LaMouffette
LaMouffette's Journal"Republicans Lie, Democracy Dies!" "Republicans Lie, Democracy Dies!" "Republicans Lie, Democracy...
Dies!" (repeat a million times).
I tuned in to Sean Hannity's show the night after the Jan. 6 Committee sent him their letter requesting information he might have that could further their investigation. I just wanted to see if he looked the tiniest bit rattled. He didn't, of course. He's a smoothie, that one.
But in the five minutes that I could stomach of his show, he repeated the same phrase over and over: "Blah, blah, blah, OPERATION WARP SPEED, blah, blah, OPERATION WARP SPEED, blah blah." He threw in "Joe Biden's failed Covid response!" a few times, too.
It was just striking how many times he repeated these catchphrases. And think of how many times "Stop the Steal!" has been bleated by the Repubs.
That's just one of their techniques they use to brainwash/hypnotize their cult members. It's time for some counter-programming: "Republicans lie, Democracy dies!" is just one possible catchphrase that Dems can start repeating.
I know it's not our MO to use propaganda techniques, but it may be what it takes to lure their followers away from the dark side.
WWRD (What Would Republicans Do) about the Electoral College if it put them at a disadvantage?
Probably something technically legal, but a complete affront to the spirit of democracy, because that's who they are and that's what they do.
So let's not do that. But we need to do something to abolish, or do an end run around, the Electoral College. Something that is not only legal and democratic, but POSSIBLE. We have to do something that does not entail amending the Constitution. That would be impossible, given the fact that Republicans and Republican-controlled state legislatures think the Electoral College works just fine the way it is right now, thank you very much!
Here are just a couple of ideas described in a Brookings Institute article from December 2020. It's a long article, but worth the read. Here is the link:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/12/09/how-to-get-rid-of-the-electoral-college/
And an excerpt:
". . . A constitutional amendment is not the only means by which an alternative to the current Electoral College can be implemented. The most popular alternative is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). Started in the mid-2000s, the NPVIC is a fairly straightforward system that capitalizes on the constitutional guarantee that states are free to determine the manner in which they award their electoral votes. The compact requires states to pass laws that would award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally. Under the current plan, states that join will not activate the compact until enough states have joined to total 270 electoral votes. That is, the compact does not go into effect until there is a critical mass of states for it to be effective.
Currently, 15 states and DC have approved the NPVIC. These states currently total 196 electoral votes, although after the 2020 census is completed, projections suggest a net loss of two seats, lowering that number to 194. Each of those states has Democratic control of the state legislature. If the remaining states with Democratic control of the legislature (Maine, Nevada, and Virginia) were to sign on, it would add an additional 23 Electoral College votes.[2] The compact would then be 43 Electoral College votes short of going into effect. It should be noted, there is debate about the permissibility of such a proposal and its going into effect would likely face a flurry of lawsuits. Nonetheless, it is likely the most viable alternative to the current Electoral College system.
Alternatives to winner-take-all
As discussed above, the only practical way of ending the Electoral College is by changing the ways in which states use the popular vote to award electors to the presidential candidates. In addition to the NPVIC discussed above, there are two variations on this theme that could reduce the odds that someone could win the presidency without winning the national popular vote.
In the first instance, states could decide to award 2 Electoral College votes (EVs) to the winner of the national popular vote (NPV) and the remainder to the winner of the state. That means that the national winner would start out with 102 Electoral College votes. In most cases this should prevent the popular vote loser from becoming president. For instance, if a hotly contested state like Wisconsin broke for the candidate who lost the popular vote, eight of its ten electoral votes would be added to their tally. The following table shows how this would have changed the outcome in the two contested elections of the 21st century and includes 2004 for comparison.
Oh my god. I just realized that Repub politicians not only want the pandemic to continue in general,
since that will make Biden look bad, but it seems to me that they also specifically want their own constituents to lose loved ones to Covid because they know that they, the Republican politicians, will be able to direct their grieving voters' anger against Biden and the Dems.
The rising surge in Covid deaths, especially among Republican Americans, is good news for the GOP. The more deaths, the more outrage, which is how they get themselves elected. Before TFG, I wouldn't have thought them capable of such cruel cynicism, but now, I wonder.
They must be banking on enough of their constituents not dying of Covid to still get elected, with the added insurance of voter suppression bills and their efforts to make it possible for Republican-controlled state legislatures to toss out voting results that do not favor Republican candidates.
Yikes.
Hey! Craig Melvin on MSNBC just pointed out that for a few hours today we have a woman president!
Woot woot! A historical moment, albeit a short one.
Go, Kamala! And good luck on the procedure today, Joe!
Michael Avenatti for US Attorney General! Oh, wait. He's in prison. But someone brash LIKE Avenatti
should replace Merrick Garland. An honest Avenatti, with the best interests of all Americans at heart. Avenatti turned out to be a loser, but he did have a certain toughness about him that we could really use in an attorney general right now.
And, now that I think of it, if Traitor Trump should happen to be the Republican candidate in 2024 (shudder!), we need to find someone just as loud, just as in-your-face as TFG, and then some. Again, an honest Avenatti, male or female, doesn't matter, as long as they have an impeccable character and can get loud when it's demanded of them.
I love, respect, and admire almost all of our Democratic elected leaders, but most of them are way too polite for the smack-down free-for-all that will be the 2024 election.
After emailing to express outrage over something way back when, I got on Senator Daines's email list
It's infuriating to read these, but also gives a direct window into the propaganda the Republicans have decided to disseminate among their cult members. From this email, it's clear that they're latching onto the "Parents' rights are being taken away!" scare tactic that seems to have won Virginia's governor's seat. Daines also trots out the vintage, tried-and-untrue "Democrats are the tax-and-spend-party!" BS, too:
Did you know that the Democrats' reckless tax & spending spree could increase childcare costs for YOUR family by $13,000?
That's right--after months of the Left trying to push parents out of the classroom, they're using their spending monstrosity to usher in a complete government takeover of early childhood education and sticking you with the bill.
Their new proposal includes a provision that would block families from receiving compensation for taking care of your kids unless you agree to be regulated by Health and Human Services! This means visits to grandma's house could be audited by the federal government.
This is just the next step in the Biden administration's attempt to control Montana students and insert Washington bureaucrats into the most personal decisions for Montana families.
We can not let Joe Biden and the Democrats become the puppet masters behind our children's education. Montana parents, educators and local leaders know what's best for our students--not the federal government. I'll fight back against this massive tax and spending spree every step of the way.
Sincerely,
Senator Steve Daines
The "visits to grandma's house could be audited by the federal government" part was a nice touch, too, don't you think!!!
It's time to start hammering them with the "Republicans want to take away your Social Security!" scare tactic that someone here on DU posted about yesterday, the difference being that our scary things are real possibilities.
God help Montana.
Think there's a worker shortage now? Just wait until we finally get universal health insurance!
(I said, gleefully)! The only reason millions of Americans are staying in their jobs is for the health insurance (if they are lucky enough to have employer-provided health insurance).
There will be a mass exodus once some form of single-payer-Medicare-for-All-national-health-insurance is finally put into place and people feel it's safe for them to strike out on their own with that business idea they've been longing to attempt.
Plenty of people will remain in their jobs because they are still wary of the job insecurity that being on your own can bring. Or they may not have any desire to have their own business, or may actually like their jobs, or are in a profession in which they cannot be self-employed. But with more workers choosing self-employment, the ones who remain will benefit (hopefully) because employers will have to treat them better with higher wages and better work conditions (you would think, anyway).
So, bring on the Great Resignation, I say! It's time for businesses to start forking over more of their profits to the workers who make those profits possible. And sure, they'll try to pass the cost of increasing wages onto the consumer, but that can only go so far before they out-price themselves and will be forced to accept a lower profit margin.
So that's my totally inexpert take on the worker shortage. Being self-employed for a couple of decades myself, I wish everyone out there who is embarking on their own new business all the very best of luck in your new endeavor!
A proposal to ease the US worker shortage that would make Repubs' heads explode:
My husband pointed out that we have all these people at the southern border trying desperately to enter the United States. He suggested that we should let them in if they agree to enroll in a pathway-to-citizenship worker program and allow themselves to be placed in jobs facing worker shortages. It would be like the current guest worker programs already in place in the US, but would allow workers to actually earn their US citizenship.
It would be fun to float this idea in Congress, just to watch the Repubs' go apoplectic, like the Martians' reaction to Slim Whitman music in Mars Attacks!
I wonder how many Repube politicians in Texas have invested in the Plan B emergency contraceptive?
On the sly, of course, since to their base, it's still an abortion, even if it's via a pill taken within 5 days of unprotected sex. But I would not put it past many of them to find a way to profit from the new Texas ban on abortions after six weeks.
I bet banning Plan B is next on their agenda, but before they accomplish that, I hope Planned Parenthood is able to educate their patients about this method AND find a way to bring the cost down (google tells me it's about $40-50).
Remember how Republicans terrorized their base over the Obamacare "Death Panels"?
From the Atlantic (May 2014):
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/death-panels-will-be-sarah-palins-greatest-legacy/371888/
How prescient of them to have foreseen the looming specter of death panels! Turns out, the death panels, which they feared would lay waste to the nation's grandmothers, was another case of Republican projection, since it is now Republican governors like Ron DeathSentence who are imposing death sentences on not our grandparents alone, but on everyone, including children, by refusing to mandate masks, vaccines, or vaccine passports.
They are the death panels they warned us about.
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