Wednesday Open Thread | The GOP Can’t Win Unless They Voter Suppress and Cheat

Posted on October 17, 2018 by rikyrah

The GOP is about nothing but Voter Suppression.

They DO NOT believe in little ‘ d’ – democracy.

Never ever forget..

For all the complaints about Russian interference in the 2016 elections…and that was very real…

The number of people denied the franchise in those questionable states, was TWO TO THREE TIMES the margin of ‘ victory’ of Dolt45.

So, it really did take taking about people’s right to vote, in order to push this illegitimate election.

And, the same thing is happening all over again.

Thank goodness for people like Ari Berman, Greg Palast and Rachel Maddow, who always keep a keen eye out for these stories..they have been way ahead of the rest of the MSM.

…………………………….

Georgia Governor’s Race Is Epic Showdown Over Voting Rights

This year’s election could determine how people vote in Georgia for decades.

By Cameron Joseph | October 10, 2018

In early 2014, Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D) undertook an ambitious effort to make Georgia’s voter rolls look more like its population.

The New Georgia Project aimed to register 800,000 new minority and young voters within the decade, awakening the sleeping giant of the state’s fast-growing minority communities and giving Democrats like her a chance to compete statewide.

That seemed to alarm her current opponent for governor, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R).

“The Democrats are working hard. There have been these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines. If they can do that, they can win these elections in November,” Kemp warned his fellow Republicans during a closed-door event that July. “Well, we’ve got to do the exact same thing.”

But Kemp didn’t just try to match Democrats’ get-out-the-vote efforts. He used his office to go on the attack, investigating Abrams’ group for voter fraud while slow-walking adding the voters she’d registered to the rolls. Civil rights activists say Kemp has been one of the fiercest voter suppression proponents they’ve dealt with anywhere, and a key player in power consolidation efforts undertaken by Georgia Republicans since they seized control in 2004.

Abrams’ and Kemp’s years-old fight has now hit a crescendo as they fight for the governor’s mansion.

“Brian Kemp is the master of voter suppression, disengagement and democracy by subtraction,” said Francys Johnson, the former head of the state NAACP who’s now running for Congress. “The tension is as stark as it could have ever been in this race.”

This election, like past ones with Kemp, will be fought out in the courtroom as well as at the ballot box. Kemp is already battling a number of lawsuits.

“He has taken advantage of the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act,”Abrams told TPM. “He has used his office to undermine the right to vote for communities of color.”

 

Not just African-Americans.

SCOTUS Lets North Dakota Enforce Full Voter ID Law For Upcoming Midterms
By Tierney Sneed
October 9, 2018 5:38 pm

 

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed North Dakota to enforce for the midterm elections its full voter ID law, which a federal judge had previously sought to relax in a lawsuit brought by Native Americans in the state.

The law lets voters who don’t have the required ID show certain supplemental documentation with their name and street address. Native Americans in the state had challenged a provision in the law requiring that the address be a residential street address, rather than a PO Box or other kind of address, given that some members of some tribes don’t have residential street addresses.

A federal judge ruled in favor of the challengers and expanded the law’s requirements so documents with non-residential street addresses were acceptable. However, an appeals court blocked that ruling for the 2018 elections, and the Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to leave appeals court order blocking the expansion of the law in place.

The Supreme Court did not give the full breakdown on how the justices voted on the issue, but Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg publicly noted their dissent, with Ginsburg writing that the “the risk of disfranchisement is large.”

Uh huh
Uh huh

Brian Kemp’s office to be sued for purging 700,000 voters from Georgia rolls
In a response, Kemp says Georgia has never used data from the Crosscheck Program to conduct list maintenance in this state.
Author: Michael King
Published: 9:13 AM EDT October 2, 2018
Updated: 11:16 AM EDT October 7, 2018

 

ATLANTA — According to a release, members of the SCLC, Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, and the New Georgia Project are planning to join with others to file a federal lawsuit against Georgia’s Secretary of State Brian Kemp.

Kemp’s office is accused of using a racially-biased methodology for removing as many as 700,000 legitimate voters from the state’s voter rolls over the past two years.

The suit claims that the secretary of state’s office has not sent notice of the removal to voters. The group says that at a Tuesday news conference they will publish a database containing each of the names of the voters removed since 2017, so that those voters may re-register prior to the state’s October 9 deadline.

The group says the lawsuit was initiated by journalist Greg Palast as part of his research for Rolling Stone magazine. Other similar federal suits will be filed against other state officials around the nation in conjunction with the Georgia suit. They claim that during his research, Palast uncovered a so-called ‘purge list’ from what is called the ‘Crosscheck Program’ allegedly supplied to the secretary of state’s office by Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State.

Then, here is this infuriating segment from Rachel Maddow last week outlining the hurdles that have been placed in the path of students from Prairie View A&M University – for DECADES- including up to this very day.

 

Democratic aide arrested advocating for voting rights in Texas

Rachel Maddow reviews the history of voting rights battles at Prairie View A&M University in Waller County, Texas, and talks with Mike Siegel, Texas Democratic congressional candidate, and Jacob Aronowitz, Siegel’s campaign field director, about Aronowitz’s arrest after delivering a letter of support for voting rights at the school on Siegel’s behalf.

And, the MSM in their desperation to ‘ both sides’ Voter Suppression. There is no both sides. There is ONE PARTY who practices Voter Suppression. ONE PARTY.

THERE IS NO BOTH SIDES.

 

 

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85 Responses to Wednesday Open Thread | The GOP Can’t Win Unless They Voter Suppress and Cheat

  1. SouthernGirl2 says:
    October 17, 2018 at 9:21 pm

    They’re all greedy money hungry dogs. Country be damned.

    Rachel #Maddow reported about Twitter and the 2016 election. After 2 years @twitter admits to deleting 9 million tweets linked to Russian troll accounts. See how they are?

    https://twitter.com/puxxled/status/1052736369376681984

    Reply
  5. eliihass says:
    October 17, 2018 at 7:14 pm

    This is Jamie Gangel:

    https://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Jamie-Gangel-Wolf-Blitzer-800×430.jpg

    CNN ‘reporter’, Neocon apologist, propagandist, enabler and cover-up toady Jamie Gangel.. She and others like her in our media, are precisely why evil lives, rules, corrupts and thrives in our government, democracy and world..

    She spent much of today on CNN with Wolf Blitzer trying to clean up and cover up for bought and paid for joker Mike Pompeo – insisting that after all the embarrassing groveling, grinning and suck-up photo-ops with the Saudi Crown Prince, that off-camera, unimpressive Alt-Right stuffed sausage joker Pompeo had a “serious talking to” with MbS, and was “tough”, “forceful” and even, “aggressive” (🙄) with the Crown Prince, warning him that they needed to “come clean” and provide answers “quickly”.. (Jamal Khashoggi was killed 2 weeks ago..)

    Sure, Jamie..

    Reply
  9. Liza says:
    October 17, 2018 at 6:39 pm

    Only nine years old and he got put through this sh!t because some low-life white trash b!tch decided to amuse herself at his expense. It’s a game to these people. And it needs to stop.

    https://twitter.com/zellieimani/status/1052412111190667264

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      October 17, 2018 at 7:26 pm

      Is anyone still pretending that Pat Robertson is a representative of Christ… Or to be taken seriously …or even a sane or moral or rationale or honest voice on anything..

      Like he wasn’t bad enough when he wasn’t just a racist, raunchy, immoral, dishonest old fool.. Now he’s senile too.. and vouching for a treason buffoon and his brazenly self-interested relationship with the very same “mooslims” they both love to hate _ except when they’re lining their coffers and wallets..

      Reply
    • Liza says:
      October 17, 2018 at 6:41 pm

      John Roberts better decide which side of history he wants to be on. And time is short.

      Reply
      • eliihass says:
        October 17, 2018 at 7:36 pm

        He already long decided.. He’s indebted to the Federalist Society and their deep pocket oligarch benefactors.. they got him where he is now.. And for a reason, too.. He owes them, they own him..

        Roberts might sometimes play – and even get away with the ‘not terribly unreasonable’ person act …the same act Kavanaugh tried to put on at first and might have weaseled through on, had he not been caught in his own diabolical web, and promptly exposed for the rotten rat he really is..

        But they are all cut from the same Federalist Society cloth …except that some got through a lot less exposed for the tools they really are..

        Reply
    • Ametia says:
      October 18, 2018 at 11:10 am

      TELL.THAT.TRUTH

      Reply
  18. SouthernGirl2 says:
    October 17, 2018 at 5:01 pm

    BLOOD MONEY! BLOOD MONEY! BLOOD MONEY! #JamalKhashoggi

    https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1052673185886420992

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      October 17, 2018 at 1:49 pm

      Who’s gonna CHECK,HIM, BOO?!

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      October 17, 2018 at 8:45 pm

      He’s not ‘teflon’, he’s a coward.. a treasonous buffoon, soulless, insecure, greed-driven simpleton and sniveling coward..

      He only appears to ‘get away’ with it at the moment, because there are far too many enablers and complicit (some of whom have now positioned themselves as power-hungry puppeteers) …most are compromised and/or actively exploiting and benefiting from this massively corrupt and financially lucrative, disordered disassembling of our government, democracy and union – and longstanding good-faith norms …courtesy of a hostile foreign entity owned and installed – greedy, worthless, bullshit artist whose pedestrian self-interest con, is all about greed, power, self-serving and self-preservation …and based entirely on his myopic, tunnel visioned perspectives powered by greed, immorality and an absence of humanity, honor, integrity..

      In his small, small mind, everyone is greedy too, has a price, can be bought and bribed, can be flattered or bullied and strong-armed into support and acquiescence …and can be blackmailed or destroyed if they dare not fall in love and in line.. everyone has after all he believes, just like he does, seriously dodgy stuff that he and Roger Stone and their pal at the Enquirer, and more recently, the newly acquired undercover pal that believes himself slick, Harvey Levin at TMZ, can arrange to put out there to diminish and embarrass and damage ones reputation..

      He’s only gotten away with it so far, because those self-styled ‘king makers’ and ‘powers that be’ of yore, who’d previously actively undermined and sabotage at will, are willing to play along to get along …because they are benefitting immensely from this status quo …until they no longer.. He’s figured their price and weak spots, and he’s flattered and played to them in exchange for their support and keeping him in the cushy, perks-filled ‘power’ spot he desperately clings to..

      And unlike with the historic president, there is less of a discomfort now for that lot of mostly white male ‘power players’ and their handmaidens …they also like that the treasonous buffoon is ‘one of their own’ …they ‘get’ him …but the added bonus is that their useful idiot is morally and intellectually inferior …he’s rotten to the core –

      The way they see it, he’s their guy (something he’s worked hard at – acceptance by the ‘elite’) …and not really a ‘threat’ per se – not to their manhood or sense of white supremacy …and as long as they understand each other, and they’re all playing reciprocal footsie and exploiting their convenient symbiotic relationship, he not only gives them everything they want – tax breaks, deregulation, corrupt judges who’ll rule in their favor for the next few decades …he also makes them all feel so much better about their warts.. instead of being shown up for it …their immorality and criminality and bigotry – which has now all been essentially normalized, is now for them all, mostly a mark of ‘strength’ and ‘machismo’ …And even ‘success’ ..

      Reply
    • Liza says:
      October 17, 2018 at 3:17 pm

      I don’t know if this is true yet…

      But yesterday I read that the execution took 7 minutes and they began to cut him up while he was still alive.

      The reason I think this may turn out to be true is that the Saudi’s cut people’s heads off on a regular basis.

      Reply
  29. Ametia says:
    October 17, 2018 at 9:28 am

    Word of the Day : October 17, 2018

    Acceptation: noun ak-sep-TAY-shun

    Definition
    1 : acceptance; especially : favorable reception or approval

    2 : a generally accepted meaning of a word or understanding of a concept

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/acceptation-2018-10-17?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=a&file=accept10&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=wotd&utm_content=pron

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      October 17, 2018 at 9:15 am

      For me, Pete Souza takes OK photos of PBO. But like most folks who served under or with him, they’re cashing in $$$$

      And to be crystal CLEAR, 45 DOES NOT RESPECT THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENCY.

      Reply
      • eliihass says:
        October 18, 2018 at 1:13 am

        That things have been overtaken by events, and many are now distracted by the feeling of being under siege by the squatters now holding the People’s House hostage …the treasonous racist cabal installed by a hostile foreign entity, does not in any way change the fact that some of these folks who worked for the historic president were actually almost as insidiously despicably racist – and actively disrespected, mistreated, dehumanized and dismissed the historic black First Lady.. I for one will never ever forget or forgive..

        Souza of course is cashing in – and his obvious hustle depends entirely on asserting his ‘closeness’ and ‘importance’ to the historic POTUS …But never forget that this same WH photographer (in what was a government paid position, with photographs generated and paid for by taxpayers, to pictorially document a presidency for posterity), who also covered Ronald Reagan in the White House, and very respectfully treated, and properly and fully documented Nancy Reagan as an equal, right alongside her husband, completely disregarded and so disrespected the historic first and only black FLOTUS …mostly blacking her out – pun intended – and treated her mostly with disdain and alternately, as inconsequential and inconvenient …and did his darnedest to not only nearly completely erase her from the historic presidency she sacrificed far too much for …but also at many points, Souza and co., treated and marketed the historic First Lady’s husband as if he were meat …unattached and available – (and sometime single dad – on the occasion when they needed to highlight his good dad bona fides).. it’s a miracle that their marriage survived all the shenanigans not just from outsiders, but so many of these odiously self-important, dubious ‘insiders’ who consistently tried to undermine her and her place as his wife, and consistently disrespected and dismissed her as his wife and their marriage by extension …to them, he was only importantly ‘good dad’ but not ‘good husband’, as far as ‘family’ was concerned ..

        It’s a miracle that she not only came out on the other side of that 8 year stint in the White House, with her sanity, but that she’s not as bitter and forever affected for the worse for it, as any wife rightfully would’ve been.. We know for a fact that she was never catered to, never protected, certainly never coddled or kid-gloved …and even as the dehumanizing attacks targeting her accelerated, and took hold, no effort was ever made to thwart or correct any of it.. instead some it was actually fueled by WH ‘insiders’ – including those who wrote hit pieces about her, and those who assumed they were also First Lady, and tried to jostle for position with her …or those who fed the malicious gossip rag narratives by arranging for the married president to co-headline or be introduced at events by women he was said to be ‘smitten’ with, and his wife the First Lady was supposedly ‘jealous’ of …And even as there were always concerted and active measures taken to positively market the historic president.. Nothing was ever done for his black wife..

        Who can forget Souza – on his official account – gleefully posting and tweeting out various rather suggestive and compromising shots of fawning women either slipping their card into the married president’s shirt pocket, or feeling him up.. one thing for these women to post said disrespectful shots, another for the chief WH photographer to..

        Who can forget the blurring out and complete cropping out of the historic FLOTUS from photos and important events she attended with her husband – even when Souza somehow often managed to capture and prominently feature the V.P’s white wife …If there weren’t other independent, non-White House affiliated photogs and videographers at many of those events, there’d be no record for posterity, that the black wife of the historic president, the also historic FLOTUS, was also present.. is it any wonder that the best photos of the historic FLOTUS are those taken by random, independent photogs not affiliated with her husband’s White House..

        But it wasn’t only Souza …The discomfort with, and hostility and resentment towards the historic first black First Lady…the black wife and mother of the children of the historic president, was palpable even among some of the staff and these folks who hitched their political wagons to theirs, but nursed serious prejudices, and had never actually interacted with black people besides this particular star political principal – who they viewed positively and complimentary as ‘not really black’ – unless when beneficial to their ambitions – and in specific context to a mostly targeted narrative …but they didn’t necessarily appreciate, respect or treat well, his fully black wife who wasn’t preferably and acceptably ‘mixed’.. And who didn’t grovel or play kiss-up, or renounce her proud black heritage – scars and all, for a superficial valley girl white-washing that kowtowed to the concept of white supremacy..

        Official White House photographers are hired and paid to accurately and fully document and in proper context, for posterity …But we now find that it’s not only an incredibly lucrative gig in the afterlife, it’s also a very powerful gig that not only controls the powerful pictorial narrative, but entirely shapes it too, and decides who is included or excluded, who rates, who doesn’t… and who makes the cut and who doesn’t; and how those who do make the cut are portrayed for posterity …who’s important, who’s deemed relevant, consequential, ‘special’ – and even who the president ‘values’.. And in Souza’s telling, the black wife of the historic president – the historic first black First Lady, was clearly not deemed important, relevant, consequential, special – or even valued by her husband the president – Very much unlike the way Pete Souza covered and portrayed Nancy Reagan..

        In the scheme of things, one can only wish and hope that what is and was an important and historic chunk of ones life, be accurately and properly documented for posterity..

        But if you’re the proud black wife of the historic president, and the also historic first – and only – black First Lady of these United States, you’re quite out of luck if your fate and historic place in the story of your husband’s historic 2-term, 8 year presidency, something you not only fully participated in and sacrificed more than anyone else for, and worked your tail off for, is left entirely in the hands of – and officially narrated pictorially from the racially jaundiced perspective of a Boston/Massachusetts raised white, moderately(?) conservative male of Portuguese ancestry, of a certain age – who never quite thought much of black folks, and is blinded and myopically misinformed by the abounding, excruciatingly narrow, negative stereotypes – and invariably too, the white ‘beauty’ standards that are automatically applied and negatively employed to preemptively judge, demean, dismiss and strangle black women..

        And no, a random unauthorized picture book quickly whipped up post-presidency – only once folks realized that the historic FLOTUS was also a huge draw and so, a money-maker …randomly thrown together by one of the 4 White House pool photogs who was not assigned to the historic First Lady, and a photog who came on board only after their first term of 4 years was done .. in the second term – and 5 years after the historic presidency began, does not only not begin to cut it, but entirely omits a huge chunk of her years as the historic first black FLOTUS.. including her entire first 4 years!

        I’ve no use for most of these political opportunists and hangers-on, and only feel such anger still in my bones and in my soul for just how disrespectful they mostly were to my historic FLOTUS… and how badly she was treated right inside her own husband’s White House..

        It is true that most of these political hires and operatives are simply opportunists …but it does really irk me to no end when their shenanigans harm for the long-term, the wife and children, marriage and family of the politicians they try to hijack for their own political ambitions, advancement, greed, aggrandizement – and other purposes..

        But truth be told, if there were no tangible benefits and no serious money to be had from being positively associated with his historic ascendancy and celebrity, Souza might’ve been almost as contemptuous of, and as condescending to the historic president as he was to his black wife.. that much is obvious – even to Stevie Wonder..

        I frankly don’t care if he’s now ‘shading’ the treasonous buffoon, I absolutely care that Souza disrespected, cropped out, blurred and tried to erase my historic FLOTUS from the pictorial telling of her husband’s historic presidency…

        But as long as folks – especially black women, any black wife out there – don’t seem to notice or care that there are all of 3 or 4 – a grand total of like 3 or 4 photographs in rotation, showing the black wife of the historic president – and the also historic first black FLOTUS, in the supposed 8 million photos and counting in Souza’s pictorial documentation of her husband’s 2-term 8 year historic presidency… this guy who completely disrespected, diminished, dismissed and practically tried to erase the black wife of the historic president from 8 years worth of her husband’s presidency – that she’s still getting death threats for.. will continue to cash in on what was her sacrifice .. which he clearly does not acknowledge or honor or even respect..

        As long as folks continue to unquestioningly feed into the hustle of the likes of Souza and co., who’ve never actually previously shown themselves any less racist than the current Alt-Right cohort, and simply because Souza and co. have conveniently affiliated themselves with, and now wrap themselves around the historic president for hustling purposes – and as somehow proof that they aren’t in fact racist, even as they disrespect his black wife …Souza will continue to show up at book-signings and meet and greets with black audiences – prominently showcase that one solitary photo of the Obamas in the elevator on inauguration night 2009, and proceed to continue to pick the pockets of black folks who erroneously believe that he ‘likes’ them because he once worked for the historic president..

        Reply
    • Ametia says:
      October 18, 2018 at 11:19 am

      A RIGHTEOUS RANT

      [caption id="attachment_76119" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Michelle Obama[/caption]

      http://time.com/barack-michelle-obama-love-story-photos/

      Reply
  55. rikyrah says:
    October 17, 2018 at 3:13 am

    Good Morning, Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply

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