Dark Money Discussion with Indivisible

Last night, Indivisible of East Manatee County presented an informative evening about  Dark Money. Barbara Somma kicked off with a grand tour of Jane Mayer's excellent book of the same name, Dark Money. Barbara explained the systematic efforts by Charles and David Koch to fundamentally alter the U.S. political system. She also researched the Koch Brothers local donation to the Poynter Institute. Jaime Canfield followed with a description of the local and national Move To Amend efforts. Jaime detailed the work toward a 28th Constitutional Amendment which would abolish the concept that money equals speech, as well as corporate constitutional rights. Click to watch the video above.

Constitution Day 2017

Every year across the country, on September 17, educational institutions - from the largest universities to the tiniest one-room schoolhouses - offer educational programs about the Constitution of the United States.  This year Manasota Move to Amend members participated once again. Jaime Canfield and Arlene Sweeting visited two local schools - one in Manatee County and one in Sarasota County. Social studies teacher, Chris Valcarcel, welcomed them to classes at St. Stephen's Episcopal School.  And they joined history teacher, Jym Froelich, for a second year at Pine View School. Together, they presented to ten classes over the course of two days, reaching over 200 students. Jaime reports:

"We visited the 6th graders at St. Stephen's and the 9th graders at Pine View High School. Our presentation consisted of walking the students through the history of the existing amendments, the court cases that have given corporations the same constitutional rights as people, the ways in which many groups of people have been excluded from the rights stipulated in our constitution, and the history of how our citizens have mobilized for change. We plan to expand this educational outreach to as many different age groups in the effort to explain the need for the 28th amendment."