Today’s SCOTUS ruling allows states that are hostile to votes cast by the young, poor or minorities (i.e., Republican-controlled states) to disenfranchise those voters by purging them from the rolls if they don’t show up at the polls regularly. Most of the credit for the ruling goes to Mitch McConnell, who disgracefully abused his position to deny a duly elected president his right to fill a vacancy on the court. Blame also goes to Trump voters, who enabled Trump to complete McConnell’s “grand theft, SCOTUS seat” project by installing Gorsuch.
We can also allocate a portion of blame to third-party voters, whose insistence that their vote is a mode of personal expression rather than a civic duty empowered the thieving Republicans. But another portion must surely go to the apathetic who don’t bother to vote at all. I’m not talking about a harried single mom who’s juggling two shifts and three kids and simply doesn’t have time to vote since her Republican governor has limited early voting and made casting a ballot as difficult as possible.
I’m talking about the smarmy fuck-sticks who think not voting is a subversive act — a declaration that they understand the machinations behind the matrix and therefore know this whole democracy thing is a sham. The folks who find “both sides are corrupt” arguments so convincing that they just abstain altogether and dismiss anyone who doesn’t follow suit as a sucker. I know people like this, and they are nearly as insufferable as Trumpsters.
But contrary to their self-congratulatory delusion, the authentic renegades are the people who show up and cast a meaningful vote despite the roadblocks establishment Republicans put in their path. They’re the non-posers who willingly take on hardships to change things, including volunteering to help the folks GOP governors are targeting for disenfranchisement. I’d rather have one of the true subversives on my side than 100,000 the ennui-soaked, apathetic shits who’ve preemptively surrendered to proto-fascists.
[H/T to Elizabelle in the thread below for the reminder about VoteRiders, which is an outstanding organization.]
Poptartacus
Anyone who says “both sides”
Spit in thier face and laugh
schrodingers_cat
The Ds get punished for not being perfect by leftier-than-thou types while the Rs get rewarded for their nihilism by their voters at the ballot box. As long as this dynamic remains in place, we will keep fighting an uphill battle.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
If we don’t take back at least one house this fall, we may be fucked for good. Get out and vote. Do some campaign work if you can, give Democrats some money if you can, but for fuck’s sake, vote.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Poptartacus: Punch ’em in the face, then laugh.
Barbara
My great aunts, long dead, told me that they knew what it was like not to have the right to vote and they voted in every election, no matter how low-level, local, or temporary the electoral position at issue.
rikyrah
@Poptartacus:
Clap Clap Clap
Ain’t got time for this kind of foolishness….
Both sides…smack smack smack. .
rikyrah
Need to push out our chests…
And, I mean, get in the face of everyone who remotely tries to tell you that it doesn’t matter if they vote.
Do they have a pre-existing condition?
Yes?
Then voting is necessary, because the GOP has made it clear…
THEY WANT TO KILL YOU
NJeff
Better the worst Democrat than any Republican anywhere, forevermore.
Those who say there is no difference are actively supporting the Republican program.
raven
@Barbara: Yup, I was 19 when I came home from Vietnam in September 1969 and I couldn’t vote until November 1970. I don’t miss.
Duane
Fascism comes to the United States carrying a bible, wearing a black robe, and sitting on the Supreme Court. Fuckem. Fightem.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Yesterday in the UK
Yeah, it’s an uphill struggle. But when you win it, you stand atop a mountain and can look back and see a hell of a view.
Humdog
This firehose of weapons grade shit flying daily is very hard to keep taking.
zhena gogolia
@Humdog:
I hear you. As my brother said on the night of Nov. 6, 2016, “These are bad people. Very bad people.” We didn’t know the half of it.
The Ancient Randonneur
@rikyrah:
Look at what the American Gestapo (ICE) is doing to immigrant families by breaking them up and separating them from their children. The story of Gestapo agents coming to take children away for a shower is sickening. What would WE have done during the Holocaust? We’ll know the answer to that question in November.
Jack the Second
Fuckin’ Kennedy.
jl
Does Cracker understand that voting is ‘political’? If only it weren’t ‘political’, there wouldn’t be all this unpleasantness about it.
gene108
The solution is to elect Democrats up and down each level of government. Get Democrats into legislatures and governorships in the Midwest and overturn these voter suppression laws.
The courts can’t save us.
Rob Lll
Preach it, Betty!
kindness
Betty you are too kind. I reserve a special responsibility for all those ‘liberals’ who couldn’t stomach voting for Hillary for President.
kd bart
@schrodingers_cat: “Got to heighten the contradictions so that the Purity Phoenix will rise from the ashes and sweep into office.”
oldgold
NBC/WSJ poll on whether Mueller investigation should continue,
By party:
Rs – 14% yes, 68% no
Ds – 79% yes, 8% no
Inds – 42% yes, 33% no
By education:
non-college men: 31% yes, 55% no
non-college women: 31% yes, 44% no
college grad men: 60% yes, 33% no
college grad women: 53% yes, 27% no
By race:
whites – 41% yes, 42% no
blacks – 75% yes, 5% no
Hispanics – 51% yes, 30% no
We are running out of TIME. Mueller needs to hit the accelerator.
Betsy
Word, Betty! To everything you wrote! Especially “preemptively surrender.” I’m going to call non-voting that from now on.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@oldgold: Why are we running out of time?
opiejeanne
@raven: My grandmother always voted, no matter what. She was born in 1894 and she walked to the polls when she couldn’t get a ride.
oldgold
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Look at the gd polling numbers! Support for the investigation is waning. The numbers now suggest the cost to Trump of canning Mueller may well be worth it.
rikyrah
Justice Sonia Sotomayor slams SCOTUS decision on Ohio voter registration law
“Concerted state efforts to prevent minorities from voting and to undermine the efficacy of their votes are an unfortunate feature of our country’s history.”https://t.co/6uYONRCS60 pic.twitter.com/dXSIOtdVjX
— PaSenateDems (@PaSenateDems) June 11, 2018
rikyrah
@oldgold:
Just came to post this.
trollhattan
@Barbara: @raven:
3’ded. Even though I wasn’t unleashed on ballot box because of suffrage or the VRA I was part of the first cohort taking part in the 18 YO vote and because the above-mentioned Vietnam draft was still in full swing it seemed at the time like a literal life-and-death act. I’ve never taken my vote for granted since, even the oddball municipal ballot.
Was able to get the kid preregistered as a 16YO and she’s raring to go in 2020. Some of her friends, not so much so hopefully they’ll reconsider over the next year.
opiejeanne
California used to drop people from the voter rolls if they missed two Federal elections, but that was many years ago (the 70s is when I heard about it) and I don’t know if that has changed.
oldgold
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Look at the damn polling numbers. Support for the investigation is waning. The polling numbers are rapidly approaching the point where the risk/reward calculation for Trump will favor canning Mueller.
condorcet runner-up
A thousand times this. This is simply lazy and ignorant thinking masquerading as some sort of fake ultra-awareness. It literally is the result of giving in to the cynicism about “government” that the GOP has fomented for decades.
opiejeanne
@trollhattan: I had to wait until I was 22 to vote for the first time because the law changed at just the right time to exclude me at age 20, and the next election of any sort was when I was 22.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@oldgold: If he rushes his work the chances of acquittals increase. And if you want to talk about polling…how’s President Hillary Clinton doing?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Heh, I was lucky. I got to cast my first vote against Prop 13 about 5 months after my 18th.
rikyrah
Everything he does. Everything his administration does -is what it means to be a Republican.
YOU support putting children in cages.
YOU support ripping children away from their parents.
YOU support taking away healthcare from millions.
YOU support abestos.
YOU support killing trade.
YOU support raising the rent on poor people.
YOU support taking away voting rights.
YOU support pedophiles for public office.
THIS is the GOP, and if you aren’t voting for a Democrat – THIS is what you support.
Coming Out Swinging: A Model for How Democrats Should Immediately Put Republicans on the Defensive
D58826
Somewhat OT but why is the Der Fuhrer/Kim meeting ‘historic’? The 3 generations of kim’s would have killed every other member of their family to get a meeting with POTUS. It was never a case that the US and NK could not agree to a meeting. It was no other POTUS would elevate these mass murders to the world stage by appearing in public with them. It is POTUS that has been reduced in status by this meeting
mali muso
Getting ready to go VOTE tomorrow in Virginia primaries. Still on the fence as to who will be the best Dem candidate to run against the awful Barbara Comstock in November. Leaning towards Jennifer Wexton. Anyone else here in VA-10 or have some insight to share? Whomever we select, I’m going to be volunteering. We have to win this seat.
Mnemosyne
Don’t forget about Jason Kander’s organization, Let America Vote. They are also doing great work on the ground.
eclare
Cosign 100%. A friend of mine, in FL no less, could not be bothered to vote for Hillary. Voted for Johnson. We are no longer friends. “Both sides”.
gene108
@oldgold:
Call your Congresscritters and demand they protect the Mueller investigation. It’s the easiest option.
Fox News and the Trump Administration are doing everything they can to turn public opinion, so that people will not care, if and when Trump kills the Mueller investigation.
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
John Oliver did a good segment last night about how Trump and Fox News are working hard to get people to no longer care about the Mueller investigation. We are the jury, because we elect the Congresscritters that will decide on impeachment and if we don’t care, there won’t be pressure to impeach Trump.
Amir Khalid
@oldgold:
Since you reposted, I’m reposting my reply:
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Indeed, we will fight and we will succeed.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
If you want nightmare fuel, consider what will happen in Congress if November is a blue wave – if the craven suburban Rs get swept and mainly teabaggy Freedumb Caucus guys are left behind, I’m predicting a rump caucus that does right wing shit on steroids.
zhena gogolia
@D58826:
I wish you were in charge of public journalism.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
I also had to wait but I voted the first time at 21. Turned 21 in navy boot camp. Really, really wished that I’d been able to vote at 18. For anyone around our age to think that not voting is in any way a protest or that it makes no difference after that bullshit, let alone now, is a fucking idiot.
D58826
@zhena gogolia: I’m just waiting for the ‘peace in our time ‘ communique.
Mnemosyne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
So, basically, what we had to deal with in California until voters finally got completely sick of the Republicans’ obstructionist shit and gave the Democrats a supermajority in both houses of our legislature.
Mary G
I started a $5/month donation to Vote Riders and filled out the volunteer form.
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus: I mainly became a citizen, so that I could vote. I don’t understanding the purity pony reasoning at all. Its the least you can do as a citizen.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
Damn, that’s good.
Leto
@?BillinGlendaleCA: As Kay correctly points out, the gears grind slowly and methodically. Personally I imagine the process similar to the steamroller scene out of the first Austin Powers movie. Mueller moving along at 2mph, Trump with his hand up crying, “NO COLLUSION! NO COLLUSION!”, too stupid to move out of the way. Fingers crossed that Mueller rolls all the way from toe to Vader scalp.
Mnemosyne
BTW, if you need reaffirmation that we’re not crazy and that not every old white dude loves Trump, watch Robert De Niro say, “Fuck Trump” on live TV last night.
raven
@Ruckus: 21 in Bootcamp! You would have been pops in my outfit!
Hungry Joe
My wife and I attended a protest yesterday outside Donovan Correctional Facility, a prison SE of San Diego where about 1,000 refugees/immigrants (most from Central America) are being held. A couple of them talked to us via cellphone held up to a megaphone. They told us that in retaliation for our presence, the prison authorities revoked their yard (outdoor) privileges for the day.
oldgold
@Amir Khalid:
Look, in high stakes professional matters, you always would like to take the time to exhaustively follow prescribed protocol. But, there are situations where circumstances dictate that doing so is not where wisdom lies. In my opinion, this is the case here.
And, the idea that the future of this investigation is not tied to public opinion is fanciful at best.
ruemara
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): Welcome to my analysis 10/16. And yes, we are quite nearly fucked for about 18-25 years if we don’t win now.
@Ruckus: I’ve had so many arguments about this with, sadly & apologies, white men. And it’s amazing how SMUG they are about it. Smug, self-righteous and horrible while claiming to be politically aware. I’m sick of it, them and fuck George Carlin et al for the poison passing as jokes. Government does nothing for them, but I’m supposed to co-sign supposed liberal allies sitting shit out and pissing on the incremental progress that allows me to barely survive? God, fuck that with a nuke.
@Hungry Joe: Goddamned beasts in uniform. I hate these people with the fire of a thousand suns. Like, I shouldn’t have a weapon near them levels.
sukabi
@D58826: it’s “historic” because that’s how the WH has it billed and it’s in the talking points that were distributed to the “friendly” press. Once it’s out there the rest of the press picks up the vernacular and runs with it.
WH has declared it “historic” because tyrant toddler and his tiny hands need a “win” and something they can claim “only he could have done”
H.E.Wolf
My beloved aunt was interned with her family during WWII because of their Japanese heritage. The Supreme Court of their day upheld that vile policy.
Korematsu holds a place along with the Dred Scott and Plessy decisions as being “so flawed that they are now taken as exemplars of bad legal decision making”.
I predict that this week’s decision on voter registration purges will be another. And meanwhile, I am not giving up. Here’s to all of us jackals who are active in the resistance!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Thank you.
West of the Rockies
@rikyrah:
Damn straight. Gotta make it personal and real.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: The kid was 22 when she was in basic, they called her grandma.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
Trump has wanted to kill the investigation since before Mueller was put in charge. He tried firing Comey, and that didn’t do it. He’d have to start another Saturday Night Massacre to get rid of Mueller, but the final casualty of the original Saturday Night Massacre was the POTUS who instigated it. So Trump has been stymied, and is reduced to hurling insults at the investigation while it continues taking down the people around him. I would be content with this state of affairs.
schrodingers_cat
@sukabi: He has already achieved that, trying to make an enemy out of Canada.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
Thank you, Betty. Just signed up for monthly donations to VoteRiders. Am also going to look into volunteering with them.
I feel/fear we are approaching a time when we’ll have to put our bodies on the line as well.
/angry, cynical, pissed off/
Leto
@Ruckus: @raven: As a fellow 21 y/o when I entered basic training, can confirm, was considered the “old man”.
@oldgold: You’re not you when you’re hysterical. Go eat a Snickers. Come back level headed.
sukabi
@schrodingers_cat: well they did burn down the WH you know.??????
Kay
Ugh. Kennedy sucks so much.
So I met with Uma again today, she’s the ODP organizer for 20 counties. ODP is Ohio Democratic Party. They’re “onboarding” field staff so she won’t be alone long. They’re doing a voter reg on June 14th and they’ll just have to fold this newest hurdle in and tell people to check their registration or if they’re not sure they could always just re-register to be safe- if all the info is the same it would just be a duplicate- I think- I’m not sure what they would do with a registration received when voter is already registered. Belt and suspenders couldn’t hurt, I suppose. Maybe we should all just re-register every six months and they’ll get sick of processing all that paper and stop bothering voters with all this ridiculous, made-up fraud bullshit.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@ruemara:
Why that specific number?
oldgold
@Leto:
Hysterical?
Suggesting that Mueller needs to hit the accelerator is hysterical?
When only 14% of Republicans think the investigation should continue?
Timing and time!
sukabi
@Kay: more than likely the results of regular 6 month registrations would be a voter purge of the “problem voters” (frequent registerers) the day prior to the election and a shortage of provisional ballots.
sukabi
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: time it takes for a new generation to come into power?
artem1s
It cannot be said enough. John Roberts is the worst SCOTUS Cheif Justice since Roger Taney. He should be booed in public wherever he goes and publically outcast. It was his weasel worded BS that brought us Citizen’s United, the death of the Voting Rights Act and the inevitabile corporate facist catering that made Dolt45 possible. Straight line. Citizen’s United should some day be compared to Dread Scott as the perfect example of intended consequenses gone amok. Taney spent his final years in worsening health, near poverty, and despised by both North and South. He died towards the end of the civil war on the day that his home state of Maryland abolished slavery. The very first act of a new Democratically rulled congress should be to reinstate the voting rights act in full and make preclearance mandatory for every juristiction.
Litlebritdifrnt
@condorcet runner-up: I used to have mad respect for Dylan Rattigan, right up to the point when he admitted that he never votes. And now the prick is running for office, so of course he wants everyone to vote for him. You can go on as many righteous rants as you want Dylan but if you don’t vote then you are part of the problem not the solution.
Kay
@sukabi:
5 million people could call them once a week for 25 weeks and ask if they were still registered. Just checking!
Leto
@Kay:
Kay is back with a new stand up routine. I like this new joker version! :)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@oldgold:
But how representative are those Republicans? Those are just people still self-identifying as Republicans. Even among all whites, support to end the investigation is only one point higher
Citizen Alan
@oldgold:
Coulda sworn I pie’d your dumb ass already.
Redleg
I like that you hyphenated “fuck-sticks.” The rest I agree with too.
Roger Moore
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It doesn’t much matter. If the craven suburban Rs get swept, Nancy Pelosi will be speaker and the crazy rump caucus will be doing their right wing shit in the wilderness. Besides, it’s not as if the craven suburban Rs have been doing much to keep the crazy in check as is; the Free Dumb Caucasians have been able to dictate terms to the past two speakers by threatening to unseat them.
ruemara
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Combination of generational (current old fascists plus new fascists plus complacency) and that America is too unwieldy for that level of authoritarianism to be 100+ years. It’s not in the nature of the American mindset. Rebelling against everything is more natural here. If we broke up into much smaller nationstates, then some would be neonazi paradises attacking other states for a good century or more. Once you get past certain regional sizes, it’s less likely. It doesn’t mean we wouldn’t fight another civil war or anything else, but my gut says we have about 2 generations or so of being able to survive the humiliation & poverty a Trump regime would bring. Then what ever Trump would experience the natural conclusion of a failed despotic line.
tobie
Just checking in from abroad…the news from the US is so upsetting. I guess we’re all going to have to hit the pavement in the fall to try to overcome the roadblocks to voting in the US. The GOP’s blatant effort to disenfranchise the young, the poor, and communities of color has been a real shock to my friends in France and Germany. It’s just incomprehensible to them. Oh, and fuck Justice Kennedy. Once Obama was elected he became a right-wing extremist. With the exception of his position on gay marriage, he is every bit as bad as Alito. Hang touch, folks.
rikyrah
@Kay:
No such thing as double registering.
For me, it’s just providing updated information.
Remember, there are people who don’t move. But, they get older.
I work with elections. You can’t imagine the number of voters that I find who have one, maybe two cards in their voter file, and the last one was from 25-30 years ago.
I hadn’t moved in 15 years, but I did another voter registration application just a couple of years ago, just so that they’d have another card on file from me, and, to update my signature. I’m not a Senior Citizen, but you know, the signature can change over time.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@ruemara:
Not that it would have to be Trump, but I don’t think he even has 10-15 years left in him. I know Trump is a symptom rather than the cause. I don’t think his “brand” could survive his death either.
Leto
@oldgold: I’m glad that you’re giving so much attention to a minority of the country. Do we need to do a BJ fundraiser and send you a case of Snickers? Will that help? Beverage of choice included? Can I offer you a long walk to help clear the head? (Basically just time away from the computer which always does people a world of good)
@artem1s: A corollary to this is something I heard on last Thursday’s Pod Save America podcast. One of the things that Trump has been able to accomplish, with a big hand from Yurtle, is stacking the courts with terrible judges. The guest they had on said something like 95% of all cases are decided at the appeals court level. Trump basically farmed out judicial selection to the Federalist Society, and they’ve managed to sit the same number of judges in Trump’s first 500 days as Obama did in his first term. (Again, fuck you Yurtle) These judges are, on average, roughly 10 years younger than Obama appointed judges (40 y/o vs 50 y/o average). Even when republicans personally hated everything Trump stood for, they still came out to vote just so that they could get courts stacked in their favor.
So another reason to get Dems into office, not only to try to stop most of what this mal-administration is doing, is to stop the courts from being packed with people who will potentially be around until 2050, delivering one bad decision after another.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Leto:
That’s only if they don’t suffer unfortunate “accidents”.
oldgold
@Citizen Alan:
Please do!
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Not trying to argue, really I’m not.
The least one can do as a citizen is nothing.
But.
The least one can do as a decent citizen is vote. And vote for your fellow man, woman and children. Not against them. The world now has over 7 billion people in it. We have over doubled the population in the last 50 yrs. It isn’t the same because of this. People are starving, unable to find a place to live, unable to live. This feeds racism and that has to be realized. Yes as a country we have a particular problem with racism but people my age are looking at this and seeing that the world is a different place than it was in 1970. In this country we have not doubled, we’d have to add almost another 100 million to have doubled in the last 50 yrs. But we are taking in 3 times the immigrants now as we did then. And that comes from the over doubling of the rest of the worlds population. We still have room and we still have ability to take in more and maintain our lives. But for many it seems that we are running out of room, because we have been used to large expanses and lots of square feet per person. McMansions, suburbia both of these are there because we used to have that space. But that’s going away. We can hold our breath till we turn blue and it won’t stop the growth. We can build all the walls and it won’t stop the growth. Here or anywhere else. China tried limiting the number of children, and that failed. It is an issue that everyone on the planet has to address. Conservatives are trying to answer it in a far worse way than China did and it will fail and badly. Because they have no understanding that the world is not the same as it was 50 yrs ago, let alone the 150 yrs ago they want to revert to. Hell they have no understanding of of the world then and haven’t improved a bit in that time.
ETA I case I haven’t said this before, Welcome, citizen.
Kay
@rikyrah:
We already say “are you registered to vote under the same name and address?”
Now we have to add “and have any of the public employees in state government arbitrarily removed you from the voter rolls, just on a ‘gut feeling’ you’re plotting felony voter fraud?”
Ruckus
@raven:
Grandad to you youngster!
I wasn’t the oldest but I think the oldest was 22 if memory serves.
Some of the guys looked like they should have been in 6th grade.
Some acted like it.
eric
@Kay: I believe the shorter version of that question is “do you vote democratic?”
Ruckus
@ruemara:
No kidding. I just don’t get this “I’m too good for this shit, if they aren’t going to suck my dick I’m going to hold my breath till I turn blue. That will teach them.” That’s toddler thinking. Which of course is why they like the toddler in chief.
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus:
I was assuming sanity, my bad.
Are we really? How did you arrive at this number? AFAIK GC quotas have not changed since INA became a law in 1965.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
With any large group of humans, probably any animals in fact, there is always going to be a segment that has far less than a passing connection to sanity. Here we call them republicans.
That number was shown on this website. I have no idea how exact the numbers are but with that size even a somewhat poor stacked statistical analysis is not going to be off that far. And the numbers pretty much jive with the census bureau from what I’ve seen elsewhere. Notice that the number of immigrants is the same over the last 4 yrs and was higher and more specific prior. That’s a signal that is worrying but even if you use the 2014 number, it’s not that far off. Remember also that there are a lot of different visas and what you call immigration may be different that what this site is using. Becoming a recent citizen and being an immigrant I’d bet you know this system a hell of a lot better than me though.
burnspbesq
@oldgold:
No. Your tone is hysterical. Go look outside, Chicken Little. The only thing falling is caterpillar shit.
burnspbesq
@artem1s:
That will be a major surprise to Republicans in North Carolina and Texas.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
IIRC, the way I’ve seen it explained is that, as the US birthrate declined when people started having smaller families, population growth started to be driven by immigration rather than birthrate. I’m not sure where to find the numbers for that, but they may well date back to the 1960s.
Contrast us with Japan, which has an aging population, low birthrate, and low immigration. They’re having a big problem supporting their Baby Boomers because there just aren’t enough young people.
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus: Legally an immigrant is a green card holder (because they can become citizens) but rhetorically we tend to classify anyone here long term as an immigrant. That is a source of confusion. Other than parents and spouses and children of citizens, the number of green cards per year is determined according to strict quotas. And those haven’t changed.
ETA: Thanks for the link, I will take a look, USCIS also keeps data about the number of GCs approved every year. The number has been close to one million for many years now.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
From what I have seen of the old news footage of the Saturday Night Massacre is when the news broke, everybody picked up their phones and called their Congressman and demanded Nixon be impeached. Basically, there was a serious public backlash against Nixon for trying to kill the Watergate investigation.
What Trump, Fox News, et. al. are trying to do is make conditions, if not favorable for firing Mueller, at least make enough people indifferent of the decision that there won’t be a huge public backlash against Trump for doing it.
Right now the vast majority of conservatives have bought into the “witch hunt” narrative and would probably call their Congressman with words of support for the firing of Mueller. Independents are fairly evenly split.
I think that is the biggest difference between then and now. Social media (especially Trump’s Twitter), the internet, and Fox News have allowed conservatives to set up their own narrative on the Mueller investigation, which favors Trump, and has created an alternative reality for conservatives.
gene108
@Ruckus: @schrodingers_cat:
One thing that the “1 million GC’s per year” does not make clear is that a lot of people getting GC’s are already in the country on temporary visas. You have people on H1-b visas, asylum seekers, etc. The net increase in new people entering the country is less than the 1 million GC’s given out.
A lot of temporary visa categories (such as H1-b) are listed as non-immigrant visas, i.e. the person holding the visa is not considered an immigrant. When they apply for and get a GC, they will be counted as immigrants. This makes the whole “1 million immigrants a year” figure rather deceptive, because a lot of people are already here.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108:Good point. I wonder how many GCs are granted by the adjustment of status process (people already here) vs. consular process (people applying from outside the US). Also, the million GCs is the average, many times the number is lower than that.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
That jives with the numbers this site uses for immigration. They show 2010 at 1,006,738
Gemina13
I’ve signed up with VoteRiders to volunteer – thanks, Betty! This shit cannot stand.
Ruckus
@gene108:
@schrodingers_cat:
Good info on the GC/temp visa issue. However as we see the info on the site I linked to is very specific till 2010 and jives with SC’s approx 1 million actual immigrants per year, with lower rounded numbers since 2011, which is probably they don’t actually have real numbers yet. And I’d bet we won’t be getting those numbers anytime soon as the current maladministration wants people to think that the numbers have skyrocketed so they can build shithead’s wall.
stinger
@Kay: Before last week’s primary I was thinking (and still am) that I should call the auditor’s office every day and stop in once a week to ask, “Am I still registered?” I like to imagine hundreds of thousands of people doing that, all over the country. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t affect the people responsible for voter suppression.
ETA: And at #74 you make the same suggestion!
stinger
@rikyrah: Good points. I really will go update my registration.
The Truffle
@gene108: I agree. A ton of GOP governorships are up for grabs this year–more on the GOP side than the Dem side. A lot of those GOP governors are leaving due to term limits.
Beyond that, it would be awesome if Dems won back the Senate and stopped court-packing. But the House is a better bet.
MomSense
@Kay:
It’s outrageous. I’m so mad about this.
debbie
@Kay:
Fuck Husted. I’d like to see if he has the balls to do a face-to-face with the vet I just heard who was kicked off the roll because he had been occupied otherwise in Iraq.
J R in WV
@raven:
I got out in early 1973, just after I turned 21, the change in voting age from 21 to 18 was somewhere in that time also. After I got back to WV, I have only missed one election in my whole life.
That was a bond levy to pay for the VFWs and EMT services in the county. It always passes and did easily without my vote, as I expected it would. That was something like 30 years go, I’m batting 1.000 since then.
I also contribute to candidates who appear to have positions I can agree with. I’m on the seesaw on Senator Manchin, who evidently didn’t like shaking hands with me when I was next in line for a hand-shake back when he was Gov. of WV.
That was OK, I didn’t like shaking hands with him either. His management was shortsighted and intended to improve his chances of election in the future.He’s a slime ball in any case. But he is a Democratic candidate, so I’m gonna vote for him.
The question is “Will I work for him?” and I don’t know the answer. Probably not.
Uncle Cosmo
@The Truffle: Here in MD, Larry Hogan is odds-on to become the first two-term GOP governor since Theodore R. McKeldin (served 1951-59), who was also the only other two-term GOP governor.
And why is that in this supposedly-deep-blue-but-in-fact-bleedinig-to-purple-or-maroon-at-the-edges state? First, because the two leading contenders in the Democratic primary are AA, & at least 10% of Marylanders registered as Democrats are DINOs who would crawl over their dying grandmother to vote against a POC. Second, because their bases of support (one in AA-majority Baltimore City, the other in the AA-majority DC-suburban Prince Georges County) pretty much detest one another – PG focuses on DC & wishes Charm City would have the good grace to roll over & drop dead quietly while they’re sitting upwind; Baltimore resents being stuck with more than half of the state’s problems with 12% of the population & less than that in resources when the rest of the state waits for it to roll over & die. As a result, turnout in one for an eventual nominee from the other will be decidedly lackluster. Makes ya wanna barf.
The Truffle
@Uncle Cosmo: Sounds crappy. I do know that some execrable GOP types are leaving due to term limists (like LePage. What about the state legislature?
Uncle Cosmo
@The Truffle: Dems are 33-14 in the State Senate, 91-50 in the House of Delegates. Unlikely to change much, but if anything I’d expect the Thugs to gain on Hogan’s coattails. He’s one of the few not-batshit-insane GOPers left (not a Trump fan at all) & has tread pretty softly. The one GOP member of the House delegation (Andy Harris, MD-01) is a former anesthesiologist best known for bitching about inadequate health care – his own. (Pissed him off that after he was elected to his first term his gold-plated Congressional package wouldn’t kick in till he was actually sworn in the following January. Bastard.)
Just FYI, in the last 4 MD gubernatorial elections Democrats nominated a white woman, a white guy (twice) and an AA male. The woman & the AA male lost to Thugs, the white male was elected twice (& term-limited out). Real progressive state we got here, hon…
The Truffle
@Uncle Cosmo: Hogan sounds like Charlie Baker (a blue-state Republican who is one of the few GOPers who isn’t a Trumper and/or nuts). Here in NYC, I’ve considered volunteering for a campaign or two, if I can even overcome my general pessimism about the country’s future (I can honestly see it going the way of Yugoslavia within 20 years).