I don't quite understand this one - so if 3.4% of the population sign a petition it goes straight to law? That's crazy. The GOP is pretty much attacking every gap in democracy's armor right now.
Edit: Ok so this isn't a ballot initiative. If the legislature passes a law, they only need a set amount of people to sign a petition to overturn a veto. That's nuts. Especially since they've gerrymandered the legislature.
Michigan Republicans are crafting plans to work around Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to make changes to the battleground state's voting laws after losses in the 2020 election.
Ron Weiser, chairman of the Michigan GOP, told the North Oakland Republican Club Thursday night that the party wants to blend together bills proposed in the House and Senate for a petition initiative.
If Republicans gathered enough signatures — more than 340,000 would be needed — the GOP-controlled Legislature could approve the proposal into law without Whitmer being able to veto it.
Last edited by malchior on Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yup. While the adults are dealing with the pandemic, they're slinking around in the shadows (or not, maybe they're out in the open at this point) and doing everything they can to dismantle democracy.
And people are apparently ok with all this, because white people.
2) Why did they choose to sign it with this framing?
3) How is a legislator with specific immunity charged with a crime? She is charged with interfering with the body she is a member of. That makes little sense. I'd imagine they have rules to censure her for that conduct if it indeed runs afoul of the rules. The police obstruction charge is ridiculous too but that unfortunately is more of a normal level of police abuse of process.
Bad social media framing is bad. Switch out the word Democrats for 'Experts'. Especially since that is pretty much how the story leads off. That said, the piece is actually pretty good.
So what happens in Georgia now if you arrive at a voting booth with a folding table and cooler of water bottles, then set the table up next to the line with the cooler on it and walk away? Are you still "offering" water by leaving it out in the open? Or do the police arrest the cooler?
Voters in Georgia should all show up with water bottles in hand and then pass them back and forth between themselves until they all get arrested so they can get the Supreme Court involved to uphold suppression standards and make them permanent. Wait... <checks script> ... that can't be right?
Last edited by Paingod on Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Black Lives Matter
2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
Paingod wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:01 pm
So what happens in Georgia now if you arrive at a voting booth with a folding table and cooler of water bottles, then set the table up next to the line with the cooler on it and walk away? Are you still "offering" water by leaving it out in the open? Or do the police arrest the cooler?
Voters in Georgia should all show up with water bottles in hand and then pass them back and forth between themselves until they all get arrested so they can get the Supreme Court involved to uphold suppression standards and make them permanent. Wait... <checks script> ... that can't be right?
I would say that that's pretty clearly participating in the giving of drink to people waiting in line.
Let's talk about the fact that lines are being created in a way to make them onerous for voting and now the GOP is passing legislation to stop people from eating and drinking while in a line (because the lines they've made are intentionally lengthy).
Maybe let's make it so that people don't need to stand in line for four hours and we won't need to meet behind closed doors to sign legislation banning those same people from eating and drinking while in line.
If this was a plot element in a movie, no one would believe it.
It's hard to imagine how any conservative could defend these policies without resorting to Big Lie conspiracy theories that Democrats/China/Chavez/Soros changed the numbers in the machines.
Fox pundits appear to be dancing on that line, talking about "voters' concerns about election integrity" without directly claiming election fraud. Presumably they're worried about the Dominion lawsuit that's poised to gut them.
Unfortunately, this is an easy one to explain away for Rs. "It doesn't matter whether there was widespread election fraud. What matters is that a lot of people believe there was widespread election fraud, so we need to do something to restore the public's faith in free and fair election." It's all bullshit of course, but it gives them cover.
He told the crowd that the top three Dems in the state, the Governor, the Attorney General and The Secretary of State (who are all women) were witches that needed to be burned at the stake.
He also pointed out that the two Republicans that voted to impeach Trump needed to be voted out, or if that didn't work, the only other way to get rid of them was assassination.
One of those Republicans is the congressman from my district, the guy who replace Justin Amash when he didn't seek reelection, Peter Meijer.
The Meijer family and the DeVos family go waaaay back together. Huh, interesting.
YellowKing wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 2:26 pm
Hey Kemp, ask Pat McCrory how pushing a wildly unpopular bill that triggered corporate boycotts worked out for him in NC.
It'll work out fine for the GOP, though. Probably the Georgia GOP will make tweaks to their bill (probably legalize giving water to voters) and hope that that generates "Georgia curtails criticized voting law" headlines. Meanwhile the heat that the Georgia GOP is drawing will take attention away from the 101 similar voting restriction laws in other states.
This is sorta deathwatch material but fits here. This reporter is pretty much using right-wing talking points as the "facts" to challenge the WH on the Georgia voting laws.
Edit: The reporter is likely Edward Lawrence...from Fox Business News. I was banking it was OANN.
malchior wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:09 pm
This is sorta deathwatch material but fits here. This reporter is pretty much using right-wing talking points as the "facts" to challenge the WH on the Georgia voting laws.
Edit: The reporter is likely Edward Lawrence...from Fox Business News. I was banking it was OANN.
Ha! Badass. I think I like the cut of her jib.
Last edited by Carpet_pissr on Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
malchior wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:09 pm
Edit: The reporter is likely Edward Lawrence...from Fox Business News. I was banking it was OANN.
Does OANN even have credentials in the Biden WH? If so, I expect that they will never be called on.
That's a good question. I know that the Fox crybaby choir had a melt down and claimed Biden planted questions during his recent press conference. They tried to make excluding conservative voices into an issue.
His warning is real. There are a lot republicans that are going to be pissed at corporations rejecting the idea of voter intimidation and suppression of the vote. They feel democrats are using organized illegal means to secure power at polls and they demand the ability to gerrymander and toss out any voting method that they cannot control up to and including tossing out votes and voters they don't believe should be approved.
LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:31 pm
They feel democrats are using organized illegal means to secure power at polls and they demand the ability to gerrymander and toss out any voting method that they cannot control up to and including tossing out votes and voters they don't believe should be approved.
They feel that way because Republicans have been spewing shit about it for years with no basis in reality. If they demanded any kind of evidence they'd be in for a big disappointment. They don't. They trust. I mean I probably don't question the things I hear enough either so I kind of understand because how the hell do I know who's telling the truth or if it is just spin.
LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:31 pm
They feel democrats are using organized illegal means to secure power at polls and they demand the ability to gerrymander and toss out any voting method that they cannot control up to and including tossing out votes and voters they don't believe should be approved.
They feel that way because Republicans have been spewing shit about it for years with no basis in reality. If they demanded any kind of evidence they'd be in for a big disappointment. They don't. They trust. I mean I probably don't question the things I hear enough either so I kind of understand because how the hell do I know who's telling the truth or if it is just spin.
But that is not going to stop them from being pissed at corporations for "getting involved in politics". Where was fucking McConnell and the GOP when Chamber of Commerce attacked voters and voting law at every level in Michigan? And he's damned right about how people will react. I'm not even a democrat and the Chamber of Commerce is on my shitlist for life. Fuck them down the throat with a cob of corn. When a CoC sticker is in a business window I want to spit at it. But this is the logical continuation of the things he's always endorsed. He's the very entity that brought us to this.
Oh yeah, the National Review has held this position for decades. In many ways voter suppression has been one area that has usually brought together the McConnell-type and Trumpist wings of the Republican Party. The McConnell / Paul Ryan / Ayn Rand-types support voter suppression because they live in constant fear that poor people will overwhelm rich people at the polls and vote to give themselves money at the expense of the virtuous job creators. The Trumpist wing fears that various dark-skinned peoples will overwhelm white people at the polls. Almost everyone can agree that it's a good idea to limit the vote as closely as possible to conservative white Christians.
The NR piece a weird combination of dog-whistling and fragile-as-soap-bubble reasoning.
Gems like this:
There would be more voters if we made it easier to vote, and there would be more doctors if we didn’t require a license to practice medicine.
One argument for encouraging bigger turnout is that if more eligible voters go to the polls then the outcome will more closely reflect what the average American voter wants. That sounds like a wonderful thing . . . if you haven’t met the average American voter.
Voters — individually and in majorities — are as apt to be wrong about things as right about them, often vote from low motives such as bigotry and spite, and very often are contentedly ignorant.
The real case — generally unstated — for encouraging more people to vote is a metaphysical one: that wider turnout in elections makes the government somehow more legitimate in a vague moral sense. But legitimacy is not popularity and popularity is not consent. The entire notion of representative government assumes that the actual business of governing requires fewer decision-makers rather than more.
There's never any solution suggested. He's justaskingquestionshere.
