mindhog @[email protected]

The sheer audacity of declaring a statewide emergency to combat the unintended consequences of your previous executive order is simply mind-blowing.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/574270-ny-governor-signs-emergency-order-addressing-potential-health-care

So we've finally ended the 35 year long stupid, racist sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine. A disparity that started with a bill that was co-sponsored by our own Joe Biden.
https://reason.com/2021/09/28/house-passes-equal-act-to-erase-sentencing-disparity-between-crack-and-powder-cocaine/

Shadow-banning of articles on natural immunity:
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/sep/12/they-are-controlling-you-they-are-silencing-you/

I've proposed that today, 9/11, be celebrated as "blowback day." Let none forget the costs of empire.

I may be wrong on this, but I suspect that attempts by Biden and the CDC to reinstate masking and lockdowns will not take hold.
When the CDC declared "masks unnecessary for the vaccinated" in May, everything changed within days in my town -- we abruptly went from masks everywhere indoors to dropped requirements and a handful of people wearing them. It's been a few days since the CDC revised it's guidance, and I'm not seeing any sense of urgency this time around.

This article on on Republican legislatures undermining ballot initiatives unintentionally illustrates both the good and bad of democracy. On the one hand, it's very good at getting rid of bad laws that affect the majority (like marijuana prohibition). On the other hand, it allows majorities to enact legislation to the detriment of minorities (ala expanding public education through taxes on "the wealthy")
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/21/republicans-ballot-campaigns-voting-rights-500347

The obvious answer to this is to institute some form of ranked-choice voting. Since this now exists in a number of jurisdictions (most notably at the state level in Maine and Alaska) we need only wait and see what effect this has.

The other reform we should be focusing on is one that neither party is likely to embrace on their own: the two party system has obviously become toxic and is one of the major forces that is tearing our nation apart.
We need more political alternatives, and these have proven difficult to cultivate in winner-take-all elections.

While the Republican efforts are closer to addressing this specific problem, they don't really nail it: we need to develop an election system that is more transparent and fraud resistant.

It seems pretty clear from the aftermath of the past two US presidential elections that there are a lot of people who don't trust the integrity of the election process.
Whether election fraud is widespread or not, it seems like this is the main problem that we should be addressing. You can't sell people on the benefits of democracy if they don't trust it.

There's a lot of focus right now from both the D and R parties on election reform. Both seem to focus mostly on ballot access, with the Dem initiatives striving to increase it and the Rep initiatives seeking to limit it.
Obviously, both are shallow attempts to make voting laws advantageous to the parties pushing them. But what should we be doing?