But please, please, please, if you are eligible to vote in the U.S., make sure you’re registered this year.
Midterms matter.
Elections that can tip the balance of state legislatures are happening in MANY states, and it will take substantial voter turnout by progressives and democrats to win those elections (thanks to districts redrawn to benefit conservatives in power BY those conservatives in power). State legislatures make state laws, like the ones regarding abortion that are taking aim at the Supreme Court this summer.
Research who’s running.
Not familiar with the candidates? Check with a newspaper or two in your state. There are good, local journalists who often provide write-ups on the list of candidates as election season approaches.
Then, most importantly, vote. Make your voice heard. Or someone else will decide your future for you.
**Two Senate runoff elections in Georgia means WE CAN STILL TAKE BACK THE SENATE!**
WE CAN THE SENATE RIGHT OUT OF MITCH MCCONNELL’S DISTURBINGLY PURPLE HANDS.
**It’s a long shot, but if Democrats win both seats, the Senate will be 50-50.**
If you live in Georgia, go to votesaveamerica.com/register to register to vote if you haven’t already. Then remind three friends to register or check their registration and VOTE AGAIN! The special election for both seats will be on January 5th.
Everyone else, get ready to organize/volunteer/call every single voter in Georgia! Let’s take back the Senate!
A reminder to the younger people in Georgia, if you will turn 18 before January 5, 2021, you can register to vote in this runoff! Please register and VOTE!
there is going to be an arguably even more important election than the presidency happening on january 5th in georgia. the two senate seats in their state did not reach enough of a majority in this election to decide a winner, so theyre doing a “run-off election”.
if these two seats are won by democrats they will flip the senate to a MAJORITY for democrats. we will have the presidency, the house AND the senate if the democratic candidates in georgia win. the policies biden promised could have a better chance at being passed!
if you live in georgia PLEASE vote for the democratic senate candidates on january 5th
if you do not, i recommend donating to the candidates election fund! :)
On Monday, according to The Tributary, a Florida judge in Tallahassee ordered state election officials to move forward with a court-picked remedial congressional map to fix a racial gerrymander recently signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
ears before law enforcement seized the contents of Ian Rogers’ safe, he earned a reputation as a talented mechanic and successful Napa Valley business owner. Rogers catered to an elite clientele of Jaguar, Land Rover and Rolls-Royce owners inside a garage off Napa’s main drag, a street spotted with boutiques and high-end bed and breakfasts.
The 47-year-old from Sonoma County, who appeared to have a passion for guns according to Facebook posts where he dissed prominent Democrats, was also a loving husband and father who paid his bills on time, according to his family and friends.
In the fall of 2020, in the weeks after Joe Biden was declared the next president of the United States, Rogers sent an ominous text to someone he trusted, according to court records.
“Ok bro we need to hit the enemy in the mouth,” he messaged.
“Yeah so we punch Soros,” Rogers’ former employee and gym buddy, Jarrod Copeland, texted back, referring to billionaire investor George Soros.
As you know we are trapped between the right and the left, and neither fully represents the needs of women.
As Dworkin said, the right sees women as private property; the left sees women as public property.
Here is a list of Democrat politicians who have promised to remove Title IX, eroding sex-based protections for women.
Please contact your representative encouraging them to uphold the legal definition of woman. We are oppressed in order for men to access our bodies; we are oppressed on the basis of sex.
“In a remarkable letter released just days before the 2018 mid-term elections, 98 candidates declared their intention to eliminate Title IX sex-based equality protections for women, replacing the protected category of "sex’ with ‘gender identity’ - a nebulously defined legal category based on an individual’s subjective identification with a social sex role defined by adherence to sex-stereotypes.
The signatories all state that legal rights for women which mandate equality based on sex are 'cruel’ to males, and 'unscientific’.”
Not sure if anyone noticed, but I’ve been neglecting this blog lately. Too many fish in the barrel, not enough bullets. And others doing it much better, which is a good thing.
But I’m surprised there isn’t much discussion (that I’ve seen) on the post-Trump reform agenda. We could need one sooner than we think - or later than we fear. In any case, here’s my two cents. This list focuses on institutional/structural changes - hopefully these are acceptable to people of all ideological stripes who are interested in strengthening democratic self-government rather than narrow partisan interests. Many will need constitutional amendments, and some are more realistic than others. But we have to start somewhere.
Prosecutors and judges
1. The Attorney General becomes a non-political, non-partisan post. Yeah, you can still have a “Secretary of Justice” or whatever for policy issues, but prosecutions under federal law should be independent from political influence. Have the AG serve one, nonrenewable 10 year term, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but cannot be removed except for gross incompetence/malfeasance. FBI reports to the AG.
2. AG appoints US attorneys for fixed, staggered terms, say 6-8 years. Again, cannot be removed without cause. AG can choose to appoint special prosecutors for special cases.
3. All written and verbal communications by officials in the executive or legislative branch with the AG, other federal prosecutors or the FBI are matters of public record.
4. Federal district and appellate judges serve for fixed terms, say 12 years. Supreme Court justices maybe 16 years.
Campaign finance
5. Sources and amounts of all donations to political candidates, causes or organizations greater than $1000 in a calendar year are matters of public record. This applies to any donation, in cash or kind, to anyone who seeks public office, and to any person or organization that communicates against others seeking public office, or advocates on an issue that is currently subject to political debate
The president
6. The president becomes fully subject to executive branch ethics rules.
7. The president must release complete financial info, including tax returns, assets and debts, and eliminate any financial conflicts of interest and all foreign sources of income by the time of his/her inauguration. If s/he fails to do so, this automatically triggers impeachment proceedings.
8. If the president is impeached and removed from office, the vice president serves in a caretaker role until new elections are held, no later than six months after the president leaves office.
The Senate
9. No more Senate filibuster. However, all matters of substance in the Senate must be approved by a majority of senators and by a majority of population represented by those senators as measured at the most recent census. A bill would become law if it passes the House by a majority, and both tallies in the Senate. Kamala Harris would have 37 million votes, Mike Rounds of South Dakota would have 814,000. Right-wingers will be happy to learn that Ted Cruz gets 25 million votes.
10. Senate vacancies are filled by prompt special elections, not gubernatorial appointment (this always bothered me).
Elections
11. No more electoral college. President chosen by nationwide popular vote.
12. No more party primaries, at any level. All elections have two rounds: if no one gets more than 50% in the first round, the top two candidates compete in the second. This would be a big culture shock at the presidential level, but I think we could make it work.
13. Congressional and state-legislative district lines to be set by independent commissions with equal representation of both major parties and representation by minor parties. Agreement of reps of both major parties on these commissions needed for final approval, and districts must meet broad federal guidelines (contiguity, racial balance etc).
14. You want voter ID? OK, anyone who shows up at a polling place (which opens two weeks before election day) with a valid photo ID that proves citizenship can vote and is automatically registered for the next eight years. So no chance for voter fraud (which is virtually nonexistent anyway) and no more convoluted requirements for advance registration. You can get a special voter ID based on address-based forms of identification (birth certificate + bank statement etc) from your local DMV or elections office, without a fee, up to two weeks before the election, also valid for 8 years.
15. Ballots are mailed to all registered voters four weeks before the election. Completed ballots can be mailed in or dropped off at a polling place at any time thereafter.
16. For those who wish to vote in person, voting machines must meet strict security and transparency guidelines, including published software and an auditable paper trail.
17. Every election will automatically be audited (ie a sample of precincts/counties will have their votes hand-counted); any irregularities will trigger a broader recount.
18. A county where officials are found to have harassed, intimidated or otherwise restricted voters will have its elections federally administered for the next ten years. A state that has three or more such counties will have all of its elections federally administered for the next ten years.
Miscellaneous
19. No more penny. WTF is worth two cents?
20. You want to sell health insurance across state lines? OK, health insurance can be sold across state lines, but the health insurance industry is now regulated at the federal rather than the state level. Actually all insurance should be regulated at the federal level.
21. No more debt limit. Come on, it’s a stupid idea.
22. If the appropriations bill for an authorized federal agency or department is not passed by the end of the fiscal year, the previous year’s appropriation is automatically renewed, with an inflation adjustment. So no more government shutdowns.
23. Members of Congress can be prosecuted for insider trading based on knowledge they acquire as part of their legislative activities.
24. The District of Columbia gets either the senators and representatives it would be entitled to if it were a state, or statehood.
25. Puerto Rico gets either statehood or (once its finances are straightened out) independence.
26. Civics classes made mandatory in all schools, public or private. These will cover how the government works, how citizenship works, how to critically read news coverage, how to judge the reliability of news sources, how to engage in public debate, and how to distinguish facts from opinions.
Of the 40 US midterm elections held since the American Civil War, the President’s party has lost seats in 37 of them. The only times that a President’s party gained seats were following the 1934 elections during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term and the Great Depression, in 1998 during Bill Clinton’s second term after the Republican-led impeachment effort, and in 2002 during George W. Bush’s first term following the September 11 attacks.
I rarely check my mailbox, maybe once a week. So I go out to my car yesterday and find my vote-by-mail ballot tucked under the windshield wiper on my car. The mailman legit took the extra time to make sure I saw it, to make sure it wasn’t crushed or accidentally thrown out with ads, or forgotten about until it was too late to send.
That’s voter solidarity.
So I’m here to pass on the message: VOTE. I don’t care who you vote for or if you think your vote doesn’t matter. Just do it. Voting isn’t just a RIGHT; it’s a RESPONSIBILITY.Voters are being disenfranchised all over this country, and it’s up to those of us who aren’t being blocked from the polls to fight back.
Please register online if you aren’t already. Check your registration and your friends. Lots of people don’t have much time left to register! Don’t wait until the last minute!
Memes are all very good, but to get the assholes out, you have to VOTE.
I you live in Kentucky, there’s still time! Please get out to register, take your friends, make them get registered if they aren’t. This November’s election is critical.
Something to remember, as the election approaches:
The work is never wasted.
Even if the Republicans keep control of Congress–yes, that would be terrible, yes, I would be furious and frustrated and sad and it would hurt like hell–EVEN SO: the work we have done to get here was not wasted.
I was part of the previous “biggest worldwide protest ever,” the global protests against the Iraq War in February 2003.
We lost. The war happened. Is still happening.
But some of the people who got involved then worked for Obama’s campaigns, a lot of them are part of the resistance now, and all of us learned something. The work was not wasted.
Even if we lose. There were Democratic primary debates in my hometown for the first time I can remember. Even if our terrible Republican Congresswoman gets re-elected, there’s still a broader and stronger Democratic Party organization in Mike Fucking Pence’s home state.
The election can’t be an end. It will only be an end if we win and get complacent, or if we lose and give in to hopelessness. We cannot afford either. We do the job that is in front of us. No matter what.
The work is never wasted.
The stories our world tells us are about Great Heroic Struggles With Triumphant Climaxes In Which Good Vanquishes Evil And They All Live Happily Ever After. It’s all about the one extreme emergency during which people rise to the occasion.
Problem is, that’s not how the world actually … works. That’s not how change happens. That’s not how societies are reshaped. We hear about MLK and the bus boycott and the protests, but not the DECADES OF WORK that came before, the organizing and the education and the legal challenges and the hundreds of thousands of people, from great heroes to ordinary people, who put in the grinding every-day work to make the world a better place, step by step, bit by bit. The big things–the speeches, the marches–were the tip of the iceberg. Nothing would have happened without the rest of the iceberg.
The 2018 midterms are the tip of the iceberg. They are incredibly important, yes. But without the rest of the iceberg, they mean nothing. Without ordinary people across America organizing and talking to their friends and coworkers and paying attention to politics and getting involved and volunteering (not just politically, but for all the nonprofits out there working to make the world a better, fairer, more just, more merciful place) the election is useless.
This is not a sprint. It is a relay marathon. If you can run a major leg, awesome. If you can help organize the marathon, awesome. If you can coordinate the people running, awesome. If you can hand out bottled water along the route, awesome. If you can cheer along the way, awesome. If you can remind people that the marathon is happening, awesome. It’s not about great heroes or one person doing it all or one climactic battle in which everything magically gets fixed.
It’s about ordinary people doing what they can. What you can do right now is vote. What you do on November 7 and the months and years following (no matter who wins the election) is stay involved and stay working.
Take care of yourself. Take care of others. Don’t hyperfixate and burn out. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Vote. And then keep moving on.
A free sticker! That would certainly get MY children to vote.
Sometimes I think people underestimate just how much of a genius Weird Al is.
Like, the brilliance here is that it’s hilarious because it’s a ridiculous thing to say to adults, and yet the most ridiculous thing is that it really will motivate some of us to vote.
And if you can read this whole tweet with Al’s distinct voice narrating it in your head, that’s an extra bonus.
