Two hundred thirty-eight years ago today America was born. Under the shadow of the American Revolution a nation of promise and hope was created. Then it happened: the Second Continental Congress restricted the right to vote to white, free, male landowners, over the age of 21. That was the start of our nation’s still bumpy [...]
Posted on July 4th, 2014 by Debby
Filed under: Democrats, History, Independent movement, Politics and Political Issues, Republicans, Social Justice, Uncategorized, Vote suppression, Voter Suppression | No Comments »
This story says it all when it comes to relying on the courts to upend voter ID laws. RuralVotes has teamed up with South Forward to launch a new Voter ID Project. First stop, North Carolina. From the early suffragists, to the repeal of the Poll Tax and Jim Crow laws, it took generations of [...]
Posted on May 6th, 2014 by Debby
Filed under: Voter ID laws, Voter Suppression | No Comments »
The title of this essay is that of a song I remember from bygone days. Frank Sinatra used to sing it. Listening to Barack Obama and John Kerry give their rationale for attacking Syria, gave me an ear worm – the song keeps running around in my brain and I’m sick of hearing it. The [...]
Posted on September 6th, 2013 by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson
Filed under: Foreign Policy, House of Representatives, National Security, Obama, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Writing to overturn key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts declared, “Nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically. Largely because of the Voting Rights Act ‘[v]oter turnout and registration rates’ in covered jurisdictions ‘now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare.’…The tests and devices that [...]
Posted on August 30th, 2013 by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson
Filed under: Elections, Politics and Political Issues, Social Justice, Supreme Court, Uncategorized, Vote suppression, Voter Suppression | No Comments »
Just as Congress was heading home for a five-week vacation, the administration closed embassies throughout the Middle East, warning of increased danger of an attack somewhere, on something, and telling people everywhere to be extra cautious. Gradually, it emerged that the warning came because someone overheard a phone conversation between two Al Aqaeda leaders about [...]
Posted on August 8th, 2013 by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson
Filed under: National Security, Uncategorized | No Comments »
This just in from The Rural Blog: House leaders look for ways to help farm-district members after blocking floor vote on Farm Bill “Having blocked the pending five-year Farm Bill, House Republican leaders now appear to be racing ahead of their own Agriculture Committee to come up with some alternative to protect the party’s farm [...]
Posted on July 26th, 2012 by Debby
Filed under: Agriculture, Election 2012, Farm Bill 2012, Politics and Political Issues, Republicans | No Comments »
The race is on for rural America’s support come November. Both campaigns have just about four months to woo voters in America’s non-metro areas. And both sides have specific campaign messages to induce small town and rural constituents to cast a ballot their way. Former Massachusetts Governor Romney has been making the rounds, flipping flapjacks [...]
Posted on July 5th, 2012 by Debby
Filed under: Democrats, Election 2012, Republicans | No Comments »
By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson This video runs about 20 minutes. It’s from Netroots Nation, the bloggers’ convention that took place last weekend. Van Jones issues a challenge to us all to Rebuild the American Dream. (Jones, you may remember, was an advisor on environmental matters to the Obama administration until right wing radicals hounded him [...]
Posted on June 24th, 2011 by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson
Filed under: Politics and Political Issues, Society and Culture, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson When I wrote, in a recent post, that the rich and far-right-wing legislators “don’t even see us,” I was basing that statement on social science research, not mere opinion. A paper published by the Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research, located in the southern part of The Netherlands, found that people [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2011 by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson
Filed under: Politics and Political Issues | No Comments »
By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson President Barack Obama had just about lost me before he gave his budget policy speech on March 13 at George Washington University. I’m not saying he’s got me all the way back, that I’ll contribute to his re-election campaign more than I can afford, the way I did in 2007-8. For [...]
Posted on April 14th, 2011 by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson
Filed under: Politics and Political Issues | 1 Comment »
