Almost 50 years ago, I was transfixed as a NASA astronaut climbed down a ladder and pressed his boot into the grainy surface of the moon. A week ago, I sat transfixed as NASA guided a vehicle to a soft landing in Elysium Planitia, a “flat, boring equatorial plain” on a planet 300 million miles…
As we await the trial phase of the impeachment proceedings, it’s apparent that many members of the U.S. Senate are jumping past the first question – the question of fact – and starting on the question of punishment.
Another press report on the growing number of House Democrats who say “Impeach now”. That number is up to 63 now. Surely, the pressure is mounting on the House leadership and they will have to give in – if not now, soon!
The speech is a lesson in the tactics, large and small, that hold a message together and burn your ideas into your audience’s consciousness. Repetition. Litanies. Framing. Promoting your Values, naming the Villain, holding out a Vision.
Everyone has something to contribute and everyone contributes more than their share. So many people talked about stepping outside their comfort zone, going one step further, trying something for the first time – and feeling exhilarated by it.
Republicans will openly, unashamedly say that 712,000 D.C. residents can’t have representation in Congress because it would endanger their power. That’s it. Nothing else to say.
What gets me is that people say that he has to be expelled IF he is convicted of a crime.
Why is a criminal conviction required?
It is enough that he defrauded the voters. Actual election fraud is reason enough for expulsion.
Where is the caucus that railed about election fraud?
What do we resist? We resist job losses. We resist wage stagnation. We resist corporate welfare. We resist corruption. We resist cruelty. We resist dictators.
We resist Republicans.
Give 30 minutes to walk out and return, then give an hour to study of these basic tenets of being a citizen in the US, their history, the difficulties of conflicts between rights and safety, how bills become law, and how protests change (or don’t change) law, how courts decide conflicts.
Basic civics education.
Our democracy doesn’t just permit you to speak freely, but it requires it. It’s through the freedoms of speech and press that our democracy defends itself, strengthens itself, and grows itself.
