progressive politics and regressive entertainment. like peanut and butter.
November 11, 2012 Leave a comment
An AFL-CIO survey confirms what we already know, that minorities and Democrats experience higher hurdles to voting than whites and Republicans. It’s not a glitch; it’s a feature.
September 22, 2012 3 Comments
Warning…Ms. Silverman is humorous and informative, but her salty language is not safe for work.
September 8, 2012 Leave a comment
It’s pretty obvious after watching the respective political conventions that the Republicans can’t win on ideas. That’s one of the reasons why they failed to get the traditional convention poll bounce that Democrats are now enjoying.
For Mitt Romney to win this election, he has to rely upon:
1. Money from billionaires.
2. Voter suppression.
John Lewis gave one of the more powerful speeches at the Democratic Convention when he spoke to the second point on Thursday.
LEWIS: Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back? Or do you want to keep America moving forward? My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar — all to keep them from casting their ballots.
Today, it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing — they are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state’s new voter ID law is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state.” That’s not right. That’s not fair. And that is not just.
And similar efforts have been made in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina. I’ve seen this before. I’ve lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote.
Each election, we have to ask ourselves, how far have we come?
August 7, 2012 10 Comments
The modern Republican Party is built on a bedrock of racism. Most political observers know about the Southern Strategy. In 1964, Barry Goldwater and the Republican Party began using “states’ rights” as a code word for their anti-black and anti-voting rights strategy to win the Southern states away from the Democratic Party. Nearly 50 years later, the Republican Party is still attacking voter rights in their attempts to suppress minority voting.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan kick-started his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, with a speech about states’ rights. Philadelphia is where Civil Rights activists Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman were killed in 1964. Reagan also created imaginary Welfare Queens to infuriate white voters with this idea of black women somehow getting a free ride in this country. In 1988, the infamous Willie Horton ad made fear of black criminals a mainstay of George Herbert Walker Bush’s presidential campaign.
Now Mitt Romney is using “obvious dog whistle racism” to attack Barack Obama, lying that Obama is dismantling Welfare to Work, and we should not be surprised. Melissa Harris-Perry joins Rachel Maddow to discuss this and rightfully includes Bill Clinton in the history of this Republican-created racist strategy. For the Republicans, racism has been a mainstay of their presidential campaigns for the past half century. When might it ever stop?
SEE ALSO
Northup News: Romney’s racism isn’t even original
3ChicsPolitico: Mitt Romney’s False Welfare Attack Shows He Lacks The Principles We Need In A PRESIDENT
August 4, 2012 Leave a comment
ThinkProgress highlights research by Catalist which reveals that voter purges led by Republicans disproportionately target the urban, the elderly, the young, and minorities.
That is, of course, the point.
August 2, 2012 2 Comments
The Rachel Maddow Show addresses Ohio Republicans cutting down on access to voting in that state, including reducing early voting by three days. Maddow is joined by Michael Waldman from the Brennan Center for Justice. They discuss the conservative fight against democracy. My worry is that even if courts strike down these voter suppression tactics, Republicans win anyway by intimidating and confusing voters.
Funny that conservatives don’t seem to be bothered by lengthy lines to vote and other obstructions to democracy. One might even be tempted to think that their concern for spreading democracy abroad was a front for corporate acquisition of material wealth and that their concern for voting IDs at home was a front for making it harder for minorities and Democratic-leaning voters to get to the polls. Democracy not as a value, but as a means for the acquisition of power…
July 28, 2012 Leave a comment
Conservatives are fighting against democracy, pushing for Voter ID laws in order to stifle participation from minorities, college students, and others with whom they disagree. AFGE disagrees.
July 25, 2012 Leave a comment
Including as many Americans as possible in our electoral process is the spirit of our country. It is why we have expanded rights to women and minorities but never legislated them away, and why we have lowered the voting age but never raised it. Cynical efforts at voter suppression are driven by an un-American desire to exclude as many people and silence as many voices as possible.
- Charlie Crist (July 20, 2012)
May 29, 2012 10 Comments
ThinkProgress is right to sound the alarm on Florida Governor Rick Scott’s attempt to suppress voting in his state. As they pointed out yesterday, he’s trying to purge voters from the voting rolls, using a list of ineligible voters from the DMV that is highly outdated and inaccurate. In Miami Dade, the list of purged voters has already turned out to be over 20% inaccurate, and that’s just based on the people who received the notice and were able to send in verification of their citizenship. How many others did not receive the notice or manage to send in verification for a second time? And what is the GOP doing relying on the Department of Motor Vehicles to secure our democracy? The party that distrusts the ability of government to tie its shoes is putting the future of our democracy in the hands of the DMV?
March 3, 2012 Leave a comment
MONDAY (Feb. 27, 2012)
Stephen Colbert deconstructed the campaigns of Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney as they battled over Michigan, including Romney’s “speech of a lifetime” at Detroit’s Ford Field.
Mitt really connected with those empty seats by also being plastic and uncomfortable.
Obama thinks everybody should go to college like he did. Well, pardon me, your highness, but some of us weren’t handed a ticket to Harvard by being the biracial son of a single mother on food stamps. Must be nice. Rick Santorum understands the real American Dream, that if you work hard enough, your children can have fewer opportunities than you did.
