More Tiger Beat on the Potomac

I'm a glutton for punishment I suppose, but hey, if Driftglass can wade through David Brooks columns and hours of awful cable news to find the silly stuff I guess I can too. I listened to the Politico 2016 Nerdcast again, their final broadcast before the election (possibly?) and goddamnit they were stinking it up again.

First, they yapped about the Wikileaks stolen emails and gave away the game about "journalism" Tiger Beat style. So the next time Russian intelligence hacks someone's emails and internal documents they won't make the mistake of dribbling them out like a trail of breadcrumbs for professional mice on the campaign trail and play them like fiddles better. Then they reacted to the fact that African-American early voting turnout is lower than in 2012. "Oh, is Hillary Clinton having a hard time keeping their enthusiasm up?" No, you asses, the republicans went nuts passing voting restrictions aimed "with laser-like focus" at suppressing black voters. Remember when the Supreme Court said that racism was a thing of the past so we didn't need states who have historically violated the Civil Rights and Voting Rights of African-Americans to get pre-clearance before passing laws about elections? No huh? Yeah, they did that and the bad south among other states immediately started making things difficult for voters who may not like to vote for republicans.

That is as far as I got actually. I was so infuriated that I couldn't continue listening.

Good grief, I remember the news reporters breathlessly showing the "long lines" in largely Democratic precincts in Ohio on election day 2004 as being so positive for John Kerry. You remember why the lines were long and people were stuck waiting in line for hours and hours right? IT WAS BECAUSE THE REPUBLICAN SECRETARY OF STATE FOR OHIO REMOVED ALL THE VOTING MACHINES FROM URBAN AREAS TO OVERSTOCK RURAL REPUBLICAN AREAS SO THE WHITE REPUBLICANS COULD VOTE QUICKLY WITH NO LINES AND DEMOCRATS GOT DISCOURAGED AND LEFT! This time it is limiting early voting and making sure that the ID laws are as strict as possible to discourage as many Democrats as possible.

Not to mention the addition of dirty tricks about "vote by text". I know I'm ranting but dammit, these assholes do this kind of crap every election. And nobody ever goes to jail for it. Lies, lies, lies. And no one ever suffers for it. Well, the victims of the lies do.