#StandWithPP: Domestic Terrorism is Domestic Terrorism ~ Even when Perpetuated Against Women...

"These doors stay open. Sending love and support to the staff and patients of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. We're standing with you."

You can share on Twitter here

Courtesy of Planned Parenthood's Action Facebook Page here one of many responses to the domestic terrorist act on Planned Parenthood in Colorado.

I want to keep this simple and I believe the headline and the meme leading into this 

informational/working blog makes the point quite pointedly, shall we say, so I'm going to keep what I have to say very brief and I am going to simply:

ONE

Share one of my simple philosophies: Re Roe v Wade: MYOB! (Mind your own business.)

TWO

Share one of my simple mantras: Elections have consequences -- constitutionally and otherwise. The #WarOnWomen is not a joke. Vote!

THREE

Share one of my simple calls to action: Speak up! Make those who are committing anti-U.S.-government actions via domestic terrorism the real minority in this country.

Moving on, clearly the ability to stand up takes various forms, dependent on various circumstances, but find a way because, seriously, it is almost too late.

You can begin today by simply sharing some of the information and/or memes found here with a simple retweet.

And you can expand on that by simply sharing material found on favorite social media platforms is created and/or posted by people you trust to make accuracy in their work a priority!

TY ~ for doing something!

I think it is important to define the terms, so to continue in the spirit of keeping it simple, I am going to first define the term terrorism (briefly!). I am also going to share a bit of immediate reaction, for informational and sharing purposes; I am going to leave a few of my favorite memes for retweeting; and I am going to leave a piece on Roe v Wade and a link to a page to get anyone started who would like more reading material.

A simple but powerful post, courtesy of fellow digital activist Laura Davila! She is a great activist to follow on Twitter and you can find her here 

Knowing who to read while an attack is active can be difficult to figure out, so my rule of thumb is usually: Watch. Listen. Give them a few days for the facts to filter out. But in this case I read two pieces as the attack was still happening and I'd like to share them because they both handled immediate reaction in such a responsible way their work can be a role model for all of us!

The first piece:

“White Gunman Opens Fire On Planned Parenthood: Still Scared Of Muslims? (VIDEO)

By Elisabeth Parker

...And even if the shooter turns out not to be what we think he is, GOP lawmakers carry much of the blame for the lax gun safety laws that forces us to live in a constant state of mass shootings and terror. ...”

You can read the piece in it's entirety here

You can share on Twitter here

The second piece:

"Motives behind the Colorado Springs murders? If we have to ask—let's start with Fox and Limbaugh

By Leslie Salzillo

...The motives are still unknown, but those of us who have witnessed the vicious, misleading, and contemptable right wing propaganda and media attacks against the healthcare center— we have a pretty good idea. … “

You can read the piece in its entirety here

You can share on Twitter here

Memes:

You can share on Twitter here

Courtesy of Point Counter Point 

You can share on Twitter here

Courtesy of The Marmel Page

Who also said:

“Is it still:

"Gunman" not "Terrorist."

"Mass Shooting" not "Terror Attack."

"Disturbed" not "Radicalized"

Then it's being reported wrong.”

Which you can share on Twitter here

You can share on Twitter here

Courtesy of We Are Woman

Roe v Waged informational:

Excerpted from Roe v. Wade - Then and Now

Justice Ginsberg authored a dissent joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer, in which she wrote: "Today's decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously…And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman’s health."

Ginsburg’s words are, to say the least, an ominous sign for Roe's future. Without Roe, life for American women would be thrown more than 30 years in reverse, returning them to the days when women could not fully control the number and spacing of their children. Without the ability to make this key decision, women will be denied opportunities to realize their future and take advantage of educational and career opportunities.

The world is looking to the U.S. to establish a vision of justice for the 21st century. It is not a time for our political leaders to divide this nation by turning the clock back on women's human rights.

The excerpted link here

The page link here

Finally, you can show your support for Planned Parenthood by changing your Facebook and or Twitter photo:

The link to do it is here

G., aka Partisan Democrat

( Please follow me at http://gkmtnblogs.blogspot.com/

where you can sign up for an e-mail notification when GKMTNblogs posts! )

Frankly Speaking: Mid-Week Grievance ~ Still Talking About How We Could Have, Should Have, Would Have Won (in 2000) if Only This, That or Something Else...

I can not remember when I was not a Democrat activist.  But, I've not always been an official member of the Democratic Party. I went through what I call my "I believe in magic" years as a registered Independent and when I finally registered as a Democrat (following the landslide win of Ronald Reagan) and became "officially" involved in the local and state committee party infrastructure I struggled for a many years with long-time Democrats five to 10 years older than me who were completely stuck in what I call the "If only JFK hadn't been assassinated" years. 

I'm a worker bee and there was no moving forward in as big a way as I thought we needed to as long as the leadership was stuck, so I walked away from Democratic "officialdom" and freelanced my Democratic advocacy (pre-social media! Ugh!!!).

 I am a card carrying Democratic National Committee Democrat today but with the traveling I do I remain, technically speaking, more of a freelance digital Democratic activist than a campaign office one (post-social media! Yeah!!!)

I say all of that because I am sensitive to hearing Democrats who are stuck in the "how we should have won in 2000 ~ but, but, but," years and I am of the mind that we must recognize that if we lose it is more likely that we lose because of lack of voters and not because of a stolen state or, and this is a big one, an accomplice in the form of a Supreme Court.

So, let's just think about this:

Heads up: This is not a scientific study. Not even close. (In fact, if you are a numbers person you might even want to cover your eyes!) It's merely a big picture look at some of the numbers that say something to me, that make the point that we need to be thinking about:

 getting voters to the polls in 2016 and thereafter and not about what might have been.

Al Gore lost to George W. Bush by 5 electoral votes. 

Looking at the numbers, 19M votes were unaccounted for. Just checking one state that went to Bush with 21 electoral votes – Ohio – we can see that Gore lost that state by only 165,019 votes. Is it possible that some of those 19M people who didn't vote live in Ohio? Is it possible they could have pulled a win off for him? For us?

I think so.

We need to remember every single day that in the environment in which we live today, particularly with the addition of GOP led redistricting and GOP led voter suppressing identification laws, we need overwhelming numbers to go to the polls if we are to overcome!

We need to focus!

#

G., aka Partisan Democrat

( Please follow me at http://gkmtnblogs.blogspot.com/

where you can sign up for an e-mail notification when GKMTNblogs posts! )

Frankly Speaking: Mid-Week Grievance ~ Democrats, We Have to Fuc*king Vote!

No one, especially me, is a perfect citizen.

In fact, I will confess here and now that I have missed a vote or two in my lifetime when I missed the date to request my absentee ballot, for example! Fortunately for me, I've never done it at a time when my vote would have been the deciding factor. But it could have been and I know that and I have vowed to never let it happen again … unless I'm unconscious, of course.

Having said that, I suspect not every single one of the millions of eligible voters who have not voted falls into the once-in-a-while I screw up category and I just think we can do better. In fact, we have to do better or our system of government is going be lost to us – and it will be because we have voluntarily surrendered it.

I know. It sounds so dramatic!

But it has been and it continues to be my observation that conservatives have been fighting against the principles of our Constitution since the pre-ratification debate and they have never stopped fighting.

They hate our system for a lot of reasons but primarily because it is based on The Common Good ~ just listen to them speak ~ and they no longer hide it from the rest of us!

(I suspect that is on the top of the to-do-list of the new Speaker of the House ~ to persuade the newer GOP members to keep their political truth to themselves as well as to mimic the Democrats political truth with the promise that they just might win the White House in 2016 if they can just mind! It is a strategy that has served them well!)

If we do not want to lose our way of life, we have to focus on winning and in my experience that translates into supporting Democrats who are most likely to win.

Having said that, I am linking a great piece that provides a glimpse at potential GOP Senate weaknesses in the 2016 Election that just might allow Democrats to take the Senate back because I do believe that if we become better strategists, as opposed to dreamers, we most certainly can win!:

Landscape Shifts:Democrats Could Take Control Of Senate by David Lightman, published in the National Memo.

There’s another pivotal election next year besides the White House. The Senate is up for grabs, and the landscape a year out suggests the Democrats could win control away from the Republicans. … 

Oh. One more thing, just a quick look at the some of the early numbers I've seen in relation to the GOP governorship win in Kentucky yesterday:

Matt Bevin: 511,771

Democrat: 426,964

Eligible voters: 3.2M

Voter turnout: 30.7%

Watch Kentucky. I'm afraid we are going to see a bit of what the GOP dismantling of our system will look look like very soon.

#

G., aka Partisan Democrat

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We Can Not "Make the Right Choices & Meet the Challenges That Face Us" Without Accurate Information & Each of Us is Responsible for Determining Truth

Normally, in this space at this time I would be highlighting monthly Democratic accomplishments for reminding and for sharing but as I am quite delightfully watching friends of Hillary Clinton, primarily in the form of Correct the Record, Hillary Men, The Briefing and rank and file supporters, across social media platforms stand up and talk back to a Hillary biased media, in turn informing the electorate, I decided it would be more productive for the advancement of my candidate to the 2016 Democratic Nomination for President to share some of my favorite sources and if they are not on your list of favorite sources you can add them! (You should feel free to share yours, as well...)

No lectures. No pontificating. Just a nudge: Do your own homework. Go to the source whenever possible. Make your decisions based on facts. And, if you are an activist, campaigning for a candidate (or an issue), commit to perpetuating truth to the best of your ability and not GOP lies and/or media divination.

Then, perhaps, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges that face us.

In my own daily work as a Democrat and as freelance volunteer working for the election of Hillary Clinton, my personal effort is to inform media personnel  so they might, if they choose  to so so, do their jobs and inform the electorate of the truth of our future President's Democratic policies. I primarily do that via Twitter.

I go to the source and and I listen and I read and I interpret for myself because even the best of efforts being made reporting today are mixed with advocacy, commentary and entertainment minus context and it is just not working.

 I always encourage: Trust and Google it! 

My suggested list of sources is as follows:

* Directly POTUS:

The White House Website (A great site to explore what can be available at the source that may never makes it into the main stream. Blog. Statements. Daily Press Briefing. Live speeches. Video. Etc. Every public official won't be as sophisticated but every public official should provide information that is available at it's source and not filtered by a third party.)

Start here

Then click on the Briefing room to begin to explore.

* Directly Hillary:

Hillary Clinton Website here

Correct The Record here

Hillary Men here

A couple of great journalists/commentators on the politics of women's issues/campaigns:

Michelle Goldberg here 

Irin Carmon here

A few great bloggers on current campaigns/issues: 

Robert Creamer/Huffington Post (political organizer/strategist) here

Joe Cirincione (Iran deal -- plus) here

Steve Benen (producer/writes for Maddow Blog) here

A few good/well informed reporters
whose facts are good more often than not but -- always beware Hillary pique and compulsion to divine:

Lynn Sweet. (D.C. Bureau Chief for Chicago Sun-Times) here

Anne Gearan (National politics correspondent for the Washington Post on the Hillary campaign trail) here

Amanda Terkel (Senior Political Reporter and Politics Managing Editor at the Huffington Post) here

Maggie Haberland (NYT First Draft. Beware, formerly of leans right Politico but very well connected. Also on the Hillary campaign trail) here 

Sam Stein. (Senior Politics Editor. Huffington Post) here

Kurt Eichenwald (Contributing editor to Vanity Fair. He seems to only step into something when it is big enough to draw him in now but he's got a great reputation with me) here 

A few good general “news” commentators/Columnists:

Joan Walsh (Columnist. National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation) here

Susan page (USA Today Washington Bureau Chief) here

Joe Conason (Editor-in-Chief National Memo) here

Connie Schultz (National Syndicated Columnist. Generalized.) here

Alex Wagner (Formerly of MSNBC Now With Alex. Generalized) here

Joy Reid (Formerly of  MSNBC The Reid Show. Generalized with a grasp of Stand Your Ground/Black Lives Matter, etc.) here 

Ari Melber (Formerly of MSNBC The CYCLE. Brings the law to bear constitutionally) here 

Ari Berman (A contributing writer to Nation Magazine/Voter suppression specialty) here

A couple of good /foreign affairs military commentators:

Mikey Kay here

Steve Clemons here

Print:

Because I go to the source more than I do not, reading print is fairly random. I will check articles from: Political and The Hill –

even though they lean right -- as they are pretty good at having the current D.C. Pulse …

And, of course, I check a whole lot of stuff posted across social media, as well as specific newsletters I subscribe to, etc.

As is my habit here, Take the Best and Leave the Rest!

G., aka Partisan Democrat

( Please follow me at http://gkmtnblogs.blogspot.com/

where you can sign up for an e-mail notification when GKMTNblogs posts! )

“Women’s issues are family issues, economic issues, and crucial to our future competitiveness” ~ Hillary Clinton

^^^ Democratic president candidate Hillary Clinton points to the crowd before she speak at a “Women For Hillary” meeting in Milwaukee Wisconsin September 10, 2015. (Photo courtesy of Reuters.)

Who: Hillary Clinton

What: If women (and those who love them!) support women/family issues, she (we) will win! Historically, though, millions of women, particularly single women, do not vote and women have got to vote to get it done. It starts here with standing up and being counted.

What: Join Women For Hillary !

When: Now! Do not wait, it's important for her to know you've got her back.

Where: Here !

Why: I can only speak for me ~ Primarily, because “It Takes A Village,” i.e. The Common Good, and she knows that.

(You should feel free to leave a comment and to share why you think women and those who love them should be joining Women For Hillary Today. In fact, that would be great!)

How: Get informed !

Correct the Record

Hillary Men 

The Briefing 

And check out voter information early !

A little bit about Hillary :

Hillary grew up in a middle class home in Park Ridge, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Her dad, Hugh, was a World War II Navy veteran and a small business man with a drapery business that designed, printed, and sold his draperies. Hillary, her mom, and her two brothers helped out in the business whenever they could. Hugh was a rock-ribbed Republican, a pay-as-you-go kind of guy who worked hard and wasted nothing.

Hillary’s mother, Dorothy, had a tough childhood. She was abandoned by her parents as a young child and shipped off to live with relatives who didn’t want her. By age 14, Dorothy knew the only way she’d get by was to support herself, and she started working as a housekeeper and babysitter while she went through high school. Her mother’s experience sparked in Hillary a lifelong commitment to championing the needs of children.

Her own childhood was very different. Her parents built a stable middle class life. Hillary attended public schools and was a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She played in a girls' softball league. She was raised a Methodist and her mom taught Sunday school. Her youth minister took Hillary to see Martin Luther King, Jr. speak in Chicago and helped her develop a lifelong passion for social justice.

Hillary graduated from Wellesley College and then went to Yale Law School, where she was one of just 27 women in her graduating class. Hillary met her husband Bill at law school.

After law school, Hillary chose not to go to a big New York or Washington law firm. Instead, she went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund, going door to door in New Bedford, Massachusetts, gathering stories about the lack of schooling for children with disabilities, which contributed to the passage of historic legislation to require their education.

It’s this commitment to public service and fighting for others—especially children and families—that she’s carried all her life.

After serving as a lawyer for the Congressional Committee investigating President Nixon, she moved to Arkansas where she taught law and ran legal clinics representing poor people. She co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, one of the state’s first child advocacy groups. And on October 11, 1975, she married Bill in a small ceremony in Fayetteville, Arkansas. As First Lady of Arkansas, she was a forceful champion for improving educational standards and health care access. And she and Bill started their own family when their daughter, Chelsea, was born in 1980.

Bill was first elected president in 1992 and re-elected in 1996. As First Lady, Hillary tenaciously led the fight to reform our health care system so that all our families have access to the care they need at affordable prices. When the insurance companies and other special interests defeated that effort, Hillary didn’t give up. She worked with Republicans and Democrats to help create the successful Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health coverage to more than 8 million children and has helped cut the uninsured rate for children in half.

In 1995, despite being told by some officials not to go, Hillary led the U.S. delegation to Beijing to attend the UN Fourth World Conference on Women and gave a groundbreaking speech, declaring that “human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all”—inspiring women worldwide and helping to galvanize a global movement for women’s rights and opportunities.

In 2000, Hillary was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first woman senator from New York. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Hillary pushed the Bush administration to secure $20 billion to rebuild New York and fought to provide health care for first responders who were contaminated at Ground Zero. She repeatedly worked across the aisle to get things done, including working alongside Republicans to expand TRICARE so that members of the Reserves and National Guard and their families could get better access to health care.

When Congress wouldn't do enough for rural areas and small towns, Hillary didn’t back down. She launched an innovative partnership in New York with eBay and local colleges to provide small businesses with tech support, microloans and training programs to sell their goods online. She helped expand broadband to remote areas of the state. And she launched Farm-to-Fork, to help New York farmers and producers sell their products to New York’s restaurants, schools, colleges and universities.

In 2008, Hillary ran for president. When she came up short, she told her supporters, "Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it."

And when President Obama asked Hillary to serve as his secretary of state, she put aside their hard-fought campaign and answered the call to public service once again. After eight years of Bush foreign policy, Hillary was instrumental in starting to restore America’s standing in the world. Even former Republican Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said she “ran the State Department in the most effective way that I’ve ever seen.”

She built a coalition for tough new sanctions against Iran that brought them to the negotiating table and she brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that ended a war and protected Israel’s security. She was a forceful champion for human rights, internet freedom, and rights and opportunities for women and girls, LGBT people and young people all around the globe.

In 2014, Hillary took on a new role—grandmother to Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky—and she couldn’t be prouder or happier. 

^^^ The Personal IS Political and Hillary knows that

"Women’s issues are family issues, economic issues, and crucial to our future competitiveness :

Too often, these are called women’s issues. Well, I am a proud lifelong fighter for women’s issues, because I firmly believe what’s good for women is good for America. … As far as I’m concerned, any issue that affects women’s lives and futures is a women’s issue.”

HILLARY CLINTON, SEPTEMBER 5, 2015

America has taken tremendous strides when it comes to expanding opportunity for women—but our fight is far from over. Women still earn less than men on the job. Many women still face barriers to entering and advancing in the workforce, and the ability of women to make their own health decisions is under assault. Hillary believes that issues that affect women’s lives are not just “women’s issues”—they are family issues, they are economic issues, and they are crucial to our future competitiveness. She has been fighting for women and girls her entire career, and she’s just getting started. … 

A quick look at Hillary's Issues Page confirms the personal is political :

Take 40 minutes and 27 seconds and listen to Celinda Lake speak about issues and voting in the context of voters :

(It's from 2012 but it is fascinating. Trust me!)

^^^ ( You can find profile information on Lake here )

And for those who would like to go deeper because we always can :

You can find Hillary's campaign page here

G., aka Partisan Democrat

 

( Please follow me at http://gkmtnblogs.blogspot.com/

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First of the Month Favorite Hillary Clinton Posts ~ Shareable and Sometimes Actionable Depending...

^^^ NOT a revolution ...

FYI: This is a working Blog! because Democrats always need to work at messaging Democratic Truths...

But nobody needs truth messaging more than Hillary Clinton – who is not being honestly described by many, including but not limited to opposition and talking heads, as the long-time progressive Democrat she is, in my humble opinion of course, making Hillary the focus of my recurring First of the Month Favorite Posts Blog!

Please use the direct links provided and share and/or to take action when and where appropriate.

Take the Best; Leave the Rest. But push the truth!

For your own information, my personal habit is to share directly from Hillary's social media platforms and and other favored sites, as well, to save favorites on my Desktop for later sharing. I create a Hillary memes folder and drop them into the folder and when I have a block of about 15 minutes of time I share them all directly from that folder to my preferred social medium platforms.

( * Today I am providing direct Facebook links on which you can click and share with your friends. To share on Facebook, Google +, etc. you’ll have to do the annoying thing and download and save and re-post...)

^^^ “Hillary is the leader we need to help us reclaim the promise of public education … “ Randy Weingarten AFT President 

You can share on Facebook here

Courtesy of HRC MEME Warehouse Community

^^^ “...The time to help is when it's needed most, and we intend to do just that.” Tom Buffenbarger IAM union President

You can share on Facebook here

Courtesy of HRC MEME Warehouse Community

^^^ Just some of the facts that have been learned from Hillary's e-mails...

You can share on Facebook here

Courtesy of Correct The Record

^^^ “I'm not running my campaign for the press. I'm running it for the voters."

You can share on Facebook here

Courtesy of a Sebastiano Grasso post.

^^^ I agree!

You can share on Facebook here 

Courtesy of a Joe Colarusso post.

A bit of a factual Hillary e-mail timeline.

You can share on Facebook here

Courtesy of a Patricia Williams post.

^^^ An action you can take now! Follow Hillary on Facebook! Check in! Like and Comment and let her know you are out here for her!

You can Like her Page here 

^^^ An action you can take now! Sign on because: “When we join together, we can't be beat. Say you're on team Women for Hillary.”

You can sign on here

You can share on Facebook here

^^^ An action you can take this week! Register Democrat and/or change your party affiliation to Democrat!

 More information on how to make that happen at Smart Voter!!!

P.S.

Just so Democrats, new and old, do not get caught uninformed in the Democratic debates/debate, let me leave you with the DNC charter and by-laws and a bit on the organizational structure because we do have a system with a process.

G., aka Partisan Democrat

 

( Please follow me at http://gkmtnblogs.blogspot.com/

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