Don’t trust them

Following my previous position how the far right Republicans use big money, media and systemic loopholes to get and keep power I found Thom Hartmann’s daily rant for Thursday to fit right into the theme.

Hartmann points out that the far right has yet another scheme that they fund and promote behind the scenes that seldom gets linked to them. That is promoting and funding third party candidates for especially the presidency. By promoting third party candidates that align mostly with Democrats, they have been able to successfully deny the presidency to Democrats in a number of years.   

Hartmann notes that:

Dark money is preparing to disrupt the 2024 election, and it could get really, really ugly. All because a large handful of corrupt politicians and washed-out political hacks are enthusiastic about doing the bidding of their largest donors.

— In the presidential election of 1968, George Wallace carried almost 14 percent of the national vote.

— In the presidential election of 2000, Ralph Nader received 97,421 in Florida.

— In the presidential election of 2016, Hillary Clinton lost Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania to Donald Trump by fewer votes than Jill Stein claimed in each state.

Now it looks like a massive dark money group is planning to bring America a repeat of those three elections where a third-party candidate put a Republican in the White House.

Hartmann also notes that one group already has a $70 million war chest ready for the third party candidate that looks like he or she can syphon off enough votes to put a few right Republican into the White House. As we noted on blogforiowa last week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has already thrown his hat in the ring.

Is there a Democrat with enough stature to pull enough votes that could handicap President Biden and hand the presidency to an autocrat? Never say never. Joe Manchin? Kyrsten Sinema? 

Just a little note to remind you that there is little the right won’t do to gain and keep power. 

Remember that electing a far right autocrat will put and end to any progress on climate change, legalizing abortion, race relations and access to medical care just to name a few things.

Pay attention! Don’t be fooled in 2024.

Another fine example of Republicans doing all they can to bend the election process comes from the Iowa legislature. As Iowa’s ‘first in the nation’ status is being threatened by the Democratic Party’s insistence on changing the primary calendar, the Iowa Democratic Party has offered some alternatives to their former caucus process.

Among the proposals include a mail-in caucus format. But Republicans have introduced a bill that would make such a format illegal. Republicans claim this will help the Democrats. But over at iowacapitaldispatch.com Ed Tebbets isn’t fooled:   

Kaufmann, a Republican state representative from Wilton, has proposed using the power of the state to dictate the inner workings of the opposing political party. Specifically, he’s proposed a bill in the Iowa House that would force Democrats to hold their presidential caucuses in person. The plan would forbid mail-in ballots, which Democrats have been planning to use next year.

Kaufmann’s meddling is not only offensive, but it’s arguably unconstitutional. I’ll get to that in a minute. First, though, let’s debunk the BS that Kaufmann uses to explain why he’s introduced this scheme.

He says he’s trying to protect the caucuses and be “helpful” to Democrats by distinguishing Iowa from the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary. Mail-in ballots, his says, would make the Democratic caucuses look more like a primary and prompt New Hampshire to jump ahead of Iowa.

This is nonsense. How Democrats run their caucuses has no impact on the Republican calendar. As for being “helpful,” no politician ever does anything to help the opposing political party when it comes to elections. So cross that off your list; it’s baloney.

Republicans are nationally a minority party. Yet using tricks, exploiting the system through things like gerrymandering so on and so forth they continue to hold power. What can you do? Vote and support common sense candidates.