Well…. so much for those Delta Skymiles. The State of Georgia’s largest employer Delta Airlines’ CEO released a scathing memo that has enraged Republicans and conservatives nationwide. Delta CEO Ed Bastian wrote, “I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.”
Bastian went on to accuse the bill’s framers of deliberately making it harder for “underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives.” which the bill absolutely doesn’t do. And he further refuted that the 2020 Election was in any way fraudulent or irregular saying that the bill “was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections.”
Here are the bullet-points of the New Georgia Voting law from Savannah Now,
- The absentee ballot request period is shorter, starting 11-weeks before the elections and ending 11 days before.
- Runoff elections are shortened to four weeks instead of nine.
- The bill tightens requirements for county elections supervisors, such as requiring them to have absentee ballots counted by 5 p.m. the day after elections.
- It bans the use of mobile voting buses for early voting except in emergencies.
- Drop boxes have been authorized for use by the law, but they’re only available during early voting hours and are placed inside early voting locations. There is also a population cap at one per 100,000 active voters in the county or one for every early v oting locations. Counties must choose between the smaller of the two. Drop boxes are only to be accessible during early voting.
- Passing out food and drink to voters is criminalized and partisan poll watchers will need to undergo training. Poll workers can pass out water to waiting voters.
- The Secretary of State will no longer chair the State Election Board, the chair will instead be chosen by the legislature.
Author’s Note: Breaking my own rule again, I almost never write in the first person for Patriot United News. But if anyone realistically finds that any of these points legitimately prevent ANYONE from voting on a basis of their race then they clearly suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations. On its’ face Ed Bastian’s claim holds no water at all and is furthermore insultingly patronizing to the “”underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters,” he refers to.
Delta Airlines antipathy and yes even hatred for conservatives has become blatantly obvious to all but the most willfully ignorant as this memo followed reports of the airline going on a power trip. Going so far as generating a blacklist to refuse service to American patriots who dared to criticize Senators Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham following the January 6th debacle. Bastion told Reuters,
“Turning to disruption on recent U.S. flights by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, Bastian said Delta has placed passengers involved in incidents that targeted senators Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham on its no-fly list.”
Georgia Republicans Respond to Delta
As one might expect with such a proclamation from High Lords of Delta, the peasants in the halls of the Georgia Capitol complex were not amused.
Governor Brian Kemp, a RINO in his own right who signed the bill into law said Wednesday that corporations should stay out of politics.
“These business owners don’t live here and don’t know what our laws are,” Kemp said in an interview on CNBC. “Quite honestly, our laws aren’t as restrictive as the states where a lot of these businesses are residing. Perhaps they should focus on their own states.”
Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (R) told the press Thursday,
“They like our public policy when we’re doing things that benefit them, and they reap the rewards of those benefits and then turn around and do this,” Ralston told reporters, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting. “As all of you know, I can’t resist a country boy line or two, you don’t feed a dog that bites your hand. You’ve got to keep that in mind.”
Bonchie even wrote for RedState,
“There is nothing objectively wrong with Georgia’s election reform bill. It expands early voting, something most Republican voters don’t even support. It sets standards for reporting votes and data management after an election, something everyone should be in favor of. The voter ID provision is standard fare and the majority of states in the country have the same thing. If Delta is really doing all this over the non-issue of water bottles, they are even dumber than they appear.”
The Hill reported that in the waning hours of the session the legislature passed a bill to repeal a tax break on jet fuel aimed at punishing Delta for their transgression, however, the retaliatory measure did not pass the Senate.
Since then other brands that have embraced “wokeness” such as Coca-Cola, Merck and M&T bank have followed Delta’s lead in criticizing the Georgia GOP for their sin of attempting to increase elections security in the face of an election that will go down in history for destroying American faith in the institution of the vote.