{"id":178125,"date":"2019-02-28T20:08:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T01:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/02\/28\/also-i-did-not-expect-this\/"},"modified":"2019-02-28T20:08:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T01:08:00","slug":"also-i-did-not-expect-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/02\/28\/also-i-did-not-expect-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Also, I Did Not Expect This"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>A federal judge just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2019\/02\/28\/judge-blocks-gop-effort-purge-voting-rolls-texas-saying-it-is-ham-handed-threatening\/\">called bullsh%$ on Texas&#8217; latest voter purge<\/a>:<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">A federal judge has ordered Texas election officials to halt a planned purge of electoral rolls, calling their effort \u201cham-handed\u201d and \u201cthreatening\u201d and saying there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state. <\/p>\n<p>The Wednesday ruling, a relief for voting rights activists, puts a temporary stop to the secretary of state\u2019s search for noncitizens who may have voted illegally \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/inaccurate-claims-of-noncitizen-voting-in-texas-reflect-a-growing-trend-in-republican-states\/2019\/02\/06\/af376fb0-2994-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.725822b73fa0\">a probe that proved deeply flawed just days after it began<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>In late January, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sos.texas.gov\/about\/newsreleases\/2019\/012519.shtml\">the startling announcement<\/a> that nearly 60,000 noncitizens over two decades may have voted in state elections. In response to this finding, Whitley said, counties must conduct \u201clist maintenance activity,\u201d a bureaucratic euphemism for canceling the registrations of fraud suspects. <\/p>\n<p>Whitley\u2019s statement galvanized lawmakers \u2014 nearly all Republicans \u2014 who claim that tens of thousands of noncitizens are committing large-scale voter fraud. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1089513936435716096\">Even President Trump weighed in<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>But there was a catch: As U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said this week, the secretary of state\u2019s numbers were wrong. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt appears this is a solution looking for a problem,\u201d Biery wrote in his ruling, saying the policy \u201cexemplifies the power of government to strike fear and anxiety and to intimidate the least powerful among us.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The government striking, &#8220;fear and anxiety [] to intimidate the least powerful among us,&#8221; was the intended goal.<\/p>\n<p>Preventing non-whites from voting is a core electoral strategy of the Republican Party these days.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, because 5 of the justices are partisan hacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge just called bullsh%$ on Texas&#8217; latest voter purge: A federal judge has ordered Texas election officials to halt a planned purge of electoral rolls, calling their effort \u201cham-handed\u201d and \u201cthreatening\u201d and saying there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state. The Wednesday ruling, a relief for voting rights activists, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[413,407,639],"class_list":["post-178125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-civil-rights","tag-justice","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}