RIP John Lewis

[47of74]

John Lewis has died 

Quote

Rep. John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat known for his significant leadership in Congress and throughout the civil rights movement, died Friday at age 80. 

He served Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, which encompasses most of Atlanta, and was highly respected on both sides of the political aisle. Lewis was known as the “conscience of Congress.”

The congressman announced in December 2019 that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. 

Lewis said at the time that he would continue serving in Congress while he underwent treatment, noting he “may miss a few votes during this period, but with God’s grace I will be back on the front lines soon.”

Fuck 2020 

[Becky]

A real hero, a genuine public servant, a man of great courage and leadership. We are a better nation for his service  and a poorer nation for his loss. ?

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From a few years ago:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I've seen lots of clap back to Bitch about his hypocritical words about John Lewis:

 

[47of74]

8 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I've seen lots of clap back to Bitch about his hypocritical words about John Lewis:

 

Yeah I'm not having this hypocritical horse shit from the likes of Marco or Bitch McFuckstick.  Both of them can go fuck themselves.  They stood for everything that John Lewis opposed in his life so they can get fucking lost now.  They should just shut the fuck up and not say a fucking word.

Sorry for swearing so much.

[47of74]

And of course Lindsey has to chime in on Kluxervision Faux News 

Quote

On Saturday, even Fox News was discussing civil rights leader John Lewis, who passed away on Friday.

For a segment billed as “remembering the life and legacy” of Rep. Lewis, Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro interviewed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

“John was known for causing, ‘good trouble.’ That’s what he described the civil rights movement — ‘good trouble.’ Peaceful protest, being hit in the head for a worthy cause. That’s different than what you see playing out in the streets of the United States,” Graham argued.

“I think John Lewis loved America, he wanted to make it better. What you see happening today here is people who hate America and want to change it,” the South Carolina Republican declared. “Big difference, but he will be missed.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

15 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Peaceful protest, being hit in the head for a worthy cause.

Um, he wasn’t just “hit the n the head”, he was beaten to within inches of his life multiple times. Of course Lindsey, who has no backbone, would downplay the courage and conviction of such a great man.

Edited July 19, 2020 by GreyhoundFan

[LearningtoFly]

I was so sad to hear this news.  He was a great American and will be missed.  It is disgusting to see displays of what I consider to be fake sympathy. 

[GreyhoundFan]

How touching:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Hooray: "Fairfax County renames Robert E. Lee High for late congressman John Lewis"

Spoiler

Fairfax County Public Schools is renaming Robert E. Lee High School in Northern Virginia for the late Georgia congressman John Lewis, a historic switch that follows a wave of similar rechristenings throughout the South.

The school board voted unanimously to change the name to John R. Lewis High School at a virtual meeting Thursday evening. The change comes after several years of efforts to rename the school, a push that stalled last year but gained new momentum after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Some who advocated for the name change were jubilant at the news.

“I LOVE ITTTT,” texted Kadija Ismail, a 17-year-old senior at the high school who launched an online petition in June to change the name. That petition earned more than 1,000 signatures in a day.

Similar petitions have cropped up across the South over the past two months, started by students, alumni and parents. Inspired by the demonstrations sweeping the nation after Floyd’s death, they are demanding the removal of Confederate names and mascots from schools — and they are seeing success.

Schools in Virginia are swiftly dropping the lingering ties to the Confederacy: In Prince William County, the school board voted to rename Stonewall Middle School as Unity Braxton Middle School, honoring a local black couple. Loudoun County High School agreed to remove its mascot, the Raiders, named for Confederate Col. John S. Mosby’s troops. Although many are still deciding on replacement names, the options being advanced often include figures such as Lewis, Cesar Chavez and President Barack Obama.

Lee served as commander of the Confederate army during the Civil War. Lewis, who died on July 17, was a civil rights leader who was beaten and jailed as he fought for equality in the 1960s and later spent more than 30 years as a Democrat in Congress.

“It is hard to imagine a more fitting replacement for a disgraced Confederate general than a civil rights icon,” said Fairfax school board member Karl Frisch (Providence).

Many Southern schools adopted Confederate names in the 1950s and 1960s, as an angry response to the Supreme Court’s seminal 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education. Virginia is the state with the second-highest number of schools with Confederate names, with at least 26, according to an analysis by Education Week.

In Fairfax, according to Ismail, serious efforts to change the name date to at least 2017. Ismail, who is black, got involved her freshman year, as did her friend Kimberly Boateng, 17, who is also black. Both felt it was embarrassing to see Lee’s name adorn a school that is majority black, Latino and Asian. (White students constituted just 16 percent of the student body in 2018-2019).

After Floyd’s killing, they wrote a letter to the superintendent and the school board. Lee “embodies the very heart of racism,” they wrote.

After learning of the new name Thursday, Ismail said she thought back to her freshman year. She remembered all the days she walked into school, beneath Lee’s name and past a massive portrait of the man that hangs in the entryway.

“It’s amazing how far our school has come,” she said.

Boateng said she thought about the future. She said she keeps envisioning her diploma — which will now bear Lewis’s name, not Lee’s.

And that, she said, “means dignity.”

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[WiseGirl]

 

[SPHASH]

1 hour ago, WiseGirl said:

 

Another funeral #Bunkerbitch isn't invited to.

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, WiseGirl said:

 

Good. John Lewis deserves an elegant and respectful sendoff. President Obama is just the man to do it.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Obama’s rousing speech trolls Trump: Who’s the impostor now?"

Spoiler

Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency in no small part part on the idea that his predecessor was an impostor. He adopted the racist “birther” theory about Barack Obama with the carefully cultivated aim of connecting with disaffected GOP constituencies, then stuck with it through his hijacking of the party in 2016 en route to winning the presidency.

That core idea — that the first Black president couldn’t possibly have been a real American, that electing Trump would in effect set things right by erasing that impostor’s presidency, which should have never happened — is particularly galling, but also worth remembering, in light of the stark contrast we just witnessed unfolding between these two men.

It is perversely fitting that President Trump issued his clearest statement of corrupt intent yet toward our elections on the same day that Obama delivered a eulogy for John Lewis, who was revered for his willingness to sacrifice his life to realize the full promise of American democracy for African Americans, and for all Americans.

Trump tweeted his usual lies about vote-by-mail, falsely claiming it will produce a “FRAUDULENT” result, and asked whether we should “delay the election until people can properly, securely and safely vote.”

Trump cannot postpone the election, and many Republicans rejected the idea. But in floating it, Trump again tried to dissuade states from scaling up safe voting options in pandemic conditions and sought to cast in advance any outcome in which he does not prevail as fundamentally illegitimate.

Trump also reminded us again that he intends to do all he possibly can — including manipulating the levers of government and even the machinery of our justice system — to corrupt the election and maintain his grip on power, regardless of the preferences of the American electorate.

In his eulogy for Lewis only a few hours later, Obama didn’t mention Trump. But Trump’s intentions towards this fall’s elections — and our democracy — were everywhere.

Obama ripped into “our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators.” That’s the sort of violence Lewis repeatedly braved. And it’s the sort that was waged to clear a path for Trump’s grand appeal to illiberal religious nationalism and to create the TV imagery of state violence against domestic dissent that is supposed to galvanize just enough reactionary sentiment among White voters to enable another counter-majoritarian electoral college inside straight.

Obama ripped into the voter suppression tactics targeting Democratic and minority voters still in operation today — many put in place by GOP legislatures and egged on by Trump since. Obama pilloried efforts to undermine the postal service “in the run-up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick.”

Trump is already undermining vote-by-mail just about every day — having unabashedly revealed that this is really about ensuring fewer people exercise their right to vote against Republicans, that is, against him.

“John Lewis devoted his time on this earth fighting the very attacks on democracy and what’s best in America that we’re seeing circulate right now,” Obama said. “That’s why John crossed that bridge. That’s why he spilled his blood.”

And Obama called for strengthened voting rights going forward, including a revitalized Voting Rights Act and the removal of all manner of barriers to participation. But Obama also acknowledged that too many people sit out our elections, limiting our democratic promise.

Obama recently let it be known that he fears two things about this fall: voter suppression, and Trump’s efforts to question the outcome’s legitimacy. It is an unsettling fact about this moment that Trump is currently engaged in both. They may commingle in a uniquely toxic way, if Trump declares premature victory while raging that millions of outstanding mail ballots, mostly from Democrats, should not count.

We already know Trump is capable of resorting to all manner of illicit schemes to avoid facing a free and fair election. He got impeached for this. His attorney general practically laid out a full blueprint before Congress.

And Trump has now telegraphed it once again with total clarity. It could ultimately mean large-scale civil violence, all to avoid accepting legitimate majoritarian defeat.

On the very same day, Obama signaled his faith that if the will of the majority is truly heard with minimal impediments, then Trump will be removed from office. Obama may or may not prove right about this.

But here’s what we know right now: Trump, too, fears that this is the case. He has made this absolutely clear again and again — and did so on the day of Lewis’s funeral — by leaving zero doubt of his willingness to remain in power via illegitimate means if necessary.

And so, by offering a full-throated affirmation of true majoritarian democracy in response, Obama posed a tacit question: Who’s the impostor now?

 

[WiseGirl]

I miss him SO MUCH! It's what a real president sounds like. By the way he got a standing ovation.

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by WiseGirl
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