Tag Archives: Kathy Byrnes

Who’s really trying to steal elections?

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It’s encouraging that so many key Republicans have spoken out strongly against this sham. Yet, here’s the problem, and why this is not petty or small-scale theft: If other states controlled by Republican legislators pick up on the idea, as seems entirely possible, this insanity could snowball to the point of truly threatening a key pillar of American democracy.

And if Trump’s minions succeed in stealing the public’s confidence in our electoral system, there’s not much left to democracy. See the disenfranchised people of Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea for details. Continue Reading →

Dialogue on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

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Many people claim that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is complicated. I don’t buy that. It boils down to the blatant denial of human rights to the Palestinian people. If the US would stop funding the Israeli war machine and join other nations in denouncing Israel’s injustices toward Palestinians, I believe we would have peace in relatively short order.

To those detractors who claim the Arab world wants to drive Israel into the sea, that sounds much like the false argument some people used years ago to defend a divided Ireland. “Home rule is Rome rule,” they said, stoking fears that an independent and united Ireland would be governed by the Pope.

Similarly, Israel needs to be one country where Jews, Muslims, Christians, and others not only respect but learn to appreciate each other’s differences. Just as Ireland is not officially a Catholic country, although 75% of the population is Catholic, Israel shouldn’t declare Judaism its official religion either. Continue Reading →

Questioning Biden’s commitment to climate action

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Sometimes you get to see the big picture by studying little things. Not that the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is small potatoes, but Biden clearly, repeatedly, and emphatically stated his opposition to DAPL during the campaign in 2019.

Yet Biden refuses to stop the proposed expansion of DAPL. Work on DAPL’s pumping station near Cambridge, Iowa, is happening NOW. Once that work is finished, DAPL can double the flow of oil — doubling the damage to our climate and increasing the risk to our land and water.

So, yeah, I’m nervous — and skeptical, because if President Biden was telling the truth in 2019, he should have stepped in by now to stop this expansion. It can still be stopped, but time is running out, and Biden shows no sign of weighing in. Continue Reading →

We ate the butter cow

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I have a confession to make: I ate the Iowa State Fair Butter Cow. Then a second butter cow came along, and Kathy ate that one. Ok, I’m being a little silly. While neither Kathy nor I would ever devour or desecrate our State Fair’s most iconic feature, we calculate that, during our combined 122 years on this fine planet, we’ve each consumed the equivalent of a butter cow. That’s 600 pounds of butter. Each. Continue Reading →

“What you guys are doing is inspiring.” — Danny Lyon

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Danny’s a distinguished photographer, journalist, and film maker with award-winning work dating back to the 1960s civil rights struggle. He picks me up at camp in a battered old Volvo and we drive to the adobe house where he and his wife, Nancy, have lived for 38 years. “Most of this house was built by a single illegal Mexican worker named Eddie,” Danny says proudly. “And I like that it’s biodegradable. Someday, it’ll just be a big heap of mud.” Continue Reading →

The power of nonviolent action

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The Race to Save the World challenges us to get involved with our whole person — our bodies and our minds — through creative actions, risking arrest, crazy-long marches, and disrupting business-as-usual for oil companies, banks, and lackluster politicians.

Ultimately, ending the climate crisis will involve major legislative initiatives. Perhaps we’re seeing the front edge of that with the Biden administration’s climate-action proposals. Even so, it’s time for a global mobilization on an unprecedented scale. Perhaps The Race to Save the World can inspire that. Continue Reading →

The Race to Save the World

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Gantz’s documentary crew were embedded with the Climate March during our entire journey. The crew’s presence validated the importance of our purpose and mission, although being constantly trailed by cameras for eight months made it feel as if we were living in a reality TV show. The physical exhaustion of marching coupled with the rigors of outdoor living added a surreal element to the experience. Continue Reading →

C what I did here?

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Even as more and more of us get vaccinated and the danger of dying from COVID-19 shrinks, many Americans are stuck in survival mode, obsessing over the risks. That’s not to say we’re out of the woods and should abandon reasonable safety measures, but let’s put it in perspective: today, around 100 Americans will die in an automobile accident. Also today, somewhere between zero and one vaccinated American will die from COVID-19. Continue Reading →

Trump vs Baseball

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Also on Trump’s list of boycottable corporations: Major League Baseball (MLB).

That’s right. Baseball. One of the cornerstone symbols of the American experience — the others being apple pie, the automobile, and hot dogs. No president has ever issued a more unpatriotic call-to-action than boycotting baseball.

So, what specifically did MLB do to incur the ex-president’s wrath? In response to Georgia’s new voting law, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the 2021 All-Star Game would be moved from Atlanta to Denver saying, “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.” Continue Reading →

Justin Brady: communications professional, non-Biden voter

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Most of my Trump voter conversations cover a lot of ground. With fellow podcaster and radio dude, Justin Brady, we focus on partisan politics. And I promise, Justin’s not at all as angry as he looks in that photo. (Really, Justin, you couldn’t have sent me a pic of you smiling while playing with a cute kitten?) Continue Reading →