At The Nation, Joan Walsh writes—Supermajority Aims to Mobilize Women Across Race, Class, and Generation:
Most Americans are women, as are an even larger majority of American voters. But somehow we’re still a “special interest.” At otherwise outstanding CNN town halls in late April, only the female 2020 presidential candidates were asked about so-called women’s issues—even though the dozen-plus male candidates are vying for a voting population that, especially in the Democratic Party, is mostly women and disproportionately women of color.
What is going on? Women, of course, divided by race, age, class, and much more. Our power is fractured; the powers that be often work to keep it that way. Often, even promising feminist initiatives address those fractures belatedly, if at all—and then wonder why their membership rosters remain so…white. That’s how the new women’s political action group Supermajority promises to be different—and if women can unite across the lines it’s proposing, we indeed make up a supermajority in the United States, and we can chart the future.
In launching Supermajority, Ai-jen Poo, Alicia Garza and Cecile Richards, household names in the activist community, have partnered with the women behind the enormous yet underestimated Facebook phenomenon Pantsuit Nation, along with a supporting cast that includes leaders from Planned Parenthood to the Service Employees International Union to Families Belong Together, to unite us across the chasms that have historically divided us.
Specifically, Supermajority says it will mobilize 2 million women ahead of the 2020 elections while building energy around a “women’s new deal”—an agenda to meet the needs of 21st-century women, from closing the persistent pay gap to “staggering child care costs, rising maternal mortality, no family leave, and a government that continues to fail women,” the group announced in its introductory press statement. It seeks to support as well as increase the rising numbers of women running for elected office. Although women make up about 54 percent of voters, we are only 23.7 percent of Congress; that’s even after the spectacular surge of 2018. [...]
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“One of the key principles of the Outer Space Treaty is that space is the common heritage of humanity and cannot be owned by anyone—government, nation, individual or corporation. Space is very colonial: we talk of the ‘conquest’ of space, the ‘high frontier’ or the ‘final frontier’, colonising other planets, and the innate urge of human beings to explore, often without thinking about it; it’s such a strong master narrative. Instead of considering the treaty to be outdated, we might equally think of it as a radical statement of equality and justice—and one we need more than ever.”
~~Alice Gorman, Dr Space Junk vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future (2019)
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2003—Bush's $1 million 'political stunt':
Rep. Henry Waxman, one of those rare congressional Democrats with a pulse (along with Sen. Byrd), is demanding the administration account for the costs of Bush's stunt landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln. The costs reportedly top $1 million, but for me, the biggest cost of the stunt was this:
The Democrats issued a news release headed 'shameless' in large red type that cited the 'nerve required to delay the return of 4,000 sailors to their families after 10 months at sea in order to stage (a) photo-op.'
That's right—our troops, eager to see their families after a 10 month assignment, were required to spend an extra day at sea in order to accommodate Bush's campaign appearance.
The Navy's excuse? The ship made good time on its return trip and the sailors still got into port as previously scheduled, but I'm sure the sailors and their families would've loved to have seen each other a day sooner.
Too bad their needs were subjugated for Bush's reelection campaign needs.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: You could make an argument that this was really the Armando in the Morning show today. And if five Supreme Court Justices agree with you, then it is! Armando vents on oversight & impeachment, and leads an exploration of the roots of the power.