33 Comments
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Debra Watson's avatar

Thank you for your voice. Citizens United needs to be killed! 🤬

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

I agree! I recommend it as part of the goals of the Democratic Party in all future elections in my open letter to the Democratic Party!

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RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar

You also need Ranked Choice Voting, like Maine, supposedly, has !

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

Yes. And it sounds like we are going to need to work on fighting against the SAVE Act. It will very easily disenfranchise a woman who has been married more than once if she changed her name each time.

I know this because my name has changed many times, across many states, and getting all the paperwork for a real ID will cost me a few hundred dollars. My other option is a full US Passport, which is over $100. It becomes a kind of poll tax for women, bare minimum (poor people can also struggle with the requirements, through men still have an easier time than a woman if she allowed her name to change with marriage). 😞

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Debra Watson's avatar

Luckily, after 2 divorces, I not only retained my maiden name but never changed it with either marriage. So everything I have has the same name as my birth certificate. But I know I'm in a serious minority with that. I feel for the woman having to fight this BS just up vote. 🤬

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

Yeah. My name has been changed…. (Counting)…five times in four states!

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Debra Watson's avatar

I hear you have to have divorce papers, etc. I lost that stuff yrs ago! 😂

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

My problem, too. Ordering from out of state will be more expensive than getting a passport.

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julie elder's avatar

OH! Someone explained that to me—it seemed pretty logical.

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Kimberlyanne's avatar

I agree with your video. First we need to make sure the midterms are fair & free! DT already threatening states. We need to make sure each state board of elections isnt compromised. The SAVE act bill in senate right now can't go through. Than vote out EVERY republican in this congress when their terms are up starting in 2026.

Good to see you this evening 🙂 love that porch!

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

Yes! I am really worried about the SAVE Act. When I was still attending fundamentalist churches, they TAUGHT women should never have gotten the right to vote because they were “daughters of Eve” and incapable of rational decision making. The insistence on only passports and RealID to vote is a poll tax type attempt at disenfranchisement targeting poor voters and women specifically. Many probably figured not getting RealID was okay if they never flew anywhere, but making it a requirement to vote can make it a challenge for some of us to get the right documents to guarantee our voting rights.

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RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar

You would need a course in Psychology 101, to cast a vote, these days .

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

Because so many of the people running for office do it out of wanting power and money instead of service?

Sociopaths can be very charming.

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Vikipedia's avatar

Laughing emoji here… so true!

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RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar

Republicans are a little TOO GOOD, at being villains — they had DEMOCRATIC help, too !

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

In more ways than one, depending on which part you are discussing. Democrats kept taking the high road and fighting fair when the other side wasn’t, and also there are/have been elected Democrats who have benefited from PACs and wealthy donors as much as GOP.

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Vikipedia's avatar

This is so true! I’m done taking the high road… for now! I’m working on being a (seriously subversive) sweet, ditzy, little old lady that will not let them fuck with the future of those I love!

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RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar

I was sixty years old, when I found-out what a sociopath, was — I was slightly older than that, when I found that, if you take an empath, and overload him/her, you introduce pathological traits .

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

Interesting. I was married to someone diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder.

That said - the current president alarmed me the day he announced his first candidacy - I heard echoes of 1930s Germany day one.

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Vikipedia's avatar

Sad emoji here! I was married to a true narcissist… Girl, aren’t we a pair! I just tasted you with my cold cocktail! 💕

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RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar
RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar

What happened to your 6 July posting ?

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

I am so touched that you missed me! I have yet to get a Porch Thoughts up every day (though I hope to get better at them the more I practice), and my goal is at least five days a week minimum, but my grandkids are here and I have also been pushing through some health issues.

This one had five tries, but they were either interrupted and/or lasted longer than five minutes, and I ran out of available time before I had an attempt I could post. Between wanting to be sure I focused on grandkids (they only visit a few times a year) and doing my five-minute goal, I ran out of chances to record. 😕

I have been working on a collaborative article with another author and spent a little time on my research on amendments and a few other topics at other times during the day, but skipped recording when the grandkids were active.

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

I guess I should watch that movie?

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RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar

It’s almost prophetic .

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

There have been a lot of things that pointed to where we were headed, from different books to Dwight D Eisenhower’s warning to beware the military industrial complex. 😕

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DJ's avatar

Always good. 🙂

I recently learned and read up about the Powell Memo (not sure if it's common knowledge in the US?) It seems to have been the start of big business money in politics etc.

It also absolutely astounds me how many people in the US don't vote. Is there a physical reason for this? Or they just think their vote doesn't matter anyway?

Cos if you could harness that group...😉

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

A lot of it is because it has been “politics as usual” - you elect people and wages keep falling, benefits keep getting cut, the deficit keeps growing. One person I talked to said policy is too difficult to understand and they didn’t see how it applies to them.

Voting happens on a day when most people have to work. We are a country that encourages people to not take vacation, not take sick days, and even not take lunch breaks. With that focus on “work or get in trouble,” there is also an incentive to not vote.

Then there are the internet echo chambers, the end of the fairness doctrine, the pursuit of engagement and profit over truth by legacy media…

So many things have gotten us to this point. Rich people have argued they have no problem with charity, but it is theft to pay taxes and have the government choose how to distribute charity. Ironically, for many, it seems their charities seem directed at how to better control government (like the Heritage Foundation) to cut money for the poor and reduce the taxes of the wealthy. 🤔

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RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar

You also need decent media, and we haven’t been getting that .

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Lisa J 💜🏳️‍🌈's avatar

They have been trapped in “both sides-ism” when the other side hasn’t been playing fair.

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RANDALL BLANCHARD's avatar

… and you don’t send them a letter — you send them a postcard .

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Kimberlyanne's avatar

It's awful what the so called religious leaders are teaching. It's not religion at all. I've seen the real ID is going to be used for tracking through the US as well as passports for those who fly. Some airlines have agreed under ARC to give our info to this regime already.

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Millicent's avatar

Yes. All of this. They are public servants. Not corporations.

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