Van Jones TED Talk: What if a US Presidential Candidate Refuses to Concede After an Election?

This was eloquent and super-important.

I hope it's a landslide for Biden/Harris, and we aren't dragged there. But this is important to know about. My thanks to Cindy for sharing it with me, so I could share it here with you.

Stay safe, and if you haven't yet, VOTE!

VOTE

We need Democrats to have majority control of the Senate, House of Representatives, and Presidency.

The hypocrisy of the Republicans, whose sole aim seems to be winning and holding power, goes against everything we all say we want our country to stand for: Liberty and Justice for All. Diversity. The American Dream.

When a Supreme Court opening happened during President Obama's time, the Republican-controlled Senate refused to even hold hearings to confirm Merrick Garland, saying it was an election YEAR - and they wanted the next president to decide. That election was 270 days away.

Now they've rammed through yet another super-conservative judge, who will push the court -- and our country further from justice. Further from fairness for every one of us - Queer people, women, Black people, Indigenous People, People of Color, the disabled, religious minorities - all the disenfranchised and under-represented people.

We must stand up to them.

We must vote.

We must bend the arc of history - the arc of NOW - back towards justice.

VOTE them out.

VOTE for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

VOTE for Democratic Congresspeople.

VOTE for Democratic Senators.

The Democrats aren't perfect, but we see what Republicans in power care about.

At the risk of giving him more spotlight, here's a recent quote from our current president: 

"They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again...”

They know they can't win fair, so they're not playing fair.

We need a landslide against Trump, to get him and his Republican enablers out of power.

VOTE like your life -- and the lives of those you care about -- is in the balance.

Because it is.

Final words of this post go to Joe Biden:

"The rushed and unprecedented confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court, in the middle of an ongoing election, should be a stark reminder to every American that your vote matters..."

Get Out The Vote: Heidi Rabinowitz Hosts a Three-Part Podcast Interviewing Jewish KidLit Authors About Voting (I'm in Episode 2)

 The Mitzvah of Voting (Part 2) on The Book of Life Podcast

With reasons to vote and ways to keep Democracy healthy!  

I'm joined in this podcast by fellow guest authors: Elissa Brent Weissman, author of The Length of a String; Barbara Bietz, author of Sweet Tamales for Purim; Jane Breskin Zalben, author of A Moon for Moe and Mo: Jacqueline Jules, author of The Generous Fish, Never Say a Mean Word Again, The Hardest Word; and Anne-Marie Asner, author of the Matzah Ball Books series.

Very honored to be included.

Listen, share, and most of all... VOTE!

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

PS - don't miss part 1, with: Marjorie Ingall, author of Mamaleh Knows Best; Linda Epstein, author of Repairing the World; Jeff Gottesfeld, author of No Steps Behind; Leslie Kimmelman, author of The Eight Knights of Hanukkah; Susan Kusel, author of The Passover Guest; and Tziporah Cohen, author of No Vacancy and part 3, with: Gail Carson Levine, author of Ella Enchanted and A Ceiling Made of Eggshells; Lesléa Newman, author of Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island Story; Evan Wolkenstein, author of Turtle Boy; Sue Macy, author of The Book Rescuer; and Sarah Aroeste, author of Buen Shabat, Shabbat Shalom and singer/songwriter of Gracia.

The October 2020 Lee Wind Video Newsletter

Hi Community!

So much going on... Click here or the video above to watch the October 2020 edition of the Lee Wind video newsletter.

Transcript:

Hi Community, I'm Lee Wind. It's October 2020, and I've been thinking a lot about poetry. So, I'm going to do an acrostic today, that's going to be the structure of this enewsletter.

I was going to do HUBRIS, but it didn't have a "T" in it for Trump.

And then, I was going to do TRUMP, but then that was too much about Trump.

And anyway, I settled on this one. So, we'll spell it out together. The first letter of our acrostic is "V", for VOTE. [laughs]

I don't know about you, but I watched the first debate - well, I watched part of the first debate, for me, it was too much like watching a schoolyard bully incident, where the adult in charge, the moderator, had no power, and didn't stop the bully.

The best analysis I read, Wes Kennison wrote:

“Joe Biden is a stutterer. Like many others, he has overcome the disability by understanding it and exercising extraordinary perseverance and discipline. If you know and love a stutterer and you watched the presidential debate last night, within minutes it became obvious what was going on. Abusive tone of voice, rapid fire interruptions, zigzagging change of topic, personal insult and humiliation, and family pain are all tripwires that scramble a stutterer's ability to speak. There was nothing unplanned or spontaneous in the President's strategy. The bastards did not prep him to attack Joe. They prepped him to attack Joe's disability hoping that by triggering his stuttering they might deceive an audience unfamiliar with the disability into thinking that Joe was stupid, weak, uncertain, confused, or lost to dementia.”

I thought that was a really good analysis of what the heck was going on. Because it was horrible to witness. But there was a purpose to it, and it was sort of nasty. So, VOTE. 

Actually, I just sort of gave it away, the acrostic, but let's keep going. 

O! [It slips on the wall] Let's try it again!

O! [laughs] It's not all about politics. I have to say that something exciting is happening in October. On October 15, School Library Journal is doing a Day of Dialog, and I'm going to be on a panel!

It's called "Remaking History in Fiction and Nonfiction."

The moderator will be Mahnaz Dar, Reference and Professional Reading Editor at School Library Journal and Library Journal.

And my panelists, my fellow panelists are really going to be amazing:

Kyandreia Jones, Randi Pink, Michael O. Tunnel, and my friend Paula Yoo. 

So that's really exciting! I'm going to be on a panel, I'll be talking about my book coming out from Lerner, NO WAY, THEY WERE GAY?, And I'm really excited to be part of that, and to reach all those librarians, and have a great conversation about how history has been sanitized for the protection of the people in power, and has sort of disenfranchised so many people - women, disabled people, people of color, and LGBTQ people. So I'm really excited to be part of that.

The next letter in our acrostic is "T"!

Back to politics. So, Trump makes it all about Trump, but I want us to take a moment and just acknowledge that Joe Biden is, in fact, a pretty stand up guy. And in fact, in his evolution towards embracing Queer people and Queer rights, he actually came out publicly in favor of Gay marriage before President Obama did it, and in fact kind of pressured President Obama to do, which was a very cool moment, back in 2012. 

So, shout out to Joe. Also, Kamala Harris - amazing, can we talk? 

So it's not just voting against Trump, it's really voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and really acknowledging that if we can get the shift of power to happen in the Senate so it isn't controlled by Republicans, we may be able to, as Obama always quoted Reverend Martin Luther King, [Jr.] saying, bend the arc of history towards justice. 'Cause it's been bending the wrong way, and we need to get it back.

And then, "E" is the final letter of our Acrostic.

And it's because I'm Excited, because it was just announced that I sold a picture book to Arthur Levine of Levine Querido, and I'm really amazingly... It's like an endurance sport. 

"E" could also be for Endurance sport. Because writing books for kids and teens, it takes a long time. First of all, to get good enough, and then to find the right home for the projects that you're doing. Wow. I've been writing picture book manuscripts for 16 years - more than 16 years, and finally sold one. It's my debut picture book. The illustrator's going to be the incredible Paul [O.] Zelinsky, I am just like pinching myself because Wow, it is so exciting!

It's called RED AND GREEN AND BLUE AND WHITE, and it's about two kids who are friends, one celebrates Chanukah, and the other celebrates Christmas, and something happens in their town, and how they band together to stand up, for each other and for themselves, and against hate and for love. It's inspired by a true story, and I can't wait for you to see it. I'm very excited.

So, there you go. Sort of like a Sesame Street episode. Today's - this month's - video newsletter is brought to you by the acrostic VOTE. I hope you do. 

Take care, stay safe, and until next month, hopefully we'll have good news in November.

'Bye, take care. The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you.

**

Flex Your Vote!

I didn't know that 1 in 5 Queer People in the US are not registered to vote. We need all hands on deck this November to get the current occupant of the White House out of power.

As photographer Mike Ruiz put it in his Instagram Post,

Be like Eric and Flex Your Vote! 20% of LGBTQ+ people are NOT registered to vote! That 20% could help keep us protected for the next 4 years. Please vote like your life depends on it! WWW.VOTE.ORG @erictastic #flexyourvote #doordie #register #vote #MIKERUIZ

An article on the campaign at Socialite Life explains further, "Eric Wainwright [the model shown above] devised the “Flex Your Vote” slogan and the campaign was born. In it, the eight photographers are posting images to their Instagram and Facebook accounts and encouraging fans to share them with the hashtag @flexyourvote."

Here are a few more images from the campaign, that hopefully will get our community inspired to register to VOTE!

Of course, we don't all need to be buff and beautiful to inspire voting... or vote!

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,

Stay safe,
Lee

A Scary Time - a brilliant song performed by the artist, Lynzy Lab

This!




Amplifying as an ally to women everywhere...

Share it, raise our collective voices, and VOTE on November 6, 2018.

Thanks to Lynzy Lab for the brilliant message and catchy song!

My Letter to the Editor Was Published In Our Local Newspaper

While it was originally titled: “Seven Nice Things Liberals Can Say About Trump,” otherwise every word is mine, and I stand by each of them. Here's the full text of my letter, as printed in the Thursday July 19, 2018 edition of the Palisadian-Post:

Seven Things

Recently, a letter to the editor asked, why can’t liberals say anything nice about our current president? I’ll take that challenge.

1) It’s ironic, but Trump has made us have more empathy. For generations our culture has villainized entire other countries and everyone in them for the terrible actions of their leaders and government. (Think North Korea, Iraq, Russia…) Now, we understand that the people in those countries are probably just like us… good individual people with a callous, cruel, selfish government.

2) Trump has reminded us how vigilant we must be to not repeat the mistakes of Nazi Germany. At the Nuremberg trials, the question was asked, why did regular Germans participate in such inhumanity? The response was they were just following orders. And the world cried out, how could you not just refuse the order? This past month, when ICE agents followed orders to separate children from their parents, alarms should have gone off for all of us.

3) Trump does care about one immigrant. Among all the people who wanted to come to America and become a citizen of this country for a better life, there was one runway and swimsuit model Trump decided to help. Now she’s first lady.

4) Trump took the #MeToo movement to a whole new level. Our current president’s open disdain for women as anything other than objects for his personal physical interest turbo-charged the movement of people speaking up about the mistreatment and sexual harassment they have faced from men in positions of power.

5) Trump has shown us words are important. Calling real news “fake” to discredit any press that criticizes him is just one way our current president uses language to shield himself from being held accountable.

6) Trump has made us see how much more work we need to do as a society to treat others as equals. Our president’s not-so-subtle racism, emboldening the rise of bigotry across the country, reminds us how unfair things are, especially for people of color.

7) Trump is helping get out the vote. Trump’s policies, political maneuverings, and selfishness have energized me and millions of my fellow Americans. Energized those of us who envision an America of the future and not of the past. Energized those of us who want America to be a beacon of justice, equality, and opportunity. Energized those of us who can see beyond our own privilege to care about other human beings to show up on Tuesday November 6, 2018, and vote some sense back into this government.

There you have it. Seven nice things that you (no matter how liberal or conservative you are) and I can say about Trump. You’re welcome.

Lee Wind