More Than A Magazine, A Movement
If you’re looking for a cheat sheet for any of the races your ballot asks you to weigh in on, guides.vote has nonpartisan guides for the ongoing local and national elections. Produced by veteran journalists (who know how to fact-check … and bring their receipts), the guides break down this years’ candidates and their track records, in their own words, on issues like abortion, criminal justice, climate, DEI and more.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has become the epicenter of an alarming assault on core American freedoms, with free speech in the cross hairs. From schools to universities to private business, DeSantis’ administration seems bent on dismantling the pillars of the First Amendment.
This month, the Florida Health Department continued this trend by threatening several Florida television stations, including a Tampa outlet, for airing an advertisement supporting Amendment 4, an abortion rights amendment on the ballot this November.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, more than 20 states have completely banned or severely restricted abortion. In 2023 alone, over 171,000 women were forced to travel out of state—in some cases, several states away—to have an abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights unveiled a national video campaign last week highlighting the distances women have been forced to travel for abortion care after their own states criminalized the procedure.
Women on abortion road trips all listen to Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” … in the car, on the bus, on the highway, at the gas station; the song becomes part of a communal soundtrack as the women cross state lines for abortion care. They all end up in the same medical waiting room.
The critically acclaimed documentary Zurawski v Texas is now available for rent in the U.S. on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV/iTunes, Google Play and YouTube.
Executive produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and directed by Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, the film achieves the remarkable, bringing audiences directly into the lives of three plaintiffs and their lawyer in the groundbreaking lawsuit from the Center for Reproductive Rights challenging Texas’ abject failure to honor medical exceptions under its abortion ban. The documentary gets up close and personal, shedding light on the devastating consequences experienced by each of the women—their doctor’s appointments, family interactions, surrogacy attempts, courtroom testimonies and a heart-wrenching funeral—at the hands of the state.
“The Texas Supreme Court took our freedoms. And what we need to do about it in November is vote out Jimmy Blacklock, John Devine and Jane Bland,” said Gina Ortiz Jones, Texas woman and founder of the Find Out PAC.
Jones said she’s confident that “people are very motivated to hold somebody accountable” for their loss of reproductive rights in Texas, and that flipping three seats on the state Supreme Court may not be as difficult as it seems.
“When people say, ‘Oh, that’s really tough’—well how do we know?” she said. “We’ve never tried.”
In her first appearance on the campaign trail since her electric speech at the Democratic National Convention, former First Lady Michelle Obama pleaded directly with men to take women’s lives seriously this election.
“To the men who love us … I am asking you from the core of my being to take our lives seriously. Do not put our hands in the lives of politicians—mostly men—who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through.”
Last month at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA79) in New York City, Ms. joined “Spotlight on Periods: A Call for Menstrual Health Equity,” an event that brought together film, music, and sports trailblazers, influencers and activists to discuss their call for action to close the gap in menstrual health.
“As creators, we have a responsibility to tell the story and also have the inner dialogue to develop a loving relationship with our bodies and periods, to be able to show up and bravely educate others,” said Madame (Kiran) Gandhi, a musician and activist, who ran the London marathon on the first day of her period. “Women bleed all over the world and we are not rewarded and celebrated. And we are expected to hide it away in shame.”
There are three things the U.S. government must do to address immigration. None entails policing the U.S. border, and none are prioritized by U.S. politicians today.
Support of land sovereignty, reproductive autonomy and safe borders would do far more to address the problems accompanying U.S. immigration, than threatening expensive deportation and promising ineffective border walls.
When Vice President Kamala Harris held her first rally as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, my husband and I watched intently as our daughters wandered into the room. They could see how excited we were—standing close to the TV, our hands clasped tight, my eyes welling up with tears. They asked us who she was, and we told them, “That’s Kamala Harris. And she is going to be our first woman president.”
“She looks like me,” said my 6-year-old, the daughter of a Nigerian American father and white mother.
Naturalized citizens made up one in 10 U.S. voters in 2020. Yet, there are few organizations dedicated to supporting this growing segment of the electorate.
Tolu Olubunmi, who grew up undocumented in the United States, is trying to change that by sharing her story and encouraging civic participation of immigrants through her new organization, How to Speak American. Olubunmi’s advocacy is premised on the idea that immigration presents an opportunity rather than a problem and that this often-ignored group could make a measurable difference in protecting our democratic ideals.
“I went to an immigration lawyer who said, ‘You’re a pretty young thing. Find a nice young man and get married,’ because that’s the only path available,” Olubunmi said. “I decided to help change U.S. law instead.”