Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good luck with your asparagus.

The revolution will be supervised.

Too inconsequential to be sued

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

No one could have predicted…

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Verified, but limited!

A snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals

Consistently wrong since 2002

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

We can agree to disagree, but I’m right.

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week

What fresh hell is this?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity.

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

An army of rabid, anonymous commenters

I can see Russia from this blog!

This is a big f—–g deal.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

This is how realignments happen…

The Math Demands It!

Wetsuit optional.

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Voting Rights

Election Year Open Thread: Good for Mike Bloomberg

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Stacey Abrams will not be Bloomberg’s VP, if only because his chances for the nomination are vanishingly small. But if her local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is correct, Bloomberg was responsible for about a third of the funds Fair Fight raised to fight voter suppression during the second half of 2019. For that money, not to mention the money he’ll be expected to donate in the future (and that his support will produce from other donors), she’s willing to give him a spot at her invite-only summit. Who knows, he might learn some important leassons… as might the reporters who’ll follow Bloomberg, who wouldn’t have shown up otherwise.

It’s purely transactional, on both their parts. I’m sure this is actually comforting to Mike — he’s a self-proclaimed Data Guy, for whom transactional is easy, unlike all that grip’n’grin stuff natural politicians find fulfilling.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Excellent Choice, Ms. Abrams!

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Per the Washington Post:

… Abrams, speaking at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Las Vegas, announced a 20-state voter protection initiative, using her experience challenging voting laws during her gubernatorial campaign last year in Georgia, which included widespread irregularities.

“We’re going to have a fair fight in 2020 because my mission is to make certain that no one has to go through in 2020 what we went through in 2018,” Abrams said…

The effort, expected to cost between $4 million and $5 million, will target 20 states, most of them battlegrounds in the Midwest and Southeast, and three states with gubernatorial elections this year: Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi…

In past election cycles, campaigns and state parties tended to wait until the start of general election campaigning to put together voter protection programs, which were often dismantled after elections. But with ongoing efforts by Republican state lawmakers to pass more restrictive voting laws, Groh-Wargo said, it was important that Democrats start working now to be ready to help voters navigate potential hurdles. Similarly, some states, such as Michigan and Nevada, have recently passed laws to expand access to voting, and party leaders and activists in those states need to make sure voters can take advantage of the changes…

The majority of the program will be run by Fair Fight PAC. Depending on the campaign finance laws of individual states, Fair Fight will make direct cash donations or will help groups raise money to hire staff, set up voter hotlines and develop public information campaigns…

Read the whole thing — it’s really uplifting!

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Proud to Be A Democrat Open Thread: Good News Out of Georgia

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Full props to Stacey Abrams!

Which reminded me, I hadn’t yet found a chance to post this great Washington Post profile, “Stacey Abrams: Being a black woman in politics isn’t ‘some fatal diagnosis’”:

…In your book you describe just showing up to a [Spelman College] board of trustees meeting [while a student there]. Why did you crash it, and what did they make of you?

I did not understand why my tuition had to go up every year. I did not understand why financial aid did not keep pace with tuition. So I showed up to the meeting. When [Spelman president Johnnetta Cole] allowed me in, the person I sat beside was a partner at an investment firm. I didn’t know what an investment firm was. But he was very kind. Everyone was. He let me sit beside him and shifted his notebook over to me. And I’m looking at all of these numbers; I had no idea what I was looking at. And he leaned over and started explaining financial statements to me.

Then there was the highest-ranking woman at Coca-Cola. She started telling me things. And the president of Ben & Jerry’s. They saw it as an opportunity to educate me, and I was just so hungry for information. I was listening and learning so much so that over time, they forgot that I sort of barged in. They started telling me when the meetings were. And I eventually got my own notebook.

Sitting in those board meetings was incredibly eye-opening. It showed me that these things weren’t impossible to know. And you didn’t have to be “to the manner born” to learn. You just had to work harder…

To quote the great Shirley Chisholm: If there’s not a seat for you at the table, bring a folding chair!

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Democrats Are Pro-Voters; Repubs Are Not

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The Washington Post, paper of record in the company town where national politics is the monopoly industry, has a good explainer:

The House approved a far-reaching elections and ethics bill Friday — one that would change the way congressional elections are funded, impose new voter-access mandates on states and, in one of several provisions targeting President Trump, force disclosure of presidential candidates’ tax returns.

Democrats dubbed the bill H.R. 1, a designation meant to signal its place as a centerpiece of their congressional agenda. The measure, which has more than 500 pages, contains dozens of provisions favored by liberal advocacy groups, labor unions and other Democratic allies.

“It’s a power grab, a power grab on behalf of the people,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said at an event on the Capitol steps ahead of the planned vote.

The bill is headed for a brick wall in the Republican-controlled Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made clear it will not get a vote. However, Democrats and their allies said the bill’s passage would build momentum for action in coming years if and when Democrats solidify control in Washington.

“If Mitch McConnell is the immovable object, H.R. 1 is the unstoppable force,” said Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), the lead author of the bill. “We’ll keep pushing on it.”…

Read the whole thing for a full list of the bill’s (excellent!) provisions.

Ed Kilgore, at NYMag:

… Aside from its scope, what’s most remarkable about HR1 is that every single House Democrat voted for it… And every Republicans voted against it, which means the GOP is determined to use barriers to full participation in elections — along with related abuses like partisan gerrymandering and unregulated campaign spending — to maintain its competitive position, regardless of public opinion….

The vote on HR1 should also provide something of a counterargument to all the recent “Democrats in disarray” story lines stemming from intraparty debates over socialism or Israel. No, the bill won’t even get a hearing in the Senate, where Mitch McConnell has denounced it as the “Democrat Politician Protection Act.” Mitch has a point: It might well help Democrats in the long run, for the rather honorable reason that they are defending rather than resisting the full expression of the popular will.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Selma Sunday

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Matt Viser, at the Washington Post:

Several Democratic presidential hopefuls came here to a resonant remembrance of one of the bloodiest moments of the civil rights movement on Sunday, with Sen. Cory Booker talking emotionally about being a descendant of slaves and others urging a renewed defense of voting rights…

Booker hinted at the words of Martin Luther King Jr. to draw attention to what he depicted as a resurgence of racial animosity.

“The dream is under attack. The dreamers are in danger,” Booker said. “And we need each other more than we realize in this country.”

Selma has become an annual pilgrimage site for Democratic politicians, culminating with a walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where on March 7, 1965, marchers advocating for voting rights were attacked by police in a day that has become known as Bloody Sunday. The Voting Rights Act was signed the same year. This year, the events marking one of the most searing moments of the civil rights movement took place over four days, including a Jubilee Golf Tournament on Friday and a “battle of the bands” on Saturday.

The main event, Sunday’s march across the bridge with linked arms, call-and-response, and gospel songs, was nearly derailed by thunderstorms. But the weather cleared enough for thousands to make the walk.

A trio of potential presidential candidates — Sanders of Vermont and Booker of New Jersey, who have announced their campaigns, and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who is considering a bid — were here along with Clinton during the day’s events…

Sunday’s events provided a forum for the belief among many African American leaders that the GOP has been launching a renewed fight against voting rights, with such measures as voter ID laws and the curtailment of early voting.

“Make no mistake: We are living through a full-fledged crisis in our democracy,” Clinton said. “There may not be, thank God, tanks in the streets. But what’s happening goes to the heart of who we are as a nation.”…

Brown, who told reporters that he will decide on a presidential bid by the end of March, also circulated among the mostly African American attendees, asking about their lives.

Asked how he could compete in a diverse field of candidates, and with an increasingly diverse electorate, Brown said he would let his record speak for itself.

“If I run, I’ll be the only Democrat on that stage who voted against the Iraq War. I’ll be the only Democrat on that stage who supported marriage equality 20 years ago. I’ll be the only person on that stage who has a longtime F from the NRA,” Brown said. He pointed to his face. “I can change a lot of things, but I can’t change this part of me, right?”

I don’t think Sherrod Brown will end up as our Democratic nominee (although plenty of people on twitter have suggested he’d be a great vp for Kamala Harris), but I am very interested in seeing what he’ll be saying over the next few months!

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Election Fraud Open Thread: A Re-Run in North Carolina

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Per the local Charlotte Observer:

The new campaign in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District kicked off Friday with a rally by Democrat Dan McCready, hints from several would-be GOP candidates and silence from Republican Mark Harris.

The flurry of action came a day after the North Carolina State Board of Elections ordered a new election following a hearing that detailed election fraud in Bladen County.

It made its decision after Harris stunned the hearing with his own call for a new election, after insisting for weeks that he won the vote last fall and should be certified…

The primary campaign would be relatively short. Though no schedule has been set, elections officials said one scenario would be for a May primary, a June runoff if needed and an October general election. The same officials have proposed a May 14 primary in the 3rd District, vacant since the death of Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones…

Former Mecklenburg County commissioner Matthew Ridenhour, a Charlotte Republican who lost his seat in November, said he’s received texts and emails since Thursday urging him to run. He expects to decide within a few days. And Republican legislators could run for Congress in a special election without fear of losing their seats, which are not up until 2020.

Despite McCready’s headstart, the 9th District still leans Republican. No Democrat has represented it for decades and President Donald Trump carried the district by 11 points. But some Republicans said the election fraud and Harris’ ties to Dowless have hurt the party’s label in the 9th.

“We have some work to do to repair our brand, and I’m not sure the current folks in leadership know exactly how to do that,” said Shaheen. “In my opinion party leadership in Raleigh made a fatal mistake by jumping out in front and being so supportive when they didn’t have the whole story.”…

Between the messy failure of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity and the new State Court ruling on ‘racial gerrymandering’, it seems the GOP party leadership had a pretty good outline of the whole story — and since their guys were using those stolen votes to ‘win’ elections, they were just fine with that!

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Election Fraud, not Voter Fraud

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The irregularities in North Carolina voting are being called “voter fraud” (here’s one example from a good media outlet), but as far as I can tell, they’re not. It sounds like some group of persons was collecting mail-in ballots, or sending mail-in ballots to people who had never requested them. In other words, someone between the voter and the ballot collected it and apparently voted it Republican. That’s election fraud – the voters didn’t perpetrate it.

It may seem like a small distinction, but it’s important because the way that the GOP markets “voter fraud” is some person or persons going to different precincts and voting multiple times. That doesn’t happen, and if it did, it would be incredibly expensive and inefficient. Fucking the system by faking ballots and sending them in, or tampering with election machines, is far more likely. Yet little or no effort is made to secure that part of the voting chain, because better ballot and machine security isn’t going to keep Democrats from voting.

In a few weeks when the dust has settled in North Carolina, look for Fox and the rest of the usual suspects justifying more bullshit ID legislation on the backs of this event.

(The only time I’ve ever seen an election irregularity was many years ago when a volunteer collecting absentee ballots from the elderly was overly suggestive about how they should vote. When another campaign worker found out, he was immediately reported and ejected from the campaign. I was doing the same job, and old and frail people often asked me how to vote when I gathered their ballot. It was a tight election and the temptation was there.)

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Open Thread: Gauntlet, Thrown!

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Of course the Repubs will do their best to strangle this vital young bill, but — at the very least, we’ll get them on the record, and let them defend their stance in the 2020 campaigns.

And not coincidentally, doesn’t this make the #FiveWhiteGuys and their fellow anti-Pelosi ratfvckers look like the two-bit schemers they are?

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Native American Voters, Still Fighting for Their Rights

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BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Efforts by American Indian tribes in North Dakota to provide free identification with street addresses to thousands of members in advance of Tuesday’s election are cutting into the number of Native Americans who could potentially be turned away at the polls for lack of a proper ID under recently tightened state rules.

The free programs launched with the help of groups including the Lakota People’s Law Project and the Four Directions nonprofit so far have provided more than 2,000 voters on four reservations with the proper credentials. The effort to ensure a strong Native American vote comes amid uproar over what some believe is an attempt to suppress their votes.

“We’re at our best in crisis,” said Phyllis Young, an organizer on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation for the Lakota People’s Law Project, adding that the issue “is only making us more aware of our rights, more energized, and more likely to vote this November.”…

Changes to North Dakota’s voter ID laws came just months after Heitkamp’s win by fewer than 3,000 votes with the help of Native Americans in 2012, though Republicans say that had nothing to do with updates aimed at guarding against voter fraud. American Indians make up about 5 percent of North Dakota’s population.

The Turtle Mountain Chippewa, Standing Rock Sioux, Spirit Lake Sioux and Three Affiliated Tribes all have launched programs to provide free IDs with street address to tribal members in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.

As of Tuesday, the programs had provided 1,050 IDs on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, more than 380 on the Spirit Lake Sioux Reservation and 440 on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The Three Affiliated Tribes had provided only 140, but the program had just been launched the day before…

The effort is largely being financed through donations. The Native American Rights Fund has given the four tribes a total of $50,000, and a GoFundMe site set up by the Standing Rock Sioux had raised more than $200,000 from more than 4,300 donors as of mid-day Wednesday.

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Stacey Abrams vs. the Revanchist Racist

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… “I have a hard time imagining this is anything but an intentional effort,” said Mr. Laven, who teaches political science at Kennesaw State University. “I can’t imagine this is just pure incompetence. Everyone knew how serious people have been around here about getting out the vote.”…

Georgia ranks 43rd out of 50 in election integrity, according to one of Mr. Shufeldt’s measures, which grades things like state election administration and expert opinion surveys.

That ranking is emblematic of almost a decade of fights between election rights groups and Mr. Kemp. Questions have long swirled around Mr. Kemp’s office about issues including voter data security and whether Georgia’s voting machines were fit for modern elections…

From The Root, “Neither Voter Suppression Nor Being Called ‘Coon’ and the N-Word Will Stop Black Georgia From Voting”:

Waynesboro, Georgia—Sarah Jenkins has long had to deal with simmering community tensions. She owns a small business in a white part of town that caters to senior citizens and people with mental disabilities, an arrangement many of her neighbors frown upon.

But since “Ms. Jenkins,” as folks like to call her, became a big supporter of Stacey Abrams—who is trying to become the first black woman to become governor anywhere in the nation—those tensions have boiled over. They’ve grown especially ugly since Abrams won the Democratic nomination in her quest to lead Georgia.

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Positive News: Native Americans Fight Back Against GOP Voter Suppression

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… With three weeks to election day tribal leaders have scheduled a forum to help people find their addresses, and get them new tribal IDs. Chairman Mike Faith thinks this won’t suppress the vote.

“I think it’s going to be a positive because it’s upsetting people to the point of wanting to go to the polls,” said Faith.

“People who’ve never had IDs will have IDs for the first time and so that’s a real plus,” said Young.

In the last 4 presidential elections, voter turnout in Sioux county has ranged from 1,100 to 1,300.

If you are a tribal member with question, there is a meeting in Sioux County about the voter IDs. For more information, call 701-854-8500.

The Secretary of State website has a link for ID questions here: https://vip.sos.nd.gov/civics101.aspx?ptlhPKID=126&ptlPKID=7

Deb Haaland has known a lot of firsts in her rise through New Mexico’s Democratic Party ranks. In 2014, she was the first Native American woman from a major party to run for statewide office here when she sought to be lieutenant governor. After that bid failed, she became the first Native American woman in the country to lead a state political party. On Nov. 6, barring a shocking upset, the 57-year-old member of the Laguna Pueblo Tribe, could become the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Congress…

Haaland’s bid for Congress, in the strongly Democratic 1st District, has soaked up most of the attention, but 2018 has been a breakout political year for Native American women across the country with “far more than ever running,” according to Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today, who has been tracking races. Another Native American woman, Kansas Democrat Sharice Davids, is also running for a House seat. More than a hundred women elsewhere have taken part in races at local and state levels, an unprecedented level of participation that has produced hashtags — #SheRepresents, #NativeVote18 — and a wide range of candidates that include Democrats and Republicans, but also Green Party, Independent and Libertarian candidates.

Though the emergence of so many Native American women running for office has seemed to come out of the blue, it is in many ways the result of seeds planted over the past decade at the community and regional levels.

“The narrative had been that Native Americans were gone, that we’re invisible, that we’re part of history,” said Jodi Gillette, a member of the Standing Rock Tribe who served as special adviser for Native American issues to President Obama. “Well, we’ve been here all along trying to be seen and trying to be relevant and trying to find ways to address our issues. I rejoice in the fact that we’ve got the visibility and are positioned to help lead and not just be seen, but to represent.”…

Goal Thermometer

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Getting Out the Vote

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Meanwhile, on the Repub side…

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Reasons to Believe

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Click on any of the tweets below to read the whole thread…


 
Same for this tweet-string:

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Voting Is Fundamental

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Restore the Vote

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… On the eve of the four-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down key parts of the VRA, Rep. Terri Sewell, D-AL, told a crowd of voting rights advocates and supporters gathered on Capitol Hill that it is time to “restore the promise of voter equality.”

“Today, I’m introducing the Voting Rights Advancement Act because I believe that the right to vote is one of the most fundamental rights in our democracy,” Sewell said. “As state after state create new barriers to the polls, our work to prevent discrimination and protect the rights of all voters has taken on a new urgency. The time to restore the vote is now.”

The Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) aims to modernize Section 4 of the VRA that the Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Holder was outdated on June 25, 2013. Under the new act, local and state governments with a history of voter discrimination from the past 25 years would have to obtain federal approval before making changes to voting policies or procedures.

These states would include: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

The bill has 180 Democratic co-sponsors, but has yet to garner support from across the aisle. Without it, the bill cannot forward in the Republican-controlled chamber.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, while calling on her GOP colleagues to make it a bipartisan measure, said the bill “will be introduced on the very first day” Democrats regain control of the House in 2018.

“We want people to understand they have the right to vote and their vote will be counted and counted as cast. Many people sacrificed so much for the right to vote in our country,” Pelosi said. “You have our commitment that this will become the law when we become the majority and we want it to become the law even before then.”….

Apart from fighting onward, what’s on the agenda for the day?

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