Gorsuch the Statist Activist Lies to Begin Day Two

"I am heartened by the support I have received from people who recognize that here is no such thing as a Republican or a Democratic judge. We just have judges in this country," intoned Judge Neil Gorsuch on Day Two of his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Wow. Gorsuch must be the real deal—an intellectual jurist who modestly wishes to ascertain the law and facts in hearing federal litigation.

Don't believe it. The hearings are a blunt exercise in partisan power as blatant as exists in American society. And federal litigation is a means of Gorsuch imposing his religious, authoritarian politics.

Gorsuch is a statist activist looking to degrade the liberty claims of Americans, and he has reproductive rights and the 14th and 15th Amendments in his sights, for starters. Gorsuch will receive the vote of all Republican senators, and face the opposition from nearly all Democratic senators.

Discrimination claims, claims for liberty against incursions by the police and all manner of government, the entrenched private power of the corporation against the individual, Gorsuch would repeal decades of legal protection for Americans as a hostile Trump administration looks to inflict trauma onto American citizens.

The Fourth Amendment looks to die a quiet death if Gorsuch wins confirmation.
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Consdier Justice Lewis Powell, writing for a unanimous Court in 1972, denouncing the Nixon administration’s electronic surveillance, warrantless-wiretapping program not just on Fourth Amendment grounds, but as a betrayal of the sovereign rights of citizens in a democracy to criticize their own government:

"History abundantly documents the tendency of Government - however benevolent and benign its motives - to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. Fourth Amendment protections become the more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs. The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. ... The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society."
(UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972))

Gorsuch represents the ideological brand of statists who look at civil liberties claims with suspicion and hostility, and Justice Lewis F. Powell, (no civil libertarian), would today never have been nominated by a Republican president, so radical has become the anti-people party.

Trump and Republican Threat to Democracy Is Grave and Growing

Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties lead voter
decrease in Wisconsin, 2016, (Charles Franklin)

The verdict explaining why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump is in: Many Democratic-leaning voters didn't vote (538.com), (Charles Franklin).

This explanation is not a tautology.

Republicans spent a lot of time and effort on blocking voters and it paid off, especially among those "urban" voters at whom Paul "I-cannot-and- will-not give-up-my-family-time" Ryan likes to cast aspersions in southeastern Wisconsin where most of the urban types live. Statewide, the 2016 vote is down 3 percent from 2012 (Charles Franklin).

Note the Wisconsin counties map at right and the deep-purple and light-purple counties at lower-right in the image. Those counties in southeastern Wisconsin are Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties, and the 2016 vote dropped off precipitously in this region.

Wouldn't it be a bad idea to work for more Democratic-leaning voters casting votes? But in Wisconsin, the Democratic Party does not employ the best and brightest.

This Friday night, Matt Rothschild, will be offering a talk in Oregon, Wisconsin, about the "risks Trump poses to our democracy."

Firefly Cafe in Oregon, Wisconsin
Friday, Jan 6, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

We should be listening to Rothschild. The 3-percent voter suppression in Wisconsin is coming to the nation as a whole.

On Voting

"People should not leave without casting a ballot," said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's School of Law. "If you are an eligible voter, you should be able to have your vote counted no matter what anyone is saying," (Cassidy, AP).

On Election Day, follow this advice: "I will be voting today," (Mal Contends).

Voter Obstruction Is Local

Wisconsin Republicans creating a hostile and obstructive voting regime at Wisconsin's 3,500 polling places is a scheme the GOP hopes bears fruit next month.

After-all, Republicans seek to turn every lever of state and municipal government into de facto sub-units of Republican government. So, screening poll workers for hostility to voting rights and in the process taking over the voting place are naturals for voting-averse Republicans.

Antagonistic-to-voters polling workers are pervasive, but compiling reports of their misconduct is difficult for non-profits. (It takes a major social-scientific investigation to quantify the phenomenon of voter obstruction.)

Instead we see warnings about election observers and voter obstruction laws omitting the misconduct of municipal and contract election officials stationed at the point of voting and working, (unlawfully), to suppress the vote.

All of this is carried out under the rubric of voter fraud, a lie, and hostility to civil liberties, a disgrace.

Concludes a New York Times editorial in September: "The scary thing is how many Americans have bought into this charade [about voter fraud]. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, Donald Trump, has elevated the lie about voting fraud and 'rigged elections' to a centerpiece of his campaign."

It shouldn't be surprising. Alex Wagner has a compelling report out about the dangers Donald Trump poses to voting.

The rotten fruit of the now Trumped-up danger of voter fraud is right at your local polling place, abetted by observers, polling workers and municipal bureaucrats.

Stay vigilant, especially if you are brown or black.

Voting Fraud Lie Lives On

See Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth, (Sept 2016)
Brennan Center for Justice

Republican power-grabs continue

If you have encountered a white Wisconsin election observer or poll worker, you may have encountered a Republican fighting the holy war against voting fraud.

A New York Times editorial sets the record straight on voting fraud:

How does a lie come to be widely taken as the truth?

The answer is disturbingly simple: Repeat it over and over again. When faced with facts that contradict the lie, repeat it louder.

This, in a nutshell, is the story of claims of voting fraud in America — and particularly of voter impersonation fraud, the only kind that voter ID laws can possibly prevent. ...

Credit for this mass deception goes to Republican lawmakers, who have for years pushed a fake story about voter fraud, and thus the necessity of voter ID laws, in an effort to reduce voting among specific groups of Democratic-leaning voters. Those groups — mainly minorities, the poor and students — are less likely to have the required forms of identification.

Behind closed doors, some Republicans freely admit that stoking false fears of electoral fraud is part of their political strategy. In a recently disclosed email from 2011, a Republican lobbyist in Wisconsin wrote to colleagues about a very close election [featuring David Prosser] for a seat on the State Supreme Court. 'Do we need to start messaging ‘widespread reports of election fraud’ so we are positively set up for the recount regardless of the final number?' he wrote. 'I obviously think we should.' ...

The ploy works. 

Yes, the ploy works.

The holy warriors, the overwhelmingly white Republican grassroots extending to the Alt Right, are taking the lie to ever more absurd lengths at the point of voting: The polling place on Election Day.

The objective is to frustrate, aggravate, and obstruct as many minority, young and disabled voters as possible in an effort to suppress the total vote in favor of the Republican Party. If Republicans can demean and dehumanize X number of the wrong kind of voters, Y number of voters won't come back soon.

That municipal bureaucracies treat disfavored voters differently and with animosity is not permissible under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments is a barrier to overcome, in the rightist view. Republicans wager: We don't know what we can get away with if we don't try.

Concludes the Times: "The scary thing is how many Americans have bought into this charade. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, Donald Trump, has elevated the lie about voting fraud and 'rigged elections' to a centerpiece of his campaign."

It should not be surprising.

In Wisconsin, from school boards to municipalities to all levers of state government in all branches and in all bureaucracies, Republicans are engaged in a concerted effort to transform Wisconsin into a red state where civil liberties such as voting rights are a defect to be overcome.

Killer Cop in Minnesota Says Through Atty, He's "Sad"

Commenting through his police union and lawyer while on paid tax payer-financed vacation, (in cop-speak paid administrative leave), the Minnesota killer cop, one Jeronimo Yanez, said he is "sad" for the family of Philando Castile, whom Yanez shot and killed Wednesday night, (WCCO-TV (Minneapolis)).

Yanez will be cleared of any wrongdoing after the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) submits its investigative findings of the killing to the Ramsey County Attorney.

Yanez' police union, the Minnesota Law Enforcement Labor Services, released a statement by its executive director Sean Gormley, noting the killing is a tragedy and is emotional. The statement also expressed support of due process for the killer cop.

The statement reads in full:

The death of Philando Castile is a terrible tragedy for all involved, especially for the family and loved ones of the deceased.

The video being shown in the media is graphic. It’s emotional. And for some it may be hard to watch.

We support an open, thorough, and objective investigation that we believe will, in time, provide the answers to the questions we all have.

We also support the officers’ right to due process. The right of due process is afforded to all Americans.

How about a revised statement from the cop union such as: Murder by cop is unjust and indecent?

Just kidding, we all know that will never happen.

Black Life Can Mean So Little

Michael Eric Dyson:

We don’t want the cops to kill us without fear that they will ever face a jury, much less go to jail, even as the world watches our death on a homemade video recording.

You will never understand the helplessness we feel in watching these events unfold, violently, time and again, as shaky images tell a story more sobering than your eyes are willing to believe: that black life can mean so little.

Life is cheap in America.