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Republican-dominated state legislatures around the country have responded to the cynical calls from Donald Trump for election reform with an array of proposals to restrict voting rights. They include limiting early-voting opportunities, constraining access to vote-by-mail and imposing more voter identification and other requirements to protect against what Mr. Trump falsely claimed to be a level of dishonesty that is not to be believed.

In Washington, congressional Democrats have rallied around H.R. 1, which has already passed in the House and would establish specific voting rules that states would be required to follow for federal elections, empowered by Congresss clear constitutional authority to make or alter state regulations governing the Times, Places and manner of holding such elections.

But as this legislation is pending, the Republican state legislative movement to burden the exercise of voting rights proceeds apace. Iowa has already done so, Georgia is poised to act shortly, and others may follow suit.

Congress should consider a targeted federal law to counter this march of these draconian state laws. And it could be designed in such a way that some Republicans would support it or find it uncomfortable to explain why they wouldnt.

This law would make clear that a state may not revise its rules to restrict voting access in federal elections in specified areas including the withdrawal of existing vote-by-mail opportunities and reductions in early voting unless it is done on a bipartisan basis.

A core objective of this legislation to protect the right to vote from partisan manipulation of the rules would be to enhance public perceptions of the fairness of the political process. With one political party unleashing a national movement to sharply limit access to the franchise, claiming contrary to fact that the presidential election it lost was corrupted by fraud, Congress is well justified in asserting its constitutional authority in federal elections and bringing a halt to it.

Nothing in this approach, targeted at the current wave of partisan state lawmaking initiatives, is inconsistent with passage of H.R. 1, which includes substantive reforms that, in addition to campaign finance and other reform measures, would strengthen voting rights and bolster election infrastructure security. And absent bipartisan support, the states should not be able to enact new restrictions on voting while Congress takes uniform federal rules in a more comprehensive package.

Critics may object that Congress cannot constitutionally commandeer the states to enact, or refrain from enacting, legislation of any kind. But the congressional power to make or alter state voting rules for federal elections is exactly what the Election Clause expressly authorizes. This power encompasses, as the Supreme Court has noted, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns.

The states must follow the federal governments requirements for their conduct of elections for federal office, regardless of the choices they make for state and local contests, and they also bear the administrative responsibility and expense of doing so. Where the Supreme Court has applied the anti-commandeering doctrine, it has done so to stop Congress from conscripting the states into the enforcement of federal regulatory programs, as it has done in cases involving the Commerce Clause.

A bipartisanship requirement is a legitimate test of the validity of a state law affecting voting in federal elections. This is the rationale behind the requirements for politically balanced memberships that states have adopted for independent redistricting commissions. In applying a bipartisanship requirement to this proposed measure for restrictive state voting rules, Congress could, for example, provide that a state legislative rule change would have to have the support of at least a third to one-half of the second-largest party of the state legislature.

Why might or should such a law attract some Republican support? For one, after all the charges and countercharges of partisan machinations in the states in the 2020 elections, Republicans would have the opportunity to register support for bipartisan state action or to defend their opposition. Republicans may also be influenced by Republican state officials in charge of elections. For example, the Florida State Senate recently heard testimony about a proposed bill limiting the use of drop boxes and adding other limits on mail voting. Democratic and Republican supervisors of elections testified against the bill. State election law administrators among them many Republicans are very wary of these harshly restrictive measures, which complicate the voting process and, in creating the likelihood of, as one supervisor of elections said, long lines, chaos and confusion, are unpopular with Republican as well as Democratic voters.

Legislation along these lines is certain to be resisted by many Republicans and challenged in court. But Congress must defend its authority in federal elections and call out in clear terms the power play pursued by Republican state legislators. There is no reason to doubt that after the experience of 2020 and the events of Jan. 6, most Americans will respond well to a call for bipartisanship in how the states establish voting rights rules.

Bob Bauer, a former senior adviser to the Biden campaign, is a professor at New York University School of Law and a co-author of After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency.

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Opinion | How to Counter the Republican Assault on Voting Rights - The New York Times

During the 2016 primaries, Senator Marco Rubio positioned himself as a candidate for president who would represent a new approach for the GOP. (Drew Angerer / AP)

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As Republican state legislatures launch a new campaign to suppress Democratic votes (cutting back on early voting in Iowa, restricting absentee voting in Georgia), its worth recalling that it was only eight years ago that the GOP had a completely different response to defeat. Republicans had been working to restrict voting for decades, but after Mitt Romney lost in 2012, the RNC concluded that the party had to come to terms with broadening access to voting: Early, absentee, and online voting is here to stay, their election postmortem declared. Republicans needed to alter their strategy and acknowledge the trend as future reality, utilizing new tactics to gain victory on Election Day.

Mitt Romney had gotten 47 percent of the popular votenotably, the same percentage Donald Trump got this time. But the response in 2012 to defeat was not to double down on the Big Lie about Democratic voter fraud. Party leaders instead launched a three-month-long study of how they could become a majority party again. They called it an autopsy. Released in March 2013, the report was bold and uncompromising: The party had reached an ideological cul-de-sac by focusing on older white people. In order to win back a majority of voters, Republican candidates needed to embrace a new brand of conservatism and reach out to young people, women, and ethnic minorities, especially Latinos.

In the aftermath of defeat this time around, the GOP response was completely different. A Republican Party attorney was surprisingly honest when he told the Supreme Court at the beginning of March that Arizona needed to enact new restrictions on voting, because making it easier to vote puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.

The Republicans share of the presidential vote, the 2012 autopsy pointed out, had been declining ever since Reagan, even when they won. Reagan got 59 percent in 1984; George H.W. Bush got 53 in 1988; George W. Bush got 51 in 2004. After that, they never won a majority.Related Article

At its root, the problem was both demographic and ideological. The Reagan base was declining as a proportion of the population; the Democratic majority recruited by Obama was made up of younger people, people of color, and women. The report, issued by RNC chair Reince Priebus, argued that Republicans could win enough of them to regain a majority, while at the same time holding fast to their pro-business, low-tax ideology.

The autopsy proposed reaching out to Latinos by endorsing comprehensive immigration reform. That was what made headlines. It argued also for appealing to Latino small-business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs, promoting opportunity for all, and running Latino candidates.

To appeal to young people, the autopsy argued, the party needed a new openness to gay people and gay marriage, noting that there was a generational difference within the conservative movement about the treatment and the rights of gays. It reported that, for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.Current Issue

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The report concluded that if our Party is not welcoming and inclusive, young people and increasingly other voters will continue to tune us out. Throughout, it proposed encouraging a variety of views rather than requiring 100 percent fidelity to the prevailing Republican positions, especially on social issues. Party leaders from Paul Ryan to Newt Gingrich welcomed it with fanfare, Politico reported.

And the party had a candidate who represented the new breed of younger Latino Republican: Marco Rubio. Forty-one years old in 2012, he personified Latino upward mobility; he endorsed bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform; and he condemned discrimination against gays and lesbians. Rubio entered the 2016 primaries with high hopes, coming in first among Republican candidates in eight consecutive early national polls.

But meanwhile, the autopsy aroused a storm of protest from the Republican right, led by Rush Limbaugh. Donald Trump, not yet a candidate when the report appeared, posted a tweet ridiculing comprehensive immigration reform.

Could it have worked? Could Marco Rubio have gotten more votes than Trump did, by running as a moderate against Hillary Clinton? Polls had him slightly ahead of her in January 2016. Nate Silvers Five Thirty-Eight declared, Its Rubio Or Bust For Republicans Who Want To Win, predicting, If Republicans nominate Rubio, they would have an excellent chance to beat Clinton by broadening their partys appeal with moderates, millennials and Latinos.

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But then Trump destroyed him in the debates, dubbing him Little Marco. He responded by saying Trump had small handsand you know what they say about guys with small hands. It didnt work. He failed in the primaries, winning only Minnesota, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. He endorsed Trump and stuck with him even after the Access Hollywood tapes surfaced.

Party officials who proposed after 2012 that Republicans could become a majority party again set up a website: futuremajority.com. It is now defunct. Futuremajority.org is a new site, established in the 2020 election to help win swing states in the Midwest. It funds Democrats.

Originally posted here:
The Republicans Road Not Taken - The Nation

In his forthcoming book, The Words That Made Us, the Yale law professor Akhil Amar emphasizes that, unlike the Hutcheson mob, the Boston Tea Party was nonviolent (it did not come close to killing anyone), proportionate (the Sons destroyed no more property than necessary), and public spirited and non-piratic (the Sons dumped tea to make a legal and political point). It was, Amar argues, a stylized, highly regulated political protestthe Sons of Liberty even swept the decks of the ships before departingrather than a violent insurrection. As Kramer notes, they also later compensated one of the ship owners for a padlock they broke to seize the tea.

During and after the Constitutional Convention, those who had endorsed crowd action against the British during the American Revolution argued that violent insurrections against legitimately constituted democratic governments were different. Samuel Adams, a leader of the Boston Tea Party and other crowd actions throughout the Revolution, had become governor of Massachusetts in 1787, and he criticized Shays Rebellion as a Tory effort to thwart the principles of the Revolution. Now that the people were represented in and by the government, Adams and others argued, they no longer needed to apply direct pressure on their democratically elected judges and representatives.

Was this rationale merely self-serving, now that Adams and his allies were the ones in power? That conclusion would discount their entire theory of self-government. The American experiment is an attempt to channel the selfish passions of human beings into legitimate politics by creating institutions that promote thoughtful deliberation over the impulses of the moment. The state and federal constitutions ratified from 1776 to 1787 were designed to give we the people (or at least propertied white men) the opportunity to seek a redress of grievances through peaceful assembly, petition, speech, and representation, without resorting to the brutal force of mob action.

Anne Applebaum: What Trump and his mob taught the world about America

Mob violence became further delegitimized in the years leading up to the Civil War, when it took the form of racist attacks on Black people and white abolitionists. In 1837, a young Abraham Lincoln expressed renewed alarm about violent mobs when he warned that, unless Americans could govern themselves by reason rather than passion, the Constitution would fall to demagogues. Lincolns speech The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions, delivered to the Young Mens Lyceum of Springfield, Ilinois, was responding to mob violence, including a racist murder in St. Louis and the lynching of the abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy. In his speech, which denounced mobocracy and mentioned the word mob eight times, Lincoln implicitly blamed the violence on the followers of the populist Andrew Jackson, who was known as King Mob. Like Madison, Lincoln warned that the mobs were being egged on by populist demagogues, men of ambition and talents who continue to spring up amongst us, seeking the ratification of their ruling passion by tearing down the government and the laws, rather than supporting and maintaining the edifice erected by the Founders. The only way for the American people to ensure that support of the Constitution and the laws remained the political religion of the nation, Lincoln concluded, was for them to reaffirm their commitment to personal as well as political self-government, to restrain their irrational passions and hatreds with the cool voice of reason..

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The Whole Point Was to Avoid Mob Violence - The Atlantic

This is the perfume of March: rain, loam, feathers, mint. Lisa Kleypas.

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming. Pablo Neruda.

The first blooms of spring always make my heart sing. S. Brown.

Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm. John Muir.

A perfect spring day! Enjoy it while it lasts because you dont know whats coming. Marty Rubin.

Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world." Virgil A. Kraft.

Monarda is a genus of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. Common names include bergamot, bee balm, horsemint and oswego tea. It has a long history of being used as a medicinal herb, and as the common name bee balm implies, it has also been used to soothe bee stings.

Monardo consists of multiple species, most of which are hardy perennials and all of which are native to certain regions of North America. Summertime flowering on all these species is quite attractive to humans and pollinators.

The Oswego Indian tribe used this plant to make an herbal tea and they taught the early American settlers how to do so as well.

This just happened to come in very handy following the Boston Tea Party. As the settlers revolted against the British tax on tea, they drank tea made from Monarda instead, thus thumbing their noses at the British and their taxes.

Monarda punctata (horsemint or dotted mint) is somewhat of an unruly native prairie plant characterized by tall unbranched stems topped with rounded clusters of pink or lavender tubular flowers. The stacked combination of speckled flowers and colorful bracts make this distinctive and unusual.

Monarda fistulosa (wild bergamot) is one of the species commonly used for medicinal purposes. Being highly aromatic with showy lavender-pink flowers, it is also used as a honey plant.

Monarda didyma (scarlet bee balm) has long been cherished for not only its use for tea but also its ornamental value. Its bright scarlet/red flowers are still a part of many ongoing breeding programs with Monarda.

It has been a long road from these native species of Monarda to the prized ornamental cultivars available today. Some of the first hybrids of M. didyma x M. fistulosa produced vibrant flower colors with a more well-behaved plant, but they continued to be plagued by their native attributes of being highly susceptible to mildew, somewhat tall and leggy and had a tendency to spread by rhizomes.

Modern breeding has introduced many new cultivars that are much more suitable in the ornamental landscape. Along with many stand-alone varieties with notable attributes of their own, "Marshalls Delight" received Award of Merit from Royal Horticultural Society, "Gardenview Scarlet" was selected by the Chicago Botanic Garden as an outstanding perennial for the Midwest, and Petite Delight was the first of its kind dwarf introduction of monarda at just 12-15 inches tall.

There are several newer Monarda with formidable attributes including Monarda didyma Grand is from the Morden Breeding Program in Manitoba and an exceptionally hardy Monarda. Characterized by a profusion of bright flowers atop mid-sized plants, these also offer very good mildew resistance.

The Sugar Buzz Monardas form a solid dome of color. The 2- to 2 1/2-inches flowers top off the strong stems and deep green foliage of this series. Medium in height at around 20 inches, the eight colors in this series display above-average mildew resistance and stay well contained in the garden.

Balmy Monardas have relatively large flowers on a fully compact plant. Balmy comes in at just 10-12 inches with exceptional mildew resistance and deep green foliage. They are dwarf and mounded, so bring new uses to the landscape.

While some Monarda species come from seed, most newer selections are vegetatively propagated and are quite easy to care for in rich and organic, or just average soils. Monarda will die back to the ground in colder climates. They can then be cut back to one- to two-inch stems. Its also a good idea to remove dead leaves and stems from the area, especially if mildew has been observed on the foliage. As Monarda emerges from the roots/rhizomes in the spring, they may be pinched to create a bushier habit if desired.

In the full sun, they will produce a plethora of brilliant flowers beginning in mid-summer. Pair these with Achillea, Agastache or Phlox for a smooth transition of garden color into fall. As flowers fade, deadheading is beneficial to encourage additional flowering.The plant is deer and rabbit resistant.

Monarda brings a lot of charm and interest to the garden. Mass plantings in naturalized areas are a showstopper and create a high-traffic area for butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. Enjoy these as specimen plants paired with your favorite summer-into-fall bloomers in the middle of the garden.

When they are in full flower (with a few to spare), you can pick a few flowers and leaves to make a batch of iced bee balm tea and watch the garden grow. Or dry some and save it for hot Oswego tea on a cold winters night! This fact sheet is provided as an educational service of the National Garden Bureau and their link is https://ngb.org/year-of-the-monarda.

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, Who lives in you. Romans 8:11.

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. Proverbs 29:25.

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10.

Seagle is a Sustainability Verifier, Golf Environment Organization (Scotland), Agronomist and Horticulturalist, CSI: Seagle (Consulting Services International) LLC, Professor Emeritus and Honorary Alumnus (Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College), Distinguished Professor for Teaching and Learning (University System of Georgia) and Short Term Missionary (Heritage Church, Moultrie). Direct inquiries to csi_seagle @yahoo.com.

Excerpt from:
SEAGLE: In the Year of the Monarda | Opinion | tiftongazette.com - Tifton Gazette

Social media users are wrongly claiming that an official Black Lives Matter organization was charged with committing wire fraud, laundering money and misusing donation money.

The reality is different: a lone Ohio activist was indicted on similar charges after he allegedly created a Facebook page that he passed off as a Black Lives Matter charity.

The facts havent stopped the spread of misleading claims about what happened.

"Black Lives Matter of Atlanta Charged with Wire Fraud, Money Laundering and Allegedly Using almost 500k in Donations For Personal Use," said conservative commentator Chuck Callesto, a former Republican congressional candidate, in one such tweet posted March 16.

Screenshots of Callestos tweet were shared on Facebook, along with other posts that repeated versions of the same claim. They were flagged as part of the platforms efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The posts give the misleading impression that the wire fraud and money laundering charges were filed against an official chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement formed in 2013 after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager, in Florida.

But Black Lives Matter was not charged.

The charges are actually against a 32-year-old activist named Sir Maejor Page, or Tyree Conyers-Page, according to the Justice Department. Page is accused of using a Facebook page called "Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta," an illegitimate nonprofit, to defraud donors on the platform who thought they were supporting a legitimate social justice organization.

Page created the Facebook account and registered "Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta" as a nonprofit organization in 2016, and he continued soliciting donations through Facebook after the groups tax-exempt status was revoked for failure to submit required IRS forms for three years, according to the indictment against him.

Prosecutors say Page misled Facebook users into believing their donations would be used to back protests in support of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. He received donations from more than 100 people through the Facebook page. He put thousands of dollars toward personal items, entertainment, hotel rooms and a house, the indictment says.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, a charity created as an outgrowth of the Black Lives Matter movement, said in September that it was not affiliated with Page and that it rejected "the extreme misleading behaviors of people who utilize our name for their own personal wealth and gain."

"Our stance remains that Mr. Page is not affiliated with Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, nor is he an activist for the movement," the foundation told PolitiFact.

Fox 5 Atlanta, a local TV station, reported in 2016 that Page had "parted ways" with the Black Lives Matter movement in Atlanta before starting his Facebook page.

A Twitter account for "Black Lives Matter Atlanta" posted two tweets that same year saying Pages group was "not a real chapter" and "not aligned w/ principles of BLM." The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation confirmed that the Twitter account is legitimate.

Using Facebook, PolitiFact messaged Callesto, who created the tweet that appeared on Facebook as a screenshot. After we reached out, he acknowledged that his tweet "could mislead" and posted a follow-up tweet in a thread under the original.

"This tweet is missing CONTEXT," Callesto wrote in the March 18 update. "It should read.. Black Lives Matter of GREATER Atlanta Charged with Wire Fraud, Money Laundering... Black Lives Matter of GREATER Atlanta refers to a(n) illegitimate nonprofit organization."

Callesto cited a Toledo Blade article about Pages indictment. He said he had copied the original claim from a headline on a news site. But PolitiFact searched Google and the Nexis news database and did not find a headline that matched the language in his tweet.

Conservative activist Jack Posobiec tweeted a similar claim while sharing a Daily Caller story about Pages indictment. Posobiec wrote, misleadingly, "Black Lives Matter of Atlanta Charged with Money Laundering, Wire Fraud, Allegedly Used $450,000 in Donations for Personal use."

Our ruling

A tweet reposted to Facebook said, "Black Lives Matter of Atlanta Charged with Wire Fraud, Money Laundering and Allegedly Using almost 500k in Donations For Personal Use."

Thats misleading. Black Lives Matter was not charged. The charges are against one person accused of misusing donations to what the Justice Department says was an illegitimate nonprofit posing as a Black Lives Matter charity.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation said in a September statement that it was not affiliated with that person. A local news report from 2016 said he had "parted ways" with the Black Lives Matter of Atlanta movement.

We rate this tweet False.

Read more from the original source:
No, Black Lives Matter wasn't charged with fraudulently spending donation money - PolitiFact