Patterico's Pontifications

4/2/2021

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:00 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Here are a few news items to chew over. Please feel free to share anything that you think would interest readers. Make sure to include links.

First news item

It was inevitable, and I expect it will continue to happen in other cities and states where the schools remain closed:

A group of parents frustrated by efforts made to date to reopen classrooms in the nation’s second-largest K-12 system is suing the Los Angeles Unified School District and local teachers union.

The lawsuit, filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that LAUSD breached its responsibility to act in the best interest of students by allowing the teachers union to dictate when schools should reopen.

LAUSD, United Teachers Los Angeles and UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz are named as defendants in the complaint.

Second news item

Get your messaging straight, people:

A day after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky suggested people vaccinated against COVID-19 would not become infected with or transmit the disease, the CDC backtracked the comments.

“Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick,” Walensky told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday. “And that it’s not just in the clinical trials, it’s also in real-world data.”

The comments were particularly notable because just two days earlier, Walensky spoke of “impending doom” she was feeling due to cases starting to tick back up. It was something she reiterated to Maddow.

Related:

Third news item

Of course Russia is trying to crush Alexey Navalny. That’s who they are:

The Russian state is making a slow spectacle of crushing Alexey Navalny and his organization. The opposition politician is in prison, serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for “violating his parole” while he recovered from a near-fatal poisoning attack by his own government. Last week, Navalny’s lawyers and his wife, Yulia, said that he has developed health problems for which prison authorities are denying adequate treatment. He is also facing torture by sleep deprivation. (The prison service has denied mistreating Navalny.) On Wednesday, Navalny declared a hunger strike. Meanwhile, Navalny’s allies are planning new demonstrations to demand his release. Dozens of people around Russia are still in jail after being arrested in connection with pro-Navalny demonstrations that took place in January and February. Over the weekend, authorities arrested Yuri Zhdanov, the father of Ivan Zhdanov, who heads Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Related observation and advice:

Fourth news item

Losing his cool:

Here is the minute I finally lost it: Sunday, March 21, at 9:34 p.m.

That’s when my wife and I got an email saying our kids’ New York City public elementary school would be closed yet again. Testing had found two positive COVID-19 cases among nearly 700 students and staff.

It was the fifth time the school had closed since New York reopened schools in the fall. Each time has been the same: First, we get an email that testing has turned up one case. A few days later, we get a second email saying testing has found a second case and the whole school will be closed for a day while health officials investigate.

And then, every time, comes the coup de grâce form letter: “Subject: 10 Day Bldg Closure.” Per New York City policy, two unlinked cases result in the building being shuttered for 10 consecutive days.

Fifth news item

HOW IS THIS NOT A CRISIS OF HEARTBREAKING PROPORTION?:

U.S. Border Patrol officials said agents rescued two young children Tuesday night after smugglers dropped the children from the top of the border wall in a remote area west of El Paso.

A Border Patrol agent operating a camera pointed at a section of the barrier just west of El Paso spotted the two young girls, ages 3 and 5, as they were dropped from the top of the 14 foot wall. Border Patrol released a video showing the smuggler on the wall dangling the children before dropping them one by one. The older girl quickly stands up after she lands on the ground. The younger girl sits for a while before getting on her feet. The individual on the fence also tosses a small bag to U.S. side of the border with the children. The video then shows two men quickly leaving the area on the Mexican side of the barrier.

Sixth news item

Tragedy at the Capitol:

A U.S. Capitol Police officer was killed and another injured after a man drove a car into a security barricade at the Capitol complex on Friday, acting Chief Yogananda Pittman said.

The driver was shot after jumping out of the car with a knife and failing to respond to verbal commands and “lunging” at the officers, Pittman said. The suspect was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead a short time later.

About the suspect:

Law enforcement sources said Green recently lived in Virginia. In postings on social media, he let his friends and family know that the past few years have been “tough” and the past few months “tougher.”

“I am currently now unemployed after I left my job partly due to afflictions, but ultimately, in search of a spiritual journey,” he wrote on his now-deleted Facebook page.

Green’s page featured several recent postings that reference the teachings of the Nation of Islam, a Black separatist movement that does not follow the traditional teachings of Islam, and its leader Louis Farrakhan. Nation of Islam has been classified as a “designated hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of what the SPLC calls “deeply racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBT rhetoric of its leaders.”

Beautiful spring:

spring

The heart of the Christian faith: crucifixion and resurrection:

“And they stripped Him and put on Him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His right hand: and they bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon Him, and took the reed, and smote Him on the head. And after that they had mocked Him, they took the robe off from Him, and put His own raiment on Him and led Him away to crucify Him.” “And they crucified Him and parted His garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted My garments among them, and upon My vesture did they cast lots.” Matthew 27:28 to 31 and 35.

“Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father.” John 10:17 and 18.

“And they shall scourge Him and put Him to death; and the third day He shall rise again.” Luke 18:33.

“And He began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Mark 8:31.

Have a blessed weekend.

–Dana

347 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (fd537d)

  2. Regarding items 1 and 4 (about the FUBAR schools), I’m so glad I’m not a parent.

    norcal (01e272)

  3. It’s certainly possible that vaccinated people can get Covid. Also people who have had it previously can get it, particularly a different strain.

    But people with a working immune system are far less likely to host the virus for very long, and probably not long enough to transmit it. That is the point of a vaccination, to train the immune system to recognize the infection before you really get it.

    Of course, a vaccinated person with an impaired immune system may not get much benefit from the vaccine since it trains something broken. I am willing to bet that most cases of disease in vaccinated persons are due to this.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  4. I’m sure we’ll respond to Putin’s latest by giving Russia a seat on the UN Human Rights Commission or something. It’s the kind of thing we usually do.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  5. Well, it could be worse, the smugglers could have sold the girls into slavery.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  6. Per New York City policy, two unlinked cases result in the building being shuttered for 10 consecutive days.

    Based on the largely debunked idea that you can get Covid off of toilet seats.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  7. Several takes on that border video:

    1. The girls were dropped 5 feet and the men took some pains to lessen the drop.
    2. I suspect they were not random smugglers. They may have been relatives hoping the girls would be better off. I cannot see a mercenary taking any such care.
    3. Trump will be blamed for making the wall so high.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  8. Nation of Islam has been classified as a “designated hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of what the SPLC calls “deeply racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBT rhetoric of its leaders.”

    While that is true, the SPLC only says this because it would be indefensible should they not. They are far more likely to label Christian groups that way for doing things like opposing abortion.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  9. BTW, April Fool’s Day was the 33rd anniversary of my last drink. I find the date auspicious.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  10. Based on the largely debunked idea that you can get Covid off of toilet seats.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/2/2021 @ 11:02 pm

    I’d be happy if they just got the sh!t off of toilet seats.

    norcal (01e272)

  11. Congratulations on that milestone, Kevin! Was alcohol a bad addiction for you?

    Alcohol has never spoken to me that way. I can take it or leave it. I guess I’m lucky.

    norcal (01e272)

  12. Congrats on your 33 years of sobriety. That is a significant accomplishment.

    Nic (896fdf)

  13. Trump will be blamed for making the wall so high.

    Thanks for this. It probably wouldn’t have occurred to me, but it’s obvious when you think of it.

    Remember that Trump personally ordered modifications to the design to make it more likely to cause deadly harm, and wanted a trench filled with snakes or alligators in front of it.

    Dave (1bb933)

  14. There was a somewhat more plausble theory that you could get it from faulty (corroded, poorly fused) plumbing fixtures or unauthorized alterations/repairs as an infected persons feces passed through to sewer bound piping in multi story buildings. This may have been the case for a Hong Kong outbreak and may explain some of the March 2020 initial NYC outbreak beyond dense living and dumb Guido/Fredo decisionmaking.

    urbanleftbehind (1a7017)

  15. Congrats Kevin! that’s a huge accomplishment.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  16. “was the 33rd anniversary of my last drink.”

    Wait, Kevin M has actually been sober for every post here at patterico?!….That is an unexpected development! Apparently the simplest solution is not always the best. Happy almost Easter.

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  17. Dustin:

    Any take on the Sery Kim contro?

    urbanleftbehind (1a7017)

  18. I haven’t been following it super closely, but it sounds like the Chauvin prosecution is landing a lot of punches, and the defense not been very effective in limiting the damage.

    Dave (1bb933)

  19. immigration laws and border walls are just another form of vote suppression

    JF (6fcdbe)

  20. the CDC backtracked the comments.

    Also known as moving the goalposts.

    There must be a good reason the experts aren’t releasing the numbers (new cases, deaths, etc)requied to make the lockdown go away.

    BillPasadena (5b0401)

  21. Well, it could be worse, the smugglers could have sold the girls into slavery.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/2/2021 @ 11:01 pm

    The “it could be worse” response is one that avoids the awfulness of what has just happened. It relieves the ghastliness of two adult males dropping little girls over a 14′ wall into a desert and then running away from them, leaving them to fend on their own. Two little girls who were “left miles from the nearest residence”. I don’t know if you are familiar with 3 and 5-year-olds, but they are not the most resourceful, strong, and intrepid of souls. Rather they would have been absolutely devoured by the desert inhabitants, died from injuries, thirst, or any number of issues resulting from the mess that is immigration at the southern border.

    Dana (fd537d)

  22. This was Trump in 2016:

    “So you take precast plank,” Trump said. “It comes 30 feet long, 40 feet long, 50 feet long. You see the highways where they can span 50, 60 feet, even longer than that, right? And do you a beautiful nice precast plank with beautiful everything. Just perfect.”

    He added: “I want it to be so beautiful because maybe someday they’ll call it the Trump Wall.”

    If you read the link, Trump daily changed his mind about the wall height.

    Dana (fd537d)

  23. Already done:

    The General Assembly [of the U.N. Human Rights Council] elected the following 15 members:

    Bolivia, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, France, Gabon, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan,
    Russian Federation, Senegal, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.

    All 15 members will serve three-year terms beginning on 1 January 2021.

    Dana (fd537d)

  24. https://www.thecollegefix.com/conservative-students-attacked-for-their-bible-verse-easter-egg-hunt/

    Conservative students at the University of North Texas have been attacked for their Bible verse Easter egg hunt, with many in the campus community calling for a mass trashing and stomping of the eggs.

    The members of the UNT Young Conservatives of Texas, which organized the effort, had sought to spread a message of positivity and hope during this week, considered “Holy Week” by Christians that concludes with Easter.

    On Sunday night, members of the two-year-old campus group distributed about 250 brightly colored plastic eggs on campus with Bible verses printed inside.

    The public university is in session with students on campus this week, and with the stress of COVID, the Young Conservatives sought to spread a little joy, said Kelly Neidert, the chapter’s president….

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  25. https://cnsnews.com/article/national/emma-riley/democrats-bar-female-athletes-testifying-equality-act-hearing

    Although the Democrat majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee blocked female athletes who oppose the Equality Act from testifying by video at Wednesday’s hearing on the subject, the ladies’ testimony was submitted into the record. Their testimony explained why competing against biological males (transgender “females”) is unfair and likely will destroy women’s sports.

    The Equality Act, which passed the House (224-206) and is now in the Senate, would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections for “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” In practice this would mean, among other things, that transgender “females” (biological males) would be allowed to play on girls’ sports teams and use their bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers.

    Chelsea Mitchell, who ran track at Canton High School in Connecticut, said in her written testimony, “I lost four state championships because our state policy ignores the biological reality and physical advantages of males over females in sport.”

    “The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s policy inflicted unfair competition on me and my fellow female athletes,” she said. “I was forced to compete against biological male students every year of my high school sports experience. It was demoralizing. I rarely got to compete in fair races and lost awards and opportunities for recognition at a time when it was most crucial for college recruitment.”

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  26. Damn north Texas commies!

    Dave (1bb933)

  27. ULB

    During an Arlington forum Wednesday, Kim had criticized Chinese immigrants.

    “I don’t want them here at all,” she said. “They steal our intellectual property, they give us coronavirus, they don’t hold themselves accountable.”

    She added: “Quite frankly, I can say that because I’m Korean.”

    This is the problem: China actually did some of that. Maybe all of that. Chinese immigrants didn’t do that. When we see asian women kicked to the ground and stomped, it’s pretty bad to see a leader say that. It’s like the muslim ban thing. A great way to get support, also contrary to what we’re about.

    so this is bad strategy. It helps China, the government, deflect. They clearly did have a role in how bad coronavirus was. They clearly aren’t accountable. they steal IP. We should not be cool with them. We should not allow them to have any research facilities like the one that leaked COVID (granted, some pretend it’s not obvious that happened).

    But now that government can just say ‘you’re racist’ when called out. And they will have a point. I see no reason to bash a Chinese immigrant, especially when it’s an anti-mask ant-vax jackass (at least much of the time).

    My other take: this will be great politics for Kim, for the same reason I see MTG and Boehbert images all over social media feeds. There is no room for nuance. Both parties hate nuance. You gotta pump the gas to get those donations and that attention these days.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  28. https://www.dailywire.com/news/loudoun-teachers-target-parents-critical-race-theory-hacking

    A group of current and former teachers and others in Loudoun County, Virginia, compiled a lengthy list of parents suspected of disagreeing with school system actions, including its teaching of controversial racial concepts — with a stated purpose in part to “infiltrate,” use “hackers” to silence parents’ communications, and “expose these people publicly.”

    Members of a 624-member private Facebook group called “Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County” named parents and plotted fundraising and other offline work. Some used pseudonyms, but The Daily Wire has identified them as a who’s who of the affluent jurisdiction outside D.C., including school staff and elected officials.

    The sheriff’s criminal investigations division is reviewing the matter — but the group’s activities might be no surprise to top law enforcement because the county’s prosecutor, narrowly elected with the help of $845,000 in cash from George Soros, appears to be a member of the Facebook group.

    Secret communications reviewed by The Daily Wire do not offer any evidence of racism by the group’s targets. Their opponents were apparently those who objected to, sought to debate, or were even simply “neutral” about “critical race theory,” a radical philosophy opposed by many liberals and conservatives but increasingly embraced by governments.

    In recent years, Loudoun’s school system has flooded its curricula and policies with racial rhetoric, paying about $500,000 to one racial consulting company alone. It required all staff to undergo “Equity in the Center” training that promoted a sense of injustice and urgency.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  29. I’m sure we’ll respond to Putin’s latest by giving Russia a seat on the UN Human Rights Commission or something. It’s the kind of thing we usually do.

    Why do we need to respond at all? There is no response the US could make that affect the outcome, so the US should do nothing. Russia is doing what authoritarian regimes do, and there is nothing we can do about it.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  30. Congratulations on that milestone, Kevin! Was alcohol a bad addiction for you?

    Life-threatening at the end.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  31. Wait, Kevin M has actually been sober for every post here at patterico?!

    Indeed. It was not always the case at the old CompuServe Politics SIG.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  32. So, are colleges that don’t recruit trans athletes liable for discrimination suits? What about the US Olympic Team? East Germany, eat your heart out.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  33. Conservative students at the University of North Texas have been attacked for their Bible verse Easter egg hunt, with many in the campus community calling for a mass trashing and stomping of the eggs.

    They should have put a Koran verse in one or two eggs. Then the objectors would ahve had to find, open and read each verse to be sure they weren’t committing a hate crime.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  34. Sarah Palin Reveals COVID Diagnosis and ‘Bizarre’ Symptoms, Urges Others to Continue Wearing Masks
    …….
    Palin, 57 — who is a mom to five children with ex-husband Todd — says her case is proof that “anyone can catch this.”
    …….
    Of her illness, Palin explains that it began when “one of my daughters awoke to having lost her sense of taste and smell [and] immediately had a positive COVID test, then was quarantined in isolation.”

    “I then observed symptoms in my son Trig, who curiously is the most enthusiastic mask-wearer, and after our numerous negative tests over the year, he tested positive,” Palin says. “Children with special needs are vulnerable to COVID ramifications [Trig was born with Down syndrome], so with a high fever he was prescribed azithromycin, which really seemed to help, and I increased amounts of vitamins I put in his puréed food.”
    ……
    She adds that she had some of the “bizarre” symptoms characteristic of the virus, like a loss of taste and smell, leading her to assume it was “unmistakable COVID caught me.”
    ……..
    “I strongly encourage everyone to use common sense to avoid spreading this and every other virus out there,” she says in her statement. “There are more viruses than there are stars in the sky, meaning we’ll never avoid every source of illness or danger … But please be vigilant, don’t be frightened, and I advise reprioritizing some personal time and resources to ensure as healthy a lifestyle as you can create so when viruses do hit, you have at least some armor to fight it.”
    ………
    Better late than never.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  35. It’s like the muslim ban thing.

    Not quite. In that case the problem was more the immigrants than the actions of their former nation.

    I understand that some Koreans are unhappy with China for perpetuating the division of their homeland and allowing their relatives in the north to be subjected to extreme deprivation. North Korea is a huge and ongoing crime against humanity and without the Chinese intervention and support for the last 70+ years it would not have happened. This predates Covid, IP theft and such by a lot.

    Still, Chinese immigrants are hardly at fault there, and some of them come from Taiwan. This is more a play to unemployed white men than anything.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  36. her case is proof that “anyone can catch this.”

    Was that in question? Or did she think that Jesus was going to be protecting her or something?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  37. @9. One day at a time. It’s nice to discover New Year’s Day has a morning, isn’t, Kevin.

    Well done.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  38. ^isn’t it

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  39. Anyone here like sports? We used to.

    DRJ (aede82)

  40. April 1 was the 14th anniversary of a wreck that almost killed me, Kevin M. That’s a day you and I will always remember.

    DRJ (aede82)

  41. PPIC Poll:
    Four in Ten Support Newsom Recall, Job Approval Holds Steady
    …….
    If a special election to recall Governor Newsom were held today, 40 percent of likely voters say they would vote yes on removing Newsom, while 56 percent would vote no and 5 percent are unsure. Views break along party lines: Republicans (79%) are far more likely than independents (42%) and Democrats (15%) to say they would vote yes. Across regions, support for removing Newsom is highest in the Central Valley (49%) and Inland Empire (47%) and lowest in the San Francisco Bay Area (27%, 41% Orange/San Diego, 40% Los Angeles).

    ………. (Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO said) “The share who would now vote to remove the governor is similar to the 38 percent who did not vote for Newsom in the fall of 2018.”

    Newsom’s approval rating has held steady so far in 2021. Just over half of Californians (54% adults, 53% likely voters) approve of how he is handling his job as governor, essentially unchanged from January (54% adults, 52% likely voters). This is similar to the share approving in February 2020, before the governor issued COVID-19 stay-at-home orders (53% adults, 52% likely voters). Peak approval for Governor Newsom so far was in May 2020, when 65 percent of adults and 64 percent of likely voters said they approved of his performance.
    ………
    Sixty-one percent of Californians say they have already received the vaccine (33%) or that they will definitely get it (28%), up from 48 percent in January (5% already received, 43% will definitely get it). About one in five continue to say that they will either probably not (7%, down from 11% in January) or definitely not (14%, similar to 13% in January) get the vaccine. Across racial/ethnic groups, African Americans remain the most likely to say they will probably or definitely not get the vaccine (29%, down from 55% in January); 22 percent of Latinos (unchanged), 20 percent of whites (down from 25%), and 5 percent of Asian Americans (down from 8%) say they will probably not or definitely not get the vaccine.
    ………
    ………[A]n overwhelming majority of Californians (85%) say there should be a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, provided they meet certain requirements—similar to the share since PPIC started asking this question in 2013. Strong majorities across partisan lines hold this view: 93 percent of Democrats, 81 percent of independents, and 68 percent of Republicans. Across racial/ethnic groups, 92 percent of both African Americans and Latinos, 80 percent of whites, and 79 percent of Asian Americans are supportive.
    ……..
    The main question that recall candidates need to answer is what they would have responded differently to the pandemic to achieve better results. Otherwise, what is the point of the recall? All of the other issues (housing affordability, homelessness) have existed for decades under Democratic and Republican governors. And the recall candidates will need to explain how they will work with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  42. Anyone here like sports?

    What about them Bruins?

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  43. Anyone here like sports? We used to.

    “We”?

    Dana (fd537d)

  44. Newsom has been trying to label all his opponents as Trump stooges, and there are some of course, but the Governor and the state’s news media are playing this pretty dirty. It will be hard for the Recall people to win in a state with very little diversity of thought in the media apparatus.

    Still, Newsom is giving them a chance by tying himself to the mast — no Democrat will run in the replacement election, so if he loses the recall, the Dems lose the governorship.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  45. If Newsom is going to lose 27% in the Bay Area, where Trump barely got 10%, he might actually be in trouble.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  46. Palin, 57 — who is a mom to five children with ex-husband Todd — says her case is proof that “anyone can catch this.”

    Um, we already knew that anyone could catch it. She may think very highly of herself, but she is simply a mere mortal like the rest of us.

    Dana (fd537d)

  47. https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/04/chauvin-trial-day-5-wrap-up-poorly-informed-witnesses-provide-state-with-poorly-informed-opinions/

    Perhaps the best way to describe Lt. Zimmerman is “well-seasoned.” He joined the MPD back in 1985, after a few years as a Sheriff’s deputy, back in the days when cops carried a gun, handcuffs, and that was about it. Often, back then, from my own recollection, not even radios—indeed, often not even every squad car had a radio.

    Frank had a very specific role in mind for Zimmerman, and it had little to do with the substantive factors of this case. And there’s good reason it had little to do with the substantive factors of this case—because Zimmerman knows virtually none of the relevant evidence of the case.

    Much as with Sergeant Edwards, Zimmerman was almost immediately aware that this was going to be a critical incident and promptly handed over to BCA—indeed, as it was in fact handed over within two or three hours of Zimmerman’s involvement.

    Zimmerman’s role, then, was largely as a transient caretaker of the case, to ensure the uniformed officers were doing the things they were supposed to be doing to secure evidence, run crime scene tape, canvass for witnesses, and so forth.

    But everybody involved, including Zimmerman, was aware that by the time they went to bed that evening this would be a case entirely in the hands of BCA, with effectively zero involvement by MPD.

    So, if Frank would not be able to make use of Zimmerman to testify substantively about the case, for what purpose could he use Zimmerman? As a purported expert on MPD use-of-force policies able to provide an authoritative determination that Chauvin’s use of force upon Floyd was unjustifiable.

    Before getting to that, of course, Frank stepped Zimmerman through his administrative role on the case, as a transient caretaker, much as Prosecutor Schlieter had done earlier with Sergeant Edwards.

    Then we got to the real point of having Zimmerman testify.

    Frank asked Zimmerman if he’d been trained by MPD on use of force, if he was familiar with MPD use of force policies, and (importantly) if he’d viewed the body cam footage of the Floyd event.

    The body cam footage is important here, because unless Zimmerman had viewed at least that limited body of evidence he’d have zero basis on which to have a use-of-force opinion.

    Accordingly, the prosecution had fed him the limited body of evidence consisting of body camera footage specifically so they could ask for his use of force opinion in court, and have that opinion based on more than zero knowledge of the evidence.

    And Zimmerman was happy to comply, providing Frank with every answer the prosecutor could hope for.

    By far the site with the best analysis and research on the trial.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  48. DRJ,

    I used to love sports. I was a stat junkie. Could recite countless facts and obscure knowledge. Went to games, watched on tv, bought memorabilia. That’s all gone. The left took over the sports and to paraphrase Iowahawk, they take over an institution, kill it, then walk around wearing the carcass demanding respect.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  49. Wreckage of long-lost WW II ship, sunken with its Native American skipper and half its crew, identified
    Near the end, the battered American destroyer USS Johnston was surrounded by Japanese warships closing in to finish her off. The Johnston was ablaze. Scores of sailors lay dead. And after three hours of heroic battle, only one of its guns could return fire.

    At 9:45 a.m. on Oct. 25, 1944, the wounded skipper, Cmdr. Ernest E. Evans, gave the order to abandon ship, and 25 minutes later the Johnston sank off the Philippine island of Samar.
    Evans and 185 members of the crew were lost, and he would become the first Native American in the Navy to receive the Medal of Honor.

    On Thursday, the Navy and a team of undersea explorers announced that the wreck of the Johnston had been positively identified in 21,180 feet of water. Scattered wreckage had been found at the site in 2019 but could not be positively identified.
    ………
    “The wreck of Johnston is a hallowed site,” said retired Rear Adm. Sam Cox, head of the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington.

    “It … serves as a sobering reminder for today’s Sailors: after all that’s asked of them in day-to-day service, they … may one day be asked for far more,” he said in the Navy’s announcement.

    The Johnston was sunk during a huge naval battle in the Philippine Sea as the United States was liberating the island nation from the Japanese and advancing the bloody drive across the Pacific Theater that would end the war 10 months later.
    ……..
    “I intend to go in harm’s way,” Evans had said when the Johnston was commissioned in 1943. “Anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now.”

    Evans was from Pawnee, Okla. His mother was Cherokee, and his father was half White and half Creek Indian. Despite the racism of the era, he was admitted to the Naval Academy and graduated in 1931. He was 36 at the time of the attack, and he had been the Johnston’s only skipper.
    ………
    The nimble Johnston zigged and zagged, firing off torpedoes and shells, and ducking into smokescreens. But at 7:25 a.m. the monster Japanese battleship Yamato spotted the destroyer and landed three huge shells.
    ……..
    An hour later, another Japanese battleship, the Kongo, loomed, and the Johnston let loose with its small guns, firing 40 shells. They did little damage. The destroyer escaped, but came upon a crippled American aircraft carrier being pummeled by a Japanese cruiser.

    “Commander Evans then gave me the most courageous order I’ve ever heard,” (Bob Hagen, the ship’s gunnery officer recalled, according to historian Ian W. Toll in his recent book, Twilight of the Gods.)“’Commence firing on that cruiser … draw her fire on us and away from’” the carrier.

    It was then that the enemy ships closed in and finished the Johnston off.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  50. Obama congratulates MLB on decision to pull ASG from Atlanta. Trump calls for boycott of MLB for going woke.

    WTF.

    Baseball, Mr. Spock??? Baseball, Captain Queeg????

    Isn’t Obama the same fella who repeatedly railed against politicizing “everything” in American life these days? And Captain, aren’t you the ‘president’ who balked and whined that it was too hard to toss an opening day pitch in a bulletproof vest?? Minor league moves from one time major league players for sure. Are they on steroids, too? Both ‘Basketball Jones’ and ‘Mighty Casey-Who-Putts’ are way off base on this one.

    It’s about time all Americans unite and draw the line at baseball; make it political ‘free parking.’

    When a game that rewards and celebrates both individual achievement and teamwork; a game that literally united the nation in times of great peril, gets politicized by jerkoffs like league commissioners and ex-presidents in the peanut gallery of life, it’s time to piss in their $10 beers; Dems, GOPers and all in-between. In baseball, left, right and center are fielding positions, not political platforms.

    Damn it, Obama, damn it, Trump, and goddamn it all politicians: STFU and leve us something:

    let’em PLAY BALL!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  51. Broken clock moment from our Roger Sterling–Bill the Butcher amalgam. Hear Hear!!

    urbanleftbehind (1a7017)

  52. #51

    I care about the Braves. I don’t care about the ASG. Given that COVID will still be around in July. I don’t think the loss of the game will deliver that much of an economic impact. (A losing season would hurt worse).

    Seriously, though, why do Obama and Biden want to woke up Georgia? The local would-be Trumpers are trying to give the state to the Democrats. The Democrats seem to want to give the state back. Is Stacey Abrams so legendary that she can carry the national Democrat’s water and still deliver the state? I wouldn’t count on that.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  53. I used to love sports. I was a stat junkie. Could recite countless facts and obscure knowledge. Went to games, watched on tv, bought memorabilia. That’s all gone. The left took over the sports and to paraphrase Iowahawk, they take over an institution, kill it, then walk around wearing the carcass demanding respect.

    You did this to yourself.

    Dave (1bb933)

  54. Five Takeaways on the 2021 Governor’s Recall
    ………

    Here are five key takeaways about public support for the 2021 governor’s recall, based on PPIC surveys:

    The partisan divide matters. Partisans are deeply divided when asked if they would vote yes to remove the Democratic governor. Among likely voters, 79% of Republicans would vote yes compared to 15% of Democrats. Fewer than half of independents (42%) would vote yes—consistent with their Democratic leanings. This partisan divide mirrors the findings in California exit polls in the November 2018 election. Democrats currently have a large advantage over Republicans in voter registration, which explains why recall support falls well short of the majority needed to remove the governor.

    So does Newsom’s standing. Governor Newsom’s approval rating among California likely voters is at 53% in our March survey—similar to 52% in January and 52% in February 2020. Today, 42% disapprove of the way that Newsom is handling his job as governor. How important is Newsom’s approval rating in determining support for the recall? Just 4% of those who approve of Newsom would vote yes to remove him, compared to 87% of those who disapprove of him………

    The president’s coattails help. President Joe Biden’s approval rating among California likely voters currently stands at 60%. In our January and March surveys, solid majorities of California likely voters also say they favor President Biden’s policy direction on climate change, immigration, the economy, and COVID-19. ……. Of those who approve of Biden, 11% would vote yes to remove Newsom, compared to 85% of those who disapprove of Biden.

    Improvements in pandemic trends do, too……… 45% now say that the state government is doing an excellent or good job in vaccine distribution—a significant jump in positive perceptions since January (28%)—while 20 percent say a poor job (down from 34%). Californians’ satisfaction with the state’s COVID response—and the pace of reopening of schools and businesses—is likely to determine the fate of the 2021 recall. ………

    2021 is not 2003. The successful recall of the governor in 2003 occurred in a very different political context. Governor Gray Davis had been reelected by a 5-point margin in November 2002 (47% to 42%). Newsom was elected by a 24-point margin in November 2018 (62% to 38%). Democrats had a 9-point edge over Republicans in voter registration (44% to 35%) in 2003; today, they have a 22-point edge (46% to 24%). Moreover, seven in ten California likely voters disapproved of Gray Davis during the year of the recall……… And leading up to the recall election, at least half of California likely voters said they would vote to remove Davis as governor ………,Ultimately, 55% voted to remove him in October 2003. By contrast, fewer than half have said they disapprove of Newsom in the 13 surveys we have conducted since he took office, and today four in ten want to remove him.
    ………
    ………[I]t was the surprise entry of action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger that changed the (2003) election’s dynamics. Currently, a few candidates have indicated their desire to run in 2021 but none have the qualities of Arnold Schwarzenegger or the statewide electoral track record of Gavin Newsom. ……..
    ……….
    Blaming the media is what you do when you’re behind. The fact is that California is a heavily Democratic state and the recall is seen as a partisan issue. Unless some major Democratic leaders endorse the recall, it is doomed.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  55. Appalled, I wonder if the decision to pull the game would have been so quick had the Braves home park remained south of downtown Atlanta. Maybe the stadium concessionaires, shop employees, parking attendants, security and ushers at Truist are perceived to be white moonlighters and teens as opposed to blacks who “really need that job”?

    In that sense the decision will really hurt the take from the regular season games since a greater share of tickets for Truist have likely been coming from outside the metro Atlanta area, likely Tennessee and upland South Carolina/Charlotte NC and many if that group will be put off by woke.

    urbanleftbehind (1a7017)

  56. It’s just as much of a risk to have a backup Dem candidate, who may have an appeal to only a certain slice of the Dem electorate. Cruz B. was done in by people voting no on recall but not following up and voting for him.

    I think only old man Jerry Brown could pull off being the backup. And it might be better to have a R punching bag for a calendar year that could still be stymied by the Assembly.

    urbanleftbehind (1a7017)

  57. Palin, 57 — who is a mom to five children with ex-husband Todd — says her case is proof that “anyone can catch this.”

    Um, we already knew that anyone could catch it. She may think very highly of herself, but she is simply a mere mortal like the rest of us.

    Dana (fd537d) — 4/3/2021 @ 11:01 am

    I would add that this is the sort of arrogant wrong-think (I’m so healthy, I can’t get Covid!) that has lead to people ignoring social distancing measures (Unnecessary and stupid!), and has ultimately, and to some degree, lead to an increased duration of the pandemic.

    Dana (fd537d)

  58. She would blanch and pick up something to shoot upon being told of it, but doesnt S. Palin have some of the same multiple children/multiple households in constant proximity as the vulnerable populations in California?

    urbanleftbehind (1a7017)

  59. I’m pretty sure “The Left” doesn’t determine how well any athletes hit, throw, kick, pass, or score.

    I’m not a big sports fan, I like the Olympics and I’ll watch soccer if someone else really wants to watch soccer (I played for a lot of years), but generally speaking my opinion on sports is they are most fun when playing, 2nd most fun to watch in person, 3rd most fun to watch as a group activity involving food/drink/etc, and not much fun to watch on your own.

    Nic (896fdf)

  60. @53/56. It’s political. And it sucks. The ALG is merely MLB self-promotion anyway– one game, so local economic impact is regionally minimal- the real revenue comes from the TeeVee contract- which happens to be w/Fox now [likely something President Plagiarist considered when he spit-balled his opinion]; and on another thread, posted the ratings. They’ve been dropping to dismal levels for years now. Baseball needs to cultivate the fan base; politicizing it isn’t the way– and it’s just stupid for all parties involved.

    “Baseball been berry, berry good to me!” – Chico Escuela [Garrett Morris] SNL, NBC TV, 11/11/1978

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  61. doesnt S. Palin have some of the same multiple children/multiple households in constant proximity as the vulnerable populations in California?

    I think so, but am not positive. Clearly, her son Trig was particularly vulnerable with regard to Covid-19.

    Dana (fd537d)

  62. Fun to see Chuck Schumer invite the MLB to hold the All-Star game in his state…except that voting in NY is more onerous (in some ways) than it is in GA.

    Under the new Georgia law, it will be easier to vote by mail than it is in New York. Citizens will have a far longer window to vote than in New Jersey. In New York, gifts on line under a dollar are exempt from criminalization, but you can still hand out free stuff in Georgia as long as it’s 150 feet away from the polling place. There will be too many drop boxes in the sticks and not enough in cities. Then again, how many states had drop boxes before the pandemic?

    Dana (fd537d)

  63. @60. So did I; that because we’ve spent time in Europe. I don’t think Americans yet really grasp how pervasive football [aka soccer] is worldwide. [I was a Manchester United/Bobby Charlton fan; brother was a Chelsea/Georgie Best scarfwaver. Wembley Stadium was an amazing venue, too.] Recall the Brits chuckling when we tuned in a so-called ‘World Series’ via AFR on the shortwave. The World Cup really is just that—- the Brits were still celebrating their ’66 win in 1970.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  64. doesnt S. Palin have some of the same multiple children/multiple households in constant proximity as the vulnerable populations in California?

    Multi-acre property is common in the Mat-su valley.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  65. @DCSCA@64 Part of it is definitely that. The other part is that the big start of youth soccer in the US was late 70s/early 80s, so I was in the right age group. And the World-Cup is really the only sports tournament I keep up with. 😛

    Nic (896fdf)

  66. So pure:

    How Trump Steered Supporters Into Unwitting Donations

    Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaugh’s dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trump’s campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500.

    It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution — federal records show it was his first ever — quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge — until Mr. Blatt’s bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help.

    What the Blatts soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals by the Trump campaign in less than 30 days. They called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud.

    “It felt,” Russell said, “like it was a scam.”

    But what the Blatts believed was duplicity was actually an intentional scheme to boost revenues by the Trump campaign and the for-profit company that processed its online donations, WinRed. Facing a cash crunch and getting badly outspent by the Democrats, the campaign had begun last September to set up recurring donations by default for online donors, for every week until the election.

    Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out.

    As the election neared, the Trump team made that disclaimer increasingly opaque, an investigation by The New York Times showed. It introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a “money bomb,” that doubled a person’s contribution. Eventually its solicitations featured lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.

    The tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting Trump loyalists — retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives. Soon, banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.

    Dave (1bb933)

  67. @67,

    That is beyond disgusting. I’m sure what they did was barely on this side of legal, but still… $500 every week is unbelievable. I wonder what recourse the unsuspecting victims have?

    Dana (fd537d)

  68. Dave,

    You make love woke culture, but the rest of us realize it’s a poison on society.

    NJRob (030960)

  69. Stacy Abrams bought the domain StopJimCrow2.com weeks before the Georgia legislation was passed.

    Dana (fd537d)

  70. Italian pizza shop owner mistakenly sanctioned by Trump: ‘I thought it was a joke’

    On the very last day President Donald Trump was in office in January, his administration announced new sanctions targeting a catering company in Verona, Italy.

    According to the U.S. Treasury, the measures were designed to defeat a “network attempting to evade United States sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector.”

    But for Alessandro Bazzoni, the owner of the catering company, it was a confounding move. He was not involved in sanctions evasion with Venezuela.

    And yet now his bank accounts were blocked by U.S. sanctions that targeted him.
    ……….
    The U.S. Treasury announced this week that it was removing the company linked to Bazzoni — a catering firm that shares an address with his pizza shop, Dolce Gusto — from its sanctions blacklist.

    A design agency in Porto Torres, Italy, was also removed from the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN) without explanation, according to the statement on Wednesday.

    For Bazzoni, the problem was a case of mistaken identity. The U.S. government had been interested in an Italian citizen named Alessandro Bazzoni, who they said had been a “core facilitator” of a network designed to help sanctioned Venezuelan state firm PDVSA sell crude oil.
    ………
    Use of targeted sanctions on individuals skyrocketed during the Trump administration, with the SDN list ballooning by an average of more than 1,000 names a year, according to an analysis by law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher — roughly double the average of the Obama administration.

    Inclusion on the U.S. blacklist effectively means that American individuals and organizations are prohibited from doing business with you.
    ……….
    Related:

    Ending Sanctions and Visa Restrictions against Personnel of the International Criminal Court
    Today, President Biden revoked Executive Order 13928 on “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Associated with the International Criminal Court (ICC),” ending the threat and imposition of economic sanctions and visa restrictions in connection with the Court. As a result, the sanctions imposed by the previous administration against ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko, the Head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division of the Office of the Prosecutor, have been lifted. The Department of State also terminated the separate 2019 policy on visa restrictions on certain ICC personnel. These decisions reflect our assessment that the measures adopted were inappropriate and ineffective.

    We continue to disagree strongly with the ICC’s actions relating to the Afghanistan and Palestinian situations. We maintain our longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over personnel of non-States Parties such as the United States and Israel. We believe, however, that our concerns about these cases would be better addressed through engagement with all stakeholders in the ICC process rather than through the imposition of sanctions.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  71. I wonder what recourse the unsuspecting victims have?

    According to the article, it sounds like refunds were processed for any who requested them. Some, certainly did not, whether out of cult loyalty or ignorance. But it resulted in a huge, interest-free loan at a time when Trump’s campaign was desperate for cash.

    The article says Trump’s crime-organization-DBA-presidential-campaign refunded an unbelievable 10.7% of the money it raised through WinRed. The number for Biden’s analogous “ActBlue” online fundraiser was 2.2%.

    The recurred and doubled donations often resulted in violating the donation cap, but Trump was able to use the money during the campaign and repay it with cash raised after the election to support his election theft con.

    Dave (1bb933)

  72. Stacy Abrams bought the domain StopJimCrow2.com weeks before the Georgia legislation was passed.

    Dana (fd537d) — 4/3/2021 @ 2:17 pm

    blows my mind these cynical people saw they only won by 11k votes in 2020, but they thought the right move was to tell the world Georgia today is just as bad, or worse, than racial segregation policies. We have a president basically giving a thumbs up to a boycott of a US State.

    That’s Trumpy stuff. Biden promised to be a uniter. Not that I bought it for a second, but I can still hold him to his word.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  73. Biden promised to be a uniter.

    Why doesn’t rallying the country to the defense of a minority targeted (again) by voter suppression qualify as being a uniter?

    Dave (1bb933)

  74. Why doesn’t rallying the country to the defense of a minority targeted (again) by voter suppression qualify as being a uniter?

    You beg the question.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  75. Dave reminds me of a guy I know who claims to be a life-long Republican, but has never actually voted for a Republican. There is always some disqualifying issue and he has to, sadly, cast his vote for the Democrat. Again.

    Never mind who the Democrat is. Such as Katie Porter, proud progressive and outspoken opponent of free speech.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  76. The Georgia political fallout of MLB’s decision to move the All-Star game
    ……..
    For the last five months, Gov. Brian Kemp has had to answer endless questions about his problems with former President Donald Trump and the GOP base. Now he’s finally able to play the hero to the pro-Trump crowd. Look no further than his turn late Friday on Fox News.
    ……..
    Kemp supporters were ecstatic, and GOP text chains exploded with comments about what a “gift” Major League Baseball had given the embattled governor. He scheduled a rare Saturday press conference – and a new round of TV interviews – to maximize the attention.

    “Thanks to MLB, the likelihood of a successful primary challenge to Gov. Kemp just went from unlikely to unthinkable,” said Scott Johnson, a veteran Republican activist who was runner-up to lead the Georgia GOP in 2019.
    ………
    “The Democrats in one week have united a fractured Georgia GOP, rallied Republicans to Brian Kemp at a time when many had abandoned him and appalled the same independent voters who broke heavily toward them last year,” (Brian Robinson, a GOP strategist) said, before invoking Kemp’s likely 2022 rival.

    “Stacey Abrams couldn’t have done more for Brian Kemp’s reelection hopes if she’d written a $10 million check to his super PAC.”
    ………
    Basically, (Democrats) wonder why a Democratic county has to pay the price for a GOP-backed law.

    Cobb, of course, has morphed from a reliably GOP bulwark into a cornerstone of the Democratic coalition in Georgia since 2016. Democrats flipped control of a spate of county offices in November, including county chair, sheriff and district attorney.

    Lisa Cupid, the first Black woman to lead Cobb County, earlier this week chided President Joe Biden for saying he would “strongly support” moving the game. She said it sent an “unfortunate message” to residents and businesses who supported him and rely on the financial windfall from the event.
    ……….
    The Democrats and MLB have more than shot themselves in the foot, they show themselves in head. There is no way Georgia turns blue in 2022 or 2024. The left took the bait and are know choking on it. Brilliant.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  77. You beg the question.

    “The question” was settled on January 6.

    It’s disingenuous in the extreme to suggest that the GA bill’s intended and actual effect isn’t to suppress legal votes.

    These are the same people who, just a few months ago, were prepared – based on the very same lie – to invalidate tens of millions of legal votes to stay in power illegally.

    They may have failed their orange messiah then, but they’re still working tirelessly to carry out his commandment from last September: “Get rid of the ballots … there won’t be a transfer of power.”

    Dave (1bb933)

  78. Why doesn’t rallying the country to the defense of a minority targeted (again) by voter suppression qualify as being a uniter?

    Dave (1bb933) — 4/3/2021 @ 2:44 pm

    Come on. So folks all, white and black, need ID, need to register before the election, and can drop ballots in a box for 17 freaking days, even on saturday, which is a huge access upgrade from all but the COVID emergency measures.

    And the secstate is replaced by a board.

    I can come up with problems with those ideas, but GA will have a fair election. This ain’t Jim Crow.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  79. “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes”

    Dave (1bb933)

  80. Dave,
    You make love woke culture, but the rest of us realize it’s a poison on society.
    NJRob (030960) — 4/3/2021 @ 2:13 pm

    You may love the guy who scams the little people out of their life savings, but the rest of us realize he’s a sociopath whose deep selfishness was bound to do a lot of damage.

    Radegunda (f4d5c0)

  81. “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes”

    Dave (1bb933) — 4/3/2021 @ 3:45 pm

    See, what if that call had worked? Instead of one guy, why not a board, so it’s less likely the whole deal is corrupt, or someone can blow the whistle?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  82. They’re making sure the call won’t be necessary next time.

    Dave (1bb933)

  83. Why is that kind of conspiracy theory mockable when Lin Wood says it, but it’s totally cool when it’s said of the GOP? how do they cook the books? All those precincts publish their totals publically.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  84. Dave reminds me of a guy…

    Ad hominem noted.

    George W. Bush, the last Republican president, vouches for my credentials – who vouches for yours?

    Dave (1bb933)

  85. how do they cook the books?

    They keep a small percentage of people they don’t want to vote from voting.

    Dave (1bb933)

  86. You may love the guy who scams the little people out of their life savings, but the rest of us realize he’s a sociopath whose deep selfishness was bound to do a lot of damage.

    Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 4/3/2021 @ 3:46 pm

    Your desire to have people who disagree with you be deluded by love says more about you than myself. Politicians are transactional creatures and I vote for them if they back policies I support, not because they tweet kind words .

    NJRob (f1f47b)

  87. OK, Dave, but if they can register to vote and they have 17 days to vote, and they have drop boxes and all that, I guess I’m ok with it.

    If someone wants to vote, they obviously can. Good enough. Fair election. People who don’t care about voting shouldn’t be voting.

    I thought you meant ‘find 11,000 votes’ like they would just scribble some more votes in or dump some fake ballots on the table. If the ‘jim crow on steroids’ is ‘well everyone who wanted to vote did vote, easily, and we wish we could really help that one group to vote because we think they need a lot of help’ well F ’em

    Dustin (4237e0)

  88. I miss W, dave.

    My deluxe signed copy of his new book of portraits, honoring immigrants, is supposed to arrive in a couple weeks…

    Dave (1bb933)

  89. OK, Dave, but if they can register to vote and they have 17 days to vote, and they have drop boxes and all that, I guess I’m ok with it.

    But they’re playing this game at the margins.

    Fewer days, fewer boxes, available fewer hours.

    Dave (1bb933)

  90. It’s an increase actually, just not from the COVID OMG BBQ levels that were never really created lawfully. That’s one area that I feel is very unfair. The democrats just kinda got away with that, and it sets up a new baseline for propaganda, so if you don’t meet that level, it’s “Jim Crow.” Even though that was not really legitimate, it was an emergency and I’m not saying the election was rigged or anything, but what we have now is actually legitimate.

    And 17 days of the drop boxes, including saturdays, is enough. Maybe it’s not as many days and not as many boxes, but we’re talking about driving a few miles in atlanta to a box. It’s not Jim Crow.

    And I also think the extreme rhetoric shows, there’s no way to satisfy the democrats. They could put a drop box in front of every door in the state, that’s still Jim Crow because you can only vote for 18 days a year. And you can make it 365 days a year voting, it’s still Jim Crow cause they didn’t provide a pen. And you could provide a pen, but how come it’s a BLACK pen huh?

    It’s a game. I don’t take it seriously.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  91. I agree, Dustin. This is a silly hill the left has chosen to die on. It’s only slightly less preposterous than the Kavanaugh hearings.

    norcal (01e272)

  92. It might be silly, norcal, but in as much as the media is concerned, it’s effective and they are more than willing to push any over-the-top rhetoric to the masses. However, had Trump not tried to overturn the election and behave so despicably inGeorgia after his defeat, I doubt we’d be here today.

    Dana (fd537d)

  93. One bad deed begets another. I thought Biden might have put a stop to it, but I should have known better when it comes to somebody who told black people that Romney would put them back in chains.

    A trademark political hack.

    norcal (01e272)

  94. Dustin, do you really, honestly believe the GA law was intended by its authors to be party- and race-neutral?

    C’mon, man.

    Dave (1bb933)

  95. Well, I was hoping to continue my repartee with Dana on dueling love poems, but instead I’m going to tell the real life story of how I came to write the Wedding Poem. This one is for norcal, in furtherance of my advice on how to date young women. It wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t true.

    Joey was/is a total nerd and complete computer freak. He was a year ahead of me in high school, except he grew up in McAllen while I grew up in Edinburg, about thirty miles away. We doubtless attended several of the same UIL tournaments, be we never met because he participated in number sense and I participated in drama, so we didn’t sit in the same rounds. I didn’t meet him until years later, when he went to work for my father.

    Still, he was a nerd freak without parallel. Joey built his own computer out of component parts from Radio Shack, when he was in the ninth grade, and he programmed his computer to train him to win the Texas state number sense championship. The way he went about that was quite clever actually. His computer would generate number sense problems, in UIL format, but it had a feedback loop so that each time he took a test, the next time the computer would only generate problems he had gotten wrong before. In other words, he designed his computer to always test him on problems he had difficulty with.

    Well, he won the Texas state number sense championship his junior year, scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT, and graduated early. He was offered a full scholarship at MIT, but his father had graduated from UT, so that’s where Joey went.

    By the end of his freshman year, he had tested out of every math and science course, and accumulated 104 credit hours–that’s 16 short of a degree, with a 4.0 GPA, in two semesters. For the one course in computer science he did attend, he took the owner’s manual for an IBM PC and reconstructed the compiler, which he turned in for his semester project. That blew his professor’s mind.

    Then Joey, I don’t know, went a little crazy. He was bored with college, because it was beneath him, so he started writing hot checks all over Austin, got arrested and thrown out of the University. He never graduated.

    Despondent, he returned to McAllen and applied for a job at Automatic Data Account Processing, which was the computer company where my father was the lead programmer and president. He immediately realized Joey’s talent and genius, and hired him on the spot, after one interview. My father took Joey under his wing as the son he didn’t have, taught him how to write code. To this day Joey will say my father was his mentor.

    So, I come down from UT for Christmas vacation, and my father says, “Son, I want you to come to the office. There’s someone you need to meet.” Sure, Dad, no problem. I went and met Joey for the first time.

    It was really weird, watching the two of them together. They were so different but yet the same person, you know? They would complete each other’s sentences and say the same thing at the same time! They had like this Vulcan mind meld or something. We sat and talked for about an hour, and all I could think was, “This guy needs to go out.” So I told Joey about the Christmas party my mother’s real estate company was holding at her partner’s house, and asked if he wanted to go.

    We showed up. This was the party of the who’s-to-know in banking, business and real estate, very important people. There was an open bar, which I got behind because I was a licensed and experienced bartender.

    What would you like, a Cuba Libre? No problem, a lot of rum, a little Coke for color, and a slice of lime for flavor. Joey sat and watched in dumb amazement, while I loaded up drinks for everyone at the party. Then, when they were all smashed, I turned to him and said, “My work is done here. Let’s go clubbing.”

    (To be continued . . .)

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  96. Why doesn’t rallying the country to the defense of a minority targeted (again) by voter suppression qualify as being a uniter?

    As yet, no one has identified a single person who would be prevented from voting in this “New Jim Crow.” The original Jim Crow wasn’t quite as nebulous. Anyone who says that this is the same thing is lying.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  97. Dustin, do you really, honestly believe the GA law was intended by its authors to be party- and race-neutral?

    I think it’s tricky to say because yes, of course, the outcome is part of how they come up with this stuff, but also, they would say they are just being reasonable, and it’s what the other side wants that’s really not party or race neutral.

    For example, same day registration and limitless polling in one area that’s very populated may seem unfair to rural voters. Perhaps that is not a great example, but cynically, both parties do prefer rules that benefit their likely voters.

    What I hope for is simple. Everyone who wants to vote, can do so easily. Georgia’s law seems to actually make it a little easier. Some of the responses just aren’t reasonable. I have never once needed someone to quench my thirst in line to vote. I have actually gotten out of line and returned, and no one cares.

    But by all means, say you think Georgia could do better. They could. This Sec State replacing committee could be bipartisan, for example.

    But it’s not Jim Crow, if everyone who wants to vote votes. And what happens if a state DOES enact something egregious? What’s Joe Biden going to do then? Call it the holocaust on steroids?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  98. It’s disingenuous in the extreme to suggest that the GA bill’s intended and actual effect isn’t to suppress legal votes.

    You. Lie.

    It is intended to prevent the kind of questions that were unanswerable last election, such as “what percentage of mailed ballots were from actual voters?” The signature-comparison methods, where some bleary-eyed county employee makes a snap judgement every 5 seconds, is hardly error-free. The criteria used may vary from county to county, with the expected laxness in liberal places alllowing a significant bias in statewide results. WHich the Democrats seek to retain.

    It’s disingenuous in the extreme to suggest that the Democrat Party’s intended and actual effect isn’t to allow illegal votes.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  99. GG, enjoyable story.

    Time flies.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  100. Love it so far, GG!

    norcal (01e272)

  101. Some ballots from actual voters were not counted in 2020. Some ballots with questionable provenance were counted in 2020. Not by any evil intent, but by a woefully sloppy system that was never intended to be used for the majority of ballots.

    There needs to be a better method that the Mark 1 eyeball. How is that hard to understand?

    You may argue that the GA changes do not accomplish that. I am waiting to see that argument. But to call it racist and fascist and beyond the pale to insist on an ID number is rather hyperventilated.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  102. The problems in 2020, which the Trumpies brought up and repeatedly failed to redress, were of a type that needed to be dealt with before any voting. In failing to do that before the vote, court after court ruled they had no standing or their remedies were unacceptable. They wanted to unscramble the egg, and that just wasn’t possible.

    Georgia is addressing some of the issues the Trumpies brought up. Not because they want to overturn the election, but because some of those questions were valid, and they do not want those questions to be valid next time.

    I find it reprehensible that the same people who said “Those legislatures had a chance to fix this in 2019” now say “Oh, you are just a bunch of bigots trying to change the law for next time.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  103. That was the way it was with me and Joey. When we got together, we partied, hard. Maybe he wasn’t the influence on me my father hoped he would be, or maybe I wasn’t the influence on him, but when we got together, it was always a party, and we partied hard.

    Anyway, after a few years, Joey started messing around with this seventeen-year old girl, the daughter of the owner of the health spa he worked out at. I warned him about that. Then, she turned eighteen, moved out of her parents’ house and into his.

    “I love her! I love her! I want to marry her!”

    Okay, Joey, you’re not thinking here. “I love her!” You like having sex with her, but that is not love. She’s way too young, she’s immature, she’s neurotic, and she’s vindictive. I knew this girl, only met her a few times, but I knew her the first time we met.

    I don’t know computers, but I do know drama girls. I dated enough of them in high school, and I knew from the beginning this girl was nothing but trouble.

    So I told Joey, if you marry this girl, she will hurt you.

    He didn’t listen to me. He married her. Then he did the most stupid thing a man can do, he moved to California, where the divorce laws are hell.

    (To be continued . . .)

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  104. The problems in 2020, which the Trumpies brought up and repeatedly failed to redress, were of a type that needed to be dealt with before any voting. In failing to do that before the vote, court after court ruled they had no standing or their remedies were unacceptable. They wanted to unscramble the egg, and that just wasn’t possible.

    Georgia is addressing some of the issues the Trumpies brought up. Not because they want to overturn the election, but because some of those questions were valid, and they do not want those questions to be valid next time.

    I find it reprehensible that the same people who said “Those legislatures had a chance to fix this in 2019″ now say “Oh, you are just a bunch of bigots trying to change the law for next time.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/3/2021 @ 7:02 pm

    The GA bill is a mix of four things.

    Good things; Adding a day of early voting, requiring precincts with long lines to address that problem.

    Things that are OK; codifying early voting hours.

    Bad things; Putting political appointees in charge of the election process instead of the SOS. Allowing the legislature to take over county voting process

    Things that would be good, but are worse then what we had in 2020
    Allowing drop boxes but reducing the number; impediments to voter registrations.

    All in I think it’s a bad bill.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  105. Of course, there’s the timing of the new law. A basic question: Considering Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s take on the 2020 election (it was legitimate, defended the integrity of said election, they never found systemic fraud or enough fraud to overturn an election and the voter turnout was an impressive 75%), why the sudden the need to implement new voter laws?

    Dana (fd537d)

  106. why the sudden the need to implement new voter laws?

    Passing laws is what politicians do instead of something. In this particular instance, it’s a gesture for the eyes of Georgia’s Trump voters. The Georgia legislature figures, and quite rightly too, that they can fool them as easily as Trump or Marjorie Taylor-Greene can.

    nk (1d9030)

  107. Allowing drop boxes but reducing the number

    Reducing the number in heavily Democrat/minority counties. The number in Trumpist counties (many of which had none before) will increase.

    Also, in addition to slashing the number of drop boxes, they must now be inside and are therefore inaccessible outside of business hours.

    Dave (1bb933)

  108. Can’t rightly blame them, nor accuse them of chicanery neither. Children are trained to be fooled that way from the first time mommy kisses that booboo and makes it better.

    nk (1d9030)

  109. Considering Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s take on the 2020 election (it was legitimate, defended the integrity of said election, they never found systemic fraud or enough fraud to overturn an election and the voter turnout was an impressive 75%), why the sudden the need to implement new voter laws?

    You’re not supposed to ask that.

    The fact that the law is predicated on the exact same lie that they tried to use to throw out tens of millions of legal votes just a few months ago should be enough for anyone to understand what’s going on.

    Dave (1bb933)

  110. it’s a gesture for the eyes of Georgia’s Trump voters.

    Yes! Exactly my point.

    As I said up-thread, had Trump not attempted to bully and lie in Georgia and try to overturn the election, I don’t believe this legislation would have been enacted so quickly. It wouldn’t have been necessary to quell the MAGA masses. Had Trump won Georgia, it certainly wouldn’t have. And we’re back to: If Trump had won Georgia, the election laws would have been tip-top in MAGA eyes. But because he lost, they could be nothing but corrupt.

    Dana (fd537d)

  111. Like Trump’s WinRed site automatically withdrawing exorbitant amounts of money from donors because they overlooked pre-checked box for recurring donations, the same preset shows up on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee‘s website too. Such a blatant reminder of how corrupt politicians and their campaigns are. I’ll considering donating to the campaign that intentionally eliminates this option.

    Dana (fd537d)

  112. if the georgia law was serious about getting democrat support it would throw in a vaccine passport prerequisite

    JF (6fcdbe)

  113. if you try to pick up baseball game tickets at will call without showing identification, well they’ll just give them to you

    JF (6fcdbe)

  114. I dunno about baseball tickets, but Trump is now for entertainment purposes only as far as I’m concerned, and his groupies are paying for my ticket to the show. Thank you!

    nk (1d9030)

  115. All in I think it’s a bad bill.

    But that’s not the question. It’s “Jim Crow 2.0!” It’s something that gets a sports league to sanction a state. Lots of bad bills in the world.

    Now, I’ll argue that you’ve ignored part of what is good — trying to find a better method of validating mailed ballots than comparing signatures to a 20-year-old sample. To me, that is the heart of the issue: using largely untrained staff to quickly compare signatures, with disparate standards in a system that provides partisan advantage to those counties that are most lax.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  116. I don’t know what the baseball commissioner is thinking. Baseball has a unique care-out in antitrust law and getting involved in partisan politics — especially when they are acting on pure propaganda — seems, well, stupid. The GOP will get back into power some day and they will have their pound of flesh for this one.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  117. *carve-out

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  118. You’re not supposed to ask that.

    Because it’s a stupid question. There are systemic biases that do not constitute fraud, but still can tilt an election. If those biases mostly work in one party’s favor that party will scream bloody murder to see them gone. That the Democrats have dialed it up past 11 should be your first clue.

    Again, I challenge Dave, Dana, etc, to go read the LA Times expose on signature comparisons and just how terrible a system it is, take their tests and get them wrong like everyone does, and then come back and tell me what integrity you think such a ballot really has.

    ‘Ripe for error’: Ballot signature verification is flawed — and a big factor in the election

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  119. It’s more hoops to jump through, and more ways to disqualify your ballot (which is the goal), but not any more secure in the least.

    Dave (1bb933)

  120. There’s another part of the new bill that doesn’t get enough attention. It used to be that if you showed up in the wrong precinct you could vote a provisional ballot. Under the new bill if you arrive before 5 pm you are refused the provisional ballot and told to go find your correct precinct.

    It’s a particular problem because Georgia has reduced the number of voting locations in the last few years (funny that) making it more difficult for people to find their precincts.:

    Georgia’s vote-suppression regimen, which is being copied by Republican-controlled states across the country, consists of two main elements. First, the law erects new bureaucratic hurdles for voters to navigate in order to cast a ballot. Second, it wrests control over voting disputes from nonpartisan officials and gives it to Republican-controlled bodies, usually legislatures (which, in many states, are based on district maps that all but guarantee Republican control for the foreseeable future).

    The New York Times has a thorough rundown of the law’s major provisions. To take the most egregious example, in the last election cycle, voters who went to the wrong precinct — a common problem, compounded by recent moves by the state’s GOP leadership to close more than 200 precincts — could still cast a provisional ballot. The new law forbids this, requiring voters to travel to the correct precinct before 5 p.m.

    National Review editor Rich Lowry, parroting the official line from Georgia Republicans, insists, “It’s hard to believe that one real voter is going to be kept from voting by the new rules.” Really? Not one? In the 2020 election, nearly half of the 11,000 provisional ballots in Georgia were cast in the wrong precincts. (And that was with unusually high levels of mail voting, which the new law also curtails.) Presumably, at least some of those voters will be deterred by the requirement that, after waiting in line to vote and being told they have visited the wrong precinct, they go to find another precinct and stand in line again.

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/georgia-vote-suppression-baseball-all-star-atlanta-boycott-republican-jim-crow.html

    Now as Kevin will leap in to note, it’s not impossible for a would be voter to sigh and go out and drive to the new precinct. Voting has just become a little more difficult, not impossible. But given that the reward for voting is doing your civic duty and getting an I Voted sticker, some people won’t.

    The Georgia Bill is designed as a whole to make voting more difficult in urban counties (and slightly easier in rural ones) as a reaction to an election the Republicans lost. I can’t see why this shouldn’t be found to be infuriating.

    Victor (4959fb)

  121. Happy Easter. He is risen! Jesus Christ is Lord.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  122. Enjoy your Lamb.🐑

    mg (8cbc69)

  123. Happy Easter!
    The UCLA-Gonzaga game was one of the best I’ve seen. Both teams were clutch, it just turned out that Gonzaga had the ball on the last shot to break the tie. It was too bad it was a semi-final, and that one good team had to lose to make it to the championship.
    Baylor looked really good yesterday. The Zags have their hands full.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  124. All in I think it’s a bad bill.

    But that’s not the question. It’s “Jim Crow 2.0!” It’s something that gets a sports league to sanction a state. Lots of bad bills in the world.

    Now, I’ll argue that you’ve ignored part of what is good — trying to find a better method of validating mailed ballots than comparing signatures to a 20-year-old sample. To me, that is the heart of the issue: using largely untrained staff to quickly compare signatures, with disparate standards in a system that provides partisan advantage to those counties that are most lax.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/3/2021 @ 11:11 pm

    I haven’t seen specifics of what they changed for validating absentee ballots. Can you summarize or point me to the info? I didn’t find it on google.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  125. Happy Easter, NJRob, Paul, the rest of you schmucks!

    Dustin (4237e0)

  126. Happy Easter you guys. I hope those of you who celebrate with kids/grandkids of the appropriate age had a fun egg hunt this morning and those of you who are churched had a lovely service. Now that I have 2 shots and 2 weeks I’m headed to the parents for Easter lunch/dinner (depending on which area of the country your family hails from :P) to see them for the first time since Xmas.

    Nic (896fdf)

  127. Under the new bill if you arrive before 5 pm you are refused the provisional ballot and told to go find your correct precinct.

    This sounds good, Victor. So if you show up late, you cast a provisional ballot, if you show up a couple hours early, they tell you to go to the right place to vote. That reduces the chances of fraud, as a matter of common sense.

    This is a good example. Even with this degree of compromise for the democrat’s apparent benefit, they call this stuff Jim Crow. I imagine anything short of ‘just vote however many times you want, whoever you are’ is Jim Crow.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  128. I haven’t seen specifics of what they changed for validating absentee ballots. Can you summarize or point me to the info? I didn’t find it on google.

    AIUI, They required a state ID number to be added to the outer envelope, along with the signature, to provide a parallel path for validation. I assume this has to do with information from a second database being less likely to be available to scammers, and it probably works both ways.

    This would be particularly useful in a mail-everyone-a-ballot environment, where the new resident of an address would have trouble finding the DL # of the old resident, but might be able to get a signature past the checkers. While this isn’t currently the process in GA, a number of states where this wasn’t the process either had this ordered on an emergency basis last year.

    Of course this wouldn’t be needed if signature verification was strict and the signature verifyers weren’t overwhelmed. Again, the entire absentee ballot process was designed for a small percentage of ballots, not most of them, and errors tolerated in small numbers, by less-overworked employees become meaningful when the assumptions change.

    And, to answer the “how does this help voters” question, in most any situation it might help QUALIFY a ballot with a signature that had altered over time. I think Dustin said his ballot was rejected; maybe this would have allowed its acceptance.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  129. And really, this would be a LOT less of a hot topic it Biden wasn’t using blood libels like “Jim Crow.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  130. Saying that Southern whites want to return to Jim Crow is the Democrat equivalent of QAnon; it’s like saying that Jews eat babies. It is nearly fighting words, and Biden is being as divisive as Trump was here.

    Why do people defend this crap?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  131. Happy Easter to All. Yes, I will enjoy copious lamb and count the number of what many call “pimp suits” on my way in and out of the South Side.

    urbanleftbehind (70bfc4)

  132. And really, this would be a LOT less of a hot topic it Biden wasn’t using blood libels like “Jim Crow.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/4/2021 @ 11:13 am

    I agree. It’s one thing for democrats and republicans to argue about gerrymandering or rules about the hours of a polling station. They both do this all the time.

    For the President to pretend Georgia’s law is worse than segregation has cost Georgia a lot of opporunities already. Biden said he was going to be a less partisan president, but this is ridiculous.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  133. It’s more hoops to jump through, and more ways to disqualify your ballot (which is the goal), but not any more secure in the least.

    Obviously not true.

    1) A state ID is in the possession of anyone who interacts with society. Some may have an invalid ID without knowing it, or may have been unable to renew (e.g. DMV closed for Covid) or procrastinated. I’d think that even a recently-expired ID ought to be accepted, but that’s a quibble. I know in my state there were store clerks would would not sell alcohol to 70yos because their DL had expired during the DMV shutdown, so maybe there’s a point here. But it’s not a really strong one.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  134. OOPs.

    2) A I pointed out above, a DL # added to the signature-verification can qualify a ballot as much as disqualify one.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  135. For the President to pretend Georgia’s law is worse than segregation has cost Georgia a lot of opporunities already. Biden said he was going to be a less partisan president, but this is ridiculous.

    Frankly, he owes Georgians an apology. I wonder if a state can sue the President for slander.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  136. Former President Trump wishes you a “Happy Easter.”

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  137. Frankly, he owes Georgians an apology. I wonder if a state can sue the President for slander.

    Kemp owes Biden a big kiss.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  138. Before:

    The small numbers of absentee ballots are either counted early, or only counted later if the race is close. The process is unhurried, validation is more accurate and the erros are small.

    Now:

    A majority of ballots are mailed. All must be counted. Unless they can be processed as they come in (previously not necessary), both the pre-canvassing and counting is hurried and errors can change the results.

    This is NOT an argument about the 2020 election, as much as the liars want to make it that, but about the integrity of elections going forward with more realistic assumptions.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  139. Happy Easter, everybody!

    nk (1d9030)

  140. Kemp owes Biden a big kiss.

    Yes, probably. Stacey Abrams thinks this helps her, but I’m pretty sure she’s wrong unless it’s cover for Congress ramming through a federal takeover of all elections on a 51-50 vote. Pretty funny how they complain about state election boards overriding local officials when they want Congress to override everyone.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  141. Former President Trump wishes you a “Happy Easter.”

    You had me at “Former President Trump”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  142. I may think that Biden is a lying assh0le and a scheming socialist and still be glad that Trump isn’t in office. Biden’s evil can be overcome, but at least he’s credible as a Commander-in-Chief. The idea of Trump dealing with a conflict with a major player scared the crap out of me.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  143. My criticism of Trump’s foreign policy is did not resolve the NK problem on terms favorable to the US.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  144. My criticism of Trump’s foreign policy is did not resolve the NK problem.

    Period. And this was a man who warned of the growing problem in 1999.

    There are also issues regarding the Kurds and Turkey, the South China Sea, and his lack of respect for our military. The idea that he would be calling the shots in a conflict that threatened us or our allies (e.g. South Korea) gave me indigestion. Biden may not be the best, but he is not mercurial and he will at least look at facts before giving orders.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  145. Kemp owes Biden a big kiss.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71) — 4/4/2021 @ 11:31 am

    Very true, though I guess they see that coming and will just point to the state turning red again as proof of cheating. The same people saying ‘prove it!’ to complaints of rigged elections will just say ‘it’s obviously rigged’ when things reverse. In other words, like literally everything else in politics, every argument is strategic, not sincere.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  146. @146

    My criticism of Trump’s foreign policy is did not resolve the NK problem on terms favorable to the US.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71) — 4/4/2021 @ 12:01 pm

    That presumes you know how to fix it… so, let’s hear it.

    Frankly, NK can only be “solved” when China allows it.

    whembly (ae0eb5)

  147. @146

    There are also issues regarding the Kurds and Turkey, the South China Sea, and his lack of respect for our military. The idea that he would be calling the shots in a conflict that threatened us or our allies (e.g. South Korea) gave me indigestion. Biden may not be the best, but he is not mercurial and he will at least look at facts before giving orders.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/4/2021 @ 12:20 pm

    Former Obama DoD Secretary of Defense said Biden has been wrong on nearly every major issue:
    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/05/13/gates_stands_by_statement_that_biden_has_been_wrong_on_nearly_every_major_foreign_policy_question.html

    I will say Biden is better than Sanders.

    But, it remains to be seen if he’s better than Trump. At this point, I’m ALMOST at the point that Biden just retires to let Harris take the reigns. Almost.

    The ongoing catastrophe at the border isn’t helping…

    whembly (ae0eb5)

  148. My criticism of Trump’s foreign policy is did not resolve the NK problem on terms favorable to the US.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71) — 4/4/2021 @ 12:01 pm

    NK’s government enjoyed prestige on the world stage even Madeline Albright wouldn’t give them. It’s what happens when a prez is desperate for a win, not for a long term benefit for his nation (Obama wasn’t all that much better when he dropped Iraq’s future).

    Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Jordan, and China all seem to be teetering towards war. The last time the USA really got coldclocked was a few months after a delayed transition of power.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  149. GG just loves cliffhangers.

    norcal (01e272)

  150. The CDC’s message is straight enough, coming through loud and clear. The message is that they have no flaming idea what is happening!

    The Dana in Kentucky (88b836)

  151. Reverend Raphael Warnock @ReverendWarnock Today, Easter 20201

    The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you are Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.

    https://twitter.com/ReverendWarnock/status/1378724791037829129

    This is news to many Christians.

    Kevin M (cf1275)

  152. Very true, though I guess they see that coming and will just point to the state turning red again as proof of cheating.

    “Heads I win, tails you cheated.”

    It’s all Trump’s world now.

    Kevin M (cf1275)

  153. Mr M: Sadly, not to enough Christians.

    The Dana in Kentucky (88b836)

  154. That presumes you know how to fix it… so, let’s hear it.

    I think that Mattis had a plan. But I’ll note that since 2017 there have been no further nuclear tests in NK, and no long range missile tests. Pretty sure some things were said long before Trump went to Singapore.

    Kevin M (cf1275)

  155. Mr M: Sadly, not to enough Christians.

    Well, you would think the heir to Dr King’s pulpit would have a clue. I thought Baptists were kinda big on the whole “Jesus as a personal Savior” thing.

    Kevin M (cf1275)

  156. Paul,

    I also watched the Gonzaga – UCLA game. It may be the best college basketball game I’ve ever seen.

    It’s a point of pride for me that the last team to beat Gonzaga was my alma mater–BYU–last year.

    norcal (01e272)

  157. This guy is totally out of his mind. Italics mine.

    Whether you are Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.

    If we are able, by any means, to save ourselves, then everything Jesus did, indeed, everything the Lord did/does (the decalogue, for one), is totally unnecessary. This is the gospel of “nice.”

    And the Adversary smiled.

    felipe (484255)

  158. Under the new bill if you arrive before 5 pm you are refused the provisional ballot and told to go find your correct precinct.

    This sounds good, Victor. So if you show up late, you cast a provisional ballot, if you show up a couple hours early, they tell you to go to the right place to vote. That reduces the chances of fraud, as a matter of common sense.

    This is a good example. Even with this degree of compromise for the democrat’s apparent benefit, they call this stuff Jim Crow. I imagine anything short of ‘just vote however many times you want, whoever you are’ is Jim Crow.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/4/2021 @ 10:52 am

    I take the bus to the where I thought my polling place was. I walk 15 minutes. I wait in line who knows how long and I’m told I have to get to where my poling place actually is. As a matter of common sense this also reduces the number of people who will vote. It’s not likely to be a huge percentage. But the point of this bill, among other things, is to make a bit harder for people who don’t support the GOP to vote. In this case, poor people who don’t have a car.

    Fun story, i few years ago i made this mistake. My poling place had moved and I wasn’t aware. But I owned a car, and because my job lets me flex my time i was able to drive to the new poling place. Probably cost me 45 minutes. But neither place had long lines.

    Not all of this bill is horrible, but it’s clearly making things harder to fix a problem that hasn’t been shown to exist.

    Time123 (66d88c)

  159. “Heads I win, tails you cheated.”

    Reaganomics.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  160. Because it’s a stupid question.

    Hm, rather condescending, Kevin M… Be that as it may, I happen to believe that the timing of the Georgia voter law is very suspect as well as there being some good things about it. I guess, unlike you apparently, I can actually hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts in my silly little head at the same time. A sincerely Happy Easter to you and yours.

    Dana (fd537d)

  161. my hands are full, but I wanted to acknowledge and thank Time123 (and dana) for the comments that disagree with me in the best sort of way, not that it’s ever wrong to disagree with me because I’m nuts.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  162. But I’ll note that since 2017 there have been no further nuclear tests in NK, and no long range missile tests. Pretty sure some things were said long before Trump went to Singapore.

    But NK still exists.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  163. This denial/cock crowing moment by the boog boi would have made more sense last week for Palm Sunday:

    https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_606a3858c5b6c55118b4c467

    urbanleftbehind (c61bd4)

  164. Thank you Dustin. I hope you and every one else had a good day.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  165. And Dana, what’s your opinion on the left trying to push HR-1?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  166. I take the bus to the where I thought my polling place was. I walk 15 minutes. I wait in line who knows how long and I’m told I have to get to where my poling place actually is.

    Or maybe the polling burns down or a safe falls on your car or your dog ate your sample ballot.

    If this is a worry for you, try the 30 days of early voting. Lack of planning on your part does not constitute evil on my part.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  167. I can actually hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts in my silly little head at the same time

    Talk about condescending. But if one of those two contradictory things is “this is just like Jim Crow” I have lost much of my respect for you.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  168. And, Dana (or anyone) please go read that L.A. Times pre-election article (that I’ve linked to half a dozen times now but you haven’t read) demolishing the idea of signature verification, and warning that in an election where many of the ballots are validated (or rejected) that way the outcomes can be questionable.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  169. But if one of those two contradictory things is “this is just like Jim Crow” I have lost much of my respect for you.

    Nowhere have I said that I think “this is just like Jim Crow”. To the contrary, I mocked President Biden this week for his over-the-top and unhelpful rhetoric.

    Dana (fd537d)

  170. The reason that Jim Crow is a blood libel is that it was a century long effort by Southern whites, abetted by both neutral sounding laws arbitrarily enforced and sheer thuggery to eliminate black political power. The Georgia bill is not the same thing, but it is a continuation of the goal – reduce or nullify black political power, in fright because blacks and their allies actually were able to obtain political power in the last election.

    Getting all excited because Biden exaggerated seems to me the height of sensitive snowflake hypocrisy. Trump was nothing but an exaggerator and I seem to recall he was lauded for reflecting the real feelings of his constituency. I take him seriously, not literally. And I am glad he’s raising the temperature on this.

    I think Jon Chait is right – it’s Jim Crow Light. It’s using the Republican death grip on a gerrymandered state legislature to ram through changes to voting procedures which are almost all designed to make it more difficult to vote in urban counties.

    And unlike HR1, which uses valid federal legislative powers to make election rules fairer across the country by expanding access to voting, the Georgia bill takes the opposite tack – using state partisan legislative power to constrain local nonpartisan county election boards, in a naked attempt to ensure that the results of 2020 don’t reoccur.

    So no, I can’t get too upset at Biden. I am glad everyday I have a president who gives a damn as to whether this country has fair election laws or not.

    Victor (4959fb)

  171. As for the unlikelihood, which Kevin you liken to being hit by a falling safe which appears to happen only in old movies, of having trouble finding the right precinct and thereby giving up on voting:

    In the 2020 election, nearly half of the 11,000 provisional ballots in Georgia were cast in the wrong precincts. (And that was with unusually high levels of mail voting, which the new law also curtails.)

    It is a certainty, not a safe falling from a window unlikelihood, that people will go the wrong precinct and then have to find the right one or not get to vote. Which is ridiculous and serves no actual purpose not otherwise served by provisional ballot.

    And as Chait notes, unlike using ID to buy a beer or get on a plane, you don’t get anything by voting, not a beer or plane ride. Small discouragements will make a difference in voting patterns.

    Victor (4959fb)

  172. “Again, I challenge Dave, Dana, etc, to go read the LA Times expose”

    It’s behind a paywall…

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  173. Here’s another description of the Georgia Bill from Kevin Drum

    https://jabberwocking.com/here-are-all-the-pros-and-cons-of-the-georgia-voting-law/

    As it notes, to the extent that it does expand accessibility to voting, by standardizing early election hours, that’s mostly to the benefit of the smaller rural counties where, surprise, most voters are Republican. Large urban counties already had standard hours.

    Victor (4959fb)

  174. https://nypost.com/2021/04/02/npr-issues-correction-after-claiming-hunter-biden-laptop-story-was-discredited-by-intelligence/

    But NPR and other leftist organizations did their job. They hid pertinent info to get their guy elected. The ends justified their means.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  175. To the contrary, I mocked President Biden this week for his over-the-top and unhelpful rhetoric.

    “He fights!”

    🙂

    Dave (1bb933)

  176. The reason that Jim Crow is a blood libel is that it was a century long effort by Southern whites Democrats, abetted by both neutral sounding laws arbitrarily enforced and sheer thuggery to eliminate black political power. The Georgia bill is not the same thing, but it is a continuation of the goal – reduce or nullify black political power, in fright because blacks and their allies actually were able to obtain political power in the last election. but we are pretending otherwise because Trump started making inroads on the hold leftists have on black voters.

    Victor (4959fb) — 4/5/2021 @ 3:38 am

    The real reason for this hateful race baiting is to keep blacks and other minorities feeling victimized so they stay on the leftist plantation and don’t vote for policies that will give them freedom from the government and a voice in their own lives.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  177. https://www.dailywire.com/news/cbs-deceptively-edits-reporters-interaction-with-fl-governor-ron-desantis-heres-what-he-really-said

    CBS’s “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an exchange that reporter Sharyn Alfonsi had with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) two weeks ago about the way the Sunshine State has rolled out its vaccination program.

    In the clip, Alfonsi suggested that Publix, the largest grocery store chain in Florida, had engaged in a pay-to-play scheme with DeSantis where they donated money to his campaign in exchange for him awarding a contract to the grocery store chain to host vaccinations.

    CBS edited the interaction between DeSantis and Alfonsi when she showed up to a press conference a few weeks ago and repeatedly confronted the governor. The network cut out a lengthy portion of DeSantis’ response in which he explains what happened and how decisions were made.

    Because their radical agenda trumps truth.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  178. NJRob,

    I am sure you will have some historical references, post let’s say 1890 or so of the numerous Southern white Republicans really sticking up for the civil rights.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily-white_movement

    Victor (4959fb)

  179. Getting all excited because Biden exaggerated seems to me the height of sensitive snowflake hypocrisy.

    Nah, you can’t possibly believe that it’s OK for the US president to offer a blood libel of a US State, after promising to be a president for every state. Even in good economic times, this is poor leadership. In these tough ones, Joe Biden’s actions will cost good Americans their jobs, plain and simple.

    It’s intended to get low-infos and partisan hacks the notion that Georgia’s laws are severe and insane and keep blacks from voting. That’s just not true. They actually seem to increase access to voting, from 2019 objectively (though not to the extent of the 2020 COVID emergency measures that were never law, and were very partisans). It is OK to require registration before election day. It is OK to require ID. It is OK to have some point after two weeks of early voting and drop boxes, that you go ahead and close the polls.

    Biden should focus on his job. The world is falling apart and he shouldn’t be wading into Georgia legislative matters in the first place.

    Bush, for all his flaws, was sincere about loving the whole country. Biden isn’t fit to shine his shoes.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  180. my hands are full, but I wanted to acknowledge and thank Time123 (and dana) for the comments that disagree with me in the best sort of way, not that it’s ever wrong to disagree with me because I’m nuts.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/4/2021 @ 5:47 pm

    My pleasure. Always pleasant to talk with you.

    Time123 (af99e9)

  181. Getting all excited because Biden exaggerated seems to me the height of sensitive snowflake hypocrisy.

    Nah, you can’t possibly believe that it’s OK for the US president to offer a blood libel of a US State, after promising to be a president for every state. Even in good economic times, this is poor leadership. In these tough ones, Joe Biden’s actions will cost good Americans their jobs, plain and simple.

    It’s intended to get low-infos and partisan hacks the notion that Georgia’s laws are severe and insane and keep blacks from voting. That’s just not true. They actually seem to increase access to voting, from 2019 objectively (though not to the extent of the 2020 COVID emergency measures that were never law, and were very partisans). It is OK to require registration before election day. It is OK to require ID. It is OK to have some point after two weeks of early voting and drop boxes, that you go ahead and close the polls.

    Biden should focus on his job. The world is falling apart and he shouldn’t be wading into Georgia legislative matters in the first place.

    Bush, for all his flaws, was sincere about loving the whole country. Biden isn’t fit to shine his shoes.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/5/2021 @ 7:01 am

    The Georgia law clearly has the effect of making it harder (not impossible) for black people to vote. Pretending that it doesn’t have this impact and that it’s a neutral measure untargeted at any group is a similar exaggeration.

    Calling it Jim Crow 2.0 is a wild exaggeration. Calling it Jim Crow lite would be more accurate.

    Time123 (af99e9)

  182. https://nypost.com/2021/04/02/npr-issues-correction-after-claiming-hunter-biden-laptop-story-was-discredited-by-intelligence/

    But NPR and other leftist organizations did their job. They hid pertinent info to get their guy elected. The ends justified their means.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 4/5/2021 @ 5:37 am

    The NY Post article implies that NPR retraction invalidated a large story, and you exaggerate from there. The error in question was from end of a long book review that spends a lot of time talking about Hunter’s financial corruption and substance abuse.

    Here are some key passages from the NPR Piece

    And he devotes a chapter to his relationship with Burisma, a natural gas company in Ukraine that was among his most lucrative gigs. For service on that company’s board of directors, the younger Biden was paid five figures each month. As he had no special expertise in gas or the political economics of Ukraine, that remuneration was always suspect.

    “I’ve been so desperate for a drink that I couldn’t make the one-block walk between a liquor store and my apartment without uncapping the bottle to take a swig,” Biden writes. He also provides a how-to for cooking powder cocaine into crack in the kitchen.

    He acknowledges months spent drunk in a D.C. apartment and more months binging cocaine in hotel bungalows in Hollywood — while his father was either vice president or a candidate for president. Considering the time he spent high behind the wheel, it is amazing the author can still be alive to recount the story.

    Time123 (b87ded)

  183. The reason that Jim Crow is a blood libel is that it was a century long effort by Southern whites Democrats, abetted by both neutral sounding laws arbitrarily enforced and sheer thuggery to eliminate black political power. The Georgia bill is not the same thing, but it is a continuation of the goal – reduce or nullify black political power, in fright because blacks and their allies actually were able to obtain political power in the last election. but we are pretending otherwise because Trump started making inroads on the hold leftists have on black voters.

    Victor (4959fb) — 4/5/2021 @ 3:38 am

    The real reason for this hateful race baiting is to keep blacks and other minorities feeling victimized so they stay on the leftist plantation and don’t vote for policies that will give them freedom from the government and a voice in their own lives.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 4/5/2021 @ 5:46 am

    Yup, 150 years ago both the Dems and the Republicans hated black people. They worked together together to keep them from political power. In the 1960’s Democrats made a change and now it’s just the GOP that tries to keep black people from voting. The GA bill is a good example of ways to do that while appearing neutral.

    Time123 (b87ded)

  184. The Georgia law clearly has the effect of making it harder (not impossible) for black people to vote.

    Without considering 2020, which frankly doesn’t count because those were not laws, how exactly?

    As far as I can tell, and I say this sincerely, any black Georgian can vote just as easily as any white one. They need ID and they need to register before the election, but this has nothing to do with the color of skin and is not unreasonable or tricky or unfair.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  185. I take the bus to the where I thought my polling place was. I walk 15 minutes. I wait in line who knows how long and I’m told I have to get to where my poling place actually is.

    Or maybe the polling burns down or a safe falls on your car or your dog ate your sample ballot.

    If this is a worry for you, try the 30 days of early voting. Lack of planning on your part does not constitute evil on my part.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/4/2021 @ 10:20 pm

    What the GOP does is put up many small impediments to lawful voting. It’s like swiss cheese. Any single slice has lots of holes and isn’t much of a barrier. But when you stack them all together the holes start to close more and more and eventually you’re talking about a meaningful reduction in lawful voting. A disproven conspiracy theory of voter fraud is used to justify this.

    It get’s worse when, totally unrelated, we make other changes. Reduced hours for the DMV, increases in requirements to prove residency, changes in poling locations all unrelated but they add up.

    You want to talk about each one separately and mock concerns about the impact. But those concerns are real.

    The 2020 election in GA was fair. It’s been heavily investigated and no meaningful fraud has been found. But too many poor people and too many black people were able to vote. So the GOP is doing what they think they can get away with to try and reduce that. It’s not Jim crow 2.0. But it’s not nothing either.

    Time123 (af99e9)

  186. The Georgia law clearly has the effect of making it harder (not impossible) for black people to vote.

    Without considering 2020, which frankly doesn’t count because those were not laws, how exactly?

    As far as I can tell, and I say this sincerely, any black Georgian can vote just as easily as any white one. They need ID and they need to register before the election, but this has nothing to do with the color of skin and is not unreasonable or tricky or unfair.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/5/2021 @ 7:25 am

    I kind of replied to this in my response to Kevin. You’re ignoring the a couple of things.

    1. The baseline is the 2020 election. With all of the challenges and chaos it wasn’t fraudulent and there’s no good justification for restricting voting from that. Other then too many dem’s voted.
    2. Nothing in the law is specifically targeted by race. But the laws have a different impact on poor urban voters then on rural voters and that split tracks strongly with race.

    Time123 (b87ded)

  187. ETA, ignoring is the wrong word. It implies you know this, or should now this and are intentionally not addressing it.

    Should have said something like: “two aspects your comments doesn’t address”

    Time123 (b87ded)

  188. The point of the bill was to make Donald Trump happy. Since the State Legislature can now remove local election board control should the count start looking bad for the Trump favored candidates, he is happy. The rest just gives pundits something to do and looks like doing something.

    The State Legislature power will be abused. The question is whether it will happen in 2022 — when there are close statewide elections– or 2024 — when Trump himself is running.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  189. The baseline is the 2020 election.

    No, it really isn’t.

    In 2020, the democrats ‘didn’t let a crisis go to waste’ and made a number of changes to elections without going through the legislature. No one is obligated to pretend that is the law, because it literally is not the law. Georgia expanded drop boxes. They changed how much power one official has over the election. These do not seem to make it harder for one race to vote.

    COVID is simply not as serious a problem in November 2022 as it was November 2020. Get a vaccine and vote in line, register yourself. There is no need to make assumptions over where eligibile voters are and which are alive and send auto-registrations or any nonsense like that. I don’t know a single black voter who is not capable of figuring this stuff out.

    Nothing in the law is specifically targeted by race.

    Well, uh… Jim Crow was racial segregation. It was specifically targeted by race.

    . But the laws have a different impact on poor urban voters then on rural voters

    I agree that the 2020 non-laws had an unfair impact on rural voters.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  190. I should have said “different” instead of “unfair” to accurately counter Time123’s argument. But my point is, you have to be fair. The law makes it *easier* for urban voters. The ‘jim crow’ argument is that even that is not enough. But I know nothing would ever be enough. That’s how election advocates operate. It’s always an hysterical tragedy. It’s always ‘racist’. Well, when the president is shouting a state is “jim crow” for laws that are objectively not racist at all, time to roll up your sleeves and fight back.

    I want ever GOP run state to push as hard as they can back. Pepsi is fine.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  191. If it’s so bad or the now-unfavored group of voters, I have yet to see a #ATLXIT or State of Good Trouble or State of King campaign starting to materialize.

    urbanleftbehind (d5de4e)

  192. The baseline is the 2020 election.

    No, it really isn’t.

    In 2020, the democrats ‘didn’t let a crisis go to waste’ and made a number of changes to elections without going through the legislature. No one is obligated to pretend that is the law, because it literally is not the law. Georgia expanded drop boxes. They changed how much power one official has over the election. These do not seem to make it harder for one race to vote.

    COVID is simply not as serious a problem in November 2022 as it was November 2020. Get a vaccine and vote in line, register yourself. There is no need to make assumptions over where eligibile voters are and which are alive and send auto-registrations or any nonsense like that. I don’t know a single black voter who is not capable of figuring this stuff out.

    Nothing in the law is specifically targeted by race.

    Well, uh… Jim Crow was racial segregation. It was specifically targeted by race.

    . But the laws have a different impact on poor urban voters then on rural voters

    I agree that the 2020 non-laws had an unfair impact on rural voters.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/5/2021 @ 7:40 am

    In 2020 GA took steps to run an election during a pandemic. This created rules that it can be argued increased the risks of voter fraud in GA. I don’t think those arguments are very compelling, but they can reasonably be made. After the election there were loud accusations of fraud and investigations. None of these investigations found any significant instances of fraud.

    No ballot harvesting has been found.
    No fraudulent absentee ballots have been found.
    No double voting has been found.

    At least not in numbers that would have any impact.

    From a practical standpoint, the changes that were made in 2020 have been shown not to increase fraud. I’m not pretending 2020 is the law. I’m asserting that the rules that were in place for 2020 have been shown not to create fraud. It’s a fair baseline to operate from in crafting new legislation.

    Jim Crow included a lot of things. While some of theme were explicitly tied to race the 14nth amendment prevented laws that assigned franchise based on race. The voting suppression parts of Jim Crow were race neutral in their language and only racist in their impact.

    How do you feel that Rural voters were harmed by the 2020 rules? I’m not following you there.

    Time123 (b87ded)

  193. I never expect any Democrat to be more honest than Trump, so I am neither disappointed nor disenchanted. “Stolen election”, “Jim Crow on Geritol”, whatever sells to the suckers.

    nk (1d9030)

  194. Dustin,

    How does the law make things easier for urban voters? The one point noted is standardizing the hours for early election, which does expand access for smaller counties that had limited hours but wouldn’t change anything for urban counties except to the extent they were able to have even more expanded hours.

    As for Jim Crow. Well the point is that there is a long history of laws written that had the purpose of discriminating against black people even though they were nondiscriminatory on their face. The poll tax doesn’t have the word “black” on it. Neither do literacy tests. But the people writing the laws knew that the effect of the laws would be different on different populations.

    The Georgia bill was crafted by the Republican state legislature to have different effects on different parts of the Georgian demography. Banning mobile voting vans, used only in Fulton County? Banning provisional votes for people who go to the wrong precinct, which will be more of a problem in places with larger numbers of precincts? Adding additional ID requirements to a signature knowing there are parts of the population who don’t have that ID readily available? Nullifying the usefulness of drop boxes, which are going to be more useful in a large county where large numbers of people are trying to access voting places?

    Banning people from providing water to people standing in lines, however long the line is, which is going to be more of a problem in urban counties with longer lines?

    And none of that even touches on the fact that the heavily gerrymandered Republican legislature now intends to assert direct control over operations of elections in urban counties.

    The intent of the bill is clear – maintain Republican political power in Georgia through attrition of as many poor urban voters as possible. And everybody knows that means fewer black votes.

    It’s Jim Crow Light. And you know the thing about the “blood libel”? It was the lie that Jews murdered Christian children to make matzoh. And the thing was, it was a lie. Jim Crow was never a lie. The Georgia Bill is an attempt to achieve the same basic objective, through less flashy means, and ones that could survive judicial review. At this point in history, it’s not really excusable.

    Victor (4959fb)

  195. BTW, Time123, I hope you will take this reproach in the spirit in which it is intended — snarky, carping and busybodyish. “Echo chamber” is just an expression. You don’t need to repeat the entire comment you are responding to. It’s not only distracting and a waste of screen-space, it’s also hard on the reader’s eyes.

    nk (1d9030)

  196. Dustin:

    In 2020, the democrats ‘didn’t let a crisis go to waste’ and made a number of changes to elections without going through the legislature. No one is obligated to pretend that is the law, because it literally is not the law. Georgia expanded drop boxes. They changed how much power one official has over the election. These do not seem to make it harder for one race to vote.

    The Democrats did not run the election in Georgia. Raffesnsparger is a Republican. Because he was honest, he is now considered to be a RINO. Members of the Legislature may have been genuinely upset that they weren’t consulted on some of the steps he took. But let’s be honest. If Trump won the state, this bill wouldn’t have happened. There might have been some rules that rolled back the COVID-19 innovations.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  197. The Democrats did not run the election in Georgia

    True, and I am not saying Trump should have won. But there’s a reason for all those Saint Stacey Abrams candles, and it’s because her organization sued to change how the election was run last year. Indeed a judge who is Abrams’s sister refused to recuse herself from election related litigation. There’s a reason the legislature is taking back its proper role, under the constitution.

    On the one hand, Time123 would be right to say the legislature is doing what it can to help its desired outcome. And the non-legislature law changes were even more partisan in shaping its desired outcome.

    Therefore, 2020 is not a fair baseline. It was literally about an emergency situation, politicians using a crisis to shape an election outcome.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  198. it’s also hard on the reader’s eyes.

    nk (1d9030) — 4/5/2021 @ 8:00 am

    It’s bad enough to read my s–t once. I’m not being sarcastic.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  199. How does the law make things easier for urban voters?

    More drop boxes.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  200. NK, You’re right. I should just quote the pertinent portion when I’m replying to longer comments.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  201. Therefore, 2020 is not a fair baseline. It was literally about an emergency situation, politicians using a crisis to shape an election outcome.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/5/2021 @ 8:27 am

    Although the process was developed in an emergency 2020 is a fair baseline because there were no harms resulting from that process.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  202. It’s like a door to door salesman claiming eviction protection for the foot he shoved into your doorway. Stacey had that Jim Crow 2.0 website registered way early. She planned to smear her state well in advance, and her ‘oh gosh don’t boycott us for being Jim Crow on steroids’ anticipates the pain she’s caused her own state.

    Get some judge and activist created ‘exceptions’ to the law by arguing there’s no time to do it right right way. Then use that as the new status quo. Say any correction, even one that moves to the left from before 2020, is basically Aushwitz and 9/11 and Internet Explorer and the worst parts of the old testament combined.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  203. On the one hand, Time123 would be right to say the legislature is doing what it can to help its desired outcome. And the non-legislature law changes were even more partisan in shaping its desired outcome.

    Because we live in a Democracy rules that enable lawful voters to cast their ballot without increasing fraud are objectively good rules. If one party is helped politically that just means they’ve managed to align their coalition with something that is objectively good.

    Saying that rules that reduce lawful franchise with no increase in fraud are the same as rules that increase it solely because of the partisan impact is not morally correct.

    I’m not saying that Dem’s are the more ethical party and I have no doubt that they would turn on a dime regarding this issue if it was to their advantage.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  204. Time123,

    Why do you feel black people can’t follow the law and register to vote, get ID, or know where to vote? Same question to Victor.

    NJRob (d14adc)

  205. Well, uh… Jim Crow was racial segregation. It was specifically targeted by race.

    Literacy tests were an example of a facially neutral element of Jim Crow that nevertheless effectively targeted voters by race.

    Some provisions of the recent GA law work the same way.

    Dave (1bb933)

  206. @206, I agree that the situation is being exaggerated and I dislike Stacy Abrams.

    But that doesn’t change the underlying point. The rules in place for 2020 for GA worked fine. There’s no reasonable justification for more restrictive voting. This is purely that 1 party (the GOP) feels it’s to their advantage if poor urban voters are less able to exercise their franchise.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  207. Off-topic (assuming that’s possible here):

    The Supreme Court on Monday deemed former President Donald Trump’s appeal of a ruling that said it was unconstitutional for him to block critics, deeming his page to be a protected public forum.

    The court called for the case to be dismissed, as Trump is no longer in office and Twitter has blocked him from the platform. Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the decision in light of Trump no longer being president, but the conservative jurist illustrated the complexity of the matter given that Trump ultimately did not have full control over his own account….

    “Because unbridled control of the account resided in the hands of a private party, First Amendment doctrine may not have applied to respondents’ complaint of stifled speech,” Thomas pointed out, stating that “[w]hether governmental use of private space implicates the First Amendment often depends on the government’s control over that space.”

    Thomas acknowledged how modern technology is not always easily addressed by existing legal doctires, and warned that the Supreme Court “will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms.”

    “The Second Circuit feared that then-President Trump cut off speech by using the features that Twitter made available to him,” Thomas said. “But if the aim is to ensure that speech is not smothered, then the more glaring concern must perforce be the dominant digital platforms themselves. As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms. The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions.”

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-dismisses-trump-twitter-case-moot

    I’m quoting back more than I normally would, and from a source I don’t usually quote, because I’ve been banging this drum for a while and it is nice to see that a jurist I respect seems to have similar qualms.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  208. Although the process was developed in an emergency 2020 is a fair baseline because there were no harms resulting from that process.

    Time123 (457a1d) — 4/5/2021 @ 8:38 am

    this is a pretty good response, because it emulates the best reaction to Lin Woods and Trump after the election. “If you’re screaming so much, show us the actual harm, show us you won.”

    But I disagree. I don’t think I have to prove ‘harm’ or a wrong election outcome to just note the proper person to write the laws of Georgia is not a judge or an activist. If anything, I’m using the same argument. If I look at these laws thinking about how to vote, it sure seems like anyone can do it under the laws of Georgia. You do have to register to vote before the election. I think that is good. you need an ID. I think that is good. You have 17 days of dropbox and early voting fun, these boxes aren’t on every street corner, but they are numerous and you can use them (and vote) on saturday. That actually is too much, in my view, inviting tampering. I prefer election day be one weekend (not that anyone asked what I want).

    I am not saying there aren’t good faith disagreements about how many days an election should be or where the drop boxes should be, but it’s really not asking much to go a few miles to vote, even if you are “urban” whatever that means. If you want to vote, you can. I’m Ok with that.

    After all the dishonest screeching from Trump and his supporters, and after Trump tried to crush Raffensberger, I want to take the opposite side. I am biased opposite to my argument, until Stacey and Biden and Obama basically campaigned against Georgia being a decent place. And their claims just don’t live up to that. So I changed my mind.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  209. Why do you feel black people can’t follow the law and register to vote, get ID, or know where to vote?

    Because the effects of denying them basic human rights, economic opportunity and education for 350 years haven’t been erased in the last 50.

    Dave (1bb933)

  210. Nowhere have I said that I think “this is just like Jim Crow”. To the contrary, I mocked President Biden this week for his over-the-top and unhelpful rhetoric.

    I did not think you had. But you then seem to condescendingly dismiss my complaint that this law does not rise to anything more than a slightly partisan redress of other, also slightly partisan, features of the GA voting laws when others are actually claiming it IS akin to the fascist past.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  211. The rules in place for 2020 for GA worked fine.

    to be honest, we don’t really know that there wasn’t some cheating or problems. We shouldn’t just let a judge make radical changes to limit the spread of disease, make the best of it, and then say ‘hey it worked fine.’ It worked fine given that it was a pandemic. But it was pretty loose, and there are cheaters who would take advantage.

    think of it as leaving a bank’s back door open for one night to help a flooded hallway dry. No one knows, no theft occurs. That doesn’t mean you leave it unlocked the next night.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  212. But I disagree. I don’t think I have to prove ‘harm’ or a wrong election outcome to just note the proper person to write the laws of Georgia is not a judge or an activist.

    I’m not saying the legislature doesn’t have the legal right and responsibility to make this law. They do. I’m saying that the law they made reduces voter turnout from 2020 with no commensurate reduction fraud. Because they are reducing the exercise in lawful franchise from that level it’s a bad law and should be criticized. Because that reduction is primarily targeted at poor urban voters, who are also black, it’s fair to criticize it along those lines, even if calling it Jim Crow 2.0 an insulting exaggeration.

    Time123 (daab2f)

  213. The point of the bill was to make Donald Trump happy.

    Oh, spare me. Trump is living rent-free in your head. The point of the bill was to address problems that they say in the last election, and to make mass mailed ballots less problematical.

    And what did everyone focus on? The water/food/long line thing which is both frothy and meaningless, other than the incompetence shown by having long lines.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  214. Because the effects of denying them basic human rights, economic opportunity and education for 350 years haven’t been erased in the last 50.

    Dave (1bb933) — 4/5/2021 @ 8:49 am

    I don’t know any 350 year old voters, Dave. They probably should be purged from the rolls.

    I agree life is unfair, and I do not say that in the dismissive sense. But the idea blacks can’t figure out how to vote because of the massive oppression their grand parents faced makes no sense to me.

    This goes back to a more difficult issue. If someone cannot understand how to get a drivers license, how do they know which Railroad commissioner or Judge #4 has the right decision making process? If they can’t ask Siri to navigate them to the polling place, how do they understand the often stupifying wording of propositions that law professors disagree when interpreting?

    It’s better to raise the bar.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  215. to be honest, we don’t really know that there wasn’t some cheating or problems.

    1. We don’t really know that elephants don’t paint their nails green to look like leaves so they can hide in a tree. We just haven’t seen evidence of it yet.
    Burden of proof is on the person who claims a thing happened. If you think there was fraud provide evidence.

    think of it as leaving a bank’s back door open for one night to help a flooded hallway dry. No one knows, no theft occurs. That doesn’t mean you leave it unlocked the next night.

    2. Terrible analogy. There’s no benefit in leaving the door to the bank open. There is a benefit in making it easier for lawful voters to vote. Also, there are other states that make it even easier to vote then GA did in 2020 and those haven’t been rife with fraud.

    Try this analogy, states that have created shall issue rules are CCP haven’t seen any increase in gun violence. So that’s a policy more states should adopt.

    Time123 (daab2f)

  216. 1. We don’t really know that elephants don’t paint their nails green to look like leaves so they can hide in a tree

    ACTHAULLY

    No, you’re right, you have a good argument that I’m not showing the 2020 rules did anything bad. 100% granted. But that’s not really how laws should be made, so I think the burden is on those to show the legislature’s rules are causing harm. they aren’t. People can vote. I think that’s the reason for the extreme rhetoric (not from you, but you know what I mean). It’s pounding the table to keep the status quo where I don’t think it should be.

    My path is: pick the proper laws, show they are bad, fix them. It is not, whatever they just did, prove that’s bad, or else the proper laws are evil.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  217. There’s no benefit in leaving the door to the bank open.

    Yeah there is. In the crisis of the wet floor, it really helped dry it. And COVID rules really helped limit the spread of disease. Both came at the expense of security, but maybe a sudden loss of security is far less of a problem than a repeated one, where bad guys can think through a way to take advantage.

    Time matters.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  218. Issues with ballot drop boxes go beyond GA. Polling places are controlled by law and expected to be fairly distributed. These drop boxes are not, and both Rs & Ds played games with them, placing the drop boxes where they were most convenient to their base and absent in areas where the other side lived.

    In California, the GOP complained, then put up it’s own drop boxes in unserved areas, claiming the ballot-harvesting law allowed it. The state came down like a ton of bricks on this, of course, since it negated a partisan advantage the dominant party wanted to preserve.

    Meanwhile, at least one official ballot dropbox, placed in an unsupervised area, was set on fire in October.

    For a state to regulate dropboxes and to insist on premises security, and to do so in a way that is consistent with existing [and presumably equitable] rules about voting locations, does not seem to be beyond the pale. It also allows people to know where the dropboxes are in their area, and even allows people to drop off ballots in other polling places if need be.

    The standard here is “strict scrutiny” and (assuming that polling places are not poorly sited), I doubt this would fail.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  219. Half of Republicans believe false accounts of deadly U.S. Capitol riot: Reuters/Ipsos poll
    ……
    Three months after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to overturn his November election loss, about half of Republicans believe the siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists “trying to make Trump look bad,” a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found.

    Six in 10 Republicans also believe the false claim put out by Trump that November’s presidential election “was stolen” from him due to widespread voter fraud, and the same proportion of Republicans think he should run again in 2024, the March 30-31 poll showed.
    …….
    The Reuters/Ipsos poll shows a large number of rank-and-file Republicans have embraced the myth. While 59% of all Americans say Trump bears some responsibility for the attack, only three in 10 Republicans agree. Eight in 10 Democrats and six in 10 independents reject the false claims that the Capitol siege was “mostly peaceful” or it was staged by left-wing protestors.
    ……
    According to the new Reuters/Ipsos poll, Trump remains the most popular figure within the party, with eight in 10 Republicans continuing to hold a favorable impression of him.
    …….
    In the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, only about three in 10 independents said they have a favorable view of Trump, among the lowest level recorded since his presidency. Most Americans — about 60% — also believe Biden won the November election fair and square, and said Trump should not run again.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  220. to be honest, we don’t really know that there wasn’t some cheating or problems.

    I very much doubt there was any meaningful “cheating” in the 2020 election. Actual cheating is hard. But it IS possible to create institutional bias, where the rules which honest people work can produce a tilted result. Gerrymanders are one example of this, polling-place misallocation another.

    In this last election there were significant problems — which we know about and can document — with differing ballot processing standards in different counties, and these had an effect on election that spanned more than one county. None of the cases based on these issues succeeded, but none of them failed because the issues raised were untrue. They failed because they were not brought up before the election, later remedies were disproportional as the egg was already scrambled, or because of standing issues.

    It is not unreasonable for a state to want to be able to require counties to use a common processing standard for ballots, through normal bureaucratic controls. I think that the GA law would have been better had this control come from whichever elected state official controls elections, but that is not generally non-partisan either. In CA, it surely would not be. A state elections board has the potential of being bipartisan at least.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  221. I don’t know any 350 year old voters, Dave. They probably should be purged from the rolls.

    I agree life is unfair, and I do not say that in the dismissive sense. But the idea blacks can’t figure out how to vote because of the massive oppression their grand parents faced makes no sense to me.

    Poverty is correlated with many other baleful effects, as a police officer should know better than most. Poor education and subpar literacy skills directly translate into higher likelihood of misunderstanding instructions.

    My grandparents, who grew up dirt poor in the rural south, and were very poorly educated, found the procedures for absentee voting difficult and confusing when they tried to do it in the ’70s. My grandpa was proud of being able to do his own taxes; it didn’t come easy for him at all.

    Dave (1bb933)

  222. Half of Republicans believe false accounts of deadly U.S. Capitol riot: Reuters/Ipsos poll

    In December 2000, a third of Americans thought that Gore had legitimately won the election. This included 75% of Democrats.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2000/12/01/many-question-bush-or-gore-as-legitimate-winner/

    All lies and jest
    Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
    And disregards the rest

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  223. Dave,

    If it is so difficult for some people to navigate the system, how much assistance is enough? There is always an unmet need if you look hard enough. I spent a few hours in jail when I was 20 because I was unable to figure out how to deal with a fixit ticket. After that, though, I was much more aware about how courts viewed timeliness. Perhaps they should have sent someone out ahead of time to explain it to me so I could have avoided that trauma.

    I’m not really mocking your argument here, but I am trying to say that there is a limit to how much handholding a citizen should expect.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  224. It’s Jim Crow Light. And you know the thing about the “blood libel”? It was the lie that Jews murdered Christian children to make matzoh. And the thing was, it was a lie. Jim Crow was never a lie.

    I’m done with Victor now. What a tool.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  225. El Commandante, Ted Cruz

    Give that man a cigar!

    When I searched the web for a larger version of this image, it actually returned pictures of Castro.

    The Texas flag on his cap even looks like Cuba’s…

    Dave (1bb933)

  226. Although the process was developed in an emergency 2020 is a fair baseline because there were no harms resulting from that process.

    How can you say that. Harms were alleged after the fact, although no remedies were available and the suits were dismissed. In PA, none the suits about differring standards for ballot review/acceptance were dismissed because the claims were false, they were dismissed before any investigation of the claims occurred; either on standing groups or the remedies proposed were unacceptable. The same issues were present in GA, although I’m unaware if any suits were filed.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  227. Only Southerners would consider Jim Crow a “blood libel.” For the rest of us, it is historic fact.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  228. groups grounds

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  229. Only Southerners would consider Jim Crow a “blood libel.” For the rest of us, it is historic fact.

    If I said that all Republicans wanted to put Blacks back into slavery, it would be a “blood libel” since it was never, ever true of Republicans. Similarly asserting that the GOP is trying to recreate Jim Crow is a “blood libel.”

    You can posture all you want about a particular blood libel in the past, but it does not mean that similar libels are impossible.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  230. Because the effects of denying them basic human rights, economic opportunity and education for 350 years haven’t been erased in the last 50.

    And here Dave and I agree. You cannot just take your boot off someone’s neck and say everything’s fine now. For 350 years, a people who “helped” to build this country were largely denied the fruits of their labors while everyone else prospered.

    We probably do have some differences about remedies, though. I would start, for example, by nuking the public education system in the inner cities and starting over with something controlled by parents and the community. White folks have been promising “equal” education to blacks since 1866 and the next time it happens will be the first. Maybe white folk should get out of the way.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  231. 3. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/2/2021 @ 10:58 pm

    But people with a working immune system are far less likely to host the virus for very long, and probably not long enough to transmit it. That is the point of a vaccination, to train the immune system to recognize the infection before you really get it.

    But that;s not been absolutely proven yet in the case of Covid. Just ask Dr. Fauci. According to him we can make no assumptions, except the ones we made at the beginning.

    here is a real factor. Children tend to get more (non serious) cases of the UK variant – and they are not getting vaccinated.. Preliminary data and common sense tell us that children above age 12 can be given the regular dose without too much more of a side effect.

    Below 12 they are experimenting and conducting trials in stages.

    Because the immune system of children responds faster and stronger (and their bodies are smaller too) they are trying to find the lowest dose that will confer the same immunity as the dose given to adults.

    That will take us at least to the fall.

    Of course, a vaccinated person with an impaired immune system may not get much benefit from the vaccine since it trains something broken. I am willing to bet that most cases of disease in vaccinated persons are due to this.

    Now they think that people with semi-broken immune systems (who can sustain an infection for weeks) are responsible for the existence of some variants. These are cases where a variant with numerous mutations appears all at once without intermediate variants showing up in the population,

    There was a lot if sequencing going on the UK – now the Biden Administration is ramping up the percentage of cases that get sequenced, so doctors studying this can see better what’s going on.

    The mutation they are most worried about is E484K, nicknamed “eek” which appears in the South African and Brazilian variants, and independently from time to time, and makes the immune system and the antibody cocktails work less well. The Brazilian version, also known as P1, also has K417N, whixh reduces the bad effect of E484K.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/health/virus-oregon-variant.html

    The variant originally identified in Britain, called B.1.1.7, has been spreading rapidly across the United States, and accounts for at least 2,500 cases in 46 states. This form of the virus is both more contagious, and more deadly, than the original version, and is expected to account for most infections in America in a few weeks.
    The new version that surfaced in Oregon has the same backbone, but also a mutation — E484K, or “Eek” — seen in variants of the virus circulating in South Africa, Brazil and New York City.

    Lab studies and clinical trials in South Africa indicate that the Eek mutation renders the current vaccines less effective by blunting the body’s immune response. (The vaccines still work, but the findings are worrying enough that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have begun testing new versions of their vaccines designed to defeat the variant found in South Africa.)

    The latest news: The tests show the new vaccine is effective against all strains. When it might be used – that’s another question,

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  232. Speaking of blood libels:

    Ohio politicians condemned for pandemic comparisons to Nazi Germany

    To Ohio lawmaker Kris Jordan, the mask requirement and the roll out of optional COVID-19 vaccines are two steps toward an American genocide like that of the Holocaust during World War II.

    “It’s just a mask, wear it. It’s just a shot, take it,” reads a March 31 Facebook post from Rep. Jordan, a Republican from Delaware County, who forewarned a slippery slope from pandemic mitigation to mass extermination.

    “It’s just a boxcar, get in,” the post concludes. “Every step away from freedom is a step closer to dictatorship.”

    Josh Mandel, a Republican (Insurrectionist) candidate for U.S. Senate, recently made a similar reference in criticizing “vaccine passports” — a program being considered by businesses, airports and governments that would admit someone to a public place only if they have been vaccinated.

    Josh Mandel
    @JoshMandelOhio
    ·
    Mar 22
    Let me get this straight – during Covid
    @Walmart was allowed to stay open while small biz had to shutdown, some permanently. And now
    @Walmart is pushing for a “Vaccine Passport”?!?

    We’ve seen this before… Nazi Germany also registered citizens. Our Liberty is under attack!

    Mandel, who is Jewish, lambasted a gun violence prevention proposal from President Biden three days later by tweeting, “Hey @JoeBiden, before you send in the Gestapo you might want to reflect on this: The 2nd Amendment is to defend the 1st Amendment and to protect us from government tyranny.”

    Howie Beigelman, the executive director of Ohio Jewish Communities, said his organization has seen more inappropriate comparisons of the Holocaust over the past year than in the several years leading up to the pandemic. Some who view the pandemic through the lens of personal freedom may be inclined to take a debate over policy to extreme levels, he suggested.

    “We’re happy to have a policy discussion about (COVID-19),” Beigelman said, “but it doesn’t make it OK to just immediately jump to ‘This is Nazi Germany.’ It’s not. It never is. It doesn’t matter who the president is, the governor is, which party it is. There’s never a reason in America in 2021 to make those comparisons.”
    ……..
    Both Jordan and Mandel have a history of making controversial statements on social media.

    Jordan has claimed numerous times since last November that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.

    “Joe Biden has performed theft if (sic) office for most of his career,” Jordan wrote a day before the election was called for Biden, “now he’s performing theft of office!”

    On Dec. 11, Jordan wrote: “You can vote your way into Socialism (or have it stolen).. But you will have to shoot your way out of it… Molan Labe… Patriots….”
    ……
    While campaigning for U.S. Senate in 2017, Mandel criticized the Anti-Defamation League and aligned himself with a pair of right-wing figures who had spread the unfounded Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

    “Sad to see @ADL_National become a partisan witchhunt group targeting people for political beliefs. I stand with @Cernovich & @JackPosobiec,” Mandel wrote.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  233. even the brutal Soviet leadership cared about its image in the world. Putin doesn’t, as he’s sure he will get what he personally wants from the free world, “killer” or not.

    Putin cares, or he would not have sent Navalny to Germany for treatment. But he thinks he can better handle the public relations. His thinking is that the public’s memory is short, and that for things he does to have an effect, the evidence must be strong.

    And he thinks he can fool people better.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  234. I’m saying that the law they made reduces voter turnout from 2020 with no commensurate reduction fraud.

    I don’t see the one — some people may have a bit harder time, others may be helped — and the second is just false. Signature verification by 5-second eyeball inspection is completely bogus. If anything the legislature did not go far enough in fixing that.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  235. Poverty is correlated with many other baleful effects, as a police officer should know better than most.

    I actually changed careers a few months ago, though I’m still related to LEO I’m no longer a cop (my body was getting aged anyway). There are some creeps online and I’m very paranoid about it, so I haven’t really talked about how good a year it has been for me. It has been a very good year for me.

    Folks: skip this comment if you don’t like the old dustin style ramble (I did edit it down, for the record).

    But to your point, I agree 100%. At some point a few years ago I realized a few of the people, this specific set of goofballs I kept dealing with, had aged out of the foster system. They were usually mental health interventions (but also K2 possession, theft, assault). They share a community with some very successful people, and they angrily point that out when you try to talk to them about their decisions. That’s why, when I say life in not fair, I’m not saying I dismiss that as something worth trying to fix.

    Still, there must be a base expectation for everybody. Otherwise, you wind up seeing more misery, worse decisions, uglier resentment. It is great to ask a poor person to register for voting and to think about where they will vote, who they will vote for, before election day. This sounds somewhat condescening. I guess it is. For example, is it good to vote to defund the police if you life in a poor neighborhood with tons of property crime? That’s worth more than a same-day decision, rooted in emotion.

    In Austin, they have decided that “economic circumstance” is relevant to whether some laws should apply. I think the outcomes are tragic. I am actually pretty sore about that. Everyone can follow the basic rules, the laws that would be laws even if we didn’t write them down.

    To me, the law is not about judging the bad people. In the extreme cases it is, but that’s rarely been my focus. To me, the law illustrate guardrails that keep society flowing. It helps a homeless man to know that he needs to go to a bathroom inside a bathroom, that he cannot sleep under an ATM and ask everyone who uses it for money. That man is safer and has more dignity if you push him to the Salvation Army to get a change of clothes and apply for a job, by making sure aggression or theft are penalized. Even though it is also true, had that man had a middle class pair of married parents, his life and his skills would be much better. I should add, those guys almost always had ID, and if they didn’t, it was easy to refer them to a social worker to get ID, where they would probably be registered to vote.

    It is complex how severe poverty works, and a good cop can use that information to make good calls, and give some people a break and other people maybe not a break.

    Right now, we’re talking about whether black men and women can figure out how to vote in Georgia. I don’t even like typing that sentence. It is racist to ask, and I know you are not racist and meant nothing like that, but I see it that way. This is not the old Jim Crow “literacy test.” If anything, access to early voting and drop boxes means the real thing that bugs me, those really long lines to vote in urban areas, voters can avoid that whole hassle.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  236. Speaking of blood libels

    I don’t know if that lunacy is a blood libel, Rip — I don’t know what group is being libeled — but it is pretty asinine. Also, the “Underpants Gnomes” jump to Nazi Germany is a Godwin violation.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  237. those really long lines to vote in urban areas, voters can avoid that whole hassle.

    Line that are long because many workers only have a few hours in which to vote. There are several ways to fix that, of course. Early voting is one way, not the best for a number of reasons. Moving elections to a Friday-Sunday period would help more. Dropboxes help, but you have to apply for an absentee ballot.

    In my state, I can vote in any polling place in my county; electronic voting systems allow my local ballot to be reconfigured from a barcode that is sent me, or from my address.

    One thing that should be done, if it isn’t, is to allow people with no fixed address to register and participate. I can see that being sticky in places.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  238. Even though it is also true, had that man had a middle class pair of married parents, his life and his skills would be much better

    Drug addiction, which ends up in the street, does not seem to care much about upbringing. It matters more in the time one has before they hit the street, perhaps, but the end is always the same.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  239. No, you’re right, you have a good argument that I’m not showing the 2020 rules did anything bad. 100% granted.

    Thank you, i’m glad that joking nature of my reply came through. 😀

    But that’s not really how laws should be made, so I think the burden is on those to show the legislature’s rules are causing harm. they aren’t.

    I think we have a philosophical difference.

    I believe that if the government is going to restrict the exercise of a right such as speech, voting, or gun ownership, the burden is to show that the restriction is necessary and that the restriction be the minimal needed to accomplish the needed goal.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  240. Early voting is one way, not the best for a number of reasons. Moving elections to a Friday-Sunday period would help more. Dropboxes help, but you have to apply for an absentee ballot.

    I agree. I don’t see any reason for elections to be on a work day. I would rather these elections be Friday through Monday, with the Monday being a federal holiday (take away a couple of the dumb ones). That dropboxes are available on saturday (and 16 other days) is ‘good enough’. this is a different issue from ‘those poor people and POC can’t register because it’s just to hard for them.’ Even George Washington’s going to look at his watch and wonder if he needs to stay in line if it’s way too long.

    I think some with no address register with the address of the homeless shelter or the Salvation Army (which seem like a least bad scenario) since that is the address on their ID.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  241. In this last election there were significant problems — which we know about and can document — with differing ballot processing standards in different counties, and these had an effect on election that spanned more than one county. None of the cases based on these issues succeeded, but none of them failed because the issues raised were untrue. They failed because they were not brought up before the election, later remedies were disproportional as the egg was already scrambled, or because of standing issues.

    The problem was that in many cases the remedy being asked was a invalidate lawful ballots from other counties.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  242. I believe that if the government is going to restrict the exercise of a right such as speech, voting, or gun ownership, the burden is to show that the restriction is necessary and that the restriction be the minimal needed to accomplish the needed goal.

    Time123 (457a1d) — 4/5/2021 @ 10:17 am

    This sounds so reasonable!

    But it hints at my initial obnoxious remark that there is always going to be some restriction. I can’t carry a bazooka and I can’t vote in the November 2020 election today because they already stopped counting the ballots. Where’s my freedoms!

    Restrictions are necessarily going happen. Yeah, some of changes are pulling back the generous Stacey Abrams stuff we ‘needed’ in the crisis. This was argued as temporary pandemic life-saving in bad faith.

    Think about how emergency measures must be fought in the future, now that we know they are permanent, if your test works in the order you want. That is another way Stacey is hurting Georgia.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  243. 5. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/2/2021 @ 11:01 pm

    Well, it could be worse, the smugglers could have sold the girls into slavery.

    They won’t get repeat business then.

    . Trump will be blamed for making the wall so high.

    Not happening so far.

    Now where it is really bad s Europe.

    More people have drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea since it became illegal for charities to charter boats to rescue people – only commercial vessels on their ordinary course of business can do this now. It’s much less than several years ago, though, because fewer people are trying and they get pushed back to Libya by Libyan vessels.

    Here’s a webpage with a lot of graphs and statistics including the the death toll:

    https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean

    Proportion of deaths vs attempted crossings [Jan 1 to current day (March 31?), 2020 vs 2021]

    Attempted crossings 29,600
    Arrivals by land to Spain 1,229
    Deaths 265
    2020 0.9%

    Attempted crossings 17,908
    Arrivals by land to Spain 501
    Deaths 323
    2021 1.8%

    Deaths are up, attempted crossings are down.

    This comes from people who abolished the death penalty, but of course they are relying on it.

    The success rate has risen from 58% to 67% but the total number who succeeded has dropped to 70% of what it was.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  244. Drug addiction, which ends up in the street, does not seem to care much about upbringing. It matters more in the time one has before they hit the street, perhaps, but the end is always the same.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/5/2021 @ 10:16 am

    while I know academically this is true, I think you’re also right what a cop actually deals with can really distort their (my) impression of drug abuse. LSD in a dorm, cocaine in a Michael Kors purse, it’s not an everyday thing. K2, crack, meth from a homeless man standing on a car, now that’s a little easier for to spot from the donut shop. the great uniter is alcohol though. If the shouting or the call came from a mcmansion or a tent, it’s probably alcohol inside.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  245. Because the effects of denying them basic human rights, economic opportunity and education for 350 years haven’t been erased in the last 50.

    Dave (1bb933) — 4/5/2021 @ 8:49 am

    Sounds like you believe that groups of people don’t have agency. Have you always held these beliefs and do you feel like you need to save them ?

    NJRob (cc7e2d)

  246. Alcohol is simply the cheap drug (although crack is making a play there). The real difference is resources — a rich person has many more opportunities try to recover than a poor person. OTOH, they have less need and more ability to procrastinate.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  247. I believe that if the government is going to restrict the exercise of a right such as speech, voting, or gun ownership, the burden is to show that the restriction is necessary and that the restriction be the minimal needed to accomplish the needed goal.

    Indeed. It’s called “strict scrutiny.” Although it is generally hot used for gun ownership yet. The question that you beg though is whether this law restricts voting, let at alone whether it restricts it unacceptably.

    Registering to vote is one standard we can use. Clearly that is not unconstitutional (yet). Does the new law make it especially difficult to register for certain folks, or can it be used to do so (e.g. literacy tests)?

    The Supreme Court has allowed ID requirements generally, so long as getting an ID is not difficult or expensive.

    Are people arguing that the prohibition on “volunteers” giving water or food to people inside the electioneering limits is aimed at driving Blacks from the polls? Or is it that they closed a loophole through which electioneering was done? Nothing in the law prevents the county workers from passing out water. Perhaps they should.

    I just don’t see any of this being 1) targeted at any racial group, or 2) meaningfully restrictive. The most difficult thing is the ID info being required for absentee ballots but I believe (and have made a case) that this is a needed reform. I admit I’d prefer just the ID number and not a photo, and I expect that courts might well throw out a photo requirement as it allows a quick racial test.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  248. 229, Dave:

    I just hope deep cover cosplay “El Ted” doesnt meet the same end as the Robert DeNiro character in Machete.

    urbanleftbehind (d5de4e)

  249. I think what the Georgia law was intended to do – which neither the Republicans nor the Democrats will admit to – was hamper “get out the vote” drives by Democratic partisans, but the biggest thing they wanted to do – limit Sunday voting – was pulled back. And also, put more partisan Republicans in charge of running the elections and counting the votes, but not too much.

    It’s now illegal for election officials to mail out absentee ballot applications to all voters. And no ballot may be prefilled with any required information and sent to a voter other than by a relative authorized to request an absentee ballot for such a voter, or by a person signing as assisting an illiterate or physically disabled voter.

    Early voting is expanded (by adding a second required Saturday) in a lot of small [read Republican] counties, but probably not in more populous [read Democratic] ones, which already had two Saturdays.

    While early voting may start as early as 7 a.m. and go on till 7 p.m. every day of early voting must include all of the period of 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. (on weekends too) Staggered hours are more difficult.

    Mobile polling sites are now pretty much banned, short of a natural disaster. (In the November 2020 election, about 11,200 people voted at the two vehicles Fulton County had set up and parked near churches, parks and public libraries.)

    Election jurisdictions can no longer accept money from [read Democratic favoring] outside philanthropic groups like the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit organization funded by Mark Zuckerberg to help counties pay for their elections in 2020 [so they’ll be open less hours for early voting or have longer lines] but “the State Election Board shall study and report to the General Assembly a proposed method for accepting donations intended to facilitate the administration of elections and a method for an equitable distribution of such donations state wide by October 1, 2021.” Other than that, they can only take money to pay for elections from the county or municipality, the State of Georgia, or the federal government. {You partisan charities! You think you can help only Democratic leaning counties expand voter accessibility? No more.]

    The Attorney General shall have the authority to establish and maintain a telephone hotline for the use of electors of this state to file complaints and allegations of voter intimidation and illegal election activities. [In case Dems try anything funny, or Reps want to create an issue]
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/georgia-voting-law-annotated.html

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  250. President Joe Biden said the new Georgia law was “Jim Crow on steroids”

    Which, of course, is nonsense on stilts.

    That doesn’t mean it wasn’t designed to tweak things a little bit in favor of the Republican Party compared to the status quo ante.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  251. Gridlock Sam, whom I once took a course from given at MTA HQ then, comes out against jaywalking laws, says they make it more likely for pedestrians to get killed (or traffic regulation do because in the absence of red and green lights cars slow down – and that’s true) and besides they are unfair to people of color and one time a person got killed by a policeman for jaywalking:

    https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-jaywalking-the-crime-that-isnt-one-20210405-ivgp2ijdsbg5pkbm2zuoaai37a-story.html

    Jaywalking laws are part of a century-long series of assaults on walking that may get worse in the future. Walkers, mostly people of color, [!!?] continue to be stopped and arrested for jaywalking….But we have to enforce jaywalking laws to protect the public and keep streets orderly, right? Wrong. Jaywalking laws do not improve traffic safety, and there’s evidence that pedestrian casualties are higher where the laws are strictly enforced. The historic raison d’être of these laws is to move cars faster, then blame the walker when struck by a car…

    …Travel back in time with me to 1910. You cross when you want to cross looking out for horses, streetcars and those newfangled automobiles. Now, imagine someone saying “we will shine a colored light at you and you must stop; when we shine a different color you may go. And when you walk, you must ‘hug’ the buildings and cross only at intersections at 90-degree angles.” …

    ….But it doesn’t work. A Smart Growth America study found that seven out of the top 10 most dangerous metro areas for peds are in Florida, with Orlando topping worst, Palm Bay fourth, and Daytona Beach fifth. They are all tough on jaywalkers. The top walking cities, New York, Chicago and Boston, fall respectively at No. 93, 83 and #97 on the danger index and are comparatively lenient.

    Los Angeles historically issued far more jaywalking tickets than NYC and sees dramatically better compliance yet has a significantly higher pedestrian fatality rate. In absolute numbers 127 pedestrians died in LA in 2018 after being struck by vehicles while NYC, with far more walkers, saw 114 deaths.

    [Maybe LA doesn’t have enough sidewalks]

    ….A widely known engineer in traffic safety circles, the late Hans Monderman, radically challenged traffic engineering principles by getting rid of most traffic signals, signs and pavement markings in parts of several Dutch cities allowing people, cars, bike riders and others to negotiate sharing the space with each other as humans did until the early 20th century. The result: Drivers slowed down and crashes declined….

    [True enough. When traffic signals go out, or after a blizzard, walking is safer]

    ….Whereas sidewalks were at least the 20th-century sanctuary for walkers, a half-dozen states now permit robots to travel on sidewalks. In Pennsylvania, robot “pedestrians” can weigh up to 550 pounds and drive up to 12 mph. A person hit by one of these would suffer the equivalent of being struck by two NFL linebackers at full-speed while helmet and pad-less.

    Autonomous vehicle (AV) manufacturers are concluding they likely won’t solve the pedestrian “problem.” A Princeton team proposes that pedestrians wear radar reflectors so that AVs can “see” them. {Someone really said that?}

    My solution: get rid of jaywalking laws, design more streets for walking, slow traffic through design and once again declare pedestrians kings and queens of the road.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  252. Sorry, norcal, I got interrupted and had to help my sister deal with a family emergency. Everyone’s fine, it was really nothing to worry about, but it did take some time to get everything settled. She overreacts to family situations, especially since our mother passed away. But I’m back and will now continue my story. Cliffhangers, eh?

    So, Joey married this teenage girl. I warned him about her, because if there’s one thing I know, it’s drama girls. (I’ll tell that story at another time.) He didn’t listen, then he did the most stupid thing a Texas boy can do–he moved to California, where the divorce laws are hell.

    About two years later, he called me, crying and sobbing, seriously depressed. His wife had thrown him out of his house and divorced him. Of course she divorced him, that was her plan all along. Had he stayed in Texas, at most she would have gotten two years of alimony, because she had left the workforce. Two years of alimony for her to undergo training and return to the workforce. And child support, there’s always child support. In California, it cost him $44,000 in legal fees and court costs, and the judge ruled he owed his ex-wife $36,000/year in alimony and child support. This because she said he abused her and molested her daughters, and that he was an alcoholic and a drug abuser. None of it was true, but all she has to do is say it in open court–mandatory police investigation. The judge ruled that he could only have supervised visits with his daughters, after passing a weekly drug test.

    He was distraught. I told him to calm down, relax, and that I would come out to visit him and cheer him up, because I was on summer vacation from teaching. He said, “You’re coming over here?” Yeah, my friend is in trouble, and I want to help him out. “I’ll take care of everything!” Okay, but you don’t have to. The next day I received a package from Federal Express, round trip plane tickets from McAllen to San Francisco. I took the flight.

    I met Joey at the airport and gave him a gift–a t-shirt that read “Purgamentum Innit, Purgamentum Exit.” (Garbage In, Garbage Out.) It was a reminder of what I had warned him about years before.

    On the way to his rented room, we stopped at laundry mat, where he had his clothes washed. And then he locked his keys in the trunk of the car! This is great. My first trip to San Francisco, and here I am, stuck in the parking lot of a laundry mat in Oakland. Joey locked his keys in the trunk. Unbelievable, but that was the way it was with Joey.

    Finally, a locksmith showed up. He dismantled the door, made a key, and opened the trunk. Joey was beside himself, will you take a check or a credit card? No, cash only. Okay, I got this. I had $1,000 in my pocket–never travel anywhere without cash–and I paid the locksmith $100. Keep the change.

    That, more than my graduation ring–white gold with a real diamond at the center of the Star; it reads The University of Texas–humiliated Joey. He was a silicon valley systems analyst, making $400,000/year, while I was a junior high teacher making $40,000. But I had cash in my pocket, and he did not.

    That totally destroyed him. I mean, I could shove my ring in face at any time, but this? To have cash on hand, when he did not. Talk about embarrassment.

    To be continued . . .

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  253. BTW, this whole racist smear is now going big. Apparently Democrats think calling their opponents “white supremacists” is going to win them votes. If anything is going on here, it’s an inversion of the old Dixie anti-black campaigns.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  254. 238. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/5/2021 @ 9:59 am

    Signature verification by 5-second eyeball inspection is completely bogus.

    Well, Mastercard and Visa no longer rely on that. But merchants still want scribbles, so maybe they’re not completely worthless. Different people have totally different signatures.

    https://www.utica.edu/academic/institutes/ecii/publications/articles/A026B1A2-B067-59DE-920C01AD24768FE3.pdf

    On the other hand, a bank refused to accept a change of address form from a 90-year old man because they claimed the signature didn’t match.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  255. Sounds like you believe that groups of people don’t have agency.

    Slaves, and people denied basic human rights, economic opportunity and education for 350 years, have very limited agency, yes, and the resulting problems don’t magically disappear the instant you finally start treating them like human beings.

    Dave (1bb933)

  256. Arkansas’ Republican governor vetoes anti-trans health care bill

    The bill passed by supermajorities in both chambers, so we’ll see what happens.

    While Hutchinson makes a good point about government overreach, I am very troubled by these procedures that chemically or physically mutilate minor children.

    Dave (1bb933)

  257. Slaves, and people denied basic human rights, economic opportunity and education for 350 years, have very limited agency, yes, and the resulting problems don’t magically disappear the instant you finally start treating them like human beings.

    Dave (1bb933) — 4/5/2021 @ 11:54 am

    True, you can’t overstate the cruelty of that. And the impact is obviously here today. But the impact is convoluted, and this soft expectations thing, where it’s OK to wonder if a black man can figure out where the DL number is on his Id card is not helping that man get a job, ya know?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  258. where it’s OK to wonder if a black man can figure out where the DL number is on his Id card is not helping that man get a job, ya know?

    You’ve mischaracterized the problem.

    It’s not:

    Black -> unable to find DL number

    It’s:

    Legacy of discrimination -> born impoverished -> poorly nourished and educated as a child -> functional illiteracy as an adult -> unable to find DL number

    As I said, my grandparents, who were not black but were raised in poverty and very poorly educated, struggled with similar tasks.

    Dave (1bb933)

  259. If I said that all Republicans wanted to put Blacks back into slavery, it would be a “blood libel” since it was never, ever true of Republicans. Similarly asserting that the GOP is trying to recreate Jim Crow is a “blood libel.”

    I think you’re fixing a little too much on the question of party label as opposed to who in a state, over a period of time, is in political control and making decisions about who gets to vote and who has power. In the South that was white people, regardless of which party they belonged to.

    As for the history of the Republican party in the South, you might be interested in the discussion here:
    https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-roots-of-the-parties-racial-switch/

    A sample paragraph:

    The white supremacists who are trying to sort of takeover each state party organization, their argument essentially is that as the South increasingly becomes controlled by white Democrats and as they’re passing Jim Crow legislation effectively banning black people from participating in elections almost entirely, the only way Republican party in the South could be successful as an electoral party is by becoming a white party. So after the civil war, black people play a really important part in the Republican party in the South. They make up a large part of the voting public, and there are this number of black elected officials, black party leaders, et cetera.

    As we’re getting into the late 19th and early 20th century, these white supremacists Republicans are saying, “We need to get rid of all black people in the party, and we need to replace them with an all-white party because that’s the kind of party you can actually compete electorally.” They’re sort of hypocritical in making that argument because what they really care about to a large extent is controlling patronage, getting federal jobs and being able to sell them and make a lot of money out of that. In the book, we actually test their claim, just if the Republican party becomes more white in each individual state, does that actually help them electorally?

    The answer seemed to be yes, as the number of black delegates in the party, which is the best metric that we could come up with of sort of how black or how white state party organization was at each given moment in time. As the number goes down, since the party becomes more white, in the sort of Jim Crow era, the party does better electorally.

    The Southern Republicans did struggle between groups more supportive of black civil rights, sometimes called the Black and Tans, and those who thought the best way to compete with the Democrats was to imitate them regarding civil rights, known as the Lily Whites. But the trend over time was pretty clear – the Lily Whites became the dominant force among Southern Republicans.

    I agree that saying that Republicans wanted to put blacks back in slavery is a lie. But it is the truth that some Republicans, and after a while the majority of Southern Republicans, were perfectly happy with Jim Crow.

    Victor (4959fb)

  260. Dave:

    https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1377752717951655941

    that is clearly arguing that this sweet elderly black woman can’t figure out where her DL number is

    Dustin (4237e0)

  261. And tens of thousands of people shared and liked that argument.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  262. Dave the left has run our education system and our cities for the past 70 years. So maybe you should put the blame where it belongs. Aren’t you an educator?

    NJRob (24e8a0)

  263. Apropos of this argument I note the following article from Vox:

    https://www.vox.com/2021/4/5/22358325/study-republican-control-state-government-bad-for-democracy?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

    The researcher looked at the distinguishing feature among states with high scores for democracy and those with lower and found that the single distinguishing feature was whether they recently had Republican dominated state legislatures:

    To test these theories, Grumbach ran a series of regression analyses designed to isolate correlations between a state’s democracy score and variables like percentage of nonwhite voters and measures of state-level polarization. Strikingly, these things either barely mattered or didn’t matter at all.

    Only two things really did: whether a state was controlled by Republicans and whether Republicans had gained that control recently. Republican-controlled states in general were far more likely to perform worse in the State Democracy Index over time; Republican states with a recent history of close elections, like Wisconsin and North Carolina, were especially likely to decline from 2000 to 2018.

    “Among Republican controlled states … those whose recent elections have been especially competitive are the states to take steps to reduce their democratic performance,” he writes.

    You may disagree with his measurements of democracy. He puts heavy emphasis on partisan gerrymandering for example. But if you agree, you’ll understand better why Democrats are becoming ever more outraged at the Republican party’s policies.

    Victor (4959fb)

  264. Dave:

    https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1377752717951655941

    that is clearly arguing that this sweet elderly black woman can’t figure out where her DL number is

    I gather you think the answer is obvious. Given that 3,000 elderly people in Florida in 2000 couldn’t figure out how to vote for Gore instead of Buchanan, I’m not so sure you’re right.

    But the point is of course that by adding more technical requirements, it’s a fact of human nature that some humans will fail to perform perfectly correctly. And the Republican party seems to be counting on that.

    Victor (4959fb)

  265. I gather you think the answer is obvious.

    It’s the damn number next to the “DL NO.” label.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  266. Re: DL#

    Give me a break, people! Since we are talking about those WITH a DL, let’s not start with the “not everyone has a DL!” We know! Am I to believe that the elderly (in particular) or anybody, really, don’t know which#, on their DL, is their DL#: Really? I don’t blame the new drivers out there who have yet to memorize it, but it is plain as day. Raise your hand, right now, if you cannot find it on your own. I’ll wait.

    Will you forget how to find it when you are elderly? If you said “Well, I will if I am mentally impaired, in some way!” Then you just made an argument that you should not be voting at all.

    This is simply the bigotry of low expectations.

    felipe (484255)

  267. It’s the damn number next to the “DL NO.” label.
    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/5/2021 @ 1:16 pm

    !

    felipe (484255)

  268. Dustin

    What is the 5 DD #?

    And why are there two long sets of digits on the license?

    And if this is one of the few times in your life that you’re asked to find a set of digits on your driver’s license, what makes you think some people will probably get it wrong?

    And if you do get it wrong does that mean we should throw away your vote?

    Victor (4959fb)

  269. I am sorry, that should have been

    “what makes you think some people won’t get it wrong” Fast typing leads to minor mistakes.

    Victor (4959fb)

  270. What is the 5 DD #?

    that’s an audit number. Texas has them on the front too. I think most states have an audit number on the front, on the bottom of the ID, in a smaller print, not labeled DL NO and frankly so long no one would confuse it for their DL number.

    It’s a great way to ensure you aren’t getting someone else’s ID sent to your door so you can impersonate them (with a change of address).

    I do not believe old black ladies are having trouble with this. I bet they usually do not need to check their ID to know what the number is. Those saying that this DL number requirement is Jim Crow need to reflect on some assumptions they are making.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  271. I believe that if the government is going to restrict the exercise of a right such as speech, voting, or gun ownership, the burden is to show that the restriction is necessary and that the restriction be the minimal needed to accomplish the needed goal.

    Indeed. It’s called “strict scrutiny.” Although it is generally hot used for gun ownership yet. The question that you beg though is whether this law restricts voting, let at alone whether it restricts it unacceptably.

    IIRC that’s the standard for legal challenges in court. I’m not arguing that this law is unconstitutional. I’m arguing that as a matter of public policy laws that restrict our rights should be a limited as possible to still achieve their goals. I don’t think banning mobile poling stations is unconstitutional. I think that it’s bad policy after such have been shown to reduce wait times without increasing fraud. I don’t think capping drop boxes at 8 is unconstitutional. I think it’s bad policy as no one has shown any actual harm from having more then 8.

    Time123 (c9382b)

  272. What is the 5 DD #?

    that’s an audit number. Texas has them on the front too. I think most states have an audit number on the front, on the bottom of the ID, in a smaller print, not labeled DL NO and frankly so long no one would confuse it for their DL number.

    It’s a great way to ensure you aren’t getting someone else’s ID sent to your door so you can impersonate them (with a change of address).

    I do not believe old black ladies are having trouble with this. I bet they usually do not need to check their ID to know what the number is. Those saying that this DL number requirement is Jim Crow need to reflect on some assumptions they are making.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/5/2021 @ 2:30 pm

    Depends on how the form is desgined. If they take steps to make it clear what number you need by having an exact number of spaces that only matches the DL number and a picture of a DL to show which number it will reduce the number of people who lose the opportunity to exercise their franchise due to a clerical error.

    Do you know if the GA law allows voters to correct a deficient ballot?

    Time123 (c9382b)

  273. Saying that Georgia’s law is Jim Crow+ isn’t “blood libel” is correct, because “blood libel is a very specific thing. A blood libel is a very specific kind of lie created by a majority group to deploy against a minority group in order to significantly increase prejudice against that minority group.

    I would say that Biden’s actual belief is that Georgia’s law is racially prejudiced, so he isn’t lying there and there seems to be debate that it is, so there isn’t a lie there, though there is a difference of opinion. So, it isn’t a lie and therefore blood libel is not accurate. Then, is the Republican party a minority group in Georgia? No, it isn’t. So calling it a blood libel is not accurate there. Was it said in order to increase prejudice against Republicans? Probably yes, but one out of three isn’t enough to make it “blood libel” all three things must be present.

    Nic (896fdf)

  274. And tens of thousands of people shared and liked that argument.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/5/2021 @ 12:44 pm

    Because they view it as just another bureaucratic barrier to exercising their rights that adds no actual value to the election process. Go big government.

    Time123 (c9382b)

  275. Yes they have shown actual harm. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/20/california-ballot-box-arson/

    Drop boxes should be few enough to be very well secured.

    honestly I do not really think the idea of a drop box is a good idea any more than I like mail-in voting. These forms of voting, where you can fill out a ballot that is not yours, invite… people to do that. Georgia claims there are hundreds of thousands of people without ID who want to vote. I believe many of those are not legitimate voters.

    Cheating at an election is a harm exactly as serious as denying someone a vote, because that’s what you’re effectively doing. So the ‘let’s just go wild and prove it did wrong’ is actually unfair.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  276. Dave the left has run our education system and our cities for the past 70 years. So maybe you should put the blame where it belongs. Aren’t you an educator?

    NJRob (24e8a0) — 4/5/2021 @ 12:51 pm

    Most states have considerable educational control in the state BOE and state legislatures, many of which are GOP controlled. So your comment isn’t really correct.

    Time123 (c9382b)

  277. If they take steps to make it clear what number you need

    Suppose they asked for a “DL NO” and you look at your “DL” and give them the number marked “DL NO”? Would that be clear?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  278. Georgia claims there are hundreds of thousands of people without ID who want to vote. I believe many of those are not legitimate voters.

    Do you have any evidence of this? Because I can point to a random audit of 15,000 absentee ballots in GA that found no fraud. They did find a handful of sloppy signatures and a couple of clerical errors.

    Time123 (c9382b)

  279. suppose I take one mailed in ballot and rip it up

    How serious is that?

    suppose I vote fraudulently, a few times?

    under the ‘prove it changed the outcome’ test, one of these is acceptable.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  280. Do you have any evidence of this? Because I can point to a random audit of 15,000 absentee ballots in GA that found no fraud. They did find a handful of sloppy signatures and a couple of clerical errors.

    Time123 (c9382b) — 4/5/2021 @ 2:41 pm

    Actually, a more fair test would reflect that one wrong vote is equal to one denied good vote. I am suspicious of an audit that “found no fraud” at all. Some of those votes were very probably fraudulent. all you’re saying is that the fraud could have worked. What’s to stop it? It’s just a piece of paper.

    In the 2020 election, I am sure nuts were cheating, for both candidates.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  281. Miranda Devine, of the New York Post, is writing a book about Hunter Biden.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  282. Dustin, here’s the report from Cobb County GA.

    For your convenience I’ve copied the executive summary below. If you find some specific reasons to distrust the results I’d be interested in that. I’d point out that in early Dec it would have politically helped the SOS if this had found issues.

    Task
    On Monday, December 14, 2020, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced
    that a signature audit of absentee-by-mail (ABM) ballot oath envelopes would be conducted in
    Cobb County. The Secretary of State’s Office partnered with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
    (GBI) to review a statistically significant sample of signatures on oath envelopes from the
    November 3, 2020, General Election. Signatures and other identifying information on the ABM
    ballot oath envelopes would be compared to records in both the Cobb County Elections and
    Voter Registration Department database and the State of Georgia’s voter registration system.
    The audit would be performed by law enforcement investigators with the Secretary of State’s
    Office and GBI special agents.
    Summary of Findings
    The audit team, consisting of law enforcement officers with the Secretary of State’s office and
    GBI, reviewed 15,118 ABM ballot oath envelopes from randomly selected boxes that stored the
    150,431 ABM ballots received in Cobb County for the November 3, 2020 General Election. The
    sample size of oath envelopes reviewed was chosen in order to reach a 99% confidence level in
    the results. Utilizing the decision guidelines set forth below, the audit team confirmed the
    accuracy of the initial determination of the Cobb County Elections Department in all but two
    2
    cases. In the two cases where the audit team determined that the voter should have received a
    cure notification, the audit team was able to confirm by interviews with the voters that the
    actual voters in question cast the ballots. Based on the results of the audit, the Cobb County
    Elections Department had a 99.99% accuracy rate in performing correct signature verification
    procedures. The audit team was also able to confirm that the two ballots that should have
    initially been identified by Cobb County Elections Department staff as requiring a cure
    notification were actually cast by the voters to whom they were issued. No fraudulent absentee
    ballots were identified during the audit.

    Time123 (52fb0e)

  283. @284, Neither of these is acceptable.

    Time123 (52fb0e)

  284. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/5/2021 @ 11:42 am

    BTW, this whole racist smear is now going big. Apparently Democrats think calling their opponents “white supremacists” is going to win them votes.

    Maybe not votes, but it’s an accusation that big corporations’ public relations departments don’t want to deal with. Especially if they become afraid that some of their customers will avoid them. It’s like a mob. And mobs are dumb.

    We’re getting a lot of these secondary boycotts.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  285. Kevin M @233:

    If I said that all Republicans wanted to put Blacks back into slavery, it would be a “blood libel” since it was never, ever true of Republicans

    Joe Biden said that, you know, one time, when campaigning in 2012, or maybe more exactly, he at least he seemed to be saying that, if you tried to make his words make sense, which you couldn’t actually.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gII8D-lzbA

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-tells-african-american-audience-gop-ticket-would-put-them-back-in-chains

    – Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday told a diverse crowd here, including many African-Americans, that presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney would “put you all back in chains” by unshackling Wall Street.

    Biden told more than 800 ticketed supporters that Romney wants to repeal the financial regulations enacted after the Wall Street crash of 2008. “He’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules – unchain Wall Street!” Biden said. Then he added, “They’re going to put you all back in chains” with their economic and regulatory policies….

    Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager of the Obama campaign, called Saul’s statement “faux outrage. She said on MSNBC that Biden was “using a metaphor to talk about what’s going to happen” if Romney is elected and financial reform is repealed. and “we have no problem with those comments” in their full context.

    The Obama campaign later put out a statement that said Biden’s comment was a variation on comments Republicans have made about unshackling the private sector, and his own frequent references to the need to unshackle the middle class. “Today’s comments were a derivative of those remarks, describing the devastating impact letting Wall Street write its own rules again would have on middle class families,” the campaign said.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  286. @284, Neither of these is acceptable.

    Time123 (52fb0e) — 4/5/2021 @ 3:00 pm

    Well yes, that part we know. But we treat one like it is totally acceptable, prove for sure it happened before we do anything. The other we do not. But they are the same act.

    Voter ID, registration in advance, a realistic number of places to store ballots, no electioneering loophole (as Kevin put it), are fine.

    The standard should be: can anyone who wants to vote, and can vote, have the ability to do it? With this law, the answer is yes. There are fair disagreements about balancing this versus that, but to the extent we’re arguing about security, like writing down an ID number, removing the protection would make it easier to cheat. We could just remove the rule, let the cheating happen, hope one day the stars and screwups align so we can prove the cheating, then debate for years about how to stop the cheating. But it would still be called Jim Crow, and it still effectively steals a vote.

    I’m just coming at this from that direction. If I could see people who wanted to vote, but these laws were stopping them, I would agree with your perspective.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  287. If you find some specific reasons to distrust the results I’d be interested in that.

    Yeah, they say they didn’t find a single fraudulent ballot out of that many. It’s obvious their test is not effective enough. This is not an uncommon problem. Kevin’s explained that with cities and signatures.

    In fact, this kinda changes my mind. I don’t think absentee ballots should be allowed if they are incapable of spotting the fakes. Just get rid of it. Stand in line, fingerprint, show some ID. A better compromise would be a four day voting period over a weekend, if the state is not catching the fake absentee votes.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  288. @291, or the number of people submitting fraudulent votes is very low. Absent an organized approach it’s not effective on the individual level.

    There are isolated cases. There are examples of people
    Trying to stuff the ballot box but it’s rare. But there’s no evidence that this is actually a problem. They checked 15,000 votes looking for fraud and couldn’t find it. They found a number of signatures they doubted. But they checked with those voters and the votes were legitimate. You’re trying to stop a crime (vote fraud) that isn’t happening g

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  289. Dave the left has run our education system and our cities for the past 70 years. So maybe you should put the blame where it belongs. Aren’t you an educator?

    He’s not at the bad part of the problem, which is the elementary and secondary schools that are often cynical warehouses rather than places of learning. One of the reasons why Black parents are enerally supportive of charters, vouchers and other end-runs around a sick and dying system.

    But UCI is a fine school, if you can get there.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  290. And if you do get it wrong does that mean we should throw away your vote?

    Well, one could go ask someone.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  291. Most states have considerable educational control in the state BOE and state legislatures, many of which are GOP controlled.

    This is true of California as all public schools are funded directly by the state and it is actually illegal for local schools to use outside funds, lest equality be violated. Pretty much a Harrison Bergeron system of debits and credits to achieve equality of funding. But of course it is not run by the GOP at all.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  292. What do we do with ballots for people who cannot read? Or haven’t the use of their hands? I’m not sure what IS done, but it certainly is not “bring everyone else down to the same common denominator.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  293. https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/04/vermont-governor-gives-people-over-age-16-who-identify-as-non-white-covid-vaccine-priority/

    Anyone have any thoughts on this explicitly racist, probably illegal, action by a republican governor to segregate who is permitted to get the vaccine based on skin color?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  294. Yeah, they say they didn’t find a single fraudulent ballot out of that many. It’s obvious their test is not effective enough. This is not an uncommon problem. Kevin’s explained that with cities and signatures.

    In fact, this kinda changes my mind. I don’t think absentee ballots should be allowed if they are incapable of spotting the fakes. Just get rid of it. Stand in line, fingerprint, show some ID. A better compromise would be a four day voting period over a weekend, if the state is not catching the fake absentee votes.

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/5/2021 @ 3:24 pm

    I agree with this.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  295. If you remove absentee ballots, military people can’t vote.

    Nic (896fdf)

  296. I hereby put another quarter into Gawain’s Ghost!

    norcal (01e272)

  297. @ Dustin,

    I don’t think absentee ballots should be allowed if they are incapable of spotting the fakes. Just get rid of it. Stand in line, fingerprint, show some ID.

    And exactly how would members of the American military that are deployed throughout the world vote?

    Dana (fd537d)

  298. However, I will understand if the next installment doesn’t arrive until next weekend. After all, this is quality story-telling!

    norcal (01e272)

  299. Anyone have any thoughts on this explicitly racist, probably illegal, action by a republican governor to segregate who is permitted to get the vaccine based on skin color?

    I’ll take a chance on being called racist and say it’s for the same reason that dogs get vaccinated for rabies but people don’t. If a certain group gets Covid at a much higher rate than another group, and consequently infects others at that same higher rate, then it’s the socially beneficial thing to see to it that they’re vaccinated first. The worst thing about it, in my opinion, is that we can’t force them to get vaccinated.

    nk (1d9030)

  300. https://freebeacon.com/democrats/swing-district-dems-abandon-minimum-wage-moderation-embrace-hike-to-15/

    As House Democrats adjust to their narrow majority, members in swing districts have been pushed to jettison their previous calls for moderation on minimum wage hikes.

    Just two years ago, 12 House Democrats cosponsored the PHASE in $15 Wage Act, a bill that called for taking regional factors into account when implementing the minimum wage. Now, half of the original PHASE in $15 Wage Act supporters are cosponsors of the Raise the Wage Act that would implement a nationalized $15 minimum wage.

    Rep. Lucy McBath (D., Ga.), who was elected in 2018 as a moderate, argued that a $15 minimum wage would crush Georgia small businesses and said she wanted to see a “geographically different kind of model for raising the minimum wage.” She now supports a national $15 minimum wage. Rep. Elaine Luria (D., Va.), also elected in 2018 as a moderate small business owner, said minimum wage increases had to take into account that “different areas of the country have different costs of living.” She too now supports the national $15 minimum wage.

    The unity behind a $15 minimum wage in the House comes as Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), scramble to figure out a way to pass a minimum wage hike without the required 60 votes. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that such major legislation could not be included in the Senate’s massive coronavirus relief package, but Schumer remains determined to find a way to jam it through the upper chamber, according to the Intercept.

    Alfredo Ortiz, the president of the Job Creators Network, argued that moderation on wage issues is no longer acceptable in the Democratic ranks, even for members representing districts where a $15 minimum wage would wreak havoc for businesses.

    “Big Labor has made the $15 minimum wage a litmus test for Democrat politicians and just about every Democrat has fallen in line,” Ortiz said. “Democrats couldn’t care less that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a $15 minimum wage could cost up to 2.7 million jobs.”

    In addition to McBath and Luria, Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Pa.), Scott Peters (D., Calif.), Ami Bera (D., Calif.), Abigail Spanberger (D., Va.), and Kathleen Rice (D., N.Y.) are all cosponsors of the $15 wage hike who until recently insisted the minimum wage should account for regional differences.

    “Moderate” leftists fall in line to support radical, economy crushing leftist policies. I’m shocked.

    Charlie Brown and Lucy again and again.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  301. That’s a relatively benign platform plank to effectuate in increasing unison given the border madness and racial turmoil they are stirring up.

    urbanleftbehind (600d09)

  302. Let’s clutch our pearls again over a minimum wage hike that can’t happen, and therefore won’t happen.

    Coming out in favor of a very popular, but impossible, legislative initiative is a no-brainer for a politician (cf. Obamacare repeal).

    Dave (1bb933)

  303. Dustin,

    As I implied before it’s not just old black ladies that have problems filling out ballots. Old white people, probably Jewish, had trouble not voting for Buchanan in Florida in 2000.

    Your claim that a thorough audit demonstrating no fake signatures is simply a sign that the fakers were doing a great job is kind of crazy. What proof would you accept that in, reality, there were no fake signatures? And given the draconian penalties right now for vote fraud (a woman in Texas will be in jail for five years because she voted a provisional ballot, which was not counted, when she wasn’t supposed to) why would one do it?

    Victor (4959fb)

  304. This whole theory that the current Democratic Party is solely the responsible entity for Jim Crow also seems bonkers to me. It reminds me of how East Germany dealt with the issue of denazification. By simply announcing that all the Nazis really were in West Germany, and that they had nothing to do with the Third Reich.

    Jim Crow was a program of segregation and oppression that had branches in large parts of the country, both under Republicans and Democrats. California and Indiana had antimiscegenation laws. School segregation was a thing in Kansas – the site of Brown v. Board of Education.

    Jim Crow was a large, varied program urged on by a large swath of the population and that chunk didn’t suddenly change their mind in 1954 and 1964 and 1965 when Jim Crow was outlawed, even as their party loyalties moved around.

    Victor (4959fb)

  305. Dustin, I thought about your concern with the study. Given the large number of voters in the US there are 3 possibilities

    Absentee voter fraud never happens.
    Absentee voter fraud happens but didn’t happen in Cobb County in 2020
    Absentee voter fraud happens and we can’t detect it.

    I agree with you that the it’s unlikely that it never happens. That leaves the second 2 as possible. To refute the assertion that Absentee voter fraud happens and we can’t detect it. I’ve pasted a set of links below to cases of people be charged or convicted of absentee voter fraud.

    My assertion is that it’s very rare, and the system currently in place to catch it do a good job. 1 or 2 or 100 extra votes in a statewide election will rarely have any impact. Taking the risk on an individual level isn’t rational because the reward isn’t there.

    https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746800630/north-carolina-gop-operative-faces-new-felony-charges-that-allege-ballot-fraud

    https://www.mlive.com/politics/2020/11/michigan-man-facing-felony-charges-for-voter-fraud-ag-says.html

    https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Pendleton-County-mail-carrier-charged-with-altering-absentee-ballot-requests-570777221.html

    https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/14/cedarburg-wisconsin-woman-christine-daikawa-charged-voter-fraud-appears-court/6538445002/

    https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/08/voting-fraud-arrest-carrollton/

    https://www.inquirer.com/news/bruce-bartman-election-fraud-delaware-county-20201221.html

    https://bangordailynews.com/2020/10/27/politics/orono-woman-charged-with-voter-fraud-after-allegedly-casting-former-roommates-ballot/

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/12/21/pennsylvania-man-charged-with-voter-fraud-for-casting-ballot-for-trump-under-dead-mothers-name/?sh=4630326459bf

    This one isn’t for absentee voter fraud, but it’s still a funny story.

    https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/florida-attorney-under-investigation-registering-vote-georgia-encouraging-others-do-same/L6LTC2AHBFDMXPOTZKVMO5ESJQ/

    Time123 (36651d)

  306. This whole theory that the current Democratic Party is solely the responsible entity for Jim Crow also seems bonkers to me.

    It’s lie perpetrated by the historically ignorant and culturally aggrieved. Engaging with it makes as much sense as debating if the earth is flat, 9/11 was an inside job, or if the buddha is divine. No set of facts or arguments based on them will change anyone’s mind. The speaker people who assert it usually just seem to be trolling/trying to make themselves feel better.

    Time123 (36651d)

  307. @304, the minimum wage should be zero and organizing a union should be easy.

    Time123 (36651d)

  308. Dustin, i like this The standard should be: can anyone who wants to vote, and can vote, have the ability to do it?

    i would add The standard should be: can anyone who wants to vote, and can vote, have the ability to do it and the rules about voting don’t have a disparate impact based on demographic group.

    Time123 (36651d)

  309. Know your American history:

    — Charles Goodyear got a patent for vulcanized rubber in 1844. By 1860, every red-blooded American boy had a slingshot of the forked stick and rubber band kind.

    I’d hate to have to tell you what Robert E. Howard called those slingshots in his Breckinridge Elkins stories, but he was from Texas and besides it was c. 1930.

    nk (1d9030)

  310. “don’t have a disparate impact based on demographic group”

    Doesn’t most gerrymandering have a disparate impact? I mean the sentiment is correct and I think squeezing the number of ballot drop off boxes or locations seems to require an exceptional rationale, especially if it appears to target a given area without cause. But that’s a moral argument and not a legal one necessarily. If you have 17 days to vote…and can mail in your vote, I have a hard time considering this supressing the vote. I remain surprised that MLB has decided to jump into politics and punish Atlanta and their fans for a lawful act.

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  311. Victor (4959fb) — 4/6/2021 @ 4:36 am

    Your claim that a thorough audit demonstrating no fake signatures is simply a sign that the fakers were doing a great job is kind of crazy. What proof would you accept that in, reality, there were no fake signatures?

    I think when family members of dead people send in ballots, it’s usually only caught because they know the person is dead, and not because anyone objected to the signature.

    About one on ten families that receives mail for a deceased voter does that, I think I once read. They especially get caught during recounts.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/14/fact-check-mailing-ballots-dead-people-not-leading-voter-fraud/3214074001

    Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Rutgers University and author of “The Myth of Voter Fraud,” told USA TODAY that dead people being able to vote is a myth…

    …Kim Wyman, Washington’s secretary of state, told the New York Times that in cases of votes by dead people, election officials found that a spouse had just died and that the survivor wanted to cast one last ballot in their name.

    Recently, in part of a mass mailing of absentee ballot applications in Michigan on May 19, it was found that applications were being sent to dead people, the Detroit News reported. But experts said the mailings aren’t a cause for concern and can actually help the state update its voting rolls.

    Tracy Wimmer, a spokeswoman for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, told the Detroit News that forging a signature is a crime and is “rarely attempted” [10% of the time is rare – SF] and that people can mark the ballot as “moved” or “deceased.” By doing so, the state is able to improve its voter list.

    The National Conference of State Legislature’s site says, “When the ballot is returned to the election office, election officials have a process for examining each and every signature and comparing it to other documents in their files that contains the voter signature – usually the voter registration record.”

    But do they check other records first, or the signature? The PR would imply it’s the signature.

    When there is an active political opposition, it would be extremely easy to catch any significant amount of faking of votes of registered voters who are alive and still living at their old address, because you’d get two attempts by the same voter to vote. It doesn’t happen very much.

    https://www.nytimes.com/article/mail-in-vote-fraud-ballot.html

    Ms. Wise said officials had not heard of voters reporting that ballots were cast on their behalf unexpectedly, so thus far there is no evidence that people are stealing and submitting ballots.

    Even if a ballot were to get stolen and submitted, it would run into another obstacle. Voters must sign the ballot return envelope. Workers at the election office are trained to examine signatures, checking to make sure the signature that comes in matches the one on file for the voter before sending the ballot along the line to be counted.

    A voter with a problematic signature will be contacted by the election office, sometimes by phone, and asked to fill out an additional form to verify his or her identity. Ms. Wise said her signature had been rejected on two occasions because it had changed over the years, and she was able to resolve the discrepancy to get her vote counted.

    This is like the IRS getting two different tax returns.

    The IRS, by the way, does not demand ID to file a tax return, but it does ask for a Social Security number or a special tax number. And a signature, which is never compared to anything (except maybe in the case of a dispute?)

    There’s money to be made by filing tax returns asking for refunds in the name of other people, yet it happens only a limited number of times, often in Florida where vacant, probably never occupied homes to which mail is still delivered can be used as the address, and the refund requested in the form of a debit card. This is mostly done with people in nursing homes and the like.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  312. AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 4/6/2021 @ 7:21 am

    . If you have 17 days to vote…and can mail in your vote, I have a hard time considering this supressing the vote. I remain surprised that MLB has decided to jump into politics and punish Atlanta and their fans for a lawful act.

    Its; ;awful and this is mot abut making it hard for people to vote who want to vote., It does make it harder for organizations to successfully urge people to vote who aren;t particukalry interested.

    But they made it easier in Republican counties.

    Under the new law, early voting is expanded in Republican counties by adding a second required Saturday in a lot of small [read Republican] counties, but probably not in more populous [read Democratic] ones, which already had two Saturdays.

    Mobile polling sites are now pretty much banned, short of a natural disaster. In the November 2020 election, about 11,200 people voted at the two vehicles Fulton County had set up and parked near churches, parks and public libraries and other places where they were more likely to find people voting for Democrats.

    Election jurisdictions can no longer accept money to help counties pay for their elections from [read Democratic favoring] outside philanthropic groups like the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit organization funded by Mark Zuckerberg. This means they’ll be more likely to open less hours for early voting or have longer lines on Election Day.

    Now “the State Election Board shall study and report to the General Assembly a proposed method for accepting donations intended to facilitate the administration of elections and a method for an equitable distribution of such donations state wide by October 1, 2021.”

    Message: You partisan charities? You think you can help only Democratic leaning counties expand voter accessibility? No more.

    Other than that, money to pay for elections can only be taken from the county or municipality, the State of Georgia, or the federal government.

    But neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can say what’s going on here.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  313. The standard should be: can anyone who wants to vote, and can vote, have the ability to do it? With this law, the answer is yes. There are fair disagreements about balancing this versus that, but to the extent we’re arguing about security, like writing down an ID number, removing the protection would make it easier to cheat. We could just remove the rule, let the cheating happen, hope one day the stars and screwups align so we can prove the cheating, then debate for years about how to stop the cheating. But it would still be called Jim Crow, and it still effectively steals a vote.

    I’m just coming at this from that direction. If I could see people who wanted to vote, but these laws were stopping them, I would agree with your perspective

    I guess I could start with the fact that there’s no actual evidence that adding the ID requirement will lessen whatever minor cheating does go on.

    But to your more general point, do the laws stop somebody who wants to vote and is allowed to vote, from voting? Well the response is that the legislators who write these laws live in the real world. A poll tax at a low amount, like $5 or so, wouldn’t completely prohibit many people from voting. But it would make voting even less of an attractive proposition than it is now, particularly for poor people, and deter a swath. And you carve off enough swaths, you change the result.

    That’s my issue with adding additional voter ID requirements, particularly where they are not tied to any concrete evidence of perpetuated fraud. As Jon Chait noted if you have to come up with ID to buy a beer, or fly in a plane or get a senior discount at a restaurant, well in the end you have a beer in your hand, or a plane trip or a cheaper meal. Practically speaking, voting gets you a I Voted sticker and a near zero chance of making your political preference more likely. For people as politically engaged as you and I it’s worth it, for emotional reasons as much as anything else.

    For those otherwise disengaged from the political system, small barriers to doing something nearly pointless are going to have a big effect. And if we’re talking about old black voters in the South, they lived under systems that openly told them they weren’t allowed to engage.

    That’s why a rule that if you show up at the wrong precinct you can’t vote a provisional ballot make a difference. Somebody who got time off for one trip to the polling place may simply not have enough time for another.

    And looming above all this is the clear indication that the Georgia legislature didn’t have some high minded concern about election integrity, or reserving voting for the politically engaged with time on their hands and the mental ability to always fill out ballot applications correctly. They passed this law because they thought it would mean Democrats would lose. I am not sure they’re right. But I think the willingness to make voting more difficult because you think you’re party will gain advantage is deplorable. And I use that term advisedly.

    Victor (4959fb)

  314. Slowly, slowly, slowly the Centers for Disease Control, maybe helped by the presence of a new boss, is getting rid of the claim that cleaning is a help in reducing the spread of coronavirus.(This was there in the first place only because they needed an explanation of how Covid-19 could be transmitted when someone was no closer than 6 feet to an infected person, This wrong explanation was borrowed from a wrong explanation of how influenza was spread)

    They didn’t eliminate the theory, but they got rid of the recommendation for disinfectants, but they were moved to do so because they are poisons.

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cdc-updates-guidance-disinfectants-soap-stop-covids-spread/story?id=76882917

    “Routine cleaning performed effectively with soap or detergent, at least once per day, can substantially reduce virus levels on surfaces,” the CDC said at a White House briefing Monday.

    CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said “disinfection is only recommended in indoor-setting schools and homes where there has been a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19, within the last 24 hours.”

    The updated guidance tracks with what health officials and medical experts have already advised — that the risk of passing on or becoming infected with the respiratory virus through “fomite” surfaces is low, compared to direct contact, droplet or airborne transmission. But the announcement Monday offers new specifics, saying there is “little scientific support” for routine disinfectant use to prevent surface contact infection.

    They don;t need it even when there was smeone there, because the virus dies quickly, in much less time than 24 hours; has a hard time getting into the body; and using ultraviolet light, while requiring a higher initial capital investment, is much simpler if you feel you need it. Of course ultraviolet light is a form of disinfection, It requires a certain amount of careful training.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  315. 317. Victor (4959fb) — 4/6/2021 @ 7:48 am

    They passed this law because they thought it would mean Democrats would lose.

    But the Democrats are lying about how it might reduce the chances of Democrats winning.

    I am not sure they’re right.

    Donald Trump gained votes among blacks and Hispanics compared with 2016, and lost votes among more educated and wealthier people. Now that was only Donald Trump – until he started claiming he had won the election and too many Republicans played along halfway.

    But I think the willingness to make voting more difficult because you think you’re party will gain advantage is deplorable.

    They also made it easier in rural, Republican leaning counties. They extended early voting and they are prepared to set up a fund so if Mark Zuckerberg wants to give money to help pay for elections, he’ll have to do that for the entire state.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  316. i would add The standard should be: can anyone who wants to vote, and can vote, have the ability to do it and the rules about voting don’t have a disparate impact based on demographic group.

    Time123 (36651d) — 4/6/2021 @ 5:33 am

    There’s the trick. Some are acting like the disparate impact analysis is a one way street, because as Dave articulated, black voters faced a lot of horrible history. And I’m acting like the disparate impact is necessarily a many way street. Shift it one way, you’re shifting it away from the opposite way.

    I’d agree with you if the Georgia law weren’t already bending over backwards, honestly going too far for reasons I explained above, and everyone who wanted to vote obviously can do so as easily as they can get a taco. Let’s protect the rural voters too. Let’s make it so the standard is much simpler.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  317. And exactly how would members of the American military that are deployed throughout the world vote?

    Dana (fd537d) — 4/5/2021 @ 7:25 pm

    Submarines, rocket packs, and HALO jumps, commando-sneaking right into line around America.

    OK all seriousness, it is interesting that we all seem to know that absentee voting is only for those who really need it, because due to their service or some substantial impairment, they can’t vote otherwise. We know this because a mailed in vote can be filled out by anyone. Nobody is watching the vote. You can fake a signature (as someone mentioned you could fake a DL number too). Efforts to mitigate this are actually rejected because of this notion that absentee voting is inherently insecure.

    so the debate should really be: should we allow soldiers and people who are immobile to vote absentee? If we do, then the election is necessarily less secure. Is it worth it? This is actually not clear, but in our culture, we tend to say a “right” to vote justifies a loss of security. I don’t know that this is right.

    However, I think we can take a step back and realize absentee voting or any mail voting, just because it’s convenient, is not worth the cost. Georgia’s laws are therefore radically lenient, rather than Jim Crow, because anyone can vote in a drop box, and we’re just trusting that for no apparent reason. And the pressure to keep this up … I don’t want to be naive. Some of that’s in good faith, some is so cheating is easier.

    If we’re going to defend it because of the Troops, then only troops get to do it. The troops were exploited to justify lowering the voting age to 18, which also makes no sense. It’s OK to serve your country before you are knowledgeable and wise. The GOP doesn’t represent me, and perhaps it never will, but they could fight to raise the voting age to 30, require a high school equivilancy, maybe stipulate all student loans paid in full, no parole or probation in effect, and some kind of relatively lenient report on income versus benefits to show this is a contributor to the country in some respect.

    I interpret Stacey and Obama and Biden calling people like me “Jim Crow on steroids” as initiating a really serious war on voting rights, so let’s really have the conversation. Everyone who wants to vote in Georgia can do so easily, so I know I am right and they are wrong.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  318. And then, every time, comes the coup de grâce form letter: “Subject: 10 Day Bldg Closure.” Per New York City policy, two unlinked cases result in the building being shuttered for 10 consecutive days.

    De Blasio has now changed the school closing policy.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  319. Breaking: Impeached and removed federal judge, Florida member of Congress Alcee Hastings dies at age 84. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  320. There’s the trick. Some are acting like the disparate impact analysis is a one way street, because as Dave articulated, black voters faced a lot of horrible history. And I’m acting like the disparate impact is necessarily a many way street. Shift it one way, you’re shifting it away from the opposite way.

    I don’t see how this is correct, maybe you can elaborate?
    How does, for instance, allowing more then 8 drop boxes in a county or allowing volunteers to hand out water or not letting the state legislature take over local elections harm any specific demographic?

    It feels like you’re implying that making it too easy to vote in cities is unfair to rural voters?

    Time123 (53ef45)

  321. Dustin (4237e0) — 4/6/2021 @ 8:31 am

    because anyone can vote in a drop box, and we’re just trusting that for no apparent reason.

    Every voter gets just one ballot, which is mailed to an address on file. Organized cheating will be caught, and you can;t just come up wth “mathemmatical proof” votes were fakes, as the My Pillow guy, Mike Lindell seems to think (and I don’t understand what his proof is also. He calls it scientific proof.)

    https://cdn.jigg.cloud/ScientificProofTVSpecial-03-31-21-FINALHQ/mp4/ScientificProofTVSpecial-03-31-21-FINALHQ.mp4

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  322. so the debate should really be: should we allow soldiers and people who are immobile to vote absentee? If we do, then the election is necessarily less secure. Is it worth it? This is actually not clear, but in our culture, we tend to say a “right” to vote justifies a loss of security. I don’t know that this is right.

    We could do lots of things in the name of security that we don’t because there’s no evidence they’re necessary.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  323. Montana Governor Who Rescinded Mask Mandate Now Has COVID

    Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, who rescinded the state’s mask mandate weeks after taking office, has tested positive for COVID-19. The 59-year-old Republican got the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine last Thursday, but since full protection doesn’t kick in until after the second dose, he would have still been vulnerable to infection. The Billings Gazette reports that he developed symptoms on Sunday after attending Easter services, tested positive on Monday, and will now quarantine for 10 days. It’s not clear how he contracted the virus or if he has infected others, but six members of the state legislature have also tested positive since January.
    >>>>>>>>
    He should have listened to Sarah Palin.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  324. R.I.P. Alcee Hastings, 84, impeached and convicted as federal judge (for bribery), later elected to Cungress.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  325. Ex-Trump official penalized for violating Hatch Act

    The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) on Tuesday announced a settlement with former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) official Lynne Patton, a political appointee and ally of former President Trump’s, for a Hatch Act violation over a video she produced for last year’s Republican National Convention.

    As part of the settlement, Patton admitted that she violated the Hatch Act with the video in which the then-HUD Region II administrator interviewed residents of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) about their living conditions while apparently not letting the participants know that the video would be used for political purposes.
    ………
    Under the settlement, Patton will be barred from federal employment for two years and pay a $1,000 fine.
    ……..
    There goes her mail carrier job.

    Rip Murdock (35fa71)

  326. Dustin,

    I find your claim that mail in balloting is inherently so untrustworthy as to potentially make it right not to allow soldiers to vote fails to take into account the fact that several states have had all mail ballots now for many years, and nobody has yet provided evidence of serious issues involving fraud.

    I realize that Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah and Hawaii are all far far away from the elitist East which rules us all, but still these states do exist and have demonstrated that balloting systems can be flexible.

    I am still stuck on the fact that although Republicans can come up with numerous potential means of fraud they still can’t, despite extensive efforts and research, point to actual examples of significant voter fraud in practice, of the types that are the current worry.

    Drop boxes? Why wouldn’t I trust a drop box as much as I would trust a mail box? And what if a mail box was firebombed, as Kevin posited the other day? Not that this has happened in a way that actually led to a loss of votes. IN a proper system anybody who thought their vote was effected could contact the election office to discuss casting provisional ballots.

    The Georgia bill doesn’t make voting impossible. Neither did the poll tax. It just makes it more difficult. And for one political party today that appears to be enough.

    Victor (4959fb)

  327. so the debate should really be: should we allow soldiers and people who are immobile to vote absentee? If we do, then the election is necessarily less secure. Is it worth it?

    Wrong questions. We have always done that, although the methods used to validate those votes weren’t very robust. Given the small numbers of votes this represented, it wasn’t a terribly pressing issue (although in close elections these votes were always front and center in any contest).

    The questions are rather:

    1. Can we do a better job of validating these ballots? The current system was designed many decades ago.
    2. Do we really need to expand this system to include those doing it for mere convenience?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  328. I find your claim that mail in balloting is inherently so untrustworthy as to potentially make it right not to allow soldiers to vote fails to take into account the fact that several states have had all mail ballots now for many years, and nobody has yet provided evidence of serious issues involving fraud.

    nah

    The extreme nature of burden shifting proves me case. Why does someone living in Atlanta need 5000 drop boxes to vote without ID? Because of a kid in a foxhole in afghanistan! And why is baseball, coke, and the president, probable a bald eagle and the liberty bell too, saying I’m “Jim Crow on steroids” and if I want to say otherwise, I have to prove things with evidence that could only be provided by people who refuse to do their job? Because this is about cheating.

    You can’t just shift all the burden to ensure one side is protected, without permitting cheating that deprives the opposite side of its voice. That’s the problem. It’s not like permitting fraud in the city is harmless. Therefore, whatever burden you place on me, you must also satisfy. You have to prove there is absolutely no fraud. And we know that’s not true.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  329. nobody has yet provided evidence of serious issues involving fraud.

    Systemic bias in elections is not necessarily fraud. I’m sure you object to gerrymanders (or at least Repbulican ones) but would agree it’s not “fraud” but just a system where honest people produce a biased result because the game is rigged.

    Similarly, mailed ballots where the ONLY validation is a signature comparison to a file signature that may be decades old can produce bias, if the rigor of the comparison differs among counties, and especially if that difference is coupled to the conservative/liberal axis.

    Further, even if not one fraudulent ballot is submitted, ballots that are excluded for a signature mismatch produce a bias. Even if all jurisdictions use identical comparison rules (and they don’t) this will happen more often the older the file signature is, discriminating against older (and often more conservative) voters.

    The addition of a confirming piece of information, such as an ID number (or really any information separate from address) would reduce the number of discarded yet valid ballots, and that improves election integrity to the degree there are a lot of mailed ballots.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  330. @330, AB voting with a very good reason and at will AB voting are clearly different things. It’s dishonest to pretend otherwise positions you to argue against a point I don’t see anyone making.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  331. This is why Biden is a failure as a uniter. I have no interest in compromise solutions, if such an effort as we see in Georgia (a massive compromise from what conservatives actually want) leads to “Jim crow on steroids” hardball division.

    Is it easy to vote in Georgia? Obviously yes. Therefore, any disparate impact is a reflection of apathy, which I doubt really follows racial lines, but if it does, it is not the people insisting on racial lines everywhere to solve.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  332. Ex-Trump official penalized for violating Hatch Act

    This is one of those laws that is only occasionally prosecuted. Every president, for example, makes campaign-related calls from the Oval Office. Congressfolk do it all the time. Most of the time no one cares.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  333. @335. No; successful politics is the art of compromise: ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable’ — the conservative Republican credo- is not; so aptly demonstrated over the year by ‘just say no’ McConnell.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  334. ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable’

    That is definitely the attitude received when you read the Georgia law, which makes it easy for anyone to vote, frankly is wildly too far of a compromise only rivaled by Stacey’s 2020 COVID emergency ‘just this once’ court ordered ‘law’. That Biden’s calling folks like me “Jim Crow 2.0” and the burden of proof is a never ending shifting burden, always against me always for the democrats, I think the only correct answer is to absolish absentee voting.

    These efforts prove absentee voting as a concept cannot work. There is simply no effort at good faith. Cheating will always be ignored, and the fact it was ignored will be cited as proof there was no cheating.

    And honestly, you could staight up impose poll taxes and literacy tests. What are the democrats going to do? Call that Jim Crow and demand boycotts? So what? The divisive fight is at max already so really, so what?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  335. ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable’

    That is definitely the attitude received when you read the Georgia law, which makes it easy for anyone to vote, frankly is wildly too far of a compromise only rivaled by Stacey’s 2020 COVID emergency ‘just this once’ court ordered ‘law’. That Biden’s calling folks like me “Jim Crow 2.0″ and the burden of proof is a never ending shifting burden, always against me always for the democrats, I think the only correct answer is to absolish absentee voting.

    These efforts prove absentee voting as a concept cannot work. There is simply no effort at good faith. Cheating will always be ignored, and the fact it was ignored will be cited as proof there was no cheating.

    And honestly, you could staight up impose poll taxes and literacy tests. What are the democrats going to do? Call that Jim Crow and demand boycotts? So what? The divisive fight is at max already so really, so what?

    Dustin (4237e0) — 4/6/2021 @ 11:04 am

    I’m sorry you feel this way. I agree that calling this Jim Crow on steroids is a gross exaggeration. I do still think that the burden of proof should always be on the person who wants to limit the exercise of a basic right, and that when data shows we can exercise our rights without harm we should be free to do so.

    I don’t see any evidence that cheating was ignored. In GA they made a strong push to look for cheating in AB and weren’t able to find any. They found what the thought was cheating, but upon further investigation turned out not to be. That alone shows that they check was finding signatures that didn’t match.

    I provided other links that show that cheating has been found, but there are few examples of it on in the 10’s or hundreds of votes. This is a far cry from ignored.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  336. 327. Rip Murdock (35fa71) — 4/6/2021 @ 9:18 am

    The 59-year-old Republican got the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine last Thursday, but since full protection doesn’t kick in until after the second dose, he would have still been vulnerable to infection.

    The first dose gives you about 80% or more of the protection that you would get after a second dose, but the effect is not immmediate It takes around 10 to 14 days (or whatever) for the protection to kick in.

    still vulnerable

    Still???

    He was mpre vulnerable!

    The word “still” is wrong. Getting a vaccination makes you more vulnerable to Covid in the present or immediate future because now the body is fighting a false alarm as well as the genuine infection.

    The tipping point where you benefit from the vaccine rather than lose is probably a minimum of 2 or 3 days after getting the injection.

    They are not supposed to give you the vaccine if you know you are currently infected. It’s not a cure – it’s a prevention,

    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html

    Can I get vaccinated against COVID-19 while I am currently sick with COVID-19?

    No. People with COVID-19 who have symptoms should wait to be vaccinated until they have recovered from their illness and have met the criteria for discontinuing isolation; those without symptoms should also wait until they meet the criteria before getting vaccinated. This guidance also applies to people who get COVID-19 before getting their second dose of vaccine.

    Now lets’s see:

    The Billings Gazette reports that he developed symptoms on Sunday after attending Easter services, tested positive on Monday, and will now quarantine for 10 days. It’s not clear how he contracted the virus or if he has infected others, but six members of the state legislature have also tested positive since January.

    He probably got infected before getting the vaccine, and the vaccine made his infection more serious.
    >>>>>>>>
    He should have listened to Sarah Palin.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  337. Victor (4959fb) — 4/6/2021 @ 9:25 am

    I am still stuck on the fact that although Republicans can come up with numerous potential means of fraud they still can’t, despite extensive efforts and research, point to actual examples of significant voter fraud in practice, of the types that are the current worry.

    There’s a reason it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen any more than the teller at the bank cheats you of money or the cashier at the grocery store doesn’t shortchange you. If it was tried more than extremely rarely, it couldn’t continue.

    The Georgia bill doesn’t make voting impossible. Neither did the poll tax. It just makes it more difficult. And for one political party today that appears to be enough.

    It makes it slightly more difficult to “get out the vote” in urban counties and easier in rural counties.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  338. What did Sarah Palin say?

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  339. * the cashier at the grocery shortchanges you.

    Why this doesn’t happen.

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4)

  340. Time,

    I am not sure what the difference between AB with a reason and AB at will is in terms of the issue of election security which seems to be the ostensible basis for the new voting rules being put in place. I agree that if you are dead set on only providing AB for a “good reason” you’re forced to institute controls that ensure that people have good enough reasons. But if you give up on that quest, then making sure that the resulting ballots are valid would seem to be about the same. What am I missing?

    Dustin. I am not saying that you are Jim Crow. You’re probably a perfectly nice guy. I am saying that the Georgia Bill you support, and the 400+ other measures being introduced in Republican legislatures are a continuation of the history of Jim Crow, which include using ostensibly neutral rules to ensure parts of the population find it difficult to vote.

    Though it’s true this sentence of yours:

    And honestly, you could staight up impose poll taxes and literacy tests. What are the democrats going to do? Call that Jim Crow and demand boycotts? So what? The divisive fight is at max already so really, so what?

    kind of gives me pause.

    Victor (4959fb)

  341. I’m sorry you feel this way. I agree that calling this Jim Crow on steroids is a gross exaggeration. I do still think that the burden of proof should always be on the person who wants to limit the exercise of a basic right, and that when data shows we can exercise our rights without harm we should be free to do so.

    I don’t see any evidence that cheating was ignored. In GA they made a strong push to look for cheating in AB and weren’t able to find any. They found what the thought was cheating, but upon further investigation turned out not to be. That alone shows that they check was finding signatures that didn’t match.

    I provided other links that show that cheating has been found, but there are few examples of it on in the 10’s or hundreds of votes. This is a far cry from ignored.

    Time123 (d1bf33) — 4/6/2021 @ 11:34 am

    Just a week or so ago you were talking about astronomically taxing bullets to hinder the 2nd Amendment. How do you square that with your claim above?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  342. What did Sarah Palin say?

    Sammy Finkelman (6975b4) — 4/6/2021 @ 12:03 pm

    See post 35.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  343. Know your American language:

    Hard-bitten
    adjective
    Able to withstand hardship, strain, or exposure.

    Now, I’ve seen it written “hard-bitted” from a 100 years ago, but I don’t rightly see that it matters much — a bit is the part of a bridle that goes in the horse’s mouth and a horse is said to have a “hard mouth” when it can resist the reins and let’s not forget “take the bit between its teeth” — it comes down to the same thing in the end.

    nk (1d9030)


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