Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Demovictory9

Demovictory9's Journal
Demovictory9's Journal
April 17, 2019

Republican lawmakers across the country are asking: How can we keep people from voting?

Republicans boldly explore new frontiers of voter suppression

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/17/republicans-boldly-explore-new-frontiers-voter-suppression/?utm_term=.23f6cb517f18

As we turn our attention toward the 2020 elections, Republican lawmakers across the country are asking: How can we keep people from voting? In Tennessee, which already has lower-than-average rates of turnout, the legislature is on the case:

Tennessee could penalize some paid voter registration groups with fines for too many faulty signups and criminal charges for violating new requirements under a proposal passed by the House on Monday.

The vote bucked some voting rights groups, who have voiced fear that the bill would create a chilling effect on Tennessee’s already-poor voter participation marks.

Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett has made the legislation a top priority, deeming it important for election security after Shelby County, which includes Memphis, saw a flood of often-faulty registrations that came in on last year’s deadline.

But Tennessee Black Voter Project, which led the voter signup charge in Memphis and elsewhere across the state, has said the bill immediately followed the group’s efforts to register 86,000 black voters.

------------

The problem here is obviously not that erroneous registrations create some kind of unmanageable burden on state officials, because they've always existed and always will.

It’s that too many black people registered to vote in Tennessee, and something had to be done about it.


So in addition to using all the other tools in their voter-suppression drawer, Republicans in Tennessee decided to clamp down on registration, knowing full well that liberal groups are much more likely to mount registration drives than conservative groups.
April 17, 2019

'Lower your voice or you're going to jail!' -- police officer has been fired after body cam footage

https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1118261029157261312

‘Lower your voice or you’re going to jail!’ — This police officer has been fired after body cam footage revealed him abusing a 69-year-old Florida veteran


------

How the incident happened

DeLandite Allan Kidd and another man were sitting on the corner of South Orange and West New York avenues, next to some low-hanging power lines, which were apparently damaged from then-recent Hurricane Irma.

DeLand police Officer Johan Mulero directed the men to sit on a different side of the corner in front of him, but almost immediately got upset that Kidd apparently stepped too close to him while walking where he was directed.

“Get away from me. Sit over there … I don’t need you stepping up to me like that,” Mulero said.
“Stepping up to you?” Kidd asked.
“Sit down, or I’m going to sit you down!” Mulero said, raising his voice.
“I wasn’t stepping up to you, sir,” Kidd said.
Mulero then grabbed Kidd and forced him to the ground.
“When I tell you to do something, you do it,” Mulero said.
“You’re on a power trip, is that what it is?” Kidd asked.

Mulero let the other man, who was talking with Kidd on the corner, leave the scene, and asked Kidd what he was doing.
"I'm just standing on the street corner, talking to this guy I just met, and all of a sudden you're pushing me down and being real physical with me,” Kidd answered.
“Do you know why?” Mulero asked.
“No, I don’t know why,” Kidd said, emphatically, but not yelling.
“Lower your voice. Lower your voice,” Mulero said, pointing his finger at Kidd.
Kidd appears incredulous in the video, looking at the other officer present in disbelief.
“Lower your voice or you’re going to jail!” Mulero yelled.
The rest of the incident continued in a similar tone, with Mulero telling Kidd to calm down and threatening him with arrest if he doesn’t. Mulero explained why the officers were called to the scene: a report of a man yelling at passing traffic.
Kidd attempted to deny the allegation that he was yelling at passing cars.
“Are you going to stop talking so I can explain?” Mulero said. “You’re about to go to jail.”
Kidd explained that the other man he was speaking with was simply “trying to be a good Christian,” and helping him “in a spiritual way.” Mulero asked Kidd for his ID, and Kidd stood up to get it out of his pocket.
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this, why you’re pushing me around,” Kidd said.
“Because I don’t like people testing me,” Mulero said.

“I don’t like f------ Nazis, either,” Kidd said, pointing at Mulero.

The remark apparently angered Mulero, who proceeded to tackle Kidd to the ground and place him in handcuffs.
The rest of the video shows Kidd continuing to question why he’s being arrested, and Mulero continuing to tell him to be quiet. It ends with Kidd in Mulero’s squad car.
— By Anthony DeFeo, based on body-camera video of the incident. Watch the full video at www.beacononlinenews.com.

https://www.beacononlinenews.com/news/deland-police-making-changes-after-officer-fired/article_7f958072-f8d8-11e8-a309-efe142fa47e2.html
April 17, 2019

White House will not turn over documents on AT&T-Time Warner merge

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-time-warner-at-t-congress/white-house-will-not-turn-over-documents-on-att-time-warner-merger-idUSKCN1RS28R

The White House has told two U.S. House Democrats it will not turn over documents that could show whether Republican President Donald Trump sought to intervene in the regulatory review of AT&T Inc’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc.

In March, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and Representative David Cicilline, who chairs a panel overseeing antitrust issues, asked the White House and Justice Department to turn over records after The New Yorker magazine reported Trump directed then-National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn to use the Justice Department to block the deal.

The pair wrote that if accurate, Trump’s involvement would “constitute a grave abuse of power.” In February, a federal appeals court upheld a lower-court ruling rejecting a Justice Department challenge to the deal filed in November 2017.

Trump criticized the deal as a candidate in late 2016, saying it would concentrate too much media power in the hands of one owner, and later saying it would raise prices. He has also frequently attacked CNN, a Time Warner property now owned by AT&T, for what he sees as negative coverage of his campaign and administration.
April 16, 2019

why Trump shit stirs all the time

Is he trying to make things worse, to justify some new authoritarian move? Is he simply overwhelmed and incapable of solving problems? Maybe some of both, but the result is an intensifying sense, even to Republicans in Congress, that any semblance of reasoned governance has evaporated. The hysteria is not in service of a policy but in lieu of one. It’s what Trump does to manufacture material for Fox News hosts, who repeat his nonsense on air, which makes Trump feel he has “won” something. One shudders to think what will happen if we face a genuine international emergency.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/15/unhinged-no-longer-any-upside/?utm_term=.bf9c46ab59ba

April 16, 2019

Trump offers advice to Boeing on 737 MAX planes: 'REBRAND', 'add additional great features'

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/15/trump-boeing-737-max-1274719

President Donald Trump on Monday suggested aviation giant Boeing ditch the designation for its crash-plagued 737 MAX planes and rename the aircraft once a critical software issue is fixed and the planes are able to fly again.

“What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?”


The 737 MAX series planes were grounded worldwide last month after one of the planes crashed shortly after takeoff in Ethiopia, killing everyone on board and drawing comparisons to another deadly crash involving the same model in October.

Profile Information

Gender: Female
Hometown: California
Member since: Tue Feb 27, 2018, 10:32 PM
Number of posts: 32,453
Latest Discussions»Demovictory9's Journal