Posts in Government
Who Gets the Shots

Does anyone else remember standing in line in elementary school in the ’50s to receive the first polio vaccine shot? Those were the ones developed by Jonas Salk before a liquid drop form came into use a few years later. My parents were particularly excited after having watched with fear as my brother was hospitalized with polio a decade earlier.

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GovernmentBritney Achin
Trump Keeps Some Promises

President-elect Trump may be a liar, but he clearly keeps some promises. His cabinet and staff choices show that he keeps promises to some of his friends and some promises to all Americans. He promised a new way of doing business and that’s just what he plans to do. If you’ve missed what’s to come, here it is, all in one frightening array of appointments.

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GovernmentBritney Achin
Keep On Keeping On

Some of us are still licking our wounds. Some are still shocked and in disbelief. All of us are horrified that more than half the voters in our country chose for their leader a man who speaks vulgarly about women and veterans and immigrants and so many others. Horrified that the most powerful head of state in the world is a convicted felon who wants to rule with impunity, overrun the system of checks and balances in our federal system, and deny basic rights to many law-abiding citizens.

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Government, ActionBritney Achin
Thanks for your help

Thank you for being part of our postcard campaign and ordering our Art as Activism cards to send to reluctant voters. Because of you and others, more than 3,000 of our cards have been sent in the last two months!

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GovernmentBritney Achin
Holding Their Feet to the Fire

Two weeks ago we were wringing our hands with despair that the November elections might be upended by threats to voter certification in several states including Georgia, where recent rulings by a newly appointed pro-Trump majority state election board passed new rules that purport to legalize the blockage of certification of votes.

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GovernmentBritney Achin
General Shifts

Sitting in the cafe of the Boston Public Library last Friday for the broadcast of Boston Public Radio Live, it was hard not to be excited when David Hogg Zoomed in for an interview with Jim Braude and guest host Andrea Cabral. Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland High School mass shooting of 2018, co-founder of March for Our Lives and Leaders We Deserve, spoke eloquently and convincingly of the importance of enlisting and working to elect a new generation of leaders in local, state, and federal government positions.

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GovernmentBritney Achin
What, Not Who

By the time you read this letter, President Biden may still be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, or he may not. Whether that decision is still being made is likely a topic of many conversations among your family members and friends, but how you feel about it will have no effect on the ultimate decision. There will be no vote about whether or not Joseph Biden remains the Democrats’ nominee. That will be decided by Joseph Biden, his family, and his advisers, pushed by members of Congress and the media. We have absolutely no say and no recourse. That leaves many of us feeling at sea.

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Political Angst and New Clarity

We’ve lost a lot of sleep during the last few days. Our anxiety levels have been high as we’ve struggled with feelings of helplessness about our country’s political situation. The post-debate angst and confusion made us even more frightened and nervous about our future.

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Just Another Day at the Movies

Last week, I watched the Oscar-nominated movie, Zone of Interest. It’s a Holocaust movie unlike any other Holocaust movie I’ve seen. And, trust me, I’ve watched more than my share of Holocaust movies. They are fodder for Jewish angst. What partially distinguishes this movie is that there are no images of concentration camp internees, no glimpses inside the gas chambers, no heart-wrenching cries of children torn from their mothers’ arms as they debark the trains upon arrival at Auschwitz.

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GovernmentBritney Achin
Even in Massachusetts

Super Tuesday is over and now our attention is focused on the November elections. The dye is firmly cast and the race will all but surely be between former president Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden. Polls show the race as close; pundits are floating various theories about the outcome.

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GovernmentBritney Achin
Don't Pick the Flowers

While I was walking through a beautiful flower garden last week with my five-year-old granddaughter (in a land far away from New England), she asked to pick one of the pink blooms. Just one, she insisted. I, of course, gave the standard line about how if everyone picked even just one, soon there would be none for people to see and enjoy.

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Government, ActionBritney Achin
Young Voters Need Access

On Sunday, March 3rd, Leading Ladies will have our first appearance at a brewery. We will be at Night Shift in Everett with a table full of materials designed to encourage the young patrons to register to vote and show up at the polls. We of gray and white hair are bringing along some younger souls to give us added credibility.

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GovernmentBritney Achin