HOUSTON — The red dot of a laser pointer circled downtown Houston on a map during a virtual training of poll watchers by the Harris County Republican Party. It highlighted densely populated, largely Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods.“This is where the fraud is occurring,” a county Republican official said falsely in a leaked video of the training, which was held in March. A precinct chair in the northeastern, largely white suburbs of Houston, he said he was trying to recruit people from his area “to have the confidence and courage” to act as poll watchers in the circled areas in upcoming elections.A question at the bottom corner of the slide indicated just how many poll watchers the party wanted to mobilize: “Can we build a 10K Election Integrity Brigade?”As Republican…
“You don’t feed a dog that bites your hand,” said Ralston, R-Blue Ridge.With the eyes of the nation focused squarely on Georgia as a political swing state, the quarrel may be a sign of what’s to come. Republicans are trying to energize their base after Georgia narrowly backed Democrats for president and the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, many companies that have cultivated a more progressive image are being pushed to respond by employees, some investors and social media users.“You can’t be a bystander in this day and age,” Sundar Bharadwaj, a professor at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. “The decision making is about where, when and how to play, rather than whether to play.”The political fireworks could complicate Georgia’s efforts to attract more corporations, such as the Georgia…
Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) claimed that people who want to vote are cancel culture and that Republicans are fighting for their lives. Here was Kemp on a call with the National Republican Lawyers Association: Right now in a Republican National Lawyers Association call, Gov. Brian Kemp says he and other republicans have been in "the fight of their lives" against "cancel culture" because of the 98 page voting law he signed. — Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) April 8, 2021 “This is not just Georgia’s fight, this is America’s fight.” Next, he said, it could be “your business” or “your ballgame” or “your way of life, if we don’t stand up” against the “woke mob.” — Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) April 8, 2021 There is a very good reason why businesses are choosing…
Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) responded to MLB moving its All-Star Game out of Georgia by blaming President Biden and Stacey Abrams. Kemp tweeted: Georgians – and all Americans – should fully understand what the MLB’s knee-jerk decision means: cancel culture and woke political activists are coming for every aspect of your life, sports included. If the left doesn’t agree with you, facts and the truth do not matter. — Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) April 2, 2021 Georgians – and all Americans – should fully understand what the MLB’s knee-jerk decision means: cancel culture and woke political activists are coming for every aspect of your life, sports included. If the left doesn’t agree with you, facts and the truth do not matter. — Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) April 2,…
Taryn Clemons was incredulous that her daughter survived the ordeal with only minor physical injuries.“For her to still be here,” she said, trailing off. “There were shots fired through the back door where she was sitting behind her father on the driver’s side ...“Why would someone do something like this to such a kind man?” Clemons asked.ExploreCobb driver fatally shot, crashes near gas station with child in back seatThat question does not appear easy to answer; Cobb police have not been able to identify any suspects or a motive for the shooting.The Clemons’ daughter said there was no altercation or other event that led to the shooting. Clemons said her daughter told her, “He just got shot.”Clemons and her community are already concerned about the trauma her 8-year-old experienced. Minister…
The ninth annual Judith Davidson Moyers Women of Spirit Lecture was delivered on February 12, 2020 by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Judith Davidson Moyers Women of Spirit Lecture provides a public forum to discuss the most pressing global issues faced by women leaders today. In addition to exploring enduring questions of human value and meaning, the Women of Spirit Lecture reflects on topics ranging from environmental justice, poverty, war, and education. View below LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. (No. 05-1074) Read Justice Ginsburg’s DissentListen to the dissent (begins at 3:45) Voting Rights Act History of the Voting Rights ActJournalist Ari Berman on voting rights Pauli Murray and Jane Crow Read the transcript © 2020 Schumann Media Center, Inc. Source link
Right now, the Republican legislatures in at least eight states controlled by their party are trying to seize complete control of the election process, over civil servants, judges, and county officials. Georgia is ground zero. "It's looking at total control of the election process by elected officials, which is not what it should be," Helen Butler, a Democratic county board of elections member told The New York Times. "It's all about turnout and trying to retain power." Iowa's Republicans have made enacting emergency voting rules a criminal offense and Arizona's Republicans are trying to take over the conduct of the state's elections. They don't want a repeat of 2020, when massive voter turnout gave Democrats the White House and Senate and mobilized millions of new voters. At this point, democracy…
The Shadow Network (Council for National Policy) Is Not Going Away US Capitol, Pexels, Kendall HoopesFive years ago, at the dawn of the Trump era, few national observers were focused on the role of the Council for National Policy. That was not a coincidence; over the past four decades, this coalition of Christian nationalists and fossil fuel interests has deliberately kept a low public profile, maintaining both its meetings and its membership under a veil of secrecy. Although it is registered with the IRS as a tax-exempt “educational” organization, it has advanced an unapologetically partisan agenda, promoting Republican candidates from the radical right and purging moderates. Key to its success is the expansion of its information ecosystem, composed of fundamentalist broadcasting outlets and myriad digital platforms. Often masquerading as “news”…
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) said that Sen. Ron Johnson wants credit for his racism and that Republicans can’t win without racism. Video: Wisconsin Lt. Gov. @TheOtherMandela said on CNN that Sen. Ron Johnson wants credit for his racism, and the Lt. Gov. spoke the blunt truth when he told CNN that Republicans can't win elections without racism. pic.twitter.com/6DrBanoaw6 — Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 15, 2021 Lt. Gov. Barnes said on CNN: Maybe we should give the guy credit for saying the racist part out loud. He’s certainly done more than many of his colleagues have done in terms of being bold in that way. But the fact is senator Johnson represents a culture that inherently sees black people as a threat even though there’s an officer that…
President Biden took action to combat Republican voter suppression and also asked Republicans why they are so afraid to let people vote. Video: President Biden takes action against voter suppression while telling Republicans that if they have the best ideas let the people vote. pic.twitter.com/FLxtpp3kNL — Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 7, 2021 President Biden said, “I’m signing an executive order to make it easier for eligible voters to register to vote and improve access to voting. Every eligible voter should be able to vote and have that vote counted. If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let the people vote.”Biden did sign the executive order, which should be viewed as an escalation, along with the House passage of the For The People Act, in the…
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Sundays are always special at the St. Philip Monumental A.M.E. church. But in October, the pews are often more packed, the sermon a bit more urgent and the congregation more animated, and eager for what will follow: piling into church vans and buses — though some prefer to walk — and heading to the polls.Voting after Sunday church services, known colloquially as “souls to the polls,” is a tradition in Black communities across the country, and Pastor Bernard Clarke, a minister since 1991, has marshaled the effort at St. Philip for five years. His sermons on those Sundays, he said, deliver a message of fellowship, responsibility and reverence.“It is an opportunity for us to show our voting rights privilege as well as to fulfill what we know…
The Roosevelt Institute Unburdened: How Canceling Student Debt Can Boost Growth, Equity, and Innovation The Roosevelt Institute has been sounding alarms about the mounting student debt crisis for years. Previously, they published briefs on how predatory financial institutions and industry insiders rig the system to extract as much as they can from student borrowers. In their latest report, the Roosevelt Institute outlines how cancelling student debt benefits both the individual borrower and the wider economy. RELATED: Economy & Work BY Ruby Walsh | December 29, 2020 Student debt ties up millions of borrowers and ultimately prevents them from putting their money into the economy. Cancellation of this debt, the Roosevelt Institute argues, would give borrowers a financial boost and immediately open up doors; it would increase their yearly pay, which…
ORLANDO, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 28: Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Begun in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders to discuss issues important to them. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)March 1, 2021 This morning, conservative pundit William Kristol wrote in The Bulwark what a number of us have been saying for a while now, and it dovetails cleanly with the current Republican attempt to suppress voting. Kristol warns that our democracy is in crisis. For the first time in our history, we have failed to have a peaceful transfer of power. The Republican Party launched a coup — which fortunately failed — and “now claims that the current administration is illegitimately elected,…
New Brennan Center Report: The Redistricting Landscape, 2021–22 Moyers on Democracy has been keeping an eye on what may well be the biggest threat to democracy – gerrymandering. The process of redrawing voting districts is the most effective way of suppressing fair voting — and it is under the radar. The Brennan Center released a report in February 2021, detailing down to map level, new challenges facing American’s voting rights. In April 2020, Bill talked with reporter David Daley about gerrymandering and his film Slay the Dragon. Under the best of circumstances, the redrawing of legislative and congressional districts every 10 years is a fraught and abuse-prone process. But the next round of redistricting in 2021 and 2022 will be the most challenging in recent history. Even before the Covid-19…
David Perdue, the one-term U.S. senator from Georgia who lost a runoff election last month against Senator Jon Ossoff, filed paperwork on Monday night indicating that he plans a comeback effort — this time against Georgia’s other new senator, Raphael Warnock.Mr. Perdue, a former businessman who first ran for office as an outsider, and later became one of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, filed documents with the Federal Election Commission to establish a “Perdue for Senate” campaign committee.The move, first reported by Fox News, was viewed as a first step in the Republican Party’s effort to try to reclaim one of the Senate seats lost in Georgia’s historic runoff elections on Jan. 5.Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff prevailed in those runoffs — not only the first…
While Georgia’s Senatorial run-off races earlier this month were historic, it is unlikely that the state would have turned blue without the work of former Gubernatorial candidate-turned voting rights activist Stacey Abrams. Abrams’ Fair Fight organization and ground organizing effort helped register millions of people to vote in the southern state and elect Democrats Raphael Warnock as Georgia’s first Black senator and Jon Ossoff. In a new interview with Atlanta’s WSB-TV 2, Abrams says she didn’t act alone and that it took the work of hundreds of people who gave their time in support of her cause. “I appreciate the support and the accolades, but I want to keep reminding folks that it took millions of votes, and hundreds of people and organizations to get this work done. And it…
The president’s tenure started with a massive march by women, who then channeled that activist energy into the democratic process. (PHOTO BY MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES)Originally published by The 19th On Tuesday, Black women defended democracy, organizing thousands of Georgians as coronavirus and voter suppression raged anew in the state to pull off a pair of political victories in a consequential runoff election that gave Democrats control of the Senate. On Wednesday, a mostly White, significantly male mob disrespected democracy, storming the U.S. Capitol in an insurrection with the air of a public lynching, falsely framed as patriotic, to defend President Donald Trump’s false claims of a rigged presidential election. In a span of 18 hours, the highs and lows of American democracy were on display, breaking down largely along racial…
The seven-point platform is both a fundamental and ambitious list, ranging from specific policies to broad, aspirational goals: COVID-19 relief that “meets the scale of the crisis” and directly addresses the pandemic’s disproportionate harm to Black, Indigenous, people of color and “other vulnerable communities”; Programs to put people back to work, with a focus on moving the economy to clean, renewable energy—but also restoring and expanding worker rights, including union rights; Ensuring health care for all; Defending and expanding voting rights—including proposals to end gerrymandering and rein in corporate money in electoral campaigns; Attacking institutional racism and white supremacy; Turning away from militarism and “endless wars” in favor of a commitment to peaceful diplomacy; Rejecting corporate greed and ending corporate monopoly. [...] THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING TOP COMMENTS •…
“The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself,” read the document. “We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue. Instead of driving around in circles on an ideological cul-de-sac, we need a Party whose brand of conservatism invites and inspires new people to visit us.” Honestly, the document was shockingly cogent and insightful, and the Republican party that ever endeavored to produce it no longer exists. Eight years later, not only are Republicans skipping the soul-searching exercise, they are perfectly comfortable with the entrenched minority status Donald Trump helped solidify for the party. Given the built-in advantages of Senate representation,…
As advisor to a number of African leaders during their struggles for independence, the freedom fighter and champion for women's rights Andreé Blouin cannot be relegated to the footnotes of history. Andreé Blouin is best known as the powerful advisor to Patrice Lumumba, but much of the focus on the activist has been on only small parts of her dedication to freedom. Her brand of African nationalism and feminism dismantled preconceived notions of race and gender on a colonised continent that often excluded women from politics - or diminished their contributions to "the wife of". It is necessary to remove Blouin from the shadow of Lumumba, so she is fully recognised for her particular, singular political actions. The fight begins Blouin's mother was a 14-year-old girl named Josephine Wouassimba from…
Two Black women are in the running for Time Magazine’s 2020 Person of the Year in a watershed year for race and politics. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams are among the names on a list of possible nominees for the annual honor, which the magazine has been handing out since the 1920s. It is awarded to individuals or groups the country believes has had “the greatest influence on the events of the year—for better or worse,” according to The Hill. RELATED: WATCH: Kamala Harris Call A COVID Frontline Nurse On Thanksgiving Harris became the first Black woman, first woman, and first Asian, to win election to office as vice president-elect in the nation. Abrams, a former 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee for Georgia, won the spotlight…
LAWRENCEVILLE, GA - NOVEMBER 07: Election personnel check in provisional ballots at the Gwinnett County Board of Voter Registrations and Elections offices on November 7, 2020 in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Several counties in Georgia continued to count ballots even as news outlets have declared Joe Biden the winner of the race for President. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Georgia’s Trump supporters are not giving up. On Saturday, scores massed outside the statehouse in Atlanta, a small sea of mostly men in red MAGA hats hoisting signs hurling accusations against Joe Biden and wearing campaign T-shirts saying “STOP the STEAL.” It barely mattered that Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had certified Biden’s unexpected nearly 13,000-vote victory one…
Election Protection "Our Election Protection program and 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683) hotline provide critical support for voters across the nation,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "Our goal is ensuring every voice is heard in our democracy."
Washington, D.C. (PRWEB)
November 01, 2020
Election Protection, the nation’s largest and longest-running nonpartisan voter protection coalition, has launched a new phase in its continued efforts to safeguard voting rights across the country. Election Protection, led by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, has launched 30 call centers based primarily at law rms across the country, to provide assistance to voters from coast to coast on November 3rd. Voters can call or text the 866-OURVOTE (866- 687-8683) hotline for help or support.…
The trouble broke out inside the main counting room in Detroit late on the morning of Nov. 4.It was the day after Election Day, and until then the process of tabulating votes from the city’s various counting boards had gone smoothly inside the TCF Center, the cavernous convention hall that plays host to the North American International Auto Show.As batches of ballots came in by van, workers methodically inspected and registered them at 134 separate tables, each monitored by voting rights observers and so-called election challengers from each party.But the posture of the Republican challengers shifted as the count swung in favor of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and word spread that President Trump would sue. One witness, a nonpartisan observer, Julie Moroney, heard a Republican organizer say, “Now we’re going…
WASHINGTON — A first-term senator in Georgia narrowly bested his opponent, outrunning his party’s standard-bearer only to face voters again a few weeks later under a quirky system that briefly made the state the center of the political universe after a hard-fought presidential election.The year was 1992, and Senator Wyche Fowler Jr., a Democrat, had amassed more votes than his Republican opponent on Election Day. But he lost his seat three weeks later.“Yes, I was disappointed, running six points ahead of the president and being the only state in the country that had this kind of crazy system,” said Mr. Fowler, now 80, looking back on a storied runoff election 28 years ago after Bill Clinton won the presidency.Now that same “crazy system” that overturned Mr. Fowler’s lead, defeating a…
xAnd no indication the president is the least bit interested in looking up from his own fantasies & grievances to do anything about it, or that any Congressional Republican is pressuring him to do so. Total abandonment of American people at a moment of crisis. AWOL under fire. https://t.co/2q2fJjUcZs— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) November 13, 2020 If you think distributing vaccine will be easy, watch how difficult it s to distribute a playstation 5 (and at room temperature, at that). Politico: How Biden swung the religious vote Trump’s team thought religious-minded voters would save him in key states. They now appear to have turned away just enough for him to lose. For months, President Donald Trump’s top aides and religious allies dismissed his softening support with white evangelicals and Catholic voters…
Thousands of New Yorkers whose absentee ballots were disqualified for mailing errors have time to correct the problem weeks after the election under a new state law. The city Board of Elections preliminary report released Tuesday found that 96 percent of the record 713,536 absentee ballots received in the mail during the coronavirus pandemic — or 688,636 — were deemed valid. Four percent or 15,330 ballots were disqualified for filing errors. Of those, about 40 percent — 6,132 ballots — could be corrected for technical snafus, said BOE spokeswoman Valerie Velazquez. Most of the remaining 60 percent or 9,198 ballots were invalidated because a voter had already cast a ballot in person, and therefore cannot be corrected. Under the new law, voters have up to five days to correct the…
Campaign Action If the current 6-3 majority of far-right hardliners remains on the Supreme Court, the court presents an existential danger to the Voting Rights Act's remaining protections and threatens to turbocharge GOP gerrymandering across the country. But if Democrats pull off upsets to flip the Senate in January, Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress could pass legislation to curb the court’s radicalism, ban congressional gerrymandering nationally, and adopt a reinvigorated Voting Rights Act. In the meantime, many lawsuits that were ongoing before Election Day have since become mooted by the results. Many additional ones have been newly filed in the days since, including several largely frivolous ones by Donald Trump in a desperate last-ditch effort to deny the writing on the wall as Joe Biden leads decisively in…
Having lived in metro Detroit for more than two decades, I know what would happen if African American Detroit residents attempted to force their way into a room where votes were being counted in the predominantly white suburbs. It wouldn’t end well.The opposite scenario unfolded Wednesday in downtown Detroit. Shouting “Stop the count!” and "Let us in!", several dozen election challengers, most of them white, tried forcing their way into a vote-counting room at the TCF Center after being denied readmission, according to the Detroit Free Press. A Detroit Police Department spokeswoman told me that no arrests were made.Officials had sealed off the area because it was overcapacity due to COVID-19 restrictions. Several hundred Democratic, Republican and independent challengers were already inside the facility observing the vote count and looking for any irregularities, but officials were not…
The worst fears about a chaotic end to a chaotic campaign failed to materialize on Tuesday as the final day of voting went off with little more than sporadic glitches and confrontations even as the tension over the outcome and aftermath remained undiminished.The most litigated, disrupted and polarized election in generations came to a close with voters who had not already cast their ballots by mail or in person during early voting trooping to the polls on an Election Day redefined by the coronavirus pandemic.There were scattered problems and hints of battles still to be fought: The authorities in Michigan sought to hunt down the source of robocalls that warned voters to “stay home.” A federal judge ordered the Postal Service to make an intensive sweep for mail-in ballots that…
