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Dealing Texas another rebuke over voting rights, a judge Monday again ruled that Republican lawmakers purposefully designed a strict voter ID law to disadvantage minorities and effectively dampen their growing electoral power. The latest ruling by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi comes more than two years after she likened Texas’s voter ID rules, known as SB 14, to a “poll tax” meant to suppress minority voters. On Monday, she reaffirmed that conclusion after an appeals court asked her to reexamine her findings. The Texas law requires voters to show one of seven forms of identification at...

An ...analysis of roughly 13,500 affidavits submitted in Texas' largest counties found at least 500 instances in which voters were allowed to get around the law by signing an affidavit and never showing a photo ID, despite indicating that they possessed one.... One affidavit from Hidalgo County, along the Texas-Mexico border, read: "Did not want to 'pander' to government requirement." In Tarrant County, an election judge noted on an affidavit: "Had photo ID but refused to show it."

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate is asking legislators to quickly approve a bill that would require voters to show some form of identification before casting a ballot. “This bill will make it difficult to cheat the system,” Pate says. The bill Pate seeks would require Iowans to show a driver’s license, a military ID, their passport or a voter ID card issued by his office to be eligible to vote in their precinct on Election Day.

Blocked due to Copyright - see link below

France’s government last week announced the creation of a highly controversial new database that will collect and store personal information on nearly everyone living in the country who holds a French identity card or passport. The massive database, known as Secure Electronic Documents (Titres électroniques sécurisés or TES), was decreed by the government on October 30 in an effort to crack down on identity theft. The move sparked immediate outrage in the French media, with weekly magazine L’Observateur describing it as “terrifying”, and daily newspaper Libération calling it a “mega database that will do no good”. The TES will affect...

Millions of air travelers across the U.S. are potentially at risk of finding themselves grounded in the new year thanks to a post-9/11 law that took a decade to finally come into effect. The REAL ID Act, originally passed in 2005, was meant to tighten standards for government-issued IDs like driver's licenses -- to boot, it banned federal agencies from accepting any IDs that don't meet the bar. That means the TSA technically shouldn't accept driver's licenses from certain states, once the law is in full effect. While Washington let the rules slide for years, the Department of Homeland Security...

For as long as there has been a free press, there has been some form of “news of the weird.” It may be a humorous feature during a radio or TV newscast, or a throwaway corner to fill space in a newspaper… the funny-but-true story has always had a place in journalism. With the advent of social media and internet websites, where publishers no longer have to pay for each column inch or count every second of broadcast time, the place for silly news has grown. And there’s nothing wrong with that… as long as it keeps its proper place....

Did you know that the United Nations intends to have biometric identification cards in the hands of every single man, woman and child on the entire planet by the year 2030? And did you know that a central database in Geneva, Switzerland will be collecting data from many of these cards? Previously, I have written about the 17 new “Global Goals” that the UN launched at the end of September. Even after writing several articles about these new Global Goals, I still don’t think that most of my readers really grasp how insidious they actually are. This new agenda truly...

... Right before the survey began, Harper had called the niqab a product of a culture that is anti-woman, while Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau had given a major speech on liberty in politics. Participants in the survey were asked, “Do you support or oppose a requirement that people show their face during Canadian citizenship ceremonies?” Eighty-two per cent of those surveyed supported the requirement, 15 per cent opposed and four per cent didn’t know or refused to answer. Support was highest in Quebec at 93 per cent and lowest in British Columbia at 72 per cent. Reasons for support were...

If you don’t have a passport already, you may need to get one soon. Residents of certain states are going to need to show their passports — rather than simply their IDs — even if they’re only flying domestic. Yes, it will infringe upon states’ rights handed to them by the 10th Amendment and create unnecessary cost to taxpayers in order to implement the change, but let’s be real — the government doesn’t care about that. From Zero Hedge: To comply with the 2005 Real ID Act, which the U.S. government has been slowly implementing for the past decade, citizens in a...

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to Wisconsin’s voter ID law, which it had previously kept from going into effect before November’s elections. The court’s decision not to review a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the law was a victory for Gov. Scott Walker (R) and perhaps other states that have tightened voting procedures to require additional identification.

been looking for days on various song lyric finders, can't find it, so i am asking here. i have q sog i would like to find. i know the first verse. it is probably by a russian group. sounds like traditional song but sung by a rock group. in soviet russia, there is no bread in soviet russia, my masha said "the k, g b, is watching me"useful. in soviet russia, you wind up dead any help identifying the song and/or band would be useful.

These days drones are used for everything from farming to surveying remote regions to waging war. So it makes sense that one Dutch designer has penned the Drone Survival Guide, which like bird watching charts, shows the various shapes and sizes of flying objects by their silhouettes... Dutch designer Ruben Pater has penned the Drone Survival Guide, which like bird watching charts, shows the various shapes and sizes of flying objects by their silhouettes The majority of the drones selected for the chart are from NATO member countries, including the UK, France, Germany, U.S. and Canada... The RAF's Reaper unmanned...

7-2 decision practically invites Arizona to try again using proper administrative procedures Most of what you have heard in the media about the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona is incomplete to the point of misleading. It is true that the Court held that Arizona’s Proposition 200 (passed in 2004) requiring documentary proof of citizenship was invalid as contrary to the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requirement that states “accept and use” the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) voter registration form which merely requires that a registrant affirm citizenship. But, this ruling essentially was...

One of the suspects' hats may be this Bridgestone Golf hat:

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was a vocal opponent of the Voter ID bill throughout the legislative session. But once the Legislature passed the Voter ID amendment and put it on the ballot, he had an obligation to cease his resistance to the measure. As our chief elections official, Ritchie will be responsible for tallying the ballots on the Voter ID amendment this November. His continued advocacy against Voter ID undermines the credibility of his office. Ritchie has gone beyond simply campaigning against Voter ID. He is now actively seeking to dupe voters into voting against Voter ID using false...

After falling for two straight months, the number of Americans who consider themselves Republicans jumped nearly three points in August. During August, 37.6% of Americans considered themselves Republicans. That’s up from 34.9% in July and 35.4% in June. It’s also the largest number of Republicans ever recorded by Rasmussen Report since monthly tracking began in November 2002. The previous peak for the GOP was 37.3% in September 2004. See History of Party Trends.

After falling for two straight months, the number of Americans who consider themselves Republicans jumped nearly three points in August. During August, 37.6% of Americans considered themselves Republicans. That’s up from 34.9% in July and 35.4% in June. It’s also the largest number of Republicans ever recorded by Rasmussen Report since monthly tracking began in November 2002. The previous peak for the GOP was 37.3% in September 2004. See History of Party Trends.

Gun ID legislation may trigger exodus of gunmakers Remington, Colt By Joshua Rhett Miller Published August 28, 2012 | FoxNews.com Two venerable American gun manufacturers — Remington and Colt — could head for the West their weapons helped win if New York and Connecticut force them to implement microstamping technology. Microstamping, or ballistic imprinting, is a patented process that uses laser technology to engrave a tiny marking of the make, model and serial number on the tip of a gun’s firing pin to allow an imprint of that information on spent cartridge cases. Supporters of the technology say it will...

Two proposed constitutional amendments will be presented to voters on November's ballot in the way the Legislature intended, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday, Aug. 27. Both decisions were victories for conservatives. The Republican-controlled Legislature pushed both proposed amendments through over opposition from Democrats including Gov. Mark Dayton. Dayton last year vetoed a bill to require photo ID, but has no power to block constitutional amendments that are sent directly to voters.