Category: Uncategorized

On May 18, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear O’Keefe v Chisholm, 14-872. Wisconsin state courts will now continue to determine whether the Wisconsin Club for Growth illegally coordinated campaign spending strategy with Governor Scott Walker during the campaign to recall him.
See this story, which gives background for the case. Individuals and groups who are the target of the investigation had asked the federal courts to protect them from the methods used in the investigation. The lead plaintiff in the federal case, Eric O’Keefe, is a former national director of the Libertarian Party. …read more

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-California) has introduced HR 2173, which would require all states that have more than one member of the U.S. House to have independent redistricting commissions to draw U.S. House district boundaries. Here is the text of the bill. It has 27 co-sponsors so far, all of them Democrats.
The Commission in each state would have 12 members. Four would be members of the largest party, four would be members of the second-largest party, and four would be all other voters. The chair would be a member of the latter group. The commissions could …read more

Screven County, Georgia – Mother and substitute teacher Julie Giles was arrested this week because her son had too many unexcused absences from public school.
Writing on her Facebook page before turning herself in, Giles said “If anyone feels the need to go public with this feel free to do so….the facts are Sam originally had what they consider 12 unexcused absences, 6 are allowed per year, so he had 6 more than is acceptable, but the doctor reissued 3 excuses that Sam didn’t turn in, so basically I am being arrested for THREE days.”
She also noted that her child has …read more

Award winning filmmaker, writer and social justice organizer Dream Hampton took to Twitter, breaking the silence surrounding numerous large private financial donations, allegedly made by Shawn ‘Jay-Z ‘ Carter and wife Beyoncé, to fund the Black Lives Matter protest movement and bail out protestors in both Ferguson and Baltimore.
Hampton, illustrating one of the most insidious ways in which political dissent is stifled in America, tweeted, “Protest is literally punished with tariffs.” The quote referred to the state’s preferred method of usurping the American people’s ability to assemble and protest through financial attrition.
When people without adequate financial resources are fined precipitously …read more

On May 13, Mark Moore, who had tried to be an independent candidate for state office last year in Arkansas, filed a brief that argues that the new petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates is so early, it is unconstitutional as a matter of law. In 2013 the legislature had moved that deadline from May to March. The Arkansas primary in 2014 was in May.
Moore’s brief points out that the non-presidential independent deadline has already been declared unconstitutional three times in the past, and once the U.S. Supreme Court even summarily affirmed the decision. If Judge James …read more

Cleveland, Ohio – This week, it was reported that the officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice last November has still not been questioned by investigators in regards to the murder.
The police department recently announced that they would soon be ready to conclude their investigation, but a report from Mother Jones revealed last week that the officers involved were not yet questioned by investigators, although they made a number of attempts to reach out to the officers.
According to Mother Jones:
Mother Jones has learned that the two officers involved in the shooting—Timothy Loehmann, who fired the shots, and Frank Garmback, …read more

Greenville, SC– A South Carolina man was threatened with imprisonment over wearing a shirt that read “Police Lie” to a pre-trial conference on May 13. Thomas Roy was at the Greensville Courthouse on Wednesday for a conference, not appearing for the actual courtroom proceedings, yet he was repeatedly threatened with arrest by the judge over his use of his first amendment right with the simple, and true, two-word statement on his shirt.

The video, which Roy posted to Facebook, begins as he is being confronted by the judge.
“Mr. Roy, you leave here now with that shirt on, I’m the city …read more

In 2013, Kshama Sawant was elected in a non-partisan Seattle city election for City Council. She is running for re-election this year. This story says some Seattle Democrats favor inviting her to party-sponsored debates, but other Democrats object. Washington state voter registration forms do not ask about party affiliation, so whether someone is a member of one particular party is often ambiguous. …read more

The Bloomberg View editorial says that British Prime Minister David Cameron “should make a priority of electoral reform”, and explains why Britain needs proportional representation. Thanks to Rob Richie for the link. …read more