With the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett one step closer today, many are wondering what any of us can do, with Roe v. Wade under threat as never before. I have a few thoughts, which I’ll share in this thread. /1
For many years now, we have seen how conservatives and anti-abortion radicals have trained their sights not only on overturning Roe, but on severely limiting local access to reproductive services, in some cases effectively eliminating it as an option altogether. /2
The right has long understood that politics is local, and that if they want to achieve the kinds of restrictions they envision, they would need to take over state houses, governorships and courthouses around the country. In this they were very effective. / 3
With the federal right to choose under threat, we must turn our attention to the state and local level, battling to protect a woman’s right to choose one statehouse and judge race at a time. We need to protect reproductive rights as fiercely as they have fought to strip them. /4
Key to this is keeping reproductive rights front and center not just in federal races, but crucially, in our local races--whether for local judge or state rep or town board. That's where @VoteChoice's #VOTEPROCHOICE Voter Guide is such an invaluable tool. #VoteLocal /5
So please use @VoteChoice's Voter Guide to find the #VOTEPROCHOICE candidates on your ballot as you #VoteLocal. And please share this thread widely. We can and must protect the right to choose at every level in this election. Thank you -- Uncle George /end voteprochoice.us/voter-guide?ut…
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Deep diving a bit, the NYT follow up report notes that Trump has reduced his income by claiming all manner of “consulting fees” as expenses. But the investigation discovered a striking match. /1
Trump’s private records show that his company paid a very specific $747,622 in fees to an unnamed consultant for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia. /2
Guess who owns that company? Ivanka Trump’s public disclosure forms — which she filed when joining the White House staff in 2017 — reveal she had received an IDENTICAL amount through a consulting company she co-owned. /3
I have heard many say that never in their lives have they experienced such fear, that the America they know might be gone for good. Here’s why I have hoped with my head high and my eyes focused ahead. /1 #MondayMotivation#50DaysLeft
When I was just 5 years old, soldiers marched up to our home in Los Angeles and ordered us out. We had done nothing wrong, our crime was looking like the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor. The laws and the Constitution failed to protect us. /2
No one dared stand up for us then. Politicians on both sides, from FDR in the White House to Earl Warren in Sacramento, took advantage of the fear and racism for their own political gain. We lost our home. Our friends lost businesses. We all lost our freedom. /3
People love to say that the USPS operates at a loss. Supporters urge us to go buy stamps. But this won't solve anything. The losses are driven by those trying to dismantle the USPS. In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. / 1
The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, and they had to do it for 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation. /2
If the costs of this mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, it would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. /3
Let me tell you about when we took on Mike Pence in Indiana. He had just signed a "Religious Freedom" law that made it legal for establishments to discriminate against serving LGBTQs based on the sincere religious beliefs of the proprietors. / 1
Pence did it with the full backing of religious bigots who had worked hard to help get him to the governor's office. Business leaders didn't like the law. It made Indiana look backward, and it give bigotry the gloss of official sanction. So we started #BoycottIndiana. / 2
We got it trending on social media. And it worked. Big companies threatened to pull out of Indiana. Other states condemned the law. Mike Pence began back-pedaling, to the dismay of his conservative religious allies. In the end, he was forced to "qualify" the law. / 3
I address this not to Trump’s die-hard supporters, who will remain lost to reason, nor to his detractors, whom I know already stand with me. But to the millions who did not vote in 2016, listen up: This crisis is the result of Trump’s incompetence. We need better leadership. /1
We have a chance this a November to reset our destiny as a nation. We will need a president who believe in and can deliver good government, to get us out of the ditch we are in. Trump is not the man for the job. /2
We have a chance to end the politics of division, hate and blame. America can not withstand four more years of spiraling chaos overseen by unqualified people. The stakes are just too high. /3
Forgive me this rant, but I have to say this. There are now 26 states with between 1,000 and 10,000 cases of Covid-19. It took 5 days for NY to grow from 1,000 to 10,000, and another 12 days to grow from 10,000 to 100,000 cases, even with strict stay-at-home orders in place.
The math doesn't lie, even if the president does. In less than 2 weeks, it is possible, and indeed some experts say likely, that we will have over 2 dozen states each with more than 100K cases, each with 500 patients dying daily, more if we run out of beds, ICUs and ventilators.
Everyone knows by now that this level of outbreak was preventable, but we have to focus ahead now on what we can still do. We will need streamlined, nationalized supplies of PPEs (masks, ventilators, gowns) to protect our doctors, nurses and other medical workers.