Mucking it up

Now that the Supreme Court has decided to turn a blind eye to partisan gerrymandering it is instructive to look at the other ways the government is acting to thwart the will of the people.

Florida, Utah, North and South Dakota and Arkansas are all enacting legislation to limit voter initiatives. Florida has obviously thrown a wrench in the voters' successful initiative to grant voting status to ex felons by demanding full restitution first and instituting what some call an illegal poll tax.

Utah voters approved Obamacare in November. The Governor had other ideas and scuttled the program.

After racist emails were discovered in the Texas gerrymandering battle, a new bill to keep all such discussions private and under privilege.

Federal officials claimed in a 2011 case that one cache of messages showed that Texas Republicans were trying to dampen the voting power of Hispanic residents. 
One message, for example, shows the head of a county redistricting commission telling minority representatives that “[Y]ou all are protected by the Voting Rights Act and we are not.” 
“We don’t want to lose these people due to population growth in the county, or we won’t have any districts left,” the Texas official said. 

Michigan is doing all it can to limit and dilute ballot initiatives, targeting the voting power of urban areas by requiring that initiatives can only gather up to 15 percent of their signatures in any one congressional district.

*
Poor Duncan Hunter Jr.. He tries to pin the whole illegal campaign fund scandal on his wife last year, she flips and agrees to testify against him, now he is trying to disallow any mention of his cheating with his five girlfriends, claiming that all the shtupping had a political purpose, wasn't just pleasure. Judge doesn't buy it.

“However unpopular the notion of a married man mixing business with pleasure, the Government cannot simply dismiss the reality that Mr. Hunter’s relationships with Individual’s 14-18 [sic] often served an overtly political purpose that would not have existed irrespective of his occupation.” Gregory A. Vega Esq.

Congressman Duncan Hunter Jr.

I don't know if Hunter, who happens to be my congressman, is tone deaf, a psychopath or just incredibly stupid.

Last month in defense of the Navy Seal accused of killing innocent people, he said that his unit had killed hundreds of innocent people, as if it was something he was proud of.

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter said his military unit “killed probably hundreds of civilians” in Iraq, the California Republican’s latest eyebrow-raising comments since being charged last year with spending campaign funds on personal expenses.
Hunter, a Marine Corps veteran, made the remark while renewing his call for clemency for Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL chief who is accused of killing an Islamic State prisoner under his care in 2017.
“I frankly don’t care if he was killed. I just don’t care,” Hunter said of the slain prisoner in an interview on “Zero Blog Thirty,” a military-themed podcast produced by Barstool Sports. He added, “Even if everything that the prosecutors say is true in this case, then, you know, Eddie Gallagher should still be given a break, I think.”One of the podcast’s hosts, Kate Mannion, pushed back, arguing that “it’s such a slippery slope” and that Gallagher’s alleged killing of the prisoner “goes against our honor so egregiously.”“Well, then, how do you judge me?” Hunter replied. “So, I was an artillery officer, and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah, killed probably hundreds of civilians — if not scores, if not hundreds of civilians. Probably killed women and children, if there were any left in the city when we invaded. So do I get judged, too?”

That is a very fair question, Duncan. Love the family values.