Tag Archives: secretary

A New Lawsuit Claims a Secretive, Bush-Era Program Is Delaying Muslims’ Citizenship Cases

by JoesphTierney8 Posted on May 19, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Thirteen Muslim Missouri residents are suing the US Citizenship and Immigration Services along with the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, alleging the agencies have unlawfully delayed their applications for citizenship.

The complaint alleges that the immigrants’ applications were funneled into a secretive Bush-era program called the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (CARRP) that requires immigration officials to flag applicants as national security threats based on a broad range of criteria.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which uncovered the program in 2013, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations say it illegally discriminates against applicants from Muslim-majority countries. Last year, Buzzfeed reported that this heightened review process was being used to screen incoming Syrian refugees.

The federal lawsuit was filed today by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Missouri and a local immigration litigation law firm that’s representing the Missouri Muslims who applied for citizenship.

“The CARRP definition illegally brands innocent, law-abiding residents, like the plaintiffs—none of whom pose a security threat—as ‘national security concerns’ on account of innocuous activity and associations, innuendo, suppositions and characteristics such as national origin,” the lawsuit says.

USCIS does not comment on pending litigation and a spokesman declined to comment specifically about the case. The agency would not say if the plaintiffs were subject to the heightened vetting program, citing privacy concerns.

By law, USCIS is expected to process applications for naturalization within six months of receiving them, and it must make a decision on a case within four months of interviewing the applicant. However, if an immigrant is flagged for national security concerns, USCIS places the case on the CARRP track, without notifying the applicant, according to the lawsuit. Such cases are often subject to lengthy delays and cannot be approved, “except in limited circumstances,” the lawsuit says, citing the testimony of a USCIS witness in a previous case.

One of the plaintiffs in the Missouri lawsuit, a 49-year-old woman from Iraq named Wafaa Alwan, applied for citizenship in December 2014. She waited eight months for an interview, which finally took place Aug. 31, 2015. She has been waiting for a decision ever since. Syed Asghar Ali, a 47-year-old man from Pakistan, named filed his application in March 2014 and has been in limbo for more than two years, the lawsuit says.

An immigrant who is subject to the heightened vetting program can be flagged for, among other things, donating to a charitable organization that was later designated a financier of terrorism, traveling through or living in an area with terrorist activity as well as making or receiving a large money transfer.

Immigrants may also be flagged if their names appear on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database, also known as the Terrorist Watch List, which is estimated to include over a million names. More than 40 percent of those on the watch list have been described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation,” according to The Intercept.

The lawsuit alleges that this process places an unnecessary burden on law-abiding applicants from Muslim-majority countries in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. It also argues that the program violates the Constitution because was enacted in secret, without the approval of Congress.

Although USCIS declined to respond directly to these allegations, a spokesman told Mother Jones that the agency often needs additional time to thoroughly vet each immigrant who applies for citizenship. The program is meant to ensure that immigration benefits and services are not given to people who may pose a threat to public safety, the spokesman emphasized.

The last time a major civil rights organization filed this kind of lawsuit was in 2014, when the ACLU sued USCIS on behalf on five California residents. However, shortly after it was filed, the government quickly wrapped up the pending citizenship applications, granting three of the plaintiffs citizenship and denying the applications of the other two. After that, the ACLU and their clients dropped the legal case.

This happens frequently, said Jim Hacking, the lead attorney on the Missouri case that was filed today. That includes a 2008 lawsuit he filed on behalf of three dozen immigrants whose applications were pulled into the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program.

“When I filed for the 36 clients, cases that had been delayed for three, four, five years all of a sudden became a priority,” he said. “This is because the government tries to root out the case. They don’t want a federal judge ruling on whether CARRP is legal or illegal. So they try to get rid of all the plaintiffs by either approving or denying their case.”

Hacking expects the new Missouri case may end the same way.

USCIS also declined to comment on the decision to resolve the applications of immigrants in the 2014 case.

Even if the new case doesn’t end in a court ruling, Hacking hopes it will put the program back in the spotlight. If society is going to hold Muslims to a higher standard when it comes to immigration and assume that they’re terrorists then we should do it out in the open and debate it, Hacking said.

“Let’s not just let an agency decide on its own that this is the way things are going to be,” he said “That’s not how America is supposed to work.”

Read this article:  

A New Lawsuit Claims a Secretive, Bush-Era Program Is Delaying Muslims’ Citizenship Cases

Posted in alo, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A New Lawsuit Claims a Secretive, Bush-Era Program Is Delaying Muslims’ Citizenship Cases

Donald Trump Selected a White Nationalist as a Delegate in California. Here’s His Campaign’s Reponse.

by AthenaRucker Posted on May 10, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Mother Jones‘ Josh Harkinson reported earlier today that the Trump campaign selected white nationalist leader William Johnson as a delegate in California.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks just issued this statement about it to the Washington Post:

Yesterday the Trump campaign submitted its list of California delegates to be certified by the Secretary of State of California. A database error led to the inclusion of a potential delegate that had been rejected and removed from the campaign’s list in February 2016.

Read Harkinson’s full story.

UPDATE, 5:48 p.m. ET: “Database error” was apparently the Trump campaign’s second attempt at an explanation.

Credit: 

Donald Trump Selected a White Nationalist as a Delegate in California. Here’s His Campaign’s Reponse.

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, solar power, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Donald Trump Selected a White Nationalist as a Delegate in California. Here’s His Campaign’s Reponse.

Obama drinks to his first Flint visit since lead poisoning crisis

by SilviaLamar6141 Posted on May 4, 2016

U.S. President Barack Obama drinks a glass of filtered water during a visit to Flint. REUTERS/Carlos Barria – RTX2CVDN

Obama drinks to his first Flint visit since lead poisoning crisis

By on May 4, 2016Share

President Obama’s first visit to Flint, Michigan since declaring a state of emergency was heavy on the optics from the start. Flanked by Flint residents and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, Obama worked to restore faith in a city that’s been totally betrayed by local, state, and federal levels of government over its water crisis.

The details of the trip appeared to be up in the air until the very last minute. Particularly the detail of whether Obama would drink the tap. The day before, staffers from Snyder’s office (who’s in the midst of a 30-day pledge to only drink Flint’s filtered tap water, in an effort to convince residents it’s safe) told the press he hoped Obama would drink from the tap while in town. Speaking from Air Force One this morning, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said it was “unclear” whether Obama would drink it.

In the end, the president tried the filtered water from the Flint public water system — twice.

“Generally, I haven’t been doing stunts, but here you go,” Obama said, taking a sip from a glass on a table after a meeting with federal officials at a food bank. “Filtered water is safe and it works.”

Later in the day, POTUS had a coughing fit during a speech at Northwestern High School and asked for another glass. This time it wasn’t a stunt. “I really did need a glass of water,” he insisted. “This is not a stunt.”

The trip was on the same day that the Michigan legislature appropriated an additional $128 million in aid for Flint, some of which will go towards replacing the city’s lead pipes — a process that could take another two years.

Flint residents aren’t letting local or state officials off the hook: One city and two state officials were recently hit with criminal charges. Governor Snyder — who says he can’t eat in a public restaurant these days without being heckled — was basically booed off the stage at Northwestern High School while introducing the President.

Speaking to a restless crowd of around 1,000 people at the high school, Obama did his damnedest to stay positive and constructive. He encouraged Flint residents to flush contaminants from their pipes by running the water in sinks in bathtubs, part of the “Flush for Flint” program — “not the most elegant title,” POTUS quipped, to some laughs. He also announced expanded Medicaid access for Flint residents though a state and federal collaboration, and strongly urged parents to get their kids checked.

But Obama also acknowledged the government’s failure to protect Flint. “This is a man-made crisis,” the President said.

Share

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Originally posted here:

Obama drinks to his first Flint visit since lead poisoning crisis

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama drinks to his first Flint visit since lead poisoning crisis

Trey Gowdy Still Tracking Down Benghazi Conspiracy Theories

by MilagroAdamson Posted on April 29, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Via Steve Benen, I see that the Pentagon is finally getting a little fed up with Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi investigation:

Gowdy’s “nonpartisan” investigators are apparently still obsessed with tracking down idiotic conspiracy theories that originate in Facebook posts, radio shows, and other corners of the right-wing fever swamp. They seem to be convinced, even now, that the military deliberately chose not to respond to the Benghazi attacks even though they could have. Why would they do this? Who knows. Because they were acting under orders from the Secretary of State, to whom they had sworn a secret blood oath? It’s just the kind of thing Hillary would do, isn’t it? And by God, the truth is out there. Eventually Trey Gowdy will get to it.

Source:

Trey Gowdy Still Tracking Down Benghazi Conspiracy Theories

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trey Gowdy Still Tracking Down Benghazi Conspiracy Theories

Trump’s foreign policy plan has one giant, baffling hole

by ClydeBrigstocke Posted on April 28, 2016

Trump’s foreign policy plan has one giant, baffling hole

By on Apr 28, 2016 12:55 pmShare

Likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had a gaping hole in his speech that laid out his foreign policy platform on Wednesday. While covering topics ranging from ISIS, North Korea, and China, Trump’s discussion of climate change was light. The only time he addressed it was to mock it.

“Our military is depleted, and we’re asking our generals and military leaders to worry about –” Trump said, pausing before delivering the punch line, “global warming.”

Trump failed to touch on the landmark 196-nation Paris agreement, in which nations pledged emissions cuts and finance to act on “an urgent and potentially irreversible threat.” What we do know about Trump’s opinion of the agreement is from December, when Trump called Obama’s Paris remarks “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, or perhaps most naive.” The candidate is known for conflating weather and climate, stating that global warming was “created by and for the Chinese,” and flat-out denying the scientific consensus about climate change.

Trump could formally pull the U.S. out of the agreement, or simply fail to deliver on Obama’s pledges; it’s tough to ever guess what he’s going to do next.

Let’s put aside Trump’s views on climate science for a minute and focus on the pure politics of this. Climate change may be just one issue on a long list of diplomatic conflicts that Trump would have upon entering the White House, but pulling from the Paris deal alone would be huge: Trump is prepared to take the United States in the opposite direction of every single one of our allies. And he hasn’t told us yet how he will engage in trade talks and tackle migration crises while the rest of the world recognizes these issues are linked to climate change.

By ignoring climate change, Trump is ignoring the advice of America’s military experts. The Pentagon itself, with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the helm, warned in 2014 that climate change would directly contribute to security risks for U.S. relations abroad. Last year, a study commissioned by the G7 countries found that climate change, which poses a threat to both global and economic security, has become “the ultimate threat multiplier” for regions that are already facing another type of threat.

Trump just isn’t listening.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

See more here – 

Trump’s foreign policy plan has one giant, baffling hole

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Ultima, Uncategorized, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s foreign policy plan has one giant, baffling hole

Senate Republicans use Palestine as an excuse not to fund climate agency

by BrookeM145 Posted on April 20, 2016

Senate Republicans use Palestine as an excuse not to fund climate agency

By and on Apr 20, 2016commentsShare

This story was originally published by Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

More than two dozen Republican senators this week asked Secretary of State John Kerry not to provide any funding for the United States’ involvement in the United Nations effort to address climate change, saying they object to the U.N. treating Palestine as a state.

The Palestinians joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international treaty that governs action on climate change, in March. On Monday, the group of 28 senators, led by Wyoming Republican John Barrasso, argued in a letter to Kerry that — because of a 1994 law barring federal funds from being distributed to any U.N. program that grants membership to a state or organization that lacks “internationally recognized attributes of statehood” — the UNFCCC should not receive U.S. funding.

It may not be entirely a coincidence that this letter comes from a group of senators who, by and large, don’t really believe climate change is an issue the U.S. should be addressing at all.

Among the letter’s signatories: Republican Sens. Roy Blunt (Mo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Bill Cassidy (La.), Dan Coats (Ind.), John Cornyn (Texas), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Steve Daines (Mont.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Jim Inhofe (Okla.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), James Lankford (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Mike Rounds (S.D.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), John Thune (S.D.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Pat Toomey (Pa.), David Vitter (La.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.).

They’re not all climate change deniers, per se. But Barrasso has said that the climate “is constantly changing” and that “the role human activity plays is not known.” Inhofe, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Environment And Public Works, wrote a whole book about how climate change is “the greatest hoax.” Rubio has spouted every type of climate denial possible. Cornyn has said he believes humans can influence the environment, but he doesn’t want the feds “in charge of trying to micromanage” the issue.

“The U.S. government does not recognize the ‘State of Palestine,’ which is not a sovereign state and does not possess the ‘internationally recognized attributes of statehood,’” the letter reads. “Therefore, the UNFCCC, as an affiliated organization of the U.N., granted full membership to the Palestinians, an organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood. As a result, current law prohibits distribution of U.S. taxpayer funds to the UNFCCC and its related entities.”

The lawmakers have some precedent for this argument. In 2011, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization lost U.S. funding — which made up about 22 percent of its budget — after allowing the Palestinians full membership. The U.S. later lost its voting rights to the UNESCO general assembly as a result. Kerry said last year that he planned to work with Congress to restore U.S. funding to the organization.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday that he was aware of the lawmakers’ letter but declined to comment further.

The Palestinians have endeavored to gradually join U.N. organizations and treaties as a way of gaining international recognition after several rounds of failed bilateral negotiations with the Israelis. The Palestinians gained non-member observer status at the U.N. in 2012, and the Palestinian flag was flown at the U.N. headquarters in New York for the first time last year during the annual general assembly, but they still lack full member status.

The Obama administration opposes Palestinian efforts to gain statehood through U.N. recognition, but the senators’ letter criticizes the administration for failing to block the Palestinians from gaining recognition within the UNFCCC.

“We urge the administration to clarify, both publicly and privately, that the United States does not consider the ‘State of Palestine’ to be a sovereign state, and to work diligently to prevent the Palestinians from being recognized as a sovereign state for purposes of joining U.N. affiliated organizations, treaties, conventions, and agreements,” the lawmakers wrote.

The United States has pledged to give $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, which was created so that industrialized countries can help developing nations address climate change. It’s seen as a pivotal part of the deal reached at the U.N. summit last December, which nations will begin officially signing this week.

The UNFCCC was created in 1992 to provide a mechanism for international coordination on addressing climate change. The United States provides funding to support the UNFCCC secretariat and other activities, as do the 196 other parties to the convention.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Link:

Senate Republicans use Palestine as an excuse not to fund climate agency

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, organic, PUR, Radius, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Senate Republicans use Palestine as an excuse not to fund climate agency

Harriet Tubman Will Replace Jackson on $20 Bill

by WesleyCrb9 Posted on April 20, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Who says Broadway musicals are a dying art form?

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Wednesday will announce plans to both keep Alexander Hamilton on the front of the $10 bill and to knock Andrew Jackson off the front of the $20 in favor of Harriet Tubman, sources tell POLITICO.

….Lew’s reversal comes after he announced last summer that he was considering replacing Hamilton on the $10 bill with a woman. The plan drew swift rebukes from fans of Hamilton, who helped create the Treasury Department and the modern American financial system….Supporters of putting a woman on the $10 bill have complained that it will take too long to put a woman on the $20 bill. But people familiar with the matter said new designs for the bills should be ready by 2020. Treasury is likely to ask the Federal Reserve, which makes the final decision, to speed the process and get the bills into circulation as quickly as possible.

The movement to keep Hamilton on the $10 bill gathered strength after the Broadway musical named after the former Treasury Secretary and founding father became a runaway smash hit.

Quick! Someone create a smash hit dubstep-zydeco dance musical featuring Andrew Jackson. It’s his only hope.

I still wish Lew had chosen Frances Perkins, since I like the tradition of portraying people on currency who have served in office, but that’s just a personal thing. (Though I do admire Perkins greatly, and think she deserves more attention than she usually gets.) Still, it’s hard to argue with Tubman—or with any of dozens of other women. When you’re going from zero to one, there are a whole lot of worthy choices.

And it’s also nice to see that they can manage to put a new bill in circulation by 2020 after all. I mean, 2030? Seriously? How can it take 15 years to design a new bill and start shipping it to banks?

POSTSCRIPT: There’s a bit of irony here. The $20 bill is ubiquitous largely because that’s what ATMs have been spitting out since the late 70s. But a twenty today is worth less a ten back then. We really ought to be using $50 bills as our go-to walking-around currency these days, and that’s what ATMs should be churning out. By 2020, maybe they will be. And by 2025 cash will probably have disappeared entirely. So by the time Tubman finally makes it onto the twenty, we won’t be using them much anymore. Women just can’t catch a break.

Visit link: 

Harriet Tubman Will Replace Jackson on $20 Bill

Posted in Broadway, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Harriet Tubman Will Replace Jackson on $20 Bill

6 years after BP disaster, Obama administration thinks it has a way to prevent future spills

by graptorm Posted on April 14, 2016

6 years after BP disaster, Obama administration thinks it has a way to prevent future spills

By on 14 Apr 2016commentsShare

Next Wednesday marks the sixth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon spill, the BP gusher that killed 11 workers and released at least 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. On Thursday, the Obama administration finalized a set of regulations that will help ensure we never have to witness this kind of disaster again — or so the administration claims. But environmental experts have real concerns about the rule’s rigor and implementation.

The new rule — the result of years of investigations by the Department of Interior, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Academy of Engineering — will tighten standards for blowout preventers (the type of device that failed spectacularly in 2010). It will also strengthen the design of other offshore well elements, including wellheads and the steel casings used in construction.

Speaking to press on Thursday, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell cited the complexity of oil drilling technology as one of the reasons why the regulations took six years to compose. And learning from the blowout was a part of taking time “to do this right,” she said.

“As offshore oil and gas production continue to grow every year and our dependence on foreign oil continues to decline, we owe it to the American people to ensure we are developing these resources responsibly and safely,” said Jewell, who was once a petroleum engineer in Oklahoma.

Asked point blank on a press call if the blowout preventers will be fail-safe, Brian Salerno, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, said he couldn’t give a conclusive answer. “We do believe this is a significant increase in the level of safety,” he said.

The new regulations incorporate several existing industry standards, produced by the likes of the American Petroleum Institute. API’s reaction to the announcement has been relatively calm.

But environmentalists have found much more to criticize.

A major concern is how rigorous the rule is around severing capability, the ability of blowout preventers to seal a pipe or wellbore by cutting through the pipe or casing in the event of a leak.

Liz Birnbaum, former director of the Minerals Management Service and an expert in offshore energy development, also pointed to the long phase-in periods that appear in the proposed regulations. “The rule says that they have three more years to set up real-time monitoring [of oil-well safety by onshore personnel],” Birnbaum told Grist. “Which is just insane.” She pointed to the fact that BP was able to set up real-time monitoring in less time than that after the Deepwater Horizon spill. “It doesn’t take three years.”

Environmental groups worry about providing too much flexibility for industry players, too. The only solution, Director of Environment America’s Stop Drilling Program Rachel Richardson said, “is to transition away from dirty fuels altogether.”

With respect to blowout preventers, Birnbaum argues that industry is being given too much temporal wiggle room to update their technology. In drilling operations, companies aren’t currently required to install parts that center the drill pipe during severing operations — which was exactly the problem during the Deepwater Horizon spill. The regulations would require them to do so, but not for another seven years.

Before the seven years are up, the Gulf of Mexico may be open for another 10 offshore leases, based on Obama’s proposed five-year offshore drilling plan. According to Birnbaum, “Another seven years is seven years too long.”

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

More:

6 years after BP disaster, Obama administration thinks it has a way to prevent future spills

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 6 years after BP disaster, Obama administration thinks it has a way to prevent future spills

Kansas Voters Have 21 Days to Register if They Speak English, or 15 if They Speak Spanish

by TheoRolleston Posted on April 12, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Prospective voters in Kansas were given different instructions for how and when to register to vote depending on whether they received the English- or Spanish-language voter guide issued by the Kansas secretary of state’s office.

The English-language version correctly informed voters that they could register up to 21 days before an election. But the Spanish-language version told voters that they had only 15 days to register, according to the Kansas City Star. Passports were listed as a valid proof of citizenship in the English version; in the Spanish version, they were not.

Craig McCullah, who oversees publications in the secretary of state’s office, apologized in the Star for the “administrative error” and said he was “diligently working to fix” the issue. He said the online versions were corrected within a day and the physical versions were sent to a translating service to eliminate discrepancies.

It’s unclear exactly when the errors were introduced or whether the erroneous voter guides had an effect on registration for the state’s presidential caucuses on March 5.

The botched voter guides, first flagged by a Democratic consultant in Daily Kos, have sparked the latest in a series of controversies over strict voter registration policies in Kansas under Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

A former Justice Department counsel in the George W. Bush administration and law professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Kobach was known for helping craft anti-immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama, and Georgia and for pushing the idea of self-deportation. Since becoming secretary of state in 2010, he has restricted access to the polls in Kansas and pursued criminal prosecutions for alleged instances of voter fraud, despite its rare occurrence. In 2013, even as the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring proof of citizenship for federal elections in Arizona, the state established a two-tier voter system that required Kansas residents to provide proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections.

Kansas is one of several Republican-controlled states that imposed tighter voter restrictions after the 2010 midterm election. Those policies have prompted legal challenges from civil rights advocates, who argue that such restrictions affect young, minority, Democratic-leaning voters. In January, a Kansas district court judge, Franklin Theis, struck down the state’s two-tier system, noting that Kobach, as secretary of state, “is not empowered to determine or declare the method of registration or create a method of ‘partial registration’ only.” Kobach plans to appeal the ruling.

In February, the American Civil Liberties Union again challenged the state’s voting policies, claiming the proof of citizenship requirement would keep at least 30,000 people, or 14 percent of Kansans who tried to register, off the voter rolls. The lawsuit is also seeking to prevent the state from tossing out more than 350,000 registration applications that are considered incomplete because prospective voters did not provide proof of citizenship.

Originally posted here: 

Kansas Voters Have 21 Days to Register if They Speak English, or 15 if They Speak Spanish

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Kansas Voters Have 21 Days to Register if They Speak English, or 15 if They Speak Spanish

Terrorism in Western Europe Used to Be Much Worse

by ZackBaldessin Posted on March 23, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Following the Paris attacks, and now the Brussels bombings, the so-called Islamic State has been described as a terrorist organization unlike any seen in recent history. This isn’t a new idea: Back in 2014 former defense secretary Chuck Hagel said that ISIS “is beyond anything that we’ve seen.”

Yet even with the threat of terrorist attacks from homegrown and ISIS-linked jihadists, the streets of Western Europe are safer now than in the not-too-distant past, when terror groups ranging from the IRA to Basque separatists killed hundreds. After the ISIS attacks that struck Paris in November 2015, killing 130 people, the statistics portal Statista created this chart for Huffington Post showing the number of victims claimed by terrorist attacks in Western Europe since 1970.

See original article here – 

Terrorism in Western Europe Used to Be Much Worse

Posted in alternative energy, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Safer, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Terrorism in Western Europe Used to Be Much Worse