FLINT, MI — At least one Flint, Michigan polling location ran out of Democratic ballots on Tuesday, forcing voters to either wait over an hour for city clerks to deliver new ones or to leave their phones numbers to be called when more ballots arrived.

Grace Emmanuel Church, one of the busiest polling locations in Flint servicing Precinct 49, ran out of ballots for the presidential primary around 4 p.m., a poll worker confirmed to ThinkProgress. Flint’s NBC25 reported that two other locations across the city ran out of ballots as well.

Loyce Driskell, an elections administrator at Grace Emmanuel, told ThinkProgress that she has worked at the polls for four elections, but this is the first time she has seen a location run out of ballots. A city clerk did not deliver more ballots to the location until around 5:30 p.m., the beginning of the evening rush.

Driskell said she took down the phone numbers for ten people who did not have time to wait. Seven she was later able to reach, and they told her they would come back to vote. Three of the numbers were disconnected or she was not able to reach the voter.

The increased national attention on Flint likely created increased interest in the primary. Both Democratic candidates have visited the city and they held a debate here on Sunday, much of which focused on the water that is continuing to poison the city’s residents.

“Absolutely there’s more interest this year,” she said. “I think the water crisis, maybe the debate. I just think that Flint is on the map for the world to see and I just think all of that has really gotten voters to turn out.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/03/08/3757998/michigan-ballots-shortage/

I hear you’re still not Ready for Hillary.

I get it. I didn’t start off as her biggest fan either. During the 2008 campaign, I wrote plenty of less-than-complimentary words about Hillary Clinton in my role as Barack Obama’s speechwriter. Then, a few weeks after the election, I had a well-documented run-in with a piece of cardboard that bore a striking resemblance to the incoming Secretary of State.

It was one of the stupider, more disrespectful mistakes I’ve made, and one that could have cost me a job if Hillary hadn’t accepted my apology, which she did with grace and humor. As a result, I had the chance to serve in the Obama Administration with someone who was far different than the caricature I had helped perpetuate.

The most famous woman in the world would walk through the White House with no entourage, casually chatting up junior staffers along the way. She was by far the most prepared, impressive person at every Cabinet meeting. She worked harder and logged more miles than anyone in the administration, including the president. And she’d spend large amounts of time and energy on things that offered no discernible benefit to her political future—saving elephants from ivory poachers, listening to the plight of female coffee farmers in Timor-Leste, defending LGBT rights in places like Uganda.

*snip*

Most of all—and you hear this all the time from people who’ve worked for her—Hillary Clinton is uncommonly warm and thoughtful. She surprises with birthday cakes. She calls when a grandparent passes away. She once rearranged her entire campaign schedule so a staffer could attend her daughter’s preschool graduation. Her husband charms by talking to you; Hillary does it by listening to you—not in a head-nodding, politician way; in a real person way.

This same story has repeated itself throughout Clinton’s career: those who initially view her as distrustful and divisive from afar find her genuine and cooperative in person. It was the case with voters in New York, Republicans in the Senate, Obama people in the White House, and heads of state all over the world. There’s a reason being America’s chief diplomat was the specific job Obama asked Hillary to do—she has the perfect personality for it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/26/why-electing-hillary-in-16-is-more-important-than-electing-obama-in-08.html

On Wednesday, former Los Angeles police officers James Christopher Nichols and Luis Gustavo Valenzuela were charged with multiple counts of "forcible rape, rape under color of authority, oral copulation under color of authority and oral copulation by force," NBC Los Angeles reported.

Between December 2008 and March 2011, the men, who were partners, allegedly assaulted four women between the ages of 19 and 34 after arresting them for narcotics-related offenses, frequently while on duty, according to the same report.

Nichols, 44, and Valenzuela, 43, are the same former narcotics officers who were previously investigated for "luring [women] into an unmarked car and forcing them to perform sex acts" over a five-year period, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2013. The investigation against these officers only gained traction when multiple women came forward — one alleged survivors told the Los Angeles Times she didn't immediately report the incident because "she felt humiliated, thought no one would believe her and feared for her safety."

This revelation comes in the wake of the conviction and sentencing of former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who will serve 263 years in prison for 18 counts of sexual battery, forcible oral sodomy and rape, Mic's Zak Cheney-Rice reported in January. The women involved in Holtzclaw's case were also presumably selected based on assumptions that they wouldn't be believed. As the Daily Beast's Goldie Taylor wrote, Holtzclaw's "black and poor" survivors "were picked because the perpetrator thought nobody would give a damn."

*snip*

http://mic.com/articles/135539/two-lapd-officers-have-been-charged-with-committing-multiple-sexual-assaults-while-on-duty?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=social#.s0z15ufFI

President Obama will meet with civil rights activists both young and old Thursday, including leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement.
“On Thursday afternoon, President Obama will meet with a group of civil rights leaders prior to the annual White House Black History Month reception to discuss a range of issues including the Administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform, building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve and the president’s priorities during his final year in office,” a senior administration official said.

Obama will also preside over a discussion between the activists and members of his administration.

Those participating in the event include Campaign Zero co-founders DeRay Mckesson and Brittany Packnett, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, the Rev. Al Sharpton and National Bar Association President Benjamin Crump.

On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are seeking to court favor with black voters in the weeks leading up to the first primaries in Southern states.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/269766-report-obama-to-meet-with-black-lives-matter-activists