Meanwhile, my sister in Northern Ohio reports that on the first day of early voting, lines are stretching around the block.
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Nothing pisses me off more than when I hear people tell me CONservatives and liberals or RepubliCONS and Democrats are all the same. I a tired of hearing this election is nothing more than two old white perverts trying to be in power. Every decision from the politicians in robes on voting rights shows there is a difference.
John Merrill is a piece of work.
In 2016, he went to, ta da!, Russia, to learn about voting. He promoted the trip before he left but when questions were asked about what he learned, after he returned, he got, well rather defensive and refused to say what he “learned” on the trip.
See, for example:
Also, ahem, he has a long and complicated history of showing up in various, well, rumors, around Alabama, rumors that work their way into courtrooms and voting booths:
Perhaps the most relevant Merrill media appearance to this story is his role at the end of Margaret Brown’s amazing short documentary on voter suppression in the Alabama black belt, The Black Belt, arguably the best 10 minute video on voter suppression:
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Example number eleventy-billion why we need new voting rights legislation…the Democrats already passed one bill that McConnell has ignored, so a new Democratic House and Senate will need to do it again next year. It needs to nail down the procedures so that voting can’t be blocked by all of these Republican maneuvers, and Biden should dare the SC to overturn voting rights when the bill ends up in front of them, making it clear the reputation of the SC, and its role as defender of the Constitution, will be on the line with consequences if they fail in their duty to protect the most sacred right that we have.
It really need to become a moral issue, blocking the right to vote needs to be treated as just as bad as white supremacy (they go hand in hand), and anyone who stands in favor of keeping Americans from voting should be run out of office and kept from holding any political power.
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Will SCOTUS Let AL Election Chief Impose His De Facto Ban On Curbside Voting?
If it affects mostly minority voters and democratic, then yes. The Justices of the Supreme Court are “originalists”, and originally only white property owners were allowed to so they are trying to restore the original intent.
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When are we going to see a court rule like this, but require asshats like this to be at one of the busiest voting locations and shake hands with anybody that asks
If Trump is convicted of treason in early February 2021, can we then remove all of his judicial choices as poisoned fruit of that treason? How could you let a traitor’s lifetime Judicial confirmations stand knowing that he is a traitor to the Constitution of the United States of America?
Just sayin, something to consider.
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Well, from Merrill’s point of view his job is to make Alabama vote Republican. He’s spent enough time at Federalist Society seminars and such that he’s fairly careful about what he says but I think he’d say that things like the Motor Voter laws and, indeed, the voting rights act itself helped Democrats get elected. He’s just leveling the playing field and, ahem, the state did elect him, a Republican so clearly the state apparatus should be geared toward electing Republicans. Sure, it’s circular logic and, yup, he’s confusing one-person-one-vote doctrine with support of the Democratic Party (among other things) but . . . he no doubt sees what he’s doing as righteous.
Sadly, much of the Democratic Party (what’s left of it) in the state might almost agree with Merrill. One effect of extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression is that most of the state has safe GOP seats but . . . the few Dem seats are also safe. The people who hold office in those gerrymandered Dem districts have a lot invested in the status quo.
One thing that Merrill, as far as I can tell, has very successfully tamped down is Operation Crosscheck. Alabama apparently quietly used Crosscheck to purge their voter rolls and, as far as I know, did not release any information about what they did and how in that purge. Who knows?
I know the goal is to disenfranchise as many people as possible, but I would think that letting people vote without any physical effort would be a win. It makels me wonder what the internal polling is showing. Here in deep red Oklahoma I have been seeing more Trump ads. You might think that they would focus the ad money on other states.
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“…After eviscerating the Voting Rights Act, they boldly and without remorse, continue their onslaught of the the spirit and letter of the Constitution…”
Whose side are they on? Shows they don’t have a shred of impartiality and are at base just another bunch of neo-Confederates.
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Sure they will.
This is what the “Federalist Society” MEANS by “Origionalist Judges”. i.e.: Judges that think that only Male, Landowners should be allowed to vote. Just like in the “Original” Constitution, you know, the one that ALLOWED for Slavery? They want to roll-back the US Constitution to pre-13th Amendment territory.
When there were NO INCOME TAXES, NO CORPORATE TAXES, SLAVERY was Legal., and Women and Minorities did not have ANY rights, more or less the right to vote, or own property, because, legally, they WERE PROPERTY.
You know: Republican Nirvana (well, Dixiecrat Nirvana.)
OT-https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/06/amy-coney-barrett-people-of-praise-home
Amy Coney Barrett along with Clarence Thomas will make it two SCOTUS justices whose past or present religious practices involve “speaking in tongues.” The cult has removed all information about Coney Barrett in her husband, beginning when Trump and McConnell nominated her to the Circuit Court with full intention of having another Kavanaugh in waiting.
Magic 8 ball: you may rely on it…
Yeah…but…that one with voters who dislike BOTH candidates bugs me. I can’t tell you HOW many times I’ve heard by people that should KNOW better that 'yeah, Trump grabs ‘em by the p*ssy and hangs out with Epstein but BIDEN is a ‘pedophile’…you know pizzagate and he puts his HANDS on their shoulders!’…
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Easier than that, though potentially shorter-lived, would be legislation providing stronger defenses for the right to vote in elections that include any federal offices on the ballot.
Another move might include providing Federal funding for modern voting equipment or some other plausibly relevant purpose for states who achieve specified high levels of voter participation in elections.
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Me, too. I’ve always had my suspicions about this statement. I THINK what they’re saying is that neither is some ideal I’ll never see, so I’m just voting for the one who will do best for me – whatever they think that best will be.
No candidate will be some saint. Adults know that.
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She is a cartoonish version of the most absurd manifestation of an extreme conservative Sup Ct candidate one could construct.
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There is some interesting commentary on this at Vox.
Basically, it casts Kavanaugh as the determining vote and says that he, like the rest of the conservative justices, doesn’t give much weight to the right to vote and has been voting against lower court decisions where he believes those decisions usurp the state legislature in deciding whether a change in state law is needed to protect the well-being of state residents.
Or, to be more blunt, where the right to vote collides with the right to be protected from unnecessary risks to health or safety, Kavanaugh doesn’t give a shit about the people and votes in favor of allowing state governments to eff the people over as much as those governments desire to.
The test will be if he maintains his “principles” when Democratic state governments are trying to create lower-risk voting options during a pandemic and the GOP is whining that the options aren’t specifically laid out in the law and that massive amounts of voting fraud will result.
The damn Federalist Society is determined to turn our nation into 50 mostly independent states with a central government that is concerned primarily with protecting the property rights of large corporations and funneling money from the citizens of well-run states to those large corporations, to the states that put a low priority on the welfare of the bulk of their residents, and to corporations run by friends of the Senators and US Representatives from those uncaring states.
There is no logic in it. Humans can rationalize ANY beliefs. Logical inconsistencies mean nothing. Trump can be a genuine sexual assaulter of women and he’s OK. Biden can be touchy-feely and he’s a pervert. The absurdity of believing the entire Dem party is composed of pedophiles is imperceptible.
Profess a belief that “all life is sacred,” but literally fry-- a sometimes not guilty – man in an electric chair, but that’s OK.
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