Here
again for your viewing pleasure is the leadership of the Georgia
legislature signing their new bill restricting the writes of minorities
to vote or to drink water in front of a painting of a brutal slave
plantation. At least you have to appreciate their sense of irony.
All across red America, Republicans are promoting COVID-19, trashing democracy, and lying with the same feral abandon that the Abominable Showman himself demonstrated lo these many years.
And because Donald Trump declared by feckless fiat that he actually won the 2020 election in a landslide, Georgia decided they’d like to make it a lot easier for the next right-wing proto-tyrant to steal future elections. That could be Trump—or anyone else for that matter, including MyPillow guy Mike Lindell. Imagine being sent to a Jesus reeducation camp and being forced to sleep on that dude’s subpar bedding every night. I’m just warning you ahead of time, because if the last five years have taught us anything, it’s that nothing is too fucking weird for this timeline.
A few years ago I noted that it’s basically impossible to tell the difference between an April Fools’ joke and something Donald Trump has actually said, so I moved we table April Fools’ Day until we could Tide Pod the ocher butt imprint from our societal fabric.
That day is not now, as Republicans have bravely taken up the mantle of whatever the fuck Trump was doing over the past several years.
In other words, while I’d hoped Trump’s sound electoral defeat would have allowed them to escape their mind prison—a la the Wicked Witch of the West’s praetorian guard following her sudden meltdown—they’re behaving a lot more like the witch’s flying monkeys after finding the key to her liquor cabinet.
Anyway, you may have seen that Ed Bastian, the CEO of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, came out Wednesday with a statement against Georgia’s new voter-suppression bill.
“After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it’s evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives,” the statement read, in part. “That is wrong. The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections. This is simply not true. Unfortunately, that excuse is being used in states across the nation that are attempting to pass similar legislation to restrict voting rights.”
Of course, instead of feeling chastened, the Georgia GOP decided to punch back, Trump-style.
Georgia's Republican-controlled House on Wednesday voted to revoke a major tax break for Delta Air Lines as punishment for its CEO's public criticism of the state's controversial new law clamping down on ballot access.
The state Senate did not take up the measure before lawmakers adjourned for the year, rendering it dead for this year -- but the threat underscores the potential political backlash corporations could face for opposing efforts to restrict voting.
Okay, that’s not cool. Not sure that Delta should be getting a jet fuel tax break to begin with, but that’s neither here nor there. The sick part is that the Georgia legislature is apparently determined to undermine any company that doesn’t toe the voter suppression line.
And it’s not like Georgia Republicans are trying to hide what they’re doing.
"They like our public policy when we're doing things that benefit them," Georgia's Republican House Speaker David Ralston said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "You don't feed a dog that bites your hand."
Is that what standing up for voting rights is tantamount to? Hand-biting?
Yeah, I say we keep this up. Keep pressuring Delta, Coca-Cola, and other big Georgia-based corporations, and if they don’t like it, they can always move. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be better than taking this kind of nonsense from a nest of retrograde racists.
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