October Moon by Ron Jones
Silverback Gorillas are ground dwelling herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa .
Dear Rick Scott: If you oppose democracy, you oppose America.
Governor Rick Scott (R) has ordered the state to purge all “non-citizens” from the voting rolls prior to November’s election. But that list compiled by the Scott administration is so riddled with errors that, in Miami-Dade County alone, hundreds of U.S. citizens are being told they are ineligible to vote, ThinkProgress has learned exlusively.
According to data from the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections obtained by ThinkProgress:
- 1638 people in Miami-Dade County were flagged by the state as “non-citizens” and sent letters informing them that they were ineligible to vote.
- Of that group, 359 people have subsquently provided the county with proof of citizenship.
- Another 26 people were identified as U.S. citizens directly by the county.
- The bulk of the remaining 1200 people have simply not responded yet to a letter sent to them by the Supervisor of Elections.
You can see a similar letter sent to alleged “non-citizens” by the Broward County Supervisor of Elections HERE. (“The Supervisor of Elections… has received information that you are not a citizen of the United States.”) If recipients of the letter do not respond within 30 days — a deadline that is mere days away — they will be summarily removed from the voting rolls. The voters purged from the list, election officials tell ThinkProgress, will inevitably include fully eligible Florida voters.
In short, an excess of 20 percent of the voters flagged as “non-citizens” in Miami-Dade are, in fact, citizens. And the actual number may be much higher.
Poetic justice would be a Dickensian nighttime visit by the Ghosts of Memorial Days Past, with veteran after veteran lining up to explain to Rick Scott that they didn’t die so some vampire freak of a would-be dictator could pick and choose the voters most likely to vote for his party.
Of course, that’s impossible. So I guess I’ll have to settle for Scott being dragged out of the Florida Governor’s Mansion in chains — preferably by his ankles — to the nearest courthouse to answer for treason in this attempted bloodless coup.
Wait, that’s unlikely too? What the fuck kind of country are we running here these days, anyway?
(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)
Stanley Ann Dunham (Obama’s Mama) in Indonesia, circa the early 1970s
(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)
Powerhouse Solar Cell Inspired by Leaf Biomimicry
A team of scientists headed up by Princeton University has achieved a whopping 47 percent increase in electricity generation from flexible plastic solar cells, simply by texturing the surface to mimic the wrinkles of a typical leaf.
Full Story: Cleantechnica
(via humanformat)
Michelle de la Vega’s Mini House
(via imgTumble)
(via joost5)
Orloj (by magro_kr)
(via geologise)
Charles and David Koch, the billionaire owners of of Koch Industries, are known as big spenders when it comes to lobbying and influencing public policy. Now, a new document filed with the IRS reveals how the Koch political machine funneled over $54.5 million in previously undisclosed funds to a litany of front groups designed to smear Democrats.
The disclosure suggests that a very wide variety of Republican groups active in the last major election, from pro-life organizations that ran ads on abortion to shadowy fronts that aired partisan commercials with the infamous Ground Zero Mosque conspiracy, have been highly dependent on Koch money. The document also reveals that the Koch’s political network spent much more on electing the current Congress than previously known.
(Source: sarahlee310, via novenator)
Another forced relocation for Amazon tribes
The “evacuation” of the Kayapó tribe - an Indian people of the Amazon region in Brazil’s Mato Grosso has started
[video]
(via silas216)
“What possible reason could the Ohio GOP offer for expressly prohibiting poll workers from assisting voters in completing election forms or locating their correct polling place? One can only suppose that the objection to counting good ballots tainted only by worker error stem from that same noxious paranoid soup that has infected all modern electoral politics: mistrust for voters, mistrust for government workers, and mistrust for the single most basic premise of any democracy—that we want more people to vote, not fewer. Almost every aspect of the recent efforts to “improve the integrity” of the voting system actually ends up undermining the integrity of the system. But punishing voters for poll-worker error and silencing poll workers best placed to help voters achieves new lows in cynicism. The net effect will serve no purpose other than to raise doubts about voting as a whole.” —
Ohio Republicans want to disallow ballots with errors caused by poll workers. - Slate (via markcoatney)
Republicans have nothing to offer voters except fear. You can only win so many votes by making citizens fearful of one another. The rest of the votes they have to steal. Cheating and fear are the only two ways to victory for the Republican Party.
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
DOJ accepts ruling that transgender bias is illegal -
The Department of Justice (DOJ) accepted Monday a ruling from Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that claims gender identity discrimination is a type of sex discrimination that is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
According to Metro Weekly, the April 20th ruling from the EEOC was based from a complaint brought by the Transgender Law Center (TLC) on behalf of Mia Macy, a transgender woman living in California who felt the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) denied her employment with the agency after learning of her transition.
The ATF, which is a part of the DOJ, sent a letter to Macy last Friday that will investigate her claims of discrimination. National Center for Transgender Equality executive director Mara Keisling told The Raw Story how much of a turning point decision the ruling was.
“It’s really great,” Keisling. “It’s an amazing tool, it’s common sense and we’ve already seen a lot of employers are taking [it to] the heart, doing what they have to do to be in compliance.”
Keisling also indicated that it was “absolutely” too early to gauge how many employers are abiding by the DOJ’s ruling instead of challenging it.
(via thesoapboxschtick)
K: and people who are actually in the LGBTQ community argue that trans* people don’t completely need and deserve the support of the rest of the LGBTQ community more than any other part of it?
This is horrible…….. : (
Signal boost. Wake up, world. Stop erasing trans* people.
I wonder how much worse these stats could get if race and class were added to the equation, i almost wouldnt even want to find out. im sick
(via thesoapboxschtick)