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MOREAU After nearly two years of dysfunction at Town Board meetings, Democrats are sensing opportunity.

This might be the moment they regain the supervisor position, which they lost to Republican Gardner Congdon two years ago.

Two candidates are vying to run for the seat on the Democratic line. The Democrats will select one of them at their caucus, Aug. 3 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall.

They also have two candidates who want to run for Town Board, giving the Democrats a full slate.

The Democrats won't identify the candidates until the caucus.

The caucus promises to be an interesting one because there are more than enough candidates for the positions already. The Democrats will also take nominations from the floor, as always, said Chairman Kevin Elms.

The assembled Democrats will choose among the candidates rather than running a primary election.

Its a big year for the Democrats in several ways. Two longtime Republicans Todd Kusnierz and Bob Prendergast are not running for re-election to their Town Board seats. Kusnierz is running for supervisor, while Prendergast is retiring.

That leaves both seats open to newcomers, which Elms said could give his candidates a better chance than when they must run against popular incumbents.

Our town has proven before they dont vote by party. They vote for the person, he said.

Also, Congdon is not running for re-election to the supervisors position. (Condgon said that from the start, when he ran for the office two years ago.)

And Elms thinks some voters may have been disillusioned by the way the current Town Board and supervisor have conducted business. He suspects they might long for the days of Democratic Supervisor Preston Jenkins Jr., who was voted out by a slight margin in 2015.

That left just one Democrat on the board. But shortly after Congdon took over, even the Republicans on the board began to complain that they could not get anything done amid the rancor and bickering at board meetings.

Elms said the Town Board meetings became so painful to watch that he stopped attending.

Its so discouraging. Nothing has been accomplished, he said. I want to get things done. Its like, guys, stop. Get the work done.

Hes hoping voters will choose Democrats in response to the current boards troubles.

Were going to try hard, Elms said.

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Moreau Democrats eager to run for office - Glens Falls Post-Star

President Trump caused some head scratching when he told a plane full of journalists en route to France that what Id like to do is a comprehensive immigration plan. But as the Russia investigations drag on, the prospects for health care reform are on hold, and tax reform continues to be a work in progress, this seemingly far-fetched plan may in fact be the most likely opportunity for the president to land a signature legislative victory during his first year in office.

Its not the conventional bet, but this is not a conventional time nor a conventional president and, this is not the first time weve seen him lay some groundwork for such a pursuit.

The travel ban and aggressive enforcement have been the face of the administrations immigration policy thus far, but the facts on the ground have changed of late. The president just announced the number of illegal border crossings has dropped by 75 percent since his inauguration. This may create the opportunity to do more.

Getting to yes on immigration would be a legacy-making move for President Trump his Nixon-goes-to-China moment.

Even before his comments on Air Force One, President Trump had signaled a desire and willingness to go beyond enforcement to fix the broken visa system and address the fact that 11 million people live here without legal status.

A couple weeks ago he told Apple CEO Tim Cook and a gathering of tech leaders that he would put more heartinto the immigration debate and pledged to work on comprehensive immigration reform, a sentiment he had expressed a couple months earlier to a room full of broadcast journalists.

These comments may be far from setting administration policy indeed, Secretary of Homeland Security Kelly just indicated he may not defend Obama-era protection for DREAMers and Politico is reporting that some in the Trump Administration are advocating for cutting legal immigration in half but they do make clear that a broad immigration overhaul is on the presidents mind and he is open to taking on the issue that has stymied every president since Reagan.

Ill be the first to acknowledge reasonable skepticism, but working on this issue from a nonpartisan vantage point, I believe there are three compelling reasons to believe immigration reform is and should be at the top of the agenda:

First, this is how President Trump can fulfill his promises on immigration enforcement. On its own, a bill to build a wall is dead on arrival in the Senate. However, in 2013, a comprehensive bill passed the Senate with votes from 54 Democrats and 14 Republicans. And it passed because instead of focusing solely on enforcement, it overhauled our outdated legal immigration system.

The bill didnt skimp on the border, either. It included $46 billion for security and enforcement, double what President Trump is requesting for his wall now. It mandated hundreds of miles of walls and fences, doubled the number of border patrol agents, and funded aircraft, watchtowers, ground sensors, and mobile surveillance to further monitor the border, while also cracking down on employers who hired undocumented immigrants.

Second, and in contrast to many of the administrations other legislative priorities, overhauling the immigration system already enjoys major bipartisan support in this Congress. Since the 2013 bill, new Republican supporters like Senator Thom Tillis have joined longtime Republican stalwarts like Senators Flake and Hatch in calling for broad immigration reform.

In this Congress, Republicans in both chambers have already introduced four distinct bills that would provide undocumented immigrants with legal status. (One such bill in the House has attracted more than 200 co-sponsors, including 99 Republicans.)

Finally, despite all the political rhetoric, immigration is actually one of the least controversial policy issues out there. Americans dont want open borders and amnesty, but they also dont want to deport 11 million people, the vast majority of whom are not criminals, are working, and are active members of their communities.

Multiple polls show that Americans of all political persuasions, including a clear majority of Trump voters, overwhelmingly support immigration reform that would secure the border, grant legal status to non-criminal undocumented immigrants, and bring the visa system into the 21st century by increasing protections for American workers while also allowing companies to recruit the top talent and necessary workers to fill gaps in the American workforce.

Importantly, popular support for these policies is only growing but to enact them, well need a dealmaker who can succeed where so many others have failed.

To get a deal, President Trump needs to sweeten the pot by adding broadly popular reforms that would grow the American economy. According to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, such comprehensive reform would cut the deficit by $900 billion over 20 years because of tax revenues from the millions of people who would be able to formally enter the workforce, and would actually result in a 0.5 percent wage increase for all American workers. It would go a long way toward supporting the administrations economic growth and job creation goals the presidents own chair of the Council of Economic Advisers has written extensively on the large gains immigration reform can bring while also creating the budget room for other major priorities.

Of course, the loudest voices might insist on an enforcement-only approach, and decry anything they suspect to be amnesty. But balanced against such a challenge will be the enormous political, historical, and economic upside of passing comprehensive immigration reform. Getting to yes on immigration would be a legacy-making move for President Trump his Nixon-goes-to-China moment, one that would put his deal-making skills on a level with the last president to sign immigration reform, Ronald Reagan.

After decades of gridlock on immigration, political necessity and popular demand seem to have aligned. Now its in the power of the Dealmaker in Chief to make immigration reform a reality.

Jeremy Robbins is the executive director of New American Economy.

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Immigration may be the biggest -- and least expected -- legislative victory this year - Fox News

Immigration coverage has been a hot button issue in the US since the 2016 presidential election. Increased discussion and legislation on immigration correlates with the rising level of coverage on both local and national levels.

From Donald Trumps travel ban to increased deportation forces immigration, and the discussion around sanctuary cities has taken a more personal turn, especially in areas of with large immigrant populations. With the increase in coverage there is also an increase in incorporating personal stories into the reporting.

National publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times have published many articles sharing the stories of those affected by the various immigration policies and changes since the beginning of this year. This shift and increase in coverage humanizes the immigration battle and putting names and faces to the people that deal the struggle of immigration reform everyday. From police enforcement, to undocumented immigrants and their children the nation is now able to take a closer look at the lives of those who make up the immigration statistics.

Reporters are getting also taking a closer look into local communities and sharing these stories all over the nation. This is seen in coverage of towns across the country affected by the threats to sanctuary cities, or how everyone is affected by deportation efforts in Oregon.

After the 2016 elections national media faced criticism over their lack of connection to Middle America and are still struggling with legitimacy in a turbulent time for media and press relations. In terms of immigration coverage, national newspapers are taking steps to tell stories from a wide variety of peoples and speak to all ends of the spectrum when it comes to immigration coverage.

The leaders in immigration coverage are Spanish language media, especially Telemundo and Univision. Both stations are taking great strides and talking directly to people that are affected by the current shifts in immigration.

On Telemundo, journalist Jorge Ramos and his Sunday afternoon political show Al Punto has created a segment centered around telling the stories of those affected by immigration. He speaks with children, mothers, employers and organizations focused on immigration reform about the effects of Donald Trumps proposed policies and the increase in deportation efforts.

Coverage has not only increased at a national level, but in local newspapers as well. Uriel Garcia of The Santa Fe New Mexican said that since the election his coverage of immigration has increased. Though his approach to immigration has not changed, the demand and reception for his pieces on immigration is increasing.

When writing, Garcia focuses on both personal stories and immigration enforcement, but writes in a broader national angle because stories from Northern-New Mexico are worth telling someone in DC and the rest of the nation.

Statistics and ICE raid reports are one way to tell a story, but by putting names and faces to those affected by the new policies, the press is able to connect the people of the US to more than just a number. Learning about the effects of immigration on schools, families and even local police enforcement helps to give people more information and connect the nation.

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Making Immigration Reform Personal - MediaFile

Cloudflare and Credo Mobile today lost their fight to speak publicly about the National Security Letters they and other tech companies receive, which demand user data and frequently forbid companies from ever disclosing the demands to their users.

The two companies received NSLs from the FBI in 2011 and 2013, requiring them to secretly disclose account information.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, representing web performance company Cloudflare and mobile network Credo, said the gag orders accompanying the NSLs violated the companies rights to free speech. But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that this nondisclosure requirement does not run afoul of the First Amendment.

The ruling is a major upset for Cloudflare and Credo, as well as for larger tech companies that have begun disclosing NSLs over the past year. Companies that receive NSLs are usually restricted from discussing them for yearssometimes foreverand, if they disclose them in transparency reports, they may only do so in ranges of 500.

The EFF argued that companies with millions of users should be allowed to disclose the specific number of NSLs they receive and to mention their experiences receiving NSLs when communicating with customers or lobbying the government. (While lobbying against NSLs in 2014, Cloudflares in-house counsel was told by a dismissive Capitol Hill staffer that it was impossible for Cloudflare to receive an NSL, and because of the gag order, he was unable to point out that Cloudflare had already received several of the letters.)

Id be lying if I didnt say this is a real setback, EFF staff attorney Andrew Crocker told Gizmodo. But the trend is going the other way. Ive seen a lot of courts questioning these blanket indefinite gag orders.

Twitter, which is also challenging NSL gag orders in court, recently secured a promising ruling from a district court judge that suggests Twitters reporting of NSLs in narrower ranges than 500 could be protected under the First Amendment.

The 9th Circuit, however, was more dismissive of the reporting bands: We decline the recipients invitation to quibble with the particular ranges selected by Congress, the court wrote.

In 2017, its really unsupportable to not give internet companies like my clients a full First Amendment set of rights that they would give to any other speaker, Crocker said, likening internet service providers like Cloudflare to traditional publishers like newspapers. The implicit assumption in this ruling is that they dont have this set of rights.

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Companies Don't Have a First Amendment Right to Talk About National Security Letters, Court Rules - Gizmodo

Conservative Review

Hey, media! Blocked by Trump? Follow him here Conservative Review A lawsuit was filed last week by the Knight First Amendment Institution, arguing that Trump's Twitter feed is a public forum. Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza is a commentator in a social justice magazine, an employee of the Center for American Progress ... and more »

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Hey, media! Blocked by Trump? Follow him here - Conservative Review