All posts in July 2021

In Arizona, the “forensic audit” being carried out in Maricopa County by the inexperienced Trump fans at Cyber Ninjas is locked in stasis after the ballots were all counted, machines were all examined, interviews were all conducted, yet the Ninjas keep insisting that it’s not enough. It’s not enough because they didn’t find anything. They didn’t find…

“The notion that some new coalition can be formed that would allow for greater efforts at organizing and voter turnout is perhaps a bit unrealistic,” Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said. “We have already formed one of the most diverse and strongest coalitions in support of voting…

CBS News reported that as many as 81,000 first-time applications were backlogged at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as of the end of June. “Additionally, more than 13,000 DACA renewal requests remained under review beyond the 120-day adjudication goal.” While the ruling does for now allow current and former beneficiaries to keep renewing their protections, the continued hits…

As some background, this legislation (named, obviously, for the late Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat who served Georgia and a civil rights icon) would update the Voting Rights Act to address a Supreme Court ruling from 2013. This ruling struck an important provision that mandated jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to receive preclearance for new voting…

Gonzalez in early 2017 ended his department’s participation in ICE’s 287(g) program, which allows local police to act like federal immigration agents and had resulted in widespread racial profiling, the American Immigration Council said. But Roll Call reported that during Thursday’s Senate hearing, Gonzalez said it “would not be my intent to end the policy,” calling his…

That means federal employees and their families, military personnel and their families, Native Americans, Alaskan Natives, and inmates in federal prisons are forced to pay out of pocket in order to access a safe and legal medical procedure, on top of all the other hurdles so many face in obtaining care. This appropriation bill only…

Toyota also made the announcement as it was facing the prospect of an ad campaign featuring its fervent support for Republicans who supported the insurrection, according to the Detroit News. The Republican anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project had announced earlier in the day that it planned to release an ad campaign targeting companies that were…

“[T]he President continued to sow confusion about a possible evacuation of Afghan nationals, providing no concrete details on who would be evacuated, where they would go, or who is leading the operation,” Refugee Council USA said in a statement. “The President also falsely claimed that the law does not allow an evacuation of Afghan allies to…

That’s going to largely be up to McConnell, unless 10 of his members finally decide to grow spines and vote in their own self-interest rather than his. As of yet the maximum number of senators who have been willing to buck him has been six. That’s how many Republicans refused to grant his “personal favor,” and…

“USCIS reaffirms its commitment to making the naturalization process accessible to all who are eligible,” the agency continued, noting, among a number of recent actions, its reinstatement of the 2008 naturalization test. The previous administration had infamously implemented a version of the test designed to trip up applicants. Questions had taken “on a subtle political…