Gov. Paterson Got This Right; Barbour Should Do Likewise

Personally, I don't think John Harris White should've been convicted in the first place. Perhaps NY Gov. David Paterson should've pardoned him, but at least he's free and out of prison. And rather than going around denying the experience of black Mississippians and campaigning for 2012, Gov Haley Barbour needs to pardon the Scott sisters.

And speaking of Barbour and his fond memories of his childhood - parched up on his upper-class white male privilege in Mississippi, I'm sure the Civil Rights era was anything but terrifying and violent. That doesn't mean that it wasn't hell for black folks, nor does it mean that he didn't contribute to problem of institutionalized racism.

Double Life Sentences for $11? Som'em Ain't Right

So, will two black Mississippi women, whom so many agree have been unjustly imprisoned, now be freed?

On Sunday, syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald became the latest to raise his voice. He wrote:

"Let’s assume they did it.

"Let’s assume that two days before Christmas in 1993, a 22-year-old black woman named Jamie Scott and her pregnant, 19-year-old sister Gladys set up an armed robbery. Let’s assume these single mothers lured two men to a spot outside the tiny town of Forest, Miss., where three teenage boys, using a shotgun the sisters supplied, relieved the men of $11 and sent them on their way, unharmed.

"Assume all of the above is true, and still you must be shocked at the crude brutality of the Scott sisters’ fate. You see, the sisters, neither of whom had a criminal record before this, are still locked away in state prison, having served 16 years of their double-life sentences.

"It bears repeating. Each sister is doing double life for a robbery in which $11 was taken and nobody was hurt. Somewhere, the late Nina Simone is moaning her signature song: Mississippi Goddam."

If I Were a (White) Boy . . .

. . . it would be 72 and clear all the time! Only white folks get to be so oblivious to reality.

Good News for NOLA

Apparently, the government is going to appeal, but I should hope Pres Obama will do the right thing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Watch Out for that Nut!!

Okay. I got the sniff on the start from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show. Video is below.

Here's a study on ACORN. Well, the main page to the study. And here's UEPI's sort of introductory blog about the study. Peter Dreier and Christopher Martin of the Urban and Environmental Political Institute found that media outlets, starting with right-wing media but now including mainstream media, have misreported much of the controversy surrounding ACORN.

Here's the thing. ACORN helps out poor people, especially people in urban areas, especially poor black people. They fight for higher minimum wage and more labor rights. Stuff like that. They were among the first organizations to warn about predatory lending. And anytime little people are empowered, big people panic and try to squash them.

Don't get me wrong. I was disturbed by the videos just like everybody else, but those people have been fired or laid off. For all the Republican "outrage" over voter registration fraud, it was usually ACORN itself that flagged election boards to the problem.

And I can think of two companies off the top of my head who've defrauded the federal government out of billions and/or were corrupt from top to bottom: Halliburton and Blackwater/Xe. Is the House of Representatives about to vote to stop funding them?

I have other thoughts but not feeling topnotch right now. Holla!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's Not Racist, But . . .

If you know me, then you know I do think race is playing a part in the persecution of ACORN. How many dangerous contractors do we still have in Iraq? And to the extent that senate Dems are just appeasing Republicans, I coulda sworn that appeasement was pointless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't subscribe to that notion the way BushCo used it. But. I do know people who make a big to-do out of "appeasement" should never be "appeased." ~ No1KState


The ACORN Vote: End The Appeasement
By Isaiah J. Poole

September 15, 2009 - 1:55pm ET

Last night, on a 83-7 vote, the Senate voted to bar ACORN from receiving any funds in the fiscal 2010 Transportation and HUD appropriations bills. If the House follows suit, that would effectively end several housing assistance and advocacy programs that ACORN has successfully done for several years.

The vote is the latest fallout from Glenn Beck’s jihad against all signs of progressivism in the Obama White House. First it was Van Jones, fired from his green jobs advisory post after right-wing websites branded him a Communist radical. Now it’s ACORN. Who’s next?

The worst part is that a majority of Senate Democrats went along with the vote against ACORN. Freshman Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., sponsored the amendment cutting the funding, and used to back up his argument a deluge of right-wing propaganda — from the entrapment of ACORN employees by a conservative video hit squad to an 88-page screed ginned up in July by Rep. Darrell Issa and House Republicans entitled “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As A Criminal Enterprise?”

Not one Democrat had the guts to speak up on the Senate floor against this right-wing attack.

Digby on Saturday shared a reader observation that helps put this in context: Recall that Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, has had a contract with the State Department extended this month despite the fact that five Blackwater guards were charged with 35 counts of manslaughter. Blackwater almost singlehandedly undercut Iraqi support for the American presence in Iraq, but Congress took no action to bar it from further contracts.

There is one word for the Democratic votes to de-fund ACORN: appeasement. The conservative machine to which Glenn Beck is beholden gins up a controversy based on either facts blown out of proportion or total falsehoods. And when faced with the opportunity to stand up for truth, fairness, due process and the mandate the voters gave Congress and the White House to stand up for progressive policies, too many Democrats either run silent or run scared.

We should know from the health care debate that appeasement is as failed a strategy today as it was in 1938 when Neville Chamberlain tried it against Nazi Germany. The more Democrats give in—whether it's deep-sixing the public option in response to fear-mongering about "government-run health care" or cutting funds to badly needed services for low-income people because of a few bad actors in a grassroots organization—the more empowered and hungry the unprincipled power-grabbers in the conservative movement will become. It is a losing strategy for Democrats and a dangerous path for America.

Congress, stop the appeasement. Get a spine. Draw a line. Now

Just One Reason to Kill the Death Penalty

I've known about this for a while. You should know about it to.

In the Absence of Proof

By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
May 23, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/opinion/23herbert.htm?ref=opinion

The options are running out for Troy Davis, a man who
has been condemned to death for killing a police
officer in Georgia, but whose guilt is seriously in
question.

It's bad enough that we still execute people in the
United States. It's absolutely chilling that we're
willing to do it when we're not even sure we've got the
right person in our clutches.

Mr. Davis came within an hour of execution last fall.
His relatives and his attorney, Jason Ewart, had come
to the state prison to say goodbye. Mr. Davis had eaten
his last meal, and Mr. Ewart was ready to witness his
execution.

The mind-numbing tension was broken with a last-minute
stay from the Supreme Court. The case then made its way
to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th
Circuit, in Atlanta, which ruled 2-to-1 last month
against Mr. Davis's petition for a hearing to examine
new evidence pointing to his innocence.

The countdown to the ghoulish ritual of execution
resumed.

Mr. Davis was convicted of shooting a police officer to
death in the parking lot of a Burger King in Savannah,
Ga., in 1989. The officer, Mark Allen MacPhail, was
murdered as he went to the aid of a homeless man who
was being pistol-whipped.

I'm opposed to the death penalty, but I would have a
very hard time finding even the faintest glimmer of
sympathy for the person who murdered that officer. The
problem with taking Mr. Davis's life in response to the
murder of Officer MacPhail is the steadily growing mass
of evidence that Mr. Davis was not the man who
committed the murder.

Nine witnesses testified against Mr. Davis at his trial
in 1991, but seven of the nine have since changed their
stories. One of those seven, Dorothy Ferrell, said she
was on parole when she testified and was afraid that
she'd be sent back to prison if she didn't agree to
cooperate with the authorities by fingering Mr. Davis.

"I told the detective that Troy Davis was the shooter,"
she said in an affidavit, "even though the truth was
that I didn't know who shot the officer."

Another witness, Darrell Collins, who was a teenager at
the time of the murder, said the police had "scared"
him into falsely testifying by threatening to charge
him as an accessory to the crime. He said he was told
that he would go to prison and might never get out if
he refused to help make the case against Mr. Davis.

This week Mr. Davis's lawyers, led by Mr. Ewart of the
Arnold & Porter law firm in Washington, filed a last-
ditch, long-shot petition with the Supreme Court,
asking it to intervene and allow Mr. Davis's claims of
innocence to be fully examined.

An extraordinary group of 27 former judges and
prosecutors joined in an amicus brief in support of the
petition. Among those who signed on were William
Sessions, the former director of the F.B.I.; Larry
Thompson, a U.S. attorney general from 2001-2003; the
former Congressman Bob Barr, who was the U.S. attorney
for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986-1990;
and Rudolph Gerber, who was an Arizona trial and court
of appeals judge from 1979-2001.

The counsel of record for the amicus brief is the
Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree. The brief
asserts that the Supreme Court should intervene
"because Mr. Davis can make an extraordinary showing
through new, never reviewed evidence that strongly
points to his innocence, and thus his execution would
violate the Constitution."

The very idea of executing someone who may in fact be
innocent should also violate the nation's conscience.
Mr. Davis is incarcerated. He's no threat to anyone.
Where's the harm in seeking out the truth and trying to
see that justice is really done?

And if the truth can't be properly sorted out, we
should be unwilling to let a human life be taken on
mere surmise.

There was no physical evidence against Mr. Davis, and
no murder weapon was ever found. At least three
witnesses who testified against him at his trial (and a
number of others who were not part of the trial) have
since said that a man named Sylvester "Redd" Coles
admitted to killing the police officer.

Mr. Coles, who was at the scene, and who, according to
witnesses, later ditched a gun of the same caliber as
the murder weapon, is one of the two witnesses who have
not recanted. The other is a man who initially told
investigators that he could not identify the killer.
Nearly two years later, at the trial, he testified that
the killer was Mr. Davis.

Officer MacPhail's murder was a horrendous crime that
cries out for justice. Killing Mr. Davis, rather than
remedying that tragedy, would only compound it.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Republican Judicial Arrogance

Oh. My Lord.

Two opinions from the Washington Post caught my eye today. One from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and one from regular Wash Post op-ed columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr. One is an example of the Republicans' hypocrisy and the other an example of liberal confidence.

The reason I'm looking for Higher Help today is Sen. Sessions's op-ed, "The Right Person for the Court." No, I'm not kidding. How this freudian slip past by Sessions and his congressional assistants is beyond me. It's clear that the Republicans really, really wish Pres. Obama to nominate someone in the line of Justices Roberts and Alito. But they just can't come out and say that. And even if he does, they're gonna fight tooth and nail against his nominee. But they can't say that, either.

So here's what they say:

But if the president nominates an individual who will allow personal preferences and political views to corrupt his or her decision making, he will put before the public a central question: Are we willing to trade America's heritage of a fair and neutral judiciary -- anchored in the rule of written law that applies equally to all people -- for a high court composed of robed politicians who apply the law differently based on their personal feelings toward a particular person or issue?

As though that's not exactly what W Bush did. And then, to have the unmitigated audacity to say this:

With such high stakes, the American people rightly expect greatness in our highest jurists -- the greatness personified by John Marshall and Felix Frankfurter and anticipated from John Roberts.

Yeah! He sites Justice Roberts as someone with judicial restraint. Meanwhile, Justice Roberts shows every indication of at least really, really hoping Sec 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which, by the way, was just reauthorized 3 years ago, is overturned.

And then, with only the irony of the freudian slipped title, Sessions writes these "necessary" qualifications of the next Supreme Court justice:

-- Impartiality. The nominee should demonstrate an ability to fulfill the oath to "administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich," regardless of the judge's personal feelings toward the parties in the case or the political groups to which they belong.
. . .
-- Legal Expertise and Judicial Temperament. The nominee should demonstrate a mastery of the law, an ability to apply the law to complex facts, and the skill to craft plain and enduring opinions that lower courts, lawyers and the people can understand. The nominee must also demonstrate the humility necessary to be subordinate to the law that he or she will interpret. Great justices recognize the limits of their own power and defer to the wisdom of the people, effectuated through elected representatives and expressed in the written law.

It's almost enough to make you sick on the stomach. "Heurrr!" (My attempt at articulating that sound people make just before they get sick. You know, so just imagion in your head.)

Here's the thing, or, at least, my thing. We're we told just a few years ago that "if a president's picks were formally qualified and intelligent -- and both Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito were -- that should be enough?" My problem with the two wasn't their intelligence (Though, in my opinion, Alito doesn't look all that bright, but looks can be deceiving.). No. My problem was that they had tried to re-write the law as lawyers in the Reagan administration and would undoubtedly try to do and have done the same on the Court. Don't get me wrong. I understand that part of political differences is having opposite understandings of the Constitution. Liberals think it applies to everyone equally; and, conservatives think the Founding Fathers would only benefit rich, white, men/corporations. I understand that. But let's not pretend conservatives haven't been "judical activists" , as they were in the Ledbetter case; and hope to undo judicial precedence, as in a woman's right to privacy. Let's not pretend they're anything but partial.

Now. While I do think Sessions is a blithering racist hypocrit who would attack Pres. Obama for sleeping on the left side of the bed if he could, I do agree with him on this:

The Senate's examination of the nominee's impartiality, integrity, legal expertise and respect for the rule of law will be rigorous and fair. Senators should refrain from making political attacks on the nominee's character, leaking background materials or taking quotes out of context to create a caricature of the nominee.

Though, now that he's said it, I find it least likely that he'll actually live up to his own standard.

On the other side of things, I do agree with Dionne that "liberals should welcome a real debate -- and win it. But this means that such matters as a nominee's sexual preference should not be a consideration and that an authentic debate would involve ideas, not slogans -- notably "judicial activism," "legislating from the bench" and "strict constructionism."" How this would work with conservatives glibly throwing around such slogans and making personal attacks every which way. I certainly don't know if or how Democrats could make use of the kindness principle. But they shouldn't be unprepared for a fight.

Cause with a blithering racist hypocrit like Session leading up the 'publican challenge, you know one's coming.

Police Brutality

I won't lie. This is good info and I want quick and easy access to it. The best way to do that is to post here what was posted at The Root.

h/t Joe at Racism Review ~ No1KState

Returning Police Brutality to the National Agenda
By: Sherrilyn A. Ifill
Posted: April 27, 2009 at 6:50 AM

Federal Efforts to Address Police Brutality

A recent videotape of a drunk police officer mocking a black murder victim pales in comparison to a recent spate of killings of black men at the hands of police. But it underscores the need to refocus federal efforts around police training.

It’s one of the depressing ironies of black life that in the Obama era, black mothers and fathers must continue giving their teenage sons “the talk.” I’m not talking about the birds and the bees. I’m talking about the “how to act when the police stop you” talk. Rule 1. Don’t talk back to the officer. Rule 2. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t doing anything wrong. Rule 3. And this is critical, don’t reach for your wallet without asking the officer first. Supplemental rule. Carry a pink cell phone if you can. A black cell phone may look like a gun to a nervous cop.

Such is the ongoing reality of the tense and too often violent encounters between black men and white police officers. Of course, the vast majority of interactions between black men and white cops don’t turn violent. But the cases in which they inexplicably do are disturbing and frequent enough that learning how to deal with the cops is a rite of passage for young black men, from the ’hood to the suburbs. The recent case involving the cell phone video of a drunk, white, off-duty police officer in Erie, Pa., [1] making crude jokes about a black murder victim and ridiculing the victim’s grieving mother, illustrates part of the problem. The insensitivity of the officer reveals how some white officers—most of whom often reside far from the black communities they patrol—devalue the lives of black men and their families. In the case of the officer in Erie, he joked that he and his partners regarded the murdered black man as just “one less drug dealer”—even though there’s no evidence that the murder victim was involved with drugs at all. The NAACP has called for the dismissal of the officer [2] and for a more direct and comprehensive apology than the tepid one offered by the Erie Police Department.

But of even greater concern than one officer’s drunken tirade is a spate of deaths of black men at the hands of police over the past few months, in locations as diverse as Oakland, Calif., and Winnfield, La.

In Oakland, cell phone camera videotapes seemed to confirm eyewitness accounts of the shooting of Oscar Grant [3] III, an unarmed and apparently unresistant 22-year-old black man, in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Lying on his stomach on the platform of a BART subway station platform, Grant reportedly pleaded for his life, telling the officer, “I got a 4-year-old daughter.” Grant was shot in the back and died on the scene. The incident led to weeks of unrest in Oakland.

Louisiana has turned up a pair of disturbing police killings, including that of Bernard Monroe, a 73-year-old man who was shot and killed in his front yard by police [4] as his family looked on in horror. The local NAACP branch vice president contends that the police in Homer, La., routinely harass black residents. “People here are afraid of the police,” she concluded. In response, the Homer police chief reportedly stated that he wants young black men walking down the street “to be afraid [that] every time they see the police . . . they might get arrested.” Presumably elderly black men walking in their front yard should be similarly intimidated.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 2008 Taser death of 21-year-old Baron Pikes [5] in Winnfield is particularly grisly. Tasered nine times within 14 minutes by a 21-year-old white officer, Pikes may well have been dead – handcuffed and unresponsive in a police cruiser—when the last two 50,000-volt charges were delivered directly to his chest. The officer reportedly admitted that he began using his Taser on Pikes when the handcuffed black man responded too slowly to the officer’s demand that Pikes get up and walk to the police car.

In Dallas, 23-year-old Robbie Tolan, a minor league baseball player and the son of former Major League Baseball player Bobbie Tolan, was shot in his own driveway [6]in an affluent white suburb on New Year’s Eve. White police officers, purportedly believing that the SUV driven by Tolan and his cousin was stolen, approached the young black men and ordered them to lie down on the ground. The car belonged to Tolan’s parents, and the officers reportedly did not identify themselves. When Tolan’s parents came outside to find out what was happening, one of the officers allegedly shoved Mrs. Tolan against the garage. Robbie Tolan yelled to the officer to stop pushing his mother, and that, witnesses say, is when he was shot by one of the officers. Tolan was recently released from the hospital with the bullet still lodged in his liver.

One needn’t walk through the serial incidents of innocent black men killed at the hands of New York City cops over the past 10 years. If you don’t know about Sean Bell [7], the young man shot and killed by police outside his bachelor party, or Amadou Diallo [8]—shot at 41 times by police—you’ve been living under a rock.

The results of these incidents are depressingly predictable. Outrage. Marches. Most often no indictment. Sometimes an indictment. Always an acquittal. More marches. Next incident.

The stunning lack of change suggests that our protest-oriented approach to police brutality must focus less on punishment for individual officers, and more on systemic institutional changes within our police academies and departments. Real police training in the areas of racial sensitivity and diversity is woefully insufficient in many academies. But such training should be mandatory and intense for all officers who patrol our streets and highways armed with deadly weapons. The fact that many white officers do not come from or live in the black communities they patrol produces potential problems as well. We need to increase dramatically financial incentives to officers who live in, or at least adjacent to the neighborhoods where they work.

Being a bigot ought to be a disqualifying factor for police recruits, and more rigorous personality testing should be employed to flesh this out. Most importantly, police department leaders should impose zero tolerance on discrimination and bigotry in the ranks. Even something as seemingly tangential as stricter tests for physical fitness tests for officers might be called for. One of the excuses offered for the Pikes incident was that the officer’s partner had just returned to patrol after triple bypass surgery and couldn’t assist his partner in subduing Pikes. But a high-powered Taser in the hands of a young, inexperienced officer is not an appropriate replacement for a physically fit partner. In fact, the increasing use of tasers by police departments across the country should be fully examined and reviewed.

As the Justice Department continues to reshape itself under Attorney General Eric Holder, we need to return some federal attention to the issue of police brutality. The incidents we’ve seen over the past months are reflective of a pattern, and not an unfamiliar one. Often they involve white cops, but some black cops also engage in police brutality. The victims of excessive force are disproportionately black or Latino. It’s time we take up again a national dialogue about police misconduct and offer financial incentives to jurisdictions whose departments undertake rigorous diversity training programs, vigorously investigate and punish officers for wrongdoing, and significantly improve their records with civilian complaint review boards.

In this period of new beginnings and change, we should take up the issue of race and police brutality with candor, respect and with an eye toward solutions. Then maybe “the talk” black parents have with their young sons can focus more exclusively on how to avoid the pitfalls of criminal life (and, of course, the birds and the bees), and not how to avoid getting killed by the police.




Sherrilyn A. Ifill is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and a civil rights lawyer.

If They Are So Scared, How Come We're The Dead Ones? [7]
The Untimely Death of Oscar Grant III [3]
The Race Police Need to Lay Off Imus [9]

Racism in Session(s)

On the eve of Pres. Obama's crucial nomination of a justice to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, the Republicans have chosen Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to replace Sen. Arlen Spector (presently D-PA) as ranking member on the senate's judicial committee. I think it's important to know what we're getting so we can begin thinking of how to respond. And also because I think what we're getting sucks.

Closed Sessions
The senator who's worse than Lott.

Sarah Wildman, The New Republic Published: December 30, 2002


Trent Lott must think he's living in a nightmare. More than one week has passed since his segregationist cheerleading at Strom Thurmond's century celebration, and the chorus of anti-Lottism has swelled ever louder. Conservatives in particular can't scream loud enough. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, called Lott's comments "thoughtless" and told CBS's "Early Show" audience on December 12 that "Trent Lott shows such a lack of historical understanding that I think it would be appropriate for him to offer to step down." And conservative pundit Peggy Noonan told Chris Matthews this Sunday, "I am personally tired of being embarrassed by people ... who don't get what the history of race in America is, what integration has meant, what segregation was. I'm tired of being embarrassed by Republicans ... who don't get it."

It's a nice sentiment, and, if conservatives are serious about it, they might want to direct their attention one state to Lott's east, home of Alabama Republican Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. His record on race arguably rivals that of the gentleman from Mississippi--and yet has elicited not a peep of consternation from the anti-racist right.

Sessions entered national politics in the mid-'80s not as a politician but as a judicial nominee. Recommended by a fellow Republican from Alabama, then-Senator Jeremiah Denton, Sessions was Ronald Reagan's choice for the U.S. District Court in Alabama in the early spring of 1986. Reagan had gotten cocky by then, as more than 200 of his uberconservative judicial appointees had been rolled out across the country without serious opposition (this was pre-Robert Bork). That is, until the 39-year-old Sessions came up for review.

Sessions was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The year before his nomination to federal court, he had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers--including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr.--on a tenuous case of voter fraud. The three had been working in the "Black Belt" counties of Alabama, which, after years of voting white, had begun to swing toward black candidates as voter registration drives brought in more black voters. Sessions's focus on these counties to the exclusion of others caused an uproar among civil rights leaders, especially after hours of interrogating black absentee voters produced only 14 allegedly tampered ballots out of more than 1.7 million cast in the state in the 1984 election. The activists, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted in four hours and became a cause c?l?bre. Civil rights groups charged that Sessions had been looking for voter fraud in the black community and overlooking the same violations among whites, at least partly to help reelect his friend Senator Denton.

On its own, the case might not have been enough to stain Sessions with the taint of racism, but there was more. Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people." In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as "un-American" when "they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions" in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to "pop off" on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes "loose with [his] tongue." He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation," a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings.

It got worse. Another damaging witness--a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama named Thomas Figures--testified that, during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers." Sessions claimed the comment was clearly said in jest. Figures didn't see it that way. Sessions, he said, had called him "boy" and, after overhearing him chastise a secretary, warned him to "be careful what you say to white folks." Figures echoed Hebert's claims, saying he too had heard Sessions call various civil rights organizations, including the National Council of Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, "un-American." Sessions denied the accusations but again admitted to frequently joking in an off-color sort of way. In his defense, he said he was not a racist, pointing out that his children went to integrated schools and that he had shared a hotel room with a black attorney several times.

During his nomination hearings, Sessions was opposed by the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People for the American Way, and other civil rights groups. Senator Denton clung peevishly to his favored nominee until the bitter end, calling Sessions a "victim of a political conspiracy." The Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee finally voted ten to eight against sending Sessions to the Senate floor. The decisive vote was cast by the other senator from Alabama, Democrat Howell Heflin, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice, who said, "[M]y duty to the justice system is greater than any duty to any one individual."

None of this history stopped Sessions's political ascension. He was elected attorney general in 1994. Once in office, he was linked with a second instance of investigating absentee ballots and fraud that directly impacted the black community. He was also accused of not investigating the church burnings that swept the state of Alabama the year he became attorney general. But those issues barely made a dent in his 1996 Senate campaign, when Heflin retired and Sessions ran for his seat and won.

Since his election as a senator, Sessions has not done much to make amends for his past racial insensitivity. His voting record in the Senate has earned him consistent "F"s from the NAACP. He supported an ultimately unsuccessful effort to end affirmative action programs in the federal government (a measure so extreme that many conservatives were against it), he opposed hate-crimes laws, and he opposed a motion to investigate the disproportionate number of minorities in juvenile detention centers. Says Hillary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, "[Sessions's] voting record is disturbing. ... He has consistently opposed the bread-and-butter civil rights agenda." But it has been on judicial nominees that Sessions has really made a name for himself. When Sessions grabbed Heflin's Senate seat in 1996, he also nabbed a spot on the Judiciary Committee. Serving on the committee alongside some of the senators who had dismissed him 16 years earlier, Sessions has become a cheerleader for the Bush administration's judicial picks, defending such dubious nominees as Charles Pickering, who in 1959 wrote a paper defending Mississippi's anti-miscegenation law, and Judge Dennis Shedd, who dismissed nearly every fair-employment civil rights case brought before him as a federal district court judge. Sessions called Pickering "a leader for racial harmony" and a "courageous," "quality individual" who was being used as a "political pawn." Regarding Shedd, he pooh-poohed the criticism, announcing that the judge "should have been commended for the rulings he has made," not chastised.

And yet, despite his record as U.S. Attorney, attorney general of Alabama, and senator, Sessions has never received criticism from conservatives or from the leadership of the Republican Party. President Bush even campaigned for him in the last election. It's true, of course, that Sessions isn't in a leadership position, like Lott. But, if conservatives are serious about ending the perception that the GOP tolerates racism, they should look into his record as well. After all, if Noonan and friends are really "tired of being embarrassed" by this kind of racial insensitivity, they can't just start yelling once the news hits the stands.

Sarah Wildman was an assistant editor at The New Republic from 1999 to 2003.

Update on Section 5

h/t P6

Yep. Just as I suspected. The conservative judges seem to want to overturn "the political judgment of lawmakers." It appears that they're on the brink of . . . judicial activism!

From the Washington Post:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. appeared extremely skeptical about Congress's conclusion that such an extension was needed. "Obviously no one doubts the history here and that the history was different," he said, referring to the history of discrimination in the states covered by Section 5. "But at what point does that history . . . stop justifying action with respect to some jurisdictions?" The chief justice apparently gave little credence to the information gathered by Congress over 10 months and 21 hearings that contemporary -- not just historical -- discrimination exists and justifies the extension.

Read the article and comment below.

Come Again?

I have a couple of thoughts about the acquittal of white teenage boys of the beating murder of an undocumented Mexican immigrant. First, I do wish the facts were clear. I do wish I knew exactly what happened. But considering what I do know, I wonder what, besides race, makes these boys any different from the Jena 6. Er, um, no. We ain't forgot.


Some satisfied, others outraged with verdict for immigrant's death
Story Highlights

• Teens acquitted of murder, aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation
• Verdict sends "extremely dangerous" precedent, advocacy group says
• Schuylkill County prosecutors alleged the beating was racially motivated
• Incident drew national attention to small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania

By Emanuella Grinberg
CNN
Friends and relatives of two teens accused in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant struggled to contain their relief as not-guilty verdicts were announced on the most serious charges against the former high school football stars Friday.

Gasps filled the courtroom and some had to be restrained by sheriff's deputies as they tried to rush the defense table after Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, were acquitted of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation for the death of Luis Ramirez.

Piekarsky was also found not guilty of third-degree murder for the death of Ramirez, who died of blunt force injuries after an encounter with the teens last summer.

However, the all-white jury of six men and six women from Schuylkill County jury found Piekarsky and Donchak guilty of simple assault.

The case drew national attention to the small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, highlighting race relations and polarizing the community on who was to blame for the incident.

Lawyers for the teens never denied that their clients were involved in a physical altercation with Ramirez on a residential street the night of July 12.

Instead, they tried to cast Ramirez as the aggressor, and suggested that the other teens involved in the tangle of punches and blows were to blame.

"In my mind it was the lack of evidence to tie these kids to the serious charges that they brought," defense lawyer Frederick Fanelli said.

A cast of witnesses provided conflicting accounts regarding who initiated the encounter and who exactly did what, complicating prosecutors' efforts to assign blame.

"If you ask most prosecutors who are dealing with multiple defendants, and in this particular case there were at least four, it is extraordinary difficult to clear the fog of a fight," truTV anchor Ashleigh Banfield said.

The 25-year-old Mexican immigrant had settled in Shenandoah a year before his death with his wife, a lifelong resident of the faltering mining town, and their young children.

He was walking down a residential street with a friend when he encountered the group of teens, who had been drinking earlier in the evening. Donchak was convicted of providing alcohol to the other teens who were involved in the confrontation, including a juvenile co-defendant and another teen who pleaded guilty in federal court for his role in the fight.

Prosecutors alleged that the teens baited the Ramirez into a fight with racial epithets, provoking an exchange of punches and kicks that ended with Ramirez convulsing in the street, foaming from the mouth. He died two days later in a hospital.

Piekarsky was accused of delivering a fatal kick to Ramirez's head after he was knocked to the ground.

As they poured out of courthouse, the teens' supporters shouted "I was right from the start" and "I'm glad the jury listened" at cameras that caught the late-night verdict.

But Gladys Limon, a spokeswoman for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the jury had sent a troubling message.

"The jurors here [are] sending the message that you can brutally beat a person, without regard to their life, and get away with it, continue with your life uninterrupted," she said.

"In this case, the message is that a person who may not be popular in society based on their national origin or certain characteristic has less value in our society," she said.

The extent of Ramirez's injuries, which had left his brain oozing from his skull, according to medical testimony, should have sufficed for a conviction other than simple assault, Limon said.

"The acts here were egregious in brutality and it's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt, especially as to the aggravated assault and the reckless enganderment charges," she said.

Limon said her group intends to press the Department of Justice to file federal charges against the teens.

"Luis Ramirez's family deserves vindication for his death," she said. "This incident has not only disrupted Luis Ramirez's family, but the entire community."

CNN's Brian Rokus contributed to this report.

All AboutPennsylvania • Hate Crimes • Murder and Homicide

Obama at the CBC Dinner

Courtesy of Prometheus6.org.

I really like this speech. It's rare that I agree with every word that proceeds from Barack Obama's mouth. Even during his speech to the NAACP. Didn't like everything I heard. But this is one time where I have to cheer and concur every word he says.

Now, let me say to any white person who happens across my blog. All African Americans want is equality. All we want is justice. That helps everybody. That helps all of us. And it's time that you stop letting those like the ones who've plunged us into this financial crisis take advantage of your racial "resentment" to keep you down, too.

Uncounted

I touched on it in January, that the New Hampshire primary may not have been altogether proper. Here's a video about the subject.

I was very sad, and I felt like I was a slave.

That's probably cause in some ways, you were a slave.

You must read this editorial from the New York Times, " 'The Jungle,' Again." I'm usually only focusing on the racial disparities facing African Americans. But, my aim and goal is equality and justice for all. Including those who "legally" shouldn't be here. And I mean to use "legally" cynically. Yes, I understand a nation has the right and duty to protect its borders. It's just that I also understand that thirst and hunger and poverty know no borders. And when I see undocumented workers from Europe, most especially northern and western Europe, being attacked with the zeal as the undocumented workers from Latin America are attacked, I feel like the issue really is about borders and not skin color.

That said, here're two paragraphs from the must-read editorial:

The conditions at the Agriprocessors plant cry out for the cautious and deliberative application of justice.

In May, the government swoops in and arrests ... the workers, hundreds of them, for having false identity papers. The raid’s catch is so huge that the detainees are bused from little Postville to the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo. The defendants, mostly immigrants from Guatemala, are not charged with the usual administrative violations, but with “aggravated identity theft,” a serious crime.

About Blame Time!

Sorry I'm late with this. I've been busier than usual.

Though, I'm not the only one coming in a little late. And of course reparations are in order. Maybe the nation can't afford it, say that. But let's not act like reparations aren't order. Originally, racism was the reason reparations weren't paid. Only a handful of the tens of millions of slave received 40 acres and/or a mule. So, if racism's over and you're going to rectify the situation, reparations are in order.

House apologizes for slavery and Jim Crow
Resolution does not mention reparations; commits to rectifying 'misdeeds'


The Associated Press
updated 7:23 p.m. ET, Tues., July. 29, 2008

WASHINGTON - The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.

"Today represents a milestone in our nation's efforts to remedy the ills of our past," said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
The resolution, passed by voice vote, was the work of Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen, the only white lawmaker to represent a majority black district. Cohen faces a formidable black challenger in a primary face-off next week.

Congress has issued apologies before — to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II and to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893. In 2005, the Senate apologized for failing to pass anti-lynching laws.

Five states have issued apologies for slavery, but past proposals in Congress have stalled, partly over concerns that an apology would lead to demands for reparations — payment for damages.
No mention of reparationsThe Cohen resolution does not mention reparations. It does commit the House to rectifying "the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow."

It says that Africans forced into slavery "were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized and subjected to the indignity of being stripped of their names and heritage" and that black Americans today continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow laws that fostered discrimination and segregation.

The House "apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow."
"Slavery and Jim Crow are stains upon what is the greatest nation on the face of the earth," Cohen said. Part of forming a more perfect union, he said, "is such a resolution as we have before us today where we face up to our mistakes and apologize as anyone should apologize for things that were done in the past that were wrong."

White lawmaker reaches outCohen became the first white to represent the 60 percent black district in Memphis in more than three decades when he captured a 2006 primary in which a dozen black candidates split the vote. He has sought to reach out to his black constituents, and early in his term showed interest in joining the Congressional Black Caucus until learning that was against caucus rules.

Another of his first acts as a freshman congressman in early 2007 was to introduce the slavery apology resolution. His office said that the House resolution was brought to the floor only after learning that the Senate would be unable to join in a joint resolution.

More than a dozen of the 42 Congressional Black Caucus members in the House were original co-sponsors of the measure. The caucus has not endorsed either Cohen or his chief rival, attorney Nikki Tinker, in the Memphis primary, although Cohen is backed by several senior members, including Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. Tinker is the former campaign manager of Harold Ford, Jr., who held Cohen's seat until he stepped down in an unsuccessful run for the Senate in 2006.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25921453/
MSN Privacy . Legal© 2008 MSNBC.com

A Cop Kills an Unarmed Woman Because He Heard Shots?!

Are you kidding me? Really? You hear shots so you shoot at the woman holding a baby? Are you kidding me?!

The jury to hear the case is all white. I hope more facts come out, but it's hard not to jump to conclusions. Cause the first paragraph and title says the cop heard shots. In the story, he saw movement and fired at the second floor of the house after dogs had been released from a bedroom on the first floor. You really need to read the story below.

And whatever you decide, let me remind you that this comes just two days after a white man went into a church, killing 2, wounding 6, over the church's liberal views, and he's still alive! This comes the week after CNN's Black in America special. I wasn't particularly impressed by the special, but Lord! When are we going to have a special on white people, their pathologies - including but not limited to cops killing innocent, unarmed black people with impunity - and privileges - including but not limited to the fact that no white man was to worry that others may see him as another Jim D. Adkisson - White in America?

E-spitting? Naw. I'm just plain old pissed.


Defense: Officer who killed bystander heard shots
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer


LIMA, Ohio - A white police officer accused of fatally shooting an unarmed black woman holding her 1-year-old son thought he was being fired upon by a drug dealer when he pulled the trigger, his attorney said Tuesday.

The death of 26-year-old Tarika Wilson set off protests and debate about race relations in this northwest Ohio city, where one in four residents is black.

Sgt. Joseph Chavalia heard gunshots that two fellow SWAT team officers fired at pit bulls released from a first-floor back bedroom by drug dealer Anthony Terry, defense attorney Bill Kluge said during opening arguments in Chavalia's trial.

The dogs were released as Chavalia headed upstairs. He saw movement and fired through stairway railings into a second-story bedroom where Wilson was with six children, said Prosecutor Jeffrey Strausbaugh.

Chavalia has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor counts of negligent homicide and negligent assault. He faces up to eight months in jail if convicted of both counts. An all-white jury was selected Monday with a black woman and a white woman as alternates.

Wilson, Terry's girlfriend, was hit in the neck and chest, Strausbaugh said, and her son, Sincere Wilson, was hit in the shoulder and hand. One of the boy's fingers was later amputated.
Wilson's family has said she was an innocent bystander when officers burst in looking for Terry during the Jan. 4 raid.

Dozens of people accused the police department of being hostile and abusive toward minorities. Many were upset the officer was not charged with more than two misdemeanors.

Kluge blamed Terry for putting his girlfriend in the line of fire and described the scene as chaotic, with other officers also believing they were under fire.

"It's not like they had a couple minutes to come in and decide what to do," Kluge said. "These decisions are made in milliseconds."

Officers were told before the raid that children were likely inside the house, based on sightings of toys outside, Strausbaugh said.

Kluge said the SWAT team announced they were police with search warrants and repeatedly yelled warnings to get down.

"You could hear it down the block," he said.

Terry pleaded guilty in March to charges of drug trafficking.

Please, Help the Johnson Achieve Justice

This young woman was raped, murdered, and her body was burned...

...the Army called it suicide.
To help, please click here to go to colorofchange.org.


LaVena Johnson was a 19 year old private in the Army, serving in Iraq, when she was raped, murdered, and her body was burned--by someone from her own military base. Despite overwhelming physical evidence, the Army called her death a suicide and has closed the case.1

For three years, LaVena's parents have been fighting for answers. At almost every turn, they've been met with closed doors or lies. They've appealed to Congress, the one body that can hold the military accountable. But, as in other cases where female soldiers have been raped and murdered and the Army has called it suicide, Congress has failed to act.

Will you join Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in calling on Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, to mount a real investigation into LaVena Johnson's death and the Army's cover-up2? Will you ask your friends and family to do the same?

From the beginning, LaVena's death made no sense as a suicide. She was happy and had been talking with friends and family regularly3--nothing indicated she could be suicidal. And when the Johnsons received her body, they noticed signs that she had been beaten.4 That was when they started asking questions.

After two years of being denied answers and hearing explanations that made no sense, the Johnsons received a CD-ROM from someone on the inside. It contained pictures of the crime scene where LaVena died and an autopsy showing that she had suffered bruises, abrasions, a dislocated shoulder, broken teeth, and some type of sexual assault. Her body was partially burned; she had been doused in a flammable liquid, and someone had set her body on fire. A corrosive chemical had been poured in her genital area, perhaps to cover up evidence of rape.5

Still the Army sticks by their story. They refuse to explain the overwhelming physical evidence that LaVena was raped and murdered and continue to claim that she killed herself.

For many Black youth, and working class young people of every race, the military is seen as an option for securing a better future. LaVena came from a deeply supportive family, and while the military wasn't her only option, she was attracted by its promise to help her pay for a college education and the opportunity to travel around the world. She also thought that by joining she could continue her lifelong commitment to serving other people in need. She made a decision to serve in the military, with all its risks, and expected respect and dignity in return.

LaVena's death is part of a disturbing pattern of cases where female soldiers have been raped and killed, and where the military has hidden the truth and labeled the deaths suicides.6,7 In virtually all cases, Congress has been slow to investigate or hold the military accountable in any way. Unfortunately, most families simply don't have the resources, time, and psychological strength to push back.

We can help the Johnsons, and other families, by holding Congress accountable in the LaVena Johnson case and by demanding it investigate the pattern of cover-ups by the military.

Please take a moment to join those calling on Congressman Waxman to investigate the cover-up of LaVena Johnson's death:


Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, Clarissa, Andre, Kai, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 28th, 2008

References:

1. "The cover-up of a soldier's death?" LavenaJohnson.com, March 6, 2007
http://www.lavenajohnson.com/2007/03/cover-up-of-soldiers-death.html

2. "Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?" CommonDreams.org, April 28, 2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8564/

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. "Suicide or Murder? Three Years After the Death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson in Iraq, Her Parents Continue Their Call for a Congressional Investigation," Democracy Now!, June 23, 2008.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/23/suicide_or_murder_three_years_after

6. See reference 2.

7. "2 Years After Soldier's Death, Family's Battle Is With Army," New York Times, March 21, 2006.
http://tinyurl.com/mzcvh

Other References:

"Justice for Pfc. LaVena Johnson," DailyKos, June 30, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5bh73v

"Rapists in the Ranks, Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/2z2c8l

Black Soldiers Get Apology for WWII Convictions

I will look into this to see if there's more information about what happened. - No1KState


Black soldiers get apology for WWII convictions
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- The Army formally apologized Saturday for the wrongful conviction of 28 black soldiers accused of rioting and lynching an Italian prisoner of war in Seattle more than six decades ago.

"We had not done right by these soldiers," Ronald James, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, said Saturday. "The Army is genuinely sorry. I am genuinely sorry."

Relatives of the soldiers joined elected officials, military officers and one of the defense lawyers to hear James give the apology before hundreds of people in a meadow near the old Fort Lawton parade grounds and chapel in Discovery Park.

In addition, the soldiers' convictions were set aside, their dishonorable discharges were changed to honorable discharges and they and their survivors were awarded back pay for their time in the brig.

All but two of the soldiers are dead. One, Samuel Snow of Leesburg, Fla., planned to attend the ceremony but wound up in the hospital instead because of a problem with his pacemaker.

The convictions were overturned in October at the prodding of Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, largely based on the book "On American Soil" published in 2005 by Jack Hamann, a CNN and PBS journalist, and his wife Leslie about the riot on the night of Aug. 14, 1944, and subsequent events at Fort Lawton.

Dozens were injured in the melee that started with a scuffle between an Italian prisoner of war and a black soldier from the segregated barracks near the POW housing. A POW, Guglielmo Olivotto, was found hanged at the bottom of a bluff the next day.

The Army prosecutor was Leon Jaworski, who went on to become special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s.

Forty-three black soldiers were charged with rioting and three also were charged with murder. Two defense lawyers were assigned to the case and given two weeks to prepare without ever being shown an Army investigation criticizing the way the riot was handled.

Hamann also wrote that at least two soldiers were threatened with lynching by Army detectives. When one witness said a "Booker T." was present at the riot but couldn't give any more detail, the Army charged two men by that name. Another was charged with rioting although white, black and Italian POW witnesses all said he tried to quell the disturbance.

In the ensuing trial 28 men were convicted.

One of those attending the ceremony Saturday, Arthur Prevost of Houston, said his father Willie, one of the convicted soldiers, never talked about what had happened.

"I think he was embarrassed," Prevost said. "I wished he had told us."

Snow's son, Ray Snow, told the gathering his father felt no animosity for the long-ago injustice.

"He was so honored" by the tribute, Ray Snow said. "We salute you for remembering a travesty that took place."

---

Information from: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, http://www.seattle-pi.com/

I Am a Big Tim Wise Fan

The man knows his stuff. His style can be edgy. He's good.

He kind of has the cadence of a black preacher, so it's a bit dissonant to hear Sunday morning coming from a white guy. He's good.