“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” These were the first lines in a pamphlet called
My message to Senator Manchin this noon time. My next step is to look into who bought him, perhaps Moscow Mitch's Putin oligarchs friends? Manchin making his announcement on Fox News without warning President Biden is quite suspicious. Hopefully the cracks showing in the GOP will create a new math for the Senate sooner hopefully than later. Yes, I've always been an optimist. It's a lot more fun than being a pessimist.
Dear Senator Manchin,
Because of the power you hold in your hands, you have an impact that goes far beyond West Virginia. You need to explain yourself not just to West Virginians but to women like me in Texas and Americans as a whole. First, I do agree with you that it would be better to fund fewer programs like the child tax credit for ten years and make them permanent rather than throw smaller, less permanent dollars at too many programs. However, the alternative of doing nothing is unacceptable. Your statements on Fox News this morning are quite frankly horrifying to me and so many Americans. You are making sure the women in this country work for half the wages a man does when childcare is taken out of our wages. You are making sure children starve because all the entitlements have been going to the rich and corporate big money interests because our politicians have been bought by the legalized bribery of Citizens United. You are making sure that income disparity increases and further makes life miserable for the working people that deserve a share in the profits their work made possible. The climate conflagration is already making us spend billions on weather disasters and so we save money by going to sustainable energy sources. Remember tornado alley is moving Eastward right into West Virginia! Your job should be to make West Virginia the state the leader in promoting sustainable energy production and retrain its workers for those jobs. By not saving America by not tweaking the filibuster and making sure the right to vote remains a right for ALL, you are assuring that United States back-slides into total authoritarianism and minority rule. My opinion on the filibuster is to go to 41 Senators to keep the debate going rather than 60 to stop it. We even have the Supreme Court dismantling democracy by making rulings based on a future ruling of the Court to take away Roe v. Wade putting all the women of Texas into subservient roles like the Hand Maidens Tale nightmare. Along with their rulings on Citizens United making bribery of our elected officials legal resulting in them voting with their donors while ignoring the will of the People and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act allowing states to go back to confederacy minority rule and autocracy, the Supreme Court has become anti-democratic and in Contempt of the Constitution. I would reduce the number of Justices to seven and get rid of the last two who are illegitimate because of then Majority Leader McConnell's Contempt of the Constitution. Those kind of games are unfair and abhorrent to me.
Please become a statesman and save America as a constitutional democratic republic! Get $1.75 B passed for 10 year programs like childcare which is keeping women working below minimum wage and our children starving. Make the filibuster work as tool for the minority to be heard but not give them a total veto over the majority. Pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Then go home an tell West Virginians that they get their share of the entitlements the rich have been squandering and their voice will now be heard. It isn't now. I don't care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican because neither party represents me because of their extreme positions on everything. Actually the Republican Party seems to have no positions on anything except preserving their power and suppressing women along with many others that do not deserve such unfair treatment in a country that still tries to call itself a democratic republic.
Please don't delay. You know there isn't much time before gerrymandering and voter suppression will take away democracy forever. It is already gone in Texas and many other states. I don't live in a democracy and my constitutional rights are being stripped away. For what? So rich are entitled to get richer and we become a state of indentured servants to the oligarchic kleptocracy. No, we are better than that. You have the ability to become a statesman and save the very foundation of American democracy. Please do the right thing before it is too late. NEVER give up the fight for democracy and economic well-being FOR ALL THE PEOPLE this time!
Stressed out in Texas. Catherine Learoyd
P.S. No, I do not want a canned reply. I want ACTION!
There's no proof that The American Crisis was read to the troops before they crossed the Delaware, but it's in my family oral tradition that Private Isaac Cleaver, a Quaker from Germantown, Pennsylvania, who had left the church to join the fight, was a member of the Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia and was among the 5,000 troops who heard the pamphlet read to them (it was commissioned by Washington for that purpose). Then he and the others crossed the Delaware and lay in the snowy forest overnight, and in the morning they took Trenton Barracks and saved the Revolution, and he took the Hessian short sword made in Hesse in 1745 according to the stamp on the haft of the blade, from the Sergeant of the Hessian Guard. It's been in my family for six generations now and hangs on the wall over my desk, as "inspiration". I had it dated and verified by an antique weapons expert at Sotheby's local office here 40 years ago. The sword is real and I think the story is, too. Though they were selfishly too busy that night giving us the Christmas Gift of the Revolution living, to take the time and do their duty and write down anything of what happened for we later historians. I once offered it to the Smithsonian, but their historians told me an "oral provenance" was insufficient for them to accept. So we keep it.
What an inspiring, indeed glorious retelling of the origins of our democracy, one that evokes the trials of the present moment and inspires confidence. Thank you, Heather!
Thank you for reminding us that when we lay our “shoulders to the wheel”, we have collectively achieved what others believed inconceivable. As with the American Revolution and the Civil War, we are at a historic inflection point.
Your newsletter is a daily reminder to dig in & keep fighting, regardless of how tired or disenchanted we may become. This may be the fight of our lifetime, the third time our republic nearly slipped through our grasp. This is the moment to clench her in our fists and hold on for dear life.
Thanks, Professor Lady. I needed this one. Hearing the pundits talk about how Biden’s poll numbers are dropping, I think, “ Come on people! If he wasn’t trying to do something hard, he wouldn’t be doing the job he’s elected to do.”
This Letter should be packaged with appropriate pictures for students who learn from pictures with words spoken to teach the American Revolution for school curriculum. Heather Cox Richardson brings history alive with her profound skill and love of the subject. Over 800,000 West Virginian's if my memory serves me early in the morning, will lose the Child Credit starting in January, 2022. Perhaps they will respond to their Senator when their family can't eat?
I am from NJ, and I live right off the road Washington’s troops used to advance on Trenton that fateful Christmas. In the before-times, I travelled that road every day to get to my commuter train. Every once in a while it would hit me what happened here and I would reflect on that fact. Lately, however, I find myself walking down my street to the road and just sitting and contemplating. It encourages me to think if we could come together to rid ourselves of one tyrant, we can surely do it again. I just hope we don’t have to fight another war to do so.
Thank you, Heather for these daily letters. I freely admit to stealing some of the ideas in them for my letters to the editor of our local papers. I had been working on another one that lead with the quote from Abraham Lincoln about “The legitimate object of government,..." before Joe Manchin jerked the football out from under Biden. I may still finish it, since it will tackle the issue of "socialism" as it is misrepresented by Republicans, particularly those who write in to our papers.
I am starting to hear comments from friends and family that they can't expend anymore energy on this, and that they will be OK since they either live in a blue state or are white/Christian. One friend is actively exploring options to become an ex-pat. While I am white and Christian, I live in Wisconsin and have many friends in the LGBTQ community, and my church (UCC) is prominent in the social justice movement. I think just being Christian isn't going to be enough in a few years; it will have to be the right "flavor" of Christian. I am discouraged by the seemingly relentless stream of bad news, but I will not give up without giving it my best effort.
Thank you for giving us the the encouragement of the words of Tom Paine and your description of what the Continental troops endured. At 6:30 a.m. in the darkness and temperature of 19 f degrees and the fear of Omicron surrounding us, it is good to be reminded of the sacrifice and suffering that the establishment of our nation incurred.
Thank you, Dr. Cox-Richardson. I so very much needed today’s history lesson to sustain my belief that, amid the current potential undoing of the revolutionary promise of the republic, if one wants representative government subject to the will of the people, one must sacrifice for it. Lest we witness the unleashing of indescribable forms of tyranny, the struggle for freedom and democracy must be fought for.
Case in point: A couple of days ago, I replied to a fellow subscriber with the following post: “Though I, too, am frustrated with Manchin (and Sinema), stay tuned. A group of Senators that include Manchin are exploring Senate rule changes that would reinstate some form of the talking filibuster, that once exhausted, would conclude with an up or down majority vote. The current thinking is that voter protection legislation would be the first to benefit from this rule change.
“As for BBB, a handful of creative thinkers are stitching together legislation that would fall within Manchin’s $1.7 trillion figure over 10 years. They estimate they could preserve much of the child tax credit expansion, affordable child care and pre-K, fixes to ACA subsidies, with enough left to pick another policy. There also is the advantage of the legislation not lapsing, say in 3 years, were the Republicans to retake power.
“My point is that Dems conceivably can deliver on two principal goals: 1) pass legislation that blocks GOP initiatives to suppress and nullify votes and 2) show they can enact legislation that makes a noticeably enough difference in people’s lives to galvanize the base for 22. As stated, stay tuned.”
I imagine, when we each tuned in this morning and learned that Manchin had withdrawn his support for Biden’s entire Build Back Better agenda, my fellow subscriber felt as betrayed as I. Still, I am confident that the crafters of the edited down BBB proposal could already be contemplating alternatives. Indeed, I am.
To those who wish to write to Joe Manchin, their representatives or their local papers, I recommend stressing a few points:
1. The $7+ trillion defense budget passed almost unanimously this year would have funded Build Back Better for more than 30 years. And Congress has been passing defense budgets of this magnitude every year.
2. Our defense spending is greater than the next 10 largest defense spending nations around the world.
3. Our defense spending has not provided any more defense than our adversaries enjoy with much less spending and less expensive methods of attack.
It hasn't stopped domestic terrorism and insurrection in our own country. It has not stopped Russia from invading former Soviet satellite nations attempting democracy. It has not protected us from Russia's interference in our elections and social media, as Russia works to disrupt and destroy our democracy. It hasn't stopped the proliferation of weapons and nuclear arms in smaller aggressive natives who threaten us and each other. In fact we sell many of these weapons. It hasn't stopped China from threatening Hong King, Taiwan and southeast Asian and Pacific nations.
4. Whereas we put all our money into military defense and resist investing in our domestic needs, our allies and adversaries do the opposite. They invest heavily in their domestic development, social needs and in international relationships. China has made infrastructure abroad a major diplomatic and economic priority. Cuba a nation the size of Tennessee sends doctors and medical teams to international disaster sites. India produces much of the world's vaccines and medicines. Africa gets most of its economic development support from countries other than the US. Whereas the US is a largest weapons dealer in the world. Our military priorities make us weak domestically.
5. The Soviet Union from 1945 to its collapse followed a course very similar to our present path. It spread propaganda and misinformation about its domestic issues and conditions to reinforce its autocratic leaders. It tried to make domestic conditions appear rosy while they were in fact decaying. They spent an abundance of resources on their military and wars like holding onto Afghanistan. They gave special attention and resources to their one party state leaders and supporters. Then eventually went broke.
The path forward from here, as laid out by Robert Hubbell:
"The path forward runs through us. We must blaze the path with small acts of democracy that will light the way for others. We must pave the path with our stubborn refusal to listen to those who tell us “You can’t win” or “Be afraid” or “Imagine the worst.” The path forward requires militant optimism—a vow never to give up, even if our role is only to hold the ramparts until future generations relieve us.
...First, engage in a daily action to make your voice heard.
...Second, help change the negative media narrative.
...Third, arrange group visits to the local field offices of your congressional and state representatives."
Your call, just as that of Thomas Paine's, touches the depths of the soul. Thank you for selecting his lines to bolster the hope we so crave these wintry days. A handful of insurrectionists and turncoats (namely, Manchin) cannot and must not demoralize nor discourage us from standing up to their demonic ploys.
Like Paine and Cathy below, we must use the power of the pen to uplift and flatten the resolve of all naysayers. Like you and Paine, our beloved chroniclers continue to empower us through the grimmest of battles during the bleakest of days.
"As I woke up [ at Midnite ] to breathe the air ... " around Tom Paine. Thank you Professor Richardson, it has been 225 years to the Day since Tom's pamphlet. We needed that.
My message to Senator Manchin this noon time. My next step is to look into who bought him, perhaps Moscow Mitch's Putin oligarchs friends? Manchin making his announcement on Fox News without warning President Biden is quite suspicious. Hopefully the cracks showing in the GOP will create a new math for the Senate sooner hopefully than later. Yes, I've always been an optimist. It's a lot more fun than being a pessimist.
Dear Senator Manchin,
Because of the power you hold in your hands, you have an impact that goes far beyond West Virginia. You need to explain yourself not just to West Virginians but to women like me in Texas and Americans as a whole. First, I do agree with you that it would be better to fund fewer programs like the child tax credit for ten years and make them permanent rather than throw smaller, less permanent dollars at too many programs. However, the alternative of doing nothing is unacceptable. Your statements on Fox News this morning are quite frankly horrifying to me and so many Americans. You are making sure the women in this country work for half the wages a man does when childcare is taken out of our wages. You are making sure children starve because all the entitlements have been going to the rich and corporate big money interests because our politicians have been bought by the legalized bribery of Citizens United. You are making sure that income disparity increases and further makes life miserable for the working people that deserve a share in the profits their work made possible. The climate conflagration is already making us spend billions on weather disasters and so we save money by going to sustainable energy sources. Remember tornado alley is moving Eastward right into West Virginia! Your job should be to make West Virginia the state the leader in promoting sustainable energy production and retrain its workers for those jobs. By not saving America by not tweaking the filibuster and making sure the right to vote remains a right for ALL, you are assuring that United States back-slides into total authoritarianism and minority rule. My opinion on the filibuster is to go to 41 Senators to keep the debate going rather than 60 to stop it. We even have the Supreme Court dismantling democracy by making rulings based on a future ruling of the Court to take away Roe v. Wade putting all the women of Texas into subservient roles like the Hand Maidens Tale nightmare. Along with their rulings on Citizens United making bribery of our elected officials legal resulting in them voting with their donors while ignoring the will of the People and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act allowing states to go back to confederacy minority rule and autocracy, the Supreme Court has become anti-democratic and in Contempt of the Constitution. I would reduce the number of Justices to seven and get rid of the last two who are illegitimate because of then Majority Leader McConnell's Contempt of the Constitution. Those kind of games are unfair and abhorrent to me.
Please become a statesman and save America as a constitutional democratic republic! Get $1.75 B passed for 10 year programs like childcare which is keeping women working below minimum wage and our children starving. Make the filibuster work as tool for the minority to be heard but not give them a total veto over the majority. Pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Then go home an tell West Virginians that they get their share of the entitlements the rich have been squandering and their voice will now be heard. It isn't now. I don't care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican because neither party represents me because of their extreme positions on everything. Actually the Republican Party seems to have no positions on anything except preserving their power and suppressing women along with many others that do not deserve such unfair treatment in a country that still tries to call itself a democratic republic.
Please don't delay. You know there isn't much time before gerrymandering and voter suppression will take away democracy forever. It is already gone in Texas and many other states. I don't live in a democracy and my constitutional rights are being stripped away. For what? So rich are entitled to get richer and we become a state of indentured servants to the oligarchic kleptocracy. No, we are better than that. You have the ability to become a statesman and save the very foundation of American democracy. Please do the right thing before it is too late. NEVER give up the fight for democracy and economic well-being FOR ALL THE PEOPLE this time!
Stressed out in Texas. Catherine Learoyd
P.S. No, I do not want a canned reply. I want ACTION!
There's no proof that The American Crisis was read to the troops before they crossed the Delaware, but it's in my family oral tradition that Private Isaac Cleaver, a Quaker from Germantown, Pennsylvania, who had left the church to join the fight, was a member of the Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia and was among the 5,000 troops who heard the pamphlet read to them (it was commissioned by Washington for that purpose). Then he and the others crossed the Delaware and lay in the snowy forest overnight, and in the morning they took Trenton Barracks and saved the Revolution, and he took the Hessian short sword made in Hesse in 1745 according to the stamp on the haft of the blade, from the Sergeant of the Hessian Guard. It's been in my family for six generations now and hangs on the wall over my desk, as "inspiration". I had it dated and verified by an antique weapons expert at Sotheby's local office here 40 years ago. The sword is real and I think the story is, too. Though they were selfishly too busy that night giving us the Christmas Gift of the Revolution living, to take the time and do their duty and write down anything of what happened for we later historians. I once offered it to the Smithsonian, but their historians told me an "oral provenance" was insufficient for them to accept. So we keep it.
What an inspiring, indeed glorious retelling of the origins of our democracy, one that evokes the trials of the present moment and inspires confidence. Thank you, Heather!
Thank you for reminding us that when we lay our “shoulders to the wheel”, we have collectively achieved what others believed inconceivable. As with the American Revolution and the Civil War, we are at a historic inflection point.
Your newsletter is a daily reminder to dig in & keep fighting, regardless of how tired or disenchanted we may become. This may be the fight of our lifetime, the third time our republic nearly slipped through our grasp. This is the moment to clench her in our fists and hold on for dear life.
Thanks, Professor Lady. I needed this one. Hearing the pundits talk about how Biden’s poll numbers are dropping, I think, “ Come on people! If he wasn’t trying to do something hard, he wouldn’t be doing the job he’s elected to do.”
Dear HCR -- I wish that you had been my US History teacher!
This Letter should be packaged with appropriate pictures for students who learn from pictures with words spoken to teach the American Revolution for school curriculum. Heather Cox Richardson brings history alive with her profound skill and love of the subject. Over 800,000 West Virginian's if my memory serves me early in the morning, will lose the Child Credit starting in January, 2022. Perhaps they will respond to their Senator when their family can't eat?
I am from NJ, and I live right off the road Washington’s troops used to advance on Trenton that fateful Christmas. In the before-times, I travelled that road every day to get to my commuter train. Every once in a while it would hit me what happened here and I would reflect on that fact. Lately, however, I find myself walking down my street to the road and just sitting and contemplating. It encourages me to think if we could come together to rid ourselves of one tyrant, we can surely do it again. I just hope we don’t have to fight another war to do so.
Thank you, Heather for these daily letters. I freely admit to stealing some of the ideas in them for my letters to the editor of our local papers. I had been working on another one that lead with the quote from Abraham Lincoln about “The legitimate object of government,..." before Joe Manchin jerked the football out from under Biden. I may still finish it, since it will tackle the issue of "socialism" as it is misrepresented by Republicans, particularly those who write in to our papers.
I am starting to hear comments from friends and family that they can't expend anymore energy on this, and that they will be OK since they either live in a blue state or are white/Christian. One friend is actively exploring options to become an ex-pat. While I am white and Christian, I live in Wisconsin and have many friends in the LGBTQ community, and my church (UCC) is prominent in the social justice movement. I think just being Christian isn't going to be enough in a few years; it will have to be the right "flavor" of Christian. I am discouraged by the seemingly relentless stream of bad news, but I will not give up without giving it my best effort.
Thank you for giving us the the encouragement of the words of Tom Paine and your description of what the Continental troops endured. At 6:30 a.m. in the darkness and temperature of 19 f degrees and the fear of Omicron surrounding us, it is good to be reminded of the sacrifice and suffering that the establishment of our nation incurred.
Thank you, Dr. Cox-Richardson. I so very much needed today’s history lesson to sustain my belief that, amid the current potential undoing of the revolutionary promise of the republic, if one wants representative government subject to the will of the people, one must sacrifice for it. Lest we witness the unleashing of indescribable forms of tyranny, the struggle for freedom and democracy must be fought for.
Case in point: A couple of days ago, I replied to a fellow subscriber with the following post: “Though I, too, am frustrated with Manchin (and Sinema), stay tuned. A group of Senators that include Manchin are exploring Senate rule changes that would reinstate some form of the talking filibuster, that once exhausted, would conclude with an up or down majority vote. The current thinking is that voter protection legislation would be the first to benefit from this rule change.
“As for BBB, a handful of creative thinkers are stitching together legislation that would fall within Manchin’s $1.7 trillion figure over 10 years. They estimate they could preserve much of the child tax credit expansion, affordable child care and pre-K, fixes to ACA subsidies, with enough left to pick another policy. There also is the advantage of the legislation not lapsing, say in 3 years, were the Republicans to retake power.
“My point is that Dems conceivably can deliver on two principal goals: 1) pass legislation that blocks GOP initiatives to suppress and nullify votes and 2) show they can enact legislation that makes a noticeably enough difference in people’s lives to galvanize the base for 22. As stated, stay tuned.”
I imagine, when we each tuned in this morning and learned that Manchin had withdrawn his support for Biden’s entire Build Back Better agenda, my fellow subscriber felt as betrayed as I. Still, I am confident that the crafters of the edited down BBB proposal could already be contemplating alternatives. Indeed, I am.
To those who wish to write to Joe Manchin, their representatives or their local papers, I recommend stressing a few points:
1. The $7+ trillion defense budget passed almost unanimously this year would have funded Build Back Better for more than 30 years. And Congress has been passing defense budgets of this magnitude every year.
2. Our defense spending is greater than the next 10 largest defense spending nations around the world.
3. Our defense spending has not provided any more defense than our adversaries enjoy with much less spending and less expensive methods of attack.
It hasn't stopped domestic terrorism and insurrection in our own country. It has not stopped Russia from invading former Soviet satellite nations attempting democracy. It has not protected us from Russia's interference in our elections and social media, as Russia works to disrupt and destroy our democracy. It hasn't stopped the proliferation of weapons and nuclear arms in smaller aggressive natives who threaten us and each other. In fact we sell many of these weapons. It hasn't stopped China from threatening Hong King, Taiwan and southeast Asian and Pacific nations.
4. Whereas we put all our money into military defense and resist investing in our domestic needs, our allies and adversaries do the opposite. They invest heavily in their domestic development, social needs and in international relationships. China has made infrastructure abroad a major diplomatic and economic priority. Cuba a nation the size of Tennessee sends doctors and medical teams to international disaster sites. India produces much of the world's vaccines and medicines. Africa gets most of its economic development support from countries other than the US. Whereas the US is a largest weapons dealer in the world. Our military priorities make us weak domestically.
5. The Soviet Union from 1945 to its collapse followed a course very similar to our present path. It spread propaganda and misinformation about its domestic issues and conditions to reinforce its autocratic leaders. It tried to make domestic conditions appear rosy while they were in fact decaying. They spent an abundance of resources on their military and wars like holding onto Afghanistan. They gave special attention and resources to their one party state leaders and supporters. Then eventually went broke.
The path forward from here, as laid out by Robert Hubbell:
"The path forward runs through us. We must blaze the path with small acts of democracy that will light the way for others. We must pave the path with our stubborn refusal to listen to those who tell us “You can’t win” or “Be afraid” or “Imagine the worst.” The path forward requires militant optimism—a vow never to give up, even if our role is only to hold the ramparts until future generations relieve us.
...First, engage in a daily action to make your voice heard.
...Second, help change the negative media narrative.
...Third, arrange group visits to the local field offices of your congressional and state representatives."
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/todays-edition-the-path-forward-756?r=6pp8t&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Dear Heather,
Your call, just as that of Thomas Paine's, touches the depths of the soul. Thank you for selecting his lines to bolster the hope we so crave these wintry days. A handful of insurrectionists and turncoats (namely, Manchin) cannot and must not demoralize nor discourage us from standing up to their demonic ploys.
Like Paine and Cathy below, we must use the power of the pen to uplift and flatten the resolve of all naysayers. Like you and Paine, our beloved chroniclers continue to empower us through the grimmest of battles during the bleakest of days.
Thank you!
Thank you, Professor Richardson. Today's Letter embodies the reason we come here, each and every day.
"As I woke up [ at Midnite ] to breathe the air ... " around Tom Paine. Thank you Professor Richardson, it has been 225 years to the Day since Tom's pamphlet. We needed that.