Preventing Another 2000 in Florida

I had posted about Florida Governor Rick Scott seeking to suppress Democratic votes by removing voters from the rolls under the guise that they are not American citizens, even though they are.  Now the Justice Department is ordering Florida to stop because they are violating the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act.  It looks as if Scott will not get away with this crap.

Also, a federal judge blocked a Florida law, another Rick Scott special, that makes it more difficult to register voters (also intended to suppress Democratic votes), to the point that the League of Women Voters cancelled their voter registration drives, so even registration experts felt the law was too onerous.  The judge said the law is “not well crafted” and “virtually unintelligible.”

So Florida should be getting some relief from outrageous GOP attempts both to stop new voters from registering and to keep existing voters from actually exercising that right.  They know Mitt can’t win the White House without winning Florida, and they’re doing everything they can think of to help their guy, these hypocrites who claim to love the Constitution so much.

Edwards Not Guilty on Bunny Money, Mistrial on Other Counts

John Edwards was found not guilty on count three of the six counts against him, the money he got from Bunny Mellon in excess of federal finance contribution laws.

The jury couldn’t agree on the remaining five counts, and the judge has declared a mistrial on them.

Edwards Jury Reaches Verdict on One Count

The jury in the John Edwards trial has reached a verdict on count three of the six counts he is charged with.  That’s the count relating to “Bunny Money,” the contributions he got from Bunny Mellon in excess of federal campaign limits.

The jury has been sent back to continue deliberating on the remaining five counts.

Obama’s Map

That Heilemann article in New York Magazine also points out how propitious the electoral college map is for President Obama:

“The safe presumption…is that Obama holds the nineteen states plus the District of Columbia that John Kerry won in 2004 — which, recall, did not include Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, or Virginia, all of which Obama carried in 2008, giving the president a base of 246 electoral votes.  There’s the western path:  Obama holds Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa for a total of 272.  There’s the midwestern path:  Obama holds Ohio and Iowa (270).   There’s the southern path:  Obama holds North Carolina and Virginia (274).  And there’s the Florida path, in which Obama simply again takes the Sunshine State (275).

“In truth, the most promising of all the routes to 270 is the western one, because of the dominant lead Obama possesses over Romney with Hispanics.  Indeed, if you factor in New Mexico, which the president nabbed in 2008 and is considered safe this time, and Virginia, which has a sizable Latino population, a relatively strong economy, and polls consistently showing Obama ahead, he can hit 270 without winning Iowa, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, or North Carolina.”  Emphasis added.

Mitt Plays Checkers, Not Chess

John (“Game Change”) Heilemann has a wonderful long article up at New York Magazine, “Hope:  the Sequel.”  Here’s David Axelrod on Mitt:

“Romney is thoroughly tactical.  He makes whatever decision he needs to get through the next battle without respect to the war.  So he ran to the right of everybody on immigration because he had to beat Perry.  He embraced the Ryan budget to get around Gingrich.  And then he ran to the right of Santorum, or tried to, on contraception to fend off him.”

Try This at Home

Go to Google and print out a picture of Mitt from any of the GOP debates or from a national TV interview, like with Chris Wallace or Bret Baier.

Now print out a picture of Vladimir Putin.

Put them side by side.  I know, Mitt’s hair is better.

But look into their eyes.

Who would eat whom for breakfast?

Raving of the Day

Trump won’t shut up about his birther BS —  “Why does the press protect him [Obama]?  Is this another Watergate?” he tweets.

Eventually Trump will be tweeting from his golden-barred padded cell at Bellevue.  Make that Trump Bellevue.

 

Mitt’s Map

Mitt’s campaign told major GOP donors that it sees Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida as must wins.  Then it needs to win one “wild card” from New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin or Michigan.

I think it’s high unlikely that Obama won’t get at least one of the first four.

But that’s why we see Florida Gov. Rick Scott fanatically pruning his voter rolls of those likely to vote for Obama, falsely claiming that many voters are not U. S. citizens and putting the burden on them to re-establish their voting rights through a hearing.

Just what we need — another 2000.  If Florida screws up another election, I think we should return them to Spain.  Although I doubt even Nordstrom would let you return something almost 200 years later.

Funny, Sad, True

“Iran is laughing all the way to the bomb.”  Moshe Ya’alon, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, speaking to the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv.

Loose Cannon with a Combover

“Trump, for his part, couldn’t have done more to make Romney look like a weak nominee.  At times he seemed to outright dare Romney to either take his side or try and stop him, tweeting that Republicans risked losing the election if they tried to ‘disavow the place of birth movement’ and telling the Huffington Post’s Jon Ward that Romney had never told him to lay off the birther stuff.”  Emphasis added.

“Why Mitt Romney Keeps Donald Trump Around,” Benjy Sarlin and Evan McMorris-Santoro, Talking Points Memo