Latest Twitter Threads by @DavidPepper on Thread Reader App

Apr 14 • 22 tweets • 6 min read

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Five Years Ago: How I Started Painting

A 🧵

Just over five years ago, after several years of pain, a disc in my lower back ruptured (in Cleveland…it was a long drive home).

Surgery followed.

The weeks of recovery spanned April of 2019.

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And unable to do much, I got restless.

When I was able to walk around the first of the month, I hobbled into the art store where I’d always bought small gifts for my sons Jack and Charlie (then 4 and 1) and I asked: “if I wanted to paint a painting, what do I need to buy?”

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Apr 11 • 21 tweets • 7 min read

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NEW WHITEBOARD

Back to 1864, the days of
bloodletting and blistering!

The AZ ruling is shocking.

But also horribly symbolic. The GOP wants to take women back to an age of near-zero freedom.

But that also gives us an opportunity to go on OFFENSE.

WATCH, RT &

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All across America, basic GOP policy is to send women back in time—to an era where they were, at best, second class citizens. With little freedom. Few rights.

That’s the terrible news and sobering reality.

But there’s a glimmer of hope amid all of this.

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Apr 8 • 25 tweets • 6 min read

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The Inspiration from Running Everywhere: A Report from the Front Lines

A 🧵

Meet @CossinsAshley . (Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.)

In her early 20s, Ashley and her husband tried for more than a year to get pregnant.

But were unsuccessful.

1/ It was then that doctors informed Ashley she had endometriosis.

In the decade since then, Ashley has undergone “multiple surgeries, five rounds of IVF and miscarriages.”

For her care, she was often forced to make a 400-mile

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missouriindependent.com/2023/12/21/mis…

Apr 5 • 25 tweets • 6 min read

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A lawsuit to 🛑 universal vouchers

And how you can help

A 🧵

The explosion of universal vouchers in states around the country is nothing short of a five-alarm fire, consuming both public education and democracy, and spreading rapidly.

1/

Every month, we see the cost of these new, unrestricted private vouchers exploding—skyrocketing toward $1 billion in Ohio, already above that in Arizona, and not far behind in other states.

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cleveland.com/news/2024/03/p…

Apr 4 • 16 tweets • 3 min read

The Words of FDR, 1936 State of the Union

A 🧵

“Within democratic nations the chief concern of the people is to prevent the continuance of the rise of autocratic institutions that beget slavery at home and aggression abroad. Within our borders, as in the…

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…world at large, popular opinion is at war with a power-seeking minority….

“They seek the restoration of their selfish power. They offer to lead us back round the same old corner into the same old dreary street…they engage in vast propaganda to…

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Apr 3 • 25 tweets • 7 min read

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The Common Theme of Public Corruption

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Believe it or not, among the biggest contributors to the Ohio GOP and politicians like Mike DeWine are….Ohioans struggling to make ends meet.

We’re talking HUGE contributors—collectively, at least.

Year after year.

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But there’s a catch…

Most have no clue their own dollars are playing such a big role in Ohio politics.

Still, struggling Ohioans have been bankrolling the campaigns of powerful Ohio politicians for years.

How?

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Mar 30 • 19 tweets • 3 min read

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Justice Delayed

A 🧵

Shortly after becoming a state in 1907, Oklahoma amended its new Constitution to add a literacy test, but with a twist:

“No person shall be registered as an elector of this state or be allowed to vote in any election held herein, unless he…”

1/ be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of the state of Oklahoma; but no person who, on January 1st, 1866, or any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of government,…and no lineal descendant of such person…”

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Mar 26 • 25 tweets • 5 min read

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No Apologies Coming

A 🧵 on the right-wing attack on public education

An email last week from @clevelanddotcom expressed dismay that Ohio politicians refuse to apologize that their universal voucher scheme is benefitting mostly suburban families already in private…

1/

schools.

Here’s some breaking news: no apologies are coming.

The results are not a “mistake.”

Not some error or flub.

They’re actually accomplishing exactly what they intend to. On a roll now, they will keep going with ferocity.

Accelerate.

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Mar 23 • 25 tweets • 5 min read

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Take the Blinders Off

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Every year or so—often after a high-profile election—come the same columns I’ve read for years: “What’s Happened To Ohio?” or “What’s Wrong With Ohio?” or “Why Is Ohio No Longer a Bellwether State?”

1/

This past week, after Trump’s handpicked candidate won the Ohio GOP primary for Senate, such columns appeared again, including in The NY Times and NPR.

And most of these columns, usually from smart people I respect, lead me to one conclusion:

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Mar 19 • 5 tweets • 2 min read

Quick 🧵 on the “You better off?” question:

Beyond making a comparison to 2020 that (as @knecessary perfectly captures) they may soon regret, Trump and his people are also pushing a narrative that 2019 was some type of banner year and that COVID interrupted it.

1/

https://twitter.com/davidpepper/status/1770090893892075559

It’s a sneaky way to convince Americans that Trump policies were initially working.

Don’t buy it.

The truth is, in states like Ohio, job growth had already ground to a halt by the end of 2019, squandering the strong growth Trump had inherited from President Obama.

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Mar 16 • 13 tweets • 3 min read

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An email this morning from @clevelanddotcom wrote the following:

“Lawmakers and Gov. Mike DeWine changed the rules on school vouchers this year with a goal many find laudable, to give students in under-performing school districts a chance for a better education….”

1/ “Once the rules went into place, however, the vouchers were overwhelmingly grabbed by people in good districts, like Rocky River.
Did lawmakers [] admit they got it wrong, that the rules they created did not help the people they say were their targets? Again, we asked”

2/

Mar 15 • 5 tweets • 2 min read

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NEW WHITEBOARD

Amid illegal efforts to overturn election results, a nation that wants to maintain a rule-of-law democracy MUST bring accountability BEFORE the next election.

Not doing so INVITES the very chaos & danger we are enduring now.

Here’s why:

WATCH & RT

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The delay means Trump & his allies know they will only face accountability after the next election

Which means they have an intense incentive to 1) run again to stop the process, and 2) cross every line and break additional laws needed to win in order to avoid accountability

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Mar 14 • 24 tweets • 5 min read

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NEW WHITEBOARD

NEW Data: The Voucher Explosion…a 🧵

The numbers I present here will stun you, but the truth is, they’re exactly what the right-wing statehouse intends. And what you’d expect once you see what they’ve done.

WATCH, RT and…

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We all remember it well, right?

The original narrative (ie. sales pitch) was that private school vouchers were intended to assist kids in poverty and in struggling urban public schools in gaining access to “better” private schools.

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Mar 14 • 6 tweets • 2 min read

A quick yardsign story:

Summer of my first campaign, 2001, I was in single digits in the polls. No political background. Recently moved back to town. 30. Not known. Mired in the bottom half of a field of 30.

(Top 9 win a seat on City Council).

But, I and my team were..

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https://twitter.com/rachelbitecofer/status/1768011595547115762

…intense.

My first yardsign said “Just Add Pepper.”

I had my website listed on it.

I & teams of volunteers put them all out the 1st night allowed—1000s of them—so the effect was that they were EVERYWHERE the next morning.

Others took their time, so we were the only ones

1/

Mar 13 • 8 tweets • 3 min read

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NEW WHITEBOARD

On the one hand, the Trump takeover of the GOP is disturbing because it’s a page ripped right out of the authoritarian’s playbook.

On the other hand, it represents one hell of an opportunity for democracy.

WATCH & share to see why…

1/

If Trump is going to siphon all the GOP $ (which used to flow to states) into his ever growing black hole of bills, fines and grifty business operations, that creates a huge opening for US to fill the gap.

And there are so many ways you can do so, investing in democracy..

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Mar 10 • 7 tweets • 2 min read

The Katie Britt Lie is Core Strategy

A 🧵

There’s a dark lesson from the Katie Britt lie that we all need to learn.

Fast.

Trump and his allies are deathly afraid of losing. And as Britt showed the entire nation, that fear and desperation mean they will lie about anything

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Most importantly, this was a lie that they must’ve known was easily disproved.

Just like most of Trump’s daily lies are so obviously false. Easy to detect as lies, then dismissed as nuts.

But they don’t care. And still lie.

Why?

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Mar 7 • 20 tweets • 4 min read

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The State of Our Union’s Democracy

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My friend @GevinReynolds and I have a piece running in the @ajc today that suggests a way for @POTUS to broaden the frame for the battle for democracy in tonight’s SOTU.

Read it here:

1/ajc.com/opinion/opinio… Yes, I know what you’re thinking—that Biden talks about democracy all the time.

But @GevinReynolds and my hope is that he actually makes the case in a different way tonight than he typically does.

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Mar 2 • 15 tweets • 4 min read

The Right Stuff: What John Glenn Taught Me at Our First Meeting

A 🧵

When I was 29 years old and first running for City Council, I had the honor of meeting John and Annie Glenn (they were almost never NOT together).

They would go on to support me on a number of occasions.

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We sat down for dinner in Columbus, sometime in early 2001. Full of youthful energy (and nervous as heck), I asked him about flying combat missions, orbiting the earth, and his recent shuttle mission.

I was in awe as he patiently retold stories he had no doubt described…

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Feb 28 • 7 tweets • 2 min read

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Three quick (non-legal) thoughts on the Supreme Court’s decision:

1) Delay is the lawbreaker’s ally.

We saw this with the Moore v. Harper case, where the drawn-out Supreme Court process (to take and then reject an obviously rogue and nonsensical argument…

1/ …about a so-called “independent state legislature theory”) allowed the North Carolina GOP to ignore its state Supreme Court for long enough that they got their gerrymandered map after all.

Which meant their “loss” at the Supreme Court…

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Feb 27 • 9 tweets • 3 min read

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NEW WHITEBOARD

The far right knows just how toxic their views are with voters…and that shapes their entire political battle.

Their response to the IVF decision provides a perfect example:

WATCH, RT &…

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Look at what they did here in Ohio—a perfect case study of where they stand, and that they KNOW their views are unpopular.

Ohio’s Issue 1, which passed last November, protected an individual right to make reproductive decisions—including, explicitly, “fertility treatment”

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Feb 27 • 6 tweets • 2 min read

Buck is right.

GOP Senators Portman (who led the effort), Ron Johnson & Mark Kirk called for the exact actions the GOP now attacks Biden for re Ukraine

They all signed a 2016 letter to “urge [Ukraine] to press ahead w urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General's Office and…”

1/

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1762273943140937890

“…judiciary.”

How do we know this?

Because Ohio’s Portman proudly presented the letter on his Senate website (now erased).

And Portman, who chaired the Ukraine Caucus, also tweeted: “Ukraine's US friends stand w/#Ukraine in fight against corruption,”

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