Latest news with #DominicGwinn
Newsweek
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
Company Bans White Supremacists From Renting Trucks
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Penske Truck Rental said on Sunday that it had banned members of the white nationalist hate group Patriot Front from renting its vehicles. The company's decision comes after videos on social media showed masked members of Patriot Front fleeing in one of the company's yellow trucks after being confronted by a group of people in downtown Springfield, Missouri, on Saturday. Newsweek has contacted Penske and the Springfield Police Department for further comment via email. Why It Matters Patriot Front frequently relies on rented trucks to transport members to demonstrations in cities across the country. Penske's response is the first public rebuke by a major company against the group and the decision could affect its ability to rent trucks in the future. The group's protests and public appearances are "typically tightly choreographed and scripted to maximize propaganda value," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front participate in the 2025 March for Life in Washington D.C. on January 24, 2025. Members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front participate in the 2025 March for Life in Washington D.C. on January 24, 2025. Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images What To Know Patriot Front said in videos and posts on social media that its members were in downtown Springfield to protest Ozarks Pridefest, which is held annually in the city. But video of the incident shared by Patriot Front on Telegram and others on social media showed several members—dressed in khaki pants and carrying shields—climbing into the Penske truck after being confronted by a group of people angered by their presence. "Run, cowards, run," a man can be heard yelling in one video of the incident, which captured the license plate number and Department of Transportation number of the truck. "Do something, you f***** pathetic Nazis," another man is heard saying. In a statement, Penske said the incident was "unacceptable" and that the actions had violated its rental agreement. What People Are Saying Penske said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter: "Penske Truck rental is aware of an incident involving one of its vehicles yesterday in Springfield, Missouri. This incident is unacceptable. We strongly condemn these individuals and their actions, which violate out rental agreement. Effective immediately, the individual(s) on the rental agreement are banned from future rentals." Patriot Front has not public commented on the ban, but said in a post on Telegram on Saturday: "Deranged and violent homosexual aggressors attempt to silence the lawful speech of the patriotic activists, and target individual members for assault. However, disciplined conduct on the part of the activists and the intervention of other bystanders renders the attacks useless. All are able to depart safely and without incident." What's Next Penske's decision could put pressure on other rental companies to review their policies about allowing Patriot Front and other extremist groups to rent trucks, which could affect their ability to organize.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The SAVE Act Could Threaten Voting Access—And Repeat History
People participate in a protest in front of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. on Presidents' Day, Feb. 17, 2025. Credit - Dominic Gwinn—Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images On April 10, 2025, the House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on a largely party-line vote. Republicans hailed the bill as a way to safeguard American elections from undocumented migrants voting. Critics, by contrast, warn it could make voting more difficult—if not impossible—for legally eligible voters. That's especially true for tens of millions of married women, who may not be able to provide the required documentation to prove their citizenship to register to vote. Presenting a birth certificate remains the easiest way to do so under the Act. However, many married women take their husband's surnames and therefore don't have birth certificates that match their current legal names. If the Senate passes the SAVE Act and President Donald Trump signs it into law, it will mean that millions of American women could find themselves in the shoes of Ethel Mackenzie, an early 20th century suffragist. Like McKenzie, they might see their ability to register and vote inhibited due to a congressional effort to prevent non-citizens from voting. When Mackenzie tried to register to vote after California adopted woman suffrage in 1911, she was shocked to find out she couldn't—despite being born in the Golden State. The culprit: the 1907 Expatriation Act, a federal law that stripped American women of their citizenship when they married non-citizens. Mackenzie's case exposed how nativist policies could harm not just immigrants, but also the rights of American women. Now, the Save Act threatens to do the same. In 1855, Congress passed the Naturalization Act. The law made any immigrant woman who married a citizen man into a citizen herself, as long as she met the racial requirements for citizenship. In 1868, the 14th Amendment established birthright citizenship for all people born in the U.S., except for American Indians and the children of foreign diplomats. Surprise over Trump's Gains With Latinos and Asian Americans Stems From a Flawed Assumption In the last three decades of the 19th century, however, nativist sentiment surged. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. In 1892, Congress extended and expanded the ban in the Geary Act. And in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated the Gentleman's Agreement with Japan restricting Japanese immigration to the U.S. That same year, the State Department pressured Congress to pass the Expatriation Act. Officials argued that marriages between citizens and non-citizens were handled differently by different nations and without a uniform rule in the U.S., the department couldn't determine who was entitled to an American passport and protection while outside of the country. Advocates for women's suffrage thought the bill wasn't a good idea and expected the courts to find it unconstitutional. They believed it was was wildly out of step with the ongoing erosion of coverture, a set of legal practices that the State Department had specifically used to justify their recommendation to Congress. Coverture derived from English common law and dictated that women suffered "civil death" upon marriage. They ceased to have a legal identity, and instead became covered by their husband's legal identity. This left them unable to sign contracts or own property. Suffragists fought to curtail coverture. But they also pushed another agenda item—one that helped propel the passage of the Expatriation Act—disfranchising non-citizens. In the colonial era and the Early Republic, voting eligibility was often tied to property ownership and residency, rather than citizenship. As such, non-citizen voting was often legal and common. The practice surged again in the midwest in the 1830s, and was added to several state constitutions in the Deep South as a Reconstruction reform after the Civil War to counter the votes of unreconstructed white southerners. But in the nativist climate of the early 20th century, the practice had fallen out of favor, and suffragists and other progressives fought to end it. Some suffragists argued that immigrants opposed suffrage for women and prohibition, and therefore immigrant voting posed a threat to their agenda. Reflecting how the two concepts became intertwined, South Dakota, Texas, and Arkansas put amendments on their ballots to enfranchise women while simultaneously ending non-citizen voting. The amendments passed in South Dakota and Arkansas. As adoption of the Expatriation Act proved, the push to end non-citizen voting proved too powerful for suffragists to control. The new law made married women dependent citizens; their citizenship status was now entirely derived from that of their husbands. When McKenzie discovered that the new law prevented her from voting, she filed suit, arguing that Congress could not take away by law what the Constitution granted her by birthright. While suffragists expected the courts would overturn the Expatriation Act, the nativist sentiments of the day were stronger than the trend towards women's rights. In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled against Mackenzie. As Ohio Representative John Cable summarized, the Court found that citizenship 'was not such a right, privilege, or immunity that it could not be taken away by an act of Congress.' The justices found that Mackenzie's decision to marry a non-citizen amounted to 'voluntary expatriation.' She was now stateless and unprotected in her own country. The decision left suffragists concerned that without married women' independent citizenship, suffrage would be an impossibility. Such fears proved wrong: in 1920 the ratification of the 19th Amendment prohibited states from barring women from voting on account of sex. Passage of the suffrage amendment encouraged Congress to revisit married women's independent citizenship, because it meant that immigrant women naturalized through marriage could vote, while American women denaturalized by marriage were disfranchised. The League of Women Voters, formed out of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, lobbied Congress for married women's independent citizenship. In 1922, they scored a partial victory when Congress passed the Cable Act, which ended automatic denaturalization for American women if their spouse was an immigrant racially eligible for citizenship. The law also provided a pathway for denaturalized women to reclaim their citizenship. But it still excluded women who married Asian immigrants. Some politicians used this period of denaturalization strategically to their own advantage. In 1928, Ruth Bryan Owen, daughter of William Jennings Bryan, became the first woman to win election to the U.S. House of Representatives from a former Confederate state. But upon her victory, her opponent sued arguing that her period of denaturalization after marrying a British serviceman during WWI meant that she hadn't been a citizen for the previous seven years—a constitutional requirement to serve. The challenge forced Owen, a native born citizen; daughter of a three-time presidential candidate, congressman, and Secretary of State; and a duly elected official from Florida to plead her case before Congress. Her fellow lawmakers chose to seat Owen, rejecting the challenge that threatened to undo the will of her constituents. Voter Suppression Grew Up From the Soil of Emancipation Itself During the 1920s, Congress amended the Cable Act several times. Then, in 1933 the Senate voted to adopt the convention of the Pan American Conference, which argued that differences in nationality laws based on sex should be eliminated. The next year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Equal Nationality Act, through which American women achieved full, independent citizenship. Sixty years later, a new round of concerns of undocumented migration prompted Congress to make it a crime for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. Lawmakers did so even though it hadn't been legal for non-citizens to vote in either state or federal elections in any state since Arkansas's ban went into effect in 1926. Republicans allege that the SAVE Act will help enforce this existing law. But instead, it threatens to disenfranchise millions of married American women. The law stipulates that people can prove citizenship either by presenting a REAL ID or a military identification card, if they confirm a person's citizenship status. But many can not, which leaves people registering to vote with the option of presenting a state identification card or driver's license in conjunction with a certified birth certificate that includes the 'full name' of the applicant. It's this last provision which poses a problem for up to 69 million women who took their husband's name upon getting married. That means their birth certificates no longer include their full legal names. The law makes no allowances for such situations. It does leave room for states to decide which secondary documents to accept, but this would still be an additional burden on married women, could be applied unevenly across the country, and may open the door for challenges to election results—like the one faced by Ruth Bryan Owen—on the grounds that states didn't meet these onerous requirements. A century after the suffrage movement, the SAVE Act threatens to echo the harms of the Expatriation Act. While it's supporters claim it will target non-citizen voters, instead it could prevent American women from voting. Rachel Michelle Gunter is a public historian currently writing a book titled 'Suffragists, Soldiers, and Immigrants: Drastic Changes to Voting Rights in the Progressive Era.' Her series with the Great Courses, "Forgotten America: Rediscovering Events that Changed the Nation" premieres on May 9, 2025. She is on social media as @PhDRachel Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Write to Made by History at madebyhistory@
Buzz Feed
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Buzz Feed
The 56 Most Memorable Signs From "Not My Presidents Day" Protests Around The Country
On Monday, thousands of people participated in "Not My Presidents Day" protests across dozens of cities to express their opposition to Donald Trump's policies and political appointments. Because protest signs are apparently back, here are the most memorable ones: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images 33. Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images 34. Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images 35. Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images 36. Scott Olson / Getty Images 37. Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images 38. Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images 39. Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images 40. Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images 41. Alex Wroblewski / AFP via Getty Images 42. Alex Wroblewski / AFP via Getty Images 43. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images 44. Joe Raedle / Getty Images 45. Joe Raedle / Getty Images 46. Joe Raedle / Getty Images 47. Brandon Bell / Getty Images 48. Joe Raedle / Getty Images 49. Joe Raedle / Getty Images 50. Joe Raedle / Getty Images 51. Brandon Bell / Getty Images 52. David Mcnew / Getty Images 53. David Mcnew / Getty Images 54. David Mcnew / Getty Images 55. Nurphoto / NurPhoto via Getty Images 56. And lastly: Mario Tama / Getty Images Note: In light of President Donald Trump's executive order that threatens to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student protesters — including students with visas — we have blurred all faces in the images below to protect their freedom of speech.
