Tag: voting rights

But the Constitution…!

a free press needs to be free

Close-up of the Constitution of the United States of America with quill feather pen

Lots of stuff that’s happened this past year has me, and plenty of others, moaning, “But the Constitution..!” It’s made me plenty anxious. BTW, here are the Amendments.

ITEM: From Liz Dye’s Public Notice: The important thing to know here is that this is all John Roberts’s fault.

“On March 31, Trump signed an executive order instructing the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and the Postal Service to effectively seize control of state voter rolls.

“The Constitution vests exactly zero authority in the executive branch to police local elections, explicitly reserving that power for Congress and the states. But Trump vaguely gestured in the direction of his “unavoidable duty under Article II of the Constitution of the United States to enforce Federal law, which includes preventing violations of Federal criminal law and maintaining public confidence in election outcomes” and forged ahead.”

New York Times: “The Supreme Court had allowed the [regime] to move ahead with Mr. Trump’s mail ballot executive order, reasoning that a lawsuit challenging the order was premature because the administration had not started carrying out its plans.”

Thank you, whistleblower

A lot of legal back-and-forth took place, most opposing the procedures. But the key is, from US Senator Richard Blumenthal:  “Anonymous whistleblower details ‘rushed,’ ‘risky and haphazard’ effort by USPS to implement EO restricting mail-in voting; USPS planned for September 1 launch date for brand new, untested online system to screen ballots submitted by state election officials .”   

In the complaint: “As presently designed, if even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk-mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state — effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters. Even under ordinary circumstances, this would be problematic because of predictable errors in any barcode scanning process.”

Even though the regime’s plan was ultimately thrown out, it required hundreds of hours of litigation to prevent what should not have been an issue.  

And of course, because this entire system has been rushed and subject to court orders halting work, these are not “ordinary circumstances.”

Free press?

ITEM: From Daily Kos: Siccing the FCC on reporters. “After ‘Meet the Press’ host Kristen Welker said—completely accurately!—that his endorsements in recent primary elections got ‘mixed results,’ he hopped on Truth Social to say he was going to sic the Federal Communications Commission on her…. 

He “thinks that the public airwaves belong to him, not us, and he’s entitled to turn them into state media by using the FCC and the ever-present threat of lawsuits as a cudgel.” Ah, the idea of a free press – see Amendment 1 -isn’t free if it’s not agreeing with him.

“The Department of Justice subpoenaed New York Times reporters for accurately reporting on [his] bribe plane follies, when he swapped out his little gift from Qatar for the actual Air Force One. 

“FCC chair and hatchet man Brendan Carr has been whining about accurate coverage of the war in Iran. Carr also not-so-subtly threatened networks that didn’t ‘voluntarily’ (yeah, right) agree to air ‘patriotic, pro-America content that celebrates the American journey and inspires its citizens by highlighting the historic accomplishments of this great nation from our founding through the [regime] today.’ Yes, if you’re not celebrating the deeds of Dear Leader, you’re not a real American.” 

What IS that thing we’re doing in Iran?

ITEM: Is the Iran war, er, incursion, a war?  Is Congress obliged to pay for a conflict it did not authorize? When do they engage in oversight? Aram Roston of the Guardian reported that the incursion has “driven the US military into a severe financial crisis.” Roston reports that the U.S. Navy, which is bearing the brunt of the operation, is transferring money from payroll to combat operations, creating shortfalls. Officials are covering that shortfall by raiding other accounts.

Slate: “A remarkable story in the Washington Post dramatizes how deeply the Iran war has degraded the U.S. military’s ability to fend off attacks by adversaries elsewhere in the world… 

“The leaked document reveals that the three four-star commanders in charge of U.S. military operations in Europe, the Pacific, and South America, as well as the Navy’s top admiral, all informed Hegseth that because so many of their planes, ships, and other weapons systems have been diverted to the war in Iran, they could no longer perform their tasks if a war broke out in their part of the world.”

Voting rights?

ITEM: From Common Dreams – John Roberts Is the Biggest Con Man in US Politics. In his confirmation hearing, Roberts told the Senate he would call only “balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” He then proceeded to dismantle the Voting Rights Act.

“Flash back to 2005, and it is apparent that, at best, Roberts misled the judiciary committee. [Or he lied.] In response to a question from Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy about the VRA’s constitutionality, Roberts replied, ‘[T]he existing Voting Rights Act—the constitutionality has been upheld. And I don’t have any issue with that.'”

That was clearly untrue. His desire to crush precedent was available to those who looked. If you read the speech of John Lewis at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, it’s clear why the VRA was necessary. And, based on the series of recent redistricting, it still is. This is why “thousands gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28 for the ‘March on Washington 2026: Defend the Vote.’” Check out Amendment 15. 

Crony statism

ITEM: When the Wall Street Journal says access to some 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude oil is the deal as anything but conventional, calling it an example of “crony statism,” I listen.

Among the Journal’s biggest concerns: what is the Pentagon’s role? Newsmax: “Rather than committing taxpayer cash, the Pentagon reportedly would structure the investment through warrants, giving the government its equity interest.

“The legal authority for this is far from clear,” the Journal said. Why is the Department of Defense involved in a foreign oil venture at all “when it already faces enormous challenges modernizing weapons systems and fixing procurement.”

Weekly Sift: “Phillips O’Brien points out that there are all kinds of problems with this arrangement. For one thing,

it is not clear what element of the US government (if any) either can or will hold the equity stake in any new company

“The American stake would have to be controlled and overseen by some particular department or agency, and without any congressional action it’s not clear who could do that. And without Senate ratification, this isn’t an official treaty…

“There are also problems on the Venezuelan side…” And it goes on from there. Congressional oversight would be the NORMAL path. 

Graft

ITEM: He is bought and sold. New York Times: The GEO Group has profited from the administration’s mass deportation campaign to the tune of $165 million a year in contracts. A subsidiary donated more than $1.4 million to FOTUS’s super PAC in July.

But there’s so much I can’t be bothered to keep track of. Fortunately, the oversight Democrats have provided the Trump Family Digital Grift Wealth Tracker. And here are the regime’s most corrupt transactions.

Today is Constitution Day. “How better to commemorate and honor the signing of the Constitution than by reading it? Through civics education, we can make America what the framers dreamed it would become: a more perfect union.” Aspirational, to be sure.

My obsession with “cancel culture”

Voting rights

cancel cultureI have become fairly obsessed with the notion of a so-called cancel culture. How did the term so “quickly became one of the buzziest and most controversial ideas on the internet”?

“Despite the seemingly positive intentions of many cancellations — to ‘demand greater accountability from public figures,’ as Merriam-Webster’s evaluation of the phrase notes —” Let me stop in mid-sentence here. Accountability is what we feel we want in a civilized society and don’t always receive.

Continue… “people tend to call out cancel culture itself as a negative movement, suggesting that the consequences of the cancellation are too harsh in minor instances or represent rushed judgment in complicated situations.”

That’s undoubtedly happened, especially involving things one has done in the past. I’m so glad I wasn’t on Instagram in the 1980s.

The term is of recent origin. But the notion of canceling people because they violated the conventions of the day has long existed. It’s that now, we have the technology to better facilitate it.

Often it’s been powerful organizations who’ve silenced dissenters. The church canceled Copernicus and Galileo. If it had access to Twitter, it’d have had a field day with Martin Luther. Maybe we’ll see the return of the scarlet letter.

“The kind of language that’s used to talk about groups of people assembled together—or their collective actions seeking to change the status quo—often maligns communities as irrational, ‘mobs’ or ‘rioters’ with uncontrolled, invalid emotions, a kind of faceless contagion that presents a threat to civilized, law-abiding society and the ruling establishment.”

Every social movement for changing labor laws, or giving rights to women or people of color, e.g., involved some “uppity” people making the status quo uncomfortable. Of course, there will be pushback. The difference now is that the discussion is online, so there are lots of megaphones.

A boycott is always a double-edged tool

Before Major League Baseball decided to move this year’s All-Star game out of Atlanta, Former and possible future Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams had hoped it wouldn’t happen.

“I understand the passion of those calling for boycotts of Georgia following the passage of SB 202,” the founder of the voting rights organization Fair Fight Action said. “Boycotts have been an important tool throughout our history to achieve social change.

“But here’s the thing: Black, Latino, AAPI and Native American voters, whose votes are the most suppressed under HB 202, are also the most likely to be hurt by potential boycotts of Georgia. To our friends across the country, please do not boycott us,” Abrams continued. “And to my fellow Georgians, stay and fight, stay and vote.”

But MLB commissioner Rob Manfred stated, “I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game.” Will the action help or hinder the fight against more restrictive voting laws? Will “canceling” the Peach State rescind the recently-passed law? Hey, idk.

The greater good

Remember Ralph Northam (D-VA)? He was, and is, the governor who, some years ago, was wearing blackface in a yearbook photo. He was immediately apologetic and repudiated his previous behavior. Some nevertheless called for his resignation. He survived because the next two officials in the Virginia gubernatorial succession line had problems of their own.

Northam has “signed several bills into law that aim to expand voting access, most prominently a measure that makes Virginia the first state in the country to enact a state-level voting rights act.”

It is “modeled on the federal law of the same name after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority gutted a key provision of the federal VRA in 2013. That invalidated provision had required jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination—including much of Virginia—to “preclear” any proposed changes to voting laws or procedures with the Justice Department to ensure they weren’t discriminatory.”

It would have been a shame if Northam had been forced out of office.

Conservative punditry

Ann Coulter, in a recent email alert, referred to Derek Chauvin as a Human Sacrifice. “In modern America, we periodically offer up white men as human sacrifices to the PC gods. Among our benefactions: Jake Gardner, Kyle Rittenhouse,  Darren Wilson, the Duke lacrosse players,  University of Virginia fraternity members, Stacey Koon, and Mark Fuhrman.

“The rest of us just keep our heads down and pray we won’t be next.”

This is a fascinating swipe at cancel culture, conflating white cops who beat or killed black people, and a vigilante with a couple of complicated college-related cases. Chauvin, Dr. Coulter notes, should be exonerated because it absolutely was not his knee that killed George Floyd.

She concludes, “In the darkest days of Jim Crow, the entire country never ganged up on a single individual like this. Please, gods of wokeness, we ask that his human sacrifice be acceptable! Throw another virgin into the volcano.”

Virgin. Oh, give me a break. His bullying in other incidents shows a pattern of behavior unbecoming of a peace officer. That’s what they used to call them.

A lazy phrase

The BBC had an interesting article, which you should read. The final paragraph quotes Parker Malloy of the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America. “It’s OK to believe that social or professional consequences for things said or done are either too harsh or not harsh enough…

“And it’s OK to be concerned about the outsized power tech companies like Facebook or Twitter have in the world, but using the framing of ‘cancel culture’ to make these points will always come off as lazy and cowardly.”