Beware the Ides of March -- U.S. Politics March 2021

I haven't talked to an ass since March 2020.

Not even on Zoom?

I like my asses live.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Live_Chili_Cookoff_2008.jpg

https://cdn.britannica.com/40/141040-050-B1D8DDED/Asian-ass.jpg

me and a friend last March

aw, look at those ides

The ides have it!

Jesus, this shit in Georgia

it’s bad

Full on fascism. The 'illegal to give food/drink to someone queuing to vote' bit. Did they even bother to try and explain that one?

i think it's some sort of fear of bribery thing. obviously spasms of oligarchy that require derision and direct action.

Good morning!

I'm in a low level panic about the voter suppression laws in Georgia and other red states, because it is extremely unlikely that any legal challenges to such laws will progress fast enough to stop them for the 2022 elections and, if they do, that the US SC will uphold any such challenges.

do voting rights orgs need to wait for an election to sue or can they proceed immediately after passage?

They can sue immediately. Given the current SC composition and the recent rulings on gerrymandering, I don't see any chance at all that the SC doesn't uphold these type of laws or at least let them go forward pending a full review. It would take a video showing a bunch of republicans sitting around a room saying, "we're doing this to keep minorities from voting", and even then I'm not sure it would be enough to get Roberts and Gorsuch to join the libs.

"states have broad latitude" blah blahblah

is the problem ultimately that there's no specific constitutional right to vote??

and/or the legal definition of discriminatory which isn't based on discriminatory outcomes but on proveable intent?

I am 100% furious about the Georgia law, but my hope is that it will backfire on the GOP and voters will mobilize to vote the bastards out.

^ this

that's the kind of thing this law seems designed to prevent, tho

Almost immediately after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed into law sweeping changes to the state’s election rules Thursday, Black community groups filed a lawsuit challenging several of its provisions, which the groups say are unconstitutional and a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

“The Voter Suppression Bill inflicts severe burdens on Georgia’s voters through each individual restriction and the cumulative effect of all the suppressive measures which impose barriers to voting absentee and in-person,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit is targeting nine specific measures within the new law, including the new ID requirements for mail voting, its limits on dropbox use and its ban on distribution of food and most beverages to voters waiting in line.

The groups bringing the lawsuit are The New Georgia Project, Black Voters Matter Fund and Rise, Inc., which focuses on student enfranchisement. The organizations are being represented by Marc Elias, a powerhouse voting rights attorney who also often represents Democrats.

we can trust the golden boy and america's mom to make the right decision on this when it gets to the supreme court

IMO these laws should be wholesale ignored by Democrats.

Also, Democrats should start digging up stupid archaic laws that people have forgotten about and start targeting Republicans with them, like this one:

https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2015/title-16/chapter-11/article-2/section-16-11-44/

I’m gonna straight-up cater the voting lines in the next GA election. Who wants to help with the prep?

— Mollie Katzen (@MollieKatzen) March 26, 2021

Repeating "they'll arrest you for providing water if you're in line" is the way to go imo

seriously, people should do that, and then be there ready with the gigantic "this arrest brought to you by Brian Kemp and the GOP" signs

That's like those volunteers on the border that were at least harassed or maybe arrested for leaving jugs of water in the desert.

They were much worse than harassed:

https://theintercept.com/2019/08/10/scott-warren-trial/

Charges were eventually dropped, but only after multiple trials. The feds wanted to bleed No Mas Muertes and the border activist community dry.

paging Mr. Choppy

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/richard-nephew-sanctions/

Unlike most others in Washington’s foreign policy establishment, Nephew has made the rare admission that even targeted sanctions on so-called bad actors destroy economies, hurting civilian populations in the long run. He also takes credit for contributing to shortages in medicine and medical devices in Iran through sanctions he helped design, making these necessities too costly for the average Iranian. In his 2017 book, The Art of Sanctions: A View from the Field, Nephew explains how sanctions are meant to inflict pain so intolerable that it forces “the target” to acquiesce to US demands, adding that the casualties and damage of sanctions can be less visible and seem less destructive than those of military conflict.

I don’t know if a concession like this makes it more likely to pass, and it certainly makes it less valuable to society, but if it goes somewhere then it seems like very good electoral politics because those people vote!

Bernie Sanders pushes for lowering Medicare age to 55 in next Dem packagehttps://t.co/TyReBnp0T1

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) March 26, 2021

i have to say, i'm all for medicare for all, but i hope they make big improvements to it. in my brief experiences with medicaid (depression) and medicare (my dad's current slow-motion death walk), there are huge problems with both. i wouldn't want someone to have the experiences i did, and i have it better than most.

for medicaid, the problem was that you couldn't do anything by telephone, because there was always a waiting list at least 60 minutes long. i remember being on hold for over 2.5 hours once, with music that was so distorted and crackly and crazy that i ended up making really, really bad art about it, in real time. i couldn't NOT listen, because at any moment, apparently, i was about to be connected with someone. then i finally heard a breathing sound at the end, and then it hung up on me. i was really close to suicide at that time and was just making a goddamn effort to get help. when i finally went in person, i got a little taste of what an unprivileged life is like. it was like being surveilled. there was another 2+ hour wait, and none of the dozens (100+) people in the room were allowed to use their phones. no talking on the phone, no using your phone. i openly used my phone for about 10 minutes before the white guard walked right past me and then talked a black person to stop using their phone. i put my phone away then, too, and of course i felt ashamed and wanted to beat the shit out of the guard by throwing my phone into his skull. eventually i managed to talk to a human being and got on medicaid for a few months, which allowed me to start taking antidepressants. i would give medicaid a customer service score of -25,000

my current beef with medicare is that it covers inpatient stays up to 60 days, but after that, it suddenly begins to cost several hundred dollars per day as you begin to "purchase" days of coverage from your "lifetime limit" of 180 days. after 90 days, the cost goes up again. i think. anyway, my dad is on day 40 or so, doctors just told us 2-4 more weeks. gonna be a great month!!!!

anyway, medicare for all, but make it better

The biggest problem I can see with Bernie's proposal is that age-testing is akin to means-testing, in that, while it will attract votes from those 50 to 64 it could develop into a wedge issue to alienate voters under 50. Other than that, creeping incrementalism seems to be the only approach that the US political system allows to succeed, so it may actually let another large demographic cohort become more secure.

incremental creeps, bend the arc slowly

^^^ best Massive Attack lyric imo

there was another 2+ hour wait, and none of the dozens (100+) people in the room were allowed to use their phones. no talking on the phone, no using your phone.

why???????

in the USA seeking government assistance because you are too poor to survive without it carries a social status only a millimeter away from the status of being in prison.

xp

the only reason i can think of is that that particular location, at the very least, has a history of racist discrimination. it was more than just the racist guard, it was the policy. there were multiple signs posted in the room saying No Phone Allowed. my guess is that at some point in the history of this location, racist white people in charge got sick of hearing people of color have conversations on their flip phones, so they banned talking on the phone

it could develop into a wedge issue to alienate voters under 50

I would ask, "What kind of fucking scumbag is against something because it doesn't directly benefit them yet?" but, you know, I live in America.

i don't think it would alienate people under 50. i think a lot of younger people would think "oh great! my parents/relatives/older friends can get medicare now, sweet!

It’s not just opposition because you’re not getting it. Discouragement of young people left to fend for themselves + a go-to scare tactic for single-payer has been ‘they’re going to fuck up your Medicare, old people.’ That will be even more useful with a larger group of haves vs. have-nots.

Don't underestimate the fear tactic of telling young people who are already struggling like crazy under financial obligations like student debt, massive mortgages and shrinking earning power, that they'll be saddled with paying more taxes for a 'bloated' Medicare along with their own medical expenses. Knowing Congress, the details of taxation and who pays what will be so complex they'll be easy for opponents to obfuscate.

younger people are way more receptive to socialism things that even resemble it, i think. much more so than older people. i think the cold war ending (temporarily) may have had something to do with that, too. the anti-communist knob has been turned just a bit down, during my lifetime, compared to what it seems to have been just before that. there will always be young republicans and libertarian cryptolords, but my sense is that the balance has shifted toward the left, among young people, more than it has in quite a while?

Lindsey Graham calls the border “the biggest issue facing the country in many ways right now” pic.twitter.com/0rwkkKOzRO

— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) March 26, 2021

yeah ok bro

i guess to old white rich white dudes it's up there

You mean down there, we're not talking about the Canadian border.

lol

Running against immigrants has yet to hurt the GOP — they even made gains with Latino voters — so I think we can expect "the border" and "China" to be the go-to Big Scaries until current events offer other possibilities (Iran, Muslims, etc). They can't run on naked LGBTQ discrimination at the federal level anymore, doesn't poll all that well, but it's still paying dividends in a lot of states.

I'm in a low level panic about the voter suppression laws in Georgia and other red states

Just want to express my view that these laws are a) bad and b) doing 1/10000 of the work gerrymandered state legislative lines are to allow the GOP to act as it wishes with no regard for the public will.

State legislative boundaries are the whole ballgame.

"but a popular majority can still elect a governor who can block state legislature shenanigans---"

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2021/03/26/michigan-gop-chairman-plans-go-around-whitmer-voting-law-changes/7010417002/

i'm still worried but this is comforting coming from the local district demographics knower

Georgia is roughly where Virginia was a decade ago: Republicans still control state government and may be able to redistrict the state to their liking one last time...but long-term/demographically, the writing is kinda on the wall.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 26, 2021

Metro ATL's share of GA's total vote, '92-'20: 52%-59%
Northern VA's share of VA's total vote '92-'20: 30%-36%

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 26, 2021