US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1345

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has blocked Texas from enforcing key parts of a 2013 law that would close all but eight of the state's abortion facilities.

The justices largely granted the request of abortion providers Tuesday. With three dissenting votes, the court suspended a ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed Texas to enforce a rule making abortion clinics statewide spend millions of dollars on hospital-level upgrades.

The appeals court's ruling suspended an August decision by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, who found that such upgrades were less about safety than making access to abortion difficult.

The story starts simply enough: African-Americans and Hispanics across Georgia were registered to vote at levels lower than their white state-mates, so the New Georgia Project was started by the non-profit Third Sector Development to register new voters, concentrating on minority communities.

And that is exactly what the New Georgia Project did.

Over the last few months, the group submitted some 80,000 voter registration forms to the Georgia secretary of state's office — but as of last week, about half those new registrants, more than 40,000 Georgians, were still not listed on preliminary voter rolls. And there is no public record of those 40,000-plus applications, according to State Representative Stacey Adams, a Democrat.

Oh, yeah, did we mention: Georgia's Secretary of State Brain Kemp is a Republican.

The secretary's office says they are not doing anything different than usual in processing the voter applications. These things take time, they say. (Apparently months and months of time — as that is how long some of those forms have been sitting with the state without being processed.)

That's Kemp's story, and he's sticking to it … except this is also Kemp's story:

In closing I just wanted to tell you real quick, after we get through this runoff, you know the Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November. But we’ve got to do the exact same thing. I would encourage all of you, if you have an Android or an Apple device, to download that app, and maybe your goal is to register one new Republican voter.

Kemp said that in July, and in September, Kemp announced he was launching a fraud investigation into the registration drive, though the secretary's office has not produced a reason as to why the state suspects fraud.

September was also the month when the Republican whip of the state Senate complained that DeKalb County, Ga., was making it too easy for minorities to vote by allowing early voting in an area mall close to many predominantly African-American churches. The whip, state Sen. Fran Millar, announced at the time that he was "investigating if there is any way to stop this action."

Last week, for the first time in decades, students from Wilcox County, Georgia, attended a school-sponsored prom that was open to all students rather than a private, racially segregated prom.

On October 15 2014 08:38 Jormundr wrote:

We have 300 million guns. We don't even need a military for defense.

On October 15 2014 09:08 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
All career Officers dread budget cutbacks as it means their pet projects can be put on the chopping block. Besides the US is starting to get back into is isolation mindset abandoned after WWII so Europe can complain all they want as it will soon be on them to foot the European portion of the NATO bill and handle situations in close areas such as the Balkans, Africa etc.

On October 15 2014 12:29 Danglars wrote:
Are we stepping down from news articles into blog posts doing masquerade? Kids, get seated in a circle, as I tell you the story of the evil Republican governor and the millions of innocent citizens in his state! Not every allegation of injustice from a Democrat-leaning voter group deserves such a yellow journalism tale of villainy.

On October 15 2014 08:44 KwarK wrote:
Fortunately we'll be able to set the police on the enemy. They've been training pretty hard.

The interim nuclear accord negotiated between Iran and six world powers almost a year ago de-escalated a standoff that once seemed headed for a military confrontation: Seeking sanctions relief, Iran has eliminated the stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium that could more rapidly be converted to bomb materiel, and has stopped enrichment to that grade; it has trimmed its supply of low-enriched uranium and has accepted more intrusive international inspections.

Meetings between U.S. and Iranian officials have become more commonplace, and the two sides have even tacitly cooperated in helping the Iraqi government fend off the threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant movement. But that interim agreement expires on Nov. 24, and as U.S. and Iranian negotiators who reconvened in Vienna on Tuesday face a number of major obstacles in their six-week race to conclude a final agreement.

Secretary of State John Kerry meets his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday, along with European Union foreign policy head Catherine Ashton. That meeting will be followed later in the week by a gathering of representatives from the so-called P5+1 group — the United States, France, Germany, China, Russia and the United Kingdom — which has been negotiating with Iran.

Last November’s deal had actually set a July deadline for a final agreement, but that was postponed for four months when the two sides expressed confidence in being able to reach a deal if given further time. But while Iranian and U.S. officials remain publicly optimistic, serious gaps remain between the demands of the two sides, and many officials and analysts question whether a permanent accord can be reach by the deadline.

“It is almost certain that a full-fledged agreement by Nov. 24 is no longer in the cards,” said Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst with the International Crisis Group, in an email. “What is still possible is a breakthrough that could justify adding more time to the diplomatic clock.”

Gary Samore, a former Obama administration official involved with negotiations and now at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, echoed that view.

“I expect an effort will be made, as we get down to the deadline, to see if there's a basis for another partial agreement,” Samore said in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations. “Both sides will have an interest in trying to see whether it's possible to work out an extension, because the status quo, even though it's not perfect, is certainly tolerable,” he said.

Billionaire Tom Steyer's political group NextGen Climate is going to try to shame climate skeptics into changing their stance on global warming in a final midterm push before November.

NextGen is running a "science denier week" with events planned in the Senate and gubernatorial races it is involved in across the country.

"Today we are issuing a specific challenge to deniers, giving them one last time to come clean before voters vote," said Chris Lehane, Steyer's top adviser.

The "Stone Age Challenge" will ask candidates if they want to "protect the communities you represent" or "continue to support caveman-like policies from the Stone Age."

Lehane said this is the last chance NextGen will afford Senate candidates like Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Terri Lyn Land (R-Mich.) the opportunity to change their stance on climate science before sending out a final barrage of attacks that will reach voters by TV, radio, emails, flyers, and door-to-door canvassing.

During the "science denier week," NextGen will issue a report called the "Stone Age," which documents every instance throughout the midterm cycle that a candidate denied the science behind climate change, or that it was caused by human activity.

There will also be a number of "teachings," Lehane said, in certain states where GOP candidates will be invited to participate in a town-hall forum with people to discuss climate change.

On October 16 2014 03:15 oneofthem wrote:
skunk works at lockheed martin revealed a new fusion reactor design with 10x the power to mass ratio of the big ITER project.

http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details

with how nuclear regulation works expect a game changing technology in 5 years and approval in 50 years.