On November 3, Seattle voters passed initiative I-122. See this story. The initiative provides that for city elections, all registered voters will receive four vouchers, each worth $25. The voter is free to give his or her vouchers to any candidate or ballot measure running in a Seattle city election. …read more
Kshama Sawant, the Seattle city councilmember who was elected four years ago, appears to have been re-elected. See this story. The race is non-partisan, but she is a member of Socialist Alternative. …read more
Have the American people defeated the REAL ID Act?
———-
Tonight, Downsize DC President, Jim Babka, will appear in Orlando, Florida. Tomorrow, he moves to Fort Myers, and Thursday he’ll be in Tampa. His talk is titled, “How one voluntaryist can turn Florida into a libertarian place.” Specific times and places can be found on the Zero Aggression blog.
———-
Downsize DC has been fighting the REAL ID Act since Congress passed it in 2005. REAL ID established standards for ID cards that all states were supposed to follow. Ten years later not a single state has fully complied with REAL ID.
That’s because the …read more
Flint, MI – An angry mother recently posted cellphone video of her 7-year-old son in handcuffs at his elementary school. The officer who detained him was unable to release him because he lost his set of keys to the handcuffs.
Cameron McCadden, who is 7-years-old, told his mother that he was handcuffed by police because he kicked a cart and refused to sit down when the officer asked him to, and the school has remained silent about the details of the incident.
In a statement, the Flint Police Department said that the student “appeared intent on injuring himself” and that “The officer …read more
We’re excited to announce that USAA has launched a pilot that allows a limited group of USAA members to view their bitcoin balance on USAA.com and the USAA Mobile App. This pilot was rolled out to USAA employees in September and is now being extended to a select group of USAA members.
USAA was founded in 1922 by a group of U.S. Army officers that were unable to get auto-insurance because they were deemed to be high-risk by traditional financial service providers. Today, USAA provides insurance, banking, investments, retirement products, and advice to 11.2 million current and former members of the …read more
Washington D.C. (RT) — Fresh back from Kiev, Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley called Russia “aggressive” and “adversarial to the interests of the United States,” claiming that having nuclear weapons and the ability to use them makes Russia the foremost threat to the US.
Russia is the only country in the world with the nuclear capability to destroy the United States, which makes it an existential threat, Milley told the audience at the Defense One summit in Washington, DC on Monday. Moscow’s recent behavior suggested that Russia would be willing to use such weapons, the general added, saying that …read more
The U.S. District Court that is handling Libertarian Party of Illinois v Illinois State Board of Elections said on November 2 that the decision will be out shortly. The Court had previously said it would be out on October 8, then October 30, then November 2. …read more
On November 2, Larry Lessig announced that because the Democratic National Committee recently made a slight change to the rules on primary debates, he has no ability to qualify for the next Democratic debate, which is on November 14. See his statement here. He is withdrawing. The statement is four minutes long. …read more
Wired has this article by Drew Curtis, “Some day technology will end our dumb two-party system.” Curtis is one of only three candidates on the Kentucky ballot for Governor, in the election of November 3, 2015.
The article is thought-provoking, but its weakness is that Curtis doesn’t mention alternative voting systems, such as instant runoff voting or approval voting. …read more
(RT) — Around 1,000 policemen across the US had their licenses revoked and lost their jobs over the last six years on account of numerous sexual offenses that included rape and possession of child pornography, an AP investigation based on official data revealed.
The probe involved examining records from 41 states to see how many police officers’ licenses were revoked in 2009-2014 and for which offenses. Police desertification data was not provided by nine states and the District of Columbia. The investigation included examining the records of state and local police, sheriff’s deputies, prison guards and school resource officers. However no …read more
