“We have spent the last decade fighting the unraveling of one of our nation’s most transformative civil rights achievements,” said Molly McGrath, director of the ACLU’s National Director of Democracy Campaigns. “The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is essential — not just to reverse the damage, but to proactively protect every voter from race-based discrimination and modern-day voter suppression. As we face threats to so many freedoms we hold dear, we must preserve the essential right to vote and therefore the ability to hold our elected officials accountable.”

Named in honor of the late civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis, the bill seeks to re-establish preclearance, the federal government’s authority to review and block discriminatory changes to voting laws in jurisdictions with a record of voting rights violations. It also expands that review to cover nationwide threats to voting access, such as discriminatory voter roll purges, restrictive voter ID laws, and polling place closures that disproportionately impact communities of color and people with disabilities.

Since Shelby, which nullified the VRA’s preclearance provision, states across the country have enacted a vastly growing number of anti-voter laws targeting historically disenfranchised and underserved communities. The reintroduction of the JLVRAA comes at a pivotal time, as American democracy continues to face coordinated assaults on access to the ballot box. The bill outlines a modern preclearance coverage formula based on recent voting rights violations and creates greater transparency for potentially discriminatory voting changes.

It has been 60 years since Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, when John Lewis and hundreds of peaceful protestors were brutally attacked for demanding voting rights, and the enactment of the VRA that followed because of those protests. Those gains are under threat now more than ever. The JLVRAA honors that legacy and recommits us to the promise that all eligible voters — regardless of race, zip code, or background — deserve an equal voice in our democracy.

A copy of this press release can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-stresses-need-for-federal-voting-rights-protections-amid-senate-reintroduction-of-john-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This decision keeps the current fair map in place and safeguards hard-won representation for Native American voters in North Dakota while the Court considers the full case. Importantly, it also protects the voices of all voters in seven states to challenge discriminatory voting laws through Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

Since February 2022, Campaign Legal Center, Native American Rights Fund (NARF), the Law Offices of Bryan L. Sells, LLC, and Robins Kaplan LLP have been challenging the state’s 2021 legislative redistricting plan that weakened the voting power of Native American voters in North Dakota.

After a shockingly antidemocratic decision by the Eighth Circuit in May 2025, millions of voters across seven states were at risk of losing core democratic rights. All voters should be protected under the VRA, regardless of the state they live in. To ensure today’s protection is made permanent, CLC, NARF and co-counsel plan to file a cert petition to formally ask the Supreme Court to hear our case during their next term.

“The Supreme Court has rightfully halted the 8th Circuit’s decision. It is important to remember that this is not just about maps and lines. It is about whether people in my community have an equal opportunity to elect our candidates of choice. Today’s ruling helps protect our voice while we continue the fight for Native voting rights and fair representation,” said Representative Collette Brown, District 9, North Dakota House of Representatives.

“We are relieved that Native voters in North Dakota retain the ability to protect ourselves from discrimination at the polls. Our fight for the rights of our citizens continues. The map enacted by the North Dakota legislature unlawfully dilutes the votes of Native voters, and it cannot be allowed to stand,” said Jamie Azure, Chairman, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

“We are pleased to see the Supreme Court uphold decades of precedent and affirm voters’ power to enforce their voting rights in court by staying the Eighth Circuit’s decision against citizen access to challenge discrimination. At the forefront of this fight are Native American voters in North Dakota who continue to fight to safeguard their right to fair representation,” said Trevor Potter, founder and president of Campaign Legal Center. “Today’s decision reverberates beyond North Dakota — it maintains the rights of voters in seven states under the jurisdiction of the Eighth Circuit to challenge unfair voting laws via Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. When we file our cert petition, we plan to defend this critical legal tool to ensure all voters across the country can make their voices heard.”

"For decades, Tribes and Native Americans in North Dakota have fought for the rights of reservation voters," said Native American Rights Fund Staff Attorney Lenny Powell. "Today is another victory in that fight. The U.S. Supreme Court paused a decision that would strip Native voters — and all voters — of their ability to enforce their rights under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 22, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

Republicans on the House Rules Committee have ground business in the chamber to a halt to avoid having to vote on Democratic amendments calling for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

For weeks now, Republicans in Congress, facing pressure from the White House, have dodged efforts to force the release of the files, which may implicate U.S. President Donald Trump in crimes committed by the convicted sex criminal.

According to Axios, the House had been scheduled to vote on GOP legislation involving immigration and environmental legislation this week. But in order for these votes to reach the floor, they’d first need to pass through the Speaker-controlled Rules Committee, which has also been presented with multiple Epstein amendments.

Republicans on House Rules “don’t want to vote no because they’re then accused of helping hide the truth about Epstein,” Punchbowl News reported Tuesday morning. So instead, they’ve chosen to simply stop work for the week to avoid having to vote at all.

This has essentially ground all business in the House to a halt, potentially until after Congress gets back from its August recess.

On Monday, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), told Politico reporter Mia Camille, “We’re done in [the] Rules Committee until September.”

“The Rules Committee decides what gets voted on in the House. It’s where Republicans have already voted six times against forcing the release of the Epstein files,” said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.). “They’d rather shut down Congress than vote to release the files. What are they hiding?”

The Epstein cloud has only grown thicker over the White House over the past week after The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2003, Trump gave Epstein a salacious letter for his 50th birthday containing talk of a “secret” between the two men and a drawing of a nude woman. Trump has sued The Journal, calling the letter “a fake thing.”

The New York Times later reported that a decade earlier, Trump hosted a party full of young women where Epstein was the only other guest.

Amid the drip of scandal, the White House has remained dismissive of calls, including from the president’s own supporters, for the Department of Justice to release all its files related to Epstein.

Not long ago, officials in his administration made promises to release the files themselves, assuring damning revelations. But now, Trump describes the files as a “hoax” by the “radical left.” Of the Trump-faithful who have called for their release, he said, “I don’t want their support anymore!”

Late last week, Trump called for the DOJ to release grand jury transcripts pertaining to the investigation. But many other critical pieces of information, including ones that could implicate the president, would remain hidden.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has closely coordinated the House GOP’s response to the Epstein fiasco with the White House, saying repeatedly that there is “no daylight” between his position and that of the administration.

Johnson last week introduced a non-binding resolution to provide the public with “certain” Epstein-related documents, but it had no legal weight, allowing the White House to have total control over the information they disclosed. But even that resolution, Johnson said, would not be brought forth for a vote until after the August recess.

This has provoked the ire of a fellow Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who—along with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.)—drafted a discharge petition last week in an attempt to force a vote on the Epstein files onto the House floor.

“I think this is the referendum on [Johnson’s] leadership,” Massie said. “Who’s he gonna pick? Is he going to stand with the pedophiles and underage sex traffickers? Or is he gonna pick the American people and justice for the victims?”

Last week, a CNN/SSRS poll found that just 3% of Americans were satisfied with the amount of information the government had released about the Epstein files, while more than half said they were dissatisfied.

“This is the ultimate decision the speaker needs to make. And it’s irrespective of what the president wants,” Massie said.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Stephen Prager.

Individual North Carolina voters Amy Grace Bryant, Rani Dasi, Audrey Meigs, Gabriela Adler-Espino, Larry Repanes, Ralim Allston, Kemeka Sidbury, and Mary Kay Heling, along with the NAACP North Carolina State Conference and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina — represented by attorneys from Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Forward Justice, and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law — filed a motion Tuesday to intervene in United States v. N.C. State Board of Elections.

The lawsuit claims the state is not complying with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), based on alleged missing information in voter registration databases, and seeks to compel a process that requires affected voters to resubmit personal information to remain on the rolls. The state’s failure to collect or preserve the missing information is not the fault of the affected voters, who fully complied with all registration requirements at the time—yet they now risk being removed from the rolls based on the relief being pursued in this case.

The intervenors seek to ensure eligible North Carolina voters at risk of being wrongfully removed from the rolls can participate in elections and are safeguarded from this serious threat to their fundamental right to vote.

Read the motion here.

“I believe in democracy and fighting for human rights. I cannot in good conscience claim to fight for other people’s rights and let my own get taken away,” said Gabriela Adler-Espino, a voter in Craven County who lives abroad with her husband who is in the military. “I did everything I had to do to ensure my vote was valid. What kind of person would I be—and what example would I be setting for my child—if I did not now fight for my own?”

“I felt angry and disheartened,” said Audrey Meigs, a voter from Durham County. “It’s infuriating that I once again have to worry about someone challenging my voter registration.”

“Instead of helping people vote, this administration is trying to block North Carolinians from having their say at the ballot box,” said Deborah Maxwell, president of the NAACP North Carolina State Conference. “We’re speaking out today to stand up for Black voters and our democracy—and to demand that everyone’s right to take part in our elections is protected.”

"Over the past few years, anti-voter forces sought to silence hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, but the League of Women Voters of North Carolina fought back — and voters and democracy prevailed,” said Jennifer McMillan Rubin, president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina. “Now, the Department of Justice is seeking to unlawfully put hundreds of thousands of North Carolina voters at risk of disenfranchisement. Once again, the League won’t back down. We will always fight to protect voters who deserve to have a say in North Carolina elections.”

Background

In late May, the Trump administration sued North Carolina’s State Board of Elections (NCSBE) for violating federal law by allegedly processing incomplete voter registration forms. For years, North Carolina’s voter registration form requested, but did not require, a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. Though the form was fixed in 2023 to clarify that this identification information was required, and voters have to verify their identity when presenting to vote, the Justice Department now wants a federal judge to compel the NCSBE, to contact affected voters, obtain their missing info, and update the records.

The real danger of the lawsuit is that eligible voters who are either unable to be contacted or respond in time could lose their right to vote through no fault of their own. These hundreds of thousands of voters have repeatedly faced challenges to their right to cast a ballot despite following the rules at the time of registering. Their eligibility was questioned in an October 2023 administrative complaint; an ongoing August 2024 lawsuit; after the 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court race; and now again in this case.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Surviving a severe storm, wildfire, or other extreme weather event is an experience that many Americans have had, or will have in the future, as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. According to 2024 polling from the Pew Research Center, 7 in 10 Americans said their community experienced an extreme weather event in the past 12 months, including flooding, drought, extreme heat, rising sea levels, or major wildfires.

The aftermath of a disaster can be terrifying and traumatic, and many survivors struggle to secure basic necessities such as food and shelter, or to fill out paperwork for disaster aid and insurance. Finding accurate information about where and how to vote is even harder — so hard, in fact, that many people who have experienced disasters don’t bother to vote at all. With experts forecasting active hurricane and wildfire seasons, it’s more important than ever to be prepared for disruptions to the voting process for any primaries and special elections, as well as Election Day in November.

The guide below aims to help you navigate early and absentee voting, as well as what to expect on Election Day, should a disaster affect your area. (If you’re not registered to vote, find your state’s voter registration rules below.)

Jump to:

↓ Registration information
↓ In-person voting
↓ Early voting
↓ Absentee ballots
↓ Voter ID laws
↓ Know your rights

Registration information

Register to vote or find out if you’re registered here. Since it’s hurricane season, we’ve included registration links and upcoming election information for coastal states below:

Florida: Register to vote or check your registration here. Stay updated on Florida election dates here.

Alabama: Register to vote here. Stay updated on Florida election dates here.

Mississippi: Mississippi does not have online registration, so find out how to do so in person or online here. The deadline to register is 30 days before election day. Stay updated on Mississippi election dates here.

North Carolina: The deadline for voter registration is 25 days before Election Day; register or check your status here. Stay updated on North Carolina election dates here.

South Carolina: Learn how to register here. Stay updated on South Carolina election dates here.

Louisiana: Online registration must be done 20 days before Election Day; mail must be postmarked 30 days prior. Stay updated on Louisiana election dates here.

Georgia: Register online here. Stay updated on Georgia election dates here.

Texas: You must register to vote 30 days before Election Day; find out your status or register here. Stay updated on Texas election dates here.

Read more: How a disaster is officially declared

In-person voting

If a disaster strikes, the governor can extend voting deadlines, allow ballots to be forwarded to a new address, allow local officials to change or add new polling places, or postpone municipal elections. Those rules are different depending on the state, and information may be hard to find in the wake of a disaster.

The U.S. Vote Foundation has a tool to access your county election office’s contact information, which typically includes county clerks, supervisors, auditors, boards of elections, or election commissions, depending on the state. You can try to contact these offices, but it’s not guaranteed they’ll be able to answer your questions. You can also ask voting rights groups in your area and watch local news for any changes or updates.

In the wake of a disaster, first confirm where you should be voting. Has your polling place been damaged or moved? If multiple locations are combined into one, or Election Day volunteers are scarce post-disaster, be prepared to stand in long lines to vote. If you’re waiting in the heat, make sure to bring water and wear comfortable shoes and appropriate clothing. (Twenty-one states prohibit campaign apparel, so keep that in mind.) Here are some other resources on heat waves.

Was your car damaged in a disaster? Need a ride to the polls? Some ride-share services and public transit systems offer free rides on Election Day. Here’s more information.

Read more: The officials and agencies in charge of disaster response

Early voting

Most states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands offer some form of early voting, which is voting in person before the election anywhere from a few days to more than a month early, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. However, the hours, locations, and timing differ for each. Three states — Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire — do not allow early in-person voting.

Early in-person voting is a useful option if you’d like to avoid lines on Election Day or will be out of town. It’s also an option for people who live in a region of the country prone to natural disasters or have been recently hit by one. In-person voting on Election Day, which comes at the tail end of “danger season,” may not either be a possibility or priority. Go here to see the specific rules around early voting in your state.

Absentee ballots

Absentee voting is often called “mail-in voting” or “by-mail voting.” Every state offers this, but some require you to meet certain conditions, like having a valid excuse for why you can’t make it to the polls on Election Day. Absentee voting can be a particularly useful tool for people recently displaced by extreme weather, or are at risk of being displaced. It also safeguards voters who live in the hottest parts of the country, where heat can make waiting in long lines dangerous.

The League of Women Voters explains absentee voting rules by state here. If you reside in a county that gets a federal disaster declaration after a disaster hits, there may be changes to these processes that can offer you more time and flexibility.

Voter ID laws

Each state has a different voter ID law: Some require photo identification, others require a document such as a utility bill, bank statement, or paycheck, while still others require a signature. The National Conference of State Legislatures has a breakdown of the rules here.

If your ID gets destroyed in a flood, fire, or tornado, your state may be able to exempt you from showing an ID at the polls. For instance, after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Texas residents who lost their ID to floodwaters could vote without one once they filled out an affidavit stating that their identification was lost because of a natural disaster. Your state may also waive the fees associated with getting a new ID.

The best way to find this information is to contact your county clerk or other election official, or contact a voting rights group in your area.

Know your rights

Just as there are strict rules in states around how people can cast ballots, there are also many others that dictate what happens outside of polling places. In most states, you can accept water and food from groups around polling places — but there is misinformation around doing so. For example, after the 2020 presidential election, Georgia passed a law prohibiting this activity within a certain buffer zone, only for a judge to later strike down part of it. So while there is no longer a ban on handing things to voters within 25 feet of the line to vote, it is still illegal to do so within 150 feet of the building where ballots are being cast.

Call or text 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683) to report voter intimidation to the Election Protection Coalition. You can also find more information on voter rights from the ACLU.

Download a PDF of this article | Return to Disaster 101

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Know your voting rights before, during, and after a disaster on Jul 7, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Lyndsey Gilpin.

Tuesday’s New York City mayoral primary could determine the future of the most populous city in the United States. We speak to John Tarleton, editor-in-chief of the The Indypendent, about the race, which pits the young, progressive socialist Zohran Mamdani against Andrew Cuomo, an establishment Democrat and the former state governor who resigned in 2020 amid an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment. Tarleton discusses Mamdani’s unique grassroots campaign, the influence of the powerful real-estate industry and why everything may come down to New York City’s ranked-choice voting system.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Tensions have been rising between Manila and Beijing, fueled by rival flag-raising displays on the disputed Sandy Cay in South China Sea.

“When we made the arrest, that was the third time he had come to Comelec,” said Philippine National Bureau of Investigation spokesman Ferdinand Lavin on Wednesday, referring to the country’s election commission.

The man, a Macau passport holder, was allegedly using an “IMSI catcher,” a device capable of mimicking a cell tower and snatching messages from the air in a 1 to 3 kilometer radius.

The arrested man also visited other locations, including the Philippine Supreme Court, the Philippine Department of Justice and the U.S. embassy, according to Lavin.

China denied any attempt to tamper with Philippine elections.

“We will not and have no interest in interfering in such internal affairs of the Philippines,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Wednesday when asked about the arrest at a news conference.

“We also advise individual politicians in the Philippines not to take the chance to hype up issues related to China, make something out of nothing and seize the opportunity to profit.”

On April 3, China said it had detained three Filipinos for espionage, prompting the Philippines to claim it was retaliation for Manila’s arrest of five Chinese nationals a week earlier.

The latest arrest came as Manila signed an agreement with New Zealand allowing the deployment of troops on each other’s territory, a move aimed at bolstering security in a “deteriorating” strategic environment, and one likely to further antagonize China.

New Zealand Minister of Defence Judith Collins said that the deal reflected a commitment based on understanding “the risks to the international rules-based order.”

Both countries had “a real understanding that the strategic environment that we are operating in is deteriorating,” Collins said.

“There are those who follow international law and there are those who want to redefine it,” Teodoro said, referring to China’s so-called “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea.

Beijing claims nearly the entire sea under its “nine-dash line,” a claim rejected by an international tribunal in 2016, which ruled in favor of the Philippines’ assertion that China’s claims were unlawful.

Despite the ruling, China has continued to assert its presence through patrols, island-building, and militarization, while the Philippines has sought to defend its claims through diplomatic protests and military partnerships.

“We need to deter this kind of unwanted behavior,” he said, adding that Manila and Wellington would work toward “military-to-military training.”

The agreement with New Zealand serves as the latest example of the Philippines strengthening defence and diplomatic ties with like-minded partners, as Chinese-Philippine relations continue to be tested by repeated confrontations between their coastguard vessels in the disputed South China Sea.

The Philippines and Japan pledged on Tuesday to deepen security ties, agreeing to begin talks on a defense pact and enhance intelligence sharing, while jointly opposing efforts to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas by force.

Manila is also reportedly in talks with Canada and France to establish potential defense agreements.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

This story originally appeared in Truthout on Apr. 09, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

The Senate has confirmed former Arkansas governor and fervent Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee as the U.S.’s next ambassador to Israel after numerous rights groups called on the Senate to oppose his nomination.

Huckabee was confirmed 53 to 46, in what was a largely party line vote — except for Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), who voted with Republicans in favor.

Advocates for Palestinian rights have long raised alarm about Huckabee’s nomination over his clear bias toward Israel and his numerous statements dehumanizing Palestinians.

He has visited Israel over 100 times and espouses his beliefs as a Christian Zionist who believes that Jewish people must take over Palestine in order to fulfill a Biblical prophecy; many anti-Zionists have pointed out that Christian Zionists often hold antisemitic beliefs in their support of this goal.

Huckabee has backed President Donald Trump’s plan for the total ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza, and has called for Israel to annex the West Bank — the latter of which he refers to as “Judea and Samaria,” a term used by Zionists to erase Palestinians’ name for the region and imply Israel’s supposed “right” to the land. He refuses to acknowledge that Israel is occupying Palestine, despite international authorities recognizing Israel’s illegal occupation.

Huckabee also once said, at a campaign stop in 2008, that there is “really no such thing as a Palestinian,” erasing the existence of an entire people and stripping them of their cultural identity — much like Trump and Israeli officials seem to be seeking to do with their genocide in Gaza.

When asked about this comment during his confirmation hearing, he denied that this comment had anything to do with the forced expulsion of Palestinians, saying, “I simply referenced the biblical mandate that goes all the way back to the time of Abraham, 3,500 years ago.”

Dozens of rights and faith groups had protested Huckabee’s confirmation, and have sent numerous letters urging senators to vote against him. Advocates for Palestinian rights have condemned Huckabee’s confirmation.

“The Senate’s decision to confirm Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel is a threat to Palestinians and Israelis, and to Jews, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color in the United States,” said IfNotNow in a statement. “He has claimed Palestinians do not exist & has allied with Israel’s violent settler movement and extremist evangelicals in the United States — and will undoubtedly pursue his dangerous Christian Nationalist worldview as ambassador.”

Many have specifically called out Fetterman, who is facing increasing isolation from his voter base and fellow Democrats over his zealous support of Israel since he took office.

“Fetterman was the only ‘Democrat’ who voted for Trump’s [Attorney General] Pam Bondi, who is ripping up the Constitution. Now he is the only ‘Democrat’ to vote for Huckabee — who wants to bring about Armageddon by ethnically cleansing Palestinians,” said the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project. “Pennsylvania deserves a new Senator.”

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Sharon Zhang.

The aid from Kyiv played only a modest role in overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Western intelligence sources believe. But it was notable as part of a broader Ukrainian effort to strike covertly at Russian operations in the Middle East, Africa and inside Russia itself.” 

–From the Washington Post

In this week's bonus episode, we present a recording from our special Gaslit Nation political salon on Monday, where we honored Syria. This episode offers crucial insights on navigating the complex landscape of Syria's future, highlighting who to trust—and who to be wary of—when it comes to information about the country. We also delve into the disinformation campaigns surrounding Syria and how to prepare for the challenges ahead. Additionally, this week's bonus show features answers to questions from our Democracy Defender-level members and above on voting and homelessness as well as how to protect trans people. Thank you to our Democracy Defender level supporters who help shape the show! 

For a good overview of why Assad’s regime collapsed so quickly, read this great analysis by Charles Lister, a senior fellow and director of the Syria and Counterterrorism and Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/05/syria-assad-regime-collapsing-quickly/

For a look at how many “anti-imperialists” on the Left are pro-Assad, read this 2018 piece by Leila Al Shami, co-author of ‘Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War: https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/04/15/opinion/u/the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots/

Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, ad-free episodes, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Show Notes:

Syria clip: Clarissa Ward of CNN reports from liberted Syria https://x.com/cnnipr/status/1866471510678135162

An estimated 2.5 million people were forced from their homes in the United States by weather-related disasters in 2023, according to new data from the Census Bureau. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/climate/climate-disasters-survivors-displacement.html

Voting and Homelessness  https://www.nonprofitvote.org/voting-and-homelessness/ 

When Britain and France Almost Merged Into One Country An extraordinary near-miss of history helps explain Brexit. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/08/dunkirk-brexit/536106/

People to Follow for Syria & Other World News: 

• Michael Weiss (Bluesky)

• Oz Katerji (Bluesky)

• Eliot Higgins (Bluesky)

• Fared Al Mahlool (Bluesky)

• Leila Al-Shami (Bluesky)

• Olga Lautman (Bluesky)

• Philip Obaji Jr. (Bluesky)

• Shashank Joshi (Bluesky)

Support Trans People

• Erin in the Morning (Substack)

• Protect the LGBTQ Community: An Interview with Chase Strangio of the ACLU https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/episodes-transcripts-20/2022/5/26/chase-strangio-interview

• Moral Panic: Fact-Checking the War on Trans Kids https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/episodes-transcripts-20/2024/9/10/moral-panic-fact-checking-the-war-on-trans-kids

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

New Zealand’s Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has congratulated the Nelson City Council on its vote today to boycott companies which trade with illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.

The city council (pop. 58,000) — New Zealand’s 15th-largest city — became the latest local body to change its procurement policy to exclude companies identified by the UN Human Rights Council as being complicit in the building and maintenance of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

“Nelson City Council is taking action while our national government is looking the other way”, PSNA chair John Minto said in a statement.

• READ MORE: This year, Arab-American political power came to the fore over Gaza
• Other BDS movement reports

“It is [Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon who should be ending all New Zealand dealings with companies involved in the illegal Israeli settlements.

“Instead, our government is cowardly complicit with Israeli war crimes.”

It is a war crime to move citizens onto land illegally occupied as Israel is doing.

Nelson City Council joins Environment Canterbury and the Christchurch City Council — New Zealand’s second largest city — which both adopted this policy earlier this year.  Other local bodies are believed to be following.

“We also congratulate local Palestine solidarity activists in Nelson who have organised and battled so well for this historic win today. They are the heroes behind this decision,”minto said.

Minto said following the move by Nelson city representatives, “we are renewing our call for the government to act”.

He again called for the government to:

• Ban all imports from the illegal Israeli settlements;
• Direct the Superfund, Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and Kiwisaver providers to end their investments in all Israeli companies and other companies supporting the illegal Israeli settlements; and
• Direct New Zealand government agencies to end procurement of goods or services from all Israeli companies and other companies supporting the illegal Israeli settlements.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“Why is it that the issues that most of the public agrees with — healthcare, living wages, voting rights, democracy — why is it that those issues weren’t more up front?” We speak to Bishop William Barber about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s failed election campaigns, Donald Trump’s election as president and the urgent need to unite the poor and working class. Barber is the national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach and a co-author of the book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy. He urges the Democratic Party to recenter economic security and poverty alleviation in its platform and draws on historical setbacks for U.S. progressive policies to encourage voters to “get back up” and “continue to fight.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

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In public remarks, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly made unfounded claims about the threat of widespread voting by “illegal aliens” and noncitizens in the 2024 election.

Away from the spotlight, though, at least one Republican National Committee official is telling volunteer poll watchers a completely different story: that such voting is close to impossible.

In a private Oct. 29 training session for poll watchers in Pennsylvania, an RNC election-integrity specialist told volunteers not to worry about noncitizen voting in the 2024 election because the electoral system had safeguards in place to prevent illegal votes.

ProPublica obtained a recording of the training session. The RNC official’s comments have not been previously reported.

The RNC official’s assurance contradicts statements made by Trump and his Republican allies warning about “illegal aliens” casting ballots this year and potentially swinging the election in favor of Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

“It is good to see the RNC official recognizing the truth, in contrast to the many lies about noncitizen voting coming from Trump and his allies,” said Rick Hasen, a professor and election-law expert at the UCLA School of Law. “It would be even better for the officials to say it publicly.”

The RNC official who led the training session and a spokesperson for the RNC did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to ProPublica that Democrats were “pushing for non-citizens to vote and influence the future of our country,” adding, “President Trump and the RNC will continue the fight to secure tomorrow’s election so that every American vote is protected.”

Voting by noncitizens is illegal under federal law and it almost never happens. State and federal elections require voters to be U.S. citizens. Government election officials from both parties have emphasized that there are protections in place across the country to prevent noncitizens from casting a ballot.

Yet that hasn’t stopped Trump and some of his most high-profile supporters from making unfounded claims that noncitizens are registering and voting in large numbers this year. “THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS,” Trump posted on Truth Social in September. Other prominent Trump supporters, including billionaire tech investor Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, have also amplified unfounded claims about Democrats seeking to “import” such voters.

But on the ground, Trump’s own party, at least in the important battleground state of Pennsylvania, is undercutting those dark visions of illegal voting. During the Oct. 29 training session, Joe Neild, a member of RNC’s election integrity team in the state, said such a scenario is nearly impossible.

A participant in the training session asked Neild about the potential for noncitizens to cast votes in the election and what poll watchers could do to stop them.

Neild replied that, in Pennsylvania, undocumented people can’t legally register to vote and so they would not be included in the list of eligible voters used at voting precincts, known as poll books.

Here is the exchange:

Training participant: “I have two questions. The first one is: How do you know if they are illegal aliens or not, like, when they’re voting, as far as what you were explaining with the ID? And if they’re from another country it was OK as long as they had an ID. How do you know if they’re illegal aliens? How can you stop that?”

Neild: “Well, if they’re illegal aliens, they’re not going to be inside the poll book. Because if they’re illegal aliens, they’re not going to be able to register to vote, because they’ll need a driver’s license number or a Social Security number.

“And since the recent litigation in the years past, you do have — to be able to get a driver’s license here in Pennsylvania, you have to show proof of citizenship. So that is one way that they will not be able to get a driver’s license.

“And then you have to be — since they’re illegal, they’re not going to be able to get a Social Security number either.”

Three election-law experts reviewed the exchange between Neild and the poll-watcher trainee. All of them said that Neild’s description of the law and the safeguards in place against noncitizen voting were accurate.

Adam Bonin, a lawyer in Philadelphia who practices election law, said Neild gave an accurate description of Pennsylvania law and the safeguards against noncitizen voting there. Bonin said Neild’s comments were “absolutely consistent” with what Pennsylvania’s secretary of the commonwealth, Al Schmidt, a Republican, has said about preventing noncitizen voting.

"As has been the case before, Trump has local experts on his team who know what the law is here in Pennsylvania and who understand the reality of how our elections work,” Bonin said.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and an expert on voting rights who worked in the Obama and Biden administrations, said he applauded Neild for using factual information in his training session. Levitt added that he was not surprised to hear Republican volunteers raising fears of noncitizen voting given Trump’s campaign rhetoric.

“There’s been a very effective effort to misinform,” Levitt said. “But I’m glad that when push comes to shove and it comes time to really get training, they’re being set straight.”

In addition to the registration hurdles Neild pointed out, Levitt explained that there are clear incentives to discourage noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. Criminal penalties can include a hefty fine and prison time as well as deportation and losing the ability to become a U.S. citizen in the future. What’s more, Levitt added, the very act of voting creates a clear and obvious paper trail, making it that much easier for law enforcement to bring criminal charges for illegal voting.

“Every once in a blue moon you see noncitizens showing up on the rolls,” he said. “It’s usually by mistake because it’s just not worth it, and they’re gonna get caught, guaranteed.”

Levitt said that he only wished the factual information given out by the RNC at the grassroots level was also reaching the party’s presidential nominee. “It sounds like the former president should be sitting in on some sessions with the people training his poll watchers,” Levitt said.

Do you have information about the Trump campaign or voting irregularities that we should know? Andy Kroll can be reached by email at andy.kroll@propublica.org and by phone or Signal at 202-215-6203.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Andy Kroll.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Earlier this month, subscribers to the Wisconsin Law Journal received an email with an urgent subject: “Upholding Election Integrity — A Call to Action for Attorneys.”

The letter began by talking about fairness and following the law in elections. But it then suggested that election officials do something that courts have found to be illegal for over a century: treat the certification of election results as an option, not an obligation.

The large logo at the top of the email gave the impression that it was an official correspondence from the respected legal newspaper, though smaller print said it was sent on behalf of a public relations company. The missive was an advertisement from a new group with deep ties to activists who have challenged the legitimacy of recent American elections.

The group, Follow the Law, has placed ads in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin news outlets serving attorneys, judges and election administrators — individuals who could be involved in election disputes. In Georgia, it ran ads supporting the State Election Board as its majority, backed by former President Donald Trump, passed a rule that experts warned could have allowed county board members to exclude enough Democratic votes to impact the presidential election. (A judge later struck down the rule as “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”)

In making its arguments about certification, Follow the Law has mischaracterized election rules and directed readers to a website providing an incomplete and inaccurate description of how certification works and what the laws and rules are in various states, election experts and state officials said.

“Anyone relying on that website is being deceived, and whoever is responsible for its content is being dishonest,” said Mike Hassinger, public information officer for Georgia’s secretary of state.

Certification is the mandatory administrative process that officials undertake after they finish counting and adjudicating ballots. Official results need to be certified by tight deadlines, so they can be aggregated and certified at the state and federal levels. Other procedures like lawsuits and recounts exist to check or challenge election outcomes, but those typically cannot commence until certification occurs. If officials fail to meet those deadlines or exclude a subset of votes, courts could order them to certify, as they have done in the past. But experts have warned that, in a worst-case scenario, the transition of power could be thrown into chaos.

“These ads make it seem as if there's only one way for election officials to show that they're on the ball, and that is to delay or refuse to certify an election. And just simply put, that is not their role,” said Sarah Gonski, an Arizona elections attorney and senior policy adviser for the Institute for Responsive Government, a think tank working on election issues. “What this is, is political propaganda that’s dressed up in a fancy legal costume.”

The activities of Follow the Law, which have not been previously reported, represent a broader push by those aligned with Trump to leverage the mechanics of elections to their advantage. The combination of those strategies, including recruiting poll workers and removing people from voting rolls, could matter in an election that might be determined by a small number of votes.

Since Trump lost the 2020 election, at least 35 election board members in various states, who have been overwhelmingly Republican, have unsuccessfully tried to refuse to certify election results before being compelled to certify by courts or being outvoted by Democratic members. Last week, a county supervisor in Arizona pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for failing to perform election duties when she voted to delay certifying the 2022 election. And last month, the American Civil Liberties Union sued an election board member in Michigan after he said he might not certify the 2024 results. He ultimately signed an affidavit acknowledging his legal obligation to certify, and the ACLU dismissed its case. Experts have warned that more could refuse to certify the 2024 election if Trump loses.

Follow the Law bills itself as a “group of lawyers committed to ensuring elections are free, fair and represent the true votes of all American citizens.” It’s led by Melody Clarke, a longtime conservative activist with stints at Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy organization, and the Election Integrity Network, headed by a lawyer who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

This summer, Clarke left a leadership position at EIN to join the Election Transparency Initiative, a group headed by Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump administration official. The two groups work together, according to Cuccinelli and EIN’s 2024 handbook.

The banner ads that appeared in Georgia and Wisconsin outlets disclosed they were paid for by the American Principles Project Foundation. ETI is a subsidiary of a related nonprofit, the American Principles Project. Financial reports show that packaging magnate Richard Uihlein has contributed millions of dollars to the American Principles Project this year through a political action committee. Uihlein has funneled his fortune into supporting far-right candidates and election deniers, as ProPublica has reported.

Cuccinelli, Clarke and a lawyer for Uihlein did not respond to requests for comment or detailed lists of questions. Cuccinelli previously defended to ProPublica the legality of election officials exercising their discretion in certifying results. “The proposed rule will protect the foundational, one person-one vote principle underpinning our democratic elections and guard against certification of inaccurate or erroneous results,” Cuccinelli wrote in a letter to Georgia’s State Election Board.

The most recent ads appear to be an extension of a monthslong effort that started in Georgia to expand the discretion of county election officials ahead of the November contest.

In August and September, Follow the Law bought ads as Georgia’s election board passed controversial rules, including one that empowered county election board members to not certify votes they found suspicious. As ProPublica has reported, the rule was secretly pushed by the EIN, where Clarke worked as deputy director.

Certification “is not a ministerial function,” Cuccinelli said at the election board’s August meeting. The law, he argued, “clearly implies that that board is intended and expected to use its judgment to determine, on very short time frames, what is the most proper outcome of the vote count.”

However, a state judge made clear in an October ruling the dangers of giving county board members the power to conduct investigations and decide which votes are valid. If board members, who are often political appointees, were “free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge” and refuse to certify election results, “Georgia voters would be silenced,” he wrote, finding that this would be unconstitutional. The case is on appeal and will be heard after the election.

Despite that ruling, and another from a different judge also finding both certification rules unconstitutional, Follow the Law’s website section for Georgia still asserts that a State Election Board rule “makes crystal clear” that county board members’ duty is “more than a simple ministerial task” without mentioning either ruling. The state Republican party has appealed the second ruling.

In a Telegram channel created by a Fulton County, Georgia, commissioner, someone shared what they called a “dream checklist” for election officials this week that contains extensive “suggestions” for how they should fulfill their statutory duties. The unsigned 15-page document, which bears the same three icons that appear on Follow the Law’s website, concludes, “Resolve all discrepancies prior to certification.”

On the same day the Georgia judge ruled that county board members can’t refuse to certify votes, Follow the Law began running ads in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin legal publications. The communications argued that certification is a discretionary step officials should take only after performing an investigation to ensure an election’s accuracy, largely continuing the line of argument that Cuccinelli pushed to Georgia’s election board and that the lawyers took before the judge. “Uphold your oath to only certify an accurate election,” said banner ads that ran in WisPolitics, a political news outlet. Another read: “No rubber stamps!” WisPolitics did not respond to requests for comment.

In Pennsylvania, the ad claimed that “simply put, the role of election officials is not ‘ministerial’” and that election officials are by law “required to ensure (and investigate if necessary) that elections are free from ‘fraud, deceit, or abuse’ and that the results are accurate prior to certification.”

Follow the Law has also directly contacted at least one county official in Eureka County, Nevada, pointing him to the group’s website, according to a letter obtained by ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch.

Follow the Law’s ads and website overstate officials’ roles beyond what statutes allow, state officials in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin said.

The group’s Wisconsin page reads: “Canvassers must first ensure that all votes are legally cast and can only certify results after verifying this.” But officials tasked with certifying elections are scorekeepers, not referees, said Edgar Lin, Wisconsin policy strategist and attorney for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that works to protect the integrity of American elections. Lin and other experts said officials ensure the accuracy of an election’s basic arithmetic, for example, by checking that the number of ballots matches the number of voters, but they are not empowered to undertake deeper investigations.

Gonski said that in addition to overstating certifiers’ responsibilities, Follow the Law’s messaging underplays the protections that already exist. “Our election system is chock-full of checks and balances,” Gonski said. “Thousands of individuals have roles to play, and all of them seamlessly work together using well-established procedures to ensure a safe, accurate and secure election. No single individual has unchecked power over any piece of the process."

Ads in the Wisconsin Law Journal and the Legal Intelligencer in Pennsylvania also presented the findings of a poll that Follow the Law said was conducted by Rasmussen Reports, a company whose credibility the ad emphasizes. But Rasmussen Reports did not conduct the poll. It was conducted by Scott Rasmussen, who founded the polling company but has not worked there in over a decade.

Both the company and pollster confirmed the misattribution but did not comment further. The Wisconsin Law Journal and ALM, which owns the Legal Intelligencer, declined to comment.

Sam Liebert, a former election clerk and the Wisconsin director for All Voting is Local, said he wants the state’s attorney general to issue an unequivocal directive reminding election officials of their legal duty to certify.

“Certifying elections is a mandatory, democratic duty of our election officials,” he said. “Each refusal to certify threatens to validate the broader election denier movement, while sowing disorder in our election administration processes.”

Do you have any information about Follow the Law or other groups’ efforts to challenge election certification that we should know? Have you seen Follow the Law ads or outreach elsewhere? If so, please make a record of the ad and reach out to us. Phoebe Petrovic can be reached by email at ppetrovic@wisconsinwatch.org and by Signal at 608-571-3748. Doug Bock Clark can be reached at 678-243-0784 and doug.clark@propublica.org.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Phoebe Petrovic, Wisconsin Watch, and Doug Bock Clark, ProPublica.

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This article is produced in collaboration with The Texas Tribune and Votebeat. Sign up for newsletters from The Texas Tribune and from Votebeat.

Mary Howard-Elley fervently believes illegal immigration in the U.S. is a critical problem that only former President Donald Trump can solve. She says the continuation of his border wall and promised mass deportations will make the country safer.

She agrees with Trump’s unfounded claims that Democrats are opening the borders to allow noncitizens to vote, fearing that it could ultimately cost him the election.

Howard-Elley didn’t pay much attention when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott helped fuel that narrative by announcing that the state had removed thousands of supposed noncitizens from its rolls, claiming some had a history of voting.

Then the U.S. citizen learned she was among them.

The elections office in Montgomery County, just north of Houston, had sent Howard-Elley a letter in late January saying that she had been flagged after she indicated that she was not a U.S. citizen in response to a jury summons. She had 30 days to provide the county proof of citizenship or she would be removed from the voter rolls, according to the letter.

The retired Transportation Security Administration agent was confused by how the county could come to that conclusion. And she seethed at the idea that anyone would question the citizenship of a former federal employee with the “whitest name you could have.”

“Who is allowing people to do this to United States citizens? I understand we have a problem with immigration, but come on now,” Howard-Elley said in an interview.

The 52-year-old disputes the county’s claim that she responded to the jury duty summons by saying she was not a citizen. Instead, Howard-Elley said, she called and asked to be exempted from jury duty because of guardianship duties for three of her grandchildren.

The Montgomery County district clerk’s office, which organizes jury duty, did not respond to repeated questions and denied a public records request for Howard-Elley’s response to the jury summons, asserting it was exempt from disclosure.

Regardless of how she was flagged as a noncitizen, Howard-Elley wanted to ensure she could vote. She ordered several copies of her certified Louisiana birth certificate and confirmed receipt with an elections office employee. She thought the matter was resolved.

But Howard-Elley’s registration was not reinstated, making her the 10th U.S. citizen identified by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and Votebeat who was removed from the rolls as a potential noncitizen. The news organizations tracked them down as part of an investigation that found Abbott’s claims about the state removing more than 6,500 noncitizens were likely inflated and, in some cases, wrong.

The 10 U.S. citizens who were struck from the rolls represented a range of racial and political backgrounds, and most were removed as the result of human error.

Abbott’s press release provided fodder for Republicans warning that noncitizens could vote in large numbers and sway the election, though experts say such instances are exceedingly rare.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the federal government last week, claiming the Department of Homeland Security has refused to help the state check the citizenship status of some registered voters. The federal agency offers states access to a database that can be used to verify immigration status, but Paxton argued it’s inadequate and requires a fee for each verification. Ten other states use the database for voting-related purposes.

Neither Abbott nor Paxton responded to questions for this story. DHS has not filed a response to the attorney general’s lawsuit in federal court.

Howard-Elley’s case shows how eligible voters can be removed from the rolls — and how tough it can be to get back on.

She didn’t realize her registration was canceled until reporters called her this month. Darla Brooks, the Montgomery County voter registration manager, told both Howard-Elley and the news organizations that she had not been reinstated in March because her birth certificate arrived after the 30-day window she was given to prove her citizenship.

On Oct. 14, Brooks said Howard-Elley had now also missed the registration deadline for this year’s election and would not be able to vote.

The election official was wrong.

Multiple voting rights lawyers pointed to a state law that says counties should immediately reinstate voters’ registrations that were wrongly canceled. Brooks initially told reporters that the law did not apply to Howard-Elley because the county had followed proper procedures when removing her.

But when the news organizations brought the same question to the secretary of state’s office, which provides counties with guidance on implementing election laws, the answer was different.

A 2021 agency advisory instructs counties to immediately reinstate voters removed for failing to respond to a notice as soon as they present proof of citizenship. They can even be reinstated at a polling place on Election Day.

Less than two hours after the news organizations sent the secretary of state’s advisory to Montgomery County, Howard-Elley was back on the rolls.

“I’m sorry that Montgomery County has to be shown the law to abide by it,” Howard-Elley said. She added that this election would have been the first time in more than 30 years she failed to cast a ballot for president. “I just hope they don’t do this to anybody else ever again because it’s not fair.”

Montgomery County elections administrator Suzie Harvey said her office had never had to deal with a situation like Howard-Elley’s, and while she likely saw the advisory when it was issued, she had forgotten about the specific guidance. She said her office worked quickly to reinstate Howard-Elley when the news organizations flagged the advisory and she is gratified that Howard-Elley will be able to vote.

“That would have been extremely tragic,” Harvey said.

Not every voter has Howard-Elley’s tenacity, or news organizations asking persistent questions about how their case was handled.

If your voter registration is canceled because you failed to respond to a letter trying to confirm your citizenship, here’s what you can do:

• Contact your county elections office before heading to the polls. Show proof of your citizenship and ask to be reinstated.
• You can also share this 2021 advisory from the Texas secretary of state’s office on reinstating citizens to the voter rolls.
• Common forms of documentation include a U.S. passport or certified birth certificate. See the full list of acceptable proof of citizenship in the advisory.
• If you don’t find out until you arrive at the polls that you need to show proof of citizenship, that advisory still requires election officials to reinstate you immediately after you do so.
• Contact the Texas secretary of state’s office for additional assistance.

“Voting should not be so hard that you have to be a lawyer or have lawyer skills to be able to vote,” said Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Perales said it would take “heroic efforts” by the average voter to research the election laws and advocate for their registration to be reinstated.

Even then, the decision would depend on how election officials in their county interpret laws and guidance.

Three county election officials gave different answers to the question of whether they would reinstate a voter in Howard-Elley’s situation, though all stressed they would try their best to follow the law.

One said the voter should be reinstated. The other two said they would likely reinstate the voter after the registration deadline only if the county had erred in some way.

Those differences give “voters in some counties fewer rights than voters in other counties,” said Emily Eby French, the policy director at Common Cause Texas, a nonprofit that advocates for voting access.

Howard-Elley said she is disturbed at how close she came to losing her ability to vote. If reporters hadn’t called her, Howard-Elley said, she might have been turned away at the polls.

The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and Votebeat want to hear from Texas voters who believe their registrations have been incorrectly canceled or flagged, in order to inform our reporting on issues with the state’s voter registration review system.

Get in Touch

She said she worries about whether other eligible voters are among those labeled as noncitizens and that Abbott should look into whether there are more U.S. citizens among them. The lifelong Republican said state and county officials need to be held accountable to ensure more U.S. citizens are not erroneously removed.

“The system is very flawed,” Howard-Elley said. “I feel really sad that we’re in a situation like this. You would think in 2024 we wouldn’t have issues like this.”

She intends to cast her ballot for Trump.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by .

• Since 2016, the number of disenfranchised people has declined by 31% as more states implement policies to restore voting rights, but significant barriers remain, particularly for individuals unable to pay court-ordered fines and fees.

• One in 22 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than three times that of non-African Americans. More than 10% of African American citizens are barred from voting in five states—Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota and Tennessee.

• Approximately 496,000 Latino Americans are disenfranchised, with over 5% of Latino voters in Arizona and Tennessee affected by felony voting bans. Latino voters are disenfranchised at higher rates than the general population in 28 states.

• Approximately 764,000 women are barred from voting due to felony convictions, making up just under 20% of the disenfranchised population. 56% of women who are disenfranchised have completed their sentences.

• Florida and Tennessee lead the nation in disenfranchisement rates, with more than 6% of their adult populations unable to vote, due to a felony conviction.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Kamala Harris wins North Carolina, she is the next president of the United States,” Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, said at an event in New York City last week. 

Then Hurricane Helene etched a 500-mile path of destruction through the southeastern United States, killing at least 139 people in six states and causing more than $100 billion in damages, according to preliminary estimates. 

In western North Carolina, moisture-laden Helene collided with a cold front that was already dropping  rain on the Appalachian Mountains. Hundreds of roads in the region are now impassable or have been wiped off the map by flooding and landslides, communication systems are down, and hundreds of people are still missing. As the North Carolina Department of Transportation put it, “All roads in Western North Carolina should be considered closed.” With just weeks until November 5, thousands of people displaced, mail service shut down or restricted in many ZIP codes, and many roadways shuttered, officials are now rushing to figure out how to handle voting in the midst of disaster.

“This storm is like nothing we’ve seen in our lifetimes in western North Carolina,” Karen Brinson Bell, one of North Carolina’s top election officials, told reporters on Tuesday. “The destruction is unprecedented and this level of uncertainty this close to Election Day is daunting.” 

Delivery of absentee ballots in North Carolina had already been delayed by three weeks by former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s last-minute lawsuit to take his name off of millions of already-printed ballots. The state’s election process is already in full swing: the deadline for voter registration in North Carolina is October 11, the early voting period in the state begins on October 17, and early voting ends on November 2. “We will take the measures necessary to ensure there is voting,” Brinson Bell said. But there are innumerable issues to solve first, and state officials still don’t have a full assessment of the damage Helene caused.

“There’s a cascading series of problems,” said Gerry Cohen, a member of the elections board for Wake County, the state’s most populous county, which includes Raleigh. 

At the moment, the central logistical problem is that the U.S. Postal Service has suspended service across much of western North Carolina. Even before the storm, more than 190,000 North Carolinians had requested mail-in ballots this election. The agency does not yet have an estimate of when mail will be restored — damage is so severe in some ZIP codes that it may be weeks or even months before local roads are passable. The issue is compounded by the fact that in rural areas, some postal workers use their own vehicles to deliver mail. Neither the state nor the Postal Service knows how many of those cars were destroyed by the storm. 

“At this time, we are still assessing damage and impacts,” a spokesperson for the Postal Service told Grist. “As we continue our work on this, we will continue to communicate with local boards of election in impacted areas to ensure the ongoing transport and delivery of election mail as soon as it is safe to do so.”

Under state law, it is up to each voter to request a new ballot to the temporary address where they are staying. Voters must mail these ballots back in time for them to reach election offices by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. The state used to have a three-day grace period for late-arriving ballots, but it ended that policy last year. The Elections Board is currently assessing whether it will ask the state to reinstate it. There’s also no way of tracking where the absentee ballots that counties already sent out ended up, or whether the delivery of those ballots was affected by the storm. “Who knows where they are,” Cohen said.

And then there’s the matter of in-person voting, which faces further logistical hurdles. Brinson Bell said that while there have been no reports of voting equipment or ballots destroyed by Helene, 12 county election offices in western North Carolina are currently closed due to flooding and other storm-related impacts. “There may be polling places affected by mudslides, there may be polling places inaccessible because of damaged roads, there may be polling places with trees that have fallen on them,” Brinson Bell said. There’s no saying, yet, how many of the people who will staff these polling places have been displaced, hurt, or killed by the storm.

Every county in North Carolina must offer at least 13 days of in-person early voting, and right now the state requires counties to open this process on October 17. Cohen said that many counties will struggle to meet that deadline, in particular smaller ones.

“The smaller counties just had one early voting location, and it’s normally at the board of elections office, which is usually downtown,” he said. “Because of the way these mountain towns were laid out in the 1700s or 1800s, they’re near rivers and creeks, so they’re prone to flooding.”

Cohen said he’s heard that the North Carolina legislature, which will convene next week, is considering some flexibility for early voting in affected counties, as well as resources to help these counties establish new voting sites and train up replacement poll workers. He believes the state can still manage a robust election if it provides proper support for local election boards — in other words, he said, “appropriate money.”

But the challenge that eclipses all other voting accessibility issues is the simple fact that people who have been affected by a historic and deadly flood event typically aren’t thinking about where they will cast their ballots — they’re focusing on locating their loved ones, mucking out their houses, finding new housing, filing insurance claims, and dozens of other priorities that trump voting. 

The State Board of Elections in North Carolina has a website where residents can check their voter registration status, register a new permanent or temporary address, and monitor the progress of their mail-in ballot. But even if people wanted to find out where or how to vote, hundreds of thousands of customers in the state are currently without power, WiFi, and cell service. 

For years, political scientists who study the effects of climate change on political turnout have warned about the inevitability of an event like Helene subverting a national election. “Hurricane season in the U.S. — between June and November every year — usually coincides with election season,” a recent report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, or IDEA, said. “The chances of hurricanes disrupting U.S. elections are ever-present and will increase as hurricanes become more common and intense due to climate change.” 

Prior to Helene, four elections were significantly disrupted by hurricanes in the 21st century: Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hurricane Michael in 2018, and Hurricane Ian in 2022. The report by IDEA found that voter turnout can dip precipitously during these events.

“The biggest challenge that we see is not just technology failure, but a decrease in public confidence,” Vasu Mohan, a senior advisor at IDEA who has analyzed how disasters affect elections in dozens of countries, told Grist. “If you’re not prepared, then making last minute accommodations is extremely difficult.” However, Mohan’s research shows that it’s possible to conduct elections fairly after displacement events if communities are given the resources they need. 

“I am very, very worried about how [the storm] will affect voting,” said Abby Werner, a pediatrician who lives in Charlotte, a city in central North Carolina that did not sustain severe damage from the storm. Werner is a Democrat, and makes a point of voting in person. She fears the storm will suppress voter turnout. “In a series of worries it is an additional wave,” she said. 

Brinson Bell’s office will likely face a flurry of lawsuits due to its handling of post-storm voting — it is already navigating a lawsuit, filed by Republican groups prior to the storm, over its handling of hundreds of thousands of voter registrations. But Brinson Bell said the COVID-19 pandemic and prior storms prepared the state for worst-case scenarios. “We held an incredibly successful election with record turnout during the COVID pandemic,” she said. “We’ve battled through hurricanes and tropical storms and still held safe and secure elections. And we will do everything in our power to do so again.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Flood-ravaged North Carolina races to restore voting access after Helene on Oct 2, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

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Three investigators for the Heritage Foundation have deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year, requesting a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives. Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

All three men who filed the requests — Mike Howell, Colin Aamot and Roman Jankowski — did so on behalf of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, an arm of the conservative group that uses FOIA, lawsuits and undercover videos to investigate government activities. In recent months, the group has used information gleaned from the requests to call attention to efforts by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to teach staff about gender diversity, which Fox News characterized as the “Biden administration’s ‘woke’ policies within the Department of Defense.” Heritage also used material gathered from a FOIA search to claim that a listening session the Justice Department held with voting rights activists constituted an attempt to “rig” the presidential election because no Republicans were present.

An analysis of more than 2,000 public-records requests submitted by Aamot, Howell and Jankowski to more than two dozen federal offices and agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission, shows an intense focus on hot-button phrases used by individual government workers.

Those 2,000 requests are just the tip of the iceberg, Howell told ProPublica in an interview. Howell, the executive director of the Oversight Project, estimated that his group had submitted more than 50,000 information requests over the past two years. He described the project as “the most prestigious international investigative operation in the world.”

Among 744 requests that Aamot, Jankowski and Howell submitted to the Department of the Interior over the past year are 161 that seek civil servants’ emails and texts as well as Slack and Microsoft Teams messages that contained terms including “climate change”; “DEI,” or diversity, equity and inclusion; and “GOTV,” an acronym for get out the vote. Many of these FOIAs request the messages of individual employees by name.

Trump has made clear his intentions to overhaul the Department of the Interior, which protects the nation’s natural resources, including hundreds of millions of acres of land. Under President Joe Biden, the department has made tackling climate change a priority.

Hundreds of the requests asked for government employees’ communications with civil rights and voting rights groups, including the ACLU; the Native American Rights Fund; Rock the Vote; and Fair Count, an organization founded by Democratic politician and voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams. Still other FOIAs sought communications that mention “Trump” and “Reduction in Force,” a term that refers to layoffs.

Several requests, including some sent to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, focus on personnel. Some ask for “all employees who entered into a position at the agency as a Political Appointee since January 20, 2021,” the first day of the Biden administration. Others target career employees. Still other FOIAs seek agencies’ “hierarchy charts.”

“It does ring some alarm bells as to whether this is part of an effort to either intimidate government employees or, ultimately, to fire them and replace them with people who are going to be loyal to a leader that they may prefer,” Noah Bookbinder, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, said of the FOIAs.

Asked whether the project gathered the records to facilitate the firing of government workers, Howell said, “Our work is meant to just figure out who the decision-makers are.” He added that his group isn’t focused on simply identifying particular career employees. “It’s more about what the bureaucrats are doing, not who the bureaucrats are,” he said.

Howell said he was speaking on behalf of himself and the Oversight Project. Aamot requested questions in writing, but did not respond further. Jankowski did not reply to a request for comment.

Bookbinder also pointed out that inundating agencies with requests can interfere with the government’s ability to function. “It’s OK to make FOIA requests,” said Bookbinder, who acknowledged that CREW has also submitted its share of requests. “But if you purposely overwhelm the system, you can both cause slower response to FOIAs … and you can gum up other government functions.”

Indeed, a government worker who processes FOIAs for a federal agency told ProPublica that the volume of requests from Heritage interfered with their ability to do their job. “Sometimes they come in at a rate of one a second,” said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The worker said they now spend a third of their work time processing requests from Heritage, including some that seek communications that mention the terms “Biden” and “mental” or “Alzheimer’s” or “dementia” or “defecate” or “poop.”

“They’re taking time away from FOIA requesters that have legitimate requests,” said the worker. “We have to search people’s accounts for poop. This isn’t a thing. I can’t imagine a real reporter putting in a request like that.”

Asked about the comment, Howell said: “I’m paying them, so they should do their damn job and turn over the documents. Their job is not to decide what they think is worth, you know, releasing or not.” He added that “we’re better journalists by any standard than The New York Times.”

Project 2025, which is led by Heritage, became politically toxic — with Trump disavowing the endeavor and Kamala Harris seeking to tie her opponent to the plan — in part for proposing to identify and fire as many as 50,000 career government employees who are deemed “nonperforming” by a future Trump administration. Trump attempted to do this at the end of his first term, issuing an executive order known as “Schedule F” that would have allowed his administration to reclassify thousands of civil servants, making them easier to fire and replace. Biden then repealed it.

Project 2025’s 887-page policy blueprint proposes that the next conservative president reissue that “Schedule F” executive order. That would mean a future Trump administration would have the ability to replace tens of thousands of career government employees with new staffers of their choosing.

To fill those vacancies, as ProPublica has reported, Project 2025 has also recruited, vetted and trained future government employees for a Republican administration. In one training video obtained by ProPublica, a former Trump White House official named Dan Huff says that future government staffers should prepare to enact drastic policy changes if they join the administration.

“If you’re not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you’re afraid it’ll damage your future employment prospects, it’ll harm you socially — look, I get it,” Huff says. “That’s a real danger. It’s a real thing. But please: Do us all a favor and sit this one out.”

Howell, the head of the Oversight Project and one of the FOIA filers, is a featured speaker in one of Project 2025’s training videos, in which he and two other veteran government investigators discuss different forms of government oversight, such as FOIA requests, inspector general investigations and congressional probes. Another speaker in the video, Tom Jones of the American Accountability Foundation, offers advice to prospective government employees in a conservative administration about how to avoid having sensitive or embarrassing emails obtained under the FOIA law — the very strategy that the Oversight Project is now using with the Biden administration.

“If you need to resolve something, if you can do it, it’s probably better to walk down the hall, buttonhole a guy and say, ‘Hey, what are we going to do here?’ Talk through the decision,” Jones says.

“You’re probably better off,” Jones says, “going down to the canteen, getting a cup of coffee, talking it through and making the decision, as opposed to sending him an email and creating a thread that Accountable.US or one of those other groups is going to come back and seek.”

The records requests are far reaching, seeking “full calendar exports” for hundreds of government employees. One FOIA submitted by Aamot sought the complete browser history for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, “whether exported from Chrome, Safari, Windows Explorer, Mozilla.” The most frequent of the three requesters, Aamot, whose online bio describes him as a former psychological operations planner with the Army’s Special Operations Command, submitted some FOIAs on behalf of the Heritage Foundation and others for the Daily Signal. The publication spun off from the Heritage Foundation in June, according to an announcement on the think tank’s website, but another page on the site still seeks donations for both the foundation and the Daily Signal.

ProPublica obtained the Department of Interior requests as well as tallies of FOIAs from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Health Resources and Services Administration through its own public records requests.

Several of the Heritage Foundation’s requests focus on gender, asking for materials federal agencies presented to employees or contractors “mentioning ‘DEI’, ‘Transgender’, ‘Equity’, or ‘Pronouns.’” Aamot sent similar requests to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of Management and Budget, Americorps and the Chemical Safety Board, among other agencies. Howell said he believes that the group has uncovered evidence that “unpopular and just frankly sexually creepy and sexually disordered ideas are now being translated into government jargon, speak, policies, procedures and guidance documents.”

Heritage’s FOIA blitz has even sought information about what government employees are saying about Heritage and its employees, including the three men filing the thousands of FOIAs. One request sent to the Interior Department asks for any documents to and from the agency’s chief FOIA officer that mention Heritage’s president, Kevin Roberts, as well as the names of Aamot, Howell and Jankowski.

Irena Hwang contributed data analysis. Kirsten Berg contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Sharon Lerner and Andy Kroll.

"Senator Schumer put Republicans to the test, and they failed. Trump and the GOP have been scrambling to hide their unpopular, outdated views on reproductive rights, but they’re not fooling anybody.

“Today, every single Republican Senator had a clear chance to protect IVF, something they claim to support, but nearly every single one of them refused. There’s no reason to believe their words when we can see their actions.

"When Republicans send mixed messages on TV and online, look at their voting records. They've consistently voted against protecting personal freedoms—from access to abortion and contraceptives to IVF. For decades, they've chipped away at reproductive rights, and it's only gotten worse since Trump entered politics.

"As attacks on reproductive rights intensify, including MAGA efforts against contraception, we can't let our guard down. Indivisible proudly supports Senator Schumer and Democrats for not only standing up for these fundamental rights, but continuously calling out their Republican colleagues’ blatant lies.

"Millions rely on contraception and IVF to build their families and lives, including Governor Walz who has shared his family's struggles with fertility. These rights are fundamental and widely supported, and Republicans are straight up trying to take them away. It is not only weird – it’s dangerous.

"We commend Senate Democrats for taking decisive and strategic action by bringing this bill for a vote. Between now and November, we’ll make sure every single voter sees through Republican bullshit and knows they voted against IVF protections today.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

It is an experience that many Americans have found themselves in, or will in the future, as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. According to recent polling from the Pew Research Center, seven in 10 Americans said their community experienced an extreme weather event in the past 12 months, including flooding, drought, extreme heat, rising sea levels, or major wildfires. 

The aftermath of a disaster can be terrifying and traumatic, and many victims struggle to secure basic necessities such as food and shelter, or to fill out paperwork for disaster aid and insurance. Finding accurate information about where and how to vote is even harder — so hard, in fact, that many people who have experienced disasters don’t bother to vote at all.

With experts forecasting a historically active hurricane season and a rash of wildfires breaking out across the West, it’s more important than ever to be prepared for disruptions to the voting process in what stands to be a pivotal election year.

The guide below aims to help you navigate early voting, absentee voting, and election day, the rules of which vary widely across the U.S. (Still not registered to vote? You still have time: Find your state’s voter registration rules here.)

In-person voting

If a disaster strikes, the governor can extend voting deadlines, allow ballots to be forwarded to a new address, allow local officials to change or add new polling places, or postpone municipal elections. Those rules are different depending on the state, and in the wake of a disaster that information may be hard to find.

The U.S. Vote Foundation has a tool to access your county election office’s contact information. These range by state; they’re typically county clerks, supervisors, auditors, boards of elections, or election commissions. You can try to contact these offices, but it’s not guaranteed they’ll be able to answer the questions. You can also ask voting rights groups in your area and watch local news for any changes or updates.  

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Extreme weather 101: Your guide to staying prepared and informed

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In the wake of a disaster, first confirm where you should be voting. Has your polling place been damaged or moved? If multiple locations are combined or election day volunteers are scarce post-disaster, be prepared to stand in long lines to vote. If you’re waiting in the heat, make sure to wear comfortable shoes and appropriate clothing (21 states prohibit campaign apparel, so keep that in mind), and bring water. Here are some other resources on heat waves. 

Was your car damaged in a disaster? Need a ride to the polls? Some ride share services and public transit systems offer free rides on Election Day. Here’s more information. 

Early voting

Most states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands offer some form of early voting, which is voting in-person before the election anywhere from a few days to over a month early, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. However, the hours, locations, and timing differ for each. Three states — Alabama, Mississippi ,and New Hampshire — do not allow early in-person voting. 

Early in-person voting is a useful option if you’d like to avoid lines on election day or will be out of town. It’s also an option for people who live in a region of the country prone to natural disasters or have been recently hit by one. In-person voting on election day, which comes at the tail end of “danger season,” may not be a possibility or a priority. Go here to see the specific rules around early voting in your state. 

Absentee ballots

Absentee voting is often called “mail-in voting” or “by-mail voting.” Every state offers this, but some require you to meet certain conditions, like having a valid excuse for why you can’t make it to the polls on election day. Absentee voting can be a particularly useful tool for people who have been recently displaced by extreme weather, or are at risk of being so. It also safeguards voters who live in the hottest parts of the country, where heat can make waiting in long lines dangerous. 

The League of Women Voters explains absentee voting rules by state here. If you reside in a county that gets a federal disaster declaration after a disaster hits, there may be changes to these processes that can offer you more time and flexibility. 

Since it’s the height of hurricane season, we’ve included the registration and absentee ballot request deadlines for hurricane-prone states below:

Florida: Registration deadline is October 7. If voting by mail, you must request an absentee ballot 12 days before the election, no later than 5 p.m. (more here).

Alabama: Registration deadline is 15 days before the election. If voting by mail, request a ballot five days before the election if you’re applying in person, or seven days before if you’re mailing your request (more here).

Mississippi: Mississippi does not have online registration. The deadline is October 7, 30 days before election day. The last day to request an absentee ballot is five days before election day (more here). 

North Carolina: Voter registration deadline is 5 p.m. Friday, October 11, 2024. You must request an absentee ballot no later than a week before the election (more here). 

South Carolina: Registration deadline is October 7, 30 days before the election. You must request an absentee ballot no later than 5:00 p.m. on the 11th day prior to the election (more here).

Louisiana: Online registration deadline is 20 days before election on October 15; in-person or mail is 30 days on October 7. Read the absentee ballot requirements here.

Georgia: Registration deadline is October 7, 30 days before the election. You can request an absentee ballot 11 weeks before the election, and it must be returned two Fridays before (more here).

Texas: Registration deadline is October 7, 30 days before the election. If voting by mail, you must request an absentee ballot 11 days before the election (more here).

Voter ID laws

Each state has a different voter ID law. Some require photo identification, others require a document such as a utility bill, bank statement, or paycheck; some require a signature. The National Conference of State Legislatures has a breakdown of these rules here.

If your ID gets destroyed in a flood, fire, or tornado, your state may be able to exempt you from showing an ID at the polls. For instance, after Hurricane Harvey, Texas residents who lost their ID to floodwaters could vote without one once they filled out an affidavit stating that the voter didn’t have identification because of a natural disaster. Your state may also waive the fees associated with getting a new ID.

The best way to find this information out is to contact your county clerk or other election official, or contact a voting rights group in your area. 

Know your rights

Just as there are strict rules in states around how people can cast ballots, there are also many others that dictate what happens outside of polling places. In most states, you can accept water and food from groups around election sites, but there is misinformation around whether or not it is legal. After the 2020 election, Georgia passed a law prohibiting this within a certain buffer zone. A judge struck down part of that law: there is no longer a ban on handing things to votes with 25 feet of them standing in line, but it’s still illegal to do so within 150 feet of the building where ballots are being cast. 

Call or text 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683) to report voter intimidation to the Election Protection Coalition. You can also find more information on voter rights from the ACLU. 

Did we miss something? Please let us know by emailing community@grist.org.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Your guide to voting after a disaster on Aug 20, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Lyndsey Gilpin.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both have more blood on their hands than either of these serial killers, and they promise to kill many more. Both of them supported the latest $20 billion to Israel, to keep the project to eradicate the people of Gaza on schedule. Voting for them means giving them permission and encouragement to keep the rivers of blood flowing, so I won’t do it. I might vote for Jill Stein or the Libertarian candidate, but I’m inclined not to play the game. It’s a personal choice — a symbolic one, you might contend.

But so is yours, if you are voting for a major party candidate. Did you select either of them to be a candidate? Can you think of a better one? Of course you can. In fact, every one of you is probably a better candidate yourself. That’s why your vote is symbolic. You don’t win either way. And either way, your vote says to the party or candidate, “Your support for genocide is not going to keep me from voting for you.”

What can we do about it? As Emma Goldman said, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” That was a century ago, and it is more true today — with Citizens United solidifying corporate and special interest (e.g. AIPAC) control of our elections and our electeds — than it was then. Our only influence in government is with issues that have little interest for the powerful, such as women’s reproductive rights, other than to be used by the powerful to manipulate and deceive us into thinking that our vote makes a difference.

As individuals, we must take responsibility for our participation in this rigged game. Are we willing to vote for one mass murderer over another just for the opportunity to play? Daddy, what did you do during the Great Genocide?

Collectively, a voter strike might be in order. Vote None of the Above! Perhaps we need a new movement that defies the system rather than participating in it. Picket the polling stations and tell people not to vote, that doing so sends the message that they support genocide.

I have no illusions how difficult it is to create a mass movement, especially one that seeks to wrest control from those who rule us. But genocide puts special obligations upon us. Individually, at the very least, our integrity is at stake. Are you actually going to participate — and be complicit — in genocide? We all have choices. Let your conscience decide. Make yourself and your descendants proud of you.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Larudee.

“The court has spoken,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the office of the Georgia Secretary of State, said in a statement. “We are on track to resume elections for the Public Service Commission in 2025.”

The advocates who sued said they’re considering how to proceed — the commission’s decisions, which include everything from energy rates and discounts to building new power plants, remain as important as ever, they told Grist and WABE.

“People are not able to pay rent, they’re not able to feed their families,” said James Woodall, a public policy associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights and one of the plaintiffs in the case. “So when I think about the decision, or lack thereof, to take on this case, I thought about those people.”

Each of Georgia’s Public Service Commissioners has to live in a specific district, but unlike members of congress they’re elected by statewide vote. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, all Black voters in Atlanta, argued this system dilutes their votes and therefore violates the Voting Rights Act. While a federal judge agreed, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees courts in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, overturned that decision. With the announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will not consider the case, the 11th Circuit ruling will stand, leaving the system as-is.

Public Service Commission, or PSC, elections in Georgia, meanwhile, have been on hold since 2022, when the original judge issued a stay blocking any election until a new system could be devised — a decision the Supreme Court upheld. Two elections were canceled that year, and those commissioners were allowed to continue to serve and vote; a third commissioner who was up for reelection this year will also continue to serve without facing voters.

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“We have had these commissioners sitting in their seats pretty much unelected,” said Brionté McCorkle, another plaintiff and the executive director of the nonprofit Georgia Conservation Voters. “They’re making incredibly important decisions that are impacting the lives of Georgians and also impacting the climate crisis.”

The five-member Public Service Commission has final approval over most steps taken by Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility, including how much the company charges for energy and how it makes that power. Since the cancellation of the 2022 elections, the commissioners have approved the construction of new natural gas turbines as well as bill increases to cover natural gas costs and construction of the newest nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle. Next year, they’ll make all-important decisions about Georgia Power’s future energy plans, including possible expansions of renewable energy and closure of coal plants, and the next several years of power rates — all before voters have the chance to send new representatives to the commission.

Under a state law passed this year, PSC elections would resume in 2025 with votes for two seats. The law lays out an election schedule for all five seats that would leave the current commissioners in power beyond their original six-year terms.

The plaintiffs are considering a challenge to that law, McCorkle said, though they’ve made no final decisions.

“We definitely feel like that is all very problematic,” she said of the law’s election schedule. “We’re gonna keep fighting for the people of Georgia.”

While McCorkle called the Supreme Court’s decision “a bummer,” she said she also felt “a little bit of relief” because there was no guarantee the high court would side with the plaintiffs.

Voting rights advocates are concerned about the implications of the 11th Circuit’s ruling, which didn’t weigh in on whether the plaintiffs had proven their votes were unfairly diluted. Rather, the appeals court argued a federal court can’t overrule the state’s choice to hold at-large elections because it would violate the “principles of federalism.”

“They endorsed the notion that the state has a vested interest in disenfranchising Black Georgians,” Woodall said. “For me, it is an endorsement that reflects over generations and generations of discrimination.”

Woodall, McCorkle, and others said they plan to continue educating Georgians about the PSC, as well as holding commissioners accountable.

“We’re gonna make sure people know who you are and what you do and that they can call you, call the commissioners, and make sure their voices are heard and represented in the decisions that they’re making,” McCorkle said of the commissioners. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline After SCOTUS decision, Georgia will keep ‘problematic’ voting system for energy regulators on Jun 26, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Emily Jones.

“The court has spoken,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the office of the Georgia Secretary of State, said in a statement. “We are on track to resume elections for the Public Service Commission in 2025.”

The advocates who sued said they’re considering how to proceed — the commission’s decisions, which include everything from energy rates and discounts to building new power plants, remain as important as ever, they told Grist and WABE.

“People are not able to pay rent, they’re not able to feed their families,” said James Woodall, a public policy associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights and one of the plaintiffs in the case. “So when I think about the decision, or lack thereof, to take on this case, I thought about those people.”

Each of Georgia’s Public Service Commissioners has to live in a specific district, but unlike members of congress they’re elected by statewide vote. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, all Black voters in Atlanta, argued this system dilutes their votes and therefore violates the Voting Rights Act. While a federal judge agreed, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees courts in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, overturned that decision. With the announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will not consider the case, the 11th Circuit ruling will stand, leaving the system as-is.

Public Service Commission, or PSC, elections in Georgia, meanwhile, have been on hold since 2022, when the original judge issued a stay blocking any election until a new system could be devised — a decision the Supreme Court upheld. Two elections were canceled that year, and those commissioners were allowed to continue to serve and vote; a third commissioner who was up for reelection this year will also continue to serve without facing voters.

Read Next

Want clean electricity? These are the overlooked elected officials who get to decide.

Emily Jones

“We have had these commissioners sitting in their seats pretty much unelected,” said Brionté McCorkle, another plaintiff and the executive director of the nonprofit Georgia Conservation Voters. “They’re making incredibly important decisions that are impacting the lives of Georgians and also impacting the climate crisis.”

The five-member Public Service Commission has final approval over most steps taken by Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility, including how much the company charges for energy and how it makes that power. Since the cancellation of the 2022 elections, the commissioners have approved the construction of new natural gas turbines as well as bill increases to cover natural gas costs and construction of the newest nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle. Next year, they’ll make all-important decisions about Georgia Power’s future energy plans, including possible expansions of renewable energy and closure of coal plants, and the next several years of power rates — all before voters have the chance to send new representatives to the commission.

Under a state law passed this year, PSC elections would resume in 2025 with votes for two seats. The law lays out an election schedule for all five seats that would leave the current commissioners in power beyond their original six-year terms.

The plaintiffs are considering a challenge to that law, McCorkle said, though they’ve made no final decisions.

“We definitely feel like that is all very problematic,” she said of the law’s election schedule. “We’re gonna keep fighting for the people of Georgia.”

While McCorkle called the Supreme Court’s decision “a bummer,” she said she also felt “a little bit of relief” because there was no guarantee the high court would side with the plaintiffs.

Voting rights advocates are concerned about the implications of the 11th Circuit’s ruling, which didn’t weigh in on whether the plaintiffs had proven their votes were unfairly diluted. Rather, the appeals court argued a federal court can’t overrule the state’s choice to hold at-large elections because it would violate the “principles of federalism.”

“They endorsed the notion that the state has a vested interest in disenfranchising Black Georgians,” Woodall said. “For me, it is an endorsement that reflects over generations and generations of discrimination.”

Woodall, McCorkle, and others said they plan to continue educating Georgians about the PSC, as well as holding commissioners accountable.

“We’re gonna make sure people know who you are and what you do and that they can call you, call the commissioners, and make sure their voices are heard and represented in the decisions that they’re making,” McCorkle said of the commissioners. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline After SCOTUS decision, Georgia will keep ‘problematic’ voting system for energy regulators on Jun 26, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Emily Jones.

Congress leader Arunesh Kumar Yadav (@YadavArunesh) shared the clip on X (Twitter) and wrote, “See the lowest level of democracy. Army jawans were given the responsibility of casting fake votes! Now there is no need to say on whose orders all this is happening because votes are being cast in favour of BJP!! How low will the people of BJ Party stoop to in politics just to win one election? How much will you shame democracy? How much will you trouble the common people? Just keep watching!!”

Readers should note that Yadav has been found by Alt News peddling misinformation in the past.

लोकतंत्र का न्यूनतम स्तर देखिए

आर्मी के जवानों को फर्जी वोट डलवाने की जिम्मेदारी सौंप दी गई! अब यह कहने की जरूरत नहीं है कि किसके इशारे पर यह सब हो रहा है , क्योंकि वोट बीजेपी के पक्ष में डलवाए जा रहे हैं!!

सिर्फ एक चुनाव जीतने के लिए BJ पार्टी के लोग राजनीति के स्तर को… pic.twitter.com/SX6ERSeWeb

— Dr. Arunesh Kumar Yadav (डॉ अरुणेश यादव) (@YadavArunesh) May 8, 2024

Several users shared the video with similar claims on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and YouTube (Video- 1, 2, 3).

Alt News has received several requests on its WhatsApp helpline for authenticating the clip.

Fact Check

We broke down the viral video into key frames using Invid software and then reverse-searched one of the images on Google. This led us to a 2019 YouTube video uploaded by ‘SHAAN E KASHMIR’. The video was uploaded on May 3, 2019. This shows that the incident is at least 5-year old and is not related to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Taking a cue from this, we performed a Google keyword search with a specific time filter, which led us to a 2019 ANI report titled, ‘MP: Army officers claim miscreants obstructed them from casting votes, lodge complaint’. The report stated, “Army officials in Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur have filed a complaint against unidentified miscreants for allegedly trying to snatch their voter ID cards of general voters, obstructing Army voters posted in Cantonment there and circulating videos to malign the Army’s image, on April 29.”

The ANI report also featured the complaint letter which saied, “On 29 April 2019, day of voting for Parliamentary Elections, soldiers and their spouses of the Grenadiers Regimental Centre proceeded to cast their votes on a bona fide transport viz Army vehicle at Booth no 146, Swami Vivekananda Higher Secondary School, Katanga, Jabalpur. At booth no 146 when the soldiers of the Indian Army were in the process of exercising their right to vote, certain miscreants approached and snatched their voter identity cards by using criminal force and tried to obstruct them from casting their votes. ”

The letter further mentioned that “…By circulating the video in the social media there has been a deliberate attempt by the unidentified miscreants to malign the image of the Indian Army and its soldiers participating peacefully in the democratic process.”

In a 2019 Times of India report, Lt. Gen GS Sangha, who also served as the Colonel of the Grenadiers Regiment, explained the incident and wrote, “On 29 April 2019, polling was in progress in Jabalpur. Army sent its troops, including families and recruits to vote in Jabalpur as Constitutionally provided, after registering them as Service voters wherever they are posted because they cannot be sent back to their hometowns to vote on that day. Can you imagine the entire Army leaving the borders to go home and vote? Army vehicle is parked a kilometre away on a main road. They all go to the polling booth and start voting in a disciplined manner, guided and controlled by their seniors only for their conduct in public and not to tell them who to vote for, as good Armies always do everything in good faith.”

Sangha added, “The goons of some political party do not know that the Constitution allows Army people to vote wherever they are posted after proper registration and issue of voter cards. They think the Army cannot vote there and that the ruling party is rigging the elections forcibly by using the Army. The goons start a ruckus. Army people walk back peacefully to their vehicle. They are chased by political goons who make a video saying whatever they want. Armymen avoid talking to them as per orders not to get involved with rogues. The goons and many irresponsible countrymen among us make the video viral…Army has today lodged an FIR and a complaint with EC.”

To sum up, a video showing Indian army officials being accused of canvassing for the BJP and casting proxy votes in the party’s favour has gone viral on social media. Users have shared the video and linked the incident to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. However, our fact check revealed that the video was from 2019. A senior official of the Indian National Army had refuted the viral claim and an FIR was lodged against the people who recorded the video. According to the officials, the army officials depicted in the viral clip were neither canvassing for any political party nor were they casting proxy votes. They were trying to cast their own votes in a booth in Jabalpur.

Abira Das is an intern at Alt News.

The post Army men stopped from voting in Jabalpur in 2019; video falsely viral appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abira Das.

Adivasi Samachar shared this video without any context, associating it with the first phase of polling in the 2024 general elections on April 19, and claimed that a person, enraged with Narendra Modi, damaged the EVM unit.

भाई ने तो EVM के कर डाले टुकड़े टुकड़े गुस्से में दिमाग खराब मोदी जी के चक्कर में pic.twitter.com/kRWgx4VTYG

— आदिवासी समाचार (@AadivasiSamachr) April 19, 2024

User Pukhraj Bishnoi also tweeted the video on election day without providing any context, labelling it as an expression of anger directed towards EVMs.

Fact Check

Alt News performed a reverse image search using a frame taken from the viral video. This led us to a news article on the website of the Star of Mysore newspaper published on May 12, 2023. According to this report, during the Karnataka legislative assembly elections on May 10, 2023, a man was arrested for allegedly damaging an EVM at a polling booth in the Chamundeshwari constituency. The individual was identified as 48-year-old Shivamurti. After signing the register, he suddenly lifted the ballot control unit and slammed it on the ground, causing damage. The police apprehended him, replaced the damaged ballot control unit, and resumed the voting process smoothly. The Vijayanagar police issued a statement saying that Shivamurti was mentally unwell and was released after questioning. The Hindu also reported on the incident.

Hence, a video of a person damaging an EVM unit during the 2023 Karnataka legislative assembly elections was shared without context, falsely associated with the first phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The post Old video of man damaging voting machine shared with misleading claims appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

French authorities have imposed a curfew on New Caledonia’s capital Nouméa and banned public gatherings after supporters of the Pacific territory’s independence movement blocked roads, set fire to buildings and clashed with security forces.

Tensions in New Caledonia have been inflamed by French government’s plans to give the vote to tens of thousands of French immigrants to the Melanesian island chain.

The enfranchisement would create a significant obstacle to the self-determination aspirations of the indigenous Kanak people.

• READ MORE:  ‘A lot of fire, violence’: Nouméa erupts as protests halt New Caledonia
• NZ foreign minister Peters cancels New Caledonia visit as unrest erupts
• Botched prison mutiny, protests ahead of New Caledonia constitution vote
• Other New Caledonia reports

“Very intense public order disturbances took place last night in Noumea and in neighboring towns, and are still ongoing at this time,” French High Commissioner to New Caledonia Louis Le Franc said in a statement today.

About 36 people were arrested and numerous police were injured, the statement said.

French control of New Caledonia and its surrounding islands gives the European nation a security and diplomatic role in the Pacific at a time when the US, Australia and other Western countries are pushing back against China’s inroads in the region.

Kanaks make up about 40 percent of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalised in their own land — they have lower incomes and poorer health than Europeans who make up a third of the population and predominate positions of power in the territory.

Buildings, cars set ablaze
Video and photos posted online showed buildings set ablaze, burned out vehicles at luxury car dealerships and security forces using tear gas to confront groups of protestors waving Kanaky flags and throwing petrol bombs at city intersections in the worst rioting in decades.

A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed today and could be renewed as long as necessary, the high commissioner’s statement said.

Public gatherings in greater Noumea are banned and the sale of alcohol and carrying or transport of weapons is prohibited throughout New Caledonia.

The violence erupted as the National Assembly, the lower house of France’s Parliament, debated a constitutional amendment to “unfreeze” the electoral roll, which would enfranchise relative newcomers to New Caledonia.

It is scheduled to vote on the measure this afternoon in Paris. The French Senate approved the amendment in April.

Local Congress opposes amendment
New Caledonia’s territorial Congress, where pro-independence groups have a majority, on Monday passed a resolution that called for France to withdraw the amendment.

It said political consensus has “historically served as a bulwark against intercommunity tensions and violence” in New Caledonia.

“Any unilateral decision taken without prior consultation of New Caledonian political leaders could compromise the stability of New Caledonia,” the resolution said.

L’Eau vive semble aux mains des manifestants pic.twitter.com/6qAuW4hMYI

— Charlotte Mannevy (@CMannevy) May 13, 2024

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told his country’s legislature that about 42,000 people — about one in five possible voters in New Caledonia — are denied the right to vote under the 1998 Noumea Accord between France and the independence movement that froze the electoral roll.

“Democracy means voting,” he said.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence government — the first in its history — could lose power in elections due in December if the electoral roll is enlarged.

New Caledonia voted by small majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three ballots were organised as part of the Noumea Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

Referendum legitimacy rejected
A contentious final referendum in 2022 was overwhelmingly in favour of continuing with the status quo. However, supporters of independence have rejected its legitimacy due to very low turnout — it was boycotted by the independence movement — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

Representatives of the FLNKS (Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialist) independence movement did not respond to interview requests.

“When there’s no hope in front of us, we will fight, we will struggle. We’ll make sure you understand what we are talking about,” Patricia Goa, a New Caledonian politician said in an interview last month with Australian public broadcaster ABC.

“Things can go wrong and our past shows that,” she said.

Confrontations between protesters and security forces are continuing in Noumea.

Darmanin has ordered reinforcements be sent to New Caledonia, including hundreds of police, urban violence special forces and elite tactical units.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Used with the permission of BenarNews.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

right Wing influencer Arun Pudur tweeted the letter, claiming that the Association of Sunni Muslims in Dubai was providing complete financial assistance to Muslims in Karnataka to help Congress form the government. He sarcastically remarked that Hindus were either sleeping at home due to the intense heat or falsely claiming that the prime minister had done nothing for them.

An X handle named Indu Makkal Katchi also tweeted the letter, claiming that the ‘Muslim Board in Karnataka’ was spending money to get Indian Muslims residing in Saudi Arabia to vote for Congress.

A handle known to frequently promote misinformation (@AmitLeliSlayer) also shared the letter on X, claiming that Congress was receiving international support.

BJP supporter Saravanaprasad Balasubramaniam tweeted the letter as well, stating that Sunni Muslims in Dubai planned to reimburse the flight expenses for Muslims participating in the Karnataka elections on May 7 so that they could fly in and vote for Congress.

Fact Check

We performed a Google search and found that the address provided on the letter (#2-11TH STREET KHALID BIN WALEED ROAD PLOT NO. UMM HURAIR ONE DUBAI-UNITED ARAB EMIRATES) was listed as the office address of the Consulate General of Pakistan in Dubai on their official website. This means that this address does not belong to any Sunni Muslim organisation.

Furthermore, there was no information available on the internet about such an organisation.

This letter contains three contact numbers. When we searched these numbers, we found that the first number mentioned in the letter was shared by the company Dallmayr, a coffee vending machine manufacturer in Dubai, from its X handle. This means that this number does not belong to any Muslim organisation. We have attempted to contact the remaining two mobile numbers mentioned in the letter, and this article will be updated if we receive a response.

To sum it up, the information provided in this letter is false, and it has no connection to any organisation or appeal to Muslims. Several users have shared this dubious letter, making false claims that a Sunni Muslim organisation in Dubai would be reimbursing the flight expenses of Muslims in Karnataka to vote for Congress.

The post Letter promising financial aid to Muslims voting for Congress is not genuine appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

Larry Hamm is chair of the People’s Organization for Progress and a Princeton alumnus who took part in protests at the school in the 1970s to call for divestment from apartheid South Africa. He visited the Princeton student encampment earlier this week and says he is “really proud of the students” for their protest against the war in Gaza. Hamm, who is running in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey, is promoting a vote for “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary vote. “I’m totally opposed to the Biden administration’s approach to this genocidal war in Gaza. There must be an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and the United States should cease any military aid to Israel.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The day Trump acknowledge Blacks for Trump in Sanford, Flordia.

An NBC poll shows 16 percent support for Donald Trump among Black voters. Is it because they haven’t studied how a Trump regime would affect Blacks?

Trump wanted to shoot those who were demonstrating under the Black Lives Matter banner. Even though FBI statistics show a decrease in crime, he’s threatened to use the army to combat crime, which means the occupation of Black neighborhoods, which is where the media locates crime even though there are higher crime rates in some Red States and contrary to Senator Tim Scott’s singling out New York and San Francisco as the centers of U.S. crime, crime has declined in both places.

A series of articles and reports have pointed to the inadequate treatment that Black men and women, especially women, receive from the health industry. Obamacare has improved the care that millions of Blacks and browns receive. Trump wants to eliminate Obamacare.

His and Senator McConnell’s Supreme Court’s anti-Abortion position is leading to the deaths of American women, particularly Black women, adding to thousands of Blacks who died as a result of Trump’s incompetent handling of the COVID crisis.

Thousands of Blacks who are civil servants will lose their jobs if Trump follows Steve Bannon’s demand that the administrative state be dismantled. We’re back to Woodrow Wilson, who rid the Civil Service of Blacks.

When Trump was incensed by Black football players taking the knee to protest injustice, he called them “sons of bitches.”

Maybe the Rappers with millions of followers who support Trump are comfortable with a rapist who calls Black mothers “bitches,” but I don’t think that things have changed since I was a member of the AME Zion Church.

The church broke away from the white Methodists over discrimination. More than Easter, the Sundays devoted to the celebration of mothers saw the highest church attendance. Calling Black mothers “bitches” in 2017, I believe began Trump’s unraveling. When Rappers are asked why they support Trump, they sound ignorant or unhinged. These Rappers receive enormous publicity from corporate media outlets like The New York Times because they draw youthful subscribers. As a result, they have replaced the traditional Black leadership as spokespersons for Blacks. Another bill that you have to pay if you are Black in America.

Some Black men support Trump because he is charismatic and exciting. Gail Collins wrote in the Times, “He’s fun to watch.” He has excited the country into a state of burnout. I know I’m tired.

Ishmael Reed’s latest play, “The Shine Challenge, 2024” will be Zoomed until April 15: info@nuyorican.org

The post Voting For a Man Who Called Black Mothers Bitches? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ishmael Reed.

Demonstrations have been held in New Caledonia — with more protests expected — from both pro- and anti-independence supporters after the French Senate endorsed a constitutional amendment bill to “unfreeze” the French Pacific territory’s electoral roll.

The Senators endorsed a move from the French government to allow French citizens to vote at local elections, provided they have been residing for at least 10 uninterrupted years.

The Senate vote will be followed by a similar vote in the French National Assembly (Lower House) on 13 May.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonian politics reports

In June, both Houses of Parliament (the Senate and National Assembly) will gather to give a final green light to the text with a majority of two-thirds required for it to pass.

The Senate vote in Paris on Tuesday has since triggered numerous reactions from both the pro-France and the pro-independence parties.

Southern Province president and leader of the pro-France party Les Loyalistes, Sonia Backès, hailed the Senate’s decision, saying it came “despite strong pressures from the pro-independence parties”.

She said “we have to stay mobilised” in the face of the two other planned votes in the next few weeks, she said, announcing more demonstrations from the pro-France sympathisers, including one next Saturday.

Counter protests
On March 28, both pro-France and pro-independence militant supporters gathered in the thousands in downtown Nouméa, only a few hundred metres away on opposite sides of Nouméa’s iconic Coconut Square (now renamed Peace Square) — one in front of the Congress, the other in front of the local government’s building.

The marches each gathered more than 10,000 supporters under strong surveillance from some 500 police and security forces, who ensured the two crowds did not clash. No significant incident was reported.

Several officials have taken to social media to comment on the issue.

New Caledonia constituency’s MP in the National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, posted that the electoral roll changes were “a national and international legal obligation” and “those who are calling [New] Caledonians to take to the streets to oppose this are taking a considerable risk”.

Pro-France Rassemblement (local) Congress caucus president Virgine Ruffenach posted: “We are engaged in a struggle for justice, for a democratic Caledonian society which respects international rules and does not reject anyone.”

French Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin, who initiated the constitutional amendment, wrote that the French government “remains more than ever open to a local agreement and has a mechanism in place that will allow to take the time to finalise it”.

Darmanin was referring to a related political issue — the need, as prescribed by the 1998 political Nouméa Accord, for all parties to meet and inclusively arrive at a political agreement regarding New Caledonia’s future.

The agreement is supposed to replace the Nouméa Accord and, in order to allow more time for those talks to produce some kind of a joint text, the dates for this year’s provincial elections have been postponed from May 2024 to December 15, 2024 “at the latest”.

‘Strong message to Paris’
On the pro-independence side, FLNKS-Union Calédonienne Congress caucus president Pierre-Channel Tutugoro conceded that the Senate vote’s results were “something to be expected”.

“Now we’re waiting for what comes next [the National Assembly and French Congress votes] and then we’ll know whether things will eventuate,” he said.

The Union Calédonienne, one major component of the four-party pro-independence FLNKS, has in a few months revived a so-called CCAT (Cellule de Coordination des Actions de Terrain, or Field Action Coordination Cell).

The CCAT, consisting of non-FLNKS pro-independence parties and trade unions, has since organised several demonstrations, including one on March 28 and the latest on April 2, the day the Senate vote took place.

This week, CCAT claimed it managed to gather about 30,000 participants, but the French High Commission’s count was 6000.

Reacting to the Senate vote on Wednesday, CCAT head Christian Tein announced more protest marches against the “unfreezing” of the electoral roll were to come . . . the next one being as soon as April 13 “to keep on sending a strong message to Paris”.

Tein said the march was scheduled to take place on Nouméa’s central Peace Square.

The protesters once again intend to ask that the French government withdraw its text, claiming the French state is no longer impartial and that it is trying to “force its way” to impose its local electoral roll change.

The same date was also chosen by pro-France leaders and sympathisers who want to make a demonstration of force to show their determination to have their voting rights recognised through this proposed constitutional amendment.

PALIKA to ‘review strategy’
Meanwhile, another major component of the FLNKS, the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA), held its general assembly last weekend.

Its spokesman, Jean-Pierre Djaïwé, told a news conference that PALIKA, while deploring that New Caledonia’s politics had significantly “radicalised”, was now considering “reviewing its strategy”.

He said PALIKA and FLNKS, who recently have displayed differences, must now reaffirm a strategy of unity and “the pro-independence movement’s will to work towards a peaceful future”.

“There’s no other alternative,” he said.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Ollongren told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service during a visit to Kyiv on March 21 that a plan to deliver 24 F-16s jets is on track, with the first aircraft coming from Denmark.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

"I think we are on track to see deliveries, first Danish this summer, and then we're going to scale up," she said while declining to give the exact number of planes involved in the first delivery.

"We know that we will start with the Danish F-16s, that is now in our planning and in the Ukrainian planning. And in the end, I mean, it doesn't matter anymore. If it's a Dutch or Danish or Norwegian F-16 because [the planes are] going to be Ukrainian."

The arrival of the fighter jets will be a long-awaited development to help Kyiv fill a crucial hole in its defense capabilities.

Russia has used its more advanced and more numerous jets to repeatedly bomb Ukrainian cities, slow its counteroffensive, and threaten its ships exporting grain crucial to its economic survival, making Kyiv’s acquisition of modern U.S. jets a key ingredient to its successful defense of the country.

Ukraine inherited an aging fleet of Soviet MiG and Sukhoi jets that lack the strike depth and technology of modern Russian jets, putting Kyiv at a significant disadvantage in the war. Ukraine also has a much smaller fleet than Russia.

The more advanced F-16s would allow Ukrainian pilots to strike deep into Russian controlled areas and with great accuracy, intercept missiles that have terrorized Ukraine cities, and take on Russian jets that threaten its shipping lanes.

Ollongren said the key to the effectiveness of the jets will be the training of both pilots and technical staff to ensure they operate at peak performance.

"It is of no use if you don't know how to use [them] most effectively, and that requires training and that requires the right people for the maintenance and the right infrastructure. So when you get [them], you know that you will be able to use [them]," she said.

"So once...Ukraine gets the F-16, everything has to be in place, including, of course, how to protect them."

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the country has been backed by the United States, the European Union, and other Western allies.

Russia launched a missile attack on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, early on March 21, injuring at least 10 people and damaging residential buildings and industrial facilities, city officials said.

But a new $60-billion aid package to Ukraine has been stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives as Republican lawmakers demand deep changes to domestic immigration policy.

With Washington's funding spigots turned off for the time being, the European Union has been moving to increase its assistance.

Earlier this week, the European Council approved the creation of the Ukraine Assistance Fund (UAF) and earmarked 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) for it to be used for the provision of both "lethal and nonlethal military equipment and training."

Ollongren said the holdup in the United States on new aid is "a bit frustrating," but given the threat Russia's aggression poses to Europe, the 27-nation EU will continue to push to increase aid levels.

"We are working on increasing production levels...For Ukraine, it's an existential threat. But for Europe, it's also an existential threat. So it is in our best interest," to continue aid to Kyiv, she said.

"It's also in the America's best interest to continue that support and to step it up and to do more," she added.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

An “organic law” to postpone New Caledonia’s provincial elections has passed the final hurdle and been endorsed by the French National Assembly.

During a session on Monday marked by poor attendance (only 104 MPs out of 577) and sometimes heated debates, 71 French MPs voted in favour and 31 against.

Late February, the same Bill was also endorsed by the French Upper House, the Senate, by a large majority of 307 for and 34 against.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia politics reports

The “organic law” effectively moves the date of New Caledonia’s provincial elections (initially scheduled for May 2024) to December 15 “at the latest”.

The date change was clearly designed to provide more time for local politicians to arrive at an inclusive and bipartisan agreement which would lay the foundations for a political agreement and a new institutional status after the Nouméa Accord (signed in 1998) has been in force in the French Pacific archipelago for the past 25 years.

The Accord had prescribed that three self-determination referendums should take place in New Caledonia, which was the case over the past five years.

All three consultations (held in 2018, 2020 and 2021) yielded a narrow “no” to independence, although the third one (held in late 2021) had been contested by the pro-independence movement after a boycott due to the impact of the covid pandemic on indogenous Kanaks.

The Nouméa Accord stipulated that after those three referendums had been held, and if they had resulted in three “no” notes, then politicians should meet and hold forward-looking talks to analyse “the situation thus created”.

Over the past two years, France has tried to create the conditions for those talks to be held, but some components of the pro-independence umbrella FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) are yet to join the local and inclusive format of the political talks.

In the pro-French camp, divisions have also surfaced with some parties attending talks but refusing to sit with other pro-French components.

Constitutional changes
The postponement of provincial elections now paves the way for another French government project, promoted by Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin — who has visited New Caledonia half a dozen times since 2023 — for a constitutional amendment directly related to New Caledonia’s political future.

The amendment is also related to local elections in the sense that it purports to modify the conditions of eligibility once prescribed, on a transitional basis, by the Nouméa Accord.

What has been since referred to as the “frozen” electoral roll (enforced since 2007) allowed only French citizens who had resided in New Caledonia before 1998 to vote in those provincial elections (for the three parliaments of the Southern, Northern and Loyalty Islands provinces).

The Constitutional amendment, if adopted by the French Congress (a special joint gathering of both the Upper and Lower Houses — the Senate and the National Assembly) by a majority of three fifths, would now change this and allow citizens to vote in the local elections provided they have been residing in New Caledonia for at least 10 uninterrupted years.

Darmanin has on several occasions defended the draft amendment, saying the “frozen” roll was not compatible with France’s “democratic principles” — that it effectively denied about 25,000 citizens (both indigenous Kanaks and non-Kanaks) in New Caledonia the right to vote at the local elections.

The new text would re-introduce “minimal democratic conditions”.

The constitutional amendment has been strongly criticised by pro-independence parties, who fear the “unfrozen” version of the electoral roll would create a situation whereby they could become a minority.

Currently, through the old system, pro-independence parties hold the majority in two of the three provincial assemblies (North and Loyalty Islands) as well as in New Caledonia’s territorial government (presided by a pro-independence leader, Louis Mapou).

The provincial elections results are also crucial in the sense that they are followed by a “trickle-down” effect — the Congress (territorial parliament) makeup is based on their results, and, in turn, the Congress members choose New Caledonia’s President who then chooses a “collegial” government.

“The minimum 10-year period seems perfectly reasonable and those who are against this are in fact against democracy,” Darmanin told reporters during his latest visit to New Caledonia last month.

Constitutional amendment debates
The postponement of provincial elections is designed to give local politicians more time to arrive at a French-desired local, inclusive and consensual agreement on New Caledonia’s political and institutional future.

Darmanin has also repeatedly insisted that if such agreement was reached “before July 1”, the French-drafted constitutional amendment would be replaced by the contents agreed locally and then submitted to the French Congress.

“I’ve always said that if there was a local agreement, even if we were just a few metres away from concluding such an agreement, we would look at the possibility of postponing or even stopping the constitutional process to include the new text,” he stressed last month.

Process gaining momentum
“But for now, all I can see is people not turning up at meetings and not taking their responsibilities,” he added.

The pro-independence umbrella FLNKS is due to hold its Congress on 23 March 23 amid apparent divisions within its component parties.

The French-drafted constitutional amendment is to begin its legislative journey on March 20 before the Senate’s Law Committee, then on March 27 during a Senate debate and then on May 13 before the French National Assembly.

Over the past few days, several French MPs have visited New Caledonia during fact-finding field missions.

The first one was a delegation of four MPs from the French Senate’s Law Committee which met a wide spectrum of local politicians ahead of the March 20 session in Paris.

Over two days, they claim to have held 26 “auditions” with a wide range of political and administrative players in New Caledonia in order to “better understand everyone’s respective positions”.

“Discussions were frank and in a climate of trust”, delegation leader and the Senate’s Law Committee President, Senator François-Noël Buffet, told a press conference on Monday.

Politicians urged to find their own agreement
“We would have liked an inclusive agreement between all of New Caledonia’s players. But for the time being, it’s not there yet . . .  But if an agreement comes, we’ll take it . . .  In fact, it would be best if things did not drag for too long,” Buffet said.

Before the senatorial visit, three MPs from the French National Assembly have also spent three days in New Caledonia, as part of a similar fact-finding mission.

But their trip came under a wider mission that also included French Polynesia and Wallis-and-Futuna to study possible statutory and institutional “evolutions” for France’s overseas territories.

They also commented on New Caledonia’s proposed constitutional amendment.

“This is a real tension-generating project . . .  It is therefore important that an agreement is found between [New] Caledonia’s politicians and to avoid that the French Parliament has to make a decision on New Caledonia’s future status.

“A decision concerning the future of nearly 300,000 people should not be left to French MPs, who know nothing about New Caledonia’s issues,” MP Davy Rimane told a press conference in Nouméa last Friday.

“So I’m urging my Caledonian colleagues to reach an agreement.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia's 11 time zones in time for the "Noon Against Putin" protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country's longest-serving leader.

Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.

Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.

Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.

Putin's greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.

Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot -- Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.

Despite Navalny's death, his support for the idea of using the "Noon Against Putin" action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia's restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.

While it was difficult to determine voters' reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia's Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.

Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.

"The action has achieved its goals," said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. "The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin."

The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.

The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.

Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny's name.

In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.

Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.

Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the "Noon Against Putin" campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.

The Moscow prosecutor's office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts "containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation."

Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”

But she warned that there are "some basic safety rules that you can follow if you're worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on."

The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled "How to Protect Yourself" ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and "do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason."

Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country's 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.

Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.

Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin's authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as "zelyonka" and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.

Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.

Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia's Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.

On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as "villains" and "traitors" who are aiding the country's enemies, particularly Ukraine.

"This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today," he said on Telegram. "Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison]," he added.

Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.

On March 17, Russia's Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia's southwestern border with Ukraine.

On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.

The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.

Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv's SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries -- Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.

"The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine," the news agency quoted the source as saying.

Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

More than one-third of Russia's 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country's three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country's westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin's most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin's authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as "zelyonka" and other liquids.

Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with "Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

"It’s the first time I've see something like this -- or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before," Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

"The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting]."

Russia's ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack -- a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use -- against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections "by arson and other dangerous means." Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

No Serious Challengers

Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public's discontent with both the war and Putin's iron-fisted rule.

He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action "Noon Against Putin." HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians -- Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party -- whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin's.

Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia's Supreme Court.

"Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today," European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

"No opposition. No freedom. No choice."

Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he "condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation."

His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the "attempted illegal annexation" of those regions has "no validity" under international law.

Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians -- Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party -- whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia's Supreme Court.

"Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today," European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. "No opposition. No freedom. No choice."

The first polling station opened in Russia's Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue "just need to wait a little or return to voting later."

There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters' rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote "under the watchful eyes of their bosses."

Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin's most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

“Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?" Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he's convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia's legitimate president.

“I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won't do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public's discontent with both the war and Putin's iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.

Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

“We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin.... What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Ahead of the New Hampshire presidential primary, Steve Kramer paid to create a recorded message using artificial intelligence to mimic President Biden’s voice. Posing as President Biden, the messages falsely implied that voters could not vote in both the primary and general elections and urged voters to “save” their vote for November. The defendants sent the message via robocalls to thousands of New Hampshire residents for a single evening just two days before the New Hampshire primary elections. Many of the robocalls “spoofed” the phone number of the former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair—causing her number to appear on many recipients’ caller IDs to make it appear that the robocalls originated with her. When news of the deception became public, thousands of voters had already received robocalls.

“These deceptive robocalls attempted to cause widespread confusion among New Hampshire voters,” said Liz Tentarelli, president of the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire. “As a nonpartisan organization, the League of Women Voters works to ensure that all voters, regardless of their party affiliation, have the most accurate election information to make their voices heard. We will continue to advocate for New Hampshire voters and fight against malicious schemes to suppress the vote.”

“These types of voter suppression tactics have no place in our democracy,” said Celina Stewart, chief counsel at the League of Women Voters of the United States. “Voters deserve to make their voices heard freely and without intimidation. For over 100 years, the League of Women Voters has worked to protect voters from these unlawful crimes and will continue to fight back against bad-faith actors who aim to disrupt our democratic system.”

The lawsuit argues that the robocalls violated federal and state laws that protect voters from intimidation, threats, coercion, and deception: (1) the Voting Rights Act, which bans intimidating, threatening, or coercing, or attempting to intimidate, threaten or coerce, any person from voting; and (2) the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related provisions of New Hampshire state law, which ban deceiving recipients about the source of robocalls or disseminating political messages via robocalls without disclosing who made and funded the calls.

The plaintiffs ask the court for an injunction to stop the defendants from producing, generating, or distributing AI-generated robocalls that impersonate U.S. politicians and from distributing “spoofed” communications. Without an injunction, these defendants (as well as other potential robocall abusers) may carry out similar campaigns to suppress voting in advance of other primary elections or ahead of the general election in November. The lawsuit states, “[i]f these deceptive and coercive tactics are not immediately declared unlawful, enjoined, and redressed, citizens’ ability to exercise their right to vote free and unimpaired—the linchpin of all other civil and political rights—will be in grave peril.”

“Fraudulently made robocalls have the potential to devastate voter turnout by flooding thousands of voters with intimidating, threatening, or coercive messages in a matter of hours,” says Courtney Hostetler, Senior Counsel at Free Speech For People, which serves as co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “No one should abuse technology to make lawful voters think that they should not, or cannot safely, vote in the primaries or in any election. It is an honor to represent the League of Women Voters and the other plaintiffs in this important case to protect the right to vote.”

"As a former state attorney general, I know the damage that voter suppression can inflict on our democracy,” said Mark Herring of Akin, a lawyer for the plaintiffs and former two-term Virginia attorney general. "We must hold accountable those who abuse new technology to undermine our freedom to vote."

The League of Women Voters is at the forefront of the most important federal and state cases across the United States. To learn more about the League’s litigation work visit our Legal Center to review historic and active cases on our docket.

Akin is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Akin’s global pro bono practice leverages the experience, knowledge and passion of our lawyers, advisors and business services personnel to advance access to justice by representing refugees seeking asylum, tenants fighting eviction, veterans seeking health benefits, domestic violence survivors, nonprofit organizations and other clients in need.

Free Speech For People is a national non-profit organization dedicated to defending our democracy and our Constitution. The organization serves as a leading force in the country in litigation to protect the right to vote, including prior litigation stopping illegal voter intimidation in Minnesota leading up to the November 2020 election and current cases challenging voter intimidation in Colorado and voter suppression laws in Arizona and Texas.

Read our full complaint here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

I did this embroidery of Palestinian journalist Bushra al-Taweel in November 2019, two years after she was arrested by occupation forces for the third time. A few days back she was arrested yet again during a raid in the occupied West Bank. Since October 7, Israeli forces have arrested more than 7000 people in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, bringing the total number of Palestinian political prisoners to nearly 10,000.

“Liberals are doomed to destroy themselves inside out. And they are militantly out of touch with the rest of the world.” That’s from Tamara Nassar—an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada, an online publication focused on Palestine—in response to a tweet that states that if we Americans don’t vote for Biden, we will lose everything and that the Trump-team’s plans for a second term will, in the words of the tweeter, “kill your country.”

But there’s an occupied land being destroyed right now, before our very eyes, and our supposedly liberal government is doing nothing to stop it. Never have we been privy to a minute-by-minute account of a genocide like this in real time.

When I followed my conscience in the 2016 presidential election, and didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, people said, “Well, that’s OK. Your vote doesn’t really matter because Kansas is going to go Republican as always.” True. But this time it’s not just Kansas. Many Democrats in swing states like Michigan, where votes withheld from Biden could well sink him, are holding him accountable for continuing to supply Israel with the munitions it needs for carrying on this genocide.

And, the conscientious liberal should ask, will it matter to Palestinians whether it’s Biden or Trump in office? No. Those among us who care about domestic issues like reproductive rights, gun reform, immigrant rights, etc. must ask whether it will be worse for the world if Trump comes back. The answer to that, I believe, also is no. Either Trump or Biden will most likely be the face of the United States—the one country with the power to stop this genocide but also the one that never fails to betray the Palestinian people. No matter who occupies the White House, their policies will only build upon the already failed ones.

And no, Seth McFarlane, it is not “a fact that people in their 20s and 30s are gravitating to Trump.” As Katie Halper noted, they’re moving away from Biden, not toward Trump. Like me. I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, and I’m not going to this year. “Genocide Joe”: That’s how the current president will go down in history books, whether he wins or loses in 2024.

The United States, right now, under a Biden presidency is fully participating in a horrific ethnic cleansing campaign, massacring Palestinians, denying them flour and water, dropping piddly & faulty humanitarian aid airdrops on them and killing at least five, destroying their homes, schools, neighborhoods, annihilating entire families, targeting hospitals, heritage sights, universities, and on and on till there’s nothing left for the people of Gaza to go back to, and nowhere for them to escape to from American-made weaponry that is coming at them from every direction.

Every day, not a minute goes by that we don’t see another unimaginable atrocity being committed on the body and mental well-being of a child in Gaza. Even a premature baby is not spared by these perpetrators of genocide. According to The Electronic Intifada, on November 10, as “part of a series of airstrikes, raids and attacks on hospitals,” the Israeli military ordered doctors at the al-Nasr Pediatric Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip to leave five babies that they were caring for. “The tiny infants died starving cold and alone. Their bodies decomposed… still connected to ventilators and intravenous tubes.”

As many of us know, Refaat Alareer was murdered by Israeli occupation forces on December 6th. He is famous for his poem If I Must Die, Let it Be a Tale which was translated in many languages after he was killed. But he is also famous for saying what he would do if he was ever attacked by Israel. “ I am an academic. The toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker. But if the Israelis invade, if they charge at us… to massacre us, I am going to use that marker, throw it at the Israeli soldiers. Even if that is the last thing that I will be able to do.” In this embroidery I show Refaat holding an Expo marker. He was also proud to be from Gaza City’s Shujaiya district. The pattern on the border surrounding Refaat’s portrait says Shujaiya in Arabic.

And here at home, our house speaker can’t decide if destroying an embryo is tantamount to murder.

The constant bombardment of hasbara and propaganda in order to whitewash war crimes is fashionable these days in the narrative of our beloved media which hides behind the fog of hollow mottos like “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” The New York Times, in an infamous article now thoroughly debunked, had no shame in disseminating the unfounded lie of “mass rape” by Hamas on 7 October. According to Mondowiess, “the veracity of the New York Times story was undermined almost as soon as it was published, including from the Abdush family itself who says there is no proof Gal Abdush [one of the alleged victims of the sexual violence] was raped and that the New York Times interviewed them under false pretenses.”

Our institutions are being hollowed out one by one, and now it’s up to ordinary citizens to not fall prey to the propaganda that helps perpetuate the genocide in Palestine. In a piece titled, Shielding US Public From Israeli Reports of Friendly Fire on October 7 published by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), author Bryce Green does a fantastic job of analyzing and exposing the fact that “since October, the Israeli press has uncovered damning evidence showing that an untold number of the Israeli victims during the October 7 Hamas attack were in fact killed by the IDF response.”

“Silence is complicity,” reads an open letter signed by over 40 health justice organizations to the global health and human rights communities on the crisis in Palestine. The silence of “universities, medical schools, professional associations and academic bodies” is as loud as Israel’s war crime of deliberately targeting hospitals, among other atrocities. Alongside this there is “a climate of virulent censorship, especially in the Global North, [which has] led to open victimization of health workers and academics who dare to speak out… in defense of the rights of Palestinians.”

U.S. students attending rallies and advocating for Palestinian rights are getting sprayed with hazardous chemicals and being labeled terrorists, while Israeli state terrorism is killing Palestinians by the tens of thousands in Gaza. According to statistics put out by the human rights monitor Euro Med, between October 7 and February 23, 38,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza. They include 14,350 children, 326 health professionals, and 130 journalists.

This does not include the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, where since October 7, more than 413 Palestinians, including 107 children, have been killed, most of them by Israeli forces and the rest by settlers. More than 7300 detained by Israeli forces.

I did this portrait of Layan al-Farra in October 2019. Layan lost nine of her family members in August 2014 during Operation Protective Edge, one of five military assaults launched by Israel on Gaza since 2007. She survived the attack along with her father Baseem al-Farra. I don’t know what’s become of her or her father, since. She would be 16 years old today. Please go here to see more on this embroidery project.

Lastly, to my liberal friends who are squeamish about resisting genocide through armed struggle, I say there’s violence in silence. Israel is committing barbaric acts against Palestinians who, like all colonized people, are resisting in every way they can. It’s easy to turn one’s nose up at a people fighting back hard against an apartheid state, when it’s not you on the receiving end of the genocide.

Hamas was democratically elected in 2006, winning 76 out of 132 seats in the Palestinian parliament, with support from a whopping 77 percent of voters in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas is a part of Palestinian civil society, born in a ghetto under a 16-year siege (preceded by 59 years under occupation). Imagine if another country decided to punish the United States for electing a political party they didn’t like, by sieging our asses off, decade after decade.

As reported by Jon Elmer in The Electronic Intifada, Palestinian Resistance maintains a “joint operations room that brings together all the resistance factions across the political spectrum into a unified command under the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas” in Gaza. These factions have united in a guerrilla war, successfully targeting Israeli occupation forces. In contrast, Tel Aviv is raining down U.S.-made bombs on civilians, the great majority of them women and children. Seeing discretion as the better part of valor, the IDF fighters are reluctant to attempt a hostage rescue by fighting their way through the Resistance’s well-defended 310 miles of tunnels.

Palestinians, going through one of the most brutal assaults in modern history, are proud of their resistance fighters. They’re fighting one of the world’s most advanced militaries, using their home-made weapons and the munitions they have gathered from among unexploded Israeli ordinance through the many years of bombardment they’ve endured. And those of us who are anti-genocide are proud of them too.

Liberal, cowardly politicians and their mouthpieces parading the halls of Congress and echoing the words of the colonizers and occupiers, or pretending otherwise, can label those of us who decide to not vote for Biden as “antisemitic,” but they cannot colonize our dissent. There are many of us out there, in the heart of these great United States, to the north, south, east and west of Kansas, who stand with the majority of people in the world, who stand with Palestine.

President Biden could stop this genocidal madness with just one phone call to Tel Aviv, cutting off military aid, and compelling them to let the thousands of aid trucks into Gaza that are stuck at the Raffah crossing with Egypt. It’s not a question of whether he can make that call or not, it’s that he should.

Whatever we Americans do or don’t do in November, make no mistake: Palestine will not be defeated, nor will Hamas. The question is, “Which side are you on?”

The post Why This Kansan Won’t Be Voting for Biden appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Priti Gulati Cox.

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Republican Paul Graves’ work was about to come undone. In the wee hours of Nov. 15, 2021, he and his fellow Republican on Washington state’s independent redistricting commission had finally prevailed on their Democratic counterparts to agree to the maps voters would use in the upcoming election.

But then Latino voters sued the state, claiming the new legislative maps didn’t give them voting power commensurate with their population. Now, Graves worried, a federal judge was about to force the state to give Democratic-leaning Latinos more voting power.

With the balance of power in Washington up for grabs, he launched a covert attack. He consulted powerful state Republicans. He reached out to national Republicans, including the most influential conservative redistricting lawyer in the country, to discuss funding a lawsuit and get strategic advice. He conferred with a Seattle law firm. And he found a Latino congressional hopeful to act as the face of the lawsuit.

A countersuit was filed — against Graves’ own work. This suit made the opposite argument from the Latino group’s. Yes, the map that Graves and his fellow commissioners had created discriminated. But it had disadvantaged white people and other voters.

Sure enough, as Graves had foreseen, in August of last year the judge sided with the Latino plaintiffs. He determined the Yakima Valley map violated the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 civil rights law that has been the bedrock of voting discrimination cases for over half a century. Section 2 of the VRA prohibits the creation of election districts that deprive voters of color of their full rights. The judge said the maps needed to be redrawn.

Having handed Latinos a win, the judge tossed the lawsuit that Graves had helped generate as moot. Undeterred, the legal team of Benancio Garcia, the Latino congressional hopeful, appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to block the new maps until it had weighed the merits of his claim. The court declined to take the case earlier this month, and it is unclear whether lawyers will now appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Graves told ProPublica he wanted legal action that would slow down the court because he believed the plaintiffs were about to push through “a naked partisan gerrymander.”

“My singular goal, once a lawsuit was filed, was to defend the maps,” he said in a statement. His work is described in sworn depositions and court documents, including emails and other communications introduced as exhibits.

The Washington state salvo is merely one part of a yearslong national legal assault on laws and policies intended to prevent discrimination. In 2013, in a victory for right-wing activists, the conservative-majority Supreme Court overturned a key aspect of the VRA, lifting federal oversight over maps in areas that had historically discriminated against people of color. Last year, plaintiffs succeeded in getting the high court to make affirmative action illegal at private universities. Conservatives have also targeted school desegregation efforts and diversity initiatives at myriad organizations, including corporations and universities.

The activists are not done. By taking aim at the remaining pillar of the VRA, Section 2, they could substantially reshape U.S. elections. Despite a recent setback at the Supreme Court in an Alabama case, a sprawling, multipronged effort to get the high court to change course continues, supported by key national Republican figures. The Washington state case is one of 38 in 12 states that seek to roll back protections against discrimination by either attacking Section 2 directly or arguing that the constitutional protections of the 14th Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War and extended full citizenship rights to all Americans, trump Section 2.

The underlying premise animating these legal efforts is, in the famous words of Chief Justice John Roberts in another major ruling, that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” The argument, which conservatives have been developing for years, flips what has been traditionally seen as the original intent of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Instead, they argue, the amendment can be read as prohibiting taking racial and ethnic composition into account — period. Section 2, however, requires states to ensure that voters of color are fairly represented.

Republicans say that these competing mandates confuse state legislators as they try to draw fair maps. Democrats are taking advantage of Section 2 to draw as many districts as possible that will elect Democrats, according to Adam Kincaid, who directs the National Republican Redistricting Trust and its nonprofit affiliate the Fair Lines America Foundation. “That was not what Congress intended and is not what the Constitution permits,” he said.

Victory over Section 2 could stifle the voting power of nonwhite groups nationwide, striking fear in legal experts and activists who say that the country remains scarred by centuries of discrimination and racism.

“Even after serious damage by the Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act remains one of the country’s most effective civil rights statutes. Every attempt to limit its impact is really an attempt to limit our ability to protect against racial discrimination,” said Justin Levitt, a former Justice Department civil rights official who is now a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School.

Tracking the course of mapmaking fights is vital to understanding the likely results of the 2024 elections. In Washington state, where partisan gerrymandering is forbidden, Graves and his fellow Republican commissioner came to believe the Democratic members were pushing a map that was overly favorable for their party.

At issue was how to divide Yakima Valley, a rural area that’s home to many of the state’s vineyards and historically has voted Republican. In recent years, the Latino population in the valley has boomed.

By the Democrats’ read of Section 2, the commission was required to create a district that gave Latinos in Yakima a fair chance to elect the candidate of their choice. The commission couldn’t reach a consensus on whether it should hire a consultant to do a racial voting analysis, so Democrats hired their own. He concluded the district needed a 60% Latino voting population to comply with the VRA.

Most Latino voters lean Democratic, so drawing such a map could diminish Republican political power.

Concerned, Graves and another Republican member convinced Republicans in the state Senate to pay for an opinion from a Seattle law firm it used for legal work. It concluded that drawing lines to comply with Section 2 racial mandates could give grounds for a 14th Amendment lawsuit.

“I don’t read Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to say one party gets to win over another,” Graves later testified.

Partisan arguments dragged on during an all-night meeting the commission held on Nov. 15. Graves at one point asked Democrats what would be a “fair trade” if they got a majority Hispanic district in the Yakima Valley. If Republicans gave up voting strength there, he argued, the GOP should get an adjustment elsewhere.

With all of the haggling, the commission blew its midnight deadline but continued working through the night to reach an agreement that it could forward to the state Supreme Court. Worn down, Democrats finally agreed to the Republican proposals for the new 15th Legislative District.

Graves was in charge of plugging final numbers into computer mapping software. Democrats later complained that his final map put the Latino voter percentage a tad lower than they had expected, at just over 50%. Graves said Democrats were consulted on every mapping adjustment.

The Washington Supreme Court allowed the commission’s work to stand despite its tardiness, and the maps were used in the 2022 elections.

Latino plaintiffs filed the Section 2 lawsuit in January 2022. The commission was not a named defendant, but the panel’s work was at the heart of the case. All the commissioners were expected to be state witnesses.

Graves and some other commissioners were upset when the office of the Democratic attorney general declined to defend the map and told the commission to hire its own attorney. Commission Chair Sarah Augustine resigned in March 2022, criticizing the state’s lack of legal support.

Graves believed that the state’s refusal to defend the map could lead the judge to render a judgment that would invalidate the map, which would have been “a disaster,” he testified.

“I was faced with the prospect of having to raise private funds to defend a public map,” he testified. Graves, a former lawmaker who ran the legal department of a trucking firm, urgently worked the phone. He got in touch with his state and national Republican contacts, including Kincaid, the director of the NRRT and its foundation, who Graves had reached out to soon after his appointment. Graves said he wasn’t sure at first what the appropriate legal strategy should be, but he knew he had to move expeditiously.

Through a GOP contact, Graves connected with Garcia, an Iraq combat veteran and prominent Latino Republican who wanted to run for Congress. Garcia testified that they talked by phone about the map and whether it could be a “racial gerrymander” drawn to favor Latino Democrats. They discussed whether Garcia would quickly file a lawsuit challenging the map, and Graves connected him with two Seattle lawyers and Kincaid. Graves also urged him to bring on a national Latino GOP group as a co-plaintiff. (The group never signed on.)

Graves emailed Garcia that Kincaid’s foundation “can serve as a funding vehicle for this work.” Kincaid declined to comment on foundation spending.

As a commissioner, state ethics rules restricted what Graves could share with outside parties about private commission deliberations. Plaintiffs’ lawyers introduced texts and emails that showed Graves guiding Garcia and questioned how Graves “found it appropriate — as a lawyer — to coordinate the filing of a lawsuit he believed to be meritless in order to interfere with a separate ongoing federal proceeding.”

Graves called the accusations made by plaintiffs’ lawyers false and “scurrilous.”

In a statement, he told ProPublica his “singular goal, once a lawsuit was filed, was to defend the maps.”

For his part, Graves said he never believed his map was an illegal racial gerrymander, as Garcia’s lawsuit asserts. But Graves testified that he thought a 14th Amendment challenge “would at least meet the immediate goal” of delaying a default judgment.

Garcia’s testimony was also damaging. He said in his deposition that he knew little about the case brought by Latino voters until he talked with Graves and that he rarely spoke with his own lawyers. Asked who was paying his legal fees, he could only say, “I don’t know.” The legal team Graves helped arrange included state Rep. Andrew Stokesbary, the new House minority leader and a friend of Graves, and the national law firm of Jason Torchinsky, the NRRT’s chief counsel and a leading GOP redistricting litigator.

Garcia’s deposition harmed the suit so much that his lawyers later tried to have much of it corrected to reverse many of his assertions, including his testimony that his lawyers rarely talked with him. The judge would not allow the corrections.

Stokesbary, Torchinsky and Garcia did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

While the Garcia case was in motion, Stokesbary and Torchinsky agreed to represent three GOP intervenors in a parallel effort to derail the plaintiffs in the original case. This new effort sought to preserve the commission’s map. The intervenors, including a GOP lawmaker and the brother of an aide to a GOP redistricting commissioner, argued that Graves’ map did not violate Section 2 and no remedial map was needed.

The attorney general’s office asked the judge to investigate possible conflicts by Stokesbary and Torchinsky, who were representing clients arguing two opposite legal positions. As a leading Republican in the House, Stokesbary had voted to approve the plan Garcia was challenging. Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the conflicts traced back to Graves and his effort to “conjure up nonmeritorious and competing legal claims.” The judge allowed the attorneys to continue after their clients signed waivers.

After a four-day trial, the judge ruled in August 2023 that the Yakima Valley map must be redrawn before the 2024 election. Then a three-judge panel said the decision in the case brought by Latino voters rendered the Garcia case moot.

Graves took the stand during the trial and offered a convoluted defense. He described his fear that the commission’s map would be thrown out and his frantic effort to stop it. “I was trying to make sure the maps have a full-throated legal defense,” he testified.

He argued that the commission did not intentionally violate Section 2. The federal law, he said in a deposition, is “not crystal clear.”

As the battle against Section 2 has continued, Torchinsky has emerged as one of the most significant GOP lawyers in fights over election mapmaking.

A fierce litigator, Torchinsky and his firm, Holtzman Vogel, have represented Republican congressional and Senate fundraising committees, the Republican National Committee and a long list of leading GOP candidates and PACs. In Texas, his efforts to shield Kincaid from demands that he give a deposition and produce documents in a Section 2 lawsuit brought by Latino plaintiffs dragged on for more than a year. An appeals court is still weighing GOP claims of legislative privilege in the case.

In Florida, Torchinsky worked for more than 100 hours with the staff of Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 to create an alternate congressional redistricting map that would be more favorable to Republicans. A circuit court judge ordered the map redrawn, saying it diminished Black voting strength, but an appeals court overturned the decision. The Florida Supreme Court has said it will hear the case.

That same year, Torchinsky weighed in on a Section 2 case before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that many legal experts expect to become the next Supreme Court showdown. The case involves a challenge from the Arkansas NAACP to the state’s 2021 redistricting plan. In a major ruling questioning decades of precedent, a three-judge panel said private parties lack standing to bring Section 2 lawsuits because the law gives enforcement power only to the U.S. attorney general.

Torchinsky had filed a brief on behalf of GOP Sen. Tom Cotton arguing that the courts should not allow private parties to bring lawsuits. The law is specific, he said, and to “infer otherwise would be an act of judicial lawmaking incompatible with the power of the federal judiciary.”

The appeals court recently declined to rehear the case, and the Arkansas NAACP and other plaintiffs are weighing an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Torchinsky’s clients had a setback in June 2023 when the Supreme Court issued an unexpected 5-4 decision upholding Section 2. The case involved a challenge to congressional maps brought by Black voters in Alabama. Representing the GOP congressional delegation in a solidly Republican state, Torchinsky urged justices to reverse the lower court’s order that the map be redrawn. “The Voting Rights Act was never intended to guarantee the success of one political party given the coincidence that the minority group prefers that political party,” he wrote.

Torchinsky explained his reasoning a few weeks later in a podcast interview. He reflected a view shared by the NRRT’s Kincaid, who told ProPublica in a statement that lawyers for the left, funded by vast sums of “dark money,” are turning the VRA “into a vehicle to elect more Democrats rather than to elect minority candidates.”

Torchinsky described the difficulties in many states of separating race and politics. As he put it, “When an African-American can’t win a statewide election in Alabama, is it because they are Black? Or because they are running as a Democrat? And I think that is some of what the courts should be trying to untangle in these cases.”

Torchinsky predicted “substantially more litigation” as state legislatures wrestle with tensions between Section 2 and the 14th Amendment.

Levitt, the former Justice Department official, said several justices have clearly expressed opposition to Section 2, so Republican lawyers in recent years appeal any case that might raise a new issue and have a chance to win over the court’s conservative supermajority.

“You put enough bait in the ocean, and sometimes you catch a fish,” he said.

The remedial map-drawing process is close to completion in Washington, with a judge’s decision expected this month. A court-appointed special master is considering five possible fixes. Republican leaders have condemned all the plans as Democratic gerrymanders that could disrupt four to eight GOP districts and change the election districts of hundreds of thousands of residents.

In recent months, GOP state Sen. Nikki Torres has joined the lawsuit brought by Latino voters as a third party with a personal stake in the outcome, arguing that the maps do not need to be redrawn to give Latinos a greater voice. She won election as the first Latina senator from Central Washington in 2022 with about 68% of the vote under the 15th District map drawn by the commission.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers consider her entry into the case just another delaying tactic that, if successful, will leave challenged maps in place for the 2024 election cycle.

Ernest Herrera, of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said: Lawyers for the intervenors are “trying every way they can to delay the Latino plaintiffs from having a map in which they can elect or have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.”

Alex Mierjeski contributed research.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Marilyn W. Thompson.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Idaho Statesman. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

For decades, school districts across Idaho have struggled to pass bonds to repair and replace their aging, crumbling buildings. A legislative proposal introduced Wednesday could change that by starting the process of lowering the vote threshold school districts need to pass a bond.

Idaho is one of only two states that require two-thirds of voters to support a bond for it to pass. Most states require either a majority or 60% of voters.

The resolution, introduced by Republican Rep. Rod Furniss, R-Rigby, would propose changing the Idaho Constitution to lower the threshold to 55% during years when statewide elections are held, such as presidential election years, when turnout is traditionally higher. The two-thirds threshold would remain in years with only local elections.

The resolution is intended to ease the requirements when more community members turn out to vote. Local elections often have low turnout while general elections have typically drawn 60% to 80% of registered voters, according to data from the Idaho secretary of state.

“What this does is this focuses on elections where we have higher participation rates. Hopefully, the idea is that we will know the will of the people from these votes,” Furniss told a legislative committee. “Fifty-five percent, that would increase our chances of funding these.”

Superintendents and school board members said the two-thirds threshold has been unachievable.

“It’s about time,” Mountain Home Superintendent James Gilbert told the Idaho Statesman and ProPublica. “It’s something that’s needed to be done for decades. That supermajority threshold is becoming virtually impossible to pass bonds on.”

The new resolution will need support from two-thirds of legislators in each chamber to place it on the general election ballot. It would then require approval from a majority of voters to change the state constitution.

The resolution is the second proposal to address the state’s school facilities funding crisis this legislative session, following a Statesman and ProPublica investigation that showed some students are learning in freezing classrooms, sometimes with leaking ceilings and damaged equipment after their districts failed to pass bonds.

This month, Idaho Republican leaders introduced a bill that would add $1.5 billion and redirect an additional $500 million over 10 years to help districts repair and replace their buildings. But some lawmakers and school district officials have raised concerns that the bill would not adequately address the needs of rural areas because it’s based on attendance, which favors larger urban districts.

That legislation followed a call from Gov. Brad Little during his State of the State address to make school facilities funding “priority No. 1” this legislative session. The House will soon vote on the proposal, House Bill 521, after a panel of lawmakers sent it to the floor last week.

Aside from distributing funds based on average daily attendance, the bill would also eliminate the August election as an option for school districts to run bonds and levies and lower the state’s income tax rate. Little celebrated the legislation as the largest investment in school facilities in state history.

Jason Knopp, an Idaho School Boards Association board member and Melba School District board chair, told the Statesman and ProPublica that the bill is a good first step but likely won’t be enough for districts like Melba to construct new schools without bonds. Melba would get about $3.1 million in a lump sum and additional money each year to help pay off its bonds and levies, according to estimates shared with the Statesman by the governor’s office on Feb. 20.

Superintendents have said this funding wouldn’t eliminate the need to pass bonds and levies, which can be big lifts for districts across the state.

Swan Valley School District Superintendent Michael Jacobson said he hopes to replace his school’s coal boiler, which requires constant maintenance and raises health concerns, with an electric boiler — a cost of nearly $1 million. If the funding bill passed as is, Swan Valley would receive about $200,000, according to the estimates.

He believes all districts should get a base amount, in addition to funds determined by attendance, to help level the playing field for rural districts, which make up a majority of Idaho’s school districts.

“The majority of the funding should not always go to the larger districts,” Jacobson said.

He said that he could see how lowering the threshold would be a win for other districts, but that it won’t make much of a difference in his community, given the lack of support for a bond.

Some superintendents have said they’ve given up on trying to pass bonds altogether. Others have run multiple bond elections but failed every time. Still others have come within a few votes of meeting the threshold.

Paired with a bill to lower the two-thirds threshold, the proposals could have a huge impact on school districts and communities, Knopp said. “That’s a great pairing coming together. We can lower the tax burden on the people who live in our school districts and also help make it easier for us to bond with less tax burden,” he said.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Becca Savransky, Idaho Statesman, and Asia Fields, ProPublica.

The Roman Republic ended when the Roman people decided to vote for Caesar. Of course, he carefully claimed he was not Caesar, but simple Octavian, man of the people, who sought nothing but to benefit the people and protect or restore their republic. Once in power, however, Augustus Octavian Caesar who claimed only to be “First Citizen” was soon followed by the likes of Caligula and the degeneration of Rome into a cesspool of lawlessness and depravity.

Kings and dictators were viewed with suspicion by Romans who had overthrown their last King 500 years earlier, and instituted their form of governance with consent of the governed, a Republic.

Many in the ancient world knew of the dangers of kings or dictators, having lived under them, to their dismay. The Jews of ancient Israel thought a king would be a good idea, but the prophet relayed God’s thoughts on the subject, as recorded in the Old Testament, 1 Samuel 8:10-18, which details the terrible outcomes of having a king and concludes, “And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

The ancient Israelites failed to heed God’s warnings, and to the peoples’ dismay, their kings fulfilled God’s predictions, bringing much misery to them, their children, and their property.

Despite much suffering under kings from the ancient world through medieval times, kings predominated, not for the benefit of the people, but for the benefit of kings, their courtiers, financiers and enablers. Fortunately, our Founders learned from God’s warning to the Israelites and history’s examples of other kings.

American colonists, having suffered much under their own King George III and his abuses of power, in the greatest political-legal achievement in history, in my humble opinion, erected a nation of law, not of men, evicting their king and establishing a republic of the people, by the people and for the people. These Americans, seeking to pass on the benefits of government by the people to their posterity, wrote a republic into the “supreme law,” the Constitution.

The supreme law required any person seeking office in the nation to swear to preserve and defend that Constitution against all enemies foreign or domestic. The product of compromise, the Constitution was not perfect, but it represented a quantum leap out of the crass, narcissistic, demonic results of rule by kings, and the American experiment led in the following centuries to spread of government by the people across much of humanity and the world.

In a reversal of common sense and clear-headed American principles, many are today asking: should I vote for Caesar?

Hard to believe but this is a question being asked by many of our fellow Americans in the land of George Washington and Tom Jefferson and Abe Lincoln, but it is. Forty percent of people polled indicate they are thinking of voting for a “wanna be” Caesar; also many in the US armed forces; police, too, and police unions have endorsed Caesar before, so one expects they will probably support Caesar next time around. Seventy-seven million voted for Caesar in 2020.

So, let’s answer the question: is it okay to vote for Caesar?

The answer to the question depends on many factors. Caesar is not a nice person, as you may know. Among the factors to consider is Caesar’s “grab em by the pussy” comment, revealing, undeniably, his utter disdain for women (more than half of our country!). Just “grab em by the pussy,” walk up and do it. Don’t ask for consent, don’t concern yourself with human dignity or respect, just walk up and “grab em by the pussy.” If you have a daughter, or are one, or have a mother, this might be a factor against voting for Caesar.

Another factor, what does Caesar say about how he would govern if you vote for him? Retribution. That’s job one. Caesar is going after all who opposed him with all the power he has. Dictator on day one, Caesar says. Abe Lincoln, near the close of the Civil War opined “government should not seek revenge,” as they contemplated how to treat soon to be defeated rebels. Caesar trumpets revenge.

How about a free press necessary to inform the people of what their government is doing? Caesar on the press: going down! Caesar has also stated his intent to be a dictator, though only on day one. Since Caesar has said these and many other odious things are the things he would do if elected, we should evaluate them as though true.

It is a problem to vote for Caesar given these statements and others if you ever swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, to defend it against all enemies foreign or domestic, like everyone in the military, the police, attorneys or government employment have done. Because of that oath, one has a duty to oppose those who seek to subvert the Constitution, like freedom of speech, or the press, or unequal protection of the law among other things. Such an oath limits one’s right to otherwise vote for Caesar.

Before, in America, it was claimed, “A man’s oath is his bond.” Today, many seem willing to absolve “oath breakers.” Of course, with that baby, out goes the bathwater of all contracts, all social commitments. The metastasis of a cancer of bond breaking has, in the history of humanity, often had disastrous consequences. Like the Israeli’s warned by Samuel, we are not immune to the dissolution of the tendons holding our culture together.

So, I conclude only those who never swore an oath to the Constitution can vote “in good conscience” for Caesar. Only those who have no deceased or wounded ancestor who fought to defend the Republic may vote for Caesar. Only those who have never pledged allegiance, or celebrated July 4, or claimed to follow the God of the Bible, may vote for Caesar. Only those with no mother or sister or daughter may vote for Caesar.

This seems to whittle down the numbers able to conscientiously vote for Caesar somewhat. Of course, none of the above is new, and such warnings have failed in the past, despite the lessons of our ancestors, our institutions, our vaunted claims to being a “nation of law, not men,” a nation of liberty under laws. In the end I can only quote Judge Learned Hand to close, from his speech, “The Spirit of Liberty” at “I Am an American Day” ceremony, Central Park, New York City (21 May 1944):

“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it… What is this liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check on their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few — as we have learned to our sorrow.

“What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.”

Learned Hand notes the “spirit of Him” in support of this concept of liberty under law. I wrote a draft of this commentary for Christmas 2023, closing with: I wish you all a hallowed Christmas 2023, where, perhaps, enough sincerely search their hearts while honoring His birth, and realize they ought not vote for Caesar. Neither the current “wanna be” Caesar, nor any of his like to come.

Such Caesars are always too sure that they are right. Too sure they should be king and the people their subjects. Samuel’s warnings, God’s own warnings, and the lessons of history are cautionary and instruct one to vote for the Republic and not to vote for Caesar.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kary Love.

The post 2 Women in Hijabs Blocked from Nevada Voting Rally appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

Janine Jackson interviewed People For the American Way’s  Svante Myrick about roadblocks to voting for the January 26, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Janine Jackson: We can argue that, with gerrymandering, Citizens United and the power of money—and even the Electoral College—“one person, one vote” is not the simple recipe for fully participatory democracy that we might wish. Still, voting—voting rights, voting access—is the definition of a keystone issue that shapes many, many other important issues.

So how and why have voting rights become a contested field in a country that, as I say, has democratic aspirations, and what can we do, what are we doing about it?

We’re joined now by Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way, and former mayor of Ithaca, New York. Welcome to CounterSpin, Svante Myrick.

Svante Myrick: Thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it, and all of us here at People For the American Way appreciate the chance to talk about this issue.

Grio (8/6/23)

JJ: Wonderful. Well, let me just ask it simply: What are currently the chief impediments to voting rights that you see, that have led you to say, “It’s up to us to march again,” or that have led Sen. Raphael Warnock to talk about “democracy in reverse”? What are we up against?

SM: I wish I could tell you that, hey, there are simple, small fixes. There’s a challenge in a country of 360 million people making sure ballots arrive on time. I wish I could tell you that there was a bureaucratic or technocratic problem.

But the truth is, it’s something more akin to a war, in which one half of the American political spectrum, that half that is beholden to extreme MAGA Republicans, is set out to intentionally disenfranchise people of voting. And they really have not been more plain-spoken about this at any time since the ’60s, since George Wallace and since the KKK.

There was a time where both sides agreed that voting is good, and everybody should have a right to vote. Especially after the 2020 election, led by Donald Trump, state legislators—people who are not household names, folks that you won’t often see on CNN or MSNBC—state legislators are taking their cues from Donald Trump and passing dozens and dozens…. I just came from Utah, where yet another law was passed that makes it harder to vote. Utah used to have very good voting laws. Everybody got a ballot in the mail. You could just fill it out, send it back in. You had weeks and weeks to do it. They just repealed that. Why? Is it because Donald Trump lost Utah? No, it’s because the state legislators are trying to curry favor with a president that just, frankly, does not want everyone’s vote to count.

And if it’s OK, if I just say what probably is obvious to many of your listeners, but I think it deserves to be said: They’re not trying to take away everyone’s right to vote. They’re trying to take away certain people’s right to vote. I’m a Black American, and I just know for a fact that this Trump-led faction of the Republican Party would love for Black Americans’ votes not to be counted. And I know that because they are moving with almost surgical precision to disenfranchise people like me and my family.

JJ: And then we see it also, you’re talking about a kind of top-down motivation, and then we see it also at the Supreme Court, and listeners will know about Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, but there were serious impacts from that as well.

Guardian (12/12/23)

SM: We here at People For the American Way, we are fighting really hard at every state legislature, at every level, to make sure people have a right to vote. Because we think if you can’t choose your own leaders, then nothing else matters. As they say, if you can’t choose from the menu, then you’re what’s for dinner, right?

And that is about voting rights. It’s about the voting laws. But, as you mentioned the Supreme Court, it’s also about money. It’s about money in politics. And if a few wealthy billionaires can throw their weight around, as we’re seeing now, and extort university presidents, and donate unlimited amounts of dark money to whatever shady person that they like because of whatever deal they’ve made behind closed doors, then we don’t live in a true democracy anyway.

And so when the Supreme Court made its Citizens United decision, it allowed that corporations were people, and money was speech, and that money and speech should be unlimited. They really put us on a dark path, one that we’re still living with today.

So we were also here, People For the American Way, fighting to get money out of politics, to overturn Citizens United, but also to pass things like matching funds for elections, and the stuff that would make it easier for people, frankly, like me—people who grew up without a lot of money, folks who are not the sons of senators, folks who are not in the pockets of big corporations—to run for office and to win.

JJ: Despite what we’ve just said, or in part because of it, I am surprised when people are surprised that people don’t vote. While I lament it, I see the fact that some people just don’t see a connection between this lever they pull, and the policies and laws governing their lives. I see that as an indictment of the system, and not of the people.

And so I wanted to ask you to talk about what we’ve seen labeled “low-propensity voters,” and different responses, like what People For is talking about, responses that are better than saying, “These people are so dumb, they don’t even know how to vote their own interests.”

SM: And that’s so well-said. Certainly our system has failed in many ways. But extreme right-wingers have also been waging an 80-year war, maybe longer, to convince Americans that government does nothing for them, that their representatives don’t improve their lives. And so when they do things like starve schools and school budgets, starve road budgets so that there are potholes in the street, and try to shrink government down to a size where you can drown it in a bathtub, they make sure it is dysfunctional, from Reagan to George W. Bush to Donald Trump, they break the system, and then say, “Hey, see, government, it can’t work at all. Why bother? Why bother to vote at all?”

And so I think it is good to remind yourself that, for the average American, who is not listening to CNN or MSNBC all day—first of all, they’re probably happier; their blood pressure’s lower—but that they’ve also been subject to generations of misinformation about the power of collective action and how much better their circumstances, their lives, the quality of their life, the health of their finances could be if we lived in a country that took more collective action, like we see, frankly, in some Scandinavian nations, where folks really trust that the power of their vote is going to lead to positive, progressive change.

JJ: Is there legislation, or are there moves afoot, that could be responsive or would be responsive to the suppressive efforts that we’re seeing? Are there things to pull for in terms of policy?

SM: Yes, absolutely. So if people go to PFAW.com, you could see all of the work that we’re doing at each state legislature.

Now, of course, fighting state by state is an inefficient way to do this. The best way to reclaim our own democratic power is to pass federal legislation, what we call the For the People Act, that would make it easier for people to run for office, easier for people to vote, easier for people to have their voices heard.

We’re also fighting at the federal level to overturn Citizens United. This is a complicated and lengthy process, to overturn a Supreme Court decision, but you can do it. We are well on our way, and we encourage people to join us.

JJ: Finally, let me ask you about journalism. Certainly we see all kinds of problems with election coverage, from ignoring down-ballot races that we know can be critical, to focusing on horse race and heavy-handed polling, almost everything but candidates’ actual plans for what they would do and how that would affect us. Coverage of voting rights is not the same as election coverage, but certainly, election coverage gives an opening to talk about those issues. Are there things that you’d like to see more or less of from media?

Svante Myrick: “The Republicans have turned their entire apparatus, not into improving people’s lives, but into taking away their right to vote.”

SM: For sure, and you’ve just listed a whole host of them. Honestly, the constant coverage of polling does have a suppressive effect on the vote, because people, when they just listen and follow the polls, they feel like the vote already happened. At least they feel like they know what’s going to happen, why bother, we’re down two, we’re up four, they don’t need my vote. It’s already done. So that’s one problem.

The media can help people understand that all this harping about elections and voter disenfranchisement is not dweeby and nerdy. It can seem it, a little bit. It’s like in my family, I was the one that always had the rule book for Monopoly, and I was like, “You can’t do that. The rules are important. Do not pass Go.” And other people are like: “I don’t want to talk about the rules for how we decide this stuff. I just want my streets to be better paved.”

I think if the media could help folks understand that he who makes the rules determines the outcome. Whatever it is you care about, whatever it is you’re voting for, if it’s for better healthcare, if it’s peace in the Middle East, if it’s for more money for you and your family, if it’s for a better quarterback for the New York Giants, finally—whoever sets up the rules of the game helps make sure that their outcome is more likely.

And Republicans know that, frankly, better than Democrats do. The Republicans have turned their entire apparatus, not into improving people’s lives, but into taking away their right to vote. So that as soon as they have total power, like they do in places like Tennessee, for example, they can start expelling lawmakers that they don’t like. They can cut corporate taxes basically to zero, and they can abandon the poor and the middle class. And they do all that by making it harder for people to vote first.

JJ: And we won’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone. Yeah.

We’ve been speaking with Svante Myrick. He’s president of People For the American Way. Svante Myrick, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

SM: Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you.

The post ‘If You Can’t Choose Your Own Leaders, Nothing Else Matters’ appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Guardian (1/8/24)

This week on CounterSpin: Elite media can give the impression that problems wax and wane along with their attention to them. And, not to put too fine a point on it, they’re done with police brutality.

So if you think news media show you the world, you’ll be surprised to hear that 2023 saw killings by law enforcement up from the previous year, which was up from the year before that. More than 1,200 people were killed, roughly three people every day, including not just those shot dead, but those fatally shocked by a stun gun, beaten or restrained to death. Thirty-six percent of those killed were fleeing, and, yes, they were disproportionately Black.

As far as corporate media are concerned, we’ve tried nothin’, and we’re all out of ideas. Communities, on the other hand, are hard at work reimagining public safety without punitive policing. There’s new work on those possibilities, and we hear about it from Monifa Bandele from the Movement for Black Lives.

Extra! (7–8/14)

Also on the show: There is little research that is more important or less acknowledged than that from Princeton’s (now UCLA’s) Martin Gilens and Northwestern’s Benjamin Page in 2014 on the translation of public opinion into public policy. They looked at more than 1700 policies over 20 years and concluded that where economic elite views diverged from those of the public—as they would—the public had “zero estimated impact upon policy change, while economic elites are still estimated to have a very large, positive, independent impact.”

Awareness of that fundamental disconnect is always relevant—but maybe especially when it comes to election season, where corporate coverage suggests we have an array of choices, we’re able to vote for people to represent our interests and choose our way forward, and let the most popular candidate win! We know it’s not like this, but the reporting that could show us how and why elections don’t work the way we think they do, is just not there, in a vigorous, sustained way. Add that to amped-up efforts to impede voting, even in this imperfect system, and people get discouraged—they don’t vote at all, and problems are compounded. So how do we acknowledge flaws in the system while still encouraging people to participate, and to fight the roadblocks to voting that we’re seeing right now?

We get at that with Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way, as well as former mayor of Ithaca, New York.

The post Monifa Bandele on Reimagining Public Safety, Svante Myrick on Roadblocks to Voting appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by CounterSpin.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

"Israel's repeated attacks damaging hospitals and harming healthcare workers, already hard hit by an unlawful blockade, have devastated Gaza's healthcare infrastructure," said A. Kayum Ahmed, special adviser on the right to health at Human Rights Watch. "The strikes on hospitals have killed hundreds of people and put many patients at grave risk because they're unable to receive proper medical care."

Over the past week, Israeli forces have surrounded and intensified their bombardment of several hospitals in northern Gaza including al-Shifa, the enclave's largest medical facility. Israel has also bombed ambulances and people desperately attempting to flee hospitals as they've come under attack.

"On November 3, the Israeli military struck a marked ambulance just outside of Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital," HRW said. "Video footage and photographs taken shortly after the strike and verified by Human Rights Watch show a woman on a stretcher in the ambulance and at least 21 dead or injured people in the area surrounding the ambulance, including at least 5 children."

"An IDF spokesperson said in a televised interview that day: 'Our forces saw terrorists using ambulances as a vehicle to move around. They perceived a threat and accordingly we struck that ambulance,'" the group added. "Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that the ambulance was being used for military purposes."

HRW similarly questioned Israeli assertions that Hamas is using Gaza's hospitals, including al-Shifa, for military operations.

Targeting hospitals is a war crime under international law, but medical facilities can lose their protected status if they're used to commit an "act harmful to the enemy," according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

HRW argued that Tuesday that "no evidence put forward" by the Israeli government thus far "would justify depriving hospitals and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law."

"When a journalist at a news conference showing video footage of damage to the Qatar Hospital sought additional information to verify voice recordings and images presented, the Israeli spokesperson said, 'Our strikes are based on intelligence,'" HRW said. "Even if accurate, Israel has not demonstrated that the ensuing hospital attacks were proportionate."

The group said Israel "should end attacks on hospitals" and urged the United Nations' Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the International Criminal Court to investigate.

"Israel's broad-based attack on Gaza's healthcare system is an attack on the sick and the injured, on babies in incubators, on pregnant people, on cancer patients," said Ahmed. "These actions need to be investigated as war crimes."

The new analysis came amid horrific reports of the impact that Israel's assault is having on healthcare workers, patients, and displaced people seeking refuge from near-constant airstrikes.

Reutersreported that people trapped inside al-Shifa Hospital "plan to start burying bodies within the hospital compound" on Tuesday "because the situation has become untenable." The World Health Organization said over the weekend that the facility is "not functioning as a hospital anymore" due to power outages and a lack of supplies, which have caused the deaths of a number of patients—including premature babies.

Dr. Ahmed Al Mokhallalati, a surgeon at al-Shifa, told Reuters that "the bodies were generating an unbearable stench and posing a risk of infection."

"Unfortunately there is no approval from the Israelis to even bury the bodies within the hospital area," he said. "Today ... civilians started digging within the hospital to try and bury the bodies on their own responsibility without any arrangements by the Israeli side. Burying 120 bodies needs a lot of equipment, it can't be by hand efforts and by single-person efforts. It will take hours and hours to be able to bury all these bodies."

Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said that on Tuesday morning, "bullets were fired into one of three MSF premises located near al-Shifa hospital and sheltering MSF staff and their families—over 100 people, including 65 children, who ran out of food last night."

"Thousands of civilians, medical staff, and patients are currently trapped in hospitals and other locations under fire in Gaza City; they must be protected and afforded safe passage if they wish to leave," the group added. "Above that, there must be a total and immediate cease-fire."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Social media users in Aotearoa New Zealand are being warned not to make posts on voting or any aspect of political campaigns come election day Saturday.

Scrutineers will be on duty at polling stations across the motu to “keep an eye on things”.

No political campaigning is allowed tomorrow and all election billboards must be removed by midnight.

• READ MORE: Follow election updates on RNZ’s blog
• Other NZ election 2023 reports

The Electoral Commission which oversees the election keeps an eye on social media and follows up on any complaints.

Chief Electoral Officer Karl Le Quesne has this advice: “We just advise everyone don’t broadcast on social media about voting or campaigning on election day.”

While it is not long before voting booths shut up shop, it could be weeks before a final election result is declared.

‘Big day’ for election
As of Wednesday more than 970,818 had cast their votes, leaving more than two and a half million still to vote.

Le Quesne expects more than one million votes to have been cast by the end of the day.

He told RNZ Morning Report this was ahead of 2017 but behind 2020.

“We are just getting really prepared for potentially quite a big day on election day,” he said.

More than 2300 voting places will be open on Saturday from 9am to 7pm.

The final results will be declared on November 3.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

North Korea could breach the National Election Commission’s (NEC’s) network “at any time” due to its weak security system, although no such infiltration has been identified, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).  

The announcement came after the NIS and the country’s internet safety watchdog, the Korea Internet and Security Agency, jointly conducted a cybersecurity audit of the NEC in response to criticism that it did not adequately secure its system against hacking attempts. 

The probe found that the commission’s election-management network, which oversees voter registration, ballot counting, and early voting systems, had several cybersecurity weaknesses.

These vulnerabilities could have allowed potential hackers to breach the system and tamper with registered voter data and election results, said the NIS.

The agency added that the NEC has failed to take adequate precautions against North Korean cyber attacks on the emails and other information of its officials despite its warning. 

The NIS said in May that it had warned the NEC multiple times its network was exposed to North Korean hackers and should undergo a cyber security check from the agency. At that time, the election watchdog allegedly refused the request, saying such inspection from a government agency could hurt its “political neutrality.”

In response to the spy agency’s latest findings, the NEC said that even if it is technically possible to hack into the election system, that does not necessarily lead to a rigged election, as it is nearly impossible to manipulate the outcome of an election without the help of commission insiders.

“The inspection results prove that it is possible to hack into the NEC’s internal network by using common hacking techniques widely used by international hacking organizations, including the North Korean ones,” said Yoo Sang-beom, a spokesperson of South Korea’s ruling People Power Party. “A thorough investigation into the gross failures of the commission’s security management system should be conducted, and appropriate measures should be put in place that the public can trust.”

In July, the spy agency reported that 1.37 million cyberattacks against South Korea, on average, were detected daily in the first half of the year. That’s roughly 15% more than the daily average of 1.18 million last year.

Some 70% of those attacks were believed to be carried out by North Korea. China followed with 4% and Russia 2%.

Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

North Korea could breach the National Election Commission’s (NEC’s) network “at any time” due to its weak security system, although no such infiltration has been identified, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).  

The announcement came after the NIS and the country’s internet safety watchdog, the Korea Internet and Security Agency, jointly conducted a cybersecurity audit of the NEC in response to criticism that it did not adequately secure its system against hacking attempts. 

The probe found that the commission’s election-management network, which oversees voter registration, ballot counting, and early voting systems, had several cybersecurity weaknesses.

These vulnerabilities could have allowed potential hackers to breach the system and tamper with registered voter data and election results, said the NIS.

The agency added that the NEC has failed to take adequate precautions against North Korean cyber attacks on the emails and other information of its officials despite its warning. 

The NIS said in May that it had warned the NEC multiple times its network was exposed to North Korean hackers and should undergo a cyber security check from the agency. At that time, the election watchdog allegedly refused the request, saying such inspection from a government agency could hurt its “political neutrality.”

In response to the spy agency’s latest findings, the NEC said that even if it is technically possible to hack into the election system, that does not necessarily lead to a rigged election, as it is nearly impossible to manipulate the outcome of an election without the help of commission insiders.

“The inspection results prove that it is possible to hack into the NEC’s internal network by using common hacking techniques widely used by international hacking organizations, including the North Korean ones,” said Yoo Sang-beom, a spokesperson of South Korea’s ruling People Power Party. “A thorough investigation into the gross failures of the commission’s security management system should be conducted, and appropriate measures should be put in place that the public can trust.”

In July, the spy agency reported that 1.37 million cyberattacks against South Korea, on average, were detected daily in the first half of the year. That’s roughly 15% more than the daily average of 1.18 million last year.

Some 70% of those attacks were believed to be carried out by North Korea. China followed with 4% and Russia 2%.

Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition – and poll leader — National Party’s three biggest donors (Hart, Mowbray and Bolton) have a combined net worth of 15 billion.

The Bottom 50 percent of NZ has 23 billion.

The top 5 percent of New Zealanders own roughly 50 percent of New Zealand’s wealth, while the bottom 50 percent of New Zealanders own a miserable 5 percent.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election 2023 reports

IRD proved NZ capitalism is rigged for the rich and business columnist Bernard Hickey calculates that if we had had a basic capital gains tax in place over the last decade, we would have earned $200 billion in tax revenue.

$200 billion would have ensured our public infrastructure wouldn’t be in such an underfunded ruin right now.

There are 14 billionaires in NZ plus 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals with more than $50 million each. Why not start start with them, then move onto the banks, then the property speculators, the climate change polluters and big industry to pay their fair share before making workers pay more tax.

Culture War fights make all the noise, but poor people aren’t sitting around the kitchen table cancelling people for misusing pronouns, they are trying to work out how to pay the bills.

‘Bread and butter’ pressures
“Bread and butter” cost of living pressures are what the New Zealand electorate wants answers to, and that’s where the Left need to step up and push universal policy that lifts that cost from the people.

The Commerce Commission is clear that the supermarket duopoly should be broken up and the state should step in and provide that competition.

We need year long maternity leave.

We need a nationalised Early Education sector that provides free childcare for children under 5.

We need free public transport.

We need free breakfast and lunches in schools.

We need free dental care.

We need 50,000 new state houses.

We need more hospitals, more schools and a teacher’s aid in every class room.

We need climate change adaptation and a resilient rebuilt infrastructure.

Funded by taxing the rich
We need all these things and we need to fund them by taxing the rich who the IRD clearly showed were rigging the system.

That requires political courage but there is none.

No one is willing to fight for tomorrow, they merely want to pacify the present!

Just promise me one thing.

Don’t. You. Dare. Vote. Early. In. 2023!

I can not urge this enough from you all comrades.

Don’t vote early in the 2023 election.

Secrecy of the ballot box
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for because this is a liberal progressive democracy and your right to chose who you want in the secrecy of that ballot box is a sacred privilege and is your right as a citizen.

But what I will beg of you, is to not vote early in 2023.

Comrades, on our horizon is inflation in double figures, geopolitical shockwave after geopolitical shockwave and a global economic depression exacerbated by catastrophic climate change.

As a nation we will face some of the toughest choices and decision making outside of war time and that means you must press those bloody MPs to respond to real policy solutions and make them promise to change things and you can’t do that if you hand your vote over before the election.

Keep demanding concessions and promises for your vote right up until midnight before election day AND THEN cast your vote!

We only get 1 chance every 3 years to hold these politicians’ feet to the fire and they only care before the election, so force real concessions out of them before you elect them.

This election is going to be too important to just let politicians waltz into Parliament without being blistered by our scrutiny.

Demand real concessions from them and THEN vote on Election Day, October 14.

If the Left votes — the Left wins!

Republished with permission from The Daily Blog.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by David Robie.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition – and poll leader — National Party’s three biggest donors (Hart, Mowbray and Bolton) have a combined net worth of 15 billion.

The Bottom 50 percent of NZ has 23 billion.

The top 5 percent of New Zealanders own roughly 50 percent of New Zealand’s wealth, while the bottom 50 percent of New Zealanders own a miserable 5 percent.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election 2023 reports

IRD proved NZ capitalism is rigged for the rich and business columnist Bernard Hickey calculates that if we had had a basic capital gains tax in place over the last decade, we would have earned $200 billion in tax revenue.

$200 billion would have ensured our public infrastructure wouldn’t be in such an underfunded ruin right now.

There are 14 billionaires in NZ plus 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals with more than $50 million each. Why not start start with them, then move onto the banks, then the property speculators, the climate change polluters and big industry to pay their fair share before making workers pay more tax.

Culture War fights make all the noise, but poor people aren’t sitting around the kitchen table cancelling people for misusing pronouns, they are trying to work out how to pay the bills.

‘Bread and butter’ pressures
“Bread and butter” cost of living pressures are what the New Zealand electorate wants answers to, and that’s where the Left need to step up and push universal policy that lifts that cost from the people.

The Commerce Commission is clear that the supermarket duopoly should be broken up and the state should step in and provide that competition.

We need year long maternity leave.

We need a nationalised Early Education sector that provides free childcare for children under 5.

We need free public transport.

We need free breakfast and lunches in schools.

We need free dental care.

We need 50,000 new state houses.

We need more hospitals, more schools and a teacher’s aid in every class room.

We need climate change adaptation and a resilient rebuilt infrastructure.

Funded by taxing the rich
We need all these things and we need to fund them by taxing the rich who the IRD clearly showed were rigging the system.

That requires political courage but there is none.

No one is willing to fight for tomorrow, they merely want to pacify the present!

Just promise me one thing.

Don’t. You. Dare. Vote. Early. In. 2023!

I can not urge this enough from you all comrades.

Don’t vote early in the 2023 election.

Secrecy of the ballot box
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for because this is a liberal progressive democracy and your right to chose who you want in the secrecy of that ballot box is a sacred privilege and is your right as a citizen.

But what I will beg of you, is to not vote early in 2023.

Comrades, on our horizon is inflation in double figures, geopolitical shockwave after geopolitical shockwave and a global economic depression exacerbated by catastrophic climate change.

As a nation we will face some of the toughest choices and decision making outside of war time and that means you must press those bloody MPs to respond to real policy solutions and make them promise to change things and you can’t do that if you hand your vote over before the election.

Keep demanding concessions and promises for your vote right up until midnight before election day AND THEN cast your vote!

We only get 1 chance every 3 years to hold these politicians’ feet to the fire and they only care before the election, so force real concessions out of them before you elect them.

This election is going to be too important to just let politicians waltz into Parliament without being blistered by our scrutiny.

Demand real concessions from them and THEN vote on Election Day, October 14.

If the Left votes — the Left wins!

Republished with permission from The Daily Blog.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by David Robie.

"We agree entirely with the position expressed by the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese," they wrote, pointing out that the Australian Labor Party leader—who is set to visit D.C. next month—said in May that "enough is enough when it comes to the ongoing incarceration of Julian Assange and that nothing is served from the ongoing incarceration of Julian Assange."

Assange lived at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London from 2012 until 2019, when Ecuador withdrew his asylum protections and he was arrested by British authorities. He remains imprisoned in the United Kingdom while fighting extradition to the United States, where he faces Espionage Act charges for obtaining and publishing leaked material from American whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

"Let there be no doubt that if Julian Assange is removed from the United Kingdom to the United States there will a sharp and sustained outcry in Australia," warns the letter, which also applauds the U.S. academics, civil society groups, human rights advocates, journalists, and lawmakers who have demanded freedom for the 52-year-old.

"We believe the right and best course of action would be for the United States' Department of Justice to cease its pursuit and prosecution of Julian Assange," the letter says. "Alternatively, a decision to simply abandon the extradition proceedings would have the sensible, just, and compassionate effect of allowing Mr Assange to go free from a prolonged and harsh period of high-security detention. It is well and truly time for this matter to end, and for Julian Assange to return home."

The letter was led by co-convenors of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group: Liberal MP Bridget Archer, Independent MP Andrew Wilkie, Labor MP Josh Wilson, and Greens Sen. David Shoebridge. Joining Shoebridge for the U.S. trip are Liberal Sen. Alex Antic, Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, Independent MP Monique Ryan, Greens Sen. Peter Whish-Wilson, and Labor MP Tony Zappia.

"Members of the delegation have different reasons for wanting the U.S. to drop the charges against Assange, from characterizing him as a brave truth-teller to the broader fear, stressed by Joyce, that allowing the extradition of someone who hasn't been accused of wrongdoing in their country of citizenship would set a precedent that China, among other countries, might exploit," Jon Allsop noted last week in the Columbia Journalism Review. "Even Joyce, however, has echoed the argument of press freedom groups that the charges against Assange would effectively criminalize information-gathering and publishing practices that news organizations routinely engage in."

Gabriel Shipton—the WikiLeaks founder's brother and chair of the Assange Campaign, which raised money for the delegation's trip—told Allsop that the visit "will be pivotal" in creating "the political space" for Albanese to pressure U.S. President Joe Biden to let Assange return home when the prime minister travels to the United States in late October.

"The time to act to save Julian is now," Shipton said in a statement. "We have faith that the group's message will be heard in Washington, D.C.and officials will abandon attempts to extradite Julian to the United States in relation to unprecedented allegations of espionage."

"Julian's physical and mental health continue to deteriorate each minute he spends in prison," his brother added.

Shoebridge said last week that "the reason we are going is that Julian Assange is facing an unprecedented situation," and "the core crime he faces is the crime of being a journalist."

"We are hopeful that [in] the partisan world of Washington politics, such a broad cross-party visiting group will have some political cut through," the senator added. "We are at a critical point. In a matter of weeks Julian Assange could be put on a plane, in shackles, and sent to the U.S."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Voting Rights Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law and coauthor of Guns and Voting:

“We found big holes in the legal protections for voters and election workers against gun violence. Even as it cast many other gun regulations into doubt in Bruen, the Supreme Court said that it’s constitutional to ban guns at the polls. That’s a straightforward, popular policy that states should be able to enact without controversy.”

Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at GIFFORDS Law Center and coauthor of Guns and Voting:

“Though American elections have remained safe and secure, both political and gun violence pose significant risks to the safety of voters and people bravely conducting our elections. The 2024 presidential election brings an unprecedented confluence of factors that heighten these risks.

“Ahead of next year’s elections, it is critical that states take the steps recommended in the report to ensure that elections remain free from violence. Our leaders must act to protect our democracy.”

Key findings:

• Only 12 states and D.C. prohibit both open and concealed carry of firearms at the polls.
• Voting and elections have become the targets of threats and intimidation just as we face a proliferation of guns, more frequent gun violence, and fewer legal protections.
• Neither federal law nor any state law explicitly acknowledges that the presence of guns in or around places where people are voting and conducting elections can constitute illegal intimidation.

Recommendations:

• States should prohibit all guns, including concealed carry, in and around sites where elections are taking place.
• States should strengthen laws protecting voters and others from intimidation by explicitly addressing the intimidating effect of firearms.
• States must pass stronger anti-intimidation laws that protect voters and election workers.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

A judge on Monday set Donald Trump’s federal trial for plotting to overturn the 2020 election to begin in Washington, D.C., on March 4 — at the height of the presidential primary season and one day before Super Tuesday. Meanwhile, Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows testified before a federal judge in Georgia on Monday as part of an effort to move his trial from state to federal court. Meadows is one of Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the Georgia racketeering case, and any decisions on his fate could affect the others. Black Voters Matter co-founder Cliff Albright says at the heart of the Georgia case was an attempt to disenfranchise Black people who had helped push Joe Biden over the top in the state’s presidential election. “They were specifically going after Black voters,” Albright says of Trump and his allies. We also speak with law professor Anthony Michael Kreis, who attended Monday’s hearing in Georgia and says Trump’s mounting legal battles present “a real test for our constitutional order and our political system.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Monument removal efforts grew in 2017 after a counterprotester was killed at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacist groups defended the preservation of Confederate monuments. Removal movements saw widespread success in 2020 following George Floyd’s death at the hands of the police.

These events linked Confederate monuments to modern racist beliefs and acts. But whether monuments carry inherent racism or are merely misinterpreted requires further exploration.

Research by economist Jhacova A. Williams has shown that Black Americans who live in areas that have a relatively higher number of streets named after prominent Confederate generals “are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be employed in low-status occupations, and have lower wages compared to Whites.”

I study economic and political history and have researched the effects of Confederate monuments in the post-Civil War South. I found that these symbols helped solidify the Jim Crow era, which established segregation across the South and lasted from the 1880s until the 1960s. These symbols were accompanied by increases in the vote share of the Democratic Party – the racist party that had supported slavery and, after the Civil War, supported segregation for another century. The building of these monuments was also accompanied by reductions in voter turnout. Further research I conducted shows that these political effects disproportionately occurred in areas with a larger share of Black residents.

In other words, as these monuments were erected, the vote increased for members of the then-racist Democratic Party, and people turned out to vote in lower numbers in predominantly Black areas.

These findings demonstrate that a connection existed between racism and these monuments from their inception – and provide context for modern monument debates.

Monumental history

The South saw almost no monument dedications during the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. Monuments first appeared during the Reconstruction era – 1865 to 1877 – when Southern states were occupied by the North and integrated back into the Union.

Reconstruction-era monuments in general did not glorify the Confederacy. These monuments largely honored the dead and were placed in cemeteries and spaces distant from daily life. They compartmentalized the trauma of the war, commemorating lives but not placing the Confederacy at the center of Southern identity.

As Reconstruction neared its end in 1875, a Stonewall Jackson monument erected in Richmond, Virginia, foreshadowed the different monuments to come.

The monument’s dedication drew 50,000 spectators and included a military-style parade. The potential presence of a local all-Black militia proved to be controversial. To avoid accusations of race mixing, organizers planned to place the militia and any other Black participants in the back of the parade.

The militia did not attend, likely in anticipation of the controversy, and the only Black Southerners present in the parade were formerly enslaved people who had served in the Confederacy’s Stonewall Brigade. This stark picture of Southern race relations served as a preview of political developments to come.

This trend continued after Reconstruction, which ended with the Compromise of 1877. This compromise settled the disputed 1876 presidential election, giving Republicans the presidency and Democrats, then a pro-segregation party, full political control of the South. Democrats subsequently established what would become known as Jim Crow laws across the South, an array of restrictive and discriminatory laws that disenfranchised Black Southerners and made them second-class citizens.

Monuments played a cultural role in establishing the Jim Crow South. Unlike Reconstruction monuments, post-Reconstruction monuments were erected in prominent public spaces, and their focus shifted toward the portrayal and glorification of famous Confederates. Monument dedication ceremonies were particularly popular around the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, peaking in 1911.

Additional Confederate monuments have been dedicated since that period, but those numbers pale in comparison to the monument-building spree of 1878 to 1912.

Monumental effects

My research investigates the political effects of Confederate monuments in the Reconstruction and early post-Reconstruction – 1877-1912 – eras, namely their effects on Democratic Party vote share and voter turnout.

I expected monuments’ potential effects to be directly related to their centrality to everyday life and glorification of the Confederacy. This is the primary difference between soldier-memorializing Reconstruction and Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments.

I expected to find little political effect from soldier-memorializing Reconstruction monuments, but some pro-Jim Crow effects from Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments. As monuments moved from cemeteries into central public spaces such as parks and squares, I expected them to affect voters’ decisions.

That is precisely what I found.

During Reconstruction, counties that dedicated Confederate monuments saw no change in voter turnout or Democratic Party vote share in biennial congressional elections. These symbols were soldier-memorializing and physically separate from public life and did not influence voter decision-making.

However, when monuments began to glorify the Confederacy and shifted into public life, political effects emerged.

Counties that dedicated monuments in the early post-Reconstruction period saw, on average, a 5.5 percentage point increase in Democratic Party vote share and a 2.2 percentage point decrease in voter turnout compared with other counties.

As monuments changed, so did their effect on the public. Glorifying public monuments communicated to the public that the Confederacy was worth preserving, thus strengthening Democratic majorities and lowering participation in the political process.

Larger Democratic majorities alongside lower voter turnout already suggests Black Southerners, who almost exclusively voted for Republicans at that time, were voting less in areas with monuments. I conducted further exploration and found that these political effects disproportionately occurred in counties with larger Black populations. This suggests that Black voters were more responsive to Confederate monuments, which suppressed their political activity by signaling they were not accepted by the local community.

The effects of post-Reconstruction monuments suggest that they played a role in continued racism throughout the South into the early 20th century.

Their controversy today demonstrates the values still conveyed by their presence in society. Recent research has demonstrated the long-run effects of the spread of Southern white culture and prejudices across the United States post-Civil War, connecting it to higher levels of modern-day Republican Party voting and conservative values.

It is thus no wonder Confederate monuments, as prominent symbols of pro-Confederate, Southern white culture, continue to be – and are likely to remain – cultural flashpoints.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Alexander Taylor.

On Thursday, former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to trying to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss. Trump appeared before a magistrate judge in Washington’s federal courthouse two days after he was indicted. A key part of the election interference charges Trump faces relates to a Civil War-era rights law that protects the right of citizens to have their vote counted. We speak with Carol Anderson, author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy and ​_White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide_, about Trump’s attempt to wipe out the votes of Americans of color and the intimidation of Black voters and election workers. “This is the kind of terror that is reminiscent of what happened during Reconstruction that led to the KKK Act that Trump is charged with,” says Anderson. “That kind of terror was the intimidation of Black people who were exercising the right to vote.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Nebraska had a 20-week abortion ban in place in April 2022, when Burgess's stillbirth took place.

Prosecutors ultimately dropped the misdemeanor charges against Burgess in exchange for her plea of guilty to a felony charge of concealing or abandoning a dead body. On the Facebook messaging application, Burgess and her mother had discussed "burning the evidence" of the stillbirth and burying it, which they did with the help of a third person named Tanner Barnhill, who has been sentenced to probation.

According toJezebel, police received a tip about the disposal of the remains and obtained a warrant to view the mother and daughters' Facebook messages after Celeste Burgess mentioned the correspondence when she was being questioned by law enforcement.

Meta, the company that owns Facebook, complied with the warrant and released the messages, which were not subject to end-to-end encryption.

Digital rights groups have long called on Facebook and other online messaging platforms to make end-to-end encryption the default setting for users' conversations.

Burgess' case illustrates "the real, human cost of mass surveillance of everyone's private digital communications," said Meredith Whittaker, president of the encrypted messaging app Signal.

Emma Roth, a staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice, which advocates for people who face pregnancy-related criminal charges, toldJezebel that police and prosecutors in Nebraska charged Burgess out of desperation to "criminalize what they view as immoral behavior," in the absence of state laws against the 17-year-old's procurement of abortion pills.

"When [prosecutors] are faced with the limitations of state law and the fact that a self-managed abortion or a pregnancy loss is not illegal under state law, it's almost as if they start throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks," Roth said. "Prosecutors are much more likely to try to 'make an example' of someone who seeks an abortion later on in pregnancy because they deem that less morally acceptable, and they may seek charges in the hope that the public will find the facts of the case egregious and will welcome a prosecution."

"But the risk, of course, is that any type of precedent that a prosecutor sets when bringing a case against someone who sought a later abortion can be applied against somebody seeking an earlier abortion," she added.

In the case of Burgess, noted journalist Jessica Valenti, one detail that made it into numerous media reports was a claim that the 17-year-old said in her Facebook messages that she couldn't "wait to get the 'thing' out of her body."

In reality, Valenti wrote, "that sentence is nowhere in the Facebook messages; in fact, the language is actually a police officer's interpretation of the teenager's conversation."

Prosecutors in Madison County, Nebraska "tried to paint a portrait of this mother and daughter in a negative light and to deprive them of their humanity and to erase the fact that we're talking about a teenager who was not ready to have a child," Roth told Jezebel.

While prosecutors have long filed charges against people for pregnancy losses and self-managed abortions, saidJezebel reporter Susan Rikunas, "Celeste Burgess may be the first person charged and sentenced for crimes related to an abortion since the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling."

Last year's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization reversed nearly a half-century of national abortion rights affirmed by Roe.

As progressive advocacy group Indivisible said, Burgess' jail sentence represents Republican lawmakers' "deranged vision for our country."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Nebraska had a 20-week abortion ban in place in April 2022, when Burgess's stillbirth took place.

Prosecutors ultimately dropped the misdemeanor charges against Burgess in exchange for her plea of guilty to a felony charge of concealing or abandoning a dead body. On the Facebook messaging application, Burgess and her mother had discussed "burning the evidence" of the stillbirth and burying it, which they did with the help of a third person named Tanner Barnhill, who has been sentenced to probation.

According toJezebel, police received a tip about the disposal of the remains and obtained a warrant to view the mother and daughters' Facebook messages after Celeste Burgess mentioned the correspondence when she was being questioned by law enforcement.

Meta, the company that owns Facebook, complied with the warrant and released the messages, which were not subject to end-to-end encryption.

Digital rights groups have long called on Facebook and other online messaging platforms to make end-to-end encryption the default setting for users' conversations.

Burgess' case illustrates "the real, human cost of mass surveillance of everyone's private digital communications," said Meredith Whittaker, president of the encrypted messaging app Signal.

Emma Roth, a staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice, which advocates for people who face pregnancy-related criminal charges, toldJezebel that police and prosecutors in Nebraska charged Burgess out of desperation to "criminalize what they view as immoral behavior," in the absence of state laws against the 17-year-old's procurement of abortion pills.

"When [prosecutors] are faced with the limitations of state law and the fact that a self-managed abortion or a pregnancy loss is not illegal under state law, it's almost as if they start throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks," Roth said. "Prosecutors are much more likely to try to 'make an example' of someone who seeks an abortion later on in pregnancy because they deem that less morally acceptable, and they may seek charges in the hope that the public will find the facts of the case egregious and will welcome a prosecution."

"But the risk, of course, is that any type of precedent that a prosecutor sets when bringing a case against someone who sought a later abortion can be applied against somebody seeking an earlier abortion," she added.

In the case of Burgess, noted journalist Jessica Valenti, one detail that made it into numerous media reports was a claim that the 17-year-old said in her Facebook messages that she couldn't "wait to get the 'thing' out of her body."

In reality, Valenti wrote, "that sentence is nowhere in the Facebook messages; in fact, the language is actually a police officer's interpretation of the teenager's conversation."

Prosecutors in Madison County, Nebraska "tried to paint a portrait of this mother and daughter in a negative light and to deprive them of their humanity and to erase the fact that we're talking about a teenager who was not ready to have a child," Roth told Jezebel.

While prosecutors have long filed charges against people for pregnancy losses and self-managed abortions, saidJezebel reporter Susan Rikunas, "Celeste Burgess may be the first person charged and sentenced for crimes related to an abortion since the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling."

Last year's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization reversed nearly a half-century of national abortion rights affirmed by Roe.

As progressive advocacy group Indivisible said, Burgess' jail sentence represents Republican lawmakers' "deranged vision for our country."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

DeSantis officially outlined his plan at a Monday event in the Texas border city of Eagle Pass. He spoke in front of a banner and behind a podium that made "stop the invasion" one of three key slogans of his anti-immigrant agenda, along with "secure our border" and "build the wall." The proposals put forth by DeSantis are based on racist conspiracy theories and represent an escalation of GOP rhetoric on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Among other things, DeSantis advocated for using "deadly force" against suspected drug traffickers, as The New York Timesreported:

"Of course you use deadly force," Mr. DeSantis said after a campaign event on a sweltering morning in Eagle Pass, a small Texas border city. "If you drop a couple of these cartel operatives trying to do that, you're not going to have to worry about that anymore," he added. He said they would end up "stone-cold dead."

He did not clarify how Border Patrol officers or other law enforcement authorities might determine which people crossing the border were smuggling drugs. He said only that "if someone is breaking through the border wall" while "demonstrating hostile intent or hostile action, you have to be able to meet that with the appropriate use of force."

As a point of clarification, the newspaper explained that "the overwhelming majority of drugs are smuggled in commercial vehicles coming across official ports of entry, not carried by migrants, according to U.S. border authorities."

Other elements of DeSantis' proposed crackdown on immigrants include:

• Ending birthright citizenship;
• Deputizing state and local law enforcement officers to arrest and deport migrants and to detain unaccompanied migrant children indefinitely;
• Detaining all migrants who make unauthorized border crossings until their immigration court hearing, likely requiring a massive expansion of carceral space;
• Completing construction of the border wall initiated by former President Donald Trump, even deploying U.S. troops to "assist" Border Patrol agents until the project is finished; and
• Restarting the "Remain in Mexico" program that endangers asylum-seekers.

"Those policies are sure to appeal to conservative voters in the Republican presidential primary contest," the Times observed, "but they would be likely to run into legal roadblocks and could test the limits of presidential authority."

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states cannot enact their own immigration policies that conflict with federal laws.

"The DeSantis policies and plans announced today wouldn't advance any real solutions for our broken immigration system," Mario Carrillo, the Texas-based campaign manager of America's Voice, said in a statement. "Instead, they are all just ugly and unworkable anti-immigrant red meat to keep the MAGA base inflamed and all 'justified' by advancing false and dangerous white nationalist rhetoric that has a mounting body count, including in Texas."

"My hometown of El Paso is still reeling from the mass shooting perpetrated by a white nationalist whose rhetoric is now touted by DeSantis and many more Republicans," said Carrillo. "Just a few days ago in Pittsburgh, the conviction of the Tree of Life synagogue shooter offered another reminder about the dangers of mainstreaming this rhetoric, while Buffalo recently commemorated their own anniversary of the attack in their city, again by a white nationalist who cited anti-immigrant conspiracies."

"That the DeSantis campaign is continuing to elevate and mainstream these false conspiracies is dangerous and irresponsible," Carrillo added, "but not surprising given the type of campaign he intends to run."

"The policy rollout on Monday suggested that Mr. DeSantis, who is trailing Mr. Trump by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, was trying to outflank the former president on immigration," the Times noted. Multiple experts "questioned the viability of Mr. DeSantis' proposals, suggesting they were driven by the political imperatives of a presidential campaign."

As governor, DeSantis has been at the forefront of cruel immigration policies.

Last September, he organized flights carrying roughly 50 South American asylum-seekers from San Antonio, Texas to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, precipitating a lawsuit and a criminal investigation into whether people were "lured... under false pretenses." The Bexar County Sheriff's Office recently recommended criminal charges over the Martha's Vineyard flights.

DeSantis flew additional migrants to Sacramento earlier this month, prompting California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to threaten him with kidnapping charges.

Last month, DeSantis sent hundreds of Florida law enforcement officers and Florida National Guard members to Texas at the request of the state's Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who has repeatedly accused President Joe Biden of failing to "secure the border."

Just days ago, DeSantis "announced a national coalition of more than 90 local sheriffs who said they would band together to fight gang activity and illegal drugs that they argue are the result of the Biden administration's border policies," the Times reported.

Ominously, the immigration plan he revealed on Monday says: "If the Mexican government drags its feet, DeSantis will reserve the right to operate across the border to secure our territory from Mexican cartel activities. If the Mexican government won't stop cartel drug manufacturing, DeSantis will surge resources to the Navy and the Coast Guard and block precursor chemicals from entering Mexican ports."

According toThe Associated Press:

DeSantis was supportive of one audience member who suggested that the situation at the border constituted an "act of war."

"I think the state of Texas has the right to declare an invasion," DeSantis told the man. "You're going to see as president under Article 2 of the Constitution, you have a responsibility and a duty to protect the country. We are going to do that and we are going to do that robustly."

This makes DeSantis the latest Republican to express support for using military force against cartels south of the border, even though "critics have said such actions would violate Mexico's sovereignty and fail to address the drug overdose crisis that continues to devastate U.S. communities," as Al Jazeerareported.

In Florida, meanwhile, DeSantis recently signed a bill that places harsh restrictions on undocumented immigrants and requires the "repayment of certain economic development incentives" if the state, which plans to conduct random audits of businesses, "finds or is notified that an employer has knowingly employed" an undocumented immigrant without verifying their employment eligibility.

The law, which takes effect in less than a week, has pushed thousands of workers to flee the state, eliciting criticism not only from progressive opponents of DeSantis but also some capitalists who otherwise back the far-right governor.

As America's Voice pointed out, "The DeSantis plan and speech did not highlight the continued array of media coverage detailing the... toll on the economy and communities of the signature Florida anti-immigrant legislation he signed into law."

Carrillo argued that "the key storylines about Ron DeSantis' visit to the Texas border shouldn't just be about his collection of dehumanizing political stunts or the ugly and unworkable policy agenda he unveiled today. They also must include the economic and community harms that DeSantis has inflicted on Florida's crucial industries and the state's proud pro-immigrant traditions through his signature immigration bill set to go into effect on July 1."

"Even before the bill takes effect," Carillo said, "people are leaving, job sites are emptying, and employers—some of whom are DeSantis supporters—are complaining."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Democratic majority in Minnesota’s state Legislature, along with Democratic Governor Tim Walz, have enacted sweeping progressive reforms this year, with many praising the ambitious agenda as a “Minnesota Miracle.” Democrats have successfully codified abortion rights; protections for transgender people; driver’s licenses for undocumented residents; new gun control rules; the restoration of voting rights for previously incarcerated people; a $1 billion investment in affordable housing that includes rent assistance; stronger protections for workers seeking to unionize; and paid family, medical and sick leave, among other measures.

Peter Callaghan, a staff writer at MinnPost, says Democrats are using their governing trifecta after years of “pent-up demand” from progressives. We also speak with Robin Wonsley, Democratic Socialist city councilmember in Minneapolis, about how Minnesota Governor Tim Walz faced backlash from labor organizers in May after he issued the first veto in his entire tenure blocking a bill that would have granted minimum wage and better worker protections for Uber and Lyft drivers. The veto came just hours after Uber threatened to pull out of Minnesota.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The post Conservative Justices Save Voting Rights Act by Citing Systemic Racism appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nick Licata.

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Election maps across the Deep South are likely to be redrawn because of a surprise Supreme Court ruling that upheld a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, changes that could alter the balance of power that has given Republicans a razor-thin majority in Congress.

The court’s 5-4 decision in Allen v. Milligan, written for the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts, affirmed the section of the act that prohibits maps drawn to dilute minority voting strength. It was an unexpected victory for a law passed in 1965, which has been gradually dismantled under the Roberts court.

The Supreme Court is now expected to rule quickly on a similar challenge to election maps pending in Louisiana, which could create another congressional district favorable to Democrats in addition to the one in Alabama.

And a racial gerrymandering case from South Carolina is moving toward oral arguments in October. Republican state leaders appealed a decision from a three-judge federal panel that found illegal targeting of Black voters in a map that gave the GOP control of the state’s last remaining swing district. If the panel’s decision is upheld, the Republican-led legislature will have to redraw the lines for the 1st Congressional District.

Republicans won a slim majority in the House in 2022 as legal challenges over redistricting simmered, including the one in Alabama, which the court stayed until after the election. If all of the redistricting challenges were resolved in favor of minority plaintiffs, that could dramatically impact the composition of Congress in 2024. David Wasserman, a senior editor at Cook Political Report, said states creating new majority-minority districts may also need to reconfigure numerous surrounding districts, further altering election maps.

The ruling did not expand the Voting Rights Act but merely maintained the status quo. Nevertheless, it was an unexpected setback to the Republican Party’s redistricting operation. Alabama’s Republican-led Legislature drew only one seat offering an opportunity for Black candidates to win. Black Alabama voters had hoped to create a second congressional district that would offer an opportunity for an additional seat for a minority candidate. Today, 2 in 7 Alabama voters are Black but 6 of 7 congressional seats are held by white politicians. Republicans argued in a court brief that Democrats were “exploiting” the opening created by the Alabama case to make a power grab.

Roberts’ opinion brought a strongly worded dissent from conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who accused the majority — including his colleague Brett M. Kavanaugh — of creating a “consciously segregated districting system” in the name of the Voting Rights Act.

But the South Carolina case offers a case study in how nuanced redistricting cases can be. A ProPublica story in May showed that one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, Rep. Jim Clyburn, made recommendations behind the scenes to protect his seat. That ultimately also helped the GOP. Lawyers for South Carolina Republican leaders argued that they did not intentionally target Black voters and followed Clyburn’s wishes.

Any state with a long history of “extremely polarized” voting is likely to feel the impact of the Alabama decision, which relied heavily on expert analysis of “airtight data” of racial voting patterns, said Christian R. Grose, a University of Southern California political science professor.

A pending federal case in El Paso, Texas, brought by MALDEF, a Latino civil rights organization, challenges maps drawn in 2021 by the Texas Legislature that limited the number of districts in which Black and Latino people make up the majority of eligible voters. Nina Perales, MALDEF’s vice president for litigation, said she’s encouraged by the Alabama decision, which “affirmed the traditional test” for fair maps and “closed the door on fringe theories that undermine voting rights.”

The Louisiana case was put on hold while the court considered Alabama, and minority groups believe a favorable decision could unlock a second majority Black district in the state. Louisiana’s Republican attorney general, Jeff Landry, asked the court in a letter to schedule oral arguments in the dispute.

In Florida, a map drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis and approved by the Legislature may have violated the state constitution in eliminating a congressional district held by a Black Democrat. Voting rights groups have challenged the map, and a Democratic consultant told the Tampa Bay Times that the Alabama decision could signal to the courts that race is a legitimate factor to consider in redistricting.

Richard Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University, said the Alabama case shows that states now have new technologies that “allow plaintiffs to search out potential VRA districts in ways not possible in prior decades.” This makes it harder for states to make excuses that they could not draw maps offering opportunities for minority voters.

Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Foundation, which provided legal support for the Alabama plaintiffs, said she expects the court to move quickly to send some of the disputed maps back to state legislatures for redrawing. The process will not always be smooth, she said, since some of the lawmakers have resisted efforts to broaden minority representation. If legislatures do not act, the courts could step in to remedy the mapping errors.

Democrats in Alabama believed the Supreme Court thwarted minorities in 2022 by delaying its consideration of the case until after the election.

“We’re obviously very happy to see success in the case and excited that voters will be able to have more fair representation,” Jenkins said. “But it is obviously disappointing that this could have been representation that those voters already had.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Marilyn W. Thompson.

In a surprise 5-4 decision Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a racially gerrymandered voting map in Alabama, upholding a key plank of the Voting Rights Act that the conservative majority has spent years whittling away at. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the court’s liberal justices in finding that Alabama’s Republican-drawn congressional districts unlawfully disadvantage Black voters by diluting their voting power, a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act banning voting practices that discriminate based on race and color. The court ordered Alabama’s Legislature to redraw the map. For more on the decision and the state of voting rights across the country, we are joined by three guests: Khadidah Stone is a named plaintiff in the case and works for the civic engagement organization Alabama Forward; Tish Gotell Faulks is legal director at the ACLU of Alabama; and Davin Rosborough is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project who helped represent the plaintiffs.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law and author of The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided the Country, had this reaction:

“Today’s ruling vindicating the rights of Alabama voters is a huge victory for civil rights and a welcome surprise. The Voting Rights Act is one of the country’s most effective civil rights laws. This decision will ensure that voters of color can continue to use Section 2 to assure their equal opportunity to participate in elections, in Alabama and around the country.

“In this instance, the Supreme Court’s embrace of established precedent seems to have heard the public’s outcry over its radical rulings. We should all demand decisions from this court that uphold democracy and advance racial justice.”

Kareem Crayton, senior director in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, had this reaction:

“Today’s decision affirms the Congressional support and judicial principles that gave rise to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Communities of color in this increasingly diverse country need assurance in the law that their right to be fairly represented in government can come from the courts when legislatures fail to follow the law. Despite the Court’s efforts of limiting the use of litigation to address discriminatory districts, this opinion reflects a fulsome application of precedent — which affirms the view of a unanimous district court.”

“Make no mistake: today’s ruling still leaves us with a weakened tool of enforcement. Ten years ago, this court ended the most effective part of the legislation, preclearance, and in 2021, made it very hard to use Section 2 to challenge suppressive discriminatory voting rules.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law and author of The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided the Country, had this reaction:

“Today’s ruling vindicating the rights of Alabama voters is a huge victory for civil rights and a welcome surprise. The Voting Rights Act is one of the country’s most effective civil rights laws. This decision will ensure that voters of color can continue to use Section 2 to assure their equal opportunity to participate in elections, in Alabama and around the country.

“In this instance, the Supreme Court’s embrace of established precedent seems to have heard the public’s outcry over its radical rulings. We should all demand decisions from this court that uphold democracy and advance racial justice.”

Kareem Crayton, senior director in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, had this reaction:

“Today’s decision affirms the Congressional support and judicial principles that gave rise to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Communities of color in this increasingly diverse country need assurance in the law that their right to be fairly represented in government can come from the courts when legislatures fail to follow the law. Despite the Court’s efforts of limiting the use of litigation to address discriminatory districts, this opinion reflects a fulsome application of precedent — which affirms the view of a unanimous district court.”

“Make no mistake: today’s ruling still leaves us with a weakened tool of enforcement. Ten years ago, this court ended the most effective part of the legislation, preclearance, and in 2021, made it very hard to use Section 2 to challenge suppressive discriminatory voting rules.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Slate's Mark Joseph Stern tweeted that "this is a HUGE surprise and a major voting rights victory," also noting that the high court's decision in Allen v. Milligan is "a boon to Democrats' chances" of retaking the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024.

"This fight was won through generations of Black leaders who refused to be silent, and while much work is left, today we can move forward with these reaffirmed protections civil rights leaders fought and died for."

Davin Rosborough, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, declared that "the Supreme Court rejected the Orwellian idea that it's inappropriate to consider race in determining whether racial discrimination led to the creation of illegal maps. This ruling is a huge victory for Black Alabamians."

The national ACLU, its Alabama arm, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Hogan Lovells LLP, and Wiggins Childs LLC sued Alabama in November 2021 on behalf of four individual voters—Evan Milligan, Shalela Dowdy, Letetia Jackson, and Khadidah Stone—along with Greater Birmingham Ministries and the NAACP of Alabama, arguing that the state's new congressional map is racially discriminatory under Section 2 of the VRA and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Although a three-judge panel granted a preliminary injunction in January 2022 and gave Alabama an opportunity to redraw the districts before last year's election, the state then obtained a stay from the Supreme Court and the contested map was used.

The high court's new ruling in the case—previously known as Merrill v. Milligan—was celebrated by the plaintiffs, who said in a joint statement:

In 2021, Alabama lawmakers targeted Black voters by packing and cracking us so we could not have a meaningful impact on the electoral process. They attempted to redefine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and shirk their responsibility to ensure communities of color are given an equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Today, the Supreme Court reminded them of that responsibility by ordering a new map be drawn that complies with federal law—one that recognizes the diversity in our state rather than erasing it. This fight was won through generations of Black leaders who refused to be silent, and while much work is left, today we can move forward with these reaffirmed protections civil rights leaders fought and died for.

LDF senior counsel Deuel Ross, who argued the case before the court in October, explained that "Alabama attempted to rewrite federal law by saying race had no place in redistricting. But because of the state's sordid and well-documented history of racial discrimination, race must be used to remedy that past and ensure communities of color are not boxed out of the electoral process."

"While the Voting Rights Act and other key protections against discriminatory voting laws have been weakened in recent years and states continue to pass provisions to disenfranchise Black voters, today's decision is a recognition of Section 2's purpose to prevent voting discrimination and the very basic right to a fair shot," Ross continued.

Tish Gotell Faulks, the ACLU of Alabama's legal director, said that "the key takeaway from today's decision is the court's acknowledgment that the Alabama Legislature knowingly continued its legacy of drawing illegal voting districts that disenfranchise Black voters."

"Though we were victorious today, history shows us that lawmakers will erect many more hurdles before every Alabamian, irrespective of their race, can vote for representatives that reflect their beliefs, values, and priorities," Jones warned. "Efforts remain underway from Montgomery to Jackson to Baton Rouge, and elsewhere across the country to minimize, marginalize, and eliminate the ability of Black and Brown people to have a voice in their communities. Our communities then—as now—understand that the fight to uphold our civil rights is a daily pursuit. We will persist."

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), which has been involved in several lawsuits challenging rigged election maps and filed a friend-of-the-court brief for this case, also welcomed the Thursday decision while highlighting ongoing attacks on voting rights.

"When self-interested politicians draw maps that suit their own needs instead of the needs of their community, our democracy becomes less inclusive and accountable," said CLC senior vice president Paul Smith. "We are heartened that the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 of the VRA, one of the most important tools available to ensure every voter, particularly Black and Brown voters who have historically been denied the freedom to vote, has an equal voice in our democracy."

"While this ruling is a step in the right direction," Smith added, "we will continue to fight tirelessly alongside our local allies in Alabama and across the country to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps in court and develop innovative policy solutions that protect and expand the freedom to vote for every American."

Pointing to Shelby v. Holder, Kareem Crayton, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program, stressed that the new decision "still leaves us with a weakened tool of enforcement. Ten years ago, this court ended the most effective part of the legislation, preclearance, and in 2021, made it very hard to use Section 2 to challenge racially discriminatory voting rules."

"Congress can and should step in to protect fair access to voting and representation for all," according to Crayton. "Our legislators must pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, notes in his analysis that $886 billion for the military is "a sum far higher in real terms than the peaks of the Korean or Vietnam wars or the height of the Cold War."

"These enormous sums are being marshaled in support of a flawed National Defense Strategy that attempts to go everywhere and do everything, from winning a war with Russia or China, to intervening in Iran or North Korea, to continuing to fight a global war on terror that involves military activities in at least 85 countries," Hartung writes. "Sticking to the current strategy is not only economically wasteful, but will also make America and the world less safe."

The Costs of War report echoes that assessment, noting that the continuous growth of the nation's military budget—which now makes up more than half of the federal government's total discretionary spending—"has the effect of squeezing out the resources and power of other sectors, and weakening the United States' ability to perform core functions such as healthcare, infrastructure, education, and emergency preparedness."

"Because the majority of taxpayer dollars and federal resources are devoted to the military and military industries, and most government jobs are in the defense sector, the political power of this sector has become more deeply entrenched and other alternatives have become harder to pursue," reads the Brown analysis, authored by Heidi Peltier. "Instead of having a federal government that addresses various national priorities—including the health and education of its population and the sustainability of its infrastructure and environment—the U.S. has a government that is largely devoted to war and militarism."

The budget deal reached by the Biden White House and congressional Republicans perpetuates that trend.

If approved in the appropriations process later this year, the Biden-GOP Pentagon budget deal would add $28 billion to U.S. military spending next fiscal year compared to current levels.

And some lawmakers are exploring ways to circumvent the $886 billion topline to hand even more money to the Pentagon as new caps on non-military spending threaten funding for food aid, rental assistance, and other programs.

Hartung warned Thursday that "Congress could pass an emergency military aid package for Ukraine that includes not only funds needed for that nation to defend itself, but tens of billions of dollars for Pentagon or congressional pet projects that have nothing to do with defending Ukraine."

"This is precisely what happened during the 10-year period covered by the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA)," he noted. "The Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account—nominally meant to fund the Iraq and Afghan wars—was used to pay for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of items unrelated to the wars, as a way to evade the caps on the Pentagon's regular budget contained in the BCA."

"We are overspending on the Pentagon instead of providing adequate funding to address other urgent security needs, and too often favoring special interests over the national interest."

Such unchecked spending is likely to have massive benefits for the arms makers and other private contractors that aggressively lobby the federal government.

The Costs of War report points out that the five military-related companies that led their sector in lobbying spending in fiscal year 2021 also received the most contract dollars from the federal government.

"Firms such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Boeing spend millions of dollars in lobbying each year and use their political capital to secure monopoly-like contracts with the Department of Defense," the report notes.

Hartung similarly highlights the "undue influence exerted by the arms industry and its allies in Congress, backed up by over $83 million in campaign contributions in the past two election cycles and the employment of 820 lobbyists, far more than one for every member of Congress."

"The industry also leverages the jobs its programs create to bring lawmakers on board to fund ever-higher budgets, despite the fact that the economic role of the arms sector has declined dramatically over the past three decades, from 3.2 million direct jobs to just one million now—six-tenths of one percent of a national labor force of over 160 million people," Hartung writes. "Last year alone, Congress added $45 billion to the Pentagon budget beyond what the department requested, much of it for systems built in the states or districts of key members, a process that puts special interests above the national interest."

Both new reports make the case for cutting U.S. military spending—which is larger than that of more than 144 nations combined—and directing the savings toward neglected public services.

"Reducing the military budget and funding other priorities such as healthcare, education, clean energy, and infrastructure," the Brown analysis argues, "will help increase other forms of security—the kinds of meaningful human security rooted in good health, good living conditions, and a productive and well-educated society—while also increasing employment nationwide."

And Hartung contends that, contrary to war hawks' claims that Pentagon cuts would compromise national security, the U.S. "could mount a robust defense for far less money if it pursued a more restrained strategy that takes a more realistic view of the military challenges posed by Russia and China, relies more heavily on allies to provide for the defense of their own regions, shifts to a deterrence–only nuclear strategy, and emphasizes diplomacy over force or threats of force to curb nuclear proliferation."

"This approach could save at least $1.3 trillion over the next decade, funds that could be invested in other areas of urgent national need," Hartung writes. "But making a shift of this magnitude will require political and budgetary reforms to reduce the immense power of the arms lobby."

To that end, Hartung suggests restrictions on the "revolving door" between the Pentagon and major military contractors. An April report assembled by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) "identified 672 cases in 2022 in which the top 20 defense contractors had former government officials, military officers, members of Congress, and senior legislative staff working for them as lobbyists, board members, or senior executives."

Hartung also calls for a ban on "major weapons contractors funding the campaigns of members of the armed services committees and defense appropriations subcommittees of each house of Congress."

"We are overspending on the Pentagon instead of providing adequate funding to address other urgent security needs, and too often favoring special interests over the national interest," Hartung said in a statement Thursday. "Rethinking America's approach to defense can make us safer at a far lower cost."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

By packing and cracking the historic Black Belt community, the map passed by the state legislature allowed Black voters an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in only one of seven districts even though they make up 27 percent percent of the voting-age population. In its decision, the court also affirmed that under Section 2 of the VRA, race can be used in the redistricting process to provide equal opportunities to communities of color and ensure they are not packed and cracked in a way that impermissibly weakens their voting strength.

The case was brought in November 2021 on behalf of Evan Milligan, Khadidah Stone, Letetia Jackson, Shalela Dowdy, Greater Birmingham Ministries, and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP who are represented by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Alabama, Hogan Lovells LLP, and Wiggins, Childs, Pantazis, Fisher & Goldfarb. It was argued before the court on Oct. 4, 2022.

“This decision is a crucial win against the continued onslaught of attacks on voting rights,” said LDF senior counsel Deuel Ross, who argued the case before the court in October. “Alabama attempted to rewrite federal law by saying race had no place in redistricting. But because of the state’s sordid and well-documented history of racial discrimination, race must be used to remedy that past and ensure communities of color are not boxed out of the electoral process. While the Voting Rights Act and other key protections against discriminatory voting laws have been weakened in recent years and states continue to pass provisions to disenfranchise Black voters, today’s decision is a recognition of Section 2’s purpose to prevent voting discrimination and the very basic right to a fair shot.”

Davin Rosborough, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said, “The Supreme Court rejected the Orwellian idea that it’s inappropriate to consider race in determining whether racial discrimination led to the creation of illegal maps. This ruling is a huge victory for Black Alabamians.”

Plaintiffs from the case released the following joint comment: “In 2021, Alabama lawmakers targeted Black voters by packing and cracking us so we could not have a meaningful impact on the electoral process. They attempted to redefine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and shirk their responsibility to ensure communities of color are given an equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Today, the Supreme Court reminded them of that responsibility by ordering a new map be drawn that complies with federal law – one that recognizes the diversity in our state rather than erasing it. This fight was won through generations of Black leaders who refused to be silent, and while much work is left, today we can move forward with these reaffirmed protections civil rights leaders fought and died for.”

“The key takeaway from today’s decision is the court’s acknowledgment that the Alabama Legislature knowingly continued its legacy of drawing illegal voting districts that disenfranchise Black voters. The Alabama Legislature must now draw new, fairer voting districts,” said Tish Gotell Faulks, the ACLU of Alabama’s legal director. “Though we were victorious today, history shows us that lawmakers will erect many more hurdles before every Alabamian, irrespective of their race, can vote for representatives that reflect their beliefs, values, and priorities. Efforts remain underway from Montgomery to Jackson to Baton Rouge, and elsewhere across the country to minimize, marginalize, and eliminate the ability of Black and brown people to have a voice in their communities. Our communities then — as now — understand that the fight to uphold our civil rights is a daily pursuit. We will persist.”

Ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf

This case is part of the ACLU’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Supreme Court Docket.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In an increasingly unsafe and, frankly, unhinged America, one of the things that keeps me up at night is the question of whether Governor Ron DeSantis’s far-right Florida will ultimately serve as a model for a national Republican Party in charge of the entire federal government. (Legislative and executive branches aside, of course no political party is technically supposed to control the ostensibly nonpartisan judicial branch. But we all know how that’s going.)

The competition is stiff this year, with Idaho, Tennessee, and more recently (and somewhat surprisingly) Montana all making strong bids for the title. But how can anyone compete with a state governed by a man so rabidly “anti-woke” that he has declared war on Mickey Mouse, a major source of tourism dollars?

I think it’s safe to say no state has surpassed Florida in the practical implementation of authoritarian governance, which DeSantis has pulled off with the help of both a rubber-stamp GOP supermajority in the state legislature and a peculiar knack for stacking the bureaucracy with right-wing Christian ideologues who have no qualms about imposing their hyper-partisan will in areas like healthcare and education.

In his “war on woke,” DeSantis has shattered pre-existing norms, brazenly politicizing the Florida Board of Medicine as he attacked transgender Floridians and appointing Christopher Rufo – the right-wing activist who started the “critical race theory” panic – to the board of trustees of New College of Florida, a sometime quirky state liberal arts college known as a haven for queer Florida youth that is now being transformed into an ideologically driven indoctrination center.

No state has surpassed Florida in the practical implementation of authoritarian governance, which DeSantis has pulled off with the help of both a rubber-stamp GOP supermajority in the state legislature and a peculiar knack for stacking the bureaucracy with right-wing Christian ideologues

DeSantis touts his approach to Florida as a “blueprint” for remaking the United States, and there is no doubt the Republican base adores his penchant for political theatre and misusing government to “own the libs” and punish the marginalized.

But more sophisticated Republicans – including key members of the all-important donor class – have begun to hesitate about backing DeSantis, worried (correctly) that his hard right social policies are alienating to independent voters, who trended Democrat in 2022 over abortion, leading to the underperforming of Republican candidates relative to historical tendencies. Some also accuse DeSantis of a lack of “people skills,” failing to return phone calls to donors and state legislators, and there is clearly a severe charisma gap between DeSantis and Donald Trump.

Of course, DeSantis – still officially undeclared for the 2024 primaries but also Trump’s only serious competition for the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency – need not be elected for a Republican president and Republican-controlled congress to try and implement much of what he has done in Florida. And one of his policies is particularly worrisome in that regard: his mobilization of an ‘Office of Election Crimes and Security’ – essentially a brand new sort of election police – to terrorize individuals whose votes were retroactively deemed illegal.

As I’ve belaboured before, America’s political system is broken in ways that favour Republicans, who have also shown in recent years they will always choose power over democracy. Republicans have often been able to win the presidency while losing the popular vote for president in recent election cycles, because, through a system known as the Electoral College, the American system counts states’ ‘votes’ for president rather than individuals’, meaning that in most states, the votes of those in the minority end up having no impact on the presidential race. Where Republicans control state governments, they also engage in voter suppression and gerrymandering in order to give themselves unfair advantages. Republicans also regularly push a false narrative that America is wracked with widespread “voter fraud,” and it was this narrative that fueled the 6 January insurrection, which was centred on the bald-faced lie that then president-elect Joe Biden had somehow “stolen” the election from Trump.

Oddly enough, the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election in which DeSantis beat Democratic challenger Andrew Gillum was affected by voter suppression, but it also saw the passage of a state constitutional amendment widely touted as a win for democracy: the re-enfranchisement of convicted felons who have completed their sentences, including parole or probation. Previously, Florida banned all convicted felons from voting. After 2018, those restrictions were lifted except for those convicted of murder or sexual crimes. And this is where things get messy.

Between their founding in April 2022 and January 2023, DeSantis’s election police made a total of 24 arrests of people who had voted illegally, but almost certainly without the intent to do so, in the 2020 election – an election in which over 11 million Floridians voted. In at least some cases these rehabilitated felons were issued voter cards by the state, which is an obvious indication that they voted in good faith, and that, if anyone is liable for the error, it should be the Florida state government. Nevertheless, out of the blue, DeSantis sent in his shiny new force to disrupt and destroy the lives they had rebuilt. Despite the fact that these election police clearly have almost nothing to do, DeSantis and the state legislature have moved to increase their budget.

Some of these arrests led to plea deals that resulted in no jail time, while six have been dismissed by the courts, according to reporting by Lori Rosza for The Washington Post. DeSantis and his supporters presumably want convictions, since gratuitous cruelty is a hallmark of fascist politics – and indeed, the state legislature has obligingly moved to give the statewide prosecutor jurisdiction over ‘voter fraud’ cases in order to stop courts from dismissing cases on jurisdictional grounds, as several have done to date. But the arrests need not result in convictions for the possibility of being arrested for voting to have a deterrent effect among e.g. African-American communities – precisely the kinds of communities whose voting Republicans seek to suppress.

Rosza’s reporting covers the case of Peter Washington, who was issued a voter ID card before he went to cast his vote for Biden. Per Rosza’s description, Washington “knows now he can’t vote – unless he applies for and receives clemency – but he’s telling others they should be wary of it, too, even if they don’t have a criminal record. One of his adult children has already decided he won’t be casting a ballot. A friend is doubting it, too.”

Thinking nationally again, with respect to 2024 and beyond, the possibility that a future Republican president might create a national voting police force is terrifying. The fiction of a ‘voter fraud’ crisis Republicans already use to mobilise voters and stir up fear and outrage is plenty damaging; 6 January amply illustrates that point. But imagine the creation of federal machinery to enforce that phoney narrative through state terror, and the impact that would have on voting throughout the United States. It may seem far-fetched, but DeSantis is already engaging in state terror in Florida. And if Republicans had to worry less about their base’s preferred culture wars policies alienating voters, the donor class would have little incentive to shy away from culture warriors like DeSantis. And that’s what really keeps me up at night.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Chrissy Stroop.

If you vote for a Republican, you’re selecting someone who—once elected—is unlikely to support your views on the issues that matter to you most. Instead, here’s what you’re choosing:

Guns

The vast majority of Americans favor simple and effective gun control measures. They want:

• universal background checks and “red flag” laws that would alert law enforcement to gun owners with serious mental health issues;
• a national database for gun ownership;
• laws requiring gun owners to store their weapons in a safe storage unit; and
• the prohibition of semi-automatic rifles—weapons of war that killers have used in the seven deadliest mass shootings of the last decade.

But elected Republicans oppose all of those measures.

Attacks on Women’s Rights

The vast majority of Americans want to preserve a woman’s right to control her own body.

But elected Republicans unite to enact legislation that outlaws abortion altogether—even for rape, incest, or the health of the mother—or that moves the period of any permissible abortion ever closer to the date of conception and before a woman even knows she’s pregnant.

Stated simply, if you vote for a Republican, you’re probably voting against your personal preferences for the nation.

The Debt Ceiling

Americans want a functional government that doesn’t face a financial crisis every time Republicans decide to hold the nation hostage to their unpopular demands. When Donald Trump was president, neither party in Congress created a debt-limit crisis.

But with President Joe Biden in the White House, elected Republicans have:

• abandoned all pretense of “fiscal responsibility”—a perennial GOP rhetorical talking point;
• threatened to crash the U.S. economy into recession or worse, create chaos in global markets, increase the nation’s borrowing costs that will increase future federal deficits, and jeopardize America’s international financial credibility; and
• united in opposing an increase in the nation’s debt ceiling—despite Congress’ bipartisan authorization of the expenditures that created the debt in the first place and the U.S. Constitution’s command that the “public debt of the United States, authorized by law, shall not be questioned.”

Cult of Trump

Most Americans want honest, courageous, and hard-working leaders with personal integrity.

But elected Republicans refuse to condemn their leading candidate for the 2024 presidential nomination, notwithstanding:

• his adjudicated liability for sexual abuse and defamation;
• his indictment on charges that he paid off a porn star in his effort to win the presidency in 2016;
• criminal investigations involving his unlawful retention of highly classified documents and his obstruction of government efforts to retrieve those materials; and
• state and federal criminal investigations surrounding his attempt to subvert the 2020 election and obstruct the peaceful transfer of power. Although videos of the deadly assault on law enforcement personnel on January 6 are irrefutable, Trump has pledged to pardon the insurrectionists who have been imprisoned for serious felonies.

Threats to Democracy

Most Americans want the United States to remain a democracy. Our forebears fought and died in wars to secure and defend it. In the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, congressional Republicans blamed Trump for the January 6 riot. They described it as a heinous and unprecedented attack on the U.S. government.

But now elected Republicans pretend that it never happened, calling the insurrectionists “ tourists” engaged in “peaceful protest.”

Restricting Voting Rights

Most Americans want to make voting easier. After all, it is the bedrock of any democracy.

But elected Republicans pursue voter suppression with a vengeance—literally. Committed to the opposite of democracy, they enact legislation that makes casting a ballot more difficult for those who are likely to vote against them.

Skewed Government Priorities

Most Americans support higher taxes on the rich.

But elected Republicans oppose taxes on the wealthiest Americans, while urging reductions in government spending that target, among other vulnerable groups, veterans, Social Security recipients, Medicare beneficiaries, poor mothers, and infants.

Climate Change

Most Americans want the government to take seriously the existential threat of climate change.

But elected Republicans ignore or ridicule it, while promoting activities that contribute to the destruction of the planet.

Culture Wars

Most Americans despise the polarization that has infected the body politic.

But elected Republicans use culture wars—including the rejection of science—to promote illiteracy and ignorance across a range of issues, deepening the schisms among us. In addition to the topics listed above, here are two more examples:

Your Vote Should Matter

Stated simply, if you vote for a Republican, you’re probably voting against your personal preferences for the nation.

You’re voting against democracy, which is supposed to honor voters’ desires.

You’re voting for those who claim to care what you think, but use such rhetoric to seduce you.

You’re voting for people whose sole agenda is the acquisition and retention of power. Other than Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) desire to retain his slim, four-person GOP majority in the House of Representatives, there’s no reason for him or any true party leader to tolerate the continuing presence of Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who was a disgrace long before his recent federal indictment for fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and false statements.

Eventually, the actions of elected Republicans betray them—and most of their supporters. But until it’s personal and GOP voters actually feel the impact, they won’t care.

Because in America today, that’s what it means to be a Republican voter.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Steven Harper.

"This text is the biggest Green New Deal win in U.S. history," said the group. "A better world is possible. And we are building it."

The BPRA will enable to New York Power Authority (NYPA), the state's publicly owned power provider, to assess each year whether New York is expected to meet its targets of achieving 70% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2040. If not, the agency will step in to build enough renewable energy to fill in the gap.

The law is set to create tens of thousands of green jobs and "shut down some of the state's most polluting oil and gas plants—which are concentrated in working-class, Black, and brown communities—by 2030, replacing them with pollution-free renewable power," according to Public Power NY, a statewide grassroots movement.

Campaigners were outraged last year when the Democratic-led state Legislature refused to vote on the law before ending the legislative session early. Several New York Democrats in the U.S. House, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, wrote to Hochul in March to demand the passage of the law.

Public Power NY noted that proposed reforms to the governance of the NYPA, which would have made the authority more accountable to New Yorkers, were not included in the final deal. Justin Driscoll, a former Republican donor who has opposed the BPRA, is currently Hochul's hand-picked interim CEO of the agency, and the coalition said it will "mobilize the powerful movement that passed this bill to oppose his nomination."

"NYPA needs leadership that understands the potential of public power and will use NYPA's resources and capacity to ensure that affordable energy gets to New Yorkers who need it most and that New York meets its climate goals," said Public Power NY.

Despite the absence of the proposed reforms in the budget, author and advocate Naomi Kleincalled the deal a "big win" for campaigners who have spent years pushing for public power in New York.

The budget also includes the All-Electric Building Act, a first-in-the-nation state law that will ban the use of fossil fuels in new buildings, starting in 2026 for structures with fewer than seven stories and 2029 for taller buildings.

Campaigners with Food & Water Watch (FWW), Earthjustice, NYPIRG, and New York Communities for Change successfully pushed Hochul and state lawmakers to exclude a "poison pill" provision which would have allowed local governments to opt out of the new requirements, enabling the entire state to take a "historic step" toward ending the use of oil and gas to heat and power buildings.

Once enacted, the measure will save households between $904 and $3,000 per year, according to an analysis by think tank Win Climate, but advocates noted that the law will go into effect two years after they had demanded—the result of a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign by oil and gas giants, critics said.

"New Yorkers are resisting fossil fuels everywhere they pop up, from the power plants that pollute our air to the pipelines that put our communities in harm's way. Now buildings can be a part of that solution," said Alex Beauchamp, northeast region director at FWW. "Unfortunately, we're still moving too slowly, and Gov. Hochul is to blame. Instead of fighting for the swift transition off fossil fuels that the climate crisis demands, the governor caved at the eleventh hour, giving the fossil fuel industry another year of delay to profit at our expense. We won't stop fighting until we end our devastating addiction to fossil fuels."

Certain commercial buildings also won't have to comply until 2029, a carve-out that will benefit "large warehouses and box stores operated by the likes of Amazon" and will "reduce the bill's positive impact and further defer to corporate lobbyists," said FWW.

Rachel Rivera, a Brownsville, Brooklyn resident and New York Communities for Change member whose home was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, said the budget deal led her to have "mixed emotions."

"This policy is a political compromise between what's needed for the people and the death-dealing fossil fuel industry, the people who hurt my family so badly," said Rivera. "On the one hand, New York, my home, will be the first state to end fossil fuels in new buildings by law. That's huge because my community needs to save money, breathe clean air, and get good jobs in clean energy, not die in an extreme weather crisis, as members of my family have. Sadly, this great new law will go into effect years later than it should."

"New York is far behind what's needed for climate justice," she added. "I want to thank our bill sponsors, and all the movement leaders who fight for what's right."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Voting rights defenders on Friday condemned the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature's passage of a bill that critics said will make it harder to register Black and Latino voters while easing the way for Gov. Ron DeSantis to seek the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

The Florida House of Representatives passed S.B. 7050 by a 76-34 party-line vote after the state Senate approved the measure—which DeSantis is expected to sign into law—earlier this week.

S.B. 7050 would boost the power of Florida's Office of Election Crimes and Security to review and conduct preliminary investigations into "any alleged election irregularity" and "make referrals for further legal action."

Under the proposal, voter registration groups could be fined up to $250,000 per year—penalties are currently capped at $50,000— for failing to submit completed registration applications to officials within 10 days.

"We can't disregard, given recent history, that the Legislature's unspoken intent, once again, is to impose barriers and confuse voters," the Miami Herald's editorial board wrote in response to the legislation.

An amendment to the bill allows Florida's governor to run for federal office without having to resign, a measure largely seen as opening the door for DeSantis to run for president.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Florida legislative leaders, officials from dozens of civil and voting rights groups warned that S.B. 7050 would "make it harder for Floridians to register and vote, and undermine Florida's election administration."

Mary Kay Rosinski, co-president of the League of Women Voters Villages/Tri-County, noted that the bill would:

• Create more barriers to conducting voter registration drives;
• Establish steeper fines for volunteer, community-based registration groups;
• Add more restrictions on mail-in ballots;
• Give the Office of Election Crimes and Security expanded authority to investigate and prosecute alleged election violations; and
• Remove the government's liability for issuing voter registration cards to returning citizens whose voting rights have not been restored.

According to the progressive advocacy group Common Cause, one of the letter's signers:

Provisions within the bill specifically target community-based voter registration groups with enormous fines and draconian new restrictions. These groups have made it possible for many Floridians to exercise their right to vote: One out of every 10 Black and Latino voters and one out of every 50 white voters in Florida have registered with the support of these organizations. These groups are especially important for Floridians who do not possess a Florida driver's license or Florida state ID, making them unable to use the state's online voter registration system.

In a particularly egregious restriction, this discriminatory legislation prohibits legal immigrants, Green Card holders, and people who are in the process of becoming U.S. citizens from helping register voters with community-based groups under threat of a $50,000 fine per person. These individuals make up a big part of the workforce to connect with eligible voters who face language barriers.

"This is the third year in a row Florida's lawmakers have changed our voting rules, attacked community-based groups who support voters, and implemented unnecessary and confusing barriers for Floridians looking to participate in our democracy, while making no investment in voter education at all," Common Cause Florida program director Amy Keith said in a statement.

"This makes clear their real aim: to suppress our voting rights and silence the voices of eligible Florida voters who want a more inclusive future for our state," Keith added. "We need a democracy that works for everyone, and our Florida leaders should be targeting the wealthy special interests that dominate our politics, not everyday Floridians who deserve to exercise their right to vote without barriers."

S.B. 7050's passage by Florida lawmakers comes a day after a federal appeals court handed DeSantis a victory by overturning a lower judge's ruling blocking provisionsof S.B. 90, a massive attack on voting rights signed by the governor in 2021. The law empowers partisan poll watchers, imposes strict voter ID requirements, criminalizes so-called "ballot harvesting," limits ballot drop boxes, and bans advocacy groups from handing out food or water to voters waiting in long lines.

Progressives also condemned DeSantis' February signing of S.B. 4, a so-called "election crimes" law described by the Brennan Center for Justice as "an unnecessary and wasteful expansion of state prosecutorial power that could intimidate eligible voters with past convictions from exercising their right to vote."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

In what voting rights advocates called a "blatant attack on democracy," the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday issued a ruling that allows partisan gerrymandering, reversing earlier decisions that outlawed rigged maps.

The ruling enables North Carolina Republicans to redraw state and U.S. congressional districts in a self-serving way. This has major national implications because it paves the way for the GOP to expand its narrow U.S. House majority in 2024 and potentially beyond.

"This Supreme Court ruling will go down as one of the gravest assaults on democracy ever in North Carolina," Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, said in a statement. "Now, extreme partisan gerrymandering has been legalized and it will be weaponized against voters. That's wrong. Undoubtedly, the justices who wrote this shameful decision know it's wrong, as do the self-serving legislators who embrace gerrymandering."

Last year, a previous iteration of the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down GOP-drawn congressional and state legislative maps, deeming them unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders under the state's Free Elections Clause, Equal Protection Clause, and Freedom of Speech and Assembly Clauses.

Notably, the discarded congressional map was projected to give Republicans control of 11 of the state's 14 U.S. House districts. The court-ordered map used during the 2022 midterms, by contrast, led to a 7-7 split that reflects the state's battleground status. As a result of Friday's ruling, Republicans are poised to recreate the rigged map thrown out last year, potentially gaining as many as four U.S. House seats in 2024.

"The state is closely divided but Republicans are going to award themselves a supermajority of congressional districts by gerrymandering Democratic voters into irrelevance."

Harper v. Hall, a lawsuit originally filed in 2019 by Common Cause North Carolina after Republican lawmakers drew legislative and congressional maps that effectively disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters, is the case in question. In a December ruling, the North Carolina Supreme Court reaffirmed that the state constitution protects voters from partisan gerrymandering.

However, following last November's elections, the composition of the Tar Heel State's highest court flipped in January from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority. In February, the newly GOP-controlled court made the unusual decision to rehear the case.

With Friday's 5-2 decision, Republican justices overturned the court's previous rulings declaring partisan gerrymandering illegal, thus granting state lawmakers the power to remake legislative and congressional maps as they see fit, with few if any checks from the judiciary.

In a 71-page dissent joined by the only other Democrat on the court, Justice Anita Earls wrote: "Let there be no illusions about what motivates the majority’s decision to rewrite this court's precedent. Today’s result was preordained on 8 November 2022, when two new members of this court were elected to establish this court's conservative majority."

"To be clear, this is not a situation in which a Democratic-controlled court preferred Democratic-leaning districts and a Republican-controlled court now prefers Republican-leaning districts," Earls continued. "Here, a Democratic-controlled court carried out its sworn duty to uphold the state constitution's guarantee of free elections, fair to all voters of both parties. This decision is now vacated by a Republican-controlled Court seeking to ensure that extreme partisan gerrymanders favoring Republicans are established."

"Following decisions such as this, we must remember that, though the path forward might seem long and unyielding, an injustice that is so glaring, so lawless, and such a betrayal to the democratic values upon which our constitution is based will not stand forever," Earls went on to argue.

"I look forward to the day when commitment to the constitutional principles of free elections and equal protection of the laws are upheld and the abuses committed by the majority are recognized for what they are, permanently relegating them to the annals of this court's darkest moments," she added. "I have no doubt that day will come."

Journalist Mark Joseph Stern condemned the five right-wing judges for removing "limits on the legislature's ability to permanently gerrymander one party out of power," calling it "a brutal blow to democracy in North Carolina."

"The state is closely divided but Republicans are going to award themselves a supermajority of congressional districts by gerrymandering Democratic voters into irrelevance," Stern said. "They already hold a legislative supermajority."

"The North Carolina Supreme Court shredded the state's constitutional protection of free and fair elections, siding with power-hungry politicians to strip every voter of the right to cast a ballot without political manipulation."

According to Common Cause, "Justices ruled the high court did not have jurisdiction to weigh into partisan matters because the state constitution contains no mention of partisanship in regards to elections."

As Politiconoted, "Much of the majority's rationale echoes that of a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found federal courts could not act against partisan gerrymandering, but left the question in individual states to their courts."

Hilary Harris Klein, senior counsel for voting rights at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), described Friday's decision as "a concerning and dramatic departure from the historic and important role our state courts have played in protecting voters and providing a check on the legislative branch."

"Checks and balances are fundamental to our system of government," said Klein, whose group is representing Common Cause North Carolina alongside co-counsel Hogan Lovells. "We share the concern of the dissent that 'the majority has already repeatedly revealed itself to be on a mission to pursue the agenda of this select few in the legislature.'"

As Common Cause explained:

Because Harper is the underlying case to the U.S. Supreme Court case Moore v. Harper, justices at the federal level asked parties in early March to submit additional briefs on whether or not the highest court still has jurisdiction in the case. Common Cause, through its attorneys at SCSJ and Hogan Lovells, argued that the U.S. Supreme Court is still the proper venue to decide this important case about the future of checks and balances in our election processes.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet responded to those briefs, but Common Cause remains hopeful the court will reject the fringe independent state legislature theory presented in Moore.

“Today, in a highly partisan decision, the North Carolina Supreme Court shredded the state's constitutional protection of free and fair elections, siding with power-hungry politicians to strip every voter of the right to cast a ballot without political manipulation, and taking away our freedom to determine the future of our families and our neighborhoods," said Kathay Feng, vice president of programs for Common Cause.

"We now await the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Moore v. Harper to determine if it will uphold the checks and balances enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions, or if it will give absolute power to state politicians to manipulate our federal elections and undermine our votes," Feng added.

As Common Dreams has reported, Moore v. Harper threatens to hand state legislatures, many of which are highly unrepresentative due to rampant map-rigging, virtually unlimited authority to oversee and potentially skew local as well as national elections, casting further doubt on the future of U.S. democracy.

The reversal on Harper v. Hall wasn't the only anti-democratic blow the North Carolina Supreme Court delivered on Friday.

As Common Cause pointed out: "The court also issued separate decisions reinstating racially discriminatory voter ID and revoking voting rights in another case for individuals with a felony conviction. In all three cases, the justices were split 5-2 along party lines to toss extensive factual findings from multi-week trials in the lower courts—a rarity saved for exceptional circumstances, of which none of the cases had."

In Phillips' words, "We are seeing our constitutional protections surrendered to the whims of extremist politicians."

"We will not give up," he added. "We will oppose any attempt by politicians to engage in racist and partisan gerrymandering. The people of North Carolina will not be silenced."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

In response to U.S. President Joe Biden's Tuesday announcement that he is seeking reelection in 2024, four youth-led advocacy groups urged the incumbent to push for progressive priorities during the remainder of his first term and campaign on policies that motivate young voters to cast ballots for him.

In a letter addressed to Biden, March for Our Lives, Gen Z for Change, Sunrise Movement, and United We Dream Action wrote: "If we're going to excite one of the leading voting blocs for Democrats, we need you to deliver the bold ideas that our generation cannot live without—stop the climate crisis, fight for the rights and dignity of immigrants, impose real gun control—and run on a bold platform that will get our generation out to vote."

"As the organizers of millions of young people across the country, we know that in order to secure wins against fascism in the 2024 presidential election, Millennials and Gen Z will have to turn out to vote in full force," the groups argued, sounding the alarm about the dire consequences likely to ensue if the increasingly authoritarian Republican Party takes control of the White House.

"Young people are not just a necessary part of a winning Democratic coalition, but the keystone precondition for Democratic victory... When Democrats energize and mobilize our generations, they win elections. When they don't, they lose."

"Following the results of 2018, 2020, 2022, and most recently the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in 2023, it is clear that young people are not just a necessary part of a winning Democratic coalition, but the keystone precondition for Democratic victory," says the letter. "The equation is simple. When Democrats energize and mobilize our generations, they win elections. When they don't, they lose."

"Going into 2024, our youth coalition is deeply committed to defeating fascist, right-wing extremism and the eventual Republican presidential nominee," the letter continues. "Young people are clear that the runaway extremism of abortion bans, threats to trans students, criminalization of immigrants, and the all-out assault on our climate are existential threats to our generation and generations to come."

However, when the Biden administration makes "bad decisions"—such as approving the Willow oil drilling venture and other fossil fuel projects, entertaining the revival of migrant family detentions, or otherwise "settling for the status quo"—it becomes "harder for us to get young people to the polls," the groups lamented. "That's why we need you to listen and co-govern with us if we're going to be able to mobilize the young voters we need to win."

The organizations implored Biden "to lead with our generation's values and policies at the forefront of your campaign and your next year in office," contending that his 2020 platform was essential to defeating former President Donald Trump—who is seeking the Republican nomination for 2024 despite facing various legal issues—and that progressive policymaking, particularly last summer, inspired the young voters who ultimately minimized the Democratic Party's losses in the 2022 midterms.

In the spring of 2022, "young voters were largely disillusioned with politics and were not excited to vote," states the letter. "That changed once you passed a historic climate bill, passed overdue gun safety legislation, and sought to cancel student loan debt—resulting in the second-highest youth midterm turnout in the past 30 years. Now, more than ever, we cannot abandon this two-part strategy—run on bold ideas young people can rally behind and have significant legislative victories to back them up."

"We urge you to not leave our generation behind as you build your new campaign. Do not take our generation for granted."

"Going into the 2024 presidential election, it is clear that our opponents are getting even more ruthless and extreme," the groups warned. "Across the country we've seen abortion bans, transgender bathroom bans, [and] book bans in schools imposed by Republican extremists. We've seen Republican electeds say they will do nothing to stop gun violence, expel those who disagree with them from office, and attempt to ban educational opportunities and threaten the livelihood of immigrants in our communities. They must be stopped."

"We urge you to not leave our generation behind as you build your new campaign," says the letter. "Do not take our generation for granted."

"We are a generation that grew up through crisis—from watching storms decimate our communities to practicing school shooter drills to living through a global pandemic," the letter adds. "Throughout all of these crises, young people have shown up to demand the transformational change the country needs. We are fighters for a better world. That will not change in 2024."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

ATLANTA—Voting rights organizations filed an emergency preliminary injunction motion today to lift part of the restriction in Georgia’s anti-voter law, S.B. 202, that blocks Georgians from providing food and water to voters waiting in long lines at the polls.

The motion was filed as part of ongoing litigation in AME Church v. Kemp, which challenges S.B. 202 for unconstitutionally creating barriers to voting that diminish the voices of communities of color, women, and people with disabilities. If granted, the preliminary injunction would allow volunteers to provide food and water to voters in lines that extend beyond 150 feet from the polling place.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Georgia, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Legal Defense Fund (LDF), and the law firms WilmerHale and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP (DWT) filed the motion on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs are the Sixth District of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Georgia ADAPT, and the Georgia Advocacy Office, represented by the ACLU of Georgia, ACLU, LDF, and Wilmer Hale, as well as the Georgia Muslim Voter Project, Women Watch Afrika, Latino Community Fund of Georgia, and the Arc of the United States, represented by SPLC and DWT.

“Our clients used to be able to offer a bottle of water or a snack to voters waiting in long lines at the polls,” said Rahul Garabadu, senior voting rights staff attorney at the ACLU of Georgia. “S.B. 202 largely banned these activities, adding to the burdens that many voters, including voters of color and voters with disabilities, face when casting a ballot. Last year, the court found that there were serious constitutional concerns with portions of the ban on line relief. We’re now asking the court to strike down the unlawful provisions of the ban so that our clients can provide crucial support to voters across our state.”

“This restriction on providing food and water to voters waiting in long lines is a brazen attempt to make voting more difficult in Georgia. It stifles our clients’ First Amendment right to express, through action, the important message that voting is vital, and that Georgians, particularly Black Georgians and Georgians of color, should persist through obstacles laid in their path as they have throughout the state’s history,” said Davin Rosborough, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

“The cruel barriers to voting enacted by S.B. 202 target both the basic needs and basic rights of Georgians. There can be no reason for denying food or water to people waiting in long polling lines, other than trying to prevent them from exercising their freedom to vote,” said Poy Winichakul, SPLC’s senior staff attorney for voting rights. “These barriers to voting must be removed so all Georgians can have a voice to advocate for their communities in the crucial 2024 elections.”

“S.B. 202’s provisions restricting line relief activities are cruel and discriminatory,” said Rhonda Briggins, chair, Strategic Partnerships Taskforce for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. “These restrictions prevent Deltas from providing necessities like food and water to voters experiencing long lines, which impact significant numbers of Black Georgia voters. We are hopeful the court will block the unlawful restrictions it has already recognized may be unlawful so that we can resume some of our line relief efforts for upcoming elections.”

“Georgia’s cruel line relief ban makes it harder for Black voters to fully participate in elections,” said John Cusick, assistant counsel at LDF. “The court has already found constitutional concerns with certain aspects of the line relief ban. We’re asking the court to block those provisions in upcoming elections so that the organizations we represent and other groups throughout Georgia can resume modest line relief efforts like passing out food and water to Georgia voters who continue to stand in unacceptably long lines.”

“S.B. 202’s line relief ban imposes unjustifiable and unconstitutional burdens on voters at the polls,” said George P. Varghese, a partner at WilmerHale. “We are filing this motion to ensure that our clients’ fundamental right to vote, and their right to support fellow Georgians who vote, are not compromised — including in the upcoming 2024 elections.”

“Instead of making it easier for folks to cast a ballot in sweltering heat or blistering cold, S.B. 202 makes it a crime for a neighbor to offer these voters a bottle of water or warm cup of coffee,” said Adam S. Sieff, counsel at Davis Wright Tremaine. “That’s not only inhumane, it’s also a clear violation of the First Amendment and these citizens’ rights as voters. The court has already found that aspects of S.B. 202’s line relief ban raises serious constitutional problems, and we’re filing this motion to ensure that these fundamental rights are respected in future elections, including in 2024.”

Filing: https://www.aclu.org/documents/ame-church-v-kemp-pi-motion-on-georgia-line-relief-4-24-2023

Case background: https://www.aclu.org/cases/sixth-district-african-methodist-episcopal-church-v-kemp

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A longtime Republican lawyer who aided former President Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election told GOP donors that the party should be working to roll back voting on college campuses and other initiatives aimed at expanding ballot access, according to audio obtained by progressive journalist Lauren Windsor.

"What are these college campus locations?" Cleta Mitchell, a top GOP attorney and fundraiser asked during a presentation at the Republican National Committee's donor retreat in Nashville last weekend.

"What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed," lamented Mitchell, an avid voter suppression campaigner who has represented Republican organizations, individual lawmakers, and right-wing groups such as the National Rifle Association.

According to The Washington Post, which reviewed a copy of Mitchell's Nashville presentation, the GOP attorney's remarks "offered a window into a strategy that seems designed to reduce voter access and turnout among certain groups, including students and those who vote by mail, both of which tend to skew Democratic."

"Mitchell focused on campus voting in five states—Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin—all of which are home to enormous public universities with large in-state student populations," the Post reported Thursday. "Mitchell also targeted the preregistration of students, an apparent reference to the practice in some states of allowing 17-year-olds to register ahead of their 18th birthdays so they can vote as soon as they are eligible."

\u201cEXCLUSIVE AUDIO: Trump coup attorney Cleta Mitchell wants to "combat" voting on college campuses, citing North Carolina and Wisconsin, and says that when Republicans win the state Senate in Virginia, they can eliminate 45 days of early voting and same day voter registration.\u201d

— Lauren Windsor (@Lauren Windsor) 1682005267

Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, noted in response to Mitchell's presentation that "Wisconsin has 320,000 college students."

"If the GOP had won the state Supreme Court race, they would've—as this speech makes clear—engineered a crackdown on student voter freedoms," Wikler wrote on Twitter. "Instead, thanks in part to student turnout, democracy lives on in Wisconsin."

"The Trump machine wants to disenfranchise students," Wikler added. "We're fighting them in WI. They've got their eye on our state, and NC and VA too."

Republican lawmakers in dozens of states across the country have introduced at least 150 bills aimed at restricting ballot access this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

"Two of the more radical proposals include a Texas bill that would allow presidential electors to disregard state election results and a Virginia bill that would empower a random selection of residents to void local election results," the group observed.

In her speech to Republican donors, Mitchell said GOP lawmakers should be using their dominance in state legislatures to "combat" voting by college students and measures such as same-day voter registration.

Mitchell pointed specifically to North Carolina, where Republicans now have veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers thanks to erstwhile Democratic state Rep. Tricia Cotham, who recently switched parties.

"Instead of fighting for the people or actually earning the votes, Republicans' only plan is to try to 'combat' voting on college campuses and prevent students and young people from participating in our democracy," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) wrote Thursday. "They are SHAMELESSLY and DESPERATELY saying the quiet part out loud."

The New York Times reported last month that Republicans, "alarmed over young people increasingly proving to be a force for Democrats at the ballot box," have already been "trying to enact new obstacles to voting for college students" in recent weeks.

"In Idaho, Republicans used their power monopoly... to ban student ID cards as a form of voter identification," the newspaper reported. "But so far this year, the new Idaho law is one of few successes for Republicans targeting young voters. Attempts to cordon off out-of-state students from voting in their campus towns or to roll back preregistration for teenagers have failed in New Hampshire and Virginia."

"Even in Texas, where 2019 legislation shuttered early voting sites on many college campuses, a new proposal that would eliminate all college polling places seems to have an uncertain future," the Times added.

The intensifying GOP campaign against youth voting comes after young people had a major impact on the 2022 midterms. As researchers noted in a recent analysis for the Brookings Institution, strong enthusiasm and turnout among young voters "enabled the Democrats to win almost every battleground statewide contest and increase their majority in the U.S. Senate."

"To the GOP: I hope you're afraid," tweeted Olivia Julianna, director of politics and government affairs at Gen-Z for Change. "I hope you wake up every morning haunted by the chants of young voters protesting your attacks on our rights. You should be afraid. Because you're going to lose power, one vote at a time."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Spring, the season of renewal, is here. The ants are diligently building their little symmetrical ant hills. The robins are in their nests occupied with posterity. And the anointed members of Congress, after a long recess, aka vacation, return to work on April 17th. The next day, April 18th is the deadline for filing taxes.

Congress collectively is less than the sum of its parts. That is because there are only a few dozen sterling representatives and senators worthy of their voter constituents back home. These lawmakers, however, are unable to accomplish as much as they would like and as much as our country needs. However, they could accomplish much of what's needed if they were better organized and focused.

Corporatism grips the corporate Republican Party and most Democrats into indentured obeisance to the fossil fuel industry. The CEOs of the purveyors of greenhouse gases are hostile or indifferent to how the burning of coal, gas, and oil are detonating the planet's climate patterns. Yet, Congress fails to abate large taxes and other subsidies for these climate catastrophe corporations.

It is time to visualize the Congress as a giant inanimate boulder blocking the highway of life, straddled on both sides by steep cliffs of death.

It is time to visualize the Congress as a giant inanimate boulder blocking the highway of life, straddled on both sides by steep cliffs of death. Unfortunately, despite its awesome power under the Constitution to do good, Congress wallows in corruption. Too many members of Congress are driven to ignorant or nefarious actions by the venom of campaign cash. Congress should be viewed as a criminogenic enterprise.

One learned congressman called Congress a "criminal enterprise," which is technically inaccurate, for there is no criminal statute covering Congress. (The solons have insulated their privileged position.) However, if you adopt the early common law of criminality—before statutory laws proliferated, congressional actions and inactions fit the criteria of premeditated endangerment, obstruction of justice, and repeated knowing and willful behavior costing lives and livelihoods without due process of law.

One major dimension of criminogencity is how Congress, year after year enables, funds, and covers up the vast depredations of empire—undeclared wars and frequent violent incursions (anywhere decreed by the runaway presidency), overthrows of governments, and sabotages desperate justice movements against tyrants backed by the U.S. Congress has deliberately shut down its critical oversight of public hearings (e.g., on the Iraq, Afghanistan, Syrian, and Libyan wars), yet funds them on the Senate and House floors without any debate. (The 2011 Libyan overthrow—with continuing chaos and violence to this day—was funded by an unauthorized White House dictate to the Pentagon.)

Abandoning constitutional duties arising out of its exclusive war-making and appropriating authorities, the Congress has been the enabler of regular actions abroad that are unconstitutional, and violative of both federal statutes and international law, including the U.N. Charter—a ratified treaty in 1946.

Legions of books and reports have documented how Congress shielded corporate crimes that caused fatalities, injuries, sickness, and loss of incomes by millions of workers and consumers. (See: ralphnaderradiohour.com). Aiding and abetting huge tax evasions by the superrich and large corporations resulted from Congress starving the IRS budget and its law enforcement obligation.

These actions do not match the "Three Branches of Government" description offered on the House of Representatives "kids" page: "Legislative: The Congress. The legislative branch makes the laws of the United States, controls all of the money, and has the power to declare war."

It most assuredly is not the mythical picture of Congress brought to college campuses by the corporate-funded bipartisan speechmakers from the Association of Former Members of Congress. (See: capitolhillcitizen.com).

The April 2023 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen, hot off the press, contains a list of congressional NOs, which a sizable majority of the American people want to be replaced with resounding YESes:

1. Enacting a modern federal criminal code and enforcement budget. NO
2. Enacting full Medicare for All—single payer—all inclusive, more efficient, lifesaving, and with free choice of doctor and hospital. NO
3. Enact legislation replacing the anti-labor union and union organizing statutes with a pro-worker law that facilitates union organizing and representational rights on large corporate boards. NO
4. Enact the first increase in Social Security benefits in 40 years and funding the Social Security Administration budget to expedite service to claimants now delayed for months. NO
5. Enact a federal minimum wage at $15 an hour, up from the current $7.25 per hour, and budget the Labor Department to be able to enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act and also stop wage theft. NO
6. Enact an adequate budget for, and clarify the authority of, the Environmental Protection Agency to stop its lagging enforcement of the laws it's authorized to enforce. NO
7. Strengthen the weak authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and increase its anemic budget so as to perform its obligation as directed by Congress in 1970. NO
8. Enact long overdue upgraded authority for the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NO
9. Enact reductions in the bloated, wasteful budgets of the Department of Defense, and the intelligence agencies so that they can do a better and lawful job for their mandated purposes. Include measures to hold these departments and agencies accountable for law violations and other abuses documented by the GAO and departmental audits. NO
10. Enact basic reforms of the federal election laws, including expanded public financing of campaigns and easier access to ballots by candidates. End obstructions to voting. NO
11. Enact the long overdue reform of the tax system, a system which now favors the rich and powerful and burdens the average tax-paying citizen with crushing complexities, inequities, and perverse incentives distorting economic efficiencies and justice. NO
12. Enact the end of runaway corporate personhood and the vast expanse of corporate welfare with its exploitations, double standards, and hypocrisies. NO

That's what a Congress—with both parties dominated by corporate predators, looks like. It hurts Americans and billions of people worldwide.

For many more examples of outrageous derelictions by the collective Congress, obtain and read the Capitol Hill Citizen. Learn about the real Congress. Then look at yourself in the mirror and consider what you and a couple million liberal and conservative people, organized in the 435 congressional districts, could do to turn the Congressional NOs into resounding YESes. It's easier than you think. See capitolhillcitizen.com for more information.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Ralph Nader.

Campaigners who have long pushed cities and states to adopt bans on foreign corporate interference in elections applauded Friday after the Minnesota House of Representatives passed legislation that would make the state the first to prohibit foreign-influenced corporations from spending money on electoral campaigns.

The provision is part of the Democracy for the People Act, which passed 70-57 along party lines late Thursday night after several hours of debate.

The national nonprofit organization Free Speech for People successfully advocated for Democrats in the state House to include the new rule, which would prohibit companies with at least a 5% ownership stake by multiple foreign owners or a 1% stake by a single foreign owner from spending money in Minnesota state and local elections. The companies would also be barred from donating to super PACs.

"Multinational corporations are corrupting representative democracy by drowning out the voices of the people," said Alexandra Flores-Quilty, campaign director at Free Speech For People. "The Democracy for the People Act will help put power back in the hands of citizens."

The organization pushed lawmakers in Seattle to pass similar legislation in 2020, and Hawaii, California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts are all considering state-level bans modeled on a proposal developed by Free Speech for People.

The group worked closely with state Rep. Emma Greenman (DFL-63B) to pass the legislation.

"This package of commonsense solutions rests on a simple premise," said Greenman during the debate over the bill, "that our state works best when Minnesota voices are at the center of our democracy."

The legislation now heads to the state Senate, where the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL)—the state's affiliate of the Democratic Party—has a majority of seats. Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) has said he supports the bill.

We Choose Us, a statewide grassroots coalition of advocacy groups and unions, conducted polling last November and found that 80% of Minnesota voters back the provision barring election interference by multinational companies.

"Minnesota has long been a leader in democracy and so it's no surprise that the House voted today to put Minnesota on the path to becoming the first state to prohibit foreign-influenced corporations from spending in our elections," said Lilly Sasse, campaign director for We Choose Us. "It's clear to the people of Minnesota that prohibiting foreign-influenced corporations from spending in our elections is good for our democracy. And after today, it's clear that we're on the path to signing it into law."

The group also found broad support for other provisions in the Democracy for the People Act, including automatic voter registration, backed by 73% of Minnesota voters.

The legislation would also permit 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote, establish a statewide vote-by-mail system, protect election workers and voters from harassment, and require voting instructions and ballots to be provided in non-English languages.

"Minnesotans want to ensure that voters always will have the biggest say in the decisions that will impact their lives," state House Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-34B) told the ABC affiliate KSTP. "Our legislation will strengthen the freedom to vote, protect our democratic institutions and Minnesota voters, and empower voters, not corporations or wealthy special interests in our elections.”

Free Speech for People is also backing a federal proposal by U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to bar multinational corporations from interfering in elections.

"By banning multinational corporations spending unlimited sums of money to influence our elections," said the group, "we are upholding the letter of the law and getting us one step closer to a democracy that is truly by and for the people.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Wisconsin voters wrested control of the state Supreme Court from conservatives for the first time in 15 years on Tuesday by electing Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz—an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, ballot access, and union protections—to fill an open seat.

Protasiewicz defeated former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly in the high-stakes and expensive contest, which drew close national attention given its implications for voting rights, reproductive freedoms, worker protections, and more in the key battleground state.

"Judge Protasiewitz's victory is a huge win for protecting Wisconsinites' fundamental freedoms," said Sean Eldridge, founder and president of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America. "For more than three decades, Judge Protasiewicz has defended Wisconsinites' constitutional rights, maintained judicial independence, and earned recognition for her commitment to the community. She will continue that important work on the Supreme Court."

"Judge Protasiewicz will act as a check on conservative efforts to take away reproductive freedom, disenfranchise voters of color through racial gerrymandering, and overturn election results they don't like. Her victory helps build a firewall for our democracy and the freedom to vote ahead of 2024," Eldridge continued. "This election was a sound rejection of MAGA extremism, including their attacks on the freedom to vote and the right to access abortion care. The people of Wisconsin spoke through the ballot box and their message was undeniable: MAGA extremism has no place on our court, and neither does Dan Kelly."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinelreported that Protasiewicz's win puts "the state laws most celebrated by conservatives at risk of being overturned—including a 19th Century-era ban on abortions."

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit over the 1849 abortion ban after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, imperiling abortion rights across the nation.

In her victory speech late Tuesday, Protasiewicz said that "our state is taking a step forward to a better and brighter future where our rights will be protected."

Protasiewicz, whose Supreme Court bid was backed by labor unions, said during the campaign that she believes Act 10—a Wisconsin law backed by former GOP Gov. Scott Walker that gutted public employees' collective bargaining rights—is "unconstitutional."

Kelly's campaign was notably supported by the GOP billionaire megadonors Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who have worked to dismantle union rights nationwide.

Dean Warsh, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' Wisconsin State Conference, said in a statement late Tuesday that "Wisconsin's working families made a clear statement today."

"Our local unions throughout Wisconsin put in the work to turn out every voter possible in this pivotal spring election and we are ready to continue to do what it takes to finally take back our state from the divisive Walker-era politics that have plagued us for far too long," said Warsh. "On behalf of the over 15,000 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers here in Wisconsin, I congratulate Judge Janet on her win and look forward to what is next for our state and the labor movement."

Ari Berman of Mother Jonesnoted Tuesday that while Protasiewicz's impact "could be felt quickly" given the abortion rights and gerrymandering cases that are expected to reach the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the near future, "Republicans will likely do everything they can to maintain their dominance in the legislature and have already floated the idea of impeaching Protasiewicz, which could trigger a constitutional crisis in the state."

"A new era for the court is beginning," Berman added, "but the fight over democracy in Wisconsin, with huge implications nationwide, is far from over."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The Dominion lawsuit against Fox News has gotten a great deal of attention, and rightly so, for it raises fundamental questions about democracy in the U.S. and the ways that it is profoundly corrupted and seriously endangered by an alliance of right-wing media and the Republican Party. And yet beneath the lying exposed in the case are the more dangerous lies at the heart of MAGA ideology. And whether or not the notorious liars at Fox News Corp. believed anything they were saying about Dominion, there is no doubt that the deeper lies remain articles of faith for Fox and the Republican party.

The facts of the case are pretty straightforward.

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a privately owned company that produces and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including electronic voting machines. Its technology has been used extensively by many U.S. states. After Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Trump and many of his supporters promoted the claim—the lie—that Dominion was part of a wide conspiracy to "rig" the election for Biden, exaggerating Biden votes and hiding Trump votes. This claim was persistently and deliberately promoted and amplified by Fox News anchors, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham. Dominion is suing Fox News Corp. for defamation and damages related to its promotion of false conspiracy theories that have serious harmed the reputation and the revenues of the company.

As information about witness testimony, along with redacted and unredacted documents, has been made public, it seems clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Dominion's core allegation is true: Fox News officials and news anchors actively promoted lies about a Dominion-based conspiracy while knowing that there was no evidence to support these lies, and that its principal sources were Trump fanatics, like Sydney Powell, who lacked any credibility whatsoever. Most notoriously, both Rupert Murdoch and Carlson repeatedly made disparaging remarks about Trump, with Carlson also saying that the Dominion "software shit is absurd."

The revelations, which continue, reveal a shocking cynicism on the part of Murdoch, the Fox corporation leadership, and the principal Fox anchors, especially Carlson, about the importance of the corporate bottom line and about the gullibility of Fox viewers. As long as the viewers are willing to tune in, Fox is willing to supply them with the conspiracy theories they demand, crazy ideas they have been primed to believe by Fox itself—"supply and demand" in action.

It is too simplistic, and too politically comforting, to imagine that we are dealing with a simple question of some manipulative people deliberately telling lies to gullible others.

This cynicism of Fox News Corp. about "news" is incredibly disturbing. It reflects horribly on Fox. It also severely undermines the veracity of the false and crazy things that many millions of Trump supporters believe about the election and about the reliability of those "news" anchors who they have so credulously trusted.

If the accurate news about the lying of "Fox News" is widely publicized, it should play some role in delegitimizing the craziest claims made about "election fraud" in 2020. That would be a good thing. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Trump supporters are likely to learn little about this, and to disbelieve what they hear. For they have already been corrupted by years of exposure to Fox and more recently to its even farther-right competitors, Newsmax and One America News (OAN), and they are firmly ensconced in the reactionary media bubble.

Regardless, a focus on the intentional lying of Carlson et al, while important, is politically misleading, in the same way that the House January 6 Committee's focus on whether Trump knew he was telling lies was misleading.

The reason: it is too simplistic, and too politically comforting, to imagine that we are dealing with a simple question of some manipulative people deliberately telling lies to gullible others. Because the MAGA ideology runs much deeper than the most outlandish election machine conspiracy theories exposed by the Dominion case, for its consumers but even for its producers. And for those in the grip of MAGA ideology, all empirical evidence is filtered through a distorted frame.

Carlson et al might have privately believed in early January of 2021 that Trump, Powell, Giuliani and their circle were crazy, and that their desperate lying was a problem for Fox, for the Republican Party, and perhaps even for their twisted view of "law and order."

But "The Big Lie" has never been reducible to the most hysterical and desperate claims being made by Trump and his cronies in the aftermath of the November 2020 election.

Behind those hysterical and arguably insane claims was a deeper claim that has always been central to The Big Lie, a claim not about ballot box tampering on Election Day but about a Democratic Party intent on mobilizing millions of people who either do not have the right to vote (dangerous "illegals") or whose right to vote is suspect, because of their lack of "proper" identification, or their (alleged) criminal history, or simply because they require purportedly "special advantages" like mail-in balloting and drop boxes. (Or, let's face it, because they are simply the "wrong kinds" of people, "bad hombres" who hate "American Greatness".)

In short, The Big Lie draws on a range of long-standing Republican tropes about Democratic "voting fraud" and the need for more restrictive voting laws, tropes that have been amplified by Trump and Fox since long before 2016.

Insane conspiracy theories and lies about Dominion machines and foreign vote harvesting (and Jewish space lasers?), and the willingness of people like Carlson and Murdoch and Trump and Giuliani to lie about such craziness, and the willingness of their followers to believe these lies—this lying is one very disturbing thing.

But whatever Carlson and Murdoch and Trump himself actually believed about ballot box fraud on election day, nothing revealed in the Dominion case suggests that any of them doubted the broader and deeper lie—that the Democratic Party is a nefarious group of radicals long committed to violating "election integrity" and to "flooding the polls" with people who do not deserve to be there, to the detriment of those "real Americans" whose popular sovereignty alone matters.

This Big Lie has been and continues to be a staple of Republican rhetoric independent of Trump and his fate, a fate which, to any rational observer, was not worth betting on in early January, 2021—though Kevin McCarthy and his followers managed to regain their Trumpist footing in record time.

And indeed, behind the Big Lie about long-term Democratic "rigging" of elections is the even Bigger Lie that is the true heart of the MAGA message, one regularly disseminated to scores of millions of supporters, and well stated here:

"You are the loyal defenders of our heritage, our liberty, our culture, our Constitution, and our God-given rights. You never stop fighting for America, and I will never, ever stop fighting for you. So as we gather tonight, our country is being destroyed more from the inside than out. America is on the edge of an abyss. And our movement is the only force on Earth that can save it. This movement right here. What we do in the next few months and the next few years will determine whether American civilization will collapse or fail, or whether it will triumph and thrive, frankly like never before. This is no time for complacency. We cannot be complacent. We have to seize this opportunity to deal with the radical left socialist lunatics and fascists. And we have to hit them very, very hard. Has to be a crippling defeat, because our country cannot take it. . . .

Our country is now a cesspool of crime like it's never been before. They've never seen anything like it. Other countries are talking about it. We're talking about democracy. Isn't it great? Then they say, " You had seven people killed in Chicago this weekend. You had 68 people shot." That's not democracy. That's not what we stand for. Savage criminals are being released on cashless bail to continue their violent rampages against the United States of America. Entire communities are being torn to shreds with stabbings, shootings, strangling, rapes, and murders. . . . The streets of our Democrat-run cities are drenched with the blood of innocent victims, gun battles rage between blood thirsty street gangs, bullets tear into crowds at random killing wonderful, beautiful little children that never even had a chance. They're struck and they're killed, and carjackers lay in wait like predators hunting their prey. . . . Our country is being invaded just like a military force was pouring in. . .

As we take power out of Washington, we also need to take power back from the left wing lunatics who are indoctrinating our youth. We have to finally and completely smash the radical lefts corrupt education establishment. The current system is sick. It's sick. We have the lowest scores almost in the world and we spend more per pupil than any other nation. School prayer is banned, but drag shows are allowed to permeate the whole place. It's okay. You can't teach the Bible, but you can teach children that America is evil and that men are able to get pregnant. Whatever it takes, conservatives must liberate America's children from the captivity of these Marxist teachers unions. . . Across the country, we need to implement strict prohibitions on teaching inappropriate, racial, sexual, and political material to America's school children in any form whatsoever. And if federal bureaucrats are going to push this radicalism, we should abolish the Department of Education.

. . . no matter how big or powerful the corrupt radicals we are fighting against may be, no matter how menacing they appear, we must never forget that this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you. This is your home. This is your heritage. This is your country that your American ancestors won with their own courage, defended with their own blood and built with their own hands . . . "

Those words, of course, came from the mouth of Donald J. Trump, speaking at last week's CPAC conference in a DC suburb.

And the sentiments expressed, traceable to Pat Buchanan and George Wallace before him, have been staples of the Republican party, and of its Fox propaganda arm, since Trump's ascendance in 2016.

They are Trump's sentiments, but not only Trump's.

And while much has been made of Ron DeSantis's absence from the recent Trump-worshipping CPAC event, DeSantis has been proclaiming the same MAGA sentiments for years, during star turns at prior CPAC conferences, and from the bully pulpit of the Florida Governor's office, where he is doing his best to translate the sentiments into extremely dangerous laws and policies.

And while much has been made about the fact that Tucker Carlson said he "hates Trump passionately" back in January, 2021, this surely does not mean that he hated Trump earlier or that he hates him now. At this moment Carlson might be partial to DeSantis. More likely he will jump on the bandwagon of whichever right-wing Republican seems most likely to win. But his messaging has for years been consistent, and it is the messaging of MAGA pure and simple: that an evil left hates White, Christian, American "Greatness," and this left must be eradicated. And so this supposed "hater" of Trump is right now using his nightly Fox show to represent—literally re-present—the events of January 6 as not an insurrection but a manifestation of civic pride by decent Americans seeking to "take their country back" and to "support their President." And the supposedly "hated" Trump is now congratulating Carlson for having accomplished "one of the biggest scoops for a reporter in U.S. history," and for exposing the "Criminal Fabricators" of the House January 6 Committee.

We are now in the domain of magical thinking of the worst kind—the magical thinking of political actors in service of authoritarian ideologies, willing to abrogate norms and laws, and do whatever it takes to defeat their "enemies."

Is Carlson now lying on behalf of Trump again? Most assuredly he is. But, again, in a deeper sense it is not quite that simple. For he is serving a supposedly "higher truth," the MAGA "truth" that Democrats and liberals hate America, and so what they say cannot be true, and so it is necessary to reframe what took place and to furnish a more authentic, more patriotic counter-narrative which by definition is true or at least true enough. From this vantage point, the representation of January 6 as a moment of patriotic glory is not a lie—they were carrying American flags and chanting "Make America Great Again," right? But even if this framing ignores obvious evidence or shades the truth, this is all done in a noble cause, in service to a more essential "truth."

This readiness to play fast and loose with truth has long been a central feature of Trumpism, most notoriously associated with outrageous claims made on different occasions by Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and Rudy Giuliani, whose breathless "truth is not truth" is now the hook of an MSNBC series. It is sometimes described by commentators as "Orwellian," and with good reason, for Orwell's novel 1984 was a classic account of authoritarian, indeed totalitarian, disinformation, and domination. But perhaps it is one of Orwell's contemporaries, Arthur Koestler, best known as the author of the deservedly acclaimed Darkness at Noon, who best identified the logic in play.

Describing his experience as a young militant of the German Communist Party in the years before Hitler's rise to power in The God That Failed, Koestler recalled a piece of party propaganda in many ways similar to that now purveyed by Fox News. The Socialist party then in power, anathematized by the Communists as a "social fascist" party soft on Nazism, had ordered a police raid on Nazi headquarters and proposed a ban on the wearing of the Nazi uniform. When the Communist press ignored these moves and continued to sneer about Socialist "social fascism," young Koestler was confused, a confusion only intensified when his party superior explained:

"He explained that the party's attitude to the Social Democrats was a set, long-term policy which could not be reversed by a small incident. 'But every word on the front page is contradicted by the facts,' I objected. Edgar gave me a tolerant smile. 'You still have the mechanistic outlook,' he said, and then proceeded to give me a dialectical interpretation of the facts. The action of the police was merely a feint to cover up their complicity; even if some Socialist leaders were subjectively anti-Fascist in their outlook, objectively the Socialist Party was a tool of Nazism; in fact, the Socialists were the main enemy . . . Gradually I learned to distrust my mechanistic preoccupation with facts and to regard the world around me in the light of dialectic interpretation . . . "

For an activist of a party or movement that claims to understand a "higher" or "deeper" truth, beyond common sense and the evident facts of experience, any particular facts can be ignored or reinterpreted to serve what is considered more fundamental. Thus Dominion voting machines were corrupted in 2020, but even if they weren't, the Democrats are responsible for a more fundamental electoral and even civilizational corruption, and so the election was corrupted, and the outcome "rigged," and if so, can we really believe all of the evidence that Dominion machines were not corrupt? And if we really can't trust the evidence, then why treat it as dispositive? Why not just repeat the claims which, even if they can't be proven, can't be disproven in any final sense. Indeed, by constantly repeating the claims, we might make them for all intents and purposes "true." And anyway, the battle against liberal evil is more important than any "small incident" or any particular facts.

The lying of Fox News and its damages to Dominion are significant. But the real damage is much deeper and more dangerous.

We are now in the domain of magical thinking of the worst kind—the magical thinking of political actors in service of authoritarian ideologies, willing to abrogate norms and laws, and do whatever it takes to defeat their "enemies."

What does Tucker Carlson really believe? To what extent is he a liar, and to what extent merely a propagandist in the thrall of a "dialectical reasoning" that he helped to create?

The lying about Dominion is symptomatic of much bigger, deeper, and more insidious Big Lies. However much the facts might seem to call these lies into question, Carlson and his collaborators will continue to repeat them and many millions of their followers will continue to accept them and to act on them. Does anyone really believe all the lies? We can't know. What we can know is that Presidential candidates and Governors and the current Speaker of the House of Representatives and almost his entire two hundred-plus caucus, and millions of their followers, all act as though they believe them. And in doing so, they are destroying the political institutions and the civic culture of America's increasingly fragile liberal democracy.

The lying of Fox News and its damages to Dominion are significant.

But the real damage is much deeper and more dangerous. And no lawsuit—not even manifold legitimate indictments of Donald Trump—can stop it. Only the decisive defeat of the Republican Party, and a Democratic Party empowered and committed to addressing the real problems plaguing American democracy, can stop it.

That is a very tall order. And everything hangs in the balance.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jeffrey C. Isaac.

“This is direct evidence of knowing falsity” exclaimed RonNell Anderson Jones, Professor of Law at the University of Utah, in a February 2023 interview with Jon Stewart. Jones noted that in most defamation cases “the likelihood that you will find evidence of them [news outlets] saying, ‘We know this is a lie and we would like to move forward with it anyway is deeply unlikely.’” However, in the case of Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News, “the filing contains just this trove of evidence of emails and text messages and internal memos that are ‘rare’ both in terms of the ‘volume of the evidence and as to the directness of the evidence.’” This sentiment was echoed by Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe who noted, “I have never seen a defamation case with such overwhelming proof that the defendant admitted in writing that it was making up fake information in order to increase its viewership and its revenues.”

In the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit, Dominion Voting Systems accuses Fox News Channel of falsely reporting that Dominion’s voting machines fraudulently delivered victory to Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. Court documents attained by other media outlets reveal that hosts and other high-ranking Fox News Channel officials – including the Chairman and CEO of Fox’s parent company News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch – knew these reports were false, but aired them because they were more concerned with confirming their audience’s belief that Donald Trump won the election.

The evidence presented in the court documents speaks to the journalistic malpractice that plagues the cable news industry. Journalistic malpractice refers to professional journalists who privilege ideological bias and profits over truth in their reporting. Fox News Channel is patient zero for the plague of journalistic malpractice. It was created in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch and the late Roger Ailes, a media consultant for several Republican presidents, as a political project to sell conservative culture and policy to the American public with pro-conservative propaganda disguised as journalism. For example, Fox News Channel has

• falsely claimed that other media outlets did not cover the conservative Tea Party rallies;
• utilized videos out of context to inflate the perceived size of conservative protests;
• labeled former President Barack Obama a racist;
• declared Osama bin Laden as a John Kerry supporter;
• perpetuated discredited reports on the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq;
• introduced digitally altered photos to fabricate Black Lives Matter violence and make New York Times reporters appear to be revolting.   

Liberals were right to assert that such chicanery was propaganda, not journalism. But before liberal readers scold Fox News viewers, they should remind themselves that the plague of journalistic malpractice has also infected the liberal leaning cable networks such as CNN and MSNBC. Researchers and scholars have noted that the advent of cable and then the internet saw news media outlets shift from attaining the largest audience possible to focusing on a more specific or narrow demographic of the audience. While Fox News Channel sought to cater to Republican Party voting viewers, CNN and MSNBC did the same for Democratic Party voters. This gave the Democratic Party influence over programming that was tantamount to what the Republican Party long enjoyed at Fox.

When Senator U.S. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Presidential bid posed a threat to their desired candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, leaders from the Democratic Party admitted they worked to undermine his campaign. Pro-Democratic party outlets like MSNBC and CNN aided in this effort by

• creating an unfavorable debate schedule;
• giving Clinton twice as much and more favorable coverage;
• publishing 16 negative articles about Sanders in Washington Post (owned by major Democratic Party funder Jeff Bezos) in 16 hours;
• ghost editing previous news articles to diminish Sanders’ quarter century of accomplishments;
• inviting his opponent’s surrogates to attack his character under the auspices of being objective journalists.

Their smear of Sanders continued in 2020 when

• the Democratic Party-leaning news outlets misled the public about Sanders’ polling numbers;
• CNN’s Abby Phillips drew gasps for ignoring Sanders’ claim that he never said a “woman could not be president;”
• James Carville on MSNBC made the baseless claim that Russia was supporting Sanders;
• MSNBC’s Chris Matthews compared Sander’s primary victories to the Nazi’s defeat of the French, an unfortunate comparison as Sanders’ family was murdered in the holocaust.

Journalistic malpractice also plagued Covid-19 coverage. Starting in 2020, CNN’s Chris Cuomo utilized his platform – with the approval of CNN leadership – to host his brother, then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The jovial segments seemed like campaign advertisements as Chris treated Andrew as the anti-thesis to then President Trump: a competent executive who took decisive action to address the Covid-19 pandemic. Although, the Democratic versus Republican framing attracted partisan audiences, in reality, Andrew Cuomo and Trump were all too similar: both concealed the actual number of Covid-19 deaths in their jurisdiction, both put patients at risk with kickbacks to industry partners, and both utilized media contacts to stifle press reports about their alleged sexual crimes.

The partisan falsehoods in cable news includes the production of powerful, long- running false stories designed to convince their audiences that the other party is wrong and crazy. For years now, conservatives and Fox News Channel perpetuated the baseless Qanon conspiracy, which alleges that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles – mainly in the Democratic Party – runs global affairs but Trump will break up the conspiracy. The absurdity of this conspiracy is tantamount to liberal leaning news media’s reporting on Russiagate, which sought to discredit Republicans. Since 2016, Russiagate – the story that Russia meddled in and influenced the outcome of the U.S. election in 2016, had direct connections to Donald Trump and his associates, and worked to help defeat Hillary Clinton for the presidency – was perpetuated by a series of false stories from Democratic Party-friendly media including

• Russia hacking a Vermont power plant;
• putting a bounty on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan;
• shifting election outcomes around the world;
• turning Trump into an asset since 1987;
• labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as fake news.

Conservatives rightly see this reporting and believe liberals are insane.

Both factions need to look in a mirror. While audiences can clearly see the insanity in other networks’ viewers, they rarely seem to see it in themselves. Indeed, in the same week that CNN and others were having a schadenfreude moment over the Dominion v. Fox case, they hosted a commentator on the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio without disclosing that he had lobbied for the train company Norfolk Southern. This example of hypocrisy and journalistic malpractice is not only costly to CNN’s credibility, but our democracy as well.   

Without a robust media system that privileges truth over preaching to the choir, the public will have endless debates devoid of facts on key issues such as critical race theory, vaccine efficacy, the origins of the COVID-19 virus, climate change, transgender issues, Ukraine, mysterious balloons, and more. Democratic discourse will be reduced to seeing Republicans as MAGA-hat wearing, blue lives matter-flag waving, gun nuts, and Democrats as medical mask wearing, “this house cares about everything” front-lawn sign adorning, professional victims and virtue signalers. These caricatures have never really been accurate, but as long as the nation is infected with the plague of journalist malpractice they will surely be perpetuated.

While the courts are unlikely to deliver solace from political party propaganda disguised as journalism, they have provided some wisdom. Both Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson of MSNBC and Fox News Channel respectively, have been brought to court for spreading false information and were exonerated because the judges concluded that no reasonable person would believe either of them were telling the truth. That is good advice, and viewers would be wise to remember it every time they consider watching cable news.

The post Journalistic Malpractice on Trial: What the Dominion Voting System Tells Us About How the Media Sacrificed their Credibility to Partisan Falsehoods appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Project Censored.

Progressives expressed anger Thursday after U.S. President Joe Biden said that he would sign a Republican-authored resolution repealing criminal justice reforms recently approved by the elected leaders of the District of Columbia.

The GOP-controlled House claimed that the Revised Criminal Code Act (RCCA), enacted in January by city council members representing D.C. residents, would make it easier for people convicted of crimes to avoid punishment and contribute to higher crime rates. Last month, 31 Democrats joined 219 Republicans in passing H.J.Res. 26, which would nullify the changes to Washington's criminal laws that are set to take effect in 2025.

Biden informed Democratic senators during a private meeting on Thursday that he will not veto the resolution if it reaches his desk, The Associated Pressreported. The measure is expected to pass the Senate on a bipartisan basis as early as next week.

"In the name of democracy and common sense, the Senate must respect the District of Columbia's decision to pass the Revised Criminal Code Act."

Later on Thursday, Biden tweeted: "I support D.C. statehood and home rule—but I don't support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the mayor's objections—such as lowering penalties for carjackings. If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did—I'll sign it."

Local lawmakers voted to decrease the district's maximum sentence for carjacking from the current 40 years—equivalent to the penalty for second-degree murder and over twice as long as the penalty for second-degree sexual assault—to 24 years, which is still nine years longer than the harshest carjacking sentences actually handed down in D.C.

Democratic D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had opposed the RCCA but supported a Biden veto of H.J.Res. 26 due to the implications for home rule.

Journalist Austin Ahlman called Biden's decision "disgusting." Defending "evidence-based tweaks to the D.C. criminal code" through a veto, Ahlman added, would have had little to no impact on the president during the 2024 election cycle.

Markus Batchelor, national political director at People for the American Way, also condemned Biden, juxtaposing his purported support for democracy abroad with his unwillingness to defend it "for those Americans closest to him."

Democratic U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents D.C. in Congress, told reporters that Biden's position was "news to me, and I'm very disappointed in it."

Earlier this week, Holmes Norton thanked 100-plus organizations for signing a letter to Senate leadership that expresses opposition to congressional resolutions aimed at overturning legislation passed by democratically elected D.C. lawmakers.

"D.C. residents elect their own local officials to govern local affairs, like every other jurisdiction in the country," Holmes Norton said in a statement. "Congressional interference in local affairs is paternalistic, undemocratic, and violates the principle of self-governance."

Prior to Biden's announcement, the ACLU's D.C. chapter wrote on social media, "The 700,000 people who live in D.C. know our community better than anyone else and deserve self-determination."

The group linked to a recent piece written by policy director Damon King, who argued that "in the name of democracy and common sense, the Senate must respect the District of Columbia's decision to pass the Revised Criminal Code Act."

"In order to overturn our democratic will," King observed, "opponents of the RCCA have spread misinformation about the bill."

Shortly after the D.C. Council unanimously passed the RCCA and then overrode Bowser's veto of the bill by a margin of 12-1, Slate legal reporter Mark Joseph Stern wrote, "If you only read conservative and centrist pundits, you'd think the District of Columbia is about to embark upon a frightening experiment to weaken or abolish criminal penalties for violent crime."

As he explained:

Fox News has devotedfrenzied coverageto the claim that D.C. is "softening" its criminal laws. Republican politicians like Sen. Tom Cotton [R-Ark.] have seized on the story, as have conservative commentators like Erick Erickson, who cited it as evidence that Congress should abolish self-governance in the district. The Washington Post editorial board opined that a new "crime bill could make the city more dangerous," claiming it would "tie the hands of police and prosecutors while overwhelming courts."

"This coverage all repeats the same two claims: that D.C. is poised to slash prison sentences for violent offenses, and that these reforms will lead to more crime," wrote Stern. "Neither of these claims is true."

He continued:

The legislation that D.C. passed in January is not a traditional reform bill, but the result of a 16-year process to overhaul a badly outdated, confusing, and often arbitrary criminal code. The revision's goal was to modernize the law by defining elements of each crime, eliminating overlap between offenses, establishing proportionate penalties, and removing archaic or unconstitutional provisions. Every single change is justified in meticulous reports that span thousands of pages. Each one was crafted with extensive public input and support from both D.C. and federal prosecutors. Eleventh-hour criticisms of the bill rest on misunderstandings, willful or otherwise, about its purpose and effect. They malign complex, technocratic updates as radical concessions to criminals. In many cases, criticisms rest on sheer legal illiteracy about how criminal sentencing actually works.

The D.C. bill is not a liberal wish list of soft-on-crime policies. It is an exhaustive and entirely mainstream blueprint for a more coherent and consistent legal system.

The RCCA is not the only piece of D.C. legislation the House voted to rescind last month. In addition, 42 Democrats joined 218 Republicans in passing H.J.Res. 24, which would nullify the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act.

That measure, enacted last year by the D.C. Council, would allow noncitizens who meet residency and other requirements to vote in local races.

The bill's fate in the Senate, and whether Biden would veto a resolution seeking to overturn it, remains unclear.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

The junta, which unseated the elected government in a Feb. 2021 coup, said previously that it expected to hold general elections in August. But on Feb. 1, the second anniversary of the coup, the regime announced it was extending its state of emergency imposed when it seized power, delaying elections because of ongoing fighting with anti-regime forces throughout Myanmar.

Election fraud has been a long-standing problem in the Southeast Asian nation since the armed forces first seized power in a coup in 1962 and during successive authoritarian regimes. In the past, the military has rigged elections and rejected or annulled voting results. 

Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who has vowed to hold a free and fair election, met with Union Election Commission officials in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw on Feb. 9 to see a demonstration of new Myanmar Electronic Voting Machines, or MEVMs, in action.

The new electronic voting system links census data and household member registration information and records citizens who vote. 

The machine comprises a control unit, balloting unit and verification unit, all powered by a 12-volt battery, according to the online publication The Irrawaddy, citing information from a junta statement.  

The junta plans to test the machines with 2,000 mock votes at a polling station, the report said, citing information leaked from the regime-controlled Union Election Commission.

A parliamentary and election observer who declined to be named for security reasons said the new system, which contains personal information and political affiliations, could endanger those who do not vote in protest of the junta’s election.

“International experience is necessary to implement such an electronic voting system,” he said.

“But by neglecting these fine examples and creating an e-voting system only with the inexperienced help of those in the tech community close to the military, it can be concluded that it is probably designed to favor the military-backed party in the election or to threaten people that they have non-voter information records and pressure citizens who will not vote in protest against their unfair elections,” he said.

The observer also said the military junta must be held responsible for the security and personal information of individuals who will or will not vote in the elections if the electronic balloting system is used. 

'The door should be open'

Min Aung Hlaing told a National Defense and Security Council meeting on Jan. 31 that it would be up to individuals whether to vote, though it was the government’s responsibility to make the voting possible.

Technology experts told RFA that the most likely electronic voting system to be used is a direct-recording electronic voting machine, or DRE, that requires people to press a button to vote for representatives. 

A technology expert, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said it would take years to develop such an electronic voting system, and that the technology used must be subject to independent scrutiny at any time.

“The door should be open to any impartial and neutral group to check the credibility of the program at any time to know what is written in a program because we don’t know what kind of gaps there are,” he said.

Neither the military nor the Union Election Commission has released any official news or detailed information about the electronic voting system. 

RFA could not reach commission member Khin Maung Oo for comment.

Thar Tun Hla, chairman of the Arakan National Party, said the electronic voting system may prove difficult for some voters to use because they do not know how to cast a paper ballot. 

“Citizens, let alone the political parties, do not understand how these machines work,” he said. “Voters need to have clear knowledge to use those machines when they vote.”

At a time when it is difficult to even collect accurate demographic information for the ballot right now, the effort to implement an electronic voting system is questionable, political analysts said.

Political observer Than Soe Naing said the election would not be free and fair because the junta could use the new voting system to manipulate votes for an outcome favorable to the military.

“E-voting will enable the military to fabricate the voting data as they see fit,” he said. “That’s why they are using it to their advantage.”

Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Paul Eckert.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

"Selma is sacred ground. It is, in a very real sense, the delivery room where the possibility of a true democracy was born. It is no place to play or to be for political pretense. Either you're serious or not. If you're coming, come on Sunday, the actual day of remembrance. If you're coming, come with a commitment to fight for what these people were willing to give their lives for."

That's the message that faith and rights leaders sent in a Monday letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and members of Congress ahead of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday—when white police officers violently assaulted civil rights advocates, including future Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.), as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama on March 7, 1965.

The sign-on letter is led by the co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival—Bishop William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis—along with former Democratic Alabama state Sen. Hank Sanders, Faya Rose Touré, Rev. Mark Thompson, Rebecca Marion, and Rev. Carolyn Foster. It is open for signature on the Repairers of the Breach website.

"#SelmaIsSacredGround, not a place for political pretense."

"This is a critical year in the life of our country," the seven initial signatories wrote. "On the one hand, the president and progressive members of Congress have fought to pass policies that have lifted up Americans in many ways. From Covid relief measures to infrastructure investments to child tax credits that lifted millions of children out of poverty (for a brief moment) to the appointment of the first Black woman Supreme Court Justice, we can celebrate some real progress."

"But, on the other hand, with a Democratic president and control of the House and Senate for two years, Democratic leadership was unable to raise the federal minimum wage," they continued, also noting that a few obstructionist Democrats repeatedly helped Senate Republicans block efforts to restore the Voting Rights Act.

That obstruction, they explained, enabled "regressive legislative bodies across the nation to pass more voter suppression bills than any time since Jim Crow and to go through another round of dangerous redistricting, which nullifies the potential power of progressive voting coalitions by stacking and packing votes in certain districts to predetermine outcomes before any vote is cast."

Highlighting research that shows tens of millions of Americans face some form of voter suppression, the letter leaders argue that if Biden and other politicians plan to visit Selma—which was recently devastated by a tornado—for the Bloody Sunday anniversary, they should "declare that the fight for voting rights and the restoration of what they marched across that bridge for is not over."

The letter also demands urgent action on living wages and investments in rural areas, stressing that millions of people—particularly Southern states—live "in poverty and low-wealth conditions" and remain "uninsured or underinsured at a time when we have more people on healthcare than ever before," three years into the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Those of us who are planning to be in Selma to honor the struggle for voting rights and economic justice should be willing to protest and engage nonviolently if politicians attempt to do moral harm to the memory and the sacredness of what happened on Bloody Sunday," declares the letter. "This is no time for foolishness, photo ops, and flaky commitments."

"Let us be clear: To honor the memory of Bloody Sunday is to work for the full restoration of the Voting Rights Act, the passage of the original For the People Act that John Lewis helped to write, not the bill that was watered down by Joe Manchin who wouldn't even vote for his own compromise," the letter continues, calling out the pro-filibuster West Virginia Democrat infamous for thwarting his own party's agenda.

"To commemorate Bloody Sunday," the letter adds, "is to commit to raising of the minimum wage to a living wage, to ensuring that every American has adequate healthcare, and to enacting economic development that touches poor and low-wealth communities."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

American voters often waver from one election to the next between electing majorities of Republicans or Democrats to Congress or their state legislatures, yet the results of ballot initiatives remain remarkably predictable. Last November’s outcomes results again showed a majority of voters—even those in deep-red states—favoring progressive policies when voting on individual issues rather than voicing their party identity.

But instead of accepting those outcomes as guidance to better represent their constituents, many Republican legislatures are trying to obstruct or neuter citizen lawmaking.

Last year, pro-abortion-rights voters won in all six states with questions on the ballot, including the GOP strongholds of Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana. That success has advocates exploring ballot measures to amend state constitutions in a dozen or more states.

In other initiatives, voters abolished involuntary servitude as a punishment (Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont) and raised minimum wages (Nebraska, Nevada, and the District of Columbia). South Dakota became the seventh state (and the sixth under GOP control) to expand Medicaid via citizen initiative. And Michigan voters embedded reproductive rights and voter protection principles in the state constitution.

Two Republican officials on Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers initially blocked both of those initiatives from the ballot. Though supporters gathered a record 735,000 petition signatures for the reproductive-rights measure, the two officials claimed that inadequate spacing in the fine print of ballot petitions was disqualifying and voted to disqualify the voting rights initiative on another technicality. The initiatives’ backers filed lawsuits, and thankfully the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in both cases to prevent the sabotage and enable citizens to vote on the issues.

Twenty-four states enable proactive initiatives while two additional states enable citizens to nullify laws, but not enact new ones. Around the turn of the century, progressive initiatives began outnumbering conservative ones, and 2022 yielded victories on a wide range of progressive causes. But Republican politicians increasingly deem this an unacceptable intrusion into their powers and push bills to undermine ballot initiatives on three different fronts: erecting barriers to initiatives reaching the ballot, making passage more difficult and corrupting voters’ intent post-passage.

Last year, Ballotpedia counted a record 232 state bills impacting ballot measure processes, of which 23 passed. The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC), a nonprofit advocate for citizen lawmaking, listed 140 of those bills as impeding citizen initiatives. And the attacks are unrelenting: Missouri Republicans introduced a dozen such bills this January alone.

Ohio Republicans, meanwhile, proposed legislation to radically increase signature-gathering costs and require a 60 percent supermajority vote for constitutional initiatives. The author of the latter bill openly declared his intent: to block a forthcoming citizen initiative expanding reproductive choice. Also motivating the attack is an initiative to create an independent redistricting commission, which would neutralize gerrymanders that effectively ensure a Republican majority in the legislature. (In an unusual plot twist, a leading advocate for the initiative is Maureen O’Connor, a Republican and former Ohio Supreme Court chief justice.)

Roadblocks to citizen lawmaking may be making their intended impacts, as just 30 initiatives made state ballots in 2022 — the fewest this century. In Utah, for example, an out-of-state group with anonymous funding called the Foundation for Government Accountability helped pass a 2021 law banning paying signature gatherers per valid signature, which is currently standard practice. By nixing a key incentive for workers to gather more signatures than they would if paid only an hourly wage, the law will hike both the cost and duration of campaigns to qualify a ballot measure. “Qualification challenges, courts blocking measures and onerous restrictions” all contributed to the decrease, says Chris Figueredo, executive director of BISC.

Unlike direct voter-disenfranchisement tactics, the escalating assaults on direct democracy have generated few headlines. But regardless of our policy preferences, ballot initiatives provide a vital safety valve, giving citizens a tool to bypass unresponsive legislatures that ignore or defy their constituents. This corrective power is especially vital today, as gerrymandering makes dislodging officeholders in safe seats nearly impossible.

Despite the preponderance of progressive ballot victories, direct democracy is a nonpartisan, pro-democracy tool popular with citizens across the political spectrum. Two-thirds of the 24 states with proactive citizen initiatives typically have had trifecta Republican control of state government. In Colorado, which flipped from GOP control of all branches of government in 2004 to a Democratic trifecta today, 65 percent of voters supported a 2022 initiative to cut state income taxes. If more state legislatures flip to Democrats, conservative initiatives undoubtedly will serve as a check on their power as well.

The election results of 2022 demonstrated that citizen initiatives unite voters with differing party loyalties to advance common interests, often addressing issues where legislators decline to act. The threats to citizen lawmaking should be resisted in favor of protecting one key avenue to ensure frustrated voters a constructive way to engage and progress toward inclusive democracy.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jeff Milchen.

News that company officials would be a no-show infuriated East Palestine residents who are worried about the health and safety of their families in the wake of the train crash—and the subsequent release of hazardous chemicals such as the carcinogen vinyl chloride into the atmosphere and waterways.

"We are all excited for this town hall meeting, and it is just a slap in the face because the people who put us out are too afraid to show up to the meeting," said Nate Velez, a resident whose family is currently staying in rentals outside of East Palestine, unsure whether it's safe to return to their home half a mile away from the site of the fiery derailment.

“Most people did not want to go home, but they had to," Velez said of those who evacuated following the crash. "So, all the people who had to go home were complaining of smells, pains in their throat, headaches, sickness. I have gone back a few times, and the smell does make you sick. It hurts your head."

In addition to foul odors in the air, residents have reported strange-smelling and discolored water as well as sick or dead animals—accounts that have intensified the Ohio community's sense of alarm and demands for transparency from local authorities and Norfolk Southern, which has fought off safety regulations that could have helped prevent the crash on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

The office of Mike DeWine, Ohio's Republican governor, said in a news release Wednesday that the state Environmental Protection Agency has not detected any "contaminants in raw water from the five wells that feed into East Palestine's municipal water system."

"With these tests results, Ohio EPA is confident that the municipal water is safe to drink," the governor's office insisted, a claim Norfolk Southern has echoed.

Additionally, the federal EPA has been monitoring the area's air and water and assisting with individual home screenings.

"The National Transportation Security Board has also been on site for over a week to lead the investigation into the cause of the derailment," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier this week. "And the EPA will continue to conduct 24/7 air quality monitoring throughout the East Palestine community in the days to come."

But residents weren't satisfied with assurances from their representatives and Norfolk Southern.

"Why are people getting sick if there's nothing in the air or the water?" one town hall attendee shouted Wednesday.

"Is it OK to still be here?" another asked. "Are my kids safe? Are the people safe? Is the future of this community safe? We all know the severity of that question. What's at stake?"

Others have openly questioned Norfolk Southern's commitment to the emergency response and recovery effort. Speaking to reporters at Wednesday's town hall, one resident dismissed Norfolk Southern's $1,000 payments to those impacted by the crash—so-called "inconvenience checks"—as "insulting."

Trent Conaway, East Palestine's mayor, directly addressed community members during Wednesday's town hall and pledged to do all he can to ensure that Norfolk Southern lives up to its promise of a safe and thorough clean-up—while acknowledging that's a difficult task for a small-town official.

"I'm a mayor of a town of 4,700 people," Conaway said. "You think I can fight against the railroad or fight against the EPA or fight against anything like that?"

Echoing his constituents' anger over Norfolk Southern's no-show Wednesday night, Conaway said, "They screwed up our town. They're going to fix it."

Norfolk Southern's handling of the disaster—which rail workers say was a predictable consequence of Wall Street-backed policy changes that have cut costs and undermined safety—has also drawn growing scrutiny from state and federal lawmakers.

Earlier this week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro sent a letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw raising "serious concerns" about the corporation's handling of the February 3 train derailment.

Specifically, Shapiro noted that soon after the crash, "Norfolk Southern personnel separated themselves from the rest of the incident management structure... to conduct separate operational and tactical planning, forcing state and local response agencies to react to tactics that were developed unilaterally and without the combined input of key state agencies."

Shapiro added that the company's "unwillingness to explore or articulate alternate courses of action to their proposed vent and burn [of toxic chemicals] limited state and local leaders' ability to respond effectively."

"Norfolk Southern failed to explore all potential courses of action, including some that may have kept the rail line closed longer but could have resulted in a safer overall approach for first responders, residents, and the environment," Shapiro wrote. "Norfolk Southern's well-known opposition to modernized regulations require further scrutiny and investigation to limit the devastating effects of future accidents."

"While regulation of the railroad industry is largely the purview of our federal partners," Shapiro continued, nodding toward U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, "we plan to take direct action here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

While Democrats defied historical trends in the 2022 midterm elections by blocking the Republican "red wave" that many pundits predicted would overtake the U.S. Congress, last year's election resulted in significant GOP gains in Southern state legislatures, bolstering their control of the region's politics.

Republicans gained about 55 legislative seats in Southern states in 2022 and now hold majorities in all of the region's legislative chambers except for the Virginia Senate. The GOP's largest gains came from West Virginia and Florida, where they gained 17 and 14 seats respectively.

Now GOP leaders in some of these legislatures are using their expanded power to implement legislative rules that undermine the usual deliberative process and allow controversial bills to be fast-tracked.

Take West Virginia, for instance. The state constitution mandates that a bill be "fully and distinctly read" three times in both the Senate and the House of Delegates "unless in case of urgency" — an exception requiring 80% of members present to suspend the rule. But last month, the state Senate suspended those constitutional rules to allow it to pass bills without having them go through committees, hearings, or debates — or even without making the text of the bills publicly available. On the first day of the legislative session alone, the Senate passed 23 bills this way. Among them was the "Anti-Racism Act of 2023," an updated version of a controversial proposal from last year that limits how subjects like racial discrimination are taught in K-12 public schools.

"This robs the public of the thoughtful, transparent process we are owed," the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia wrote on Twitter.

In Tennessee, the Republican House supermajority voted last month to limit debate on legislation, claiming it's for efficiency. The new rules cut the speaking time for any lawmaker recognized on the floor from 10 minutes to five. They also change how special caucus groups are recognized. For example, members of the state's Black Caucus told News Channel 5 that it appears they now will need approval from the speaker, as well as the leaders of both parties.

Democrats blasted the move. "We need more transparency in government, not less," House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons of Nashville told The Tennessee Holler.

'A shameful power grab'

In North Carolina, this year’s legislative session began with a temporary House rules change eliminating the requirement for legislative leaders to give two days' notice before holding a vote to override a veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who has vetoed more bills than all of his predecessors combined. This would make it easier for Republicans in the House — where after last year's midterms the GOP is just one seat shy of holding a veto-proof supermajority — to hold override votes without all Democratic members of the chamber being present. Republicans hold a supermajority in the state Senate after gaining two seats last year.

North Carolina's Republican legislative leaders have a history of scheduling proposed veto override votes to frustrate Democrats’ efforts to block them. In 2019, for example, House Republicans were able to override Cooper's veto of their budget plan by taking the vote when some Democrats were missing because a GOP legislative leader told them it would be a non-voting session. That same year, Democrats say GOP lawmakers tried to capitalize on a lawmaker's breast cancer diagnosis to overturn Cooper's veto of an anti-abortion bill.

Noting the previous attempts to ram through controversial limits on abortion, Jillian Riley of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic called the change "a shameful power grab meant to thwart the will of the people,"

A coalition of civil rights organizations and other progressive groups recently held a press conference to protest House Speaker Tim Moore's rules change and demand greater transparency and accountability from the state legislature. Participants said the change will undercut the democratic process and result in the passage of regressive policies on abortion access, LGBTQ rights, and protections for immigrants and the environment.

"Again and again, Speaker Moore has demonstrated that he prefers to do anything necessary to enact his extreme agenda," said Dan Crawford, director of government relations at the NC League of Conservation Voters.

Among the legislation that the opponents of the rules changes are particularly worried about is the so-called "Parents' Bill of Rights", which would prohibit education about sexual orientation and gender identity in K-4 public school curriculum and require schools to notify parents about any changes in the name or pronoun used by their child. Republican lawmakers have also discussed proposals to further restrict abortion and to require voter ID.

A vote on making the temporary rule change permanent is expected in the coming weeks.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Benjamin Barber.

Civil rights advocates on Friday condemned the Republican-led Florida Legislature for passing another voter suppression bill that far-right Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely GOP presidential candidate for 2024, is expected to sign into law.

The Florida House passed Senate Bill 4B by a margin of 77-33 on Friday, two days after state senators approved the bill in a 27-12 party-line vote. The legislation seeks to expand the authority of the Office of Statewide Prosecution (OSP) to pursue charges for alleged election-related crimes. The OSP reports to Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, a close ally of DeSantis.

A coalition of voting rights groups—including NAACP Florida, ACLU of Florida, Common Cause Florida, and the Brennan Center for Justice—submitted joint testimony opposing S.B. 4B on Thursday. In a joint statement issued after its passage on Friday, the coalition warned that the legislation "risks impacting people with past convictions who will continue to be arrested and prosecuted in the criminal legal system for honest mistakes about their voter eligibility."

"The office made arrests, claimed jurisdiction, and is now seeking to change the law after the courts said no."

"This proposal is a solution in search of a problem," the coalition said. "There is no legitimate need to waste taxpayer dollars and state resources by expanding the Office of Statewide Prosecution for these purposes. This bill is being heard and swiftly passed only because the governor desires to expand his prosecutorial authority over Floridians who are lawfully trying to exercise their right to vote."

S.B. 4B comes as DeSantis faces rebuke for using Florida's newly established Office of Election Crimes and Security to arrest 20 formerly incarcerated individuals who believed they were eligible to vote—thanks to Amendment 4, a voter-approved 2018 referendum re-enfranchising 1.4 million people with past felony convictions—for alleged "voter fraud" last year.

Most of the people who were arrested for improperly casting ballots had been approved by the Florida Department of Elections, which mailed them voter registration cards prior to the 2020 election. Despite this, all of them have been slapped with felony charges carrying prison terms of up to five years and fines of up to $5,000. The arrests, unsurprisingly, have reportedly scared away many potential voters.

"While one of the cases has been settled, judges have in many cases dismissed charges and some local state attorneys have been reluctant to pursue charges," Florida Politicsreported Friday. "Democrats have questioned if the proposed legislation will allow the statewide prosecutor to take over cases that local state attorneys won't try."

Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-47) alluded to body cam footage showing that many of those arrested—and some of the police officers—were confused about the nature of the charges.

“We had folks in Orange County that, after that amendment passed, they called the Supervisor of Elections, they called the Division of Elections, and were told they could vote," she told Florida Politics. "There's a reason why these cases are being tossed out."

According to the news outlet, many critics of S.B. 4B view it as "an intimidation tactic to discourage many former felons from registering regardless, even if they are now eligible to do so."

Florida Rep. Yvonne Hinson (D-20) said that after "citizens served their time, they should be able to have their civil rights restored." She called the bill "an intentional act by the Legislature to manipulate the judicial process to fit a political position."

"This bill will create more confusion and disenfranchise eligible voters as part of what's been a continued effort to intimidate voters—especially returning citizens—from participating in our democracy."

The coalition of voting rights groups opposed to S.B. 4B shared the Democratic lawmakers' assessments.

By increasing the OSP's power, this legislation "would remove cases from local prosecutors and prosecute minor occurrences of mistaken voters rather than having to prove a widespread voter conspiracy," the groups lamented. "It would also seek to circumvent three Florida courts' decisions which have rejected the OSP's argument for more expansive jurisdiction."

"The office made arrests, claimed jurisdiction, and is now seeking to change the law after the courts said no," the coalition continued. "We have grave concerns about the potential for this office targeting returning citizens for honest mistakes about their eligibility to vote in an effort to intimidate communities of color."

"All voters should have equal, meaningful, and non-burdensome access to the ballot box," said the coalition. "To date, Florida has failed to effectively and efficiently verify people's eligibility under the current system, and the state's failure has disproportionately harmed Black Floridians."

According to the rights advocates, the state has refused for years "to provide sufficient guidance to those looking to determine whether they can vote. At the same time, government officials have allowed and, in some instances, outright encouraged people with past felony convictions to register to vote without verifying their eligibility to do so."

"This bill will create more confusion and disenfranchise eligible voters as part of what's been a continued effort to intimidate voters—especially returning citizens—from participating in our democracy," the groups warned. "Rather than trying to give unchecked power to prosecutors who report to the governor and his political appointees, state officials should instead find ways to fix the complex and unnavigable system for returning citizens to determine their eligibility and invest resources to solve current known problems."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

A coalition of voting rights groups—including NAACP Florida, ACLU of Florida, Common Cause Florida, and the Brennan Center for Justice—submitted joint testimony opposing S.B. 4B on Thursday. In a joint statement issued after its passage on Friday, the coalition warned that the legislation "risks impacting people with past convictions who will continue to be arrested and prosecuted in the criminal legal system for honest mistakes about their voter eligibility."

"The office made arrests, claimed jurisdiction, and is now seeking to change the law after the courts said no."

"This proposal is a solution in search of a problem," the coalition said. "There is no legitimate need to waste taxpayer dollars and state resources by expanding the Office of Statewide Prosecution for these purposes. This bill is being heard and swiftly passed only because the governor desires to expand his prosecutorial authority over Floridians who are lawfully trying to exercise their right to vote."

S.B. 4B comes as DeSantis faces rebuke for using Florida's newly established Office of Election Crimes and Security to arrest 20 formerly incarcerated individuals who believed they were eligible to vote—thanks to Amendment 4, a voter-approved 2018 referendum re-enfranchising 1.4 million people with past felony convictions—for alleged "voter fraud" last year.

Most of the people who were arrested for improperly casting ballots had been approved by the Florida Department of Elections, which mailed them voter registration cards prior to the 2020 election. Despite this, all of them have been slapped with felony charges carrying prison terms of up to five years and fines of up to $5,000. The arrests, unsurprisingly, have reportedly scared away many potential voters.

"While one of the cases has been settled, judges have in many cases dismissed charges and some local state attorneys have been reluctant to pursue charges," Florida Politicsreported Friday. "Democrats have questioned if the proposed legislation will allow the statewide prosecutor to take over cases that local state attorneys won't try."

Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-47) alluded to body cam footage showing that many of those arrested—and some of the police officers—were confused about the nature of the charges.

“We had folks in Orange County that, after that amendment passed, they called the Supervisor of Elections, they called the Division of Elections, and were told they could vote," she told Florida Politics. "There's a reason why these cases are being tossed out."

According to the news outlet, many critics of S.B. 4B view it as "an intimidation tactic to discourage many former felons from registering regardless, even if they are now eligible to do so."

Florida Rep. Yvonne Hinson (D-20) said that after "citizens served their time, they should be able to have their civil rights restored." She called the bill "an intentional act by the Legislature to manipulate the judicial process to fit a political position."

"This bill will create more confusion and disenfranchise eligible voters as part of what's been a continued effort to intimidate voters—especially returning citizens—from participating in our democracy."

The coalition of voting rights groups opposed to S.B. 4B shared the Democratic lawmakers' assessments.

By increasing the OSP's power, this legislation "would remove cases from local prosecutors and prosecute minor occurrences of mistaken voters rather than having to prove a widespread voter conspiracy," the groups lamented. "It would also seek to circumvent three Florida courts' decisions which have rejected the OSP's argument for more expansive jurisdiction."

"The office made arrests, claimed jurisdiction, and is now seeking to change the law after the courts said no," the coalition continued. "We have grave concerns about the potential for this office targeting returning citizens for honest mistakes about their eligibility to vote in an effort to intimidate communities of color."

"All voters should have equal, meaningful, and non-burdensome access to the ballot box," said the coalition. "To date, Florida has failed to effectively and efficiently verify people's eligibility under the current system, and the state's failure has disproportionately harmed Black Floridians."

According to the rights advocates, the state has refused for years "to provide sufficient guidance to those looking to determine whether they can vote. At the same time, government officials have allowed and, in some instances, outright encouraged people with past felony convictions to register to vote without verifying their eligibility to do so."

"This bill will create more confusion and disenfranchise eligible voters as part of what's been a continued effort to intimidate voters—especially returning citizens—from participating in our democracy," the groups warned. "Rather than trying to give unchecked power to prosecutors who report to the governor and his political appointees, state officials should instead find ways to fix the complex and unnavigable system for returning citizens to determine their eligibility and invest resources to solve current known problems."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A coalition of voting rights groups—including NAACP Florida, ACLU of Florida, Common Cause Florida, and the Brennan Center for Justice—submitted joint testimony opposing S.B. 4B on Thursday. In a joint statement issued after its passage on Friday, the coalition warned that the legislation "risks impacting people with past convictions who will continue to be arrested and prosecuted in the criminal legal system for honest mistakes about their voter eligibility."

"The office made arrests, claimed jurisdiction, and is now seeking to change the law after the courts said no."

"This proposal is a solution in search of a problem," the coalition said. "There is no legitimate need to waste taxpayer dollars and state resources by expanding the Office of Statewide Prosecution for these purposes. This bill is being heard and swiftly passed only because the governor desires to expand his prosecutorial authority over Floridians who are lawfully trying to exercise their right to vote."

S.B. 4B comes as DeSantis faces rebuke for using Florida's newly established Office of Election Crimes and Security to arrest 20 formerly incarcerated individuals who believed they were eligible to vote—thanks to Amendment 4, a voter-approved 2018 referendum re-enfranchising 1.4 million people with past felony convictions—for alleged "voter fraud" last year.

Most of the people who were arrested for improperly casting ballots had been approved by the Florida Department of Elections, which mailed them voter registration cards prior to the 2020 election. Despite this, all of them have been slapped with felony charges carrying prison terms of up to five years and fines of up to $5,000. The arrests, unsurprisingly, have reportedly scared away many potential voters.