#voters day 2022

[batboyblog]

2024 Senate Elections: You'd Better VOTE!

Yes it's election year yet again in America! but not just for President, almost as important will be the US Senate!

I'm not gonna lie this is a rough map for Democrats, we're playing a lot of defense in some pretty red states with even our best hopes for a pick up being pretty long shots. But even with narrow control of the Senate we've managed the biggest climate bill in American History a huge infrastructure bill thats bring high speed rail to America capped the price of insulin changed the law to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices bring savings to everyone, and put over 160 federal judges on the bench, 2/3rds of whom are women and/or people of color the first time white men haven't been the majority of nominees by a President. So let's keep progress going by voting for, supporting, donating, and volunteering for the following candidates in the races that will decide the US Senate this year.

Arizona

Ruben Gallego (Hold)

After frustrating Democrats by repeatedly voting against major Democratic priorities, supporting the filibuster and putting donors over voters, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party to become an independent in 2022. Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego was running to primary Sinema before she left the party and is now the likely Democratic nominee to unseat her and give Arizona the Democratic Senator it deserves. Gallego is a former Marine, combat veteran, Harvard grad, a former state representative, and since 2014 a member of Congress. Gallego is a member of the Progressive Caucus and is known for his blunt and combative style standing up to Republicans. In Congress Gallego has been a strong supporter of native rights advocating for tribes on health care and child welfare issues. Gallego is also the sponsor of a bill to bring about nation wide, free, all-day kindergarten which isn't available in many states. If elected Gallego would be Arizona's first hispanic Senator. Republicans hope that the Democratic vote will split between Sinema and Gallego allowing them to win this important seat. The Republican front runner is conspiracy theorist and Trump super fan, Kari Lake. Lake rose to national fame in 2021 for pushing conspiracy theories about Trump having won the 2020 election, as well as anti-mask and anti-vaccine Covid conspiracies. Lake was the Republican nominee for Arizona governor in 2022. During that campaign she ran on an aggressive anti-LGBT platform, saying she'd ban drag, and was against trans rights. Lake also is against Abortion in all cases. After losing to Democrat Katie Hobbs, Lake refused to concede, and still pushes the conspiracy theory that she's the rightful governor of Arizona. If you live in Arizona please make sure you vote, but more if you have any time between now and November, volunteer to help Gallego! and if you don't live there you can still Donate or buy a pro-choice shirt from his campaign!

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Florida

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (Flip)

Florida's current Republican Senator Rick Scott is a right wing extremist pushing dangerous ideas even by the standards of the Modern GOP. During his first term as Senator Scott has pushed to defund the IRS, and the Department of Education. He's sponsored bills to punish schools that allow students to use preferred pronouns, to ban affirmative action, bans teaching critical race theory, and ban trans people from women's sports. Scott is against abortion in all cases. Most alarming Rick Scott proposed a radical plan that would "sun-set" ANY and all federal laws after 5 years, including Social Security and Medicare, Scott would place all federal programs and agencies on the chopping block every 5 years for a radical Republican minority to block their renewal and leave us without Social Security, or the EPA, to name just two examples. The likely Democratic nominee is former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Born in Ecuador, Mucarsel-Powell immigrated to the US when she was 14 and had work to help support her family. When she was elected to Congress in 2018 she became the first South American born immigrant and first person of Ecuadorian heritage to be elected to Congress. In Congress Mucarsel-Powell was a member of the Progressive caucus, she fought to expand medicare, and secured $200 million for Everglades restoration. After a narrow defeat in 2020 Mucarsel-Powell joined the gun control advocacy group Giffords to fight for gun control a personal issue for her after her father was murdered when she was 24. If you're in Florida please make sure you vote, and Volunteer to help remove on of the most extreme Senators, If you're not in Florida you can help Debbie win by donating.

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Michigan

Elissa Slotkin (hold)

Long time Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow is retiring this election, so there will be a tough fight for control of this important swing state Senate seat. The likely Democratic nominee is Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. Slotkin is a former CIA analyst, after retiring from the CIA she worked in the State and Defense departments during the Obama administration. Slotkin was first elected to Congress in 2018 winning and being re-elected in a tough swing district. In Congress she's fought for common sense gun control, supported the cap on insulin prices and Medicare drug price negotiation, she helped pass a law on drug price transparency, she championed the CHIP act to bring high tech manufacturing jobs back to America, and was a big supporter of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Slotkin is centering a pro-choice message in her campaign as well as gun control and bring down medical costs. Who the Republicans will pick isn't totally clear, it seems like it's between Former Congressman Mike Rogers and former Detroit Police chief James Craig. Craig ran for Michigan governor in 2022 before he was disqualified for fraudulent signatures on his nominating petition. Craig has listed cutting off US support to Ukraine as one of his top priorities, and endorsed Trump's 3rd run for President early in the primaries. Mike Rogers is also trying to win over Trump voters and has attacked the rights of LGBT students in schools calling it "social engineering". If you live in Michigan make sure to get out and vote, and also volunteer! And for everyone outside the state you can donate or buy some merch.

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Montana

Jon Tester (re-elect)

In most contexts Montana is a deep red state going for Trump in 2020 57% to 40%. This makes the reelection of Montana's only Democratic member of Congress and only statewide elected Democrat, Jon Tester maybe the toughest election for Democrats this year. A Senator since he was first elected in 2006 Tester has won a series of upset wins in Montana over the years. A 3rd generation farmer Tester has been as strong for small farmers and ranchers in Washington. Tester has always been a champion of accountably and transparency in government pushing ethnics and campaign finance reforms. Tester is rated one of the most effective senators and managed to pass more bills last year than any one else in Congress. He's never been afraid to stand up for the Democratic side even if it'd be an unpopular vote in Red Montana. Tester voted to impeach Trump twice, and he voted against all 3 of Trump's nominees to the Supreme Court. He supported President Obama on The Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank, and has supported President Biden on the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Republicans seem likely to nominate right wing influencer and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy. Sheehy promises to get drag queens out of schools and the Lord's Prayer in to the classroom. He also hopes to repeal Obamacare calling for a "total privatization" of health care and made statements against the very idea of health insurance, insisting people should pay full price at point of use. If you're a Montanan make sure to vote to re-elect a champion of the little guy, and also volunteer! if you're not please think of donating what you can, if you can only give to one campaign this cycle this one, or Ohio are the most important!

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

Nevada

Jacky Rosen (re-elect)

First elected to Congress in 2016 Jacky Rosen moved up to the Senate in 2018. In her first term as a Senator Rosen has championed green energy for Nevada. Together with fellow Democratic Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Rosen has gotten millions for solar manufacturing in Nevada as well as millions to replace the state's school buses with electric, and programs to study new groundbreaking green technology. Senator Rosen has been a supporter of gun control, is in favor of banning assault weapons. She sponsored a bill, the Background Check Expansion Act, that would require background checks for all gun sales closing loopholes for on-line sales and gun shows. Rosen is pro-choice and has sponsored a bill to protect doctors from being prosecuted across state lines for providing reproductive care, and is a co-sponsor of a bill to codify Roe V. Wade into federal law. Rosen will likely face Republican celebrity and army veteran Sam Brown. Brown ran and lost a race for the Texas State House in 2014 and ran and lost for Nevada's other Senate seat in 2022. Brown stated he was in favor of getting rid of the Departments of Education, Transportation, and Energy. Brown is against Red Flag gun laws that allow police to temporarily remove fire arms from the home of someone deemed a danger to themselves or others. Brown also has refused to say if he supports a national abortion ban, but does say he's pro-life and wouldn't support any judges that weren't. If you live in Nevada make sure to get out to vote and volunteer to protect the state's green future and the right to reproductive care. If you're not in Nevada consider donating or buying some merch.

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Ohio

Sherrod Brown (re-elect)

Ohio together with Montana represents the toughest re-elect for Democrats this year. The state went for Trump twice, elected a right wing radical, JD Vaince, to the Senate in 2022 and has had a Republican governor since 2010. To complicate thing more Democrat Sherrod Brown is one of the most progressive members of the Senate, regularly scoring along side Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for the most left wing in the Senate. From the time he was first elected to Congress in 1992 Brown refused to take the Congressional Health Insurance until all Americans could be covered. Brown first supported a Medicare for all bill in 2006 and has supported different efforts to expand Medicare and health coverage. He was a key supporter of the Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Brown is a strong supporter of unions and has struggled his whole career to protect unionized manufacturing jobs in Ohio. He was one of the first Senators out on the picket line during the UAW strike of 2023. Brown's hard work has help make Ohio the center of a new booming lithium battery manufacturing in America, a green manufacturing future for the state. Republicans look likely to nominate former used car dealer and father-in-law of Republican Congressman Max Miller, Bernie Moreno. Moreno's main qualification seems to be having been endorsed by Donald Trump. He lists among his priorities "End Socialism in America" and "End Wokeness and Cancel Culture". If you're in Ohio make sure to vote to re-elect a progressive giant and volunteer too! If you live out of Ohio donate, if you're looking for the race where your dollar will matter the most, this one or Montana guys.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE

Pennsylvania

Bob Casey Jr. (re-elect)

First elected in 2006 Bob Casey famously beat incumbent Republican homophobe Rick Santorum by 17 points. Since first entering the Senate Casey has moved leftward on a number of issues. First elected as a pro-Gun Democrat since 2012 Casey has sponsored a number of bills to expand background checks, ban assault weapons, ban extended magazines, and well as supporting mental health funds for victims of gun violence. For a number of years Casey was called the last pro-life Democrat in the Senate, however in 2022 he came out in support of Roe V Wade and voted twice on bills that would have codified the right to an abortion into federal law. Casey voted against all 3 of Trump's Supreme Court picks and has long supported Planned Parenthood's contraception efforts with federal funds, seeing easily available birth control as key to reducing the number of abortions. In 2021 Casey published a plan he called "The Five Freedoms for America's Children" modeled after FDR's famous speech. He proposed automatically enrolling all kids in Medicaid, an expanded child tax cut, a federally supported college fund for all kids who's parents make under $100,000, expanded free school meals, more funds for head start and abuse prevention programs. Republicans are rallying behind Mitch McConnell's hand picked candidate, hedge fund CEO David McCormick. McCormick worked for the Bush administration during Bush's second term. McCormick's wife Dina Powell also worked for the George W. Bush administration and was a senior aid to Trump as well. If you're in Pennsylvania make sure to get out and vote for a solid Democrat out to solve child poverty in America and keep the Hedge Fund guy from Connecticut out, and Volunteer if you can. Remember you can donate where ever you are.

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Texas

Colin Allred (flip)

Texas is currently represented by likely the most hated man in Washington, Ted Cruz. Republicans hate him, Democrats hate him more, he has a very punchable face, he might be the zodiac killer (thats a joke and meme). From shutting down the government in 2013 to try to overturn Obamacare, to leading the charge in Congress to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th Ted Cruz is a greatest hits of the worst parts of the Republican Party of the last 10 years. When Texas lost power in the middle of a historic ice storm in 2021 Ted Cruz and family ditched the state to go on vacation in Mexico, classy. Cruz in the Biden years has cast himself as a culture warrior fighting against "woke" publishing a book "Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America" in 2023 to kick off his re-election campaign. Texas is a traditionally red state but things are starting to shift and in 2018 Cruz narrowly won re-election over Beto O'Rourke. Democrats hope with the right candidate they can turn Texas blue and beat the most hated Senator in America. Democrats think Congressman Colin Allred is the man for the job. Allred is a former NFL Linebacker for the Titans. After the NFL he went on to get his law degree from UC Berkeley, and work in the Obama administration. Allred was first elected to Congress in 2018, unseating a Republican who'd been in office since 1997 and becoming the first Democrat to represent the area in Congress since 1968. In Congress Allred has supported bills to expand voting right and protect abortion rights, as well as gun control. In the Senate he promises to address Texas' shaky power grid and make sure Texas is never left in the dark again with its leaders missing. Lets do this Texas, make blue Texas a reality if you live in Texas remember to vote and volunteer, if you're an American who hates Ted Cruz you can donate to make in unemployed.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

Wisconsin

Tammy Baldwin (re-elect)

When Tammy Baldwin first ran for Congress in 1998 she was the first openly gay person elected to the US House and the first open Lesbian to serve in Congress. In 2012 she became the first openly gay person elected to the US Senate and the first Lesbian to be a Senator, she is still the only openly gay Senator. Through out her time in office Baldwin has been a tireless voice for LGBT rights, in 2022 she helped spear head the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act to help protect gay marriage, she's also a sponsor of the Equality Act to protect all LGBT people from discrimination. Baldwin is a progressive who was a member of the House Progressive caucus, opposed the Iraq War and supported impeaching Dick Cheney. In the House she introduced bills for a single payer healthcare system in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2005. In the Senate Baldwin is regularly listed as one of the most progressive members, voting against tax cuts for the rich, supporting a bill to require companies to have workers on their boards, she sponsored a bill to create a public option in Health Care, and has supported gun control efforts. The Republican field to challenge Senator Baldwin is uncertain, but former Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke dominates the polls if he decides to run. Clarke's sheriff's department is accused a number of human rights violations from his time as sheriff, including allowing a prisoner to die of dehydration after 6 days without water in the Milwaukee County Jail. Clarke is a Trump super fan who has pushed conspiracy theories about mass shootings being fake, attacked Black Lives Matter, called Planned Parenthood "Planned Genocide", and called for the mass detention without trial of Americans because he believed there were a million ISIS supporters in America. If you're in Wisconsin make sure to get out and vote for a trailblazing icon and also volunteer if you can, all Americans can donate and support Baldwin wherever they are.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

If you're an American citizen and will be 18 years old (or older) by November 5th 2024, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! make sure you're registered to VOTE please check Vote.Org to find out what you need to do, what deadlines there are and act NOW

If you're an American living outside the US, YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE. Please checkout Vote From Aboard they have literally all the information you need to get registered and get your ballot wherever in the world you are, and Check out Democrats Abroad to take part in the global primary

Where ever you live in the US, there is an important life changing election happening! Get off your phone or computer and get involved, There are Events happening all around you right now Volunteer

Finally if you're a US citizen of any age any where on earth you can donate, donate to elect Biden/Harris donate to elect Democrats to the Senate, To the House, to Governorships, to local office

and the smallest thing you can do is reblog this very long post, thank you!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ideas Lying Around

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in DC TOMORROW (Mar 4), and in RICHMOND on WEDNESDAY (Mar 5). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

I get a special pleasure from citing Milton Friedman. I like to imagine that as I do, he groans around the red-hot spit protruding from his jaws, prompting howls of laughter from the demons who pelt him with molten faeces for all eternity.

If you're lucky enough not to know about Friedman, here's the short version. Friedman was a kind of court sorcerer to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Augusto Pinochet, and other assorted authoritarian, hard-right leaders who set us on the path to the hellscape we inhabit today. But before Friedman rose to prominence and influence, he was a crank. Specifically, he was a crank who dedicated his life to rolling back all the progress of the New Deal and re-establishing the Gilded Age:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/

In his crank days, people were justifiably skeptical of this project. "Milton," they'd say, "people like New Deal programs. They like the minimum wage, the 40-hour work-week, and the assurance that they won't be maimed, poisoned, burned alive, or otherwise killed on the job. They relish a dignified retirement, quality education for their children, and the assurance that no one is starving to death in their country's borders. People like national parks! They like Medicare! They like libraries, museums, and reliable weather forecasts! How, Milton, do you propose to convince the vast majority of people that they should settle for being forelock-tugging plebs, groveling before their social betters for the chance to scrub their toilets?"

Friedman had an answer: "In times of crisis, ideas can move from the fringe to the center in an eyeblink. Our job is to keep good ideas lying around, in anticipation of that crisis."

When the oil crisis hit, when prices spiked in the USA and abroad, Friedman seized his opportunity. The years following the oil crisis saw a violent political revolution in which organized labor, social justice movements, and the political opposition to oligarchy were crushed under police batons and the guns of Pinochet's thugs. The world was transformed. Left parties like UK Labour were remade as austerity-pilled neoliberals (not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher call Tony Blair "her greatest accomplishment," and it took Bill Clinton to pass a welfare "reform" bill that was too extreme even for Reagan to get through Congress).

Friedman was a monster.

But.

He had a hell of a theory of change.

When prices spiral, when people can't pay their bills anymore, when their retirement savings are wiped out, anything is possible. The oil crisis wasn't Jimmy Carter's fault, but the voters still delivered a Ba'ath Party-style Republican majority in 1980. The covid shocks weren't the fault of the world governments that presided over pandemic inflation, but they were creamed in the ensuing elections.

Let's talk about Trump's tariffs here. Trump's goal is to force a re-shoring of the American industrial capacity that was shipped to low-wage, low-regulation corporate havens around the world after the Reagan revolution. The pandemic provided a vivid lesson about the problems with long, brittle supply chains where all the slack has been extracted and converted to dividends and stock buybacks. That kind of system may work well – at least to the extent that it keeps Walmart's shelves full of cheap goods – but holy shit did it ever fail badly. Re-shoring is a good idea, as are other forms of pro-resiliency industrial policy.

But re-shoring doesn't happen overnight. As we saw during China's covid lockdowns, when one supplier ceases to ship goods, other suppliers can't spring up overnight to take up the slack. China itself became a manufacturing powerhouse thanks to extensive state support and planning, and it took decades. That kind of patient, long-run, planned process is the best-case scenario (and it still caused wrenching dislocations to Chinese society). Simply throwing up tariff walls and demanding that industry figure it out – amid the resulting economic chaos and the political instability it brings – isn't a plan, it's a disaster.

Redistributing the means of production around the world is a necessary and urgent project, but it won't be advanced through Trump's rapid, unscheduled mid-air disassembly of the global system of trade. Tariffs will cause breakdowns in neoliberalism's fragile supply chains, and the ensuing chaos – mass unemployment, shortages, political rage – will make it even harder for countries (including the USA) to rebuild the productive capacity vaporized by 40 years of neoliberalism.

This is our oil crisis, in other worlds: a moment in which a belligerent superpower's ill-considered monkeying with the underpinnings of global production will cause chaos, the crisis in which "ideas can move from the periphery to the center" in an eyeblink. If Steve Bannon can call himself a Leninist, then leftists can call themselves Friedmanites. This is our opportunity.

Or rather, it's our opportunity to seize – or lose. Governments are defaulting to retaliatory tariffs as the best response to Trump's tariffs. This is political poison: making everything your country imports from the USA more expensive is a very weird way to punish America for its trade war. Remember the glaring lesson of pandemic inflation: a government that presides over rising prices will be destroyed by the electorate.

There's a much better alternative, one that strikes at the very roots of American oligarchy, whose extreme wealth and corrosive political influence comes from its holdings in rent-extracting monopolies, especially Big Tech monopolies.

Tech giants are the major factor in US economic health. Take Big Tech stocks out of the S&P 500 and you've got a stagnant market punctuated by periods of decline. Superficially, US tech companies have different sources of extraordinary profit, but a closer look reveals that they all share the same foundation: Big Tech makes the bulk of its money in the form of monopoly rents, backstopped by global IP treaties.

Apple and Google take a 30% cut of every dollar spent in an app, and it's a felony to jailbreak a phone to make a new app store with the industry standard 1-3% transaction fees. Google and Meta take 51% out of every ad dollar, and publishers and advertisers are locked into their ecosystems by abusive contracts and technological countermeasures. HP charges $10,000/gallon for the colored water you put in your printer, and third-party ink and refills violate the anti-circumvention laws the US has crammed down the throats of every country's legislature. Tesla makes its fattest margins by renting you features that are installed in your car at the factory, from autopilot to the ability to use your battery's whole charge, raking in monthly fees from you and anyone you sell your car to – and the reason your mechanic can't just permanently unlock all that DLC for $50 is the IP laws that your country agreed to enforce in order to trade with the USA. Mechanics pay $10k/year per manufacturer for the tools to interpret the error codes generated by your car, and the only reason no one is selling a $50/month universal diagnostic service is – once again – US-originated IP laws that came in a parcel with trade agreements that gave your country's exporters access to US markets. Farmers pay John Deere $200 every time they fix their own tractors, because the repairs won't work until a technician comes out and types an unlock code into the tractor's keyboard – and bypassing that unlock code is a crime under the laws passed to comply with international treaties.

These aren't profits – they're rents. It's money Big Tech gets from owning a factor of production, not money it gets from actually making something. The app maker takes all the risks, but Apple and Google cream off 30% of their gross income. Big Tech's profits are almost an afterthought when compared to its rents, the junk-fee platform fees and farcically expensive consumables. For tech firms, capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism…and technofeudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

America's robust GDP figures are a mirage, artificially buoyed up by the monopoly rents extracted by US Big Tech, who prey on Americans and foreigners:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/18/pikettys-productivity/#reaganomics-revenge

But foreigners don't have to tolerate this nonsense. Governments around the world signed up to protect giant American companies from small domestic competitors (from local app stores – for phones, games consoles, and IoT gadgets – to local printer cartridge remanufacturers) on the promise of tariff-free access to US markets. With Trump imposing tariffs will-ye or nill-ye on America's trading partners large and small, there is no reason to go on delivering rents to US Big Tech.

The first country or bloc (hi there, EU!) to do this will have a giant first-mover advantage, and could become a global export powerhouse, dominating the lucrative markets for tools that strike at the highest-margin lines of business of the most profitable companies in the history of the human race. Like Jeff Bezos told the publishers: "your margin is my opportunity":

https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/the-cost-of-your-margin-is-my-opportunity

In times of crisis, ideas can move from the periphery to the center in an eyeblink. Many of us have spent decades organizing and mobilizing against these extractive, dangerous, destabilizing abuses of technology, where the computer-powered devices we rely on for everything are designed to serve their manufacturers' shareholders, at our expense. And yet, these technologies have only proliferated, infecting everything from insulin pumps and ventilators to coffee makers and "smart" TVs.

It's time for a global race to the top – for countries to compete with one another to see who will capture US Big Tech's margins the fastest and most aggressively. Not only will this make things cheaper for everyone else in the world – it'll also make things cheaper for Americans, because once there is a global, profitable trade in software that jailbreaks your Big Tech devices and services, it will surely leak across the US border. Canada doesn't have to confine itself to selling reasonably priced pharmaceuticals to beleaguered Americans – it can also set up a brisk trade in the tools of technological self-determination and liberation from Big Tech bondage.

Taking the margins for Big Tech's most profitable enterprises to zero, globally, will strike at the very heart of American oligarchy, and the hundreds of millions tech giants flushed into the political system to put Trump into office again. A race to the top for technological liberation benefits everyone – including Americans.

Truly, it would be a rising tide that lifted all boats (except for oligarchs' superyachts - those, it will swamp and sink).

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/03/friedmanite/#oil-crisis-two-point-oh

[reasonsforhope]

Paywall-Free Version

"Massachusetts’ so-called “millionaires tax” appears primed to actually deliver billions.

State officials said Monday that the voter-approved surtax on high earners has generated more than $1.8 billion in revenue this fiscal year... meaning state officials could have hundreds of millions of surplus dollars to spend on transportation and education initiatives.

The estimated haul is already $800 million more than what Governor Maura Healey and state lawmakers planned to spend from its revenue in fiscal year 2024, the first full year of its implementation. Most of the additional money raised beyond the $1 billion already budgeted would flow to a reserve account, from which state policymakers can pluck money for one-time investments into projects or programs.

The Department of Revenue won’t certify the official amount raised until later this year. But the estimates immediately buoyed supporters’ claims that the surtax would deliver much-needed revenue for the state despite fears it could drive out some of the state’s wealthiest residents.

“Opponents of the Fair Share Amendment claimed that multi-millionaires would flee Massachusetts rather than pay the new tax, and they are being proven wrong every day,” said Andrew Farnitano, a spokesperson for Raise Up Massachusetts, the union-backed group which pushed the 2022 ballot initiative.

"With this money from the ultra-rich, we can do even more to improve our public schools and colleges, invest in roads, bridges, and public transit, and start building an economy that works for everyone,” Farnitano said.

Voters approved the measure in 2022 to levy an additional 4 percent tax on annual earnings over $1 million. At the time, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a left-leaning think tank, projected it could generate at least $2 billion a year.

State officials last year put their estimates slightly lower at up to $1.7 billion, and lawmakers embraced calls from economists to cap what it initially spends from the surtax, given it may be too volatile to rely upon in its first year.

So far, it’s vastly exceeded those expectations, generating nearly $1.4 billion alone last quarter [aka January to March, 2024 - just three months!], which coincided with a better-than-expected April for tax collections overall...

State Senator Michael Rodrigues, the state’s budget chief, said on the Senate floor Monday that excess revenue from the tax could ultimately come close to $1 billion for this fiscal year. Under language lawmakers passed last year, 85 percent of any “excess” revenue is transferred to an account reserved for one-time projects or spending, such as road maintenance, school building projects, or major public transportation work.

“We will not have any problems identifying those,” Rodrigues said. “As we all know, [transportation and education] are two areas of immense need.”"

-via Boston Globe, May 20, 2024

[shinelikethunder]

With less than a week to go, SCOTUS' partisan wing sends the message loud and clear that their attitude towards rubber-stamping outrageously illegal election-interference bullshit is "try and stop us, you jumped-up little shits."

However, in this particular case, you can still vote if Virginia has wrongfully purged you from the voter rolls. As of 2022, VA offers same-day registration and provisional ballots (where you follow up with documention after the fact), as long as you vote in the correct precinct.

Official Virginia page to look up the polling place for your address

Official Virginia same-day registration info

Official Virginia page to check your registration status

Ballotpedia state-by-state info on same-day registration

Ballotpedia state-by-state info on provisional ballots and what happens to ones cast in the wrong precinct

ACLU Know Your Rights voting fact sheet

Multilingual voter protection hotlines (English: 866-OUR-VOTE)

For anyone who became a citizen since their last DMV visit, or who suspects they made an error filing out their paperwork that would have booted them from voter lists, there are still ways to cast a ballot in next month’s elections. Registrars and election workers won’t turn eligible voters away from polls if they wish to utilize same-day registration or a provisional ballot, according to Henrico County Registrar Mark Coakley. [...] With a provisional ballot, voters will still need to follow up with their local registrar office to provide additional documents that can help verify their identity or other facts, like if they are residents of Virginia and the city or county they voted in, and whether they are U.S. citizens or have had their voting rights restored after a previous felony conviction. [...] Coakley said that when using a provisional ballot, voters are also given instructions to help with the follow-up procedures. “They’ll get a letter attached to their provisional ballot, giving them all the information of ‘This is the reason why (you may have this ballot)’ and ‘Here’s the ways to get hold of us to present evidence if you choose to do so,’” he said. Chesterfield County Registrar Missy Vera stressed that same-day registration can happen at any early voting location as well as on Election Day, which is Nov. 5.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş for Politico Magazine:

American democracy is about to undergo a serious stress test. I know how it feels, in part because I lived through the slow and steady march of state capture as a journalist working in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey. Over a decade as a high-profile journalist, I covered Turkey’s descent into illiberalism, having to engage in the daily push and pull with the government. I know how self-censorship starts in small ways but then creeps into operations on a daily basis. I am familiar with the rhythms of the battle to reshape the media, state institutions and the judiciary. Having lived through it, and having gathered some lessons in hindsight, I believe that there are strategies that can help Democrats and Trump critics not only survive the coming four years, but come out stronger. Here are six of them.

1. Don’t Panic — Autocracy Takes Time

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power is unnerving but, as I have argued previously, America will not turn into a dictatorship overnight — or in four years. Even the most determined strongmen face internal hurdles, from the bureaucracy to the media and the courts. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions.

I am not suggesting that the United States is immune to these patterns, but it’s important to remember that its decentralized system of governance — the network of state and local governments — offers enormous resilience. Federal judges serve lifetime appointments, states and governors have specific powers separate from those granted federally, there are local legislatures, and the media has the First Amendment as a shield, reinforced by over a century of legal precedents. Sure, there are dangers, including by a Supreme Court that might grant great deference to the president. But in the end, Donald Trump really only has two years to try to execute state capture. Legal battles, congressional pushback, market forces, midterm elections in 2026 and internal Republican dissent will slow him down and restrain him. The bottom line is that the U.S. is too decentralized in its governance system for a complete takeover. The Orbánization of America is not an imminent threat.

2. Don’t Disengage — Stay Connected

[...]

Nothing is more meaningful than being part of a struggle for democracy. That’s why millions of Turks turned out to the polls and gave the opposition a historic victory in local governments across Turkey earlier this year. That’s how the Poles organized a winning coalition to vote out the conservative Law and Justice Party last year. It can happen here, too. The answer to political defeat is not to disconnect, but to organize. You can take a couple of days or weeks off, commiserate with friends and mute Elon Musk on X — or erase the app altogether. But in the end, the best way to develop emotional resilience is greater engagement.

[...]

4. Charismatic Leadership Is a Non-Negotiable

One lesson from Turkey and Hungary is clear: You will lose if you don’t find a captivating leader, as was the case in 2023 general elections in Turkey and in 2022 in Hungary. Coalition-building or economic messaging is necessary and good. But it is not enough. You need charisma to mobilize social dissent. [...]

Last year’s elections in Poland and Turkey showcased how populist incumbents can be defeated (or not defeated, as in general elections in Turkey in 2023) depending on the opposition’s ability to unite around compelling candidates who resonate with voters. Voters seek authenticity and a connection — give it to them.

5. Skip the Protests and Identity Politics

Soon, Trump opponents will shake off the doldrums and start organizing an opposition campaign. But how they do it matters. For the longest time in Turkey, the opposition made the mistake of relying too much on holding street demonstrations and promoting secularism, Turkey’s version of identity politics, which speaks to the urban professional and middle class but not beyond. [...]

6. Have Hope

Nothing lasts forever and the U.S. is not the only part of the world that faces threats to democracy — and Americans are no different than the French, the Turks or Hungarians when it comes to the appeal of the far right. But in a country with a strong, decentralized system of government and with a long-standing tradition of free speech, the rule of law should be far more resilient than anywhere in the world. Trump’s return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, who had first-hand experience with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarianism in her native Turkey as a journalist, wrote in Politico Magazine on how to effectively fight Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses.

[263adder]

Don't Lose Your Vote! UK Edition

Update: Tuesday 18th June 2024 is the deadline to register to vote for the general election.

A snap general election could be called any day. This will be the first general election that requires photo ID if you vote at the polls (postal votes 📫 are unaffected by the Election Act 2022).

If you don't have an approved form of identification (list here), you can apply for a FREE voter ID photo card. Find out more below or use these 5 minutes to register and get your ID sorted instead ❎ because, and this is important to know, the government really doesn't want young people to vote.

The Explanation

Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, may call a snap election in 2023. (A snap election is a vote brought in earlier ⏱ than the one that’s scheduled 🕐) The UK’s next general election (for MPs and the PM) is meant to happen between December 2024 and January 2025.

A snap election happens in as little as 25 days 😨 between the announcement (aka the PM asking the House of Commons’ to approve the dissolution of Parliament) and the vote 🏃‍♀️

You must be registered to vote - currently over 8 million people are not. Unlike other a democratic countries, the UK doesn’t automatically register all eligible voters. You have to do this yourself. Here’s a quick reminder of how to register:

Over the past 15 years, it has gotten harder for British citizens to vote:

Families can no longer register to vote as a household 🏡 so young voters must register themselves (Cameron Govt)

Colleges and universities are barred from registering students 👨‍🎓 (Cameron Govt)

The Elections Act requires photo ID 🤳 for anyone voting in person (Johnson Govt)

Local elections (for city and town governments) in 2023 were the first votes that required VOTER ID. According to the Electoral Commission, over 14,000 people were turned away from the polls because they had not heard about the change.

The House of Lords tried to amend the Elections Act before it passed, to include more common types of ID, such as bank statements, bills, student ID, library cards and much more. This amendment was struck down in the House of Commons. A lot of the IDs included in the approved list are more likely to be owned by older voters than younger ones. For example, a 60+ Oyster Card is acceptable ID but an 18+ Oyster Card is not.

Here’s the important thing to know: voters who don’t have a driving licence or passport or other approved forms of ID, can apply for a free voter ID photo card. Watch the video below to find out how!

And finally, please, for the love of our democracy, vote.

"Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles." Abbie Hoffman

[zvaigzdelasas]

The defeat of a liberal Portland prosecutor at the hands of a tough-on-crime challenger has hardened a view among top White House officials that Democrats need to further distance themselves from their left flank on law-and-order issues.[...]

The White House is banking on the idea that voters will reward them for public efforts to crack down on immigration and boost spending on law enforcement — and, perhaps as importantly, that the liberal forces that so effectively moved the party away from those planks in 2020 won’t punish the president come November.[...]

But the president has not needed much convincin[sic] [...] having personally favored an approach that emphasizes more traditional support for law enforcement alongside criminal justice reforms. Biden spent much of his half century in politics as an ardent advocate for law enforcement and anti-crime measures, a reputation that complicated his path to the 2020 Democratic nomination amid scrutiny over his role in passing a controversial 1994 crime bill.

And even as the broader party shifted leftward [sic] on issues like police funding and immigration during that period, Biden sought to stake out a middle ground that often put him out of step with his progressive base — perhaps most notably using his first State of the Union address in 2022 to exhort lawmakers to “fund the police.”

In recent months, Biden has warned advisers that scenes of chaos at the border or crime in cities pose an increasing political danger. They risk turning off the independent and suburban voters, he’s said, who may be repulsed by much of Donald Trump’s policies and personality but could be willing to vote for him anyway in the name of public safety.[...]

Biden and his senior-most aides are united on the need to push for greater border security. [...]

“The narrative about Democrats on crime became deeply distorted after Defund the Police became kind of a thing,” [sic] said Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs at the center-left think tank Third Way. “In fact, [Biden] has been very aggressive about funding the police, and has flipped around that narrative in ways that I think are really helpful.”[...]

The White House, to that end, has battered Republicans in recent days over their abandonment of a bipartisan border security bill that would’ve imposed strict new limits on immigration.

The legislation, which Senate Democrats are forcing a vote on for the second time this week, has fueled blowback among progressive and Latino lawmakers who blasted its “extreme and unworkable enforcement-only policies.”

But Biden has fully embraced the measure, repeatedly emphasizing the tough restrictions it’d put in place and criticizing Republicans for stalling the bill solely to avoid handing him an election-year victory. The White House is also preparing an executive order on immigration as a fallback, in a long-germinating [sic] display of his commitment to a border crackdown.

The president has also made a point of voicing support for law enforcement in recent weeks. He refused to criticize police conducting mass arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses, even as he backed the right [sic] to peacefully protest. And he’s repeatedly touted a plan to invest $37 billion in crime provision [...]

There is also deep-seated fear throughout the party of the alternative: A Trump presidency that has made clear it would prioritize mass deportations and sharp shifts away from the progress [sic] Biden has made on other criminal justice issues like gun violence prevention.

23 May 24

[pilferingapples]

To be clear about ballot curing: this is normal. Every election, some ballots have problems--info that didn't line up, a ballot that got trashed in the mail, incorrectly filled bubbles, a computer crash at the worst time, whatever. It's not a Conspiracy Theory; it's just what happens when millions of people do paperwork all at once. The normalcy is the reason there is a ballot curing process.

It is also extremely unlikely to make any difference in national elections! but it can matter a lot in local elections, where races hang on much smaller numbers.

Here's an NPR article from 2022!

Check to see if you've been counted, consider volunteering for a ballot curing effort, and answer your dang phone for the next few days.

[baeddel]

on the racist riots in Belfast

i made a post in 2021 titled "dispatch on the unrest in Belfast" (click) trying to provide some local-knowledge context for the sectarian riots in town. i have no such special knowledge to offer this time. it has been, to be honest, shocking to me how many people came to them and how well organized they were. we have seen an increasing prevalence of anti-immigrant racism in the north in recent years; graffiti saying "locals only" (simple meaning: "whites only") on council houses going to market has been reported on since 2014 (click, 2018 click, 2023 click), for example. and in 2022 the PSNI released a report stating that hate crimes of every kind, including racist hate crimes, had reached the highest of any year since they began counting in 2004/5 (click). according to the BBC as of 2014 "on average a racially motivated offence takes place at least once a day" in Belfast (click) and it has only risen since that. but it was obviously not organized at this scale before. my girlfriend remarked that this was the first time Northern Ireland has had a race riot and i think, assuming we treat sectarian riots as something else, that may be true? (the UK-wide 1919 race riots did not seem to affect Ireland from what i could find and anyway were a bit before partition; otherwise they are quite similar to what is happening today).

perhaps no further context is really possible to give; they are race riots and they are happening because of racism. nevertheless i will try and write down some things i've thought about it.

in the 2021 post i talked about the nature of the disorder, where if you looked at the footage mostly people stood on the pavement and watched while the professionals—loyalist paramilitaries—handled the direct action (hijacking and burning busses and such). that is because these demonstrations were organized by the paramilitaries and everyone must obey them. that is not the case here; the crowds attack people of colour and immigrants, their homes or businesses owned by them, wherever they can find them. if they were kicked out of one area they went somewhere else and did it there; or else they did it where they lived as on Sandy Row. so it seems to be genuinely spontaneous and not directed from above.

the paramilitaries claim they did not organize it (the Belfast Telegraph quote what they call a 'senior loyalist' saying "[w]e didn’t start this, we aren’t behind it" click—what a demonstrative article, by the way, the police asking the paramilitaries for help with population control!). they say that about everything, but i think i believe them this time for that reason. it doesn't look paramilitary. i suppose whoever organized it must be taking orders from England. however, we are aware of at least some involvement by paramilitaries. the rightists who travelled up from Ireland were identified by PSNI and Gardaí to be fraternizing with UDA men (click). blueshirts associating with loyalists is not really surprising but i am not sure it has happened before. PSNI also claim there is a "paramilitary element" within the racist riots but are reluctant to say they're behind them (click).

i have talked before about how loyalism has felt a bit of a transition from an armed struggle into something that looks like a popular movement, with demonstrations and direct action becoming the main source of spectacle. it's possible there is a gradual transition towards this point, where paramilitary hierarchy becomes secondary to a spontaneously organized reactionary movement.

it also fits into a pattern that i have talked about before (click, also here), which is that democracy in the north has undergone dramatic changes recently. whereas in the past the national conversation dominated politics, today ordinary issues of civil society are decisive. the DUP lost their monopoly on unionist voters because of how they handled COVID, the border, the cost of living and so forth—problems a normal political party is expected to solve, not a party holding down a sovereignty under siege as they were supposed to be—and that's why SF got the majority. immigration is one such 'normal' political issue, and racist violence breaks out in Belfast in a way that doesn't differ substantially to how it breaks out at the same time in a normal country like England.

speaking of the fracturing of the DUP, i felt that it was significant that we could name, as a precipitating event, the fracturing of the right wing parties in general. in the north of Ireland the DUP lost much of its support, but no single party could replace it; several unionist parties now leech its vote, while moderate unionists vote for Alliance. and in the recent election the Tories lost to Labour, but they also lost many seats to Reform. between SF and Labour we are in an era where for the first time in a long time the UK is governed by center left parties, meanwhile it is unclear what opposition has the mandate of the right-wing voter. this means that for a right wing person electoral party politics looks like an ambiguous, distant and unrewarding terrain of struggle. perhaps that is a background condition as to why racist propagandists have been able to mobilize so many people into joining these events.

something else that struck me as possibly a precipitating event is that for the better part of a year we've had extremely active and persistent organizing around Palestine in the UK, in terms of demonstrations, direct action and even in electoral politics (with several independent candidates who care about Gaza taking seats from Labour in the last election). thus, right-wing racists have seen news about pro-Palestine organizing almost every day for a long time. we know that here in the north when Palestinian flags are flown it isn't long before Israel flags are flown in response. i think it's possible to see the specifically anti-Islamic character of the riots as a kind of counter-revolution or reaction to Palestine.

those were the thoughts i had to share. on Friday 9th (today as i write this) there is a racist demonstration planned, as well as a counter-protest. the counter-protest is backed by NIPSA (a big NI union) as well as the Belfast City Council (! click), so perhaps it will be big. it starts at 4:30pm. stay safe.

[hastill]

Hi guys! I know this is Tumblr but I'm talking about Canadian/Ontarian politics today.

We so often talk about America on this website, with this website and a lot of social media being inherently American centric. It bleeds into our thoughts and identities and also our countries politics.

I'm doxing myself here - I am Canadian, I am Ontarian and we talk about Trump and America all the time. It's part of having them as a neighbour. Our current Premier of Ontario said he was "happy Trump won, until the tariff threats started." After seven years of Doug Ford, we are all sick and tired of ever increasing grocery prices, healthcare waits, and rent prices. We are sick and tired of scandal after scandal with little to no actual fallout or change.

Tomorrow is Voting Day in Ontario -> tomorrow, Thursday February 27th is Voting Day in Ontario. Our last election turn out in 2022 set a record for being the lowest voter turnout in Ontarian history, at 44.07%. We can do better. We can vote Ford out.

I want him gone, I don't want someone who was happy Trump won. I don't want someone who is happy to give money to his millionaire friends all the while defunding public services like healthcare, and closing safe injection sites while people die on our streets. I am tired, sick and angry about our provincial leadership and we need better.

If you haven't voted early, please make your plan to vote tomorrow. Please vote Ford out. If you are an Ontario resident, please please please go vote tomorrow. It is important to my future and yours.

[sniperct]

I'm curious about your opinion on recent events with Biden. Do you think it's likely another Democrat will either run against him in the coming months or replace him altogether? A lot of talk about Kamala replacing him but I don't think she wants to as she's a pretty staunch supporter of his.

The only way biden gets replaced at this point is if he's dead.

We would 100% lose. Voters hate hate hate it when a party is so messy as to replace their candidate mid-run. I saw a headline saying this is biden's LBJ moment. OVER ONE DEBATE (also, uh, who won in 1968 after the dems had a contested convention? It sure as shit wasn't the democrat)

If one bad debate mattered, Reagan and Obama would have both lost their re-election bids.

Additionally, Biden has made 15 appearances in 8 cities in 9 days. Like...that's a lot. And he's been sharp in every one. And plenty of other candidates have had really bad debates and did fine in the election. We're many months out polls are noise at this point (and remember in 2022 when the red wave didn't materialize despite every poll showing republicans headed for a massive win. Polls haven't been accurate in a long, long time)

The media has also screamed for ...well every democratic candidate since Bill Clinton to resign while being mysteriously silent on the age and qualifications for Republicans, further proving the old adage 'its okay if you're a republican'. Funny how no one is calling for the convicted felon and proven rapist to resign even though he's almost the same age as Biden.

They're also already running hit-pieces on Harris(boy does the media hate Harris), and will do the same for any other candidate. The NYtimes in particular has been extremely vindictive and one-sided (they did the same to hillary)

Also a lot of this call for biden to step aside originated on the right before getting amplified on the left.

They're already prepared to sue to prevent another candidate from getting on ballots in many states and could succeed in that. In which case, auto-win for trump.

Lastly, anyone but biden or harris would mean they start from scratch money-wise; legally they can't give the 100s of millions biden has already raised (far out raising trump by the way) to any other candidates.

Democrats are very good at eating their own, we form our own circular firing squads at the drop of a hat. All of this is noise that detracts from the many, many things biden has actually done to improve the country and our lives or having the most progressive agenda of any US president.

But the media likes to keep quiet about the good stuff on the dem side and the bad stuff on the GOP side so *shrug*

[mariacallous]

Cecile Richards, a prominent advocate for women's rights and other progressive causes, died Monday. In a statement, her family confirmed her death, saying she passed away at home, "surrounded by family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie."

"Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives," the statement said.

Richards was best known for her work leading Planned Parenthood through a particularly challenging time which included threats to its funding and the first election of Donald Trump to the presidency.

During more than a decade at the helm of Planned Parenthood, Richards was often called upon to defend the reproductive health organization against attacks from political opponents.She and her movement faced mounting challenges after Trump, who ran for President in 2016 on a promise to overturn the landmark abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade, was first elected.

At the Women's March in Washington the day after Trump's inauguration in 2017, Richards addressed thousands of marchers and promised to fight his policies.

"Today we're here to deliver a message: we're not gonna take this lying down, and we will not go back," Richards told the crowd.

The next year, Richards announced she was leaving Planned Parenthood. After leaving the organization, Richards focused her efforts on leading Supermajority, a group she'd co-founded to mobilize female voters.

In the years to come, the Trump administration would take steps designed to reduce access to abortion, including cutting off funds for groups that make abortion referrals, like Planned Parenthood, through an overhaul of the Title X family planning program.

Over the course of his first term, Trump named three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, who, in June of 2022, would ultimately vote to overturn decades of abortion-rights precedent.

Despite setbacks for the abortion rights movement and a diagnosis of brain cancer, Richards embodied an "indefatigable" determination, says former Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis.

"Her belief [was] you can't give up before you even start, and that it's always worth a fight," Davis said.

Davis worked closely with Richards during a high-profile battle to defeat an anti-abortion bill in Texas in 2013. Now a senior advisor to Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the group's political arm in Texas, Davis says Richards still inspires her to keep fighting.

"You want to give in to the weariness and give in to just giving up," Davis said. "When I'm tempted to feel that way, I think about Cecile, and I know a lot of people do."

Richards herself drew inspiration from the legacy of her mother, the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who was known for her sharp wit and down-to-earth demeanor.

During a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2015, a male lawmaker asked her if she expected the committee "to be easier on you because you're a woman?"

"Absolutely not," Richards responded. "That's not how my mama raised me."

The hearing stemmed from the release of secretly-recorded videos by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group that accused Planned Parenthood of selling fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood said the sting videos were edited to be deliberately misleading.

Dr. Colleen McNicholas, Chief Medical Officer at Planned Parenthood Great Rivers in the St. Louis area, knew Richards for more than a decade through their advocacy for abortion rights.

"I think she really changed the way that the movement engaged publicly; she was a very visible and bold presence," McNicholas says. "She wasn't afraid to take questions, to say the word 'abortion.'"

Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat with a long history of advocacy for reproductive rights, credits Richards with an instrumental role in making sure the Affordable Care Act, which passed under President Barack Obama, included contraceptive coverage.

Murray says despite the setbacks the movement has faced in recent years, she sees Richards as an example of continuing to fight.

"I would take what Cecile has done in her lifetime and use it as a charge to all of us now: you move forward, you fight for what you believe in, you have the courage to stand up and say what is right," Murray says. "You take those setbacks, learn from them, and move forward, and she's always done that."

In an Instagram post in January 2024, months after her cancer diagnosis, Richards described going through a whirlwind of treatments, time with family, and focusing on what was most important — including her continued activism.

"After all," Richards wrote, "as my mother used to say: 'Why should your life be just about you?'"

As her health continued to decline, Richards addressed the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

She spoke of the joy of recently becoming a grandmother, and the challenges many women have faced since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

"One day, our children and grandchildren may ask us, 'When it was all on the line, what did you do?' And the only acceptable answer is, everything we could," Richards said.

In November 2024, President Joe Biden honored Cecile Richards with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a private ceremony at the White House. In a statement, Biden praised Richards for her "absolute courage and conviction" and "an inspiring legacy that endures in her incredible family, the countless lives she has made better, and a Nation seeking the light of equality, justice, and freedom."

[reasonsforhope]

For all the concern in recent years that U.S. democracy is on the brink, in danger or under threat, a report out Tuesday offers a glimmer of good news for American voters worried that casting a ballot will be difficult in 2024.

Put simply, the new data shows that voting in America has gotten easier over the past two decades. More voters have the ability to cast a ballot before Election Day, with the majority of U.S. states now offering some form of early in-person voting and mail voting to all voters.

"Although we often talk in a partisan context about voter fraud and voter suppression and whether voters have access to the ballot, the reality is, over the past 25 years, we've greatly increased the convenience of voting for almost all Americans," said David Becker, the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), which authored the new report...

The data shows that, despite real efforts by some Republican-led legislatures to restrict access at the margins, the trend in the U.S. since 2000 has been toward making it easier to vote: Nearly 97% of voting-age American citizens now live in states that offer the option to vote before Election Day.

"The lies about early voting, the lies about voting machines and efforts in some state legislatures to roll back some of the election integrity and convenience measures that have evolved over the last several decades, those efforts almost all failed," Becker said. "In almost every single state, voters can choose to vote when they want to."

Forty-six states and Washington, D.C., offer some form of early in-person voting, the report tallied, and 37 of those jurisdictions also offer mail voting to all voters without requiring an excuse...

In 2000

In 2024

Infographic via NPR. If you go to the article, you can watch an animation of this map that shows voting availability in every election since 2000.

There are some political trends that show up in the data. Of the 14 states that don't offer mail voting to all voters, for instance, 12 have Republican-led legislatures.

-via NPR, March 19, 2024. Article continues below.

But maybe the more striking trends are geographic. Every single state in the western U.S. has offered some form of early and mail voting to all voters since 2004, according to the data. And those states span the political spectrum, from conservative Idaho to liberal California.

"It's really hard to talk about partisanship around this issue because historically there just hasn't been much," Mann said. "We've seen voting by mail and early in-person voting supported by Republican legislatures, Democratic legislatures, Republican governors, Democratic governors. We see voters in both parties use both methods." ...

In 2020, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts all made changes to make voting more easily accessible, which have since partially or fully become permanent. Delaware is currently embroiled in a legal fight over whether it can implement early and mail voting changes this election cycle as well.

The South, with its history of slavery and Jim Crow laws, has long lagged behind when it comes to voting access. The CEIR data shows that, although some states have slowly started expanding options for voters, generally it is still the most difficult region for voters to cast a ballot.

As options nationwide have become more widely available, voters have also responded by taking advantage.

In the 2000 election, 86% of voters voted at a polling place on Election Day, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

In 2020, during the pandemic, that number dropped to less than 31% of voters. It went back up in 2022, to roughly half of the electorate, but was still in line with the two-decade trend toward more ballots being cast early.

...in reality, Becker says, more voting options actually make elections more secure and less susceptible to malicious activity or even human error.

"If there were a problem, if there were a cyber event, if there were a malfunction, if there were bad weather, if there were traffic, if there were was a power outage, you could think of all kinds of circumstances. ... The more you spread voting out over a series of days and over multiple modes, the less likely it's going to impact voters," he said...

-via NPR, March 19, 2024

[hotjaneaustenmenpoll]

Round Three Round Up!

In Round Three we were seeing double as 6 out of our 8 pairs were put against their alternative selves and we asked why not pit two bad bitches against each other ?

In the only match-up where the newer version won out we lost another one of our tournament's Mr Knightleys as you declared that riding through rain, willing to ride through worse was not enough to win your hearts - instead he must have a proper understanding of muslin! And so Mr Tilney (2007) became our first Quarter-finalist.

Mr Knightley (1996) was not alone in taking his leave of us as your votes decided that Johnny Flynn's Mr Knightley (2020) was too blonde badly done compared to Mr Knightley (2009) and must go!

Mr Elliot (2022) will be likely soon spotted in town with a Mrs Clay on his arm as though he may have proved himself the hottest of the Persuasion (2022) men he was no match for Colonel Brandon (1995). Joining him in bad-boy exile is Willoughby (2008) who could not beat the man best known as Emma Thompson's husband leaving Willoughby (1995) as the last libertine standing.

In another win for Sense and Sensibility (1995) Edward Ferrars (1995) proved that while a Wet Shirt scene written by Andrew Davies might have worked once, Dan Stevens chopping wood in the rain was too blonde not enough to prevail against Hugh Grant and the power of being married to Emma Thompson in any universe, real or imagined.

Captain Wentworth (1995) also sailed through against his 2007 counterpart as the voters told us once again that they hated blonde men if it was made in '95 that man was staying alive for another round and so Captain Wentworth (2007) becomes only a gallant Captain Wentworth, in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers.

In one of our tightest run polls that went back and forth several times it was Bingley Vs Bingley but in another win for the '95 contingent - the curly hair clinched it and Mr Bingley (1995) proved the victor.

And of course I must end with the biggest poll of the week, breaching the walls of our little tournament to be voted on by 28,987 tumblr users, the poll that ended in a most well deserved 50/50 split, Mr Darcy Vs Mr Darcy. How could anyone vote for THAT Mr Darcy you yelled at each other - HAND FLEX! WET SHIRT! you cried! But when push came to shove despite 14,484 of you declaring that you loved him most ardently 14,503 of you had decided he was the last man on earth who you could ever be prevailed upon to marry and left that wet cat out in the rain. And so, though we offer him a most cordial curtsey we must say goodbye to a very worthy loser Mr Darcy (2005).

Thank you for all the excellent propaganda sent in - I will be taking a days break before putting up the Quarter-final polls, giving you until Thursday to send in any propaganda you want included on the main poll posts and me time to add it! But for now we must once again say...

Farewell Gentlemen!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

For the past two years, we’ve watched Republicans push ‘abortion trafficking�� laws to restrict minors’ ability to leave their states for care. And for just as long, I’ve warned that this was never going to stop at teens—that what happens to young people today comes for the rest of us tomorrow. Well, tomorrow is here. Montana Republicans have introduced a first-of-its-kind bill that would criminalize women for getting certain out-of-state abortions, accusing them of ‘trafficking’ their own fetuses. And regardless of what happens in Montana, this bill has stark implications for the whole country. Republicans have broken a legislative seal—signaling that they’re coming for women’s right to travel. I’ll get into those national implications shortly—along with a hot tip about the group that may be behind the legislation—but first let’s talk about the bill itself.

Montana House Bill 609

House Bill 609 would criminalize anyone who leaves Montana to obtain an abortion that would be illegal within the state. An example: Montana only allows abortion after fetal ‘viability’ if the pregnant person’s life is at risk. That means if a woman learned at 26 weeks that her fetus had a fatal abnormality and got out-of-state care, she could be charged with ‘abortion trafficking’ for “transporting” her fetus across state lines.

It’s a clever way to punish women: Claim you’re not arresting them for the abortion, just for the ‘trafficking.’ (They’re trying this with ‘coercion,’ as well.) “Had a bill like this been law at the time, I wouldn’t just be a grieving mother, I’d be a felon,” Anne Angus tells me. The 35-year-old left Montana for an abortion in 2022, after her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition. She was 24 weeks pregnant—which was past the legal abortion window at the time. Under HB 609, she could have faced years in prison. “All for fleeing the state to give my son the compassion and dignity he deserved,” she says. Anyone who helped Angus could have been charged as well. Because Republicans are determined to chip away at community support, HB 609 criminalizes anyone who “aids or assists another person in transporting an unborn child.” That means a partner, a friend, even someone who chipped in for gas money could be arrested. It gets worse. There’s also a possibility1 that HB 609 would allow women who get out-of-state abortions to be charged with “deliberate, mitigated, or negligent homicide”—a crime punishable by up to 40 years in prison.

[...]

Though Montana voters recently passed a pro-choice ballot measure, it only protects abortion rights until ‘viability.’ HB 609 sidesteps that protection by targeting later abortions and others illegal under state law. As Stephanie McDowell, Executive Director of Bridgercare—which supports a network of 20 family planning clinics across Montana—told me, “We are seeing Republicans go after the loopholes that we left in these ballot initiatives.”

[...] And that’s the rub: HB 609 and the trial balloons that came before it aren’t just about punishing pregnant people, but establishing fetal personhood. Most conservatives propose legislation that let them dance around that unpopular position—even crafting policies they believe make them seem women-friendly. (Why admit you want an embryo to have more rights than a woman when you can just pass a bill mandating custody payments at fertilization?) But the slow creep of extremism is speeding up—and anti-abortion radicalism is being normalized along the way. HB 609 is being introduced alongside a wave of bills across multiple states that would charge abortion patients with murder. These so-called ‘equal protection’ laws are being pushed by an extremist faction of the anti-abortion movement that calls itself ‘abolitionists.’ And while Republicans like to pretend these activists are outliers, their legislation is gaining steam—and cosponsors—with every passing month.

Montana HB609, if passed, would become the first law in the US that would criminally charge women for “trafficking” for getting abortion out-of-state post-fetal viability. HB609 also criminalizes those proving aid in any form to a person obtaining abortion out-of-state.

This could be a sad harbinger of things to come.

[xhxhxhx]

Eli got his ballot the other day.

I'm still trying to understand it.

I.

The ballot card itself consists of four pages, each 8.5 by 19 inches, each double-sided. It carries the mark of the Secretary of State, tint and watermark. Cal. Elec. Code § 13002.

The United States guarantees to every one of its States a republican form of government. That means that here the people rule, more or less directly. California leans to the "more" side.

There are fourteen offices on the ballot, for the United States, the State of California, the City and County of San Francisco, for the school and college board, and the transit district.

Then there are twenty-five ballot propositions, ten for the State, fourteen for the City and County, one for the school board, and none, I suppose, for the transit district.

The ballot card arrived with something that calls itself a Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot. The Pamphlet is actually a volume of 294 pages, printed and bound on stock that gives it the texture and dimensions of a slim phone book.

San Francisco is a small town that likes to think it's a big one.

It certainly gave itself a big book.

II.

Looking over the materials, I was troubled by how little I knew and understood about what Eli was asked to do.

To take on part of the government of the State, as the ballot asks you to, is a heavy thing. It takes intelligence and judgment to discriminate between the better and the worse.

It takes some amount of understanding. It takes more when you're asked not only about one candidate, but many, and not only about candidates, but about the laws themselves.

It takes knowledge of the offices and their powers. In a constitutional government, officers have the powers the laws give them, and assemblies the powers the constitution gives them.

And I don't know the constitution or the laws.

III.

The Constitution of the United States is a compact little instrument. It amounts to about 7,500 words across seven articles and twenty-seven amendments.

The compactness is by design. It is short because short instruments, and possibly only them, M‘Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 407 (1819), may be read and understood.

California's constitution is a beast of a different order.

California doesn't make it easy to read its constitution. But the State Legislature does periodically put out a volume with the federal and state constitutions, along with other instruments.

In its most recent edition, updated to November 8, 2022, the book is 467 pages. The federal constitution, with amendments, takes up 22 of those pages. The state constitution takes up 210.

I still haven't more than skimmed it.

IV.

I'm trying to read up on the constitution and the laws of California. The State doesn't make it easy.

California is sparing in its reproductions of its laws. California permits you to read individual articles whole, but not parts or titles, at least not titles with more than one chapter.

To read the whole of the California Penal Code, for example, as presented by the State, you would need to open something a little short of 680 separate addresses. The four parts and 34,400 sections of California's penal code demand nothing less.

In Canada, where criminal law and procedure are exclusively federal matters by virtue of Constitution Act, 1867, 30 Vict. c. 3, § 91(27), the Crown provides the entirety of the federal Criminal Code, RSC 1985 c C-46, at a single address or a single document.

In California, your 680 separate addresses are not law. They are not even evidence of the law. If you take your copy of the California Penal Code, as presented, before a state magistrate, they may decline to take it.

Because California does not guarantee that what it presents is the law. It does not authenticate those 680 separate addresses, at least. California does not authenticate codes, titles, or chapters it presents to you. It does authenticate, but only something much smaller. Sections.

California will authenticate an individual section of its written law for you. It will give you a PDF with a digital signature. A single, letter page. A single section and a vast, blank space. And a digital signature, courtesy of Adobe.

That's what California gives you. But to get the whole thing? To get the whole 34,400 sections of the California Penal Code, the 9,500 sections of the Civil Code, or the 61,000 sections of the Revenue and Taxation Code? Well.

You'll have to put those together yourself.

V.

That's what I'm doing. I'm trying to put them together myself.