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Month: March 2018

A tangled web indeed by @BloggersRUs

A tangled web indeed
by Tom Sullivan


Blofeld’s cat in From Russia With Love.

Not only an American election but Brexit too may have been a Cambridge Analytica project.

CA whistleblower Chris Wylie testified before the UK Parliament on Tuesday with more allegations of campaign finance violations by the data team behind the Trump campaign. Wylie alleged that a network of companies conspired to skirt Britain’s campaign finance laws in the lead-up to the Brexit vote:

He added that a Canadian business with ties to Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Group, also provided analysis for the Vote Leave campaign ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum. This research, Wylie said, likely breached the U.K.’s strict campaign financing laws and may have helped to sway the final Brexit outcome.

“If we allow cheating in our democratic process … What about next time? What about the time after that? This is a breach of the law. This is cheating,” he told British politicians Tuesday. “This is not some council race, or a by-election. This is an irreversible change to the constitutional settlement of this country.”

On the heels of news that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before Congress, Wylie had more to say about CA’s use of Facebook profile data:

“The projects I was working on may have had a larger impact than I first expected,” said Wylie, who worked for SCL Group, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, for about one and a half years. “It’s categorically untrue that Cambridge Analytica has never used Facebook data.”

But these bits from The Guardian’s live stream of the hearings provide even more breadcrumbs for special counsel Robert Mueller to follow:

That raises questions about the financial arrangements the Trump campaign had with CA, something Mueller might want to explore. But he’ll have to decide first how credible Wylie is. In a statement, Cambridge Analytica stated, “Chris Wylie has misrepresented himself and the company to the committee, and previously to the news media.”

But this earlier from Wylie sounds like something from a spy thriller:

After the hearing, Wylie threw cold water on the suggestion his former boss, Alexander Nix, ran a SMERSH-like operation:

“He’s a salesman, he likes to sell stuff,” Wylie told the committee, explaining that as head of Cambridge Analytica, Nix’s job was to woo clients, not write algorithms.

“He has no background in psychology, technology, marketing or politics,” the whistleblower told The Washington Post.

Wylie said that Nix and his company didn’t care whether they broke laws in developing countries, as long as they won elections for their clients — in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and the Caribbean.

Asked what he thought might be Nix’s next move, Wylie — a Brexit supporter who sports pink hair and a nose ring — suggested, “Jail?”

If this is a spy thriller, it’s a bad one. Not even a white cat could dress up Steve Bannon.

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Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

One hot lawyer

One hot lawyer

by digby

Evan Hurst at Wonkette put together a funny little tribute to  Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti. After a dissertation on the man’s smoking hotness, he focused in on the Anderson Cooper appearance of last night that was truly one for the books:

The first was an absolutely CRAY BONKERS panel discussion on the Anderson Cooper show “This Is A News Program, Kind Of,” which runs on CNN while the Chris Hayes TV Hour is happening on MSNBC. David Schwartz, who appears to be a two-bit wanna-be thug lawyer, and who represents fellow two-bit wanna-be thug lawyer Michael, was on the panel, along with Avenatti and Jeffrey Toobin, and oh boy, what a show! But where Schwartz did the POUNDY POUNDY YELLY MADNESS thing, because he has nothing to say, Avenatti just grinned and let the baby cry, while he looked at Anderson Cooper like “Are you seeing this right now?” Like so:

Avenatti was able to do this because Michael Cohen and his lawyer are both very bad lawyers, and it’s best to just let them dig their own graves every time they open their mouths.

Schwartz whined that Stormy Daniels and her lawyer are “defaming” Michael Cohen by saying he personally threatened her, which is funny because that didn’t happen, not even once. But did Avenatti need to fight? Nah. He just said, “File a lawsuit.” Schwartz’s belly angrily rolled around like a bowl full of jelly as he whined about Stormy Daniels’s “fake lie detector test,” which led Avenatti to note for the poor dear that God had given him two ears and just one mouth for a reason, because you’re supposed to LISTEN UP, FOOL.

Then Avenatti taunted Schwartz for 10 straight minutes about what a wussy loser and shitty lawyer Michael Cohen is, and when Schwartz somehow decided it would cost Avenatti and Daniels a million dollars each time Avenatti called Cohen a “thug,” Avenatti just said “thug” 12 TIMES, just to annoy the little twat. And then when Schwartz changed the subject and yelled about a different irrelevant thing, Avenatti said “thug” seven more times, just for good measure.

As the segment went on, Avenatti noted that if you believe the bullshit stories being told by Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and David Schwartz, that Trump never had an affair with Stormy Daniels, then paid out $130,000 to cover up nothing, then you need to call Schwartz at his office and baselessly claim you fucked the president, because then you get $130,000 apparently!

At the end, Avenatti, as he often does, quoted late Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama, who said this:

When the facts are on your side, you argue the facts. When the law is on your side, you argue the law. When you have neither the law nor the facts, you pound the table. That’s what’s goin’ on right here!

Here is some of the interview:

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One of the great activists of our time

One of the great activists of our time

by digby


Set your DVR to record this tonight:

One of the most important, yet least known activists of our time, Dolores Huerta was an equal partner in founding the first farm workers union with César Chávez. Tirelessly leading the fight for racial and labor justice, Huerta evolved into one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century — and she continues the fight to this day, in her late 80s. With unprecedented access to this intensely private mother of 11, Peter Bratt’s film Dolores chronicles Huerta’s life from her childhood in Stockton, California to her early years with the United Farm Workers, from her work with the headline-making grape boycott launched in 1965 to her role in the feminist movement of the ’70s, to her continued work as a fearless activist.

I have had the privilege of meeting Huerta a few times and she is an extremely impressive person, worthy of respect, which she has not always been shown even by members of the left. Her legacy is important and should be celebrated.

Fly me to the moon

Fly me to the moon

by digby

… actually, fly me to the fucking moon …

Ah Colbert. I think I might go crazy if it weren’t for him.

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Repeal and rewrite the 2nd Amendment

Repeal and rewrite the 2nd Amendment

by digby

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has written a NYT op-ed suggesting that since the high court decided back in 2008 to define the 2nd Amendment as an individual right maybe the best way to deal with guns is to repeal the 2nd Amendment. Taking that absurd argument away from the gun proliferation zealots so the nation can have some common sense regulations  would be a good first step.

I wrote about that ruling and Stevens’ theories about it a while back for Salon:

In the wake of the horrific Isla Vista, California, mass killing, Americans have once again engaged the debate over gun proliferation. Victims’ families issue primal cries for regulation of these deadly weapons and gun activists respond by waving the Constitution and declaring their “fundamental right” to bear arms is sacrosanct. Indeed, such right-wing luminaries as Joe the plumber, who not long ago shared the stage with the Republican nominees for president and vice president, said explicitly:

“Your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.”

Iowa Republican Senate candidate Jodi Ernst, known for her violent campaign ads in which she is seen shooting guns and promising to “unload” on Obamacare, had this to say when asked about Isla Vista:

“This unfortunate accident happened after the ad, but it does highlight that I want to get rid of, repeal, and replace [opponent] Bruce Braley’s Obamacare. And it also shows that I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. That is a fundamental right.”

This argument is set forth by gun proliferation advocates as if it has been understood this way from the beginning of the republic. Indeed, “fundamental right to bear arms” is often spat at gun regulation advocates as if they have heard it from the mouths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson themselves. But what none of them seem to acknowledge (or, more likely, know) is that this particular legal interpretation of the Second Amendment was validated by the Supreme Court all the way back in … 2008. That’s right. It was only six years ago that the Supreme Court ruled (in a 5-4 decision with the conservatives in the majority, naturally) that there was a “right to bear arms” as these people insist has been true for over two centuries. And even then it isn’t nearly as expansive as these folks like to pretend.

For instance, that gun-grabbing hippie Justice Antonin Scalia went out of his way in that decision to say that beyond the holding of handguns in the home for self-defense, regulations of firearms remained the purview of the state and so too was conduct. He wrote that regulating the use of concealed weapons or barring the use of weapons in certain places or restricting commercial use are permitted. That’s Antonin Scalia, well known to be at the far-right end of the legal spectrum on this issue. Most judges had always had a much more limited interpretation of the amendment.

Justice John Paul Stephens discussed his long experience with Second Amendment jurisprudence in his book “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,” and notes that when he came on the Supreme Court there was literally no debate among the justices, conservative or liberal, over the idea that the Second Amendment constituted a “fundamental right” to bear arms. Precedents going all the way back to the beginning of the republic had held that the state had an interest in regulating weapons and never once in all its years had declared a “fundamental right” in this regard.

So, what happened? Well, the NRA happened. Or more specifically, a change in leadership in the NRA happened. After all, the NRA had long been a benign sportsman’s organization devoted to hunting and gun safety. It wasn’t until 1977, that a group of radicals led by activists from the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms took control and changed the direction of the group to one dedicated to making the Second Amendment into a “fundamental right.”


What had been a fringe ideology was then systematically mainstreamed by the NRA, a program that prompted the retired arch conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger to say that the Second Amendment:

“Has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime”

The results are clear to see. Mass shootings are just the tip of the iceberg. Today we have people brandishing guns in public, daring people to try to stop them in the wake of new laws legalizing open carry law even in churches, bars and schools. People “bearing arms” show up at political events, silently intimidating their opponents, making it a physical risk to express one’s opinion in public. They are shooting people with impunity under loose “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” legal theories, which essentially allow gun owners to kill people solely on the ground that they “felt threatened.” Gun accidents are epidemic. And this, the gun proliferation activists insist, is “liberty.”

Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice (at NYU School of Law) has thoroughly documented all this history in his book, “The Second Amendment: A Biography,” a bit of which was excerpted in Politico magazine. He recommends that progressives who care about this issue think long and hard about how the right was able to turn this around, making a specific case for taking constitutional arguments seriously and using their “totemic” stature to advance the cause. He suggests that they adopt a similarly systematic approach, keeping this foremost in mind:

Molding public opinion is the most important factor. Abraham Lincoln, debating slavery, said in 1858, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.” The triumph of gun rights reminds us today: If you want to win in the court of law, first win in the court of public opinion.

In his book, Justice John Paul Stevens suggest a modest tweak to the Second Amendment to finally make clear what the founders obviously intended:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”

Emotional claims that the right to possess deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns in private hands. Those emotional arguments would be nullified by the adoption of my proposed amendment. The amendment certainly would not silence the powerful voice of the gun lobby; it would merely eliminate its ability to advance one mistaken argument.

This is important. As Waldman notes, where the NRA Headquarters once featured words about safety on the facade of its building, it is now festooned with the words of the Second amendment. Well, some of them anyway:

Visitors might not notice that the text is incomplete. It reads: “.. the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The first half—the part about the well regulated militia—has been edited out.

If they truly believed the 2nd Amendment was absolute and totally clear, you’d think they’d show all the language, wouldn’t you? One can only conclude that they are trying to hide something: its real meaning.

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Trump’s latest creative accounting proposal

Trump’s latest creative accounting proposal

by digby

Has there ever been anyone in government,much less a president, who is as blindly ignorant about the basic system of government as Donald Trump? Apparently, he thinks that because he got so much money for the military in his budget that he can just siphon off some to build his wall because well … they have more than they need.Dear God.

Seriously, he is that dumb:

Trump, who told advisers he was spurned in a large spending bill last week when lawmakers appropriated only $1.6 billion for the border wall, has begun suggesting that the Pentagon could fund the sprawling construction, citing a “national security” risk.

After floating the notion to several advisers last week, he told House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) that the military should pay for the wall, according to three people familiar with the meeting Wednesday in the White House residence. Ryan offered little reaction to the notion, these people said, but senior Capitol Hill officials later said it was an unlikely prospect.

The individuals spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about private discussions.

In another such interaction with senior aides last week, Trump noted that the Defense Department was getting so much money as part of the $1.3 trillion spending package that the Pentagon could surely afford the border wall, two White House officials said. The Pentagon received about $700 billion in the spending package, which Trump repeatedly lauded as “historic.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the omnibus spending bill President Trump signed into law is a “down payment on a border wall system.” (The Washington Post)

Meanwhile, the $1.6 billion in the bill for some fencing and levees on the border not only fell far short of the $25 billion that Trump was seeking, but it came with tight restrictions on how the money can be spent.

It would be unlikely for the military to fund the wall, according to White House and Defense Department officials. The president has suggested to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that his department, instead of the Department of Homeland Security, could fund the construction, two Trump advisers said.

The Pentagon has plenty of money, but reprogramming it for a wall would require votes in Congress that the president does not seem to have. Taking money from the current 2018 budget for the wall would require an act of Congress, said a senior Pentagon official.

To find the money in the 2019 defense budget, Trump would have to submit a budget amendment that would still require 60 votes in the Senate, the official said.

No kidding!The budget of the United States of America is not like the Trump organization’s monthly accounts payable. He can’t just decide that paying for Ivanka’s outstanding sweatshop bill is more important this month than paying his janitors like he usually does.

He’s not getting any better, people. He is just as ignorant and obtuse as he was the day he was inaugurated.

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Russian oligarchs just revere the 2nd Amendment

Russian oligarchs just revere the 2nd Amendment

by digby

So it makes perfect sense that wealthy Russians would want to finance the NRA. They just like the cut of their jib:

In the context of ongoing investigations, Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to the National Rifle Association earlier this month asking, “Can you categorically state that your organizations have never, wittingly or unwittingly, received any contributions from individuals or entities acting as conduits for foreign entities or interests?” 

The NRA said that in fact they do receive foreign money, but not for election purposes.

“While we do receive some contributions from foreign individuals and entities, those contributions are made directly to the NRA for lawful purposes,” NRA’s General Counsel John C. Frazer wrote to Wyden in a letter obtained by NPR. “Our review of our records has found no foreign donations in connection with a United States election, either directly or through a conduit.”

During 2015-2016, Frazer continued, the NRA received money from companies based in the U.S. which may be owned or managed by foreign nationals. “However, none of those entities or individuals is connected with Russia, and none of their contributions were made in connection with U.S. elections,” Frazer added.

The NRA’s response was not sufficient for Wyden. In a letter dated March 27, the senator demanded that the organization provide a detailed accounting of how foreign funds were used over the past three years, whether they were targeted at particular American audiences, and what its measured impact was.

Wyden also demanded to know whether any Russian nationals or foreign individuals had been members of the NRA’s donor programs, and whether the NRA received any money from sanctioned individuals. 

While the NRA claims it does not receive foreign money for election purposes, the movement of its money between accounts could make it difficult, if not impossible, to track how the money is spent since it is not isolated or sequestered.

The NRA has a variety of accounts, and the NRA Political Victory Fund is their official political action committee and must report all of its spending to the Federal Election Commission.

It also has other accounts that require less transparency, and do not report spending to the FEC — and in those funds, the NRA told Wyden, they “receive funds from foreign persons only for purposes not connected to elections, as permitted by federal law.”

However, the NRA acknowledges that money moves between those accounts: “transfers between accounts are made as permitted by law,” the NRA’s general counsel wrote.

The NRA did not immediately respond to a request from NPR to disclose the total sum of its donations from foreign sources.

The NRA has been the subject of criticism for its opposition to gun control measures — criticism that has intensified in the wake of shootings at a high school in Parkland, Fla., last month. 

The controversy around the NRA and alleged ties to Russia center around one man: Kremlin-linked Russian politician Alexander Torshin. Starting in 2011 Torshin began cultivating ties with the National Rifle Association, establishing relationships with NRA officials, most especially former NRA President David Keene.

Torshin is the man in the middle

Torshin’s relationship with the NRA opened the door to his becoming an election observer in during the 2012 U.S. presidential election, at least five years of attendance at NRA conventions, and he even claimed to know Donald Trump through the organization.

“I know D. Trump (through NRA),” Torshin once wrote on Twitter. “A decent person.”

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What Bolton has in mind

What Bolton has in mind
by digby

I wrote about Bolton the horror show for Salon this morning:

All the news about Stormy Daniels and the big gun safety marches over the weekend has put what may be the most dismaying political story of the past few months, the hiring of John Bolton as national security adviser, on the back burner. But the world will not wait, so it’s worth taking a look at what this means now that the dust has settled a bit.

There have been conflicting reports about how Bolton plans to manage the National Security Council. Jonathan Swan at Axios reports that Bolton plans to play the traditional “honest broker” role along the lines of Brent Scowcroft, who served in the position under George H.W. Bush. But according to The Washington Post’s Greg Jaffe, Bolton considers himself more of an imperious Henry Kissinger type. Regardless of his preferred celebrated role model, the word is that he plans a massive shakeup of the council. Foreign Policy reported it this way:

Those targeted for removal include officials believed to have been disloyal to President Donald Trump, those who have leaked about the president to the media, his predecessor’s team, and those who came in under Obama. “Bolton can and will clean house,” one former White House official said.

Another source said, “He is going to remove almost all the political [appointees] McMaster brought in.” A second former White House official offered a blunt assessment of former Obama officials currently detailed or appointed to the NSC: “Everyone who was there during Obama years should start packing their shit.”

The people who were there during “the Obama years” are not political appointees. They are career government employees. But as we’ve seen with the Department of Justice and the FBI, anyone who hasn’t pledged personal fealty to President Trump is suspect and must be purged.

Let’s hope Bolton has better luck staffing the National Security Council with experienced professionals than his boss is having trying to find competent lawyers. More likely he will have to troll the right-wing fever swamps for fellow travelers, which isn’t exactly reassuring.

It’s impossible to believe that someone with Bolton’s extremist ideology and strong personality will play the “honest broker” role the position has traditionally demanded. Unless he has changed since his days in the George W. Bush-era State Department as the undersecretary for arms control in the run-up to the Iraq war, and later as the U.N. ambassador, he will be belligerent, overbearing and dictatorial.

Considering that the president has shown he is incapable of learning anything new about foreign policy and national security that he didn’t glean from “watching the shows” over the years, Bolton stands to be an extremely powerful adviser. It’s not as if there will be any pushback from the usual quarter: the State Department. It has been gutted, and incoming secretary Mike Pompeo is likely to remain Trump’s favorite toady. As long as Bolton can keep the president happy, he should have a free hand from State.

David E. Sanger and Gardiner Harris of The New York Times reported that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are both unhappy with the hire, with Mattis even saying he’s not sure he can work with Bolton. The sad fact is that “the two generals celebrated by President Trump for their reputations for toughness are now considered the moderates — and at risk of falling out of favor,” which seems likely.

Bolton will almost certainly back the president’s desire to tear up the Iran deal. (What Trump wants in its place has never been clear, other than some vague demand that it be more “fair” to America.) Bolton, however, is very clear about what needs to be done: bombing and regime change. Trump, motivated by nothing more than the impulse to do the opposite of previous presidents, especially the hated Barack Obama, can undoubtedly be convinced that accomplishing such a thing would be as easy as he thinks winning a trade war would be.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump often talked about how he wouldn’t stand for China building any islands in the South China Sea, implying that he would take military action to stop it. (It’s an obscure issue to most Americans, but a hot-button topic in Asia.) Bolton agrees with that too. Sanger and Harris report that Bolton wants to abandon the framework that has undergirded the relationship between the two countries since the 1970s:

In 2016, Mr. Bolton wrote that confronting China “may involve modifying or even jettisoning the ambiguous ‘One China’ mantra, along with even more far-reaching initiatives to counter Beijing’s rapidly accelerating political and military aggressiveness in the South and East China Seas.”

Then there is North Korea, where Bolton apparently believes talks are necessary — if only to prove they won’t work and to lay the groundwork for preventive war. He was successful in sabotaging diplomacy back in 2001 when he helped convince President Bush to abandon diplomacy and “get tough” when the nonproliferation agreement started to fray. That’s worked out really well for us: North Korea is now a nuclear power.

Trump’s impulsive decision to accept the standing North Korean invitation to meet as equals on the world stage in a matter of weeks may not end up happening at all. Bolton won’t even have a staff to work with by then and no time to plan out a delicate negotiation. Whether Trump meets Kim Jong-un anyway and blunders in some epic fashion, or they cancel the meeting and Kim is insulted and humiliated, it’s hard to see how this isn’t going to be a disaster. Indeed, John Bolton is almost certain to make sure that it is.

The superhawks are in charge now. And yes, despite Trump’s incoherent gibberish about Iraq during the campaign and his uniquely squishy approach to Russia, he is one as well, even if he doesn’t know it. This is a man, after all, who has proclaimed that he “loves” torture and celebrated apocryphal tales of mass executions with bullets dipped in pig’s blood. Our best hope at this point is that other countries see the danger and tread very carefully — and that the Trump administration is simply too chaotic and dysfunctional at this point, even with Bolton on the team, to carry out any of these policies.

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Creative ways to skin a cat by @BloggersRUs

Creative ways to skin a cat
by Tom Sullivan

Thwarted by the NC Supreme Court in their effort to seize control of our local water system, a Republican legislator remarked, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” The NCGOP wants control of cities’ infrastructure. Enjoined, they’ll look for other ways to do it. Heads up.

There are plenty of creative ways to suppress the vote, too. Photo ID laws, citizenship requirements, curtailing voting hours, siting early voting locations in some neighborhoods and not others, eliminating Sunday voting, shorting voting machines in certain precincts, etc. Take away literacy tests and poll taxes and those determined to maintain their tribe’s dominance in a diversifying country will find other ways to do it.

Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Monday that a question about citizenship status will be reinstated on the 2020 Census to help enforce the Voting Rights Act.

The decision by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross follows a request by the Justice Department to add the question, according to the statement.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and State Secretary Alex Padilla called the decision “insidious,” an effort to “discourage noncitizens and their citizen family members from responding to the census, resulting in a less accurate population count.” They write at the San Francisco Chronicle:

This request is an extraordinary attempt by the Trump administration to hijack the 2020 census for political purposes. Since the first day of his presidential campaign and through his first year in office, President Trump has targeted immigrants: vilifying them and attempting to exclude them from the country. Think travel bans, repeal of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, ramped up Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that tear parents away from their children. Immigrants and their loved ones understandably are, and will be, concerned about how data collected in the 2020 Census will be used.

California, with its large immigrant communities, would be disproportionately harmed by depressed participation in the 2020 census. An undercount would threaten at least one of California’s seats in the House of Representatives (and, by extension, an elector in the electoral college.) It would deprive California and its cities and counties of their fair share of billions of dollars in federal funds.

California would not be the only target. Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight tweets:

Ari Berman of Mother Jones tweets, “Trump admin says citizenship question needed on 2020 census to enforce Voting Rights Act. That’s total farce. Trump DOJ hasn’t filed single lawsuit to enforce Voting Rights Act & is now supporting voting restrictions like TX voter ID law that courts said violate VRA.”

Berman adds, “I spent time recently with immigrant groups in California’s Central Valley for forthcoming @motherjones story. They all told me if Census added question about US citizenship none of them would respond to it. It will have devastating impact on accuracy & fairness of 2020 census.”

Berman says that like lack of fairness is a bad thing. But it’s just another way for Republicans to skin that cat. If only they were as creative in finding solutions to real problems America needs fixing.

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Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

How The NRA is Making Armed Teachers A Reality In Kansas @spockosbrain

How The NRA Is Making Armed Teachers A Reality In Kansas



By Spocko

In my piece Let’s Stop The Armed Teachers Plans In Florida And Other States, I mentioned how in Kansas in 2013, the sole insurance provider for public schools, EMC, said it would not insure any school that armed teachers.

Other insurance carriers may have come forward at the time to provide insurance for these armed teachers, but their rates would have been higher, because of the greater liability risks.  The combination of no insurance, or very expensive insurance, stopped armed teachers from being placed in public schools back in 2013.

NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action saw this insurance roadblock and developed a plan. Someone suggested to lawmakers in Kansas that they insert an amendment in a bill that says “Insurance companies can’t refuse to provide a policy to a school district with armed teachers.”

Next, they added a passage that says the insurance company cannot charge unfair discriminatory premiums, policy fees or rates. This is an attempt force the insurance carriers to eat the cost of the higher premiums necessary to cover the additional risk of gun accidents.

The NRA’s strength isn’t just money, it’s also their legislative strategy and politically active base.  I only found out about this hearing on Friday.  I would love to get all the new activists in Kansas to call members on the committee to say, “We don’t want armed Teachers. Period.”   HB2789
“Creating the Kansas staff as first emergency responders (SAFER) act.”
Chair
Rep. Jene Vickrey (R) Dist 6
  NRA Rating A
785 296-7748, jene.vickrey@house.ks.gov

Vice Chair Rep. Willie Dove (R) Dist. 38.NRA Rating A

 785 296-7677 willie.dove@house.ks.gov

Ranking Minority Member Rep. Cindy Neighbor (D) Dist 18 785 296-7690. Cindy.Neighbor@house.ks.gov NRA Rating F

I  hope that the insurance industry lobbyists have been calling the members on this committee prior to this hearing. They know what the general public doesn’t, the massive costs associated with negligent discharge of firearms. The media calls them gun accidents, but it is negligence that is the deciding factor when it comes to liability.

There is a lot of negligence. According to the National Center for Injury Protection and Control, each year more than 70,000 people are treated in hospital emergency rooms for non-fatal gunshot injuries.

The Center for Disease Control says gun accidents cause more than 15 percent of the injuries and deaths from gunshot wounds.

Why Aren’t Gun Owners Required to be Financially Responsible?



Here’s a relevant story about negligence around guns involving the Rep. Willie Dove, He is vice chair of the Insurance Committee deciding on arming teachers tomorrow in Kansas.

Kansas Rep. Dove leaves loaded handgun in committee meeting room

On January 26, 2017 Rep. Willie Dove (R) Bonner Springs stormed out
of an House Education Committee Hearing, leaving his handgun behind.
Chris Neal/The Capital Journal

In this case no one was injured, but let’s say a legislator dropped his gun and it discharged. (This happens, in New Hampshire in 2017 a state legislator’s loaded gun fell from her waistband to the floor in a committee hearing with children present.  In 2013 an aide to Missouri’s House speaker left a loaded handgun in a Capital bathroom in Jefferson City, Mo.The aide resigned.)

Or let’s say a child got that handgun, fired it and hit someone. It would be just one of the 70,000 gun injuries last year.

But we are talking about insurance here so some questions:

  • Did Dove have insurance to cover this incident?  If so, how big was the policy? 
    What did it cover, what was exempt? The insurance committee knows all about exemptions, they know that when a third party accidently fires the policy owners’ gun. most homeowners’ policies will not cover those costs.

There is no law requiring Dove to have a gun liability insurance, but he is in the insurance world so he might have some coverage, but would it be enough?  Was he covered by the state? How big is that policy? Who pays the premiums for armed legislators? The taxpayers.  How much per armed representative?

How much training did Dove have? Where there any consequences for his negligence in maintaining control of his handgun?  If teachers don’t have enough training and made a mistake with a weapon, who pays?

If a teacher, who is part of this SAFER program, makes a mistake with a weapon while at school the school district will be financially responsible for the consequences. 
Are the school districts prepared for this? What do their risk managers say?
Are the risk managers for the cities and school districts demanding to know the real costs of this program? 

BTW, in Tennessee the legislators tried to shift the financial responsibility to the “volunteer” armed teachers,  suggesting they get their own insurance, but did not offer to pay for it. The lawmakers then voted immunity from liability to the state university system. This is a law that hasn’t been challenged in court, yet. 

Much of the discussion on arming teachers focuses on an active shooter scenario. What this premise  fails to consider is this program would create thousands of people who are now handling firearms. For 100’s of thousands of days and hours there is NEVER an active shooter.  Yet during this time there are thousands of people who are now handling firearms.  People who train people with guns know that humans make mistakes.

How Much Did the Gun Accident in YOUR School District Cost?

I wanted to give people a specific example of medical costs in gun wounds, but HIPAA rules won’t allow me to get details.  so I’ve taken the average costs for the first 48 hours after a shooting from an emergency department study from  Johns HopkinsYou can find gun accidents in your school district, city or state here.  


Here’s an example from Florida:

“During the investigation we found that an uncle that was visiting had accidentally, while clearing his weapon, the weapon had went off and it struck the little girl,” said Captain Virgil Watson, Jackson Co. Sheriff’s Office.

Officials said the girl was life flighted to a Panama City hospital but later transported to the Pensacola area for pediatric attention. The child was struck by the bullet in the lower part of her body.

Officials have not released any names at this time because they are still investigating, but seem to think that no criminal activity took place.  
Cost calculations: In Walton County, Florida the base rate at lift off is $11,902.82, with a surcharge of $118.98 per mile.

$ 18,447     Transportation Life Flight: Marianna to Panama City 55 miles
$ 95,887     Treating wound: emergency room costs only with overnight stay
$179,565    Discharged to another medical facility and incurred costs  (Pensacola transport 91 miles)

—————

$293,898   NOT including additional surgeries, hospital stays and rehabilitation

The average cost for this kind of injury to a child needing multiple surgeries is about 1.5 million dollars 

 By state statute schools must have liability insurance or they can’t open.  Insurance costs are part of the school budget, if premiums go up, schools need to either change the scope of coverage, or change what is covered.

 The school districts that want this program either need to get more money from the city and state to pay for the premiums, or make cuts in other places. 

 The NRA has been very clever in how they have approached getting armed teachers in the classrooms. They have created a demand for a program that is ineffective. They have convinced lawmakers to take  resources from other areas to pay for this non-solution. They have introduced a new danger and liability into the school environment.  This will. generate the NRA revenue from gun sales and training courses.  Yet the gun manufacturers haven’t paid the price for any of this.

The legislators in office now need to see that the rules are changing.  A pro-gun vote is not a safe vote. A legislator cannot expect the people to pay for a bogus solution to the gun violence problem.

If I was in the insurance industry, (or the air transportation industry like Delta) and I saw politicians hurting my businesses in order to suck up to the gun lobby, I would stop funding those people.