American Politics Thread V: We're Just Biden Our Time ...

[Ifreann]

Cute, no what you need is revolution.

what do you want to occur in this revolution? There is something called elections. Violence will get you nowhere.

Violence is how you got America in the first place.

[Kilobugya]

Violence is how you got America in the first place.

Well, for myself I don't oppose violence in all cases. But it should be the lass resort, when all else can't work, and only to prevent a stronger level of violence (such as an authoritarian government itself using violent repression and no non-violent ways to overthrow or stop it).

[San Lumen]

what do you want to occur in this revolution? There is something called elections. Violence will get you nowhere.

Violence is how you got America in the first place.

It ought to be a very last resort. I would have supported the revolution.

[Dresderstan]

Violence is how you got America in the first place.

It ought to be a very last resort. I would have supported the revolution.

Elections and non violent protests haven't worked

[Atheris]

what do you want to occur in this revolution? There is something called elections. Violence will get you nowhere.

Violence is how you got America in the first place.

LET TYRANTS SHAKE THEIR IRON ROD
AND SLAVERY CLANK HER GALLING CHAINS
WE FEAR THEM NOT, WE TRUST IN GOD
NEW ENGLAND'S GOD FOREVER REIGNS

[San Lumen]

It ought to be a very last resort. I would have supported the revolution.

Elections and non violent protests haven't worked

Tell me what you would do instead.

[Dresderstan]

Elections and non violent protests haven't worked

Tell me what you would do instead.

You already know the answer.

[Picairn]

Elections and non violent protests haven't worked

Progressive Era begs to differ. We even got a few amendments passed.

[Salus Maior]

Elections and non violent protests haven't worked

Progressive Era begs to differ. We even got a few amendments passed.

We’re not in the progressive era anymore.

[Dresderstan]

Elections and non violent protests haven't worked

Progressive Era begs to differ. We even got a few amendments passed.

And what has been achieved in the past 30 odd years, or even the past 10?

[Kilobugya]

Elections and non violent protests haven't worked

I can't see a violent uprising succeeding in modern US either. The army and police are much better equipped and trained than you would be, and the day you start systemic use of political violence public opinion will massively turn against you, making your cause much less likely to ever succeed.

Elections and non-violent protests might not work, but they still have a higher probably of at least partial success (like Civil Rights movement did), and without carrying the enormous cost and risk to both your "comrades" and innocent bystanders that political violence has.

[Dresderstan]

Elections and non violent protests haven't worked

I can't see a violent uprising succeeding in modern US either. The army and police are much better equipped and trained than you would be, and the day you start systemic use of political violence public opinion will massively turn against you, making your cause much less likely to ever succeed.

Elections and non-violent protests might not work, but they still have a higher probably of at least partial success (like Civil Rights movement did), and without carrying the enormous cost and risk to both your "comrades" and innocent bystanders that political violence has.

Doubt, it's clear peace isn't working and nothing is changing.

[Tarsonis]

Tell me what you would do instead.

You already know the answer.

We really don't. All I've been able to surmise from your posts is that you've watched Hamilton far too many times.

[San Lumen]

Tell me what you would do instead.

You already know the answer.

a violent revolution that would overthrow the duly elected government and this successful coup would get wide popular support?

Progressive Era begs to differ. We even got a few amendments passed.

And what has been achieved in the past 30 odd years, or even the past 10?

I can my marry my boyfriend and not be fired from my job for who I love thanks to the Supreme Court and that's just the start.

[Neutraligon]

Texas House Republicans pretend they don’t know how the "overturning elections" section made its way into the state's voter suppression bill, say they don't plan to revive it in a special session

In a sweeping overhaul of Texas elections law that Republicans rushed toward approval in the waning hours of the legislative session, one provision stood out to critics as particularly alarming.

The hastily-added clause would have made it easy for a judge to overturn an election, even if there were only thin evidence of fraud. With former President Donald Trump’s historic efforts to nullify his November loss still fresh in their minds, Democrats singled out the measure as irresponsible.

“Just think about that — your election, YOUR election could be overturned without the other side being required to prove actual voter fraud,” said state Rep. Julie Johnson (D), in an impassioned speech on the floor of the Texas House. “The implications of this are unthinkable. To make matters worse, the provision was not in either the Senate or the House version of the bill.”

The bill never passed, dying at midnight on May 31 after the Democrats blocked a vote on it by walking out. Yet policy debates have given way to an even more basic question: Who added the “Overturning Elections” section to it?

One of the members of the conference committee that crafted the final version of the bill, state Rep. Travis Clardy (R), says he doesn’t know. Other top Republicans who worked on the final draft of the legislation say they don’t know either.

What’s more, Clardy now denounces the measures related to overturning elections and says Republicans don’t plan to revive them in a future bill.

“There was zero appetite or intent or willingness to create some low bar where a single judge can overturn the results of an election,” Clardy said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers. “That would be horrendous policy, and it would never be healthy for the democracy.”

Democratic members say there is no way those provisions were inserted by mistake. They say they raised concerns about them with Republicans when there was time to spare for the bill to be revised.

The sections would have lowered the standard of proof to overturn an election from “clear and convincing” evidence to a “preponderance of the evidence.” And they gave judges the ability to void elections even if it couldn’t be demonstrated that fraudulent ballots made a difference in the outcome.

If the bill had passed, Texas would have been one of few states to have lowered the bar so much, opening the door to a flood of potential election challenges, election law experts said.

“If we deliberately design a system that says all you have to do is come up with a simple preponderance — that is, just barely more evidence than the other side — and we’re going to throw out the elections, when we have a whole gamut of election procedures in place that we justifiably expect to produce reliable results in the normal course, we’re really undermining that,” said Steven Huefner, professor of law at the Ohio State University.

The final version of Senate Bill 7 varied greatly from its previous iterations. Such changes are not uncommon at the Texas Capitol, where the Legislature meets once every two years for 140 days of policy-making and political point-scoring. Sometimes the results are sloppy.

When the Texas Legislative Council, the nonpartisan agency whose lawyers and researchers advise the lawmakers drafting legislation, returned the bill, Clardy said he was caught by surprise by some of the new provisions, which he said were not among revisions submitted by the bill’s authors.

In addition to the last-minute provision on overturning elections, another late addition said early voting on Sundays could not start before 1 p.m. Democrats decried the provision as an attempt to undermine “souls to the polls” events organized by Black churches. Clardy later told NPR it was a typo.

“I don’t want to put the blame on the Legislative Council lawyers that worked on this,” Clardy said. “We never intended and never asked for or wrote ourselves some section called overturning elections. That was not the desire at all.”

He added: “I don’t know about what input other conferees may have had with Lege Council; I’m just saying that as a lawyer, and understanding the import and difference in standards, I would never agree with preponderance and would have and will insist on clear and convincing.”

A legislative council spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the drafting of bills is “privileged and confidential.”

State Rep. Nicole Collier, one of three Democrats on the conference committee and chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, wasn’t buying Republicans’ claims that the language was added by mistake.

“They had time to review it,” Collier said. “The fact that the conference report was signed on Saturday” — the day before it went to the House floor — “means that they had read it, and they approved it.”

During the final debate on the bill, House Elections Committee Chair Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, said some amendments he supported were mysteriously missing from the final version. Cain said this week he knew as much as Clardy about where the “Overturning Elections” section came from, and had nothing further to add.

Sen. Bryan Hughes (R), Senate chair of the conference committee, declined to comment on the matter. But in a statement posted to Twitter on Thursday about SB 7, Hughes said the House ordered the conference committee draft, “so any errors didn’t ‘come over’ from the Senate.”

Elizabeth Álvarez-Bingham, the main lawyer who consulted with House Republicans on the bill, said she would not have ever recommended lowering the burden of proof.

“Election contests exist as a role of the judiciary,” Álvarez-Bingham said. “They’re only supposed to override the election if you can meet the highest possible burden, and that’s the way it should be.”

The language in the bill lowering the standard of proof was in an earlier version the Senate approved in April, though there was little discussion about it at the time. State Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, had proposed the change in a separate bill that was withdrawn before it could be heard in committee. He did not respond to a request for comment.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R), who served along with Clardy on the conference committee that signed the final version of the legislation, said he also does not want to see the standard of proof lowered and would prefer judges maintain their discretion.

As for the part allowing judges to void elections, no other bills filed this session included the language, according to a search of Texas’ legislative database.

Álvarez-Bingham noted almost identical language already exists in Texas Election Code. It can be found now within a section laying out a judge’s ability to compel voters to reveal their vote during an election contest.

In current law, it is posed as an alternative when the number of illegal votes cannot be calculated. Without that distinction, critics argued, and especially in combination with the lower standard, the provision could have been interpreted to mean judges could reverse an election without making any attempt to determine whether fraudulent votes were numerous enough to change the outcome.

The public never had a chance to vet the new provisions put together, said Sen. Beverly Powell (D), another one of the Democrats on the conference committee.

“Instead, like much of SB7, the provision was crafted behind closed doors and rushed through in the 11th hour without input from minority voter advocacy groups and others,” Powell said in a statement. “I am hopeful that minority voter advocacy groups, local election officials and the public will have a greater say and input during a special session on monumental voting legislation.”

The special session, Clardy said, will give lawmakers a second chance to clean up the bill and include only the language they believe in strongly.

“The proof will be in the pudding on this,” he said. “When we do refile the bills for election integrity, when we come back for a special, whenever the governor sets that and puts us on the call, these matters are going to be corrected.”

So two issues. Either the Republicans are lying and they intentionally put this in there, in which case they are very much trying to harm democracy as they said this inclusion would do...or somehow this provision was added without their consent, which means there is already something wrong with their democracy. Either way this deserves to be looked into.

[Dresderstan]

You already know the answer.

We really don't. All I've been able to surmise from your posts is that you've watched Hamilton far too many times.

Then you'd be very wrong my friend.

You already know the answer.

a violent revolution that would overthrow the duly elected government and this successful coup would get wide popular support?

And what has been achieved in the past 30 odd years, or even the past 10?

I can my marry my boyfriend and not be fired from my job for who I love thanks to the Supreme Court and that's just the start.

Okay anything else besides social issues, what about the economy, or the end of the unjust wage slavery and unfair wealth distribution for the top 1%?

[San Lumen]

We really don't. All I've been able to surmise from your posts is that you've watched Hamilton far too many times.

Then you'd be very wrong my friend.

a violent revolution that would overthrow the duly elected government and this successful coup would get wide popular support?



I can my marry my boyfriend and not be fired from my job for who I love thanks to the Supreme Court and that's just the start.

Okay anything else besides social issues, what about the economy, or the end of the unjust wage slavery and unfair wealth distribution for the top 1%?

We have better environmental regulations and have increased the amount of protected land too. The economy isn't something you change overnight.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Texas House Republicans pretend they don’t know how the "overturning elections" section made its way into the state's voter suppression bill, say they don't plan to revive it in a special session

In a sweeping overhaul of Texas elections law that Republicans rushed toward approval in the waning hours of the legislative session, one provision stood out to critics as particularly alarming.

The hastily-added clause would have made it easy for a judge to overturn an election, even if there were only thin evidence of fraud. With former President Donald Trump’s historic efforts to nullify his November loss still fresh in their minds, Democrats singled out the measure as irresponsible.

“Just think about that — your election, YOUR election could be overturned without the other side being required to prove actual voter fraud,” said state Rep. Julie Johnson (D), in an impassioned speech on the floor of the Texas House. “The implications of this are unthinkable. To make matters worse, the provision was not in either the Senate or the House version of the bill.”

The bill never passed, dying at midnight on May 31 after the Democrats blocked a vote on it by walking out. Yet policy debates have given way to an even more basic question: Who added the “Overturning Elections” section to it?

One of the members of the conference committee that crafted the final version of the bill, state Rep. Travis Clardy (R), says he doesn’t know. Other top Republicans who worked on the final draft of the legislation say they don’t know either.

What’s more, Clardy now denounces the measures related to overturning elections and says Republicans don’t plan to revive them in a future bill.

“There was zero appetite or intent or willingness to create some low bar where a single judge can overturn the results of an election,” Clardy said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers. “That would be horrendous policy, and it would never be healthy for the democracy.”

Democratic members say there is no way those provisions were inserted by mistake. They say they raised concerns about them with Republicans when there was time to spare for the bill to be revised.

The sections would have lowered the standard of proof to overturn an election from “clear and convincing” evidence to a “preponderance of the evidence.” And they gave judges the ability to void elections even if it couldn’t be demonstrated that fraudulent ballots made a difference in the outcome.

If the bill had passed, Texas would have been one of few states to have lowered the bar so much, opening the door to a flood of potential election challenges, election law experts said.

“If we deliberately design a system that says all you have to do is come up with a simple preponderance — that is, just barely more evidence than the other side — and we’re going to throw out the elections, when we have a whole gamut of election procedures in place that we justifiably expect to produce reliable results in the normal course, we’re really undermining that,” said Steven Huefner, professor of law at the Ohio State University.

The final version of Senate Bill 7 varied greatly from its previous iterations. Such changes are not uncommon at the Texas Capitol, where the Legislature meets once every two years for 140 days of policy-making and political point-scoring. Sometimes the results are sloppy.

When the Texas Legislative Council, the nonpartisan agency whose lawyers and researchers advise the lawmakers drafting legislation, returned the bill, Clardy said he was caught by surprise by some of the new provisions, which he said were not among revisions submitted by the bill’s authors.

In addition to the last-minute provision on overturning elections, another late addition said early voting on Sundays could not start before 1 p.m. Democrats decried the provision as an attempt to undermine “souls to the polls” events organized by Black churches. Clardy later told NPR it was a typo.

“I don’t want to put the blame on the Legislative Council lawyers that worked on this,” Clardy said. “We never intended and never asked for or wrote ourselves some section called overturning elections. That was not the desire at all.”

He added: “I don’t know about what input other conferees may have had with Lege Council; I’m just saying that as a lawyer, and understanding the import and difference in standards, I would never agree with preponderance and would have and will insist on clear and convincing.”

A legislative council spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the drafting of bills is “privileged and confidential.”

State Rep. Nicole Collier, one of three Democrats on the conference committee and chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, wasn’t buying Republicans’ claims that the language was added by mistake.

“They had time to review it,” Collier said. “The fact that the conference report was signed on Saturday” — the day before it went to the House floor — “means that they had read it, and they approved it.”

During the final debate on the bill, House Elections Committee Chair Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, said some amendments he supported were mysteriously missing from the final version. Cain said this week he knew as much as Clardy about where the “Overturning Elections” section came from, and had nothing further to add.

Sen. Bryan Hughes (R), Senate chair of the conference committee, declined to comment on the matter. But in a statement posted to Twitter on Thursday about SB 7, Hughes said the House ordered the conference committee draft, “so any errors didn’t ‘come over’ from the Senate.”

Elizabeth Álvarez-Bingham, the main lawyer who consulted with House Republicans on the bill, said she would not have ever recommended lowering the burden of proof.

“Election contests exist as a role of the judiciary,” Álvarez-Bingham said. “They’re only supposed to override the election if you can meet the highest possible burden, and that’s the way it should be.”

The language in the bill lowering the standard of proof was in an earlier version the Senate approved in April, though there was little discussion about it at the time. State Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, had proposed the change in a separate bill that was withdrawn before it could be heard in committee. He did not respond to a request for comment.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R), who served along with Clardy on the conference committee that signed the final version of the legislation, said he also does not want to see the standard of proof lowered and would prefer judges maintain their discretion.

As for the part allowing judges to void elections, no other bills filed this session included the language, according to a search of Texas’ legislative database.

Álvarez-Bingham noted almost identical language already exists in Texas Election Code. It can be found now within a section laying out a judge’s ability to compel voters to reveal their vote during an election contest.

In current law, it is posed as an alternative when the number of illegal votes cannot be calculated. Without that distinction, critics argued, and especially in combination with the lower standard, the provision could have been interpreted to mean judges could reverse an election without making any attempt to determine whether fraudulent votes were numerous enough to change the outcome.

The public never had a chance to vet the new provisions put together, said Sen. Beverly Powell (D), another one of the Democrats on the conference committee.

“Instead, like much of SB7, the provision was crafted behind closed doors and rushed through in the 11th hour without input from minority voter advocacy groups and others,” Powell said in a statement. “I am hopeful that minority voter advocacy groups, local election officials and the public will have a greater say and input during a special session on monumental voting legislation.”

The special session, Clardy said, will give lawmakers a second chance to clean up the bill and include only the language they believe in strongly.

“The proof will be in the pudding on this,” he said. “When we do refile the bills for election integrity, when we come back for a special, whenever the governor sets that and puts us on the call, these matters are going to be corrected.”

They won't revive it in a special session. They'll revive it in a normal session since they're the anti freedom party of Trump.

[Dresderstan]

Then you'd be very wrong my friend.


Okay anything else besides social issues, what about the economy, or the end of the unjust wage slavery and unfair wealth distribution for the top 1%?

We have better environmental regulations and have increased the amount of protected land too. The economy isn't something you change overnight.

Despite all that regulation had been rolled back over the past 4 years.

[Tarsonis]

We really don't. All I've been able to surmise from your posts is that you've watched Hamilton far too many times.

Then you'd be very wrong my friend.

Not really. Spouting off about revolution without having the slightest comprehension about what you actually want to achieve and the cost it will take to get there? We're right about 15 minutes into the run time.

Let me know when Groff shows up, he was the best part.

[The Black Forrest]

People are still free to vote for them.



People voted for them in free and fair elections. Obviously that's what they want.

If they're even on the ballot, and don't succumb to the "free press" that one side is evil and the other isn't.

"free and fair" is not what they are.

Hmmmm.

Maybe you should educate this massive base to use the write in section and fight the conspiracy!

[The Black Forrest]

Republicans dont' believe in free and fair elections or democracy.

How are our elections not free and fair. You still haven;t answered what you want to happen in your revolution.

Neither do you apparently. Proportional representation is the only free and fair electoral system.

Nah. You have to sell your message better. Build a base by taking town councils and spreading out. That of course takes time which goes against the American desire for instant gratification.

The funny thing? Let’s say your guy (what party are we talking about) magically takes the POTUS in the election. It won’t change much if anything and the person would be a one term.

[Picairn]

We’re not in the progressive era anymore.

Many issues from that era are still prevalent today (corporations, lobbying, political corruption, unions, welfare, the environment, etc). You think we can't replicate the lessons of the past? The Democratic Party is not doing enough to boost activism at local and state level, as well as failing to concentrate on state and local elections. Such failure is fatal when you realize the states draw the political districts.

And what has been achieved in the past 30 odd years, or even the past 10?

Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, 2009 Stimulus, CHIP, Paris climate agreement? The Obama presidency was significantly hampered by Republicans because Democrat voters got complacent in 2010 while the Tea Party galvanized Republican turnout. 2010 was also the census year, which allowed Republican-controlled states to gerrymander. https://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/46905202 ... -heres-why

If people can't even bother to vote in midterms, you think they can launch a revolution with you?

[The Black Forrest]

Then you'd be very wrong my friend.

Not really. Spouting off about revolution without having the slightest comprehension about what you actually want to achieve and the cost it will take to get there? We're right about 15 minutes into the run time.

Let me know when Groff shows up, he was the best part.

You say
The price of my love's not a price that you're willing to pay
You cry
In your tea which you hurl in the sea when you see me go by
Why so sad?
Remember we made an arrangement when you went away
Now you're making me mad
Remember, despite our estrangement, I'm your man
You'll be back, soon you'll see
You'll remember you belong to me
You'll be back, time will tell
You'll remember that I served you well
Oceans rise, empires fall
We have seen each other through it all
And when push comes to shove
I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love!
Da da da dat da, dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat dat da ya da!
Da da da dat da, dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat dat da
You say our love is draining and you can't go on
You'll be the one complaining when I am gone
And no, don't change the subject
'Cause you're my favorite subject
My sweet, submissive subject
My loyal, royal subject
Forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever
You'll be back like before
I will fight the fight and win the war
For your love, for your praise
And I'll love you 'til my dying days
When you're gone, I'll go mad
So don't throw away this thing we had
'Cause when push comes to shove
I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love
Da da da dat da, dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat dat da ya da!
Da da da dat da, dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat-
Everybody!
Da da da dat da, dat da da da da ya da
Da da dat dat da ya da!
Da da da dat da, dat da da da da ya da, da da da
Dat dat da ya da!

[Dresderstan]

We’re not in the progressive era anymore.

Many issues from that era are still prevalent today (corporations, lobbying, political corruption, unions, welfare, the environment, etc). You think we can't replicate the lessons of the past? The Democratic Party is not doing enough to boost activism at local and state level, as well as failing to concentrate on state and local elections. Such failure is fatal when you realize the states draw the political districts.

And what has been achieved in the past 30 odd years, or even the past 10?

Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, 2009 Stimulus, CHIP, Paris climate agreement? The Obama presidency was significantly hampered by Republicans because Democrat voters got complacent in 2010 while the Tea Party galvanized Republican turnout. 2010 was also the census year, which allowed Republican-controlled states to gerrymander. https://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/46905202 ... -heres-why

If people can't even bother to vote in midterms, you think they can launch a revolution with you?

No it's because elections and non violent activism isn't doing the job to enact change.

Like I said, all that shit got reversed or had little to no good impact at large.