Lorraine Evanoff's Blog, page 9
April 29, 2022
Ron DeSantis Is Getting Sloppy
Powerful businessmen and politicians aren’t always as clever as they think they are. For example, Elon Musk’s take-over of Twitter has hit a snag as he might already be in breach of the deal terms. According to the acquisition agreement, Musk is barred from disparaging Twitter or any of its representatives. Several of his recent tweets could already be considered in violation.
Or take the corrupt governor of Florida, for example. Ron DeSantis is good at getting legislation passed. But his work is so rushed and sloppy the laws have a hard time going into effect or have backfired. In 2021, a judge blocked DeSantis’s “anti-riot” law declaring it unconstitutional and seven Florida cities sued. Last month, DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, into law. But it is already backfiring on him with a new petition to ban the Bible in Florida schools, the petitioner arguing it talks about rape, murder, and drunken orgies.
Disney also vocally opposed the Parental Rights in Education law. This prompted Republican lawmakers and DeSantis to pass legislation repealing a 1967 law establishing the special taxing Reedy Creek Improvement District controlled by Disney. But Reedy Creek quietly notified investors that the legislation to dissolve the district is in violation of a “pledge” Florida made and is not legally binding.
According to the original law, theoretically Orange and Osceola counties would inherit $1 billion in bond debt. The cost of servicing the bond debt (meaning the annual interest payment) is $58 million per year. The counties would also be on the hook to cover the cost of services at $105 million per year. That $163 million per year would increase taxes by $200-$250 per year per household. What a mess. So much for these savvy businessmen and politicians.
April 20, 2022
These People Have No Idea What They’re Even Talking About
It always struck me as strange that radio stations advertise themselves WHILE I’m listening. It turns out, people need reassuring. Democrats too. After Biden won, I finally resumed listening to NPR, although I still refuse to consume most main-stream media. It turns out, NPR is not safe either. Recently I listened to Forum. The questions were excellent. The guest replies were rightwing spin, probably aimed at appeasing the criminals and the MAGA base. Here are a few examples.
Will January 6th Committee referrals to DOJ matter? GUEST: Bannon was not a Trump White House employee, so he was indictable. Meadows, Scavino, and Navarro were White House employees and executive privilege makes DOJ indictment problematic. WRONG: SCOTUS already struck down executive privilege in January 2022. Also, the J6 referrals to the DOJ have already pressured others to give damning testimony.
Will Eastman emails matter? GUEST: Only one of the 101 emails was incriminating, the rest will reveal nothing new. WRONG: Judge Carter issued a Crime Fraud exception canceling attorney-client privilege to get the emails released, stating Trump, “More likely than not” committed felony obstruction. A DC jury convicted insurrectionist Guy Reffitt of violating the same statute Judge Carter cites.
Will the investigations into Trump’s involvement in the insurrection and his call to Georgia SOS matter? GUEST: All the activities could fall under “free speech.” Also, Congress had their chance with the 2nd impeachment of Trump but failed. WRONG. Free speech? Really? Also, both impeachments succeeded. The GOP controlled Senate failed to convict.
This guest also just published a piece on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Really? Forum has lost me as a listener. But these interviews give us a roadmap to Democratic messaging. Also, the January 6th Select Committee hearings scheduled for late May, early June, will be explosive and many GOP candidates are imploding.
In the Senate we must focus on 10 competitive states. In Congress, there are difficult fights for 16 Democrats, but 9 Republicans are a toss-up. There’s a lot that can happen before November 8, 2022. Stay focused.
April 18, 2022
The Mark Meadows Voter Fraud Investigation Takes A New Twist
I’ve been reporting on Mark Meadows and his wife who are alleged to have knowingly registered to vote using a fake mobile home address in North Carolina. In the latest, on April 11, 2022, after confirming Mark Meadows was also registered to vote in Virginia, where he voted in 2021, Macon County NC Board of Elections removed him from the active voter list. The former North Carolina Congressman has been under investigation for election fraud in North Carolina after voting there by absentee ballot during the 2020 election, where Trump won by 1 percentage point.
Meadows’ wife Debra is not named in the investigation, and she still has an active voter registration at the mobile home. Fraudulently or falsely completing the voter registration form is a Class I Felony. Meadows was a vocal proponent of the Big Lie, refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify to the January 6th Select Committee, which referred him to the DOJ for criminal contempt of Congress charges in December 2021. Wouldn’t it be poetic if Mark Meadows were convicted of felony voter fraud and barred from voting?
Speaking of voter fraud convictions, Pamela Moses, a Tennessee woman of color, was sentenced to six years in prison in February 2022 for knowingly making a false entry on per permanent registration. The judge who sentenced her subsequently overturned the conviction, granted her a new trial, and she was released from prison. Her attorneys are working to have the charges dismissed.
No matter where Meadows is registered to vote, we must all vote in droves. In the November 2022 midterms, 34 Senate seats and all 435 House seats are up for election. As Bill Palmer pointed out, “In 2020 we all focused too much on senate races in Kentucky, South Carolina, and Texas, that were all long shots. If we’d focused on the very competitive race in North Carolina instead, we’d have 51 democratic senators right now, not 50.”
April 13, 2022
TICK TOCK
Shocking news of texts between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows, and Alabama having continued the gutting of Roe v Wade, are the latest examples of how Republicans have used the SCOTUS to nearly destroy our democracy. Democrats continue to find new ways to protect Americans, which makes holding the House and increasing our Senate majority in the Midterms so important.
Democrats have proposed legislation dubbed the Enablers Act after release of the Pandora Papers, to shine a light on dark money in United States politics. This is one possible way to mitigate the effects of Citizens United and the Federalist Society’s influence. Also, the House passed the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify abortion rights. Of course, we need 10 more Senate seats to enact this law. But we must start somewhere.
We must also ignore the doomsday pundits and cynical media, such as CBS News Division president Neeraj Khemlani caught on tape defending the hiring of corrupt Trump lackey Mick Mulvaney because “Republicans are going to take over in the midterms.” Or Washington Post giving Amy Klobuchar two Pinocchios for accusing Ginni Thomas of “advocating for an insurrection,” arguing Ginni condemned the attack texting “these people were not representative of Trump supporters,” while WaPo ignored Ginni’s other text stating “only 4 GOP House members seen out in street rallies with grassroots…Gohmert, Jordan, Gosar, and Roy.”
A good start would be to hold the House and gain two or three more seats in the Senate. We must also win more Governorships to thwart the draconian voter disenfranchisement and anti-right-to-choose laws in red states. Democrats are in better shape these Midterms than 2010 and 2014, due to five Republican Senate retirements. Also, Biden’s approval rating has soared in the wake of the tragic invasion of Ukraine by Russia boosting Democrats’ chances.
But Democrats need to get motivated. 70% of Republican voters are more likely than Democrats (60%) to think controlling Congress matters. We need to amplify Republican corruption. The January 6th Committee hearings in May, promise game-changing Democratic soundbites against the GOP candidates. We can and we must do this.
April 1, 2022
Wait, Madison Cawthorn Said WHAT?
Every day Republicans sink lower. For example, trending on twitter is a claim North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn made during a podcast that fellow Republican colleagues invited him to orgies where “you watch them do a key bump of cocaine in front of you.” Mind you, I’m no prude. Having lived in Paris for seven years, any ingrained puritanical American mores I may have harbored were quickly scorned into oblivion. Nonetheless, my initial reaction to this claim by Cawthorn was, WTAF?
Then my next thought was normalization and distraction. It is sad that Republicans have conditioned us into pushing norms further and further. Many people say they are no longer shocked by Trump or Republicans. I disagree. I may no longer be surprised. But I will always be shocked.
So, why would Cawthorn make such a disgusting claim against his own colleagues? Is there a new sex scandal coming out that he’s trying to get ahead of? Or, more likely, perhaps Trump called in a favor to his lackey for a big distraction before some impending new announcement. Or even a distraction from the current news of Trump’s seven hours of missing burner phone data? Or from the January 6th Select Committee obtaining dozens of texts between Ginni Thomas pleading with Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to overturn the election 2020 presidential election results?
The interesting thing is that Cawthorn’s distraction barely made a blip in the news. But it has made huge waves within the Republican party. Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened to have a stern chat with Cawthorn. Maybe Trump just wants the Republican party to fall further into disarray out of spite for their inability to reinstall him? Who knows? At least, for once, it’s not projection, with a Republican accusing a Democrat of something they’re guilty of. The bottom line is that the Republican party has no bottom. We must vote them out in the midterms, November 8, 2022.
March 28, 2022
What Does This Even Mean?
The American Bar Association Standing Committee has three possible ratings it gives nominees to the Federal Judiciary: “well qualified,” “qualified,” and “not qualified.” The Standing Committee evaluates nominees based on “professional competence, integrity, and judicial temperament.
On March 18, 2022, the Standing Committee gave Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson the same “well qualified” rating it bestowed on the most recent Supreme Court nominees making the differences between the Standing Committee’s ratings of nominees too subtle and unreliable to be useful.
For example, the Standing Committee’s “well qualified” rating of Ketanji Brown Jackson was by unanimous vote, while Amy Coney Barrett only received the rating of “well qualified” from a “substantial majority” of the Standing Committee, and a rating of “qualified” by a minority of the Committee.
For Brett Kavanaugh, in 2006 the Standing Committee downgraded his rating to “qualified” citing concerns about his “professional experience and the question of his freedom from bias and open-mindedness,” and “the nominee’s ability to be balanced and fair should he assume a federal judgeship.”
However, the Standing Committee upgraded corrupt crybaby Kavanaugh’s rating to “well-qualified” by unanimous vote on August 31, 2018, which Republicans love to tout. Never mind that, after the now infamous September 27, 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, the Standing Committee announced it would re-evaluate Kavanaugh’s rating, citing his ‘temperament’ during the hearings. But, on October 15th, the Committee dropped the review, saying it was no longer applicable after his narrow confirmation.
During the Senate hearings on Clarence Thomas, following the testimony by Anita Hill, on October 14, 1991, the Standing Committee told then Senate Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden its previous rating of “well qualified” pre-dated the allegations, and it would find him “not qualified” if they were proved true. But the Committee conceded and Thomas was confirmed the next day.
The unimpressive track record of the ABA Standing Committee’s ratings raises the question, what does it even stand for? It won’t matter, once again, because Democrats are on track to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson before the April 8th recess.
March 25, 2022
Mark Meadows Is In Even Deeper Trouble Than We Thought
In early March, I reported that not only was Mark Meadows in hot water, but also that his wife could be implicated for allegedly knowingly registering to vote using a fake mobile home address in North Carolina. I also reported that a challenger of the candidate that Meadows voted for would need to file a complaint. Now North Carolina officials have announced that Mark Meadows is under investigation for potential felony voter fraud after Debra Meadows submitted voter registrations and absentee ballot requests on behalf of herself and her husband.
Although Debra Meadows is not named in the investigation, she certified she was eligible to vote. The form notes “fraudulently or falsely completing this form” is a Class I Felony. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said, “As the investigation continues, information will be shared with the prosecutor who will make a determination as to whether any additional persons should be subject to investigation.”
The Meadows should be prosecuted to the fullest just as North Carolina resident Latisha Bratcher Jones, a black woman, was. Or Pamela Moses, a Tennessee woman of color who was unfairly sentenced for “knowingly” making “a false entry on per permanent registration.” Jones eventually got her charge reduced to a misdemeanor, and Moses was subsequently released and is now asking for the charges to be dismissed. In both cases, the Guardian uncovered evidence to get both these cases revisited.
Moses has been speaking out stating these “scare tactics” are intended to deter black people from voting. The Meadows family don’t seem afraid to submit falsified voter registrations and absentee ballot requests, allegedly. For all their claims of voter fraud, Republicans have drawn unwanted scrutiny to themselves and tested the system, perhaps to their own demise.
Many thanks to the Guardian and these women fighting to protect everyone’s right to vote. Let’s make sure we vote in droves when 34 Senate seats and all 435 House seats are up for election on November 8, 2022.
March 23, 2022
Vladimir Putin’s Nosedive
As Ukraine battles Putin’s attack on its democracy for a third week, Democrats fight for democracy within the United States, battling ongoing Republican attacks on provisions specifically outlined in our Constitution: The Post Office, voting rights, and the Census.
Democrats just won a crucial battle for the U.S. Postal Service reversing destructive GOP legislation requiring pre-funding of employee benefits. However, our efforts to remove corrupt Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who is currently under investigation for felony campaign finance crimes, remains stalled as Biden’s board replacements await approval in a Senate committee.
The 15th Amendment ratified in 1870 expanded the right to vote beyond white male landowners. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” and “The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Yet, Republicans in Congress refuse to restore the protections under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.
And now, a Census Bureau post-enumeration survey confirms that Republican tampering with the 2020 Census resulted in a substantial undercount. Even as the 2020 count was hampered by the pandemic, hurricanes, and wildfires, the Trump administration and Wilbur Ross made the census more difficult for our largest minority group to participate. The undercount in the 2020 Census for Hispanics almost tripled, and those who identify as “some other race” more than doubled compared to the 2010 Census.
The consequences may give Republicans the ability to gerrymander more seats in Congress and get more federal funding in red states. The National Urban League called the results a tragedy and warned that any options including litigation are on the table. Analysts suggest exploring new methods to improve accuracy, and to rehabilitate the image of the Census among Hispanics.
A 246-year-old democracy shouldn’t be this easy to destroy, nor should it be this difficult to defend. We must vote Republicans out in the 2022 Midterms.
March 18, 2022
Another Donald Trump Disaster
As Ukraine battles Putin’s attack on its democracy for a third week, Democrats fight for democracy within the United States, battling ongoing Republican attacks on provisions specifically outlined in our Constitution: The Post Office, voting rights, and the Census.
Democrats just won a crucial battle for the U.S. Postal Service reversing destructive GOP legislation requiring pre-funding of employee benefits. However, our efforts to remove corrupt Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who is currently under investigation for felony campaign finance crimes, remains stalled as Biden’s board replacements await approval in a Senate committee.
The 15th Amendment ratified in 1870 expanded the right to vote beyond white male landowners. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” and “The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Yet, Republicans in Congress refuse to restore the protections under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.
And now, a Census Bureau post-enumeration survey confirms that Republican tampering with the 2020 Census resulted in a substantial undercount. Even as the 2020 count was hampered by the pandemic, hurricanes, and wildfires, the Trump administration and Wilbur Ross made the census more difficult for our largest minority group to participate. The undercount in the 2020 Census for Hispanics almost tripled, and those who identify as “some other race” more than doubled compared to the 2010 Census.
The consequences may give Republicans the ability to gerrymander more seats in Congress and get more federal funding in red states. The National Urban League called the results a tragedy and warned that any options including litigation are on the table. Analysts suggest exploring new methods to improve accuracy, and to rehabilitate the image of the Census among Hispanics.
A 246-year-old democracy shouldn’t be this easy to destroy, nor should it be this difficult to defend. We must vote Republicans out in the 2022 Midterms.
March 10, 2022
Major New Move To Protect The Post Office
With Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine dominating the news (and rightfully so), I’ve taken it upon myself to keep other important news in the forefront. One headline that was largely missed was the release of unfairly sentenced Pamela Moses. Now in more big news.
The Senate just overwhelming voted to pass a bipartisan bill to help save the US Post Office. Corrupt Postmaster General Louis DeJoy tried to destroy our beloved institution, which was included in the Postal Clause in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to “establish Post Offices and post Roads” and “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for executing this task.”
Crucial in the new legislation, “the bill eliminates requirements USPS pre-fund retiree health benefits for current and retired employees for 75 years, a requirement no business or other federal entity faces.” This damaging requirement to pre-fund retiree health benefits forced into 2006 legislation by corrupt Republicans trying to destroy USPS has now been reversed. “USPS projects it would sharply reduce its pre-funding liability and save it roughly $27 billion over 10 years.” The House passed the bill in February, in a landslide bipartisan vote.
To get Republicans in the Senate on board required keeping DeJoy’s legislation that reduced transportation of mail by airplane resulting in slower mail delivery. But eliminating the pre-funding of retiree benefits legislation is a huge win for Democrats. The bill will now go to President Biden who is expected to sign it into law.
