Election Connection: 26 Weeks: Pick a Senate Race

Winning the White House is immense and more important than anything we’ve faced in my lifetime, but if we want to get anything done, help Americans through this global pandemic and restart our economy, we’ll need to retake the Sentate. Mitch McConnell, instead of working on helping working class Americans survive is returning to DC to push through more unqualified judges. This isn’t about their being too conservative for my liking; many of them are literally unqualified. Some have never even tried a case before.

Pick a Senate Race.

Donate money.

Donate time.

Volunteer to make calls.

If you live in those states, VOTE THEM OUT!

We need to get rid of:

Mitch McConnell (KY) Lindsey Graham (SC)
Susan Collins (ME) Martha McSally (AZ)
Cory Gardner (CO) Kelly Loeffler (GA)
Thom Tillis (NC) Jim Jordan (OH)
Devin Nunes (CA) John Cornyn (TX)
Matt Gaetz (FL)

Joni Ernst(IA) – Donate to Theresa Greenfield here

Election Connection: 27 Weeks: Joe Biden for President

VP Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party, challenging incumbent (and incompetent) President Trump.

Please donate what you can, volunteer where you are able, and listen to the priorities and policies of the Democratic party and Joe Biden.

Website
Twitter
YouTube

Here’s the Deal with Joe Biden podcast

Election Connection: 28 Weeks: When We All Vote

From the Website:

Michelle Obama and the other When We All Vote co-chairs are squadig up to make sure every single eligible voter is registered and ready to vote for the 2020 elections. But they need your help, too!

Visit When We All Vote, where you can register to vote, pledge to vote, and check your registration.

Election Connection: 29 Weeks: Save the Post Office

All weekend my Twitter feed was the same thing. #SaveUSPS. I knew that the post office got screwed back in the Bush Administration, but I also knew that they would manage; they always did. What I didn’t know was that this White House refused any stimulus money to go towards keeping the Postal Service afloat. This made me angry in a weekend of anger caused by this incompetent and insensitive Administration run by an ignorant nincompoop.

Why should we care about whether or not the post office continues its mission?

For one thing, the post office has been operational since 1775, BEFORE the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin was its first Postmaster General. When our family visited Philadelphia several years ago, one of the stops I insisted on making was to the Ben Franklin Post Office. We waited in line to get envelopes hand-stamped as souvenirs. We still have them. For another thing, the mail doesn’t discriminate. If you have an address you get mail. No matter how far from the center of town or across the water. In Alaska, mail is delivered in some places by seaplane. Without the post office, those services would cease to function. FedEx and UPS hand off their nonprofitable items to the United States Postal Service for the last leg of the trip to get the items where they need to go. And that leads into the third thing about why we should care about the post office:

The post office isn’t supposed to make a profit. It is a public service, delivering mail to everyone regardless of status or wealth. It’s in the Constitution. Right there in Article 1, Section 8, it states that “The Congress shall have power to establish Post Offices and post Roads;” The implication being that Congress is the one that has the power to disestablish; not the White House. Congress also controls the purse strings through taxes and distribution of monies. And one other thing: the post office pays its own way. Until that Act (under Bush) requiring them to pay into pension plans for fifty years in the future (which no other department or business does), it was making a PROFIT.

Is the Post Office really all that important?

You tell me – how do you feel when you receive a Christmas card from someone you don’t hear from? A wedding invitation that you then hang on the bulletin board? I visit my local post office weekly to mail something, to pick up something, to check out the new stamps. I’ll be back their in two or so days to mail my taxes. To send them certified mail, it will cost me $6.40. If I sent the same via FedEx, it would cost a minimum of $13.75, and it’s not certified mail. It does not count for the legal system according to a 2018 ruling.

For me, from a personal standpoint, I grew up in the back of the post office. Both of my parents worked for many individual branches as clerks until they both retired. My mother also did bookkeeping. They sometimes worked in different offices, and sometimes in the same office. (Would not recommend.) I remember sitting in the back waiting for my Dad to finish up after visiting the eye doctor down the street. He had to count his drawer and return the stamps to the safe in the postmaster’s office, and I spun in the spinny chair, stamped dozens or more of scrap paper with Air Mail, Postage Due, Fragile, Perishable, and whatever else was there on Gloria’s desk. She had a whole box of stamps. The back smelled of stamp ink and cigarette smoke. Everybody smoked back then. Sometimes I would sort the mail (but don’t tell anyone!) I also skipped many a line going in the employee door. It was supposed to be locked, but it almost never was; not then. If it was, someone would buzz me in. Everyone knew me. At one job I had, my “status” was raised when the assistant manager recognized my father from his local post office in Queens, NY. My Dad always helped him, and he remembered the personal service.

When I was younger, actually older than I’d like to admit, I used to think that one of the perks of working for the post office was free postage. I was wrong. I would leave letters in the hinge of the bathroom mirror for my parents to take to work. I didn’t realize that they were paying for the stamps. My parents also collected stamps as I also do, but not as extensively. When my son was small, we decorated his room in framed stamps ranging from comic strips to dinosaurs to baseball players to DC Super Heroes. I’ve made special trips to the post office to get Mr. Rogers, Harry Potter, Star Trek (which I keep framed, and even gave a set as a gift), Star Wars, and most recently, Gwen Ifill’s Forever stamp for the Black Heritage series.

When I took defensive driving, I was the only student who knew that postal trucks have the right of way even over police and fire vehicles, although I don’t imagine they use that law to get by a stop sign or red light. I know that you can’t put anything in anyone’s mailbox unless it has a stamp on it, and I know that opening someone else’s mail is a federal offense.

The mail is probably one of the most important things we have in this country. The United States Postal Service delivers to all areas, regardless of profit margin. In fact, as I said above they weren’t supposed to make a profit. They are self-sustaining (until the Bush Admin and Republican threats to privatize.) As a public service, they should be supported by the government. In its entirety. From birthday cards to pen pals across the globe, magazines, letters to and from Grandma as well as medicine deliveries like I get. I’m always excited to see what the mailbox has in store for me on a daily basis. I can hear when the mail carrier delivers the mail, and I often run out (or send my kids out) immediately. Yesterday, in fact, I got a check from the state for unclaimed funds.

Twenty-five dollars!

They are also the largest single employer of veterans and people of color. Their offices and routes are filled with diversity, women, and veterans.

Why do Republicans want the post office to fail?

Simple. Mail-in voting. They lose when we vote. They rolled the dice in Wisconsin. They made the rules. They forced people out into long lines to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic instead of postponing and extending vote by mail or absentee ballot deadlines. The Democrat won. Now they are crying foul. They made the rules. They forced the vote, but somehow when the Democrat wins it’s unfair.

When I saw the headline about the White House’s refusal to bail out the post office in The Washington Post, I was disturbed, especially after last week’s debacle in Wisconsin!

Some threads to read:

The Debate over a Post Office Bailout, Explained (Vox)

Thread on USPS

Congress is Sabotaging Your Post Office (from May/June, 2019) (Washington Monthly)

Ben White of Politico: A reminder that the USPS funding “crisis” has nothing to do with what it charges Amazon or others and everything to do with a massively burdensome congressional mandate.

How Congress Manufactured a Postal Service Crisis and How to Fix It

Facts about USPS (from USPS)

Twitter thread (long but well worth it) from a Mail Carrier

NOW, call Congress and the White House, and tell them you want the postal service to survive. Tell them you want the bailout.

You want to vote by mail. When we vote, we win. And this election is like no other in our lifetimes.

Call Congress. Call the White House. Make your voices heard.

Anything less is unpatriotic and undemocratic because undermining democracy is what they’ve been doing for the last three years (more if you include Republican Senators) and we will not stand for it.

Call your Senators at: 202-224-3121

Call the White House at: 202-456-141

Election Connection: 30 Weeks: What Can You Do Before November 3rd?

Three recommendations:

1. Dan Pfeiffer‘s new book, Untrumping America: A Plan for Making America a Democracy Again

2. David Plouffe‘s two new books, one for adults, and one for children: A Citizen’s Guide for Beating Donald Trump and Ripples of Hope: Your Guide to Electing a New President

3. David Plouffe’s Podcast: Campaign HQ with David Plouffe

Links go to publishers, but books can be bought at any indpendent bookseller or online book retailer. Podcasts links to Player.FM but can be found wherever you get your podcasts.

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.

Susan B. Anthony: Suffrage and Equality, and How Far We Still Need To Go

One hundred ninety-nine years ago today, Susan B. Anthony was born into a Quaker family in Adams, Massachusetts. Her activism began early at her family’s hearth as the entire clan was involved in the anti-slavery movement as well as temperance movements all throughout their lives.

Her birth year of 1820 was coincidentally one hundred years before the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, was ratified.

In 1868, she, and her longtime close friend and women’s rights collaborator Elizabeth Cady Stanton published a weekly newspaper called The Revolution, focusing on women’s rights and calling for women’s suffrage as well as highlighting other opinion and discussion pieces in relation to suffrage as well as politics and finance. It’s motto was: “Men, their rights and nothing more: women, their rights and nothing less.”

I think we’re seeing a resurgence of this attitude if not the outright message. Coming to a head in 2017 with the #metoo movement, women are finding their voices and speaking out when they feel ignored or condescended to, which happens in all walks of personal and professional life.

When the 15th Amendment was proposed and ratified (giving former male slaves the right to vote), Anthony was firmly against it, feeling that African Americans and women should receive voting rights simultaneously rather than continue to give men, regardless of race more rights than women.

In 1872, she brought her Declaration of Rights for Women to the nation’s centennial in Philadelphia, wanting to share it at the official celebrations. Permission was denied, but Susan B. Anthony, leading a group of five women interrupted the speaker and handed the Declaration to the him. Leaving, she handed out copies to the crowd, and then found a public space nearby and read it to the crowd that had formed around her.

1872 was also the year in which Susan B. Anthony cast her vote. In doing so, she was arrested and brought to trial. Prior to the trial, she went around the county doing speaking engagements. Her speech was titled, “Is it a crime for a US citizen to vote?” At her trial, she was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine. She refused. Instead of the judge holding her in contempt, he declined any further action, and the fine has never been paid.

“‘Failure is impossible’ quickly became the watchword for the women’s movement” according to her Wikipedia article. Those three words were taken from comments made by Susan B. Anthony at her eighty-sixth birthday celebration a few weeks before her death:

“There have been others also just as true and devoted to the cause — I wish I could name every one — but with such women consecrating their lives, failure is impossible!”

She and Stanton were the first to lead the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the organization’s name was changed to the League of Women Voters, still a formidable voice for voting rights.

In addition to her house in Rochester, NY named as an historic landmark and her gravesite visited on many Election Days, most especially in 2016 when Democrat Hillary Clinton ran as the first woman nominated by a major party, she was also commemorated on a US postal stamp in 1936 and is the first woman to have her likeness on a US coin when her image was depicted on the dollar coin, first minted and released in 1979.

In reading the title of her speech: Is it a crime for a US citizen to vote? it made me realize that as far as we’ve come, we still haven’t come all that far. We saw in 2016, an amount of voter suppression that many didn’t recognize in prior years. Some of it was so obvious as to be racist and sexist that it boggles my mind that it was allowed by officials and ignored by the media. The questions asked of Secretary Clinton, and the ridiculously higher expectations and almost impossible to meet standards expected of her in relation to her male opponents was embarrassing.

Even more embarrassing is the way the media is currently treating the four women candidates for the Democratic nomination. I hear about Sherrod Brown’s ties to working class families, and reflection on Joe Biden’s status as elder statesman, and they haven’t even decided if they are running for 2020. However, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobucher are being lambasted for listening to rap music, eating fried chicken, mocked for family lore, and treatment of her subordinates instead of where they stand on the issues. Is the idea that Amy Klobucher expects her staff to live up to her expectations more problematic than a President who lies constantly about everything, even the insignificant? Bill Clinton played the saxophone on television, Mitt Romney has a car elevator in one of his houses, former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is in jail for sexual misconduct, but no, let’s find out if Amy raises her voice trying to get things done. Journalism is in a tailspin, and I thought we were, if not past this sexism then at least pretending to be fair in public.

Also standing out significantly is the Georgia governor’s race in 2018, the Voter ID laws that disproportionately affected the Native American population in North Dakota, also in 2018, closing polling places, shortening voting times, which thereby increased lines and eliminated the working class who can’t afford to leave work early or go in late. Deciding that polling places didn’t meet accessibility requirements for the general election even though there were no problems during the primaries, and those polling places that didn’t meet the requirements were in primarily African-American districts (in Georgia, where the Secretary of State who is in charge of those things was also running for governor. He won. Big surprise there.) There is still a congressional seat in North Carolina that has not been certified because of blatant fraud.

So, how do we combat this?

Should Election Day be a national holiday so more people can vote without losing time and money from work? Why do certain segments of political partisanship want less people to vote, not more despite their being eligible and wanting to vote?

Should we have a standard set of questions to address to each office-seeker when they’re being introduced as a presidential candidate?

Why do we continue to allow the Senate Majority Leader to lie about what the American people want (as shown in poll after poll), and allow him to not bring bills to the floor that have passed the House?

Why do we allow the White House and the President’s enablers in Congress to block investigations into the Russian interference in the 2016 and 2018 elections? I would hope that no one wants a foreign power controlling our votes and who is elected to our national offices, but it seems that some of those politicians blocking access and investigatory avenues are dominated by their monetary reliance on that same foreign power. This is wrong. When will they come to their senses? When will their patriotism extend to real American sovereignty and equal rights instead of their false flag patriotism?

How do we also encourage voting participation?

Why do some from one side think it should be harder to vote, whether because of economics or transportation or accessibility?

This needs to be addressed before the 2020 election. 2020 will celebrate the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. We should come together for a comprehensive overhaul of the registration and voting process to make it accessible to all eligible voters. If we wait much longer, we won’t have anything worth voting for.

TODAY IS THE DAY! VOTE!

On Instagram, I’ve spent every day posting a political pin, and today is the final one. Scroll through and see what I chose to share in the last days towards this Election Day. When you’re finished looking and thinking about and commenting, head over to your polling place and VOTE. This is the most consequential and important election of our lifetimes. I just heard Dan Pfeiffer say on The Axe Files that young people felt secure and comfortable under President Obama, they thought they were safe and things were going to be okay – the President has this. Well, I’m 51, and I felt the same way. I was comfortable not paying attention to the minutiae of politics and political discourse for the first time in my life, and now I’m terrified. For my children, yes, but for myself as well. What have we allowed to happen in the last two years?!

VOTE

Looking back on someone who was thought to be a not so good president, but he really wasn’t that bad. He got a bad wrap. The current president won’t have that benefit – he’s the worst. But…Ulysses S. Grant won the Civil War, and wasn’t a bad president, and was actually a good person. Read Ron Chernow’s biography. (c)2018

The Election of 2016

I’m stunned. I’m also shocked and saddened. Yesterday morning, I awoke at 6:45am so I could take my daughter with me to vote before she had to go to school. We talked about the ballot, why I was voting for some people, why I wasn’t voting for others. We whispered so we didn’t disturb or bother anyone else voting at the same time. I took pictures of both the ballot and she and the ballot and before and after pictures before we left the house and after our election day breakfast at McDonald’s. I was sure that we had just voted for the first woman president. To be honest, that was a bonus. I was voting for Hillary Clinton, someone who I had admired and watched since I was out of college. I learned so much about her over the years; what she believed in, what she did and would do as a public servant.

When she became my senator, I knew she’d work her ass off, and she did.

She was a fantastic Secretary of State.

In 2000, I voted for Al Gore, John Kerry in 2004, President Obama in 2008 and 2012. I voted FOR them, not against their opponents. I did not want George Bush, John McCain, or Mitt Romney to be President, but I knew in my heart that if they became president, they would do their best to bring honor to the office. I am not so sure about that this year.

I can’t express what I’m feeling. I’m usually asleep when my two children get on the bus for school. This morning, I made sure I was awake so I would have time to hug them and talk to them about the election results. They were both worried. My son went to bed with a headache, and my daughter asked if she would be forced to wear a hood. Their reactions did not come from us directly, but from listening to Mr. Trump’s rhetoric for the past eighteen months.

I hugged them, and told them not to worry and we wold get through this. It would be okay. The don’t know because they’re too young, but we’ve been here before, and we’ve gotten through it.

This one is a little different.

I never thought I’d see a President endorsed so heartily by the KKK in my adult lifetime. I never thought we’d elect an open racist and misogynist in my adult lifetime, certainly not in the modern age. The VP, a heartbeat away from the Oval Office is a proponent of gay conversion therapy, funerals for fetuses while limiting the rights of the women carrying them.

This isn’t partisan to me. This is insane.

I had planned on this post being one of my reflections on 50. It was going to be about politics and my lifelong love of politics, but I can’t write about that and ignore what’s just happened this morning. I think I need to take a couple days away. There are some posts scheduled in my queue that will post automatically, and hopefully, I’ll be able to continue my 50 reflections, but today…today truly is a time for mourning.

Crime will go up.

Abortions will go up.

Hate crimes will go up.

Homelessness will go up.

Unemployment will go up.

If you look at the statistics over the last century, I think you’ll find that this is what happens when Republicans are in the White House.

On a personal note, my husband will probably lose his job, which will have financial ramifications for years to come.

This wasn’t one election. This was a lifetime. This will affect those not born yet.

We, as a country need to reflect on the last year; the attacks on women, the attacks on journalism and journalists, the attacks on Muslims and Latinos especially, and the continuing stereotyping of African Americans who according to Trump live in hell and the inner cities. I’ll have to mention that to my suburban neighbors.

We need to look at who we are as a country, as a people, and decide where we want to go from here. We need to pray and meditate on what is going on, in whatever way that each of us does. We just decided that the most qualified person in the last half century still isn’t good enough; we want the reality TV star, who may have only won because his campaign manager took away his Twitter and the FBI Director lit a fire on a burned out shell.

Every. Vote. Counts.

Al Gore told you.

Bernie Sanders told you.

Joe Biden and Barack Obama told you.

When will we listen?

When will we do what’s best for all of us, and not just a select few? For some reason, they think that a thirty year public servant is more elitist than a millionaire who lives in a penthouse and wouldn’t know the price of milk if he were standing in the grocery store.

I don’t know what else to say.

It’s too much to take in. It’s only been real for about two hours for me. I went to bed at 2:15am, thinking there was some hope. I woke up knowing it was over, not wanting to know the outcome, but needing to know so I could tell my kids in the morning that it would be alright.

Voting and Food

Today is Election Day, and while this election has been one for the history books in more ways than one, Election Day does have a rich history and tradition.

Many are calling for a national holiday, so everyone is able to vote on Election Day. I agree with this, but having a federal or state holiday doesn’t always ensure that everyone has the day off. Retail people are not off on most federal holidays as well as police and fire, so it’s not a sure thing.

When I was in elementary school, schools were closed on Election Day. The schools were the polling places, and it was better for everyone if kids weren’t disrupting the march of democracy. Even though we were home, we had a regular babysitter, so my parents still worked during their regular work hours and would need to vote afterwards. Not voting was never an option.

Coming home from work with little time for kids and dinner and getting out the vote, we often had a simple dinner, much the same when my brother and sister had their weekly allergy shots appointment. A simple dinner consisted of tuna fish sandwiches, egg salad for everyone but me, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese or if we were really lucky, McDonald’s.

In small towns across the country, food and voting go hand in hand. Just this week, I’ve seen signs and advertisements for a roast beef dinner, lasagna, and an apple pie festival. In the past, I’ve seen pot roast dinners, BBQ, and chili cook-offs, not to mention school and church bake sales to raise money for clubs and whatnot.

How many ways do we have to encourage people to get out, drop their apathy and vote. Apparently, food is number one.

This year, there is a lot of talk of taco trucks on every corner if a certain candidate wins, and what better day for tacos on Election Day Tuesday to make it a Taco Tuesday.

My family will probably get pizza so we can watch the returns late into the night.

Personally, I love the I voted stickers, but they usually don’t have those when I go. A chocolate chip cookie after voting wouldn’t be unwelcome.

Griffins and Ginger Snaps

-I write, and I have a blog because of course I do-

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