Read It Yourself . US v Donald J. Trump . 08.01.23

 https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.1.0_1.pdf

History Rhymes . The 14th Amendment at 155

"[H]istory repeats her tale unconsciously, and goes off into a mystic rhyme"*

155 years since the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution passed, what was protected by that amendment is once again under attack from the right flank.

The promises of liberty and equality under law in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution must, over and over, be defended from the forces of authoritarianism and anti-democracy among our own people.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-8-2023

* Book Review of “A History of the Church in Russia” by A. N. Mouravieff . The Christian Remembrancer, Volume 10 . October, 1845

Read It Yourself . Donald Trump Indictment . 06.08.23

So far, it seems to me that political operatives have one reaction to the Espionage Act indictments of Donald J. Trump and Walt Nauta; and members of the legal, military, national security, and intelligence communities have another.

When it comes to whose reaction I’m more likely to trust, it’s not a close call.

If you haven’t already, you can read it for yourself in a searchable PDF direct from the Department of Justice website:

 Read the June 08, 2023 Federal Indictment of Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta

Read It Yourself . U.S. Secretary of State Speaks to the United Nation About Russia and Ukraine

Secretary Blinken’s Remarks at the United Nations Security Council Ministerial Meeting on Ukraine

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE

UNITED NATIONS

NEW YORK, N.Y.

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

One year and one week ago – on February 17th, 2022 – I warned this council that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine.

I said that Russia would manufacture a pretext, and then use missiles, tanks, soldiers, cyber attacks to strike pre-identified targets, including Kyiv, with the aim of toppling Ukraine’s democratically elected government.

Russia’s representative – the same representative who will speak today – called these, and I quote, “groundless accusations.”

Seven days later, on February 24th, 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Due to fierce resistance by Ukraine’s defenders, President Putin failed in his primary objective to conquer Ukraine, end its existence as an independent country, and absorb it into Russia.

Then, he dusted off his Crimea playbook from 2014: He called snap referenda in four occupied parts of Ukraine, deported Ukrainians, bussed in Russians, held sham votes at gunpoint, and then manipulated the results to claim near unanimous support for joining the Russian Federation.

When President Putin couldn’t break the Ukrainian military, he intensified efforts to break Ukrainians’ spirit.  Over the last year, Russia has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian men, women, and children; uprooted more than 13 million people from their homes; destroyed more than half of the country’s energy grid; bombed more than 700 hospitals, 2,600 schools; and abducted at least 6,000 Ukrainian children – some as young as four months old – and relocated them to Russia.

And yet, the spirit of the Ukrainians remains unbroken; if anything, it’s stronger than ever.

When Ukraine launched a counteroffensive that retook large swaths of its territory, President Putin conscripted an additional 300,000 men – throwing more and more of Russia’s young people into a meat grinder of his own making.  And he unleashed the Wagner Group – mercenaries who have committed atrocities from Africa to the Middle East, and now, in Ukraine.

Of course, that’s not the whole story of the last year.

There is also the story of Ukraine’s people.  Vastly outnumbered, they have fought bravely to defend their nation, their freedom, the right to determine their own future.  And they’ve demonstrated inspiring unity in helping one another endure Moscow’s relentless assault.

Teachers and community members give classes in bunkers to children.  City workers improvise patches to restore heat and power and water to residents.  Neighbors set up soup kitchens to feed the hungry.

There’s also the story of how the international community has come together.

The vast majority of member-states have voted multiple times to condemn Russia’s violations of the UN Charter and reject its illegal attempt to seize Ukrainian territory.  Yesterday, 141 countries voted in the General Assembly for a resolution that reaffirms the core principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, denounces Russia’s atrocities, expresses support for a just and comprehensive peace, in accordance with the United Nations Charter.

When President Putin tried to weaponize hunger – exploiting the worst global food crisis since the creation of the UN – the international community responded swiftly.

Since the United States chaired a Food Security meeting last May, more than 100 countries have signed onto a set of concrete commitments to alleviate hunger.  Thanks in large part to the Secretary-General Guterres and Türkiye, the Black Sea Grain Initiative loosened Russia’s stranglehold on Ukraine’s ports and brought down the cost of grain for the world.  Now, as Moscow again tries to throttle its output, we have to ensure that that initiative is extended and expanded.

When President Putin tried to weaponize energy, we redirected natural gas supplies from across the world, so that countries Russia targeted could keep their people warm in the winter.  And Europe took extraordinary steps to end its dependence on Russian energy.

No country has endured greater hardship from Russia’s war than Ukraine, but almost every country has felt the pain.  And yet, nations around the world continue to stand with Ukraine.  Because we all recognize that if we abandon Ukraine, we abandon the UN Charter itself, and the principles and rules that make all countries safer and more secure.

No seizing land by force.

No erasing another country’s borders.

No targeting civilians in war.

No wars of aggression.

If we do not defend these basic principles, we invite a world in which might makes right, the strong dominate the weak.  That’s the world this body was created to end.  And members of this council have a unique responsibility to make sure that we do not return to it.  We can do that in three ways.

First, we must push for a just and durable peace.

Now I expect that many countries will call for peace today.

No one wants peace more than the Ukrainian people.  And the United States has long made clear – even before this war – that we’re prepared to engage in any meaningful diplomatic effort to stop Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

But history teaches us that it’s the nature of peace that matters.

For peace to be just, it must uphold the principles at the heart of the UN Charter: sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence.

For peace to be durable, it must ensure that Russia can’t simply rest, rearm, and relaunch the war in a few months or a few years.

Any peace that legitimizes Russia’s seizure of land by force will weaken the charter and send a message to would-be aggressors everywhere that they can invade countries and get away with it.

President Zelenskyy has put forward a ten-point plan for a just and durable peace.  President Putin, by contrast, has made clear that there is nothing to talk about until Ukraine accepts, and I quote, “the new territorial realities,” while doubling down on his brutal tactics.

Members of this council have a fundamental responsibility to ensure that any peace is just and durable.

Council members should not be fooled by calls for a temporary or unconditional ceasefire.  Russia will use any pause in fighting to consolidate control over the territory it’s illegally seized and replenish its forces for further attacks.  That’s what happened when Russia’s first assault on Ukraine froze in 2015.  Look at what followed.

And members of this council should not fall into the false equivalency of calling on both sides to stop fighting, or calling on other nations to stop supporting Ukraine in the name of peace.

No member of this council should call for peace while supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine and on the UN Charter.

In this war, there is an aggressor and there is a victim.

Russia fights for conquest.  Ukraine fights for its freedom.

If Russia stops fighting and leaves Ukraine, the war ends.  If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends.

The fact remains:  One man – Vladimir Putin – started this war; one man can end it.

Second, even as we work to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, members of this council must continue to address other challenges to international peace and security.

We hear the concerns of countries who worry that standing with Ukraine and holding Russia accountable is diverting focus and resources from others in need.

To those countries, I would say, simply, look at our actions.

And when you hear Russia and its defenders accuse the countries who support Ukraine of ignoring the rest of the world – I say look at Moscow’s actions.

Compare the numbers.  In addition to the $13.5 billion in food aid that the United States contributed to fight hunger over the last year, we also fund more than 40 percent of the World Food Program’s budget.  Russia contributes less than 1 percent of that budget.

That’s not an outlier.  Based on the latest UN figures, the United States donates over nine times as much as Russia to UN peacekeeping.  We donate 390 times as much as Russia to UNICEF.  We give nearly a thousand times as much as Russia to the UN Refugee Agency.

Third, we must reaffirm our commitment to upholding what the UN Charter calls, and I quote, “the dignity and worth of the human person.”

We must continue to compile evidence of Russia’s ongoing and widespread atrocities, including executions; torture; rape and sexual violence; the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian civilians to Russia.

We must continue to document Russia’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, and share this evidence with investigators and prosecutors, so that one day, the perpetrators can be held accountable.

Day after day of Russia’s atrocities, it’s easy to become numb to the horror, to lose our ability to feel shock and outrage.  But we can never let the crimes Russia is committing become our new normal.

Bucha is not normal.  Mariupol is not normal.  Irpin is not normal.  Bombing schools and hospitals and apartment buildings to rubble is not normal.  Stealing Ukrainian children from their families and giving them to people in Russia is not normal.

We must not let President Putin’s callous indifference to human life become our own.

We must force ourselves to remember that behind every atrocity in this wretched war, in conflicts around the world, is a human being.

I recently visited an exhibit of artwork made by Ukrainian children affected by the war.

One painting I saw was made by a ten-year-old girl named Veronika.  Last April, Russian forces shelled her home in Vuhledar, killing her whole family.  When first responders dug her from the rubble, a piece of shrapnel was lodged in her skull.  Her left thumb had been ripped off.  Doctors saved her life, but the attack left her right hand mostly paralyzed, and she can’t see out of her left eye.

In her painting, Veronika drew herself in a bright pink and orange dress, holding a bouquet of flowers.  A building stands next to her.  When asked who lived there, she said it was a place where all the people she knew who had been killed in the war could be safe.

“We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…” That’s how the UN Charter begins.

Fellow members of this council:  Now is the time to meet that promise.  There are so many people in Ukraine who want the same thing as that little girl, Veronika: a world where they can live in peace, in their own country, and keep the people they love safe.

We have the power, we have the responsibility to create that world, today and for generations to come.  We cannot – we will not – let one country destroy it.

Changing the conversation so people can disagree without feeling obliged to hate each other

Three years ago, I posted this to Facebook:

Are you in a reading group? 

Do you wish you had a book about talking to ideological opponents without feeling obliged to agree? 

Consider 3Practices for Crossing the Difference Divide. 

Visit Amazon for details (click on the Kindle edition to read an excerpt).

Get in touch with me directly, and I’ll get a special price for your group.

Now, three years on, there’s an updated edition of 3Practices for Crossing the Difference Divide, celebrating what we’ve learned alongside 150 3Practice Circle Referees in hundreds of open Circles, and hundreds more private Circles in organizations and institutions from The Salvation Army to the Office of the President of the University of California.

Together, we’re changing the conversation so people can disagree without feeling obliged to hate each other.

This little book is about that.

[3Practice Circle Referee training cohorts show folks how to do that in the communities, organizations, and institutions they care about.]

Thanksgiving Day, 1864

 

Thanksgiving Day, 1864

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State .

Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation 118—Thanksgiving Day, 1864 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/202432

voting is one crap I do not care to give

A few years back — long past the time anything could be done about that year's elections — someone I prize a great deal wisecracked, "I don’t vote, so I don't give a crap."

Without much thought, but I hope not too ungenerously, I cracked back: "Should that be, 'I don't give a crap, so I don’t vote?'"

I get it that some people don't believe their vote can make a difference in the kind of world (or neighborhoods) where we live, raise children, and hope for the best. But I'm still surprised when someone young, or a parent, or a would-be parent, or a teacher, or a youth worker, or anyone else who cares about the young, don't force their way to the front of the voting line — just in case it should turn out they're wrong about voting ... just in case it should turn out their vote is the one that tips an important race one way or the other.

Is it too late to vote today?

Closing Arguments For + Against Democracy in America

The closing argument in political campaigns used to go something like, “Elect me and I will work every day to deserve your vote.”

Of course, that’s still the political argument of candidates who are committed to a democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people — core principles of the old Republican Party when it was founded in the 1850s.

But, this year, a candidate in Wisconsin told supporters that "Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I'm elected governor." Is there a way to keep that promise without overriding democratic processes for voter registration, casting votes, accurately counting votes, and legally certifying the outcome to the vote? Or was he just bullshitting?

He’s not the only one. Following in the footsteps of a former President of the United States who, before the votes were cast and counted, contested the results in the election, six Republican candidates for governor or the US Senate in battleground states would not commit to abiding by next week’s election results … five more ignored or declined to answer the question.

When people show you who they are, believe them, Maya Angelou advised.

I can think of fewer than five Republicans in, or running for the next US Senate — and no Republicans in or running for the next US House of Representatives — who haven’t already shown us that they are unwilling or unable to mount a robust defense of democracy against the prevailing power of the new Republican Party — the MAGA Republicans who look an awful lot like the old Democratic Party when it tried to unravel the Declaration of independence and the Constitution in the 19th century.

Since then, the parties have traded places and they have shown us who they are. The values that drove the old Democratic Party are the values that drive the new Republican Party: government of the few, by the few, and for the few.

Today, Democrats mean to deepen and broaden conscientious liberty and equal protection of the law for every citizen. That’s governance in the service of equality. 

Republicans, based on legislative action the last two years mean to decrease liberty and impose or reimpose restrictions on the protection of citizens whom they do not regard as equal. That’s governance in the service of hierarchy.

The US Constitution and Declaration of Independence leave no doubt about the American preference for a genuinely representative democracy over any sort of autocratic monarchy or oligarchy. 

In this political moment, Republicans have shown us that they cannot be trusted to serve the ends of American democracy and I am persuaded that a red vote in 2022 is a vote against America’s core values.

https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/the-2020-and-2024-presidential-votes-loom-large-in-wisconsins-2022-election-for-governor/

https://electionlawblog.org/?p=131983

https://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/when-people-show-you-who-they-are-believe-them-video

What is *The Point* of American Democracy?

A few weeks ago — when Donald Trump said that, should he be indicted for mishandling classified documents, there would be big problems ... that he doesn’t think Americans would stand for it — I said that, indeed, I *would* stand for it. I’m persuaded that, if evidence supports an indictment, Americans will not only stand for it but will *insist* on him having his day in court, like any American.

A friend responded saying that he felt “more concerned about how the current administration is dismantling and destroying this country on their own, and throwing ‘trumpian danger’ out there to distract people from it.” … a concern I told him I think is counterfactual. “I think President Biden is doing extraordinary work in extraordinary circumstances." I said, and "I’ll be happy to enumerate my reasons for that if you wish.” My friend said be his guest and then life happened for a while, as it does: deadlines … Covid … rebound Covid … catching up from Covid … business travel … and blah, blah, blah.… Now, finally, I’m ready to enumerate some of the reasons I think President Biden is doing good work. Whether it will satisfy my friend, I don’t know, but here it is….

My first reason for supporting Joe Biden is simply that I agree with his governing philosophy. He believes, and in this he concurs with the founders and framers, that there is *a point* to democratic governance. 

That point, I think, is outlined in the 1776 Declaration of Independence ... explained in quite a bit of detail in the 1789 Constitution, which replaced the 1781 Articles of Confederation ... and refined in the 27 Amendments to the Constitution that began with a flurry of 10 Amendments in 1791.

Something all these legal concords have in common is a good faith attempt that splits the difference between anarchy and monarchy or oligarchy. 

Democracy prevents everyone from doing whatever the hell they want to whomever they want (if they can get away with it). And democracy keeps one person or family or cabal or faction from doing whatever they want to whomever they want (if they can get away with it).

Democracy says to monarchs mobs and mafias: You *can’t* get away with it. We declare ourselves mutually bound to ensure for each other a set of permanent rights that include the pursuit of life, liberty, and freedom from haplessness … and, by mutual consent, we form a new government built on those principles and organized and empowered to pursue safety and happiness for us all.

The Constitution and Amendments amplify and define the Declaration’s requirement that the government establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure liberty from each generation to the next … all in pursuit of a more perfect union.

President Biden’s philosophy of governance is shaped and guided by those principles and practices. So I’m already happier than I would be if he pursued authoritarianism on one hand or laissez-faire leadership on the other — neither of which has a good historical record of securing the blessings of liberty outlined in the paragraphs above.

In no particular order, I see evidence that President Biden:

• Follows through on commitments to support liberty of conscience and secure equal protection of the law for every American
• Advocates privacy in medical decisions, most famously in women's health care
• Supports and works at generating cultural, educational, and economic opportunity for every American
• Promotes individual, collective, and corporate responsibility under law
• Prefers a politics of invitation, persuasion, inclusion and sharing credit
• Generally resists the temptation to claim that opponents can't have good ideas
• Is more inclined to compare apples to apples — where differences exist — rather than comparing apples to oranges
• Frames economic wellbeing starting with people who work for wages … recognizing the thread that connects 1) job growth and increased wages for working people with, 2) the sustainable growth of corporations and capital with, 3) sales and property taxes that support local and state government-based services like education, healthcare, law enforcement and judicial services, infrastructure development and maintenance with, 4) federal taxes that support activities that must scale nationally in order to succeed: regional, interstate, and national infrastructure and resource management, interstate commerce, banking and contract law, postal services, law enforcement and judicial services, safe food, water and air standards and practices, healthcare standards and practices, worker safety standards and practices, international treaties, and national intelligence and defense. 

The Biden Administration is less than two years in office. So, lots more time to promote liberty, justice, and the general health, happiness, and fortunes of Americans. Meanwhile, in no particular order, here are a few early policies and laws that give me concrete reasons to back President Biden…

• Expanding the pool of Americans who can access high quality, reasonably priced healthcare services, and driving the law that enables bulk purchasing of pharmaceuticals to control costs and cap the price of life-saving drugs to some of America’s most vulnerable citizens
• The overall proactive and sustained response to COVID-19, starting with effective vaccine distribution and continuing by collaborating with the legislative branch on devising and funding a remarkable economic recovery via the American Rescue Plan
• The landmark reduction in child poverty accomplished through the American Rescue Plan … and calls on Congress to renew funding to make elevating early childhood development a sustainable national priority
• The Executive Order on Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices on May 05, 2022
• Action on national and global tax policy and enforcement to close loopholes for wealthy corporate and individual free riders, and beginning the 10-year project of properly restaffing the IRS to provide necessary services
• Promoting and signing into law the first meaningful, common sense gun safety measures since the 90s
• Promoting and signing into law the first meaningful, common sense environmental protection measures since the 70s
• Ending and reversing federal sentences on marijuana convictions for simple possession and encouraging US states to follow suit
• Reestablishing clear and consistent diplomatic links with both allies and adversaries for a rules-based international order 
• Redefining international conflict and coalition-building by leading the international response to Russian aggression against Ukraine [See, for example, David Rothkopf on the work accomplished *before* the Russian invasion of Ukraine that set the stage for the international direct actions to frustrate Vladimir Putin’s aggression without going to war against Russia: https://www.thedailybeast.com/secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-on-russia-ukraine-and-natos-rebirth?ref=scroll]
• A clear call to preserve and extend democracy, liberty, and equal protection under law at a global scale
• Restoring professional competence and accountability standards in cabinet-level departments across the government — especially, in my view, Justice and State
• Declining to claim ongoing, blanket executive privilege for former presidents 
• Staying out of the work of the January 6 Congressional Committee and the Department of Justice
• Reemphasizing and taking action to revitalize the quality of US jobs across the real economy, and especially in research & development, high tech, chip manufacturing, energy, automotive, and durable goods manufacturing jobs geared for the future
• Working to reduce the trade deficit (beyond the baked-in reductions that occurred as Covid supports wound down for businesses and citizens)
• Believing and then proving that the federal government can work for the benefit of the American people

Circling back to the beginning, I suppose my answer could have begun with then *President-Elect* Biden’s remarks, on January 6, 2021, responding to the assault on the US Capitol. What Joe Biden said that afternoon — a few hours before the vote count of his election to the presidency was belatedly confirmed by the US Congress in joint session — strikes me as the right words, spoken in the right tone, at a time when it looked as if the sitting president might not say anything at all. In my opinion, Mr. Trump’s statement, released a little later that afternoon via Twitter, did not rise to the same heights. Here’s a link to Joe Biden’s message that day: https://www.c-span.org/video/?507742-1/president-elect-biden-at-hour-democracy-unprecedented-assault

What we’ve learned since January 6, 2021 — through sworn testimony, mostly by Republicans, before the Congressional Committee investigating the events on and leading up to January 6, and through court findings of fact regarding the likely commission of crimes to illegally obstruct official government proceedings and conspiracy to defraud the United States — amplifies those differences. See, for example, https://january6th.house.gov/news/watch-live and https://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Dkt.%20372%2C%20Order%20Re%20Privilege%20of%20Remaining%20Documents.pdf

Do I think Joe Biden’s first 20 months in office were perfect? Of course not. 

Do I agree that the facts support my friend’s concern that, "the current administration is dismantling and destroying this country on their own, and throwing ‘trumpian danger’ out there to distract people from it”? On the facts, I do not.

This is a big deal to me in the midterm elections next week. 

The governing philosophy that underlies the Biden Administration promotes *equality.* On the other side, since MAGA Republicans’ control of the party is so overwhelming at present, no convincing resistance can be made from within the party to stop them doing whatever they want to whomever they want (if Democrats and Independents don’t stop them). In that light, I don’t think it’s too much to say that, practically speaking, a vote for a Republican in 2022 is a vote for hierarchy over equality. Just the sort of thing the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were meant to end.

To be fair, there was time when the governing philosophy and practices of Democrats and Republicans were reversed — in the lead-up to the American Civil War, Republicans promoted  equality and Democrats defended hierarchy. Not anymore.

The Boston College political historian, Heather Cox Richardson, helpfully notes that, "In reality, the parties have switched sides since the 1850s." Don’t be misguided by people trying to muddy the water. She continues: "Rather than focusing on party names, it makes more sense to follow two opposed strands of thought, equality and hierarchy, as the constants." See https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-29-2022

On balance, I’m persuaded that Joe Biden’s philosophy of governing based on equality is quintessentially American, and that philosophies of governing based on hierarchy are not … they are foreign to the spirit of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence. 

For the future, I like our chances with Democrats’ governing philosophy of equality way better than the governance by hierarchy philosophy on the other side.

Today is nearly done . Vote for the Future

[Updated for 2024]

I’ve mostly stopped telling people what to believe and how to behave … about politics, religion … most everything. That doesn’t mean I don’t have pretty clear ideas about what *I* believe and how *I* behave in matters that matter to me. And I think a lot of those things matter to just about all of us, because we're neighbors.

So — acknowledging to the best of my ability the unearned privileges I wake up with every day just because I'm an old, straight, white guy — here's a partial list of things I think matter acutely in the next month … human blessings and liberties I'm convinced the prevailing wing of the Republican Party intends to put an end to starting in 2023, unless we stop them at the ballot box in November 2022 ... and keep stopping them until they regain their senses.

Note: When I say, "I'm convinced Republicans intend this or that", I mean that — regardless of what individual Republicans say they believe or how they behave in private — no coalition of Republican Members of Congress today will [can be counted on to] stop the ones who mean to deprive Americans of these liberties.

• I'm convinced Republicans intend to remove from your LGBT+ friends and family the equal protection provided by law for married people in the US. If you don’t think you know how important those protections are, google "spousal rights".
• I'm convinced Republicans intend to criminalize certain sexual behavior between consenting adults in their private lives. If you don't think you know what that sort of criminalization means, ask an old gay couple. 
• If they thought they could get away with it, I'm convinced Republicans would manufacture a way to end marriage for mixed race couples … again — I mean that, regardless of what a Republican says they believe in private or how they behave individually, no coalition of Republican Members of Congress today will stop the ones who mean to carry this out if they can find a way. [I’m less concerned about this in 2024 … not saying some wouldn’t seek to restrict mixed race marriages if they could find a way, but I *think* that impulse has lost momentum.]
• If you’re a woman, or partnered with a woman, I'm convinced that Republicans intend to control your reproductive healthcare choices no matter what *you* say and no matter what *your doctor and other healthcare professionals* say. I think Republicans intend to remove informed consent in women's health care so you, your sisters, daughters, grand-daughters, aunties, cousins and friends will have no say in your own reproductive health care. [Well…we know how that is playing out.]
• If you’re a woman or girl, I'm [still] convinced that Republicans intend to control your right to travel between states and outside the US in order to keep you from accessing reproductive healthcare outside the state where you live. One more time: No coalition of Republican Members of Congress today will stop the ones who are looking for a pretense to deprive you of the liberty to travel freely. [But states can, and have, and a new Congress could put it to bed, maybe permanently.]
• I'm convinced Republicans intend to roll back access to high quality, affordable healthcare in general — to the point that the worst off citizens in the US are made relentlessly sicker and poorer by high-cost, low quality healthcare where they live.
• I'm convinced that Republicans intend to revise voting districts and extend extraordinary executive powers to partisan elected officials and appointees until they can consistently override the will of voters — so they can override *your* vote, perhaps — in order to assure the election of Republicans and the passing of Republican-backed initiatives and referenda, no matter what.

I'm convinced of all this because Republicans have said they want all this … that they're working on all this … that they will do all this if we don't stop them.

In more normal times, I’ve voted *for* one candidate more often than I voted *against* another. These are not normal times.

Right now, about [180] 300 Republican nominees for national office [US Congress — and the Republican nominees for president and vice president] and [candidates in 14] key statewide offices are election deniers — meaning they deny or refuse to accept the election of President Joe Biden. None of them, as far as I know, deny or refuse to accept that they and other Republicans were duly elected on the same ballot as Joe Biden … it’s just him, so far. 

If they’re elected, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that none of these 300 Republican candidates will suddenly decide to resist those in their party who intend to deprive you and your friends and family from the blessings and liberties outlined above (and more that I haven’t included here). 

So, let’s elect candidates who won’t deliberately harm people we love or respect (or both). 

If you’d like to know which of those 300 candidates are running for office in your state, see https://electiondeniers.org/. I’ve made this Washington Post analysis shareable: https://wapo.st/3eaEJE6. 

Consider voting for the Blue candidates who are running against those Republicans … not because you agree at every point, but because you agree on this very important point: We won't stand by (like pretty much every [a majority of] Republicans in Congress) while the prevailing flank of the Republican Party intentionally harms our friends, family members, and fellow citizens, and so hacks away at the roots of democracy. 

I think this is just common sense, because there are more of *us* than there are of *them*.

On balance, there are more Democrats than Republicans ... there are more women than men ... there are more young Americans than old ones — who are more likely to have genuine friendships and a lifelong stake in the well-being and human liberties of friends and family members who Republicans are dead set on harming unless we stop them.

If we vote Blue in November, then do it again in 2024, and every two years for the rest of our lives ... If young voters take over the Democratic Party and make it better — more just ... more inclusive ... more equitable ... more humane ... more of everything they care about — we will elect visionary leaders who will coalesce around, not so much making America *great* as making America genuinely *good* [h/t Pepper Henderson].

What else is there but to register and vote as if voting Blue really matters [right now] in 2022 — because it really does.

Lincoln in Wisconsin | "capital is the fruit of labor"

Abraham Lincoln gave a great speech to farmers at the Wisconsin State Agricultural Fair on September 30, 1859 — 25 years before the first national Labor Day celebration in the US.

Lincoln’s address builds beat after beat to make a big point about the nobility of work and the value of workers. 

Here then, a substantial excerpt drawn from pages 499-502 in Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings. Roy P. Basler - editor, World Publishing, Cleveland, OH, 1946. A new edition, apparently printed from the same plates, is available from Amazon.

Mr. Lincoln's reference to the "mud-sill theory" represents a challenge to his contemporary, South Carolina's James Henry Hammond, and the notion that progress demands a lower class of workers — the mudsill on which the foundation is laid — to support the advancement of people in the upper class. 
Mr. Lincoln jokes:

According to that theory, the educating of laborers is not only useless, but pernicious and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all. Those same heads are regarded as explosive materials, only to be safely kept in damp places, as far as possible from that peculiar sort of fire which ignites them. A Yankee who could invent a strong-handed man, without a head, would secure the everlasting gratitude of the "mud-sill" advocates. 

The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon this point. From this point, however, men immediately diverge. Much disputation is maintained as to the best way of applying and controlling the labor element. By some it is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital -- that nobody labors, unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the use of that capital, induces him to do it. Having assumed this, they proceed to consider whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent; or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, they naturally conclude that all laborers are necessarily either hired laborers or slaves. They further assume that whoever is once a hired laborer, is fatally fixed in that condition for life; and thence, again, that his condition is as bad as, or worse than, that of a slave. This is the "mud-sill" theory.

The excerpt from Mr. Lincoln's speech continues after the jump...

President Johnson on Signing the Civil Rights Bill 07.02.64

We’re not done yet are we….