Ari Berman at Mother Jones:

During the 2020 election cycle in Georgia, Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state. His efforts to manipulate the electoral process failed after Raffensperger stood up to the president and defended the integrity of the election. But if the Georgia legislature has its way, Republicans could have a much easier time overturning the will of voters in future elections. 

The Georgia House of Representatives passed a major power grab on Thursday on a party-line vote that would remove Raffensperger as the chair and a voting member of the state election board, which oversees the certification of elections and voting rules, and instead allow the GOP-controlled legislature to appoint a majority of the board’s members, including the chair. “This is extraordinarily dangerous,” says Sara Tindall Ghazal, the former election protection director of the Georgia Democratic Party. “When you’re appointing the majority of the body that you’re responsible to, it’s self-dealing.”

The state board, in turn, would have extraordinary power under the bill to take over county election boards it views as underperforming, raising the possibility that elections officials appointed by and beholden to the heavily gerrymandered Republican legislature could take over election operations in Democratic strongholds like Atlanta’s Fulton County, where Trump and his allies spread conspiracy theories about “suitcases” of ballots being counted by election officials in November after GOP poll monitors had left.

This is baaaaaaaaaaaad.

The Georgia House bill not only affects who will oversee elections, but also who gets to vote. In January, the right-wing group True the Vote challenged the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of voters in runoff elections won by Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, based on an unreliable postal database. Only a few dozen votes were actually thrown out, but under another provision of the House bill, future challenges could find much greater success. If the bill becomes law, conservative activists would be able to challenge the eligibility of an unlimited number of voters, and local election boards would be required to hear these challenges within 10 days or face sanctions from the state election board, which could pressure county officials to hastily remove eligible voters from the rolls or wrongly reject their ballots.

In short they’re openly rigging the system in their favor, and if it goes to the Supreme Court it will be upheld by the conservative majority.

It will be Selma 1964, or worse.

More from Ari Berman (who wrote the book on the subject).

Watching the clip did give me a horrific “is this 1964 again?? are we really going back there???” feeling.

This is dreadful. Brian Kemp just signed Georgia’s filthy new voter suppression law, and the cops arrested a state representative – Dem AND BLACK of course – for trying to observe the signing. Watch the clip and be horrified.

Originally a comment by Pliny on Stuck.

WooHOO!, a discussion about ships, something this old salt can contribute to. Carbon footprint wise, it’s hard to compete with these giants on an emissions per cargo ton carried level. They are extremely efficient which is why there has been a move to larger and larger ships – fewer sailors and lowered fuel costs per ton. Remember, the construction and operating costs of these ships pencils out in a global marketplace. It’s part of the reason you can buy less expensive goods manufactured overseas.

If you want to rail against emissions, it’s better to go after interstate trucking in the USA. Compared to rail transport, semis double the carbon footprint per ton carried. They also suck when following too closely during rush hour.

As for nuclear power, only one civilian transport has ever been nuclear powered under a US flag – the Savannah. Why? Construction costs and maintenance are at least 50-100% higher. There are restrictions on access to ports. Even the profligate US Navy can only afford nuclear power for carriers and subs because the mission effectiveness value is felt to justify the cost, but only just. Most other navies build less expensive non-nuclear subs but since the USN tactical doctrine involves forward deployment, diesel-electric (Or AIP) subs are less effective in that role.

And of course if something goes wrong – well, if a diesel engine leaks fuel it can be bad – if a reactor does, they call it a meltdown…

There’s this

And, in reply, there’s this

Lindsay Crouse of the New York Times “produced the Emmy nominated Opinion Video series “Equal Play,” which brought widespread reform to women’s sports.”

Now, however…

This year, lawmakers in more than 20 states have introduced legislation to ban transgender kids from girls’ sports, under the guise of protecting women and girls. Bills have already passed in Mississippi and Idaho.

Not “transgender kids” but boys. The issue, as I’m sure she knows, is boys playing on girls’ teams.

The cause is catching on: One recent Politico poll found that 46 percent of women support a ban on transgender athletes (as do 43 percent of young adults born since 1997).

Again: not a ban on transgender athletes, a ban on male athletes competing against female athletes.

It’s telling how consistently the defenders of boys competing against girls obscure what they’re actually defending.

This is disappointing. We might look to champions like Megan Rapinoe, Billie Jean King and Candace Parker, who have been outspoken supporters of inclusion, as well as trans athletes who are shouldering the brunt of this fight. Exclusion elevates nobody.

But inclusion of what, exclusion of what?

If girls and women can’t have their own sports then they can’t ever win anything. This is Crouse’s subject yet she gets it completely wrong.

She goes on for many more paragraphs saying much the same thing – why worry about trans kids when women’s sports are already devalued? – without making any more sense, let alone addressing the actual issue.