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michigansummer · 2 years

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learning how to vote (taking responsibility)

primaries are coming up in Michigan, and I’m getting prepared to vote. turns out, this is a lot more difficult than I thought! for context, here is my background:

freshman year of high school, I took AP Gov. this class was very genuinely informative about government and politics, and our teacher really did a great job with the material. back then, I was happy to fulfill my civics requirement with this class, but I’ve come to think that it would be better if I had taken it later on in high school, when it would be more applicable to my responsibilities as a voting citizen.

I was a Model UN kid! obviously, MUN didn’t specifically educate me on how I should think as a voter in the United States. still, I learned a lot about how government works around the world and was able to contextualize my perspective on the US government. we read and discussed a lot of world news as part of our club time, and we discussed national news as well. for the two years in which I was heavily invested in MUN, I would’ve considered myself to be a very well-informed citizen.

I tried policy debate for a while as well (a senior I had a crush on in MUN invited me to join the forensic speaking team and I ended up joining debate team as well the following fall). to be honest, I never quite got into it and always felt like I lagged behind. I could not gauge how relevant policy debate experience would be to learning how to vote, but I do remember reading a lot about the role of government.

nowadays, I never read the news anymore. I could tell you the benefits of rank-choice voting, but I couldn’t reason my way through the stances of candidates that are currently running for office. I’m very far from being well informed, and the confusing nature of primaries doesn’t help.

the first thing that confused me about primaries is the fact that you’re only allowed to vote for candidates in one party, at least here in Michigan. I vaguely remember learning about this in AP Gov. (full disclosure, these are my very lightly researched thoughts, as an average voting resident of Michigan, not as someone that does actually know a lot about voting). when I was reminded again about this fact in early July, I was somewhat bothered. in my mind, I thought that for each race, I should be able to vote for each candidate that would be running in November, not just one of them. I still have yet to fully understand how this will affect how I vote on August 2nd.

the second thing that’s giving me a hard time is that I’m just not well informed, and trying to form genuinely honest opinions about candidates is very difficult. when it comes to things in my every day life, I’m already well aware that many of my opinions are barely in my control, and formed without my complete awareness. I struggle with knowing that at the end of the day, my opinion will just be a regurgitated form of what I heard from someone else. of course, this doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to try my best to be an informed voter.

I couldn’t tell you exactly why I decided to fall out of the loop. I don’t know when I stopped considering myself an informed citizen. this is what I do know:

when I stopped attending MUN meetings regularly, I stopped reading the news often. without the weekly responsibility to gather news articles to discuss, I quickly fell out of the habit. this was probably around the beginning of 2020.

being politically informed became a popular topic that summer. I'm sure you know why, and I won’t discuss that here. this is relevant to my voting story because around this time is when I became incredibly disillusioned with everything political. that’s still where I am right now.

the thing is that when I became less informed about politics, I was happier. I also questioned if I was truly ever informed in the first place. I had always frequented news outlets like AP and Al Jazeera, but I never had the tools to process what I read on my own. all I could do was speak my opinion and see how the discussion developed around the room. without MUN, there was no discussion, and no easy way for me to further develop my view of the world.

when I became disillusioned with politics, I also think that I slowly started to become a better person to the people in my life. my imagined sphere of influence changed from being nationwide to being very local. paraphrasing many influential historical figures, love is the best way to nurture good in this world. I believe this wholeheartedly, and had I struggled to reconcile this point of view with active political engagement, a sphere in which I always felt a little hateful no matter how hard I tried to be calm. it’s easier to be good to the people you already care about, after all.

I believe that being as good as you can to the people in your life is one of the easiest and most effective ways to make the world a better place. these are people you care about, and who care about you. people that know you, and people who will listen to your story. people that care about each other shape each other and can inspire one another to do even better with the rest of their lives. this is the perspective that fits nicely into my brain, that frees me of the dissonance I associate with politics.

the most recent piece of media that I consumed that affected my perspective on politics was Hillbilly Elegy, by JD Vance. I read it just about a year ago. if you haven’t read it, know that it’s a memoir written by a man who grew up somewhere in Appalachia, in coal country, with loved ones dealing with opioid addiction. it's more than that, but it's also just a story of his life and how his beliefs came to be. I cannot describe it well, so read the summary, and read the book if it interests you. what it did for me is made me realize that behind every single vote is a story.

no matter how hard I disagree with how others vote, I realize that they have been raised and taught differently and see the affects of the actions of our representatives in government differently. of course someone whose family’s living depends on coal would vote differently than me. of course others see the world differently.

this made me think how can I blame anyone for everything when we are all so different and will never really understand each other!! how can I vote when it’s so hard to trace fault! how can I vote, when people will be hurt either way!

which brings me back to the fact that all of this does not excuse me from the responsibility of voting. that’s what I think voting is now: a responsibility. I was paralyzed when I thought about politics from a perspective of fault and blame, and it kept me out of the loop for two years. it kept me out of the loop for years, when thinking that way would never have gotten me anywhere. I still don't think I'm going to regularly read the news, but instead of thinking about who’s right and wrong and whose fault anything is, I’m learning to think about responsibility.

this is how I see responsibility right now (always subject to change)—when something comes into your life, it becomes, at least partially, your responsibility. sometimes we hurt people and in that case we are responsible, no matter if we had bad intentions or if it was an accident. sometimes we are the ones that are hurt, and that too is our responsibility. responsibility is not strongly related to justice or fairness. it's simply something we do because it's in our power to do so.

together, everybody that is able to vote is partially responsible for what happens in this government. no matter how many factors affect us that are out of our control or how hard we mess up, voting remains our responsibility. instead of just complaining about injustice and fairness, I’m trying my best to learn how to be informed and vote. to accept that there will always be things that are out of my control, and to try my hardest to fight for what I believe will do good regardless.

it’s difficult, and frustrating. I have only a few days left. websites like turbovote.org, vote.org, and vote411.org have helped. I think I’m making progress.

I will probably be forever always changing and developing these opinions. for now, am I driven to vote, and hope that the time I spend on trying to be informed will help make the world just a bit better.

#What are you currently frustrated by?

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fumpkins · 2 years

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Georgia sets $1.5B in aid for electric vehicle maker Rivian

Gov. Brian Kemp walks past a Rivian electric truck after announcing that electric truck maker Rivian Automotive will build a $5 billion battery and assembly plant east of Atlanta projected to employ 7,500 workers, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, in Atlanta. The state announced on Monday, May, 2, 2022, that it and local governments had agreed to offer Rivian $1.5 billion of incentives to build a 7,500-job, $5 billion electric vehicle plant. Credit: AP Photo/John Bazemore, File

The state of Georgia and local governments will give Rivian Automotive $1.5 billion of incentives to build a 7,500-job, $5 billion electric vehicle plant east of Atlanta, according to documents the company and state signed Monday.

Georgia Economic Development Commissioner Pat Wilson said the size of the package reflects the size of the largest single industrial announcement in Georgia history, including a pledge that the company will reach the full investment and job targets by the end of 2028, with jobs paying an average of $56,000 a year, plus benefits. The state also hopes Rivian will anchor an entire electric vehicle industry.

“It’s absolutely appropriate because they’re creating more jobs,” Wilson said.

It is, by far, the largest incentive package Georgia has ever offered to a company, It’s also the largest incentive package any American state has ever given to an auto plant said Greg LeRoy, executive director Good Jobs First, a group skeptical of subsidies to private companies.

“This is very significant,” LeRoy said. “It’s the biggest auto assembly subsidy package in US history.”

Rivian, based in Irvine, California, is a startup manufacturer of electric trucks and commercial delivery vans, challenging both established automakers like Ford and General Motors and electric vehicle leader Tesla. The company is already producing vehicles in Normal, Illinois. Rivian hopes to break ground as early as this summer and begin production in 2024, sprinting toward producing 400,000 vehicles a year in Georgia as electric vehicle makers try to gain market share.

“The long-term economic partnership promises to deliver value to Rivian, the people of Georgia and their kids’ kids’ kids,” the company said in a statement

The plant has been beset by fierce local opposition from residents who say development on the 2,000-acre (800-hectare) site will spoil their rural quality of life. The site, between Social Circle and Rutledge, is about 45 miles (70 kilometers) east of downtown Atlanta.

The East Atlanta Mega Site in Social Circle, Ga., is shown Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. The state announced on Monday, May, 2, 2022, that it and local governments had agreed to offer Rivian $1.5 billion of incentives to build a 7,500-job, $5 billion electric vehicle plant. Credit: AP Photo/John Bazemore, File

The state took over planning and zoning for the project after opponents overwhelmed Morgan County officials. Residents have voiced concerns about possible well-water contamination, light pollution and the disruption of wildlife and farmland. Wilson said a site plan and other documents released Monday show Rivian responding to those concerns, shifting the plant away from wetlands and agreeing to limit light pollution.

Opposition has become entangled in politics. Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, who is challenging Kemp in the May 24 Republican primary, lines up with opponents.

Perdue has emphasized the role of “liberal billionaire George Soros.” Although Soros bought $2 billion worth of shares about the same time Rivian chose Georgia, he owns only 2% of Rivian. There’s no evidence Soros influenced the plant location.

“Think about how many small businesses in Georgia could be helped for this kind of money, instead of padding George Soros’ pockets,” Perdue said Monday. “Kemp gave away the farm to a woke corporation for something the locals don’t even want, and hardworking Georgians are left footing the bill.”

Kemp, during a debate Sunday, reiterated his backing for Rivian.

“I support 7,500 great-paying jobs going to rural Georgia, to an automobile manufacturing facility,” Kemp said. “I’m going to always be for that.”

Local governments have agreed to $700 million in property tax breaks, although Rivian plans to make more than $300 million in payments in lieu of taxes over 25 years beginning in 2023.

The state would spend $200 million to buy the site, grade it, build road improvements including a new Interstate 20 interchange and extend utilities. Georgia would spend $62.5 million to build a dedicated training center and a projected $27 million on providing job training.

Republican gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, former U.S. Sen. David Perdue steps off stage after speaking at a rally to oppose a proposed Rivian electric vehicle assembly plant Tuesday, March 1, 2022, in Rutledge, Ga. The state announced on Monday, May, 2, 2022, that it and local governments had agreed to offer Rivian $1.5 billion of incentives to build a 7,500-job, $5 billion electric vehicle plant. Credit: AP Photo/John Bazemore, File

Other major benefits include a $200 million income tax credit, at $5,250 per job over five years. If Rivian didn’t owe that much state corporate income tax, Georgia would give personal income taxes collected from workers instead. Georgia also estimates sales tax exemptions will save Rivian $175 million on machinery and $105 million on construction materials.

Kia got more than $450 million in incentives for its plant in West Point, southwest of Atlanta. Georgia has promised SK Innovation $300 million in incentives for a $2.6 billion, 2,600-worker battery plant northeast of Atlanta.

Wilson said the state has strong protections to claw its money back if Rivian falls below 80% of promised investment or employment.

The state touts a $420 million annual payroll, as well as an analysis showing there will be 8,000 more jobs created elsewhere in the state with a total impact of more than $7 billion. But LeRoy said incentives will cost $200,000 per job, and state and local governments will never collect enough increased taxes to cover that.

“The state can never break even,” LeRoy said. “There’s no way that the average worker in this place is going to pay $200,000 more in state and local taxes.”

Rivian currently plans two models for consumers: the R1T pickup with a base price of $67,500 and the R1S SUV, with a base price of $70,000.

Amazon, which owns 18% of Rivian, has ordered 100,000 delivery vans, launching the company into commercial vehicles.

Rivian is flush with cash following a $11.9 billion stock offering Nov. 10, allowing it to finance the new plant. But shares have fallen 70% since then as investors worry about production delays.

Rivian electric car plant blasted by foes at Georgia meeting

Citation: Georgia sets $1.5B in aid for electric vehicle maker Rivian (2022, May 3) retrieved 3 May 2022 from https://techxplore.com/news/2022-05-georgia-15b-aid-electric-vehicle.html

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Colorado Snowstorm Knocks Out Power to Thousands and Snarls Travel (NYT) A snowstorm sweeping through Colorado and Wyoming on Sunday was expected to bring as much as four feet of snow to some parts of the region, and has left nearly 30,000 people without power in Colorado. The storm brought heavy, wet snow and downed trees and power lines. More than 20,000 customers near Greeley, Colo., about 50 miles north of Denver, were without power on Sunday, according to Xcel Energy. More than 2,500 people around Fort Collins, about 1,500 near Loveland and about 3,000 people in the Denver suburbs were also without power. A blizzard warning was in effect on Sunday for Colorado’s Front Range, an area that includes the Interstate 25 corridor from south of Denver up through Cheyenne, Wyo. The National Weather Service warned that an additional two to six inches of snow and wind gusts as high as 45 miles per hour could create “nearly impossible travel conditions.”

Florida’s pandemic response gets a second look from the national media (Axios) After a solid year of living with a pandemic, the national press is beginning to ask the question that even Democrats have been quietly pondering in the Sunshine State: Was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pandemic response right for Florida? More than 32,000 Floridians have died, but our death rate is no worse than the national average—and better than some states with tighter restrictions. On Sunday’s front page, the New York Times explored the positives—from the booming real-estate market to Florida’s low unemployment rate—of an early reopening: “Much of the state has a boomtown feel,” writes Patricia Mazzei, “a sense of making up for months of lost time.” The Times notes that Florida’s unemployment rate is 5.1%, compared to 9.3% in California, 8.7% in New York and 6.9% in Texas. “That debate about reopening schools? It came and went months ago. Children have been in classrooms since the fall.” The closer you are to either loss or to the fullness of life will likely determine how you feel about the state’s response.

Quaking in their beds, sleepless Icelanders await volcanic eruption (Reuters) Icelanders are yearning for some undisturbed shut-eye after tremors from tens of thousands of earthquakes have rattled their sleep for weeks in what scientists call an unprecedented seismic event, which might well end in a spectacular volcanic eruption. “At the moment we’re feeling it constantly. It’s like you’re walking over a fragile suspension bridge,” Rannveig Gudmundsdottir, a lifelong resident in the town of Grindavik, told Reuters. Grindavik lies in the southern part of the Reykjanes Peninsula, a volcanic and seismic hot spot, where more than 40,000 earthquakes have occurred since Feb. 24. Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, Iceland frequently experiences earthquakes as the plates slowly drift in opposite directions at a pace of around 2 centimetres each year. “Everyone here is so tired,” Gudmundsdottir, a 5th grade school teacher, said. “When I go to bed at night, all I think about is: Am I going to get any sleep tonight?” Authorities in Iceland warned of an imminent volcanic eruption on the peninsula in early March, but said they did not expect it to disturb international air traffic or damage critical infrastructure nearby.

Vigil To Reclaim The Streets From Vigilance (CNN) Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, disappeared on March 3 while walking home from a friend’s home in London’s southern neighborhood of Clapham. Her body was found inside a builder’s bag in a wooded area. A 48-year-old police officer has been charged with kidnapping and killing her. On Saturday, thousands of people gathered in Clapham Common to pay tribute to Everard despite planned nationwide vigils having been canceled due to pandemic restrictions. As darkness fell, police officers began grabbing women in the crowd and making arrests. Videos posted on social media showed officers violently dragging some female protesters away and throwing others to the ground and handcuffing them. Women’s rights activists in the UK are reeling from the Metropolitan Police’s heavy-handed approach. There’s also been political fallout, with a member of Parliament reading out the names of 118 women murdered last year. In a new poll, over 70% of UK women said they had been sexually harassed in public spaces. The figure rose to 97% among women aged 18-24. 45% said they didn’t believe reporting the incidents to officials would change anything.

Dutch police break up thousands of anti-lockdown protesters (The Hill) Police in the Netherlands dispersed thousands of anti-lockdown protesters outside the Hague on Sunday, one day before national elections begin in the country. Reuters reports that police used batons and water cannons to disperse the crowd who authorities said were ignoring social distancing rules as well as warnings from authorities. Many of those gathered in the crowd held up yellow umbrellas and signs in opposition that read “Love, freedom, stop dictatorship,” according to Reuters. The country has been under an intense lockdown since January, Reuters notes, with gatherings of more than two people banned and the first night-time curfew issued since World War II. When the lockdown was extended, it sparked several days of rioting across the country. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Netherlands has confirmed over 1.1 million coronavirus cases and more than 16,000 related deaths.

Spain to launch trial of four-day working week (The Guardian) Spain could become one of the first countries in the world to trial the four-day working week after the government agreed to launch a modest pilot project for companies interested in the idea. Earlier this year, the small leftwing Spanish party Más País announced that the government had accepted its proposal to test out the idea. From New Zealand to Germany, the idea has been steadily gaining ground globally. Hailed by its proponents as a means to increase productivity, improve the mental health of workers and fight climate change, the proposal has taken on new significance as the pandemic sharpens issues around wellbeing, burnout and work-life balance. Leftwing parties in Spain—where a 44-day strike in Barcelona in 1919 resulted in the country becoming one of the first in western Europe to adopt the eight-hour workday—have seized on the idea. “Spain is one of the countries where workers put in more hours than the European average. But we’re not among the most productive countries,” said Iñigo Errejón of Más País. “I maintain that working more hours does not mean working better.”

Major European nations suspend use of AstraZeneca vaccine (AP) A cascading number of European countries—including Germany, France, Italy and Spain—suspended use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine Monday over reports of dangerous blood clots in some recipients, though the company and international regulators say there is no evidence the shot is to blame. AstraZeneca’s formula is one of three vaccines in use on the continent. But the escalating concern is another setback for the European Union’s vaccination drive, which has been plagued by shortages and other hurdles. The EU’s drug regulatory agency called a meeting for Thursday to review experts’ findings on the AstraZeneca shot and decide whether action needs to be taken.

Myanmar junta orders martial law in 6 Yangon townships (AP) Myanmar’s ruling junta has declared martial law in six townships in the country’s largest city, as security forces killed dozens of protesters over the weekend in an increasingly lethal crackdown on resistance to last month’s military coup. At least 38 people were killed Sunday and dozens were injured in one of the deadliest days of the crackdown on anti-coup protesters, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, an independent group tracking the toll of the violence. Several estimates from other sources gave higher figures.

Flights canceled during China’s worst sandstorm in a decade (AP) China’s capital and a wide swath of the country’s north were enveloped Monday in the worst sandstorm in a decade, forcing the cancelation of hundreds of flights. Skyscrapers in the center of Beijing appeared to drop from sight amid the dust and sand. Traffic was snarled and more than 400 flights out of the capital’s two main airports were canceled amid high winds and low visibility. The National Meteorological Center said Monday’s storm had developed in the Gobi Desert in the Inner Mongolia Region, where schools had been advised to close and bus service added to reduce residents’ exposure to the harsh conditions. The National Meteorological Center forecasted the sand and dust would affect 12 provinces and regions from Xinjiang in the far northwest to Heilongjiang in the northeast and the eastern coastal port city of Tianjin.

Taiwan’s boom (NYT) Taiwan, home to 24 million people, has seen fewer than 1,000 cases of Covid-19 and just 10 coronavirus-related deaths. Prior to 2020, lots of Taiwanese and dual nationals moved abroad and only came back for a visit. After the pandemic hit, Taiwan closed its borders to almost all foreign visitors. Protocols put in place include temperature checks, hand-sanitizing, mask-wearing (except in schools), rigorous contact tracing, and strict quarantines for incoming travelers. Taiwanese nationals returned, and about 270,000 more stayed than left. As a result, the island is experiencing a real economic boom. Exports have been rising for eight months, fueled by shipments of electronics and surging demand for semiconductor chips. Domestic tourism is exploding. The economy grew more than 5% in the fourth quarter compared with the same time period in 2019. And every day restaurants, bars, aFor Law Enforcementnd cafes are packed, office buildings hum, and schools are filled with laughing, unmasked children. “We just feel very lucky and definitely a little guilty,” said a product manager for a Bay Area tech company who returned to Taipei with his wife and young son last May. “We feel like we are the ones who benefited from the pandemic.”

United States and Iran warily circle each other over reactivating nuclear deal (Washington Post) The United States is willing to sit down with Iran “tomorrow” and jointly agree to full compliance with the nuclear accord they and five other world powers signed in 2015, according to a senior Biden administration official. Iran has made equally clear it shares the goal of going back to the terms of the original agreement, before President Donald Trump pulled out of it. But nearly two months into Biden’s presidency, with Iran’s own contentious presidential election approaching in June, the two sides have been unable even to talk to each other about what both say they want. Iran wants all Trump sanctions lifted and an immediate influx of cash from the release of blocked international loans and frozen funds, along with foreign investment and removal of bans on oil sales. It seeks assurances that the next U.S. administration won’t jettison the deal again. For its part, the Biden administration wants a reactivated deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, to serve as a “platform” to renegotiate its sunset provisions—the future dates when certain provisions are set to expire. It wants to move quickly to discussions about its other problems with Iran, including Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its use of proxy forces in Iraq, Syria and beyond, and human rights abuses. Both sides continue to wait for the other to prove its good faith with “you, first” rhetoric.

‘Republic of Queues’: 10 years on, Syria is a hungry nation (AP) The lines stretch for miles outside gas stations in Syrian cities, with an average wait of five hours to fill up a tank. At bakeries, people push and shove during long, chaotic waits for their turn to collect the quota of two bread packs a day per family. On the streets in the capital of Damascus, beggars accost motorists and passers-by, pleading for food or money. Medicines, baby milk and diapers can hardly be found. As Syria marks the 10th anniversary Monday of the start of its uprising-turned-civil war, President Bashar Assad may still be in power, propped up by Russia and Iran. But millions of people are being pushed deeper into poverty, and a majority of households can hardly scrape together enough to secure their next meal. “Life here is a portrait of everyday humiliation and suffering,” said one woman in Damascus. Her husband lost his job at an electronics store last month, and now the family is drawing on meager savings that are evaporating fast. With two kids and an elderly father to care for, she said life had become unbearably difficult and she is gripped by anxiety for the future. Until recently, she could smuggle in her father’s medicines from Lebanon, but now Lebanon has its own meltdown and shortages.

#headlines #news

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theliberaltony · 5 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

More than half of the Democratic field crowded into San Francisco this past weekend for the California Democratic Convention, where they tried to stand out in the crowded primary as the clock ticks away for the candidates to qualify for the first debates.

And with less than a week for candidates to hit the threshold to make the debate stage, the Democratic National Committee announced a rule change which leaves Montana Gov. Steve Bullock on the outside looking in. Bullock had qualified for the first debates, in Miami at the end of June, based on polling, but the DNC said on Thursday that two ABC News/Washington Post polls — one of which had put Bullock over the top — would no longer be counted. As of Thursday afternoon, that left 20 candidates who had met thresholds via polling and/or fundraising.

Meanwhile, the mass shooting in Virginia Beach last week brought the issue of gun violence to the fore, and former Vice President Joe Biden seemingly set himself apart from the rest of the crowd when he said he supported the Hyde amendment, which blocks federal funding of abortions. On Thursday, however, he appeared to reverse that position.

Here’s the weekly candidate roundup:

May 31-June 6, 2019

Michael Bennet (D)

Bennet met the polling criteria to participate in the first Democratic debate scheduled to take place later this month in Miami. He garnered 1 percent in a national CNN poll on Tuesday, which is the third qualifying poll he has reached 1 percent in.

In the aftermath of the deadly mass shooting in Virginia Beach, Bennet told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” that, “I think the president can make a difference. The House of Representatives has passed background checks to close the internet loophole. This person bought the guns lawfully as we know. Every single fact pattern will be different. We should pass those background checks — 90 percent of Americans support it.”

The Colorado senator spent the weekend campaigning in South Carolina while many of his fellow 2020 rivals were at the California Democratic Convention.

Joe Biden (D)

Biden broke from the other 2020 candidate when his campaign announced that he supports the Hyde Amendment, but he would be open to repealing it. Then, on Thursday, he said that he no longer supported the policy. “I’ve been working through the final details of my health care plan like others in this race and I’ve been struggling with the problems that Hyde now presents,” he said.

The Hyde Amendment was first passed in 1976, three years after the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. It encoded abortion as a protected right, but stipulating that federal funding could not be used to pay for abortions. A few years later, Congress made an exemption for cases in which there was a threat to the patient’s life. An exemption for cases of rape or incest was added in the early 1990s. The law largely affects patients who are on Medicaid, meaning low-income patients have to pay for an abortion out-of-pocket. Many of the other candidates responded by calling for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment.

Biden also released a $5 trillion climate plan which calls for net zero emission of carbon pollution in the U.S. by 2050. The plan includes $1.7 trillion in federal spending over 10 years; the rest of the spending would come from the private sector.

Cory Booker (D)

The New Jersey senator unveiled a plan to make housing more affordable by offering a tax credit to people who spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. According to researchers at Columbia University, the refundable renters’ credit would benefit more than 57 million people — including 17 million children — and lift 9.4 million Americans out of poverty.

Booker’s housing plan also includes measures to expand access to legal counsel for tenants facing eviction, reform restrictive zoning laws, build more affordable housing units and combat homelessness through funding grants.

At the California Democratic Convention over the weekend, Booker also addressed the issue of gun violence.

“We are seeing the normalization of mass murder in our country,” Booker said. “It is time that we come together and stand together and take the fight to the NRA and the corporate gun lobby like we have never seen before. We can lead that fight and we can win.”

Steve Bullock (D)

On Wednesday, Bullock announced the first official policy of his presidential campaign, designed to keep foreign money out of U.S. elections. His “Check the Box” proposal would require all 501(c)(4) groups that aren’t required to disclose any of their donors and Super PACs to “check a box” saying that they are not taking money from foreign actors. Lying “will carry the penalty of perjury,” according to Bullock’s policy.

In a Des Moines Register op-ed, the Montana governor wrote, “Trump’s dark money loophole is telling these secretive groups that they don’t even have to disclose the source of their funding to the IRS. It opens the door not only to significantly more spending by corporations and wealthy donors, but also to potential spending by foreign entities.”

Pete Buttigieg (D)

During a MSNBC Town Hall on Monday, Buttigieg said he “would not have applied that pressure” for Sen. Al Franken to have resigned in 2017 over sexual harassment allegations, without first learning more about the claims.

“I think it was his decision to make” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor said. “But I think the way that we basically held him to a higher standard than the GOP does their people has been used against us.”

At the California Democratic Convention, Buttigieg leaned into his position as a Washington outsider and said the country needs “something completely different.”

“Why not a middle-class millennial mayor with a track record in the industrial Midwest? Why not a mayor at a time when we need Washington to look more like our best run cities and towns, not the other way around? And why not someone who represents a new generation of leadership?” the 37-year-old mayor said.

Julian Castro (D)

The former Housing and Urban Development secretary unveiled a sweeping police reform plan Monday, aiming to prevent officer-involved shootings, increase transparency and end “police militarization.”

“Even though we have some great police officers out there, and I know that because I served as mayor of San Antonio, this is not a case of just a few bad apples,” Castro said on CNN. “The system is broken.”

Included in the proposal are restrictions on the use of deadly force, the increased adoption of technology such as body cameras, an end to stop-and-frisk tactics and expanded bias training.

Bill de Blasio (D)

De Blasio earned his first union endorsement since launching his presidential campaign. The New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council announced their support on Wednesday and even said they would campaign for the New York City mayor in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

John Delaney (D)

Delaney criticized the DNC guidelines which include a 65,000 donor threshold as one criteria to qualify for the presidential debates. He argued that the criteria leaves voters excluded from the process.

“I don’t think we should have a donor standard, I absolutely don’t think the Democratic Party should be about money. Fifty percent of the American people can’t afford basic necessities, I’m running for those people,” he said on MSNBC.

On health care, the former congressman from Maryland was aggressively booed at the California Democratic Convention for denouncing Medicare for all as “bad policy.” His proposed health care plan would keep private insurance as an option.Jeff Chiu/AP

After New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed Delaney’s health care plan over Twitter, urging the candidate to “sashay away,” Delaney responded by asking her to a debate, but Ocasio-Cortez declined.

“I think that’s too bad because I think health care is the most important issue facing the American people and she obviously has an issue with my plan, based on that she tweeted that thing at me, and I would have loved to debate it because I think these things should be a battle of ideas,” Delaney said in a phone interview with ABC News.

Tulsi Gabbard (D)

The Hawaii congresswoman reacted to the House passing the “DREAM and Promise Act” which would protect young undocumented immigrants and immigrants with temporary status who were once covered by the Obama-era DACA program. She said on Fox News, “The hyper-partisanship around this issue has gotten in the way of delivering a real solution. This legislation and finding a solution for these Dreamers is something that has had bipartisan support.”

Kirsten Gillibrand (D)

Gillibrand released a plan to legalize marijuana, which called for expunging all non-violent marijuana convictions. Gillibrand said that under her plan, tax revenue from recreational marijuana would be put “towards programs that help repair the damage done by the War on Drugs.”

The New York senator also participated in a town hall on Fox News, where she attacked the network for its coverage of abortion. Gillibrand was asked about her position on “late-term abortion” and she began her response by reiterating her stand that “when it comes to women’s reproductive freedom, it should be a woman’s decision.” She then criticized Fox News for creating “a false narrative” on the issue.

Gillibrand was cut off by moderator, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who said, “Senator, I just want to say we’ve brought you here for an hour.”

Wallace continued, “We have treated you very fairly. I understand that, maybe, to make your credentials with the Democrats who are not appearing on Fox News, you want to attack us. I’m not sure it’s frankly very polite when we’ve invited you to be here.”

Gillibrand said that she would “do it in a polite way,” but she was interrupted by Wallace again who said “instead of talking about Fox News, why don’t you answer Susan’s question?” referring to the question asked by the member of the audience.

Still, Gillibrand attacked the network for their use of the word “infanticide,” calling it “illegal” and “not a fact.” She added, “I believe all of us have a responsibility to talk about the facts.”

Kamala Harris (D)

Harris was rushed off the stage Saturday while speaking at the MoveOn #BigIdeas forum in San Francisco after an activist rushed at her and grabbed the microphone out of her hand. Harris returned to the stage, about a minute later, to chants of “Ka-ma-la” from the audience.

An animal activist group claimed responsibility for the man rushing the stage. He was identified by the group as Aidan Cook. The group’s spokesperson, Matt Johnson, told ABC News that Cook was not detained or arrested; he was simply kicked out.

John Hickenlooper (D)

The former Colorado governor has struggled to gain traction so far. He faced a disruptive crowd at the California Democratic Convention when he said, “If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer.”

The crowd of Democratic activists responded to his message with a chorus of boos and a massive display of waving “Bernie” signs.

Hickenlooper responded to the boos by saying, “You know, if we are not careful we are going to help re-elect the worst president in American history.”

Jay Inslee (D)

The Washington governor has been pushing hard for the DNC to dedicate one of its presidential primary debates to the topic of climate change. DNC spokeswoman, Xochitl Hinojosa, responded in a statement saying, “the DNC will not be holding entire debates on a single issue area because we want to make sure voters have the ability to hear from candidates on dozens of issues of importance to American voters.”

Inslee called the DNC’s decision to not host a climate debate “deeply disappointing.”

“The DNC is silencing the voices of Democratic activists, many of our progressive partner organizations, and nearly half of the Democratic presidential field, who want to debate the existential crisis of our time. Democratic voters say that climate change is their top issue; the Democratic National Committee must listen to the grassroots of the party,” Inslee’s campaign said in a press release.

Amy Klobuchar (D)

Klobuchar secured her first Iowa endorsement from State Rep. Ruth Ann Gaines. Gaines said she’s endorsing Klobuchar because of the senator’s “commitment to addressing and prioritizing mental health.”

Seth Moulton (D)

Moulton said in a CNN town hall that if elected, he would seek to change current Department of Justice guidelines which prevent a sitting president from being indicted. The comment came after former special counsel Robert Mueller said that a “longstanding” department policy prevents a sitting president from being charged with a federal crime.

Beto O’Rourke (D)

O’Rourke released a voting rights plan which called for term limits for members of Congress and for Supreme Court justices. O’Rourke is calling for members of the House and Senate to serve for no more than 12 years, and for justices to be capped at one 18-year term. O’Rourke said that after a justice completes their term, they would be permitted to serve on the federal courts of appeals.

The former Texas congressman’s plan also includes measures to increase voter participation, including by making Election Day a federal holiday and by allowing automatic and same-day voter registration.

Tim Ryan (D)

Ryan flipped his position on impeachment, this week, saying he believes Congress has to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump. The Ohio congressman made his announcement during a CNN town hall, saying that Mueller’s statement last week made him support impeachment.

Bernie Sanders (D)

Sanders spoke at Walmart’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday, directly criticizing the company for paying its employees low wages and lobbying for a resolution that would give hourly workers representation on the company’s board of directors.

As many Democratic candidates spoke out on abortion rights this week, comments by Sanders in 1972 — prior to the Roe v. Wade decision — resurfaced via Newsweek. He told a Vermont newspaper at the time that it struck him as “incredible” that the male-dominated state legislature, and politicians in general, “think that they have the right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body.”

This weekend, Sanders visits Iowa to speak at the Capital City Pride Candidate Forum in Des Moines, he will march with McDonald’s workers who are seeking higher wages and attend the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame Celebration in Cedar Rapids, among several other events.

Eric Swalwell (D)

Swalwell talked about his assault weapon ban and buyback plan on ABC’s “The View.” He said that he’s the only candidate calling to “ban and buy back every single assault weapon in America.”

The California congressman also left the door open to drop out of the presidential race and run for re-election for his House seat. Swalwell said he is open to running for a fifth term in Congress, but said he wouldn’t make that decision until December.

Elizabeth Warren (D)

Warren announced on Thursday that her campaign staff has unionized.

“My campaign has submitted their support to join IBEW 2320,” Warren tweeted. Her campaign joins a growing number of others that are showing support for unions and unionizing themselves. The Sanders and Castro campaigns have also unionized and the Swalwell campaign had previously said they were unionizing.

Andrew Yang (D)

During Pride Month, Yang tied his signature universal basic income proposal to the LGBTQ community, noting in a BuzzFeed interview that he’s heard from many people who say they’ve been kicked out of housing and fired from jobs over their sexual orientation. He said it is his plan to give all American adults $1,000 per month, which could help them “adjust if they’re economically singled out.”

Yang will be among the speakers at the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame Celebration in Cedar Rapids on Sunday.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Christopher Donato #Sruthi Palaniappan and Adam Ke

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motita-1 · 2 years

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CANNABIS COMMISSION WANTS PLANTS NEXT YEAR, HIRES DIRECTOR

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission will ask state lawmakers to revise the state’s medical marijuana law in order to get plants in the ground next year and make the products available to patients sooner, Al.com reported.

The commission also voted to offer State Treasurer John McMillan the job of executive director of the new agency that will run the medical cannabis program. McMillan served two terms as state agriculture commissioner and is a former commissioner of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. McMillan told the news outlet he expects to accept the job, which would require him to resign as state treasurer. Ivey would appoint a replacement.

Al.com reports that Commission Vice Chair Rex Vaughn said he has been in discussions with lawmakers about moving up the start date for licensing cultivators from Sept 1, 2022 to early 2022.

“It may allow us to grow a crop in 2022,” Vaughn said. “That is our game plan right now.”

The time required to grow the plants, which will be raised in greenhouses, is 90 to 110 days. Unless the Sept. 1, 2022 date is changed, products could not be available until some time in 2023, Vaughn said.

The Legislature is not in session now, but a special session is expected later this fall on redistricting. Another might be held on prison construction. It is Gov. Kay Ivey’s decision to call a special session and name the subjects that will be debated during it,

The 14-member commission oversees a new agency that will license and regulate cultivators, processors, secure transporters, testing laboratories and dispensaries of medical marijuana products. It will be a seed-to-sale intrastate program, with products made from plants grown in Alabama.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/business-health-alabama-marijuana-medical-marijuana-77cf0d2bb82b0ca5b8b81fe9cdf4979c

#cannabiscommunity #marijuana #cannabis #thc #cbd #cannabisculture #hemp #medicalmarijuana #dabs #cbdoil

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tbhstudying · 6 years

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have you picked your classes for next school year yet?

i’ve already submitted my classes for next year but i’m still debating ;; i can change them whenever i want until june aaa

as of right now, i’ll be taking ap comp gov, ap stats, ap spanish, anatomy and physiology, ap chem, and ap lit. however, i’m debating on whether or not to take ap lit as a zero period class and take ap econ too bc i feel like i’ll need to know economics for the real world??? but i also don’t want to wake up early haha

#anon #ask

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statetalks · 3 years

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How Many Republicans Voted For Daca

Arkansas Republicans Help Give Professional Licenses To Illegal Aliens

Republicans say there won’t be a DACA vote this week. How will Democrats respond?

Arkansas Republicans, including Gov. Asa Hutchinson , have helped secure professional licenses for illegal aliens enrolled in former President Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program thanks to the passage of new state law.

The law, which took effect July 1, will now allow the states nearly 5,000 DACA illegal aliens, along with illegal aliens who hold federal government-issued work permits, to obtain professional licenses to hold jobs in education and healthcare, among other industries.

Hutchinson said all of Arkansas benefits when DACA illegal aliens can obtain professional licenses to take jobs in the state. Only State Sen. Trent Garner and;State Reps. Joshua Bryant , Bruce Cozart , and Gayla;McKenzie voted against the legislation.

The passing of this law was a special moment in Arkansas history, Hutchinson said.

Arkansas Nonprofit News Network reports:

Arkansas Republicans passage of professional licenses for DACA illegal aliens comes after the sanctuary state of Colorado passed similar legislation this year with lobbying from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergs FWD.us group.

Likewise, New Jersey;passed;similar legislation last year, and illegal aliens in the state are now applying for and receiving professional licenses.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter;here.;

Forced Daca Vote May Happen In June

When members of Congress departed for the Memorial Day break, a small group of pro-immigration Republican members felt confident they could get the necessary 218 votes on a discharge petition that would force a vote on a DACA bill. At last count, if all Democrats sign-on, the count stood at 215 just before the break. They feel they have the 218.

There are two key dates for a discharge: June 11 and June 25. Once a bill reaches the 218, it has to wait for seven legislative days and then can only be voted on the second and fourth Mondays of the month when the House is in session. That means under the current schedule the only opportunity will be Monday June 25th and Monday July 23rd. There would have to be the 218 signatures by at least June 11th or July 9th.

One of CWLAâs key talking points from the recent Hill Day visits is to get Congress to act on DREAMERS legislation. The Dreamers Act or Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2017 would grant DACA beneficiaries permanent resident status on a conditional basis.

Put Every Senator On The Record: Do You Support Daca Or Not

Damian Dovarganes / AP

In this Sept. 1, 2017 file photo, Loyola Marymount University student and a DACA recipient Maria Carolina Gomez joins a rally in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, outside the Edward Roybal Federal Building in Los;Angeles.

Tuesday, July 27, 2021 | 2 a.m.

View more of the Sun’s opinion section

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Congressional Republicans have come up with all sorts of ways to dodge responsibility to protect Americas Dreamers, while hypocritically claiming they support the protections offered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Some of these GOP extremists blame their Democratic counterparts for packaging DACA with immigration measures they say are too lenient. Some say they cant approve DACA without it being coupled with more stringent legislation to secure the border. Some contend its irresponsible to consider a pathway to citizenship for any immigrants during the current surge in border crossings.

But with all eyes on Congress following the recent legal ruling against DACA, and with the House having already approved protections, its time for Senate Democrats to hold the Republicans feet to the fire on the issue by doing an up-or-down vote on DACA alone.

Americans have had enough of this ping-ponging on DACA. As shown unfailingly in polling, Americans across the political spectrum fervently support a pathway to citizenship for the Dreamers.

And why wouldnt they?

Don’t Miss: What Republicans Are Voting Against Trump

What Has Changed In The Two Years Since The Senate Voted Down Daca Legislation

Two years ago this week, the Senate voted on four different immigration billsthree that proposed permanent fixes for Dreamers and one on sanctuary cities. Each failed to reach the 60-vote threshold for passage. Later this year, the Supreme Court is expected to rule with the Trump administration in favor of terminating the DACA program, ultimately triggering a chaotic election-year fight over Dreamers, immigration reform, and border security.;

Much has changed in the 735 days since the Senate last took up this contentious issue, but advancing a DACA deal still remains unlikely. Here are five developments to the politics and policy around DACA since the last showdown in the upper chamber.;

Can Daca Recipients Vote

People granted DACA status do not have the same rights as U.S. citizens when it comes to taking part in elections. They are considered permanent residents living in the U.S. with a green card; hence they are non-U.S. citizens. They also have the ability to obtain scholarships to pay for an education in the U.S.

Barring only a few states, DACA recipients and immigrants holding other statuses are not allowed to cast their votes in federal elections. Some states and municipalities that allow DACA recipients to vote include Chicago and San Francisco, among others. If theyre undocumented immigrants, then voting is entirely prohibited.

You May Like: Why Do Republicans Like Donald Trump

Hold Your Own Hearings

You can share personal stories that reflect the importance of DACA and how it has helped you. People will be more receptive to such messages than blunt political ads. In fact, many teenagers and adults who benefited from DACA are sharing their own stories of how it changed their lives. And these stories are circulating on the Internet, inspiring millions.

How Can Dreamers Get Their Voices Heard At The Polls

Even though they cannot cast their vote in the elections, all is not lost for DACA recipients. Nearly 700,000 people are living in the U.S. with DACA status. So changing or abandoning a policy on which so many people rely is not an easy undertaking.

Some of the DACA recipients are taking things into their own hands and trying their best to keep DACA intact. While this may not be directly effective, it is certainly a way for them to try to make an impact this election season.

Recommended Reading: Are There More Democrats Or Republicans In The Senate

What Are The Big Concerns Facing Dreamers This Election

Elections are always important to a country, and most importantly, to its people. These people are both citizens and non-citizens, each with their own hopes and concerns for the election. DACA recipients look forward to the upcoming 2020 election with anticipation.

The DACA policy first came into effect in 2012, and within the last eight years, it has undergone a roller coaster ride of policy shifts. 2020 is going to be no different, and there are some big concerns looming for DACA status holders. Among all the major concerns, the most important ones for these non-citizens are:

How Can They Force A Vote

What Republicans want from a DACA deal

Moderate Republicans are using a rarely-used and rarely-successful procedural maneuver called a discharge petition. Stick with me: A discharge petition forces a vote by the whole House of Representatives on specific bill or bills. In this specific instance, this petition would force a vote as early as June on four different immigration plans. This would bypass going through committee and whole array of other roadblocks Republicans leaders could typically use to stop legislation they dont like.

Read Also: Are There More Republicans Or Democrats In The Senate

Republicans Split Up: Tillis And Cornyn Pushing For Amnesty For Daca Recipients Betraying Americans Again

Republican donors and Republican voters are about ready to get a divorce over some critical issues, like Amnesty, which is hugely unpopular with the Voters and highly favorable with the donors.

Some Republicans can not stop themselves from lying to their voters and pushing for far-left policies like Amnesty for DACA recipients.;

Most Republicans support DACA. As do these Republican Members of Congress and former members: Paul Ryan, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley, John Coryn, Thom Tillis, Adam Kinzinger, Leonard Lance, Carlos Curbelo, Jeff Flake, Mike Coffman, Ileana Ros-Lehinen, Will Hurd, Jeff Dedham

Whatever

According to many of his constituents, Thom Tillis from North Carolina is one of the most deceitful people on the Hill on immigration issues. So is John Cornyn. Together they have devised another Amnesty scheme that represents donors and not voters.;

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, Cornyn and Tillis are pushing for things that will make them some money but which their constituents will not be happy about:

In making their case, the Republican senators stated that there is no clear and politically viable path forward for the American Dream and Promise Act, which would amnesty at least 4.4 million illegal aliens, and that a narrower bill is more viable.;

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services;data, there are approximately 616,030 illegal aliens who are active DACA recipients.

House Votes To Give Millions Of Dreamers And Farmworkers A Path To Citizenship

Democrats vowed the votes would be the first step toward enacting President Bidens immigration agenda. But Republicans galvanized by border politics promised to stop even the most popular measures.

By Nicholas Fandos

The Democratic-led House voted on Thursday to create a path to citizenship for an estimated four million undocumented immigrants, reopening a politically charged debate over the nations broken immigration system just as President Biden confronts a growing surge of migrants at the border.

In a near party-line vote of 228 to 197, the House first moved to set up a permanent legal pathway for more than 2.5 million undocumented immigrants, including those brought to the United States as children, known as Dreamers, and others granted Temporary Protected Status for humanitarian reasons. Just nine Republicans voted yes.

Hours later, lawmakers approved a second measure with more bipartisan backing that would eventually grant legal status to close to a million farmworkers and their families while updating a key agricultural visa program. This time, 30 Republicans, many representing agriculture-heavy districts, joined nearly every Democrat to vote in favor.

In moving swiftly to consider both bills, House leaders wagered that singling out relatively narrow but publicly popular immigration fixes could shake up a deadlocked policy debate after years of failed attempts at more comprehensive immigration legislation and deliver for a key constituency.

Recommended Reading: Who Controls The House Of Representatives Republicans Or Democrats

Senator Charles Grassley On Daca

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Charles Grassley has been a supporter of DACA for awhile, and this support largely comes from his belief in the e-Verify system. Mr. Grassley has said that all employers should be required to use the E-verify system in order to check on a potential employees working eligibility, for a system like this would make deportation of criminals easier and it would as well speed up deportation of asylum seekers who are unable to support their claims.

Republicans And Democrats Remain Divided On Fate Of Daca

EmbedEmbed

As the White House may be inching closer to a deal that will decide the fate of 800,000 DACA recipients, Congresswoman Linda Sanchez shares her viewpoint on the current negotiations.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We’re going to start the program today talking about new tensions around the program known as DACA, short for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. That’s an Obama era rule that allows undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to apply for protection from deportation. The Trump administration has said it wants to cancel the program in six months.

But President Trump met with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi last week. And they reportedly agreed to work together to protect DACA recipients somehow. Until they come up with an actual plan, though, some 800,000 young people remain in limbo. And we will hear from one of those young people in just a few minutes.

But first, to the tensions. Neither President Trump supporters nor many of the Democratic lawmakers are pleased that the two are moving ahead on a deal without consulting with their respective bases. Joining us on the line to talk about this is Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, Democrat of California. She’s the former chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. And she’s now vice chairwoman of the House Democratic Caucus. Congresswoman, thank you so much for speaking with us.

LINDA SANCHEZ: Yeah. It’s great to be with you.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, my pleasure.

Read Also: Do Republicans Support Same Sex Marriage

Four Immigration Bills Were Put On The Senate Floor And Four Bills Failed

The Senate voted on four immigration bills on Thursday afternoon; they needed 60 votes to advance. Each of the bills, from the most conservative to the most liberal, failed.

First up was a plan by Sens. Chris Coons and John McCain . The Coons-McCain bill would have:

Provided a path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children

Offered no money for Trumps border wall, though it did include some border security measures

It failed 52 to 47, with Democrats almost united in favor and Republicans mostly voting against it.

What it means:The failure of the Coons-McCain plan underlined that with the Republicans controlling every lever of power in Washington, a bill without any funding for Trumps infamous border wall is a nonstarter.

The second vote, on an amendment from Sen. Pat Toomey , did not actually address DACA or border security. The Toomey amendment would have penalized so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce federal immigration policy, by withholding federal funding from those municipalities. The issue has been a fixation for Trump and some of the conservative hardliners in Congress.

It failed 54 to 45. Republicans and a few Democrats supported it, but most Democrats were opposed.

Provided a path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children

Offered $25 billion for border security

Prevented DACA recipients from sponsoring their parents for legal status

Its Time: As Congress Debates Citizenship Legislation Yet Again A Daca Recipient Grows Frustrated

Patients sometimes look up at Javier Quiroz, an acute-care nurse in one of Houstons busiest hospitals, and ask if he is in the United States legally.

No, he says.

Then he tells them about the journey that has never ended. He crossed the U.S.-Mexico border at age 3 and, nearly three decades later, is among 11;million undocumented immigrants rooted inside the United States without a permanent legal claim to this country.

Quiroz is a foreigner with a Tennessee accent, a registered nurse who paid his way through college and then fought to save lives in a pandemic that nearly took his father and infected him, his wife and their baby girl.

He has watched Congress debate his future for decades, but a bill that would offer him U.S. citizenship has never reached the presidents desk.

With Congress set to return to Washington on Monday, Democratic congressional leaders say legislation establishing such pathways ranks as one of their top priorities. But progress has been stymied, both by uncertain Democratic support and Republican recalcitrance amid an influx of migrants crossing the southwest border, following the same path Quiroz once took.

Failure is not an option, Schumer wrote to colleagues, saying they would address immigration and a host of other measures when the recess ends Monday.

Also Check: How Many Republicans Voted Against Budget

The Daca Population Numbers

787

President Donald Trump said he has heard varying numbers on the DACA population from 650,000 to 3 million. In fact, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said there were 689,800 active DACA recipients as of Sept. 4, 2017.

DACA, which stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was instituted in 2012 under the Obama administration and enabled certain individuals who had come to the United States illegally as children to avoid deportation proceedings and obtain work authorization for two years, subject to renewal. The Trump administration announced an end to the DACA program on Sept. 5, 2017, saying no new applications would be accepted and a wind-down would occur for current enrollees.

Congress is negotiating a deal on what to do about DACA before a March 5 deadline set by the president. A bipartisan group of lawmakers met with the president to discuss immigration on Jan. 9, and the following day, Trump said in a cabinet meeting that they had agreed to pursue four major areas yesterday of reform: securing our border, including, of course, the wall which has always been included, it never changed; ending chain migration; canceling the visa lottery; and addressing the status of the DACA population. He then rattled off a few different numbers on the DACA recipients.

Now, lets look at the figures the president mentioned on the DACA population.

Legal Immigration Is Now The Real Hurdle To A Senate Deal On Daca

Republicans push for vote on Trump’s proposal to end shutdown

Even with the failed votes, there was little disagreement among the various plans on two major issues: the DACA recipients themselves and border security funding.

Every major plan from the Grassley/Trump proposal to McCain-Coons would have provided a path to citizenship for young people in the United States who are eligible for DACA. An estimated 1.3 to 1.8 million people who had been brought to the country illegally as children would have received protections under that provision.

On border security, the disagreement was lesser Democrats werent eager to give Trump his wall, but they did appear willing to fund it to save DACA. The White House wanted $25 billion, and the Grassley bill gave it to them. So did the latest bipartisan Common Sense compromise.

The real disagreement, then, came down to legal immigration. The White House wanted substantial legal immigration cuts through changes to family-based migration and the diversity visa program. Those provisions were incorporated into the Grassley plan, but it had trouble mustering even universal Republican support.

Now, senators will return to their home states, having done nothing yet again to solve the DACA crisis.

Will you support Voxs explanatory journalism?

Don’t Miss: Why Do Republicans Want To Get Rid Of The Epa

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-voted-for-daca/

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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Who Are The Republicans On The Ballot

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-are-the-republicans-on-the-ballot/

Who Are The Republicans On The Ballot

New 2020 Voter Data: How Biden Won How Trump Kept The Race Close And What It Tells Us About The Future

As we saw in 2016 and again in 2020, traditional survey research is finding it harder than it once was to assess presidential elections accurately. Pre-election polls systemically misjudge who is likely to vote, and exit polls conducted as voters leave the voting booths get it wrong as well.

Now, using a massive sample of “validated” voters whose participation has been independently verified, the Pew Research Center has . It helps us understand how Joe Biden was able to accomplish what Hillary Clinton did not—and why President Trump came closer to getting reelected than the pre-election surveys had predicted.

How Joe Biden won

Five main factors account for Biden’s success.

The Biden campaign reunited the Democratic Party. Compared to 2016, he raised the share of moderate and conservative Democrats who voted for the Democratic nominee by 6 points, from 85 to 91%, while increasing the Democratic share of liberal Democrats from 94 to 98%. And he received the support of 85% of Democrats who had defected to 3rd party and independent candidates in 2016.

How Trump kept it close

Despite non-stop controversy about his policies and personal conduct, President Trump managed to raise his share of the popular vote from 46% in 2016 to 47% in 2020. His core coalition held together, and he made a few new friends.

Longer-term prospects

BillGalston

Here Are The 17 Republican Senators Who Voted To Advance The $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill

Washington When the Senate voted Wednesday to open debate on a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package, more than a dozen Republicans sided with Democrats to advance the legislation.

proposal,

Roy Blunt of Missouri

Richard Burr of North Carolina

Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia

Bill Cassidy of Louisiana

Kevin Cramer of North Dakota

Mike Crapo of Idaho

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina

Chuck Grassley of Iowa

John Hoeven of North Dakota

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky

Thom Tillis of North Carolina

Todd Young of Indiana

Voters Supported Progressive Policies On Ballot Initiatives Republicans Are Pushing Back

After Idaho’s Medicaid expansion received resounding support at the ballot box in 2018 along with funding for education, the Republican-controlled legislature began pushing to make future ballot initiatives more difficult.

Instead of requiring organizers to gather a percentage of signatures from 18 of the state’s legislative districts, the GOP lawmakers passed a law that required organizers to gather signatures from all of the state’s 35 districts.

That means that future organizers will have to travel to far-flung sections of the rural state, potentially increasing costs of any ballot initiative by millions of dollars for a process that most idealize as a grassroots one. Local organizing groups have complained it makes a ballot initiative nearly impossible.

Jim Jones is currently challenging that law in court with his group, the Committee to Protect and Preserve the Idaho Constitution. A former Republican state attorney general and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, Jones said he no longer identifies with his party, and he notes that it’s not just Idaho’s Republican-led legislature that is limiting direct democracy efforts.

After facing defeats at the ballot box in recent years, a handful of Republican state legislatures have pushed to constrain voter ballot initiatives in recent months to limit the ability of progressive policies to leap past them in the lawmaking process.

Marijuana Legalization Could Be On The Ohio Ballot In 2022 Should That Worry Republicans

In this Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, photo, an employee of Buckeye Relief LLC, works on topping a marijuana plant, in Eastlake, Ohio. Recreational marijuana could be on the ballot in Ohio in November 2022, depending on how a petition gathering effort goes. AP

Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Republicans have a lot at stake next year.

Gov. Mike DeWine is running for re-election. Retiring U.S. Sen. Rob Portman’s seat is open, and control of the Ohio Supreme Court is up for grabs.

Will they want to deal with a ballot issue legalizing marijuana, too?

The ball could be in state lawmakers’ court.

A group called the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol is pursuing what’s called an initiated statute to legalize recreational adult-use marijuana. If it can collect enough signatures, the Republican-controlled legislature would be forced to consider the law. If the legislature doesn’t act, the coalition then could try to collect more signatures to place the issue on the statewide ballot for next year’s election.

“We’re focusing on the policy of adult-use marijuana,” said Tom Haren, a spokesman for the legalization effort. “The politics will be what they’ll be, and that’s something the legislature will have to think of for themselves. But we really do think this is good policy, and we think our proposal should pass on its own merits.”

Still, he said “it’s hard to argue” that the dynamic would benefit the DeWine campaign.

Republicans Increasingly Look To Ballot Initiatives As Way To Enact Voting Measures

Allan Smith

Republicans seeking to change state voting laws in the face of opposition from Democratic governors or unwilling legislatures are zeroing in on another path — enacting fresh restrictions via ballot initiatives.

In Michigan and Pennsylvania, key battlegrounds that President Joe Biden flipped back blue in 2020, as well as in Massachusetts, Republicans are at the beginning stages of a lengthy process to put proposed limits directly to the voters.

Voting rights advocates who connect the moves to the proliferation of restrictive voting laws advanced in states where the GOP enjoys total control say they fear those efforts will prove successful and spread to other states where such initiatives are legally possible.

Politicsmissouri Governor Won’t Fund Medicaid Expansion Flouting State Constitution

Missouri and North Dakota have also considered supermajority requirements, but their efforts died in their legislatures. The Arizona state Senate, meanwhile, has passed three related bills: a supermajority requirement bill, a bill that would allow them to repeal ballot initiatives with the permission of the state Supreme Court, and a bill that would require a statewide vote on passed ballot initiatives every five years. Arizona state Sen. Warren Petersen did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Mississippi’s Supreme Court has totally dismantled the ballot initiative process through which organizers successfully passed medical marijuana legalization and planned to push Medicaid expansion and early voting requirements — all policies that the state’s Republican legislature had long refused to act on.

Craig Burnett, a political science professor at Hofstra University who studies forms of direct democracy, said that while there is currently a trend of Republican limits on ballot initiatives, Democrats have also tried to impede conservative efforts to expand voter ID laws and limit same-sex marriage.

But, he said, there has recently been a heightened level of limitations to a process that breaks through partisan politics.

Nevertheless, many said they found it a worrying trend and also highlighted recent examples of Republican-led legislatures tinkering with ballot initiatives to neuter them or block them altogether.

Over 150 Companies Sign Letter Supporting John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act

One reason Republicans in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts may have focused their initiatives solely on voter ID laws, rather than including other election changes, is because public polling has shown those requirements have broad backing by members of both parties. A recent Monmouth University poll found that 80 percent of Americans back requiring voters to show photo ID in order to vote.

“The struggle with ballot initiatives are always getting the actual initiative on the ballot to start with,” said Garrett Bess, vice president of Heritage Action for America, a conservative advocacy group. “But if the question is put to the voters, then I think it’s an almost certainty to pass.”

Still, the effort marks a new chapter in the broader national Republican effort to advance new limits on elections following former President Donald Trump’s campaign of lies about last fall’s vote. A number of leading backers of the ballot initiatives have boosted Trump’s false claims of fraud.

Voter fraud in U.S. elections is exceedingly rare. Although there is no evidence of widespread malfeasance in last fall’s election, more than a dozen states have so far enacted changes this year.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states already ask voters to provide some form of ID, with most of them allowing voters without ID to cast ballots if they sign a form under oath.

Voting Rights Bill Fails In Senate As Biden Pushes Other Key Legislation

“It certainly seems that these tactics by politicians in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are part of a larger national strategy to limit the freedom to vote,” Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group, told NBC News. “This is about making it harder for Americans to vote.”

In Michigan — where Republicans control the Legislature but not the governor’s mansion — the state GOP chair and the Republican leader of the Michigan Senate have both indicated a ballot initiative is their ultimate path forward on voting restrictions in order to avoid Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s veto.

While Michigan Republicans have publicly been tossing around the idea since March, their counterparts in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have only more recently followed suit.

In Massachusetts — a state with a GOP governor but where Democrats control the Legislature — state Republican leaders have announced a push to get a voter ID initiative added to the 2022 general election ballot, with local media reporting that the state party has already begun raising money and enlisting volunteers for a signature drive.

Pennsylvania Republicans seized on the idea of an amendment to the state Constitution — put before voters — after Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, rejected a package of voting restrictions sent to his desk by the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Takeaways From Georgia’s ‘use It Or Lose It’ Voter Purge Investigation

It was reported by the Associated Press that Brian Kemp‘s office in Georgia was blocking 53,000 voter registrations in that state — 70 percent from African-Americans, 80 percent from people of color.

What was happening, as people were submitting voter registration applications, if their names on the voter registration forms didn’t exactly match other state databases, these voters were sent a letter telling them that their applications were pending and they needed to provide more information to election officials.

Senate Democrats Seek Creative Ways To Pass Voting Rights Legislation

Before an initiative reaches the ballot, the state Legislature can pass the proposed law with a simple majority vote in each chamber, and such a measure cannot be vetoed. This process is rarely used, but earlier this year, the Republican-controlled Legislature passed one such initiative that was mounted amid the pandemic by conservatives who opposed the governor’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

In Massachusetts, backers of the initiative must submit their proposed ballot question to the state attorney general’s office by early next month. Should it meet the state’s constitutional requirements, backers will then need to collect more than 80,000 signatures by mid-November.

If enough signatures are collected, the proposal will go to the Legislature in January. Then, if lawmakers opt against passing it before early May, petitioners must collect another 13,000-plus signatures and complete a series of other filings with state and local officials before it can be placed on the general election ballot.

In recent years, Democrats and progressive activists have used ballot initiatives and citizen petitions to secure key victories related to expanding ballot access and redistricting, as well as advancing other progressive priorities.

Democrats argue what Republicans now seek is a perversion of the initiative system.

She said advocates will consider a rival initiative, even as it remains unclear what restrictions Michigan Republicans would seek to get on the ballot.

Trump Pick Wins Us House Special Republican Primary Election In Ohio

Susan Cornwell

Vehicles are parked outside the U.S. Capitol building the morning the Senate returned to session in Washington, DC, U.S., July 31, 2021. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo

WASHINGTON, Aug 3 – Mike Carey, a coal lobbyist endorsed by former President Donald Trump, won a crowded primary contest on Tuesday for the Republican nomination to a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio’s 15th district.

With 96.5% of precincts reporting, Carey was ahead of his closest contender, state representative Jeff LaRe, by 37% to 13.3%, results from the Ohio secretary of state’s office showed.

The outcome in Ohio’s traditionally Republican 15th District south of Columbus was being closely watched as a measure of Trump’s clout in the Republican Party, coming just a week after a Trump-backed candidate for the U.S. Congress suffered a surprise loss to a fellow Republican in north Texas.

“Tonight, Republicans across Ohio’s 15th Congressional District sent a clear message to the nation that President Donald J. Trump is, without a doubt, the leader of our party,” Carey declared in a statement after his victory.

Trump also issued a statement thanking Ohio voters and praising the “Great Republican win for Mike Carey. Big numbers!”

“We have looked across the promised land, but … we will not cross the river,” Turner told supporters at an election night watch party outside Cleveland.

Democrats currently have a narrow 220-212 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Former Felons Struggle To Pay Fines Fees To Vote Again In Florida

In Florida, Desmond Meade, the founder of Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and a former felon, is very familiar with how legislatures can get in the way of this form of direct democracy. He helped organize the effort to return voting rights to ex-convicts through Florida’s Amendment 4 ballot initiative.

Months after Floridians gave it their resounding stamp of approval — 65 percent to 35 percent — Republicans in the state required felons to ensure they had paid all their fines and court fees before they would be allowed to vote again.

That tactic disenfranchised thousands of potential voters who had to figure out whether or not they owed money. The state, meanwhile, still has not created a system to inform felons what they might owe.

“We’re now seeing a direct assault on democracy,” Meade said. “They’ve limited the ability of citizens to weigh in on how their communities or states are governed, and then they’ve limited access to the ballot box and made it more difficult for people to vote. At the end of the day, how is that OK?”

Freed By Court Ruling Republicans Step Up Effort To Patrol Voting

Officials seek to recruit 50,000 poll watchers and spend millions to fight voter fraud. Democrats say the real goal is to stop them from voting.

WASHINGTON — Six months before a presidential election in which turnout could matter more than persuasion, the Republican Party, the Trump campaign and conservative activists are mounting an aggressive national effort to shape who gets to vote in November — and whose ballots are counted.

Its premise is that a Republican victory in November is imperiled by widespread voter fraud, a baseless charge embraced by President Trump but repeatedly debunked by research. Democrats and voting rights advocates say the driving factor is politics, not fraud — especially since Mr. Trump’s narrow win in 2016 underscored the potentially crucial value of depressing turnout by Democrats, particularly minorities.

The Republican program, which has gained steam in recent weeks, envisions recruiting up to 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to monitor polling places and challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious. That is part of a $20 million plan that also allots millions to challenge lawsuits by Democrats and voting-rights advocates seeking to loosen state restrictions on balloting. The party and its allies also intend to use advertising, the internet and Mr. Trump’s command of the airwaves to cast Democrats as agents of election theft.

Others say the Republican focus on vanishingly rare cases of fraud targets a politically useful phantom.

Many Native Ids Won’t Be Accepted At North Dakota Polling Places

The problem in North Dakota is that a lot of Native Americans live on rural tribal reservations, and they get their mail at the Post Office using P.O. boxes because their areas are too remote for the Post Office to deliver mail, under this law, tribal IDs that list P.O. boxes won’t be able to be used as a valid voter IDs. So now we’re in a situation where 5,000 Native American voters might not be able to vote in the 2018 elections with their tribal ID cards.

This is sending off a tremendous amount of alarm in the state, because normally we wouldn’t be talking about North Dakota. But there is a competitive Senate race between the Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp, and the Republican, Kevin Cramer. Heidi Heitkamp only won her first race for the U.S. Senate in 2012 by 2,900 votes, and she got 80 percent of the vote on the two counties in the state with the largest Native American reservations. So there is a tremendous amount of fear in North Dakota that many Native Americans are not going to be able to vote in this state, and that’s going to particularly hurt Heidi Heitkamp, the Democratic incumbent.

On a ballot initiative in Florida to restore voting rights to former felons

Florida is one of only four states that prevents ex-felons from voting, meaning even after you’ve served your time, you’ve paid your debt to society, you have to wait five to seven years in Florida to appeal to have your voting rights restored by the governor and his executive clemency board.

Ari Berman

California Recall: How Democrats Republicans Say You Should Vote

Californians have until Sept. 14 to decide: Should Gov. Gavin Newsom be recalled? And if so, who should replace him?

All registered voters in California will receive a mail-in ballot. It has two questions:

Shall GAVIN NEWSOM be recalled from the office of Governor?

Candidates to succeed GAVIN NEWSOM as Governor if he is recalled .

How you vote is up to you, but here’s what your vote will mean and what various political parties, newspapers and others are saying.

Prospective Candidates Speak At Republican Day At Il State Fair

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Despite Illinois being a blue state, the Prairie State’s Republicans arrived at the Illinois State Fair with optimism for GOP Day on Thursday, speaking of high hopes and goals for the upcoming 2022 elections.

Republicans are aiming to take back Congress, the State House and the Governors’ Mansion in 2022, with state GOP leaders taking swipes at President Biden and Democratic leaders on the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Illinois Republicans also aired their grievances with the southern border crisis and inflation while celebrating the recent retirement of longtime State House Speaker Mike Madigan and the defeat of Governor Pritzker’s graduated income tax bill>

Republicans made no secret that they see Pritzker’s mandates and shutdowns as a liability for the Governor, who is seeking re-election to a second term next year.

“That’s not democracy in this country, and that’s not democracy in Illinois,” Illinois Senate Minority Leader Dan McConchie said.

The field of those wanting to challenge Pritzker is sure to grow from the currently three declared candidates in the Republican primary. The upcoming legislative maps that are to be drawn according to recent U.S. Census results is likely to affect the decision of many Illinois Republicans.

“I know what I will do based upon what that battlefield looks like, and we will make that decision when those maps come out,” 13th District Congressman Rodney Davis said.

Republicans Aim To Seize More Power Over How Elections Are Run

G.O.P. lawmakers in at least eight states controlled by the party are trying to gain broad influence over the mechanics of voting, in an effort that could further undermine the country’s democratic norms.

In the turbulent aftermath of the 2020 presidential contest, election officials in Georgia, from the secretary of state’s office down to county boards, found themselves in a wholly unexpected position: They had to act as one of the last lines of defense against an onslaught of efforts by a sitting president and his influential allies to overturn the will of the voters.

Now state Republicans are trying to strip these officials of their power.

Buried in an avalanche of voting restrictions currently moving through the Georgia Statehouse are measures that would give G.O.P. lawmakers wide-ranging influence over the mechanics of voting and fundamentally alter the state’s governance of elections. The bill, which could clear the House as soon as Thursday and is likely to be passed by the Senate next week, would allow state lawmakers to seize control of county election boards and erode the power of the secretary of state’s office.

“It’s looking at total control of the election process by elected officials, which is not what it should be,” said Helen Butler, a Democratic county board of elections member. “It’s all about turnout and trying to retain power.”

For Older Voters Getting The Right Id Can Be Especially Tough

He was sued in 2016 by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, a voting rights group, because 35,000 registrations were flagged as “pending” under the exact-match system and there was a huge racial disparity in terms of who was flagged, and Kemp’s office actually said he was going to stop doing this system. But what happened is the Georgia legislature basically reauthorized the law, gave voters more time to do this, and so a lot of people didn’t even realize this law was back into effect.

On why people of color are disproportionately impacted by Georgia’s “exact match” law

told me … that basically the names of people who are African-American or Latino or Asian-American tend to be more unfamiliar to election workers. So they might have names that don’t match on the databases from one form to another, or election officials might actually enter the correct name incorrectly because they’re confused by the spelling or they don’t recognize the name. And so I think that basically people of different kinds of backgrounds are sometimes unfamiliar to the largely white officials that are running Georgia’s elections, and I think that’s one of the reasons why a lot of people of color are ending up on these pending registration lists.

On how Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state, is an advocate for a question citizenship on the census — and how that affects voting rights

On why the census matters

The Dangerous New Frontier: Interfering With Election Results

The Georgia law has received ample attention for its restrictive voting rules, but it also captured headlines because of provisions that could make administering elections more susceptible to partisan interference. The law removed the secretary of state from Georgia’s State Election Board and gave the GOP-controlled state legislature control over appointing the board’s chair. It also empowered the Republican-controlled2 state board to suspend county election officials and appoint temporary replacements.

It’s hard to view the first change as anything other than a clear rebuke of Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rejected Trump’s request to interfere in the 2020 election. To be sure, there are some guardrails to prevent abuse, like eligibility requirements that prevent the appointment of a recent candidate or party official as chair of the state election board, but these changes crack open the door to potential interference in the local administration of elections. And who is to say future malevolent actors won’t break it off its hinges, given Trump’s repeated refusal to accept defeat and widespread disbelief among Republicans that Biden did win?

Fact Check: Has Citizenship Been A Standard Census Question

So if this question about citizenship is added to the census, places like California and New York and Texas — which actually, funnily enough, is a red state — they could receive fewer members of Congress, they could have less influence in the Electoral College, they could have less money going to their states. And then places like Kansas, where there are fewer immigrants, where it’s a lot whiter and more Republican, they’re going to have more political power if this question about citizenship is added to the census like Kris Kobach wants.

On voter suppression in North Dakota on Native American reservations

The big voting issue in North Dakota is that that state has recently passed a new voter ID law that was upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this month, and what’s alarming about that law is that the Republicans in North Dakota wrote it in such a way that for your ID to count, you have to have a current residential street address on your ID.

The 147 Republicans Who Voted To Overturn Election Results

When a mob of President Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday, they forced an emergency recess in the Congressional proceedings to officially certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The disruption came shortly after some Republican lawmakers made the first of a planned series of highly unusual objections, based on spurious allegations of widespread voter fraud, to states’ election results. The chambers were separately debating an objection to Arizona’s results when proceedings were halted and the Capitol was locked down.

When the Senate reconvened at 8 p.m., and the House of Representatives an hour later, the proceedings — including the objection debates — continued, although some lawmakers who had previously planned to vote with the objectors stood down following the occupation of the Capitol. Plans to challenge a number of states after Arizona were scrapped, as well — but one other objection, to Pennsylvania’s results, also advanced to a vote. Here are the eight senators and 139 representatives who voted to sustain one or both objections.

Vindman: Tucker Carlson Is ‘hating The Us’ With Rhetoric

Washington Democratic state legislators in Texas staged a dramatic walk-out Sunday night to prevent the immediate passage of a Republican elections bill that would make it harder for some residents to vote. But the bill is not dead: it could get put on the agenda at a special legislative session at some point this year.

claimed

Voting rights bills remain imperiled in Congress. Here are the differences among them

racially diverseDemocratic-leaningclaims67-page legislation

If Rep Liz Cheney Doesnt Have A Home In The Gop Who Does

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To be sure, though, Fraga’s own research has found that white voters, regardless of how easy or hard it is for them to vote, consistently turn out at higher rates than voters of color, so we do want to be careful of not reading too much into this. Jennifer McCoy, a political scientist at Georgia State University who studies the effects of polarization on democracy, told me that she thought the current emphasis on voter restrictions boiled down to Republicans thinking they could appeal to Trump’s base by codifying his baseless claims of voter fraud. “ know they have to attract Donald Trump supporters who now believe there is fraud,” said McCoy. “So a large part of the current efforts to change voter laws was a direct response to this last election.” Large majorities of Republicans continue to believe Biden’s win is not legitimate, and a that only 28 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning people agreed that “everything possible should be done” to make voting easy, a steep drop from 48 percent in October 2018.

The GOP’s restrictionist bent sends the message that Republicans don’t want Black and brown Americans to vote. In September 2020, 54 percent of Black respondents and 35 percent of Hispanic respondents told FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos they believed Republicans didn’t want “people like me” to vote.

What Ballot Initiatives States Approved On Election Day

Republicans are arguing they want to limit outside influence on legislation, especially from groups that come from outside of the state. The organizers challenging them say that the legislatures are only limiting the ability to organize and making it more expensive, increasing dependence on outside groups and wealthy benefactors.

Josh Altic, who leads a team that studies direct democracy efforts at Ballotpedia, said that while Republican efforts may aim to decrease outside influence and money on the ballot initiative process, the increased barriers will likely only increase its prevalence. He cited a new Florida law that limits contributions to ballot initiative campaigns, which is currently being challenged by the ACLU.

“There are these romanticized ideas of the initiative as a grassroots, volunteer-driven idea, and that’s just not practical,” Altic said. “I don’t know if it’s ever been practical, but certainly not for the last multiple decades, except for a handful of initiatives that get on the ballot in the very smallest states.”

The average cost of efforts that result in a signature supporting a ballot initiative in the U.S. was $8.09 per signature in 2020, according to Ballotpedia’s data. That’s 24 percent higher than the average in 2018 and almost double the average between 2010 and 2018 .

But that has not stopped states from raising the barrier to entry, some in multiple ways.

Former Us Ambassador To The United Nations Nikki Haley

Haley, 49, stands out in the potential pool of 2024 Republican candidates by her resume. She has experience as an executive as the former governor of South Carolina and foreign policy experience from her time as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Haley was a member of the Republican Party’s 2010 tea party class. A former South Carolina state representative, her long shot gubernatorial campaign saw its fortunes improve after she was endorsed by Sarah Palin. Haley rocketed from fourth to first just days after the endorsement, and she went on to clinch the nomination and become her state’s first female and first Indian-American governor.

As governor, she signed a bill removing the Confederate flag from the state Capitol following the white supremacist attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston. She left office in 2017 to join the Trump administration as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Quinnipiac poll found she was at one point the most popular member of Trump’s foreign policy team.

“I think that she’s done a pretty masterful job in filling out her resume,” said Robert Oldendick, a professor and director of graduate studies at the University of South Carolina’s department of political science.

Haley criticized Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters, saying she was “disgusted” by his conduct. Oldendick said he thought her “pretty pointed criticism of the president will potentially cause some problems.”

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Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Biden Effort to Combat Hunger Marks ‘a Profound Change’ (NYT) With more than one in 10 households reporting that they lack enough to eat, the Biden administration is accelerating a vast campaign of hunger relief that will temporarily increase assistance by tens of billions of dollars and set the stage for what officials envision as lasting expansions of aid. The effort to rush more food assistance to more people is notable both for the scale of its ambition and the variety of its legislative and administrative actions. The campaign has increased food stamps by more than $1 billion a month, provided needy children a dollar a day for snacks, expanded a produce allowance for pregnant women and children, and authorized the largest children’s summer feeding program in history. “We haven’t seen an expansion of food assistance of this magnitude since the founding of the modern food stamp program in 1977,” said James P. Ziliak, an economist at the University of Kentucky who studies nutrition programs. “It’s a profound change.”

Police, communities across U.S. fight back against anti-Asian hate crimes (Reuters) More than a dozen San Jose, California, police officers walked through the white arches of the Grand Century Mall in “Little Saigon” to reassure a Vietnamese-American community fearful over the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States. Across the United States, law enforcement agencies are scrambling to better protect Asian communities amid a wave of violence targeting them since lockdowns to cope with the coronavirus pandemic began about a year ago. A recent report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, showed that while hate crimes overall in the United States had fallen slightly in 2020, crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) had jumped by 145%. A vicious assault last week in which a man kicked a 65-year-old immigrant from the Philippines in New York City multiple times was captured on video and went viral, further stoking fears about anti-Asian hate crimes. New York City has deployed a team of undercover Asian police officers. Other major cities, from San Jose to Chicago, have boosted patrols in Asian neighborhoods and sought to forge closer ties with communities, some of which have sought to fill gaps the police can’t fill.

Florida works to avoid ‘catastrophic’ pond collapse (AP) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday that crews are working to prevent the collapse of a large wastewater pond in the Tampa Bay area while evacuating the area to avoid a “catastrophic flood.” Manatee County officials say the latest models show that a breach at the old phosphate plant reservoir has the potential to gush out 340 million gallons of water in a matter of minutes, risking a 20-foot-high (about 6.1-meter-high) wall of water. Authorities have closed off portions of the U.S. Highway 41 and ordered evacuations of 316 homes. Some families were placed in local hotels. Crews have been discharging water since the pond began leaking in March. On Friday, a significant leak that was detected escalated the response and prompted the first evacuations and a declaration of a state of emergency on Saturday. A portion of the containment wall in the reservoir shifted, leading officials to think a collapse could occur at any time.

Demonstrators protest a policing bill in England and Wales (Vox) Thousands of demonstrators marched across Britain on Saturday in protest of a massive new policing bill that would create new restrictions on protest in England and Wales and impose hefty fines for not following police instructions. The bill, officially known as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, was introduced in early March and has been met with widespread pushback in England and Wales since then. It also includes sentencing and court reforms, among other changes, but protesters are specifically incensed by proposed new police powers concerning protests. According to the BBC’s Dominic Casciani, the bill would criminalize violating restrictions that protesters “‘ought’ to have known about, even if they have not received a direct order from an officer,” and “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance.” This weekend’s “kill the bill” marches aren’t the first. According to the Guardian, Bristol, in southwest England, has been the site of at least five protests over the last two weeks, including one that turned violent and saw at least two police vehicles set on fire earlier in March.

Marine Le Pen’s growing support (Financial Times) It would be a political earthquake as disruptive as the UK referendum vote for Brexit in 2016 and the election of Donald Trump as US president later that year. Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s extreme right Rassemblement National party, is doing so well in the polls that she threatens to foil Emmanuel Macron’s re-election bid and could win next year’s presidential vote to become the country’s first far-right leader since the second world war. Only last week, she likened herself to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the UK’s Brexiters—and by implication former US president Trump—as a politician who could triumph with the support of all kinds of voters. “There’s no more split between left and right, there’s a split between the globalists and the nationalists,” she said.

Polish hospitals struggle with surge of virus patients (AP) Polish hospitals struggled over the Easter weekend with a massive number of people infected with COVID-19 following a huge surge in infections across Central and Eastern Europe in recent weeks. Tougher new pandemic restrictions were ordered in Poland for a two-week period surrounding Easter in order to slow down the infection rate. The country hit new records of over 35,000 daily infections on two recent days, and deaths have been in the hundreds each day. The aim of the new restrictions was to prevent large gatherings over the long weekend culminating with Easter Monday. Meanwhile, the government is also trying to speed up the country’s vaccine rollout, but the pressure on the country’s hospitals is still relentless.

Maoist Insurgents Kill 23 Indian Forces in Ambush, Officials Say (NYT) At least 23 Indian security forces were killed in an ambush by Maoist militants in the central state of Chattisgarh, officials said on Sunday, reviving concerns around a decades-old insurgency that appeared to have been largely contained in recent years. A large force of Indian security personnel had been carrying out a clearance operation in a densely forested area on the edges of the Bijapur district when they were ambushed by the insurgents on Saturday in a firefight that lasted four hours. Avinash Mishra, the deputy superintendent of police in Bijapur, said an additional 31 security personnel were wounded in the attack. The insurgents, who trace their roots to communist politics in the 1960s, use violence against the state in the name of championing the cause of India’s poor and marginalized. Their reach was once so widespread, and their attacks so frequent, that in 2006, India’s prime minister declared them the country’s “single biggest internal-security challenge.”

China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline (The Economist) Its gaze fixed on the prize of becoming rich and strong, China has spent the past 40 years as a risk-averse bully. Quick to inflict pain on smaller powers, it has been more cautious around any country capable of punching back. Recently, however, China’s risk calculations have seemed to change. First Yang Jiechi, the Communist Party’s foreign-policy chief, lectured American diplomats at a bilateral meeting in Alaska, pointing out the failings of American democracy. That earned him hero status back home. Then China imposed sanctions on British, Canadian and European Union politicians, diplomats, academics, lawyers and democracy campaigners. Those sweeping curbs were in retaliation for narrower Western sanctions targeting officials accused of repressing Muslims in the north-western region of Xinjiang. China’s foreign ministry declares that horrors such as the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism and the Holocaust, as well as the deaths of so many Americans and Europeans from covid-19, should make Western governments ashamed to question China’s record on human rights. Most recently Chinese diplomats and propagandists have denounced as “lies and disinformation” reports that coerced labour is used to pick or process cotton in Xinjiang. They have praised fellow citizens for boycotting foreign brands that decline to use cotton from that region. Still others have sought to prove their zeal by hurling Maoist-era abuse. A Chinese consul-general tweeted that Canada’s prime minister was “a running dog of the us”. Such performance-nationalism is watched by Western diplomats in Beijing with dismay. Envoys have been summoned for late-night scoldings by Chinese officials, to be informed that this is not the China of 120 years ago when foreign armies and gunboats forced the country’s last, tottering imperial dynasty to open the country wider to outsiders. Some diplomats talk of living through a turning-point in Chinese foreign policy. History buffs debate whether the moment more closely resembles the rise of an angry, revisionist Japan in the 1930s, or that of Germany when steely ambition led it to war in 1914. A veteran diplomat bleakly suggests that China’s rulers view the West as ill-disciplined, weak and venal, and are seeking to bring it to heel, like a dog.

Minorities in Myanmar borderlands face fresh fear since coup (AP) Before each rainy season Lu Lu Aung and other farmers living in a camp for internally displaced people in Myanmar’s far northern Kachin state would return to the village they fled and plant crops that would help keep them fed for the coming year. But this year in the wake of February’s military coup, with the rains not far off, the farmers rarely step out of their makeshift homes and don’t dare leave their camp. They say it is simply too dangerous to risk running into soldiers from Myanmar’s army or their aligned militias. “We can’t go anywhere and can’t do anything since the coup,” Lu Lu Aung said. “Every night, we hear the sounds of jet fighters flying so close above our camp.” The military’s lethal crackdown on protesters in large central cities such as Yangon and Mandalay has received much of the attention since the coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government. But far away in Myanmar’s borderlands, Lu Lu Aung and millions of others who hail from Myanmar’s minority ethnic groups are facing increasing uncertainty and waning security as longstanding conflicts between the military and minority guerrilla armies flare anew.

Tropical cyclone kills at least 97 in Indonesia, East Timor (Reuters) Floods and landslides triggered by tropical cyclone Seroja in a cluster of islands in southeast Indonesia and East Timor have killed 97 people, with many still unaccounted for and thousands displaced, officials said on Monday. At least 70 deaths were reported in several islands in Indonesia’s West and East Nusa Tenggara provinces, while 70 others were missing, after the cyclone brought flash floods, landslides and strong winds amid heavy rain over the weekend, disaster agency BNPB said.

Lawyer says mediation resolves feud among Jordan royals (AP) Mediation between Jordan’s King Abdullah II and his outspoken half brother, Prince Hamzah, successfully de-escalated one of the most serious political crises in the kingdom in decades, the palace and a confidant of the prince said Monday. The apparent resolution of the unprecedented public feud capped a weekend of palace drama during which the king had placed Hamzah under house arrest for allegedly plotting with foreign supporters to destabilize Jordan, a key Western ally. The announcement of the successful mediation came after Abdullah’s paternal uncle, Hassan, met with Hamzah on Monday. Hamzah was joined by his brother Hashem and three of their cousins. “In light of the developments of the past two days, I put myself at the disposal of His Majesty the King,” said the statement signed by Hamzah. He said he would remain loyal to the king and to Jordan’s constitution. Malik R. Dahlan, a professional mediator and a friend of the family, then issued a separate statement, saying the mediation has “been successful and I expect a resolution shortly.” He said that “this regrettable incident was the result of the clumsy actions of a senior security official and misrepresentation by a government official,” adding that “it should have remained a family matter.”

Netanyahu’s favours were ‘currency’, prosecutor says as corruption trial starts (Reuters) Israeli prosecutors accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of treating favours as “currency” on Monday at the opening of a corruption trial which, along with an inconclusive election, has clouded his prospects of remaining in office. Netanyahu, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud, came to Jerusalem District Court in a dark suit and black protective mask, conferring quietly with lawyers as his supporters and critics held raucous demonstrations outside. Meanwhile, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin began consulting with party heads on who might form the next coalition government—a toss-up after the March 23 election, the fourth in two years, gave neither Netanyahu nor his rivals a clear mandate.

Pandemic Spreads Isolation (WSJ) A year ago when Japan was under a pandemic state of emergency, Seiji Saejima called his ex-wife for the first time since they divorced a few years earlier. He said she told him she was about to remarry and asked him not to call again. It was an unwelcome reminder of the isolation he was feeling. “I did not have many friends to contact even before,” said the 34-year-old, who works at a city government office near Tokyo. Then the pandemic forced reductions in activities that kept him connected, like going to singles’ mixers. “The coronavirus has made me realize I’m lonely,” he said. Recent data suggest many more people are having the same experience, and that is changing the thinking of some governments. Japan recently named a loneliness and isolation minister, following the U.K.’s example from three years ago. The U.K. named a minister after recognizing the impact of isolation on people’s health and its economy. One study linked deficiencies in social relationships to a 29% increase in heart disease. Another estimated that a chronically lonely person could cost the government, on average, the equivalent of an extra $16,600 over 15 years, owing to higher medical and other costs. “The magnitude of effect of social connection on mortality risk is comparable, and in many cases, exceeds that of other well-accepted risk factors, including smoking up to 15 cigarettes per day, obesity and air pollution,” said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a Brigham Young University professor of psychology and neuroscience, in 2017 U.S. Senate testimony.

#headlines #news

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nancydhooper · 3 years

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Racial Justice and Civil Liberties: An Inseparable History at the ACLU

After World War I, it quickly became clear that the war to make the world “safe for democracy” had not made America safe for equality. Anti-Black race riots ripped through Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., and even Elaine, Arkansas. In October 1919, after Black sharecroppers in Elaine convened a union meeting, newspapers labeled the effort a “Negro uprising.” The state mobilized troops and mobs to quell the rebellion. The result was “possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States,” concluded the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s origin story is tied inextricably to the xenophobic Palmer Raids, but the lesser-known events in Elaine, Arkansas were also formative. Racial violence was an unavoidable issue for any organization dedicated to the rights and liberties of everyone. Ten years earlier, the NAACP had been established to advance justice in the wake of the Springfield, Illinois race riot. During its first summer, the ACLU denounced the lynching of three Black men in Duluth, Minnesota who had allegedly raped a 17-year-old white girl. ACLU co-director Albert DeSilver wrote to Minnesota’s governor volunteering assistance in “the preservation of civil liberty.”

Weeks later, Minnesota Gov. Joseph A. A. Burnquist informed DeSilver that several men had been arrested in connection with the lynching. He did not tell DeSilver that none was convicted of anything serious.

Investigators realized, almost immediately, that the girl had not been raped. Nonetheless, the state tried seven Black men accused of participating in the fabricated crime. One was convicted and sentenced to hard time. That perversion of justice was not corrected until a century later when Minnesota granted the innocent man the first posthumous pardon in the state’s history.

Much of the ACLU’s early race-related work was similarly futile: highlighting racial atrocities America refused to stop. In 1921, the ACLU published three provocative pamphlets. The most innovative was “Debt-Slavery” by William Pickens, a sociologist and field secretary for the NAACP. Pickens argued that America had replaced chattel slavery with economic bondage and employed lynching as a form of enforcement. He saw the Elaine massacre as a defense of the “debt slave system.”

The second pamphlet focused on the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan. The third, “The Fight for Free Speech,” warned that reactionary forces were ascendant and observed that Negroes, foreign-born groups, and tenant farmers were “conscious of the condition but incapable of outspoken resistance.”

Back then, the ACLU supported racial justice but was not at the forefront of the fight, generally deferring to the NAACP. But it assiduously documented anti-Black violence and states’ restrictions on “Negroes’ rights.” In 1929, founding executive director Roger Baldwin suggested a radical expansion of the ACLU’s role, proposing that the organization work more vigorously on behalf of “Negroes in their fight for civil rights.” Additionally, Baldwin established a seat on the board for the NAACP recognizing the special relationship with the organization on civil rights cases and invited James Weldon Johnson to serve at the founding of the ACLU.

Documenting Discrimination

In 1931, the ACLU issued “Black Justice,” a groundbreaking study on discrimination. The report slammed laws and policies that forced Black people to attend segregated schools, barred their admission to “white” hospitals, and denied Black people a fair wage, trial by their peers, the right to vote, or the right to marry outside the race.

NAACP executive secretary Walter White called the publication “excellent publicity” for the NAACP’s work. Baldwin also provided direct financial support to the NAACP through a foundation set up by Charles Garland, a young Harvard dropout who inherited a fortune he pledged to spend for “the benefit of poor as much as rich, of Black as much as white.” Baldwin served as the foundation’s secretary and its grants largely reflected his priorities.

NAACP Secretary Walter White.

(Credit: Library of Congress)

In 1931, the ACLU took on the Scottsboro Boys case, which centered on nine Black youths charged with raping two white women on a freight train in Alabama. The suspects, after being pulled from the train, were rushed to trial in less than two weeks. The first two convictions came on the second day of trial. Two days later, eight of the nine stood convicted and sentenced to death. Jurors deadlocked on the fate of the ninth defendant, who was only 14.

The ACLU dispatched Hollace Ransdell, a Columbia-educated journalist, to investigate. Ransdell produced a detailed and influential report that made it clear the two women had made up the sexual assault story.

The boys’ lawyers appealed to the state supreme court, which refused to overturn all but one conviction. Meanwhile, the NAACP and the Communist-backed International Labor Defense fought over which entity would represent the boys. Eventually, the lawyers came together and appealed to the Supreme Court, with longtime ACLU attorney Walter Pollak arguing the case. The court sided with Pollak, agreeing that the state, in denying the defendants their choice of counsel, had violated their right to due process.

Alabama shrugged off that and every other reversal, including two more landmark Supreme Court decisions that overturned the convictions because of the exclusion of Black jurors. Finally, in 1937, the Alabama prosecutor exonerated three of the defendants, releasing two others because they were juveniles at the time of the alleged crime. The others eventually found their way out of prison, their lives shattered because Alabama refused to admit that whites had lied about Blacks.

In this July 26, 1937 file photo, police escort two of the five recently freed “Scottsboro Boys,” Olen Montgomery, wearing glasses, third left, and Eugene Williams, wearing suspenders, fourth left, through the crowd greeting them upon their arrival at Penn Station in New York.

(Credit: AP Photo/File)

A Convening of Allies

World War II provided yet another occasion for America, and the ACLU, to reflect on racial prejudice. The ACLU’s major wartime anti-racism effort was the Committee on Racial Discrimination in the War Effort. Convened in early 1942, the committee was chaired by author Pearl Buck, who envisioned involving “all existing white or mostly white organizations” in a movement that would end discrimination not just in government, but in housing, wages, trade unions, and throughout society.

Winifred Raushenbush, a freelance writer hired as executive secretary, authored a widely praised pamphlet titled How to Prevent a Race Riot in Your Home Town. In “every war period the danger of race riots in great,” observed Raushenbush, who suggested that with a little planning, foresight, and good will, riots could be avoided.

The committee never achieved Buck’s ambitious goals, but it garnered a lot of attention. And it brought together some 30-plus organizations — including Alpha Kappa Alpha, the American Jewish Committee, the YWCA, and the National Lawyers Guild — to ruminate on race.

Japanese Incarceration and Internal Disagreement

Following the Pearl Harbor attack, America’s military classified Japanese Americans as a security threat. Under an executive order signed by President Roosevelt, some 115,000 Japanese American residents (most of whom were U.S. citizens) were targeted for relocation from a designated exclusion zone along the West Coast.

Baldwin wrote a public letter to the president addressing the “unprecedented” order that authorized the exclusion zone, calling it “open to grave question on the constitutional grounds of depriving American citizens of their liberty and use of their property without due process of law.” But the organization’s board was split on the order, with a large segment of Roosevelt loyalists reluctant to criticize the war effort. The organization ultimately adopted a resolution acknowledging the government’s constitutional right “to remove persons … when their presence may endanger national security.”

Japanese-Americans transferring from train to bus at Lone Pine, California, bound for war relocation authority center at Manzanar, April, 1942.

(credit: Library of Congress)

That resolution left the ACLU’s lawyers in a bind, as it was difficult to argue the internment policy was legally wrong but also constitutionally permitted. Despite the legal handcuffs it had manufactured for itself, and following internal debate, the ACLU ultimately mounted a series of challenges to Japanese internment. On June 21, 1943, the Supreme Court decided in Hirabayashi v. United States that the evacuation order was legal. That same day the court also decided in Minoru Yasui v. United States that the military-imposed curfew was a legitimate response to the harms threatened by the war.

Two other cases were not decided until after the War Department had concluded that internment was no longer a military necessity. In December 1944, the Supreme Court decided the government had no right to detain loyal citizens. It also found that ACLU client Fred Korematsu, in defying the exclusion order, had broken the law. It wasn’t until the 1980s that Korematsu’s conviction was vacated, and President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, issuing a formal government apology and granting monetary reparations to surviving Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II.

Seeking Justice in the South

In September 1963, four Black girls were killed while attending church in Alabama when a bomb planted by the Ku Klux Klan exploded. The following morning, local lawyer Charles Morgan delivered a fiery speech that attracted national attention: “Every person in this community who has in any way contributed during the past several years to the popularity of hatred is at least as guilty, or more so, than the demented fool who threw that bomb.”

Thurgood Marshall, seen here in the White House in June 1967, the year he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

(Yoichi Okamoto/National Archives and Records Administration)

Two decades earlier, in 1940, Thurgood Marshall created the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Marshall, who served on the ACLU’s board from 1938 to 1946, was the architect of a brilliant legal strategy to dismantle segregation. The ACLU submitted amicus briefs for some of the LDF cases during this period including Brown v. Board of Education. By 1964, the ACLU approved a new regional office in Atlanta charged with overseeing the growing array of initiatives attacking racial oppression in the South. Morgan was named director.

Working in partnership with other civil rights organizations, the office became deeply involved in virtually every major civil rights issue in the South: expanding voting rights; ending the exclusion of Black jurors; and eliminating racially motivated sentencing disparities. The ACLU also fought prohibitions against interracial marriage, which the Supreme Court struck down in 1967 in the landmark case, Loving v. Virginia.

As the ACLU plunged into these civil rights battles, it also pushed the Warren court into rethinking criminal justice, advocating for reforms that reverberate today. That process began with the case of Clarence Earl Gideon, a drifter charged with burgling a pool hall in Florida who the Supreme Court decided was entitled to representation at public expense. Although the ACLU was not directly involved in that case, it was a driving force in those that followed. Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) revolved around Danny Escobedo, who was suspected of killing his brother-in-law. Escobedo was not informed he had a right to retain a lawyer or to remain silent, and made incriminating statements that led to his conviction. The ACLU argued his case before the Supreme Court, which concluded that Escobedo’s rights had been violated.

Gideon was the prelude to Miranda v. Arizona, in 1966. Ernesto Miranda was accused of kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old woman; he confessed without being informed of his right to remain silent. The ACLU argued that Miranda’s treatment violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The Supreme Court agreed, and Miranda rights were born.

At the time, those cases were not considered part of a racial justice agenda, but as the racial inequities in America’s criminal justice system became clearer, the ACLU came to view its criminal justice work in a new light.

Ira Glasser (at left in beige suit) marching in Atlanta, GA, with Coretta Scott King (center) and others in 1997 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade.

(Credit: photographer unknown, Studio III: 1021 Northside Drive, Atlanta, GA 30318; 404-875-0161)

Ira Glasser believes the ACLU’s deepening involvement in racial issues was inevitable. Glasser joined the New York Civil Liberties Union in 1967 and became its director in 1970. Eight years later he succeeded Aryeh Neier as executive director of the national ACLU, and quickly found himself immersed in issues of race. The Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 to combat discrimination against Black voters in the South, was scheduled to expire in 1982. President Reagan opposed its extension. The ACLU became a leader in the fight to preserve the law, eventually winning passage of a new bill which Reagan signed.

As Glasser reflected on the ACLU’s myriad issues, he “began to see who was affected by these violations of civil liberties and this explosive growth of incarceration, and who was arrested, and who was prosecuted, and who was searched … They were all Brown and Black.” Glasser came to see the Nixon administration’s drug war as “a successor system to slavery, continuing and expanding skin color subjugation.”

Those insights helped to broaden the organization’s racial justice agenda, leading to an increased focus on issues such as racial profiling and stop and frisk. In the late 1990’s, Michelle Alexander, who was at the time Director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California, instigated a national campaign titled “Driving While Black or Brown” which revealed discriminatory policing practices and led to the introduction of legislation in 44 states to stop them.

Civil Liberties Are Civil Rights

In 2006, the ACLU formalized its investment in the fight against racial inequality by creating a national Racial Justice Program. Anthony Romero, a Puerto Rican native of the Bronx and the ACLU’s first executive director of color, believed, like Glasser, that race was inextricably intertwined with other ACLU concerns. Dennis Parker, a Harvard Law graduate who had worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, became the program’s first director. Parker noted that race was woven throughout the organization’s many issue areas: “Race really informs … every area that the ACLU works [in]: women’s rights, disability, or voting.”

Parker knew working for the ACLU would be different from working for an organization with racial justice as its paramount mission: “At LDF … we were advocating on behalf of Black people. There may have been questions about what would be best … but it was not a question of should we be representing the Klan.”

Parker’s observation touched on a reality that has bedeviled the ACLU from the beginning: the occasional friction between its commitment to racial justice and also to free expression. The issue was vexing enough in the 1930’s that the ACLU released a pamphlet titled “Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis in America?” The organization concluded that the best defense of one group’s right to speak was a defense of all groups’ rights.

When the ACLU was attacked in 1978 for defending Nazis intent on marching on Skokie, a Chicago suburb that housed Holocaust survivors, the answer was much the same. David Goldberger, the young Jewish lawyer leading the case, pointed out that policies Skokie employed against Nazis could also be used against Jewish war veterans. The power to shut down speech, Goldberger argued, was too important to be left to local officials: “Think of such power in the hands of a racist sheriff.”

ACLU legal director David Goldberger, left, appears at a Chicago Press conference with ACLU Executive Director David M. Hamlin. Both men were happy with the court’s decision to allow Frank Collin and his Nazi group to hold a rally in Chicago’s Marquette Park.

(AP)

That view became so entrenched that in 2017, the ACLU represented a white supremacist group determined to hold a rally in Charlottesville. After the event resulted in a young woman’s death, friends of the ACLU second guessed the organization’s decision, and rigorous internal conversations about the choice to defend racists took place. The conversations resulted in case selection guidelines to assist ACLU staff in weighing the competing interests that may arise when work to protect speech may raise tensions with racial justice, reproductive freedom, or where the content of the speech conflicts with ACLU policies on those matters. The guidelines also suggest that the ACLU will generally not defend armed protest because of the chilling effect it can have on free speech.

In the ACLU’s 1920 birth announcement, the new organization swore to fight “all attempts to violate the right of free speech, free press, and peaceful assemblage.” That position was essentially unchanged when Roger Baldwin proposed his grand expansion. Baldwin did not foresee the possibility of that position conflicting with the defense of racial justice. Indeed, in an exchange with his biographer Peggy Lamson, Baldwin expressed frustration with Black ACLU board members who did not share his view.

ACLU Board member James Weldon Johnson, seen here in 1932.

James Weldon Johnson, in Baldwin’s view, “couldn’t see much beyond the use of civil liberties for the equality of Blacks.” As Baldwin saw it, Black board members’ commitment to racial equality blinded them to the larger picture. What the larger picture is, of course, depends on one’s perspective.

As eager as Baldwin was to expand the ACLU’s involvement in issues of race, he never saw that as the ACLU’s main battle, though it was still listed among the organization’s top priorities in its first annual report in 1920. He saw no need to balance the demands of racial justice with those of free speech. The modern ACLU has a more complicated view.

As Romero put it, “If I were the head of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, I wouldn’t bring a Nazi case. If I were the head of the First Amendment Center, I would bring every Nazi case and not worry about the racial justice implications. I think part of what is magical and different and kind of vexing is an organization that’s trying to accomplish both and say, ‘They’re both equally important to us.’”

That perspective suggests that an organization seriously devoted to both free speech and racial justice is obligated to tackle a question with no obvious answer: In a world where unrestrained speech is routinely weaponized to frustrate justice, what combination of rights, restraints and responsibilities moves the nation toward the most moral version of itself? The ACLU has come to see that civil rights and civil liberties are inextricable, and the protection of the latter is inherently tied to the long fight for racial justice.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/racial-justice-and-civil-liberties-an-inseparable-history-at-the-aclu via http://www.rssmix.com/

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techcrunchappcom · 3 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/the-latest-study-suggests-london-infection-rates-down-national-world-news/

The Latest: Study suggests London infection rates down | National/World News

LONDON — A major study suggests coronavirus infection rates in London have plunged by 80% in the past month as lockdown measures curb the spread of the virus.

Imperial College London researchers tested 85,000 people across England between Feb 4 and Feb 13 as part of the monthly study. It found that about 1 in 200 people were infected, a fall of two thirds from the month before.

The decline varied across the country and was steepest in London, where a new and more contagious strain of the virus was identified late last year. In January an estimated 1 in 30 people in London had the virus. That has now fallen to about 1 in 185.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the decline in cases was “encouraging … but we must not drop our guard.”

Britain has experienced Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak, with more than 118,000 deaths, and is in lockdown as a mass vaccination program pushes ahead at the continent’s fastest rate. So far some 16 million people have had a first dose, about a quarter of the population.

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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— U.S. life expectancy drops by a year in pandemic, the most since World War II

— Crippling winter weather in U.S. hampers vaccine deliveries, distribution

— New York’s governor faces mounting pressure over COVID deaths at nursing homes

— One Good Thing: When coronavirus lockdowns shut down classes in a youth prison, a Greek math teacher created a DIY TV channel that broadcasts lessons 24 hours a day

— Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

———

HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

ROME — The Vatican is taking Pope Francis’ pro-vaccine stance very seriously: Any Vatican employee who refuses to get a coronavirus shot without valid medical reason risks being fired.

A Feb. 8 decree signed by the governor of the Vatican City State sparked heated debate Thursday, since its provisions go well beyond the generally voluntary nature of COVID-19 vaccinations in Italy and much of the rest of the world.

The decree cited the need to protect Vatican employees in the workplace, as well as guidelines issued by Francis’ own COVID-19 commission of advisers who said there was a moral responsibility to vaccinate yourself “given that refusing a vaccine can constitute a risk for others.”

The decree says that Vatican employees who opt out without a proven medical need risk sanctions up to and including “the interruption of the relationship of employment.” The Vatican is an absolute monarchy in the heart of Rome that operates independently of Italian law and Italian labor protections.

The Vatican, which has around 5,000 employees, is on its way to becoming perhaps the first country to complete its adult vaccination campaign, after the Holy See’s health service began inoculating staff and their families in early January with Pfizer shots. Francis himself has received his second dose.

———

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment aid rose last week to 861,000, evidence that layoffs remain painfully high despite a steady drop in the number of confirmed viral infections.

Applications from laid-off workers rose 13,000 from the previous week, which was revised sharply higher, the Labor Department said Thursday. Before the virus erupted in the United States last March, weekly applications for unemployment benefits had never topped 700,000, even during the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

The job market has stalled, with employers having added a mere 49,000 jobs in January after cutting workers in December. Nearly 10 million jobs remain lost to the pandemic. Though the unemployment rate fell last month from 6.7%, to 6.3%, it did so in part because some people stopped looking for jobs. People who aren’t actively seeking work aren’t counted as unemployed.

———

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education has rejected a proposal aimed at partially returning students to the classroom during the coronavirus pandemic as part of a hybrid learning model.

The board voted 4-3 against hybrid learning, keeping the district virtual through the end of the year with limited in-person groups. The board also approved a measure to allow some groups in-person instruction, including students at risk of failing or seniors who need additional help.

The proposed hybrid plan would’ve brought back kindergarten through second grade on March 1, followed by all elementary students.

Middle school and high school students would’ve been allowed to return once Bernalillo County’s coronavirus numbers improved.

The vote on Wednesday also means student-athletes will not be able to participate in fall sports, including football, soccer, volleyball and cross-country. Fall sports were delayed because of the pandemic.

———

BOSTON — Massachusetts’ coronavirus vaccine appointment portal crashed Thursday morning as more than one million additional state residents became eligible to schedule a shot.

Many residents who went to vaxfinder.mass.gov received the message “This application crashed” with a drawing of an octopus, and were urged to try again later. The site appeared to be working again by about 10 a.m.

Gov. Charlie Baker said Wednesday that more than 70,000 appointments would be made available at 8 a.m. Thursday, including for those age 65 and older, for people with two or more certain medical conditions, and for residents and staff of low income and affordable senior housing. But it came with a warning that it could take up to a month to book an appointment.

“Due to extremely high traffic and volume, the VaxFinder tool and vaccine location websites are experiencing delays and other technical difficulties,” the state’s COVID-19 Command Center said in a statement. “We are working as quickly as possible to resolve these issues.”:

———

GENEVA — The head of WHO’s international team to China said the idea that coronavirus might have been imported to China via frozen food that ultimately sparked the pandemic is “not something that we are looking at.”

After the conclusion of the WHO-led team’s mission in Wuhan earlier this month, WHO’s Peter Ben Embarek said the team had identified frozen animal products in the market where dozens of early coronavirus cases were identified last January, saying there was “potential to continue to follow this lead.”

But at a Thursday press briefing, Ben Embarek said that because there were no large coronavirus outbreaks at any food factories worldwide before the virus was detected in Wuhan, “the hypothesis or idea of importing the virus to China through that route is not something we are looking at.”

WHO has previously said the chances of spreading COVID-19 via surfaces including frozen food packaging is extremely unlikely; the respiratory virus is spread mostly through droplets and through the air. But China has repeatedly pushed theories, without providing evidence, that outbreaks of COVID-19 were triggered by contaminated frozen seafood.

Ben Embarek described that as “a very, very rare event” and said even China’s extensive search for contaminated food products have only found a few instances of products carrying virus. Other scientists say it’s unclear whether those traces of virus might be enough to actually infect anyone and that it’s more likely people spread the disease rather than the packaging.

———

SEATTLE — The governor of Washington state says residents living in Point Roberts will not be required to take a COVID-19 test before traveling through Canada for any essential services.

Travel between Washington state and Point Roberts, the waterfront U.S. enclave connected to British Columbia, requires a 25-mile trip through Canada.

The Seattle Times reported that Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee announced his office was informed on Wednesday by the Consulate General of Canada of the decision. It will allow about 1,300 residents to forgo having to get a test on either side of the U.S.-Canada border.

The announcement came after Canada implemented a policy on Monday requiring a recent negative COVID-19 test for visitors arriving by land.

———

GENEVA — The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago called on the World Health Organization to convene an “international convention of the world’s people’s representatives” to commit to the fair sharing of coronavirus vaccines.

At a press briefing on Thursday, Prime Minister Keith Rowley said small states in the Caribbean and elsewhere have made “huge sacrifices in an endeavour to protect our populations from the worst ravages of the virus” and said global leaders should agree to make vaccines available to people everywhere, “not just the privileged, well-heeled few.”

To date, 75% of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries and nearly 130 countries haven’t received a single dose.

———

HONOLULU — A Hawaii Senate bill would require the state Department of Education to publish the number of new coronavirus cases detected at each public school.

Current regulations require the education department to list weekly COVID-19 case totals by areas.

KITV reports that the bill also would require the department to post exact dates of positive COVID-19 tests and the most recent dates of attendance by those who were infected.

Democratic Sen. Michelle Kidani says parents have a right to know which schools have been impacted.

Department of Education Deputy Superintendent Phyllis Unebasami says the bill could result in student and parent alienation.

If passed into law, the updated reporting requirement would go into effect July 1.

———

BERLIN — Germany’s top security official says that about a fifth of the people checked at the Czech and Austrian borders since strict controls were introduced on Sunday have been turned back.

Germany implemented checks on its borders with the Czech Republic and Austria’s Tyrol province in a bid to reduce the spread of more contagious coronavirus variants that have taken hold there.

It is restricting entry to German citizens and residents, truck drivers, transport and health service workers and a few others including cross-border commuters working in “systemically relevant sectors.” All have to show a negative coronavirus test.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said during a visit to the Czech border Thursday that 50,000 checks have been conducted so far and 10,000 of them resulted in people being turned back.

He indicated that Germany is likely to extend border restrictions beyond the initial 10-day period, but said it’s too early to say for sure.

———

CONCORD, N.H. — Dartmouth College has begun planning for a “normal fall term,” as long as COVID-19 cases remain low and much of the community gets vaccinated by the end of the summer.

Provost Joseph Helbe says there are a lot of caveats, and it may turn out that not all students will be able to be on campus in the fall. For now, about half of the undergraduates are on campus.

The college has gone five days with no new COVID-19 cases among students and eight days for employees. But Helbe says the risks posed by new virus mutations require caution.

———

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday unveiled a plan to better arm public facilities and private companies against cybercriminals following ransomware attacks at two hospitals this month and an upsurge of similar cyber assaults in France.

The attacks at the hospitals in Dax and Villefranche-sur-Saone prompted the transfer of some patients to other facilities as the French health care system is under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic.

Macron discussed the attacks with officials and workers from both hospitals, saying the incident “shows how the threat is very serious, sometimes vital.”

Macron referred to a massive hack of U.S. federal agencies last year and to the stealing of vaccine documents from the European Medicine Agency in November.

———

NAIROBI, Kenya — The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the first 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19 are expected to arrive next week for distribution in some 20 countries on the continent.

The doses are the first of some 7 million coming from the Serum Institute in India.

Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong and colleagues did not immediately say which countries on the 54-nation continent will receive the first shipment, but Nkengasong said Thursday that health workers will get the shots.

“We are very excited,” he said.

Africa is waiting for vaccines from the global COVAX initiative, which has said it would supply 25% of those needed for the continent’s 1.3 billion people. As deliveries fall behind schedule, African nations are scrambling to secure vaccines from various sources.

Speed is key, as eight African nations have confirmed cases of the coronavirus variant first identified in Britain and at least 10 have cases of the variant first identified in South Africa. The African continent is on the brink of recording 100,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19.

———

LONDON — The British government is backing four new studies to investigate why some people continue to have symptoms months after becoming sick with COVID-19.

The Department of Health on Thursday announced 18.5 million pounds ($26 million) in funding for research into the causes, symptoms and effects of the phenomenon known as “long COVID.”

While most people recover from the coronavirus in a few weeks, about one in 10 still have symptoms 12 weeks later. Researchers around the world are trying to understand the causes and dozens of symptoms that include breathlessness, headaches, fatigue and “brain fog.”

Britain’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus says the research is welcome but is not enough. The lawmakers are calling for long COVID-19 to be classed as an occupational disease of front-line workers so patients can receive compensation if they can’t work because of the illness.

———

HONG KONG — Hong Kong has approved the Chinese-developed Sinovac Biotech COVID-19 vaccine as health authorities in the semi-autonomous Chinese city prepare to begin large scale inoculations.

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Food and Health said “the benefits of authorizing the use of the COVID-19 vaccine by Sinovac for protecting against COVID-19 outweigh the risks,” in a news release Thursday.

The first batch around 1 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine will be delivered to Hong Kong “shortly,” with vaccinations across the territory of almost 7.5 million people to begin “as soon as possible.”

Even after vaccinations begin, the company will need to maintain a risk management program and provide the latest clinical data laboratory analysis certificates for each batch of vaccines, the statement said.

———

THE HAGUE — Dutch lawmakers are holding a debate Thursday on hastily drawn up legislation underpinning the country’s coronavirus curfew after a judge ordered the measure scrapped earlier this week.

The lower house of parliament is expected to support the legislation, which would then go to the senate on Friday — the same day that government lawyers go to court to appeal the order banning the 9 p.m.-to-4:30 a.m. curfew.

The curfew, which sparked rioting last month but is very broadly supported and followed, remains in force pending the outcome of that appeal.

A judge in The Hague banned the curfew, saying the law the government used when it introduced the measure last month can only be used in pressing emergencies such as a massive dike breach.

The government argues that the curfew became an urgent necessity because of the swift rise of new, more transmissible variants of the virus.

———

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry has limited the number of guests at weddings and funerals as it seeks to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the capital and it’s suburbs.

The move comes as the health officials are calling for tougher action including imposing lockdowns after the local detection of a new variant that first emerged in the United Kingdom.

In January, Sri Lanka allowed 150 people to attend weddings. But on Thursday, it lowered that to 50 guests. Funerals are limited to 25 people.

Sri Lanka has banned all other public gatherings and imposed restrictions on public transport.

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Who Are The Republicans On The Ballot

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-are-the-republicans-on-the-ballot/

Who Are The Republicans On The Ballot

New 2020 Voter Data: How Biden Won How Trump Kept The Race Close And What It Tells Us About The Future

How Joe Biden won

Five main factors account for Biden’s success.

How Trump kept it close

Longer-term prospects

BillGalston

Here Are The 17 Republican Senators Who Voted To Advance The $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill

Washington When the Senate voted Wednesday to open debate on a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package, more than a dozen Republicans sided with Democrats to advance the legislation.

proposal,

Roy Blunt of Missouri

Richard Burr of North Carolina

Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia

Bill Cassidy of Louisiana

Kevin Cramer of North Dakota

Mike Crapo of Idaho

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina

Chuck Grassley of Iowa

John Hoeven of North Dakota

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky

Thom Tillis of North Carolina

Todd Young of Indiana

Voters Supported Progressive Policies On Ballot Initiatives Republicans Are Pushing Back

Marijuana Legalization Could Be On The Ohio Ballot In 2022 Should That Worry Republicans

Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Republicans have a lot at stake next year.

Gov. Mike DeWine is running for re-election. Retiring U.S. Sen. Rob Portman’s seat is open, and control of the Ohio Supreme Court is up for grabs.

Will they want to deal with a ballot issue legalizing marijuana, too?

The ball could be in state lawmakers’ court.

Still, he said “it’s hard to argue” that the dynamic would benefit the DeWine campaign.

Republicans Increasingly Look To Ballot Initiatives As Way To Enact Voting Measures