If you do not believe that free speech is a necessity of life: please leave this blog now officially and legally as of reading this, your obligation of this statement is formally required.
Freedom of speech is understood to be fundamental in a democracy. The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights.
I make typos allot. I do not get paid to do this. I do not have a editor or anyone working for me at all. Sometimes it may take me more than one day to finish a article.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 01 12 2019
Grits has a another great multi post blog page here:
Here is another story from LGBTQ Nation Daily Brief that I do not like reading but must post:
They allegedly beat, raped & smeared feces on gay men. Now they face hate crime charges.
Two men in Texas are facing hate crimes charges for assaulting five gay men, including one time they smeared a victim with feces.
Daniel Jenkins, 19, and Michael Atkinson, 24, are accused of using Grindr to lure their victims to an apartment complex in Dallas in December, 2017.
From: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/01/allegedly-beat-raped-smeared-feces-gay-men-now-face-hate-crime-charges
From: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/01/allegedly-beat-raped-smeared-feces-gay-men-now-face-hate-crime-charges
This is one lawsuit I hope does not get won.:
Monday, January 14, 2019
Evangelicals sue for right to deny shelter to homeless transgender people
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 01 20 2019
Grits has another awesome multi subject post. If you can not find at least one thing you agree with; I question your sanity.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 01 22 2019
MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2019
TDCJ suicide record argues against state takeover of Harris County Jail
In a roundup post over the weekend, Grits pointed to an odd story emerging when "Sen. John Whitmire suggested the state should take over the Harris County Jail after its fifth suicide in two years. If the Texas Department of Criminal Justice did a better job, Grits might agree. Suicide attempts at TDCJ are quite high."
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/01/tdcj-suicide-record-argues-against.html
Older people & conservatives share fake news more often than anybody else
Monday, January 14, 2019
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 01 23 2019
From LGBTQ Nation Daily Brief : https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/01/gay-couple-brutally-attacked-holding-hands-public-theyre-lucky-alive/
A gay couple was brutally attacked for holding hands in public. They’re lucky to be alive.
Matthew 7:1-3
7 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Luke 6:37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
Busted! Anti-gay televangelist caught on tape admitting he’s had gay sex repeatedly
Older people & conservatives share fake news more often than anybody else
Half my Christian life I have been told things like; LGBTQ folks will stop at nothing to recruit new LGBTQ people. I have never ever seen any evidence of this and have lived in the city for years at a time. This type of fake news can be the kinds of new's; some less enlightened elderly folks may be susceptible to. Sad to live your whole life as a prejudice person that thinks you know it all; but in reality know very little. I can imagine these type of people abound in states like Minnesota.
Minnesota, in my opinion, is the greatest offender's of human rights and constitutional rights of so called sex offenders; in the our country.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 01 25 2019
Grits has another must read page:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 01 29 2019
On February 11, the City Council’s Public Safety & Criminal Justice Committee will be considering reforms to the Civilian Police Review Board. Reforms are needed so that civilian oversight can be used as a tool to promote accountability, respect, and public trust between residents and Dallas Police Department. We need you to tell your council members to approve reforms that grant the board the authority needed to do its job.
Tell your City Council members that you support reforms for police accountability.
Sincerely,
ACLU of Texas
One of my favorite posts by Grits is against the so called TxDPS - Texas Department of Public Safety
MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019
Senate Finance debate ignores policy solutions to excessive DPS license-center lines
The Texas Senate Finance Committee this morning had a quite-animated discussion over long lines at DPS driver license offices. But nobody yet has raised the topic Grits considers the most significant in this debate: state-driver's-license-revocation policies contributing hundreds of thousands of extra people annually to DPS license-center lines. I'd written about these issues last fall.
How the Driver Responsibility surcharge contributes to long lines at DPS license centers
Long DPS lines making costs of TX driver surcharges more apparent, outweigh revenue to trauma centers
Texas DPS acknowledges short-staffed call center in budget request to reduce long license-center lines
Sen. Kirk Watson bemoaned DPS asking the state to throw money at the problem without a plan to fix the problem. He's right.
To me, there are obvious policy solutions to reduce the number of people unnecessarily in line at driver-license centers. But first, the state must stop the myopic focus on solving the problem through staffing, and focus on measures to reduce the number of people in line.
It's not that more staffing wouldn't help, especially in the Customer Service Center where driver's questions might be answered over the phone without waiting in line at the license center. But the biggest problem, by a country mile, is that Texas suspends more driver's licenses than any other state.
Most suspensions occur because of the Driver Responsibility surcharge. About 3 million drivers have incurred 16 million surcharges since its inception. Of those, 1.4 million of those currently have suspended driver's licenses. Another 300K have suspended licenses because of unpaid traffic tickets. Adding all these people with complex license-restoration cases into the lines at DPS when they otherwise may not need to renew for years contributes greatly to long license-center lines. How could it not? A conservative estimate of the number of additional, unnecessary license-center visits generated annually because of driver-license suspensions runs into the high nine figures.
There are other, smaller contributors to license-center lines: E.g., 100,000 sex offenders are not only required to maintain registry requirements with the state, they must renew their driver's licenses annually. There's no added safety benefit to doing both, and it's making the lines for everyone else longer.
Similarly, everyone convicted of marijuana possession has their license suspended for six months, after which they must go back to the license center to get it renewed. There's no public-safety reason for these extra license renewals, and they also make the lines longer. The state Republican Party platform endorsed making pot possession a civil offense, in part to avoid these sorts of collateral consequences.
Here's an outline of budget and policy measures that would reduce license-center lines:
Eliminate the Driver Responsibility surcharge and give amnesty to the 1.4 million people whose licenses have been suspended over it.
Stop requiring sex offenders to renew their driver's licenses annually.
Punish low-level marijuana possession with a civil penalty instead of criminal charges to bypass federal license-suspension requirement.
Fully fund the DPS Customer Service Center and increase pay for call-center staffers to stop high turnover.
Consider renewing licenses every eight years instead of every seven years.
If and when the DRP is eliminated, there will be an initial surge as people with suspended licenses get them renewed. But after that, these measures would dramatically relieve pressure on license-center lines.
The only alternative to reducing pressure on license-center lines is throwing more money at a failing system. No matter which agency is in charge of licensure, there is no third path.
POSTED BY GRITSFORBREAKFAST AT 11:14 AM
Article can also be found here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/01/senate-finance-debate-ignores-policy.html
My old post against DPS can be found here: http://sexoffenderfaq.blogspot.com/p/sex-offenders-information-exploited-on.html
Also check out these links:
From LGBTQ Nation Daily Brief :
A Brazilian man has been arrested for the horrific murder of a transgender woman. He has confessed.
Caio Santos de Oliveira allegedly was intimate with Quelly da Silva, a transgender woman, and the next day ripped her chest open and pulled out her heart. He also stole her phone.
And another must sign petition:
Tell Congress: Repeal the giveaway of a sacred Native American site to a foreign mining company
If Congress doesn't immediately act, sacred Native American lands in Arizona that contain culturally and spiritually significant sites could soon be home to a two-mile wide, 1,000-foot deep copper mine.
In a secret, backroom deal in 2014, Republicans in Congress snuck language into a must-pass defense bill to give away land in and around the Apache holy areas of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a foreign-owned, multinational mining company with a shameful environmental record and history of human rights abuses.1
Now, two progressive champions in Congress are fighting to reverse this incredible injustice. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Raúl Grijalva have recently introduced the "Save Oak Flat Act," which would cancel the transfer of these lands to Resolution Copper.2 We must speak out now and build public support to stop this modern day Native American land grab.
Tell Congress: Pass the "Save Oak Flat Act" and protect Apache sacred lands from copper mining.
Foreign-owned mining conglomerate Rio Tinto, which owns Resolution Copper, has repeatedly sought control of the copper-rich Oak Flat lands for the past decade, lobbying Congress more than a dozen times since 2005.3 They got their wish granted when Arizona’s then-Republican Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, both of whom had ties to Rio Tinto, ensured that the massive land giveaway moved forward and tucked it into the year-end defense spending bill.
In addition to threatening historically and culturally important sacred Native sites, copper mining in the Oak Flat region would be environmentally disastrous. Apache residents and environmentalists are concerned that “since the mining industry is often exempt from portions of environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act, the invasive copper mining project could damage the area’s water - a resource many Native Americans claim a spiritual obligation to protect.”4
Activism to protect sacred Native lands and other sensitive areas from mining works. After hundreds of thousands of CREDO members recently spoke out against mining in the West, we helped to successfully stop destructive mining projects at Yellowstone and tribal lands near Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
As Rep. Grijalva put it so clearly, "Giving away sacred Apache land to international mining companies isn’t right, and everyone involved in this decision knows it." Let's make sure every member of Congress knows it, too. Will you join us to help protect sacred Native lands again?
Thank you for your activism.
References:
Rupert Neate, "Rio Tinto accused of environmental and human rights breaches," The Guardian, April 18, 2013.
House Committee on Natural Resources, "Chairman Grijalva, Sen. Sanders Introduce Bills to Prevent Mining Activities on Sacred Apache Tribal Land Given Away in 2015 Defense Bill," Jan. 19, 2019.
Serene Fang and Adam May, "In Arizona, a controversial federal land swap leaves Apaches in the lurch," Al Jazeera America, April 14, 2015.
Jack Jenkins, "Citing Religious Freedom, Native Americans Fight To Take Back Sacred Land From Mining Companies," ThinkProgress, July 24, 2015.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 02 2019
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 01, 2019
Reasons Texas county jails failed their state inspections
When I saw that an inmate recently hanged himself in the Waller County Jail - the same jail in which Sandra Bland died - on a hunch, I checked to see if Waller has failed its last jail inspection. It had. But that also made me notice the list of other jails currently out of compliance with Texas Commission on Jail Standards regulations. So I looked through all of them and made a few notes. Here are the highlights:
read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/02/reasons-texas-county-jails-failed-their.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 03 2019
I got this via email from NAACP:
Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
Black face in any manner is always racist and never okay. No matter the party affiliation, we can not stand for such behavior, which is why the @NAACP is calling for the resignation of Virginia Governor @RalphNortham
4:17 PM - 1 Feb 2019
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 04 2019
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 04, 2019
Texas bail-reform bill to be filed today, and other stories
Here are a few browser-clearing odds and ends to start your week:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 05 2019
Texas bail-reform bill to be filed today, and other stories
Here are a few browser-clearing odds and ends to start your week:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 08 2019
Re-evaluating SWAT, Corruption alleged in UT-Dallas policing courses, Was Dallas PD staffing shortage spoken into existence?, and other stories
Here are a few browser-clearing odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 13 2019
WELCOME TO TEXAS JUSTICE: YOU MIGHT BEAT THE RAP, BUT YOU WON'T BEAT THE RIDE.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2019
Blind amputee robbed bank to get healthcare, Austin DNA lab may have caused false convictions, reconsidering extreme sentences, and other stories
Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention while mine is focused elsewhere:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 18 2019
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2019
Travis judges reject public defender, DA discretion the solution to budget constraints, crime deterrent from traffic stops minimal, and other stories
Here are a few browser clearing odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 19 2019
It’s time to hold drug company CEOs accountable
It’s outrageous that Americans pay the highest drug prices in the world — all while drug companies rake in massive and growing profits.
On February 26, Merck, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and other companies will sit in front of the Senate Finance Committee — and your senator/s will have a chance to hold these drug company CEOs accountable.
Tell your senator/s: Enough’s enough. Speak up for all Americans who can’t afford the medicines they need.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 21 2019
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2019
Turmoil at Lubbock ME, Texas' failing state jails, implications of youth-prison riot for raise-the-age bill, and other stories
Here are a few browser-clearing odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 22 2019
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2019
Decarceration, police accountability, transparency: Little bills worth watching
Much attention at the Texas Legislature gets paid to a handful of Big Bills in the criminal-justice world like bail reform, driver-surcharge abolition, and enacting a constitutional standard for executing people with serious mental illness or developmental disabilities. But thousands of bills get filed, including lots of smaller ones that merit attention and potential support from justice reformers. Here are just a few that caught Grits' eye in the last couple of days. In the coming weeks I'll periodically highlight a few more pieces of less-high-profile Texas legislation that should be on reformers' radar screens. But for now, try these on for size: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/02/decarceration-police-accountability.html
Save Rocky From Wrongful Execution
The case of Rocky Myers is a window into so much that’s wrong with the death penalty in this country. The 53-year-old, who has an intellectual disability, was saddled with an incompetent lawyer, convicted on the evidence from a key witness who has since recanted his testimony, and sentenced to death by a judge who imposed death sentence against the jury’s wishes. Now he’s one of 175 prisoners on death row in Alabama – despite all the faults in his case – and with absolutely no evidence tying him to the scene of the crime.
The Supreme Court has ruled that defendants with lower intellectual disabilities like Rocky “face a special risk of wrongful execution.” We saw how that played out in Rocky’s trial and conviction, which were riddled with problems that should have never lead to a conviction, let alone a death sentence.
In 1991, Rocky’s neighbor, an elderly white woman named Ludie Mae Tucker, was murdered in her home by a man who came to the door asking to use the phone. Testimonies from key witnesses implicated another local man, Anthony “Cool Breeze” Ballentine of the murder, but a friend of that man’s family, after learning about a reward offered in the case, offered detectives an affidavit implicating someone else – a short, stocky Black man. Rocky Myers, who lived across the street from Ludie Mae and fit the physical description, was an easy target.
Despite having no history of violence, and not a shred of forensic evidence tying him to the scene of Ludie Mae’s murder, an overwhelmingly white jury (including one juror who used a racial epithet to describe him) convicted Rocky of capital murder. The jury went on to recommend a life sentence, but the judge overruled them and instead sentenced Rocky to death. It was an exercise in the use of “judicial override,” a practice that has since been outlawed.
After the conviction, a lawyer took up his case but then quit in the middle of his state post-conviction appeal, without even informing Rocky. Rocky paid the price for the lawyer’s unconscionable abandonment. The filing deadline for his federal appeal passed, and by the time Rocky found out he’d been dropped as a client, it was too late.
It seemed there was no way out of his wrongful death sentence – but there is. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has the power to grant Rocky clemency.
We must speak up now, because Rocky is dangerously close to receiving an execution date. Sign the petition demanding that Governor Ivey do the right thing and grant Rocky clemency.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 23 2019
I received a letter from the Dallas Resource Center and was impressed with the number of LGBTQ people they help every year. I found a paragraph describing some of what I read.:
Since 1983, Resource Center has provided programs of interest to LGBTQ individuals and critical assistance to people affected by HIV/AIDS. The Center is proud of its commitment to and delivery of a full continuum of services. The Center relies on the generous support of individuals like you to strengthen our communities and to provide life-changing support to people in need. Together, we improve the lives of more than 60,000 people every year.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 26 2019
I want to apologize for having the last petition I had here that I deleted the other day. I did not read the petition thoroughly and signed it by mistake. I am a very strong supporter of women's rights: always have been and always will be on the side of the good fight to protect and procure for all women. I feel the same way for elderly and the sick. We as a society need to take care of people that need taking care of; that is the right thing to do, not just naturally, but according to the Bible. Planed parenthood is extremely important for women's health and I strongly support all they do for women's health and welfare. I have this rule with myself though, I never say anything about abortion; either way. I love women and admire and adore them to no end. My rule is: only women that can have babies have a say about abortion. I have no idea about pregnancies and what a woman goes through with that kind of life; leading up to and until menopause. I also love to vote for women too.
Next is this type of disgusting human rights and constitutional right of transgender people incarcerated. After reading this I did not want to comment on it, but we all have to face up to this kind of thing.
Kanautica Zayre-Brown needs the law on her side and if she was offended sexually; in anyway, lawsuits should be filed against the backwards thinking state of North Carolina.
A North Carolina prison forces this woman to shower with dozens of men
Read here:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 27 2019
Another one of those many "Judge not, that ye be not judged." articles I have posted over the years:
Matthew 7:1-3
7 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
A powerful & anti-gay Catholic cardinal was just found guilty of raping 2 teen boys
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated 02 28 2019
We knew that when communities started doing even simple things to improve the lives of Texans, state leaders would move quickly to take those gains away.
First up this legislative session: earned paid sick time.
Senate Bill 15, which would prevent local governments from adopting policies like local paid sick ordinances to help working Texans, will be considered in a Senate committee this Thursday.
Austin and San Antonio have passed ordinances granting workers the ability to earn paid sick time. Whether it’s a young person working two jobs to make their rent and pay for school, someone who needs a mammogram or well-woman exam, or a parent with a sick child, no one should have to choose between keeping their job and getting the care they need.
But Gov. Abbott and his legislative allies, doing the bidding of big business interests and far-right pressure groups, want to stop local governments from taking action.
If Abbott and friends win this one, not only will it nullify existing ordinances, but all future ones too. That would effectively bar the four million workers who already lack paid sick the ability of ever gaining such a benefit.
You can help in two ways: Call senators on the committee to tell them to vote "no" on SB15 and sign the paid sick petition.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated March 3 2019
These are from a ACLU email I got today:
Prosecutors Have the Power to Stop Bad Roadside Drug Tests From Ruining People’s Lives
Three years ago on New Year’s Eve, Dasha Fincher was arrested in Monroe County, Georgia, after the deputies performed an on-the-spot test of a bag of blue substance that they found in the car in which she was a passenger. The suspicious stuff in the bag came up positive for methamphetamines.
There was just one problem. The roadside drug-test was wrong. The blue substance wasn’t meth — it was cotton candy. Fincher would spend three months in jail because of the faulty test.
A Connecticut Bill Would Help Ensure That Re-Entry Doesn’t Last a Lifetime for the Formerly Incarcerated
Ninety-five percent of the millions of people who are incarcerated in prisons throughout the country will return home one day. When we do, we face tens of thousands of legal barriers — more than 600 in Connecticut alone — to supporting ourselves, our families, and our communities. Public and private landlords, educational institutions, insurance companies, most state licensure boards, and other gatekeepers to society generally have the right to discriminate against prospective tenants, students, and policyholders because of our criminal record.
From: https://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/texas-planning-execution-based-fraudulent-testimony
Texas Is Planning an Execution Based on Fraudulent Testimony
Years after Coble was initially sentenced to death in 1990, an appellate court in 2007 threw out that death sentence because the trial judge had erred in instructing the sentencing jury. At Coble’s 2008 re-sentencing trial, his behavior in prison between 1990 and 2007 posed a challenge to the state’s claim that, as required for a Texas death sentence, Coble would be a danger to other prison staff and prisoners if not executed.
As the court later described him, Coble “did not have a single disciplinary report for the eighteen years he had been on death row.” Rather than posing a threat, Coble had instead become known for helping both staff and fellow prisoners alike.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated March 6 2019
This sure sounds like a great petition to me:
Tell Congress: It’s Time for a Fair and Functioning Democracy
Corporate CEOs and the wealthiest 1% have spent decades rigging the system to reduce our power. That has made it harder and harder to pass legislation that helps working people and makes a real difference in our lives.
The same corporate interests that fight us at the bargaining table are stacking the rules against us when it comes to political participation. They have put restrictions in place that make it harder for people to vote, flooded elections with money and weakened the rules that prevent elected officials from profiting from their public service.
It’s gone way too far and it’s time to do something about it. Ask your member of Congress to support the For the People Act to ensure a fair and functioning democracy for us all.
Torture of any kind is unacceptable synonymous with the land of the free. I saw this in my email yesterday from CCR and it just got stuck in my brain, so I looked it up on the CCR website today. I am also against Guantanamo Bay.
Ruling: Abu Ghraib Torture Lawsuit Headed to Trial
Judge Rejects Latest Efforts by Private Contractor to Have Case Dismissed
February 27, 2019, Alexandria, VA – Today, a federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by survivors of torture at the infamous “hard site” at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq against private military contractor CACI Premier Technology, Inc., over the for-profit company’s role in the torture. CACI provided interrogation services at the prison. The Center for Constitutional Rights filed the case in 2008, and CACI has sought to dismiss it 16 times, resulting in multiple trips to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Leonie Brinkema’s rejection of CACI’s latest motions means that, nearly 15 years to the date when the world first saw the shocking photos of naked, hooded Iraqis stacked in human pyramids and subjected to horrific abuse, three of the original Abu Ghraib survivors in the case, Suhail Al Shimari, Asa’ad Al Zuba’e, and Salah Al-Ejaili, will finally be able to have their day in court. They will be permitted to testify either live or by video link, representing a rare opportunity for the American public to hear directly from victims of this historic human rights atrocity.
Trial is scheduled to begin on April 23, 2019 in the federal courthouse in Alexandria Virginia.
“After the smoke from more than a decade of litigation fights has settled, we now see an important moment in the quest for justice and accountability for victims of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib. Our clients have waited patiently for the lawyers to do their work – now, they finally have a chance to tell their story directly to an American jury,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy.
U.S. military investigators long ago concluded that CACI interrogators conspired with U.S. soldiers, who were later court martialed, to “soften up” detainees for interrogations. A U.S. Army general referred to the treatment as “sadistic, blatant, and wanton.” A number of low-level military officers were court-martialed over their roles in the abuse, but CACI has gone unpunished and continues to reap millions of dollars in government contracts.
In a 2018 ruling, the court held that the treatment alleged by the men at Abu Ghraib constituted torture, war crimes, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, actionable under the Alien Tort Statute. The men were subjected to stress positions, isolation, sensory deprivation, beating, forced nudity, exposure to extreme temperatures, and sexual assault – treatment that caused them to suffer then – and continue to suffer now – severe physical and mental harm.
“More than ten years passed for us to reach this point and achieve justice,” said plaintiff Salah Al-Ejaili. “We faced a lot of obstacles along the way that we had to surpass and we stayed patient because we wanted to win our right to equality in the law.”
For more information, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case page.
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LP, and Shereef Akeel & Valentine, P.C. in Troy, Michigan, are co-counsel on the case.
The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, The Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.
Last modified
February 27, 2019
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated March 8 2019
I have been active supporting foodandwaterwatch.org since pink slime:
Petition: Ban Fracking Now!
Drilling and fracking for oil and gas across the United States is harming communities by contaminating drinking water, polluting the air and harming people's health.
Now more than 17 million Americans live within one mile of an oil or gas well. Fracking is taking place far too close to homes, schools, playgrounds, churches and hospitals. This threatens the health and safety of people nearby.
Read this email this morning on more on this tragic unjust story:
OVERVIEW and TRANSCRIPT included
Rocky Myers is one of 175 people on death row in Alabama. The devastating flaws in his case from the moment of arrest to his sentencing displays the injustice of a brutal criminal system. His attorney Kacey Keeton and investigator Sara Romano join At Liberty to discuss the death penalty, Rocky’s case, and his appeal for clemency.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated March 9 2019
COPS AND NO COUNSELORS: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff Is Harming Students
A new ACLU report reveals that the real crisis in schools isn't violence, but a near-national understaffing of mental health support despite students reporting record-levels of depression and trauma. Already, millions of students attend public schools with law enforcement and no support staff, yet data shows school-based mental health counselors will improve student and school safety. What's more, police presence actually endangers students and funnels marginalized groups into the school-to-prison pipeline.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated March 15 2019
If you live in Collin County Texas mail to:
What’s the Issue?
Over the last two decades, local property taxes have increased so rapidly that many property owners are being forced to sell their properties—and taxpayer frustration is reaching a boiling point.
In recent years, local taxing entities (cities, counties, etc.) have netted tremendous gains in tax revenue due to rapidly increasing appraisal values. Relying on appraisal increases—not rate increases—enables taxing entities to claim that they “haven’t raised taxes,” when in truth, taxpayer bills have been increasing dramatically.
In addition, over the last three decades, the state has reduced its share of public education funding from 52 percent in 1985 to 44 percent in 2015. This drop in state funding has forced many school districts to raise their tax rates to their constitutional limit. In other words, as property values increase, the Texas Legislature has gradually shifted a higher percentage of public school funding to you, the local property owner.
That’s why it’s called The Hidden Property Tax.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated March 16 2019
I got these great stories in my weekly email from the great ACLU:
California Halts the Use of the Death Penalty
On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a moratorium on executions in California for the rest of his time in office. With that order, he removed the threat of execution for 737 death row prisoners – or over 25 percent of the country's death row population. Newsom's decision reflects the accelerating nationwide trend to reject the death penalty as more legislatures, courts, and governors come to see the injustice and barbarism of capital punishment. Read more https://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/california-halts-use-death-penalty
OVERVIEW
TRANSCRIPT
This week, At Liberty comes to you from Austin, TX, where we recorded in front of a live audience with Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, and The Nightwatchman. We sat down to discuss “Atlas Underground,” Morello’s new album of “social justice ghost stories,” as well as his decades of activism on issues like criminal justice reform, income inequality, unions, free speech, and mental health. Morello also announced his new role as an ambassador for the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice, a nationwide effort to reduce the U.S. jail and prison population by 50 percent and to combat racism in the criminal system. Learn more about the Campaign for Smart Justice at www.aclu.org/smartjustice. click here: https://www.aclu.org/podcast/live-sxsw-feat-tom-morello-ep-37
Court Blocks Unconstitutional Government Seizure of Mongols Motorcycle Club Trademark
More than 10 years ago, the Department of Justice launched an unconstitutional campaign of censorship against a motorcycle club and its mostly Latino membership. Now a federal court has decided against the government, sharply criticizing its overreach and abuse of power.
Under the guise of a racketeering prosecution using a law known as RICO, the government sought to seize the Mongols Motorcycle Club’s trademark in its logo and strip members of the right to wear their distinctive patch.
The Leniency Shown to Paul Manafort Should Be the Norm for Everyone — Not Just Rich White Men
Last week, Americans got a front row seat to the two systems of justice we have in America, one reserved for rich white men and the other for communities of color. Unfortunately, though, many people may have drawn the wrong lessons from these examples.
Read More Here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/sentencing-reform/leniency-shown-paul-manafort-should-be-norm-everyone-not-just
It’s High Time Congress Passed the Equality Act
Man waving rainbow flag in front of Supreme Court
On Wednesday, the Equality Act — legislation that would provide LGBTQ people with explicit and comprehensive nondiscrimination protections — was introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives with the support of nearly 300 members of Congress. If passed, it would transform the civil rights landscape in the United States.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated March 23 2019
Lawmakers in Colorado Should Abolish the Death Penalty
In Colorado, the death penalty is nearly obsolete due to juries' conscientious refusal to impose it, even in the case of the Aurora shooter. Now, a new bill has been introduced in the state to abolish the practice once and for all. State-authorized killing is expensive, replete with bias, ineffective at curbing violent crime, and inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system. Colorado lawmakers must consider this evidence and put the final nail in capital punishment's coffin. Read more →
March 20, 2019
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated March 31 2019
You know; I think I am in this; for life. It as if I did not choose advocacy; it chose me. At this point I do not think I could stop; even if I wanted to. It makes me want to thunderously scream earth shaking pulses from my soul to the heavens; most every single day. Matthew 20:16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2019
Class C misdemeanor arrests and incarceration in Texas, by the numbers
Beginning with the consideration of HB 482 (Thompson) in the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee on Wednesday, the Texas Legislature will spend quite a bit of time over the coming weeks considering the consequences of arrest and incarceration for Class C misdemeanors, which in Texas are minor offenses carrying a maximum punishment of a $500 fine and no jail time.
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
Bail-reform blues: Can't please all parties when reforming pretrial-detention process
Governor Greg Abbott's endorsement of bail reform last year appeared to give the issue fresh life. But Abbott has now backed a bail-reform bill that eschews best practices and instead puts his office at the center of future decisions about pretrial reform.
read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/03/bail-reform-blues-cant-please-all_28.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 02 2019
Remove Holocaust Denial Pages from Facebook
We call on Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook to cease hosting Holocaust Denial pages on their site. When these pages spread lies and untruths, it is veiled hatred and anti-semitism designed to cast doubt on facts.
The Holocaust happened. This can not be disputed. Period.
There is a difference between providing a platform for free expression and knowingly spreading false information and lies. Denying the Holocaust causes harm.
These sites foster hatred, division and racism. We call on Facebook to take action and help stop this dissemination of hate.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 03 2019
TUESDAY, APRIL 02, 2019 Vetting police arguments against limiting Class-C misdemeanor arrests In preparation for tomorrow's hearing on HB 482 (Thompson) limiting Class C misdemeanor arrests Texas House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee, I just watched last session's hearing on Chairwoman Senfronia Thompson's similar bill, which passed out of that committee on a 7-1 vote.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 04 2019
Thursday is a busy day in the fight for working families!
Tomorrow we’ll be at City Council AND at the State Capitol demanding our elected representatives oppose SB15 and similar bills that strip working families of paid sick leave, remove water breaks for construction workers and deny the LGBTQ+ community of protection from discrimination.
SB2485
Attacks non discrimination ordinances and the Responsible Bidders Ordinance
SB2486
Attacks water breaks for workers and non discrimination ordinances
SB2487
Attacks paid sick leave and non discrimination ordinances
SB2488
Attacks the "ban the box" movement making it harder for someone with a criminal record to get a job
Help us STOP this attack on Working Texas Families!
Call your Texas Senator NOW:
1-833-417-4260
Stay Updated
Reply to this email if you would like to join us or stay up-to-date!
The Texas Senate has approved a bill that would allow professionals to discriminate against LGBTQ people. Senate Bill 17 would bar state professional licensing boards from punishing professionals for breaking rules that violate a “sincerely held religious belief.” SB 17 has an exception for life-or-death situations and does not apply to police. Almost all the Texas senate Republicans voted for the bill, along with Democrat Eddie Lucio. Republican Kel Seliger voted against the measure along with most of the Democrats.
This is insane! read more here: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/04/texas-senate-just-approved-bill-allow-doctors-refuse-lgbtq-patients
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 05 2019
Landowners in Texas need more protection when private companies use eminent domain for pipelines or other fossil fuel projects.
Two bills in the legislature, SB 421 and HB 991, would establish some basic transparency and fairness provisions when private companies use the power of eminent domain to take people’s land. They would require a public meeting and notification of certain easement terms, and they would establish penalties for low initial offers to landowners.
Some of these provisions are ALREADY required when the government uses eminent domain; private companies should be held to the same standard.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 06 2019
Will your House Rep support the #SaveTheNet Act?
Our best chance to save the open Internet is under attack!
Earlier this month, Congress introduced the Save the Internet Act, which will restore the Net Neutrality protections that Ajit Pai’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed in 2017.1
The problem is that all Republicans and some Democrats have sided with Big Telecom and are planning to vote against this bill or introduce amendments to weaken it.2
To save the open Internet, we need every Democrat and at least a few Republicans to vote in favour of the Save the Internet Act. That’s why thousands of people are contacting their members of Congress by sending emails, giving them calls and tweeting at them. But we also need to get this plastered all over the media as well.
We know members of Congress pay attention to their local press, including the letters to the editor. If thousands of us get letters to the editor published in papers across the country, our representatives will see how popular this bill to restore Net Neutrality is.
Will you write a letter to your local paper to get this issue out on your community? This tool will connect you with your local paper and send your letter directly to them.
ACLU of Texas
Tell your State Rep: Vote
The Texas Senate has passed a bill that would let licensed professionals and the businesses they operate use religion as a license to discriminate. If it becomes law, every LGBTQ person in the state will be at risk when interacting with licensed professionals.
Tell your State Representative to stop the “license to discriminate” bill.
Senate Bill 17 (SB 17) would direct state licensing agencies to allow licensed professionals to use their religious beliefs as a justification for discrimination, including discrimination against LGBTQ people. This means that people in hundreds of professions – ranging from school counselors to healthcare providers – could deny services to people based solely on their identity.
Because this dangerous, anti-LGBTQ bill has passed the Senate, our only chance to stop it is in the House. Your representative in the Texas House needs to hear from you.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 07 2019
America's Pretrial System Is Broken. Here's Our Vision to Fix It.
On Tuesday, we released our pretrial policy vision, laying out a world in which pretrial incarceration is all but eliminated. To make possible this reality, we're calling for the end of pretrial profiteering, wealth-based discrimination, and actuarial algorithms. Instead, through collective investment, we can create a fair system that actually operates on the presumption of innocence and diverts as many people as possible from jails.
April 2, 2019
We Are Fighting Maricopa County's Rampant Prosecutorial Misconduct
Maricopa County prosecutor Juan Martinez has a long history of aggressive, overzealous, and often unethical behavior, which fits with the entrenched culture of impunity surrounding Maricopa prosecutors more broadly. The Arizona Supreme Court has routinely spotlighted his misdeeds, and the state bar recently tried to discipline him, but he still hasn't faced any consequences. We filed an amicus brief with the Arizona Supreme Court to make sure that Martinez is finally held accountable.
April 4, 2019
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 07 2019
No matter where you are in Texas, you can take action now.
The Texas Senate just passed SB 17, a sweepingly discriminatory bill that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has put on his list of “must pass” bills this session.
No matter where you are in Texas, you can take action now.
This bill would allow a professional license holder to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. License holders in Texas include health care professionals, counselors, lawyers and those in dozens of other professions. SB 17 creates a license to discriminate against virtually anyone – but especially LGBTQ Texans – for religious reasons. As SB 17 heads to the Texas House, lawmakers need to hear from Texans who oppose discriminatory bills like SB 17. We need YOU to contact your state representative and urge them to oppose SB 17.
No matter where you are in Texas, you can take action now.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 09 2019
Police have arrested the homophobic MAGA swordsman who nearly severed a Latinx man’s hand
Police apprehended 30-year-old Leor Bergland and charged him with attempted murder, mayhem and assault with a deadly weapon
Trans woman arrested & sexually harassed by jail staff for hours over a $15 traffic ticket
Georgia took the report but then noticed she had an outstanding $15 seat belt citation fine. They arrested Castle and hauled her to jail.
Barton says he hopes that Castle’s case will prevent future assaults on the human dignity of transgender people.
MONDAY, APRIL 08, 2019
Texas bail-reform legislation not ready for prime time
Competing bail-reform bills are up in the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee today, but in this writer's view, none of them is ready for prime time.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 10 2019
Pledge to Fight Hate:
Tell Your Member of Congress to Support the Equality Act! We need to pass the Equality Act … and HRC needs your support to do it. If enacted, the Equality Act will establish explicit and consistent protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity at the federal level. Join us in ensuring your Members of Congress support this critical bill by contacting them directly. Your voice matters and will make all the difference, so call your member of Congress today!
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 11 2019
TELL DALLAS CITY COUNCIL: VOTE "YES" FOR POLICE OVERSIGHT
Support Police Accountability in Dallas
Tell Dallas City Council: Vote "Yes" for Police Oversight
The Dallas Community Police Oversight Coalition has been pushing for change for over a year, and has gathered support from the community, the police chief and the city council, but the Coalition still needs your help to push it through!
Tell the members of Dallas City Council that you demand meaningful oversight to promote accountability, respect, and public trust between residents and police.
Message recipients:
Dallas City Council
HOLD POLICE ACCOUNTABLE
This month, Dallas City Council will have a chance to improve the practices of the Dallas Police Department. Your city council members will vote on reforms to replace the outdated and ineffective police review board with a new community oversight board.
Act now: Tell City Council to hold police accountable.
Oversight of law enforcement matters. Nationwide, under a system where law enforcement agencies investigate themselves, fewer than 1 in 12 complaints of police brutality result in disciplinary action. Dallas urgently needs a strong, independent oversight body to ensure that when police misconduct happens, the officers responsible are held accountable.
Tell your City Council members that you support reforms for police accountability.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 13 2019
Willie McCoy Should Be Alive Today
Vallejo police sign The events that led to the murder of Willie McCoy by City of Vallejo police began with a 911 call came from a Taco Bell employee. In the recording, the employee sounds perplexed: “I have a person unresponsive to car horn honks in my drive-through,” he said. He then added, “He’s unresponsive. I’ve already had, like people try to knock on the window. I have no idea what’s going on.” The dispatcher sent out Vallejo police officers for what’s known as a “wellness check.” Officers arrived, saw that Willie McCoy was passed out in the driver’s seat of his car, and began to evaluate the situation. That this led to police to shooting and killing a Black man who had been sleeping in his car speaks volumes about deadly force and racial bias not just in California, but across the nation.
Read More Here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/willie-mccoy-should-be-alive-today
The BE HEARD Act Will Overhaul Workplace Harassment Laws
Protester holding sign stating "Sexual Harassment: Not on my Watch For more than a decade, Tarana Burke and survivors across the country have used #MeToo to share their experiences of sexual violence, raise women’s voices, and respond to the needs of survivors. In its current incarnation, #MeToo has sparked an unprecedented examination of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, in our workplaces, and illuminated the multiple manifestations of workplace discrimination.
Read More Here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/womens-rights-workplace/be-heard-act-will-overhaul-workplace-harassment-laws
Montanan in Discrimination Complaint
The Montana Human Rights Bureau last week released a finding in support of a transgender woman who experienced unlawful discrimination during her time as an employee for Yellowstone County. APRIL 3, 2019
ACLU of Montana Statement on HB 534 Anybody who has family members struggling with addiction -- or struggles with it themselves -- knows that increased penalties will not help Montanans. MARCH 18, 2019
Lobby Day 2019: Your Voice Makes a Difference! The Montana Legislature. A four-month bustling political event, when the usually quiet Capitol building is suddenly alive with debate and democracy. MARCH 5, 2019
Read More Here: https://www.aclumontana.org
EMERSON SYKES From the ACLU, this is At Liberty.
I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at the ACLU and your host.
In the current political context, where we are inundated with seemingly unprecedented crises and scandals on an almost daily basis, it's important to remember that some of America's oldest problems persist. Today, we're focusing on Indigenous justice and organizing for social change in Indigenous communities.
Among the many legacies of American genocide and marginalization, Native Americans have the highest rates of unemployment and poverty among all minority groups, with the poverty rate at nearly 40 percent on reservations. And Indigenous women are far more likely to experience violence. Four out of five Indigenous women have experienced violence in some form, and nearly one out of two have experienced sexual violence.
Read More Here: https://www.aclu.org/podcast/indigenous-justice-montana-ep-41?redirect=podcast/indigenous-justice-montana
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 14 2019
Sign the Petition: Urge Senators to Co-Sponsor the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) ran out of authorization Oct. 1, 2018, although funding for its many critical programs continues. However, VAWA’s future is precarious, subject to the whims of government shutdowns and continuing resolutions. The programs, services and lives of survivors across the country are in limbo. VAWA 2019 needs to be passed immediately, guaranteeing five more years of help and hope for survivors of sexual, domestic and dating violence and stalking.
Someone needs to get a petition going for this lady and better yet get her a home.:
Panhandler gets $12K bail for stealing $1 at a food truck An aggressive panhandler snatched a dollar bill - maybe two, it's a disputed account - from a food-truck customer in Austin last week and the courts gave her a $12,000 bail amount. What kind of jackassery is this? Are they TRYING to give bail reformers a poster child? Good Lord!
Grand jury declines indictments for guards accused of falsifying disciplinary cases Hard to get District Attorneys in small counties with sizable prison-guard populations to get real enthusiastic about prosecuting corruption, so one shouldn't be completely surprised that a grand jury declined to indict guards who allegedly falsified disciplinary cases against inmates. But it certainly contributes to an ongoing perception that the agency benefits from insular, rural settings and that external oversight is needed.
Texas still leader in exonerations/false convictions Texas tied with New York for the most exonerations last years, according to the national registry. That's primarily because of exonerations based on plea deals based on flawed drug field tests, which have caused hundreds of false convictions in Harris County, and probably other jurisdictions where they haven't been uncovered because no one ever looked.
For these stories and more and all the newspaper links and reference links; go to the great Grits for Breakfast, here:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 16 2019
Tell Congress: Investigate AT&T
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made big promises last year to create jobs if Congress passed a big tax cut for corporations.
But instead of creating jobs, AT&T continues to cut jobs, and the company is stonewalling workers who want a fair contract that keeps jobs in our communities.
It's time for Congress to launch an investigation to find out what happened to the billions of dollars of our money that they gave away to AT&T and other corporations that are cutting jobs.
Enter your name and address information to start writing a letter to Congress asking them to investigate AT&T.
Tell Senators: Let the IRS make tax filing free for everyone
The IRS should make tax filing free for everyone. There's no need to write anything into legislation that could be used to limit the availability of free filing -- especially not to protect the profits of large corporations like Intuit and H&R Block. Senators should strip the provision from the Taxpayer Fairness Act that would limit free filing.
This weekend millions of Americans will scramble to file their taxes before Monday's deadline. And many of them will pay a private company for something they ought to be able to get for free.
The IRS has the ability to allow everyone to file their taxes free of charge, easily and online. But they don't do it because years ago, they cut a deal with the big tax prep companies -- like Intuit and H&R Block -- to allow free filing for a few people but prevent it for all others.
Now the tax prep companies are pushing legislation in Congress with a provision that would make this deal permanent.1 It could prevent the IRS from ever allowing every taxpayer to file for free. And it's pending in the Senate right now. Can you help stop it?
Sign the petition and tell Senators: Let the IRS offer free tax filing to everyone!
Advocates learned about this provision in the Taxpayer First Act just before it was passed by the House. We didn't have time to stop it. But we can stop in the U.S. Senate.
Some Senators, like Elizabeth Warren, have long called for the IRS to make filing your taxes free — or go even further.
In many countries, like Sweden, their government sends them a pre-filled tax return that a taxpayer can either accept as-is, or change anything that's incorrect and send it back for free.2
This provision in the bill would make all of that impossible. Some Senators, like Ron Wyden, claim the provision isn't that bad and that the IRS could still expand free filing. But there's no reason to write this into law and give Intuit and H&R Block a chance to stop free filing in court.3
Just this week Wall Street analysts predicted a huge boost to Intuit's profits when millions of American pay through the nose for TurboTax as they scramble to get their taxes filed on time.4 It doesn't have to be this way.
Sign the petition: Let the IRS offer free tax filing to everyone!
Sources:
1. Pro Publica, "Congress Is About to Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing. Thank TurboTax.", April 9, 2019.
2. The Atlantic, "The 10-Second Tax Return," March 30, 2016.
3. Senator Ron Wyden on Twitter, April 10, 2019.
4. Investor's Business Daily, "TurboTax Maker Intuit Gets Big Price-Target Hike Ahead Of Tax Filing Day", April 11, 2019.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 17 2019
Come hear from Dallas County DA John Creuzot as he recaps his first 100 days in office, shares more details on his recent reform policies (read the full public letter here), and answers questions from the community, Wednesday, April 17 from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd., Dallas, TX 75208). This is a FREE event. Food will be provided on a first come first serve basis and complimentary child care will be available, as well as Spanish interpretation. register online at bit.ly/R2JTOWNHALL.
Dallas transgender woman brutally attacked by mob in broad daylight:
From: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/04/dallas-transgender-woman-brutally-attacked-mob-broad-daylight/
Monday, April 15, 2019
A man has been arrested in connection to the brutal beating of a transgender woman that was caught on video.
A horrific video that was posted on social media this past Friday showed a crowd gathering in the streets in a Dallas neighborhood around Muhlaysia Booker, 23.
In the video, a man starts to beat her, and later others join in, kicking her and holding her down. She tries to get away. A group of women surrounds her and carries her to a car.
Booker was taken to a hospital where she was treated facial fractures. Her arm is in a sling.
She told police that the violent attack started after she was involved in a minor traffic accident. The man who beat her shouted homophobic slurs, she said, and family members said she was attacked because she’s transgender.
“This don’t need to happen to nobody else’s kid, so we pray that everything comes out justifiable. We know the Lord works in mysterious ways,” her father Pierre Booker told NBC 5, calling the man responsible a “coward.”
On Sunday, police announced that Edward Thomas, 29, was arrested for having an alleged role in the attack, although they did not say if he was the first man who beat her or another person in the video.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings denounced the attack, which he called “mob violence.”
“Chief [Renee] Hall alerted me this morning to the assault at the Royal Crest Apartments and I have seen a video of what happened,” Rawlings said in a statement.
“I am extremely angry about what appears to be mob violence against this woman. I am in contact with the chief and she assured me that the Dallas Police Department is fully investigating, including the possibility that this was a hate crime.”
“Those who did this do not represent how Dallasites feel about our thriving LGBTQ community. We will not stand for this kind of behavior.”
While the crime may have been motivated by anti-transgender sentiment, gender identity is not one of the protected categories in Texas’s hate crimes law. Sexual orientation and gender, though, are covered.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 20 2019
We asked you to submit questions for new ACS CAN President Lisa Lacasse and you all responded. And now, we’ve got answers. Thank you to all of the volunteers who sent in a question for Lisa. While we couldn’t get all of them answered on video, we did capture some of the most frequent - and sometimes most interesting - ones. Enjoy this series of short videos - each is under one minute for quick and easy viewing - to see Lisa’s answers to your questions.:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 23 2019
This is so much like Nazism it is not even funny! I liken it to the Jews not being alloud places during Nazi occupation.:
When Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, they instituted a series of measures aimed at persecuting Germany’s Jewish citizens. By late 1938, Jews were banned from most public places in Germany.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes. Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it. Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them. George Santayana - Wikiquote https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana
Anti-LGBTQ legislation is moving quickly.
The Texas Senate passed SB 17, a sweeping discriminatory bill that would allow state-sanctioned discrimination against many groups including LGBTQ Texans. The bill will be heard soon in the House State Affairs Committee - bringing it closer to becoming law. Send a message to the House State Affairs Committee and ask them to reject SB 17!
‘Licenses to discriminate’ bills like SB 17 could allow professionals to refuse to serve LGBTQ Texans, single mothers, unwed couples, interfaith couples, and more. For example, a local pediatrician could refuse to care for the child of a same-sex couple and the state licensing agency wouldn’t be able to address the pediatrician’s unprofessional behavior, or a pharmacist could refuse - without professional consequence - to dispense anti-retroviral drugs because of their religious views on HIV and AIDS.
Tell the House State Affairs Committee to reject SB 17 because hate is not a Texas value!
Click here to help try to stop this insane behavior!
Click here to help try to stop this insane behavior!
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 24 2019
TELL DALLAS CITY COUNCIL: VOTE "YES" FOR POLICE OVERSIGHT
Support Police Accountability in Dallas
Tell Dallas City Council: Vote "Yes" for Police Oversight
The Dallas Community Police Oversight Coalition has been pushing for change for over a year, and has gathered support from the community, the police chief and the city council, but the Coalition still needs your help to push it through!
Tell the members of Dallas City Council that you demand meaningful oversight to promote accountability, respect, and public trust between residents and police.
Message recipients:
Dallas City Council
Click here to help Native Americans
Native American voters on United States Indian reservations have been systematically disenfranchised from the election process.
Though Native American voting rights advocates have made some progress, “white-only voting” extremists continue to work overtime to make sure the Native American voice is extinguished.
Non-traditional addresses for many reservation residents create registration problems. Additionally, even when registered, high unemployment, extremely distant polling locations (sometimes hundreds of miles), newly minted voter ID laws, and limited resources create acute disadvantages to Native American voting.
These burdens work in tandem with historical, social, and political conditions to produce a discriminatory result for Native Americans.
Sign the petition to tell county and state election officials: Native Americans deserve equal access to voting.
Four Directions, a leader for Native American voting rights and engagement, is at the forefront of this fight, launching grassroots campaigns targeting seven states ahead of the 2020 elections.
We must support grassroots efforts like these with a collective voice. We demand our elected representatives ensure equal access for every American to vote!
Our Message to County & State Election Officials:
There’s simply no more essential duty of a democratic government than to provide open and fair elections accessible to ALL eligible voters, including First Americans. It is the right of the American Indigenous people to have equal access to the election process. We believe establishing satellite locations for in-person voter registration and in-person early voting locations must happen for the Native American votes to be cast and counted.
Participating Organizations:
Advancement Project
Common Cause
CREDO
Daily Kos
Demand Progress
Four Directions
Let America Vote
Native American Rights Fund
Native Organizers Alliance
People Demanding Action
People for the American Way
Progress America
Seeding Sovereignty
Voter Rights Action
Native American voters on United States Indian reservations have been systematically disenfranchised from the election process.
Though Native American voting rights advocates have made some progress, “white-only voting” extremists continue to work overtime to make sure the Native American voice is extinguished.
Non-traditional addresses for many reservation residents create registration problems. Additionally, even when registered, high unemployment, extremely distant polling locations (sometimes hundreds of miles), newly minted voter ID laws, and limited resources create acute disadvantages to Native American voting.
These burdens work in tandem with historical, social, and political conditions to produce a discriminatory result for Native Americans.
Sign the petition to tell county and state election officials: Native Americans deserve equal access to voting.
Four Directions, a leader for Native American voting rights and engagement, is at the forefront of this fight, launching grassroots campaigns targeting seven states ahead of the 2020 elections.
We must support grassroots efforts like these with a collective voice. We demand our elected representatives ensure equal access for every American to vote!
Our Message to County & State Election Officials:
There’s simply no more essential duty of a democratic government than to provide open and fair elections accessible to ALL eligible voters, including First Americans. It is the right of the American Indigenous people to have equal access to the election process. We believe establishing satellite locations for in-person voter registration and in-person early voting locations must happen for the Native American votes to be cast and counted.
Participating Organizations:
Advancement Project
Common Cause
CREDO
Daily Kos
Demand Progress
Four Directions
Let America Vote
Native American Rights Fund
Native Organizers Alliance
People Demanding Action
People for the American Way
Progress America
Seeding Sovereignty
Voter Rights Action
My Faith Does Not Discriminate: A Letter to Texas Legislators
Texas political leaders continue to target LGBT Texans for discrimination. Join with clergy and congregation members from diverse faith traditions across Texas to demand dignity and full equality for LGBT Texans.
You can add your name to the following letter by using the form on this page.
To State Leaders and Members of the Texas Legislature,
As ministers, rabbis, other religious leaders, and people of faith we believe in the full equality of LGBT Texans – equality before God and equality under the law. This deeply held belief is shared by diverse congregations all across the state of Texas.
Our faith compels us to oppose discriminatory laws masquerading as “religious freedom,” or any other attempts to treat LGBT Texans as second-class citizens. Indeed, our faith leads us to support laws that maintain and expand full protection and freedom for the LGBT community.
We denounce all attempts to use religion to demonize, discriminate against, or bring harm to LGBT people. We call on you, our state leaders, to support policies that treat all Texans equally under the law.
TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE: KEEP DISCRIMINATION OUT OF TEXAS
Oppose Senate Bill 17
Tell Your Representative: Keep Discrimination out of Texas
Senate Bill 17 would create a license to discriminate against virtually anyone – especially LGBTQ Texans – for religious reasons. The harmful bill is scheduled for a hearing in the Texas House of Representatives soon.
Tell your State Representative to keep discrimination out of Texas.
Message Recipients:
Your State Representative
Click here to tell Texas reps you are against fracking
No on SB 1585
We must protect our rivers and streams on two fronts in the Texas Legislature - The House and the Senate! While our efforts to stop HB 2771, which would allow the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to authorize the dumping of wastewater from oil and gas operations into our state’s streams, rivers, reservoirs, and bays, there is an identical bill in the Senate that could be voted on at any minute.
Please help us stop SB 1585 by Sen. Hughes by emailing and calling your State Senator to urge them to vote NO!
Wastewater discharge
This is a no-brainer. The Texas Legislature needs to say no to this, and quickly, so they can focus on other very important issues facing our environment.
EPA is still only studying the issue and has yet to enact new rules. The EPA has only allowed a couple of states, in very unique circumstances, to authorize such dumping ever, and it has yet to delegate such a program to the TCEQ.
Sierra Club does not support suddenly opening up our state to dumping wastewater from oil and gas operations, which includes chemicals used in “fracking” that can contain chemicals that can cause cancer and birth defects.
Please send an email to your State Senator and urge them to vote no on SB 1585 if it comes up for a vote on the floor. Then, take five minutes and follow it up with a quick call to their office. This will double the impact of your voice.
Click here to tell Texas reps you are against fracking
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 26 2019
Sign the petition: The Justice Department must publicly hold police accountable for the deaths of civilians in custody
Earlier in March, three more police officers who killed unarmed, non-threatening black men will get away with it. Stephon Clark and Terence Crutcher's killers will not face any criminal charges.
Police are not above the law. We must not allow police who kill unarmed civilians--disproportionately black and indigenous people--to continue to escape accountability for extrajudicial violence against black and brown communities.
Something positive about democrats. I just hope we can get old Joe to be safe and not touch people; the way he has in the past. I am a firm believer in the human's ability to change.
Is Joe Biden the best choice for LGBTQ Democrats?
Thursday, April 25, 2019
After months of broadly hinting (and apparently years of regretting not doing it sooner), Joe Biden has announced he’s running for the Democratic nomination for president. As Biden put it in his announcement email, “I cannot stand by.”
Maybe Biden’s time has passed. But maybe his time is now.
Yikes, now for something bad about democrats. Just when I was a little hopeful too.:
Don't let Speaker Pelosi cut a Big Pharma-friendly deal with
It doesn't seem possible that Democrats want to maintain the high price of prescription drugs or help Big Pharma line its pockets. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning to cut a deal with to allow corporate-friendly, third-party arbitration panels to set pharmaceutical prices for sick Americans.1,2
Voters turned the House of Representatives over to Democrats who promised to tackle the sky-high prices of medicines. We have to make sure Speaker Pelosi stops negotiating with on a weak, corporate-friendly proposal.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 27 2019
CPRIT - Ask Your Lawmaker To Support CPRIT
Let members of the Texas Legislature know how important the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas is, and that we cannot allow its funding to drop. Texas has made incredible advancements and we cannot lose that momentum. Tell your lawmaker to ensure CPRIT's future.
Recipients
Targeted recipients based on your address
MESSAGE
Please Support CPRIT: HB 39 and HJR 12
Dear [Decision Maker],
I am asking you to support the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas by supporting HB 39 and HJR 12, both of which passed out of the house with strong bipartisan support.
This year, 110,000 Texans will hear the words "you have cancer." The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), enables research that will save lives, and is the second largest funder of cancer research in the nation - which makes me proud to be a Texan.
Add your name: It’s time to expand Medicaid in your state!
With the news that the Affordable Care Act is once again under attack, it’s never been more important to put politics aside and embrace Medicaid expansion!
Expanding Medicaid nationwide would provide millions of Americans with access to the health care that they need, create thousands of jobs, and help protect hospitals and clinics in some of the towns and cities that need it most. That’s why Senator Warner from Virginia and Senator Doug Jones are working on a plan to give the 14 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid another chance.
Take Senator Jones' home state of Alabama for example, where there's a crisis: 13 hospitals, mostly in rural areas, have closed in the last 8 years alone. Those who need care the most -- pregnant mothers and their young children, cancer patients, disabled veterans -- have to travel too far for care that is too often unaffordable. And Alabama is not alone. Your state and 13 others have yet to embrace Medicaid expansion. This needs to change.
Senator Doug Jones is working hard to make this an even better deal for your state. He's introduced legislation that would cover 100% of the cost of Medicaid expansion for the next three years.
We must make our voices heard!
Add your name to join Senator Doug Jones: It’s time to pass Medicaid expansion everywhere! >>
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 28 2019
Sign the Petition: Urge Senators to Co-Sponsor the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) ran out of authorization Oct. 1, 2018, although funding for its many critical programs continues. However, VAWA’s future is precarious, subject to the whims of government shutdowns and continuing resolutions. The programs, services and lives of survivors across the country are in limbo. VAWA 2019 needs to be passed immediately, guaranteeing five more years of help and hope for survivors of sexual, domestic and dating violence and stalking.
Supreme Court Takes Cases of People Fired for Being LGBTQ
APRIL 22, 2019 | 11:30 AM
Can a business fire someone because they’re LGBTQ? The Supreme Court will soon tell us.
After a funeral home outside Detroit fired Aimee Stephens because she is transgender, Aimee won a federal appeals court ruling that the firing violated the federal law barring sex discrimination in the workplace. After Don Zarda was fired from his job as a skydiving instructor because he’s gay, another federal appeals court ruled that his firing, too, was sex discrimination.
On Monday, the Supreme Court announced that it would take up Aimee and Don’s cases (plus a third) to decide whether to take those civil rights protections away from Aimee, Don, and all LGBTQ people in America. Not surprisingly, Department of Justice will argue that it should.
In Aimee’s case, she worked for six years in a job she loved as funeral director, getting great reviews. Her boss and co-workers knew her as a man, but she always knew she was female. In 2013, Aimee gathered the strength to come out to her supervisor as the woman she is. She was hoping to find acceptance and to be judged on her good performance alone. Instead, her boss fired her, making no bones about the fact that it was because she was transgender.
DISCRIMINATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE (EP. 43)
APRIL 25, 2019
A few weeks ago, the ACLU and other civil rights organizations announced a landmark settlement with Facebook to prevent advertisers from using ad-targeting filters based on race, gender, and age on job, housing, and credit ads. But Facebook ads are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the use of algorithms to reinforce and automatize bias. ACLU attorneys Galen Sherwin and Esha Bhandari join At Liberty to discuss the impact of these technologies on people’s lives and fighting discrimination in the digital age.
We Sued to End the Evils of Cash Bail in Michigan
APRIL 19, 2019 | 3:00 PM
Imagine being poor and being arrested by the police in Detroit. You are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but with no money, you will remain in jail for up to 3 days before you can see a judge called a magistrate.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated April 29 2019
A Collin County LGBTQ rights advocate?
I have been supporting them since they started: https://www.galanorthtexas.org
When first got on their email list they were called: CCGLA stands for Collin County Gay and Lesbian Alliance (Texas)
My hat's off to them for this:
Dear Texas Legislators:
Two-thirds of Texans believe that no one should have to worry about being fired from a job, evicted from an apartment, or denied services just because of who you are or who you love. The latest polling shows that 66% of Texans, with majorities of every age, gender, ethnic group, political affiliation, and religion, support nondiscrimination laws for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. But there are currently no explicit and enduring protections on either the state or federal level for this vulnerable population.
In the absence of state and federal nondiscrimination protections, our cities--Fort Worth, Plano and Dallas--have taken steps to protect LGBTQ people and others from discrimination at work, in access to housing, and in public spaces. As leaders from cities that value our local nondiscrimination ordinances (NDOs), we are concerned about bills in the Texas legislature that would put these important protections our residents and our economies have come to rely on at risk.
These NDOs are tailored to our community values and the needs of our local populations, including not only our LGBTQ community, but also people of faith, people of color, veterans, and students. NDOs are an important part of what keeps our cities vibrant, strong, and healthy. They assure our residents and visitors that there is a local, legal remedy, close to home, when they face discrimination and that they are welcome to live, work, and contribute to the cities we call home.
NDOs are an important competitive tool in the war for talent, corporate investment, innovation, and tourism (Texas' #2 industry). In 2015, for example, Facebook executives confirmed Fort Worth's LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance--the oldest in the state--before deciding on its $1B investment in the city. Municipal NDOs are an important tool for winning convention and sporting event business. Convention & visitors bureau execs say they would lose significant opportunities to bid for business if they...click below to read more:
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 2 2019
A Christian school in Harlem has been feeding students rabid homophobia for years.
The Atlah World Missionary Church is run by Pastor James Manning, who is best known for some of his appearances on The Daily Show where he claimed that Barack Obama was “Hitler” and that Starbucks puts “gay semen” in its lattes.
The church is listed as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A church sign calling to Ali Forney Center
It also runs two schools: Great Tomorrow’s USA Elementary/Middle and Atlah High School. Manning is the superintendent of those schools.
A long investigative piece published by the Huffington Post looked into allegations of sexual and physical abuse against the children at the schools, and the power Manning has over their parents in what some of the church’s former members call a “cult.”
Related: Anti-gay church threatens rainbow flag burning to celebrate ruling
One student, Sharif Hassan, was told to change his name to “Michael” because his name sounded “too Muslim.” He was locked in a basement for three days with rats and bugs because he had a relationship with a girl in the school. He wasn’t allowed to eat for most of each day he was locked in the basement, and his parents supported the punishment as “biblical.”
In addition to excessive punishment of children, the school taught homophobia. The church is famous for its signs like “Jesus would stone homos,” and the school goes deeper into that homophobia.
Some of the former students who talked to the Huffington Post said that Manning would regularly use the word “faggot” and teachers said that gay people were “demons who were doomed to go to hell.”
The school’s website used to tell parents, “Stop the homosexual brainwashing of your children!”
Students said that they were forced to watch Manning’s YouTube videos, many of which have been removed from the site because they don’t meet community standards. One of the videos that is still available is entitled “Jussie Smollett And Barack Hussein Obama Are Lovers.”
Another student said that they were told to defecate in bags and leave them in front of gay-owned businesses.
Manning would also accuse students of being gay to get their parents to punish them.
One former student said that Manning sexually harassed her just after she graduated, and the harassment was serious enough that she even recorded Manning making sexual comments to her.
While she was 18 at the time so prosecutors couldn’t press charges, the recording divided the church community as Manning accused her of doctoring the tape.
Manning kicked several of the students who challenged him about the tape, including Joshua Farr, 18. He told Farr’s parents that Farr was gay, which wasn’t true but was enough for him to get kicked out of their home. He moved into his grandmother’s apartment, where his younger brother came after he got kicked out of his home a year later.
The school registered with the New York Department of Education in 2013, although their registration is pending. According to the Huffington Post, the state is backlogged due to staff cuts, and it hasn’t been able to evaluate Atlah High School’s program.
But, in the meantime, private schools in the state can grant standard high school diplomas even though there is nothing in place that evaluates what students are learning at the school.
In 2016, Manning almost lost his church due to unpaid taxes and bills totaling over $1 million. The Ali Forney Center – an organization that provides shelter and other resources for LGBTQ youth – bought the building.
Manning wasn’t pleased, and he posted a video on YouTube where he said, “They’re going to turn this church into a bathhouse, they’re going to turn this church into a homeless building for the sodomites. The sodomites are sick as hell! This is the lord’s house! This ain’t no damn bathhouse! It ain’t no fag house! And before you can ever own this property, hook or crook, men who are fags with testicles will be carrying babies in their testicles and giving birth to them through their anus.”
At the last minute, a judge vacated the foreclosure and sent Manning’s case back to the courts, something that the church celebrated by burning “the rainbow fag flag.” Manning argues that his church should be tax-exempt and not have to pay utility bills.
Even though there has been a police investigation into the church and Manning has divided families, he maintains power over congregants’ lives.
“He has power over all those members in church, whether financially, mentally,” Hassan, the student who was locked in the basement for three days, said. “How is that anything but a cult?”
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 3 2019
People don't have an abundance of faith in our government these days.
One of the biggest reasons? Many people think politicians are bought and paid for.
Often, it's hard to argue with that. But here's the thing - there's growing momentum for innovative campaign finance reforms that are proving effective in lessening the influence of big money.
For example, in Austin we're working to get a Democracy Dollars program adopted modeled on a public financing system in Seattle that has produced incredibly exciting results. And we're not the only ones excited about Democracy Dollars.
Several other cities and states are considering adopting that program and just yesterday, Senator Gillibrand announced her proposal for a federal Democracy Dollars program.
Beyond Democracy Dollars, there are right now at least 27 states and local governments using a wide range of different kinds of public financing.
Here's the bad news - the Texas Legislature is considering SB 974, a bill that would prohibit any kind of public financing program anywhere in Texas.
We're working hard to stop that bill but we need your help. Here are two ways you can help right now.
Contact your State Rep: SB 974 already passed out of the Senate and is headed to the House. Please take a minute to contact your State Representative and ask them to oppose SB 974.
Beyond amplifying the voices of the masses, public financing programs are producing a number of exciting results around the country. The profile of people running for office is becoming more diverse both from a gender and racial perspective, the profile of people who contribute to campaigns is also becoming far more diverse, and public officials are able to spend less time calling wealthy donors and more time talking to the everyday people they're running to represent.
If you'd like to learn more about the Democracy Dollars program or the benefits of public financing, check out our recent blog post - The case for publicly financed campaigns in Texas, click here:
THURSDAY, MAY 02, 2019
In Austin, a reminder why indigent defense should be independent of the judiciary
Judges in Travis County later today will consider a public-defender proposal that became controversial when the local criminal-defense bar stormed away from the table like spoiled children. (The judges initially opposed a PD office outright, but some of them appear to have softened up.) Luckily, not all the defense lawyers on the working group quit, more were added, and the county-convened working group continued its work, producing this proposal for a public-defender office to handle 30% of the indigent caseload in Travis County criminal courts.
read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/05/in-austin-reminder-why-indigent-defense.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 5 2019
This is definitely a hate crime. I hope the police will suspect Amber Nicole's so called friends who led her from the bar to where she was assaulted. Where were the friends?
Transgender woman viciously attacked in LoDo; mom believes it was a hate crime
Victim's jaw wired by doctors after it was smashed in attack
Posted: 12:02 AM, May 05, 2019
Updated: 11:27 AM, May 05, 2019
DENVER -- Police are looking for a man who viciously assaulted a transgender woman in LoDo during the early morning hours of April 28.
Amber Nicole, 23, said she and several friends had gone out to the View House for a night on the town.
They left the nightclub around 1:15 a.m. and were on their way to their car when Nicole was assaulted.
She said she doesn't remember the attack, but does remember feeling threatened beforehand, so much so that she asked a friend to start recording with a cell phone.
The assault dislocated her jaw and left her face bloodied.
"I felt I was being choked," she said. "Then I realized it was from the pressure of my jaw resting on my neck."
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 8 2019
I am posting this because it is a very big deal now in our Texas senate:
I never post this and want to make it clear; I do not use marijuana at all. Even if marijuana was legal; I most likely would not take it either. I do believe it should be legal though:
I never post this and want to make it clear; I do not use marijuana at all. Even if marijuana was legal; I most likely would not take it either. I do believe it should be legal though:
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/05/my-last-sliver-of-hope-regarding-2019.html
TUESDAY, MAY 07, 2019
My last sliver of hope regarding 2019 marijuana reform in Texas: political pragmatism
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared HB 63 (Moody) reducing penalties for marijuana possession "dead" in the Texas Senate, and Senate Criminal Justice Chairman John Whitmire has said the bill wouldn't get a hearing in his committee, though he's backtracked on that a bit.
Stop bills that are magnets for anti-LGBTQ amendments
HB 3172 (Krause) was filed as an extreme anti-LGBTQ bill and will be a magnet for anti-LGBTQ amendments on the House floor. Tell your Representative to stand strong against HB 3172.
CONGRESS: PASS THE EQUALITY ACT
Two people holding hands with the LGBTQ flag behind them.
Today, LGBTQ people still lack explicit and comprehensive nondiscrimination protections. And the harsh reality is that discrimination and harassment remains a persistent problem in key areas of everyday life – especially for transgender people.
But the Equality Act would explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It would be the first law to ensure LGBTQ people are covered by consistent, explicit, and nationwide nondiscrimination protections in employment, housing, access to public spaces and services, and other critical areas of daily life. The House will soon vote on the Equality Act, so we must contact our representatives now. Send your message.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 9 2019
Here is a example of what I was talking about in my last post.
Texas NORML
May 08, 2019
One person is standing in the way of allowing public discourse on penalty reduction in the Senate, Lt Gov Dan Patrick. He is using a procedural stall tactic - not referring the bill to committee. However, the Lt Gov already has referred the senate companion bill to the Criminal Justice Committee, so there is no reason that he should delay in sending HB 63 there as well.
The public has reached out to the Lt Gov since his public statements claiming that HB 63 is dead on arrival to the Senate. Over 6,000 Texans have reached out to the office by phone and email to ask him to reconsider his position on this important legislation. We have not heard any change from him yet. Now it is time to ask our Senators to apply pressure to the Lt Gov.
click here:
Campaign Action
Sign the petition: The Justice Department must publicly hold police accountable for the deaths of civilians in custody
Earlier in March, three more police officers who killed unarmed, non-threatening black men will get away with it. Stephon Clark and Terence Crutcher's killers will not face any criminal charges.
Police are not above the law. We must not allow police who kill unarmed civilians--disproportionately black and indigenous people--to continue to escape accountability for extrajudicial violence against black and brown communities.
Despite high profile cases of police violence that make the news, law enforcement officers often withhold or cover up information about their crimes against civilians. However, the Death in Custody Recording Act (DICRA), requires police to report on civilians deaths in custody, no matter the cause. Police departments routinely fail to comply with DICRA, and the DOJ refuses to make DICRA data available to the public.
Sign the petition: The Justice Department must require police departments to accurately report civilian in-custody deaths and publicly share the data.
Police will continue to abuse their authority to enact racist violence on unarmed black, indigenous, and other communities of color as long as they are allowed to do so with no accountability.
It is outrageous how many officer involved shootings that result in death are ruled justifiable homicide. It is infuriating that the Justice Department, the highest law enforcement agency in the country, refuses to hold them to the bare minimum standard of reporting on the civilians who die in their custody. It is immoral that the DOJ hides what little data is available.
It's beyond time for state and local police departments to be held accountable for their crimes against civilians. Transparency is a MUST.
Sign the petition: The Justice Department must require police departments to accurately report civilian in-custody deaths and publicly share the data.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 10 2019
Sign if you agree: Public defenders deserve the same resources as prosecutors.
Everyone has the right to counsel, but low-income people who are charged with crimes can only turn to public defenders. In many jurisdictions, public defenders are overworked and underpaid, which short-changes their vulnerable clients.
California Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has introduced legislation to ensure that publicly funded criminal defense attorneys have the same resources and support as prosecutors.
Sen. Harris's bill, the Ensuring Quality Access to Legal Defense (EQUAL) Act, would put limits on public defenders’ workloads, raise their pay to match prosecutors’ salaries, and increase federal funding for training opportunities and student loan repayment programs.
Public defenders deserve the same resources as prosecutors.
This legislation is an important move towards criminal justice reform. Better legal support could mean less time in jail, which would particularly benefit poor people and people of color, who are disproportionately targeted by police and incarcerated.
In a statement to CNN, Senator Harris said that public defenders are too often overworked and under-resourced, which “makes public defense unsustainable over the long haul … the person who suffers is the defendant, whose liberty is on the line. It’s wrong, and it’s the opposite of justice.”
It’s time to make this critical change in our criminal justice system.
Click to AUTOMATICALLY sign the petition: Public defenders deserve the same resources as prosecutors.
I have been saying for years that trolling should be against the law:
From: https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/10/now-trolls-turning-disabled-people-hate-crime-jumps-third-9484425/
Now trolls are turning on disabled people as hate crime jumps by a third
10 May 2019 10:52 am
Disabled people are being targeted online. Incidents of online disability hate crimes investigated by the police jumped by a third from 2016 to 2018. YouTuber Emily Davison, 23, revealed she had been abused by bullies who had told her to ‘drink bleach’ and also accused her of making up her condition, septo-optic dysplasia, which affects her vision. She told Sky News: ‘I’ve had someone tell me to drink bleach to cure my disability, I’ve had people say that you’re not blind you’re just lying… just people telling me to do weird things to cure my disability. ‘These kind of comments make me feel really apprehensive about going online… it also made me feel very targeted.’ Ms Davison, who blogs about her life, said the bullying reminded her of being in a playground when she was younger.
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/10/now-trolls-turning-disabled-people-hate-crime-jumps-third-9484425/?ito=cbshare
From: https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/10/now-trolls-turning-disabled-people-hate-crime-jumps-third-9484425/
Now trolls are turning on disabled people as hate crime jumps by a third
10 May 2019 10:52 am
Disabled people are being targeted online. Incidents of online disability hate crimes investigated by the police jumped by a third from 2016 to 2018. YouTuber Emily Davison, 23, revealed she had been abused by bullies who had told her to ‘drink bleach’ and also accused her of making up her condition, septo-optic dysplasia, which affects her vision. She told Sky News: ‘I’ve had someone tell me to drink bleach to cure my disability, I’ve had people say that you’re not blind you’re just lying… just people telling me to do weird things to cure my disability. ‘These kind of comments make me feel really apprehensive about going online… it also made me feel very targeted.’ Ms Davison, who blogs about her life, said the bullying reminded her of being in a playground when she was younger.
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/10/now-trolls-turning-disabled-people-hate-crime-jumps-third-9484425/?ito=cbshare
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 11 2019
FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2019
Bail-bondsmen amendments made 'reform' bill actively harmful
Texas' bail-reform legislation remains a mess and Grits has said for weeks the bills not ready for prime time during the 86th Texas Legislature. But after an amendment from the bail-bond industry was tacked on to HB 2020 (Kacal) yesterday in the Texas House by Democrat Oscar Longoria, "bail reform" has gone from a premature, ineffectual and pointless bill to an actively harmful one. (See the Texas Tribune for a quote-both-sides version of the story.)
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/05/bail-bondsmen-amendments-made-reform.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 12 2019
Mistakenly Jailed Pretrial, an Ohio Mother Lost Her Job and Kids
On April 11, Hamilton County police in Cincinnati arrested Ashley Foster in a Target parking lot, in front of her two young sons, on charges of trafficking heroin. It wasn't until Foster spent five days in jail that officials realized they had the wrong woman. As a result of that horrendous mistake, Foster lost her job and her family suffered considerable hardship. Sadly, countless others incarcerated pretrial have gone through similar consequences. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/bail-reform/mistakenly-jailed-pretrial-ohio-mother-lost-her-job-and-kids
The Racist Roots of Denying Incarcerated People Their Right to Vote
Today, one of every 13 Black adults is disenfranchised, which means 2.2 million Black citizens are banned from voting. When we look at our history of disenfranchisement and the fact that America is isolated on this issue, one thing is clear: This racial disparity is the result of intentional design. Justifications offered about disenfranchisement ignore the undeniable fact that this practice is clearly connected to an attempt to deny Blacks full rights as citizens. Read more →
What Officer Noor's Conviction Says About Racism in America
In April, a Minnesota jury convicted police officer Mohamed Noor of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for shooting and killing Justine Damond, a white Australian woman. Noor, who is Black, Muslim, and a Somali immigrant, is believed to be the only police officer in Minnesota ever to have been convicted for killing someone while on duty. Although the verdict is just, prosecutors nonetheless invoked a long history of racist fears and tropes of Black male aggression. We cannot overlook the structural and implicit racism that was at play in his case, and that we know is at play in so many other cases across our nation. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/what-officer-noors-conviction-says-about-racism
Remembering the Woman Who Renovated the House that RBG Built
Our beloved Lenora Lapidus, director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, was a stalwart champion of gender equality and incomparable litigator. She furthered equality in employment and education, held institutions accountable for perpetuating sexual violence and gender discrimination, and defended the most marginalized among us. We will never encounter another Lenora Lapidus, but we will continue her legacy by fighting for the marginalized communities to which she dedicated her life of public service. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/remembering-woman-who-renovated-house-rbg-built
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 13 2019
Click here to sign this petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/gig-economy-haaland
It was perhaps the largest gig economy workers strike in history: Last week, Uber and Lyft drivers in countries around the globe refused to drive just days before Uber's Wall Street initial public offering.1
The workers went on strike because they are being left behind. The IPO is a massive payday for investors on the backs on drivers. Uber's business model forces drivers to be independent contractors and shifts all of the burden an employer should bear – like health insurance and contributions to Social Security and Medicare – onto workers so company executives can pocket more.2
Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland is standing in solidarity with gig economy workers and fighting to force companies like Uber and Lyft to pay their fair share to the people who keep them in business – and she needs our help.
Stand with Uber and Lyft drivers: Make "gig economy" corporations pay their fair share.
Uber is a $90 billion company that doesn't make any money. It loses $1 billion each year while rich investors subsidize its pursuit of massive dominance over markets. Its only path to profitability is to exploit drivers and customers for every last buck. Uber reportedly already lowered drivers' pay to make itself more appealing to Wall Street before going public.3
Most Uber drivers in the United State make less than the minimum wage – even while Uber's CEO got more than $45 million, and its top executives brought home $143 million.4 But the problem is bigger than Uber alone. Massive multinational corporations like Uber and Lyft want people to think the gig economy is about worker empowerment, but it's really just another path to profits for the few.
The gig economy exploits workers by forcing them to be independent contractors. As independent contractors, workers must pay their own way. Having to pay for your own car, gas and health insurance is bad enough. Contractors also have to pay for both sides of the Social Security and Medicare payroll tax. Uber and other gig employers are off the hook while low-wage workers are suffering.5
Rep. Haaland's bill will be a welcome first step in fixing that, by requiring corporations like Uber to foot the bill for payroll taxes. We need to show members of Congress how many Americans are demanding they act to support gig economy workers.
Stand with Uber and Lyft drivers: Make "gig economy" corporations pay their fair share.
Click here to sign this petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/gig-economy-haaland
ACLU
When you think about the mass incarceration crisis, it's probably not a mother who comes to mind. But the fact is that women are the fastest growing incarcerated population in the U.S., and most of these women are mothers.
The stories of incarcerated women must be heard. Hear them.
Hear the untold stories of incarcerated women like Lauren.
In honor of Mother's Day, let me tell you about Lauren, a woman who learned she was pregnant just days before going to jail for drug possession. She ended up giving birth to her first child in jail, and could only spend two days with him before she had to go back to her cell – alone.
Like so many others, Lauren was taken from her family and tossed into the criminal justice system at a moment when she needed treatment, not a jail sentence. Since her release, she's committed herself to recovery. Now Lauren is back with her family and works as an activist for criminal justice reform at the ACLU of Texas.
Learn more about Lauren and others like her in our new video series profiling women caught in the cruel cycle of criminalization and incarceration – often at the expense of their families and communities.
At the end of the day, Lauren learned a lot from other incarcerated women who helped her during her pregnancy behind bars. "Even though I very rarely had money on my books, I was still having dill pickle cravings. And there was always somebody to make sure that I had a dill pickle."
"It's a beautiful thing to see the way people rise up in dark places to support each other," she says. And who better to provide that support, than a mother?
Read more here: https://www.aclu.org/issues/womens-rights/women-and-criminal-justice/how-incarcerating-women-fuels-our-mass-incarceration
I got to tell you I am a Derrick Johnson fan:
Throughout the NAACP’s history, mothers have helped lead the way in the fight for a more just America, serving as fierce advocates and moral compasses in the organization and in their communities.
It was mothers who organized and marched to ensure that their children and grandchildren could have equal access to a quality education.
It was mothers who not only fought for the right to vote, but also fought to get on the ticket in the voting booth.
It was mothers who pushed for equal pay for equal work and broke glass ceilings that made the workplace fairer for all people.
And in the face of racism’s harshest brutality, it was mothers who stood stoic and defiant while keeping their families strong and together.
We see this same tenacious and determined spirit carried forward in our time, as moms all across our country fight to keep their neighborhoods safe, hold those in power accountable, and move our nation closer to living up to its highest ideals.
Moms give a lot of themselves, and they make a difference every single day.
So on behalf of the entire NAACP staff, I wish every mother the happiest of Mother’s Days. May your special day be filled with love, laughter, and hopefully, rest.
Sincerely,
Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP
The fact that I keep having to post here so much is not a good sign.
I just got this email and I am just going to paste my favorite links here:
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/chlorpyrifos-school-lunch_pa/
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/every-citizen-deserves-a-vote-end-felony-disenfranchisement?
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/ssa-cards
https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-over-60-paying-student-loans-2019-5
Delete Facebook:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuckerberg.html
https://www.facebook.com/ProgressAmericaUSA/
I also hate Twitter. We need to go back to just plain websites. The internet was a better place back then.
ACLU
When you think about the mass incarceration crisis, it's probably not a mother who comes to mind. But the fact is that women are the fastest growing incarcerated population in the U.S., and most of these women are mothers.
The stories of incarcerated women must be heard. Hear them.
Hear the untold stories of incarcerated women like Lauren.
In honor of Mother's Day, let me tell you about Lauren, a woman who learned she was pregnant just days before going to jail for drug possession. She ended up giving birth to her first child in jail, and could only spend two days with him before she had to go back to her cell – alone.
Like so many others, Lauren was taken from her family and tossed into the criminal justice system at a moment when she needed treatment, not a jail sentence. Since her release, she's committed herself to recovery. Now Lauren is back with her family and works as an activist for criminal justice reform at the ACLU of Texas.
Learn more about Lauren and others like her in our new video series profiling women caught in the cruel cycle of criminalization and incarceration – often at the expense of their families and communities.
At the end of the day, Lauren learned a lot from other incarcerated women who helped her during her pregnancy behind bars. "Even though I very rarely had money on my books, I was still having dill pickle cravings. And there was always somebody to make sure that I had a dill pickle."
"It's a beautiful thing to see the way people rise up in dark places to support each other," she says. And who better to provide that support, than a mother?
Read more here: https://www.aclu.org/issues/womens-rights/women-and-criminal-justice/how-incarcerating-women-fuels-our-mass-incarceration
I got to tell you I am a Derrick Johnson fan:
Throughout the NAACP’s history, mothers have helped lead the way in the fight for a more just America, serving as fierce advocates and moral compasses in the organization and in their communities.
It was mothers who organized and marched to ensure that their children and grandchildren could have equal access to a quality education.
It was mothers who not only fought for the right to vote, but also fought to get on the ticket in the voting booth.
It was mothers who pushed for equal pay for equal work and broke glass ceilings that made the workplace fairer for all people.
And in the face of racism’s harshest brutality, it was mothers who stood stoic and defiant while keeping their families strong and together.
We see this same tenacious and determined spirit carried forward in our time, as moms all across our country fight to keep their neighborhoods safe, hold those in power accountable, and move our nation closer to living up to its highest ideals.
Moms give a lot of themselves, and they make a difference every single day.
So on behalf of the entire NAACP staff, I wish every mother the happiest of Mother’s Days. May your special day be filled with love, laughter, and hopefully, rest.
Sincerely,
Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP
The fact that I keep having to post here so much is not a good sign.
I just got this email and I am just going to paste my favorite links here:
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/chlorpyrifos-school-lunch_pa/
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/every-citizen-deserves-a-vote-end-felony-disenfranchisement?
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/ssa-cards
https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-over-60-paying-student-loans-2019-5
Delete Facebook:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuckerberg.html
https://www.facebook.com/ProgressAmericaUSA/
I also hate Twitter. We need to go back to just plain websites. The internet was a better place back then.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 14 2019
TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2019 How confused Texas Democrats killed #SandraBland legislation, twice; or, how police kill a civil-rights bill when legislators overwhelmingly support it The death of HB 2754 (White) limiting arrests for Class C misdemeanors was the strangest bill ride in which Grits has ever participated. Readers will recall that this provision was stripped out of the Sandra Bland Act in 2017, so reformers came back this year for another bite at the apple. The bill has overwhelming support in the Texas House, but now it's dead.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/05/how-confused-texas-democrats-killed.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 17 2019
Click here to sign this great petition.
Tell the Federal Trade Commission: Stop the Big Pharma mega-merger.
Big Pharma tripled the price of insulin, made Epi-Pens completely unaffordable and jacked up the price of arthritis medications.
Now, two companies that produce life-saving cancer medicines are poised to become one in the biggest Big Pharma merger ever.
The Bristol-Myers Squibb bid to buy Celgene would be a disaster for cancer patients and everyone else – and the Federal Trade Commission has the power to stop it.
"The FTC must investigate and block the attempt by Bristol-Myers Squibb to buy out Celgene. This would be the largest pharmaceutical merger ever, and as with past mergers, the result will be less innovation and much higher prescription drug costs for the public. This mega-merger will block the development and sale of affordable drugs and reduce competition precisely at the moment we need more of it. We urge you to stop this mega-merger."
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 18 2019
Arizona Officials Say It’s Unsafe for Prisoners to Read About Race and Criminal Justice. They're Wrong.
For many people behind bars, books can be a lifeline to the outside world. In the words of poet, attorney, and former prisoner Reginald Dwayne Betts, “Books weren't really magic when I was a child, they were just something that I [enjoyed] reading. I thought it was important, but when I got locked up it became magic, it became a means to an end.”
Read more here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/civil-liberties-prison/arizona-officials-say-its-unsafe-prisoners-read-about
No One Should be Forced to Give Birth Alone in a Jail Cell
At 3 a.m., inside her solitary jail cell in Broward County, Florida, Tammy Jackson began having contractions. It took hours for corrections officers to reach a doctor, who said he’d check on Jackson when he came into work later that morning. By the time he arrived at 10 a.m., Jackson had delivered the baby alone in her jail cell.
Read more here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/women-prison/no-one-should-be-forced-give-birth-alone-jail-cell
Our Government Has Failed to Defend the Sixth Amendment
On May 8, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) elevated the crisis of federal and state governments’ disregard for protecting the right to counsel for people charged with crimes. She did so by introducing the Ensuring Quality Access to Legal Defense Act (EQUAL Defense Act) a bill that uses federal money – $250 million dollars annually for five years – to incentivize pay parity between public defenders and prosecutors, ensure manageable defender caseloads, and reauthorize the student loan repayment program benefitting public defenders. That such a bill is necessary speaks to the deleterious state of public defense in our country, which is underfunded and creates an unlevel playing field for public defenders against prosecutors.
Read more here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/effective-counsel/our-government-has-failed-defend-sixth-amendment
On Brown v. Board of Education, judicial nominees won't commit to US law and values Brown is more than a historic ruling. It paved the way for civil rights progress and laid the very foundation for equal protection under the law. "'Do you believe Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided?' This might seem like a strange question to ask a judicial nominee in 2019. Sadly, it is starkly relevant thanks to recent signals from the Supreme Court that it is open to reconsidering long-established precedents and foundational values. No decision is more emblematic of these precedents and values than the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education. It did more than rule that segregation in schools was unconstitutional — it paved the way for the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It laid the very foundation for our modern understanding of equal protection under the law." READ MORE: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/05/17/trump-judicial-nominees-dodge-law-values-brown-board-education-column/3695469002/ In solidarity, Derrick Johnson
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 20 2019
When I think of, or see a image of; Trayvon Martin, I still get sad, but his mom who sent me a bunch of emails, is running for office. I would vote for her in a second!
When I think of Trayvon Martin (I think of all the stuff that went down after he died and how bazaar it was that we still had not learned our lesson); all that leads me to think of my favorite band, to this day: Benjamin Booker.
I think mainly of this song, I memorized this part of:
Witness by: Benjamin Booker, lyric quote:
"See we thought that we saw that he had a gun
Thought that it looked like he started to run
Thought that we saw that he had a gun
Thought that it looked like he started to run
Am I Am I Gonna be a witness?
Just gonna be a witness?
Am I Am I Gonna be a witness?
Gonna be a witness?"
Morning Mix Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mom, will run for office to push for gun violence prevention
May 20 at 7:08 AM
Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, once called herself an unwilling participant in the movement against gun violence and fatal shootings of unarmed black men, a spokeswoman traveling the country to share a message she wished she didn’t have to tell. In her numerous speeches since Martin was killed in 2012, she often started by telling the crowd about the moment she decided she “had to do more than just cry,” how she decided to place herself at the forefront of the movement her son’s death helped ignite. And she would often end with a call to action: get out and vote, serve on juries, make yourself heard, she would tell the crowd. “Because if you really want to make a difference,” as she told one congregation in a 2015 speech, “then change can start here with you.” Now, after years of advocacy, Fulton is taking her own advice, this time with an even more direct approach: She’s decided to run for office herself. This weekend, the former housing agency employee announced she will join the race for Miami-Dade County commissioner, joining a succession of mothers who have lost sons or daughters to gun violence and who have sought to create change by taking public office. The move comes more than seven years after neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman gunned down the unarmed 17-year-old Martin as he walked home from a convenience store in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman was later acquitted, igniting nationwide outcry and fueling the Black Lives Matter movement. “My time as a public servant began 30 years ago at Miami-Dade County. Since 2012, I have advocated tirelessly to empower our communities and make them safer,” she said in a statement on Instagram. “But the work is not done. I am proud to announce that I will run to represent District 1 on the county commission.” Fulton will face off against Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver G. Gilbert III for the position, and intends to keep gun-violence prevention at the top of her priority list, said her campaign manager, Willis Howard. The current commissioner will step down in
Read more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/20/sybrina-fulton-trayvon-martin-mom-miami-dade-county-commission/?noredirect=on
From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/20/muhlaysia-booker-transgender-woman-killed-dallas/
A transgender woman survived a brutal beating. Weeks later, she was killed, police say.
May 20 at 1:38 PM
Several weeks ago, a 23-year-old transgender woman was brutally beaten in a Dallas parking lot. On Saturday, she was fatally shot. At a Sunday news conference, Maj. Vincent Weddington of the Dallas Police Department said officers were called to the scene of a shooting around 7 a.m. Saturday. The victim — who he identified as Muhlaysia Booker — was discovered dead on arrival. The previous assault, on April 12, was recorded on a cellphone. The video captured a man wearing white mercilessly punching a woman in a flamingo-pink wig who was trying to shield herself from the blows.
The broad-daylight attack, viewed by a crowd of bystanders, ended when the assailant, joined by other men, knocked the writhing woman unconscious. At least one woman can be heard yelling a homophobic slur toward the end of the video. Then, onlookers lifted the limp body to safety. Booker was reportedly treated at a hospital for bone fractures and a possible concussion. [‘Mob violence’: Police arrest one in potential hate crime after transgender woman beaten on video] The video footage, posted by a Facebook user under the name Taj Mahal and TajTV, quickly went viral and led to the arrest of Edward Thomas two days later. Thomas, 29, was charged with aggravated assault in the attack; gender identity is not covered under Texas’s hate crime statute. Weddington said Sunday that there is no known connection between Booker’s shooting and the April assault allegedly perpetrated by Thomas, who has a criminal record, according to court documents. Thomas had been released from the Dallas County jail before Saturday, Weddington added. At this time, the department does not know where he is. The video also brought national attention to the plight of the LGBTQ black community, of which Booker was a known member, according to Kirk Myers, CEO of Abounding Prosperity, a Dallas-based service organization that Booker supported. As a transgender woman who is black, Booker belonged to a group that is disproportionately likely to experience a violent attack, The Washington Post previously reported. According to the Human Rights Campaign, most of the 128 transgender people who were killed between 2013 and 2018 were women of color. Within the LGBTQ community, black transgender women are the most likely to face deadly violence, the HRC has found. “Certainly within a month from the assault, I can’t help but wonder: Is there a correlation or relationship?” Myers said. “[We are] navigating the loss and what it represents” and are committed to holding officials responsible “for protecting transwomen and the entire black LGBTQ community
Read more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/20/muhlaysia-booker-transgender-woman-killed-dallas/
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 24 2019
This is the most disrespectful, loathsome, disgusting thing I have read in along time. A reminder me to avoid Washington at all cost's.:
U.S. NEWS Composting of human bodies now legal in Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation Tuesday making Washington the first state to approve composting as an alternative to burying or cremating human remains.
May 21, 2019, 9:20 PM CDT / Source: Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — Ashes to ashes, guts to dirt. Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation Tuesday making Washington the first state to approve composting as an alternative to burying or cremating human remains. It allows licensed facilities to offer "natural organic reduction," which turns a body, mixed with substances such as wood chips and straw, into about two wheelbarrows' worth of soil in a span of several weeks.
Read more here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/composting-human-bodies-now-legal-washington-state-n1008606
I called all three of my senators to support this.
THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2019 Call your state senator to support #SandraBland legislation! Police unions are launching a massive misinformation campaign about an amendment to S.B. 815 limiting jail time for Class C misdemeanor arrests. Check out this absurd press release in which they suggest drivers will physically attack cops if police are required to give reasons when they arrest people for Class C misdemeanors. See here for a more reality-based assessment of the amendment. Cops are doing an all-out blitz against the bill, and Texas state senators need to hear from reform supporters. Go here to find your senator’s contact information and call them now! Ask them to support the House Amendments to S.B. 815.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/05/call-your-state-senator-to-support.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 25 2019
Sing petition here: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/forms/add-your-name-if-you-agree-its-time-to-cap-credit-card-interest-rates-at-15-percent
We need to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent. For too long, big financial institutions have been committing usury by charging people exorbitant fees. Become a citizen Co-Sponsor of Bernie Sanders' Loan Shark Prevention Act! Loan sharks charging exorbitant interest rates have moved from the shadows of the criminal underworld to broad daylight in corporate boardrooms thanks to sky high fees, usurious interest rates, and plain Wall Street greed. Millions of people now pay credit card interest rates as high as 30 percent. That’s not banking. That’s loan sharking. And it’s time to stop it. That is why Bernie Sanders introduced the Loan Shark Prevention Act in the Senate. This plan will cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent so that we can stop financial institutions from extorting the American people. It didn’t always used to be this bad for consumers. But a Supreme Court decision in 1978 overturned state-based interest rate caps, which were as low as 8 percent. Congress capped credit union interest rates at 15 percent in 1980. And as recently as 1991, the Senate voted for a 14 percent cap on credit card interest rates. The American people are sick and tired of being ripped off by the same financial institutions that they bailed out ten years ago. They are sick and tired of being extorted by credit card companies. It is time for us to take decisive action.
Sing petition here: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/forms/add-your-name-if-you-agree-its-time-to-cap-credit-card-interest-rates-at-15-percent
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 26 2019
HYPOCRITICAL AND ILLEGAL We're Suing Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery to Release the Records He's Hiding From Arizonans Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery claims to be a big believer in data, and yet he has stonewalled our efforts to seek basic information about his office, such as policies, procedures, and budget figures. His refusal to comply with our full request is not only hypocritical, we believe it's illegal. So this week, the ACLU and the ACLU of Arizona sued Montgomery and his office for violating Arizona's public records law. Read more →
SAFETY IS NOT A NUISANCE New York Passes a Bill to Ensure No One Loses Their Home for Calling the Police Nuisance ordinances allow cities to punish property owners if residents call 911 "too many" times. In order to avoid consequences, landlords often evict or threaten to evict the tenants who called 911, refuse to renew their leases, or tell them to stop calling for help. This disproportionately harms survivors of domestic violence, forcing them to endure threats and violence without police intervention or to risk losing their homes. Fortunately, in New York, that's about to change: The state legislature recently passed a bill to protect tenants from eviction based on their calls for help. Read more → https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/violence-against-women/new-york-passes-bill-ensure-no-one-loses-their-home
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 27 2019
A great message from one of our own:
Sunday, May 27, 2019 Forever Grateful As a Marine, Memorial Day holds a special place in my heart. As we begin the day, let us not forget that Memorial Day honors the heroic men and women who gave their lives for our Nation. Just this month, I cosponsored legislation to reduce excessive tax burdens on families of service members who gave their life in duty, also known as Gold Star Families. I'm proud to announce with my support, the Gold Star Family Tax Relief Act was passed by the House of Representatives this week. While nothing can make up for the incredible loss these heroic families have suffered, we can show a small token of our appreciation by ensuring Gold Star Families receive the benefits promised by our nation. Although they made the ultimate sacrifice, they are still with us today, as each day of freedom we enjoy is borrowed from them. They gave us their days, let us give them the honor they have earned by continuing to fight for what is right and just. Below are photos of those fallen heroes from Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn from North Texas. As we spend time with family and friends today, let us remember those who sacrificed everything for us.
Semper Fi,
Right on Van, Semper Fi till the day I die!: Semper fidelis (Latin pronunciation: [ˈsɛm.pɛr fɪˈdeː.lɪs]) is a Latin phrase that means "always faithful" or "always loyal". It is the motto of the United States Marine Corps, usually shortened to Semper Fi. It is also in use as a motto for towns, families, schools, and other military units. Semper fidelis - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semper_fidelis
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 28 2019
Another great Memorial Day message:
African American service members have struggled and died fighting overseas for our country while at the same time fighting for civil rights and social justice here at home. Today we come together to honor the brave people who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our nation’s highest ideals. The people who laid down their lives came from many different walks of life. But they were united in a shared commitment to serving the greater good, buoyed by a mutual belief in the principles of freedom and democracy. So, on this Memorial Day, as we remember the heroes we’ve lost, let us all pledge to mirror their dedication to service by doing what we can to ensure that we live up to the values they fought to defend.
Sincerely, Derrick Johnson @DerrickNAACP President and CEO NAACP
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated May 31 2019
The painful truth facing women is that they continue to deal with oppression each and every day. We are at a crucial time in this fight and we must take action now. Twenty-five years ago, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was signed into law, and it has been the most effective piece of legislation ever enacted to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. From improving law enforcement’s ability to respond to gender-based violence to providing support for women to overcome abusive situations, VAWA has saved the lives of countless women and children. But VAWA expired this February, and a new bill which would reauthorize and add critical enhancements to VAWA still needs to be approved by the Senate. Act now to stand with women and urge both of your Senators to reauthorize VAWA. Recently we have seen an uptick in survivors of abuse and assault coming forward to share their stories. The Senate must know that programs and protections created by VAWA increase survivors’ access to safety and support, and that any rollbacks to its existing protections are unacceptable. Women deserve to be free from oppression. We have come too far in our struggle to go back now. Contact your Senators today.
Click here to sign the letter to your senator.
Click here to sign this petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/every-citizen-deserves-a-vote-end-felony-disenfranchisement
6.1 million Americans nationwide are denied their right to vote due to felony disenfranchisement -- and it's time for that to end. Felony disenfranchisement prohibits people from voting if they were convicted of a felony.(1) Dating back to the Jim Crow era, it’s been one of many tactics used to limit and neutralize Black people’s political power. Not much has changed. Today, Black Americans of voting age are more than four times more likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the population.(2) Implicit racial bias and socioeconomic inequity exist at every level of our mass incarceration system. As a result, people of color make up 37% of the U.S. population but 67% of the prison population.(3) If we don’t pressure our legislators to end felony disenfranchisement, our mass incarceration system will continue to silence the voices most impacted by it. Sign the petition: Every American citizen should have the right to vote.
Click here to sign this petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/every-citizen-deserves-a-vote-end-felony-disenfranchisement
Click here to sign this petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/every-citizen-deserves-a-vote-end-felony-disenfranchisement
6.1 million Americans nationwide are denied their right to vote due to felony disenfranchisement -- and it's time for that to end. Felony disenfranchisement prohibits people from voting if they were convicted of a felony.(1) Dating back to the Jim Crow era, it’s been one of many tactics used to limit and neutralize Black people’s political power. Not much has changed. Today, Black Americans of voting age are more than four times more likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the population.(2) Implicit racial bias and socioeconomic inequity exist at every level of our mass incarceration system. As a result, people of color make up 37% of the U.S. population but 67% of the prison population.(3) If we don’t pressure our legislators to end felony disenfranchisement, our mass incarceration system will continue to silence the voices most impacted by it. Sign the petition: Every American citizen should have the right to vote.
Click here to sign this petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/every-citizen-deserves-a-vote-end-felony-disenfranchisement
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 02 2019
Click here to sign this important petition: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/forms/add-your-name-support-legislation-to-end-workplace-harassment
Add Your Name: Support legislation to end workplace sexual harassment! Add your name to join Sen. Patty Murray's fight to end workplace harassment. We’ve heard about many cases of sexual harassment in high-profile environments like Hollywood and Congress, but these are hardly the only industries where women and men fear harassment. Sen. Murray introduced the Be HEARD Act recently in the Senate to help make sure all workers can do their jobs without fear of harassment of any kind. This bill will strengthen protections for all workers, give employers more resources to prevent harassment, and support workers in fighting for accountability and justice. We have heard from so many women and men — from retail and restaurant workers to independent contractors — who have been harassed or sexually assaulted on the job. We must ensure that workers are empowered to come forward with their stories and supported when they seek justice. We can’t sweep these experiences under the rug any longer. We can change our laws to improve our workplaces and help ensure every worker is treated fairly and respectfully, but we must have the courage to act. Sign Sen. Patty Murray's petition to support the Be HEARD Act now. Stand with women and men across the country who are speaking out to end harassment in the workplace.
Click here to sign this important petition: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/forms/add-your-name-support-legislation-to-end-workplace-harassment
The Government Needs to Get a Warrant if It Wants Access to Our Private Health Information The Drug Enforcement Administration is once again trying to access private prescription records of patients – this time in New Hampshire – without a warrant, despite a state law to the contrary. This week, we filed a brief in support of the state's fight to defend the privacy of our sensitive medical information. As we explain in the brief, information about the prescription medications we take is among the most sensitive data about us. Requiring the DEA to get a warrant ensures that people's prescription records are only available to police when there is a real need. That's just good policy, and good Fourth Amendment law. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/medical-and-genetic-privacy/government-needs-get-warrant-if-it-wants-access
When a Traffic Ticket Costs $13,000 When Leah Jackson couldn't afford to pay a traffic ticket right away, her license was suspended. Yet she needed to drive to work in order to pay the outstanding fine, a violation that eventually landed her more than $13,000 in debt. Millions of drivers like Ms. Jackson have had their licenses suspended, essentially because they are poor. But stripping people of their driver's licenses makes it more difficult for them to earn a living and thus to pay off their debts. That's why lawmakers across the country must work to eliminate this discriminatory and unconstitutional practice. (This article will take you to The New York Times website.) Read more →https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/opinion/drivers-license-suspension-fees.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 05 2019
NEWS A second black trans woman was murdered in Dallas The local police reached out to the FBI for help with the investigation in case the murders are connected. Tuesday, June 4, 2019 Chynal Lindsey Photo: Facebook A second black transgender woman was found dead over the weekend in Dallas. This past Saturday, police found the body of Chynal Lindsey, 26, in White Rock Lake after someone called police to report a body in the lake. At a press conferences, Police Chief U. Reneé Hall said Lindsey’s body had “obvious signs of homicidal violence.”
“I don’t think I posted that,” he said. “I think that’s somebody else’s post.” He hung up on WBRC but called back minutes later, now saying that his words were taken out of context, that he was referring to immigrants. He said that killing immigrants was necessary because there is a “civil war” currently in the U.S. “I never said anything about killing out gays or anything like that,” he claimed. “That’s in a revolution. That’s right! If it comes to a revolution in this country both sides of these people will be killed out,” he said about his comments, apparently backing killing LGBTQ people again. By Tuesday, the post had been removed and Chambers posted an apology. “I would like to make a public apology to my community, I and I alone am responsible for the comment that was made,” he wrote. “Although I believe my comment was taken out of context and was not targeting the LGBTQ community, I know that it was wrong to say anyone should be kill [sic] I am truly sorry that I have embarrassed our City, I love this City and while in office I have done everything in my power to make this a better place for our families.”
Read more here: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/06/alabama-mayor-calls-nationwide-execution-homosexuals-transvestites
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 06 2019
∎ Third murder of an African American transwoman in Dallas this year.
View video here: https://sable.godaddy.com/c/25243
BIAS WATCH Alabama mayor calls for the nationwide execution of ‘homosexuals’ & ‘transvestites’ He said he was just misunderstood and his words were "taken out of context" because he wants immigrants to be killed before LGBTQ people. Wednesday, June 5, 2019 Mark Chambers Photo: carbonhill.org A small town mayor has come under fire for advocating genocide against LGBTQ people. Mark Chambers is the mayor of Carbon Hill, Alabama, a town with a population of around 2000. On Facebook, Chambers posted a meme that denounced “homosexuals,” “transvestites,” “baby killers,” and “socialists” for having the audacity to have opinions that differ from his. “We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics,” the meme said.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 08 2019
How the 1994 Crime Bill Fed the Mass Incarceration Crisis The passage of the 1994 Crime Bill encouraged harsher practices by police and prosecutors and ensured that more people were incarcerated for longer periods of time. Although it did not inspire mass incarceration, it certainly encouraged it. Politicians who want real reform must disavow the 1994 Crime Bill and support a 50% cut in incarceration rates at the federal and state levels. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/how-1994-crime-bill-fed-mass-incarceration-crisis
How the 1994 Crime Bill Fed the Mass Incarceration Crisis The passage of the 1994 Crime Bill encouraged harsher practices by police and prosecutors and ensured that more people were incarcerated for longer periods of time. Although it did not inspire mass incarceration, it certainly encouraged it. Politicians who want real reform must disavow the 1994 Crime Bill and support a 50% cut in incarceration rates at the federal and state levels. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/podcast/paul-butler-policing-black-men-and-transforming-system-ep-49
Lawsuit Challenges Discriminatory Housing Policy in Chesterfield County, Virginia Sterling Glen, an apartment complex in a white neighborhood in Chesterfield, Virginia, states on its application that no person with a felony conviction or convicted of a variety of misdemeanor offenses is allowed to live there. In a county where a Black resident is three times more likely to have a criminal record, this blanket ban is explicit discrimination and is illegal under federal and Virginia law. We have filed a lawsuit challenging this ban to ensure that applicants are viewed as individuals and not statistics. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/race-and-economic-justice/lawsuit-challenges-discriminatory-housing-policy
New Hampshire Repealed the Death Penalty Last week, New Hampshire became the last state in New England to repeal the death penalty. State senators and representatives illustrated their commitment to principle and defied partisanship, voting to overturn the governor's veto of the measure. Repealing the death penalty is not about one person but about a philosophy. And the vote in New Hampshire illustrates that the decision, either at the state or national level, is one guided by conscience. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/new-hampshire-repealed-death-penalty
Harvard Was Wrong for Dismissing Its Dean for Representing Harvey Weinstein Last month, Harvard caved to student pressure and removed Ronald Sullivan from his position as the dean of Winthrop House. It is clear that this change was made because Sullivan had signed onto Harvey Weinstein's defense team. We believe that this decision illustrates Harvard's unwillingness to uphold the right of everyone to a legal defense and their inability to separate the attorney from his clients in violation of fundamental constitutional principles. Sullivan's legal defense of Weinstein is not a defense of his acts. Read more →https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/harvard-was-wrong-dismiss-its-dean-representing-harvey-weinstein
Congress is about to pass a bill letting Wall Street scam retirees instead of fighting to expand Social Security. We need to speak out now.:
Petition to the Senate: "Reject the provisions in the SECURE Act that would allow annuities providers to scam retirees out of their hard-earned savings, and instead focus on expanding Social Security by passing the Social Security 2100 Act."
ocial Security is one of the most successful government programs in our history, helping to keep tens of millions of Americans out of poverty over the past 80 years. But instead of fighting to expand Social Security, some Democrats in Congress are pushing a bipartisan retirement package that contains a massive giveaway to Wall Street that would allow companies to defraud retirees.1 This legislation just passed the House of Representatives. We need to ramp up pressure on the Senate to stand up to rich Wall Street donors and get their priorities straight. The security of hard-earned retirement savings should come first. Tell Congress: Reject retirement scams and expand Social Security. Click here to sign the petition.: click here: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/secure-act
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 12 2019
MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2019
86th Texas Lege a killing field for #cjreform
Having mentioned a handful of #cjreform victories from the 86th Texas Legislature - most notably, by far, abolition of the Driver Responsibility surcharge - we must also acknowledge that the session overall was a major disappointment for anyone interested in reforming the justice system.
Heading into the session, there was cause for optimism. In the Texas House, Speaker Joe Straus for a decade had refused to let #cjreform legislation receive floor votes, while Speaker Dennis Bonnen was much more willing to let members vote on significant reforms. The Governor had endorsed both bail reform and reduced marijuana penalties. And both party platforms had endorsed important reform proposals that entered the session with bipartisan support.
Accentuate the positive
Once the session began, however, it became clear the Senate in particular was all but a lost cause. Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire spent more time shooting down reform legislation than promoting it. (We must accept that raise-the-age and police transparency legislation, for example, will never receive hearings, much less pass, as long as he chairs that committee.)
Reformers have lost all our senate champions over the last few cycles - nobody has stepped up to replace Rodney Ellis or Konni Burton's work on these issues - and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick remains hostile even to minimalist reforms, like reducing pot penalties.
Indeed, since Patrick took over the role of Senate President in 2015, Texas has seen scarce little reform legislation compared to, say, 2007-2013, when an array of decarceration and innocence reforms established Texas as a national #cjreform leader.
These days, the Lone Star State can no longer claim that mantle. Not only has California decarcerated more significantly than Texas (with the help of federal litigation, to be sure), but since 2014, Oklahoma, Utah, Alaska, Connecticut and Colorado have all reduced user-level drug possession to a misdemeanor. Texas has never even seen such legislation get out of committee, and this session nobody even tried. Past efforts had evinced tepid support in the House, and the bill clearly could never even be debated in the Texas Senate under the current leadership.
Grits can think of only five significant #cjreform bills passed in Texas since Dan Patrick became Lt. Governor: 1) increasing property-theft thresholds (which happened in 2015 via amendment, not a bill), 2) eliminating the "key man" system for grand-jury selection (we were the last state to do it), 3) the 2017 Sandra Bland Act (which had the most popular provision that would have saved her life stripped from the bill), 4) debtors-prison reform legislation in 2017 that made it easier for judges to waive fines (though still, 10x as many are jailed as have them waived), and 5) this year's abolition of the Driver Responsibility surcharge, an effort 12 years in the making.
While these were not insignificant bills, they're definitely overshadowed by accomplishments in other states.
Beyond that, the capitol grounds are littered with the corpses of modest, bipartisan #cjreform legislation, much of which would have relieved pressure on cities and counties at a time when the Legislature also restricted their revenue. Here are some of the decarceration measures the Legislature failed to pass:
Reducing marijuana penalties
This passed the House with overwhelming support and would have eliminated around 75k arrests per year, as well as the resulting incarceration stints. But Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick were quick to shoot down the idea and declare it would never be heard in the Texas Senate.
Limiting Class C misdemeanor arrests
House Democrats famously shot themselves in the foot, killing legislation that, had it been law at the time, would have prevented Sandra Bland's arrest, incarceration, and ultimately her death. Statewide, there were about 76k Class C arrests in 2017, extrapolating from primary research by Texas Appleseed. In Austin, where police implemented a policy on Class C arrests that complied with the proposed law, arrests declined by nearly two-thirds. If that proportion held statewide, the law would have prevented 45-50,000 arrests per year.
Reducing DWLI penalties
Although the Driver Responsibility surcharge has been abolished, 1.5 million people still have their licenses suspended because of it. And when they're caught driving without a license a second time, they're charged with a Class B misdemeanor, meaning police arrest them and counties must pay for incarceration and indigent defense costs. HB 372 (Allen) got out of committee this year but the House Calendars Committee never gave it a floor vote. According to the Office of Court Administration, there were 22,427 new Class B DWLI charges in 2018. Her bill which would have changed the penalty to a Class C - would have prevented most arrests for this low-level administrative violation.
Eliminating debtors-prison practices
Regular readers know that more than a half-million Texans last year sat out their Class C misdemeanor fines in jail, while roughly a tenth of that number had their fines waived for indigence. Rep. James White filed legislation to stop arresting people who don't pay Class C fines and using commercial collection practices instead, a measure endorsed in both the Republican and Democratic Party state platforms. But heated behind-the-scenes opposition made it clear the bill faced trouble this year and likely couldn't make it through the gauntlet. So Chairman White "substituted" in the language from Sandra-Bland bill, discussed above, after Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee Chairman Poncho Nevarez refused to give Senfronia Thompson's HB 482 a vote in his committee. In the end, debate over the original bill was vigorous, but never public. But a lot of intelligence was gained to promote the idea again in two years.
Bail-reform blues
Bail reform died, but that's probably a good thing. As Grits has described previously, the legislation in play failed to address constitutional concerns arising in federal litigation, and created a new, politicized advisory panel to monkey around in what should be evidence-based risk assessments. Texas is MUCH better off waiting to see what the courts do on this before legislating. Texas needs bail reform, but only if it's done right. This legislation was a hot mess.
In addition to all the bills dying that would have reduced incarceration in county jails, measures to limit state-prison intake numbers also foundered:
Three-strikes misdemeanor theft
Three-strikes theft reform (HB 1240 by Davis) was another good bill that died in the Calendars Committee without a floor vote. Presently a defendant's third misdemeanor theft may be automatically "enhanced" (read: increased) to a state jail felony, regardless of the item's value. This legislation would have scaled back the enhancement for lower-value items to go up only one category - e.g., theft of a Class-C-value item would be enhanced to a Class B, not a state jail felony. This legislation sailed out of committee and appeared to be doing fine until Dallas DA John Creuzot announced his own decarceration initiatives mid-session. One of them was that his office would use discretion not to prosecute people stealing personal items with no intent to sell them or profit. The Governor proceeded to go into full-demagogue mode, and his agents killed the bill in the Calendars committee.
Probation reform
A modest probation reform bill passed the House which looked for a moment like it had legs. Chairman Whitmire had filed the companion bill, and his former staffer Terra Tucker was promoting the bill for the Alliance for Safety and Justice. But Whitmire never gave the bill a hearing in his own committee, even though it cleared the House with plenty of time to pass. Further evidence the Texas Senate has become a black hole for #cjreform.
Pretrial diversion nixed
An agency bill proposed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice would have expanded pretrial diversion programming in ways that would have an undetermined but not insignificant de-carceral effect. The bill passed out of committee but died in Calendars without receiving a floor vote in the House.
Motion for a new trial
This one still has me fuming! HB 4202 (Smithee) was an elegantly designed bill which would have allowed for out-of-time motions for a new trial in cases where someone is sentenced to more than three years if the prosecutor and judge agree. Cases could either be dismissed or new sentences agreed upon. Debates surrounding the bill centered mostly on innocence cases - particularly the Houston drug convictions based on faulty field tests - but it also could have implications for people with unreasonably long sentences or even problematic death-penalty convictions. Astonishingly, this gem of a bill passed the Texas House with NO ONE voting against it! It cleared committee 9-0, passed the House 142-0, but never received a hearing after it was referred to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. Another black-hole victim.
Earned-time Credits
After signed the First Step Act, which included provisions to give more generous "earned time" credits to offenders who demonstrate good behavior or diligent participation in programs, some observers hoped similar legislation in Texas might get a boost. But HB 1271 (S. Thompson) never earned the votes to make it out of the House Corrections Committee. While most decarceration bills in Texas have been aimed at lower-level non-violent offenses, this bill would (modestly) chip away at incarceration rates for people convicted of violent crimes whose only chance at release is parole. It also would provide new tools for administrators to punish inmate misbehavior, incidentally, as credits earned can also be taken away. Taking a few weeks or months off of the longest TDCJ sentences in exchange for pro-social behavior inside should be a no-brainer, from a corrections-best-practices perspective. But legislators remain fearful to do anything that might benefit anyone convicted of a violent crime, which is to say, a majority of Texas prisoners.
Other justice-reform legislation also fared poorly:
Death Penalty
The Texas House passed legislation to fix the state's unconstitutional standard for executing intellectually disabled people and another bill addressing capital punishment for people with severe mental illness. But the Senate radically watered down the ID bill and the two chambers couldn't come to an agreement. After the SMI bill passed the House, the Lieutenant Governor never referred the bill to committee; another black-hole victim.
Closing the 'dead-suspect loophole' to the Public Information Act
After Speaker Pro Tempore Joe Moody amended his legislation to close the "dead suspect loophole" to the Public Information Act to a Senate bill by Kirk Watson that restricted records access, the Austin senator refused to concur and took the bill to conference, where Moody agreed to strip it off. The amendment was the subject of an intense lobbying campaign by police unions, and in the quarter century I've known him, starting as Austin's mayor, Watson has never bucked their agenda. It's little surprise that this time was no different.
Transparency for police misconduct
Thirty years ago, police unions convinced the Legislature to exempt personnel files at around 70 out of 2,500 law enforcement agencies from the Public Information Act if they had opted into "civil service" provisions of Chapter 143 of the Local Government Code. But after the Lege passed the Michael Morton Act in 2013, it became apparent this provision was allowing police departments to withhold evidence of prosecutor misconduct even from District Attorney offices, leading to egregious miscarriages of justice. Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa filed SB 433 to fix the problem, but it couldn't get a hearing in Whitmire's Criminal Justice Committee.
No A/C expansion for Texas prisons
A bill that began as a suggestion to provide air conditioning to Texas prisons became a bill to study the issue, then even that couldn't pass. Grits has said for years that only federal litigation will force Texas to do this, certainly as long as John Whitmire chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
Personal location data remains poorly protected
In the wake of the US Supreme Court's Carpenter decision, the Texas Senate approved one of the few reform bills to come out of that chamber this year requiring law enforcement to secure a warrant to access personal cell-phone location data from cell-service providers, including both historical and real-time data. But Google and Facebook intervened in the House and the legislation died in the committee. Apparently they objected to transparency provisions that would let Texans know how often law enforcement access location data they hold about users. That's understandable - IMO people would be shocked if they knew how frequently law enforcement accesses that highly personal data. And the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is doing all it can to limit the extent to which Texas state courts require warrants under the Carpenter ruling. But in Grits' view, the tide of history is against them. This legislation would have prevented a lot of headaches.
Grits could go on. In many ways, the abolition of the Driver Responsibility surcharge was the biggest #cjreform success in years. But it was a lonely victory, and the dynamics on most other topics makes it difficult for reformers to muster a sanguine outlook for the near future without unforeseeable changes in the Texas Senate.
POSTED BY GRITSFORBREAKFAST AT 6:37 AM
TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2019
Reasonably Suspicious, June 2019 episode: 2019 #txlege roundup, Dallas cops' racist Facebook posts, and are 'progressive prosecutors' really a thing?
Here's the June 2019 episode of Just Liberty's Reasonably Suspicious podcast:
Click here to listen http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/06/reasonably-suspicious-june-2019-episode.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 13 2019
I am posting this email I just got; because I am glad I am not the only one who feels foreigners are hurting our country. As I have said on this blog, many times; the internet is, in my opinion, controlled by foreigners and America has very little to do with it. Yet our politicians create more and more laws; perverting our justice system, more and more, to kowtow to the internet. I love the internet; although when it comes to American politics it is rotten to the core. Just like my favorite song by Buffalo Tom says's (song name: Tree House): "Like driftwood from the shore, You were rotten to the core, Rotten to the core": Buffalo Tom Tree House Music Video - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHXrFnZxCFw
kow·tow/ˌkouˈtou/ verb
1.act in an excessively subservient manner.
"she didn't have to kowtow to a boss" synonyms; grovel, behave obsequiously, be obsequious, be servile, be sycophantic, fawn on, bow and scrape, toady, truckle, abase oneself, humble oneself, prostrate oneself; https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kowtow : 2 : to kneel and touch the forehead to the ground in token of homage, worship, or deep respect
Email from Derrick Johnson President of the NAACP and a good, patriotic, man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHXrFnZxCFw
kow·tow/ˌkouˈtou/ verb
1.act in an excessively subservient manner.
"she didn't have to kowtow to a boss" synonyms; grovel, behave obsequiously, be obsequious, be servile, be sycophantic, fawn on, bow and scrape, toady, truckle, abase oneself, humble oneself, prostrate oneself; https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kowtow : 2 : to kneel and touch the forehead to the ground in token of homage, worship, or deep respect
Email from Derrick Johnson President of the NAACP and a good, patriotic, man:
It is clear that both domestic and foreign forces have worked to undermine the Black vote. We must make election security a priority.
We have seen firsthand how social media ads targeted communities of color to attack our political power. We have also seen how the current presidential administration has refused to acknowledge this assault on our democracy.
Our likes, shares, and retweets must not be compromised by people—whether foreign or domestic—who wish to use us as targets for race-baiting and discord.
Next Wednesday, June 19 at 8 pm ET, join NAACP for a tele-town hall on how we can ensure our online spaces are safe from interference by ill-intended propagandists.
Click here to RSVP: https://www.naacp.org/townhall-rsvp/
In solidarity,
Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2019
Covering prosecutors in the media: A primer
Your correspondent was asked to speak tomorrow at an Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Houston on the topic of covering prosecutors. I told them I'd focus on three areas: Available data on prosecutors (focused on Texas), innocence issues, and context for covering so-called "progressive prosecutors." Since I had to prepare, anyway, here are a few highlights:
Texas prosecutor data
For the most part, data on prosecutors is scarce. In Texas, the first concerted effort to dig beyond the surface came from a reporter (now an attorney) named Cindy Culp, writing at the Waco Tribune Herald, 2009. (The stories are no longer available free online, but here are some excerpts, and Grits' contemporary coverage of her work.) The police union had accused the local DA of dismissing too many felony cases, so Culp examined case-dismissal rates in 3 counties - McLennan, Wichita, and Jefferson. She found:
Local prosecutors either refused or dismissed 50.3 percent of felony charges during 2006-08. For misdemeanor cases, there was a 39.7 dismissal/refusal rate, and for all cases combined, it was 43 percent.
By comparison, during the same three years:
* Prosecutors in Jefferson County, home to Beaumont and Port Arthur, refused or dismissed 45.7 percent of felonies, 40.4 percent of misdemeanors and 42.2 percent of all cases combined.
* Prosecutors in Wichita County, where Wichita Falls is the county seat, refused or dismissed 46.3 percent of cases with felonies and misdemeanors combined. Data were not available broken down by felony versus misdemeanor.
The main thing Culp's work showed, however, was how hard it is to acquire meaningful prosecutor data and analyze it in a way that's useful and informative. She showed us more than we'd seen before, but also made more glaring the stark absence of data regarding prosecutorial decisions.
No one else attempted to track this data in Texas until the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition created its Harris and Dallas County Data Dashboards: https://tcjcdashboard.org/
This resource lets case data be broken down by charge, by race, by census tract, and by arresting agency. Probably the two most interesting and/or newsworthy analyses will pertain to racial disparities, which can be broken down by type of crime and arresting agency. That takes these analyses several steps beyond the Culp's agency-wide analysis. But it's not available except for those two counties. And it's not clear it could be replicated everywhere through open records requests; both those counties have more robust data systems that could be scraped for these purposes.
Otherwise, in Texas what's readily available is Office of Court Administration Data:
Annual Statistical Reports: http://www.txcourts.gov/statistics/annual-statistical-reports/
The annual report gives statewide and county-level trends for new cases, overall caseloads, number of convictions/pleas/jury trials, and case clearance rates. The number of new cases and convictions both are often a useful datapoint to combine with other sources to make various calculations. Summary information at the front of the report may be useful, but more interesting are the data tables at the end.
Data queries allow MUCH more detailed breakdowns by county. In addition to county-level data on the datapoints from the Annual Statistical Report, you can get data on motions to revoke probation.
One of the best-kept secrets in the Texas judicial data can be found with a municipal and/or JP-court query. Select "Additional Activity" at the drop-down box under "Section." There you can find data on arrest and search warrants, Class C fines, how many fines are waived, how many were satisfied through community service, jail credit, etc. Prosecutors play a role in all of these decisions.
Another data-based story angle: just recently, Keri Blakinger of the Houston Chronicle published a landmark article on prosecutor caseloads at the Harris County DA, showing that District Attorney Kim Ogg had significantly overstated the prosecutor-to-cases ratio when pitching the commissioners court to let her hire 100 new prosecutors. Her open-records-based methodology would be interesting to replicate in large cities where caseloads may be an issue. For more background on the caseload issues, see this academic article, also focused on Harris County. To my knowledge, this caseload story has not been replicated elsewhere. If you're going to do this work in Texas, the Indigent Defense Commission keeps excellent, county-and-lawyer-level data on defense-attorney caseloads for comparison.
Data gaps: There are more parts of a prosecutors' job about which we don't have data than those we do. One of the most glaring data gaps regards plea bargaining and the "trial penalty" - i.e., how much more harshly defendants are penalized if they insist on the state proving their case at trial. Most datapoints that exist for prosecutors involve taking cases to trial, but overwhelmingly most cases (97+%) are resolved by plea bargaining. That process is a black hole with scarce little quantitative or qualitative information ever arising from it. But it's the most important (and common) thing prosecutors do.
Finally, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and perhaps a few other new "progressive" DAs are beginning to generate more and different types of data. Although my presentation only discusses Texas datapoints, their example eventually may educate us about different analyses that DAs can do with their internal data that haven't typically been made public in the past. This is an aspect of the progressive DA movement that could have out-sized impact down the line, providing transparency to what has been an utterly opaque process.
Prosecutors and Innocence
My first bit of advice to this group when it comes to prosecutors and innocence:
Don't contribute to tunnel vision in high-profile cases: The cases that receive the most media attention paradoxically put the most pressure on prosecutors to cut corners to get convictions. In these instances, journalists play less a role of holding government accountable than government cheerleader, since the government (read: prosecutors) control all the evidence presented. That's both useful to understand after the fact when covering innocence cases, and a cautionary tale when covering cases on the front end. Sensationalized coverage of high-profile trials may not reach jurors, but it reaches voters and DAs react to it. (Watch Ava Duvernay's When They See Us on Netflix for an excellent example.) Given that we've seen so many such cases later overturned through DNA exonerations and other means, the press has some soul searching to do when it comes to pandering to the public with salacious coverage and their role in generating false convictions.
Otherwise, when false convictions have already occurred, there are a handful of issues in innocence cases that fall directly on the shoulders of prosecutors. Here's what to look for:
Improper arguments: Prosecutors may say things at trial that can lead jurors to wrong conclusions: e.g., misstating the law, or relying on perjured testimony. These flaws likely will not be evident to reporters from the trial record (which is another reason to be cautious when covering trials up front), but typically will arise in appellate arguments down the line.
Failing to disclose exculpatory evidence: Brady v. Maryland is the federal case covering what prosecutors must disclose to the defense, but in Texas we passed the Michael Morton Act, which makes the requirements more stringent and requires disclosure earlier in the process. In Texas, prosecutors now must create a list of what was turned over and make it part of the record. This is an issue that will only come out in the appellate process; it's impossible to know at trial what evidence a prosecutor DIDN'T present. For an example of how to analyze appellate records to identify this type of prosecutor misconduct, see a study of California cases by the Veritas Institute.
Police records a gap in the system: Prosecutors cannot disclose records of police misconduct in Texas civil service cities governed by the state civil-service code: about 74 police departments out of nearly 2,000 statewide. That's because police-misconduct records in civil-service cities were made confidential by law in 1989, with departments forbidden even from sharing the information with other law enforcement agencies. (Of the large cities, only Dallas and El Paso aren't under the civil service system. Among sheriffs, only Harris County operates under this system.) In one case in San Antonio, a false conviction was overturned when police did not turn over video evidence of an officer assaulting a handcuffed defendant; instead, the defendant had pled guilty to assaulting the officer! So sometimes, Brady or Michael Morton Act violations may not be a prosecutor's fault, even if they're the ones with the legal obligation to turn it over.
The national exonerations registry is a great starting point for identifying innocence cases in your jurisdiction and for more examples of various types of prosecutor misconduct. Check it periodically for cases in your state that may have flown under the radar.
Setting expectations re: "progressive prosecutors"
Lately, we have seen prosecutors elected as "progressives" in America for the first time in nearly a century. But beware these labels. Podcast listeners heard a related discussion toward the end of our June episode.
Before Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, I considered the notion of a progressive prosecutor a myth. Krasner makes the best case for the possibility of a progressive prosecutor. Krasner's memo to prosecutors on charging and sentencing was a landmark moment, and self-styled progressive prosecutors should be judged based on how much of that agenda they're implementing in their jurisdiction. Most Texas prosecutors labeled "progressive," for example, aren't coming close.
But at the end of the day, I still don't believe in progressive prosecutors because the DA's function is fundamentally regressive. As I put it on the podcast, "A prosecutor has just one tool in the toolbox. They lash out with the power of the state to exact retribution on someone who violates its dicta." There is simply no "progressive" function involved in that activity. Their only power, and only leverage, comes from harming people in retaliation for ignoring state pronouncements. When that pronouncement is "don't murder" or "don't rape," the public broadly supports their function (at least until it came to light how often innocent people are convicted). But when that pronouncement is "Don't smoke pot," the prosecutorial function becomes more controversial.
My belief is that the #cjreform movement's focus on prosecutors has been overblown. They're important, but not the only decision makers in the system. And focusing exclusively only on them lets others - e.g., legislatures, police, judges, crappy defense attorneys - off the hook.
Read more and click more links here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/06/covering-prosecutors-in-media-primer.html
‘Blatant, Organized Riot’: Hong Kong Protest Descends Into Violence, Police Fire Tear Gas And Rubber Bullets At Crowds Storming Government HQ
From: https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2019/06/blatant-organized-riot-hong-kong-protest-descends-into-violence-police-fire-tear-gas-and-rubber-bullets-at-crowds-storming-government-hq/ :
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In The News, World News June 13, 2019
Wednesday saw a substantial uptick in violence at the massive protest consuming the streets of Hong Kong over an extradition bill that would allow Hong Kong citizens to be taken to the Chinese mainland for criminal trial. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said that protest over the extradition legislation, which is now one of the largest political demonstrations China has seen since the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989, has become a “blatant, organized riot,” in a statement made Thursday morning local time, The Associated Press reported. A group called the Civil Human Rights Front organized the protest against the extradition bill that has been building since Sunday, involving more than a million protesters, mostly young people wearing black clothes, according to Reuters. Opponents of the extradition legislation have expressed concerns that it will be used as a tool by China’s Communist Party to crack down of dissident behavior and restrict civil rights in Hong Kong, according to The New York Times.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 15 2019
This has been going on for about 11 years with my artwork site. Before that security programs blocked my art website, for no reason at all. I have not noticed it in the past; others have told me they have run into problems like that, looking up my site. I just realized it is done on purpose thanks to the new Pinterest scandal. I noticed my site being listed as porn yesterday and complained about it. That is what lead me to post this here. This should be against the law just like trolling is in some country's.
Pinterest banned the pro-life organization Live Action after falsely accusing the group of “spreading misinformation” and classifying their content as porn, according to leaked documents.
But Peterson doesn’t have to build the next Facebook or YouTube to be successful. If he creates a platform where non-leftists in the political community can share their ideas and reach their supporters without fear of being labeled as hate speech (or porn), that’s an admirable accomplishment well worth fighting for.
Read more here: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-announces-new-social-media-platform-amid-pinterest-controversy
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 16 2019
As a father, I understand what motivates many dads across America to fight so hard for progress on civil rights. It’s not just about us; it’s about doing whatever we can to ensure our children can walk a road that’s less stony than the one we walked.
Happy Father's Day!
We fight to make sure that our children have access to a quality education, regardless of zip code.
We fight to make sure our children know the importance of the ballot and exercise their right to vote.
We fight to ensure that our children are able to enjoy an outing in a public park, move into their own apartment, or sit in a coffee shop without their very presence being questioned.
And we find hope knowing that our tireless efforts make a difference not just for our children, but for their children as well.
On behalf of the entire NAACP family, I wish all the fathers and father figures a happy Father’s Day.
Sincerely,
Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP
I am posting this because I am still upset about my blog being art blog being blacklisted:
Google has been violating your privacy.1 They've had huge data leaks of over 50 million users2 and been illegally tracking your location.3 They've also racked up human rights violations,4 accusations of wage theft,5 and even been credibly accused of covering up a culture rife with sexual misconduct.6
Google and its parent company Alphabet have grown so large that they cannot be managed responsibly. That’s why activist shareholders led by our friends at SumOfUs have filed a shareholder resolution7 to break up the company.8
We have to act fast to call on Google’s biggest shareholder, Vanguard, to vote for the resolution--the shareholder meeting is next week.
Tell Google’s biggest shareholder, Vanguard, to vote to break up Google.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and many other political leaders have called for the break up of Google and other big tech companies.9
Senator Warren explained that big tech has too much power— “too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy. They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation.”10
We urgently need to break up big tech monopolies.
If we break up big tech, you’ll still be able to search on Google like you do today, use Facebook to keep in touch with family, and shop at Amazon. But these companies wouldn’t be able to crush smaller competitors or abuse users privacy--meaning more choices for us and a stronger democracy.
AT LIBERTY PODCAST
Why It's Time to Talk About Reparations
As discussions about racism in America gain traction, so too does the question of reparations. Broadly defined as some form of repayment for the harm inflicted on enslaved peoples and their descendants, reparations have earned increased visibility thanks to advocacy by the National African-American Reparations Commission and other groups. The issue has become a 2020 presidential campaign issue, and the House of Representatives will hold a hearing next week on H.R. 40, a bill to set up a commission to study the matter. Why is this happening now? How would reparations work in practice? And what are the prospects for genuine change? Jeffery Robinson, deputy legal director at the ACLU, joins At Liberty to discuss these questions and more. Listen here → https://www.aclu.org/podcast/why-its-time-talk-about-reparations-ep-50
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 18 2019
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Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 19 2019
Last time I researched this I found that Texas was either the
Sign the petition to Congress: Ensure over-the-counter birth control is accessible and affordable.
SIGN THE PETITION here: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-to-congress-ensure-over-the-counter-birth-control-is-accessible-and-affordable
With reproductive freedom under attack by the administration, state legislatures across the country, and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, there has never been a more critical time to ensure birth control access for all who want and need it. On Thursday, June 13, Senator Patty Murray and Representatives Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ami Bera, and Katie Hill introduced the Affordability is Access Act (AAA), which would make sure that if the FDA approves birth control for over-the-counter use, it is accessible and affordable. The Affordability is Access Act is the truly comprehensive birth control legislation so many Americans need. Sign now if you agree that we must make birth control access a reality for all! SIGN THE PETITION Some Republicans have called for over-the-counter birth control, but only in place of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, meaning that people would have to pay exorbitantly out of pocket for contraception. The AAA can’t make birth control automatically available over the counter—only the FDA can do that—but it would expand insurance coverage to include over-the-counter birth control pills without requiring a prescription. This guarantees access to contraception that isn’t simply available, but affordable. In the United States, nearly one in three people have faced barriers when trying to get a birth control prescription. The Affordability is Access Act would strike down those barriers and revolutionize access to contraception by putting reproductive health and family planning into our own hands. Click here to AUTOMATICALLY sign the petition calling on Congress to ensure over-the-counter birth control is accessible and affordable! AUTOMATICALLY SIGN THE PETITION Our message to Congress: Nearly one in three people have faced barriers when trying to get a birth control prescription. It’s time to ensure that when read more here: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-to-congress-ensure-over-the-counter-birth-control-is-accessible-and-affordable
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 20 2019
I think that we as a nation have had way too much rain. All I know is our problem around here is not enough rain. We have not had that problem for 2 years. It seems like it has been raining for two years straight; except for a small dry spell last summer.
This really upsets me, very much:
AGRICULTURE ‘Everybody’s so down in the dumps’: Illinois farmers give up on planting after floods — and throw a party PUBLISHED SUN, JUN 16 2019 3:26 PM EDTUPDATED MON, JUN 17 2019 11:39 AM EDT
The storms have left millions of acres unseeded in the $51 billion U.S. corn market and put crops that were planted late at a greater risk for damage from severe weather during the growing season. Together, the problems heap more pain on a farm sector that has suffered from years of low crop prices and a U.S.-China trade war that is slowing agricultural exports. Forecasts for even more rain sent U.S. corn futures to a five-year high on Friday, though fewer farmers will benefit from soaring prices because of the planting disruptions.
We may have to depend on other country's like south of our border, for our vegetables.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 23 2019
TRANSCRIPT
EMERSON SYKES:
[00:00:05] From the ACLU This is At Liberty. I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at the ACLU and your host.
A year ago this week, the Supreme Court handed down probably the most important privacy ruling of the digital age in Carpenter v. the United States. In that case, the police were investigating a string of burglaries and got months of geolocation data for a suspect to tie him to the crimes. The court ruled that the Constitution protects this information and that the police need to get a warrant from a judge before accessing that information from a cell phone company. That decision has all kinds of implications for the digital data we leave behind us as we go about our lives.
So what is the legacy of Carpenter, one year on? Our guest today is well-placed to help us understand how we can hope to protect our privacy, despite the array of digital technologies aimed at tracking our every move and decision. We have in the studio Nathan Freed Wessler, the ACLU attorney who argued and won the case. Nate, thanks very much for joining us. Welcome to the podcast.
NATHAN FREED WESSLER:
Thanks, Emmerson. Happy to be here.
EMERSON:
Nate, can we just start by you giving us a bit of background about what exactly the Supreme Court decided in the Carpenter case.
NATE:
So the Carpenter case it was really about two things.
It was about our location privacy in the digital age. It was a case where police had, in the course of investigating a series of robberies in the Detroit area, they'd gotten a court order, not a search warrant, a court order on a much easier legal standard to get, and sent it to a pair of cellphone companies to get a bunch of suspects historical cell phone location data. This is information that our cell phone companies collect about us anytime we use our phone to make or receive a call, send or receive a text message, or even just make a data connection while the phone is passively sitting in our pocket checking email. And there's this rich trove of location data sitting at the phone companies that can chart our movements really at a minute to minute level in some cases.
[00:02:00] So police had gotten this order to investigate whether some suspects were at the scene of a series of robberies at the times of those robberies. And it turned out Mr. Carpenter was one of the suspects, and when an FBI agent looked at the data, it placed him near the scene of some of these robberies and that became really critical evidence at trial.
What the government argued in this case is that it didn't matter how sensitive this information was, didn't matter that it came from Mr. Carpenter's use of his cell phone, the fact that they got it from the cell phone company, rather than out of Mr. Carpenter's pocket itself, just eliminated any argument under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That's called the Third Party Doctrine. That argument comes out of a pair of cases from the 1970s about bank records and about the telephone numbers you dial on your phone that routes through the phone companies equipment , and in the 1970s, the Supreme Court had said when you voluntarily turn information over to a company, a so-called third party, you give up all of your privacy rights in it. You know you've turned it over. You've given up control of it. Too bad for you if police go to that company without a warrant to get it.
So when this case eventually made it up to the U.S. Supreme Court, the court had to look at these two kind of intertwined sets of theories, realities, right. One, the tremendous privacy interest we have in a digital record of everywhere we go over time: it reveals, you know, where we sleep at night, where we go during the day, to a doctor's office, to a school council meeting, you name it, it's reflected in your location information. So that on the one hand, and on the other hand, this four-decade-old really legal fiction that says well if a company has it and you've turned it over, too bad for you. And what the court held, and this is really critical, and opens up a whole world of possibility for protecting privacy rights in the digital age, the court held that old Third Party Doctrine doesn't just automatically apply to new digital age types of data, and that because of the sensitivity of this data and because you really can't avoid creating this location data as a modern human being - right, we have to carry phones and if you carry a phone, you can't avoid this location data being gathered. For those reasons the court said, no, we're going to allow more protections. We're going to require a warrant. Police can still get it, but they have to demonstrate probable cause, go to a judge and get their search warrant
EMERSON:
[00:04:11] Thanks, that's a really helpful recap. I think just coming back to a little more detail on what you're talking about in terms of the third party doctrine and this legacy of landlines. One of the things that the court had to decide was whether geolocation data is more like a call log or more like the content of the calls. In order to get a call log in the old days, Bell or whatever the phone company was, you didn't need a warrant to get the call log, but they did need a warrant to get a wiretap to figure out what you were talking about. So the court here really had to decide is geolocation data more like a call log or more like content. And you can imagine that they could have gone either way on that. That's not an easy call.
NATE:
Yeah, you know one of the arguments the government made in this case is exactly this: that there's a difference under the Fourth Amendment between the contents of our communications, right, the words we say on the phone, maybe the email content we write that goes through Google or someone else's servers. So that on the one hand, which maybe should be protected, and then so-called metadata on the other hand, which is everything from the routing information on your email or the number you dial on your telephone or in the government's view, this location data, which they tried to represent as just a routing instruction for the cell phone company. They have to know which cell towers the phone is talking to, to talk to that phone and send its communications onward.
[00:05:29] And the Supreme Court really rejected that as the framing. You know everyone on the court, even the dissenters, agreed that at the least, the contents of our emails, our electronic communications, should be protected. The easiest way to reach that conclusion, is just by an analogy to pre-digital age stuff. Right, it's been the case under constitutional law since the 1800s that when you put a sealed letter in the mail an envelope, you seal it up put it in the Postal Service, police can't open it without a search warrant even though you've entrusted it to a third party, the Post Office. The law has been, you sealed it you did everything you could to protect it, a warrant is required. So by analogy, everyone agreed on the court, well, e-mails are the digital age equivalent of that letter. But what the majority said in addition to that is, we really have to look at the sensitivity of the information and what it tells about a person. And prior to the digital age, police never could have had access to this kind of an incredibly detailed and revealing picture of a person's life, basically at the push of a button. It's just a categorically new power that reveals categorically new and more sensitive types information about people's lives. And that's why it has to be protected.
EMERSON:
What you were able to get the court to decide was that they need a warrant in order to access this information. In practice, how much of a big deal is the warrant? How hard is it for the government to get this information?
NATE:
So, it makes a big difference but it also is not an inseparable barrier to the government getting this information. Law enforcement get search warrants hundreds of times across the country every day. That's the standard that has always applied to searching a person's house, their private belongings, doing an invasive search on their body, in lots of other circumstances. So police are well acquainted with how to demonstrate probable cause to a judge. This is what magistrate judges do every day. They get these applications, they review it, make sure there's probable cause, make sure it's specific enough, and issue their warrants. So police absolutely will still have access to this information. What this ruling does is helps make sure that they're not getting access in just a fishing expedition because they have some minimal reason to think that maybe this is the suspect and maybe their location information will incriminate them. And that's important because a critical purpose of the Fourth Amendment, since it was adopted in the 1700s, it's been to add a little bit of friction into the criminal investigative process to make sure that police are only delving into the most private spaces and types of information in our lives with real good reason signed off on by a judge.
EMERSON:
How have we seen this ruling be implemented in practice? Have other courts adopted this reasoning so far in the last year?
NATE:
[00:07:59] What the Supreme Court, held as a binding matter on lower courts is that for at least seven days or more of this kind of historical cell phone location data, a warrant is required and there's no question now that going forward that's the rule.
Now the court left open a bunch of really important questions that lower courts are just starting to grapple with. One of those questions is whether shorter durations of historical location data should also be protected. The Supreme Court just didn't touch on that question. Another question is what we do with other kinds of location data: real time cell phone location tracking, other kinds of location databases, like from automated license plate reader systems. We're fast approaching a time when it's technologically possible to run network systems of surveillance cameras hooked up to face recognition technology to conduct face surveillance on unprecedented levels that is truly a location tracking method. And then also the court didn't decide what we do with other types of sensitive data held by third parties. Now, the court did make very clear that we don't just automatically now get to apply the Third Party Doctrine, but lower court are going to have to look at different types of data - whether it's medical records, information from so-called smart devices in our homes, or wearable devices that might record heart rate data and decide how sensitive is it. Do people really voluntarily share that information as part of modern life and therefore, should it or should it not be protected by a warrant requirement? And that's starting to work out in the courts.
EMERSON:
I know you said that the court didn't directly decide any of those questions, they were sort of limited to the idea of the geolocation data of a cell phone and the warrant requirement, but when we decided that this was an important case to take up, what were we really worried about?
NATE:
Part of my work here at the ACLU over the last seven or eight years has been identifying types of digital data that we're most concerned about, and that we think this Third Party Doctrine is particularly dangerous as applied to. So certainly these kind of location records were one of those types of data, but there's lots of other stuff out there. And our hope is that now that the Supreme Court has given us this extraordinarily strong statement about the need to have robust privacy protections as to this data that as modern humans we can't avoid creating in our lives, lower courts are going to get the message. And that data it really runs the gamut.
[00:10:08] So for example we're involved in a case right now in the First Circuit Court of Appeals, Federal Court of Appeals, involving sensitive prescription records. New Hampshire, like almost every other state, has a database in which every prescription for a controlled substance issued by a pharmacist in that state, and that's lots of medications - not just the narcotic painkillers but lots of psychiatric medications like Xanax, things like testosterone, taken by transgender men, sleep aids, synthetic marijuana substitutes, taken by AIDS and cancer patients to stimulate appetite - lots of stuff that reveals underlying medical conditions. All those prescriptions are reported to a public health database maintained by the state. And the DEA has been trying to get access to that using just a subpoena, which is really just a piece of paper that they signed by themselves and sent off to the state.
And their argument for why a warrant’s not required is the Third Party Doctrine. They say, “Look you went to your doctor and you told them your ailment, and then, you went to your pharmacist and gave them your prescription slip, and then the pharmacist had to report it as mandated by state law to the secure database. You've given up your privacy interest three times over.” And that, we think, is a really dangerous proposition as to medical records. And the fact that today we can have this humongous digitized database of these records that without legal protections is available for a comprehensive search at the push of a button, is really, really chilling unless the Fourth Amendment says something. And that's just one corner of this kind of data.
[00:11:28] We live in an age now where we no longer hold the keys to our most sensitive details of our lives. It's not just our location data. It's other kinds of information about our bodies, uploaded by wearable devices that's held on the servers of companies tracking our heart rate or our fertility cycles. It's information about the interior of our homes, a smart thermostat that knows when people are home and when not, maybe which rooms they're in, in order to most efficiently control AC and heating, well that means there's a server of a company somewhere that knows your patterns of life, when you're home, how many people there, and there are dozens, hundreds of so-called smart “Internet of Things” devices out there now that chart incredibly detailed pictures of all of our lives. There's smart mattress covers, for example, that are designed to give feedback on people's sleep patterns, but that also mean that stored on a company's server somewhere is information about how many people were in bed, whether they were sleeping or not, how vigorously they were not sleeping, that’s sensitive stuff. And that's the kind of stuff that we should demand the government have to really meet a reasonably high threshold and get a warrant before they can access.
EMERSON:
And are we going to have to litigate this issue app by app, piece of data by piece of data? I think one of the arguments that you just made, and that was most compelling it seemed like to the Supreme Court, was the geolocation data is only the tip of the iceberg: where you are, who you're with, what your body is doing, what decisions you've made - all of those things are are in play.
Is there any hope for our privacy? Are we going to have to--Is this whack a mole? Do we have to really fight this app by app and data by data?
NATE:
In the courts, it's likely to develop data type by data type. You know, part of the reason for that is that much of this body of law gets set by criminal appeals. People generally don't learn that their information has been acquired by the government, in these kinds of situations, unless they are subsequently prosecuted and then they have a right to disclosure from prosecutors. And that means that, in a really important respect, people in criminal trials are the “canary in the coal mine” for the rest of us. But what that means is that courts are only going to be addressing these types of data kind of piece of evidence by piece of evidence, right?
In one trial it might be that law enforcement wants to introduce someone's heart rate data to prove that they were running from the scene of a crime and not sitting on their couch as they say they were. And that kind of a case then calls on the court to say “heart rate data,” sensitive? Protected or not? So it's going to be very much a patchwork in that way. That's not to say though that there isn't very clear guidance from the Supreme Court about what the attributes of data are that should be protected. You know, how detailed it is, how pervasive the data points are, whether it's retrospective, this kind of time machine effect that lets police decide today, they want to rewind and learn everywhere a person has gone, or some other set of data in the past.
[00:14:11] There's also another part of the solution which is legislation, obviously. The courts don't stand alone as the only part of our government that can address this. Congress could step in as to any set of these types of sensitive data. Now, it's been a long time since Congress really regulated this: the statute that the Supreme Court was dealing with that seemed to allow access without a warrant dated to 1986. And so it was really critical that the Supreme Court step in.
Congress could act. More likely, state legislatures can act. And we saw before Carpenter almost a dozen state legislatures requiring a warrant for cell phone location data, in states as diverse as California, and Utah, and Montana, and Maine. And that's critical. And those same states could regulate all these other kinds of types of data too, and that would be an important step forward. But it also probably would still be a patchwork, which means that at the end of the day, when the courts get these questions, it's really important that they give us protective rules.
EMERSON:
It's interesting how the issue of privacy can cut against the sort of classic partisan divides in some ways. Have you found that as a political issue privacy can be uniting?
NATE:
Absolutely. I mean we see that in litigation, right. The Carpenter decision was written by Chief Justice Roberts, he was appointed by a Republican president, he's seen as part of the kind of conservative side of the court. Justice Gorsuch, another conservative, wrote a separate opinion essentially agreeing with our side of the case on different grounds, on kind of more originalist, property-based grounds, although it didn't ultimately decide the issue. And that's been true in other digital privacy cases, a case a few years ago about searching the contents of our cell phones after someone's been arrested, requiring a warrant for that, which is a departure from the old pre-digital rule. That was a unanimous opinion by all members of the Court. A case in 2012 about G.P.S. tracking of cars, where Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion protecting that data.
[00:16:02] So it's true in the courts and it's also definitely true in state legislatures where we see legislatures in red states and blue states passing privacy protective laws. We see coalitions of conservative and liberal and progressive members of these legislatures joining together and cosponsoring these measures. It really is an issue where I think everybody can personally see the impact of living in a society where the government has carte blanche to start digging into the most detailed and sensitive parts of our lives without a warrant. And so it's,it's kind of an obvious outcome that we need better rules.
EMERSON:
[00:17:59] Has there been any impact on police practice? Is there anything that you hope or are looking for law enforcement officers to do differently in light of the Carpenter decision?
NATE:
Well, I mean, we certainly are hopeful that police are going to see the writing on the wall and start seeking warrants more often even for the types of data where courts haven't gotten around yet to issuing a decision. And that's important so that police can insulate their cases from potentially being struck down later. I mean there is a real self-interest, if you're a police officer, in doing it right the first time to avoid a defendant in a future case challenging successfully this data and maybe getting it thrown out. So there's a value to the criminal justice system.
There's also a value in terms of accuracy for police getting warrants, right? This is part of the vision of the Fourth Amendment's framers, that we don't want police just barging into everyone's house who if they have some inchoate hunch might have done a thing. We want them to focus on the real suspects based on real evidence and real reason and that's true of the digital age searches, too. So I think it helps focus investigations and many police departments recognize that.
[00:17:35] The other part of the equation here, beyond the courts and legislatures and police, are the companies themselves. And you know this really is a totally new situation we find ourselves in at this scale, where the gatekeepers to our most sensitive data are not ourselves, not the locks on the doors of our houses, but it's these dozens maybe hundreds of companies that hold various types of our data. And so it's been important in recent years that companies have started to, as a matter of policy, set more protective rules. So Google for example, after a court of appeals opinion in the middle the country, out of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010, dealing with whether a warrant is required for the contents of our emails, came out the right way: that Court of Appeals decision said that a warrant’s required but it only was binding within four states. Google then set a net nationwide policy saying, police, if you come to us looking for the contents of people's emails, you have to get a warrant. And law enforcement decided to start complying with that. They, I think, understood that this was probably a losing argument on their side. Courts were going to agree with a warrant position eventually.
And soon after Google adopted that policy, the other major email providers adopted it, and it meant that as a practical matter, even though the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't spoken on it, a warrant was the rule. That's critical. It's also critical that those companies inform people when their data is requested without a warrant, otherwise we have no way to know and no way to defend our own rights. So I-- you know, I hope that the confluence of these factors is going to mean more protective rules in practice more of the time.
But that said we have seen over and over and over again in this country law enforcement agencies doing everything they can to get the most stuff with the least oversight. And so that's why it's really important that courts clearly set the rules to protect us all.
EMERSON:
You mentioned the dozens or hundreds of companies that had some piece of our data trail. Is it a different calculation when it's actually just a few huge companies that actually control all of these apps and different mechanisms through which we're sharing our information?
NATE:
Yeah, I think it can kind of cut both ways in the law enforcement context. I mean on the one hand, I think there is a dynamic where the biggest companies that have the most public scrutiny, may feel the most pressure to have strong protective policies.
EMERSON:
[00:19:52] Think about the big four here obviously.
NATE:
Right. I think that's part of the story about why Google as to email kind of took a strong position earlier. They wanted to be out in front. They started to want to compete on privacy grounds, and in recent years, you know, customer privacy has become an issue that more people in the public and the press are paying attention to. So that is one dynamic. At the same time, there's a kind of keys to the kingdom problem. In other words, if we are entrusting a small number of companies to hold the vast majority of our sensitive data, that means it's a one-stop shop for law enforcement to get access to that stuff. And if we don't have the right legal regimes and the right privacy protective policies on the companies’ ends, that can leave an incredible array of really sensitive stuff open to the taking by the government without the right constraints.
EMERSON:
So as you're fighting this out in the courts, you and other colleagues and coalition members, what can individual consumers do? What kinds of actions can they take now to protect their own privacy and then also maybe to push broader public policy in the right direction?
NATE:
Yeah. So there are some things at a technological level in terms of the settings on a smartphone, for example. that people can do to protect their privacy. And there are other things that really we can't do anything about and we need legal rules. You know, location data is a good example of that.
One of the reasons it was so critical that the U.S. Supreme Court reached the decision it did in the Carpenter case is that short of turning off your phone or putting it in airplane mode, turning off the radio receivers on it, you cannot stop the phone company from collecting that location data, right? You either render your phone into a paperweight, and your location’s private from the phone company, or you leave it as a functioning phone and then your location history is tracked. And in that situation, we really needed either good legislative oversight, which we didn't have, or we needed a strong constitutional rule.
[00:21:40] But, there are lots of other actors out there, other than the phone company and the government, that want access to our sensitive location data, for example. All the apps, the manufacturers, purveyors of these apps, on our phones for marketing reasons, for resale, for ad targeting, lots of invasive things that many of us think are offensive or unnecessary. And as to those, there is a lot you can do. So on modern cell phone operating systems, iPhone or or Android, there are location privacy settings, and it's possible to turn off location tracking as to all apps, or to choose permissions per app to say “this app can never access my location information,” “this app can only access it if I actually have the app open.” So for example, a mapping app you can ensure that it's not tracking, you know, your location in the background when you don't think you're using the map but only when you actually have it open, or you can say, no, I trust this app, it's doing some useful thing for me in the background. I want to give it access all the time. And that kind of granular choice is really important to let people decide for themselves where their threshold of comfort is as to different kinds of uses of this really sensitive data.
EMERSON:
I just got a new phone, so I've been deep in my settings trying to figure out what apps are tracking me and where, and I remember a few years ago hearing a story about these messenger apps that you wouldn't necessarily think of as location related, but these messenger apps were tracking location even while you didn't have the messenger on and how much information could be could be gleaned from there.
NATE:
Yeah, I mean there's, there's a tremendous commercial push on the back end to gather as much information as possible by these companies so they can resell it, package it. There's a whole ecosystem of these data aggregators that then try to create detailed profiles of where everyone is going, where they're spending money, how they're living their lives. Our information is worth a whole lot of money and we're not the ones getting paid for it, which means it's really important to do what we can with these tools.
[00:23:31] Now, it doesn't fix everything, and we learn regularly about apps that are flouting the rules, that are collecting information that even the operating system makers, Google or Apple, say they don't know about. But that's not to say there's not a lot we can do. But you know, there are lots of ways even to track location, right. So the location privacy function on a phone deals with the G.P.S. chip on the phone and whether an app can get information from that. There was just a really good explanatory piece in The New York Times a few days ago about Bluetooth beacons being used to track phones, right. So, Bluetooth it’s a totally different communication system on the phone, separate from the G.P.S. system. It's useful to have your phone talk to your car or your wireless headphones or your speaker. But, turns out, many, many businesses, companies that run consumer outlets, retail stores around the country, have installed Bluetooth beacons whose sole purpose is to be able to identify and track customers as they come into the stores and figure out exactly where they're going within those stores so that they can start targeting ads, creating profiles that they can then use for advertising or remarketing purposes.
And so you have to be aware that you should probably turn your Bluetooth beacon off too on your your phone, and that's a separate setting, wouldn't be obvious. You know, as I describe more and more of that kind of technical means that you can take, I think, for me, it just foregrounds the importance of us having a better legal regime to protect this stuff, right? And location data is certainly a category of information that should be protected. But that's certainly not the only category.
EMERSON:
Well it's a really complicated picture. I mean you've talked about all the different types of data, the different actors involved, and even the story of Mr. Carpenter himself is complicated because, you know, his case gave birth to this privacy protecting precedent that's hugely important. Meanwhile, he actually is facing a very long sentence in prison based on his conviction that was upheld, despite the Carpenter ruling in the Supreme Court. So given how complicated this picture is, what are the main things that private citizens need to keep in mind as they think about their data security?
NATE:
I think one, it's important that we're electing representatives in Congress and state legislatures and really at the local level, who are thinking hard about protecting our privacy. You know this is not just something the courts and U.S. Congress can deal with: it's something that we can urge our local legislators to deal with. The ACLU has been working with a big coalition of groups around the country, for example, to pass local ordinances requiring police departments to disclose the surveillance technologies they use and their policies for how they're going to protect people's privacy and civil rights and civil liberties when they use them, and then giving city councils an opportunity to say “no” if they think that privacy is too much at risk for any one of these types of technology.
[00:26:14] Similarly, consumer privacy legislation is starting to move at the state level. It's critical. Congress may take it up soon too, and we should make sure that our representatives know this is a priority for us. To the extent that people can use their own technology in ways that protect their privacy, that can be important, too: engage location privacy settings on your smartphone, think about using privacy protective programs, virtual private networks, for example, when you're browsing the internet. It's not always the simplest thing, it can be a pain, but if you're concerned about your data, there are all sorts of things you can do. And there are lots of sources online that will explain that. And then supporting organizations like the ACLU and many of our peers that are fighting this out in the courts, too, trying to get systemic understandings of how the Fourth Amendment, and other similar protections, apply to us, to put the brakes on some of the worst abuses in the digital age.
EMERSON:
Well, Nate, I remember when you won the Carpenter case, I encouraged you to retire and go on a speaking tour. But I guess maybe we'll have you back in when you win your next landmark Supreme Court case.
NATE:
Fingers crossed.
EMERSON:
Thanks very much for joining us.
NATE:
Thank you.
EMERSON:
Thanks very much for listening. If you enjoyed this conversation, please be sure to subscribe to At Liberty wherever you get your podcasts and rate and review the show. We really appreciate the feedback.
‘Til next week, peace.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 25 2019
Read more here and click on all the links too: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/06/why-revocations-from-probation-and.html
MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2019
Why revocations from probation and parole make up nearly half of Texas prison admissions and what to do about it
Two recent reports on supervising people in the community post-conviction deserve Grits readers' attention:
From the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Marc Levin has a 10-point agenda on parole that's more aggressive than any decarceration proposal that conservative group has promoted before.
Meanwhile, the Council of State Governments issued an analysis of the proportion of prison admissions related to revoked probation and parole terms.
Let's look at the CSG report first, since it provides the lay of the land. They have state-specific pages for each jurisdiction; here's the one for Texas.
By their calculations, 47 percent of people entering Texas prisons in 2017 were revoked either from probation or parole - 36 percent from probation, 11 percent from parole.
My first thought was to double-check their math, so here's my calculations using verifiable, public sourcing.
In Texas, according to an annual TDCJ report to the legislature, probation revocations to prison in FY 2017 totaled 23,101; of that, 11,522 were for technical violations.
In FY 2017, according to the Board of Pardons and Paroles' Annual Statistical Report, 6,555 parolees were revoked; of those, 1,043 were for technical violations.
Combined, that's 29,656 people revoked from probation and parole combined in 2017; 12,565 of those were for technical violations only.
TDCJ admitted 65,278 total people that year, according to the TDCJ Annual Statistical Report.
So, by my math, that's 45% of TDCJ admissions from probation and parole revocations, not 47%, with 19% coming from technical violations alone. (According to their methodology appendix, they had trouble coming up with data on technical probation violations, which may account for some of the disparity.)
But that's nitpicking. The authors' point was to demonstrate that nearly half of prison admissions arise from supervision revocations, not new convictions. That is certainly true, which brings us to Marc Levin's TPPF policy brief on parole.
Whereas CSG aimed to identify the scope of the problem, Levin proposes reforms to reduce unnecessary supervision and revocations.
In Mr. Levin's ideal world, prisons would begin planning for reentry soon after a person is incarcerated and make sure all necessary treatment and programming has been completed by the time they're first eligible for parole. Moreover, he would have the parole board mainly assess risk to the public going forward, emphasizing behavior while in prison and participation in programming. By contrast, in Texas, one of the most common reasons for denial of parole is "nature of the offense," which cannot ever change.
He touts a Michigan statute, in particular, which limits the reasons parole can be denied to 11, mostly public-safety oriented items. (The references in this document are a treasure trove.)
Levin wants to ensure parole conditions are manageable and adjusted based on risk level, with lower-risk people receiving less supervision. He wants prisoners to get credit for "earned time," which in Texas is optional for the parole board to recognize (this provides scant incentive for program participation, cooperation on work details, etc.). He would reduce barriers to employment for parolees and stop the use of regressive zoning practices to restrict where parolees can live. (January Advisors just did a major analysis on this topic focused on Houston.)
Levin wants to alter how parole officers are evaluated, focusing on recidivism reduction. And finally, he wants some reentry duties currently performed by the justice system to be performed by nonprofits and other entities, which incidentally is what happened recently in Colorado with its community reinvestment program.
I'm glad to see people thinking more deeply both about how to measure the community-supervision elements of mass incarceration as well as how to better utilize those tools for reducing prison populations and preventing recidivism. Taken together, these two documents reaffirm many of the findings in an analysis from the Columbia University Justice Lab titled, "Too Big to Succeed" (which also has informative footnotes), which gave recommendations for cutting the size of community corrections systems in half.
In an inflammatory public Facebook post, Phil Benson — Republican treasurer of Mobile County, Alabama — called the LGBTQ community “freaking queers” and later told the media, “[All] gay people are offensive to me.” He has not apologized for his comments.
Benson left the comment on a county Republican Party Facebook page. It has since been deleted by the page’s moderator.
He made the comment on an article about Jack Phillips, the owner of Denver’s Masterpiece Cakeshop bakery who got involved in a U.S. Supreme Court case after he refused to serve a same-sex couple based on his so-called “religious beliefs.”
In response to the article, Benson wrote, “This poor guy needs to move to a place he is wanted. Freaking queers have gotten too much sympathy. A real abomination.”
Related: Republican Rep. Mike Hill thinks it’d be funny to kill all gay people
Abomination, of course, is a biblical term that conservative Christians often utter in disapproval of LGBTQ people. So it’s hardly surprising that Benson invoked the bible when asked about his comments during an interview with local news outlet WPMI.
Benson reportedly asked his interviewer to read a Bible verse about the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, two towns that God destroyed for being inhospitable to his angelic messengers.
Afterwards, when the interviewer asked Benson if he realized that his comments were offensive to gay people, Benson responded:
“And gay people are offensive to me. Do you understand that? They can be very offensive. All this beautiful rainbow stuff. When one of our presidents lit the White House with wonderful rainbow colors that offended me… I’m sorry they are offended. Their lifestyle offends me.”
In a subsequent interview with AL.com, Benson said, “It’s not only the gays, the LBG-ABC whatever. All groups have gotten just too strong, too powerful.”
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 26 2019
Mugshot ‘ban’ has not been a ban
From: https://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2019/06/mugshot-ban-has-not-been-a-ban/
Jun 21, 2019
For reasons that were never really explained, our governor decided earlier this year that mugshots of criminals didn’t belong in the public arena. It was part of a wide-ranging effort to make life easier for criminals at a time when crime has sunk to historic lows in New York, with bail “reform” and a lot of media organizations were perturbed about this mugshot legislation, but when we actually read the bill, it was clear there were many loopholes in it.
Essentially, the law allows police agencies to withhold mugshots if they want to, but it doesn’t require them to keep them private.
So far, I’ve only found one agency that is withholding them — the State Police. But while the agency’s official position is that they can’t release the mugshot, many troopers and investigators were angered by this move, and surreptitiously find ways to help us get photos of the felons they arrest.
All of the local sheriff’s offices and police departments we have asked for mugshots since the “ban” took effect readily provide them.
Warren County Sheriff Bud York said his office recently got an email from someone asking why sheriff’s officers were still releasing mugshots.
York provided us a copy of the response, which should pretty much answer any questions anyone has about this law change. It is pasted below.
From Sheriff York:
You are correct in that in this year’s budget legislation there was a provision included that dealt with the release of booking information by law enforcement. That provision amended the Public Officers Law by adding new language to subsection 89(2)(b). This new language amends the definition of what can be considered an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy to include: “…disclosure of law enforcement arrest or booking photographs of an individual, unless public release of such photographs will serve a specific law enforcement purpose and disclosure is not precluded by any state or federal laws.”
Though the textual change is minor (and applies only to booking photographs and not booking information in general), there is a lot to unpack here, and it’s helpful to zoom out first before analyzing the effects of this amendment.
First, it is important to note that this new language is being added to the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). The central premise of FOIL is the presumption of access to public records. To wit, from the law’s preamble: “The legislature therefore declares that government is the public’s business and that the public, individually and collectively and represented by a free press, should have access to the records of government in accordance with the provisions of this article.” NYS Public Officer’s Law Section 84. This presumption of access is tempered by numerous exceptions. If the requested record falls under one of these exceptions, a government agency may deny access to the record. Public Officers Law Section 87(2). “The statute does not, however, categorically exempt such documents from disclosure.” PBA of New York State v. State of New York, 145 A.D.3d 1391 (App. Div. 3rd Department, 2016). Information that is categorically prohibited from disclosure by a public agency is typically deemed “confidential” in the law, or otherwise designated as a non-public record. Such is the case with police officer personnel records (Civil Rights law Section 50-a), grand jury records (Criminal Procedure Law Section 190.85), and certain unemployment insurance records (Labor Law Section 537), to name a few examples.
But this is not the case here. There is nothing contained in this new provision which designates booking photographs as per se confidential or expressly prohibits their release by governmental agencies. To the contrary, the language even contemplates the discretionary release of such photographs for a “specific law enforcement purpose,” an incredibly broad term that is left undefined by the law. Added to this is the fact that the identifying details of arrestees (name, age, general area of residence), whose publication arguably does more to compromise a person’s privacy than their likeness, will still be accessible under FOIL and/or permitted to be affirmatively disclosed by law enforcement.
This is a long-winded way of saying that the recent amendment to the law does not actually prohibit law enforcement agencies from releasing booking photographs.
It is helpful to think of it this way; unless specifically classified as confidential or non-public, every record my Office has is presumed to be accessible by the public through a FOIL request, or can be affirmatively disclosed by you at your discretion.
However, there are certain records in my possession that, while not designated as confidential or non-public, are still not appropriate for public disclosure. These are records that I choose not to affirmatively disclose, and that I can deny FOIL requests for. These are things like information about non-routine investigative techniques my Office employs, or information that would compromise an ongoing investigation. But even in these circumstances, the discretion remains with me whether to disclose or not–technically, there is nothing preventing me from telling the public right now about how my investigators do their undercover drug buys, or the make and model of the unmarked cars my office uses. Mugshots are now considered this type of record, one that I can deny a foil request for, or choose to publish or withhold at my discretion.
The FOIL rules exist, in part, to give governmental agencies a reason to deny access, not to prevent them from sharing things that they want to share. If the legislature determines that there are types of government records that are not fit for publication, then they can pass a law that deems such records confidential or otherwise not accessible by the public. But that’s not what this amendment did. It simply allows local governmental agencies to deny FOIL requests for mugshots if they so choose, claiming that the release of such would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy. It does not say that mugshots shall not be made public.
But as you noted, there is a big exception, and it applies to the State Police. For their agency, this legislative change actually does constitute a ban on the release of booking photographs. This is because their agency is covered by the Personal Privacy Protection Law, a separate article found within the Public Officer’s Law which applies to “any state board, bureau, committee, commission, council, department, public authority, public benefit corporation, division, office or any other governmental entity performing a governmental or proprietary function for the state of New York, except the judiciary or the state legislature or any unit of local government and shall not include offices of district attorneys.” Public Officers Law Section 92(1). This separate body of law states that: “No agency may disclose any record or personal information unless such disclosure is… subject to disclosure under article six of this chapter (FOIL), unless disclosure of such information would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy as defined in paragraph (a) of subdivision two of section eighty-nine of this chapter.” Public Officers Law Section 96(1)(c). So because of the interaction of these two bodies of law, the amendment functions as a ban on the release of booking photographs by the State Police (as well as any other state-level law enforcement agency).
So, it remains the policy of my office, in the interest of public trust and transparency, to continue to release booking photographs to the public.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated June 27 2019
Americans have not forgotten that Wall Street greed crashed the economy and cost countless people their homes, livelihoods and lives. But apparently, some Democrats have. A handful of corporate Democrats are lining up against proposals to tax Wall Street. Progressive Democrats put forward legislation that would impose a small tax on each financial trade, like a sales tax for Wall Street banks. These progressive proposals would reduce rampant speculation and raise billions of dollars, but sparked grumbling from the corporate wing of the Democratic Party.1 A Wall Street speculation tax is smart politics and smart policy. Every Democrat should unite behind it, and every Republican should feel under fire for opposing it. But it's up to us to turn up the heat on Congress to tax Wall Street.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 1 2019
This is a example of how insane our country's Judges can be. Do you know why? Some of our country's judges; have way to much ability to make up what they want to impose on people.
Initially, the Sentencing Guidelines were mandatory; a judge was required to impose a sentence that fell within their recommended range. In 2005, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the Guidelines, mandated by Congress, were unconstitutional because they effectively allowed the legislature to usurp a role reserved for the judiciary.
Now, the Guidelines are non-binding and purely advisory. A district judge must consider them, but is not bound by them. Thus, she is free to impose a sentence outside the Guidelines range – either above or below – in service of the sentencing factors.
SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2019
Judge abused discretion, violated due-process rights, by revoking probation w/o a hearing: Will he be sanctioned?
A misdemeanor DWI case out of San Antonio deserves broader attention, with interesting and important implications on several levels.
Wayne Christian - a Republican county-court-at-law judge in Bexar County first elected in 1996, who ran unopposed in the 2018 election - has routinely inserted himself on behalf of the state in lieu of county prosecutors in probation revocation cases, often refusing to allow testimony and deciding them with no evidence. But thanks to appellant Allison Jacobs, her attorneys, and perhaps most interestingly, new Bexar DA Joe Gonzalez, that practice will now be revisited.
Here's Judge Christian dressed in a camo robe. (source)
According to columnist Josh Brodesky of the SA Express News, Judge Christian's court "leads all County Court-at-Law judges in what’s known as MTRs - motions to revoke probation. He also leads other judges in jail bed days."
In Jacobs' case, she'd been a model probationer but failed three urinalysis tests toward the end of her 14-month probation period. Her attorney wanted to argue that this was a false positive caused by a diet pill she'd been taking, which long-time readers know is not an implausible scenario, particularly in Bexar County.
But Judge Christian refused to hold a hearing and based his decision to revoke on a brief conversation with the court liaison from the probation department. This violated Jacobs' due process rights, which should have entitled her to challenge evidence against her in a hearing before she's revoked to jail. But Christian went even further. Reported Brodesky:
Not only did Christian sentence her [to jail], but court records show he also denied her appeal for reasonable bail. He then modified a district court judge’s order of bail for $1,600 to make conditions more onerous. Another district judge lessened those conditions, and when Jacobs was finally released from the Bexar County Adult Detention Center in November, Christian responded.
According to court filings: Upon release on bail, Jacobs was scheduled for a pretrial services orientation on Nov. 19, 2018. But Christian called pretrial services and had the orientation changed to Nov. 13, 2018. Pretrial services was unable to notify her about this change, so she missed the orientation. The next day Christian revoked her bail, issuing a warrant for an arrest.
What gives? This is a defendant who was two weeks away from completing 14 months of probation for a serious, but misdemeanor charge.
[Jacobs' attorney Jodi] Soyars said she likes Christian personally, and, obviously, has concerns about crossing him. She has other cases in his court. But she viewed this as representative of a broader issue and unfair to her client.
“He routinely denies defendants the right to due process,” she said.
So the judge routinely disallows prosecutors from participating in revocation decisions, acting himself on behalf of the state. And he doesn't allow a defendant to present evidence of possible actual innocence, simply declaring the allegations "true" by fiat without, as Soyars said in her brief, a "scintilla of evidence."
And it wasn't an isolated incident. Again from Brodesky: “There have been situations where our prosecutors have been placed in positions where they are not in agreement with going forward on a motion to revoke,” District Attorney Joe Gonzales said. “And they have made the decision to not sign off on the motions, and the judge has moved on them on his own.”
Let's delve into the secondary issue of denying the defendant bail while her appeal was litigated. The actions attributed to Judge Christian, who went out of his way to thwart the decision of a district judge in a habeas corpus writ, seem like extraordinary measures for a judge to take. The brief from Jacobs' attorney includes a footnote - which the DA's office corroborated (more on this later) - describing the remarkable sequence of events in more detail (citations to the record omitted):
While the appeal and motion for new trial procedures were taking place, some additional procedural issues arose and were dealt with, which are evident in the clerk’s record. A brief explanation to make sense of the clerk’s record follows: After a Notice of Appeal was filed, a Motion for Reasonable Bail Pending Appeal was also filed. . This is a misdemeanor case and bail was required to be granted. Judge Wayne Christian denied bail. An Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus Seeking Setting of Reasonable Bail was then filed and heard by District Court Judge Melisa Skinner in the 290th District Court. Judge Skinner granted the Writ and ordered bail of $1,600 and SCRAM as a condition. . The same day, Judge Christian called his clerk and added full GPS, daily reporting, and daily UAs as conditions of release, effectively changing the order of a District Court judge. A second Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus was then filed, requesting reasonable release conditions. Judge Joey Contreras in the 187th District Court set this Writ for a hearing on October 17, 2018. At the hearing, Judge Contreras granted reasonable conditions. After several weeks passed with Jacobs unable to meet the bail requirements, Judge Contreras amended his bond order to allow Jacobs a way to be released pending the appeal. Jacobs was released from jail and given an orientation date of November 19, 2018 to report to pre-trial services. On November 13, 2018, Judge Christian called pre-trial services and ordered pre-trial services to require Jacobs to report on that date. Pre-trial services was unable to contact Jacobs and Jacobs had not yet had her orientation that would put her under the requirements of pre-trial supervision. Judge Christian then required pre-trial services to send over a violation report on November 14, 2018, whereupon Judge Christian revoked her bail and issued a warrant. Judge Contreras again intervened and reinstated Jacobs’ bail on November 16, 2018.
This conduct to my mind, deserves public censure if not ouster by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. And indeed, in its opinion, the 4th Court of Appeals called Christian's actions an example of "an unsuitable practice by a county court at law judge."
All of this is remarkable, and more than a bit concerning. Judge Christian seems intent on ignoring the mandates of his job and substituting his own judgments for the process. In doing so, he's also increasing incarceration - keep in mind he has the highest numbers of all Bexar-county-court-at-law judges on both revocations and resulting jail-bed days.
But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the case was the fact that District Attorney Joe Gonzales joined with defense counsel to dispute Christian's "unsuitable" practices, which apparently had been tolerated by his predecessors without contest for many years.
One aspect of electing reform-minded prosecutors Grits had not fully considered (or perhaps more accurately, had not dared dream possible) is that they could challenge unconstitutional court practices from the inside, or join those challenges, as happened here. So kudos to Gonzalez for his stance here, that's a big deal!
Prosecutors' role should be to "seek justice." But too often, they see themselves as on a side, and it's the opposite side from the defendant. So when the judge plays prosecutor as well, as is the practice in Judge Christian's court, defendants without means to pay a phalanx of private lawyers have little chance.
Finally, Grits was interested in the Express-News' analysis that Christian leads all other Bexar judges in motions to revoke. How do we know? That's something tracked in state-level court data, but totals are only available in Office of Court Administration queries at the county-wide level.
Grits doesn't immediately know the data source from which Brodesky identified the number of probation revocations by court. (If any readers know how to access this data from public sources, please let us know in the comments.) But that's a useful figure because, as regular readers are aware, probation revocations are a significant cause of Texas prison admissions, and revoked misdemeanor probationers go to county jail, contributing to local costs.
So, to summarize, here are the implications and questions Grits would take away from this episode (feel free to suggest more in the comments):
A judge for years felt free to ignore his duties to hold probation-revocation hearings and neither local defense attorneys nor the DA's office called him on it. Is this happening elsewhere?
Will the State Commission on Judicial Conduct sanction Judge Christian?
Does this flagrant disregard for judicial duties rise to the level of the state bar challenging Christian's licensure?
Will media in other jurisdictions begin analyzing which judges have the most probation revocations and hold them accountable for successes/abuses?
An under-examined aspect of evaluating "progressive" prosecutors will be how they respond to appeals challenging unconstitutional practices and other reform litigation. People have discussed this in the context of bail reform, but Jacobs case shows there are potentially many more areas where this could become important.
This is quite a significant case, I think, certainly for San Antonio, and potentially exposing an area where judges may be abusing their discretion in other jurisdictions as well, if reporters and advocates were to look. The pressures on ADAs and defense counsel to acquiesce in judges' abuses for the sake of other cases certainly aren't unique to Bexar County.
Read and check links here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/06/judge-abused-discretion-violated-due.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 2 2019
Last November, Floridians passed Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to over a million of their fellow citizens who had been disenfranchised for life because of a past felony conviction.
Now those gains are in danger: Governor DeSantis just signed a law requiring recently re-enfranchised voters to pay their court costs, fines, fees, and restitution, or lose their newly-won right to vote.
Conditioning fundamental rights on the ability to pay a fee is a grave injustice – and unconstitutional. That's why, last Friday night, we filed a lawsuit challenging the new law.
Read more about how this law constitutes a modern-day poll tax, and what we're doing about it.
Voting shouldn't come with a price tag – but that's exactly what this new law does. It discriminates on the basis of a person's wealth, revoking the right to vote for those who cannot afford to pay their fees immediately. That's not how democracy works.
The law violates the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees of equal protection and due process, and the Ex Post Facto Clause of the U.S. Constitution. And by imposing an egregious poll tax, it also violates the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, which dictates that the right to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax."
Florida's new law is bad on so many levels. Learn about the ACLU lawsuit on behalf of six Floridians who deserve to have a voice in their government.
The right to vote is under attack across the country. No matter where you live, we need to stay vigilant – and keep fighting to defend the fundamental right to vote.
Read more here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/voter-restoration/why-aclu-suing-florida-its-new-poll-tax
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 3 2019
When her grandson went to prison, Martha Wright-Reed could not travel long distances to see him. Her only option to stay in touch with the grandson she raised was to pay the exorbitant rates that prison phone companies charge families. She paid more than $100 a month to call her grandson.1
For more than 20 years, Mrs. Wright-Reed fought for affordable prison phone rates. She passed away in 2015, and now a bill named for her would limit the sky-high rates that companies can charge families for prison phone calls.2
Charging exploitative phone rates to the families of incarcerated people is wrong. But prisons get a percentage of companies' profits as a kickback, so they have no incentive to act. We need Congress to act to stop this abusive practice.
Families can pay up to $25 for a 15-minute local call to an incarcerated parent, child or loved one.3 There is no competition or choice if they want to stay in touch. Under Pres. Obama, the FCC acted to cut the cost of prison calls. FCC abandoned the policy to allow companies to charge whatever they want.4
Phone calls are a lifeline for families to stay in touch with incarcerated loved ones. A 2015 survey found that more than 1 in 3 families of incarcerated people go into debt simply to pay for phone calls and visits.5 Staying in touch helps children connect with their parents and allows incarcerated people to maintain ties that help them rejoin society when they are free.
The Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act would apply to all inmate communications regardless of technology, so video calls and other advanced communications services would be covered as well.
The U.S. prison phone industry is big business, worth $1.2 billion, and it is fighting back.6 So are the prisons getting kickbacks. To end predatory prison phone rates once and for all, we need to speak out against this abusive system.
Tell Congress: End predatory phone rates for incarcerated people and their families. Click the link below to sign the petition:
To my U.S. Senators: Increase funding for cancer research
Millions of cancer patients and survivors are alive today thanks to previous investments in cancer research.
The facts are clear:
Cancer research saves lives.
Despite our progress, more than 600,000 people in the U.S. are projected to die from cancer this year alone.
Every major cancer breakthrough in the past 50 years can be traced back to federally-funded research.
Please support a strong increase in funding for cancer research and lifesaving cancer prevention programs.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 4 2019
Happy fourth of July. Be safe.:
U.S.
OHIO MAN DIES SHOOTING OFF FIREWORKS IN FRONT OF SMALL CHILDREN WHEN MORTAR EXPLODES IN HIS CHEST
ON 7/3/19 AT 12:03 PM EDT
A man has been killed in an accident while setting off fireworks outside his home in Toledo, Ohio.
Police say the 61-year-old man, named locally as Floyd Temple, was lighting fireworks for neighborhood children when a mortar tipped over and hit him in the chest.
He was pronounced dead at the scene when emergency services arrived around 12:38 a.m. on July 2.
Neighbors said some of the children he was setting off the fireworks for witnessed the tragic accident.
"He tried to fire off a rocket that goes up into the sky and it backfired and took his chest off," Benjamin Avalos, a friend of the victim, told WTOL.
"It went off and his chest exploded, and [the children] ran over to my house and told me about it. That's when police showed up," added neighbor Rick Tuggle. "They were sitting over there. They're probably traumatized right now... They were sitting right there on the stairs when it happened."
Sterling Rahe, spokesperson for the Toledo Fire & Rescue Department, warned others about the dangers of fireworks ahead of the Fourth of July celebrations.
"They saw this happen and again it could've been a lot worse with those kids running around when you think about the Fourth of July and having fun and enjoying the time. We want people to do that, but this again is an example of what can go wrong when we talk about fireworks," he told WNWO.
An autopsy is due to be carried out to determine Temple's cause of death.
Under Ohio state law, it is legal to purchase fireworks but illegal to set them off without a permit. Anyone found illegally setting off fireworks faces a first-degree misdemeanor charge, punishable by a fine up to $1,000 and six months in jail.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), at least five people were killed as a result of fireworks in 2018.
There was also an estimated 9,100 people who required treatment in an emergency room because of firework-related injuries.
The CPSC said that around 62 percent of the firework-related injuries occurred in the month surrounding the Fourth of July celebrations (June 22—July 22).
"CPSC works year-round to help prevent deaths and injuries from fireworks, by verifying fireworks meet safety regulations in our ports, marketplace and on the road," Ann Marie Buerkle, CPSC acting chair, said in a statement. "Beyond CPSC's efforts, we want to make sure everyone takes simple safety steps to celebrate safely with their family and friends."
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 5 2019
On the Fourth of July, the nation commemorates the day when people yearning for freedom banded together to declare their independence.
As we mark this day, we must reflect on the Black and brown people who built this land of the free, while still fighting for their own freedom. We must remember their descendants who are still fighting to this day to make our democracy inclusive for all.
Supporters like you have been defenders of justice because many of the communities we care about still don’t know true freedom or equality.
We celebrate the many victories achieved and all of the courageous people who have fought to make our country live up to its highest ideals of liberty and justice.
Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 6 2019
Go here to sign: Sign if you agree: Everyone deserves full, equal access to lifesaving care: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/dhhs-protect-trans-rights
The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a proposal to redefine the Affordable Care Act's anti-discrimination protections to exclude "gender identity." 1 The proposed rule would give health care providers a license to discriminate against transgender people.
We need to show that there is massive public opposition to this rule. If you sign now, we will include your signature in our public comment to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Tell the Department of Health and Human Services: Everyone deserves full, equal access to lifesaving medical care. Preserve anti-discrimination laws that protect transgender people in healthcare. Click here to add your name.
The ACA's Health Care Rights Law guarantees full, equal access to medical care and insurance coverage regardless of race, color, national origin, gender identity, sex, age or disability. The inclusion of gender identity as a protected class under the ACA's Health Care Rights Law was a historic Obama-era law that protects over 3 million people across the country from discrimination and ensures quality health care to all. The proposed HHS rule would redefine anti-discrimination protections on the basis of sex to exclude "gender identity."
The proposed rule would:
Allow health care professionals and insurance providers to deny transition-related care, including gender reassignment surgery, to transgender people.
Grant a license to discriminate and allow health care providers to deny general health care on the basis of religious beliefs.
Roll back protections for people with Limited English Proficiency and people with disabilities who rely on the Health Care Rights Law for support navigating the health care system. 5
Allow health care providers to deny abortion care and information. 6
Eliminate protections for people living with HIV/AIDS from being denied care or charged exorbitant prices for lifesaving medicine.
This proposed rule was introduced only one week after the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act to extend civil rights protections to the LGBTQ community and ban discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
This proposed rule is only one of many attacks is waging against the LGBTQ community. is dismantling protections in housing, work and health care. We must fight back against this proposed rule and continue to fight to ensure that the LGBTQ community has full, equal civil rights protections.
Alongside our partner Transgender Law Center, we are mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people to make their voices heard to the Department of Housing and Human Services. Your name will be included in a comment that will be read and summarized by the federal government. Can you add your name today?
Tell the Department of Health and Human Services: Everyone deserves full, equal access to lifesaving medical care. Preserve anti-discrimination laws that protect transgender people in healthcare. Click the link below to add your name.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 8 2019
SUNDAY, JULY 07, 2019
Reasonably Suspicious podcast, July 2019 episode: Featuring an interview with TPPF's Marc Levin about parole, allegations of judicial misconduct in San Antonio, and a proposed mascot for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Here's the July 2019 episode of Just Liberty's Reasonably Suspicious podcast, covering Texas criminal justice politics and policy. Co-hosted by me and Amanda Marzullo, it's also available on iTunes, Google Play, and Soundcloud.
Listen here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/07/reasonably-suspicious-podcast-july-2019.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 10 2019
Private prisons are being run without the same oversight as other prisons, thanks to a loophole that allows them to not disclose information.
As a result, the public is left in the dark about the conditions inside these detention centers. Together, we must change that. Join RootsAction and a coalition of groups by adding your name here.
The Private Prison Information Act would ensure that non-federal entities provide the information necessary for the government to respond to FOIA requests, while still allowing for the protection of confidential information.
Congress needs to act to demand accountability from the private prison industry. Private prisons are being run without sufficient oversight, thanks to a loophole that allows them to not disclose information.
ADD YOUR NAME: BECOME A GRASSROOTS CO-SIGNER OF THE PRIVATE PRISON INFORMATION ACT
The Private Prison Information Act would create a critically important mechanism by which federal agencies can ensure that non-federal entities provide the information necessary for the government to respond to FOIA requests relating to prison and detention facilities, while still allowing for the protection of confidential information. Please support this important legislation and work with your colleagues in the Senate and the House to push for immediate passage.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 11 2019
I do not know if everything this petition page says is 100% the truth. All I know is I am against private prisons. It is just another way to further pervert our already perverted justice system.
Go here to sign this petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/private-prison-tax-breaks_pa
Tell Congress: End tax breaks for private prisons
82% We've reached 20,551 of our goal of 25,000.
Sign the petition
The petition to Congress reads:
"Pass the Ending Tax Breaks for Private Prisons Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code to exclude private prison companies from dodging taxes by structuring as REITs."
Tell Congress: End tax breaks for private prisons.
Most of these prison companies are structured as real estate investment trusts (REITs), which allows them to pay taxes at the individual – not corporate – rate.3 It's bad enough that taxpayer dollars allow private prisons to profit off human rights abuses. They shouldn't get a tax break, too.
Tell Congress: End tax breaks for private prisons.
Sen. Ron Wyden just introduced legislation to bar private prison companies like CoreCivic and GeoGroup from dodging taxes by incorporating as REITs. It would force them to pay the corporate rate and strike yet another blow against their unconscionable business model.4 That is why we are standing with our friends at DailyKos, Color Of Change, BYP100, Mijente, Americans for Tax Fairness and the Franciscan Action Network to demand that Congress act on this legislation immediately.
More than 60% of incarcerated immigrants are held in private prisons built by GEO Group and CoreCivic.5 These corporations are set up as REITs, not as regular corporations, in order to pay lower taxes and rack up even bigger profits. Private prison companies are increasingly planning to build prisons and then lease them to governments as activists fight for bans on corporations operating private prisons.6 Stripping these companies of their "real estate" tax dodge strikes at the heart of that plan.
To maximize profits, private prison companies advocate for increased incarcerations, unreasonably strict parole and release laws, harsh anti-migrant policies, and a mandatory minimum of immigrants held in detention in their facilities. For-profit prisons are also incentivized to advocate for laws that reduce the basic rights, benefits, and entitlements inmates receive while in prison. Already, our activism helped force Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and other big banks to stop financing private prisons, and now we have a major opportunity to stand in solidarity once again with the thousands detained in horrific private prisons.
Tell Congress: End tax breaks for private prisons.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 13 2019
In November 2018, a super-majority of Florida voters—more than 5 million people—voted to approve Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to the formerly incarcerated and resulted in the largest expansion of the electorate in decades.
Rather than embrace this historic mandate to expand voting rights, state lawmakers and the governor opted to undermine the will of the people by recently enacting SB7066.
SB7066 forces those convicted of felonies to repay all fines, fees, and other monetary penalties associated with their convictions, or face disenfranchisement.
Essentially, lawmakers have placed a poll tax on returned citizens who have served their time, probation, and parole obligations.
This is not what the people of Florida voted for—and the NAACP always stands on the side of the people.
So we’re suing the state of Florida to block this restrictive and unconstitutional law.
Our lawsuit is about honoring the Floridians who voted to remove a Jim Crow vestige and expand access to the ballot box.
But it’s also about something more. It’s about ensuring that voters everywhere have a real voice in their communities and over policies that impact their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
Disenfranchising citizens and ignoring the will of the people cannot stand, and the NAACP is committed to challenging those in power who engage in such abhorrent tactics.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 15 2019
Florida principal told parent, 'not everyone believes the Holocaust happened.' He's now apologized
Monday July 08, 2019 · 9:41 AM CDT
As first reported by The Palm Beach Post on Friday, the principal of Spanish River Community High School (located in Florida), William Latson, has seemingly defended Holocaust deniers when a parent asked about how the school teaches World War II history. As an update: The principal has since apologized. But let’s dig into how this reportedly went down first.
Emails between the parent (who wants to remain anonymous) in question and the principal were sent in April of 2018 and were checked in a public records request by The Palm Beach Post. Latson, the principal, wrote, “not everyone believes the Holocaust happened.”
Latson explained that while the school has a one-day lesson, it’s not mandatory. Why? Because some parents “don’t want their children to participate.”
“The Holocaust is a factual, historical event,” the mother reportedly replied. “It is not a right or a belief.”
“Not everyone believes the Holocaust happened and you have your thoughts but we are a public school and not all of our parents have the same beliefs so they will react differently,” he reportedly said in response. “I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee.” He apparently then followed this up by saying slavery is regarded the same way.
The original parent, along with a second parent, went on to meet with the principal. Their goal? To talk about including Elie Wiesel’s famous Night, (a Holocaust memoir, widely taught in schools) on the required reading list. They also suggested assemblies about the Holocaust for all grade levels. The superintendent has confirmed that these assemblies are set for the upcoming year, which is definitely a step in the right direction. As The Hill reports, the high school, which is located near Boca Raton, is believed to have one of the largest Jewish populations of students in the country.
And what happened with the principal? As The Huffington Post reports, he reportedly has not been disciplined. He has issued a statement apologizing, noting that the emails “did not accurately reflect my professional and personal commitment to educating all students about the atrocities of the Holocaust.” He continued that, “It is critical that, as a society, we hold dear the memory of the victims and hold fast to our commitment to counter anti-Semitism.” He has also now visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., to educate himself more.
To be sure: Now is the time to make sure students are taught thoroughly about the Holocaust, and other genocides. Disturbingly, teenagers around the country are using mass genocide to make jokes. Take, for example, the Minnesota teenagers who made Nazi-themed invitations to their school dance. Or the viral story of the Wisconsin teens who seemingly did the Nazi salute before their prom. In 2018, anti-Semitic attacks also rose worldwide, particularly in the United States and Europe. In the U.S. specifically, anti-Semitic attacks more than doubled in 2018.
Why the ACLU Is Suing Florida For Its New Poll Tax
ACLU Racial Justice Program
JUNE 28, 2019 | 8:00 PM
On November 6, 2018, nearly 65 percent of Florida voters—more than 5 million people—resoundingly approved Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to over a million of their fellow citizens. By passing Amendment 4, Floridians successfully ushered in the largest expansion of the electorate in nearly 50 years. The people of Florida did it on their own, using a constitutional ballot initiative, to finally achieve change where Florida politicians had failed.
Instead of celebrating this progress, Florida politicians are trying to destroy it. The Florida legislature passed, and today the Governor signed, unconstitutional legislation that requires people who are eligible to vote under Amendment 4 to pay the exorbitant court costs, fines, and fees levied against them at the time of their conviction, or lose their right to vote. In turn, the ACLU and partners filed a federal challenge seeking to block the law.
read more here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/voter-restoration/why-aclu-suing-florida-its-new-poll-tax
Alabama mayor who called for gays to be killed running for re-election
July 11, 2019
An Alabama mayor who called for gay people to be killed is planning on running for re-election.
Mark Chambers, the Republican mayor of Carbon Hill, Alabama, came under fire over a Facebook post calling for gay people to be “killed out” in June.
After posting a meme attacking “a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics,” the official wrote: “The only way to change it would be to kill the problem out. I know it’s bad to say but without killing them out there’s no way to fix it.”
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 17 2019
I do not believe raising the minimum wage will fix our employment problems. I believe in raising everyone's wage is the best alternative though. This petition is a good start:
Campaign Action
Sign and send a petition to your U.S. senator(s): Cosponsor the PRO Act (S.1306)
The right to organize allows employees to negotiate living wages and healthy working conditions. But too often, employers deny workers this right and don't face consequences. As a result, workers suffer, and income inequality has soared to a historic high.
To address this issue, Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) introduced the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2019 (S.1306).
If passed, the PRO Act will provide millions of working people across the country with protections that will:
Penalize employers that interfere with their employees’ organizing efforts,
Make explicitly clear that employers cannot interfere with employee unionization voting procedures,
Enhance support for worker strikes and boycotts, and
Close loopholes in federal employment and labor laws.
Our economy should work for everyone, not just corporate CEOs and billionaires. Unions are critical to obtaining higher wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions for everyone. It's time for Congress to bolster workers’ rights by passing the PRO Act today.
Sign and send a petition to your U.S. senator(s): Cosponsor the PRO Act (S.1306).
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 18 2019
Sign the petition: No fees or fines to restore voting rights of formerly incarcerated citizens
Florida voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 4, which restores the voting rights of 1.4 million citizens who have completed their felony sentence.
But the Republican governor and state legislature immediately passed a law that blocks nearly half of them from voting. They must first pay off all of their fines and fees before they can restore their voting rights, which is effectively a poll tax.
Florida is not alone. Seven other states—Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Iowa, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Washington—also require citizens who have completed their felony sentence to pay fees or fines before they can vote again.
This is wrong. Voting is a right. If you finished serving your sentence, you must have your right to vote automatically restored. Anything less is undemocratic.
Sign the petition: No fines, no fees to restore voting rights of the formerly incarcerated.
PETITIONING
All state governments
SPONSORED BY
Daily Kos
Our Message to All state governments :
Requiring the formerly incarcerated to pay a fine or fee to restore their voting rights is an unfair and unnecessary burden. No one should have to pay for their vote. The eight states that have these laws on the book must repeal them immediately.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 20 2019
Imagine taking off from work early to vote only to wind up, six months later, in handcuffs. That's what happened to Crystal Mason, a Black mother from Texas who was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election.
The ACLU, along with the Texas Civil Rights Project, have joined Crystal's legal team. While we argue her case, showing public support could make the difference. Add your name to make loud and clear: I support Crystal Mason.
At the time, Crystal was on federal supervised release, a preliminary period of freedom for those who've served their full time of incarceration in federal prison. Nobody told her that Texas considered her ineligible to vote at the time, and it's not clear under the law that she was in fact ineligible. Yet the state contended that she should have known anyway.
Crystal's sentence is not only extreme, but also an example of racial disparities in our criminal justice system. This year, a white male judge in the same county was sentenced to five years' probation for submitting fake signatures to secure a place on a primary ballot. But Crystal, a Black woman, was sentenced to five years in prison for what was at worst an honest mistake.
Add your name to show your support for Crystal Mason.
Despite all she's been through, Crystal is determined to speak out. "You wanted me to feel fear. You wanted me to run. You wanted me to be scared to educate and teach my kids to continue to vote, to go vote, what my mom instilled in me. Instead of letting it be a crutch, I have let it motivate me now."
Let Crystal's story empower us to do the same – let's fight for her and for every single one of us.
Tell Congress: Tax the ultra-wealthy. Click here
On top of handing freebies to multinational corporations, it gave millions in tax cuts to the richest of the rich by cutting the estate tax.
Over the last decade, Republicans exempted more and more millionaires from the estate tax. A married couple can now keep $22 million from being taxed. Fewer than 2,000 families are now subject to the tax, and thousands of super-rich families are dodging millions in taxes.1
Sen. Bernie Sanders is teaming up with Rep. Jimmy Gomez to undo the damage and force America's ultra-wealthy to pay their fair share, and they need our help.
Tell Congress: Tax the ultra-wealthy. Raise the estate tax. Click here to sign the petition.
Just three white men ‒ Jeff Bezos of Amazon, investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft's Bill Gates ‒ own as much wealth as the whole bottom half of America. An astonishing $2.9 trillion is in the hands of just 400 people. The top 1%, meanwhile, control 40% of the wealth in our country.2,3 This unequal wealth hoarding starves public services and kills job creation, leaving America sicker, less educated and less prosperous. The estate tax was meant to prevent this kind of wealth from being passed down from generation to generation and stop the creation of a new oligarchy.
The For the 99.8 Percent Act would fight massive inequality and inherited wealth by:4
Raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy few, starting with estates worth more than $3.5 million and rising to a 77% tax on inherited wealth over $1 billion.
Closing the loopholes that allow many ultra-wealthy families to dodge inheritance taxes altogether.
Defying Republican attacks on the estate tax by exempting family farms, most of which are worth less than $1 million, and taxing wealth that rich families gathered through other tax loopholes for the first time.
Senate Republicans are now proposing to eliminate the estate tax completely in yet another giveaway to their wealthy donors. We need to show how many people are determined to resist and willing to fight for a progressive alternative.
Tell Congress: Tax the ultra-wealthy. Click here
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 23 2019
Sign this petitoan here: https://action.aclu.org/petition/save-rocky-myers
"I'm terrified... I don't show it because it doesn't do any good."
These are the heartbreaking words of Rocky Myers, who is sentenced to death in Alabama. A Black man with an intellectual disability, he was an easy target for the police, the prosecution, and the negligent lawyers that landed him where he is today, on death row, awaiting execution for a crime he didn't commit.
With a possible execution looming, it may seem like all hope is lost, but it's not: Governor Kay Ivey can grant Rocky clemency. Let's demand she does just that.
Sign the petition demanding that Governor Ivey grant Rocky clemency and save him from wrongful execution.
History shows us that death sentences have less to do with the crime than with the race of the accused or the victim, the poor quality of the defense lawyers, and the state in which the crime occurred. All of these factors came into play in Rocky's trial and conviction. He had the odds stacked against him.
Add your name: Governor Ivey must grant Rocky clemency now.
The death penalty is more than a cruel, inhumane form of punishment. It's part of an unjust criminal justice system that harms real people and tears apart whole communities. We can't let Rocky turn into yet another tragic statistic.
For Rocky
Sign this petitoan here: https://action.aclu.org/petition/save-rocky-myers
Sign this petitoan here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-the-petition-regulate-monsanto-pesticides-they-are-literally-killing-us
Sign the petition: Ban Monsanto glyphosate pesticides. They are literally killing us!
Monsanto, the behemoth biotech agricultural corporation, produces and sells poisonous pesticides directly linked to cancer in humans. And the administration's response?... “We have Monsanto’s back.”
In 2015, the World Health Organization announced its analysis that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, was a “probable carcinogen” And that's to say nothing of Roundup's many other ingredients.
Recently, a California jury awarded a couple more than $2 billion in a verdict against Bayer, which recently bought Monsanto after the jury found Roundup contributed to cancer and that it failed to warn of the risks. This is the third recent court decision involving claims that the company's Roundup weed killer causes cancer with more than 13,000 plaintiffs awaiting their own day in court.
Internal documents produced in court indicated Monsanto had reason to believe glyphosate was dangerous as early as 1983. And yet they continue to dismiss the science and cover up the findings to avoid regulation.
The EPA, aided by Monsanto, ultimately came to the conclusion that glyphosate is not a carcinogen, again deliberately ignoring science. EPA officials even sought to delay or "kill" a Department of Health and Human Services review of glyphosate's health risks. That draft report is now out, and it confirms glyphosate's well-known connection to cancer -- even as EPA seeks to renew glyphosate's approval.
The administration is putting our health and lives at risk in the name of business interests. They are quite literally putting a price on human lives. We demand these carcinogens be banned.
Sign the petition to demand the EPA protect American lives.
Sign this petitoan here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-the-petition-regulate-monsanto-pesticides-they-are-literally-killing-us
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 26 2019
Add your name to join Beto O'Rourke if you believe in building a new administration where the police will be held accountable.
There's video footage of an officer choking Eric Garner to death in broad daylight on the street while he says over and over again, "I can't breathe." 11 times. And the Justice Department just ruled: no charges for the officer who killed Eric Garner.
Unarmed, nonviolent Black men are being killed at a frightening rate – and far too often by members of law enforcement, without accountability and without justice. We cannot tolerate this.
Add your name if you agree: The decision not to charge the officer who killed Eric Garner is a gross, moral failure. We need an administration whose Justice Department will hold members of law enforcement accountable for their crimes.
Under Beto’s administration, we could count on the Justice Department holding police accountable. He understands this country’s history of segregation and suppression – and the urgent crisis of our racist criminal justice system. He believes it’s important to stand up against these broken systems – that in fact there is nothing more American.
This problem is not going to fix itself. We should be frustrated by those in positions of public power who have been unable to resolve this or bring justice for what has been done – to stop it from continuing to happen in this country.
No one is being punished for killing Eric Garner. We need to hold police accountable for these murders. And in Beto’s Justice Department, we will.
Add your name to join Beto in building a new administration where police will be held accountable.
Another case of pointing the finger at others and 3 fingers pointing back at you; kinda thing.:
From: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/07/anti-gay-gop-state-rep-resigns-amid-allegations-grindr-hookups/
Anti-gay GOP state rep resigns amid allegations of Grindr hookups
59-year-old Tennessee State Rep. Bill Sanderson reportedly hit on men 40 years younger than him despite being married to a woman and repeatedly voting for anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Cari Wade Gervin — a longtime political reporter who covers Tennessee news, politics and gossip site The Dog and Pony Show — has accused 59-year-old Tennessee state Rep. Bill Sanderson of “openly soliciting sex” and sending “sexually explicit messages and pictures to men almost 40 years his junior” while voting repeatedly in favor of anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Sanderson resigned today. He says he’s resigning to run his business, White Squirrel Winery, but Gervin claims that his resignation was partly in response to the revealing of his same-sex encounters.
Read more here: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/07/anti-gay-gop-state-rep-resigns-amid-allegations-grindr-hookups/
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated July 26 2019
I strongly believe in birth control. I always have. There is nothing in the Bible against birth control. You could try to say the Old Testament says this or that but we have been set free from the law by the New Testament. I posted years ago how the states that have less access to birth control have the highest teen pregnancy. There is nothing sadder; to me, than when I see a very young lady pregnant.
Sign the petition to join Planned Parenthood Action Fund in telling Congress to fix maternal health care. We’re in a state of emergency for women’s health in the United States. >>
Anti-reproductive health lawmakers talk a lot about “protecting” women by limiting their birth control options, restricting their access to abortion care, and lying to them about their bodies.
But if they were as serious as you and I are about protecting women, they’d know we have a crisis on our hands. Women are 50% more likely to die in childbirth than 30 years ago—and black women 3 to 4 times more likely to die than white women.
It’s heartbreaking, it’s angering, but it’s sadly not surprising. 19 million women in the U.S. live in reproductive health deserts: Places where there simply aren’t enough medical providers. And mothers are suffering.
Add your name with Planned Parenthood Action Fund to tell Congress it's time to tackle the maternal health care crisis in this country.
You know our health and rights are under attack. These disparities and inequities will only get worse if we don’t act now. Thanks for standing up for women everywhere.
Click here to sign this petition.
This County Criminalized Students for Bad Grades – Until Now
Since 2001, the Riverside County probation department has been needlessly funneling young people struggling with grades, behavior, trauma, and mental health issues into the criminal justice system – instead of providing them the support they need. This week, we filed a landmark settlement with the federal district court that will end the relationship between the probation department and school districts in Riverside, California. The settlement will ensure that educational outcomes for students improve and that this county becomes a national model for juvenile justice. Read more → https://www.aclu.org/blog/juvenile-justice/school-prison-pipeline/county-criminalized-students-bad-grades-until-now
Click here to sign.
Few workers are worse off than domestic employees. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Sen. Kamala Harris and the National Domestic Workers' Alliance just introduced a bill that would change that.1
The people who clean our houses, raise our children and care for our seniors have lived in the shadows for far too long, some enduring horrific conditions while doing the work that makes everything else possible. Eight states already have laws on the books protecting domestic workers, but being protected should not depend on where you live.
The Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights would shield domestic workers nationwide from harassment and discrimination, as well as guarantee overtime pay and sick leave. Speak out now to demand that Congress give domestic workers the protections they deserve.
Tell Congress: Pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Click here to sign the petition.
Domestic workers often make less than the minimum wage and rarely get healthcare coverage or any sort of retirement plan. Without protection, their employers can hurl racial slurs or abuse, force them to work odd hours without breaks or sick days and refuse to protect their safety.3
The Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights helps in two ways. First, it would extend labor laws to domestic workers. They would get Occupational Safety and Health Administration protections, help in cases of discrimination or harassment, the right to overtime pay, and the ability to form unions.4
Second, the bill would extend essential new protections – like retirement savings, affordable health care, training and development and the right to meal breaks, rest breaks, paid sick days, federal agency protections, contracts on paper, privacy and knowledge about their schedules in advance. These powerful protections could set a new standard for all contingent workers, from Amazon warehouse "contractors" to ride-share drivers.5
Because domestic workers are exempt from basic labor laws, they are a target for abuse and exploitation. And because they are predominantly women of color in a white supremacist society they have a hard time getting the attention and help they deserve. Passing the Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights is a critical step to changing that. Add your name now to demand that Congress act.
Tell Congress: Pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Click the link below to sign the petition:
Click here to sign.
This County Criminalized Students for Bad Grades – Until Now
Since 2001, the Riverside County probation department has been needlessly funneling young people struggling with grades, behavior, trauma, and mental health issues into the criminal justice system – instead of providing them the support they need. This week, we filed a landmark settlement with the federal district court that will end the relationship between the probation department and school districts in Riverside, California. The settlement will ensure that educational outcomes for students improve and that this county becomes a national model for juvenile justice. Read more → https://www.aclu.org/blog/juvenile-justice/school-prison-pipeline/county-criminalized-students-bad-grades-until-now
Click here to sign.
Few workers are worse off than domestic employees. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Sen. Kamala Harris and the National Domestic Workers' Alliance just introduced a bill that would change that.1
The people who clean our houses, raise our children and care for our seniors have lived in the shadows for far too long, some enduring horrific conditions while doing the work that makes everything else possible. Eight states already have laws on the books protecting domestic workers, but being protected should not depend on where you live.
The Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights would shield domestic workers nationwide from harassment and discrimination, as well as guarantee overtime pay and sick leave. Speak out now to demand that Congress give domestic workers the protections they deserve.
Tell Congress: Pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Click here to sign the petition.
Domestic workers often make less than the minimum wage and rarely get healthcare coverage or any sort of retirement plan. Without protection, their employers can hurl racial slurs or abuse, force them to work odd hours without breaks or sick days and refuse to protect their safety.3
The Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights helps in two ways. First, it would extend labor laws to domestic workers. They would get Occupational Safety and Health Administration protections, help in cases of discrimination or harassment, the right to overtime pay, and the ability to form unions.4
Second, the bill would extend essential new protections – like retirement savings, affordable health care, training and development and the right to meal breaks, rest breaks, paid sick days, federal agency protections, contracts on paper, privacy and knowledge about their schedules in advance. These powerful protections could set a new standard for all contingent workers, from Amazon warehouse "contractors" to ride-share drivers.5
Because domestic workers are exempt from basic labor laws, they are a target for abuse and exploitation. And because they are predominantly women of color in a white supremacist society they have a hard time getting the attention and help they deserve. Passing the Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights is a critical step to changing that. Add your name now to demand that Congress act.
Tell Congress: Pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Click the link below to sign the petition:
Click here to sign.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 01 2019
WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019
Policy solutions for Denton County's understaffed jail
The Denton County Jail is suffering an "extreme staffing shortage," reported the Record Chronicle, although their 13 percent vacancy rate is far lower than at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Even so, it's worth reiterating the quickest, easiest ways for Denton County to reduce its jail population to levels they can safely staff:
Reduce arrests for Class C misdemeanors by the Sheriff, Denton PD, and other local law-enforcement agencies by implementing policies similar to Austin PD's "Freedom City" initiative.
Use discretion to stop arresting/charging people for low-level marijuana possession until the state either changes the hemp law or crime labs are able to distinguish legal from illegal THC levels in pot.
The District Attorney could use his discretion to stop dismiss Class B driving-with-invalid license cases, which mostly stem from about-to-go-away Driver Responsibility surcharges. (These have become increasingly common.) Arresting people for what amounts to a poverty crime - essentially an administrative violation, at that - contributes nothing to public safety.
These are all categories of misdemeanor defendants who would likely plead out to time served, anyway. Why not change policies on the front end to keep them out of jail and avoid having to hire guards to manage them?
Denton County may not be the first jurisdiction that leaps to mind when it comes to criminal-justice reform, but Necessity is the Mother of Invention. If they don't want to pay jailers competitive salaries compared to median local incomes, the other option is to jail fewer people. Reducing incarceration among these discrete, nonviolent categories would be a smart place to start.
POSTED BY GRITSFORBREAKFAST AT 4:57 PM
Got this cool email ( website here: https://toppac.org/ ):
Historic bail reform win in Harris County
TOP and Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis held a press conference yesterday to celebrate the historic settlement of the misdemeanor bail lawsuit in Harris County. The magnitude of this settlement can not be over emphasized. TOP has been fighting for this settlement since the lawsuit was filed in 2016. We took on the fight for bail reform after our members made ending mass incarceration a goal for the organization. Too many people are in county jails just because they are not wealthy enough to pay bail. We organized, held rallies, teach-ins, press conferences and mobilized voters, demanding an end to cash bail. And because we fight with two fists, people power and political power, we also took our fight to the ballot box in 2016 and 2018, electing community champions who supported bail reform including Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Pct. 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia and a slew of new Democratic judges. We are celebrating this win with everyone who worked tirelessly to make this happen. Now, it's on to felony bail reform.
Flexing our People Power at this year's TOP
Leadership Academy
This past weekend, more than 100 TOP leaders from across the state gathered at Camp Allen near Houston for our annual Leadership Academy. Leaders participated in interactive workshops, networked with other leaders, and learned more about building our collective power to win change in our communities. Together, we discussed ways to advance our campaigns to overhaul the unjust criminal justice system, strengthen our neighborhoods, protect the rights of immigrants, and grow the electorate throughout our state in 2020 and beyond!
We wrapped up our Leadership Academy on Monday, July 29, by dropping by U.S. Senator John Cornyn's Houston office to deliver a letter demanding him to close Trump's inhumane immigrant detention centers, and by holding a protest outside his office, which resulted in TOP marching in the street and stopping traffic on Memorial Drive! Many thanks again to all who contributed to help make this year's academy a success.
Fighting back against lawsuits on paid sick days
After coming up empty-handed in the Texas legislative session, corporate interests have been busily plotting this summer to derail earned paid sick days ordinances passed with community support in San Antonio and Dallas.
In San Antonio last week, a judge ruled in favor of corporate interests by delaying the implementation of the city's earned paid sick days ordinance to December 1. It's important to note that the plaintiffs did not win; the City of San Antonio caved. “What is clear is that the city government refused to honor the will of the community, and we’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened,” said TOP Executive Director Michelle Tremillo in the San Antonio Express-News. “Do we have another city manager where city staff feel emboldened to disregard the community, the mayor and the council? If it’s true — that the city attorney went rogue — then we expect consequences for him and his boss, Erik Walsh. If the City Council in fact gave their blessing, then I guarantee you there will be consequences.”
Yesterday in Dallas, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative Koch-funded Austin think tank, filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Colin County companies against the City of Dallas' earned paid sick days ordinance. It is telling that these companies would rather spend significant amounts of money to deny their workers this basic right than to value and honor the labor provided by the people they need to run their businesses. This lawsuit is about preserving the status quo that puts business interests above those of people. The City of Dallas needs to fight this lawsuit and protect the working people of Dallas. We'll keep you posted on the status of this lawsuit as things develop in the coming days!
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 02 2019
AOC Says Marginalized Communities ‘Have No Choice But to Riot’
August 1, 2019
‘Social destabilization is what happens when people do not have a plan or feel like there’s no vision for their future…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-NY, claimed that some marginalized communities “have no choice but to riot” if they lack necessary resources.
“Once you have a group that is marginalized and marginalized and marginalized, then you create—once someone doesn’t have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot. And it doesn’t have to be that way,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with the “Ebro in the Morning” show.
The very next day:
6,000 Arabs riot on Gaza border
Palestinian Arabs throw rocks and firebombs as part of the weekly “March of the Return” demonstrations.
02/08/19 20:54
Some 6,000 Palestinian Arabs protested on Friday along the Gaza border as part of the weekly “March of the Return” demonstrations.
Some of the rioters threw rocks, firebombs and explosives at the fence and at IDF troops, who responded with riot dispersal means.
The Hamas-run “health ministry” in Gaza said 51 protesters were injured, 24 of them as a result of IDF gunfire.
Earlier on Friday, a fire broke out in a forest in the Gaza envelope. Officials are investigating whether the fire was a result of an incendiary balloon.
IDF soldiers were on high alert on the Gaza border ahead of the weekly demonstrations, following the incident overnight Wednesday in which a Hamas terrorist infiltrated into Israel and opened fire on an IDF officer and two soldiers before he was eliminated.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 04 2019
Oklahoma Victims Compensation Program Disproportionately Denies Funds for Black Victims
JULY 31, 2019 | 4:30 PM
Tiras Johnson, age 23, was unarmed when he was shot and killed in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His family was devastated by his death, and they were struggling to pay for Tiras’ funeral. Like many victims’ families, Tiras’ mother applied for financial compensation through the Oklahoma Crime Victims Compensation Act in order to cover his funeral costs, but instead received a surprising response in the mail.
The letter, addressed to Tiras’ mother, Netarsha, explained that her claim was ineligible for funds because of implied contributory conduct -- that is, that the incident “appeared to be gang-related” and “[Tiras] exercised poor judgment by choosing to be a gang member.” All compensation was denied. “We extend our condolences for the loss of your loved one,” it read.
Tiras wasn’t a gang member, for the record, but of far greater importance is that he played no contributory role in his own death. As it turns out, he would be one of many Black victims often denied compensation for the very same crimes as committed against white victims, who did receive compensation.
OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FIGHT FOR POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY (EP. 58)
AUGUST 1, 2019
From the ACLU, this is At Liberty. I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at the ACLU, and your host. Calls for accountability in response to police violence have grown in recent years. Last month, protests erupted when the Justice Department announced it would not bring civil rights charges against the NYPD officer who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold in 2014. Mr. Garner's death was one among countless examples of deadly police violence toward Black and brown people. Yet despite the growing outcry, most officers implicated in civilian deaths have escaped punishment.
When Kicking Around an Orange Gets You On Probation
JULY 26, 2019 | 1:15 PM
I was in 8th grade when it happened. I’ll never forget the feeling of those cold, clanky pairs of metal constraints. I was being handcuffed in front of my friends and classmates.
As a lot of middle school students do, I was fooling around with my friends outside at lunch. We found an orange and started kicking it around like a soccer ball. It turns out I picked a bad day to fool around, and a bad person to tick off. A school resource officer – basically a cop – was stationed in the cafeteria, and the makeshift soccer ball made its way through his legs.
He apparently shouted something like “cut it out” to me, but I didn’t hear, so I responded - admittedly, probably with some attitude – “what?” He didn’t like that. Next thing I knew I was in handcuffs, being marched to the principal’s office.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 06 2019
Another great email from: https://toppac.org/drive-for-democracy/
I am encouraged to see fellow Texans active in human rights. So I will paste it here:
Earned paid sick time implementation starts in Dallas
History was made last week. Thanks to the tireless advocacy of workers, community groups like TOP, small business owners, and local elected leaders, the City of Dallas' earned paid sick time ordinance officially went into effect August 1 as scheduled. Dallas is now the first city in Texas and the South to implement an ordinance requiring earned paid sick time for employees! For the more than 300,000 workers in Dallas who for years have had to choose between going to work sick to put food on the table or staying home, sacrificing financial stability to care for themselves or a loved one, this is a BIG win. Having access to earned paid sick time will give these workers added peace of mind on the job. Our work is not done, though. With coalition partners, we'll continue to defend this community win from corporate interests trying to strip it away.
Canvass for healthcare next weekend in San Antonio
We've kicked off our San Antonio Healthcare Survey Campaign! The purpose of our upcoming canvass on Sunday, August 18, from 1:30 - 6 p.m. is to gain a better understanding of the medical needs of the most vulnerable in our city. Lunch, snacks and water will be provided. We must continue to inform, educate, and unite to achieve our ultimate goal: #MedicareForAll. Share the Facebook event here.
Healthcare Justice meeting later this month
At this meeting, we'll be reviewing progress on our community healthcare survey, listening to people's healthcare stories, and looking at what we can do to amplify our call for Medicare For All at the state and national level.
Demanding change after a violent, hate-filled weekend
Our hearts break for all impacted by the scourges of white nationalism and gun violence in our country this weekend. As difficult as it has become more recently, we must not allow senseless slaughter like this to be normalized. Inaction is not an option. We're through with excuses from politicians who offer hollow condolences. As Texans, we especially grieve with the great people of El Paso as they heal and move forward as the resilient community they are.
The shocking carnage we witnessed this weekend only strengthens our resolve to vote out this racist, gun lobby-funded president, and all in elected office who provide him with political cover.
Harris County bail-reform settlement a landmark defeat of Texas bail-industry lobby
There once was a county named Harris
Whose bail system left them embarrassed
Then judges were sued
And elections did lose
So now lo and behold they can settle this!
The bail settlement in Harris County may not be as important, when viewed through an historical lens, as Brown vs. Board of Education, despite Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis' grandiose declaration to that effect. But it's still a Very Big Deal, and the first domino to fall in what will ultimately conclude with a 5th Circuit (or US Supreme Court) decision governing pretrial release of criminal defendants in Texas.
Harris County judges have enacted a "new policy of automatic, no-cash pretrial release for about 85% of low-level defendants," reported the Texas Tribune.
The settlement news warms the heart of this aging polemicist. Excessive pretrial detention in Houston was one of this blog's earliest hobby horses, presaging many of the debates which ended up resolved through federal litigation nearly a decade-and-a-half later. For example, check out a series of Grits posts on the topic rounded up in 2005 after the Harris Co. probation department began using them as training materials. Most of those critiques would remain salient until well after the just-settled litigation got serious, at which point the county began to implement more significant changes. At the time, though, there were 1,900 people sleeping on the jail floor due to overcrowding, so in a way, the issue was even more pressing back then.
Which is why it's worth recognizing that it took the federal courts to accomplish these changes that every expert who ever looked at Harris County's system had been advising for more than a decade. For whatever reason, whoever won elections, red or blue, there was never any appetite for serious bail reform through the political process. Someone had to sue, and win, to get judges to stop ordering bail for most misdemeanor defendants. (Many of the reasons for that are specific to Houston; your mileage may vary in other jurisdictions.)
Another notable point: At the commissioners court, as at the Texas Legislature, bail bondsmen found champions but could not sustain a majority after an informed debate. That's my big takeaway from those two, recent bail fights, one where reformers lost and one where they prevailed: At both the state and local level, bail bondsmen have shown they can be beaten. They had an impressive track record before this year, and the first half of 2019 may have finally demonstrated some chinks in their armor.
Here's why I disagree with Rodney Ellis that this litigation settlement is as important as Brown vs. Board of Education: While it resolves the underlying issues, it also robbed the 5th Circuit (and/or SCOTUS) of the opportunity to set a baseline that applied to all Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi jurisdictions. Instead, the settlement terms only apply to Harris County and at most are advisory recommendations everywhere else.
So it will be some other county currently being sued - probably Dallas, I'm told by attorneys involved in the litigation - which ends up setting binding precedent for Texas courts, particularly with regard to setting bail in felony cases.
Once that happens, the Texas Legislature will be in a much better position to know what bail-reform legislation should look like when they come back in 2021.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 07 2019
Ohio state Rep. Candice Keller is at best delusional. Then again you would be surprised to know how many people out there believe in things' other people might find delusional. I am very old fashioned and do not believe in UFO's or nothing. People have every right to believe any way they want to in the Land of the Free. When you are a U.S. Congress woman or man though; things you say can effect people extremely badly, especially in other country's. It is very awesome; how much influence our great country has over this green and blue planet, we live on. I take that as a sign that the end of our world as we know it is a long way off. You can not understand the mind of someone that kill's innocent people like that maniac in El Paso. There is no explaining what a person is thinking or that mind set. No one is to blame except for that person; that let themselves become that far gone; mentally. Praying against that and for the people that suffer from senseless murders; is my best advice to everyone.
Yet people are so openly racist and viciously prejudice online in Facebook and Twitter and the internet in general. I still believe in free speech and the American Government since it's inception. We still need to fight prejudice and racism like we fight against terrorism.
GOP wants that politician who blamed gays for mass shootings to resign but she’s not going anywhere
She embarrassed the party when she blamed "transgender, homosexual marriage, and drag queen advocates" for mass shootings.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Ohio Republicans are calling on an unhinged local politician to resign after she embarrassed her party by blaming mass shootings on gay activists and drag queens. Despite nationwide derision and mockery, the candidate says she has no plans to drop out.
I have not been reading these emails as much as I used to; but I would never unsubscribe from them because these people are that good. Like the ACLU I don't believe in everything they stand for; things I agree on, that they stand for; makes them vital for me. Been subscribed to them for about 10 years now.
From: https://tfn.org/
Here is what they emailed me yesterday:
Quote of the Day
"Why not place the blame where it belongs: The breakdown of the traditional American family(thank you, transgender, homosexual marriage, and drag queen advocates); fatherlessness, a subject no one discusses or believes is relevant; the ignoring of violent video games; the relaxing of laws against criminals(open borders); the acceptance of recreational marijuana; failed school policies (hello, parents who defend misbehaving students): disrespect to law enforcement (thank you, Obama), hatred of our veterans (thank you professional athletes who hate our flag and National Anthem); the Dem Congress; many members whom are openly anti-Semitic; the culture, which totally ignores the importance of God and the church (until they elect a president); state officeholders, who have no interest whatsoever in learning about out Constitution and the Second Amendment; and snowflakes, who can't respect a duly-elected President."
– Republican Ohio state Rep. Candice Keller, blaming mass shootings on former President Obama, "fatherlessness," video games and "drag queen advocates."
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 10 2019
Sign the petition: Urge Congress to reform our nation’s cash bail system.
When a person is charged with a serious crime in the United States, they are innocent until proven guilty. That’s the law.
While awaiting trial, the accused are usually eligible to be released back to their homes and families -- often after posting bail, a cash deposit that they’ll get back when their case is over.
Yet, monetary bail discriminates against people who are poor. It creates two justice systems: one for people who can afford their freedom and one for people who cannot.
Sign the petition: Demand Congress put an end to the unjust monetary bail system.
Senseless pretrial jailing rips apart families, undermines the presumption of innocence and wastes hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
This broken and biased system criminalizes poverty. It forces people of color, who are disproportionately surveilled and arrested by police, to serve jail time before they are even convicted of a crime.
Cash bail is unequal, unfair, and must change.
Sign the petition: Urge Congress to pass national cash bail reform right away.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 11 2019
Thank you for contacting me regarding the United States' policy toward Israel. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this important matter.
Since its founding in 1948, Israel has been a strong and faithful ally to the United States in the Middle East. In a region characterized by instability and violence, Israel stands alone in its commitment to democracy, individual liberties, and free-market principles. Yet, state and non-state actors, such as Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist and continually call for its annihilation. Terrorist organizations, supported by Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have repeatedly attacked Israel and killed thousands of innocent civilians. Additionally, these actors continue to promote the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which further threatens Israel’s economic and national security.
To that end, I was proud to support the Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019 (S. 1), which passed the Senate on February 5, 2019. This bill contains the Combating BDS Act of 2019, which allows a state or local government to adopt measures to divest its assets from entities that knowingly engage in the BDS movement against Israel. S. 1 also contains the United States-Israel Assistance Authorization Act of 2019, which reauthorizes important Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to Israel through Fiscal Year 2028, and provides crucial funding for Israel’s missile defense programs. As Iran and other hostile, non-state actors continue to threaten Israel’s national security, the reauthorization of U.S. FMF and the enhancement of Israel’s missile defense capabilities will play a crucial role in preserving Israel’s peaceful existence in the Middle East.
Furthermore, I support President Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Despite the passage of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (P.L. 104-45), which required the Embassy to be relocated by May 31, 1999, previous administrations continuously deferred action. I am proud that President Trump stands in resolute support of Israel, which was demonstrated by relocating the Embassy to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018—the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding. The relocation of the U.S. Embassy was long overdue, and cements the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s official, undivided capital.
Additionally, I was proud to introduce the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Economic Exclusion Act (S. 925), which increases penalties on individuals and entities that provide material support to the IRGC, including a complete ban on transactions in the United States or with U.S. citizens. The bill also mandates a report on entities in which the IRGC possesses an ownership stake of at least 33 percent, including companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. While this bill is currently being considered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I was pleased that President Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. This action significantly expands the scope and scale of punitive authorities that may be imposed on the Iranian regime, and makes clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC.
The strong cultural, religious, and political ties shared by the United States and Israel help form a bond between our countries that will never be broken. The United States has joined Israel in fighting terrorism, and we remain resolute in pursuing our shared goals. In doing so, it is my hope that we can end the scourge of extremism, while ushering in a new chapter in the Middle East peace process.
I appreciate having the opportunity to represent Texas in the United States Senate. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Sincerely,
JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 12 2019
I read this page as thoroughly as I could and it sounds good to me. What we need to do is give everyone a raise. Raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars a hour; would negatively effect people already making near 15 dollars a hour.
Sign the petition to Congress: Get 20 million people out of poverty
Half of all U.S. families are either living in poverty or are one paycheck away from poverty. That’s horrifying. We live in the wealthiest country in the world, but the vast majority of that wealth is concentrated at the very top. And the GOP’s recent tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and corporations have deepened the divide.
To address this crisis, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) just introduced the BOOST Act, legislation that would give no-, low- and middle-income families a partial guaranteed income—between $3,000 - $6,000 per year.
Just a few thousand dollars can transform people’s lives. It would cut the poverty rate nearly in half, from 14% of the U.S. population to 8%, which Vox calls “quite possibly the lowest poverty rate in American history.” This bill alone would get 20 million people out of poverty.
And the bill would repeal the GOP’s tax cuts to cover the costs, redistributing that money to low- and middle-income families, as well as—crucially—people who earn no income at all, such as students and caregivers.
The Washington Post has called the BOOST Act the “closest plan in Congress to universal basic income.”
Sign the petition now to tell the House of Representatives: Support the BOOST Act. Cosponsor and vote yes to get 20 million people out of poverty.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 13 2019
From: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/08/one-americas-antigay-pastors-called-death-sarah-silverman/
I love Sarah Silverman so, so much. Her performances are truly a art form straight out of the sixty's happening type stuff. She reminds me a little of Andy Kaufman.
One of America’s most antigay pastors has called for the death of Sarah Silverman
"He's going to get me killed."
August 12, 2019
One of the nation’s most extreme antigay pastors has called for the death of comedian Sarah Silverman and the actress isn’t about to let it go unnoticed.
Adam Fannin, formerly of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, now preaches at the Law of Liberty Baptist Church. Stedfast is best known for being the home of radical preacher Donnie Romero who called for God to “finish the job” after the Pulse Nightclub mass shooting that killed dozens of mostly young gay Latinos.
Fannin left Stedfast when Romero resigned after admitting to the “sins” of gambling, smoking marijuana, and hiring sex workers. The church was labelled an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2015.
Silverman tweeted video of Fannin telling parishioners that she is a “witch” in a strikingly antisemitic sermon. “This is Adam Fannin of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Florida and he is going to get me killed,” she wrote. The comedian was unaware Fannin had switched churches.
Related: Pastor teaches congregation how to avoid a ‘flaming fruit loop’ waiter
During the sermon, Fannin used extremely offensive remarks about Jewish people and said he hoped she dies because she would “put Jesus to death again.”
“You know these Jewish false prophets, anti-Christian, anti-God, they’re willing to put Jesus to death again,” Fannin says in the video. “You heard this comedian Sarah Silverman? You guys know who I’m talking about? She brags about ‘I’d do it again.’ Listen, she is a witch. She is a Jezebel. She is a God-hating whore of Zionism.”
“I hope that God breaks her teeth out and she dies. She is a wicked person and she is like the perfect representation of religious Judaism. She is Satan’s scoffer and she is there to take the world and make ’em laugh and then diss Jesus, try to take away the respect from Jesus.”
In a later statement, Silverman elaborated, saying, “It goes like this: Someone on the Right made a meme of a joke from Jesus Is Magic, a comedy special I did in character, and presented it as if I was saying it at a press conference. It’s a picture of me with the quote, ‘I’m glad the Jews killed Jesus. I’d do it again!’ And THAT is what triggered the pastor.”
“So, the person who made the meme knew it was comedy and intentionally repurposed it as real, knowing it would influence a swath of people who see it and share it everyday. And that’s America today. Incitements of violence based on lies and the disingenuous re-framings of truth.”
In a statement on their Facebook page, Stedfast Baptist distanced itself from Fannin, writing, “For those who haven’t been paying attention: Adam Fannin is NOT affiliated with Stedfast Jacksonville anymore. He started his own ‘church’ called Law of Liberty Baptist Church. Our pastor is Jonathan Shelley.”
The FBI would not confirm whether or not it had opened an investigation into Fannin’s hate speech and nonstop calls for violence.
Our voter engagement work getting national attention on MSNBC
Our work on growing the electorate by connecting with Black and Latino voters continues to get national attention. Yesterday, we appeared on American Swamp, a documentary series by MSNBC. Check out the clip featuring Brianna Brown, our deputy director, and Michelle Tremillo, our executive director.
Also, watch this video of Brianna highligting TOP's voter engagement work on this past Tuesday's episode of "All In" with Chris Hayes.
A great wrap up of our People's Court: Cash Bail on Trial event
Take a minute to watch this quick wrap up video of our event People's Court: Cash Bail on Trial that we held a last month with Kendrick Sampson, star of HBO's Insecure and Houston native. Recently, the Harris County Commissioners Court approved a settlement on the misdemeanor bail lawsuit that nearly ends cash bail on misdemeanor charges. Now, we're on to fighting for felony bail reform.
If you live in Dallas, Houston or San Antonio, join our campaign to end mass incarceration at bit.ly/Right2Justice.
TOP bail reform op-ed published in Houston Chronicle
TOP had an op-ed published in the Houston Chronicle earlier this month celebrating the historic vote by the Harris County Commissioners Court to effectively end cash bail for misdemeanor charges. From the op-ed written by TOP Communications Director Mary Moreno: "What this means is, under Harris County’s old bail regime, people arrested — who were disproportionately from communities of color — would plead guilty in order to be released from jail more quickly. Many did this as a matter of survival, because the collateral effects of being detained for any amount of time are numerous: lost wages, lost jobs, missed appointments, the inability to care for dependents, and potential complications for immigration." Read the full op-ed here. For more information about our Harris County Right2Justice campaign, #JusticeNotBail #JusticeNot4Sale
MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 2019
Are Texas' prison population reductions significant?
On the Reasonably Suspicious podcast this month, my co-host Amanda Marzullo and I discuss Marie Gottschalk's article about Texas justice-reform efforts in the Baffler, in which she argued that Texas' decarceration reforms had been overstated and demonstrated the limits of left-right coalitions on #cjreform.
Since Grits had to look them up for our podcast conversation, let's record some data links here before I clear my browser tabs.
I largely agree with Gottschalk's assessment of Texas' progress, and have said much the same thing before. (Indeed, Grits was quoted in her article.) Moreover, her observations about the cognitive dissonance between the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Center for Effective Justice supporting state spending on mental health and drug treatment, while other parts of the organization oppose Medicaid expansion, are difficult to argue. (Check out the podcast, out this week, for that discussion.)
But there's an extent to which her complaint is overstated. Texas undeniably has made significant progress.
For example, the latest annual statistical report on the Texas corrections system (2018) is out. As of August 31, 2018, Texas' prison population was at 145,018 - as as low as it's been in two decades, and down seven percent from a high of 156,126 in 2008.
But Texas' population has boomed over the intervening years, so the overall incarceration rate has declined. For example, in 1999, Texas had 149,684 prisoners. But the state's population back then was 20.4 million. By 2018, the state population was up to 28.7 million.
So, in 1999, Texas' incarceration rate per 100,000 people was 734; in 2018, it was 505. That's a 31 percent decline. From a number-of-people incarcerated standpoint, Texas' prisoner reduction happened mostly because the parole division reduced technical revocations and increased parole rates for lower risk inmates. But population growth is the bigger factor in lowering the rate.
Among reformers back in the '03-'07 period, none of us fantasized that what was later dubbed the "Texas model" would radically reduce the number of people incarcerated, especially after Governor Rick Perry vetoed the legislation in 2005, allowing only a weakened version to pass in '07. The goal was to stop the sharp upward curve, and to build momentum for future reforms. And only the first part of that goal was achieved.
The reason I largely agree with Gottschalk's argument is that Texas hasn't really done anything since then on the decarceration front. We've been a leader on innocence, on forensics, and made strides on debtors-prison reform. But the only major decarceration measure that's passed since 2007 was the 2015 increase in property-theft thresholds. And that little-noticed item only passed as a Senate amendment to a House bill tacked on by Konni Burton; the legislation couldn't make it through the process on its own.
Crime has plummeted over the last 20 years, but prison populations in Texas were affected only a little.
As of 2019, decarceration progress in Texas has utterly stalled, while red states like Oklahoma and Utah have reduced drug possession to a misdemeanor and enacted decarceration reforms of which Texans can only dream.
So the Lone Star State has made more progress on prison decarceration than its harshest critics might grant. But it remains inarguable that there's much more to do. And the Texas Legislature, particularly the Texas Senate, has at this point relinquished all momentum toward further progress.
From: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/08/one-leading-causes-death-young-gay-bi-men-police-violence//
It’s a grim statistic that feels all too at home in 2019. Officer-involved shootings and other uses of force by police is now the sixth leading cause of death for men age 25-29. The number declined with age — peaking between 20 and 35.
For Blacks in America, the numbers are far worse: Around 1 in every 1,000 black men will be killed by a police officer. When one accounts for age, a black many in his 40s faces the same risk as a white man in his 20s. Latino men, too, are more likely to be killed by police when compared to white males.
“We find that African American men and women, American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, and Latino men face higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than do their white peers,” reads the report’s abstract. “We find that Latina women and Asian/Pacific Islander men and women face lower risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. Risk is highest for black men, who (at current levels of risk) face about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police over the life course.”
Related: Police say this trans woman’s murder wasn’t a hate crime. Her mom’s not buying it.
The abstract continues, noting “the average lifetime odds of being killed by police are about 1 in 2,000 for men and about 1 in 33,000 for women.”
The study did not break out results by sexual orientation or gender identity, instead being ranked by race and gender. In the LGBTQ community, Black trans women face the highest level of violence and murder, with at least 15 transgender people killed so far this year alone. Many are deadnamed or misgendered by the police when the crime is reported, but Black gay and bi men face the highest levels of violence by police officers.
The LGBTQ community’s relationship with the police has often been fraught at best. One of the major flashpoints for LGBTQ organizing the drive for civil rights was the Stonewall Riots – a response to a police raid on a gay bar. While levels of violence against LGBTQ people has decreased, many cities and organizations still don’t want cops participating in pride parades based off the history of oppression and violence.
The research, out of Rutgers university had to go beyond Federal resources: There is no reliable federal data specifically focused on killings by police officers, forcing researchers to turn to materials from Fatal Encounters, a project that pulls in data from numerous sources to compile a comprehensive database of officer-related killings.
As alarming as these numbers are, it is worth noting that this cause is far below the top five causes, with car accidents still topping the list at 76.6 deaths per 100,000 people, followed by suicide (26.7) homicide (22), heart disease (7), and cancer (6.3).
The study also doesn’t make any value judgments about the killings themselves, or if they were justified. It is worth noting that the Washington Post did find that more than half of those shot and killed by police so far this year were also carrying firearms.
Researches also suggested that an increased use of police for roles they’re not intended for may be a contributing factor to the increase, too. The study, therefore, recommends better funded social programs as well as restrictions on the use of armed police officers as first responders in non-criminal crisis situations.
“Austerity in social welfare and public health programs has led to police and prisons becoming catchall responses to social problems,” noted the researchers.
Click here to send comment: https://www.lambdalegal.org/trans-health-care
The latest attack on LGBTQ people and everyone living with HIV.
This new regulation would carve some of the most vulnerable members of our communities out of nondiscrimination protections that prevent health care providers from discriminating against their own patients.
Currently, the Affordable Care Act contains regulations that prohibit exactly this kind of discrimination. We need to strengthen these protections – not take them away.
If you’re one of the thousands of advocates who have already spoken out, thank you! HHS is required to read every single comment they receive in support of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, and that means the Trump-Pence administration has no choice but to hear your voice and respond.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 14 2019
TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019
Causes of rising Smith County jail population are knowable, but officials like the system ineffable
The Smith County Jail population is growing, reported the Tyler Morning Telegraph, and the main reason is that the county is disproportionately incarcerating pretrial in routine cases. The DA told the paper, “Over the years we see that that number trends upward sometimes and trends downward sometimes. There’s nothing specific that’s causing it to be higher right now.”
But we do know a few things about why the jail is so full. Reported the Telegraph:
While Smith County has 0.8% of the state’s population, the county jail had 1.2% of the state’s county jail population in 2019. The trend is consistent among most types of crime.
In July, the county had 1.8% of people accused of misdemeanors awaiting trial; 3.6% of people convicted of misdemeanors; 2% of people accused of state jail felonies awaiting trial, 3.3% of state jail felons sentenced to state jail, and 2.3% of convicted felons.
read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/08/causes-of-rising-smith-county-jail.html
The death penalty is a broken process, period. It's disproportionately used against the poor, people of color – and sometimes innocent people. But the execution of Russell "Rusty" Bucklew, scheduled for October 1, would be one of the most gruesome in U.S. history.
Rusty has a rare congenital disease that causes blood-filled tumors to grow in his head, neck, and throat. Under lethal injection, these tumors would likely rupture and cause Rusty to hemorrhage, choke, and suffocate on his own blood.
We have a chance to spare Rusty from this cruel and unusual execution if we pressure the governor of Missouri to grant him clemency. Sign the petition to stop this torturous execution from taking place.
We requested a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to tell Rusty's story on an international stage. It will be the last chance to stop his execution. There's no doubt the execution will draw global condemnation – but before the hearing is underway, we must raise our voices against this cruel, unusual, and unconstitutional execution.
Add your name to tell Parson to grant Rusty clemency and spare him from an excruciatingly painful execution.
The death penalty in itself is a violation of international human rights. Together – by shining a light on cases like Rusty's – we can fight this injustice.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 15 2019
Montgomery Advertiser: In response to Alabama's all-white appellate court, lawsuit seeks to alter election system A federal judge will decide whether or not a system of statewide elections for appellate and Supreme Court court judges dilutes the voting power of Alabama's black citizens. Attorneys on Wednesday presented oral arguments in an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP in 2016 over Alabama's at-large election system for appellate and Supreme Court judges.
Read more here: https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2019/08/08/judge-decide-if-alabama-judicial-elections-dilute-black-voting-power/1943612001/
AL: Birmingham NAACP holds voting rights vigil on anniversary of landmark law The Metro Birmingham chapter of the NAACP held a vigil Tuesday night to pray for voters’ rights on the 54th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “We’ve come a long way and we got a long way to go,” said Metro Birmingham NAACP President Dorothea Crosby during the vigil at the Birmingham Crossplex. “We want to teach our children why it’s good to vote. We’ve got to continue to teach it; it’s important to vote in every election, not just one.”
Read more here: https://www.al.com/news/2019/08/birmingham-naacp-holds-voting-rights-vigil-on-anniversary-of-landmark-law.html
Winston-Salem Journal: NAACP leader: We're demanding a full investigation into shooting death of Julius Sampson The North Carolina NAACP is calling on Winston-Salem police to conduct a full investigation into the death of a man in a parking lot at Hanes Mall and to determine whether the fatal shooting was racially motivated.
MLive: KKK material found in officer’s home ‘shocking, not surprising,’ says NAACP president Muskegon Vice Mayor Eric Hood said he was disturbed, but not shocked, when he heard that a Muskegon police officer was placed on leave while the city investigates an allegation that his home contains racist memorabilia.
Read more here: https://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/2019/08/kkk-material-found-in-officers-home-shocking-not-surprising-says-naacp-president.html
WZZM: Muskegon NAACP calls for review of officer's arrests and traffic stops Muskegon County NAACP's President Eric Hood says he's looking at the discovery of a framed KKK document on display at the home of a Muskegon Police officer from a number of different perspectives. Hood not only holds the leadership position with the NAACP, but he's a retired Muskegon Police Officer and the City of Muskegon's vice mayor.
Posted Aug 15, 10:11 AM
By The Associated Press
A statement from Lincoln police says an off-duty officer was shot in the arm while completing a Facebook Marketplace deal.
Javaon Ousley
Mother of Javaon Ousley seeks answers after teen killed in Lincoln officer-involved shooting
“He was outgoing, friendly. He wasn’t a bad child. He didn’t get in no trouble. He was ready to go to college and get him a degree,” said Lakisha Ousley.
But the statement doesn’t mention the fatal shooting or give details about what led to gunfire.
Ousley was black, and some protesters carried signs saying "black lives matter."
Relatives say they can't get answers about the shooting, which happened near a housing project basketball court in Talladega.
Ouley’s grandmother, Janice Ousley, says relatives want to know what happened.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 16 2019
Click here to listen to Podcast: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/08/podcast-ranking-greatest-american.html
THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2019
Podcast: Ranking the greatest American prison songs, a crowd-sourced exoneration out of Tyler, and other stories
Check out the August episode of the Reasonably Suspicious podcast. We've got a special treat this month, with Texas Monthly's Michael Hall stopping by to tell us about the latest innocence case he's been covering out of Tyler, and a special segment in which he and I rank the greatest American prison songs
Here's what's on tap this month:
Top Story:
Hemp SNAFU led to de facto natural decrim experiment for marijuana in many counties.
Interview:
Texas Monthly's Michael Hall tells the story of an actual innocence case out of Tyler that was broken open by a Michigan podcaster.
Conversation:
Scott and Michael Hall rank the greatest American prison songs. Go here for a YouTube playlist of all the songs we discussed, plus some from Scott's list that didn't make it into the podcast.
The Last Hurrah:
* DPS intel chief who warned of Mexican rapists arrested for sexual assault
* Texas House members create criminal-justice reform caucus
* Harris County bail lawsuit settled
As always, I've ordered a transcript of the podcast and will post it when it comes back.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 17 2019
FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 2019
Additional Harris-DA staffing mustn't contribute to the 'low-rent arms race between prosecution and indigent defense' ... or, why Keri Blakinger is a journalism goddess
Now that Keri Blakinger exists, along with the Marshall Project, The Appeal, Google News feeds, and a variety of advocacy newsletters that weren't around before. Grits occasionally wonders if this blog still has much to offer.
The biggest but not the only flaw in the report was that its top finding applied a standard of one prosecutor to 10,000 civilians to say Harris County needs 104 - prosecutors - almost magically, exactly how many District Attorney Kim Ogg asked for. Problem is, that one per 10k standard is completely made up!
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 18 2019
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On Criminal Justice, William Barr Is Stuck in the 90s
Almost five years to the day of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Attorney General William Barr delivered a major policy address in New Orleans. His speech dismissed police violence and espoused a dangerous vision for America – one in which 1990s-era tough-on-crime politics shape policies and pro-civil rights attitudes are derided as "anti-police." But this fear-mongering rhetoric no longer resonates with voters in the ways that it did in the 80s and 90s. Read more → https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/william-barr-stuck-90s-americans-have-moved
People shouldn’t be punished just for being poor, but that’s exactly what the U.S. bail system does. While awaiting trial, accused individuals are sometimes eligible to be released after posting bail -- a cash deposit that they’ll get back when their case is over -- but those without the ability to post bail sit in jail for weeks or months even though they haven’t been convicted of a crime.
About 70% of people in local jails are detained without being convicted of any crime.(1) Not only are hundreds of thousands of people unfairly kept in detainment, but too many of them enter financially struggling and leave further impoverished. The average felony bail bond amount is $10,000: the equivalent of 8 months' income for the typical detained person.(2)
The U.S. bail system unfairly punishes marginalized people. That’s why we’re continuing the fight for bail reform and joining allies in calling on Congress to take on this unjust system.
Sign the petition: Urge Congress to pass national cash bail reform.
The bail system doesn’t just discriminate against poor people; black people are jailed at disproportionately higher rates and forced to pay higher average bail amounts than white people.(3) In California, they’re over 6.5 times more likely than white people to be locked up, often without being convicted.(4)
Despite the increasing wealth and racial disparities in the American criminal justice system, Congress has yet to act. States like New Jersey and California have already moved to reform their own bail systems, but we can’t achieve nationwide progress without action from our federal representatives.(5) National bail reform is far past overdue, and we need your help to ensure our federal representatives enact legislation to stop the bail system from punishing our country’s most vulnerable people.
Tell Congress it’s time to reform the unjust cash bail system. Sign here: https://www.signherenow.org/petition/bail-reform/pda/
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 22 2019
From: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/08/couple-used-run-conversion-therapy-camp-now-theyve-charged-human-trafficking/
This couple used to run a conversion therapy camp. Now they’ve been charged with human trafficking.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
The former operators of a conversion therapy camp have been indicted on a number of charges related to alleged abuse, including human trafficking and forced labor.
They are accused of forcing at least four boys at their home for troubled youth in Texas to work for them in their businesses and abusing and neglecting them.
He, had previously run a conversion therapy camp in Alabama for boys. Several of the boys ran away from that home and accused him of denying them food and putting them in solitary confinement as punishment.
“I’m going to get the demon out of you and make you straight,” He told the boys, according to Lucas Greenfield, one of the survivors of the conversion therapy camp.
The camp appeared in a 20/20 segment on conversion therapy, and another teen sent there said that “Brother Gary” would use epithets like “faggot” and “queer” as he tried to make the kids straight. In the segment, Wiggins claimed to have an 80% success rate when it comes to turning teen boys straight.
Raed more here: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/08/couple-used-run-conversion-therapy-camp-now-theyve-charged-human-trafficking/
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019
Harris County probation department making big improvements, but it's still probation
As part of reforms implemented with its MacArthur grant, Harris County consolidated all of its state jail cases into one district-court docket called the "Responsive Intervention for Change (RIC) Docket." According to the Texas Comptroller:
Before the reforms, a disproportionate share of Texas' state jail felons (SJFs) were from Harris County — 26 percent in 2014, well in excess of the county's 16 percent share of the state's population. Five years later, its share of the total had declined by 90 percent, from 5,817 to 611. Harris County still sends more felons to state jail than any other county, but its overall share of the SJF population has fallen to 10 percent
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019
Fraternal Order of Police gain Texas foothold in H-Town
Police union politics in Texas could become even more radicalized now that the Houston Police Officers Union (HPOU) has joined forces with the Fraternal Order of Police, a police-union umbrella group and Trump-administration favorite that had not previously had a major foothold in Texas.
HPOU's president, Joe Gamaldi, was elected to FOP's leadership team, the Houston Chronicle reported recently. For many years, HPOU was affiliated with the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT). Then, it briefly teamed up in a sort of coalition with the Dallas police union and the Texas Municipal Police Association, CLEAT's biggest rival.
Bexar County to give Narcan to addicts exiting jail, but many still won't call 911 for fear of felony arrest
Addicts leaving the county jail in San Antonio will now receive a dose of Narcan in case they overdose, the Express News reported. Overdoses are more common after incarceration because addicts may have lost some of their tolerance. That can cause people to overdose when they use the same amounts they used before. Funding for the program came from a federal grant.
Of course, folks can still be arrested for drug possession if they call 911 to report an overdose. A Bexar Sheriff's deputy told the paper that:
people shouldn’t be concerned about contacting authorities should a friend or family member overdose.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/
TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019
Austin should freeze police hiring until pension problem resolved
Since the local press has ignored the topic, let's delve a bit deeper into the pension crisis at the Austin Police Department. As Grits reported yesterday, an audit released in July found that the city will never cover its police pension liabilities at current contribution rates.
Bizarrely, in response to this news, some at city hall have claimed they need to hire MORE police officers with exorbitant pension promises so they can pay for the retiring officers. This argument fundamentally misunderstands how pensions work, imagining the fund as some sort of Ponzi scheme. It is not. Instead, employees and employers make contributions for each officer into a long-term investment fund. More officers, the greater the required contributions. Moreover, Austin officers contribute far less than the city. So every new officer increases the city's cost and liability substantially (they become 100% vested after just ten years).
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/
MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2019
Austin police pension obligations will swamp city budget if City Council doesn't change course
One of the most important, least-covered stories in the Texas criminal-justice arena must be the failure of Texas municipalities to fund police-officer pensions. For the most part, the issue only indirectly affects #cjreform efforts, so Grits has mostly discussed the topic as an aside, the way one remarks on a multi-car auto wreck occurring on the other side of the highway as one drives by.
But one place where the issue does come up is police staffing. In Austin this year, the city manager has requested thirty (30) new officers for Austin PD.
So far, the decision to hire new officers has been de-coupled from assessments of the city's obligations to pay officers' pensions when they retire. An audit report which came out last month shows why that must change.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/
I just read this in my email from Gay USA ( http://gayusatv.org/ ); I trust them. I do not believe this is as cut and dry as some articles suggest, from headlines I have read. I could not find a article on this subject from a news organization I could recognize as common place; it is a new subject though. If this is true I need to post this; because it is wrong.
A brief filed by the Justice Department says federal law offers no protection to transgender workers who endure discrimination because of their gender identity.
The case is a dispute over the word “sex.” Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans workplace discrimination because of sex, but the court’s justices have never decided what, precisely, the term means for LGBTQ workers.
Posted on August 16, 2019, at 5:30 p.m. ET
Read More here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/trump-trans-scotus
Priest arrested for spending church money on beach house, boyfriends, and a Grindr XTRA account
August 21, 2019 at 3:08pm
A Catholic priest from Pennsylvania is accused of stealing almost $100,000 from his church to pay for a lavish beach house, boyfriends, and other personal expenses.
He allegedly embezzled money from the church into the secret checking account and then used it to pay for expensive dinners, travel expenses, and a beach house in Ocean City, New Jersey, as well as a Grindr XTRA account and to make several multiple online purchases.
Read more: https://www.queerty.com/priest-arrested-spending-church-money-beach-house-boyfriends-grindr-xtra-account-20190821
Priest arrested for spending church money on beach house, boyfriends, and a Grindr XTRA account
August 21, 2019 at 3:08pm
A Catholic priest from Pennsylvania is accused of stealing almost $100,000 from his church to pay for a lavish beach house, boyfriends, and other personal expenses.
He allegedly embezzled money from the church into the secret checking account and then used it to pay for expensive dinners, travel expenses, and a beach house in Ocean City, New Jersey, as well as a Grindr XTRA account and to make several multiple online purchases.
Read more: https://www.queerty.com/priest-arrested-spending-church-money-beach-house-boyfriends-grindr-xtra-account-20190821
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 24 2019
ISSUES ABOUT OUR WORK NEWS EVENTS RESOURCES
"Raise Hell: the Life & Times of Molly Ivins"
AUGUST 30, 2019 @ 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
The storied life and career of the late political commentator, muckraking journalist, longtime ACLU supporter, and proud Texan is now being highlighted in the feature-length documentary film, "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins." 12 years after her passing, Ivins' work continues to support the fight for civil liberties and civil rights in her home state of Texas. Her legacy lives on through this film to inspire a new generation of change-makers.
In addition to the Houston premiere of the documentary, there will be a Q&A with the Houston-born film producer Carlisle Vandervoort and our very own Terri Burke! Please visit the link below to purchase your tickets for the screening. We'll see you there!
P.S. - There are film screenings happening in other cities around Texas, find out if "Raise Hell" is showing in your area.: https://www.aclutx.org/en/raise-hell-life-and-times-molly-ivins
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2019
A first-cut reaction to Harris-County DA Kim Ogg's reasons for opposing bail reform
Why does Harris County DA Kim Ogg oppose the proposed bail-reform settlement in Houston? Let's dig into this bit by bit, starting with the four, bullet-pointed reasons stated in her amicus brief filed today. The bulleted items are her language, then my comments follow each of them:
Accords unfettered and unreviewable discretion to misdemeanor judges and magistrates to delay (or outright excuse) misdemeanor defendants from appearing in court, contrary to Texas law.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-first-cut-reaction-to-harris-county.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 27 2019
It is good and right and American to hate communism!
No I do not believe we should kill commies indiscriminately. As I have quoted many times on this blog; people are individuals and should be treated as such. I do believe we should hate communism. It is obvious that communism is the most oppressive form of government every invented. I have quoted the phrase "Kill a commie for mommy" as a form of protest against communism, on the internet many times. I swear I found it on the internet as a common thing World War 2 vets would say; as they came home from that terrible war. Now when I look I can not find it. So I thought I would post this as proof that this was a common saying in America; when we stood up strong for good and right for all.
I believe it was Colonel David Hackworth (1930-2005), he referred to his combat career as Kill a commie for mommy when he was stationed in Korea. You can find more information here.
From: http://youarenotforgotten.tumblr.com/post/5477693473/col-david-h-hackworth-1930-2005-perhaps-the
He preferred the combat style of World War II and Korean War heroes like James Gavin and Matthew Ridgeway and, during Vietnam, of Hank “The Gunfighter” Emerson and Hal Moore. General Moore, the co-author of We Were Soldiers Once and Young, called him “the Patton of Vietnam,” and Gen. Creighton Abrams, the last American commander in that disastrous war, described him as “the best battalion commander I ever saw in the United States Army.”
Kill a commie for mommy! Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (1908 –1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of.
From: Here
I believe it was from Korea, then Vietnam. It means exactly what it says. I don't know who coined the phrase, I just remember it from that era.
It's also a well-known slogan on a t-shirt worn by deceased rocker Johnny Ramone in 1983.
Found these cool vintage images from: https://www.pinterest.com/anhhtran7/anti-communism/
GRITS FOR BREAKFAST
WELCOME TO TEXAS JUSTICE: YOU MIGHT BEAT THE RAP, BUT YOU WON'T BEAT THE RIDE.
MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2019
Media, unions hoped Dallas police staffing study would recommend more cops; instead it said 'manage your cops better'
The Dallas Morning News reported on a new staffing study for the Dallas Police Department prepared by KPMG. But the story is so focused on promoting the paper's ongoing agenda of encouraging the city to hire more officers, the coverage missed the forest while searching for a missing tree: they wanted the report to say how many additional officers the agency should hire, and KPMG failed to take the bait.
KPMG did identify DPD needs that could require more staff, but they suggested that staffing re-alignments and adjustment of strategies, tactics, and priorities could free up that capacity in lieu of the city hiring more officers. That thinking didn't make it into the Morning News story, even though it's the central reasoning behind the recommendations. Instead, the reporters scoured the 400-page report for hints at how many officers should be hired then called around to ask people if they thought the consultants should have given a hard number.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 29 2019
DoorDash is the biggest food delivery company in the country. It secured nearly $1 billion in funding from elite hedge funds and is valued at $12.7 billion. It recently bought a rival for over $400 million. And it is stealing tips from its workers.1,2
The drivers who deliver food for DoorDash, like most workers in the "gig economy," are contractors without a living wage, benefits or access to worker's compensation. To add insult to injury, DoorDash steals tips, including them as part of the $6.85 base pay for each job. So if someone tips $3, DoorDash saves $3, and the worker still only gets $6.85.3
Under massive pressure from workers and customers, DoorDash promised to revise its policy. That was more than a month ago, and nothing changed – and DoorDash said nothing about providing back pay for stolen wages.4 That's unacceptable.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019
Harris probation director clarifies case highlighted in Grits post
Last week, Grits posted an item about the Harris County probation department that included a critique of a Tweet touting a client who could now pay for a new child seat for her infant because she was rid of her probation fees. Theresa May, the director of the Harris County probation department, sent me an email clarifying some facts around that case. Although she expressly did not request a correction, I wanted to pass along her note for additional context:
Hello Scott!
I hope all is well! I read your commentary on our post regarding one of our clients who was released early.
As written, it was fair criticism and not something we would want to post as a pat on our back. Unfortunately, the summary of what happened with this client, as written, did not provide a clear picture of what actually occurred. Too many relevant facts and the context were not included.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/08/harris-probation-director-clarifies.html
Sign on:
Demand Congress take action on prescription drug costs
Big pharmaceutical companies are killing Americans.
In the United States, we let drug companies charge nearly whatever they want for the drugs that people rely on to live healthy lives.
I’ve heard too many stories about families who have to choose between picking up their prescription and keeping the lights on.
And others who are forced to ration life-saving drugs like insulin – putting their health at risk because they can’t afford to do anything else.
Add your name to join Sara Gideon, candidate for Senate (ME), and demand Congress to take action to keep these drug companies in line. We can no longer allow pharmaceutical executives to put profits before patients.
Click here to sign: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/forms/sign-on-demand-congress-take-action-on-prescription-drug-costs
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 30 2019
I am posting this because it does not blame the president. The only other petition I have seen in my inbox like this; directly blames the president. We need to stop blaming the president for everything and get to the issue's. The issue is more important than any one man or woman even if they are the figure head of the president. The president is just a representation of the voting public. The president is extremely limited to what they can do under the authority of their party and the free government of our great country. Everything is not the president's fault.The president can not be everywhere at one time; he is not God.
Sign this important petition here: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/media-amazon-fires
Tell major media outlets: Report on the Amazon fires
89% We've reached 44,859 of our goal of 50,000.
The petition to major media outlets reads:
"Cover the Brazilian Amazon wildfires. You have a responsibility to report on issues that affect the world."
Tell major media outlets: Report on the Amazon fires
Catastrophic, man-made wildfires are raging in the Amazon rainforest, the lungs of our Earth. It's another massive climate emergency that the mainstream corporate media is ignoring.
Scientists say that if these fires continue, they will speed up the climate crisis.1 This destruction is being fueled partly by American investment firms that care more about their profits than the planet.2 That gives Americans the opportunity and responsibility to act. But Americans won't even know there is a crisis if news media outlets fail to provide appropriate coverage. We need to demand that traditional media do better and start covering the Brazilian Amazon rainforest news now.
Tell major media outlets: Stop ignoring and glossing over the severity of Amazon rainforest wildfires. Click here to sign the petition
The Brazilian Amazon is home to 300 different groups of indigenous people and millions of plant and animal species and takes in most of the world's carbon.3 But Brazil's, far-right, pro-business president has cut funding to environmental agencies, encouraged deforestation and turned away millions of dollars of aid for wildfire help.4
Meanwhile, traditional media is largely ignoring the issue. Indigenous people of the Amazon have been organizing, resisting and sounding the alarm about rainforest destruction for years.5 But the media has time and time again chosen sensationalism over coverage of issues that affect all of us and center Black and Brown people.
The Notre Dame cathedral fire had over 350 media segments in just the first week of coverage. Our friends at Media Matters for America found that the Amazon fires got only 25 mediocre segments, and not until weeks later. That's 93% less coverage for a planet-wide crisis than for one historic building.6
Media outlets are doing the world a disservice by ignoring the severity of the situation in Brazil. They should not be allowed to determine who or what is good enough to get coverage. When Notre Dame burned, the media created the perfect environment for international outcry. We need that for the Amazon rainforest right now. It's time for the media to give airtime to the Amazon rainforest fires and highlight the current resistance and need for support.
Tell major media outlets: You have a responsibility to report on what affects us all. Give more airtime to the Amazon rainforest fires now.
References:
Marcelo de Souza, "AP Explains: The causes and risks of the Amazon fires" Associated Press News, Aug. 23, 2019.
Christopher Ingraham, "How beef demand is accelerating the Amazon’s deforestation and climate peril" The Washington Post, Aug. 27, 2019.
Shannon Sims, "The Land Battle Behind the Fires in the Amazon" The Atlantic, Aug. 27, 2019.
Bill Chappell, "Brazil Rejects G-7's Offer Of $22 Million To Fight Amazon Fires" National Public Radio, Aug. 27, 2019.
Shelby Brown, "Amazon rainforest fires: What's happening now and how you can help" CNET, Aug. 26, 2019.
Lis Power, "The Notre Dame fire garnered wall-to-wall cable news coverage. The Amazon fires are barely breaking through." Media Matters, Aug. 23, 2019.
I got this cool email and thought I would share it here:
Above: STGC(Sel) Laura Yocum with Congresswoman Granger. Laura was recognized as Senior Sailor of the Quarter.
 |
| she looks like my wife did in the army |
The USS Fort Worth and its crew are on the front line in the Pacific against Chinese aggression, and next spring are heading to Hawaii. The Navy’s littoral combat ships, like the USS Fort Worth, are small and light ships designed after 9-11 for speed and agility. The ship’s crew conducts anti-submarine patrols and can go into shallow coastal areas where larger ships cannot maneuver.
It was an honor to spend time on the USS Fort Worth and recognize some of the outstanding Sailors serving on the ship. I will continue to keep you updated on the ship and crew as they move forward with their mission.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated August 31 2019
Like I said somewhere on this page a while ago; even the Antichrist will be smart enough to make peace with the Jewish: people according to The Book of Revelations. I want to post this great pro Jewish people email I just got:
Friday, August 30, 2019
American Must Stand with Israel
Our shared commitment to democratic values makes Israel our strongest ally in the Middle East. As a Marine, I know the importance of Israel’s democracy to American foreign policy. As a legislator, I have been on the front lines working to strengthen our important alliance.
Living under constant terrorist attacks while fighting the spread of anti-Semitism, it is vital that Israel, and the rest of the world, knows the strength of the resolve in our alliance.
Rep. Taylor tours an Iron Dome Battery with Israel Military
This month, I, along with seventy-one Republicans and Democrats in the House, returned from a bipartisan, Congressional Delegation to Israel. Our nations have exhibited great dedication to supporting one another and we must continue to foster our strong friendship.
Focused on collecting firsthand accounts and strengthening our knowledge of consequential geopolitical factors in the region, we comprised the largest Congressional Delegation to Israel ever.
The trip provided Members of Congress the chance to examine the threats of Islamist terror to the United States and Israel, understand the technology being deployed to secure their borders, and learn more about critical defense systems protecting their civilians.
On the ground, we heard heart-wrenching stories of those personally affected by violence in the region. They shared accounts of rockets landing in their very backyards while their children played nearby.
At Hatzor Airbase, we toured an air defense missile battery of the Iron Dome - Israel’s most critical air defense system, protecting the country’s most densely populated areas. Walking alongside Israeli military officials, we discussed how this advanced technology safeguards Israeli citizens and how the United States could implement the same technology.
While listening, I recalled my own experience as a Marine deployed in north eastern Iraq when my unit confronted Iranian-funded agitators, spies, and anti-American protesters. This event, forever seared in my memory, underscores the importance of supporting Israel, our strong ally in a dangerous and volatile Middle East.
We travelled to Jerusalem, where we met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Each of us left the meeting reassured that our nation's relationship remains strong and inspired to continue to promote an American foreign policy rooted in unwavering support for Israel.
Rep. Taylor stands in front of United States Embassy in Jerusalem
Before the trip concluded, we visited the United States Embassy in Jerusalem. In recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the United States solidified our strong commitment to our ally, Israel.
More than fifteen percent of the entire House of Representatives traveled to Israel this month. We furthered our understanding of the regional conflict, identified improvements needed in United States policy, and increased our comprehension of the threats and obstacles Israel faces each and every day. Our efforts serve as a meaningful reminder that the relationship between our two great nations is greater than our ever-shifting politics.
America’s bond with Israel is stronger than the politics of the moment. Our friendship transcends partisan divides, and I'm committed to keeping it that way.
Semper Fidelis,
 |
Van Taylor
|
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 01 2019
Alabama’s Republican governor apologizes for wearing blackface in college, refuses to resign
August 30, 2019 at 7:35 PM EDT
The skit was called “cigar butts,” and a couple of the university students who starred in it thought the performance was hilarious.
Then an Auburn University senior, Ben LaRavia, recounted the act on a campus radio show. It was 1967, at a Baptist Student Union party, and he was there with his fiancee at the time: now his ex-wife and Alabama’s Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.
“Cigar butts,” LaRavia said, involved “crawling around on the floor looking for cigar butts and things like this, which certainly got a big reaction out of the audience.”
It also involved blackface.
LaRavia, chortling as he described Ivey’s outfit, said she wore blue coveralls, “and she had put some black paint all over her face.”
“That was just my role for the evening,” Ivey says later in the interview.
Fifty-two years later, Ivey is one of the state’s most powerful politicians, and on Thursday she apologized for participating in the racist skit while dodging calls for her resignation.
The Alabama governor joins the ever-growing collection of white politicians — from the North and from the South, from areas urban and rural, and from the Democratic and Republican parties — to face scrutiny and scorn for their caricatures of black people inspired by minstrel shows dating back to the 1830s.
‘A black vote for Trump is mental illness,’ sign outside a Birmingham, Ala. Baptist church declares
“I offer my heartfelt apologies for the pain and embarrassment this causes, and I will do all I can — going forward — to help show the nation that the Alabama of today is a far cry from the Alabama of the 1960s,” Ivey said in a statement. “We have come a long way, for sure, but we still have a long way to go.”
She said she doesn’t recall the skit or the interview, even after listening to the tape. Ivey’s press secretary, Gina Maiola, told The Washington Post that Auburn University Libraries discovered the recording during its ongoing effort to digitize old audio. A university representative told the governor’s office on Tuesday evening, and Ivey listened to it on Wednesday morning.
“While some may attempt to excuse this as acceptable behavior for a college student during the mid-1960s, that is not who I am today, and it is not what my Administration represents all these years later,” said Ivey, who is now 74.
The lengthy history of white politicians wearing blackface — and getting a pass
After the audio surfaced, state and national leaders condemned Ivey’s actions. Rep. Terri A. Sewell, a Democrat from Selma, called them “reprehensible” and “deeply offensive.”
“Her words of apology ring hollow if not met with real action to bridge the racial divide,” Sewell said on Twitter.
In dueling public statements, local Republicans defended Ivey and praised her for taking responsibility for her actions, and a number of officials across the aisle also said they accepted her apology. But other Alabama Democrats — and the state’s NAACP chapter — called for her to step down.
“She should resign,” state Rep. Juandalynn Givan told the Birmingham News. “I don’t think she should have been elected, and I think she is a racist.”
“I don’t care if it was 52 years ago or yesterday,” Givan said. “She is the governor of the state of Alabama, which is still considered one of the most racist states in the U.S.”
But Maiola told The Post that Ivey wouldn’t resign, saying her “commitment to serve the state is unchanged and unwavering.”
President Trump supported her on Friday, telling reporters that she’s “a very high quality woman, Kay Ivey, very very high quality woman, I can tell you that — and I know she apologized.”
Earlier this year, a photo in Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook page resurfaced, beginning a national outcry that shed new light on the racist past of Northam and the scores of other politicians who for years have emerged from similar scandals relatively unscathed.
Northam’s photo featured two men posing, one in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes. The governor initially apologized for the image, but then backtracked and has since insisted that he is not either of the people pictured. However, he did admit to wearing blackface at a different time to impersonate Michael Jackson. Northam survived calls from members of both parties to resign.
Then, Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring — like Northam, a Democrat — also admitted to appearing in blackface as a student in the 1980s.
In Florida, also this year, photographs of two state politicians in blackface have circulated, forcing one to resign.
And in Mississippi, both the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor have been questioned about their association with college fraternities where students routinely donned blackface and dressed up as slaves and Confederate soldiers.
“I condemn racism,” Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves told reporters in February.
His opponent, Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood, called blackface costumes worn by his fraternity brothers in the 1980s “inappropriate.”
Both candidates have said they don’t appear in the racist yearbook photos with their Greek life compatriots.
Ivey’s own controversy also began in the pages of Auburn’s yearbook.
Northam’s ugly yearbook photo and the racist origins of blackface
The Auburn Plainsman, the school’s student newspaper, reviewed more than two dozen old copies of the Glomerata yearbook in February and found a picture of five women in blackface on Alpha Gamma Delta’s page in 1967, when Ivey was a senior and a member of the sorority.
The photo shows the women wearing black masks and shirts with pantomimed cutouts of black people on the pockets. The caption reads, “Alpha Gam Minstrels welcome rushees aboard their showboat.”
Ivey spokesman Daniel Sparkman told the Plainsman that Ivey “knows nothing about the page in the first place, and she does not appear on that page.”
At the time, Ivey was vice president of the student government and was president of her pledge class in 1964. However, Sparkman said, “after that time, she remained a member, but she took no further roles in the sorority because her focus shifted during her freshman year to SGA activities.”
In the unearthed radio interview, featured on a show called Auburn University Profiles — which offered “sketches of the personalities, ideas and events that make Auburn University an exciting place” — LaRavia waxed elegiac about a far-off time, when the college students would struggle to recall their glory years.
“Should each of us ever reach a position that we could not remember back to our college days,” he said, “all we’d need to do is come back to the Auburn BSU and look at some of those pictures they took that night and I understand we would be quite humbled at this.”
Ivey, laughing, responded: “That’s true.”
License center lines to get lenghier, the case for medical-led mental-health first response, and other stories
SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2019
Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention:
License renewals from abolished driver surcharges may exacerbate lines at DPS license centers
Line outside DPS license center on North Lamar
in Austin ~7:30 a.m. Friday morning
It's going to be a rough fall at the DPS license centers. The Texas Legislature gave the $200 million to staff up at some of its biggest facilities, but those new workers won't come online for several months. In the meantime, about one million people with suspended licenses on Monday will have had all their Driver Responsibility surcharges wiped clean and can finally renew their driver's licenses, likely significantly adding to lines.
Sheriff shot up wrong vehicle
Somebody took a shot at a state trooper in Kimble County, and he called it in. The sheriff heard the call, set up on the side of the highway with an assault rifle, and shot up a passing pickup in response, wounding the driver. It was the wrong vehicle; the trooper had called in a "gray" truck and the pickup the sheriff shot up was white. Good piece from Eric Dexheimer with the details.
The case for medical-led mental-health first response
Here's an excellent case study out of Austin showing why cops shouldn't spearhead first response to most mental health calls. The Austin City Council is presently considering whether to shift to a medical-led response in most instances, following the lead of a Dallas PD pilot program.
'Cooking them to death'
The Marshall Project and the Weather Channel teamed up to report on the effects of excessive heat in Texas prisons.
Coming soon: New Travis County public defender office
Great news: The Texas Indigent Defense Commission approved grant funding for a new public-defender office in Travis County.
'Arrest, release, repeat'
The Prison Policy Institute came out with a new analysis discussing "How police and jails are misused to respond to social problems."
Feds failing at collecting police use-of-force data
Since 1994, the Bureau of Justice Statistics has been charged with gathering data on police use of force. But most agencies' data is garbage and most of the information is suspect or unusable, reported Kenny Jacoby of Gatehouse News.
read more and click away on all the links here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/08/license-center-lines-to-get-lenghier.html
Block the CBS-Viacom merger Sign petition here: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/cbs-viacom-merger
After Disney and FOX merged, the combined company laid off thousands of workers. In the wake of the Comcast-TimeWarner merger, the company broke its promises, kept prices high and made it harder for customers to access rivals' content on the internet. Every time media companies merger, streaming prices go up.1,2,3
Now, another big media merger looms: CBS and Viacom recently announced plans to combine into one company.4 The result – as always – will be higher prices, fewer jobs, more corporate control and less choice.
We still have a chance to stop this merger – but we need to act fast.
Tell the Department of Justice: Block the CBS-Viacom merger.
CBS and Viacom executives will receive massive pay raises and bonuses as a result of the merger.5 The CEO of Viacom, for example, will get a 155% raise – to more than $31 million each year. Company executives make a big deal about how the companies need to merge to survive against ever-larger rivals. But behind all the pretty talking points, this is one real reason that corporate consolidation is so popular with the investor class: Well-heeled executives get millions in payoffs while regular workers see layoffs.
Media consolidation is already hurting our democracy and consumer choices. AT&T bought DirectTV and then Warner Media. Disney purchased FOX. A small handful of corporate media companies control movies, TV and news reporting – not to mention cable television and mobile and wired internet access. CBS and Viacom will not be as large as these other corporate behemoths, but every single media merger creates ever-more incentives to grow and combine. Executives get richer, corporations become more powerful and we lose.
After years of conservative lobbying, regulators rarely ask about layoffs or lower wages when evaluating mergers. Regulators allow mergers to go through with small conditions – promises that are often broken or changes that don’t work. Antitrust officials too often ignore evidence that monopolies and massive companies result in higher prices, lower wages, job losses and environmental damage.6,7 Just as important, less media diversity means a less-informed public and worse political outcomes – one new study found corporate consolidation leads to more right-wing slant in the news.8
Consolidation in the media and telecommunications industries is not just harmful to our economy, it is simply bad for our democracy. We need to fight every single merger that comes along – including the CBS-Viacom merger right now.
Tell the Department of Justice: Block the CBS-Viacom merger.
Thank you for speaking out.
References:
Consumers Union, "'Comcast:' A history of broken promises," March 1, 2014.
David Sims, "Why Viacom and CBS Had to Merge to Survive," The Atlantic, Aug. 19, 2019.
Jared Newman, "Sorry, cord-cutters: The CBS-Viacom merger will make streaming pricier," FastCompany, Aug. 13, 2019.
Sims, "Why Viacom and CBS Had to Merge to Survive."
Benjamin Mullen, "Viacom and CBS Executives to Earn Big Bucks in Merger Deal," The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19, 2019.
David Dayen, “Bring Back Antitrust,” The American Prospect, Nov. 9, 2015.
David Dayen, “Why Are Drug Monopolies Running Amok? Meet Deborah Feinstein.” The Intercept, Dec. 16, 2015.
Edmund Andrews, "Media Consolidation Means Less Local News, More Right Wing Slant," Stanford Business, July 30, 2019.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 03 2019
When someone acts out in this barbaric fashion; it is hard to believe that they are human. Like I have said many times in my blogs: There is no explanation for a human killing other human's for any other reason than war. There is no one to blame for this heinous crime of inhuman, bazaar, murdering of innocent people; except the person that murdered them. Our society or our blessed American culture is not to blame; for this lowest of low cowardly behavior. This kind of mental state is beyond my understanding; like rape. This type of mass murder, goes way beyond what ninety nine point 9 percent of the worlds population; can comprehend. The only solution I can think of is, if we all pray and considerate our spiritual self's on being so against such murders; we could stop them. We can also pray for and help all the people who have been directly hurt by this unimaginable horror. He will pay for this in the after life for all eternity.
The Thin Read was one of my favorite war movies about war. It shows the true and ugly side of war. As I was writing for my blog I thought of this scene in the movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_(1998_film)
From: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/t/thin-red-line-script-transcript.html
The Thin Read was one of my favorite war movies about war. It shows the true and ugly side of war. As I was writing for my blog I thought of this scene in the movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_(1998_film)
From: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/t/thin-red-line-script-transcript.html
"I killed a man" "Worst thing you can do" "Worse than rape"
 |
| Here is a image of that exact scene; I just mentioned. |
Texas shooter who killed 7 in Odessa identified
Published 4:24 p.m. ET Sept. 1, 2019 | Updated 7:58 p.m. ET Sept. 1, 2019
At a Sunday afternoon news conference, Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said police knew the shooter's identity, but refused to release it to the media. Gerke said he wouldn't give the mass shooter additional notoriety.
Read more here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/01/texas-shooting-gunman-identified-seth-ator/2188123001/
From fighting for better wages to pushing for healthier workplace conditions, African American workers have been at the forefront of shaping the life of our nation, buoyed by the support of our country’s unions.
But as we celebrate America’s workers on Labor Day, we can’t ignore the fact that unions have taken a hit in the past few decades and millions of workers across the country are suffering because of it.
Many workers, especially those of color in minimum wage jobs, have fewer protections and are grinding hard every day just to keep their heads barely above water. Some are even living in poverty despite having full-time employment.
This must change.
The NAACP stands on the side of workers, and we’ll keep fighting until every American who has a job can earn a wage that allows her or him to prosper in one of the world’s richest countries.
Key to our fight is making sure that the people elected to represent our communities will stand in support of workers’ issues.
That’s why the NAACP is organizing and mobilizing in neighborhoods across the country to register voters and encourage people to raise their voices through the power of their vote.
America’s workers fuel our economy and our way of life. On this Labor Day, let’s thank them by having their backs and pledging to use our votes to elect those who will keep workers’ interests at heart.
In solidarity,
Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP
Another, great, old fashioned, American, uplifting; message from the president of the NAACP:
But as we celebrate America’s workers on Labor Day, we can’t ignore the fact that unions have taken a hit in the past few decades and millions of workers across the country are suffering because of it.
Many workers, especially those of color in minimum wage jobs, have fewer protections and are grinding hard every day just to keep their heads barely above water. Some are even living in poverty despite having full-time employment.
This must change.
The NAACP stands on the side of workers, and we’ll keep fighting until every American who has a job can earn a wage that allows her or him to prosper in one of the world’s richest countries.
Key to our fight is making sure that the people elected to represent our communities will stand in support of workers’ issues.
That’s why the NAACP is organizing and mobilizing in neighborhoods across the country to register voters and encourage people to raise their voices through the power of their vote.
America’s workers fuel our economy and our way of life. On this Labor Day, let’s thank them by having their backs and pledging to use our votes to elect those who will keep workers’ interests at heart.
In solidarity,
Derrick Johnson
@DerrickNAACP
President and CEO
NAACP
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 04 2019
Click here to sign this important petition: https://action.aclu.org/petition/make-your-comment-religion-not-license-discriminate
MAKE YOUR COMMENT: RELIGION IS NOT A LICENSE TO DISCRIMINATE
Freedom of religion is one of our nation’s fundamental values. But religious freedom doesn't give us the right to harm others.
The Department of Labor has proposed a new rule that would turn religious liberty into a license to discriminate with taxpayer dollars. Under the rule, a business or organization contracting with the federal government – therefore receiving taxpayer money – could use religion to justify discriminating against employees.
The rule would authorize discrimination against LGBTQ people, those who are pregnant and unmarried, and any other group or individual deemed unfit based on the employer’s religious beliefs. That means a prospective employee could miss out on a job and employers could pick and choose which employment benefits to offer – and who gets them – based on their religious beliefs.
Longstanding federal civil rights law prohibits discrimination in the workplace. Current nondiscrimination protections are about ensuring that every person can earn a living, provide for their families, and safely go about their daily lives without fear of repercussion for who they are.
The Labor Department is accepting public comments on the new rule until September 16. If we believe in equality – if we believe discrimination has no place in this country – then we must raise our voices to reject this proposed rule.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 03, 2019
Ending red-light cameras freed up police time in Austin
When the Texas Legislature eliminated tickets based on red-light cameras earlier this year, they freed up a great deal of time among officers at Austin PD who evaluated the photos. Here's how the process worked before Austin shut its cameras down in June in response to the new legislation:
Once cameras are installed, videos of potential violations are submitted to the Police
Department for review. The Police Department determines if a violation has occurred and, if so, a notice is sent to the registered owner of the vehicle and the case is filed in Municipal Court. Municipal Court is responsible for the due process and administration of the cases filed.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/ending-red-light-cameras-freed-up.html
These people are really great.
From: https://toppac.org/
The importance of last week's vote by the Harris County Commissioners Court to approve of Harris County Thrives and change the way federal recovery dollars are allocated can not be overstated. Giving weighted consideration to equity should be common sense, but the fact that this has never been done in the country shows how much courage, leadership and vision is needed to disrupt the status quo. For that, we applaud County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Commissioner Rodney Ellis and Commissioner Adrian Garcia. We are also grateful to our partners in the HOME Coalition and CEER coalition. For far too long, our recovery process has discriminated against the poor and communities of color. Time and again, we’ve seen our governments fail to help our communities fully recover, pushing them further into neglect and disinvestment, while wealthier neighborhoods are not just made whole but improved. Harris County Thrives fundamentally changes the future for our communities who are still recovering from Harvey.
Join TOP at our Houston office (2404 Caroline St.) this Friday, Sept. 6 at 5 p.m. to watch the movie 13th that charts the explosive growth in America's prison population. In 1970, there were about 200,000 people in U.S. prisons; today, the prison population is more than 2 million. We will then talk about TOP's fight to end mass incarceration. Food will be provided. Bring your friends!
Join us TOP's next Dallas education justice campaign meeting. At this gathering, we'll be discussing matters that impact Dallas ISD students and parents, as well as progress being made on our efforts to bring more racial equity to the district and implement participatory budgeting in our schools. This is a great opportunity to learn about the campaign and get involved!
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 06 2019
Another ‘ex-gay’ leader comes out & admits the whole racket is a giant lie
“I WAS WRONG. Please forgive me. Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful. Because it’s false advertising."
By Gwendolyn Smith Tuesday, September 3, 2019
McKrae Game had, for the last two decades, ran Hope for Wholeness, a South Carolina “conversion therapy” program – until he was fired by the board of directors of Hope for Wholeness in 2017.
Game sought help from a therapist many years ago, seeking to change his own orientation. He founded Hope for Wholeness — then called Truth Ministry — in 1999. You can still find some of Game’s writing on their website.
But today, Game is a changed man.
A profile on Game published in the Post and Courier, details Game’s disavowal of the practice saying “Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful. Because it’s false advertising.”
Related: This Tea Party politician made up a wild gay sex scandal about himself. He might go to jail for it.
“Conversion therapy” – also known as “ex-gay therapy” – is the widely-discredited practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through religious or psychological intervention, including torturous techniques like shock therapy.
The practice is now banned in 18 states as well as Puerto Rico, Washington DC, and several counties and municipalities — but not South Carolina.
On his Facebook page, Game spoke about his views of the practice as well as his own life experiences.
“When the [Post and Courier] reporter asked me if I’d like to see Hope for Wholeness shut down, I said I’d like all ex-gay ministry and conversion therapy counselors and organizations shut down,” said Game. “I told him I believed the only positive and productive use for HFW and ex-gay ministry is for those that believe that homosexuality is incongruent with their faith, to receive and have a community of like-minded people so that they can live healthy lives, and in the end that was what I was trying to do.”
“Today, I’m thankful to have it all behind me,” Game added. “I plan to communicate with anyone, including media, that wants to speak with me. I’ll take advantage of any opportunity I get to share my experiences, and my belief that ex-gay ministry and conversion therapy IS HARMFUL”
Game is now turning to working on behalf of the LGBTQ community rather than against it.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 07 2019
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 06, 2019
Decrying one-sided Statesman stenography on criminal justice (again)
Regular readers know Grits has complained for several years about the unremittingly poor quality of journalism on #cjreform issues in Austin, particularly from the Austin Statesman. A great example of their one-sided coverage - basically functioning as stenographer/mouthpiece for local law enforcement interests and excluding other voices - may be found in Mark Wilson's coverage of a proposal for Austin PD to pay for new equipment to test THC levels in marijuana.
This is necessary, of course, because the Legislature legalized "hemp," which is from the same plant as marijuana, and the distinguishing feature under the law is THC levels. Around the state, prosecutors have begun dismissing cases because they can't prove that element of the crime. But Austin PD wants those cases prosecuted, despite the lack of any real public-safety motivation for doing so.
The Statesman coverage quotes only law enforcement sources and gives no air time to the actual debate that took place in the hearing on the topic.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/decrying-one-sided-statesman.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 08 2019
A New York Jail Forced a Trans Woman Into a Men's Facility
Jena Faith spent four weeks in the men's facility of the Steuben County Jail last spring – despite the fact that she is a woman. During that time, she was routinely harassed by other incarcerated people and guards. She was also denied her doctor-prescribed hormone therapy. While Jena's experience was harrowing, it's not unique. The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on her behalf, arguing that what happened to her is a violation of numerous state laws designed to protect the rights, dignity, and humanity of trans people. Read more → https://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/criminal-justice-reform-lgbt-people/new-york-jail-forced-trans-woman-mens-facility
Stripped of Their Rights
In March 2011, a team of guards at a state prison in Lincoln, Illinois, told 200 women to strip naked in plain view of other guards, cadets, and civilians, without any explanation. Women on their periods were ordered to remove their tampons and sanitary pads. Each woman was ordered to lift her breasts, cough and squat, and display her vaginal and anal cavities. The mass strip search was purportedly carried out as part of a cadet training exercise, meaning there wasn't even a pretext of an immediate safety need. In 2014, the women sued to end such strip and cavity searches. The ACLU recently filed a brief with the appeals court supporting the women – because the right to be free of government overreach doesn't end at a prison's gates. Read more → https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/women-prison/stripped-their-rights
Will North Carolina's Supreme Court Allow Racism to Remain a Persistent Factor in Its Death Penalty?
In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act, which allowed defendants to strike the death penalty from their cases if they could show that racial discrimination was a factor in their prosecution. As a result, four people on death row had death sentences reversed and were resentenced to life without parole. But in 2013, the law was repealed, the four were all sent back to death row without new trials, and other petitioners who had uncovered evidence through the RJA were also denied their day in court. Last week, we asked the North Carolina Supreme Court to recognize the evidence and overturn their death sentences. The state, meanwhile, wants the court to sweep obvious evidence of racism under the rug and pretend it does not exist. Read more → https://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/racial-disparities-and-death-penalty/will-north-carolinas-supreme-court
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 10 2019
Tell Congress: Don't let Mitch McConnell block election security reform
If we don’t act now, Russia or other foreign actors could launch another dangerous, far-reaching attack on our elections in 2020. Members of Congress can’t delay -- they must pass sensible security measures to protect our elections from foreign tampering.
“Over the course of my career, I’ve seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious.” - former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, during his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee
Robert Mueller warned Congress and the American people -- but will we heed his warning? If we don’t IMMEDIATELY improve our election security measures, we can expect another foreign attack on the 2020 elections.
But leaders in Washington, D.C. haven’t done nearly enough to protect our election systems from foreign interference. In fact, just after Mueller’s testimony, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked two commonsense election security bills from being voted on.
We can’t afford to put off fortifying our electoral process any longer. 2020 is fast approaching -- and if we don’t act now to stop foreign entities from spreading misinformation, hacking voting machines, and attempting to collaborate with campaigns, the very foundation of our democracy could be at risk.
The American voters should decide who wins our elections -- no one else. And we already know the strong, simple solutions that work -- like paper ballots and post-election audits.
Congress’ inaction is an open invitation for anyone who seeks to interfere with our elections. It’s time for bold action -- add your name to tell our representatives: secure our elections, before it’s too late.
This campaign is sponsored by: Arab American Institute, California Clean Money Action Fund, Common Cause, Latino Victory Project, League of Conservation Voters, MAYDAY America, New American Leaders Action Fund, Open the Government, and People for the American Way (PFAW), Public Citizen
Embarrassed mother arrested in front of children for allegedly trolling a trans woman on Twitter
A cisgender woman has been charged with malicious communication for what prosecutors say was a months-long harassment campaign against a transgender woman. She was arrested at her home and in front of her young children.
Kate Scottow, 38, was arrested late last year in Hitchin, England. She is due in court for trial on September 18.
The Crown Prosecution Service accuses her of “persistent” harassment of transgender activist Stephanie Hayden due to her “status as a transgender woman,” resulting in “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety” over the course of nine months.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 09, 2019
Harris DA sanctioned for Brady/Michael-Morton Act violations
In Harris County, reported the Houston Chronicle's Keri Blakinger, Judge Andrew Wright issued a monetary sanction of $500 on the Harris County DA's office for failing to hand over evidence to the defense under Brady v. Maryland/the Michael Morton Act.
The issue arose because the DA's office did not hand over evidence of sustained misconduct against an arresting officer in a DWI case until the eve of trial, many months after it was in their possession and the judge ordered them to turn it over. Reported Blakinger
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/harris-da-sanctioned-for-bradymichael.html
California governor signs bills to crack down on fraudulent vaccine exemptions
Protests by hundreds of emotional opponents boiled over, with dissenters delaying Senate debate for nearly two hours.
Sept. 9, 2019, 9:12 PM CDT
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bills Monday to crack down on doctors who write fraudulent medical exemptions for school children's vaccinations.
The Democratic governor acted less than an hour after lawmakers sent him changes he demanded as a condition of approving the bills.
Read more here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-governor-signs-bills-crack-down-fraudulent-vaccine-exemptions-n1051756
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 12 2019
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 Austin funds alternatives to police for mental-health first response The Austin City Council yesterday approved $1.75 million in its next budget to create a new system for responding to 911 calls involving potential suicides and other mental-health-related scenarios, thanks to a measure promoted by Just Liberty and the Austin Justice Coalition.
The money would pay for 6.5 new positions to put mental-health clinicians on the front lines of 911 calls related to mental health crises along with seven new Community Health Paramedics at EMS. Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/austin-funds-alternatives-to-police-for.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 14 2019
Go here now and fill this out: https://fixpriorauth.org/take-action
I always sign every petition I post on the internet; or I would not post it.
The AMA's grassroots campaign to fix prior authorization has been building momentum, and Congress has started to take notice. Bi-partisan legislation was recently introduced in the House of Representatives aimed at protecting patients from the burden of prior authorizations. The Improving Seniors' Timely Access to Care Act of 2019 (H.R. 3107) would reduce unnecessary delays in care by streamlining and standardizing prior authorization under the Medicare Advantage program, providing much-needed oversight and transparency of health insurance for America's seniors.
Specifically, the bill would:
Create an electronic prior authorization program including the electronic transmission of prior authorization requests and responses and a real-time process for items and services that are routinely approved;
Improve transparency by requiring plans to report to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the extent of their use of prior authorization and the rate of approvals or denials;
Require plans to adopt transparent prior authorization programs that are reviewed annually, adhere to evidence-based medical guidelines, and include continuity of care for individuals transitioning between coverage policies to minimize any disruption in care;
Hold plans accountable for making timely prior authorization determinations and providing rationales for denials; and
Prohibit additional prior authorization for medically necessary services performed during a surgical or invasive procedure that already received, or did not initially require, prior authorization.
The demand and need for such reforms is growing — particularly as more seniors choose Medicare Advantage for their health insurance needs. According to a recently released Kaiser Family Foundation report, Medicare Advantage enrollment has nearly doubled in a decade. One-third (34%) of all Medicare beneficiaries — 22 million people — are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, and nearly four out of five enrollees (79%) are in plans that require prior authorization for some services.
For far too long, insurance companies have hid behind prior authorization requirements in order to cut costs and boost their bottom line, all at the expense of the patient. Hopefully, that is about to change. This bill takes meaningful steps to curb insurers' abuse of prior authorization requirements in order to save money, as well as protects patients from care disruptions.
Join us in seeking to prevent patient care delays and relieve unnecessary administrative burdens that consume valuable health care resources. Contact your Representative and ask them to support the Improving Seniors' Timely Access to Care Act of 2019 today!
Go here and sign this too: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/dol-public-comment-lgbt
Tell the Department of Labor: Don't give employers a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people
The Department of Labor recently announced a proposal that would allow employers who are federal contractors to use their religious beliefs to justify discrimination in their hiring decisions.1 The proposed rule would essentially encourage employers to turn away prospective employees on the basis of sex, gender or sexual orientation. That puts hundreds of thousands of workers at risk for discrimination.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019
Needless shooting shows why cops shouldn't be first response to mental health calls
In the wake of the City of Austin funding an alternative approach to mental-health first response featuring mental-health clinicians taking the lead instead of cops, video has emerged from Corpus Christi of a police officer gunning down a mentally ill man wielding a metal pipe at point blank range. The victim didn't die, thankfully, but this was unnecessary: Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/needless-shooting-shows-why-cops.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 16 2019
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2019
Local press calls out Houston mayoral candidates' false statements on crime
Challengers in local political races love to engage in demagoguery about crime and try to blame the incumbents. That becomes a tad more difficult when crime is actually low. But usually they can still get away with it because the local media thinks their job is to "quote both sides" (in this case, the two sides being "lies" and "reality") and will put out their message even when it's false.
So we must give credit where it's due to St. John Barned Smith and Jasper Scherer of the Houston Chronicle for their article on crime debates in the Houston mayor's race. Drawing on lessons national journalists have had to learn in the age of Donald Trump, they wrote a piece that calls out exaggerations and falsehoods about crime in a way that's incredibly rare for local reporters. Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/local-press-calls-out-houston-mayoral.html
Tell the Department of Agriculture: No logging in the Tongass National Forest
We've reached 89,033 of our goal of 100,000.
Sign the petition click here: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/tongass-perdue?t=5&akid=34074%2E4914083%2EQZOHqi
Petition to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue:
"Reject plans to open the Tongass National Forest to devastating exploitation by logging and mining interests."
Sign Petition
Tell the Department of Agriculture: No logging in the Tongass National Forest
The Amazon is burning, and yet Donald Trump wants to open the world's largest intact temperate forest to exploitation by mining and logging companies.
Instead of putting pressure on Trumpian Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro to act in the Amazon, Trump appears to be following his lead here in America. He recently instructed the secretary of agriculture to open 10 million acres in the stunning Tongass National Forest to brutal exploitation.1
Tongass retains more carbon than any forest in the United States, provides habitat for iconic wild creatures and contains old-growth trees as much as 1,000 years old.2 We can't let Trump destroy it.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 17 2019
Happy Constitution Day!
Constitution Day September 17th is an American federal observance that recognizes the adoption of the United States Constitution and those who have become U.S. citizens. It is normally observed on September 17, the day in 1787 that delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the document in Philadelphia. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Day_(United_States)
Speak out on bail this Saturday in Houston
TOP is on a mission to END mass incarceration. Join us to learn how we've helped change the misdemeanor bail system in Harris County, and help us shape felony bail reform. Our "Speak Out On Bail" event will take place this Saturday, September 21, from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. at Lincoln Community Center in Houston (979 Grenshaw St.). Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis and County Judge Lina Hidalgo will be in attendance.
Space is limited, so reserve your seat today!
Dallas education justice campaign event this weekend
Join TOP this Saturday, September 21, from 1 - 3 p.m. at the Hampton-Illinois Branch Library in Dallas (2951 S. Hampton Rd.) for a "Our Money, Our Schools” Workshop with a "Q&A" with Dallas ISD trustee Ben Mackey. TOP members have prioritized putting power back in the hands of working families, who continue to fight for fully-funding their public schools. This interactive workshop will demonstrate how you and Dallas ISD’s District 7 community can push back against the status quo and co-create real change in our public schools.
Share the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/528677091211894/
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2019:
Police shootings, jailhouse snitches, and debunking anti-bail-reform arguments
Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits' readers' attention:
Federal judge debunks anti-bail reform arguments from Harris DA
Bail-reform injunction issued in Galveston
Speaking for the defense: The only time prosecution theories are excluded from crime stories is when police officers are accused
'Excited delirium' is still not a real thing
Gap in TX jailhouse snitch reporting system cited
Reminder: Lying snitches need prosecutor collaborators to do harm
Lessons on policing, poverty, and racial discrimination
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/police-shootings-jailhouse-snitches-and.html
25 Countries that Hate America:
From: https://travel.alot.com/themes/15-countries-that-hate-americans
Egypt
The U.S. backing of Hosni Mubarak and a failure to do anything about the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood leave 85% of those surveyed by Pew Research with an unfavorable view of Americans.
Jordan
Egypt's neighbor seems to reflect a similar view in the same survey—American favorability ratings have dropped 13 points since 2009, leaving 85% with an unfavorable view of the U.S.
Turkey
A huge influx of Syrian refugees without significant assistance from the U.S. may contribute to the 73% unfavorable view of America reflected in a Pew Research survey.
Russia
Relations with Russia have been chilly since the Cold War. U.S. opposition to its intervention in Ukraine could contribute to a 71% unfavorable rating in the Pew survey.
Belarus
Belarus is friendly with Russia and seems to harbor uneasy feelings about the United States. There, 69% disapprove of Americans.
Greece
Debt-ridden Greece finds it difficult to embrace any American message of hope, as shown by the 63% unfavorable rating on the Pew Research survey.
Iran
Since 1979 when Iran seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, there's been no love lost between Iranians and Americans—resulting in a 61% disapproval rating according to MarketWatch.
Lebanon
Since 2007, Congress has placed conditions on annual aid to Lebanon. Such decisions have led to a 57% unfavorable rating of Americans in the country.
Argentina
A majority of Argentineans do not trust the U.S. to act responsibly in the world and give America a 57% unfavorable rating, according to The Argentine Post.
Austria
According to MarketWatch, Austria has a 55% disapproval rating of the U.S.
Slovenia
Slovenians have a 54% negative view of the U.S. primarily because they don't approve of its leadership. That may change with Melania Trump, who was born in the country, serving as First Lady.
Tunisia
The anti-Islamic message in the propaganda film Innocence of Muslims posted online by a U.S. resident, contributes to the 47% unfavorable view of America in Tunisia
Pakistan
Much U.S. attention has focused on Pakistan since 9/11, and there is a continued military presence there that has resulted in 59% to 65% of Pakistanis having an unfavorable view of Americans.
Chile
With a 47% unfavorability rating, only a little over half of this South American country views the U.S. in a positive light. This can cause trouble for America later on, as the U.S. State Department considers Chile one of the U.S.’s “strongest partners in Latin America.”
Australia
Australia’s 48% unfavorability rating can mostly be chalked up to their dislike of President George W. Bush and President Donald Trump. Most Australians believe that Americans' ambition for power fuels both white nationalists and anti-racist counterprotesters in a confused medley of different views fighting for dominance.
Canada
Our northern neighbors' 51% disapproval rating stems mostly because from their dislike of Donald Trump and his policies that directly conflict with the country's own.
Netherlands
The majority of the Dutch public, 59%, views Americans as ignorant, fat, racist, and paranoid extremists. But, they hold out hope that the U.S. isn’t just a home for these negative stereotypes. Many Dutch citizens hope that these negatives will be shoved back into the dark holes they crawled out of once Trump is out of office.
Mexico
With a 65% unfavorability, Mexico isn't a fan of America. Again, because of Donald Trump, and his xenophobic tendencies.
Tajikistan
This primarily Muslim country has seen a major escalation in negative perception, with a 54% disapproval rating.
Iraq
Stemming mostly from the wars that have ravaged this country, Iraq’s 67% disapproval rating isn’t hard to understand.
Sweden
Similar to Canada, right down to the disapproval score of 51%. Sweden views liberal Americans as having a “Sweden fetish” as they view it as a liberal wonderland. Donald Trump is also heavily to blame with the alienation of this democratic country as well. You’ll find he’s actually caused a lot of the rifts on this list to worsen over his presidency.
Spain
Major disagreements from the Bush-era war on terrorism and other foreign policy issues are at least partly to blame for Spain’s 60% disapproval rating. Not to mention they don’t have a ton of faith in Trump, so that puts a damper on things too.
China
Over the past several years, escalating trade issues with China has led to a 49% disapproval rating.
25 Countries that Hate America:
From: https://travel.alot.com/themes/15-countries-that-hate-americans
Egypt
The U.S. backing of Hosni Mubarak and a failure to do anything about the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood leave 85% of those surveyed by Pew Research with an unfavorable view of Americans.
Jordan
Egypt's neighbor seems to reflect a similar view in the same survey—American favorability ratings have dropped 13 points since 2009, leaving 85% with an unfavorable view of the U.S.
Turkey
A huge influx of Syrian refugees without significant assistance from the U.S. may contribute to the 73% unfavorable view of America reflected in a Pew Research survey.
Russia
Relations with Russia have been chilly since the Cold War. U.S. opposition to its intervention in Ukraine could contribute to a 71% unfavorable rating in the Pew survey.
Belarus
Belarus is friendly with Russia and seems to harbor uneasy feelings about the United States. There, 69% disapprove of Americans.
Greece
Debt-ridden Greece finds it difficult to embrace any American message of hope, as shown by the 63% unfavorable rating on the Pew Research survey.
Iran
Since 1979 when Iran seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, there's been no love lost between Iranians and Americans—resulting in a 61% disapproval rating according to MarketWatch.
Lebanon
Since 2007, Congress has placed conditions on annual aid to Lebanon. Such decisions have led to a 57% unfavorable rating of Americans in the country.
Argentina
A majority of Argentineans do not trust the U.S. to act responsibly in the world and give America a 57% unfavorable rating, according to The Argentine Post.
Austria
According to MarketWatch, Austria has a 55% disapproval rating of the U.S.
Slovenia
Slovenians have a 54% negative view of the U.S. primarily because they don't approve of its leadership. That may change with Melania Trump, who was born in the country, serving as First Lady.
Tunisia
The anti-Islamic message in the propaganda film Innocence of Muslims posted online by a U.S. resident, contributes to the 47% unfavorable view of America in Tunisia
Pakistan
Much U.S. attention has focused on Pakistan since 9/11, and there is a continued military presence there that has resulted in 59% to 65% of Pakistanis having an unfavorable view of Americans.
Chile
With a 47% unfavorability rating, only a little over half of this South American country views the U.S. in a positive light. This can cause trouble for America later on, as the U.S. State Department considers Chile one of the U.S.’s “strongest partners in Latin America.”
Australia
Australia’s 48% unfavorability rating can mostly be chalked up to their dislike of President George W. Bush and President Donald Trump. Most Australians believe that Americans' ambition for power fuels both white nationalists and anti-racist counterprotesters in a confused medley of different views fighting for dominance.
Canada
Our northern neighbors' 51% disapproval rating stems mostly because from their dislike of Donald Trump and his policies that directly conflict with the country's own.
Netherlands
The majority of the Dutch public, 59%, views Americans as ignorant, fat, racist, and paranoid extremists. But, they hold out hope that the U.S. isn’t just a home for these negative stereotypes. Many Dutch citizens hope that these negatives will be shoved back into the dark holes they crawled out of once Trump is out of office.
Mexico
With a 65% unfavorability, Mexico isn't a fan of America. Again, because of Donald Trump, and his xenophobic tendencies.
Tajikistan
This primarily Muslim country has seen a major escalation in negative perception, with a 54% disapproval rating.
Iraq
Stemming mostly from the wars that have ravaged this country, Iraq’s 67% disapproval rating isn’t hard to understand.
Sweden
Similar to Canada, right down to the disapproval score of 51%. Sweden views liberal Americans as having a “Sweden fetish” as they view it as a liberal wonderland. Donald Trump is also heavily to blame with the alienation of this democratic country as well. You’ll find he’s actually caused a lot of the rifts on this list to worsen over his presidency.
Spain
Major disagreements from the Bush-era war on terrorism and other foreign policy issues are at least partly to blame for Spain’s 60% disapproval rating. Not to mention they don’t have a ton of faith in Trump, so that puts a damper on things too.
China
Over the past several years, escalating trade issues with China has led to a 49% disapproval rating.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 18 2019
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
The Art of Deflection: HPD chief shows how to blame judges for policing failures
Police chiefs in Harris County continue to attack bail reform - most recently Houston police chief Art Acevedo - but the examples given never seem to bear out their complaints. Acevedo yesterday went on local TV to blame judges for releasing a defendant who later ended up shooting a police officer with his own gun after a struggle.
Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-art-of-deflection-hpd-chief-shows.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 19 2019
Sign this petition here: https://action.aclu.org/petition/texas-ready
In Texas, 1 out of every 10 adults has a felony conviction on their record. And the costs to the state are staggering—not only for taxpayers burdened with funding our overcrowded prisons, but also for those facing sometimes insurmountable challenges as they return to our communities. Formerly incarcerated Texans have difficulty finding and maintaining gainful employment, finding housing, securing occupational licenses to apply their trade, and face a multitude of other obstacles long after their sentences have been served.
These impacts are not just felt by individuals, but by the families they support and care for and the communities in which they live. It is time to make smarter decisions across the board and make our justice system one that prioritizes the long-term strength of communities over the short-term impulse to punish.
Sign the petition: Texas is ready for smart justice policies.
Click here to send this message; unless you like paying more money for things than you have to: https://www.ebaymainstreet.com/campaign/de-minimis
Right now, there is a proposal in Washington that could hurt American small businesses and consumers who buy and sell online: lowering the “de minimis” customs threshold. Lowering the de minimis would raise costs and put in place unnecessary red tape, hurting small businesses and consumers alike. This proposal would impede the ability of US small businesses to readily accept international returns and compete with international firms in the global marketplace. But you can help! We encourage you to take advantage of our easy-to-use tools to write a letter and tweet at your legislators to stop this harmful proposal.
Click here to stop the bazzar burning of huge amounts of rain forest: https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/tell-brazils-bolsonaro-stop-the-amazon-rainforest-fires
Sign your name with NRDC and send a message to Brazilian President Bolsonaro to stop the destructive, intentional burning of the Amazon.
I'm sure that just like me and millions of others around the world, you've been watching in horror as raging fires continue to destroy the Amazon rainforest.
Every single minute, flames are burning the rainforest at a rate of one-and-a-half football fields. Already, 3,500 square miles have been reduced to ash.
These fires are no accident. They are intentional — ignited by Brazilian ranchers who are emboldened by their pro-deforestation, climate change-denying president.
And that very same person, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has the power to stop them. But moving him to do so will require an enormous global outcry. This is why we need your voice right now:
Sign your name and demand that President Bolsonaro STOP these fires, STOP sacrificing conservation and Indigenous communities, and act to PROTECT this irreplaceable natural resource from any future harm.
NRDC will deliver your petition letters to Brazil's ambassador to the United Nations at their U.N. mission in New York City just before the U.N. General Assembly later this month.
Bolsonaro has been emphatic in his response to worldwide concern over the fires, saying that the "Amazon is Brazil's, not yours."
But what he won't acknowledge is that protecting the Amazon is good for Brazil and the planet. Bolsonaro's current policies are short-sighted. And right now, the raging fires are doing permanent damage, destroying irreplaceable biodiversity, and threatening Indigenous communities and lands.
Continued deforestation and burning could turn this lush rainforest that is critical to our survival into a savannah-like ecosystem, releasing unprecedented amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, permanently altering our planet's rainfall patterns, and further raising temperatures — all at a critical moment when we need bold climate action.
In the midst of the global climate crisis, we simply cannot afford to lose one of the world's largest carbon dioxide sinks or threaten its incredible biodiversity.
Send your urgent message now: Tell Brazilian President Bolsonaro to stop burning the Amazon — and throwing our planet into further climate crisis.
We all have a role to play in protecting the Amazon. For example, meat production is a major driver of Amazon destruction — one study found that over 60 percent of the cleared area in the Amazon is used for cattle grazing. So eating less meat will help protect this invaluable resource.
But right now we have an urgent need to ratchet up international pressure on President Bolsonaro to change course and safeguard the Amazon rainforest.
There is only one Amazon. And we have a responsibility — an obligation — as humans and as people who care about this incredibly vital biome to speak up when world leaders fail us.
For the sake of our survival and the survival of countless species, we need your voice now.
I've sent my own letter to Bolsonaro. Join me and millions of others in sending yours, too.
Got this email (wrongly in my Yahoo spam folder) and thought I would post it because I celebrated Constitution day here yesterday.
Today is Constitution Day, which is significant not only for my colleagues and me at Lambda Legal, but for every resident of our country who believes in equality and fairness for all.
My story is similar to that of many people who come to the United States – I am an immigrant whose family came here seeking opportunity and shelter from violence and persecution in India, where I was born.
But I believe in the Constitution. If we wield the power of the Constitution on behalf of people who have historically been denied their rights and equal treatment by governmental actors, it has the potential to be an incredible equalizer, one small step at a time. Importantly, a person needn’t have been born into privilege to wield its power.
From the best in the business of American's rights: https://support.lambdalegal.org
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 20 2019
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
Initial thoughts on the Great Austin Homelessness Debate
Yesterday, more than 150 people spoke to the Austin City Council on proposed revisions to their homeless decriminalization ordinance passed in June. (See initial MSM coverage here and here.) They won't finally vote until tomorrow, but here are a few initial thoughts: Despite the local media clambering onto the bandwagon of NIMBY opposition and the local GOP calling for re-criminalization, Austinites supporting decriminalization made up the majority of speakers. Those voices hadn't been portrayed much in local press coverage, but there were quite a few more of them than critics. Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/initial-thoughts-on-great-austin.html
Federal law protects people from discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, ability, and veteran status. But there's no federal law specifically barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. That means that in many states and jurisdictions LGBTQ+ Americans are threatened by unjust firings, evictions, and other discrimination without little - if any - legal recourse.
Earlier this year, the House passed the Equality Act, a sweeping bill that would prohibit anti-LGBTQ discrimination in all aspects of public and commercial life, without any religious exemptions. It is now up to the Senate to do the same!
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 22 2019
SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 | 12:30 PM
The officers grabbed me by the wrists and twisted my arms, then dragged me to the front yard and slammed me up against the brick house. I thought they were going to break my arm and I told them they were hurting me. The male officer responded, “Shut the hell up!”
I was handcuffed, then dragged across the concrete driveway, thrown onto the hood of the squad car, and searched. As my friends came up to ask why this was happening, the officers screamed at them, “Get back!”
The officers shoved me into the back of the squad car, punching and pushing my body. I gasped in pain as I sat awkwardly in the back seat, scared and stunned that this was happening. Not once did anyone tell me why I was being arrested or what I had done wrong.
SUPPORT CRYSTAL MASON ADD YOUR NAME
At this point, my right shoulder was in excruciating pain, my right knee was swollen, and I had swelling and cuts on both my wrists. I was taken to the Peoria County Jail, where I asked for medical attention, but was denied. I was held until 5:30 a.m. the next day, when they finally let my mother pick me up.
Later, I learned I had a torn labrum in my shoulder and an incapacitated wrist, which — combined — required three surgeries, steroid injections, and physical therapy over the next several years. My entire right side was immobilized and one doctor said that my injuries looked like what football players might have after years of being tackled.
Read more here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/being-black-not-crime-yuneks-story-police
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2019
Policing policy, forensic follies, the high cost of treating Hep C in prison, and other stories
Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention:
Lawsuit seeking Hep C treatment could come with BIG pricetag
More than 18,000 Texas prison inmates have been diagnosed with Hepatitis C - almost certainly an undercount since TDCJ does not do comprehensive testing - but only a tiny handful receive treatment. The Houston Chronicle reported on a new federal lawsuit demanding they receive treatment, which could cost up to $63,000 per person. See prior Grits coverage and video of testimony from 2014 regarding Hep C treatment in TDCJ.
Conservative think tank takes on police unions
In a significant development, the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation published a new report criticizing police unions for undermining police accountability reforms. In Texas, conservative politicians in the 21st century have largely kowtowed to these groups. Maybe the state's leading conservative think tank can convince them that's a bad approach. In related news, in St. Louis, prosecutors voted last December to join the local police union in response to the election of a new, reform-minded DA. This academic article makes the case that "This complete and public union of prosecutorial and police interests represents a collapse not only of prosecutorial ethical standards, but also a very real threat against democratically elected prosecutors who would seek to enact the reforms that their constituents desire."
Deep data dive for Big D and H-Town
The project by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and January Advisors to publish "data dashboards" for Harris and Dallas Counties' arrest, dismissal, and conviction information allows for important analyses that have never been possible before from publicly available data. They just published this overview of the project, which includes links to the dashboards and a description of what's there.
Handful of police-officer indictments in Dallas stand out
The Dallas DA's office has indicted four police officers for murder in three years, with two of them convicted. The trial for another, Amber Guyger, begins Monday. Notably, the indictments came under both Republican and Democratic District Attorneys. The Dallas News has a story describing how rare this is at other agencies. Even in Dallas, only one officer was indicted this year out of 50 (!) officer involved shootings taken to grand juries. Despite the rarity of such developments, the head of the local police union was quoted saying the indictments were evidence of anti-police bias.
DPS out of Dallas, with mixed reviews
The Department of Public Safety has ended its deployment in Dallas launched by the governor earlier this year. According to an item from the Houston Chronicle's Austin bureau, "The influx of state troopers drew criticism from some residents and a city councilman, who called for the operation’s end after hearing complaints that enforcement was unfairly targeting people of color, The Dallas Morning News reported. In August, two troopers fatally shot a Dallas man who the agency said pulled a handgun after a traffic stop, the News reported." Despite these criticisms, DPS Col. Steve McCraw declared the operation a success, declaring "Certainly there's been some that don't appreciate it, usually the ones that are arrested or have relatives arrested, and we understand that." That seems like an odd assertion when one of the most vocal critics is a city council member.
DNA analyst resigned over high-profile error
Grits had missed the news in August that a DNA examiner resigned at the Forensic Science Commission after a report by her employer found that she had testified incorrectly in a high-profile murder case in which a UT student was strangled, declaring the defendants' DNA could be excluded when that was not true. (She worked for DPS at the time she gave the testimony.) Though she told FSC investigators she "misspoke," she did so TEN times. The commission found that her error constituted professional "negligence," but not "misconduct." Whether or not there was any bad intention behind the mistake, it highlights the difficulties and pitfalls of interpreting DNA mixture evidence, which is more subjective and less definitive than one-to-one DNA matching.
Can refined patrol strategies free up more officer time
A criminologist at UT-Dallas developed an algorithm to help the Carrollton PD refine its patrol strategies so officers waste less time in their vehicles. Notably, the recent staffing study for Dallas PD similarly recommended refining patrol routes to free up officer time spent driving long distances.
Does EMS need tactical teams? Montgomery County thinks so
The Montgomery County Hospital District has created a tactical team to join local police on SWAT raids. One paramedic said he joined the team because "There was more of the excitement appeal."
Alternative to police response for mental health, homelessness, substance abuse
Regular readers know that Austin recently funded a new program to have medical personnel respond to some mental-health calls instead of police. At the same time, the city has been engulfed in a debate over how to confront homelessness. A program out of Oregon called CAHOOTS demonstrates an approach that could address both issues with a non-police response. Medical teams in a van respond to mental health crises and provide services to people suffering from substance abuse or homelessness, leaving law enforcement out of the equation. That's a great idea.
Okies boost parole rates
Parole rates in Oklahoma are up 41 percent from last year, and commutations (which previously almost never happened) are up 1,300 percent, reported the Tulsa World. Texas parole rates remain stagnant in recent years at around 35 percent. Most offenders in Texas prisons are parole-eligible and could be released today if the parole board agreed.
Policing practices parsed in Congress
The US House Judiciary Committee held a four-hour oversight hearing this week on policing practices. Watch it here.
The public's cognitive dissonance over forensic science
A new academic analysis finds that the public is losing faith in the accuracy of forensic science, but still believe forensics over other types of evidence. As evidence of this cognitive dissonance, "Respondents still believe that forensic evidence is a key part of a criminal case with nearly 40% of respondents believing that the absence of forensic evidence is sufficient for a prosecutor to drop the case and that the presence of forensic evidence, even if other forms of evidence suggest that the defendant is not guilty, is enough to convict the defendant." (Emphasis added.)
A new constituency for pot legalization?
Should convenience-store owners become marijuana legalization proponents? It might boost their sales. A academic analysis published in February found that legalizing recreational pot use resulted in increased junk food sales.
The eugenicist who gave us fingerprint identification
I didn't know that the original creator of fingerprint identification in the 19th century was also the enthusiastic progenitor of the eugenics movement. It doesn't sound like the fingerprint discipline has changed much since he first convinced Scotland Yard to undertake it.
The criminogenic effect of police stops on black and Latino boys
A study published in April found that "the frequency of police stops [of black and Latino teenage boys] predicted more frequent engagement in delinquent behavior 6, 12, and 18 mo later, whereas delinquent behavior did not predict subsequent reports of police stops." In other words, police stopping minority youth was predictive of future delinquency, but self-reported engagement in delinquency was NOT predictive of police stops! The implication is that proactive policing strategies like stop-and-frisk may actually cause juvenile crime instead of deterring it.
Read more and click on all the links here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/policing-policy-forensic-follies-high.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 25 2019
Got this cool email from NAACP:
Today, the federal government’s anti-terrorism efforts focus primarily on international terrorism threats. Yet as too many in our community know, the real threat to our happiness and well-being comes from domestic threats such as hate groups and violent right-wing extremists, among others; and those threats appear to be growing in strength and number.
H.R. 3106, the Domestic and International Terrorism DATA Act,which is scheduled to be considered on Wednesday, 9/25, would require an annual, unclassified joint report produced by the FBI and US Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Justice that provides, among other things, an assessment of domestic threats. H.R. 3106 will help to advance Congressional and public understanding of trends in terrorism, thereby enabling a better response.
WE MUST URGE EVERY MEMBER OF THE HOUSE TO SUPPORT THIS CRUCIAL LEGISLATION!
For more information on this crucial legislation, as well as how you can become an effective advocate, please review the attached Action Alert and take Fast Action on this important issue.
Hilary O. Shelton
Director, NAACP Washington Bureau/
SVP Advocacy & Policy
Email from Derrick Johnson of the NAACP (hey, I get a email I really like from NAACP; I'm posting it) :
Today (September 24) is National Voter Registration Day, so there’s no better time to ensure you’re registered to vote and mobilize your networks to do the same. We all have the power to make a difference in 2020, but the work has to begin now.
Next year is going to be a game-changing year for the Black community and we are shaping a new culture of voting by bringing the Black community together as a potent political force. Hundreds of elected officials, activists, and public figures have already joined our campaign, including Actor, Director and Activist, Larenz Tate.
From: Derrick Johnson
President and CEO
NAACP
Got this email from Ebay:
National Voter Registration Day is today and we are encouraging all Main Street Members to help their friends and family register to vote.
With over 500 elected positions in cities and states across the country up for grabs this November, it’s important that everyone exercise their right to vote. The outcome of these elections will shape day-to-day life across America.
Visit eBay Main Street’s Voting & Election Information tools to find election information, local voting centers, and to verify or start the voter registration process.
Thank you,
The eBay Government Relations Team
I found this:
National Voter Registration Day
National Voter Registration Day is a national holiday celebrating our democracy. It was first observed in 2012 and has been growing in popularity every year since. Held on the fourth Tuesday of September, National Voter Registration Day will take place on September 24, 2019. The holiday has been endorsed by the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS). It is further supported by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), and the National Association of Election Officials (The Election Center).
Got this awesome email from the ACLU (just renewed my membership 😃):
You're one of over 40,000 people who've signed our petition to stop the torturous execution of Russell "Rusty" Bucklew, who's set to die on October 1. You've got a stake in this fight, so we want to make sure you tune in LIVE today at 12:45pm ET to watch us tell his story at the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. (This link will take you to YouTube)
In the coming days, we'll keep you updated on the latest in Bucklew's case. Thanks again for your support in this fight against the death penalty.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 26 2019
One of our biggest current problems in assessing and responding to hate crimes is the incomplete collection of accurate hate crimes data. Among other things, the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault and Threats to Equality (No Hate) Act authorizes grants to promote and improve hate crime training, prevention, best practices, and data collection initiatives – and to develop state hate crime reporting hotlines to refer individuals to local law enforcement and support services.
To read more about what this legislation does and to find out how you can become an effective advocate, please see the attached Action Alert and take Fast Action.
Hilary O. Shelton
Click here to sign this awesome petition: https://support.naacp.org/onlineactions/JJCEiy1HgU6SJaTH6F-KoQ2
Federal: The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement Act
The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act (HR 3884 / S. 2227) is bipartisan legislation that removes marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, thus decriminalizing the substance at the federal level and enabling states to set their own policies. The Act would also allow the existing state-legal marijuana industry to no longer be barred from accessing financial services or standard tax treatment as every other legal business. Similarly, veterans will have better access to medical marijuana with VA doctors no longer risking federal prosecution for filling out state-legal medical recommendations.
Click here to sign this awesome petition https://norml.org/action-center/item/federal-the-marijuana-opportunity-reinvestment-and-expungement-act
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2019
The case for risk assessments despite allegations they are racist
Here's an unpopular take that I'll probably regret offering:
Grits finds himself a tad annoyed with well-intentioned liberals crowing from the rooftops that risk assessments in criminal justice fields are "racist," and wishes these debates allowed for more nuance.
While I agree that criminal-justice data skews to overstate risk for black folks, I don't necessarily agree that foregoing them achieves better outcomes. Judges making seat-of-the-pants decisions rely on the same discriminatory data, and incarcerate people of all races at greater rates than risk-assessments would dictate. Read more here: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-case-for-risk-assessments-despite.htmlConstitutional Rights Blog Updated September 27 2019
The Bringing an End to Harassment by Enhancing Accountability and Rejecting Discrimination in the Workplace Act is the first comprehensive federal legislation that would fix our broken laws for preventing workplace harassment and abuse.
Sign the petition now to protect workers and prevent workplace harassment by passing the BE HEARD in the Workplace Act.
Click here to sign: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/be-heard
BE HEARD
Working people have fought for years to address the power disparities and exploitative working conditions that have allowed harassment, assault, and discrimination to persist in the workplace. These movements for change have been led by courageous women who have for too long endured harassment and violence at work, including women of color, Indigenous women, immigrants, and women in low-wage jobs—who are especially impacted.
Now, with unprecedented national attention on the harm caused by sexual harassment and assault, we have an incredible opportunity to make meaningful, long-overdue legislative change. This bill would take a vast number of steps to prevent harassment, including by expanding legal protections to independent contractors and strengthening protections for LGBTQ workers.
We need a big movement to make sure that Congress acts to pass this bold new bill. Sign the petition to members of Congress now.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 28 2019
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2019
Podcast: Texas bail reform litigation, demagoguery on crime in Houston, and Grits' contribution to new TDCJ Hep C litigation
Here's the September 2019 episode of Just Liberty's Reasonably Suspicious podcast, co-hosted by Scott Henson and Amanda Marzullo. Special thanks to Scott Medlock, who's suing TDCJ over failure to adequately treat Hepatitis C. I didn't realize until he told me the idea from the suit originated from a Grits for Breakfast blog post several years ago! That's exciting. Here's this month's episode: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/09/podcast-bail-reform-litigation.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated September 29 2019
From: https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/womens-rights-workplace/its-time-end-forced-arbitration
It’s Time to End Forced Arbitration
SEPTEMBER 20, 2019 | 4:15 PM
Women's Rights in the WorkplaceWomen's Rights
If you own a credit card or a bank account, use a ride-sharing service, made an online purchase, or work in corporate America, chances are you have signed a forced arbitration agreement: a promise that, if any disputes arise between you and your employer or the business, you won’t sue. Hidden in the fine-print of a contract you may not even remember signing is language that says you’ve agreed, in advance, to give up your right go to court.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE COMING SUPREME COURT TERM (EP. 65)
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019
Another Supreme Court session is upon us, with the court set to reconvene in October following its summer recess. On the docket for the new session are cases that have important implications for LGBTQ rights, criminal justice, immigration, and more. David Cole, the legal director of the ACLU and an experienced Supreme Court litigator, joins At Liberty to preview the coming term.
or go here to download: https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_podcast_file/al19_david_cole_finalmix_v2.mp3
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated October 2 2019
Tuesday, October 01, 2019
Humpty Dumpty, the Castle Doctrine, and other stories
Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention:
Humpty Dumpty and the Castle Doctrine
The judge in former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger's murder trial for the shooting of Botham Jean gave the jury instructions on the Castle Doctrine defense, despite read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Death of trailblazing deputy raises difficult, familiar questions
The tragic shooting death of a Harris County Sheriff's deputy - a trail blazing figure who was the first Sikh to work in Harris County law enforcement - raises familiar questions with no satisfying answers. The alleged killer is a severely schizophrenic parolee who had gone read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Private jail operator keeps screwing up
At the Liberty County Jail, which is operated by the Geo Group, "In the last 60 days, there have been two felony escapes, one of their correctional officers was arrested for stealing from inmates read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
The economics of high probation fees
Check out a new article from our friend Todd Jermstad, probation director in Bell County, on the history and future of court-imposed fees at Texas probation departments. Especially interesting read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Bail litigation roundup
See a write-up from The Appeal of recent bail-litigation news, read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Over friggin' pot?
In Hutto, a police officer responding to a call that someone was smoking marijuana beat up a man in his driveway and made false accusations in official documents to justify it. read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Homelessness problems and solutions
In the wake of Austin's tendentious debate over homeless policy, I was interested to see this excellent New Republic article on "housing insecurity in the nation's richest cities." read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
How police misconduct gets covered up by plea bargaining
Here's an excellent analysis from Brooklyn public defender Scott Hechinger of how mandatory minimums and the threat of long sentences help cover up police misconduct that would otherwise come out in court. read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Financial motive not only reason prosecutors oppose actual-innocence claims
The New York Times published a feature on falsely convicted people who've been exonerated by the evidence but cannot secure an "actual innocence" ruling because prosecutors fear the financial consequences of civil rights lawsuits read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Sheriffs and #cjreform
Our pal Jessica Pishko published a New York Times op ed on Sheriff's offices, declaring "The problem of sheriffs is particularly acute in the South and Southwest, where the office read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Deep thinking on sex-offender policies
A recent NY Times piece examined emerging research on people who are sexually attracted to minors, finding that its roots are not genetic, but are "prenatal," and "can be traced to specific periods of development in the womb." read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
Most crime dropping nationally, but look at those rape numbers!
New Uniform Crime Report data is out, and most categories of crime have continued to fall, except rape, which has risen precipitously since 2014. See first-cut analyses from the Brennan Center and the Marshall Project. read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/humpty-dumpty-castle-doctrine-and-other.html
A petition by EBay:
Right now, there is a proposal in Washington that could hurt American small businesses and consumers who buy and sell online: lowering the “de minimis” customs threshold. Lowering the de minimis would raise costs and put in place unnecessary red tape, hurting small businesses and consumers alike. This proposal would impede the ability of US small businesses to readily accept international returns and compete with international firms in the global marketplace. But you can help! We encourage you to take advantage of our easy-to-use tools to write a letter and tweet at your legislators to stop this harmful proposal.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated October 4 2019
In the coming days, you are going to hear a lot of legal analysis about the meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the federal law prohibiting employment discrimination.
But as a practical matter, the issue boils down to whether the Supreme Court will carve LGBTQ people out of a federal law that would otherwise protect us from losing our jobs because of who we are or who we love.
Rick, we are in the midst of one of the biggest fights of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. The civil rights and livelihood of millions of LGBTQ workers are at risk.
As some of the foremost strategists on antidiscrimination law, our legal experts break down what you need to know about how we got here, and what happens next.
You can read up on everything Title VII with the latest Lambda Legal series, Sex and the Supreme Court, here: http://support.lambdalegal.org/site/R?i=N4tPytyVyb7X_nvpeqgcIA
Sign now to tell Congress: Protect workers and prevent workplace harassment by passing the BE HEARD in the Workplace Act
Target: All Members of Congress
The Bringing an End to Harassment by Enhancing Accountability and Rejecting Discrimination (BE HEARD) in the Workplace Act is the first comprehensive federal legislation that would fix our broken laws to prevent workplace harassment and abuse—and ensure all of us are protected from harassment on the job, no matter who we are or where we work.
The BE HEARD in the Workplace Act would bring us much closer to the world we all deserve, where all of us can work with equality, safety, and dignity on the job.
Working people have fought for years to address the power disparities and exploitative working conditions that have allowed harassment, assault, and discrimination to persist in the workplace.
These movements for change have been led by courageous women who have for too long endured harassment and violence at work, including women of color, Indigenous women, immigrants, and women in low-wage jobs—who are especially impacted.
Now, with unprecedented national attention on the harm caused by sexual harassment and assault, we have an incredible opportunity to make meaningful, long-overdue legislative change.
Here’s what the BE HEARD in the Workplace Act will do to prevent and address all forms of workplace harassment and discrimination:
For the first time, expand anti-harassment and civil rights protections to all working people, including workers at small businesses, independent contractors, unpaid interns, volunteers, and trainees.
Make it indisputable that all LGBTQ+ workers are protected from harassment and discrimination.
Require employers to take steps to prevent harassment on the job.
Ensure that employers can’t prevent victims of harassment from talking about their experiences, by limiting the use of nondisclosure agreements and forced arbitration.
Reject decisions by some courts that groping by a coworker isn’t serious enough to be harassment if it only happens once.
Ensure that people who experience sexual harassment at work can access the same financial remedies as people who experience racial harassment at work.
Ensure people who get tips, like servers, are paid at least the same minimum wage as other workers, so tipped workers don’t have to put up with harassment from customers as the price of making a living.
And much more.
This bill will benefit working people nationwide, across all industries and occupations. It’s what we all deserve.
We’ve come so far, and we need an even bigger movement to make sure that Congress acts to pass this bold new bill. Together, let’s end workplace harassment and discrimination. Please sign the petition to members of the U.S. Congress now. Sign this petition here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/be-heard
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 03, 2019
Initial thoughts on the Amber Guyger verdict
Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger's murder conviction and ten year prison sentence raises so many conflicted emotions! Here are Grits' initial thoughts on the trial and the outcome:
Abuse of power by police union prez should be punished, forbidden going forward
Maybe what stood out to me most was the role of Dallas police union president Mike Mata. He showed up at the scene of the shooting, sequestered Guyger from police investigators, and gave orders to cops on the scene to turn off cameras and mics in the police car where she was sitting - which they followed! Mata is a police sergeant, not an attorney, and had no legal authority to keep Guyger from being questioned or recorded. His actions corrupted the process from the beginning. Outside of a defendant's attorney, no other third party would be allowed to do this, but Mata misused his sergeant's rank to protect her. He should be disciplined or fired for this abuse of authority, and the department should establish rules to prevent it from happening again. Read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/initial-thoughts-on-amber-guyger-verdict.html
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated October 5 2019
On Tuesday, the Court will hear three major LGBTQ civil rights cases that could decide how federal non-discrimination laws apply to LGBTQ people. In each case, a worker was fired –– not because of their performance or work ethic, but because they are part of the LGBTQ community.
The decision made in these cases will impact millions of LGBTQ people across the country, so it’s important that you stay in the know.
In the meantime, check out our explainer infographic and share it with friends –– it breaks down what this case is all about and why the decision will be so significant to us.
Supreme Court infographic
Download the full version of this infographic:
GET THE INFOGRAPHIC: https://assets2.hrc.org/files/documents/Scotus-100319FNL-downloadable.pdf
No one deserves to be denied a job or fired simply because of who they are or whom they love, period.
I’ll personally be monitoring the Court closely in the months ahead for you and all our HRC members and supporters.
Constitutional Rights Blog Updated October 6 2019
The Historic Trans Rights Case Before the Supreme Court
tober 8, the Supreme Court will hear a set of cases deciding whether LGBTQ employees are protected under federal sex discrimination laws. In one of those cases, the ACLU is representing Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman who was fired after she came out to her employer. Chase Strangio, one of Aimee's lawyers and deputy director of the ACLU's LGBT and HIV Project, discusses the stakes of the case on the latest episode of At Liberty. Listen here → https://www.aclu.org/podcast/historic-trans-rights-case-supreme-court-ep-67Constitutional Rights Blog Updated October 8 2019
MONDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2019
Parole policies the key to substantial prisoner reductions in Texas The goal of cutting prison populations by 50 percent has been poo pooed by some as a pipe dream, but for Texas it seems conceivable.
As Grits has previously pointed out, the overall footprint of Texas' criminal justice system has declined significantly in recent years, with the proportion of people in prison, jail, on probation and on parole declining by a whopping 46 percent. In 2008, one in 22 Texas adults were in prison, jail, on probation or on parole; by 2018, that had declined to one in 41.
Read more here: https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/10/parole-policies-key-to-substantial.html
