Tag Archives: voter suppression

REPUBLICAN 2020 JOB PLAN: PUT JIM CROW BACK TO WORK

Not since the days of widespread suppression of black voters in the South has Jim Crow seen such popularity and regular employment within a political party. 

Only this time it’s the Republican Party suppressing votes. 

Only this time it’s in every state they can get away with it.

And this time it’s not just blacks whose votes are suppressed, but educated whites, young people and, of course, any minorities unlikely to vote for Republicans.

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas.

In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott became the poster child for the GOP’s National Voter Suppression Movement. Abbott’s executive order to limit ballot drop-off boxes to only one per country flies in the face of logic, geographic reality, the needs of Texans and political fairness.

In Harris County, Texas, a county with almost 4.5 million citizens in an area of 1,777 square miles, which is larger than the entire state of Rhode Island, Abbott ordered the county’s usual 11 drop-off boxes be reduced to one.

In a recent North Carolina election, GOP Congressional candidate Mark Harris was caught using a political consultant, a known GOP vote-rigger, to collect and fraudulently alter mail-in ballots. 

Fake GOP Ballot Box

In California, just two days ago, Secretary of State Alex Padilla issued a cease and desist order to the state’s GOP Party for placing fraudulent ballot drop-off boxes in three counties. The fake drop-off boxes were all labeled “OFFICIAL.” 

That’s just the most obvious tip of the iceberg. For years, in election after election, Republicans have used their positions of power to make voting near impossible in non-Republican districts. In 2016, Arizonans had to wait 3-5 hours in line to vote, many to only discover their voter registrations had been misfiled, lost or mysteriously non-existent.

In Florida, thousands of felons have been wiped off the voter rolls, ostensibly because they owed some nuisance fine or fee.

The examples run on and on, like a sad litany of woes that shout “Lie!” to any claim America makes to being a democracy. 

A reasonable person might ask, what price Republicans pay for disenfranchising Americans as part of their national strategy? 

Yes, what is the punishment for trying to reduce the voter rolls or, failing that, to exhaust voters’ patience and desire to vote with insufficient poll locations, faulty equipment, poorly trained poll workers, and hacked voter registration rolls?

Nothing.

Just think, if a runner wins a race by tripping his or her opponent, would they ever be declared the winner? If the owner of a racehorse crippled the favorite in a race, would he or his his horse ever walk in the winner’s circle?

Only in American politics can such unfair, illogical and, yes, un-American behavior result in the candidate who should be disqualified end up winning all the spoils.

It’s time we sent Jim Crow out to pasture for good. 

And time that any politician—Republican or Democrat—who cheats the system or disenfranchises the other guy’s supporters be sent to a place where he’ll get a free orange suit for his troubles. 

Even if that means no Republicans are left free to run for office.

TAX THE RICH OR KILL THE POOR.

Wealth is essentially finite. It may expand or contract, but at any given time there’s only so much wealth to go around.

When a nation’s wealth and political power are concentrated in the hands of a few, the rest of its citizens are left with little scroogemore than long days of struggle, painfully-gained progress and fewer attainable dreams. We see it in the Middle East, in Africa and Asia, and in Third World countries where rulers and their cliques soak up all the wealth like so much gravy.

And we are seeing it today in America.

It won’t be long before we reach the tipping point, when students and their parents won’t have money for college, cities won’t have money for schools or libraries, governments won’t have money for basic services, and the poor won’t have money for anything, much less anywhere to turn.

It seems as if we’re living in a Charles Dickens novel where the same Dickensian actors—greed, hard-heartedness, self-righteousness and moral vacuity—have once again stepped center stage to suggest, by their actions if not their words, that it might be better for the poor to die and decrease the surplus population.

No matter that those feelings are thinly disguised behind Big Lies repeated over and over by agents and tools of the wealthy—by newspapers and TV stations owned by the rich, by a political process and Supreme Court controlled by the rich, by sound bites and legislation advanced by rich politicians—that taxes are unfair, that corporations are people, that the wealthiest among us have no obligation to assist the poorest, that God helps those who help themselves, that government exists to protect wealth rather than the welfare of its citizens, and that the surest way to help the poor is to advance the purpose and cause of the wealthy.

All these years later and still Trickle-Down Economics lives!

And those Big Lies, once the exclusive province of the Republican Party are now being echoed by those on the other side of the aisle; as the once-progressive Democratic Party, under the Clintons’ self-serving leadership, evolves to become more Republican in spirit than Democrat—sometimes called ‘Republican Light.’

And now comes word that agencies of the fabulously wealthy Koch brothers—the Heritage Foundation and others—are funding advertising campaigns to buttress the resolve of their congressional lackeys to repeal or gut Obamacare. As though the only hope for a healthier American population is a wealthier oligarchy.

If you accept the premise that, for all practical purposes, wealth is finite, that a government cannot spend more than it takes in or borrows against the future—then all the financial, economic and social upheaval in our country starts to make sense. There isn’t enough to go around when one sector gets a lock-tight grip on the purse and the purse strings. Once that happens, with so little left on the table after you pay for non-discretionary programs, those of us who aren’t wealthy or financially secure, find ourselves battling each other for an ever-dwindling slice of the GBP (Government Budget Pie). Humane and necessary programs compete one against the other. Infants battle the elderly and poor for nutrition allocations. Recovering alcoholics have to fight the homeless, as well as disabled veterans, for shelter dollars. Sesame Street fights for the very same funds sorely needed to regulate Wall Street. All the while, the public sector continues to implode and gentrification elbows families and poor people out of their homes.

We’ve moved from an era where taxes were seen as burdensome to where today the absence of sufficient tax dollars is killing the poor, eviscerating the Midle Class, and apportioning a majority of new income—58%—directly into the pockets of the richest of the rich—the 1%.

The Republican attack on public sector unions in Wisconsin is merely the edge of the scythe as it begins to mow down the social contract my generation grew up with and came to expect from a civilized society.

Collective moral bankruptcy is the problem today, not collective bargaining!

Tax breaks for the wealthy that began with Ronald Reagan and continued under George W. Bush were beyond obscene, as are the bone-deep cuts to government programs now regularly enacted by a government bled dry of its assets by the Republican Party under the guise of fiscal responsibility.  Reducing government spending reduces the need to tax those who have aggregated most of America’s assets. By protecting their excessive fortunes by shutting off the government spigot, the wealthy among us are endangering the lives and livelihoods of so many others. Children will go hungry; students will either forgo college or take on lifetime debt; retirees will see their pensions cut; people will lose their jobs and homes; many will go without winter heating fuel; cities will lay off police, teachers and firemen; while the health of our poorest citizens will dramatically decline—all done so a small group of wealthy individuals can build and accumulate ever more and more money.

We saw it in 2008. We are seeing it today. In spades!. Especially since both major parties are tightly held within the grip of the money-saturated oligarchy.

Tax the rich or kill the poor? What would Charles Dickens have done?

How about Jesus?

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Revised March 6, 2017

This is an updated version of an essay I wrote a few years ago. It’s quite shocking to me how far things have gone downhill since then. With the Republicans, as good servants of their wealthy masters, continuing their assault against social security and medicare, and virtually stymieing any attempts to combat Global Warming, this world is becoming a harsh and unfriendly place in which to live…survive…?

 

Read my “HILLARY CHRONICLES,” ten essays about David (Bernie) getting shafted by Goliath (Hillary) and her merry band of Philistines. The ten essays (in order of appearance): “BRAND SUICIDE, the Destruction of the Democratic Brand in 2016,” “The CDC Issues “CLINTON TOXICITY ALERT!” Warns Contact Could Prove Fatal To One’s Reputation,” “DEMOCRATS USE RUSSIANS AS SHIELD TO RE-FOCUS EMAIL STORY—PR PLOY OF THE CENTURY,”  “IS THAT YOUR IDEA OF AN APOLOGY?” AND  “DON’T BLAME ME IF I CRITICIZE HILLARY.” “Battle For The Presidency: The Gonzo Versus The Gonif,“  “Sorry Bernie, We Still Can’t Trust Hillary,” “Sorry Hillary, We Can Never Forget—or Forgive—Your Stealing The Nomination,” “CONNECTING THE DOTS”, The Frightening Underbelly of the 2016 Presidential Election, “THE AUDACITY OF AUDACITY, the stealing of the American presidency 2016”

To relive those glorious days of the Bernie campaign, check out mine and Bill Dahlgren’s “CHANNELING BERNIE,” ad campaign. 50 glorious ads in pursuit of the real American Dream.

BRAND SUICIDE: The Destruction of the Democratic Brand in 2016

Can anyone seriously believe the theft of the Democratic nomination went unnoticed? That it was overlooked or deemed too trivial to be reported by the national press?

line 1How could you not see it? How could anyone avoid seeing it? The political landscape was littered with telltale signs with almost every primary. Wrongly switched party registrations. Purged voter lists. Flipped electronic votes, uncounted ballots, rigged state conventions, 5-hour voting lines and, most of all, the glaringly obvious discrepancies between election results and exit polls? Discrepancies shockingly higher than the deviation allowed when the U.N. monitors Third World elections.

Whether this is a conspiracy we’re witnessing or just a confluence of coincidental interests, the corporate media has blacked out any mention of the biggest news story of 2016, the massive rigging of the Democratic primaries.

As a reasonable human being, I maintain nobody could be that ignorant or blind, unless it was intentional. If the National Press didn’t see it, THEY DIDN’T WANT TO SEE IT! The election fraud was pervasive and obvious! We all knew the fix was in—we all saw it in living color, primary night after primary night, on our wide screen TVs. It was like a thumb poked in your eye, which doesn’t kill you but certainly catches your attention.

The theft was embarrassingly obvious, wasn’t it? I don’t have to convince you. You already know. We all know! Rational, politically-unaffiliated adults would have to agree the entire election process was corrupted by forces out to ensure Secretary Clinton became the Democratic nominee. Yet most Hillary supporters whistle into the sky and pretend their candidate won the nomination fair and square.
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Of course, the story is far from over, but we are nearing the final chapter for the Democratic brand as we once knew it. How self-defeating of the DNC to become an enemy to its own constituents, to suppress and steal their votes; all to benefit a woman so amoral she would steal the American presidency. And how blind not to see her deceitful behavior violated the very spirit and soul of the office she was seeking, possibly to achieve some selfish vision of American history. The Democratic Party was once proud and well-meaning. It was the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. The party of Kennedy, Johnson and Adlai Stevenson. A party of integrity.

But that was then.

line2Today, it’s become a party whose character, sadly, isn’t strong enough to resist the lure of Hillary and Bill Clinton or all that easy Citizens United money. The Democratic Party has sold its soul, its mission and, yes, its once proud brand down the river under the pungent lure of Power, Purse and Privilege.

The Democratic brand still stands of course, but it has been irrevocably changed, irrevocably sullied. Stained by the persistent recurrence of sacrificed values, sudden rightward directional shifts and abandoned constituents. This is now the Democratic Party of the wealthy and the privileged. Once it was the party of the middle class—the working stiffs, the little people, the immigrants, the elderly. Nobody interesting enough for the pages of People Magazine.
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The biggest reason why Berners won’t support Hillary, even with Donald Trump looming in the background, is that every Bernie supporter felt personally robbed or affronted when, in primary after primary, Democratic Party minions acted as agents for Hillary and obstructions to Bernie. They had their thumb on the scale and wouldn’t take it off.

So, faced with a choice of two evils, don’t be surprised if Bernie’s legions go somewhere else with their vote. Maybe to Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or, even, the Donald Himself. ANYONE BUT HER!

Once there was a Democratic brand that stood for America’s working class. A brand for the people. A brand for a party committed to ensuring the wealthy and powerful didn’t trample on the rights of the middle class. That party is now dead. And it died during Hillary’s torturous climb to the nomination.line 1

Of course the Party still pretends to care about the welfare of the people. But its brand seems more Republican every day. There is no apology for this new stance. They think nobody will notice or complain as they rake in all their new millions in contributions. Money not only from supporters, but from people and corporations they once eschewed: the Monsantos, the Comcasts, the Blankfeins, while they hungrily vie for a seat at the billionaire table. A party eager to be a force for its own sake rather than for the good of the American people; motivated to perpetuate itself, if only to keep the parasites fed.

This is the brand of today’s Democratic Party. This is the image emblazoned in the brains of 13 million people who watched stupefied as this election and the nomination were stolen from their candidate. 13 million people who will not easily forget in November those who so eagerly trampled their votes and their rights during the primaries. 13 million people who know they were robbed; know with absolute certainty their candidate was treated like a bum by a cabal of establishment forces that suppressed, killed or flipped so many of his hard earned votes.line2

This is the new brand of the Democratic Party.  Self-interested. Self-important. Self-justifying. Almost criminal in its commitment to its own survival and comforts. How appropriate that Hillary Clinton is poised to be their leader.

One could easily say they deserve each other.

 

Read my “HILLARY CHRONICLES,” ten essays about David (Bernie) getting shafted by Goliath (Hillary) and her merry band of Philistines. The ten essays (in order of appearance): “BRAND SUICIDE, the Destruction of the Democratic Brand in 2016,” “The CDC Issues “CLINTON TOXICITY ALERT!” Warns Contact Could Prove Fatal To One’s Reputation,” “DEMOCRATS USE RUSSIANS AS SHIELD TO RE-FOCUS EMAIL STORY—PR PLOY OF THE CENTURY,”  “IS THAT YOUR IDEA OF AN APOLOGY?” AND  “DON’T BLAME ME IF I CRITICIZE HILLARY.” “Battle For The Presidency: The Gonzo Versus The Gonif,“  “Sorry Bernie, We Still Can’t Trust Hillary,” “Sorry Hillary, We Can Never Forget—or Forgive—Your Stealing The Nomination,” “CONNECTING THE DOTS”, The Frightening Underbelly of the 2016 Presidential Election, “THE AUDACITY OF AUDACITY, the stealing of the American presidency 2016”

To relive those glorious days of the Bernie campaign, check out mine and Bill Dahlgren’s “CHANNELING BERNIE,” ad campaign. 50 glorious ads in pursuit of the real American Dream.