Category: Police / Law Enforcement / ICE
Tennessee Anti-Gay Marriage Bill Dead For Session
Please understand what this bill is about. Bigotry! Anti-same sex marriage. It is the religious right wingers thinking that the icky gays stink up their straight marriages by being able to get married the same way they do. What next separate roads or drinking fountains? Every horrible apoptotic thing the religious right claimed would happen if the gays could get married has not happened, and they cannot stand it. They don’t want to share a doorway or hotel with those people. Let’s make a way the straight good holy people can get married, and we will deny that to the awful gays. Fear them, fear the gays people they are coming for marriage and equal rights. That must not be tolerated. What next, they will have children and be recognized families. No no we will make laws saying that to mention them in schools is illegal. They cannot be allowed to use the same stores and shops we do. We will erase them from the language and then they will disappear never to bother our sleepless nights again. This sounds silly doesn’t it. Yet it is happening in red states with Republican leaders and legislatures.
The Tennessean reports:
A Tennessee General Assembly bill to create a legal marriage pathway available only to straight couples will not advance this year following public outcry over the initial version of the legislation.
After a tough line of questions from Republican colleagues last week, sponsor Rep. Tom Leatherwood on Wednesday said he wanted to send the bill to summer study. The move essentially kills the bill for the session, though it could re-emerge next year.
The bill aimed to create an alternate legal pathway to marriage, allowing opposite-sex couples to file marriage “contracts” based on common law principles that have not yet been legally recognized in Tennessee. The contracts would not be available to same-sex couples.
Read the full article.
Leatherwood’s bill was backed by the Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT), which has appeared on JMG many times over the years for its attempts to outlaw same-sex marriage.
SPECIAL RIGHTS!
Old enough to remember when that label was used against the LGBTQ+ community.
Now, the homophobes “feel” they’re the ones that require special Rights.
Ragnar_Lothbrok Max_1 • 3 hours ago
Posted just 2 hours ago
“Back in the day everyone knew who the homosexuals and others were and just live and let live and as long as they didn’t bother anyone but now we get attacked and called names if they do get what they want. It’s like they’re something special so they need to be treated better and demand they get what they want. Why all the grief over three percent of the population. Why the demand that we have to agree with what they want but they won’t accept how everyone else wants to live or believe.”
-Farmer chat
Ninja0980 Ragnar_Lothbrok • 2 hours ago
Live and let live other then beating us, killing us and ensuring we had no equal rights under the law.
Max_1 Ragnar_Lothbrok • 3 hours ago
Yes… Separate but equal… except it’s not equal.
The homophobes have always depended on that balance of basic Rights being refused the LGBTQ+ community as evidence to support their views against the LGBTQ+ community. It’s a reinforced bias against us. Now that bias has been removed, watch their ways to reclaiming it…
Let’s talk about the Air Force sending a message….
Trump: I Told Bill Barr To Get Himself Impeached
Mediaiate has the transcript:
Look, we also had a chance, but Bill Barr, the attorney general, didn’t want to be impeached. They were vicious with him. They said, “We’re gonna impeach him.” They didn’t even know why. But they were gonna impeach Bill Barr. He didn’t want to be impeached.
How do you not to get impeached? You sit back and relax and wait out for your term to end. That’s what he did. And it was a sad thing and a sad day for our country. Then he writes a crummy book, which was so false. But you know what? Had Bill Barr had the courage, a lot of this could’ve been taken care of.
The U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia said Bill Barr told him not to investigate the fraud in the elections, and he said “Don’t do it.” And he wrote a letter to that effect and you know, had Bill Barr had the courage to do what he should’ve done instead of being worried about being impeached.
I said, “Look, get impeached. I went up a lot in the polls when I got impeached. You have to get impeached, maybe.” But he was so afraid of being impeached that he refused to do his job.
Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: April 12
Mark Meadows removed from NC voter roll amid election fraud investigation
Again with voter fraud it is the Republicans doing it. This was tRump’s chief of staff.
Mark Meadows has been removed from North Carolina’s voter rolls, a move made as the State Bureau of Investigation continues a probe into allegations the former White House Chief of Staff committed election fraud.
Macon County Board of Elections Director Melanie Thibault confirmed April 12 that she had removed Meadows the prior day from the county’s active voter list.
Thibault said she consulted N.C. Board of Elections staff in Raleigh after finding records that Meadows was registered both in Virginia and North Carolina.
“What I found was that he was also registered in the state of Virginia. And he voted in a 2021 election. The last election he voted in Macon County was in 2020,” she said.
The state law under which he was removed was General Statute 163-57, which says, “if a person goes into another state, county, municipality, precinct, ward, or other election district, or into the District of Columbia, and while there exercises the right of a citizen by voting in an election, that person shall be considered to have lost residence in that State, county, municipality, precinct, ward, or other election district from which that person removed.”
Meadows spokesperson Ben Williamson did not respond to a request for comment.
Meadows, an ex-Asheville and Western North Carolina congressman, former top staffer for President Donald Trump and a leading proponent of the false claim that Trump lost the election due to widespread fraud, has not commented on the allegations since news broke in March that he registered to vote at a single-wide mobile home in Macon County where there is no evidence he ever lived. Meadows voted absentee using that address in the 2020 general election.
SBI spokesperson Anjanette Grube did not immediately respond to a message asking if the change in registration had any significance to the investigation.
Thibault said Virginia records show that when Meadows registered in that state he did not include information about his Macon County registration. Because of that, Virginia election officials did not notify N.C. officials about the double registration, she said.
It is a normal practice to remove voters such a way, Thibault said.
The registration of Meadows’ wife Debra remains active for the Scaly Mountain address, which neither she nor her husband ever owned.
News first broke of the unlikely voter address with March 6 New Yorker story that cited interviews with neighbors, the owner and former owner who said Debra Meadows rented the home and stayed there a few nights but Mark Meadows was never seen there.
Macon County Republican voters interviewed by the Citizen Times expressed skepticism a powerful member of the president’s staff lived in the small home with a rusted roof.
An N.C. woman who said she was prosecuted for mistakenly voting while on probation, meanwhile, called for Meadows to face a similar fate.
On March 17, the SBI announced its investigation. That followed a letter from District Attorney Ashley Hornsby-Welch — whose responsibilities include Macon County — to the N.C. Department of Justice recusing herself from the matter because of a campaign contribution she received from Meadows.
More recently, Meadows, a top member of the Conservative Partnership Institute, has stopped speaking at CPI-sponsored statewide Election Integrity Summits. The summits show how to organize “citizen election integrity task forces” to check on people’s voter records to ensure they live where they have registered.
Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He’s written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Got a tip? Contact Burgess at jburgess@citizentimes.com, 828-713-1095 or on Twitter @AVLreporter. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
Small Acts Of Civic Resistance From Russians Are Important: McFaul
Two Men From Florida’s The Villages To Get Off With Community Service After Admitting Felony Voter Fraud
The Orlando Sentinel reports:
Two residents from The Villages confessed to voter fraud charges after filing two ballots in the 2020 Presidential election, court records show. Charles F. Barnes and Jay Ketcik pleaded guilty to casting more than one ballot in an election, a third-degree felony that could have resulted in a maximum five-year prison sentence.
According to the pre-trial intervention documents, the prosecution of Barnes, 64, and Ketcik, 63, will be deferred if they abide by a series of court-ordered requirements set by the office of Ocala-based State Attorney Bill Gladson.
Court records show the men will avoid further punishment if they regularly meet with a supervising officer, complete 50 hours of community service and attend a 12-week adult civics class, among a handful of other requirements.
Click Orlando reports:
Barnes and Ketcik are among four residents of The Villages who were accused of casting multiple ballots in both Florida and their original home states during the 2020 election.
All four faced a maximum of five years in prison if a jury convicted them of the third-degree felony. Joan Halstead, 71, and John Rider, 61, are still awaiting trial for allegedly casting multiple ballots, court records show. Both have pleaded not guilty.
I am sorry but I don’t understand the light punishments. After all Governor DeathSantis has created his own election police with taxpayer money to go after people who do this. Oh all the people from the Villages that have been charged with voter fraud are Republicans that voted for tRump. Sorry for asking, now I understand.
Crystal Mason wanted to vote but wasn’t sure she could (she was on parole). So, the people manning the voter registration desk told her she could cast a provisional ballot.
She did as instructed by those in charge.
Later, a judge threw her in jail for FIVE years for voting illegally.
Crystal…to the surprise of no one…is black.
But white people knowingly voting illegally?
Slaps on wrists.
This is so enraging.
And her case wasn’t voter fraud. It was mistakenly voting (by provisional ballot [edit] as instructed by election officials) while ineligible, on supervised release.
Compare and contrast with Bruce Bartman, different state, different laws and sentencing guidelines, who knowingly registered his dead mother to vote, and cast an absentee ballot for her for Trump, and only got probation.
A travesty of justice.
Tread Ross • 2 hours ago • edited
Pamela Moses was sentenced to six years for registering to vote.
The Guardian did a series about these miscarriages of justice to try and get these women exonerated. It’s too bad our American media doesn’t do this anymore.
Lawsuit: Tennessee Ex-Cop “Forcibly Baptized” Woman After Pulling Her Over To Search For Drugs [VIDEO]
The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports:
A U.S. District Court judge gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit against a former Hamilton County deputy accused of baptizing a woman against her will after a 2019 traffic stop. In addition to ruling that the suit against Daniel Wilkey, 28, may proceed, Tennessee Eastern District Court Judge Travis R. McDonough ruled that several aspects of the complaint against former deputy Jacob Goforth could not continue. Wilkey allegedly called Goforth to witness the baptism and Goforth recorded the incident on his cellphone.
On Feb. 6, 2019, shortly after 9 p.m. Wilkey stopped the woman who was driving through the Soddy-Daisy area. After Wilkey asked her what she had in her car, the woman admitted to having a marijuana cigarette in her pack. Wilkey instructed her to exit her car and he searched her twice. The woman claims Wilkey inappropriately touched her crotch, where he found a “marijuana roach.” Wilkey told the woman that if she allowed him to baptize her, he would let her go with just a citation.
Read the full article.
Wilkey faces multiple other lawsuits, including for allegedly groping female minors and for using excessive force. The 2020 video below details the many other charges against him.
