Day: March 4, 2021

Closing Thought–04Mar21

The GOP lost in the last election….they lost the Senate, The House and the Presidency…..so instead of looking for a vision for the future they do what they have been doing for decades….they look to the past and the suppression of the vote.

The big push by state GOP bigots is to find ways to keep people from voting and even to let a governor overturn the legal vote…..

Across the nation, supporters of former President Trump are working to pass state legislation changing laws to limit access to voting and give them more control over election outcomes. With a rallying cry about the presidential election having been stolen from Trump, and basing their plans on the premise that large turnouts benefit Democrats, state legislators are seeking major changes to help Republicans win the presidency next time, the New York Times reports. The efforts could help Republicans, who’ve won the popular presidential vote only once in the past eight elections, gain control of government despite being a minority party. “The typical response by a losing party in a functioning democracy is that they alter their platform to make it more appealing,” said a University of Wisconsin expert. “Here the response is to try to keep people from voting. It’s dangerously antidemocratic.” The national GOP showed its support last week by forming a panel to look at state election laws, which Republicans have done in various states.

Some efforts seem illogical. Republicans won the presidential and Senate races in Iowa, which reported record turnout and essentially no election fraud last fall. But GOP legislators have voted to shorten early voting by nine days, close polling places an hour earlier, and make absentee voting rules more restrictive. They also moved to take county auditors’ authority away to made decisions about local voting. “Most of us in my caucus and the Republican caucus believe the election was stolen,” a GOP state senator said. Nebraska Republicans want to change to a winner-take-all system for its electoral votes because President Biden was awarded one vote last time. But New Hampshire Republicans want to adopt Nebraska’s current system because Democrats have been winning presidential elections there. A bill in Arizona is more direct, per NBC: The Legislature would have the power to revoke the secretary of state’s certification of electoral results “by majority vote at any time before the presidential inauguration.”

Time for true Americans, not the numb skulls that support bigotry and hatred, to stand up and demand that ALL votes and voters MUST participate….

If this nation is to survivor then ALL Americans need to participate and ALL Americans  should have their right to vote to be guaranteed.

Can HR1……stop all this theft?

The House passed HR1. The bill: -Enacts automatic voter registration -Ends partisan and racial gerrymandering -Institutes public financing of elections -Expands early voting -Prevents voter purges -Exposes dark money -Counters Citizens United

Get behind this bill anyway you can…..we need to end all this suppression and oppression of the American people.

DEMAND YOUR RIGHT!

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“lego ergo scribo”

Our 51st State Or is it the 52nd State?

I recently wrote about the attempt to get the District of Columbia the representation that deserve….https://lobotero.com/2021/01/28/our-51st-state/

DC is the only part of this great country that does not have representation in Congress…there are about 700,000 people in the District that has NO representation…that is more than the whole state of Wyoming.

Now there is an attempt to make Puerto Rico a state as well…..yet another region that is part of the US and they have NO representation….

Two Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday announced they will be introducing legislation to make Puerto Rico a state. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Rep. Darren Soto of Florida say the bill has around 50 co-sponsors, CBS News reports. It would set up a process for the US territory to become the 51st state if the majority of its citizens vote for that outcome in a referendum, the Hill reports. Axios reports the outline it offers is similar to that undertaken by Alaska and Hawaii when they became states. Republicans will likely not be in favor: “After they change the filibuster, they’re going to admit the District [of Columbia] as a state,” Mitch McConnell said last September. “They’re going to admit Puerto Rico as a state. That’s four new Democratic senators in perpetuity.” Those working for statehood in Puerto Rico push back on that, noting the island often votes for conservative leaders.

Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi and Jenniffer González-Colón, the island’s resident commissioner and nonvoting member in the US House, back the legislation. Supporters of the bill say the federal government treats Puerto Rico, which does not have full voting representation in Congress and whose citizens cannot vote for president, unfairly, and that this inequity was laid bare during Hurricane Maria in 2017, when it became clear Puerto Rico lacked necessary resources and is not provided with adequate funding. Yet 47% of Puerto Rican citizens opposed statehood in a November referendum, with some preferring independence and others worrying Puerto Rico will lose its identity. “You cannot compare statehood for DC and statehood for Puerto Rico,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who is Puerto Rican, has said. “DC is not a colony, Puerto Rico is a colony.”

This is a tenuous issue…..but in my mind that should be up to the people of Puerto Rico to decide their future….

Any thoughts?

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“lego ergo scribo”

A Jobs Guarantee Resolution

Jobs and income stability should be priority one.

With the backing of civil rights organizations, labor unions, and economic experts, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on Thursday morning unveiled a jobs guarantee resolution demanding that “meaningful, dignified work” at a livable wage be made an enforceable legal right in the United States.

Presenting her resolution as an effort to build on the work of generations of civil rights leaders who have connected the cause of racial justice with the fight for full employment, Pressley said in a statement Thursday that “it’s long past time to pursue bold, intentional policies that affirm equity and recognize the dignity and humanity of all people”—an objective that requires sweeping legislative action, not mere tinkering by the Federal Reserve.

According to a summary (pdf) released by Pressley’s office, the resolution calls for a permanent jobs program that would be administered by the Department of Labor in partnership with the Treasury Secretary.

“The Secretary of Labor would direct Treasury funds to local Employment Offices to manage job guarantee projects and match job seekers to projects, as well as cover any related capital and administrative costs,” the summary states.

Jobs created under the new federal program, according to Pressley’s office, would be geared toward:

  • Ensuring the delivery of high-quality, professional care to children, seniors, and others in need of long-term support in family based, informal, and formal settings;
  • Augmenting the staffing of public education and early childhood learning, including Head Start and preschool;
  • Strengthening public afterschool programs, libraries, and recreational programs to provide lifelong learning and enrichment for people of all ages;
  • Implementing community infrastructure and improvement projects that revitalize neighborhoods and increase accessibility…;
  • Expanding emergency preparedness, and relief and recovery from natural and community disasters, including public health, natural disasters, and environmental emergencies;
  • Producing works of public art and documentation of American history akin to the WPA’s Federal Arts Project;
  • Implementing environmental conservation, remediation, and sustainability initiatives and increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and our housing stock to address climate change;
  • Rehabilitating and retrofitting our existing affordable housing stock to ensure safe, affordable, accessible, quality homes, and supporting the development of new affordable housing and social housing to address the nation’s housing crisis; and
  • Other projects that address public needs and can be implemented quickly.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/18/demanding-dignified-work-and-living-wage-legal-rights-ayanna-pressley-unveils-jobs

This is a good plan….it needs to be more than a resolution….this should be immediate policy.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

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“lego ergo scribo”

 

The “Cancel Culture”

This is a post from my op-ed blog…..more propaganda from the weird Right…..while the country divides more and more and these toads try to make the divide even wider…..

Gulf South Free Press

I term that has gained prominence with the election of Trump….a vague turn of a phrase…..but the Hell does it mean?

The 2020 Republican National Convention kicked off with an evening of programming that seemed deeply fixated on one of the odder ideas to snowball its way into the zeitgeist: cancel culture.

Within the turbulent past several years, the idea that a person can be “canceled” — in other words, culturally blocked from having a prominent public platform or career — has become a polarizing topic of debate. The rise of “cancel culture” and the idea of canceling someone coincides with a familiar pattern: A celebrity or other public figure does or says something offensive. A public backlash, often fueled by politically progressive social media, ensues. Then come the calls to cancel the person — that is, to effectively end their career or revoke their cultural cachet, whether through boycotts…

View original post 473 more words

Will This Be Trump’s Big Day?

How about a little humor to start your day?

Trump will be president!

No this is not some post about 2024…..not at all….this is the newest conspiracy theory flying around that Trump will be president again on this day……will he retake the presidency?

Capitol Police are boosting security in response to a far-right conspiracy theory claiming Donald Trump will again become president on Thursday. Some QAnon supporters believed Trump would declare martial law and remain in office on Jan. 20. But “when that didn’t happen, the date was moved from Jan. 20 to March 4,” the original date on which presidents were sworn into office until the passage of the 20th Amendment in 1933, per ABC News. According to the unfounded theory—which some of QAnon’s own leaders have rejected—no president has been legitimate since the passage of an 1871 law “that secretly turned the United States into a corporation,” per USA Today.

“Now why that’s relevant, God knows. But any rate, now they are thinking maybe we should gather again and storm the Capitol on March 4,” Rep. Adam Smith said last month, per Forbes, which notes some QAnon supporters see a major hike in March 4 rates at the Trump International Hotel as validation of some event. Members of Congress were notified that increased personnel would be deployed on Capitol Hill via a Monday bulletin from the House’s acting sergeant-at-arms, Timothy Blodgett, who noted some have described March 4 as the “true Inauguration Day.” But “the significance of this date has reportedly declined amongst various groups in recent days,” Blodgett wrote. He added Capitol Police have “no indication that groups will travel to Washington DC to protest or commit acts of violence.”

More on this piece of crappy conspiracy…..

If you’re a hardcore QAnon believer, you had high hopes for January.

Among other things, you expected Donald Trump to remain president. You expected mass arrests and public executions. You expected an underground cabal of child-trafficking Democrats to finally be captured.

None of those things happened.

Instead, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. So if you’re one of those people — perhaps millions — who were deeply invested in the various QAnon conspiracy theories, the past few weeks likely produced an immense amount of dissonance.

But for the most die-hard QAnon followers, hope springs eternal! The next big prophecy is supposed to unfold on March 4, which had been Inauguration Day before the ratification of the 20th Amendment in 1933 — and the day Trump will gloriously return to power and retake the White House, according to the febrile imaginings of the QAnon movement.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22252171/qanon-donald-trump-conspiracy-theories

Can you believe this crap?

Of course we can.

The House has decided to take no chances…..better safe than sorry…as they say.

The House of Representatives has canceled its Thursday session over reports of a possible plot by an “identified militia group” to attempt a repeat of the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. One Democratic lawmaker tells the Hill that there is “growing concern about threats to the Capitol and Democratic lawmakers in particular tomorrow.” Votes that had been planned for Thursday have been moved to Wednesday, including a police reform bill named in honor of George Floyd, per USA Today. The Capitol Police said in a Wednesday statement: “We have obtained intelligence that shows a possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group on Thursday, March 4. Our Department is working with our local, state, and federal partners to stop any threats to the Capitol. We are taking the intelligence seriously.”

According to a far-right conspiracy theory, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the country’s 19th president Thursday, per Fox News. The fringe theory is based on the belief that the US secretly became a corporation in 1871, making Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president, the last “real” president of the US. Presidential inaugurations were held on March 4 until 1933, which is why the date is significant to believers of conspiracy theory. There are no reports of the Senate canceling its Thursday session. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin tells USA Today, “In light of what we went through on Jan. 6, it’s understandable that people are concerned,” adding, “I’m not going to second-guess Speaker Pelosi. At this point, Sen. Schumer has not released the same conclusion.”

How stupid can the Trump-ites be?

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