One thing’s for certain: no laws or appointments of any kind for two years, and then another eight when the GOP loses the presidency again. What a waste of America’s potential, giving total power to nilhilist saboteurs who gleefully tear down the country because they think it will benefit their narrow party interests.
I wouldn’t count your chickens before there hatched, I guess President Romney remember to do that, I forgot he lost the last election by believing he would win. The problem is can the Cons win the Senate, we won’t know for a few more months.
It is not in Washington that the real harm is being done, but in state houses across the nation where the concerted efforts of vote suppression continue. Not just draconian voters ID laws (you have to prove citizenship with a government document in order to get the government-issued ID: while in Texas alone there are 800,000 people who were born in the US but never got a birth certificate: nobody bothered with such formalities for blacks in old days) but with the closing of polling stations, curtailment of early voting, gerrymandering of districts, etc. The fact that these things are only happening in GOP-controlled state, and mainly in states with high African American and Hispanic populations tells the tale. (In most cases, none of the new ID laws will have any effect on absentee ballots, which offer a better opportunity for fraud, but require a little more sophistication to use.) The GOP won’t say that it is chiefly afraid of black voters, it won’t even say that it is chiefly afraid of black voter fraud, and it certainly won’t admit that making it hard for poor people to vote is its purpose, “but when a long train of abuses …, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to” prevent or discourage people from voting who (1) don’t have birth certificates though they have been voting for decades, (2) haven’t the money or the opportunity, or the transportation, or the time, to jump through all the hoops now necessary to vote, etc., certain conclusions may be drawn. Scientifically conducted research has uncovered only a tiny handful of cases in which in-person voter fraud has occurred in recent decades (and even if each instance detected represents a hundred or two that were NOT detected, the total number is still insignificant), while all sorts of right-wing propaganda has asserted the opposite. And just to be clear: I have no problem with ID laws that are fair and reasonable. In this day and age it is probably a good idea that every person have identity papers. Not all the voter ID laws recently invented are unfair or unreasonable. The devil is always in the details. Someday we’ll probably each have a single identity card that has recorded within it several photographs, our retinal scans, fingerprints, and such information as whether we are eligible to vote, where we are eligible to vote, whether our mental health and criminal records are clean enough to entitle us to purchase a firearm or a bottle of whiskey or board an airplane, and can serve as a credit, debit, and ATM card all at the same time. It will be linked to our personal DNA profile, perhaps, so that only we can use it. Perhaps it will not even be a card, but a tiny chip embedded subcutaneously. All you’ll have to do is wave your hand at a scanner, and all will be done. Given another hundred years or so, I can see it.
Doughfoot; “In this day and age it is probably a good idea that every person have identity papers.” Which do you prefer: the internal passport of the USSR or the Pass Law papers of the apartheid Republic of South Africa?
The midterms will be a referendum on the POTUS; which by general consensus isn’t good but depending on how they do the next presidential election can be a referendum on both houses (if the GOP controls them). Depending on how much “barry fatigue” the country has.
If Goldberg’s arguments were that discredited you would be able to attack is arguments on their merits rather than resort to attacking the man. But in fact his points are more acknowledged that you allow:-http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/08/goldberg-liberal-fascism-review-http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1223-http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/world/americas/30iht-letter.1.9602546.html
If this happens, it will prove that hatred of Obama is effective and we’ll get no other kind of campaigning from now on. -And be ready to pay to have your own street paved along with any you want to drive on. -But we’ll get rid of all that Social Security/Medicare stuff.
Doughfoot: We have been posting on these pages for a few years now, agreeing far more than disagreeing. Keep that disenfranchisement tar brush away from me. You don’t know my record..In 1944, my dad said a formal goodbye to us before leaving for the first precinct meeting after the white primary was outlawed. (It went rather peacefully anyway.) I was 11..My wife and I were not permitted to vote for Kennedy for president because we moved from Taylor County, Texas to Wharton County, Texas within a year before the election..When I filed for Texas State Board of Education against the leader of the flat earth faction, the Democrats (who didn’t care enough even to run a candidate in that district) filed suit to keep Greens off the ballot even though we had met the requirements to be on. (Withdrawn just before they would have to pay frivolous lawsuit court costs.) The corporate media would not print nor broadcast a word about my candidacy and the Dallas News flat denied my candidacy and when I asked for a correction, reprinted the lie verbatim. I got about six times the number of votes expected, but didn’t get to raise the issues I ran to raise..Actually, we do have a de facto national identity card – it is called a Social Security number. It should be adequate, even though not required to vote. (I had a Social Insurance number in Canada, but what kept me from voting there was that I didn’t want to be stateless as U.S. law would have mandated.) Thanks to a $20,000,000 bribe to Newt Gingrich, only Rupert Murdock can vote Nationalist in Sydney and Republican in New York.
erik.vanthienen over 9 years ago
It looks suspiciously like the “Volkshalle” planned by Adolf Hitler for Berlin.
Simon_Jester over 9 years ago
This cartoon would work better for me if the new, ‘capital dome’ were shaped like a teapot.
ARodney over 9 years ago
One thing’s for certain: no laws or appointments of any kind for two years, and then another eight when the GOP loses the presidency again. What a waste of America’s potential, giving total power to nilhilist saboteurs who gleefully tear down the country because they think it will benefit their narrow party interests.
ConserveGov over 9 years ago
Has to be better than the Donkeys controlling 2 of those the past 6 years!
Quantum Leaper over 9 years ago
I wouldn’t count your chickens before there hatched, I guess President Romney remember to do that, I forgot he lost the last election by believing he would win. The problem is can the Cons win the Senate, we won’t know for a few more months.
Doughfoot over 9 years ago
It is not in Washington that the real harm is being done, but in state houses across the nation where the concerted efforts of vote suppression continue. Not just draconian voters ID laws (you have to prove citizenship with a government document in order to get the government-issued ID: while in Texas alone there are 800,000 people who were born in the US but never got a birth certificate: nobody bothered with such formalities for blacks in old days) but with the closing of polling stations, curtailment of early voting, gerrymandering of districts, etc. The fact that these things are only happening in GOP-controlled state, and mainly in states with high African American and Hispanic populations tells the tale. (In most cases, none of the new ID laws will have any effect on absentee ballots, which offer a better opportunity for fraud, but require a little more sophistication to use.) The GOP won’t say that it is chiefly afraid of black voters, it won’t even say that it is chiefly afraid of black voter fraud, and it certainly won’t admit that making it hard for poor people to vote is its purpose, “but when a long train of abuses …, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to” prevent or discourage people from voting who (1) don’t have birth certificates though they have been voting for decades, (2) haven’t the money or the opportunity, or the transportation, or the time, to jump through all the hoops now necessary to vote, etc., certain conclusions may be drawn. Scientifically conducted research has uncovered only a tiny handful of cases in which in-person voter fraud has occurred in recent decades (and even if each instance detected represents a hundred or two that were NOT detected, the total number is still insignificant), while all sorts of right-wing propaganda has asserted the opposite. And just to be clear: I have no problem with ID laws that are fair and reasonable. In this day and age it is probably a good idea that every person have identity papers. Not all the voter ID laws recently invented are unfair or unreasonable. The devil is always in the details. Someday we’ll probably each have a single identity card that has recorded within it several photographs, our retinal scans, fingerprints, and such information as whether we are eligible to vote, where we are eligible to vote, whether our mental health and criminal records are clean enough to entitle us to purchase a firearm or a bottle of whiskey or board an airplane, and can serve as a credit, debit, and ATM card all at the same time. It will be linked to our personal DNA profile, perhaps, so that only we can use it. Perhaps it will not even be a card, but a tiny chip embedded subcutaneously. All you’ll have to do is wave your hand at a scanner, and all will be done. Given another hundred years or so, I can see it.
alan.gurka over 9 years ago
And the last line goes, “Don’t bother, they’re here.”
hippogriff over 9 years ago
Doughfoot; “In this day and age it is probably a good idea that every person have identity papers.” Which do you prefer: the internal passport of the USSR or the Pass Law papers of the apartheid Republic of South Africa?
echoraven over 9 years ago
The midterms will be a referendum on the POTUS; which by general consensus isn’t good but depending on how they do the next presidential election can be a referendum on both houses (if the GOP controls them). Depending on how much “barry fatigue” the country has.
David Riedel Premium Member over 9 years ago
Another reason to go on living. . . or not.
TripleAxel over 9 years ago
If Goldberg’s arguments were that discredited you would be able to attack is arguments on their merits rather than resort to attacking the man. But in fact his points are more acknowledged that you allow:-http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/08/goldberg-liberal-fascism-review-http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1223-http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/world/americas/30iht-letter.1.9602546.html
pam Miner over 9 years ago
Oh please God, No! They are facsists and the Ryan budget is doomsday for everyone but the super rich.
braindead Premium Member over 9 years ago
If this happens, it will prove that hatred of Obama is effective and we’ll get no other kind of campaigning from now on. -And be ready to pay to have your own street paved along with any you want to drive on. -But we’ll get rid of all that Social Security/Medicare stuff.
hippogriff over 9 years ago
Doughfoot: We have been posting on these pages for a few years now, agreeing far more than disagreeing. Keep that disenfranchisement tar brush away from me. You don’t know my record..In 1944, my dad said a formal goodbye to us before leaving for the first precinct meeting after the white primary was outlawed. (It went rather peacefully anyway.) I was 11..My wife and I were not permitted to vote for Kennedy for president because we moved from Taylor County, Texas to Wharton County, Texas within a year before the election..When I filed for Texas State Board of Education against the leader of the flat earth faction, the Democrats (who didn’t care enough even to run a candidate in that district) filed suit to keep Greens off the ballot even though we had met the requirements to be on. (Withdrawn just before they would have to pay frivolous lawsuit court costs.) The corporate media would not print nor broadcast a word about my candidacy and the Dallas News flat denied my candidacy and when I asked for a correction, reprinted the lie verbatim. I got about six times the number of votes expected, but didn’t get to raise the issues I ran to raise..Actually, we do have a de facto national identity card – it is called a Social Security number. It should be adequate, even though not required to vote. (I had a Social Insurance number in Canada, but what kept me from voting there was that I didn’t want to be stateless as U.S. law would have mandated.) Thanks to a $20,000,000 bribe to Newt Gingrich, only Rupert Murdock can vote Nationalist in Sydney and Republican in New York.