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In 2002, 13-year-old Ronnie Swain told authorities that he had also been victim of sexual abuse. He accused his adopted mother, Lorinda Swain, of performing oral sex on him every morning. Swain was arrested, charged, and convicted of four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. She was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison.

Soon after she was convicted, though, Ronnie recanted his testimony. He said he made up the sexual molestation allegations so that he would not get in trouble for inappropriately touching his three-year-old niece. From Deadline Detroit:

For years, according to David Moran, the co-director of the Innocence Clinic at the Ann Arbor law school, Swain’s legal team has been trying to get the Calhoun County prosecutor to meet with Ronald Swain and hear from him why he lied at trial and why he’s urging the courts to do the right thing now.

“He’s passed polygraphs, gone to the police, gone to the press, gone to lawyers, gone to the public and said it just did not happen,” Moran says. “We want the prosecutor to just meet with him.”

The prosecutor, however, has always refused. 

Since her conviction, Swain has filed countless appeals and motions for relief and fought repeatedly to get a new trial. In 2009, her request was finally granted by the trial court, who granted defendant’s motion for relief from judgment and set aside her four convictions. The Court of Appeals reversed. The trial court then again granted the motion based on newly discovered evidence, the interests of justice, and defendant's actual innocence. The appellate court reversed again.

At The Progressive Pulse of North Carolina, Billy Ball writes—New study shows growing gap in school funding between wealthy and poor counties:

A new study shows the gap in school funding between North Carolina’s wealthiest and poorest counties continues to grow.

The report, published Tuesday by the Public School Forum of N.C., an education policy group in Raleigh, shows that in 2013-2014 (the  most recent data available in the report) the state’s ten highest spending counties doled out an average of $57,497 more per classroom than the ten lowest-spending counties.

That number marks an increase of $739 over the previous year, and it’s 36 percent higher than the gap reported ten years ago in the state. The Public School Forum also points out the startling fact that Orange County alone spends about the same amount of the bottom six counties combined.

From the Forum’s statement:

“The trend lines are clear – our poorest counties continue to fall further behind our wealthier counties in terms of resources available to their local schools,” said Forum President and Executive Director Keith Poston. “Even though the ten poorest counties taxed themselves at nearly double the rate of the ten wealthiest counties, the revenue they could generate was substantially lower.” [...]

The report also includes one startling graph that shows how, in 2013-2014, school systems in affluent Orange County dished out more than $4,000 per student, the most of any school system in North Carolina. Compare that to places like Swain County, a relatively low-wealth county in western North Carolina that spent just $383 per student.

Democrats in Wyoming will hold their presidential caucus today starting at 1 PM ET. You can use this thread to chat about results when they come in.

Results: Wyoming

When North Carolina lawmakers passed a law last week targeting transgender individuals for discrimination in the most private of settings—the bathroom—an obituary of Charlotte’s Blake Brockington, an 18-year-old trans man, surfaced anew on Facebook. Brockington had committed suicide and I, seemingly like many others, immediately imagined that he had done so in response to the state’s heinous new law, which specifically bans trans citizens from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender.

But the reality was even worse than what I initially suspected. Brockington had taken his own life one year to the day before the state’s GOP lawmakers rushed a bill through their chambers and enacted it within hours—the cruelest of dedications on the anniversary of the young man’s tragic death.

Brockington was no wall flower. A year before he took his life, he had been elected Homecoming King of East Mecklenburg High School, an achievement he had felt compelled to seek for the sake of other trans youth. Brockington told qnotes that winning the title would give him the chance to raise awareness about the issue.

“I honestly feel like this is something I have to do,” Brockington said, noting few other transgender male students have had the opportunity.

He was the first known openly trans homecoming king in Charlotte and potentially statewide. In pictures of that triumphant moment, Brockington struts around, exuding royalty in his plush red robe with crown to match and flashing a youthful grin at the camera. He was ecstatic.

“I hope this makes everybody know that they can be themselves regardless of what anybody else says,” he added. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”

It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a Saturday Diary of Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. Each week, we discuss issues that help drive successful campaigns, and once a month we look into “Horrible mistakes you should avoid” (last Saturday of a month). If you’ve missed prior diaries, please visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.

For those who have been following, you know that our candidate, Jessica Jones, is preparing her run for a state Senate seat. Jessica has done a pretty good job following the prior steps of this diary series, from making contact to controlling expenses.

Every week I focus on one thing Jessica should be doing, or problems she can avoid. This week we’re going to talk about the necessity of campaign rest, especially in small, down-ballot campaigns. Occasionally, you’ll hear from people like myself about “lazy” campaigns, campaigns that aren’t active at all, they just list themselves on the ballot, and that is it. Maybe they Facebook a few updates. What they aren’t doing is actively engaging the voters, showing up at events, or building community.

Jessica Jones, though, isn’t one of those kinds of candidates. She’s been participating in local events, actively canvassing, attending county and local meetings and making plenty of call time. She’s committed to the race because she wants to win.There is just one thing Jessica needs: to make sure her campaign gives her some time to get good rest, enjoy her family, and avoid campaign anxiety.

This week, we’re going to be discussing the plan for campaign “rest” and how candidates and staff who use rest effectively run better races.

Ever since the momentous nationwide victory over gay marriage last summer, the LGBTQ advocacy community has not had its act together. To borrow a sports metaphor, we seem to be suffering from a championship hangover, where the winning team from the previous year starts the next season playing below expectations.

From the loss of Proposition 8 in 2008 through last summer, the LGBTQ community was a team of destiny. Even if we didn’t win every battle in every state, everyone could feel that victory seemed inevitable. Since then, though, the playing field has shifted and the community hasn’t been prepared to fight back. States like Mississippi have always been among the least LGBTQ-friendly in the nation, but there’s no excuse for losing something like the HERO (Houston Equal Rights Ordinance) referendum.

The most frustrating aspect of the past year is that we know how to win these fights, but instead of truly taking them on, we’ve been relying on the business community to save us. It’s great that corporate executives succeeded in thwarting anti-LGBT legislation in Indiana and Georgia, but no movement should rely on profit-making businesses to safeguard their civil rights. Our movement needs to be able to do more than threaten to withhold capital.

The main problem with the campaigns for non-discrimination ordinances and against so-called “religious freedom” laws has been a messaging one. The extensive corporate support seems to have infected our messaging, turning everything into bland corporate-speak. We seem to have forgotten all the lessons learned during the marriage equality fight. Our opponents have brought up outrageous and untrue claims to scare the general public, just like they always do. Remember when marriage equality would lead to the indoctrination of children? The same idiots are making up claims about losing religious freedoms and sexual predators in women’s restrooms. But instead of tackling these claims head-on, as we have in the past, our messaging has stuck with abstract ideas of equality and non-discrimination. Talk of equality is not enough when someone is screaming that your daughter is about to get assaulted in a restroom.

...there will always be more work to do. And this week, my Administration took two big steps that will help make sure your hard work is rewarded, and that everybody plays by the same rules. 

In this morning’s weekly address, President Obama explained to listeners two important financial edicts his administration undertook this week: ensuring that financial advisors are required to put their clients’ needs first (duh) and cracking down on big American corporations that buy smaller non-American ones in order to avoid paying taxes—a practice known as “corporate inversions.”

He explained the details of both moves, and tied them together as a unified effort to help the non-rich in this country get a fair shake:

Together, these steps build on the work we’ve already done to make our tax code fairer and consumer protections stronger. Because I believe that rather than double down on policies that allow a few at the top to play by their own rules, we should build an economy where everybody has a fair shot, everybody does their fair share, and everybody plays by the same set of rules. 

To read the transcript in full, check below the fold or visit the White House website.

Welcome to the return of our war on voting series, a joint project of Meteor Blades and Joan McCarter.

Another primary, another demonstration of how new voting procedures and laws can and do suppress the vote. First it was New Hampshire, where budget cutting and polling place consolidation led to long waits, traffic jams, and some really incensed white people, who weren't used to having to go through what voters of color normally do just to exercise their franchise. We saw long lines and frustrated voters in Arizona, a state that used be covered under the Voting Rights Act. Had that law not been gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013, chances are the kinds of snafus Arizonans experienced wouldn't have happened.

Wisconsin, though, it's different. Because we now know what the intent of the new laws they put into place in 2011—though held up in court until this year, making this primary the first election under the most stringent ID laws in the country. Laws Republicans have admitted were enacted to suppress the vote of young people, of people of color—of anybody likely to vote Democratic. Says coffee shop owner and former chief of staff for state Sen. Dale Schultz (R), Todd Allbaugh:

"It just really incensed me that they started talking about this particular bill, and one of the senators got up and said, 'We really need to think about the ramifications on certain neighborhoods in Milwaukee and on our college campuses and what this could do for us,'" Allbaugh said. "The phrase 'voter suppression' was never used, but it was certainly clear what was meant." […]

"It left a pit in my stomach to think that a party that I had worked for for years and years and years was literally talking and plotting to deny someone, a fellow citizen, their constitutional right," Allbaugh said.

It worked for them in this primary, and caused major problems for many voters, particularly college students. Here's the bad news for Republicans, though—Wisconsin voters now have a dry run. Voting advocates now know where the holdups and problems are going to be. They can fight back in November.

Before getting to the briefs, congratulations to our own Chris Reeves, who uncovered one of the sneakiest voter suppression tactics we’ve seen from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach: Spanish language voting guides with incorrect information on how to register. Kobach now has no alternative but to fix it, now that Reeves has brought the traditional media’s attention to it.

Below, you'll find some briefs about what's happened this week in the war on voting.

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.

Rick Hasen:

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.

Aaron Blake:

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.

At the liberal media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Adam Johnson writes—CIA’s Work With Filmmakers Puts All Media Workers at Risk:

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. [...]

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There is a story and another video of the landing from a different, closer angle here.

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—After Saddam: an Arab Congo?

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! 

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In 2014, Indianapolis State Police trooper Brian Hamilton pulled a woman over and gave her more than a warning—he asked if she had a home church and whether she had accepted Jesus Christ into her heart. The woman he pulled over felt trapped:

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.