Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Lessons people can learn from Covid-19 lockdown: ‘Live more lightly on the planet’

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In a world struggling to cope with Covid-19 and climate change looming over its shoulder, are New Zealanders looking for ways to become more self-sufficient? Leith Huffadine reports.

For second time, federal judge finds Texas is violating voter registration law

A federal judge found Texas is “legally obligated” to allow voters to simultaneously register to vote with every driver’s license renewal or change-of-address application, and ordered the state to set up a “fully operable” online system by Sept. 23. Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera for The Texas Tribune
People in line to cast their vote at a South Austin early voting location on Nov. 2, 2018.

A federal judge found Texas is “legally obligated” to allow voters to simultaneously register to vote with every driver’s license renewal or change-of-address application, and ordered the state to set up a “fully operable” online system by Sept. 23.

Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera for The Texas Tribune

A persistent Texas voter, twice thwarted when he tried registering to vote while renewing his driver’s license online, has for the second time convinced a federal judge that the state is violating federal law.

In a 68-page ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio found that Texas continues to violate the federal National Voter Registration Act by not allowing residents to register to vote when they update their driver’s license information online. It’s the second time Garcia has sided with former English professor Jarrod Stringer. Garcia’s first ruling was overturned on appeal on a technicality.

The National Voter Registration Act requires states to let residents complete their voter registration applications when they apply for or renew their driver’s licenses. But Texas officials have staunchly opposed any form of online registration.

The Texas Department of Public Safety follows federal law when residents visit a driver’s license office in person. But Texans who try to register while using the state’s online portal are instead directed to a blank registration form they must fill out, print and send to their county registrar.

Garcia found that DPS is “legally obligated” to allow voters to simultaneously register to vote with every license renewal or change-of-address application, and ordered the state to set up a “fully operable” online system by Sept. 23. The Texas attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the state is likely to appeal the ruling.

“DPS encourages Texans to use its online services to renew their driver’s license and change their address because it is easier and more convenient,” Garcia wrote. “It cannot, at the same time, deny simultaneous voter registration applications when those online services are used.”

Garcia has said this before. In 2018, he ordered the state to implement what would be its first system for online voter registration. A federal appeals court overturned that order in late 2019 because Stringer and his two co-plaintiffs had ultimately reregistered to vote, and the court decided the case was moot because they were no longer being harmed.

Although the appellate court tossed the case, Judge James Ho of the 5th U.S. Circuit of Appeals wrote in the decision that Stringer’s lost vote was a right he “will never be able to recover.”

“As citizens, we can hope it is a deprivation they will not experience again,” Ho said.

But just 10 days after the admonishment, Stringer again was unable to update his voter registration along with his driver’s license after a move to Houston. Stringer and other frustrated Texans opened the latest chapter of the online voter registration fight by filing a second lawsuit in January.

On Friday, Garcia found that Texas had “offered no factual or legal argument that would justify denying the simultaneous voter registration to which Mr. Stringer is legally entitled.”

“As Defendants have admitted, there are no technological barriers to compliance and corrective measures would not be costly,” Garcia wrote. “Uncontested expert testimony shows that a compliant DPS system would very likely lead to great efficiency, less human error, a massive saving in costs, and increased voter registration.

The issue has become an albatross for Texas Republican officials trying to fend off any form of online voter registration.

At least 1.5 million Texans use the state’s online driver’s license portal a year, according to Stringer’s lawyers, though it’s unclear how many also attempt to reregister to vote. The coronavirus pandemic, which forced Texans to seek out many DPS services online instead of in person, “further underscores that the state has no plausible rationale that I could even imagine to appeal the case,” said Mimi Marziani, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which is representing Stringer.

“The court has been incredibly clear now over several years that the state is violating federal law,” Marziani said. “And they have no justification for doing so.”

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Coronavirus: France sees ‘exponential rise’ in cases

Shortly before Friday’s figures were released, Mr Macron said a second national lockdown could not be ruled out if infections spiralled out of control.

However he said his government was trying to avoid the return of restrictions that would set back the country’s fragile economic recovery.

“Containment is the crudest of measures to fight against a virus,” said Mr Macron, urging people to be “collectively very rigorous”.

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The country records 7,379 new cases on Friday as President Macron warns of another lockdown.

Zuckerberg explains Facebook failure to remove Kenosha militia page (Profits first strikes again)

Zuckerberg said Facebook is now proactively looking for content that praises the alleged shooter and the shooting. However, a Thursday report from The Guardian found that there were still several posts celebrating the alleged shooter and the shooting across Facebook, despite that being in violation of the company’s policies.   

“We’re going to continue to enforce our policies and continue evolving the policies to be able to identify more potential dangerous organizations and improve our execution in order to keep on getting ahead of this,” Zuckerberg said. “I think that this shows that there is a real risk and a continued increased risk through the election during this very sensitive and polarized and just highly charged time.”

 

Source: Zuckerberg explains Facebook failure to remove Kenosha militia page

Trump promises COVID vaccine this year despite current progress | CIDRAP (snake oil)

The claim comes despite the fact that no major vaccine candidate has completed clinical trials, and it was followed today with the news that two senior public relations experts working with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been fired after Trump and the head of the FDA exaggerated the benefits of blood plasma for treating COVID-19 patients.

Source: Trump promises COVID vaccine this year despite current progress | CIDRAP

Twitter Bans Accounts Pretending to Be Pro-Trump Black Voters

“The point is to provide ammunition against Black people for policymakers so they can point to things that are being said, allegedly from a Black person’s account, to reinforce the idea that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist threat and put them on equal footing as white nationalists in terms of content moderation,” Brandi Collins-Dexter, a fellow at online racial justice nonprofit Color of Change, told NBC News.

These digital manipulation campaigns are nothing new, sadly. During the 2016 election, Russia’s Internet Research Agency utilized a “troll farm,” to create memes aimed at Black voters to depress the turnout for then-Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to American intelligence agencies. Collins-Dexter referenced a more recent campaign by members of the internet cesspool that is 4Chan.

In April, users on 4Chan posed a Black people who had received their stimulus check and bragged about using them on alcohol in “an effort to perpetuate the ‘Welfare Queen’ myth,” Collins-Dexter told NBC News. On Wednesday, one of the most viral tweets from @WentDemtoRep was posted as a copypasta to 4Chan multiple times.

 

Source: Twitter Bans Accounts Pretending to Be Pro-Trump Black Voters