Christine Brown, May 5, 2022 (updated May 17)

Steven Cobert takes down the radical Scotus

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor would reportedly write in his diary, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

WE ARE THE SLEEPING GIANT. 

All your family and friends “who don’t do politics”
All your family and friends “who think Democrats and Republicans are the same”
All your family and friends “who don’t have time to pay attention and/or vote”
All your family and friends “who think their vote doesn’t matter”
All your family and friends “who spend hours battling on social media” (but don’t do anything else)
All your family and friends “who think someone else will do something”

I get it, I really do.  We have to get the kids to school, the laundry done, and earn a paycheck to pay for housing and food. Sometimes we want to do zumba and garden and forget for just a moment the dire circumstances we face in our country.  I personally am in this fight for my children and future grandchildren.

How Americans Really Feel about Abortion, Forbes 5/3/22  There is broad concensus about the right to abortion.

The bottom-line is that there is a minority war on the majority and SCOTUS  just dropped a bomb.  And like Pearl Harbor, I fervently hope that it will awaken Americans out of their complacency.  Read How Americans Really Feel about Abortion and you will see that it has broad support.  Unfortunately the media’s both-sides reporting amplifies minority viewpoints so that they feel equally as strong- it’s a problem in all reporting from Climate Change to Healthcare and more.

The radical decision to eliminate a constitutional right enshrined for nearly 50 years is just the beginning.  You know what other rights are based on the same legal reasoning?  Marriage Equality.  Homosexual Sex. Contraceptive Access.  Interracial Marriage.  The SCOTUS assurances that these rights won’t be affected are the exact same lies that these judges told about their belief in ROE’s precedent.

Robert Hubbell The Hard Road Forward, May 4, 2022

Robert Hubbell states that “The opinion is grotesquely disingenuous, pretending that the Court is merely “correcting” a wrongly decided case. Not so. The Court knows its ruling will result in the immediate revocation of an existing constitutional right in more than two dozen states.  Moreover, Alito’s logic is perverse and cruel. He claims that an implied right cannot exist unless it is “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition,” but he ignores the fact that for the first 129 years of our nation’s history, women were denied the right to vote—and thus denied any realistic opportunity to create a “deeply rooted tradition” permitting contraception and abortion. Under Alito’s backward logic, a right plainly implied in the Constitution cannot exist because white male legislators successfully suppressed that right for more than a century.”

I highly recommend Robert Hubbell’s free newsletter, please read this one in its entirety.  He ends the Hard Road Forward with:

“The only path forward is the hard path—it is the one that the Constitution grants us: the ballot box. Even as the Court turns its back on the Constitution, we must embrace it ever more fiercely. The Constitution will endure, and its faithful servants will prevail.”  

Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, May 3, 2022

In her May 3rd newsletter, Heather Cox Richardson continues to bring an important historical context to our struggle to maintain our civil rights.  No one really cared about abortion until Reagan needed votes from the evangelicals to win. Her source notes at the end of her letters are a good way to get free content.  Her free newsletter is an important source of knowledge, which gives us strength to fight.

We CANNOT cede the Midterms.  We need to work as hard as we did for Biden to:

1. Protect and Expand our Senate majority.  
2. Protect and Expand our House majority.

Both are razor thin. It is tradition that the opposition party’s base is more energized to turn out in the midterms.  But we are entering a new era where historical norms are trampled.  

We can’t wait for someone else to do it.

The time is now.  DONATE. PHONE. TEXT. WRITE.  A great place to start is the states who have their primaries this month.

Most importantly: talk to the people you know.  There are people who seriously don’t know what is happening. They think they are protecting themselves by not getting involved, but the opposite is true.  

By Barbara Head. 5/1/22, updated 5/14/22.

We cannot save our democracy if we do not join forces with our communities of color. While our allies within these communities lead the way with their highly effective grassroots organizing, the rest of us can offer advocacy and support their efforts.

There are multiple ways in which people of color are marginalized by political leadership in their states. Extremist Republican-led voter suppression legislation in many states, including Arizona, is a deliberate effort to silence their voices. But blue states, such as Nevada, are guilty in their own ways. Democrats who traditionally count on communities of color to deliver votes are often accused of ignoring these constituencies post-election. Democratic leadership also is regarded by many as being out of touch with voters of color. 

In Arizona, Latino and Native American tribal groups have been consistently and deliberately excluded from the voting process by the anti-democracy legislation pushed by state Republicans. Grassroots organizers in Latino- and indigenous-led groups as LUCHA, RAZA, and NE Arizona Native Democrats are mounting a vigorous response to voter suppression but request help from out-of-state volunteers in the form of donations, postcards, and phone banks to support their efforts.

Nevada’s political makeup departs from that of Republican-led Arizona in that Nevada has a Democratic majority legislature. However, many working class voters, particularly Latinos, who make up almost one-third of the Nevada adult population, are unhappy with the Democratic leadership. These voters feel marginalized by leaders who, they say, do not listen to their concerns, particularly in important areas such as climate change. Democratic leaders who ignore these concerns encourage this historically blue demographic to vote Republican. 

The editors of Turn Purple 2 Blue strive to assist the empowerment and efforts of communities of color by offering relevant postcards and other projects. In Arizona, postcards are being sent to voters on tribal lands at the request of Northeast Arizona Native Organizing Campaign. In Nevada, our postcards support the re-election of Catherine Cortez Masto, the first Latina in the US Senate, by highlighting her advocacy in the areas of climate change and reproductive rights. 

Read on for more about how we can reach Arizona and Nevada voters! 

by Denise Gieseke, 5/1/22.

Political power in Arizona is balanced on a razor’s edge. In many ways, the 2022 Arizona midterms epitomize the struggle for the soul of our nation.

There are must-win races this November to reelect Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and for the governorship that Republican Doug Ducey is vacating. We need to gain just one seat each in the state senate and state house to tie for control. We can’t undervalue the position of Arizona Secretary of State, which has been essential in upholding the results of the 2020 presidential election. Upping the ante, Arizona has no office of Lieutenant Governor, rather the secretary of state is next-in-line for the executive seat, should the governor leave office for any reason.

Nearly every day, Republicans in Arizona introduce or make progress in passing legislation introduced by the radical right, and try to keep the Big Lie alive in an attempt to undermine free democratic elections.  Earlier this week, a bill allowing parents to sue teachers who parents believe have “usurped” their rights by including “objectionable” content in curriculum, set sail for Ducey’s desk. Demoralizing educators and withholding education from constituents is a favorite, and particularly effective, mechanism of maintaining oppressive control. Other recently introduced legislation designed to keep the iron grip of the heteropatriarchy intact:

• Outlaw video recording of police within 8 ft of interactions, without permission from law enforcement officer
• Limit access to voting drop boxes, which is particularly punitive to rural and tribal communities
• Force teachers to ‘out’ LGBTQIA+ students to parents, even if doing so could lead to abuse or abandonment
• Ban abortions after 15 weeks
• Allow concealed carry of guns on campuses
• Legalize use of deadly force to protect property
• Attack minimum wage and prohibit public workers from organizing union members

We need every Democratic vote, including and especially those of our latinx and Indigenous allies.  BIPOC leaders on the front lines in Arizona want our help, and they’re creating actions for out-of-state volunteers like us. Let’s remind Arizona voters of recent Democratic accomplishments, find out what issues are important to our allies in this key swing state, then follow through by helping them elect progressive leaders who will effect meaningful change.