Politics Report

Ernest Johnson is on death row in Missouri. He has an IQ of 67. It is against the law to execute someone with an intellectual disability like Ernest but Missouri's Supreme Court unanimously thinks it's okay. Former members of the court have spoken against this heinous ruling yet the court is going to allow the state sanctioned murder of Ernest on October 5.

Ernest isn't the first man to not receive adequate representation from the legal system, and he's certainly not the first Black man with a disability to face execution. He will likely not be the last, either, unless we fight against this cruelty and demand the law be upheld. Executions of people with intellectual disabilities are unjust and illegal. The court must uphold its own laws.

Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty have a script you can use to call Governor Parsons and ask him to grant Ernest clemency. Please call (573) 751-3222 as often as possible and use this script:

“Hi, my name is __ & I live in [city and zip code]. I am calling to ask Governor Parson to grant clemency to Ernest Johnson, who is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 5th, 2021. Ernest has an intellectual disability, and should not be executed."

Be sure to sign this petition as well, and share any actions, vigils and other ways to help in the chat.

It's 2021 and politicians are STILL trying to restrict people's right to vote. The country is 245 years old (as the United States, anyway) and we have to wonder... has it really changed? Rich white men continue to try to keep anyone unlike them from obtaining even a little power. The poll tax may be illegal but the 28 laws restricting voters enacted are certainly in the same vein.

The Supreme Court made it easier than ever to restrict voting rights, carry out gerrymandering and cheat in politics all around, disenfranchising the most vulnerable voters while giving rich people even more power. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act would restore our protections from these ridiculous SCOTUS rulings and stop both voter suppression and gerrymandering. 

Click here to ask Congress to pass the act and be sure to share it with everyone you know. Then post your actions for the week in the chat.

After public outcry, pressure and CDC recommendations, President Biden has extended the ban on evictions for another sixty days for areas impacted by Covid-19. It will still expire in October, and while the move is a helpfu one for assisting families facing hardship right now, it doesn't give them the means to address the hardship itself.

The Biden Administration needs to do more for people during this pandemic. Cori Bush, a Congresswoman from my home city, went to push for the ban on evictions while Congress went to recess, refusing to go home until it was addressed. All along she's also been pushing for monthly payments as well as student loan forgiveness, both which would significantly help Americans affected by the pandemic. These are two concrete solutions that could have a lasting impact.

What else does the Biden Administration need to do to support Americans right now? Share your thoughts in the chat.

For those of us wondering if we're actually living in a simulation over the past few years, the last day seems to have confirmed it. A billionaire who profited off exploiting workers and a pandemic just wasted a chunk of his fortune on sending himself to space and back. Upon his return, he gave away $100 million to a chef and a CNN contributor, proving that he is willing to give his money away, but not to, you know, solve homelessness or hunger.

We have an evil movie villain and we're not even attempting to legislate what he's doing. Other nations would have helped distributed that wealth--wealth he'd have never earned without harming his own workers--to help care for their own citizens long before he'd ever gone into space. It's one of the most grotesque abuses of money and power we've ever seen. Bezos knows what he can do and the responsibility he should have with that wealth. Instead, he just issued the entire nation a middle finger as he spent it all in minutes before our eyes.

Those who argue that it's "hard work" that led him there should know that he could have given every warehouse worker on his payroll $100k, which is three times what they make a year, and Bezos himself makes over $150,000 per minute. There's no world in which that amount of money is ethical to earn that quickly.

We need to tax the rich. We need to fix this nation and stop allowing billionaires to even exist.