Following on the U.S. Dept. of Justice finding last March that the Republican-enacted polling place Photo ID restriction law in Texas was discriminatory, in violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act (VRA), a three-judge U.S. District Court panel has again blocked the law from being implemented.

The decision by the federal panel, which included one judge appointed by George W. Bush, was unanimous.

Texas had appealed the DoJ decision earlier this year, seeking a declaratory judgment from the court, after the federal agency had found the state had not met its "burden of showing that a submitted change [to an election law] has neither a discriminatory purpose nor a discriminatory effect," under Section 5 of the VRA, which requires preclearance for new election laws in 16 different U.S. jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination. The Lone Star State is one of those jurisdictions.

The DoJ had determined [PDF] that, based on the state's own statistics, the law would have disproportionately disenfranchised registered Hispanic voters in the state. They found that registered Hispanics are anywhere from 46% to 120% more likely than non-Hispanics to lack the type of state-issued Photo ID that would have now been required to vote under the new law.

The 56-page ruling by the U.S. District court panel in D.C. today [PDF] found that "the law will almost certainly have retrogressive effect" as "it imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor, and racial minorities in Texas [who] are disproportionately likely to live in poverty."

"Crucially," the court added, "the Texas legislature defeated several amendments that could have made this a far closer case" when they ignored warnings that the law "as written, would disenfranchise minorities and the poor."

In Texas, as Democratic lawmakers had pointed out while the bill was being debated, some registered voters would have to travel as far as 250 miles round trip to receive their "free" ID from a state Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) driver's license facility, presuming they owned or were able to afford buy the underlying documentation required to obtain that "free" ID. The burden would be especially difficult for those without drivers licenses in the first place. Moreover, as the DoJ had previously found, "in 81 of the state’s 254 counties, there are no operational driver’s license offices," and many of them have limited hours of operation.

The court blasted both the Republican lawmakers and the attorneys who presented their case. "Everything Texas has submitted as affirmative evidence is unpersuasive, invalid, or both. Moreover, uncontested record evidence conclusively shows that the implicit costs of obtaining [Photo ID that would satisfy the new law] will fall most heavily on the poor and that a disproportionately high percentage of African Americans and Hispanics in Texas live in poverty. We therefore conclude that SB 14 is likely to lead to 'retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.'"

This was the second stinging loss for Texas Republicans in one week. On Monday, their plan for Congressional Redistricting in the state, on the heels of four new seats gained after the 2010 Census, was also struck down by a three-judge federal panel for violations of the VRA...

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Last week, as Tropical Storm Isaac was barreling towards Tampa, I posited that since Republicans "didn't get the message back in 2008" when Hurricane Gustav slammed into Louisiana on the first day of the RNC, cancelling the first day of their convention that year, it was a clear sign that "God hates the Republican National Convention".

Now that the first day of the RNC has once again been cancelled in 2012, thanks to what our own Desi Doyen dubbed "Tropical Storm Irony" during last Thursday's Green News Report, I've had time to rethink my feelings on this.

While the track for Isaac has moved to the west, and Tampa is no longer under Tropical Storm Warnings or Watches (though a Tornado Warning has just been issued for the area), I may have underestimated God's love for the RNC.

The storm, expected to turn into a hurricane in the next few hours, has already had an arguably positive effect on the RNC, as Donald Trump's appearance has now reportedly been cancelled given the shortened schedule to make up for the loss of the first day. That can only be good news for Republicans, frankly.

Also, with the new track predicted for Isaac, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has also announced he's no longer planning to go. Another plus for the RNC! God may be saving them from themselves, it seems.

On the other hand...Isaac is now gaining strength and is said to be on a straight track towards New Orleans on Wednesday, as Veep pick Ryan was to give his address to the RNC, and as Mitt and friends were planning to party hardy with their best tea-bag laden hats and otherwise prepare for the balloons to drop in Tampa on Thursday night. Isaac now seems to be following in Katrina's footsteps, almost seven years to the day after that deadly storm struck, the levees failed the next day, and thousands were killed, even as Karl Rove was glad-handing fans in Crawford, TX at the same moment an entire American city was being wiped out.

Similar scenes would make for rather unseemly split-screens on network television those nights, to say the least. Might Isaac end up cancelling the entire convention this year? And would that be a good or bad thing for the 2012 crop of Republicans?

Final conclusion: God works in mysterious ways. Stay safe, NOLA!...

Apparently, they didn't get the message back in 2008, but, obviously, God hates the Republican National Convention...

Tropical Storm Isaac is now on track to hit Tampa on Monday, the first day of the 2012 RNC.

"We're prepared for it, we've trained for it, we have contingency plan after contingency plan," Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn told CNN. But if the weather gets ugly, he says, "human safety, human life trumps politics."

You'll recall that the first day of the 2008 RNC in Minneapolis-St. Paul was all but scotched when Hurricane Gustav barreled through the Gulf to hit Louisiana, as the GOP was still particularly sensitive to George W. Bush's Katrina disaster just a few years earlier.

This time, God appears to be taking no chances, and is sending his wrath straight towards the site of the convention itself. At least that's what Jerry Falwell told me from the grave.

I actually feel sorry for Pat Kerby, the Republican delegate to the Republican National Convention from Nevada who attempted to add an amendment calling for paper ballots --- so nobody would have to trust in the "voter machine fairy" --- at the RNC's Platform Committee on Tuesday.

The poor fellow seemed to want the right thing, but by the time other members of the Committee amended the amendment, several times over, the original was completely gutted in favor of electronic computer tallies with no actual way to verify the accuracy of those tallies.

It seems the good-natured Kerby never knew what hit him, as he generously supported each change to his amendment, deferring to others who appeared to know more about voting, like fellow committee member Kansas Sec. of State Kris Kobach (responsible for the state's polling place Photo ID restrictions to help curb non-existent polling place voter fraud in Kansas, as well as serving as the author of Arizona's infamous anti-immigrant "Papers Please" law, most of which was found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court recently.)

It was a good idea, but Kerby wasn't clear on the exact language he needed to use and that opened up the door for others on the committee --- who have more confidence in unverifiable electronic voting machines than in paper ballots --- to completely gut the original amendment, compared to the one originally introduced during the proceedings.

Kerby's initial amendment read as follows:

While (most) electronic voting systems don't print "paper ballots" in general --- they print so-called "Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trails" (VVPATs) which may or may not reflect the actual intent of the voter, may or may not be verified by the voter as accurate, and are not actually counted by anyone, in any case (the internally recorded electronic results are used instead) --- it seems as if Kerby had the right idea, in general. At least as he offered a perfect description of his reasons for wanting to add include the amendment in the party's platform...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

California’s Proposition 32 --- the so-called "Paycheck Protection" Initiative --- is nothing less than a cynical attempt by "the one percent" to manipulate the revulsion now felt by "the 99 percent" towards the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous Citizens United ruling in order to solidify the ability of corporate wealth and power to destroy any semblance of government of, for or by the people.

The text of the initiative, set for this November's ballot in the Golden State, reads as follows:

In a video decrying the ballot measure, the "No on 32: Stop the Special Exemptions Act" campaign, describe it as "Miracle-Grow for...billionaires and their super PACs"...

The initiative was drafted by the Lincoln Club of Orange County --- the same group of right-wing mega millionaires and billionaires whose political hit piece, Hillary: The Movie became the centerpiece of the Citizens United ruling and the ensuing, democracy-destroying flood of dark money into our political system. Its top "$50,000 and over" donors represent a list of the state's wealthiest corporatist Republicans.

Although corporations enjoy a 15-to-1 advantage in political donations over organized labor, according to Open Secrets.org, CA's Prop 32 lumps these two very different forms of organizations under the same "special interest" umbrella.

Under the guise of ending the corrupting influence of "special interest" monies, Proposition 32's wealthy backers seek to eliminate the ability of organized labor to fund campaign ads for political candidates that would otherwise compete with the dominant corporate message, while providing loopholes that are large enough for "the one percent" to haul a trainload of politically corrupting gold bullion from Ft. Knox to Sacramento...

Of course, we've been spending the better part of the last ten years making the exact same case, so none of this should come as a surprise to long-time readers of The BRAD BLOG. But now a major new nationwide analysis by News21 of all known cases of election fraud in the U.S. since 2000 underscores our years of accurate and detailed reporting once again...

10 cases. 10 cases of in-person voter impersonation that might have been deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions out of hundreds of millions of votes cast in all 50 states since 2000 --- restrictions which, according to study after study, could keep as many as 21 million perfectly legal eligible voters from being able to cast their legal vote.

But, again, the Republicans who have been enacting these laws are doing it for exactly that reason: to keep those who are most likely to lack the type of state-issued Photo ID required to vote under these new restrictions --- the elderly, minorities, the poor and students (read: Democratic-leaning voters) --- from being able to cast their legal vote.

For those in the corporate mainstream media still unaware of what this is called (this includes you, NPR), it's called Voter Suppression.

And this exhaustive new study, once again, makes that case crystal clear...

A state court has upheld the state constitutionality of the new Republican-enacted polling place Photo ID restriction law in Pennsylvania which critics say may imperil the votes of more than a million legally registered voters in the Keystone State this November.

In his 70-page ruling [PDF] issued today, Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson acknowledged that the plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU and other civil rights organizations, "did an excellent job of 'putting a face' to those burdened by the voter ID requirement," but failed to demonstrate "facial unconstitutionality". The judge did not rule on the merits of the case, but on whether or not it could be enjoined by the court.

That, despite the fact that:

• The Pennsylvania state Constitution guarantees that "Every citizen 21 years of age [lowered to 18 years of age by the twenty-sixth amendment to the U.S. Constitution]...shall be entitled to vote at all elections," subject to certain restrictions by the General Assembly as to who may register to vote.
• Independent studies have determined that some 1.6 million otherwise eligible voters in PA, including nearly a million in Democratic-leaning Philadelphia alone, may lack an unexpired state-issued driver's license by this November's Presidential election, which is just 83 days away.
• The state admitted, before the trial even began, that they were unaware of any "investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania"; that they "are not aware of any incidents of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and do not have direct personal knowledge of in person voter fraud elsewhere"; and that the state would offer no evidence at the trial "that in person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law."
• The Republican Secretary of the Commonwealth, charged with implementing the law, admitted on the stand that she does not "know what the law says."
• The Republican Governor who signed the bill, and lied about "voter fraud" in the state, does not even know what type of ID would now be eligible for voting under the new restrictions.
• The Republican House Majority Leader admitted that the bill, passed in the state legislature without a single Democratic vote, was meant to "allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania" this year.
• During the trial, as described by plaintiffs, "[S]tate officials admitted they underestimated the number of registered voters without acceptable photo ID, admitted the law will disenfranchise voters, admitted the law will hold different voters to different standards, admitted voters casting an absentee ballot will be able to vote without ID."

Given all of the above, following the close of the trial, the plaintiffs had predicted a "slam dunk" ruling in their favor. We had also predicted that the law was likely to "go down in flames."

We're still reviewing the opinion of Judge Simpson, who is a Republican, and will have a more detailed analysis of the specifics of his ruling in the coming days.

Plaintiffs have already vowed to appeal the case to the state Supreme Court, where four votes will be needed to overturn the Commonwealth Court's ruling. Currently, there is a 3-3 Republican/Democratic split on the high court, as the 7th jurist, a Republican, has stepped aside for the moment pending a corruption investigation. If the state Supreme Court splits on the verdict, Simpson's ruling would hold. Though, depending on how the state Supremes decide, and if federal rulings are a part of whatever decision they may make, it is possible the plaintiffs could later take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court in the event that the state Supreme Court fails to overturn the lower court's verdict.

Separately, the U.S. Dept. of Justice has opened it's own investigation of the law to determine whether or not it may be in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and/or the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection clause. They may decide to file their own federal case to block the law in the weeks ahead.

UPDATE 8/18/12: On Aug. 16 plaintiffs filed a formal notice of appeal. Once the opening brief is available, The BRAD BLOG will furnish a detailed analysis of that appeal in the context of the rationale applied by Simpson, along with an assessment of the alternative litigation which the U.S. Department of Justice could potentially file in U.S. District Court.

UPDATE 9/4/12: The plaintiffs have now filed their appeal to the PA Supreme Court. Our legal analyst Ernest Canning details their appeal and some of the absurdities they point out in the original ruling by the Commonwealth Court judge right here...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

No doubt during this election cycle, like every election cycle over the past forty years, we'll hear from the GOP about "tax and spend" Democrats.

Even though it doesn't detail how every Republican since Reagan has combined massive, unpaid-for tax cuts for the wealthy with runaway, unpaid-for military spending --- creating a great excuse to destroy the New Deal safety net, in order to slash their runaway deficit-spending --- this chart is, nonetheless rather revealing...

None of that, of course, has kept the bulk of the "Lamestream Media" from repeating the myth of Republicans as "fiscal conservatives," a concept this site has spent many years attempting to debunk. Last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow did exactly the same thing when it came to the claim that Mitt Romney's newly chosen Veep pick, Paul Ryan, is a "fiscal conservative."

To borrow from CNN's Soledad O'Brien yesterday, "I understand that this is a Republican talking point because I've heard it repeated over and over again" --- in this case by the Beltway Media --- but "you can't just repeat it and make it true."

Maddow dispatches with the "Ryan as 'fiscal conservative'" nonsense in the unforgiving video below, in which she notes:

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Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning with Brad Friedman

Cowering in the face of blatantly false claims by the terrorist-enablers and dishonest fear-mongerers of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and one of their most vocal lying supporters, the Obama administration torpedoed talks at the United Nations on a proposed international treaty which sought to regulate the $60 billion international small arms trade.

The talks were designed to deal with a problem the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs describes as having created "a worldwide scourge" that has placed weapons in the hands of insurgents, armed gang members, drug lords, pirates and terrorists.

Dishonestly claiming the treaty was intended to regulate domestic U.S. arms sales, the NRA and its supporter, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, led a wholly deceptive charge against the long-sought treaty.

The accord, says Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of Amnesty International, was meant "to prevent countries and arms exporters from selling guns and military hardware to human rights abusers." But such a treaty was a bridge too far for those, like Bolton and the leadership of the NRA, who favor the profits U.S. arms manufacturers can realize if they can sell firearms to anyone and everyone. And, for now, even the Obama administration, which has, time and again, wilted whenever it feels the heat that accompanies an NRA 2nd Amendment propaganda barrage, has proven willing to sacrifice a much needed international treaty rather than square off with the terrorist-enabling NRA and their lies.

"Any treaty that includes civilian firearms ownership in its scope will be met with the NRA's greatest force of opposition," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said during his purposely deceptive testimony at the UN earlier this month. What he purposely failed to note? The treaty had absolutely nothing to do with "civilian firearms ownership" in the U.S. of any kind.

LaPierre's testimony was just another chapter in the NRA's long-perpetuated scam to continue pimping for the firearms industry by hoaxing their membership into believing that the Obama Administration --- which has, several times, expanded the rights of civilian firearms owners since taking office --- is secretly plotting to undermine the 2nd Amendment in hopes of taking guns away from law abiding citizens.

"I am here to announce NRA's strong opposition to anti-freedom policies that disregard American citizens right to self-defense," LaPierre lied during his UN testimony. "We will not stand idly by while international organizations, whether state-based or stateless, attempt to undermine the fundamental liberties our men and women in uniform have fought so bravely to preserve...and on which our entire American system of government is based"...

Well, this sounds familiar, and for good reason...

The summary above comes from ThinkProgress' Alex Brown who offer a hat-tip to Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald who opens his report this way:

The entire matter echoes back to our initial 2004 exclusive on then Republican software programmer turned whistleblower Clint Curtis who had filed a sworn affidavit charging Florida Republican Tom Feeney had asked his company, Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), to create a vote-rigging software prototype in 2000.

At the time of his alleged meetings with Feeney, Curtis says the Congressman --- who had been Jeb Bush's Lt. Governor running mate in 1998 before becoming Speaker of the FL House and one of the most powerful elected officials in the state by 2000 --- discussed methods that he said the Republican Party had in place to "reduce the black vote" in the 2000 Presidential election.

According to the December 6, 2004 affidavit [PDF] filed by Curtis, just days before he would testify to a U.S. House Judiciary Committee panel...

After all these years writing about him here at The BRAD BLOG, it was fascinating, to say the least, to finally try and get some direct answers from the nation's most notorious former GOP lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.

Now that he's completed three and half years in the federal penitentiary; after pleading guilty in 2006 to charges of conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion; cooperating with federal prosecutors to help net some 20 other convictions or guilty pleas from former Bush Administration officials, one member of Congress and a number of other lobbyists and congressional aides; becoming an anti-corruption blogger; and writing a book (Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist) about it all to help pay off some $44 million in court-ordered restitution to his victims, Abramoff joined me for a very lively, and at times feisty interview today on KPFK/Pacifica Radio's The BradCast.

Topics in the live, 30 minute interview include:

• Abramoff's take on the lack of morality at the heart of his crimes (he agrees to the failing, but seemingly only in part.)
• His belief that details of his story have been misreported (such as his attempt to take out life insurance policies on the lives of tribal elders to help cover the lobbying debts of tribes he represented and/or mis-represented.)
• His response to allegations of forced abortions and sex slavery in the sweatshops of his clients, the Northern Marianas Island (he denies knowledge of it having happened, and believes the claims were politically motivated.)
• What disgraced former and alleged election fraudster Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) was doing on Abramoff's lobbyist junket to play golf in St. Andrews, Scotland ("He was not supposed to be on that trip...he may have done something for us, but I can't remember what it was," claims Jack.)
• Whether he has done enough to tell the public the criminal truth about his former friends, colleagues, and highly placed elected officials who were the recipient of his bribes in the Bush Administration and the U.S. Congress, and whether he needs to do so before the lobbying reforms he claims to seek can ever come to pass.

I am only sorry we didn't have more time, as I had so much more to ask about, and there were several topics I would have liked to have drilled down into much more detail in hopes of holding feet to fire. But he had another interview commitment at the bottom of the hour, I had promised in advance to get him off air in time to make it, and he committed (yes, it's all on tape, Jack!) to come back and continue the discussion in the future. I'll look forward to holding him to that.

After he left, for the second part of the hour, we continued with listener phone calls, and their take on whether Abramoff's purported conversion from infamous criminal to hopeful reformer can or should be trusted, or whether this is just the latest "con" by "Casino Jack". The caller responses were very interesting, and I'll welcome yours as well, in comments below...

Download MP3 or listen online below (whole show, appx 58 mins.)...

On Wednesday, on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show, I'll be interviewing the notorious GOP uber lobbyist, turned convicted felon, turned former felon, turned author (Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist) and hopeful D.C. reformer, Jack Abramoff.

If you'd like to listen live, and don't happen to be in the Los Angeles area (where you can listen on 90.7FM in L.A., 98.7FM in Santa Barbara, 93.7FM in San Diego and 99.5FM in Ridgecrest & China Lake), you can pick up KPFK's live stream right here at 6p ET / 3p PT.

We've been writing about Abramoff here at The BRAD BLOG for years, of course, in various contexts, and I've got plenty I'd like to ask him about. But I'm also interested in what you guys might like me to consider asking him. Got any good questions? If so, please leave 'em in comments below!

UPDATE 7/18/12: Thanks for those of you who sent in suggestions for questions via comments and email! The resultant interview with Abramoff today was a damned interesting one. At least to me. You'll be the final judge as usual, of course. My exclusive interview with Jack Abramoff is now posted here...

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