@journeywithme2 Sending angels to SCOTUS to save democracy today. I see the Supreme Court surrounded by our Founding Fathers and the great women defenders of democracy, including Ruth Bader Ginsberg, infusing their truths into the hearts and minds of the justices.
For the unfamiliar, Moore v Harper is a North Carolina congressional gerrymandering case in which North Carolina is asking that states have exclusive power to make election rules, even if they conflict with the Constitution of the U.S. and their own state.
The Moore case hinges on a legal proposition known as the “independent state legislature theory.” The theory asserts that, when it comes to making state laws that apply to federal elections — from drawing congressional district lines, to determining the who-what-when-where of casting a ballot — only the state legislature itself has the power to set the rules.
If allowed, democracy would be upended.
Read about it here:
@jeanne-mayell Thank you for adding the explanation of what the case is... and by whom... and the ramifications as well as sending Angels,Light and Love as we all do praying and asking for the Highest Good For All Concerned be made manifest.
Putting in a plug here for the next big election campaign, for writing hand-written postcards to marginalized voters.
These are grass roots efforts of politically active and knowledgable voters like us helping marginalized voters to navigate a Republican controlled voting system deliberately designed to discourage and confuse them and keep them from voting. We have to write them entirely by hand in order to get recipients' attention. The recipients are willing to read a postcard that someone wrote in their own hand rather than throw it in the trash. It has a human touch.
My town Democratic Committee sent 2500 cards, @rainbow's aunt organized some 2500 letters in her town. My sister in law organized the writing of 250 cards.
In total, VoteForward.org, just one of many campaigns, organized the writing of 1.2 million hand-written postcards to GA voters for the runoffs!
Given how close the race was, I am sure that postcard writing campaigns made a difference in this election.
As I wrote each postcard, I focused on the recipient with love and hope.
I also feel that if I'm doing something, no matter how small, then others are too. It's part of an energy field that we can help to expand. Okay, soapbox over!
A friend sent me this article worth reading, although harsh in its bluntness: Hershel Walker is an American Tragedy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/herschel-walker-georgia-black-americans/672373/
@jeanne-mayell Spot on article. I am glad someone is writing about this.
@jeanne-mayell That is a searing article...she really did a good job of summing up the feelings that many of us are not articulate enough to express. Thank you Jeanne for sharing!
@jeanne-mayell This is really beautiful, Jeanne, especially that you focused on the recipients with love. I could see people in my mind's eye receiving and touching those cards and feeling moved by the energy they carried, even if the people didn't realize it consciously. So lovely.
The Georgia run off was a morality play in real life showing how good ultimately wins.Trump and the Republicans foiled their chances of winning the Senate seat in the Georgia Runoff with their anti democratic shenanigans.
The democrats played a good game. But the Republicans totally blew it and not just by choosing a lying hypocritical blowhard for their candidate. Mostly Donald Trump blew it for them by vilifying early voting which had two disastrous consequences for them:
(1) Georgia democrats, especially minorities, understood the GOP was trying to keep them from voting. So they voted like hell! They came out of the woodwork to vote.
What’s more, Warnock himself made access to voting a major campaign issue which further bolstered his appeal.
(2) Trump meanwhile had discouraged Republican voters from voting early or absentee by spreading fear and distrust about early and absentee voting. While I’m not sure he succeeded in inadvertently depressing his party’s vote, he certainly gave the GOP leadership another reason to distance from him.
(3) it didn’t help the Republicans that the GA Secretary of State Raffensperger, tried to bar Saturday early voting the day after Thanksgiving. The dems sued vigorously and won in each of three courts. Raffensberger lost miserably. And he handed Warnock a campaign issue that made him a hero for democracy. Warnock got to show he was actively fighting for democracy during the campaign.
So light won over dark which ultimately it will.
Gives me hope.
This Boston Globe story says it all much better than I have, but for their paywall
@jsr78 Awhile back I read that she had a really hard childhood and was homeless and lived in a car for a time. I wonder if that's behind her willingness to do anything for money. Or it could be she just really craves attention. Quoting a line from Lonesome Dove..."She's too leaky a vessel to put your hope in". (Substituted She for He).
Sinema waits until after Warnock's win to suck the air out of the room by basically announcing that she's making the Senate 50-50 again. She also did this so she can't be primaried. She said she did this to better represent Arizona voters, yet that goes against what Arizona voters voted for in the midterms.
@jsr78 It's pretty straightforward, really. She and Manchin want to be the centers of attention. For the last two years, these two have effectively had the power to stop any progress on bills that the D's - and the people - wanted because the D's didn't have a majority. Now that they do, she and her DINO buddy have lost their power and they know it, so this is her shot at keeping some of the limelight on herself. And yes, to keep the money flowing in from right-wing donors. She's a grifter as much as any other R. I think she also believes it will insulate her from criticism from the R's in her next election and help her keep her position, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Manchin does the same thing. Based on her (and his) performance for the last two years, I doubt it will happen that way.
I can't remember where I saw this, but I saw someone post that Biden should appoint her to some cabinet level position and get her out of the Senate and allow AZ to appoint a *real* D. 🤣
@tgraf66 nobody should treat the Sinema story like it’s breaking news. This is who she’s been since she came to the Senate. If anything we’re lucky she kept the D by her name to keep the senate at 50/50 the last two years.
she’s still talking to the same people and going to throw up the same roadblocks she’s been throwing up.
exactly nothing has changed.
Sinema knows she's detested by the senate democrats, but can't become a republican (yet) because if she runs for reelection she'd never make it out of a republican primary. She wouldn't make it out of a democratic primary either, so she's daring the dems not to oppose her running as an independent by fielding a dem candidate (which they don't do for Bernie Sanders and Angus King elections). If they do oppose her whoever gets the democratic nomination in AZ in 2024 could lose because she'll draw votes away from the dems. Or maybe she will, who knows. If she does win my guess is she'll switch to the GOP. Whatever it takes to stick a finger in dems' eyes.
The upside is that for now, as long as she doesn't outright caucus with the GOP, it changes nothing. The sane stays 51/49. And she has plenty of reason not to, since she'd lose her committee assignments. But look for her to cause more drama.
For those wanting to tear their hair out, remember a lot can change between now and 2024, and even with the supposedly challenging map for senate dems in 2024, a lot can change. I'm feeling kind of optimistic.
It's worth talking about what happened to Keri Lake, because it reflects a lovely trend.
Stuck in a fading Trump narrative of stolen elections and scorched earth politics, against nearly universal advice from her GOP consultants, WAPO says she handed the election to Katie Hobbs.
It was a close election, but, according to post election analyses, she should have won by a mile, had she paid attention to the electorate rather than her own Trump echo-chamber.
Check this out:
- "A meaningful share of Republican voters showed up to the polls but spurned Lake. Statewide, she received nearly 120,000 fewer votes than did the victorious Republican candidate for state treasurer, Kimberly Yee, who stressed financial literacy and fiscal discipline on the campaign trail instead of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
- Nine percent of self-described Republicans went so far as to vote for Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs, according to exit polling.
- Indbependents broke for Hobbs by seven percentage points."
Although told to separate from Trump politics, she couldn't, because she's a true Trumper.
I don't know why but I see her as a gooney looking bird, the kind with balding head and crazy eyes. She now probably has her sites set on being Trump's running mate in '24.
But Keri, Trump is fading.
Bye, bye, Trump. Bye Keri-bird.
Keri Lake was unflinchingly loyal to Trump. Then her campaign unraveled.