Showing posts sorted by relevance for query texas voter fraud cases. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query texas voter fraud cases. Sort by date Show all posts

Friday, September 25, 2020

Friday Far Left Texas Round-Up


Governor Rolling Blunder is not a fan of the First Amendment, specifically "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".


I doubt whether a Democratic majority in the Texas House -- with a Democrat as Speaker -- is going to be carrying this water, but we'll wait and see.


Among the very few down-ballot Texas Democrats I'll be voting for is my statehouse representative, Shawn Thierry, because she has been an effective warrior against the ignorance of Republicans like Abbott and company.


Yeahno.  Not no but hell no.  My tax dollars will not continue to support this nonsense.


DeSantis should be nobody's role model.

As Grits has taken note of, this is another distraction from Abbott's failures in managing the response to the COVID outbreak.  Ross Ramsey at the TexTrib, via Progrexas, softpedals the incomprehensibility of the toll of the pandemic on us all.  But even a few members of the GOP are breaking away from the governor now.


And not just on the coronavirus, either.


(Braddock meant 'unilaterally', but sometimes typos are best left for their humor value.)

Between Abbott’s mask mandate, the shutdown of bars and the extension of early voting, the governor has received an unusual amount of criticism from his own party.

The suit argues that Abbott, without addressing the state Legislature, does not have the power to extend the voting period. An Abbott spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

“Abbott’s Executive Orders are unprecedented and have had life and death implications, destroyed small businesses and family’s livelihoods, have had a crippling effect on every single community, and now have the ability to impact local, state and national elections,” the lawsuit said.

Notable Republicans listed on the lawsuit include state party Chairman Allen West and state Sens. Pat Fallon and Charles Perry along with state Reps. Cecil Bell Jr., Dan Flynn, Steve Toth and Bill Zedler.

Sen. Donna Campbell, who was originally listed on the suit, wrote a letter to the plaintiffs' attorney stating that she did not agree to be involved in the suit.



Despite the TXGOP's best efforts to restrict voting, many more Texans have signed up to do so than in years past.


And it's a good thing, because as we all know, there are going to be considerable challenges to voting this year.  Beyond COVID19 and mail delivery problems, that is.


Kuff made an argument for voting in person.  Whether you're voting by mail, at an early voting location, or on Election Day, make a plan.  Don't wait until the last minute.  And don't run afoul of Ken Paxton's Vote Cops, either.


Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that authorities arrested Gregg County Commissioner Shannon Brown, Marlena Jackson, Charlie Burns, and DeWayne Ward on charges in connection with an organized vote harvesting scheme during the 2018 Democratic primary election.

According to a press release, to increase the pool of ballots needed to swing the race in Brown’s favor, the group targeted young, able-bodied voters to cast ballots by mail by fraudulently claiming the voters were “disabled,” in most cases without the voters’ knowledge or consent.


Here's a few more election-related items worth your time.


Here's my randomly-sorted social justice headlines and stories.


Socratic Gadfly notes that PRO Gainesville, the group protesting the Confederate statue and other things in Cooke County, appears to have shot itself in the PR foot, as part of recent updates about events there.  Schaefer Edwards for the Houston Press writes that the Nic Chavez case points up the need for both HPD reform and mental health assistance.  John Coby at Bay Area Houston calls Fort Bend County Sheriff (now Congressional candidate) Troy Nehls one of the reasons why we need police reform.  And Jacob Vaughn at the Dallas Observer covers the latest in the Dallas city budget's cuts to cop overtime, but not much else in the way of actual changes.


With a follow-up to a post in Tuesday's Wrangle:


"It puts the whole (Alamo restoration) project in jeopardy."

Thanks, Dan Patrick!


And here's my Texas environmental collation for the week.  It opens with a seven-count thread on Joppa -- more than an environmental abuse tale, and more even than a social injustice story.


A few weeks ago, the HouChron op-ed board wrote that the TCEQ should be more heaviliy penalizing Texas companies who pollute.  Public Citizen follows up.


The Conversation says that it is time for states that got rich from oil, gas, and coal to figure out what comes next.  Texas has a good head start.

There are several examples of successful just transition programs. One is Project QUEST in San Antonio, which highlights the benefits of “local contextualization” and has helped workers transition from manufacturing to health care, information technology and other trades.

And I'll close with these.

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Friday, August 17, 2012

Cockblock the Vote

Considering our recent discussions on the topic, The Daily Show's take last night is cogent and wicked.

[...] Jon Stewart tore into Republican-backed voter identification laws in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which he branded as two different attempts at “suppressing Democratic turnout.”

“Voter fraud is an enormous issue with more than exactly 10 documented cases of it in the entire country alone,” Stewart deadpanned, “just since the beginning of the millennium. That’s .000000284% of all votes. So you can see why Pennsylvania would want to enact a voter ID law that one study claims could potentially disenfranchise around 9% of the entire Pennsylvanian electorate. But that’s the price you pay to prevent something that doesn’t happen.”

“Pennsylvania has voted Democratic in the last five presidential elections,” Stewart pointed out, “leaning toward Obama in this election. It’s not like voter ID law is blatantly designed to skew that result. Right, State House Republican majority leader that designed it?”

He then played tape of that Pennsylvania legislator, Mike Turzai, saying, “Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania. Done.”

Stewart then went after Ohio Republicans’ attempt to restrict early voting hours on Democratic counties but extending early voting hours in Republican ones. “Are you kidding me?” he exclaimed. “All Americans who want equal access to the vote take two steps forward. Not so fast, people who live on Martin Luther King Boulevard South.”

Stewart then played a clip of an Ohio Republican legislator defending the rules by saying, “We try to make it easy but we can’t, you know. I say we’re not 7-11. We can’t stay open 24/7 and let anybody vote by any rule that they want to.”

“Surely we can’t expect our constitutionally guaranteed voting rights to meet the same high standards as a combination gas station/convenience store,” Stewart mocked.

“Two states, two completely different means of suppressing Democratic turnout,” he concluded. “Here is the one thing they have in common: the mechanism of the vote are in the hands of partisan elected officials.”

There's video of the whole thing at Mediaite.

What I never understand is why nobody even mentions Texas. Like the ultrasound bill and trans-vaginal wands, which was enough to ruin Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's chances to be Mitt Romney's running mate, Texas is like a whole other (fascist) country in the national discussion.

Unlike Pennsylvania and Ohio, Texas' own Photo ID law is so egregious that it is stymied by both the courts and the DOJ, while in Houston we suffer from the Teabagger takeover of our bifurcated election system (registration and elections).  The landslide of Democrats elected via voter fraud in Harris County is, of course, the reason for the birth of the King Street Patriots, now a national organization comprised of Caucasian Christian warriors on a mission to prevent anyone who doesn't look like them -- or think like me -- from voting.

And neither the Republicans in charge of the mess, nor most Democrats, want to change that.

Do you still think voting for either a Democrat or a Republican without considering the other options is going to effect change? It seems to me that would be the textbook definition of insanity.

And they call ME crazy for wishing this was the reality.


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Monday, December 13, 2021

The Filing Deadline Wrangle


Filing for partisan nomination or an independent candidacy for the 2022 general election concludes at 6 p.m. local time (today).

As far as we can tell, all incumbent statewide officials, legislators and members of Congress who announced plans to run for re-election (or at least didn’t announce plans to the contrary) have filed except for Reps. Claudia Ordaz Perez (D-El Paso), Ana-Maria Ramos (D-Dallas) and Ron Reynolds (D-Missouri City). Ordaz Perez is paired with Rep. Art Fierro (D-El Paso), who has filed for re-election.

It generally takes a couple of weeks for all the filing activity to shake out completely. County and state party chairs are not required to submit candidate information to the Secretary of State until December 21. The Secretary of State has an additional day to post certified candidate lists on its website. In rare cases for which extended deadlines are triggered, these deadlines shift a few days later. It can take longer to obtain information on independent candidates, who must file declarations of intent by tomorrow (Monday), but their actual application is not due until June 23. Write-in candidates cannot begin submitting their applications until July 23.


Another filing update tomorrow.  Local school board election results from Saturday:


Didn't see any whining about delayed returns posted by Harris Votes, but didn't look very hard, either (had much better plans for my Saturday night).  Relative to the outcomes: it must have been those two non-votes from my household that turned the the tide red.  Wait; nope.  Don't live in those jurisdictions.  Blame other Green Party members, or maybe Susan Sarandon.

For those who have offspring who will be educated in the state's public school systems, better get out there and hustle up your preferred electorate in the next election.  Because the fundies certainly are.

Back to the future (2022).


Fifty-five million dollars and more every day in the coffers and Governor Helen Wheels still grinds on the telephone like an extended warranty salesman.  Are you impressed by his determination?  Is this the type of person you want re-elected?

IMHO it's the result of a political system long gone rancid.

Another example: the ridiculousness of the latest goobernatorial poll underscoring the lack of value of this so-called science.  Braddock again with the hammer on the head of the nail.


Gambling on another Uri that does not come to pass probably ruins Texas Dems -- or at least their consultants -- for another generation, which is to say forever (when the climate fries us all).  Yes, I have blogged recently that the grid issue is paramount for Team Blue.  But they need to fight on multi-fronts, and on some bipartisan topics that Abbott won't risk touching, like cannabis legalization and civil asset reform (or better yet, abolishment).  Maybe even damage to the state's economy.


Meanwhile ...


I would imagine Diaz gets very favorable treatment from the state's political media.  How that translates into electoral success is to be determined.  This seems like a vanity play.  The TexDem Latin@ base vote might push her into a runoff with Beto.  Won't that look great for everybody.

Prescient from the TexTrib's James Barragan and Cassi Pollock.  Or was it Brett Kavanaugh?


Since I got a few days behind again ...


Kuff also reviewed the state and federal rulings on SB8.


SocraticGadfly also blogged about the latest suit against the Texas election law, the minor parties over filing fees (trust me on this: SG hates everybody).  Jessica Huseman at VoteBeat.org reported on the insanity of the Potter County Republican Party and its plans for an all-analog primary.


One environmental update ...


... and one social justice update today.


More tomorrow.  Ending with the calm-me-downs.


The Austin Chronicle has a South by Southwest update.

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Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Tongue Out Tuesday Roundup from Far Left Texas


Not thrilled to read about this dude again.


Delilah for Texas issued a challenge to the erstwhile, unaffiliated, indecisive gubernatorial maybe-candidate.


Be a lot cooler if he did.

And while I have spent much time and effort denigrating Texas Democrats, and will likely be compelled by their own ignominous conduct to continue to do so *coughBetocough*, the fact of the matter is that Joe Jaworski is the best -- indeed the only -- choice to replace Ken Paxtoon (not a typo) as attorney general of our Great State.


I believe that Lee Merritt is an outstanding candidate, and is someone I could support in the general election (absent a Green nominee).  But I've known Joe Jaws a long time; I know who he is, and he's the best man for the job.

George Pee Bush, on the other hand, is a running joke.  I care not whether he can dethrone the top criminal in the state.  It's as important that we dispense with these legacies as it is the celebrities who think they're entitled to political careers.

All dovetailing nicely with this segment of Republicans Doing That Dumbass Shit They Do.


Perhaps I'll make the segue to the Lege follies by devoting some space to Greg Abbott's latest cave to profits over people.


This wasn't costing the state a dime.  Abbott swallowed the lie that "nobody wants to work".  So like other conservatives -- including Joe Biden -- they will try to force Americans to take starvation-wage jobs with no benefits, no paid time off, and no hope for advancement.


The appropriate market solution would be, as anyone who's passed Econ 101 would know, to raise wages to attract employees.  But in Texas, companies are on the government dole, so they actually run themselves more like what they think communism must be like.


I think Team Elephant would be horrified to learn that they were as Red as China ... if they were smart enough to figure it out.

Let's see; the Lege, was it?


Yes, as Scott Braddock noted, that's five Caucasian state senators -- four Republicans and one very conservative Democrat -- meeting behind closed doors to resolve issues on a bill codifying discrimination against Texans of color and their voting rights.

On that topic, some justice in another arena -- the appeals court -- might be forthcoming.  Don't hold your breath, but be marginally encouraged.


And with respect to other social justice developments:


And that's my segue to COVID.


Do I need to blog again why, even though I've had both my shots, I will keep wearing my mask?


Let Governor Wheels take his victory lap.  What goes around comes around.


We're all glad about this good news, but as Harvey Keitel said in Pulp Fiction ...

I have lots of green posts that I'll save for another day, perhaps its own post this week.  Here's a little something I've been enjoying lately.


Lesser prairie chickens, the slightly smaller cousin to the greater prairie chicken, can only be found in five states: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. Following the original petition to list in 1995, lesser prairie chickens were listed in 2014 as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act. A lawsuit challenging the listing ended in a judge vacating the decision in 2015. Another petition for listing was received in 2016, with a finding anticipated in mid-May 2021.


And my artiste soother.

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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Photo ID remains Republicans' Holy Grail

You have likely heard the good news.

(T)he Department of Justice told Texas that its new law to make voting harder cannot stand. The bulk of it is that by requiring voters to show photo ID they never had to show before, Texas could disenfranchise between 603,892 to 795,955 people, a disproportionate number of them Hispanic.

As you know, or can imagine, this has again enraged the conservative hive mind that believes golden chalices and unicorns not only exist but are widespread and rampant across the country. CNN, with the liberally biased facts:

"We note that the state's submission did not include evidence of significant in-person voter impersonation not already addressed by the state's existing laws," said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general.

Wayne Slater:

Several years ago, Abbott announced there was an "epidemic" of voter fraud in Texas and he launched an investigation. But his investigation and subsequent prosecutions failed to confirm any such epidemic. Abbott found 26 cases to prosecute -- all against Democrats, all but one against blacks or Hispanics. Of those, two-thirds were technical violations in which voters were eligible, votes were properly cast and no vote was changed. None of the cases would have been affected by the voter ID requirement.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the damn fool says 'press on'.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who expected the federal government's rejection, said late last week he plans to forge ahead with the lawsuit he filed last month to have the bill implemented immediately. The Justice Department has until April 9 to respond to the lawsuit.

This will undoubtedly be on the agenda at the next national convention of Vote-Suppressing Thugs -- err, True the Vote Douchebags, to be held next month in Houston.

I'd like to say I'm looking forward to attending, but really I'm not.
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Monday, October 25, 2021

The Monday Morning Wrangle from Far Left Texas


Dan Solomon's excuses are as good as any for me to skip this fall's elections in favor of more trivial pursuits.  And since I don't have children or grandchildren, the Houston school board races are a non-starter for me.  YMMV, of course.

Elsewhere, frying bigger fish:


We're left to our own devices as to why the other so-called liberals, Kagan and Breyer, declined to join Sotomayor in dissenting.  That's enough to project a more ominous fate for Roe once the Supremes collectively pass judgment.

There were some reactions to Governor Strangelove's latest chat with Breitbart, which happened at the 50-yard line of Darrell K. Royal Stadium.


And to think that all this time I thought it was the Aggies who were the conservative darlings of higher education in Texas.  Silly me.

Alas, on the state's corruption scale, this barely registers.


Still anxiously anticipating a long break from having to report this shit.


I'll take that as my segue to the criminal and social justice updates.


A Lefty Gamer has been relentless in Tweeting about the MAGAts running the Magnolia ISD.


That gets me to the environmental headlines.


And the soothers.  There was MuertosFest in San Antonio over the weekend ...


... and another festival just like it this weekend.


With a 5–0 statement in Game 5 Friday, Houston is returning to the World Series for the third time in five years because over the final 26 innings, it outscored Boston, 22–1. That was after the Red Sox had become the first team in postseason history to run off six straight games with 10 hits or more. A gullywasher became a drought. It ... just ... stopped.

Asked to explain the whiplash-inducing turn to the series, Boston manager Alex Cora said, “Brent Strom and Martín Maldonado. Two of the smartest people in baseball. They completely changed their strategy against us midway through Game 4.”

[...]

It was during that game that Strom, the chief navigator of pitching, decided to tack to the starboard side. The change Cora referenced was a decision by Strom to have his pitchers attack the Red Sox with fastballs.

“Yeah, very much so,” Strom said. [...] "I basically told the group, ‘If you’re going to get beat, throw your best stuff over the plate, then you can sleep at night. Rather than dancing around the strike zone.’ Young pitchers start dancing, and you can’t do that.”


Confession: I was among the Debbie Downers lamenting the collapse of the starting pitching, especially after Luis Garcia came up lame.

Garcia lasted only eight batters in Game 2, departing with a sore knee and a 91-mph fastball after getting only three outs. The knee injury forced Strom to study Garcia’s delivery to see if something was causing the pain. The old pitcher whisperer found it and put Garcia on the mound the next day for a bullpen session. He showed Garcia that he was creating stress on his knee by having his right foot (the plant foot by the rubber for the righthander) slightly angled, with the ball of his foot a bit closer to the plate than his heel. That caused his knee to be turned slightly inward as he lifted his front leg in the load phase.

Strom told Garcia to place his right foot directly parallel with the rubber. With a straight plant foot, Garcia would keep his knee (and thus his weight upon leg lift) over the foot.

Voila! Garcia hit 97 mph seven times in the first three innings after throwing one pitch that hard the entire season out of 1,118 four-seamers.

“I was surprised,” Strom said. “The funny thing about it, outside of that injury, if he had not hurt his knee, we might not have made that tweak. So, the tweak was made not to increase velocity but to take stress off his knee. We did it the very next day after he threw one inning and he seemed to like it. And quite frankly we probably should have done it sooner, but he was having a good year and you hate to mess with somebody who’s having a good year. It’s the dicey thing about messing with a good thing. The injury probably helped him.”

Then there was this, the backbreaker for the Sox.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

True the Vote loses another lawsuit

0 for 2 in court over the past month.

True the Vote, the Republican voter suppression movement, lost a round in its battle against the IRS yesterday when U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton dismissed its lawsuit against the IRS. True the Vote had claimed it had been targeted for greater IRS scrutiny due to its conservative point of view.
Judge Walton also dismissed a similar lawsuit brought by Linchpins of Liberty and 40 other groups. According to Forbes:
It’s important to understand that Judge Walton, a Presidential Bush nominee to the court, did not rule on the merits of the case. He didn’t decide that the IRS conduct was okay or that no harm was done. He ruled, rather, that procedurally, the case had nowhere to go. Since the plaintiffs in both instances could not prove ongoing harm – nor could they prove that there were not other remedies available – Judge Walton dismissed these cases.
A copy of the ruling is here.

However, True the Vote is continuing its vigilante tactics at voter suppression, emailing its supporters a call to arms, claiming "Elections will be stolen" on November 4.


James O'Keefe has beaten this dead horse over and over again.  The latest Republican talking point is that "photo IDs are free".  This is deliberately misleading.  Here's the evidence.

To get an EIC, (Eric) Kennie needs to be able to show the Texas department of public safety (DPS) other forms of documentation that satisfy them as to his identity. He presented them with his old personal ID card – issued by the DPS itself and with his photo on it – but because it is more than 60 days expired (it ran out in 2000) they didn’t accept it. Next he showed them an electricity bill, and after that a cable TV bill, but on each occasion they said it didn’t cut muster and turned him away.

Each trip to the DPS office involved taking three buses, a journey that can stretch to a couple of hours. Then he had to stand in line, waiting for up to a further three hours to be seen, before finally making another two-hour schlep home.

In one of his trips to the DPS last year they told him he needed to get hold of a copy of his birth certificate as the only remaining way he could meet the requirements and get his EIC. That meant going on yet another three-bus trek to the official records office in a different part of town.

The cost of acquiring a birth certificate in Texas is $23, which may not sound much but it is to Kennie. He is poor, like many of the up to 600,000 Texans caught in the current voter ID trap.

There's also a 93-year-old veteran in Houston who begs to differ with the state's definition of 'free'.

Now if you want to read a cogent argument in favor of voter photo ID, Mona Charon manages a few (through the fog of thinly disguised partisan ad hominem).  But the point remains that photo IDs required for voting should actually be free and unrestricted, unlike what the Texas law stipulates.  Which is why the Supreme Court will eventually strike it down, as even Republican election law attorneys understand.

For this election, whether or not the law is working as intended seems to be the $64,000 question.  Update: FWIW, Greg Wythe's numbers show some reasons to be pessimistic.
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