A very Republican solution
A reader sent former Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper a response letter from Ohio state Rep. Ninon Vitale (R). The reader wrote Vitale to oppose a bill in the state House.
Pepper explains, “You see, once again, Republicans have been pushing: 1) to add even more limits to the use of voter drop boxes; 2) to further limit early voting, both in person and by mail; and 3) to add a strict photo ID law, something Ohio has never had.”
Vitale’s response references the founders and argues, not in so many words, that we should not encourage voting by people who would elect people such as himself.
Pepper explains how awkward the pending bill must be for its sponsors. Republicans have for years overseen Ohio elections and bragged about what a fine job they’ve done:
Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s own website and press releases tout Ohio as “one of the nation’s leaders in secure, accurate and accessible elections.”
In Ohio, they’ve assured us, it’s “easy to vote and hard to cheat.” Ohio “got it right,” LaRose said in an ad after 2020, while (misleadingly) suggesting other states did not.
So why push for yet another bill to fix what ain’t broke? Because, says Pepper, “the measures they push always have a disproportionate impact on Democratic voters—and Black voters in particular.”
“Do we want uninformed or unserious people voting because the founding fathers of this country did not?”
TPM’s publishing Mark Meadows‘s emails this week reveals a plethora of unserious members of Congress belonging to an unserious political party that is egregiously unserious about their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” nor about bearing “true faith and allegiance to the same.” Never mind Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) announcement that his delegation’s first act in 2023 will be to read aloud the constitution they don’t take seriously (and never did).
The emails from the Crackpot Caucus are rife with bogus information from conspiracy websites and recommendations for mounting a bloodless(?) red, white and blue coup.
South Carolina Congressman Ralph Norman, for example, called for “invoking Marshall [sic] Law!” in a Jan. 17 text to Meadows, three days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Texas Rep. Brian Babin, meanwhile, told Meadows on Nov. 6 that “when we lose Trump we lose our Republic.”
[…]
North Carolina Rep. Ted Budd, for example, voted to deny certification of Pennsylvania and Arizona’s electoral votes. Budd reportedly texted Meadows on Nov. 7 alleging ties between Dominion and liberal billionaire George Soros, the target of a plethora of right-wing conspiracy theories. “Praying for your health!” Budd told Meadows. “FYI Dominion Voting Systems is owned by State Street Capital, which are Carlyle (Rubenstein alums), Rubenstein is a longtime co-investor with Soros Capital.”
It’s been said before that these clowns are some of the most un-self-aware politicians this country has seen. God help us survive them. If we took their advice, they would be the very people to discourage from voting. But discouraging people from voting is un-American, isn’t it?
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