Category: Uncategorized

“The statue pays homage to three who said no to war, to the lies that lead to war and to the intrusion into private life that helps to perpetuate war.”

Berlin, Germany –This past Friday life-size bronze statues of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning were unveiled in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz Square in front of German politicians and activists.
In Germany and much of the world, the three are considered heroes in the fight for freedom of information and speech, for their respective leaking of classified U.S. documents.
“They have lost their freedom for the truth, so they remind us how important it …read more

Downsize DC is about to bring you a new tool

Last week, we had requests to comment about the Baltimore riots. “What is the Downsize DC position?” Were you one of the people who wanted us to comment?

The Baltimore riots are a real problem where the federal government has made things worse. Of course, I wanted to comment!

But we already write Action Items on bills before Congress. Those take time to research and prepare. Any writing is a project.

I don’t really have an outlet to quickly, rapidly respond to these kinds of relevant …read more

Baltimore, MD– As the media was corralled into a degrading staging area “for their own safety” (they must have meant from the police, who were threatening arrest and used chemical weapons on us days before), the show put on by riot police on North and Pennsylvania was not all that was happening in the city of Baltimore.
On Saturday evening, as the disgraced media was put in a pen on the corner of an intersection, the police decided to break into a home and arrest five gang members for breaking curfew. The problem is, the young men were already inside their …read more

Ballot Access News April 1, 2015 – Volume 30, Number 11
This issue was printed on white paper.
Table of Contents

WEST VIRGINIA REPEALS STRAIGHT-TICKET DEVICE
WORKING FAMILIES PARTY WINS CONNECTICUT LEGISLATIVE RACE
OKLAHOMA BALLOT ACCESS BILL PASSES HOUSE UNANIMOUSLY
CALIFORNIA MINOR PARTIES ASK STATE SUPREME COURT TO HEAR TOP-TWO CASE
ARIZONA MAY MAKE BALLOT ACCESS WORSE
SOUTH DAKOTA MAKES BALLOT ACCESS WORSE
NEVADA TOP-TWO BILL TO BE HEARD APRIL 1
ALABAMA BALLOT ACCESS BILL MOVES
NORTH DAKOTA LOSS
PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES
ALABAMA EXPANDS PETITION PERIOD FOR SPECIAL ELECTIONS
ARKANSAS HIGH COURT INVALIDATES TWO INITIATIVE LAWS
NEW TURNOUT DATA
CHART: PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY DATES FOR 2016
2016 PETITIONING FOR PRESIDENT
CONNECTICUT ELECTION RESULTS
NEW YORK LIKELY TO ELECT AN INDEPENDENT OR …read more

Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province, held legislative elections on May 4. The Green Party won a seat for the first time in that body. See this story. …read more

Flint, Michigan, has four candidates who filed in the non-partisan Mayoral election. The Michigan Secretary of State has told Flint election officials to remove three of them from the ballot, leaving only one candidate on the ballot. See this story. Local election officials thought the filing deadline was April 28, and advised the candidates of that date. But that was an error; the true deadline was April 21. Thanks to Nicholas Madaj for the link. …read more

Village of Suffern, NY — Video has been released of an incident that occurred last spring in which four veteran New York police officer were surrounded and held at gunpoint at a busy intersection by Ramapo Police.
As we previously reported, the officers were riding in a state-issued vehicle, attempting to execute an arrest warrant when suddenly the car was surrounded at gunpoint by cops from the Ramapo Police Department and one from the Village of Suffern.
“All I could think of was if I sneeze, or blink, or clear my throat, that, yeah, I might have a bullet lodged in my …read more

Image: mxgm.org
Lee County, FL — A Florida cop with a history of violence has been fired after a slew of racist posts on his Facebook page.
According to the internal affairs report, Deputy Jean Lopez repeatedly referred to black people as “monkeys” on social media.
According to NBC 2,
The report said Lopez posted a video in March of a black man talking about his company and his competitors using explicit language and street terms. The report said Lopez wrote, “Can someone please tell me what the [expletive] this monkey is saying?”
The report also stated Lopez wrote, “Get a real life [expletive] monkey.”
The …read more

This Concord Monitor story is mainly about whether Bernie Sanders can get on the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary ballot, but the bottom portion of the article also discusses the Libertarian Party’s ballot access lawsuit against the New Hampshire law, passed in 2014, that won’t let new parties petition during odd years.
There have been many Libertarian Party lawsuits against various New Hampshire election restrictions during the last twenty years, but this is the first one that has had good coverage in New Hampshire’s daily newspapers.
New Hampshire is the only state in the nation in which no minor party or independent …read more