooting at U.S. soldiers, to discriminate against the very men who had fought to save the United States."

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As an American of African descent, to suggest my perspective, I suspect the dark-skinned man who sits on this country’s “high court”—I refuse to use the term “supreme”—suffers from what academics refer to as internalized racism; or to use a form of the common trope: “uncle tomism”.

This state of self-hatred can be observed in many Black Americans, who are often harshly critical of other Black people, while at the same time, lionizing the whites they know or observe. They are often accused of undermining other African Americans as well as the entire Black community.

This sickness has long been a detriment to progress in communities of color; and this behavior and attitude is often cited by bigots who then stigmatize the whole race, applying this negation to everyone in the targeted community.

The root of the societal malady appears to lie in the strategy of the slaveholders to create disunity among the enslaved Africans. Natural groupings of family and clan and tribe were intentionally disrupted so that the slave master was the only source of cohesion or unity.

It is perhaps analogous to a group of workers who are French and German and Irish and Swedish and Italian and Spanish. The English foreman controls the laborers who are unable to coalesce and organize by themselves.

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Bill, you nailed it. The same goes for women who embrace what the sociologist Kimberle Crenshaw called the "patriarchal bargain," a term adapted by Amalia Sa'ar in her article "Postcolonial Feminism, the Politics of Identification, and the Liberal Bargain" to refer to colonized people who also privilege the colonizers. There will always be people in the world who will make the choice to side with their oppressors because the benefits they derive--however contingent--give them power over others.

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A form of Stockholm syndrome or just greedy bastards, or both

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Bill, that’s interesting. I find it ironic Thomas is so radically extreme when it is the laws he repudiates that allow him to sit on the SC. Also, he strikes me as a bitter man who sees himself as a victim. I’m not sure why he has suddenly come to life.

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It’s like the Manchurian Candidate, his handler(s) say it is time.

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Ya know, soooo many of the MAGAs are all bitter and angry. FInding a smiling MAGA is like finding Hen's teeth.

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Yeah, that’s true. But he was like this BEFORE MAGA

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I read the other day that he is out for the liberals who were trying to get him all those years ago.

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Followed to their logical conclusion, it is 'substantive due process' that allows this man to be married to a white woman.

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Your perspective here is vital, Bill! Thank you!

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Exactamente. So well explained. Thank you, Bill.

What do you muse as being the best path out of this societal burden?

Salud🗽

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Bill, I would like to bring you attention to an article I read a couple of days ago about Clarence Thomas It was very informative and startling. The link to the article, is below. Author, Corey Robin, wrote a the very well received book, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas He is a political theorist, professor and journalist and author I may have been able to post this earlier, but could not confirm. My apologies if I have duplicated this communication.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-self-fulfilling-prophecies-of-clarence-thomas

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Clarence Thomas is Ginni's puppet. For a couple of decades this Justice NEVER asked a question of petitioners of the court. He was a silent gnome - a place holder. Now, he has been emboldened by his treasonous wife.

It was said that when they entered a room together, she was the one speaking - taking up all the oxygen in the room. And that he wasn't the sharpest tack in the box. But they needed him on the court as the token black Republican who would follow the Federalist/Oligarch's instructions.

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And he now speaks of revenge, what a pathetic, small man. About the size of a worm

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Reminds me of the former guy...angry and revengeful.

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Wow. Thank you for this information. How can we find it?

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Sloppy of me to comment about quotes I cant verify. Will post if I find the article.

Regardless, the two of them are horrific elitist humans with no regard for the poor, the disenfranchised and most of all, the rights and equality of women.

The irony is incredible.

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I would appreciate it. Thank you. I always want to have facts before I share information with others.

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It says we have a long way to go.

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Are we heading in the right direction or are we lost?

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We'll know if the corrupt are sentenced for high crimes and if there is a blue wave at the polls. If those two things don't happen, not only we, but the world will be lost until another generation willing to fight comes alone.

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Welp..., as long as we continue to feed the pigs at the elephants troth-of-religiosity we'll continue to suffer the skewing of American values. Yes yes, "screwing of America" might be more correct. Reestablishing more closely a real separation of church and state would help rid us of the leeches.

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That it has to be 'reestablished' when it is already in place enrages me.

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Yuh....hohoho.., "RE - established"!!! I'm with you. And, perhaps I (we?) might be 'enlightened' as to: Where or when; and by what or whom; using such specific language/terms, plastering us with the nebulous characterization commonly called "A christian Nation". Huh? A "what"? OFM

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

Gratitude for President Biden using the stop gap measure of an executive order while this country figures out how far backwards we will go to prevent citizens equal rights. Especially considering we fought for equality in the Civil War, and legislation since then. “What does this say about the evolution of America in the last 150 years? Heather: "But there was no way northern members of Congress were going to permit southern lawmakers, who only months before had been shooting at U.S. soldiers, to discriminate against the very men who had fought to save the United States.” We cannot expect one person, one Justice, to represent a whole group. Clarence Thomas doesn’t speak for all Black people and People of Color. Amy Coney Barrett doesn’t speak for all women. I’m grateful that we have 14th Amendment but the “Originalists” (repubs) who often use that label/philosophy to distort modern laws and needs are tearing apart the fabric of our constitution and country. An Executive Order is a hope and a stop gap measure to continue equal treatment under the law. Even though we have the Fourteenth Amendment. Some way, at the ballot box, the courts and legislation, this country has to decide the direction of this country. Again.

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We decided, and decided, and we must decide again. The fourteenth amendment was supposed to resolve the issue. Yet here we are with power-hungry cretins demanding that we all submit…

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Which shows what we had become lazy and forgot: Democracy is an ongoing fight. Like fidelity, and truthfulness, it is a choice we make every day - or not.

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Well said❤❤❤

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Thomas is incomprehensible

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Same with Stephen Miller the Nazi.

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He thinks he's white. He feels none of the pain he is inflicting on others by his decisions. I believe ol' Ginni thinks she's male.. Cares not for the rights of women. What a pair!

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Yes, someone said ginny has convinced him he is an oreo. Shame on him and his revenge upon America and the people who will suffer more due to the same pigmentation he has. His power has impacted his brain.

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Well described; but remember: it was the withdrawal of federal troops from the south that began the rapid passage of Jim Crow laws.....etc just as Chief Justice Roberts and his infamous opinion in Shelby County ended pre-clearance by the Federal District CT in DC or the Justice Dept from giving prior approval before any change in policy, procedure or law could be implemented or passed pertaining to elections in those Southern States and 4 counties in CA, 2 townships in Michigan . Immediately after pre-clearance (Section 4 of the 1965 VRA was found unconstitutional as an impermissible interference with the sovereignty of states by Roberts, Thomas etc.... 1688 voting precincts closed, strict voter ID laws passed, 30 million voters purged (and this week in Florida I understand some 600,000 more registered voters were purged... That is why CONGRESS must pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act: to set FEDERAL standards for times, places and manner of elections to save our democracy from autocratic undemocratic rule in at least 19 states who are backing this attack on voting rights. Roberts worked for Ronald Reagan and attacked voting rights and he continues his march back to preCivil War thinking. I think this is racism at its worst and if Senators Manchin and Sinema don't wake up to this fact, perhaps Ms Collins and Ms Murkowski will do the right thing and end the filibuster against H. R. 5746.

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"f Senators Manchin and Sinema don't wake up to this fact, perhaps Ms Collins and Ms Murkowski will do the right thing and end the filibuster against H. R. 5746."

There is BIG money in supporting the Federalist Society and supporting the filibuster" BIG.

So, don't get your hopes up that the "right thing" will get in the way of Manchin and other Republicans collecting on the big money floating around out there to support the nutty Republican "policy" that is really just plain old white supremacy.

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Don’t get hopes up for Collins, she is the hope destroyer

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Entirely too true, as we "librul" Maine women know very well.

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The Kochs could fund the whole government, after all.

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Murkowski and Collins suffer from FOT..fear of trump! Which translates to the fear of becoming ineffective should the elephants get in and they are branded as RINO's.

Neither of those two wiffle/waffles qualify for the Margaret Chase Smith award.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

Gah! Don't depend on 'Two-Faced-Double-Tongued Susie' from Maine to do the right thing. She is NOT and never has been a leader; she is completely in thrall to McConnell and will vote exactly as he directs.

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Please, please do not make this yet another burden on women. Yes, women are rising up and, yes, women can elect representatives who will codify rights. But, please, what about men? Bodily autonomy is a fundamental right to ensure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That should matter to all people, regardless of gender. Men, join the fight, damn it. The women in your life and in your country are counting on you.

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Out of my mouth, thank you

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Any conservative, EVER, who again utters that duplicitous, BS-laden line decrying "legislating from the bench," must be from-heretofore shouted down with "Dobbs vs. Jackson." EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

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These pseudo-conservatives are the same people who think healthcare in general is not a right.

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I think Biden is correct that the women of America could carry the mid-term election for candidates in favor of a woman's right to choose. It should be a highly unifying issue across the political spectrum for women. Toss in a healthy dose of men on the same side and it should make for a very strong platform. This executive branch needs to get out on the campaign train on behalf of pro-choice Senate and House candidates. They shouldn't wait for September-October. The message needs to be heard, long and loud, as often as possible. Here's hoping for a more energetic center/left electorate.

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GOTV postcards have proven effective in the past two elections. There are several national organizations which have them along with voting lists from swing states.

Get in touch with your local Indivisible chapter (online) or your local Turnabout (online) and order as many as you can write before 10 October. Stamps: get them before Sunday when postcard stamps go from 40 cents to 44 cents apiece.

I have requested postcards and lists for AZ, NC, and GA. Yesterday went to USPO for stamps.

Postcard parties, anyone?

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Plenty of "men" are on their side.., TODAY Women have the ball in their CONTROL - period. They need to coalesce and really shake things up. This is a matter of a woman's Human Rights being brutally violated. In my world, this is driven by religion(s)...and NO law needs to be written or applied. Huh? Yup... This is a matter of pure privacy. Any action by anyone to violate this right is subject to laws already in the books covering "Assault". And surely, violation of a persons right to privacy, right to walk down the street without carrying a firearm, freedom from unreasonable search or harm, and generally freedom to enjoy what America is really about.

As Humans, we have obvious human rights. A woman's right to privacy of her body needs no law to be written - stay the hell out, mind you're own gottdammed business. I'm not naive and I hope you get my point.

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It has long been incomprehensible to me that women have supported, with their votes, a misogynist barbarian like Trump but we will have to accept that people vote against their self interests for many reasons. One would hope they would not vote against their children's and grandchildren's interests so the coming election needs to be framed as a choice between democracy stretching forward into our future versus an autocratic takeover of our government and way of life. I found this article chillingly worrisome and worth publicizing as broadly as possible: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-preparing-war-an-expert-civil-wars-discusses-where-political-extremists-are-taking-this-country/

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

It has long been incomprehensible to me that women AND men have supported with their votes, a misogynistic barbarian like Trump. We do NOT have to accept that men AND women will vote against their self interests. We will strengthen messaging and education about our duty and civic responsibility towards the common good in a democracy. We will seek to understand that voting is a way to ensure democracy for our children and their children.

Yes, the article you cite is worthy of gaining traction. It is informative and worthy of circulation. To me, it is not worrisome or chilling. It is practical to recognize the growing signs of civil war and act accordingly. Strength lies in the living history of our democracy. We the people, ALL OF US this time.

Salud, Richard. 🗽

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Republicans reject the science of climate change. That is why the anti-EPA SCOTUS decision. For all of us who want to join the world in doing what we can to extend the life of this planet, another reason to vote Blue.

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In a way, Voting Blue this November is a Vote for the Big Blue Marble.

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Just read this. Frightening. But we need to be scared, I think.

What makes this so compelling is that the analysis designed by our own intelligence community was for use in analyzing other countries. Then we look in the mirror and we should be shocked.

The author's description of her fathers feelings and comments have been heard before...but this was chilling.

I will share this as much as I can. Thank you, Richard.

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Thank you for sharing this. I shared it too. There are no surprises in the article. We know what we have to do: get out the vote, protect the vote and vote blue. If you don’t know about the value of GOTV postcards, learn and write from now until 10 October (mailing day). Think: if Republicans, who along with science generally, reject that climate change is happening, get control of government, it’s goodbye planet Earth.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

Thank you for the link to that article. Well worth the read and it is an excellent recitation of what to watch for and how to counter the threat.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

Eventually maybe we will expand and this protection under law to animals in factory farms and other confined environments. Animal cruelty is widely unpopular, even among those who eat meat. Yet, a very small minority is forcing their will on the rest of us, to exploit animals in the most horrific ways imaginable, for profit, in secrecy, and with impunity (with assistance actually in the form of our tax dollars). We've got to end speciesism: "the assumption of human superiority leading to the exploitation of animals."They are anatomically nearly identical to us (on the inside) with all the same body systems. Just because the cannot speak doesn't mean they don't feel or have the same right to bodily autonomy. So while we're fighting this great fight for equality and justice, could we please bring the animals along with us?

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A major driver for me before chump, still is but so many crises…

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The Biden Administration is getting a lot of criticism on the Supreme Courts rollback. But I agree that it up to U.S. citizens to take action at the ballot box. Otherwise, overturning Roe v Wade is just the beginning.

Even at my age, it amazes me how recent some of these civil right enactments are. Laws that I'm sure a lot of our young people take for granted. Todays youth do not have the luxury of ignorance on these matters. We need thousands more Heather Cox Richardson's in our schools. Thanks for the education about the fourteenth amendment.

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Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022

Ummmm, there are thousands in the teaching field in this moment that clearly place their professional expertise on the stance that HCR espouses. And it is my opinion, during a career in education that spans decades, that our youth are not ignorant to civic responsibility and evolution of certain rights.

I find that listening to their voice with respect will get them to the polls rather than assumption that they will not engage and be “lazy”.

Salud, Bill. 🗽

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I like that "efucation" thing. Anyway, sounds like you're taking a lot for granted if you're thinking in terms of the whole U.S. of A. I think a lot of work needs to be done. But in the meantime, I hope you're right !

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Always work to do. You are right, Bill. My point is that the great majority of teachers I know are hard at it.

Hurray for “efucation” edit possibilities!

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Since civics is no longer taught in schools, it is not surprising young exploding not know of these matters. Based on posts I read and interviews I’ve seen over the past several years, the dumbing down effect it has had on this country is grossly apparent.

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Right CRT is college level so , age appropriate, U.S. History needs to be taught in K - 12. It will be tough for White students as well as POC students. If we start to teach the truth and more importantly, how to move forward in a positive direction with the knowledge; there is a good possibility that man will evolve into a peaceful coexistence.

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The cleanliness of the President's work here is like bright sunlight.

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The midterm election in November will determine the fate of this country, and no, I don’t think that I’m overstating things.

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We need the ERA. We need the ERA. We need the ERA. We need the ERA.

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Expect it by 2024. Expect it by 2024. Expect it by 2024.

Unidad!

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Christine, I cannot find the appropriate comment for the posting of the toast tonight. My brother-in-law and I are working on perfecting a blended rum punch recipe. We are on try number 2. Salud, as I dive into grilling our dinner tonight.

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Yum.

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