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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court gave Republican legislative leaders in North Carolina a win Thursday in an ongoing fight over the state's latest photo identification voting law.

The 8-1 decision doesn't end the more than three-year dispute over the voter ID law, which is not currently in effect and has been challenged in both state and federal court. The decision just means that Republican legislative leaders can intervene in the federal lawsuit to defend the law. A lower court had ruled the lawmakers' interests were already being adequately represented by the state's attorney general, Democrat Josh Stein.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that: “Through the General Assembly, the people of North Carolina have authorized the leaders of their legislature to defend duly enacted state statutes against constitutional challenge. Ordinarily, a federal court must respect that kind of sovereign choice, not assemble presumptions against it.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

North Carolina voters amended the state constitution in 2018 to include a voter ID mandate. Lawmakers then passed the law at issue in the case to implement the change. The law requires voters to show a photo ID to vote — whether it's a driver's license, a passport or certain student and local government identifications.

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the measure, but lawmakers overrode his veto to pass the law. The state NAACP and several local chapters immediately sued in federal court to halt enforcement of the law, arguing that it discriminates against Black and Latino voters in violation of the Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act.

House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger, both Republican, wanted to intervene in the federal court case to defend the law alongside lawyers for the state, saying Stein wouldn't adequately fight for the law. But a federal judge said no, that lawmakers' interests were being adequately defended by lawyers in Stein's agency. A three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled for the lawmakers before the full federal appeals court reversed the decision, ruling 9-6 that lawmakers should not be allowed to intervene.

As for the law itself, it was initially blocked by the judge in the case, who said it was “impermissibly motivated, at least in part, by discriminatory intent.” But the three-judge appeals panel reversed her decision and sent it back to U.S. District Court, where a trial has yet to start.

In litigation in state court, judges struck down the law as tainted by racial bias. North Carolina's Supreme Court has said it will take up the case, but no date has been set for oral arguments.

Separately, North Carolina's highest court has also already heard arguments in a lawsuit over whether the constitutional amendment mandating voter ID should have been allowed on the November 2018 ballot in the first place. A state judge had ruled that the GOP-controlled legislature lacked authority to put the amendment and one other on the ballot because lawmakers had been elected from racially biased districts two years earlier. That decision was later overturned on appeal before going to the state's highest court.

#nunyas news #why do so many of the arguments against voter id #come off as totally racist

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when-the-cities-burn · 2 months

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NC Republicans chose, as their candidate for gov, a Black man who hates MLK, Jews, women, & thinks the Moon landing was faked, Lizards run the "illuminati," & the Parkland shooting victims kinda deserved it.

What the GOP these days calls a "Moderate."

#politics #north carolina #anti abortion

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kashicloud · 2 months

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[ad_1] Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina secured the Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday, continuing his rapid political rise in a key battleground state.Mr. Robinson, 55, is now poised to face his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein of North Carolina, in the general election in November. Both men would break ground if elected: Mr. Robinson would be the first Black governor, while Mr. Stein, 57, would be the first Jewish governor.Mr. Robinson has built a reputation as a political firebrand, and forged a path to the executive mansion in Raleigh partly through incendiary comments on social issues, which have mobilized his Trump-aligned base and repulsed Democrats.Here are five things to know about Mr. Robinson.His political career was fueled by online support.On April 3, 2018, the City Council in Greensboro, N.C., was considering canceling a gun show after facing public outcry following the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 people were killed at a high school.Mr. Robinson, who grew up in Greensboro, about 75 miles northwest of Raleigh, was indignant about the cancellation. He delivered a speech at the council meeting that night, and videos of it spread widely in conservative circles, gaining millions of views.“We want our rights, and we want to keep our rights,” Mr. Robinson said at the meeting. “And by God, we’re going to keep them, come hell or high water.”He began getting invited to speak at gun rallies, and subsequently left his job in furniture manufacturing.He made history as the first Black lieutenant governor of North Carolina.Bolstered by his image as a political outsider and gun rights advocate, Mr. Robinson ran for lieutenant governor in 2020. His victory made him the first Black person in North Carolina to hold the office.It was the first elected office he had ever held, and the position increased his profile. But he has had little effect on policy. Mr. Robinson and Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, have had an acrimonious relationship and have not worked closely together.The lieutenant governor in North Carolina presides over the State Senate but has no vote unless the Senate is equally divided, similar to the vice president of the United States. His upbringing was difficult.Mr. Robinson has said that growing up poor in Greensboro had shaped his political philosophy. He wrote in his autobiography “We Are The Majority!” that his father was an alcoholic and abusive toward his mother, and that his parents relied on government assistance to support their 10 children. Mr. Robinson was the second youngest.“Even as a child, I felt the imbalance, the wrongness of it,” Mr. Robinson wrote of the abuse. “At an early age, I began to think of the world in terms of what is fair or unfair, right or wrong.”Like former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Robinson has also expressed anger at the North American Free Trade Agreement for causing manufacturing jobs to shift from North Carolina to countries with lower labor costs in the ’90s. Mr. Robinson has said that the trade pact made him lose two jobs.His wife had an abortion decades ago, and it has shaped his views on the issue.Mr. Robinson supports a so-called heartbeat law, which would ban abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, when many women have yet to realize they are pregnant.Such a measure would roll back abortion rights in North Carolina: Republicans used their new supermajority in the legislature last year to ban most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.Mr. Robinson’s campaign spokesman said that Mr. Robinson supported exceptions for rape, incest or when the life of the mother was in danger. But the spokesman did not specify at how many weeks those protections would apply.Mr. Robinson has publicly discussed how his wife, Yolanda Robinson, had an abortion in 1989, a year before they were married. The couple later had two children.Mr. Robinson said in a Facebook video in 2022 that the couple’s decision to have abortion had been “wrong” and that it had been the catalyst for the couple’s anti-abortion views that developed later.He has long held anti-L.G.B.T.Q. views.Since gaining a political platform, and even before that on his personal Facebook page, Mr. Robinson has hurled disparaging remarks at the L.G.B.T.Q. community, rooting his attacks in his Christian faith.He has said that it makes him sick to see a church flying the rainbow flag, describing it as a “direct spit in the face of God.” He also told a congregation that “there’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”In February, Mr. Robinson said that transgender women who use women’s restrooms “will be arrested,” echoing the so-called bathroom bill that the state legislators passed in 2016. That measure proved to be unpopular because of its negative economic effects, and Mr. Cooper signed legislation repealing it in 2017. [ad_2] Source link

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trmpt · 2 months

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“Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who easily won the GOP primary for governor Tuesday, enters the general election as one of the most polarizing candidates in the country. Democrats, who nominated Attorney General Josh Stein for governor, are eager to paint Robinson as an extremist on reproductive rights, education and LGBTQ issues.

“Democrats also plan to focus on his history of making provocative statements. Robinson has described the LGBTQ community as ‘filth,’ slammed public school teachers as ‘wicked people,’ and cast doubt on whether the Holocaust occurred, calling its existence ‘hogwash.’”

#“”polarizing candidate = insane bigot asshat #trump minions #trump insurrection

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pashterlengkap · 1 year

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GOP governor candidate called LGBTQ+ people “filth” & “demonic”

North Carolina’s viciously anti-LGBTQ+ Lieutenant Governor has announced he is running for governor of the state. In his campaign announcement video, Republican Mark Robinson said he didn’t care “about the zip code you live in, the size of your paycheck, whether you’re Black, white, straight, or gay,” but everything he has ever said about LGBTQ+ people contradicts that claim. --- Related Stories North Carolina senate passes “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would out trans kids to their families The bill would also ban books and potentially cost the state a multi-billion dollar backlash. --- Just this past March, Robinson declared that God created him to battle against LGBTQ+ rights and added, “Makes me sick every time I see it — a church that flies that Rainbow flag, which is a direct spit in the face of God almighty.” In 2017, he wrote on Facebook, “You CAN NOT love God and support the homosexual agenda.” In 2021, Robinson compared LGBTQ+ people to cow dung and claimed straight people are superior to gay people due to their ability to procreate. In the same sermon, he declared there are only two genders and disparaged trans people’s bodies: “I don’t care how much you cut yourself up, drug yourself up and dress yourself up, you still either one of two things — you either a man or a woman.” He also said people who support events like Drag Queen Story Hour do so because they desire to molest children. He has previously proclaimed that being gay is a step before pedophilia, that former First Lady Michelle Obama is secretly a trans woman, and referred to trans-affirming people as “devil-worshipping child molesters.” He also��condemned gay people as an “abominable sin” in response to the 2016 Pulse massacre. Robinson also created an education task force to investigate and pull LGBTQ+ literature from public schools, as well as report instances of LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools. Teachers’ names, employers, and information were released unredacted by the report, yet many of the complaints weren’t verified or even authenticated. Also in 2021, he refused to heed calls for his resignation after he declared that homosexuality and “transgenderism” are “filth.” He has also called the trans equality movement “demonic” and “full of the spirit of Antichrist.” In November of that year, he allegedly wagged his finger in the face of a state lawmaker who made a speech about supporting LGBTQ+ people. In 2022, he said climate change is “junk science” and called for eliminating science and social studies education from elementary schools. The list goes on. Robinson also has a history of anti-Semitic comments & conduct, loathing Black people who went to see Marvel’s Black Panther due to it being created by a person whom he described as an “Agnostic Jew” and a “Satanic Marxist.” He also stated his belief in the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was created by a cabal of globalists to try to ruin Donald Trump’s re-election. According to WRAL News, he announced his run for governor at Ace Speedway, a venue known for intentionally violating shutdown orders at the beginning of the pandemic. “Mark Robinson is an extremist who has built a legacy of division by spewing hate toward the LGBTQ community, disrespecting women, putting culture wars ahead of classrooms, and pushing to ban abortion with no exceptions,” said a statement from state Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton. “We need a governor who will expand opportunities for working families and uphold our fundamental rights — not a dangerous politician whose reckless policies would kill jobs and threaten North Carolinians’ future.” Robinson will face off against the state’s current Treasurer, Dale Folwell, in the Republican primary. The winner will then take on the Democrat nominee, who will likely be current attorney general Josh Stein. The state’s current governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, cannot run again due to term limits. http://dlvr.it/Sn7yR7

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reddancer1 · 1 year

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Heather Cox R ichardson

February 28, 2023 (Tuesday)Republican control of the House of Representatives has fed a changing dynamic. After decades of playing defense, the Democrats are going on offense.

Today, President Joe Biden visited Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he talked about protecting Medicare and Medicaid. He was careful—as he always is—to differentiate between “an awful lot of really good Republicans” and the “MAGA Republicans.” “There’s kind of like, in my view, sort of two Republican Parties.”

NOTE - President Biden, per usual, is too kind about Rethuglicons. There are the MAGA christofascists, the gutless R's who won't oppose them in order to get or stay elected, and the rare few still in office, who will speak against them. The R's are MOSTLY MAGAs or MAGA sympathizers!!!!

The MAGA Republicans, he said, “want to eliminate a lot of healthcare coverage,... increase costs for millions of Americans, and make deep cuts in programs that families and seniors depend on.” He spelled out that these cuts would mean that more than 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions would lose coverage, and millions could lose basic services like maternity care, which the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover. Up to 3 million young adults would get kicked off their parents’ insurance, and the cost of premiums in general would go up.

Biden was getting ahead of what seems likely to be the Republican proposal to cut the budget dramatically in the new Congress and the more recent promise of House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to put the U.S. “on a path to a balanced budget” within ten years. Biden noted that Republicans have voted more than 50 times to change or repeal the Affordable Care Act since it passed 13 years ago. He also pointed to the fact that the chief budget consultant for the House Republicans is Trump’s former budget director Russell Vought.

Now that Republicans have committed to taking cuts to Social Security and Medicare off the table, Vought has a plan to cut $9 trillion from domestic programs over the next ten years by cutting more than $400 billion from food stamps, cutting hundreds of billions from education, cutting in half the State Department and the Labor Department, and cutting $2 trillion from Medicaid and more than $600 billion from the Affordable Care Act.

“America cannot be saved unless the current grip of woke and weaponized government is broken,” Vought says in his proposal. “That is the central and immediate threat facing the country—the one that all our statesmen must rise tall to vanquish…. The battle cannot wait.”

But, as Jeff Stein, Josh Dawsey and Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post point out, Vought’s stand is a little awkward, since he oversaw the explosion of the national debt as director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump. In his first year as director, the debt grew by $1 trillion; in his second, by $4 trillion. Now he claims that the Biden administration is abusing its power by arresting people who participated in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and so must be reined in.

Vought’s proposal promises to balance the budget in ten years, but it also predicts the number of working people in the U.S. will increase by 14.5 million more people than the Congressional Budget Office says will enter the workforce. That surge—if it were to come—would push the economy to grow faster, thus reducing the deficit by an additional $3.8 trillion. But where the people will come from is a mystery.

One former Republican official told Stein, Dawsey, and Arnsdorf that Vought was “selling conservatives a fantasy, which is achieving a balanced budget without cutting anything popular. We’re going to balance the budget by ‘ending woke?’ Give me a break.”

Biden continues to push House Republicans to come up with a budget that will show the American people what they intend to cut. It’s hard to see how they can do that, with much of their conference refusing cuts in defense and with them now on the record as refusing cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The math of balancing the budget through cuts to other programs without raising taxes simply doesn’t work.

As G. William Hoagland, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington and a former GOP congressional staffer, said: “I’d be the last person to say you can’t find savings from improved efficiency or the elimination of some programs…. But there’s no way on God’s green earth you’re going to balance the budget in 10 years unless you’re talking about increasing revenues and slowing the rate of growth in some of our major entitlement programs.”

Today, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) pointed out that the Republicans had added 25% of the U.S. debt under Trump and emphasized the economic successes of the Biden administration. “In 2021, Biden and the Democrats got to work and passed the American Rescue Plan, which fueled a strong, equitable economic recovery with historic reductions in unemployment, poverty, and economic hardship,” Raskin said. “Real GDP increased by 5.7% that year, substantially surpassing pre-ARP forecasts by the Fed. By January 2022, the unemployment rate had decreased to 4%, again surpassing pre-ARP forecasts. Wages increased by 5.7% from the prior year, with the highest increases going to the lowest wage workers. Democratic policies have allowed the U.S. to absorb the shock of rising inflation engulfing the globe since 2020, a phenomenon that economists attribute to coronavirus supply chain disruptions and Russia’s bloody war of aggression in Ukraine.”

Democrats are also on offense as the extremists now in the majority are exposing their lack of understanding of how the government works. Both Raskin and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called out Republicans today for basic errors in drafting legislation, and witness Colin Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, embarrassed Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in a hearing about aid to Ukraine after the congressman apparently thought he had found a “gotcha” story in the Global Times. “I’m sorry, is this the Global Times from China?” Kahl asked. Gaetz said no, then checked and said yes, it was, asking if that made it untrustworthy. “As a general matter, I don’t take Beijing's propaganda at face value,” Kahl answered. Gaetz answered: “Fair enough.”

Raskin also called out Republicans for a “grammatical error”: their long-standing habit of using “Democrat” as an adjective as if it is an insult. Noting Colorado Republican representative Lauren Boebert’s reference to a “Democrat solution,” Raskin pointed out that “Democrat” is a noun, and Republicans should, in such cases, be using the adjective: “Democratic.” He said he was beginning to suspect that this word usage was intended to be “an act of incivility”—as of course it is—and he turned the tables. Their grammatical error was “as if every time we mentioned the other party, it just came out…like: ‘Oh, the Banana Republican Party,’ as if we were to say that every time we mentioned ‘the Banana Republican member’ or ‘the Banana Republican plan,’ or the ‘Banana Republican conference.’” (The term “banana republic” refers to a country that is corrupt and badly governed.)

“But we wouldn’t do that,” he said. “So, out of pure political courtesy, when it’s an adjective, refer to the ‘Democratic’ congresswoman or the ‘Democratic’ member.”

The pressure on the Republicans is not going to let up. Biden has promised to release his budget on March 9, putting down “in detail every single thing—every tax that’s out there that I’m proposing…and what we’re going to cut, what we’re going to spend…. Just lay it on the table.”“

Republicans,” he said, “should do the same thing: lay their proposal on the table. And we can sit down, and we can agree, disagree. We can fight it out.”

But, divided as they are, can Republicans craft a budget they can agree on? And if so, will Americans like what they see? Biden seems to doubt it, and to have confidence that his plans more closely reflect what people want. Today, he promised: “When I introduce my budget, you’ll see that it’s going to invest in America, lower health costs, and protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare while cutting the deficit more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years.”

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politicsnc · 1 year

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Reaching rural North CArolina

I recently wrote that Democrats need to stanch the bleeding in rural North Carolina. The party brand has been tarnished to the point that most rural residents see Democrats as a threat to their way of life. Reversing that trend will take decades, not a few election cycles, but addressing some of their most pressing concerns is a good start. Attorney General Josh Stein is making an effort and…

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#crime #fentanyl #Josh Stein #opioid crisis

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thesheel · 1 year

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The retirement of at least six senators in 2022 has pushed the Republican party to a chokehold. This demands a new strategy from them, as losing their seats would mean losing the Senate altogether. One such Republican is Senator Richard Burr, whose retirement would bring joy in Democratic ranks. As Richard Burr retires, Donald Trump has already put his money on the election of Ted Budd. This support of Trump can play a conclusive role in the 2022 North Carolina Senate race, where conservatism is embedded in the state's residents. The 2022 North Carolina Senate race would be a treat to watch, as this state is a stronghold of Republicans, but having a new candidate can make the Democratic way easy. What are the stakes in this Senate race, and who are the possible Democratic and Republican nominees? Let's see. [caption id="attachment_7829" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Republicans Looking to Run in the 2022 North Carolina Senate Race[/caption] Republicans Looking to Run in the 2022 North Carolina Senate Race The following Republican candidates are eyeing to contest the 2022 North Carolina Senate race, as Burr looks to retirement. Mark Walker, Former Representative of the United States Jennifer Banwart Ted Budd, incumbent congressman Pat McCrory, former Gov. North Carolina Tim Moore, North Carolina House Speaker Dan Forest, Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina [caption id="attachment_7828" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Democratic Candidates: Weak Democratic Party in NC Seeks Possible Avenues[/caption] Democratic Candidates: Weak Democratic Party in NC Seeks Possible Avenues The following Democrats are ready to make their bid for the 2022 North Carolina Senate race. Erica Smith, former North Carolina State Senator Jeff Jackson, North Carolina State Senator Richard Watkins, Scientist, and Virologist Cheri Beasley, former Supreme Court Chief Justice of North Carolina Anita Earls, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Josh Stein, North Carolina Attorney General Mark Walker Announces Election Bid Amid Shrinking Chances: Republican Representative Mark Walker announced at the end of 2020 that he would be running for the 2022 North Carolina Senate race. Walker bragged about his hardline conservative approach in a video message, self-proclaiming that he is the best fit after Senator Richard Burr. However, without Trump's support, he is unlikely to make a difference in the Republican primary. Erica Smith and Jeff Jackson: Democrats Explore Possible Avenues: Former North Carolina Senator Erica Smith has been active in her campaign since the 2020 victory of Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election. Erica Smith lost the 2020 battle in the Democratic Primary to Cal Cunningham. Cunningham then lost to Thom Tillis in a controversial race. However, Smith is confident that 2022 will be different, as she is focusing on building a team with trained staff and starting the fundraising campaign earlier than anybody else. In late January, North Carolina Democratic State Senator Jeff Jackson announced that he would be running for the United States Senate. Having a service record in the US Army Reserve as a Captain and a veteran in the Afghanistan war, he is serving the fourth term in the State Senate. His ambitions for the US Senate are not new, as he also wanted to contest in the 2020 elections but backed off after meeting with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. NASA Coming to Politics: Former Astronaut Joan Higginbotham Seeks Elections The changing dynamics of society are also encouraging science advocates to run for the US Senate. A nonprofit advocacy group, 314 Action, is encouraging STEM professionals to run for office. This group is also pushing the campaign of Joan Higginbotham, the third Black woman to go into space. Joan Higginbotham is a former NASA astronaut who is seeking a Senate term in 2022 from North Carolina.

Higginbotham has never run for office before and also does not hold any experience in this regard. However, the advocacy group is confident that she is doing everything that is needed to run for office. Final Thoughts North Carolina is one of the ten states that are most likely to flip in the 2022 Senate race. North Carolina is considered to be a stronghold of Donald Trump, and his support of Ted Budd is expected to play a crucial role in the election. Trump would be more than happy to see Richard Budd's retirement, as he voted against Trump in the second impeachment trial. Flipping this red state is not a walk in the park for Democrats. Republicans have carried this state eleven times in the last thirteen presidential elections. So Democrats need a vibrant strategy to dismantle the Republicans. The biggest hurdle for Democrats is Ted Budd, who now enjoys Trump's support, and his hardcore evangelicals will not leave a chance to vote in favor of him. The announcement of Lara Trump's decision not to contest in the 2022 North Carolina Senate race has also increased the hopes of Ted Budd to make a conclusive bid in front of the residents of the Tar Heel State.

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tomorrowusa · 2 months

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I frequently complain that people, especially on the liberal side, don't pay enough attention to state government. I hope that our readers in North Carolina take notice of this.

North Carolina Republicans have just nominated a candidate for governor who actually makes Trump seem slightly more moderate.

The Republican standard-bearer in the most competitive governor race of the 2024 election is now officially a man who has quoted Adolf Hitler, called LGBT people “filth,” and threatened to use an AR-15 on federal officials. North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson secured the Republican nomination in the state’s governor race Tuesday night. He was projected the winner of the primary by the Associated Press less than an hour after polls closed. Robinson defeated rivals Dale Folwell and Bill Graham, who were backed by figures in the GOP establishment uneasy with Robinson’s incendiary rhetoric and far-right views. Robinson’s primary win was expected. Now, he will face Attorney General Josh Stein (D) in a general election battle that is a top priority for both parties—and one that could have broader implications because of North Carolina’s status as a presidential battleground. [ ... ] A relative newcomer in politics, Robinson has quickly won many supporters and many detractors thanks to his eagerness to embrace controversy whenever possible. From making Islamophobic jokes to dismissing the Holocaust as “hogwash” in an old Facebook post, Robinson’s record offers seemingly endless opportunities for Democrats to craft attack ads. “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth,” Robinson said at a Baptist church in June 2023. “And yes, I called it filth. And if you don’t like it that I called it filth, come see me and I’ll explain it to you.”

The good news is that this is a winnable contest for Dems if moderate and liberal voters take it seriously.

While Democrats have not won a statewide federal race in North Carolina since 2008, their track record in statewide races for governor and attorney general has been strong. Gov. Roy Cooper (D) is term-limited after winning election in 2016 and re-election in 2020. The state has only had a GOP governor for four out of the last 30 years.

Never assume that because candidates are perceived as being too extreme that they will automatically lose. Just think back to 2016.

If we want democracy to survive we need to drive a stake through the heart of electoral slackerism. There is no such thing as an unimportant election. When we vote, we win; just look at Minnesota.

#north carolina #mark robinson #republicans #maga #adolph hitler #donald trump #hate speech #the far right #homophobia #lgbtq+#islamophobia #anti-semitism #holocaust denier #democracy vs. dictatorship #vote blue no matter who #election 2024

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talkstothemoonandstars · 2 years

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Mark Meadows removed as North Carolina registered voter

Hey, Republicans! Found your voter fraud!!

An elections board in a North Carolina county has removed Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff to President Donald Trump, from its list of registered voters after documents showed he lived in Virginia and voted in the 2021 election there.

He was removed Monday by Macon County's Board of Elections.

Public records show he cast an absentee vote in Macon County during the 2020 general election.

Questions had already arisen last month about Meadows when North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein's office asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into his voter registration, which listed a home he never owned as his legal residence.

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 3 years

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13 Keys to the White House: 2024

Historian Allan Lichtman has produced an astonishingly accurate system for predicting presidential elections; although first implemented in 1984, going backwards it correctly accounts for every election since 1860, with the only hiccup coming from the hotly contested 2000 election. He predicted Gore would win, and he wasn’t entirely wrong, there was just some brotherly nepotism and Supreme Court fuckery. Anyway, his system posits 13 yes or no scenarios about the state of the union; if at least 8 are true then the incumbent party wins another term, less than 8 and the challenging party wins. Simple.

It’s pretty early in Biden’s term to tell for sure, but we can make some soft predictions that we can refine over the next few years before solidifying in 2023 or 2024.

Midterm gains: after the midterms, the incumbent party holds more seats in the House than they did in the previous midterms. Almost certainly false. 2022 will see new districts drawn by the predominantly Republican statehouses, giving them an immediate advantage. Democrats have a razor thin majority as is, it’s never been this close to tied before, I can’t see them holding on when you take into account new census data and partisan gerrymandering.

No primary contest: is there no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. Almost certainly true. Like him or hate him, Democrats are stuck with Biden. There hasn’t been a serious primary challenge in either major party since Reagan tried to take on Ford in 1976.

Incumbent seeking re-election: the incumbent candidate is the president. Again almost certainly true. There was an unspoken agreement that Biden would only run for one term, considering the fact that he’ll be 82 at the end of it, but o think he thinks he’s in for the long run now. If he does in office, Harris will become president and run for re-election herself, so the only way this would flip false would be if Biden just decides not to run again. In that case, the #2 might also flip false because I could see a weak senator like Joe Manchin running against Harris to get out of his own impending failure in West Virginia.

No third-party: no significant third party challenger. Too soon to tell, though I’m leaning towards true. The last nationally successful third party candidate was Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. He didn’t win any states, but he split some states nearly in thirds; Clinton and Bush and Dole all won states with less than 50% of he vote because Perot split the ticket. In 2000 Ralph Nader lost New Hampshire for Al Gore, giving it and the presidency to George W. Bush, and the same thing happened with Jill Stein in 2016 in the Midwest. Spoilers don’t need to be major on the National scale to have significant effects in specific states. Lichtman only flips this one false when a third party candidate wins 10% of the vote, so I’m going with true.

Short-term economy: the economy is not in recession. Probably true, but still too early to tell. We are either in the middle or nearing the end of a covid recession, I can’t see it lasting three more years without recovering at least a little, especially with the $2 trillion stimulus package they just passed. The economy is random, but if you look at a plot of unemployment since the Great Depression you will see that it consistently trends up under Republicans and trends down under Democrats. Trump was the only president is recent history to actually destroy more jobs than he created, so Biden could. It have inherited an easier path to victory. He shouldn’t be able to fuck up when the bar is so low, but I’m not holding out hope.

Long-term economy: real pet capita growth equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. Probably true, too soon to be sure. We’re so deep in the hole after Trump that any even remotely upwards tick will count as growth. I can’t see us dipping deeper than 2020 anytime soon, but then again that’s what they said in 2008, so who even knows?

Major policy change: the incumbent administration effects major change in national policy. False, I can call it now with utmost confidence. With Manchin and Sinema protecting the filibuster, Biden will get absolutely nothing substantive done in his first two years. He’ll end up losing one or both houses in the midterms, accomplishing even less in his next two! If he loses the Senate, it’s all over. It’ll be 2016 2.0, no more appointments, no more nominees, complete and utter obstruction until the Republicans take back he presidency and fill all the vacancies themselves.

No social unrest: no sustained social unrest during the term. Too soon to tell, but maybe true. 2020 was an anomaly, a once in a generation thing like 1968, so many crises all compounded together; the pandemic, the George Floyd protests, the wild fires, the hurricanes, utter chaos. I don’t see 2024 being as bad, but don’t quote me on that.

No scandal: incumbent administration is not tainted by scandal. Who knows?!? Biden seems pretty white bread/plain vanilla/mayonnaise, but Republicans insist he’s the most corrupt politician since their own guys (Trump and Nixon; lowering the bar for all their successors). They milked Benghazi for years and found nothing, but still tanked Clinton’s integrity going forward, I’m sure they’ll try to milk whatever BS They can find on Hunter Biden, especially if they retake the House or Senate. Whether any accusations will stick is up in the air, but I could see Republicans impeaching Biden just because they can.

No foreign/military failure: incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign/military affairs. Who knows? Biden’s foreign policy isn’t significantly different than Trump’s, so there’s no telling what could go wrong. The Saudis will keep cutting people’s heads off, North Korea will never disarm itself, Iran will probably arm itself, Afghanistan will drag on forever, and I can smell war brewing in the Caucasus, Venezuela, and Bolivia. The future is as clear as milk.

Foreign policy/military success: incumbent administration achieves major success in foreign/military affairs. Probably not, but too soon to tell. Succeeding is very different from not failing, so 10 and 11 aren’t necessarily linked. You can not fail AND not succeed, they’re not mutually exclusive. I don’t see anything good happening overseas for a very long time. If we pull out of Afghanistan, the power vacuum will pave the way for ISIS 2.0, so our hands are tied there. Our best bet would be to renegotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, but then we’ll just be back to status quo anteTrumpum, zero sum gain.

Charismatic incumbent: the incumbent party nominee is charismatic or a national hero. False, false, a million times false. Biden isn’t even beloved by his entire party, let alone the country; Republicans hate him even more than they ought to just because he wears a blue tie instead of a red one (his policies are so middle-of-the-road inoffensive to them that they shouldn’t have a problem with him, but Trump told them to, so they do). If Biden dies or refuses to run, Harris is even more divisive because she’s a woman and a disingenuous liar (she pretends to be super progressive, but she’s a cop, a Clintonesque moderate through and through). Obama in 2008 was a breath of fresh air which got very stale by 2012; 2008 was lightning in a bottle, and neither Biden nor Harris could ever dream of catching it again. They’re nowhere near as nationally beloved as the Roosevelts or Kennedy or Reagan.

Uncharismatic challenger: the challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. True, true, a million times true. It will almost certainly be Trump again in 2024, and he is even more despised than Biden. Sure, he’s beloved by his own party, but they make up less than half of he country. He never had majority approval and lost the popular vote twice, he’s a loser! If by some miracle he chooses not to run, the Republicans will be running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to appoint a successor. They’ll want one of his kids to run, maybe even his daughter in law who is looking to run for senate in 2022, but they’re tainted by affiliation to the Gonad Lump himself; they’re all the same. Ted Cruz sucks ass, Ron DeSantis might actually have an intellectual disability so I feel bad making fun of that piece of shit bastard, I pray that Rick Scott and Josh Hawley and Matt Gaetz suffer debilitating brain aneurysms on live TV, Nikki Haley is a nobody, and Lauren Boebert and Majorie Taylor Green are too regional to have national appeal (though Green will probably run against Raphael Warnock in 2022, so she will almost certainly be a senator by 2024). There are no nationally beloved politicians on either side of the aisle, so I would expect Republicans to cheat like they tried in 2020 to stop black people in swing states from voting.

So, the tally stands thus:

3 are certainly true

4 are probably true, leaning uncertain

2 are uncertain

1 is probably false, leaning uncertain

3 are certainly false

Democrats need 8 true to win, Republicans need 6 false to win. Right now, Biden had a slight edge because it is historically difficult to defeat an incumbent, Trump just sucked. I don’t see a rematch being significantly different, I suspect Biden would still win the popular vote, but Trump could eke by with the electoral college like he did in 2016, especially now that Republicans are taking over the judiciary in Pennsylvania (they’re changing the rules so that judges are elected in gerrymandered districts instead of statewide races). You saw how hard Republicans fought in 2020, they’re not going to change tactics in 2024, they’re gonna double down and try even harder next time. Fewer polling places, fewer drop boxes, shorter early voting, shorter hours, more stringent ID laws. Their MO is systemic voter suppression because their rhetoric has become too toxic to win on a national level. The majority of Americans vote against them in almost every election, general and midterm, but they continue to rule in the minority.

Something has got to give, this can’t go on forever, eventually the situation is going to boil over, be it in a civil war or a constitutional convention to overhaul the entire country; neither are probable, and either outcome would almost certainly hurt people of color in predominantly conservative states.

Biden thought he would be an arbiter president, he thought he would be able to unite the country, heal the divide, being both sides together under mutual compromise, but he failed to understand that Republicans hate him on principal. Doesn’t matter how much he tries to appease them, they still hate him because they have to hate him, even if they agree with him. It would be political suicide for any of them to side with Biden on anything, Trump has already vowed to support primary challengers, his presidency was the final nail in the coffin of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is dead, it hasn’t been alive in decades, and the only people who call for it are the minority party.

Trump is hard liquor, unappealing to anyone but his alcoholic voters; Biden is diet ginger ale, inoffensive and boring, nobody really wanted him, he only ran to try and settle everyone’s stomachs, and he hasn’t been very successful yet. He honestly believed he would be a neutral alternative for the alcoholics; that level of optimism would be adorable if it weren’t so pathetic. It’s gonna take a lot more than 12 steps to break the country’s addiction.

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eternalistic · 4 years

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Lawyers: Louis DeJoy Committed 'Stunning' Crimes | Law & Crime

“It is against the law to directly or indirectly reimburse someone for a political contribution,” North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D) tweeted. State law also prohibits the practice and there is no statute of limitations for violations of the state statute–which are felonies.

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brajeshupadhyay · 4 years

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Ahead of presidential polls, Donald Trump creates new headache for officials by urging supporters to vote twice

By encouraging North Carolina voters to test the integrity of the elections system by casting both mail and in-person ballots, and repeating some of the same claims in a series of tweets and a speech on Thursday, President Donald Trump seemed to mimic a cynical slogan originating in 20th Century machine politics: Vote early and often.

Indeed, Trump’s repeated statements suggesting that the nation’s elections system is riddled with fraud fit a historical pattern: politicians in the Jim Crow South, for example, spread the myth of widespread voter fraud to encourage tighter restrictions on voting.

His comments have now created a new headache for state election officials, who are already dealing with the formidable task of holding an election during a pandemic. They insist that the type of double voting once suspected of tipping elections in big cities is virtually impossible today, citing robust systems to prevent a person from voting twice.

Douglas A Kellner, co-chairman of the New York State Board of Elections, accused Trump of fueling concern in the minds of voters and, in doing so, adding more work to county elections boards already “stretched to the limit” by a presidential election and coronavirus.

“It’s hard to imagine how we could add any more stress to the system,” said Kellner, a Democrat.

In North Carolina, the election board released a statement Thursday saying that “it is illegal to vote twice in an election” and that state law “makes it a Class 1 felony.” Similar laws against intentionally voting more than once exist throughout the country, and it is also prohibited by federal law.

Elections officials in North Carolina also hinted that the president himself could have committed a crime, stating that “attempting to vote twice in an election or soliciting someone to do so also is a violation of North Carolina law.” The state’s Democratic attorney general, Josh Stein, said it was outrageous for the president to suggest that people “break the law in order to help him sow chaos in our election.”

And Jena Griswold, Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, said, “2020 has been unprecedented in so many ways, but I never imagined that as secretary of state I would have to inform both the president and the US attorney general that it is illegal to vote twice.”

That was after Attorney General William Barr suggested during an interview with CNN that he was not sure whether voting twice in North Carolina was illegal.

Speaking to reporters in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump had suggested that people who vote by mail also “then go and vote” in person as well.

“They are going to have to check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way because if it tabulates, then they won’t be able to do that,” Trump said, responding to a reporter’s question on election integrity. “So let them send it in, and let them go vote. And if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they will be able to vote.”

On Thursday, after Facebook said it would remove video shares of Trump’s comments, suggesting they had encouraged voter fraud, Trump seemed to try to walk back those comments in a series of tweets.

“Go to your polling place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been tabulated (Counted.) If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly,” Trump wrote.

On Thursday night, Trump repeated his claims from Wednesday, saying, “Send in your early ballot and then go and make sure that ballot is tabulated and counted. And if it’s not counted, then vote.” Then the election staff “have the job of making sure they don’t count it” twice.

Election fraud is exceedingly rare in the United States, including double voting. But numerous states still have rigorous and redundant levels of checking to make sure a voter only casts a ballot once.

In North Carolina, electronic poll books are used at polling centers, and are updated regularly with information on who has voted, according to a description of its system the state released Thursday. On Election Day, voters who had already voted absentee are removed from the poll book, and ballots that are received on Election Day are not counted until after the election, when they can be checked against in-person voting to prevent any double ballots.

If a voter shows up and insists he did not cast an absentee ballot, he will be allowed to vote provisionally, which officials will also check after Election Day and decide whether it should be counted.

Officials in North Carolina warned voters not to follow Trump’s advice — even if only to check to see if their mail-in votes were recorded — because showing up in person would create confusion and increase the possibility of coronavirus exposure on Election Day. Voters can track their ballots on the state’s election website.

Many states have similar protections. In Ohio, which follows many of the same procedures as North Carolina to check against double voting, the state also has a ballot tracking system, where voters can log onto the state website and track the status of their ballot, keeping unsure voters from attempting to vote twice.

“Ohio voters are encouraged to choose one way to vote, as any additional effort to cast a ballot will not be counted and unnecessarily burdens election officials,” said Maggie Sheehan, a spokeswoman for Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Republican secretary of state.

Officials in Michigan pointed to this year’s primary elections, the most recent including a massive expansion of vote by mail, as evidence that their system was reliable.

“Our election system has been stress-tested by three successful elections already this year,” said Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state of Michigan. “We have protections in place to ensure election officials track and verify every ballot they send and receive, and in every instance we ensure that each person gets only one vote.”

Reid Magney, a spokesman for the nonpartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, said that each absentee ballot cast in the state is processed by poll workers on Election Day and checked against poll books to make sure the voter has not already voted in person.

In California, some counties use traditional, neighbourhood-based polling places and others use larger, more centralised vote centers. At traditional polling places, voters who receive a mail ballot must surrender it if they decide to vote in person instead.

At vote centers, electronic poll books allow officials to check if a voter has cast a ballot elsewhere before permitting them to vote, according to a statement issued Thursday by Sam Mahood, a spokesman for the California secretary of state, Alex Padilla, a Democrat.

In New York City, Frederic M Umane, a Republican who sits on the city’s Board of Elections, called its system to prevent double voting “fail safe.”

Votes in New York City are immediately uploaded to a central computer, Umane said. When a voter goes to sign in, if they already voted, the system would flag it. And before any mail-in vote is counted, a check is made to see if that person also voted either in early voting or on Election Day.

Umane said the city implemented a new electronic poll book system in November and ran a series of tests beforehand to make sure it worked, adding that he was not aware of Trump’s comments this week.

“I’m a Republican,” Umane said, “but I don’t necessarily listen to everything Trump says.”

Stephanie Saul and Nick Corasaniti c.2020 The New York Times Company

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arpov-blog-blog · 2 years

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One of the people guilty of the voter fraud crimes Ginni Thomas wanted to see offenders dragged to GITMO and be held on a barrage was DJT's Chief of Staff...."Here's the latest: Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has been removed from the voter rolls in North Carolina, as state officials probe potential voter fraud allegations against the former congressman.

“Macon County administratively removed the voter registration of Mark Meadows under” state law, Patrick Gannon — a spokesperson for the state board of elections — said in a statement, “after documentation indicated he lived in Virginia and last voted in the 2021 election there.”

Gannon referred any questions on an investigation into Meadows to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. Anjanette Grube, a spokesperson for the bureau, said in a statement that the organization's “investigation into potential voter fraud allegations concerning Mark Meadows remains ongoing.” She declined to comment further.

Not commenting: Ben Williamson, a spokesperson for Meadows, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nazneen Ahmed, a spokesperson for Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein, declined to comment because of the ongoing State Bureau of Investigation probe.

The news of Meadows’ removal was first reported by the Asheville Citizen-Times, after the county elections director confirmed Meadows’ removal from the rolls to the paper.

Cue Alanis Morissette: The investigation of Meadows, of course, comes as his old boss — former President Donald Trump — continues to push lies about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election that cost him a second term in the White House.

“Without free and fair Elections, we don’t have a Country,” Trump said in a recent statement.

Meadows has amplified those lies about the election, both before and after his tenure in the White House.

Get caught up: Questions over Meadows’ voter registration first surfaced last month after a report from The New Yorker, that found that Meadows was registered to vote at a “fourteen-by-sixty-two-foot mobile home” in North Carolina. The State Bureau of Investigation publicly confirmed an official probe into the matter in mid-March.

He cast an absentee ballot in North Carolina for the 2020 presidential election. Meadows registered to vote in a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C. shortly before the 2021 gubernatorial election there."

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