September 11, 2020

Florida CAN bar ex-felons from voting if they owe court payments, appeals court rules.

*Mike Bloomberg, where are you? Please help pay off some of these fines so they can vote.....

(CNN) Florida can bar ex-felons from voting if they owe court fines or fees associated with their convictions, even if they are unable to pay, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The 6-4 ruling by the full 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's ruling blocking the law.

The law, Chief Judge William Pryor wrote in the majority opinion, doesn't constitute a poll tax. Instead, "it promotes full rehabilitation of returning citizens and ensures full satisfaction of the punishment imposed for the crimes by which felons forfeited the right to vote."

snip

Paul Smith, vice president at the Campaign Legal Center, called Friday's decision "deeply disappointing."

"While the full rights restoration envisioned by Amendment 4 has become less likely to be realized this fall, we will continue this fight for all Florida voters, so the full benefits of Amendment 4 will someday be realized," Smith said in a statement, adding that "nobody should ever be denied their constitutional rights because they can't afford to pay fines and fees."

Read More: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/11/politics/florida-ex-felons-voting/index.html

September 11, 2020

Trump Reportedly Says He Protected Saudi Crown Prince After Khashoggi Murder

(HuffPost) According to Bob Woodward’s upcoming book, Trump was willing to overlook Jamal Khashoggi’s murder as long as Saudi Arabia kept the money flowing.

President Donald Trump protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from Congress following the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, according to passages from journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, “Rage.” According to Business Insider, which obtained an advance copy of Woodward’s book, Trump spoke with the veteran reporter in late January about Khashoggi, who was a harsh critic of Saudi Arabia’s government. Khashoggi had also served as a columnist for The Washington Post until he was killed by Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018.

Woodward, an associate editor of the Post who has worked at the paper since 1971, told Trump that the newspaper’s staff was highly distressed by Khashoggi’s death, which was allegedly ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed. “[Khashoggi’s death] is one of the most gruesome things,” Woodward reportedly stated. “You yourself have said.”

“Yeah, but Iran is killing 36 people a day, so — ” Trump began, until Woodward pressed him to comment on the crown prince’s alleged involvement.

“I saved his ass,” Trump said. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop.”
Read More:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-mohammed-bin-salman-saved-his-ass_n_5f5a8f2ac5b6b48507fdd32a

September 10, 2020

Trump screamed at Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch in "humongous blowup" over "unfair" coverage

Individuals close to Murdoch reveal that the Fox Corporation co-chair believes Trump will lose in November.

(Salon) President Donald Trump reportedly "screamed" at Fox News owner and media mogul Rupert Murdoch earlier this summer over alleged "unfair" coverage of him. Trump and Murdoch had the "humongous blowup" during a phone call, a new article by Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman revealed.

"Trump yelled that Fox's coverage is unfair and the polling is fake," a source told Sherman, adding that "Rupert defended the network's standards and polling."

snip

"Sources who've spoken with Trump told me Trump thinks Murdoch wants him to lose," Sherman wrote.

Individuals close to Murdoch told Sherman that the Fox Corporation co-chair believes Trump will lose in November. Murdoch seems more concerned with navigating his empire through a post-Trump political world, according to Sherman. "This is about business for Rupert," one source told Vanity Fair.

Murdoch's son, James, and daughter-in-law, Kathryn, each gave $615,000 to the Biden Victory Fund in June, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The next month, James stepped down from the family's News Corp. media empire, citing editorial disagreements. (Read More)

https://www.salon.com/2020/09/10/trump-screamed-at-fox-news-owner-rupert-murdoch-in-humongous-blowup-over-unfair-coveragereport/

September 8, 2020

Eric Trump's 'Awkward' Labor Day Attack On Joe Biden Backfires

(HuffPost) Critics on Twitter slammed Donald Trump’s son for his “complete lack of self-awareness.”

Eric Trump’s attempted Labor Day attack on Democratic 2020 nominee Joe Biden backfired as critics on Twitter reminded President Donald Trump’s son of his father’s failings. “Everything this guy does is low energy and awkward...” Eric Trump captioned a photo of a Biden event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Monday. Everyone in the picture was wearing face masks and following social distancing measures aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eric-trump-awkward-attack-joe-biden-backfires_n_5f5724f3c5b62b3add44ff4b

(here is just one of many responses to that idiot Eric)

https://twitter.com/InquiringMindGA/status/1303101048861667328

September 6, 2020

Republicans In Swing States Were Fixing Vote-By-Mail Systems. Then Trump Tweeted.

(HuffPost) GOP lawmakers were seriously preparing for a flood of absentee ballots until the president signaled that he prefers chaos.

The bill was supposed to be uncontroversial, and at first, it was. Early this year, Michigan advanced a bipartisan measure to let election officials take absentee ballots out of their mailing envelopes — but not to unseal the ballots or count them — the day before Election Day. It was the kind of small, bureaucratic switch that could make the difference between timely results in this fall’s presidential election and chaos. And it was moving steadily, with Republican support, through Michigan’s GOP-led Senate.

Then, President Donald Trump made it clear that he preferred chaos. “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” he tweeted in May. Since then, the bill has barely budged.

The loss of momentum in Michigan follows a pattern that voting rights advocates say they are seeing in key swing states: As Trump has worked furiously to undermine mail-in voting, rank-and-file Republicans, who were previously serious about adapting elections amid the coronavirus pandemic, have fallen in line to help him.

snip

Michigan is just one example. In Pennsylvania, Republicans have signaled that they won’t agree to speed up absentee ballot counting without also adding new voter restrictions. In Wisconsin, the Republican-controlled state legislature has altogether ignored calls to prepare for a tidal wave of mail-in ballots. All three are swing states that could determine the presidential race. And in all three states, laws bar officials from opening mail-in ballots before Election Day, making it virtually impossible to report accurate results on election night. (Read More)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-mail-in-voting-republicans-swing-states_n_5f52ba3ac5b62b3add407b24

September 4, 2020

No wonder that disgusting donald calls those who serve losers and suckers, it's personal.

https://twitter.com/MaryLTrump/status/1301731896964116481/photo/1

September 3, 2020

(CNN) Half of these women interviewed voted for trump but will NOT vote for him again

*This is only a small group of six, but I hope it is reflective of what is going on - trumpy women jumping ship.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/09/02/suburban-women-trump-panel-camerota-part-2-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/

September 3, 2020

Bipartisan campaign aims to reassure U.S. voters as Trump questions election integrity

(Reuters) At least a dozen groups are planning a large-scale, bipartisan public relations campaign to counter any attempt by President Donald Trump to cast doubt on the integrity of the November election or dispute the result should he lose, people involved in the effort told Reuters.

One organization, the National Task Force on Election Crises, is contacting leading politicians from both major parties, military figures, star athletes, faith leaders and business executives, asking them to reassure voters about the integrity of the election result if chaos ensues after the Nov. 3 contest.

snip

The election crises task force, a bipartisan organization made up of 50 former cabinet members, politicians and election experts, was formed two years ago to ensure a secure election that maximizes voter confidence by providing advice to election officials and voters on a range of potential problems.

One idea under discussion is to ask former presidents Bush and Democrat Barack Obama to address U.S. voters should the validity of the election result be questioned. (Read More)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-contested-exclusive/exclusive-bipartisan-campaign-aims-to-reassure-u-s-voters-as-trump-questions-election-integrity-idUSKBN25T1HV

September 3, 2020

The Battle For Florida's Latino Voters Could Decide The Entire Presidential Election

(HuffPost) Facing relentless attacks about “socialism,” Joe Biden’s campaign is delivering a new message: Trump is the dictator so many Latinos in Florida once fled.

snip

To win the 2020 election, Trump needs Florida ― no Republican has won the White House without winning the state since 1924, and given Trump’s falling polling numbers in several key battlegrounds, it’s nearly impossible to come up with a combination of outcomes that gets Trump across the 270-vote electoral college threshold without Florida’s 29.

And to win Florida, the president likely needs Cuban Americans like Nuñez to support him in numbers similar to those of 2016, when 54% of Florida’s Cuban American voters backed him over his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

That has set up a furious fight between Trump and Biden for this familiar group of Floridians, who may no longer be the largest bloc of Latino voters in the Sunshine State but are still the most influential. And “socialism” has become a key focus of the dispute, especially as Trump has waged cynical battles to bring down socialist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and cripple the Communist government in Cuba.

snip

Biden is trying to flip the script on Trump, honing in not just on Cuban Americans but on South Florida’s small-but-growing segment of Venezuelan Americans. Last week, the Biden campaign organized a virtual roundtable where Latino supporters who’d fled Venezuela, Cuba and other authoritarian states in Latin America made the case that it’s Trump who is the caudillo so many Florida Latinos ran away from — the sort of dictatorial strongman they thought they’d left behind. (Read More)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-donald-trump-latino-voters-florida_n_5f4ebb61c5b6250f655c193d