On International Women's Day, allow me to elevate one of my all-time favorites, Connie Schultz.

She appeared on Jonathan Capehart's show yesterday and absolutely dragged the Republican Party by their hairy earlobes onto the carpet and read them for filth. The specific catalyst of her ire was their argument before the Supreme Court this week about voting rights.

"I am kind of worked up," she said. "But mostly because of listening to that Republican lawyer arguing before the Supreme Court. If the Republicans are so worried about being at a disadvantage to Democrats, they can do a number of things to change it."

Here comes the list:

"They can support voting rights, for example, and not try to be doing everything they can to support the oppression of voters. They can support reproductive rights. That would be an advantage for them almost immediately," Schultz rattled off. What novel ideas!

She continued, "They, too, could have supported this bill that will now cut the poverty rate in half. And really importantly, they can finally acknowledge, they can take responsibility for supporting Donald Trump, whose disregard for American lives cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, and has left us a nation in grief." You mean, they might recover what little respect people (god knows who, but some people, I guess) had for them if they acknowledged their mistakes and apologized? Gosh!

Capehart and Midwin Charles agreed, adding that one thing the GOP does NOT want to do is to tell Black people that they cannot vote. Capehart said that's "like them beating the hornet's nest."

Charles talked about the huge number of voter suppression laws passed since the Shelby decision, and insisted, "So the idea that Republicans think that they can tell Black people that they are not going to vote or that it's going -- they're going to make it more difficult to vote, all that does is incentivize and encourage more Black people to come out. If they have to wait on line for hours, they'll do it. If they have to bring snacks, they will do it. If they have to bring water, they will do it. And they will assist in getting people who are unable to access the polls such as elderly or the infirm, and they will get it done." If anything has shown this is true, look back at 2020 and 2018.

Then Capehart asked Schultz about the minimum wage in Ohio, but she wasn't done talking about voting rights, and asked if she could continue on that topic.

"As a white person, I'm going to say this to all the white Americans out there. We're either allies all the time or we're not allies. This fight is our fight for voting rights as well."

A-TO THE FRIKKIN-MEN

She continued with marching orders for us white people. "When we see Black -- our fellow Black Americans being targeted, we need to not think of them as the Black community. We need to think of them as our community, and they're targeting our brothers and sisters in that community," she said. "And I hope that when we're talking about voting rights throughout the country we see a lot of white Americans willing to stand tall and to help in this fight to preserve their rights and to expand the rights where they need it to be."

Now, Connie Schultz may be married to one of my husbands in the Senate, but she is A-OK with me. In fact, I'd even consider letting her come on a double date with me and Sherrod. Maybe my other Senate husband, Sheldon Whitehouse could be her date.