You'll Always Be a Small Man, Donny

Lindsey Boylan, candidate for Congress (NY-10)

Teleprompter Trump

We're not sure who you are, but have you met Twitterman? Or MAGA rally man?

The flat affect and monotone suggest that you've been drugged and that you're having trouble reading the text that someone else wrote for you. Either that, or you can't even fake empathy. Some of your words just make our skin crawl--

"precious little children"

"praying and grieving"

"we will never forget"

"Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart, and devours the soul."

Yes, I think we can see the evidence of that right in front of our eyes.

Provocateur and Cheer-Leader

Consciousness of Guilt

Trump Deletes Tweets Referring to Migrant ‘Invasion’

August 4, 2019 at 5:05 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 166 Comments

Samuel Robinson reports that tweets from President Trump that contain forms of the word “invasion” when referring to migrants at the Southern border are being deleted.

Instigator in Chief

Stella Anderson's Plan To Harden NC's Elections Against Cyber Attacks Still Hangs in the Balance

Stella Anderson
Photo Brendan Hoekstra,
The Appalachian

Jordan Wilkie, writing in The Indy, understands the importance of this past week for the future of democracy in North Carolina. The resignation of state Board of Elections (SBOE) Chair Bob Cordle preserved Stella Anderson's initiative to make electronic voting equipment much less susceptible to foreign and domestic mischief. August 23rd will be D-Day for that proposal when the SBOE will vote on final approval.

Had Cordle remained chair through Thursday's special called meeting, Republican member David Black would have changed his earlier aye vote, and with the other Republican member, Ken Raymond, the three-man majority would have overruled Anderson and pushed through certification of machinery that produces only barcode paper receipts of how a voter voted.

Anderson saw that as unacceptable, and so do we.

Specifically, a rescind vote would have saved the bacon of one "controversial vendor" of touch-screen technology, Elections Systems and Software, or ESandS, the company that promises that their barcodes are accurate reflections of voter intent.

"Controversial vendor"? Jordan Wilkie is also a reporter for The Guardian, and his reporting on a federal lawsuit in Georgia challenging the constitutionality of that state's election process tracked the role of ESandS, which was supplying voting equipment for the 2018 close and contested election of Republican Brian Kemp in Georgia. Testimony in that case revealed that ESandS staffers built the 2018 Georgia ballot at their homes, without verifiable security. “You’re taking what the state has said is the roadmap to hack an election and they’re just letting it sit on people’s home computers with no evidence of any kind of security,” one of the plaintiffs said. “I mean, it’s truly insane. I cannot overstate how crazy that is.”

(You could spend all day following Google links about ESandS, "the largest voting machine company in the US," headquartered in Omaha.)

Wilkie gives Stella Anderson a laurel wreath for protecting our very democracy: "If Anderson’s motion passes [on August 23], it would be the first of its kind in the nation and would follow best-practice guidelines from election security experts. Not only would ESandS’s voting machines be removed from consideration, but it would make North Carolina an entirely hand-marked paper ballot state...."

Josh Lawson, who was the SBOE’s general counsel until June, has been speaking out on the issue too and totally agrees with Anderson: “My immediate and short-term concern is voter confidence,” Lawson says. “I think that the barcode ballot process does not support or instill voter confidence to the same degree as hand-marked paper ballots...."

Our "democracy watch" on this whole issue now turns to Governor Roy Cooper and his choice to replace Bob Cordle at the SBOE. Will that person be in place by August 23rd? And will that person vote affirmatively for Anderson's proposal to change certification requirements in North Carolina to ensure paper-ballot proof from electronic equipment?

Tim Moore Gets All Macho Over Closet Space Because Ray Russell Had an Opinion

This opening sentence in Colin Campbell's report from this morning's News and Observer says all you need to know about the Republican tyranny running the General Assembly in Raleigh: "Rep. Ray Russell, D-Watauga, has been told to vacate his office on the sixth floor of the Legislative Office Building (LOB) and move to a closet-like space that until recently housed a copy machine."

Speaker Tim Moore, R-Pettyville, claims Russell's office is needed for 25-year-old Jake Johnson, who is replacing Rep. Cody Henson, R-Transylvania, who resigned last week after pleading guilty to cyberstalking his wife. "It’s unclear why Johnson wouldn’t use Henson’s former office on the LOB’s fifth floor, a space that was empty as of Thursday."

Ray Russell believes the move is pay-back for Russell's offering an amendment "to delete a provision in a bill that praises the UNC Board of Governors for allowing Advanced Placement test scores of 3 to count for college credit. Russell, an Appalachian State professor, spoke against the board’s decision; his amendment ultimately failed."

The shabby treatment of Russell is merely a reverse metric of how esteemed Russell currently is in his home district.

BREAKING NEWS: SBOE Declines To Rescind Stella Anderson's Motion

Just now the remaining four members of the State Board of Elections deadlocked 2-2 on Republican David Black's motion to rescind the vote from Monday evening.

This means that Stella Anderson's original motion to modify the North Carolina certification program for electronic voting machines will go forward through a 15-day comment period, with final implementation of that modification to be voted on at an August 23 meeting.

Once again, the modification as proposed is this requirement:

"An electronically assisted ballot marking device or other ballot marking equipment shall produce human-readable marks on a paper ballot. The voter must be able to verify his or her intent as evidenced by the mark on the ballot. The mark shall be tabulated as the voter's selection."

Another Democrat Vying To Unseat George Holding in NC-2

Jason Butler

We took notice back on June 13 of retired Marine Scott Cooper as the first Democrat to announce a campaign to unseat incumbent Republican George Holding in the 2nd Congressional District of North Carolina.

There's a new and interesting Democratic candidate in that race as of today -- Methodist pastor Jason Butler of "the LBGTQ-friendly" Open Table United Methodist Church in Raleigh, which he founded not long after arriving in the city in 2016 from Milwaukee. The United Methodist Church is not gay-friendly, so Butler is something of a rebel and a cage-rattler. He sent this email to members of Open Table:

"As I look at the world, I see so much suffering and I get this deep sense that our society is losing its moral compass—kids are in cages, Latinx families are being torn apart, multitudes are living without access to health care, the LGBTQ community is under constant threat, income inequality is out of control, and our environment is dying. These are not just political issues—they are issues of morality and justice—of life and death."

The Open Table website is worth a look, particularly for a sense of the diverse community that Butler has managed to build in three years. Audio of Butler's sermons is also available there, and his sermon about the weaponizing of Sodom and Gomorrah made my visit worth the effort.

The primary comes early next year on March 3rd. This is one I'll be watching (and who knows what other Democrats may register and run -- we're good with the variety!).