Like winter to spring, politics thawing
Feb 22, 2021
As I look out at another layer of snow falling on my yard, I know that under the ice and snow lie the emerging shoots of my daffodils, crocus and forsythia, just waiting to bring beauty back with the spring.
I feel that way with our new government as well. After the last four years of nearly suffocating layers of corruption, arrogance, hatred, partisanship and incivility we can now feel those layers melting and newly emerging signs of good government appearing. Just watching the confirmation hearings of Merrick Garland for Attorney General this morning gave me that same hope that things are changing in Washington and we can begin again to trust and honor our public servants. Despite the shameful way his nomination for the Supreme Court was delayed and derailed by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, Merrick Garland held his head high and answered all the questions put before him this morning with candor and sensitivity. How refreshing!
I wish him an early confirmation and feel that he has the strength and integrity to bring our Justice Department back to its former prestige. As always, its mission should be to dispense impartial justice under the law.
I'm encouraged by the high standard that this nomination represents and hope that our new president will choose other men and women of equal stature for the other open positions.
Judy Hughes
Blue Bell
Earn votes, don't suppress voting
May 10, 2021
The Republican gremlins are busy again finding ways to keep all our citizens from voting. Not content with gerrymandering districts to favor their party, they are now working in over 40 states to limit our access to the polls by eliminating mail-in ballots, absentee ballots, drop boxes, polling places, Sunday voting, early voting, and anything that makes it easier, not harder, for us all to vote.
Forcing people to present state-issued IDs, forcing people to travel farther to vote, forcing people to stand in long lines for hours, changing polls to new locations that are inconvenient or not served by public transportation, sending out incorrect voting instructions and making it a crime to provide food or water to those standing in line for hours -- these are the obscene measures that Republicans are enacting because they know that the broader the electorate, the less chance they have of winning and they can’t accept losing.
Reject this assault on our voting rights. If Republicans want our votes, they need to earn them with good ideas and policies, not voter suppression.
Judy Hughes
Blue Bell