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PHOENIX (AP) Arizonas independent redistricting commission unanimously approved Dec. 22 new boundaries for congressional districts that are likely to shift the states congressional delegation in favor of Republicans.

The new boundaries create four solidly Republican districts, two where Democrats are likely to dominate and three that could be relatively competitive, based on metrics the commission uses to measure competitiveness. Of the potentially competitive districts, one strongly favors Democrats and two lean toward Republicans based on their voting patterns in nine past elections.

Arizonas congressional delegation currently has five Democrats and four Republicans. The likelihood that Democrats will lose ground in Arizona further complicates the partys bleak prospects in next years midterm elections, when control of the U.S. House will be at stake.

This is not the map that I wouldve liked, Democratic Commissioner Shereen Lerner said, saying the two competitive districts couldve been more balanced. But she said the final boundaries had improved from earlier drafts and expressed hope that the picture will improve over the next decade the maps are in effect.

Republican Commissioner Doug York said an earlier draft was better for the GOP, and he credited the commission with approving a map that wasnt favored by either side.

The commission also adopted new boundaries for Arizonas 30 legislative districts in a 3-2 vote after independent Chair Erika Newberg sided with the Republican commissioners. The legislative map includes four competitive districts in the northern and eastern parts of the Phoenix metro area.

Lerner tried in vain to tweak one competitive district in the North Valley to reduce its Republican leaning before the final vote.

On the new congressional map, districts currently represented by Democrats Tom OHalleran and Ann Kirkpatrick the two most competitive in the state under the existing boundaries moved in favor of Republicans. The new boundaries for OHallerans rural district tilt it strongly toward Republicans, casting serious doubt on his prospects for reelection.

Kirkpatrick has already announced plans to retire. The new district boundaries for the region she represents include eastern Tucson, Casa Grande and most of southeastern Arizona.

Much of the area now represented by Republican David Schweikert is likely to become the most competitive district in the state. The new boundaries include Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, parts of North Phoenix, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.

The regions now represented by Schweikert and Kirkpatrick will be the states two battleground districts. An East Valley District including Tempe, Mesa, Ahwatukee and part of Chandler is considered marginally competitive under the commissions metrics, though voters there have elected Democrats in eight of nine races analyzed by the commission.

The redistricting panel is made up of two Republicans, two Democrats and independent Chair Erika Neuberg, who mainly backed Republican-favored versions of the maps through much of the recent deliberations. Redistricting is required every 10 years under the U.S. Constitution to adjust for population changes around the country.

Eric Holder, the former U.S. attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama, said Tuesday night that the maps could draw a lawsuit.

The Chair has a duty to ensure a fair process and not side with Republicans or push a partisan agenda, Holder, who is leading Democratic efforts to influence redistricting around the country, wrote on Twitter. Anything less than maps that are fair will be challenged.

Maps drawn by the Arizona redistricting commissions based on the 2000 and 2010 censuses both were challenged in court.

The voter-created redistricting law, which removed the job from the Legislature and was supposed to limit partisanship, says commissioners should draw districts that are compact and contiguous, comply with the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act and respect communities of interest and city, county or geographic lines or features.

The commission adopted draft maps in late October and then held a monthlong series of meetings across the state before starting its final set of meetings last week.

Republicans generally liked the district maps drawn after the 2000 census, and those done following the 2010 census were regarded as more favorable to Democrats, prompting strong criticism from Republicans.

Original post:
Redrawing the lines: Final map of congressional districts approved - Grand Canyon News

For Democrats, this could mean that they would be unlikely to reap the sole political rewards for any efforts on marijuana policy. Lucky for them, many in the partyincluding the president himselfare desperate to notch bipartisan wins. Passing a bill in Congress would almost certainly garner sizable support from Republicans as well as Democrats and possibly even more than the infrastructure bill that was signed into law last month. There are several options. The most promising is the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, a bill being pushed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, and Ron Wyden that builds on a legalization bill passed by the House last year. (There are also several other, less ambitious legalization bills floating around, including the MORE Act.) Unfortunately, a frosty reception from some Democrats, a lack of enthusiasm from Senate Republicans, and the continued existence of the filibuster means that these efforts have stalled outfor now. The bully pulpit, plus the midterm elections, could revive them.

There are other options, however. Mace is pushing a bill that would decriminalize marijuana, while Joyce has one that would reform the federal governments incredibly outdated marijuana policies. Given the general sense of inertia in Congress, there are other less far-reaching but still important things the Biden administration could do. The Cole memo, issued by Eric Holder in 2013 and revoked by Jeff Sessions five years later, instructed U.S. attorneys not to enforce federal marijuana laws. That memo could be reinstated and even expanded to other departments. Biden could offer clemency to people currently imprisoned for nonviolent cannabis-related offenses and pardons for them and those who have been released.

All of this would be better politically and morally, and in policy terms, than what Democrats are doing now. You would think that President Biden would embrace legalization, considering where his constituents are on this issue, Lindsey told me. Theres really no question [about] the level of support that they have, and yet the president seems to be AWOL. After a year ending with political and legislative inertiaand with Bidens tanking poll numbers, particularly among young peoplemarijuana policy would be the perfect place to start.

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Legalize It, Already! - The New Republic

quote:Hey asswipe, Just admit you didnt read the entire article quote:When Barack Obama was installed in January 2009Yeah, semantics on when the black jesus continued the formation of an insidious govt is silly. This is the core center piece of the overall corruption. quote:The people behind Obama, those same people now behind Joe Biden, knew from years of strategic planning that radical transformation would require control over specific elements inside the U.S. government. Eric Holder played a key role in his position as U.S. Attorney General in the DOJ.

AG Holder recruited ideologically aligned political operatives who were aware of the larger institutional objectives. One of those objectives was weaponizing the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) a division inside the DOJ that had no inspector general oversight. For most people the DOJ-NSD weaponization surfaced with a hindsight awakening of the DOJ-NSD targeting candidate Donald Trump many years later. However, by then the Holder crew had executed almost eight full years of background work.

THE TRAP Many people say that Congress is the solution to eliminating the Fourth and superseding Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. This is an exercise in futility because the Legislative Branch, specifically the SSCI, facilitated the creation of the Intelligence Branch. The SSCI cannot put the genie they created back in the bottle without admitting they too are corrupt; and the background story of their corruption is way too intense to be exposed now. Every member of the SSCI is compromised in some controlling manner. Those Senators who disliked the control over them; specifically disliked because the risk of sunlight was tenuous and, well, possible; have either left completely or stepped down from the committee. None of the SSCI members past or present would ever contemplate saying openly what their tenure involved.

[Note: You might remember when Vice Chairman Mark Warners text messages surfaced, there was a controlled Republican SSCI member who came to his defense in February of 2018. It was not accidental that exact Senator later became the chair of the SSCI himself. That Republican Senator is Marco Rubio, now vice-chair since the Senate re-flipped back to the optics of Democrat control in 2021.]

~ 2021 Gang of Eight ~

The Go8 design is intended to put intelligence oversight upon both political parties in Congress; it is designed that way by informing the minority leaders of both the House and Senate as well as the ranking minority members of the SSCI and HPSCI. Under the concept, the President cannot conduct an intelligence operation; and the intelligence community cannot carry out intelligence gathering operations without the majority and minority parties knowing about it.

The modern design of this oversight system was done to keep rogue and/or corrupt intelligence operations from happening. However, as we shared in the preview to this entire discussion, the process was usurped during the Obama era. {GO DEEP}

This is our current status. It is not deniable. The truth exists regardless of our comfort.

Not a single person in power will say openly what has taken place. They are scared of the Fourth Branch. The evidence of what has taken place is right there in front of our face. The words, actions and activities of those who participated in this process are not deniable.

There are only two members of the Gang of Eight who have existed in place from January 2007 (the real beginning of Obamas term, two years before he took office when the Congress flipped). Only two members of the G08 have been consistently in place from January of 2007 to right now, today. All the others came and went, but two members of the Gang of Eight have been part of that failed and collapsed oversight throughout the past 15 years, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.

Through the advise and consent rules, the Intelligence Branch uses the SSCI to keep out people they consider dangerous to their ongoing operations. Any appointee to the intelligence community must first pass through the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, before they get a full Senate vote. If the SSCI rejects the candidate, they simply refuse to take up the nomination. The president is then blocked from that appointment. This is what happened with President Trump over-and-over again.

Additionally, the Intelligence Branch protects itself, and its facilitating allies through the formal classification process. The Intelligence Branch gets to decide unilaterally what information will be released and what information will be kept secret. There is no entity outside the Intelligence Branch, and yes that includes the President of the United States, who can supersede the classification authority of the Intelligence Branch. {Go Deep} and {Go Deep} This is something 99.9% of the people on our side get totally and frustratingly wrong.

No one can declassify, or make public, anything the Intelligence Branch will not agree to. Doubt this? Ask Ric Grenell, John Ratcliffe, or even President Trump himself.

* The classification process is determined inside the Intelligence Branch, all by themselves. They get to choose what rank of classification exists on any work-product they create; and they get to decide what the classification status is of any work product that is created by anyone else. The Intelligence Branch has full control over what is considered classified information and what is not. The Intelligence Branch defines what is a national security interest and what is not. A great technique for hiding fingerprints of corrupt and illegal activity.

Yes, the history of the U.S. national security apparatus goes back decades; however, the weaponization of that apparatus, the creation of an apex branch of government, the Intelligence Branch, originated as we currently feel it under President Barack Obama.

Obama took the foundational tools created by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and used the intelligence system architecture to create a weapon for use in his fundamental transformation. An alliance of ideologues within government (intel community) and the private sector (big tech and finance) was assembled, and the largest government weapon was created. Think about this every time you take your shoes off at an airport.

After the weapon was assembled and tested (Arab Spring), the Legislative Branch was enjoined under the auspices of a common enemy, Donald J. Trump, an outsider who was a risk to every entity in the institutional construct of Washington DC. Trillions were at stake, and years of affluence and influence were at risk as the unholy alliance was put together.

To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to U.S. Intelligence Branch interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the FBI/CIA were in 2016.

Read more here:
Barack Obama and Eric Holder & the weaponization of the ...

By JOSH GERSTEIN

10/06/2014 03:04 PM EDT

A federal judge has declined a House committee's bid to have Attorney General Eric Holder held in contempt of court and perhaps even jailed for failing to turn over documents related to the Justice Department' s response to Operation Fast and Furious.

However, in a ruling Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson also denied Holder's request for an indefinite stay of her prior order that the attorney general must turn over any "non-privileged" documents the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed as part of an investigation into the botched gunrunning investigation. The judge previously ruled that Holder must give the panel any documents that are not both predecisional and deliberative in nature.

Jackson called the House contempt motion "entirely unnecessary" and said it was evident that she was considering the government's motion to lift her prior order. "Under those circumstances, the Court finds no basis to hold defendant in contempt," she wrote.

But the judge also said she saw no reason to allow the Justice Department to withhold unprivileged documents until the case was complete. She ordered those records turned over to the committee by Nov. 3, along with a log of the records claimed to be privileged.

"Though the Court has the discretion to grant a stay in the interests of judicial economy and efficiency, pending appeal or otherwise, there is no pending appeal here and the Court has already ruled that defendant has no legal basis to withhold non-deliberative documents. The 'possibility' of an appeal and piecemeal litigation does not satisfy defendants burden to demonstrative a 'clear case of hardship or inequity' without a stay," she wrote in her decision (posted here).

A Justice Department spokesman welcomed the decision, at least the part rebuffing the motion to hold Holder in contempt. "We are pleased that the court rejected the committee's latest stunt," spokesman Brian Fallon said.

A spokesperson for the House committee said the judge's ruling is a step towards the panel receiving documents it should have been given years ago. "The Oversight Committee is pleased that the Judge in the case has rejected the Department's request to continue illegally withholding documents and its attempt to unnecessarily prolong the proceeding. This court ruling affirms that Attorney General Holder broke the law in withholding subpoenaed documents, which led the House of Representatives to vote him in criminal contempt," said the spokesperson.

UPDATE (Monday, 4:35 P.M.): This post has been updated with reaction from the Justice Department and the House Oversight Committee.

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Judge declines to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in ...

Louie Gohmert, Republican member of Congress from Texas, announced last week that he was giving up his seat to run for attorney general in Texas.

At the very least, this should be entertaining.

Gohmert is widely considered the dumbest member of Congress GOP operative Steve Schmidt called him Americas craziest and dumbest congressman and when you consider the competition for that honor, its no mean achievement. Iowan Steve Kings defeat in the Republican primary last year helped to clear the field, but still, lets give Gohmert his due. And if you believe that being the dumbest member of Congress in any way disqualifies anyone from statewide office in Texas, well, you havent been paying attention to Texas politics.

Gohmert is challenging a fellow Republican, Ken Paxton, the incumbent, for the attorney general nomination. Paxton has been indicted for securities fraud, and former staff members in his office claim that he abused his powers to assist a wealthy donor. (Paxton has denied the allegations, but apparently engaging in potentially felonious behavior doesnt disqualify someone from holding office in Texas.)

I first encountered Gohmert, whom Texas Monthly calls the terror of Tyler, at a huge Religious Right rally in Longview, Texas, back in 2005, where he shared billing with Roy Moore, the notorious Ten Commandments judge from Alabama. Though Gohmert had entered Congress only earlier that year, he was already making a name for himself as one of the few members of Congress to oppose John McCains amendment to outlaw the use of torture by the U.S. government. Gohmert called the McCain amendment stupid.

In preparation for his campaign, its probably a good time to revisit some of Gohmerts statements, beginning with the time he upbraided Eric Holder, Barack Obamas attorney general, for casting aspersions on my asparagus.

Gohmert insisted in 2010 that Muslim women were producing terror babies, children who are born in the United States, who leave and then come back at some future date. And then they would return back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, 20, 30 years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.

In 2013, he told the Longview Chamber of Commerce that radical Islamists were learning Spanish and then changing their names to Hispanic-sounding last names so they could cross the border. Why? Because we dont have any fear of Hispanics coming into the country, but weve got concerns about radical Islamists.

During a radio interview in 2016, Gohmert went on record in opposition to repealing the militarys dont ask, dont tell policy regarding gay members of the military. Why? Because if youre sitting around getting massages all day ready to go into a big, planned battle, then youre not going to last very long.

LGBTQ rights have been a frequent obsession. After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Gohmert called for the impeachment of several justices. At Liberty University in 2015, Gohmert doubled down with a proposed government-funded study. How about if we take four heterosexual couples, and put them on an island where they have everything they need to live and exist, and we take four couples of just men and put them on an island where they have all they need to survive, he said. And then lets take four couples of just women and put them on an island, and then lets come back in 100 years and see which one nature favors.

Gohmert frequently opines on mating habits. He worried that stopping the flow of oil through the Alaska pipeline would have a direct effect on the caribou population because when caribou want to go on a date, they invite each other to head over to the pipeline. He wondered if a study might be necessary to see how adversely the caribou would be affected if that warm oil ever quit flowing.

On the matter of climate change and attempts to address it, the Republican from Texas has not been silent. Last August, Gohmert asserted that solar panel farms had caused thousands of birds to explode in flame.

Gohmert has his own ideas about how to solve climate change. During a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee this past June, Gohmert asked an official from the National Forest Service whether there was anything her agency or the Bureau of Land Management could do to change the course of the moons orbit or the Earths orbit around the sun? That, he said, would have profound effects on our climate.

Speaking of profound effects, we could have a lively discussion about where a politician like Gohmert would do the least damage. Rolling Stone has reported that several of the domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol in January met with Gohmert and other members of Congress beforehand. Gohmert, a prominent proponent of the Big Lie, has denied the allegation, and he has also claimed, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the insurrectionists were not armed.

The editorial board of the Houston Chronicle has argued that Gohmert, who they believe is smarter than some of his buffoonery would suggest, would do less harm by remaining in the House of Representatives than as Texas attorney general. Given the ethically challenged incumbent, its a sobering statement.

In any event, thats a matter for the voters of Texas to decide.

Randall Balmer teaches at Dartmouth College. His latest book is Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right.

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Column: The wit and wisdom of Louie Gohmert - Valley News