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On December 17, 2020, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republican, and 41% as Independent. Leaving independents out of polling assessments and reporting only republicans vs democrats is highly misleading and in fact, potentially overstates Republicans’ influence. We should stop doing this.

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I just watched the NYTimes documentary on January 6 "The Day of Rage" Believe your own eyes and watch it!

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007606996/capitol-riot-trump-supporters.html

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Thanks, Heather, for this post. The resistance Republicans have to building a better society that can be enjoyed by all, cradle to grave, is disheartening. There's a lot of work to be done but Biden is moving us in the right direction. We can do this thing called Democracy.

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Biden, Harris, Pelosi and Xavier Becerra, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Democratic Party may do well to make the health of the country and of all American citizens an essential and major part of its message to the public. Health is not only tied to our recovery from the pandemic, it is a fundamental right.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

'Last night, in a speech to honor Independence Day, President Joe Biden used his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic to defend democracy.' (The Letter) The above quote, used by Biden in his speech yesterday was from The Declaration of Independence.

How can there be 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' without good health. The administration and the Democratic Party can determine that the country's health care be centered around health not the 'business' $$$ of health care. Tell that to the people.

The preamble of the Constitution make's the case for government supported health care, which from the framers on down has been an engine of the profit motive rather than a right of the people.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.”

How shall 'we' best 'promote the general Welfare' without Universal Healthcare or Single Payer health care? We the people deserve the right to health care. We shouldn't have to fight for it, but that is what we must do with the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party behind us.

Nothing is more fundamental to Democracy than the health and welfare of its citizens. The health care business has separated us from our bodies. Most of us worry about how we can pay the hospital bills and pay for prescription drugs, with many reluctant to go to the doctor because health in the USA is all about the money.

'When we do not have a right to health care, the old inequalities find a new locus, as we saw in 2020 during the pandemic. The opportunities for freedom are different, as are the dangers.' (Health Care is a Human Right, Timothy Snyder)

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I love how even when our President gives an "official occasion" speech, he manages to convey it as a heartfelt conversation.

Dr. Richardson, I believe that you put an impressive speech into historical and current context for us to learn and know. FDR, and what we were able to do for Italy. The rest and family you had this weekend was a tonic that "done you a powerful good."

My President and my history professor.

I am inspired and quickened again!

Thank you.

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Even though I love how HCR presented the good news in President Biden's speech today and bringing in the comparison to FDR, I'm thinking about all the people watching FOX News where they won't hear a positive word about it. Just the fear trigger words like socialism and CRT. Here's from the fcc.gov site: The FCC is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press. It is, however, illegal for broadcasters to intentionally distort the news, and the FCC may act on complaints if there is documented evidence of such behavior from persons with direct personal knowledge. For more information, please see our consumer guide, Complaints About Broadcast Journalism. https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/complaints_about_broadcast_journalism.pdf

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What a great closing comment, the quote from Pres. Biden:

"Biden conjured up our success over the coronavirus to celebrate democracy: “[H]istory tells us that when we stand together, when we unite in common cause, when we see ourselves not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, then there’s simply no limit to what we can achieve.”"

We must all work together as Americans to save our democracy, and I believe that most of us here have been trying to recruit others to this just cause, for the benefit of all Americans, even the resistant Trumplicans.

Our best hope probably lies in waking up the next generation to the threat that looms over us in the next few years, because so many gullible Americans believe the Big Lie, and worse, the Trumplicans are enacting restrictive voting laws because they know they can't win the majority. I hope I am not being overly pessimistic in thinking that we are holding onto democracy by some very thin threads.

Thank you, Dr Heather, for these Letters. ❤

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I would argue that we’ve been living under a slow-motion fascism for the past 30 – 40 years, beginning with the Reagan administration’s consolidating power in favor of libertarian greedheads, aided by radical fundamentalists seeking to bring about the “End Times”. (Re-)read David Koch’s libertarian party platform of 1980, and you’ll see what I mean.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2014/4/10/1291095/-Astounding-Charles-Koch-s-1980-VP-Run-Kill-Medicare-Soc-Sec-Min-Wage-Public-Ed

Since then, we’ve seen the results of the radical GOP agenda as it’s been enacted in states across the nation: the starving of public education, the regressive stagnation of wages, the privatization of public resources, the profit-making from essential healthcare and the closing of unprofitable rural hospitals, repeated attacks on social security and the postal service, the funneling of addictive substances into impoverished communities resulting in the addicting and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, the intentional causing of climate disaster to maintain hegemony over energy…you get the idea.

We have seen how, starting with local and state governments, the GOP has done everything it can to consolidate and solidify power through gerrymandering, purging voter rolls, and generally making it more difficult to vote. They’ve moved steadily up the line until now they have a lock on the federal judiciary, which they will expect will help them to keep power for another generation or two. They also have a massive propaganda machine that makes big bank keeping people angry and scared. They have a lot invested in people’s distrust of one another.

It is our present job to roll back this tide by staying engaged in politics, starting at the local level. If you still have a local paper, subscribe. If you’re not voting in every single election, get started. Find ways to meet and interact with others where you have to settle differences by at least a show of hands. If we want to take America back for Democracy, we must become engaged in the democratic process at every level, and make it work again, for everyone.

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Those of is of a certain age know that taking the long view pays off. Unless the Republicans pull a rabbit out of a hat they dont have candidates that have the courage of their convictions to seriously challenge democrate candidates. The question is, is the American public wise enough to choose well.

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Thank you, Heather. I think Joe Biden does well to remind Americans of The Declaration of Independence (primary author: Thomas Jefferson, slaveholder and later 3rd President of the United States), which is truly a revolutionary document upon which much of what makes America a worthy -- if unfinished -- project is based.

Something that caught my attention in your quote of Joe Biden's speech, however, strikes me as slightly dishonest and a sort of wishful thinking. I refer to his using the word "people" instead of "men", which is to say he apparently misquotes the Declaration so as to sanitize it, make it say what he (and I) wish it really said. For much of my lifetime it has been considered normal to say "men" when referring to people in general or to the human race (as we assume is the case in the DOI) and to use masculine pronouns and personal adjectives in certain situations when referring to individuals in a general or theoretical case. As I child, I used to thumb through a book of beautiful black-and-white photos which lived on my parents' coffee table entitled "The Family of Man" (photos of ordinary men, women and children living their lives in all corners of the Earth), and I recall Charles Darwin entitled one of his best known works, "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" (he clearly knew women had something to do with this descent).

But we know all this. My point is that with our SCOTUS skewed way toward the "religious" right, with our nation's long history of refusing to fully recognize the humanity of Native Americans, African Americans, women, most ethnic groups and immigrants (BIPOC doesn't begin to cover it), and with our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness put at risk by the current crop of power-hungry, dissembling, insurrectionist and fascist-tending GOP politicians and other terror organizations, Biden should not just gloss over the original text of the DOI and sanitize it for our -- arguably -- favorite national holiday. "All people are created equal, hooray, hot dogs for everyone, hey, pass the mustard!

Did Thomas Jefferson literally mean only "men" as they were commonly defined at the time (white property holders of European origin), or did he and the other signers of the document secretly hope that the DOI would be seen to include everyone in the family of man? Certainly the word "people" was available to them at the time.

Would high school teachers in Texas (and several other states) be permitted to raise this issue in a history class?

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When “our conflict is over” we may have to go “cleanse our schools of Fascist trappings” that governors like Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida have masterminded for control over what may be taught in the classrooms.

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Either "triumph of democracy" or "triumph over fascism" will work. It gets late, eyes get tired, we're all human.

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I was heartened yesterday to see that Bette Midler tweeted something you penned on Saturday! JRB must lead the willing and provide for the unwilling and the healing will come. We need not discuss, argue, and tussle. We need to provide for those who see their own needs and accept what is offered.

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America has been sliding into fascism since Reagan then, because this is what I’ve been seeing now:

“Our troops have found starvation, malnutrition, disease, a deteriorating education, a lower public health, all byproducts of the fascist misrule.””

I hope President Biden and American voters can turn this around.

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I've been noticing that the news show reporters are now routinely referring to TFG and his administration as "Fascist," and pointing out that what the insurrectionists on January 6th were fighting for was the end of democracy and the installation of a Fascist regime.

It's about damned time.

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What a breath of fresh air it has been to hear speeches that are not all "me! me! me!". To hear the call once again to stand up and take part, to care about not just ourselves but everyone has been an uplifting moment. I hope it carries onward through the fight.

That we have labored long under the burden of the idea that if we support big business they will support us. We know that to be a lie, we know that most big businesses will only do what increases their bottom line and if they ruin our world, our lives and those of generations to come it makes not a bit of difference to them. Yes, we need business, but it carries a responsibility as well from the owners to the workers and vice versa.

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