Beach Peanuts

Voter Purge: Purged

Tonight the Justice Department sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordering the state to stop Rick Scott's voter purge because the process hasn't been cleared under the Voting Rights Act.

From TPM:

DOJ also said that Florida’s voter roll purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, which stipulates that voter roll maintenance should have ceased 90 days before an election, which given Florida’s August 14 primary, meant May 16.

Five of Florida’s counties are subject to the Voting Rights Act, but the state never sought permission from either the Justice Department or a federal court to implement its voter roll maintenance program. Florida officials said they were trying to remove non-citizens from the voting rolls, but a flawed process led to several U.S. citizens being asked to prove their citizenship status or be kicked off the rolls.

That's two big losses in one day for Rick Scott, and two big wins for Florida voters and Democracy. Earlier today U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle struck down a provision of the Republicans and Scott's controversial Florida voter suppression law.

After Judge Hinkle's ruling Scott said he would review other options on those provisions. 

Scott Loses On Voter Suppression, But His Purge Continues (UPDATED)

And To Rick Scott, That's The Problem

(UPDATED BELOW)

While inaccuracies in the voter lists continue to mount, and Rick Scott pushes ahead to purge U.S. citizens who are very much eligible to vote in Florida from the rolls anyway, he lost another voter suppression battle in court.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle struck down a provision of the controversial Florida voter suppression law pushed and passed by Republicans and signed by Gov. Scott that prompted the the lawsuit by the League of Women Voters, who were forced to stop registering voters because of harsh time restrictions. Violations of those restrictions would have imposed harsh penalties and fines.

The law imposed a 48-hour deadline for turning in forms by third party groups, the provision the judge barred from enforcement today.

From the ruling:

The statute and rule impose a harsh and impractical 48-hour deadline for an organization to deliver applications to a voter registration office and effectively prohibit an organization from mailing applications in. And the statute and rule impose burdensome record-keeping and reporting requirements that serve little if any purpose, thus rendering them unconstitutional” even if they do not violate the NVRA; (National Voting Rights Act) a primary injuntion barring enforcement of those provisions is denied.

Hinkle's ruling did not include other parts of the law still in question such as a reduced number of early voting days, the cancellation of voting on the Sunday prior to election day, and restrictions making it harder to vote for those who have moved, or made address changes, which would make voting harder for certain targeted groups like college students.

Sen. Bill Nelson, who opposed the law and asked Gov. Scott not to sign it said Thursday

 “This law clearly was designed to stop people from voting, and I’m glad to see the judge’s ruling.”

Earlier this year, Nelson also asked the U.S. Justice Department for an investigation into whether the law was deliberately intended to curb voting among young voters, seniors and minorities.  He also brought the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights to Tampa to hold an investigative hearing on the law in January. 

At the time, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin wrote a letter to Gov. Rick Scott requesting that he appear at that hearing, but Scott blatantly ignored the letter and refused to attend the hearing. In a flippant response, Scott's spokesman said:

"Governor Scott won’t be responding to the senator’s letter. He’s focused on passing meaningful jobs legislation, education and PIP reform and respectfully declines to further explain a law he didn’t write." 

Florida Democratic Party Chair Rod Smith gave this response to Thursday's ruling:

"As we have stated from the beginning, the GOP's voter suppression law is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to keep Floridians from making their voices heard at the polls. Under Gov. Rick Scott, Florida Republican's have led an unprecedented assault on voting rights – a basic right of all Americans – and it must stop. Today's decision is a victory for the people of Florida and a defeat to the extremist GOP leadership in Tallahassee. "

Meanwhile, Rick Scott's blatant attempt to purge voters continues in spite of the fact that errors are being made and those who have every right to vote are being forced to prove their rights or lose them in the face of an approaching deadline. Today Florida GOP chair Lenny Curry admitted there are problems with the data, but that they will continue with the purge regardless.

In some counties the Supervisors of Elections have halted the purge. So far those are Hillsborough, Leon and Palm Beach Counties. Progress Florida has compiled a list of all the county election offices along with the name and phone numbers of their Supervisors so voters can call and urge them to join those above and stop the purge.

It shouldn't have to come down to the voters having to ask that a purge wrought with errors be stopped any more than the burden of proof should fall on an eligible U.S. citizen to continue to exercise their right to vote. But sadly, in Rick Scott's Florida, it does.

Just take it from Rep. Dennis Baxley (R-Stand Your Ground) who said this about the state's non-existent voter fraud problem, the voter purge, and the potential for prosecution:

"We need to protect the integrity of the system and ensure that people who aren't eligible to vote aren't casting ballots. The elections supervisors are going to send any names they find suspicious to the state attorneys, but the prosecutors have bigger fish to fry than this."

Rick Scott has bigger fish to fry too. A repeat of the 2000 election, which he'd like to hand to Mitt Romney. 

He can't have legal voters get in his way.

UPDATE:

Shortly after this post was published, the Justice Department sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordering the state to stop Rick Scott's voter purge because the process hasn't been cleared under the Voting Rights Act. Details here.

Rick Scott Targets 91-Year-Old Veteran In Florida Voter Purge - Where Is The Outrage?

"Working" The Election

Last year Florida's Governor Rick Scott "honored" veterans, including an estimated 17,000 homeless veterans on Memorial Day by cutting $12 million out of the state budget from the National Veterans Homeless Support Groups. 

This year Scott "honored" veterans once again in his own special way, this time one veteran in particular, who was informed that he wasn't a U.S. Citizen and therefore ineligible to vote.

The latest target of Scott's voter purge that's now famously snagging eligible voters is a 91-year-old decorated World War II Veteran Bill Internicola who now must prove that he's a U.S. Citizen by requesting a hearing with the Supervisor of Elections or lose his right to vote.

In Rick Scott's Florida it doesn't matter that you put your life on the line and serve your country to protect the rights of everyone, including Rick Scott's. All that matters is an election, and if one of the only ways to win is by taking away the rights that so many have fought and died to protect, so be it. Even if it means taking it from a veteran who did the fighting and made the sacrifices, it's just another day in the governor's mansion for Rick Scott. 

Each Memorial Day that he's been in office, Scott marked the occasion with a Memorial Day proclamation and observed a "Moment of Remembrance." Those "moments" are just about all the time he's willing to give the veterans judging from his actions, which speak volumes rather than his words.

Scott rode into office with millions of his own money, and the support of the so-called Tea Party, who claim they love nothing more than the Constitution, and freedom, and their rights and think nothing is more patriotic than going to war when those very same things are threatened. Where are those Tea Party voters now? Where is the outrage one would expect to hear in a state where their rights have been under assault one by one since they elected Scott?

Scott has signed laws that have been declared unconstitutional, signed more that probably will be in the future, and still others that are tied up in court, all of which taxpayers, including the Tea Party, are paying dearly for. You would think that financing all that red tape in return for nothing but lost rights would really fire up the "Don't Tread On Me" crowd. And yet, silence.

This statement from Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org sums it up rather well:

“When someone who put their life on the line to protect the right to vote from fascists and empires is denied the right to vote, and is purged from voting rolls, there is something horribly, horribly wrong. Anyone who would stand behind an action that threatens the right to vote of a WWII vet is someone I would call un-American,” said Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org

Yes, there is something horribly, horribly wrong, in the state of "stolen elections," with Rick Scott, with a Republican Party who will do anything to win, and with anyone who stands silently by and watches them do it.

Where is the outrage?

Florida Scores Three Spots On Top Ten Highest Foreclosure List

Woo hoo! We're number three....and number eight.......and number ten!

Three metropolitan areas in Florida made the top ten list of cities with the highest foreclosures in the country according to RealtyTrac. While foreclosure rates have gone down, these three areas lag behind the rest of the country:

10. Orlando-Kissimmee, Fla.

•  Foreclosure rate: One in 347 homes
•  Number of homes: 942,312 (24th most)
•  Foreclosures (April 2012): 2,717 (16th most)
•  Home price decline from peak: 54.2 percent (sixth largest decline)

8. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.

•  Foreclosure rate: One in 315 homes
•  Number of homes: 1,353,158 (17th most)
•  Foreclosures: (April 2012): 4,295 (eighth most)
•  Home price decline from peak: 48 percent (eighth largest decline)

3. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, Fla.

•  Foreclosure rate: One in 273 homes
•  Number of homes: 2,464,417 (fifth most)
•  Foreclosures: (April 2012): 9,031 (3rd most)
•  Home price decline from peak: 54.2 percent (seventh largest decline)

Meanwhile, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has diverted some of the state's share of foreclosure settlement money to the state budget, and homeowners wait to see what she'll do with the rest of the settlment money.

Rick Scott's Florida Voter Purge Update

Earlier this month I wrote that the Florida Division of Elections began enforcing Rick Scott's new election laws by purging what they claimed were "ineligible non-citizen voters" from the rolls. The hasty process has caused major headaches for elections offices and now, of course, voters who are citizens and very much eligible to vote who have nonetheless been targeted to potentially be removed from the rolls unless they prove otherwise.

The so called reasoning for this purge was non-existent voter fraud, and even though officials cited this, they admit they have no intention of prosecuting anyone. They just want to remove those targeted voters as a "preventive" measure.

Since the purge began, at least two voters who are citizens have been notified that they won't be able to vote without proving their citizenship have come forward. Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Mike Ertel, a Republican, posted a picture on Twitter earlier this week of a voter on the list falsely identified as ineligible, with his passport.

Today, another voter, Maureen Russo, said she received a letter identifying her as ineligible to vote. She is a citizen who has been voting in the State of Florida for the past 40 years. Russo was informed that she could opt for “an administrative hearing to present evidence” disputing the determination of the State that she was ineligible to vote. Unless Maureen returned a form requesting such a hearing within 30 days, she was told, it would result in “the removal of your name from the voter registration rolls.”

We have since learned that the voter purge was directed not by the Secretary of State, but came at the direction of Florida Governor Rick Scott himself:

Ex-Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who resigned this year, told The Associated Press that Scott asked him whether or not non-U.S. citizens were registered and if those people were voting. Browning explained to the governor during a face-to-face meeting last year that people who register and falsely claim they are citizens can be charged with a crime.

"He says to me - well, people lie," Browning recalled this week. "Yes, people do. But we have always had to err on the side of the voter."

Browning said the conversation prompted state election officials to begin working to identify non-U.S. citizens. The state's initial list - compiled by comparing driver's licenses with voter registration data - showed that as many as 182,000 registered voters were eligible to be in the country but ineligible to vote.

But Browning said he decided against telling local election supervisors right away because he wanted to make sure the information was accurate in order to avoid a "firestorm of press" and criticism. Florida then spent months trying to get access to a federal database that tracks non-U.S. citizens in the country, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would not allow it.

"We were not confident enough about the information for this secretary to hang his hat on it," said Browning, who resigned after the Jan. 31 presidential preference primary 

In spite of inaccuracies in the lists, the purge goes on in spite of instances like those above. Those being stripped of their rights to vote are mostly high numbers of Democrats, Independent and Hispanic voters. 

In other words, those more than likely to vote for a Democrat in the upcoming election. Florida is a swing state that voted for President Obama in 2008, a result the Republican Governor and his party would no doubt like that to change in 2012.

As always in Florida, this "urge to purge" just happens to be of the utmost urgency right before a Presidential election. It's not exactly a stretch of the imagination to assume that in a tight race, we could see a repeat of what happened in 2000, when then Secretary of State Katherine Harris stopped the count and the Supreme Court handed the election to George W. Bush. Today that court is a right leaning partisan body that tends to side with Republican and conservative issues.

Florida Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch has said that he has heard of numerous instances like those above where eligible voters have gotten letters, and Deutch is demanding that Scott stop the purge immediately because of the inaccuracies.

The national, traditional media has barely, if at all, made mention of the voter purge and suppression effort in Florida. It's been touched on by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, and last night was featured by Ed Schultz, who interviewed Deutch. I've included that report in the video below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Sacred Trust

Since day one, President Obama has made it a priority to help veterans get the health care and benefits they’ve earned, find work when they return home, and be able to get an affordable college education. That’s why he provided historic funding for veterans health care, gave businesses tax credits for hiring unemployed veterans, and improved the post-9/11 GI bill so those who serve and their spouses can get help paying for college.

This stands in contrast to Mitt Romney’s record, policies and promises, which would break the trust President Obama holds with America’s military families.  As governor of Massachusetts, Romney slashed veterans’ programs his first month in office, and now supports the Romney-Ryan budget that would cut all domestic spending, including veterans’ care, by nearly 20 percent. He also left veterans issues out of his 59-point plan for jobs and economic growth, his major foreign policy speech, and his 44-page foreign policy white paper.

As millions of our servicemen and women return home from war, we must continue fulfilling our duty to them and their families for their service.

 

Awkward: Rick Scott Meets King Of Spain, Invokes The Elephant In The Room

As Floridians may or may not know, Rick Scott was on a taxpayer funded vacation trip to Spain this week, under the premise of "job creation" and bringing businesses to the state.

Right. I suppose being just giddy in the presence of austerity in action had nothing to do with it...

While Spain has put harsh austerity measures into place, it didn't help matters when King Juan Carlos set off on an elephant hunting trip to Botswana recently, a trip the people of Spain might not have known about had the King not fallen and broken his hip while he was at it. Private elephant hunts are quite costly and wouldn't sit well with struggling and unemployed Spaniards just barely scraping by. Never mind that the King also happens to be honorary president of the Spanish wing of the World Wildlife Fund. That trip is likely something the King would prefer people forget as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately for the King, Rick Scott, the King of Awkward, popped in for a visit. Thanks to He-Who-Steps-In-It-Regularly, the King won't be living down that hunting trip anytime soon. Scott seized the opportunity to share his own fond memories of adventures with elephants in Botswana....on camera.

From the Crowley Political Report:

As Scott enters the room, he says to the king:

"I still want to hear, I've ridden elephants, I've never tried to shoot one."

As you'll see in the video below, Scott seemed absolutely enchanted with the idea of shooting an elephant and wouldn't let the subject go. In fact he also wanted details on how the King broke his hip in the first place. (Somehow I don't think elephant hunting inquiries had anything more to do with job creation than Scott's "interest" in health care did for broken hips.) As you watch the video you can almost imagine the King thinking to himself "someone please get this man out of here, and turn off those cameras." 

Worse for the King, the story didn't end there. It seems Spain also has a love of news satire, and Scott is no longer just a joke here at home. He's become an international joke preserved on film. 

Gosh, I'll bet Scott and Mitt Romney could really share some great stories of dressage horse technique vs. elephant riding while chuckling over hilarious memories of firing people and cutting their safety net out from under them all in the same day.

Imagine a conversation between Rick Scott and George W. Bush: "Gosh, you know, I've thrown shoes before but I've never been hit by one! What's that like?"

Or out in the Texas heat: "Hey, you must be parched! Here, have a pretzel!" 

Dick Cheney: "Hey, remember when you nearly blasted your friend's face off, and it took him a couple of days to apologize for his face being there in the first place? Man, what's up with that, huh?.......I'm sorry, what did you say.....you want me to go 'what myself'........?"

Watch below as Rick Scott becomes a royal pain in Spain: 

 

 (See more video, and the full story at the Crowley Political Report.)

Rubio To Hispanics: Pay No Attention To The Republican Policies Behind The Curtain!

Marco Rubio spoke to an Hispanic business group in Washington today along with Mitt Romney, undoubtedly trying to sell them on the Republican party.

Sure. Good luck with that.

One of Marco's problems is he's a terrible suck up actor.

From Rubio's speech:

....he decried what he called the "divisive politics" of pitting people against each other.

"As we try to examine how we can continue to be a great nation, don't fall in the trap of looking to our politics...The source of our greatness has always been our people," Rubio told the Latino Coalition, which was meeting this week at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. 

Wow. There's a whopper.

What Marco is really saying is this:

By all means DON'T LOOK AT OUR POLITICS! You see, we're the Republican party and our tent is getting smaller every day, but then we never really let many of you into our tent in the first place and that's not about to change now.  About that DREAM Act? LOOK AWAY! Dreams for me, but not for thee! Dream on. Sure, you may see through my platitudes, but we've got that covered too! Back home in Florida they're purging you from the voter rolls as I speak. But please do LOOK AWAY....!

What was the word you used again Marco.......?

Oh yes, divisive. That's the one.

Mitt Romney's Deep Medicare Cuts Would Hurt Florida Seniors

Mitt Romney's Medicare plan is similar to the Ryan plan, but with even deeper cuts. The Ryan plan would end Medicare as we know it and replace it with a "voucher," (read: Coupon) leaving seniors to fend for themselves, shopping around for health insurance with that yet to be determined voucher. Since Romney plans to repeal "Obamacare" that would mean no more protection from pre-existing conditions. For a senior, that would mean having to search all over again for insurance that would even cover them, period. (Romney has yet to divulge many specifics, but for more on what his proposed budget cuts would require, you can take a look here.) 

Mitt Romney's Medicare plan would basically mean: You're on your own. 

 

 

Allen West, Sandy Adams Sell Out Tea Party Voters For Big Bank Bucks

Bought And Paid For

The Tea Party movement may have grown out of the outrage over the George W. Bush bank bailouts during and because of the financial crisis, and many of those now in Congress campaigned on that sentiment in order to win their seats, but at least two of those from Florida cast aside their constituents and the reason they won support in the first place soon after their arrival in Washington.

As Think Progress has pointed out, Sandy Adams and Allen West sold out their so called anti-Wall Street views in return for big contributions from banks and financial industry PACs in order to block the same kinds of regulations that would prevent another crisis, and perhaps another bailout courtesy of the tax payers that put them in office in the first place.

Sandy Adams, who said on her website that she opposed government bailouts - period, has raked in a total so far of $33,650 from banks enrolled in the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, and from the American Bankers Association.

Allen West has been bankrolled to the tune of $8,500 from TARP banks and the American Bankers Association.

Floridians can thank them for potentially making it easier for taxpayers to lose again in the event of another financial crisis. While some regulations have been put in place, Republicans like West and Adams have worked hard to block many more, and banks haven't stopped taking risks as they did before, as we recently saw with JP Morgan Chase.

Sandy Adams, Allen West, and others have swapped your rights for those of the big banks, illustrating once more that the Tea Party concept is nothing but a scam, and many voters bought into it, and will pay for it in the end.

Unfortunately we all will.