A race for the Texas Supreme Court has an eight-year incumbent with the backing of the Republican establishment battling John Devine, an anti-abortion activist and frequent political candidate known for his fight to keep the Ten Commandments displayed in his Houston courtroom.
Despite past criticism, Devine has not shrunk from making his anti-abortion ideology a prominent part of his judicial campaign. At a June rally in Fort Worth, he described his convictions as being “forged in the crucibles” of the anti-abortion movement and told the crowd he had been arrested 37 times while protesting abortion clinics.
A campaign video relates a decision to continue a high-risk pregnancy, his wife Nubia’s seventh, which they said was likely to end in the deaths of both mother and child. Nubia Devine survived the birth. Their daughter lived for an hour after she was born.
Read the full article. Devine last appeared him 2017 when he issued a minority opinion against same-sex spousal benefits for Texas residents because marriage is meant for “procreation.” During his above cited 2012 campaign for the Texas Supreme Court, Devine alleged declared that he chose the district he ran in because “I can beat somebody with a Mexican name.” The incumbent was then-Justice David Medina. Devine is up for reelection in 2024.
John Devine, one of the TX Supreme Court judges that issued an order preventing a pregnant woman whose unborn child has a fatal defect from getting an abortion, was arrested several times for blocking abortion clinics. His wife carried a risky pregnancy to term. The child died. pic.twitter.com/l2UsHAkDe5
Like I said yesterday: The Texas Supreme Court wouldn’t have issued the stay if their intent wasn’t to force this poor woman to carry this doomed pregnancy to term, even if it kills her. Controlling and punishing women, including for “failing” to bring a fetus to term, is the entire point.
I’m hoping that this case is, at the very least, on an expedited calendar, as time is truly of the essence. Otherwise, this poor woman has to get the hell out of Tek-Zis to seek the medical care she needs. How fucking deplorable.
That’s what gets me about this: The pregnancy is doomed. The genetic tests are conclusive. This trisomy condition WILL result in a dead baby, guaranteed. On ultrasound, it’s already seen not to have the major organs needed to survive. This woman has already had two previous c-sections, and each subsequent one reduces her chances to have another child successfully—which she says she wants very much. But trying to carry a trisomy fetus to term is itself inherently risky because the fetus can pretty much die at any time or miscarry, risking lethal sepsis infection.
Yet these Rethug motherfuckers don’t care about any of that. They want to inflict unnecessary and potentially lethal harm and suffering on this woman. Why? No reason other to ensure that no woman, girl, or transperson can escape a pregnancy, wanted or unwanted, that might kill them. Put in these terms, the intent is clear.
Why? Yes, I agree. But it’s also a message to ALL women — you are just a vessel for the child, and your life and health, not to mention your needs and wants, are of minimal consequence.
Sweet Jesus I rant through all these arguments TWENTY years ago now in the marriage equality “debates” – these people hold no coherent postions, they just hate gay people and women.
Logic has no place in their debates. Only their feelings matter. Nobody else’s feelings are relevant. Pregnancy not viable? Mother and baby likely to die? So what? It’s was jesus would want.
You identified those I call ‘The Feelers’. They’re the ones who’re most easily swayed by conspiracy theories, loudmouth narcissists, screaming evangelicals, the ‘voice’ of authority’. etc. Whenever they experience fear they ‘know’ that they’re wrong and have to repent, grovel or humiliate themselves publicly.
The Feelers dominate the GQP and they’re extremely dangerous since anything can trigger them… literally. They pull a trigger whenever they get sufficiently riled up.
Hell, how many Christianistas view an unintended pregnancy as a just punishment for sex outside of marriage, insisting the woman carry it full term, and then denigrating the innocent child as “a bastard.”
Elie Mystal was saying during an interview the other day, that if anyone is thinking about sitting out the 2024 election or if they believe that a second Trump presidency won’t be so disastrous, just shout “ABORTION… ABORTION… ABORTION !!” A Trump regime will insure that abortion (at least for the 99%) is an impossibility. As we’ve seen, these insane & unmercifully cruel zealots & misogynists don’t care about women and whether they live or die, as long as their draconian ideology prevails
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. (left) likes to troll journalists on Twitter and stage feisty debates over preferred pronouns. Meanwhile, Florida’s SAT scores have dropped once again. The state ranks 45th in America. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)
New rankings show Florida students are posting some of the lowest SAT scores in America.
We’re talking 46th place. Down another 17 points overall to 966, according to the combined reading and math scores shared by the College Board.
Florida trails other Southern states like South Carolina and Georgia. We trail states where more students take the test, like Illinois and Indiana.
We somehow now even slightly trail Washington, D.C. — a district long maligned as one of the supposedly worst in America, where all students take the test.
This should be an all-hands-on-deck crisis. Yet what are Florida education officials obsessing over?
Pronouns. And censoring books.
While other states focus on algebra and reading comprehension, Florida’s top education officials are waging wars with teachers about what kind of pronouns they can use and defending policies that have led to books by Ernest Hemingway and Zora Neale Hurston being removed from library shelves. We are reaping what they sow.
But perhaps the most disturbing thing about Florida’s current crop of top education officials isn’t just the misguided policies they’re pushing, it’s the way they behave. Like it’s all a joke. Like Twitter trolls.
They’re calling names, mocking those trying to have serious conversations about education and generally reveling in owning the libs.
A few months ago, Orlando Sentinel education reporter Leslie Postal spent weeks trying to get public records about a newly hired state education employee. Postal just wanted to explain to taxpayers how their money was being spent. But state officials refused to answer questions.
So Postal wrote up the piece, and Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz shared the piece on Twitter (now X) with a two-word comment: “Cry more!”
For those of you who don’t speak troll, “Cry more” is a response used by some social-media users — usually those juvenile in age or intellect — to mock someone who is unhappy. The folks at Urban Dictionary, who revel in all things trolly, define “Cry More” as a “phrase used in online games when someone is getting owned, and they b*tch about it.”
The game in question here, mind you, was the Sentinel’s two-month quest to get answers about how the state was spending tax dollars. And the response from the state’s top education official was: “Cry more!” What a role model for students.
That’s just one example. Last week, after I wrote a column about rampant book-censorship in the state — with one district shelving 300 titles — State Board of Education Member Ryan Petty responded (at quarter ’til 1 in the morning): “Just dumb. This passes as journalism.” Followed by a clown emoji.
OK, for argument’s sake, let’s say I’m the dumbest clod to ever set foot in the Sunshine State. Petty still wouldn’t answer any of the direct questions posed in both the column and on Twitter. Specifically, if the goal isn’t widespread book-banning, why won’t his education department provide a definitive list of what books it believes students shouldn’t have access to in school?
Petty opted for emojis over answers, because that’s what trolls do.
A member of the state board of education offers his insightful take on book censorship in Florida schools
If this is all "dumb" – and the goal isn't just to sow chaos – why won't DOE provide a definitive list of what books it believes students shouldn't have access to in school? https://t.co/QDGSYLFukm
The responses on Twitter to Diaz and Petty — both appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis — were about what you’d expect. One user told Petty: “My ninth grader could have crafted a more articulate response.” Several users responded similarly to Diaz’s “Cry More!” post, questioning his ability to maturely discuss policy and referring back to a Miami Herald investigation into student claims of “inappropriate behavior” by Diaz back when he was a teacher; claims Diaz said were bogus smears.
None of this did a thing to address this state’s education issues. Yet that’s where we are in Florida these days, mired in culture wars and trolling each other.
We also saw something similar last week when Diaz refused to directly answer questions from Orange County Public Schools about whether teachers were allowed to honor the requests of transgender students who wanted to be addressed with different pronouns — if the teachers wanted to and if those students also had their parents’ written permission. (Think about how bizarre it is that schools must even ask that question … in the so-called “parental rights” state.)
In his response to the district, Diaz offered a theatrical and condescending response that referred to “false” pronouns but which school officials concluded didn’t actually answer the question in a straightforward manner. Just more troll games … involving a population of teens more prone to self-harm and suicide, no less.
As far as the SAT goes, the test certainly has its share of legitimate critics. But it’s still one of the best apples-to-apples metrics we have for student learning.
Yet hardly any Florida media organizations even covered the October release of the new SAT scores that showed Florida’s poor showing. Why? Because we’ve been trained to follow the bouncing-ball, culture-war debate of the day.
So we see plenty of coverage about Florida supposedly ranking No. 1 in “educational freedom” by partisan political groups and scant addition to real education issues.
Call me old-fashioned, but I like hard numbers more than political posturing or magazine rankings. So do others who actually care about and study education.
Paul Cottle, a physics professor who authors a blog that focuses on STEM education, noted Florida’s increasingly cruddy SAT scores back in October when they were released — when everyone else was focused on the debate-of-the-day.
Cottle noted that Florida’s math scores for 4th graders were solid but that the SAT scores for graduating seniors were so bad, they suggested something was going awry for students before Florida schools sent them into the real world.
Cottle called the showing “a sad state of affairs.”
He’s right. Yet we’re getting precisely the educational environment and results that our culture-warring politicians are cultivating — an environment where trolls thrive, even if students don’t.
I just posted the Joe My God article on this. Here is the story in more detail. Hugs.
“Fearmongering has been Ken Paxton’s main tactic in enforcing these abortion bans,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Cox, said in a statement. “He is trying to bulldoze the legal system to make sure Kate and pregnant women like her continue to suffer.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday threatened to prosecute any doctors involved in providing an emergency abortion to a woman, hours after she won a court order allowing her to obtain one for medical necessity.
Paxton said in a letter that the order by District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin did not shield doctors from prosecution under all of Texas’s abortion laws, and that the woman, Kate Cox, had not shown she qualified for the medical exception to the state’s abortion ban.
Paxton said in a statement accompanying the letter that Guerra Gamble’s order “will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws.”
The letter was sent to three hospitals where Damla Karsan, the doctor who said she would provide the abortion to Cox, has admitting privileges.
“Fearmongering has been Ken Paxton’s main tactic in enforcing these abortion bans,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Cox, said in a statement. “He is trying to bulldoze the legal system to make sure Kate and pregnant women like her continue to suffer.”
Cox, 31, of the Dallas-Fort Worth area filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order preventing Texas from enforcing its near-total ban on abortion in her case, saying her continued pregnancy threatened her health and future fertility. Guerra Gamble said she was granting the order at a hearing Thursday morning.
Cox’s lawyers have said her lawsuit is the first such case since the U.S. Supreme Court last year allowed states to ban abortion.
Cox’s fetus was diagnosed on Nov. 27 with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or death soon after birth.
A few abortion rights demonstrators remain in the crowd after hours of public comments and discussion as Denton’s city council meets to vote on a resolution seeking to make enforcing Texas’ trigger law on abortion a low priority for its police force, in Denton, Texas, June 28, 2022. REUTERS/Shelby Tauber/File Photo
Cox, who is about 20 weeks pregnant, said in her lawsuit that she would need to undergo her third Caesarian section if she continues the pregnancy. That could jeopardize her ability to have more children, which she said she and her husband wanted.
“The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability, is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” said Guerra Gamble in Austin, Texas, state court, at Thursday’s hearing.
The judge’s ruling applies only to Cox, and does not expand abortion access more broadly.
Cox’s lawyer, Molly Duane of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told reporters on a call after the hearing that Guerra Gamble’s order allowed Cox to obtain the abortion. She declined to provide any details about Cox’s immediate plans, citing concerns for her and her doctors’ safety.
“I want to emphasize how unforgivable it is that Kate had to beg for healthcare in court,” Duane said. “No one should have to do this and the reality is 99 percent of people cannot.”
The state’s abortion ban includes only a narrow exception to save the mother’s life or prevent substantial impairment of a major bodily function. Cox said in her lawsuit that, although her doctors believed abortion was medically necessary for her, they were unwilling to perform one without a court order in the face of potential penalties including life in prison and loss of their licenses.
Johnathan Stone, a lawyer for the state, had said at Thursday’s hearing that Cox had not shown she qualified for the exception. He said showing that would require a more through hearing on evidence, rather than a temporary restraining order.
Cox’s husband, Justin Cox, and Dr. Karsan are also plaintiffs in the case.
Karsan is also one of 22 plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit seeking a broader order protecting Texas women’s right to abortions their doctors deem medically necessary, in which the state’s highest court heard arguments last week. The court has not ruled in that case.
Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Richard Chang and David Gregorio
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is considering legal action against a Wisconsin-based group calling for his resignation, he said last week.
“To think they’re going to continue to bully teachers is outrageous,” Walters said, referring to the Freedom from Religion Foundation. “The options we’re looking at are very wide, very broad. Could be legal memos. Could be lawsuits.”
Walters and the FFRF took turns calling each other bullies after the organization complained to Prague Public Schools about Christian prayers being including in the elementary building’s daily activities. The district agreed to discontinue the prayers.
Parents in Prague are upset after finding out that their kids have been going to Bible studies at school, given Bibles, and have had a morning prayer over the intercom the past couple of weeks at Prague Elementary School. “There are kids who are either getting picked on or bullied because they don’t believe these things and aren’t choosing to be a part of these bible studies,” said one parent, who wanted to remain anonymous.
“From how I understand it is that the kids went to the Guidance Counselor and the Counselor helped organize it and get it going but the kids had to lead it, it’s a loophole in the law.” The anonymous parent has four kids who go to Prague Elementary and said one came home with two Bibles and told her she was headed to school to learn about God. She also said that every morning over the intercom there was a morning prayer because all of the kids “wanted to do it,” according to school staff.
State Superintendent Ryan Walters took to social media voicing his opinion on the Prague Public School District’s decision to stop daily prayer broadcasts.
“We’re going to continue to fight for religious liberty and religious freedom here in the state of Oklahoma,” said Walters. The fallout comes after News 4 talked to parents upset their children had been going to Bible study and prayer was being done over the intercom, both actions the Freedom from Religion Foundation says are unconstitutional.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is calling for Walters to resign. The Prague School District released a statement stating its leadership “is dedicated to following the law and protecting the rights of every student to freely exercise his or her religion.”
Walters appeared here last month when he joined the Trump campaign to “stop the cancer of teachers unions.”
In August, Walters approved far-right PragerU’s climate change-denying, anti-LGBTQ, racist videos for use in Oklahoma public schools.
The FBI is currently investigating Walters’ department for misspending $1.7M in education funds on items such as “kitchen appliances, power tools, furniture, and entertainment.”
Walters has posted a ranting video in which he baselessly claimed that China is secretly funding Tulsa’s public schools. His claim was immediately denounced by Tulsa officials.
In June, Walters appeared here when he announced that Oklahoma’s public schools will soon have a mandatory daily prayer, the mandatory posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and a mandatory high school course in “Western civilization.”
In July, Walters declared that Oklahoma public school students will be taught that the infamous 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre was not inspired by racism.
Many expect Walters to run for governor when fellow Christian nationalist Gov. Kevin Stitt is term-limited out of office. He recently headlined at the Family Research Council’s annual far-right “Pray, Vote, Stand” summit.
In the video below, Walters rages that it’s “outrageous” for groups such as the FFRF to “weaponize lawsuits” against mandatory Christian indoctrination in public schools. Watch the clip.
OK Schools Chief says he will allow prayers to be read over loudspeakers in schools, and when the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional they “weaponized the govt against christianity. When they pulled prayer in schools in 1962, what we’ve seen is moral decay.” pic.twitter.com/DNy8yDnUlF
Oh I hated that stupid argument. The flip side of that was “Well, I’m straight, and I can’t just marry anyone that I want, and neither should you.” I would say that even my 8 year old niece understand marriage better than you.
They actually believe this country was based on christian religion, when the opposite is true, our forefathers wanted religion out of government completely.
The majority of those that stay have no other choices. They aren’t the brightest kids, they have been isolated all of their lives, they likely haven’t been educated even to the most minimal of standards but they can recite the bible. The mean ones are the smart ones that are groomed for leadership. They are taught that they a superior in every way, yet when they look upon what their elders say is their legacy they see a failing business model and must choose between the message of their faith and death by fire for their enemies; which would be us.
It was this way back in Pilgrim days. Mandatory. They’d come fetch you against your will if you failed to show up for your weekly brainwashing session.
It’s not his money at risk and it’ll get him elected governor. (This what Greg Abbott has done in Texas to try and get himself elected prez someday, I’m convinced of it.)
“We’re going to continue to fight for religious liberty and religious freedom here in the state of Oklahoma,” said Walters.
The freedom to coerce non-believers? To single out and stigmatise anyone who doesn’t go along with his denomination’s interpretation of whatever? I wonder if he keeps it up, will we see a drastic lowering of the grades of any student who doesn’t participate?
The freedom to sabotage a kid’s entire future because they / their parents don’t follow your dogma?
And in today’s Washington Post, there is a hearing in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether parents may “opt-out” of lessons for their children if the lessons are in any way related to LBGT issues.
So you know where this is going — parents have the right to exempt their kids from anything about LBGT issues, but have no right to exempt them from christian religious training.
You want prayer? Go to church. School is for education, not indoctrination. Every American has the right to go to church and pray. Every child has the right to education without superstition.
Isn’t it amazing how “religious zealots” squall like a baby when their ability to force their religious ideas upon others gets challenged!!! Walters is a perfect poster boy for the riddance in government of religious rethuglicans.
You know, I stand behind people believing what they want in this nation, but what is wrong with these Christians who can’t keep it to themselves? Why do they have to keep pushing their beliefs onto everyone else? They’re exhausting. Do what you want at home but this is a free country, NOT a Christian nation.
“Bully”? It is actually bullying to force kids to bow to your God, especially when there are probably non-Christians among the student body who should never be forced to worship someone they don’t believe in.
Republicans know they are unpopular with the majority, they know their policies they push for are not wanted by the majority. They are a minority that wants to rule, to force everyone to live as they dictate. So since they can not get the majority of votes, they try to stop others from voting. Yes how much love do they have for democracy if they only want their side to be able to vote? Also again it is fundmentlist Christians driving this, saying it is what god wants them to do blocking other people from their right o vote. One lady brag she alone filed over 500 challenges. And who pays for the time that state officals have to spend checking, the mail to the people regestered to vote, and all the rest? You and I , the tax payers. Hugs. Scottie
BY MICHAEL KAPLAN, SHEENA SAMU, MAJOR GARRETT
/ CBS NEWS
Voters eligible to cast ballots are already being swept up in a grassroots effort to purge the nation’s registration rolls ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a CBS News investigation has found.
Fueled by doubts about the 2020 election, an army of conservative activists is poring over state voter lists, looking for registration errors that can be used to file what are known as voter challenges — questioning the registrations of thousands of Americans.
The undertaking, which includes the involvement of a lawyer tied to former President Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, tends to affect minority or younger voters who may be statistically more likely to vote Democrat, according to local election officials.
“It’s young voters, it’s people of color, and it’s people that are unhoused,” said Karli Swift, chair of the election board in DeKalb County, Georgia. “Those are generally the types of people that end up in voter challenges.”
One of those hit with challenges was James McWhorter, who received a letter at the barbershop he manages in the middle of October from DeKalb County informing him that someone had challenged his voter status. The challenger, a woman named Gail Lee, argued McWhorter improperly registered to vote at a commercial address and snapped photos of his barbershop, which is located inside an Atlanta-area Kroger supermarket, as evidence.
“I didn’t know Gail Lee from a can of paint,” McWhorter told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett.
De Kalb County voter and barbershop owner James McWhorter talks with Major Garrett.CBS NEWS
Since the two had never met, there was no way for Lee to know that McWhorter had registered to vote at the shop’s address in 2008 because he was homeless at the time. A veteran of the Gulf War, he was still trying to get back on his feet after years of struggling with PTSD and alcoholism.
“My friends, my family never knew I was displaced, never knew I was homeless,” McWhorter said, adding he would return to the barbershop after it closed and sleep in his chair and wash his clothes at a24-hour laundromat nearby.
Nevertheless, the letter made it clear that McWhorter’s voter registration could be canceled if he didn’t take action.
“I had to put on my glasses just to make sure it said what it was saying,” said McWhorter, who is no longer homeless but has kept a mailing address for two decades at the shop he now manages. “I was taken aback. I really was. Why would someone challenge my vote?”
McWhorter, 55, is among the latest group of Georgia citizens targeted by an effort to purge the nation’s voter rolls ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Georgia became ground zero for the movement after Republicans in the state pushed through a law in 2021 allowing citizens to file an unlimited number of challenges against fellow voters within their own county. In the two years since the law passed, a CBS News investigation found more than 80,000 challenges have been filed against Georgia voters — many of them by a loose network of about a dozen conservative activists.
The movement is not limited to Georgia. CBS News obtained video and transcripts from 11 separate sessions this year in which activists are seen strategizing how best to deploy voter challenges across the country.
For example, public records reveal a local Republican Party activist in Virginia who attended a March strategy session, then filed a slate of 43 voter challenges in August, ahead of the November election. Activists have also recently filed challenges in Washington state and Michigan, where a public records request revealed a GOP official conducted a “field investigation,” going to dozens of homes to check if voters were registered to the correct address.
Conservative activist Gail Lee is interviewed by Major Garrett.CBS NEWS
In an interview, Lee said she’s filed about 500 challenges and says her work is a non-partisan effort to highlight and correct errors in the voter roll. She said she believes those inaccuracies may present an opportunity for fraud, enabling someone to cast a ballot who isn’t legally able to vote.
CBS News’ analysis found across Georgia at least 12,000 challenges – about 15%– have been upheld and resulted in the removal of voters from the rolls, but local election officials say the challenges identify administrative errors and technical violations, not evidence of fraud.
“I think that unfortunately many members of our community have taken misinformation to heart and they truly believe there is fraud in the system, which is just not true,” Swift said, adding the issues the challenges are identifying shouldn’t deprive someone of their right to vote.
Swift said her staff has spent hundreds of hours dealing with challenges she says are meritless. In Georgia, counties are required to attempt to contact challenged voters in advance of an administration hearing that will determine whether they are removed from the rolls.
File: Karli Swift, chair of the election board in DeKalb County, Georgia.
Despite the tens of thousands of challenges across Georgia, it’s rare for someone who is challenged to actually appear at the hearing to defend his or her registration. CBS News attended a recent hearing in Forsyth County where none of the 236 voters who had their registrations challenged showed up.
The Republican-leaning election board voted to uphold 135 of the challenges, canceling the registrations of individuals who are likely unaware they’re being struck from the rolls. On Election Day, removed voters may still cast a provisional ballot, and these votes would only count if the removed voters prove their eligibility to the county within three days.
“Trying to put your foot on someone else’s neck”
McWhorter said he did not realize the letter gave him the option of resolving his voter status over email, and believed he needed to attend his hearing. Last month, he arrived at the county election office ready to defend his right to vote and found himself face to face with Lee.
“For you to challenge me, you have that right as a citizen of DeKalb County, but I served [in the military] to give you that right,” McWhorter told Lee. “I paid taxes here for 20 years, even though I was homeless.”
After the hearing, McWhorter updated his address, but said he believed Lee had been trying to disenfranchise him.
“It was hurtful that she would do something like that,” McWhorter said. “You’re trying to put your foot on someone else’s neck.”
Responding to that claim, Lee said the challenge to McWhorter’s registration was “not exactly a heavy foot,” since all he had to do was contact the election office to update his address.
Asked whether she could see how Black voters like McWhorter might feel threatened by her work, Lee, who is white, denied race played a role.
“I would think they would want their vote protected too, because someone who doesn’t belong on the rolls would take away their vote,” she said.
While McWhorter acknowledged Lee is exercising her right under the law, he believes her motives were malicious.
“What God wants me to do”
Lee said she decided to become more politically active after former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, a race she still believes Trump won. Convinced that rigged voting machines and bloated voter rolls helped deliver Mr. Biden the presidency — though officials found no such evidence — she attended an election integrity conference in Atlanta last year.
According to Lee, a nonprofit called the Conservative Partnership Institute participated in the conference. The group’s staffers include former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, who spoke at the conference’s luncheon, and GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who aided Trump’s effort to overturn the election in Georgia. (Trump, Meadows and more than a dozen others are now facing criminal charges for their efforts.The former president, his White House chief of staff and most of the other co-defendants have pleaded not guilty, though four have reached plea deals.)
Eager to find a way to volunteer, Lee says she began filing challenges after a chance encounter during a bathroom break at the conference with a woman who was doing similar work in another Atlanta-area county.
“The woman who spoke from Gwinnett was there …and I said, ‘I’m interested in the voter rolls,'” Lee said. “She emailed me back a list of people in DeKalb County, and I began investigating the addresses.”
Now Lee is one of scores of volunteers who scours the rolls, looking for voters registered at P.O. boxes, those who appear in the rolls multiple times, or those who list birthdays so old that the voter may be deceased. She then compiles a dossier on each challenged voter and sends it to the county election board.
“I believe it’s what God wants me to do,” Lee said. “He knows what’s right and what’s wrong and there’s things that need to be fixed in the voter rolls.”
These are all tasks that are already handled by Georgia election officials, said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican whose office is charged with maintaining the state’s voter rolls.
Raffensperger told CBS News the assumption that the system is riddled with fraud is not valid. He said his office, unlike citizen challengers, typically has access to driver’s license and Social Security data that is more up to date.
“We have objective voter rolls,” said Raffensperger. “They’re clean, they’re accurate. We’re doing voter list maintenance every month.”
“They’re registering homeless folks there”
One of the people driving the push for grassroots activists to scrub voter rolls is a medical entrepreneur named John “Rick” Richards, who promotes a new software product that he described as a “Betty Crocker cookbook approach” that would expedite the challenge process.
Richards helped organize online video demonstrations throughout the spring and summer to train activists, including Lee, who attended one in June. In all, hundreds of volunteers nationwide have listened to how they could soon use the software, called EagleAI NETwork, to scan publicly available databases to identify “irregularities” with voter registrations and flag them to county officials.
The existence of EagleAI was first reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. In company pitch documents CBS News obtained through a public records request, Richards billed the product as “Voter Integrity Software” that will “enable citizens to audit, validate and offer suggestions to improve the integrity of their state’s voter roster.”
Richards declined an interview, but in a statement said EagleAI “only presents data” to county officials who ultimately decide whether to remove voters, and that its users are “volunteering to provide assistance to county election officials.” On Friday, Columbia County, outside of Augusta, Georgia, which is heavily Republican, became the first local government in the country to adopt the software to help maintain its voter rolls.
Some of the Eagle AI video sessions, including the one Lee attended, were hosted by Mitchell, who, since the 2020 election has been leading a growing network of conservative activists that claims to be investigating theories and uncovering what they believe is proof of fraud in the administration of U.S. elections. Dozens of investigations into the 2020 election have failed to turn up any evidence of fraud, including in Georgia where three recounts confirmed Trump’s loss.
Mitchell also declined an interview, but in a series of emails refuted the characterization that those in her organization are “election deniers,” She described them as “patriots … who woke up after 2020 and realized what had happened to their election systems and are doing their best to work hard to remedy various aspects of the problems.”
The video sessions obtained by CBS News raise questions about who exactly the software and its users are targeting. In one session in March, Richards demonstrated how the software can accelerate a mass challenge against homeless voters registering at a church.
“It’s a Presbyterian church,” Richards explained in the video, which was provided to CBS News by the progressive watchdog group Documented and independently verified. “They have an outreach mission. They’re registering homeless folks there. Of course, nobody knows whether they’re actually voting or not. So that’s an issue.”
Richards told the audience of volunteers that it might normally take a long time to file a challenge report on 2,224 people. But not with his software, he said.
“All I gotta do is hit that button right there and it brings them all up,” he said. “And I hit this button right here, and it creates all those challenge forms at one time.”
Challenged over typos
CBS News found other instances of challenges that led eligible voters to have their right to vote questioned. Two days after he left the hospital following surgery for colon cancer, Christopher Ramsey received a letter from Fulton County alerting him his voter registration had been challenged due to a typo in his address, which Ramsey had previously tried to correct. Despite a compromised immune system and a warning from his doctor, Ramsey drove 30 miles to the county’s election board office and waited hours to defend his right to vote.
“I felt firmly that I have my right to vote, and I was going to defend it,” Ramsey, a former kindergarten teacher, told CBS News.
Ramsey said he was one of 4,000 voters challenged that day, but only a few dozen showed up to defend themselves.
“This made me lose confidence in their system,” said Ramsey, who first shared his story with ProPublica. “What about all the people who couldn’t show up for themselves?”
Lakendra Graham was also challenged for registering at an invalid address. Graham’s address changed in 2019, after Atlanta renamed a number of streets that previously honored the Confederacy. Ms. Graham had lived on Confederate Court, before the city changed it to Trestletree Court.
“It was on the news that the street names changed, so that’s something small you could have looked at to see I’m still there,” said Graham at a Fulton County hearing last March. “Nothing’s changed, my information hasn’t changed.”
This past June, Courtney Scott had to wait more than four hours to testify before the board of elections after she was challenged over a clerical error in her street name. Scott lives on Azalee Hester Wharton Way NW, but the voter roll her challenger found was missing “Hester” in the address.
“I couldn’t believe I could lose my voting rights that easily,” Scott told CBS News. “If I was charged with anything, the burden of proof should be on them, but the burden was on me, by a letter, to be able to vote.”
A federal court in Georgia is currently hearing a lawsuit over the legality of mass voter challenges and whether the practice amounts to voter intimidation, and Raffenperger said he’s looking to the outcome for guidance.
“I think that we’ll have to take a look at what the remedy will be from the court system,” said Raffensperger, adding that he did not believe the practice disenfranchises voters in Georgia. “It’s never been easier to vote. We are, we believe, the model for what election integrity and election accessibility should look like throughout the entire country.”
Since having his vote challenged, McWhorter said he has decided to be more politically active. The master barber said that will start with a simple message for his customers: “Go vote.”
These people want the right to adopt LGBTQIA kids, then force them to be straight cis kids. This is not about finding homes for these kids, or they would support same-sex couples and single people fostering kids, especially LGBTQIA kids who would enjoy being in a home with people like themselves. Nope, this is about trying to change the kids, to put them through conversion therapy, or find other ways to stop their development as the person who they are. How can these people be so backwards and regressive in 2023? Again as I said before, if they want to live in the past, OK. Just don’t demand everyone live that way also. Be like the Amish or Mennonites. Oh and did you all hear about the republican GOP leader and his wife who was the co-founder of Mom’s for Liberty? Seems the very people attacking gay kids and insisting on straight cis family values were having three ways with another woman. Yes, the co-founder of the group trying to erase gay people from society was having lesbian sex and her husband who pushed the idea of one man / one woman marriage only sex was into 3 way sex with two women. Hugs
Quote from the article, again ask your self why these highly religious anti-LGBTQIA people are demanding the right to foster kids who are LGBTQIA!
But the attorneys general do not believe this is enough. Their letter argues the proposal violates freedom of religion because those unwilling to support LGBTQ foster children “would be excluded from providing care to as many as one-third of foster children ages 12-21.”
Missouri’s child welfare agency already offers guidance to foster care providers asking them to use a child’s ‘preferred name and pronouns’ and provide ‘physically and emotionally safe and supportive care and resources regardless of one’s personal attitudes and beliefs’
A qualifying foster parent under the proposed federal rule would need to be educated on the needs of the child’s sexuality or gender identity and, if the child wishes, “facilitate the child’s access to age-appropriate resources, services, and activities that support their health and well-being” (photo illustration by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder).
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey this week joined with 18 other states to oppose a proposed federal rule that aims to protect LGBTQ youth in foster care and provide them with necessary services.
The attorneys general argue in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that the proposed rule — which requires states to provide safe and appropriate placements with providers who are appropriately trained about the child’s sexual orientation or gender identity — amounts to religion-based discrimination and violates freedom of speech.
“As a foster parent myself,” Bailey said in a news release Tuesday, “I am deeply invested in protecting children and putting their best interests first.”
“Biden’s proposed rule does exactly the opposite by enacting policies meant to exclude people with deeply held religious beliefs from being foster parents.”
The rule is part of a package of federal proposals on foster care and is an extension of the Biden administration’s broader push to protect LGBTQ kids in foster care.
“Because of family rejection and abuse,” the Biden administration said in a September press release, LGBTQ children are “overrepresented in foster care where they face poor outcomes, including mistreatment and discrimination because of who they are.”
State agencies would be required under the rule to provide safe and appropriate foster care placements for those who are “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex,” along with children who are “non-binary or have non-conforming gender identity or expression.”
A qualifying foster parent would need to be educated on the needs of the child’s sexuality or gender identity and, if the child wishes, “facilitate the child’s access to age-appropriate resources, services, and activities that support their health and well-being.”
An example of a safe and appropriate placement is one where a provider is “expected to utilize the child’s identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner,” according to the proposal, “that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression.”
The attorneys general characterize that as “forcing an individual to use another’s preferred pronouns by government fiat,” in violation of the First Amendment.
Robert Fischer, director of communications for Missouri LGBTQ advocacy organization PROMO, said the freedom of religion “doesn’t give any person the right to impose those beliefs on others, particularly to discriminate.”
“Any state official who claims to put ‘children’s interests first’ and in the same breath is willing to risk their well-being and opportunity to thrive in the name of religion — I think that speaks for itself,” Fischer told The Independent.
The rule prohibits retaliation against children who identify as LGBTQ or are perceived as LGBTQ.
Public agencies would need to notify children about the option to request foster homes identified as “safe and appropriate” and tell them how to report concerns about their placement.
Agencies would also have to go through extra steps before placing transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming children in group care settings that are divided by sex.
The “majority” of states, according to the proposed rule, would have to “expand their efforts” to recruit and identify providers who could meet the needs of LGBTQ children.
Missouri guidelines
Laws and policies for protecting LGBTQ youth in foster care — relating to kids’ rights, supports, placement considerations, caregiver qualifications and definitions — currently vary by state.
According to a federal report published in January, which reviewed states’ laws and policies, Missouri does not have laws or policies explicitly addressing any of those five categories.
Most states — 39 states and Washington, D.C. — have “explicit protections from harassment or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression,” according to a federal report, as of January. Missouri is not one of them.
Twenty-two states and D.C. as of January, require agencies to provide tailored services and supports to LGBTQ youth, and eight states and D.C. offer case management and facilitate access to “gender-affirming medical, mental health and social services.”
Children’s Division, the agency within the Missouri Department of Social Services that oversees foster care, offers guidance on their website for providers and child welfare staff in “supporting LGBTQ youth in foster care,” but still does not appear to have official policy on the issue.
A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Social Services did not respond to a request for comment.
Those guidelines include using the child’s “preferred name and pronouns,” along with establishing a supportive environment and providing “physically and emotionally safe and supportive care and resources regardless of one’s personal attitudes and beliefs.”
The Department of Social Services is part of the administration of Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, and the guidelines were in place the entire time Bailey was serving as Parson’s general counsel — the second highest ranking job in the governor’s office.
Asked whether he raised any objections to the guidelines during his tenure with Parson, Bailey’s spokesperson said he “had no involvement in crafting [the Department of Social Services’] ‘best practices’ as general counsel.”
AG arguments
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks Jan. 20 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).
The 19 attorneys general contend the federal rule would “remove faith-based providers from the foster care system” because of their “religious beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity.”
They cite Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled a public agency couldn’t force private, religious foster agencies to allow same-sex foster parents.
The proposed rule itself also acknowledges the Supreme Court case and alleges that by not requiring religious foster-care providers to welcome LGBTQ children, it is complying with the court’s precedent.
But the attorneys general do not believe this is enough. Their letter argues the proposal violates freedom of religion because those unwilling to support LGBTQ foster children “would be excluded from providing care to as many as one-third of foster children ages 12-21.”
“In addition to discriminating against religion, the proposed rule will harm children by limiting the number of available foster homes, harm families by risking kinship placements, and harm states by increasing costs and decreasing care options,” the letter says.
The rule would “discourage individuals and organizations of faith from joining or continuing in foster care,” the attorneys general argue, and “reduce family setting options.” Without faith-based foster parents, the attorneys general say, children would be more likely to be placed in congregate settings.
They also say the rule could disqualify family members who volunteer as placement, or kinship care, if the family member does not agree to support the child’s sexuality or gender identity with age-appropriate resources, as the rule entails.
