What’s important in WI? A recent Bernie win? A big Hillary loss? No, it’s this from the Journal Sentinel:
A challenge to how Republican lawmakers drew legislative districts in 2011 is heading to trial in May.
A panel of three federal judges unanimously ruled Thursday they should decide whether the maps were drawn correctly after holding a trial, rather than based on legal briefs that have already been filed.
The ruling is a victory for the 12 Democrats who brought the case on the theory Republicans had violated their voting rights by drawing legislative districts that are so favorable to the GOP. Those bringing the case hope to set a standard that could be used around the country to determine when politicians — whether Republicans or Democrats — go too far in drawing maps to help them.
Republicans won control of Wisconsin in 2010 and the next year drew new maps that greatly favored them. Lawmakers have to draw new maps every 10 years to account for changes in population, and the party in power has the ability to set lines that help them.
In today’s opinion, a three-judge court unanimously held that there was enough alleged as to standing and the merits on the efficiency gap being a justiciable, manageable standard to survive a motion to dismiss. This means that the case would then go to summary judgment stage, or potentially even a trial. The judges were quite clear that as evidence comes into the case, they have not committed to ruling for the plaintiffs.
So there is a long road ahead in this case for plaintiffs. But not getting kicked out at the first stop is itself a big deal.
This is one to watch.
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Court: Wisconsin right-to-work law championed by GOP Gov. Scott Walker unconstitutional. — @AP
But as any voter ID opponent will tell you, there are so few cases of documented voter fraud that it's not clear there's actually an ill that's being cured. Instead, Democrats allege that these laws are clearly aimed at disenfranchising minority voters, in particular, because they are less likely to have the proper IDs. And minority voters, of course, heavily favor the Democratic Party.
Assisting Democrats in this argument that it's all a partisan power grab? A handful of unhelpful Republicans who have suggested in recent years that voter ID does indeed help the GOP — perhaps so much that it would put them over the top in blue-leaning swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania…
All of which is to say that Grothman and other Republicans can probably defend their comments accordingly. But they're doing so on awfully shaky ground. And any time you hail the passage of a law as potentially helping your side win elections, you're basically begging to be accused of passing it for the wrong reasons. Which is a really unhelpful thing for Republicans.
Voter ID laws are passed to keep Democratic- leaning voters from voting. This isn’t difficult. Voting shouldn’t be either.
In the film Argo, John Goodman depicts a moviemaker working with CIA agent Ben Affleck to produce a fake film. In fact, real CIA agents worked with the actual makers of Argo.
In the film Argo, John Goodman depicts a moviemaker working with CIA agent Ben Affleck to produce a fake film. In fact, real CIA agents worked with the actual makers of Argo.
Vice’s Jason Leopold (4/6/16) has uncovered documents showing the CIA had a role in producing up to 22 entertainment “projects,” including History Channel documentary Air America: The CIA’s Secret Airline, Bravo‘s Top Chef: Covert Cuisine, the USA Network series Covert Affairs and the BBC documentary The Secret War on Terror—along with two fictional feature films about the CIA that both came out in 2012.
The CIA’s involvement in the production of Zero Dark Thirty (effectively exchanging “insider” access for a two-hour-long torture commercial) has already been well-established, but the agency’s role in the production of Argo—which won the Best Picture Oscar for 2012—was heretofore unknown. The extent of the CIA’s involvement in the projects is still largely classified, as Leopold notes, quoting an Agency audit report:
However, because of the lack of adequate records, we were unable to determine the extent of the CIA’s support to the eight projects, the extent to which foreign nationals participated in CIA-sponsored activities, and whether the Director/OPA approved the activities and participation of foreign nationals…. Failure on the part of CIA officers to adhere to the regulatory requirements could result in unauthorized disclosures, inappropriate actions and negative consequences for the CIA.
The CIA’s history of producing or helping to produce films goes back decades. The Agency, for example, secretly bought the rights to Animal Farm after Orwell’s death in 1950 and produce an animated adaptation centered on demonizing the Soviet Union rather than capturing Orwell’s broader critiques of power.
And as the CIA got involved in film production, Hollywood players have likewise taken part in covert operations. For years, legendary film producer Arnon Milchan (Pretty Woman, Fight Club, back-to-back Oscar winner for Best Picture in 2014 and 2015) worked for Israeli intelligence to deal arms and obtain technologies Israel needed to make nuclear weapons. “At the peak of his activities,” according to the Guardian, he was “operating 30 companies in 17 countries and brokering deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” an arrangement that, Milchan told the BBC (11/26/13), involved Sydney Pollack—director of Sabrina, Tootsie and, ironically enough, Three Days of the Condor.
In such revelations, an important point is often overlooked: The CIA assisting or posing as filmmakers, journalists and other creative roles—a practice the Agency reserves the right to partake in to this day—puts actual filmmakers, journalists and other creators at risk overseas. It’s an important piece of context that’s rarely addressed by a pundit class who is (rightfully) outraged at American journalists and filmmakers being detained as spies overseas, but responds with praise or amusement when CIA takes on such roles as cover. [...]
At least O’Reilly didn’t repeat his 2007 comments about patrons of a black restaurant
In one of the most bizarre segments on Fox News you’ll ever see, Bill O’Reilly sent his interviewer to Princeton to say the word “ghetto” to black students — and it went pretty much as you’d expect.
Jesse Watters, who often interviews people on the street for The O’Reilly Factor, visited the school’s campus and asked students of different races if they were offended by various loaded words and phrases, such as “ghetto,” “black crime,” “slum,” “Islamic terrorism,” and “white privilege.” [...]
According to O’Reilly, the segment was inspired by college students who said they didn’t feel safe after seeing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s name pop up on their campuses. “That plays into the concept that college students are very sensitive individuals,” O’Reilly said mockingly.
In the segment, Watters asks students he interviews to try sucking their thumb, apologize for their white privilege, and to hug him to feel better. For their part, the students seemed unfazed.
The US war against Saddam may soon be over, but that may only be the start of the Iraq war. There are millions of guns, rockets and mortars, billions of rounds of ammo, scattered across the country. No one knows who controls them or what they have planned. The Shia want control of their destiny, as do the Kurds, and the Sunnis may not be happy to lose power.
Let's say we fully control Baghdad in the next week or so and the rest of the cities in the next month. What Iraqi government official surrenders? Who runs things? Do we just slide from Saddam rule to American rule?
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: an in-depth look at the process of locking down delegates, the role money plays in this inside baseball. Can delegates be bought outright? Sure! Is that terrible? Maybe! Can we explain why that answer isn’t just “yes”? Yes!
Bogan, who lives in Huntington, said Hamilton asked her about her faith multiple times during the traffic stop. Because he was a trooper and his police car was still parked behind hers, she said she felt she could not leave or refuse questioning.
"The whole time, his lights were on," Bogan said. "I had no reason to believe I could just pull away at that point, even though I had my warning."
He handed her a pamphlet which instructed her to “acknowledge she was a sinner.” Trooper Brian Hamilton kept his job, but was ordered to attend counseling. It seems Hamilton didn’t learn his lesson. This week he was fired after another complaint was filed that was eerily similar to the first:
The ACLU filed a claim Tuesday on behalf of a Fayette County woman, Wendy Pyle, saying her constitutional rights were violated.
The lawsuit alleges Trooper Brian Hamilton of the ISP Pendleton post pulled the woman over for speeding and gave her a warning. He then asked her what church she went to and if she was saved. Documents said Hamilton invited Pyle to his church and even gave directions.
The complaint alleges Pyle answered “yes” to both questions because she was uncomfortable and wanted to end the stop
FOX59 called Hamilton to get reaction to his termination:
“Oh well…I’m just following what the Lord told me to do and you can’t change what the Lord tells you to do. So if the Lord tells me to speak about Jesus Christ, I do. And that’s why they fired me so that’s where we’re at,” he said before disconnecting.
Sen. Chuck Grassley took to the Senate floor Thursday night in another slightly unhinged rant to insist that all the pressure Democrats were putting on him wasn't fazing him a bit.
"When I make a decision on sound principle, I am not about to flip-flop because the left has organized what they call a pressure campaign," Sen. Chuck Grassley said on the Senate floor.
"The so-called pressure being applied to me now is nothing, it's absolutely nothing compared to what I have withstood from heavy handed White House political operations in the past," Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said.
"Our side knows and our side believes that what we are doing is right," Grassley said. "And when that's the case, it's not hard to withstand the outrage or the pressure that they've manufactured."
Really! He's not cracking up. Not one bit. Unhinged public rants are just how he rolls. Head below the fold to see just how much he's not cracking.
David Black Daugherty, a retired judge in South Carolina, was charged in an 18-count federal indictment on Wednesday after he and others allegedly illegally siphoned $600 million in federal disability payments. From Myrtle Beach Online:
“The defendants are charged with designing an intricate scheme, using their expertise and positions of authority to fraudulently induce payment of $600 million in federal disability and healthcare benefits,” Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in a press release. “While Social Security disability programs are designed to support the disabled, the defendants allegedly used it to enrich themselves. Today’s arrests demonstrate, however, that the Criminal Division will root out greed and corruption wherever they may be found.”
The indictment alleges that from October 2004 to Feb. 13, 2012, [Attorney Eric] Conn, Daugherty and [psychologist Alfred] Adkins conspired to defraud the government by submitting false and fraudulent medical documentation to the Social Security Administration so as to have the SSA pay claimants’ retroactive disability benefits, continue to pay claimants’ disability benefits in the future, award Medicare and Medicaid benefits to claimants and pay Conn’s attorney fees, officials said.
The three men's actions led the Social Security Administration to give more than $600 million in disability payments in over 2,000 cases. They personally received about $5 million over eight years.
Until his retirement in 2011, Daugherty was a former SSA administrative law judge and had worked for the SSA for 21 years. His job was to handle the claims of Kentucky claimants. From Myrtle Beach Online:
Conn allegedly filed disability applications with the Prestonsburg Field Office, irrespective of the claimants’ residence in an effort to ultimately bring the cases before the Huntington Hearing Office, where Daugherty either self-assigned or directed others to assign those cases to himself, according to the release.
Daugherty allegedly solicited Conn to submit falsified medical evidence so that Daugherty could issue fully favorable decisions. Adkins and others performed pretextual physical and mental evaluations on claimants, the indictment states. They routinely prepared and signed evaluation reports indicating that claimants had limitations considered disabling by the SSA, irrespective of claimants’ actual physical or mental conditions, according to the indictment.
Twenty of 62 guns discovered by TSA agents at airports across the country, during the week of January 29-February 4, 2016.
Twenty of 62 guns discovered by TSA agents at airports across the country, during the week of January 29-February 4, 2016.
The week of January 31 featured all the familiar GunFAIL categories, and all the familiar numbers. Twenty-three people accidentally shot themselves, ten kids were accidentally shot, seven people accidentally shot family members or significant others, five law enforcement officers (and one security guard) were involved in gun mishaps, five people accidentally shot themselves while out shopping or dining (if drinking at the Bristol, CT Polish American Club counds as “dining”), and four people accidentally discharged their guns while cleaning them.
In other words, a pretty normal week.
By the way, speaking of those who accidentally shot themselves while out on the town, I feel compelled to point out that the February 3 accidental shooting at the Bass Pro Shops in Clarksville, Indiana, is not the first time in the history of our GunFAIL feature that someone has accidentally shot themselves at that very store. It happened earlier, back on December 28, 2014. Maybe be extra careful when you shop there?
Another situation in which you’re going to want to be extra careful: After being hired as an armed security guard for a church. Not that that stopped the guard in Colorado Springs from accidentally firing a round into an empty chair. Why a working guard who was on the job at the time would be racking the slide of a pistol he thought to be empty, I have no idea. But thankfully, no one was hurt. Not so lucky, however, was the Fort Wainwright, Alaska, soldier who shot himself to death trying to “prove” his weapon was empty. Two more stories similarly illustrate how GunFAIL can happen to anyone. A competitive shooter accidentally shot himself in the hand while packing up his guns after a weekend trip. And a Baltimore County, Maryland, police officer’s service pistol discharged inside the station house, allegedly while still holstered. The officer insists it discharged on its own, and the county sent the weapon (manufactured by FN America, the outfit that recently presented Jeb Bush with an engraved .45 caliber pistol) out for laboratory testing. Watch out, Jeb!
The full GunFAIL list for the week beginning January 31, 2016, follows below the fold.
Remember back in the day when endorsing a presidential candidate meant you shared that person’s vision for the country and thought they were the best one for the job? In today’s Republican Party—meh—not so much. Take Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, with his ringing endorsement of Ted Cruz:
“The defeat Donald Trump would face against Hillary Clinton would probably be epic and historical,” he said. "I’m not going to support him.
“Obviously, Kasich is so far behind that it’s hard for him to get the numbers. By process of elimination, that leaves you with Cruz. At this point, there’s no other option.”
Then there’s Sen. Lindsey Graham’s heartfelt embrace of a Cruz presidency:
Asked whether Cruz would make a good president, Graham responded that his Senate colleague, whose murder he has joked about, "would make a better president than Donald Trump, for damn sure ...
"Would he make the best president? No, I don't think so ... As far as whether Kasich would make a better president than Cruz, Graham replied, "Think so. So what's your point?"
And let’s not forget Donald Trump’s biggest supporter, Dr. Ben Carson, who, when asked about the possibility of raising someone’s likability numbers, said:
“Well, first of all, it is interesting, I did have high favorables. People liked me but they didn't vote for me. And Trump has horrible numbers, but they vote for him,” Carson responded, chuckling. “I don't know that there's a great correlation there.”
Ouch, ouch and ouch. The only thing that comes to mind here is, talk about damning with faint praise!
(Please note: Being endorsed by a Republican would also mean you are probably a misogynistic, bigoted, fearmongering racist. So there are two reasons to avoid it.)
President Obama returned to the University of Chicago Law School, where he taught constitutional law, Thursday for a town meeting with students to talk about the constitution, the Supreme Court, and the Senate. He didn't mince words about the Senate Republicans and their unprecedented blockade of his nominee to the court, Merrick Garland, or for the years of obstruction he's faced in all his nominees from them.
So no one has plausibly made an argument that this is not the kind of person we'd want on the Supreme Court. The question then becomes, why is it so hard for the guy just to get a hearing and a vote?[...]
It used to be that people read the Constitution and Article II powers fairly straightforwardly. […] And it was presumed—it was understood that just as the President had a constitutional duty to make the appointment that the Senate had a constitutional duty to at least make a determination as to whether this person should be on the bench. […]
We now have a situation, after Judge Scalia's passing, in which it's not just that the Republican majority in the Senate intend to vote against a highly qualified judge, we now have a situation where they're saying, we simply will not consider the nomination itself. We're just going to shut down the process. And as a consequence, we have a 4-4 tie in the Supreme Court and potentially at least two Supreme Court terms in which this vacancy will remain. […] [I]f you start getting into a situation in which the process of appointing judges is so broken, so partisan that an eminently qualified jurist cannot even get a hearing, then we are going to see the kinds of sharp, partisan polarization that has come to characterize our electoral politics seeping entirely into the judicial system. And the courts will be just an extension of our legislatures and our elections and our politics.
And that erodes the institutional integrity of the judicial branch. At that point, people lose confidence in the ability of the courts to fairly adjudicate cases and controversies. And our democracy can't afford that.
He named one name in this extreme obstruction—"in some cases, Mitch McConnell and others have said, we will not even show the courtesy of meeting with the judge to find out what he thinks." What doesn't show in the transcript is the exasperation in Obama's voice. You can hear that in the video snippet below the fold, or watch the full town hall here.
While we're in a bit of a primary-season lull, a pause to catch our breath and remind ourselves what the candidates are enduring, compliments of America: The Book...
Do you like babies? How about veterans?
Also: would you look good on a limited-edition collector’s plate with all of your predecessors?
Can you feign interest in old people---and smile while touching them? How are you with handshaking? Back-slapping? Palm-greasing? How do you feel about saying the same thing over and over again? Bus travel? Do you like being vilified on television? What about in print? Your spouse and children---do they enjoy being followed around, maybe having their backgrounds looked into? Chicken---can you stomach copious quantities of it in sterile auditorium-like environments? Finally, do you like all those things enough to put up with them every day for the remainder of your professional life? If you answered "yes" to every one of those questions, congratulations!!! You’re ready to enter the political arena.
And from Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway:
The problem is that, to become the president, you have to run for president, which in the past few decades has become a brutally degrading experience involving unspeakable depths of pandering and sucking around for votes and money. It's a great big Suck-a-Thon, is what it is. No dignified person would voluntarily submit to it; the people who do submit to it are usually defective to begin with, and come out of the process moderately deranged, if not actively insane. One of these years we're going to elect a president whose first official act will be to launch nuclear strikes against Iowa and New Hampshire. And you wouldn't blame him, if you saw what presidential candidates go through.
But at least the rewards are worth it:
"Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it." ---Lyndon Johnson
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Voter rights, as the Scalia-less Supreme Court upholds the principle of "1 person, 1 vote"
19%
462 votes
PayPal for canceling its expansion and Bruce Springsteen for canceling a concert in North Carolina because of the state's new anti-LGBT law
15%
373 votes
California Governor Jerry Brown, for signing a bill into law gradually increasing the state minimum wage to $15/hr.
4%
101 votes
The consortium of news outlets that investigated and released the "Panama Papers"
21%
509 votes
The hundreds of Flint, Michigan residents who filed a racketeering lawsuit against Gov. Rick Snyder and other state officials for allowing the water supply to be poisoned with lead
6%
146 votes
President Obama: enforces stricter rules on retirement-savings brokers and tax inversions; weekly unemployment claims having best low-streak since 1973; approval rating steady in the 50s.
7%
172 votes
The 2016 NCAA basketball champions: the women of UConn and the men of Villanova
2%
43 votes
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, for making the city the first in the nation to require 6 weeks fully-paid leave for new parents starting next year
1%
29 votes
Lake Worth resident Cara Jennings, the woman who correctly called Florida Governor Rick Scott an asshole and forced him to flee from a Starbucks out of embarrassment
20%
492 votes
SpaceX, as the Falcon 9 stage-1 rocket for today's supply pod launch to the space station successfully lands on a barge for re-use
Family Promise volunteers strive to make parents and children feel at home.
Family Promise volunteers strive to make parents and children feel at home.
One of the things that drives me is working together to solve problems that affect us all. In the wealthiest country in the world, we shouldn’t have homelessness. Yet this year 2.5 million children will experience homelessness.
Recently, a group I’m involved with,The Tri-State Freethinkers (TSF) connected with the Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN) of Cincinnati (known nationally asFamily Promise) to help host homeless families. Family Promise is a national organization that works to help people gain “sustainable independence” including permanent housing. Various congregations in Cincinnati host families overnight with help from local volunteers who help prepare food and entertain. TSF hosted a group overnight at Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian Church.
A draft bill to give law enforcement agencies access to encrypted data has been leaked from the offices of the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Sen. Richard Burr and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein respectively. And it’s a doozy.
The bill—“Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016”—has been in the works since the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardio, California, last fall. The FBI says that encryption makes it more difficult for it do its job in uncovering terrorist plots and other criminal activity. A copy of the draft language was sent to the White House a month ago, according to Feinstein. Sources at the time indicated that the administration is not likely to back the approach Burr and Feinstein are taking because of its earlier stance in such matters.
From what Andy Greenberg at Wiredhas written about the draft, that apparent reluctance is a very good thing:
It’s a nine-page piece of legislation that would require people to comply with any authorized court order for data—and if that data is “unintelligible,” the legislation would demand that it be rendered “intelligible.” In other words, the bill would make illegal the sort of user-controlled encryption that’s in every modern iPhone, in all billion devices that run Whatsapp’s messaging service, and in dozens of other tech products. “This basically outlaws end-to-end encryption,” says Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It’s effectively the most anti-crypto bill of all anti-crypto bills.”
Kevin Bankston, the director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, goes even further: “I gotta say in my nearly 20 years of work in tech policy this is easily the most ludicrous, dangerous, technically illiterate proposal I’ve ever seen,” he says.
North Carolina's legislature and its Governor Pat McCrory rushed an anti-LGBT, particularly anti-trans, "bathroom bill" in order to protect citizens from the non-existent problem of bathroom fraud. The bill essentially prevents local municipalities from doing decent things like preventing discrimination and raising the minimum wage.
Mississippi soon followed with their own version of a "religious liberty" bill, similar to the kind Indiana was mocked for passing last year. These bills are probably an effort to turn out the base in November, much like 2004's slate of anti-same-sex marriage ballot measures. It could work in the short term, but for some reason these states have lengthy records of ending up on the wrong side of history.
