The Republican Mask Slips Again...

 ...And Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin accidentally tells the truth.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is facing accusations of racism after saying the supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January didn't worry him but that he might have been concerned if they had been supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement.

"I knew those were people who love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn't concerned," Johnson said about the predominantly white crowd that marched to the U.S. Capitol to overturn a presidential election and triggered an assault that left five people dead, 140 police officers injured and windows smashed.

"Now, had the tables been turned, and Joe — this is going to get me in trouble — had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa, I might have been a little concerned," Johnson said during an interview with syndicated radio show host Joe "Pags" Pagliarulo.

 

In the end, what white supremacist Republicans are terrified of the most is Black people having power, and using that power to do to white supremacist Republicans what they have been doing to us for 400 years.

 

Nothing scares them more.

 

Nothing.

"What, white people love this country and Black people don’t? That’s exactly what he’s saying," state Sen. LaTonya Johnson, a Democrat from Milwaukee who is Black, said.

Johnson, who is not related to Ron Johnson, said it wasn't Black Lives Matter protesters who triggered an insurrection that left five people dead, including a police officer.

"For him to say something as racist as that — it’s ridiculous," she said. "It’s a totally racist comment and the insult to injury is he didn’t mind saying it in the position that he holds because for some reason that’s just deemed as acceptable behavior for people who live in and are elected officials in this state."

Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he made the comment because, out of about 10,000 protests that took place last summer in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, 570 turned violent and caused billions of dollars worth of property damage. 

 

Sure, that excuses the racism.

 

Black Lives Matter, Ron.

It's About Suppression, Con't

 ...And the racist, vote-suppressing GOP accidentally tells the truth about their "election integrity" bills across the nation, in states like Arizona, where state GOP legislators are busy stopping those people from ever being allowed to vote.

SB 1485, which has already passed the state Senate and now heads to the full House, would have the state send notices to people who are on the permanent early voting list but have not participated in the last four elections -- so, the 2018 primaries and midterm election and the 2020 primaries and election -- asking if they want to continue to receive ballots. Those who do not respond would be removed. 

Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, the Scottsdale Republican who sponsored the measure, said it is a "clean-up bill" to ensure ballots are not being created for and mailed to those who have moved, died or don't want them. 

"On its face, it would make sense that you would want to reduce opportunities for fraud, undo influence, manipulation. That should be something that we all agree on, right?" she said. "Allowing voters to sign up in perpetuity does increase the opportunity for things to go wrong." 

Rep. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican who chairs the Government and Elections Committee that advanced Ugenti-Rita's measure on a party-line vote Wednesday, said GOP lawmakers are concerned about what happens to ballots automatically sent to people who have moved or have died. 

He acknowledged that the concerns about those ballots being cast fraudulently are "anecdotal, because obviously if nobody's there and they throw it away, you wouldn't know. And if nobody's there and they vote it and do a good duplicate of the signature, you wouldn't know." 

"There's a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans," Kavanagh said. "Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they're willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote -- but everybody shouldn't be voting." 

He pointed to Democrats' emphasis on registering voters and pursuing those who have not returned ballots -- tactics that Republicans have successfully implemented in other swing states -- and said doing so means that "you can greatly influence the outcome of the election if one side pays people to actively and aggressively go out and retrieve those ballots." 

"Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they're totally uninformed on the issues," Kavanagh said. "Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well."

 

They're not even bothering to hide the fact that their bills are about stopping those voters who lack "quality" from ever voting, or their votes being counted when they do jump through all the hoops.

It's always been reconstituting Jim Crow.