For readers who have been here for awhile, I rarely if ever declare or think about New Year’s Resolutions. That changes this year. After the election, I’ve been inundated with lies and misinformation, not to mention the focus on stupidity rather than real news, and I am damn sick of it. That led me to think about my life and my writing.
I may have already written about my new job, but I started working in October, and it is the kind of place that feeds my soul. I have never had a job like this before, and every day is a joy to be there, and that allows that joy to follow me home. It’s been a good couple of months.
Obviously, I’m disappointed (understatement) about the election. I hope we can get through the next two years, and use the midterm elections to return to sanity. My first Election Connection of the new year will appear in this space next Tuesday.
As I mentioned yesterday, I am really proud of my series writing, and those will continue. In addition to Election Connection, there will be more Mental Health Monday, monthly Inspired and Friday Food posts, and I’m hoping for a return to Penny Prompts – the writing prompts based on Louise Penny’s writing and her Armand Gamache mystery series.
Those are both my intentions and my inspirations and I hope to find more throughout the year. You will find more of my new year’s thoughts below the cut.
On Tuesday, I had intended to begin the campaign season with a new Election Connection, and if I do, it will be links to Act Blue, Vote Save America, and the Kamala Harris campaign. (Any money that continues to go into Joe Biden’s official campaign account can be and will be transferred to Vice President Harris, so don’t stop donating.)
It’s currently Sunday afternoon, and when I first saw the news, I didn’t believe it. I went from room to room to chair to TV remote with my mantra, thisisbullshitthisisbullshitthisisbullshit, and apparently it’s not bullshit. That doesn’t make it okay. That doesn’t make me okay. I thought I might pass out.
I’m still shaking.
It’s 2:40 and the pity party is over. I don’t want to hear about proxies. I don’t want to hear about Republican unity candidates. I don’t want to hear about a contested convention.
THERE WILL BE NONE OF THAT.
Do you hear me?NONE.
Kamala Harris has been the Vice President for four years, she is on the ticket,
and she will make a superb President on January 20, 2025.
We have 103 days to get this right.
Vote like my life depends on it. And my daughter’s.
Two races I’d recommend getting involved with are Harry Dunn and Eugene Vindman in Maryland and Virginia, respectively. These two names may seem familiar.
Eugene Vindman is a retired Army officer targeted for retaliation by the Trump Administration when he and his brother, Alexander, also an Army officer at the time came forward as whistleblowers when the then President Trump extorted the Ukraine government. Eugene is now running for Congress in the 7th District in Virginia.
Harry Dunn for Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District. 2024
Eugene Vindman for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District. 2024
I’ve been seeing and hearing quite a bit about a new proposal from House GOP members about abolishing the IRS and implementing a 30% sales tax*. On its face it is an absurd prospect filled with scare tactics talking points and falsehoods, or as we like to call them: LIES.
I’m including three links as well as a great video that explains exactly what’s in the bill at the end. First, I’m glad to give you my opinion on this as someone who pays the bills for my household and is soon-to-be preparing our taxes and who spent the weekend shopping with my family for our household needs.
A 30% tax increase is CRAZY. It’s as simple as that. We’re an average family of five, one of whom lives on his own (but who often comes to dinner). We are still materially supporting two other children (regardless of their ages), feeding, clothing, entertaining. We live paycheck to paycheck, and some months we don’t have anything at all until the next paycheck. It varies.
This weekend we went to several places and took our daughter to breakfast on Sunday. I’m going to round up what we spent:
Breakfast out: $63
Department Store: $68 (this included groceries, medicine, and clothing)
Walmart: $6 (groceries)
McDonald’s: $3 ($1 drinks)
Sally’s Beauty Supply: $24 (school supplies)
Target: $164 (personal care/hygiene, toilet paper, school supplies, groceries, toy on clearance)
All of these purchases include state and county sales tax, which in (our part of) New York is 8%.
New totals based on an additional 30% federal sales tax (on goods and services):
Breakfast: $81.90
Dept. Store: $88.40
Walmart: $7.80
McDonald’s: $3.90
Sally’s: $31.20
Target: $213.20
For a grand total increase of: $98.40 for one day’s shopping. ONE DAY.
Republican House Members claim that this will abolish the IRS and eliminate 87,000 “weaponized” IRS agents who were increased in a recent bill that President Biden signed last year. This is a falsity that they’ve continued to lie about. Those 87,000 IRS agents will not be armed (as they’ve claimed) and they will not be coming to your house, but increasing the assistance the IRS gives to its clients every day. I’ve been on the phone with them previously and have always felt helped. They’re also supposed to help reduce the backlog to avoid situations like we experienced in 2021 when we filed in May and didn’t receive our refund until the end of December.
This National sales tax will be on goods AND services, where the current state formula is on primarily good with only a few services paying sales tax. This tax on services would include babysitters, which is explained in the video. This will also be on top of the state and local taxes paid on goods currently.
One of the things they claim is that 40% of households pay no form of income tax, and for those family’s eligible, there will be a monthly rebate based on a formula in relation to the poverty line and family size, but you would still have to pay it upfront at the time of purchase. If you’re eligible for the rebate, that is.
This creates an enormous burden on the poor and middle-class working families. The rich will always find ways to get around this tax, simply by leaving the country to do their shopping. Plus the fact that they can afford the increased pay out.
If it wasn’t obvious yet, I am definitely against this bill, and will be contacting my Congressman’s office to let him know he has my support to vote NO when this comes to the floor.
*Republicans claim that it isn’t a 30% increase, that it’s a 23% increase. That is because of how they are doing the math: $30 out of $100 is 23%. The video does an excellent job of explaining this.
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that gave women the right to an abortion. More specifically, and importantly, they found the right to an abortion under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that we all have a fundamental “right to privacy”. Any laws that prohibited an abortion would be subject to strict scrutiny by the Courts.
Much has been made of the plaintiff, Roe expressing her regrets for her abortion. She had gone back and forth on this issue, and honestly I feel that she was taken advantage of by both sides. She was paid by the right to recant her wish for an abortion, and stated in the 2020 documentary, AKA Jane Roe that she hadn’t ever supported the antiabortion movement.
Roe’s holding was reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992 while at the same time overruling the trimester framework established in the Roe decision and moved from “strict scrutiny” to “undue burden”.
In 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe with their ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the right to an abortion was not “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history or tradition.”
This is false, and it is simply Justice Alito (and his cohorts) grasping at straws and making law whole cloth from their beliefs which violate the Constitution as well as basic human rights of women to their own bodily autonomy. In the ruling, they also included questioning rights now recognized as to contraception, interracial marriage, and marriage equality (same-sex marriage). Some on the right are suggesting we take another look at those rights already enshrined in law (and common sense, to be quite honest).
Abortions have been happening for as long as there’s been pregnancy. The real value of legal abortion is safety. When abortions are illegal, women are less safe. In addition, many, if not all of the proponents of eliminating legal abortion have no idea how pregnancy and birth works. They throw out terms that they don’t understand, pass laws, and criminalize medical care for women under the guise of stopping abortion.
Since Dobbs, women have died from miscarriages that weren’t treated; ectopic pregnancies that were left to fester. Women have lost the ability to have more children because of doctors waiting for the last minute to help women, afraid that anything they do to save the woman will create a liability for themselves and their facilities.
The right set up pregnancy centers who lie to women and scare them and do not give them all of their options as far as family planning and abortion. If their way is the right way, why do they need to lie?
This is horrifying, and it needs to end.
Women need to be able to make informed decisions on their family planning, their pregnancies, their terminating or continuing of pregnancies. My daughter has less rights than her grandmother had.
In addition to our activism and raising our voices, we need to contact our Congresspeople and especially Leader Jeffries, and have them bring a bill to the floor and pass it to make the Supreme Court more modern. The last time the Supreme Court was changed with respect to number of justices was with the Judiciary Act of 1869 during the Grant Administration. We currently have nine justices and thirteen circuit courts. We should have 13 justices to correspond to the circuits. For those saying that this is packing the Court, it is unpacking the Court that Mitch McConnell gave us by blocking President Obama’s duly chosen nominee in 2019 and then reversing his “logic” and pushing through Amy Coney Barrett while we were in the middle of an election. Literally while voting was happening.
We can’t stop speaking out.
The only way we can solve this disparity and reproductive health crisis is by reinstating Roe, expanding it, and codifying it into law.
This post was a lot to write. And rewrite. I hope you will be able to draw out something for yourselves as I call myself out and set my intentions for the next few weeks. If you are inclined to add anything or offer any suggestions, please do so in the comments. they would be most welcome.
I offered a preview last week of goals, resolutions, whatever they’re to be called this year. That can be found here if you need a reminder of my first thoughts. At the end of that post, I said that I was going to take a break, read a chapter, play a game, and get dinner ready. I did almost none of those things. I’m sure we had dinner, but I can’t think of what it was. Even Saturday night’s dinner was in flux since no one took out the meat from the freezer despite multiple requests. Last night also. (Note that these requests were not always towards others in the house; I told myself to take them out and then forgot to, so it was a multi-person failure.) Pasta until the meat defrosts, I guess.
It’s probably not a bad thing that our (my) new year is off to a less than stellar start since the years that I’m all gung-ho and organized for will often fizzle out by February.
I plan to use my Instagram more, and that was one thing I did do last week: a post on intentions there. You can view it and click to visit there from my sidebar on the left. I will share the picture below since I’m going to try and use it as a guide for my intention setting.
Intentions. (c)2023
The words I used were:
Focus
Change
Intentionality
Faith
Gratitude
Opportunity
Kindness
Accept
Surrender
Reflect
Begin
Each one has a different thought process behind it, some from years past, others from spiritual direction, some that simply always come up again and again (like focus and intentionality). I may add some as the weeks go by and I settle into my new year.
None of these words are easy to implement in my day-to-day life. I plan to keep a small copy of the list, perhaps with the picture and reflect on it through January, as a mantra, a guide, an accountability checklist. By accountability, I simply mean is this something that I keep in my head. Is it something that I’m aware that I’m doing or am I ignoring it because it’s hard? It’s not a grading system – no A’s or B’s, no failing or unsatisfactory. Am I doing (it, whatever it is) with intentionality or am I sleep-walking through another day?
One thing that I can take a bow on is the following: About a year or two ago, I made the decision that I did not need the last word in online discussions. I also did not need to engage with everyone there. I will still call out lies and misinformation, but at some point, it’s time to walk away. Before I made this decision, I was anxiety-riddled constantly, needing to convince people of the truth, of the facts. This decision needs to be recommitted to every day. I need to know when to walk away, when to push. I’ve been proud of myself, and while this isn’t a new year focus it is something that continues to be encouraged. Every day is a new day.
I will still speak out.
In between birthday fun for my daughter, trying out new Christmas gifts, and just relaxing with the family, I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday watching the vote for Speaker of the House. I have never seen such a shitshow on the floor of Congress, and it was a despicable showing on the second anniversary of January 6th. Two Republicans nearly came to blows, and one had to be dragged away. I was proud of my party; of their commitment to the people, to the advancement of new leadership without in-fighting and acrimony. Over the weekend, I posted part of the speech given by Minority Leader, NY Representative Hakeem Jeffries, where he took us to church so to speak. It was exhilarating, it was motivating, it was inspirational. I look forward to the day when he is Speaker. The Republicans can say they’re behavior was a lesson in democracy, but in reality, it was a lesson in dysfunction and chaos.
As I told my class last semester, everything is political. Everything. From the water that flows through our pipes to the roads we drive on, from the schools to the garbage pick-ups. We all need to be involved, every year, every election, every race. I guess that’s one of my goals. Civics 101.
Apart from politics, I need to see what priorities I need to keep and pull to the forefront. I’ve come up with three in particular, although there is always room for more. They are:
Therapy.
Writing.
Faith.
I need it all, and I need to learn how to blend them, how to connect them, how to live them, and how to balance them. I should add that word to the photo and list above: balance.
It’s all a balancing act. I’m a mom. I was a teacher. I can multi-task. I can also drop all the spinning plates. It happens. I need to accept that and move on – No. Not on; forward.
As I look at each of those words on the list and the three main places I want to focus on, how do I make it happen? How do I use all the tools available to me without constantly running around in circles, thinking I’m succeeding, but really only standing in the same place?
The first thing I’m going to do is to put a note on my calendar, about a week after Ash Wednesday. Lent is a good time for reevaluation, and I can see how and if I’ve moved forward between now and then.
I’m also going to list one specific, tangible goal here related to the three subjects of therapy (which includes talk, writing, art, etc.), writing, and faith. As I’ve said, and as I believe, they are all interconnected in my life. I rely on my faith in my writing, I write about my faith, talking through things (even if only with myself) – it’s all related and yet still separate enterprises that need their own nurturing and development.
The words sound easy, but we all know that it is also hard. Hard to change, hard to grow, hard to become something different, hard to change. With the internet and social media, we can all be so self-aware and easy to be swayed towards something, even simple, non-hazardous things: a glass or water or Diet Coke?
I know that I’m more outgoing in certain ways since becoming a regular online. I wonder how I managed without the online community that sustains me as much as my family does. I speak my mind more, sometimes to my detriment. I say yes more without saying no first. I realized that I protect myself by declining, and then “changing my mind.” It lets me have the time to think, but I’m getting more comfortable with saying yes (and no when appropriate).
How do I set goals and keep myself on a trajectory of moving forward?
NaNoWriMo really motivated me to write every day, and while I haven’t been writing every day, I have been writing a lot more. I don’t mind the writing without the external validation despite really loving (and needing) the validation. Writing a book won’t work that way, however. I can’t publish every little piece online, can I?
Let’s look at the list of the races we were following here for the 2022 Election, and see how we fared:
Senate Races
AZ – Mark Kelly
CO – Michael Bennet
CT – Richard Blumenthal
FL – Val Demmings
GA – Rev. Raphael Warnock
HI – Brian Schatz
NH – Maggie Hassan
NV – Catherine Cortez-Masto
NY – Chuck Schumer
OH – Tim Ryan
PA – John Fetterman
WA – Patty Murray
WI – Mandela Barnes
Also, keep an eye on Iowa and Kentucky
House of Representatives
AK – Mary Peltola
MI – Elissa Slotkin
NY – Matt Castelli
NY – Sean Maloney
VA – Abigail Spanberger
Governors
CA – Gavin Newsom
CO – Jared Polis
FL – Charlie Crist
GA – Stacey Abrams
MI – Gretchen Whitmer
NY – Kathy Hochul
PA – Josh Shapiro
TX – Beto O’Rourke
Mayor
Los Angeles – Karen Bass
Looks like the majority of them won their races. Beto and Tim Ryan were close. We need to keep pushing in Ohio and Texas. In that endeavor, follow Olivia Julianna on Twitter (while there’s still a twitter). She is a Gen Z political activist, doesn’t back down, and speaks her mind.
Have we learned anything from the last several years?
I was out this weekend for some breakfast and holiday shopping, and I saw a man wearing a dark hoodie with an American flag on it, although it was black and white with a blue stripe for the middle stripe. I recognize this as a call out in support of law enforcement. I don’t disagree with supporting law enforcement when it’s called for, however there is a lot to be done to improve their strategies, especially when it comes to working with people of color and the mentally ill and people not necessarily mentally ill but in crisis in the moment they meet up with LEOs.
I am certainly not going to solve this problem in one blog post.
On the back of this hoodie, above and below the black, white, and blue flag was the phrase:
Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they will be called the children of G-d.
Matthew 5:9
I was drawn to it in a negative way. It bothered me. It bothered me enough to start writing about it here. Part of that is some of the study I’ve been doing this Advent season through readings and a couple of faith enrichment and scripture classes throughout the month of December.
I recognized that phrase as from Scripture, although my initial thoughts were incorrect in assigning it to Isaiah (his readings are quite prominent during Advent) rather than where it actually comes from: Matthew 5:9; the Beatitudes.
The entirety of the Beatitudes is contained in Matthew 5:3-11
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
I won’t relay them here. You can google or open any Bible and read all of them. There is also an addition that Pope Francis expressed on an Ecumenical trip to Sweden in 2016 that can be read here.
Reading through this part of Chapter 5 of Matthew and getting to verse 9, it is clear to me that this Scripture is entirely misinterpreted by the people who created (and wear) that hoodie. The implication that law enforcement and military are the peacemakers is inconsistent and contradictory.
I also found it ironic that I saw this on the hoodie during Advent when we are reading the Book of Isaiah who prophesizes an unlikely peace among foes: the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, calf and lion, cow and bear, children and snakes (reversing Adam and Eve’s punishment in the Garden of Eden). (Isaiah 11:6-8)
When I see these types of scriptures on hoodies that promote law enforcement and military soldiers as peacemakers it just fills me with exasperation and even a touch of anger. The misinterpretation that soldiers are peacemakers and not warriors first is simply wishful thinking. This isn’t to say that all soldiers are bad; I don’t believe that, and I understand the need for a military. I understand that when the UN sends its soldiers they are called peacekeepers, and I get that too. Peace is the goal. The UN tries to be neutral despite arguments of its futility and the presence of its flaws. I think that neutral isn’t the objective though as much as fairness and the desired overall good of society.
Are the peacemakers the ones with guns? Or are they the ones with food? With books? With pens and clothes and shelter? The pen is mightier than the sword is it not? That aphorism (as wella s many others) credited to author Edward Bulwer-Lytton has been known similarly as far back as before Biblical sources including an Assyrian sage in 7th century BCE and Greek playwright Euripides using different words in place of pen: word, tongue. Talmudic and Islamic sources also reference words, both oral and written, a means of knowledge and peace as being stronger than the strength of the sword, a means of war. The implication being that with the pen/word being mightier, peace is also mightier than war.
It’s important that we call out these misuses of words and reclaim our Scriptures that have been corrupted and used in opposition to what they actually say.
War is sometimes necessary, but it shouldn’t be considered inevitable, nor should it be considered the path to the kingdom of heaven and to the discipleship of G-d.
Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek; blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; the merciful; the pure in heart; those who are persecuted; those who are reviled and persecuted falsely on the account of Jesus.
And blessed are the peacemakers; those who make peace. They don’t force something they call peace on others; they create a lasting peace, an eternal peace.
Those are the peacemakers; they are the children of G-d.
We are 56 days out from the 2022 Mid-Term Elections.
On November 8, we are being called to save our democracy. This is not hyperbole. We saw what happened on January 6, 2021, and the insurrectionists are still fomenting dissent and looking towards autocrats to lead us. We cannot let that happen.
We need to hold the House and expand our majority in the Senate, and we cannot forget the down ballot races, especially those that guide and oversee our local elections.
In a world where a Congressman (Gohmert (R-TX)) just this week traveled to Miami to present a flag to an insurrectionist who served her time as she was released from custody, we need to ensure that the only people in government are the ones loyal to the US and the functioning of its government and not geared towards and cheering for its sabotage.
These are the races to follow in 2022 and if you live in those states, please vote for the Democratic candidate. Everyone else, if you are able please donate to their campaigns.
Senate Arizona – Mark Kelly (re-election) Nevada – Catherine Cortez-Masto (re-election) Wisconsin – (ousting insurrectionist Ron Johnson) Mandela Barnes Florida – Val Demmings (former law enforcement, current Congressperson, so much better than Marco Rubio) Georgia – Raphael Warnock (re-election) New Hampshire – Maggie Hassan (re-election) Pennsylvania – John Fetterman (Lt. Governor, former mayor of Braddock)
Governor Florida – Charlie Crist (former Governor, already knows the job; not an autocrat) Georgia – Stacey Abrams (she’s Stacey Abrams!) Texas – Beto O’Rourke (for the people, gun control, 1000x better than Abbott) Pennsylvania – Josh Shapiro (current Attorney General of PA) New York – Kathy Hochul (re-election)
House – on a personal note, I would love to see Elise Stefanik unseated. She’s an inciter to riot and an insurrectionist. Vote for the Democrat, save Democracy. Vote Matt Castelli (former CIA Officer, served as Director for Counterterrorism at Pres. Obama’s National Security Council.)
Visit Vote Save America to learn how you can help in your region and across the country.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 