Here's a rundown on some of the broad differences between the two states' voting laws:

Mail-in Ballots - Colorado has universal mail-in voting, which means every registered voter gets a ballot in the mail two to three weeks before each election. Once completed, the ballot can be mailed back or dropped off at one of 368 drop boxes, which are accessible and surveilled 24 hours a day.

In Georgia, absentee ballots are only supplied to voters who apply for one, and under the new law, it's illegal for election officials to send absentee ballot applications to voters unless they explicitly request them. Georgians who do obtain an absentee ballot will have a more difficult time dropping it off: The new law limits drop boxes to one per 100,000 active registered voters per county, and they're only accessible during business hours. (In 2020, the core Atlanta metropolitan area had 94 drop boxes. The new law cuts that to a maximum of 23 boxes, a New York Times analysis found.)

Voter ID - Both states require voters to prove they are who they say they are. But Colorado makes it much easier to do so.

In Colorado, those who are among the 6% of voters who go to the polls in person can use one of 16 different forms of identification, ranging from driver's licenses and passports to current utility bills and valid Medicare cards. People voting by mail for the first time must also provide ID; that requirement is dropped with subsequent mail-in ballots, which are verified via signature.

Georgia voters, meanwhile, must show a photo ID when voting in person. Those who cast an absentee ballot must now also provide identification where a signature sufficed in the past, though it doesn't necessarily have to be a photo ID.

Early Voting - Colorado offers 15 in-person early voting days compared to Georgia's 17. But since 94% of Coloradans vote by mail, this is a moot point.

A breakdown of the numbers by The Colorado Sun shows that 198,645 Coloradans voted in-person across 15 days, compared to more than 2.7 million Georgians across a slightly longer timeframe.

Long lines to access polling locations of the sort seen across Georgia are almost unheard of in Colorado.

Maybe put some skin in it.

It's coming Ebs. McConnell is going to force corporate America to publicly support the Democrats Voting Rights Bill and the John Lewis Act. Mark my words, because it won't be long before this happens. It is illogical that any of these Republican-controlled states are going to be bullied into dropping their plans, but they will be stopped by federal legislation that outlaws the very practices these states are trying to codify.

Biden and the Dems are simply letting today's oblivious GOP trap themselves on the wrong side of another insipid issue going against public sentiment, including a solid number of Republicans. Every legal voter should have reasonable access to cast their ballots and have them counted. That's the issue. More access for legal voters is an easily understood matter, and voters should not have to stand in 8-hour lines just to vote. In general, this isn't controversial. The controversy comes from black voters flexing their muscles and having the audacity of winning elections in GOP strongholds to the point Republicans just can't allow the new status quo to stand.

We'll soon find out how Americans feel about this enmass. I doubt that the Republicans will like the national answer, and a united corporate community only gives the Democrats more support in doing what is simply right - fight for everyone's right to vote and have them fairly counted.

Rachel Maddow did a retrospective piece on this topic tonight. It was only 15 years ago when President Bush and most of the Congressional GOP - but for Southern reps - all supported the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Bush touted it himself when he spoke at the NAACP national convention that year - an unprecedented appearance. The VRA outlawed the very things today's GOP is trying to rush into law - specifically in states with histories of discriminatory/repressive voting laws and practices through the pre-clearance provisions - all over America until the Robert's Court gutting of the act in 2013.

And in 2006 major US corporations wholeheartedly supported the renewal of the VRA including the CEO of Walmart who issued a public statement in support of its millions of black employees, articulating how every American should have unfettered access to cast their legal ballots, and that the historical impediments placed upon minorities have no place in current-day America. Many other corporate giants stood in lockstep agreement putting out similar statements which caused zero public pushback whatsoever.

So for those ignorant of recent American history, US corporations are doing exactly the same thing they did in 2006 - supporting the rights of black voters to have their voices heard without restrictive policies put in place by states in specific opposition to those rights.

The only thing that's changed is the GOP and the SCOTUS who've allowed what was universally lauded as a remedy to centuries of disenfranchisement to be recodified today on the basis of the lie that our elections are not secure and subject to widespread fraud that they claim can alter elective results - something which has never been proven in any US court or legislative body who've investigated the allegations.

This seems pretty dumb. But, I wonder how common this is.

I'm looking at my CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card right now. When you register for your first shot, they have you write your own name and birthdate on a card with no number or record whatsoever attached to it. They then place a sticker on the card indicating which vaccine you'll receive, it's lot and expiration, along with the location of your vaccination. They write the date and time of your next appointment for the 2nd shot and when registering for it, they place another sticker with the vital information for that shot on the card. Each sticker has a place for the date but I had to write that in myself.

It is more than obvious that the federal government was not interested in creating a comprehensive database with exact information on every person vaccinated, and most of the fed's concern now is the inevitable reality that vaccine cards/information will be used by non-governmental entities as a means of separating people into groups towards whatever benefit or detriment such identification entails.

COVID is a communicable disease - full stop. Responsible people and companies are well within their common sense rights and responsibility to protect themselves, their employees, and their customers from unnecessary exposure to a known pathogen if there is an easy means to keep from doing so. As more and more information continues to come forth underscoring the efficacy of the vaccines and believed immunity for those vaccinated, it is logical people who've been vaccinated will not want to be in close contact with those who haven't as more and more variants evolve due to those refusing to mitigate or vaccinate.

Proof of COVID vaccination will inevitably become a ticket for freer access for those having it regardless of what idiotic GOP governors try to do with executive orders. As a society, we're mandated specific vaccinations before children enter school and when travelers are headed to places and regions where specific diseases are common and vaccination protects from potential infection. This is no different. No one has the right to infect other people and place their lives and health at risk when simple preventative measures and actions will keep such spread from happening.

AL.com obtained an email from group, which says the banner must go up at 1 p.m. ET this Friday, aka the anniversary of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender at the end of the Civil War.

"Failure to do so will result in the monument, an ornate stone chair, immediately being turned into a toilet," the alleged culprits warn. "If they do display the banner, not only will we return the chair intact, but we will clean it to boot."

AL.com reported that the White Lies Matter group emailed the news organization directly.

A photo shows that the monument, with a giant hole in the seat, stands ready to become a commode in an instant if the alleged chair thieves' demand goes unsatisfied[.]

After the American Civil War, even before the 15th Amendment was adopted, newly freed Black men in the south registered to vote and voted. In Georgia, 33 Black members of the General Assembly were the first to be elected to that state's legislature in 1868. These men are often referred to as the "Original 33." But they were forced out of the legislature even though the legislature was controlled by radical Republicans, their party. The effort to expel was led by Democrats, but a sufficient number of Republicans joined in the vote. Also outcome-determinative was the fact that the Speaker of the House R.L. McWhorter ruled that the Black legislators could not vote on their own expulsion. One of the African Americans expelled was Senator Henry McNeal Turner, who gave a fiery and defiant speech that asked "Am I a man? If I am such, I claim the rights of a man."

Shortly thereafter, in September 1868, one of the expelled Black lawmakers Philip Joiner led a political march from Albany to Camilla, Georgia. When the group walked into the town square of Camilla, white residents opened fire. During the massacre in Camilla, at least 14 were killed and a Republican candidate for Congress was injured. This event may have scared many Black people away from voting that fall.

Between 1868 and 1907, 58 Black men served in the Georgia legislature. What happened in 1908? That was the year that Georgia followed a pattern of many southern states and amended their state constitution in a way that would disenfranchise Black voters - including literacy tests and grandfather clauses. Without Black voters, Black members of the legislature also disappeared until the Voting Rights Act restored the franchise to Black voters.

If this history is new to you, there could be a reason. According to Professor Edmund Drago, when official biographies of members of the Georgia legislature were first written, the author Alexander St. Clair-Abrams purposefully excluded the Black members claiming it would have been absurd "to have written [about] the lives of men who were but yesterday our slaves[.]"

Anybody wonder why this happens with little objection?

Because for most people the entire process is very opaque. Most people have little idea what assessed values really are, and as the article notes, many people make improvements to their homes that increase its value but until/unless the property goes up for sale there often is no reassessment done. It goes against human nature to voluntarily call the assessor's attention to the fact that one's home is undervalued, opening oneself to voluntarily paying more in taxes, and it appears a perverse backwards logic is used in poorer neighborhoods where homes are overvalued for tax purposes yet sell for less than comparable homes in more upscale areas.

There is no perfect way of doing things, but the fact remains that more personal wealth/income is consistently being syphoned from poorer homeowners while the opposite is true for wealthier homeowners who indeed have more political clout, hence they have a much better probability of minimizing their tax liabilities toward their favor than the politically disinclined. Party doesn't really seem to matter, it's a matter of the haves versus the have nots.

The partisan split is Rich vs Poor.

These inequalities are much more divisions by class and geography than they are partisan political issues, but nonetheless I'm sure some will try to see it in that light.

#1 | POSTED BY TONYROMA

Americans expect to pay property taxes at the same rates as their neighbors. But across most of the United States, flat-rate property taxation is a sham. Nationwide, from 2007 to 2016, homes in the bottom 10 percent of property values in a given county were taxed, on average, at an effective rate that was twice as high as the rate for homes in the top 10 percent of property values.

The maladministration of property taxation means the wrong people are picking up the tab for public services.

Inequitable assessment is also an important reason the burden of state and local taxation is regressive, meaning that most state and local governments collect a larger share of the income of lower-income households than of upper-income households. By failing to properly assess property, government is worsening the large and growing inequalities in the distribution of wealth and income.

The burden falls disproportionately on minorities. Because of the accumulated effects of past racism, minorities tend to live in homes that command lower prices - yet are assessed at inflated values.

The inequities that researchers have put on public display are galling not just because they have come at the expense of those who can least afford it, but because it's clear that it would be relatively easy for local governments to address these problems.

Equitable assessment is possible. Anything less is unacceptable.

Inequitable assessment is also an important reason the burden of state and local taxation is regressive, meaning that most state and local governments collect a larger share of the income of lower-income households than of upper-income households.

The property tax findings show an unmistakable - and correctable - imbalance in the favor of those with more wealth and income and to the detriment of those with less. Many local budget funding issues could find solutions if these imbalances were corrected.

Every single day Americans of all stripes are reminded that the current elected Republican politicians are only concerned with issues and ideas directly tied to their own political fortunes. On the other hand, Democrats are laser-focused on issues that affect everyone's lives and taking affirmative steps to make them better to the extent the federal government can.

At every step, Biden and the Democrats say to Republicans "The majority of Americans agree that we have problems that need immediate attention. Help us fix these problems for the benefit of both our constituencies," and then the Republicans say "NO(!) (Y)our solutions are radical leftist and we'll have nothing to do with them," leaving voters with only two alternatives: Doing something to alleviate our problems and repair our infrastructure or do exactly what Trump and the GOP did about them over the last 4 years while things only got worse which is NOTHING - even though the Republicans kept promising to do something yet never did.

Americans are tired of receiving less than they deserve while Republicans bend over backwards to make sure corporations and the wealthy make out like kings. Right now the GOP is more obsessed with placating Trump and letting him believe that he's their kingmaker next year and their salvation in 2024. Most Americans want to avoid covid and be protected from infection, see normalcy return, and get back to work hopefully under better conditions and pay than they had before the pandemic struck and uphended everything.

Joe Biden is simply the perfect messenger for what should have transcended politics all along - the federal government undertaking public works that support every sector of our economy and positively touches every citizen of this nation.

The thing is my list is kind of the type of thinking that will allow republican news outlets to push that narrative. Pretty much anything that isn't fixing potholes will be disregarded as not related to infrastructure and the lie will be repeated over and over until it becomes fact in the minds of (R)'s

That rule is in place because of the possibility of bribing someone with food or water. IE fraud prevention.

#14 | POSTED BY PHESTEROBOYLE

You do realize that every ballot is secret, and that no one can ever know for sure how any other person voted, right? So how exactly is a voter going to be influenced by receiving food or water as they wait in line? Don't you think the greatest influence is in those voters experiencing prolonged waits because of where they cast their ballots compared to others who literally walk in and out - within a handful of minutes?

Most elections cannot be swayed by handful of votes one way or the other. It is impossible with our voting system for large party coordination of fraudulent votes because every person votes one at a time. You cannot submit hundreds of votes regardless who you are, and at some point, each voter has to identify themselves by name and address - and no one else would have any idea whether any single voter had already cast a vote if they planned on impersonating them. And no one argues that all our voting systems are capable of flagging multiple ballots by any one individual.

So I still remain baffled how thousands upon thousands of people in multiple states all coordinate "fraudulent" votes - cast one at a time, in thousands of places - in numbers that will sway any election.

#27

Tao is being facetious Angrydad. He's mocking Msgt, not agreeing with him.

#21

Houston, I think we've found the problem ...

[O]n Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made the curious move of simply announcing that there will be no Senate Republican votes for Biden's infrastructure bill. Well okay then. As Rachel Maddow pointed out on air, this means that Biden doesn't have to waste time making bipartisan overtures to the Republicans when it comes to this bill. If the Republicans later try to argue to voters that Biden didn't offer to work with them, Biden can simply point back to McConnell's statement about refusing to work with Biden on it.

It's unclear what Mitch McConnell's strategy is here. He's always been corrupt and dishonest, but he's usually savvier than this. This comes amid reports from various major news outlets that McConnell is considering retiring early. Has he simply checked out? In any case, he unwittingly did Biden and the Democrats a favor on this one.

Bill Palmer

The rollout has certainly picked up speed I registered on March 18th was called on the 24th and got my first dose on the 26th.

I received an unsolicited text message from my health services provider on the same day vaccine registration opened up for my age group (60) with a link attached to the website itself. I immediately went to the link, answered a couple questions verifying my eligibility and was then offered vaccination appointments as soon as the NEXT DAY. The locations were sorted by distance from my address and in most cases listed which type of vaccine was being used at most locations.

I scheduled my first shot for a couple days later and got my second shot two weeks ago this morning. I couldn't have been happier with the way distribution happened in my regard and as of yesterday all adults over 16 are eligible for shots in Indiana.

The Biden administration announced this week that it planned to increase the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, and establish a kind of minimum tax that would limit the number of zero-payers. The White House estimated that the revisions would raise $2 trillion over 15 years, which will be used to fund the president's ambitious infrastructure plan.

Supporters say that in addition to yielding revenue, the rewrite would help make the tax code more equitable, requiring individuals and companies at the top of the income ladder to pay more. But Republicans have signaled that the tax increases in the Biden proposal - which Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, called "massive" - will preclude bipartisan support.

Funny how Congress - read DEMOCRATS - have become wildly popular when they're actually providing tangible benefits to Main Street families and businesses all across America.

There should be some political lesson in that acknowledgement, right?

#2

#6

ROFLMBAO!!!

We've seen this movie before haven't we?

We know who Republicans represent, and it isn't the vast majority of their voters.

And this disconnect is hemorrhaging between the two GOP factions. And Joe's easy, non-condescending, common sense, grandfather-knows-best demeanor is implementing heretofore unachievable movement in public sentiment toward long needed change within our society.

When the entirety of Democrats start publicly stating that their policies enjoy bipartisan support with an unheard-of majority of American voters (70%), so why is it elected Republicans refuse to engage with the Democrats to pass them?

This polling seems to indicate that Joe has already made deep inroads back with many non-Trump-deluded Republicans who understand both the need and benefit of domestic reinvestment in both people and infrastructure. As of now, the GOP has no messaging to diminish this appeal and they're flailing as this juggernaut gains speed and keeps on rolling.

Investigators believe Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector in Seminole County, Fla., who was indicted last year on a federal sex trafficking charge and other crimes, initially met the women through websites that connect people who go on dates in exchange for gifts, fine dining, travel and allowances, according to three people with knowledge of the encounters. Mr. Greenberg introduced the women to Mr. Gaetz, who also had sex with them, the people said.

One of the women who had sex with both men also agreed to have sex with an unidentified associate of theirs in Florida Republican politics, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. Mr. Greenberg had initially contacted her online and introduced her to Mr. Gaetz, the person said.

Mr. Gaetz denied ever paying a woman for sex.