Motley Moose – Archive

In trying to make sense of The Way Things Are in a post-Hobby Lobby world, it is important to peel away the layers and understand what the Hobby Lobby ruling is and, more importantly, what it isn’t.

The Supreme Court ruled that a closely-held corporation can avoid paying for health insurance that covers contraceptive options if the belief about how those methods work offends the religious feelings of the majority stockholders.

Yes, the ruling is a direct assault on common sense in its attempt to assign freedom of religious expression to a corporation.

Yes, the ruling is science-denialism writ large.

Yes, it is a poke in the eye to the separation of powers: where a law passed by Congress and signed by the president can be, not merely ruled unconstitutional, but hacked up and rewritten by a court.

And, it is likely a specific poke in the eye to President Barack Obama who the right wing has become completely unhinged over to the point that they want to nullify the results of two presidential elections and three congressional elections.

What it really is: complete and utter disrespect for women.

From an article by Joan Walsh in Salon:

[Reproductive freedom is] still perceived as threatening and undermining to family and society, particularly when it involves (as it always essentially does) issues of sexual freedom. The Hobby Lobby decision, and the conservative reaction to it, made this dynamic particularly and depressingly clear. Some pundits hailed its implications for religious liberty, but a whole lot of them welcomed it as a rebuke to slutty females having sex on their dime. […]

[When] it comes to questions of work, family, sexuality and women’s equality, we are still fighting the culture wars of the 1960s. And women are still losing ground.

Walsh points out the quote from Justice Ginsberg in her dissent related to previous rulings from the court:

Ginsberg quotes the court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, which affirmed the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote for the majority. More than two decades later, both of those abilities – to “participate equally” and “control their reproductive lives” – are still widely contested for women.

It did not go unnoticed, by most observers, the pretzel that Justice Alito turned himself into in order to carve out what he called a “narrow exception” … and to hand his extremist supporters more grist for their anti-woman mill:

Justice Samuel Alito worked so assiduously to narrow the implications of the court’s Hobby Lobby ruling that he made its disrespect for women’s health, privacy and autonomy even more obvious and outrageous. […]

How did it happen that the only issue on which religious liberty trumps existing employment law, for the court’s conservative majority, is the issue that pertains to women’s freedom and sexuality? By emphasizing how narrowly tailored the court’s decision is, Alito only underscored its sexist radicalism. But that’s fitting. From the beginning, the entire controversy over the ACA’s contraceptive mandate served to highlight the backlash against women’s freedom we’ve endured in the last few decades.

From Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” for supporting the mandate, to Mike Huckabee lamenting that Democrats were using it to appeal to women who “can’t control their libidos,” the outrage and abuse exposed the deep fear of women’s freedom at the heart of the modern conservative movement.

Conservatives to women: get a husband and place your life in his hands. And sex only for procreation, missy!

We may get the last laugh, if we can hang on long enough:

These backward attitudes don’t reflect majority opinion. On abortion, on the contraception mandate, on women’s rights generally, Americans remain broadly supportive of measures to allow women to “participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation,” to use Sandra Day O’Connor’s words from Casey.[…]

The GOP’s last reliable female voting bloc is older, married, white Christian women, and their time is passing. It will pass more slowly if other women fail to vote in 2014, but the right’s crippling panic over women’s autonomy will eventually doom it to irrelevance.

The last reliable Republican female voting bloc is women so fearful of angering men (or unsure of their own worth) that they are willing to suspend all rational thought.

We can fix the Hobby Lobby ruling in a number of ways. But they all require that Democrats win back Congress from the regressivites.

Let’s do it.

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”.

OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

ART NOTES – works by the French illustrator Gustave Doré in an exhibition entitled Master of Imagination are at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa through September 14th.

ALTHOUGH FEW PEOPLE use more than a couple (of the hundreds) of typefaces that come installed on their computers, fonts are quite a competitive business.

HAIL and FAREWELL to the TV actor Bob Hastings – who played the subservient Lt. Carpenter (photo left) to the mercurial Capt. Binghamton (photo right) who has died at the age of 89. In one McHale’s Navy TV promo, Hastings (as Carpenter) enters a room to find Capt. Binghamton about to throw a dart at a board with a photograph pinned to it. “Carpenter, you birdbrain: why do you always have to interrupt me, just when I’ve got McHale zeroed-in?!?”

   

HE’s BAAAACK – a follow-up documentary has been produced by your-friend-and-mine, Dinesh D’Souza – who seeks to minimize harm done to Native Americans, African-Americans and that the US took half of Mexico in the Mexican War – and which ends with him going to jail under a liberal plot. (Hey, we can only hope).

SADLY it appears that Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe seems open to the idea of watering-down a 1993 government apology given to so-called comfort women – the herding of thousands of women across Asia into Japanese-army brothels – to placate his nationalistic base.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is Pixel the Cat – who just may be the world’s shortest cat.

TV NOTES – in World Cup semi-final action this week: it will be host nation Brazil vs. Germany this Tuesday (4:00 PM Eastern on ESPN) – a re-match of the 2002 World Cup championship game …. and then on Wednesday, it will be the Netherlands vs. Argentina (also 4:00 PM Eastern on ESPN) – a re-match of the 1978 World Cup championship game.

The losing teams in these two upcoming matches will play next Saturday for the bronze medal game (4:00 PM Eastern on ESPN). And finally: the two semi-final game-winning teams will play a week from today (Sunday, 3:00 PM on ABC) for the championship.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Sumo the Cat – a nearly 32-lb. Australian kitteh who is now fed less than two cups of low- calorie dry cat food per day at the SPCA.

HISTORY NOTES – one of the four copies of Britain’s legendary Magna Carta document is on tour in the US (at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts for the summer) leading up to next year’s 800th anniversary. And next year, copies of both the Declaration of Independence as well as the Bill of Rights will be on display at the British Museum in London.

BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.

DIRECT DESCENDANTS? – the poet W.H. Auden and a young Ron Howard.

   

…… and finally, for a song of the week ………………………… someone whom I only knew as a TV character from my youth, yet learned to love as a singer was Eartha Kitt – who seemed to have the same persona wherever she went. The All-Music Guide’s William Ruhlmann felt that impaired her singing career (especially when R&B and rock music became dominant later in the 1950’s) yet it enabled her to always have a stage to perform on – not for nothing did Orson Welles declare her to be “the most exciting woman in the world”. And yet, she always spoke of being shy; in no small part due to the hardships of her youth.  

Born as Eartha Keith in South Carolina back in 1927, she was the daughter of a black sharecropper mother and a white man … and found herself ostracized working in cotton fields, called yella gal by the family she lived with. At age eight she was sent to live with her Aunt Marnie Kitt in Harlem, which brought better material things (piano and dance lessons) yet beatings, also. She had to work in a factory in her early teens and – years later – became a homeless advocate (through Unicef) due to often having to sleep without a roof over her head.

And then a friend dared her to audition for the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, which she aced and became an international touring member (in dance and song) before age twenty. She was spotted by a Paris nightclub owner and became a featured singer at his club. Visiting Americans in the post-World War II era also took noted, and Orson Welles cast her as Helen of Troy in his production of Dr. Faust.

Her having spent time in Europe enabled her to speak four languages (and sing in seven) which garnered her singing spots at New York’s Village Vanguard as well as a Broadway role in New Faces of 1952 – which helped start the careers of Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley and Mel Brooks, among others.

She then began an RCA recording career, with hit songs such as I Want to be Evil, “Monotonous” and C’est Si Bon (from her days in Paris). She earned a Grammy nomination for Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa and was able for the rest of her career to be a cabaret performer of the first magnitude, with a breathy chanteuse air about her.

Her best known song can be heard each December: as Santa Baby – which was co-written by Joan Javits (niece of the soon-to-be US Senator Jacob Javits) – was one of the first successful Christmas novelty songs.

When he recording career began to ebb, she returned to Broadway, and appeared in “The Mark of the Hawk” (with Sidney Poitier) and “St. Louis Blues” with Nat King Cole. She also made her mark in television, and received an Emmy nomination for a 1965 appearance on “I, Spy”.

I, like many who were very young in the mid-60’s, came to know her first as Catwoman in the final season (1967) of the old Batman TV series – and in doing so, she achieved something nearly impossible in television. It’s different in film where, for example, actors who have portrayed James Bond over the decades can be appreciated by fans of different eras: those films come out infrequently, and one had to visit theaters in the early era of the series.

By contrast: TV shows come into our home, run weekly and we feel a connection to TV characters. Thus, when different actors have portrayed the same character in an ongoing show: whoever first played the part defined the role in the public’s mind. And so you’d be hard-pressed to find people singing the praises of subsequent actors, no matter how talented.

One exception would be Catwoman: Julie Newmar defined the role as its first performer, and would be many people’s favorite. Yet you would find many who prefer Eartha Kitt’s subsequent portrayal (photo center, below) with her rolling ‘meowwwww’ that stayed in people’s minds. Years later, she told NPR’s Scott Simon that people always asked her to make that sound (and she always obliged).

Yet her career took a dramatic turn in 1968 at a White House luncheon. She was asked by Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War. She replied: “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot.” The remark reportedly caused Mrs. Johnson to burst into tears and Eartha Kitt became blacklisted, resulting in her leaving for Europe for the next decade to resume her cabaret singing.

President Jimmy Carter invited her to the White House in 1978, and that same year she received a Tony nomination for her role in Timbuktu – a re-make of “Kismet” adapted for black performers. And while for the most part she remained true to her soul/jazz and Great American Songbook stylings, she did have a 1984 semi-disco hit Where is My Man – her highest chart success in nearly thirty years.  

She continued with her varied career into the 21st Century, with another Tony nomination in 2000 for The Wild Party and earned two Daytime Emmy Awards for her role in the children’s animated series The Emperor’s New School. She stayed in shape for life, even writing a book on her fitness regimen and still performed (after being diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006)at New York’s famed Café Carlyle (with a 2006 live album still showing she had her chops). Eartha Kitt died the day after Christmas in 2008 at the age of 81.

Her legacy appears to be solid, with three autobiographies: the last one entitled I’m Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten published in 1989. She earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, and was cited by both Diana Ross as well as Janet Jackson as an influence. She has an excellent compilation album of her hits and she was a longtime supporter of LGBT rights – before it became commonplace.

Of all of her musical works, it is her rendition of the 1930 Cole Porter song Love for Sale – which garnered some protest in its day – that is my favorite. And below you can listen to it.

Six Jews in custody and two Palestinians on the lam are child murderers. They committed their actions with the intent to inflame and incite and destroy. They knew the responses that would come from their actions. They knew that others would fight and die. They knew that children in Sderot and Gaza would find themselves ducking for cover. They knew that the consequences of their actions would be far beyond the four innocent lives taken by their own hands.

I am a passionate Zionist. 2,000 years of the history of my people have taught me one thing: We cannot trust our safety to others. The only way that we can be safe is to have our own country. Exiles and expulsions and forced conversions and blood libels and claims of deicide and pogroms and finally the Holocaust have taught us this lesson. A world without Israel is one that is not safe for the Jewish People.

It is folly to say that because of the actions of the six people an entire nation is to be condemned. It is folly to say that because certain current leaders are not ideal an entire nation is to be condemned. By that measure each and every nation in this world is to be condemned. The United States for what happened here during the Civil Rights Era; Israel for the murder of an innocent teen; the Palestinians never to have a state for the murder of three boys. The application of such logic is absolute madness.

The only logical solution is two states for two peoples. That, however, is a discussion for another day. Right now, I want to keep focus on the immediate issue – the child murderers that have started and sustained the current violence.

I do not care what their nationality or their ethnicity or their religion is. They have deliberately murdered children and they have done so with the absolute worst of intentions for they see these murders as a beginning. They wish to provoke exactly what has occurred. They have the blood of all those innocents that will be killed and injured on their hands. It does not matter who started it, for they all share in continuing the cycle of violence.

We all breathe the same air and we all bleed the same red blood. In the cases of these murders they have the same necks that will break and the same spinal cords that will sever. Yes, it is harsh, but this is exactly the punishment that all these child murderers deserve. Let them hang from the same gallows at the same time. Their crimes are the same side of the same coin and they deserve the same punishment. The world will be a much better place without the presence of such monsters (And for those of you that are anti-death penalty, I would be okay with a sentence of life without parole and a promise that they would never be released, including as part of any kind of prisoner exchange).

Welcome to The Moose Pond, where seldom is heard a discouraging word … wait … that’s The Range. Sometimes a discouraging word is heard at the pond but it is mostly words about the weather. 🙂

The Weeklong Welcomings feature provides the meese, new and old, a place to visit and share our words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit. In lieu of daily check-ins, which went on hiatus, a weekly welcomings diary will be posted every Sunday morning. To find the diary, just bookmark this link.

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining or bragging about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or just checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

The morning herd check-in has been a daily open thread posted to give the moose a place to visit with each other and to build community.

This series has been running non-stop since January 5, 2013 and I am grateful for the opportunity it gave me to meet new people, reconnect with old friends, and chatter about odd bits of news. I hope others feel the same way.

Alas, all good things must come to an end and the official check-in will now go on semi-permanent hiatus after this post. My hope is that our community is strong enough to carry on with regular posts from the meese on news, politics, science, history, personal stories, and culture. The president’s weekly address (which will still be posted with regularity) might be a place to insert greetings or some of you may be moved to post a personal diary occasionally (or even daily!) to give us a chance to catch up on each others lives.

And because I believe in tradition, once more with the boilerplate:

For those new to the Moose, Kysen left a Moose Welcome Mat (Part Deux) so, please, wipe your feet before you walk in the front door start posting.

The important stuff to get you started:

– Comments do not Auto-refresh. Click the refresh/reload on your tab to see new ones. Only click Post once for comments. When a diary’s comment threads grow, the page takes longer to refresh and the comment may not display right away.

– To check for replies to your comments, click the “My Comments” link in the right-hand column (or go to “My Moose”). Comments will be listed and a link to Recent Replies will be shown. (Note: Tending comments builds community)

– Ratings: Fierce means Thumbs Up, Fail means Thumbs Down, Meh means one of three things: I am unFailing you but I can’t Fierce you, I am unFiercing after a mistaken Fierce, or Meh. Just Meh. (p.s. Ratings don’t bestow mojo, online behaviour does).

– The Recommended list has a prominent place on the Front Page because it reflects the interests of the Moose. When people drive-by, we want them to see what we are talking about: news, politics, science, history, personal stories, culture. The list is based on number of recs and days on the list. Per Kysen: “The best way to control Rec List content is to ONLY rec diaries you WANT to see ON the list.”

– Finally, the posting rules for a new diary: “Be excellent to each other… or else”

(Some other commenting/posting/tending notes for newbies can be found in this past check-in and, of course, consult Meese Mehta for all your questions on meesely decorum.)

You can follow the daily moosetrails here: Motley Moose Recent Comments.

~

It’s been fun … see you in the Moosylvania Recent Diaries list!!!

The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama commemorated Independence Day by noting the contributions and sacrifices from individuals throughout the history of this country — from our Founding Fathers, to the men and women in our military serving at home and abroad.

Transcript: Celebrating Independence Day

Hi, everybody. I hope you’re all having a great Fourth of July weekend.

I want to begin today by saying a special word to the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team, who represented America so well the past few weeks. We are so proud of you. You’ve got a lot of new believers. And I know there’s actually a petition on the White House website to make Tim Howard the next Secretary of Defense. Chuck Hagel’s got that spot right now, but if there is a vacancy, I’ll think about it.

It was 238 years ago that our founders came together in Philadelphia to launch our American experiment. There were farmers and businessmen, doctors and lawyers, ministers and a kite-flying scientist.

Those early patriots may have come from different backgrounds and different walks of life. But they were united by a belief in a simple truth — that we are all created equal; that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Over the years, that belief has sustained us through war and depression; peace and prosperity. It’s helped us build the strongest democracy, the greatest middle class, and the most powerful military the world has ever known. And today, there isn’t a nation on Earth that wouldn’t gladly trade places with the United States of America.

But our success is only possible because we have never treated those self-evident truths as self-executing. Generations of Americans have marched, organized, petitioned, fought and even died to extend those rights to others; to widen the circle of opportunity for others; and to perfect this union we love so much.

That’s why I want to say a special thanks to the men and women of our armed forces and the families who serve with them — especially those service members who spent this most American of holidays serving your country far from home.

You keep us safe, and you keep the United States of America a shining beacon of hope for the world. And for that, you and your families deserve not only the appreciation of a grateful nation, but our enduring commitment to serve you as well as you’ve served us.

God bless you all. And have a great weekend.

Bolding added.

~

~

Good morning, Moosekind. TGIF!

Friday Coffee Hour and check-in is an open thread and general social hour.

It’s traditional but not obligatory to give us a weather check where you are and let us know what’s new, interesting, challenging or even routine in your life lately. Nothing is particularly obligatory here except:

Always remember the Moose Golden (Purple?) Rule:

Be kind to each other… or else.

What could be simpler than that, right?

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

The morning check-in is an open thread posted to give you a place to visit with the meeses. Feel free to chat about your weather, share a bit of your life, grump (if you must), rave (if you can). The diarist du jour sometimes posts and runs, other times sticks around for a bit, often returns throughout the day and always cares that meeses are happy … or at least contented.

For those new to the Moose, Kysen left a Moose Welcome Mat (Part Deux) so, please, wipe your feet before you walk in the front door start posting.

The important stuff to get you started:

– Comments do not Auto-refresh. Click the refresh/reload on your tab to see new ones. Only click Post once for comments. When a diary’s comment threads grow, the page takes longer to refresh and the comment may not display right away.

– To check for replies to your comments, click the “My Comments” link in the right-hand column (or go to “My Moose”). Comments will be listed and a link to Recent Replies will be shown. (Note: Tending comments builds community)

– Ratings: Fierce means Thumbs Up, Fail means Thumbs Down, Meh means one of three things: I am unFailing you but I can’t Fierce you, I am unFiercing after a mistaken Fierce, … or Meh. Just Meh. (p.s. Ratings don’t bestow mojo, online behaviour does).

– The Recommended list has a prominent place on the Front Page because it reflects the interests of the Moose. When people drive-by, we want them to see what we are talking about: news, politics, science, history, personal stories, culture. The list is based on number of recs and days on the list. Per Kysen: “The best way to control Rec List content is to ONLY rec diaries you WANT to see ON the list.”

– Finally, the posting rules for a new diary: “Be excellent to each other… or else”

(Some other commenting/posting/tending notes for newbies can be found in this past check-in and, of course, consult Meese Mehta for all your questions on meesely decorum.)

You can follow the daily moosetrails here: Motley Moose Recent Comments.

~

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

~

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964

The act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin and gave the federal courts jurisdiction over enforcement, taking it out of the state courts where justice was uneven at best.

The Civil Rights Act had political ramifications as well. Its adoption caused a mass exodus of angry racists from the Democratic Party in the old south to the Republican Party. And the politics borne of hatred of The Other gave the not-so-Grand Old Party the presidency for 28 out of the next 40 years.  

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Remarks Upon Signing the Civil Rights Act July 2, 1964

I am about to sign into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I want to take this occasion to talk to you about what that law means to every American.

One hundred and eighty-eight years ago this week a small band of valiant men began a long struggle for freedom. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor not only to found a nation, but to forge an ideal of freedom–not only for political independence, but for personal liberty–not only to eliminate foreign rule, but to establish the rule of justice in the affairs of men.

That struggle was a turning point in our history. Today in far corners of distant continents, the ideals of those American patriots still shape the struggles of men who hunger for freedom.

This is a proud triumph. Yet those who founded our country knew that freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning. From the minutemen at Concord to the soldiers in Viet-Nam, each generation has been equal to that trust.

Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and color have worked to build a nation of widening opportunities. Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders.

We believe that all men are created equal. Yet many are denied equal treatment.

We believe that all men have certain unalienable rights. Yet many Americans do not enjoy those rights.

We believe that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty. Yet millions are being deprived of those blessings–not because of their own failures, but because of the color of their skin.



The reasons are deeply imbedded in history and tradition and the nature of man. We can understand–without rancor or hatred–how this all happened.

But it cannot continue. Our Constitution, the foundation of our Republic, forbids it. The principles of our freedom forbid it. Morality forbids it. And the law I will sign tonight forbids it. […]

The purpose of the law is simple.

It does not restrict the freedom of any American, so long as he respects the rights of others.

It does not give special treatment to any citizen.

It does say the only limit to a man’s hope for happiness, and for the future of his children, shall be his own ability.

It does say that there are those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the polling booths, in the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other places that provide service to the public. […]

We must not approach the observance and enforcement of this law in a vengeful spirit. Its purpose is not to punish. Its purpose is not to divide, but to end divisions–divisions which have all lasted too long. Its purpose is national, not regional.

Its purpose is to promote a more abiding commitment to freedom, a more constant pursuit of justice, and a deeper respect for human dignity. […]

My fellow citizens, we have come now to a time of testing. We must not fail.

Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our Nation whole. Let us hasten that day when our unmeasured strength and our unbounded spirit will be free to do the great works ordained for this Nation by the just and wise God who is the Father of us all.

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-64. Volume II, entry 446, pp. 842-844. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1965.

Here are the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

Title I – Barred unequal application of voter registration requirements.

Title II – Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce.

Title III – Prohibited state and municipal governments from denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, color, religion or national origin.

Title IV – Encouraged the desegregation of public schools and authorized the U.S. Attorney General to file suits to enforce said act.

Title V – Expanded the Civil Rights Commission established by the earlier Civil Rights Act of 1957 with additional powers, rules and procedures.

Title VI – Prevents discrimination by government agencies that receive federal funds.

Title VII – Prohibits discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin and also prohibits discrimination against an individual because of his or her association with another individual of a particular race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Title VIII – Required compilation of voter-registration and voting data in geographic areas specified by the Commission on Civil Rights.

Title IX – Made it easier to move civil rights cases from state courts with segregationist judges and all-white juries to federal court.

And what about those political ramifications? Here is a breakdown of the votes:

The original House version:

   Southern Democrats: 7-87   (7-93%)

   Southern Republicans: 0-10   (0-100%)

   Northern Democrats: 145-9   (94-6%)

   Northern Republicans: 138-24   (85-15%)

The Senate version:

   Southern Democrats: 1-20   (5-95%)

   Southern Republicans: 0-1   (0-100%)

   Northern Democrats: 45-1   (98-2%)

   Northern Republicans: 27-5   (84-16%)

Southern Democrats (soon to become Republicans) – 7 in the House and 1 in the Senate. Northern Republicans (today known as “Sen. Susan Collins of Maine”) – 138 in the House and 27 in the Senate.

The party of the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln, rejected by those filled with bitterness over the Civil War, became filled with those bitter over the civil rights of people of color after this bill was signed. The party of the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln implemented the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon and followed the dog whistle of States Rights from Ronald Reagan and became powerful enough to infuse their politics of hatred and bigotry into the presidency, the Congress and the federal judiciary for the past 50 years.

What President Johnson did was the right thing and the moral thing to do. But now we need to undo the terrible political injustice that resulted from that courageous action. We need to convince the electorate once and for all that the bitter politics of hate runs counter to that which defines us as Americans: a belief that we all deserve an opportunity to succeed regardless of the circumstances of our birth.

The American dream is for all Americans. And there is only one major political party that believes this to be true: the Democratic Party.

A long history of leaders with the courage of their convictions despite the certain knowledge that the decision will have political consequences … another reason I Vote For Democrats and why you should too.

~

In 2012, Americans re-elected President Barack Obama. He became the first president since 1984 to win a majority of the popular vote two elections in a row. In 2014, we can give that president the Congress he deserves, a Democratic Congress, to implement the rest of his agenda which is also our agenda.

PLEASE vote … PLEASE help others vote. Vote as if your lives depend on it … because they do.

~

(This is an updated post from the I Vote For Democrats series published in the lead up to the presidential election in 2012)