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The Trump Administration Lost Again in Court, This Time on Voter ID

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By Jessica Huseman / ProPublica

A federal court in Texas has again ruled the state’s 2011 voter identification law intentionally discriminated against minorities. It’s the latest loss in the case for Texas — which has spent years unsuccessfully defending the law. But it also has implications for the Trump administration.

In February, the new administration abruptly abandoned the crux of the Justice Department’s opposition to the voter ID law. Government lawyers also asked the judge to delay her decision on whether the law intentionally discriminated against blacks and Latinos.

Judge Nelva Ramos Gonzales rejected their request for a delay. And Monday, she ruled that the law “was passed, at least in part, with a discriminatory intent in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”

When it passed in 2011, Texas’s law had the country’s strictest voter ID provisions.   [Read more…]

How to Turn Neighborhoods Into Hubs of Resilience

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Three places showing how to make the transition from domination and resource extraction to regeneration and interdependence

Taj James Rosa González / Yes! Magazine

Think of it as a silver lining to the gathering dark clouds. We live in an era of extraordinary disruption, from the serial crises of a changing climate to the wrenching shifts of a globalized economy. But in that disruption lies the potential for positive transformation.   [Read more…]

Trump Has Deep Links to Organized Crime: Federal Investigators Know It and the Public Is Catching Up

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As Trump built his empire, he attracted a criminal element whose ties still bind

By Jefferson Morley / AlterNet

As President Trump discovers the prerogative of unilaterally making war, the media gaze has turned away from the ongoing FBI, House and Senate investigation of his Russia ties to the simpler dramas of cruise missiles, big bombs and tough but loose talk on North Korea.

Yet even the “mother of all bombs” cannot obliterate the accumulating body of evidence about his relationship with Russian organized crime figures and the not unrelated question about whether he and his entourage colluded with Russian officials in the 2016 presidential election. The story, notes Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall, is “Hiding in plain sight.”   [Read more…]

It’s Spring: Time to Save the Planet

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Eds Note: Information on local activities added to article

By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos

Upcoming weeks offer several opportunities to join the fight against global warming. And in the age of a Donald Trump administration, the environment needs all the friends it can get.

We’re not going to change Trump’s climate change-denying ways. But there are many ways to fight for the environment on our own.   [Read more…]

Suborbital Protest Heralds Upcoming March for Science

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First Protest in Space Targets Trump

By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

In a cool feat of “suborbital dissent,” members of the international, community-based, DIY Autonomous Space Agency Network have launched the first protest in space against our anti-science ignoramus-in-chief.

The activists of ASAN (NASA backward), which believes in bridging the gap between science and art in the “radically free cosmic environment” of space without military or corporate involvement, hitched a giant tweet onto a weather balloon to an altitude of 90,000 feet – technically near-space, below the 330,000 feet of space-proper.

The tweet, tagging @realDonaldTrump, all-caps and all, quotes late Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell on the perspective he gained seeing the Earth from on high. “From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty,” he said. “You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”   [Read more…]

California Is Undermining Public Schools by Spending Big on Charters It Doesn’t Need

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By Laura Clawson / Daily Kos

California charter schools have gotten more than $2.5 billion to build, lease, or buy school buildings over the past 15 years. Has the money been well spent?

Not if by “well spent” you mean fulfilling needs for additional classroom space or providing improved educational opportunities, according to a recent report from In the Public Interest.   [Read more…]

Trump Administration Considering ‘Back-Door Way’ to Cut Social Security

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‘If Trump proposes this Trojan horse, it would be the newest shot in the ongoing Republican war against Social Security’

By Deidre Fulton / Common Dreams

President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise not to cut Social Security, is reportedly considering a plan to eliminate much of the payroll tax that funds the critical safety net program.

According to the Associated Press on Monday, the proposal is being floated as the Trump administration goes “back to the drawing board in a search for Republican consensus behind legislation to overhaul the U.S. tax system.”

The AP reported that one option “circulating this past week would change the House Republican plan to eliminate much of the payroll tax and cut corporate tax rates. This would require a new dedicated funding source for Social Security.”   [Read more…]

Democrats Have Uphill Battle in ’18 and Need to Elect Governors to Fight Gerrymandered GOP Monopoly

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The Dems failed so badly during the Obama years, it may be a long time before they break the GOP lock in many states

By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet

Since President Donald Trump and the GOP-led Congress took office, Democrats are taking to the streets to defend women’s rights, immigrants and Obamacare, and thousands are contacting party officials and progressive groups to explore running for state and federal office in 2018. But do these would-be candidates, fired-up grassroots groups and energized party officials know how steep and difficult their climb back into power will be?

Yes, say the party organizers who assure skeptics they’re paying attention to the electoral nuts and bolts in a way not seen during a Democratic presidency when they lost nearly 1,000 state legislative and House seats.   [Read more…]

Democratic Momentum in Georgia Race Signals Shifting Electoral Tide

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In Georgia’s special election contest, Jon Ossoff continues to gain ground, putting the GOP on the offensive in other local contests

By Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams

In the closely-watched race for Georgia’s sixth district, said to be the first test of whether backlash against President Donald Trump will propel Democratic candidates to seize traditionally conservative seats, documentary filmmaker Jon Ossoff continues to gain ground, putting the GOP on the offensive in other pivotal local contests.

After 10 days of early voting for Georgia’s special election to fill the House of Representatives seat vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Democratic voters substantially outpaced Republicans, New York Times’ Upshot reporter Nate Cohn observed this weekend.   [Read more…]

America’s Abortion Divide

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Deborah Klugman / Capital & Main

Produced and directed by Tracy Droz Tragos, the HBO documentary Abortion: Stories Women Tell shares the experiences of women living in the Bible Belt and coping with unplanned pregnancies. The film is unlikely to change the thinking of firm believers on either side of the issue, but for viewers whose opinions waiver, who are unsure of the morality of abortion or are unclear about the motives behind it, the film will be educational and illuminating.

Tragos grounds her documentary in her home state of Missouri, where one abortion clinic serves the entire state. While Missouri has some of the most draconian restrictions in the nation, it’s hardly alone in limiting abortion access. Since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, over half the states have enacted some form of restriction.   [Read more…]

Marching for Trump Tax Transparency

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By Sarah Anderson / Common Dreams

Candidate Trump repeatedly promised to release his past tax returns, once they were no longer being audited. But those promises have failed to materialize, and Trump appears to have no plans to release his 2016 returns either. This makes him the first president in 40 years to conceal this information from the public.

A broad coalition of groups has come together to offer an opportunity for people to vent their anger over Trump’s tax secrecy. On April 15 (Tax Day), they’ve organized marches in 48 states and even a few non-U.S. cities like London and Tokyo to demand that he release his tax returns. (Information on local tax marches in Downtown and North County in included in the story)   [Read more…]

Anti-Trumpcare Ad Will Greet Issa and Other House Republicans Home for Recess

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By Laura Clawson / Daily Kos

Seven House Republicans in competitive districts aren’t going to be able to hide from their support for—or even their cowardly silence on—Trumpcare. As they go home for a two-week recess, more than $1 million in ads are hitting the air to let voters know the score.

“Congressman [Darrell] Issa promised to protect our health care, but when right-wing politicians tried to pass a disastrous health care repeal bill that raises cost and cuts coverage, Issa wouldn’t oppose them,” a male narrator intones as ominous music plays, in one version of the 30-second spot.

The ads target five Republican lawmakers from districts won by Hillary Clinton, including Issa, whose Orange County district Clinton carried by eight points. Other Republicans in Clinton-won districts include Arizona’s Martha McSally, Colorado’s Mike Coffman and Florida’s Carlos Curbelo and California’s David Valadao.   [Read more…]

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