US Department of Justice sues Alabama for purging people from voter rolls

Source: Guardian

The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Friday against Alabama and its top election official, accusing the state of illegally purging people from voter rolls too close to the November election.

Federal officials said the purge violates the “quiet period provision” of the National Voter Registration Act that prohibits the systemic removal of names from voter rolls 90 days before a federal election.

Alabama’s Republican secretary of state, Wes Allen, in August announced an initiative “to remove noncitizens registered to vote in Alabama”. More than 3,000 people who had been previously issued noncitizen identification numbers will have their voter registration status made inactive and flagged for possible removal from the voter rolls. The justice department said both native-born and naturalized US citizens, who are eligible to vote, received the letters saying their voting status was being made inactive.

“The right to vote is one of the most sacred rights in our democracy,” assistant attorney general Kristen Clarke, who heads the justice department’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “As election day approaches, it is critical that Alabama redress voter confusion resulting from its list maintenance mailings sent in violation of federal law.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/28/us-justice-department-sues-alabama-voter-purge

More than 200 pregnancy-related prosecutions in first year post-Roe

Source: Guardian

In the year Roe v Wade was overturned, at least 200 people in the US were prosecuted for conduct relating to their pregnancies – the highest number of cases in a single year ever recorded, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

The report, compiled by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, is the first comprehensive accounting of pregnancy-related criminal charges between June 2022 and June 2023, but researchers warn that it is still probably an undercount.

“To be perfectly honest, I think we’re scratching the surface of what is happening,” said Wendy Bach, a University of Tennessee law professor and the report’s principal investigator.

The vast majority of prosecutions documented in the report do not involve abortions. However, five cases mention allegations of an abortion, an attempted abortion, or “researching or exploring the possibility of an abortion”, according to the report. Only one was charged under a statute meant to criminalize abortions. The rest involved a bevy of other laws, such as a statute that bans the “abuse of a corpse”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/24/abortion-prosecutions-roe-v-wade

Interesting comment about the exploding Hezbollah pagers

A former British Army munitions expert told the BBC that the devices would have likely been packed with between 10 and 20 grams each of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component. This would have been armed by a signal, something called an alphanumeric text message, according to the expert.

The pagers that exploded were new and had been bought by Hezbollah in recent months, a Lebanese security source told CNN.

The source did not provide any information on the exact date the pagers were purchased or their model.
A Hezbollah official told Associated Press that the pagers used by the group first heated up, then exploded

Per the guardian

Reuters reports that France has begun delivering a significant number of SCALP cruise missiles to

Ukraine, which will be integrated into non-western warplanes, a French military source said on Tuesday.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said France would start supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine at the Nato summit in Lithuania on Tuesday.

The missiles have a range of 155 miles (250km) – the longest of any western weapon supplied to Ukraine so far

It's time for the US to "let" Ukraine hit targets deep in Russia

Reading the last few days of renewed Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, killing numerous children I have had it with the restrictions. I want the US to grow a pair and let Ukraine even out the score. When their cities are hit, Russian cities are hit, it's time to bring the war home to the Russian people and maybe then they will have enough of putins dictatorship.

MSNBC ain't having it, says NO to tRumps speech, good on them.

Maddow pretty much said that he's just doing a campaign speech, will tell the same untruths and they can't go that low in reporting

Maybe all we need to fight the NRA and gun lobbies is a lobbying group

lobbying for affordable penis enlargement surgery which would negate the need for owning those "big" guns and "large'" capacity magazines. Maybe with government subsidies, get the medical and big pharma lobbyists involved, fight fire with fire 🔥 🔥

There is mass confusion outside the US according to a reporters live feed

the confusion as to why the US continues to have mass shootings at schools, why we can't stop them. Well, my answer is simple, we can stop it but refuse to do so because we have the best government money can buy thanks to the supreme court letting corporations and the rich elite bribe politicians.

Happy Pulaski Day

US ranking on abuse of power index hurt by inequality and violence Country came near median of 163

countries on Index of Impunity, higher than Hungary and Singapore. The US scores surprisingly badly in a new ranking system charting abuses of power by nation states, launched by a group co-chaired by former UK foreign secretary David Miliband.

The US comes close to the median of 163 countries ranked in the Index of Impunity, reflecting a poor record on discrimination, inequality and access to democracy. The country’s arms exports and record of violence are an even bigger negative factor.

The US ranks worse on impunity than Hungary and Singapore, one a poster child for democratic backsliding and the other an illiberal democracy.: Per guardian live feed