This morning I was browsing through the COVID list and I found my way to this post by Eric Topol. Topol is a physician generalist who heads up a biomedical institute at the Scripps Research Center in California. He’s not an epidemiologist or virologist. But COVID has been his focus since the beginning of the pandemic. The post is entitled The Covid Capitulation. And it is part of that genre of COVID writing in which a COVID expert bemoans the fact that the whole country has decided the epidemic is over when in fact it’s clearly not.
It turns out that the horrors of critical race theory manifest themselves in every corner of life, like when a kid doesn’t want to clean his room. Just ask Melissa Riley, a white single mother in Virginia who’s suing her biracial son’s school district over its anti-racism policy.
What you need to know about voting rights and democracy in America
May 16, 2022 || ISSUE NO. 50
DeSantis Declares War On Black Representation
In this issue…
Theory Behind Florida’s Conservative Power Grab Could Spread//What’s Going On In Georgia?//Judge Laughs Trump Endorsee Out Of Court
Written by Matt Shuham
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Franchise readers, Wisconsin is ground zero in the fight for voting rights: whether we beat back far-right attacks on the freedom to vote could determine the future of our democracy.Add your name to help us fight back.
Hello readers!
First: Thank you for sticking with us. This is the 50th installment of The Franchise, and I’m grateful to have an outlet to share in-depth voting rights news with an engaged group of people.
To the news: Florida’s governor wants to eliminate a plurality-Black congressional district in Northern Florida. But it’s about much more than one district.
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Alright, let’s dig in.
Florida Seeks To Carve Up Plurality Black District
The big news out of FLORIDA last week was a state judge striking down Gov. Ron DeSantis’ gerrymandered congressional maps. DeSantis has for months fought to eliminate a plurality-Black congressional district in Northern Florida, but Judge J. Layne Smith ruled that this would violate the Florida constitution’s anti-gerrymandering amendments, which prohibit diminishing the political power of minorities.
But DeSantis and his team, who’ve appealed the decision, aren’t worried about one district. They want to challenge the state constitution, and, through that, the Voting Rights Act, the language of which is mirrored almost verbatim in the state’s anti-gerrymandering amendments.
Smith pointed out in his ruling that “the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly assumed that compliance with the VRA constitutes a compelling state interest,” and, because of the similarities between the two texts, so too is compliance with Florida’s state constitution.
But Florida’s lawyers have flipped this on its head: “Assumed! Never actually held it specifically,” a lawyer for the state, Mohammad Omar Jazil, noted during a hearing last week.
We’re going to do some more reporting on this, so keep an eye out. But for now, consider the words of the governor himself in March: “I think our dispute very well may lead to saying that Florida’s redistricting amendments are not consistent with the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.”
Let’s Take A Close Look At Georgia
Two stories out last week, in The Guardian and The Washington Post, point to a widespread pattern of election conspiracy theory adherence at the county election administrator level in GEORGIA.
The Guardian, surveying the internet presences of election administrators, found eight county election officials in the state who’ve said they believe the election was stolen. From the story:
one election official who has posted in support of a discredited election conspiracist who believes the alleged presence of bamboo in paper ballots is proof they came from Asia, and thus show interference from China;
two officials who tried, on the basis of bogus fraud allegations, to decertify the results of the January 2021 runoff that resulted in the election of the state’s first Black senator;
one official who insisted that Georgia’s election laws needed to change if Republicans were going to “have a shot” at winning future elections.
The Washington Post reported on one case, in Coffee County, where an election official simply let some random guy around in the room that houses the computer that tabulates the county’s election results.
Why? “I’m not a babysitter,” she told The Post.
Around The States
SPONSORED MESSAGE FROM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF WISCONSIN*
Franchise readers, Wisconsin is ground zero in the fight for voting rights: whether we beat back far-right attacks on the freedom to vote could determine the future of our democracy. Add your name to help us fight back.
A court-appointed special master has taken a blender to NEW YORK’s congressional districts, making the map friendlier for Republicans, and also redrawing several districts held by Democratic lifers like Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, who could now face off in a single district.
Separately, civil rights groups are pressing New York legislators to get behind a voting rights package, though it’s far from a done deal.
TEXAS legislators held a hearing on the impact of their new election law — but did not discuss the sky-high absentee ballot rejection rate.
Also in Texas: Crystal Mason, who faces five years behind bars for voting while on probation in 2016, is getting another shot at justice: Texas’ highest criminal court ordered a review of her case.
Every MISSOURI voter will now have to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls, according to a new law. As the Missouri Independent notes, “the bill is the latest in a 15-year Republican effort to enact a photo ID requirement to vote in Missouri. Legislation has passed several times, but it’s never been able to fully withstand legal challenges.”
Kory Langhofer, the former Trump campaign attorney, is representing the ARIZONA Republican Party as it attempts to join the legal battle over Republicans’ new law to require proof-of-citizenship from all voters in the state, despite Supreme Court precedent to the contrary.
COLORADO legislators sent an election security bill to Gov. Jared Polis’ (D) desk.
FLORIDA’s secretary of state will resign ahead of an anticipated run for Congress. Gov. DeSantis said he would replace outgoing Secretary Laurel Lee with state Rep. Cord Byrd, who DeSantis called a “staunch advocate for election security, public integrity, the fight against big tech censorship and the de-platforming of political candidates.” Byrd, an attorney, calls himself “the Florida Gun Lawyer” and has quite the reputation.
DeSantis’ redistricting gambit could add a bunch of likely GOP seats to Florida’s congressional delegation, but it’s not just him: COLORADO, ALABAMA and NEW YORK have all contributed to a late Republican surge in the redistricting wars, as we explained in a report last week.
The Latest In Election Sabotage
Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the charges against Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters as federal rather than state charges. We regret the error.
A GEORGIA judge laughed Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate David Perdue out of court, saying his request for a “forensic investigation” of Fulton County’s 2020 ballots consisted of “speculation, conjecture and paranoia — sufficient fodder for talk shows, op-ed pieces and social media platforms, but far short of what would legally justify a court taking such action.”
The partisan investigator looking into WISCONSIN’s 2020 election results got another contract extension — this one without an end date. Somewhat ironically, it now seems that as long as people are suing Michael Gableman, he can keep receiving a state paycheck.
It’s a Big Lie-off: One contractor hired for ARIZONA Republicans’ so-called “audit” of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results referred to another’s work as “utter rubbish,” newly public records show.
Tina Peters, the COLORADO county clerk who’s simultaneously running for secretary of state and facing a multi-count indictment for allegedly breaching election security protocols, has been barred by a judge from overseeing the 2022 elections in her county. Peters was barred in 2021 as well.
Also in Colorado, a judge has greenlit a lawsuit against U.S. Election Integrity Plan, a group of Peters’ allies who’ve been going door-to-door in search of fraud and, allegedly, intimidating voters.
A pair of Republican operatives in PENNSYLVANIA were fired over a shifty mail-in ballot operation.
Finally, Check Out This Coverage Of Key Ballot-Box Issues From The Last Week
TPM: Trump’s 2020 Coup Failures Could Be 2024 Successes
Houston Chronicle: It was a top voter fraud case in Texas, used in Austin to pass laws. Then it just fizzled.
*Paid for by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Wisdems.org. Not authorized by any candidate’s campaign or committee. Donations to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin are not tax deductible.
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A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Who, Me???
Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night tried to put up a wall between himself and a gunman’s alleged motive for opening fire in a Black neighborhood’s grocery store in Buffalo.
After peddling the Great Replacement Theory on the regular on his program, Carlson found himself shocked! at the backlash against him.
The Fox host insisted on Monday that the suspected shooter’s manifesto was, in fact, “not really political at all” and nothing more than “a rambling pastiche of slogans and Internet memes.”
Also, Carlson wants his viewers to know that they’re the real victims here. The Fox host accused his critics of using the shooting as a “pretext” to stifle free speech.
Carlson didn’t directly address the replacement conspiracy theory during his monologue. Again, it’s a conspiracy theory he’s advanced over and over on his show.
Arizona Senate To Investigate Wendy Rogers For Claiming Buffalo Shooting Was False Flag
The GOP-controlled Arizona Senate voted on Monday to launch an ethics investigation into state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R) after she baselessly suggested that the deadly Buffalo shooting, which was allegedly inspired by the racist “great replacement” theory, was a false flag operation by the government (there’s no evidence for that whatsoever).
“Fed boy summer has started in Buffalo,” Rogers wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday after the attack.
The vote to approve the investigation came after Arizona Democrats’ motion to full-on expel Rogers failed. The Senate would need to reach a supermajority of two-thirds in order to kick her out.
Moment Of Truth For Some Of MAGA’s Worst
We’ve got some pretty major primaries today in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Idaho, where we’ll see how some of these Trump ghouls will fare ahead of the November midterms:
North Carolina: Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC)
Pennsylvania: State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) for governor and conservative commentator Kathy Barnette for U.S. Senate
Idaho: Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin (R) for governor
Pennsylvania Senate Hopeful Marched With Proud Boys On Jan. 6
Newly surfaced photos show far-right Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette marching to the Capitol with the far-right Proud Boys on Jan. 6:
NEW: @NBCNews has verified these images of Barnette marching toward the Capitol on Jan 6 alongside member of the Proud Boys who were later arrested and indicted for breaking into the building and attacking officers. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/CzGgLOhQWn
Barnett’s campaign claimed that the candidate had “no connection whatsoever” to the Proud Boys, and that she didn’t participate in the violent attack on the Capitol that day.
Barnett also declared a day before the insurrection that she was bringing buses full of “pissed off patriots” to D.C. for the Jan. 6 rally as part of “our 1776 moment,” per CNN.
Trump Throws Cawthorn A Lifeline
The former president threw his support behind the besieged Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) on the eve of North Carolina’s primaries, writing on TRUTH Social, his Twitter knockoff, that the lawmaker only “made some foolish mistakes, which I don’t believe he’ll make again.”
So apparently Trump’s gotten over the video of Cawthorn messing around with a guy and apparently humping his face, which at one point prompted the ex-president to ask if Cawthorn was “fucking his cousin,” according to Rolling Stone.
While Cawthorn has said that the video included his cousin, the actual allegation as far as ethics violations go is that he improperly gave his cousin more than $141,000 in taxpayer and campaign funds.
Georgia Voters Press On With MTG Disqualification Bid
The Georgia voters who are trying to get Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) kicked off the ballot filed an appeal on Monday to fight Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s (R) decision to reject their challenge.
GOP Senator Booed For Dragging Transgender Grievance Nonsense Into Commencement Speech
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) apologized for claiming that “the existence of two sexes, male and female” was a “fundamental scientific truth” during her commencement speech at the University of Wyoming on Sunday. Students booed the senator as she pasted this awkward-ass smile on her face:
Lummis put out a statement after the speech apologizing to anyone who felt “un-welcomed or disrespected” by her comment, which was “intended to highlight the times in which we find ourselves, times in which the metric of biological sex is under debate.” K.
Sentencing Delayed For Gaetz Wingman Cooperating With Feds
Sentencing for ex-Florida tax official and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) buddy Joel Greenberg has been delayed again as he continues to cooperate with the Justice Department’s sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz.
New polling conducted by NBC News has found that American opposition to overturning Roe v. Wade is at a record high. The poll was conducted after the draft Supreme Court majority opinion overturning Roe was leaked earlier this month.
Here’s a fascinating and humorous (for reasons I’ll explain presently) quick segment from Russian TV. One of the panelists is a Russian military affairs commentator who goes completely rogue and starts setting forth the dire strategic picture Russia faces — poor morale, an almost unlimited supply of soldiers in Ukraine, arms pouring in from Europe and the United States, geopolitical isolation.
The other panelists take potshots at his reasoning but to little real effect.
But the best part is about halfway through he says, no, not even Rand Paul can save us. Really! He doesn’t refer to Paul by name but he notes that the Lend-Lease type program is finally getting underway, marrying unlimited troops with unlimited weaponry “and even the resistance of a single senator will be overcome quickly.” That single senator is Rand Paul, who he is so far blocking passage of the bill.
Despite previously declaring loyalty to his knockoff Twitter platform, former President Trump appears to now have an interest in only partially restricting his Twitter usage in the near future.
We all get stuck in our ways. And over time we all learn the peculiarities of how our brains function. Relatively early in my writing career I realized that I write in a way that is different from how most people do it. I don’t actually write. Not precisely. What I do is speak in my head and basically transcribe the sounds. This sometimes leaves funny artifacts in my writing. Like many who write fast and online I have no shortage of missing words or typos, “theirs” that should be “theres” and vice versa. But that’s not what I mean. Sometimes I will actually include words which sound vaguely similar to the intended word but are not homonyms and are totally different words. They just create a similar set of sounds if you run them together in a spoken sentence. Read English sentences they can read like gibberish. but if you speak them quickly aloud the meaning will often be clear.
People will sometimes point out that I’m clearly using transcription software that is screwing up. But in fact I’ve never used transcription software in my life. My brain is just wired in this particular way. There actually is transcribing. But I’m the one doing it.
The ideology that motivated the mass shooter in Buffalo on Saturday, the so-called “great replacement” conspiracy theory, holds that liberal elites (and often specifically Jews) are systematically and purposefully replacing white Americans in order to gain political power.
Some of the far-right’s most notorious figures in the GOP will be on the ballot Tuesday, when North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Idaho hold their primaries alongside Oregon and Kentucky.
