#Shelby County Health Department

[beardedmrbean]

More details have emerged about the suspect who fatally shot a Tennessee surgeon inside of an exam room where the doctor worked. 

Larry Pickens, 29, was charged with first degree murder and aggravated assault for allegedly shooting and killing Dr. Benjamin Mauck, the Collierville Police Department said in a statement on Wednesday. He was arraigned on Thursday morning at the Collierville Municipal Court and is being held on a $1.2 million dollar bond, according to online jail records. 

Police believe that Pickens was a long-term patient of the Campbell Clinic, and Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane told CBS News "he had visited multiple sites" within the network. It was a one-on-one targeted attack, Lane said. 

CBS affiliate WREG-TV reported that a nurse told police that Pickens allegedly pulled a gun from his waistband and fired three shots. The nurse said she recognized Pickens from previous visits to the clinic. 

The Collierville Police Department said they do not have any prior reports regarding Pickens but are checking other agencies. 

Police have not released a motive in the case, but WREG reported that Pickens had previous run-ins with law enforcement. In one case he told police "he had mental health issues," and "was diagnosed with schizophrenia and had been off his medication."

The suspect had reportedly been at the clinic for several hours before the shooting, Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane said, and investigators are currently interviewing staff at other clinics. The orthopedic clinic system, founded in 1909, has nine locations and two ambulatory sites, with 90 doctors, the website says. A statement from the clinic said they "are shocked and heartbroken" by the death of Dr. Mauck.

Pickens was apprehended outside the clinic five minutes after the shooting.

"We were able to take him into custody without any further delay," Lane said. He said the 911 call came in at 2:03 p.m. in the afternoon, and the first officer arrived at the scene at 2:06, and the suspect was in custody a few minutes later. 

Collierville is in Shelby County just outside of Memphis. 

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

"On the next and all new Real Talk Memphis; My guests include Dr. Michelle Taylor, Director, Shelby County Health department. She joins me to discuss a few top of mind issues like the high incidence of HIV in our community and that gun violence is now a public health emergency. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office has its own set of challenges, one in particular, having enough officers to handle law enforcement efforts in the jail and on the streets. Chief Deputy Anthony Buckner joins me to talk about it. The new superintendent of education, Dr. Marie Feagins has set a challenging course and the MSCS school board is in charge of overseeing the process. Outgoing member Kevin Woods joins me to share his thoughts and hopes for the future. That and more both on air and online Monday, 6-7 pm on WYXR 91.7 FM. Also, WYXR.org, TuneIn, Facebook Live, YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts! It's time to talk!"

[stevensaus]

Tennessee GOP Apparently Willing To Sacrifice Millions Of Taxpayer Dollars, Citizen's Health To Spite Planned Parenthood

Tennessee Republicans have turned down approximately $8 million dollars in annual federal grant money for HIV prevention -- apparently because the lives of Tennessee citizens are less important to Republican lawmakers than punishing Planned Parenthood. The federal grant money was not for just Planned Parenthood. The grant money primarily went to local Tennessee HIV prevention efforts. As the Times Free Press wrote: One of those grants allocates between $5.9 million and $6.5 million annually to Tennessee and was distributed to organizations such as Cempa, according to a CDC outline of grant recipients. The other was launched under the Trump administration and allocated roughly $2.1 million annually to Shelby County, a hot spot for new HIV infections. -- Times Free Press The problem also was NOT because of what Planned Parenthood was doing with the funding in Tennessee. They were distributing free condoms and providing HIV testing as part of a HIV prevention program. It's simply because Planned Parenthood has advocated for abortion access, and Tennessee Republicans were unable to kick Planned Parenthood out of the HIV prevention program for having a position on a different healthcare issue. As the AP put it: Planned Parenthood has partnered with Tennessee’s Department of Health to provide HIV testing since 2008, when Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen was in office. Four years later, under then Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, the health agency attempted to remove Planned Parenthood from the program -- a move that was ultimately challenged in court. A district court later found that the department had targeted Planned Parenthood “based upon their First Amendment activity for advocating abortion” and issued a permanent injunction preventing the state from dissolving any partnership with the organization because of their abortion care advocacy. That injunction is still in place. -- AP So now that the elections are over, the Tennessee GOP has decided to act like a spoiled petulant child and refuse those federal funds entirely. While Tennessee officials are hinting that those funds will be replaced by the state... During his walkthrough for his second term inauguration outside the Capitol on Friday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was asked about the decision to forgo CDC funds for HIV. "We think we can do that better than the strings attached with the federal dollars," he said. He did not say where the resources for the state to take over the services would come from. -- Times Free Press. (emphasis mine) ... that would mean that state taxpayers have to pay a second time with state funds for services their federal tax dollars could -- and should -- have already paid for. But even saying that the state will pick up the tab is not a sure bet, as the governor's priorities are out of line with what would actually be effective in preventing HIV's spread: Gov. Lee said last week some nonprofit organizations will receive money from the state to provide HIV services, but he also said those will target human trafficking, first responders, and pregnant women, which aren’t considered the most likely groups to get HIV. -- Tennessee Lookout Aside from the literal cost to Tennessee taxpayers for having to pay extra for services their tax dollars already paid for, there's a very real and additional cost in lives. According to the CDC, there are over 20,000 people living with HIV in the state, and 14% of Tennesseans with HIV are unaware of their status. But these Republicans are willing to waste taxpayer dollars and sacrifice the lives of their citizens as collateral damage just so they can punish Planned Parenthood for its politics. Keep that in mind as you read about the over 200 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills that Republicans have introduced this year -- because Republicans have made it clear what they value, and they clearly do not care how many of their constituents end up being collateral damage.

Additional bonus back-of-the-cereal-box "game" for you: See if you can match the headline with whether the source is a national one or a publication based out of Tennessee! HINT: It's different than all the others. - Health commissioner declines to answer reporters’ questions on HIV funds - Tennessee Health Officials Forgo Federal Funding For HIV Program With Ties To Planned Parenthood - Tennessee set to end HIV grant that funds Chattanooga nonprofit programs - New TN health chief stands by HIV funding decision, doesn't take questions from lawmakers - Tennessee lawmakers look for motive in HIV funding shift Draw your own conclusions about that.

Featured Image from Flickr user EnsignBeedrill under a CC-BY-ND-NC license. Read the full article

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

On Tuesday, Representative Terri Sewell (D-AL) introduced H.R. 4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021. In 1965, a bipartisan majority in Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to protect the right to vote in America. That law was reauthorized on a bipartisan basis as recently as 2006.

But in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a vital piece of the Voting Rights Act, the piece requiring that the Department of Justice approve proposed changes in election rules in states with a history of racial discrimination before they went into effect. Immediately, states began to restrict access to the ballot. Then in July 2021, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the Supreme Court decided that rules that impacted different populations unequally were not unfair. This decision opened the door wide to different forms of voter suppression.

What is at stake is that the Republican Party has become so extreme it can win elections only by rigging the system. When the 2020 election showed that Democrats could overcome even that year’s voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the outsized weight of rural states in the Electoral College, 18 Republican-dominated states passed 30 new, extreme voter suppression laws and, in Georgia, cleared the way for partisan appointees to replace nonpartisan election officials.

If Republican operatives can cement their control over those states despite the will of the voters, they can control the government—likely including the presidency—from their minority position.

The outrageousness of this reality has been hitting home in the last month as states dominated by Republican governors in the mold of former president Donald Trump are opposing vaccine requirements and mask mandates even as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus burns across the country. Areas where Trump is popular have a much smaller proportion of their population vaccinated than areas dominated by Democrats, mapping a deadly virus along political lines. And those deadly lines are affecting children.

Governors in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah have all banned mask mandates in schools, despite the safety recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Florida is experiencing its highest levels of infection in the course of the pandemic, and Texas governor Greg Abbott, who himself has had a breakthrough case of Covid-19, has requested 2500 healthcare workers from out of state, but both states continue to oppose mask or vaccine mandates. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to withhold funds from schools that require masks. Abbott has threatened those who require masks with fines. Rather than encourage the use of masks and promote the free, effective vaccine, Florida and Texas officials have instead opened clinics to provide treatment with monoclonal antibodies for those suffering from the effects of Covid-19.

Republican rejection of masks and vaccines in the midst of a pandemic means that the politicians who are demanding the exposure of their citizens—including children, who are not yet eligible for vaccination—to a deadly virus are quite demonstrably members of the party that is trying to skew the machinery of our government in their favor. And, also quite demonstrably, they do not represent the majority of Americans, who do, in fact, favor vaccines and mask mandates. An Axios/Ipsos poll from two days ago shows that 69% of Americans would like to see mask mandates in public places.

It doesn’t take a poll to see that public opinion has turned against the anti-maskers.

Yesterday, the board of the largest school district in Florida and the fourth largest in the country, Miami-Dade County, voted 7–1 in favor of a mask mandate, in defiance of DeSantis's executive order preventing schools from mandating masks in order to "protect parents' freedom to choose whether their children wear masks." Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho had vowed to follow the science of the issue. "For the consequences associated with doing the right thing, whatever that right thing is, I will wear proudly as a badge of honor," he said.

Businesses, too, are lining up behind vaccinations. Amtrak, Microsoft, BlackRock, Delta, Facebook, Google, United Airlines, and Walmart have all announced vaccine mandates, and Uber Eats cut ties with former NFL player Jay Cutler over his anti-mask tweets. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Business Roundtable, generally aligned with the right wing, are all requiring that anyone entering their offices show proof of vaccination.

Yesterday, Biden directed the Education Department to “use all available tools” to aid local governments trying to work around governors like DeSantis and Abbott. "We're not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators protecting our children," he said.

Some of the same groups who oppose masks and are attacking their pro-masking neighbors were among those who attacked the country on January 6. In Missouri today, where the death rate from Covid-19 is among the worst in the country, Alabama-based anti-vaxxer Christopher Key told workers at a Walmart pharmacy that they “could be executed” for administering vaccines, a street level violence that mirrors that of the Capitol insurrection. That overlap highlights the growing extremism of the current Republican Party.

How extreme the party has become was made clear today when a fervent Trump supporter who called for the removal of all Democrats from office, 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry of Grover, North Carolina, threatened to bomb the Capitol. He live-streamed his prospective attack from his truck, reciting a litany of complaints that echoed the right-wing news media. While antigovernment radicals have been a part of our national landscape since 1861, what made this particular attacker stand out was that Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) appeared to defend him.

“I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society,” Brooks stated. “The way to stop Socialism’s march is for patriotic Americans to fight back in the 2022 and 2024 elections…. Bluntly stated, America’s future is at risk.” Brooks also spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally before the January 6 insurrection.

In the midst of a growing insurgency of a minority that is illustrating its willingness to sacrifice our children on the altar of ideology, stopping those extremists from manipulating the machinery of elections to seize control of the country has become imperative. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is an attempt to restore a level playing field. It expands federal voting protections to all 50 states, providing oversight of any state or local government that has had repeated election violations. It would also stop more subtle voter suppression rules, as well as stopping courts from changing election rules that disfranchise voters during an election—all methods of shifting an election that tend to suppress minority votes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi greeted the introduction of H.R. 4 enthusiastically, noting that “Democrats are fighting back against an anti-democratic tide, protecting access to the ballot box for every American.” Sewell added a defense of federal protection of the right to vote in the face of state attempts to take away that right: “Today, old battles have become new again as we face the most pernicious assault on the right to vote in generations,” said Sewell. “It’s clear: federal oversight is urgently needed.”

The House will take up the bill when it returns from break on August 23, but the fate of the bill will likely be determined in the Senate, where, so far, only one Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is likely to support it. The bill will die there unless Senate Democrats agree to a carve out that enables them to pass it without facing a filibuster, which would enable the Republicans to kill it.

—-

Notes:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/sic-transit-12

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/us/florida-desantis-executive-order-school-masks-first-legal-challenge-constitutionality/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/us/florida-miami-dade-schools-masks/index.html

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jay-cutler-cut-uber-eats-ads-over-anti-mask-views-n1276922

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2021/8/18/22629304/supreme-court-voting-rights-john-lewis-act-nancy-pelosi-terri-sewell-brnovich-shelby-county

https://www.democracydocket.com/2021/08/georgia-republicans-take-first-step-in-takeover-of-fulton-county-elections/

https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-mandates-masks-vaccinations-f0f105a7-3c2e-4953-aac9-f25516128b11.html

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/19/unvaccinated-terror-proud-boys-push-the-anti-vaccination-movement-into-a-violent-threat/

​​https://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/08/19/1029282381/teachers-in-washington-state-must-get-vaccinated-or-they-could-be-fired

https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/81721

https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-missouri-death-rates-937e6e1c17ee7a3eeff4be9c409f92a1

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/19/walmart-christopher-key-anti-vaccine/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[bknightwrites]

As Shawnee Mission School District Reopens, Parents Fear Safety

It is now seven months into the COVID-19 pandemic in Kansas. Cases have been steadily going up in the state and in an increasingly abnormal world, schools are making an attempt to open amidst the growing threat of COVID-19.

In recent years, our schools have become fortresses in an effort to guard against active shooters. But will student masks really protect students, and their loved ones, from the pandemic?

While the district is working hard to reassure parents they are capable of opening their schools and handling the ongoing threat, parents are apprehensive about sending their children into an enclosed building with hundreds of other students.

Critics of the decision by the Shawnee Mission School District to open believe officials remain ill-prepared to handle populated classrooms.

“SMSD schools are basically hosting COVID parties like the mother of GenXers used to host chickenpox parties.” said one parent.

Similar feelings have been echoed throughout the district as parents are looking to SMSD for guidance and leadership.

Brandon Worf, the Overland Park parent of an elementary school student, echoed the concern.

“I feel like the administration of SMSD, in particular, has basically decided to sacrifice the faculty and staff of the schools in order to satisfy the lunatic demands of suburban white parents that are too selfish to take public health into consideration,” he said.

Two days after the school year started, SMSD announced that elementary schools will be transitioning to hybrid learning for two weeks.

Parents were notified they had less than a week to choose a school plan for their kids.

Parents were given the ability to choose between a remote learning option where students would spend the entire semester at home or an in-person model where students would either be in school full time, part of the time, or not at all depending on the JCDHE gating criteria.

Instead of committing for the semester as originally planned by the district, parents were informed they were going to have to commit for the whole year.

It didn’t take long for some to voice their displeasure

“My family agonized over remote on in-person, ultimately choosing remote because we knew we could switch at semester,” said Megan Langford, a Lenexa resident. “Now you’re taking away that option on Day 2?”

The board says they are following the “gating criteria” set forth by the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment sometimes, but are also deciding “according to the operational capacity to handle students” Dr. Fulton, SMSD’s superintendent said, in their September 9th meeting.

With contradicting statements and a lack of transparency, parents searching for leadership now wonder about what is going on with the school board.

“I hear when they make a decision, but it’s not entirely clear to me why or how they make those decisions,” said Chris Atkins, a Johnson County resident that has both of his children studying remotely.

On October 27th, SMSD released COVID data for the district. According to the data, 141 students and staff are in “active isolation” and 152 individuals are in “active quarantine”.

“It’s stupid,” said Atkins. “School buildings should be closed. Kids should be working remotely.”

Shelby Rebeck, Director of Health Services for the Shawnee Mission School District, has been the point person working with JCDHE on safely handling the school reopening. She says SMSD schools have a mask mandate for students and staff except for when eating and drinking.

“People are masking appropriately.” Shelby Rebeck assured. “As long as masks are worn appropriately we do not have to quarantine.”

Masking is only one part of SMSD’s plan to help curb the spread of COVID-19. The district is also directing students and staff to socially distance, refrain from touching their faces, and regularly wash hands throughout the school day.

But it appears there are some mixed messages.

“You can be three feet apart,” Rebeck said. “As long as masks are being worn, then you don’t have to be full six feet”

This concerns SMSD parent Worf.

“As far as I am aware… masks are theoretically being worn except for lunch or when getting a drink,” Worf said. “They’re supposed to be enforcing social distancing during recess, but they’re not. They’re kids, so it’s basically impossible.”

JCDHE just announced on November 3rd that Johnson County has officially moved to a “red zone” indicating the virus is dangerously on the rise with 375 new cases per 100k people.  The department has recommended that the district move to remote-only classes.

[dipulb3]

Selma marcher sees history repeat with new challenges to voting

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/selma-marcher-sees-history-repeat-with-new-challenges-to-voting/

Selma marcher sees history repeat with new challenges to voting

“It was horrible,” Bland recalls now. “There was this one lady, I don’t know if the horse ran over her or if she fell, but all these years later, I can still hear the sound of her head hitting that pavement.”

The march — known as Bloody Sunday — so shocked the nation that it helped mobilize Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. That landmark legislation finally dismantled the Jim Crow-era laws that relied on obscure civics tests, discriminatory poll taxes and violence to deny full citizenship to all Americans.

But today, 55 years later, Bland feels as though she’s re-living parts of the past as she surveys a country riven by racial tension, where Black men and women die too often at the hands of police, and in which states press ahead with purging voters from their rolls and enforcing strict voter identification laws — even as a once-in-a-century pandemic stalks their citizens.

“Sometimes I wake up and I think we are paralleling the 60s all over again,” Bland said in an interview from her home in Selma, where she leads tours of the city’s civil rights landmarks. “The laws that they passed to prevent African Americans from voting were insurmountable, and states could make up their own rules. That’s pretty much where this is going now.”

History repeated

Once again, Alabama is among the states at the forefront of the battles over voting.

A cluster of voting-rights groups has sued the Secretary of State John Merrill and other election officials over requirements that voters casting ballots by mail must make a copy of their photo identification and sign their ballots in front of two witnesses or a notary public. The groups also want the state to allow curbside voting.

Forcing voters to meet those requirements and have contact with other people in the middle of a pandemic, puts Alabamians who potentially face serious health consequences from the coronavirus at greater risk, said Caren Short, a senior staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the groups suing over the restrictions.

Although African Americans make up only about 27% of Alabama’s population, they have accounted for nearly 40% of confirmed Covid-19 deaths in the state, according to the state’s Department of Public Health.

Short credits Alabama officials with moving to expand voting by mail because of the pandemic, but she said that’s not good enough.

“Alabama is the birthplace of the civil rights movement, and it’s the birthplace of the voting rights movement,” she said. “It really should be the state where officials are making it as simple and as easy a process as possible for citizens to vote.”

Merrill told Appradab the voter ID and witness requirements are enshrined in state law and can’t be suspended. “We don’t have the ability to set aside state law because we’re not interested in it or because we don’t think it’s appropriate at this time,” he said.

He said his overarching goal as secretary of state is to “make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

A supreme fight

The skirmish is just the latest legal battle in Alabama over voting rules.

The most consequential for the state and the nation came in 2013 when the Supreme Court sided with Shelby County, Alabama, in a challenge to federal oversight in places with a history of discrimination.

The Shelby ruling defanged the Voting Rights Act by tossing out the portion of the law that determined which states needed approval from the US Department of Justice or a federal court before they could make changes to their voting procedures and laws.

Before the ruling, those blanket rules meant states needed prior permission to make changes, big and small, to their voting practices — ranging from moving a polling place to redrawing electoral districts or changing the date of an election.

The case centered on a local redistricting plan from Shelby County, but the 5-4 decision reverberated across the nation, especially in the nine states and parts of six others that required so-called pre-clearance of voting changes.

Within hours of the high court’s decision, Texas — one of the states subject to pre-clearance — announced voter identification rules would take effect in the state. Alabama and other states, including Mississippi, began to enforce strict voter ID laws. Other states have enacted new restrictions, such as signature match laws that require a voter’s signature on an absentee ballot to match their signature on voting rolls.

Post-Shelby, it’s now up to the Justice Department, individuals and groups to pursue court challenges of voting laws they view as discriminatory. Rick Hasen, an expert on election law at the University of California, Irvine, and a Appradab contributor, said the Obama administration filed “litigation where they could.”

But the Trump administration’s record protecting voting rights has been “abysmal,” he said. “I can’t think of a single thing that the Trump administration has done, coming out of the Justice Department, to help minority voters.”

In Alabama, Merrill, who helped write his state’s voter ID law while serving in the state legislature, disputes that Alabama laws have made it harder for any Black voters to cast their ballots in the state.

Voter registration has soared during his tenure, he said, with 96% of eligible African American residents registered to vote, compared to 91% of White Alabamians. He said the state works to make sure every qualified voter has photo identification.

In Georgia, a potential presidential battleground state this year, battles have raged over the state’s aggressive removal of voters from registration rolls. Voting rights groups have accused the state of improperly purging legitimate voters; state officials say they are engaged in routine list maintenance.

Bland, now 67, has followed the raft of new laws from Selma — a city she returned to in 1989 after stints in the US Army and time living in Florida and New York.

“Purging the rolls, closing down polls in rural communities, requiring an exact signature,” she said ticking off the changes she’s seen across the country. “But we’re not going to let them discourage us. We’ll follow their rules until we can change them.”

Young freedom fighter

Bland was exposed to voting rights fights at a young age.

Her mother died in childbirth when Bland was just three, and her grandmother, Sylvia Johnson, moved back to her native Alabama from Detroit to help care for the family, Bland said.

Bland said her grandmother was shocked by how little had changed. Barriers to voting still included poll taxes and literacy tests, that among other things, required would-be voters to read aloud parts of the Alabama state Constitution, know the exact size of Washington, DC, as spelled out in the US Constitution (10 square miles) and which of the original 13 states had the largest representation in the first Congress (Virginia).

The answers were “impossible to know unless you were a civics genius,” changed frequently and varied by county — all in “in a concerted effort to make it as difficult as possible for individuals to pass,” said John Giggie, who directs of the Frances J. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Local officials had discretion over who got the hardest questions and what it took to pass the tests.

In 1965, before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, only about 2.1% of voting-age Black residents of Dallas County, where Selma is located, were registered.

Johnson, with all four of her grandchildren in tow, began to attend mass meetings of the Dallas County Voters League, led by Amelia Boynton, one of Selma’s civil-rights pioneers. While the adults talked strategy, Bland said she was focused on more prosaic issues: chiefly, how to gain access to the lunch counter at Carter’s Drug Store in downtown Selma.

“I wanted to sit there like those white kids and spin around on those stools and eat ice cream,” she recalled. “Grandmother said, ‘Colored children can’t sit at the counter, but when we get our freedom, you can do that.’ “

“I became a freedom fighter the day she told me that,” she said, attending her first meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at age 8.

As a child, she thought the marches themselves were fun. “The spirit of the movement is what we liked the most,” Bland said.

She said she and her friends thought little of joining the throng headed to the bridge on that Sunday in March for what supposed to be the first leg of a 54-mile trek to the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery to demand voting rights.

“I didn’t know there was the possibility of any violence,” she said. “Then, I crested the bridge and saw the police across all four lanes.”

Pandemonium ensued as the troopers pushed into the crowd. Images from that day show one swinging his baton at Lewis, as the then-25-year-old SNCC chairman raises his right hand, trying to shield his head from the blows. Boynton was beaten unconscious.

“They were running the horses into the crowd,” Bland recalled. “People were being trampled.”

Choking on tear gas, the young Bland fainted in terror. Someone picked her up and took her safety. She awoke in a car, her head in her sister’s lap.

But two days later, she and her sisters were on the bridge again, now joined by 2,000 others and led by The Rev. Martin Luther Jr., for what became known as “Turnaround Tuesday.” She still was scared and wanted to turn back, Bland said, but her sisters grasped her hands tightly to keep her in place, telling her: ” ‘They won’t beat Dr. King.’ “

King and march leaders, obeying a federal court injunction, prayed and sang when they encountered the police blockade that day and turned the protesters around. The march to Montgomery would proceed later that month with Alabama National Guard troops, now under federal command, protecting the protesters.

A lifetime’s work

For Bland, what followed was a life dedicated to social justice that included helping to found a museum of voting rights in Selma to help residents tell their own stories of the struggle.

And she sees parallels between her past and the protesters today who have taken to the streets to demand change, following the deaths of George Floyd and others at the hands of police. Police brutality “hasn’t stopped one day since I’ve been on this Earth,” she said. “But now you can see it in real time.”

In the run-up to November’s election, she’s spending her days pushing everyone she sees to register, get their absentee ballots and use them. On Election Day, she’ll be where she usually is: At the polls. For some 30 years, she worked there in some capacity — early on as a Democratic poll watcher, this year as an official poll inspector.

Lewis’ death in July at 80 has renewed calls by some national activists to rename the bridge in his honor. Pettus, its namesake, was a Confederate general, US Senator and Ku Klux Klan leader in Alabama.

But Bland would rather see it left as it was the day she crossed it as a young girl.

“What happened on that bridge in ’65 gave that bridge a new meaning,” she argued. “It’s now synonymous with freedom all over the world.”

The best way to honor, Lewis, she said: “Get out and vote.”

[popcorn-kitten]

East Michigan Warming Centers

JACKSON COUNTY

King’s Center Shelter Intake: Call to be screened and added to the intake waitlist, (517) 788-4067 .  Hours: Intake screening: 8am-5pm Monday-Friday. 

Kelly Warming Center 607 W Main Street, Medford OR 97501 Intake: Shelter is accessed through an application process for the winter season. Call 541-499-0880 or walk in to Rogue Retreat, 1410 8th Street, Medford to fill out an application. Hours: Application: Monday-Friday 8am-5pm. Shelter: January 1-March 30, 2019 7 days per week 7pm-8am Serves: Unrestricted. No pets.

MACOMB COUNTY

Bruce Township Bruce Township Government Office: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday at 223 East Gates; 586-752-4585. Center Line Center Line Parks & Recreation: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon to 5 p.m. Friday at 25355 Lawrence; 586-758-8267. South Eastern Michigan Indians: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at 26641 Lawrence; 586-756-1350. Chesterfield Township Chesterfield Township Library: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at 50560 Patricia Avenue; 586-598-4900. Clinton Township Clinton-Macomb Main Library: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 40900 Romeo Plank Road; 586-226-5000. Clinton-Macomb South Library: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 35891 South Gratiot Avenue; 586-226-5070. Eastpointe Eastpointe Memorial Library:10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 15875 Oak; 586-445-5096. Harrison Township Harrison Township Government Office: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday at 38151 L’Anse Creuse; 586-466-1400. Macomb Township Clinton-Macomb North Library: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 16800 24 Mile Road; 586-226-5082. Memphis Memphis Public Library: Noon to 8 p.m. Monday and Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through Saturday at 34830 Potter; 810-392-2980. Memphis Fire Department: As necessary during extreme temperature events at 35095 Potter; 810-392-2385. Mount Clemens Macomb County Health Department: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Central Health Service Center at 43525 Elizabeth Road; 586-469-5235.

Macomb County Sheriff’s Department: 24 hours a day Monday through Sunday at 43565 Elizabeth Street; 586-469-5151.

Martha T. BerryMedical Care Facility: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Sunday at 43533 Elizabeth Road; 586-469-5265

Ray of Hope Day Center: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday at Two Crocker Blvd., Suite 201; 586-329-4046. Richmond Lois Wagner Memorial Library: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at 35200 Division Road; 586-727-2665. Roseville MCREST: As the temperatures drop in the next two days, MCREST will be able to shelter 60 men, women and children at 20415 Erin in Roseville; 586-415-5101.

Recreation Authority Center: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday at 18185 Sycamore; 586-445-5480. St. Clair Shores Macomb County Southeast Family Resource Center: 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday and 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday at 25401 Harper Avenue; 586-466-6800. Shelby Township Shelby Township Senior Center: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 51670 Van Dyke; 586-739-7540. Utica Utica United Methodist Church: 8659 Canal, Sterling Heights; 586-731-7667. Warren Macomb County Health Department: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Southwest Health Center at 27690 Van Dyke; 586-465-8090.

Max Thompson Family Resource Center: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday at 11370 Hupp; 586-759-9150.

Salvation Army MATTS (Macomb’s Answer To Temporary Shelter): Call for overnight shelter availability and location — 24140 Mound Road; 586-755-5191. Washington Township Washington Township Government Office: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 57900 Van Dyke — a half-mile north of 26 Mile Road; 586-786-0010. OAKLAND COUNTY Auburn Hills Auburn Hills Community Center: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at 1827 N Squirrel Road; 248-370-9353. Farmington Hills Costick Center: 28600 W. Eleven Mile Road between Middlebelt and Inkster from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 248-473-1800. Ferndale Gerry Kulick Community Center: 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 1201 Livernois Road. Lake Orion Orion Center: The building will reopen outside of regular business hours if large power outages exist in Orion Township community — 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday at 1335 Joslyn Road. Lathrup Village City of Lathrup Village City Hall: 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 27400 Southfield Road. Novi Meadowbrook Commons: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 25075 Meadowbrook Road. Novi Civic Center: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 45175 Ten Mile Road. The Novi Civic Center will be open Tuesday starting at 9 p.m. and remain open until 8 a.m. on Friday as a warming center for residents who need a warm place to rest. Residents will have access to clean restrooms, water, cell phone charging stations and free Wi-Fi.

Novi Public Library: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday at 45255 W. Ten Mile Road. Oak Park Oak Park Community Center: 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday at 14300 Oak Park Boulevard. Royal Oak Genesis the Church: 309 N. Main Street, Royal Oak, from Jan. 27 through Feb. 10. Southfield Covenant Presbyterian Church: 21575 W. 10 Mile Rd in Southfield from 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday; 248-289-0213. Troy Troy Community Center: 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday at 3179 Livernois Road. Wixom City of Wixom City Hall/Police Department: As long as it is dangerously cold at 49045 Pontiac Trail.

WASHTENAW COUNTY Ann Arbor NOTE: Weekday daytime shelter accommodations are available at local congregations at varying times, generally from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Delonis Center: An overnight warming center for those experiencing homelessness. The shelter is available at 6:30 p.m. every night between Nov. 12, 2018, and April 1, 2019. There is also onsite dinner provided at 5 p.m. The address is 312 W. Huron Street in Ann Arbor.

First Baptist Church: From Feb. 1 through Feb. 28 on Tuesdays and Thursdays — 517 East Washington in Ann Arbor.

First Congregational: From Feb. 1 through Feb. 28 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays — 608 East William in Ann Arbor.

St. Mary’s Student Parish: From Jan. 1 to Jan. 31 at 331 Thompson in Ann Arbor. WAYNE COUNTY Canton Township Canton Public Library: 1200 S. Canton Center Road — 734-397-0999 –9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Summit on the Park: 46000 Summit Parkway — 734-394-5460 — 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. Detroit Cass Community Social Services: Located at 1534 Webb, 40 beds are available and services are provided for families (male and female parents and children). The center is open from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. Contact the Cass Community Social Services at (313) 883-2277.

Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries: 100 beds for men only. The center, located at 3535 Third Avenue near downtown Detroit, is open from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. For information, contact the Detroit Rescue Mission at (313) 993-6703. Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries: Second location has 25 beds for women and children only. The center, located at 3840 Fairview between Mack and St. Jean, is open from 4:30 p.m. to 9 a.m. For information on this location, contact the Detroit Rescue Mission at (313) 331-8990.

Detroit VA: The Detroit VA will provide a warming center for area veterans and their families in room B1290 of its facility at 4646 John R in Detroit from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.

Eastern Market Team Wellness Center: The doors are opening to the community this week as a public warming center for those seeking shelter from the frigid temperatures. The Eastern Market location will be available from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily at 2925 Russell street.

Team East Wellness Center: The doors are opening to the community this week as a public warming center for those seeking shelter from the frigid temperatures. The Team East location will be open 24 hours at 6309 Mack Avenue. Sumpter Township Sumpter Township Community Center: Due to the dangerously cold forecast for the rest of the week, the Sumpter Township Community Center is available as a warming center from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Special requests to extend the normal hours will be considered

[atlanticcanada]

'I’m angry': N.S. mother, daughter without a home more than six weeks after Fiona

Post-tropical storm Fiona left behind hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and pushed some people from their houses, including a Nova Scotia mother and daughter who remain homeless and are struggling to find somewhere to go.

“I can honestly say I didn’t expect to ever be homeless,” an emotional Amanda Weaver told CTV News.

Fiona peeled away part of the farmhouse where Amanda and her mother Louise rented for 17 years.

“You could feel the house lifting from the wind,” she says.

Patches of their roof fell before rain poured in and mold grew.

The Weavers say their landlord told them their rent could go toward repairs, but they doubt a contractor would work for $500 a month.

“No one deserves what Fiona did to us,” says Louise. “It’s just, it’s something that happened.”

Now, they’re living out of bags and sleeping on couches or air mattresses.

The Canadian Red Cross helped them with a hotel for a week, but the Weavers say securing a new spot to call home is hard.

“Everything is really, really expensive and they don’t allow dogs,” says Amanda, who also struggles with health problems.

Amanda relies on the province for a disability cheque and money for medication. She says she was told the money wasn’t coming without proof of a home address.

“And I have insulin that needs to be… you know… I have 4 days-worth,” says Amanda. “That’s it.”

“I don’t chose to be this way, but I’m angry right now,” says Louise. “And that’s all I’m concerned with -- is my daughter.”

In Nova Scotia’s Colchester County, Fiona pushed more than the Weaver’s from their home.

“At least 10 or more families have been added to our caseload on top of all the other members of Colchester County that we’ve served,” says Shelby Thompson, a housing support worker for Truro Outreach Society.

CTV News contacted the province of Nova Scotia about Amanda’s case. The Department of Community Services said they couldn’t comment on specific cases, but that the information was passed on and would be investigated.

Amanda says she received a call from a case worker Tuesday afternoon and that her medical support will be activated in 24 hours.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/24ZAlJO

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

“The University of Memphis did a study … and we saw that pre-ordinance and pre-health-directive requirements, only about 50 percent of Memphians were wearing a mask. After those measures went into effect, mask compliance went up to 90 percent. That’s a big improvement in the number of people who are wearing a mask in public. That makes a difference. It really interferes with the virus getting from one person to the next.“

[marylemanski]

I have been sharing an ongoing list of civil and human rights rollbacks during the 4 years of the Trump administration. SOMEONE TRIED TO GET ME BLOCKED FROM POSTING BUT THEY DID NOT SUCCEED. HA HA HA!

Below is a list from the last quarter of Trump’s second year in office. Republicans continued their onslaught against birthright US citizens, the LGBTQIA community, immigrants, police reform, black people, healthcare insurance, Medicaid, the poor, DACA recipients, the Department of Justice’s use of consent decrees, refugees, workers’ rights, victims of sexual assault, and education, while continuing to dismantle and rearrange the Executive Branch and also succeeding in having the longest government shutdown in US history.

On October 1, a policy change at the Department of State took effect saying that the Trump administration would no longer issue family visas to same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats or employees of international organizations who work in the United States.

On October 10, the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed ‘public charge’ rule was published in the Federal Register. Under the rule, immigrants who apply for a green card or visa could be deemed a ‘public charge’ and turned away if they earn below 250 percent of the federal poverty line and use any of a wide range of public programs.

On October 12, the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest opposing a consent decree negotiated by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to overhaul the Chicago Police Department.

On October 15, Trump vetoed a resolution, passed by both chambers of Congress, that would have terminated his declaration of a national emergency on the southern border with Mexico.

On October 16, the administration released its fall 2017 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The document details the regulatory and deregulatory actions that federal agencies plan to make in the coming months, including harmful civil and human rights rollbacks.

On October 19, the Department of Justice ended its agreement to monitor the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County and the Shelby County Detention Center in Tennessee, which addressed discrimination against Black youth, unsafe conditions, and no due process at hearings.

On October 21, The New York Times reported that the Department of Health and Human Services is considering an interpretation of Title IX that “would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with” – effectively erasing protections for transgender people.

On October 22, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued new guidance on the Affordable Care Act’s 1332 waivers that would expand a state’s flexibility to establish insurance markets that don’t meet the requirements of the ACA.

On October 24, the Department of Justice filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that federal civil rights law does not protect transgender workers from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity.

On October 30, Axios reported that Trump intends to sign an executive order to end birthright citizenship. In a tweet the following day, Trump said “it will be ended one way or the other.”

On October 31, the administration approved a waiver allowing Wisconsin to require Medicaid recipients to work. It was the first time a state that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act was allowed to impose work requirements.

On November 5, the Department of Justice filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to circumvent three separate U.S. Courts of Appeals on litigation concerning the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

On November 7, on his last day as Attorney General, Jeff Sessions issued a memorandum to gut the Department of Justice’s use of consent decrees.

On November 8, the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice announced an interim final rule to block people from claiming asylum if they enter the United States outside legal ports of entry.

On November 8, the Department of Labor rolled back guidance issued by the Obama administration that clarified that tipped workers must spend at least 80 percent of their time doing tipped work in order for employers to pay them the lower tipped minimum wage.

On November 16, the Department of Education issued a draft Title IX regulation that represents a cruel attempt to silence sexual assault survivors and limit their educational opportunity – and could lead schools to do even less to prevent and respond to sexual violence and harassment.

On November 23, the Office of Personnel Management rescinded guidance that helped federal agency managers understand how to support transgender federal workers and respect their rights (initially issued in 2011 and updates several times since), replacing it with vaguely worded guidance hostile to transgender working people.

On December 11, Trump declared that he would be “proud to shut down the government” – which he did. It resulted in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history (35 days), which harmed federal workers, contractors, their families, and the communities that depend on them.

On December 14, BuzzFeed News reported that the Department of Housing and Urban Development was quietly advising lenders to deny DACA recipients Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans.

On December 18, the Trump administration’s School Safety Commission recommended rescinding Obama-era school discipline guidance, which was intended to assist states, districts, and schools in developing practices and policies to enhance school climate and comply with federal civil rights laws.

On December 21, following the recommendation of Trump’s School Safety Commission, the Departments of Justice and Education rescinded the Dear Colleague Letter on the Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline. Both departments jointly issued the guidance in January 2014.

Source: https://civilrights.org/trump-rollbacks/#2018

[elohim61]

Multiple car break-ins reported at Shelby County Health Dept.

[patriotsnet]

How Often Does Joe Manchin Vote With Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-often-does-joe-manchin-vote-with-republicans/

How Often Does Joe Manchin Vote With Republicans

The West Virginia Senator Was Cozy With Trump For Political Reasons But Hes Less Of An Obstacle To An Ambitious Agenda Than An Organized Gang Of Senate Moderates

There is now a new most powerful person in the United States: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. With the Senate evenly split, Manchin, a Democrat representing a state in which nearly 70 percent of the votes cast in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections went to Donald Trump, has the power to break a tied vote on almost any legislative business requiring a simple majority to pass. He can even decide which bills to be passed with a simple majority.

For some liberals, this is a disheartening prospect. Manchin voted with Trump more than any other Senate Democrat, opting to confirm two of the former presidents three Supreme Court nominees and evenflirting with endorsing Trumps reelection campaign.* If the new Democratic majority is forced to craft legislation designed to win over Manchin, it could all but guarantee a watered-down and compromised version of the big and transformative agenda Joe Biden began promising last year.

But, honestly, negotiating with Manchin may not be as difficult as liberals fear. A much more worrying alternative is not just possible but may be taking shape at this very moment.

Joe Manchin is, considering his circumstances, by no means the worst Democratic senator. He is quietly a semi-reliable partisan who opposed the GOPs tax bill and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And while he later suggested to the press that he would consider endorsing Trump, Manchin did vote to oust him in his first impeachment.

Stop The Steal Unfolding In Plain Sight

But you know who would gladly use a wacked out video clip to contest a free and fair election? Republican state legislators, local officials and members of Congress.

Much like the Jan. 6 insurrection, the GOP plan to steal the next presidential election is unfolding in plain sight. The goal isnt just to make it harder to vote but to also undermine the administration of elections, remove any official who stood in the way of Trumps attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and then give Republican legislatures new powers to interfere in elections when they dont like the results. 

This is happening as Republicans are preparing new electoral maps that will almost surely allow them to take back the House, while earning far fewer votes than their opponents. And if Republicans control Congress, the chances of a duly elected Democratic president having a victory accepted in both the House and Senate are plunging toward zero.  

Faced with what Ari Berman, author of the book “Give Us The Ballot,” calls a concerted attempt to end the second Reconstruction, whats Manchin thinking about? 

In an op-ed Sunday, Manchin insisted, The right to vote is fundamental to our American democracy and protecting that right should not be about party or politics. This sentence should be the foundation of a stinging rebuke to Republicans who are undermining that right across the country, but the West Virginia senator used it to slam his fellow Democrats. 

How Does The John Lewis Act Differ From The For The People Act

Descriptions of the two pieces of legislation are often boiled down to the For the People Act as broad and the John Lewis Act as narrow. Thats true, but the bigger difference is that the For the People Act is a highly prescriptive bill that preempts state voting and election laws, mandates many practices and prohibits many others .

The John Lewis Act would create procedural rules governing voting-rights violations. This is similar to Section 2 of the original Voting Rights Act, which established legal grounds for private parties or the federal government to challenge state laws that are intended to, or have the effect of, diluting minority voting rights. . The far more powerful Sections 4 and 5 created a system whereby jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory practices would have to submit changes in voting and election laws to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department for review and preclearance as non-discriminatory before they could take effect. It was Section 4, which set up a formula for determining which jurisdictions fell under the Section 5 preclearance requirement, that the Court killed largely killed in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, claiming it was based on outdated evidence of discriminatory practices.

Despite Manchins Continued Demands For Voter Id Rules And Against Mail

After an all-night vote-a-rama on the Democrats $3.5 trillion budget resolution, the Senate early this morning took a step forward on voting rights legislation, with a 50-49 party line vote that discharged the For the People Act, also known as S. 1, from the Rules Committee. The vote was designed to give Senate Republicans a chance to support the process of moving forward, or to demonstrate to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that Republicans had no such intentions.

The vote came after weeks of negotiation with Manchin over S. 1, in which he arrived at a place where he was ready to support the legislation, just as long as it wasnt the full bill that he had already vowed to oppose. Manchin often extracts a round of concessions before offering his support to the party, and he appears to have done so again on S. 1.

I have made it crystal clear that I do not support the For the People Act, Manchin said on the Senate floor, referring to Oregon Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkleys flagship reforms to protect democracy. I have worked to eliminate the far-reaching aspects of that bill and amend the legislation to make sure our elections are fair, accessible, and secure.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., nevertheless admonished the proposal as an illicit attempt to advantage Democrats in elections.

Joe Manchin Opposes Voting Rights Bill And Defends Filibuster In Blow To Democrats

Senator key to progress cites Republican opposition as reason

In a huge blow to Democrats hopes of passing sweeping voting rights protections, the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said on Sunday he would not support his partys flagship bill because of Republican opposition to it.

The West Virginia senator is considered a key vote to pass the For the People Act, which would ensure automatic and same-day registration, place limits on gerrymandering and restore voting rights for felons.

Many Democrats see the bill as essential to counter efforts by Republicans in state government to restrict access to the ballot and to make it more easy to overturn election results.

It would also present voters with a forceful answer to Donald Trumps continued lies about electoral fraud, which the former president rehearsed in a speech in North Carolina on Saturday.

In a column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Manchin said: I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act.

Manchins opposition to the bill also known as HR1 could prove crucial in the evenly split Senate. His argument against the legislation focused on Republican opposition to the bill and did not specify any issues with its contents.

Manchins op-ed might as well be titled, Why Ill vote to preserve Jim Crow

Havent you empowered Republicans to be obstructionists? Wallace asked.

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Despite Trumps recent criticisms of him, Manchin maintains a line with Trump. They last talked two weeks ago after Trump teased him in front of GOP senators and the Democratic senator is hopeful that Trump will treat him with kid gloves this fall. In Manchins estimation, he is often the only thing keeping the president from becoming a down-the-line partisan.

At times, Manchin was the only Democrat who clapped during Trumps State of the Union address. This spring, Manchin killed liberals hopes of blocking Gina Haspel for CIA director by getting behind her early. Manchin supported Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, voted for now-embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and even backed the presidents hard-line immigration proposal.

Im with him sometimes more than other Republican senators are with him, Manchin said.

But Manchin has been frustrated that every time he thinks he’s got the president in a moderate place on immigration or background checks for guns, Trump goes to the right. And he hasnt always been there for Trump, most conspicuously on the GOPs tax reform bill, which attracted no Democratic votes. He also voted against Betsy DeVos to be education secretary, Tom Price to lead the Health and Human Services Department and Obamacare repeal.

Summing up his predicament, Manchin said, Washington Democrats are making it more difficult for me to be a West Virginia Democrat.

Joe Biden Wrong About Voting Records Of Joe Manchin Kyrsten Sinema

If Your Time is short

Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema support the continued use of the Senates filibuster rule. This stance imperils the prospects for key elements of Bidens agenda. 

However, on actual votes taken in the Senate, both Manchin and Sinema supported Bidens position 100% of the time. 

In a speech marking 100 years since a race massacre in Tulsa, President Joe Biden gave a rhetorical nudge to two senators hed like to see greater support from.

“June should be a month of action on Capitol Hill,” Biden said in Tulsa on June 1. “I hear all the folks on TV saying, Why doesnt Biden get this done? Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends. But were not giving up.”

Biden didnt specify which Democratic senators he had in mind, and the White House didnt respond to an inquiry for this article. But observerswidelyassumed that he was referring to Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, whose words and positions have not always been in lockstep with Bidens.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., surrounded by reporters at the Capitol on May 26, 2021.

However, in his Tulsa remarks, Biden was wrong to say that Manchin and Sinema or any other Senate Democrat, for that matter “voted more” with Republicans than with Biden.

Featured Fact-check

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., outside the Capitol on Feb. 5, 2020.

Joe Manchins Hard No On Voting Bill Leaves Democrats Seeking New Path

The West Virginia senator has stated, in an op-ed, that he will not back the For the People Act unless it has bipartisan support

For months, Democrats in the US Senate have danced delicately around Joe Manchin, giving him space and holding out hope that the West Virginia Democrat would eventually come around and give his must-win vote to legislation that would amount to the most sweeping voting rights protections in a generation.

That detente effectively ended on Sunday, when Manchin authored an op-ed making it clear he will not vote for the bill, leaving Democrats to find a new path forward that is, if there is one at all.

Manchin did not raise substantive concerns about the legislation, the For the People Act, in the Senate but rather said that he would only support it if it was bipartisan. He also reiterated his resistance to eliminating the filibuster, a legislative rule that requires 60 votes to move most legislation forward in the Senate. Getting 10 Republicans to sign on to voting rights legislation is a fools errand, many observers say, pointing to how the party has embraced Trumps baseless lies about the election and is actively trying to make it harder to vote.

Republican intransigence on voting rights is not an excuse for inaction and Senator Manchin must wake up to this fact, said Karen Hobart Flynn, the president of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, which backs the bill.

The Middle Ground Could Be Found

Manchins upbringing centered on understanding and hard work.

For a long time in the state, it was Republicans, not Democrats, who needed to find political friends on the left to get anything done. And as Manchin rose through local politics, first as a member of the House of Delegates, then as a state senator, secretary of state and finally governor, Manchin was known for including Republicans in negotiations, even if Democrats enjoyed sizable majorities in the state.

He told me one time, I will never forget, if you have an issue where you cannot get one vote to go with you from the other party, regardless of who is in the majority it is probably a bad idea, recalled Mike Caputo, a Democratic state senator in West Virginia who served as majority whip in the House of Delegates during Manchins time as governor.

He added: Joe has always been the kind of guy that has always believed you can find common ground if you work hard enough. I know when he was governor, we had major disagreements, but he always believed that if we talked long enough and both sides wanted to find a resolution, the middle ground could be found.

Manchin signaled this position remains inside him in an interview on Thursday, telling CNNs Manu Raju that he was not ready to get rid of the Senate legislative filibuster, a move that would allow Democrats to do more without Republican support.

Manchin Goes Full Maga

The vulnerable West Virginia Democrat is embracing Donald Trump, figuratively and literally: We just kind of do the man-bump type thing.

06/06/2018 04:02 AM EDT

Sen. Joe Manchin talks with a local reporter on June 5 in Ranson, W.Va. The president’s popularity in the state has Republicans salivating over the prospect of knocking off the 70-year-old senator this fall. | John Shinkle/POLITICO

RANSON, W.Va. Joe Manchin wants you to know he really likes Donald Trump.

The West Virginia senator doesnt put it quite that way. But more than any other Democrat in Congress, he’s positioned himself as a vocal Trump ally. In fact, the senator, up for reelection in a state Trump won by more than 40 points, told POLITICO he isnt ruling out endorsing Trump for reelection in 2020 a position practically unheard of for a politician with a D next to his name.

Im open to supporting the person who I think is best for my country and my state, Manchin said this week from the drivers seat of his Grand Cherokee, insisting hes game to work with any president of either party. If his policies are best, Ill be right there.

The president recently mocked Manchin in front of the Senate GOP caucus as trying to hug him all the time only a slight exaggeration, by Manchins telling.

We just kind of do the man-bump type thing. Thats it. And I think hes pulling me as much as Im pulling him, Manchin said in describing his physical embraces with the president.

Can The John Lewis Act Conceivably Get Through Congress Without Being Filibustered

The premise of Joe Manchins argument for making the John Lewis Act rather than the For the People Act the main vehicle for voting rights action in Congress is that the Voting Rights Act was last extended by a unanimous Senate vote and a Republican president . Thus legislation to restore it should command considerable bipartisan support. The trouble is, it doesnt. When the bill passed the House in 2019, only one Republican voted for it. As noted above, no Republicans voted for the new version.

It is true, perhaps, that killing the John Lewis Act would be marginally more embarrassing to the GOP than killing the For the People Act, given the partys past support for the VRA. But theres little doubt Republicans will find a way to justify doing it in, by either taking the Supreme Courts position a bit further and arguing racial discrimination in voting simply no longer exists, or arguing any voting-rights legislation must include election integrity provisions addressing their phony-baloney fraud claims. Whataboutism has become the standard Republican excuse for refusing to do the right thing. So actual passage of anything like the John Lewis Act remains impossible for the foreseeable future, at least so long as Democrats cannot muster the internal Senate support to kill or modify the filibuster.

This piece has been updated.

Joe Manchin Was Never A Mystery

Its always been pretty obvious who he is: a middle-of-the-road guy with good electoral instincts, decent intentions, and bad ideas.

About the author: David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

The failure of the For the People Act in the Senate yesterday evening didnt provide much drama. All 50 Democrats backed the voting-rights bill, but with no Republican support, they didnt have enough votes to break a filibuster. That Democrats didnt have the votes was clear from the start of the Congress.

But journalism requires drama, which means that over the past few months Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has been the subject of extensive coverage. The problem with this coverage is not that Manchin is unimportant; as the most moderate Democrat in a 50-person caucus, he is crucial. Its that there is no mystery to him.

Trying to figure out who Manchin is and what he wants, or how hes changedthe natural and reasonable defaults of political-profile writingassumes theres something more than meets the eye. Really, though, Manchin is who hes always been: a middle-of-the-road guy with good electoral instincts, decent intentions, and bad ideas.

Reporters and pundits engaged in a frenzied hermeneutic quest to decode what Manchin wanted and what hed allow. But trying to make sense of it all was a waste of time. The important thing was he was against nuking the filibuster then, and he is now.

Why Democrats Were Desperate To Win Joe Manchin’s Vote For An Already

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

On Tuesday night, the “For the People” Act will fail.

fait accompli Every single Democrat wanted to make elections more fair and open. And every single Republican stood in opposition to that effort.“Today’s debate about how to best protect our right to vote and to hold elections, however, is not about finding common ground, but seeking partisan advantage. Whether it is state laws that seek to needlessly restrict voting or politicians who ignore the need to secure our elections, partisan policy-making won’t instill confidence in our democracy â it will destroy it.“As such, congressional action on federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials.”

Whats In It For Republicans

Manchin has suggested that any voting rights reforms must be bipartisan, and hes resisted filibuster reform in the past. So even Manchins somewhat watered-down voting rights proposals face a tough road in the Senate unless hes willing to reconsider his desire to secure Republican votes.

That said, Manchins proposal does include a few ideas that may prove enticing to some GOP senators.

He would impose a nationwide voter ID requirement meaning voters would be required to show some form of identification before casting a ballot. Such laws enjoy broad support from Republicans, who often claim they are necessary to combat voter fraud.

In reality, such fraud is virtually nonexistent, and many voting rights advocates fear that voter ID prevents left-leaning groups, such as students, low-income voters, and voters of color, from casting a ballot because these groups are less likely to have ID.

New research, however, suggests that voter ID laws may not have much of an impact at all that is, they neither prevent fraud nor do much to disenfranchise voters. And Manchin also proposes a fairly permissive form of voter ID. While some states have strict voter ID laws that require voters to show specific forms of photo identification, Manchin would permit voters to cast a ballot if they show alternative forms of ID, such as a utility bill with their name and address on it.

Dc And Puerto Rico Statehood

In a November 10, 2020, interview, Manchin said that he did not “see the need for the D.C. statehood with the type of services that we’re getting in D.C. right now” and that he was “not convinced that’s the way to go.” Of Puerto Rico statehood, Manchin said that he opposed it but was open to discussion. In a January 10, 2021 interview, he did not affirm his opposition to statehood for D.C. or Puerto Rico, saying only, “I don’t know enough about that yet. I want to see the pros and cons. So I’m waiting to see all the facts. I’m open up to see everything”. On April 30, 2021, Manchin came out against the D.C. Statehood bill that had passed the House of Representatives, suggesting that D.C. could instead be given statehood by constitutional amendment.

The Deal Hes Pitching To Replace Hr1 Isnt Much Of A Deal At All

WSJOpinion

Senate Democrats tried and failed Tuesday to move their version of H.R.1, the bill to impose a federal election code on all 50 states. That 800-page travesty was doomed once West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin came out against it. But now Democrats are rallying around Plan B, which is based on a three-page memo circulated by Mr. Manchins office.

Its a curious document. The preamble insists that any voting bill must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together. But then it suggests an H.R.1 compromise that is no bipartisan kumbaya. As Republican leader Mitch McConnell said last week in ruling out Mr. Manchins wish list, it still involves an assault on the fundamental idea that states, not the federal government, should decide how to run their own elections.

To start, Mr. Manchins memo suggests mandating at least 15 consecutive days of early voting. Yet one prominent Democratic opponent of H.R.1., New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, has objected that his states constitution dates to 1783, and it requires that a voter must be present on Election Day unless absent from the town or city, or physically disabled. Yet New Hampshire, he added, has had the third highest voter turnout in the country for each of the last four presidential elections.

The Pressure Of Legacy

Another lens through which West Virginians understand Manchin that national media tend to overlook is by knowing who came before. Manchin holds the seat of the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, Democrat Robert C. Byrd, and served alongside another Senate great, Jay Rockefeller. 

For Manchin, the shadows of these two men surely loom large. Both were known for their commitment to working in a bipartisan manner, bringing members of their chamber together across the aisle to do what was right for the country. 

Both rallied Congress around significant shifts in policy in their time. Byrd was known as the rules man; he essentially wrote and rewrote Senate rules on order and the filibuster in his 51 years in the body, and also knew better than anyone how to work the system to bring millions of dollars of federal investments to the state to the continued benefit of West Virginians. 

Rockefeller, who spent 31 years in the chamber, has said his most prized accomplishments included authoring legislation to create CHIP and helping shepherd the passage of the Affordable Care Act, just to name a few of the more than 2,000 pieces of just health care-related policy he had his hands on.

Both were true statesmena designation that I would argue few politicians in Washington and any other Capitol deserve today. The legacy of both, and how his own legacy will compare, must weigh heavy on Manchin.

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