Month: February 2016

They’ll stop at nothing

by digby

It’s not enough that you have be prepared to take the LSATs in order to cast your vote these days. Now they’re making sure that nobody can help people register either:

Republican lawmakers approved a measure Thursday that would make felons out of people who return the early ballots of others to the polls.

The 34-23 House vote, with every Democrat present opposed, was propelled by arguments that the current system is ripe for fraud. Rep. Heather Carter, R-Cave Creek, also sided with foes

Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, cited testimony from Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne who spoke during a prior attempt to enact this provision. She told lawmakers there have been situations where individuals claiming to be county election workers have gone door-to-door trying to pick up ballots.

“This is a problem,” he said.

Rep. Bob Thorpe, R-Flagstaff, said allowing strangers to take someone’s ballot would allow them to decide which ones to keep and which ones to throw away. In fact, he said someone might decide to throw away the ballots of all women.

By contrast, Rep. Debbie McCune Davis said the state should not be erecting barriers to voting.

HB 2023 makes it a Class 6 felony to handle anyone else’s voted or unvoted ballot. There are exceptions for family members, those in the same household and professional caregivers.

“This bill criminalizes the act of assisting a person in casting a ballot unless they fit into a designated category,” she said. “The practical impact of this legislation may be to suppress voting and should be examined.”

Rep. Lisa Otondo, D-Yuma, said it’s not always easy for people to get their ballots back in the mail on time. She said there are many areas of the state where people have to go to the post office to get their mail.

And Rep. Charlene Fernandez, D-Yuma, put a number on that, saying it would affect at least 10,000 people in her district, largely in the San Luis area.

But Rep. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, had no sympathy.

He noted the issue involves early ballots which voters specifically request be delivered to their homes as an alternative to going to the polls. Borrelli said there is plenty of time for people to review the ballots, fill them out and get them back in the mail.

And he rejected the contention that it’s too difficult to mail it back. He said these same people have to find ways to get other things to the post office.

“I don’t understand how you pay your bills out there,” Borrelli said.

The measure now goes to the Senate.

Make it as cumbersome as possible to vote. That’s the American way.

And keep in mind, that this all to prevent systemic voter fraud which is non-existent.

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The Kochs vs Trump

by digby

Apparently, the Koch brothers and their pals are in a dither over Trump.  He’s more of a lunatic than even they can stomach and that’s saying something.This piece is by Daniel Schulman, one of the foremost chroniclers of the Koch brothers:

If Trump performs poorly in New Hampshire, the Koch network may be able to avoid a damaging showdown. But if he wins, it may already be too late to halt the runaway Trump train, especially if there’s no Trump-targeting campaign in the can. So what happens if Trump seizes the nomination? Here’s where things get very interesting.

If Trump becomes the nominee and he faces self-declared socialist Bernie Sanders in November, the senior Koch official explains, members of the donor network are likely to hold their noses and back Trump’s candidacy. But there’s another scenario that could prove far more controversial and possibly damaging for the network: a Trump-versus-Clinton matchup. There is absolutely no love between the Clintons and the Kochs, whose company experienced one of the most traumatic periods in its history as it fought off regulators during Bill Clinton’s presidency. But, so strong is the dislike for Trump within Koch network, that a Clinton-Trump race is a tough call. “I could see the network not participating in the presidential election at all,” says the senior Koch official.

This doesn’t mean the Koch network would stand down in 2016 entirely. Under this scenario, donors would instead channel their resources into other races. If this were to occur—and it’s a very big if—that would be a stunning development for a network of donors that has been amassing such a huge warchest for the presidential race.

Who knows if they’d actually do that? Trump would probably kiss their rings and pledge fealty to their agenda and they’d reluctantly support him. They do come from the same social cast of entitled heirs to their fathers’ fortunes. They all know the secret handshake.

Still, it’s fun to see the Big Money Boyz in such a quandary. They have spent decades and hundreds of millions to buy the GOP and they still can’t control the outcome of hese elections. If only they could get those pesky voters out of the equation.

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ICYMI: Cruz’s most astonishing quirk

by digby

Why would he allow anyone to know this? He’s supposed to be a Texas Republican. They go out to the back forty and kill something when they feel a little stressed.  (Or at least clear a little brush.)That is if they feel stress at all, which no real man does.

Ted Cruz seems to appreciate at least one New York value.

For at least the second time in recent days, the Texas senator’s wife, Heidi, has described his method of relieving tension during anxious campaign moments: show tunes.

“He’ll call me and just sing me a Broadway tune,” Mrs. Cruz told a crowd here on Tuesday.

It can happen without warning, “right before one of these debates” or “in a stressful moment in a state,” she said.

It is usually well received — “he never ceases to defuse a stressful moment with a moment of levity,” Mrs. Cruz said — but not always.

“I’m thinking, ‘I’m on a finance call right now,’ ” Mrs. Cruz recalled. “Do you really need to be doing this?”

On Tuesday, Mrs. Cruz detailed neither the quality of her husband’s performances nor his favored song choices.

A spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a message seeking Mr. Cruz’s theatrical preferences.

I think Mrs Cruz has gone off the reservations with that one. First of all, it makes him sound like one of those florists who is happy to provide flower arrangements for a gay wedding, if you know what I mean. The second is that she sounds like quite the uppity little lady with her “I’m on a finance call right now” as if her fancy career is important or something.

Cruz is a harcore conservative down to his bones. I even believe that he’s sincerely evangelical. But perhaps one of the things that people find off-putting about him is that he’s a total phony about his affiliation with southern, cultural conservatism. Obviously, he’s a city boy with city boy tastes and habits. If he were as crude and disgusting as Trump maybe he could get away with it.  But it just doesn’t track for a Texas evangelical conservative to sing showtunes. It just doesn’t.

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Unexpected turbulence: Elections ruling in NC
by Tom Sullivan

Folks, this is your captain speaking. It looks like we’ve hit some unexpected turbulence and I’m going to turn on that seatbelt sign “DIIIIIING.” Flight attenands please return to your seats. As soon as it smoothes out, we’ll continue our service.

North Carolina last night hit a patch of turbulence in the form of a federal court ruling. This was still breaking last night (emphasis mine):

RALEIGH, N.C. — Three federal judges on Friday threw out the congressional voting maps the Republican-led General Assembly drew five years ago, ruling that two districts were gerrymandered along racial lines.

The ruling throws the March 15 primary into chaos, as the judges ordered state lawmakers to redraw the maps within two weeks and not to hold any elections for U.S. House until the maps are in place. A special session of the legislature would have to be called to approve new maps, and they might have to pass federal muster again.

Which is not to say that the clever, well-paid consultants who drew the districts for the GOP the first time won’t get overtime and bonuses to redraw them within two weeks just as cleverly, if more subtly. Redrawing CDs 1 and 12 will cascade down to adjoining districts. Of course, the Republicans will appeal immediately.

The judges were not impressed by the state’s defense:

Friday’s ruling was strongly worded in discounting the legislature’s claims that race played no part in drawing the new maps, saying the redistricting had fundamentally affected citizens’ rights to vote.

“The record is replete with statements indicating that race was the legislature’s paramount concern,” the ruling says.

Furthermore, WRAL reports:

“There is strong evidence that race was the only nonnegotiable criterion and that traditional redistricting principles were subordinated to race,” 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Roger Gregory wrote for the court. “In fact, the overwhelming evidence in this case shows that a (black voting-age population) percentage floor, or a racial quota, was established in both CD 1 and CD 12. And, that floor could not be compromised.”

The Washington Post gives a hint of the coming chaos:

North Carolina congressional primaries are scheduled March 15, with mail-in absentee ballots already being turned in. Other adjoining districts would have to be adjusted, too.

“The trial court’s 11th-hour decision that throws an election already under way into turmoil,” GOP Rep. David Lewis and Sen. Bob Rucho, chairmen of General Assembly redistricting committees, said in a release, suggesting a primary delay was possible without intervention. “This decision could do far more to disenfranchise North Carolina voters than anything alleged in this case.”

Rucho should know. He was in charge of the 2011 gerrymander.

ABC News:

[T]he ruling marked the first time judges had struck down specific districts drawn by GOP legislators during this round of congressional and legislative redistricting. There are two other pending legal cases alleging illegal racial gerrymandering. The 2011 lines, which were initially signed off on after review by the U.S. Justice Department, have helped Republicans expanded their majorities at the General Assembly and within the state’s congressional delegation.

Rev. William Barber, head of the NC NAACP said in his statement, “This ruling by all three judges is a vindication of our challenge to the General Assembly of North Carolina writing racially biased ‘apartheid’ voting districts to disenfranchise the power of the African-vote.”

In my wallet I have a list of calls to return from people with absentee ballot questions ahead of the March primary. Those are going to be some interesting conversations.

What’s the catch of the day?

by digby

Table for one sea lion, please. This pup was discovered in a US restaurant, sat down at one of the venue’s booths https://t.co/lbYDAp1t48

— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 5, 2016

Getting real with the F-Bomb

by digby

Trump’s going for it:

Donald Trump had a four-letter word fest at last night’s campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

‘You can tell them to go f— themselves, because they let you down and they left,’ Trump said, directing his ire at American companies that relocated overseas.

‘We’re going to knock the s— out of ISIS,’ Trump said at another point.

And encouraging New Hampshire voters to get to the polls on Tuesday for the country’s first primary, Trump dropped another swear word.

‘I don’t give a damn, you’ve got to get out of bed,’ he said.

It’s not the first time he’s done it during a speech, just the first time in this campaign:

But that’s nothing. He likes to criticize Obama and other leaders as “babies.” I’m waiting for him to slip in the word he really wants to use.

I’m guessing the c-word is in the rotation too.

Deporting elderly veterans is a national shame

by digby

Donald Trump says he loves the troops. He says it over and over again. Someone ought to ask him if he loves this guy:

Private First Class Andres De Leon, 72, signed up for the U.S. Army to fight in Vietnam when he turned 18-years-old at a time many were trying to avoid the war. He served for 12 years and spent two full years overseas before being honorably discharged. Like many veterans, he suffers from depression, that spiraled out of control when his mother passed away. But unlike most veterans, his depression led to him being deported.

De Leon may have moved to Madera, California with his family legally when he was 12-years-old but he was deported when he became addicted to heroin to medicate his depression and was eventually arrested for possession. Section 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (I.N.A.) lists this as a valid reason for deportation and three years into his sentence at Soledad State Prison, ICE came knocking.

By 2009, an immigration judge ordered De Leon back to Mexico where he hasn’t lived for over 50 years. He’s living in Tijuana today in a one room apartment after spending his first few weeks homeless and on the streets. With no friends or family and certainly no veterans benefits, his sister fears that his type-2 diabetes isn’t being taken care of.

“I got no choice,” he told a local TV station Fox40 back home. “I have to stay here but I’m doing the best I can.”

His story is sad enough and you would think that there aren’t many like him, but you’d be wrong. Once back in Mexico he met Hector Barajas, a former paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne who told De Leon there were dozens like them. In 2013, Barajas started a safe house for veterans from the United States that are deported to Mexico.

“We believe none of these men should be left behind,” he said. “We talk about supporting the troops, let’s keep supporting these men. Treat these men with honor.”

One in six veterans who served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from a substance abuse issue. Those veterans who seek treatment for PTSD report alcohol-use disorders to the tune of 60 to 80 percent, according to the National Center for PTSD.

De Leon, Barajas and their friends are victims of cracks in a complicated system. Justice For Vets is an organization that works to help veterans that end up in the courts because of drug and alcohol abuse. They work with veteran treatment courts that require mandatory treatment and court appearances to help incentivize veterans to get clean and sober. But immigrants aren’t eligible if they break the law. They’re simply deported.

“I’ve been told the only way I can return is dead. So, if dead is the only way I can return, I would like to be buried with my friends in the Catholic Cemetery in Madera, California,” De Leon said.

“Why would they honor us only when we die? They’re going to give an American flag to our families and say, ‘Thank you for your service to your country,’” Barajas said. “If you want to honor our men, let them get their treatment. Let them live with their families.”

Everything about that is wrong. From Vietnam to the drug war to the immigration laws, this guy got it coming and going. There’s no excuse for the US Government not taking care of him in his old age. None.

And while we’re asking Trump about this, maybe we should ask all the other candidates about it too, including Sanders and Clinton. And President Obama too.

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That Benghazi attitude

by digby

I keep forgetting he’s still in the race:

Ben Carson compared Ted Cruz’s mea culpa for spreading rumors about his campaign to the “attitude” Hillary Clinton expressed after the Benghazi attacks, Buzzfeed reported.

Carson was asked by Todd Starnes on a podcast posted Thursday night about whether Cruz “handled himself as a Christian” in response to reports that the Cruz campaign circulated rumors among supporters the night of the Iowa caucus that Carson was suspending his campaign.

Carson took issue with Cruz failing to take what Carson called “corrective action.”

“Not to take corrective action is tacitly saying it’s okay, or it’s sort of like, as Hillary Clinton said after Benghazi, ‘What difference does it make,’” Carson said.

Starnes followed-up with Carson on the comparison, to which Carson added, “I’m not saying that it rises to the level up Benghazi, I’m saying it’s the same kind of attitude.”

He was leading or in second place for a good part of the primary season. He’s still polling better than Bush, Kasich and Christie combined nationally.

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A new right wing martyr

by digby

You knew this would happen, right?

A wooden cross and cowboy hat appeared on the side of a remote Oregon highway just days after Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was shot by a state police officer.

For weeks, Finicum was the public face of the armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, until his death marked the violent culmination of the standoff. Leaders of the occupation were arrested that day, and most of the people who hunkered down for nearly a month there trickled out as the FBI surrounded the compound.

The weeks-long standoff seemed to be winding down.

But rather than an end, the death of the Arizona rancher at the hands of state police has marked the continuation of a simmering anti-government movement that manifested in Oregon, and a rallying cry for a growing number of armed militias across the country.

Memorials for Finicum have since spread through social media. Facebook posts hail the rancher as a hero against government tyranny. Songs have been written about the Arizona rancher, and conspiracy theories about how his final encounter with police have swirled online after his death.

“The more radicalized individuals are going to look at Finicum as a martyr,” Robert Harris, a former case manager for the Federal Bureau of Prisons told BuzzFeed News.

I’m pretty sure this is exactly why all those guys did their suicide videos.

“He put things in plain English so that people could understand,” Jordan Page, a musician whose songs carry a strong political message of freedom, Second Amendment rights and limited government, told BuzzFeed News. “Whether you agreed with him or not, he lived a life based on principles.”

Hours after the shooting, Page wrote a song as a tribute to Finicum, called A Cowboy’s Stand For Freedom. He didn’t agree with the decision to take the refuge at first, but said he began to sympathize with their tactics when he learned more about their grievances on federal management of lands.

“Once I understood what they were trying to do I was more supportive,” Page said.

“He left his home to go and take a stand, his voice voice rang out across the deafening land,” he sings in a YouTube video shared more than 21,000 times. “In the end it was a bullet that exposed a lie. A truth remembered is a battle won, though his murder cannot be done.”

Page has viewed the video released by the FBI of the shooting, and like some, believes the use of force wasn’t justified.

“I think he was trying to draw the fire away from the truck because there were women and friends in the truck,” he said. “I think he probably knew it was his time”

Page doesn’t believe Finicum was reaching for a weapon, but instead grabbing a wound after being shot first. He also questions the FBI’s statement that Finicum reached for a gun on his left side, pointing out similar social media postings that the rancher wore a holster on his right side.

The FBI, however, states Finicum reached toward his left side at least twice before a state police officer fired. A video released by the agency seems to back up that claim.

“So many people in this country are distrustful of government, and scared of government, and that’s not the way it’s supposed to be,” Page said. “They’re supposed to be scared of us.”

“So many people in this country are distrustful of government, and scared of government”
After Finicum’s death, however, several militia leaders appeared to be doubling down on their efforts.

“I got pissed, in super capital letters,” Gary Hunt, of Operation Mutual Defense told BuzzFeed News. “I don’t know how many times they (law enforcement) said they wanted a peaceful solution.”

A network of regional militias, the group helps organize response to “assist patriots in the defense of lives, individual liberties and property.”

After the shooting, Hunt said he put out a call to militia members to flock to Harney County to support the remaining occupiers.

“Everybody said, ‘Yes, hell yes,’” he said. “There was an echo almost.”

Hunt decided to rescind the order when he realized the FBI was already surrounding the compound.

Still, he said similar standoffs are all but certain to continue to make sure Finicum’s life was not lost in vain.

He was actually armd and waving a gun around. You’d think these people who are so concerned about overzealous government authorities would be a little bit more concerned about them shooting unarmed black teenagers. But they don’t appear to care about that. The Oath Keepers did show up in Ferguson. To protect the property owners.

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Requiem for Rand Paul

by digby

I wrote about the last stand for Rand for Salon:

GOP leaders in Washington, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), had grown increasingly concerned about how little Paul was raising for his Senate race while running for president. Paul raised just $156,000 for the reelection race at home in the third quarter, a paltry sum that would not be enough for a competitive House race.

If you shrink the government, Paul promises, you will shrink the criminal justice system too. And Paul has offered more than simply rhetoric in support of his idea that less government is the solution #BlackLivesMatter is looking for. He’s also sponsored criminal justice reform legislation, including a bill that would restore voting rights to many people convicted of non-violent offenses.

Paul’s call for less overbearing police forces, however, comes at a high price — and not just to people of color who risk being excluded from hotels and lunch counters. In his speech praising the Buchanan decision, Paul also likened this case to another Supreme Court precedent that he would like to restore: the Court’s 1905 decision in Lochner v. New York.

Lochner is anti-precedent, a decision that is literally taught in law schools as an example of how judges should not behave. Relying on a fabricated “right to contract,” Lochner gave employers broad immunity from laws intended to protect workers from exploitation. The Lochner decision itself struck down a law limiting New York bakery workers to a 60 hour work week. Subsequent decisions applying this fabricated right invalidated minimum wage laws and laws protecting workers’ right to organize.

According to Paul, this is the way things should be.