Election Connection: 34 Weeks: Get Mitch (or die trying)

Okay, maybe not literally die, but while Mitch McConnell controls the Senate, people are literally dying. From immigrants at the border to mass shooting victims in schools, Mitch McConnell has done nothing for the American people. Right now, we are in the middle of a serious pandemic, and while other countries are in quarantine, our government tells us to go to work and hope for the best; they have it all under control.

Well, they do NOT have it all under control.

In order to pass laws that stem gun violence through gun control, that provide for the poor in this country, that offer medical attention before you need the ICU and ER, they need to pass in the Senate. The House of Representatives has passed over 200 bills ranging in topics from background checks to election security, from combatting the climate crisis to women’s reproductive rights, and the Senate. led by Mitch McConnell has done nothing. He hasn’t even brought these bills to the floor for an up or down vote.

It’s appalling, and quite frankly it’s un-American.

One way is to get rid of McConnell. Donate to his opponent for the Kentucky Senate: Amy McGrath.

Another way, as Senator Brian Schatz of Hawai’i says, “Pick a Senate race.” Pick a Senate race where the Republican is vulnerable, donate, volunteer, and get rid of McConnell’s majority.

Get Mitch or Die Trying is the link to help him on his way to retirement. Your donation is split evenly between candidates. Learn more at the link.

Click link to GET MITCH.

Election Connection: 35 Weeks: Super Tuesday/Unify or Die

With only five Democratic candidates left in the race for the nomination, today’s Super Tuesday voting is as important as ever. One thousand, three hundred, forty-four (1344) delegates are up for grabs, and despite what pundits and naysayers declare, all but one candidate has a chance to lead the field. We’ll know later tonight who that person is!

States voting today include:

Alabama Arkansas California

Colorado American Samoa (caucus)

Maine Massachusetts Minnesota

North Carolina Oklahoma

Tennessee Texas Utah

Vermont Virginia

Want to help the eventual nominee? Unify, and donate by voicing the photo and giving what you can. Our nominee will need everyone’s help in the general election!

Black History and Heritage: Journalist Gwen Ifill

Gwen Ifill was an extraordinary journalist, and someone who I followed for as long as I followed politics. She died too young in 2016 of breast and endometrial cancer. This year she has been honored with a United States Postal Service Forever stamp. You read her author’s page at The PBS Newshour and read some touching memories at Remembering Gwen Ifill. She will always be an inspiration to me.

Election Connection: 36 Weeks: Leave it All on the Field

Crooked Media is promoting and supporting the 2020 Election. One way they are doing that, in addition to Fair Fight 2020 and Vote Save America is Leave it All on the Field. We know that to win in 2020, we need to be in the field, on the ground, organizing, informing, talking to voters about the future they want to see, and doing everything we can for the Democratic nominee in order to get Trump out of the White House, his cronies out of the Senate and further down ballot, and begin to repair what’s been done to our country.

Leave it All on the Field is starting with Organizing Corps 2020 from the DNC. Their goal is $500,000 and they’re more than halfway there. Let’s get them there!

Black History Month Information and Resource

By happenstance, author and activist, Charles A. Preston appeared on my Twitter timeline through the retweet of someone I follow, and I consider myself lucky to have found his amazing resource for Black History (this month and every month of the year). The multi-folder Google doc is chock full of information about many aspects of Black History from Afro-Futurism to Zora Neale Hurston and many others in between. I believe he is continuing to update it. When using his folders, remember to give him credit as well as linking to his Twitter or website.

Black History Month Library

In addtion, you can follow Mr. Preston on Twitter or visit his Website.

Election Connection: 37 Weeks: The FEC

I first became more aware of the FEC, the Federal Election Commission when its Chair, Ellen Weintraub tweeted corrections to President Trump’s pronouncements several months ago. I have since followed her on Twitter, and trust in her unbiased opinions about fair election and campaign finance rules.

The FEC is an independent regulatory agency that enforces campaign finance law and it is a good organization to follow and learn what it’s all about. It’s important to know what the regulations are in regards to campaigns and finance so that when we see discrepencies or anomolies, we can speak out. And we all should. We all should also be able to give the correct information in answer to questions as well as simply know where to search for the answers we do not know yet.

While both Ms. Weintraub and Caroline C. Hunter both serve on the commission, Ms. Weintraub was replaced by Ms. Hunter as Chair in January.

Happy Birthday Susan B!!!

Happy Birthday!

It’s been 100 years since women were given the right to vote, and as I’ve written previously we’ve come so far, and yet, not so much.

Susan B. Anthony was born today in 1820 in nearby Adams, Massachusetts. I say nearby because I live several hours from her birthplace and her final resting place in Rochester, New York. Last year, in fact, my family and I were able to visit her grave site, something that felt very meaningful to both my daughter and me in part of the run up to one hundred years of women’s suffrage and women receiving the vote.

Hers was a family of activism and social reform, from abolition and women’s rights and suffrage to opening their homestead up to meetings of many, including Frederick Douglas. She and Douglas were close friends and anti-slavery collaborators (and are buried in the same cemetary), and she is known to have helped some with Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad. Tubman’s homestead is nearby in Auburn, New York.

In 1872, Susan was arrested at the house she shared with her sister in Rochester, for illegally voting. She was convicted and upon refusing to pay the fine, the authorities ceased any further action.

She became the first woman citizen to be featured on a US monetary coin when her image was portrayed on the dollar coin in 1979. I believe I still have one or two somewhere.

If she were alive today, I imagine she’d be astounded that we still haven’t gotten an Equal Rights Amendment in our Constitution. Perhaps, not astounded as much as disappointed. Hopefully, that can soon be rectified as well as ratified before another one hundred years passes. After all, we are more than half the citizenry; we should have at least the equal rights of men.

Election Connection: 38 Weeks: Voter Registration Deadlines (General Election)

Voter Registration Deadlines (by date)

For more specific information, visit Vote Save America and check out your state for both the primary and general election. Thanks Crooked Media!
States with Early Voting have an *
First Time voters require ID in states that have +
ID required for states that have #

It’s Midnight

It’s midnight in Washington. Indeed, it is midnight across America. And with the coming dawn, comes the realization that we are not that once great nation that we’ve proclaimed to be. How can we be the same country that beat the Nazis? That abolished slavery? That turned away from McCarthy’s Red Scare? That knew right from wrong? Who have we become?

But with that realization, and before that dawn comes, the people of America need to understand that the President is not only not well (physically and mentally), but his autocratic tendencies, coupled with Republican enablers have the potential to take our republic to totalitarian rule. We’re almost there. I am not exaggerating. Anyone who’s even casually watched what’s been happening for the past three years should see it. For someone like me, who has followed the President’s inappropriate actions and criminal behavior since before he was elected, it beams like a neon light; a giant bat signal in the sky. At this point if you don’t see it it’s because you don’t want to.

In retrospect, I think the impeachment trial was something of an act in futility, but something that still needed to be done. Truly, how much more were we expected to ignore? Not just inappropriate, but illegal behavior. Ukraine was only part of the President’s misdeeds.

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