[History lesson followed by:] In all, it was a nice idea. But, once again, the militia largely disappointed during the War of 1812 and, in the following decades, enthusiasm for a mandatory and universal force waned, with citizens showing up to militia muster with broomsticks and corn stalks instead of rifles. Only the Southern states really kept up with the militia — because they needed it to enforce slavery. [snip]

“The laws of all 50 states prohibit, in one way or another, private militias that are not answerable to civilian governmental authority,” said Mary McCord, the legal director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, at Georgetown University. [snip]

We need to step back from this militia nonsense. These private paramilitaries are illegal and should be treated as such by the authorities.

Kanye West loaned $6.8 million to his 2020 presidential committee, essentially self-funding his campaign during the first month and a half of his run, his initial campaign disclosure report shows.

In its first disclosure filing submitted to the Federal Election Commission on Friday, the West campaign reported bringing in a total of $6.8 million between July 15 and Aug. 31, with $6.76 million of that coming from West's loans to the campaign.

The campaign raised a little under $11,500 from eight donors that gave between $200 and $1,000 and smaller donors who gave under $200 during that time, the report shows.

Nearly $2.7 million of that money has gone to a Huntington, New York-based firm named Millennial Strategies, LLC, which has provided a wide range of services, including campaign management consulting, legal services, polling, ballot access services and election law research, according to the filing. Led by New York Democratic Lawyers Council Executive Director Alex Voetsch and Jeffrey Guillot, according to Millennial Strategies' website, the firm's current and past clients include a host of private corporations as well as political and advocacy campaigns, including Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign and the New York State Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee.

Gregg Keller is the Principal of Atlas Strategy Group, and widely considered to be one of the top public affairs specialists working in the country today. Atlas provides extensive strategic services to Fortune 500 corporations, trade associations, non-profits and political campaigns across a range of practices including coalition-building, third party engagement, campaign management, strategic consulting, communications and fundraising.

Keller has served as Executive Director to two of America's most prominent political organizations: the American Conservative Union (ACU) and the Faith & Freedom Coalition (FFC). ACU is the country's oldest grassroots conservative organization and hosts of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the largest political event held annually in the United States. Keller was the first-ever Executive Director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, America's largest social conservative grassroots organization, with more than 1 million members and affiliates in more than 30 states. [MORE]

West paid something called "Fortified Consulting" over $1.47 million. Fortified has the exact same Tempe, AZ address as the Lincoln Strategy Group, another Republican firm.

Lincoln Strategy Group is the new name of the political consulting and PR firm previously known as Sproul and Associates.

In June 2008, "a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the RNC and the the California Republican Party, made a $175,000 payment to the group Lincoln Strategy ... for purposes of 'registering voters.'" The contract was controversial, as the firm (under its previous name, Sproul and Associates) "has been investigated on multiple occasions for suppressing Democratic voter turnout, throwing away registration forms and even spearheading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to hinder the Democratic ticket." [1]

Nathan Sproul, who was formerly the executive director of the Arizona State Republican Party, founded Sproul and Associates in 2003 and is based in Tempe, Arizona. Sproul and Associates had worked in 21 different states for various city, state, congressional, and national campaigns. He currently serves as the co-founder and Managing Director of Lincoln Strategy Group. Sproul himself specializes in campaign/public affairs management, get-out-the vote efforts, ballot initiative management, media and public relations, and business and political leadership. [2]

[MORE]

Jay Black
@jayblackisfunny Replying to @LindseyGrahamSC and @realDonaldTrump
Have you tried driving to the White House and playing “In Your Eyes” on a boom box outside his window?

It is the only way to “heal the soul of the nation”.

How to link to YouTube giving a start time

You can't, as far as I can tell, do this and get it to embed on DU, but this allows you to specify the point at which YouTube starts showing the video (useful for a particular point from a long one. To start at 1 minute 35 seconds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1m35s&v=VyqzPu5pX6U

The "t=XmYs" must come before the "v="; if it comes after, DU embeds the video but starts at the beginning.

"Voting by mail systems rest upon the premise that all citizens have equal mail service, however, hundreds of thousands of rural Americans have non-standard mail service burdened with a range of service limits including irregular service or unreliable service, no residential delivery, excessive distances to post offices or other postal providers with limited hours of operation among other issues," the Navajo Nation members wrote in their complaint.

Hobbs said earlier this week that the deadline and its restrictions are set by state law, but that her office would comply with a court order easing the deadline.

S. Lamatina
@shawnylamatina Replying to @LionHunterMusic
and @madrid_mike
I’m a Canadian third gen Vet. Grandpa fought across http://N.Africa, Sicily&Italy and into Europe. Dad flew fighters & trained Americans for Vietnam. I was reserve x7 yrs. Remind me how any Drumpf has served? Crickets. Loser. #TrumpHatesVeterans