National Guard’s hybrid status makes sexual assault confusing to prosecute

After spending the last year revamping the Defense Department’s sexual assault prosecution avenues, Congressional leaders are now diving into the complex patchwork of legalities surrounding the issue in the National Guard. Lawmakers are concerned that the hybrid nature of the National Guard is leaving gaps in DoD and law enforcement’s ability to oversee and bring legal proceedings against sexual assault offenders. “The individual stories of Guard personnel caught in a web of confusing bureaucracy are harrowing,” Rep. Jackie Speier, chairwoman of the House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee said during a…

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It’s Time to Go on ‘Offense Every Single Day for the Unborn,’ Heritage’s Kevin Roberts Says

It is time for America to recognize that “abortion, just like slavery, is one of the greatest human evils that humans have ever experienced in world history,” Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, said to a crowd of pro-life students and advocates Saturday.  It’s time for the pro-life community to be on “offense every single day for the unborn and moms and dads and families in America,” Roberts said.   The president of The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, spoke to pro-life activists on the main stage…

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Connect! Unite! Act! We can be leaders in renewable energy

Connect! Unite! Act! is a weekly series that seeks to create face-to-face networks in each congressional district. Groups meet regularly to socialize, get out the vote, support candidates, and engage in other local political actions that help our progressive movement grow and exert influence on the powers that be. Visit us every week to see how you can get involved! If you listen to people who back oil and gas energy, you would feel as though any attempt to look into, investigate, or even evaluate alternative energy would be the equivalent of stabbing…

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Langevin pressing on cybersecurity, climate change in final act

Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), a nearly 22-year veteran in Congress and champion of cyber issues, plans to retire at the end of this term, but there are still some loose ends he wants to tie up before calling it quits. Langevin is chairman of the House Armed Services Cyber, Innovative Technologies and IT Subcommittee and previous leader of the now-defunct Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Intelligence Subcommittee. In those positions he pushed to make cybersecurity a top issue in the Defense Department before it was on many people’s radar. His efforts…

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Florida suspends county health officer for daring to encourage vaccination among his employees

Republicans are really on a roll, aren’t they? First, they support Donald Trump, then Vladimir Putin—and now they’re using the copious political capital they’ve built up with the pig-ignorant half of America to go all-in for COVID-19. I shudder to think what’s next. Maybe they can repeal car-seat laws so toddlers are free to catapult into chemical freight trucks, as God and the Founders intended. So Florida—which is basically Disney World surrounded by 65,000 square miles of childish fantasy—has apparently decided that making Joe Biden look bad so its governor can…

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News Roundup: Senate battle for voting protections; Supreme Court rejects latest Trump gambit

In the news today: Tonight saw the latest Senate battle to protect voting rights even as Republican-held state legislatures pass unprecedented rollbacks targeting those rights. What’s next is unclear, but Democratic leaders organized the vote tonight as a move to force the two Senate Democratic holdouts—as well as all Senate Republicans—on record for blocking the urgently needed protections. Also this evening, the Supreme Court rejected a Trump demand that the National Archives refuse a congressional request for administration records pertaining to the violence on January 6. Justice Thomas was the…

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