The good:
Big-city
mayors are giving poll workers panic buttons in case election skeptics
question their work. County and state officials are gaming out responses to immigration raids near voting centers.
Lawyers for Democratic states and civic groups are pre-writing legal challenges
to ballot seizures. And Democratic aides in Washington are preparing
members of Congress to push back in the court of public opinion against
any baseless claims of voter fraud in competitive districts.
Across California and the nation, civic organizations, voting rights advocates and Democratic leaders are preparing for a raft of potential actions by the Trump administration to interfere in, subvert or deny November’s midterm vote. [snip]
Much
of the work to resist any Trump interference or power grab is being
done quietly to avoid revealing too much of the strategy to the Trump
administration or stoking unnecessary fear among voters.
It
is designed to match what Trump’s opponents see as his three-part
“interference playbook” — to “deceive” voters before the election,
“disrupt” the vote itself and “deny” any unfavorable results after, said
Justin Vail of Protect Democracy, a prominent litigant against the
administration.
“The threats are real,” Vail said, “but the preparation is larger and more coordinated than ever before.”
The scenarios being planned for include the president deploying troops or immigration agents to polling sites
to intimidate voters, fomenting unrest as a pretext to declare a
national emergency, claiming fraud in the ballot counts of key
congressional races or commanding the U.S. Postal Service to intervene
in mail ballot delivery.
All
told, the efforts amount to an unprecedented exercise to ensure the
nation’s elections are safe from its own federal government.
They
also reflect a deterioration in trust between states and counties
overseeing elections, voting rights and pro-democracy advocates and a
federal administration that has denigrated their work and tried to take control of voting away from states...
It's not really doom-casting to note that the Malignant Fascist and his thugs are fortifying Washington, DC, with National Guard troops and putting fences around Lafayette Park and the White House to protect against civil disturbances. The MF also has been floating threats about sending ICE and troops to polling stations and declaring a national emergency to quash an election that throws his rotted out party out of Congress. It's good Democrats are preparing their strategies; we hope they include a tough and aggressive strategy for if the shit really hits the fan come November. In that event, filing lawsuits would turn out to be a quaint response.
The bad:
A fast-moving wildfire that jumped over fire trucks and made it
difficult for crews to reach hot spots destroyed homes in northwest
Reno, Nevada, on Sunday. Shifting winds challenged firefighters trying
to bring it under control, and authorities urged some 90,000 people to
evacuate.
At least six people — three first responders and three
civilians — were injured, officials said. Officials said the fire was
“human-caused” but did not provide details on how they reached that
conclusion, or whether it was intentionally set or accidental.
The
Hawk Fire began Saturday and quickly grew to more than 23 square miles
(60 sq. km.) as it spread across the Peavine Peak area of the
Humboldt–Toiyabe National Forest, where rugged foothills are ringed by
homes and businesses near the California state line.
Some 42,000
residents have been ordered evacuated as the “GO NOW” zone expanded,
reaching the edge of the University of Nevada. An additional 45,000
people were in the adjacent evacuation warning zone. Authorities
implored all of them to leave and be prepared to stay away for several
days, because shifting and strengthening winds were expected to make the
fire even more unpredictable. [snip]
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency in Washoe
County and mobilized the Nevada National Guard to support aerial
firefighting with two helicopter crews as well as 60 troops to help
police safeguard evacuated neighborhoods. Also responding were 800 fire
personnel.
Nearly 10,000 customers were without power in Washoe
County on Sunday, down from 60,000 on Saturday. Portions of U.S. Route
395, a major north-south highway, were closed due to the fire. Reno,
with more than 280,000 residents, is the largest city in Nevada outside
of metro Las Vegas.
Washoe County emergency officials opened the Reno-Sparks Convention
Center to evacuees, but said they couldn’t bring their pets — small
animals and large animals were to be left at two other locations.
Casinos in Reno offered discounts on hotel rooms to evacuees.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, there are 79 large fires burning, mostly in the Western U.S. So far this year, 7.7 million acres have burned across the U.S. A mega-drought triggered by climate change that began in 2000 has made much of the West a tinderbox. We have family in the affected area, so it hits particularly close to home.
The ugly:
When Luis Manuel Aviles was arrested by immigration authorities, his son was entering his ninth month on the USS Abraham Lincoln with the Navy
— a vessel that set a U.S. military record for uninterrupted time at
sea, stirring concerns about supply shortages and deteriorating mental
health among soldiers.
Luis
Manuel Aviles, 48, was arrested after leaving his house to take his car
to the mechanic, according to his wife, Argelia Aviles. She said her
husband, a handyman in Key West, Florida, has a permit to work in the
United States. Originally from Nicaragua, he has lived in the U.S. for
19 years.
“He dedicates himself only to
work so he can put food on the table at home. He is a good father. He
loves his children with all his soul,” said Argelia, 47.
Aviles’ arrest comes as the Trump administration rolls back immigration protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda, detaining at least dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops.
At least six family members have been deported and one self-deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions, which the government does not track. One spouse, the wife of a U.S. soldier
who spent more than a month in federal immigration detention, was
removed from a deportation flight to Brazil after the AP’s reporting.
One of the military’s most
highly advertised immigration benefits is “military parole-in-place,”
which allows the spouses, children and parents of active-duty service
members and veterans to obtain legal immigration status from within the
country. Not everyone qualifies: those who overstayed visas or who
already applied for legal status at the border, for example.
The
Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Border Patrol
agents arrested Luis Aviles on Saturday in Key West and that he will
remain in ICE custody while the government seeks to deport him.
“Having
a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our
nation’s laws,” the department said Sunday, adding that the Trump
administration “does not pick and choose which laws to enforce.”... (our emphasis)
First of all, to that unnamed DHS official, a hearty fuck you! Nine months on the floating biohazard U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln only to have your father and family breadwinner arrested and placed in detention awaiting deportation. All the while the fraudsters, grifters, and pedo protectors run rampant, continuing to pillage the country, arresting and deporting thousands upon thousands of hard-working immigrants (many with servicemembers in the family). We're way past "reform" here; abolishing this fascist thug operation is the only answer.
