Another Police Execution

Cop Caught On Tape Shooting Unarmed Man Won't Be Charged With A Crime | ThinkProgress:

...In the prosecutors’ defense, putting a cop in prison is remarkably difficult. Police officers are allowed to shoot if they fear for their lives, and proving that use of force was “unreasonable” sets a very high bar. Few police who have used force under suspicious circumstances ever face a judge. A 2007 study by UChicago law professor Craig Futterman found that just 19 of 10,149 complains of excessive force, illegal searches, racial abuse, sexual abuse, and false arrests led to a police suspension of a week or more. Individual police officers are also largely protected from damages claims in civil court through “qualified immunity...”

The Most Amazing Abuse Of Authority Ever

David Eckert: Colonoscopy, Enema, X-Ray By Cops For Drugs (VIDEO):

David Eckert went shopping at a Wal-Mart in Deming NM on January 2nd, 2013. He then got into his car to leave the parking lot. David Eckert was then stopped by Officer Chavez for allegedly not yielding at a stop sign. Officer Chavez ordered David Eckert out of his car. Things went downhill after that...

Voter Suppression, Texas Style

Former House Speaker denied voter ID card in Texas after voting since 1944 | FreakOutNation:

Former House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office and says, “Nobody was ugly to us, but they insisted that they wouldn’t give me an ID.” Wright has voted in every election since 1944.

About ten days ago, a Texas district judge was almost barred from the polls. She has voted for the past 49 years without issue until now, courtesy of the state’s new voter ID law...

Bad Words In The Airport

There's only one way to wipe out racism and that is to wipe out all racism. Please join me and remind people that bigotry extends beyond pigmentation.

When no one said anything: How racism goes unquestioned - Salon.com:

...Not one person said anything; I was surrounded by people...

Nor did you.

I've been called disparaging names to my face many times and routinely see offensively enraging terms used casually in the media. The Oneida don't like "Redskin" and I don't like: hick, hillbilly, cracker, or any of the other names used to insult rural Appalachian mountaineers. Every time I see or hear those racist insults I call the person out. If it's in my face, I usually say something like "I don't like being referred to that way." If it's on the Internet, I typically leave and an opinion that it is racist to refer to any group stereotypically, which sometimes sets off long and often vulgar retorts that nearly always contain the reminder that "we whipped your ass in the Civil War."

One of these days I'm really going to wind the stem on that watch. 

Scalia And Ginsburg

Ginsburg and Scalia’s Supreme Court complaints: Do they agree about what’s wrong with the Roberts court? - Slate Magazine:

...Which brings us to how real their respective fears really are. In spring Nathaniel Frank suggested that Scalia’s arguments about moral opprobrium and approval in the law have been disproved by time, and also overtaken by history. Whereas Ginsburg’s prediction in the Voting Rights Act dissent–that the assumption that the law works and is thus no longer needed “is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet”—has proven prescient, as Richard Hasen recently noted. The speed with which states like Texas and North Carolina sprinted to make voting more difficult in the weeks after the decision suggests that Ginsburg was correct in her assessment: The court badly misread the status quo.

The true nature of their grievances is more subtle, and reflects all the interesting ways in which both Scalia and Ginsburg are of an era that is rapidly coming to an end: Scalia longs for a time in which the courts stayed out of it. Whereas Ginsburg longs for a time in which the court could properly redress social injustices—in matters of race and of gender—with a real-world understanding of how that plays out on the ground. To put it another way, despite the fact that only three years separate them chronologically, Scalia seems to want to reinstate the legal worldview of the 1980s and Ginsburg wants to reinstate that of the 1970s. With the exception of perhaps Clarence Thomas, they are the last two sitting justices who are so completely of another era—in each case an era whose legal hopes were never fully realized. No wonder they’re both feeling so frustrated. And no wonder they’re both so willing to say it so loudly.

Bemoaning The New Status Quo

African-American Woman Tells Reince Priebus, Newt Gingrich GOP Ignores Black Minority (Video):

During the Q&A session at the Republican National Committee Summer Meeting on Wednesday, an African-American woman stood to confront Newt Gingrich and Reince Priebus for not addressing her community.

“Everybody’s talking about Hispanics, but African-Americans built this country, and continue to be ignored by everybody,” she said. “I don’t hear [African-American] voices resonating.”

From The About Time Department

Judge rules New York police's 'stop and frisk' tactics unconstitutional | Reuters:

The New York City Police Department's controversial "stop and frisk" crime-fighting tactics violate the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said the city police adopted a policy of "indirect racial profiling" by targeting racially defined groups for stops...

Dial Back Police Craziness

The modern age of police over-response began way back in '85 with the MOVE bombing. Everyone saw this coming and now the chickens are roosting and we are all stuck in the guano. We are close to the brink, but before we go completely off the cliff, let's try dialing back the police's ability to swat (pun) flies with Hellfire rockets.

Rise of the Warrior Cop - WSJ.com:

,,,In my own research, I have collected over 50 examples in which innocent people were killed in raids to enforce warrants for crimes that are either nonviolent or consensual (that is, crimes such as drug use or gambling, in which all parties participate voluntarily). These victims were bystanders, or the police later found no evidence of the crime for which the victim was being investigated. They include Katherine Johnston, a 92-year-old woman killed by an Atlanta narcotics team acting on a bad tip from an informant in 2006; Alberto Sepulveda, an 11-year-old accidentally shot by a California SWAT officer during a 2000 drug raid; and Eurie Stamps, killed in a 2011 raid on his home in Framingham, Mass., when an officer says his gun mistakenly discharged. Mr. Stamps wasn't a suspect in the investigation.

What would it take to dial back such excessive police measures? The obvious place to start would be ending the federal grants that encourage police forces to acquire gear that is more appropriate for the battlefield. Beyond that, it is crucial to change the culture of militarization in American law enforcement...

Manning Caused No Harm?

Manning defense rebuts evidence leaks caused harm - The Grand Island Independent : National:

Lawyers for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning are calling witnesses to rebut prosecution evidence that the government secrets he gave to WikiLeaks posed a national security threat...

FISA Flaws, He Says

Former judge admits flaws with secret FISA court - CBS News:

A former federal judge who served on a secret court overseeing the National Security Agency's secret surveillance programs denied Tuesday that the judges act as "rubber stamps." But James Robertson said the system is flawed because of its failure to allow legal adversaries to question the government's actions...

Police Outrage

“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”: The new warrior cop is out of control - Salon.com:

...The raid on Sal Culosi was merely another red flag indicating yet more SWAT team mission creep in America. It wasn’t even the first time a Virginia SWAT team had killed someone during a gambling raid. In 1998 a SWAT team in Virginia Beach shot and killed security guard Edward C. Reed during a 3:00 AM raid on a private club suspected of facilitating gambling. Police said they approached the tinted car where Reed was working security, knocked, and identified themselves, then shot Reed when he refused to drop his handgun. Reed’s family insisted the police story was unlikely. Reed had no criminal record. Why would he knowingly point his gun at a heavily armed police team? More likely, they said, Reed mistakenly believed the raiding officers were there to do harm, particularly given that the club had been robbed not long before the raid. Statements by the police themselves seem to back that account. According to officers at the scene, Reed’s last words were, “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book...”

Crazy In NC: Mayoral Edition

O'Keefe Kisses An ACORN Butt

James O'Keefe Pays $100,000 To ACORN Employee He Smeared-Conservative Media Yawns - Forbes:

 ...It seems that the master of the cleverly edited—if highly deceptive—video reel is now being required to pay the sum of $100,000 to Juan Carlos Vera, a one time California employee of ACORN. Mr. Vera had been portrayed by O’Keefe as being a willing participant when O’Keefe and his accomplice, Hanna Giles, proposed smuggling young women into the United States to work as prostitutes...

Crazy In NC: Moral Monday Edition

U.S. Political News, Opinion and Analysis - HuffPost Politics:

 Upwards of 1,600 demonstrators amassed outside the North Carolina General Assembly in Raleigh on Monday, railing against the "extreme agenda" of the GOP-controlled legislature, WNCN reported. As attendees of the "Mega Moral Monday" protest spilled from the square outside the building and into the state Senate chambers, WRAL reported that 151 were arrested and released by 5 a.m. on Tuesday. Monday's demonstration is the latest in a series of "Moral Monday" events organized by the North ...

The Other White Minority

Update: Please read the comments.

Appalachian Americans: The Invisible Minority - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com:

Appalachian-Americans are not generally discussed in multicultural textbooks or thought of as a distinct cultural group, yet they exhibit major cultural differences when compared to the common social construct of 'white America'. For this reason they continue to be marginalised, even in a time when acceptance of ethnic minorities and ideals of a pluralistic society are the norm...

...Coal companies hired thugs to intimidate both miners and outsiders who might bring attention to exploitation that bordered on slavery. Union members' houses "were raided by dozens of machine-gun-carrying deputies. Miners were beaten and murdered..." (Rorrer, n.d.)...

...The centuries-old stereotype that anyone with an Appalachian accent possesses a "natural stupidity," is still perpetuated by the media. Television shows like "Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres" and "Hee Haw" have been described as "the most intensive effort ever exerted by a nation to belittle, demean and otherwise destroy a minority people within its boundaries" (Bower & Growick, 2003). In one night of reruns, hillbillies are shown being conned into buying the White House, cuddling a talking pig, and rising from a corn patch "to cark the sickest jokes on TV..." (Bower & Growick, 2003). ...

These excerpts are only part of the article, which is long, detailed, and well-cited.

 

The Only Bigots Live In The South

The Boy Scouts and the South - The Daily Beast

...There is a long and appalling history in this country of the rest of us having to act like bigots and enforce bigoted because of the South. It has existed in legislation--the GI Bill had to be written in such a way that it wouldn't benefit blacks too much, or the legislators of the South said they would kill it. Before that, much of the New Deal legislation had to be written in the same way (sic)...

Pistols Kill

Why new laws could miss America's bigger gun problem - CNN.com

GC Positions

The Politics Behind the Guns Debate - NYTimes.com

More On Vote Rigging

“If you can’t win by playing fair, cheat!” | Jewish Journal

...Despite this blatant assault on the most basic of democratic freedoms (i.e. the right to vote in free elections), voters in those targeted districts defiantly either voted early by mail or stood for hours in rain and cold to vote. Such long lines, of course, did not exist in districts where Republicans were in the majority.

After trying to unsuccessfully suppress the Democratic vote in 2012, the Republicans have devised a new strategy to win future presidential elections. Though both the Democratic and Republican parties have gerrymandered their state districts to give their respective party advantages, the 2010 gerrymander effort by Republicans has effectively enabled them to retain their majority in the House of Representatives despite the fact that Democrats nationally won more than one million more votes than their Republican colleagues.

Now the Republicans (as described by Charles Blow - click on link below) are trying something new, to rig the election by changing the way states allocate electoral votes in presidential elections...

Latest GOPer Scam Going National

The GOP Plan to Take the Electoral-Vote-Rigging Scheme National - Molly Ball - The Atlantic

Republican legislators in several states have begun pushing to apportion electoral-college votes by congressional district, a move that has Democrats up in arms. Had a similar scheme been in effect in 2012, nationally or in a handful of key states, Mitt Romney could have won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. (David Graham explains the idea, and why it's so controversial, here.)

Up to now, these efforts appear to have sprouted independently as the work of individual lawmakers in Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Virginia plan has passed the state House of Delegates and could become law as soon as next week.

But now a Republican operative has a plan to take the idea national...