A new Louisiana law will make attacking a police officer a federal hate crime, the first of its kind. But given how eager lawmakers are to outdo each other demonstrating support for law enforcement, it won’t be the last. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is pushing for a similar law in Texas. And following summer recess, Congress is likely to take up similar legislation called the Blue Lives Matter Act, Reuters reports.
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On Tuesday, the sponsor of the Louisiana law inadvertently explained exactly why the law is pointless even as it poses civil liberties risks.
“It sure looks like there’s a concerted effort to harm police officers. I hope adding police to the Louisiana hate crimes statute helps deter that kind of despicable activity,” said State Rep. Lance Harris about the Baton Rouge shooting and the five officers killed in Dallas.
In both Dallas and Baton Rouge, the suspects were killed soon after the shootings. If the prospect of getting blown up by a bomb delivered by a police robot doesn’t stop a potential shooter, then surely an abstract federal statute isn’t the most effective deterrent.
When Gov. John Bel Edwards signed the legislation into law, he said that it was merely meant to show appreciation for police officers.
“I don’t see anything inappropriate about my support for law enforcement or my support from law enforcement,” Edwards said. “First responders should be able to serve without being targeted just because they are police. That’s the least we can do.”
That’s fine and well. But one can easily imagine the law being used to pile on extra charges in cases where someone has an altercation with police, regardless of who started it and why.
That’s particularly dangerous during a protest. Do we want people charged with a hate crime because they shouted a critical slogan and then had a physical encounter with officers?
As the activist group Black Youth Project 100 noted when the Louisiana law passed, “By treating the police as specialized citizens held above criticism and the laws they are charged to enforce, we lose our ability to exercise our First Amendment right.”
This article was originally published by The Influence, a news site that covers the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on Facebook or Twitter.
TOPEKA — An employee in charge of payroll at the Kansas Statehouse recently agreed to a felony plea deal after stealing more than $40,000 from employee health savings accounts while working as a bookkeeper for Soldier Township.
Pamela Buckhalter also faced a felony theft charge in 2008 after she was accused of stealing more than $13,000 from Topeka High School while working as a cheerleading coach and secretary with bookkeeping duties. That charge was dropped when she agreed to pay back the missing funds.
Buckhalter, 53, now works in payroll for Legislative Administrative Services. The division’s director, Tom Day, didn’t respond to questions sent by email Tuesday about when Buckhalter was hired, if other candidates were considered for the position, whether he knew about the criminal charges before she was hired and what financial controls are in place to prevent theft.
Kansas Reflector independently obtained court documents after learning about the charges from an individual who didn’t identify themselves. The individual said they mailed to Republican and Democratic leadership on Tuesday copies of court records and past news stories about Buckhalter.
A spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes said her office learned about charges against Buckhalter in May 2021 and alerted Senate President Ty Masterson’s staff.
“The charges raise concerns about Pam’s role in administering payroll, which is why Sen. Sykes directed our office to share the information we found online with the Senate president’s staff,” said Helena Buchmann, the spokeswoman for Sykes, in an email to Kansas Reflector.
Buchmann said the office isn’t aware of any concerns with Buckhalter’s performance in her current position.
Mike Pirner, spokesman for Masterson, said the Senate president learned about the charges on Tuesday when Kansas Reflector asked about them. Pirner directed questions to Day.
“Because this is a personnel matter, it is inappropriate for our office to comment,” Pirner said.
Staff for Republican and Democratic leadership in the House didn’t answer questions sent by email Tuesday.
Buckhalter’s attorney, Kevin Jones, said Wednesday morning he would need at least 24 hours to respond to a request for comment.
Shawnee County District Court records show Buckhalter was charged in July 2020 with five felony thefts, felony forgery, felony unlawful use of computers and two misdemeanor thefts for crimes Buckhalter was accused of committing from 2015 to 2017 while working at Soldier Township, which is just north of Topeka.
District Attorney Mike Kagay said the charges were in relation to a series of thefts from the health savings accounts of Soldier Township employees, WIBW-TV reported when the charges were filed.
Buckhalter entered a plea deal on April 20 in which she agreed not to contest amended charges of felony attempted forgery and misdemeanor theft. The rest of the charges were dropped.
As part of the deal, she has to pay back $42,850.47 in restitution and pay a $500 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for June 24.
School officials originally reported $20,000 was missing from the activities fund, but some records were damaged by water, the newspaper reported. Buckhalter had resigned as the cheerleading coach following a suspension in 2006.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.
During an appearance on Fox News, Jackson said that his "prayers" and "thoughts" were with the victims and survivors of the school shooting in Uvalde that left at least 18 students and two teachers dead.
"There's going to be all kinds of discussions coming up, unfortunately, you know, in the media regarding Second Amendment rights," Jackson said in a defense of gun rights. "But I think we really need to ask the question, how could something like this happen?"
The congressman then managed to blame rap music, video games and the internet in one sentence.
"When I grew up, things were different," he continued. "And I just think that kids are exposed to all kinds of horrible stuff nowadays too. I look back and I think about the horrible stuff they hear when they listen to rap music, the video games that they watch from a really early age with all of this horrible violence and stuff and I just think that they have this access to the internet on a regular basis, which is just, you know, it's not good for kids."
Kenosha County Supervisor Brian Thomas said the “election integrity” event he organized was “strictly educational,” and that the people in attendance would be able to learn what was up with the 2020 presidential election. “Good, bad or indifferent,” he declared.
In a Kenosha banquet hall, tucked next to the “world famous” Brat Stop — where out-of-state visitors can pick up their customary haul of cheese curds and Spotted Cow before crossing the border — near half a dozen fast food chains, a handful of car dealerships and a few roadside hotels, about 40 people came to hear what new details have been uncovered about the election.
Thomas, who was elected to the county board last month in a close election decided by 12 votes, had to briefly leave the Monday evening event to attend a public works committee meeting so he could cast a vote on a measure that would end a ban on bringing firearms into Kenosha County buildings.
“I don’t care who won [the 2020 election], I want elections fair going forward,” he said, before recommending the conspiracy-filled documentary produced by conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza “2000 Mules.” “You’re here because I’d hope you have an open mind and hear the other side of the story.”
The 2020 election was won by Joe Biden. Numerous audits, reviews, lawsuits and recounts have affirmed Wisconsin’s results.
Thomas said he thought there might be 100 people at the event, but after a bunch of people spammed the online sign-up he wasn’t sure if the estimate would be accurate. About 40 people actually attended, leaving some tables completely empty and others with just one or two people.
Between sips of a cocktail or tall pour of wine at the Parkway Chateau, what the attendees heard were theories that have been repeatedly debunked by election officials and news media. Just days after a symbolic resolution to decertify the state’s 2020 election results failed at the state Republican convention, a handful of the main characters in the ongoing saga to cast doubt on those results pledged to “keep the heat on.”
In attendance were state Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) and a staff member for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson. Albert Gonzales, the Kenosha police officer who shot and killed Michael Bell in 2004 and is now running as a Republican for sheriff, was there. A campaign worker for U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) was outside collecting nominating signatures. Posters left on the tables featured the logo of Republican dark money group Turning Point USA.
“This is not political at all,” Thomas said, adding that he hoped the couple dozen Democratic protesters outside would come in and learn something. They didn’t, staying outside near the driveway holding signs promoting voting rights before marching to the building’s entrance.
“It’s just a bunch of crap,” said one, Milwaukee resident Sathena Gillespie. “It’s a bunch of crap. There’s been no facts.”
The event kicked off with a presentation from Ron Heuer, president of the Wisconsin Voter Alliance. Heuer filed a lawsuit attempting to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 and was later hired by former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to aid the ongoing partisan review of the election.
Heuer played a number of video clips that have featured heavily in Gableman’s review.
In an appearance in front of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections earlier this spring, Gableman played clips featuring Erick Kardaal, an attorney for the conservative Thomas More Society, interviewing the elderly residents of nursing homes who cast votes in 2020 and their family members who don’t believe they should have voted. Neither the “evidence” that the elderly people were incompetent, nor their relatives’ opinions, matter in Wisconsin law, since a judge must decide that someone is incompetent before taking away their right to vote.
Wisconsin has a process laid out in state law for helping the residents of nursing homes and other residential care facilities cast a ballot. Two people, one Republican and one Democrat, are appointed as special voting deputies (SVDs) and along with an observer from each party, they go into the facilities to assist people with filling out and returning absentee ballots. The SVDs are required to make two attempts to visit a facility before a local municipal clerk can just mail them absentee ballots.
During the height of the pandemic, visitors weren’t allowed inside nursing homes to protect the especially vulnerable elderly residents, so the WEC voted to skip them. Republicans have repeatedly alleged that this decision violated the law.
On Monday, and in Gableman’s testimony in March, the videos were provided as evidence that elderly people were taken advantage of and forced to vote. Gableman claimed that many Wisconsin nursing homes had 100% turnout in 2020. Disability rights advocates pointed out that the interviews proved nothing about a person’s ability to vote and Gableman’s statistics have been debunked severaltimes.
After Heuer presented his videos, Kardall appeared by Zoom. Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel and the Thomas More Society share office space. Kaardal has also assisted Gableman’s review.
Heuer and Kardaal used the term “Zuckerbucks” nearly 20 times in an hour, rehashing Republican complaints that grants provided by the Center for Tech and Civic Life — an organization partially funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg — to help municipalities across the country administer an election during a pandemic constitute bribery.
Municipalities across Wisconsin received grant money, but Republicans have complained that most of it went to the state’s five largest, majority Democratic cities, and believe it was used to increase turnout among Democrats. Judges have repeatedly disagreed with the accusation that the grants, which largely funded the purchase of absentee ballot drop boxes, voting machines, COVID protections and staff training, constituted bribery.
Last week, a Dane County judge told Kardaal his bribery accusations were “ridiculous,” yet Kardaal continued to make the same case on Monday.
Next Racine County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Michael Luell appeared in uniform to describe his investigation into the election. Last October, Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling and Luell called a press conference to allege that five members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) had committed felony election fraud and misconduct in public office by deciding to forgo the SVD process.
On Monday, despite saying that he’s been continuing to work on the investigation, Luell showed the same PowerPoint presentation he gave at the October press conference.
In March of 2020, the WEC voted unanimously not to send the SVDs because the state was under a stay-at-home order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Subsequent votes to forgo the process in later elections were 5-1. These votes were made in open meetings but Luell said on Monday that the decisions were made “in the dark,” even though he played several video clips from those very meetings on the public access network Wisconsin Eye.
Thomas says he wanted the event to help citizens connect the dots about the 2020 election. But the dots were already connected as the speakers shared allegations that have been repeatedly rehashed to support the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Luell briefly forgot the name of one of Wisconsin Republicans’ favorite election targets, but the audience was quick to jump in and help out.
“Meagan Wolfe,” a few chimed in. “And what’s her title?” Luell asked.
“Administrator.”
Even though the event didn’t fill the room and the election conspiracy movement was declared dead at last weekend’s Republican convention, after Assembly Speaker Robin Vos declared that the 2020 election results cannot be changed, to boos from the crowd, and then survived a ballot seeking his ouster, the speakers in Kenosha vowed to keep working.
“This is fantastic content,” Kardaal said about the allegations of fraud. “We’re not really going anywhere. I’m a long term player.”
And if people’s faith in the movement is beginning to falter as further investigations fail to reveal new facts and the next round of elections gets closer, Kardaal has a message for the base.
“Don’t listen to their arguments,” he said.
Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.
