Addicting Info: Tea Party Patriots: Stupid, Or Corrupt?
-By Don Hamel
May 22, 2012- The Tea Party came into this world the same way a baby does; screaming and crying. Mainly they screamed and cried about the deficit, taxes and fiscal responsibility. It turns out, when it comes to spending, they’re still babes in the woods. Their latest IRS filing shows the Tea Party Patriots took in more than $12 million in fundraising, so how did only $3.4 million of that go to their actual ‘mission’ programs?
Mother Jones obtained the Tea Party Patriots’ full IRS filing, and it’s an abject lesson in how fools and their money part. The most damning evidence is found on page 20, shown here:
Think Progress: EXCLUSIVE: Florida Congressman Demands Gov. Rick Scott ‘Immediately Suspend’ Voter Purge
-By Judd Legum and Ian Millhiser
May 23, 2012- Florida Congressman Ted Deutch (D) told ThinkProgress today that Gov. Rick Scott was engaging in a “blatant attempt to supress voter turnout.” Scott is currently involved in a massive effort to purge up to 180,000 from the voting rolls. The list, purportedly of non-citizens, has proven unreliable. Earlier this week, Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Mike Ertel, a Republican, posted a picture on Twitter of a voter on the list falsely identified as ineligible, with his passport.
Congressman Deutch said that his office has heard from several constituents who have recieved a voting ineligibility letter in error. In light of these errors, Deutch will soon send a letter to Scott demanding the purge be immediatly suspended. An excerpt:
Tampa Bay Times: Of 7,000 felons purged from voting rolls, many are Democrats, blacks
-By Steve Bousquet and Carolyn Edds
May 23, 2012- TALLAHASSEE — As Florida scours its voter rolls in search of non-U.S. citizens, another form of purging continues: stripping felons of the ability to vote, including high numbers of Democrats and African-Americans.
In the first four months of 2012, election supervisors removed nearly 7,000 voters from the rolls following recent felony convictions. The system of regaining voting rights in Florida is so lengthy and strict that many will likely never vote again.
The Times/Herald analyzed state data that included the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, age and race of 6,934 purged voters from January through April. In Florida, a felony conviction means the loss of civil rights, including the right to vote, serve on a jury or run for office.
According to the data, Democrats were three times more likely than Republicans to be removed. Blacks were almost as likely as whites to be removed (44 percent of those removed were white; 43 percent were blacks), while blacks make up 16 percent of the state's population.
Republic Report: Corporate Lobbying Group Asks SCOTUS Not To Use “Empirical Evidence” Of Corruption When Reconsidering Cit.Utd.
-By Lee Fang
May 22, 2012- Late last year, the Montana high court, citing the state’s long history of corporate money corrupting politics, defied the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and continued enforcing the state’s 100-year old law banning corporate involvement in state elections. The Supreme Court has blocked the Montana court’s decision pending on its own determination as to whether to formally hear the case this fall. Allowing a full argument in matter could allow the Court to reconsider the merits of the Citizens United decision, which opened the doors to unlimited corporate and union involvement in American elections.
Huffington Post: Steve Bullock, Montana Attorney General, Takes A Stand In Citizens United Sequel
-By Mike Sacks
May 22, 2012- WASHINGTON — Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock says that he has been so personally involved in the Citizens United sequel soon to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court that his coworkers say he is the case's "attorney specific."
It is a role Bullock welcomed following the 2010 ruling in Citizens United, which held that "independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." Bullock, a Democrat, led 26 states in submitting a brief to the Supreme Court for that case, in favor of the federal law that restricted such corporate spending and was ultimately struck down as unconstitutional. He is the top lawyer for Montana, the only state not to abandon its own corporate spending regulations in that decision's wake.