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Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

  UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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Clara Barton Designated as Terrorist for Aiding Rebels

You're reading the special April Fools' Day, 2008, edition of The Watcher.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced its first posthumous designation of a terrorist on April 1, placing Clara Barton of Civil War fame on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The unusual action came after OFAC Internet search engines discovered that Barton had aided Confederate soldiers during the war. A press release noted, "The Confederacy was clearly a terrorist organization. And our laws prohibiting material support for terrorists must be strictly enforced. While medical supplies are exempted from the ban, medical services are not. In addition, the National Park Service has verified that Ms. Barton also provided food and water to the wounded." Barton spent three years nursing soldiers in Virginia and South Carolina, conflict areas with a high level of Confederate infiltration of the civilian population. She continued her pattern of indiscriminate humanitarian aid by forming the American Red Cross in 1881, which became associated with the infamous International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, whose Code of Conduct "clearly violates the U.S. ban on transactions with those unfortunate enough to live in conflict areas, regions controlled by terrorists, or have a second cousin twice removed who belongs to Hamas," according to a government source.

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New Rules on Protests Announced

You're reading the special April Fools' Day, 2008, edition of The Watcher.

The Department of Homeland Security's Center for Educational Nonprofit Speech Outreach and Research (CENSOR) announced a new program April 1 aimed at ensuring that public protest does not provide a public relations benefit to the administration's political opposition, terrorists, or criminal defense lawyers. Under the new rules, nonprofits that apply for permits to hold demonstrations in Washington, DC, must submit basic information on all their members, including name, address, e-mail, Social Security number, date of birth, political party affiliation, and blood type, to be checked against the terrorist watch lists. If any potential matches are found, the permit application will be denied. Demonstrators entering the protest zone will be required to sign a waiver of privacy and constitutional rights. Civil liberties groups attempted to object, but all their websites and e-mail systems mysteriously crashed simultaneously.

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Unusual Alliance Calls for Banning All Campaign Contributions; Vote Buying to be Legalized

You're reading the special April Fools' Day, 2008, edition of The Watcher.

Presidential candidates Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and Barack Obama (D-IL) joined forces today, April 1, on what they call "groundbreaking legislation" to do away with special interest money in federal elections. The bill would ban all campaign contributions to candidates, political parties, 527 groups, and any other entity. Instead, the bill legalizes vote buying, which the three presidential candidates said could provide an important stimulus for the faltering economy. In a joint statement, the three senators said, "Research indicates vote buying is a free market activity. Vote buying in the cultural context of a world without campaign contributions empowers the citizen consumer." In response to critics that claim the proposal would mean only the wealthy could run for office, the three co-sponsors suggested surrogate vote buying would also be permitted. The National Distillers' Association issued a statement of support for the bill: "It is the American way to pay people to vote a certain way with a bottle of whisky or spirit of choice."

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FEC Still Short Commissioners

Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, writes an opinion piece in Roll Call ($$) on the current stalemate with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) nominations.

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Group Challenges West Virginia's Electioneering Communications Laws

The Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) filed a lawsuit challenging a West Virginia electioneering communications law. CFIF wants to run television and radio ads targeting West Virginia's upcoming Supreme Court elections, but doesn't want to disclose how much it spends or who is paying for the ads.

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Photo ID requirement receives preliminary approval from Kansas House

Yesterday, the Kansas House of Representatives gave preliminary approval to a bill that would require Kansas voters to shower photo ID at the polls. The bill is expected to be voted on next Friday. If passed, the new legislation would come into effect by the 2010 election. The bill includes exemptions for voters 65 years old and over, those with disabilities, soldiers on active duty away from their district, and citizens living abroad. The Wichita Eagle offers more details on the bill.

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Election day registration in MA could boost turnout

A new report by Demos estimates that Election Day Registration (EDR) in Massachusetts would increase overall voter turnout by nearly 5% and would increase the youth vote by nearly 10%. EDR allows citizens to register and to vote on Election Day. The report was authored by R. Michael Alvarez of Cal Tech and Jonathan Nagler of NYU. In their report, Alvarez and Nagler, write "Moving to EDR would lower that hurdle for thousands of citizens in Massachusetts, and bring more participants into the democratic process."

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Whitehouse bill would stop voter caging

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is proposing new legislation that would put an end to voter caging, a practice in which the voter rolls are questioned. It can lead to unwarranted purges or challenges of eligible citizens. The Caging Prohibition Act (S. 2305) would outlaw voter caging, and was first introduced in November 2007, and is pending before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. Sheldon, testifying before the committee in February, said,

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Election law expert believes Roberts Court may be taking voting rights in wrong direction

In commentary posted on Wednesday, Rick L. Hasen -- a law professor at Loyola Law School-- argues that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party may be setting the groundwork for future decisions that could limit voting rights. By rejecting facial challenges to election law, Hasen believes,the Supreme Court, will allow increasing restrictions on voting, and will likely uphold the Indiana voter ID requirement law in the Crawford v. Marion County Election Board case pending before the court. Hasen writes,

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TIGTA Advises Increased Examination of Exempt Organizations

A report released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), found that the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) examines fewer than 1 percent of the 70,000 applications from groups applying for tax-exempt status each year.

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Resources & Research

Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards

People of color and people living in poverty, especially poor children of color, are significantly more likely...

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A Tale of Two Retirements: One for CEOs and One for the Rest of Us

The 100 largest CEO retirement funds are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American fam...

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