Today, more than 100 scholars who study democracy issued a letter warning that “our entire democracy is now at risk.” The letter explains that the new election laws in Republican-led states, passed with the justification that they will make elections safer, in fact are turning “several states into political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.”
As an American living in Australia, I can tell you that the comments in the scholarly letter regarding other countries attracting America's best and brightest (and those with money to invest) to emigrate is real. New Zealand is actively taking this course of action and why not? NZ (and Australia if they would wake up to the opportunity) can offer democratic stability, relatively strong economies, rational government intervention in society (look at the pandemic response), high-quality affordable nationalized health care, great public transportation, almost no gun crime, public investment in beautiful public spaces, spectacular natural areas ....the list goes on. It has been painful to watch the decline of America under the previous administration (he who shall go unnamed) and while as an optimist I have to believe the decline can be reversed, it will take a huge effort. It is a shame that is has gotten to this- my Australian friends (who universally admire America) can't believe what they see before their eyes. The world needs America as it sees itself - the old (and getting a bit worn) "beacon on a hill" metaphor. If that light goes out, where will the world look?
We forget how important the "bully pulpit" is. In my view Biden is handling it very well in his low key but unmistakably firm, non inflammatory manner. Now, it is up to the Democratic leadership in the House and in the Senate as to what to do next. I think it will be necessary to suspend the filibuster, a parliamentary procedure in the Senate used for over 100 years to restrict voting rights for all. I cannot imagine a more fitting reason to suspend it than to obtain voting rights for all who wish to vote and to assure an accurate vote count. Our democracy depends on the outcome of this fight. The current Republican Party has abandoned its support of democracy and with the exception of a few Republicans in the House and even fewer in the Senate and, of course, a great number of former Republican elected officials, cannot be trusted as a partner in the venture of obtaining voting rights for all. It is wonderful that Biden has given the important work of coordinating the fight for equal voting rights to the Vice President. This is a powerful statement on his part. While I am at it, I want to say how right it is that Biden is not touching any of the delusional material coming from the ex President and from the Republican base. In treating delusional patients, psychiatrists learn early on not to directly challenge the person with the delusion, nor do they agree about the delusional idea, but they patiently work with those around the patient to produce a healing atmosphere and wait until the delusional person gradually comes into their right mind.
An invaluable review and measured assessment of the historical highlights of the day, Prof. HCR. Thank you!
I wonder why the scholars took this long to pen their concerns. While it is not my place to critique their motives for this time and this day (1st June, 2021), their timing fits in splendidly with President Biden's words and actions -- almost as though they were choreographed to bring his presidency to its climax a mere four months since its inception and as a counter pirouette to 45's acceptance of a new insurgence to place him on the throne of his imagination.
The names Manchin and Sinema will, no doubt, go down in history as semi-insurgents in this fight for democracy. They couldn't have been as effective had they been Republican plants, which, to my mind, appears to be a likely scenario. How can any Democrats be so determined to undermine their party's survival?
President Biden's speeches on this 1st June, 2021, give me hope that his leadership will be filled with the vim and vigor of a founding parent -- a mama bear who will protect her cubs and her freedom at all costs! And I am willing to give heart and soul to the unfolding of his vision. In the words of my college's signatory battle cry: Audeamus, Let Us Dare!
Martin Luther King said we have 3 evils to contend with. Racism, militarism and poverty (economic exploitation). All 3 are tightly wound up in our corporatocracy , our oligarchy. Exactly where did the significant funds come from that support and supported those Republican legislators behind the insurrection, the traitorous drive in States to limit the vote and discount the voice of the people? What has been the role of the Chamber of Commerce and ALEC? Can we have a genuine democracy with flourishing monopolies, an unnatural, obscene wealth gap, corporations buying up large swaths of real estate, corporations paying no taxes, and where inherited mega wealth creates a class with assured guaranteed unearned political power? I look forward to the day when Americans are given a big green light to have the kind of serious discussions about our contemporary form of capitalism attendant to the required structural reforms.
Remember when the POSer POtuS made a disparaging comment about “Shithole Nations?” Well, because of him and the Repugnant Party the U.S. has become a Shithole Nation. And, as I reflect on my ¾ century of experience, despite the lies otherwise, I grew up in a Shithole Nation. And now, as the lies come to lite I see us crumbling into disarray worse than the Third World nations I visited in the 1970s.
“As a nation spirals downward, the political scientists, sociologists, and government scholars explain, ‘violence and corruption typically flourish,’...” As Bob Dylan sang in 1965 “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Almost daily for the past month there has been a fatal shooting or mass shooting in South Florida, and tho we lead the nation we are not alone in this senseless violence. We are a nation at war with itself and on the ‘eve of destruction.’
It is comforting to hear President Biden finally say what every liberal voice has been saying for months – forget the facade of “bipartisan,” and try to find a way to go it alone to get the necessary job done. You cannot negotiate with the fascist Repugnant Party. Mitch McConnell has said as much and there are too many insane cult followers within that party to have any meaningful dialogue. They are too busy catering to their ignorant cult base, literally the barbarians at the gates of democracy as they were on January 6.
Dear Heather -- I don't mean this to be a public comment -- I'm a subscriber, and a musician. I wrote a song that was released yesterday that I'm hoping will help people have a better summer than expected -- it's called, "The Best Summer." I think your subscribers would find it soothing and maybe even inspiring. Hope you will have your best summer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIWsJgfq_Nw
It is disheartening and exhausting every day to watch these evil greedy almost inhuman beings lead these easily influenced haters down the path of destroying our Democracy. They would rather burn it all down that build it up with all. I am sadly not certain what we the majority can do to stop this madness. But do something we Must. I donate, call, speak up and try to have a positive influence. But these evil racist hear nothing but their own voices and those that say what they agree with. Their way will destroy our country. We must find a way to help pass the For the People Act. Call not only your Senators but ALL of them. Keep up the pressure. Jo Manchin and Kyrsten Cinema are enemies in the fight we must turn them toward democracy. Let them know that we are all watching. We must not allow McConnell and his crew to block our freedoms any longer.
I am glad that Biden is finally disputing the zero-sum game language that Repugnants consistently use. This is not just a problem in politics. The notion of the zero-sum game has been the tool that has oppressed all underrepresented minorities and majorities (i.e. women, who make up more than 50% of the population). When, in the previous "recovery" (substantially blocked by the Right) after the Great Recession, women returned to the workforce in greater numbers than men--at least initially--the right-wingers complained that white men were being kept away from jobs because they were going to all . . . those . . . women. It was not that at all: women returned to work first because the lower-wage service jobs that women are typically compelled to take were the first jobs to return (the Wal-Mart clerk type jobs). Now, as millions of women are still unable to return to work because they lack appropriate chid care and elder care, the Repugnants are totes fine with that--they don't see the utility of adding child and elder care to definitions of infrastructure because, as overwhelmingly privileged white guys, they have their Stepford Wives doing all that stuff for them. And if defining child and elder care as infrastructure would also mean that women who are BIPOC and AAPI could return to work and get paid a living wage--often as (duh) child and elder care providers--then they don't want any part of it. Because the entire purpose of every. single. initiative of the Ghastly Obstructionist Party is designed to suppress and oppress the people Biden and Harris are deliberately and vocally trying to lift up.
Thank for summing up today's events. It was a monumental day for Biden and for Harris too. Mostly, it was for Greenwood to have a president show up for the first time in history to denounce the massacre. It’s way past time for reparations. There are still three individuals who witnessed the devastation and are alive. That, in itself, is simply remarkable!
As far as Manchin and Sinema are concerned, their feet must be held to the fire until they cry “uncle”. Democracy must find a home again. As it stands now, all of our voting rights are threatened. RISE UP!
There is something most people interested in throttling voters' rights are not saying OR they don't understand. Right now, the thrust is voter ID to make sure that "only qualified" voters can cast a ballot. Obviously, it's not a legitimate issue because very few people cast fraudulent ballots. But what happens after the Republicans push through the various voting restrictions they're now hell bent on passing? Is the next campaign going to be level of education or property ownership or sex or religious affiliation? Will there be a maximum voting age? This is what so many eager to restrict voting don't understand - there is nothing to stop the Republicans (or anyone else) from adding multiple layers of restrictions thereby ensuring, for example, that only white, college educated, Christian, male property owners, between the ages of 18 & ?, have the right to vote. In this day and age, those people willing to curtail the individual rights of "the other" simply do not understand that they could be the next class of people to have their right to vote, and other rights, yanked away from them. Everyday Republicans need to look at the big picture and not just the tiny vignette being presented by those in power today.
Thanks for this crucial letter, for giving everyone a heads up and for the warning that we must not shrivel in our current situation. It's hard to hold hope and grief togehter in our hearts, such disparate pieces have to be held. We're in trouble (as you say Heather) and every small effort by everyone and anyone towards our liberties does count. I'm so glad you are here Heather and rowing this boat with us.
The Letter from an American began today with Heather noting that more than 100 scholars who study democracy wrote a 'Statement of Concern'. Their statement ended with 'Our democracy is fundamentally at stake.' Read their statement without fail. It speaks to our understanding as citizens, our fears, our hopes and our determination to persevere.
From the scholars' concern, the Letter continued with Biden's trip to Tulsa yesterday on the 100 year anniversary of the race massacre, which took place there. An unknown number of Black Americans were killed in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 31 and June 1st, 1921. '... mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and burned businesses ...' Alternatively known as the Black Wall Street massacre or the Tulsa race riot, it marks one of "the single worst incident(s) of racial violence in American history". '... The attack, carried out on the ground and from private aircraft, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district – at that time the wealthiest Black community in the United States...'
'More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals, and as many as 6,000 Black residents were interned in large facilities,...'
'About 10,000 Black people were left homeless, ...' 'Many survivors left Tulsa, while Black and White residents who stayed in the city kept silent about the terror, violence, and resulting losses for decades. The massacre was largely omitted from local, state, and national histories.' (Wikipedia)
After reading Heather's Letter, I thought first about slavery in America and then Jim Crow. 'Jim Crow was the name of a minstrel routine (actually Jump Jim Crow).' (Britannica) Jim Crow laws were state and local laws and statutes in the South, which enforced or legalized racial segregation and the oppression of Black Americans. 'These laws lasted for almost 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until around 1968, ...' (gcsu. edu)
'In Tulsa today, Biden called the Republican efforts to restrict voting a “truly unprecedented assault on our democracy.” He urged voting rights groups to redouble their efforts to register and educate voters, and then he put pressure on Democratic senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), who continue to say they will not challenge the Republican use of the filibuster to stop passage of voting rights bills.' (The Letter)
'Trump has reportedly been telling people he'll be 'reinstated' by August' (Yahoo News). Yes, our life as a Democracy will take voting rights groups and Democratic senators, such as Manchin and Sinema, but, most of all, it will take the American people to stop the Big Lie, the Republican moves to steal the rights of the American people as well as those who have accepted the lies, Dark Money, conspiracy theories and White Supremacy, which continue to keep America from fulfilling its purpose.
“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Since it appears that Manchin and Sinema will remain true to the people who fund them and not the people they supposedly represent it will take the likes of Romney, Murkowski ,Collins and a few others to cross the aisle (all unlikely) to get rid of the filibuster and to pass any legislation, but most of all currently the For the People Act. There are constitutional ways to overthrow the plethora of voter suppression laws in the pipeline right now. Sadly the ACLU can't be everywhere all the time.
As the country starts to come to grips with things that we were not taught in school...Tulsa, lynchings, Jim Crow, Trail of Tears, the government sanctioned school that removed indigenous children from their families and oft times killed them. Do not think that the current outcry over what happened in Canada to those 215 children was limited to Canada. We need critical race theory not because it teaches children to hate our country, but because it teaches our children to realize that we are human, have made mistakes and that being white is not a reason for superiority.
2021 and the literature suggests that American elections are not free and fair. What a disgrace for this country. Born and raised in the US. Travelled extensively - both professionally and personally. I never backed American exceptionalism. How does one believe we are the greatest country in the world when you have never left Arizona? Indiana? Wherever? When dumpster fire was elected in 2016, I set myself a goal to move out of the country. Those plans are still in place. It isn’t that I won’t fight, it’s that the fight is taking the life out of me and I want to live not fight. I’m so tired of fighting for equal rights across any number of issues. But I know for now, we can’t give up or in. Not yet anyhow . . .
Yesterday on "Deadline Whitehouse," MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson took President Biden to task for his comments about the Greenwood Massacre, saying that Biden was apparently "surprised" and should not have been at that horrific history of homeland violence and wholesale murder. If I had the chance to speak to JJ myself, I would have to confess to him that NOTHING was ever said about that massacre in any of my years of schooling and the same can be said of everyone I know. Then, later on, as Joy Reid was interviewing the new Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, she mentioned to her almost in passing (because Nikki Fried had commented on the Greenwood Massacre) that there had been a similar attack in Florida. So, here I go again, confessing that I have never heard of this one either. I am wondering now how many other such atrocities have gone on over the years that were never spoken of, never written about, never acknowledged?
As for the appointment of Kamala Harris to take on the protection of our voting rights, I can't think of a better person. I'd put her up against the likes of Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott any old day. Those jerks may have "legal" backgrounds, but both are crooks and numbskulls and she has a long track record of putting folks like them behind bars. I don't know how she'll manage Manchin and Sinema (who either have lost their minds or are in some sort of devil's league with the trumplican party) and the other Dem senators, who it seems are hiding behind the M&S coattails and allowing those two to take the heat, when in reality, there are others who will not vote for the For the People Act.
As an American living in Australia, I can tell you that the comments in the scholarly letter regarding other countries attracting America's best and brightest (and those with money to invest) to emigrate is real. New Zealand is actively taking this course of action and why not? NZ (and Australia if they would wake up to the opportunity) can offer democratic stability, relatively strong economies, rational government intervention in society (look at the pandemic response), high-quality affordable nationalized health care, great public transportation, almost no gun crime, public investment in beautiful public spaces, spectacular natural areas ....the list goes on. It has been painful to watch the decline of America under the previous administration (he who shall go unnamed) and while as an optimist I have to believe the decline can be reversed, it will take a huge effort. It is a shame that is has gotten to this- my Australian friends (who universally admire America) can't believe what they see before their eyes. The world needs America as it sees itself - the old (and getting a bit worn) "beacon on a hill" metaphor. If that light goes out, where will the world look?
Thanks for what you do.
We forget how important the "bully pulpit" is. In my view Biden is handling it very well in his low key but unmistakably firm, non inflammatory manner. Now, it is up to the Democratic leadership in the House and in the Senate as to what to do next. I think it will be necessary to suspend the filibuster, a parliamentary procedure in the Senate used for over 100 years to restrict voting rights for all. I cannot imagine a more fitting reason to suspend it than to obtain voting rights for all who wish to vote and to assure an accurate vote count. Our democracy depends on the outcome of this fight. The current Republican Party has abandoned its support of democracy and with the exception of a few Republicans in the House and even fewer in the Senate and, of course, a great number of former Republican elected officials, cannot be trusted as a partner in the venture of obtaining voting rights for all. It is wonderful that Biden has given the important work of coordinating the fight for equal voting rights to the Vice President. This is a powerful statement on his part. While I am at it, I want to say how right it is that Biden is not touching any of the delusional material coming from the ex President and from the Republican base. In treating delusional patients, psychiatrists learn early on not to directly challenge the person with the delusion, nor do they agree about the delusional idea, but they patiently work with those around the patient to produce a healing atmosphere and wait until the delusional person gradually comes into their right mind.
An invaluable review and measured assessment of the historical highlights of the day, Prof. HCR. Thank you!
I wonder why the scholars took this long to pen their concerns. While it is not my place to critique their motives for this time and this day (1st June, 2021), their timing fits in splendidly with President Biden's words and actions -- almost as though they were choreographed to bring his presidency to its climax a mere four months since its inception and as a counter pirouette to 45's acceptance of a new insurgence to place him on the throne of his imagination.
The names Manchin and Sinema will, no doubt, go down in history as semi-insurgents in this fight for democracy. They couldn't have been as effective had they been Republican plants, which, to my mind, appears to be a likely scenario. How can any Democrats be so determined to undermine their party's survival?
President Biden's speeches on this 1st June, 2021, give me hope that his leadership will be filled with the vim and vigor of a founding parent -- a mama bear who will protect her cubs and her freedom at all costs! And I am willing to give heart and soul to the unfolding of his vision. In the words of my college's signatory battle cry: Audeamus, Let Us Dare!
Martin Luther King said we have 3 evils to contend with. Racism, militarism and poverty (economic exploitation). All 3 are tightly wound up in our corporatocracy , our oligarchy. Exactly where did the significant funds come from that support and supported those Republican legislators behind the insurrection, the traitorous drive in States to limit the vote and discount the voice of the people? What has been the role of the Chamber of Commerce and ALEC? Can we have a genuine democracy with flourishing monopolies, an unnatural, obscene wealth gap, corporations buying up large swaths of real estate, corporations paying no taxes, and where inherited mega wealth creates a class with assured guaranteed unearned political power? I look forward to the day when Americans are given a big green light to have the kind of serious discussions about our contemporary form of capitalism attendant to the required structural reforms.
Remember when the POSer POtuS made a disparaging comment about “Shithole Nations?” Well, because of him and the Repugnant Party the U.S. has become a Shithole Nation. And, as I reflect on my ¾ century of experience, despite the lies otherwise, I grew up in a Shithole Nation. And now, as the lies come to lite I see us crumbling into disarray worse than the Third World nations I visited in the 1970s.
“As a nation spirals downward, the political scientists, sociologists, and government scholars explain, ‘violence and corruption typically flourish,’...” As Bob Dylan sang in 1965 “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Almost daily for the past month there has been a fatal shooting or mass shooting in South Florida, and tho we lead the nation we are not alone in this senseless violence. We are a nation at war with itself and on the ‘eve of destruction.’
It is comforting to hear President Biden finally say what every liberal voice has been saying for months – forget the facade of “bipartisan,” and try to find a way to go it alone to get the necessary job done. You cannot negotiate with the fascist Repugnant Party. Mitch McConnell has said as much and there are too many insane cult followers within that party to have any meaningful dialogue. They are too busy catering to their ignorant cult base, literally the barbarians at the gates of democracy as they were on January 6.
Dear Heather -- I don't mean this to be a public comment -- I'm a subscriber, and a musician. I wrote a song that was released yesterday that I'm hoping will help people have a better summer than expected -- it's called, "The Best Summer." I think your subscribers would find it soothing and maybe even inspiring. Hope you will have your best summer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIWsJgfq_Nw
It is disheartening and exhausting every day to watch these evil greedy almost inhuman beings lead these easily influenced haters down the path of destroying our Democracy. They would rather burn it all down that build it up with all. I am sadly not certain what we the majority can do to stop this madness. But do something we Must. I donate, call, speak up and try to have a positive influence. But these evil racist hear nothing but their own voices and those that say what they agree with. Their way will destroy our country. We must find a way to help pass the For the People Act. Call not only your Senators but ALL of them. Keep up the pressure. Jo Manchin and Kyrsten Cinema are enemies in the fight we must turn them toward democracy. Let them know that we are all watching. We must not allow McConnell and his crew to block our freedoms any longer.
I am glad that Biden is finally disputing the zero-sum game language that Repugnants consistently use. This is not just a problem in politics. The notion of the zero-sum game has been the tool that has oppressed all underrepresented minorities and majorities (i.e. women, who make up more than 50% of the population). When, in the previous "recovery" (substantially blocked by the Right) after the Great Recession, women returned to the workforce in greater numbers than men--at least initially--the right-wingers complained that white men were being kept away from jobs because they were going to all . . . those . . . women. It was not that at all: women returned to work first because the lower-wage service jobs that women are typically compelled to take were the first jobs to return (the Wal-Mart clerk type jobs). Now, as millions of women are still unable to return to work because they lack appropriate chid care and elder care, the Repugnants are totes fine with that--they don't see the utility of adding child and elder care to definitions of infrastructure because, as overwhelmingly privileged white guys, they have their Stepford Wives doing all that stuff for them. And if defining child and elder care as infrastructure would also mean that women who are BIPOC and AAPI could return to work and get paid a living wage--often as (duh) child and elder care providers--then they don't want any part of it. Because the entire purpose of every. single. initiative of the Ghastly Obstructionist Party is designed to suppress and oppress the people Biden and Harris are deliberately and vocally trying to lift up.
Thank for summing up today's events. It was a monumental day for Biden and for Harris too. Mostly, it was for Greenwood to have a president show up for the first time in history to denounce the massacre. It’s way past time for reparations. There are still three individuals who witnessed the devastation and are alive. That, in itself, is simply remarkable!
As far as Manchin and Sinema are concerned, their feet must be held to the fire until they cry “uncle”. Democracy must find a home again. As it stands now, all of our voting rights are threatened. RISE UP!
There is something most people interested in throttling voters' rights are not saying OR they don't understand. Right now, the thrust is voter ID to make sure that "only qualified" voters can cast a ballot. Obviously, it's not a legitimate issue because very few people cast fraudulent ballots. But what happens after the Republicans push through the various voting restrictions they're now hell bent on passing? Is the next campaign going to be level of education or property ownership or sex or religious affiliation? Will there be a maximum voting age? This is what so many eager to restrict voting don't understand - there is nothing to stop the Republicans (or anyone else) from adding multiple layers of restrictions thereby ensuring, for example, that only white, college educated, Christian, male property owners, between the ages of 18 & ?, have the right to vote. In this day and age, those people willing to curtail the individual rights of "the other" simply do not understand that they could be the next class of people to have their right to vote, and other rights, yanked away from them. Everyday Republicans need to look at the big picture and not just the tiny vignette being presented by those in power today.
Thanks for this crucial letter, for giving everyone a heads up and for the warning that we must not shrivel in our current situation. It's hard to hold hope and grief togehter in our hearts, such disparate pieces have to be held. We're in trouble (as you say Heather) and every small effort by everyone and anyone towards our liberties does count. I'm so glad you are here Heather and rowing this boat with us.
The Letter from an American began today with Heather noting that more than 100 scholars who study democracy wrote a 'Statement of Concern'. Their statement ended with 'Our democracy is fundamentally at stake.' Read their statement without fail. It speaks to our understanding as citizens, our fears, our hopes and our determination to persevere.
From the scholars' concern, the Letter continued with Biden's trip to Tulsa yesterday on the 100 year anniversary of the race massacre, which took place there. An unknown number of Black Americans were killed in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 31 and June 1st, 1921. '... mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and burned businesses ...' Alternatively known as the Black Wall Street massacre or the Tulsa race riot, it marks one of "the single worst incident(s) of racial violence in American history". '... The attack, carried out on the ground and from private aircraft, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district – at that time the wealthiest Black community in the United States...'
'More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals, and as many as 6,000 Black residents were interned in large facilities,...'
'About 10,000 Black people were left homeless, ...' 'Many survivors left Tulsa, while Black and White residents who stayed in the city kept silent about the terror, violence, and resulting losses for decades. The massacre was largely omitted from local, state, and national histories.' (Wikipedia)
After reading Heather's Letter, I thought first about slavery in America and then Jim Crow. 'Jim Crow was the name of a minstrel routine (actually Jump Jim Crow).' (Britannica) Jim Crow laws were state and local laws and statutes in the South, which enforced or legalized racial segregation and the oppression of Black Americans. 'These laws lasted for almost 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until around 1968, ...' (gcsu. edu)
'In Tulsa today, Biden called the Republican efforts to restrict voting a “truly unprecedented assault on our democracy.” He urged voting rights groups to redouble their efforts to register and educate voters, and then he put pressure on Democratic senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), who continue to say they will not challenge the Republican use of the filibuster to stop passage of voting rights bills.' (The Letter)
'Trump has reportedly been telling people he'll be 'reinstated' by August' (Yahoo News). Yes, our life as a Democracy will take voting rights groups and Democratic senators, such as Manchin and Sinema, but, most of all, it will take the American people to stop the Big Lie, the Republican moves to steal the rights of the American people as well as those who have accepted the lies, Dark Money, conspiracy theories and White Supremacy, which continue to keep America from fulfilling its purpose.
“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Since it appears that Manchin and Sinema will remain true to the people who fund them and not the people they supposedly represent it will take the likes of Romney, Murkowski ,Collins and a few others to cross the aisle (all unlikely) to get rid of the filibuster and to pass any legislation, but most of all currently the For the People Act. There are constitutional ways to overthrow the plethora of voter suppression laws in the pipeline right now. Sadly the ACLU can't be everywhere all the time.
As the country starts to come to grips with things that we were not taught in school...Tulsa, lynchings, Jim Crow, Trail of Tears, the government sanctioned school that removed indigenous children from their families and oft times killed them. Do not think that the current outcry over what happened in Canada to those 215 children was limited to Canada. We need critical race theory not because it teaches children to hate our country, but because it teaches our children to realize that we are human, have made mistakes and that being white is not a reason for superiority.
President Biden and VP Harris give me some measure of hope.
2021 and the literature suggests that American elections are not free and fair. What a disgrace for this country. Born and raised in the US. Travelled extensively - both professionally and personally. I never backed American exceptionalism. How does one believe we are the greatest country in the world when you have never left Arizona? Indiana? Wherever? When dumpster fire was elected in 2016, I set myself a goal to move out of the country. Those plans are still in place. It isn’t that I won’t fight, it’s that the fight is taking the life out of me and I want to live not fight. I’m so tired of fighting for equal rights across any number of issues. But I know for now, we can’t give up or in. Not yet anyhow . . .
Yesterday on "Deadline Whitehouse," MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson took President Biden to task for his comments about the Greenwood Massacre, saying that Biden was apparently "surprised" and should not have been at that horrific history of homeland violence and wholesale murder. If I had the chance to speak to JJ myself, I would have to confess to him that NOTHING was ever said about that massacre in any of my years of schooling and the same can be said of everyone I know. Then, later on, as Joy Reid was interviewing the new Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, she mentioned to her almost in passing (because Nikki Fried had commented on the Greenwood Massacre) that there had been a similar attack in Florida. So, here I go again, confessing that I have never heard of this one either. I am wondering now how many other such atrocities have gone on over the years that were never spoken of, never written about, never acknowledged?
As for the appointment of Kamala Harris to take on the protection of our voting rights, I can't think of a better person. I'd put her up against the likes of Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott any old day. Those jerks may have "legal" backgrounds, but both are crooks and numbskulls and she has a long track record of putting folks like them behind bars. I don't know how she'll manage Manchin and Sinema (who either have lost their minds or are in some sort of devil's league with the trumplican party) and the other Dem senators, who it seems are hiding behind the M&S coattails and allowing those two to take the heat, when in reality, there are others who will not vote for the For the People Act.