I heard the wonderful Joy Reid say yesterday, with passion, that people who are donating toward recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania should instead send their money to Democrat Foster Campbell, towards a yet undecided senate race in Louisiana. It is a long shot indeed, but boy wouldn't it be nice to have another Democratic senator.
Well, the recount is certainly a long shot, but wouldn't it be great to have T. Rump's "presidency" overturned before the cast of The Deplorables takes over and all we can do is damage control.
So why not donate to both?
I am surprised, as always, by my fellow Democrats' willingness to fight over just about anything. I even heard some trash talk about Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate who has spearheaded the move to recount, and her possible involvement with Russia, based on television interviews on Russian TV network, RT. Come on folks, can we not throw out the baby with the dirty bath water here? Faux president T. Rump has more than enough ties to Russia to keep us paranoid.
I don't know why Stein is on Russian TV. Maybe she believes we can all be friends, maybe she secretly owns a hotel there. But let us stop being yanked around by those who have been silent about the T. Rump Russia connection and are now trumpeting the news that Stein has ties to Russia.
I for one, am glad that Stein has taken up this cause. There were so very many raised eyebrows over how Hillary could lose those three states, that had been in her column for months, and lose by so very little. Whether it is fraud or the kind of callousness that happens when those in charge are being pressured to come up with definitive results, that small margin in those three states certainly makes a recount reasonable.
I'm wondering why we should go quietly. Just look at the hissy-fit the madman has been having over Twitter since the recount actually became a thing. Shouldn't we be tired of being beaten about with lies, threats and braggadocio by this small-minded bully? We still, for awhile, live in the strongest democracy in the world; now would be the time to push our rights to the limit.
Don't forget, it was T. Rump who on election day, attempted through a lawsuit to force Nevada to omit certain votes obtained during early voting in high Latino areas. He falsely claimed voters were let into polling places after hours; in fact, it was voters who were already in line when the polls closed that were allowed to vote. Even if it didn't work, it may have kept a few people from exercising their rights, so, to T. Rump, it was a win-win.
And how about North Carolina soon-to-be-unemployed governor Pat McCrory and his expensive and time-consuming tantrum over his losing tally? Democrat Roy Cooper is ahead by nearly 8,000 votes, but McCrory just can't believe that this is happening. And for good reason. He and his minions in the state legislature have worked hard to rig the election to prevent Democrats from voting. He is like the Grinch when he hears the Whos in Whoville singing even after he has stolen their Christmas. How can this be???
If you are still wondering why we should be backing this recount effort, convinced that it will not change results, you may be right about the latter. But there are so many reasons we should be behind this. The one that smacks me in the head every time is all the various dirty tricks that have been played during this election season, from lies to the actual republican woman who was caught trying to vote twice for the Rump. There were the repeated calls during rallies for supporters to "watch" suspect polling places -- "because of you know what I'm talking about." Then there is the Crosscheck software program, ever popular when you want to purge the voter rolls. And don't forget the Russians: spies, hackers and fake news.
Here is the greatest reason of all. We now more than ever need to ask the questions. We need to insist on facts, not tweets and tantrums. We need to insist that we see what is going on in our government. There is nothing wrong with demanding an audit of our voting process, especially now. Especially when there has been so much proof that the other side will stoop to whatever it takes to win. If we believe that our democracy is important, and I'm hearing from a lot of us that they -- we -- are fearing its loss, we need to stand up for transparency. Our voting process has been under attack for far too long, while we have had too few defenders.
Maybe Pat McCrory will win back the governorship, fair and square. I hope not, but it could happen. He is not going to leave any stone unturned in his quest for victory. And we should not leave any stone unturned either. Because our quest is not just for victory; it is to stand up for our democracy, and for our right for our votes to be counted.
So, Jill, I'm all in. And thanks for stepping up.
Showing posts with label Voting Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voting Rights. Show all posts
Monday, November 28, 2016
Thursday, September 10, 2015
The Ironic Cherry Reads...
...The Invisible Bridge
"If the people believe there's an imaginary river out there, you don't tell them there's no river out there. You build an imaginary bridge over the imaginary river."
This is the quote that prefaces the book "The Invisible Bridge" by Rick Perlstein. It is attributed as "Advice to Richard Nixon from Nikita Khrushchev."
The book is a doorstop, some 800+ pages. If you have time to read only one book, this is the one you should read. As the subtitle says, it chronicles the time -- bridges the time -- of "the fall of Nixon and the rise of Reagan."
If you have been sitting here in 2015 scratching your head and wondering how we got here from the amazing sixties, this is the book that will clear it up for you. Yes, we had Roe v. Wade, and civil rights legislation, ended the war in Vietnam and began to end pollution and save the planet. We had desegregation, a war on poverty and more kids went on to college than ever before.
But we liberals never saw the backlash coming.
The abortion wars began as soon as they ended, fires fueled by rage at the Supreme Court justices that made a woman's right to abortion the law of the land.
It was in the 70's that the textbook wars began, with a mild mannered Christian woman named Alice Moore speaking up at a Texas school board meeting, and refusing to back down until school boards in Texas and across the country removed books that offended with their words of sex and science, integration and art. Evolution was banned from textbooks and classrooms, as well as "The Grapes of Wrath."
Lest we yanks feel smug, it was in Boston where fierce rioting went on over school busing. "Two groups of people who are poor and doomed and who have been thrown in the ring with each other," was how columnist Jimmy Breslin described the battles between whites and blacks.
And in today's headlines we have a dozen odd republican candidates for president keeping those same wounds open. They may be using Mexicans instead of African Americans, but their followers I assure you see them as pretty much the same problem. You can't publicly pledge to send blacks back where they came from these days, but ending Obamacare and the Voting Rights Act is nearly as satisfying.
While Hillary is wasting her time apologizing for emails, we must know that this has nothing to do with what is going on with the upcoming election.
Remember that big brouhaha over Obama's 2008 comments on guns and religion? We need to go back and listen to those comments again:
"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."Yes, they continue to cling to their guns and religion, and they are fueled by opportunistic politicians. And what we see is craziness and rage. We see nobodies like Kim Davis regaled as a hero for refusing to obey the law and used by fools like Mike Huckabee to promote his own small-minded religious agenda. And those people who live in their own ignorance and isolation thrive on the narrative that the freedom of others to live differently will deny them their religious freedom.
And there you have that invisible bridge. There won't be better jobs and the kids will either bail out or follow in the footsteps of fear and denial. And the politicians will continue to pretend that they care about "religious freedom" while they deregulate and cut taxes for the rich. And they will cut services to those same isolated small towns, health care and education, roads and schools, police and firefighters, blaming the government. These pols have created and perpetuated this vicious cycle, wherein ignorance leads being frightened and vulnerable to lies and manipulation, which leads to more isolation and ignorance.
What is different now than it was in the 70's is that we have a Supreme Court that has been molded by the right-wing to reflect that bizarre religious paranoia. Since Reagan the Supremes have formalized the union between corporate power and religion. Small businesses haven't noticed that they have not been included in all the freedom of speech that is being bought, and politicians are giving them nothing but lip service. But the pols have taken up the fight for the religious fanatics. Because while they are wasting time and dollars with votes and court battles to end Obamacare, voting rights and Planned Parenthood, they are seeming to serve those small town old-timey values while their real constituents, the billionaire capitalists, are allowed to continue to freely run the country.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
September 1 -- Vote!
If special elections have a low turnout, it just makes sense that this is the time we can be heard.
September 1 -- next Tuesday -- is primary day for the special election for SC State Senator for District 45. This is the seat that was vacated with the murder of Senator Clementa Pinckney. There are eleven Democratic candidates and two republican candidates. We need to 1) learn about who is running, 2) spread the word and 3) get out and vote.
But even before we do that, we need to find out if we live in Senate #45 and if we are registered to vote. Not as hard as you might think. Go to scvotes.org, plug in your name, county and date of birth, and voila! you will get all the info you need. This site will tell you not only whether you are registered, but what legislative districts you are in, and your polling location.
That out of the way, good luck learning about all eleven Democratic candidates. To that end, a couple of weeks ago I did some research and wrote a blog. Not to blow my own horn, let me just say that this is the most minimal information you would want to use to make a decision. But it is a start.
Go to Facebook and look up candidates, do a google search. When you get a campaign call from an actual human, ask about the issues most important to you. I have had a couple of callers talk to me about my most important issue, women's reproductive rights, and actually had a caller hang up on me when I asked my question. This is THE time to let a candidate know what they need to do to represent you by telling THEM what they can do for you instead of listening to them roll out their talking points.
By the way, women's reproductive rights is my litmus test. If in South Carolina a candidate can say outright that they support a woman's right to contraception and ABORTION (yes, say the word), I expect they will pretty much support voting rights, LGBT rights and workers rights.
After you have done a little research, I'm going to ask you all to spread the word. Make people aware that this important election is going on. Email, Facebook, text, telephone and bring it up when you see your friends, neighbors, co-workers. It's our chance to talk about the issues.
This is why this election is so important:
In the upcoming legislative year, there will be bills promoting the freedom to carry guns everywhere. On the program are bills allowing guns in colleges and universities, as well as public schools. There are bills that would welcome those who carry guns in other states to come on in and bring your ammo. There is an actual bill that would require schools to have a "2nd Amendment Week" celebrating our right to wave our guns around and ending in an essay competition on how carrying guns has guaranteed us our rights.
There will be about a zillion bills prohibiting women from exercising their right to contraceptive care and to decide to have an abortion, free of government interference. The first effort will be to pass the ridiculous twenty week abortion ban. That's the one that claims that at twenty weeks a fetus can feel pain, despite all medical and scientific evidence. When that one gets through (and we do have some strong women's rights legislators that are fighting it, but only a few, and they need all the help and support they can get), it opens the door to bills that would ban abortions earlier, all the way to conception. I guarantee there will be bills to defund Planned Parenthood, denying those of low income the gynecological care that they would otherwise be unable to afford.
On the other side are bills that would ensure voting rights, equality in employment and marriage rights, raise the gasoline tax to pay for improved roads and bridges, and improve our schools throughout the state. We need voices to get expanded federal Medicaid dollars, and we need to make sure that no one in need is denied food and housing.
I will be writing again about a few of the candidates before I vote, but please mark your calendars, and spread the word about this critical special election primary. With so few voting and so many candidates, we need to make the right choice.
I will end with the words that strike fear into the hearts of South Carolina Democrats:
September 1 -- next Tuesday -- is primary day for the special election for SC State Senator for District 45. This is the seat that was vacated with the murder of Senator Clementa Pinckney. There are eleven Democratic candidates and two republican candidates. We need to 1) learn about who is running, 2) spread the word and 3) get out and vote.
But even before we do that, we need to find out if we live in Senate #45 and if we are registered to vote. Not as hard as you might think. Go to scvotes.org, plug in your name, county and date of birth, and voila! you will get all the info you need. This site will tell you not only whether you are registered, but what legislative districts you are in, and your polling location.
That out of the way, good luck learning about all eleven Democratic candidates. To that end, a couple of weeks ago I did some research and wrote a blog. Not to blow my own horn, let me just say that this is the most minimal information you would want to use to make a decision. But it is a start.
Go to Facebook and look up candidates, do a google search. When you get a campaign call from an actual human, ask about the issues most important to you. I have had a couple of callers talk to me about my most important issue, women's reproductive rights, and actually had a caller hang up on me when I asked my question. This is THE time to let a candidate know what they need to do to represent you by telling THEM what they can do for you instead of listening to them roll out their talking points.
By the way, women's reproductive rights is my litmus test. If in South Carolina a candidate can say outright that they support a woman's right to contraception and ABORTION (yes, say the word), I expect they will pretty much support voting rights, LGBT rights and workers rights.
After you have done a little research, I'm going to ask you all to spread the word. Make people aware that this important election is going on. Email, Facebook, text, telephone and bring it up when you see your friends, neighbors, co-workers. It's our chance to talk about the issues.
This is why this election is so important:
In the upcoming legislative year, there will be bills promoting the freedom to carry guns everywhere. On the program are bills allowing guns in colleges and universities, as well as public schools. There are bills that would welcome those who carry guns in other states to come on in and bring your ammo. There is an actual bill that would require schools to have a "2nd Amendment Week" celebrating our right to wave our guns around and ending in an essay competition on how carrying guns has guaranteed us our rights.
There will be about a zillion bills prohibiting women from exercising their right to contraceptive care and to decide to have an abortion, free of government interference. The first effort will be to pass the ridiculous twenty week abortion ban. That's the one that claims that at twenty weeks a fetus can feel pain, despite all medical and scientific evidence. When that one gets through (and we do have some strong women's rights legislators that are fighting it, but only a few, and they need all the help and support they can get), it opens the door to bills that would ban abortions earlier, all the way to conception. I guarantee there will be bills to defund Planned Parenthood, denying those of low income the gynecological care that they would otherwise be unable to afford.
On the other side are bills that would ensure voting rights, equality in employment and marriage rights, raise the gasoline tax to pay for improved roads and bridges, and improve our schools throughout the state. We need voices to get expanded federal Medicaid dollars, and we need to make sure that no one in need is denied food and housing.
I will be writing again about a few of the candidates before I vote, but please mark your calendars, and spread the word about this critical special election primary. With so few voting and so many candidates, we need to make the right choice.
I will end with the words that strike fear into the hearts of South Carolina Democrats:
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Supreme's Greatest Hits
The Supreme Court seems to have ended its session and begun summer vacation with a bang. Three major decisions over the past several days have reflected what I heard one commentator refer to as the most "liberal" court in decades.
To which I did a double take. But when I thought about it, we did have some really significant wins.
The surprise decision was the one that supported the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Surprising in light of the demolition of the Voting Rights Act, which gave states the right the do whatever damn thing they wanted to keep selected groups from voting, and which they wasted no time following through. Chief Justice John Roberts, with his Pollyanna smile, declared there was no need for voting rights protection because racism was dead. Leaving me wondering what rationalizations he made to justify the red-state rush to legalize voter discrimination immediately after the decision.
Not one to ever learn from his mistakes, Roberts was one of the four who voted against supporting the Fair Housing Act. But he did weigh in with us liberals on the case that had my heart beating fast. The state health care exchanges, with federal subsidies, remained intact, leaving a lot of folks like me with our Obamacare. The vote was 6-3, with the core group of idiots, Scalia, Thomas and Alito holding down the right wing-nut opinion.
For those of you who are thinking Roberts may be sliding to the left, his opinion had nothing to do with the rights of Americans to have affordable health care. His decision, just like the one in favor of Obamacare three years ago, was purely pro-business. If you recall back then Roberts' opinion had pretty much everybody's head spinning, including his own. He twisted and corkscrewed the law, arguing not the obvious one that was in question regarding the Commerce Clause, but that the individual mandate was a tax, and the feds were within their constitutional right to levy that tax.
So. I'm thinking Roberts knew quite well that the insurance industry would take a crippling blow if it lost all us customers that could no longer afford health insurance without the federal subsidies. And there are quite a lot of us.
Scalia, on the other hand, and despite his contention that his decisions are based purely on constitutional originalism, consistently bases his decision on what feels good to him. This is the guy, after all, who believes that the devil is a real person. So let's assume logic doesn't have as much to do with his thinking process as he would like us to believe.
Along with his imaginings of the devil and what the founding fathers believed we should be doing all these years later, Scalia has the kind of rigid and fragile psyche that just can't take much confrontation. And so when he writes his dissents (which Chris Hayes noted are extremely wonderful and entertaining, especially because they are dissents) he tends not to sound all that educated, or intelligent, or even rational.
In his dissenting opinion on the Obamacare decision he calls the majority opinion "interpretive jiggery-pokery" and "pure applesauce," legal terms that no doubt go back to the founding fathers. He snipes that since the Court has backed Obamacare in two major decisions, "we should start calling this law SCOTUScare." And in an overwrought, pubescent and melodramatic fit, he sums it up by saying, "Words no longer have meaning...."
Roberts predictably let his right-wing flag fly in the marriage equality decision. No surprise there. It was purely a human rights case, and human rights will not sway our Chief Justice. And I was not at all surprised that Kennedy was the deciding vote in favor of marriage equality, as he has voted in favor of gay rights before.
I'm thinking that a couple of things are happening with the Supremes. Justice Kennedy retains his position as the swing vote. I believe that he is a romantic, and he likes to feel like he is being wooed. It also seems to me that he is easily influenced by the new guys on the block. It happened when Roberts and Alito took up the cause of the right a decade ago, and now we have the left-leaning Kagan and Sotomayor.
Roberts is going to vote pro-business and against human rights. The only individual he is going to support is the individual corporation.
The most fun these days is watching the narcissistic Scalia as he comes apart at the seams. And even better, the more that happens, the less likely Kennedy is likely to want to be seen siding with him, leaving him sitting alone at the cafeteria table with Clarence Thomas and Sammy Alito.
Without taking away from these important victories, though, I am concerned about one group of decisions, those affecting women's privacy and health care rights. Hobby Lobby, which has never blinked about paying for insurance that covers vasectomies, won the right to deny women contraceptive coverage. Even Kagan and Sotomayor voted against a woman's right to be safe from harassment at an abortion clinic, refusing to support a state's right to determine an appropriate buffer zone from protesters.
At this point, with state and federal legislators pushing ever more extreme anti-abortion bills into law, pro-choice groups are afraid to take a case to this Supreme Court, fearing the complete overturn of Roe v. Wade. This could happen, but we need to take our cue from the fearlessness and persistence of the LGBT community. We need to continue to take cases to the Supremes, and we need to find new arguments, just as Burwell did with Obamacare. We can't stop fighting, and we can't let our worry about the bias of all those Catholics on the bench slow us down or even cause us to hesitate. As disappointed as I have been in the women's reproductive health care decisions, it is only by showing our strength that they will eventually be swayed.
So have a good summer vacation, Supremes. We are counting on you to keep us entertained next time around.
To which I did a double take. But when I thought about it, we did have some really significant wins.
The surprise decision was the one that supported the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Surprising in light of the demolition of the Voting Rights Act, which gave states the right the do whatever damn thing they wanted to keep selected groups from voting, and which they wasted no time following through. Chief Justice John Roberts, with his Pollyanna smile, declared there was no need for voting rights protection because racism was dead. Leaving me wondering what rationalizations he made to justify the red-state rush to legalize voter discrimination immediately after the decision.
Not one to ever learn from his mistakes, Roberts was one of the four who voted against supporting the Fair Housing Act. But he did weigh in with us liberals on the case that had my heart beating fast. The state health care exchanges, with federal subsidies, remained intact, leaving a lot of folks like me with our Obamacare. The vote was 6-3, with the core group of idiots, Scalia, Thomas and Alito holding down the right wing-nut opinion.
For those of you who are thinking Roberts may be sliding to the left, his opinion had nothing to do with the rights of Americans to have affordable health care. His decision, just like the one in favor of Obamacare three years ago, was purely pro-business. If you recall back then Roberts' opinion had pretty much everybody's head spinning, including his own. He twisted and corkscrewed the law, arguing not the obvious one that was in question regarding the Commerce Clause, but that the individual mandate was a tax, and the feds were within their constitutional right to levy that tax.
So. I'm thinking Roberts knew quite well that the insurance industry would take a crippling blow if it lost all us customers that could no longer afford health insurance without the federal subsidies. And there are quite a lot of us.
Scalia, on the other hand, and despite his contention that his decisions are based purely on constitutional originalism, consistently bases his decision on what feels good to him. This is the guy, after all, who believes that the devil is a real person. So let's assume logic doesn't have as much to do with his thinking process as he would like us to believe.
Along with his imaginings of the devil and what the founding fathers believed we should be doing all these years later, Scalia has the kind of rigid and fragile psyche that just can't take much confrontation. And so when he writes his dissents (which Chris Hayes noted are extremely wonderful and entertaining, especially because they are dissents) he tends not to sound all that educated, or intelligent, or even rational.
In his dissenting opinion on the Obamacare decision he calls the majority opinion "interpretive jiggery-pokery" and "pure applesauce," legal terms that no doubt go back to the founding fathers. He snipes that since the Court has backed Obamacare in two major decisions, "we should start calling this law SCOTUScare." And in an overwrought, pubescent and melodramatic fit, he sums it up by saying, "Words no longer have meaning...."
Roberts predictably let his right-wing flag fly in the marriage equality decision. No surprise there. It was purely a human rights case, and human rights will not sway our Chief Justice. And I was not at all surprised that Kennedy was the deciding vote in favor of marriage equality, as he has voted in favor of gay rights before.
I'm thinking that a couple of things are happening with the Supremes. Justice Kennedy retains his position as the swing vote. I believe that he is a romantic, and he likes to feel like he is being wooed. It also seems to me that he is easily influenced by the new guys on the block. It happened when Roberts and Alito took up the cause of the right a decade ago, and now we have the left-leaning Kagan and Sotomayor.
Roberts is going to vote pro-business and against human rights. The only individual he is going to support is the individual corporation.
The most fun these days is watching the narcissistic Scalia as he comes apart at the seams. And even better, the more that happens, the less likely Kennedy is likely to want to be seen siding with him, leaving him sitting alone at the cafeteria table with Clarence Thomas and Sammy Alito.
Without taking away from these important victories, though, I am concerned about one group of decisions, those affecting women's privacy and health care rights. Hobby Lobby, which has never blinked about paying for insurance that covers vasectomies, won the right to deny women contraceptive coverage. Even Kagan and Sotomayor voted against a woman's right to be safe from harassment at an abortion clinic, refusing to support a state's right to determine an appropriate buffer zone from protesters.
At this point, with state and federal legislators pushing ever more extreme anti-abortion bills into law, pro-choice groups are afraid to take a case to this Supreme Court, fearing the complete overturn of Roe v. Wade. This could happen, but we need to take our cue from the fearlessness and persistence of the LGBT community. We need to continue to take cases to the Supremes, and we need to find new arguments, just as Burwell did with Obamacare. We can't stop fighting, and we can't let our worry about the bias of all those Catholics on the bench slow us down or even cause us to hesitate. As disappointed as I have been in the women's reproductive health care decisions, it is only by showing our strength that they will eventually be swayed.
So have a good summer vacation, Supremes. We are counting on you to keep us entertained next time around.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Not Too Bright, But Busy
Arlo Guthrie once said about Ronald Reagan that he doesn't mind our President nodding off because, "The more he sleeps, the safer we are."
These days I am wishing that folks like South Carolina state senator Lee Bright would take a few naps. He has been using his pent-up anger and frustration at being passed over for Congress (in favor of the ultra-liberal Lindsey Graham) by redoubling his efforts to fill the state dockets with the same worthless bills he failed to get through in the last legislative session. In fact, he has thus far already sponsored some forty bills.
Why this self-aggrandizing good Christian can't take a break for the Christmas holiday just defeats me. He sure could stand to say a few prayers for guidance.
The bills he has sponsored (and co-sponsored with fellow idiot Larry Grooms) are mostly anti-abortion and pro-gun bills, with a smattering of anti-Obama. Not too bright, and no new ideas, but enough vitriol to keep all his right-wingnut supporters happy -- well, actually, to keep them angry. Maybe if he can raise the level of ugly just a little tiny bit more he'll be able to oust Graham in six more years.
Lee Bright's dream for South Carolina is a state where the fed'ral gub-mint keeps its hands off our weapons, and the state is free to stick its business in women's private parts, if you know what I mean. Don't need the feds to help make sure the women -- and the girls -- stay pregnant and stay home; South Carolina has been fighting hard to maintain that status quo all by its own self.
Here is what I want to know: why do our reasonable legislators (and we really do have some) always seem to be in the position of chasing after the nutcases? People like Lee Bright clog our legislature with destructive bills, bills that attack freedom of religion, right to privacy, the right of licensed medical professionals to provide the best care without government interference, the right to be safe from people of poor judgment carrying weapons, the right to vote. We could wallpaper the State House with bills that seek to prevent the state of South Carolina from having to follow federal laws.
I would like to see our reasonable legislators (have I mentioned that we do have some?) pre-filing bills that would enforce federal health care laws and force the governor to accept Medicaid funding, assure voting rights to all, bills that would require that the government not invade the privacy of women in their doctors' offices, and that medical professionals are allowed to practice freely and without fear of government intervention. How about bills that keep guns out of public places? And bills that require additional police training in use of physical force and weapons so that citizens no longer risk getting shot by a panicked officer as they reach for their license and registration.
We don't need to always be finding ourselves on the defensive. Our legislators need to be as passionate about protecting the rights of South Carolinians as are idiots like Lee Bright about taking away those rights.
So sharpen your pencils and get out the paperwork. Maybe while Lee Bright is at Christmas mass schmoozing with the holy rollers we can get some good bills filed, and give him and his buddies something to keep him so busy he won't have time to file another stupid bill.
These days I am wishing that folks like South Carolina state senator Lee Bright would take a few naps. He has been using his pent-up anger and frustration at being passed over for Congress (in favor of the ultra-liberal Lindsey Graham) by redoubling his efforts to fill the state dockets with the same worthless bills he failed to get through in the last legislative session. In fact, he has thus far already sponsored some forty bills.
Why this self-aggrandizing good Christian can't take a break for the Christmas holiday just defeats me. He sure could stand to say a few prayers for guidance.
The bills he has sponsored (and co-sponsored with fellow idiot Larry Grooms) are mostly anti-abortion and pro-gun bills, with a smattering of anti-Obama. Not too bright, and no new ideas, but enough vitriol to keep all his right-wingnut supporters happy -- well, actually, to keep them angry. Maybe if he can raise the level of ugly just a little tiny bit more he'll be able to oust Graham in six more years.
Lee Bright's dream for South Carolina is a state where the fed'ral gub-mint keeps its hands off our weapons, and the state is free to stick its business in women's private parts, if you know what I mean. Don't need the feds to help make sure the women -- and the girls -- stay pregnant and stay home; South Carolina has been fighting hard to maintain that status quo all by its own self.
 |
| No new ideas from Lee Bright |
I would like to see our reasonable legislators (have I mentioned that we do have some?) pre-filing bills that would enforce federal health care laws and force the governor to accept Medicaid funding, assure voting rights to all, bills that would require that the government not invade the privacy of women in their doctors' offices, and that medical professionals are allowed to practice freely and without fear of government intervention. How about bills that keep guns out of public places? And bills that require additional police training in use of physical force and weapons so that citizens no longer risk getting shot by a panicked officer as they reach for their license and registration.
We don't need to always be finding ourselves on the defensive. Our legislators need to be as passionate about protecting the rights of South Carolinians as are idiots like Lee Bright about taking away those rights.
So sharpen your pencils and get out the paperwork. Maybe while Lee Bright is at Christmas mass schmoozing with the holy rollers we can get some good bills filed, and give him and his buddies something to keep him so busy he won't have time to file another stupid bill.
 |
| Praying for a good idea |
Friday, October 17, 2014
What's In It for Me?
Corporations and their right-wing patsies have figured out that the way to win is to make it all about us, even though it's really not. They make all their pitches about what we have to gain, and more important, what we have to lose, if we don't vote for them. Those of us who don't vote often believe that it won't make a difference, that both parties are the same, that nobody represents them. When we Democrats fail, it is often because we waffle about our principles so that we don't offend anyone, or we talk about them too broadly so they become meaningless to people who are struggling with day to day problems.
There are a lot of differences between the parties and the candidates, and they are not abstract. They reflect the issues we are struggling with every day. Who gets elected in November is going to determine in very real terms whether our lives will get better or we will just get by. This election affects dramatically every person of every age.
So here it is, the pitch:
College graduates: Republicans are opposed to allowing the refinancing of student loans, forcing graduates to carry high-interest rate loans for years. This means being strapped with debt before they have even been able to make their way in the workforce. The high interest loans involved are either owned or guaranteed by the federal government, so this is money that our government is making from what should be an investment in a student's future. Debt from everything from mortgages to credit cards can be refinanced. Big banks are allowed to borrow at 0 percent from the government. Why are students forced to pay exorbitant rates on their loans? Because the Republicans do not want to increase taxes on the millionaires and billionaires that fund their campaigns.
Women: Oh, so many issues are so critical for the well-being of women in South Carolina. Our state and federal legislators continue to force votes that would prevent women from accessing affordable birth control. Preventing women from having family planning will result in not just unplanned pregnancies, but the stress involved with not being able to control decisions about college, jobs and marriage. It will result in job insecurity. Men should be outraged that legislators would remove from the family decisions that so directly effect emotional and financial well-being.
Parents: School choice is the pseudonym for privatizing. Basically all the many schemes offered provide inadequate financial allotments to most while the wealthy can continue to send their children to the expensive private schools. This false promise also drains money from a public school system that has never been funded adequately here in South Carolina.
Seniors: Republican fear mongering about Social Security and Medicare is also all about privatization. Back in the '80's, social security cuts were enabled by the promise of IRA's, which were supposed to herald in a future of wealth and prosperity, but actually just made us all vulnerable to the greed and speculation of Wall Street. This false promise also allowed corporations to bargain away our pensions. Cuts to Medicare have and will continue to damage a system that was once a great safety net, forcing seniors to spend more on health care at a time when they should not have to worry about whether they will be able to pay to survive.
So many issues:
Food Stamps: Too many people are working and not earning a living wage. Food stamps not only feeds the poor, but keeps dollars flowing in our communities.
Medicaid: Not wanting everyone to have health insurance is just plain cruel. But it is also stupid. Even without the panic over Ebola, the inability to treat a medical problem before a contagion spreads, or a treatable illness becomes terminal, is costly as well as inhumane. And again, providing health care also provides jobs to our communities.
Minimum Wage: All the arguments against raising the minimum wage are really about not wanting to raise the wages of those who are making more than minimum. Because Republicans really do know that a rising tide lifts all boats. What they really don't want to see is all wages rise in response to the raise in the minimum wage. Greedy and stupid? Sure, but these are the politics we have been suffering under since the 80's. If you are not working for minimum wage, and you're still struggling, you should be fighting -- and voting -- for raising the minimum wage. And again, raising the minimum wage puts more dollars into the pockets of those who will spend it in their communities. So if you are a business person, you too should be wanting everyone in your community to be making a living wage.
Voting Rights: We all know people who won't be voting because they are afraid they will be confronted (and embarrassed) at the polls. Let's get out there and vote to protect everybody's rights and elect people who will not need to use intimidation to win.
Gun Control: Those who are most vulnerable in general tend to live in areas where there is more danger of gun violence. The Second Amendment argument is pure nonsense. But the mostly republican lawmakers who refuse to make the streets safe for all our citizens need to be voted out of office. Our police officers should be voting for legislators who support reasonable gun controls; their lives are on the line as well. And with shootings by officers in the news, we know that the more guns on the streets, the more stressful the job, and the more likely they will have to live (or die) based on a split second decision.
I could go on and on. There are so many issues that really do affect us every single day. I urge our candidates to talk to people not about issues that don't seem relevant to them, but to relate the legislation they would pursue to what it means for each of us, every day. And when we talk to others about the upcoming election, if we talk about how each issue ripples out to affect us all, we might just motivate people to get out and vote.
There are a lot of differences between the parties and the candidates, and they are not abstract. They reflect the issues we are struggling with every day. Who gets elected in November is going to determine in very real terms whether our lives will get better or we will just get by. This election affects dramatically every person of every age.
So here it is, the pitch:
College graduates: Republicans are opposed to allowing the refinancing of student loans, forcing graduates to carry high-interest rate loans for years. This means being strapped with debt before they have even been able to make their way in the workforce. The high interest loans involved are either owned or guaranteed by the federal government, so this is money that our government is making from what should be an investment in a student's future. Debt from everything from mortgages to credit cards can be refinanced. Big banks are allowed to borrow at 0 percent from the government. Why are students forced to pay exorbitant rates on their loans? Because the Republicans do not want to increase taxes on the millionaires and billionaires that fund their campaigns.
Women: Oh, so many issues are so critical for the well-being of women in South Carolina. Our state and federal legislators continue to force votes that would prevent women from accessing affordable birth control. Preventing women from having family planning will result in not just unplanned pregnancies, but the stress involved with not being able to control decisions about college, jobs and marriage. It will result in job insecurity. Men should be outraged that legislators would remove from the family decisions that so directly effect emotional and financial well-being.
Parents: School choice is the pseudonym for privatizing. Basically all the many schemes offered provide inadequate financial allotments to most while the wealthy can continue to send their children to the expensive private schools. This false promise also drains money from a public school system that has never been funded adequately here in South Carolina.
Seniors: Republican fear mongering about Social Security and Medicare is also all about privatization. Back in the '80's, social security cuts were enabled by the promise of IRA's, which were supposed to herald in a future of wealth and prosperity, but actually just made us all vulnerable to the greed and speculation of Wall Street. This false promise also allowed corporations to bargain away our pensions. Cuts to Medicare have and will continue to damage a system that was once a great safety net, forcing seniors to spend more on health care at a time when they should not have to worry about whether they will be able to pay to survive.
So many issues:
Food Stamps: Too many people are working and not earning a living wage. Food stamps not only feeds the poor, but keeps dollars flowing in our communities.
Medicaid: Not wanting everyone to have health insurance is just plain cruel. But it is also stupid. Even without the panic over Ebola, the inability to treat a medical problem before a contagion spreads, or a treatable illness becomes terminal, is costly as well as inhumane. And again, providing health care also provides jobs to our communities.
Minimum Wage: All the arguments against raising the minimum wage are really about not wanting to raise the wages of those who are making more than minimum. Because Republicans really do know that a rising tide lifts all boats. What they really don't want to see is all wages rise in response to the raise in the minimum wage. Greedy and stupid? Sure, but these are the politics we have been suffering under since the 80's. If you are not working for minimum wage, and you're still struggling, you should be fighting -- and voting -- for raising the minimum wage. And again, raising the minimum wage puts more dollars into the pockets of those who will spend it in their communities. So if you are a business person, you too should be wanting everyone in your community to be making a living wage.
Voting Rights: We all know people who won't be voting because they are afraid they will be confronted (and embarrassed) at the polls. Let's get out there and vote to protect everybody's rights and elect people who will not need to use intimidation to win.
Gun Control: Those who are most vulnerable in general tend to live in areas where there is more danger of gun violence. The Second Amendment argument is pure nonsense. But the mostly republican lawmakers who refuse to make the streets safe for all our citizens need to be voted out of office. Our police officers should be voting for legislators who support reasonable gun controls; their lives are on the line as well. And with shootings by officers in the news, we know that the more guns on the streets, the more stressful the job, and the more likely they will have to live (or die) based on a split second decision.
I could go on and on. There are so many issues that really do affect us every single day. I urge our candidates to talk to people not about issues that don't seem relevant to them, but to relate the legislation they would pursue to what it means for each of us, every day. And when we talk to others about the upcoming election, if we talk about how each issue ripples out to affect us all, we might just motivate people to get out and vote.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Loyalty
Forget about the elephant and the donkey. Imagine instead a growling rottweiler and a houseful of scrappy cats.
Like most Democrats, I am proud of our willingness to think independently. But this has also become our Achilles' heel. We mostly go about our business and believe strongly in what we believe in, and acknowledge that others may have a different opinion, and we all have the right to live by our beliefs as long as they don't interfere with another's rights. We also tend not to go out of our way to fight for interest groups other than our own.
So we have ended up each of us on an island, fighting our own battles, while being outfunded and inevitably outvoted by a group that knows how to unite. No matter the anti-abortion faction, in the name of being "pro-life," stands by the gun lobby. And those who are absolutely rabid about cutting the deficit will wholeheartedly support spending whatever it takes to "protect our borders." Small business owners donate to politicians whose raison d'etre is channeling government money to big corporations. Here you see united the anti-government forces with those who try to pass laws against blacks (voter ID), the poor (Food Stamps), women (contraception and abortion), LGBT (gay marriage).
And among all those contradictions, they all stand firmly behind their brand: the GOP.
Meanwhile, corporations control our government while we scrabble to keep or win individual freedoms, each of us fighting our own battles.
Here in South Carolina, our Democratic politicians are afraid to speak of contraception, abortion, sex education. They throw around phrases like workers rights and job creation without ever uttering that foul and frightening word "union." Black voters are so aware of the deck being stacked against them that many don't vote; women pretend that their bodies are not being violated by laws that would force them to carry a pregnancy to term or deny access to contraception, as well as by the fact that the anti-abortion movement has pronounced their mission as sacred, declaring the rest of us to be sinners carrying the banner of satan.
We should be united. The abortion fight is about whether the government should have the power to decide a woman's medical decisions. The immigration battle is about whether the government has the right to stalk and detain those who "look different." The battle for LGBT rights is about the government choosing which citizens get individual rights and which don't. The voter ID fight is to keep those in power who will take away the freedoms of all of the above. As is the demonization and outlawing of unions.
Because we are not united, we are constantly being attacked, from all sides, and end up lost and demoralized.
We need to be unafraid not just to stand up for our own rights, but for all individual rights. The African American community needs to stand by women's right to reproductive privacy, and the the unions need to stand by the LGBT community, and their rights to the same liberties as us all. We all need to fight for the right to vote, because we are really all in this together.
This upcoming election season, we need to demand courage from our politicians. We need to demand that they support ALL of us, fearlessly. And we need our politicians to unite when they run for office, rather than continue to behave like a clutter of cats.
And we need to see our politicians stop being willing to sell us out, one constituency against another, or as they like to call it, "reaching across the aisle."
Let's start forming some coalitions, and working for each other as well as ourselves. If they don't vote for us here in SC, well, they probably weren't going to anyway. And at least we will be able to be proud to be Democrats.
And when we stand together and fearless, well, you never know what will happen.
Like most Democrats, I am proud of our willingness to think independently. But this has also become our Achilles' heel. We mostly go about our business and believe strongly in what we believe in, and acknowledge that others may have a different opinion, and we all have the right to live by our beliefs as long as they don't interfere with another's rights. We also tend not to go out of our way to fight for interest groups other than our own.
So we have ended up each of us on an island, fighting our own battles, while being outfunded and inevitably outvoted by a group that knows how to unite. No matter the anti-abortion faction, in the name of being "pro-life," stands by the gun lobby. And those who are absolutely rabid about cutting the deficit will wholeheartedly support spending whatever it takes to "protect our borders." Small business owners donate to politicians whose raison d'etre is channeling government money to big corporations. Here you see united the anti-government forces with those who try to pass laws against blacks (voter ID), the poor (Food Stamps), women (contraception and abortion), LGBT (gay marriage).
And among all those contradictions, they all stand firmly behind their brand: the GOP.
Meanwhile, corporations control our government while we scrabble to keep or win individual freedoms, each of us fighting our own battles.
Here in South Carolina, our Democratic politicians are afraid to speak of contraception, abortion, sex education. They throw around phrases like workers rights and job creation without ever uttering that foul and frightening word "union." Black voters are so aware of the deck being stacked against them that many don't vote; women pretend that their bodies are not being violated by laws that would force them to carry a pregnancy to term or deny access to contraception, as well as by the fact that the anti-abortion movement has pronounced their mission as sacred, declaring the rest of us to be sinners carrying the banner of satan.
We should be united. The abortion fight is about whether the government should have the power to decide a woman's medical decisions. The immigration battle is about whether the government has the right to stalk and detain those who "look different." The battle for LGBT rights is about the government choosing which citizens get individual rights and which don't. The voter ID fight is to keep those in power who will take away the freedoms of all of the above. As is the demonization and outlawing of unions.
Because we are not united, we are constantly being attacked, from all sides, and end up lost and demoralized.
We need to be unafraid not just to stand up for our own rights, but for all individual rights. The African American community needs to stand by women's right to reproductive privacy, and the the unions need to stand by the LGBT community, and their rights to the same liberties as us all. We all need to fight for the right to vote, because we are really all in this together.
This upcoming election season, we need to demand courage from our politicians. We need to demand that they support ALL of us, fearlessly. And we need our politicians to unite when they run for office, rather than continue to behave like a clutter of cats.
And we need to see our politicians stop being willing to sell us out, one constituency against another, or as they like to call it, "reaching across the aisle."
Let's start forming some coalitions, and working for each other as well as ourselves. If they don't vote for us here in SC, well, they probably weren't going to anyway. And at least we will be able to be proud to be Democrats.
And when we stand together and fearless, well, you never know what will happen.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
On Voting Matters
Under the heading of "Your Tax Dollars at Work" our own Governor Haley has us down to the wire with her costly appeal of the US Attorney General's blocking of last year's even more costly Voter ID law. The Federal Court heard arguments just days ago, and will likely not have a decision until October.
That leaves too many registered voters, mostly older, who have been voting for years not knowing whether they will be allowed to vote in this election.
Shameful.
But there is a loophole that Haley and her minions have not yet closed.
Registered voters who are eligible to vote absentee, and do so by mail, need only to apply for absentee voting status by filling out a form which is available online, or by calling. They will then receive a ballot in the mail. After they fill out the ballot, they must sign the back of the envelope.
Once a person has applied for absentee voting status, they cannot then vote at the polls, even if the Voter ID law is overturned. But this is a way for those who are concerned about the law and their right to vote in this election to be assured that their vote will count.
Also important, ex-prisoners who have served their time have the right to vote BUT they need to contact their county voter registration office to alert them that they are no longer in prison, otherwise they are likely to be turned away on election day.
Since the fiasco over state requirements for candidate applications, and the resulting number of petition candidates, the question arises as to just how to vote for a petition candidate.
It is possible to vote a straight ticket, and then change one or more single votes. This is important, for example, for those Democratic voters who want to vote for Carol Tempel for SC House 115. No need to mark each individual box; just pull that big lever (or whatever we need to do electronically), and then also check off Tempel's name.
Now here's a little humor. Somebody somewhere started a rumor that it is necessary to first vote for president, separately, and then vote the straight ticket. Now I wonder where that rumor might have come from (Romney-phobic republican candidates perhaps?).
Questions about Voting Rights?
http://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-south-carolina-voter-information
http://scvotes.org/
That leaves too many registered voters, mostly older, who have been voting for years not knowing whether they will be allowed to vote in this election.
Shameful.
But there is a loophole that Haley and her minions have not yet closed.
Registered voters who are eligible to vote absentee, and do so by mail, need only to apply for absentee voting status by filling out a form which is available online, or by calling. They will then receive a ballot in the mail. After they fill out the ballot, they must sign the back of the envelope.
Once a person has applied for absentee voting status, they cannot then vote at the polls, even if the Voter ID law is overturned. But this is a way for those who are concerned about the law and their right to vote in this election to be assured that their vote will count.
Also important, ex-prisoners who have served their time have the right to vote BUT they need to contact their county voter registration office to alert them that they are no longer in prison, otherwise they are likely to be turned away on election day.
Since the fiasco over state requirements for candidate applications, and the resulting number of petition candidates, the question arises as to just how to vote for a petition candidate.
It is possible to vote a straight ticket, and then change one or more single votes. This is important, for example, for those Democratic voters who want to vote for Carol Tempel for SC House 115. No need to mark each individual box; just pull that big lever (or whatever we need to do electronically), and then also check off Tempel's name.
Now here's a little humor. Somebody somewhere started a rumor that it is necessary to first vote for president, separately, and then vote the straight ticket. Now I wonder where that rumor might have come from (Romney-phobic republican candidates perhaps?).
Questions about Voting Rights?
http://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-south-carolina-voter-information
http://scvotes.org/
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