Category: Uncategorized

On March 20, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed SB 69, which injures ballot access for newly-qualifying parties and independent candidates. The bill had passed the legislature on a party-line vote, with Republicans supporting the bill and Democrats opposing it.
The bill says members of qualified parties can no longer sign an independent candidate’s petition. No other state currently has such a requirement. Arizona passed this restriction in 1993, but it was declared unconstitutional in 1999.
The bill also moves the deadline for a newly-qualifying party from the last Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in March. …read more

On March 18, the Kansas Senate Ethics & Elections Committee passed SB 239, which cancels the 2016 presidential primary. On March 19, the Kansas House Elections Committee passed HB 2398, which completely repeals the presidential primary.
The number of states holding presidential primaries in 2016 seems likely to be fewer than the number in 2012. The budget proposed by the Governor of Louisiana eliminates funding for the presidential primary, and the Massachusetts Secretary of State says there is no money in the budget for a presidential primary. Kentucky Republicans will probably hold a caucus instead of a presidential …read more

DownsizeDC.org is one of 13 organizations from across the political spectrum that sent the following letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Budget Committees…Letter to Congress on Cuts to Fiscal Year 2016 Pentagon Budget
Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Honorable Mike Enzi
Chairman
Senate Committee on the Budget
379A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Tom Price, M.D.
Chairman
House Committee on the Budget
100 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Bernie Sanders
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on the Budget
332 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Chris Van Hollen
Ranking Member
House Committee on …read more

Rancho Cucamonga, CA — A man has been arrested and is facing a $100,000 bond after leading police on an hourlong pursuit.
The 22-year-old Rancho Cucamonga man, Phillip Resendez was booked for driving on the wrong side of the road and failure to yield.
Resendez led police through two Southern California counties during the chase, most of which was caught on video.
To illustrate how unconcerned he was with police chasing him, Resendez stopped and adjusted his earbuds, before taking off again.
Reaching speeds upwards of 100 mph, Resendez certainly posed a danger to other around him and his actions were irresponsible.
Despite posing a …read more

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Secrecy is the health of the national security state–the more revelations, the weaker it’s likely to become.” – Gary Chartier

Please help build momentum to pardon Edward Snowden. Ask Congress to pressure the President using DownsizeDC.org’s Pardon Snowden campaign.

You may borrow from or edit this letter…

We should THANK Edward Snowden for exposing the NSA’s unconstitutional and immoral bulk collection of our Internet activities and phone data.

Instead, he faces possibly decades in prison if he returns to America.

In contrast, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress about …read more

Holmes County, MS — A candidate for Lieutenant Governor, who’s outspoken about holding police accountable, says he was targeted by Mississippi police.
Lt. Governor candidate, Jelani Barr, got the entire incident on video too.
In an interview with WAPT, Barr claimed that troopers mistreated him after pulling him over for speeding in Homes County.
“He said that he knew me and that he knew who I was and what I was about,” Barr said.
Barr said that the officers who pulled him over refused to tell him why he was stopped, so for his safety he refused to get out of the car.
“They didn’t …read more

Last week, Nonprofit Vote released a 26-page report on voter turnout in the November 2014 election. Here is a link to the report. Nonprofit Vote does reports like this after each congressional and presidential election.
Page seven shows the turnout in each state as a ranking. The states are in order of how high turnout was, and that page shows the rank of each state in November 2014 and also November 2010.
The two states that dropped the most in rankings between 2010 and 2014 were Delaware and California. Delaware was 12th best in 2010, but 37th in …read more

Here is the text of the letter sent to the Commission on Presidential Debates earlier this year, signed by many influential Americans. The letter asks that the Commission on Presidential Debates liberalize access to the general election presidential debates. …read more

Boston, MA — In May of 2014, MBTA detective Shawn Conway made an amazingly swift move and grabbed a man a split second before he fell onto the train tracks at Park Street Station.
The officers actions were truly amazing. The MBTA subsequently released the surveillance footage from the station showing Conway’s heroic actions. But they left the second half of the video out; we now know why.
The video originally released by the MBTA ends with the detective dragging the man to safety. But the second half of the video shows a struggle between Conway and the man he just saved, …read more

Charlottesville, Virginia – A group of concerned students from the University of Virginia are breaking the media silence with a statement about an assault that occurred late Tuesday night into the early hours of Wednesday morning.
According to the statement, University of Virginia student Martese Johnson was brutally assaulted by police after he was caught attempting to enter a bar with a fake ID. The concerned students included a picture of Martese with his face covered in blood and multiple police on top of him.
The email from the students stated that:
“Outside the doors of Trinity Irish Pub, a mass of University …read more