Ny Safidinao

The recent flurry of state bills giving religious exemptions from certain laws -- including the Arizona law that Gov. Jan Brewer (R) just vetoed -- raises a question: How many states already provide heightened protection for the exercise of religion? The answer? Thirty-one, 18 of which passed state laws based on the 1993 federal  Religious Freedom Restoration Act . The protections in an additional 13 states came through court rulings. Here's a map of which states have added protections and which do not: "These state RFRAs were enacted in response to Supreme Court decisions that had nothing to do with gay rights or same-sex marriage," explained University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock in an e-mail. "And the state court decisions interpreting their state constitutions arose in all sorts of contexts, mostly far removed from  gay rights or same-sex marriage. There were cases about Amish buggies, hunting moose for native Alaskan funeral rituals, an atte

Leave it to a British comic to school us all on the least talked-about race problem in America—well, except the millions of Americans living in Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. John Oliver’s recent viral video about the Insular Cases , and their role in this country’s ugly racial past entertained and shocked a lot of Americans, just hours after President Obama told a crowd gathered in Selma that “our work is never done.” Oliver’s wit, framed around Obama’s words, created a perfect storm of discovery. Though, you would think, in 2015, this wouldn’t seem so surprising—yes, the American government was blatantly racist toward peoples conquered as spoils of war.   But anyone from non-state territories like the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, or Puerto Rico—especially, Puerto Rico—could have told you that. The problem was no one was really listening until Oliver gave the Insular Cases comedic street cr

Puerto Rico will see its first independent candidate for governor, Alexandra Lugaro, who will run without aligning to the two dominant parties. The young attorney promises to reveal the truths about the island's problems as well as more progressive stance on social issues. On Tuesday Lugaro, a 33-year-old attorney, announced she will run for governor of Puerto Rico in the 2016 elections, by which time she will be 35 and eligible to be governor if she wins. Lugaro is the executive director of America Aponte & Associates, founded by her mother, and holds the same post at the Metropolitan New School of Puerto Rico, reports Primera Hora . Although both organizations have contracts with the Puerto Rican Department of Education, Lugaro says this will not affect her candidacy. Rather it strengthens her position on the government's economy problems, she argued. "I'm not part of the problem," she said, arguing the Education Department does not have the means to do

Starting Tuesday, Puerto Rico has its first-ever independent candidate for governor - a young, highly educated attorney and businesswoman who rejects the island's traditional political duopoly and personifies the values and demands of Spain's "indignados" and the Occupy movement in the United States. "I'd love to gather the support of Puerto Rican people who, as in other countries, are tired of a two-party system and want the budget well administered and up-to-date policies put in place," Alexandra Lugano, 33, told Efe minutes after going public with her history-making candidacy. About to receive her doctorate from Madrid's Universidad Complutense, she does not hesitate to announce her platform: to renogotiate the debt if necessary, legalize marijuana and same-sex marriage, and make religious institutions pay taxes, among other projects. All are very controversial matters on the island and Lugano says she is fully aware that a candidate of one of

A recent march in Mayagüez, at the western end of Puerto Rico, in favor of gender equity organized by Paz para la Mujer. Taken from their Facebook page . The announcement on February 25 that Rafael Román Meléndez, Puerto Rico's Secretary of Education, signed Circular Letter No. 19-2014-2015 , which makes the inclusion of gender perspective an integral part of the curriculum in public schools, was great news for the country's many people and organizations that champion gender equity. Below is the complete document: The Coordinadora Paz para la Mujer , a coalition of many different organizations dedicated to eradicating violence against women, also celebrated the news and offered to help the Department of Education in its work implementing the necessary changes: We recognize that the public policy adopted by the Department of Education is the result of a tireless struggle of groups of women and organizations that for decades have believed and defended the human rights of all

As crowds marked the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala. over the weekend, comedian John Oliver pointed out on Sunday that millions of Americans still go without basic voting rights. Those born in several U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and Guam, are U.S. citizens but aren't able to vote for president or have a representative in Congress that can vote. The British star noted that this is partly because of the racist thinking that prevailed among U.S. political leaders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “More than 4 million people live in the U.S. territories. More than 98 percent of them are racial or ethnic minorities,” Oliver said, citing U.S. Census figures. “And the more you look into the history of why their voting rights are restricted, the harder it is to justify. Because it goes all the way back to when America first acquired them.” The show then runs footage of an interview with Anne Perez Hattori, a professor of Guam history wh

we petition the Obama administration to: To ask from Congress and the White House, immediate action, in deposing Governor Alejandro García-Padilla’s from office. His Administration is a threat to the economy and the people of Puerto Rico – even to democracy. Puerto Rico doesn’t need an electoral process, it need an impeachment process. The time is ripe for an investigation and action, over what has been done with the people’s money over the last two years. Congress, under Art. IV, Sec. 3 of the U.S. Constitution, has the power to intervene with it: as a territory; a condition reiterated judicially by the U.S. Supreme Court. Published Date: Feb 18, 2015 Issues: Economy , Government Reform , Human Rights Learn about Petition Thresholds It's up to you to build support for petitions you care about and gather more signatures. A petition must get 150 signatures in order to be publicly searchable on WhiteHouse.gov. Over time, we may need to adjust the petitio

One of the best-known photographs of Hillary Rodham Clinton taken in the past several years is that of her in 2011 jetting from Malta to Tripoli aboard an Air Force C-17, wearing dark sunglasses and typing on a BlackBerry. But according to Representative Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican leading a House investigation into her handling of the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, his committee has not seen any of the emails she sent that day, or from the trip during which the picture was taken. “There are gaps of months and months and months,” Mr. Gowdy said Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “It strains credibility to believe if you’re on your way to Libya to discuss Libyan policy that there is not a single document to turn over to Congress.” The furor over Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email account and server during her time as secretary of state showed no signs of abating on Sunday, nearly a week after The New Yor

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record. Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act. It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013. Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Saturday that he had learned only last week that Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private email system for her official correspondence while she was secretary of state. In an interview with Bill Plante of CBS News, Mr. Obama said the policy of his administration was to “encourage transparency” and that he was pleased that Mrs. Clinton had instructed the State Department to turn over her emails for archiving. “My emails, the Blackberry I carry around, all those records are available and archived,” Mr. Obama said, according to an excerpt from the interview released Saturday evening. “I’m glad that Hillary’s instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.” In the portion of the interview that was released, Mr. Obama did not address how he could have avoided noticing that Mrs. Clinton was sending emails from a “clintonemail.com” address throughout the years she served in his administration. Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email s

WASHINGTON — The government will examine thousands of Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails for public release — and for possible security lapses — after revelations she used a private account to conduct official business as secretary of state, a senior State Department official said Thursday. Clinton's extensive use of private emails has raised questions in the buildup to her expected presidential run about whether she adhered to the letter or spirit of accountability laws. The official said the department would review 55,000 pages of emails amassed from Clinton's personal files to determine if there were any instances where she improperly transmitted sensitive information. The official was not authorized to be quoted on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. State Department policy holds that information that is not classified as secret but contains sensitive national security or diplomatic information can only be conveyed on secure channels except for certain circu

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out an appeals court decision that went against the University of Notre Dame over its religious objections to the Obamacare health law's contraception requirement. The justices asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision in favor of the Obama administration in light of the June 2014 Supreme Court ruling that allowed closely held corporations to seek exemptions from the provision. The court's action means the February 2014 appeals court ruling that denied the South Bend, Indiana-based Roman Catholic university an injunction against the requirement has been wiped out. The 2010 Affordable Care Act, known widely as Obamacare, requires employers to provide health insurance policies that cover preventive services for women including access to contraception and sterilization. In the 2014 ruling, the high court said that Hobby Lobby Stores Ltd could, on religious grounds, seek exemptio

We loved “House of Cards”: the lies, chicanery, double-crosses, duplicity, an occasional murder, sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Sure. Just a slightly fictionalized version of everyday life here in River City. But this season they’ve gone just too far. (Spoiler alert!) President Frank Underwood’s nomination of first lady Claire to be ambassador to the United Nations could never have happened. That’s because it’s illegal. Yes, murder’s generally not legal, either, but our understanding is this nomination is specifically barred by the Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act of 1967, which is called the Bobby Kennedy law because a section was passed in response to President Kennedy’s appointment of his brother as U.S. attorney general. The language is both clear and sweeping: It says “a public official …(including the President …) may not appoint, promote [or] advance” a relative in an agency . . . “over which he exercises jurisdiction or control…” The law defines “relative” as a “father,