Friday Open Thread | The Chicanery With the 2020 Census

Posted on May 31, 2019 by rikyrah

Ever since we saw Wilbur Ross trying to put a Citizenship Question on the 2020 Census, we knew that phuckery was afoot. The Constitution is very clear – everyone in the United States is to be counted. Period. There has always been some finagling with the Census – hell, it’s how we got the 3/5 compromise.

But, when we saw that they wanted to put the Citizenship Question on the 2020 Census, it was nothing but rotten. WE KNOW that Ross LIED as to how the request for the question was done. He lied and said that the Justice Department wanted it put on the Census – to back up the Voting Rights Act. Are you kidding me? Lying like a mofo. When has THIS Justice Department given two shyts about the Voting Rights Act.

We know now that they LIED when they testified before Congress, and judges. Not just Ross, but a Trump Transition Official, and John Gore, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and the DoJ’s chief overseer of voting rights issues, also lied under oath about the intended effects of the census question and the origin of the documents.

So now, because of this NYTimes Article, the intent for the Citizenship Question goes even BEFORE THE 2016 ELECTION.

Hard Drives Reveal Details on Citizenship Question
May 30, 2019 at 8:59 am EDT

Thomas Hofeller achieved near-mythic status in the Republican Party as the Michelangelo of gerrymandering, the architect of partisan political maps that cemented the party’s dominance across the country, the New York Times reports.

But after he died last summer, his estranged daughter discovered hard drives in her father’s home that revealed something else: Mr. Hofeller had played a crucial role in the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats… The disclosures represent the most explicit evidence to date that the Trump administration added the question to the 2020 census to advance Republican Party interests.

Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision.
Those documents, cited in a federal court filing Thursday by opponents seeking to block the citizenship question, have emerged only weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of the citizenship question. Critics say adding the question would deter many immigrants from being counted and shift political power to Republican areas.

…………….

The documents cited in the Thursday court filing include an unpublished August 2015 analysis by Mr. Hofeller, who was hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet financially backed by Paul Singer, a billionaire New York hedge fund manager and major Republican donor. Mr. Hofeller’s charge was to assess the impact of drawing political maps that were not based on a state’s total population — the current practice virtually everywhere in the nation — but on a slice of that population: American citizens of voting age.

………………………….

Mr. Hofeller’s exhaustive analysis of Texas state legislative districts concluded that such maps “would be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites,” and would dilute the political power of the state’s Hispanics.

The reason, he wrote, was that the maps would exclude traditionally Democratic Hispanics and their children from the population count. That would force Democratic districts to expand to meet the Constitution’s one person, one vote requirement. In turn, that would translate into fewer districts in traditionally Democratic areas, and a new opportunity for Republican mapmakers to create even stronger gerrymanders.

 

I want to tie this into another story that I read a few weeks ago, about the number of offices being cut for the 2020 Census. It is being done because of something the GOP did in 2014 – after they had taken back Congress. The DELIBERATE SABOTAGE OF THE CENSUS PREDATES DOLT45. So, when folks like me say, uh uh, you can’t isolate Dolt45 from the GOP. That they are ONE. That they are hooked together. Getting rid of Dolt45 doesn’t resolve the problem that the entire GOP is nothing but a rotten cesspool.

And, anything that resembles little ‘ d’-democracy, the GOP is against it. They know that the demographics are against them, but, they are determined that the MINORITY of this country will try and rule over the MAJORITY. THAT is why they must be defeated, because they do not want to live in a country where THEY aren’t ruling over us.

This entry was posted in 2020 Elections, Black Voter Suppression, Open Thread, Politics, Uncategorized, Voter Suppression, Voting Rights, Voting Rights Act and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

96 Responses to Friday Open Thread | The Chicanery With the 2020 Census

  19. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 4:40 pm

    Phucking Demons 😠😠 😠

    Hannah Dreier (@hannahdreier) Tweeted:
    Immigration officials in the deep south are classifying all asylum seekers as dangers to the community, and making them plead their cases from jail. In New Orleans, the number of asylum seekers denied bail jumped from 25% to 98.5% in the past two years. https://t.co/ywUiVnLeqs https://twitter.com/hannahdreier/status/1134486124309753857?s=17

    Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 4:07 pm

    Demons, I tell you. What did you expect – that they were being treated decently?

    CNN reports that the DHS Inspector General did a surprise inspection of a border patrol station and found horrifying conditions

    The IG found “standing room only conditions” at the El Paso Del Norte Processing Center, which has a maximum capacity of 125 migrants. On May 7 and 8, logs indicated that there were “approximately 750 and 900 detainees, respectively.”

    “We also observed detainees standing on toilets in the cells to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to the toilets,” the report states. The report was first obtained by CNN.

    A cell with a maximum capacity of 12 held 76 detainees, another with a maximum capacity of eight held 41, and another with a maximum capacity of 35 held 155, according to the report.

    Reply
  21. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 3:45 pm

    Happy Friday! Sen. Susan Collins’s approval rating in Maine has dropped 17 points since last spring in the biannual tracking poll Critical Insights conducts in Maine. S.E.V.E.N.T.E.E.N. And 10 points since last fall.
    In what is “the longest-running consistently-administered tracking survey in the Northeast,” Collins dropped from a 58% approval a year ago, to 51% last fall, to 41% this spring. She also only gets a 46% approval rating among Republicans, and 31% from Democrats. In the words of the polling memo, “Approval of Senator Collins’s job performance has declined dramatically since last fall, reaching a new low.”

    Reply
  24. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 2:31 pm

    Dow Jones down 324 points.
    Win win win

    Reply
  27. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 1:44 pm

    Thread by @ChrisMurphyCT: “Morning. A THREAD: I’m starting a one hour drive to Mystic for a chamber of commerce speech so I’ve got some time assenger seat). I’m gonna try to list all the current foreign policy disasters caused by Trump. Not sure an h […]” https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1134427536363012096.html

    Reply
  35. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 11:39 am

    Chris Hayes talking with Ari Berman about the Census rigging.

    https://twitter.com/allinwithchris/status/1134443179024035840

    Reply
  36. Liza says:
    May 31, 2019 at 10:51 am

    “…Harold Wilson, who spent 17 years in prison—most of it on death row—for a crime he did not commit, died May 18 from complications from a stroke. He was 61 years old. In 1989, Harold Wilson was convicted of a triple murder and sentenced to death by a Pennsylvania jury. A decade later, Wilson’s death sentence was overturned due to ineffective counsel. However, his murder convictions were not reversed, and he remained on death row for years. Finally, in October of 2005, Wilson won a new trial and was acquitted of all charges after DNA evidence proved his innocence. Speaking to Democracy Now! just after his exoneration, Wilson said he was released with 65 cents and a bus token.”
    https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1134480658166886404

    Reply
  43. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 10:33 am

    But, how come I think that they won’t have a problem with their folks showing up on Fox?
    Baquet is a phucking coon on the pole disappointment.

    NYT doesn’t want its reporters appearing on Maddow or several other cable opinion shows, @joepompeo reports https://t.co/d5TkhHSymS— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) May 30, 2019

    The Times recently yanked one of its journalists from Rachel Maddow amid concerns about cable-news “bias.” Dean Baquet “thinks it’s a real issue.”

    Reply
  46. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 10:19 am

    Uh huh
    Uh huh
    Because this is who they are.

    NC Republicans want budget cuts for new African-American chief justice. Democrats cry foul.
    BY WILL DORAN
    MAY 30, 2019 06:19 PM, UPDATED 1 HOUR 39 MINUTES AGO

    Cheri Beasley, who earlier this year became the first African-American female chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, will have her staff cut in half under a plan supported by Republicans in the N.C. Senate.
    The state had a multi-million-dollar budget surplus this year, but Senate Republicans decided to eliminate funding for three of the six staffers who work for the state’s top judge.
    Senate Democrats said it’s a politically motivated attack against Beasley, a Democrat who was appointed to the top job by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper after the previous chief justice, Republican Mark Martin, resigned to take a job leading a Virginia law school.
    Two African-American Democratic senators, Floyd McKissick of Durham and Paul Lowe of Winston-Salem, led the criticism of their Republican colleagues during a debate Thursday.

    Reply
  47. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 10:13 am

    Dow Jones down 248.
    So much winning.

    Reply
  48. Ametia says:
    May 31, 2019 at 9:56 am

    Word of the Day : May 31, 2019

    Shot-clog: noun SHAHT-klahg

    Definition: a bore tolerated only because he or she pays the shot

    Reply
  49. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 9:33 am

    Black Voters Challenge House Members: Why Is Trump Still in Office?

    By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
    May 30, 2019

    PHILADELPHIA — Moments after the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, wrapped up his appearance at the Justice Department on Wednesday, Representative Dwight Evans stepped out of his district office in a black working-class neighborhood here to visit with local business owners. They had one question on their minds: Why is President Trump still in office?

    Mr. Evans, a Democrat who began calling for Mr. Trump to be impeached long before Mr. Mueller issued his report, was not surprised: “The issue that I hear constantly here is, ‘We sent you for one reason only: to get rid of the president, right? Why haven’t you gotten rid of him yet?’”

    In cities around the country, black Democrats like Mr. Evans — and other House members who represent majority-black districts — are hearing much the same from their African-American constituents, as well as from white liberals who have moved into the nation’s urban core. Those views are translating into action on Capitol Hill, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi is under increasing pressure from her rank-and-file to hurry up her time frame for what many see as an inevitable impeachment inquiry.

    ………………………….

    Seated in the back of the shop, Ms. Beale-Harris’s mother and sister nodded in agreement. But her father, Paul Beale Jr., 91, worried that impeaching the president would energize Mr. Trump’s base and help re-elect him.

    “Pelosi doesn’t think it’s a good idea, and I have a lot of confidence in her,” Mr. Beale said. “If it’s going to hurt in the long run, I don’t think they should do it.”

    Still, in one conversation after the next, the story was the same. “They’ve got to get him out of the way before he destroys this country,” said James Gaines, 66, a barber.

    Sabriya Bilal, 64, a school bus driver, asked, “I don’t think he’s mentally stable, do you?”

    …………………..

    Black voters turned out in droves to help elect Barack Obama, and younger African-American voters were part of “a huge surge group for Democrats” in the 2018 midterms, motivated by their antipathy toward the president, said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster and expert in the African-American vote. A recent poll by Quinnipiac University found that 87 percent of African-Americans disapproved of Mr. Trump’s performance as president, compared with 63 percent of Hispanics and 48 percent of whites.

    Their disdain goes far beyond his policies; they view him as a racist and an “existential threat,” Mr. Belcher said. Many still mock his 2016 plea for their support: “What the hell do you have to lose?”

    ………………………..

    Mr. Evans said the report, which detailed at least 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice by the president, “only confirmed what I already knew.” In the weeks since its release, as Mr. Trump has instructed government officials to refuse Congress’s requests for witnesses and documents, Mr. Evans’s outrage has only grown. And as a black man, he takes particular umbrage at what he regards as the hypocrisy of the criminal justice system as it relates to the president.

    “If anybody in this district were to see a subpoena and act the way he acts,” Mr. Evans said, “they’d be in jail.”

    Reply
  56. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 9:03 am

    Bianca Delarosa Harris Warren Castro O’Rourke (@Bravewriting) Tweeted:
    Pro-Forced Birth Dems,

    Freedom of choice or fuck off.

    Freedom isn’t reserved for what you approve of, it is not a matter to settle among men, it isn’t even a matter of slaves in chains.

    Women wear invisible chains.

    Don’t you fucking dare make this shit harder than it is. https://twitter.com/Bravewriting/status/1133997660766031872?s=17

    Reply
  57. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 8:58 am

    Brad Stark (@bradleystark) Tweeted:
    @jaymichaelson @djrothkopf @thedailybeast I believe that Trump, MAGA and the GOP have nearly exhausted my capacity to be shocked. To me, the sum total of their actions has long suggested that they are moving to overrun our Constitution, strip us of our civil liberties and establish a dictatorship. https://twitter.com/bradleystark/status/1134181562692636672?s=17

    Reply
  59. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 8:57 am

    No one (@ungubunugu1274) Tweeted:
    @jaymichaelson @thedailybeast The whole drumpf “presidency” is built on the idea of securing/cemenring white dominance in the US.
    In reality this is white supremacy. https://twitter.com/ungubunugu1274/status/1134249290614882304?s=17

    Reply
  60. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 8:55 am

    RiPPa (@RippDemUp) Tweeted:
    I’m just going to go ahead and say it now: I want Kamala Harris to be the eventual nominee for two reasons. For one, because she’s a Democrat; and secondly, because she’s a Black woman. That’s it. That is all. Yes, fuck your feelings. https://twitter.com/RippDemUp/status/1134439729917812737?s=17

    Reply
  61. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 8:55 am

    RiPPa (@RippDemUp) Tweeted:
    I’m just going to go ahead and say it now: I want Kamala Harris to be the eventual nominee for two reasons. For one, because she’s a Democrat; and secondly, because she’s a Black woman. That’s it. That is all. Yes, fuck your feelings. https://twitter.com/RippDemUp/status/1134439729917812737?s=17

    Reply
  69. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 7:57 am

    Will Beto actually support her this time?😒😒

    https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/1134224221616463878

    Reply
  75. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 7:17 am

    😠😠😠

    MuslimMarine (@mansoortshams) Tweeted:
    My OpEd piece today via Newsweek:

    “My 12 year old son gave me a list of Islamaphobic names he’s been called.
    This is today’s America.”
    https://t.co/V9ErUBSfw8 https://twitter.com/mansoortshams/status/1134083865499361282?s=17

    Reply
  76. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 7:16 am

    Liberal Librarian (@Lib_Librarian) Tweeted:
    OK, for the morons in the back: placing tariffs on Mexican goods won’t actually stop those goods from coming in. Supply chains must be met. But, American buyers will be hit with larger costs. Really, Moron is the most economically illiterate to occupy the White House ever. https://twitter.com/Lib_Librarian/status/1134264612340191233?s=17

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      May 31, 2019 at 9:29 am

      Seriously, those attacking Nancy Pelosi and not that ORANGE POS 45 in our White House, should tell you everything you need to know about who they pledge allegiance to.

      Reply
  87. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 6:47 am

    Congratulations to these amazing young people 👏👏👏👏

    https://twitter.com/ScrippsBee/status/1134361940208365568

    Reply
  88. rikyrah says:
    May 31, 2019 at 12:30 am

    Good Morning, Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply

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