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With Roe v Wade overturned by the US supreme court and American women now living in a nation where our most fundamental rights are dependent on the state in which we reside, a lot of us are looking around and asking, how did we get here?

There is much blame to go around, and the bulk of it rests on the shoulders of the right-wing anti-abortion movement that sprung out of the white supremacist movement that fought to maintain Jim Crow and school segregation. The racist, misogynist Religious Right gained tremendous power within the Republican party; the Republican party proved itself willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get their way; and as a result, Americans are now living in an undemocratic nation of reactionary minority rule.

But the Democratic party hasnt done enough to help itself, its supporters, and women more broadly.

There are a great many points where Democrats could have kept the country on the rails. Chief among them is in the aftermath of the 2000 election, when Al Gore won the popular vote, but the supreme court, along partisan lines, installed George W Bush as president. If the reverse had happened if our arcane Electoral College system had put a Democratic loser in office over a Republican who won more votes rest assured that the Republican party would have gotten rid of that undemocratic institution as soon as it had the chance.

Democrats, though, did nothing even though one person, one vote is likely how most Americans believe our system works, and is an easy advocacy line. When Obama took office, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. In the states, Democrats controlled more legislatures than Republicans did; more states had a Democratic trifecta (Democratic governors plus both state legislative bodies) than a Republican one. There was a brief moment here to get a lot done in the name of both democracy and womens rights: get rid of the undemocratic Electoral College; codify Roe; rescind the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal Medicaid dollars from funding abortions for poor women, and the Helms Amendment, which bars US funding from paying for abortions for women overseas. Advocates asked the Obama administration to do all of that; they did none.

If there is one moment that portended all of what were seeing today, it was Bush v. Gore in 2001. Democrats had a chance to correct it. They had a base that was livid about what had happened, and a country primed to accept a one person, one vote rule for elections. And despite a huge win in 2008, they did absolutely nothing to prevent such an undemocratic result from happening again.

Two years after Obamas big win, Republicans swept the midterms in what remains one of the most significant shifts in American political power in the last century. It wasnt just standard Republican candidates who won it was Tea Party enthusiasts, right-wing extremists, conspiracy nuts, hardcore misogynists and unrepentant racists, all of whom set the state for Trumps rise and his eventual party takeover. Once in power, they focused on restricting abortion rights, passing hundreds of laws and imposing a smorgasbord of new restrictions.

They have controlled both chambers of the legislature in more than half of US states ever since.

Once in power, Republicans focused on keeping themselves there, democracy be damned. They scaled up efforts to restrict voting rights, carefully calibrating their laws to decrease Democratic turnout that is, to make it harder for people of color to vote. They used whatever power they had to deliver for their constituents not stuff like healthcare or poverty alleviation that people might actually need, but the culture war stuff that satisfied a punitive desire to screw over perceived enemies.

Democrats, on the other hand, made endless compromises.

When supreme court justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, Barack Obama was still the president, and he had the right to appoint a judge to fill Scalias seat. The Republican Party, though, had control of the Senate and blocked him, claiming that, because it was an election year, the American people had the right to pick the president who would pick the next Supreme Court judge. They did not apply this same rule to themselves just four years later, when Trump was in the same position he appointed Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And while some Democrats complained, they certainly did not play hardball; Sen. Dianne Feinstein even applauded Barretts speedy and illegitimate confirmation hearings.

And Donald Trump, of course, lost the popular vote; millions more American voted for Hillary Clinton. But, thanks to an Electoral College system kept in place despite its long-apparent flaws, the majority lost in 2016. We all know what happened next.

In early May, a draft of the supreme court opinion to overturn Roe leaked to the press. It was a shock, but not a total surprise supreme court watchers and reproductive rights advocates had been warning that this particular court was ready and willing to overturn Roe, and that they might use the Dobbs case to do it.

But even with that heads up, the day the Dobbs opinion was published, Democrats seemed to be caught flat-footed. Democrats offered poems and made fundraising pleas. They asked us to vote even though we did, in huge numbers, in 2016 and 2018 and 2020; even though three million more Americans voted for the Democratic nominee in 2016 than the Republican one.

Only a small handful of Democrats, led most notably by Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, suggested anything even remotely resembling an innovative response. And even they seemed to be coming up with it on the fly.

The unfortunate reality is that there is no immediate perfect solution for the problem at hand. The supreme court has struck down basic rights for women, giving conservative states enormous control over womens bodies. Even a federal law codifying Roe is vulnerable to Republican takeover, and tricky to pass given the current make-up of Congress and the fact that the slim Democratic majority in the senate includes conservative Democrats Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema.

But that doesnt mean there is nothing Democrats can do. Joe Biden, for example, could make securing abortion rights for as many women as possible his number-one priority; he could rescind federal amendments that limit abortion access; he could give permission for clinics to open on federal lands; he could go to the mat for medication abortion availability; he could be clear that he will expand the court and end the filibuster.

Instead, hes setting off on a national tour to remind Americans that they think hes to blame for inflation.

Voting for Democrats matters. One problem that Democrats are currently facing is that they simply dont have enough of a majority to get done what their base wants, and they have two feckless narcissists with Ds next their names who are hampering the partys agenda. The midterms matter; more Democrats in office means more opportunities to pass laws that protect women and human rights more generally.

But that doesnt mean Democrats powerless now, or that they have any right to pin the blame on voters. At the very least, Democrats should take a look at what has happened since 2001, and recognize the situation for the emergency that it is. Most of the conservative judges on the court most of the judges who just overturned Roe v. Wade were appointed by presidents who initially lost the popular vote but took office anyway. This has happened twice in just 20 years.

Abortion rights and democracy go hand in a hand. A nation is not democratic if half of its population do not have basic rights, let alone equal rights. As the US faces a series of crises of democracy, from an attempted coup to a hostile takeover by a reactionary minority to an unprecedented rollback of civil rights, there is a straight line that runs from Bush v Gore to Dobbs v Jackson Womens Health.

Democrats cant fix the past. But the least they can do is learn from it and change course accordingly.

Read more:
Why were Democrats caught flat-footed by the end of Roe v Wade? - The Guardian

NHS Charities Together is urging people to take part in the biggest NHS Big Tea ever on 5 July 2022 to mark the NHS turning 74.

Led by NHS Charities Together, the NHS Big Tea aims to bring the nation together to celebrate the birthday of the NHS, while raising funds to provide extra support for staff, patients and volunteers.

NHS Charities Together is the national charity partner of the NHS and an umbrella organisation made up of over 230 NHS member charities based in hospitals, mental health trusts, ambulance trusts, community health trusts and health boards across the UK.

Last years NHS Big Tea raised funds to support over 600 projects across the UK. This years efforts will support 1.5 million NHS staff and volunteers, with a collective fundraising target of over 775,000.

Ellie Orton, chief executive at NHS Charities Together, said: The NHS can't face every challenge alone, and the network of NHS charities is proud to have funded hundreds of incredible projects supporting staff, patients and communities. Taking place on the NHS birthday, the NHS Big Tea allows us all to come together and say an enormous thank you to our incredible health service and its staff especially after all theyve been through these last two years and the ongoing challenges they continue to face.

So, were asking the nation to pop the kettle on, grab the biscuits and raise vital funds to help the NHS go further this July.

Morrisons is the headline sponsor of the fundraising campaign again this year, having been supporting NHS Charities Together since 2020 by raising funds through its colleagues, customers and suppliers.

PG tips is also an official sponsor of the event and will be donating 5p per pack of Original 160 Tea Bags sold in Morrison stores and online.

Those hosting a tea party will receive a welcome pack after signing up, including posters, invitations, bunting and fundraising ideas. Hosts will also get their own NHS Big Tea fundraising page to collect donations online. Participants are encouraged to share their celebrations with the hashtag #NHSBigTea.

Read the original:
As the NHS turns 74, it launches its 'biggest NHS Big Tea ever' to raise funds - PMLiVE

OAN has long been a hotbed for election related conspiracy theories, extending far beyond recruiting extremist election workers. During the summer of 2021, Bobb used her platform on OAN to promote the sham audit of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. She founded a non-profit called Voices & Votes that donated over $600,000 to the effort. During that same period, OAN promoted MyPillow CEO Mike Lindells cyber symposium more than 150 times, and aired over 30 hours of the event live. Bannon has also been giving publicity and support to this recruitment plan starting February 2021, when he partnered with Dan Schultz, a former tea party activist, to encourage infiltration of low-level positions in the Republican Party apparatus to take over election administration.

In the immediate aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, Schultz started appearing on Bannons show in February 2021 to promote his precinct plan to take over the Republican Party through grassroots organizing. This plan, galvanized by the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump by Democrat-favoring election workers and machines, quickly spread through far-right and QAnon-supporting online spaces and was hailed as The Best Kept Secret to Taking over the Republican (GOP) Party. And at the end of February, Trump endorsed the plan as a way to take back our great Country from the ground up.

In September 2021, ProPublica showed that the call to action is working, with a team of reporters writing that they contacted GOP leaders in 65 key counties, and 41 reported an unusual increase in signups since Bannons campaign began. At least 8,500 new Republican precinct officers (or equivalent lowest-level officials) joined those county parties. We also looked at equivalent Democratic posts and found no similar surge.

More recently, Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who worked to overturn the 2020 election with unsubstantiated accusations and debunked claims, appeared on War Room in May and June to advocate for the Election Integrity Network, a conservative coalition that hosts training events for those interested in becoming election workers and surveilling for election fraud. She claimed that for more than a decade, the left has been infiltrating our election offices. They have subverted the election process.

Many precinct plan advocates claim that poll watchers are biased toward Democrats and that Republicans must balance that out in order to make sure elections are secure. However, since the overwhelming uptick in election worker signups appears to be a result of election denial on War Room and in other far-right spaces, it is clear that what is presented as a bipartisan effort toward fairness is being advertised on right-wing media as a key method to not lose America.

As The New York Times points out, of concern is the [Election Integrity Networks] intent to research the backgrounds of local and state officials to determine whether each is a friend or foe of the movement. Many officials already feel under attack by those who falsely contend that the 2020 election was stolen. Election workers like Moss and Freeman may continue to suffer conspiracy theory-fueled harassment thanks to the plans proposed methods.

Politico revealed that in a Michigan-based training, grassroots activists and Republican Party operatives called for actions that could quickly become bigoted harassment, telling recruits they could contest voters if they have good reason to believe that an individual is not a citizen, that an individual is not of legal voting age. If an individual does not live at the location that theyre registered at, or if the person is not registered at all. They were also told they should stand behind voter registration tables to oversee the electronic poll book to make sure the person that is coming in to vote is who they say they are.

The danger lies not only in low-level local poll worker roles, but also in state-level political positions. As midterm primaries roll through, the GOP is pushing Trump-backed election deniers such as Arizonas Mark Finchem, Nevadas Jim Marchant, New Mexicos Audrey Trujillo, and Michigans Kristina Karamo for secretary of state, where they could have the power and the support to overturn their states results.

Read more from the original source:
Right-wing media want to replace seasoned election workers with conspiracy theorists and extremists - Media Matters for America

From 2018 through 2026, the great harbinger of change, Uranus, blasts through the sign most resistant to it, Taurus. Though this transit will occupy the better part of a decade, with retrogrades and dips into other signs, 2022 brings us to a precarious cliff on the event horizon of fate, with this years eclipses going down in Taurus. In real time, a volcano of repressed animus erupts, in the Taurean domains of sensuality, embodiment, and autonomy.

On July 31 and August 1, Uranus collides with Mars and the north node, and from September 15October 23, Uranus comes close to a square, or confrontation, with Saturn in Aquarius. Weve arrived at a jagged crossroads in the Taurean epic. Heres how Uranus in Taurus will reshape your world beyond 2022.

For eons, our solar system was thought to be made of seven planets, with Saturn at the very end of the line. That all changed with the discovery of Uranus in 1781, a breakthrough in technology and consciousness that would forever alter our accepted notions of the cosmos. According to astrologer Ruby McCollister, the arrival of Uranus brought the flourishing of science, technology, philosophy, literature, music, social opportunities and, in virtually every aspect of human life, exploded Western civilization toward liberation, freedom, and choice.

Uranus, then, is associated with change, revolution, youth movements, and new technologies. Its domain, of course, could be nowhere else but Aquarius. This all sounds perfectly promising in theory, but, in the words of Magneto, mankind has always feared what it does not understand. And so, as in the myth of Prometheus delivering fire to the people, Uranian progress often catalyzes swift retribution from the old gods and their institutions. Through chaos comes reinvention, but who wouldnt struggle to hold on to the world they knew?

For the sign that declares mi casa es mi casa, Uranus arrives like the big bad wolf to blow the house down. Anyone with prominent planets in Taurus will experience some mythic ego dissolution and surrender over this transit, as the planet of global progress rips off the straightjacket of myopia and willful obtuseness. But Taurus is also the sign of value, worth and money; of fertility and sexual embodiment; and of the healthy (or, as is often the case, megalomaniacal) cultivation of an ego. The body and the land, and their interconnected freedoms, are up for reinvention, revolution, and, of course, backlash.

Uranuss last Taurus transit, from 19351942, coincided with the Great Depression and WWII, an age of dramatic scarcity and unprecedented power which uprooted Taurean themes in science, culture, and diplomacy. By the time Uranus made its mid-century transit, unsustainable farming practices had led to the dust bowl famine, a climate crisis which displaced millions. The Indian Rights Act and Social Security Act were first steps towards restitution and dignity towards all the countrys inhabitants.

The outbreak of WWII delivered a new type of woman, embodied by the brassy, Artemisian Taurus Katherine Hepburn and the scathing Bette Davis, and glamorized through the creation of some of modern cultures most enduring characters: Lois Lane, Catwoman, and Wonder Woman. Unbound and unbossed, this new generation served a higher ethos than domestic bliss, blasting open a new and varied pantheon of archetypes.

Of course, Taurus is the sign of autonomy, explaining its high probability among divas and dictators. The last Uranian tour saw the rise of some of the 20th centurys definitive autocrats, including Mussolini and Hitler. As the Taurus Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on Japan, so the human race would fail its Taurean calling of regenerating a fertile earth and instead answer to the destroyer, waiting to rise from the Scorpionic underworld. Our gift of choice the bulls crown jewel had been abused. If one man could command nuclear power, then any person could be capable of godhood. Kingdoms fell, states were redrawn, and in the dissociative haze of mass consumption emerged something novel and intractable, craving unprecedented freedom: the individual.

As Uranus approaches the north node, the cycles of expansion and regression, progress and backlash, come into faster revolution. The discourse around the current climate crisis has narrowed in on the bulls trenchant gluttony, entitlement and inability to change. Can we collectively achieve a Taurean impossibility: convincing human beings to compromise their entitlement for the greater good? Of course, for standards of human decency to improve, so that, say, our meat doesnt have to be processed by underpaid, uninsured workers with no rights, Uranus will force Taurus to part with its creature comforts, and to question the consequences of a gentrified standard of living.

No discussion of Taurean themes would be complete without considering cold, hard cash, which, over this transit, undergoes a literal metamorphosis. Even if NFTs and crypto prove to be fads, the value of money will never be the same. Nor will previous assumptions around work and compensation. In the limited support people received from their leaded officials and employers during lockdown; the rise of digital entrepreneurship, self-merchandising, and self-published erotica through sites like OnlyFans; and in the growing public disinterest to return to office culture, Uranus has made individuals question why theyve settled for the abuses of corporate life and capitalist labor, what their talents are worth, and how they believe they should be compensated.

Meanwhile, femininity and womanhood have undergone a rapid metamorphosis through the filters of capitalism and consumption. Posting a pic, finna make me a profit, raps Megan Thee Stallion, one of the breakout stars of the era, in "Thot Sh*t. Megan may be the archangel of Uranus in Taurus, arriving, like Prometheus, to deliver a new fire to the masses: an unrestrained, insatiable embrace of pleasure, power, beauty, and capital. Seduction has always been a cash game; now everyones in on it.

Of course, as it blasts forward to progress, Uranus uncovers buried, atavistic resistance to change. The defamation trial against the Taurus Amber Heard, which raged during a Taurus stellium and the launch of the Taurus-Scorpio eclipse cycle, revealed the threat of a woman who doesnt hew to the dominant standards of clean, uncomplicated morality. For depicting the complex reality of relationships and the ways that love, power, and abuse cannot be easily disentangled, Heard, like so many Taurus women before her, would be locked away in the dungeon of the Minotaur, bound as a bull sacrifice on the altar of virtue. .

The empire has struck back. But Taurus answers to a more ancient authority, unimpressed by the construction of pretty pyramids and systems of rulership. Real power, imbued into all bodies and expressed through the becoming of self and the creation of another, cannot be limited, literalized and compromised. So much for free will, Liz Greene writes, in The Astrology of Fate. It exists, for the Platonist, only in the non-corporeal. The body, brimming with passion and the seeds of mortality, is full of fate. What fate will our bodies lead us to next?

The core tenet of liberalism is that society is moving towards progress, a vision furthered by Aquarius. At stake under the legislation of so many deflated old dudes on the senate floor is the primal power of creation and the divine gift of becoming; what if, after all, the ancient, volcanic ore of the earth, and of its inhabitants, cant be reconciled with a civil society at all? Taurus the avatar of the crescent moon, fallopian tubes and pre-Judeo-Christian pagans holds the fertility traditions of ages past, and as the state falls, so erupts a primeval, Dionysian rebellion of the body.

The Taurean promise of freedom is at stake, and conspiracy theorists, mass shooters and capital rioters have already made their warped case for it. Perhaps the rest of us, bound to the breast of the state, are missing the point. Prometheus delivered the fire of revolution to all humankind. 2021s GameStop coup went down during a Uranus-Saturn square, and the Staten Island unionization against Amazon, however precarious and embattled, marked new possibilities for rebellion in a corpocracy. Previous Uranus in Taurus eras brought on the French Revolution, Boston Tea Party, and Indian revolts against the British. No more hoping for change from inside the system. Its time to build a better one.

And it all begins with the individual. Over the past decade, the body has been exploited in the development of the personal brand, making each of us a unit of trade and consumption, in a rat race for followers and corporate funding. Perhaps that same spirit of self-embodiment, which makes each of us a vessel of the cinematic, erotic and fantastic, which has immortalized legendary Taurus divas like Cher, Grace Jones and Barbra Streisand, can be weaponized, or, at least, fully realized. What if the public personality each of us inhabits begins to live, in the eyes of its followers, not a life of meaningless consumption or even worse virtue signaling, but incandescent creative fulfillment and authentic transgression?

On the eve of the Uranus-Mars-north node collision, Beyonce drops her album Renaissance and the Taurus Lena Dunham releases her new film Sharp Stick. As the centurys most indelible feminist archetypes have demonstrated, every action of creation can shake the world, start a discourse, and make you a god or an antichrist. Your body is a vessel of the rapture, and in the age of surveillance, its always being watched. Show them something they wont forget.

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Original post:
Uranus In Taurus & The Battle For Embodiment - NYLON

Kathy King Johnson| Cheboygan Opera House

The last column about the Johnston Family in World War II requires a correction. I said that three Johnston brothers returned safely from WWII, but actually only two brothers, Howard and Bob, went to war.

The third sibling was Fayes sister, Lorraine Johnston Hamilton. Lorraine was an Army nurse and a lieutenant, while Howard and Bob were sergeants. Because she was an officer, Lorraine was not allowed to fraternize with her brothers while they were stationed in Europe.

Through a series of correspondences with their mother at home, the three somehow arranged to meet in England before coming home for good. Now living in Traverse City, Lorraine, 101 years old, is reading these articles and deserves great thanks for her service.

In 1944, most eligible men were in the Army, forcing many women to join the workforce. Even the children were asked to help. Faye and thousands of other students across America, were doing their part to help the war effort by collecting milk weed pods. The milk weed silk was extracted and used as flotation material for life jackets. As a class assignment, children were asked to fill mesh onion bags with milk weed pods. Two bags provided enough filling for one life jacket.

According to The Monarch Joint Venture,Over 12 MILLION pounds of milkweed pods were collected and sent by trainloads to Petosky, Michigan, for processing.

No one gave a thought to the Monarch butterfly, Johnston said.

Cheboygan volunteers also stood guard at the Opera House, one of the tallest buildings in town. Armed with binoculars they stood at the third-floor windows and watched for enemy planes. If any suspicious plane was sighted, they were to alert a liaison at the Airport.

Cheboygans first public hospital was built in 1942. When the war ended and the soldiers came home in 1945, the baby boom began all over America. As a junior in high school, Faye left her position as a housekeeper to Mrs. Duncan. She took a job as a candy striper at the hospital. Most of her work was in the maternity ward. We may not have known much about birthing babies, but we learned fast, Johnston said. It was really busy. That same year, Faye had a part in the junior class play. She saw the Opera House for the first time.

It was nothing like it is now, not as well kept, no pretty carpet or fancy seats. But I was just a girl and not paying much attention to the architecture or details. It was a very special place and it was really a great opportunity for the school classes to be in there. And so began Fayes lifelong love of the Cheboygan Opera House.

In 1946, Faye, a senior, met Sophia Fultz, Grandma Shy. Fultzs letters to her grandson spoke of her passion for the Cheboygan Opera House, where she first visited in 1900. Faye was 17 or 18 and Fultz was 53 years old.

Fultz decided that the girls in the senior class, many of whom were farm girls, needed more culture. She invited the senior girls to a tea party at her house. The girls were to dress up and were told to wear white gloves.

No one in the Johnston family had white gloves and it took awhile to find a pair that Faye could borrow. She arrived at the tea party in her nicest dress and white gloves with Delores Peasch Petersen and Anne Tromble. Fultz served tea in her finest china and nice linen. She entertained the girls, playing the piano for them. The Fultz home where Sophia gave piano recitals, hosted bridge club and held fancy teas still stands at the corner of Locust and Bailey.

Senior year, Faye had a larger part in the class play at the Opera House, Grandpa Hangs the Holly about a mean-spirited old grandfather who was not happy at Christmas. Vic Leonall played the grandfather. He was always class president, Faye said. Faye played the spirit of his departed wife who returned to change his mind. She wore a long white dress and got to kiss Vic Leonall, but only on the forehead, because of his makeup.

Faye made another appearance on the Opera House stage when she graduated in June 1946. In 1944, most of the 12th-graders joined the service and the class was very small. But by 1946, the graduating class was very large again. It was a hot and muggy day, made worse when the rains started. The Opera House did not have air conditioning.

Seated at the top of the balcony, 83 seniors baked, wearing wool caps and gowns. To cool down, high school students often went to Lakeland Ice Cream on Main Street, with its soda fountain and dairy bar, where The Hive now stands.

During the winter months, one of the biggest forms of entertainment for the young people was the ice rink. The city closed the entire city block where West Side Elementary stands now and turned it into a skating rink. There she met her husband Jim. Faye got busy having babies and running a business, later to become Johnstons Marina.

She still went to events in the Opera House and one that stood out in her mind was a cooking class given by the I.G.A grocery store in the summer of 1949. They learned to plan meals and shared recipes but this event was made memorable when one lucky participant won an electric range.

Over the years, Faye attended countless events at the Opera House. She watched her children and grandchildren perform on the stage. Some of her favorite shows are when the U.S. military bands come to town. For Faye, the Cheboygan Opera House will always be a very special place.

Kathy King Johnson is former executive director of the Cheboygan Opera House.

Link:
History of the Opera House: Post-war Cheboygan and the Opera House through the eyes of Faye Johnston - Cheboygan Daily Tribune