Once Senator Mitch McConnell staked out the politically uncompromising GOP opposition to ‘everything’ Democrats proffered, during the Obama administration, the redline was drawn. Slowly but surely, the so-called moderate Republicans like; Susan Collins, Rob Portman, and John Thune have repeatedly torn their knickers on the fence. Collins, for example, agreed...
Representation
The addition of the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act was a turning point in terms of minority representation. Redistricting is the process of drawing electoral district lines every ten years intended to bring about racially proportional representation. While its purpose was to give weight to minority votes, it...
Hello, My name is Saumya Gilra and I am a studying Law and Political Science at University at Buffalo. I was having some trouble registering so I have attached my essay. Please let me know if there is any other information you need. Thank you! Best, Saumya Sent from Mail...
It depresses me to acknowledge this, but the Republicans’ commitment to blatant and serial lying, and Orwellian “make believe” governing, pose a real threat by overwhelming the public debate and individual’s efforts to stay grounded. While a bit well-worn (and of uncertain provenance), this quote is fundamentally true: “A lie can travel halfway around...
Bernie Sanders opinion piece in the NYT is an important read. It is also important to recognize who sparked this latest round of murder. Palestinian families in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah have been living under the threat of eviction for many years, navigating a legal system designed to...
Bernie Sanders opinion piece in the NYT is an important read. It is also important to recognize who sparked this latest round of murder. Palestinian families in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah have been living under the threat of eviction for many years, navigating a legal system designed to...
Likely Trump will continue to be banned from Facebook, but just in case, it is worth speculating what would happen if he returns. His general laying-low these days is probably in hopes of getting a reprieve. Facebook’s oversight board will announce its ruling on whether former President Donald Trump’s account should...
Likely Trump will continue to be banned from Facebook, but just in case, it is worth speculating what would happen if he returns. His general laying-low these days is probably in hopes of getting a reprieve. Facebook’s oversight board will announce its ruling on whether former President Donald Trump’s account should...
Statistically, the state with the highest black population by percentage in America is Mississippi; or is it? I came of age in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s and at the time D.C. had a predominantly black population, as it does now. The number of black residents has dwindled significantly. At...
Here’s some big news today out of Pennsylvania: .@JohnFetterman announces he raised $3.9 million in the first quarter for his Pennsylvania U.S. Senate run, through 140,000 contributions. A big haul of 💰 at an early stage. — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) April 1, 2021 Lt. Gov. John Fetterman said he raised...
It always seemed absurd to me that hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens have no effective representation in Congress. And I’m not just talking about Alabamans. But to hear some conservatives tell it, that’s as it should be because, you know, D.C. doesn’t have a car dealership. And they already make their...
Received this e-mail from U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen’s (D. MD) re-election campaign: The last four years have dramatically demonstrated just how much work we need to do to restore and strengthen our democracy, and address critical national priorities that have been trapped in gridlock for years. The sad truth...
Received this e-mail from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden’s (D. OR) re-election campaign: Taking back our democracy from those that wish to undermine Americans' fundamental constitutional rights will take work on several fronts: tightening election security, ending voter suppression, making the vote more accessible to everyone who's eligible, combating coordinated disinformation,...
The Atlanta spree killings are unfortunately a story with structural similarity to events elsewhere. How do we know that Robert Long wasn’t on his way to Mar-a-Lago when the cops performed a PIT maneuver on him after he killed eight people. Darn hypotheticals of the culture wars. Mar-a-Lago as spa resort...
The sparse number of actual carbon capture and sequestration projects plus weak carbon markets amplify the problems of the climate crisis yet to be revisited, post-Trump. Two heartland examples in North Dakota and Texas show how there are several interlocking problems addressing the climate crisis that must be included in future environmental policy. More specifically...
Received this e-mail today from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party: Pennsylvania Supreme Court candidate, Superior Court Justice Maria McLaughlin (D. PA) Pennsylvania's Vote By Mail request form is now available for the 2021 elections! With key local offices on the ballot, Democrats need to vote with the same great fervor as...
BIG Hat tip to kittylou: This story just got more interesting: First on CNN: Five of Trump's impeachment defense attorneys leave team less than two weeks before trial Five of former President Donald Trump's impeachment defense team attorneys have stepped aside a little more than a week before his Senate...
Playing catch up here. Received this e-mail from U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen’s (D. MD) re-election campaign: For far too long the people of the District of Columbia have been denied their right of self-governance and have faced taxation without representation. This injustice must end. Washington, DC should be a...
Watching the depressing and alarming spectacle of 17 Republican states joining Texas’s bad faith, frivolous Supreme Court application to overturn the election in favor of Trump, I am reminded that in September 2015 I wrote a post titled “The Sad Truth of John Boehner’s Resignation” — which received 1,275 Recommends, 789 Comments and,...
Why bother counting the votes after Dixville Notch weighs in. Dick Nixon won both Ohio and Florida in 1960 and lost to Kennedy. But you do you Donald, it’s still 1-52 in failed legal challenges. x The President of the United States literally wants to overturn certified election results and a significant fraction of...
This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx. Not quite this type of commodity, but more like a pork barrel. x “Ah, pork bellies, I knew it.” ~Louis Winthorpe @dan_aykroyd https://t.co/yeVcYIYtqF— Stephen Bates (@batess) December 3, 2020 M. Proudhon has the misfortune of...
Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave, While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save; But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave, His soul is marching on. Abolitionist John Brown was executed by the state of Virginia on December 2, 1859. pic.twitter.com/AOAIpDQKPG — Haymarket Books (@haymarketbooks) December 2,...
Last gasps of biglygate: even Mitt Romney shades Trump as President-elect Biden has not ruled out legal action against the GSA, as Trump will have run out of options very soon. x Arizona will follow in a week.Nevada and Wisconsin will certify on December 1. The electors will cast their...
1-22 record in legal challenges as GOP loses again, this time on the watchers of vote counting in Philadelphia. x Breaking: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rejected the Trump campaign's claim that Republicans lacked access to Philadelphia's vote count proceedings. The ruling was 5-2 against the campaign.https://t.co/tdNwajyk0Q — Kyle Griffin...
Trump sells off his private helicopter after losing the election, so perhaps he’s cash-short, even as he’s running another grift, claiming he’d run again in 2024. However, there’s other shenanigans possible in the remaining 70 days, including a small-scale international military action that in itself could cause a continuing problem...
8pm ET join us as we celebrate with the victory speeches of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. x YouTube Video “Our democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it, to guard it, and never take it for granted,” Harris opens with, quoting Rep. John Lewis. As...
How many votes remain to be counted? Exit polls show fewer late-deciders than in 2016 Trump-Clinton contest, but Trump seemed to maintain numbers where he needed, numbers that would still defeat improved Biden numbers over Clinton in 2016. Still, final results won’t be happening until Wednesday mid-morning at the earliest because counts will...
Trump’s con represents the worst kind of contradiction when rigging an election by suppressing the vote is anchored in a systematic combination of lies and disinformation. Yet all the GOP has left are long odds for Trump. The issue will be whether in the margins — will there be enough Trump voters...
The hope for a post-Trump era will bring with it already growing challenges to democracy. Along with $3 for a glass of water. x Pres. Obama campaigning for @JoeBiden: “If he had been focused on COVID from the beginning, cases wouldn’t be reaching new record highs across the country this...
Still about reality checks, considering that its still about GOTV and 3 November. Note that RCP is now showing a slight lead for Trump of +0.6% in some swing states, comparing 2020 and 2016. Things are different now especially with the candidates and pandemic constraints, but there are always potential bad signs...
Trump, his administration, and his doctors have been publicly unwilling, and contradictory, about identifying when Trump first learned — even if by a preliminary test — that he was, or potentially was, Covid positive. The most obvious tell here is that the Trump people refuse to answer when Trump last tested negative...
So this bull shit just happened: The Michigan Supreme Court issued a split decision late Friday that ruled against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a battle over her power to extend emergency declarations used to mandate COVID-19 restrictions. The court's decision throws in to question orders issued by Whitmer related to...
Although frequently posed as one question — “should we eliminate the Electoral College?” — there really are two separate questions: should we (i) abolish the Electoral College, but keep the formulation where each state’s weight is based on the combined total of its US Senators and Representatives, or (ii) move entirely to a national popular vote? I...
We experienced a collective freakout two days ago when Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the November election (which merely tells me that the piano movers they eventually hire to drag his semi-animated carcass from the Oval Office may need to carry cattle prods),...
We in big trouble. x You think the Republican war on democracy is bad now? Just imagine what it would be like if Trump won: https://t.co/ogHG88jwDa— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) September 24, 2020 With the Supreme Court soon to have a 6-3 conservative majority even though Republicans have lost the popular...
There are a number of issues to address, but let me start with this, from the 14th Amendment: But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of...
There are a number of issues to address, but let me start with this, from the 14th Amendment: But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of...
Doing his best Droopy Dog on indica brownies impression, Lindsey Graham appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox unreality show last night to whine about a future dystopian America where the people actually elect the president, Democrats change the rules to counter Republicans’ brazen and arbitrary rule-changing, and a U.S. territory with more people than...
Received this e-mail today from former presidential candidate, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I. VT): This election, and possibly the future of the Supreme Court, will likely be won or lost with voters in battleground states. That's why we're asking you to support five grassroots organizations in key battleground states who...
GOTV and get a Biden landslide. x The Coming Biden Landslide https://t.co/DB0UYBnxoU pic.twitter.com/ePYMFI9YNi — #TheResistance | Vote Early And Use A Ballot Box (@SocialPowerOne1) September 13, 2020 With a few notable exceptions, like my estimable colleague Jonathan V. Last, it seems that nobody wants to predict the November 3 election—not the...
Received this e-mail from House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff (D. CA-28), in support of Cameron Webb (D. VA-05), Pat Timmons-Goodson (D. NC-08) and Desiree Tims’ (D. OH-10) congressional campaigns: At a time where we’re seeing a nationwide call for desperately-needed reforms to stop systemic racism and the killing...
which discusses what America is which features images from the Civil Rights era and World War II which provides images of previous Presidents who represent bipartisan representation of what it means to be a President, who are “inheritors of the long duty to protect freedom and liberty” and even more...