Republicans – When The Abuser Goes To Work…

Will Bullying Corporations Discourage States From Passing Voter Integrity Bills?

photo of person dropping a vote — Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com

If you can’t get the state legislature to do what you want, bully corporations that are critical to the state’s economy into advocating your position.

A group of 72 black executives, including some Fortune 500 business leaders, appear to be using this strategy to either force Georgia to repeal Georgia SB 202, an election integrity law, or to scare other states into not passing similar measures.

In a letter this week, they called the Georgia bill an effort to suppress minority voting and urged corporations to oppose the measure. And they are.

Ed Bastian, president of Delta Air Lines, a Georgia-based company and the state’s largest employer, said Wednesday “the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives. That is wrong.”

The bill, signed into law by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp last month, requires all voters to provide a driver’s license or a free state ID card number to request and submit an absentee ballot. Every voter already must present some form of photo ID to vote in person.

The bill also makes it a misdemeanor for individuals to give gifts or “food and drink” to voters who are waiting in line to vote. (Poll workers can still provide water.) And it restricts the number and placement of ballot drop-off boxes to insure ballot security.

Poll: Most Blacks Support Voter ID

The issue is anything but clear cut.

For one thing, a recent poll shows that most Americans – including most black Americans – support voter identification.

The Plan: Ignore GOP Election Concerns

A national poll this week found that 67% of Republicans across the country still believe the 2020 presidential election was invalid.

Yet, America’s three branches of American government – executive, legislative and judicial – seem determined to ignore the concerns of more than 50 million voters, attributing them to misinformation peddled by the conservative media.

Indeed, the Democratic Party unveiled a controversial strategy this week to de-platform conservative cable news outlets for fomenting “dangerous misinformation” about the election.

First Amendment

Two members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Anna G. Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, both Democrats from California, Monday sent an ominous letter to 12 cable and tech CEO’s asking, “Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, OANN and Newsmax on your platform both now and beyond the renewal date?” the letter continues. “If so, why?”.

The Committee held a hearing Wednesday to address “disinformation and extremism” in the conservative media.

Prof. Jonathan Turley, chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, told committee members that “free speech is not contained entirely within the First Amendment.” He said the letter by Eshoo and McNerney attacks free speech. “We should be concerned when members try to do indirectly what they cannot do directly,” he said.

Ten Percent Of WY Voters Appear to Back Cheney Recall

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-WY, perhaps the most vocal of a small group of House Republicans who supported impeaching former GOP President Donald J. Trump, is now the subject of a wildly popular internet recall petition.

As of Sunday, more than 59,000 signatures were affixed to a Change.org “Recall Liz Cheney” petition. Wyoming has a population of 581,075.

The recall petition was created on Jan. 12 and states: “Liz Cheney does not speak for the people of Wyoming we have had enough of these swamp people this petition might not do much but maybe it will tell her we will not sit by and take it anymore”.

Almost 70% of voters in Wyoming voted for Trump in the past election.

Fortunately for Cheney, there is no law in Wyoming permitting the recall of a sitting House member so she’s safe for now. Cheney calls her vote to impeach Trump a vote of “conscience.”

Meanwhile, Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, appeared on Sunday morning television interview shows and doubled down on her position that Trump should be impeached by the U.S. Senate when it convenes on Tuesday.

Cheney also raised the possibility of criminal action against Trump for “incitement of insurrection” on Jan. 6, when a mob broke into the Capitol Building.

Censured

Cheney, one of ten House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump, was censured Saturday by the Wyoming Republican Party. Only eight of the 74 members of Wyoming’s GOP central committee opposed the censure motion, which accused Cheney of denying Trump “due process.”

The daughter of former GOP Vice President Dick Cheney, she recently survived an attempt by fellow House Republicans to oust her from her role as GOP Conference Chair. The vote was 145 to 61.

GOP members are particularly irked that Cheney surprised the party when she publicly demanded Trump’s impeachment 36 hours prior to the House impeachment vote, just in time to lend support to the Democratic led effort.

The petition was started by Shelly Horn of Gillette, WY.

Marjorie Taylor Greene And America’s Class Divide

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wore a smart blue mask with white rectangles that matched her fashionable suit with a zip up jacket.

In a contemptuous voice, she called freshman GOP U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, D-GA, a “threat,” and a “QAnon adherent,” “9/11 truther,” “harasser of child survivors of school shootings.”

That’s why, she said, Democrats were taking the extraordinary, unprecedented step of stripping Greene, a Republican, of her committee assignments.

“Who would imagine,” Pelosi asked, “that [Republican leadership] would put such a person on the education committee?”

Democrats have spent a lot of time in recent months talking about America’s racial divide but Green represents another kind of divide, the class divide.

Pelosi, one of America’s true elites, probably can’t imagine what motivates Greene (or voters in Greene’s district).

Greene was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She did not graduate from Yale or Harvard. And she’s from the deep south, Milledgeville, GA, which is just about as far as you can get from the beltway.

The Demonization Of The GOP Threatens U.S. Democratic Process

Think of the City of Groton, CT, as the canary in the coal mine.

The New London Day newspaper reported today that all of the Republicans slated to run for local office in May in the City of Groton have withdrawn due to concern about a “hostile and threatening” environment for Republicans created by “increased, nationally publicized threats, intimidation and bullying of Republicans by many liberal Democrats… “

Miners put canaries in coal mines to detect carbon monoxide and other toxic gases before they hurt humans. The oxygen required for a healthy democracy is the willingness of people to run for political office so that voters have a choice over competing ideas. What happens when one political party can’t get candidates to run for office?

If the City of Groton is any indication, America’s Democracy is suffocating.

The City of Groton’s Republican Committee states in a press release that the candidates who withdrew expressed concern for the “safety and welfare of themselves and their family” and fear of being “subjected to unjustified public ridicule and embarrassment by Democrats supporting the liberal left…”

The Capitol Building break-in on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C., exacerbated an existing atmosphere of negativity toward Republicans “whether they supported Donald Trump or not during the 2020 elections,” states the press release.