“The Enforcement Acts, one of which was known also as the Ku Klux Klan Act, given its prime target, criminalized widespread attempts by former Confederates to deny Black Southerners their right to vote, to have their votes counted and hold office — rights they enjoyed under the Reconstruction Act of 1867, the 14th Amendment and soon, the 15th Amendment. Coming at a time when American democracy teetered on the edge, these laws gave teeth to the federal government’s insistence that no eligible voter could be denied the right to vote and have his vote counted. (At the time, only men could exercise the franchise.) The laws were a direct response to Southern Democrats’ efforts to abrogate the practical effects of the Civil War and nullify Black political participation and representation.
Today, American democracy stands once again at a crossroads. The refusal of many Republican officeholders to accept the outcome of a free and fair election, and Trump’s outright appeal to fraud and violence in an effort to overturn that election, are precisely the kinds of antidemocratic practices the Enforcement Acts were intended to criminalize and punish.”
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“In the days to come, Trumps’ defenders may claim that the 1870 Enforcement Act is antiquated and obsolete or, as the National Review argued, irrelevant to the case in hand.
In fact, as the Washington Post recently documented, while the act was precipitated by Klan violence in the 1860s, throughout the 20th century and even in more recent times, “Section 241 has also been used to prosecute a wider range of election subversion, including threatening or intimidating voters, impersonating voters, destroying ballots and preventing the official count of ballots.” That includes its use to prosecute white people who terrorized civil rights volunteers during the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi and in cases involving election interference in states like Oklahoma, Tennessee and Kentucky. In other words, it is hardly what legal observers call a “strange law,” or a law still on the books but no longer relevant or enforceable.
Moreover, the acts of which Trump stands accused of committing are precisely what the Enforcement Act was intended to combat. Nullifying the votes of citizens. Fraudulently submitting fake elector slates. Attempting to intimidate state officials into falsifying returns. Bullying a vice president into discarding the official election count. And yes, inciting violence in the furtherance of overturning a free and fair election.
Our system presumes that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. It is now incumbent upon the Department of Justice to make its case. But the shameful events of late 2020 and early 2021 only reinforce the lasting relevance and importance of the 1870 Enforcement Act, a law constructed to meet challenges that, a century and a half later, still hang over America’s fragile democracy.”
“Russian ports and ships on the Black Sea — including tankers carrying millions of barrels of oil to Europe — could justifiably be attacked by the Ukrainian military as part of efforts to weaken Moscow’s war machine, a senior Kyiv official warned Monday in the wake of two recent attacks on Russian vessels.
“Everything the Russians are moving back and forth on the Black Sea are our valid military targets,” Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told POLITICO, saying the move was retaliation for Russia withdrawing from the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal and unleashing a series of missile attacks on agricultural stores and ports.
“This story started with Russia blocking the grain corridor, threatening to attack our vessels, destroying our ports,” Ustenko said. “Our maritime infrastructure is under constant attack.”
Over the weekend, Ukraine declared the waters around Russia’s Black Sea ports a “war risk area” from August 23 “until further notice.” The zone includes major Russian ports like Novorossiysk, Anapa, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Sochi and Taman.”
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“On Saturday, Russia’s federal maritime agency, Rosmorrechflot, reported that a Russian tanker, the Sig, had been hit in an apparent strike by Ukrainian forces while sailing close to Ukraine’s occupied Crimean peninsula.
“The tanker received a hit on its engine room, close to the waterline on the starboard side, presumably as a result of an attack by a sea drone,” officials said.
Ukraine’s defense ministry said that as long as Russians “terrorize peaceful Ukrainian cities and destroy grain condemning hundreds of millions to starvation,” there would be “no more safe waters or peaceful harbors for you in the Black and Azov Seas.””
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“Last month, Russia shipped almost 59 million barrels of crude oil, a third of its overall exports, from the strategic Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, according to intelligence firm Kpler. Of that, 32 million barrels went to EU countries. The port also handles other fuels like diesel, gasoil and naphtha in addition to grain destined for the global market.”
“In 2019, the heavily gerrymandered Legislature passed a deeply unpopular bill prohibiting abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — before many women know they are pregnant — without exceptions for rape or incest. The law is currently on hold, pending judicial review. In response, reproductive rights advocates secured enough petition signatures to put a referendum before the voters this November; if it passes, abortion rights will be enshrined in the Constitution, beyond the Legislature’s ability to meddle.
Given current polling, Republicans are expected to lose the November vote, so they’re trying to change the rules mid-game. The gambit is so transparent that even two former GOP governors, Robert Taft and John Kasich, have come out in opposition.”
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“Since 1912, when Ohio joined other states in adopting the referendum system, voters have been able to bypass the state Legislature and amend the constitution by a simple majority. The new measure would require 60 percent support.”
“In state after state, fast-growing, traditionally liberal college counties like Dane are flexing their muscles, generating higher turnout and ever greater Democratic margins. They’ve already played a pivotal role in turning several red states blue — and they could play an equally
“Vox’s platform is founded heavily on nationalism and a return to “tradition” on social issues: The Spanish nation, to hear the party tell it, should prioritize its residents and practices like bullfighting rather than welcoming migrants, should be skeptical of efforts to advance gender equity, and should be actively opposed to LGBTQ rights, including gay marriage. Key stances Vox has championed include claiming that gender violence doesn’t exist, pushing to reverse a trans rights law that just took effect this year, banning abortion, and closing shelters housing foreign minors.”
“The new law eliminates courts’ power to overturn decisions by Israel’s Cabinet or its ministers that they find to be “extremely unreasonable,” a vague-sounding standard that has a more technical meaning in Israeli law. In the simplest terms, the reasonableness doctrine allows the courts to overturn policies when the government can’t prove that its decisions were made according to some basic standards of fair and just policymaking.
Such a standard for judicial review might seem overbroad in the United States. But it’s actually relatively common internationally, and Israel in particular has a need for it: The country lacks a formal constitution, significant separation of executive and legislative powers, and a federal system. The courts are basically the only check on decisions made by the elected government — and the current government, a far-right coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is trying to weaken the judiciary’s powers and pack it with ideologically friendly jurists.
Eliminating reasonableness review of Cabinet decisions is “only part of a far bigger plan to gut checks on executive power in Israel,” writes Natan Sachs, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. Other components of this plan are currently waiting in the wings, likely next steps for the government in the coming weeks and months. If they too are passed, Sachs writes, Netanyahu’s government would possess “the ability to do almost anything.””
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“Reasonableness is not the only tool Israeli courts have to overturn government policies; its elimination marks an increase in government power, but it is hardly the end of judicial review. By passing this reform alone, rather than packaged with even more radical components of the initial overhaul, Netanyahu lowered the risk of defections from his four-vote majority. (The new law passed 64-0, after opposition lawmakers walked out of the vote in protest.)”
“What if I told you there was a fairly simple policy initiative that would reduce auto traffic by 15 to 20 percent in the heart of America’s most congested city, raise $1 billion annually for the country’s biggest mass transit system at a time when such services are on the edge of a financial death spiral, and improve air quality for urban neighborhoods that have long suffered disproportionately from pollution?
I have good news: Such a plan exists. It’s called congestion pricing, and at the end of June in New York City, the plan cleared its last federal hurdle. As early as next spring, motorists will be charged a fee — perhaps $23 for a rush-hour trip and $17 in off-peak hours, according to a report released last year — to enter the most crowded parts of Manhattan south of 60th Street and below Central Park.”
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“congestion pricing demonstrates two things: one, that the US can implement smart solutions to some of the most difficult climate and urban problems we face today. And two, that the byzantine review system we’ve created — ostensibly to protect the environment — has made it so, so, so difficult to do so.”