Voter Fraud?

E.J. Dionne Jr. at  The Washington Post had a little write up about the GOP’s efforts to make voting next to impossible for low-income and minority voters, all under the guise of cracking down on the almost non-existent voter fraud issue.

An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot. If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging. But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.

The laws are being passed in the name of preventing “voter fraud.” But study after study has shown that fraud by voters is not a major problem — and is less of a problem than how hard many states make it for people to vote in the first place. Some of the new laws, notably those limiting the number of days for early voting, have little plausible connection to battling fraud.

   The general public is not complaining about this problem yet only because they have not had to go change their addresses and/or their state i.d.’s yet. As has been noted before, the senior citizens will have problems at voting time because many of them do not have a driver license, and collage kids will be pressed to get an i.d. because the republicans have made it no longer acceptable to use their collage issued i.d.’s.

   The only true voter fraud is being done by the states in which the republicans are getting away with this kind of bullshit.

Technorati Tags: Voter Fraud,Senior Citizens,Republicans,Voter Rights,Current Events

Pardon Me, Sir. Your Reality Check Bounced

By  citizen blues     Sat Jun 18, 2011    

         “ … Down with Obama! ‎....and down with pansy cry-baby democrats who want big government  and out of control spending and stimulus plans that don't work!!! HA!”   ( Comment made on Facebook)

      I am a Democrat and I do NOT want big government. I want efficient government. I am tired of driving on potholes. I do not begrudge paying my taxes, but I expect others to do the same. It’s shameful that I pay a higher percentage in taxes on my unemployment benefits than multi-millionaires do on their fortunes. Where’s the “shared sacrifice?” If you think there’s fairness in that, then your reality check has bounced.

      All I hear from the Republicans is the need to cut……. And cut they did. The extension for the COBRA subsidy wasn’t even on the table during the last fight to extend unemployment benefits. So I lost my private health insurance because $475 per month was not economically sustainable while I await the miracle cure for asthma.  The one bright spot I see is that thanks to “Obamacare” my student insurance can no longer exclude “pre-existing conditions,” which means I can actually get treatment for my asthma.       

      Yet the Republicans keep talking about cutting more……. This time it’s Medicare. It will be my generation that gets double hit since we’ve already paid 30 years into Medicare and will continue to pay into a system that won’t be there when we need it. If I can’t purchase affordable health insurance now, what’s the likelihood of it when I’m 20 years older and living on a fixed income?

      And the Republicans keep talking about cutting even more…….. Many of them don’t even believe what they’re saying. They parrot the talking points while counting on the Democrats to oppose them so their legislation doesn’t pass. April 15th of this year, Republicans introduced a budget that was even more extreme than Paul Ryan’s. When the Democrats collectively changed their votes from “no” to “present,” chaos ensued on the house floor. Once the Republicans saw their budget was going to pass, many of them frantically changed their votes to “no.” Their bluff was called and they killed their own bill. Even Republicans recognized the absurdity of their budget proposal and acted accordingly.

      How about sitting down to have a real conversation? Do we need to get a handle on the national debt? Yes. Absolutely. I don’t know of anyone who disputes that. Does the Paul Ryan budget plan reduce the deficit? Yes, it does. In 10 years. What does it do for the deficit now? Nothing. Nada. Nil. For the first three years of Ryan’s plan, every single spending cut is matched with a tax cut for the wealthy so the overall reduction of the federal deficit is $0.00! Yep, that’s right. Three years of zilch. Zip. Way to go on the voodoo economics, Paul!

      Let’s connect a few dots here for those who are challenged with rubber reality checks. You, my friend, are paying $4 per gallon for gas. Exxon-Mobile had record breaking 1st quarter profits this year, paid nothing in taxes, collected a tax rebate and is still raking in your tax dollars in the form of federal subsidies. Exxon, you get to advance to “GO” and collect $200 million - again.

      I wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper back in December applauding Republican Senator Coburn from Oklahoma for insisting that the 9/11 First Responders Bill be paid for in the budget before it was passed. I commended the Senator on his fiscal sensibility and lamented that we don’t see more of that from both Democrats and Republicans. The problem I had was that Senator Coburn and his Republican colleagues were all too busy stampeding to extend the Bush Tax Cuts to bother asking how we were going to pay for those.

      Our country’s budget deficit = an increase in spending to fund two wars + reduction in revenue through tax cuts. This is not algebra. This is basic, simple math. We are not going to cut our way out of this deficit. It’s too big for that. We are going to have to increase our income. It will take both.

      But what do I know? I’m just “a pansy cry-baby democrat who wants big government and out of control spending…”

Originally posted to citizen blues on Sat Jun 18, 2011

Also republished by Community Spotlight.

 

Technorati Tags: Budget Cuts,Deficits,Congress,Democrats,Republicans,Current Events,Politics