An increasingly desperate GOP is doing this because they know their policies are unpopular: racism, pollution, privatizing Medicare, ending Social Security, criminalizing abortion, etc
Thanks for pointing out the Ohio voter suppression. Grassroots groups are trying to fight back against Republican voter suppression such as moving polling locations at short notice like in Ohio and other dirty tricks. Here is how the National Womens Political Caucus is preparing to help voters in the upcoming Virginia election. https://thedemlabs.org/2023/08/10/improve-user-interface-design-to-empower-more-voters/
in fact, my Haitian friend here in Miami just told me as we listened,
that she received a notice that her polling place has changed . She stated that since her drivers license is still in Miami, she will go to her old place--people who do not know the trade, do not know the tricks.
As a self-proclaimed progressive living in a red State rural area, registered as an independent, I was surprised when the county voting department called me to verify my signature on my write in ballot. Apparently, you must also have a phone number or else you won't know if you've been purged. The signature on my driver's license was not clear enough to match the signature on my ballot. One group of people who have a hard time voting are the poor
people, they especially have a hard time voting because they move around so much, do to being evicted or incarcerated or homelessness or having a felony. We need to just call those poor people who want the rich people's money communist and demonize them also. Anything but being registered as a Republican is fair game for purging.
The Dems need to make sure of and get out the info for how their purging system works at state and county levels. Sending something to all their party members and registered independents would help.
I know what is happening where I live is that any driver's license or car tag update/renewal triggers something in the county clerk's office and you get a postcard. No doubt there are many more ways the county clerks offices are involved in some other states.
In places where the League of Women Voters have backed-off registration, they could educate the public on purging instead. They could make sure people know exactly how the purging works in their state. In fact, I am going to contact my local League and see if I can get them to work on this.
NY-17 had an open primary in 2020. There are well over 700,000 in the district. If you were here and experienced it, you might be similarly startled to see how Democrats tried to avoid publicity and tried to limit voting in the primary so that their own CIA- and private equity-backed candidates would win in a large field of candidates. There was literally no mailings or any information about the primary from the democratic party. Nothing!
Just look at the total votes by democrats in the primary - 78,000 - only about 10 percent of the electorate participated; thankfully that was enough to send the CIA and private-equity candidates packing although someone had deemed it a sufficiently worthy cause to put people like (former CIA officer) Evelyn Farkas on TV shows on MSNBC. I met Ms. Farkas during the primary and asked her a simple question of whether she supported the Amazon so-called HQ2 deal for Queens, which she could not or would not answer. In comparison, there are experienced politicians inside NY State who acted heroically to save NY from that deal. Senator Giannaris among the only politicians (or media) who would even acknowledge what that deal was about or what Amazon was really up to (his public statements actually described what Amazon would be doing there, while even the Guardian article below does not).
Then, of course, in 2022 Democrats lost that seat by only a couple of thousand votes, again by failing to create any publicity or any get out the vote effort AT ALL in this critical district that helped turned the House when NY state lost 5 seats in the House of Reps to republicans. Sean Maloney, who insisted on replacing Mondaire jones after redistricting, to my knowledge never even showed up here. We did get some TV ads of him paddling a canoe in the Hudson River though, instead, which was about as close as he came to the district. Mondaire was widely viewed as a great progressive and a future star, who won accolades from Pelosi although he was firmly in the progressive camp. He's running again this time.
Just for balance (because I do support the good journalism here about the red states and republicans) there needs to be a focus on all the things dems have done that have dug a deeper hole. Someone like Ralph Nader doesn't hesitate to report what Richard Trumka says - mainly because (according to Nader), Trumka gets into the offices of more democratic members of congress than anyone else. "They dont even want to win" was the assessment attributed to Trumka, as reported by Nader.
I am a critic of the Democratic party, but I just can't help take notice that you chose to do a both sides ism, shifting the conversation away from the Republicans to the Democrats. Good job /s.
I blame the Democrats for Trump even being in office. Yeh Russians played a part, but it was Democrats who put their thumb on the scale for Hillary. Hillary the wife of the man who literally created the swing states/rust belt.
I would be hesitant to invoke Nader, because Nader took so many votes from Gore, that it wound up in the Supreme court and we know the rest.
Lol. You're trying to let the petulant Berniebots off the hook, are you? Hillary Clinton was one of the best-qualified candidates ever to run for the U.S. presidency, but all you can see is that she's Bill's wife and you've got a grudge against Bill?
Truth to tell, I've got a grudge against Bill too. I consider him the first and only Republican I ever voted for. It wasn't till 2008 (when I supported Obama) that it dawned on me that Hillary wasn't a Bill clone. As a longtime feminist I should have caught on earlier, but I didn't. Some people don't seem to have caught on yet.
It matters not that Hillary was qualified, She was the boogey man to many. Particularly many who didn't trust her, because it was apparent that all she had of interest was herself. The DNC told Obama to make her Sec of State, to give her the cred's they believed were needed to appease the then powerful CFR.
She was not trustworthy, to many independents. I voted for her and held my nose while doing it. Her husband signed that anti gay Defense of marriage act bill, set Blacks up for the School to prison pipeline with his Omnibus crime bill, he signed NAFTA and GAAT thus creating the rust belt/swing state. He signed the telecommunications act of 1996, which revoked the Fairness Doctrine and allowed syndicates like Sinclair and Heartland and Fox to create right wing oligarchies.
Bills great accomplishments was giving the racist, homophobic, right wing, billionaires an orgasm, that haunts us today.
She stuck through Bill, even while he cheated on her and embarrassed her publicly because she had self serving designs on the Oval office.
You say she wasn't a clone, but she showed no symptoms of ideological (financial) independence.
In my estimation, the problem with voters is that everything, every issue, every politician is view through myopic binoculars.
I am a feminist, albeit one without a womb, I am also anti racist, although I am not black, I am also gay adjacent, but not a gay. However I reserve the right to accuse people of suffering from the same myopia, that has infected the Republican party.
Hillary had no chance, even without Russian interference. Comey's letter to congress on Oct 28, had zero affect on the election, on Nov 9th, though they gave Hillary and excellent opportunity to shift her failure to Comey. 12 days before an election is not going to change minds.
As far as Bernie, frankly I don't trust him. He had an opportunity to explain classism to America, and that racism and misogyny and homophobia are a subset of classism, but he buggered off and stuck to a losing message of Classism, in a country which was raised on the Horatio Alger myth, where the average citizen thinks that they are a temporarily discomfited millionaire.
No Hillary wasn't a clone, but she was a self serving opportunist and a conservative. She was the kind of Democrat that I called a Demopub, back when both parties were fraternal twins, Demopubs and Republicrats. The last vote I cast was, before I voted for Hillary, was in the 1964 election, I saw through the charade, the Kabuki circus, and with disgust I sat out elections until
that grifting lying orange would be emperor raised his head out of NBC's, The Apprentrice and came down the escalator calling Mexicans drug dealers and rapists.
Nader may have taken votes from Gore, but it was Bush in Florida who stole the election from him by making up this "hanging chad" fraud way of throwing out the democratic votes, and Gore himself who conceded too early to the whole corrupt way that the Republicans stole that election. Gore won the popular vote remember. While I wish that the Democratic party were more organized and aggressive in owning a strong message that incriminates the Republicans, whom I view as criminal gangsters.
I stand by what I say too! Nader has a right to run, however unfortunate it was. I don't think he accomplished his goals. However, Bush does not have the right to steal the election for his brother. It really bothers me that Americans are so accepting of all of the theft of elections by Republicans through what is now their standard authoritarian playbook. It is the slippery slope of authoritarianism that we are sliding down.
You are missing the point, It is not about rights, but about cause and effect. Stand by your point all you want, but the fact is that if Nader had not entered the race, his name would not be on the Florida Ballot and he would not have siphoned off votes from Bush, and Gore v Bush would not be in the history books.
Every person who enters a race can be seen as a spoiler for other candidates. While that may be important. If the hanging chads did not get into play, Gore would have won Florida and thus the electoral college and the popular vote. You could also say that Bush was a spoiler for him too. In essence I am not for a 2 party system. However, in this upcoming election I do not want there to be a third party especially the vague one that is being developed because it is getting Republican funding, so it is like having 2 Republican candidates, the favorite and the spoiler. I do not think that Nader acted as another Republican candidate, just as a narcissist, who did not see his effect siphoning off votes from Gore. However, in our democracy third candidates get to run. Nader and West are not the same candidates that a Joe Lieberman or a Joe Manchin will be. There is math involved in winning, and you are choosing one set of math to say it determined the outcome, and I am choosing another. I am saying that despite having Nader exercise his democratic right to run as we do not legally have a 2 party system, Gore could have won if the hanging chads were not stealing the state of Florida from him illegally. I don't like your implying that we should not have a democracy in which candidates from other parties can run.
Along these lines it would be good to have a detailed analysis of the Lewis voting rights bill in the senate. We had republican Lisa M completely on board, who many think could have worked Susan Collins to get her vote. Yet they allowed Mancin and Sinema to destroy the most important business democrats have - to protect the democracy and mechanisms of voting. When Abigail Spangerger and her ilk complain that democrats lost because someone somewhere once said the 3 words "defund the police," someone should simply point to the west virginia primaries and ask her (or them) how many of those 55 W Va counties was Hillary able to win over Bernie in the 2016 primary, and the answer being a single word that begins with "z".
The blame in the Senate sits squarely on Chuck Schumer, he is the majority leader and has the power to discipline recalcitrants. He also has the power to stop Tuberville from holding up those appointments in DoD, but he doesn't do anything. He sits here lie a stone wall, never exercising leadership, could it be that his primary concern are the mega donors, or maybe he is a wee bit too conservative.
Of course the filibuster hasn't been changed for this legislation, and the dems led by biden continued to abide by it, which republicans simply would not do when the judiciary was at stake. No way republicans would have sat back and let the filibuster block their majority the way democrats under biden did.
They had murkowski and they had 50 votes without vp, therefore who really prevented this bill from passing? They could have simply taken down the filibuster on basic voting legislation. By they would not, and the rest is history (or the subject matter of this article).
The NY State Democratic Party is screwed up. This is not a secret. The Democratic Party in my state, next-door MA, is also screwed up, but not as bad as NY's. I don't take much satisfaction in this.
I hope President Biden, and every other candidate or concerned person with a voice, will step up and quote your last paragraph regularly, from now until November 5, 2024
The Republicans really are itching for a civil war with tactics like this. It's clear by now to most of us "ordinary" folks that the Republican Party is indeed a "domestic terrorists force" as Robert Hubbell has repeatedly pointed out, but they should be put on notice that purging voters and suppressing the will of the majority will not succeed in the long run. If the GOP keeps up with all the fascist bullying and intimidation, at some point the citizens will be voting with their pitchforks. The only right answer to this mess is to eliminate the Electoral College, impeach the illegitimate justices on the Supreme Court, hold Trump and his cronies accountable for their crimes, and arrest and prosecute the 139 members of Congress who are avowed insurrectionists and climate change deniers. We know who they are. People who carry on like the arrogant GOP "Trumlekins" are increasing the likelihood that the era of Trump will come to an ugly, violent end. With their voter purging campaigns, the GOP terrorists have taken their quest to destroy democracy way beyond the level of partisan politics. These deranged assholes have been pissing in our wells long enough!
The GOP's tactics don't shock me in the least: that's what they do, and they've been at it for decades. It doesn't even shock me -- at least all that much -- that the so-called mainstream media aren't devoting much time/space to it. What shocks me is that white-dominated Democratic parties, especially those in blue states (like mine: MA), don't seem all that concerned, even though they have a lot to lose. Thank heavens for Democracy Docket and those on the ground who are combatting these proliferating methods of voter suppression. P.S. Why the hell isn't it illegal??
I keep pointing out that there is no mandate for Republican candidates when they do dirty things like this and gerrymandering to get their wins. Thank you for giving us the data. Alito needs to be jailed for tax fraud and replaced on the Supreme Court. The first law I would make in Congress as regards the court is that no person convicted of a felony can sit on the Supreme Court. Both Alito and Thomas should be convicted for felony tax fraud for not declaring the gifts they have gotten. I think we should be looking at Barrett, and Roberts too.
We're in territory that's documented by Greg Palast, but despite watching the crimes in the movie he made, nothing happens. I get that the Indians didn't see Spanish ships because they were impossible in their world, but can that have carried over to 2023 where these suppressive dealings are so fundamentally undemocratic that they don't register? What else explains them continuing. to occur?
These people are lowest life form republicans , for whom there is no end to their corrupt and sleazy behavior.
They should be investigated as should the Supreme Court white bullies faction who have sanctioned this action on destroying the voting process and thereby denying millions of citizens their right to vote .
Trump was indicted for attempting to overthrow the votes as they were presented.
So that he could remain in power in spite of losing .
His behavior has been sanctioned to some degree by the Courts decisions which indicate an acceptance of curtailing the votes of Democrats.
Pitiful mess the 6 who have voted in favor of removing the rights of the majority.
How did all this happen over the last four decades? Lackluster democrats and that is saying it nicely. Has Chuck been the head of senate for dems the whole time? If only we had listened to Howard Dean about a 50 state strategy, yeah I know we have to move on from the past but if the GD dems don't learn from history the repugs are bound to repeat it. No accountability for last 60 years and more probably.. Sorry I am so sick and tired of hearing inflation is down, down, down but I don't see it in my grocery stores or gas stations or medical/dental needs or gas stations
The 50 state strategy starts at the local level, then the state. Democrats have never paid any attention to the local elections, much less the states, Where as the Republicans have built an activist cadre of racist, religious fascists from Animal Control to Governor.
It also focus on what Bill Clinnton said "its the economy". While true in depressed states, like the rust belt which Clinton created when he signed NAFTA and GAAT, the meme completely ignores the war that the Democrats shy away from even mentioning.. The Culture war, which the Dems have ceded to the Republicans and that is what made Trump president, and unless Biden and the DNC get a grip on, and a aggressive tenacious grip as well, using every power at their disposal, like Art II and the 14th Amendment, they are going to cede to the Republicans.
When they go low, we go high, is a lofty meme, but it is also a losers meme, for defense does not win battles, be they political or shooting, the odds are with the aggressor, and the only way defense can win, is if they have more resources than the aggressor. WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,Ukraine are examples. By denying Ukraine the tools by which to push back on and drive Putin out of Ukraine, the west has gifted Ukraine to Putin, slowly, and now they have created a road block to fully training Ukrainian F-16 pilots, until Summer of 2024, when it is too late. And allows Putin to rocket and bomb civilians in Ukraine, with impunity, by not approving the sale or transfer of artillery that can reach inside Russia and Moscow.
Oh yeh, the spectre of nuclear war. Nothing has been learned, nothing at all, from PM Chamberlains deal with that deranged Corporal.
I am a blue dot in the red state of Texas. Every year I try to vote out the Republican trash, to no avail. If a good man like Beto can’t win, Texans will get the trash they deserve. Now if Paxton is off the hook, there is no justice.
Thanks for pointing out the Ohio voter suppression. Grassroots groups are trying to fight back against Republican voter suppression such as moving polling locations at short notice like in Ohio and other dirty tricks. Here is how the National Womens Political Caucus is preparing to help voters in the upcoming Virginia election. https://thedemlabs.org/2023/08/10/improve-user-interface-design-to-empower-more-voters/
in fact, my Haitian friend here in Miami just told me as we listened,
that she received a notice that her polling place has changed . She stated that since her drivers license is still in Miami, she will go to her old place--people who do not know the trade, do not know the tricks.
As a self-proclaimed progressive living in a red State rural area, registered as an independent, I was surprised when the county voting department called me to verify my signature on my write in ballot. Apparently, you must also have a phone number or else you won't know if you've been purged. The signature on my driver's license was not clear enough to match the signature on my ballot. One group of people who have a hard time voting are the poor
people, they especially have a hard time voting because they move around so much, do to being evicted or incarcerated or homelessness or having a felony. We need to just call those poor people who want the rich people's money communist and demonize them also. Anything but being registered as a Republican is fair game for purging.
The Dems need to make sure of and get out the info for how their purging system works at state and county levels. Sending something to all their party members and registered independents would help.
I know what is happening where I live is that any driver's license or car tag update/renewal triggers something in the county clerk's office and you get a postcard. No doubt there are many more ways the county clerks offices are involved in some other states.
In places where the League of Women Voters have backed-off registration, they could educate the public on purging instead. They could make sure people know exactly how the purging works in their state. In fact, I am going to contact my local League and see if I can get them to work on this.
Thanks Thom---very valuable Report as always.
NY-17 had an open primary in 2020. There are well over 700,000 in the district. If you were here and experienced it, you might be similarly startled to see how Democrats tried to avoid publicity and tried to limit voting in the primary so that their own CIA- and private equity-backed candidates would win in a large field of candidates. There was literally no mailings or any information about the primary from the democratic party. Nothing!
Just look at the total votes by democrats in the primary - 78,000 - only about 10 percent of the electorate participated; thankfully that was enough to send the CIA and private-equity candidates packing although someone had deemed it a sufficiently worthy cause to put people like (former CIA officer) Evelyn Farkas on TV shows on MSNBC. I met Ms. Farkas during the primary and asked her a simple question of whether she supported the Amazon so-called HQ2 deal for Queens, which she could not or would not answer. In comparison, there are experienced politicians inside NY State who acted heroically to save NY from that deal. Senator Giannaris among the only politicians (or media) who would even acknowledge what that deal was about or what Amazon was really up to (his public statements actually described what Amazon would be doing there, while even the Guardian article below does not).
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/amazon-new-york-long-island-city-hq2-michael-gianaris
Then, of course, in 2022 Democrats lost that seat by only a couple of thousand votes, again by failing to create any publicity or any get out the vote effort AT ALL in this critical district that helped turned the House when NY state lost 5 seats in the House of Reps to republicans. Sean Maloney, who insisted on replacing Mondaire jones after redistricting, to my knowledge never even showed up here. We did get some TV ads of him paddling a canoe in the Hudson River though, instead, which was about as close as he came to the district. Mondaire was widely viewed as a great progressive and a future star, who won accolades from Pelosi although he was firmly in the progressive camp. He's running again this time.
https://ballotpedia.org/New_York%27s_17th_Congressional_District
Just for balance (because I do support the good journalism here about the red states and republicans) there needs to be a focus on all the things dems have done that have dug a deeper hole. Someone like Ralph Nader doesn't hesitate to report what Richard Trumka says - mainly because (according to Nader), Trumka gets into the offices of more democratic members of congress than anyone else. "They dont even want to win" was the assessment attributed to Trumka, as reported by Nader.
I am a critic of the Democratic party, but I just can't help take notice that you chose to do a both sides ism, shifting the conversation away from the Republicans to the Democrats. Good job /s.
I blame the Democrats for Trump even being in office. Yeh Russians played a part, but it was Democrats who put their thumb on the scale for Hillary. Hillary the wife of the man who literally created the swing states/rust belt.
I would be hesitant to invoke Nader, because Nader took so many votes from Gore, that it wound up in the Supreme court and we know the rest.
Lol. You're trying to let the petulant Berniebots off the hook, are you? Hillary Clinton was one of the best-qualified candidates ever to run for the U.S. presidency, but all you can see is that she's Bill's wife and you've got a grudge against Bill?
Truth to tell, I've got a grudge against Bill too. I consider him the first and only Republican I ever voted for. It wasn't till 2008 (when I supported Obama) that it dawned on me that Hillary wasn't a Bill clone. As a longtime feminist I should have caught on earlier, but I didn't. Some people don't seem to have caught on yet.
It matters not that Hillary was qualified, She was the boogey man to many. Particularly many who didn't trust her, because it was apparent that all she had of interest was herself. The DNC told Obama to make her Sec of State, to give her the cred's they believed were needed to appease the then powerful CFR.
She was not trustworthy, to many independents. I voted for her and held my nose while doing it. Her husband signed that anti gay Defense of marriage act bill, set Blacks up for the School to prison pipeline with his Omnibus crime bill, he signed NAFTA and GAAT thus creating the rust belt/swing state. He signed the telecommunications act of 1996, which revoked the Fairness Doctrine and allowed syndicates like Sinclair and Heartland and Fox to create right wing oligarchies.
Bills great accomplishments was giving the racist, homophobic, right wing, billionaires an orgasm, that haunts us today.
She stuck through Bill, even while he cheated on her and embarrassed her publicly because she had self serving designs on the Oval office.
You say she wasn't a clone, but she showed no symptoms of ideological (financial) independence.
In my estimation, the problem with voters is that everything, every issue, every politician is view through myopic binoculars.
I am a feminist, albeit one without a womb, I am also anti racist, although I am not black, I am also gay adjacent, but not a gay. However I reserve the right to accuse people of suffering from the same myopia, that has infected the Republican party.
Hillary had no chance, even without Russian interference. Comey's letter to congress on Oct 28, had zero affect on the election, on Nov 9th, though they gave Hillary and excellent opportunity to shift her failure to Comey. 12 days before an election is not going to change minds.
As far as Bernie, frankly I don't trust him. He had an opportunity to explain classism to America, and that racism and misogyny and homophobia are a subset of classism, but he buggered off and stuck to a losing message of Classism, in a country which was raised on the Horatio Alger myth, where the average citizen thinks that they are a temporarily discomfited millionaire.
No Hillary wasn't a clone, but she was a self serving opportunist and a conservative. She was the kind of Democrat that I called a Demopub, back when both parties were fraternal twins, Demopubs and Republicrats. The last vote I cast was, before I voted for Hillary, was in the 1964 election, I saw through the charade, the Kabuki circus, and with disgust I sat out elections until
that grifting lying orange would be emperor raised his head out of NBC's, The Apprentrice and came down the escalator calling Mexicans drug dealers and rapists.
Nader may have taken votes from Gore, but it was Bush in Florida who stole the election from him by making up this "hanging chad" fraud way of throwing out the democratic votes, and Gore himself who conceded too early to the whole corrupt way that the Republicans stole that election. Gore won the popular vote remember. While I wish that the Democratic party were more organized and aggressive in owning a strong message that incriminates the Republicans, whom I view as criminal gangsters.
I totally agree with Republican gangsters. But my point still stands, Bush's victory starts with Nader.. period.
The hanging chad exercise and the intervention of SCOTUS would not have happened were it not for Nader...periosd.
I stand by what I say too! Nader has a right to run, however unfortunate it was. I don't think he accomplished his goals. However, Bush does not have the right to steal the election for his brother. It really bothers me that Americans are so accepting of all of the theft of elections by Republicans through what is now their standard authoritarian playbook. It is the slippery slope of authoritarianism that we are sliding down.
You are missing the point, It is not about rights, but about cause and effect. Stand by your point all you want, but the fact is that if Nader had not entered the race, his name would not be on the Florida Ballot and he would not have siphoned off votes from Bush, and Gore v Bush would not be in the history books.
The rest of your rant I agree with.
Every person who enters a race can be seen as a spoiler for other candidates. While that may be important. If the hanging chads did not get into play, Gore would have won Florida and thus the electoral college and the popular vote. You could also say that Bush was a spoiler for him too. In essence I am not for a 2 party system. However, in this upcoming election I do not want there to be a third party especially the vague one that is being developed because it is getting Republican funding, so it is like having 2 Republican candidates, the favorite and the spoiler. I do not think that Nader acted as another Republican candidate, just as a narcissist, who did not see his effect siphoning off votes from Gore. However, in our democracy third candidates get to run. Nader and West are not the same candidates that a Joe Lieberman or a Joe Manchin will be. There is math involved in winning, and you are choosing one set of math to say it determined the outcome, and I am choosing another. I am saying that despite having Nader exercise his democratic right to run as we do not legally have a 2 party system, Gore could have won if the hanging chads were not stealing the state of Florida from him illegally. I don't like your implying that we should not have a democracy in which candidates from other parties can run.
Along these lines it would be good to have a detailed analysis of the Lewis voting rights bill in the senate. We had republican Lisa M completely on board, who many think could have worked Susan Collins to get her vote. Yet they allowed Mancin and Sinema to destroy the most important business democrats have - to protect the democracy and mechanisms of voting. When Abigail Spangerger and her ilk complain that democrats lost because someone somewhere once said the 3 words "defund the police," someone should simply point to the west virginia primaries and ask her (or them) how many of those 55 W Va counties was Hillary able to win over Bernie in the 2016 primary, and the answer being a single word that begins with "z".
The blame in the Senate sits squarely on Chuck Schumer, he is the majority leader and has the power to discipline recalcitrants. He also has the power to stop Tuberville from holding up those appointments in DoD, but he doesn't do anything. He sits here lie a stone wall, never exercising leadership, could it be that his primary concern are the mega donors, or maybe he is a wee bit too conservative.
Of course the filibuster hasn't been changed for this legislation, and the dems led by biden continued to abide by it, which republicans simply would not do when the judiciary was at stake. No way republicans would have sat back and let the filibuster block their majority the way democrats under biden did.
They had murkowski and they had 50 votes without vp, therefore who really prevented this bill from passing? They could have simply taken down the filibuster on basic voting legislation. By they would not, and the rest is history (or the subject matter of this article).
The NY State Democratic Party is screwed up. This is not a secret. The Democratic Party in my state, next-door MA, is also screwed up, but not as bad as NY's. I don't take much satisfaction in this.
I hope President Biden, and every other candidate or concerned person with a voice, will step up and quote your last paragraph regularly, from now until November 5, 2024
The Republicans really are itching for a civil war with tactics like this. It's clear by now to most of us "ordinary" folks that the Republican Party is indeed a "domestic terrorists force" as Robert Hubbell has repeatedly pointed out, but they should be put on notice that purging voters and suppressing the will of the majority will not succeed in the long run. If the GOP keeps up with all the fascist bullying and intimidation, at some point the citizens will be voting with their pitchforks. The only right answer to this mess is to eliminate the Electoral College, impeach the illegitimate justices on the Supreme Court, hold Trump and his cronies accountable for their crimes, and arrest and prosecute the 139 members of Congress who are avowed insurrectionists and climate change deniers. We know who they are. People who carry on like the arrogant GOP "Trumlekins" are increasing the likelihood that the era of Trump will come to an ugly, violent end. With their voter purging campaigns, the GOP terrorists have taken their quest to destroy democracy way beyond the level of partisan politics. These deranged assholes have been pissing in our wells long enough!
The GOP's tactics don't shock me in the least: that's what they do, and they've been at it for decades. It doesn't even shock me -- at least all that much -- that the so-called mainstream media aren't devoting much time/space to it. What shocks me is that white-dominated Democratic parties, especially those in blue states (like mine: MA), don't seem all that concerned, even though they have a lot to lose. Thank heavens for Democracy Docket and those on the ground who are combatting these proliferating methods of voter suppression. P.S. Why the hell isn't it illegal??
I keep pointing out that there is no mandate for Republican candidates when they do dirty things like this and gerrymandering to get their wins. Thank you for giving us the data. Alito needs to be jailed for tax fraud and replaced on the Supreme Court. The first law I would make in Congress as regards the court is that no person convicted of a felony can sit on the Supreme Court. Both Alito and Thomas should be convicted for felony tax fraud for not declaring the gifts they have gotten. I think we should be looking at Barrett, and Roberts too.
We're in territory that's documented by Greg Palast, but despite watching the crimes in the movie he made, nothing happens. I get that the Indians didn't see Spanish ships because they were impossible in their world, but can that have carried over to 2023 where these suppressive dealings are so fundamentally undemocratic that they don't register? What else explains them continuing. to occur?
These people are lowest life form republicans , for whom there is no end to their corrupt and sleazy behavior.
They should be investigated as should the Supreme Court white bullies faction who have sanctioned this action on destroying the voting process and thereby denying millions of citizens their right to vote .
Trump was indicted for attempting to overthrow the votes as they were presented.
So that he could remain in power in spite of losing .
His behavior has been sanctioned to some degree by the Courts decisions which indicate an acceptance of curtailing the votes of Democrats.
Pitiful mess the 6 who have voted in favor of removing the rights of the majority.
How did all this happen over the last four decades? Lackluster democrats and that is saying it nicely. Has Chuck been the head of senate for dems the whole time? If only we had listened to Howard Dean about a 50 state strategy, yeah I know we have to move on from the past but if the GD dems don't learn from history the repugs are bound to repeat it. No accountability for last 60 years and more probably.. Sorry I am so sick and tired of hearing inflation is down, down, down but I don't see it in my grocery stores or gas stations or medical/dental needs or gas stations
The 50 state strategy starts at the local level, then the state. Democrats have never paid any attention to the local elections, much less the states, Where as the Republicans have built an activist cadre of racist, religious fascists from Animal Control to Governor.
It also focus on what Bill Clinnton said "its the economy". While true in depressed states, like the rust belt which Clinton created when he signed NAFTA and GAAT, the meme completely ignores the war that the Democrats shy away from even mentioning.. The Culture war, which the Dems have ceded to the Republicans and that is what made Trump president, and unless Biden and the DNC get a grip on, and a aggressive tenacious grip as well, using every power at their disposal, like Art II and the 14th Amendment, they are going to cede to the Republicans.
When they go low, we go high, is a lofty meme, but it is also a losers meme, for defense does not win battles, be they political or shooting, the odds are with the aggressor, and the only way defense can win, is if they have more resources than the aggressor. WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,Ukraine are examples. By denying Ukraine the tools by which to push back on and drive Putin out of Ukraine, the west has gifted Ukraine to Putin, slowly, and now they have created a road block to fully training Ukrainian F-16 pilots, until Summer of 2024, when it is too late. And allows Putin to rocket and bomb civilians in Ukraine, with impunity, by not approving the sale or transfer of artillery that can reach inside Russia and Moscow.
Oh yeh, the spectre of nuclear war. Nothing has been learned, nothing at all, from PM Chamberlains deal with that deranged Corporal.
I am a blue dot in the red state of Texas. Every year I try to vote out the Republican trash, to no avail. If a good man like Beto can’t win, Texans will get the trash they deserve. Now if Paxton is off the hook, there is no justice.