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One day after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed that “states are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever,” Georgia Republicans swiftly enacted a sweeping voter-suppression law targeting voters of color. Mitch is gonna absolutely freak when he finds out.
- Here’s what’s in S.B. 202, the Georgia GOP’s depraved response to record Black voter turnout and scrupulous election officials: Measures to sideline the secretary of state and give the GOP-controlled legislature power to seize control of county election boards, cumbersome photo-ID requirements for mail-in voting, limits on drop boxes, shorter runoff elections, and, insanely, the criminalization of providing food and water to voters waiting in line. (Guess which voters routinely face longer lines, by Republican design.) The final version did not include one stunningly racist proposal to ban Sunday voting, which is about all we can say for it.
- The law definitely sounds super gross, but what if we told you Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) signed it alongside six white men beneath a painting of a slave plantation? To complete the Jim Crow tableau, police hauled a Black female elected official—Rep. Park Cannon—to Fulton County jail, in full view of news cameras, for trying to watch the signing. Cannon has been charged with a felony for the high crime of...knocking on Kemp’s office door. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) condemned her arrest on Thursday: “I want to know what makes her actions so dangerous.”
- The New Georgia Project, the Black Voters Matter Fund, and Rise immediately announced a lawsuit intended to block the law from taking effect. President Biden slammed the law as “a blatant attack on the Constitution” and “Jim Crow in the 21st Century,” and once again urged Congress to pass the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act: “If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let the people vote.”
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The problem for Republicans across the country is they keep acknowledging that they do not, in fact, have the best ideas.
- They do have some pretty fucking weaselly ones, though. Michigan Republicans have hatched a plan to circumvent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and enact voter-suppression legislation by mashing dozens of bills together for a petition initiative. If Republicans are able to gather more than 340,000 signatures—a mere fraction of the votes Whitmer received when she was elected—the GOP-controlled legislature would be able to create law without Whitmer’s signature. Seems on the level!
- All of these efforts are animated by Donald Trump’s Big Lie, and the Big Liar himself is helpfully rewriting history to advance the cause. Trump called into Fox News on Thursday night and presented his fictional version of the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol, in which his harmless supporters were “hugging and kissing” police officers, rather than beating them with blunt objects: “It was zero threat, right from the start...a lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out.” It was pure Woodstock vibes, everyone was wearing flowers, Mike Pence snuck out the back because he was nervous about getting hugged too hard.
If you’re outraged and disgusted by this coordinated assault on voting rights (as you should be), we have a wall-punching alternative, and it’s spreading the word about the For The People Act. Head to votesaveamerica.com/forthepeople for resources on the bill, a guide to calling your senators, and volunteer opportunities. This is a once-in-a-lifetime fight—H.R.1 or we are, as this week made clear, fucked.
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This week on Rubicon, Brian Beutler talks to The Roosevelt Institute’s Mike Konczal about President Biden’s coming $3 trillion economic reform package, which would fund infrastructure, green jobs, child and elder care, and community college. They talk about the bill’s chances of passing Congress, whether it warrants comparisons to FDR’s New Deal, and whether and how it would cement Biden’s legacy. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts →
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Anti-abortion advocates have cranked up the settings on the legislation printer, now that Amy Coney Barrett’s on the Supreme Court. GOP legislators have introduced over 500 abortion-restriction bills in 44 states this year, compared to around 300 measures introduced at this time in 2019. Twelve anti-abortion measures have already been signed into law in six states. The legislation itself has changed, too: Where proposed laws used to mainly focus on impossible regulations that would force clinics to shut down, legislators have dropped the backhanded approach and begun pursuing extreme, outright bans. Republicans have also ramped up efforts to add anti-abortion language to state constitutions, in anticipation of the far-right Supreme Court potentially overturning Roe v. Wade. You do not love to see it!
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- Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, the second time Fox has been sued by a voting company for spreading disinformation about the 2020 election.
- President Biden has appointed Gayle Manchin, wife of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), to co-chair the Appalachian Regional Commission. Quick, someone ask him the filibuster question again.
- Today in Big Stuck Boat: The very big, very stuck boat has forced other ships to take the old-timey route around Africa instead, potentially exposing them to pirates. The chaos boat also appears to have inspired a Florida copycat. This has been today’s edition of Big Stuck Boat.
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) led a delegation to Bessemer, AL, on Friday to support the Amazon union drive. The voting period will end on Monday.
- More than 100 staffers at the New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Ars Technica have authorized a strike in the event that Condé Nast continues to rebuff their respective unions’ wage-increase demands.
- The MLB Players Association will discuss moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta in the wake of Georgia’s new voter-suppression law.
- Trump adviser Jason Miller secretly stayed employed at the PR firm Teneo after pretending to resign, and misled a court about his employment status to get out of paying child support. In legal terms, a "real piece of shit."
- Lonesome Dove author Larry McMurtry died Thursday at age 84, and beloved children’s book author Beverly Cleary has died at age 104. A sad day for western enthusiasts, children, former children, children who will one day be western enthusiasts, and a whole bunch of book fans in between.
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Now that GOP legislators have taken over on the election-overturning front, far-right extremists have turned their attention to undermining the vaccine rollout. Extremist organizations have formed an increasingly vocal alliance with the anti-vaxx movement over the last few months. Anti-vaccine posts have proliferated in chatrooms popular among groups like the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo movement, various militias, and QAnon, often portraying vaccines as a symbol of government overreach. These groups thrive in periods of instability, and spreading vaccine disinformation is one way to keep the fear alive: The more people who refuse to get vaccinated, the longer it will take for the country to reach herd immunity, which would fuel distrust in the Biden administration and government institutions. The big question is whether that alliance fades as the vaccine rollout continues successfully, or hardens into an unholy long-term coalition for the anti-government fringe.
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Face recognition technology poses a profound and unprecedented threat to our core civil rights – and is particularly dangerous for communities of color and other marginalized groups. Multiple studies have demonstrated that this dangerous technology disproportionately misidentifies and misclassifies people of color, trans people, and women. It’s time to put a stop to it. Sign our petition if you agree.
If President Biden wants to uphold his commitment to racial equity and civil liberties for all, then he must take immediate action. The ACLU is demanding that Biden impose a moratorium on federal government use of face recognition technology and prevent state and local governments from using federal funds to purchase it. Add your name and tell Biden to act now.
Even if face recognition was perfectly accurate, it would still give governments, companies, and individuals the power to spy on us wherever we go – tracking our faces at protests, political rallies, places of worship, and more. We cannot allow its normalization.
Click here to sign the ACLU’s petition telling Biden to halt government use of dangerous and racist face recognition technologies now.
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3.4 million shots today! A beautiful new record.
Baltimore, MD, will no longer prosecute drug possession, prostitution, minor traffic violations, and other low-level offenses, after a pause on those prosecutions during the pandemic proved they weren’t necessary for public safety.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will aim to lower Medicare's eligibility age and expand the program to cover dental work and optical needs, as part of the upcoming infrastructure package. (It’ll be a very uphill fight, but what a good fight!)
San Francisco, CA, will start giving up to $1,000 per month to over 100 artists, in a universal basic income pilot program.
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