It has been very difficult for me to stay hopeful before the election, but I appreciated what Robert Hubbell had to say in his concluding thoughts at the end of both yesterday's and today's columns:
I like Simon Rosenberg's sports metaphor for the 2024 election.
It's the first quarter and we are tied. The Democratic team is favored to win and that means we have to do the work to go on to win the game. If every Democrat sits on their hands during the game from fear and worry due to russia-gop propaganda, we lose the game. When every Democrat takes every action they can do, we win the game. Go Team!!
Interesting to hear how small the margin was for Rulli. I looked up the race, and Kripchak was ridiculously close! This race was only to fill the vacancy until Jan 3, 2025, so they will face off in Ohio again this November. I will write more postcards for Kripchak and I hope we have a push to get him elected then!
I would be very surprised if there is another postcard campaign specifically for Kripchak though. Postcards to Voters mostly writes for special elections and FL VBM throughout the year. When it gets close to election time there will be a lot of competition for their bandwidth. The most productive thing might be to make a donation to his campaign NOW equivalent to what you would have spent to write those postcards.
OH is one of the states in the Postcards to Swing States campaign and postcards are available now for free (you cover the postage). These are "write now; mail later". The biggest barrier is that the minimum quantity they will mail out is 200 names and addresses. They work well if you can split it up among several people. (I'm writing some for NC through my Indivisible chapter, so they set our minimum at 100). You get to choose between 3 short, non-partisan messages and the mail date is Oct 15. Sign up at www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/.
Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) also currently has a partisan postcard campaign in OH to re-elect Sherrod Brown.
Good idea donating to Kripchak’scampaign. He is way underfunded. I have 300 Postcards for Swing States to wok on for Arizona. Thanks for the great suggestions!
There are certainly a plethora of postcard campaigns with which to get involved! We all need to pace ourselves! ... And I need to buy more postcard stamps before the postage price increase next month.more postcard ones! I thought I'd be writing more letters so I have plenty of Forever first class stamps, but I think I will need
Thank you for making it easy for us to do something. We should have been doing this decades ago. Maybe if we had, we wouldn't be in the predicament we are in now.
VoteRiders (www.voteriders.org) has a virtual letter writing party today (June 13) at 7 pm ET. They will be writing letters to voters in GA and TX to make them aware of the Voter ID requirements in those states and to offer assistance. Sign up here: https://www.mobilize.us/voteriders/event/634660/
I have been writing similar VR letters to voters in NC and it is quick and easy. You print a state-specific letter template, add a brief handwritten message, handwrite envelopes to the letter recipients, then add a stamp and mail. Easy peasy.
Thanks, Cheryl! I appreciate all the good engagement opportunities you drop in the comments. I would include them all in my newsletter if I could, but there simply isn't space. I'm glad you're here offering other options.
Hooray! Encouraged! The Orange Tyrant needs to lose BIG in November. Bigger even than Reagan's reelection. Thanks Jessica for the context on the Ohio special election. Love, Doc
wow, I finally got around to figuring out how to leave comments with Senator Durbin. He doesn't exactly leave himself open to hearing from his constituents-hmmm, I wonder why. I gave him a tongue lashing about his complacency with Republican blockage of Judiciary ethics, appointments, addressing corruption. When is this guy gonna learn you can't compromise with pure evil.
Your Substack post has SO much in it - action items (I've already been doing quite a bit) and positive news - WHOO HOO! that I decided to subscribe today, on June 20th. As an example, below is my email I just sent to both MN Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith which included your ask to fight and pass S. 358. Here's the link to Jennifer Rubin's opinion piece today. We think it's excellent! https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/20/biden-supreme-court-reform/
Diane's letter:
First, my husband and I have had it with the corruption and extreme bias in the right-wing justices on the Supreme Court. We ask you to support and fight to pass S. 359, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act. But we also want more vigorous oversight of these justices. The Senate Judiciary Committee is doing nothing but writing letters. It’s utterly insufficient. Please push Dick Durbin to do his job and launch investigations into the right-wing justices who are destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the land.
Second, we want to draw your attention to today's opinion article by Jennifer Rubin, columnist for the Washington Post - titled "Biden lambasted the Supreme Court. Now he should support court reform." This would make a great campaign issue!
Rubin suggests: "He (Biden) should make court reform a key campaign issue. Moreover, term limits have increased in popularity since the commission issued its report. A July 2022 AP-NORC poll found that “67% of Americans support a proposal to set a specific number of years that justices serve instead of life terms, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans.” Likewise, a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll from June 2023 found that 65 percent of Americans favored term limits for justices. Last month, Hart Research published a poll on behalf of Stand Up America, a pro-democracy advocacy group, and found that 64 percent (including 51 percent of Republicans) approve of term limits.
Term limits are also popular with legal scholars of all ideological stripes. Reuters reported in October, “A bipartisan group of legal experts including a federal appeals court judge and a former U.S. solicitor general on Wednesday threw their support behind 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, calling the proposal a ‘vital reform’ that would reduce partisanship and improve the judiciary’s overall reputation.” That group included conservatives such as Charles Fried, solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, and Akhil Reed Amar, an “originalist” scholar at Yale Law School.
In sum, Biden should align his policy and his rhetoric. A firm commitment to ethics reform would focus attention on the ethical blunders of Thomas and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. It would also put Republicans on defense and build consensus for the idea. With public opinion strongly on his side, Biden can push for term limits even if he doesn’t want to embrace the more controversial idea of court expansion.
The more focus on the Supreme Court, whose approval is historically low and whose rulings infuriate large numbers of voters, the better for Democrats. If Biden prevails and Democrats win majorities in both houses, he can then claim a mandate to push forward."
We hope you are able to recommend taking up this issue to the Biden campaign, and to all Democrats in the House and Senate who are up for reelection.
Rubin includes other ideas as well for repairing the Supreme Court. We are supportive of all including expanding the Court to be more similar to those in other democracies. It is ridiculous that so few have so much power.
It has been very difficult for me to stay hopeful before the election, but I appreciated what Robert Hubbell had to say in his concluding thoughts at the end of both yesterday's and today's columns:
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/hunter-biden-guilty-verdict-rocks
Robert is always a comfort. A national treasure.
I like Simon Rosenberg's sports metaphor for the 2024 election.
It's the first quarter and we are tied. The Democratic team is favored to win and that means we have to do the work to go on to win the game. If every Democrat sits on their hands during the game from fear and worry due to russia-gop propaganda, we lose the game. When every Democrat takes every action they can do, we win the game. Go Team!!
So tired of horse race and sports analogies.
Interesting to hear how small the margin was for Rulli. I looked up the race, and Kripchak was ridiculously close! This race was only to fill the vacancy until Jan 3, 2025, so they will face off in Ohio again this November. I will write more postcards for Kripchak and I hope we have a push to get him elected then!
He seems like an amazing candidate!
I hope this energizes OH Dems.
I would be very surprised if there is another postcard campaign specifically for Kripchak though. Postcards to Voters mostly writes for special elections and FL VBM throughout the year. When it gets close to election time there will be a lot of competition for their bandwidth. The most productive thing might be to make a donation to his campaign NOW equivalent to what you would have spent to write those postcards.
OH is one of the states in the Postcards to Swing States campaign and postcards are available now for free (you cover the postage). These are "write now; mail later". The biggest barrier is that the minimum quantity they will mail out is 200 names and addresses. They work well if you can split it up among several people. (I'm writing some for NC through my Indivisible chapter, so they set our minimum at 100). You get to choose between 3 short, non-partisan messages and the mail date is Oct 15. Sign up at www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/.
Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) also currently has a partisan postcard campaign in OH to re-elect Sherrod Brown.
Good idea donating to Kripchak’scampaign. He is way underfunded. I have 300 Postcards for Swing States to wok on for Arizona. Thanks for the great suggestions!
Thanks.
There are certainly a plethora of postcard campaigns with which to get involved! We all need to pace ourselves! ... And I need to buy more postcard stamps before the postage price increase next month.more postcard ones! I thought I'd be writing more letters so I have plenty of Forever first class stamps, but I think I will need
Thank you for making it easy for us to do something. We should have been doing this decades ago. Maybe if we had, we wouldn't be in the predicament we are in now.
True. But all we can do now is pick up the pieces and rebuild.
See you at the Pro-Choice zoom. And when do we get to eat the big bowl
Of pasta after the marathon? Or, is it before the marathon? Either way I’m tired !😊. Thank you, Jessica for being in this brutal relay race.
Ha I eat big bowls of pasta pretty much daily.
VoteRiders (www.voteriders.org) has a virtual letter writing party today (June 13) at 7 pm ET. They will be writing letters to voters in GA and TX to make them aware of the Voter ID requirements in those states and to offer assistance. Sign up here: https://www.mobilize.us/voteriders/event/634660/
I have been writing similar VR letters to voters in NC and it is quick and easy. You print a state-specific letter template, add a brief handwritten message, handwrite envelopes to the letter recipients, then add a stamp and mail. Easy peasy.
Thanks, Cheryl! I appreciate all the good engagement opportunities you drop in the comments. I would include them all in my newsletter if I could, but there simply isn't space. I'm glad you're here offering other options.
Thank you for what you do!
I'm on a LOT of email lists, so I share opportunities with my friends IRL and online ;-)
Hooray! Encouraged! The Orange Tyrant needs to lose BIG in November. Bigger even than Reagan's reelection. Thanks Jessica for the context on the Ohio special election. Love, Doc
Sure thing!
Great cartoon! Spot on.
So good, right?
Ngl, Garland was a horrible choice to lead the DOJ.
Have to agree. He's been a disappointment.
wow, I finally got around to figuring out how to leave comments with Senator Durbin. He doesn't exactly leave himself open to hearing from his constituents-hmmm, I wonder why. I gave him a tongue lashing about his complacency with Republican blockage of Judiciary ethics, appointments, addressing corruption. When is this guy gonna learn you can't compromise with pure evil.
Your Substack post has SO much in it - action items (I've already been doing quite a bit) and positive news - WHOO HOO! that I decided to subscribe today, on June 20th. As an example, below is my email I just sent to both MN Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith which included your ask to fight and pass S. 358. Here's the link to Jennifer Rubin's opinion piece today. We think it's excellent! https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/20/biden-supreme-court-reform/
Diane's letter:
First, my husband and I have had it with the corruption and extreme bias in the right-wing justices on the Supreme Court. We ask you to support and fight to pass S. 359, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act. But we also want more vigorous oversight of these justices. The Senate Judiciary Committee is doing nothing but writing letters. It’s utterly insufficient. Please push Dick Durbin to do his job and launch investigations into the right-wing justices who are destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the land.
Second, we want to draw your attention to today's opinion article by Jennifer Rubin, columnist for the Washington Post - titled "Biden lambasted the Supreme Court. Now he should support court reform." This would make a great campaign issue!
Rubin suggests: "He (Biden) should make court reform a key campaign issue. Moreover, term limits have increased in popularity since the commission issued its report. A July 2022 AP-NORC poll found that “67% of Americans support a proposal to set a specific number of years that justices serve instead of life terms, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans.” Likewise, a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll from June 2023 found that 65 percent of Americans favored term limits for justices. Last month, Hart Research published a poll on behalf of Stand Up America, a pro-democracy advocacy group, and found that 64 percent (including 51 percent of Republicans) approve of term limits.
Term limits are also popular with legal scholars of all ideological stripes. Reuters reported in October, “A bipartisan group of legal experts including a federal appeals court judge and a former U.S. solicitor general on Wednesday threw their support behind 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, calling the proposal a ‘vital reform’ that would reduce partisanship and improve the judiciary’s overall reputation.” That group included conservatives such as Charles Fried, solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, and Akhil Reed Amar, an “originalist” scholar at Yale Law School.
In sum, Biden should align his policy and his rhetoric. A firm commitment to ethics reform would focus attention on the ethical blunders of Thomas and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. It would also put Republicans on defense and build consensus for the idea. With public opinion strongly on his side, Biden can push for term limits even if he doesn’t want to embrace the more controversial idea of court expansion.
The more focus on the Supreme Court, whose approval is historically low and whose rulings infuriate large numbers of voters, the better for Democrats. If Biden prevails and Democrats win majorities in both houses, he can then claim a mandate to push forward."
We hope you are able to recommend taking up this issue to the Biden campaign, and to all Democrats in the House and Senate who are up for reelection.
Rubin includes other ideas as well for repairing the Supreme Court. We are supportive of all including expanding the Court to be more similar to those in other democracies. It is ridiculous that so few have so much power.