Tag: video
Republican Plan To Disrupt Vote

Video Reveals RNC Scheme To Disrupt Vote In Democratic Precincts

With President Joe Biden continuing to suffer from weak approval ratings and voters expressing considerable frustration over inflation, Democratic strategists fear that the 2022 midterms could bring a major red wave like the red waves of 1994 and 2010. To make matters worse, Republicans have been ramping up their voter suppression campaign. And according to reporting from journalist Heidi Przybyla in Politico, part of the GOP game plan is looking for ways to challenge votes in Democratic-leaning areas.

Politico, Przybyla reports, has obtained “video recordings” of “Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists” that “provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts.” The plan, according to Przybyla, is to “install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys.”

Przybyla writes, “The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts.”

The RNC staffer in Michigan that Przybyla is referring to is Matthew Seifried. In a recording of a training session held on October 5, 2021, Seifried told his colleagues, “Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than (as) a poll challenger…. It’s going to be an army. We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”

Seifried, according to Przybyla, “also said the RNC will hold ‘workshops’ and equip poll workers with a hotline and website developed by Zendesk, a software support company used by online retailers, which will allow them to live-chat with party attorneys on Election Day.”

Przybyla notes that “election watchdog groups and legal experts say many of these recruits are answering the RNC’s call because they falsely believe fraud was committed in the 2020 election.”

Nick Penniman, founder and CEO of the election watchdog group Issue One, told Politico, “This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together. It looks like now, the Trump forces are going directly after the legal system itself — and that should concern everyone.”

Penniman believes that the RNC strategy is to “create massive failure of certification” in Democratic precincts.

“The real hope is that you can throw the choosing of electors to state legislatures,” Penniman told Politico.

Law professor Rick Hasen, an expert on election law who also teaches political science professor at the University of California, Irvine, is quite critical of the RNC plan to install poll workers in heavily Democratic precincts.

Hasen told Politico, “You shouldn’t have poll workers who are reporting to political organizations what they see. It creates the potential for mucking things up at polling places and potentially leading to delays or disenfranchisement of voters.”

That is especially true, Hasen added, “if (the poll workers) come in with the attitude that something is crooked with how elections are run.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Former GOP Staffer Sentenced For Running Child Porn Ring

Former GOP Staffer Sentenced For Running Child Porn Ring

On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced Ruben Verastigui has been sentenced to 151 months in prison on a federal charge of receipt of child pornography.

A Washington, D.C., resident, 29-year-old Ruben Verastigui has spent his entire career in conservative circles, including as an aide to the Trump re-election campaign and stints as a digital strategist for the Senate Republican Conference and the Republican National Committee.

The Department of Justice detailed the evidence against Ruben Verastigui, and this case is extremely disturbing.

[Warning: Graphic description of the DOJ’s case is listed below]

According to the government’s evidence, from April 2020 through Feb. 2021, Verastigui was active in an online group devoted to trading child pornography and discussing child sexual abuse. Verastigui shared child pornography videos with another member of the group and made numerous comments about sexually abusing children. Verastigui indicated his preference for babies, saying they were his “absolute favorite,” and solicited another group member for videos of babies being raped. The other group member promptly sent Verastigui a video of a baby being raped, to which Verastigui responded enthusiastically. The other group member then sent Verastigui numerous other videos of child pornography.

Verastigui is just one of numerous Republican staffers to face child pornography charges in recent years. Chase Tristan Epsy, a lawyer for Alabama Gov. Kay Ivy, was arrested in 2021 for soliciting a minor.

As usual, it seems the howls of Republicans are pure projection.

And last, but not least, Verastigui was a featured speaker at the 2013 anti-choice rally in Washington, D.C.

Ruben Verastigui speaks at the National March for Life 2013www.youtube.com

Printed with permission from Daily Kos.

#EndorseThis: The Liar Tweets Tonight! Vote Him Away

#EndorseThis: The Liar Tweets Tonight! Vote Him Away

We're searching everywhere for funny and fresh home-produced content during the lockdown – and singer-songwriter Roy Zimmerman offers up "The Liar Tweets Tonight," his razor-sharp satirical version of the folk classic Wimoweh (sometimes known as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"), accompanied by a grassroots Zoom chorus. You'll want to play this charming video more than once. Please nominate songs, comedy shtick, and satirical skits for #EndorseThis with an email to editors@nationalmemo.com.

Stay safe and well, and meanwhile click!

Charlotte Protests Diminish Early Friday As Family Views Video

Charlotte Protests Diminish Early Friday As Family Views Video

By Andy Sullivan and Robert MacMillan

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Reuters) – Largely peaceful protests dwindled early on Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina, as police chose not to enforce a curfew prompted by two nights of riots that engulfed the city after a black man was shot to death by a police officer.

A crowd of hundreds gathered, chanted and marched for a third successive night in the state’s largest city, demanding justice for Keith Scott, 43, who was shot dead by a black police officer in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Tuesday afternoon.

Police fired tear gas and non-lethal projectiles to break up crowds blocking traffic on a highway. National Guard troops backed up a robust police presence in the town center, helping to restrain protesters chanting “Whose streets? Our streets,” as helicopters circled overhead.

The Charlotte Police Department said on Twitter that two officers were treated after they were sprayed with a chemical agent by demonstrators and that no civilians were injured on Thursday.

Despite the brief outbursts, the demonstrations were calmer than those on the previous two nights. Rioters had smashed storefront windows, looted businesses and thrown objects at police, prompting officials to declare a state of emergency and the city’s mayor to enact a curfew.

A protester shot on Wednesday died on Thursday, nine people were injured, and 44 were arrested in riots on Wednesday and Thursday morning.

Scott’s death is the latest to stir passions in the United States over the police use of deadly force against black men. Protests have asserted racial bias and excessive force by police and have given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.

His family viewed videos of the episode on Thursday and asked for them to be made public, stepping up the pressure for their release.

In an interview with Reuters early Friday, Justin Bamberg, one of the lawyers who is representing Scott’s family, said the video shows that the 43-year-old did not make any aggressive moves towards police.

“There’s nothing in that video that shows him acting aggressively, threatening or maybe dangerous,” Bamberg said.

Scott, who suffered head trauma in a bad car accident a year ago, was moving slowly as he got out of the car, he said.

“He’s not an old man, but he’s moving like an old man” in the video, Bamberg said.

Earlier in the day, Bamberg said in a statement that it was “impossible to discern” from the videos what, if anything, Scott was holding in his hands.

Police say Scott was carrying a gun when he approached officers and ignored repeated orders to drop it. His family previously said he was holding a book, not a firearm, and now says it has more questions than answers after viewing two videos recorded by police body cameras.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney has said the video supported the police account of what happened but does not definitively show Scott pointing a gun at officers.

In contrast to the tension in Charlotte, calm reigned in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where police released a video of the fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher, shot by police last week after his vehicle broke down on a highway. The officer who fired her gun was charged with first-degree manslaughter on Thursday.

U.S. President Barack Obama called the mayors of both cities on Wednesday to offer condolences and assistance. On Thursday, he urged protesters to maintain the peace, while still addressing concerns of racial inequality.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, editing by Larry King)

IMAGE: Protesters walk in the streets downtown during another night of protests over the police shooting of Keith Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. September 22, 2016.  REUTERS/Mike Blake