We should have a lot more access to our local governments. Most of the public records stuff could probably be done automatically. But it’ll take a fair amount of time and money to make it happen. It seems like a state mandate and state money (if we ever have it) either from the legislature or an initiative would be able to to do that in a more systematic way. Not just someone overwhelming public records requests.
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Maine’s obnoxious Republican governor was forced to apologize today for making a racist remark, but not without criticizing reporters in the same breath.
http://www.aol.com/article/201...../21294102/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: If you’re wondering how this jerk got elected and re-elected, the answer is Maine is a three-party state, and he didn’t need anywhere near 50% of the vote to win. Basically it’s the Trump faction of ignorant, uneducated, misinformed, knee-jerk GOP idiots who put him in office. And Maine serves as a good prototype of what America would be like under Trump — high unemployment, low paying jobs, a gutted education system, etc. — in short, a place where no one would want to live.
No doubt Republicans will jump on this as another example of how inefficient government is. To which the proper answer is, you can’t starve government of resources and then it expect it to have all the capabilities of a modern private corporation. And besides, a lot of private companies aren’t very efficient, either. Have you tried getting a medical billing error corrected lately?
LePage shouldn’t apologize, he should resign. That’s what anyone else in his position would do. Very few communities would tolerate a politician like him. What’s wrong with Maine?
“At least three witnesses to the Laquan McDonald police killing were questioned for hours, threatened by officers and ordered to change their accounts to match the official Chicago police version of the shooting, the attorneys for the teen’s estate say.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/08/.....index.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: If that’s even partially true, those cops should go to prison. Meanwhile, America MUST do something to get its out-of-control police under some kind of accountability system that actually works.
@4,
What amazes me in these cases of widespread, systematic falsification of sworn statements is that it doesn’t cripple the agency’s ability to obtain criminal convictions.
“Officer, in that public record that you just read from, identified as defense 17, it states that on those three occasions you made sworn statements that were later shown to be false. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
So Officer, a few moments ago, when you told this jury that you had never made a false sworn statement, that was incorrect?”
“Yes.”
“So, including just a few moments ago when under sworn oath you made that false statement to the jury, that’s at least four times you’ve made a false sworn statement. Isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.”
How can any of these LEOs be given any credibility in a criminal proceeding once it has been established that they have falsified sworn statements in the past?
@4 Brings to mind one of Jack E. Leonard’s old one-liners:
“I come from Chicago. I was born there before the cops became robbers.”
Texass now allows weapons in psychiatric hospitals. The Onion is now obsolete.
Why are Republicans brain dead? Really, am I the one who is wrong here?
But my Republican friend, who is an Accountant (Comptroller Title) and earns approximately $150,000 has just told me that Obama has tripled (TRIPPLED!) the debt (I assume he was referring to the National Debt).
What the fuck? What does Joe Schmo in Mississippi think? We are so fucked! The increasing National Debt isn’t going to kill us, Republican stupidity is!
@3 – see @8.
The Texas governor has proposed a constitutional amendment that would give states power to overturn federal laws. I think it’s safe to say this pipe dream is a non-starter.
Actually, he wants a constitutional convention and nine amendments:
1. Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one State.
2. Require Congress to balance its budget.
3. Prohibit administrative agencies—and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them—from creating federal law.
4. Prohibit administrative agencies—and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them—from preempting state law.
5. Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
6. Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law.
7. Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution.
8. Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds.
9. Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a federal law or regulation.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/08.....l-law.html
@4 All is not lost. The Texass cop who arrested the late Sandra Bland has been fired and indicted for perjury for filing a false arrest report. America’s police departments are still staffed with lying criminals, but it’s becoming harder for them to get away with it, now that millions of citizens are armed with pocket-sized video cameras.
This Republican friend I am referring to, and have referred to in the past, is an avid sports fan. He is complaining about taxes.
I just asked him if he would be in favor or defunding all public spending on anything to do with sports from all levels to kindergarten to professional – programs, fields, and or structures that house any sport?
He can’t answer me.
@12 No, you can’t cut his pork, only your spending.
What a Republican thinks of the Sandy Hook victims: http://handbill.us/?p=66066
No honor among thieves.
One of the Oregon militants holed up in a motel and drank away their donation money. Others were seen in town eating in restaurants. Another lied about having been in the Marines.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/0.....-as-santa/
Cop shot by ISIS extremist.
Nuthin from the HA DUMMOCRETIN freakazoids!
Oh no the DUMMOCRETINS are pizzed… http://www.breitbart.com/big-g.....rtificate/
Of course the Oregon moron will miss this important fact and spew useless FACTLESS farts!
Oh no the DUMMOCRETINS will be pizzed more… http://www.lifezette.com/poliz.....d-a-crime/
Of course the Oregon moron will miss this important fact and spew useless FACTLESS farts!
Oh no the DUMMOCRETINS will be pizzed even more… http://freebeacon.com/national.....r-charges/
More feckless decisions by Obummer.
Of course TPPS will call this hateful! Of course the Oregon moron will miss this important fact and spew useless FACTLESS farts!
I truly couldn’t tell you what the batshit crazy loon is babbling about today as my decoder ring is in the shop for some much-needed recalibration, but my best guess would be that he is doing what he always does, sharing with us his mindless hatred of our nation and its citizenry.
Jeb:( Bush’s Welfare Plan Eliminates Food Stamps, Housing Assistance Programs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....b6fb6f9b57
“He would eliminate the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps, housing assistance programs and a cash program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.”
and instead have states do “Right to Rise” grants for that money!
To encourage more Americans on welfare to seek jobs, Bush would include in “Right to Rise” grants work requirements and time limits for able-bodied adults.
The reason the Feds are in the business of assistance programs is because the states with the neediest don’t really care about providing assistance to those in need
I won’t vote for republicans that want to gut the programs that help people. then give the money to corrupt politicians like Rick Snyder who has no problem poisoning poor people to save a buck.
Hillary is hurting her chances of winning the election by lying about Bernie Sanders and Wall street.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....d15e6415cd
“…sharing with us his mindless hatred of our nation and its citizenry.”
Careful. Unless something has changed here very recently, none of its “down with America” hatred was ever of its own making. Instead, it persisted in mewling and pleading for our attention to its tiresome links to the stilted diatribes of the professional class of America haters. Paid rather handsomely, I might add, from the mindless tithings of the troll itself and others like it. Tithings mostly squandered on liquor and diaper-kink prostitutes, as RR so ably points out @15.
Let me know if it has suddenly become original in its postings. I might actually bother to unblock those just for a laugh.
Thanks.
@17 In case you didn’t notice, Piddles, the Cruz birthers are Republicans, notably Trump and his crowd. The Democrats have nothing to do with this.
I dislike this woman more and more. Does she do anything any good for anyone besides Hillary?
“DNC Chair, Fueled by Booze PACs, Blasts Legal Pot”
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/06/wasserman-schultz-fueled-by-booze-pacs-blasts-legal-pot/
“Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the New York Times she continues to oppose legalizing marijuana — even as she has courted alcohol PACs as one of the largest sources of her campaign funding.”
http://rhrealitycheck.org/arti.....tic-party/
“Wasserman Schultz’s comments on drugs angered progressives not only because she is wrong on the facts, but because she also has been a major congressional supporter of private detention centers and private prisons, which in fact profit greatly from criminalizing drugs—especially among populations without the wealth and resources to get access to treatment instead of being sent to jail.”
@21 Standard Republican fare: Work or starve.
@21,
the usual blame-the-poor bullshit.
TANF, SNAP, and Section 8 already have work requirements and time limits. Been there since President Clinton imposed them almost two decades ago. So the only point in a proposal like this one is to imply that the dirty hippies are giving away Archie Bunker’s retirement savings. Same old, same old. Next up he’ll complain about the “Welfare Queen in a Tesla”.
Fact is, most of the folks who receive these benefits are white single moms, typically assisted for just over a year. Often they are running from ammosexual abusive boyfriends who, thanks to Republicans, will now have a much easier time obtaining the firearms they need to obliterate their families.
Republican War on Women and Children much?
@25 We don’t have to put up with her much longer. There’ll be a new DNC chair next year.
@24,
I’ll gladly have something to do with it. Hell yes.
Rafael Cruz has no U.S. issued certificate of live birth.
He claims to have two relevant documents:
1) A certificate of birth issued by the Division of Vital Statistics of the Department of Health in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada listing Calgary, Alberta, Canada as the city of his birth. An electronic copy of this document has been released to the media.
2) A Consular Report of Birth Abroad issued by the United States Department of State. This has not been publicly released.
A third document has been released to the media by Rafael Cruz that may or may not be relevant:
3) A Standard Certificate of Birth issued by The State of Delaware in the U.S. for Eleanor Darragh, the mother of Rafael Cruz. This relevance of this document hinges on reports now emerging that at some time prior to the birth of Rafael Cruz, Eleanor Cruz and the Cuban born father of Mr. Cruz, applied for Canadian citizenship. This would put at risk Rafael Cruz’ contention that at least one of his parents was a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth.
What we know for certain:
1) Rafael Cruz wants to be President.
2) Rafael Cruz was not born in the United Sates.
3) His father was not a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth.
4) The U.S. Constitution requires that a President must be a “natural born Citizen”.
The claims of Rafael Cruz thus depend upon whether or not his mother was a U.S citizen at the time of his birth, and the circumstances of his mother’s residency prior to his birth. Under the law in effect in 1970, Rafael Cruz would only have acquired U.S. citizenship if his mother had been “physically present” in the United States for ten years prior to his birth, including five years after she reached the age of fourteen.
These things should be easy enough for Mr Cruz to clear up. It’s very suspicious that with so much at stake he still hasn’t bothered to do so.
@17 and @24 and @29 – even Piddles’ Breifart are piling on Crud cakes.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/m.....voter-list
@26 actually “Work and Starve” is what they prefer nowadays.
@29 Sorry, but it’s a losing argument, which is why the Democrats aren’t embracing it. Two former U.S. Solicitor Generals, a Democrat and a Republican, writing for the Harvard Law Review, agreed that Ted Cruz passes the “natural born citizen” test. I could cite other informed legal opinions as well, but this one is sufficient.
http://harvardlawreview.org/20.....n-citizen/
@31 You’re right, I stand corrected; many U.S. jobs no longer pay subsistence wages, and Republicans argue even those workers are overpaid.
@30 From the TPM article about Cruz’s mother appearing to be a registered voter in Calgary in the 1970s:
“This does not necessarily mean that Cruz’s mother had in fact become a naturalized Canadian citizen. There are a number of plausible alternative explanations—the most obvious of which is simple human error. It is possible that there was simply a misunderstanding between the enumerators and one of the Cruzes. There is no other evidence that Eleanor Cruz ever became a Canadian citizen, and she and her son have consistently denied that she was one.
“Even if it were proven that Eleanor Cruz had become a Canadian citizen, she might well have remained an American citizen. In other words, she could have remained a dual citizen. If that were the case, a reasonable interpretation of the constitutional requirement would still find Cruz eligible to serve as President.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Cruz supporter, and don’t want him as our next president. But banking on constitutional disqualification to knock him out of the race is a longshot, one that almost certainly would fail, and I think our energies are better directed toward persuading voters to deep-six his presidential ambitions.
“But banking on constitutional disqualification to knock him out of the race is a longshot…”
Legally I have no doubt it’s a non-starter. But that isn’t my point.
To win the nomination and become elected he needs votes. A really, really, incredibly, yuuuuuge block of low-info, AM radio listening, reliably Republican voters are obsessed with this shit nowadays. By playing identity politics for almost five decades, the party has trained generations of their voters to think in those terms when it comes to political candidates. All the dog-whistling. All the snide dismissals. All the not-so-subtle implications and coded language are all about identity. For these voters, quite sincerely, there are “Real” Americans. And there are all the other people.
I want to talk about Rafael Cruz’ identity because that is what his party’s voters care most about. I want them to be aware that when compared to their norms his identity is, at best, uncertain. I want his campaign to be dogged by these kinds of questions. I want Rafael Cruz to be more preoccupied with establishing qualifications the rest of us take for granted.
@35 Actually, they don’t give a flying fuck. They’re only focused on the Eeeeeevil SO-cialist Kenyan pretender in the oval office who they’re certain is going to hand America over to ISIS any minute.
i don’t think it matters if Crud cakes is or isn’t, it’s just fun to talk about it. Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!
@37,
Exactly. And it’s not just about the fun (although it is fun).
It’s effective. Trump, McCain, Fiorina, and Paul didn’t innocently stumble on this shit. And if anything, Breitbart is “breaking” it because they were tipped off by the Cruz campaign that TPM was preparing to run the story. So Breitbart could beat them to the punch and muddy the water a bit. I’ll grudgingly concede that these are smart folks. And they work on this shit full time with big staffs and lots of resources. They seem to think it can have a meaningful effect. I’m betting they’re right.
@29
-the constitution says::
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
–“”except a. . . Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution. . . “”
i don’t know if a u.s.s.c. decision has said what constitutes “a natural born Citizen”, but in my opinion it’s someone born on u.s. soil, so cruz is out since he wasn’t a citizen at the time the constitution was adopted.
under normal circumstances i figure 90% of Canadians would make a better president than anyone we have to offer, but cruz goes into the 10% of would be a shit president despite being Canadian.
@3 Well they don’t resign in Cameroon.
@10 Well he doesn’t really realize the can of worms released by a Constitutional convention as any state representative can propose amendments. It certainly could not be contained to his nine proposed amendments. A constitutional convention can rewrite the constitution so it’s not really about single amendments. It would of course also have to be ratified by states.
I don’t even see how some things would work in his proposal such as allowing two thirds of states to overturn a ruling of the Supreme Court. Forcing a balanced budget on the Federal government forgetting that the Federal government can print money. He doesn’t seem to realize that having 9 justices of the Supreme court can be changed by Congress. We could have more justices if Congress would agree to it. Well first he might try to get Texas’s legislature to call for a convention. If he can’t get is states legislature to make that call it’s just hot air. After all he’s just the Governor.
@24 Democrats would like to see someone of Cuban descent in the white house. Or any Hispanic. It’s diversity. They will hold their nose at his repugnant politics. Encourage a summit with Fidel (that would be fun).
Fun to see this play out on the Republican side. And it’s not even payback. At least Mr. Trump is consistent.
@32 But what of the artument once a dual citizen always a dual citizen argument. More of a political argument than a legal one. Ted could be a Manchurian candidate of those nasty Canadian conservative. It’s an evil Canadian plot to make their southern neighbor more neighborly, and a better global actor. To bring love to the polar bears. A secret beaver lover in the White House. Yes it’s an insidious Canadian plot started by the current Canadian Prime Minister father and Donald Trump has all the details. More on Fox news soon. :) (For those of you not familiar with emoticons the above was written while ROFL.)
Ted will always have Canada.
@39 The constitution in many areas is open to interpretation and in fact often refers to the need of Congress to pass laws to flesh it out. There has never been an actual case where the Federal courts have hashed this out. Once could of course argue that Dwight Eisenhower could not have qualified as President. There are President’s who were born in states that were territories and not states yet. Senator McCain who ran for president was born in the Panama Canal Zone and oddly that was never an issue.
Yes Virginia if a child is born here they are an United States citizen unless they are born to a foreign diplomat…that is an international law thing from some really old treaty probably from Ghent and written in French. We American’s don’t have to pay attention to treaties written in French or Spanish or other foreign languages. Right? (And if the diplomats child makes it back to the US and claims US citizenship we probably will go along with that.)
Local government should be as transparent as possible. Yes there are privacy issues, but ultimately we the people should be able to see what our servants are doing. Government should make as much of the information available as possible and most officials and local government employees would like to do just that. Doing that means no need for the requests.
The problem areas is local politicians (or any politician maybe one running for President comes to mind) using private e-mail to hide what they are doing from the public or just trying to get around public disclosure. Sorry Mayors and other politicians you are public officials and lose some degree to a right to privacy so the fact you buy milk on the way home for your significant other at Safeway or Seven Eleven isn’t just your business anymore. Best to have that discussion at home during breakfast and to damn well remember what the boss wants you to show with this evening. Government officials would never have aides do this shopping for them..or pick up stuff at the laundry.
The second problem is that certain parts of local government is bound to be a bit more secretive. The prosecutors office and police in particular. Everything these folks do should be open to public inspection at some point in time as well. Certainly if the time has tolled though there is no reason for the investigation files not to become public…or some number of years 10, 20, 30…50.
I believe even at the state and federal level we the people are entitled to a greater amount of openness than what we are actually getting. There are a few things that require secrecy though often those few things are time sensitive and should come out in due time. Keeping secrets or not being as open as possible is actually expensive just look at the costs of fulfilling the requests that would not be there if the officials were operating according to the law in the first place and making the information available. If there was a decision to not make the information available to any member of the public then they would be able to provide that to a requester and be more ready for the fight in the courts and might have a chance to prevail because they had done their homework and followed the public records law.
PS people in government prefer placid lazy citizens who don’t look at what their government is doing, or look at the records that are provided.