Calling all Hillary Clinton supporters. All hands on deck! This is going to be a monumental week for Hillary’s campaign. Sign up to volunteer: canvass, register voters, GOTV/GOTC (Get Out the Vote/Caucus), make calls from home, make calls or do whatever’s needed at a campaign office. Also, spread the word on social media and rally, people, rally! http://www.hillaryclinton.com/volunteer
Here’s the 2016 voting lineup for Democratic primaries and caucuses:
Sat 2/27 South Carolina
Tue 3/1 (Super Tuesday states)
Alabama
American Samoa
Arkansas
Colorado
Democrats Abroad (3/1-8)
Georgia
Massachussetts
Minnesota
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
I know we can get there . . . TODAY!
This is your campaign, and it is a campaign to break down every barrier that holds you back.…
We’re going to build ladders of opportunity in their place so every American can go as far as your hard work can take you.…
Now, no one can get this done alone, not even the President of the United States. It’s got to be the mission of our entire nation. I have never believed in dividing America between us and them. We are all in this together, we all have to do our part. —Hillary Clinton, excerpted from 2/20/16 Nevada Caucuses Victory Speech
On Tuesday, October 8, 2013, we lost Harriet Christian, a lifelong and outspoken champion of equal rights. I came to know her after her honest outburst at the Democratic National Convention’s Rules and Bylaws Committee was captured on video and picked up by major media outlets. Hundreds of us had traveled to DC to picket and protest the committee’s slanted meeting that would decide the fate of millions of citizens’ votes in Michigan and Florida.
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton kept her name on those states’ ballots, whereas Dem party and media darlings Obama and (that guy who used to make the women swoon), John Edwards (who?), had removed their names from those ballots. As Harold Ickes said, although Hillary won those states, The Party, “hijacked” the votes–and later the election–by strong-arming delegates to switch their votes from Hillary–to whom they were pledged–to Obama.
Harriet wasn’t having any of it and courageously protested from the peanut gallery during the RBC meeting and outside in the lobby after being tossed out of the meeting. This meeting’s decision created the spontaneous citizens’ uprising, which immediately spawned the PUMA (Party Unity, My Ass) Movement. Lifelong Democrats, we had become Democratic Party refugees, saying we didn’t leave the party, the party left us.
We PUMAs had a pre-Denver convention in DC to plan our protest and media strategy, and in Denver, our headquarters and events were a hub for protests at the Democratic National Convention. There was lots of pre-convention press about the Dems plans to outfit cops on horseback in riot gear to control protestors by herding them into fenced cages and also by lobbing shit bombs (you heard me).
After all, Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic primary vote, and the party, basically, abandoned her. You may not have known or remembered this, but the language, tone, and accusations were brutal, sexist, and misogynistic. The media laughed at her when she cried, decried her for showing cleavage (eek, a Prez with breasts!), and slammed her for deftly answering debate questions. Tucker Carlson said he’d cross his legs when she walked by, and Keith Olbermann said someone should take her into a back room and only the man come back out. Hillary bloggers received death threats. Her Party made her withdraw from the race although she’d won it. It was shameful. Those were just a few tidbits of many, many more horrible references. That year, 2008, I, finally, became an ardent feminist.
Harriet entered our Denver HQ like gangbusters, the media lightening rod that she was, and she knew it too. This was her/our time, and she was in her element. She lifted everyone’s spirits.
Harriet arrives at PUMA HQ in Denver, site of 2008 Democratic Presidential Convention
We then marched to the big outdoor MSNBC TV booth, where Hillary slammers Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann held court. When pressured by security to take the Hillary for President sign down and move out of the way, Harriet wouldn’t budge. She won.
Harriet’s dear friend Deborah Schutt captures Harriet on cam
Harriet was not afraid. She spoke truth to power. I met her at a PUMA gathering/party in NYC at the home of her dear friends, Liz and Deborah, when she was there with her partner, Van. Turns out, I had captured a pic of Harriet and Van before I even knew them, when we attended a Hillary rally in February 2008 at Hunter College. It was a heady time, and we were ardent!
My friends before I knew them: Hillary’s Hunter College rally–Harriet with her big hair (upper R), Van (to her L), Deborah Schutt (on phone cam), Liz Wiseman (in glasses)
After Harriet spoke out and got so much media attention, she was continually slammed by Obama supporters, who called her a racist for standing up for a woman, instead of stepping aside, “for a black man” as she put it. She well knew the history of America when suffragettes had deferred finally getting the right for women to vote, which had been imminent, in order to let black men go first–and she wasn’t having it happen again. It’s a shame that it had to be a choice–both times–and that women were relegated to last in line. Why couldn’t both be advanced?
Harriet battled cancer, but, still, she never gave up, and she worked up until a couple of weeks before she passed. I was delighted to be invited and attend her 2011 Christmas party and saw her a year ago when she hosted an Obama/Romney presidential debate party at a pub. I’d sent her my poem after Van died and when I learned Harriet had cancer, we spoke on the phone. I offered to do a healing session on her, so she could relax into her body, and, although it wasn’t her way, she began warming to the idea. “Interesting. I’ll think about it.” I knew she wouldn’t take me up on it, but I could tell, when I saw her at the debate party, that it had touched her. I thought she was getting better, but her death came suddenly, and as a shock to all.
I know you’re still raising a ruckus, Harriet. I’m honored to have known you and to have been touched by your strength and good-natured feistiness. Keep on, sister!
Heard on CNN about Obama’s strategy: if we can’t get the British, then go to Congress.
Horrendous deaths and a horrible dilemma. So much bigger regionally than a waffling president’s red line. We’re broke. People are suffering. Inhumanity abounds. There are forty-five million refugees worldwide. How could more bombing be the answer? We never talk anymore. Yoko: Imagine peace.
In a spontaneous virtual, non-violent uprising on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, U.S. women and men single-mindedly mobilized their forces to say “no” to the decision of Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to defund Planned Parenthood.
The following day, New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg pledged $250,000 in matching funds to Planned Parenthood, which also received a record $3 million donations in two days. Seeing their formerly unquestioned ubiquity in women’s health care fundraising crumble, SGK’s CEO and founder, Nancy Brinker, hit the airwaves and intertubes to explain themselves. Instead, their not so flimsily veiled agenda was exposed. She posited that PP funding was shady and under congressional investigation. Oooo. It seems that one conservative, House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Cliff Stearns, R-Florida, had launched an investigation in Congress in September 2011, and SGK’s new bylaws prohibit funding of any orgs under investigation.
On Thursday, February 2, California Rep. Loretta Sanchez alluded to SGK’s new VP Karen Handel as having a hand in this decision. Indeed, when Handel ran for Governor of Georgia, during which she was endorsed by Sara Palin, she proclaimed that if she won she would defund PP because of their abortion services. Jezebel exposed Handel’s nasty disdain in her tweet (and delete) that protesters over the SGK decision could “Cry (her) a freaking river.”
On Friday, seeing their supporters fall away, SGK did a Rick Perry “oops” impersonation and reversed their decision, saying they would make a special rule to fund PP. Meanwhile, the underbelly of SGK’s conservative agenda has been revealed to legions of donors who have run races and bought pink paraphernalia for 30 years. In late 2010, Komen also exposed their stingy side when they began to legally pursue other non-profit charities to force them to desist from using their trademarked term “for the cure” and the color pink in fundraising efforts.
The defenders of Planned Parenthood rightfully stated that women, many of whom do not have access to primary health care, use their clinics for general checkups and breast cancer screening, that they would otherwise not be able to afford.
The shallow depth that TV journalists currently swim in was also made clear, when this week Brinker claimed during multiple interviews that PP’s activities would be shown to be illegal. Reporters merely needed to ask a follow-up question of Brinker to name one or two examples in support of the accusation, but the question was not asked.
In this “modern” era, when we spend billions of dollars to fight wars to extend the US penis promote and preserve Democracy around the world, women are now equal in health under the law. Obama announced Thursday, January 19, 2012, that insurance companies will be required to cover birth control without a co-pay. BIRTH CONTROL! Can you believe it? Are we not living in the dark ages?
In their article, the Hill quotes Planned Parenthood:
Birth control is not just basic health care for women, it is an economic concern,” Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. “This common sense decision means that millions of women, who would otherwise pay $15 to $50 a month, will have access to affordable birth control, helping them save hundreds of dollars each year.
Of course, it’s the elephant in the room. We live with the unspoken irony that Viagra is covered and birth control is not. So, a man can have his turn-on paid for, yet there’s a cost for the recipient woman to not become pregnant? How does this make sense? I’ve always said this “arrangement” would be very different if men got pregnant.
It’s interesting that besides a thank you to Obama from Planned Parenthood (which I recommend you sign), the current coverage (and a good article) I found was from The Hill. Because it is a conservative blog, the comments were predominantly and extremely negative toward women being treated equally regarding reproduction.
Although this news broke last week, I didn’t want to let it go by without posting something.
Update: On Friday, January 20, the administration announced it would allow a year for religious institutions to comply. In their article, The Hill notes that Obama’s initial announcement was made after HHS Kathleen Sibelius rejected over-the-counter sales of the morning after pill, which outraged women’s reproductive rights groups.
Geraldine Ferraro died today at 75 years old. We lost her way too young. What a champion she was – especially for women. She will be missed. I miss her already. Rest in peace, Geraldine, and thank you for all your hard work and service to our country.
Addendum: Here’s a NYT video interview where Geraldine talks about her life. It’s an historical rather than a controversial piece.
——
I published this post on May 30, 2008, comprised of the video Part 1 up top and Part 2 below, under the title of Geraldine on Greta: Tells It Like It Is:
Finally, Geraldine Ferraro is back! After being race-baited by the Obama campaign for saying that a majority of Black people were voting for him, being shamed off the air, going underground, writing articles, and fielding calls from Obamabots who published her number, she speaks for the many people who called to complain about the state of this sorry Democratic Primary process. On the May 29, 2008 10pm edition of FOX News show On The Record,Greta Van Susteren interviews Ferraro who discusses Hillary’s poor treatment by what I’m afraid have now become the usual suspects. Van Susteren seems to be one of the few talk show hosts who is giving Hillary supporters a voice. Isn’t that what Obama gets in the media every single day? Here’s the video in two parts. Enjoy, take a deep breath and cheer for the dedication, stamina, and forthrightness of one of our women leaders with the courage to stand up and tell it like it is.
Here’s former Presidential VP Candidate Ferraro’s op-ed piece in the May 30, 2008 Boston Globe.
Lady Boomer NYC 
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