Sinema’s Befuddlement Sinks Democrats’ Voting Rights Bills
The Senate had just passed an exception to the filibuster rule, permitting a simple 51-vote majority to increase the debt ceiling. So there was logical surmise that a similar exception would be fitting, not for matters of general policy, but surely for matters related to the Constitution. The debt ceiling increase was so 
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema
that the government can pay its bills, but before the Senate are two voting rights measures that seek to protect the very democracy.
But then, in a singular act of chutzpah, Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema jumped the line in front of the president, due to visit the Congress an hour later, to preempt his last-minute plea on behalf of the two bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act , by announcing that she would not vote for any alteration of the Senate filibuster rule. Hadn't she just weeks before done exactly that for the debt ceiling?
With all 50 Republicans in the Senate aligned against them, the voting rights bills can only be passed by specially setting aside the filibuster so that a simple majority vote will make them law. But the votes of all 50 Senate Democratic vote would be needed. Sinema put an end to that. So presumably would West Virginia's Joe Manchin, but it was Ms Sinema who went on the Senate floor to deliver a speech.
leading from behindSinema decried the "spiral of division" that has…
"… now fueled efforts in several states that will make it more difficult for Americans to vote and undermine faith that all Americans should have in our elections and our democracy".
She shares the concerns of civil rights activists that she's heard from… Read More »
A Case in Point: There’s No Dislodging the Big Lie
Jared Schmeck is a 35-year-old father of four, a former police officer now working at the electrical company run by his father, and living with his wife Amanda and the kids — sons Grant and Hunter, and daughters Penelope and Piper — in Central Point, Oregon. On Christmas Eve they traditionally call the the North American Aerospace Defense Command which simulates tracking Santa Claus as he delivers presents around the world, with the President and First Lady patched in to 
The President and First Lady
take phone calls and asking kids what they hope to get for Christmas. It's an annual tradition of NORAD since 1955. But this year when Jared called in he found himself talking to the Bidens. "I thought, ‘wow, this is real'”, he told Portland's The Oregonian.
The amicable call, full of good wishes for Christmas, ended with:
Joe Biden: By the way, you guys have to be in bed by nine o'clock, you know, and asleep between nine and twelve or he doesn't show up.
Jill Biden: This isn't to you, Jared. This is to the kids (Jared laughs in the background)
Joe Biden: I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.
Jared: Yeah, I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well and Let's Go Brandon.
Seemingly clueless, the president answered, "Let's Go Brandon, I agree". Clueless, because "Let's Go Brandon" is a stand-in for "F**k Joe Biden". NASCAR fans had chanted this at a Talladega race; trying to cover up on network television, the announcer said he thought he was hearing "Let's Go Brandon" for the driver, Brandon Brown, who had just won his first race.
Mr. Schmeck's slur was stunning incivility, the more so at Christmas coming from one who would later say, "I am a Christian man". It… Read More »
the Russia 'hoax'
The Other Big Lie the Wall Street Journal Wants You to Believe
Dec 17 2021
Every expectation is that Donald Trump will run for re-election in 2024. A multifaceted strategy to assure his win no matter that election's outcome — dubbed a "slow motion coup" by those on the left
— is on the move to make that happen. To fortify that outcome, Trump's legions are conducting a parallel campaign that seeks to rewrite recent history.
There is first the "Big Lie", entirely the creation of the ousted president and still believed by two-thirds of Republicans, that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that Joe Biden is per force an illegitimate president.
Second, a movement to downplay the insurrection swelled as the months passed after January 6. It became just another protest that got out of hand, no different than Portland's riots, and a false flag operation at that, with antifa members dressed to impersonate right-wing militias.
A third front to negate "the Russia narrative" hopes to entirely sanitize, if not disappear, the accusations of contacts with Russians during the 2016 Trump campaign, burying these allegations as no more than a left-wing-promoted "hoax".
This last became a story again with recent indictments by special counsel John Durham, who had been assigned by Trump's Attorney General William Barr to determine whether the FBI was justified in investigating the Russian contacts. Principal among the indicted is Igor Danchenko, a Russian citizen long in the U.S., who had been revealed as the prime source of Christopher Steele's "dossier", and…
Read More »
Every expectation is that Donald Trump will run for re-election in 2024. A multifaceted strategy to assure his win no matter that election's outcome — dubbed a "slow motion coup" by those on the left
— is on the move to make that happen. To fortify that outcome, Trump's legions are conducting a parallel campaign that seeks to rewrite recent history.
There is first the "Big Lie", entirely the creation of the ousted president and still believed by two-thirds of Republicans, that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that Joe Biden is per force an illegitimate president.
Second, a movement to downplay the insurrection swelled as the months passed after January 6. It became just another protest that got out of hand, no different than Portland's riots, and a false flag operation at that, with antifa members dressed to impersonate right-wing militias.
A third front to negate "the Russia narrative" hopes to entirely sanitize, if not disappear, the accusations of contacts with Russians during the 2016 Trump campaign, burying these allegations as no more than a left-wing-promoted "hoax".
This last became a story again with recent indictments by special counsel John Durham, who had been assigned by Trump's Attorney General William Barr to determine whether the FBI was justified in investigating the Russian contacts. Principal among the indicted is Igor Danchenko, a Russian citizen long in the U.S., who had been revealed as the prime source of Christopher Steele's "dossier", and… Read More »
elections
Might as Well Call Gerrymandering the 28th Amendment
Dec 1 2021
State legislatures around the country are busily using 2020 census data to map voters into newly configured election districts. The grail is to obliterate the opposition party's representation in Congress. There's nothing new about this; it's been going on since the early 1800s. But 
this time, optimized by software advances, gerrymandering will reach extremes not seen before, and the new redistricting will engineer elections for the full decade until the 2030 census. America as a democracy is becoming a myth.
It doesn't have to be this way. We could easily have a pure democracy if it weren't for the political parties' lust for power. We'll explain how below.
hard right rudder
Republicans decidedly hold the upper hand in the gerrymander sweepstakes. The party has trifectas — control of both chambers of the state legislature as well as the governorship — in 23 states, and…
Read More »
State legislatures around the country are busily using 2020 census data to map voters into newly configured election districts. The grail is to obliterate the opposition party's representation in Congress. There's nothing new about this; it's been going on since the early 1800s. But
this time, optimized by software advances, gerrymandering will reach extremes not seen before, and the new redistricting will engineer elections for the full decade until the 2030 census. America as a democracy is becoming a myth.
It doesn't have to be this way. We could easily have a pure democracy if it weren't for the political parties' lust for power. We'll explain how below.
hard right rudderRepublicans decidedly hold the upper hand in the gerrymander sweepstakes. The party has trifectas — control of both chambers of the state legislature as well as the governorship — in 23 states, and… Read More »