Voter suppression is UnAmerican and can not be tolerated. Majority Vets get their meds shipped via USPS -60,000/day
Philadelphia Inquirer 8/14/2020
Trump’s assault on Postal Service and voting is a plot against American democracy | Editorial
Quote
On Thursday morning, after months of attacks on the United States Postal Service and vote-by-mail, President Donald Trump admitted that the two efforts are connected as a part of one voter disenfranchisement effort. In a Fox Business Network interview, Trump said that the sticking point for him in the negotiations over a new coronavirus economic relief package is Post Office funding: “If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it.”
For the sake of transparency: I’m a European which of course means I won’t be voting in your upcoming election.
We have elections every four years in my country as well. I never listen to the debates on TV for pretty much the same reasons that you listed. It annoys me no end that politicians of all stripes find it so difficult to give straight, clear answers. What I do is go online and look up there official policy platform and I go to town hall like events where I can ask my questions face-to-face.
However if we ever find ourselves in a situation like the one you’re currently facing, I wouldn’t have a need to ask a single question or listen to a single word any candidate had to say. The choice would be easy.
We have eight different political parties and are quite used to the election result necessitating a coalition in order to govern. The parties are roughly divided along the left to right continuum. I tend to vote to the right but if ”my side” ever allowed their leader to continue an assault on democratic values and institutions unimpeded, I would vote for the ”other side” in a heartbeat. I would figure whatever damage that government could do in the next four years (perhaps implementing policies that I don’t support) could be relatively easily fixed after the next election if the majority of citizens agreed with me. I think you’re overcomplicating things by watching and rewatching the details of the debates. This is a big picture election.
Rebuilding a democracy after it’s been broken and devolved into an autocracy can take a lifetime or more. And history shows us that is a process that always comes at a great cost and human pain and loss of life.
The writing on the wall is clear in my opinion. This is not an election between Democrats and Republicans. This is an election that will decide how your country will look like for decades to come. It’s an election that will show how the majority of Americans feel about their Constitution.
Many countries in Europe are becoming less free. Poland, Hungary and Turkey are examples.
What do you want for your country?
I know you're not American, so yes, it will change how you view our elections. I wish we had the luxury of 8 parties. Or at least more than 2 that are taken seriously. I voted Libertarian for quite a few of my options. And how do others react to that? "Oh my gawd, your taking away from x". No, I'm adding my voice after researching the facts.
I listen to the debates, because unfortunately, some voting records are not crystal clear. Many issues are piggybacked together. I'm not sure where you are and if it works the same. But this adds to the "I voted for this, but didn't like this part of the bill". This allows for personal accountability to go out thd window, allowing for flip-flopping. I also watch to see how they personally interact.
Myself, I fall to moderate right, and wish to remain free. But with all the accusations of cover ups, and what/who they entail, it's very hard to determine who has the countries best interests at heart. A candidate can say the words, but if the actions haven't been there (both are guilty of infractions), it causes confusion.
With your examples, it sounds like the state of the world politics has many issues as well.
I will add, some have become so defensive when addressing accusations against either parties supposed cover ups. I've always said, where there's smoke there's fire. Or at least some grain of truth.
My parting thought on this: regardless of who wins our presidency, I will be as productive and supportive of the office of the president, that I can be as a citizen. I will try to offer valid solutions for things that I don't like. This is what we should do as a nation, as the fighting, yelling and threatening (yes, again from both major parties--regular folks as well as politicians) isn't getting the job done!
As of 10/15/2020: The population of the U.S. is 331,547,490 (U.S. Census).
According to CDC, the confirmed number cases of COVID-19 is 7,954,066 (or 2.3% of the U.S. population), with a mortality rate of 219,254.
So based on the numbers, COVID-19 only has a mortality rate of 0.0661304961% amongst the entire population of the United States.
While those at risk should take precautions the numbers don't justify the hysteria or shutting down the country.
Somehow it is safe riot and go to the big chain stores, but not to the polls. People are not stupid, and most people ain't buying it.
This is purely political; COVID has further expanded the partisan divide in this country as evidenced by this discussion.
Done with this stupidity. And listening to left wing nuts opine about nothing, and pretending to be more scholarly and intellectually superior to everyone else. This discussion has become boorish and pointless.
I know I am not going to convert a commie to capitalism and you sure as hell ain't going to convert me to communism.
So all you COVID Gruppenführers & Commissars have a nice day.
As of 10/15/2020: The population of the U.S. is 331,547,490 (U.S. Census).
According to CDC, the confirmed number cases of COVID-19 is 7,954,066 (or 2.3% of the U.S. population), with a mortality rate of 219,254.
So based on the numbers, COVID-19 only has a mortality rate of 0.0661304961% amongst the entire population of the United States.
While those at risk should take precautions the numbers don't justify the hysteria or shutting down the country.
Somehow it is safe riot and go to the big chain stores, but not to the polls. People are not stupid, and most people ain't buying it.
This is purely political; COVID has further expanded the partisan divide in this country as evidenced by this discussion.
Done with this stupidity. And listening to left wing nuts opine about nothing, and pretending to be more scholarly and intellectually superior to everyone else. This discussion has become boorish and pointless.
I know I am not going to convert a commie to capitalism and you sure as hell ain't going to convert me to communism.
So all you COVID Gruppenführers & Commissars have a nice day.
Bye-bye....
Wow, talking about boorish and pointless. Can you say Campaign. Finance. Reform? These embarrassments we call elections would be over.
The Republicans were smugly happy when Citizens United flushed reform down the toilet, but now that the Democrats have amassed wealth from the "little folk", Lindsey Graham cries like a 3 year old on Fox for more money. He may, at this point, actually prefer that corporations remain "corporations", not people. CFR levels the fields for all the players and protects us public from the onslaught of stupidity we have to pay for. Trump, of course, was able to raid his charity for funds and Bloomberg was able to spend over 100 million for a Democratic win. When we reform the system, we improve our democracy.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
6 hours ago, Hoosier_RN said:
In my area of Indiana, no polling places have disappeared, and my relatives who live in other areas of IN, TN, MS, KY, FL, GA, OK, MO, and TX say that they haven't lost polling places either, and no threat of it happening. These are a mix of Dems and Reps, so I don't know where they are being closed, and won't accuse one side or the other of stretching the truth. Having voted the day early voting opened in IN, I have turned off my political ears, all of the news anymore is of 2 crybaby teams screaming look what "x" did. I am truly wishing away the next week and a half so that the idiocy will stop
None have been closed in my region either. But they have been closed elsewhere and that matters. Republican efforts in limiting access to voting in southern states is far from a new agenda.
The quick return to an issue on which the court only just deadlocked raised the prospect of a different outcome after a new justice is installed next week....
...In a filing Friday night with the nation’s high court, the state Republican Party made essentially the same argument it had unsuccessfully presented earlier to the same court: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling allows ballots to be cast and counted after Election Day, the GOP said, violating the federal law setting one single Election Day across the country, and is unconstitutional because it takes away the state legislature’s power to decide how elections are run.
Under Section 5 of the The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), jurisdictions with a demonstrated record of racial discrimination in voting were required to submit all proposed voting changes to the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., for “preclearance” in advance of implementation. The jurisdictions were required to prove that the proposed voting change would not deny or adversely affect the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or an eligible voter’s membership in a language minority group.
Preclearance was a crucial element of the VRA because it ensured that no new voting law or practice, such as closing or moving a polling place, would be implemented in a place with a history of racial discrimination in voting unless that law was first determined not to discriminate against voters of color. However, in Shelby, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the formula that determined which states and jurisdictions are covered by Section 5 of the VRA and thus are required to undergo preclearance. Without that determination, the preclearance provision essentially became inoperable.
States and localities required to submit their voting changes for federal approval were: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, and counties in California, Florida, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, and South Dakota
...In this report, we found 1,688 polling place closures between 2012 and 2018, almost double the 868 closures found in our 2016 report. Additionally, Democracy Diverted analyzes the reduction of polling places in the formerly covered Section 5 jurisdictions in the years between the 2014 and 2018 midterm elections. We found 1,173 fewer polling places in 2018 — despite a significant increase in voter turnout.
...The widespread failures during the primary elections foreshadow a potentially disastrous November election. States such as New York have been racing to make accommodations for voting by mail. But other states are making voting more difficult for residents: Oklahoma is fighting to keep its law requiring that absentee ballots be notarized; Texas will not accept medical vulnerability to the coronavirus as sufficient grounds for absentee voting. Even though greater access to the vote might help a sizable number of Donald Trump’s voters, this opposition to it comes from the top. “Mail ballots, they cheat,” the president has said....
...During the 2016 primary, residents in Maricopa County, Arizona, faced voting delays of up to five hours. After state officials cut county budgets, Maricopa reduced its number of polling places by 70 percent—from 200 to 60—meaning one polling place was available for every 21,000 voters. Officials in dozens of other states, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Alabama, similarly closed or changed polling locations. Before the Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013, each of these states had previously fallen under the section of civil-rights legislation that allowed the federal government to block changes to elections that could adversely impact people of color in places with a history of disenfranchisement. When polling places are closed, many black and brown people are forced to travel farther to vote, at disproportionate rates, according to a report from the Legal Defense Fund....
Issues Stacy Abrahm's Fair Fight working to change in Georgia and across the US include
This year alone, 10 counties with large black populations in Georgia closed polling spots after a white elections consultant recommended they do so to save money.
As of 10/15/2020: The population of the U.S. is 331,547,490 (U.S. Census).
According to CDC, the confirmed number cases of COVID-19 is 7,954,066 (or 2.3% of the U.S. population), with a mortality rate of 219,254.
So based on the numbers, COVID-19 only has a mortality rate of 0.0661304961% amongst the entire population of the United States.
While those at risk should take precautions the numbers don't justify the hysteria or shutting down the country.
Somehow it is safe riot and go to the big chain stores, but not to the polls. People are not stupid, and most people ain't buying it.
This is purely political; COVID has further expanded the partisan divide in this country as evidenced by this discussion.
Done with this stupidity. And listening to left wing nuts opine about nothing, and pretending to be more scholarly and intellectually superior to everyone else. This discussion has become boorish and pointless.
I know I am not going to convert a commie to capitalism and you sure as hell ain't going to convert me to communism.
So all you COVID Gruppenführers & Commissars have a nice day.
Bye-bye....
Going by your numbers there have been 220,000 deaths resulting from infections in about 1/50th of the population. If we say we should no longer take measures to limit the spread, allowing as much as 100% of the population to be infected, then that would work out to about 10 million deaths. Ten million deaths isn't is a big deal?
Going by your numbers there have been 220,000 deaths resulting from infections in about 1/50th of the population. If we say we should no longer take measures to limit the spread, allowing as much as 100% of the population to be infected, then that would work out to about 10 million deaths. Ten million deaths isn't is a big deal?
And this person thinks WE are the stupid commies. At least WE can do elementary school math.
...Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and President Donald Trump are seeking dismissal of a lawsuit brought by New York and other states that claim disruptive changes at the USPS over the Summer are violating the Elections Clause of the Constitution by putting election mail at risk.
The Justice Department argued in a court filing Tuesday in Washington that the clause can’t restrict government agencies from carrying out operational changes or other activity that “may have an incidental impact” on voting.
The states’ theory “assumes that because the plaintiff states crafted their election laws with the expectation that USPS will provide a certain level of service, they now have a constitutional right to expect that level of service,” the U.S. said. The clause “does not shield states from any and all external circumstances that may impact state elections.”...
Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.
PA usually takes several days to weeks to confirm all votes as law only permits votes to be counted starting at 7AM election day ---Supreme court permitted our delayed count until 11/6 as state courts approved while Wisconson Court denied extension.
On Monday, the US Supreme court ruled in a 5-3 vote that Wisconsin cannot count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. Justice Brett Kavanaugh offered his reasons against extending the deadline in a concurrence, arguing that “under the US Constitution, the state courts do not have a blank check to rewrite state election laws for federal elections” and suggesting that “chaos and suspicions of impropriety” could ensue if “thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election.” In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan argued that “there are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted,” adding: “Nothing could be more ‘suspicious’ or ‘improper’ than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on election night.”
The Supreme Court on Monday night rejected a pandemic-related request from Democrats and civil rights groups to extend the deadline for counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day in the key battleground state of Wisconsin.
The vote was 5 to 3, with the Republican-nominated conservatives in the majority and the Democratic-nominated liberals in dissent. The court’s order showed the deep division within the court about the series of pandemic-related election cases that have come to dominate its agenda.
The court’s conservatives say they must defer to state officials on election decisions made in the largely Republican-run states, and the liberal justices say there is a need for dramatic action by judges to ensure the franchise for endangered voters during an unprecedented time....
...In Wisconsin, a district judge had ruled with the plaintiffs, and extended by six days the deadline to receive ballots postmarked by Election Day. He accepted the argument that the coronavirus pandemic and the accompanying surge in mail voting demand changes to accommodate voters and ensure ballots are counted.
But the Republican National Committee, the Wisconsin Republican Party and the state’s majority-GOP legislature intervened to defend the existing deadline, and earlier this month a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit reinstated the requirement that mail ballots be returned by 8 p.m. on Election Day....
Hoosier_RN, MSN
3,968 Posts
I know you're not American, so yes, it will change how you view our elections. I wish we had the luxury of 8 parties. Or at least more than 2 that are taken seriously. I voted Libertarian for quite a few of my options. And how do others react to that? "Oh my gawd, your taking away from x". No, I'm adding my voice after researching the facts.
I listen to the debates, because unfortunately, some voting records are not crystal clear. Many issues are piggybacked together. I'm not sure where you are and if it works the same. But this adds to the "I voted for this, but didn't like this part of the bill". This allows for personal accountability to go out thd window, allowing for flip-flopping. I also watch to see how they personally interact.
Myself, I fall to moderate right, and wish to remain free. But with all the accusations of cover ups, and what/who they entail, it's very hard to determine who has the countries best interests at heart. A candidate can say the words, but if the actions haven't been there (both are guilty of infractions), it causes confusion.
With your examples, it sounds like the state of the world politics has many issues as well.
I will add, some have become so defensive when addressing accusations against either parties supposed cover ups. I've always said, where there's smoke there's fire. Or at least some grain of truth.
My parting thought on this: regardless of who wins our presidency, I will be as productive and supportive of the office of the president, that I can be as a citizen. I will try to offer valid solutions for things that I don't like. This is what we should do as a nation, as the fighting, yelling and threatening (yes, again from both major parties--regular folks as well as politicians) isn't getting the job done!