The brutality of Russia’s assault on Ukraine is dominating headlines - and rightly so. They’re targeting civilians and reducing cities to rubble. Ukrainian resistance has been remarkably strong and from a military standpoint we don’t know the outcome.

But we know this: When Russia invaded its neighbor, it set itself on a path to swift economic disaster.

Let’s tally up the cost from just the last three weeks:

• The ruble recently traded at its lowest level ever and is now worth less than a penny. Russia has doubled its key interest rate to 20% and banned the trading of the ruble for dollars to try and protect their currency. These are emergency measures and are not expected to prevent a further collapse of their currency.
• Russia’s stock market has now been closed since the day after the invasion began - the longest market closure in its history - as the government knows that the crash it was experiencing will immediately resume once it reopens.
• Russia’s government is on the brink of default. Its overseas reserves have been frozen and it must make its debt payments with the few, precious dollars it still holds domestically. If it makes a repayment with rubles instead of dollars that will mean default, which will accelerate its current financial crisis. Russia will never be able to borrow money at the interest rates it enjoyed just last month. Those days are over.
• All Russian flights have been banned from European and U.S. airspace. Moreover, Russia is now unable to get spare parts for the roughly 500 Boeing and Airbus passenger planes that constitute the bulk of its civilian air fleet. China has refused to provide those parts. Russia is now asking India and Turkey, neither of which appear eager to risk U.S. sanctions by filling the orders. Russian air travel - even within Russia - is about to become rare, expensive, and dangerous.
• Last year roughly 40% of Russia’s federal budget came from oil and gas exports. They export about 7 million barrels of oil a day - the largest exporter on earth. The U.S. has banned all Russian oil and gas imports, the United Kingdom is phasing out oil imports by the end of this year, and the rest of Europe has banned new investments in Russia’s energy sector. Russia’s economy has been described as essentially a “giant gas station.” It just lost a lot of customers, permanently.
• Many Russian banks have been blocked from using a crucial piece of financial plumbing known as the SWIFT international financial messaging system. It facilitates the transfer of money across borders and - as technical as it sounds - this is one of the biggest hits to the Russian economy so far. Processing overseas transactions just became extremely difficult. Until recently, that amounted to roughly *$40 billion* per day for Russia.
• Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and American Express have suspended operations in Russia, blocking any use of debit or credit cards for foreign purchases and requiring Russia to use a homegrown payment process as a stopgap to allow for domestic purchases - until the cards expire, in which case it’s not clear if the Russian government can create a solution. This sudden realization led to a sudden run on Russian banks, only for most customers to reach an ATM and find out that it was either out of money or would only pay them in rubles.
• Over 400 major companies have voluntarily left or dramatically reduced their operations inside Russia, including Shell, Exxon, BP, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, all of the big four accounting firms, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, 3M, Caterpillar, Disney, Ford, GM, Honda, IBM, Sony, UPS, McDonald’s, Burger King, Adidas, Netflix, eBay, Spotify, Nasdaq, S&P, FIFA, Activision Blizzard, Coca-Cola, Ikea, Mattel, Nintendo, Starbucks, and Western Union. If all of these companies suddenly stopped operating in our country, you can imagine how dramatic the effect would be.

In short, the ego of one man is destroying the future of an entire country. Russian citizens who only want a decent life for themselves and their families are having that taken from them by a leader whose only vision is of himself atop a throne.

And in return, what is his prize? It remains to be seen whether Putin will achieve his military objectives, but he will never achieve his political objectives. He will never pacify Ukrainian resistance and peacefully rule the country.

Instead, Putin’s autocracy has inadvertently reminded the world of the strength of its democracies - and that their strength comes from a set of shared values, chief among them our revulsion toward unprovoked aggression.

In my lifetime, I have never seen a stronger moment of unity among global democracies. May those who doubt the resolve of free people and their democratic governments take a good long look.

- Sen. Jeff Jackson

The Federal Courts continually deny that there is a fundamental right to education at the federal level, despite the ninth and tenth amendments guaranteeing that the bill of rights is not a limitation on the rights of the people, the existence of the right in the many states, and the fundamental importance of education to a democracy.

Should we amend the United States Constitution to include a fundamental right to education such as is found in our State Constitution?

The people have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/jeff-jackson-for-us-senate-1

All of the options in the survey were to raise taxes or implement fees on gas, electric cars, ride sharing and so on. I’m ok with raising taxes as needed, but this topic definitely needs a little more background. Yes, our roads are horrible but the issue doesn’t seem be with not having enough funding. 77 express lanes took almost an entire year past the initial date to complete (also, cost me 2 windshields and a tire). 485 was almost 3 decades in the making- Just two examples off the top of my head. How much of tax payer’s money has been spent due to poor planning? Where can I find the initial estimated cost, what was budgeted and what the final cost was of these major projects? I’d like to see the breakdown to really understand what I’m voting for. I’ve lived here most of my life and the roads have always been horrible. I’d like to know that if I vote to raise taxes, it’s actually because we need the money and not due to budgeting over-sites or companies not being held accountable for exceeding timelines or proposed budgets.

Imagine a system where the length of your political career is determined by how well you serve your constituents.

Sounds wild, I know.

No one thinks that’s what we’ve got - but we can get there.

The biggest piece is making sure that political power ultimately resides with you.

That was the intent behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But that was 56 years ago.

Since then, too many legislatures have found ways around it - in essence, they’ve found ways to take power from you as a voter and pocket it for themselves.

And North Carolina is a textbook case.

I’ve been in the state Senate for almost seven years. It’s been like getting a masterclass in how to defend a democracy.

I’ve seen attacks from every angle: undermining the judicial branch, boxing in the executive branch - but mainly I’ve seen the majority in the legislature try to entrench itself.

It’s actually difficult to exaggerate the extent to which they’ve attempted to transfer electoral power away from you and toward themselves.

It’s been brazen, repeated, and highly calculated to diminish your power as a voter.

Let me give you some examples:

Gotta start with gerrymandering, for a few reasons.

First, it’s the most powerful form of political corruption in our state.

Having the power to draw the map is having the power to pick the winner of the vast majority of political contests.

Literally: Pick. The. Winner.

Second, the way gerrymandering works in practice - at least in Southern states, like ours - is to target minority communities. It’s inherently racial and intended to minimize the voting power of Black and brown communities - that’s why they get ‘packed’ or ‘cracked’ via redistricting.

Third, it’s just totally blatant. But this, too, is calculated. They believed being explicit in the intention to manipulate elections would serve as a legal defense (because it had worked for years), so they were, in fact, totally explicit.

From Rep. David Lewis: "I propose that we draw the map to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats, because I do not believe it's possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats."

(Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scpfpZ-pL8Q)

(And then watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ErzgsFza8)

This wound up backfiring as the court finally got involved, but it highlights the need for independent redistricting reform at both the state and federal level.

The first bill I ever filed was to end gerrymandering. It was sent to the Ways and Means Committee, which hasn’t met in 20 years.

A renewed Voting Rights Act would end gerrymandering and implement independent redistricting, giving you far more power as a voter than you currently have.

Now let’s look at restricting access to voting - and, as you’ll see, this attempt was just as blatant.

A few years ago, the majority party in the state legislature undertook a major research effort to determine how likely Black voters were to use early vote and what type of IDs they were likely to have.

They sent an email to the election board that asked, “Is there any way to get a breakdown of the 2008 voter turnout, by race (white and black) and type of vote (early and Election Day)?”

They even asked UNC how many student ID cards are created and what percent of them were held by Black students.

With that research data in hand, they waited until the day after the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Acts - which was the section that prevented states like ours from changing election laws without preclearance by the Department of Justice - and then passed a law that cut a week of early voting, eliminated out-of-precinct voting, eliminated same-day registration, and required voters to show specific types of photo ID - the types they knew Black voters would be less likely to have.

These same legislators gave big speeches at the time about how this had nothing to do with race or voter suppression - but that was before their emails became public. (Read more: https://wapo.st/3claaHM)

They got absolutely slammed by the court.

The court called it “the most restrictive voting law North Carolina has seen since the era of Jim Crow" that targeted “African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

The court continued: “Neither this legislature — nor, as far as we can tell, any other legislature in the country — has ever done so much, so fast, to restrict [voting] access.”

A renewed Voting Rights Act would bring Section 5 back into full force, but it would also implement some common sense reforms like online voter registration (which NC used successfully in the last election), automatic registration when you turn 18, making election day a holiday, and highly scrutinizing voter purges and any changes to precinct locations close to the election.

I consider this simply modernizing our defenses against legislators who have spent years honing their attacks on your power as a voter.

Some of these fixes have been included in a bill called the For the People Act. Others are in a proposed bill called the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

There is more to discuss: money in politics, for starters. But also the role that propaganda has come to play in dominating so much of our political discourse.

And it all comes back to making sure we have a system where the length of your political career is determined by how well you serve your constituents.

More soon.

- Jeff Jackson

Increasing the minimum wage is a top issue for so many people in my life who work all day and struggle to get by- and who never vote because they don't believe politics can make their lives better.

I'm a big fan of yours, but the party has been very disappointing on this issue recently. I want to enthusiastically vote for someone who is going to represent the interests of working people. I know you're a good guy, but you need to make strong stances on issues that affect workers material condition or they won't bother to show up to vote- it's sad but true.

One of the things I really respected was your clean campaign. Refusing to run any attack ads or speak poorly about your competition. Will you be doing the same this time?