The United States may be a land of freedom and opportunity, but it is also a place with some seriously dumb laws. Take Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 for example, which legally prevents high-beam and low-beam headlight elements from operating at the same time. That may have seemed like an issue in 1967 when the rule arrived, but it has somehow managed to keep adaptive headlights out of the U.S. for nearly two decades. Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has finally come to terms with industry pressures. A new rule signed on February 1 will finally allow automakers to install adaptive headlights in the U.S.
Been hearing a lot about ERIC on NPR lately. While they have been reporting a lot about conservative push back about ERIC, there hasn't been a lot of reporting on conservative concerns about it.
Not sure if they are legitimate concerns - seems like encouraging potential voters to register is a good thing, but their views are worth hearing. Plus it seems like they should be checking for duplicate voter registrations when people move out of state and if people are voting in multiple states.
But I also could see why conservatives might not like the system - a lot of emphasis is encouraging people to register to vote, with other purposes worthwhile but secondary. And it's been strongly pushed by liberal funders. But it seems like it's not a bad idea to keep voter rolls tidy and have a tool to investigate fraud the rare times it happens.
Americans Aren’t As Polarized As The News Makes It Seem 2/10/22
by FiveThirtyEight, 538, ABC News, Nate Silver
Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/135307118 Episode: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/ESP9949263941.mp3?updated=1644525298
Political scientists Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan suggest that focusing only on the Left/Right divide in American politics is reductive. By doing so we are missing another important divide, one that may actually run counter to the idea that America is hopelessly conflicted between red and blue.
For years leading up to the 2020 election, then-President Donald Trump was clear: If he lost, it would be because of voter fraud.
Ahead of California's recall election Tuesday, for which ballots were mailed to all 22 million registered voters in the state, he made a similar baseless declaration.
"Does anybody really believe the California Recall Election isn't rigged?" Trump said in a statement Monday. "Millions and millions of Mail-In Ballots will make this just another giant Election Scam, no different, but less blatant, than the 2020 Presidential Election Scam!"
A Republican hasn't won a statewide race in California since 2006, and recent polling shows Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom favored to beat the recall and keep his office.
Still, Republicans are already setting the stage to blame a loss on voter fraud, and not on a declining base of support in a state that President Biden won by 5 million votes last year.
ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a $41 million expenditure to repair the hallowed grand staircase on the front of the state Capitol.
The East-facing steps to the Capitol, which provide views looking toward the Hudson River, are set to undergo a rehabilitation that could re-open the towering but disintegrating staircase that has been closed for years due to safety concerns.
It's part of a broader proposal by Hochul to spend $242 million on infrastructure projects related to state government. State officials have budgeted on the assumption that the federal government's "Build Back Better Act" will not pass in Congress.
WASHINGTON — The number of competitive congressional districts is on track to dive near — and possibly below — the lowest level in at least three decades, as Republicans and Democrats draw new political maps designed to ensure that the vast majority of House races are over before the general election starts.
With two-thirds of the new boundaries set, mapmakers are on pace to draw fewer than 40 seats — out of 435 — that are considered competitive based on the 2020 presidential election results, according to a New York Times analysis of election data. Ten years ago that number was 73.
While the exact size of the battlefield is still emerging, the sharp decline of competition for House seats is the latest worrying sign of dysfunction in the American political system, which is already struggling with a scourge of misinformation and rising distrust in elections. Lack of competition in general elections can widen the ideological gulf between the parties, leading to hardened stalemates on legislation and voters’ alienation from the political process.
“The reduction of competitive seats is a tragedy,” said former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who is chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “We end up with gridlock, we end up with no progress and we end up with a population looking at our legislatures and having this feeling that nothing gets done.” He added: “This gridlock leads to cynicism about this whole process.”