Just having a quick browse after being away for a few weeks and while the system over here in Australia has problems it would solve many of yours, here voting is compulsory and it's held on a Saturday so without fail everyone gets the chance to vote. As soon as the election is announced you can apply for mail-in votes and there are early voting stations open as well in case you won't be there on the day. And pretty much every school or church hall is open and used as polling stations. As a comedian I heard say recently put it, it's harder to make breakfast than it is to vote over here.
You assume that our voting problems are flaws and not features. It is in some people's material interest that the process be as difficult and frustrating as possible.
basically, best way for the Republicans to win is if as few people vote as possible. Specifically, the white and wealthy. No black folks especially. We could make voting easy, but no Republican would ever win.
I understand that, while not as big or spread out as the US, Australia's different states generally have their own laws but there doesn't seem to be such a difference between states as the US, voting laws are a federal thing here.
Therein lies the rub. We are literally the United States, it's not just a name. A Republic, if we can keep it, every state its own little fiefdom, free to run their own piece of the presidential election as they see fit.
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/14...n-bill-to-add-four-justices-to-supreme-court/ If you were wondering what the Democrats were going to do to galvanize their GOP supporters against them, look no further....
The Democrats really cannot help themselves with their stupid ideas. It's a good thing Pelosi already shot it down.
It is disheartening, but on the flip side, I have a far greater fear of Congress using it's time wisely and actually doing shit.
Alright alright alright...... https://www.dallasnews.com/news/pol...as-governor-poll-shows-actor-ahead-of-abbott/
I mean Mcconnaughey is kind of a fucking idiot, but he’s smarter than Abbot, along with most people with Down Syndrome for that matter.
Doug Ford is a fucking moron. Without his precious teleprompter it’s duh, duh, duh. Just answer the fucking questions. You did the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you were told to do by experts, that’s why you are now crying and your base is turning on you.
Few things are more depressing than watching conservatives discuss climate change. They are celebrating Earth Day by having conservative media openly lie about the topic, and the drooling inbred commentariat of said media smugly declaring themselves smarter than everyone who actually passed fourth grade math.
Our President thinking about doubling capital gains taxes would give it a run for the money. Guess what time the news story broke:
Raising the top capital gains rate does not even come close to the stupidity of "John Kerry wants to kill every tree on the planet by eliminating all carbon dioxide in existence!"
He was handed an economy that’s poised for enormous growth over the next two quarters and he keeps coming up with different ways to fuck it up.
There’s a reason Joe Biden was called the “Senator from MBNA.” His history with financial policy was sketchy as hell when it wasn’t downright retarded.
Here's one that I personally know is about 98% horseshit: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino...s-blocked-puerto-rico-receiving-hurri-rcna749 1. Puerto Rico was in astounding debt, and assumed they would get bailed out. 2. The Obama administration refused to bail them out and put an oversight board in place to approve most government spending. 3. Hurricane Maria hits, racking up oh, let's say for funsies $100 billion in damages eligible for federal funding....for context, the annual budget of the entire PR government is about $11b including the public utilities (water, power, coms, etc.). 4. Then Governor of PR requests (and gets) federal aid from FEMA, and the rest of the federal government. 5. The 2017 Supplemental Appropriations bill adds $20 bn (at least) in a Community Development Block Grant (Disaster Recovery). This is the $20bn they are arguing over to this day. 6. The CDBG-DR funding has a lot of requirements, most of which the PR government hasn't met. Many of these requirements are around planning, documentation and political neutrality (hint hint). 7. The oversight board has an unclear line of authority over this kind of funding, thus the delays and arguing. They oversee government spending, but were not intended to oversee disaster spending, nor are they geared for $100bn worth of oversight. 7b. The folks in charge of the PR government have changed positions, and the plans for what they wanted to spend this money on subsequently went out the window. It's kind of ridiculous how deep in most agencies the political appointees go there: in places where you need technical expertise (ie, economists, civil engineers, urban planners), PR has political appointees. So, the turnover associated with a change in administration (and the weirdness associated with an unexpected resignation mid-term), has a much broader and deeper impact. 7c. FEMA money for public assistance relaxed some requirements, allowing for more flexibility (so-called "alternate procedures"). Normally, there are clear rules on what you can use HUD money for and FEMA money for but not both, however, now those rules are blurrier, and applied on a case-by-case basis at the direction of....the government of Puerto Rico. Ie, you can use "regular procedures" to fix this school, or "alternative procedures" where we estimate what this school would cost, and that money becomes available for use on another project, because the school is being closed or the building is too ancient to repair, or the local government can't come up with cost share or whatever. In most cases, they want the funding elsewhere, but the documentation for "alternative procedures" is higher, slower and more stringent (ie, this is for school funding, you can't use it to build a cock-fighting stadium, or a statue to Jennifer Lopez' ass). 8. Around this time (2018), the Trump administration was trying to use FEMA funds for the border wall, and other inane situations, because at that point there was a massive allocation of funding that had yet to be disbursed (see 5-7c.) and the money was just sitting there. Congress appropriates to the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) based on projections of need and burn rate, so if that burn rate is delayed because of political fuckery, there's a massive pool of money sitting in the DRF doing nothing, and it's theoretically a pool that the White House can tap into under Executive Order, because each disaster declaration (and the subsequent opening of the DRF) requires a presidential signature. The DRF is one pool of money, and the WH can direct FEMA to spend it on shit like the border crisis (which Obama, Trump and Biden have now done), only Trump wanted to use that money for wall-buildin', and beaner-huntin' & cagin' with no oversight except for OMB, thus the investigation. 9. HUD in a disaster is famous for doing whatever the fuck they want, and it's a constant challenge to get them to cooperate with larger recovery operations. FEMA usually has the biggest checkbook and the most authority, except in the case of CDBG-DR funding. In most cases, this funding is to be used for things like state/local cost share, or things that a community may need/want, but aren't necessarily eligible for other forms of funding (community centers, playgrounds, etc.) and aren't worth incurring the state's cost share (usually 25%). At $20 bn, the PR government is acting like they were just handed two year's salary in cash, when it's more like they were given a coupon requiring them to purchase bearer bonds they could exchange for bitcoin then trade those coins for index funds that they could then buy gift cards to Target, Home Depot and Panda Express. TLDR: News article ignores the massive complexity of disaster recovery, ineptitude of the PR government (because we can't criticize brown people who talk funny, especially not when we're colonizing them!), the political circus associated with billions of dollars in funding all to accuse "Orange man's housing agency didn't say 'yes' to everything OMB asked, because Orange man bad!". The aristrocrats.
The USA house just passed a Bill to make DC the 51st United State. All it has to do is pass through the Senate, which nothing does pass through, ever.
Good, I’m glad it’s just going to flounder in the Senate. It’s just another blatant power-grab attempt, nothing more. These clowns must really be freaking out about 2022.