Voter Suppression & Election Theft by the Republican Party

[LFC]

Georgia passed its voter suppression laws and they've now caught the backlash from companies and MLB who believe in democracy and voting rights. Their response. "WAAAHHHH! CANCEL CULTURE!!!" Bonus points for using the word "woke." It's their magic amulets to avoid speaking about the details of their self-serving attacks on voting rights, especially for minorities. What a perfectly fascist strategy for hiding your crimes.

Republicans of all stripes are crying “cancel culture” after Major League Baseball commissioner Robert Manfred Jr. announced Friday that the All-Star Game would no longer take place in Atlanta following Georgia’s enactment of a new restrictive voter law.

The move comes amid demands that companies headquartered in Georgia denounce the legislation, with some calling for boycotts of those that don’t.

Atlanta won the bid to host the traditional Midsummer Classic back in 2019, a huge honor in the world of baseball which would have resulted in a sprawling, multi-day event with attractions across the city and a chance to show off the relatively new Truist Park stadium complex. The Atlanta Braves had been lobbying to host since 2017, when the stadium was built.

“Today, Major League Baseball caved to fear, political opportunism, and liberal lies” Gov. Brian Kemp (R) said in a statement. “Georgians — and all Americans — should fully understand what the MLB’s knee-jerk decision means: cancel culture and woke political activists are coming for every aspect of your life, sports included.”

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) also called for punishment.

Republican lawmakers outside of Georgia got in on the action as well.

The former chief of staff and campaign manager for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blamed the “woke mob.”

[LFC]

Texass is now taking a beating over their voter suppression efforts. Not that it will slow them down. They need to suppress the vote to retain power.

A pair of far-reaching elections bills that would make voting more difficult in Texas are attracting ire of the Lone Star State’s business community.

Airlines, some of which are headquartered or operate hubs in the state, have expressed discomfort with the bills, as have other companies with Texas ties.

Fort Worth-based American Airlines said that it was “strongly opposed” to both a bill that passed in the state Senate early Thursday morning and “others like it.”

The Senate bill takes aim at several ways Harris County — home to Houston — made voting easier in 2020, while imposing a polling place formula that will shift election sites out of urban areas. It also adds new mandates for those assisting voters who need help at the polls, and gives partisan poll watchers the OK to video record those voters while they’re at their voting station if the watcher thinks the assistance is “unlawful.”

A House bill with several similar provisions is making its way through committee this week.

Microsoft, which employs 1,500 Texans, called out the House election legislation for how it cracks down on election officials who encourage mail voting, and also said that the bill could criminalize “honest mistakes” made by volunteer poll workers.

Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies, also singled out the House legislation in a tweet on Thursday, when the bill’s committee hearing was getting underway.

[LFC]

Georgia's governor just flat out lied about MLBs stance on Republican voter suppression. What a shock.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Saturday accused Major League Baseball of submitting to “fear and lies” while depriving Georgians of a paycheck after it decided to pull its All-Star Game out of Atlanta over the state’s new voting law.

“Yesterday, Major League Baseball caved to fear and lies from liberal activists,” Kemp said at a news conference on Saturday. “In the middle of a pandemic, Major League Baseball put the wishes of Stacey Abrams and Joe Biden ahead of the economic well-being of hard-working Georgians who were counting on the All-Star Game for a paycheck.”

Trump is also whining, not that anybody is really listening anymore now that he's cut off from Twitter.

Former President Donald Trump called on his supporters to “boycott baseball” after the sport’s major league decided to move its All-Star game out of Atlanta in the wake of the state’s governor signing a new restrictive voting bill into law last week.

“Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans, and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the Radical Left Democrats who do not want voter I.D., which is desperately needed, to have anything to do with our elections,” Trump said in a statement released by Save America PAC.

“Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with Free and Fair Elections. Are you listening Coke, Delta, and all!” he added. The statement rebuking baseball and companies challenging the state’s overhaul of voting rights was first reported by The Hill.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is telling companies who are patriotic to hit the Republicans where it hurts, right in the campaign donations.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) on Thursday called on major businesses and organizations that oppose Georgia Republicans’ new sweeping restrictions on voting to hit the wallets of those directly responsible for the law.

“Corporations disgusted like we are with the disgraceful Voter Suppression bill should stop any financial support to Georgia’s Republican Party, which is abusing its power to make it harder for Americans to vote,” Ossoff told the National Review.

The Democratic senator spoke against calls for companies to yank their business from his state, including President Joe Biden’s endorsement of the Major League Baseball (MLB) organization potentially withdrawing its upcoming All-Star game from Atlanta.

“I absolutely oppose and reject any notion of boycotting Georgia,” Ossoff said. “Georgia welcomes business, investment, jobs, opportunity, and events. In fact, economic growth is driving much of the political progress we have seen here.”

There’s been a steady flow of businesses, including those based in Georgia like Coca-Cola and Delta, that have been publicly condemning the anti-voting law as voting rights advocates threaten to boycott companies that remain silent.

[LFC]

Useless lard bucket Chris Christie is back at it, lying and accusing Joe Biden of what the Republicans are doing. For the record he's all in on the Georgia voter suppression laws.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who recently became a member of the board of directors of the New York Mets, on Sunday took aim at President Biden by accusing the President of “lying” to the public about the restrictive provisions in the new Georgia voting law, following the Major League Baseball’s decision to relocate its All-Star Game out of Atlanta.

During a roundtable on ABC News on Sunday, Christie decried the move by the MLB that he characterized as a “symptom of what’s going on in our country right now.”

Christie defended the new Georgia voting legislation before railing against Biden for publicly condemning the law and throwing his support behind the MLB’s relocation of its All-Star Game, when asked to clarify what the MLB’s decision is a “symptom” of.

Christie failed to give a straightforward answer and insinuated that Biden supposedly stoked “a raging fire.”

“Politics need not be a raging fire that destroys everything in its path,” Christie said. “Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war, and we must reject a culture in which facts themselves are manipulated or made up.”

Christie then argued that Biden “broke his own rule,” appearing to refer to the President’s bipartisan messaging.

“Joe Biden’s broken his own rule, 84 days. And now, he’s lying to the American people,” Christie said. “He’s lying about this bill. He’s lying to the American people about it to cause the raging fire he said he was going to put out. I’m very disappointed.”

Christie was met with negative reactions during the rest of the roundtable discussion, but the former New Jersey governor doubled down on his rant against Biden by suddenly throwing his on-and-off ally former President Trump into the mix.

It's beyond irony that a person who was supporting Donald Trump and wanted to serve in his administration can say, with a straight face, "Politics need not be a raging fire that destroys everything in its path." He's right. It doesn't. It's just that his party decided that it should.

[LFC]

Obama is, as expected, standing up for democracy and voters' rights.

Former President Barack Obama on Saturday applauded Major League Baseball for “taking a stand on behalf of voting rights,” after it pulled its All-Star game from Atlanta in opposition to Georgia’s new restrictive voting law.

“Congratulations to @mlb for taking a stand on behalf of voting rights for all citizens,” Obama wrote in a tweet on Saturday morning.

[LFC]

A top Arizona Republican is defending their hiring of a company that pushed The Big Lie to "audit" the votes from Maricopa County only. (Anybody want to guess who THEY voted overwhelmingly for?) BTW there have already been two real audits and nothing was found.

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R) insists that “it was not a mistake” for state GOP senators to hire Cyber Ninjas, whose CEO Doug Logan had regurgitated the “Big Lie” that voter fraud engineered ex-President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat, to lead a supposedly independent audit of the election results in a county where Joe Biden beat Trump.

“Just because somebody found some tweet that’s within some archive program that none of us ever would have done it (the search) doesn’t mean anything,'” Fann told Capitol Media Services on Friday in an interview published Sunday. “Is no one allowed to say anything?'”

Yes, Karen (#howappropriate). People are allowed to say almost anything. You just can't expect to be taken seriously when you pull in a company with a clear partisan agenda and who has been proven twice to be WRONG for an "independent" audit. You might as well have brought in Kansas Kris Kobach to oversee it.

[LFC]

Moscow Mitch continues whining about corporations because they're not doing his bidding. MM isn't dumb and he sees a national uprising against Republican voter suppression, something that previously was only noticed by those who followed politics closely. Now it's being exposed in a very public way and that is NOT what the GOP wants. They know they can't debate their assault on voters' right on its merits because their strategy has no merits. It's simply a blatant power grab. Read this gag-inducing pile of hypocrisy. The turtle is becoming more and more shrill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Monday railed against the backlash from top businesses over Georgia Republicans’ suppressive voting law in wake of the Major League Baseball (MLB) organization’s decision to pull its All-Star Game out of Atlanta.

Having apparently become concerned about corporate influence on politics all of a sudden, McConnell complained in a statement that “we are witnessing a coordinated campaign by powerful and wealthy people to mislead and bully the American people.”

The GOP leader accused Democrats and the corporations of spreading “disinformation” about the law, which imposes new limits on absentee voting, amps up voter ID requirements, gives state legislators more say over election administration, and even makes it illegal to give food and water to people standing in long lines at polling places.

“It’s jaw-dropping to see powerful American institutions not just permit themselves to be bullied, but join in the bullying themselves,” McConnell complained.

The GOP leader also threatened corporations with “serious consequences” if they “become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order.”

“Businesses must not use economic blackmail to spread disinformation and push bad ideas that citizens reject at the ballot box,” he said.

[LFC]

The Republicans are in full-throated attack mode because companies are calling them out on their assault against voters' rights. Suck it up, buttercups. You earned this.

Republicans, typically vocal proponents of “letting the free market decide,” are throwing tantrums and calling for corporate boycotts after the free market decided to speak out against Georgia GOP lawmakers’ restrictive voting law.

Their fury is being directed primarily at Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, whose CEOs slammed the law last week. Conservatives have also railed against Major League Baseball (MLB) for yanking its All-Star game from Atlanta on Friday.

Now, Republicans are vowing to make baseball and soda feel their wrath.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) announced on Monday that he would not throw out the first pitch at the Texas Rangers’ opening game, accusing the MLB of “perpetuating false political narratives.”

“Guess what I am doing today? Not watching baseball!!!!” GOP chair Ronna McDaniel tweeted on Saturday.

That same day, eight Georgia Republican House lawmakers wrote to Kevin Perry, president of the Georgia Beverage Association, demanding that all products by Coca-Cola be expelled from their offices.

Is it just me or does this have a whiff of the old "Freedom Fries" silliness and stupidity about it?

[goldenvalley]

Apr 5, 2021 20:56:31 GMT LFC said:

The Republicans are in full-throated attack mode because companies are calling them out on their assault against voters' rights. Suck it up, buttercups. You earned this.

Republicans, typically vocal proponents of “letting the free market decide,” are throwing tantrums and calling for corporate boycotts after the free market decided to speak out against Georgia GOP lawmakers’ restrictive voting law.

Their fury is being directed primarily at Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, whose CEOs slammed the law last week. Conservatives have also railed against Major League Baseball (MLB) for yanking its All-Star game from Atlanta on Friday.

Now, Republicans are vowing to make baseball and soda feel their wrath.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) announced on Monday that he would not throw out the first pitch at the Texas Rangers’ opening game, accusing the MLB of “perpetuating false political narratives.”

“Guess what I am doing today? Not watching baseball!!!!” GOP chair Ronna McDaniel tweeted on Saturday.

That same day, eight Georgia Republican House lawmakers wrote to Kevin Perry, president of the Georgia Beverage Association, demanding that all products by Coca-Cola be expelled from their offices.

Is it just me or does this have a whiff of the old "Freedom Fries" silliness and stupidity about it?

Yup.  They should check with Trump.  Is he going to give up Diet Coke because of this?  Cancelling the canceller!

[LFC]

Apr 5, 2021 21:23:38 GMT goldenvalley said:

Yup. They should check with Trump. Is he going to give up Diet Coke because of this? Cancelling the canceller!

Imagine his quandary if McDonald's chimes in against voter suppression.

[andydp]

Someone explain to me why this is not "cancel culture" or "woke".

After new law, McConnell warns CEOs: ‘Stay out of politics’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says it’s a “big lie” to call the new voting law in Georgia racist and he warned big business to “stay out of politics” after major corporations and even Major League Baseball distanced themselves from the state amid vast public pressure.

McConnell particularly slammed President Joe Biden’s criticism that the Georgia bill was restrictive and a return to Jim Crow-era restrictions in the Southern states aimed limiting ballot access for Black Americans.

apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-business-race-and-ethnicity-baseball-9535999a0dd7c0c6d949a891df896749


I think I know !! GOP complaints - best thing since sliced bread. Democratic complaints: Satan's Commie Socialist spawn.

[LFC]

It's starting to look like Moscow Mitch is in full blown panic mode. He knows they need to avoid addressing The Big Lie (cute how he tried to take "big lie" but that horse left the barn months ago) and push voter suppression efforts to maintain power. The problem is that the people, including those who run companies, are sick of their shit.

[LFC]

Georgia's loss is Colorado's gain.

Major League Baseball’s All-Star game has been relocated to Coors Field in Denver, ESPN reported Monday night.

Sources told ESPN that the new location had been selected after MLB announced earlier this month that it would no longer hold its originally scheduled July 13 game at Atlanta’s Truist Park over a restrictive new voting legislation that was signed in to law last month.

The Denver Post also confirmed the news.

Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement at the time that he discussed the potential move with major league players before ultimately deciding to pull the game from Atlanta “as the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport.”

[LFC]

Apr 6, 2021 13:01:22 GMT andydp said:

Someone explain to me why this is not "cancel culture" or "woke".

After new law, McConnell warns CEOs: ‘Stay out of politics’

I think the MSM needs to be pointing out that Republicans have been using companies to actually write legislation for them. Is MM calling for a halt to that practice? Yeeeaaaahhh, I'm guessing not.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 6, 2021 13:40:59 GMT LFC said:

Apr 6, 2021 13:01:22 GMT andydp said:

Someone explain to me why this is not "cancel culture" or "woke".

After new law, McConnell warns CEOs: ‘Stay out of politics’

I think the MSM needs to be pointing out that Republicans have been using companies to actually write legislation for them. Is MM calling for a halt to that practice? Yeeeaaaahhh, I'm guessing not.

I think the threat really is shut up or we'll take your favorable tax treatments away.  The Georgia House was pretty explicit about that when it voted to revoke a tax break for Delta Airlines.  That doesn't look corrupt at all, does it?  Maybe we need to see more of this sort of overt threatening to get people to see 1) the favorable tax treatment big businesses have that we wage earners do not, and 2) that the people backed by big money are something akin to mobsters.  Nice tax break you got there....

[LFC]

Apr 6, 2021 15:29:59 GMT goldenvalley said:

I think the threat really is shut up or we'll take your favorable tax treatments away.  The Georgia House was pretty explicit about that when it voted to revoke a tax break for Delta Airlines.  That doesn't look corrupt at all, does it?  Maybe we need to see more of this sort of overt threatening to get people to see 1) the favorable tax treatment big businesses have that we wage earners do not, and 2) that the people backed by big money are something akin to mobsters.  Nice tax break you got there....

Maybe it's good to get this out in the open. Republicans claim they give tax breaks for the good of the community but they're clearly willing to take them away for political gain. It should make people wonder if the first part is remotely true.

[LFC]

Moscow Mitch is being pummeled for his blatant hypocrisy concerning companies and politics.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said on Tuesday that recent comments made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (RKY) urging corporations stay out of politics projected “a whiff of desperation.”

The comments calling out McConnell’s shameless desperation amid the corporate protest over a restrictive new voting law in Georgia, come after the Kentucky Republican offered an about-face on Monday regarding the role of corporations in politics.

“I found it completely discouraging to find a bunch of corporate CEOs getting in the middle of politics,” McConnell said during a press conference in his home state on Monday. “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.”

The assertion comes after McConnell has routinely leveraged corporate power for political gain. McConnell’s campaign has for years lined its coffers with corporate donations and even outpaced other candidates in 2020’s election cycle for donations from CEOs of companies on the S&P Index, according to MarketWatch.

The posture from the Kentucky lawmaker also comes after years of fiercely defending the funneling of corporate cash into politics, insisting that businesses have both rights to free speech and a right to boost preferred candidates to influence elections.

TPM (paywalled) notes he's gotten so desperate that he's openly threatening them with retaliation. The problem is that it's an empty threat. For the first time I can remember Mitch's desperation is being worn on his sleeve for all to see. And companies are looking at where the money is and it ain't in red states and districts. In full:

Mitch McConnell is upping the ante and threatening “serious consequences” for corporations who use their clout against GOP voter suppression bills in states. They should “stay out of politics,” he warns. I discussed the broader issue on Friday as a disjuncture between culture and consumerism on the one hand and apparatus of the American political system on the other. But McConnell’s threat of “serious consequences” demonstrates the hollowness of this debate.

Large swathes of corporate America, particularly consumer-facing corporate America, doesn’t want to be associated with various reactionary Republican policy agendas. Corporations will make statements, threaten to withhold financial support and even participate in soft boycotts as Major League Baseball has by taking the All-Star Game out of Atlanta. But corporate America’s big legislative asks remain the same: low taxes, low regulation, regulatory hostility to labor unions and passive anti-trust enforcement. McConnell seems to be hinting that some of those things might be withheld. But that’s hard to figure since those are all core elements of Republican party ideology. The Trump years illustrate this: lots of talk about ‘working class values’ and Trump attacks against corporations who don’t bend the knee but in reality as consistent a policy of tax breaks and regulatory gutting as any administration in living memory.

In a recent oped Marco Rubio proposed a new standard in supporting the the union drive at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama. Laissez-faire policies for corporate America, except for “woke” corporations that don’t support Republican culture war objectives. On this basis, Rubio threw his support to the unionization drive because Amazon didn’t support “working-class values”, by which he means conservative culture wars. He made clear that he did this notwithstanding being opposed to unions in general.

In other words, supporting unionization to own the libs.

But this stance is not only transparently cynical but – more importantly – quite difficult to institute in practice. Trade unionism generally lives or dies by a mix of regulatory frameworks it operates under and workers’ beliefs about whether or not they should form labor unions. In the first case, you can’t really pick and choose NLRB standards based on a corporations positions on trans-rights or voting rights. It’s also pretty hard to support union drives in some sectors as righteous stands for dignity and wages while while insisting they are threats to competitiveness and jobs everywhere else. It really amounts to little more than Rubio’s offers of vague support to own the libs – neener-neener as party platform.

This part of the story should also focus us on the fact that to the extent corporate America is supportive of the aspirations and demands of cosmopolitan/urban-centric America (which I outline here), the support is essentially reactive and passive. The first goal is to avoid all involvement in America’s political polarization – since in the nature of things most corporations are focused on the entire consumer market, not one or the other main faction. (Note that in the aftermath of the January 6th insurrection many corporations decided to discontinue all political giving, to both parties.) But when it’s not possible to avoid picking sides many corporations now seek to avoid the reputational harm of being associated with views which the majority of the country – particularly the parts of the country that represent the future and the most disposable income – oppose. But voting rights aren’t first, second or third or even tenth on any corporate lobbyist’s list of asks from Congress or various state legislatures. Not even close. And that goes for race relations, any gender or LGBT rights, policing reform, and certainly any structural expansions of the safety which have been core to the early Biden legislative agenda.

Corporations may oppose or refuse to support things like the voting rights clamp down in GOP controlled swing states. But again, this is largely passive, an effort to disassociate and avoid reputational harm. The core agenda remains keeping taxes and regulations low because those are tied to maximizing profits, which is what corporations are designed to do.

[goldenvalley]

Before the election I was wondering if Mitch would decide to retire, especially if Biden won and Georgia sent Democrats to be Senators.  I suspect he's sorry he didn't follow his wife into retirement.  Surely they have enough money to retire "comfortably" in another country without extradition treaty with the US.

[LFC]

The Atlanta Mayor is trying to mitigate the damage the Georgia Republicans have done.

Atlanta, Georgia Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms issued an executive order on Tuesday evening that aims to “mitigate” the impact of state Republicans’ new law that makes it more difficult for people to vote.

The order directs Atlanta’s chief equity officer to come up with a plan to ensure city residents are informed of the law’s newly imposed requirements and deadlines for voting absentee.

Parts of the plan include training staff members at the Mayor’s Office of Constituent Services to communicate those requirements to residents, spreading information on how they can obtain the forms of ID they now need to vote absentee, and putting QR codes on water bills and other mailings that direct to sites containing information on registering to vote and voting absentee.

Bottoms noted in a statement on her order that the voting law “will disproportionately impact Atlanta residents—particularly in communities of color and other minority groups.”

“This Administrative Order is designed to do what those in the majority of the state legislature did not—expand access to our right to vote,” she said.

[LFC]

Mississippi's SoS is aghast that rules could make voting easier rather than harder for students.

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) is deeply troubled by the fascist notion that it should be easier for students to vote.

In a local TV interview resurfaced by the Mississippi Free Press on Tuesday, Watson falsely claimed that President Joe Biden’s executive order on bolstering voting access meant that federal agencies and universities were directed to “register as many folks as they can via this automatic voter registration.”

In reality, the order says nothing about automatic voter registration or college students. Yet Watson went on to characterize it as government tyranny burdening the beleaguered youths with, uh, easier access to the polls, particularly those who are “woke” (GOP curse word for left-wing).

“Think about all those woke college and university students now who will automatically be registered to vote whether they wanted to or not,” the elections official lamented. “Again, if they didn’t know to opt-out, they’re going to be automatically registered to vote and then they receive this mail-in ballot that they didn’t even probably know was coming because they didn’t know they were registered to vote.”

“You’ve got an uninformed citizen who may not be prepared and ready to vote,” he continued. “Automatically, it’s forced on them: ‘Hey, go make a choice.'”

“Our country’s going to pay for those choices,” Watson added, making more explicit the true cause for his paternalistic concern: People being allowed to vote for things he doesn’t like.

[goldenvalley]

From the quote:

Think about all those woke college and university students now who will automatically be registered to vote whether they wanted to or not.

The tell is in the word "woke".  The idea of DMV voter registration is to register people who are eligible to vote, regardless of whether they are college students or woke or Trumpistas, ignorant or not.

[LFC]

Apr 7, 2021 22:47:11 GMT goldenvalley said:

From the quote:The tell is in the word "woke".  The idea of DMV voter registration is to register people who are eligible to vote, regardless of whether they are college students or woke or Trumpistas, ignorant or not.

I've already reached the point where if I see the word "woke" I automatically dismiss the author or speaker as a right-wing Republican partisan hack. (But I repeat myself.) It originally had a meaning with some legitimacy. Now it's anything the right-wingnuts don't like, especially people (and now corporations) sticking up for themselves and their country.

[LFC]

TPM has a piece (paywalled) assessing Georgia's governors support of voter suppression as an attempt to suck up to Trump and the MAGAts prior to his next election bid in 2022. I don't know if that's the primary motivator. As GA's Secretary of State he was all in on various voter suppression schemes including a seriously dirty voter purge. I think voter suppression to put/keep Republicans in office falls into his wheelhouse quite naturally.

Brian Kemp is up for reelection in 2022. And the true leader of the Republican Party, former President Donald Trump, has made it pretty clear that Kemp has fallen far outside of his good graces.

It started when Trump distanced himself from Kemp when he reopened Georgia’s economy aggressively early. And it culminated with Trump repeatedly and publicly attacking the Georgia governor for not overturning the results of the November president election in the state in his favor.

According to a New York Times report, Kemp seized on the opportunity to win back an inkling of the former president’s support — or, at least, that of his supporters — ahead of the reelection with the passage of the widely restrictive new voting laws in his state. The law severely cuts back the ability to vote and most pointedly impacts communities of color.

Kemp is using his messaging around the new law seemingly to not only curry favor with Trump but also to make criticism of the new restrictive measures as just further embodiment of cancel culture, a culture war darling that Trump loves to elevate.

And while it is yet to be seen whether the state’s voter suppression will win Kemp the support of the Trump faithful, it has not appeared to win the favor of Trump himself. In a statement this week, Trump complained that Kemp and Georgia Republicans still didn’t go far enough in the legislation.

“Kemp also caved to the radical left-wing woke mob who threatened to call him racist if he got rid of weekend voting,” Trump said. “Well, he kept it, and they still call him racist!”

If we’ve learned anything about the former president, it’s that he knows how to hold a grudge.

[LFC]

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (R-AZ) does not seem to be the brightest bulb in the pack. She's dug in over the filibuster but can't even really explain why. Then she touts a bill that will never be passed because she's dug in over the filibuster. [sigh] (Not that Manchin's "logic" is any better.)

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) expressed her full-fledged support of the For The People Act Thursday night, noting that she was a cosponsor.

She did not mention, though, that another position she holds dear makes her one of the sole obstacles to the bill’s passage.

Sinema is one of two senators, along with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who has publicly maintained opposition to doing away with or changing the filibuster. She’s been fairly taciturn on her reasoning though, recently telling reporters on Capitol Hill that she had no comment on the topic for them, laughing that she “loved their enthusiasm” when they kept pushing for specifics.

HR1 must go through regular order, meaning that it needs 10 Republican votes with the filibuster in its current state. Based on GOP comments so far, as well as the party’s embrace of restrictive voting legislation on the state level, it is very unlikely to garner that bipartisan support.

Some Democrats have suggested appeasing Sinema and Manchin’s love of the filibuster by establishing a special carveout on voting rights legislation (selectively “going nuclear,” like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did recently on Supreme Court nominations).

But Manchin dismissed that idea, comparing it to being “a little bit pregnant,” and claimed that there is bipartisan support for many of the bill’s measures. He has suggested stripping out some pieces from HR1 to make it more palatable to Republicans.

Sinema has not publicly positioned herself on such specifics. She gave an inch more on her feelings towards the filibuster in general during a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal. She, like Manchin, dug into her filibuster support during recess while away from Washington D.C.

“When you have a place that’s broken and not working, and many would say that’s the Senate today, I don’t think the solution is to erode the rules,” she said this week. “I think the solution is for senators to change their behavior and begin to work together, which is what the country wants us to do.”

[goldenvalley]

Apr 9, 2021 18:02:27 GMT LFC said:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (R-AZ) does not seem to be the brightest bulb in the pack. She's dug in over the filibuster but can't even really explain why. Then she touts a bill that will never be passed because she's dug in over the filibuster. [sigh] (Not that Manchin's "logic" is any better.)

Re-election is on their minds. They don't want to do anything constructive, but do want to return to DC.