July 21, 2023 - Flyover View - Politics and Government News from the American Heartland
Michigan AG files felony charges against 16 fake Trump electors | Missouri regulators say federal radioactive groundwater contamination efforts are not working | MO Gov Mike Parson signs bill easing restrictions on retired educators’ ability to teach | Illinois Supreme Court rules SAFE-T Act Constitutional, making Illinois the first state to ban cash bail | Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announces 800,000 student loan borrowers to receive forgiveness in the next month.
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INTRO: Welcome to Flyover View, a member of the Heartland Pod family of podcasts and a look at heartland news from 30,000 feet. I’m your host, Sean Diller, and I want to thank you for joining me today.
Here we go!
16 false Trump electors face felony charges in Michigan
Craig Mauger
Beth LeBlanc
The Detroit News
Lansing —
Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed felony charges against 16 Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Donald Trump won Michigan's 2020 presidential election, launching criminal cases against top political figures inside the state GOP.
Each of the 16 electors have been charged with eight felony counts, including forgery and conspiracy to commit election law forgery, according to Nessel's office.
The revelation capped six months of investigation and produced the most serious allegations yet in Michigan over the campaign to overturn Trump's loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, but Trump and his supporters maintained false claims that fraud swung the result.
As part of the push to undermine Biden's victory, Trump supporters gathered inside the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed a certificate, claiming to cast the state's 16 electoral votes for Trump.
Eventually the false certificate was sent to the National Archives and Congress. The document falsely claimed the Trump electors had met inside the Michigan State Capitol on Dec. 14. But that’s not what happened. In fact Dec. 14 at the real state capitol is where the real electors met to cast their real electoral votes for the real winner, Joe Biden.
The Michigan Attorney General said "The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan."
"My department has prosecuted numerous cases of election law violations throughout my tenure, and it would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast ballots of millions of Michigan voters in a presidential election."
Ryan Goodman, a law professor New York University School of Law, called the charges "a strong case" and noted the fake electors signed a sworn statement attesting "we convened and organized in the State Capitol."
"In truth, they met (secretly) in GOP headquarters basement," Goodman wrote on Twitter.
The felony complaints indicate the warrants for each of the electors were signed Thursday and Friday of last week, according to copies of the documents.
The names and positions of the electors are available in news articles, and include several current and former state GOP committee chairs and local elected officials.
Each of the 16 electors is charged with eight felonies: two counts of election law forgery; two counts of forgery; and one count each of uttering and publishing, conspiracy to commit forgery, conspiracy to commit election law forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery.
Conspiracy to commit forgery carries one of the steepest penalties, punishable by up to 14 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The conspiracy charges allege the defendants worked with specific named others to falsely make a public record: which was the false certificate of votes of the 2020 fake electors from Michigan.
The 16 fake electors convened in the basement of Michigan GOP headquarters on Dec. 14, 2020, and produced a certificate that claimed Trump had won the state's 16 electoral votes.
An affidavit prepared by Michigan AG Nessel's office in support of the complaint indicated Republican staffers in interviews with investigators said that non-electors were blocked from entering the building and the electors themselves were required to surrender their cellphones to prevent any recording of the event. GOP elector Mayra Rodriguez would later tell the Jan. 6 Select Committee that Trump campaign aide Shawn Flynn was present and spoke to the fake electors at the site.
Attorney Ian Northon attempted to deliver a manila envelope similar to the size of the false electoral vote certificate to the Michigan Senate, claiming it contained the Republican electoral votes, the filing said. The U.S. National Archives and U.S. Senate Archives reported receiving a copy of the false certificate as well.
Michigan election law bans someone from knowingly making or publishing a false document "with the intent to defraud."
Each defendant, or their attorneys, has been notified of the charges, and the court will provide each with a date to appear in Ingham County district court for an arraignment.
In a statement, AG Nessel’s office also said "This remains an ongoing investigation, and the Michigan Department of Attorney General has not ruled out charges against additional defendants," Nessel's office said.
YIKES: 14 years for conspiracy to commit forgery. And I’m not a practicing attorney, but I would bet anyone connected to Rudy Giuoini, Sydney Powell, Lindsey Graham, and some of these other goofballs could be looking at conspiracy charges as well.
Because the tough thing about conspiracy crimes - so here it’s conspiracy to commit election forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery - so the tough part if you’re a defendant, is that once you talk with another person about the plan, and anyone involved takes even the smallest step toward moving on it, the crime of conspiracy is complete. You’ll be found guilty if the prosecutor can prove it.
MISSOURI INDEPENDENT: Something in the water.
BY: ALLISON KITE - JULY 17, 2023 4:40 PM
A joint investigation by The Independent and MuckRock.
In 2021, Missouri environmental regulators warned the federal government that radioactive contamination of groundwater from a uranium processing site near St. Louis was not improving despite cleanup efforts, according to documents reviewed by The Missouri Independent and MuckRock.
Officials with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy in May 2021, responding to the agency’s five-year review of its cleanup efforts at a Weldon Spring site where uranium was refined during the Cold War.
While the radioactive waste and contaminated debris from the uranium processing site have been contained, Missouri regulators said contamination in the surrounding groundwater wasn’t getting better.
The letter, which has not been reported publicly, is the latest example of Missouri officials pushing the federal government to do more to protect the health of St. Louis-area residents near the litany of World War II and Cold War-era nuclear sites in the region.
A six-month investigation by The Independent, MuckRock and The Associated Press found that federal agencies and private companies, for decades, downplayed concerns about radiological contamination or failed to investigate it fully at sites in St. Louis and St. Charles counties.
St. Louis and surrounding areas played a key role in the development of the first atomic bomb during World War II. Uranium processed in downtown St. Louis was used in the first sustained nuclear reaction in Chicago. After the war, Mallinckrodt, which operated the downtown plant, started similar operations at a new facility on Missouri Highway 94 just north of the Missouri River.
The more than 200-acre site has been contaminated for decades by radium, thorium and uranium as well as dangerous non-radioactive chemicals from its use to manufacture explosives and process uranium ore.
The Weldon Spring plant was demolished and the debris buried, along with residue leftover from uranium processing, in a 41-acre containment cell covered with rock. The containment cell, the highest point in St. Charles County, is accessible to the public and has a monument to the communities displaced by the war effort and information on the cleanup effort at the top.
Closer to the Missouri River, a quarry the federal government used to store radioactive waste was also contaminated. It’s separated from the main site but part of the same cleanup and monitoring effort.
Remediation of the plant is complete, but monitoring has shown uranium contamination is not decreasing.
The Environmental Protection Agency shared some of the state’s concerns that the groundwater monitoring network was insufficient and the groundwater is not projected to be restored in a reasonable timeframe. Beyond that, the state says, the extent of the contamination hasn’t been sufficiently defined, meaning it could be more widespread than the Department of Energy knows based on its sampling. The federal sampling program, the state argues, is inadequate.
Missouri regulators, in their letter, repeatedly corrected the Department of Energy when the federal agency said uranium levels were falling in groundwater wells at the site.
In a response to the state, the federal government said it would revise its conclusion that the remedy was working.
MISSOURI INDEPENDENT: Pulled out of retirement
New law tackles Missouri teacher shortage by encouraging retirees to return to classroom
Gov. Mike Parson signed legislation last week that allows educators to return to work without losing retirement benefits
BY: ANNELISE HANSHAW - JULY 13, 2023 9:00 AM
Missouri’s school districts are struggling - not just with a teacher shortage but a scarcity of bus drivers, custodians and other essential personnel.
In the most recent school year, teachers with inadequate teaching certification taught over 8% of Missouri public school classes, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The crisis has led larger school districts to consider adopting four-day school weeks to address teacher retention and recruitment problems.
Sen. Rusty Black, R-Chillicothe, has been working on one way to address the problem for four years. And last week, the governor signed a bill into law, set to take effect Aug. 28, that will allow retired public-school staff to work full-time for a district for up to four years without losing retirement benefits.
Prior to Black’s legislation, teachers and non-certificated staff could work full-time for only two years post-retirement without losing benefits.
The law also addresses other positions, like bus drivers and janitors. Retired school employees can work in positions that don’t require a teaching certificate for more hours.
UPDATED: Cash bail will end in Illinois as state supreme court rules the SAFE-T Act is constitutional
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
By JERRY NOWICKI
Capitol News Illinois
jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD –
A landmark criminal justice reform that eliminates cash bail in Illinois is constitutional, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, paving the way for the change to take effect Sept. 18.
The 5-2 decision – handed down on partisan lines – means that an individual’s wealth will no longer play a role in whether they are incarcerated while awaiting trial. Judges can still order someone to be detained as they await trial, but the new system will instead be based on an offender’s level of risk of reoffending or fleeing prosecution.
With the new law’s implementation, Illinois will become the first state in the U.S. to fully eliminate cash bail – and all provisions of the SAFE-T Act criminal justice reform will have taken full effect.
Short for Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today, the wide-ranging measure was an initiative of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus that passed in the wake of a nationwide reckoning with racism in the criminal justice system following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The act reformed police training, certification and use-of-force standards, expanded detainee rights, and gave the attorney general’s office authority to investigate alleged civil rights violations by law enforcement. It also requires body cameras at all police departments by 2025. Some larger departments are already required to use body cameras under the law.
State Rep. Justin Slaughter, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the measure in the House, said the pretrial detention overhaul addresses an “overly punitive criminal justice system” for impoverished Illinoisans – especially those in Black and brown communities.
It’s a system that often forces innocent individuals to take plea deals – and to accept a criminal record – to obtain their freedom when they don’t have money to post bail.
“So this is not about being tough on crime or soft on crime,” he said. “This is about being smart on crime, reworking our system, streamlining our system to address those higher-level, more violent, dangerous alleged offenses. It's not about having someone unnecessarily sit in jail.”
While opponents of the new law have argued it will strain smaller court systems and hinder judicial discretion, the lawsuit centered on the meaning of two mentions of the word “bail” in the Illinois Constitution, and the interplay between branches of government.
The Supreme Court ruled on a set of consolidated cases filed against Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Gov. JB Pritzker and the state’s Democratic legislative leaders by state’s attorneys and sheriffs from over 60 counties.
The lawsuit specifically cited Article VIII of the state constitution, which states, “all persons” accused of crimes “shall be bailable by sufficient sureties.” Any changes to the language, the lawsuit argued, would require a constitutional amendment to be approved by voters.
While a Kankakee County judge ruled with the state’s attorneys and sheriffs late last year, Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis, writing for the majority, said the lower court misinterpreted the state constitution..
She wrote, “The Illinois Constitution does not mandate that monetary bail is the only means to ensure criminal defendants appear for trials or the only means to protect the public,”
Theis’ majority opinion also said that the pretrial release provisions “expressly take crime victims into account.”
“As we have already mentioned, those provisions require a court to consider the ‘nature and seriousness of the real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons that would be posed by the defendant’s release,’ including crime victims and their family members,” she wrote.
The pretrial detention changes – often referred to as the Pretrial Fairness Act, or PFA – will create a “presumption” in favor of pretrial release, meaning “the state bears the burden of establishing a defendant’s eligibility for pretrial detention,” Theis wrote.
Advocates say the intent of that provision is to divert lower-level nonviolent offenders from pretrial incarceration while giving judges authority to detain individuals accused of more serious crimes if they are deemed dangerous or at risk of fleeing prosecution.
Another facet of the reform entitles defendants to a more intensive first appearance in court. During that appearance, defendants will now have a right to legal representation and prosecutors can detail their reasons for continued detention.
The new hearings replace standard bail hearings, which often last less than five minutes and end with a judge deciding the conditions of release, including how much money the defendant must post to be released.
Advocates for the bail reform have noted that it gives judges greater authority to detain individuals accused of crimes such as domestic battery and violations of orders of protection prior to trial than does prior law.
Kaethe Morris Hoffer, the executive director of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, spoke in favor of the reform at a virtual news conference Tuesday.
“I want to be clear – safety and interests and voices of people who have endured rape and violence in the sex trade have never been prioritized when the criminal legal system is asked to make decisions about the liberty of people who are accused of serious crimes of violence. This changes that.”
While the new law directs law enforcement officers to cite and release anyone accused of a crime below a Class A misdemeanor, they would maintain discretion to make an arrest if the person is a threat or if making the arrest is necessary to prevent further lawbreaking.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart was one of two state’s attorneys in Illinois who backed the SAFE-T Act alongside Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. He noted that many smaller jurisdictions will lose revenue from cash bail payments when the system is eliminated – a point that reform advocates have repeatedly noted shows a flaw in the system.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
KANSAS REFLECTOR: Promises made, promises kept.
White House announces more than 800,000 student loan borrowers to have debt forgiven. You heard that right.
BY: ARIANA FIGUEROA - JULY 14, 2023 10:41 AM
WASHINGTON —
The $39 billion in debt relief will come through fixes to mismanagement of the agency’s income-driven repayment plans. Many long-time borrowers, including those who had been making payments for 20 years or more, were denied relief they were eligible for under the repayment plans. This happens when qualified payments were made but aren’t being counted accurately.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
“For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness,”
The Department of Education has already begun to notify those 804,000 borrowers of their forgiveness, and within 30 days their debts will be wiped out.
The plan includes borrowers with Direct Loans or Federal Family Education Loans held by the department who have reached a forgiveness threshold specified by the department.
Cardona said “By fixing past administrative failures, we are ensuring everyone gets the forgiveness they deserve, just as we have already done for public servants, students who were cheated by their colleges, veterans and other borrowers with permanent disabilities”
A 2022 NPR investigation found numerous problems with the agency’s handling of IDR plans, which are meant to help low-income borrowers. Loan servicers failed to keep track of borrowers’ progress toward forgiveness and payment histories were not properly transferred from one loan servicer to another.
In January of this year, The Department of Education announced plans to overhaul the income-driven repayment plan.
Under the new plan, monthly payments would decline to 5% of a borrower’s income — down from 10% — and the repayment timeline for loan forgiveness would be decreased to 10 years from 20 or 25 if the initial loan is less than $12,000.
The announcement Friday followed the Supreme Court’s decision in late June to strike down the Biden administration’s student debt relief program that would have canceled up to $20,000 in student loan debt for some borrowers.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Education has canceled about $116 billion in student loan debt for borrowers who were misled by for-profit institutions, borrowers with disabilities and those with loans in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Welp, that’s it for me. From Denver I’m Sean Diller, original reporting for the stories in todays show is from Capitol News Illinois, Missouri Independent, Detroit News, and Kansas Reflector.
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Outro Song: “The World Is On Fire” by American Aquarium
