Supreme court explodes last barrier for gay people

Well. Well! And things are astoundingly well, too, now that the United States Supreme Court struck down — no, let me rephrase that — the Supreme Court exploded the last barrier to equality for gay people.

June 26, 2013, is a day as significant as the passing of the Civil Rights Act, which was enacted July 2, 1964. Isn’t it interesting, perhaps beyond coincidental that laws supporting equality share close dates — as if somehow, the forces of human rights for all has a life of its own that all the prejudice in the world cannot deny.

In 1964, when then-President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, just days before our Fourth of July celebration that year, Johnson was ensuring and enshrining the Founding Fathers’ dictum that all are created equal. The Civil Rights law, which still stands today on our law books, no matter what you think or how much you hate it, this permanent and eternal law of the United States outlaws major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national origin and religious minorities and women.

The Civil Rights law ended unequal application of voter rights (read this very carefully) – this week the Supreme Court struck down one section of the voting rights act, Section 4, but Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act remains intact, which states in plain language, there will be no racial discrimination in terms of voting rights — period.

The Civil Rights law ended racial segregation in schools (read this carefully, too) – this past week the Supreme Court sent the Affirmative Action lawsuit back to the lower court, meaning for now, until other lawsuits come forth, Affirmative Action stays.

The Civil Rights law ended segregation not only at educational institutions but in the workplace and by facilities used by members of the public. (Read this carefully as well because) you cannot, by law, deny someone into your establishment, be that restaurant, business, and you cannot discriminate in terms of renting or buying and selling of houses because of race, national origin, religious minority, ethnicity or because you are a woman.
That was true after July 2, 1964, and still holds today. The law is the law of our land, no matter what you wish otherwise.

And that brings us to June 26, 2013, when the Supreme Court, in a tight, contentious 5-4 vote, declared the Sept. 21, 1996 law that recognized marriage is only between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.

That cannot be said loudly enough. UNCONSTITUTIONAL! In other words, from now on same-sex couples are accepted as equal in the eyes of the law.

Back on June 28, 1969, faced with blatant discrimination against gays and lesbians, a series of violent demonstrations erupted at Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York City after a police raid. During the 1950s and ‘60s, there were few establishments that accepted gay people, so police raids were routine. In fact, attitudes 50 and 60 years ago were dead set against gay people to such an extent that even the FBI, ruled by homophobe J. Edgar Hoover at the time, hunted down anyone who was regarded as gay, whether you actually were or not.

Right after World War II the common feeling was to resist the force of change that the war had wrought. As historian Barry Adam said, many Americans were fanatic in their desire to “restore the pre-war social order and hold off the forces of change.”

So if you were gay, the FBI and even your local police department had lists of people who were homosexual, the United States Post Office kept track of addresses of people who were gay and turned that information over to your local law enforcement. Bars were shut down if they allowed gay people and even if you were not gay but visited a gay establishment, you would be arrested and exposed in the newspapers of the day.

This hate against gay people consistently worked itself into rooting out homosexuality wherever and whenever it was suspected. Sweeps were conducted of neighborhood parks and on beaches. If you dressed a particular way, you were declared gay. Professors at universities were fired on suspicion of being gay. The bottom line was that thousands upon thousands of gay men and women were publicly harassed, fired, jailed or put into mental hospitals.

In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association, in its own narrow-mindedness, declared homosexuality was a mental illness. Then again, the culture of America in the ‘50s and even into the ‘60s was nearly completely structured on discrimination, prejudice, bigotry and hate. America had grown inward, angry, arrogant and paranoid. While that may have been an understandable reaction to a world upended by World War II, it is clearly not reason to hate your fellow human being.

Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, became a symbol and the genesis of the gay movement so that by 1970, gay pride marches across New York City came into being, gay activist organizations formed, three New York City newspapers were established to support and promote rights for gays and lesbians. On June 28 that same year gay pride marches were held in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

From there, gay pride events are today held all over the world.

So as you can see, the history of gay rights in America has been a very long slog. And much has been accomplished for gay people since then, including the repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law during President Barack Obama’s time in office that had been instituted into the armed forces earlier during President Bill Clinton’s term more than 20 years ago.

Yet June 26’s ruling isn’t just about gay and lesbian rights, it’s so much bigger. It’s that no one in good conscience can be against another simply because they are different from you. It reminds us we are all humans and gender is not so clearly as circumscribed as we want to believe.

And too, belief itself comes up for serious questioning. How can belief stand in the face of fact? Today, the very same American Psychiatric Association that claimed homosexuality is a mental illness now supports the fact, the truth that one is born homosexual. It is not a lifestyle, it is not a disease, and just as one is born with a particular shade of skin, there is simply no room, no excuse for maintaining prejudice any longer against homosexuality.

So what you believe, and no matter how offended you are by the Supreme Court’s striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, or the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, and no matter how disappointed or angry you may feel, it really is high time to drop what you fully know is your prejudice.

It is now the law of the land. From this day forward, in the United States, (read this as we are all included, not just a chosen few) – couples can become united in marriage, if they wish.

Our Founding Fathers would be proud: “All (people) are created equal.”

Jodeane Albright is an award-winning blogger/columnist and the community editor at the Idaho State Journal.

Pope Francis sets refreshing tone for papacy

With all due pomp and ceremony on March 19, Argentinean Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, elected as of March 13, 2013.  He is the 266th pope of the Catholic Church and its more than one billion followers.

Pope Francis is a first of many firsts.  One of those firsts was the choice of his name.  A follower of the life of the medieval saint, St. Francis of Assisi, no pope has ever chosen the name Francis in the nearly 2,000-year history of the church.  Nor has any pope ever come from the New World — until Pope Francis.  He is also the church’s first Jesuit pope.

And in deep contrast to his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, in keeping with St. Francis’ philosophy of simplicity and humility, eschews the trappings of wealth and glamour that Benedict so favored.  Even down to rejecting Benedict’s red shoes and fancy vestments.  (Pope Francis wears plain black shoes.  In fact, the shoes he wears replaced his loafers that had become so worn that they had holes in them.  Plus, he still wears the silver cross of his cardinal days, and has selected a simple-style white cassock to wear as pope.  No ermine cloaks for him!)

Pope Francis is already making global, perhaps tsunami waves in how the Catholic Church will be run.  In his inaugural speech he showed the world his theme will be about protection and dedication to the poor.  His expectation of world leaders urges “all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life” to protect those in need, children and the elderly.  And he has signaled he values “creation,” asking heads of state to protect the environment.

Such thinking is not only highly unusual, but just plain radical.  It’s as if Pope Francis, in supporting the poor, the disabled, the society misfits and rejects, has told  capitalism and the global economy it can politely go stuff itself.  In requiring protection of creation, Pope Francis has made it strikingly clear it isn’t just about humans, but all of God’s creatures and the earth itself.  In asking the world to walk the walk and talk the talk of Jesus, he seeks to reaffirm Jesus’ simplicity, compassion, and taking to task those in positions of authority and wealth.

Nor is the pope reluctant to butt heads with heads of state.  He spent several years in diplomatic but firm conflict with Argentina’s current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the widow and successor of Argentina’s late president, Nestor Kirchner.  While Pope Francis has been, and faithfully executes the conservative dogma of the Catholic Church, particularly in the areas of opposing same-sex marriage, being anti-abortion and not welcoming contraception, Kirchner staunchly leads Argentina into the modern world.

As Archbishop Bergoglio, in 2006 he publicly opposed the Argentine government in legalizing some cases of abortion.  He has not supported same-sex marriage in the country, either.  However, Kirchner was democratically elected for just that reason.  As president, she rejected Bergoglio’s desire to meet with her during this period — 14 times.  Their relationship is tense and testy at best.

So it was with delicious irony when Kirchner met with Pope Francis Monday, (for world leaders held audiences with the pope) she couldn’t stop exclaiming, “I’ve never been kissed by a pope before!”  She was as giddy as a school girl over his gesture of affection.  He regarded her with fondness.  Maybe now they’ll ease up on each other?  Will he intervene in the Falkland Islands dispute that Argentina claims is their territory, although the islands just voted to remain under British jurisdiction, and that Kirchner asked the pope to press Argentina’s claim?

Hmm … as pope, he likely has more important matters to attend to…

Pope Francis is already capturing the hearts of the world, whether you are Catholic or not.  One of the most notable acts he did for his inaugural Mass was to invite Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of Orthodox Christians, from Constantinople (today’s Istanbul in Turkey).  This is the first time since 1054 that such a high-ranking leader of the Orthodox Church has attended a papal Mass.  It is Pope Francis’ way of healing one of the breaches of Christianity.

He also consistently reaches out to Protestants, Muslims and Jews.  In fact, when the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires occurred, killing 85 people, Bergoglio was the first public person to sign a petition condemning the attack, calling for justice.

Pope Francis loves to mingle with ordinary people.  Before he began his inaugural Mass last Tuesday, he took the time to kiss babies; wave, shake hands with many in the crowds assembled for the ceremony and even plant a kiss on the forehead of a disabled man.  He prefers boarding the bus with fellow cardinals instead of being driven in the papal limousine.  His frequent comings and goings with plain folk have become the Vatican’s security nightmare, but Pope Francis’ dream.

In Argentina Cardinal Bergoglio more often than not could be found sipping herbal tea and strolling amidst the poor, many, many times in one of Buenos Aires’ most poverty stricken and dangerous neighborhoods.  He was always met with enthusiasm and affection.

The pope’s hopes for a papacy based on simplicity, so in keeping with his own lifestyle, may be tested.  When he was a cardinal in Argentina he chose to live in a small apartment, strongly rejecting the cardinal’s palatial residence.  He cooks his own meals, preferring chicken and fruit and salads.  He took the bus, public transportation to and from work instead of being driven in expensive cars.

Will he be able to continue tossing a few greens together (a Caesar salad, perhaps?), put his feet up after a long, busy day as pope and enjoy a mate (an Argentine herbal drink)?  Can he cheer for his favorite Argentine soccer team?  Might he even have time to kick around a few soccer balls or two with his papal mates?

It would be wonderful if he could, it would be so refreshing, so much a happier state of things if he would be allowed to be himself.  Yet given the woes of the world, the expectations and demands he will face, he may be forced to relinquish some of his down-to-earth ways.

In the days, months, the years ahead Pope Francis will be called on to lead an increasingly divided world.  He will have to cope with tragedies and disasters.  He will be confronted with a modern world in great turmoil.  He will have to heal the pain of those who suffered decades of sexual abuse by priests, and reach out to the many, not just a chosen few, whatever their needs, hopes and desires are.

For Pope Francis is and will be the world’s shepherd.  Let us not be recalcitrant, straying sheep — for his sake.  And ours.

Jodeane Albright is an award-winning blogger/columnist and the community editor of the Idaho State Journal.

“Assassin’s gun.”

For the sake of simplicity — although this story is not a simple one — let’s call this weapon of tragic destruction the “assassin’s gun.”

Fifty years ago in March this gun, actually, a 6.5 mm Carcano Model 91/38 rifle, was ordered by a certain A. Hidell from the advertising section of American Rifleman magazine.  Interestingly enough, American Rifleman is the official publication of the National Rifle Association, the NRA.

Anyway, Hidell bought the rifle from the advertisement of Klein’s Sporting Goods Company, a Chicago business that sold guns across the U.S., to anyone who wanted to buy a firearm.  Hidell paid all of $19.95 plus postage and handling costs.  It was shipped to Hidell on March 20.

Hidell seemed to be quite proud of his purchase, and had his wife take several photos of him as he posed with the rifle.  Oh, earlier, on Jan. 27, he also had bought a Smith and Wesson “Victory” Model .38 special revolver, source unknown, but this piece of  manufactured metal, costing $29.95, was sent to a post office box, rented by Hidell, in Dallas, Texas.

Back to the photographs.  Hidell asked his wife to take photos of him posing with both the revolver and rifle.  These were standard snapshots of the day, nothing more than a man standing in the backyard of his home, the sun shining brightly on him and his weapons.  Nothing extraordinary in having your picture taken with your most prized possessions.

A month later, Hidell used the rifle.  Not at a shooting range, as if he was interested in something, say, like trap shooting.  Or hunting, although he was sort of hunting and used the rifle as his weapon of choice.  Seems Hidell tried to gun down retired U.S. Army Gen. Edwin Walker, at the general’s home in Dallas.

Why Hidell would be interested in killing Gen. Walker is a good question, but on the evening of April 10 this is what Hidell did.  The bullet missed, hit the window frame instead, and Walker was not seriously injured, sustaining but a few injuries from window fragments to his forearm.  The rifle was fired from about 100 feet away.

Hidell, who was considered an expert marksman from his days when he served in the United States Marine Corps, faded into the shadows.  Curious, why did Hidell not kill his intended target, if he was so expert in his handling of guns?

When law enforcement investigated this incident, there was not much thought given to Hidell or the Carcano rifle.  An open-and-shut case, you could surmise.  Since the general was not killed, why worry about it?  Even in conservative Dallas, Walker was something of a controversial figure who espoused far-right political views.  Walker had once publicly called Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman “pink” in print, and in 1962, the general took the side of whites in a protest at Ole Miss, the Mississippi college that refused to let black student James Meredith enroll.

OK, maybe Hidell had some kind of grudge against Walker.  And sure, Dallas Police Detective D.E. McElroy later commented, “Whoever shot at the general was playing for keeps.  The sniper wasn’t trying to scare him.  He was shooting to kill.”  But Dallas law enforcement had no idea who was behind the Walker assassination attempt, they had no suspect or suspects in this shooting.

So Hidell continued on with his life.  He moved to New Orleans on April 24.  He was joined by his wife in May.  Hidell had been hired by the Reily Coffee Company, working as a machinery greaser.  He was fired in July because, according to the coffee company’s owner, William Reily, Hidell was let go “… because his work was not satisfactory and because he spent too much time loitering in Adrian Alba’s garage next door, where he read rifle and hunting magazines.”

Maybe Hidell was just sort of obsessed with rifles.  Possibly, being a former Marine, a strong interest in rifles — and knowledge of them — was par for the course for someone who had been in the armed forces.

Then again, Hidell was quite, quite interested in what was going on in Cuba during his stay in New Orleans.  In fact, he was an avid supporter of Cuba’s Fidel Castro.  In supporting the communist dictator (remember, this was the era of the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis), Hidell caught the eye of local police and was arrested for handing out pro-Castro leaflets in downtown New Orleans.

Apparently, Hidell got into a scuffle while handing out the leaflets.  Also, Hidell was the sole member of the New Orleans chapter of an organization called Fair Play for Cuba Committee.  He had ordered 500 application forms, 300 membership cards and 1,000 of the leaflets with the heading “Hands Off Cuba” from a local printer.  That was reason enough for police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to arrest Hidell on Aug. 9.

By October Hidell was back in Dallas.  His wife had given birth to their second child by now and he needed a job.  Neighbor Ruth Paine suggested that Hidell, who was staying in a rooming house under the name O.H. Lee, look into employment at the Texas School Book Depository.

By comparison to his short stint in New Orleans, Roy Truly, who hired Lee (Hidell) said Lee-Hidell “did a good day’s work” and was an above-average employee at the Depository.

On Nov. 21, Lee-Hidell, who resided in Irving, Texas by this time, asked a gentleman, Wesley Frazier, to take him back home from Dallas to his home in Irving so he, Lee-Hidell, could pick up some curtain rods.

On Friday, Nov. 22, Lee-Hidell was back in Dallas.  He left behind $170 and his wedding ring at his home in Irving.  The curtain rods had been placed in a paper bag.

Nov. 22, 1963, about 12:30 p.m., Central Time, three shots rang out as the presidential motorcade passed by the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository and the city’s Dealey Plaza.  The president was killed.

This president was John F. Kennedy, assassinated by Lee-Hidell’s Carcano Model 91/38 bolt-action rifle.

The assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, aka A. Hidell, aka O.H. Lee.  The snub-nosed Smith and Wesson revolver he also had purchased would be used roughly 45 minutes later to kill Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit when the police detective stopped Oswald on a residential street.

The rifle and revolver are now kept under tight security within the National Archives and RecordsAdministrationBuilding in College Park, Md.

Isn’t it sad, isn’t it sickening, isn’t it a national tragedy that 50 years later we can still buy guns, still have access to guns, still import guns as easily as Lee Harvey Oswald was able to obtain and use his prized “assassin’s gun.”

Not even the murder of a president — perhaps because of the murder of a president — has staunched the bloody flow of how easily we can obtain, use and kill with guns.

Jodeane Albright is an award-winning blogger/columnist and the community editor of the Idaho State Journal.

 

Jodeane and the history of Popes

The scale of Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement Monday of his resignation shook the world to its core.  It rocked Western civilization on its axis.  As with any human event that sends us spinning off track, the effect is seismic.

Where do we go from here?  How do we get back to normal, if that is even possible now, which I doubt?  What happens to this pillar of worldwide faith that has had one brick removed and the structure is teetering, maybe ready to come crashing down?

True, it’s not the first time a pope has stepped down from the Chair of St. Peter.  But when you are the successor to the Apostle Peter, whom Jesus designated as the “rock” on which Christianity was to be built (Matthew 16:18-19), an abdication, a resigning of this post is a breach of faith, a snapping in a chain that goes back more than 2,000 years.

The earliest years of Christianity were under constant threat and tremendous persecution.  Many adherents to the faith were martyred on a fairly constant basis.  In the fading days of the Roman Empire, and with the slow but steady rise during these first centuries of the power of Christianity itself, the times were rife with tension, intolerance and grief.

It must be remembered, too, that although the 21st century may regard the pope as a figure not much more than an old man running around in a fancy nightgown, Christianity literally built Western civilization itself.  Papal resignations are not to be treated lightly.  They determine human history.

Pontian was one of the earliest church fathers.  He became pope in 230 and resigned in 235 because of threats from the Roman emperor Maximinus.  Pontian was banished to the island of Sardinia and eventually died from harsh treatment.  Following him was Marcellinus, who stepped down after a short reign of eight years (similar to today’s Pope Benedict, who also abdicated after eight years).

Liberius, a pope who resigned in 366, was exiled, to which Pope Felix III was then put in charge.  At that time, the Roman Empire wanted two popes to reign, but the contrary Roman population rejected Felix and had him expelled instead.

After him was John XVIII, in which so little was known, except a very obscure reference that this pope died as a monk near Rome in 1009 may have indicated he, too, was rejected and resigned.

Here’s something very ironic and it makes you wonder why Pope Benedict XVI chose Benedict for his designation.  Pope Benedict IX became pope in 1033, and then resigned about 1045 after bringing considerable disgrace to the papacy.  In the end, he resigned three times, finally selling the papacy itself to his godfather (back in those days popes often as not were a dishonorable, Mafia-like lot).

So this godfather, who became Gregory VI, was out after two years in 1046; the church at this time suggested he resign, the sooner the better due to his scandalous behavior.

Then there was Celestine V, an avowed hermit who was quite old (84) when he left the papal chair after five months.  He was declared unfit to be pope by other church officials, yet Celestine had the wisdom to turn the papacy over to the office of cardinals to let them work out what to do.  Celestine V resigned in 1294.

The last pope to resign was Gregory XII as a way of trying to heal what Catholic history calls the Great Western Schism.  In the 1400s, Europe was so fractured, and at a time when popes held both religious and worldly power, the papacy was divided into two factions — one in Rome, one in Avignon, France.  The French pope, Benedict XIII, refused to attend the Council of Constance, which tried to resolve having two popes heading the church.  So this pope was deposed by the council in 1417, and Pope Benedict XIII continued acting as pope in his own right from Spain, issuing various decrees, filling the College of Cardinals until the council elected Pope Martin V in November of that year, finally bringing the warring pope era to an end.

So the Catholic Church, even as late as 2013, has good reason to be shocked, upset and deeply concerned about the global effects of the current Pope Benedict abdicating.  His reasons — advanced age, seriously diminished capacity to serve, doctors telling him to not make any more overseas trips, his conscience telling him he is not up to the demands of the Catholic Church in modern times — but in being pope, the head of all Christendom, where does the personal leave off, and where do loyalty and service to God remain?

Since popes have stayed until they died for the past 600 years, Pope Benedict’s stepping down creates a crisis in the church that it definitely doesn’t need, coming at a time when religion itself struggles to find footing in the modern world.

On the one hand, yes, religion should matter — there is no question religion is what makes us human — but so do such things as science, which tries to find answers; art, which probes the soul; knowledge, something every human must have; to develop compassion instead of hate, to search for peace and not always create war.

Perhaps you think I am overstating the importance of the Catholic Church, and certainly, faith itself is not limited to Catholicism.  Yet who we are throughout the Western world, where we are, what we do today is directly descended from what Jesus and the Apostles established long, long ago.

So Pope Benedict’s resignation, abdication, stepping down, retiring to a life of seclusion is no slight act; it rattles our lives to our very core.  The effects are already creating confusion, sadness, that familiar hollow sense of loss, as if the pope has passed away.  It means the new pope will be shadowed by the former pope, no matter who he will be, or what he will do.

History will have to judge Pope Benedict’s extraordinary abdication.  While we may think his act is either a cowardly or courageous move, only time will tell which is the right answer.  It’s impossible for any of us to think our actions will alter the future, that our decisions only affect the here and now.

Truth is, Pope Benedict’s resignation leaves us forever changed.

Jodeane Albright is an award-winning columnist/blogger and the community editor for the Idaho State Journal.

 

Giffords and the gun violence hearings

How can there be any dissonance, any disagreement that we need to control gun violence after hearing former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords speak?

The Democratic representative from Tucson, Ariz., who survived a gunshot wound to the head in a shooting in January two years ago, eloquently, emotionally, begged lawmakers at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing Wednesday on gun control, to please act now.

In slow and halting speech, Giffords pleaded with the committee to stem gun violence now because “too many children are dying.”  She was referring, most poignantly, to the deaths of 20 children and six adults who were slain by a maniac at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., on Dec. 14.  She also reminded the senators how every day a child, a young person is cut down from gun violence in America.

Giffords said, “The time is now.  You must act.  Be bold, be courageous.  Americans are counting on you.”

Joined by her husband, retired Navy captain and former astronaut Mark Kelly, described the effects of his wife’s shooting two years ago.  You can only imagine the love and pain the couple share from her near-assassination attempt.

“Gabby’s gift for speech is a distant memory.  She struggles to walk, and she is partially blind.  Her right arm is completely paralyzed,” Kelly said.

Think about it, how dramatically, how radically, and how devastatingly this couple’s lives were altered because of a deranged gunman using assault weapons that should never have been available in the first place.  And yet, how miraculously Giffords survived and has come back as far as she has.

In fact, just the day before Giffords’ testimony, Chicago honor student Hadiya Pendleton from Chicago, who attended President Obama’s inauguration, was gunned down blocks from King College Prep School, where she attended classes.  She was one of the students who performed in the school’s marching band at the inauguration.  She died after being shot in the back in a gang shooting.  Hadiya was just 15 years old.

Not so fortunate was Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son was shot dead in the rampage in Newtown in December.  “It’s not a good feeling.  Not a good feeling to look at your child laying in a casket or looking at your child with a bullet wound to the forehead.  It’s a real sad thing.”  The grieving Heslin showed the state Legislature in Connecticut a photo of himself and his son when he spoke so movingly at a Monday hearing on gun violence in Connecticut’s statehouse in Hartford.

But in the audience were gun rights advocates who had the termity to demand their Second Amendment rights — right in front of the suffering, mourning Heslin.  And it was ironic that for the nearly 2,000 people who attended the hearing, metal detectors checked to see if anyone might have a concealed weapon. I’m just saying.  Detectors to find guns at a hearing on a tragedy wrought by guns?

As Gabby Giffords spoke, and on the day right after Heslin testified, on Wednesday alone across the United States more gun violence raged.  Six people were shot in a workplace shooting in Phoenix, Ariz.  A white male in his 60s went looking for people at the office building and then fled the scene in a white SUV, according to police.

Then there was the shooting Tuesday in which the gunman not only gunned down a school bus driver, he took a 6-year-old child hostage in Midland City, Ala.  And no, it wasn’t enough for this psycho gunman to use the gun just one time to kill 66-year-old Charles Poland Jr. Poland was shot many times.

After shooting Poland, the gunman walked down the aisle of the school bus and grabbed a 5-year-old boy.

As of Wednesday afternoon the gunman/kidnapper was still holed up in a bunker with the child.  The gunman, identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center that keeps track of hate groups, said the shooter is 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, a Vietnam veteran with strong anti-American views.

So why in the hell did Dykes, described by neighbors as threatening and paranoid, have firearms in the first place?  Why was nothing done to stop Dykes earlier when he frequently shot at children and dogs entering his rural property?  Why was Dykes, a known society menace who was to appear in court this week, allowed freedom at all?  That his court appearance was based on an incident in December where he fired shots at a neighbor’s pickup that damaged Dykes’ makeshift speed bump on a dirt road?

I’m not done yet reminding you of the tragedy of gun violence.  Just this past Monday a doctor was shot and killed in Newport Beach, Calif. Apparently, Stanwood Fred Elkus, 75, the gunman, shot dead Dr. Ronald Franklin Gilbert, a urologist, at a medical office  in the affluent city in Orange County.  Elkus, a retired barber who suffered from prostate problems, was angry over his incontinence after recent surgery, according to neighbors.

The gun violence rages on.  More people die.  Since the Newtown massacre Dec. 14 there have been more than 1,440 people shot dead by guns.  Those are statistics from just a couple of months.  As we waste more time with hearings and continue listening to the horror stories from families, our friends and neighbors, another person will die by gun.  By the time you read this column there will be more bodies piled up, dead from gunshot.

Isn’t it obvious by now that we have a serious, deadly problem?  That the level of gun violence in America has reached catastrophic proportions?  That we have to seriously rethink Second Amendment rights?

Gabby Giffords, a victim of gun violence herself, is so right.  The time is now to end the gun violence.  Do you hear that?  NOW!

Sadly, it might take more bodies piled up on politicians’ doorsteps before they finally get the point and do the right thing to stop our Saturday night massacre madness.

Jodeane Albright is an award-winning blogger/columnist and the community editor for the Idaho State Journal.

 

Hillary Clinton vs. the Senate hearings

There’s no doubt that outgoing (by her choice) Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lived up to the moniker, “Give ‘em hell, Hillary!”

When she testified Wednesday morning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012 — a clearly terrorist-motivated attack on the U.S. embassy that killed four Americans — one of the most outstanding secretaries of state our nation has ever had made it abundantly clear she was back and rarin’ to go toe to toe with the committee.

And to tell the truth, whether they wanted to hear it or not.

In that process, Clinton forcefully took on the committee, especially confronting the Republicans, letting them know, “As I have said many times since Sept. 11, I take responsibility.”  Make no mistake, Hillary admitted there were failures, but in her taking on the entire responsibility for what happened in the attack, she spoiled the conservative rhetoric that she was not accountable and didn’t’ care.

As Clinton recalled the day when the bodies of the four Americans were returned to U.S. soil, at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C., her voice caught, and she choked up.

“I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews.  I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters.”

Are those the actions of someone who wanted to wash their hands of the deadly terrorist attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and members of his staff — Sean Smith, U.S. Foreign Service information management officer, Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL who had been contracted by the Central Intelligence Agency to serve at the embassy, and Tyrone S. Woods, also a Navy SEAL who worked for the State Department Diplomatic Security?  Absolutely not.

It’s very interesting that before Hillary’s testimony, House Foreign Chairman Ed Royce, a Republican from California (the House grilled her Wednesday afternoon), warned his fellow GOP committee members they must be “respectful” of Clinton during the hearing.  In other words, Hillary Clinton is very worthy of both her status, her sterling qualifications as secretary of state and what she had to say was not to be discounted.

The House response, in this regard, came about because Tea Party backed Republican Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky, arrogantly bragged that if he had been president he would have fired her for not reading certain cables about security issues in Libya.

True to his usual boor/punk/rude form, Paul’s comment reiterated the common disrespect all too frequently displayed by Tea Party Republicans who want nothing more to score points for themselves.

Ditto Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican who sneered, “Yeah, we have a great deal of respect for her,” but nevertheless, he’s going to demand she answer “some very hard questions.”

Yet Hillary stood down the likes of Rand Paul and Sen. John McCain, who snapped, “I categorically reject your answers (about the events leading up to the Benghazi attack and the U.S. response) … The American people deserve answers and they certainly don’t deserve false answers.”

Have you noticed how much these days McCain whines?  How shrill he has become?  How edgy and barbed his political rhetoric is?  Take a hint, McCain, and retire!  You’re not fit to be a senator anymore, not when you berate Clinton and are so inexplicably wanting war with anyone, any time, any place, including at the consulate in Benghazi.

Only once during Clinton’s testimony did she vent some of her frustration in dealing with Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, when he persistently baited her about her discussion of the early hours of the Sept. 11 Benghazi attack, and not on how to prevent such an incident from recurring.

“What difference at this point does it make?” she said, raising her voice, noting “there are four dead Americans.  It is our job to figure out what happened and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Take a hint, Johnson, and leave the badgering at home; it has no place in the United States Senate and certainly not in treating Clinton!

Plus, as Clinton so pointedly reminded congressional Republicans, there is a price the House must pay for its not being forthcoming with enough funds to support increased security and civilian foreign aid in Benghazi.  Don’t forget cuts in State Department funding by House Republicans led to less security for the consulate.

Nor did Hillary bat an eye when South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson (he of the “You lie!” infamy) snidely wondered why Clinton didn’t go on Sunday talk shows to discuss the Benghazi attack?

Oh really?  Unlike Wilson and too many Republicans, who hit the airwaves every chance they can get, Hillary Clinton coolly told him, “I feel strongly that we had a lot to manage, that I had to respond to, and that should be my priority.”

Then again, Wilson is prone to hogging the spotlight instead of sticking to his duties.  Obviously, Hillary, as compared to Wilson, is the responsible and responsive person here.

In the wake of Hillary Clinton’s testimony on the Benghazi attack, no matter how hard the Republicans tried to make her look bad, or stumble over her words, her testimony remained strong, forthright and pure.  She didn’t flinch.  She didn’t waver.  She didn’t prevaricate.  And when she was done, it was the Republicans who were finished off, not her one bit.

My surmise is that if she eventually chooses to run for president in 2016, then her testimony on the Benghazi attack will be one giant foundation for her to claim the presidency.

Jodeane Albright, community editor for the Idaho State Journal, is also an award-winning blogger and columnist.

How much longer can we wait to stop this gun violence madness

It’s not the gun violence that is so troubling as much as it is the intolerance, i.e., the bigot who gets behind that gun that creates so much havoc.

Yes, yes, crazy madmen are said to be the perpetrators of the massacres we’ve suffered in America lately — from Congresswoman Gabby Giffords’ shooting two years ago this month in Tucson, Ariz., to the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting, the gunning down of two people in the mall near Portland, Ore., and finally, the worst of them all, the massacre of children in Newtown, Conn. — but underlying all of this killing are the minds of people awash in paranoia and hate.

Just ask CNN’s Piers Morgan, who voluntarily was confronted live, on the air, by rabid right-wing radio show host Alex Jones in Morgan’s television program Jan. 7, which covered the issue of gun control.  Jones lit into Piers so fast, so violently, like waving around a rhetorical gun that it was beyond sickening to watch.

Jones ranted on and on, shouting, jabbing his finger repeatedly in Morgan’s face, demanding that Piers Morgan be deported back to Britain immediately.  Jones has even sent a petition to the White House demanding Morgan’s deportation.  As of this past week, Jones says there are 106,000 signatures from people wanting to ship Piers back where he came from, posthaste.

“You’re a hatchet man of the New World Order!”  Jones screamed hysterically at Morgan.  “I’m not afraid of you.  I came here (to CNN) and I got in your redcoat usurper hatchet man’s face and I told him to go to hell!”

And, “The Second Amendment isn’t there for duck hunting, it’s there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs!”  Jones loudly, defiantly proclaimed.

And that’s the least of what Jones’ was carrying on about.  He claims CNN security cut short his appearance (I watched the program in horrified fascination; Jones was three-quarters of an hour on the program, hardly a short-time presence) and he had been removed from the CNN studio.  He also promised, in pure frenzy that “1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms.”

I’m at a loss as to why Jones thinks we need to do the Revolutionary War all over again, but Jones is no stranger to wild conspiracy theories.  He believes he’s going to be murdered by undercover police.  He is convinced the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001, was engineered by the United States government — the George W. Bush government.  He says President Obama is using drones against American citizens.  On and on, and on, there is no conspiracy theory too wild for Jones.

But behind every one of Jones’ conspiracy convictions, underlying his frothing paranoia is a boiling hate.  He’s a man who says he’s rebuilt the Branch Davidian church after the flaming death of its leader, David Koresh back in 1993.  He’s made dozens of films on his conspiracy theories, and currently airs his radio show out of Austin Texas.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which keeps a close eye on hate groups and hatemongers, says, rightly so, that Jones and his kind have “exploited racial animosities” to “appeal to the fears of the anti-government Patriot movement.”

Compare him to former Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband, the stoic and heroic astronaut Mark Kelly, who these days have launched a national campaign to fight gun violence.  Giffords, who knows a few things about being shot, and her husband very recently took the time to talk privately with the families of the victims of the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.

But that didn’t stop Connecticut state Rep. DebraLee Hovey, a Republican, to get on Facebook and demand, “Gabby Giffords, stay out of my towns!”

So, Ms. Hovey, are you a little sensitive, a bit resentful toward Giffords?  Are you convinced Giffords deliberately got herself shot so as to make a liberal statement on gun control?  Do you really think Giffords and her husband went to Newtown as a political stunt to make you look bad because you are another one of the right-wingers who can’t shut up about the need to arm every man, woman and child in America?

And you had the gall to speak at the tribute to Newtown on Dec. 19 at Connecticut state capital building.

With people like Jones and Hovey (Jones makes Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck look like serene angels; Hovey is just an idiot), with the National Rifle Association leadership saying every teacher in America needs to be armed, it’s no wonder controlling gun violence in America will be a tough task to accomplish.

If you think I am tossing around the words bigot, intolerance and hate in connection with guns like burnt-out musket ashes, I am most certainly not.  As the late Ted Kennedy’s son, Patrick Kennedy, noted on Piers Morgan’s follow-up show Tuesday, American society is devolving, is losing its grip, is sinking faster and deeper into a miasma of incoherent rantings from the right wing, who can’t have a common-sense debate on guns or anything else.

While Kennedy (don’t forget the Kennedy family understands a few things about the dire necessity of gun control) may feel our current society is a hopeless mess, and while there’s no doubt the Tea Party stirred up a wasp’s nest of craziness, taking the American people into political hostage, and still fiercely controlling the minds of the Republican Party, I don’t think we have gone into reverse evolution to the point we are nothing more than troglodytes.

Yet make no mistake, the levels of hate in America are as strong and bitter and wild as they were in the 1960s during the civil rights era.  They are as virulent as the feelings that created the Civil War.  They are as tragic as the genocide and “trails of tears” of white people against Native Americans in our past.  There is as much hate and paranoia still left over from the American Puritans that condemned innocent people to hang for the sin of nonexistent witchcraft during the Salem, Mass., witch trials in 1692.

In 2013, don’t you think it’s long past time to get beyond being so damn intolerant?  That we’re long past due to come to grips with our abuse of guns?  That we’ve got to come to our senses and stop the gun violence madness, the hateful paranoia that fuels this craziness?

How much longer can we wait?  And how many more innocent people, and young people must die before we do something?

Or are we already too late?

Jodeane Albright is an award-winning columnist/blogger and community editor for the Idaho State Journal.

50 years since JFK

It remains for many of us the most pivotal, most tragic and ultimately the most traumatic of events to play on the American political stage.  The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 — to be 50 years in 2013 since that calamitous day — shakes us still, and not in uplifting ways.

You would think half a century later that America would have recovered some equilibrium and gone on.  We haven’t.  The conspiracy theories alone that have proliferated faster than nuclear ballistic missiles are testament to the fact Kennedy’s killing rattled our core sense of things.

After World War II we thought of ourselves as invincible, the leaders of the world wolf pack.  In many ways we were.  Throughout the 1950s we established ourselves as the beacon of hope, the mighty, the most cultured, the most of everything we could do, be it creating solid military power, being front and center in the corporate world, being the only enemy that could wreak vengeance on the equally dominant Soviet Union — heck, we were even being recognized the world over for our wondrous white bread gleaned from the vast grasslands of Middle America.

Then, that fateful day, the bullet — or bullets — sliced through us.  When we did finally find some strength to get up again, we were so far knocked off our original course that we veered directly into grief and sorrow, anger and denial that we had fallen — and fallen so quickly, so precipitously.  We were an American Goliath slain by the bullet sling of Lee Harvey Oswald, or your assassin(s) of choice.

Therein is the truth of what happened to us after 1963.  What happened was a word, which became synonymous in much later decades with President George W. Bush — hubris.  President Kennedy personified our “sin” of pride, and when we fell, we toppled as clearly as any nation would, once that we lost our potent male symbol of America’s greatness.

In the decades since, even in 2013, we split down the middle and never reconciled, our politics taking a sinister turn.  Fifty years is just about the right amount of time to plot and leave your political foe twisting in the wind.  If it appeared there wasn’t much difference between Republicans and Democrats at the dawn of the ‘60s, then after Kennedy died, our innocence, our naiveté, our simplicity dropped into oblivion and never returned.

Today, Republicans and Democrats, perhaps each blaming the other for the loss of their heroes (Nixon and Reagan for the GOP), have rejected political compromise, pragmatism, sometimes even common sense.

Because Kennedy was murdered, the Democrats were left figuring out how to cope, what to do when ideals and dreams are shattered.

And because Kennedy was murdered, the Republicans devised a way to take advantage of that.

Without President Kennedy, with only President Lyndon B. Johnson to carry out Kennedy’s plans for equality, establish support for the welfare of the American people, to try to win an unwinnable war, the Republicans had to use political deception to gain ground.

Perhaps Johnson, as president, realized he was no Kennedy, and with the Republican dogs gnawing on his heels, Johnson was compelled to not run for reelection in 1968.  Hubert Humphrey, who was Johnson’s vice president and ran for the Oval Office that year, was about as inspiring as a cinder block, and he was no Johnson, either.  I think you can see the Democrats were now severely weakened, still politically unhealthy, still feeling torn up and reeling from the brutal death of Kennedy.

So Democrat hopes were pinned on John’s brother, Bobby.  And for a brief, shining moment, we thought we grabbed the stars, as Bobby was so popular among the young, the liberal, with minorities, with dashing men and swooning women (me, too, although I was only 14)  — but then Bobby’s brains were blasted out by Sirhan Sirhan in a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles on June 6, 1968.

Bobby’s assassination followed on the heels of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination a few months before, on April 4, 1968.

So there we were, two powerful leaders gunned down in one year, three if you count President Kennedy.  We protested, we rioted, we sank into the morass of drugs, we cried out for this national slaughter to stop.

In walked Nixon, claiming the presidency in 1968.  Since Nixon failed against John F. Kennedy when JFK was elected in 1960, Nixon’s ambitions soared, and he would stoop to conquer anyone or anything that stood in his way to get the presidency.

But again, hubris reared its head.  The prideful, imperial Nixon, who made sure no one got too close to see what he was really up to, rejected the Kennedy legacy with such force that he sent in troops to mow down the lives of four students at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970.

All they were doing was protesting Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, which was an escalation of the Vietnam War.  So Nixon, and the Republican Establishment thought it was perfectly correct for the Ohio National Guard, on orders from the Nixon White House, to let the guardsmen fire 67 rounds in 13 seconds that would kill four students and wound nine others, including leaving one poor soul permanently paralyzed.

By 1970, and later when Nixon was reelected in 1972, the nation was paralyzed, too, unable to move beyond hate and anger and constant national pain.  We were in disarray.  We saw no way out.  Ironic that Nixon’s undoing with Watergate would, for a time, when he resigned from office in 1974, give us a chance to breathe and hope we could get back on our feet.

But then we had the brief, hollow Gerald Ford presidency, followed by Jimmy Carter’s presidency; Carter would establish himself high in the foreign diplomacy field,  but at home, success eluded him.  In walks the Republicans’ Ronald Reagan, whose background as Hollywood actor, California governor and the GOP hope that with the elder Reagan the young Kennedy presidency would be forgotten.

Back and forth we went, expecting Democrat President Bill Clinton, and then Republican George W. Bush to seesaw us back into some sort of political balance.  What we got was a stalemate.  Democrats tried to revitalize Kennedy’s dreams one way or another, only to have Republicans knock those dreams down by their own frequent dishonesty (Iran-Contra) and political subterfuge (pretty much the entire George W. presidency).

Only today, safely into his second term, has President Barack Obama, the first biracial president the U.S. has ever had, given rise to the possibility that Kennedy’s dreams may, finally, in 2013, bear some fruit.

I wish, I fervently wish that 50 years after Kennedy died that we all might pull together, even if only for the sake of our nation.  Because when Kennedy was president we had a chance, a real chance, to build America into greatness.  Perhaps Obama can make that happen.

This year, this 2013, let’s honor everything Kennedy represented.  We’ve been split, cynical and seething far too long.  Through commemorating Kennedy, personally, professionally, politically, maybe we can return to what we once were.

America deserves no less.

Jodeane Albright is an award-winning columnist/blogger and the community editor of the Idaho State Journal.

Jodeane writes about DeMint leaving the Senate

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, one of the most outspoken and outlandish of the far-righters, is abruptly dumping his Senate seat to become — what — head of the Heritage Foundation.

That’s the Senate’s gain and the Heritage Foundation’s loss, considering how enormous a salary they’re forking over to Mr. Delirious DeMint to head one of Washington’s most prominent conservative think tanks.  What a waste of money — $2 million.  Guess the Tea Party’s demented DeMint wasn’t satisfied with a measly $40,000 stipend to be a senator from S.C.

DeMint’s announcement that he’s busting out of the Senate come January stunned the pants off pretty much everyone, including his co-South Carolinian senator colleague in crime, Republican Lindsay Graham.  Graham, upon finding out his best buddy was deserting him burbled out that he was “stunned” and “I nearly fell off the couch!”  (Pray tell, Grahammy, what were you doing on the couch?)

I thought about getting out my knitting needles and scrabbling away a la Madame Defarge, hearing the news another unhappy Republican is escaping the confines of Capitol Hill, but that might have been a bit over the top.

A little background: Madame Defarge, although a fictional character from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” was into secretly knitting the names of the victims of the French Revolution.  She was a very colorful character, wild-eyed, garbed in peasant rags, full of vengeance and madness.

That she was as much a victim of the revolution and ultimately met death — a bullet from her own gun that went off in a scuffle with another of the book’s characters — goes to show how much our present-day Tea Party’s hoped-for revolution backfired on themselves.

While I might enjoy the occasional everyday revolution, I’m not vengeful by any matter of means because DeMint is turning in his Senate papers.  But his leaving does beg the question of why him, why so suddenly?  He has yet to offer any explanation.

That leaves the rest of us to speculate as to the reasons behind DeMint’s early departure from the marble halls of the Senate chamber.  I have a few hunches of my own and here they are:

1. DeMint recognized it’s time to jump ship after the landslide reelection of President Barack Obama and a record number of liberal/moderate women are filling Senate seats this time around.  If DeMint was a traditional Southern gentleman, he may have felt a tad uncomfortable with all those powerful women telling him what to do.

2. Could have been the money angle.  There’s a big gap between earning a paltry $40,000 and $2 million (plus car and driver).  I’d be sorely tempted myself.

3. Maybe he’s planning a presidential run in 2016, but at the very least he won’t get Newt Gingrich’s support.  Not only has self-styled president-maker Gingrich said it’s unlikely a Republican can win, but he’s on record saying the Republicans are permanent toast if Hillary Rodham Clinton decides to campaign for the presidency again.

4. DeMint is depressed.  I mean, look at that picture of Mitt Romney pumping his own gas for one of his expensive cars.  Poor Romney, his usually styled hair blowing every which way in the wind, his shirt collar was unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up and the ultimate social faux pas, no tie!  So maybe DeMint has been sobbing into his beer over the GOP debacle of Nov. 6, just like Romney.  (Romney wouldn’t be shedding tears over beer, but maybe a glass of milk.)

5. He might be pulling a Sarah Palin of sorts.  DeMint was only two years into his second term.  Remember, Mrs. “I Can See Russia from My House” Palin dropped the Alaska governorship after only two years. I’ll bet Alaskans were delighted to see the last of her.  Could be South Carolina may be happy to see DeMint leave, too (no, you can’t see Russia from South Carolina.)

6. DeMint loves his filibusters.  In fact, he once forced the Senate to stay in D.C., for a Saturday vote that he skipped.  But since the Senate is pushing through reform to end the Republicans filibustering everything that comes down the pike in the Senate, DeMint was just plain sore over that.  “You can’t take away my filibuster!” he wailed like a 2-year-old.  At least he won’t have to filibuster his own bill, like Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell did recently.

7. Well, maybe DeMint finally saw the light, and he didn’t like it.  Since Republicans are not usually the brightest bulbs on the block in recognizing when it’s over (it’s over), DeMint’s bulb finally flickered and sputtered and faded out. Does that mean if you shake him you can hear his bulb’s death rattle?

American writer Eric Hoffer once long, long ago — like a century or more ago — noted political mass movements follow a predictable trend.  It seems, Hoffer noted, that movements start out as glorious movements, become big business and then a racket.

DeMint recognized the conservative movement in America is over.  Many of his fellow conservatives, inside or outside the Senate, are recognizing this simple truth, too.

So why bother to waste your efforts on a movement that has been diminished to being nothing more than a racket, a scam?  Why risk becoming irrelevant along with the Tea Party?  Why continue making a political fool of yourself?

Good luck, Jim DeMint.  Hope you set a trend.

Jodeane Albright is an award-winning blogger and the community editor for the Idaho State Journal.

 

Women in the Senate, Wow!

It’s about time the stuffy male-dominated exclusive men’s club of the United States Senate finally crumbled under the weight of a record number of women elected to this political body.

This year, this past election, the number of women serving rose to 20.  That is a record, the most ever in U.S. history.  And although the number may not be as big as we women would like it to be, the women elected to the Senate will have a significant and likely historical impact in our nation’s government.

Most outstanding, most controversial and the most contentious is Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, who defeated Scott Brown, the Tea Party dimwit who fancied himself Ted Kennedy’s successor.  Although Brown put on an act sufficient to convince Republicans he was a fairly moderate guy, when he got to the Senate he showed his true stripes, and my, but they were skunk stinky!

So there is tremendous satisfaction knowing that Warren defeated him roundly, particularly in the wake of his obstreperous and bigoted staff, who took the opportunity during the campaign to put on war paint and make adolescent war whoops in order to demean her personally as well as her Native American heritage.

Much to Brown and the GOP’s chagrin, Warren won.  Not only that, she has nabbed one of the most highly sought-after committee appointments, the one that has the Republicans and their fellow henchmen in crime, Wall Street, writhing in fury on the Senate floor — she has been appointed to serve on the Senate Banking Committee.

That’s fantastic for the woman who was denied the directorship of Congress’ TARP oversight panel because at one time that position would not have made it through the Senate, due to the GOP blocking her every step of the way.

In other words, women members of the Senate such as Warren now wield considerable power.  That’s a far cry from the first woman elected to the Senate, Rebecca Latimer Felton, from Georgia, who served on the basis of appointment exactly one day — from Nov. 21 to Nov. 22 in 1922.

Felton was in for just a day because she was primarily a bridge to electing a man, in this case, Walter F. George, to fill the gap when Sen. Thomas E. Watson died prematurely.  It was just as well because despite Felton’s support for women’s suffrage, she was on record as a white supremacist.  She advocated lynching of black men specifically. She was fanatically fearful of black men raping white women and suggested white Southerners should “lynch a thousand black men a week if it becomes necessary to protect a woman’s dearest possession.”

Why Felton was such a bigot is unknown; at 87 years old when she served for a mere 24 hours in the Senate, it made her stance on prison reform, women’s rights and modernizing education all the more perplexing.

Many, many women senators have served with distinction since Felton, and the names are a who’s who of prominent, talented, and remarkable women.  Among them was Margaret Chase Smith, from Maine, who was the first woman to serve in both the U.S. Congress and Senate.  She was a moderate Republican who was highly praised for her speech in 1950, “Declaration of Conscience,” in which she criticized McCarthyism.  She served from 1949 to 1973, the first women to serve so long until Sen. Barbara Mikulski from Maryland, who was recently reelected in 2011 for a fifth term (each term for a senator is six years).

Maurine Brown Neuberger, from Oregon, served from 1960 to 1967, along with her husband, Richard L. Neuberger.  They were the Senate’s first husband-and-wife legislative couple.  She was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from 1950 to 1955, and won a special election to fill her husband’s Senate seat after he died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1960.

Neuberger was one of the first Senate women to achieve her position by actual election and not appointment, which was more typical for decades.  She focused her time on consumer, environmental and health issues.  She sponsored bills requiring warning labels on cigarettes and in 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed her to the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.

Then there’s Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, the first First Lady of the United States (as well as First Lady of Arkansas, when her husband, Bill Clinton, was governor there) who served as senator from New York.  She was elected in 2000, and was reelected by a wide margin in 2006, she was so popular and respected.  She later ran for president in 2008, and although she very narrowly lost to current second-term President Barack Obama, he appointed her secretary of state, one of the most powerful positions in a presidential cabinet and fourth in line to the presidency.

Clinton has chosen to retire from public life for now, but the rumor mill is already rumbling that she will make another run for president in 2016.  Considering she was wildly popular when she campaigned for president in 2008, and that she is tremendously admired the world over in her role as the 67th secretary of state for the U.S., she has not let on one iota what her future plans are.  Smart lady; best to let everyone speculate because if eventually she does decide to campaign for president again, the chances are pretty darn strong she would win — at nearly 70 years old!  (Take that, Luke Russert!)

Look at the roster of current Senate women — the aforementioned Barbara Mikulski from Maryland; Dianne Feinstein from California; Barbara Boxer, also from California; Patty Murray, Washington; Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas, retiring; Olympia Snowe, Maine, retiring; Susan Collins, Maine; Mary Landrieu, Louisiana; Maria Cantwell, Washington; Debbie Stabenow, Michigan; Lisa Murkowski, Alaska; Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota; Claire McCaskill, Missouri (take that, Todd Akin!)  Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire; Kay Hagen, North Carolina; Kirsten Gillibrand, New York; Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire; and these senator-elects, Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin, Deb Fischer, Nebraska, Heidi Heitkamp, North Dakota, Mazie Hirono, Hawaii, and Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts.

Wow!  I’m impressed!  What a difference from when women first got to vote in 1919!

The nation is in good hands, thanks to them all!

Jodeane Albright, award-winning blogger for the Idaho State Journal, is also the Journal’s community editor.