Everything including all reforms, changes & replacing GOP members requires votes. Saving democracy in the U.S. depends on Voting Rights. We must prioritize & deal more effectively with this issue?
I hate to be critical of the only political party that is attempting to govern in these very difficult times, but I’m afraid we have made a critical mistake on the Voting Rights issue. Unfortunately, Democratic leadership and POTUS have let the major reforms needed on voting rights and voter suppression slip away.
The leadership, distracted by, COVID, infrastructure, Build Back Better, Afghanistan and other interferences failed to prioritize and deal with the urgency of the lynchpin of American democracy — the right to vote — upon which all other issues depend.
While the GOP has been emphatic and successful in frustrating and altering that right to their advantage, POTUS, with the power of the bully pulpit, should have taken control with a vengeance to defend that fundamental right; including the critical rationale and absolute necessity to carve out an exception to the Senate filibuster rule in order to enact reforms. Unfortunately, Biden has also been waffling on the need to change the filibuster rule.
He should have prioritized and explained the importance of voting rights above all else. He should have quashed the nonsensical internal bickering within his party and presented the public with relentless, hard hitting, flag waving oratory to save the U.S. democracy. He should have also dealt seriously and called out any unreasonable obstruction or interference by members of his party.
Instead, he let it get out of hand and has placed the future of U.S. democracy on the brink. Even if Democrats were to pass some reform legislation now; it’s probably too late to be effective against a barrage of GOP lawsuits that would delay or halt implementation prior to the November 8, 2022 Midterm elections. Those elections will likely determine the future of democracy in America.
Additionally, it appears that even the legislation that is being proposed does not address the intrinsic legal ambiguity within the antiquated Electoral Count Act of 1887 which was the root cause and erroneous justification for the January 6, 2021 insurrection and assault on the American democracy. A new report Lessons and Recommendations from the 2020 General Election, from the National Task Force on Election Crises emphasizes that, “Congress Must Update the Electoral Count Act to Guard Against Crises During Future Presidential Elections”
The USS Arizona Memorial, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on USS Arizona during the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and commemorates the events of that day. … (Wikipedia)
USS Arizona (BB-39) was the second and last of the Pennsylvania-class of “super-dreadnought” battleships built for the United States Navy in the mid-1910s. Named in honor of the 48th state‘s recent admission into the union and commissioned in 1916, the ship remained stateside during World War I. Shortly after the end of the war, Arizona was one of a number of American ships that briefly escorted President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference. … Several years later, she was transferred to the Pacific Fleet and remained there for the rest of her career.
On 7 December 1941, Arizona was hit by Japanese torpedo bombers that dropped armor-piercing bombs during the attack on Pearl Harbor. After one of their bombs detonated in a magazine, she exploded violently and sank, with the loss of 1,177 officers and crewmen. …
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
Various members of my parents families served in WW2, including my father, and some of my mother’s brothers (including at least one practicing Quaker.) The only fatality was my mother’s just older brother who was captured and survived the Bataan death march only to die some years later in a POW camp in Manchuria.
That would be the USS Arizona, one of the battleships sunk this day 80 years ago in the Pearl Harbor attack which brought the US into WW2.
After a Japanese attacker’s bombs detonated in a magazine, she exploded violently and sank, with the loss of 1,177 officers and crewmen. Unlike many of the other ships sunk or damaged that day, Arizona was irreparably damaged by the force of the magazine explosion. … The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor beneath the USS Arizona Memorial. … (Wikipedia)
Scientific American has a powerful article on why the FDA should remove the stringent protocol for abortion by medication. Currently, mifepristone, one of the two pills prescribed, is under a rarely used REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy). However, the protocol was altered when covid emerged and the results are in. Abortion by medication is safe and effective and the FDA should immediately remove mifepristone from the REMS category.
… the most common method of abortion today is a discreet prescription regimen that can safely end an early pregnancy at home. If the Food and Drug Administration lifts restrictions this month, as expected, the medication could become more accessible by mail in states that allow it and potentially create an underground market in those states that are poised to prohibit abortion if the Supreme Court allows.
As the nation awaits a ruling that could result in abortion being outlawed in roughly half the states in the country, medication abortion is emerging as a new front in the emotional and sharply contested debate. Last week, a law went into effect in Texas banning medication abortion by mail or telehealth, which followed the state’s adoption of the nation’s strictest abortion ban, after six weeks. …
Today, medication abortion is available by mail in 21 states, with some online providers operating only in certain areas or regions. Carefem mails abortion pills to patients in 10 states, including Massachusetts. Abortion on Demand ships to 21 states, including Massachusetts. Costs range from $150 to $375 and are not necessarilycovered by insurance. …
My, you are full of questions today. I must admit that questions are easier to find than answers. So, I can empathize.
Mid-Atlantic states are chill today, with a little ice falling from the sky from here up into the NE states. So, it is a better day for online and on to the grocers than for cutting brush.
Whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail, or any carrier or conveyance carrying the mail, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
The statue was the focus of a deadly white nationalist rally in 2017. A local African American heritage center plans to turn it into a new piece of public art.
The City Council of Charlottesville, Va., voted on Tuesday to donate a statue of Robert E. Lee to an African American heritage center that plans to melt the monument, the focus of a deadly white nationalist rally in 2017, into bronze for a new piece of public artwork. …
… the council on Tuesday decided to give it to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which submitted a proposal under the name “Swords Into Plowshares.”
An Indiegogo campaign page for Swords Into Plowshares said that its leaders wanted to “transform a national symbol of white supremacy into a new work of art that will reflect racial justice and inclusion.” …
The legislation would provide a one-time pathway for the Senate to raise the debt ceiling on a simple majority vote, skirting Republican obstruction.
Congressional leaders in both parties reached a deal on Tuesday on a bill that would allow a swift increase in the debt ceiling amid a Republican blockade, agreeing to attempt an unusual maneuver that could avert the threat of a first-ever federal default. …
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, who called raising the limit “an imperative,” announced a House vote on the measure in a letter to Democrats after days of quiet bipartisan talks to resolve the stalemate. Its passage was not guaranteed in the evenly divided Senate, where Republicans have for weeks refused to let Democrats take up any bill to provide a long-term debt-ceiling increase, but Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, signaled that it was a solution that he and his colleagues could accept. …
The measure would create a special pathway — to be used only once, before mid-January — for the Senate to raise the debt limit by a specific amount with a simple majority vote, allowing Democrats to steer clear of a filibuster or other procedural hurdles so that Republicans would have no means to block it. …
this surprised me, Fred, because i had thought it had been settled last week…but it appears that i mistook the continuing resolution to fund the government for a debt limit increase:
Congress averts shutdown after vaccine mandate fight – The Senate on Thursday night passed a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown after a dayslong fight over President Biden’s vaccine mandate threw the legislation into limbo. Senators voted 69-28 to pass a stopgap bill to fund the government through Feb. 18. The legislation, which passed the House earlier in the evening, now goes to Biden’s desk where he has until the end of Friday to sign it.
even if one tries to pay close attention to what’s going on, sometimes the differences between the different bills allowing the government to operate can throw you..
It appears that the 50 GOP senators will not vote against a debt limit increase, per instructions from McConnell, leaving it to 50 Dem senators plus VP Harris to make it happen. BUT there aren’t 50 Dem senators. Instead there are 48 Dems and 2 ‘independents’ who vote with Dems, but one (or two) of the actual Dems (i.e. Joe Manchin) will not necessarily vote to increase the debt limit unless there are significant changes to the bill. It is said that mega-corp America has demanded this of McConnell & he will comply. But so much the better for the GOP if the Dems can’t pass it on their own.
mistaking ‘the continuing resolution to fund the government for a debt limit increase’
I posted on this previously. The news on this was somewhat confusing.
Why did it matter that ‘continuing guv funding’ and ‘raising the debt limit’ were separate issue? Because they were separate bills, for whatever reason. Doing one without the other may not seem to make much sense. So be it.
For years, environmentalists have sought compromises with labor unions in industries reliant on fossil fuels, aware that one of the biggest obstacles to cutting carbon emissions is opposition from the unions’ members.
States like Washington, New York and Illinois have enacted renewable-energy laws that were backed by unions representing workers who build and maintain traditional power plants. And unions for electricians and steelworkers are rallying behind President Biden’s climate and social policy legislation, now in the Senate’s hands.
But at least one group of workers appears far less enthusiastic about the deal-making: coal workers, who continue to regard clean-energy jobs as a major risk to their standard of living. …
Unions representing other workers affected by climate legislation have struck deals, but opposition from coal miners has persisted, complicating the path to enactment.
… U.S. coal production totaled 534.3 million tons in 2020, the lowest annual total since 1965, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows. Quarterly production dropped to just 115.1 million tons in the second quarter of 2020 as pandemic-related factors weighed on demand.
Despite the uptick in production over the last three quarters, sector employment has continued to slide. Average coal mine employment numbers for the first quarter slumped 16.7% year over year to 39,507, according to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration. …
Coal mine operators & union members, historically enemies of one another, stand together on protecting the coal industry, it seems. Chief producers are in Wyoming, Pennsylvania & West Virgina. Most coal production these days is from open-pit mining, with enormous power shovels & trucks, and relatively few ‘miners’. But the mine owners and their employees are united on this.
If we just closed the mines and gave each of those 40,000 workers a 50,000 dollar per year paycheck to refrain from mining coal, it would cost taxpayers about 3 dollars per year (for each 10,000 dollars they already pay in taxes).
seems like a cheap price to pay for saving the planet.
warning: my arithmetic unit is out of commission until further notice. you should check my work. do try to think in round numbers.
i am afraid I don’t understand your comment. What 50,000 of who?
As for waste of time, I am not so sure pointing out that”a” cost of eliminating one source of CO2 is trivial.
Or are you sayig my arithmetic is badly off…could you indicate your own calculation, or other objection..if it’s not a waste of your time.
i see “about” 40,000 workers, about 50,000 dollars each, about 250,000,000
taxpayers, most of whom already pay about 10,000 dollars in taxes. Which gives me about 8 dollars per taxpayer, but most taxpayers pay less than the “average” tax. Calculating it another way, taking into account the unequal distribution of taxes, I got 3 dollars per ten thousand dollars of taxes. Close enough for me. Did I miss something?
Those miners in WVA, at least, have Joe Manchin to look after their interests. Mine owners (all over?) also, presumably. Coal is still a valuable & plentiful natural resource, but the conventional wisdom is it’s only valuable when it’s dug out of the ground. So, dug out of the ground it will be. If you want to buy them out (i.e., the owners) it would presumably cost much, much more.
I didn’t realize I was responding to your post, I thought I was responding to the NYT article. Basing any kind of impact on 50,000 workers’ opinions is a waste of time. They have no electoral power at all.
“This morning at the ALEC Committee meetings,” Jason Isaac, director of the Koch-funded Texas Public Policy Foundation, wrote last Friday morning, “you’ll have the opportunity to push back against woke financial institutions that are colluding against American energy producers.” The email—obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, and first reported by CMD investigative journalist Alex Kotch—offers a window into a rapidly congealing strategy among Republican state-level officials: declaring war on “critical energy theory” within the financial sector. …
The industry-sponsored group has weathered controversy and flourished because it also offers conservative Republican elected officials a social network, access to campaign donors and a blueprint for how to accelerate their political careers. …
ho hum. now if this was a russian supported group it would be treason. coup in progress.
even a program to turn Americans against each other, destroy “higher” values and and reduce America to the law of the jungle, which they know how to win.
so how do we discriminate a conspiracy to overthrow the government from ordinary and necessary political advocacy?
If Russia opts for an invasion, Ukraine’s generals say, they would have no hope of repelling it without a major infusion of military help from the West.
… With nearly 100,000 troops now massed across Ukraine’s eastern, northern and southern borders and more on the way, even the Ukrainian officials responsible for their country’s defense acknowledge that without a significant influx of resources, their forces do not stand much of a chance.
“Unfortunately, Ukraine needs to be objective at this stage,” said Gen. Kyrylo O. Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service. “There are not sufficient military resources for repelling a full-scale attack by Russia if it begins without the support of Western forces.” …
The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
As a result, between 1994 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons (of which they had a lot.) (Wikipedia)
(Signed by US & Russia, also the UK, back in 1994.)
The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. …
well, Ukraine needs to be objective about the casualties even if The West steps in to help them.
I think helping them would be about as foolish as it would have been just after WW2.
I’d like to think all Putin is asking for is a guaranteee Ukraine will not become a threat to itself, a forward base for “the West.” perhaps an agreement that “we” stay out of Ukraine if Russia does. Then hope Russia does not see that as a weakness and call our bluff. on the other hand we have seen conquer-the-world types througout history, and some times you have to make the call to stop them. i don’t think Russia is in any position to conquer the world/ i’d hate to see them conquer Ukraine.
VOTING RIGHTS URGENCY
Everything including all reforms, changes & replacing GOP members requires votes. Saving democracy in the U.S. depends on Voting Rights. We must prioritize & deal more effectively with this issue?
I hate to be critical of the only political party that is attempting to govern in these very difficult times, but I’m afraid we have made a critical mistake on the Voting Rights issue. Unfortunately, Democratic leadership and POTUS have let the major reforms needed on voting rights and voter suppression slip away.
The leadership, distracted by, COVID, infrastructure, Build Back Better, Afghanistan and other interferences failed to prioritize and deal with the urgency of the lynchpin of American democracy — the right to vote — upon which all other issues depend.
While the GOP has been emphatic and successful in frustrating and altering that right to their advantage, POTUS, with the power of the bully pulpit, should have taken control with a vengeance to defend that fundamental right; including the critical rationale and absolute necessity to carve out an exception to the Senate filibuster rule in order to enact reforms. Unfortunately, Biden has also been waffling on the need to change the filibuster rule.
He should have prioritized and explained the importance of voting rights above all else. He should have quashed the nonsensical internal bickering within his party and presented the public with relentless, hard hitting, flag waving oratory to save the U.S. democracy. He should have also dealt seriously and called out any unreasonable obstruction or interference by members of his party.
Instead, he let it get out of hand and has placed the future of U.S. democracy on the brink. Even if Democrats were to pass some reform legislation now; it’s probably too late to be effective against a barrage of GOP lawsuits that would delay or halt implementation prior to the November 8, 2022 Midterm elections. Those elections will likely determine the future of democracy in America.
Additionally, it appears that even the legislation that is being proposed does not address the intrinsic legal ambiguity within the antiquated Electoral Count Act of 1887 which was the root cause and erroneous justification for the January 6, 2021 insurrection and assault on the American democracy. A new report Lessons and Recommendations from the 2020 General Election, from the National Task Force on Election Crises emphasizes that, “Congress Must Update the Electoral Count Act to Guard Against Crises During Future Presidential Elections”
The GOP is desperate to hold on to power.
They will continue to do whatever they deem necessary for their survival.
The Dems have been around somewhat longer, seem to be less worried about theirs.
But the GOP retains the guerrilla political skills of their party’s founder,
who was apparently Francis (‘Swamp Fox’) Marion of South Carolina.
Not so fun facts. The GOP was established as an anti-slavery, Abolitionist
party, was able to get Abe Lincoln elected President forthwith. About
100 years later, the GOP became the party of white nationalism.
OK, so Francis Marion of South Carolina was not the founder of the GOP, but he is no doubt the guiding light of the modern version.
Remember Arizona.
USS Arizona Memorial
Fred,
Thanks for the memory.
Various members of my parents families served in WW2, including my father, and some of my mother’s brothers (including at least one practicing Quaker.) The only fatality was my mother’s just older brother who was captured and survived the Bataan death march only to die some years later in a POW camp in Manchuria.
That would be the USS Arizona, one of the battleships sunk this day 80 years ago in the Pearl Harbor attack which brought the US into WW2.
After a Japanese attacker’s bombs detonated in a magazine, she exploded violently and sank, with the loss of 1,177 officers and crewmen. Unlike many of the other ships sunk or damaged that day, Arizona was irreparably damaged by the force of the magazine explosion. … The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor beneath the USS Arizona Memorial. … (Wikipedia)
Scientific American has a powerful article on why the FDA should remove the stringent protocol for abortion by medication. Currently, mifepristone, one of the two pills prescribed, is under a rarely used REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy). However, the protocol was altered when covid emerged and the results are in. Abortion by medication is safe and effective and the FDA should immediately remove mifepristone from the REMS category.
The FDA Should Remove Its Restrictions on the ‘Abortion Pill’ Mifepristone – Scientific American
As states try to limit abortion access, popularity of pill method complicates debate
Do the states have the right to interfere with the U.S. Mail?
Whatever happened to plain brown wrappers? (Amazon, are you listening?
Seems to me we need a little more devotion to privacy in this country.
Is $375 too much to pay for an abortion?
Can pro-choice enthusiasts take up a collection?
Coberly,
My, you are full of questions today. I must admit that questions are easier to find than answers. So, I can empathize.
Mid-Atlantic states are chill today, with a little ice falling from the sky from here up into the NE states. So, it is a better day for online and on to the grocers than for cutting brush.
well, around here us brushwackers have to work rain or..or…or whatever that other stuff is.
everything i say is a question, so i thought i might try to use question marks to give people a clue that i am not attacking their mother’s virtue.
Revisiting US Code again…
18 US Code § 1701 – Obstruction of mails
Statue of Robert E. Lee Will Be Melted Down
Congressional Leaders Reach Deal to Allow Debt Ceiling Increase
this surprised me, Fred, because i had thought it had been settled last week…but it appears that i mistook the continuing resolution to fund the government for a debt limit increase:
even if one tries to pay close attention to what’s going on, sometimes the differences between the different bills allowing the government to operate can throw you..
It appears that the 50 GOP senators will not vote against a debt limit increase, per instructions from McConnell, leaving it to 50 Dem senators plus VP Harris to make it happen. BUT there aren’t 50 Dem senators. Instead there are 48 Dems and 2 ‘independents’ who vote with Dems, but one (or two) of the actual Dems (i.e. Joe Manchin) will not necessarily vote to increase the debt limit unless there are significant changes to the bill. It is said that mega-corp America has demanded this of McConnell & he will comply. But so much the better for the GOP if the Dems can’t pass it on their own.
mistaking ‘the continuing resolution to fund the government for a debt limit increase’
I posted on this previously. The news on this was somewhat confusing.
Why did it matter that ‘continuing guv funding’ and ‘raising the debt limit’ were separate issue? Because they were separate bills, for whatever reason. Doing one without the other may not seem to make much sense. So be it.
The Achilles’ Heel of Biden’s Climate Plan? Coal Miners.
US coal jobs continue to dwindle
Coal mine operators & union members, historically enemies of one another, stand together on protecting the coal industry, it seems. Chief producers are in Wyoming, Pennsylvania & West Virgina. Most coal production these days is from open-pit mining, with enormous power shovels & trucks, and relatively few ‘miners’. But the mine owners and their employees are united on this.
If we just closed the mines and gave each of those 40,000 workers a 50,000 dollar per year paycheck to refrain from mining coal, it would cost taxpayers about 3 dollars per year (for each 10,000 dollars they already pay in taxes).
seems like a cheap price to pay for saving the planet.
warning: my arithmetic unit is out of commission until further notice. you should check my work. do try to think in round numbers.
Yeah, all 50,000 of them.
Geez, what a waste of time.
EMichael
i am afraid I don’t understand your comment. What 50,000 of who?
As for waste of time, I am not so sure pointing out that”a” cost of eliminating one source of CO2 is trivial.
Or are you sayig my arithmetic is badly off…could you indicate your own calculation, or other objection..if it’s not a waste of your time.
i see “about” 40,000 workers, about 50,000 dollars each, about 250,000,000
taxpayers, most of whom already pay about 10,000 dollars in taxes. Which gives me about 8 dollars per taxpayer, but most taxpayers pay less than the “average” tax. Calculating it another way, taking into account the unequal distribution of taxes, I got 3 dollars per ten thousand dollars of taxes. Close enough for me. Did I miss something?
Those miners in WVA, at least, have Joe Manchin to look after their interests. Mine owners (all over?) also, presumably. Coal is still a valuable & plentiful natural resource, but the conventional wisdom is it’s only valuable when it’s dug out of the ground. So, dug out of the ground it will be. If you want to buy them out (i.e., the owners) it would presumably cost much, much more.
I was thinkingof shutting them down. Nationl emergency, you know.
I didn’t realize I was responding to your post, I thought I was responding to the NYT article. Basing any kind of impact on 50,000 workers’ opinions is a waste of time. They have no electoral power at all.
EMichael
thanks for the clarification.
Conservatives Have a New Bogeyman: Critical Energy Theory
New Republic – Dec 7, 2021
In case you missed it, there was another beauty that emerged from the GOP Language Abattoir this week
What is ALEC? ‘The most effective organization’ for conservatives, says Newt Gingrich
ho hum. now if this was a russian supported group it would be treason. coup in progress.
even a program to turn Americans against each other, destroy “higher” values and and reduce America to the law of the jungle, which they know how to win.
so how do we discriminate a conspiracy to overthrow the government from ordinary and necessary political advocacy?
Ukraine Commanders Say a Russian Invasion Would Overwhelm Them
(No worries. They have a defense treaty (er, memo) with the US, also signed by Russia.)
Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances
(Signed by US & Russia, also the UK, back in 1994.)
The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. …
well, Ukraine needs to be objective about the casualties even if The West steps in to help them.
I think helping them would be about as foolish as it would have been just after WW2.
I’d like to think all Putin is asking for is a guaranteee Ukraine will not become a threat to itself, a forward base for “the West.” perhaps an agreement that “we” stay out of Ukraine if Russia does. Then hope Russia does not see that as a weakness and call our bluff. on the other hand we have seen conquer-the-world types througout history, and some times you have to make the call to stop them. i don’t think Russia is in any position to conquer the world/ i’d hate to see them conquer Ukraine.
Can’t we all just get along?
Perhaps Putin would just like Ukrainians to embrace their Kievan Rus’ roots.
sure hate all these adds sitting on top of the text and not going away when asked.