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UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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The real reason Republicans are blocking voting rights legislation
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, for instance, said on Fox News in November, while Trump was disputing the result of a free and fair election that made Joe Biden president, that "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."
Republicans justify their plan to block sweeping voting rights legislation in the Senate this week by arguing that it's a huge federal power grab. But their past words and actions suggest they are again prioritizing their own political advantage over defending democracy.
When former President Donald Trump lost last year's election, most Republicans didn't do what most losing parties do -- agonize over how to modify their message and appeal to a majority to deliver them future power.
Instead, party leaders in Washington and the states dedicated themselves to enshrining his anti-democratic behavior as GOP orthodoxy and whitewashing events that led to Trump's disgrace, including his pandemic failures, lies about non-existent major electoral fraud and the Capitol insurrection.
Instead of examining why voters rejected the ex-President after a single term, Republican state legislators drew up bills rooted in his falsehoods about a stolen election that could make it easier to install their preferred victor after future elections -- even if voters decide otherwise.
It is in this context that GOP senators this week are expected to block Democratic moves effectively designed to protect a democracy under near-unprecedented assault.
The showdown will come at a critical moment for Joe Biden's presidency. Delicate negotiations that could produce a bipartisan infrastructure bill may have a narrow path. And a months-long drive for a bipartisan police reform deal is finally creating some optimism for genuine progress. (Biden is also facing increasing unrest among liberal Democrats who fear dreams of a radical, transformative presidency may be evaporating.)
While these legislative issues are vital to Biden's political agenda, the clash over voting rights touches on something more fundamental to America -- the maintenance of its political system.
It is perfectly valid for Republicans to raise objections to the "For the People Act," which already passed the House and which Democrats are now trying to pass in the Senate. The overhaul bill restores voting rights and expands access to the ballot by introducing automatic voter registration, protecting mail-in voting and establishing nationwide standards for early voting. The idea that this is an overly expansive use of federal power to dictate rules of state elections deserves serious debate. New campaign finance reform proposals included in the bill may face legal impediments. And it's not clear a one-size-fits-all mandate works everywhere. Some states already believe their systems are superior to anything Washington could impose. Critics also question whether Washington will properly fund a huge overhaul of the election system.
Yet the sincerity of Republican opposition is called into question by the actions of GOP state legislators who are actively undermining US democracy. Most Republican lawmakers in Washington voted to shield Trump from impeachment charges after he incited the mob riot at the Capitol on January 6. And more recently, GOP senators blocked an independent, bipartisan probe into the events of that day.
Claims of vast voter fraud in 2020 -- which Republicans say justifies restrictive voting bills from Florida to Texas and Arizona to Michigan -- are false. And past statements from GOP leaders, including Trump, that allowing more people to vote will make it harder for Republicans to ever win power reveals a more genuine rationale for GOP opposition.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, for instance, said on Fox News in November, while Trump was disputing the result of a free and fair election that made Joe Biden presiden
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The real reason Republicans are blocking voting rights legislation
...brought to you by the liars at CNN.
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Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Republicans are forever in fear for their lives because of crime. Being fearful is just another Trumptard trait, along with stupid and insane. In another country, fearful, stupid and crazy would make it impossible to stay in the middle class. In America, it only makes it difficult.
Murder rate usually rises and falls in tandem with the violent crime rate.
Just how closely do they follow each other? FBI data only goes back to 1986:
The Second bot is just stringing an bunch of meaningless words together again today I see.
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Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.
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Quote:FOX News: Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, for instance, said on Fox News in November, while Trump was disputing the result of a free and fair election that made Joe Biden president, that "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The real reason Republicans are blocking voting rights legislation
...brought to you by the liars at CNN.
www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-gop-election-fight-never-another-repub
lican-president
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Mail-in fraud election was fraud.
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Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.
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Quote:That has already been covered by FOX News: "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Mail-in fraud election was fraud.
www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-gop-election-fight-never-another-repub
lican-president
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:That has already been covered by FOX News: "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Mail-in fraud election was fraud.
www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-gop-election-fight-never-another-repub
lican-president
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
I covered it first.
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Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.
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Republicans Are Still Pushing Trump’s Election Conspiracy Theories
The most absurd thing that Trump’s White House tried to push on the DOJ would be a conspiracy theory called “Italygate” that alleged the CIA and an Italian defense contractor had used satellites to switch votes from Trump to Biden. As the Washington Post reported last week, this particular conspiracy theory was put forward by a woman who pretended to own a $30 million mansion that doesn’t belong to her.
And yet, on Dec. 29, Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows sent Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen (Bill Barr quit on Dec. 14 to avoid association with what Trump was doing to stay in the White House www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/attorney-general-william-barr-resigns-effectiv
e-dec-23.html ) an email with an attached memo written in Italian purporting to prove the Italian satellite theory, along with an English translation. On New Year’s Day, Meadows sent a YouTube clip to Rosen further outlining the Italian satellite fantasy. Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue labeled Meadows’ efforts “pure insanity” in one email.
And yet, not only did Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) note that Trump’s targets should have been taken seriously, but he went on to say that the DOJ officials who refused the requests of Trump White House officials were actually the ones who needed to be investigated. “When the president—when the chief of staff to the president of the United States asks someone in the executive branch to do something, and they basically give him the finger, I think that’s the problem we should be looking into,” he said. According to Jordan, the DOJ’s refusal to subvert the election on the basis of these insane theories was the actual wrongdoing worthy of investigation.
This all sounds wild and outlandish, and a lot of it is performative political theater. But here is the issue: Jordan is one of the most influential Republicans in the House Republican conference. When he says that the real issue that needs to be investigated is why the DOJ didn’t aid in Trump’s attempts to subvert the election, he’s speaking as the person who might lead such investigations. He would be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the GOP takes back the House next year and able to conduct any investigation he wanted into the 2020 election on the basis of any number of cooked-up conspiracy theories. Fortunately for Jordan, states across the country are beating him to it.
More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/jim-jordan-trump-2020-elec
tion-doj.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Donald Trump keeps stoking ‘reinstatement’ talk
See video about how Trump's lies evolved from crowd size in 2017 to conspiracy theories in 2021 at www.cnn.com/2021/06/22/politics/trump-reinstatement-president-big-lie/
index.html
Donald Trump continues to openly discuss the possibility that he will be reinstated as president, dangerously fomenting the false belief among his followers that this wild conspiracy theory is something other than a total and complete fantasy.
In an interview with David Brody for Just the News’ “Water Cooler” show, Trump was asked about the possibility of reinstatement. Here’s how he responded:
Quote:Literally none of that is right. Or close to it.
“If the election was fraudulent, people are gonna have to make up their own mind. It’s not gonna be up to me. It’s gonna be up to the public. It’s gonna be up to, perhaps, politicians. I don’t think there’s ever been a case like this where hundreds of thousands of votes will be found. So we’ll have to see what happens.”
The election wasn’t fraudulent. All 50 states plus the District of Columbia certified the vote. The Electoral College count was affirmed by Congress. There has been no evidence of any sort of widespread voter fraud – whether nationally or in an individual state.
Now, consider what Trump says next: “People are gonna have to make up their own mind. It’s not gonna be up to me. … It’s gonna be up to the public.”
And remember that the former President has gone out of his way to elevate this ongoing circus of a recount in Arizona – suggesting, against all proof to the contrary – that it’s a serious thing that could well overturn the result in the state. (There is zero chance of that happening.)
So if and when the “recount” ends and its Trump-loyal backers declare something like we can’t know who really won, then the former President’s supporters will look to statements like “it’s gonna be up to the public” and think that he is urging them to take to the streets.
(Sidebar: If you think this, uh, recount is going to come out and say that election officials got it all right and that President Joe Biden beat Trump in Arizona, I have an emerging video rental business by the name of Blockbuster you might be interested in.)
And well, January 6 gave us a sense of what happens when you have an irresponsible leader pushing a debunked conspiracy theory on a group of people who have been fed lies about their government for years.
Whether Trump realizes it or not (and I think he does and just doesn’t care), giving people reason to believe that he actually could somehow wind up back in the White House and that the power to make that happen could well lie with them is the equivalent of pouring lighter fluid on a fire.
The Point: Don’t be surprised by what comes next. Words matter.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/22/politics/trump-reinstatement-president-
big-lie/index.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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How A Chinese Fishing Village Grew Into A Tech Powerhouse.
While America is obsessed by culture wars, China is overtaking America.
I prefer democracy, but democracy that’s not paralyzed if only Mitch McConnell would find another line of work.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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