Saturday, November 9, 2013

Some good news for a Saturday night

1. Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration will pursue Louisiana residents who took advantage of technical problems with the food stamp system on Oct. 12 and purchased amounts of food that were above and beyond what was allowed.

2. In a setback for gun-control advocates, a state appeals court has barred enforcement of a California law that would require all purchases of ammunition "principally for use" in handguns to be made in person rather than by mail order or on the Internet.

The law, which has been blocked by court orders since 2011, would require buyers of ammunition to be thumb-printed and sellers to keep records of the transactions.  This will almost certainly be appealed to the state supreme court, but at least sanity is prevailing for now.
"I'd always said it was a long shot," Wilson says. "No, I didn't expect to win."
Still, he figured he'd have fun running, because he was fed up with what he called "all the shenanigans" at the Houston Community College System. As a conservative white Republican running in a district whose voters are overwhelmingly black Democrats, the odds seemed overwhelmingly against him.
Then he came up with an idea, an advertising strategy that his opponent found "disgusting." If a white guy didn't have a chance in a mostly African-American district, Wilson would lead voters to think he's black.
And it apparently worked. In one of the biggest political upsets in Houston politics this election season, Wilson -- an anti-gay activist and former fringe candidate for mayor -- emerged as the surprise winner over 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin. His razor thin margin of victory, only 26 votes, was almost certainly influenced by his racially tinged campaign.

   "A panel of Florida legislators on Thursday easily defeated an effort to repeal the state's controversial "stand your ground law" Thursday following hours of passionate testimony."

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