Quo Vadis GOP?

[viper37]

Surprising no one, Otto thinks democracy is a weakness.  Ah the good old days of the 60s, when the US Government could lie about foreign wars and sort of get away with it.

why the 60s?

The GOP lied about Iraq and all the governments lied about the real state of the Afghan war, yet, they are always popular. Trump lied about just about everything and he's nearly as popular as he ever was.

Lying very rarely makes a government fall.  Even when caught red-handed they usually managed to get away with it.  The Liberal party has mastered the art in our country.  Chrétien ran 3 times with essentially the same promises, twice in a row with the exact same promises of abolishing the US-Canada free trade agreement (they expanded it to include Mexico) and the Goods and Services Tax.  and people were still voting for him.  Even after the extent of the party's corruption (financial, since we've known for a while how morrally corrupt they were) was revealed, the party still got re-elected, albeit with a minority govt.

Not, I think it's telling the truth that is the most dangerous thing for politicians. No one wants to hear you have to make sacrifices to stop covid-19, to limit global change, to curb the deficit.  No one.

[Jacob]

Not, I think it's telling the truth that is the most dangerous thing for politicians. No one wants to hear you have to make sacrifices to stop covid-19, to limit global change, to curb the deficit.  No one.

Not even you?

[crazy canuck]

Surprising no one, Otto thinks democracy is a weakness.  Ah the good old days of the 60s, when the US Government could lie about foreign wars and sort of get away with it.

why the 60s?

Because Otto was extolling the virtues of the 50s and 60s as a mythical time of goodness we should return to.

[viper37]

Not, I think it's telling the truth that is the most dangerous thing for politicians. No one wants to hear you have to make sacrifices to stop covid-19, to limit global change, to curb the deficit.  No one.

Not even you?

I'm not electing govt by myself

Practically no one.

The lie is often more comfortable than the hard truth.

[Eddie Teach]

Surprising no one, Otto thinks democracy is a weakness.  Ah the good old days of the 60s, when the US Government could lie about foreign wars and sort of get away with it.

why the 60s?

Because Otto was extolling the virtues of the 50s and 60s as a mythical time of goodness we should return to.

It was a time when capos could keep their mouths shut.   

[Syt]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/georgia-voting-restrictions/2021/03/25/91009e72-8da1-11eb-9423-04079921c915_story.html

Georgia governor signs into law sweeping voting bill that curtails the use of drop boxes and imposes new ID requirements for mail voting

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed into law a sweeping voting measure that proponents said is necessary to shore up confidence in the state's elections but that critics countered will lead to longer lines, partisan control of elections and more difficult procedures for voters trying to cast their ballots by mail.

The measure is one of the first major voting bills to pass as dozens of state legislatures consider restrictions on how ballots are cast and counted in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, when President Donald Trump attacked without evidence the integrity of election results in six states he lost, including Georgia.

The new law imposes new identification requirements for those casting ballots by mail; curtails the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots; allows electors to challenge the eligibility of an unlimited number of voters and requires counties to hold hearings on such challenges within 10 days; makes it a crime for third-party groups to hand out food and water to voters standing in line; blocks the use of mobile voting vans, as Fulton County did last year after purchasing two vehicles at a cost of more than $700,000; and prevents local governments from directly accepting grants from the private sector.

The 95-page law also strips authority from the secretary of state, making him a nonvoting member of the State Election Board, and allows lawmakers to initiate takeovers of local election boards — measures that critics said could allow partisan appointees to slow down or block election certification or target heavily Democratic jurisdictions, many of which are in the Atlanta area and are home to the state's highest concentrations of Black and Brown voters.

The measure, backed by Republicans, sailed out of the state House and Senate on party-line votes in a single afternoon.

Kemp signed it shortly afterward, saying at a news conference that with the new law, "Georgia will take another step toward ensuring our elections are secure, accessible and fair."

"Contrary to the hyper-partisan rhetoric you may have heard inside and outside this gold dome, the facts are that this new law will expand voting access in the Peach State," the governor added, noting that every county in Georgia will now have expanded early voting on the weekends.

But Democrats and voting-rights advocates condemned the bill as a flagrant effort to make it harder for some voters to cast their ballots — particularly those in larger, minority-heavy counties that have a long history of insufficient polling locations and long lines.

"It is like the Christmas tree of goodies in terms of voter suppression," Sen. Jen Jordan, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor Thursday.

"'We want to provide opportunities for people to vote,' " she said, echoing Republican descriptions of the measure. "This bill is absolutely about opportunities — but it ain't about the opportunity to vote. It's about the opportunity to keep control and keep power at any cost."

Later Thursday, Democratic state Rep. Park Cannon was arrested by state troopers as she knocked on the governor's door to observe the bill signing, cutting short Kemp's news conference — a moment captured by other others at the capitol in videos posted on social media.

In 43 states across the country, GOP lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with such constraints as stricter ID requirements, limited hours or narrower eligibility to vote absentee, according to data compiled as of Feb. 19 by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Even more proposals have been introduced since then.

In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed a voting law earlier this month that reduces early and Election Day voting hours and moves up the deadline for mail ballots to arrive at local election offices.

President Biden on Thursday blasted efforts by Republican-led state legislatures across the country to restrict voting rights, saying he was worried about "how un-American this whole initiative is."

"This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle," Biden said, emphasizing he would do "everything in my power" to pass legislation to protect voting rights.

How GOP-backed measures could create hurdles for tens of millions of voters

During the Senate debate in Georgia on Thursday, State Sen. Gloria Butler, a Black Democrat who represents suburban Atlanta, called the measure "an unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we've seen since the Jim Crow era."

"Make no mistake, this is democracy in reverse," she said. "Some politicians did not approve of the choice made by voters in our hard-fought election."

Republicans noted that the final bill did not include a prior proposal to limit mail voting only to those with a reason such as age, illness or travel. The new law also increases required early-voting hours across Georgia after an uproar about a proposal to bar Sunday voting, a ban that would have hindered "souls to the polls," the long-standing effort to encourage Black voters to vote after Sunday church services.

"Our goal is to ensure election integrity and to restore confidence in the election process," said Sen. Max Burns (R), calling the measure a "well thought-out bill."

Another Republican, Sen. John Albers, maintained that the measure "expands voting access in Georgia." He accused critics of "sensationalizing and misrepresenting the truth."

In signing the bill, Kemp sought to align himself with Trump, saying he "joined many others, including President Trump, in urging the Secretary of State's office to quickly and fully investigate any and all fraud irregularities" in the 2020 election.

In fact, Georgia election officials did not find any significant fraud in the November vote, despite Trump's repeated false claims of problems with the election and his attempts to get Kemp and other officials to halt the certification of Biden's win.

On Thursday, multiple Democrats stood to speak against the bill in both House and Senate, many expressing astonishment at the Republican argument that the measure would improve the voter experience. They took particular aim at how the bill will undermine local control of election administration, and said it was hard to view the restriction on providing food and water to voters in line as anything other than an effort to making it unpleasant to vote.

Video of the the state representative being arrested: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/video-shows-georgia-lawmaker-being-arrested-while-trying-to-watch-governor-sign-voting-bill/2021/03/25/3dc640a1-51b0-465f-aaa1-ea8deb540554_video.html

[Zanza]

makes it a crime for third-party groups to hand out food and water to voters standing in line

How can they even pretend with a straight face that this is in any way contributing to the supposed goal of the bill?

[Syt]

makes it a crime for third-party groups to hand out food and water to voters standing in line

How can they even pretend with a straight face that this is in any way contributing to the supposed goal of the bill?

I think the official explanation is that handing out food etc.., when done by groups with political affiliations, might influence people to vote a certain way.

[The Brain]

The 95-page law

Jesus Christ. Is this common in America?

[Valmy]

The 95-page law

Jesus Christ. Is this common in America?

Unfortunately not. They usually are hundreds of pages.

At least on the federal level.

[Habbaku]

I think my brother and I (both in Georgia) are going to test the law in 2022 if it's not repealed or modified in some way. What a fucking crock of shit.

[The Minsky Moment]

Most federal laws are not 95 pages or more; most are only a few pages.  However many federal laws don't really do very much; here a just a few examples taken in chron order from a list of laws passed this year:

+A bill to authorize the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate to delegate authority to approve payroll and personnel actions.+
+ Redesignates the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Georgia as the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park.
+ Addresses the use of descending devices to release reef fish in the Gulf of Mexico.
+ Directs the National Science Foundation (NSF) to award competitive, merit-reviewed grants to institutions of higher education (or their consortia) to support multidisciplinary, fundamental research with potential relevance to suicide,
+ Requires the U.S. Agency for International Development to award at least 50% of the number of scholarships under the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program to Pakistani women for each of the calendar years 2020-2022.
+ Reauthorizes for FY2022-FY2026 and revises the National Estuary Program, which provides grants to protect or restore estuaries of national significance.
+Directs the Department of the Interior to study the sites associated with the life and legacy of Julius Rosenwald, a part owner and President of Sears, Roebuck and Company

Every now and then Congress passes a omnibus bill that addresses some important area in a comprehensive fashion (like a tax reform bill or Obamacare) or takes care of a bunch a different stuff at one go (like the COVID relief bill).  Those ones get into the hundreds of pages.

[The Minsky Moment]

They charged the state legislator with a felony for knocking on the door.
If that's a felony the Capitol rioters should get the guillotine.

[Syt]

They charged the state legislator with a felony for knocking on the door.
If that's a felony the Capitol rioters should get the guillotine.

She would have added unwelcome color to the signing, I suspect.

[Eddie Teach]

Did you just slip the bit about Pakistani women in there?