It is only the appearance of addressing a problem that they purely imagine exists in the real world. Democrats and liberals are not addressing this issue because it is not a problem in the real world. They are the only ones who are taking “election integrity” seriously because they are the only ones talking about it.
Sorry, but it is the weekend. My brain is running on fumes.
Those percentages are high in part because the accused are so often guilty, and a plea deal gets them a better sentence than they would get if (probably when) convicted at trial. Plea bargaining is a serious problem, however. (I have read that the British, whose system in most respects resembles ours, have nothing like our plea bargaining practices and are shocked by them.) Plea bargaining is wielded by prosecutors to intimidate not only the accused but also potential witnesses against them. And it is a handy tool for prosecutors because our sentences are so severe even for relatively minor crimes and often for behavior that shouldn’t be criminalized at all. Then there is the matter of “prosecutorial discretion,” all too often exercised to the advantage of people who are White and/or economically well positioned (not necessarily wealthy). If a prosecutor offers a two-year prison term in exchange for a confession when a trial might get the person ten years, even an innocent person might go for the deal, and a guilty person almost certainly will. That would happen less often if the maximum penalty were, say, (a more reasonable) three years. A woman who is unwilling to testify against her partner, father of her children, and source of her financial support can be “persuaded” to do so if the prosecutor threatens to bring charges against her on something minor that, otherwise, she would not be charged with at all – keeping custody of her children is now at stake for her. Witnesses are overlooked victims of our plea bargaining system and of prosecutorial “discretion.”
A poll by The New York Times and Siena College finds that President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are virtually tied. While Trump had 46 percent to Biden’s 45 percent in the latest survey, the gap narrowed from a five-point margin in late February. The Times reports that Biden made gains among those who supported him in 2020 while Trump lost some of his supporters in the last election. The poll found that seven out of 10 voters think Biden, at age 81, is too old to be an effective president while only four out of 10 think the same of Trump, who is 77. There are also signs in the results that Biden’s support of Israel is hurting him with younger voters: Only 4 percent of those under age 45 said they strongly approve of his handling of foreign affairs. Trump, meanwhile, faces some jeopardy from his legal problems. More than half the respondents said the charges he faces in the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial starting Monday are somewhat or very serious.
So now, we get to see why MTG brought challenge to Johnson, he must bend to Trump or know she will bring the challenge. Johnson did, going along with “immigrant voting” fraud, limiting FISA to 2 years so Trump can change it if elected and not approving Ukraine aid.
I see the leverage & how Johnson is being forced to bend over or allow Trump to rule our foreign policy while perpetrating another fraud for losing,
Sickening!
TPM…I love this site. But I need more stories on what Biden is doing. Everyday you have something on Trump, where are the headlines on Biden?
He’s busy, his administration is busy. How about some stories on that. Stop letting inflammatory remarks rule the day that concern Trump, There is a lot of reporting going unreported about Biden administration.
I understand the squeaky wheel gets the oil but it’s also the first one to be replaced.
Start covering Biden! Equally!
TPM is a muckraking site. From the About page:
We are particularly focused on reporting on abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust
If you’re hearing more about Trump and the R’s, it’s because they’re the ones doing this. Given TPM’s focus on abuses of power, we really don’t want to hear much about Biden in that context I think the last major focus on a Democrat was when TPM covered the Senator Menendez corruption scandals recently.
I know there is a sentiment among many here that we’re sick of hearing about Trump and there should be more “balance,” but there are plenty of other news sources that mention what Biden is doing. What TPM does cover is important to know about, even if it means we have to see Trump’s ugly mug.
And a show of rank idiocy!
YES, you moron, Michael Cohen WAS prosecuted, and sent to prison, for lying. Because you told him to, and he was protecting you. About THIS CASE. 
I mean, people who vote kind of know this. So I don’t see why this argument gets any traction.
The argument gets traction because a lot of people are very casual voters who haven’t thought about how it works. When someone raises a question it occurs to the casual voters that they don’t really know and then they leap to conclusions due to people “just asking questions.”
What I mean is that anyone who has voted in modern times has gone themselves though all the ID checks and so on. Doesn’t matter if they are casual or first-timers or vote in every school board election, they all have to go through ID checks and citizen screens to even get registered not to mention to get a ballot. Before they vote. I know the ones propagating this conspiracy theory know better than to believe it, but it seems like it would mostly fall on skeptical ears.
Then again, why would it matter? MAGA voters have demonstrated they are willing to pretend to believe literally anything if the end goal is an advantage to themselves.
Weekender miscellany …
NPR bends over backwards – proudly, piously, and stupidly – to indulge the incorrigible bothsides instincts of many of its journalists and managers. But it is never enough.
Edith Chapin, the organization’s editor in chief, said in an email to staff on Tuesday … “We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world.”
Often they are not good at the not-at-all nuanced stories.
True story; I was travelling home from an eclipse party in Carbondale IL (it was spectacular!!!) and stayed at a hotel in KY. Said hotel had Faux Nooz on the TV, screaming about “NPR Editor calls out bias at the network”. So I looked up the original article now that the meme is splattered all over the media.
Salient points:
That Post headline outdoes even New York Times Pitchbot.
“The economy is revving up at a terrible time for Biden”
“The economy is slowing down at a terrible time for Biden”
“The economy is leveling out at a terrible time for Biden”
“In fact, it’s just a terrible time and it’s all that Biden guy’s fault”
Very little force needs to be applied – somewhere below the “wet noodle” range – to induce Mike Insurrection Johnson to bend his knee to the Florida-resident golden calf.
The Voters Rights Act section 203 requires langauge/translators in over 200 counties with non-English populations greater than 10K or 5% of pop. Most are for Spanish, but include Chinese, several Native American, Viet, Filipino langauges.
The National Mail Voter Registration Form is available in 21 languages.
Federal law also lets anyone who cannot read or write bring someone to the polls to help/translate so long as that person isn’t their employer or union representative.
Lindell thinks he has it all worked out electionwise. Cuz voting machines be baaad. I have news for Mr Lindell. Arizona has been using paper ballots since we became a state. Not just that. Ballots are securely collected and then an initial hand count is done. And here in Pima County we can watch the whole process because our elections people have a video setbup in the room and anyone on the planet who has web access can watch. After the hand count ballots are counted by secure tally machines and then the numbers are compsred. No tricks no chicanery no lie of which trump is so very fond. So we are way ahead of Lindell’s grift.
Yeah, The HCA guy Getting really rich off of denying decent medical care and destroying one of the best hospitals in the Southeast. May he rot in Hell.
To hear these nutjobs talk, you’d think that, until they showed up, nobody – and certainly not any experts on the topic – have ever thought about security for vote counting by machine.
In actual fact, there’s a couple of decades of thought already put into the matter. Things like auditable paper trails (you know, like in Georgia for example) and cross-checking with hand counts (like you describe in Arizona), secure procedures for designing, building, implementing, and updating the machinery. Hell, there’s even a whole organization, the United States Election Assistance Commission, set up to provide advice and information.
The scare tales about how vulnerable counting by machine is describe, at best, a few early and very poorly designed systems (Diebold Election Systems, come on down!) that are no longer in use.
In fact, their understanding of voting technology is just as obsolete as their understanding of science, gender, race, economics, and so on.
But at least they’re consistent, right?
