Happy Wednesday, Gnusies! Yesterday was quite a day in politics, so let’s get down to business. I’ll start with a few words of wisdom from Teri Kanefield:
🎶Music for Stepping Forward 🎶
And now, the news.
News From Congress and the White House
Big News Regarding the January 6 Insurrection
Pelosi signals new panel to investigate Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Mary Clare Jalonick, AP, June 22m 2021.
A person familiar with the matter said after a meeting with Democrats that Pelosi had told her colleagues that she would create a select panel. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private remarks. But Pelosi later denied that, telling reporters, “No, I did not make that announcement.”
The new committee would come after the Senate voted earlier this month to block legislation to form a bipartisan, independent commission investigating the attack by former President Donald Trump’s supporters. Pelosi said afterward that the House would step up investigations of the riot, in which a violent mob overran police, broke into the building and hunted for lawmakers to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
A new select committee would put majority Democrats in charge of the investigation. More than three dozen Republicans in the House and seven Senate Republicans said they wanted to avoid a partisan probe, and they supported the legislation to form a commission, which would have been modeled after a similar panel that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Big News Regarding the For the People Act
The fact that Republicans filibustered yesterday’s vote on mere debate of S1 (For the People Act), while disappointing, was expected. We knew that would happen, so don’t let the gloom&doom brigade whip you up as though all our hopes were riding on that one vote and it is somehow a surprising and crushing blow. We knew that would happen! More importantly, our Democratic Senators knew that would happen. Leader Schumer forced the vote to lay bare the truth of Republican obstructionism, so that when inevitably the Democrats have to go it alone, the people will be left in no doubt that it was the only way forward.
Manchin, Schumer strike deal ahead of election bill vote, Jordain Carney, The Hill, June 22, 2021.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday that he will vote in favor of advancing a sweeping election bill after striking a deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on a compromise proposal.
Schumer, speaking to reporters after a closed-door caucus lunch, announced that he and Manchin had reached an agreement that will allow Democrats to be unified in support of advancing the For the People Act as it faces a 60-vote procedural hurdle. ✂️
Under the deal, Manchin will provide a 50th Democratic vote on advancing the For the People Act, though it will still fail to overcome Tuesday's procedural hurdle because of a GOP filibuster that requires 60 votes. But being unified, Democrats hope, will keep the focus on GOP opposition to the bill.
Schumer said that if Democrats were able to start debate on the bill, something they won't be able to do because of across-the-board Republican opposition, he would give Manchin a vote on his proposal as a substitute amendment in exchange for voting "yes" on Tuesday. It would be the first amendment considered.
And Sen. Casey’s words reinforce my conviction that they are working on a strategy to deal with not only the predictably anti-democratic Republicans, but also any Democrats who are threatening to obstruct the bill. He (and no doubt, Senate Majority Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi and President Biden) seem to believe that the debate vote will crystalize for everyone the reality that Republicans are genuinely against voting rights and will unanimously obstruct any bill attempting to protect and strengthen those rights. The idea is that the S1 debate vote will weaken any Democratic reluctance to reconsider the filibuster, or at least the filibuster rules:
Manchin Will Vote Yes On S.1 Debate, Giving Dems Unanimity In Face Of GOP Blockade, Kate Riga, Talking Points Memo, June 22, 2021.
Even with Manchin’s yes vote, the effort is expected to fall far short of the numbers needed to overcome Republicans’ filibuster. But Democrats described it as a necessary first step to bring Manchin into the fold on the bill — a precursor to eventually convincing him and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to allow changes to the filibuster that would let the bill pass.
“My hope is that if we see a unified Republican effort to filibuster voting rights, it will stiffen the spine of my Democratic colleagues to protect our democracy,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told reporters Tuesday.
Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) told TPM that Tuesday’s vote is “a good chance to have democratic unanimity.”
“That’s an important milestone I think, but then after this, we’re gonna have to have some more engagement on the rules,” he added.
Seems like strategy to me
Also, in addition to Stacey Abrams, President Biden and others, President Obama has also added his voice: Former President Obama expresses support for Manchin's voting rights compromise, ABC, June 22, 2021.
🎶Music for the Change We Wish to See 🎶
Don’t Give up on Voting rights, treat this like the ACA
We the people saved the ACA through public pressure and we may be able to do it again for voting rights. Even Joe Manchin’s compromise bill would greatly increase protection of voting rights, and I’m not giving up on the possibility that we may even get the For The People Act passed.
Let’s Not Give Up On Voting Rights Just Yet, Stephen Robinson, Wonkette, June 22, 2021.
Last night, Rachel Maddow discussed how Democrats applied pressure on politicians during the GOP's 2017 effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Ultimately, three Republican senators — Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and (plot twist) John McCain — who'd originally opposed the ACA voted to keep it alive. No one saw that coming (especially McCain's vote), so maybe there's still hope for voting rights.
Levin told Maddow he doesn't expect a reform to the filibuster today, but instead, he expects Democrats to table the bill and then figure out their next move when they return from July 4 recess.
LEVIN: Politicians have a very scientific method for figuring out what they're going to do. They lick their finger. They stick it up in the air and they see which way the wind is going to blow. And that's how they're gonna determine what happens in July. If we are successful in changing the way the wind blows over the course of July 4th recess, they're gonna pick this up again, they're gonna amend the filibuster, and they're gonna pass these voting rights reforms.
That seems like a steep hill, but hope is better than hopelessness. No matter how intractable Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are, we can still follow the ACA playbook and apply pressure. They might not listen but we don't have to remain silent.
Teri Kanefield again:
And finally. a word from Rep. Adam Schiff
With or without them…
🎶Music Because You Knew I Would Post This 🎶
Joe Biden Moving quickly to nominate great judges
Yes, TFG got a lot of terrible, unqualified judges on the federal bench (one of them made a terrible ruling yesterday which upset a lot of us), so there’s no denying that the judicial branch is a big concern. So far, Joe Biden has got off to a quick start and this week he continued nominating really great people to fill judge seats:
Nice Time: Joe Biden Is Good At Picking Judges! Jamie Lynn Crofts, Wonkette, June 22, 2021.
During the campaign, Biden promised to diversify the federal bench, both in terms of demographics and diversity of legal experience. And, so far, he has lived up to those promises!
Since taking office almost exactly five months ago, Biden
has nominated 24 judges. That's a great rate; by this time in his horrific presidency, Trump, who got his judges confirmed at record numbers, had nominated 15. Nineteen of the 24 Biden nominees are women. Most of those women are women of color. A total of zero nominees thus far are white men.
The most exciting name in this batch of judges is Myrna Pérez, nominated to the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit has jurisdiction over Connecticut, New York, and Vermont, covering a population of more than 23 million people. And Pérez will be a great addition to one of the country's most important appellate courts! She has been a civil rights lawyer for most of her career, and right now she leads the Brennan Center's Voting Rights & Elections Program at NYU School of Law. The
Brennan Center does amazing work protecting the right to vote, and with all of the current attacks on voting rights, experts like Myrna Pérez are greatly needed on the federal bench. Once confirmed, she will be the only Latina on the Second Circuit.
The other new Biden nominees are:
- Jia Cobb, a civil rights attorney and former public defender, to the District of DC;
- Sarah Merriam, a former public defender, to the District of Connecticut;
- Omar Williams, another former public defender, to the District of Connecticut;
- Tovah Calderon, a civil rights lawyer for the DOJ, to the DC Court of Appeals;
- Sarala Vidya Nagala, a federal prosecutor, to the District of Connecticut; and
- Kenia Seoane Lopez, a current magistrate judge who has worked in the domestic violence division of DC courts, to the Superior Court of DC.
💉 Health News 💉
(Hooray they changed the emoji for a vaccination from that creepy blood-dripping needle to this nicer one!)
Think how much higher the number would be if Republicans were not actively working against the president and the best interest of the country. Nevertheless, we already do have more than 70% of adults 30 and older vaccinated! That’s quite an accomplishment!
White House: 70% of Americans 30 or older get COVID-19 shot, Zeke Miller, AP, June 22, 2021.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 70% of Americans age 30 or older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the White House said, even as President Joe Biden is set to fall short of reaching his goal of giving a shot to the same percentage of all American adults by Independence Day.
The Biden administration is releasing the new data Tuesday showing it expects to reach 70% of Americans age 27 or older with at least one shot by the July 4 holiday. A White House official said it is now redoubling its focus on vaccinating younger Americans age 18-26, who have proved to be least likely to get a vaccine when it’s available for them.
The White House said meeting Biden’s vaccination goal is less important than the pace of the nation’s reopening, which is exceeding even its own internal projections as the overwhelming majority of the nation’s most vulnerable people are fully vaccinated and cases and deaths are at their lowest rates since the earliest days of the pandemic.
New law funds 3 mental health sessions for Colorado youth, Carina Julig, Colorado Sentinel, June 21, 2021.
Nearly a month after Children’s Hospital Colorado sounded alarms on the number of young people seeking mental health help, a new law has been signed by Gov. Jared Polis that will connect young people to services and provide them with up to three free sessions with a mental health care provider.
Polis formally approved the legislation, HB1258, on Friday at a bill signing at Children’s Hospital in Aurora. The legislation provides $9 million in order to create a temporary youth mental health services program in the Office of Behavioral Health in the state’s Department of Human Services. The program will reimburse providers for “up to three mental health sessions to youth screened into the program,” according to the bill’s fiscal note.
Lawmakers expect the money will serve up to 25,537 children in Colorado. The allocation will also fund a public awareness campaign.
Colorado has been on a winning legislative streak. So much good, necessary, news:
Colorado has new domestic violence laws, including one meant to keep guns out of abusers’ hands, Saja Hindi, Denver Post, June 22, 2021.
HB21-1255 is an attempt to strengthen compliance of a 2013 law to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. Existing state and federal laws already require the subject of a domestic violence-related permanent protection order to turn in their guns, but this law creates a process to ensure that happens, according to bill sponsors, including scheduling a compliance hearing. ✂️
The others are SB21-292, which allocates $15 million of federal funding to victim support services for those more disproportionately affected by COVID-19, particularly victims of domestic violence and sexual assault; and HB21-1228, which increases and clarifies training requirements related to domestic violence for court employees who work with children and families on domestic cases.
All three laws take effect immediately.
🎶Good, Necessary Music 🎶
$ Economic News $
The enhanced child tax credit could make a huge difference to families. It’s basically the government refunding some of the taxes people pay (not only income tax, but the federal taxes built in to almost every good or service we pay for — which is why even people who pay no income tax are still eligible). These tools enable people to accept the credit monies in a monthly payment or to defer it to their annual tax refund time, among other useful tasks:
IRS Launches Child Tax Credit Eligibility And Update Tools, Ashlea Ebeling, Forbes, June 22, 2021.
Some 36 million families are eligible for advance payments of enhanced child tax credits for 2021, and the Internal Revenue Service has launched two new online tools to help taxpayers navigate this tax law change. There’s a Child Tax Credit Eligibility Assistant tool, and a child Tax Credit Update Portal. These two tools follow the Non-Filer Sign-Up Tool launched earlier this month. ✂️
The first new tool, the Child Tax Credit Eligibility Assistant, helps taxpayers figure out whether they qualify for the advance payments. If you determine you’re eligible, you would either file a 2020 income tax return or sign up using the Non-filer Sign-Up Tool.
The second new tool, the Child Tax Credit Update Portal, allows taxpayers to verify their eligibility for the payments and to unenroll or opt out of receiving the monthly payments. “The Update Portal is a key piece among the three new tools now available on IRS.gov to help families understand, register for and monitor these payments,” said IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.
Don’t fall for the inflation panic-mongering
I’ve put a link to an excellent demystifing article about the boogeyman of “Inflation” which has long been used by conservatives to frighten people into accepting austerity measures that disproportionately hurt the 99% (and often profit the 1%). Check it out! Meanwhile, here are two stories which I hope will push some of that Republican fear-mongering aside:
Fed’s Powell says high inflation temporary, will ‘abate’, Christopher Rugaber, AP, June 22, 2021.
Consumer prices jumped 5% in May compared with a year earlier, the largest increase in 13 years. But Powell said the increase mostly reflected temporary supply bottlenecks, and the fact that prices fell sharply last spring at the onset of the pandemic, which make inflation figures now, compared with a year ago, look much larger.
“As these transitory supply effects abate, inflation is expected to drop back toward our longer-run goal,” he said in testimony prepared for a congressional oversight panel.
Powell’s comments come at a time that financial markets are struggling to interpret the Federal Reserve’s recent moves. Last week Fed officials signaled that they may increase the central bank’s benchmark interest rate twice in 2023, an earlier time frame than they set out in March, when no rate hike was expected until after that year. Powell also said the Fed had formally begun discussing when and how the central bank might reduce the current $120 billion a month of Treasurys and mortgage-backed bonds that the Fed is purchasing each month. Those purchases are intended to keep longer-term interest rates lower to encourage more borrowing and spending.
Both moves were seen as evidence that the Fed wanted to indicate it was prepared to keep inflation in check without initially taking any steps to pull back on its efforts to stimulate the economy.
But Powell also emphasized at last week’s press conference that Fed policymakers were still not even discussing a rate hike, with the economy far from fully healed. And the Fed has said it won’t begin actually reducing its bond purchases until the economy has made “substantial further progress” toward its goals of full employment and inflation on track to stay slightly above 2%.
And right on cue: Tech Stocks Rally: Nasdaq Closes At Record High After Powell Eases Inflation Concerns, Jonathan Ponciano, Forbes, June 22, 2021.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 0.8% to 14,253 points Tuesday, surpassing a closing high from June 14.
Netflix, Amazon and Facebook were among stocks heading up the index’s gains, climbing 3%, 2% and 1.9%, respectively.
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 69 points, or 0.2%, to 33,945 points, about 2.3% below an all-time closing high on May 7, while the S&P 500 rose 0.5% to 4,248 points, about 0.1% from its last closing high, also on June 14.
Testifying before the House’s coronavirus subcommittee Tuesday afternoon, Powell reiterated the Fed’s longstanding stance that rising inflation in recent months is due to transitory (or temporary) factors, including supply bottlenecks, a rebound in spending and very low inflation readings from early in the pandemic.
Powell also declared the Fed will not raise rates preemptively based on inflationary fears alone, instead saying the central bank will only react to “actual evidence of actual inflation,” which Fed officials expect could lead to interest rate hikes in 2023.
Stocks climbed broadly after Powell’s Tuesday remarks, with the S&P’s consumer discretionary, technology and communications sectors leading the market’s gains.
The Week Inflation Panic Died, Paul Krugman, New York Times, June 21, 2021
For what it’s worth, I don’t think tapping the brakes will be required. But by suggesting that it will act if necessary, the Fed has largely undercut whatever case there was for worrying about a return to the 1970s.
So what was all that about? Monetary doomsayers have been wrong again and again since the early 1980s, when Milton Friedman kept predicting an inflation resurgence that never arrived. Why the eagerness to party like it’s 1979?
To be fair, government support for the economy is much stronger now than it was during the Obama years, so it makes more sense to worry about inflation this time around. But the vehemence of the inflation rhetoric has been wildly disproportionate to the actual risks — and those risks now seem even smaller than they did a few weeks ago.
🎶 Music for those poor little rich guys 🎶
⚖️ Justice ⚖️
Joe Biden’s Vision of a more just and equal society
This next lengthy article is difficult to whittle down to a few paragraphs, so I encourage you to go read the whole thing (TNR allows I believe 3 free articles per month):
The End of Friedmanomics, Zachary D. Carter, The New Republic, June 17, 2021.
The program Friedman prescribed for apartheid South Africa in 1976 was essentially the same agenda he called for in America over his entire career as a public intellectual—unrestrained commerce as a cure-all for inequality and unrest.
That this prescription found political purchase with the American right in the 1960s is not a surprise. Friedman’s opposition to state power during an era of liberal reform offered conservatives an intellectual justification to defend the old order. What remains remarkable is the extent to which the Democratic Party—Friedman’s lifelong political adversary—came to embrace core tenets of Friedmanism. When Friedman passed away in 2006, Larry Summers, who had advised Bill Clinton and would soon do the same for Barack Obama, acknowledged the success of Friedman’s attack on the very legitimacy of public power within his own party. “Any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites,” he declared in The New York Times.
No longer. In the early months of his presidency, Joe Biden has pursued policy ambitions unseen from American leaders since the 1960s. If implemented, the agenda he described in an April 28 address to Congress would transform the country—slashing poverty, assuaging inequality, reviving the infrastructure that supports daily economic life, and relieving the financial strains that childcare and medical care put on families everywhere. It will cost a lot of money, and so far at least, Biden isn’t letting the price tag intimidate him. “I want to change the paradigm,” he repeated three times at a press conference in March.
But the real turn is not about deficits or spending levels. It is the relationship between economic policy and democracy itself. For Friedman, liberty lived in the marketplace, rendering government a necessary evil under the best of circumstances. Today’s Democrats, by contrast, have reclaimed state power as an essential component of self-government. When he laid out his agenda in April, Biden declared “it’s time to remember that ‘We the People’ are the government—you and I. Not some force in a distant capital. Not some powerful force that we have no control over. It’s us.”
Last week I mentioned the good news about Lina Khan, Joe Biden’s nominee for the FTC (she was confirmed last week). Here is an article supporting what a great pick this was:
Appointing Lina Khan May Be the Best Thing Joe Biden Has Done, Morgan Harper and Zephyr Teachout, The Nation, June 22, 2021.
Massive corporations currently wield extraordinary power over the economy to the detriment of workers, small-business owners, and democracy. For 40 years, they have done so with the acquiescence of the Federal Trade Commission. That’s about to end. Why? Because there’s a new sheriff in town. ✂️
The confirmation showed two things: just how much righteous anger there is at big monopolistic corporations at the grassroots level. Republicans and Democrats alike are hearing it from their working-class constituents, their small-business owners, and their community leaders. It also showed how impressive Lina Khan is. She’s unflappable, clear, and doesn’t get trapped in double-speak or evasion.
Appointing Khan as chair was good politics and good policy on Biden’s part. He’s doubling down on a popular nominee, and he’s putting one of the country’s most extraordinary leaders in a position where she can directly improve the economy. ✂️
(please go to link to read several paragraphs describing the powers of this commission)
Though the agency’s final decisions rely on the votes of four other commissioners, including two Republican appointees, Chairwoman Khan will lead a Democratic majority that can guide the agency’s strategy and decide when and how to exercise this powerful set of tools to move the economy in a more equitable direction. As chair, she has the power to set the agenda and to manage the staff.
Biden Administration Begins to Undo cruelty of former regime
U.S. to admit asylum-seekers whose cases were closed during the Trump administration, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS, June 22, 2021.
The Biden administration will be allowing asylum-seekers who were ordered to be deported for not attending their court hearings under the Trump-era "Remain-in-Mexico" program to enter the U.S. and re-start their proceedings here, according to a notice sent to Congress and obtained by CBS News.
Asylum-seekers whose cases were terminated will also be eligible for admission starting Wednesday under this phase of the Biden administration's draw down of the Remain-in-Mexico program, which required 70,000 non-Mexican migrants to wait outside the U.S. for their court hearings. ✂️
Advocates have urged the Biden administration to expand processing to asylum applicants who were ordered deported under former President Trump's presidency, arguing that many were not able to attend court appointments because of squalid conditions and high levels of crime in northern Mexico. Some asylum-seekers reported being kidnapped before their court dates. ✂️
Those who are eligible to enter the U.S. have to register online through the United Nations refugee agency to receive an appointment to be admitted at selected ports of entry along the southern border. The U.S. has been testing these asylum-seekers for COVID-19 before admitting them.
Deb Haaland Launches Review of ‘Devastating’ Native American Boarding Schools, Jennifer Bendery, HuffPost, June 22, 2021.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Tuesday that she is launching the Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of the “devastating history” of the U.S. government’s policy of forcing Native American children into boarding schools for assimilation into white culture.
“At no time in history have the records or documentation of this policy been compiled or analyzed to determine the full scope of its reaches and effects,” Haaland said in remarks at a National Congress of American Indians conference. “We must uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of these schools.”
Under the new initiative, the Interior Department will investigate past boarding school facilities and sites, the location of known and possible burial sites near school facilities, and the identities and tribal affiliations of children who were taken there. The effort also serves as a starting point for improving public awareness of the former policy, which most Americans never learned about in school.
✶✶✶✶My Local News ✶✶✶✶
I told y’all about this a couple of weeks ago as it was passed in the illinois Leg. Governor Pritzker signed it into law today!
Chicago Gets Creative to Encourage stragglers to get vaccinated
63% of Chicagoans have had at least one shot and 56% are fully vaccinated. Most of those who are not yet vaccinated are in our struggling neighborhoods where difficulty of access is the problem, rather than vaccine refusal. So, our city leaders are going to make sure if people cannot get to the vaccines, the vaccines will go to them:
Doses and dinner at your door? City offers in-home shots to all Chicagoans — plus GrubHub gift card, Mitchell Armentrout, Chicago Sun✶Times, June 22, 2021.
The city of Chicago will bring a COVID-19 vaccine straight to the doorstep of any resident who requests it.
And they’ve got dinner covered, too.
Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady on Tuesday announced the expansion of the city’s in-home vaccination program, which previously was offered only to older residents and those with disabilities.
Now, anyone with a Chicago address can go to chicago.gov/athome or call (312) 746-4835 to set up a shot in the comfort of home. If you do, you’ll get a $50 GrubHub gift card.
Up to 10 people can be vaccinated in a single household visit, with their choice of the one-and-done Johnson & Johnson vaccine or the Pfizer vaccine, which requires a second stop.
Lake Shore Drive May Get a New Name
We’ve got a bit of controversy here in Chicago over a proposal to rename iconic Lake Shore Drive to honor the man who founded Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. There are quite a few pros and cons — many people think it is high time DuSable was so honored, while many others think the cost of the renaming (est. 24m) would be better spent providing practical help to black people in the city and still others argue that — and there may be a vote on it today, so we will see what happens.
(The preceding story was included just to set up this cute song video 😃)
🎶Music From Chi-Town 🎶
Election News
New York
Voting ends, wait for results begins in NYC mayoral primary, Karen Matthews, AP, June 22, 2021.
As results trickled in, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police captain who co-founded a leadership group for Black officers, was in a tight race with former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former de Blasio administration lawyer Maya Wiley. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang was further back. ✂️
The ranked choice system, approved for use in New York City primaries and special elections by referendum in 2019, allowed voters to rank up to five candidates on their ballot.
Vote tabulation is then done in computerized rounds, with the person in last place getting eliminated each round, and ballots cast for that person getting redistributed to the surviving candidates based on voter rankings. That process continues until only two candidates are left. The one with the most votes wins.
It won’t be until June 29 that the Board of Elections performs a tally of those votes using the new system. It won’t include any absentee ballots in its analysis until July 6, making any count before then potentially unreliable.
⚡️Lightning RoundUp ⚡️
⚡️ If you, like me, are wondering how ranked choice voting works: EXPLAINER: Ranked choice voting gets big test in NYC, David B Caruso, AP, June 221, 2021.
⚡️ Social justice and climate equity: What's The Best Way To Help The Climate And People, Too? Home Improvement, Dan Charles, NPR, June 22, 2021.
⚡️ A researcher on youth organizing presents her evidence for how critical race theory benefits students and society, The Conversation — Raw Story, June 22, 2021.
⚡️Josh at TPM recc’d this: Can Criminal Justice Reform Survive a Wave of Violent Crime? John Pfaff, The New Republic, June 21, 2021.
⚡️Rightwing politics has ever been thus: A Long And Festering Madness, Jared Yates Sexton, June 18, 2021.
⚡️One opinion: Why Justice Breyer Will Resign at the End of This Court Term, Randall Kennedy, The American Prospect, June 22, 2021.
⚡️This is an important read. “Inflation” is another R weapon: Inflation boogeyman scares only the extremely wealthy, Michael Rosen and Charlie Dee, Wisconsin Examiner, April 27, 2021.
⚡️ Related to above: Bridgewater’s Prince rejects return of 1970s ‘Great Inflation’, Eric Platt, Financial Times, june 21, 2021.
⚡️ $$ means nothing if you don’t have a decent country to live in: The Millionaires Who Want to Abolish Extreme Wealth, Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein, The New Republic, June 22, 2021.
⚡️ I just discovered this and it might be fun to read each week: The Surge/Slate’s guide to the most important figures in politics this week. Jim Newell, Slate, June 18, 2021.
⚡️ I use bookshop.org: 9 Really Great Places To Buy Books Online, Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeedNews, June 22, 2021.
💗Here’s How You Can Help Build Our Democracy Back Better 💗
Put your beautiful bleeding liberal heart into it!
Democratic litigation hero, Marc Elias was the legal eagle behind the 60 Big Lie losses after the election. Here’s his website, Democracy Docket. You can find information about current cases he is fighting to defend voting rights around the country, as well as actions you can take to help fight voter suppression at the link!
Write to voters around the country with Postcards to Voters. Progressive Muse usually posts an update on current campaigns in the comments and you can also check out the website. It’s easy, fun and it really works to GOTV!
🎩 Also, Goody posted a great list of links and I am going to borrow it because it’s great! 🎩
The only way they can win is by keeping people from voting. They are working like heck to make that happen and we need to do all we can to keep 2022 from being a year when they grab the Senate and House back from us.
How do we do that? Fight voter suppression!
What can you do?
HERE’S HOW TO CONTACT CONGRESS:
U.S. House of Representatives:* Telephone: 202-225-3121
* Website: http://www.house.gov/
U.S. Senate:* Telephone: 202-224-3121
* Website: http://www.senate.gov/
Find your member of Congress and contact him or her:
Contact your Representative
Contact your Senator
💙 RoundUp WindDown 💙
That’s it from me for another week, Gnusies. Everyone, please take good care of yourselves. Eat nutritious food, get some rest, find ways to make your own bit of difference in this old wonderful world. It is the small acts of millions of us that moves the world in a better direction.
Tomorrow is my birthday! And I got a very nice present while I was composing this GNR. My most recent labwork just came back and for the first time since I finished the last round of chemo in June 2019 (!), my WBC has finally crept back up just over the minimum line of the NORMAL RANGE so I am no longer immune compromised. That’s my good personal news. 😁
Happy Day, Gnusies! I am so glad to be living in these interesting times with all of you!