One week remains until the last ballots are cast in the 2018 elections.
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Today’s comic by Jen Sorensen is Tips for stopping extremist violence:
• Have problems or questions about voting? Call the nonpartisan hotline:
There are thousands of trained nonpartisan volunteers staffing these hotlines—open now through election day—to answer questions and help address any problems voters have.
English 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683)
Spanish 888-VE-Y-VOTA (888-839-8682)
Arabic 844-YALLA-US (844-925-5287)
Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and Tagalog 888-API-VOTE (888-274-8683) –
American Sign Language video call number: 301-818-VOTE (301-818-8683)
SMS (text message) hotline (English): text OUR VOTE to 97779
• The best “I Voted” election stickers appear in Alaska: They are graced by images of eight animals—a beaver, a snow-machining walrus, an off-road vehicle-riding caribou, a dungeness crab, a crowned king crab, a rain-jacketed eagle, a raven and a very hipster moose in plaid flannel. The stickers—plastered on social media—are the work of Juneau artist Pat Race. His art of “A Calendar with Bears on it” caught the notice of the Division of Elections, and he was asked to come up with the animal characters, four of which are on the cover of the DoE’s voter information pamphlets. So popular are the animal characters that fans have created Twitter hashtags like #teammoonlightbeaver or #teamhipstereagle to go along with their favorites. Race wouldn’t say if he has a favorite, though he said, “I did take my post-election selfie and I did have a sticker on and it was the raven.”
MIDDAY TWEET
• Federal judge in Memphis rules city violated a 1978 consent agreement not to collect political intelligence on activists exercising their First Amendment rights: Judge Jon McCalla wrote in his opinion that the Memphis Police Department broke the agreement when it searched social media sites for posts relating to the Black Lives Matter movement. The MPD collected information on non-criminal activity and distributed it to other law enforcement organizations and corporations such as FedEx and St. Jude. For instance, the department posted on Facebook under the alias “Bob Smith,” friending activists and joining groups associated with the BLM movement so it could monitor them. It also gathered information on three Memphis-area journalists because of sources they had developed in their reporting on the movement.
• Yakama Nation treaty rights are the subject of the first Native case in the U.S. Supreme Court’s new session: The case—Washington State Department of Licensing v. Cougar Den—has been brought by an individual, not the tribe. It seeks to determine whether the 1855 treaty with the tribe, which guarantees "free access" to public highways, shields tribal citizens from paying the state gasoline tax:
The Yakama Nation hasn't been completely left out of the debate. The tribe submitted an amicus, or friend of the court, brief on September 24, calling on the Supreme Court to affirm the treaty and repudiate the so-called Doctrine of Christian Discovery, which has been used to undermine the inherent rights of indigenous peoples and their governments.
"Courts have used the doctrine to build a false legal framework to attack Native sovereignty," the brief states. "The Court should expressly repudiate the doctrine and instead rely on the Yakama Treaty as the foundation for its analysis in this dispute."
• One-time mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger found dead in prison, age 89: In a criminal career spanning decades, including 16 years as a fugitive, the Boston gangster carried on his illegal activities while authorities turned a blind eye because he had been feeding them information since 1975. Some of that information was used to undermine rivals. When it looked like he was on the verge of being prosecuted in 1994 under RICO—the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—his former FBI handler gave him a heads up, and Bulger disappeared until 2011 when he was arrested with his girlfriend in Santa Monica, California. When he died, he was serving a life sentence after being convicted of 11 of the 19 murders he was originally charged with committing.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: GunFAIL in KC, and we're actually glad of it. Trump's fielding blame game on Pittsburgh, and two new immigration stunts at once. Muller hoax warning. Pence's fake Rabbi—as if Jews agreed on who's a Rabbi. Worldwide election trolling roundup.