“Dead Skunk in The Middle of The Road” – Page 112

World will end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change

William Cummings, USA Today January 22, 2019

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks during the Women's Unity Rally at Foley Square on Jan. 19, 2019 in New York City.

The youngest woman ever elected to Congress again made headlines and sparked conservative criticism when she said Monday that she and other young Americans fear “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made the remark during an interview with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates at the MLK Now event in New York City celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Ocasio-Cortez called the fight to mitigate the effects of climate change her generation’s “World War II.”

“Millennials, and Gen Z, and all these folks that come after us, are looking up and we’re like, ‘The world will end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change, and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'” she said.

Climate change has been a driving issue for the freshman Democrat since arriving on Capitol Hill. Back in November, she joined a group of about 200 climate change protesters outside the office of then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., when she arrived for her orientation. Since taking office, she has called for a “Green New Deal.”

In November, a 1,600-page report from the federal government said the climate is changing faster than at any point in modern history and that the impacts are already being felt. But a dozen years is a short timetable even those who are most concerned about the effects of global warming – such as naturalist Sir David Attenborough, who warned that climate change could lead to a “collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world.”

More: U.N. says 2018 will be Earth’s 4th-warmest year on record, predicts a 5- to 9-degree temperature rise this century

Many conservative commentators took issue with what they considered her alarmist statement about the issue.

Ocasio-Cortez’s comment on Monday was in response to a question about when and why she decides to “clap back” against her social media critics. She said her main priority is to call out what she believes are widely-accepted but incorrect assumptions, including the idea that people must choose between the economy and the environment.

She said she does not take the criticism personally but sees it as a “deliberate strategy.”

“If you try to attack and discredit the messenger, then perhaps you can discredit the message,” she told Coates.

Climate change: Meet the Florida congresswoman leading the House charge

More: A dozen ways life on Earth could end

Contributing: Doyle Rice

The GOP has become the Soviet party

Washington Post

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The GOP has become the Soviet party

By Catherine Rampell, Columnist January 21, 2019

Vice President Pence and President Trump visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington on Monday. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images).

Once upon a time, Ayn Rand-reading, red-baiting Republicans denounced Soviet Russia as an evil superpower intent on destroying the American way of life.

My, how things have changed.

The Grand Old Party has quietly become the pro-Russia party — and not only because the party’s standard-bearer seems peculiarly enamored of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Republican leadership, the United States is starting to look an awful lot like the failed Soviet system the party once stood unified against.

Supposedly middle-class workers — people who have government jobs that are supposed to be stable and secure — are waiting in bread lines. Thanks to government dysfunction and mismanagement, those employed in the private sector may also be going hungry, since 2,500 vendors nationwide are unable to participate in the food stamp program while the government is shuttered and unable to renew licenses for the Electronic Benefit Transfer debit card program.

Why? Because of the whims of a would-be autocrat who cares more about erecting an expensive monument to his own campaign rhetoric than about the pain and suffering of the little people he claims to champion.

And for now, at least, most of those little people are too frightened of the government’s wrath to fight back overtly. Instead, desperate to keep jobs that might someday offer them a paycheck again, the proletariat protest in more passive ways: by calling in sick in higher numbers.

The would-be autocrat surrounds himself with toadies who spend more time scheming against one another — sometimes to comic effect — than trying to offer their boss sound guidance or thoughtful policy solutions. In his presence, and perhaps especially when the cameras are on, they praise him relentlessly: his brains, his leadership, his “perfect genes.”

Sometimes they appear afraid to stop clapping, echoing stories of forced standing ovations for Joseph Stalin recounted in video footage and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago.”

Apparent corruption among these kowtowing aides — including improper use of public funds or private favors for fancy travel and other pampering — remains rampant. Unlike in true socialist states, it seems, our leaders haven’t run out of other people’s money.

Meanwhile, federal law enforcement is publicly directed to pursue the would-be autocrat’s political enemies, as well as the family members of those enemies, such as former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s father-in-law. Purges of law enforcement or other members of the “deep state” are also demanded, and sometimes acted upon. Such actions, when taken by thugs abroad, were once denounced by Republicans.

State-run media, or something closely approximating it, feeds the public a steady diet of pro-leader propaganda and shields viewers from news that might embarrass the head of state. Independent sources of information or accountability, or those who deviate from the party line, are branded “enemies of the people.”

On the macroeconomic front, leadership may be touting “deregulation” but in many ways is moving toward a more centrally planned economy, which includes the shielding of pet industries from the whims of the market or technological change.

That means propping up coal plants, which fracking has made less competitive. And slapping tariffs across thousands of foreign products, to subsidize struggling domestic competitors or sometimes to protect “national security.” And granting more price supports for farmers.

Just as government has inserted itself into more markets, though, it has abruptly stopped functioning, holding up the processing of those farmer subsidies or tariff exemptions. It’s the old Soviet model in a nutshell: promising much, interfering a lot, failing to deliver.

Perhaps providing proof of concept to President Dwight Eisenhower’s domino theory, our government has simultaneously encouraged more central planning by other economies, too.

This includes greater government-directed management of bilateral trade balances by China, the European Union and other countries, regardless of what individual businesses within those countries need or where they’d prefer to source from. While the Trump administration claims it wants China to move in a more market-oriented direction, it also wants it to promise that theoretically private Chinese companies will buy soybeans from the United States, and not Brazil, regardless of quality or price.

Needless to say, “picking winners and losers” was once a thing Republicans abhorred, a practice embraced only by failed socialist states; today the Republican standard-bearer picks winners and losers even within the government itself. The government may be officially shuttered, but President Trump decided to do an end run around the constitutionally mandated, democratic appropriations process. He is picking and choosing which government functions are allowed to function: yes to his offshore drilling plan and tax refunds; no to the Smithsonian museums.

All branches of government may be equal — but some, it seems, are more equal than others.

The Post’s View: Surprise! We need the federal government.

Paul C. Light: The shutdown has put a finger on the trigger of government failure. That should alarm you.

Lady Gaga: Mike Pence is ‘The Worst Representation’ Of Christianity

HuffPost

David Perry, HuffPost January 20, 2019

Last week, the “second lady” of the United States, Karen Pence, went to work as an art teacher at Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia. Immanuel Christian is one of the many American religious institutions, as Rebecca Klein reported for HuffPost, that discriminates both in its hiring and its admissions. The school requires “moral purity” from its staff, meaning they can’t be queer, have sex outside marriage or watch porn, and must “respect the unique roles of men and women.” The school also reserves the right to expel students for being queer.

Immanuel Christian is not unusual. Too many religious schools at all levels regulate the personal conduct of their employees and students, restrict the books teachers can assign or students can read, and demand fealty to narrow constructions of religious identity, while enshrining bigotry into their bylaws.

Vice President Mike Pence says that criticizing institutions that discriminate like this is anti-Christian. I say that these schools are not only anti-American, in that they exclude so many Americans, but are also not in the best educational interests of the students who attend them.

For too many other institutions, faith provides the material to build a defensive wall rather than a strong foundation.

There are about 27,000 religious private K-12 schools in the United States and over 1,000 religious colleges and universities. Many of these institutions are inclusive, welcome, places. I should know, as I taught at Dominican University, a Catholic institution in the Chicago area, for over 10 years. I only left so I could raise my kids in Minnesota. For Dominican, and for thousands of institutions like it, faith traditions provide a rock of identity on which to stand and welcome the world with confidence.

As a secular Jew, I felt at home at Dominican. As an institution, it knew what it was and hoped I would share in the mission to make a “more just and humane world.” My Muslim and queer colleagues reported similar feelings of inclusion, and I don’t think Dominican is atypical in this regard. From kindergarten to graduate school, it’s possible to attend or work at a religious institution of learning that takes faith seriously without endorsing exclusion or bigotry.

Alas, for too many other institutions, faith provides the material to build a defensive wall rather than a strong foundation. Karen Pence’s new employer, Immanuel Christian, is one of many examples at the secondary level. I’ve been tracking similar issues at the collegiate level.

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, appeared at events for the anti-abortion March for Life in Washington, D.D., on Friday. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) There are 139 colleges that exempt themselves from following Title IX rules against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, pregnancy or receipt of abortion. Yet these schools continue to receive federal funding. Many require explicit professions of faith from faculty. Not only must teachers avoid acting in a way that is immoral in their personal lives, but every aspect of the educational experience is policed to make sure students only receive limited viewpoints and are never challenged on their core beliefs.

Here are just a few examples. Catholic schools love to fire queer teachers, especially when they get married or pregnant. Recently, Franciscan University of Stubenville removed the chair of the English department from his position as punishment for teaching Emmanuel Carrère’s The Kingdom, despite there being no question about the professor’s own commitment to Catholicism. In 2016, St. Mary’s, a small school in Minnesota, fired a popular professor for using phallus props in his production of Medea.

Wheaton College, an elite school sometimes styled the “Harvard of Christian Schools,” began termination procedures against professor Larycia Hawkins (the first tenured African-American professor in the school’s history) because she posted on Facebook that she stands “in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.” According to Wheaton’s provost, the idea that two of the three Abrahamic religions might venerate the same deity violates the school’s “doctrinal convictions.” Hawkins and Wheaton eventually “parted ways.” No one questioned whether Hawkins was a Christian, but whether her theological understanding of the nature of divinity narrowly clung to Wheaton’s ideological mandate.

At another elite Christian school, Ozark College, students are required to venerate the U.S. flag as well as maintain a Christian life. For Ozark, Christianity excludes “ touching, caressing, and other physical conduct of a sexual nature with a person of the same sex,” all of which is grounds for being fired or expelled.

Imagine what it’s like to be a student or professor at Wheaton today and to know that it’s not just required to be a Christian, but to be exactly the right type of Christian. Will the next professor at Franciscan who wants to challenge students with a complex, possibly offensive, book hold back in order to preserve their professional status? And no one, anywhere, ever, should risk employment because of who they love or what consensual activities they choose to engage in with other adults.

And what about the quality of education? Since at least 2014, a significant cohort of writers and public figures have argued passionately that higher education requires mandatory, regular exposure to “intellectual diversity.” The conversation, as led by people like University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer, the FIRE organization on faculty rights, and elite (mostly white male) writers like Jonathan Chait, Connor Friedersdorf, Bret Stephens, Bari Weiss, Frank Bruni and Jonathan Haidt, have joined more explicitly partisan voices to condemn elite liberal universities.

According to them, the modern practices of overprotective parenting and oversolicitous educators have created a generation of “snowflakes,” students unequipped for the real world, locked in ideological bubbles, and prone to mental health struggles. But these concerns for educational rigor always seem to apply in the same direction. We hear more about sandwich diversity in the Oberlin cafe than we do about the experience of students at religious schools.

I agree that intellectual diversity is important to a true education. But if there are students who are being turned into snowflakes by their education, by mollycoddling parents and by teachers, then surely it’s the millions of students who are attending schools that mandate limited viewpoints, adherence to ideology, and no exposure to true diversity.

As this essay went to press, a video of young white men from Covington Catholic High School harassing a group of indigenous people went viral. The students had traveled from Kentucky to D.C. to attend the March for Life, but paused to surround elder Nathan Phillips as he was playing a drum and chanting. One slid close, grinning, thrilled with his racist provocation, a Hazel Massery of his generation. Maybe if Karen and Mike Pence are worried about saving Christian education in this country, they are going to have to break down the walls of bigotry that cocoon such institutions. Alas, all they seem to care about is keeping queer people out.

Aren’t they the real snowflakes?

David Perry is a historian and journalist. He works at the University of Minnesota.

Cohen says he paid to rig online polls at Trump’s direction

The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog

Cohen says he paid to rig online polls at Trump’s direction

By Steve Benen Janaury 17, 2019

U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen arrives at his hotel in New York City, U.S., June 20, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid.

Those who’ve spent a considerable amount of time online have come across websites that invite visitors to vote in unscientific polls. They generally tell us very little about public attitudes, but people often like to register their opinions, and website operators often like to create ways to engage visitors, so they’re fairly common. Those who understand social-science research know to ignore the results.

Donald Trump is not one of those people. In fact, he’s complained more than once about the results of online unscientific polls that failed to make him look good.

With this in mind, the Wall Street Journal published a rather remarkable article this morning on Michael Cohen’s efforts – when he was Trump’s personal lawyer and “fixer” – to “rig online polls in his boss’s favor” before the 2016 elections.

To execute the plan, Cohen reportedly hired John Gauger, the chief information officer at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, and the owner of a small tech company called RedFinch Solutions LLC. The Goal was simple; deliver online poll results intended to make Trump happy:

In January 2014, Mr. Cohen asked Mr. Gauger to help Mr. Trump score well in a CNBC online poll to identify the country’s top business leaders by writing a computer script to repeatedly vote for him. Mr. Gauger was unable to get Mr. Trump into the top 100 candidates. In February 2015, as Mr. Trump prepared to enter the presidential race, Mr. Cohen asked him to do the same for a Drudge Report poll of potential Republican candidates, Mr. Gauger said. Mr. Trump ranked fifth, with about 24,000 votes, or 5% of the total.

As is often the case with people who do work for Team Trump, Gauger said he never received the $50,000 he was promised, though he claims Cohen did give him a Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash.

Cohen denies that detail – he insists payments were made by check – though he seemed to confirm the gist of the story. In a tweet published this morning, Cohen pointed to the WSJ article and said that when it came to poll rigging, his actions were made “at the direction of and for the sole benefit of” Donald Trump.

The lawyer, who’ll soon be incarcerated for crimes he committed under Trump’s employ, added, “I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it.”

Why should we care about details like these now? A few reasons.

First, when Trump lashes out at polls he doesn’t like as “rigged,” perhaps he knows of what he speaks.

Second, we’re occasionally reminded that the president has long overseen an operation that can charitably be described as amateurish and incompetent, which offers insights into why his White House is such a mess.

But a Washington Post analysis published this morning raised a related point, putting the contract to rig polls in a larger context: “Why should we not assume that other surreptitious investments might have been made?”

trump’s flawed pick for Attorney General

Esquire

I Wouldn’t Hire William Barr for Traffic Court

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire January 16, 2019

Photo credit: Getty Images

After a night’s careful consideration of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, I have come to the conclusion that not only should William Barr be the Attorney General of these United States, I’m not entirely sure I would hire him to get me out of a moving violation in traffic court. These are some of my reasons why.

When asked about the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which reads:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

This was Barr’s reply:

“I think there is a dispute as to what the emoluments clause relates to. I couldn’t even tell you what it says.”

There was a handy primer on “what it relates to” in Wednesday’s Washington Post:

But for T-Mobile, one hurdle remained: Its deal needed approval from the Trump administration. The next day, in Washington, staffers at the Trump International Hotel were handed a list of incoming “VIP Arrivals.” That day’s list included nine of T-Mobile’s top executives – including its chief operating officer, chief technology officer, chief strategy officer, chief financial officer and its outspoken celebrity chief executive, John Legere. They were scheduled to stay between one and three days.

But it was not their last visit. Instead, T-Mobile executives have returned to President Trump’s hotel repeatedly since then, according to eyewitnesses and hotel documents obtained by The Washington Post. By mid-June, seven weeks after the announcement of the merger, hotel records indicated that one T-Mobile executive was making his 10th visit to the hotel. Legere appears to have made at least four visits to the Trump hotel, walking the lobby in his T-Mobile gear. These visits highlight a stark reality in Washington, unprecedented in modern American history. Trump the president works at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump the businessman owns a hotel at 1100 Pennsylvania.

It relates to not using your office of public trust to run your grifts for you. It relates, arguably, to the fact that Barr’s future boss may indeed be a crook.

Later, Senator Mazie Hirono asked Barr if he believed in “birthright citizenship,” the guarantee of American citizenship to everyone born in this country as stated in the 14th Amendment. The following colloquy ensued:

Hirono: “It says right there in the 14th Amendment.”

Barr: “I haven’t looked at that issue legally, that’s the kind of issue I would ask [the Office of Legal Counsel] to advise me on, as to whether it’s something that’s appropriate for legislation, I don’t even know the answer to that.”

Again, this one isn’t hard. Here’s Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, in full:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

As Hirono says, it’s right there on the parchment.

Now, seriously, William Barr has been a Washington power lawyer for decades. He even was attorney general once before. I have no doubt that he really does know what the emoluments clause relates to, and that the 14th Amendment really does mean what it plainly says. But, to get the gig with this administration, he has to pretend to be as dumb and uninformed as both the president* and most of the rest of the Cabinet. When he is not pretending to be as stupid as the president*, Barr has to pretend-I hope-to be as authoritarian as the president*.

It was a sportswriter’s kid, Senator Amy Klobuchar, who got this money quote out of him:

Klobuchar: “If you’re confirmed, will the Justice Department jail reporters for doing their jobs?”

Barr: [Fudge, mumble, hummina, hummina] “I think that, you know, I know there are guidelines in place. And I can conceive of situations where, you know, as a last resort and where a news organization has run through a red flag or something like that, knows that they’re putting out stuff that will hurt the country – there could be a situation where someone could be held in contempt.”

Barr has to know how contrary to constitutional norms that would be, especially under this president*. But he wants the gig. Nobody should want a gig this badly but, apparently, everyone does.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

I love my country, but!

Vice News

January 16, 2019

Turkey is now seeking an arrest warrant for New York Knicks center Enes Kanter, accusing him of membership in a terror organization.

In 2017, we spoke to him on why he isn’t backing down from criticizing Erdoğan.

Enes Kanter Isn't Backing Down from Criticizing Erdoğan: VICE …

Turkey is now seeking an arrest warrant for New York Knicks center Enes Kanter, accusing him of membership in a terror organization.In 2017, we spoke to him on why he isn't backing down from criticizing Erdoğan.

Posted by VICE News on Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Has Trump kept his promises to coal workers?

Late Night with Seth Meyers

January 15, 2019

Has Trump actually kept his promises to coal workers? Seth checks in.

The Check In: Trump Country

Has Trump actually kept his promises to coal workers? Seth checks in.

Posted by Late Night with Seth Meyers on Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Florida Ex-Felons Can Finally Register to Vote

“This Is What Democracy Is All About”: Florida Ex-Felons Can Finally Register to Vote

It could lead to the largest expansion of new voters since the Voting Rights Act.

By Ari Berman January 8, 2019

Desmond Meade fills out a voter registration form with his wife, Sheena, at the Supervisor of Elections office on January 8.John Raoux/AP

On Tuesday morning, Desmond Meade went down to the the Orange County elections office in Orlando, Florida, and registered to vote for the first time in decades. Since being released from prison, where he was held on a gun possession charge, in 2005, Meade had been unable to vote because of a Florida law preventing ex-felons from casting a ballot even after they’d paid their debt to society.

In 2018, Meade—now president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC)—led the effort to pass a ballot initiative overturning the felon disenfranchisement law. It passed on November 6 with 64 percent of the vote. The initiative, known as Amendment 4, went into effect Tuesday morning.

“It was a very, very emotional moment,” Meade said on Facebook after he submitted his voter registration form, his eyes welling up with tears. He was surrounded by his wife and kids and wore a “Let My People Vote” t-shirt. “Across the state of Florida, our democracy is being expanded. That’s a great thing.”

Amendment 4 automatically restores voting rights to people with felony records who have completed their full sentences, except those convicted of murder or a sexual offense. Before it passed, Florida was one of only four states that prevented ex-felons from voting, which blocked 10 percent of Floridians from casting a ballot, including 1 in 5 African Americans. The enactment of Amendment 4 could lead to the largest increase in new voters in the state since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The passage of Amendment 4 was particularly remarkable given that Florida elected a Republican senator and a Republican governor in 2018 who both opposed restoring voting rights to ex-felons. Amendment 4 attracted significant support from Republicans in Florida, even as their party invested heavily in making it harder to vote nationwide. In a huge expansion for voting rights, eight states approved ballot initiatives in 2018 to make it easier to vote and harder to gerrymander.

A huge and improbable coalition supported Amendment 4, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Christian Coalition to the Koch brothers’ political network. “We are fighting just as hard for that person that wishes he could vote for Donald Trump as that person who wanted to vote for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton,” Meade told me when I visited Florida in August. “We don’t care about how a person may vote. What we care about is that they have the ability to vote. That is our compass.”

Meade’s own story was equally remarkable, as I reported for Mother Jones:

On a muggy August day in 2005, Desmond Meade stood in front of the railroad tracks north of downtown Miami and prepared to take his life. He’d been released from prison early after a 15-year sentence for gun possession was reduced to three years, but he was addicted to crack, without a job, and homeless. “The only thing going through my mind was how much pain I’d feel when I jumped in front of the oncoming train,” Meade said. “I was a broken man.”

But the train never came, and eventually Meade walked two blocks to a drug treatment center and checked himself in. He got clean, enrolled in school, and received a law degree from Florida International University in 2014. Meade should have been the archetypal recovery success story—“[God] took a crackhead and made a lawyer out of him,” as he put it. But he’s not allowed to practice law. And when his wife ran for the Florida House of Representatives in 2016, he couldn’t vote for her. “My story still doesn’t have a happy ending,” he said. “Because despite the fact that I’ve dedicated my life to being an asset to my community, I still can’t vote.”

Meade’s unlikely partner in the felon restoration effort was Neil Volz, a former chief of staff for Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio and a top lobbyist for onetime superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. Volz was a GOP power broker in Washington until Abramoff’s pay-for-play lobbying scheme unraveled and Volz pled guilty in 2006 to conspiring to corrupt public officials. He lost the right to vote when he moved to Florida afterward, and registered for the first time in over a decade on Tuesday.

“Year by year, when you don’t have the vote, you really take on an appreciation for having the ability to vote,” Volz, who’s now the political director for FRRC, told me after he registered at the Lee County elections office in Fort Myers. Similar stories of ex-felons registering across the state circulated widely on social media.

“Thousands of people are registering to vote today,” Volz said. “It’s a real acknowledgement of the sacredness of democracy that’s happening in front of our eyes.”

Some top Republican officials in Florida, however, have sought to delay the implementation of Amendment 4. New GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who officially took office on Tuesday, said in December that the Florida Legislature, which does not convene until March, should pass “implementing language” before Amendment 4 took effect. Voting rights groups countered that the amendment was “self-executing” and “the Legislature does not need to pass implementing legislation in order for the amendment to go into effect.” Though new registrants are being processed today, the Legislature could still make the implementation of the law more restrictive when it convenes in the spring.

Paul Lux, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, told me that election officials in Florida had received no guidance from the state on how to comply with Amendment 4. “What we’ve heard is nothing,” he said. He said county supervisors, who oversee voter registration, would register new voters as required by the new law. “I am not aware of any supervisors who have said they won’t take registration forms,” Lux said. Meade and Volz said they were not aware of anyone being turned away from registering. “They were letting people register and celebrating with us,” Meade said of election officials.

Meade invited DeSantis to celebrate with returning citizens (his preferred term for ex-felons) who were registering today, noting that over 1 million DeSantis supporters also voted for Amendment 4. “We have a governor who campaigned on abiding by the rule of law, and this is the law now,” he said.

Zac Anderson: North Port resident Alan Rhyelle is the first convicted felon to register to vote under Amendment 4 in Sarasota County. He was waiting in the parking lot by 7:15 a.m.. Busted for growing pot to help his daughter struggling with prescription meds after car accident.

Meade told me that election officials in Orlando were crying as returning citizens registered for the first time in decades, some for the first time in their lives. “When I walked in there, there was a newfound appreciation for the right to vote,” he said. “We hope that’s a message we’re able to convey to other American citizens. There’s something beautiful about participating in American democracy. This is what democracy is all about—the more the merrier.”

We must get big money out of politics!

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

January 15, 2019

Big money continues to corrupt American politics, creating a vicious cycle that funnels more wealth and power to those at the top and eroding our democracy. via Robert Reich

Why We Must Get Big Money Out of Politics

Big money continues to corrupt American politics, creating a vicious cycle that funnels more wealth and power to those at the top and eroding our democracy. via Robert Reich

Posted by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Big Pharma Killed My Son!

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

January 13, 2019

A mother should never have to bury her son because of the hideous greed of pharmaceutical companies. This has got to stop.

Big Pharma's Greed Is Killing Americans

A mother should never have to bury her son because of the hideous greed of pharmaceutical companies. This has got to stop.

Posted by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday, January 13, 2019

USA Today

‘World will end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,’ Ocasio-Cortez says

Washington Post

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The GOP has become the Soviet party

HuffPost

Christian Schools Like Karen Pence’s Are The Real Threat To Academic Freedom

HuffPost

Lady Gaga Slams Mike Pence: He’s ‘The Worst Representation’ Of Christianity

The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog

Cohen says he paid to rig online polls at Trump’s direction

Esquire

I Wouldn’t Hire William Barr for Traffic Court

There was a handy primer on “what it relates to” in Wednesday’s Washington Post:

It relates to not using your office of public trust to run your grifts for you. It relates, arguably, to the fact that Barr’s future boss may indeed be a crook.

Vice News

Late Night with Seth Meyers

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders