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.  

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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!