What goes through my my mind when I read the news with my morning coffee. …Or for the Simon's Rockers in the group, this is my response journal.
Krasner and his attorneys have begun to decline many prostitution charges, especially if it’s a worker’s first arrest. Those with multiple arrests are sometimes referred to Dawn Court, a diversion program that mandates services for sex workers in exchange for eventually clearing their records of at least some of their prostitution charges.
Sex workers don’t need aggressive prosecution to protect themselves | Opinion
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“One hundred and fifty years of disenfranchisement, and this moment here marks the end of a system that excludes so many people for a lifetime,” Meade said, referring to the years after the Civil War when felons were first barred from voting during Reconstruction. “This is a moment for democracy.”
The right to vote was restored to more than 1.4 million former felons across the state Tuesday thanks to Amendment 4’s victory at the ballot box in November, leading to emotional scenes as tears flowed, confetti was thrown and U.S. flags were waved.
…Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala arrived with her husband, David, who has never voted due to a felony drug conviction when he was 16.
…Not being allowed to vote for his wife to become the state’s first-ever African American state attorney, he said, “Was a dark moment, not being able to participate in her moment of history. … I knocked on doors, made calls, but wasn’t able to do the most important thing you can do.”
…“I believe in a wider democracy,” Aramis Ayala said. “When a debt is paid, a debt is paid.”
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The state of Georgia, still reeling from reports of multiple election security breaches over the past two years, has moved one perilous step closer to replacing its 16-year-old F-rated touchscreen voting machines with yet another glaringly vulnerable touchscreen voting system.
Ignoring the advice of independent cybersecurity experts, Georgia’s Secure, Accessible & Fair Elections (SAFE) Commission on Thursday recommended that the state purchase controversial new touchscreen ballot-marking devices that use barcodes to capture and count voters’ selections.
…That recommendation thumbs its nose at the advice of every independent cybersecurity expert who has weighed in on the issue of how to improve Georgia’s voting system.
In the past week alone, 24 highly regarded election experts, including many experts in election cybersecurity, advised the SAFE Commission to reject touchscreen barcode systemsand instead move to hand-marked paper ballots and scanners for most voters.
So did Verified Voting, a well-respected nonpartisan national election integrity group. So did Professor Wenke Lee of the Georgia Institute of Technology (the commission’s only cybersecurity expert).
In fact, so did almost all citizens who made public comments. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, those who spoke in favor of the touchscreen barcode system consisted primarily of lobbyists and election officials.
…Like all touchscreen voting systems, touchscreen barcode systems limit the number of people who can vote simultaneously to the number of touchscreens at the polling place. Thus, if corrupt officials wanted to re-create the long lines that plagued the 2018 midterms, all they’d have to do is send too few machines to certain polling places, or send broken ones, or forget the power cords and blame these and any other problems on “human error.”
Georgia Poised to Pick Vulnerable Barcode Voting Technology – WhoWhatWhy
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Inslee’s decision while he chaired the Democratic Governors Association not to invest in New Hampshire’s competitive governor’s race last year still burns some of the state’s leading Democrats.
…Under Inslee, the DGA picked up seven seats in 2018 — a record number for Democrats in the last two decades. Yet in the race that mattered most in New Hampshire, the umbrella governors group was nowhere to be found. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Molly Kelly ultimately lost 53 percent to 46 percent in what otherwise turned out to be a strong Democratic year.
…“You spent $130 million to $150 million — are you serious? And you couldn’t spend a dime to help Molly Kelly win her race?” Reardon said, referring to roughly the amount the DGA raised in 2017-18 election cycle. “I’d love to see the breakdown on how much they spent on losing gubernatorial races in other states. My hunch is a fraction of that would have been a help in New Hampshire.”
…The DGA did not spend a cent on television advertising for Kelly — a stark contrast to the $645,000 the RGA spent on ads for Sununu, according to Advertising Analytics.
…“We were extremely surprised that the DGA did not invest more resources in the race, especially in the closing days,” the official said. “Instead, the DGA invested resources in places like Alaska, a race that was already lost for them. And they invested significant resources in states like Rhode Island, which ended up being a blowout for Gov. Raimondo. I still think even with resources by Dems, Sununu would have still won. But if DGA would have invested significant resources from the beginning, it could have been a different outcome.”
‘You couldn’t spend a dime?’: Jay Inslee ticks off the wrong state – POLITICO
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On Tuesday, Bushell walked out of the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office a newly registered voter, one of several formerly incarcerated Floridians to register to vote after the passage of constitutional Amendment 4, which restored voting rights for an estimated 1.2 million felons — as many as 400,000 of those in South Florida, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis.
“I usually do my part anyway and I transport individuals to the polls whenever I can,” Bushell, 52, said outside the county’s elections office in Doral. “Not being able to do it myself, that’s like a downfall for me. So now that I’m able to do it, now it’s an uplift.”
…Prior to the amendment going into effect, convicted felons were required to seek the restoration of their rights from the state’s clemency board, which has a backlog of about 10,000 cases.
The amendment mandates that the state automatically restore the voting rights for felons who have fulfilled all terms of their sentence, along with any probation or parole. Individuals convicted of murder or a “felony sexual offense” are not eligible under the amendment.
…“There were a lot of tears of joy that were shed. Some of the (supervisors of elections) were crying,” Meade said. “It was just a very emotional day. We were celebrating the expansion of democracy.”
Felons register to vote in Florida. | Miami Herald
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None of the concerns expressed at the public hearing dealt with the Portsmouth facility. The Dover-related concerns came primarily from Alder Lane abutters, as expressed by 21-year resident Theresa Proia.
She drew a contrast between state officials, who worked with the neighborhood when the facility was originally constructed in 2008, and with C&J, which operates the facility.
“They were very good to our neighborhood,” she said of state officials. “They were transparent. We talked about the plans for the whole parking lot, the lighting, the fencing, and the trees that would be placed on both sides of the fence to protect the aesthetics of the neighborhood.”
With C&J, she said, trees were removed and new parking spaces added without any consultation.
“Space have been paved and additional parking has been put in with no transparency whatsoever,” said Proia. “So you can understand that our neighborhood is very concerned about moving forward with this process, and whether privatization would be good for us.”
Bus terminal privatization questioned – News – seacoastonline.com – Portsmouth, NH
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Hundreds of cannabis buyers are still cuffed each year for purchasing weed, and despite decades of data that show black and white populations consume the herb at equal rates, racial disparities in the arrests remain stark.
…Black people in Philly, who make up roughly 44 percent of the population, comprised 76 percent of all arrests for marijuana possession in Philadelphia between 2015 and 2018, the first four calendar years since decrim, according to data from the Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System. That rate is the same among juveniles arrested on the same charges.
And for those caught in the act of purchasing the crop — which remains a criminal offense, albeit rarely charged in Philadelphia — the discrepancy is even higher.
In those same years, 81 percent of all buyers arrested at the handoff were black. That was 1,454 out of 1,796 people, according to data provided to Billy Penn by the Philadelphia Police Department.
sigh…
School district officials this year are taking a hard-line approach in enforcing a two-decade-old policy that calls for ejecting students from school on their 22nd birthday — an edict they had routinely ignored in the past if overage students were on track to graduate.
The reversal is causing an uproar among students and teachers, who argue strict adherence is creating an unnecessary barrier for students — many of whom have already overcome steep odds — to earn a diploma, go to college, and build a better life for themselves in America.
In a school system that has been trying for years to boost graduation rates, even knocking on dropouts’ doors to lure them back to class, teachers say rigid enforcement of the age limit just a few months before commencement is nonsensical.
…A big issue at the time was that students were not told of the policy before they enrolled. This year, instead of amending the policy as teachers and administrators had hoped, the School Department informed students about the policy during registration. Students nearing the age of 22 were given the choice of enrolling — under the condition they wouldn’t be able to finish — or entering a part-time adult program.
BPS to boot older students from high school – The Boston Globe
sigh…
Most of these old-school display boards have been scrapped in recent years; Amtrak recently announced that it planned to replace this analog technology with a digital screen, just as it had done at stations in Boston, Baltimore, New York, and all the other cities it serves. But Philly residents and lawmakers objected so vehemently that the rail agency seems to have relented.
Philly Rallies to Save its Amtrak Station Flip Board – CityLab
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It’s been one year since two Iowa environmental activists claimed responsibility for deliberately causing millions of dollars in damage to the Dakota Access Pipeline project, but federal prosecutors haven’t filed charges against them.
The activists — Jessica Reznicek, 36, and Ruby Montoya, 28 — have gone into hiding. The lack of federal prosecution has some Iowans wondering whether charges will ever be filed.
…Rachel Scherle, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Des Moines, declined to say last week why no criminal charges have been filed against either Reznicek or Montoya. But she indicated the matter hasn’t been dropped by federal authorities.
“I cannot comment on any ongoing investigation,” Scherle said.
…Vicki Granado, a spokesman for Energy Transfer Partners, said in an email that there is no truth to any assertions that her company has asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Des Moines not to pursue criminal charges against the two women.
“Beyond that, I will decline to comment as we don’t discuss issues related to current or pending legal matters,” she said.
A year later, why no federal charges in Dakota Access Pipeline sabotage?
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The history of Jews, Chinese food, and Christmas, explained by a rabbi – Vox
However you spent today, the Peanut Gallery wishes you a merry, merry 25th of December.
Some Parting Thoughts After Six Years On The Executive Council
What a quaint, bizarrely unique thing the Council is….
There’s a long history of law enforcement officials using defamation laws to silence their critics. Under English common law, the crime of “seditious libel” prohibited criticism of the government because it could lead to insurrection. And in the Sedition Act of 1798, Congress criminalized false statements criticizing the federal government.
But, as the Supreme Court recognized in a landmark 1964 decision, New York Times Company v. Sullivan, the First Amendment was meant to repudiate the whole notion of seditious libel.
…In its decision upholding the newspaper’s First Amendment rights, the Supreme Court recognized the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
….In states that still have criminal defamation laws on the books, public officials still use them to prosecute their critics.
For example: The editor and publisher of a small newspaper in Kansas were convicted of criminal defamation after the paper published an article suggesting that the mayor lived in another county and was therefore ineligible for public office. …A Kansas man was charged with criminal defamation after he posted a yard sign criticizing his local government’s inaction on a water drainage problem; the lawsuit was dropped after the ACLU got involved.
…The Exeter Police Department’s criminal complaint against Frese is a textbook example of the use and abuse of criminal defamation laws. Someone who has had a history of trouble with the police went to the internet to air his grievances, and the police department itself decided to prosecute him[.]
This is absurd, and it’s a telling reminder of what happens when law enforcement is given the power to crack down on expression. It’s time we toss criminal defamation laws into the dustbin of history, where they belong.
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