Ongoing Imperial Crises: The Internal Struggles Continue Unabated

 1). “Democrats Say They Have a Winning Hand on Abortion but Outside Groups Won’t Let Them Play It: Leading abortion rights groups have been pressuring Democrats to keep quiet on repealing the Comstock Act even though some think it could be a “Dobbs redux.” “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills,” one House Democratic aide said”, Apr 18, 2024, Oriana González, NOTUS, at < https://www.notus.org/congress/comstock-repeal-planned-parenthood-aclu-democrats >.

2). “The Conservative Plan to Ban Abortion Without Congress: Anti-abortion advocates hope a Republican president will enforce a series of laws from the 1800s that will 'result in the end of abortion in every single state in America' ”, Jan 19, 2024, Oriana González, NOTUS, at < https://www.notus.org/policy/the-conservative-plan-to-ban-abortion-without-congress

3). “The Conservative Plan to Ban AbortionBallot Measure in Missouri: 'Decline to sign' and other nonsense meant to confuse, unnerve, and terrorize volunteers gathering signatures”, Apr 21, 2024, Jess Piper, The View from Rural Missouri by Jess Piper, at < https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/intimidation-strategies-and-the-abortion >.

4). “You Don't Like It? Move: Advice I have been given by both trolls and extremely well-meaning folks”, Apr 18, 2024, Jess Piper, The View from Rural Missouri by Jess Piper, at < https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/just-move >.

5). “What We've Become - Living and Dying in a Country of Arms”, First Broadcast on Apr 14, 2024, Jonathan M. Metzl M.D. (Director Vanderbilt University-Center for Medicine, Health, and Society) discusses gun violence and its role in U.S. Right-Wing politics with Beth Simone Noveck (Professor Northeastern University-School of Law), C-Span Book TV, duration of video 105:51, at < https://www.c-span.org/video/?533349-1/what-living-dying-country-arms >.

~~ recommended by dmorista ~~

Introduction by dmorista: The U.S. Right Wing, whose more intelligent members, realize that the inexorable forces of demography and social conciousness and personal freedom are moving firmly against them. The Right-Wing has high hopes of winning the 2024 Presidential and Congressional Elections, through a massive and draconian program of voter suppression and intimidation, gerrymandered districts, State Legislatures that will certify Trumpist Electors despite state votes against him, and endless court battles and underhanded legal tactics. Anti-abortion forces are focusing on a sneak attack on abortion rights, using the 1873 Comstock Act to prohibit shipping anything that can be used in abortion or other reproductive health care. That is their fallback position to try to bring an end to legal abortion and contraception throughout the U.S., should they manage to get Trump installed in the White House, even if they do not win control over congress.

Item 1)., “Democrats Say They Have ….”, and Item 2)., “The Conservative Plan to Ban Abortion ….”, discuss the plans and machinations by both the Republicans and the Democrats around the likely use of the Comstock Act by Trump, to prohibit abortion, should he ascend to the throne one more time.

Item 3)., “The Conservative Plan to Ban Abortion ….” and Item 4)., “You Don't Like It? Move: ….”, discuss the types of dilemmas that progressive people face in places like Deepest/Darkest Rural Missouri. Both are written by Jess Piper, at her substack site The View from Rural Missouri by Jess Piper. She is particularly good at integrating the larger issues of the ongoing immiseration of the populace of the U.S. with local events in her part of rural Missouri.

In Item 5)., “What We've Become ….” the author of the book What We've Become - Living and Dying in a Country of Arms, Jonathan M. Metzl, discusses the relationship between the bizarre and virulent fascist politics of Guns, particularly in the U.S. South; and how it has been used to further other extremist elements of the right-wing political and socioeconomic agenda. He states that this ugly Gun Politics was used to enable the right to attack reproductive healthcare and abortion care, public education, general healthcare, and the economic well-being of the majority of the U.S. population. He also discussed, what he thinks is the right's future agenda, and how they intend to attack remaining gun control regulations in the liberal urban areas of the Northern and Pacific Coastal States.

Metzl thinks the right-wing is winning the political argument and the overall struggle, with their control of the Courts and their vigorous heavily armed, if minoritarian right-wing forces, and that the progressive forces in the U.S. need to understand the appeal and strategy that the right uses to mobilize the reactionaries. Of course, in reality, the right maintains control with a mix of their gun-politics appeal and hard-nosed control of the political and socioeconomic institutions of their respective states.

 The disarray inside the U.S. is complementary to the disarray in the U.S. client states, the great variety of wars being waged across the world, the creaking and groaning Global Shipping System, the increasingly obvious Environmental Debacles and Environmental Refugee Issues, and the many other failings and flaws of the clearly failing and flailing Capitalism of the U.S. Empire.  China, of course, stands by ready and willing to move into each and every void left as the U.S. retreats. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Democrats Say They Have a Winning Hand on Abortion but Outside Groups Won’t Let Them Play It

Rep. Becca Balint said her office looked a Comstock repeal last year and “in consultation with groups, attorneys, we decided that the time was not right.” Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP

• 
  

Congressional Democrats say leading abortion rights groups have been directing them not to talk about repealing the Comstock Act and are actively discouraging them from introducing legislation to address it, NOTUS has learned.

Even as conservatives are publicly pushing Donald Trump to enforce the Comstock Act as a national abortion ban if he becomes president in 2025, Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union — who are all heavily involved in legal cases challenging abortion restrictions — have in at least two separate instances gotten lawmakers to change a bill’s text or kept them from introducing legislation altogether. The groups say they’re concerned that any action could impact the outcome of ongoing lawsuits, even as bills seeking to protect abortion access are highly unlikely to be enacted.

Publicly, Democrats are standing behind abortion rights groups’ arguments about being careful with the law. But privately, there’s frustration and “a lot of internal tension,” one House Democrat told NOTUS, between those who believe that lawmakers should stay away from trying to repeal Comstock while litigation continues and those who see it as a potent political message to communicate to voters as soon as possible ahead of November.

The Comstock Act is a series of 1873 laws that prohibit the shipment of “every article or thing designed, adapted or intended for producing abortion.” The laws were considered unenforceable when Roe v. Wade was in place, but last year, a federal judge in Texas ruled that Comstock prohibits the shipment of the two drugs used in most abortions in the U.S. — bringing attention to whether the law, which some legal experts say is dormant, is enforceable or not. That case is now in front of the Supreme Court, and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas expressed interest in reviving Comstock during those oral arguments.

After Rep. Becca Balint said she was working to introduce the Abortion Access and Information Act to repeal Comstock in April of last year, she sent a Dear Colleague letter, obtained by NOTUS, seeking bill co-sponsors. All three reproductive rights groups then reached out to the lawmaker and told her that drawing attention to Comstock would bring “into question whether this is, in fact, a dead law or not,” according to a source familiar with the conversations.

Ultimately, Balint’s bill was never introduced.

The Vermont representative has recently spoken about the need to repeal Comstock since that time and said that she’s in constant conversation with colleagues and abortion rights groups about how legislative action should be taken after the Supreme Court reaches a decision on the abortion pill case, likely in late June.

“We’re waiting to see what the scale of the decision is, what the scope is, but [Comstock] is absolutely an issue that we’re looking at. We’re just trying to figure out how to be the most effective,” Balint, who said she didn’t have problems with abortion rights groups, told NOTUS. She then added that her office “started a year ago, looking at this, and then in consultation with groups, attorneys, we decided that the time was not right.”

Planned Parenthood is one of the groups heavily involved in legal cases challenging abortion restrictions. Jeff Roberson/AP

Rep. Pat Ryan’s Protecting Reproductive Freedom Act is another bill that was changed significantly after abortion rights groups’ lobbying. The New York congressman first introduced the bill in 2022 with a clause that did not specifically mention Comstock but said states could not implement or enforce “any prohibition or restriction on shipping or sending mifepristone or misoprostol across State lines.”

When the act was reintroduced in 2023, that specific provision was gone.

“There’s a lot of litigation playing out that’s specific to this that many of the reproductive rights groups are in the middle of. They’re actually wanting to, they’re not wanting to see [the Comstock Act] change in the middle of that litigation. So that was at the request of Planned Parenthood and other reproductive freedom groups that have been fighting this for a long time,” Ryan told NOTUS last year. “We obviously work really closely to them.”

A House Democratic aide told NOTUS that “there’s certainly a growing frustration on the Hill that outside groups are setting us up for a Dobbs redux.”

“It’s not just about the legal and legislative angles — there’s the political side of things. Choice groups are telling House Democrats not to message against a law that could literally lead to a national abortion ban on Trump’s first day in office. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills,” the aide said. “With the House, Senate and presidency on the line this fall, how are we not shouting this from the rooftops?”

A communications official in the abortion rights space responded to the frustrations, saying that lawmakers can “raise the alarm” and “educate their constituents” on Comstock, but it’s not worth focusing on legislation at the moment.

“Hanging your hat on a piece of legislation that’s not going to go anywhere because we have a Congress that can barely pass a budget, let alone take up response issues like the Comstock Law,” the official said. “We have to be practical about this, like the stakes are too high.”

In response to claims that abortion rights groups are trying to keep Democrats away from messaging on Comstock, Mike Zamore, the ACLU’s national director of policy and government affairs, said the group is “fully supportive of Congress’ efforts to get this antiquated law from the 1800s off the books and is actively working with congressional offices to respond to the threat posed by President Trump’s supporters who plan to use the Comstock Act as a backdoor national abortion ban if Trump is elected.”

Rachana Desai Martin, chief government and external relations officer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement to NOTUS that the organization is “deeply concerned about attempts to weaponize this moot sexual purity law from the 1800s, and we’ve been clear about the need to find a solution with congressional leaders.”

Similarly, Karen Stone, vice president of public policy and government for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement that “our champions in Congress are committed to protecting reproductive rights, and we will continue to review proposals on the matter, as we normally do.” The organization recently said in a blog post that Comstock should be “feared” by “anyone who believes in personal freedom.”

None of the groups, though, specified when they recommended legislative action to take place — if before or after the Supreme Court settled the abortion pill case.

In the past month, two Democrats — Rep. Cori Bush and Sen. Tina Smith — have said they are in communication with their colleagues to take legislative action on the federal law, specifically since conservative SCOTUS justices brought up the law.

Lawmakers were surprised that Bush and Smith were so public about seeking Comstock-related legislation ahead of a Supreme Court decision. Bush, in particular, has been in conversations with groups and other lawmakers since she called for Comstock’s repeal, but is still pushing for legislative action, possibly before the Supreme Court issues a ruling.

“I think it just ends up being different legislative approaches,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, who has been involved in discussions. “I don’t think there’s been a lot of frustration there. I think it’s just, you know, people taking different approaches and trying to sort through the best way to get through it. I would love to see something that we can get a maximum number of people behind.”

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman said there was interest in “pursuing the elimination” of Comstock but that they were waiting for the Supreme Court to make a move to “really know what we’re responding to.”

Scanlon said Democrats are currently evaluating the Comstock Cleanup Act of 1997, which was the last time party members looked to repeal the law’s abortion provisions.

If the justices don’t issue a decision, a concurrence or a dissent in the abortion pill case that brings up Comstock’s enforceability, “then, you know, maybe there isn’t quite the same urgency to address it right now,” Scanlon added.

Inaction on the law from Democrats, as Trump allies push for its enforcement, has left Democratic pundits who see campaigning on Comstock as a 2024 winning strategy exasperated. They argue that campaigning with an actual threat of an abortion ban is more successful than focusing on a hypothetical ban that could be enacted if Republicans take the White House.

“It’s the equivalent of fighting a campaign with one hand tied behind your back,” said a Democratic strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly criticizing abortion rights groups. “Democrats have a responsibility to make the stakes in the election very clear … The GOP is telling us what they’re going to do. We should believe them, and then we should warn the American people.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Conservative Plan to Ban Abortion Without Congress

Anti-abortion activists at the March for Life 2022. Jose Luis Magana/AP

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the fight against abortion has played out on two fronts: political efforts to implement bans in individual red states and legal efforts to prohibit the use of abortion pills everywhere.

But anti-abortion activists have their eyes on a bigger prize: If former President Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House, they hope and expect that he’ll effectively ban abortions throughout the United States by prohibiting the shipment not just of abortion drugs, but any tools doctors could use to induce an abortion.

They’re pinning their hopes on the Comstock Act, a series of laws enacted in 1873 that prohibit the shipment of “every article or thing designed, adapted or intended for producing abortion.” The law was essentially unenforceable during the Roe era, but a federal judge in Texas ruled in 2023 that the Comstock Act prohibits the shipment of the two drugs used in more than half of all abortions today.

For anti-abortion activists, that’s just the beginning.

As they gather today for the National March for Life in Washington, anti-abortion advocates will emphasize that the movement has its eyes set on further restrictions that can be enacted in the absence of the federal protections Roe provided.

James Bopp Jr., a conservative lawyer and general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, told NOTUS that, “It’s time to start enforcing the Comstock Act to the extent of its scope.” That’s not just abortion pills, he said, but also “suction machines or things that are used for abortions.”

Anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson, who helped pave the way for Texas’ lawsuit-enforced six-week ban and various city ordinance restrictions, said the Comstock Act should lead to a “de facto” ban on all abortions because “anything that is used” in an abortion is covered by the laws.

“I think that these laws are the laws of America and they have to be upheld,” Dickson said. “And if they’re enforced, that would result in the end of abortion in every single state in America.”

Republican presidential candidates have been under pressure from prominent anti-abortion organizations to back a federal ban. While it is highly unlikely that Congress would be able to pass such legislation, enforcing the Comstock Act could make it much easier for a future GOP administration — likely Trump’s — to severely restrict abortion without lawmakers.

Trump — who has called himself “the most pro-life president” — has publicly said that when the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned Roe, abortion became a state issue. But The Washington Post reported that the former president was interested in “Washington’s role” in limiting abortion — meaning that anti-abortion groups’ cries may not be falling on deaf ears. The Trump campaign did not respond to NOTUS’ requests for comment.

A former Trump administration official told NOTUS that when it comes to Comstock, it’s possible Trump would pledge to enforce it if it meant he’d get endorsements. “If this conversation with pro-life groups was, ‘I’m reluctant to do a federal ban but I will do these other measures to gain your support,’ would he make a deal like that? Of course, he would,” the official said.

Project 2025, the presidential transition plan backed by many of Trump’s conservative allies and embraced by other Republicans, calls for Comstock’s enforcement. Spencer Chretien, Project 2025’s associate director and previous special assistant to former President Trump, told NOTUS that, “the most intense focus is on the first 180 days, the first six months of the new administration. That’s when the president has the most capital. That’s when you’ve got to go big.” Among the actions that the project considers a priority during this period, Chretien said, is enforcing Comstock.

Supporters listen to President Donald Trump during the annual March for Life rally in 2020. Evan Vucci/AP Photo

The plan calls for a future president to withdraw a 2022 memo issued by the Biden administration stating that Comstock makes mailing abortion pills illegal only when “the sender intends them to be used unlawfully.” A new GOP-led Justice Department could then issue guidance telling federal agencies how to interpret the law and who should be prosecuted when the law is broken.

“Trump’s close advisers have actual plans to block access to abortion in every single state without any help from Congress or the courts,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said during a January press conference, alluding to Comstock. “Trump isn’t shying away from these aspirations.”

Conservatives and Republicans argue the Comstock Act not only prohibits health providers from mailing abortion pills to patients, but also bars drug manufacturers from mailing them to doctors’ offices — and they believe the Food and Drug Administration should have never approved mifepristone to terminate pregnancies. In approving the pills over 20 years ago, “the federal government is inducing many people to commit criminal acts by authorizing mail-order” abortions, said Erik Baptist, a senior attorney for the conservative law firm Alliance Defending Freedom.

Interpreting Comstock that way would effectively ban abortion pills nationwide — even in states that protect abortion rights. With a broader interpretation of Comstock, women in blue states would be able to access some surgical abortions in places where those tools already are, but the inability to mail devices would lead to a full ban because “there are no abortions that take place in the United States without an item that was sent in the mail,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in abortion issues. She added that tools and drugs used in abortions are acquired from “drug companies and medical suppliers” who then ship those to health providers. Prohibiting the mailing of medical devices or abortion pills would force people to “make their own drugs or whatever at home, but then you’re getting into the kind of self-managed abortions that aren’t safe because they’re not being supervised” by medical professionals, Ziegler told NOTUS. “If you can’t put an abortion item in the mail, then you have a de facto abortion ban,” she said.

Robin Marty, executive director of the West Alabama Women’s Center, a clinic that performed abortions before the Dobbs decision, said that items that could be affected by a broader understanding of Comstock include dilators to open a woman’s cervix, pads for post-abortion care, anxiety pills given to patients “as a form of light sedation,” lidocaine for anesthesia, suction devices and other tools — all of which are used in medical care beyond abortion, such as miscarriage management.

“There’s a myriad of things that would be impacted that have nothing to do with abortion itself because it is used in basic gynecological care,” Marty told NOTUS, saying that the consequences would be “devastating.”

Even before Roe granted the federal right to an abortion in 1973, Comstock was rarely, if ever, enforced to prohibit the mailing of instruments doctors use in abortions. After its enactment in the late 1800s, historians say prosecutors focused on banning the distribution of birth control, pornography, advertisements for contraceptives and abortion providers, anatomy textbooks and substances that caused abortions. The bulk of Comstock has been repealed over the years but the language around abortion remains on the books and open to an administration’s interpretation.

NOTUS spoke to several anti-abortion advocates, but none provided any specifics as to how the Justice Department could implement Comstock to bar the shipment of abortion-related tools. Federal law protects some mail from being inspected without a warrant, so it’s unclear exactly how an administration could direct federal officials to open packages when doing so could violate the law.

Some anti-abortion advocates are looking at more innovative ways to bring back the Comstock Act, like invoking the laws in local ordinance restrictions and legal battles. For example, Jonathan Mitchell, a prominent conservative lawyer who worked with Dickson, the activist, to create Texas’ six-week ban, filed a complaint in Texas against three women for allegedly violating the state’s wrongful death statute because they helped another woman get abortion pills to use at home. The suit argues that anyone involved in the pills’ distribution is “jointly and severally liable” for wrongful death under Comstock — opening the door for additional lawsuits.

If courts agree that abortion pill manufacturers “can be sued for wrongful death on the theory that they violated the Comstock laws, that could take the drug off the market,” Mitchell told The Nation. (Mitchell declined NOTUS’ request for comment).

Enforcing Comstock could potentially cross a line that most conservatives have sought to avoid since Dobbs: going after the patients. The law is “draconian,” said a senior White House official, because “it would allow the government to prosecute women themselves” if they receive abortion-related items in the mail. The statute says that whoever receives articles used in an abortion in the mail can be fined and imprisoned for up to five years.

The Supreme Court this term will review a case evaluating the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone, which the plaintiffs partly argue violated the Comstock Act in authorizing the drug. The justices will specifically evaluate a federal appeals court decision that imposed restrictions on mifepristone that did not rely on Comstock “so this issue may or may not be evaluated by the Supreme Court,” Baptist said.

“This is why I think, in part, a Republican president would be a big deal because the Supreme Court can always not address things,” said Ziegler, the law professor. “The only wild card, of course, is that Republicans would face the same political calculus they do now since enforcing the Comstock Act would be deeply unpopular.”

“But there would be a lot of pressure from activist groups to do so,” she added. “Because there’s no fallback. … It’s in the hands of the executive.”

Campaigning on abortion rights has been a major winner for Democrats in the wake of Dobbs: Every state seeking to add constitutional protections — even in purple Michigan and deep red Ohio — has succeeded, and those who heavily campaigned to protect access saw major victories in Kansas, Kentucky and Virginia. Seeing abortion as a driving issue for voters, the Biden campaign has made it a priority ahead of the election, with Vice President Kamala Harris embarking on a “Reproductive Freedoms Tour” this month. But even so, Democrats have not really brought attention to Comstock recently and haven’t tried to repeal or modify it since 1997.

Having Democrats in Congress talk about Comstock, or introduce bills addressing it, could help not only in the presidential elections but also with congressional races. However, lawmakers and abortion rights advocates have been reluctant to talk about it, citing ongoing litigation.

“From a strategic perspective, it takes the issue from something that Republican members of Congress could potentially just defer on … to, well, something that they do have to take a position on,” said Tom Bonier, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser to TargetSmart. “Do they support amending or repealing Comstock or not?”

Support for a total abortion ban is only at about 10%, with most Americans believing it should be legal in at least some circumstances, highlighting how a federal abortion ban would be overwhelmingly unpopular.

“I think the more that Democrats are talking about the consequences for abortion rights of putting Republicans in power, the more likely it is that Americans won’t want to vote Republicans into power,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Intimidation Strategies and the Abortion Ballot Measure in Missouri

This is a story of what happened in Arnold, Missouri on Saturday, April 20, 2024.

Arnold is a bedroom community in Jefferson County less than 20 miles from St Louis. A town of about 20,000 people with a small town feel and mostly regressive politics. But, like I will always remind you — that’s not the story. The story is the folks standing up for their neighbors and their rights in a state whose lawmakers are using techniques found in fascist countries.

This is a story of abortion rights in a state that has banned abortion. But, first… what happened to Missouri?

My state was known as the bellwether state. It looks like a microcosm of the country's political makeup; Missouri has its two big cities, reliably voting for the liberal consensus, located on the outermost boundaries of the state — much like the American coasts. St. Louis and Kansas City look like they are trying to flee the state, though, barely in our state border, where the GOP-dominates the north, middle, and southern spaces.

The Missouri bellwether was a political phenomenon that meant that the state of Missouri voted for the winner in all but one U.S. presidential election from 1904 to 2008…I bet you can figure out what happened in 2008. Obama. A Black man won the Presidency and he did not carry Missouri.

But, even more than Obama, the Missouri GOP had won a supermajority in the House in 2002 and they haven’t lost that supermajority in 22 years. In fact. they hold a trifecta with a GOP-dominated House, Senate, and a Republican Governor. We have been slipping for two decades with our state outcomes for everything from schools to roads to healthcare falling and our rate of gun violence climbing. In a recent study that Gov Mike Parson happily quoted, “Missouri is ranked 4th for potential.”

I guess when you’ve hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. It’s all “potential” at this point.

But, back to Arnold. One of the “architects” of the Missouri abortion ban is State Senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman. She is notorious in the state for her anti-woman stances and bills. She even filed a bill to restrict the travel of pregnant women in our state with a bounty for Missourians to turn in their neighbors — it was never given a hearing. She did author the abortion ban, though, and below you can see her tweet bragging about passing a draconian bill that did not even include exemptions for rape or incest.

She even had the gall to add the hashtags, #WeAreComingForYou and #StartSweating. Who exactly are they coming for? Child rape victims? Who are they making sweat? Moms who have three kids at home and can’t possibly afford a fourth?

Missouri GOP lawmakers Mary Elizabeth Coleman, Nick Schroer on the right, and Adam Schnelting in the back, celebrating after passage of the Missouri abortion ban.

Senator Coleman announced her plan to run for Congress in MO3 this year, but recently decided to run for Secretary of State, and let me tell you why that is so dangerous for the people of Missouri: She is a proven fan of voter intimidation and the SOS position has everything to do with voting rights.

Coleman has been tweeting out disinformation, and showed up to an event where folks were gathering signatures to put abortion on the ballot in November. She and other GOP lawmakers understand that Missourians will likely vote to reinstate abortion rights if volunteers can get enough signatures to put it on the ballot. Now, lawmakers like Sen Coleman are employing the strategies of fascists to keep Missourians from signing: intimidation, disinformation, and scare tactics.

Sen Coleman tweeted on April 12, “Stop letting out of state people tell Missourians what to do. They want your name, address and signature. Don't share and put yourself at risk for identity theft. #declineToSign.”

Coleman has implied on several occasions that “out of state” interests want to gather signatures and that by signing, folks are at risk of identity theft. There is absolutely no proof of this happening, and all of the volunteers I’ve met gathering signatures were Missourians. I am one myself. Coleman isn’t being truthful, but more than that, the intimidation that follows her needs to be addressed.

A volunteer from the Arnold event posted this photo and the caption.

The abortion ballot signing event in Arnold was staffed by four volunteers and was set to run from 10-2 at the public library. All four volunteers were constituents of Senator Coleman and one told me the Senator showed up at the event right around 10am. The volunteers were set-up in the parking lot and had signs up directing voters to their location.

Sen Coleman was having a hard time manning all four volunteers and became frustrated when she couldn’t try to talk her own community members out of signing the petition. Coleman was reported to have raised her voice over at least one of the volunteers and directed signers that the petition is “not like Roe” and that there was “no alternative if a doctor commits malpractice.” She also reminded signers that she was a “constitutional lawyer” as she flagged down cars in the parking lot.

A volunteer said that Sen Coleman would flat out tell her constituents, “Do not sign the petition” ordering them not to sign.

Quickly after Sen Coleman arrived, a library staffer came out and told the signature gatherers that they must remove their signs and could only stand on the sidewalk. The volunteers did as instructed. Later, during the signing event, a volunteer did get off the sidewalk to approach a voter who wanted to sign the petition and Sen Coleman followed her into the parking lot.

The police were called for the incident and three cruisers eventually responded. A library employee told a volunteer that she needed to leave because she didn’t follow the rules and the volunteer responded by saying that Sen Coleman should be forced to leave as well. By the time police arrived, both the volunteer and Coleman were back on the sidewalk. Neither were forced to leave the event.

The Arnold event did garner 143 signatures for the petition. It also shed light on the brazen attempt to intimidate volunteers and signers in Missouri — I am writing this post so that I can get the word out.

This is the story of just one event. From the beginning of the process, volunteers have been threatened. The “Missouri Right to Life” organization set up a snitch line in the very first days of the petition trying to find signing events to send out their own folks to harass and intimidate volunteers.

From day one, we have been up against our own lawmakers in gathering signatures.

As one of the Arnold volunteers told me, “What I found most disturbing is why is Sen Coleman opposed to Missourians gathering signatures to put a measure on the ballot? Why is she opposed to her constituents voting on a Constitutional amendment? Why was she so intrusive and verbally aggressive to volunteers and voters? And, why was she badgering her own voters making it hard for them to even read the petition, much less sign it?”

I wonder the same things, but I am not the least bit surprised. I am only stunned that Senator Coleman was brazen enough to intimidate her own voters in public — we already know what goes on behind the scenes.

It’s just another day in Missouri.

~Jess

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You Don't Like It? Move.

Advice I have been given by both trolls and extremely well-meaning folks

“You don’t like it? Move.”

This sort of advice is often given to me in online spaces when I say something truthful about Missouri that irritates folks on the right. When I talk about abortion bans, I should move to California. When I talk about funding schools, I should move to New York. When I speak out against harmful policies, I’m just an out of place, out of touch, liberal.

I’ve been told to move to California or New York many times, and while I have visited both states, and appreciate the CA beaches and the NY atmosphere, I wouldn’t move to either state for two very important reasons: 1) This is where my children and grandchildren live. 2) This is my state too.

Here’s something that may interest you; I hear the same rhetoric, although presented in a much more caring way, from progressives in states with better representation. My blue state friends have given me the “just move” advice on several occasions. They fear that I am in danger or that specific policies will hurt my family. They are justified in thinking I should move, but what they don’t realize is that moving will eventually harm them. If all of the like-minded congregate in progressive states, we will all eventually be overwhelmed by the regressive states.

If we don’t contest and protest in every GOP-dominated state, the bad policies will leach into all the states.

I will preface this essay by saying that I understand that not all folks have the privilege I have to stay and fight. Those with trans children, those impacted by our state healthcare failings and childcare issues, those dealing with things I can’t even begin to understand have every reason to flee states like Missouri. I make absolutely no judgment on those who choose to leave. I am in solidarity with them.

If you’ve done the reading, you know that our country is slowly being swallowed up by right-wing billionaire rhetoric and policies. You likely know the long-game for this takeover was hashed out decades ago, and the way the extremists were able to do this was by taking over state legislatures and positions like the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. They have bankrolled the campaigns of State Reps and Senators, and even dip their toes into school board races.

In my state, the evolution is complete. Missouri went from a bellwether state to a radical state bent on stripping the rights of over 1/2 of the population and passing policies meant only for the wealthy. But, my leaving this state would be detrimental to other states and here’s how: GOP-dominated states create the policies that would overcome the country if left unchecked and uncontested.

None of us is safe so long as there are folks living in states that are unsafe. They will roll over us first, and you next.

The billionaires are using my state AG and other regressive state AGs to file suit to dismantle public schools. They sue to ban abortion and the medicine for self-managed abortions. They sue to stop college loan forgiveness. They sue to overturn civil rights and anti-discrimination policies. My former AG, Eric Schmitt, even sued Missouri public schools to make them stop masking procedures during a global pandemic. The worst part? He was then elected as our Senator.

If we can’t stop these extremists in our states, they often go on to win higher office and harm the entire country.

The billionaires are also using GOP-dominated states to appoint Secretaries of States who will throw voting rights into the toilet. These SOSs have the ability to impact the nation and create the chaos we saw in the 2020 Presidential election with some states allowing fake electors that would have given the office to Trump.

And there’s this: On January 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call, then-President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to change the state's election results from the 2020 presidential election. The country is lucky the GA Republican Secretary of State did not fold, but we may not always be so lucky.

Progressives fighting back in regressive states are fighting for all of us. They represent the tipping point for the nation. They contest seats, they protest human rights violations, and they show up to keep the red from leaching into the blue.

The real fight for democracy is at the state level. Activists in GOP-dominated states can’t just move…there is nowhere to go.

If we can’t stop the slow churn toward fascism in our states, there is little hope we can stop it nationwide. So, we stay. We stand up and talk back. We link arms and fight the local corrupt policies to stop national corrupt policies.

Just move? No. I can’t. I won’t.

This is my state too.

~Jess

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Please refer to the following link for the CSPAN video - https://www.c-span.org/video/?533349-1/what-living-dying-country-arms