amber waves

Progressive Democrats of America called this week. They are pushing a 3 state-strategy for getting the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)approved. Currently there are 35 states that have ratified, but 3 remain to enshrine the ERA into the constitution.  This of course assumes that the conservative supreme court will not rule that the statute of limitations has not run out.

Wouldn't a 50-state strategy be more helpful?
Democrats can run in all 50 states for women's rights.  Every legislature would bring the ERA for ratification and every rep/senator who voted against it would be pilloried in most states. Republicans would be seriously on the defensive in every corner of the country. Women candidates would get a boost. Turnout would go up in the critical single women category and among young people. This would be a long running strategy for many many election cycles.

Yes it may take longer to get the full amendment ratified. This is a downside, but honestly, it is not like the Amendment is going to dramatically change judicial rulings, which have substantially incorporated equal gender rights into US law already. What's the hurry?

How can we get the Democratic leadership to switch to a 50-state ERA strategy?

Progressive foreign policy and military issues need to be a key criteria for selecting the 8th congressional district representative for Virginia.

Others have proposed valuable domestic progressive criteria for selecting the best candidate for the 8th congressional district. We also need progressive criteria related to foreign policy and military affairs.  Moran really stands apart from many of the other area congresspeople when it comes to these issues. We need someone like Moran. Not like Hoyer, Connolly or Van Hollen.

I have aggregated the performance statistics of DC area representatives from 3 progressive organizations,
Peace Action,
Council For A Livable World, and
the Arab American Institute.

Tonight I received a robo campaign call from Middle Resolution (middleresolution.org) in support of John Whitbeck running for state senate.

I live in North Arlington far away from that district.  In addition, I don't know why these clowns would be calling a hard-core opponent of the Tea-Party.

I informed the Whitbeck campaign that receiving the call so upset me that I am now motivated to giving to his opponent. Hopefully all of you reading this will give to his opponent Jennifer Wexton as the election is crucial to keeping the senate Democratic.

As an aside, I am a big fan of banning all unsolicited robo calls (except emergencies)and wish we had legislators who would prioritize such legislation. If McAuliffe proposed this his poll numbers would probably jump 5 points.

Middle Resolution's tagline is "Restoring Fiscal Integrity and Individual Rights." I want the right not to be harassed by phone calls from their computers.

Banning robo political calls will benefit Democrats. Rebublikochs don't have the large numbers of volunteers that Democrats have and cannot win a phone bank contest in most jurisdictions.

According to the story by Markus Schmid in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on July 9, 2013 about Kaine's visit to the Middle East, Kaine says that Turkey is a big supporter of the coup d'etat in Egypt!  http://www.timesdispatch.com/n...

In fact Turkey is the biggest opponent of the coup d'etat in Egypt. Talk about shooting from the hip!

Congressman Jim Moran deserves a boat load of credit for his tireless advocacy for the lifting of the ban on consumer communication tools to Iran. This includes hardware, software and communication services.

The US administration lifted the ban this week many years after Jim introduced the Iran Digital Empowerment Act.

Here is a link to a press release by the National Iranian American Council applauding the Obama administrations move and crediting Congressman Moran.

http://www.niacouncil.org/site...

Before automatically committing to re-elect my congressman in Arlington, I went to see the new opponent's website. Congressman Moran is good but not without his flaws.  Bruce Shuttleworth is running for the VA 8 Congressional primary against Congressman Moran.  Curiously, his "news" section on his website http://shuttleworthforcongress... is running as the 2nd item a press release from Congressman Steny Hoyer entitled "Hoyer Floor Statement on the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012."  The 3rd news article is "Hoyer Video Message on Teacher Appreciation Week."

Strangely, Mr. Shuttleworth is not mentioned anywhere in these articles.  Is Hoyer trying to run a stealth candidate against his Democratic colleague?

Del. Hope and Sen Ebbin have helped reveal awful policies of solitary confinement in Virginia prisons.  This was a front page story (unfortunately not above the fold) in Sunday's Washington Post. We need to speak up about this abuse and support their efforts at prison reform. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...