They’re Trying to Steal Elections, Again

Ted Cruz, in the last Republican “debate,” explained how he was for “legal status” for illegal immigrants, but not amnesty, not citizenship.

That’s when he tipped the GOP’s real game on immigration. He had sponsored an amendment to the immigration bill that he knew was probably a poison pill, but in the debate he simply explained what the amendment would do: grant legal status, but ban citizenship to all illegal immigrants, regardless of reason or duration in the country—legal status after jumping through a series of hoops.

So, all the illegal immigrants throughout Texas should know: Ted Cruz is going to find a way to keep you from ever voting in the United States. This is stealing elections for the next generation. Republicans are a forward-thinking lot.

We all know so many other forms the Republicans have concocted to insure that they win elections, even if they get fewer votes.

First of all, they have all the voting restrictions being piled on, to insure against voter fraud, when it hardly ever existed, anywhere, except in cemeteries in Chicago in the 1960 election. I take it back: corrupt town and city governments bought votes: Heritage Foundation cites 300 cases. Voter ID laws wouldn’t remedy most of those abuses. But they would make it more difficult to vote, if you’re ‘one of those people.’

Voter ID laws proposed are legion, in 19 states they actually passed. Generally, they require that the voter have one of four official ID’s. The most common is a driver’s license, but a lot of poor people don’t drive, especially a lot of poor black people. Some states require a State issued ID. Again, the problem is that some can afford to make the trip to get one, easily, but others can’t afford it, period.

Other kinds of voter restrictions are for reducing early voting, especially early voting on weekends. Black churches had organized their parishioners to turn out on a Sunday, to vote. Can’t have that.

Like the simple 138 word amendment Cruz offered to the Immigration bill that failed in the last Democratic Senate, almost all these election restrictions have a common motive: restrict voters of color—there’s too damn many of them—so that decent white folks can continue to run things their way: the right way of course.

Some Republicans are so dead set at halting the influx of foreigners (with the exception of those with high skills), that they almost have to steal elections, legally, of course.

Gerrymandering congressional and state legislative districts when the GOP gained new majorities in states and Congress in 2010 and again in 2014, has been the most effective means of stealing elections since ol’ Jim Crow. Black and Latino votes are piled as closely together in districts as possible, through strange map configurations, while white majorities are assured in a majority of districts, again through the magical convolutions of Republican map writers.

Abacadabra! The US House of Representatives, and a majority of the nation’s state legislatures are now, apparently, solidly controlled by Republicans, although Democrats received more votes.

Another way to steal elections: a negative campaign gives advantage to the Republican by discouraging voters from turning out: Democratic voters, overwhelmingly.

Illegal theft of elections is also a distinct possibility, especially with the increasing use of computer/scanner technology and internet transmission. Stealing an election from a computer terminal would be a whole lot easier than dumping opposition ballots in the river, and substituting your own. It might even be difficult to know whether it’s happened, or not.

In the last elections there was little electronic fraud uncovered, or, at least, confirmed, but computerized alterations of the vote counts could be subtle algorithms that just alter enough, of a sample of votes, to change the outcome substantially enough that no recount makes sense.

This kind of election fraud might not even be partisan: it might be corporate. It is worrying, that, as voting becomes more dependent on technology, public elections become increasingly dependent on the private corporations that make the machines and their software. “Back doors” to the software that codes and calculates the vote have been found by hackers. But corporations processing the vote through their machinery may have a particular interest they can influence through manipulating the vote—against the candidate calling for their regulation, for example.

Billionaires and corporations are also stealing votes, by spending millions, possibly billions, to disinform, to persuade voters of their viewpoint and their preferred candidates, often through manipulation of data, falsification of facts and invective.

Even if a billionaire engages in none of the above, but still spends many millions of his own money, he is, in effect, trying to steal the election by buying it: because of his inordinate wealth. Buying something that is illegal to buy—unless you spend millions or billions, perhaps. Buying an election used to be called corrupt practices. Except, maybe no longer, in this new world confected by Justices Roberts and Scalia.

Just because it’s legal, doesn’t mean it isn’t stealing, only that we’ve legalized it.

Gay Marriage, Drones & Inequality

Social progress seems slow, but in societal terms it's probably moving about as fast as it can: acceptance of gays, even if the Supreme Court can't keep up with the changes in society, is lightning fast.

On the other hand, environmental progress is moving in reverse along with economic equality. War and instability have become more destructive, even if there is no "world war."

Post-Citizens United: corporatist conservatives must punch themselves with glee: successes small: sneaking through "the Monsanto protection act" in the Food bill, and big: persuading the chattering classes inside the Beltway that the deficit/debt is an urgent problem that only can be solved by cutting what they derisively call "entitlements," not subsidies to the burgeoning wealthy.

Our media is so skewed towards the agenda of the wealthy and corporations, that it doesn't seem absurd that we're slashing government spending when unemployment is far too high. Our media is more controlled by wealth and corporate interests than it was in Venezuela before Chavez. He opposed it with state-owned media, and selective de-licensing.

US media excoriated Chavez as a dictator, while he won landslides in at least five elections, elections certified by Carter as freer than the US.

Venezuela may have more democracy than we do, since Republicans work assiduously to deny the right to vote to likely opponents, and a Supreme Court Justice derides Voting Rights Act Section 5 as establishing voting rights as a "racial entitlement."

The US claims it's exceptional; it isn't, except in things we shouldn't crow about, like the highest per capita rate of incarceration, the most expensive and least effective health care system, a falling working wage, soaring inequality, and endemic violence fueled by our wide open "gun culture."

We don't, any longer, score high on educational attainment: almost every other OECD nation has higher college graduation rates: the US used to lead.

Our military is exceptional: the US has the world's most effective killing machine--long before we started using drones. But it still loses wars: Vietnam, Iraq (really), and now Afghanistan.

The size of our military is also exceptional, but that demonstrates another American failing: like North Korea, we spend more money on war-making than on any other "discretionary" government function--we substitute brute strength for sense. We value guns over children, even our own children (100+ days since Newtown and no new Federal gun control law). But the Bible is "brought to you by Walmart," an American company. Exceptional!

The American Empire hasn't lasted long; it's failing progressively and making enemies everywhere. Soon the muscle-bound US will be only the second wealthiest nation.

Targeting immigrants and homegrown terrorists with drones, disenfranchising minorities (those we haven't jailed) and the poor, the US is also becoming almost as authoritarian as China, our successful competitor.