Tag: speech

One-Liner Wednesday: Cory Booker

In gratitude for the witness, intelligence, fortitude, and patriotism of Senator Cory Booker (Democrat of New Jersey), who set a record for longest floor speech in the United States Senate yesterday evening at 25 hours, 4 minutes, during which he spoke against the immoral, damaging budget that the Republicans plan to ram through the Congress; the previous record had been held by Strom Thurmond, who in 1957 spoke against the Civil Rights Act, making it all the more fitting that Sen. Booker, a Black man who Thurmond would have wanted to keep segregated and poorly educated, was the one to so eloquently speak out on behalf of the American people, especially those most vulnerable.

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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.
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Vote for Democracy ’24 #19

closing arguments

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

With Election Day only a few days away, the two major party candidates for the US presidency have made their closing arguments to the American people. Because of the availability of early voting, vote-by-mail, and absentee ballots, millions have already cast their ballots, but many more millions will vote on Tuesday, November 5, and some eligible voters will not vote at all. The United States does not usually have high voter turnout and it will be interesting to see if this year is different. Levels of early voting have been very high, so perhaps election-day voting will be, too.

Vice President Kamala Harris gave her speech in front of a crowd of about 75,000 at the Ellipse in Washington DC, with the White House behind her, the same location where Donald Trump spoke at a rally on Jan.6, 2021, calling on his supporters to march to the Capitol where a violent mob broke in and tried to stop Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

In contrast to Trump’s diviseness, Harris gave a message of unity, explaining how she would be a president for all the people who would listen to differing viewpoints. She talked about her policy proposals for the economy and health care, including reproductive rights and elder care, and shared her biography and experience prior to the vice-presidency. While she was making a contrast with Trump, she was concentrating on a positive, unifying message, which is important as she has been reaching out to Republicans and other conservatives who are dedicated to the Constitution and the rule of law and are repulsed by Trump’s attacks on those principles.

Trump’s closing argument rally was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City which was at its capacity of 19,500. The rally went on for hours; the video link I shared here is the final 3 1/4 hours, which includes all of Trump’s 78-minute speech. The event was designed for Trump’s base of supporters and was quite openly racist, misogynistic, anti-immigrant, and divisive. Trump and the other speakers continued to vilify Trump’s opponents, attacking them personally in often vulgar terms and lying about them and their positions. There is no sense of working together to solve problems, only of seeking vengeance on anyone who disagrees with Trump.

It’s terrifying, especially because so much of Trump’s rhetoric is violent and we all know what happened four years ago when Trump tried to steal an election he had lost.

Donald Trump’s vision of America is dark place of grievance where a few rich and powerful men rule. Instead, I embrace Kamala Harris’s vision of the United States as nation of people of good will who work together within the structures of our laws and government to solve problems and uphold the common good, as the Preamble to our Constitution terms it to “promote the general welfare.”

I hope that all eligible voters will look to those values as they vote not only for president but for other federal, state, and local offices. We must vote to protect our rights and our democratic principles so we can continue to build vibrant, caring, and responsible communities.

Together, we can do this!

Vote!

Vote for Democracy ’24 #2

Back in September, I published a post about the age and health of President Biden and former President Trump. In it, I wrote:

On the other hand, when Donald Trump was president, he was not known to keep a very rigorous schedule of official duties. He didn’t seem to understand the complexities of the job, such as dealing with classified materials. He was volatile and resorted to bullying, name calling, and lying to try to get his way, regardless of facts, laws, or policies. Sometimes, when he is speaking without a teleprompter, he doesn’t seem able to construct cogent sentences. I don’t know if there is a medical diagnosis that elucidates these behaviors or not, but I don’t think his age is the salient factor.

While there are some in the media who have been talking about these things for years, Trump’s recent behavior has pushed these topics into the mainstream, both in the press and among some politicians. A few days ago, Trump repeatedly referred to his primary opponent, Nikki Haley, when he seemingly meant to say Nancy Pelosi. When campaigning, he has sometimes been confused about where he is. He has repeatedly said that he ran against President Obama, which he did not. He doesn’t seem to have much control over his emotional reactions and speech, for example, when he went on a rant at the New York trial over damages for fraud regarding his real estate businesses. His victory speech after the New Hampshire primary featured rambling, repetition, threats, and vitriol.

It seems that some of the tendencies he had during his presidency have heightened. What is even more alarming to me and to some observers is that Trump’s cognition and control seem to have slipped. I’ve been exposed to numerous people as dementia was developing and observed how their language skills eroded and how they struggled with self-control. It makes Trump’s recent behavior seem eerily familiar. That others are pointing it out confirms that it is not just a personal bias.

Donald Trump’s father, Fred, had dementia from Alzheimer’s disease for years before his death. Alzheimer’s disease is known to run in families and Donald’s age does become salient on this point, given that he is now 77 years old and the risk of developing Alzheimer’s increases with age. It’s also frequently not diagnosed in its early stages. While Fred Trump was diagnosed in his 80s, it’s likely that cognitive decline began years earlier, which would put Donald in the same age bracket as his father was when symptoms started to develop.

Despite all this, many Republican elected officials are currently endorsing Trump for the nomination and the presidency. They don’t seem to recognize the danger of having someone in cognitive decline and with poor impulse control exercising the powers of the presidency. Things could go very badly very quickly.

There is no health test to run for president. I do hope that, at the very least, there will be pressure for Trump to debate Nikki Haley so that potential voters can see how he answers questions and reacts to issues in real time. This would also reveal to other Republican party leaders what his current capabilities are so they could assess if he is fit to serve for the next presidential term. I don’t know whether or not they can set aside their own hunger for power or not but, perhaps, it will scare them enough to act to safeguard the country from the disaster of having a mentally incompetent person in charge.

Trump has been using increasingly authoritarian language and issuing threats against opponents and even other Republicans who disagree with him. He should not ever again be in a position where he can carry out these threats, many of which are illegal and would threaten the stability of our democratic institutions. Oh, and Trump is insisting a president should enjoy total immunity from prosecution, no matter what he does.

Please consider these things before you vote. Look at what each candidate says, does, and believes. Don’t just look at their party or family name.
*****
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One-Liner Wednesday: taking sides

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Elie Wiesel

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One-Liner Wednesday: Liz Cheney

“Today, our highest duty is to bend the arc of history to preserve our nation and its blessings to ensure that freedom will not perish, to protect the very foundations of this constitutional republic.”
~~~ Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) in her concession speech after losing her primary race because she is standing up for the Constitution and election integrity in the face of Trump’s lies

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One-Liner Wednesday: the wise and the fools

“The wise speak because they have something to say; fools speak because they have to say something.”
~ ~ ~ Plato
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Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com

Sit-in and recess

Some of my friends outside the US may be wondering what happened with the sit-in by the Democratic members of the House of Representatives, trying to force a vote on gun control legislation.

The sit-in continued for 24 hours. Overnight, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the Republicans appeared on three separate occasions to call the House into session and hold votes on unrelated issues. The Democrats voted but still held the floor.

At the end of the third occasion, Speaker Ryan gaveled the House into recess for the Independence Day observance, which was not supposed to begin for another week.

The Democrats who were sitting in and their supporters, who followed the sit-in through social media because Congress’s cameras only run during session, some of whom gathered outside the Capitol building in support, had been asking that there be no recess until a vote on gun issues was held.

Instead, the Republicans chose to leave town early.

The Democrats vow that when the recess is over, they will renew their efforts to bring gun legislation to a vote. It’s possible another sit-in will be involved.

If the Senate votes for a bipartisan bill that grew out of Senator Murphy’s action there last week, there will be additional pressure on the House to vote, too.

Regardless of the next steps, the sit-in itself was a powerful stand on principle. The leadership of Rep. John Lewis, one of the few remaining national activists from the civil rights battles of the 1960’s, was inspiring, as was the witness of Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, who approached Rep. Lewis about taking action on this issue.

There were many powerful speeches from House members. Some spoke of shooting victims from their states or districts. Some related much more personal stories. Rep. Marcia Fudge spoke of losing her only brother to gun violence. Rep. Debbie Dingell spoke of enduring an abusive childhood, which involved being threatened with a gun. Part of her speech appears in the middle of this video, which itself summarizes the sit-in.

One particularly evocative moment was when the Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” – familiar as an anthem of the civil rights era – while holding up signs bearing the names of victims of gun violence.

The representative from my district is a Republican who is retiring at the end of his term. When the recess is over, I would like him to speak on the floor of the House about the victims of the American Civic Association shooting, which occurred in his district, and to vote for the common sense gun laws that the vast majority of American voters support.

Perhaps the fact that he does not have to face re-election will give him the courage to work in a bipartisan way to pass legislation that our country desperately needs for our safety and security.

We can hope.

Senator Chris Murphy stands up

I wrote a post in the hours after the mass killing at Pulse in Orlando, predicting that the US Congress would do nothing, even in the face of so many deaths at the hands of a single person with an assault weapon.

I am proud to report that I was wrong.

First, some Democratic members of the House walked out on the symbolic moment of silence in protest against inaction.

On Wednesday, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut took the floor at 11:21 AM and began speaking against the lack of debate and action on gun issues from Congress, intending to hold the floor until there was a promise to bring legislation to the Senate for debate and vote.

Senator Murphy lives near Newtown, Connecticut, site of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. He had been a member of the House from an adjoining district and was newly elected as Senator at the time of the shooting. He has been in close contact with the families of the Sandy Hook victims and has long advocated for tighter gun laws and better mental health care.

In order to hold the floor, he was not allowed to leave the chamber or even to sit.  There also needed to be continual talking. To help him, over thirty other Senators, mostly other Democrats but a couple of Republicans also, came to the floor to ask extended questions so that Senator Murphy could rest his voice.

Remarkably, Senator Murphy held the floor for almost fifteen hours, until in the early hours of Thursday, word came that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would schedule votes on four amendments regarding gun purchases next week.

I urge you to watch how Senator Murphy ended his marathon speech. I pray that his words will strike to the hearts of the senators so that they will vote to enact some new protections against gun violence, which is such a plague for us here in the United States.

There is a lot of work to be done. The American people are overwhelmingly in favor of restricting access to military-grade weapons and of ensuring that violent, unstable, or hate-filled people do not get their hands on guns and shoot people.

The President has been advocating on these issues for years.

Congress, listen to Senator Murphy, the President, voters, and especially the families of victims, and act.