PoliticsYahoo NewsTexas attorney general asked Trump administration to revoke COVID relief funds for Harris County
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the Trump administration in the spring to revoke millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief for Harris County, which includes Houston, because the funds were earmarked to expand mail-in voting in the 2020 election. Paxton wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on May 21, the Houston Chronicle reported, claiming that using federal money to increase mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic violated state law. “We respectfully ask the department to scrutinize its award of CARES Act funding to Harris County in light of the county's stated intent to use federal funding in violation of state law, and to the extent possible, seek return of any amounts improperly spent on efforts to promote illegal mail-in voting,” Paxton wrote in the letter.
The Cost of Renting a Private Jet May Surprise You
Search for private jet membership. The affordable price makes these private jet offers hard to resist
PoliticsThe IndependentUS companies no longer have to pay sick leave to people with Covid after Mitch McConnell reportedly blocks extension
US businesses will no longer have to provide sick leave to employees who contract coronavirus, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly blocked an extension of the policy. At the start of the pandemic in the US in March, Congress passed legislation that allowed employees to claim two weeks of paid sick leave if they contracted Covid-19. The legislation also mandated two weeks of paid leave to care for a relative who was quarantining after contracting Covid-19, and 10 weeks of paid family leave to look after a child whose school or daycare was closed because of the pandemic.
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Australian writer detained in China sends defiant Christmas message
SYDNEY (Reuters) -An Australian writer detained in Beijing on spying allegations has told his readers to "pursue democracy, rule of law and freedom" in a Christmas message from prison that said 300 interrogations had not yielded any evidence. Pro-democracy blogger Yang Hengjun, who is facing trial on espionage charges that he denies, has been unable to receive visits from his wife or family since he was arrested in January 2019 after he arrived at Guangzhou airport from New York. Yang said in his message that after "torture, more than 300 interrogations and a lot of verbal abuse, I am now in a place of deeper retrospective and introspective meditation", according to his former teacher, Feng Chongyi, who is based in Sydney.
"When people's votes are treated as unequal, it's a short jump to treating people as unequal."
“The Electoral College was created to give people in diverse states influence in selecting a national leader.”
“The electoral college exacerbates racial privilege by allowing predominantly White states an outsized say over the future.”
“If the answer is ‘majority rules,’ why stop with the White House? Why not put the Bill of Rights up for popular vote?”
“We can keep the Electoral College — but only if the U.S. gets rid of political parties. We can’t have both.”