Category: Political / Governments / Nations / Countries /

Burning ballots pulled from inside smoking Vancouver ballot box; hundreds likely damaged

https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/vancouver-ballot-box-seen-smoking-same-morning-as-portland-ballot-box-arson

Republicans really hate people voting.  They know they are unpopular and they know the more votes the more democrats win.   So this is 1930s Germany brownshirt stuff, this is gang thug rule that the maga want.  We need to understand what these people really are.   In their world might makes right.  In their world the most violent person wins.  They grew up idolizing Rambo type movies.  They are stunted child school yard bullies.  Hugs.  

 A Vancouver ballot box was burned in an arson Monday morning, authorities report – with possibly hundreds of ballots damaged in the fire.

KATU was on the scene at Fisher’s Landing Transit Center in Vancouver shortly after 4 a.m., where heavy smoke was seen coming from inside a dropoff ballot box.

Our photographer Evan Bell captured grey smoke steadily billowing out of the Park and Ride ballot box at Fisher’s Landing Transit Center near Southeast 162nd Avenue just after 6 a.m.

Multiple police units were in the area, and the ballot box was cordoned off by police tape as it continued to smoke.

 

Around 6:30 a.m., KATU captured footage of first responders releasing a pile of actively burning ballots onto the ground, which continued to smolder and smoke heavily even after the flames were put out.

The Clark County elections auditor told us that the last ballot pickup at that location was 8 a.m. Sunday. Hundreds of ballots were inside at the time of the burning, and KATU was told there were maybe only a few that could be saved.

Voters who dropped off ballots at that location after 11 a.m. Saturday need to contact the Election Auditor’s Office IMMEDIATELY for a new ballot.

A link to the Clark County Elections page, with contact information for the Auditor’s Office, can be found HERE.

Vancouver Police released the following statement at 9 a.m.:

This morning at about 4:00 a.m., Vancouver Police responded to an arson at a ballot box located at 3510 SE 164th Ave. It was reported that the ballot box was smoking and on fire. Officers arrived and located a suspicious device next to the box. The ballot box was smoking and was on fire. Members of the Metro Explosive Disposal Unit (MEDU) arrived and safely collected the device, and the fire was extinguished. Detectives from the Vancouver Police Arson team and the Vancouver Fire Marshals also responded.

The FBI is continuing the investigation of this incident.

Just a few hours earlier, Portland police had responded to an arson at a SE Portland ballot box.

READ MORE:Incendiary device set off inside SE Portland ballot box, causing fire

Investigators say that an incendiary device was set off inside the box, causing a fire.

The fire was extinguished and the device was cleared, and the PPB is investigating the incident. The status of the ballots in the burned box has not been provided.

Peace & Justice History for 10/28:

Things it’s important we remember, and things to Never Forget.

October 28, since 304
Catholics celebrate the feast of St. Fidelis of Como.  According to one legend, Fidelis deserted the Roman Army’s Theban Legion during Emperor Maximian’s persecution of Christians.  In another legend, he was assigned to guard Christian prisoners at Milan and secured freedom for five of them.
October 28, 1818
Abigail Adams, former First Lady of the United States, died. 
Many of her ideas, documented in her correspondance with her husband, John (later elected president), influenced the government of the United States.  She was politically active to the point where opponents referred to her as “Mrs. President” [see March 31, 1776]
Abigail Adams
More about Abigail Adams 
October 28, 1886

The Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, is dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland.
Originally known as “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the statue was proposed by the French historian Edouard de Laboulaye to commemorate the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution. Designed by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the 151-foot statue was the form of a woman with an uplifted arm holding a torch.
In 1903, a bronze plaque mounted inside the pedestal’s lower level was inscribed with “The New Colossus,”a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus that welcomed immigrants to the United States with the declaration,“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. / I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” 
Read more 
October 28, since 1940
In Greece, Ohi Day (meaning Day of No) marks the refusal of Greece to submit to the Axis Powers.
October 28, 1950

Birth of Sihem Bensedrine, Tunisian human rights activist and journalist.  In 2008, she was awarded the Danish Peace Fund Prize for her commitment to democracy and the rule of law in the Arab world.
About Sinem Bensefrine  
October 28, 1962
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces the removal of Soviet missle bases in Cuba, ending the Cuban Missile Crisis.
October 28, 1984

Sandinista Daniel Ortega won the general election for president of Nicaragua, and later attempted to make peace with the United States. 
The United States replied by continuing to support the Contras.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october28

More rat fucking from the republicans.

DeSantis Spends Opioid Settlement On Anti-Weed Ads
California Cultist Fired After Boasting About Voter Fraud
Graham Rages Over Trump Being Called A Fascist
Musk: Put Licenses Of Major Networks Up For Auction
RFK To FDA Officials: “Pack Your Bags” Because I Will Undo Everything You’ve Done To Protect Public Health
Vance Applauds Cultist’s Vulgar Abuse Of Poll Workers
Cultist Group Already Planning Lawsuits In Swing States
Axios: GOP Steps Up Attacks On Overseas Voting
WaPo Editor: Bezos Struck Backroom Deal With Trump
Vance Defends Trump’s “Enemy From Within” Claims
“Constitutional Sheriffs” Train Militia To Disrupt Election
Wisconsin Republican PAC Spends Big Backing Jill Stein
Trump Refused Disaster Aid For Blue State WA In 2020
Trump’s MSG Rally: Racist, Vulgar, Antisemitic, Cruel
Voldemort At MSG: “America Is For Americans Only”

Judge Declines to Fix DMV Error Disenfranchising 11,000 South Carolina Teens

Judge Declines to Fix DMV Error Disenfranchising 11,000 South Carolina Teens

Between 11,000 and 17,000 young voters will not be able to vote due to this … deliberate mistake.  Why?  Because the majority of young people vote democratic, which means in this election would vote for Harris.  The right wing older people couldn’t have that despite the law clearly saying they should have been registered and now be allowed to vote.  But because the right is afraid of who they will vote for they will deny these people their vote / their say.   That is how the right needs to act to win, the republicans know they are unpopular, and they don’t want to serve but they demand to rule.  So they stop the people against them from voting because they do not believe in democracy but in dictatorship, as long as they can be the dictators.  Hugs.  

By Kaei Li, Crystal Hill

Share on Twitter

The South Carolina flag flies outside city hall in North Charleston, S.C., Aug. 12, 2011. The state will hold runoff elections on Tuesday, June 25, 2024, to decide a handful of races where no candidate received a vote majority in the primary held just two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith, File)
 

A judge declined to order South Carolina’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and State Election Commission (SEC) to register thousands of young voters whose registrations were mistakenly denied because they were not yet 18 when they registered but would be by Election Day. These voters will not be allowed to cast a ballot this November.

The Richland County judge called the requested relief “too drastic” and said it would “create disorder in the voting system.”

The court held a hearing Friday after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South Carolina filed a lawsuit asking that the voters be registered despite the state’s voter registration deadline having passed. 

South Carolina law allows 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the next election, and otherwise eligible, to register to vote. For the past 13 months, when a 17-year-old applied for a driver’s license or state ID and marked that they would like to register, the DMV’s system did not transmit their voter registration application to the SEC. As a result, approximately 17,000 young voters were not registered to vote despite indicating a desire to do so. These voters were also not notified that their registrations had been rejected.

The DMV has been working to identify the impacted voters. So far, 6,000 were able to register through other means and the names of the remaining 11,000 were sent to the SEC for processing. The SEC has thus far refused to register those 11,000 voters. 

“Although thousands of these individuals were eligible to register to vote, were entitled to easily register through their [DMV] transaction, timely provided state officials with the information necessary to register, and indicated a desire to do so, SEC is unwilling to add them to the voter rolls or otherwise protect their fundamental right to cast a ballot in the 2024 general election,” the complaint read.

The ACLU asked the court to suspend the voter registration deadline, direct the DMV to identify all impacted voters and order the SEC to add those voters to the rolls. They also asked for every impacted voter to be notified of their registration status.

Read the order here.

 

Last update, Oct. 22

Civil rights advocates are suing the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles and the state Election Commission for allegedly preventing thousands of  17-year-olds who will be 18 by Election Day from registering to vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina said Tuesday that over the past year, the DMV has “unlawfully denied voter registration opportunities to over 17,000 young South Carolinians who were entitled to register to vote under” state law. Democracy Docket reached out to the DMV for comment. 

The lawsuit references a statute that says a person who isn’t 18 by the time registration ends but “attains that age before the next ensuing election” and wants to register is “otherwise qualified.” In other words, a South Carolinian can register at 17, before they reach the lawful voting-age, if they will be eligible by the time the election actually happens.

“Therefore, individuals who turn 18 between January 4, 2024 (close of books for the first primary), and November 5, 2024 (Election Day), were eligible to register to vote … starting 120 days before January 4, 2024, which is September 6, 2023,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit alleges the DMV wrongfully denied those 17-year-old registrants, and says South Carolina’s DMV “will not provide, process, or transmit voter registration applications for anyone under the age of 18.” The ACLU also says the people who were rejected weren’t provided with written notification of the rejection, which is required by law. 

The lawsuit says recently the DMV has been working to identify teens who registered between Sept. 5, 2023 and Oct. 14. A list of around 17,000 individuals was sent to the South Carolina Elections Commission (SEC), which determined that roughly 6,000 were able to successfully register to vote by other means. The DMV is now working on reviewing the remaining 11,000 registration forms to determine which individuals tried to register.

But the ACLU is seeking a more efficient solution, according to the lawsuit, and wants the SEC to give all of the affected individuals a chance to register.

“We appreciate SCDMV’s candor and the agency’s willingness to identify the affected voters,” Allen Chaney, legal director of the ACLU of South Carolina, said in a statement. “I am hopeful that the court will order the Election Commission to add these thousands of young, first-time voters to the voter rolls so that they can cast a ballot on Election Day.”

The nonprofit is asking a court to order the DMV to send a list of the impacted teens to the SEC by Thursday, and wants the SEC to notify those individuals and let them know they’re entitled to complete their voter registration application by Friday. This would allow the eligible registrants to be able to vote on Nov. 5.

Democracy Docket reached out to the SEC for comment.

Read the lawsuit here.

Read more about the case here.

Normally I try to only put these out on Friday. But the election is too close and far too important. So here are a bunch of political memes / cartoons. Please use and share all you wish to. Hugs

 

On February 20, 1939, American Nazis filled Madison Square Garden for a rally.

This Sunday, Trump and his supporters will fill Madison Square Garden for a rally.

I can’t fucking believe that we’re here again.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden

 

They walk among us and they vote

These took several days to wade through.  I admit I do it not only for the news but for the memes in the comment sections which are pure gold.  But just reading the headlines and blurbs can give you a great idea of how really dangerous and disastrous the right / republicans are.   Fox is a totally unhinged media arm of cult tRump.   The rest of the right wing media is desperate for their cult ideas of ruling people and having control of their private lives, sexual expressions, and how people simply exist.  Please look these over and read the ones that interest you.   This shit is serious and real and we have few days left before a direction is chosen for this country.   Also notice that why the right claims that crime is up and people are terrified to step outside their homes, crime is way down.  Hugs

Freedom Caucus Chairman Calls For Allocating All Of North Carolina’s Electors To Trump Ahead Of Election

Raikin, you may know, is a far-right extremist.

Harris appeared here in June 2021 when he attempted to bring a loaded and concealed handgun onto the House floor. He then denounced calls for his resignation as “cancel culture.”

In October 2021 he had to be physically separated from Democratic Rep. Collin Allred after an argument over the certification of the 2020 election, which Harris had voted against.

Newsmax: Revoke Medals From Trump’s Generals
Texas Town Council Approves Anti-Trans Bathroom Ban

Residents pleaded with the council, arguing that such proposals were divisive, stoked fear among the community, and would further stretch city services. “It is not only unnecessary but also a complete waste of the city’s time, money and resources,” Alexander Ermels, president of PFLAG’s Odessa chapter and a transgender man, said. Mayor Javier Joven [photo], who is up for reelection in November, has said his mission has been to help the city “repent.”

Penalties include a $500 fine and trespassing charges. Odessa, located in west Texas, has a population of 120,000.

Kremlin Behind Hurricane Disinfo Spread By Cultists
Felon: “I’ll Fire Crooked Jack Smith In Two Seconds”
Multiple Felon: “Jack Smith Should Be Considered Mentally Deranged And Thrown Out Of The Country”
Cleta Mitchell: “Dems See Illegals As Their Power Base”
Shapiro: Nobody “Gives A Shit” About Trump Praising Hitler Because They’re So Worried About Street Crime
Heritage Group Publishes Hit List Of “Subversive” Feds
FBI: Russia Behind Fake Video Of Destroyed Ballots
Trump: America Is “The Garbage Can For The World”
Multiple Felon Threatens “Long Prison Sentences” If Dems Repeat “Cheating And Skullduggery” Of 2020
Trump Crashes Vance Town Hall To Demand Praise
WSJ: Musk Is Having “Secret Conversations” With Putin

The contacts also raise potential national-security concerns.

Pentagon Debunks New Lie From Prominent Nutbags
NBC: Sheehy Lied About Navy’s “Medical Discharge”
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1849845488352108979
Fox Host: Calling Trump “Fascist” Is “Hate Speech”
Feds: FL Postal Worker Tossed Political Mail Into Woods
https://twitter.com/Fla_Pol/status/1849867521836683335
Cops: TX Cultist Pummeled Elderly Poll Worker [VIDEO]
SC Judge Won’t Fix Glitch That Denied Young Voters

For the past 13 months, when a 17-year-old applied for a driver’s license or state ID and marked that they would like to register, the DMV’s system did not transmit their voter registration application to the SEC. As a result, approximately 17,000 young voters were not registered to vote despite indicating a desire to do so. These voters were also not notified that their registrations had been rejected.

CNN Airs Clips Of Trump Labeling Harris A “Fascist” After GOP Leaders Condemn Harris For Her “Rhetoric”
WaPo: Musk Began US Career Working Here Illegally
Accused Welfare Scammer To Campaign With Felon
GOP Rep Blew Donor Money On Booze, Bars, Ubers

Peace & Justice History for 10/27:

October 27, 1659
William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers (formally, members of the Society of Friends) who came from England in 1656 to escape religious persecution, were executed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for their religious beliefs. The two had violated a law, passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death.

Quakers opposed central church authority, preferring to seek spiritual insight and consensus through egalitarian Quaker meetings. They advocated sexual equality and became some of the most outspoken opponents of slavery in early America.
October 27, 1967
Phillip Berrigan, artist Tom Lewis, poet David Eberhardt, and United Church of Christ minister James Mengel, members of the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission, entered the draft board at the United States Customs House and poured duck’s blood on several hundred draft records.
Phillip Berrigan pouring blood on draft files
The Baltimore Four, as they became known, were arrested and later tried and convicted for the action which they saw as a symbolic act of civil disobedience — a nonviolent attack on the machinery of war. This day later became known as Plowshare Action Remembrance Day.
Berrigan in his jail cell drawning by Tom Lewis
Read more about Phillip Berrigan 
October 27, 1967
120,000 marched against the Vietnam War in London. Violence erupted when a 6,000-strong Maoist splinter group broke away and charged the police outside the United States Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Read more 
October 27, 1969
Ralph Nader set up a consumer organization with young lawyers and researchers (often called “Nader’s Raiders”) who produced systematic exposés of industrial hazards, pollution, unsafe products, and governmental neglect of consumer safety laws.
 Ralph Nader (center) 
Nader is widely recognized as the founder of the consumer rights movement. He played a key role in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Freedom of Information Act, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Read more 
October 27, 2002
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil in a runoff, becoming the country’s first elected leftist leader.
Read more 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october27

Reblog from Janet:

Odessa’s New Law: Targeting Trans Rights in Texas

Jon Stewart on Trump’s McDonald’s Shift & His “Enemy Within” Threat | The Daily Show

With two weeks until the election, Jon Stewart sifts through the increasingly weird and surreal election news: from Trump’s ramble about Arnold Palmer’s d*ck, to his shift at McDonald’s, to Kamala Harris’s campaign event with Liz Cheney. Plus, he breaks down the GOP’s reaction to Trump’s “enemy within” comment.

Mel Manuel, Trans Candidate for U.S. House, Injected T on Camera in a Campaign Ad

Manuel is running on a platform of abortion rights, universal healthcare, and gun control.

BY SAMANTHA RIEDEL

(Way to go-run for office! Especially in and as opposition to people like Steve Scalise-A)

A trans nonbinary Louisiana candidate for the U.S. House released a defiant campaign video this week, showing themself injecting testosterone to defend bodily autonomy.

Mel Manuel, who is running to unseat far-right House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, released the video on social media platforms on Tuesday. In the video, Manuel called on voters to “take a stand” while performing a routine testosterone injection.

“I believe that you, not the government, own your own body,” Manuel told viewers, wearing a “My Body My Choice” T-shirt. “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”

Manuel, who is running on a platform of abortion rights, universal healthcare, and gun control, highlighted a recent analysis that found Republicans had spent more than $65 million in anti-trans advertisements since the start of August. They also promoted Louisiana’s “Geaux Vote” app, which allows voters to find their polling location and get ballot information.

“To my LGBTQ+ family and our allies… No one is coming to save us,” Manuel wrote in the video description. “We have to show up at the polls for ourselves and for those we love. I’ve spent the last year and a half campaigning because we need to speak up and be represented before it’s too late. You can speak up now with your vote.”

Manuel is the cofounder of Queer Northshore, an LGBTQ+ activist organization based in St. Tammany Parish, and has previously organized against conservative book bans and anti-trans laws in the state. In contrast, Scalise has earned a reputation as a staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ Republican since first taking office in 2008, voting against the Byrd-Shepard Hate Crime Prevention Act, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the Respect for Marriage Act; he is also firmly anti-trans, condemning “the left’s radical gender ideology” in a 2022 statement calling for trans girls to be banned from school sports. Scalise even once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage,” referring to the infamous former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Given that Manuel is running in opposition to all that, injecting T on camera is a pretty big flex. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean they expect to win; as their campaign website notes, Manuel’s goal is simply to get 35% of the vote. “Even if your candidate doesn’t win, if we can move the needle to 35 percent or 40 percent of the vote, that means the next progressive candidate will get more funding,” they explained to The Nation last year. “There’s a very, very small chance at winning, and I understand that, but we can still use the role of candidacy as a platform in and of itself.”

https://www.them.us/story/mel-manuel-campaign-ad-injection-testosterone