Tag: Voting Rights

The Manchin Two Step

The political coward, Joe Manchin, that slug that has held up a great voting rights bill because he wants to play games and be the darling of the media.

Now he has an offering to make this all bi-partisan (a worthless hope and a stalling tactic)…….

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia earned the wrath of fellow Democrats earlier this month when he announced that he wouldn’t back a major election-reform law. Now, ahead of next week’s vote, Manchin has put a compromise in play. Coverage:

  • Manchin released a lengthy list of reforms he does support in the For the People Act, as well as in the separate bill known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Read his list in full via Politico. It includes things that will please and anger both Democrats and Republicans.
  • For example, Manchin wants to ban partisan gerrymandering, which Vox explains is “a high priority for both small-d democrats and large-D Democrats, who want to prevent the GOP from seizing control of the House of Representatives with rigged congressional maps.” Also good news for Democrats: He backs automatic voter registration, a mandated 15 days of early voting, and the designation of Election Day as a holiday, per the AP.
  • On the other hand, Manchin supports new voter ID requirements backed by Republicans, and he would give state officials more leeway in their ability to remove names from voter rolls, per Politico.
  • A big sign that Manchin’s proposal is seen as acceptable to the progressive wing of the Democratic party: Stacey Abrams said Thursday that she likes it, reports NBC News. “What Sen. Manchin is putting forward are some basic building blocks that we need to ensure that democracy is accessible no matter your geography,” said the prominent voting-rights advocate. “And those provisions that he is setting forth are strong ones that will create a level playing field, will create standards that do not vary from state to state, and I think will ensure that every American has improved access to the right to vote despite the onslaught of state legislation seeking to restrict the access to vote.”
  • Senate Democrats were expected to huddle Thursday to discuss strategy ahead of the vote, reports the Hill. Manchin made clear he would support the legislation if revised, which would mean unanimous Democratic support. But the bill will likely still be doomed because Republicans could kill it with the filibuster rule—and Manchin remains opposed to scrapping the filibuster.

All the protest to his change of heart.

This is a lameass compromise….he knows that it will go no where in the Senate….so this is just his attempt to stay in the spotlight…..Manchin tryig to calm opposition to his thinking and stay in the bright light of media reporting.

But for those that actual give a sh*t here is the Manchin compromise on voting rights

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20892337-manchin-compromise

Sorry to say but this will go unread…..sadly there are not that many that care enough to check the ‘compromise’ out…..and there is the problem….massive APATHY!

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Is The Democratic Process Dead?

The basic right within this democratic process is the right to vote….and there seems to be an all out assault on that right.

A majority of states have tried to enact statues that would seriously limit the access to a voting location….even to make it illegal to give water to those standing in the long lines to vote….

So my thought is that this is an assault on the very foundation of this country….

How did it come to this?

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released in April 2021 indicates that a majority of Republicans feel that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. On January 6, when Congress convened to count and certify the electoral votes, 147 Republican members of the House of Representative voted against certification even after a mob had taken over the U.S. Capitol. This is unprecedented. Never before has a major political party rejected the results of a presidential election. What caused this phenomenon? When and how did forces come together resulting in an attack on democracy by a major political party?

American history is replete with presidential elections that could have been justifiably challenged. Many times results have been less than clear-cut and controversial. Before the 12th Amendment each elector would cast two votes. The candidate with the most votes became president and the runner-up vice-president. In the 1800 election, Jefferson and Burr, the Democratic Republicans, tied for first. It was left to the House of Representatives controlled by the Federalists to decide whether Jefferson or Burr would be president. They chose Jefferson, who was then accepted by all sides as our third president. Today it would be inconceivable for a Republican Congress to decide which Democrat is elected president. But that happened in 1800 as the Federalists accepted the Electoral College system as prescribed by the Founding Fathers.

https://www.rawstory.com/voter-suppression-2653188180/

All this assault brings into question whether the foundational right of this country is in jeopardy….

Do not overlook the process known as gerrymandering…..which will begin soon….that is when politicians pick their voters and not the reverse.

Democracy may well be dead!

n the wake of the bloody insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, one question lingered along with the stench of tear gas and bear spray — was that abomination a one-off, or was it in fact the start of something new, something far more ominous? In the aftermath of the January 6 attack I gave my own guess in an article called “Trump’s Storm Troopers: First Blood.” “Stay tuned,” I advised. “This is just the beginning.” 

Now, five months out, we can see the larger pattern that is forming. The United States is being threatened from within as it has not been since the Civil War. We are once again becoming a nation divided, with family members pitted against each in bitter recrimination. The new Mason-Dixon Line can be almost anything — a MAGA hat, a Black Lives Matter sign, an absentee ballot. Suspicions over COVID-19, masking, and vaccinations simply followed the fault lines already laid bare by the last election, to the point where the pandemic itself became political. The country now seems in gridlock, with a third of the population determined to continue fighting the last election. 

Democracy Is Dead! Long Live Democracy!

You have taken your democratic rights for granted…..and now  you are witnessing the slow process of the loss of those rights.

https://www.rawstory.com/republican-gerrymandering/

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Sadly Americans are sitting by a waiting for all this silliness to pass…..and then it will be too late…..and YOU will be to blame!

Democracy is not dead….but it is walking with a limp.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Race Is On

It has been reported that 47 or our 50 states has some form or another of voter restriction bills on the table…..

The race is on to suppress as much vote as possible…..

Even though the 2020 election is over, many Republicans are still holding onto the “Big Lie,” or the baseless claim that voter fraud cost former President Donald Trump the presidential election. Trump has managed to not only persuade his base that the election was “stolen,” but now many state legislators are using it as a justification to restrict voting rights. Over the last few months, a bevy of bills have been introduced at the state level that — if passed — could make it harder for millions of Americans to cast their ballots. 

The States Where Efforts To Restrict Voting Are Escalating

The state that has made the news as the worst of the worst is Georgia…..they even went so far as to make it illegal to give food or water to people waiting in line to vote….but why is Georgia such a big deal?

From November 2020 to January 2021, the story of the state of Georgia was pro-Democratic: Democratic candidates for president and the U.S. Senate all won. But more importantly, it was pro-democratic. Joe Biden, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won in part because of aggressive efforts by grassroots groups in the state to increase the number of people who voted compared with past Georgia elections. Two of the state’s top Republican elected officials, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, rejected a major push from then-President Trump and other Republicans to effectively overturn the results of the state’s presidential election because Biden had won. The events in Georgia, along with a similar rejection of Trump’s false fraud claims in Arizona by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, were perhaps the clearest examples of how America’s democratic systems had held firm and prevented Trump from cheating his way to a second term.

A lot has changed since then.

Why Georgia’s New Voting Law Is Such A Big Deal

The House has passed a sweeping reform of voting rights entitled HR1…..interested?

Then read it for yourself…..https://my.lwv.org/california/diablo-valley/article/summary-hr-1-people-act

Now the Senate controlled by Dem has enter a long shot bid for voter rights….

In a long-shot bid to enact voting reform on a federal level, Senate Democrats will introduce their version of the For the People Act, a comprehensive voting reform and anti-corruption bill.

Why it matters: In the aftermath of the 2020 election, states across the U.S. are considering voting restrictions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) will hold a press conference Thursday to announce the S1 legislation.

The state of play: The House passed the companion bill For the People Act (H.R. 1) on March 4. The Senate proposal looks virtually similar and would include:

  • The bill would allow universal same-day voting registration and automatic registration for Americans age 18 and up.
    • It would also prohibit the purging of voter rolls and allow every voter to cast votes by mail.
    • It would also provide at least 15 days of early voting to Americans nationwide.

    The bill will also offer campaign finance reform, and would require super PACs and issue advocacy groups to disclose donors contributing more than $10,000.

    • The bill’s ethics components would require the president and vice president to publicly disclose their tax returns.
    • It will also prohibit members of Congress from serving on the boards of for-profit entities.

https://www.axios.com/senate-for-people-act-voting-reform-anti-corruption-94291b80-3961-4bae-978d-1aa4e3f15d65.html

At least the much hated Dems are trying to preserve our right to voter without restricting our access…..

Time for ALL Americans to wake up and watch the slow deterioration of our rights….it is begin with the only way our voices can be heard…..the vote.

Do not sleep through this assault…..for it will not stop there.

I urge you to stand out now……or this will not stop with one right….all are in danger.

Be Smart!

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“Bloody Sunday” Executive Order

The Pope and the Royals…is there anything more mundane than those two reports?

For me there was some things more important…..

Yesterday, 07 March, we commemorated “Bloody Sunday”…..

For those that are too young or those that d not want to remember this day….I shall help……

On March 7, 1965 around 600 people crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an attempt to begin the Selma to Montgomery march. State troopers violently attacked the peaceful demonstrators in an attempt to stop the march for voting rights.

After 56 years Biden signs an Executive Order on voting rights……

On the 56th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march, President Biden signed an executive order intended to guarantee voting rights. “Every eligible voter should be able to vote and have that vote counted,” Biden said Sunday in a remote address to the Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast, per CNN. The annual event marks the anniversary of the Selma, Ala., march, during which police beat demonstrators demanding the right to vote as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. “I also urge Congress to fully restore the Voting Rights Act, named in John Lewis’ honor,” Biden said; the late Georgia congressman was among those beaten on that day. Parts of the act were tossed out by the Supreme Court in 2013. Just last week, the House approved a broad voting rights measure that faces Republican opposition when it comes up in the Senate.

Biden’s move is part of a Democratic response to GOP efforts to limit voter access and control the process, as Republicans repeat claims that the November presidential election was stolen from them. “If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide,” Biden said Sunday, per the Washington Post. “Let the people vote.” But the executive order doesn’t directly counter the GOP moves, and it’s not on the scale of the House legislation, per the New York Times. It directs agencies to draw up ways to promote voter registration and participation and help states with voter registration. The Vote.gov website is to be given a makeover to ensure its helpfulness. The executive order does attempt to broaden voting access in the military, as well as for eligible voters who are incarcerated. Still, the idea, an administration official said, is mostly to demonstrate that Biden is doing something about voting rights.

For those interested in the EO…..this is a summary of that signed by Biden…..https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-to-promote-voting-access/

This action is in conjunction with HR1, the “For The People Act” which is an attempt to stop all the voter suppression by the GOP….https://my.lwv.org/california/diablo-valley/article/summary-hr-1-people-act

For those political junkies (like me) here is the full bill that Congress is debating….

Click to access BILLS-117hr1ih.pdf

This is not perfect but it will go a long way to curbing the cowards that are trying to fix elections in their favor.

looks like Biden is trying to make good on some of the promises he made on the campaign trail…..I await his moves on foreign policy now that he is president (a future post in the works)

ALL PEOPLE SHOULD VOTE!

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Mail-In Voting

This seems to be the biggest situation for this vote in November…should mail-in voting be the rage as to protect people from the possibility of contracting the Covid-19 virus…..Dems want the mail-in vote and Repubs do not…and the debate goes on.

First why would the GOP not want it….they have done very well in the past?

Or is it just Trump and his minions that do not want it?

Even a close Trump adviser has said they do not want Americans to vote……

President Donald Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow said that the administration does not want protection of voting rights to pass as part of the coronavirus stimulus package.

“So much of the Democratic asks are really liberal left wishlists we don’t want to have,” said Kudlow. “Voting rights, and aid to aliens, and so forth. That’s not our game.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/trump-adviser-we-dont-want-to-have-protection-of-voting-rights-get-through-congress/

Donald the Orange has gone so far as to threat the use of his extensive Executive Orders…..

President Trump escalated his criticism of mail balloting in a big way on Monday, first in a press conference in which he hinted at using executive action to curtail it and also in an interview. Coverage:

  • Two months: In a sit-down with Axios on HBO, Trump said widespread mail voting would lead to chaos. “You know, you could have a case where this election won’t be decided on the evening of Nov. 3. This election could be decided two months later.” He added: “Lots of things will happen during that period of time. Especially when you have tight margins. Lots of things can happen. There’s never been anything like this.”
  • Executive order: At his White House press conference Monday, Trump said some kind of executive order on mail voting is within his authority. “I have the right to do it,” he said, per Politico. “We haven’t gotten there yet, we’ll see what happens.” Trump didn’t provide specifics about what is under consideration.
  • Nevada: Trump also said the White House would sue Nevada after lawmakers there passed a bill to provide mail ballots to every voter ahead of the election, reports Reuters. “We will be suing in Nevada. And that’s already been taken care of, we’ll probably file something tomorrow,” he said.
  • The evidence: Trump continued to assert that mail balloting is vulnerable to fraud, while news stories (including this one at the AP) continue to assert that he has no evidence to back that up. Politico calls cases of fraud “exceedingly rare” but adds that mail voting might have higher risks if proper safeguards are not in place.
  • A GOP worry: The Washington Post reports that GOP leaders around the US are worried about an unintended consequence of the president’s campaign against mail voting—his supporters are refusing to embrace the practice. “As a result, state and local Republicans across the country fear they are falling dramatically behind in a practice that is expected to be key to voter turnout this year,” write Amy Gardner and Josh Dawsey.

SCOTUS has finally stepped into this fray….and the GOP did not come up too good…..

A Supreme Court ruling on Thursday means that it will remain easier than usual for people in Rhode Island to vote by mail in the November election. In an unsigned order, the justices kept emergency rules in place that allow people to cast their ballots without the signatures of two witnesses, reports Reuters. Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo suspended the two-signature requirement in April, ahead of the June primary, because she said it would have posed a health risk during the pandemic, per the AP. State lawmakers agreed to keep the looser restrictions in place for next month’s primary and the November general election, but the Republican National Committee and the state’s Republican Party objected.

On Thursday, though, the court allowed the rules to stay in place, noting that no “state official has expressed opposition.” This marks the first time the court has ruled on a voting matter related to the pandemic, notes the Washington Post. The ruling said justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch would have granted the GOP request. Republicans oppose easier mail voting because they say, as does President Trump, that the process is vulnerable to fraud. But a rep for the ACLU says the ruling means “hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island voters will be able to safely cast their ballots without risking their health.”

Then the president has said that he is blocking cash to stop mail-in voting…..

During his daily Covid-19 briefing Wednesday evening, Trump dismissed Democratic congressional leaders’ demands for $3.5 billion in election assistance for states and $25 billion for USPS as “ridiculous” and vowed to continue blocking the funds. While USPS leadership insists it has “ample capacity” to meet election needs, postal workers have warned that without emergency funding, the agency could struggle to deliver mail-in ballots on time in November.

“Therefore, they don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it,” said the president, who repeated his false claim that mail-in voting is highly susceptible to fraud. “How are they going to do it if they don’t have the money to do it?”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/13/just-comes-right-out-and-says-it-trump-declares-postal-service-cant-handle-mail

One final note or maybe two……Donald and his wife will vote by mail…if it is good enough for them then why not the rest of us?

Next, how do you prevent American citizens from voting….there is a Constitution no matter how much some may hate it that guarantees my right to vote….nothing is said how the vote gets there.

Then Pelosi says…”we don’t agonize, we organize”……cute saying but how has that worked out in the last decade?

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“lego ergo scribo”

The Sixth Of August

On this day in history, and it was a busy one, many historic events took place……

1888–Martha Turner is murdered by Jack the Ripper

1904–Japanese army in Korea surrounds the Russian army

Then there was 1945……

But one of the biggest events was the first A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Even by the heightened standards of a nation’s capital during wartime, the gathering of generals, admirals, and high government officials in the White House Cabinet Room on the afternoon of Monday, June 18, 1945, was impressive. Only one, however, could claim resident status—the newly sworn in president of the United States, Harry S. Truman.

A veteran of the First World War and a long-serving Democratic senator from the state of Missouri, Truman was an unlikely candidate for the job he now held. A compromise candidate for the office of vice president in 1944, Truman was no close confidant of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Indeed, he had little insight into Roosevelt’s thinking about postwar relations with the Soviet Union and no knowledge of the existence of a major program—the Manhattan Project—to produce an atomic bomb.

In a series of meetings conducted shortly after being sworn in as president, Truman overcame this deficit, maintaining a pledge to adhere as closely as possible to the policy directions set forth by President Roosevelt. But some decisions would have to be taken by the new president, which is why he had convened the Cabinet Room meeting.

ATOMIC BOMBINGS AT 75: The Decision to Drop the Bomb on Japan and the Genesis of the Cold War

More on this event in previous post……

But for the US it was the passing and signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965…..that gave alienated Americans free use of the ballot.

Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which aimed to increase the number of people registered to vote in areas where there was a record of previous discrimination. The legislation outlawed literacy tests and provided for the appointment of Federal examiners (with the power to register qualified citizens to vote) in certain jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination. In addition, these jurisdictions could not change voting practices or procedures without “preclearance” from either the U.S. Attorney General or the District Court for Washington, DC. This act shifted the power to register voters from state and local officials to the federal government.

Because the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most significant statutory change in the relationship between the Federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction era, it was immediately challenged in the courts. Between 1965 and 1969, the Supreme Court issued several key decisions upholding the constitutionality of the law [See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 327-28 (1966) and Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U.S. 544 (1969)].

https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/voting-rights-1965

More information…..https://www.justice.gov/crt/history-federal-voting-rights-laws

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2020 Voting Will Begin In August

We are closer than you might think to the general election…..and with all the pandemic/protests the media has pretty much ignored the election….so IST has decided to help out when we can…..

This Voters’ Calendar will stretch our civic attention span to make high-turnout elections a task that mere mortals can perform, not a superhuman feat that tests the endurance of even the most dedicated voters.

AUGUST is Check Your Registration month. Starting August 5 (90 days from November 3rd), it is federally illegal to make any new purges from the voter rolls. You can add registrations – you just can’t eliminate them. Therefore, starting August 5, check your registration on your Secretary of State or county election websites. (Many URLS can get you there: Vote411.org is a good place to start. Another is the U.S. Vote Foundation, which has contact information for every local election official. Engage directly with those who will be counting your vote.)

When you find your name and address are correct take a screenshot and file it with time and date. (Google “How do I take a screenshot with my phone?”) Update any incorrect information. Only take the screenshot when it’s in order. If you don’t find yourself, re-register. Do this for voters who don’t have online access—starting with your family. 

SEPTEMBER is Order Your Mail Ballot month. Maybe you think you won’t need a mail-in ballot. But what if you do? A delayed application could get caught in a paperwork tsunami (one lesson from recent primaries.) If you don’t get a mail ballot you’ve requested, complications will ensue. Order that mail-in ballot as soon as your registration is correct.

Follow the directions carefully. Some states let you apply entirely online. Others require that you print out the application, fill it in, sign it, and mail it. Unfortunately, every state has slightly different rules. Don’t procrastinate. You want to be early or near the front of this line.

OCTOBER is Vote Your Mail Ballot Month—or If You Want to Vote In Person, Keep it to Take With You Just in Case.  Mail-in ballots get issued in October. Know when to expect yours. (See your state or county website.) If you don’t get your ballot, phone the elections office. Sometimes they can cancel the first one issued and send you another. Act early.

When you do receive your mail ballot, either vote it ASAP or keep it, envelopes and all, in a safe place. Check local rules about where you can drop a voted mail ballot off in person. And check if your jurisdiction allows “surrender” of an unvoted mail ballot in person in exchange for a regular ballot.  The vulnerability of the Postal Service, in hostile conditions, and with the coronavirus, worries us all.  Help them by being early.

The safest in-person option for a mail-in ballot voter is Early Voting if your jurisdiction offers it. If you’re opting to vote in person but have your mail ballot take it with you in its envelope. If there’s a line, you could use the mail ballot to vote and sign its envelope, then drop it with the poll workers. You won’t have to wait to sign in. But check your local rules before you depend on this. On Election Day itself, many places won’t let you do this—why? Because election offices work hard to get their mail ballot envelope processing out of the way before Election Night ballots pour in. If you have your mail ballot and go to vote in-person on Election Day, by all means take it, and the envelope, with you anyway in case it is a way to avoid provisional. Again – check your local rules!

NOVEMBER is Last Chance Month: The Endgame.  If you vote on Election Day, you know to expect a line. Especially in a blue epicenter in a red state. If you didn’t get a mail ballot that you had requested, check your local rules to know what to expect in person. Maybe you can cancel your ballot to avoid provisional, maybe not. But VOTE. Persevere. Activists will observe the count, especially if the provisional numbers are high in vulnerable communities. Know the rules that protect you from the traps. Teach others.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/17/2020-voters-calendar-general-election-starts-august

This is voter PPE – personal protective education – in the time of pandemic. Voting Season is not just about November 3rd anymore, not for vote-counting (it might take weeks) and not for vote-casting. Protection of your voting rights starts three months out.

Use the calendar and foil the treasonous vote suppressors.

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Why Not Postpone 2020 Election?

Is that a threat or just wishful thinking?

Donald the Orange has a problem……voters are starting to doubt his chances for re-election…..

President Trump has trailed Joe Biden in the polls. First, it was only a 5- or 6-percentage-point gap, but since the middle of June, that margin has widened to anywhere from 8 to 9 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average.

But until very recently, voters didn’t seem all that convinced that Biden could win. In poll after poll, comparatively more voters said they thought Trump would win reelection in November. Now, though, that view may be shifting.

Voters Are Starting To Doubt Trump’s Reelection Chances

For several months Trump has been setting up the debate that there will be something wrong with the November election……he has even floated the idea of postponing it.

President Trump on Thursday voiced the thought many of his political opponents don’t want to hear: He raised the idea of delaying November’s election. “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” he tweeted. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” The president, who is trailing in the polls, did not immediately elaborate on the idea. The Washington Post notes that the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to regulate the election date.

In April, Joe Biden said this: “Mark my words, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held.” A Trump campaign spokesperson dismissed the idea at the time as “conspiracy theory ramblings.” Since the prediction, the coronavirus has only worsened in the US, with the death toll now surpassing 150,000. States are ramping up vote-by-mail efforts, but Trump alleges that would open the door to voter fraud.

Let’s look at the possibility of Trump postponing our election….he cannot do it on his own….we sill have a Constitution (as much as Trump might hate the idea)…….

  • The Constitution: It gives Congress, not the president, the power to set the date. Officially, Election Day takes place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, a date that has been fixed since 1845, per the New York Times. What’s more, the Constitution stipulates that presidential terms end on Jan. 20. Barring a change to the Constitution, then, any voting delay could only be for a few weeks.
  • What Trump said: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” He didn’t explicitly suggest he would push for the move. Later, he “pinned” the tweet, ensuring it would remain at the top of his feed.
  • Digging deeper: The National Constitution Center has a lengthy post on the subject. “In general, a combination of state or congressional actions could delay elections but not postpone the selection of a president and vice president,” per the post. “The only hard deadline spelled out in the Constitution is the end of a president’s term and a vice president’s term on January 20 of the year following a general election.”
  • Emergency? No, not even in an emergency such as a pandemic can a president circumvent Congress on Election Day, per a breakdown in the Washington Post. Trump could lobby Congress to make the change, but Democrats control the House, making this all but a non-starter.
  • Criticism: It’s coming from Democrats and Republicans. “Please don’t even pretend to mess with this,” wrote Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush. “It’s a harmful idea.” GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming stated flatly on Fox News, “We will not delay the [election].” At the conservative Hot Air site, Ed Morrissey sounds exasperated. “The best that could be said for this tweet is that Trump’s just spitballing, but even that’s an indictment of its own,” he writes. “No president should just be spitballing a suggestion like this, not in public and not even in private.” Besides, he adds, Trump keeps saying we should “reopen for business.”
  • Fraud allegation: Trump continues to allege that mail-in ballots are prone to voter fraud, but the Hill reports there is “no evidence to support the idea.” An NPR fact-check also finds that Trump is spreading “unfounded claims.” Trump, for his part, tweeted a link to this news station’s investigation into problems with mail-in voting in Philadelphia, notes Breitbart News.
  • Things change: In April, Trump ridiculed Joe Biden’s prediction that the president would try to postpone the election, notes Axios. “I never even thought of changing the date of the election,” Trump said at the time. “Why would I do that? November 3rd. It’s a good number. No, I look forward to that election.”

If his threat cannot be acted upon would Trump just in a pouting haze walk away from the election?

First things first: John F. Harris writes that this scenario is “not terribly” plausible. But in a piece at Politico Magazine, he lays out why it might make sense for President Trump to quit the 2020 race before November. Harris notes that in March 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson shocked the nation by announcing at the end of a televised address about Vietnam that he would not run for another term. Things were too dire for him to waste any time on partisan matters, LBJ explained. Harris, who notes that Trump’s current chances of defeating Joe Biden are not great anyway, sees a parallel in 2020 with the pandemic. He even has a sample address Trump could use.

“Fellow Americans, I know I am a disrupter, and everyone knows I thrive on conflict,” Trump could say. “I believe that disruption is what Republicans and the country needed when I ran for president in 2016, and that is what I delivered.” But the pandemic changed everything, and “I am going to devote the balance of my term to trying to get this country opened up safely, and allow someone without my sharp edges make the case for Republicans this fall.” So why would Trump do it? He seems headed for a loss, which could tarnish his image. Stepping out now would help keep him in the game, “preserving his role as disrupter at large in American politics over the next decade.” Read the full column.

Just a thought that that I wanted to share…..

Say what you like….there is NO doubt that this coming election will be different than the ones that preceded it….

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/reasons-years-election-unlike-history-opinion/story

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Mail-In Voting

I was going to leave this bit of lunacy alone…but it just keeps getting worse and worse…..especially the idiotic ideas coming from the small mind of Donald the Orange…

His best piece of manure has been that there would be thousands of people sitting in living rooms across the nation stuffing ballot boxes……

If you do not like that piece of political manure…then just wait a few days and the rhetoric will change….and VIOLA!

President Trump has been arguing for a while that mail-in voting is vulnerable to fraud, and he pushed a new theme on that front in not-so-subtle terms Monday. In an all-caps tweet, he warned: “RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!” Before that, he tweeted a link to a Breitbart News story in which Attorney General William Barr expresses a similar sentiment. “It absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud,” Barr said of mail-in voting during a Sunday interview on Fox News. “A foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots, and (it would) be very hard for us to detect which was the right and which was the wrong ballot.”

The coronavirus has led to calls for greater access to mail-in ballots for voters, but the White House opposes the move. “You get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody’s living room, signing ballots all over the place,” Trump said in April, per the Hill. When reporters asked for evidence, he responded, “I think there’s a lot of evidence, but we’ll provide you with some, OK?” AFP reports that the political impact of mail-in voting is unclear, citing a new Stanford study that while the practice seems to increase overall voting, it “does not appear to increase either party’s vote share.”

Foreign nations will influence our electoral process….REALLY?

Someone needs to investigate…..

But like everything else in the Trump government…..what is bad for the people is perfectly fine for his band of thugs and thieves…..

Vice President Mike Pence and a half-dozen senior advisers to President Trump have repeatedly voted by mail, election records obtained by the AP show. That undercuts the president’s argument that the practice will lead to widespread fraud this November. More than three years after leaving it, Pence still lists the Indiana governor’s home as his official residence and votes absentee accordingly. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has permanent absentee voting status in her home state of Michigan. Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, voted absentee in Texas in 2018 and didn’t vote two years earlier when Trump’s name was on the ballot. Two other senior Trump campaign officials—chief operating officer Michael Glassner and deputy campaign manager Bill Stepien—have repeatedly voted by mail in New Jersey. And Nick Ayers, a senior campaign adviser who was the vice president’s chief of staff, has voted by mail in Georgia since 2014.

In most election years, voting by mail is an unremarkable event. But Trump has railed against state efforts to expand access to mail-in voting as an alternative to waiting in lines at polling places during a pandemic. He has argued without evidence that mail-in voting will lead to fraud and warned Monday that foreign countries could print ballots. That, some experts say, is a double standard that amounts to voter suppression. “These are people who are taking advantage of—which is perfectly legal—their right to vote absentee,” said Trevor Potter of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “But they don’t want other people to do the same thing.” Trump himself voted by mail in the Florida primary this year. And Attorney General William Barr, who has also raised concern about the practice, voted absentee in Virginia in 2012 and 2019, the Washington Post reported. Tim Murtaugh of the Trump campaign defended the Trump aides who have voted by mail.

If you still support this maniac in the White House then you are a hateful tool that we would be better off without.

Trying to rig an election without having to plan it behind closed doors……time to change the dirty laundry in DC….it is starting to draw flies.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More Important Than The Trial

Closing Thought–21Jan20

The country is laser focused on the Senate impeachment trial but there are events that should be more important…why?

The trial will be a silly exercise in the absurd.

One of the “Rights” we have is the right to vote for who we like or better yet as a citizen I have the right to vote without worry…..

Back in the old Jim Crow days in the South Blacks had to pay a “poll tax” to vote….or they we not allowed to exercise a right……but thankfully those days are gone…..not so FAST!

Florida’s state Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of denying convicted felons the right to vote if they do not pay fines and fees associated with their incarceration, a decision that was immediately assailed by rights activists as an unconstitutional and immoral poll tax.

In a statement condemning the ruling (pdf), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Florida, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said the ruling “does not—indeed, cannot—alter what the U.S. Constitution requires.”

“A federal court has already held that the state cannot deny people the right to vote because of their inability to pay financial obligations,” the groups said in their statement. 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/16/its-2020-and-floridas-supreme-court-just-ruled-favor-poll-tax

This is sick!

Trying to eliminate people from voting……

This will probably go to the US Supreme Court…as it should,,,,but I have NO confidence that this will be struck down by a mostly conservative court.

If not then this idea will spread throughout the South especially…..and the areas the the GOP has successfully purged voters from the rolls.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”