549 Comments

Thank you Heather for the breakdown of the 2 Voting Rights Acts. I have read both and thought I was missing something nefarious hidden in them that would make the GOP and twiddle dee and twiddle dumb act in the manner they have. No, they are straight forward.

I felt the shade that McConnell threw towards Biden the other day was rich considering the time spent in his career patting himself on the back protecting voting rights. Gaslighting at its best.

I guess it's just one more day in the Un-united States of America.

Am I the only one that is sick to death of this bullshit?

Be safe. Be well.

Expand full comment

This is... so much. I so appreciate your distillation of SO much that is going on, to make it comprehensible. But this moment, this week, is almost breathtaking in how consequential these votes will be for our country's future. My mind literally reels, and I appreciate that yours does not.

Expand full comment

Any debate needs to be covered with reporters asking “What is the problem you have with this specific provision?”, item by item. Voting needs to be by roll call. Let those who oppose it have their names recorded for posterity.

Expand full comment

People in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Hong Kong and all over the world are putting their lives on the line to fight for what 50 Republican senators are willing to throw away- democracy- rule by consent of the people- peaceful transfer of power when the people have spoken. I wish the democrats would put equal pressure on Collins, Murkowski, Sasse, Romney - perhaps to awaken their conscience but if only to make them uncomfortable as the minions of McConnell.

Expand full comment

"McConnell calls Biden "profoundly, profoundly unpresidential" and says "I did not recognize the man at the podium" yesterday when Biden said people who oppose voting rights were akin to Jefferson Davis and Bull Connor"

McConnell is a sad, pathetic old man who thinks if he says a word twice, it's more true. Didn't recognize Pres Biden? What he didn't recognize was that 7 years ago a con man and a grifter was taking over his GOP while he stood by and did nothing. That's what history will remember, and he knows it.

Expand full comment

Now it's clear as winter blue sky why so many Republicans in Congress oppose the bills. They deliver unfettered democracy for the people — all the people: easy to register and vote, hard to rig the system. The anti-gerrymandering and anti-dark money provisions alone could explain McConnell's hyperventilating.

Watching the Republicans fulminate against the bills during debate will indeed be memorable. They will spout clever slogans that paint the bills as despotic overreach and so on. It's all noise to masquerade fear.

Now if only the masses can learn, as we have tonight, what the bills would deliver and help turn the tide.

Expand full comment

Moscow Mitch, intentionally or not, does Putins bidding of ending democracy. He must be on the payroll. As an enabler of the twice impeached former president, I feel he’s all the more loathsome and dangerous.

Expand full comment

I want to thank you for the lucid, detailed summary of these 2 bills.

It defies logic, humanity, ethical equality principles to not vote in favor of these bills.

It is sooo demoralizing & downright scary to see the republicans exist in a pre- conceived morass of hate & deliberate refusal to see the truth & justice behind these bills.

God save our democracy- we are not having much luck on our own.

Expand full comment

"Today, McConnell, who never complained about the intemperate speeches of former president Donald Trump, said Biden’s speech revealed him to be 'profoundly, profoundly unpresidential.'''

Good Lord. After worshiping the behavior of the narcissistic, serial liar former president as "presidential," McConnell understandably would find speaking truth to be profoundly unpresidential. Respect for truth is not in the current Republican politicians' DNA.

Expand full comment

“And so, Republican senators will have to explain to the people why they oppose what appear to be common-sense voting rules.” I’d like to believe this is what will happen.

Neither the Democrats nor the media will really hold the Republicans paccountable or force them to explain their position to the people. They’ll distract, the media will take the bait and the Dems will throw up their hands and get all righteous. We have a communications imbalance. Dems are held to a higher standard, try to be logical, reasonable and civil and the 24/7 mediaverse yawns. The Republicans can say whatever they want, lie, distract get hysterical and the 24/7 right wing and mainstream media repeat it over and over again ad nauseum until that becomes the story.

Republicans are not going to change. Media is not going to change unless it’s in their financial interest to change. Dems need to be the ones to radically change the game. It will require a completely new strategy and communications approach. Can they do it? Can we?

Expand full comment

The remnants of the Confederacy live on in McConnell, Mo Brooks, Ted Cruz, and others. What they want is to continue the era of Jim Crow. They continue to use the tired "states rights" excuse as a way of masking their fear of people of color. No one will say it, but racism is fueling Republican efforts to suppress voting. It's despicable and in the end, "un-American."

Expand full comment

"It is off-the-charts astonishing that no Republicans are willing to entertain these common-sense measures" -- amen. Tells you everything you need to know about them. Not one of them has a shred of integrity or ethics, especially the holier-than-thous like Romney. ugh.

Expand full comment

From the local (Maine) perspective: Susan Collins has been a SPONSOR of the equivalent of the John Lewis Act in the past and voted FOR the last re-auth that was gutted by Roberts, et. al. According to President Biden, there are 16 R Senators still in the Senate who voted the same way. Admittedly, I have been very frustrated by the cute rejections to my letters on this topic to S. Collins over the past year. Nevertheless, I urge those who are represented by other spineless R Senators to pressure on this point. (I do understand that FVA has more depth and teeth.)

Expand full comment

Republicans understand that they will never prevail in an open, honest election with broad voter participation.

For Democrats and liberal-leaning independents, this is a fight over the survival of American democracy. For Republicans, this is a struggle for survival of their party; the party of devicive race-baiting, climate science denial, subsidizing the wealthiest, guns, and Trump, Trump, Trump.

Which is the more noble cause?

I am just finishing reading "The 1619 Project". The book makes apparent that what the Republican Party represents today has been a part of our body politic in one form or another since our beginnings. In her letters, HCR has illustrated this fact in many ways. The optimist in me sees our current crisis is perhaps an opportunity to at last find a way to shed this dreadful part of our national character. The pessimist in me says if the Civil War didn't do it, it ain't gonna happen now. Our better angels may prevail for a time, but the devil in us will never die.

Sigh.

Expand full comment

For the first time I feel like I understand these two bills. And after reading about Schumer's little work around, I also feel hopeful.

Expand full comment

I find it interesting that Republicans in Congress don’t think what happened during the French Revolution can’t happen here - even after witnessing their own constituents set up a gallows in their “yard”. Don’t they wonder what the majority would do if they felt there’s nothing to lose?

As for history not being kind, I don’t think Republicans care about history. Their constituents certainly don’t read it. The worst of it has been covered up for decades.

Expand full comment