The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the secretary of state must allow convicted felons to register to vote immediately after completing their sentences, Axios reported. This is part of a broader push by Democrats to allow criminals to cast ballots.
The Cornhusker State previously allowed felons to register to vote after a two-year waiting period following the end of their sentences. However, the state legislature passed a bill earlier this year abolishing the waiting period.
Although it was passed as a bipartisan effort, Secretary of State Robert Evnen put the brakes on the liberalization of the rules as he believed it to be unconstitutional on the advice of Attorney General Mike Hilgers. To rectify the situation, Evnen barred county officials from registering convicted felons unless they had been pardoned.
The Nebraska Supreme Court did not agree and lifted Evnen's order. "The Secretary is ordered to remove any disqualification on registration he has imposed that is not contained within L.B. 20 and to comply in all respects with the provisions of L.B. 20," the ruling said.
This decision came down with less than three weeks to go in a very contentious presidential election. The impacted voters, estimated to be about 7,000 felons, will have to contend with tight deadlines to cast their ballots.
In-person registration runs until Oct. 25, but the online option is open until Oct. 18. This could be an important development as Nebraska splits its electoral votes in such a way that any additional voters could sway the race.
Previous studies have shown that ex-convicts are four times as likely to register as Democrats or have no affiliation at all than their law-abiding counterparts. With the state awarding one electoral vote to the winner in each congressional district, three of the state's five votes are up for grabs for Democrats, the New York Times reported.
This could be significant in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Notably, the state's Second District, which includes the capital city of Omaha, went for President Joe Biden in the 2020 race.
The candidate with the most statewide votes receives the remaining two electoral votes, which are typically cast for the Republican in a crimson state. Even if this rule doesn't sway the 2024 race, it sets up a framework that could pay off for Democrats in 2028.
Democrats have no scruples when it comes to making sure they win elections by hook or by crook. One of their many tactics includes allowing criminals to vote.
There are varying levels of restrictions on felons voting in 48 states, with only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia having none at all. Democrats have tried to nationalize a standard to allow criminals to vote and even proposed a law to do just that.
According to Reuters, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) proposed the Inclusive Democracy Act in December 2023. "The right to vote is sacred in America and it's essential to citizenship, and all citizens deserve a voice in our democracy," Pressley said at the time.
"There is resistance. We know that," Welch chimed in. The bill has gone nowhere with the current narrow GOP majority in Congress and lead in the Senate, but it's not an issue that Democrats will give up on easily.
While it's true that people who have served their time have paid their debt to society, it's a bridge too far to give them blanket voting rights. Criminals have proven that they don't respect the laws of the land, and giving them the right to influence those laws is ludicrous.
Donald Trump is making another effort to move his New York criminal case to federal court, citing the Supreme Court's historic ruling on presidential immunity and prosecutors' reliance on evidence from his time in office.
Trump was convicted of "falsifying business records" in the unprecedented case, which centered on payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Trump's reimbursement to his former lawyer Michael Cohen.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) devised a complex legal theory to charge Trump with 34 felonies, accusing him of interfering in the 2016 election by burying Daniels' accusations of an affair, which Trump has denied.
Lawyers for Trump argue that his conviction was based on "official acts" evidence that implicates the power of the presidency, making the case a federal, rather than a state, matter.
At trial, prosecutors prominently cited testimony from former Trump official Hope Hicks in their closing argument against Trump, calling Hicks' words "the nail in the coffin" for his defense.
If the case is moved to federal court, Trump could have it thrown out if he wins the presidency. A federal judge rejected Trump's request to move the case in September, arguing it dealt with "private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority."
In a request to the 2nd Circuit Appeals court, Trump's lawyers argued that prosecutors violated the U.S. Constitution in light of the Supreme Court's July ruling on immunity, which found that official acts may not be used as evidence.
The "use of official-acts evidence in grand jury proceedings and at trial violated the Constitution and threatens the ability of all future Presidents to fulfill that role," lawyers Emil Bove and Todd Blanche said.
"This case presents complex first-impression issues relating to the Supremacy Clause, federal-officer removal, appearances of impropriety and conflicts in connection with an unprecedented and baseless prosecution of the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential election, and the ability of future Presidents to serve the American people without fear of reprisal from hostile local officials," Trump's lawyers wrote.
Trump has separately cited the Supreme Court's ruling in seeking to toss the verdict outright, arguing it was based on evidence that should have been excluded.
The trial judge, Juan Merchan, will sentence Trump on November 26. The judge will rule before then on Trump's argument to toss the verdict.
Trump has blasted the case as partisan electoral interference meant to damage his re-election campaign.
An Arkansas ballot measure revoking the license for a casino can move ahead after the state's Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge from the casino's operator.
The dispute centers on a planned casino in Pope County licensed to Cherokee Nation Entertianment. The campaign against the casino is being led by Local Voters in Charge and the Choctaw Nation, which has donated millions to stopping the casino.
The Supreme Court was asked to weigh on Issue 2, which would strip the license for the Pope County casino and require local public input on all future casinos in the state.
In a unanimous ruling, the court rejected a lawsuit from Cherokee Nation Entertainment challenging the signature collection process. A court-appointed special master found that Local Voters in Charge did not violate the rules on paid canvassing.
On the other hand, the court did not decide on a separate issue involving the popular name and title of the initiative.
"Issue 2’s message of local voter control — that communities should have the final say on a casino in their own hometown — is resonating across the state,” Hans Stiritz, a spokesperson for Local Voters In Charge, said in a statement. “We look forward to the court’s final decision on the ballot language challenge, with hope that the vote of the people will be counted on Issue 2 in November.”
Local Voters in Charge says the case is about communities asserting their autonomy. But Investing in Arkansas, the Cherokee-backed group campaigning against Issue 2, say the dispute is fundamentally about business.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma lost out on the license for the Pope County casino, and the tribe has donated $5.6 million to Local Voters In Charge.
"It is about another casino operator who didn't get the license in Pope County, who now wants to make sure that nobody gets any of those dollars and that those dollars stay in Oklahoma," said Natalie Ghidotti, of Investing in Arkansas.
Another group backing the casino says Issue 2 would override the will of voters, who adopted a 2018 constitutional amendment approving four casino licenses, including the one in Pope County.
"While disappointing, we still await the Court’s decision on the ballot title challenge," Allison Burum, spokesperson for the Arkansas Canvassing Compliance Committee, said in a statement. “Issue 2 is misleading, and its sole purpose is to undo the will of Arkansas voters by eliminating the fourth casino license they approved in 2018.”
The judge in Jack Smith's January 6th case granted Donald Trump a small victory, rejecting a push by media organizations to unseal more details in the case.
With a jury trial potentially slipping away, Smith has sought to keep his case in the headlines as early voting begins in the 2024 presidential election. Trump, and legal analysts across the political spectrum, have accused Smith of improperly trying to damage Trump's electoral prospects, as well as his right to a fair trial.
A group of press organizations urged judge Tanya Chutkan, who has consistently ruled against Trump, to unseal more details, citing the public interest in the case, the New York Sun reported.
But Chutkan called the request "largely moot" after she released to the public a redacted 165-page filing from Smith that accused Trump of "resorting to crimes" to stay in power.
The press organizations had requested the immunity filing and its appendix in redacted form - and Chutkan has already agreed to unseal both.
The judge rejected a request to "unseal those filings with only those redactions that are both ‘essential to preserve higher values’ and ‘narrowly tailored to serve that interest.’"
Chutkan defended the redactions as being "consistent with both the common-law and First Amendment rights of public access to judicial proceedings.”
"Applicants’ reliance here on the First Amendment is therefore unavailing; it does not compel unsealing any of the redactions that the court has approved," she wrote.
It's a small victory for Trump, who has accused Chutkan and Smith of jointly waging a witch hunt against him.
The New York Sun noted that Chutkan may be trying to avoid a reversal on appeal, which already happened in the case when the Supreme Court sided with Trump on presidential immunity.
The Supreme Court's ruling forced Smith to tailor his indictment, effectively delaying the trial beyond the election. Smith's "October surprise" immunity filing is meant to convince Chutkan that Trump's alleged crimes are private acts, and not official acts covered by the Supreme Court's ruling.
At the core of Smith's case are accusations about Trump's communications with former vice president Mike Pence - interactions the Supreme Court described as presumptively immune.
Smith controversially kept the Pence accusations in the superseding indictment, despite the Supreme Court's ambivalence about them. Chutkan has to decide whether the Pence allegations can stay - and it's possible the Supreme Court will revisit the issue, putting Smith's case in jeopardy.
Chutkan has been open about the fact that she doesn't care about the political impact of the case, calling it "not relevant" despite Trump's status as a presidential candidate in an extremely polarized race.
The judge has approved the release this Friday of the appendix in Smith's filing, over the objections of Trump's lawyers.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Smurfing with campaign donations has become an epidemic in America, probably involving tens of thousands of victims and millions, likely hundreds of millions of dollars.
It involves a criminal using someone else's identity in order to make a political contribution.
Such operators can, through the schemes, direct massive amounts of money to individual candidates and causes without doing a lot of reporting and documentation.
Star investigative reporter James O'Keefe of O'Keefe Media Group, has documented the problem:
Those whose names are used often never even find out about it, and mostly they are not in a position to hire lawyers, do investigations, and find those who are abusing them.
Until now.
Now someone has used the name of a longtime Republican political strategist, Mark Block, who has gone to court to uncover the details of the thievery, and get it stopped.
A report at the Gateway Pundit explains that he's charging his personal information was stolen and used in recent months to launder money 385 times to 62 different campaigns and political groups.
At the center of the controversy is ActBlue, the behemoth that collects money for multiple Democrat interests.
He found out, the report said, when he got a receipt, at an old email address, recognizing his $7.50 donation to LGBTQ Equality PAC, an organization he explains he would never, ever support.
His legal filing, in court in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, seeks injunctive relief for the operation. He cites Kamala Harris' fundraising boasts, but points out, "Unfortunately, however, at least some of those donations – and similar donations to campaigns and organizations across the country – have been fraudulently made."
The filing explains there have been documented more than 385 donations from "Mark Block" to 62 campaigns and candidates in just the past few weeks. They total $884.
He explains, "Specifically, federal law does not require campaigns to itemize contributions from donors when the aggregate amount totals less than $200. Campaigns that receive contributions below $200 can simply bundle the donation into a list of un-itemized contributions. Small dollar donations have seen explosive growth in recent years, with the number of reported transactions increasing by 400% just between the 2016 and 2020 elections."
But "bad actors" can skew elections by "smurfing," putting huge sums into campaigns through small-dollar donations illegally using the names of other people.
Block explained that the donations all were made from "the same American Express card … with an expiration date of July 2026, and tracked to the zip code 90403 located in Santa Monica, California. Upon investigation, plaintiff discovered that the UPS location was used as a mailing address for a 'Cain Companies Construction' … Cain Co. was administratively dissolved by the California Secretary of State in 2013."
The principal there was listed as Bernard L. Cain, Jr. but Block has no connection to him.
Multiple attempts to contact Bernard L. Cain Jr. were fruitless.
The Gateway Pundit noted, "Some of the individuals accused of this fraudulent scheme include Soros-funded Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Soros Funded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin (WI), Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock (GA), and Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz."
The perpetrators, identified at this point as "John Doe," violated the "Wisconsin Organized Crime Control Act" with the actions, and the filing charges.
Requested is a Temporary Restraining Order to stop the ""repeated and fraudulent use of plaintiff's PII" and expedited discovery in the matter "for all discovery requests issued between the date of this Order's entry and the determination [of] John Doe's true identity."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Taxes and death once were called the only things that are inevitable.
Now a court has ruled that even for governments, taxes aren't something that can be avoided.
The ruling comes out of Wyoming, where the Cowboy State Daily reported on a ruling from the state Supreme Court that the state owes Uinta County more than $8,000 in property taxes for a 3.3-acre parcel of state land there.
The taxes were triggered because the state makes a profit off the land, leasing it to a truck stop company and that's considered a non-governmental use
So pay up, the court ordered the state.
The fight is over at the Pilot Travel Center in Evanston, which is on state land but is a commercial enterprise.
The county assessor determined that $8,160 in taxes were due and billed the state, which argued it shouldn't be told to pay taxes.
The land, managed by the state Board of Land Commissions, is assigned to be used to raise funding for the state hospital.
"Since 1999, the state has leased that land to Pilot Corp., which operates a truck stop there. The Uinta County assessor didn't try taxing the land until 2021. The state grudgingly paid that tax bill, having missed its window to challenge. But when Uinta County Assessor Lori Perkins again taxed the state in 2022, the state challenged the $8,160 bill for that year by going to the County Board of Equalization, which is a tax-reviewing iteration of the board of county commissioners," the report said.
The board sided with the state, the Board of Equalization sided with the assessor, and the district court did too.
Then came the state Supreme Court's decision, which said the state will pay up.
The state claimed its "fiduciary duty" to the hospitals means it is exempt.
But the county said a truck stop isn't a "governmental purpose."
"The Wyoming Constitution exempts government property from taxation based on how that property is used, not based on the governmental entity that owns or manages it," the court said.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein is suing the state of Ohio because state election officials said they won't count her votes on Election Day because her party apparently named her running mate after the deadline.
Stein, running mate Butch Ware and three Ohio voters filed the suit on Wednesday, claiming that the decision "infringes on their constitutional rights to free speech, association, and equal protection and the voting rights of the Ohio-based plaintiffs," according to the Washington Examiner.
Stein filed as an independent candidate in Ohio because the Green Party lost its state recognition in Ohio several years ago.
She named party nominee for Ohio governor Anita Rios as a placeholder for her running mate until Ware was nominated in August to fill the position.
Ohio election officials said Stein's name would still be on the state ballots, which were already shipped to overseas military voters, but votes for her and Rios/Ware would not be counted.
The request to remove Rios was granted, but the request to add Ware was received after the deadline, the officials said.
The lawsuit contends that the request by Rios to withdraw her candidacy was submitted by a local party official without Rios's knowledge.
The lawsuit plaintiffs want a temporary injunction and restraining order to force officials to count votes for Stein.
In 2020, Stein got 46,271 votes in Ohio, less than 1% of the votes in the state.
Her vote total was only about 10% of the more than 450,000 votes that separated former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in Ohio, which had 18 electoral votes.
Trump handily won the state despite having only a narrow advantage in polling close to Election Day.
In 2024, Ohio looks like a solid win for Trump again, and its position is only made stronger by the fact that it is the home state of Sen. J.D. Vance (R).
Stein is one of the last third party candidates left standing after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdrew from the race and endorsed Trump in August.
While the counting of her votes might not make much of a difference in Ohio, there are swing states that had smaller vote margins in 2020, and if just 45,000 votes more votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin had gone to Trump, it could have been an entirely different result.
A New York federal judge has struck down a ban on carrying firearms in certain public locations - a blow to the gun control agenda being championed by Kamala Harris.
District Judge John Sinatra Jr. struck down Governor Kathy Hochul's (D) ban on carrying firearms on private property open to the public.
The judge noted that property owners may exclude guns, but the government cannot "unilaterally" ban guns on private property open to the public.
The plaintiff in the case, Brett Christian, would carry his firearm with him to places like gas stations and hardware stores. The new restrictions, he complained, prevent him from exercising his Second Amendment rights in his daily life.
The ruling is a blow to Governor Kathy Hochul, who has attempted to circumvent the landmark Supreme Court ruling upholding the right to bear arms outside the home, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.
In the 2022 case, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law requiring "proper cause" to get a concealed carry license. Governor Hochul defied the court, signing a new batch of gun restrictions that sought to preserve the pre-Bruen status quo.
For example, Hochul banned guns in a wide array of "sensitive locations" and made it a felony to carry a gun on any private property “unless the relevant property holders actually permit such possession with a sign or express consent."
The Supreme Court declined last year to take up a challenge to Hochul's new gun laws, saying they should be litigated in lower courts first.
Judge Sinatra cited the Supreme Court's history-based test in Bruen, which has led to gun restrictions being rolled back in state after state.
"This is yet another important victory for Second Amendment rights and another major loss for New York, authoritarian governments, and radical anti-rights organizations like Everytown and Giffords,” said Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) President Brendan Combs.
The governor signed six new gun laws on Wednesday, while boasting about her efforts to undermine the Supreme Court's ruling.
“And you all know what happened when the Supreme Court overturned the laws against concealed carry weapons, stripping away the power of the governor of this state to make her citizens safe,” Hochul said. “When the Supreme Court did that, we didn’t throw up our hands and surrender. We fought back. We doubled down. We came up with legislation.”
A legal challenge to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program headed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, The Hill reported. The Obama-era program could find its way to the Supreme Court depending on the lower court's ruling.
The DACA program has faced several legal challenges. The latest to wend its way through the court system comes from Texas and could strike at the heart of the program's legality.
A three-panel judge began hearing arguments this week in a case that could affect half a million residents of the U.S. The Justice Department argued on behalf of the so-called dreamers after Texas District Judge Andrew Hanen had ruled the plan illegal.
"Today, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals heard a case challenging the legality of DACA, threatening the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who rely on the program. These young people have grown up here, built their lives here, and contribute so much to our economy and communities," Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) said in a statement.
According to Fox News, the program was meant as a way to grant legal status to illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. It has been at the center of many legal battles over the years since former President Barack Obama signed it into a 2012 executive order.
DACA has faced several legal challenges over the years. In 2015, Hanen quashed add-ons to the program, including striking down the creation of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program.
Then, in 2021, Hanen ruled that DACA was completely unlawful. The Department of Homeland Security was instructed "to post a public notice, within 3 calendar days of this Injunction, to be displayed prominently on its website and on the websites of all other relevant agencies, that a United States District Court has found the DACA program to be illegal[.]"
President Joe Biden then tried to advance the program again but was similarly thwarted in Hanen's 2023 ruling. The judge wrote that "the Court finds that the Final Rule, like the 2012 DACA Memorandum before it, is subject to this Court's (and the Fifth Circuit's) prior rulings" at the time.
"There are no material differences between the two programs. As such, the Final Rule suffers from the same legal impediments," he added.
After the latest attempt failed, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre expressed dismay at the decision. "We are deeply disappointed in today’s DACA ruling from the District Court in Southern Texas," she said in a September 2023 statement.
"On day one of his Administration, President Biden issued a memorandum directing the federal government to take all appropriate actions to 'preserve and fortify the DACA policy. Consistent with that directive, the Administration has defended the DACA policy from legal challenges, and issued a final rule codifying this longstanding policy," Jean-Pierre added.
However, that may be difficult to uphold if the fight makes it to the Supreme Court. Thanks to former President Donald Trump, the balance of judges leans conservative.
Moreover, Trump may win the White House in November and will likely maintain his tough immigration stance in his second term. The fight over the program could end there.
The problems of unchecked illegal immigration continue to plague America. A program like DACA is good on paper, but in practice, it becomes yet another loophole to allow more unvetted migrants into the U.S.
Jack Smith's October surprise filing in Donald Trump's January 6th case is a "big win" for Trump, according to a former federal prosecutor appointed by Barack Obama.
The judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan, last week released a 165-page filing from Smith that accuses Trump of "resorting to crimes" to stay in power.
While many have accused Smith of interfering in the presidential election, Joyce Vance, a former prosecutor and commentator, said the filing is beneficial to Trump because it gives his lawyers a map of the trial.
"This brief puts Trump's team in a better position to respond, to make their own immunity arguments, and to prepare their case," Vance said on the podcast Stay Tuned With Preet Bharara.
Smith's move has been condemned by legal analysts across the aisle as a breach of legal ethics, with CNN pundit Elie Honig calling it a "cheap shot" aimed at kneecapping Trump's campaign. But some are skeptical that Smith's filing will have any impact on voters.
"This is, in fact, a win for Trump. And I guarantee you that nobody in the public who spent their time reading 165 pages in detail didn't have their mind already made up about this election, right? The broad contours here, they are well known. This is not impacting the election," Vance insisted.
Smith was desperate to prosecute Trump before the election, but the case was delayed by Trump's appeals on the issue of presidential immunity. The Supreme Court ruled in July that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for their official acts, forcing Smith to tailor his sweeping indictment.
Smith's superseding indictment retains many of the allegations against Trump, but Smith instead refers to Trump as a political candidate rather than a sitting president.
Given the low odds of Trump receiving a fair trial in overwhelmingly Democratic Washington D.C., his best hope of exoneration likely lies with winning the presidency and having the case dismissed outright.
Trump's lawyers asked the judge Thursday not to release any more of Smith's "unlawfully cherry-picked and mischaracterized" evidence while voting is underway.
“There should be no further disclosures at this time of the so-called ‘evidence’ that the Special Counsel’s Office has unlawfully cherry-picked and mischaracterized—during early voting in the 2024 Presidential election—in connection with an improper Presidential immunity filing that has no basis in criminal procedure or judicial precedent,” his lawyers wrote.