Redux: Will Republicans Steal Your Right To Vote?

Posted by TomCat at 12:21 pm Blog News, Politics

May 312016

This article is republished from 3/6/2011. Republicans have a long history of disenfranchising people that they consider more likely to vote for Democrats. After all, they can’t allow something as minute as voting rights stand in the way of establishing a 1,000 year Republican Regime of one-party rule. In a master coup, they slimed ACORN, forcing that fine organization into bankruptcy, using fictitious information that looked so damning that Acorn was gone before the truth that Republicans doctored the video reached the public. During the Bush Regime, they fired US attorneys who refused to file false charges against Democratic candidates on the eve of elections. Google caging to find another favorite Republican ruse. And now they’re back to using false claims of voter fraud to steal the right to vote from millions of US citizens.

In statehouses across the country, Republican lawmakers are raising the specter of “voter fraud” to push through legislation that would dramatically restrict the voting rights of college students, rural voters, senior citizens, the disabled and the homeless. As part of their larger effort to silence Main Street, conservatives are pushing through new photo identification laws that would exclude millions from voting, depress Hispanic voter turnout by as much as 10 percent, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars. In the next few months, a new set of election laws could make going to the polls and registering to vote significantly more difficult — in some cases even barring groups of citizens from voting in the communities where they live.

Conservative legislators across the country have said these laws are necessary to combat alleged mass voter fraud. But these fears are completely overblown and states already have tough voting laws on the books: fraudulent voters face felony charges, hefty fines, and even lengthy prison time. In Missouri, for example, voter fraud carries a penalty of no less than 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Yet conservatives have insisted on finding a legislative solution to a non-existent problem. In states like Indiana, where an ID law passed in 2005, both nuns and college students have found themselves turned away from the polls. Similar laws are on the books in eight other states and that number could expand dramatically in coming months… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Nothing in this country is so precious as our right to vote. The only way I know to protect our voting rights is to remove Republicans from power at every level of government, so completely that your great grandchildren ask your children, “Who were the Republicans?”

Update: we received an email from a lawyer to congratulate our work and inform us that one of the links in the source article I used, overblown, had been retired, and inviting is to update the link, which I did. I reposted this because it’s still valid today, except that the problem is now far worse.

Open Thread – 5/30/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:50 pm Blog News, Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 302016

Because it’s a holiday, and I really need one, the blog, feeding me, and spending a few hours on George are my only plans for the day.

Special Announcement:

I am very sorry to inform you that JLA has resigned her post as an Author here at Politics Plus. She said this is no longer the best place for her efforts, because she feels unable to support Hillary Clinton, if she is the nominee, and all the other Administrators and Authors promote supporting the Democratic nominee, whoever that is. JLA is still welcome here and I thank her for her excellent work on our behalf. We hope she will not be a stranger.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today.s took me 3:40 (average 5:41). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy:

Myth 1: Higher incarceration rates cause corresponding decreases in crime.

Truth: Imprisoning people isn’t always a good way to fight crime.

A study by The Sentencing Project found that simply putting more people in prison isn’t an effective strategy for fighting crime.

In fact, states that imprisoned fewer people actually saw significant improvements in crime reduction compared with states who were more aggressive about incarceration.

In the words of the study’s authors, "Increasing incarceration while ignoring more effective approaches will impose a heavy burden upon courts, corrections and communities, while providing a marginal impact on crime."

This is the first of five myths about prisons. I agree with the author, based on my many years as a prison volunteer. My only issue is that rather than myths, some are lies to justify continuing the status quo. Click through fir the other four.

From Think Progress: There is no drought in California

Donald Trump told an audience in Fresno that “there is no drought” in California. According to Trump, the state has plenty of water but it’s being held hostage by environmentalists in government. The idea that the government is engineering the drought was popularized by professional conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones.

California, in fact, is facing a severe drought of historic proportions that covers nearly 95% of the state.

The state is drier than it has been in at least 500 years.

0530Cali

This is one of twelve InsaniTEA based conspiracy theories propagated by Rump Dump Trump. Click through for the other eleven.

From TPM: The Libertarian Party has nominated former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson as its presidential candidate just as it did in 2012.

Delegates to the party’s convention in Orlando on Sunday picked Johnson on the second ballot over Austin Petersen, the founder of The Libertarian Republic magazine, and anti-computer virus company founder John McAfee.

Johnson got about 1 percent of the popular vote in 2012.

Voting for this and other third party candidates is a great solution for disgruntled neocons, theocons, corporacons, plutocons, and TEAbaggers. Lefties, on the other hand, have only one viable solution:

Vote Blue No Matter Who!

Cartoon:

0530Cartoon

Pat B Has a BIG Mouth ;-)

Posted by TomCat at 8:25 am Blog News, Politics

May 062016

78-PatB

Although Pat has been following Politics Plus and commenting for quite some time on Care2, where she has been active for years, she only started commenting here at the site a few months ago, so this is her very first Big Mouth Award. Consequently, I don’t know that much about her. She is a progressive activist, an authentic Christian, and a Michael Moore Fan. If you tell her to go to hell, she’s likely to answer, “I already live there.” The poor girl is a Texan. Her comments are bright and witty. And one think I personally appreciate is that she invariably expresses empathy over the trials I face.

She is a most welcome asset to our community here. Please pile on the kudos, She deserves them.

Monthly Report for April 2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:03 pm Blog News, Monthly Report, Politics

May 022016

In April Politics Plus was slightly down from March in every category, except visits. The differences are so small that the length of the month accounts for almost the entire drop-off.

Here is our latest summary:

Stats04-2016

Reported period	Month Apr 2016
First visit	01 Apr 2016 – 00:00
Last visit	30 Apr 2016 – 23:59
	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic *	9,632	30,422 (3.15 visits/visitor)	90,401 (2.97 Pages/Visit)	238,894 (7.85 Hits/Visit)	6.47 GB (223.01 KB/Visit)
Not viewed traffic *			404,409	472,520	8.27 GB

Reported period	Month Apr 2015
First visit	01 Apr 2015 – 00:00
Last visit	30 Apr 2015 – 23:57
	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic *	9,838	26,580 (2.7 visits/visitor)	80,467 (3.02 Pages/Visit)	233,368 (8.77 Hits/Visit)	3.36 GB (132.35 KB/Visit)
Not viewed traffic *			321,700	365,533	5.15 GB

However, we are up significantly from last April in every category.

Here is our latest demographic data from Quantcast:

Q!US04-2016

They miss a ton of raw data, but among those they can identify they are a valuable source of information. We are still mostly older, well educated, poor, Democrats, and politically active.

Here is our archived ClustrMap for April only.

Clustrmap04-2016

ClustrMap misses a lot of visits, because many visits can’t be easily traced to a location. They have changed their format.. When you click the map in the left column, it shows the current month only, no longer the year to date..

Here are our top five articles:

Jane Smiley: Capitalist Pigs 1/17/2010 1,751
Republicans on Parade–8/18/2014 8/18/2014 232
BEEautiful Shot at Ammosexuals 4/12/2016 161
Koch Brothers Finance Racism 8/18/2011 154
Could This Kill the Reich? 4/20/2016 153

The count represents only the people who followed an external link to that specific article. I’m quite pleased that two from April made the cut, Unfortunately none are from authors other than me.

Here are our top non-blog/news referrers (100 referral minimum):

Care2 2,542
Google 2,016
Stumbleupon 222
Google (Images) 132

All are slightly down from March, except Stumbleupon.

Here are our top blog/news referrers:

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/
http://infidel753.blogspot.com/
http://www.oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/
http://fair.org/
http://disaffectedanditfeelssogood.blogspot.com/
http://okjimmseggrollemporium.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloomberg.com/

Once upon a time I included fifteen here, but these seven are the only ones with two or more referrals. We also had seven in March. This is the one stat that still disappoints me most, because it means that we are no longer a go-to site for bloggers. However, we seem to have become a go-to site for activists!. Putting blogs’ links here increases the ratings of their sites, so this “linkey love” is our thank you for their support.

Here are our top commentators. As the resident Big Mouth, I don’t count. Those who leave their URLs in their comment headers, also get “linkey-love” here, unless I forget to copy the data before it resets. We had a four way tie for fifteenth place.

Joanne Dixon (115)
Lynn Squance (94)
Lona Goudswaard (90)
Edie (84)
Pat B (81)
jla (74)
SoINeedAName (58)
Mitch D. (50)
Vivian Birdwell (45)
Jim Phillips (42)
Jerry Critter (14)
Arielle (11)
dave c (4)
Phil Hanson (4)
Cheryl A. Aaron (3)
gene jacobson (3)
Patty Lasek (3)
Yvonne White (3)

People who submit articles to Care2 can use their submitted news link from there..

We have 326,457 links on other websites, down slightly from March.

As of Midnight on May 1, we have 6,480 articles and 77,837 comments.

Kudos to Lona Goudswaard for posting the 77,000th comment.

I recommend using your own avatar. Go to Gravatar. Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use as your avatar. Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that image will become your avatar.

In case you did not know, we are no longer a one-author blog. Due to my reduced availability, from ongoing medical mayhem and learning to live as an amputee, I appointed two Administrators, who are also authors. They are Lynn Squance, aka Sasquatch or Squatch and SoINeedAName, aka Nameless. I also appointed two more Authors. They are Judi Angell, aka JL A, and Joanne Dixon, aka JD. I’m also very proud that last month we added another Author to our staff. She is Lona Goudswaard and a prime catch! Please Join me in praising and thanking all five for a job well done.

This is our policy on links. We do not embed links to extreme Republican websites, like Faux Noise, Breitfart or World Nut Daily. However I leave an notes in square brackets when I delete such links, (example: [faux noise delinked]) so readers, who wish to follow them can click through to the source article. I also remove topical links. Finally, I blank the target on all links, so they open in a new tab or window. Please do so, or if you commonly leave links and don’t know how to blank the target, please say so.

I’m not concerned with the downswing,. because it is so small, Given our expanded talent, I expect to continue our upward trend. One way you can help is to share our articles, not only with your family and friends, but also, on other sites, linking back to the article here. The more exposure we get, the better we shall do at fulfilling our stated purpose, “Overcoming Right Wing Insanity One Day at a Time!”

Thank you for all that you do, here and elsewhere. You are why we are here! You are the reason we are a success!!

Now lets go kick some Bagger butt!! Winking smile

Poll Results–5/1/2016

Posted by TomCat at 1:44 pm Blog News, Politics

May 012016

Here are the results of our “Republican Nomination Theft” poll. Politics Plus Polls are not scientific, because those who respond are not balanced according to demographic categories. Therefore, we do not accurately reflect the makeup of the US population. Nevertheless, our polls are usually factually accurate, and more often than not, they reflect thinking or will of the national majority.

0501Poll

Since our polling site no longer enables us to copy and paste your poll comments, you may read them here.

I voted with the plurality, but I feel no confidence, as much has changed in the last month. Perhaps I should have included a “Nominate an evil asshole” response. That would have been a sure winner.

The new poll is is and some of you may think there should be an “Other” response. I did not include it, because in real life, no other choice exists.

Open Thread–4/19/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:30 pm Blog News, Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 192016

I’m getting a late start today, because I needed a cat nap, and I had a lot of scheduling to get done. I’m pleased to announce that the Squatch, Nameless and I have agreed to promote another person to our staff in the position of Author. I won’t actually come out and say who it is, but our new Author must get confused about whether to plant a bulb or kiss a roo.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:02 (average 5:20). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Better than a transcript, here is an actual video of Hillary Clinton giving a speech at the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women: Proving the Case for Women Entrepreneurs dinner. The video was posted October 22, 2014. I’m not sure if this is what Bernie Sanders is demanding (snark), but it does fit the three criteria, yes? Hillary Clinton, Goldman Sachs, and Speeches. This particular Hillary Clinton “unpaid” speech is about the empowerment of women — an issue the former U.S. Secretary of State has made a priority throughout her political career.

To be fair there were two ways this speech did not meet Bernie’s criteria. He wanted the speech to be paid. This was free. He wanted the speech to have been presented behind closed doors. This was not.

From TPM: Rep. Pete King (R-NY) went on a tear against the Republican presidential frontrunners in a blistering Tuesday interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” joking that he would commit suicide if Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) earns the nomination.

“I’m not endorsing Ted Cruz, in case anyone is confused,” King said. “I think I’ll take cyanide if he got the nomination.

Cyanide? He will?!!? Dang!! Maybe there actually is a valid reason to support the TRUSed Uranus!!

From Common Dreams: The U.S. Supreme Court reportedly appeared divided on a challenge to President Barack Obama’s immigration executive actions, as a 90-minute oral argument session wrapped up on Monday afternoon.

The case, brought by 26 Republican-led states and spearheaded by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, concerns two deportation protections that would shield roughly 5 million undocumented parents of American citizens and legal residents, as well as about 100,000 people brought to the U.S. as children.

Now, with only eight members sitting on the panel following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, the court could end in a 4-4 deadlock—which would leave in place a previous ruling by a lower court that blocked the plan, without setting a Supreme Court precedent.

This is a case where 4 – 4 equals SCROTUS, (Republican Constitutional VD).

Cartoon:

Lona Goudswaard Still Has a BIG Mouth! ;-)

Posted by TomCat at 11:11 am Blog News, Politics

Apr 092016

77-Lona

Lona is still a denizen of Care2, a daily participant here, and a multinational treasure, who spends her time in the Netherlands and Queensland, Australia, This is her third award, the first on 8/6 shortly after she started commenting here, and the second, less than a month ago on 3/11. She didn’t give us time to catch pit breath!! Her knowledge of US Politics remains far greater than that of the average American voter. She enjoys sending me naps, when I am tired, and those naps are so high in quality that she frequently causes me to oversleep. If fact, she must have zapped me with a nap on the 4th, and in the process, caused me not to even notice that she had posted comment #77,000, until Thursday night. So the late award, once again, is her fault! Smile with tongue out

Please join me in overloading her with hugs and kudos. I look forward to her fourth.

Monthly Report for March 2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:41 pm Blog News, Monthly Report, Politics

Apr 022016

In March Politics Plus was up from February category, except bandwidth. Thanks and kudos to Lynn, our beloved Sasquatch, who completed all our recent Monthly Reports, except January which I did. I hope to be able to stay on top of them for a long time.

Here is our latest summary:

Stats03-2016

Reported period	Month Mar 2016
First visit	01 Mar 2016 – 00:00
Last visit	31 Mar 2016 – 23:59
	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic *	9,976	30,006 (3 visits/visitor)	98,582 (3.28 Pages/Visit)	268,736 (8.95 Hits/Visit)	6.71 GB (234.31 KB/Visit)
Not viewed traffic *			450,454	518,861	9.12 GB

Reported period	Month Mar 2015
First visit	01 Mar 2015 – 00:00
Last visit	31 Mar 2015 – 23:58
	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic *	9,547	26,594 (2.78 visits/visitor)	77,688 (2.92 Pages/Visit)	217,204 (8.16 Hits/Visit)	3.12 GB (122.88 KB/Visit)
Not viewed traffic *			314,233	353,315	5.03 GB

We were up from March 2015 in every category.

Here is our latest demographic data from Quantcast:

QUS3-2016

They miss a ton of raw data, but among those they can identify they are a valuable source of information. We are still mostly older, well educated, poor, Democrats, and politically active.

Here is our archived ClustrMap for March only.

ClustrMap03-2016

Here are our top five articles:

Jane Smiley: Capitalist Pigs 1/17/2010 1,475
5 Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories… 11/25/2015 218
Poll Results–3/5/2016 3/5/2016 186
Brussels Unprepared 3/13/2016 184
Hateful Hairball is a Nazi 3/10/2016 162

The count represents only the people who followed an external link to that specific article. I’m quite pleased that three from March made the cut, I’m especially pleased that another from one of our new co-administrators made it too. Congrats Squatch! Thumbs up

Here are our top non-blog/news referrers (100 minimum):

Care2 2,800
Google 2,096
Stumbleupon 221
Google (Images) 150

All four are up from February.

Here are our top blog/news referrers:

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/
http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/
http://yournewswire.com/
http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/
http://okjimmseggrollemporium.blogspot.com/
http://disaffectedanditfeelssogood.blogspot.com/
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/

Once upon a time I included fifteen here, but these seven are the only ones with two or more referrals. This is the one stat that still disappoints me most, although we are up from four in February, because it means that we are no longer a go-to site for bloggers. However, we seem to have become a go-to site for activists!. Putting blogs’ links here increases the ratings of their sites, so this “linkey love” is our thank you for their support.

Joanne Dixon (143)
jla (130)
Lona Goudswaard (111)
Lynn Squance (111)
Pat B (92)
Edie (89)
SoINeedAName (70)
Mitch D. (55)
Jim Phillips (49)
Vivian B. (47)
Pat A (22)
Arielle (12)
Jerry Critter (12)
Avril Lomas (8)
dave c (7)

People who submit articles to Care2 can use their submitted news link from there..

We have 348,690 links on other websites, down substantially from February.

As of Midnight on March 1, we have 6,388 articles and 76,870 comments.

Kudos to Lona Goudswaard for posting the 76,000th comment.

In case you did not know, we are no longer a one-author blog. Due to my reduced availability I appointed two Administrators, who are also authors. They are Lynn Squance, aka Sasquatch or Squatch and SoINeedAName, aka Nameless. I also appointed two more Authors. They are Judi Angell, aka JL A, and Joanne Dixon, aka JD. Please Join me in praising and thanking all four for a job well done.

This is our policy on links. We do not embed links to extreme Republican websites, like Faux Noise, Breitfart or World Nut Daily. However I leave an editors note when I delete such links, so readers, who wish to follow them can click through to the source article. I also remove topical links. Finally, I blank the target on all links, so they open in a new tab or window. Please do so, or if you commonly leave links and don’t know how to blank the target, please say so.

It’s nice to see us in an upswing, and given our expanded talent, I expect that to continue. One way you can help is to share our articles, not only with your family and friends, but also, on other sites, linking back to the article here. The more exposure we get, the better we shall do at fulfilling our stated purpose, “Overcoming Right Wing Insanity One Day at a Time!”

Thank you for all that you do, here and elsewhere. You are why we are here! Now, lets roll up our sleeves and kick some Republican butt out of political office and into the unemployment line.!!

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