CMRitcher

Intellectually curious, fact-driven, adherent to rational thought, staunch pragmatist.

[Jerry Mitchell @JMitchellNews]

#OnThisDay in 1939, news broke that Pauli Murray had applied to a Ph.D. program at the University of North Carolina, sparking white outrage across the state.

“Members of your race are not admitted to the university,” her rejection letter read.

“The days immediately following the first press stories were anxious ones for me,” she recalled. “I had touched the raw nerve of white supremacy in the South.”

A year later, she was jailed twice in Virginia for refusing to give her seat on a Greyhound bus. She graduated first in her class at Howard University School of Law, but Harvard University wouldn’t accept her because of her gender. (Harvard didn’t admit women until 1950.) Instead, she became the first Black student to receive Yale Law School’s most advanced degree.

In 1942, she helped George Houser, James Farmer and Bayard Rustin form the Congress of Racial Equality, known as CORE. Four years later, she became a deputy attorney general in California. Thurgood Marshall described her 1951 book, “States’ Laws on Race and Color,” as the “bible” for civil rights lawyers.

A year later, she lost her post at Cornell University because of McCarthyism. She left her law career to work on her writing at MacDowell Colony, a haven for artists and writers in New Hampshire, where she worked on her first memoir alongside James Baldwin.

“Writing is my catharsis,” she said in an interview. “It saved my sanity. But you cannot sustain anger for years and years. It will kill you.”

She researched her ancestry. “If you call me Black, it’s ridiculous physiologically, isn’t it? I’m probably 5/8 white, 2/8 Negro — repeat American Negro — and 1/8 American Indian,” she said. “I began years before Alex Haley did. I’m always ahead of my time.”

She also penned a book of poems, “Dark Testament,” writing the words, “Hope is a song in a weary throat.”

During her time as a professor in Ghana in the early 1960s, she began to accept that ancestry, she said.

“The difficulty is coming to terms with a mixed ancestry in a racist culture,” she said.

She said she didn’t consider her experience unique.

“I don’t believe that, ‘You came over in chains so how can you feel American?’ That’s poppycock. Thousands are just like me. In fact I probably feel more American than many whites. I just want this country to live up to its billing.”

After returning from Africa, President Kennedy appointed her to his Committee on Civil and Political Rights. She worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and other top civil rights leaders and took part in the 1963 March on Washington. But she remained critical of “the blatant disparity between the major role which (Black) women have played and are playing in the crucial grass-roots levels of our struggle and the minor role of leadership they have been assigned in the national policy-making decisions.”

She helped found the National Organization of Women. In 1977, she became the first Black woman to serve as an Episcopal priest.

“Being a priest is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “The first 48 hours were the most difficult of my life. I found myself on the receiving end of tremendous human problems I didn’t know how to handle.”

She rejected the idea that she should slow down. “We shouldn’t stop growing ‘til our last breath,” she said. She died eight years later, and in 2012, the Episcopal church named her as a saint.

In 2021, a documentary on Murray was released, using her own voice and words as narration. The documentary also includes an interview with law professor Anita Hill.

Even though Murray knew that the odds were often against her success, she kept fighting for what she believed was right,” Hill said. “It takes a lot of courage to be hopeful.”
https://t.co/Y12uVPDinL

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@ChrisMurphyCT Will you or any other Senate Democrat filibuster a bill or legislation that includes the $1 billion retrofitting of the Qatari jet ??

Filibuster and demand the removal of the $1 billion from the Bill.

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@joerogan There is a difference between:
Hypothesis
Theory
And, Unproven Conspiracy

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

We regret to inform you it’s going to get a whole lot worse

[Truthdig @Truthdig]

A recent USDA study found a correlation between the speed at which workers process or butcher meat and their risk for musculoskeletal disorders.

https://t.co/Vxh1vE0LD6

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@SSWorks "Refusing to comply with a court order to prevent access to sensitive Social Security data".... Now, how will you respond ?@SenWhitehouse @SenAdamSchiff @SenSchumer @SenWarren @SenSanders

[WIRED @WIRED]

DOGE has spent the last six weeks on a supposed crusade to audit the government and stop fraud, waste, and abuse.

But two federal auditors with years of experience say that DOGE’s actions are the furthest thing from what an actual audit looks like.
https://t.co/4gui4LlxEU

[Barb McQuade @BarbMcQuade]

From interview of Lee Bollinger, 1st Amendment scholar who served as dean of @UMichLaw, president of @UMich, and president of Columbia University.
https://t.co/l7KCpqsOmT

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

When Trump was sworn in, Elon Musk's corporations were under more than 32 investigations conducted by at least 11 federal agencies.

Most of the cases are now closed or likely to be closed soon, and the federal agencies are being defanged by DOGE.

Funny how that works, huh?

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@VolodimirZelen1 Take heed America and especially the politicians @hakeemjeffries @SenSchumer @SenWhitehouse @SenAdamSchiff @SenateDems @HouseDemocrats
Or perhaps action will come from: @Lawrence @maddow @DemocracyDocket @propublica

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@jemelehill Rethink your narrative @SenSherrodBrown ... Advice from someone that has never been an adversary. @jemelehill makes a valuable point. It's not always the substance, perhaps the messaging... And, some people just vote against their own economic interests.

[Nicholas Drummond @nicholadrummond]

This is the best summary of the current geopolitical situation I have seen. Sir Alex Younger was head of MI6 between 2014 and 2020. Really worth watching.

[Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 @joncoopertweets]

🚨Read/copy/repost if you can:

From an anonymous OPM employee on Reddit. submitted 3 hours ago by Throwaway918284: "I'm a current employee at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). This is a throwaway account for obvious reasons. I’m posting this because people need to know what’s going on at OPM. I’ve been an OPM employee for nearly a decade and a Federal Employee for almost 20 years. I’ve never witnessed anything even remotely close to what’s happening right now. In short, there's a hostile takeover of the federal civil service.
Let me say this in no uncertain terms — OPM has been compromised and taken over. The very backbone of American Government, the HR of all HR in the U.S. Government has been taken over by outside politicals. In just five days, they managed to push aside dozens of non-political, career civil servants who were there specifically to prevent the civil service from becoming the President's henchmen.
The current Acting Director, Charles (Chuck) Ezell is a low-level branch chief. He's the friendliest “yes man” you'll ever meet. He never says no. It’s clear they pushed aside all the high-level non political civil servants who refused to do Donald Trump's bidding, until they found Chuck.
Under his name, they’ve sent numerous requests to all the agencies to collect information on gov't employees that they see as a threat to their agenda. Instructions say to send these lists to Amanda Scales. But Amanda is not actually an OPM employee, she works for Elon Musk. She wasn’t even properly cleared by OPM Personnel Security.
Our CIO, Melvin Brown, (also a non political career public servant) was pushed aside just one week into his tenure because he refused to setup email lists to send out direct communications to all career civil servants. Such communications are normally left up to each agency.
Instead, an on-prem (on-site) email server was setup. Someone literally walked into our building and plugged in an email server to our network to make it appear that emails were coming from OPM. It's been the one sending those various “test” message you've all seen. We think they're building a massive email list of all federal employees to generate mass RIF notices down the road.
The non-political civil servants here at OPM are watching helplessly as our government is being systematically dismantled bit by bit. Even the IGs are being fired to prevent them from investigating the numerous whistleblower complaints we've filed.
Please share this and tell the world that OPM is not the bad guy. We're just as helpless to stop this as the rest of our fellow public servants. Hopefully someone out there can help us, but it’s looking pretty grim."
H/T @sandibachom

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@SenSchumer Trump's illegal acts:
1. Firing Inspector Generals
2. Firing FBI and Justice Department civil service staff
3. Discontinuing USAID
And, so many other illegal acts. So, what are you and Democrats going to do about his blatant criminality ?

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@SenBlumenthal Then do something about it. If necessary take the case to the Court. Trump did, in fact, break a law passed by Congress and signed by the previous administration.

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@SenWhitehouse @JudiciaryDems @SenSchumer @SenWarren @POTUS

[Barb McQuade @BarbMcQuade]

Hey journalists, if you have not already done so, now is the time to file a FOIA request for Mar-a-Lago report so that it can’t be destroyed by new DOJ leaders when they take over. If (when?) dismissal or pardons of co-Ds occur, there will be no legal basis for refusing to comply.

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@POTUS While still in charge of the Executive Branch, take charge and release to the Senate and Congress Trump's Document case report. This may be the only way to preserve Jack Smith's Part 11 of the Document case and for the People - one day - to know the facts.

[Brett Murphy @BrettMmurphy]

There is a ceasefire deal, so I want to share this story from my past year reporting inside the State Dept. trying to answer the central question of Biden’s foreign policy:

How did the U.S. let Israel get away with widespread horrors in Gaza? 1/

[Amy Sterling Casil @ASterling]

I am a 5th generation Southern Californian who grew up in an orange grove and in Hollywood. I fled my home state in 2020.
Los Angeles is burning right now because of what We the People have allowed rich people to do. Here is what has happened: 1🧵

[CMRitcher @cmritcher]

@POTUS Over the next four years, never stop taking credit for the Chips & Science, Infrastructure bills & other job/economic legislation. Show up at all openings with Democratic representatives. Run those ads planned for your campaign. Market The Big Deal.