VOTING RIGHTS NOTE TO SENATOR TOOMEY OF PA

by Ruth A. Sheets

Today I received from Sen. Pat Toomey a response to a petition I signed on voting rights.  Sadly, it was the same note I have received since September, and it was just slightly modified from ones I have been receiving throughout this year.  This time, I could not just respond in my head as I usually do.  I included the actual note after my response.

I am frustrated with the careful cutting back of voting rights to help Republicans take and hold power they don’t actually deserve.  The fact that Republican legislators across this country actively and passively participate in this voting rights encroachment is unjust and paves a road toward an autocracy in which voting is just for show.  

~ ~ ~

Hello Sen. Toomey.  I wish you and your family a very MERRY CHRISTMAS. (I started with this as my proof there is no “war on Christmas.”)

I am writing because I received the communication below, from you, the exact response I received from you months ago, which means you have done no additional thinking about voting rights in this country and what state legislatures have been doing lately to make voting more and more difficult for people of color and poor people, all citizens of this country.  Then you say the Voting Rights bills don’t have 60 votes in the Senate.  I wonder why that is when Republicans claim to be so patriotic.  It is not patriotic to support legislatures that deliberately and with considerable precision work to eliminate voting rights for American citizens, to the point of gerrymandering outrageously on behalf of the Republican Party.  I get it that it will never impact you because you are a wealthy white man, but that is not the case in states where voter rolls are “purged” and guess who is most often purged.  Spelling errors, often made inadvertently by voter registration offices are used to cut people from rolls.  Polling places are set up at significant distances so people on very limited incomes can’t make it.  Then there are too few polls in those communities, so people wait in long hot lines and now, in Georgia, no food or drink are allowed to be handed out to people waiting in those lines.  I can’t imagine you waiting anywhere for anything, so you don’t see this as a problem.  Next, drop boxes that were made available so people could vote at home are slated to be removed in at least one state.  Then after voting was permitted on Sundays, it is now proposed to be stopped, why?  What has changed?  Nothing except that Black voters can use their day off and their attendance at church as a means to get to voting places and Republican legislators are worried they may vote and not choose Republicans.  

OK, you know as well as I do that “free speech” is not money.  Just because you are rich and I am not should never mean that your voice is more important than mine.  That’s not the way it is supposed to be in this country, but, alas, we have had a Supreme Court for a while now that cares as little as possible for people’s rights related to the operation of our nation.  They gutted the Voting Rights Act which had nearly unanimous support in Congress as recently as 2006 and state legislatures immediately jumped in to start limiting people’s right to vote.  Voter I.D. is your big whine these days too.  The “voter fraud” you are crying about is just not happening, except for the rare few Republicans who just have to get that extra vote in for Mr. Trump, and a voter ID would not have had any impact on that.  And, I think the latest version of the voting rights bills allow for voter ID.  

Nationalizing elections!  Are you kidding?  That is just a phrase Republicans are tossing about these days because you all know what is going on is cheating and like a magician, you want to distract people from recognizing what your party is really doing.  We’re not distracted.  We know.  It is your Republican constituents who don’t and who are being used for purposes they probably are unaware of.  I get it that you are toing the party line, but when the party line means that people’s rights are being trampled, it might mean you need to use courage and stand up for what is right.  I get it you can’t stand up for BBB because Oh well, McConnell, but you should be standing with the rights of the people to vote.  The stuff you put in your note is nonsense.  You truly do know that, right?  You have seen what is going on in Pennsylvania right now when Republican organizations are trying to get hold of personal information to challenge our votes on behalf of a defeated candidate.  OK, I am hoping you know this is wrong.  You may not get it.  And, if that’s the case, it is truly a good thing you are retiring because it means a lack of responsibility for serving your constituents, not just the Republican ones.  

I keep wondering what you have supported during this term that actually helped anyone that is not a corporation, a military contractor, or other such wealthy entity.  What rights have you stood for?  Which people in need have you supported programs for?  You couldn’t even get basic gun regulations which you claimed to support, passed when that kind of regulation has about a 90% approval rate among American citizens.  You do still have some time to make a positive difference, though, I am not hopeful that you will.   

Peace, Ruth Sheets   

Our Pathetic Supreme Court and their Enablers

by Ruth A. Sheets

So, the Supreme Court has heard the Mississippi case against Rowe v. Wade and by all accounts, the Court’s conservative super majority will go along with letting states’ mostly male legislatures decide about women’s right to their own bodily autonomy and reproductive decisions.  They smugly chose not to halt a Texas law passed to keep women from having an abortion before they are even aware of their pregnancy and put its enforcement in the hands of vigilantes.  They care nothing for the women who now or in the future will need or choose abortions.  They care nothing about the difficulties of pregnancies that are the results of rape, incest, failed birth control, financial challenges, or anything else.  Have a serious medical condition, either the mother or the fetus?  Too bad!  Because, as Justice Barrett, the misogynistic woman on the Court told us, every state lets women drop off a baby if they don’t want it, so pregnancy isn’t a problem after a rape or incest or . . . . 

The Supreme Court conservative ideology has blinded them to anything but the dictates of their personal religious leanings rather than the law, precedent, or anything else.  The fact that all of the conservatives on the Court were picked because of their anti-abortion stance and not for their positive positions on human rights, voting rights for all citizens, the Constitution of the United States, economic fairness, racial equality, justice for all, or any of the other factors critical to American democracy is not only disgusting, it should be seen as unamerican.  

Just in case it is not clear, the fight against Rowe v. Wade is a strike against women, and many more strikes against women’s rights will follow.  The right wingers need someone to hate, and for them, women are the gift that keeps on giving.  Right now it's women and their ability to choose.  Next it will most likely be birth control and then, stopping women from moving more into the workplace, taking high-level jobs, and regularly demonstrating women are as capable as any man at just about any job.  That’s terrifying for conservative men who have counted on maleness giving them an entitlement even if they have not earned it. 

Catholic Bishops have dismissed women for centuries and have done everything they can including manipulating doctrine, to make sure women have no power.  Women can clean the church, attend mass, contribute money and time, do the small things that actually keep the church going but can have no real power.  Nuns are despised unless they keep their mouths shut.  Evangelical Protestant churches have similar strategies. 

What do we know for certain?  First of all, we can count on the Supreme Court for nothing that will help or support women and women’s rights unless the Court is expanded and nominees are approved for their integrity and concern for human rights, the rights of everyone, not just people of a select gender, race, or religion.

An ideologue Supreme Court is not good for everyone, just for the ones who fit in with the group the ideologues like.  In this case, it is white Christian men.  Even rapists, incesters, and those who favor women stuck at home with the kids, even if it means poverty have more rights than the pregnant person.

Well, it's time we women truly rise and shut down the men (and women who love them) who stand against full rights for women.  First of all, no man should be able to decide about women's bodily autonomy.  Men should be forced to recuse themselves from any decisions related to this issue or women should ignore the men’s rules on their right to choose altogether.  We need to help brainwashed women to see that they have value beyond that of the men in their lives or their value to men as mouthpieces condemning other women. 

Women have been shamed if they chose abortion.  The shaming needs to stop.  Abortion is healthcare and needs to be treated as such.  Women should be able to stand up and say “I made that decision because it was right for me.”  Women hiding their faces and mumbling, if mentioned at all, that they regret their choice is disturbing.  Guilt driving women to make shrines to the fetus they aborted is so sad and unnecessary.

Yo!  Conservative Christian men, Jesus did not put women lower than men even though the Gospel writers have been interpreted over time as claiming that.  What came down to us, we are told, was “God’s Word,” a male book for men, and many of the men in conservative religious groups cling to their invisible woman understanding of the Gospels. 

Our task as “woke” women and men is to challenge the Supreme Court’s anti-woman rulings and hopefully expand the Court. 

In the meantime, we must find ways to help our sisters who need abortions to get them safely no matter where they live.  We can run an underground of medications, virtual doctors' consultations, trips out of states, boycotting events at and travel to anti-woman states, and more, but we need to do it soon and together.   As we all know, there is power in numbers and in stopping the funding of anti-woman entities as well as supporting the pro-woman ones.  We women deserve better than we are getting from this anxiety-inducing configuration of the Supreme Court so we must fight for what we want. 

Let’s do it!

WHEN YOU’RE WHITE YOU’RE RIGHT

By Ruth A. Sheets

Raise your hand if you thought Kyle Rittenhouse would be found guilty of any of the five charges brought against him for the killing of two men and the disabling of a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin!  No hands?  How am I not surprised!  Could it be that his trial was “rigged” from the day Mr. Rittenhouse was arrested, not at the BLM protest where he committed the, let’s call them “acts,” but sometime later.

Mr. Rittenhouse was 17 when he “decided” to go across state lines to save property or some other such nonsense at a Black Lives Matter event protesting the murder of a Black man by police, shot several times in the back.  There was a suggestion by Mr. Rittenhouse that he could bring some kind of medical assistance, although it isn’t clear what that could have been while carrying a gun, an illegal one at that.

Media gave Mr. Rittenhouse all sorts of coverage so he became a kind of hero to the “White Right.”  For whom Black Lives only Matter when they are working to make them rich or comfortable. And, a kid who shoots down white supporters of BLM is not only a hero, but a kind of saint.  They were and are ready to wine and dine him to honor his “courage.”

The trial, what an embarrassment that was for all of us who believe the justice system should actually be just, from the selection of the jury (all white but for one Black man,) yep, a jury of one’s peers, to the verdict.  By the way, at the time the jury was sent to deliberate, Rittenhouse got to pick out the names of those who would be dismissed.  Wow!  If that wasn’t a bad look!

Because of his celebrity, Rittenhouse got the “finest” lawyers money could buy, and buy them his White Right supporters did.  They coached the defendant on every means to make the jury see him as their own little boy, wrongly accused of a horrific, but understandable  act, that, of course, those “rioters” deserved. 

They taught him the “Kavanaugh Defense.”  That’s where a man cries to demonstrate how he is being treated so badly, poor innocent him.  It can’t be a quiet flowing of tears or someone might think he really did what he is accused of and was sorry for it.  There must be a lot of noise, a lot of sniffling, sobbing, moments when he just “can’t go on!  The people listening have already been primed to be susceptible” to the weeping rage.  Republicans on the Judiciary Committee interviewing Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court were primed as well as Rittenhouse’s jury was.  As a blind listener to both outbursts, I wanted to gag.  Both were some of the worst acting I have seen, or rather heard.  Maybe if the jury (or the Judiciary Committee) had closed their eyes for a moment, they would have heard that too.

The judge, Bruce Schroeder, where can one start?  The man was elected by people who either didn’t care what he was since he ran unopposed or were delighted that a racist would serve them in the city’s courtrooms. 

The prosecution might have chosen other charges to try Rittenhouse on, but they chose the truth.  It was clear from the start, however, judge Schroeder was out to sabotage their case.  He told the prosecutor that using the word “victim” for those killed and injured by Mr. Rittenhouse was “inflammatory,” but it was perfectly OK for the defense to call those same men “rioters and looters,” when there was no evidence of their rioting or looting.  They were clearly victims, however.

The berating of the prosecution for various things the judge didn’t like probably impacted the presentation of their case.  The judge’s performance, broadcast across the world was also meant to reach and inspire the White Right, which it certainly did.  I find it amusing that the judge took a moment to whine about having the trial televised.  What a hypocrite!

So what can we who expected but are appalled by this verdict do now?  Well, we need to challenge our state legislatures, like Pennsylvania’s  who are trying to make it legal to carry concealed weapons.  I guess their next step is to OK kids like Kyle Rittenhouse to carry loaded automatic rifles in the streets.  Oh wait!  There might be a problem.  How can they make those laws work so only White Right folks can have that privilege?  I am sure the Rittenhouse White Right lawyers are already on that.  It will probably have to do with letting police (and young white guys) kill with impunity anyone  who is of color or “supporting” people of color.  Oh wait again!  Don’t we already have that in place?

We who care about our democracy must be willing to stand up in whatever way works for us to call the White Right out for their bad behavior and their anti-American positions, even if it messes with a few Thanksgiving dinners.  It turns out that people calling out (in as kind a way as possible) family and friends for their hateful, racist, misogynistic words and actions is one of the most powerful ways of changing those behaviors, when they can be changed at all.

Then, Repeat and act in every way possible that “Black Lives Matter.”  Work hard against electing people who can’t say out loud “Black Lives Matter,” without the follow-up phrase “Well,, really, all lives matter” or “Well, you know, blue lives matter too,” or some similar phrase.  That follow-up is a sure sign that Black Lives really don’t Matter to them. 

Cowardice on the Right is huge right now.  The jury for this trial participated in that.  I suspect there was a lot of, “what will people think if I cause a young white boy to serve life in prison?  He really is a good boy who just got caught up, you know.  How can we destroy his life like that?”  I wonder if they thought much about the lives Rittenhouse destroyed, and that they were good men standing up for the rights of others.

I know this is a bit mean, but I honestly hope Kyle Rittenhouse is haunted by his killing of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and his disabling of Gaige Grosskreutz.   He has not been held accountable and may actually believe the BS that he was justified. While he is serving a pathetic Republican congressmember as an intern, I hope he feels the pain of getting a position he didn’t deserve, didn’t work for, but managed to kill for.

Maybe after a little haunting, Rittenhouse can grow into a person with an understanding of what he has done so he can come to know forgiveness.  We’ll see.

WHEN HYPOCRISY, GASLIGHTING, LIES BECOME THE NORM

by Ruth A. Sheets 

Today on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” I heard a report on the US Catholic Bishops’ meeting coming up about abortion.  One of the interviewed women claimed that the Church’s position on abortion had been in place for thousands of years “why should it change.”  The interviewer didn’t challenge the statement when a 10 second internet search would have informed her and the interviewee that the Church did not outlaw abortion until 1869.  I had known this since high school in the late 1960’s when abortion became a serious topic of discussion, particularly for women.

This is a symptom of something occurring more and more frequently.  Make or allow statements on air that could be refuted, but somehow just aren’t.  It has been going on for a long time, at least since Donald Trump announced his candidacy  for the presidency.  Mr. Trump made blatantly false statements from that day to the present and only recently has been regularly challenged on those statements, and only rarely are those lies called lies.  I get it that people have opinions, but if those opinions are expressed in public, there is an obligation to make corrections when the statements are factually wrong. 

That led me to think about the hypocrisy related to American Roman Catholic bishops.  For example, Catholic Bishops and others in positions of authority in the Church knowingly moved abusive priests from one place to another for decades with little or no regard to the victims.  Where was their outcry against these actions?  So, women must carry to term but too bad that their children might be victims of the Church that forced them to give birth.  Oh yes, and if an unmarried girl or woman became pregnant, no matter how violently, she was a sinner beyond redemption, spoiled goods only worthy of marrying their rapist or the teen boy involved with the pregnancy.  Yes, that is so Christian, but it happened an uncountable number of times.  Preach love and practice violence and indifference as the Bishops did when they stood by while their beloved Donald Trump tore children from their families and caged them like animals.  Where are the Bishops when factories spew deadly pollution into the air and water consumed by their Catholic members who suffer horrific health problems?  Where are the Bishops when people who are mentally ill or probably innocent are being put to death by our governments?  Where were the Bishops in the past when Native American children were ripped from their homes and used and abused in “Indian” schools where thousands died?  It seems to me that the Bishops have a lot of penance to do before they can deny Holy Communion to anyone.  By then, they might be a bit more humane, more Christlike (maybe) and won’t be making such anti-woman pronouncements at all.

On January 6, 2021, as all Americans know, a mob of insurgents attacked the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, the location of the Senate and House of Representatives.  Five people died and many Capitol Police officers were injured.  In the days, weeks, and months that followed, despite having extensive video records of what happened, Republican Senators and Representatives, as well as some who were involved in the insurrection claimed the event was just like a tourist visit on a Wednesday afternoon.  What!  Of course they were gaslighting, lying!  They know they and their leader were hoping they could stop Joe Biden from becoming president despite a 7 million vote Biden win in a fraud-free, secure election in November.  They were planning to declare Martial Law after the mob-caused deaths of some members of Congress and even the Vice President, so Donald Trump could remain president.  It took a lot of quick thinking and action that kept that from happening as the plotters had hoped.  The insurgents are now holding the House of Representatives in contempt as they ignore subpoenas to learn just what led to and happened that Wednesday afternoon. 

The gaslighting, claiming something everyone had seen was not what they actually saw has been part of American politics for years, but Republicans have been honing it to a fine sharp weapon they can wield with skill through news outlets and permissive social media that value money and views more than truth.  Besides the lie is the point, particularly if they can get enough scared, resentful, angry white people to believe it.  To date, they have managed to lure millions of them.

Book banning is the revived insanity that rears its head every now and then when conservatives are scared that the world is changing and literature is reflecting that change.  As always, books by Black authors with Black main characters are the primary target.  LGBT characters and strong women are bull's-eyed too.  The reason the banners say, the books are pornography or they make white kids feel guilty or just bad. 

Who are the banners?  They are predominantly white men who see themselves as guardians of the children (or rather, their children).  Women have been recruited too.  No experience necessary!  You don’t even have to have read the books you want banned, in fact, it’s best if you haven’t because then you can spout other people’s opinions with a straight face as though what you are saying is true.  It’s racism but, of course, you are not a racist.  It’s misogyny, but of course, you don’t hate women.  It is homophobic, but some of your best friends are gay.  Hypocrisy, yep, and with a touch of gaslighting too!   

Some Republicans had no trouble back in March cheering for the rescue bill passed by Democrats to help families who had been seriously hurt by COVID.  Republicans opposed it at every level but jumped right in to make it look like they were in favor all the time, after it had passed and people in their districts/states were beginning to benefit.  Local media covered these hypocrites  as though they were heroes.  Oops, hypocrisy, but few seemed to be able to call it that.    

So what do we do?  We need to keep pushing media to do better in their reporting.  Fair does not mean that both sides are of equal value.  Since climate change (really global warming) is happening, anti-climate change people are not worth the time of any reporter to cover, so don’t do it.  Voter restriction bills and laws around the country are racist and fraud is almost non-existent, so listening to people who keep spouting nonsense about voter fraud need to be given next to no time on air, in print, or on social media except for reporting the irresponsible behavior of state and local governments as irresponsible. 

Abortion is medically safe, far safer than pregnancy, so anyone who serves up lies about needing clinics to be surgical centers should be ignored.  They are lying.  Men and a few women who claim the Church has ruled against abortion for “thousands of years” are lying and a correction should be part of the report if that kind of lie is even broadcast at all.  COVID vaccines are safe and very effective.  They do not connect people with outer space or allow tracking, or do anything else but save people from a deadly disease.  Anything that says otherwise is a lie and needs to be stopped and called a lie. 

We can curb the hypocrisy, gaslighting, OK, let’s call it what it is, lying if we step up and constantly call people on their lies.  We don’t have to be mean about it, but we shouldn’t be too gentle either.  People need to see that there is urgency in refuting the public lies put out there by our leaders and other public figures.

Lies may seem small and unimportant because they are being tossed out so frequently these days.  Well, that is a bad way to look at it.  Each lie is a blow to our family, neighbors, friends and others living in this country.  They are tossed out there to misdirect, to undermine, to cover up more serious crimes, to control other people, to keep white men and the women who support them in charge of everything that matters in America.  If we know this, we can all stand up and say “no more!”  We need full participation of the diversity of this nation:  all races, genders, ethnicities, ages, political persuasions, education, backgrounds, jobs, and more.  It is the diversity that will make a healthy positive future for this country and the world possible.  Let’s choose that instead of a society where hypocrisy and gaslighting, lies for the benefit of a few, are the norm. 

THE VOTE, WHO SHOULD HAVE IT?

by Ruth A. Sheets

The answer to the question about the right to vote seems to depend these days, maybe for the whole history of our nation on who those in power think are worthy of the honor.  Our founders, of course saw only rich white men as capable of deciding who should govern.  I have wondered where that idea sprang from and alas, I know the answer is, there was no spring, just a constant consistent downplaying of women for millennia.  This was accompanied by the powerful belief within those same rich white men that they got to their positions of prominence either by their own efforts or because their family line was simply superior to the lines of the less successful.

The question of Black people voting did not cross the minds of the founders, well, perhaps one might have considered it but after careful thought, dismissed the idea.  Bringing it up in the Constitutional Convention would have been heresy.  They couldn’t even count slaves as full persons.  That was good, though because the slave states would have had even more power than they already had, which, of course, they didn’t deserve since slaves had no rights at all.

And, the Indigenous people here.  They were immediately dismissed by the founders as not even human, just savages deserving of being wiped off the face of the earth.  How could such creatures ever be citizens of anything?

Over time some less wealthy white men were added to the voting rolls because maybe, it made us look more like a democracy, you know, the thing we claimed to be.  All kinds of strategies were employed though, to make sure those poor white men voted in certain ways up to and including personal threats.

After the Civil War, when enslaved people across the country were officially freed, many white Americans could not imagine them voting.  The 15^th Amendment to our Constitution was supposed to take care of that, but as we all know, it didn’t.  For more than a century the descendants of the founders put every obstacle in the way of Black Americans being able to vote.  You will remember the imprisonment and forced labor of Black men for insignificant “crimes” and the unaffordable poll taxes.  Then there were the “literacy” tests requiring recitations of the Constitution and more obscure documents given to Black citizens as well as unworthy white men.

And, who can forget the lynchings of citizens by white individuals, mobs, and local officials, more than 4,000 known acts of terror totally unpunished, and far more never reported at all.  The goal of all these measures, make voting seem and be out of reach of Black Americans.

Women fought actively for the right to vote for more than 70 years and when the right was granted, only white women were “permitted” to vote in most places for another nearly 5 decades.  Activist Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten nearly to death for having the audacity to want to register to vote in Mississippi in 1962, and others were killed just putting forward the idea that every American citizen should be able to vote and with as few obstacles as possible.  That is in my lifetime. 

Here we are in 2021 and a bunch of white men are at it again.  This time they have some help from white women who have forgotten how hard it was for women to get the vote.  These particular white men are not just the men of British descent of 1787 but include all kinds of men of European descent who have become white under the radar.  And, white Cubans feel their opposition to Castro in Cuba should now make them white in America too. 

These white and newly “white” men and their female white allies have been passing all kinds of voter suppression laws in state legislatures targeted at people of color, young people, and disabled persons.  They, like the founders think these are people who are unworthy to have the rights of American citizens even though they have citizenship.  The white folks perpetrating these crimes against the United States are Republican, nearly to a person.  They are afraid their privilege might not hold up if those groups can vote with ease. 

A difficult thing for me to swallow is that as in the past, the targeted groups have nowhere to turn for help against this onslaught.  “The Supreme Court!” you cry.  Well, not so fast.  In 2013, the Court ruled that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was essentially void because the states that had been abusing people’s rights were now good little boys and girls and weren’t doing that anymore.  They lied which was obvious when within the next few days, those very same “good little boys and girls” were already putting all kinds of voter restrictions in place targeting all the same people the Voting Rights Act was passed to protect.  Did the Supreme Court correct, saying “We are sorry. We were wrong. We take back our decision.”  Not on your life.  They have doubled down and are approving all kinds of voter restrictions particularly in the former Confederacy.

Can those being disenfranchised count on Congress to help, perhaps with another Voting Rights Act that fixes the “problems” with the 1965 Act so the Court can’t dismiss it so easily?  Well, they could.  There are several voting rights bills in play, but not a single Republican, you remember, those rich white men (and a few rich white women) are still at it.  Not a single one voted for even debating the issue when the “Freedom to Vote Act,” a supposed bipartisan compromise, came before the Senate.  A filibuster was declared and not only did that shut off any chance of debate, but Republican legislators didn’t even have to stand up and defend their unamerican position.

What I have come to understand is that white men in power are still acting like little children in a privileged family where whatever they want, they get.  They don’t have to work for it beyond what they want to do even if they have to be sneaky and underhanded.  They don’t have to associate with people who aren’t like them in any meaningful ways, and they marry into families where their anger and selfishness are understood and tolerated and they never really have to grow up at all.  

Well, it is time for the rich white male Republican members of Congress and the Supreme Court to grow up.  I get it that your privilege is part of your everyday existence, and that people not like you are scary.  Denying American citizens their fundamental rights is childish.  You would do better to have a platform of caring for this nation and its people that you can stand on so a broader spectrum of people would support you, but alas, you have nothing but oppression in your quiver, and you call it stopping fraud and other buzz words and phrases that are synonyms for oppression. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the country needs you to be adult enough to see that we live in a democracy and that requires people who are citizens to be able to vote with little difficulty and for you to see to it.  It is not an honest American challenge to see how hard you can make it for non-white, young, disabled persons, and others you don’t like to vote.  Republican state legislators have forgotten if they ever knew what it means to keep an oath they have made to our nation and what a democracy is.  Lies work very well to cement their positions. 

It is time you guys stop being child-men and child-women and try adulthood where people actually discuss things, debate, consider, then vote based on the honesty of an argument.  Majority Leader McConnell has let power get to his head so he can't see anything but the power he can wield.  Shame on the rest of you privileged white men and a few women who have chosen to sit silently or to vote to go along with his childishness.  You should be able to do better,

My question, do you privileged white folks in power even care about the Constitution or are you so scared you might not be the big cheese forever that you'll sabotage our democracy for whiteness?

A good test of your adulthood would be passing the Freedom to Vote Act (S. 2747) and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (S. 4). These bills are only mildly invasive of states’ rights which Republicans seem to revere so highly, but are crucial in helping fix our broken political system and build a democracy that works for all Americans, believe it or not, even you. 

I am betting white Republican childishness will win out.  However, I would love to be proven wrong this time. 

OPEN LETTER TO REPUBLICAN TEXAS LEGISLATORS (AND OTHERS OF LIKE MIND)

by Ruth A. Sheets

The new wrinkle to the Texas legislature’s anti-American actions is forcing teachers to teach alternative points of view related to history, in at least one case, the Holocaust.

OMG!  An alternative to the Holocaust???  Don't you foolish ignorant legislators and school district officials know that we, the allies were the alternative to the Holocaust and we didn't do all that well.  We refused to let Jewish and other asylum-seekers from Germany enter the US.  We did nothing to end the death camps even when we knew about them.  Then, we imprisoned 120,000 people of Japanese descent, mostly American citizens in the most horrific conditions in places in this country no one else would live, just because they were Japanese.  Then we forced them to fight for us, their country that had imprisoned them on pain of even longer imprisonment.  Then, we used and abused service members of color through segregation and other humiliations.  

So, tell me Texas legislators, what is it you would have teachers include in their curriculum of lies?   Which points of false history will you have fed to your young white kids?  The truth might be too painful for their little psyches! 

I get it Republicans are totally enamored with lying and cheating these days to get what you want, so what will you white-wash so your poor sheltered privileged little white kids won't have to read or hear about atrocities done by white people, in Europe or here?  Are your kids so fragile they can't learn the truth and discuss it? 

How do you think your kids are going to respond when they learn that you all have worked hard to deny voting rights to American citizens of color?  How are they going to like knowing you chose to gerrymander districts so Black and Brown votes would be absorbed by the fewer white voters now living in Texas?  What about the warped history and possibly science curricula? 

I am guessing you are trying hard to keep them from learning to think critically so they won't notice.  I suspect they are smarter than you think.  They will find out, you know, even if you don't admit what you have done. 

From your first bill in this recent session to the present including your anti-abortion actions, the legislation you are passing is singularly racist and misogynistic and has nothing to do with truth, justice or what should be the American way.  Neither is any of it about faith or concern for your kids.  It is about control of women and people of color, often through fear and intimidation, your fear of them and thus your intimidation of them

I am interested to see how else you will try to white-wash education for your state’s children.  You've been at it for a while, since Texas began so I suspect you will come up with more ideas and excuses.  After all, the white-washing convinced you to run for office believing you should deny people's rights.  I guess you can pass it down through your family as it was passed to you.  That is how racism and misogyny as well as homophobia and xenophobia continue. 

Scared white people are afraid of losing the unbelievable privilege you of course, claim you don’t actually have.  Like little kids, you will wrap a blanket of vile legislation around yourselves so you won’t have to encounter the “monsters” you fear are under the bed while the monsters you should fear are within yourselves.  

However, you must know, despite what you want teachers to teach, it won't brainwash your kids as white as you would like.  This is still a democracy and your kids have access to the internet and excellent strong teachers who care enough about your kids to teach the truth even if they have to hide it in the garbage you Republicans want taught.    

In some other state legislatures, the white men and some women are licking their lips ready to pass all the same stuff Texas has passed.  However a lot of the people of this country are horrified that such evil is nearly unchecked.  An entire political party has dismissed any morals or ethics it has ever held in favor of fear mongering and passing hateful legislation that helps no one but themselves.  Shame on Texas Republicans and any other states that follow your example.

THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN AND ABORTION RIGHTS SURGES

by Ruth A. Sheets

For generations there has been a kind of war against women.  Women are the target but it is not always clear who make up the army working so hard to defeat women.  What would the defeat look like?  It depends where one is. 

In my world, it was recognizing boys as the most important people in every classroom, expecting them to give the “best” answers, to see them as being the smartest, most clever beings.  I was lucky because most of the girls in my classes were not having it.  I learned from them and they from me that boys were no better, smarter, or more worthy of acknowledgment than we girls.  

During my sophomore year in college, abortion became legal which meant women could expect a safe and legal end to pregnancy if needed, although, anyone who chose abortion was supposed to feel ashamed, hide her face, and be seen as spoiled goods.  Shame is a powerful weapon.  It has been used for millennia to keep women in their place.  Now, the anti-woman forces had a cause for their scorn, and the best part, they could describe these women as murderers and baby-killers.  Wow!  The emotional appeal of this language was enormous.  And, , instead of being passive players in the “put girls down” covert and sometimes overt  skirmishes in classrooms and work places, conservative women could battle other women in public, screaming their own righteousness for all to see. 

The word “feminist” was seen as a curse and to admit you were one was permission for those screamers to attack.  All this was forced into the foreground to distract everyone from what men were doing.  After the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that women had the right to choose abortion, the Court began slowly to morph into a stealth squad working against women’s rights.  When rights were altered or removed, it nearly always negatively impacted women:  religious groups didn’t have to have insurance for employees that covered abortion care, limits to abortion were added bit by bit and now the Court has permitted a 6-week limit to abortions in Texas and a woman justice was right there ruling against women.  Both armies are now on the field and women (and men) are on both sides.

I can’t help being disgusted the way conservative (OK, right-wing) justices can rule our nation with their own personal ideologies, and do it in the middle of the night with no public hearing. That’s what happened in Texas.  In the middle of the night, the Supreme Court conservatives allowed the six-week abortion ban in Texas to go into effect.  It essentially overturns Roe v. Wade, a precedent for more than 48 years. 

This in itself is bad enough, but the problem is deeper.  The Texas law also gives people, not even just citizens of Texas the right to stalk people as vigilantes to do a gotcha on people who may or may not actually help a woman to obtain an abortion, which should still be her right.  Then, the stalkers, the reporters, get $10,000 for their vigilantism. 

When one side in a war has extreme power at every level:  the courts, Congress, and in the states, the conflict is one-sided and nearly impossible for the defenders to gain any ground.

Setting citizens of this country against each other is at least as powerful a weapon as the shaming that was and is employed so effectively.  It is pretty much guaranteed that those who will be targeted by this appalling vigilantism will be people of color because that is how it always is in this country where systemic racism ties in so neatly with systemic misogyny.

There are a few million more women in this country than men, so one would think sheer numbers would give us an advantage.  The problem is, the promotion of male supremacy begins at birth.  Boys are allowed to get away with things girls would never be permitted to do.  We even let males form gangs that terrorize whole neighborhoods, communities, and countries.  And, the hard part to admit, women are part of this socialization, this permission for boys to remain jubenilized, pushing others around with their greater physical strength but acting like spoiled toddlers.  We as a nation arm men to fight the cause de jour then bring them back into society with no preparation to be full adults who can function without being ordered about, and without weapons.  Women often become targets.

In Afghanistan, the United States was at war for 20 years and never thought to arm the masses of women who would be victims of the child-men that make up the Taliban.  Why didn’t we?  Women were not seen as important enough to prepare to protect themselves and their children when the crazies returned to power, which it was pretty clear would happen.

Women all over the world are at the mercy of armed child-men who are so scared of women’s power they work really hard to keep women down and out of public life.  The men who rule so many countries are unable to negotiate with anyone because they are used to ordering people about listening to no one if they can help it.  It is most frightening when these childish rulers have nuclear weapons as in China and almost in Iran, North Korea, and possibly other countries.  Who will suffer most when these child-men go off and attack - women and children.

Abortion is just an issue with emotion tied to it that conservative Americans can use against women, to try to keep them subservient, poor and in low-paying jobs.  I can’t help but wonder what happens when the current Court, ruling against what women and many men want, declares Roe v. Wade dead and allows vigilantism and other acts to divide our nation further.  What will they and the anti-woman faction choose as the next battleground?  Will it be birth control so women will be pregnant as often as men can make it happen?  Will it be keeping pregnant women out of the workplace, you know, men shouldn’t have to look at women that fat?  Will rape be made acceptable?  After all, one of the justices on the Supreme Court has credibly been accused of attempted rape.  Will it be ending following up on accusations of sexual harassment in the workplace?  After all, another Supreme Court justice has credibly been accused of sexual harassment. 

The guarantee is, the war against abortion will continue in some form because it has provided a lot of victories for the armies of taking away women’s rights as well as civil rights.  It seems women are going to have to step up our preparedness to continue the fight.  We need to find new weapons whether perhaps through women-owned media.  Maybe we can actively work out ways to circumvent Republican moves to keep us from voting.  We might get more pro-women candidates into office all over the country and work to vote out the women-hating women that have taken so many offices lately.  We all need to be engaged because the anti-woman forces are gathering for a major battle and we women are not really prepared.  That’s probably because we are doing the work of holding our society together, as always, but particularly now during a pandemic:  our schools, our churches and other religious institutions, our homes, our communities.  Where are the men?  Many are standing with us, but many are not. 

We need to more forcefully demand justice and laws that work for us.  I know, Good luck with that.  Maybe we should turn the weapons used against us back on them, shame them for leaving our children in poverty or that the men act like spoiled brats.  We need to try just about everything in this fight if we would not lose ground, or lose the war.

OUT OF CONTROL

by Ruth A. Sheets

September 17th was Constitution Day.  On this day 234 years ago, the Constitutional Convention approved the document they had come up with as a framework for our new nation’s government.

As any student of history and government can tell you, our Constitution was not perfect and it reflected the hopes, fears, and prejudices of those who put it together.  It was, however, unique in the world at the time.  It pulled together disparate states under a central government while leaving each state with numerous powers of its own.  Instead of a king, emperor, czar or some other hereditary ruler, an elected president and congress would hold down the central government while states could configure their own governments.  The founders didn’t want political parties at all because somehow, the people of the United States would work together with the same values and recognition of the same needs of the people.  We the People are all one.

Of course, that was a fantasy since already within the Convention were a wide range of beliefs both secular and religious.  Some members respected the people as a whole while most thought only the well-educated could make good decisions.  Some members were owners of enslaved persons and some, like Benjamin Franklin had morphed from a slave holder to an abolitionist.  Many were unsure of what the role of non-white people would be in the new nation if they would even have a role.  

I honor the men who tried to hammer out a workable government but recognize they probably could not have done better as for the most part, they were products of their time.  They could not see 5 years into the future let alone 234 years.  The amendment process was supposed to take care of necessary changes and they thought there would be a lot of adaptive changes over time.  As a condition of approval by several of the states, a “Bill of Rights” would have to be compiled on the order of the ?British Bill of Rights of a century before. 

So, here we are 234 years down the road and as at other times along the way, we are facing a political crisis, and it revolves around voting.  Voting has come to be seen as an act that ties together all citizens, one person one vote.  It took a long time to get us here.  Now, one political party has now decided the Constitution is only of value when it allows them to do what they want to do.  When it doesn’t, they don’t see a problem with just ignoring it.  Their craving for power is so intense, they will go state by state to subvert the vote of the people. 

This is not new.  It was a feature of voting nearly from the beginning when women’s right to vote  was eliminated in the few states where they had been able to vote if landowners, before the new government took over.  No one but white men were able to vote for the first 80 years or so and then again in parts of the country for nearly a century longer due to Jim Crow laws and terrorism perpetrated on Black Americans.  Native Americans, Chinese persons, and many immigrants couldn’t even be seen as citizens until well into the 20^th century, so naturally, voting was off limits to them.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 codified that every American citizen age 21 or older had the right to vote.  Some states said “no” to people in prison voting and some even refused them the vote after they had served their time, but for the most part, states could not keep citizens from voting.  This was a very well-respected law until it wasn’t.  In 2013, the Supreme Court decided despite the nearly unanimous vote in Congress to reaffirm the Voting Rights Act, to gut its most important sections.  In the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a district needed to get permission from the Federal government to change voting procedures if it had a history of discrimination or voter suppression.  I still don’t understand how the Court came to dismiss this provision in the law.  Even before the ruling, it was clear that people of color would suffer most from the new voter suppression laws that the Court already knew were in the pipeline.  Chief Justice Roberts led the charge with a pathetic explanation. 

Since that appalling decision, the states that already had a history of discrimination as well as some others have been chipping away at the right to vote.  Laws are being carefully crafted to try to look like racism, ableism and ageism aren’t motivators along with Republicans wanting to make it between really hard and impossible for anyone who does not support them to vote, the goal being to keep Republicans in power.  Has the Court stepped up to correct this insanity?  Why no!  They have added to it by approving some of the suppression moves like making it harder to register voters and to hand in ballots in rural areas like Indigenous Reservations where districts cover huge areas and people do not have transportation. 

 The most recent chapter in this voter suppression campaign is challenging legally cast ballots in urban areas where many of the residents are people of color.  I have not heard of one fully white district’s vote being challenged by Republicans.  Hmmm!  These challenged votes have already been counted and recounted.  There is no reason for this re re  or even re re re count, but Republicans are calling for it anyway. 

In Arizona, a completely inept organization was “hired” to do the recount in the largest county in the state to check for paper from China and other supposed irregularities.  They tampered with the machines so they cannot be used again and have dragged ballots all over the country, given private voter information to unknown actors in this farce and nothing is done to stop it.  The people of Arizona are going to be paying a fortune to incompetent unnecessary fools on behalf of anti-Constitution fools.  They have found nothing so far and will find nothing they have not themselves planted.

The next phase is the Pennsylvania Republicans in the state Senate demanding (subpoenaing) a lot of personal information for everyone who voted in Pennsylvania in the 2020 election.  That includes:  names, addresses, license numbers, and the last 4 numbers of Social Security numbers.  That is a major invasion of privacy.  They have made up excuses for this demand for information because there is no evidence whatsoever of any voter fraud.  So, it appears this is to be used as intimidation.   My guess is Republicans want people not to trust a system that would invade their privacy.  That distrust, they hope will be most effective in communities of color and among young people who don’t tend to vote Republican.  To me, that is simply criminal no matter how Republicans try to justify it.  The question, who can stop them? 

It seems Republicans have been working on a variety of schemes to undermine our democracy for a long time and we the people were looking at other things and were distracted.  We paid too much attention to presidential elections while Republicans were packing the courts.  We were trying to stop our nation from getting into never-ending wars while they were setting off fires all over the world so we would have a hard time keeping track.  We were working to include LGBTQ persons and their rights while republicans were downsizing the IRS so the rich people and corporations could get so big and rich no one could stop them, too big to fail, even though they put our nation and most of the world in a near depression in 2007-08.  Democrats worked hard to register voters while Republicans crafted a variety of ways to get around the Constitution including getting private citizens to report women who had constitutionally permitted abortions and anyone who helped them for a$10,000 bounty paid by the person accused.

We got over 150 million people to vote in the 2020 election while Republicans were laying the groundwork to challenge every vote that was not for Donald Trump, the incompetent barely functioning figurehead they had put in power and wanted to keep in power so they could manipulate him to bring about the systemic changes they wanted.  They even staged an insurrection at our Capitol on January 6, 2021 that they are trying to dismiss as just some tourists hanging around, nothing serious, you know, forgetting we have it all on tape, mostly provided by the insurrectionists themselves.

Republicans are out of control!

They are like child-men and child-women who want something they know they are not entitled to.  They do a small infraction and when they are not stopped by Mommy or Daddy (the courts), they go to the next level and see how much more they can get away with.  Eventually Mommy and Daddy have lost all influence.  The kids run the household but have absolutely no idea what to do once in power except work to get more power. 

Maybe the trick is to be the kind but stern parents who tell their wayward children no and give them a time out (vote them out of office), maybe a month for every year of their lives.  We also need to expand the Supreme Court with justices who actually care about the people of this nation and what they need more than their own personal biases.  Most of all, we have to work around all the voter suppression the children are putting in place and get people to find ways to vote anyway, armed with good information about the poorly behaving children who are trying so hard to take away their rights.  Maybe we need to portray voting as highly patriotic and in people’s best interest.  Oh yes, we can also run for office to actually work for the people.  Let’s get started!  We have no time left to play around.  Republicans have already had at least a forty-year head start on tripping up our democracy.  We need to catch up and set our democracy on its feet so we can save our nation and our planet.

CAREER OPPORTUNITY IN TEXAS

by Ruth A. Sheets

On the 82^nd anniversary of the German attack on Poland that began World War II, I want to introduce you to a job opportunity inspired by the Nazis.  All you Texas Republicans, primarily men because conservative men do Nazi so well, get ready to earn a bundle for betraying your neighbors for $10,000 a pop.

Sound easy?  Of course it is, particularly if you are white.  It helps if you are also a misogynist and a self-righteous Christian too. 

“What do I have to do for such a bounty?” you ask.

Find a desperate woman of child-bearing age who may have become pregnant but can’t afford to keep the pregnancy or the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, two very common occurrences in Texas, as you well know.  Note:  This works especially well if you are the implanter of the pregnancy.

Follow the woman around and watch to see where she goes and who she talks to.  If it looks like she is heading toward a Planned Parenthood center or some other abortion clinic, you get to sue that center or clinic or hospital, the person who drives her to the facility, and anyone else you can suspect of helping her, an automatic $10,000 per betrayal.  That’s a lot of money for almost no effort on your part. 

Where else in the United States of America can you get money for a simple betrayal?  Where else do you get to use your sadistic tendencies as well as your business acumen and well-developed misogyny to so much personal gain?  And you thought that kind of benefit died with the defeat of the Nazis at the end of WWII and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe! 

Well, you’re wrong!  And, it’s right there in good ole Texas.  You can quit your old job and grab a few burgers and cokes and just sit and watch those baby-killing joints so you can nab as many pathetic women and their helpers.  The best part of this new career, your hypocrisy will be highly valued.  You say you got a girl pregnant once and she had an abortion because she was still in school and couldn’t take care of a child and you didn’t want to either?  No problem, no one will ask what kind of person you are really.  You just need to be an outward fanatic in a cause your Republican brothers see as essential to life in Texas.

If you are worried about people in your town shunning you when they learn of your betrayals, no problem!  Just do your stalking and betraying in a nearby community where you aren’t known.

JOB QUALIFICATIONS

- ability to dismiss feelings that the job might be unjust

- a nominal Christian faith that misses the love part and is into the do harm to those who are not like you part

- time to stalk women of child-bearing age and a willingness to betray them in their time of need

- a belief that democracy is whatever Republicans say it is

- a cut-throat competitive spirit to out-betray the other men and some women who are going after the same money 

Good luck.  Apply at the Texas State Legislature immediately.

NOTE:  This career may be coming to a Republican state near you.  Republicans are really good copy-catters, especially when it involves taking away people’s rights, that is, people who are not rich white straight Christian Republican men.

My Lord What a Court!

by Ruth A. Sheets

I am not sure how many people watched the Senate “hearing” for Brett Kavanaugh after his nomination to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump a couple of years ago.  I was pretty sure Trump would pick people for the Court who were somehow problematic, and the hearing exposed what kind of problematic guy he picked. 

Trump had already, with the help of Mitch McConnell, shoved through Justice Neil Gorsuch, someone they hoped would be “ordinary” enough to placate non-conservatives and throw them off the track of what would come next.

From the beginning of the Kavanaugh “hearing” we who actually paid attention knew there was a problem with what was going on, the disrespect shown Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Kavanaugh of attempted sexual assault, the childish behavior of Kavanaugh and his pathetic answers to sensible questions, the ignoring of the other women who had legitimate complaints about the nominee’s behavior, his whining about beer. 

We didn't know at that time that the FBI, our high-quality law enforcement agency in the Department of Justice was cheating all of us of the knowledge of what was really going on around Kavanaugh.  The FBI is supposed to thoroughly investigate all nominees for high-level positions.  This time, they didn’t.  Inquiring minds want to know why.

I have read different accounts of how many tips related to Kavanaugh came into the FBI that were not followed up.  I am guessing it is somewhere between the low of 400 and the high of 4,000 tips.  How is that possible?  Was there interference with the FBI by the administration, from the Justice Department,  or from within the FBI itself?  In any case, that does not bode well for the FBI being separate from a current administration.  It’s like going back to the “good ole days” of J. Edgar Hoover whose corruption of the FBI was massive and generally permitted by each administration for 50 years.  Pick and choose who will be investigated and which evidence to present.

Without addressing the “tips” that came into the FBI related to Kavanaugh, he should never have had a hearing at all.  The information was not available so senators could make an informed decision about putting him on our highest court.  No problem, right?  Republicans in the Senate with Mitch McConnell in the lead chose to ignore everything negative about Kavanaugh because they wanted to own the Court.  Qualifications or past behavior for them seemed irrelevant as long as the candidate was a guaranteed vote for whatever corporate America wants.  Republican senators never had to state their purpose to put women, the poor, Black voters, and others who are not rich white men and corporations in their place.  That was a given.  And, that is not a new Phenomenon either, although highly developed under Mr. Trump.

We can expect that presidents want to put justices on the Supreme Court who reflect their own understanding of “fairness,” their own ideological position.  And, it is possible to learn quite a bit about a president and the people he surrounded himself with by the nominees he has chosen for the Court. 

Lyndon Johnson punctuated his position on Civil Rights by appointing Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice, a Civil Rights icon.  George H.W. Bush appointed Marshall’s successor, of course, Clarence Thomas, a Black man, but one who would take the “majority” position related to race whenever possible, and a sexual harasser too, and a Catholic, a conservative bonus when religion comes before the Court.    Bush chucked the Black community under the chin with Clarence Thomas, clearly implying, “see I appointed a Black justice for you.”  (So what if he has little experience and erroneously thinks he got where he is totally without help.)

In case Americans weren’t aware of his deep racism, Richard Nixon attempted to appoint to the Court two judges, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, who had histories of racist positions while on the lower courts.  Fortunately, the Senate rejected both, a very rare occurrence for any Senate.

Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Antonin Scalia, who believed that somehow he could discern what the Founders would decide about everything brought before the Court (originalist) and that this was the only way to rule on cases.  That, of course is nonsense since the Founders weren’t always sure what they themselves meant.  It made it seem that his pronouncements were straight from the minds of James Madison or Alexander Hamilton or . . ..  Since by the time Scalia was nominated, Reagan was already seriously impacted by Alzheimer’s it is unclear who put Scalia forward.  Reagan was OK with it though.  Scalia was brilliant, you know, not too fond of rights for women, immigrants, minority citizens, but brilliant.

Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg who had a lot of experience and a long history of standing for human rights, women’s rights in particular.  Clinton was trying to show his acknowledgment of women’s importance in society, possibly to make up for the scandals he had been caught up in.  When Ginsburg passed, Trump was president, a well-known misogynist.  Just as Bush Senior got Thomas onto the Court to slap down Black Americans with one of their own, Trump nominated an inexperienced woman, Amy Coney Barrett  who could be counted on to rule against women whenever possible.  She is a good little Catholic too and will stand with the patriarchal Church to do their bidding, particularly against women’s right to choose.  She was barely investigated at all because McConnell and his Senate allies had to push her approval through in case he wasn’t majority leader after the election.  He just made up the rules as he went along, impacting the Court for years.

George Bush the younger nominated Samuel Alito, the son of immigrants who believes only the “right” immigrants should come here and those on the Southern border are not they.  A Catholic too, he can jump in to see that Catholic plaintiffs or defendants will get exactly what they want, most of the time.  That LGBTQ thing is still a thorn in his side, though.

My Lord what a Court, probably no better than the Court was throughout most of our history.  That is not a compliment, though because we now need thinking, caring people on the Court no matter whether conservative, liberal or neither.  What we now have is a 6-3 conservative majority, 6 Catholic members, 2 Jewish members, and 1 Episcopalian, not exactly representative of the United States religious population.

The religion of the justices should not be an issue, but alas, it is and has seriously impacted the justices’ rulings.  It is sad for all of us because the American Catholic Church has become more and more conservative over the past 40 years or so, threatening to ex-communicate any Catholic who does not agree with their oppressive stances in issues from women’s rights to immigration, to Black history to religious freedom/separation of church and state, to the environment and more.  Our Founders were worried that religion could have an outsized influence on our government.  Their worry may be justified with our current Supreme Court, not representative of the American people.  Well, maybe it is, 2 men legitimately accused of sexual harassment, a misogynistic woman, an immigrant-despising son of immigrants, a couple of careful thinkers who are blanked by the biases of the others, a couple who had working-class upbringings. 

However, in other ways, the Court is quite different from the American people, Nearly all the Justices attended one of two law schools.  In addition, all are in some way privileged.  7 are white, 3 are women, 1 is Hispanic and 1 Black.  That is not the configuration of the United States.

Poll after poll reports that the American people want the right of women to choose regarding reproduction.  We want sensible gun laws and do not believe money is speech.  No one should be above the law and global warming is real so corporations need to stop polluting with greenhouse gas.  Voting should be an automatic right of all US citizens.  The conservatives on the Court go along with none of these things, probably because the corporations who helped nurture them do not and because their church does not either.  Too many rights for the unworthy.

I hope the Court can be enlarged and that terms on the Court are limited to 18 years when the justices can either retire or move to another of the Federal courts.  That would hopefully help us to get more variety on the court with decisions that increase or enhance the rights of more Americans than just rich, straight, Evangelical or Catholic white men. 

Sometimes, I think our Supreme Court is a bit of a joke played on the American people, that is not very funny:  a Black justice who hates Black people; a conservative woman who hates women and is just about as confining to women (except herself, of course) as some Medieval rulers; a man whose family were immigrants but because Italians are now seen as white, resents and wants to exclude non-white immigrants; a Chief Justice who claims to care about the rights of citizens while he stands against voting rights - Oh, he's pretty racist too; and a sexual harasser- possible abuser - who never was fully checked out by the FBI or anyone else for that matter except perhaps the Federalist Society, not a good judge of judges’ quality, just political ideology. 

This week, the Court ruled the Centers for Disease Control had no right to set a moratorium on evictions, even during a pandemic with a 6-3 decision, and you can guess which 6.  Yep, rich justices saying a health organization can’t decide how to keep people safe during a pandemic because landlords don’t like it.  I can’t wait to see their rulings on mask mandates.

My Lord what a Court!

OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR PAT TOOMEY

by Ruth A. Sheets

Hello Sen. Toomey. 

Well, you've got all the Republican talking points down related to your opposition to the voting rights act HR/S1.  One might think that since you are retiring you might want to leave a legacy of civil rights but alas, that is not in the cards, is it?

Your fake worries about not being able to remove voters who have died or moved is just that, fake.  Republican governors and secretaries of state are not purging roles just to get rid of folks who have died or moved.  They are working hard to target voters of color who maybe haven't voted in a while or don't get mail delivered to their homes and those who use P.O. boxes.  I am sorry, but purging over 200,000 in one state and 180,000 voters from roles in another is unacceptable.  Not that many voters have died or moved that have not been reported.    

Your worry that votes will be "harvested," another word to stir up the Republican base has happened so rarely there is only one case that anyone can cite and that was Republican cheating in North Carolina.  It was caught and corrected.  That is what would and has happened.  Then, claiming people signing to say who they are is a problem is another fearmongering tactic and you should know that.  But, if you are so concerned, put money in the bill that would help states to pay for and get state approved ID cards for everyone.  I suspect college ID cards are at least as good as gun licenses but look at the states that won't allow them but allow the other.  Your fears are nonsense!

Then you seem to be worried about integrity of the elections.  Sure you are!  Where were you when Arizona Republicans forced the state to allow a bunch of fools to recount votes, of course, from the county with the most people of color, sure those people had cheated when it was those allowed to recount the votes who were cheating.  And, now, the voting machines have been compromised and will have to be replaced, for a whole lot of money Arizona doesn't have.  I didn't hear you stand up and speak against that and realize that such nonsense will be taking place regularly without S1.  Would you be OK with that happening in our state?  Well another fool from a  nowhere county is trying to challenge the votes in Philadelphia, oh wait!  where a large population of voters of color live.  Are you noting a pattern here?

Then, there's campaign finance.  No Republicans nor the Supreme Court has been able to adequately explain how money is speech.  It isn't.  It's money and can be gotten in a whole lot of ways that are not above boards.  You know that, so why is it a person or corporation with lots of money should have more opportunity of speech than one of your poorest constituents.  You can't because this is America and is supposed to be a democracy where everyone should have equal say.  $400 million paid in elections as some Republican rich guys have done is far more speech than your poor and even middle class constituents can "speak."  How is that fair.  It isn't, but it allows lots of people to cheat and since that is the Republican MO lately, I guess it works for you.  That's a shame because you know it isn't fair but will go along because that is the party line. 

Then you are worried about 1.8 billion dollars as public support for candidates as a bad use of funds.  Are you kidding me!! You have ignored a lot of bills that would have helped people in need.  I know you always had an excuse, but you quibble over 1.8 billion to actually get more people involved in the election process.  Hmmm!

Then you just had to bring in state's rights!  Wow!  You really did get all the points.  States' rights is always used to protect states doing some kind of actions that would hurt some of their citizens, usually citizens of color.  That is what Republicans are doing right now, even in Pennsylvania, at least they are trying here, limiting the ability to vote of Black citizens and other citizens of color as well as young people, poor working people, disabled people, and others who can't run out and vote at the traditional times.  You know that's racist, but Republicans cling to their love of states' rights even with its dark history. 

I know this note will not reach you, but maybe one of your staffers might see that your positions are simply not reasonable.  Your positions and opposition to HR1/S1 may give you comfort as you stand against even discussing voting rights in the Senate, but as a Catholic, you should know that even lying to yourself could be considered a sin.      

Oh by the way, your positions on immigration are not fair either.  I get it you think your grandparents came here “the right way” but in reality, they were white and employers here wanted white folks from anywhere, even Ireland, before they wanted Black people even though Black people have been here for hundreds of years.  How is that more “right” than people coming here to escape violence and possible starvation?  I am sure you have an answer for that which works for you too.  

TYRANNY OF IGNORANCE

by Ruth A. Sheets

I recently read an article in “The New York Times” (nyts.com) “New Racism Won’t Solve the Old Racism” by Bret Stephens that stopped me cold.  It was an argument I don’t remember hearing before, but probably should have expected it. 

Mr. Stephens claims that if our government or anyone else works to mitigate racism by targeting FOR ASSISTANCE the people who have been consistently discriminated against for hundreds of years, it is a new form of racism because race is the criterion used.  He claims that if there is a bill to help Black farmers specifically (You know, the farmers who had their land, what little there was allowed to be theirs, taken from them in a variety of violent “legal” and extra-legal ways, it would be discriminating against white farmers.  Also, if Mayor Lightfoot of Chicago proposed programs to specifically address the systemic problems of the Black community in Chicago, white Chicagoans would feel the sting of discrimination (racism, you know).

Wow!  The sheer ignorance of what racism is boggles the mind, or at least my mind.  Racism is the systematic discrimination through means such as segregation, inequality, abuse, etc., on the part of the race in power toward those of races not in power.  With that definition in mind, how is attempting to make up for past discrimination racist?  In a word or two, it’s not.  Mr. Stephens paraphrased Chief Justice John Roberts, not exactly a reliable source for knowledge and understanding of racism, “Thinking we can stop discrimination on the basis of race without discriminating on the basis of race” He doesn’t actually finish the thought because what Roberts and Stephens are trying to say or imply makes no sense.  Their “ignorance” of racism is what one might expect of people who know nothing of the law, BUT Roberts is supposed to be a legal expert. 

Such warped thinking generally accompanies those who see white as the superior race and maintaining that superiority as the most important thing.  They claim there might be a way to build up Black people at the same time they help white people, and that this is the only way to proceed.  Theoretically, it could happen, after all, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid improved conditions for Black and white citizens, but due to job discrimination and other factors, the federal programs have never served all races equally.  That’s racism even if that was not the intent.  Also, tax breaks for the rich, mostly white folks rarely trickle down to anyone, particularly not to Black people, ever.

Whenever food stamps or other aid programs are expanded, the white base is carefully reminded that it is mostly going to Black people (which it isn’t) activating a racist response from white people who can’t imagine why funds are given to Black people who unlike them, are lazy, wasteful . . .  Again, white people are kept ignorant of the truth.

Ignorance reigns as a kind of tyrant in our society.  It probably always has, but lately, it seems to be deeply enshrined and gaining strength in the Republican party.   Members are quite proud of their ignorance, or at least the ignorance of their base which they have carefully cultivated with the tacit permission of that base.  All kinds of lies and conspiracy theories keep the ignorance alive and well and fully functioning.

Are Republicans really ignorant of what racism is and the levels of discrimination perpetrated upon people of color in this country?  Perhaps, but it is doubtful.  I believe They know perfectly well what racism is and know that what they are doing to their base is racist, telling vulnerable white people that they are the ones being discriminated against.  Their goal, make their base resentful enough to act as the leaders direct, too ignorant to even question.

Were Republican leaders ignorant of the probable impact of their anti-COVID vaccine stance or did they know exactly what they were doing?  If they knew, why did they encourage a whole lot of people to die of a disease we actually have a vaccine for, then vilify Anthony Fauci and others for telling the truth? 

Were Republicans ignorant of the lack of voter fraud in the 2020 election or did they use the Big Lie to manipulate the emotions of their base, speaking in hyperbole that incorrectly told them of a situation that didn’t actually exist?  Why did they need to produce (or share) over 400 bills in nearly every state to suppress the votes of vulnerable populations?  It is a plot to make sure the ongoing discrimination against people of color and the ignorance of the white base can continue unabated.  Republican leaders and their allies should have to prove without doubt  voter fraud is occurring and that their proposals will definitely improve people’s ability to vote in order to pass such laws , but they never seem to be held accountable for anything, and the conservative Supreme Court is right there with them.

Were Republicans ignorant of Russian interference in our elections of 2016 and 2020 or did they feel such a need to protect Donald Trump, they lied to promote the ignorance of a whole lot of people, while pretending their own ignorance of foreign interference?   

Are Democrats, including President Biden ignorant of Republican inability to work in a bipartisan way to help the American people or are they just willing to allow themselves to be manipulated to prove a point that anyone paying attention already knows, that Republicans can’t govern?  if so, why?  President Biden says that if the filibuster were gone, Congress would “be thrown into chaos and nothing would get done.”  OMG, nothing is getting done now because Republicans don’t know how to govern responsibly.  What is the difference?  And, without the filibuster, things would get done.  Mr. Biden should know better.

As a teacher, it disturbs me that so many in our nation are standing for ignorance, even in our public schools, although in some disadvantaged communities, that has been a problem for a long time.  In 1925, a teacher, John Scopes was on trial in Tennessee for teaching evolution, an established scientific theory even at that time.  He lost in a crazy show trial where the ignorance on the winning side was fully evident.  Many supporters of state-approved ignorance are still trying to get some form of anti-evolution taught in our schools though our kids will be the losers.  Are those pushing for the anti-evolution programs ignorant of how evolution impacts our lives every day or are they employing their power to promote a set of thinking that they can weaponize, no matter how completely inaccurate and a crossing of the line between religion and state?

Ignorance has led states to make laws that “critical race theory” (CRT) can’t be taught in schools.  Do legislators even know what that is when they vote for the legislation?  I think not!  It has become a quick abbreviation (CRT) that communicates to their base that there must be some kind of  devious plot by people of color against white folks.  Again the base’s ignorance serves the Republican leadership well.  In reality, Critical Race Theory has until now mostly been a scholarly enterprise.  It attempts to look at the ways race has become and continues to be embedded in all aspects of our society and some ways to look at the challenges that presents to us today.  Some parts of that learning could be included in high school curricula, possibly government classes or sociology, not a kindergarten subject.  Children should learn our history in all its glory and tragedy as they are able to understand it, which is not critical race theory, just history.  Politicizing something one is completely ignorant about is disturbing and an ongoing challenge.  And, by the way, it’s also racist.

Trying to keep people ignorant through misinformation has been done before and continues to be part of life in many parts of the world.  It works because it stokes fear, anger and resentment that can be easily manipulated toward actions the manipulators choose.  January 6^th is an example of this.  We will be watching the trials of those who participated and their arguments, “Trump told us the election was stolen and we had to ‘stop the steal.’”  I always heard that “ignorance is no excuse in the law.”  I suspect despite their actions, most of the insurgents will be let off with a slap on the wrist because the powers that be are OK with ignorance, especially if it is white.

People have access to information if they know how to or choose to pursue it, even in many countries that promote ignorance.  That, of course, is what scares men in power.  The people may no longer want to wallow in ignorance.  It is human nature to want to discover things and learn what is real, what is true.  In response, the ignorance purveyors will employ even more sophisticated techniques and their judicial supporters will permit it because that is why they are in the positions they hold.

We are an open society.  Therefore, each of us has the responsibility to educate ourselves about what is going on, to acknowledge our ignorance, and to figure out how to acquire the knowledge to dispel that ignorance.  Our task is to help to lessen the ignorance of our children into the future.  Lying to them or allowing others to lie to them fearing they might feel some guilt and coddling them with comforting misinformation are a betrayal of our commitment to them.

We need to remove ignorance from its current throne and replace it with truth, knowledge, and understanding.  remember, ignorance is only bliss for the ones using it and benefiting from it. 

I Wonder

by Ruth A. Sheets

I’VE spent a lot of time THESE PAST 5 YEARS OR SO completing and signing petitions related to the issues I care about most.  One theme that comes up often lately in my responses is, “why am I begging for a right that all American citizens, all human beings should already have?”.  Recently, I realized there are a lot of things I am wondering about.

I remember back in my simpler days when I wondered why the sky is blue and what I would do over summer break.  Of course, today’s wonderings seem to me more complex because the answers can’t be found in a science text or resolved by my own choices.  These are some of my wonderings today.  Feel free to add to them with some of yours.

I wonder . . .   

- why we the people have to beg our representatives for the most basic right of being a citizen, the right to vote unimpeded by political partisanship so one party, (these days, the Republicans) can gather and consolidate power they have not earned. 

- How is it vote suppressors are allowed to get away with voter suppression.  I know part of it is that our Supreme Court  does not seem to be able to be trusted to do the right thing for anyone but rich white Christian (OK claiming to be Christian) men and their corporations.  I know that was not what the founders had in mind, but they who cry that they are originalists simply lie because what they are really deciding is what is comfortable for themselves and what gives themselves the most prestige with their masters, the rich white "Christian" men and corporations.  That doesn’t fully explain it, though, so I still wonder.

- how Republicans believe they should have power even though they have to cheat and lie to get it, and no one seems willing to stop them, even Democrats.

- why we the people haven't risen to vote out the representatives at all levels who regularly lie to constituents.  Oh wait, their cheating, lying, and voter suppression may be giving them edges in certain states, like maybe Texas, Iowa, others while they challenge votes in states that have actually proven their integrity related to the vote.  This does not explain this completely either.

- why a president we just elected to right the wrongs of the previous administration has done so little, even in the areas where he has power.

- how it is that Donald Trump is never held accountable for anything he does.  This has led to a lot of likeminded people trying to follow his game plan, whatever that is to keep themselves from accountability too.

- how 74 million people voted for an impeached president who clearly committed the crime the Republicans in the Senate refused to acknowledge.

- why we, an enormously wealthy nation allow children to be raised in poverty, a condition that warps the spirit as well as the abilities of those who live it, then, we blame them for their condition.

- why medical care is not available to every person in this country.  Not covering everyone ends up costing more than if we did in work days lost to illness, and pro bono coverage by hospitals of those who are not covered.

- why we have allowed tech corporations to become huge and able to control all areas of life, nearly unregulated and with little evidence of any kind of positive ethics related to the people who use their services or are employed by them.

- why so little is being done related to the size and complexity of global warming, to stop its progress and reverse its effects, even in the face of massive wildfires, storms, and flooding.

- how it is we the American nation have not fallen under the weight of our own divisiveness, selfishness, and nationalistic foolishness.

- why so many people refuse to get vaccinated when it is clear that is the best way to protect oneself and others from a destructive disease.  They whine that they should have control over their own body and should be able to decide what happens to it.  OMG, isn’t that what women have claimed for generations about their bodies and reproductive freedom?  Perhaps that “right” only goes for men and conservatives, not those pesky women.  

- why white people are so afraid of everyone who is not white, so persist in trying to limit the rights and opportunities of people of color and won’t acknowledge that is what they are doing.

- why gaslighting (telling people they are not experiencing what they are experiencing) is so popular among leaders these days.  I am guessing it’s because it works, but I don’t understand why we let it work.  Republicans now claim the January 6^th insurrection was just some loving peaceful tourists visiting the Capitol (OK, even if that were true, due to COVID, tourists were not permitted in the capital building).  Can they not see what is in the videos taken even by their own attackers? 

- How Republicans get away with calling bills in Congress  and their PACs and organizations opposite of what the bill or organization actually does. (e.g., the “Freedom to Vote” bill was really the freedom to exclude people of color, young people, and students from voting act).

- how Christians can claim to be Christian while supporting leaders who don’t follow any of the teachings of Jesus:  do unto others . . ., welcome the stranger, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, do good to those who hurt you, care for the orphans and widow (not deport them), love your neighbor as yourself, and so on.  They even support candidates who don’t even begin to follow the Ten Commandments which Evangelical Christians claim to love so dearly.

- why so many white men believe they need guns, not only in their homes to “protect their castle,” but also in their car, and in their pocket, but don’t want other groups to have the same privilege and are OK when police kill a Black man for having a registered gun.

- police officers believe they should be immune from responsibility for whatever they do on duty.  People in most other jobs don’t have that privilege, except maybe Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and the people who got pardoned by Donald Trump.  The police are supposed to be our employees, not our intimidators and killers.

- why so many white people claim they don’t have a racist bone in their bodies, then do or support racist actions, like voter suppression and denying funds to stop poverty.  I am thinking maybe it’s because they actually don’t have “a” racist bone, but a whole racist skeleton, and it is hidden inside, but I am not sure.

- why I am a chocoholic and don’t want to be relieved of my addiction.

I’ll keep wondering and hope you will too so we can bring our wonderings to our people in power.  I will not apologize for my biases in this set of wonderings because that is where I am right now and want change that will make a difference for all, not just the privileged few.