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| https://www.vox.com/2020/8/18/21373174/michelle-obama-dnc-speech-trump |
We're at an inflection point in American history, a tipping point, do or die.
I am not the first one or the only one to say so.
The occupier of the White House, our house, the People's house, lost the 2016 popular election by three million votes. He narrowly won the electoral college, squeaking out victory over Hillary Clinton by just a few votes in many precincts.
And yet, he was allowed to occupy the White House and do his damage, taking credit for a resurgence in the economy that came from eight years of the Obama administration. He proceeded to roll back every single thing the Obama administration ever did except those things he wants to take credit for, like insuring people despite pre-existing conditions in the healthcare system.
He's not just the "president" who tells the most lies in the history of our country (at least in my life time), in fact, he rarely says anything true or legitimate at all when talking in front of cameras, and when he does say things that are not clear lies or completely false, he is not saying anything of substance. He seems to possess no learned or factual knowledge about much of anything. He references things he "heard" all the time via Twitter or on Fox News but without any substantive set of facts, reasoning, or source material origins.
And he is systematically trying to destroy American democracy to consolidate his power with real dreams of being "president for life."
He must be stopped.
He's dismantling the United States Postal Service, handicapping it, in a blatant attempt to rig the election in his favor. He has said in front of cameras that by withholding the funding the USPS needs, he can prevent it from mailing millions of ballots to Americans too afraid of catching COVID-19 to go to polls that may be unmanned because the poll workers are also afraid to staff the voting precincts in the states that have not been progressive enough to create a mail-in voting system years ago, like my own state of Washington and Colorado.
Because he sees how he is losing in pre-election polls right now to the Biden-Harris campaign, he is terrified, and like any panicked and threatened bully, he is crying foul, crying out that the 2020 election will be the most rigged, fraudulent election in the history of our country. Because you see what's going to happen, right? When he loses, he will not accept the results. He will not accept the will of the people. He will cry fraud and try to stay in our house, the house he is occupying, the house he is trying to cling to as if it is his.
He must be stopped.
It seems that many supporters of his from 2016 have changed their minds. These former voters of his are disgusted and will not vote for him again. They are disgusted with his puerile Twitter attacks; disgusted with his lack of a national plan to deal with the greatest pandemic in over 100 years; disgusted with his lack of empathy and compassion for Americans who have lost jobs that they will never get back, businesses that will never re-open, promises of "the greatest economy in the history of our country" that is not there for them; disgusted that he pays hush money to actresses from pornographic films; disgusted that he tear-gassed American people to take a picture in front of a church holding a Bible he has never read nor can quote from; disgusted that he has called white supremacists "fine people"; disgusted that he has no response to the people fed up with the systemic racism that plagues our nation; and on and on.
For the duped and brainwashed, those who have bought into the lies of divisive and partisan politics, our modern civil war, those who consume the propaganda that is Fox News and other conservative wanks that peddle as much false information and lies as Trump, I hope there's a reckoning for these folks, in which they might see the occupier for the childish, narcissistic bully that he is.
He doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. He only wants money and power for himself and those who surround him and support him and benefit from being made richer by his manipulations and lies. But you, humble voter, citizen, worker, American, patriot, you are not one of those wealthy toadies being made wealthier by his control of the presidency.
You have been duped.
This wealthy child of privilege and inheritance is not your champion.
He is a racist, homophobic, hateful, wanna-be fascist who is incapable of empathy and incapable of responding to any kind of national crisis that would not benefit him directly by taking leadership of it.
It's time for change.
Request your ballot today.
https://www.usa.gov/absentee-voting
Join me the next three days for the day later recap of the DNC. It's touching all the feels.
https://www.vox.com/2020/8/17/21373104/kristin-urquiza-coronavirus-dnc-trump
“The coronavirus has made it clear that there are two Americas,” Urquiza said. “The America that Donald Trump lives in and the America that my father died in. Enough is enough. Donald Trump may not have caused the coronavirus, but his dishonesty and irresponsible actions made it so much worse.”
Kristin Urquiza, whose father, a Trump voter, died of Covid-19: “My dad was a healthy 65 year-old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.”#DemConvention pic.twitter.com/Smb4e4oSPZ— Cameron Peters (@jcameronpeters) August 18, 2020
Kristin Urquiza, a woman whose father died from Covid-19, delivered one of the most scathing indictments of America’s response to the pandemic during the first night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention on Monday, saying his only preexisting condition was “trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life.”
Her father Mark Anthony Urquiza, a 65-year-old who voted for Trump in 2016, had heeded the president’s urges to reopen the country’s economy and roll back social distancing guidelines. He went to a bar with his friends after Arizona’s stay-at-home order was lifted on May 15, making it one of the first states nationwide to reopen, and by June 11, he fell ill. Despite being put on a ventilator to help him breathe, he died from the virus only weeks later.
Urquiza said Monday that her father’s death was emblematic of the way communities of color have been disproportionately affected by the virus. According to the Covid Tracking Project, Black Americans and Latinos are dying at 2.4 times and 1.4 times the rate of white people, respectively.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/17/politics/michelle-obama-speech-transcript/index.html
Transcript: Michelle Obama's DNC speech
Read former first lady Michelle Obama's speech from the 2020 Democratic National Convention, as prepared for delivery:
Good evening, everyone. It's a hard time, and everyone's feeling it in different ways. And I know a lot of folks are reluctant to tune into a political convention right now or to politics in general. Believe me, I get that. But I am here tonight because I love this country with all my heart, and it pains me to see so many people hurting.
I've met so many of you. I've heard your stories. And through you, I have seen this country's promise. And thanks to so many who came before me, thanks to their toil and sweat and blood, I've been able to live that promise myself.
That's the story of America. All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much in their own times because they wanted something more, something better for their kids.
There's a lot of beauty in that story. There's a lot of pain in it, too, a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do. And who we choose as our president in this election will determine whether or not we honor that struggle and chip away at that injustice and keep alive the very possibility of finishing that work.
I am one of a handful of people living today who have seen firsthand the immense weight and awesome power of the presidency. And let me once again tell you this: the job is hard. It requires clear-headed judgment, a mastery of complex and competing issues, a devotion to facts and history, a moral compass, and an ability to listen—and an abiding belief that each of the 330,000,000 lives in this country has meaning and worth.
A president's words have the power to move markets. They can start wars or broker peace. They can summon our better angels or awaken our worst instincts. You simply cannot fake your way through this job.
As I've said before, being president doesn't change who you are; it reveals who you are. Well, a presidential election can reveal who we are, too. And four years ago, too many people chose to believe that their votes didn't matter. Maybe they were fed up. Maybe they thought the outcome wouldn't be close. Maybe the barriers felt too steep. Whatever the reason, in the end, those choices sent someone to the Oval Office who lost the national popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 votes.
In one of the states that determined the outcome, the winning margin averaged out to just two votes per precinct—two votes. And we've all been living with the consequences.
When my husband left office with Joe Biden at his side, we had a record-breaking stretch of job creation. We'd secured the right to health care for 20,000,000 people. We were respected around the world, rallying our allies to confront climate change. And our leaders had worked hand-in-hand with scientists to help prevent an Ebola outbreak from becoming a global pandemic.
Four years later, the state of this nation is very different. More than 150,000 people have died, and our economy is in shambles because of a virus that this president downplayed for too long. It has left millions of people jobless. Too many have lost their health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple with whether and how to open our schools safely. Internationally, we've turned our back, not just on agreements forged by my husband, but on alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower.
And here at home, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a never-ending list of innocent people of color continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a Black life matters is still met with derision from the nation's highest office.
Because whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy.
Empathy: that's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. The ability to walk in someone else's shoes; the recognition that someone else's experience has value, too. Most of us practice this without a second thought. If we see someone suffering or struggling, we don't stand in judgment. We reach out because, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." It is not a hard concept to grasp. It's what we teach our children.
And like so many of you, Barack and I have tried our best to instill in our girls a strong moral foundation to carry forward the values that our parents and grandparents poured into us. But right now, kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another. They're looking around wondering if we've been lying to them this whole time about who we are and what we truly value.
They see people shouting in grocery stores, unwilling to wear a mask to keep us all safe. They see people calling the police on folks minding their own business just because of the color of their skin. They see an entitlement that says only certain people belong here, that greed is good, and winning is everything because as long as you come out on top, it doesn't matter what happens to everyone else. And they see what happens when that lack of empathy is ginned up into outright disdain.
They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protestors for a photo-op.
Sadly, this is the America that is on display for the next generation. A nation that's underperforming not simply on matters of policy but on matters of character. And that's not just disappointing; it's downright infuriating, because I know the goodness and the grace that is out there in households and neighborhoods all across this nation.
And I know that regardless of our race, age, religion, or politics, when we close out the noise and the fear and truly open our hearts, we know that what's going on in this country is just not right. This is not who we want to be.
So what do we do now? What's our strategy? Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me, "When others are going so low, does going high still really work?" My answer: going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that's drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.
But let's be clear: going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we've got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences.
And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold hard truth.
So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.
Now, I understand that my message won't be heard by some people. We live in a nation that is deeply divided, and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention. But enough of you know me by now. You know that I tell you exactly what I'm feeling. You know I hate politics. But you also know that I care about this nation. You know how much I care about all of our children.
So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: if you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don't make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.
I know Joe. He is a profoundly decent man, guided by faith. He was a terrific vice president. He knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic, and lead our country. And he listens. He will tell the truth and trust science. He will make smart plans and manage a good team. And he will govern as someone who's lived a life that the rest of us can recognize.
When he was a kid, Joe's father lost his job. When he was a young senator, Joe lost his wife and his baby daughter. And when he was vice president, he lost his beloved son. So Joe knows the anguish of sitting at a table with an empty chair, which is why he gives his time so freely to grieving parents. Joe knows what it's like to struggle, which is why he gives his personal phone number to kids overcoming a stutter of their own.
His life is a testament to getting back up, and he is going to channel that same grit and passion to pick us all up, to help us heal and guide us forward.
Now, Joe is not perfect. And he'd be the first to tell you that. But there is no perfect candidate, no perfect president. And his ability to learn and grow—we find in that the kind of humility and maturity that so many of us yearn for right now. Because Joe Biden has served this nation his entire life without ever losing sight of who he is; but more than that, he has never lost sight of who we are, all of us.
Joe Biden wants all of our kids to go to a good school, see a doctor when they're sick, live on a healthy planet. And he's got plans to make all of that happen. Joe Biden wants all of our kids, no matter what they look like, to be able to walk out the door without worrying about being harassed or arrested or killed. He wants all of our kids to be able to go to a movie or a math class without being afraid of getting shot. He wants all our kids to grow up with leaders who won't just serve themselves and their wealthy peers but will provide a safety net for people facing hard times.
And if we want a chance to pursue any of these goals, any of these most basic requirements for a functioning society, we have to vote for Joe Biden in numbers that cannot be ignored. Because right now, folks who know they cannot win fair and square at the ballot box are doing everything they can to stop us from voting. They're closing down polling places in minority neighborhoods. They're purging voter rolls. They're sending people out to intimidate voters, and they're lying about the security of our ballots. These tactics are not new.
But this is not the time to withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning. We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012. We've got to show up with the same level of passion and hope for Joe Biden. We've got to vote early, in person if we can. We've got to request our mail-in ballots right now, tonight, and send them back immediately and follow-up to make sure they're received. And then, make sure our friends and families do the same.
We have got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too, because we've got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to.
Look, we have already sacrificed so much this year. So many of you are already going that extra mile. Even when you're exhausted, you're mustering up unimaginable courage to put on those scrubs and give our loved ones a fighting chance. Even when you're anxious, you're delivering those packages, stocking those shelves, and doing all that essential work so that all of us can keep moving forward.
Even when it all feels so overwhelming, working parents are somehow piecing it all together without child care. Teachers are getting creative so that our kids can still learn and grow. Our young people are desperately fighting to pursue their dreams.
And when the horrors of systemic racism shook our country and our consciences, millions of Americans of every age, every background rose up to march for each other, crying out for justice and progress.
This is who we still are: compassionate, resilient, decent people whose fortunes are bound up with one another. And it is well past time for our leaders to once again reflect our truth.
So, it is up to us to add our voices and our votes to the course of history, echoing heroes like John Lewis who said, "When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something." That is the truest form of empathy: not just feeling, but doing; not just for ourselves or our kids, but for everyone, for all our kids.
THE YEAR IN NUMBER: 2009
For so many years I thought I was born in the year of the Tiger, but since I was born January 19th, I did not take into account Chinese New Year. Actually, I was born in the year of the Ox.
It's worth noting that this single pivotal important year of my life -- 2009 -- is also the year of the Ox.
Very little else that happened in 2009 is worth noting. I got married. It's the single most import event in my life other than my birth, which is hard to beat as without it I would not exist.
I thank the universe every day that now, eleven years later, I am still married to the most amazing woman I have ever known.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #454 - To my Wife, Happy Anniversary - Musical Monday 1610.03
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1320 - Ninth Wedding Anniversary
My new step kids - Piper and Ivan
Halloween 2009
February 2009
FRIENDS WERE THERE
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/2009.html
What Events Happened In 2009
United States - Hubble Telescope Repair
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2008.18 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1873 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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