Florida state Rep. Dennis Baxley (Photo via myfloridahouse.gov/Mark Foley)

Wednesday on MSNBC’s Politics Nation with Rev. Al Sharpton, state Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, revived his defense of the controversial voting law he sponsored last session by saying that the new law was a way of ensuring that Floridians do not register fictitious characters such as “Mickey Mouse” to vote, among other sorts of electoral “mischief.”

Reports have surfaced from several nonpartisan groups suggesting that Florida actively suppressed the voting rights of minorities, young people, the disabled and low-income voters by passing a restrictive elections law last session. These demographics typically vote for Democrats.

Federal policymakers have also criticized the Florida law — as well as other states that have similarly passed restrictive voting laws before the upcoming 2012 election. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., even pressed for congressional field hearing into laws he says were possibly passed for partisan gain.

However, Baxley argues these claims are untrue. He says the law was written to have a “secure election process that works,” he told Sharpton.

Sharpton repeatedly pointed out to Baxley that there were only 31 cases of alleged election fraud reported to state officials in the past three years, which he says is evidence of politically motivation for the new restrictions.

Baxley said the law was meant to prevent electoral “mischief,” not to necessarily respond to a problem in the state’s voting laws.

Baxley did say, however, that in the last election there were instances of people registering the name “Mickey Mouse” to vote in Florida. Baxley said it was that type of  ”mishap and mischief” that he was aiming to prevent in the 2012 election.

However, Sharpton quickly dismissed the argument.

“If you’ve got to get Mickey Mouse to make your case … then believe me you’re trying to take all of us to Disney World for a ride,” he told Baxley.

Baxley’s argument is not new. In fact, while the bill was being debated in the Legislature, Baxley tied the need for new voting laws to allegations that a group called ACORN was registering fictitious characters such as “Mickey Mouse” and “Mary Poppins” in exchange for cash.

As The Florida Independent reported in Aptril, though, legislators never successfully explained how these fictitious characters would ever make it to the polls, cast a ballot and affect the outcome of an election.

Sharpton also interviewed the president of the nonpartison League of Women Voters. For decades, before the new restrictions were placed on third-party voter registration, the group registered people to vote in the state. During his interview, Baxley said the group should “get over their angst” concerning the voting law.

Baxley has also said publicly that the law is not “going to limit anybody’s participation.”

The state is still awaiting a court’s approval of some of the more controversial aspects of the law, which includes new restrictions on third-party voter registration drives, a shorter “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives, a restriction that makes it more difficult for voters to change their registered addresses on election day and a reduction of the number of early voting days.

You can watch Baxley’s interview, as well as Sharpton’s interview with the League of Women Voters here:

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The lawsuit describes Andy as taking “a ‘special interest’ in Plaintiffs Dean and YCR because he is a secularist and/or atheist and gay activist with a politically left ideology who despises people of faith.” However, Andy’s award-winning coverage of YCR has received wide praise, including the Society of Professional Journalist’s (SPJ) first prize for Best Continuing Coverage. SPJ stated that Andy took “an even-handed approach into a weighty subject sure to provoke controversy from various standpoints.” We read your comments, tweets, Facebook messages, and emails and know you agree that Andy’s coverage, along with the rest of the reporting by The American Independent News Network, is excellent. You can help ensure that our work continues by making a donation today to support The American Independent News Network and our Legal Defense Fund.

Make no mistake: This suit is a direct attack not only on us but on the very idea of a free and independent press, as well as an attempt to silence journalists like Andy who expose the views of people like Bradlee Dean.  In short, this is a frivolous and blatant attempt to chill free speech. They think that because we are a small, non-profit organization we will be forced to back down; they think by threatening us with a lawsuit, we will stop. They are wrong. We stand behind Andy and our coverage completely, and know you do too.

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The Lansing mayor’s voice comes as several cities — including Seattle, Denver, San Antonio and Grand Rapids — have moved to eject protesters from public property. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg backed off earlier plans to eject protesters from Zuccotti Park to “clean” the property. Thousands appeared at the park at 6 a.m. prepared to be arrested to prevent New York Police from evicting the protesters.

By contrast, Bernero has provided Lansing protesters, currently occupying Reutters Park one block south of the state Capitol, with portable toilets, trash cans and an open-ended permit allowing the protesters to camp in the park.

Meanwhile, activists are working with the Michigan Peace Team Friday to train protesters in non-violent intervention and de-escalation skills. And at midnight Friday, UAW will send a large group to join the occupiers in Reutters Park. Mike Karl, a General Motors employee, told protesters the group will convene its Auto Workers’ Roundtable in the park to support occupiers.

This was reported in dozens of blogs and online publications as a chink in the tea party armor, an admission from Bachmann that she, despite being one of the more aggressive conservatives in Congress, was willing to scrap amendments like the one defunding Planned Parenthood if it meant averting a government shutdown. Here’s what Bachmann actually said, via a (partial) transcript:

That’s why, today, I voted no on the bill, because we heard from President Obama this morning, he was going to vote no on the Republican bill. Knowing that, I think it’s important that we do what I think 100 percent of Congress should be able to vote for, and that’s ensure full paycheck protection for all of the military.

We need to do that bill alone. That’s just a policy bill, it’s not even a continuing resolution. We should pass that bill and at least take the troops off the table. From there, we can go back and fight about all the other portions of this appropriations, but I think the troops should not be a political football. That should not be a game.

Bachmann, therefore, was saying the opposite of what’s reported: She’s all for upholding the budget impasse so that the policy riders can eventually get pushed through, but she wants an entirely separate bill that would fund only military salaries so that they’re not affected by the shutdown.

Other Republicans, however, have come out and said exactly what Bachmann was inaccurately quoted as saying. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) conceded:

I’d like to defund Planned Parenthood, but I understand that Republicans don’t have complete control of the elected government. I think what we should do is cut spending as much as we can, get the policy changes that we can, but move on, because there are other, bigger battles that we are fighting.

Meanwhile, the staunchly anti-abortion, avowedly conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said to MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan:

My recommendation to my friends in the House is, you know, it’s highly unlikely that many riders are going to get passed with a Democrat president and a Democrat Senate, so why don’t you take the spending and let’s get on to the budget?

Of course, all budget provisions must originate in the House, so no matter how conservative a given senator is, his or her words have little impact on what will actually happen with the continuing resolution. But as the shutdown looms, senators like Toomey and Coburn will need some allies in the House if the government is to run at full capacity after Friday night.

Brzezinski: “Do you think that some or all of the Tea Party candidates are reasonable Republicans? And I guess specifically I ask about Christine O’Donnell. Is she a reasonable candidate?”

Pawlenty: “Well I think in that case, Mika, she was selected by the Republican voters of Delaware in an open and fair primary. I know people are concerned about some of her comments and she’s addressing those and we’ll know more about that as it comes out. But from my standpoint if a state in an open and fair process picks somebody as their candidate, you know from a Republican standpoint, I’m going to give that person deference and say, ‘You’re part of the team. We’re with you.’”

Pawlenty insists he’ll make the decision about 2012 after his Minnesota governorship ends in January, but he’s making a number of “presidential” moves today that seem to indicate his intentions. Politico’s Mike Allen reports that he has officially signed with the speaking agency Leading Authorities to handle his engagements in 2011, and his book publisher has launched a website and video to begin pre-selling his biographical book, “Courage To Stand,” due out on January 11.

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Lowrey wrote about this phenomenon yesterday at TWI. According to her reporting, untold numbers of unemployed Americans are beginning to organize through “a system of highly trafficked, influential blogs and sites connecting the jobless and updating them, often in minute detail, about the ins and outs of Congress’ work on unemployment issues.”

“When legislators go home for the August recess, unemployed people are going to go to their rallies and ask them questions about [these issues] — and they’re doing it with union backing,” Lowrey told Hayes last night.

Watch the whole video here:

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But it’s a persistent thing. Tom Ridge, the former homeland security secretary, blanched, “He gets his Miranda warnings? The only information we get is if he volunteers it?” And sure enough, now that Abdulmutallab has gotten his lawyer and invoked his rights, the cry intensifies. Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard laments, “Now he’s got a lawyer, and we can’t interrogate him, we can’t smack him around, we can’t lay a finger on him.”

Well, yes, we can’t smack him around, and that’s a good thing, particularly if we want good intelligence and to promote the rule of law. Just because the guy lawyers up doesn’t mean we can’t interrogate him.

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials I’ve talked to in the last several hours have been flabbergasted to hear this line of argument, because at its heart, it betrays a fundamental ignorance of the process. One who has experience in these matters called it “flat-out ignorance” to claim that the “criminal justice system or law enforcement methods impede the collection of actionable intelligence. There is no basis in fact.”

Why? Let me turn this over to a U.S. official deeply familiar with intelligence matters who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the Abdulmutallab case. “I cannot speak from first-hand knowledge of the present matter, but if a terror suspect like Abdulmutallab invokes [his] right to silence, it does not mean law enforcement officials must cease the interview,” the official said. “It simply means inculpatory information probably will not be used in court.”

Got that? Mirandization is about admissibility in court. This ought to explain why law enforcement and intelligence officials aren’t complaining about Abdulmutallab. It’s just Obama’s political enemies, who have no problem inventing a concern based on absolutely nothing and then promoting their ignorance about security matters to a pliant media.