Without finding the clip, let me guess, it was a question from Doocy?

1/14/2022 2:26:10 PM

More like Douchey, amirite?!

1/14/2022 2:27:05 PM

Her answer was both relevant and irrelevant.

Reporter: A, B, and C are bad
Spokesw: X, Y, and Z are good
Reporter: So all is good and no change is needed?
Spokesw: Bunnies and ice cream

WTF?

If she had explained how A, B, and C are being discussed or improved, there wouldn't have been a need for him to follow up her answer with his comment.

1/14/2022 2:41:09 PM

Quote :

"Q Thank you. I have a couple specific ones, but I wanted to kind of follow on that. As you’re determining next steps — I mean, frankly, things just seem like they’re going pretty poorly right now for the White House. You know, Build Back Better is being blocked. Voting rights is being blocked. Diplomatic talks with Russia doesn’t seem to have brought us back from the brink of war. Inflation is at a 40-year high. The virus is setting records for infection. So, as we kind of hit this one-year period, and a period where everything seems like it’s in pretty rough shape, or nearly everything — which is not an invitation, I guess, to list off some other things — I’m wondering, at what point do you take stock and say that things need to change internally, whether it’s your outreach with the Hill, whether it’s the leadership within the White House. You seem to be stymied on an incredible number of fronts right now. MS. PSAKI: Well, let me give you a little bit of a different take on this. More than 200 million people are vaccinated. We’ve had record job growth, record low unemployment rates — historically, in this country, over the last year. We’ve rebuilt our alliances and our relationships around the world. And right now, as it relates to Russia, as you heard our National Security Advisor convey, we’re working with partners around the world to convey very clearly: It’s up to them to make a choice about what’s next. We’re not going to make that on their behalf. It’s up to them to determine if there are going to be crippling economic sanctions or not, or — if they decide to move forward. But we also recognize when you have a small margin and threshold in the Senate, it’s very difficult to get things done and to get legislation passed. And the fact that the President, under his leadership, got the American Rescue Plan passed, a Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill with 19 [Republican] votes in the Senate, about 6 [Republican] votes in the House. The fact that we are still continuing to work with members to determine the path forward on Build Back Better; that we have the vast majority of Democrats in the Senate supporting voting rights. That’s a path forward for us. And our effort is to do hard things, try hard things, and keep at it. So, we just don’t see it through the same prism. Q So, the sense is things are going well; there’s no need for change right now? MS. PSAKI: I think that having worked in a White House before, you do hard things in White Houses. You have every challenge at your feet — laid at your feet, whether it’s global or domestically. And we could certainly propose legislation to see if people support bunny rabbits and ice cream, but that wouldn’t be very rewarding to the American people. "

So to summarize, the reporter brought up
Build Back Better being blocked
Voing Rights being blocked
Russia
Inflation
Virus

Psaki in turn responded with
Build Back Better - "The fact that we are still continuing to work with members to determine the path forward on Build Back Better"

Voting Rights - "that we have the vast majority of Democrats in the Senate supporting voting rights. That’s a path forward for us. "

Russia - We’ve rebuilt our alliances and our relationships around the world. And right now, as it relates to Russia, as you heard our National Security Advisor convey, we’re working with partners around the world to convey very clearly: It’s up to them to make a choice about what’s next. We’re not going to make that on their behalf.

Inflation - Didn't address, but really what power does the President have for this?

Virus - more than 200 million people are vaccinated.

I don't see why you folks are insulted by this.

1/14/2022 2:53:33 PM

It's #walkaway fodder.

1/14/2022 3:34:17 PM

Gonna give him negative points for using scare tactics to nuke the filibuster. If there ever was something that the filibuster was meant for, it would be one party to ram through a federal takeover of elections procedures on a partisan 51-50 vote. The crap about Trump is barely even addressed by either of the two proposed bills, and it's the far graver threat than cutting back early voting by a couple weeks or nuking dropboxes.

The reality is, state elections laws are largely more liberal today than they were 15-20 years ago. Dems weren't bitching about how "suppressive" they were then. And what most states are rolling back to is still more liberal than 15-20 years ago. The two bills represent little more than liberal wet dreams of how they'd like all states to run their elections (similar to the failed BBB and "childcare is infrastructure BS they tried to ram through), it'd be unConstitutional to try and mandate it though Congress anyway, and wrapping it up as "voting rights legislation" is about as disingenuous as it gets. It's up there with "THE DEMS ARE GUNNA TAKE YER GUNS!!!!!!" as far as bullshit fearmongering.

And acting like republicans have been the only ones abusing the current filibuster is a farce. The republicans were douches about it during Obama's term, sure, but Dems were awful about it under Bush as well, using in ways that up to that time were quite unprecedented. It's reeks of sour grapes. If you want to reform it, make the assholes actually stand up and talk, instead of making a phone call. But then, *neither of you* would be able to abuse it the way you have been for the past 20 years.
What DOESN'T make sense is handing a gift to Mitch McConnell, who has royally fucked Dems in the ass with every single rules change they have tried to get around his antics. He's already promised to throw all the lube out of DC once the Republicans take back control of the Senate, so why in the hell would you give him that. Come up with shit people actually support, and the Reps won't be able to block it. Or, make partisan wish lists and be shocked that they fail. Let's be clear: the first two years of the Trump admin would have been radically and dangerously different had Cheeto not had to contend with a filibuster. Don't give turtle-boy and whatever fascist POS comes next out of the GOP that power.

1/14/2022 9:20:24 PM

Quote :

" Come up with shit people actually support"

I find this post eye opening in that “this is how non right wing nuts think”

And i agree with focus on things majority of folks give a fuck about. I happen to think this is one of those issues

Only prob is 50% agree, and other 50% are you, or not sure

1/15/2022 12:27:51 AM

Valid points, but what gives confidence that the increasingly radicalized Republicans themselves won't change the rules when they take back power? They've already done it with judicial nominees, and that's certainly been working out great.

1/15/2022 7:25:40 AM

Quote :

"It's up there with "THE DEMS ARE GUNNA TAKE YER GUNS!!!!!!" as far as bullshit fearmongering."

Almost no Dems have they're going to take your guns. Almost every republican has tried to steal at least one election.

1/16/2022 1:12:54 AM

and are more than willing to steal each and every election they’re able to

1/16/2022 1:37:55 AM

Quote :

" Come up with shit people actually support, and the Reps won't be able to block it."

This is patently untrue. They will block anything and everything. They blocked Obama’s right wing Supreme Court pick. They supported stimulus under trump but not now (not that Biden is pushing for it). They would rather see people suffer as long as they perceive it hurts democratic politicians. Gop treats politics as warfare where it’s a matter of survival (for the white race), democrats treat it as a game of croquet.

You’re right though they’re blowing up their voting rights as fighting a grave threat but the bill has very marginal changes. Unless they’re looking at universal registration and setting standards that dictate a maximum waiting time to vote, it’s not a really serious bill.

1/16/2022 2:43:06 PM

Universal Background checks regularly polls at what? 95%? Republicans shoot it down CONSTANTLY

1/16/2022 4:34:35 PM

^^ And yet, we got some semblance of an infrastructure bill through. There's no doubt that the Reps are being intransigent little shitheads just because they can. But if you bring in things that are actually needed, in ways that are agreeable to more than just the extremes in the Dems, they have less chance to block it, because the few folks left in swing states will pay the price.

It seems like it's just the Reps blocking legislation, but I'd counter that it's more an artifact of them not having any cognizable platform over the last 30 years beyond "fuck the Clintons." That kind of environment doesn't lend itself to bringing much legislation that could be blocked by Dems. The only thing I can think of in recent memory was their attempt to repeal Obamacare, which was blocked by, wait for it, the filibuster forcing things to go through reconciliation where the Pubs couldn't get everything they wanted and devolving into infighting. Put frankly, there hasn't been much for dems to block. Except judicial nominees, which they've been just as douchey about as the Pubs.

Meanwhile, we've got the President shamelessly accusing Republicans of implementing "Jim Crow on steroids." Jim fucking Crow. You know, where blacks were beaten and lynched for registering to vote. Or they faced poll taxes and reading tests (while not being taught to read). And what is this "steroidal" environment? 6 weeks of early voting instead of 8, asking people to get a god damned stamp to mail in a ballot as opposed to universal dropboxes, expecting folks to give enough of a shit to register sometime before the day of the election they want to vote in, or expecting them to *gasp* know where their fucking voting precinct is. Jim Crow on steroids? Get the fuck out of here with that shit.

1/17/2022 7:19:17 PM

None of that is to say that there aren't very concerning things happening. There very much are, but the Dems ain't doing jack shit about it. There's been no effort whatsoever to try and reform the Electoral College Act after Reps tried to game it. That's inexcusable. There has been no movement to protect the US Postal Service from the blatant political interference Trump attempted to prevent absentee ballots and applications from being mailed. I'd even be game to mandate certain staffing levels of voting precincts based on the number of people being served to avoid the 12 hour lines we saw in Georgia after officials drastically cut the number of precincts in urban areas. Outside of elections, Dems have done nothing to protect Voice of America from more Trump-like political interference, which is equally inexcusable.

What the fuck are they actually doing? We saw the blueprint the next would-be fascist takeover will follow, and Dems are fucking around with their pet projects like the whole god damned country isn't on fire, while Trump moves to put loyalists in key positions across the country to try again. It honestly feels like the only one preparing the country for the next assault on our institutions is Cheeto, himself

[Edited on January 17, 2022 at 8:12 PM. Reason : ]

1/17/2022 8:09:59 PM

I think the geriatrics in charge of the democrats mostly agree with the geriatrics in charge of the republicans is the problem

Aoc and the squad and Bernie need to find a way to take over if we want to see real progress in the country

1/17/2022 11:48:00 PM

Just move to Europe if you want to enjoy socialism. Meanwhile AOC et al will be continually defeated so we don't have that misery here.

1/18/2022 10:57:35 AM

Quote :

"Just move to Europe if you want to enjoy socialism."

lol the american education system is a disaster

1/18/2022 11:09:50 AM

^^ AOC probably has the most median viewpoint of anyone in Congress compared to what the american people actually want.

1/18/2022 11:56:08 AM

Quote :

"Pool report: leaving the auditorium, a reporter shouted the following question at the president: “Why are you waiting on Putin to make the first move, sir?” The president’s response was captured by audio engineers and went as follows: “What a stupid question.” via @alexnazaryan"

You folks going to clutch your pearls with this one too?

1/20/2022 6:21:05 PM

^^lol

1/20/2022 7:34:48 PM

Quote :

" The reality is, state elections laws are largely more liberal today than they were 15-20 years ago. "

Objectively untrue for most red states (prob true for most blue states). 15 years ago state voting laws had to pass muster under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The VRA was gutted in 2013 by SCOTUS and restrictions have rolled in steadily since then.

Quote :

" There's been no effort whatsoever to try and reform the Electoral College Act after Reps tried to game it. There has been no movement to protect the US Postal Service from the blatant political interference Trump attempted to prevent absentee ballots and applications from being mailed."

Because both of these are already blatantly illegal. There are memos from the Trump DOJ expressing that the electoral college plan was illegal. Like 10+ states sued DeJoy and the USPS under existing law and they backed off all the changes they were trying to implement. The problem is NO ONE in the GOP actually cares about the law, including their voters who only seem to reward criminality.

Quote :

" I'd even be game to mandate certain staffing levels of voting precincts based on the number of people being served to avoid the 12 hour lines we saw in Georgia after officials drastically cut the number of precincts in urban areas"

Im not going to dig into every version of the voting bills that have been floated, but I know for a fact that the John Lewis Voting act (passed by the House, dies in Senate every time) addressed this by re-instituting parts of the Voting Right Act of 1965.

You tell on yourself too much when you frame these voting rights bills as “nationalizing elections” or a “dem voting wish list.” These bills basically just roll voting rights back to period between 1965 and 2013 when the VRA was still functioning.

1/21/2022 12:04:44 PM

Quote :

"NEW: Biden has nominated Jennifer Rearden — a former Trump judicial nominee, GOP donor, and corporate lawyer who has helped Chevron-aligned law firm Gibson Dunn target human rights attorney @SDonziger — to serve as a federal judge. https://t.co/2adn7sWYdS"

1/21/2022 7:23:48 PM

Quote :

"Objectively untrue for most red states (prob true for most blue states). 15 years ago state voting laws had to pass muster under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The VRA was gutted in 2013 by SCOTUS and restrictions have rolled in steadily since then."

Not only is this demonstrably false, it is off almost 180degrees counterfactually from reality. Most Southern states have laws that are more liberal than many liberal states, especially the northeast. Maine and RI have ID requirements, FFS, which progressives screamed bloody murder about when southern states tried it. Shit, RI passed theirs in 2010. New York has less early voting hours than Georgia, and Delaware (until the pandemic) had no early voting and almost no mail in or absentee provisions. The VRA had a LOT to do with this, and it's precisely why portions of it were struck down as unConstitutional: because southern states were blocked from passing the exact same fucking laws as northern states. To the extent that there's any real difference in red vs blue legislative proposals now, it's that red states are pulling back while blue states are racing to catch up to where red states have been for decades.

Quote :

"Because both of these are already blatantly illegal."

And yet, here we are, with the Dems in control of Congress and the WH, and they are sitting on their hands. If it's so blatantly illegal, why wasn't the existing legislation able to stop it dead in its tracks? Why aren't there any proposals to do just that coming ANYWHERE from the left side of the aisle?

Quote :

"You tell on yourself too much when you frame these voting rights bills as “nationalizing elections” or a “dem voting wish list.”"

Because that's precisely what they are! No voter ID (except northern states have had that even in recent fucking memory. Hell, in RI or DE, you've even got to get two witnesses to attest that you are allowed to vote on your absentee ballot. And ID is a measure that is standard in basically every other country in the world, but in the US, it's racist, except in RI, where blacks helped pass it). Mandatory early voting of a specified period (ignoring that many NE states didnt have it until very recently). Mandating dropboxes (which largely didn't exist until COVID). Mandating restoration of felon voting rights (something historically unheard of until VERY recently). Mandating mail in balloting (with no god damned stamp, no less!). Mandating rules around absentee ballots and even no-fault absentee rules. Mandating provisional ballots for out-of-precinct voters. What part of that ISN'T nationalizing elections procedures, for fuck's sake? And what part of that is seriously about "voting rights" or "rolling back voter suppression" to any meaningful degree?

Instead, it is 100% a wish list of voting policies that have gained favour among progressives over the last decade. Which is fine, but call it what the fuck it is: a Democratic wish list. The notion that not accepting these policies amounts to massive voter suppression, similar to what spurred the passage of the Voting Rights Act is absurd. People were literally being lynched, by the fucking police no less, for trying to register to vote. That's a far cry from expecting someone to know where his damned voting precinct is, or cutting 25 early voting days to 20, or, *gasp* expecting you to register to fucking vote some time before the actual god damned day of the motherfucking election.

Most of these proposals are about maximizing how convenient voting is. And yes, at the margins, making voting a little less convenient certainly hurts some people. But I'd suggest what it really does is knock out far more people who didn't particularly give a shit in the first place. If figuring out where to vote or actually registering to vote before the election is too much to ask of you, I doubt you've really considered the issues in the races you supposedly care so deeply about.

Yes, we shouldn't make voting too inconvenient, and there's certainly a line of how convenient it should be that can be argued over. But I think it's very safe to say, unequivocally, that we are well on the right side of that line at this point. Few, if any, states have any proposals which threaten to put them anywhere close that line. A sufficiently motivated voter is still more than capable of casting a ballot in every god damned state. That's far more than could be said in 1965. To suggest otherwise is fucking absurd.

1/21/2022 10:06:49 PM

Quote :

" the extent that there's any real difference in red vs blue legislative proposals now, it's that red states are pulling back while blue states are racing to"

You’d almost say that ….. “ The reality is, state elections laws are largely more liberal restricted today than they were 15-20 years ago”

Atleast for Red states. That’s exactly what I was arguing. Clinging to Rhode Island’s voter ID as some how erasing the overall trend of red states restricting voting over the past 10 years isn’t convincing. If red state voting laws are currently more liberal than blue states, it’s only because the courts have slowed them down, not because their intent is to increase voter participation.

Quote :

" Most of these proposals are about maximizing how convenient voting is. And yes, at the margins, making voting a little less convenient certainly hurts some people. ……… Yes, we shouldn't make voting too inconvenient, and there's certainly a line of how convenient it should be "

I guess this is the difference between viewing voting as a right vs. viewing it as a privilege. The line on convenience should be where it is restricted enough only to ensure election integrity. The idea of trying to choose who is worthy to vote based on how many hoops they are willing to jump through is somewhere on the slippery slope to Jim Crow. Also, by election integrity I mean evidence based securing of elections, not the fever dreams of conservatives where bus loads of immigrants are traveling from poll to poll voting 100s of times.

1/23/2022 8:30:45 AM

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/politics/biden-calls-reporter/index.html

1/25/2022 9:20:34 AM

I'm clutching my pearls as we speak

1/25/2022 10:02:11 AM

Quote :

"You’d almost say that ….. “ The reality is, state elections laws are largely more liberal restricted today than they were 15-20 years ago” Atleast for Red states. That’s exactly what I was arguing. Clinging to Rhode Island’s voter ID as some how erasing the overall trend of red states restricting voting over the past 10 years isn’t convincing. If red state voting laws are currently more liberal than blue states, it’s only because the courts have slowed them down, not because their intent is to increase voter participation."

Not at all. It's entirely possible that red states have figuratively taken 2 steps back from the 15 steps forward they've taken over the past 20 years. Meanwhile northern states are stuck 15 to 20 steps behind. If courts are honestly preventing red states from going to just 20 steps ahead of Northern states, it makes the shrieks and howls of "ZOMG JIM CROW ON STEROIDS" ring a bit hollow, don't you think? If this is truly massive discrimination and voter suppression, then why would you be focused on the states with the most liberal voting laws? The answer is obvious: its not massive discrimination.

Quote :

"I guess this is the difference between viewing voting as a right vs. viewing it as a privilege. The line on convenience should be where it is restricted enough only to ensure election integrity. The idea of trying to choose who is worthy to vote based on how many hoops they are willing to jump through is somewhere on the slippery slope to Jim Crow. Also, by election integrity I mean evidence based securing of elections, not the fever dreams of conservatives where bus loads of immigrants are traveling from poll to poll voting 100s of times."

I'm inclined to agree. Putting pointless hoops in front of folks to vote is bad. But I don't see most of these as "pointless hoops," or at least not ones that have existed for basically the entire country's history. The notion that black people can't figure out how to register before the day of an election or find their voting precinct is downright insulting. Folks have figured this shit out, black people included, for decades, if not the entirety of the country's history. Without the benefit of Google, no less. The rest of the world doesn't seem to think voter ID is an extra hoop, and they honestly can't figure out what our hangup is over it. 25 versus 20 days of early voting doesn't seem like a crazy extra hoop. Almost the entirety of these bills just read as Democratic preferences over basic voting procedures. Were not talking poll taxes or reading tests or even onerous voting time and place restrictions. To the extent that changes in red states weed anyone out, it’s the people who didn't give much of a fuck in the first place.

Scott Greenfield had an excellent post at Simple Justice last week about it. And rather than your proffered view of "right vs privilege" he suggests it's really a question of quantity vs quality of votes. And lest you assume him to be a racist redneck, know that he's a registered Democrat in NYC. He summed it up way better than I could...

Quote :

"The grievance wasn’t the absence of a window of weeks to cast a ballot. Or that it was too burdensome to take an absentee ballot to a mailbox to send in. And then it might need a stamp to be delivered. Or that one might have to stand without water on line because you neglected to bring your own and no neutral was there to hand it out. Yet, this is the new Jim Crow, we’re told. The old Jim Crow would kill you. The new one would leave you parched. To appreciate where we are, we have to remember where we were when Martin Luther King took to the streets. He didn’t risk inconvenience, but death. He didn’t complain that it wasn’t easy enough to vote, but that no one should risk a beating to vote. ... ... [The Voting Rights Act] turned out to be remarkably successful, even if imperfect, so that we find ourselves today fighting over whether a few weeks is enough time to mail in a ballot, and call this Jim Crow on steroids."

1/25/2022 9:54:23 PM

Going to double post, cause the post about quantity vs quality is actually this one

A relevant piece of it:

Quote :

" you’re entitled to vote, then you get to vote, even if you’re dumber than dirt, easily manipulated and misled, and lack the ability to make a better decision than a 5-year-old. But do not confuse the fetishization of empty numbers with a healthy democracy. The facilitation of effortless voting has removed a hurdle the disinterested refused to leap, which may well be the right thing to do as the same hurdle prevented voting by those who are interested but have real problems making it to the voting booth. But the dearth of serious information, accurate media characterizations, and concern only with quantity rather than quality of our voting public isn’t good for the health of our democracy."

1/25/2022 10:39:23 PM

Quote :

"he notion that black people can't figure out how to register before the day of an election or find their voting precinct is downright insulting. "

I think the issue has more so been that impoverished people tend to work jobs where they can't get the day off to go vote because they tend to work shift jobs that would be under staffed if everyone left that day. It so happens that impoverishment is disproportionately clustered by race, which in turn means that you start silencing the voice of a racial group.

The only people who turn it into black people can't figure out how to do it are conservatives who are trying to paint liberals as racist rather than either listen to what people are actually describing as the concerns or :gasp: think for themselves about what the actual root cause may be.

Quote :

"The rest of the world doesn't seem to think voter ID is an extra hoop"

This is something that you just made up. Several of our peer countries do not require ID. This ranges from it not being needed at all (4 countries in the UK) to it's not required but pollsters are allowed to check if they want to (Germany, Denmark, France, etc). I also think we can all answer why selective ID requirements wouldn't work in this country. These optional ID checks are also found in countries that allow mail-in voting across the country, which is something we lack, but could reduce the inequities ID checks may present here.

Then there are other countries outside of our economic peer group, who simply dye an individual's finger and rolls with it. A lot of these countries also have voting as a national holiday, which is something else we lack.

If people want to move to a more ID based system for voting, then perhaps we should pair that legislation with national holiday for voting and mail in voting rights, which negates some of the inequities that make complex for selective groups of people who all have a certain skin tone.

1/26/2022 12:28:22 PM

Quote :

"Most of these proposals are about maximizing how convenient voting is. And yes, at the margins, making voting a little less convenient certainly hurts some people."

Sorry, but voting is a right and deliberately trying to impede that right is essentially encouraging people to ignore the constitution. And it doesn't just hurt some people, it's essentially denying equitable access to many of the country's most vulnerable (elderly/disabled/poor) regardless of skin color, which you oddly keep bringing up. And the states that are being the most aggressive in attempts to bar access just so happen to be ones that have become key battle ground states like GA/AZ/TX.

If your attitude is that only 'smart' and 'capable' people should have the privilege of voting, that makes you a tyrant/fascist.

1/27/2022 3:10:56 PM

Voter ID laws don't inherently have to be discriminatory; it's possible to craft a national voter ID law that ensures that every voter has equal access to an ID without encountering unfair hurdles.

One problem is that state legislatures can't be relied upon to craft Voter ID legislation that wouldn't disproportionately advantage their own party.

It seems shortsighted to me that we allow state legislatures to craft the voting laws that determine the outcome of elections for federal office.

1/27/2022 5:31:27 PM

Founding Fathers Blindspot, EXPOSED?!

1/28/2022 5:31:07 AM

could go in a few other threads, but is relevant to the discussion going on this page:


https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/01/gop-voting-law-disenfranshised-georgia-voters/

1/28/2022 12:22:00 PM

Very interesting. I look forward to burro's response.

1/28/2022 1:12:52 PM

Quote :

"I think the issue has more so been that impoverished people tend to work jobs where they can't get the day off to go vote because they tend to work shift jobs that would be under staffed if everyone left that day. It so happens that impoverishment is disproportionately clustered by race, which in turn means that you start silencing the voice of a racial group."

I think this is a fine argument for early voting in general. But it seems quite divorced from what you quoted me on, which was same-day registration and voting in the correct precinct. By the way, Georgia, for example has 4 weeks of early voting. Nebraska has a month. AZ has 26. TN has 3 weeks. NC has 2.5 weeks. Texas has 2.5 weeks. Mass has 11. DC has 7 (or 15, depending on how you look at it). NY has 9 (NY SO RACIST!!!!). MD had 8, but only for 2020, unless things changed. Delaware has 8, but only with a valid excuse (which is fairly hard to come by, IIRC). Mr JIM CROW ON STEROIDS might want to take a look at his home state on this one. CT still doesn't have early voting. You catching a trend here?

Quote :

"This is something that you just made up. Several of our peer countries do not require ID."

From a quick perusal of Wikipedia, several seems to be: New Zealand, Australia (except by absentee/mail ballot), Denmark, and most of the UK (though parts are explicitly moving towards it). "Rest of the world" might not be literally accurate but it seems generally so, especially in our neighborhood (Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and most of Latin America). By the way, two of your examples (Germany and France) basically require some form of government ID. In Germany, you have to bring the polling card mailed to you by the gov't, or show an ID. In France, only towns of less than 1000 dispense with an ID requirement (meaning, everybody knows who the fuck you are anyway). I'm in agreement with what you have to say about a national holiday, though that only helps for November elections. I'd also piggy back on what Pupils DiL8t said, that there are definitely problems with how some state legislatures are crafting ID requirements, but that it doesn't make requiring ID itself this thing that is inherently racist and evil.

Quote :

"Sorry, but voting is a right and deliberately trying to impede that right is essentially encouraging people to ignore the constitution. And it doesn't just hurt some people, it's essentially denying equitable access to many of the country's most vulnerable (elderly/disabled/poor) regardless of skin color, which you oddly keep bringing up. And the states that are being the most aggressive in attempts to bar access just so happen to be ones that have become key battle ground states like GA/AZ/TX. If your attitude is that only 'smart' and 'capable' people should have the privilege of voting, that makes you a tyrant/fascist."

Far from it. There's no way the gov't could possibly be trusted to even begin trying to explicitly weed out people who aren't "smart or capable." However, you frame this as "deliberately trying to impede people [from voting]," and that's what I take issue with. I mark it as "convenience," because it's clear that there are ways we could make voting more "convenient" but that would be absolutely atrocious (email, text, websites, etc) when implemented. No one claims we are "deliberately impeding people from voting" just because we right don't do elections by email. Rather, I'd look at it from the perspective of whether or not voting is "easy enough" to not be impeding on the right to vote. And as long we are well on the right side of that line (which we are by leaps and bounds), I think it quite disingenuous to frame slight steps back towards the line (and thus, less convenient) as "impeding voting," especially when the proposals are still well on the correct side of that line and still more generous than what we had 15-20 years ago. If you look at a change in voting regulations and see that the vast and overwhelming majority of those harmed by the change really just didn't give a shit in the first place, that just isn't something that should raise hackles.

^^ I mean, it's Mother Jones... Why don't we just throw some NYPost or National Review in this joint while we're at it? Props that it's not DailyKOS... But, fuck it, I'll bite... They looked specifically at vote by mail, which tends to be used by the most disinterested voters. Certainly leads one to look at that "convenience" thing I'm talking about, but I digress. I'd want to see numbers for in-person voting, which they conveniently left out. Furthermore, I'd be hesitant to draw any major conclusions about voting patterns by comparing a Presidential election to a municipal one. To their credit, they do note that folks who vote in municipal elections are diehard voters, who know how the nuts and bolts of elections work. Yet then they want to turn around and suggest these people are 1) easily (and meaningfully) surprised by a change in election laws (despite being so amazingly knowledgeable about them), 2) are voting in the most easily disrupted way, despite being the folks who reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaally want their voices heard... and then 3) just chose not to show up on election day or go to early voting after being rejected. Sounds a bit off to me. But, that's Mother Jones for you. But, let's press on...

They say that half of the application rejections were caused by folks missing the deadline because it was *checks notes* rolled back by a week. (A whole week? THE HORROR) So instead of 4 days, it's 11 (NC's is 7). Dear god, I've got to request a mail-in ballot at least 1.5 weeks before an election? STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES!!!! The piece claims organizers say "it's gotta be a week, no more," but really don't offer any reason why, so... Anyway, let's look at how many people submitted between 4 and 11 days in 2020... Roughly 20000 people. Out of 7.2million registered voters. Yeah... I get that they are throwing out the "Biden only won the state by 11k votes" thing, but elections where the margin of victory is .1% of registered voters are just not the norm. Losing your mind over that is silly. Trying to base entire electoral systems around statistical margins of error is a fool's errand. Calling .2% (or .5% if you use their seriously suspect "extrapolation") of registered voters "ZOMG JIM CROW ON STEROIDS" is about as absurd as you can get. By the way, you had to request a ballot by mail 15 days ahead of time in NY last year (NY SO RACIST!!!!). Let's also note that the USPS says they suck so bad that you should probably request a ballot by mail no less than 15 days before the election.

Now, if we really want to talk about some BS in georgia, I'd grant ya the "dropboxes only in the polls, while they are open." That seems a bit hoopy and pointless. Though, with early voting lasting 4 FUCKING WEEKS, there seems to be ample time to get that shit in. Or you could still mail it. And the REAL BS is the crap that was just proposed in AZ, where the state legislature can override the voters. CNN was sparse on the details, but it seems it would apply at a minimum to presidential elections.

1/30/2022 1:50:48 AM

I'd love a citation on "vote by mail tends to be used by the most disinterested voters".

1/30/2022 9:31:57 AM

I would think the opposite. It allows you to see the full ballot as it would appear with in-person voting and research your choices without time pressure. Plus, it's quite a bit more work to complete the process.

1/30/2022 10:57:30 AM

"People who vote by mail are uninformed and lazy" is a fun Fox News type trope.

Burro repeating it in a more polite connotation is telling.

[Edited on January 30, 2022 at 12:32 PM. Reason : A]

1/30/2022 12:32:11 PM

I fail to see how it is either uninformed or lazy. Setting up and completing absentee voting was a multi-step hassle.

1/30/2022 1:10:45 PM

Haven't heard anything about this in a long time

Quote :

"This was Kamala Harris’s promise to the American people just months before being elected VP: “Under a Biden-Harris administration we will decriminalize the use of marijuana and automatically expunge all marijuana use convictions. “This is no time for incrementalism.” https://t.co/fqBuBktunV "

1/31/2022 6:26:01 PM

Quote :

"Reporter: “It’s an action that you say they have taken, but you have shown no evidence to confirm that. [...] This is like - crisis actors? Really? This is like Alex Jones territory you’re getting into now.” Must-watch exchange between @APDiploWriter Matt Lee and @StateDeptSpox. https://t.co/RPIPb2zwf5"

2/3/2022 11:01:13 PM

^ saw that vid but I don’t agree with what the reporter is implying.

Biden admin is trying to avoid war, they’re trying to make sure ppl understand why there shouldn’t be military conflict. This is the opposite of the Colin Powell thing. Also unlike Iraqi wmds, the uk intelligence is confirming the us assessment.

It’s wrong to say it’s like Alex Jones. We know countries have used false flags to justify actions, it’s not a crazy thing. It fits with the mo Russia has used the past few years flooding the internet with disinformation too.

2/4/2022 12:01:43 AM

Quote :

"BOOOM. Jobs report crushes expectations. 467K new jobs in January vs. expectatiosn of 125K. So much for the big Omicron jump. The unemployment rate rose to 4%, however, this is in the context of a big LFPR jump. Also HUGE upward revision to last month."

2/4/2022 4:05:57 PM

Free Crack Pipes?

2/10/2022 7:20:04 AM

^ https://twitter.com/stevanzetti/status/1491107920154853378

2/10/2022 2:06:09 PM

Ah, the classic messaging of WELFARE PEOPLE ARE DRUGGIES.

Remember that time in Florida...

Quote :

"Of the 4,086 applicants who scheduled drug tests while the law was enforced, 108 people, or 2.6 percent, failed, most often testing positive for marijuana. About 40 people scheduled tests but canceled them, according to the Department of Children and Families, which oversees Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, known as the TANF program. The numbers, confirming previous estimates, show that taxpayers spent $118,140 to reimburse people for drug test costs, at an average of $35 per screening. The state's net loss? $45,780."

via https://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-didnt-save-money-by-drug-testing-welfare-recipients-data-shows/1225721/

I feel like it eventually came out that one of the proponents of the policy involved was (of course) making side money on the drug tests.

2/10/2022 2:35:30 PM

Quote :

"EXCLUSIVE Biden to seek more than $770 billion in 2023 defense budget, sources say https://t.co/OlGwyb18P0 https://t.co/eRRArrH48o"

2/16/2022 7:52:11 PM

Nttawwt

2/16/2022 11:56:00 PM

Anybody watch the thing

3/1/2022 11:12:02 PM

Uh oh. He said he gon FUND da police!

3/2/2022 7:44:07 AM