Does Trump "victory" mean our systems have collapsed and no longer can be trusted -- and the whole U.S. is about to get a taste of life in SchnauzerWorld?

Trump victory speech
(From cnn.com)

As America wakes this morning to the grim reality that Donald Trump is our president-elect, many probably are wondering if yesterday was just a bad dream. Others are connected enough to reality that they have thought of fleeing to Canada -- in numbers large enough last night to shut down the Web site for the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) service.

Here in Middle America, in what serves as the Schnauzer household for now, two overriding questions come to mind:

(1) Can the election results be trusted, and did Hillary Clinton really lose?

(2) Is the rest of the country about to get a taste of the sort of institutional abuse my wife, Carol, and I have been experiencing for roughly 16 years?

The answer to question No. 1, in my view, is no. Vice News published an article yesterday morning titled "How To Hack An Election: Six Things to Watch for on Election Day." It set the stage for the atmosphere surrounding the 2016 election for months:

Fear of cybersecurity threats has plagued the 2016 presidential election since June when the Democratic National Committee site was hacked, with the U.S. government later determining the culprits were associated with Russian intelligence. Since then, a steady trickle of leaked emails, large-scale attacks, and escalating (if vague) threats of cyberwarfare between the U.S. and Russia have cast a shadow over November 8, and beyond. WikiLeaks dumped more than 8,000 new emails hacked from the DNC Sunday night, less than 48 hours before Election Day.

This is from a late October CNN article titled "Vladimir Putin Is Trying To Hack The Election. What should U.S. Do?"

In a tight race, cyber bad actors don't need to disrupt everything. They just need to hit a few counties in Pennsylvania or Florida, two big battleground states that use electronic voting but in some precincts do not use verifiable paper audit trails to confirm results.

Pennsylvania and Florida are not alone. Thirteen other states lack paper audit trails in either all or some voting locations. . . .

Finally, the US government needs to start attributing election-related breaches as quickly as possible unless there is a compelling intelligence reason not to. For months, the Russian government's election hacking was the worst-kept secret in Washington; everyone knew it, but the White House refused to acknowledge it. This sends all the wrong signals, emboldening bad actors to do more tomorrow than they did today.

Officials at the highest levels in Washington knew Putin and Co. were trying to break into our house -- and we did not have a halfway decent lock on the door.

The Vice News article spells out six prime scenarios for hacking a U.S. election. Maybe it's my journalism background on overdrive, but this one jumps out to me:

Hacking the Associated Press

Remember when the Syrian Electronic Army hacked AP’s Twitter account and claimed the White House was under attack and briefly wiped $140 billion off the S and P 500? Well, now imagine something similar happening on Tuesday.

The Associated Press is the media outlet which all others rely on when calling the election results. Covering over 3,000 county election centers, AP has an unrivaled insight into election results and plays a critical role in the way election results are reported.

But, aside from getting its social media accounts hacked, how else could AP be vulnerable to an attack?

F-Secure’s Sean Sullivan found that AP’s Vote Count website, where clerks enter the numbers reported by stringers, was publicly available and not behind any sort of DDoS mitigation service. With access, hackers could enter false results that could temporarily spread misinformation throughout the country.

Were those accurate numbers that Wolf Blitzer, John King, and the like were reading to you last night? In today's world of digital chicanery, the answer is "not necessarily."

As for question No. 2, it's hard for anyone other than Carol and me to grasp what we've been through during the 16-year legal nightmare described in this blog. But here are some of the realities of Life in SchnauzerWorld:

* The justice system is unreliable, with judges routinely issuing orders that run contrary to law -- and lawyers, who have a professional duty to report such malfeasance, refusing to report it. In other words, the U.S. Constitution means nothing, and rights that supposedly are federally guaranteed are routinely trampled;

* The workplace becomes the site of fear, intimidation, and false charges. Both you and your spouse are cheated out of your jobs, based on allegations that have no connection to reality. Naturally, you have no union, and no coworker is about to stand up for you. Given your age, with a bogus termination on your record, you not only have lost a job, but a career -- with almost no hope of ever gaining comparable employment. And once you have a baseless arrest and conviction on your record, and your credit rating has been ruined, you have almost no chance of landing any job; (See item below.)

* Law enforcement becomes your enemy, arresting a journalist (me) for the "crime" of blogging and sending me to jail for five months, even attempting multiple times to arrest my wife. Evidence shows I was the one being beaten up by cops, but I am charged with "resisting arrest" and convicted. The law says you can't be convicted for "resisting" an arrest that was unlawful in the first place, but the law doesn't apply in this new reality;

* Law enforcement becomes a physical menace -- beating you up inside your own home and dousing you with pepper spray, all with no sign or mention of a warrant, no criminal charge of any kind. This happens in one state (which went for Trump yesterday), then later in another state (which also went for Trump) officers burst into your apartment for an "eviction," which by law was stayed because we had timely filed a Notice of Appeal, and you and your wife have multiple assault weapons and pistols pointed at you. Ultimately, three officers surround your wife, slam her violently to the ground, yank on her arms, put her in handcuffs, and take her to jail -- where someone notices her arms are purple; she is taken to a nearby hospital, where X-rays show her left arm has been snapped in two so severely that it will require trauma surgery; and

* Financial systems become riddled with corruption, featuring bogus foreclosures, where your home of 25 years can be stolen out from underneath you for political reasons. Is your financial information available to prying eyes? Probably, yes.

In a Trump presidency -- given the obvious signs that he is a sociopath, a narcissist, and a hypersensitive blowhard -- life likely will be much like this for an alarming number of Americans. In fact, U.S. life in general might become worse than anything we've experienced.

No wonder some folks are looking for the first train to Canada.

With only one qualified presidential candidate on the ballot, the abominable 2016 race ends today, leaving behind plenty of "Good," "Bad," and "Ugly" to ponder

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

Americans will go to the polls today -- finally -- after what many experts have called the most bizarre and sophomoric campaign in U.S. history. (That last description, in my view, is an insult to sophomores everywhere.) Who could have imagined one year ago that candidates in a nationally televised debate would compare the supposed correlation between hand size and penis size in men? Who could have imagined that a candidate would be caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women, and his poll numbers actually have improved since then? Who could have imagined that one of the two major parties would put forth a candidate who won mainly because he was better than anyone else at lobbing verbal spitballs, a skill most of us perfect in the third grade and then go on to more productive pursuits -- like making fart sounds with our armpits?

Hillary Clinton, the only remotely qualified candidate running, is expected to win the presidency -- and let's pray to God she does, or we are likely to wake up soon to an American many of us don't recognize, and I don't mean that in a good way. Clinton, in fact, probably has the most solid credentials (on paper) of any candidate since George H. W. Bush, and yet Donald Trump -- whose only qualification is that he makes for compelling reality TV -- is turning it into a real race, according to most polls.

That reminds us you could call this "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly campaign," with emphasis on the last two categories. And yes, Clint Eastwood piped up just the other day to say something ignorant about politics. (How could a man who has directed and acted in so many top-notch motion pictures, be such a political putz? How could a man known for going almost entire movies without saying a word now open his yap regularly to reveal that, in terms of national governance, he makes you root for the serial killers in those old Dirty Harry movies?)

With Eastwood in mind, let's consider three lessons that likely are to come from this election -- and they all involve the South:

The Ugly

I've probably said this on the blog before, but it bears repeating: Alabama has the most unrealized potential of any state in the country. It has extraordinary beauty, with majestic mountains to the north and the Gulf of Mexico (with some of the world's most gorgeous beaches) to the south; it has ample natural resources, from coal to fertile crop land to stunning rivers and streams (plus an ocean, did we mention an ocean?); it's got one of the nation's most prime locations, roughly between New Orleans to the south, Memphis to the west, Nashville to the north, Atlanta to the east, and Jacksonville/Tampa/Orlando/Miami to the south.

So why does Alabama rank in the bottom 10 of almost every quality-of-life survey taken in the past 30 to 40 years? Why does Alabama rank high when it's good to rank low, and low when it's good to rank high? Only one answer comes to mind -- Alabama is home to too many stupid people.

To be fair, Alabama is home to some of the finest, brightest people I've known. But they seem to be offset by yahoos who jump out from behind every magnolia and pine tree at voting time. That's how we end up with a former Speaker of the House, former chief justice of the Supreme Court, and a governor (who hopefully will be former soon) who have been convicted, suspended, and investigated for a variety of improper/unlawful acts. And that doesn't even count the most corrupt former official in the modern era -- Governor Bob Riley, with assistance from his son, Rob "Uday" Riley.

Some polls have shown that Alabama is likely to go stronger for Trump than any other state. The "thinking" among many in "The Heart of Dixie" seems to be; "He's the most unqualified and dangerous presidential candidate in American history -- with ties to Russia that make even me nervous -- but he plays to my white nationalistic pride, so by God, he's my man!"

Historians will spend years trying to figure out how any individual American could vote for Donald Trump -- and how any state could go for him overwhelmingly. Look for historians to be spending a lot of time on the back roads of Alabama, posing a question that has only one answer: Alabama would be one of our top 10 states in all meaningful categories, except it is home to a disproportionate share of stupid people; that's why Donald Trump will cruise to victory there today.

The Bad

A report just four days ago shows that we have 868 fewer polling places since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in a June 2013 case called Shelby County v. Holder. Almost half of counties that once had to approve voting changes with the federal government have cut polling places.

The Shelby County in the court case's title is in Alabama. In fact, it's the place my wife, Carol, and I called home for roughly 25 years -- until deputies beat me and threw me in jail and forced us into a bogus foreclosure, all because I unmasked legal and political corruption on this blog. Yes, I was thrown in jail for blogging -- a story that always made my fellow inmates howl with laughter -- but that's the kind of place Shelby County can be. Just south of Birmingham, it generally is considered the fastest growing county in the state, and one of the fastest growing in the country. But its government base is in a backwoods town called Columbiana, and it is so right-leaning that many local elections don't have a single Democratic candidate.

Shelby County is the place where white nationalism and race-based political fears have come to thrive. It's also the place where almost all white officials -- and many white residents -- cannot tell (or even see) the truth, no matter the circumstances. For example, veteran Shelby County attorney Frank "Butch" Ellis (or his surrogates) argued key provisions of the Voting Rights Act no longer were needed because people in places like Shelby County had grown up enough to finally eat at the adults table come election time, giving everyone a fair chance to vote for the candidate of their choice. Butch Ellis, unfortunately, has family ties to the segregationist Dixiecrats of the late 1940s and notoriously racist Birmingham public safety commissioner Bull Connor.

No one should be surprised that Ellis' words were a lie. It's clear now the goal was to suppress voting opportunities, especially for minorities. From an article at The Nation, focusing largely on Texas:


Texas has closed more than 400 polling places, more than any other state in the study. “Almost half of all Texas counties in our sample closed polling places since Shelby, resulting in 403 fewer voting locations for the 2016 election than in past years,” according to the Leadership Conference.

Medina County, a heavily Republican area in South Texas, closed a polling place in the town of Natalia, which is 75 percent Latino and the only Democratic-leaning part of the county. “We’ve had a polling place for at least the last six decades,” Emilio Flores, a local activist and registered Republican, told me. When Flores asked the county elections administrator, Patricia Barton, how low-income and disabled Latino voters were supposed to vote without a polling place in their town, he said she told him, “If you think it’s such a big issue, why don’t you shuttle them yourself?” Last week the county commission approved a polling place in Natalia for Election Day after local activists like Flores raised alarms, but Medina County will have only eight polling places in 2016, down from 14 in 2012.

That clearly is the result right-wingers in Shelby County, Alabama, wanted. It might be the most important issue to come out of the 2016 election, and it likely will require Congressional action to override the U.S. Supreme Court. Butch Ellis and his ilk have proven they still have the mindset of children when it comes to voting rights.


The Good

Could the GOP's stranglehold on the South be loosening? A report yesterday from ThinkProgress suggests the answer is yes -- and the right-wing's vice-like grip might even take a slight hit today.

Demographic shifts -- especially in North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas -- indicate the South might be moving, oh so slowly, to the political left, or at least toward the center. ThinkProgress notes that Barack Obama and his supporters had to wait almost two days in 2008 to learn they had held off John McCain in North Carolina, by less than half a percentage point.

In 2012, Obama lost the South by a resounding 7 points. Hillary Clinton heads into today's elections trailing in polls by 1 point across the region. From ThinkProgress:

Now, in the final days of the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are virtually tied in North Carolina. But what began as a “moment” has, since the 2008 race, matured into a movement.Trump still has an overall lead in the South, but his polling advantage is shockingly slim compared to those of prior Republican candidates. Whereas Obama lost the region by a solid seven points in 2012, Clinton is behind by just a single percentage point, and conservative states long thought to be GOP strongholds are now securely in the “toss-up” column.

Naysayers will dismiss this year as a fluke, brought on by the unprecedented weakness of the current Republican nominee. But although Trump’s unpopularity has no doubt helped to put more of the South in play, deeper structural forces are also driving the region’s political evolution. Demographic trends and grassroots organizing have been nudging the South left for years. The same forces that turned Virginia into a reliably Democratic state and delivered North Carolina to Barack Obama in 2008 carried then-Texas State Senator Wendy Davis through a now legendary 11 hour abortion rights filibuster in 2013.They also drove scores of Southern racial justice activists to rally against white-on-black violence; in Charlotte, North Carolina, following the killing of a black man by police, and in Charleston, South Carolina, after the murder of black churchgoers by a white supremacist.

As dreadful as this election season has been -- and it's been plenty dreadful -- perhaps it will bring positive change in its wake. Perhaps Congress will reinstate the guts of the Voting Rights Act that were decimated by Shelby v. Holder. Perhaps today's results will add to the signs that the GOP no longer holds a complete lock on the South.

It's clearly too much to ask that Alabama lead any kind of progressive change in the South. But North Carolina, Georgia, or Texas might do it; if just one of them goes blue, that would signal progress -- and maybe it will be the kind that not even James Comey and his dubious FBI can stop.

Ashley Madison customers revealed: James Dixon, with lengthy career at Sterne Agee and a $1-million home in Mountain Brook, appears at cheaters' site

James Dixon
(From facebook.co

A managing director at one of the nation's oldest and largest privately owned financial-services companies is among paying customers at the Ashley Madison extramarital-affairs Web site, records show.

James Dixon has been at Sterne Agee for 22 years. Stifel Financial Services acquired Sterne Agee in June 2015, and Dixon became managing director, Southeast Region, for Stifel. His title might soon change because Stifel is set to sell Sterne Agee to INTL FCStone Inc., a financial services company with roots in commodities. The sale affects about 600 independent reps and advisers.

Sterne Agee is going through turbulent times, but it has a storied history. From the firm's LinkedIn page:

Founded in 1901, Sterne Agee is one of the oldest and largest privately owned financial services firms in the nation. Through a team of over 2,000 financial professionals, Sterne Agee offers comprehensive wealth management and investment services to a diverse client base including corporations, municipalities and individual investors. The Firm maintains custody of nearly $26 billion in client assets and has offices nationwide, as well as an office in London.

Dixon has a significant stake in that history, and images from his Facebook page indicate the affiliation with Sterne Agee has helped him secure an enviable lifestyle. Rita Dixon, James' wife, has a Facebook page that also features images suggesting an upper-class lifestyle.

Rita Dixon (right) and friends
(From facebook.com)

They have two sons, and the family lives at 11 Clarendon Road in Mountain Brook, one of the Birmingham area's most desirable locations. Property records show the house is valued at more than $962,000, but our guess is that the actual sales price would be well north of $1 million.

With all of that going for him, why would James Dixon fool around on Ashley Madison? We don't know because he has not responded to our requests for comment.


Previously:

(1) Edgar C. Gentle III -- attorney at Gentle Turner Sexton and Harbison, Birmingham, AL (3/8/16)

(2) Stewart Springer -- attorney, solo practice in Birmingham, AL. (3/9/16)

(3) Richard W. "Dick" Bell -- attorney, solo practice in Birmingham, AL (3/14/16)

(4) Robert M.N. Palmer -- attorney and bar association president in Springfield, MO (3/15/16)

(5) Thomas Plouff -- attorney, who is licensed in Alabama and has a practice in Chicago (3/17/16)

(6) James F. Henry -- attorney, Bradley Arant, Birmingham (3/23/16)

(7) Michael E. Stephens -- founder, Lakeshore Foundation, Birmingham (6/20/16)

(8) James Vawter -- founding principal, Capstone Collegiate Communities (10/4/16)

(9) Randy Bates -- executive VP and member of board of directors, Golden Flake (10/5/16)

(10) Reid Carpenter -- attorney, Lightfoot Franklin White, Birmingham (10/6/16)

(11) Scott Sink -- exec. VP, McGriff Seibels Williams, Birmingham (10/11/16)

(12) Russell Byrne -- VP for information systems, Bromberg's, Birmingham (10/17/16)

(13) Rob Waudby -- district manager, Skyline Steel, Birmingham (10/24/16)

(14) Paul Wells -- VP, Protective Life, Birmingham (10/25/16)

(15) Brian Shulman -- CEO, LTS Education Systems, Birmingham (10/26/16)

(16) Peyton Lacy -- attorney, Ogletree Deakins, Birmingham (11/1/16)

U.S. Judge R. David Proctor is acting way outside his authority in making rulings that could deny us justice in my police beating/wrongful incarceration case

R. David Proctor

A federal judge who is trying to block our rights as in forma pauperis (IFP) litigants to have the court effect service in a civil-rights lawsuit is acting beyond his authority. U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor, in a case involving my unlawful incarceration in Shelby County, Alabama, also is unlawfully trying to hold us, as pro se litigants (representing ourselves), to the same standards imposed upon lawyers.

Those are two more reasons, of about a half dozen or more, that Proctor's actions in what we call "The Jail Case" (Shuler, et al v. Duke, et al) are unlawful -- and they have forced us to waste time and judicial resources to seek review with the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. It's a classic illustration that many federal judges do not give a rip about wasting the taxpayer funds that support their cushy existence. (Links to previous posts in this series are at the end this post.)

Why is Proctor acting outside his authority? In so many words, a judge cannot lawfully do much in a case where defendants have not been served. Without service, The Jail Case essentially has not started and Proctor has no authority over defendants. That means Proctor largely should stay out of it until the clerk's office has completed service on our behalf, as it is required to do for IFP litigants. But Proctor has stepped way beyond his authority to block the clerk's office from completing service.

Proctor has taken several proper steps in our case: He has granted IFP status, required us to pay a partial filing fee of $200 (which we timely paid), and in so doing, found that our claims were not frivolous. That's pretty much where his authority ends at this point in the litigation. An article at Fordham Law Review spells this out:

"Section 1915(c) . . .  directs officers of the court to issue summons when an IFP complaint is filed, and to serve process for IFP plaintiffs. Neither the Rules nor the IFP statute vests a judge with discretion to intervene at this stage of the pleadings to determine whether the clerk may issue a summons." Thus, courts reason that under the postfiling delayed dismissal approach an IFP complaint may not be dismissed before issuance of process.

Anyone with sixth-grade reading skills should be able to comprehend this. A judge has no "discretion to intervene at this stage," and an "IFP complaint may not be dismissed before issuance of process." Does Proctor have sub-par reading skills? I doubt that. He simply is trying to cheat us, and he's quite transparent about what he is doing.

Proctor even resorts to a juvenile mindset as part of his con game. He repeatedly has called us "frequent filers," which he apparently considers a clever reference to the fact we have been involved in several federal cases. Specifically, he uses this sobriquet in an apparent attempt to hold us to the same standards as an attorney, or a party represented by an attorney. Is this lawful? No, it is not -- as spelled out in a case styled Kilgo v. Ricks 983 F.2d 189 (11th Cir. 1993):

As already noted, Kilgo (a state prisoner) evidently has tried to comply with the district court's orders to complete these forms, but gave up in despair. It may be that Kilgo despaired too easily, but a district court which holds pro se litigants to the same standards as trained practitioners may end up routinely rejecting meritorious claims for failure to prosecute. This course we cannot approve. Unless the court is willing to guide pro se litigants through the obstacle course it has set up, or to allow them to skip some of the less substantive obstacles, it should not erect unnecessary procedural barriers which many pro se litigants will have great difficulty surmounting without the assistance of counsel.

I might know more about legal procedure than most folks, but this is the first time we have dealt with the in forma pauperis process. Despite that, our research indicates we have have gotten it right, suggesting we know more about the process than does Proctor.

The Kilgo case also helps illustrate that Proctor unjustly dismissed our case because of alleged delays on our end. In fact, Proctor himself caused the delays by interjecting himself at a stage where he has no authority. But either way, Kilgo makes it clear that Proctor acted unlawfully:

Mere delay will not suffice; "[a] finding of such extreme circumstances necessary to support the sanction of dismissal must, at a minimum, be based on evidence of willful delay; simple negligence does not warrant dismissal."

Proctor has proven that he is a glorified con man wearing a robe. As part of our effort to have the Eleventh Circuit correct his mistakes, we will seek to have Proctor removed from the case.


Previously:

Proctor creates bogus legal terms in civil-rights case (Nov. 1, 2016)


Proctor abuses "pauperis" law (Oct. 31, 2016)


Proctor tramples law that governs treatment of indigent litigants (Oct. 27, 2016)


Fighting back in federal court against unlawful incarceration and wrongful foreclosure (Oct. 25, 2016)

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill gets indignant about ballot access, but seems to forget details re: his extramarital affair in Millie Brinyark scandal

What happens when a politician thinks a scandal has blown over, and he more or less has gotten away with certain unsavory acts? If Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill is an indicator, he becomes an insufferable, arrogant prick. Given Merrill's close ties to former Governor Bob Riley and his son, Rob "Uday" Riley, it's quite possible that Merrill was an insufferable, arrogant prick all along.

Merrill removed all doubt this week when his comments in a documentary about American barriers to ballot access came to light.  Numerous states have approved, or are considering, plans to allow all eligible citizens to automatically be registered to vote. But Merrill snorts and ruffles his feathers when presented with such ideas, calling them the “sorry and lazy way out.” (See video above.)

Speaking of "sorry," Merrill seems to have forgotten the ugly extramarital affair in his not-too-distant past. We, however, have not forgotten reports from multiple sources that Merrill has "issues" in Huntsville. We have the name of a person and a business in Huntsville with interesting "ties" to Merrill, and we are very close to having that story nailed down for publication.

Merrill is not in a great position to play the "holier than thou" card on ballot access -- or any other issue -- but he did it anyway in the documentary interview. From an article at Think Progress by Kira Lerner:

Five states have approved plans to allow all eligible citizens to automatically be registered to vote, unless they opt-out, and dozens more are considering following suit.

But Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) opposes such a practice, calling it the “sorry and lazy way out.”

“I don’t think that just because your birthday comes around, you should be registered to vote,” he said in an interview with Brian Jenkins, the director of a documentary about America’s various barriers to ballot access.

Merrill, a Republican, then starts harrumphing and claiming such plans cheapen the work of civil-rights icons like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks:

“These people fought — some of them were beaten, some of them were killed — because of their desire to ensure that everybody that wanted to had the right to register to vote and participate in the process,” he said.

“I’m not going to cheapen the work they did, I’m not going to embarrass them by allowing somebody that’s too sorry to get up off their rear end to go register to vote… because they think they deserve the right because they’ve turned 18,” he continued, growing angry.

It's nice to see that Merrill can make value judgments about others, given revelations in early 2015 about his own extramarital affair.  The right-wing mainstream press did its best to keep the story under wraps, but we broke it here on January 29, 2015. Merrill ultimately went to al.com to shoo the problem away by offering some of the most preposterous excuses in the history of straying spouses.

Millie Brinyark, with ex husband and kids
(From Tuscaloosa News)

Al.com columnist Kyle Whitmire admitted he had court documents prior to the 2014 election that provided details about an extramarital affair involving an unnamed politician. A deposition from a divorce case in Tuscaloosa Circuit Court styled Bryan Scott Brinyark v. Mildred Murphree Brinyark revealed the politician to be Merrill -- and it's possible he never would have been elected Secretary of State, and his political career would have been over, had Whitmire not taken the deposition and "stuck it away."

Keep in mind that Merrill is not just any old Alabama politico. He's made it clear that he considers himself to be gubernatorial timber, and with his ties to the Riley Machine, he likely has the backing to make a serious run for it. In fact, Merrill probably was posturing for an upcoming governor's race -- playing to his right-wing base and their race-based fears -- when he became indignant during the interview about voting access. From Think Progress:

In the interview, Merrill also compared automatic registration to giving everyone on a sports team a trophy for participation. “You only get a trophy if you win,” he said emphatically.

“Just because you turned 18 doesn’t give you the right to do anything,” he continued. “I think it’s the sorry, lazy way out, and it shows no initiative.”

When the interviewer points out that voters still have to take the initiative to go to a polling place to cast a ballot, Merrill adds that he’s not “attracted to lazy people, or sorry people, or people that don’t want to get involved.”

“If you’re too sorry and lazy to get up off of your rear and to go register to vote, or to register electronically, and then to go vote, then you don’t deserve that privilege,” he said.

Court documents show that Merrill certainly was willing to "get off his rear" and "take the initiative" when it came to Millie Brinyark. In fact, it's clear he was "attracted" to her and found her to be quite the "trophy." Consider these statements from Ms. Brinyark's deposition regarding one interaction with Merrill: (A section of the deposition is embedded at the end of this post.)

A: John came to talk to me, and he came again and talked to me, and then I met with him that Sunday afternoon, and he had--he had been very sexual in his conversations and -- 

Q: Toward you? 

A: Yes. 

Q: In an inappropriate manner? 

A: Yes. 

Q: In what way? 

A: Just he talked about he had to have sex all the time and -- 

Q: He wanted to have it with you? 

A: Uh-huh.

Ms. Brinyark then provides plenty of details on how physical things became:

Q: Did he touch, caress, and/or kiss your breasts?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you do the same for him?

A: Yes.

Q: So you touched his unexposed penis?

A: Yes.

Q. And did either one of y'all have oral sex with the other?

A: Yes.

Q: How many times?

A: Just once.

Q: Both for each other?

A: No.

Q: Him for you--did he commit or perform oral sex on you?

A: No.

Q: You performed oral sex on him?

A: Yes.

This is not the kind of information that appears at Merrill's bio on the Secretary of State Web site. Instead, you get this kind of thing, from one of our posts on the scandal:

During the 2014 campaign, Merrill was a favorite of the pro-business and religious communities, picking up endorsements from the Business Council of Alabama (led by Bill Canary), Alabama Conservative Christians, the National Rifle Association, Alabama Farmers Federation, and the Alabama Association of Realtors. . . . 

Merrill's official biography at the Secretary of State Web site says he is a deacon at Calvary Baptist Church and has served as a Sunday School teacher.

How did Merrill sweep the Brinyark scandal under the rug? He went to his pals at the al.com, met with four "journalists" and fessed up -- sort of.  He admitted to having an extramarital "sexual encounter," but denied receiving oral sex. (Try not to laugh when you read that last sentence -- or the following, from Legal Schnauzer.)

In a sworn deposition, defendant Millie Brinyark provided graphic details about a sexually charged relationship with the married Merrill. In an interview with four al.com journalists on Tuesday (Feb. 3), Merrill supported much of Brinyark's testimony, primarily denying that he received oral sex and that he was the sexual aggressor.

According to al.com, Merrill claims to be the victim of a "smear campaign" by unnamed individuals who widely circulated portions of the deposition to the press, politicians, members of his church, and others. How can it be a smear campaign when it involves public documents, about testimony that Merrill largely admits is true? The al.com journalists apparently did not ask Merrill that question.

John Merrill apparently thinks Alabamians are stupid enough to believe a woman would admit, under oath, to providing him with oral sex when she really hadn't.

Merrill also seems to think the Brinyark scandal is neatly tucked away. It isn't -- and neither are his "issues" in Huntsville, which could break at any moment.

Deposition re John Merrill

Here is an ex parte letter that my brother, Missouri lawyer David Shuler, sent to judge hearing our eviction case--villifying me and ensuring we would get cheated

David Shuler

Have you ever had someone say or write something about you that was so vile and nasty -- and disconnected from the truth -- that you wondered if the person had experienced a psychological break with reality? Have you ever wondered why such a person would hold such ill will, when you've done nothing to cause it?

My experience with such behavior came from my brother, attorney David Shuler of Springfield, Missouri. And he did not communicate the ugly stuff to me directly -- or to someone we both know or are related to. Nope, he put it in a letter to a judge, just one day before a hearing here in Missouri on landlord Trent Cowherd's efforts to unlawfully evict my wife, Carol, and me.

That means my brother's letter, expressing ill will toward me that I can't begin to explain, is part of the court file. And that means it is a public record that anyone can see. With that in mind, I'm going to make it available here for anyone to see. (Full letter is embedded at the end of this post.)

Amazingly, my brother states in the letter that he intends to work on behalf of landlord Trent Cowherd -- and against Carol and me. David gives no indication that he's going to do anything on behalf of his supposed client -- our mother, Gondy Shuler, whom Cowherd wrongfully sued because she was co-signer on our lease. Evidence strongly suggests that David wanted Cowherd to sue our mother so he would have an excuse to be involved in the case and help work against Carol and me. Cowherd immediately dropped its claim against our mother once the eviction was complete.

How low can a family member go to stab you in the back? I can't imagine how one could go any lower than my brother already has gone.

Because my brother's letter was part of a court case, it goes way beyond one sibling expressing distaste, disgust, resentment, jealousy, etc. with another sibling. The letter, addressed to Judge Kelly Halford Rose, was blatantly prejudicial and likely played a major role in the eviction that resulted in one deputy pointing an assault rifle at my head and another breaking Carol's arm. It also was an ex parte communication that never should have been in the record and probably violates Missouri bar rules.

During the eviction hearing, I moved for Rose to recuse herself due to the prejudicial letter. As I expected, she denied the motion -- harrumphing and striking her best self-righteous pose.

Let's go over a few key sections of the letter. You can decide for yourself if it was likely to be prejudicial for the judge to whom it was addressed. You also might ask yourself this question: What on earth was David Shuler thinking when he wrote this, and why does he hold such obvious resentment toward his brother? (Note: I asked David at least three times, maybe four, to serve me with a copy of the letter; as a party to the case, I was entitled to a service copy. He never sent me one, so I got my own copy. If he was proud of his handiwork, why didn't he want to share it? Or is it possible he didn't think I would discover the letter?)

Here is the opening paragraph:

Dear Judge Halford:

I am writing regarding the above referenced case. Roger Shuler is my brother who has been estranged from my family for approximately 25 years. Recently, a family friend helped him relocate to the Missouri area. Unfortunately, my 85 year old mother made the mistake of agreeing to co-sign a lease for Roger with Trent Cowherd Construction. She agreed to pay his moving expenses and his rent for thirteen months to help him get back on his feet. She never dreamed that Roger Shuler would then refuse to pay his rent and/or vacate the property.

Let's interject a few facts here:

(1) I've not been estranged from my family for 25 years; my family has been estranged from me. In 1992, three years after Carol and I had been married, my mother let me know via a phone conversation that Carol "wasn't raised like me" and that "Carol was trying to come between me and my family." I responded by saying that Carol and I had taken five trips as a couple -- one was our honeymoon to Destin, Florida, and the other four were to Springfield, MO, to visit my family. If Carol was trying to "come between me and my family," she sure had a funny way of doing it --agreeing to go on four round trips of more than 1,000 miles each. I had never heard Carol say anything unkind about anyone in my family and her actions told me she thoroughly enjoyed each of our trips to the Midwest. (Note: My mother's curious statements came not long after she and my father, and maybe David, had visited us in Birmingham. It was a political year, and I said something to the effect that I thought it was interesting a guy from Arkansas [Bill Clinton] could become president, given that many of our relatives, including my mother, are from Arkansas, and the state generally has been seen as a backwater with little influence on the national scene. My mother said one of my brothers certainly would not be voting for Clinton because of the abortion-rights issue. I said that was fine with me, but Carol and I supported Clinton and abortion rights. I thought that was the end of it, no problem, but I now think culture-war politics played a large role in our family split. Of course, David mentions none of that in his letter to the judge. He gives the impression that I'm 100 percent responsible for any estrangement.) For the record, I hoped for years that we would receive a genuine apology and life would go on -- with an extended family I had always thought was pretty good. When it became clear no apology was forthcoming, we stayed in touch somewhat with the Missouri side of the family, but we made no more trips to the Midwest. That was my decision, not Carol's. I didn't want to subject her to an ugly environment, and I thought we could do better things with our time.

Judge Kelly H. Rose

(2) I never refused to pay rent or vacate the property. Rather, Carol and I were planning to actually follow the lease, which called for it to go month-to-month at the end of 13 months, with us picking up the rent payments. Before that could happen, we got a notice to vacate attached to our door. When I called the Cowherd office to inquire about it, I was told we got the notice because we had failed to sign a new lease, in our name, now that the co-signer wanted off the agreement. I asked the woman on the other end of the line if she could point to a provision in the lease that required us to sign a new lease, even though we already had one. She couldn't point to such a provision, because there wasn't one, but she then said they were unilaterally invoking their right not to rent to us and force us out -- on a whim, you might say. But this was contrary to what she had just told me -- that they wanted us out because we were determined to follow the actual language of the lease -- not something they were pulling out of their fannies. Ultimately, the woman said Cowherd was going to take legal action to force us out, whether we paid the rent or not (and that is contrary to Missouri law). In other words, I didn't "refuse" to pay the rent; I didn't pay it because the landlord told me not to pay, citing grounds that were not in the lease. I captured this conversation on audiotape and entered it into the public record, so there is no doubt about what really happened. A Cowherd representative admitted on the stand there was no provision in the rental agreement that would require us to sign a new lease, acknowledging they were violating the contract we had with them.

Here is a second section of my brother's letter, and this one makes me wonder if he actually went to law school -- of if he learned anything while he was there:

My purpose in writing this letter is to let you know that I intend to appear on behalf of my mother. Gondolyn Shuler intends to cooperate with the Petititioner (Trent Cowherd) in the matter and assist in any way to help them regain possession of the rental property currently occupied by Mr. Shuler.

I've read this probably a dozen times or so, and it still blows my mind. What do we learn?

(1) Landlord Trent Cowherd is suing my mother, Gondy Shuler, but she is going to "assist them in any way to help them regain possession of the rental property." How often does a person sue you, and you vow to help them -- against your own son. What kind of mother do I have? I don't have an answer to that question anymore.

(2) David Shuler is admitting that he has no reason to represent Gondy Shuler. His entire goal is to help Trent Cowherd, doing his best to hurt Carol and me in the process.

I don't claim to be an expert on legal ethics, but this sounds real close to a fraud on the court. David Shuler's role in the case was to represent his client, Gondy Shuler, but it's clear his real goal was to help Trent Cowherd.

Gee, I can't understand why I have a hard time trusting anything my brother or mother might say these days.

I did confront my brother via e-mail about his letter, and you might find his response interesting. We will address that in an upcoming post. For now, here is the full letter:

David Letter to Judge by Roger Shuler

Female attorneys at Birmingham's prestigious Bradley Arant law firm are married to men who appear at Ashley Madison Web site for extramarital cheaters

(From cbc.ca)

Legal Schnauzer's coverage of the Ashley Madison story, which has been more extensive and specific than that of any other U.S. news site, is about to take a twist. And it's one we did not see coming.

Our research of Ashley Madison data shows that two high-powered female attorneys, both from one of the most prominent law firms in downtown Birmingham, have husbands who have cheated on them -- or tried to cheat on them -- via the notorious extramarital-affairs Web site.

For what firm do the women work? Why, it's our old "pals" at Bradley Arant, the folks who took millions in state dollars to supposedly fight gambling under corrupt former GOP governor Bob Riley.

In an additional touch of irony, one of the women is married to a fellow lawyer, also employed at a downtown Birmingham firm. I guess you call that a case of "intramural cheating (or attempted cheating). The other female lawyer is married to a high-ranking executive at a Birmingham-based business.

The women work at Bradley Arant, which has taken millions of public dollars in recent years. Also, Bradley Arant has represented sleazy businessman Ted Rollins, who has built student housing at four public universities in Alabama and used our corrupt courts to unleash a monstrous cheat job on his ex wife Sherry Carroll Rollins and their two daughters, Sarah and Emma.

Ironically, a female lawyer named Dawn Sharff has been one of Ted Rollins prime representatives at Bradley Arant. Neither Ms. Sharff, nor anyone else at Bradley Arant, has shown any sign that she cares when one of her revenue-generating clients leaves his ex wife and daughters almost destitute for years.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Dawn Sharff, one of Ted Rollins chief henchpersons, proved to be one of the Bradley Arant lawyers with a little trouble on the home front? Hmmm.

In essence, Bradley Arant has shown it has no respect for women outside the firm. Now we are about to show that certain husbands have no respect for their wives, who work inside the firm. Put another way, a couple of the firm's female lawyers are about to be exposed as victims of the "Ashley Madison culture," which seeks to make money by making it easy for men to cheat on their wives.

This story should be of interest to all Alabama taxpayers. After all, Bradley Arant has shown a tendency to use our public infrastructure to feather its own nest -- or the nests of its hyper-wealthy clients. Now, in a sense, the feathers are about to come home to roost.

Details are coming soon here at Legal Schnauzer. Meanwhile, we can ponder this question: Do the female lawyers of Bradley Arant know their husbands have been trying to cheat on them, or will that news come as a bit of a jolt?

Missouri Democrat Jason Kander beds down with "pro lifers" and "anti stem-cell research" crowd in effort to unseat GOP incumbent Roy Blunt in U.S. Senate

(From ballotpedia.org)

Is a Missouri Democrat trying to unseat GOP incumbent Roy Blunt in the U.S. Senate by jumping in bed with social conservatives? Is Democrat Jason Kander attempting to attract rural votes, especially from farmers, by playing to their right-wing predilections on social issues? The fine print in Raise Your Hands For Kids (RYH4K), a nonprofit that Kander controls and which purports to boost child health in Missouri by raising taxes on cigarettes, indicates the answer is yes.

That suggests those who claim to be concerned about "life" and "child health" have  formed an uneasy alliance with Big Tobacco, which probably causes more death and poor health than any other industry in America.

The Kander Memo, a heavily sourced, 127-page document released by a group of anonymous Missouri citizens, suggests that RYH4K is a glorified political slush fund for Kander -- with $5 million coming from individual donors ($2 million) and R.J. Reynolds ($3 million), which is likely to benefit from enhanced market share and sharply increased taxes on its discount competitors. (The Kander Memo is embedded at the end of this post.)

RYH4K's willingness to cater to right-wing groups adds another level of intrigue to the battle over Amendment 3, which will be on the November 8 ballot. An article at The Kansas City Pitch shines major light on that subject. Dated August 23, 2016, and titled "Missouri has the lowest cigarette tax in the country. Why does a tobacco company want to raise it?" the piece suggests the Show-Me State can produce some strange bedfellows.

Reporter David Martin begins by interviewing Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California–San Francisco, who admits Amendment 3 has him flummoxed:

In 1994, the Brown and Williamson tobacco company sued the California Board of Regents in an effort to keep Glantz from making public the sensitive company documents he had received from a whistleblower. The university prevailed, and Glantz and his colleagues wrote an influential Journal of the American Medical Association paper based on the documents, which showed that the tobacco industry knew nicotine was addictive and that smoking caused cancer.

Yet even he marvels at the ballot initiative that Missouri voters will consider this fall to raise the tax on major cigarette brands by 60 cents a pack.

Glantz has seen just about everything the tobacco industry can throw at him, but he's never seen anything like RYH4K and Amendment 3:

The most unusual aspect of the proposal is that it’s being financed largely by a cigarette manufacturer. RAI Services Company has given more than $2.6 million to Raise Your Hand for Kids, the campaign committee leading the push for the new tax. “RAI” stands for Reynolds American Inc., the parent of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of Newport, Camel and Pall Mall.

“I’ve never seen an instance where a cigarette company went to the ballot with a tax before,” Glantz tells The Pitch.

The tactic caught people off-guard. In February, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial board described the tobacco tax initiative as a “sound proposal” and made no mention of R.J. Reynolds’ involvement. Two months later, the paper rescinded its endorsement. But in a sign of how strange this story is, the paper made its about-face for reasons other than the cigarette company’s influence.

The Post-Dispatch, it turns out, was baffled by fine print in the RYH4K proposal. Kansas City Pitch explains:

The size and speed of the tax increases are not the only objections to the Raise Your Hand for Kids initiative. The amendment contains several sentences restricting the money from being spent on abortion services, though public funding for abortions is already prohibited in Missouri. The amendment also states that the money can’t be used for embryonic stem-cell research.

The insertion of the stem-cell language dismayed groups promoting scientific research in Missouri. “We were shocked,” says Dena Ladd, the executive director of the Missouri Cures Education Foundation, which worked to pass the 2006 amendment to the state constitution that protects any stem-cell research and therapy in Missouri that is legal under federal law.

Missouri Cures and other scientific groups worry that the proposed amendment could chip away at the protections they’ve secured. Ladd tells The Pitch that her group met with the organizers of Raise Your Hand for Kids and asked them to remove the language about stem cells. They refused.

In March, Missouri Cures announced its opposition the Raise Your Hand for Kids initiative, calling it “North Carolina–based Big Tobacco’s proposed amendment to change Missouri’s Constitution.” Missouri Cures faulted the campaign for allowing “anti-research activists,” which is to say anti-abortion rights groups, to insert the language about stem cells.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch backed away from RYH4K when it became aware of the language regarding abortion rights and stem-cell research. It remains unclear how the language got in there, but it appears that right-wing groups pushed for it, and Kander was unwilling to stand up to them.

That should leave Missouri voters, especially Democrats, with this question: "Does Jason Kander stand for much of anything, other than getting elected?"

The Kander Memo by Roger Shuler on Scribd

Ashley Madison customers revealed: Peyton Lacy, Ogletree Deakins lawyer who defends companies charged with discriminating, appears at cheaters' site

Peyton Lacy

An attorney in the Birmingham office of a law firm known around the country for defending employers facing discrimination lawsuits is among paying customers at the Ashley Madison extramarital-affairs Webs site, records show.

Peyton Lacy, who is "of counsel" at Ogletree Deakins, has 44 years of experience in labor and employment law. (Note: If a lawyer is listed under "labor and employment," that almost certainly means he defends companies that are alleged to have cheated one or more employees. If a lawyer practices "employment discrimination" law, that means he represents plaintiffs, the employees who claim to have been cheated. My research indicates that for every one employment-discrimination lawyer, there are 100 or more labor and employment lawyers. Gee, I wonder where the money is? What a balanced "justice system" we have.)

Assuming that most companies who are accused of cheating employees actually have cheated them -- and experience tells me that probably is the case -- Peyton Lacy makes his living by defending cheaters. It should be no surprise then that his name appears at Ashley Madison, a site geared specifically for individuals who seek to cheat on their spouses.

Ogletree Deakins is a major player on the labor law scene. It has 49 offices in 27 states and provides services in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, England, Germany, Australia, Mexico, and Canada. Its Birmingham office is downtown in the Wells Fargo Bank Building.

Lacy's bio makes him sound like a distinguished fellow:

He graduated with a J.D. degree from the University of Alabama in 1965, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Alabama Law Review and a member of the Farrah Order of Jurisprudence. In addition to a traditional labor law practice, Mr. Lacy defends individual and class employment litigation cases in both federal and state court, handles traditional labor law matters for employers including negotiation and arbitration, and counsels employers on preventive measures in both areas. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama in 1962 and was a member of Omicron Delta Kappa.

So, why is Lacy fooling around on Ashley Madison. We sought comment from him multiple times, but have yet to receive a reply.

Public records show that, as of 2008, Lacy was married to Dorothy Gartrell and they lived at 421 Old Brook Circle in north Shelby County. It's not clear if that union still is intact, but Ms. Gartrell apparently has been involved in a number of business ventures over the years.


Previously:

(1) Edgar C. Gentle III -- attorney at Gentle Turner Sexton and Harbison, Birmingham, AL (3/8/16)

(2) Stewart Springer -- attorney, solo practice in Birmingham, AL. (3/9/16)

(3) Richard W. "Dick" Bell -- attorney, solo practice in Birmingham, AL (3/14/16)

(4) Robert M.N. Palmer -- attorney and bar association president in Springfield, MO (3/15/16)

(5) Thomas Plouff -- attorney, who is licensed in Alabama and has a practice in Chicago (3/17/16)

(6) James F. Henry -- attorney, Bradley Arant, Birmingham (3/23/16)

(7) Michael E. Stephens -- founder, Lakeshore Foundation, Birmingham (6/20/16)

(8) James Vawter -- founding principal, Capstone Collegiate Communities (10/4/16)

(9) Randy Bates -- executive VP and member of board of directors, Golden Flake (10/5/16)

(10) Reid Carpenter -- attorney, Lightfoot Franklin White, Birmingham (10/6/16)

(11) Scott Sink -- exec. VP, McGriff Seibels Williams, Birmingham (10/11/16)

(12) Russell Byrne -- VP for information systems, Bromberg's, Birmingham (10/17/16)

(13) Rob Waudby -- district manager, Skyline Steel, Birmingham (10/24/16)

(14) Paul Wells -- VP, Protective Life, Birmingham (10/25/16)

(15) Brian Shulman -- CEO, LTS Education Systems, Birmingham (10/26/16)

U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor is pulling bogus legal terms from some dark crevice under his robe in our civil-rights case re: wrongful incarceration

U.S. Judge R. David Proctor

U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor is violating black-letter law from two circuits in an apparent effort to ensure we do not receive justice for the police beating, arrest, and five-month incarceration I endured in Shelby County, Alabama -- a case that was so off-the-charts unlawful it received national and international news coverage. Proctor is trying to execute his chicanery by concocting a term, and an idea, that does not exist under the law.

Perhaps Proctor deserves high marks for creativity. But when it comes to ethics, and his willingness to uphold the law (as he took an oath to do), he is an abject failure.

We've shown that Proctor cited a case from the Seventh Circuit -- Bryan v. Johnson, 821 F. 2d 455 (7th Cir., 1987) -- in an effort to keep the court from issuing summonses and effecting service, as it is required by law to do for in forma pauperis (IFP) litigants, a status for which two judges (including Proctor) have found we are qualified.

Bryan, of course, is not controlling law in the Eleventh Circuit, which covers Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. But we have found Eleventh Circuit law that is based largely on Bryan and reaches the same conclusion. The case is styled Herrick v. Collins, 914 F. 2d 228, (11th Cir., 1990), and its key finding is as follows:

“We hold, accordingly, that when the district court has granted an in forma pauperis motion and required payment of a partial filing fee, the court MUST issue the summons.”

Proctor granted our IFP motion and required us to pay a partial filing fee, which we did. Is there any excuse then for him to get it wrong on simple law from his own circuit? I can't think of one.

Here is how Proctor screwed up -- and it almost certainly was not accidental. He coined the phrase "partial IFP status" to support his claim that we were not entitled to have court-issued service. There is no such status, under the law; you either are IFP, with no obligation to pay fees, or you are IFP with an obligation to pay a partial fee. Either way, you are an IFP litigant, and the court is required to issue summonses and effect service on your behalf.

This is the third post we have published, with timely citations to law, that shows the actual law on this issue.

What is the purpose of partial payments for some IFP parties? A case styled Irons v. Pennsylvania, 407 F. Supp. 746 (M.D., PA, 1976) explains. It also is spelled out in numerous law-journal articles.

Partial payment plans are designed to help curb the indiscriminate filing of frivolous lawsuits `by weeding out those [actions] where it appears the plaintiff himself has some financial resources but has such a lack of good faith in his action that he is unwilling to make any contribution, however small, towards meeting its filing costs.

What have we learned? There is no such thing as "partial IFP status." Partial IFP payments do exist, and they are designed to discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits. Once Proctor ordered us to make a partial payment, and we paid it, we had cleared the bar for frivolous lawsuits, and the court had to complete service on our behalf. (Our Rule 60 motion challenging Proctor's rulings is embedded at the end of this post.)

In fact, under the law, Proctor does not have authority to keep that process from happening.


(To be continued)

Riley-duke, Pauperis Rule 60(b) by Roger Shuler on Scribd