Voting while black

Tom Bonier mentions a New York Times article saying the GOP is seeking 50,000 volunteers to “monitor” polling places. The purpose is, of course, to challenge voters deemed “suspicious.” Bonier wrote, “Code for voting while black.”

Leah McElrath tweeted:

I’ve been expecting this.

Don’t let it surprise you if Trump’s armed right wing militias become part of this effort with either the overt or tacit approval of the GOP.

Greg Dworkin of Daily Kos quotes a bit more from the NYT article, which was written by Paul Waldman. Wrote Waldman:

The efforts are bolstered by a 2018 federal court ruling that for the first time in nearly four decades allows the national Republican Party to mount campaigns against purported voter fraud without court approval. The court ban on Republican Party voter-fraud operations was imposed in 1982, and then modified in 1986 and again in 1990, each time after courts found instances of Republicans intimidating or working to exclude minority voters in the name of preventing fraud. The party was found to have violated it yet again in 2004.

Laura Clawson of Kos has more details.

Aaron Rupar tweeted the nasty saying, “Voting is an honor.” The nasty guy said that in opposition to vote by mail.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat responded:

When do you know authoritarian corruption has advanced to a new stage? When they don’t hide it. Trump’s been frank: if it might lose me the election, it cannot be allowed.

He’s against vote by mail because it removes the face-to-face intimidation and the long lines that might discourage some people from voting.

This is why I don’t have high hopes for the November election and skip over polling data.

In response to Ben-Ghiat Joel Farran tweeted a link to an article on Bustle by Kavitha George on 8 voting rights organizations. If you’ve got time money to spare they could use help or a donation. They are:
* Let America Vote
* Common Cause
* League of Women Voters
* ACLU
* Spread the Vote
* Election Protection
* Asian Americans Advancing Justice
* The Brennan Center



It’s Thursday so another report on new jobless benefit claims is out. In the past week another 2.4 million claims were file. Bringing the nine week total to 38.3 million. Meteor Blades of Kos examines that and related data.

Dean Obeidallah tweeted:

Over the last two months nearly 39 million people have filed for unemployment - that means there are more people unemployed in the U.S. than the ENTIRE population of Canada!

Judd Apatow tweeted:

The @gop is trying to normalize death. It worked for lying, corruption, sexual assault, approving inexperienced judges, racism, theft, crony capitalism, voter suppression, avoiding oversight, extortion, sexism, insider trading and stupidity— why wouldn’t it work for death?

Commenters added a couple more things that have been normalized: kids in cages, gun violence (see Sandy Hook).