FiredUp

On the Covid front, the impacts of Republican led funding cuts are impacting the number of tests and tracing resources available to continue to give us a clear picture of the impacts of Covid.

Headlines:

The Senate confirmed Judge Katanji Brown Jackson as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The Republican Senate contingent save three who voted in the 53-47 bi-partisan vote, all walked out after casting their votes. How childish…

The Ukraine defense force continued to out fight the Russian invasion force, ousting them from Kyiv and other major cities. It is reported that they have pulled back to re-supply.

Inflation has moved to the top economic concern of the American people according to news polls.

More states are quietly proposing laws that will restrict abortion rights. SCOTUS is considering a Mississippi law that is before it that many argue will effectively end the protections of Roe V. Wade in this country.

Redistricting is almost complete here in the US but the Republican gains do not look to be nearly as high as originally projected. Democrats will gain more seats than they thought. But most observers still predict a flip in both houses.

According to a Pew Research poll, Republicans are more likely to say Partisan control of congress really matters than are Democrats.

Another interesting political week examined on FiredUP!

This episode FiredUp takes on the anti-abortion debate from a very different perspective. We pose the question "What happens to the children that will be born if there is no Federally protected right to abortion?"Withe more than 350,000 abortions performed in the US on average per year, what happens to the percentage of children that are NOT raised by their mothers or family? Will they be placed into the adoption system? There are already over 117,500 children currently waiting to be adopted in this country every year. What if another 100-150,000 children are added into the system? Steve brings his perspective as an adopted child into the discussion. Do we "assign" parents for these children? Perhaps the people who spend there energy protesting abortion should have a child assigned to the,. Interesting thoughts from the perspective of an adopted child noe grown up.

On the latest FiredUP podcast:

We open up a discussion of how states are taking a cue from the Texas Abortion law – specifically the civilian lawsuit authorization segment, to sue Teachers and school departments that are teaching subjects that present LGBTQ or related subjects to their elementary students. This comes as FL Gov. DeSantis signs the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law and the ongoing CRT battle continues.

We introduce the subject of Letters of Marque and Reprisal: The Constitution of the United States grants Congress the power authorize the President to assign “agents” to go outside of the borders of the US and seize assets. We refer to Article 1 Section 8 where foreign assets and accounts can be seized outside of US borders. France and Italy have used similar authorization under their Laws to do the same.

What is this meme and the stickers showing up on gas pumps that depict President Biden and the slogan “I Did This” or similar referring to the rising cost of gasoline. We look at whether or not the President actually has the authority to set the price for gas.

It’s been 2 years since Louisville Police broke down the door to Breonna Taylor’s apartment. Based on information that was proven to be incorrect. When her boyfriend fired a single shot at the police because he believed they were criminals breaking in and because this was a “no knock” warrant they did not announce themselves as Police, they fired back. Breonna was fatally wounded and died five minutes later.  We will look at how her death, along with that of George Floyd two months later and the aftermath of the Trevon Martin murder led to the creation of the BLM movement. We also note the result of the verdict for the officer that shot her.

Link to the Ballotpedia website:

https://ballotpedia.org/Main_Page

We kick off this episode with a description of what exactly “Practice Activism” means as we provide information to you with each episode. We will still be issuing our “Calls To Action” to get you motivated on an issue informationally, but now we will be bringing steps to take to make that change real.

We take a brief look at the 2020 election results as our callout to activism, bringing up the fact that although Biden got 8 Million more votes than Trump in the popular vote, the Electoral College vote was decided for Biden by roughly 70,000 votes overall. Who controls the elections?  We look at the process and the actors that run the state elections along with what conservatives are trying to do to change the rules.

The President gave his first State of the Union address this past week. We look at some of the key points. We also open up the Republican response and compare and contrast the statements made and we factcheck both sides, looking at strengths and weaknesses of the arguments and rhetoric.

We talk briefly about historic Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson being the first Black Female nominated to the High Court.

March 7th marks the 57th anniversary of the Civil Rights march across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Alabama, also known as the “Bloody Sunday” march where marchers, including a young John Lewis, were pushed back, beaten and arrested by state police and National Guard.

Here are links to source materials:

https://apnews.com/article/state-of-the-union-address-fact-check-db71cb899a6235748be83a49c342d195

Harris marks ‘Bloody Sunday’ anniversary in Selma - POLITICO

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/23/who-is-ketanji-brown-jackson-bio-facts-background-political-views-00010970

This week on the FiredUp Podcast!

·         Latest Covid Pandemic numbers and thoughts as we close in on 1 Million deaths from the disease.

·         Biden Names SCOTUS pick
President Joe Biden on Friday nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court, elevating an African American woman for the first time to a seat on the high court bench. It will remain to be seen if a bi-partisan vote will be recorded for the Judge, but Democrats can confirm her to the bench with their majority if 100% of the Democrat Senators vote in favor, thanks to the rule put in place by McConnell and the republicans to get their nominees appointed.

·         It has been 10 years since George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin (2/26/2012). Martin was not the first Black young male killed by gun violence and he hasn’t been the last either. We look at how his murder may have become the straw that started the break in the camel’s back. We look at Martin, Floyd, Taylor and discuss the long history of Black deaths since Trayvon.

·         We also look at the question: Who is Mehmet Oz and is he qualified to be the Senator from Pennsylvania? The answer may not be what you think.

·         And Steve will close out Black History Month with a Call To Action and Activism. It is past time for people of color in this country to take back OUR NARRATIVE from those who would try to disappear us from history.

This week on the FiredUp Podcast:

We explore the continued downward trend in Covid hospitalizations and deaths, slowly driving the numbers to a manageable level.

We are tired of Covid and its impacts. No arguments. We are making progress but still have a good way to travel. Compare with Australia at 97% vaxxed, Israel 90+ %.  We need to remain diligent in our effort to combat the virus, but we have a good start.

We take a look at some of the elements of Black History and its influence on American History. Individuals like Granville Woods, Lewis Latimer, Garrett Morgan and Elijah McCoy among others. Many of these inventions were things that improved everyday tasks and processes mostly through automating processes that were performed by African American and other workers, usually tedious jobs.

We are announcing an addition to our show goals and direction. You know that we have so-called “call to action” segments on our show, now we are adding “Practicing Activism” to our tools. Actionable procedures that we need to do to promote real change. More to come, stay tuned.

What do you think of when you hear the name “The Black Panther Party”? Did you know that they provided early-childhood education, free breakfast to children, second-hand clothing, health care, free clinics and other social services? Look up the history of the Black Panther Party and check it out.

This week on FiredUp…

This week is the first week of Black History Month here in the USA and we will be looking at how the celebration of Black History month is fueling deeper debate over the already controversial Critical Race Theory (CRT).

We will be looking at the definition of CRT as it applies to American social and political systems. We look at how the title of CRT has become an umbrella term for broader inter-racial discussion, debate and argument.

CRT has become the lightning rod of social discussion since the murder of George Floyd started an intense triggering event for discussion, protest and legal aspects of race relations in this country.

We will look at what laws are being proposed, debated and passed that restrict the sharing of knowledge on our common history. We will ask the question “does CRT only apply to African-Americans or will it be applied to other ethnic groups such as the Italian, Irish, Asian, and other contributors to the history of America.

Take a look at the article from Education Weekly we talked about:

https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/heres-the-long-list-of-topics-republicans-want-banned-from-the-classroom/2022/02

On the latest episode of FiredUp we look at President Biden’s Supreme Court pick now that Justice Breyer is retiring from the Court. Specifically, we look at and ask about WHY are we getting pushback from the Conservative Right when the individuals named to the current short list are superbly qualified to sit on the SCOTUS bench. Maybe it is the fact that all of the candidates are Black Women? President Biden promised as a candidate for the Presidency, that if he got the opportunity to nominate a SCOTUS justice, it would be a Black female.

We also look at the debate in the Senate this past week over restrictions, proposed as well as presently in force, to voting rights that was held by the only three black Senators presently in the Senate, 2 Democrat and 1 Republican. Senators Warnock (D-GA), Scott (R-SC) and Booker (D-NJ). What made this debate distinctive from prior debates was that 1 it lasted 10 hours; 2 it was a civil debate; and 3 it showed exactly what the value of diversity is in a deliberative body.

Finally as we prepare to enter Black History Month we have a list of first contribution and contributors to American culture and history by Black Americans

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