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I don’t know how many of you out there have heard of Heather Cox Richardson. She is a political historian who writes a daily free publication “Letters from an American.” Anyone can sign up for a free subscription to these daily newsletters.

i have copied and pasted the 4/4/23 letter below. This is an historic day for democracy in America and across the world. Here are the highlights from todays Letter, partly in my words and partly exerpted from the letter.

1) Finland has officially joined the United Nations.

2) Wisconsin voters elected into office a Wisconsin supreme into office who is against heavy gerrymandering, who supports abortion rights, and who supports fair voting rules. This is a huge win for democracy in a state where right-wing hegemony has been using its power to rip away the rights of the people, where elections have been rigged at a state level making it impossible to have free and fair elections. Wisconsin citizens are rising up against abortion bans, climate denial, gun idolatry, anti-democratic behavior and extremism.

3) We often read of people marching for whatever cause is important to them. We pay lesser or greater attention to these marches. This particular march in Tennessee strikes deep into my heart and soul. In the aftermath of yet another school shooting, 7000 Tennessee schoolchildren marched to the state capitol to demand gun safety legislation. That children should organize themselves into marching because they are afraid for their lives is a telling demonstration of the need to limit high-powered assault weapons.

4) Yesterday former president Donald Trump was arraigned in Manhattan, New York, on 34 (thirty-four) felony counts of falsifying business records. How disgraceful that a man who held the highest office in America is in reality, behind-the-scenes, no better than a common crook. Actually, in my mind he is lower, more debased, than a common crook, because he has perpetrated schemes against democracy across America and against the well-being of millions of American citizens.

The people of the United States are rising up and fighting back against the surge of right-wing extremism that has been sweeping across our country, not with weaponry and violence, but rather with the power of democratic principles and the power of our constitutional rights.

Lucy Brook
Nehalem resident

Begin forwarded message:

From: Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com>
Subject: April 4, 2023 (Tuesday)

To: babbles@nehalemtel.net
Reply-To: Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American

April 4, 2023 (Tuesday)
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
There are two huge stories afield tonight. First, Finland has officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Finland opted for neutrality after the organization of NATO in 1949 to stand against the expansion of the Soviet Union, but Russia’s invasion of non-NATO country Ukraine last year sparked concern in a country that shares an 832-mile border with Russia. NATO members share an ironclad security guarantee among them, agreeing to come to each other’s aid if any of them is attacked.

“The era of nonalignment in our history has come to an end—a new era begins,” Finland’s president Sauli Niinistö said.

The second huge story is domestic. Today, Wisconsin voters elected Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a ten-point margin. Her opponent, Dan Kelly, supported the heavily gerrymandered district maps in the state and was supported by antiabortion groups. Protasiewicz has called those maps, which make it virtually impossible for Democrats to win control of the assembly, “rigged” and supports abortion rights. Her election switches the political orientation of the court for the first time in 15 years.

This court will likely take up cases relating to the state’s abortion ban, its extreme gerrymandering, and its voting rules for the 2024 presidential election. Far-right activist Ali Alexander, who was deeply involved in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, tweeted: “We just lost the Wisconsin Supreme Court. I do not see a path to 270 in 2024.”

Wisconsin Democratic chair Ben Wikler tweeted: “This isn’t a prediction. It isn’t a hint. It’s just a note. And my note is, this election was a release valve for twelve years of Democratic rage in Wisconsin about Republicans rigging our state and smashing our democracy—and then using that power to rip away our rights.”

Across the state, Republican numbers slumped. Political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen noted: “Republicans are losing across the country, even in historically red areas—Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin. The abortion bans, climate denial, gun idolatry, anti-democratic behavior and extremism has lost them entire generations of Americans.”

That disaffection was on display in Tennessee, where 7,000 schoolchildren marched to the Capitol yesterday to demand gun safety legislation after a school shooting killed six people last week. Republican lawmakers have taken steps to expel three Democratic representatives who used a bullhorn on the floor of the House to help lead the protest.

Representatives Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones, and Justin Pearson led chants from the House floor. Their Democratic colleagues support them, but their Republican colleagues have stripped them of their committee assignments and filed resolutions declaring that the three Democrats engaged in “disorderly behavior” and “knowingly and intentionally” brought “dishonor to the House of Representatives.” The House will vote on the resolutions Thursday. Kimberlee Kruesi of the Associated Press reports that only two House members have been expelled since the Civil War.

In other news today, the former president, Donald Trump, was arraigned in Manhattan on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. In order to quash damaging stories before the 2016 election, the charges allege, he paid a doorman who claimed to know about an out-of-wedlock child (a story apparently proved incorrect) and two women to keep them quiet about affairs. The payments were structured to hide them. This violated both election law and falsified business records, as well as mischaracterizing the payments for tax purposes.

There were far more Trump opponents than supporters in the crowd outside the courthouse, and while Trump-allied representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and George Santos (R-NY) were there, other Republican lawmakers steered clear.

While Trump seemed subdued and angry in the courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty, his tone had changed markedly by tonight. Back at Mar-a-Lago and surrounded by supporters, he launched into a half-hour speech tonight rehashing his favorite complaints.

Last week, as he waited for indictment, Trump circulated on social media a picture of himself with a baseball bat next to a picture of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. This morning, his son, Don Jr., posted on social media a picture of the daughter of the judge presiding over the case. In court today Judge Juan Merchan asked the former president to “refrain from making comments or engaging in conduct that has the potential to incite violence, create civil unrest, or jeopardize the safety or well-being of any individuals” and suggested that, having made that warning, if he had to revisit it he would “take a closer look at it.” Nonetheless, tonight Trump went after those prosecutors pursuing cases against him.

Mark Barabak of the Los Angeles Times noted the “stark contrast between the humbled Trump facing justice Tuesday and the swaggering Trump—all toughness, cunning and hyper-masculinity—that he prefers to project.”

Also today, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled that several of Trump’s top aides must testify before the grand jury investigating the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

In his statement welcoming Finland to NATO today, President Joe Biden noted that the United States and 11 other nations came together to sign the original NATO declaration 74 years ago today: April 4, 1949. On that day, President Harry S. Truman said, “If there is anything inevitable in the future, it is the will of the people of the world for freedom and for peace.”

At the end of the night, the Wisconsin Democratic Party released a statement congratulating Justice-elect Protasiewicz on her victory. “The resurrection of democracy and freedom in Wisconsin has begun,” it read.

“On paper, this campaign may have lasted only a few months. But tonight’s victory is the result of years of unglamorous work by volunteers, activists, union members, and organizers across our state who knocked doors, made phone calls, chipped in, and never lost the faith that a better future was possible—even when hope seemed all but lost. Tonight is a testament to the power of never giving up. And it’s a testament to the whirlwind that the foes of democracy—in Wisconsin, and in America—can expect to reap.

“While we may have won tonight, we know that the threat posed to our freedoms and our democracy by MAGA extremism continues. And that’s why we will never stop organizing. We will use this moment as a springboard into the long work ahead—to build a multiracial democracy in which all of us, no matter our gender or gender identity, our generation or the geography in which we live, has a voice, has dignity, and has the power that is supposed to be the birthright of all American citizens.”

Have Hope

I don’t usually write much about my personal life, but I went to a meeting the other day, and somebody I know asked about my health. They know I have a brain injury—the result of a long ago ex-husband—but because I look fine and mostly live my life, it’s not obvious that I struggle in a bunch of ways that aren’t always visible to other people.

In Why Can’t I See Straight? an article in the March 6, 2022 New York Times Magazine, Christina Hillstrom writes, “Research shows that victims of domestic violence sustain head trauma more often than football players—hinting at a hidden epidemic of brain injury in women.”

I used to not tell anyone this stuff because there’s a lot of judgment about living with someone who hurts you. There’s also judgment when you have a hidden disability that involves your brain. When people only see you on good days, they might not understand that there are bad days and what that might look like.

After I was diagnosed, I learned that women make up a significant percentage of people living with traumatic brain injuries, and many aren’t diagnosed until years after the fact, like I was. While domestic violence happens to both men and women, women make up the majority of victims and don’t always report when their partner put their head through sheet rock or used their body like a punching bag or choked them until they passed out.

It takes most people a bunch of times to leave a violent relationship for good, for all kinds of reasons—no place to go, no money to get there, and the very real fear that you might be murdered.

But part of the reason women stay is the head injury itself. If you’ve ever had a concussion, you know there’s a kind of forgetting that happens. Repeated concussions over years messes you up. In the same NYT’s article Catherine Fortier, the deputy director of TRASK, a Veteran’s Affairs research program, is quoted saying, “The TBIs that occurred in those violent relationships, that occurred in a psychologically traumatic context, showed more pronounced changes than the TBIs that occurred in a regular civilian-type accident, like a sports injury or motor-vehicle accident.”

Many women don’t go to the hospital or doctor’s office for treatment because that will make everything worse at home. In those fifteen years with my ex, I never once called the police and I never went to the doctor. I just wore a ton of concealer and missed a lot of work.

How I got out alive is a miracle to me. It was the hardest, scariest thing I’ve ever had to do, and I’m lucky to be alive. Not everyone survives the leaving. Not everyone gets a do-over.

April is National Month of Hope. Hope is the pilot light that keeps your stove lit—it’s the belief deep in your center that tells you things will work out even when—especially when—it seems sure they won’t. You found a lump, you got laid off, your loved one died, the person you live with hit you. In other words, things fell apart.

Sometimes the pilot light goes out, and hope is lost. You’re left in the cold and the dark. I’ve been in that place, and it’s been hope that saved me—unexpected, surprising hope.

Hope doesn’t mean denying reality and pretending everything is fine when it clearly is not. That kind of hope is more like wishing.

Hope isn’t a wish; hope requires action. It’s the soul’s muscle.

I’d been working that muscle for about a year before I left with the help of a very good friend. Nobody leaves a situation like that without some kind of support, and Julie was mine. She didn’t judge me for staying, and she didn’t hate on my ex. She told me that love shouldn’t leave marks. She told me that when I was ready, I’d be able to leave. She told me that my life was a gift I forgot to open but it was waiting for me.

And then one day in July of 1991, I was sitting on the couch in another crappy rental watching Oprah after work—well, not really watching Oprah. I was waiting for my ex to come home from the bar with what was left of his paycheck. He’d be drunk and wired—a combination like rocket fuel that kept him up for hours while operating in a blackout. The payday before he’d pushed me down a flight of stairs, and I still had some bruises.

That day sitting on the couch with the sun shining through the windows, I saw my life in all its messed up reality. I knew exactly what would happen if I stayed and there was no way I could control it. It was nothing personal. I could be anybody and he’d be doing what he did. It was his addiction to substances and my addiction to him that kept us spinning. That was the day when I understood that this would be the rest of my life until I died. And he might be the person to kill me.

Or I could do something different. Hope whispered, TRY and I listened for a change.

When he came home wasted and threatened me that day, I got up off the couch and left. I walked away from everything I owned, and I didn’t go back. I left my job, my belongings, my home, everything. I took my life and started over. It didn’t get easier for years.

If someone would’ve told me then that I’d be living the life I live now, I wouldn’t have believed them. Yet, here I am.

If you or someone you love is experiencing violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788

In Tillamook contact Tides of Change 503-842-9486

Kim Rosenberg loretta.kim.rosenberg@gmail.com

In 2010 I had the honor to come to Tillamook Bay Community College (TBCC) and work alongside the community, education partners, the TBCC board, faculty, staff, and students to ensure the college was accredited. What an honor! When I retired as President in 2017, TBCC was the smallest community college, but we had broad community support from businesses to education partners to non-profits. We had a stable budget, and we were ready to grow as the community needed. The College Board was and is accountable, representative of many viewpoints as well as representing all the communities in the county. They current board members are dedicated that all students would not only have access but support to succeed. They have led well.
Today TBCC serves more students than Oregon Coast. The college has continued to grow and serve the community. The College Board, President and faculty and staff are committed to serve all students. The seven Board members come from a wide background and are all serving to ensure that the resources are widely used, that all students have access and can persist and complete. Tillamook County has been well served by the TBCC Board that exemplifies what a “community” college board need to be: “accountable to their communities for the success of their students, their ability to meet local needs, and the financial integrity of their colleges”. They have made wise decisions with resources; they have added career technical programs and transfer options. They have listened to employers to meet the local workforce needs.
Please re-elect your college board members that have served and are serving you well. They are Andrea Goss, Mary Jones, Betsy McMahon, Shannon Hoff and Mary Faith Bell. I encourage Tillamook voters to keep your community college board leadership exemplifying what is needed in today’s economic times: knowledgeable, flexible and serving all potential students.

Connie Green, President Emertius