#the only democrats on my ballot were the ones in federal positions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

axvoter · 1 year

Text

Blatantly Partisan Party Reviews (Victoria 2022): My Cheat Sheet to the Parties

There are plenty of parties contesting this year’s Victorian state election—indeed, the number of candidates is a state record. Interestingly, this has been achieved despite the fact that about a third of the parties who contested the 2018 election are no longer registered. Ballots will feature a bumper crop of cookers and other assorted micro-parties.

Here is my cheat sheet to summarise the recommendations in my reviews. I write from a left-wing perspective sympathetic to democratic socialism and green politics, and readers of this blog will have noticed that at the end of each entry I give a loose recommendation of what sort of preference I would give to that party. Here are almost all* of this election's parties categorised according to how good a preference I think they deserve. If you have even halfway similar political perspectives to me, I hope this might be useful.

*I do not review Labor, Liberal/National, Greens, or One Nation, on the principle that most people reading this blog have already formed views on those parties.

Before I begin, please remember to vote below the line for the Legislative Council (the larger ballot). If you vote above the line, your vote will be sent on a strange and discomfiting journey through the list of preferences registered by the party for which you vote 1. These preferences are typically determined by backroom deals and never reflect how voters would vote if they had control over preferences.

If you put any numbers other than 1 above the line, they will be ignored. THIS IS OPPOSITE TO THE SENATE SYSTEM: at the federal election in May, you could give preferences above the line and they were respected, but for state elections Victoria uses anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting (the only state to still use this loathsome system) and any preferences you mark beyond 1 will be ignored. The only way to ensure your preferences go exactly where you want them to go is to vote below the line. To cast a valid vote below the line, you must distribute at least 5 preferences, numbering 1–5. You can number as far as you want—and the more you number, the stronger your vote will be.

So, here is how I would categorise the parties. The links below lead to my reviews of each party.

Good preference: a party with a positive overall platform that has few or no significant flaws for the left-wing voter.

Fiona Patten’s Reason Party (left-wing civil libertarian)

Fusion: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency (centre-left pragmatist; unregistered party endorsing three independents)

Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (Indigenous rights; unregistered party endorsing three independents)

Socialist Alliance (socialism; unregistered party endorsing four independents)

Victorian Socialists (socialism)

Decent preference: a single-issue party with a good objective but by definition too limited in their scope to encompass the fullness of parliamentary business.

Legalise Cannabis Victoria (single issue: blaze it)

Middling to decent: a party with a generally positive overall platform but some significant reservations

Animal Justice Party (animal rights)

Transport Matters Party (centre-left taxi industry front)

Weak to middling preference: problematic, but not as bad as what is below

Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party (tough-on-crime centrism)

New Democrats (centre-right)

Weak or no preference: a party with more negatives than positives. In the Legislative Assembly, you must number all squares, and these parties should receive as bad a preference as possible. In the Legislative Council, you should vote below the line and either give this party a poor preference or let your vote exhaust before reaching it. I recommend preferencing fully to maximise the power of your vote, but you may wish to stop rather than express preferences between varying gradations of undesirability.

Angry Victorians Party (covid conspiracists)

Australia One (unregistered covid conspiracists endorsing six independents)

Companions and Pets Party (animal breeding and racing industry front)

Democratic Labour Party (Catholic conservatism)

Family First Victoria (Protestant extreme right)

Freedom Party of Victoria (covid conspiracists)

Health Australia Party (anti-vaxxers who were anti-vax before covid made it the trendy thing for conspiracists)

Independent candidates for the Legislative Council

Liberal Democratic Party (far-right libertarians)

Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews (personal grudge and/or preference-harvesting front)

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (anti-environmentalist gun nuts)

Sustainable Australia—Stop Overdevelopment/Corruption (anti-immigration NIMBYs)

United Australia Party (covid grievance-mongers floating in a policy-free zone)

Not categorised: general entry for a spectrum of candidates

Independent candidates in the Legislative Assembly

7 notes · View notes

jamietijerina · 1 year

Photo

I’m running for re-election as an Assembly District Delegate in District 52 and would be honored to have your vote! Vote to re-elect Jamie Tijerina for AD52 Delegate! Every 2 years, 14 representatives are elected for each district in CA. This year, the election will be fully VOTE BY MAIL due to the pandemic. To get a ballot and vote by mail, you need to register by December 31, 2022 by visiting http://www.ademelections.com. If you voted in the midterms, you still need to register again at the http://www.ademelections.com website. You can also call (916)-442-5707 if you prefer registering by phone. The ADEM elections are a CA State Party election. It’s a different system from the one used to give you your presidential ballot. If you don’t register at http://www.ademelections.com, the party won’t know to send you your ADEM election ballot. Good thing is that it takes less than 2 minutes to sign up! If you live in a different CA district, please register to vote for the delegates running in your area. You must be a Democrat. It takes less than 2 minutes to register, do it now to make sure you can cast your votes for 14 candidates! After you register at http://www.ademelections.com, you’ll get a ballot in the mail. The ballot will include postage paid by the CA Democratic Party can complete and mail it back free. If you don’t live in AD52, but live anywhere in the state of California, I urge you to register so you can vote for delegates in your local district. If you miss the vote by mail deadline, you can still register to vote in-person until January 21, 2023. Register for in-person voting in AD52 by clicking HERE: Plaza de la Raza Assembly District 52 - Saturday January 21, 10am-2pm Valley Blvd. and Mission Rd 3540 N Mission Rd Los Angeles, California 90031, United States Registering to vote in this critical hyper-local election is important and will enhance your say in the direction of the party over the years to come. Assembly District Delegates are CA Democratic Party representatives who have a tangible say in the direction of the CA Democratic Party, voting on things like local candidate endorsements, party leadership, and the overall platform for the party. We also do Democratic party outreach and advocacy. —–

Jamie’s Official Candidate Statement

My name is Jamie Tijerina. I’m a scientific researcher, a Specialist in Cytometry, and hold an MBA. I am a Latina-Middle Eastern-American millennial raised in the Northeast and Eastside communities of Highland Park, Garvanza & Lincoln Heights.

As a delegate in in AD52, I’ve focused on outreach to people who were less politically engaged, and focused on issues that are often ignored.

I’m running in 2023 to continue the work I’m doing to address serious labor issues that have been brought up by the academic workers on strike in the UC system (UAW). These issues go beyond the UC system. They affect AD52 because there is a biotech corridor planned and we are home to colleges like Cal State LA, recognized by the National Science Foundation for graduating the largest number of Latino students who go on to get PhDs in STEM.

The issues of livable wages and working conditions in research are tied to state & federal policy. As delegates we can make a difference. I plan to write resolutions and organize to ensure that our party takes positions on these issues and works toward livable wages and working conditions for academic workers statewide who have gone unheard for so long.

As a Latina-Middle Eastern-American, I was the only AD52 Delegate who was a member of the Arab American Caucus, supporting peace in the Middle East. I support Armenia in the conflict with Azerbaijan, and have advocated to solve issues with representation such as bringing attention to the lack of a MENA (Middle Eastern-North African) category on the Census. I was a member of the Chicano Latino Caucus and continued my work in NELA as a Budget Advocate for Region 8 fighting historic and systemic disinvestment, authoring a citywide document to bring attention to the failed policy of redlining that has led to crises we see today. As President of the Highland Park Heritage Trust, I’ve worked toward fighting the erasure of culture, history, and environmental resources.

I have a proven track record of advocacy for our AD52 neighborhoods on many issues including:

*Government Transparency *Student Loan Forgiveness & Reform *Fair Wages *Immigrant Rights *Housing & Environmental Justice *STEM Advocacy *Universal Basic Income *Campaign Finance Reform

I want to continue this advocacy. I humbly ask for your vote to represent you as one of your AD52 Delegates. Vote Jamie Tijerina for AD52 Delegate.

—– jamietijerina.com is operated, coded with the assistance of a publicly available free template, and paid for by Jamie. This is my personal website that I use at all times throughout the year and I added this page for the convenience of anyone who would like to learn more about ADEM elections and my 2023 campaign for re-election to my seat in AD52. Thanks for visiting.

#california politics #democrats #adem

0 notes

if-you-fan-a-fire · 2 years

Photo

Prisoners have the right to vote “Scholars use the term carceral citizens to refer to people who are criminalized and face significant constraints to participating fully in social, economic and political life.

Issues that impact the general public are also issues that impact imprisoned people. As critical public policy and criminology scholars active in community work, we spoke with current and formerly imprisoned people to hear about how they experienced voting in Ontario’s prisons.

Interviewees told us the majority of imprisoned people return to their communities, so it is important for them to have a democratic voice and stake in the communities they return to.

One recently released federally imprisoned person, and former chair of the inmate committee at Joyceville Institution, Kevin Belanger, shared his thoughts about why being allowed to vote is so crucial:

“I think it’s very important for us to vote … it allows guys to feel, even a little bit, a part of society, to know that their vote counts. But we really are voting with a disadvantage because we are not educated on what is going on. This is because of many parties not realizing that if they want our vote, they need to send us something so we know their positions, because if not, we’re going to be guessing.”

Another recently released federally imprisoned person, James Ruston, shared his perspective about political engagement as a prisoner:

“As a long-term prisoner, I learned to regret the lack of mindful concern for the community in my past choices. In my exile, I came to believe in the value of social relationships that inspires an inclusive respect for a nurturing and collaborative social contract. Being supported to vote, to make decisions about my community, endears me to that community.”

Barriers to voting Interviewees told us there are a variety of legislative, bureaucratic and procedural issues that act as roadblocks to voting inside Ontario prisons.

Ruston said that insufficient communication from correctional facilities can prevent prisoners from even knowing how to register in the first place. Belanger said that barriers to literacy can also prevent some imprisoned people from accessing this important information.

When an election is called, a prison staff member is appointed as an election liaison. They are responsible for advertising the election and registering voters. Imprisoned people must fill out their ballots in the presence of the liaison officer, and are not permitted privacy when voting.

The final deadline for registration occurs before the deadline for the general public. Those who do not register in time are barred from voting. This happened to several women in a Kitchener correctional institution in 2018 when their elections liaison officer failed to hand out voter registration forms in time.

Those who do register still might not get to cast their votes. Seventy-seven per cent of people in provincial prisons are in remand, meaning they have not been sentenced and may be imprisoned for a short amount of time. Prisoners who have registered to vote inside prisons, but are released before the voting date, are not permitted to vote by the regular process.

In the 2015 Canadian federal election there was a 50.5 per cent turnout of imprisoned voters compared to 68 per cent in the public — and 7.5 per cent of votes from imprisoned people were rejected. By comparison, only 0.7 per cent were rejected overall in Canada.

Further, if there are any delays and special ballots do not arrive to be processed in time, they will not be counted, as happened with 205,000 ballots in the 2022 election.

Pandemic-specific barriers Pandemic restrictions have resulted in a number of unique enfranchisement barriers. Since there are still active COVID-19 cases and restrictions at Ontario prisons, these barriers are ongoing.

Under the Shaping the New Normal Risk Management Framework (available through freedom of information), items are not to be shared between imprisoned people during times of COVID-19 risk.

In addition, non-profits that support prospective voters have sometimes been barred from doing their work inside prisons. This was the case in Saskatchewan for Elizabeth Fry Society staff, who were unable to enter prisons to help imprisoned people register to vote in 2020.

Though Elections Canada states prisoners cannot be denied an opportunity to vote, even for security reasons, some prisoners at the Atlantic Institution were prevented from voting in the 2019 federal election due to an institutional lockdown.

Recommendations The majority of people in prison do not need to be there. During parts of the pandemic, the number of people imprisoned in Ontario decreased from 8,113 to 6,405.

But the number of imprisoned people in provincial jails has risen since. In addition to decreasing the number of people imprisoned, we need to do better ahead of the fast approaching municipal elections in October.

Barriers to voting in municipal elections are even worse. Ontario’s Municipal Elections Act explicitly prohibits imprisoned people from voting. This act must be amended to allow imprisoned people to vote in October.

We call on respective governments to ensure that the relevant election agencies run the vote in prisons effectively. Elections Ontario must ensure imprisoned people are provided information on their candidates, registration assistance and facilitation by Elections Ontario employees on voting day. Voting is a right; everyone should have equitable access to it.”

- Linda Mussell and Jessica Evans, “Imprisoned citizens face barriers to voting in Ontario.” The Conversation. June 2, 2022.

#2022 ontario provincial election #carceral citizens #voting #voting behind bars #ontario prisons #canadian prison system #correctional service of canada #words from the inside #coronavirus pandemic #coronapolitics #lockdown #crime and punishment in canada #research quote

0 notes

kirkwallhellmouth · 2 years

Text

Voting is ONE way to attempt change.

In the upcoming election in my county, there are thirty-eight positions to be voted on, being a combo of federal, state, and local positions.

Of those positions, thirty-one consist of unopposed Republicans. This is typical in Alabama, though the ratio likely depends on what county, but as a whole state, this is about how things go—many years the US House and Senate seats have been unopposed incumbent Republicans.

You cannot “vote them all out” or “vote blue, no matter who” when there is no one else fucking running.

Also, in states like Alabama, there exists the occasional risk of managing by some seeming miracle to vote in a lackluster Democrat only for the bastard to change parties as soon as he’s secured his spot. Because to survive as a Democrat in Alabama, you either have to be an absolute milquetoast centrist or have a backbone of steel and a willingness to deal with potentially your entire life dragged through the mud and stuck under a circus-mirror of a microscope (Republicans regularly attempt to obliterate their own during primary season; Dems rarely even bother advertising until after the primary because they do not have the same resources).

I fully expect the gubernatorial election to get very, very ugly. Because for the first time, Alabama has a Black woman candidate on the ballot for governor—for the first time, both Democrats in the primary runoff were Black women. Yolanda Flowers has an uphill battle ahead of her against incumbent Kay “Governor Memaw” Ivey (yes, the state has a nickname for her), a white woman who once did Black face while at university.

Voting alone will not save anyone. The courts cannot be trusted to do so either—very clearly, at this point.

I am not claiming to have answers. I am only venting the frustrations of someone who is tired of seeing voting upheld as the Primary Way to change things.

#us politics #alabama politics #the system is fucked because it was designed to be that way

0 notes

myimaginarywonderland · 3 years

Text

So, for anyone wondering what is happening with Germany, here's a quick summary.

Yesterday we had to elect a new chancellor since Angela Merkel has been in that position for 16 years.

Now, the German parliament might be different than some other countries. We basically have 6 big parties there but from those 2 or three always form a Koalition. Koalitionen are formed so that a chancellor can be elected since we only vote for a party who chooses someone of them as that person. Since a party never has a big enough majority to elect them, multiple parties go together to make that majority.

However, there were basically only three parties who were likely to form a Koalition like this. One party was the CDU, a Christian conservative party that has basically been in a Koalition for as long as I can remember. They were also the party Angela Merkel is from. To replace her they choose Armin Lachet. Now, he is one of the worst choices they could have done because he a.) failed to fold his ballot correctly so that everyone could see who he has voted for which technically is seen as voting fraud since he might influence others with his choice but we just looked over that. B.) He literally can't form a sentence that makes sense or not contradict himself. There have been multiple talks or interviews where he downright was rude and interrupted others and denied statements that he had mad prior to this year.

Another party was the SPD, a social democratic union who wanted to elect Olaf Scholz. Now, he was involved in a financial scandal but other than that, he also just seemed a bit disrespectful or lacking in manners.

The third one was the Green Party with Annalena Baerbock. This party is mainly focused on climate change, making a green future and making it digital. She has been the best choice out of these three since she had clear ambition and was always able to answer questions.

Now, we have three other main parties who are in our parliament.

We have the AfD which has been questioned many times for being extremely right but they somehow always passed. They are homophobic, racist, anti maskers who basically were formed a few years ago and got popular because a lot of people where unhappy with Merkel during the immigrant crisis and voted this party out of protest.

We also have the FDP which claims to be liberal, yet is the textbook example of rich capitalist who just don't really do anything? Sure, they have never really been in power but they also just make empty promises.

And lastly we have Die Linke which is basically the party that is always seen as extremely left because they talk about topics like Gender etc. Many people don't vote for them as they see them as "too progressive."

Now, we have many other smaller parties but sadly none of them have really been able to reach 5% so they don't get a seat in our parliament. However there's great options here and much more fleshed out ones then the people 6 ones but since the main 6 are so established, especially with elder people, we won't see them change anytime soon.

So, yesterday's results showed that the SPD had the most votes overall, very closely followed by the CDU.

Now, both parties wouldn't have enough votes for a majority so they would need to get 1 or two other parties for a Koalition.

The SPD has made it quiet clear that their ideals are too different from the CDU to form one with them, so that leaves them out of the equation.

The AfD is disliked by every party and all have refused to cooperate with them which also means they aren't an option.

Die Linke sadly didn't reach the 5% mark. However they still got in since you need 3 Direktmandate or 5%. For anyone wondering what a Direktmandat is, this basically means that a Candidate of that party won in a certain region (they got the most votes and would be elected as a representative of that region.) Since they scored so low and barely got in, they also aren't an option which you guessed it only leaves the FDP and the Green party.

Now, before I continue I want to explain a bit more and what I touched upon in the last paragraph. When we have a federal election, you get two votes. The first is directly for a representative of a party from your region and doesn't influence the general vote as much. However this vote can secure certain people of parties a place in the parliament. The second vote is the important one since with that you vote for a party which will then elect the chancellor. So, there will be different vote results because there's two votes.

Going back to the original point, we know now that only 4 parties could form a Koalition. And it needs three of those to form a majority.

The options for that Koalition would be the SPD, the Green Party and the FDP (which is also known as Ampel Koalition which basically means traffic light Koalition since the SPD is red, the Green Party green and the FDP yellow.) This would not be ideal however it would be what the majority of votes represent and would want (this is more left than the last Koalition and would mean that the people who voted based on climate change would hopefully be listened to.) When forming a Koalition it is important to note that certain goals of the parties will be compromised since they all tend to aim for different things which means you should form a Koalition with the parties that least make you compromise your goals. This coalition would mean that Olaf Scholz becomes chancellor which would not be ideal but the Green and SPD would mean that climate politics might actually become serious and they also have more similarities. We would still have the FDP which sucks but at least two other better/good parties.

The second option would be the CDU, the Green Party and the FDP, also known as Jamaica Koalition because the CDU is black. Now, this is what a lot of us don't want because a.) We dislike the CDU and know they won't do shit and b.) We know the FDP also won't do shit. Furthermore this would mean that Armin Lachet becomes chancellor which is bad. Additionally, the Green Party would completely lose credibility since they only gained so many votes because of their climate ideals which would all not be meet should this happen (the CDU doesn't care and the FDP is capitalist, so they wouldn't do some of the major changes the Green Party wants to do.)

For now, we don't know who will be chancellor or which of these options will happen since the FDP and the Green Party want to talk with each other first and then approach the SPD/CDU. Since they are smaller but still know that there decision is the decided, they want to first look which party most likely fits them. However, Christian Lindner, who is the head of the FDP had already said that they think the SPD is too far left which is why a lot of us are worried. (I would also like to point out that that statement is complete bullshit but you probably already got that from my tone. The SPD is left but in reality probably more centre than anything else. The only actual left parties of the big 6 are Die Linke and Die Grünen in my eyes and even the last one is more leaning for me. Might also be because I am very heavily left but yeah.)

We are currently just waiting for the decision and disaster to happen.

#bundestagswahl #german politics

33 notes · View notes

torturedpoetemotions · 4 years

Text

The airwaves are already full of bad-faith trolls (and well-meaning dupes) talking about all the reasons Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are bad and shouldn’t get your vote. I’m not bothering with the bad-faith trolls.

And you know what? I’m not arguing with the reasons of the well-meaning dupes, either. Because if I’m perfectly honest, I agree with most of those reasons. I didn’t vote for Biden or Harris in the primaries and would never have. They were not my first OR second choices. So I’m not about to tell you why you should be happy about the prospect of voting for them.

But here’s what I will do. I want to present you with your options for actions that you can take in the November election, assuming your ultimate goal is to prevent Trump from getting a second term and create the possibility for positive change in the U.S. You can do one of the following:

Submit a third-party or write-in ballot, voting your conscience in the hopes that the stars will align and your particular third party candidate will be the one to garner not only ALL third-party and independent votes, but also the entirety of the die-hard liberal centrist votes that comprise the Democratic party...and in the hopes that this unlikely popular vote win will be validated by the electoral college as well.

Submit a joke ballot, registering your disdain for the current system (that no one will actually report on) but affecting no actual change.

Submit a blank or “protest” ballot, registering your discontent with the government (that no one will actually report on) but affecting no actual change.

Choose not to vote at all, registering your discontent with no one and affecting no actual change.

Submit a ballot for Biden/Harris, put careful thought into your congressional, state, and local candidate choices, and then pledge to use all other methods at your disposal to both push the federal government for incremental positive change while working locally to affect larger positive change in your area. Then follow through.

Which of these--realistically and without requiring a complete, successful, and lasting overhaul of our political and cultural consciousness as a country in the next THREE MONTHS--has the best chance of getting you to your goal? Which is most likely to result in another four years of Donald Trump doing further damage to our political system and, far more importantly, to millions of people.

I get that this is not an inspiring ticket. I get it’s not what most of us would want to see, if we had our druthers. But I need you, I am begging you, to move past the idea that voting for Biden/Harris is some kind of selling out or giving up and begin to consider it, instead, as a form of harm reduction.

Harm reduction, in this case, means:

ending border separations

ending border concentration camps and the expansion of ICE’s powers and jurisdiction (preferably dismantling ICE and the DHS entirely)

ending the deployment of secret police into cities to quash peaceful protests and kidnap citizens from the streets

ending the conducting of foreign relations via the daily issuing of threats and misinformation on Twitter

stopping the hemorrhage of government funds into Trump’s private business interests and ever-growing golfing/vacation budget

ending government suppression and contradiction of scientific facts when it comes to managing threats to our public health

engaging the federal government in meaningful actions to prevent the spread of COVID-19

re-engaging with global efforts to stymie climate change

restoring our government’s credibility and reputation with our allies

These are not the only things that need fixing, not by a long shot. But they do need fixing, and they can only be fixed by a change in our national leadership. Voting is not activism and should not be your only action. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important. So please, take the time and effort to vote, and put some real thought into the actual results your choice will have.

#joe biden #kamala harris #us elections 2020 #us politics #lizawords #25notes

45 notes · View notes

mongoose232323 · 3 years

Text

So #MoscowMitch McConnell Just Told Large

Corporations To Just STFU And Stop Trying

To Commit Economic Blackmail But Interjecting

Themselves Into The “Right To Vote” Issue Or

He’ll Blackmail Them By Taking Away Their

Big Tax Cuts.

Basically He Said Just “Give Us The Money And

Shut The Hell Up Beaches!!”

Mitch McConnell Threatens Businesses

Of 'Serious Consequences' After Many

Condemn Georgia's Restrictive Voting Law

From The Article

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned big businesses they would face "serious consequences" after accusing them of employing "economic blackmail" in attempts to influence voting laws as the backlash over Georgia's elections law that imposes voting restrictions intensifies.

"From election law to environmentalism to radical social agendas to the Second Amendment, parts of the private sector keep dabbling in behaving like a woke parallel government," the Kentucky Republican said in a statement Monday. "Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order."

"Businesses must not use economic blackmail to spread disinformation and push bad ideas that citizens reject at the ballot box," he added.

His statement comes after Major League Baseball's decision to no longer host the All-Star Game in Atlanta, potentially sparking other boycotts of the state, and several businesses including Delta and Coca-Cola condemned the new Georgia elections law following public pressure.

The statements by McConnell are particularly notable not only because he has long championed the involvement of corporate money in politics -- a past position he attempted to square with new remarks on Tuesday -- but because the Republican Party traditionally has been more sympathetic to big business.

During a news conference in Louisville, Kentucky, Tuesday, McConnell reiterated his warning to corporate America to "stay out of politics" and to not be "intimidated by the left," blasting the MLB and other corporations' decision to "jump into the middle of a highly controversial issue" as "stupid."

McConnell has previously supported businesses involvement in politics, including backing the US Supreme Court's 2010 decision in the Citizens United case, which allowed big businesses more power to spend freely in federal elections. In 2014, he spoke out against Democrats' attempts to allow Congress to set limits on corporate campaign spending in federal elections, calling it a threat to basic speech rights.

Asked about how he squares his support of Citizens United with his call for corporations to stay out of politics in the debate over election laws, McConnell said, "They have a right to participate in the political process. They do."

"But selecting how you do that in a way that doesn't completely alienate an awful lot of people who depend on your products strikes me as not very smart," he said, adding earlier, "Republicans drink Coca-Cola too, and we fly, and we like baseball."

In his statement Monday, McConnell accused Democrats of lying about the Georgia law hastily passed by state Republicans and signed into law last month by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

He disputed the claim from President Joe Biden and others that the Georgia voting law is reminiscent or worse than Jim Crow-era laws, arguing that "nobody really thinks this current dispute comes anywhere near the horrific racist brutality of segregation."

"Our private sector must stop taking cues from the Outrage-Industrial Complex. Americans do not need or want big business to amplify disinformation or react to every manufactured controversy with frantic left-wing signaling," McConnell said in his statement, adding that "it's jaw-dropping to see powerful American institutions not just permit themselves to be bullied, but join in the bullying themselves."

McConnell also slammed congressional Democrats' sweeping elections legislation, the "For the People Act," as a "power grab" of all 50 states' election laws and the Federal Election Commission that "is impossible to defend, so the left wants to deflect." The measure, which does not have enough votes in the US Senate to pass, would override many of the restrictive provisions in the new Georgia law and others like it.

The Georgia law imposes voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, allows state officials to take over local elections boards, limits the use of ballot drop boxes and makes it a crime to give or offer voters food and drink as they wait in line to vote.

Republican advocates for the law argue that it makes Georgia's elections more secure and that it expands access to voting -- pointing to the law's requirement for each county to have a minimum of one drop box for absentee ballots and expansion of early voting in many counties.

The law, however, dramatically reduces some large counties' number of drop boxes, significantly shortens both the overall length of runoff campaigns and the early voting period for runoff elections and shortens the duration of the absentee voting period.

MLB's move to relocate the All-Star Game, potentially costing Georgia $100 million in lost economic impact, was the first in response to the state election law. Atlanta Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on CNN Saturday predicted that it would be the "first of many boycotts of our state to come."

During a news conference Saturday, Kemp vehemently defended the Georgia elections law and said he would not waver or be swayed if Georgia were to lose more events, thus costing the state more business and tourism dollars.

He accused MLB of putting Democrats' wishes "ahead of the economic well-being of hard-working Georgians who were counting on the All-Star Game for a paycheck."

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, like other Democrats, said he respected MLB's decision, but hoped businesses would protest the law not by boycotting the state, but "by coming here and fighting voter suppression head on."

After the law was passed, some of the nation's most prominent Black business leaders called out their Fortune 500 peers for their muted response to new laws that restrict voting across the country, and challenged them to be more forceful in condemning what they said were deliberate attempts by Republicans to limit the number of Black Americans casting ballots in key states.

Last week, American Airlines and Dell Technologies spoke out against a Texas elections bill that would place new restrictions on the voting process, particularly for those living in densely populated counties.

At an event in his home state Monday, McConnell said he "found it completely discouraging to find a bunch of corporate CEOs getting in the middle of politics."

"My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics," he added.

During his Tuesday event in Louisville, McConnell said he supports CEOs contributing to politicians.

"That's fine. It's legal, it's appropriate. I support that. I'm talking about taking a position on a highly incendiary issue like this and punishing a community or a state because you don't like a particular law they passed? I just think it's stupid," he said.

Cliff Albright, the co-founder of voting rights group Black Voters Matter Fund, accused McConnell of "hypocrisy."

"Mitch McConnell and others have demonstrated their hypocrisy on this issue, whether it's the issue of not wanting businesses to be involved in politics -- which is a first for Mitch McConnell -- or whether this is an issue of saying, they don't like 'canceling' stuff, although they are on a regular basis, trying to cancel our voting rights," Albright told reporters during a virtual news conference Tuesday.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/04/06/politics/mcconnell-businesses-georgia-elections-law/index.html

1 note · View note

spraxinoscope · 4 years

Text

Oct. 14: Why I still think Trump has a ~75% chance of winning

Epistemic status: Who even am I? You shouldn’t listen to me. But see the final section for details.

By ‘winning,’ I mean still being president on 1/22/21, and there being no serious actionable plan to get him out.

2500 words of paranoia and bad math after the cut.

Polling factors:

Today, 538 gives Trump a 13% chance of an EC victory, so let’s use that as a starting point. As Nate Silver will tell you every chance he gets, 2016 presidential polls were only off by a few percentage points, and that’s probably still true. But a similar (or even smaller) systematic polling error would be enough to flip some battlegrounds, bumping Trump up to something like 25-30%. Have pollsters managed to correct for the systemic errors of 2016? There’s true meaningful debate around this, but the balance of evidence seems to be that the pollsters never figured out what caused the errors, and so were not able to fix them.

Note that Trump’s decline in the polls is driven by voters who approved of the president until very recently. Consider the sort of person who still had a favorable of opinion of Trump right up until fall 2020. Generally, dips in Trump’s favorability ratings seem to have been due to conservative infighting. Often, when a person stops supporting Trump, it’s because he is being insufficiently racist. These constituents’ loyalty may be wavering, but they are not likely to switch sides.

As a complete asspull hypothesis, I’d guess that some people who tell pollsters they no longer support Trump are trying to pressure him into adopting more hardline policy and will never vote for a Democrat.

I would posit that the 13% number is the absolute hard minimum chance of Trump winning an EC victory, fair and square. Error bars push that number higher. Taking average polling data over time also pushes that number higher, since it’s almost never been this low.

Dysfunction factors:

So, those are the odds for a free and fair election. What are the odds of the election being free and fair? I’m glad you asked! Zero.

Election integrity has taken major hits recently. Citizens United turned elections into ad campaigns. Shelby County v. Holder made laws against discriminatory election practices unenforceable. The Hatch Act is also not being enforced. The numerous alleged campaign finance law violations brought against the 2016 Trump campaign all amounted to nothing (except jail time, and subsequent pardons, for some functionaries).

Fine, let’s say elections can never be perfectly fair, but even if we grade on a curve and request that elections be as fair as possible, we’re still not doing great, and it’s been getting worse since 2010.

Hey, remember all those jokes from like 2004 onwards about how unreliable and insecure electronic voting machines are? That shit never got fixed. Remember the story from this week about some 90,000 New Yorkers getting the wrong mail-in ballots?

Remember when the Russians got into the Illinois voter database in 2016? The institutions that were supposed to defend against that kind of thing have since been gutted or captured by republicans.

Hey, remember when the Iowa primary was so dysfunctional that they ended the vote count without ever producing a final tally or figuring out what the problems were?

Election integrity groups have been sounding the alarm continuously on this one. Electoral commissions and underfunded, understaffed, and undertrained in use of modern systems. This is a huge problem all by itself, and it gets worse when applied to the next issue.

Malfeasance factors:

In my American public school civics education, I learned that Richard Nixon was a crook who paid some burglars to spy on the democrats, because of how crooked he was. I did not learn that ratfucking is bog-standard procedure, in every election, all over the world. I had to learn that on my own, later. Generally speaking, the election integrity talking heads take the opinion that most countries routinely interfere in the elections of most countries, and the Ds and the Rs have never not been spying on each other. The extraordinary thing about Watergate was that Republican congressmen were weirdly amenable to allowing an investigation into one of their own, a mistake they have never since repeated.

Some amount of ratfucking is to be expected. The nation has weathered this factor before. But, like electoral competence, this may be getting worse over time. State governments have very wide purview when it comes to voting procedure, and Republican states are wasting no time in finding creative new ways to toss out ballots. The most common reason for a mail-in ballot to be rejected is that the signature on the envelope doesn’t match the voter’s signature on file. There is no official criteria or standard practice for how close a signature has to be to count as a match. Signatures are not useful security for anything, anyway.

Georgia’s 2018 election was arguably illegitimate. Irregularities included voting sites closed at the last minute for unclear reasons and fraudulent ballot collectors stealing ballots. Calls for recounts all failed. Other southern states are on thin ice. All the big Texan cities are getting one ballot drop box each, in case you thought Texas would be allowed to turn blue.

Red states already have various laws permitting them to throw out ballots that arrive after the election. Sabotaging the post office or throwing out all uncounted ballots soon after the election, as most sitting Republicans in congress and governors have already gone on record to suggest may be necessary, is a violation of the letter but not the spirit of existing restrictive voting laws.

The big thing, of course, is that the right wing media landscape has been fully saturated with the idea that Democrats will engage in conspiracies to steal the election, and action will need to be taken to thwart these plots. To that end, Republicans at all levels of government, including at the DOJ, have repeatedly signaled willingness to take unprecedented measures to stamp out fraud. These include numerous voter purge plans, new criteria for dismissing ballots, and sending the DHS or other law enforcement agencies to take custody of ballots.

In addition, the MAGAs are organizing ‘poll watcher’ groups to secure urban voting sites. Even if these groups fully obey the law and do not engage in anything that could legally be termed intimidation or harassment, that’s still a lot of leeway. Of course, over the last couple years, we’ve all learned that right wing protesters can sometimes bend or break the law and get away with it, and sometimes receive cooperation from the police. This goes triple for blue cities in red states, which is exactly what we’re worried about.

Malfeasance in general is made easier by the unprecedented levels of geographically-sorted voting blocs. It is trivially easy to tell whether a district will go hard for Trump or hard for Biden. So, whether interference is coming from law enforcement officers, protesters, or semi-sanctioned militias, they will know which lines to intimidate and which boxes to steal.

Russiagate set a clear precedent: It doesn’t matter if it’s blatant, outrageous, or corrupt. Republicans do not want to defect, and right wing media will keep the base in line. Democrats will be outraged, and then fold. There are no remaining nonpartisan referees to appeal to.

Pundits like to imagine that sitting Republicans in congress will not blatantly steal an election for fear that it will lead to them getting voted out of office, to which I would suggest that the obvious answer is the correct one: Voted out how?

Democrats shooting themselves in the goddamn foot factors:

Trump likes to say that the election will be illegitimate if he loses. Mainstream news outlets like to push back against this. The NYT, for instance, has been loudly insistent that the election is totally secure all year.

It’s not, and they’re morons. No experts agree with them on this. Trump fabricating a bunch of fictional threats does not invalidate the numerous actual threats.

Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer would not be anyone’s first pick for the task of contesting an election, but that’s who we got.

Possible October surprises:

Hey, what do you guys think this year’s James Comey is going to be? The only real prediction I have is that something very destabilizing happens in the week before the election, but the particulars could be anything. Some fun possibilities:

DNC hacked again

Federally sanctioned repeat of the 1985 MOVE bombing

Hunter Biden cocaine sex tape

Anything that startles people, destabilizes institutions, and distracts from other issues is a viable possibility.

Scenarios after a contested election:

There are plenty of bluechecks and think tanks who have already gamed this out in detail. You don’t have to take my word for any of this part. The choices are:

There are rival sets of state electors, and Congress decides which ones count. Result: McConnell and Barr play Calvinball until they get the outcome they like, Trump remains in office.

The supreme court decides. Result: Trump remains in office.

The militias decide. Result: Trump remains in office, plus the Handmaid’s Tale happens.

There’s an orange revolution. After months of protracted struggle, Trump is ousted from office. However, in the meantime, ~8 states have seceded and Russia has annexed Alaska. In the ensuing chaos, John McAfee claims the presidency.

Probability estimates:

Trump’s odds of a ‘legitimate’ EC victory are only at 13% as of this moment, but the running average is higher, with occasional spikes above 30%. Polling errors add a little extra. Let’s say 25%.

Trump’s odds of losing the EC vote, but clawing it back through malfeasance until enough Republicans agree that he’s won, are very low in the case of a Biden landslide. But a landslide is unlikely, and as the results are closer, the probability of Republicans declaring themselves winners approach one. Note that, at least from mainstream news coverage, this won’t look like the power grab that many democrats fear. It will look like a lot of confusion and disarray, with an unclear EC count, followed by a cascade of authorities and sources declaring Trump the winner and securing the acceptance from government bodies one at a time. For the most likely election outcomes in which Trump doesn’t win straight up, I’d say a 30% chance Trump remains in office.

The election being a total dysfunctional disaster, with multiple states unable to certify results, is at least 5%. At least! In such a case, I’d give Trump an 80% chance of remaining in office.

In general, I believe that the only way that Biden gets to be president is if everything basically holds together and works like it’s supposed to, and also Trump legitimately loses the EC. There is one way for everything to go right. There are many ways it can go wrong.

The NYT has fixated on the possibility that Trump clearly loses, but refuses to leave office anyway. I’d give this no more than a 1% chance of happening. But I think there’s a major blind spot around the possibility that we have no idea who won, because the whole thing is obfuscated by multiple layers of confusion and malfeasance. What tools to democrats have for investigating malfeasance? What tools do they have for persuading people that they won when the results are in question? What tools to they have for enforcing election laws that they didn’t have in 2017?

I think they have approximately one asset, and it’s a populace that’s willing to rise up in defense of their rights. But the DNC spent the last five-ish years antagonizing and alienating anyone left of Dianne Feinstein, so, the efficacy of a potential national mobilization has been severely compromised.

Any protracted contested election scenario either favors Trump remaining in power, or the eventual balkanization of the US. One reason there are no good scenarios for a contested election is that mainstream media has been so adamant that the election is secure. When the Democrats are trying to contest results, they will be struggling against their own narrative.

Then, I add a 10% chance that a last minute October surprise tips the race to Trump. It happened last time, and Comey wasn’t even trying; now that every government office is staffed with Trump appointees who are trying, they have a decent shot at this.

Summing up these odds, I arrive at Trump having around a 70% chance.

Then, I add another 5%, because I bet there’s things I haven’t thought of, and every year there’s some small chance that the far right will go all in on a race war, and this would be a good opportunity for them.

I will take actual bets on these odds.

My biases:

Numerous.

I grew up in a red community in a red state and was bullied a lot by kids who grew up to be far-right; I have a chip on my shoulder about this that precludes dispassionate analysis.

I believe the RNC has looked at US demographic trends and likely consequences of climate change, and has accepted a certain amount of fascistic will to power as a necessary evil. This is mere supposition on my part.

Despite the fact that I am more or less an asshole stoner burnout weeb, I remain convinced that the editorial staff at the NYT and several other major American journalistic institutions are somehow even dumber than I am. Although this may sound unlikely, this assumption has been invaluable for making predictions about the world.

I am a paranoid person.

My motivations for writing this:

Believe it or not, I’m only doing this to assuage anxiety. I’ve been convinced that Trump’s odds for remaining in office have been significantly higher than polls would suggest since 2018, and it’s maddening to see so few other people agree even though my core assumptions keep not going away.

If anyone read this far: I’m sorry, and I hope this motivates you to vote, if you weren’t going to already. If Trump remains in office, protests against him will benefit from having the mandate of a clear popular vote win, even if not an EC win, so I do believe that even people outside battleground states should vote.

I don’t know about Tumblr, but on Twitter, ‘no-hopers’ are characterized (fairly or not) as being defeatist Bernie bros who think that Trump should win the election to teach the DNC a lesson. I disavow this idea in the strongest possible terms. I think Biden can win and urgently should win. But every time I see someone talking about the Biden presidency as if it were a sure thing, it takes another year off my lifespan.

No matter what happens, we will be fighting racism and corruption for the rest of our lives, because that’s what ethical behavior entails in this world. But a Biden term vs. a second Trump term are in no way equivalent, and things can still get worse.

In conclusion, [that picture of the guy at the folding table with the ‘prove me wrong’ sign]

4 notes · View notes

mcrane21ahsgov · 4 years

Text

Political Party Action

Blog post 3:

Criminal Law Reform: Mass Incarceration: Drug Law, Bail, Sentencing, and Parole Reform

Republican:

PLATFORM: The Republican party believes in “law and order”. They do not believe in the decriminalization of marijuana, and they promote states following the feudal law. They believe in capital punishment in prisons, including the death penalty. They call on the rest of the country to make feudal courts a model for Americans, protecting victims and their families.

AGREE/DISAGREE: I do not agree with the republican party's stance on criminal law reform. I do not believe in capital punishment and I believe states should be able to make laws for each state and do not necessarily need to follow federal laws.

Democrat:

PLATFORM: Democrats believe that police brutality is a very pressing issue in America and that the high incarceration rate, specifically among BIPOC, is something that we as a country need to address. Democrats also believe that defunding the police and allocating funds to places like mental health professionals and rehab facilities will decrease the deaths and incarceration rates among BIPOC. Something the Democrats are very much for is the decriminalization of marijuana and eliminating the use of cash bail as it is very unfair to people in a hard financial situation. Overall the Democrats would like to lower the incarceration rates for everyone and help people stay out of jail.

QUOTES: “America is the land of the free, and yet more of our people are behind bars, per capita, than anywhere else in the world”

“It is past time to end the failed “War on Drugs,” which has imprisoned millions of Americans—disproportionately Black people and Latinos—and hasn’t been effective in reducing drug use. Democrats support policies that will reorient our public safety approach toward prevention, and away from over-policing—including by making evidence-based investments in jobs, housing, education, and the arts that will make our nation fairer, freer, and more prosperous.”

AGREE/DISAGREE: I very much agree with democrats on this topic. I believe being addicted to drugs or being poor is not a reason for you to be in jail. While this issue of mass incarceration has been growing for many many years and is not one person's fault, I believe that if Joe Biden is elected he and his team will do something about this and aid to help those in need in our criminal justice system.

Green:

PLATFORM: The green party wants to reduce the prison population, invest in rehabilitation, and end the failed war on drugs. Their priorities include efforts to prevent violent crime and address the legitimate needs of victims while addressing the socio-economic root causes of crime and practicing policies that prevent recidivism. Their solutions include treating substance abuse as a medical problem, not a criminal problem, free all non-violent incarcerated prisoners of the drug war, increase funding for rape and domestic violence prevention and education programs, and never house juvenile offenders with adults. Their stance on parolees involves, providing incarcerated individuals the right to vote by absentee ballot in the district of their domicile, and the right to vote during parole.

QUOTES: “The negative effects of imprisonment are far-reaching. Prisoners are isolated from their communities and often denied contact with the free world and the media. Access to educational and legal materials is in decline. Prison administrators wield total authority over their environments, diminishing procedural input from experts, and censoring employee complaints.”

“Greens also call attention to the fact that more than forty percent of those 2.3 million locked down come from America's black one-eighth.”

AGREE/DISAGREE: I mostly agree with the green party's stance on criminal justice. I agree that we should allow no violent criminals to vote, and the right to vote during parole. I also agree with releasing anyone in prison there for marijuana or nonviolent drug charges. I do not entirely know where I stand on a few issues they stand for like never housing juvenile offenders with adults.

Libertarian:

PLATFORM: The Libertarian party believes that the government is creating laws that only pertain to “life liberty and property”. They are not in favor of punitive damages, designed to punish the wrongdoer. They oppose the prosecutorial practice of “overcharging” in criminal prosecutions to avoid jury trials by intimidating defendants into accepting plea bargains.

QUOTE: “Therefore, we favor the repeal of all laws creating “crimes” without victims, such as gambling, the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes, and consensual transactions involving sexual services.”

AGREE/DISAGREE: I do not agree with most of the libertarian party's views, as I believe they do not better our criminal justice system. I believe most of their “rules' ' are one-sided and don't take into account others. I do agree with how they want to make marijuana legal and decriminalize sex workers.

Peace and Freedom:

PLATFORM: The peace and freedom party or otherwise known as the “feminist socialist party”, wants to repeal the Patriot Act, abolish the Department of Homeland Security, stop state-sponsored spying on and violence against progressive organizations, democratically-controlled police review boards with powers of subpoena and discipline, abolish the death penalty, repeal the Three Strikes law, stop trials and imprisonment of juveniles as adults, decriminalize victimless activities including drug use and consensual sex, legalize marijuana, end the "war on drugs," which is primarily directed against poor and working-class people, abolish all torture in prisons, uphold prisoner rights, among other things.

QUOTE: “The bosses use laws against victimless activities, "legal" and illegal expansion of police powers, military and paramilitary occupation of poor and minority communities, and diversion of resources to police and jails, to keep workers intimidated and dependent.”

AGREE/DISAGREE: I agree with some of their positions like the legalization of marijuana, the abolishment of torture in prisons, and abolish the death penalty. I do not agree with abolishing the Department of Homeland Security or stopping trials and imprisonment of juveniles as adults in certain cases.

REFLECT:

I agree with the democrat party the most, which is not surprising as i identify as a democrat. I believe the Democrat party will do the cost to reform prisons and they have a solid plan to deal with mass incarceration in America. If i was 18 I would vote for Joe Biden.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE:

My issues were somewhat addressed. They address the looting and rioting going on in cities and how police officers are not held to the same standards as citizens in terms of the law. During the debate it seemed like Biden carried a lot more about these issues, than Trump. As Biden does not condemn the violence going on in our cities he does not believe that we should send in the national guard like Trump does. Biden believes in de escalating the situation, not making it worse.

2 notes · View notes

omfgtrump · 4 years

Text

The Tale of Two Viruses: Part 13

First a little Clorox to clean the soul, then some UV light, for some insight, and now a dose of hydroxy (chloroquine) for some moxie.

The Don’s declaration during one of his Bozo the Clown press conferences, that he was doing hydroxy as a preventive, like some club drug, was another page in “How irresponsible and stupid can you be?”

But wait. Was this spontaneous admission that he was taking hydroxy true? Who knows. But hey, why not once again hype a drug already to have no known impact on the virus, but that does have serious side effects, particularly on morbidly obese individuals with heart issues? This is what he said about taking it:

“I’m not going to get hurt by it. It has been around for 40 years for malaria, for lupus, for other things. I take it. Front-line workers take it. A lot of doctors take it.”

If you are a doctor please raise your hand if you are doing hydroxy, as I want to report you to the licensing board so your license to practice medicine can be revoked. (Since that inane statement Lancet, a world renowned medical journal, published a study, which included 96,000 Covid-19 patients and found that not only was it ineffective, but people taking it had a higher mortality rate!)

Didn’t you just love Nancy Pelosi’s statement of concern that our president was “morbidly obese.” When asked about this comment she said: “I gave him a dose of his own medicine. He’s called women one thing or another over time, and I thought he thinks that passes off as humor in certain cultures,”

I know Nancy talks about praying for the president: she has high moral standards, but she is also very clever. Remember The Don’s State of the Union address when she mocked him while ostensibly praising him with applause. Well, maybe her taunting him about his health was a coy ploy to get him to double the dosage in defiance. Prod The Don to show her how the healthiest 73 year old in the world, was invincible.

youtube

Say it out loud, say it proud to your doped-up masses (remember the new polling saying that 45 percent of Protestants believe that The Don was God’s idea?) Liberate them and send them out with their guns to storm pharmacies so they can get some of that good stuff.

Even old reliable Fox News had to defy The Don and say “Um no, don’t do that.” Their disloyalty ticked him off and he pined for the good ole days of Roger Ailes and his sexual assault bandits. Even Fox has its limits regarding how many people it wants to die.

But let’s return to whether The Don is even taking the drug. Many doubt it. How disturbed do you have to be to say you are taking a drug that is dangerous, when you are not? And why? Because you were angry at Dr. Bright’s testimony to Congress regarding the drug’s lack of efficacy? It’s like a parent telling a two year old not to eat dog shit, but in a fit of obstinacy and defiance, he shovels it in to his mouth. That’ll show you, nervous Nancy.

During the press conference, The Don had to remind the nation that even though he was doing an infomercial about the drug, he didn’t own the company. But the government did buy 29 million doses.

Let’s move from the world of drugs that can kill you, to the no federal guideline plan to “Open up America” or from my point of view “Open Up the Veins of America.” In the parlance of harm reduction, you make sure people who are cutting themselves are doing it safely-not cutting too deep or near a vein. The maxim is: If you are going to cut because you are compelled to, be intentional and careful; the same strategy should be employed for opening up the country. The bottom line is that The Don doesn’t care how many people cut their veins and bleed out as long as they are out there showing the world that America is opening up.

All over the country essential workers at meat processing plants and other businesses, where density of workers is a serious problem, positive cases are erupting like wildfire. Lacking national guidelines puts workers lives in jeopardy.

Workers are pawns whose lives do not matter; the majority of these workers are black and brown. They are widgets in a system that wants to protect businesses against law suits when forcing workers to go to work and cancelling their unemployment if they refuse; the rich Republican business men are as much behind the reopening as the freedom fighters are. American greed and capitalism to its rotten core.

As far as interesting new twists in The Don’s version of “Survivor,” how about certain nursing homes refusing to release infection rates because it would be bad publicity for business. Um, but what happens if you have harbored fantasies of matricide for an abusive mother and have finally find a legal way to do the deed? I call foul.

Or how about The Don’s Secretary of Health Alexander Azar blaming black people for having pre-existing conditions that exacerbate the impact of the virus increasing death totals. The numbers are inflated because of those people. What nerve!

Or what of The Don’s threat to withhold federal money for the epidemic from Michigan and a few other states run by Democratic governors if they go ahead with plans to support democracy by ensuring mail-in ballots. Is that Impeachment Part two? Like with Ukraine, quid pro quo? You stop the mail-in initiative or else you get no money?

The Don is so freaked out about the election that he has finally decided to use the full weight of the government, not for testing, but to have his base remove mailboxes in Democratic states so no one will receive a ballot.

Speaking of opening up veins, in a nod to his base, The Don declared that governors had to let religious institutions open up. Praise the Lord. Sing out. Spray your spirit. Have a wafer. Have some wine, the blood of Christ.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/36rEEU2 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress #trump #politics #potus #capital hill #washington dc #white house #america #usa

1 note · View note

bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

🚨 BREAKING NEWS ALERT 🚨 🚨

John Conyers Jr., long-serving congressman who co-founded Congressional Black Caucus, dies at 90

By John Otis | Published October 27 at 4:36 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 27, 2019 |

John Conyers Jr., who became the longest-serving African American in Congress, co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus and helped create a national holiday in the name of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. but whose career rapidly crumbled at 88 when he resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, died Oct. 27 at his home in Detroit. He was 90.

His spokeswoman Holly Baird confirmed the death. Additional details were not immediately available.

A liberal Democrat from what is now Detroit’s 13th Congressional District, Mr. Conyers was first elected in 1964, becoming one of five African Americans in the House. His overwhelmingly Democratic constituents reelected him 26 times over a period spanning 10 presidents, from Lyndon B. Johnson to Donald Trump.

As the longest-serving member at the time of his resignation, Mr. Conyers earned the title “dean of the House of Representatives,” and this job security allowed him to promote progressive, sometimes controversial causes that won him a national following.

He co-sponsored the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited discrimination at the ballot box. His fierce criticism of the Vietnam War led to clashes with Johnson and landed him on Richard M. Nixon’s “enemies list” of political opponents.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Conyers voted against the USA Patriot Act because he feared it would roll back civil liberties. He later suggested that President George W. Bush should be impeached, saying he misled the country ahead of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Conyers’s twilight years were marred by allegations of sexual harassment. According to legal documents published by the online publication BuzzFeed in November 2017, several of his female staff members claimed that he had approached them to request sex and that he had engaged in unwanted touching and other impropriety.

One former staff member received a settlement of more than $27,000 from Mr. Conyers’s office after alleging in 2015 that he fired her for not accepting his sexual advances. The congressman denied any wrongdoing. But after the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation and numerous representatives called for him to step down in November 2017, Mr. Conyers step down from hs post as top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. The next month, he announced his resignation, after 52 years in office.

“My legacy can’t be compromised or diminished in any way by what we are going through now,” Mr. Conyers declared defiantly. “This too shall pass.”

Before the scandal, Mr. Conyers had been an inspiration to African Americans from Detroit to the Deep South and became, in effect, a member of Congress at large.

“In many districts around the country, black voters did not feel represented by their leaders so they would reach out to African American congressmen, like Conyers,” said Michael Fauntroy, who interned for Mr. Conyers in the early 1980s and is now an assistant professor of political science at Howard University.

Mr. Conyers, in turn, urged skeptical African Americans to get involved in politics. One of his early mottos was: “Register, vote, run for office. It’s power that counts.” To better harness that power and secure passage of legislation on poverty, racism, human rights, unfair tax policies and health care, Mr. Conyers and 12 other African American House members founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971.

Mr. Conyers strongly backed the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and was an early supporter of candidate Barack Obama, who was then a Democratic senator from Illinois. Yet Mr. Conyers also could be caustic of fellow Democrats to demonstrate that he was not blindly loyal to anyone.

In 1979, he described President Jimmy Carter as a “hopeless, demented, honest, well-intentioned nerd who will never get past his first administration.” Decades later, Mr. Conyers criticized Obama for making foreign policy too dependent on military muscle. His intention, Mr. Conyers said of Obama, was “to make him a better president.”

He presented himself as an emeritus member of the Washington establishment, and had participated in many high-profile political battles.

Mr. Conyers was the only member of the House Judiciary Committee to take part in impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon in 1974 for the Watergate bugging scandal and coverup, and against President Bill Clinton in 1998 for lying about his affair with White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

Mr. Conyers considered Nixon a criminal and helped draft articles of impeachment against the president before he resigned. However, he called the effort to impeach Clinton a Republican coup d’etat and “the most tragic event in my career.” He voted no when the House voted to impeach Clinton. Eight years later, Mr. Conyers became the first African American to chair the Judiciary Committee.

All along, Mr. Conyers was a master of the politics of symbolism. He hired civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who worked in his Detroit office for 20 years. He introduced numerous bills calling for reparations for the descendants of slaves, an issue that resonated among blacks but did not gain traction in Congress. More successful was his 15-year struggle to recognize King, the civil rights defender.

Four days after King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, and with the support of his widow, Coretta Scott King, Mr. Conyers proposed the first of many bills calling for a federal holiday in his honor.

The proposal met resistance from Republicans, notably Sen. Jesse Helms (N.C.), who accused King of Communist sympathies and complained that only one other holiday, Columbus Day, was named after a person.

Mr. Conyers kept pushing, millions of people signed petitions and entertainer Stevie Wonder pitched in with the hit single “Happy Birthday.” President Ronald Reagan in 1983 signed legislation setting aside the third Monday in January as Martin Luther King Jr. Day; the day was chosen because it was near King’s Jan. 15 birthday.

In a 2008 interview, Mr. Conyers called it “far and away the thing I am most proud of.”

But as the Detroit Free Press, his hometown paper, once described it, “For every brilliant move, there’s a dud.” Mr. Conyers was famous for missing votes on the House floor. Critics claimed that his effectiveness was dulled by growing arrogance and a refusal to compromise. He was prone to gaffes, prompting Time magazine political columnist Joe Klein to call him “foolishly incendiary.”

When Mr. Conyers ran for mayor of Detroit in 1989, challenging Democratic incumbent Coleman A. Young, he announced his bid by saying, “Move over, Big Daddy, I’m home.” Mr. Conyers finished third in the primary and then lost again in 1993.

Mr. Conyers could be a demanding boss. In addition to the allegations that he sexually harassed staff members, the House Ethics Committee investigated him for pressuring staff members to babysit for his children and to chauffeur him to private events in government vehicles.

After an investigation that lasted more than two years, the panel announced a deal in 2006 in which it dropped the inquiry in return for Mr. Conyers’s promise that he would not ask his staff members to do nonofficial work for him.

In 2009, Mr. Conyers’s wife, Monica Esters Conyers — a former campaign staff member 36 years his junior — was convicted of bribery while serving on the Detroit City Council and was sentenced to 37 months in prison.

John James Conyers Jr. was born in Detroit on May 16, 1929. He served in the Army Corps of Engineers during the Korean War. With the help of the G.I. Bill for veterans, he graduated from Detroit’s Wayne State University in 1957 and its law school in 1958.

His interest in public affairs was partly because of his father’s position as an international representative for the United Auto Workers and, for a time, Mr. Conyers worked as a labor lawyer. He also was a legislative assistant to Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), one of the few House members to serve even longer than Mr. Conyers.

In the early 1960s, local Democratic Party elders considered Mr. Conyers too young to pursue federal office. Despite their opposition, Mr. Conyers ran in the 1964 Democratic primary for what was then Detroit’s 1st Congressional District and won by a mere 45 votes. He then scored a landslide victory in the general election.

Mr. Conyers had two sons, John III and Carl. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

In office, Mr. Conyers went on to fend off challenges from candidates who hadn’t yet been born when he was first elected.

#african american history #african american #house of representatives #houseofrepresentatives #democratic party #democrats #democracy #us politics #politics #u.s. news #u.s. politics #in memoriam #rip #trending topics #top stories google news #top news

2 notes · View notes

theliberaltony · 5 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Last Monday, Federal Election Commission Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen announced his resignation, leaving the FEC effectively shut down, as only three positions on the six-seat committee are currently filled and the agency is legally required to have four commissioners to be fully operational.

What this means is that the agency responsible for both enforcing and advising on the nation’s campaign-finance laws is out of commission for the foreseeable future. And because we’re in the middle of a presidential election … things could get hairy fast.

The FEC has said that it will soldier on, continuing to process filings and other reports, and has called on President Trump to nominate new commissioners and for the Senate to confirm them quickly. But Congress is still in recess and Trump has yet to move forward with appointing new commissioners (remember, there are now three vacancies).

So here with us today to unpack what this could mean for the 2020 election (and campaign finance in general) is Dave Levinthal, editor and senior reporter at the Center for Public Integrity.

Welcome!

dave.levinthal: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.

sarahf: So, first of all, how did we get to the point that the FEC is basically not operational? And just how big of a deal is this for the FEC?

dave.levinthal: You can trace the situation back to 2008, the last time the FEC found itself in semi-shutdown mode because it lacked enough commissioners to legally conduct high-level business.

That year, the FEC went about six months without a quorum of commissioners, until the Senate and President Bush finally struck a deal to appoint new commissioners and get the agency back on track.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): And by “high-level business,” we mean things like opening investigations into possible campaign-finance violations?

dave.levinthal: High-level business would absolutely include investigating allegations of campaign-finance violations. As I wrote last week:

For now, the FEC can’t conduct meetings. It can’t slap political scofflaws with fines. It can’t make rules. It can’t conduct audits and approve them.

sarahf: So … what can the FEC do in its current situation?

dave.levinthal: The most notable thing the FEC will continue to do is carry out its transparency function. That means that political committees, political candidates and so on must still file their periodic campaign-finance disclosures with the FEC — documents that tell the public how much money they’ve raised, spent, etc. — and the FEC staff will still review and post that material.

But if some political committee screws this up, or for that matter acts in a manner that’s potentially in violation of federal campaign-finance laws, they more or less get a temporary pass because the FEC commissioners don’t have the power for now to do anything about it.

clare.malone: Cool. I was interested to learn that there’s been a lot of discord on the commission for a while. A Democrat and an independent on the committee were apparently irritated that certain investigations they deemed worthy weren’t being looked into because the Republican members kept things from moving forward. So in some ways, it sounds like this is the continuation of an already contentious situation at the FEC.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): And Dave, without enforcement mechanisms, there would be no punishment if a campaign does violate campaign-finance laws, right?

dave.levinthal: Generally speaking, the FEC’s law enforcement capabilities are on ice until the Senate approves at least one more nominee to serve on the FEC.

Right now, Trump has nominated one commissioner — a Texas attorney named Trey Trainor who helped stop an anti-Trump movement at the 2016 GOP convention — who he first nominated in September 2017. But the Senate has yet to give Trainor a confirmation hearing, much less going forth and confirming him.

clare.malone: So … why no hearing? I haven’t really seen an explanation for that in everything I’ve been reading.

dave.levinthal: A complex question! My best crack at it: There’s been a tradition — often adhered to, but not always — that the president would nominate FEC commissioners in pairs: one Republican, one Democrat.

But since President Trump has only offered one nominee, the Senate has chosen not to give that lone nominee a hearing. Could it? Sure. Did it need to? Not really — until now — because the FEC has had enough commissioners to at least conduct its high-level business.

nrakich: I find it interesting that, in an age where the Senate has gotten more comfortable with consolidating power within one party (eliminating filibusters for presidents’ nominees, blocking Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, etc.), that this norm of nominating one Democrat and one Republican simultaneously to the FEC has persisted.

dave.levinthal: Numbers at the FEC commission level have been going the wrong way since the beginning of the Trump presidency. In March 2017, Democratic Commissioner Ann Ravel resigned. And in February 2018, Republican Commissioner Lee Goodman also resigned. That means the FEC has been operating with a bare minimum four commissioners for 1.5 years.

President Trump could have nominated people filled those vacancies at any time, but he didn’t.

clare.malone: Whew.

Dave, champion explanation.

nrakich: Not to be too cynical, but in practical terms, how much of an effect does this shutdown really have? The FEC’s enforcement mechanisms are already pretty toothless and can take years to be resolved anyway.

For example, earlier this summer, now-Sen. Martha McSally was fined for campaign-finance violations she made in … 2014.

She has served two full terms in the House since then.

And despite breaking the rules by taking $319,000 in excess contributions, she was fined only $23,000. So there was no financial disincentive.

clare.malone: Right, and we didn’t learn about Trump’s campaign-finance violations until well after 2016, so there does seem to be a long lag time on this stuff!

dave.levinthal: I’ve heard from more than a few folks who’ve made that very point — that the FEC is already so dysfunctional that there won’t be much difference.

But even if the FEC deadlocks on investigations, even if it’s unable to make affirmative rulings on whether someone broke the law — and this is often the case — at minimum these situations receive a full public airing. For instance, if special interest groups or others vehemently disagree with an FEC ruling, they’ll sue the organization.

Think of all the big court cases that have “FEC” in their names, with Citizens United v. FEC the biggest among them. Without a functioning FEC, this process grinds to a halt, for all intents and purposes.

clare.malone: Got it. So the shutdown is really affecting the transparency of the FEC.

nrakich: I find it interesting, though, that voters don’t seem to care too much about campaign-finance violations. There’s some research suggesting that they don’t do as much as, say, sex scandals (probably for obvious reasons — they’re much drier!) to hurt candidates at the ballot box.

And I assume that most candidates will continue filing disclosure reports even if the FEC is shut down at the filing deadline. But what if they don’t? Would they really suffer any consequences with voters? I’m not sure they would, and that’s scary to me.

clare.malone: I think that’s in part because it’s so much a part of American political culture — and the culture at large — to see big money and politics as linked. There’s a perception that there’s a degree of unfettered spending going on.

dave.levinthal: While the FEC doesn’t have a quorum, if a political committee wanted to stop filing campaign-finance reports or otherwise violate campaign-finance rules, the FEC would not be in any position to do something about it.

Now, the FEC may very well pick up the matter once it’s in business again. But for now, political committees don’t really have anyone policing their activity in a way that would lead to some immediately penalty.

Said another way: The cops are at the station, they’re doing paperwork, but they’re not answering emergency calls.

sarahf: So given how critical the situation is, won’t one of Congress’s first orders of business be appointing the one commissioner Trump has already nominated to get the FEC back up and running?

dave.levinthal: Actually, Sarah, I don’t think there is a reason to think that Congress will make the FEC its first order of business. That’s not to say that the Senate won’t act quickly. But this is largely in the hands of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and, to a lesser extent, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Also, President Trump plays a major role here. He could theoretically nominate a full slate of new commissioners. He could clean house — float six new nominees. But presidents have largely missed opportunities to proactively replace FEC commissioners. The result: The remaining commissioners continued to serve in “holdover status” — serving even though their term has expired.

sarahf:

dave.levinthal: Bottom line? If Trump wanted to defy political convention — something he’s not exactly shy about doing — he could nominate six new commissioners of his choosing.

Legally, he can’t pack the committee with Republicans — no more than three commissioners can be of the same party — but he doesn’t have to nominate Democrats. He could theoretically nominate three Republicans and three … Libertarians. Or independents.

nrakich: Right. I feel like that would be well within character — but also, I feel like Trump doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the FEC.

sarahf: Or any president, it sounds like.

So if you’re Petersen, why resign now, knowing it would throw the FEC into chaos? Was his resignation a surprise?

dave.levinthal: No, Petersen almost left in late 2017, when Trump nominated him for a federal district judgeship. But Petersen flamed out of the judicial job when he was unable to answer a string of basic questions at his nomination hearing, and he withdrew himself from consideration shortly thereafter. His consolation prize? He continued to serve on the FEC.

At the time — December 2017 — CPI wrote that even then it seemed like the FEC had a strong possibility of losing its quorum of commissioners.

So it’s not as if this problem somehow snuck up on people.

nrakich: Yeah, I keep coming back to the fact that the public doesn’t seem to care about campaign finance.

It’s a big problem, IMO, since this is one of the main mechanisms by which we keep candidates accountable.

clare.malone: Well, very few people ever end up serving jail time for these violations, for instance. And unlike a sex scandal, a lot of people will be bored reading about campaign-finance violations.

dave.levinthal: But there are some money-in-politics sex scandals! (cough Stormy Daniels cough) And the FEC plays a role in those … or could.

nrakich: Right, and there are some types of campaign-finance scandals, like when politicians (for example, California Rep. Duncan Hunter) use campaign money for their personal benefit, that I think appeal to voters’ instinct against politicians abusing their office. But I think that’s different from, say, McSally’s case, where her only crime was accepting more than the legal limit in donations.

I fear Americans see the latter as just violations of arbitrary bureaucratic rules, rather than as an immoral act.

clare.malone: Well, not everyone sees breaking the law on certain things as a moral violation. The law doesn’t necessarily equate with morality! Lots of people might think the ends (big money) justify the means. They might not think that the moral universe extends to bureaucratic violations.

dave.levinthal: Great point, Clare, and yes — there are wide swings in opinion on whether the Stormy Daniels matter is a campaign law violation in the first place. (Michael Cohen certainly has some thoughts on this.)

clare.malone: What about for media watchdog organizations like CPI, and Open Secrets, though, Dave?

How will your work potentially change because of this?

dave.levinthal: Our job is to report about the role money plays in American politics. And while most people often don’t care about the legal or technical particulars of campaign-finance law, I’ve never gotten the sense that they don’t care about campaign money, especially in the context of their favorite candidates raising cash.

There are tens of thousands of people every day who make campaign contributions, millions every year. The sophistication of political fundraising has made it as easy as ever to support a candidate or cause. That’s why, for example, you see presidential candidates — President Trump and the gaggle of Democrats — raising huge amounts of money from small-dollar donors.

nrakich: Right — and voters do seem to care about the source of the money candidates raise.

For example, every Democratic presidential candidate has pledged not to accept money from corporate PACs, and most have pledged not to accept money from the fossil-fuel industry or federal lobbyists. They wouldn’t be doing that if they didn’t think voters cared about those issues.

clare.malone: Have we seen any irregularities from any of these Democratic candidates? Or from the Trump campaign (this time around)?

dave.levinthal: No, but the FEC also won’t be in a position to address some novel questions about how political candidates should act. For example, lots of cities have sent the Trump campaign bills for police and public safety costs — related to Trump campaign rallies — that they believe the campaign should pay. The Trump campaign doesn’t acknowledge these bills and doesn’t list them as debt, or even “disputed debt,” on campaign-finance reports. It’d be the FEC’s job, ostensibly, to figure this situation out. It can’t now.

clare.malone: Oh that’s really fascinating. NYC certainly saw a lot of controversy over the cost of Trump Tower security right after his election in 2016.

sarahf: So to wrap, it sounds like as long as the FEC can still perform some of its basic functions (like getting candidates to file their reports), we might not see Petersen’s replacement for a while, right? Where does this political fight head next?

clare.malone: I guess … nowhere? Dave is certainly the expert on this, but I don’t think there’s much political will to replace the FEC positions. And I say that mostly from the point of view of public pressure — there’s no incentive to change the course of behavior toward the FEC.

nrakich: As Dave said earlier, President Bush and Congress did finally reach a deal in 2008 the last time the FEC went into limbo because it didn’t have enough members. But I agree with Clare — I think this is so far down on the to-do list for both Trump and McConnell.

Maybe the FEC becomes a poor man’s Merrick Garland — no action until one party regains full control of government.

dave.levinthal: I talked last week with Rep. Derek Kilmer, a Democrat from Washington, about the broader issue of the FEC’s role in government and politics. And he made the case that the FEC needs to be fundamentally reformed and given greater independence and strength.

He even has a bill that would make the FEC a five-commissioner body, which would address the issue of deadlocked votes. The bill isn’t going anywhere, but his hope is that Democrats will win everything in November 2020, and come 2021, the FEC will be reformed.

So I’d say keep a close watch on Schumer in the Senate. If he wants to make a big stink about this, he could. But he, too, has been pretty quiet about the FEC lately. I will also be curious to see if this comes up during the presidential debate next week, since several candidates have been very anti-“Citizens United” and anti-BIG MONEY in their campaign rhetoric.

nrakich: Yeah, Steve Bullock presented campaign finance as his big issue when he launched his campaign. But in general, I’ve felt that the candidates have not done a good job sticking to what was supposed to be their signature issue (Eric Swalwell and guns, Jay Inslee and climate change, etc.).

dave.levinthal: Even though Bullock has made it his signature issue, he’s had his own little bumps in the road.

clare.malone: Gillibrand also made public funding a thing, if I recall. That did not catch on.

nrakich: That said, if the FEC is shut down for a full year or more — say, through the 2020 election — I bet there will be more of an appetite to reform it come 2021 if Democrats are in charge.

Just speculating, but I think an FEC shutdown might be the kind of thing that gets more noticeable with time.

dave.levinthal: An FEC that effectively sat out the 2020 election would be monumental. It’d take us back to a pre-Watergate era of campaign-finance regulation in certain ways. (The FEC was created after Watergate to help defend against campaign money problems, irregularities and potential lawlessness.)

In fact, I’d say it’d be the most incentive Congress has probably had since Watergate to fundamentally change the nation’s campaign-finance regulation regime.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

2 notes · View notes

alistairlane · 5 years

Text

The Humanitarian Charade

Ukraine was occupied for nearly all of the 20th century. The Holodomor occurred in Ukraine under Josef Stalin. Kiev was occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. An estimated one and a half million Jews were killed in Ukraine during the Holocaust. The Chernobyl Disaster occurred near the city of Pripyat on the 26th of April in 1986. The atrocities that occurred in the country have left its citizens with bitter ethnic rivalries and intransigent national loyalties.

On the 16th of July in 1990, The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. On the 24th of August in 1991, following the failed August Coup, the Supreme Council of Ukraine adopted The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine which established Ukraine as an independent state. During the 2004 presidential election in Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko suddenly became gravely ill and was reported by multiple toxicologists to have been poisoned by TCDD dioxin. On the 23rd of November in 2004, The Central Election Commission of Ukraine announced for Viktor Yanukovych to be the winner of the presidential election. The election results were challenged by Viktor Yushchenko and his supporters. This led to a series of nonviolent protests which later became known as the Orange Revolution. The Orange Revolution would result in another round of ballots. Viktor Yushchenko won 52 percent of the vote in December and became president on the 23rd of January in 2005. Viktor Yanukovych returned to power as Prime Minister in 2006 until the early elections of 2007 re-established Yulia Tymoshenko. Tymoshenko would lose the 2010 presidential election to Yanukoych who would remain power up until 2014. He has since been exiled to Russia and was convicted of high treason on the 24th of January in 2019.

The Euromaidan protests began on the night of the 21st of November in 2013. The protests began in response to The Supreme Council of Ukraine’s decision to suspend the signing of The Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement. Flags were flown over Independence Square in Kiev, protestors held mirrors up to the riot squads, and, a catapult was built when the protests turned to rioting. All of this was spectacularly covered by the associated press. What was noticeably omitted was the presence of the far-Right at the protests. The All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom” party began as a modernization of the Neo-Nazi organization, The Social-National Party of Ukraine. Oleh Tyahnybok, who co-founded SPNU, was expelled from the Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc in 2004 for giving a speech urging Ukrainians to fight against a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia". The party did abandon their Wolfsangel logo, but, Polish lawyer and political scientist, Tadeusz A. Olszański, alleges that the changes were largely cosmetic. In spite of having expelled a number of Neo-Nazi and other far-Right fringe groups from the party, Freedom would continue to maintain ties a number of Neo-Fascist organizations, and, factions of the party would still pursue the cause of extreme nationalism. Freedom is as much of an attempt to reform the far-Right as it is a front for it. Such organizations should not be defended by the likes of The New York Times or Amnesty International regardless as to what Radio Free Europe’s opinions are on the subject matter. Such facts can also not be reasonably omitted from an article written by any responsible journalist. To my recollection, Vice News was the only media outlet who was willing to bring up the fact that the far-Right was present at the protests on Independence Square, aside from, of course, Libcom, who, by my estimation, broke the story to the world. You will find better coverage on the political situation in Ukraine on Reddit, Wikipedia, the comments section of Vice News, and, the forums of Libcom, than you will in all of established journalism. Perhaps this could be seen as indicative of the emergence of the Fifth Estate, but, I would rather like to point out that what it indicates to me is that the associated press had failed not succumb to the neoliberal pressures of Empire. The political situation in Ukraine is indicative of the limits of Liberalism. One need only to look at the political parties in the country to discover that the choice is between any number of Fascist factions, the great white light of the centre-right, and, what, aside from a few deeply concerned democratic socialists, basically comprises a Russian mob. The choice between one pair of combat boots and another is like asking a person who it is that they would like to have stomp their skull in. I signed an international declaration against the ethnic conflict in Ukraine put forth by a Russian section of the International Worker’s Association. I would suggest that people around the globe have no right to speculate upon which side to take in an ethnic conflict that has no reason to exist in the first place. The political parties whom the protestors were protesting are corrupt. Vladimir Putin’s media dominance has long been justifiably lambasted by human rights organizations. Let us not forget, however, that Putin came up under Boris Yeltsin. The Reaganite plan for the post-Soviet economy paved precisely the way for the form of corrupt autocratic rule in Russia today that neoconservatives so gleefully castigate. While a number of the demands put forth by the protestors on Independence Square were quite reasonable, what is not reasonable is that the lingering remnants of Soviet oligarchy should be countered by an alliance, comfortable or not, with the far-Right. One form of totalitarianism should not be made to replace another. The attempt to co-opt the discourse of human rights so that they better serve Western business interests and better cover up the disgraceful history of Fascist collaboration on the part of neoliberals and the Intelligence community, is a travesty that should not be let to occur. The right-wing campaign in Ukraine is similar to the one that now exists in Venezuela. I should not need to state that Neo-Fascism is not an alternative to autocracy. Should people anywhere in the world need to protest the abuse of power on the part of left-wing regimes than they should be let to do so without the prying interloping of the far-Right. The presence of Fascists at sincere protests discredits their demands. Only a Liberal project that is free of Fascist collusion is capable of prevailing with its ideals intact. In so far that any Liberal could behave otherwise indicates that they are just simply insincere. While I am an Anarchist, I do agree with the Liberal principles of liberty and equality. Such virtues should not be sacrificed in a crusade against a now totally illusory Communist adversary.

In February of 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine. The Crimean status referendum which was passed by The Autonomous Republic of Crimea on the 16th of March in 2014 led to the Russian annexation of the territory. The referendum was deemed to be unlawful by most of the European Union. The Russian military intervention was criticized by Amnesty International for violating international law. Due to the fact that there were troops on the ground in Ukraine before the referendum took place, it is likely that the referendum was, in fact, unlawful. The Russian Federation was involved in a land grab over a territory that oil pipelines run through and not defending its borders. In the aftermath of the Ukrainian Revolution which established Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the head of a new interim government, a wave of pro-Russian protests swept over the Donbass region of Ukraine. Pro-Russian separatists established The Donetsk People's Republic and The Luhansk People's Republic in what became an ethnic civil war. The War in Donbass is a low intensity conflict that was born out of Western competition with Russia. Such meddling has led to extreme forms of Ukrainian nationalism which threaten to blight the cause of the Ukrainian Revolution. The conflict has resulted in 13, 138 casualties and has displaced 2,340,298 Ukrainians. Such a calamity never should have been incited by the West, provoked by reactionaries in Ukraine, or wrought by the Russian Federation. Both the Russian Federation and the United States of America should be attempting to bring an end to the conflict and should not be sending military aid to combatants. The conflict began in only a couple of months. Let us hope that it can end now in just as quick of a time.

As much as any person may agree with some of the tenets of the Ukranian Revolution, I would be warry of support for sending military aid to the Ukrainian government. Some of the aid will almost certainly go to the Azov Battalion who police their own populace as much as they do terrorists as all Fascists do. Real support for the Ukrainian populace means to actively disengage from the trappings of ethnic racism and to see beyond the confines of nationalism. Such axioms are the only ones with which a third-party can effect positive change in the region.

2 notes · View notes

solacekames · 5 years

Photo

Royce Reeves, Sr., has been driving a limousine borrowed from a funeral parlor to take poor or unmotivated residents of Cordele, Georgia, to the polls to vote early.

Are Police Targeting Get-Out-the-Vote Efforts in Georgia?

By Charles Bethea November 1, 2018

On October 24th, Takeyla Singleton, a housekeeper at a Best Western hotel in Cordele, Georgia, posted a two-minute video to her Facebook account. Earlier that day, Singleton, who is African-American, like the majority of the town’s residents, had filmed Royce Reeves, Sr.—a forty-six-year-old barber and an elected city commissioner—receiving a ticket for illegally parking a limousine on Highway 19. Reeves, who is also black, had recently borrowed the vehicle to take poor or unmotivated residents to the polls to vote early. (I wrote about one such ride for this week’s issue of The New Yorker.) He twice voted for Barack Obama, then Donald Trump, and is now an outspoken supporter of Stacey Abrams, the African-American Democrat running for governor of Georgia; by November 6th, Reeves expected to assist as many as four hundred Abrams voters. Along the way, he often shouted out the window of the limo at passersby, which was out of the ordinary in a quiet town otherwise best known for its watermelons.

Moments after one state patroller engaged Reeves on the side of the highway, more law-enforcement vehicles began to show up. “It’s stupid. Look at them,” Singleton tells another observer in the video. “They called all that backup.” She went on, counting law-enforcement vehicles surrounding the white limo, which was on loan from the J. W. Williams funeral home. “One, two, three, four.” Someone else said, “Six cars!” Singleton went on, “Seven. . . . That’s a crying shame. On one little person. And the man driving the funeral-home car.”

Reeves told me he’d driven past the first patroller, who was ticketing someone else, then made a left and went a few blocks farther—beyond the view of the patroller—to talk to a man about his commissioner work. “They turned the lights on me,” he told me. ”And the guy, one of the troopers, when he got out of the car he spoke to me ugly. I said, ‘I’m not a criminal. If you’re gonna give me a ticket for being improperly parked, give me a ticket.’ They called in a bunch more troopers.” Reeves added, “They knew that that limousine was being used to haul people to the polls. They knew that. How many other people riding around town in a limousine?”

Serious claims of voter suppression have been made against Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor. As secretary of state, Kemp is in charge of elections and voter registration, which puts him in a position to referee his own contest. (For this reason, the former President Jimmy Carter, among others, has called on Kemp to resign from the position.) Kemp cancelled nearly one and a half million Georgia voter registrations, for various reasons, between the 2012 and 2016 elections, and more than half a million more in 2017. In August, an elections consultant linked to Kemp recommended the closure of seven of nine polling locations—many of them used by African-American voters—in a poor southwestern Georgia county. (The plan was voted down.) In another poor Georgia county, during Kemp’s tenure as secretary of state, an African-American grandmother, attempting to help a new voter use an electronic voting machine, was charged with the unusual crime of “improper assistance in casting a ballot.” Six years later, after two trials, the elderly poll worker was finally acquitted.

On Monday, a federal judge ruled against Kemp’s attempt to prohibit certain absentee ballots from being counted, writing, “The Court finds that the public interest is best served by allowing qualified absentee voters to vote and have their votes counted.” Perhaps the most significant suppression claim against Kemp, though, has focussed on a reported fifty-three thousand voters—some seventy per cent of them African-American—whose registration is “on hold” due to an “exact match” voter-I.D. law, which creates problems for voters who’ve changed their address or their name. A few weeks ago, Debra Roberts, a clerk at a warehousing company who moved to Georgia nearly two decades ago, told me, “When I moved here I changed my last name and they said everything went through. But every time I go to vote, they say, ‘No, your name isn’t right.’ This time it’s supposed to be changed, but I just don’t know if my vote is being counted.” (People like Roberts can still vote, with sufficient identification.)

But there is also concern that voters, particularly minorities, are being intimidated in other ways, at the local level—a few weeks ago, for instance, a bus full of black seniors was pulled over on the way to the polls in a rural Georgia county. The same is true of the Reeves incident, Seth Bringman, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia, argues. “Brian Kemp has hardly tried to hide his desire to see fewer people of color voting in Georgia,” Bringman told me, “and the culture of fear, intimidation, and confusion he has created statewide is pervasive at a local level as well,” as when “a black councilman is stopped while simply trying to provide members of his community with rides to the polls.”

I asked the Cordele Police Department about the incident. “Traffic stops are inheritably dangerous,” Andrew Roufs, an administrative lieutenant, wrote in an e-mail on Wednesday, “as the officer(s) conducting these stops have no prior knowledge of what may happen or what the stop may lead to. Typically, when multiple officers respond to any call for service, the officer(s) only intention is to ensure everyone’s safety and, in this case, this would include the driver, officer, and any bystanders.” He went on, “It is the policy of the Cordele Police Department to provide assistance, when requested, to an agency or officer as in this case.” Roufs, who wouldn’t say why the Cordele officers were called in the first place, referred me to the Georgia State Patrol.

On Wednesday, I received a response from Mark Perry, a public-information officer with the State Patrol. “One trooper conducted the traffic stop for illegally parking,” Perry wrote in an e-mail. “The driver was out of the vehicle with a small crowd,” he went on. “The trooper asked for a backup unit due to the number of people. One local trooper responded. Three other troopers assigned to I-75”—a nearby interstate—“from another region overheard the radio traffic and responded on their own. I have no knowledge as to why local police went to the scene. The driver was cited and released.” I asked Perry whether it was typical for five or more troopers to respond to a parking incident involving an unarmed individual. Perry explained, “It’s not unusual when a trooper is outnumbered by bystanders approaching a traffic stop.” (Asked to comment about the incident, Kemp’s press secretary did not immediately respond.)

As it happens, I was in the funeral limo earlier that day with Reeves. Hours before the illegal parking incident, Reeves took a phone call. “I’ve had the cops called on me twice today,” Reeves told the caller.“They say I’m campaigning too close to the polls, soliciting votes. I told the Sheriff, ‘We did no more in this campaign than we did for you.’ ” When he spotted a young black friend being pulled over in town by a white trooper (the young man hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt), Reeves angled the limo into a parking lot directly across the street. We got out and watched the stop unfold over a period of ten minutes. At one point, Reeves took out his smartphone and held it up as if he were filming the incident. (I did the same.) No additional troopers showed up to back up the ticketing officer in this instance, despite a small crowd of young black men close by. Reeves later told me that this same patroller was among those who showed up when he was pulled over later that day.

#royce reeves #georgia #stacey abrams #brian kemp

27 notes · View notes

nebraska-doesnt-exist · 6 years

Text

how to vote (in nebraska) 101

voting for the first time? voting again, but you’re not really sure what to do? want to be more informed/prepared this year? don’t worry - i’m here to talk you through some of the basics of figuring out how to vote!

part two - what are we voting for?

(see part one - where do i start?)

this list can be kind of exhaustive, so i’m sorry for that in advance. i’m also not going to cover absolutely everything (because i just can’t), but here’s a starting place. i’ll add links to anything i make a post for. (i’m going off of my sample ballot and this list of positions from the sos site, so if i’m missing anything let me know)

the “tickets” are generally how the ballot is organized. some of the races and issues may be under different tickets or may be organized differently on your ballot. don’t worry too much about it: as long as you know which race is which you should be okay.

check your sample ballot to see the candidates for each race and to check on special issues. state sample ballots are on the sos site.

Federal Ticket (people who represent Nebraska in Congress)

United States Senator

U.S. House of Representatives

Douglas and Sarpy counties: District Two

Lancaster and a bunch of counties surrounding Lincoln and Omaha: District One

Everything Else: District Three

State Ticket (everyone in Nebraska votes for these people)

Governor (and Lt. Governor)

Secretary of State

State Treasurer *

Attorney General *

Auditor of Public Accounts

Public Service Commissioner (Districts 1 & 3 only)

District 1 : Lancaster, Cass, Otoe, Johnson, Nemaha, Pawnee, Gage, Richardson

District 3 : Sarpy, Saunders, Washington, and half the west half of Douglas?

County Ticket (specific to the county you live in. positions below may or may not be on your ballot; you may have additional positions listed)

County Commissioner

County Assessor/Register of Deeds

County Attorney

County Clerk of the District Court

County Sheriff

County Treasurer

County Clerk

etc.

Nonpartisan Ticket (these positions don’t list party affiliation, so make sure you check to see if any information is available for the candidates. this is also broken down by district, so these positions may or may not be on your ballot)

Member of the Legislature

Odd-numbered Districts

this is the State Senator who represents your district in the Unicameral, so make sure you look the candidates up. Don’t be confused just because this is under the nonpartisan section.

State Board of Education

Districts 5, 6, 7, 8

Board of Regents University of Nebraska

Districts 3, 4, 5, 8

Community College Boards (every 4 years - check your district)

Natural Resources Boards (4 year terms - check)

Public Power (& Irrigation) Boards (6 year terms - check)

only for those grossing more than $40 million annually

Learning Community Coordinating Council

Odd-numbered districts

Educational Service Units

Odd-numbered districts

School Ticket (stuff affecting your local public school district. may be under Nonpartisan Ticket)

Board of Education +

School Bond Issues - a lot of public school districts will have bond issues on the ballot. Generally, the district is asking for more money (it should say why/ how much) and they’re asking the voters about a special tax to pay for it.

etc.

City Ticket (for local city positions. may also be Village or Town Ticket, or may be under Nonpartisan Ticket)

Mayor

City Council

Lincoln has a Charter Amendment regarding mayoral term limits. I’m going to make a post about this, but basically - a yes vote imposes a limit of 3 4-year terms on mayors of Lincoln. This was proposed by Republicans because the current mayor is a Democrat.

etc.

Special Issues (these may be housed under another ticket like the Nonpartisan Ticket)

Judge retention - you vote on whether the judge should keep their position or not. yes means they keep their judicial position, no means they lose it.

there may be some other issues on your ballot, often tax-related

Initiative Measure 427 - should Nebraska expand Medicaid eligibility? (I’ll definitely go over this one later)

* some candidates are running unopposed. i would still recommend looking these candidates up if you have time. if you support their positions feel free to vote for them. if you don’t support them, however, you don’t have to vote for them. you can either abstain (just don’t fill a circle out for that position) or write in your own candidate. while this doesn’t have an effect on the election (unless a write-in candidate were to win), abstaining will at least show that you’re against their positions. an unopposed candidate only getting 60% of the vote with 40% abstaining would definitely make an impression, and might encourage a challenger next election.

+ some positions ask you to vote for multiple candidates, so keep that in mind. you can vote for less than the number they ask for, but don’t vote for more than the number or your vote for that position will not count.

how should i fill out the ballot? (part 3)

how do i vote? (part 4)

#nebraska elections 2018 #nebraska #voting #midterms #voting 101

10 notes · View notes