The Florida Republicans suffered two defeats in their War On Voting™.

First, the Miami Herald reports that the DOJ remembered it is supposed to uphold Federal laws:

The Justice Department ordered Florida’s elections division to halt a systematic effort to find and purge the state’s voter rolls of noncitizen voters.

Florida’s effort appears to violate both the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects minorities, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act – which governs voter purges – T. Christian Herren Jr., the Justice Department’s lead civil rights lawyer, wrote in a detailed two-page letter sent late Thursday night.

State officials said they were reviewing the letter. But they indicated they might fight DOJ over its interpretation of federal law and expressed frustration that President Barack Obama’s administration has stonewalled the state’s noncitizen voter hunt for nine months.

Florida is on the Federal watch list for its history of suppressing minority voters, so changes to election laws require approval before taking effect, and purging the voters list can’t take place within 90 days of an election, which was May 16. These are not new requirements if you look at the year of the affected laws. These only affect the election to Federal offices.

In another loss, Federal Court Enjoins Oppressive Florida Rule Designed to Make Voter Registration Difficult.

A law suit was filed in the Federal Court in Tallahassee by the League of Women Voters of Florida, Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, and Rock the Vote over the changes the Republicans made to the election law covering the registration process. One of the first people to run afoul of the change in the law was a teacher who was trying to get students to register and vote if they were eligible.

Mustang Bobby also noted that Florida Election Laws Get Federal Attention, and he has different sources, so the emphasis is different.

The Bill Gray 2012 Guess:

The Colorado State University forecast team has increased its predictions for the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season.

Forecasters now call for 13 named storms, with five of those expected to become hurricanes and two of those to become major hurricanes.

The two pre-season storms, Alberto and Beryl, are included in the revised prediction.

The team still anticipates slightly below-average activity due to cooling of the Atlantic and the potential development of El Nino.

Jeff Masters provides a round-up of the majority of guesses plus a lot of technical information that is being used to support the forecasts.

Looking at the latest Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures I don’t see any major pool of warm water, i.e. an El Niño, but the La Niña [a pool of cool water in the Pacific off Peru] just faded, so it may happen in the future.

Overall the Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature are down a bit in the area where most hurricanes are born, which is good news. Not so good news for the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Maine is that their SSTs are higher than normal, increasing the risk of something nasty hitting them.

June 1^st:

The official start of the hurricane season.

Events:
1495 – Friar John Cor records the first known batch of scotch whisky.
1660 – Mary Dyer is hanged in Boston, Massachusetts, for defying a law banning Quakers from the colony. She is considered by some to be the last religious martyr in what would become the United States.
1890 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machine to count census returns.
1967 – The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is released.
1980 – The Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting.

Births:
1563 – Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, English statesman and spymaster (d. 1612)
1780 – Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian general (d. 1831)
1804 – Mikhail Glinka, Russian composer (d. 1857)

For some reason I didn’t make the list.

Early Education

Where is it?

[Editor: The lighter of the tabbie kittens is attempting to locate the grackle that is making all the noise.]

Friday Ark