6 opinions on SCROTUS ballot ruling

State of the Union for Women

Red State AGs Keep Trying to Kill Ballot Measures by a Thousand Cuts

Red State AGs Keep Trying to Kill Ballot Measures by a Thousand Cuts - Bolts

When a coalition of voting rights activists in Ohio set out last December to introduce a new ballot initiative to expand voting access, they hardly anticipated that the thing to stop them would be a matter of word choice.

But that’s what Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost took issue with when he reviewed the proposal’s summary language and title, then called “Secure and Fair Elections.” Among other issues, Yost said the title “does not fairly or truthfully summarize or describe the actual content of the proposed amendment.”

[ ... ]

These Ohio advocates aren’t alone in their struggle to actually use the levers of direct democracy. Already in 2024, several citizen-led attempts to put issues directly to voters are hitting bureaucratic roadblocks early on in the process at the hands of state officials.

Arkansas organizers have been stonewalled by their attorney general, who has rejected language for ballot proposals to expand medical marijuana and increase government transparency. In Nebraska, a lawmaker behind a law sending more public money to private schools has leaned on the secretary of state to block a ballot referendum attempting to repeal it.

[ ... ]

Pete Buttigieg on 'Tell Me More' with Kelly Corrigan

I missed this when it first aired Nov 13, 2023.
video runs 25:51 and seems much shorter

https://www.pbs.org/video/pete-buttigieg-3birzx/

BBC: Trump says he would 'encourage' Russia to attack Nato allies who do not pay their bills

Donald Trump has said he would "encourage" Russia to attack any Nato member that fails to pay its bills as part of the Western military alliance.

At a rally on Saturday, he said he had once told a leader he would not protect a nation behind on its payments, and would "encourage" the aggressors to "do whatever the hell they want".

Members of Nato commit to defend any nation in the bloc that gets attacked.

The White House called the comments "appalling and unhinged".

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said any suggestion that "allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security", putting soldiers from Nato countries at risk.

[ ... ]
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68266447

The Republican party is a terrorist organization...

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States

"Life changing" ...

Taylor Swift Is Helping Truck Drivers Buy First Homes With $100,000 Bonuses

Mike Scherkenbach, who runs a transportation company, has worked on several of Taylor Swift‘s tours over the years. In the time he’s worked with the singer, he says he’s always known her to be generous to her crew — but the $100,000 bonuses she gave to each of his drivers who worked on the full U.S. leg of the Eras tour have been unprecedented, and “life-changing.” (Scherkenbach was not a driver on the tour himself.)

“She’s giving a sum of money that is life-changing for these people,” Scherkenbach, of the concert transportation company Shomotion, tells Rolling Stone. “A lot of these drivers are not homeowners, and a lump sum like this gives you the ability to put a down payment on a home. That’s what makes me really happy. That generosity is a game changer for these people.”

On Tuesday, news broke that Swift had given some $55 million in total in bonuses to her dancers, sound technicians, riggers, and truck drivers. Shomotion has worked on three of Swift’s stadium tours so far, including Eras, transporting the tour’s structures — the stage, the deck, the skeleton that everything hangs on — from city to city. Another company, Upstaging, handles the tour’s lighting, sound, and video equipment.

According to Scherkenbach, most artists of Swift’s stature typically give drivers $5,000 to $10,000 extra, making Swift’s bonus nearly 10 times the norm. And while he says his drivers have always received generous bonuses from Swift, none have been “at this magnitude.”

[ ... ]

Businessman faces 20 years in prison over accusations of illicit chip exports to Russia

A businessman has been arrested in the US and charged with unlawfully exporting sensitive technology including semiconductors to a sanctioned business with ties to Russia's military and intelligence agencies.

Court documents filed with the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York identify the man as Ilya Kahn, a 66-year-old citizen of the US, Israel, and Russia, and listed as a resident of Brooklyn, New York, and Los Angeles.

Kahn was arrested for his alleged involvement in a long-running scheme to acquire and unlawfully export sensitive technology from the US for the benefit of a Russian business, a semiconductor company with close ties to the Russian government.

That business, Joint Stock Company Research and Development Center ELVEES (Elvees), was added to the US Commerce Department's Entity List in March 2022. It was then sanctioned by the Treasury Department in September 2022 for facilitating Russia's military and its invasion of Ukraine. [ ... ]

Abortion bans are dangerous, extreme, and out of touch with the U.S. Constitution.

The Supremely Corrupt used the insane Dobbs decision to violate
the 1st Amendment (freedom of religion),
the 4th Amendment (freedom from warrantless searches and seizures),
the 9th Amendment (non-enumerated rights),
the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery or non-voluntary servitude),
and the really big one,
the 14th Amendment (privileges and immunities, and EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS).

I'm tired of the "both sides" false equivalency.

Only one side works to manufacture obstacles to voting.
Only one side works to take long-held rights from people.
Only one side contrives to suppress entire blocs of voters.
Only one side bans books that threaten their extreme ideology.
Only one side buys up and hollows out local media to extend their propaganda.
Only one side uses bullying and terroristic threats to intimidate election workers, prosecutors, teachers, and court staff.
Only one side tirelessly tries to defund and dismantle public education.
Only one side robs the poor to feed the insatiable greed of the obscenely wealthy.

Democrats work for the betterment of every life.