Better Be White And Out Of College To Vote In Florida

    We all know that the Republican Party can not win an election if played by the rules, so what do they do? Attempt to make sure that most groups of people can’t  register to vote, or have a harder time doing so.

  The Florida Taliban is hard at work doing just that.

Florida GOP Legalizes Voter Suppression, Including a Return to Jim Crow  SemDem at DailyKos       Wed Apr 27, 2011

The GOP completely dominates Florida government.  Through a sick combination of financial corruption, massive gerrymandering, a very lame state Dem party, and (until very recently) a low information voter epidemic.

They not only have a right-wing felon in the governor's mansion, but hold every statewide office sans one Senate seat.

They completely dominate the state legislature: an 80-39 seat advantage in the House and 28-12 advantage in the Senate.  (Gerrymandering is so bad that NO ONE lost their seat in the 2006/2008 blue waves.)

The teabag legislation this session has ranged from funny to frightening.  And they don't want anyone to stop their good times.

The ONLY thing that can stand in their way are two factors: 

1.  The independent court system
2.  A very angry, recently awakened electorate.

This week, the GOP teabag lawmakers went after BOTH of them with guns blazing.  Priority one is jobs holding on to power.

This was originally going to be a diary on both of those efforts, but I had to split them up or this would be one big hairy diary. Today you will see the Voter Suppression bill, which is poised to pass.  Next I will look at their strategy for dismantling the courts.

VOTER SUPPRESSION:

I have been a poll watcher ever since the 2000 election.  One thing I fought hard against were republican poll workers who tried to always give provisional ballots out when they weren't warranted.  Why? 

MOST PROVISIONAL BALLOTS ARE NOT COUNTED!!!!

According to the Advancement Project, in 2008, 51% of provisional ballots in Florida were not counted.

Naturally, the GOP is determined to give likely Dem voters provisional ballots.  Lessee.. women, minorities, and college students. 

Here is what the 100+ page Voter Suppression bill does to you:

Women. Name change?  No vote for you!  Since the civil rights era, if you changed your marital status you could update your information at the polls and vote a regular ballot that is guaranteed to be counted.  No more.  Tens of thousands of newly married women voters in 2012 will be forced to use the shifty provisional ballots.

College students. The largest population that requires address changes are college students.  If they failed to notify the elections supervisor of their new address long before the election, they too will no longer get a regular ballot.  Again, for 40 years you could update your address at the polls.  For 40 years there has never been a problem with this.. .until now.  

Dark skin? Democrat?  Gotta love this one:

There are many other new regulations, several depriving voters of their chance to work out problems at the polls. For instance, if voters are challenged for any reason, they would be required to cast a provisional ballot. And they could not receive legal help while in line, as before.

The Florida GOP is wasting no time with this one.  They are already staging vote caging operations for 2012.  Thanks!

Horrified?  Thought you would be.  But it gets even better:

Voter-registration groups would have to register all their volunteers and paid staff with the state’s Division of Supervisors of Elections, which would then create a database.  What's the purpose of the database?  NO ONE KNOWS.  But in a state where they don't want to make a pill-mill database because it violates the privacy of drug dealers have no trouble with a database that records information of people who just want to help others vote.

Restrict the ability of news media and bloggers to take video or audio of voters at polling places.  Nice.  This is a little gift to those vote-cagers we talked about.

Volunteers have to turn in registration forms within 48 hours, are face fines and possible criminal penalties.

Why this?  The legislature has tried unsuccessfully in the past to outlaw 3rd party registration groups... so they are trying to eliminate them indirectly.  Case in point, the League of Women Voters in Florida said they may have to cease voter registration if this passes.

Now non-partisan, elected, county supervisors of elections willl be put under the control of the politically appointed Secretary of State. The Secretary would have the ability to issue orders to these county officials or remove those who do not comply!

Cut early voting in half (most early voting is done by Democrats)

Cut time for citizen-led initiatives to gain the required 600.000 signatures from four years to just 20 months.

As a side note, any meaningful reform has come from these citizen initiatives--like Fair Districts (which is under attack).  This is just the first step in the eventual elimination of these intiatives.

The GOP was asked by a few in the media why they are so hell-bent on disenfranching voters.  They claim it is all an effort to "stamp out fraud".

Interesting, since even our Sec of State had to admit he could find no cases of voter fraud.  The former GOP chairman told the media to talk with the election supervisors about all the fraud... except none of them, NOT EVEN THE GOP ONES, claim there has been any.

What can we do?

Contact your legislator.  Yes. If GOP it may fall on deaf ears but we've had success restoring funding to disabled kids, stopping the destruction of our parks, and halting the AZ anti-brown people law.  They sense the backlash and some may want to pick their battles.  If Dem, tell them to fight this in court after they vote against it or contact the DOJ.

In fact, you contact the DOJ.  Poll taxes, literacy tests, and other forms of suppression are why the federal govenrnment got involved and review changes in our voting laws under the Voting Rights Act.  I strongly feel these attacks warrant intervention.

The governor has already made it so people who have paid their debt to society cannot vote for 5-7 years after release, with the sole intention of taking 1 million minorities out of the equation for upcoming elections.   The ACLU, noting that this was the original law put in place for retaliaion of the 15th amendment, is taking up that cause after our attorney general said that this somehow didn't apply to the Voting Rights Act.

I can't stop the Voter Suppression bill from becoming law, but I'll be damned if I let this go quietly.

Originally posted to SemDem on Wed Apr 27

Technorati Tags: Florida,2012 Elections,Rick Scott,Voters,Vote Suppression,Jim Crow,Current Events,Republican Party

 

Okay, You Racist “ Birthers “…

   …the issue over President Obama’s  birth certificate is now officially dead. At least until the ignorant fools over at the Redstate site and their Tea Party friends invent a different conspiracy .

The White House on Wednesday morning released the president's long form birth certificate (pdf) in an attempt to put "birther" questions to rest.

"The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn't good for the country. It may have been good politics and good T.V., but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement.

  For those of you who will now be joining the reality-based world, though only briefly, go look in your mirror and see just how uneducated, dumb, and ignorant you have made yourself look just for pushing this non-issues for over two years.

  That idiot  Donald Trump is taking credit for the release having said at one point that many have tried to get the birth certificate made available, but only he was able to finally get it done. What a load of shit.

  Of course, the Donald says that the long-form certificate has to now be inspected for its authenticity and such other bullshit.

Trump said he and others are still going to have to assess the document's authenticity. We're "going to look at it. We have to see if it's real, if it's proper," Trump said. But he added that he's "sure it's the right deal" and is looking forward to moving on to more important issues such as OPEC and China.

  Perhaps Trump will visit China and impart unto them some of his massive business acumen.

Technorati Tags: Birthers,President Obama,Birth Certificate,Tea Party,Current Events,Republicans,American Taliban

If you are a “birther” then this is what you have to believe.

  By  updoc101  Tue Apr 26, 2011    Original Article

Barack Obama's mother was Stanley Ann Dunham (November 29, 1942 – November 7, 1995), a teen mother who later got a Ph.D. in anthropology, and a woman so brilliant, so devious, so wealthy, that she was able to pull off the greatest conspiracy since the murder of Gaius Julius Caesar. Some suspect that she may have played a role in that as well. By distracting the worlds entire military-industrial complex, multiple world leaders, the Republican Party, the Koch brothers, and the United States Supreme Court she managed to insert her Muslim, foreign born, black son into the most powerful position in the world and take command of the world’s largest military. A stunningly beautiful piece of subversion, performed largely from beyond the grave, and one that exposes not only the high level of Muslim contamination in our intelligence networks but the very lack of American, British, German, and Interpol’s ability to perform even their most basic duties. Incredible.

All of this, mind you, without detection by the United States Intelligence Community, Director of National Intelligence, National Intelligence Council, National Counterterrorism Center, National Counterintelligence Executive, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis , United States Intelligence Community, The Joints Chiefs of Staff, Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Carter, Clinton, and both Bush’s, Rupert Murdoch, The Director of National Intelligence, National Intelligence Council, National Counterterrorism Center, National Counterintelligence Executive, Assistant to the Secretary for Intelligence Oversight, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration, Defense Information Systems Agency, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Defense Protective Service, Defense Security Service, US Special Operations Command, Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Intelligence and Security Command, The Army, The Navy, The Marines, The Coast Guard, The United States Air Force, Dick Cheney, the Office of Naval Intelligence, Naval Security Group Command, Naval Criminal Investigative Service Official, the Republican National convention, The entire governments of Hawaii, Kenya, Southeast Asia, Canada, Europe, and Africa, as well as the Boy Scouts of America. If you are a “birther” then that is what you believe.
That is one hell of a conspiracy to be launched by an 18 year old girl pal.

Technorati Tags: Birther,Barack Obama,Donald Trump,Tea Party,Racist,Current Events,Politics

VIDEO: Obama Pronounces Bradley Manning Guilty Before Trial, Affirms "Nation of Laws" as Bush Walks

    Interesting comments made by President Obama.

by Ralph Lopez  Mon Apr 25, 2011    At DailyKos

Now watch this drive.

Caught on video, after the fundraiser in San Francisco last week when Bradley Manning supporters at a $5,000-a-plate dinner broke out in a song in support of Bradley, then were duly escorted out before dessert.  Overlooking entirely the kind of prosecutorial misconduct known as "prejudicial statements," which includes public statements assuming the guilt of an accused which makes it impossible for him to get a fair trial, President Obama makes the interesting claim that we are "a nation of laws."  But I don't see Dick Cheney doing time after his office's leak of the identity of a covert agent, Valerie Plame, which really was a crime specifically prohibited by the Covert Agents Identity Act which did real national security damage.

Special Forces Colonel Pat Lang testified before Congress that as a result of leaks like Plame, the "possibility of penetrating these [Jihadi] groups, the possibility of knowing that they're going to carry 10-pound bags of explosive in the subway stations, will go right down the drain."  Walter Pincus reported a former diplomat saying that:

   "every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities."

"Every foreign intelligence service" would include the Pakistani ISI, which leaks like a sieve to Al Qaeda.

In this "nation of laws" I also don't see the Apache gunner being prosecuted who fired upon wounded, and those attempting to evacuate them, in Baghdad in 2007.  It was on videotape that any prosecutor would dream of for an open and shut case, an action contrary to one of the oldest laws of war:

Article 12 of the Geneva Conventions: "...wounded or sick, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances. They shall be treated humanely and cared for by the Party to the conflict ... Any attempts upon their lives, or violence to their persons, shall be strictly prohibited; in particular, they shall not be murdered or exterminated ..."

The prohibition against killing wounded goes back to the Napoleonic Wars.  Once the battle was over, soldiers often felt pity, even for the other side.  The prohibition was a first step in the struggle back to humanity amidst the barbarism of war, which many hoped would someday itself become part of the past.

I also don't see any generals in isolation at Quantico for telling the very serious lie to their chain of command, revealed by Wikileaks, that the Taliban does not have SAMs (surface to air missiles) or that they had already shot down helicopters and killed many soldiers with them.  The families of the fallen were told that their loved ones' deaths were due to "mechanical failure," thus robbing them of the honor of falling in action.

If we are a nation of laws then why does Obama persist in pressuring Spain to not prosecute Bush, Rumsfeld, and Alberto Gonzalez for torture of its nationals?  Oh yes, they are rich and powerful and one used to be president.  But you bet if Cynthia McKinney were president, she wouldn't be standing in the way.  And  let's get it out of our heads that this is just about waterboarding, which Hannity/Limbaugh quickly jump to, on script, whenever torture is mentioned.  If waterboarding were the worst of it, this would have died by now.  The Justice Jackson Center is preparing a criminal complaint against Bush officials which alleges:

    - Savage Beatings. Prisoners were severely and regularly beaten with clubs, rifles and fists. They were beaten to the point that bones were broken, ribs were fractured, and prisoners sometimes were killed.

    - Peroneal Strikes. Peroneal strikes are a specific form of savage beating, consisting of blows to the soft tissue and nerves just above the knee. The falsely accused prisoner beaten to death at Bagram had been given so many peroneal strikes that a coroner testified that his leg tissue had '"basically been pulpified.'"

    - Hanging By The Arms. A highly excruciating "stress position" torture used on many prisoners, sometimes every day for two to three months, is hanging them by their arms, often or usually on tiptoe.

    - Slamming A Prisoner's Head Into Concrete Walls. In this torture a towel is wrapped around a prisoner's neck and is then used to propel the prisoner head first into a concrete wall. This torture was so fraught with risk of serious injury to or death of a prisoner that the CIA kept a doctor on hand at all times to guard against death or crippling injury.

    - Additional "Stress Positions" And Electric Shocks. "Palestinian hangings," they were hung by the arms with their feet on a drum through which electric shocks were applied to their feet; the shocks would cause the feet to "dance."

And remember Dilawar, innocent, died at Bagram.  Wiki:

Dilawar was a 22-year-old taxi driver and farmer from the small village of Yakubi, who was 5 ft 9 in. tall, and weighed only 122 pounds. Dilawar was transporting 3 passengers in his taxi, when he and his passengers were arrested at a checkpoint on a US base. The four men were detained and turned over to American soldiers...At Bagram, Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell, suspended by his wrists for four days. His arms were dislocated from their sockets, and flapped around limply, whenever guards collected him for interrogation. During his detention, Dilawar's legs were beaten to a pulp and an amputation would have been necessary.

A nation of laws, Mr. Obama?

Finally, I don't see laws being applied to commanders in Iraq for allowing, and even helping, the Maliki government to round up, torture, and kill Iraqi dissidents who were passing out "anti-Iraqi literature," which in essence asked "where did the money go?" for things like clean water, trash pick-up, and working sewers.  This was Bradley's first assignment when he arrived in Iraq in 2009, to get to the bottom of what was going on.  He found out that dissidents and journalists who were pointing out corruption in the Maliki government were being arrested, detained, tortured, and sometimes killed.  In the words of writer Chase Madar, the US military had "a multitude of credible accounts of Iraqi police and soldiers shooting prisoners, beating them to death, pulling out fingernails or teeth, cutting off fingers, burning with acid, torturing with electric shocks or the use of suffocation, and various kinds of sexual abuse including sodomization with gun barrels and forcing prisoners to perform sexual acts on guards and each other."

What did Bradley do?  He ran to his superiors to report these crimes.  He was told to "shut up" and go out and help find more dissidents.

These crimes are not abstractions in war zones.  The U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, Chapter 5 Article 338 states on the subject of "internees," meaning prisoners, during an occupation:

"Every death or serious injury of an internee, caused or suspected to have been caused by a sentry, another internee or any other person...shall be immediately followed by an official inquiry by the Detaining Power.  A communication on this subject shall be sent immediately to the Protecting Power...the Detaining Power shall take all necessary steps to ensure the prosecution of the person or persons responsible."

The "Detaining Power" would be the Iraqi government.  The "Protecting Power" is the United States.  Bradley was obeying the law.

Mr. Obama is in a ticklish position because the problem is, Bradley broke no laws.  In America , whistleblowing is still not a crime, and causing political embarrassment is still not tantamount to treason.  The US government presently classifies around 6 million documents, and the Pentagon has affirmed that no "informants" have been killed that it knows of as a result of the Wikileaks disclosures attributed to Bradley.  Defense Secretary Bob-Predator-Drone Gates saying Wikileaks has "blood on its hands" is worse than a bad joke.  It's sick. 

Daniel Ellsberg says:

   "We have some very narrowly defined official secrets act that proscribe giving out, for example, nuclear weapons data or communications intelligence or the identities of intelligence agents, covert agents, like Valerie Plame--that was wrongly and unlawfully leaked..."

Do what you're going to do, Mr. President.  You know you have enough Wall Street money, defense contractor money, trial lawyer money etc. to put you over the top in almost any Democratic primary challenge.  You're a smart dude, smart enough to know that these prejudicial statements are contrary to prosecutorial ethics (and as Commander-in-Chief, you are the prosecutor here) and make it nearly impossible for Bradley to get a fair trial. 

But whatever you do, please, please, don't be telling me this is a "nation of laws."

 

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Laws,Bradley Manning,Current Events