Nowadays when a Republican apparatchik speaks the truth, it resonates like a cannonball in a dumpster. So some guy in Florida has admitted that their war on early voting was, as was obvious to everyone but teabagger apologists and Fox "news" commentators, aimed solely at voter suppression. Denying the right to vote to citizens. Of the United States of America, the country toward whose democracy they like to claim surpassing love. Suppressing the votes of those of the darker skin-tone variety. It was never about preventing fraud, of which the only examples this cycle (and of which, as usual, there were virtually none) were pretty much limited to Republicans.
Jim Greer, the former head of the Florida Republican Party, recently claimed that a law shortening the early voting period in the state was deliberately designed to suppress voting among groups that tend to support Democratic candidates, the Palm Beach Post reports.
“The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,” Greer told the Post. “It’s done for one reason and one reason only...‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us.’"...
... Scott's predecessor, Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist, resisted efforts from Republicans to shorten the state's early voting period, citing reasons that mesh with Greer's claims. In an interview with The Huffington Post earlier this month, Crist said the new law is clearly aimed at curbing turnout among Democrats. "The only thing that makes any sense as to why this is happening and being done is voter suppression," he said.
Crist added, "People have fought and died for our right to vote, and unfortunately our legislature and this governor have decided they want to make early voting less available to Floridians rather than more available ... It's frankly unconscionable."
Greer also acknowledged that the effort to restrict early voting would directly affect turnout among Florida's African Americans, a demographic that consistently supports Democrats.In the run-up to the recent election (there was one, as I recall) I know I began to get a little crazy. But if I was a little hot under the collar some times, and posting way too much, I don't think I ever deviated from factual: todays Rs are grievous liars, deceivers, suppressors of democracy. It's they that hate what America is; it's they that tried to win an election based on lies, on fomenting hate, on fakery. It's they that actively reject science and expertise, they that want this to become a biblical theocracy.
As the postmortems continue apace, and as Fox "news" resumes its customary lying and propagandizing (want to see what happens when someone calls them out on it, on their air? Watch this) -- it's only a few seconds before they cut him off), I'd like to think the reason The Rominee lost and that Ds picked up seats in both houses (actually received two million more votes in the House of Representatives than Rs did, due to geography and gerrymandering, which sort of puts the lie to their claim that they "have a mandate" because they retained the House [one of a very few times in history that a party maintained control while losing the popular vote totals) has nothing to do with "gifts," as Romney claimed, or "ground game," as others have said. It's because enough people actually understand who todays Rs are, and what it is they stand for. They lost because of their values, not in spite of them.
I hope so, anyway. If they ever realize it, it might mean we'd be back on the road to having two legitimate parties in this country. Signs, so far, however, don't look all that good, as John Boehner and Mitch McConnell continue their heel-digging obstructionist rhetoric, and realists continue to be shot down by the revanchists, as if nothing happened on the first Tuesday of this month.
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