By Christopher Bedford
Open The New York Times’ politics page Thursday morning and the top headline reads, “Democrats Begin Push For Biggest Expansion In Voting Since 1960s.” It’s a story about the most important election power-grab in modern legislative history, with a slim, partisan majority of senators seeking to wrest control of elections away from state governments to ensure Democrat control for decades to come.
For starters, H.R. 1 will ban voter ID requirements, mandate early voting, allow outside activist groups to deliver votes for counting, do away with notarized absentee ballots, force states to accept absentees for 10 days after an election is over, narrow the Federal Election Commission by one member to allow for partisan control, mandate counting illegal aliens in voting districts, allow the IRS to investigate non-profits’ political ideas, and make it nearly impossible to sue over the new rules.
In short, it’s a story about Democrats aiming to seize massive power over how elections are run. Of course, you wouldn’t get any of that information from The New York Times headline or copy. In fact, funny enough, the second story on The New York Times’ politics page Thursday morning was the one headlined, “Republicans Aim To Seize More Power Over How Elections Are Run.”
That one’s a story about Republicans working to pull control of the elections back from judges and officials’ extra-legislative “emergency rules” and rulings. The moves, the story reports with a straight face, are “threatening the fairness that is the bedrock of American democracy.”
Reasonable people can disagree on if they think the Democrats or Republicans are right or wrong in their different initiatives, but the stark difference between these two top news headlines is glaring — and not too long ago would have been deeply embarrassing to any serious news editor.Meanwhile, over at Axios, the news sites’ two co-founders wrote an article about President Joe Biden’s plan to “re-engineer America quickly.” At a closed-door White House meeting, they report, “the historians” agreed with the presidents’ thinking that, “It is time to go even bigger and faster than anyone expected. If that means chucking the filibuster and bipartisanship, so be it.”
There’s virtually zero skepticism in their reporting. Instead, in the condescending little “Why It Matters” breakdown, readers are treated to how bold and historic this massive left-wing power-grab will be. “[Biden] won’t rub [Republicans’] noses in it,” they write, predicting instead that he is on his way to becoming a modern President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The intensity with which these outlets simply spewed Democratic propaganda Thursday morning was shameless. While this is no longer unusual, in an age when Americans from coast to coast have grown used to casually shrugging away their freedoms at the whim of a television doctor and his political allies, this kind of propaganda is seriously dangerous.
For the past year here in Washington, D.C., as well as in cities and states across the country, we’ve been told not to gather with our friends, neighbors, and family, not to worship God with our parishes, and not to visit our sick or elderly loved ones. We’ve even been told not to admire outdoor beauty, with the National Park Service’s Tuesday announcement that they will be choking off the number of people permitted to admire the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin this spring.
And every single day we are subjected to more base lies disguised as lofty truths. Breathing freely without two masks is selfish. Staying indoors is good for your neighbors. Our differences are what make us a community. We are all in this together.
Powerful black people are oppressed and poor white people are privileged.
Qanon is marching on Washington and the Ku Klux Klan is right behind every door.
Men are women, women are men, and pregnant women make great professional soldiers.
Power-grabs are voting rights. Election integrity threatens “the bedrock of American democracy.”
Joe Biden is an historic visionary.
“Democracy dies in darkness.”
Except that last one is true.
@Deplorable Me, #50:
Your own description of the bill is extremely biased. A neutral, unbiased description simply outlines the bill’s provisions in a simple, understandable manner without hyperbole, hysteria, condemnation, or praise.
When given such an unbiased, politically neutral explanation, a majority of those surveyed—both republican and democrat—approve of the bill. The reason should be obvious: It would collectively increase the influence of average individuals, and diminish the political control of special interests that buy sufficient political influence to override the will of the people to their own benefit.
If you don’t understand the consequences of this, consider the current interest rate on your savings account, the stated retail cost of your prescription drugs, or how much your cable bill has increased while the quality of programming has declined. Do you enjoy paying increasing monthly rates to get five minutes of commercials for every 10 minutes of content?
One shouldn’t have to change the definitions of simple English words to win an argument. Unbiased and neutral have clear meanings. It wasn’t a democrat who was using those words in a sentence. It was the research director of a conservative advocacy group, explaining to his conservative listeners what his research had revealed.
@Greg: Voting by mail is easily corrupted. You said so yourself once when discussing photo ID. You yourself admitted that even if voting in person was verified with photo ID, that would do nothing for voting by mail. True, but that was when voting by mail was infrequently used. Now you want to make it common and widespread.
Just as in 2020, to sole design of sending ballots out to everyone, without purging voting roles of the dead or those who have moved, is but for one purpose; make fraud easy and widespread. In the meantime, your bill eradicates requirements for photo ID. For what purpose? Aside from the obvious, what is the purpose of making illegally voting in person easier? Photo ID was only necessitated by Democrat’s cheating and inducing illegal immigrants to vote. The purpose of eliminating it is to, again, make cheating easier.
Inducing fraudulent votes is voter suppression; it suppresses the legal vote. Every fraudulent vote disenfranchises a legitimate vote, but Democrats fear most of the legitimate vote will go against them… as it did in 2020. There’s only room for so many water main ruptures.
Like “universal background checks” on firearm purchases, when the details and pointlessness of it is hidden from knowledge, most support it; like “For The People” it sounds just peachy. The details stink, though.
Wow. Really? From YOU? Give me a break.