Let's Be Clear About What the Republicans Are Doing to Our Elections and Vote

I hadn't heard of this man or his quote but it certainly seems to describe the Republicans' efforts, individually as well as by the political party, across the nation, to disenfranchise likely millions of fellow, taxpaying citizens.

Stop vote suppression.

Americans Need to Know and Understand and Fight What the Republicans Are Doing

From Heather Cox Richardson, once more. No one evaluates what's going on politically in America currently any better and informs, instructs us all.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo articulated today what many have been reluctant to say: What is at stake in the Big Lie and all the Republican efforts to keep it in play—the shenanigans in the secret Maricopa County, Arizona, recount; the censuring of Republicans who voted to impeach the former president; the expected removal of Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney from a leadership role in the party; and so on—is not the past election of 2020, but the upcoming election of 2024.

The Republican Party has demonstrated that it intends to control the government in the future, no matter what most Americans want. Iowa, Georgia, Montana, and Florida have already passed voter suppression laws, while other states are considering them. (Governor Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s bill yesterday live on the Fox News Channel.)

As Marshall points out, though, making sure that states return only Republicans to Congress is also about controlling the White House. Republican lawmakers are purging from state election machinery members of their own party who refused to change the outcome of the 2020 election and give a victory to Trump. The former president has fed speculation that he still hopes to overturn the 2020 election, but Marshall looks forward: Is it really possible to think that in 2024, members of the new Trump party will protect the sanctity of any election that gives a victory to a Democratic candidate? If Republicans capture the House in 2022, will they agree to certify electoral votes for a Democrat? In 2020, even before the current remaking of the party in Trump’s image, 139 House Republicans contested them.

Trump is systematically going after leading members of the Republican Party, determined to remake it into his own organization. Several former senior White House officials told Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post that “[t]he defeated ex-president is propelled primarily by a thirst for retribution, an insatiable quest for the spotlight and a desire to establish and maintain total dominance and control over the Republican base.” Republican strategist Brendan Buck noted that Trump seems to relish fighting, rather than victory to achieve an end. “Usually,” Buck said, “a fight is the means to an end, but in this case fighting is the end.”

The Republicans are consolidating their control over the machinery of government in a way that indicates they intend to control the country regardless of what Americans actually want, putting Trump and his organization back in charge. Democrats have proposed the For the People Act (H.R. 1 and S. 1), which would start to restore a level playing field between the parties. The For the People Act would sideline the new voter suppression bills and make it easier to vote. It would end partisan gerrymandering and stop the flow of big money into elections permitted after the 2010 Citizens United decision.

But Republicans are determined to stop this measure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is especially engaged in its obstruction. He has called it a “partisan takeover” that would “give Washington Democrats unprecedented control over 50 states’ election laws.” He recognizes that restoring a level electoral playing field would hamstring the Republicans’ ability to win elections. Defeating the act is McConnell’s top priority.

The story of how Republican leaders embraced voter suppression and gerrymandering starts back in the 1980s, though the mechanics of overturning a presidential election are new to 2020. Still, their undermining of our democratic system begs the question: Why are leading Republicans surrendering their party, and our nation, to a budding autocrat?

Two days ago, when asked if he is concerned about the direction of his party, McConnell told reporters that he is not paying attention to it because the Democrats are trying “to turn American into a socialist country,” and that “[o]ne-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration.”

Big Money in Elections, Politics and Government

Americans need to know we can change this. I think we all know we should, that it's not good.

Americans need to learn how we can change this.

What the Democrats Must Do

Yes, what, exactly, the Democrats must do, at long last, to break the logjam that is the Republican Party in Congress currently. Then, once that's ended, we must pass the For the People Act so we end gerrymandering, get the dark money out of our elections and put ethics back in government. We must.

Be Aware, Missourians---Republicans In Jeff City Are Also Working on Vote Suppression Here

From NPR today: The same day last month that Georgia's legislature passed a controversial new voting bill, Missouri's Republican-led House approved one of its own. It would impose strict photo ID and other requirements on voting. Both bills are part of a wave of measures proposed across the country after the 2020 elections, and reflect a deep partisan divide over who has access to the polls and how. The divide is not new, but the sides have become increasingly entrenched.

Understand, folks. The Republicans and their ideas and work is so very unpopular with the rest of us out here in America that they have found the only way they can get or stay in government offie is to HAVE FEWER AMERICANS VOTE. They are actively working, now in 47 states, to disenfranchise fellow working, tax paying American citizens, voters. This cannot stand. We mustn't allow this. Call your government representatives. Tell them to support HR1 in the House and S1 in the Senate. We must stop all attempts at vote suppression.

What Republicans Are Doing or Trying to do to Your, Our Vote, Votes and Elections

We must fight this assault on our elections state by state, the nation over as well as at the federal level in Washington. We must fight it in Topeka and Jefferson City and all over the nation, state by state.

End vote suppression. It's un-American.

Quote of the Day -- Former President Karma Ediction

"At this point, Donald Trump is the only President to have more open grand juries than election wins," Neal Katyal says as The Daily Beast reports that two Georgia grand juries are underway in an investigation of the former President.

Kansans! What You Need To Know About Changes In Voting This Year!

From our hard working friend, Davis Hammet, over at Loud Light.



You can find more about this great group here:

Loud Light

Maybe help them, if you can?

What Gerrymandering Is, What It Does, Why You Should Care and What We Need To Do

And for that matter, we also need to press, push, fight to end "voter ID laws", too.

How Voter ID Laws Are Being Used 

to Disenfranchise Minorities

How Voter ID Laws Discriminate 

Against Racial Minorities

Getting a photo ID so you can vote is easy. 

Unless you're poor, black

Voter ID Laws Are Discriminatory Efforts 

to Disenfranchise, Courts Rule

Want Information On A Candidate?

I just learned of the following political website. It gives non-partisan, non-biased information on political candidates and government office holders.

Project Vote Smart - 

The Voter's Self Defense System

This video tells more of them and the site.

Whatever you do, ladies and gentlemen, get out there and vote tomorrow!

Have a great day and week and God help us all.

We Do Elections Very, Very Wrong, America

Sure, we Americans do and have done a lot of things right and well, absolutely or we wouldn't have gotten where we have, socially, sociologically and certainly economically, without question. (We've a lot--A LOT--of things wrong like maybe Korea but definitely Vietnam and that unlawful Iraq War and too many things about race, etc. but we'll save that for another time and day).

All that said, one thing we do wrong--and by wrong I mean deeply, wildly and very expensively wrong, all, is elections. Check out just a few notes on how the rest of the world does them:

The longest campaign in Canadian history was 10 weeks.

In the U.K., political parties can only spend $30 million in the year before an election.

In Germany, political parties release just one 90-second television ad.

In 2013, over two-thirds of income to Norway's political parties came from the government.

In Australia, voting is compulsory.

In Brazil, Election Day is on the weekend.

We just aren't very bright. 

We need to undo our election system and campaigns and campaign finance and all those "campaign contributions", folks.

We have got to Get the Big, Ugly Money Out of Our Election System and Government 

Links:  The Problems With Our Government--and Our Elections

National Elections: What the UK Does Right and We Americans Do So Wrong

National Elections: What the UK Does Right and We Americans Do So Wrong

Reporter Ari Shapiro, on NPR did a fantastic piece this week on the United Kingdom's elections. It so clearly points out what, as the title says, they do so wisely, so intelligently and what we do so backwards, so wrong and so needlessly expensively:

No Big Money Or TV Ads — What's With TheUK's Low-Key Election?

More than anything, they don't do big, they don't do them for long and they don't do expensive:

America experiences a long, drawn-out election fever, while the U.K. hardly shows any symptoms at all. That is to say, almost none of the events most strongly associated with an American presidential campaign are part of a typical British national election.

Take political rallies, where the bleachers fill with thousands of flag-waving, screaming supporters.

"I remember being in Denver in 2008," says London-based political consultant Steve Morgan. "The stadium was full, and thousands and thousands of people were outside, and millions more watching on television."

Morgan, who has worked in political campaigns in both countries, recalls the landmark moment when Barack Obama formally accepted his party's nomination to be president of the United States.

"We don't have that," he says.

The last time a British political leader tried to do something similar, says Morgan, "Was Sheffield in 1992, and it was Neil Kinnock."

The speech, three days before the election, was a disaster.

"The British media crucified him for trying to run an American-style campaign," says Morgan.

Kinnock's party lost that year, and no British politician has held a big rally like that since.

They--the Brits--very wisely put in a time limit for elections. They only last 4 months long, total. Can you imagine? How wonderful would that be?

Next:

Debates are another staple of American campaigns. There were four Presidential debates in 2012, including the Vice Presidential debate. Not so in the UK.

"Last election we had a leaders' debate for the first time," says political scientist Margaret Scammell of the London School of Economics. "We may or may not have another one this time."

There is no primary system so "there are no polarizing, surprising, wild-card candidates, and everything becomes far more predictable."

This sounds better all the time, doesn't it? Wait. It gets better:

"...in the U.K., 'We have very strict rules where you're not really allowed to advertise via television or radio as a political party,' says Katie Ghose. She's chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, a nonpartisan group that focuses on improving the way campaigns operate."

"We just think that there is really a grotesque amount of money spent in the U.S. on politics," says Ghose. That's a pretty widely-held view in Britain, which highlights a big cultural difference between the U.S. and the U.K.: In America, campaign laws value free speech above all else. The Supreme Court has ruled that limits on campaign spending may amount to limits on speech. In the U.K., people talk less about free speech and more about what Ghose calls "a level playing field."

"If you have one party that's just able to amass a load of money and shout louder than the others, that's not healthy for democracy," Ghose says. "And we wouldn't interpret freedom of speech to mean an unlimited ability to spend, spend, spend."

The hell of all this is that we could do this. There's no reason we couldn't. We could pass a law making elections only--what? One month? Two?  Then create a law making all those "campaign contributions" illegal. It would be a one-two punch, so to speak. And because elections would be so brief, it would make the possibility and feasibility of the campaign contributions ban work. Since there's no campaign, in essence, there would be no need for the campaign money.

It could work. Heck, it would work.

But the fact is, it has to come from us. It has to come from the people. We have to demand it. Who but the people buying elections think it shouldn't or wouldn't work?

Let's get this party started.

How Bad Our Politicians, Politics and Elections Have Gotten

This past week, there were two excellent examples of how small our politicians, our politics and our elections have gotten.

Here's the first one:

Michelle Nunn’s Dad Donated To Obama Before She Refused To Say Whether She Voted For Him
I mean really, how "weak-kneed" are you that you can't even own up to whomever you voted for? If you can't do  that, how will you be able to take a real stand if, as you're apparently trying, you're elected to ofifice? It seems clear you would end up being a person who would merely wait for some other, higher up political party official or organization to tell you how to vote and speaak.
And then there was this beauty:

Charlie Crist Cannot Have His Small Fan at Our Debate

This was a real stunner.

It seems Florida Governor Rick Scott was to debate challenger Charlie Crist. No problem, right? But according to the article, Governor Crist wouldn't come out to debate for 7 minutes. It seems he didn't think Mr. Crist had a fan to keep him cool. The Governor thought it disallowed by the rules. The rules read like this:

"Candidates will be fitted with lavaliere microphones and will stand at podiums. Candidates may not bring visual aids, notes, or electronic devices to the debate, but will be provided with a pad and pen to take notes during the debate."

This is how far down, how low our political discourse and elections have gotten. We need to be better than this. We need to rise above this level of discourse and concentrate on what's best for the people and nation, not these small, petty issues.

On the next elections

Given Eric Cantor's crashing and burning recently, in his election, and the rise of David Brat and his Tea Party support, there are some things that need to be pointed out:

1) Naturally and very obviously, this helped the Tea Party greatly. Beyond that, it will likely have helped the Koch brothers and their money and all the capability of that money a great deal, also.

2) Thad Cochran, in his upcoming election, will, I predict, lose in his election, and for two reasons, at least. First, he's running against a much younger, newcomer from, yes, the Tea Party, and he's an attractive candidate, at least to some--and likely, enough--people.  Second, Sen. Cochran recently shot himself in the figurative foot when he declared he Did 'All Kinds Of Indecent Things With Animals ....    

Oops.

3) In New York, I'd have to say, it looks as though 84 year old Representative Charlie Rangel will also likely lose in his race, after all these years in office, and will be sent home. He is the age he is, he was censured in office not that long ago, he's been there since the 70's and he has tough, tough competition. Fortunately, in a way, he has two competitors but it will likely be enough to do him in.

Fascinating stuff. I know I'll stay tuned in.

Links:  Congressman Rangel Battles For Political Survival

The Cochran-McDaniel ad wars

Politics, elections and government in America today

Our government legislators and representatives have become prostitutes. Prostitutes in the truest sense of the word, to and for money, to and from businesses, corporations and the wealthy for money so they can afford their election campaigns and they can continue to remain in their political positions. It's constant. It is in no way even subtle. They're not sexual prostitutes, of course, but people exchanging money with a quid pro quo, certainly.

This is not healthy. This is not good for our nation.

Not good for the people or the nation in any way.

It only serves the wealthy and the corporations.


We must fight for change.

Quote of the day -- on statesmanship

Things that are weakening America

I got to thinking of things that are actually weakening America, as a nation and came up with a short but, I think, rather powerful list:

1)  The insanely, absurdly, obscenely, even immorally far-too-high costs of health care in our country and our inability to do anything about it. We pay more for health care in this country than any other people or nation, we have the worst health results of the top 17 industrialized nations and more of us go bankrupt from health costs than any other reason in our country. And one political party wants to do nothing whatever about it;

2) Internet neutrality.  Allowing corporations and the already-rich the ability to charge us--and charge us a great deal--for the availability or for faster speeds of the internet.  It keeps us from being informed, from being educated, ultimately from being more tech-savvy and from innovating, creating and being competitive;

3) Our insanely high and extremely wasteful defense budget.  We outspend the entire world, let alone individual countries, many, many times over. And for what?  So we can fight some imaginary World War II?  Or III?

4) Campaign contributions. They allow the, again, already-wealthy and corporations to buy our legislators, their legislation and so, our laws, our government and ultimately, us.  It's insane. We shouldn't allow it;

5) Our elections and the campaigns for those elections. The campaigns are far, far too lang. England made them only so long---one month. (See link, below). And no political party spends any money whatever on these campaigns.  Our campaigns take too much away from our economy, in investment, otherwise, and our representatives don't spend enough time on the issues. Instead, they have to focus on fund-raising (selling themselves to the wealthy and corporations) and to elections and re-elections.  We just aren't that bright. Yet, anyway;

6)  Our endless wars. Our endless wars are weakening the nation from within and without.  It weakens our troops, our military, heck, it even makes our adversaries stronger. How's that for weakening us?  This is the 12th year of our war in Afghanistan. And for what? So we can "weaken the Taliban"? Or al Qaeda? Or so we can build back up that country or what? Why are we there? Why are we still there? What have we--or the world--to gain from this lunacy? I'd love to know. What's our goal now? What's the mission? And does our military know? Do our troops know?

7) Finally, because I don't want to just go on and on and I also don't want to merely drone on negatively----the do-nothing Congress. Not only are we weaker because they are, in fact, doing nearly nothing, they weaken us by not proposing and passing a jobs/infrastructure bill so we can get our economy and nation and people working and working well again. This last Congress is estimated by historians to be the least-productive ever. And this coming year, an election year, mind you, where less gets done than usual, they are scheduled, at present, to only work 97 days, total. Out of the whole year.  And still get their entire $174,000/yr salary.

Folks, we gotta' get busy.

Links:  

Why does health care cost so much in America?

The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill

Net neutrality

List of countries by military expenditures

Most Americans want Congress to cut obscene military budget

End the Obscene Amounts of Money in Campaigns

We could learn a lot from the U.K. election 

America's New Strategy: Endless War(s)

A decade after the 9/11 attack, Americans live in an era of endless war

Do-nothing Congress: Lawmakers pass more blame than bills

And who wins from all this?  The wealthy and corporations:

Lobbyists cash in on do-nothing Congress

Why we must fight to get the big money out of our government

Why we must fight to end campaign contributions in elections in America.

Don't like our government?

What a question, right?  I mean, who does like our government of late?  Well, other than the wealthy and corporations who can and do get whatever they want because they can buy our legislators, their legislation, our laws and so, our government.  They love it, sure.  They're lining their pockets.

But us?

And the thing is, so many say they don't know what they or we should do to fix it, to fix the mess that is Washington, DC.

Well, the one thing I think we can all agree on, no matter if we're from the Left or Right or Middle or whatever.

That is, get the money out.

Get the big, ugly, corrupting influence of the money from the wealthy and corporations out of the government.

And to do that, it has to get out of our elections.

To that end, I propose five uncomplicated, clear, intelligent, straight-forward ways we could do just that--get the money out of our government.

First, legislate an end to the earlier ruling by the Supreme Court that is Citizens United .

To say that corporations can and should be able to unload untold millions and billions of dollars of their money into our elections is insanity. It weakens, badly, each of our own opinions and votes.  Corporations only exist for themselves and for their own existence and continued, ever-increasing profits. People exist for people and the nation exists for the betterment of the people. Those different needs and goals are all we need to know about why we need to work and legislate for us and not for corporations.

Second, Make it illegal to go to and from government positions and private companies. We have to kill the very famous "revolving door" from government to corporations and back. Once again, it puts the corporations first and people second, if even there.

Third, pass The American Anti-Corruption Act.

 



If a legislator is considering legislation that would effect a company, that same legislator shouldn't be able to take money or any remuneration of any sort from them. It makes sense. Again, it's not complicated.

Fourth, we have to fight to end campaign contributions, period, in the country. We have to get the money out of our election system so we consequently, get it also out of our government. We have to eliminate the legal ability for companies and the wealthy to give our representatives these bribes, these "contributions", this money sjust so they can buy whatever legislation they want, country--and people--be damned.  Note:  we also need to get this accomplished on the state level, state by state, so we, the people, win there, too.

Finally, in order to make the need for the money go away, we need to shorten our elections.  This is doable, eminently doable. England wisely did it years ago. We just need to legislate that campaigns are--what?--one month, two months long?  By law. It only goes against what we're used to, that's all. It doesn't make sense any longer.

And none of these take away anyone's right to free speech. They may still speak all they'd like. There would just be parameters to the money and the length of the campaigns, that's it.

So let's get started.  Let's make 2014 the year we begin this big, smart, necessary work.

Here's to us.

Link:  Citizens United : Dedicated to restoring our government to citizen

"Those people just hate America"

Could we stop saying the other political side "Hates America"?  Please?  It's nonsense. It's untrue. It's patently untrue. It's downright stupid.

That other political party, whichever one being referred to "loves America" just as much as any one person or any one group. To say otherwise is just patent silliness or irresponsibility or something but it serves no good whatever.

I've heard it from Left Wingers, Right Wingers, Libertarians, Republicans, Democrats and far too many sources.

It gets old. It's gotten very tiresome. It serves no good purpose, too. It gets us nowhere.

That "other political party", again, whoever you're referring to, understands America and things differently, likely vastly differently than you but the fact is, we're all Americans and we all want good things for our country.

The problems arise because, first of all, we don't talk to one another, second, we get emotional and let that get in the way, third, we don't want to listen to the other side and finally, we haven't been good at working at compromises any longer, for all the above reasons.

Let's get to work. All of us. Together. For the betterment of the country.