Fri: Get Off Your Asses, and Start Killing Gazans!

Guess Which One's White and Which One's Black

A judge ruled this week that a top Georgia Republican Party official, who has promoted former President Donald Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud affecting the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, has repeatedly voted illegally.

Brian Pritchard, first vice chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and a conservative talk show host, was fined $5,000 for voting illegally and registering to vote while serving a sentence for a felony conviction. Pritchard was also ordered not to commit further violations, to face public reprimand for his conduct and to pay the State Election Board's investigative costs.

In a 25-page ruling Wednesday, Administrative Law Judge Lisa Boggs affirmed the board's finding that Pritchard had voted illegally nine times in defiance of his extended probation in connection with a pair of felony convictions dating back nearly 30 years.

Pritchard was initially sentenced in 1996 to three years’ probation in connection with felony forgery charges in Pennsylvania, according to the ruling.

Pritchard's probation was revoked three times: in 1999, when he moved to Georgia, and again in 2002 and 2004. A judge in 2004 imposed a new seven-year probationary sentence, which made Pritchard illegible to vote in the state until 2011.
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A Texas appeals court on Thursday overturned the illegal voting conviction of Crystal Mason, who was given a five-year prison sentence for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election while on supervised release for federal tax evasion.

The decision by the Tarrant County-based Second Court of Appeals means she is formally acquitted of the felony voting charge. The court said in the decision that there was no evidence Mason knew she was ineligible to vote when she cast her ballot—which is a condition that must be met in order to convict her of illegal voting.

Mason has maintained throughout the seven-year case that she did not know she was ineligible and would not have risked her freedom if she had. She said Thursday in a statement that her long legal fight, which gained international attention, was devastating.

My Momma Told Me, You'd Better Shop Around

A Texas federal judge on Thursday accused the major banking industry groups and U.S. Chamber of Commerce of venue shopping in their lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a major win for the federal regulator.

The bureau had argued the only reason banks filed their lawsuit in Texas was to increase their chance of a favorable ruling. Judge Mark Pittman ruled that the lawsuit should be transferred to Washington, where the banking lobby has armies of lawyers able to handle this case.

“Venue is not a continental breakfast; you cannot pick and choose on a Plaintiff’s whim where and how a lawsuit is filed," Pittman wrote.

The lawsuit deals with the CFPB's new regulations over credit card late fees, where the average late fee of a customer would be capped at $8, down from the average late fee of $32. The major banking groups had filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas. Industry and interest groups have often filed lawsuits against the Biden administration there, due to its historically conservative judges.

Hailing Haley Voters

President Biden’s reelection campaign launched a digital ad Friday aimed at supporters of Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination this month. The ad is part of an effort by the president’s team to win over Republicans who may be disinclined to vote for Donald Trump.

The Biden campaign, which is spending more than $1 million on the ad across digital platforms, will run the spot for three weeks in battleground states, campaign officials said. It is part of a six-week, $30 million ad buy the campaign launched after the State of the Union.