#Democratic Party of Arkansas

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

An Arkansas lawmaker shocked onlookers this week when he asked a transgender health care professional about her genitals at a hearing on a bill that would prohibit gender-affirming care for minors.

Gwendolyn Herzig, a pharmacist who is a trans woman, was testifying Monday in support of the treatment for minors during a state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“You said that you’re a trans woman?” Republican state Sen. Matt McKee asked Herzig. “Do you have a penis?”

The audience erupted, with some audibly gasping and at least one person shouting, "Disgraceful."

"That's horrible," Herzig said, after taking a few moments to gather herself. "I don't know what my rights are, but that question was horribly inappropriate."

Herzig, who holds a doctorate of pharmacy, then added: "I'm a health care professional, a doctor. Please treat me as such. Next question, please."

Herzig said she went into Monday's hearing hoping that Republican lawmakers would be receptive to hearing her perspective as a trans woman and a health professional.

"Any other question I was expecting other than what I got," Herzig, 33, said in a phone interview with NBC News. "It was probably the most publicly humiliating thing I've ever gone through."

McKee did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment.

The exchange prompted outrage on social media from trans activists and the state's Democrats.

"Absolutely sickening," Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, wrote on Twitter. "Arkansas State senator Matt McKee asked a trans person at a legislative hearing 'do you have a penis?' Does this State Senator have any basic human decency?"

The Democratic Party of Arkansas tweeted, "Republicans are not hiding their transphobia."

The legislation, S.B. 199, introduced in the Arkansas Senate this month, would prohibit physicians in the state from providing most types of gender-affirming care to minors, including prescribing puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy, or from performing transition-related surgeries.

It would also allow anyone in the state who has received gender-affirming care as a minor to file a malpractice lawsuit against physicians for up to 30 years after they turn 18.

More than a dozen major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, support the treatments that would be barred if the bill becomes law.

In 2021, Arkansas became the first state to ban gender-affirming care for minors, but a federal judge temporarily blocked the law. The 2021 legislation largely mirrors the bill introduced this year.

Five other states have enacted similar forms of the legislation, including South Dakota, whose Governor signed a measure into law on Monday.

Less than two months into 2023, lawmakers in at least 24 states, including Arkansas, have introduced legislation that would restrict transition-related care for minors, according to an NBC News analysis.

S.B. 199 advanced through Arkansas' Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, and it is expected to pass through the state Senate in upcoming weeks.

After testifying, Herzig said she defiantly sat through the rest of the hearing before heading back to work at the pharmacy she owns, Park West Pharmacy in Little Rock, the state capital.

As video of her exchange with McKee spreads on social media, Herzig said, "Going viral, I guess, is OK."

"I really just hope it just shows people that there's people like me who want to stand up and that there are people who want to make sure there are access to resources," she added.

[thenewdemocratus]

Movie Clips: Primary Colors (1998)

. Source:The Daily Press I saw the movie Primary Colors in the spring of 1998. Doesn’t seem that long ago, but that’s a different story with a long time friend of mine from high school who’ll go nameless. And we saw it for free because my friend worked at a movie theater, one of the few perks of being friends of him. And I looked forward to seeing this movie, because it reminded me of a real life…

[1900scartoons]

A Rolling Stone - That Is Gathering Moss

May 22, 1906

Rolling through the Political Field, William Jennings Bryan gathers Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky.

The three states Democratic Conventions had endorsed Bryan for President in 1908.

See Also: William Jennings Bryan

From Hennepin County Library

Original available at: https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/Bart/id/5337/rec/146

[what-even-is-thiss]

Most people end up sticking with some version of their parents political beliefs no matter where they are on the political spectrum.

This has made me wonder if I’m a socialist just because my dad is. But every time I do my own research I’m like yeah that makes sense.

I do also wonder how many people my age on the other end of the political spectrum think that too.

Stuff like this is part of the reason that deep down I think my political stance is an issue by issue and candidate by candidate thing.

Political parties are stupid. But when you live in a country that has two one ends up being the restrict political freedoms and public safety party and the other becomes the everyone else party.

Democrats in truth aren’t the republicans no matter how much people say they are. But when a party is the “everyone else” party it’s difficult to say who’s interests they have in mind at any given moment.

Generally I’d say I have more in common with a nobody gun owning Republican from nowhere Arkansas than either of us have in common with his congressman. But because of the labels of political parties we’re not really allowed to discuss all that.

I’ve met plenty of republicans who are in truth decent folks and have a lot in common with me when it comes to a lot of things. They were just raised republicans/conservatives and stayed that way.

Decent, intelligent, normal folks also get radicalized into various pipelines in various parts of the political landscape. Loneliness, internalized bigotry they previously tried to fight, the need for simple answers.

It’s difficult to sympathize sometimes. Especially when people are trying to hurt you. But sometimes I look at these people on the news and think something along the lines of. That’s somebody’s father. I wonder if their kids love them as much as I love my father. I wonder if he’s a good dad. Or if he used to be. I wonder if his kids see people like me and my father on the news and wonder the same things about us.

[reasonsforhope]

"Two years ago, the biggest battles in state legislatures were over voting rights. Democrats loudly — and sometimes literally — protested as Republicans passed new voting restrictions in states like Georgia, Florida and Texas. This year, attention has shifted to other hot-button issues, but the fight over the franchise has continued. Republicans have enacted dozens of laws this year that will make it harder for some people to vote in future elections. 

But this year, voting-rights advocates got some significant wins too: States — controlled by Democrats and Republicans — have enacted more than twice as many laws expanding voting rights as restricting them, although the most comprehensive voter-protection laws passed in blue states. In all, 39 states and Washington, D.C., have changed their election laws in some way this year...

Where voting rights were expanded in 2023 (so far)

Unlike two years ago, though, we’d argue that the bigger story of this year’s legislative sessions was all the ways states made it easier to vote. As of July 21, according to the Voting Rights Lab, [which runs an excellent and completely comprehensive tracker of election-related bills], 834 bills had been introduced so far this year expanding voting rights, and 64 had been enacted. What’s more, these laws are passing in states of all hues.

Democratic-controlled jurisdictions (Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island and Washington) enacted 33 of these new laws containing voting-rights expansions, but Republican-controlled states (Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming) were responsible for 23 of them. The remaining eight became law in states where the two parties share power (Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia).

That said, not all election laws are created equal, and the most comprehensive expansive laws passed in blue states. For example: 

New Mexico adopted a major voting-rights package that will automatically register New Mexicans to vote when they interact with the state’s Motor Vehicle Division, allow voters to request absentee ballots for all future elections without the need to reapply each time and restore the right to vote to felons who are on probation or parole. The law also allows Native Americans to register to vote and receive ballots at official tribal buildings and makes it easier for Native American officials to get polling places set up in pueblos and on tribal land.

Minnesota followed suit with a law also establishing automatic voter registration and a permanent absentee-voting list. The act allows 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote too. Meanwhile, a separate new law also reenfranchises felons on probation or parole.

Michigan enacted eight laws implementing a constitutional amendment expanding voting rights that voters approved last year. Most notably, the laws guarantee at least nine days of in-person early voting and allow counties to offer as many as 29. The bills also allow voters to fix mistakes on their absentee-ballot envelopes so that their ballot can still count, track the status of their ballot online, and use student, military and tribal IDs as proof of identification. 

Connecticut became the sixth state to enact a state-level voting-rights act, which bars municipalities from discriminating against minority groups in voting, requires them to provide language assistance to certain language minority groups and requires municipalities with a record of voter discrimination to get preclearance before changing their election laws. The Nutmeg State also approved 14 days of early voting and put a constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot that would legalize no-excuse absentee voting.

No matter its specific provisions, each of these election-law changes could impact how voters cast their ballots in future elections, including next year’s closely watched presidential race. There’s a good chance your state amended its election laws in some way this year, so make sure you double-check the latest rules in your state before the next time you vote."

-via FiveThirtyEight (via FutureCrunch), July 24, 2023

[linestorm]

pro tip for my american followers thinking about the fuckery next year will bring, i offer u one strategic move in your repertoire, that u may not know about:

some states have open presidential primaries. that means you can vote in the republican primary even if you're registered as a democrat. when you show up to your polling place, they will simply ask you which ballot u want:

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin

~*~you are totally allowed to vote for a republican that is not trump in the republican primary just to get him off the ballot~*~ -- **even if you wouldn't be caught dead voting for that same person in the general election**.

you can only vote in one primary, so if the democratic primary heats up and you want to vote in that one, then by all means go ahead, you can literally change your mind as you wait in line to vote if you want. but if not, STILL SHOW UP TO VOTE AND TAKE THE REPUBLICAN BALLOT (if you're in an open state)

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SIT AROUND AND WATCH THE REPUBLICANS PUT TRUMP ON THE GENERAL BALLOT AGAIN! VOTE HIS ASS OFF THE ISLAND

**this doesn't mean you endorse a republican candidate in any way. it just means you recognize that trump poses a unique threat. **

ALSO some states have open presidential primaries for unaffiliated voters. meaning if you're registered unaffiliated you can vote in either primary (but if you're registered with a party u can only vote in that party's primary):

Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Wyoming

OPEN-PRIMARIES | HOME (openprimaries.org)

[madamepestilence]

USA: VOTE IN YOUR 2024 PRIMARY ELECTION NOW

Heya folks, if you live in the US, your time to vote is coming up NOW

You may be recommended to vote Uncommitted to show you don't support Biden, but there's a MUCH better alternative! Primary elections determine what presidents will be eligible for ballot during the presidential election!

Get Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D. on your presidential ballots for November by voting for Cornel West (write it specifically as Cornel West, don't include his title) in your primary elections!

Unfamiliar with Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D.? As a TLDR, Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D. is the most vocal presidential candidate speaking explicitly for a free Palestine, not a false, "two-state," solution, and is seeking to significantly improve the quality of life for Americans, and is a real socialist philosopher, unlike poseur Bernie Sanders.

Learn more here: A video essay I made about the 2024 US election, a detailed Tumblr thread I made about it, Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D.'s official presidential platform

Note: Dr. Jill Stein is just a backup - please vote for Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D.. Claudia de la Cruz is not a viable option, as information has come out that her party, the PSL, has a Conservative 5th Column, and has frequent discrimination issues.

Upcoming voting dates:

(Includes US territories and abroad. Listed alphabetically.)

Primary Elections

Caucus Election? Check follow up post.

Alabama (D/R): Mar 5 Alaska (D): Apr 6 Arizona (D/R): Mar 19 Arkansas (D/R): Mar 5 California (D/R): Mar 5 Colorado (D/R): Mar 5 Connecticut (D/R): Apr 2 Delaware (D/R): Apr 2 Democrats Abroad: Mar 12 District of Columbia (D): Jun 4 District of Columbia (R): Mar 3 Florida (D/R): Mar 19 Georgia (D/R): Mar 12 Illinois (D/R): Mar 19 Indiana (D/R): May 7 Kansas (D/R): Mar 19 Kentucky (D/R): May 21 Louisiana (D/R): Mar 23 Maine (D/R): Mar 5 Maryland (D/R): May 14 Massachusetts (D/R): Mar 5 Michigan (D/R): Feb 27 Minnesota (D/R): Mar 5 Mississippi (D/R): Mar 12 Missouri (D): Mar 23 Montana (D/R): Jun 4 Nebraska (D/R): May 14 New Hampshire (D/R): Jan 23 New Jersey (D/R): Jun 4 New Mexico (D/R): Jun 4 New York (D/R): Apr Nevada (D): Feb 6 North Carolina (D/R): Mar 5 North Dakota (D): Mar 30 Northern Mariana (D): Mar 12 Ohio (D/R): Mar 19 Oklahoma (D/R): Mar 5 Oregon (D/R): May 21 Pennsylvania (D/R): Apr 23 Puerto Rico (D): Apr 28 Puerto Rico (R): Apr 21 Rhode Island (D/R): Apr 2 South Carolina (D): Feb 3 South Carolina (R): Feb 24 South Dakota (D/R): Jun 4 Tennessee (D/R): Mar 5 Texas (D/R): Mar 5 Utah (D): Mar 5 Vermont (D/R): Mar 5 Virginia (D/R): Mar 5 Washington (D/R): Mar 12 West Virginia (D/R): May 14 Wisconsin (D/R): Apr 2

[tomorrowusa]

Oklahoma is not exactly a friendly place for LGBTQ+ Americans. Though some residents are pushing back against the culture of hatred.

Dozens of students at an Oklahoma high school walked out in a peaceful demonstration on Monday to show support for the LGBTQ+ community after the death of a non-binary teenager following a fight in a school bathroom in which they said they were a target of bullying. Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old student who identified as non-binary and used they/them pronouns, died on 8 February after a “physical altercation” with classmates in the bathroom of Owasso high school, according to local law enforcement. Body camera footage later released by police showed Benedict describing the altercation with three girls who were picking on them and some friends. At least 40 students at Owasso high school walked out to protest what they described as a pervasive culture of bullying with little accountability, NBC reported. “I just want to get the word out and show these kids that we’re here,” Cassidy Brown, a Owasso graduate and organizer of the demonstration, told KTUL. “There is a community here in this city that does exist, and we see them, and they are loved.” Vigils have been held in honor of Benedict across Oklahoma and the country, including on Sunday night when hundreds gathered at Redbud Festival Park in Owasso for the teen. Many of the gatherings were organized by LGBTQ+ groups to protest against the frequent bullying suffered by nonbinary teens. “Our children are scared to death and go to school every day, and something has to stop,” one Owasso parent, Susie Eubank, said. “My child has had direct threats. Direct derogatory names.”

The Oklahoma state government is completely controlled by Republicans. On a federal level, both of Oklahoma's US senators and all five of its US House members are Republicans.

One GOP Oklahoma state senator is trying to outdo Trump's "vermin" talk and Ron DeSantis's "don't say gay" persecutions.

State senator 'stands by' beliefs after calling LGBTQ+ Oklahomans 'filth'

Days after calling LGBTQ+ Oklahomans "filth," a state senator issued a statement on his comments, saying he stands by what he said. State Sen. Tom Woods is facing growing public outcry and even scrutiny from those within his own Republican Party. Senate leadership called Woods' comments "reprehensible" and "horrifying." But the state senator from eastern Oklahoma has not apologized and appears to be doubling down. “We are a Republican state – supermajority – in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma," Woods said, referring to the LGBTQ+ community during a public event last week. The comments came after an audience member asked Woods about legislation targeting the LGBTQ+ community. The audio was recorded by the Tahlequah Daily Press. "We are a religious state, and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma, because we are a Christian state. We are a moral state," Woods said.

Yep. Tom Woods defends his extreme homophobic hate speech by referring to Oklahoma as a "Republican state" and a "Christian state". Allowing Republicans to get elected by failing to vote or by wasting votes on third parties empowers hatemongers like Tom Woods.

This is Oklahoma State Senate District 4. It sits along the state's eastern border. It looks like there's not a single notable town in the entire district. Does a tiny suburb of Fort Smith, Arkansas count?

It would probably be difficult to defeat an asshole like Woods in such a district. But electing Democrats in more swing districts would reduce the influence of politicians like Woods.

Look up who represents you in your state legislature – regardless of state. If it's a MAGA Republican extremist, contact your county or state Democratic Party to find out what you can do to help retire the individual.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

[kemetic-dreams]

First Afro-American ran for US President

“George Edwin Taylor ran for president a long time before Barack Obama.”

“Born in the pre-Civil War South to a mother who was free and a father who was enslaved, George Edwin Taylor would become the first African American selected by a political party to be its candidate for the presidency of the United States.

Taylor was born on August 4, 1857 in Little Rock, Arkansas to Amanda Hines and Bryant (Nathan) Taylor. At the age of two, George Taylor moved with his mother from Arkansas to Illinois. When Amanda died a few years later, George fended for himself until arriving in Wisconsin by paddleboat in 1865. Raised in and near La Crosse by a politically active African family, he attended Wayland University in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin from 1877 to 1879, after which he returned to La Crosse where he went to work for the La Crosse Free Press and then the La Crosse Evening Star. During the years 1880 to 1885 he produced newspaper columns for local papers as well as articles for the Chicago Inter Ocean.

Taylor's newspaper work brought him into politics--especially labor politics. He sided with one of the competing labor factions in La Crosse and helped re-elect the pro-labor mayor, Frank "White Beaver" Powell, in 1886. In the months that followed, Taylor became a leader and office holder in Wisconsin's statewide Union Labor Party, and his own newspaper, the Wisconsin Labor Advocate, became one of the newspapers of the party.

In 1887 Taylor was a member of the Wisconsin delegation to the first national convention of the Union Labor Party, which met in Ohio in April, and refocused his newspaper on national political issues. As his prominence increased, his race became an issue, and Taylor responded to the criticism by increasingly writing about African American issues. Sometime in 1887 or 1888 his paper ceased publication.

In 1891 Taylor moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa where he continued his interest in politics, first in the Republican Party and then with the Democrats. While in Iowa Taylor owned and edited the Negro Solicitor, and became president of the National Colored Men's Protective Association (an early civil rights organization) and the National Negro Democratic League, an organization of Africans within the Democratic Party. From 1900 to 1904 he aligned himself with the Populist faction that attempted to reform the Democratic Party.

Taylor and other independent-minded African Americans in 1904 joined the first national political party created exclusively for and by Africans, the National Liberty Party (NLP). The Party met at its national convention in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904 with delegates from thirty-six states. When the Party's candidate for president ended up in an Illinois jail, the NLP Executive Committee approached Taylor, asking him to be the party's candidate.

While Taylor's campaign attracted little attention, the Party's platform had a national agenda: universal suffrage regardless of race; Federal protection of the rights of all citizens; Federal anti-lynching laws; additional African regiments in the U.S. Army; Federal pensions for all former slaves; government ownership and control of all public carriers to ensure equal accommodations for all citizens; and home rule for the District of Columbia.

Taylor's presidential race was quixotic. In an interview published in The Sun (New York, November 20, 1904), he observed that while he knew whites thought his candidacy was a "joke," he believed that an independent political party that could mobilize the African American vote was the only practical way that blacks could exercise political influence. On election day, Taylor received a scattering of votes.

The 1904 campaign was Taylor's last foray into politics. He remained in Iowa until 1910 when he moved to Jacksonville. There he edited a succession of newspapers and was director of the African American branch of the local YMCA. He was married three times but had no children. George Edwin Taylor died in Jacksonville on December 23, 1925.”

Above written source=

George Edwin Taylor - 2014 - Question of the Month - Jim Crow Museum

The Brother tried and I knew all the Afro-Americans couldn't vote for him because voter suppression .

[nansheonearth]

For those of you in a red state, will you be voting in the primaries?

Alabama

Alaska

Arkansas

Idaho

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

West Virginia

Blue State Survey

Swing State Survey

Also want to know who you're voting for in these primaries.

Non usamericans I'd love to hear your opinions.

[mornington-the-crescent]

There Will Never Be Another Bill Clinton Or Barack Obama

As we enter into 2024, for what is bound to be a contentious election cycle, there is one simple fact that needs to be addressed: Never again will the Democrats have another Bill Clinton or Barack Obama; men who, however you feel about them, were nonetheless popular, capable of energizing a thoroughly demoralized and disinterested political base. We will never see their like again.

A Brief Background

For the much of the 20th century, the Democrats and Republicans would trade the White House back and forth every eight years; there were a few outliers to be sure, but for the most part, if a Democrat just finished eight years in office, you could expect a Republican the next time around, and vice versa. Round and round the electoral carousel would go, and in 1980, one Ronald Reagan got his chance to ride it, in one of the largest landslides in United States electoral history. In 1984, he won again, by an even larger margin this time. And as 1988 rolled around, there were likely many on both sides who expected a Republican to get off the carousel, and for a Democrat to get on.

That didn't happen.

In 1988, Reagan's Vice President, George Bush (the first one) absolutely trounced Democrat Mike Dukakis. This had not happened in a non-wartime setting since the 20's: Two Presidents in a row belonging to the same political party. It was then that the Democrats had their "Come to Jesus" moment. What worked in the past clearly wasn't going to work the next time around. They needed something new, something fresh. And that something was the governor of the state of Arkansas, a man named William Jefferson Clinton.

Bill Clinton

Clinton did not come from a Washington background. He was a political outsider, young and charismatic. He had a movement and a message. He was a genius at political fundraising. People were, for the first time in a long time, excited to vote for a candidate. And Clinton won handily in 1992, unseating an incumbent President, something that rarely ever happened. He won again in 1996, by a larger margin than he had the first time.

America was riding high as the 90's drew to a close, and much of that, rightly or not, was attributed to Clinton. And as the 2000 election loomed on the horizon, the Democrats needed to pick his replacement. And who did they choose? Albert Gore, Jr.

Whereas Clinton was viewed as a young upstart when he made his run, Gore was very much a name in Washington even before he was chosen to be Clinton's running mate. He had served in Congress for almost two decades by that point, and was the son of a prominent politician who had also served for several decades. Whereas Clinton was viewed as hip and charismatic, Gore had a reputation for being stuffy, often described as being robotic. And which is more, Gore tried during his run to distance himself from Clinton; while it seemed like a good idea to distance yourself from someone who is mired in scandal, it likely hurt Gore's odds to distance himself from the man who many, rightly or not, attributed the booming economy of the 90's to.

However you feel about what went down in 2000, George W. Bush became the President. He won again in 2004, defeating John Kerry, another man who had a long history in politics, and whom voters were hardly excited for. What worked in the past clearly wasn't going to work the next time around. They needed something new, something fresh. And that something was a freshman senator from Illinois, a man named Barack Hussein Obama.

Barack Obama

Obama did not come from a Washington background. He was a political outsider, young and charismatic. He had a movement and a message. He was a genius at political fundraising. People were, for the first time in a long time, excited to vote for a candidate. And he won handily in 2008, as many young people engaged with the political process for the first time. He won again in 2012; not by quite as wide a margin, but still quite comfortably so.

Young Americans were politically engaged. They felt hopeful for the future, ready to keep the Hope and Change train rolling. And as the 2016 election loomed on the horizon, the Democrats needed to pick his replacement. And who did they choose? Hillary Clinton.

Obama had been a fresh face in the political scene; Hillary Clinton had been in the public eye in a national political sense since the early 90's. Obama was viewed as fresh and new; Clinton was famous for her scandals, and for being tied to the scandals of her husband. Obama was charismatic; Clinton was viewed as being radically out of touch with anyone who wasn't a coastal elite. Whereas Obama had a movement and a message behind his campaign and his terms in office, Clinton had nothing beyond "First Woman President" and "It's My Turn, Goddammit". Even when the primary voters did not want her, the Democratic National Committee made sure that her name was on the ballot in November; the Establishment wanted an Establishment candidate.

The Republicans, meanwhile, chose Donald J. Trump: A political outsider with a movement and a message, a singularity of charisma, who was a genius at political fundraising. However you feel about what went down in 2016, Trump became the President. The next several years were marked with conflict, but also with a booming economy. Trump had a deeply loyal base, and was viewed as someone who could fight the corruption in Washington. As 2020 reared its head, the Democrats needed someone who could take on this titan. And who did they pick? Joe Biden.

Joe Biden

If Hillary Clinton was Establishment, Joe Biden was

ESTABLISHMENT,

bold, italicized, triple-underlined, with the "E" in 72-point font. This was a man who had been in professional politics for half a century at that point. He was wildly unpopular, with all the personal charisma of a wet dishrag. He rambled incoherently, reminding many of nothing quite so much as a dementia patient. He was confrontational with potential voters, he often made casually racist remarks, his prior run for President in 1988 was derailed due to scandal. There was not a single person who was excited about the idea of a Biden White House.

This time, the Democrats tried a different strategy: Rather than giving you reasons to vote for Biden, they instead went whole hog on why you should vote against Trump: Trump was a fascist, Trump was a racist, if Trump was elected to a second term then everyone in America who wasn't a straight white Christian male would be rounded up and summarily executed. For months and months on end, "Vote Blue No Matter Who" was the rallying cry, accompanied by wild, apocalyptic predictions about a second term of Trump.

"Who cares if you don't like Biden?" was the message, "You NEED to vote for him! Or else you are literally voting for genocide!"

"Who cares if you don't like Biden?" was the message, "You NEED to vote for him! Or else there will be right-wing death squads!"

"Who cares if you don't like Biden?" was the message, "You NEED to vote for him! Or else it will be literally the end of human civilization!"

However you feel about what went down in 2020, Biden was now in the White House. And the political future of the Democratic Party was now carved in stone.

What If...?

Imagine a world where Trump got a second term in 2020. As 2024 rolled around, the Democrats would have to have another "Come to Jesus" moment, lest the Republicans gain another term in office. They would need to find another young, charismatic political outsider with a movement and a message, someone who could energize a thoroughly demoralized and disinterested voter base. Someone that people would be excited to vote for.

But what 2020 proved to the DNC, beyond all doubt, is that they don't need to do that anymore. They have found a strategy that works, regardless of who they're running. The days of the Outsider, wild and unpredictable, are over. No longer will somebody come from the outside, promising to upset the apple cart. The Establishment will only entrench itself further, putting up candidates that nobody, outside of a small cabal of Beltway insiders, actually wants. All they need to do is proclaim, evidence optional, that the Other Guy is actively and willfully malicious, that the entire Republican Party actively and willfully wants to murder anyone Different, and that the only way to Save Humanity is to Vote Blue No Matter Who. This is the Most Important Election In History, they say. If you don't Vote Blue, then there will Never Be Elections Again. It will be the End Of The World. There will be triple-Nazis goose-stepping down every Main Street in America before the ink on the ballots is even dry.

You will never see another progressive, liberal Democrat get within a country mile of the White House ever again. You will get what the DNC wants, and you will just have to live with that.

There will never be another Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, ever again.

And it is your fault.

[gwydionmisha]

Presidential Primaries are ongoing:

NOTE: There is now a call for people to vote "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary as a protest against Biden's Israel policy, I have voted that way in my up coming primary. The time to pressure Biden with your vote is now, not in November. The more of us who do this the more likely he'll actually do something.

North Dakota: (Republicans), 3/4/24

Alabama, Alaska (Republicans), Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa (Democrats), Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, American Samoa (Democrats): 3/5/24

Hawaii: (Democrats): 3/6/24

American Samoa (Republicans): 3/8/24

Know your state's schedule and where to vote. Make sure you and your friends are registered. If you are voting in person, plan how to get there.

If you live in an open primary state consider voting strategically. Otherwise, vote your heart in the primary. Remember how all those votes for Sanders and Warren pushed Biden and the party platform further left?

Remember to vote in all the races, not just the top of the ticket even if it's in a separate primary (as it is in my state). Who runs congress, your state, and your local government really matters. In some states this is a separate primary. Check the rules for your state.

Never, ever sleep on a chance to vote.

It is always better to vote for someone who will listen to us than to let someone who is actively trying to kill us.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

John Deering, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 24, 2024 (Sunday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 25, 2024

The Senate passed the appropriations bill shortly after midnight on Saturday morning, and President Joe Biden signed it Saturday afternoon. In his statement after he signed the bill, Biden was clear: “Congress’s work isn’t finished,” he said. “The House must pass the bipartisan national security supplemental to advance our national security interests. And Congress must pass the bipartisan border security agreement—the toughest and fairest reforms in decades—to ensure we have the policies and funding needed to secure the border. It’s time to get this done.”

House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has refused to bring forward the national security supplemental bill to fund Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and humanitarian aid to Gaza. He has also refused to bring forward the border security measure hammered out in the Senate after House Republicans demanded it and passed there on February 13. Johnson is doing the bidding of former president Trump, who opposes aid to Ukraine and border security measures. 

Congress is on break and will not return to Washington, D.C., until the second week in April. 

By then, political calculations may well have changed. 

MAGA Republicans appear to be in trouble.  

The House recessed on Friday for two weeks in utter disarray. On ABC News’s This Week, former representative Ken Buck (R-CO), who left Congress Friday, complained that House Republicans were focusing “on messaging bills that get us nowhere” rather than addressing the country’s problems. He called Congress “dysfunctional.” 

On Friday, NBC announced it was hiring former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst. Today the main political story in the U.S. was the ferocious backlash to that decision. McDaniel not only defended Trump, attacked the press, and gaslit reporters, she also participated in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

In an interview with Kristen Welker this morning on NBC’s Meet the Press—Welker was quick to point out that the interview had been arranged long before she learned of the hiring— McDaniel explained away her support for Trump’s promise to pardon those convicted for their participation in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by saying, “When you’re the RNC Chair, you kind of take one for the whole team.”

That statement encapsulated Trump Republicans. In a democracy, the “team” is supposed to be the whole country. But Trump Republicans like McDaniel were willing to overthrow American democracy so long as it kept them in power.  

That position is increasingly unpopular. Former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) wrote on social media: “Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot & his effort to pressure [Michigan] officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome. She spread his lies & called 1/6 ‘legitimate political discourse.’ That’s not ‘taking one for the team.’ It’s enabling criminality & depravity.”

McDaniel wants to be welcomed back into mainstream political discourse, but it appears that the window for such a makeover might have closed. 

In the wake of Trump’s takeover of the RNC, mainstream Republicans are backing away from the party. Today, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said she could not “get behind Donald Trump” and expressed “regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.” She did not rule out leaving the Republican Party.

In Politico today, a piece on Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, by Adam Wren also isolated Trump from the pre-2016 Republican Party. Pence appears to be trying to reclaim the mantle of that earlier incarnation of the party, backed as he is by right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow (who has funded Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over the years) and the Koch network. Wren’s piece says Pence is focusing these days on “a nonprofit policy shop aimed at advancing conservative ideals.” Wren suggested that Pence’s public split from Trump is “the latest sign that Trumpism is now permanently and irrevocably divorced from its initial marriage of convenience with…Reaganism.” 

Trump appears to believe his power over his base means he doesn’t need the established Republicans. But that power came from Trump’s aura of invincibility, which is now in very real crisis thanks to Trump’s growing money troubles. Tomorrow is the deadline for him to produce either the cash or a bond to cover the $454 million he owes to the people of the state of New York in fines and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains for fraud. 

Trump does not appear to have the necessary cash and has been unable to get a bond. He claims a bond of such size is “unprecedented, and practically impossible for ANY Company, including one as successful as mine," and that "[t]he Bonding Companies have never heard of such a bond, of this size, before, nor do they have the ability to post such a bond, even if they wanted to.” But Louis Jacobson of PolitiFact corrected the record: it is not uncommon for companies in civil litigation cases to post bonds of more than $1 billion.

Trump made his political career on his image as a successful and fabulously wealthy businessman. Today, “Don Poorleone” trended on X (formerly Twitter). 

The backlash to McDaniel’s hiring at NBC also suggests a media shift against news designed to grab eyeballs, the sort of media that has fed the MAGA movement. According to Mike Allen of Axios, NBC executives unanimously supported hiring McDaniel. A memo from Carrie Budoff Brown, who is in charge of the political coverage at NBC News, said McDaniel would help the outlet examine “the diverse perspectives of American voters.” This appears to mean she would appeal to Trump voters, bringing more viewers to the platform.  

But former Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd took a strong stand against adding McDaniel to a news organization, noting her “credibility issues” and that “many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting [and] character assassination.” 

This pushback against news media as entertainment recalls the 1890s, when American newspapers were highly partisan and gravitated toward more and more sensational headlines and exaggerated stories to increase sales. That publication model led to a circulation war between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal that is widely—and almost certainly inaccurately—blamed for pushing the United States into war with Spain in 1898. 

More accurate, though, is that the sensationalism of what was known as “yellow journalism” created a backlash that gave rise to new investigative journalism designed to move away from partisanship and explain clearly to readers what was happening in American politics and economics. In 1893, McClure’s Magazine appeared, offering in-depth examinations of the workings of corporations and city governments and launching a new era of reform. 

Three years later, publisher Adolph Ochs bought the New York Times and put up New York City’s first electric sign to advertise, in nearly 2,700 individual lights of red, white, blue, and green, that it would push back against yellow journalism by publishing “ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT.” Ochs added that motto to the masthead. With his determination to provide nonpartisan news without sensationalism, in just under 40 years, Ochs took over the paper from just over 20,000 readers to more than 465,000, and turned the New York Times into a newspaper of record.

In that era that looks so much like our own, the national mood had changed.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[foreverlogical]

● AK Ballot: Alaska voters made history in 2020 when they made their state the first in the nation to adopt a top-four primary with a ranked-choice general election, but conservatives tell the Alaska Beacon's James Brooks that they're close to qualifying a measure to repeal the system that would go before voters next year.

The campaign has until the start of the January legislative session to turn in about 27,000 valid signatures, a figure that represents 10% of the total number of votes that were cast in the most recent general election, and it must also hit certain targets in three-quarters of Alaska's 40 state House districts. One leader says that organizers have already gathered 30,000 petitions so far but will analyze them later to see if more are needed.

Under the current top-four system, all the candidates run on one primary ballot, and the four contenders with the most votes—regardless of party—advance to an instant-runoff general election. This method was first used last year in the special election to succeed the late GOP Rep. Don Young as Alaska's lone House member, a contest that ultimately saw Democrat Mary Peltola defeat former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin 51-49.

Conservatives both in Alaska and across the country were furious because Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich, outpaced Peltola by a combined 59-40 in the first round of tabulations. They blamed their surprise loss on instant-runoff voting rather than Palin's many failings or the Democrat's strengths.

"60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican," griped Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, "but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat 'won.'" But even without ranked-choice voting, Peltola still would have come in first, as she beat Palin 40-31. And since Begich took third with 28%, he may well still have lost a traditional primary to Palin had one been used.

Furthermore, a poll conducted right after the special by supporters of ranked-choice voting showed that Alaskans saw their new voting system as anything but "convoluted." Instead, 85% of respondents found it to be "simple," while 62% said they supported the new method.

Hard-right groups, though, soon had even more reasons to hate the new status quo. Thanks to the top-four system, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a rare Republican who's crossed party lines on high-profile votes, would no longer face what would almost certainly have been a tough GOP primary against Donald Trump's preferred candidate, former state cabinet official Kelly Tshibaka. (Murkowski famously lost her 2010 primary to a far-right foe but won the general through a write-in effort.)

Instead, Murkowski and Tshibaka easily advanced to the general election with Democrat Pat Chesbro and a little-known third Republican. Murkowski led Tshibaka 43.4-42.6 in the first round of general election tabulations, but the 10% of voters who supported Chesbro overwhelmingly broke for the incumbent and helped lift her to a 54-46 victory. Peltola also won her rematch with Palin 55-45 after initially leading her 49-26; unsurprisingly, both Palin and Tshibaka ardently back the effort to end the top-four system.

[berniesrevolution]

DISSENT MAGAZINE

Last summer, soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Kansans turned out in record numbers to reject a ballot amendment that would have stripped the right to abortion from the state’s constitution. The overwhelming “no” vote—59 to 41 percent—was followed by similarly promising results in the midterm elections. In November, voters in Michigan, California, and Vermont affirmed the right to legal abortion, and Kentuckians and Montanans rejected anti-abortion amendments. Support for abortion rights helped Democrats win up and down the ballot. Across the country, Americans asserted what advocates have known for years: if voters could decide, abortion would be legal.

These victories have been much celebrated—and for good reason. The amendments that enshrined legal abortion are helping women and pregnant people access lifesaving healthcare. They also demonstrate that Democrats can loudly endorse abortion rights and win. The unequivocal results from Kansas, Michigan, and Kentucky should theoretically offer cautionary tales for anti-abortion politicians: you’d think it would be difficult for an elected official to criminalize abortion and keep his seat.

But the way we lost Roe illustrates the limits of such wins. Back in 2011, Mississippi voters resoundingly—58 to 42 percent—rejected a statewide ballot amendment that would have defined personhood from the moment of conception. But the Republican legislature kept discussing bills designed to ban abortion and passing laws that made it more difficult for physicians to perform the procedure. In 2018, the state legislature passed a law banning abortion after fifteen weeks. Even though lower courts uniformly decided that the ban was unconstitutional, the Supreme Court took the case, and in June last year, the new conservative majority upheld the Mississippi law and overturned Roe. Three days later, the Mississippi attorney general certified the state’s trigger law, banning abortion in the state.

The implications are clear: minority rule is a major obstacle to ensuring abortion rights.

As Lisa Corrigan, an expert on social movements and Professor of Communication and Director of the Gender Studies Program at the University of Arkansas, said last year, “There are no minority rights when the minority rules. Restrictions on voting rights and erosion of freedom of speech are essential to state rule. . . . The political minority is where the authoritarian impulses find expression.” In other words, when officials can act without public approval, they can further disenfranchise people who already have less power, including women and Black voters.

Many Republican state lawmakers across the country are embracing openly undemocratic rhetoric and policy, including endorsing voter suppression laws. And since the 1990s, Republican operatives have become more strategic about gerrymandering political maps. These strategies, which they accelerated in 2010 and 2020 (pivotal redistricting years), have given white, rural voters and their chosen lawmakers disproportionate power in Congress and state legislatures, incentivizing Republican leadership in states like Mississippi to favor fringe partisans when they set their agendas. In states such as Florida and Ohio, it is now functionally impossible for voters to swing control of the state legislature from Republicans, at least in the near future. Meanwhile, in November, Democrats lost control of the House—and any possibility of codifying Roe in Congress—by seven seats, after Florida drew maps that enabled Republicans to pick up four new congressional seats and the Supreme Court blocked orders from lower courts to force Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana to draw new majority-Black districts to satisfy the Voting Rights Act.

At the same time, the Republican Party (with the assistance of the Federalist Society) has filled the federal judiciary and Supreme Court with unelected ideologues who hold lifetime appointments. Unless national Democratic leaders make dramatic changes to the Court and its authority, including expanding the number of justices, those judges are poised to spend decades setting national precedents by upholding laws enacted by semi-autocratic state governments.

(Continue Reading)

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Long read, but there's a lot of interesting stuff I never knew here. For instance, it's been against the law for the GOP to watch polls for the last 40 years.

Part of the reason Republicans hadn’t more effectively fought the election integrity battle before now is somewhat shocking. The 2020 contest was the first presidential election since Ronald Reagan’s first successful run in 1980 in which the Republican National Committee could play any role whatsoever in Election Day operations. For nearly 40 years, the Democratic National Committee had a massive systematic advantage over its Republican counterpart: The RNC had been prohibited by law from helping with poll watcher efforts or nearly any voting-related litigation.

Democrats had accused Republicans of voter intimidation in a 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial race. The case was settled, and the two parties entered into a court-ordered consent decree limiting Republican involvement in any poll-watching operation. But Dickinson Debevoise, the Jimmy Carter-appointed judge who oversaw the agreement, never let them out of it, repeatedly modifying and strengthening it at Democrats’ request.

Debevoise was a judge for only 15 years, but he stayed 21 years in senior status, a form of semi-retirement that enables judges to keep serving in a limited capacity. It literally took Debevoise’s dying in 2015 for Republicans to get out of the consent decree. Upon his passing, a new judge, appointed by President Obama, was assigned the case and let the agreement expire at the end of 2018.

Here are some other quotes about what's been done to secure elections since 2020

Before mounting successful lawsuits, however, better laws had to be passed — a difficult task in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, when Democrats claimed any criticism of how that election had been run was unacceptable and possibly criminal. That campaign, designed to suppress efforts to bolster election security, continues to this day. Nevertheless, Republican lawmakers in dozens of states began pushing for election reforms. 

For example, bans on so-called Zuckbucks, the private takeover of government election offices, were passed and signed into law in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Six Democrat governors vetoed attempted bans, understanding how key Zuckerberg’s funding was to Democrat success in 2020. The governors of Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all vetoed the bans. Wisconsin’s governor, currently in a tight election, vetoed twice. The Kansas legislature overrode the veto.

The resulting contrast between election integrity in some of these battleground states could not be clearer. Take Pennsylvania, for instance, a pivotal swing state where the Democrat governor vetoed the legislature’s attempted reforms. Its partisan Supreme Court meanwhile issues conflicting guidance, resulting in disparate treatment of ballots depending on the county they’re cast in. Elections here are high in irregularities and low in voter trust.

Meanwhile, the Foundation for Government Accountability worked with states to make policy changes to clean voter rolls, ban ballot trafficking, secure ballot custody, roll back Covid waivers, enact penalties for election lawbreakers, require chains of custody, secure drop boxes, pre-process absentee ballots, improve absentee voter ID, and dozens of other types of reforms.

Florida has been working steadily to improve its election system since the disastrous 2000 election. Last year, that meant banning Zuckbucks. This year, those changes included “requiring voter rolls to be annually reviewed and updated, strengthening ID requirements, establishing the Office of Election Crimes and Security to investigate election law violations, and increasing penalties for violations of election laws.”

And here's a few about litigation that's been going on

The RNC got involved in 73 election integrity cases in 20 states for the midterms, with plans to expand. They won a lawsuit against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for restricting the rights of poll challengers; got Maricopa County, Arizona, to share key data about its partisan breakdown of poll workers; won an open records lawsuit against Mercer County, New Jersey, for refusing to share election administration data; won a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections for restricting the rights of poll watchers; and reached a favorable settlement against Clark County, Nevada, in which the county agreed to share information about its partisan breakdown of poll workers on a rolling basis.

For instance, RITE sued over controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission guidance that conflicted with state law, telling election clerks to accept ballots that had been spoiled, and won the case. It was also part of the group that successfully sued Pennsylvania over whether ballots that failed to be dated, as required by state law, could be counted. 

Give the whole thing a read. And remember to get out and vote tomorrow