Tag: Joe Biden

My Bolt and presidents

I was getting something out of my Chevy Bolt EV in a parking lot of a small store/gas station yesterday when someone said, “Biden’s not president anymore.”

When I straightened up the only person who was there was a driver making a delivery about to enter the store, so, apparently, this comment was directed at me.

Here’s what I could have said, had this person actually wanted to have a conversation with me:

“Oh, are you asking about my car? Actually, we bought our Bolt in 2017, a couple of months into Trump’s first term. Our Chevy Bolt is a great, American-made car, which is much cheaper to power and maintain than a gasoline-powered one. It’s also fun to drive and has as much torque as a Camaro. You should test-drive an EV next time you are in the market.”

I’m hoping to still have my Bolt after Trump leaves office – and I hope that his successor will support electric vehicles more like Biden than Trump.

The ERA at last!

Vote for Democracy #28
The Equal Rights Amendment

There is always a flurry of activity in the last few weeks that a president is in office, with various declarations, awards, pardons/commutations, executive orders, rules, and other summations being offered and Joe Biden has been actively engaged in this.

On his last full day in office, I’d like to highlight one in particular, the declaration that the Equal Rights Amendment is the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

I’ve been waiting for this for my entire adult life.

When Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, it put a time limit on its ratification by the states, 38 of which had to vote in their legislatures to reach the constitutionally required three-fourths of the states. However, this limit was not part of the amendment itself. In 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, so it should have been recognized and added to the Constitution at that time. Lawrence Tribe and Kathleen Sullivan explain all the legalities in this piece in The Contrarian.

Many legal scholars and organizations have been working on this issue. In particular, I would like to raise up Carrie Baker, a distinguished faculty member at my alma mater, Smith College, for her legal and journalistic skill in advocating for the ERA.

I have no doubt that there will be a flood of lawsuits, claiming that the Equal Rights Amendment is not in effect, either because of the original Congressional advisory deadline or because several states have said they want to rescind their ratification. However, states have never been allowed to rescind ratification and amendments remain open for ratification in perpetuity. For example, Mississippi did not ratify the 1865 13th Amendment abolishing slavery until 1995 and their vote wasn’t certified until 2013.

I hope that having the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States Constitution will help protect the rights of everyone, especially women and girls. This is especially important now when some states are denying health care to women and even trying to restrict their ability to travel.

When new democracies form around the world and the United States is assisting in writing constitutions, the US insists that equal rights for women be included. It’s fundamental to civil and human rights. I’m glad that it is now part of our Constitution, which should strike down discriminatory state laws. It will also align with many of our state constitutions that already include equal rights in regards to gender.

With so much else going on in the United States and the world right now, this momentous news has flown a bit under the radar. I’m hoping that it will be embraced and followed by all the people.

Its text is very simple. The 28th Amendment states:

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Yes!

Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/01/19/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-19th-2025/

President Biden’s farewell

Vote for Democracy #26

Last night, US President Joe Biden delivered a farewell speech from the Oval Office. Among other things, it warns against the increasingly powerful tech oligarchy that threatens our democracy. You can read the address here.

The penultimate paragraph is:

My eternal thanks to you, the American people. After 50 years of public service, I give you my word, I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands — a nation where the strength of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure. Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America. You love it, too.

Yes.

I, along with millions and millions of others, will heed the call. Each of us doing the work that is ours to do will keep our democracy intact.

Some will have a bigger, public role and others will be working in a much smaller sphere of influence, but all of us can participate.

It’s what democracy means.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/01/16/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-12th-2025-2/

in gratitude for Jimmy Carter

(Photo credit: The Carter Center, 2015)

Jimmy Carter died on Sunday, December 29, 2024 at the age of 100. He was United States president from 1977-1981. After his term ended, he was active as a peacemaker, author, and humanitarian well into his nineties. Much of his work was accomplished in partnership with his wife, Rosalynn, who predeceased him last year after 77 years of marriage.

Carter was president during a formative time in my life, late in high school going into my early years at Smith College, and there are things from that time that have had lasting impact on my life.

Carter’s actions on renewable energy, energy conservation, and environmental protection were formative for me. Because of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, oil and gasoline were high-priced and in short supply. We lived in a very rural area at the time. Reaching our high school, supermarkets, stores, doctor’s office, etc. involved at least a twenty-mile drive, so fuel efficiency became even more crucial for us. Being very aware of the efficiency of our vehicles is something that B and I have retained. The first car we bought after our marriage was a small, fuel-efficient compact; we assumed that our next car would be electric, given the emphasis that had been placed on them by Jimmy Carter. Unfortunately, that was all derailed by Reagan and the fossil fuel industry and we didn’t get our first electric car until 2017.

We also continued to take home energy efficiency seriously. B and I were talking recently about how we never got into large, lighted Christmas displays for our yard, choosing instead to just put our Christmas tree, now with super-efficient LED lights, near our front window. That all started back in the Carter administration with its emphasis on energy conservation. Carter, who was an engineer, installed solar panels on the White House roof to heat water; Reagan later removed them. I’m proud to say that our home and most of our transportation are powered by solar energy. We have very efficient heat pumps for hot water and heating and cooling our home. We are also well-insulated and choose appliances and lighting carefully with our eyes on efficiency. The appalling thing is that, while President Carter saw clearly what we needed to do as a country to address environmental/climate protection and energy security long-term and set us on that path, subsequent political and corporate leaders abandoned those efforts with grave planetary consequences. We would not be in such dire circumstances around the globe if we had tackled these issues around renewable energy and environmental/climate protection back then.

I appreciate Carter’s example of living out his faith. He set out to serve humanity, especially those who are most vulnerable. He was long active with Habitat for Humanity, which builds homes for people experiencing poverty. Through the Carter Center, he spearheaded a massive effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease in Africa and Asia. In 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases; in 2023, under 20 human cases were reported.

Carter was also a champion for human rights. As president, he appointed people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds and many women to executive and judicial branch posts. He created the Department of Education, which had previously been part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, to help promote excellence in education regardless of race or economic circumstances. He also created the Department of Energy to spearhead reforms.

I’m grateful that President Biden will still be in office for the state funeral for Jimmy Carter on January 9th. The then-young Senator Biden was an early endorser of Carter’s run for the Democratic nomination in 1976 and the two have been friends for decades. While Biden and Carter are both one-term Democratic presidents who were largely derailed by high inflation rates, what is more striking to me is that they are both dedicated public servants, motivated by love of country and their faith, Carter as a Baptist and Biden as a Catholic. Both celebrated the diversity and pluralism of the United States and tried to protect and preserve our environment.

I am worried that the incoming Trump administration will try to dismantle the gains made under President Biden in the same way that Reagan undid many of Carter’s initiatives.

A hallmark of Jimmy Carter’s life was always telling the truth, even when that truth was difficult to hear. Donald Trump is known for lying, thousands of times in his first term and thousands more since. It would have been distressing to have Trump overseeing the plans for Carter’s state funeral.

After the funeral and observances in Atlanta where the Carter Center is located, Jimmy Carter will be laid to rest beside Rosalynn under a willow tree near their long-time home in Plains, Georgia. There is a comfort in that for me – to think of them as reunited after such a long and fruitful partnership on earth. Both his longevity and the length of their marriage set records among US presidents, records that may well stand for as long as the United States endures.

Let’s all work to uphold the ideals that Jimmy Carter espoused so that the United States will become a “more perfect union” and grow as a democracy, not devolve into oligarchy or autocracy.

Vote for Democracy #13

a changed landscape

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

There has been a torrent of presidential election news since I posted Vote for Democracy #12 the day after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. For those who may not follow United States election news, this post will try to fill you in on what has happened to change the presidential election so massively since then.

The Republican party held their convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15th-18th. While it had been billed as being unifying in the wake of the assassination attempt, the message seemed to be welcoming only to those ready to believe the lies about the 2020 election being “stolen” and a lot of other lies about crime rates, immigration, the economy, and a host of other issues. Ohio Senator JD Vance became the vice-presidential nominee. At age 39, he is literally half Donald Trump’s age. He has only served in office for a year and a half and is better known as an author and venture capitalist. Trump gave the longest televised nomination acceptance speech ever at about 92 minutes. He started by recounting the assassination attempt but then veered off the prepared remarks into a version of his rally speech with a lot of rambling.

Meanwhile, President Biden was under increasing pressure to step aside from the presidential campaign, which he did on July 21st, putting his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination. It is unusual for a US president to decide not to seek an additional term, especially this close to an election and there are reams of commentary about it.

Like Joe Biden, I’m Catholic and think about his decision to step aside as an example of servant leadership, a model that is exemplified by Christ. Too often, leadership in the Church has been dominated by clericalism and in government by authoritarianism, oligarchy, or other forms of being power- or wealth-hungry. Biden did what he thought would be best for the country, not seeking re-election to concentrate on his presidential duties for this last six months of his term or one-eighth of his presidency.

About half an hour after announcing his decision, President Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination. He asked the delegates pledged to him for the Democratic party’s convention to vote for her, although they were no obligated to do so. Harris declared her candidacy shortly thereafter. Because the campaign had previously been the Biden-Harris campaign, she was entitled to use the resources, including funds, on hand.

There was a groundswell of support for her candidacy. In the first 24 hours, her campaign raised $81 million. Within the first week, there was $200 million, 66% of it from first-time donors. Over 170,000 people had volunteered to help the campaign. Tens of thousands had registered to vote. Funds have also poured into political action committees to support her candidacy.

Meanwhile, Harris has gained endorsements from leading political figures, unions, and organizations. Importantly, the convention delegates have been meeting online to pursue a virtual role call for the nomination. This was the procedure they used last time due to the pandemic; they are using it this year because their convention isn’t until Aug. 19-22 due to the timing of the Republican convention and the Olympics. Some states have deadlines for ballot access earlier in August, so the nomination is being finalized online before the physical gathering in Chicago. In order to be placed into nomination, a candidate needed to have 300 delegates pledged to them. Harris is the only candidate to meet that threshold. She hasn’t yet chosen a running mate, but we expect that announcement soon.

While Harris has been joyfully and skillfully doing numerous speeches, fundraisers, and official appearances, such as greeting the American hostages returning from Russia, the Trump campaign has been confounded. They had apparently centered their strategy around attacking Joe Biden, which is now moot. The Trump campaign and Republicans have engaged in attacks on Harris that come across as misogynistic, racist, and anti-immigrant. They fault Harris for not having given birth, although she is an actively engaged stepmom to Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s two children. They mock her laugh. The daughter of a Jamaican immigrant father and Indian immigrant mother, Kamala Harris has always celebrated both her Black and Asian roots. Somehow, Trump can’t seem to wrap his head around that fact, which is bizarre to most of us who are or have family and friends who are multi-racial/ethnic. Trump has even tried to characterize Harris as anti-Semitic, although she is married to a Jewish man.

I appreciate Harris’s political savvy in being able to briefly address the lies about her but then carry on with her own skills, history, and policy provisions, defining herself for the public rather than letting her opponents put her in a box.

The contrasts between her and the Trump/Vance ticket are stark. Trump and Vance have 5 1/2 years of public service in elected office between them. Harris has held elected office since 2004 as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general, United States senator, and vice president, giving her twenty years of experience across three branches of government. Harris is an experienced prosecutor who brought cases against fraud and sexual abuse while Trump is a convicted felon who has also been found libel for financial fraud and sexual abuse. If elected, Harris would make history as the first woman and the first person of South Asian descent to hold the US presidency. If Trump is elected, he would be the oldest president at the time of election and the first convicted criminal in the office. Harris is committed to the Constitution and the rule of law and wants to uphold democracy at home and among our allies. Trump has espoused authoritarian ideas, tried to stay in office after he lost the 2020 election, fomented an insurrection, stolen classified documents and other presidential papers, and admires autocrats.

Trump uses lies and manipulation to spread a message of fear and grievance. Harris uses her experience and intelligence to bring a message of hope and strength.

She has earned my support.

I urge all eligible Americans to make sure they are registered and look at the facts and the positions of the candidates for president, Congress, and any other elections and propositions that may be on their ballots in November.

Vote for democracy ’24!

One-Liner Wednesday: civil service

Project 2025, the lengthy document spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation to lay out plans for the “conservative president” they expect to be elected this year, would gut the civil service by reclassifying many policy and technical expert positions so that they could be fired without cause, giving the president the power to fire them at will, something that Trump did by executive order a few weeks before the 2020 election but which President Biden immediately rescinded when he took office, again protecting government employees from being fired for political reasons. (pp.43-44 and following)

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/07/17/one-liner-wednesday-am-i-the-only-one/

Vote for Democracy ’24 #12

a mass shooting with a difference

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

Yesterday evening, there was another mass shooting in the US.

As I have done in previous posts, I use the Gun Violence Archive’s definition of mass shooting, four or more victims injured or killed, not including the shooter.

The shooter used an AR-15-type semiautomatic weapon. He was 20 years old and was shot and killed.

One victim died immediately at the scene, two were critically injured, and one was injured but able to be treated and released from a nearby hospital.

The difference, of course, is that the one who was injured but not critically is former president and current candidate Donald Trump, making this mass shooting an assassination attempt. The shooter was shot and killed so quickly because the Secret Service had expert marksmen on hand overseeing the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shooter was on a rooftop, about 150 yards from the platform where Trump was making a speech. He was killed before he could exact a large death toll, like the largest mass killing to date in the US, the Las Vegas, Nevada, music festival shooting in 2017, where a gunman killed 58 and injured 546 shooting from the 32nd floor of a hotel.

At this point, the shooter’s motive and mental health status are not known. An investigation is underway and will probably take months to complete. The Secret Service did an admirable job getting Trump covered, off the stage, and into a vehicle to bring him to the hospital.

As I wrote about here, Trump has a long history of violent rhetoric. It’s ironic that he is now himself a victim of what is most likely political violence. He, along with many Republican lawmakers, also has long opposed most gun safety measures.

President Biden very quickly condemned the shooting and all political violence. He has repeatedly called for a ban on military-style assault weapons, such as the one used in this shooting, renewing a measure that he helped pass as a senator in 1994 and which was in effect for ten years before it expired.

When choosing for whom to vote, whether for president, Congress, or state and local officials, look at their positions on firearm policies, such as registration, background checks, magazine size, red-flag laws, and what weapons should be available for ownership by the general public.

Are they prioritizing protecting public health, as our current Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, has?

It’s sad that, if yesterday’s mass shooting had not been at a Trump rally, it would have been a local news story, with perhaps a short segment reaching national news broadcasts. One person shot dead is so sadly common that most people don’t notice. Most gun deaths in the US are self-inflicted, a fact that escapes most people’s notice.

I wish I could say that I thought this shooting would bring the country together against gun violence when so many other horrific shootings have not, but I can’t muster that hope.

Please, America, prove me wrong.

Vote for Democracy ’24 #11

a week after the first debate

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

I watched the first presidential debate on June 27 with my family.

To me, the clear loser in the debate was Donald Trump because he told dozens of easily identifiable lies and didn’t answer many of the questions. He also tried to take credit for some accomplishments of President Biden.

As soon as President Biden started speaking, it was obvious to me that he was ill. He also was rushing his answers, probably in an attempt to pack as much information as possible into the two-minute allowed response time. As Trump threw around lies and accusations, Biden tried to respond to those plus answering the given question and his well-known, long-standing problems with stuttering kicked in, making some of his answers a jumble.

Since then, there has been a large-scale, public freak-out about whether Biden is too old to seek another term, even though Trump is only three years younger and doesn’t lead a healthy lifestyle. Biden’s latest annual physical exam report, dated Feb. 28, 2024, shows that he has no major neurological conditions and that his gait issues are from arthritis in his back and hip, along with some neuropathy in his feet. There is no comparably detailed health report from Trump.

Some of the criticism of Biden makes me wonder if those voicing it spend time with elders. For example, collagen levels decrease with age and this makes one’s face look older. So, yes, at 81 and a healthy weight, Biden’s face looks like he’s 81. It doesn’t mean he is cognitively impaired. Yes, he moves more slowly, as you would expect from someone with that level of arthritis. The presidency is not a footrace. If it were, Franklin Roosevelt would never have been elected.

I appreciate Biden’s wisdom, experience in government, decency, empathy, and compassion. His life journey has been long and he has faced more than the usual share of personal tragedy. He has assembled a very good team of advisors and Cabinet officials. It’s true that his debate performance was terrible but, as President, one is always surrounded by policy experts, advisors, and research documents and doesn’t have to answer questions with a time limit and no notes while trying to rebut lies.

I don’t know what will happen at this point. Biden is determined today to stay in the race but, if he does step aside, Vice-president Harris or whomever the Democrats nominate will have my support and vote.

It will be a vote for democracy.

I won’t vote for Trump because he is an immoral, lying, convicted felon who doesn’t care about our country and its laws. I also won’t vote for anyone who supports him or puts their political party above the laws and the people of the United States. This is especially important after recent decisions by a corrupted Supreme Court. That’s a post for another day.

Today, as we celebrate the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let’s renew our commitment to each other, to democracy, to our Constitution and laws, and to our highest ideals. Let’s resolve to vote only for candidates who share those ideals and seek to serve the country, not those who seek only to enhance their own power and wealth and that of their rich cronies.

Together, we can keep our democracy vibrant and ready to add more centuries to the 248 years the United States celebrates today.

One-Liner Wednesday: debate checklist

This non-partisan checklist (from NETWORK, based on Catholic social justice principles which are shared by many people of faith, as well as totally secular people) will assist viewers of the US presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump tomorrow (Thursday, June 27 at 9 PM EDT) in tracking the candidates’ views on a range of issues.

This public service announcement comes to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/06/26/one-liner-wednesday-have-you-ever/

Vote for Democracy ’24 #10

on gun violence and public health

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

Today, the United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis. His advisory gives an overview of gun violence, contributing factors, and impacts on communities, children, adolescents, and families. It concludes with a section on taking a public health approach to reducing risk and preventing gun violence.

I’m grateful that Dr. Murthy has called out the scourge of firearm violence in the United States and framed it in the context of public health. While mass shootings are surely horrific and generate the most press coverage, most gun deaths and injuries in the US are either self-inflicted or among families/communities. The trauma they cause lasts for years. It is very much in the interests of public health to work to avert as many instances of gun violence as possible.

One of the criteria I use in evaluating candidates is their views and record on gun safety and violence reduction. Two years ago today, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which has increased prosecution for gun trafficking, made more firearm sales subject to background checks, and funded community safety programs and red flag law initiatives. President Biden favors further tightening of background checks and a ban on civilian ownership of military-style assault weapons. By contrast, Donald Trump spoke at the National Rifle Association convention in May and promised to roll back any of the Biden administration initiatives on guns.

It is also important to look at the views about guns expressed by candidates for Congress, given that national legislation is the clearest way to protect people and communities. The Supreme Court has overturned executive orders and state level laws that were meant to promote gun safety but national law is likely to be more durable.

In a first for a presidential candidate, due to his 34-count felony conviction in New York, Trump’s firearms license has been revoked. This would stay in effect during any appeals process. Of course, as a former president, the Secret Service protects him at all times. Still, I find it sobering that he is legally barred from owning a gun. If he is not trustworthy enough to own a gun, how could he be trustworthy enough to decide important matters about public safety – or anything else?