Candidates for U.S. Congress want you to find hope and reason to vote in 2018. Screen capture from the advertisement. Left to right, Mikie Sherill of New Jersey (probably), Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, film director Amy Rice, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Elaine Luria of Virginia, and Amy McGrath of Kentucky. Other candidates in the film, not in this picture, include M. J. Hegar of Texas, Gina Ortiz Jones of Texas, and
These people need you to vote, so they can change America for the better.
International production company Park Pictures and award-winning feature film director Amy Rice showcases powerful motivational stories of female leaders running for Congress this November, in “Women Rising,” a call to vote by the Serve America PAC.
There are other great ads out there for these and other candidates; this one has been getting a lot of attention, and you can see why. Cosmopolitan describes the ad:
The theory that the 2016 election might inspire women to run for all levels of political office proved true within moments of the presidential inauguration, when hundreds of women signed up for seminars on running successful campaigns. Now, less than a month before the 2018 midterm elections on November 6, women hold a record number of spots on ballots across the country.
Among the women inspired to run are eight whose work for the country started years ago, just in another form. In a new campaign video, debuting exclusively on Cosmopolitan.com, eight women who served in the U.S. Navy, Marines Corps, Air Force, and CIA–Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria from Virginia, Chrissy Houlahan from Pennsylvania, Gina Ortiz Jones and MJ Hegar from Texas, Amy McGrath from Kentucky, Mikie Sherrill from New Jersey, and Elissa Slotkin from Michigan–speak about how their service inspired them to run for office this year.
To encourage usual non-voters to vote, please circulate this advertisement as well as you can on your own platforms.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Hillary Clinton secretly filmed at a Goldman Sachs event, speaking to Goldman Sachs executives. Okay, not secretly filmed. But you didn’t see this on the news, did you.
You want a transcript?
We can do better than that: How about a secret video of Hillary Clinton talking to the executives at Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s leading investment firms?
After all the hoo-haw, you’ll be shocked at the content.
On September 23, 2014, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women hosted its annual dinner at the Clinton Global Initiative.
The event featured a keynote address from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the business case for empowering women to ensure future economic growth.
Here’s the video:
True to Clinton’s history, she tells people with power and money they have to do a much better job of empowering and hiring from groups known to lack power and money, for the sake of capitalism, for the sake of our nation, for the sake of the world.
Okay, so it’s not secret. People who complain about these speeches pretend she said something different, and they certainly don’t want you to know what Clinton actually said. Clinton’s opponents hope this video remains close to secret.
Shocking that these speeches continue as an issue. Maybe they should be campaign ads, for Clinton.
This stuff gets left out, overshadowed by false claims and bogus charges. It shouldn’t.
Hillary Clinton didn’t get to the U.S. Senate, and to a solid run for president, and to Secretary of State and a second presidential run without good reason. It the thick of campaigns, good reasons to vote for people often get shouted down.
Mrs. Clinton’s speech in China in 1995, at a United Nations conference on the status of women and women’s rights, is probably the most famous, though even it is often overlooked.
First Lady Hillary Clinton in China, in 1995.
Look at this video and read this transcript, about Clinton’s lifetime support and hard work to expand human rights. Clinton’s long-time supporters remember, though they don’t speak about it often enough. Let us work to keep from interring the good work of people with the past.
Excerpt from the transcript of Meryl Streep’s introduction of Hillary Clinton at the 2012 Women in the World Conference:
Two years ago when Tina Brown and Diane von Furstenberg first envisioned this conference, they asked me to do a play, a reading, called – the name of the play was called “Seven.” It was taken from transcripts, real testimony from real women activists around the world. I was the Irish one, and I had no idea that the real women would be sitting in the audience while we portrayed them. So I was doing a pretty ghastly Belfast accent. I was just – I was imitating my friend Liam Neeson, really, and I sounded like a fellow. (Laughter). It was really bad.
So I was so mortified when Tina, at the end of the play, invited the real women to come up on stage and I found myself standing next to the great Inez McCormack. (Applause.) And I felt slight next to her, because I’m an actress and she is the real deal. She has put her life on the line. Six of those seven women were with us in the theater that night. The seventh, Mukhtaran Bibi [Mukhtaran Mai], couldn’t come because she couldn’t get out of Pakistan. You probably remember who she is. She’s the young woman who went to court because she was gang-raped by men in her village as punishment for a perceived slight to their honor by her little brother. All but one of the 14 men accused were acquitted, but Mukhtaran won the small settlement. She won $8,200, which she then used to start schools in her village. More money poured in from international donations when the men were set free. And as a result of her trial, the then president of Pakistan, General Musharraf, went on TV and said, “If you want to be a millionaire, just get yourself raped.”
But that night in the theater two years ago, the other six brave women came up on the stage. Anabella De Leon of Guatemala pointed to Hillary Clinton, who was sitting right in the front row, and said, “I met her and my life changed.” And all weekend long, women from all over the world said the same thing:
“I’m alive because she came to my village, put her arm around me, and had a photograph taken together.”
“I’m alive because she went on our local TV and talked about my work, and now they’re afraid to kill me.”
“I’m alive because she came to my country and she talked to our leaders, because I heard her speak, because I read about her.”
I’m here today because of that, because of those stores. I didn’t know about this. I never knew any of it. And I think everybody should know. This hidden history Hillary has, the story of her parallel agenda, the shadow diplomacy unheralded, uncelebrated — careful, constant work on behalf of women and girls that she has always conducted alongside everything else a First Lady, a Senator, and now Secretary of State is obliged to do.
And it deserves to be amplified. This willingness to take it, to lead a revolution – and revelation, beginning in Beijing in 1995, when she first raised her voice to say the words you’ve heard many times throughout this conference: “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights.”
When Hillary Clinton stood up in Beijing to speak that truth, her hosts were not the only ones who didn’t necessarily want to hear it. Some of her husband’s advisors also were nervous about the speech, fearful of upsetting relations with China. But she faced down the opposition at home and abroad, and her words continue to hearten women around the world and have reverberated down the decades.
…
She’s just been busy working, doing it, making those words “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” into something every leader in every country now knows is a linchpin of American policy. It’s just so much more than a rhetorical triumph. We’re talking about what happened in the real world, the institutional change that was a result of that stand she took.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Times changed. In 1988 BSA got smart and changed the rules so women could serve as Scoutmasters. Some alert person remembered Pollard’s fight to get recognition a decade earlier. Pollard was asked to sign up officially as the first woman Scoutmaster in 1988, and she did.
Now, I don’t recall why I needed it then, but there is an entire period of history prior to 1980, and for about 20 to 25 years before that, that is missing from internet archives. We need to do a better job of finding non-digital and non-digitized sources of photos, graphics, and other information from post-World War II times, and get them posted on the web, for the sake of history.
Catherine Pollard, first woman Scoutmaster in BSA history; in uniform with Troop 13 of Milford, Connecticut, in 1973 and 1975, unofficially. In 1988, when BSA changed rules, they asked Ms. Pollard to be the first registered Scoutmaster. Scoutmaster Pollard died in 2006.
To the memory of Catherine Pollard, whose bugle called dozens of youth to a lifetime of service, though there were those who thought she shouldn’t be tooting the horn at all.
(Y’all got other photos out there you should be sharing? Send ’em in.)
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
What is the largest cancer screening program for women in the U.S.? Anyone know?
Notes from Women are Watching:
Since January of last year, bills targeting women’s health have been introduced in all 50 states. But women will remember who turned their backs on us and who voted to keep us healthy. On Election Day, women will be fighting back. Find out who’s standing up for you, visit: http://www.womenarewatching.org
Transcript:
In 2011, times were tough. Recession. Joblessness. So many of us struggling to make ends meet. But for women, times were about to get a lot tougher.
The newly elected U.S. House of Representatives made it their business to cut women off from the health care they depend on.
The House passed the Pence Amendment, which would bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds for any purpose, including preventive and lifesaving services:
Women across America united to defend their access to care.
Champions in Congress stood strong.
And so did President Obama.
The US Senate stood with women and defeated the Pence Amendment.
But sadly that was just the beginning.
Bills targeting women’s health have been introduced in all 50 states since January of last year.
Make no mistake, this is the most relentless attack on women’s health in 40 years.
Politicians have been playing ugly games with women’s lives.
One year after we brought the Pence Amendment down, we remember who turned their backs on us, and who voted to keep us healthy.
November is just around the corner.
Soon it will be our turn to vote.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
San Jacinto Day is April 21. Texas history classes at Texas middle schools should be leading ceremonies marking the occasion — but probably won’t since it’s coming at the end of a week of federally-requested, state required testing.
Surrender of Santa Anna, painting by William Henry Huddle (1890); property of Texas State Preservation Board. The painting depicts Santa Anna being brought before a wounded Sam Houston, to surrender.
How could Houston’s group have been so effective against a general who modeled himself after Napolean, with a large, well-running army? In the 1950s a story came out that Santa Anna was distracted from battle. Even as he aged he regarded himself as a great ladies’ man — and it was a woman who detained the Mexican general in his tent, until it was too late to do anything but steal an enlisted man’s uniform and run.
The San Jacinto Monument is 15 feet taller than the Washington Monument. Texas tourism brochure photo
Millard Fillmore’s life was shaped by the women he loved. His first wife, Abigail Powers, probably was the chief spur for his drive which took him to the presidency. In the White House, she stood for education and improvement of American culture — she founded the White House Library in 1851. A remarkable woman you should know more about.
Ya gotta feel for the die-hard PUMAs, the people who were so much for Hillary Clinton that they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Obama, so they defected to George Bush’s party and hope to sign on with John McCain. (PUMA is an acronym: “Party Unity My [mild profanity dealing with gluteal muscles]”)
“That will show Obama he can’t trample a good woman in an election race,” they were muttering until about 11:00 a.m. Central Time today.
Then, John McCain picked one of those classic Republican women office holders, one who is female in gender only, who looks at the good politics and wisdom of genuine feminism and instead does her best to act like Attila the Hun with a streak of intolerance, though occasionally acting rational enough to hold on to the few rational conservatives who vote. John McCain is so certain of their support that he can spit on their issues and kick dust in their faces. Or worse.
McCain's boys and former supporter of Hillary Clinton?
McCain must figure the PUMAs will only love him more for it.
Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska. That’s about as far from Hillary Clinton as Vladimir Putin is from Harry Truman.
What will the PUMAs do? Maybe they should follow Hillary’s example, and endorse Obama.
Ouch! Almost missed it: Today is the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, on August 18, 1920. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify, pushing the total to three-fourths of the 48 states. (12 more states ratified later, including North Carolina in 1971, and Mississippi in 1984.)
The Amendment reads:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
One of the better moves our nation ever made, in my opinion. Abigail Adams was right; John should have listened to her.
Abigail Adams who urged the vote for women in the late 18th century; portrait by Benjamin Blythe, 1766 (Wikimedia and Millsaps College)
What Ann understands and so many nominal conservatives do not is that women’s suffrage is completely incompatible with human liberty or a republic as described in the U.S. Constitution. The two cannot co-exist. One cannot defend freedom on the basis of emotion, as fear always runs to promises of security, however nebulous.
It’s interesting to note that since women received the right to vote, no bald politician has been elected in either the United States or the UK with the exception of Eisenhower and Churchill. (Atlee was bald too, but he was running against Churchill so there was no hair option in 1945.) And being bona fide war heroes, both Churchill and Eisenhower represented security even more than the archtypical tall politician with executive hair; neither one of them were capable of winning in less extraordinary times.
So, Vox thinks we should take the vote away from women to elect bald men again? That will make one heck of a campaign button, and I can’t wait to see how it’s phrased in the Texas Republican Party platform.
Isn’t that roughly the same sort of thinking that got us into Iraq — same quality of reasoning, same clear connections, and of course, same sorts of historical error in blind ignorance of the facts and amazingly tin ear on what people think.
Is Vox balding that much? He’s that sensitive about it?
Historical error? Well, yeah — who among the presidents prior to Eisenhower was bald? (You can check pictures of the presidents here.) John Quincy Adams certainly had a lot of shiny pate visible. Martin Van Buren was bald, if we don’t count the copious hair he had around his receding hairline. But if we count receding hairline as bald, then we’d have to count Coolidge, Hoover, Truman and Nixon (whose bald spot was rarely photographed). The bald and balding presidents: John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren (with qualifications), Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford.
In fact, if we just look at the follicularly challenged, and not wholly bald, we find that the men with the least hair were all elected AFTER women’s suffrage. Vox Day rarely lets fact or reason get in the way of his thinking. Only Quincy Adams and Van Buren before women’s suffrage, and six baldies starting with Coolidge after.
But the question is, who is focusing on baldness here? Vox Day makes an implicit assumption that women do. It’s a wholly unevidenced, and in the light of history that shows the contrary, unreasonable assumption. He’s making hysterical error, with all the irony that drags along with it.
That anyone would argue for depriving women of the vote, hanging it on such flimsy evidence and bizarre reasoning, shows why women are justified in voting for Democrats. No one in the Democratic party is advancing arguments against women’s suffrage, on any basis.
You know what else? The mainstream media will “hide” Vox’s bizarre comments, not covering them at all, thereby protecting him and Republicans from the howls of justifiable outrage. Why do the media always protect conservatives who have taken leave of their senses?
Yeah, it was a bit tacky of Merck to create a campaign to get government officials to require inoculations against human papilloma viruses that cause cancer — but, people!, we’re talking about preventing cancer here.
The debates are skewed by a general distrust and dislike of big pharmaceutical companies, and by the religious right’s view that it’s better that a young mother die of cancer than she should get even the faintest idea that might in only the most perverse mind promote pre-marital sex. Still, we shouldn’t fall victim to voodoo science claims against vaccines.
Are my views, tempered by years of work promoting public health and fighting disease, clear enough for you?
Owlhaven wins popularity contests among mothers who read blogs, and it often is tender and touching — hey, I read it from time to time. But recently Mary, Owlhaven’s author, fell victim to a propaganda campaign from Judicial Watch, a far-right-wing bunch that campaigns against the U.S. justice system and generally makes a conservative-gratuitous-poke-in-the-butt out of itself. Judicial Watch claims to have some secrets from having filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with FDA to get Merck’s reports to FDA of adverse events known about Gardasil, Merck’s proprietary anti-cancer vaccine.
I responded, of course — but my response didn’t show on Owlhaven’s comments. Blackballed? Spam filtered due to the number or length of links? I can’t tell. Mary said she emptied the spam filter without checking. So, I repost my response, below the fold, for your benefit. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
If you answered “Margaret Chase Smith, the Senator from Maine,” you’d be close, but not close enough. Can you tell when she served, even?
David Parker is back from his vacation; in merely noting that he’s back, he pointed to this article about the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. Having spent so much time prowling those halls, and having lived with so many people who are so steeped in Senate history, the information caught me a little off guard.
Catherine Pollard died in Largo, Florida last week. She was 88. Catherine Pollard volunteered to be Scoutmaster for Milford, Connecticut Boy Scout Troop 13 from 1973 to 1975, when no one else would volunteer. Scout officials refused to accept her application at the time, citing a perceived need for male role models for boys. Eventually the troop dissolved when no one else stepped up as Scoutmaster.
In 1988 Boy Scouts of America abolished gender requirements on all volunteer positions, and made Ms. Pollard the first woman Scoutmaster.
A funeral service is set in Milford for Monday, December 18. Her casket will be carried on a fire truck from the Milford Fire Department, for whom she volunteered in different positions for years. When the ban on female Scout volunteers was lifted, it was the Milford FD that sponsored a troop so Pollard could be Scoutmaster. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 