Tag: Civil Rights

Bye David

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David Whitley, the now former Secretary of Stat of Texas, has resigned following a botched attempt to disenfranchise about 100,000 Hispanic Texans:

Texas’s acting secretary of state, David Whitley (R), resigned Monday just months after leading the botched voter purge of nearly 100,000 suspected noncitizens that erroneously also targeted U.S. citizens, efforts that drew rebukes from a federal judge and numerous voter rights groups.

Whitley’s departure came as the Texas Senate failed to confirm him to the position by a two-thirds majority on the last day of the legislative session. He submitted his resignation letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) “effective immediately” just before the final gavel, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman. Abbott accepted his resignation shortly afterward, praising his “moral character and integrity.”

What Greg Abbot means when he says, “Moral character and integrity,” is, “This guy is trying to keep n*****s from voting, and I approve.”

Whitley, a gubernatorial appointee and former aide to Abbott, spent less than six months overseeing Texas elections. He will leave office best known for the disastrous elections-integrity operation that wrongly identified thousands of naturalized citizens as suspected noncitizens illegally registered to vote.

He revealed the investigation in January, causing unsupported fears of rampant voter fraud while emboldening Republican politicians who had made similar voter fraud claims — including President Trump. Whitley’s office had claimed that, of 95,000 suspected noncitizens, 58,000 had voted in at least one Texas election over the last 18 years. Letters sent to all those suspected noncitizens threatened to disenfranchise them unless they proved their citizenship within 30 days.

The numbers on this, “A federal judge ordered Whitley to stop his voter purge of noncitizens after it turned out only about 80 on his original list had actually been ineligible to vote.”

I am sure that Greg Abbot will find someone even worse.

This is Supposed to Have a Chilling Effect

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Julian Assangehas now been charged under the espionage act for publishing information that the government did not want published.

Publishing information that someone does not want published is journalism.  Anything else is stenography:

Julian Assange could face decades in a US prison after being charged with violating the Espionage Act by publishing classified information through WikiLeaks.

Prosecutors announced 17 additional charges against Assange for publishing hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables and files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Assange, 47, was previously charged with working to hack a Pentagon computer system, in a secret indictment that was unveiled soon after his arrest at Ecuador’s embassy in London last month.

“Assange’s actions risked serious harm to United States national security to the benefit of our adversaries,” the justice department said in a statement. Officials said the publication of secret files by WikiLeaks was “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States”.

………

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, labelled the new charges facing Assange as “the evil of lawlessness in its purest form”.

He added: “With the indictment, the ‘leader of the free world’ dismisses the First Amendment – hailed as a model of press freedom around the world – and launches a blatant extraterritorial assault outside its border, attacking basic principles of democracy in Europe and the rest of the world.”

I agree with this characterization.

The new charges against Assange raise profound questions about the freedom of the press under the first amendment of the US constitution. They may also complicate Washington’s attempts to extradite him from London.

Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange in the US, said in a statement: “These unprecedented charges demonstrate the gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange poses to all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions taken by the US government.”

The charges were roundly condemned by press freedom advocates. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said the charges posed a “dire threat” to journalists publishing classified information in the public interest. The Freedom of the Press Foundation described the prosecution as “terrifying”.

Terrorizing journalists is the goal here.

Manning Jailed Again

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Seeing as how they already have his testimony from his plea, my only conclusion is that the prosecutors are trying to suborn perjury against Assange:

Chelsea Manning was again behind bars on Thursday night after she was jailed for a second time for contempt of court, having refused to cooperate with a grand jury.

A defiant Manning told Judge Anthony Trenga in a federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, that she would “rather starve to death” than do what the state insisted and give testimony before the grand jury. Having already served 62 days in jail, 28 of which were spent in solitary confinement, she now faces up to 18 months more in custody.

To quote Anatole France, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”

Florida: No Voting, Because, F%$# You

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The Florida legislature has passed, and the governor is certain to sign, a bill prohibiting the ex-cons recently given the right to vote from actually casting a ballot.

The bill says that they have to make full restitution for all fines and court costs, but the judiciary is so screwed up in the state, much like everything else in that Gid-forsaken sh%$ hole, that most of the now freed prisoners will have no way of knowing if they continue to owe money to the courts:

In November, Florida voters approved a groundbreaking ballot measure that would restore voting rights for up to 1.5 million people with felony convictions. But the Republican-led Legislature voted on Friday to impose a series of sharp restrictions that could prevent tens of thousands of them from ever reaching the ballot box.

In a move that critics say undermines the spirit of what voters intended, thousands of people with serious criminal histories will be required to fully pay back fines and fees to the courts before they could vote. The new limits would require potential new voters to settle what may be tens of thousands of dollars in financial obligations to the courts, effectively pricing some people out of the ballot box.

“Basically, they’re telling you, ‘If you have money, you can vote. If you don’t have money, you can’t,’” said Patrick Penn, 42, who spent 15 years in prison for strong-arm robbery and a violent burglary. He said he does not know whether he owes money to the court, but worries it could now prove a complication when he gets ready to cast a ballot. “That’s not what the people voted for.”

With the House voting 67-42 along party lines on Friday to endorse the new restrictions, the legislation goes next to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had called on the Legislature to set additional standards for registering ex-felons to vote.

The vast majority of criminal defendants are poor when they are arrested and even poorer after they are released from prison.

The new restrictions have been attacked by civil rights groups and some of the initiative’s backers as an exercise in Republican power politics, driven by fears that people with felony convictions are mostly liberals who could reshape the electorate ahead of presidential elections in 2020 and beyond. Republicans have dominated Florida’s state government for more than two decades, but elections are often decided by a fraction of a percentage point.

It’s a poll tax, and hopefully the courts will invalidate it, at least until the Supreme Court enforces, in a 5-4 decision the constitutional principle that n*****s don’t get to vote.

To quote JFK,* “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

*For once, I am not quoting “Not really Tallyrand, but attributed to him.”

Also, I Did Not Expect This

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A federal judge has ordered Texas election officials to halt a planned purge of electoral rolls, calling their effort “ham-handed” and “threatening” and saying there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.

The Wednesday ruling, a relief for voting rights activists, puts a temporary stop to the secretary of state’s search for noncitizens who may have voted illegally — a probe that proved deeply flawed just days after it began.

In late January, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley made the startling announcement that nearly 60,000 noncitizens over two decades may have voted in state elections. In response to this finding, Whitley said, counties must conduct “list maintenance activity,” a bureaucratic euphemism for canceling the registrations of fraud suspects.

Whitley’s statement galvanized lawmakers — nearly all Republicans — who claim that tens of thousands of noncitizens are committing large-scale voter fraud. Even President Trump weighed in.

But there was a catch: As U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said this week, the secretary of state’s numbers were wrong.

“It appears this is a solution looking for a problem,” Biery wrote in his ruling, saying the policy “exemplifies the power of government to strike fear and anxiety and to intimidate the least powerful among us.”

The government striking, “fear and anxiety [] to intimidate the least powerful among us,” was the intended goal.

Preventing non-whites from voting is a core electoral strategy of the Republican Party these days.

Needless to say, I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, because 5 of the justices are partisan hacks.

On the 100Th Anniversary of His Birth, Am I Obligated to Whitesplain Martin Luther King, Jr.?

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Today, on the anniversary of his assassination, the FBI honors the life, work, & commitment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to justice. pic.twitter.com/WZInYKQx2g

— FBI (@FBI) April 4, 2017

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

No. I am not.

I am not a historian, and I am not Black, and these days, everyone from David Brooks to Ann Coulter seems determined to show people that he was really one of them.

I was 6 years old when he died, and lived in a place which (I think) still required an operator assisted call to reach the “Lower 48,” so any recollections that I have are entirely from historical documents.

There is plenty of primary documentation of his life, his letters, his speeches, film and video, and I highly recommend that you check it out.

About the only thing that I can say with certainty from what I know of history history is that the FBI under J.Edgar Hoover was a profoundly pernicious organization that aggressively subverted the civil rights of its targets, and that there was never a proper reckoning for their behavior.

I’m inclined to believe that his legacy still permeates the Bureau, and current events would tend to bolster my opinion.

Bird is not the Word

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In the world of DMCA take-down notices, the scooter rental service Bird has jumped the shark, issuing a notice to Cory Doctorow for the mere mention of the fact that there are kits that allow people to replace the circuit boards on seized scooters that are resold to the public.

First, this is completely bogus: Swapping the circuit board does not give unlicensed access to Bird’s software, it removes it, and second:

You Are Pulling This Crap on Cory Doctorow? Are You F%$#Ing Sh%$ting Me?

This has gotta be the stupidest take-down notice ever:

According to a new letter published Friday by an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer, the scooter startup Bird significantly overstepped when it recently demanded that Boing Boing remove a post describing personal “conversion kits” that enable the removal of Bird’s proprietary hardware from a seized scooter.

The fracas began on December 8, 2018, when Cory Doctorow, the longtime Boing Boing writer and famed science fiction author, wrote a post entitled: “$30 plug-and-play kit converts a Bird scooter into a ‘personal scooter.’”

In it, Doctorow described the existence of kits that purport to allow someone to legally purchase an impounded Bird scooter and then alter it for personal use.

Bird did not take kindly to this post. On December 20, the company demanded that Boing Boing remove it. Bird’s lawyer, Linda Kwak, claimed that, simply by writing about the existence of these kits, Boing Boing violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

………

On Friday, EFF lawyer Kit Walsh, who represents Doctorow in this dustup, wrote to Kwak that Doctorow “has no obligation to, and will not, comply with your request to remove this article.”

………

It appears that the current exemption to the Section 1201 law that normally prohibits circumvention of digital locks is protected under the section that specifically allows for “Computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a lawfully acquired motorized land vehicle… when circumvention is a necessary step to allow the diagnosis, repair, or lawful modification of a vehicle function.”

And also, Cory F%$#ing Doctorow?

This man is the EFF’s public face on fighting digital rights management, and has arguably been the most prominent opponent of DRM in the computer community world wide, and you serve up this sh%$ sandwich?

What the F%$# is wrong with you?

Freedom of the Press: 1 — Iowa Farmers: 0

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Iowa’s “Ag Gag” law was just ruled unconstitutional:

A federal judge has ruled that Iowa’s “ag gag” law is unconstitutional, saying the industry-backed statute violates the First Amendment’s free-speech protections.

Senior Judge James Gritzner granted summary judgment Wednesday to a group that sued over the law.

“Today’s decision is an important victory for free speech in Iowa,” said Rita Bettis Austen, ACLU of Iowa legal director.

………

The ACLU challenged the law, along with Bailing Out Benji, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the national Animal Legal Defense Fund and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, among others.

………

The 2012 Agricultural Production Facility Fraud law made it a crime for journalists and advocacy groups to go undercover at meatpacking plants, livestock confinements, puppy mills and other ag-related operations to investigate working conditions, animal welfare, food safety and environmental hazards, among other practices.

………

Federal courts have struck down similar laws in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Litigation is ongoing in North Carolina.

Corporate interests are to free speech as Ebola is to French Kissing, and politicians are too busy taking campaign donations to give a sh%$ about free speech.

Fabulous!!!!

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Canada’s top court has ruled in favour of denying accreditation to a Christian law school that banned students from having gay sex.

Friday’s ruling against Trinity Western University in British Columbia (BC) was closely watched by both religious freedom and gay rights advocates.

The university made students promise not to have extra-marital or gay sex.

The Supreme Court found that protecting LGBT students from discrimination trumped religious freedom.

………

Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia law societies denied the school accreditation, on the grounds that it required all students to sign a covenant binding them to a code of conduct which banned sex outside the confines of heterosexual marriage.

Specifically, it said that it could (would) expel students for gay sex.

Good on the court.

Your need to hate does not trump basic human rights.

A Good First Step

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A federal judge intends to issue an injunction barring Georgia election officials from tossing certain absentee ballots without giving would-be voters advance notice and a chance to rectify any issues.

The implementation of the injunction — which U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May plans to file Thursday — could complicate the work of election officials statewide, requiring the review of hundreds or thousands of ballot signatures with less than two weeks until Election Day. But civil rights groups whose lawsuits led to May’s decision have already declared victory in the battle, just one of many voting rights skirmishes to surface in what’s become a contentious Georgia election season.

“We are pleased that the court has enforced the due process guarantees of the U.S. Constitution,” said Sean Young, legal director of Georgia’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Today’s ruling is a victory for democracy and for every absentee voter in the state of Georgia.”

This is not the sort of sh%$ that should be allowed to stand.

It is literally an assault on democracy.

I Approve of this Flag Burning

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Burning this flag is a good thing

Democratic candidate for Georgia governor Stacy Abrams, participated in a burning of the Georgia flag in 1992 because of its extremely prominent placement of the racist confederate flag:

Just 30 or so people attended the 1992 protest on the steps of Georgia’s State Capitol — a smattering of student activists but mostly reporters and a few Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents, snapping photos of demonstrators lighting a state flag on fire.

In the center of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution photo chronicling the event was a Spelman College freshman named Stacey Abrams, who, 26 years later, finds herself locked in a race that could make her the nation’s first black female governor — and who is unapologetic about her role in the demonstration.

In a statement Tuesday, Abrams’s campaign said she was part of a movement to remove the Confederate emblem from the Georgia flag.

“During Stacey Abrams’ college years, Georgia was at a crossroads, struggling with how to overcome racially divisive issues, including symbols of the confederacy, the sharpest of which was the inclusion of the confederate emblem in the Georgia state flag,” her campaign said in a statement about the photo, which resurfaced Monday. “Stacey was involved with a permitted, peaceful protest against the confederate emblem in the flag. This conversation was sweeping across Georgia as numerous organizations, prominent leaders, and students engaged in the ultimately successful effort to change the flag.”

Good.  Embrace this.  You were right then, and you are right now.


It got caught on tape

She still has a tough row to hoe to win, she’s black, she’s a woman, she’s unabashedly progressive, it’s Georgia, and her opponent is the Georgia Secretary of State and has been recorded saying that he wants to suppress the vote:

Brian Kemp, Georgia Secretary of State and the Republican nominee for Georgia governor, expressed at a ticketed campaign event that his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams’ voter turnout operation “continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote,” according to audio obtained by Rolling Stone.

 An attendee of the “Georgia Professionals for Kemp” event says they recorded 21 minutes and 12 seconds of the evening, held last Friday at the Blind Pig Parlour Bar near Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood. As proof of their attendance, the source shared with Rolling Stone a receipt of their donation, which granted access to the gathering.

 Not long after Kemp began his remarks, the candidate expressed worry about early voting and “the literally tens of millions of dollars that they [the Abrams camp] are putting behind the get-out-the-vote effort to their base.”

 Kemp then asserted that much of that Abrams effort is focused on absentee ballot requests. “They have just an unprecedented number of that,” he said, “which is something that continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote — which they absolutely can — and mail those ballots in, we gotta have heavy turnout to offset that.”

 ………

 It is fairly typical for a political candidate expressing confidence in his campaign to lament his opponent’s efforts to increase turnout. But Kemp’s position as Georgia’s Secretary of State clouds his statements. While it is not uncommon for someone in such a position to be on a ballot during an election that he or she oversees — they do have to run for re-election, after all — the state’s top elections official speaking of “concern” about increased early and absentee voting raises further questions about a conflict of interest.

Kemp’s recent decision to suspend more than 53,000 voter applications, 70 percent of which were filed by black residents, for violating the state’s “exact match” verification standard has drawn attention to his penchant for restrictive voter laws and purging of voter rolls. American Public Media reported last week that Kemp purged an estimated 107,000 voters last year simply because they didn’t vote in the prior election. He is also being sued for leaving more than 6 million Georgia voting records open to hacking.

………

 Reached for comment, Abigail Collazo, Director of Strategic Communications for the Abrams campaign, said, “Brian Kemp is barely trying to hide the shameful fact that his strategy is to win through voter suppression. The idea that he, as Secretary of State, would be ‘concerned’ that hardworking Georgians are exercising their right to vote is disgraceful and outrageous.”

If there is any justice in the world, Brian Kemp will spend the rest of his life in prison for this, but Republicans approve of him, and Democrats lack the guts to go after rat f%$#s like him, so he’ll die surrounded by his loved one, as opposed to being shanked in a prison laundry, which is what he deserves.

Lies. Damned Lies, and McKinsey & Co.

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It seems not that the Crown Prince has ordered a rich journalist murdered and dismembered, McKinsey & Co is “Horrified” that their work for the House of Saud might have been used in abusive ways.

We know what the House of Saud is, and we know what they do: They are incompetent and corrupt royals who make the Hapsburgs look like Little Orphan Annie.

Your hand wringing after the fact will disabuse no one of your complicity in their regime:

McKinsey & Co. said it’s “horrified” that a report it prepared to measure public perception of Saudi Arabia’s policies may have been used by the kingdom to silence dissidents.

The consulting firm responded on Twitter to a New York Times article that detailed a report in which it identified several people driving conversations on Twitter. Those people were later arrested or had their social-media accounts shut down.

In a nine-page report, the consulting firm said responses to the country’s economic policies received twice as much coverage on Twitter than in the country’s traditional news media, and that negative sentiment was more common than positive statements on social media. The document was a brief overview of social-media usage and meant for internal use, McKinsey said.

The New York-based firm said it wasn’t working in tandem with the Saudi government, and that when it does work with governments, the company “has not and never would engage in any work that seeks to target individuals based on their views,” according to a statement released on Saturday night. “We are horrified by the possibility, however remote, that it could have been misused in any way,” the statement said. “At this point, we have seen no evidence to suggest that it was misused, but we are urgently investigating how and with whom the document was shared.”

Yeah, and Dick Cheney is looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Please, don’t treat us as idiots.

How Convenient

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In Georgia, Brian Kemp is the Secretary of State. He’s also running for governor.

As Secretary of state, he has purged a tenth of voters, with blacks purged at a rate twice that of white voters.

As Marcus Tullius Cicero was wont to say, “Cui bono” (Who benefits):

My lawyer had to threaten Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp with a federal lawsuit to force him to turn over the names of over half a million voters whose citizenship rights he quietly extinguished.

This past week, I released the name of every one of these Georgia voters Kemp flushed from voter rolls in 2017. If you’re a Georgia resident, check the list. If your name is on it, re-register right now. You only have through tomorrow (October 9).

It’s no coincidence that Georgia’s Purge’n General is also running for Governor: The Republican candidate is fighting a dead-even race against Stacey Abrams, Democratic House Minority Leader. Abrams, if she wins, would become the first Black woman governor in US history.

Suspiciously, Kemp sent no notice to these citizens after he took away their voting rights. If they show up to vote on November 6, they’re out of luck — and so is Georgia’s democracy.

Palast (above) neglects to mention that it is minority voters who are being disproportionately effected by his actions:

An analysis of the records obtained by The Associated Press reveals racial disparity in the process. Georgia’s population is approximately 32 percent black, according to the U.S. Census, but the list of voter registrations on hold with Kemp’s office is nearly 70 percent black.

An important thing to note here:  Despite public chest beating, the national Democratic party does not spend a whole bunch of time or money on getting voters registered.

It should be 24/7 thing, but it isn’t.

Live in Obedient Fear, Citizens

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It ppears that the FBI is back to some of its old tricks, specifically it is masquerading as journalists again:

Newly public Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents outline for the first time the specifics of the agency’s guidelines for impersonating members of the news media in undercover activities and operations. The records detail, among other things, that such activities require high-level approval from within the FBI and Justice Department. The FBI released the guidelines after the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit when the agency failed to respond to a request for records about its impersonation of documentary filmmakers, specifically. Additionally, records recently released in connection with a separate FOIA lawsuit filed by the Reporters Committee show that the FBI has engaged in the impersonation of documentary filmmakers on a number of occasions, though questions remain as to just how frequently the FBI relies on this tactic.
……

 In defense of the practice, then-FBI Director James Comey submitted a letter to the editor to The New York Times acknowledging the tactic and stating that the FBI’s impersonation of an AP journalist in the Seattle investigation “was proper and appropriate[.]” The controversy also led the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General to investigate the FBI’s use of media impersonation in the Seattle investigation. In September 2016, the office issued a formal report noting that the FBI had prepared new guidelines setting forth “approval levels for sensitive circumstances specifically in situations in which [FBI] employees represent, pose, or claim to be members of the news media or a documentary film crew.”

 The guidelines obtained by the Reporters Committee detail that approval process: The relevant FBI field office must submit an application to the Undercover Review Committee at FBI headquarters and it must be approved by the FBI Deputy Director after consultation with the Deputy Attorney General. The guidelines do not provide any criteria the FBI Deputy Director and/or the Deputy Attorney General must consider when approving these undercover activities.

…..

In response to part of that FOIA request, the FBI has asserted what is known as a “Glomar” response, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records related to other instances in which it has impersonated documentary filmmakers during the course of its investigations. In support of its argument, in a recent filing the FBI went so far as to argue that disclosing these records “would allow criminals to judge whether they should completely avoid any contacts with documentary film crews, rendering the investigative technique ineffective.”

In response, the Reporters Committee argued that this is precisely the reason why disclosure of information regarding FBI media impersonation is so important: this tactic has a chilling effect on journalists and documentary filmmakers, and sources are less likely to speak candidly to members of the news media if they think that the journalist is an agent of the government. Further, the Reporters Committee argues that the FBI cannot issue a Glomar response in this case because its practice of media impersonation is already well-known to the public and the FBI has already officially acknowledged the existence of these records — two standards the court will consider in evaluating whether the FBI’s Glomar response to part of the FOIA request was appropriate.

2 Thoughts:

  • J. Edgar Hoover is an inescapable part of the FBI’s DNA, and we are not going to change this in my lifetime, though breaking it up into separate functions might be a good start.
  •  James Comey is not, and has never been a friend of civil rights, restraints on law enforcement, or transparency.

OK, this is Evil, Even by the Standards of ICE

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Among other things, this might have the effect of revealing actual votes in early voting and absentee ballots:

Immigration authorities want North Carolina elections officials to turn over nearly a decade’s worth of voting records by the end of the month.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina subpoenaed records Friday from the state board of elections and 44 county elections boards in the eastern part of the state. A meeting notice from the board says the subpoena came at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Among the state records from Jan. 1, 2010 through Aug. 30, 2018 that were requested: all voter registration applications, federal write-in absentee ballots, federal post card applications, early-voting application forms, provisional voting forms, absentee ballot request forms, all “admission or denial of non-citizen return forms,” and all voter registration cancellation or revocation forms.

………

Wake County, one of the 44 counties in the Eastern District’s jurisdiction, received its subpoena Friday via fax. Documents requested from the county are: “Any and all poll books, e-poll books, voting records, and/or voter authorization documents, and executed official ballots (including absentee official ballots), that were submitted to, filed by, received by, and/or maintained by the Wake County Board of Elections from August 30, 2013 through August 30, 2018.”

The state board said the request for “executed official ballots” for the 44 counties includes more than 2.2 million ballots that are traceable to the voters who cast them. These are ballots that were cast by mail or at early voting, according to the board. Those ballots have an identifying number on them. The request includes more than 3.3 million ballots that cannot be traced to individuals who voted on Election Day.

………

Gary Sims, the director of Wake County’s board of elections, said his staff has not begun to gather the data requested nor has it responded to the subpoena. The state and counties must appear in court with the documents in Wilmington on Sept. 25 at 8 a.m.

They are asking for 5 years of voting records, including ballots that can be tied to individual voters.

This is wrong on so many levels, it boggles the mind.

While there has been no public comment from the US Attorney, the nature of this court order clearly implies this is being driven by electoral, and not immigration, considerations.

This stinks to high heaven.

Here’s Hoping that He’ll Burn for This

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The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that a grand jury will be empaneled to investigate Kris Kobach’s refusal to properly rocess voter registrations as Secretary of State:

The Kansas Supreme Court is allowing a citizen-initiated investigation of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to proceed. The grand jury investigation will focus on whether Kobach, a champion for restrictive voting laws and anti-immigrant policies, mishandled voter registration information in the 2016 election, the Lawrence Journal-World reported on Friday.

Kobach narrowly defeated Jeff Colyer last month to become the Republican nominee for Kansas governor in this November’s election. He will now have to run for office while being investigated for whether his office was “grossly neglectful with respect to their election duties,” and engaged in “destroying, obstructing, or failing to deliver online voter registration.” Kobach denies the allegations.

The call for the investigation of Kobach began in 2016 with a petition from Steven Davis, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for state house in 2016 and 2018. Davis alleged that Kobach intentionally failed to register voters who tried to do so online in 2014. His petition was initially rejected by a state district court due to a lack of evidence. He filed a new petition in August 2017 after the Kansas state legislature allowed people to appeal petitions that are rejected.

The district court rejected Davis’ petition again, but a Kansas appeals court reversed the district court in June by ruling that it mistakenly required “specific allegations of a crime, when only general allegations are required by the statute.” On Friday, the Supreme Court denied Kobach’s request to review the appeals court decision, meaning that a grand jury will be summoned.

This is going on while Kobach is running for Governor.

I don’t know if it will bear any fruit, but at the very least, it should make him a bit more circumspect about misusing his powers as Secretary of State to tilt the election in his favor.

North Carolina Just Got Interesting

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The appeals court has ruled that the Congressional districts in North Carolina are unconstitutional, and they may demand that the districts be redrawn before the election.

That’s 10 weeks:

A panel of three federal judges again declared North Carolina’s congressional district map to be unconstitutional, ruling on Monday that it was gerrymandered to unfairly favor Republican candidates.

The decision, which may have significant implications for control of Congress after the midterm elections, is likely to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which for the moment is evenly split on ideological lines without a ninth justice to tip the balance.

Though North Carolina’s voters tend to divide about evenly between the two parties, Republicans currently hold 10 of the state’s 13 House seats. A redrawn district map may put more of the seats within Democrats’ reach.

The three judges had ruled unanimously in January that the state’s House map violated the First and 14th Amendments by unfairly giving one group of voters — Republicans — a bigger voice than others in choosing representatives.

But the Supreme Court declined in June to hear an appeal in the case, sending it back for reconsideration under guidelines it had set out in a different case about who had legal standing to challenge the map.

In a lengthy ruling on Monday, the panel reached largely the same conclusion that it had in January. And the judges agreed that the plaintiffs in the case — voting-rights advocacy groups and residents of each of North Carolina’s 13 districts — had standing to bring the suit.

The judges left open the possibility that they could order new maps to be drawn before the 2018 election, either by the North Carolina General Assembly or by a special master appointed by the court.

Pass the popcorn.