Bill HR1 is horrid. It destroys American democracy. Please call your Senator (it already passed the House) if you want anything resembling democracy to exist in this house. What does it do? It obligates every future election to look like the 2020 election.
This should be reported as news #1, yet we are being purposefully distracted by non-news about Cuomo, masks in Texas, etc. There will be no more elections (or anything worthy of the name) if HR1 passes.
Forget the silly chatter about minimum wage or college loans. Nobody cares about your loans. This bill is the starting point to the remaking of our political system into an oligopoly.
P.S. People who read the CNN coverage to find out what HR1 is are idiots and should bugger off.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m not up on the news. This is fantastic to hear. Hoping it passes!
LikeLike
Yes, wouldn’t be great to have Russia’s electoral process adopted here? I can’t wait!
LikeLike
It’s interesting, though, that people don’t understand how easily this process can be used against a Democrat candidate. Especially a Social Democrat candidate. They will notice and be completely appalled but it will be too late.
LikeLike
Reading up on the relevant details at TGP this morning. That’s … really something.They’re retroactively legalizing all the crap that the Dems pulled to rig this last election. Plus a few more gems to seal the deal.
Never trust legislation that Congress feels it has to vote on in the middle of the night.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/republicans-slept-democrats-stole-2020-election-like-communists-now-locking-steal-ages/
LikeLike
Yep. They are trying to make the 2020 election the norm. It’s quite scary, to be honest.
LikeLike
Oh man, the editorializing here is just so over the top it’s hard to get through. I recommend everyone skip the beginning of the article and go to the part where they actually quote the legislation (they really do highlight some important stuff.)
LikeLike
I stopped to read this crap after « communists » and « landslide Trump election ».
LikeLike
Clearly TGP is over-the top rhetorically. However, they are more accurate than the NYT when they’re quoting people and legislation, and on the odd occasions when they get something factually wrong, they are totally up-front about it. There will be a headline that says “We Were Wrong About…”– which is why I appreciate it as a news source, even though it’s wildly partisan and extremely opinionated. I’m capable of reading past the overheated rhetoric. I realize not everybody is up to that level of news-sifting, and that’s OK. The problem with sticking with respectable sources that use only the approved PMC buzzwords is that so far, none of them are talking about this at all. It’s like it didn’t happen.
Most of that link is simply relevant excerpts from the text of H.R. 1. I’m sure you can find them elsewhere without the purple headlines, but that was where I saw the text of the bill, so that’s the link I posted. But don’t be deluded that just because you didn’t see it on WaPo, it’s not real.
LikeLike
David,
Here’s the whole text of the bill, straight from the source, no editorializing:
H.R.1 – For the People Act of 2021
117th Congress (2021-2022)
If you don’t want to read the entire bill but would like a summary without screaming and fulminating this is a decent link.
LikeLike
God, it’s worse than I thought.
Absolutely unbelievable that this is being done and nobody cares.
LikeLike
Calling senators are this point in time unless you can pay them more than whoever has already paid them, or blackmail them with something scarier than whatever someone else has blackmailed them with.
Since no one reading this blog is likely to be very wealthy and likely to wade into that kind of viper pit – which is especially dangerous at this point in time – it would be best if everyone only called things like pizza delivery etc.
LikeLike
My senator is Corey Booker. What are the odds he will listen to me? I hate to admit, I helped to elect him several years ago. I didn’t vote for him this time but he has enough support without me. I sent him an email though.
LikeLike
Mine are Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth. So yeah. . .
LikeLike
Remaking? This is a 2-party oligopoly since forever.
LikeLike
Well, now it will be an oligopoly without anything that can meaningfully be called “parties” at all. Google can go ahead and hand down its edicts without the pretense of having a political system anymore.
LikeLike
“Remaking? This is a 2-party oligopoly since forever.”
The political duopoly representing economic oligarchs that existed in the past would at least alter some policies towards the left/right depending on how the population voted.
Changing voting law so that elections are rigged shoves both political parties together into a single, much more dictatorial entity that cannot change policy as easily or as much towards how the population votes even if it wanted to, which it probably wont anyway since it is so tempting to use digital media to propagandise everyone.
In turn that leads to growing misgovernance, and then worsening discontent that erupts into violence.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly. This is not something that Democrats will do to Republicans. It’s something that anybody who can will do.
If you are a Democrat, and a new, hopeful, sincere person runs against an establishment candidate, this ensures that the establishment candidate always wins. Is that a good thing? Let’s forget partisan differences for a second and concentrate on the big picture. This is bad for everybody except a tiny group of entrenched bastards on both sides.
LikeLike
I contacted mine: Scott and Rubio. But I fully expect them to vote against it anyway. They know perfectly well that all FL’s hard work hacking out the election-board corruption in Miami/Palm Beach goes out the window if this thing passes, and likely their seats with it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
FL truly shaped up with Desantis. This goes to show that it’s possible.
But if this bill passes, nobody will let another Desantis OF EITHER PARTY get elected anywhere.
LikeLike
What did their offices say when you contacted them?
LikeLike
So far just the canned “your message is important to us” blather that you expect. But both have since pledged publically to vote against it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did not get a person at either of their offices either.
LikeLike
That’s typical, but I’m told that since they often get deluged with messages about unpopular legislation, how that works is they have office aides tally up the number of “Vote Yes” and “Vote No”messages to give them a sense of how their constituents feel about it. It may or may not affect how they vote, but often lets them know if they need to make a public statement about it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What’s the specific problems with the bill? I don’t read CNN but I took a look at Wikipedia & most of those provisions seem fine to me? What am I missing about this?
LikeLike
Did you like the 2020 election? The confusion, no results for weeks, the mess, everybody confused and unhappy in the end?
This bill makes every election the 2020 election. Bags of unverified, unidentified mail-in ballots dragged from God knows where and there’s nothing you can do.
LikeLike
Here’s just one tiny little thing. What’s the purpose of this pre-registration for 16-year-olds? Young people are notoriously uninterested in politics and don’t vote. (Except for a few children of very neurotic mommies). But it’s a cohort that never votes anywhere in the world there’s voting. So what’s the point?
Well, that’s precisely the point. Swell the voter rolls with the names of these 18-year-olds, and when they don’t show up (which they won’t), dump a batch of mail-in ballots in their name. Want to know how I know? Because that’s how the entire third-world does it. I’m so tired of Americans thinking they invented all this.
I could go on about the rest of these provisions but people who aren’t entirely bamboozled can figure them out on their own.
I’m in an online conference, for my sins.
LikeLike
“What’s the purpose of this pre-registration for 16-year-olds?”
So that the 16 year olds can have information gathered about them (or bought from a third party) so that political parties can manipulate them outright by showing them “advertisements” that give them a negative impression about the opposition/positive impression about the party, along with recruiting the 16 year olds or enticing them to party controlled entities (sports, schooling programs etc).
Otherwise the information will be used as it is for adults, where information is gathered for purposes of targeted marketing.
In other words, they’re signing them up to game them later. Total scam.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The bill also obligates states to accept ballot harvesting. And it imposes CRIMINAL penalties for questioning the provenance of these ballot dumps.
And then some simps are asking “but what’s wrong with the bill”? You can go to jail for questioning this farce. How can that possibly be wrong?
And hey, this is just a tiny bit of the bill. When you take it in its totality, it’s heart-stopping.
LikeLike
I’m on the same page. Don’t see anything terribly wrong with it. Creating some basic Federal rules to bring some semblance of sense to the current hodge-podge of election laws seems good to me. Same with requiring more transparency from Super PACs and dark money groups.
To me the 2020 election was chaotic as is to be expected in the middle of a once in a life-time (I hope) pandemic. But screaming about how bad it was just doesn’t ring with me.
LikeLike
Federal rules for elections violate the constitution. It clearly says states create their own rules (mostly). It’s great that states can do their own thing on this and other subjects – we can see what fails and what succeeds – and other states can emulate or so the opposite. Florida did a great job making a less problematic election. Other states created chaos. Democrats want to change the rules for the whole country thinking it will continue to go in their favor when they create chaos.
If this passes I fully expect 20+ states to file lawsuits.
LikeLike
I don’t think this law prohibits states from having their own rules.
LikeLike
It does. That’s the whole point of this bill. It erases the states’ capacity to have their own electoral laws and forces everybody to adopt this new standard.
LikeLike
I perused through the bill and don’t see any prohibition. It just seems to want to make it easier to people to vote. What is so bad about that? Why should voting be a complicated process?
LikeLike
Do you know what ballot harvesting is? Or ballot dumps? This bill makes both not only a possibility but an obligation.
LikeLike
I also fail to understand what’s so complicated about coming to the polls and casting a ballot. I did it twice since becoming a citizen, and it was extremely easy.
LikeLike
I just saw online that Michelle Obama is very pro-HR1. Need I say more?
LikeLike
Democrats won’t be against it until they lose an election. Since they’re confident that this legislation will lock them in forever, what’s the problem?
LikeLike
Two election cycles in a row Democrats are seeing how establishment candidates secure a primary win through all sorts of unsavory shenanigans. And they still support this bill. These people are lemmings.
LikeLike
“Do you know what ballot harvesting is? Or ballot dumps? This bill makes both not only a possibility but an obligation.”
How common is this practice? Seems like a very rare thing that only helps elderly and disabled people with mobility issues. Once again, making it easier and convenient for people to vote. Don’t see a huge problem with that.
“I also fail to understand what’s so complicated about coming to the polls and casting a ballot. I did it twice since becoming a citizen, and it was extremely easy.”
Once again I ask, what’s so wrong about having multiple options? This bill doesn’t prohibit in person voting.
Make it easy and convenient to vote. Why does that have to be so controversial? This is the 21st century, we have new capabilities that we did not have 200 years ago.
LikeLike
“It just seems to want to make it easier to people to vote. What is so bad about that? Why should voting be a complicated process?”
I love you, ed. You remind me so much of my sweetly naive self at age 19. On the one hand, it’s terrifically annoying that you can’t see how these things can and will be exploited by unscrupulous people. On the other hand, I’m jealous that you’re still at a point in your life where you haven’t seen it in action or been swindled by it, and become cynical. And I don’t wish that on you. May you always be so blessed.
But maybe try to see that you do, in fact, live a charmed life, and that people have valid reasons for not seeing things your way?
LikeLiked by 2 people
“Make it easy and convenient to vote. Why does that have to be so controversial? This is the 21st century, we have new capabilities that we did not have 200 years ago.”
The point is that living in a democratic society is a privilege. Going to the polls in person once in two years to make sure that the elections are conducted in the fairest way possible, should be a small price to pay for this privilege. There are a lot of examples from different countries around the world that illustrate well how elections can be abused. Widespread mail-in voting is one such “convenience” that can be easily abused. I do not think there is any possible way I, or anyone else, can make you understand this, and sadly, you will have to learn from your own experience, like some of us had to.
LikeLike
The idea that it’s too hard to vote in the US always carries the connotation of “for black people.” It’s a deeply leftist idea that is predicated on the belief in a general uselessness and stupidity of anybody who isn’t US white. I don’t share that belief and don’t think that voting is an insuperable hardship.
LikeLike
Some senator will filibuster it and it’ll die. But which one?
LikeLike
“Make it easy and convenient to vote”
I called it…. Open Ballots
LikeLike