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Nine South Dakota legislators have introduced SB 95, which would let candidates for federal and state office get on a primary ballot by fee instead of by petition. The lead sponsor, Senator Ernie Otten (R-Tea), is the Senate Majority Whip, and the House Majority Whip, Representative Jim Bolin (R-Canton) is also a sponsor. All nine sponsors are Republicans.
The filing fee would be 1% of the salary of the office. The salary for South Dakota Governors is $107,121, so the fee would be $1,071.
If this bill were enacted, minor parties would be advantaged. Current law requires members …read more

Maine Governor Paul LePage has a solution for, what he feels, is his state’s lax punishment of drug dealers: “What I think we ought to do is bring the guillotine back.”
Apparently, the recent proposal to jail drug traffickers for a minimum of four years wasn’t quite draconian enough for LePage, as he told WMOV, “We could have public executions and we could even have, you know, we could even have [guessing] which hole it falls in.” No further explanation was offered for that last part, but in the context, it would seem he was referring to executed person’s decapitated …read more

Another opportunity to restore the property rights basis to the 4th Amendment Re-tweet

In this message…
Two amicus briefs filed
A new amicus brief opportunity: Do you want to stop cops from drawing your blood without a warrant?
Last week, the Downsize DC Foundation sought to fund an amicus brief in the case U.S. v. Graham.
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Yesterday, our sister organization, the Downsize DC Foundation, delivered this same message to its “Zero Aggression” subscribers. We, at DownsizeDC.org, are, as usual, going to join in this case. The Foundation is able to offer tax-deductability in exchange for your contribution to this project, so we request that you …read more

Fresno, California – An activist named John Lang was found stabbed to death inside of his home this week after predicting that he would be killed by police in his area. His house was also set on fire in the struggle that killed him.
According to ABC30, his neighbors noticed smoke coming from his house around 3:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday. When fire crews arrived on the scene, it took them a few minutes to get in the house because it was well secured with a gate. When they made their way inside they discovered Lang’s body lifeless and bleeding …read more

Another opportunity to restore the property rights basis to the 4th Amendment Re-tweet In this message… Two amicus briefs filed A new amicus brief opportunity: Do you want to stop …

How you can influence the Supreme Court

Two New Mexico Representatives have introduced HJR 12, to require semi-closed primaries. Currently New Mexico has closed primaries. The proposed constitutional amendment would provide that independent voters be allowed to vote in partisan primaries. The authors are Representative Moe Maestas (D-Albuquerque) and Stephanie Garcia Richard (D-Los Alamos). If the legislature passes it, then the voters would be asked to decide whether it should become part of the State Constitution. Thanks to Carol Miller for this news. …read more

On January 26, U.S. District Court Judge Karen Schreier ruled that the Libertarian and Constitution Parties challenge to South Dakota’s early petition deadline for new parties may proceed. The two parties filed a lawsuit on June 15, 2015, against the new law that said petitions to create a new party are due the first Tuesday of March. The 2015 session of the legislature had moved that deadline to the first Tuesday of March; the old deadline had been the last Tuesday of March.
After the case was filed, the new law was suspended by a successful referendum petition. …read more

The web browser. Even in the later-stage “appification” of the internet that we’re presently experiencing, the web browser is still the centerpiece of much of how we interact with the digital world and digital economy. Unfortunately, on mobile devices, most people are using a web browser that is incredibly insecure, and incredibly basic compared to what their desktop browser counterparts can do. Browser’s like Google’s Chrome may be the most extensible and “secure” (though not private) on your desktop or laptop, but on mobile it’s nearly the exact opposite. It doesn’t have add-ons or extensions (and Google has stated it …read more

Tokyo, Japan – The Anonymous global hacking collective has targeted the Narita International Airport of Japan in a powerful direct denial of service (DDoS) attack, which took the website offline Friday evening in to Saturday. The attack was in protest over the country’s arrest of dolphin activist Ric O’Barry as he entered the country. A DDoS attack overwhelms a site with traffic from various networks, with the intention of crashing the servers on which the website is hosted.
Ric O’Berry is the dolphin activist appearing in the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove,” which detailed the annual barbaric slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, …read more