Rolling Stone article: The GOP War on Voting

[drm604]

In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year

As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008.
...
In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-gop-war-on-voting-20110830

[SpiralHawk]

1. The Republicon War on America

...continues...

[kenfrequed]

2. This crap has to end

Republicans seem to have sunk morally to the point where they think of denying someones right to vote, tricking someone out of it, or making someone elses vote 'not count' are all acceptable tactics in an election. This shit has to stop. Anyone perpetrating this crime against democracy needs to do hard time. One year for every vote knowingly eliminated seems like a good baseline to me.

[drm604]

3. Sunk?

They've been at this point for decades.

You're right though. This crap has to stop.

[kenfrequed]

4. Fair point

But it has gotten worse in the last few decades and with the decimation of Acorn it will only get worse still.

[Enthusiast]

6. Destroying ACORN was all part of the

long term strategy. Why did the White House go along with the destruction of ACORN?

[drm604]

7. Absolutely.

These people do not believe in Democracy. They are doing everything they can to thwart it.

[Enthusiast]

5. Yes, a good baseline.

There is a reason they have been acting so smug and arrogant. The reason is because they have taken measures to cheat in 2012. Then when they get elected they can claim they have a mandate.

[Doctor_J]

8. If we had a real Dept Of Justice they would have shut all of this down

but they're too busy busting pot smokers

[Betty]

9. You would think the adminstration

would see what a threat this is to Obama's reelection and come down hard on this shit. It seems uncontitutional on so many levels.

[blkmusclmachine]

10. Check out what the "Christian" Dominionists want:

It all perfectly dovetails with what the Teabag GOP now says it wants. The GOP now appears to be fully Dominionist. Next goal for these Teabag Terrorists: "disappearing" GLBT ppl. with the post-9/11 laws.

[Bill USA]

11. Let's call it what it is: a War on Democracy.

[Uncle Joe]

12. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, drm.

[jtuck004]

13. It's not a war unless there is a fight against an opponent. An attack, yes. Bullying, co-opting.

How do you have a war when only one side is really fielding an army? The article in the OP says there is a coordinated attack. Are there no defenders?

For example, there was a time early in WWII where Britain and France had declared war on Germany, but no one really did anything while the Germans began to move. France had agreed to attack Germany if Germany attacked Poland, but Poland was attacked and beaten with no action from France for several months. A British ocean liner was even sunk before any real response. (Also referred to as der Sitzkrieg, or The Sitting War. (Now I'm not a WWII scholar, so please correct anything you know I am mistaken about here. But there sure seem to be similarities).

So if Rethugs are doing ever thing they can to stop voting, where is the opposite reaction from opponents? The Republicons are preaching cuts from every balcony, swooping in and cutting as much of the good in this country as they can. Those are violent acts, taking food and shelter from our most vulnerable neighbors.

But if this is a war, where is the battle? A bold progressive plan, insisting on a large ( > 10 million jobs) program, hundreds or perhaps thousands of people picketing to educate people and insist on the changes needed to keep Social Security alive for the next
generation? ('Cause I would bet they are going to be far worse off than most people imagine).

Maybe loud, public demonstrations demanding that people stop trying to steal other's voting rights, or caravans taking seniors in for an ID. How many college students are truly aware that their pockets have been picked, again? Might they form an army, or are they too weak-willed? There are lots of ways to make this a public fight, to go on the offensive.

It seems difficult to find these efforts. Where is the battlefield? I see puffs of smoke, but nothing like the fire of battle. And without a battle, it's just co-opting and occupation.

Not a war.

[Scuba]

14. K & R Thanks for posting

[Hissyspit]

15. Kick nt

[Overseas]

16. K&R. Very glad Rolling Stone is covering this.

Needs a wider audience.

GOP so clever. Engaging in very old fashioned election manipulation. That can obscure the results of the more modern techniques.