Maybe it's because they knew they were guilty as hell, but stayed silent just as long as the silver was pouring into their pockets.

Jennifer Rubin: We need a national crusade against Jim Crow voting laws

“Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books — and I have helped to put three of them there — can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it,” the president said. “In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath.”

President Barack Obama? Joe Biden? Actually, that was President Lyndon B. Johnson in a joint speech to Congress eight days after Bloody Sunday, when the John R. Lewis nearly lost his life. The vicious assault on peaceful demonstrators on March 7, 1965, setting out on their march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., was an inflection point, but not the sole factor in passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It took a bipartisan alliance (Northern Republicans and Democrats), religious and business leaders, and the full force of the presidency to raise this issue above the day-to-day politics of the time and get landmark legislation passed.

Sadly, the contents of the 1965 bill — including “a simple, uniform standard which cannot be used, however ingenious the effort, to flout our Constitution” and elimination of “tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote,” as Johnson described it — are still front and center as states devise mechanisms to throw voters off the rolls (with purges, for example), make access to the ballot more difficult (e.g., fewer poll locations, longer lines, voter ID requirements, elimination of no-excuse voting) and disallow votes (e.g. with signature match requirements). The motive of Jim Crow states in 1965 was the same as it is now in 2021: the suppression of minority voters to perpetuate minority white rule.

The sprawling H.R. 1, however, addresses issues well beyond voting access, encompassing everything from campaign finance reform to Supreme Court ethics. However meritorious all those provisions may be, the legislation’s only hope (and it is a slim one) rests with Democrats’ willingness to pare down the measure to match the nature of the current assault on voting rights: Restore the pre-clearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, require no-excuse voting by mail and some period of early voting (including weekends), mandate a paper ballot trail, ban periodic purges without voters’ consent, modernize voting systems and promote automatic registration. A short, easily understood list of items such as that will be critical to driving popular support. It is easy to think up reasons to oppose campaign finance reform; it is hard to deny the Justice Department the ability to anticipate and ward off anti-voting measures by states we now see are dedicated to reducing minority voting.

In short, if Democrats remove issues that will be used as a pretext for opposition, they can make this a clear up-or-down issue on voter suppression. Are you for or against Jim Crow laws?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/04/we-need-national-crusade-against-jim-crow-voting-laws/

was real and justified.

On September 26, 1983 we were five minutes away from the end of the world (see Alternative History Hub video below).

As David Byrne wrote: 'Our President's crazy - did you here what he said'

He said - 'The Soviet Union is an Evil Empire'. He said '[They have] a Mickey Mouse system [destined for] the ash heap of history'. He said 'My fellow Americans, I have just signed legislation outlawing Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes'

The Zeitgeist was venomous. We were on the edge.

Franke Goes to Hollywood- Two Tribes


Kate Bush - Breathing


David Bowie - Let's Dance




We were as close to the end as the Cuban Missile Crisis. I opposed the Fool on the Hill with all I had. I make no apology ... to this day.

September 26, 1983

TEXAS (The Borowitz Report)—Texans are “desperately nostalgic” for the wisdom of their former governor Rick Perry, a new poll shows.

From Houston to Lubbock, Texans said that Perry’s excellent judgment, sound decision-making, and sheer brainpower were sorely missed in the Lone Star State.

“I can’t tell you how many times over the past few days I’ve said to myself, ‘This wouldn’t be happening if Rick Perry were governor,’ ” Tracy Klugian, who lives in Houston, said. “That man had a mind like a steel trap.”

“To be honest, I didn’t appreciate Rick Perry’s mental sharpness and exacting attention to detail when he was governor,” Harland Dorrinson, a resident of Waco, said. “I guess sometimes you don’t really appreciate special people until they’re gone.”

Carol Foyler, of Galveston, said that nostalgia for the former governor is at an all-time high. “Everyone I know is thinking the same thing right now,” she said. “What would Rick Perry do?”

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/texans-nostalgic-for-wisdom-of-rick-perry

Source: CNN

(CNN)Former Vice President Mike Pence is seizing on a Democratic-led initiative to streamline election standards to again push false claims of voting irregularities in one of his first public statements since leaving office.

Pence expressed concern about "the integrity of the 2020 election," citing "significant" and "troubling" voting irregularities in an op-ed for the conservative publication Daily Signal.

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, and Pence did not make any specific claims in his op-ed. Rather, the former vice president continued to promote the misinformation pushed by former President Donald Trump that led Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol as Pence joined the Senate to certify the election's results.

While in office, Pence never publicly challenged Trump's false claims that the election was stolen from him, but he didn't address the matter after he certified the results on January 6. In his last days in office, he touted administration accomplishments and avoided questions from the press amid Trump's impeachment, and has largely kept a low profile since President Joe Biden's inauguration.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/mike-pence-false-claims-voter-fraud/index.html

---

Pence Op-Ed
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/03/03/election-integrity-is-a-national-imperative/

The tragic events of Jan. 6—the most significant being the loss of life and violence at our nation’s Capitol—also deprived the American people of a substantive discussion in Congress about election integrity in America.

Source: Stat News

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration quietly took around $10 billion from a fund meant to help hospitals and health care providers affected by Covid-19 and used the money to bankroll Operation Warp Speed contracts, four former Trump administration officials told STAT.

The Department of Health and Human Services appears to have used a financial maneuver that allowed officials to spend the money without telling Congress, and the agency got permission from its top lawyer to do so. Now, the Biden administration is refusing to say whether the outlay means there will be less money available for hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, and other providers.

Several provider groups said they had not heard that $10 billion for providers was spent on Warp Speed contracts until STAT’s reporting. Congress set aside that money to help health care providers pay for pandemic-related expenses including staffing, personal protective equipment, care for uninsured patients, and vaccine distribution. One of the top hospital lobbyists in D.C., who also did not know about the outlay, emphasized how much some hospitals still need the funding.

“Hospitals in need of the funding would be outraged to know that some of the money was siphoned off, even for important uses, because Congress was clear that this money was for providers and clinicians,” said Chip Kahn, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals.


Read more: https://www.statnews.com/2021/03/02/trump-administration-quietly-spent-billions-in-hospital-funds-on-operation-warp-speed/

---

Yahoo Report

The Trump administration reportedly quietly funded Operation Warp Speed with money set aside for hospitals
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-administration-reportedly-quietly-funded-165519534.html

Pages 14 - 15


Detail


Thread
https://twitter.com/crabcrawler1/status/1366793542861996034

The making of Madison Cawthorn: How falsehoods helped propel the career of a new pro-Trump star of the far right https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/27/making-madison-cawthorn-how-falsehoods-helped-propel-career-new-pro-trump-star-far-right/

Madison Cawthorn was a 21-year-old freshman at a conservative Christian college when he spoke at chapel, testifying about his relationship with God. He talked emotionally about the day a car accident left him partially paralyzed and reliant on a wheelchair.

Cawthorn said a close friend had crashed the car in which he was a passenger and fled the scene, leaving him to die “in a fiery tomb.” Cawthorn was “declared dead,” he said in the 2017 speech at Patrick Henry College. He said he told doctors that he expected to recover and that he would “be at the Naval Academy by Christmas.”

Key parts of Cawthorn’s talk, however, were not true. The friend, Bradley Ledford, who has not previously spoken publicly about the chapel speech, said in an interview that Cawthorn’s account was false and that he pulled Cawthorn from the wreckage. An accident report obtained by The Washington Post said Cawthorn was “incapacitated,” not that he was declared dead. Cawthorn himself said in a lawsuit deposition, first reported by the news outlet AVL Watchdog, that he had been rejected by the Naval Academy before the crash.

Shortly after the speech, Cawthorn dropped out of the college after a single semester of mostly D’s, he said in the deposition, which was taken as part of a court case regarding insurance. Later, more than 150 former students signed a letter accusing him of being a sexual predator, which Cawthorn has denied.
...

[At 25, as the youngest member of the House] he used his newfound fame to push baseless allegations about voting fraud on Twitter in a video viewed 4 million times, which President Donald Trump retweeted, saying, “Thank you Madison!” Then Cawthorn spoke at the Jan. 6 rally where a mob was incited to storm the U.S. Capitol, again alleging fraud and extolling the crowd’s courage in comparison with the “cowards” in Congress. He returned to the Capitol, where he falsely claimed that insurrectionists had been “paid by the Democratic machine.”

(Cawthorn denied a retest for an interview)

Off with the Old



On with the New



National Socialist Movement (United States)

The National Socialist Movement (NSM) is a neo-Nazi organization. It is a part of the Nationalist Front. The Party claimed to be the "largest and most active" National Socialist organization in the United States. It is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

... In November 2016, following the election of Donald Trump, the organization changed its logo, replacing the swastika with an Odal rune in an attempt to enter mainstream politics. The account of its leader, Jeff Schoep, was suspended by Twitter on December 18, 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Movement_(United_States)

America’s white supremacists ban swastika in bold attempt to ‘go mainstream’

THEY burn crosses, worship the swastika and associate with figures in white hoods, but don’t tell America’s predominant neo-Nazi party it’s racist. “We are not racist, and I do not like that term,” Jeff Schoep tells news.com.au.

The commander of the National Socialist Movement — described as the party “for every patriotic white American” — has a brand new reason to protest the point.

His party is about to do something it has never done. It is making a run at the mainstream, and it is even banning the swastika. Gone. Banished from uniforms that haven’t changed since the 1960s, well before the commander joined the ranks as a 19-year-old.

... The Odal rune, a less-well-known Nazi Germany symbol, will take the place of the swastika on all official uniforms and banners. Mr Schoep says it’s a gentler approach to preaching the same messages.



(In a statement on the NSM website earlier this month, Mr Schoep called it a “slight re-branding”. “Your party platform remains the same, your party remains unchanged, it is a cosmetic overhaul only.)

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/americas-white-supremacists-ban-swastika-in-bold-attempt-to-go-mainstream/news-story/53f68100ba52a1e33b13cf25b794d028

Senior Democrats explore tax largely hitting Fortune 1000 companies not paying $15 an hour
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/02/27/minimum-wage-democrats-biden/

Senior Democratic lawmakers trying to find a backup plan to a minimum wage hike are exploring new tax penalties on firms with more than $2.5 billion in gross receipts that do not pay at least $15 an hour, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The measure, which aides cautioned was still under discussion and subject to change, would aim to levy a 5 percent annual tax on these large corporations if they pay below $15 an hour, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of private deliberations. Democrats may aim to ratchet up the 5 percent penalty over time for large firms that do not increase their wages, although that measure is also preliminary and could change, the people said.

The plan being discussed would overwhelmingly hit companies in the Fortune 1000, many of which have seen record profits during the pandemic. The penalty would likely start almost immediately after the law is passed.

Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called on Democrats to pursue these levies after the party was dealt a setback on their original plan to hike the minimum wage.