Link Me Up, Scotty - Vote Early, Vote Often Edition

Monday, July 3, 2017

Turns out the vice-chair of 45's "Voter Fraud Panel," Kris Kobach, has roots in White Supremacy and proudly calls himself as "the ACLU's worst nightmare." His work as the Secretary of State in Kansas has made that state #1 in the nation in terms of restricting ballot access, and Secretary Kobach has a pretty serious obsession with non-existent voter fraud, immigration policy, and a belief "that a rise in Latino immigration could lead to the “ethnic cleansing” of whites."

Because nothing fulfills the Oath of the Kansas Secretary of State like circumventing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, viewing the Equal Protection Clause as a mere suggestion, or a belief that broad-based participation in a democracy is not always a good thing. With narrow-based participation in a democracy being defined as CIS, white, conservative men getting to decide the future of our country without any interference from those pesky brown folk, of course.

What a douche.
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But not everyone's cheering the "Marginalize the Browns" Crazy Train. Representing over 30% of the nation's population, over two dozen states have refused to comply with the Voter Fraud Panel's request to turn over their voter roles. More states are only "partially complying" with the request, providing only information that is required to be publicly available by law. And this is an equal opportunity resistance, as the states refusing to comply or only partially complying are both red and blue. So the invasion of privacy and resistance to the "widespread voter fraud" myth is a bipartisan effort, strangely enough.

IRONY ALERT: one of the states only partially complying is...Kansas. Where the current Secretary of State, the aforementioned Kris Kobach, was just fined by a Federal Judge for “presenting misleading arguments in a voting-related lawsuit.”
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From the go science, go pooches files: A British naturalist is working to protect lions from villages who hunt them when the lions eat their livestock. One of the ways she does this is introducing Anatolian dogs to act as guardians for the livestock, and to help the villagers earn money by protecting the lions in the adjacent National Park in Tanzania. Mighty Girl! Mighty Pooches!
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My favorite Christian Pastor on the blindness and comfort of privilege, and how the America we thought we lost in recent years is still an idea worth fighting for.
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Local news: The Castle Rock Police Department has started wearing body cameras. Castle Rock doesn't have a lot of violent crime, but there's more than in our previous community (Parker). I approve of body cameras in principle, but recognize that in many cases, context is missing from the recording.
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Video of the Week: Former President of Mexico Vincente Fox has another video message for 45. I love this fucking guy.



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Today's Sources as evaluated by Media Bias/Fact Check:
  • The New York Times: Paper of record. The NYT is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18, 1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 117 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization. NYT is well sourced and factual in reporting.  The paper has a pretty strong left wing editorial bias, but is considered one of the most reliable sources for information. 
  • The Washington Post: Paper of record.  The Washington Post is an American daily newspaper. It is the most widely circulated newspaper published in Washington, D.C., and was founded on December 6, 1877.  The newspaper has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes. This includes six separate Pulitzers awarded in 2008, the second-highest number ever awarded to a single newspaper in one year.  Post journalists have also received 18 Nieman Fellowships and 368 White House News Photographers Association awards (Wikipedia). The Washington Post has a liberal bias in reporting choices, however they are typically well sourced to credible information. Sometimes they rush stories to be the first to break them, which leads to poor sourcing. This has occurred on a few occasions in 2016.  When an error is made the Washington Post responsibly makes corrections.
  • BBC Magazine: The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster.  It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, and is the world’s oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. The BBC is an outstanding journalistic source.  They have just a slight left of center political bias in reporting coverage and they are always impeccably sourced.
  • Stuff That Needs to be Said: The personal blog of Pastor John Pavlovitz. 
  • Castle Rock Government: The official website of the Government of Castle Rock, Colorado.
  • Super Deluxe: An omni-platform entertainment company committed to amplifying unconventional creative voices. 

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