Threatening to upend a tradition of equality that dates back to the founding of the country, Republican political leaders in Kansas and Arizona are discussing plans to establish a multi-tier voting rights system for their states if they lose a voting rights case currently in federal court. The net effect would be to bar some U.S. citizens—mostly immigrants, racial minorities, the elderly, and the poor—from voting in state and local elections even as they cast ballots in federal contests.   read more

Sensenbrenner’s bill would do the following: • Limit the collection of phone records to known terrorist suspects • End “secret laws” by making courts disclose surveillance policies • Create a special court advocate to represent privacy interests • Allow companies to disclose how many requests for users’ information they receive from the government • Restrict a loophole involving overseas surveillance that has allowed the NSA to target Internet and email activities of Americans.   read more

In South Carolina, the sheriff of Richland County acquired a tank (dubbed “the Peacemaker) with 360-degree rotating machine gun turrets. In Jefferson County in upstate New York, the sheriff’s department guarding a community of about 120,000 people now has a 20-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle, which was developed for the U.S. military to survive roadside bomb attacks. It was given to the county sheriff by the Pentagon.   read more

A new Gallup poll found 33% of Americans said dissatisfaction with government and elected representatives was the nation’s top issue. Not since 1939, when Gallup began keeping track, have so many people put government at the top of the fix-this list. The economy came in a distant second, at 19%, . The situation in Syria, which last month was rated as the country’s top problem by 8% of Americans, has now fallen nearly out of sight at 1%.   read more

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to begin regulating e-cigarettes this month, and state and local governments may not be far behind in deciding how to tax or limit the use of this new nicotine-delivery technology. Manufacturers of e-cigarettes, however, aren’t in support of their products being regulated, and are trying to minimize the government’s interference in the industry.   read more

With about half of the workforce at the Food and Drug Administration on furlough, 91% of seafood imported into the United States is not being inspected, according to media reports. Nearly 50% of fruits and 20% of vegetables imported and consumed in the U.S. also aren’t undergoing inspection.   read more

America’s ascendance as an energy king has been several years in the making, as U.S. companies’ embrace of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) to tap into shale-rock formations has opened up new supplies of oil and natural gas.   read more

The case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission will focus on the cap that one person may contribute during a two-year election cycle to federal candidates, political parties and committees. the two political parties will likely court about a thousand super-rich donors who gave at least $134,300 0f their own money in 2012, which will give these individuals “a unique ability to set and limit the party agendas.” Two-thirds of these donors are Republicans.   read more

American law enforcement made just more than 60,000 violent crime arrests of youth under age 18 in 2012—a decline of 10% compared to 2011, and an overall drop of 36% since 2003. Over the same decade, violent crime arrests involving adults fell 9%. Between 2003 and 2012, youth arrests for murder fell 37%, forcible rape arrests went down 36%, robbery arrests slipped by 20%, and aggravated assault arrests plummeted by nearly 43%.   read more

This undercounting takes place because local officials, including coroners, will mistakenly classify the deaths as something other than an accident, like a homicide. The New York Times also determined that in almost every case, the accidental shooter was a boy and that 81% of the victims were boys. In 28% of the cases, the fatal wound was self-inflicted.   read more

Five hundred is considerably more than the two flights that DHS admitted to operating when the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General contacted the agency for a report on unmanned aircraft. DHS has filed a motion (pdf) with the federal judge overseeing the EFF lawsuit to throw out the remainder of the case before it has to reveal any more details about drone activity.   read more

The jurisdiction with the most executions is Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, with 115. Dallas County is second with 50. Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arizona accounted for 60% of all of the nation’s executions. In fact, 36% of executions took place in Texas. Eighty-five percent of counties did not carry out a single execution.   read more

No. XV of the House Rules—applies in situations where the Speaker of the House refuses to have an up-or-down vote on the House floor, as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is now doing. If a majority of House members sign a “discharge petition,” Boehner would have to allow a vote. Given that all 200 Democratic members would sign, only 17 Republican signatures would be needed to force a vote and end the shutdown.   read more

Denied tougher gun-control measures in the wake of last year’s Newtown school shooting, the Obama administration is taking a different approach to making classrooms safer: Fund more school security. The U.S. Department of Justice announced late last week that it would distribute $44 million in grants to help schools in 141 cities and counties hire more than 350 security personnel, known as school resource officers.   read more

But was it more than just opening doors? The report criticizes the Navy for evading competition in awarding the contract to Eid Passport. For example, the RAPIDGate kiosks that visitors use were priced at $2,499 each—exactly $1.00 less than the amount that Navy rules required “open market” competition. In response to complaints, the subscriptions were renewed and expanded at a cost of millions of dollars, under unusual subcontracts that also circumvented federal rules.   read more

By several measures the decisions, which has been cited in more than 1,200 federal and state cases, has reshaped the legal landscape to favor employers over employees. Judges have overturned jury verdicts, tossed out settlements, and rejected or decertified class actions to the benefit of corporations like Family Dollar, Lockheed Martin, Cintas, and Hearst. The size of worker discrimination settlements has fallen as well.   read more