The Truth Be Told

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Prosecutor Admits To Discriminating Against Latino Abuse Victims In Visa Applications

by Esther Yu-Hsi Lee

A North Carolina county prosecutor won’t certify visa applications for Latino domestic violence victims if their assailants are also Latino. In an interview with the Charlotte Observer, Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell said that he would only certify U visa applications, designated for victims of domestic abuse or violence, for Latinos if their abusers are non-Latino.

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Non Sequitur

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There's an American named Jade Helm. And yes, she's a little pissed right now.

"I promise the entire Texas military will watch this woman until we know what she's up to."

If three months from now this poor person decided to move to Vanuatu, you really couldn't blame her.

Three months ago, being that one American named Jade Helm would have been a curiosity of the oh-that's-an-interesting-name sort. With the advent of Jade Helm '15, the miltary-exercise-turned-massive-conspiracy-theory, however, being Jade Helm has taken a turn for the annoying. [...] "The lowest point was when I saw a Mr. Rogers meme about Jade Helm — of course posted on my Facebook timeline by one of my helpful friends," Helm said. "This was not how I hoped to be associated with Mr. Rogers."

Pin this one up as a reminder that all things considered, you probably have a pretty good life. At least you don't share your name with the single stupidest conspiracy theory to ever grace an actual sitting governor's synapses.

Republicans Crushed As Obamacare Transforms Into A Winning Issue For Democrats

A new poll shows Republican hate sowing the seeds of future failure as Obamacare is a winning national issue for Democrats.

Three findings within the AP/GfK poll are devastating for Republicans:

Fifty-six percent said the court should keep the subsidies without restriction while 39 percent said the financial aid should be limited to residents of states that set up their own health insurance markets.

….

The poll found that a bare majority, 51 percent, wants Congress to amend the law to make it clear that people are entitled to help regardless of what their state leaders do.

But 44 percent prefer that Congress leave the law as is and let states decide whether they want to create insurance exchanges that would allow their residents to receive subsidies.

….

The poll found 27 percent of Americans support the law while 38 percent oppose it, and 34 percent say they neither support nor oppose it.

These statistics present an impossible problem for Republicans. By a nearly two to one margin, the those polled either support the law or don’t have an opinion either way. The level of opposition to the law has shrunk to the same level as the percentage of self-identified Republicans and conservatives in polls. This means that the opposition to the ACA is shrinking, but firmly located within the Republican Party.

The fact that a seventeen point majority want the subsidies to continue without restriction, while 69% of Republicans want the subsidies to go away means that Republicans are guaranteed to pay a heavy political price no matter what they do. Republicans are being crushed beneath the weight of their ginned up hatred for the ACA.

Obamacare is now a winning issue for Democrats. The more Republicans that nationally discuss repealing the law, the stronger the Democratic position becomes. Democrats could have a huge victory in 2016 because Republican voters are forcing to their candidates to stick to repealing the health care law.

The ACA turned into a winning issue because people like having health insurance. Republicans are sowing the seeds for future Democratic victories by continuing to fight battles that they’ve already lost.

Republicans: Always Wrong - About Everything

Bernie Sanders Explained Why Voters Aren’t Voting Ten Years Ago

It seems like hardly a month passes without yet another international or national study or survey revealing how America, as the “shining light” of democracy and unlimited economic possibilities, is revealed as lagging the rest of the civilized world in any and every possible category. If America is not at the bottom of the list for dependable infrastructure, access to healthcare, or the number of people in the middle class, it is a world leader in the number of children living in dire poverty, most gun-related homicides, most incarcerations, and a humiliatingly ignorant religious and racist population.

Now another survey reveals that as the one-time exemplar of democracy, America is near the very bottom of industrialized nations with a truly pathetic voter turnout record. Of all the recent sad reports about America, this one can be laid at the feet of Republicans and their moneyed supporters who, with valuable assistance from a conservative Supreme Court, work tirelessly and spend unlimited amounts of cash to prevent Americans from participating in the electoral process.

Before perusing the one-time ” world’s leading democracy” and its truly pathetic voter turnout record, it is worth looking back at comments from Senator Bernie Sanders that he recorded for posterity nearly ten years ago in the 2006 documentary “American Blackout.” In the documentary, the filmmakers recounted the then-astonishing voter suppression tactics being employed to prevent a large percentage of the population from participating in America’s storied representative democracy. Even though it has been nearly ten years since the film’s release, if then-Representative Bernie Sanders knew what the Koch brothers intended in funding outright voter suppression efforts, he certainly would have called them and their legislative arm the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) out by name. Instead, Sanders talked about voter apathy and cited “the people who control politics” as the media, large corporations, and the wealthy people as those most invested in keeping Americans from participating in the election process.

Bernie Sanders explained that the rich and corporations do not want all Americans to vote. He said, “The truth of the matter is that the media, large corporations, the people who control politically our country today do not want you to participate. That’s only bad for them. They want a low turnout of primarily upper middle class people, they want big money to dominate the political process. Their nightmare is that young people, lower income people, working people jump into the political process. They do not want that.” As everyone now understands in retrospect, corporations and the wealthy Koch-types’ worst nightmare came true in 2008 when young people, people of color, working and low income people did jump into the political process electing Democrats to control both houses of Congress and the White House that elicited a ferocious response from the Koch brothers as archetypes of the corporate and wealthy elite Sanders described.

Since now-Senator Sanders’ short comment on voting has been manifest a hundred fold, everything he said ten years ago has morphed into more than the wealthy elite just “not wanting people to participate” in the voting process or “wanting big money to dominate the political process.” In fact, after the 2008 election of Barack Obama with larger numbers of Americans heading to the polls, including more young people, more lower income people (code for people of color), and working people, the wealthy and their corporations went to the Supreme Court to win the right to inject unlimited amounts of money in politics, and paid ALEC to write and pass outright voter restriction and suppression laws in Republican controlled states across the nation; particularly in the racist former-Confederate states. So, exactly what was the result of the Koch’s investment in ALEC and the Supreme Court?

According to a new Pew survey released recently, among all developed nations on Earth, America lagged every nation in voter turnout than three; Japan, Chile, and Switzerland. Americans voter turnout was less than all of the other 37 member nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Pew measured voter turnout by comparing the number of votes cast as a percentage of eligible voting-age population. According to that measure, America landing 31st among the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development whose member nations are mostly highly developed democratic states.

America’s turnout in 2012 was 53% and the three highest ranking nations were Belgium (87%), Turkey (86%), and Sweden (83%). America’s low voter turnout has predictable consequences as the last midterm election confirms; lower voter turnout always benefits Republicans because not surprisingly, the people that do not turn out to vote generally have “more progressive views.”

This does not necessarily mean that registered Democratic voters are not showing up, although in the last midterm election that appeared to be the case, it just means that Americans who generally support progressive agendas like fair wages, income equality, worker protections, social programs, and domestic spending on infrastructure and education have been systematically shut out of the electoral process. Why? Because as Bernie Sanders said in 2006; it is a nightmare for the wealthy and corporations if those people turn out and vote because they dependably vote for Democrats.

Republicans have made no secret they prefer smaller voter turnouts and it goes back to 1991 when Mitch McConnell said that not only is he “not particularly disturbed by lower voter turnout,” he thought it was “healthy if less people participated in the political process.” Recently, more Republicans have openly commented that they think any effort to get more Americans to participate in the voting process is “shocking and underhanded.” In Republican states voter ID laws, restrictions on voter registration efforts, fewer polling places, and outright voter suppression laws have contributed to the low voter turnouts.

Senator Bernie Sanders is no prophet by any means, but his remarks nearly ten years ago about corporations and the rich not wanting all Americans to vote were not only accurate; they were grossly understated as the results of the Pew poll certainly revealed. Of all the surveys and research results portraying America as a second-rate nation have borne out over the past few years, this recent survey is particularly humiliating because this country is alleged to be the world’s leading democracy; a distinction Republicans and the Kochs have spent six years and no small amount of corporate cash flushing down the oligarch’s toilet.

Support For Sanders With Democrats Grows By 10 Points In Iowa

The latest polling revealed that support for Bernie Sanders has increased by ten points among Democrats in Iowa after the Senator from Vermont officially announced his bid for the Democratic nomination.

According to the most recent Quinnipiac University poll of Iowa, Sen. Sanders has gone from 5% in February to 15% in May. The poll had Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 19% in February, but after she has repeatedly ruled out a run for the nomination, she was not included in the current round of polling.

Logically, it appears that Warren supporters should be a target for the Sanders campaign, but Hillary Clinton was the most popular first and second choice of Iowa Democratic caucus goers. When her first and second choice support was combined, Clinton received 79% support. The first and second favorite support for Sanders was 25%. (Note: percentages add up to more than one hundred.) Clinton’s 2016 is looking like a reversal of her 2008 Iowa caucus experience while Sanders is in a position to be a legitimate second.

Hillary Clinton had a jaw-dropping 83% approval rating with Iowa Democrats. The former Sec. of State’s approval rating with very liberal Democrats was 88%. Sen. Sanders is largely unknown in Iowa. His favorability split was 44%-6%, but 50% of those polled did not know enough about him. Sanders had a favorability rating of 68% among those who considered themselves to be very liberal.

What this polling illustrates is that Hillary Clinton is a historically strong candidate. Not since Dwight D. Eisenhower has a non-incumbent presidential candidate had this much support for his/her campaign. The data also hints that there may be room for only one more legitimate Democratic candidate in the race. At this very early stage, it looks like that candidate will be Sen. Bernie Sanders.

One issue with the Quinnipiac Poll is that Vice President Biden was included in the polling. The numbers will shift after Biden is dropped from the poll. It is safe to assume that some if not most of the Biden support will shift to Hillary Clinton, but there will be an opening there for Sanders to pick up some additional support.

Bernie Sanders has gotten a bigger bounce from announcing his campaign than many expected. Sanders is not a fringe candidate. He will likely be the top challenger to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic field, as the Democratic primary looks like it will feature two strong voices debating the issues in 2016.

Republican Map Shrinking As Hillary Clinton Puts Red State Arizona In Play

A Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey released on May 6th finds Hillary Clinton is competitive in the traditional red state of Arizona. The poll tested Hillary Clinton against nine GOP candidates. In each hypothetical contest, Clinton was competitive, with her range varying from a 3-point lead (44-41) over Texas Governor Rick Perry to a 7-point deficit against New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (46-39).

Given Chris Christie’s poor showing in other recent polls conducted in other states, he seems unlikely to secure the GOP nomination. Clinton is evenly matched against the two most likely Republican candidates, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Clinton trailed Walker in the poll 44-43. She managed a 41-41 tie against Jeb Bush.

A Democratic presidential candidate has not carried Arizona since 1996, when Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in the state by a narrow 46.5 to 44.3 percent margin, with Independent Ross Perot picking up 8 percent of the vote. Barack Obama lost the state by over 8 percentage points in both 2008 and 2012.

Arizona’s red tilt makes it a difficult state for Democrats to target, but Hillary Clinton has the potential to put Republicans on the defensive in the Grand Canyon State. If the Clinton campaign can expand the competitive playing field into Arizona, she could conceivably force the GOP to divert resources away from other swing states to shore up their position in the traditionally Republican stronghold.

Whichever Republican becomes the GOP candidate for President, will also have to overcome any damage to the party brand, created by Arizona’s duplicitous Governor Doug Ducey and the states Tea Party flavored legislature. Arizona Republicans have passed a budget that contained savage cuts to education and Medicaid, creating the potential for an anti-GOP backlash up and down the ticket, in a high-turnout presidential election.

While it is too early to gauge whether Arizona will remain competitive by November of next year, Hillary Clinton is in a strong position to put the state in play. If Arizona Republicans continue to mismanage the state budget, Hillary will be poised to capitalize on their failure. She can easily paint her presidential opponent as a Republican who plays for the same team as Arizona ‘s budget slashing Governor Doug Ducey. If she does that successfully, she would be the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state, since her husband accomplished the feat in 1996.

Republican Clown Car

Grab The Popcorn – Rick Don’t Google Santorum Is Promising To Maybe Enter The Race

I love this guy. Well, I love covering this guy. He’s a never ending source of amusement.

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Scott Walker Channels the shrub At SC Wingnut Summit

Wisconsin's Scott Walker did his best imitation of George W. Bush at this Saturday's South Carolina "Freedom" Summit.

Wingnut Summit

Propaganda

Nazi Propaganda, oh, excuse us, Republican Propaganda, you can see it's easy mistake to make

This Exposé of NYC Nail Salons Destroys the Republican Worldview Once and for All

In the free-market utopia imagined by the Ayn Rand acolytes in the Republican party, everyone is paid what he or she deserves according to his or her value. There’s no need for government to step in and regulate businesses because the market will punish anyone who engages in unfair or destructive practices.
Then there’s the real world.
A New York Times investigation into working conditions in NYC-area nail salons exposed horrific conditions for the mostly immigrant women who do cheap manicures and pedicures.
They’re paid little to nothing. What meager wages they get from salon owners are often docked for minor infractions. Minimum wage? Overtime? These basic rights most Americans take for granted are as fantastical to salon employees as Narnia.

Most of the women interviewed by the Times were undocumented and spoke little English, meaning they don’t have access to the resources to improve their working conditions or to demand the pay they deserve.
The salon’s customers aren’t going to police the wages of the women doing their nails. The only hope these workers have is that the government steps in and forces salons to pay their workers fair and legal wages.
Republicans, especially the Rand Paul-libertarian wing of the party, would have you believe government regulation of business is a universal evil. They’d like to forget the years before we had child labor laws, weekends, and guaranteed overtime pay.
They’d like you to ignore the woman at the end of your pedicure chair and continue to assume that all business owners do what’s right. They’d like to pretend that workers aren’t often desperate enough to take any work they can get, even if it means working ungodly hours and working in deplorable conditions.
But the real world doesn’t work the way they want. Business owners exploit workers to maximize profit. They always have. They always will. And without regulation and enforcement, that GOP libertarian utopia is a very, very ugly place.

Texas House Eases Airport Laws For Gun Owners, Sponsored By Republican Caught With Gun In Airport

Texas House Eases Airport Laws For Gun Owners, Sponsored By GOPer Caught With Gun In Airport

The Texas House seems determined to allow guns in every place imaginable even if it poses a threat to the safety of others.

Texas House Eases Airport Laws For Guns In Airport

Sheldon Adelson’s ties to Chinese crime boss under scrutiny after new testimony

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson during May 2014 interview with Bloomberg Business. [YouTube]

The wingnut casino magnate and key Republican party donor, spent four combative days in a Las Vegas court this week defending his gambling empire from accusations of bribery and ties to organized crime.

Sheldon Adelson and the crime boss

Republican Proposes $300 Million Cut To NASA's Earth Science Budget

GOP Proposes $300 Million Cut To NASA's Earth Science Budget

We can't have them researching the effects of man-made climate change, after all.

Cutting To NASA's Earth Science Budget

Denial

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Student Suspended for Speaking Native American Language

After a 12-year-old Menominee student spoke her Native language during class, she was suspended from playing in that night’s basketball game, and memories of past boarding school atrocities surfaced.
Miranda Washinawatok attends Sacred Heart Catholic Academy in Shawano, Wisconsin. According to Native News Network, the school is more than 60 percent Native American and is about six miles from the Menominee Indian Tribe Reservation.
When Miranda was teaching a classmate to say “posoh” and “ketapanen” on January 19, her teacher scolded her. Native News Network reported her saying “You are not to speak like that! How do I know you’re not saying something bad? How would you like it if I spoke in Polish and you didn’t understand?”
The words Miranda was chastised for translate to “hello” and “I love you” in Menominee.
“Miranda kept saying she was only told by her assistant coach she was being benched because two teachers said she had a bad attitude,” Tanaes Washinawatok, Miranda’s mother, told Native News Network. “I wanted to know what she did to make them say she had a bad attitude.”
There is dispute over who actually did the suspending, but the school has admitted it “failed miserably in its handling of the matter.” Deacon Ray DuBois, the communication director for the Diocese of Green Bay, which operates the school, also told Native News Network that the school does not prohibit the use of any language and that “the number one priority is to help this girl.”
Miranda isn’t a troublemaker. Her mother told Native News that she is mature and respectful. Miranda plays basketball and is the team captain of a volleyball team.
“When it comes to Native language, Miranda should be proud she learned and can speak her Native language,” wrote Levi Rickert in a February 4 post on Native News Network.
Tara McGregor, a commenter at Nativenewsnetwork.com, says “As a teacher you have a responsibility to be culturally aware of your students and encourage diversity. This is a reminder to all of us that this type of oppression still exists. I hope that this example of ignorance is not forgotten, and we continue to move forward while creating a world that fosters children who embrace their heritage.”
Rhonda LeValdo, of the Acoma Pueblo and president of the Native American Journalists Association, wrote a piece for Native Connection stating Indian country's support for Miranda. She says: "All Americans need to know about the boarding schools. They need to know how the language was beaten out of many of our elders, so much that their children never learned the language for that fear of them being hurt. This all happened in this country and so many deny the abuses, but it happened."

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, yeah we're talking to you ...!

The Truth Be Told is read in 203 countries around the world.

Keeping it Simple and Stupid for the Republicans? ... !

Today is - Limerick Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog Carolina Naturally

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The Simple Truth: President Obama is Too Intelligent for Republicans to Understand

by Allen Clifton

A few years back I worked with a guy who was probably a genius. In fact, he often struggled in life interacting with people because his brain simply performed at a higher level than the average person. I remember asking him what his biggest belief was in making life decisions and he always, without fail, told me “think of the bigger picture.” And while I’ve always tried to be a big picture thinker, knowing him when I did helped me understand it a little better.
He always told me the biggest issue he faced when dealing with people was that he’d see things in a bigger scope that most people simply couldn’t follow. While many people tend to not see beyond a particular moment, day, week or even month, he operated with a sense of “is what I’m doing now the best course of action to set me up for success not just now, but later on.” He used to tell me people would come to him for advice every once in a while and often walk away angry because what they wanted to hear wasn’t usually what they needed to hear. He was actually one of the first people who made me aware of the fairly obvious (though I was young and had never really thought about it) human characteristic of adoring people who tell them what they want to hear, or what they understand, while condemning those who don’t. Most people really just want to be assured of what they hope will happen rather than take a good long look at what’s best for themselves in the long run.
And while he wasn’t right about everything, he was fairly brilliant when it came to a lot of things. I will say as a young person at the time, this person – who I haven’t spoken to in years – made a profound impact on how I viewed life going forward.
Which brings me to President Obama. While I’m not calling him a genius, I do think he’s extremely intelligent. I also believe that his tendency to use “big picture” thinking while drafting policy is something most Republican voters simply can’t understand.
Take “Obamacare” for instance. It’s not a “fix health care today” law. In fact, the law itself is made to grow and evolve over time. My belief is that it’s a springboard to true socialized medicine. But, as it is now, it’s a long-term outlook on our health care. While many Republicans want to look at the “now” aspect of the Affordable Care Act, they seem unable to grasp the reality that as more Americans get health insurance, giving them access to preventable care, this lowers expenses down the road for everyone. If people can prevent very costly heart attacks, strokes or other debilitating health issues now, that’s an overall savings for practically everyone from consumers to health insurers to doctors who now have more patients. Quite literally, improving the overall health of Americans will improve the health of this country. It even makes sense for our economy. If workers are healthier, because they have access to quality health care, that means there will be fewer people calling in sick to work, showing up sick to work (putting other employees at risk) or relying on government programs because their health conditions (that were preventable) render them unable to work at all.
But to see all of that requires “big picture” thinking and Republicans seem unable to understand anything beyond the spoon-fed bumper sticker talking points they’re given by the GOP and the conservative media.
Minimum wage is another issue you see this with. Republicans constantly paint it as a “job killer” (it’s not) while also rallying against the millions of people who are on government assistance. Funny thing though, a good portion of the Americans who are on government assistance have jobs. If we made sure that no American working full-time had to rely on government programs just to survive, instantly we would save our country hundreds of billions of dollars over the years. Not only that, but when Americans have more money, they have more to spend. And what’s the biggest driver of economic growth? Consumer spending. More consumer spending means higher profits and higher demand, which means - more jobs.
But once again, when it comes to Republicans and explaining job creation, anything outside of “tax cuts create jobs” is often too complex for many of them to understand.
The same goes for war. When it comes to ISIL, Republicans just want to send in troops and “crush the terrorists.” They’ve hammered President Obama relentlessly about how he’s handled the entire situation. See, to many of them, they just want to go in guns blazing because that’s what sounds good. But as we’ve learned by our previous war in Iraq, going into these situations haphazardly without a plan leads to absolute chaos. Remember, the existence of the ISIL we see today is a direct result of Bush’s Iraq War.
When it comes right down to it, I really do believe a huge part about why so many of the non-racist Republicans are against President Obama is because many of them are simply unable to grasp his “big picture” thinking that drives a lot of his policies. That requires intelligence and far too many conservatives would rather just be told what to think by Fox News. They want their policies to be so simplified and catchy that they fit on bumper stickers.
It’s like I’ve often said, Democrats are trying to use science, math, reality, history and education to reason with people who deny science, don’t trust math, create their own reality, distort history and often devalue quality education.
And that’s a big reason why we’re not getting anywhere in this country.

***

I know the pain of the author's friend.
I have a IQ that only 0.001% of the population have (Mensa members have lower IQs) and dealing with most people is a laborious task on a daily basis for even the most idle minutia of daily life.
It is so because the vast majority of people really do not 'see the big picture' and of those that do few of them see it clearly ... then there are the wingnuts and a block of granite has more intellectual acumen than any wingnut, so dealing with them is not even on the radar - dismissing them though is what all do.
Now, for all the wingnuts trying to read this piece (it has big words in it so it is more than likely they are not) it is a piece from about a year ago that still resonates today and while most of our readers recognize this, we had to emphasize the point for you so you can be brought into the real world.

Board of Elections data reveal voter registration irregularities under NC Gov. Pat McCrory

A data-mining analysis of information publicly available from the North Carolina State Board of Elections has uncovered apparently systematic irregularities in voter registration efforts which are required of the state by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA; the so-called 'Motor Voter Act'). These irregularities, potentially disenfranchising tens of thousands of poverty-level North Carolina citizens, have all occurred during the Republican administration of North Carolina's current governor, Pat McCrory (R).
Under McCrory (who took office in January of 2013), North Carolina has become the tip of the GOP's spear in efforts to suppress voting by demographic groups which typically do not lean Republican (blacks, Latinos, youth, and the economically disadvantaged). McCrory's efforts culminated in 2013 with his signing into law of the nation's single most draconian voter suppression bill, The Voter Information Verification Act (VIVA; detailed in this diary). Legal challenges to VIVA have been filed by numerous organizations including the North Carolina NAACP, the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, and the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Oral arguments in NC-NAACP v. McCrory will begin in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, in Winston-Salem, on July 6th. But while many of those suits argue, in part, that VIVA may have been intended to suppress minority voting, evidence of such malicious intent has been hard to come by.
Until now.

NVRA requires the states to provide citizens with the opportunity to register to vote for federal elections by three important means:
1. At the same time that they apply for or renew driver's licenses
2. At the same time that they apply for Public Assistance (PA) programs, such as food stamps or welfare
3. By mail
NVRA also requires the states to collect data regarding how many voter registration applications are generated via each of these means, and to report summaries of those data to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) every two years. EAC, in turn, is required to submit a summary report to Congress biennially (the most recent such report covers the 2011-2012 period; the 2013-2014 report is due by June 30th of this year).
From 1995 through 2012, the North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBOE) published on its web site annual summaries (in the form of Excel spreadsheets) of its NVRA compliance data. But, beginning in 2013 (when McCrory took office), that practice appears to have come to a halt, and no annual summaries are available there for McCrory's term (2013-2014). Monthly data files (for the period May 2010 through March 2015) are still made available on the SBOE web site, but these are comma-delimited (CSV) machine-readable data sets, not easily understood by average readers.
Curious to know how NVRA compliance was faring in North Carolina under McCrory - and troubled by the absence of recent annual summaries by which this could be judged - my colleagues and I recently unpacked and data-mined the monthly data files available at the SBOE web site. And what we've found is nothing short of alarming.
Finding 1: A systematic sharp decline in new voter registrations originating from Public Assistance (PA) programs began on or about January 2013 and continues to this day
Figure 1, below, summarizes statewide new voter registrations originating from PA programs, by month, and compares these with new voter registrations originating from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

Fig. 1: North Carolina new voter registrations originating via Public Assistance programs (top panel) and via the Dept. of Motor Vehicles (bottom panel) from May 2010 through March 2015. Red and green horizontal lines indicate overall averages for the periods May 2010 through December 2012 (green lines; “Pre-McCrory Average”) and January 2013 through March 2015 (red lines; “McCrory Average”). Months for which reports are missing, or contain incomplete data, are excluded from these averages (5/2010, 9/2010, 3/2011, 5/2011, 8/2011, 5/2012, 6/2012, and 3/2015).

As Fig. 1 illustrates, new voter registrations originating via PA programs have declined substantially and continuously during the McCrory administration (from a pre-McCrory baseline averaging 2,187 per month to a McCrory-era average of 736 per month - a 66% decrease). This difference is highly statistically significant (P << 0.05). By contrast, new registrations originating from the DMV have declined only a statistically insignificant 17% during the same period. Taking the average monthly difference in pre-McCrory and McCrory registrations (-1,451 per month) and multiplying this by the 27 months of the McCrory administration covered here, suggests an overall deficit of 39,177 ‘missing voters’ (i.e., NC citizens who would have been registered had this decline not occurred).
Finding 2: The 'McCrory Deficit' is unlikely to be due merely to declining PA applications
A potentially benign explanation for what I shall from now on call the 'McCrory Deficit,' illustrated in Figure 1, might simply be that over the past two years applications for Public Assistance have fallen in NC, perhaps due to improving economic conditions, which would in turn naturally lead to a similar decline in the number of voter registrations originating via PA programs. In order to test this possibility, we downloaded NC Dept. of Health and Human Services data regarding the number of NC state Food & Nutrition Services (FNS; mostly food stamps) applications received, by month. FNS applications greatly outnumber other PA applications (for example, those for NC’s Work First welfare program), thus making this the best data set to use to test the hypothesis.
Figure 2, below, illustrates the time course (by month) of new voter registrations originating via PA, expressed as a percentage of the total number of FNS applications for each of those same months. This way of looking at the data controls for any possible effect that declining PA application numbers might naturally have on PA-originating voter registrations.

Figure 2: North Carolina new voter registrations originating via Public Assistance programs, expressed as a percentage of Food & Nutrition Services applications, from May 2010 through March 2015. Red and green horizontal lines indicate overall averages for the periods May 2010 through December 2012 (green line; “Pre-McCrory Average”) and January 2013 through March 2015 (red line; “McCrory Average”). Months for which reports are missing, or contain incomplete data, are excluded from these averages (including all of the months listed in the legend to Fig. 1, plus months for which FNS application numbers were underreported during the switchover to the Dept. of Health and Human Services new NC FAST reporting system: 9/2012 through 11/2012 and 1/2013 ).

As Figure 2 illustrates, McCrory-era PA voter registrations are equivalent to just 1.7% of all FNS applications, very substantially lower than the pre-McCrory baseline value of 4.2% (i.e., 60% below the pre-McCrory application-adjusted baseline). The McCrory Deficit is, therefore, not a simple result of declining PA applications during his administration. Finding 3: The ‘McCrory Deficit’ occurs statewide, not merely in a handful of counties
Another potentially benign explanation for the significant drop in voter registrations originating via PA programs during the McCrory administration might be that only a handful of 'rogue' county PA offices (and their managers) are to blame for discouraging PA applicants from registering to vote (a situation which might potentially exonerate the McCrory administration itself). Figure 3, below, illustrates that this is not the case: declines in PA-originated new voter registrations during the McCrory administration have occurred in 99 of North Carolina's 100 counties, presenting the possibility that the McCrory Deficit may be the result of statewide administrative policy mandated by the McCrory administration itself.

attribution: DocDawg at Daily Kos

Figure 3: Percent change in new voter registrations originating via Public Assistance programs (from the pre-McCrory baseline period to the McCrory period), by county. Months for which reports are missing, or contain incomplete data, are excluded from these averages (including all of the months listed in the legend to Fig. 1).

Conclusion Today, North Carolina's voter registration rolls are missing some 40,000 or more poverty-level citizens (and still counting), due to what may prove to be systematic actions by the McCrory administration, in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. To put that number of voters in perspective: in the 2014 election, Thom Tillis (R) beat incumbent Kay Hagan (D) for his current U.S. Senate seat by roughly the same number - just 45,608 votes.
Prior to publication of this diary, I have shared our findings widely with a number of organizations whose interests include defending voting rights, as well as with the Raleigh News & Observer. These revelations have met with considerable interest; expect to hear much more regarding this story in the weeks and months to come - including right through McCrory's 2016 re-election bid, the upcoming oral arguments in NC-NAACP v. McCrory, and the massive demonstration by voting rights supporters from around the nation which the NC NAACP will conduct in Winston-Salem, NC during that trial (and which NAACP's Rev. William Barber has called "Our Selma").

Refunds vanish, budget rebounds

Let’s give the Republicans running state government in Raleigh a round of applause. They clearly feel they deserve it.
The state’s consensus forecast in recent months predicted a budget shortfall of $271 million, but the experts say now that the tax-season dust has settled, the state boasts a $400 million surplus instead.
Gov. Pat McCrory credited “a growing economy, fiscally responsible budget, and tax reform that’s putting more money in the pockets of North Carolinians.” Senate leader Phil Berger released his own touchdown dance of a statement, chiding the “Chicken Littles on the left” who worried that the big tax cut GOP lawmakers passed two years ago would cripple the state.
News of a surplus is indeed cause for relief. But before GOP leaders dislocate their elbows in over-exuberant back patting, let’s look closer to see how they achieved it.
Berger pointed to a memo from the Fiscal Research Division and the Office of State Budget and Management, the staff experts who crunch budget numbers, and predicted the multimillion dollar shortfalls that worried this editorial board and other tax reform critics. The staff explained that its previous projections erred on the side of caution, since it was uncertain how the 2014 tax year – the first full tax-filing season under the revamped tax code – would shake out.
The returns are in. And the numbers don’t point to an expanding economy as the main cause of the huge swing from deficit projections to surplus. Instead, the memo noted that tax refunds dropped by 57 percent this year (not the 35 percent predicted). It was by far the biggest drop-off in 25 years.
Personal income tax collections surged, giving the state $375 million more than the staff expected. Some of that came from bigger collections in small business income. No surprise there, since tax reform killed the $50,000 business income exemption such establishments enjoyed.
GOP leaders say lower tax rates will draw more corporations and jobs to the state. But the new-found surplus didn’t come from new-found corporations. Wage growth is expected to be 1 percentage point below forecast for the current budget year, the memo says, and withholding tax revenue is projected at 3 percentage points below forecast. Corporate income tax and franchise taxes moved up only slightly since the staff’s February budget projections.
That means surging collections from small businesses and individual taxpayers – not corporations – turned the deficit forecast into a surplus.
All of which points back to the concern this editorial board and other critics have long held about the GOP’s tax reform vision: it shifts the tax burden from wealthy companies and individuals to smaller businesses and rank-and-file taxpayers such as the senior citizens who lost medical expense deductions.
GOP leaders say refunds are shrinking because they made paycheck withholding more accurate. The state’s keeping less of your money through the year. Even if true, that doesn’t change the bottom line fact that personal income tax revenue has surged.
Make no mistake. We do believe the state needs more money for schools and other public investments. But its leaders are lifting money from everyday taxpayers’ pockets while seeking praise for supposedly putting more money in them.
And for that sleight of hand, perhaps they do deserve a round of applause.
A sarcastic one.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article20374029.html?utm_content=buffer4c42d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#storylink=cpy

Rachel Maddow Sums Up Republican's 2016 Predicament In A Single Sentence

“There’s an incentive to pick seeming righteous to the base even if it is seeming nutty to everybody else,” she added.
And that, folks, is the GOP’s 2016 problem.

Republican's 2016 Predicament

What's Wrong With America Looking More Like Scandinavia?

Bernie Sanders: What's Wrong With America Looking More Like Scandinavia?

7 Senate Democrats Team Up On Bill To Expose The Koch Brothers’ Political Ads

Seven Democrats are pushing a bill that would expose the Koch brothers and the network of ads by requiring more disclosure from shady groups that are protected by Citizens United.

The Hill reported:
Seven Democratic senators introduced legislation that would require the Federal Communications Commission to increase disclosures on political ads.

The Sunshine in Sponsorship Identification Act in the Senate has a less hostile name than the House’s Keep Our Campaigns Honest (KOCH), an apparent knock at GOP mega-donors Charles and David Koch.

The bill, led by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), resembles the House proposal that would require new FCC regulations to force political groups to list the identity of their “true sponsors” when they run advertisements.

It would also require the FCC to update its identification rules to reflect current technology and consider forcing political groups to disclosure more identifying information online.

Six other Senate Democrats are cosponsoring the bill. Sens. Blumenthal (D-CT), Markey (D-MA), McCaskill (D-MO), Peters (D-MI), Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have all put their names on the effort to expose the Kochs.

This legislation is a great reminder that the dark money system created by Citizens United thrives on the lack of disclosure. The system is constructed to deceive voters. Ads that create the appearance that millions of people are supporting a position are in many cases representing the views of one of a few wealthy donors.

If the Koch brothers had to put their names on their advertising so that people knew who was funding what they are watching, it would be a game changer. Getting big money out of the nation’s elections should be the ultimate goal, but simple disclosure laws can immediately have a major impact.

Republicans oppose any form of dark money disclosure because even the slightest disclosure could topple their house of cards. The Republican Party is fueled by big money billionaire donors. If voters could easily understand that those ominous ads, they are seeing are brought to them by billionaires who don’t have their best interests at heart.

Disclosure is the light that Republicans and the Koch brothers fear the most, and Democrats are going to keep up the fight until the hostile oligarchic takeover of the United States government is defeated.

Darrell Issa Opened His Mouth And Shot Republicans In The Foot On Income Inequality

The wealthiest member of Congress, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has a message for America’s poor people. During an interview with CNN, Issa said that America’s poor are the envy of the world.

Issa was asked if he, as the wealthiest member of Congress, feels responsible at all to address income inequality.

He answered, “Absolutely. America is the richest country on Earth because we’ve been able to put capital together, and we’ve been able to make our poor, somewhat the envy of the world. If you go to India or you go to any number of other Third World countries, you have two problems: You have greater inequality of income and wealth. You also have less opportunity for people to rise from the have not to the have.”

CNN Money’s Cristina Alesci disagreed and said that the India comparison is not one that the United States should want to make.

Issa disagreed, “I appreciate your comment, but you’re wrong. You do have to compare yourself with the rest of the world. If we’re going to have people produce automobiles, they have to compete with the rest of the world. Can we be better, smarter, and produce cars in Georgia that can compete with Japan? Yes.”

While trying to avoid answering the question, Issa managed to shoot his own party in the foot. Rep. Issa is all about addressing income inequality. His method of addressing income inequality is to tell poor people that they have got it really good. In other words, Issa’s plan to address income equality is to do nothing.

At a time when Republicans are paying lip service to the idea that they care about the middle-class, Darrell Issa opened his mouth and shot his party in the foot. Issa’s babble about auto manufacturing and the global economy was a dodge.

The richest Republican in Congress told America’s poor people that they are the envy of the world. Issa was wrong about the American people having an opportunity to rise. Studies have shown that Americans have less economic opportunity than they did in 1970, and the situation is getting worse.

The America that Darrell Issa thinks he lives in is a fantasy, and the Republican solution to the problems of poverty and income inequality is to tell the poor that they are the envy of the world.

Real America is hurting, and they aren’t buying the rich man fantasies of Darrell Issa.

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