Vermont Republican Governor Seeks to Give Non-Citizens Voting Rights in Local Elections

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (R) is asking state lawmakers to pass an elections law that would allow non-citizens across the state to vote in local municipality elections.

Scott vetoed two pieces of legislation that sought to give non-citizens the right to vote in local elections in Montpelier and Winooski, Vermont. However, he said he is not opposed to the plan but wants state legislatures to send him a bill that would give non-citizens the right to vote, statewide, in local elections.

“This is an important policy discussion that deserves further consideration and debate,” Scott wrote in his vetoes:

Allowing a highly variable town-by-town approach to municipal voting creates inconsistency in election policy, as well as separate and unequal classes of residents potentially eligible to vote on local issues. I believe it is the role of the Legislature to establish clarity and consistency on this matter. This should include defining how municipalities determine which legal residents may vote on local issues, as well as speciffing the local matters they may vote on. Returning these bills provides the opportunity to do this important work. [Emphasis added]

For these reasons I am returning this legislation without my signature pursuant to Chapter II, Section l1 of the Vermont Constitution. I understand these charter changes are well-intentioned, but I ask the Legislature to revisit the issue of non-citizen voting in a more comprehensive manner and develop a statewide policy or a uniform template and process for those municipalities wishing to grant the right of voting in local elections to all legal residents. [Emphasis added]

Such a statewide policy could mean that legal immigrants with green cards and work visas would be allowed to vote in Vermont’s local elections like school board, mayoral, and city council races.

The city of San Francisco, California, famously gave non-citizens the right to vote in local school board elections in 2018.

The policy has become a mainstream Democrat position, with failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams saying in 2019 that she would not “oppose” non-citizens voting in local elections.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/06/03/vermont-republican-governor-seeks-to-give-non-citizens-voting-rights-in-local-elections/

Doug Jones: Dems Can Get 10 Republican Senators to Support ‘Uniform Standards’ on Voting

Former Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) said Thursday on MSNBC’s “All In” that he believed ten Senate Republicans would join with the Democrats to pass voting legislation if it has a narrow focus to create “a uniform set of standards” on early voting, mail-in voting and absentee voting.

Jones said, “What we are seeing happening across the country is really an attack on democracy. At some point, I think, very soon, Democrats are going to have to decide whether or not Congress can be the backstop for this. I am hoping that they will do that.”

He continued, “You know, as we talk about Jim Crow laws and we talk about voting rights. HR-1, which is a great bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, all great bills. But if you want to stop this immediate assault, this immediate assault on voting rights, then you got to narrow this bill a little bit and focus on stopping that assault. There is a lot in those other bills that, really, will are good bills, good things, good pieces of legislation. Let’s focus on getting these things standards, you know, uniform standards around country.”

Jones added, “We keep talking, and we hear so many people talking about the election, what’s been called the big lie, the election was stolen, the election fraud. Well, if you want to stop this. If Republicans really want to get at this, let’s have uniform standards. We have federal elections every two years in this country. We need to have a uniform set of standards on early voting, mail-in voting, all of those, absentee voting, all of those things where people think that is fraught with peril. Let’s get some uniform standards instead of this hodgepodge from around the country. If folks focus on that, I do think there is an opportunity to get ten votes. I don’t believe that what we are hearing from all these things going around the country is representative of the entire 90% of the folks in the Senate. I think that there may be opportunities there. I really do believe that.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/06/03/doug-jones-dems-can-get-10-republican-senators-to-support-uniform-standards-on-voting/

>>13825569

Bluebeam loading?

Watch the Water

2 Premium Bottled Water Companies Ordered To Halt Operations Amid Reported Death and Liver Illnesses

A federal court permanently enjoined a Henderson, Nevada, company from preparing, processing and distributing adulterated and misbranded bottled water.

In a complaint filed on May 19, at the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States alleged that AffinityLifestyles.com Inc. and Real Water Inc., along with company officers Brent A. Jones and his son, Blain K. Jones, violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by distributing adulterated and misbranded bottled water. The companies formerly distributed bottled water under the brand names “Re2al Water Drinking Water” and “Re2al Alkalized Water.” While the companies marketed their products as a healthy alternative to tap water, the government alleged that the products in fact consisted of municipal tap water that the defendants processed with various chemicals in violation of current good manufacturing practices, relevant food safety standards and hazard prevention measures.

According to the complaint, the FDA received information that at least five children experienced acute non-viral hepatitis (resulting in acute liver failure) after drinking Re2al Water and at least one person died. The FDA documented other consumer complaints of illness, including nausea and vomiting, related to the Re2al Water. Subsequently, the agency warned consumers, restaurants, distributors and retailers not to drink, cook with, sell or serve the product.

“Food and water sold to consumers must be safe,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “The Department of Justice will continue to work closely with the Food and Drug Administration to ensure that bottled water and other products we eat and drink are manufactured in compliance with the law.”

“As consumers, we count on bottled water companies to take appropriate measures in ensuring their water doesn’t make our families sick, particularly children,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Christopher Chiou for the District of Nevada. “The permanent injunction imposed on Real Water reflects the Department of Justice’s and FDA’s commitment to protecting the health of Nevadans and consumers across the country.”

The complaint alleges that FDA inspections found: (a) multiple regulatory violations in the companies’ manufacturing processes, including significant deviations from preventative control requirements intended to control the risk of hazards in food; and (b) multiple failures to follow current good manufacturing practice requirements for water bottling facilities.

https://breaking911.com/2-premium-bottled-water-companies-ordered-to-halt-operations-amid-reported-death-and-liver-illnesses/

CNN's Take on the Fauci Emails Is REALLY Disturbing…

While most of us who have read the bombshell FOIA emails from Dr. Fauci believe they prove he wasn’t telling Americans the truth, the so-called journalists at CNN had a much different take on what the emails revealed.

“While many federal government staffers prefer the phone to email, this correspondence offers a rare glimpse into Fauci’s frantic schedule and polite, to-the-point demeanor during the time he emerged as a rare source of frank honesty within the Trump administration’s Covid-19 task force,” wrote Christina Maxouris and Paul LeBlanc of CNN.

“I honestly don’t know how CNN can crystallize those emails into this headline,” mused Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire. “We get it. You created a narrative of Trump as evil and Fauci as good, and now you have to stick with it. But your worship of a prevaricating career bureaucrat is unsettling.”

Amongst other things, the emails demonstrated that Fauci doubted the effectiveness of masks for healthy people, was aware of gain-of-function research abroad and the NIH’s possible connection to it, and that he was told by an NIH scientist that COVID-19 looked like it may have been engineered. These revelations contradict past public statements by Dr. Fauci—but to CNN, the email revealed a “rare source of frank honesty within the Trump administration.”

Where’s the honesty? Is Fauci being honest behind closed doors but lying to the American public the epitome of honesty to CNN? Or is CNN just desperately trying to protect the man they pitted against Trump during the pandemic, even though it’s becoming clearer by the day that Trump was the honest one of the two?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/03/cnns-take-on-the-fauci-emails-is-really-disturbing-n1451919

White House embarks on push to vaccinate hard-to-reach Americans

The White House is stepping up its vaccination push amid an encouraging decline in COVID-19 cases but during a time in which the remaining contingent of unvaccinated people is becoming harder to reach.

President Biden announced a slew of new partnerships this week, from free beer to free child care, as incentives to boost falling vaccination numbers one month out from a July 4 deadline for getting 70 percent of the country’s adult population at least partially vaccinated.

Vice President Harris will also be traveling the country to encourage vaccinations, a tour the White House said will be focused on the south, where vaccination rates are generally lower.

The push comes at an optimistic moment for the U.S., as COVID-19 cases and deaths have plunged while at the same time, the roughly 40 percent of unvaccinated people in the U.S. remain at risk.

Overall, though, reported cases and deaths are at their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. The U.S. is averaging about 15,000 new cases per day, a sharp decline from the peak in January, when the average reached over 250,000 per day.

“We certainly turned a corner,” said Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University. “Where we are now cannot be compared to where we were a year ago.”

Still, she said she is concerned that “vaccination rates have fallen off a cliff.”

The U.S. is averaging just more than 1 million shots per day, far below the peak of over 3 million per day in April, according to figures from Our World in Data.

There is also a stark variation in vaccination rates that falls along party lines between red states and blue states.

Vermont has 71 percent of its population with at least one dose, the most of any state, compared to Mississippi, at the bottom of the list, with just 34 percent, according to figures from The New York Times.

Among adults 18 and over, Biden said Wednesday that 12 states had reached the mark of 70 percent with at least one shot, and he expected more to hit the target this week.

Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious diseases expert, said Thursday on CNN that the U.S. is now at a high enough vaccination rate that another spike in cases is unlikely, but he said he worries about pockets of the country with lower vaccination rates.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/556761-white-house-embarks-on-push-to-vaccinate-hard-to-reach-americans

AIPAC congratulates Lapid, Bennett for reaching agreement

Blinken says administration will work with any government that emerges

WASHINGTON – The American Israel Public Affairs Committee congratulating Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett on Thursday “for assembling a broad and diverse coalition — spanning the political spectrum of Zionist and Arab parties — to form an Israeli government pending Knesset approval. The formation of this government just two weeks after Iranian-backed terrorists fired more than 4,300 rockets at innocent Israeli civilians further demonstrates the resilience of Israel’s democracy and its commitment to democratic values.

“We look forward to further bolstering the bond between the US and Israel as the two democracies work in close partnership to advance our shared interests and values.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN Español anchor Juan Carlos Lopez in Costa Rica that “the Israelis will make their own decisions about their government, like any democracy, and we will work with any Israeli government to move forward as we have done in the past.

“President Biden has worked with every Israeli government on all sides since prime minister Golda Meir in the early 1970s. So, in democracies, governments change. We will work with any government that emerges, whether it’s Prime Minister Netanyahu or someone else.”

Blinken met with Defense Minister Benny Gantz at the State Department on Thursday, but avoided addressing the political situation in Israel.

“We had an opportunity to spend some time together in Israel just a week or so ago,” Blinken said. “Very happy today to have the opportunity to pursue that conversation, to talk about the United States’ enduring commitment to Israel security, to talk about some of the needs that Israel has in that regard. Also, to talk about the work that needs to be done to move forward on humanitarian assistance to and reconstruction for Gaza and for the Palestinians living there and to look across the board at the many issues that we have on our agenda.”

“It’s a real pleasure to be here and re-convey Israel’s appreciation for the administration, for the president, for yourself, for the ongoing support, which is very important for us in our challenging area,” Gantz told Blinken. “I’m looking forward to discussing, as we have discussed before, the challenges that we have with Iran, with the Palestinians.

“As far as Gaza concerned, we do look for stability and prosperity for everybody. And as defense minister, I think the combination between moving forward with construction and making sure that everything stays secure – it’s very important for me.”

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/aipac-congratulates-lapid-bennett-for-reaching-agreement-670060

LEOPOLD FOIA FCC CORONAVIRUS COMPLAINTS

107 pages

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6827889-LEOPOLD-FOIA-FCC-CORONAVIRUS-COMPLAINTS.html

Dilworth School: Two more men arrested over alleged historical sexual offending

Police have arrested two more men, a 73-year-old and a 39-year-old, over alleged historical sexual offending linked to Auckland’s Dilworth School.

The 73-year-old has been charged with three counts of indecent assault, while the 39-year-old has been charged with three counts of sexual violation.

They are the 10th and 11th men to be charged over alleged abuse at Dilworth.

Additional charges have also been laid against two men, linked to Dilworth, who are already before the court, police said.

All four men will appear in the Auckland District Court on June 8.

The arrests have been made under Operation Beverly, an ongoing investigation into alleged historical sexual offending at the central Auckland boys’ school.

In 2020, Dilworth came into spotlight for historical sexual offending dating back as far as the 1970s and as recent to the 2000s.

To date, there are a total of 11 men charged for a number of sex and drugs charges, including alleged sexual violation, indecent assault, sexual exploitation and supplying drugs.

In late May, former school tutor Keith William Dixon died while facing historical sex abuse charges relating to three boys under the age of 16.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300324022/dilworth-school-two-more-men-arrested-over-alleged-historical-sexual-offending