The New Civil Rights Movement did some digging and found web archive of Mike Pence's 2000 Congressional campaign website. It turns out that even back then Pence was staunchly anti-gay.
The thing about bigots is they are cowards and will never have the conviction to stand by their principles. Pence may try to run away from his anti-gay positions but the internet will archive everything.
Pussy Galore have released have released their first English language song I Can't Breathe. The song is a tribute to Eric Garner. The death of Garner became a huge civil rights and police brutality issue after Garner died during his arrest.
New York City medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide.
Eric Garner, 43, died after being placed in a chokehold that caused him to suffer neck and chest compressions during his arrest two weeks ago in the Tompkinsville section of Staten Island, according to findings released by the New York City medical examiner’s office. Garner’s weight, chronic asthma and cardiovascular disease were listed as contributing factors.
A grand jury choose not to indict the officers involved in Garner's arrest.
Via Right Wing Watch: Rep. Ted Yoho wants to bring back the the voting restriction of only property owners being allowed to vote.
“I’ve had some radical ideas about voting and it’s probably not a good time to tell them, but you used to have to be a property owner to vote,” he said to applause.
In 1790, only white male property owners were allowed to vote. So if you are a woman or a minority you are shit out of luck if Ted Yoho ever becomes President. Judging by the fact that Yoho is speaking to a nearly empty church, I doubt we have to worry about Yoho becoming President anytime soon.
I wonder if the tax cut loving Yoho would support Florida bringing back the poll tax. USF political science Darryl Paulson outlines the laws made by whites in the 19th century to deny blacks the right to vote.
By 1876, Reconstruction was over, and Florida politicians would adopt many provisions to eliminate black voting. The Sunshine State would "legally" eliminate black votes without violating the 19th Amendment. Between laws passed by the Legislature and the adoption of the 1885 Constitution, almost every black vote was eliminated.
Florida, like every one of the former Confederate states, adopted a white primary, grandfather clause, poll tax, literacy test, long residency requirements and other obstacles to black voters. It was a virtual fail-safe system. If one barrier failed, there would always be another to stop them from voting.
In audio recorded by an audience member and posted on YouTube, Yoho can be heard telling the crowd that the issue of President Obama’s birth certificate was a “distraction” from topics like the national debt, he said he was hopeful that a birther investigation could bring down the whole government: “They said if it is true, it’s illegal, he shouldn’t be there and we can get rid of everything he’s done, and I said I agree with that.”
Still doubt Yoho holds racist views? Yoho told a black constituent that he isn't sure if the Civil Rights Act is constitutional.
FLOURNOY: Do you think that any part of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 [sic], do you think any part of that is constitutional? And then if you’d discuss why. [...]
YOHO: This country grew through a lot of growing pain. We’re going through it again. As we grow as a country and prosper, we’re going to go through it again in the future. That’s why I’m so thankful for the Constitution because it allows us to do that. Is it constitutional, the Civil Rights Act? I wish I could answer that 100 percent. I know a lot of things that were passed are not constitutional, but I know it’s the law of the land.
Keep this in mind when Yoho asks why black voters aren't Republicans.
If there is any doubt about the tea party being more about social conservative issues than fiscal issues look no further than this email by Danita Kilcullen of the Tea Party Fort Lauderdale. Kilcullen sent an email describing Log Cabin Republicans as "a thug organization.
“We must fight with all we have... We must put pressure on the House like has never been seen before. I'll be damned if I will ever be forced to hire someone with orange hair, body/neck/face covered with tattoos, multiple piercings, or a man in a dress... or for that matter, a demonstrative effeminate male or purposeful butch-looking female. The Log Cabins are the same lobbyist organization that has all but taken over BREC; and besides that, we have someone on the Board of BREC who is using her position to openly put pressure on some BREC members to stand for same-sex marriage.
This is the same group who, based on nothing other than his recent stand for gay marriage, supports Chris Christie and who publicly worked against Cuccinelli for his stand for traditional marriage. Keep in mind, this is a thug organization with only their own "special interests" in play. I wonder what they will do with democrat Charlie Crist now running for governor? I'm betting on them to vote for Charlie, along with some other mousey republicans. I will now be accused of 'splitting' BREC. I am not! I am in standing with the Republican Platform, which is what I stated the very night I was sworn-on to BREC. We must stop this in short!
The irony of Kilcullen's "thug" quote is she was arrested in 2011 on the charge of kicking a police officer. Welcome to the Republican Party of 2013.
Florida Senate Democrats honored Sen. Arthenia Joyner for her part in the civil rights movement. Fifty years ago, Joyner was arrested for protesting the segregation policy of the whites-only Florida Theater. Joyner gives an emotional speech about how difficult it was for blacks in a segregated Florida in 1963.
The Obama administration has faced criticism that they have no plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. President Barack Obama campaigned on closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Obama has been blocked by both parties in Congress from closing Gitmo.
Candidate Obama was asked on 60 Minutes if he would use the power of executive order to close Gitmo. Obama said yes. Obama has never been the wisest tactician. The Senate voted to block funding for transfers of Gitmo prisoners. The vote was held on May 20, 2009. Obama should have just moved the prisoners when he came into office.
The Obama administration's secret plan really isn't that secret. A two page memo really isn't much of a plan. It does cast a lot of blame on Congress. Much of that blame is deserved.
Prosecution and Detention. The U.S. Government will prosecute detainees in federal courts or military commission proceedings to the extent feasible and in the national security interest. The President has directed the Department of Defense to identify a site in the United States for military commission proceedings. But current law bars the transfer of detainees to the United States for any reason. As a result, the Government is prohibited from prosecuting any detainees in a military commission in the United States or in a federal court, even if it represents the best – or only – option for bringing a detainee to justice. This is true even though the Government has successfully prosecuted more than 490 terrorism-related cases in federal courts since 9/11. For those not prosecuted, the Administration will use the PRB process to regularly and carefully review the threat posed by detainees and, where
appropriate, they will be designated for transfer.
The leaked secret plan. It really isn't a secret plan if the memo lists prisoner policies the Obama administration has been pushing for and that this secret plan was handed to the media by White House staffers.
Obama's Speech For March On Washington’s 50th Anniversary
On foreign policy and economic issues, President Barack Obama has given some terrible speeches. On civil rights Obama shines and reminds us of the candidate he was in 2008.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes interviewed Phillip Agnew, Executive Director of Dream Defenders.
Agnew on the Dream Defenders meeting with Gov. Rick Scott.
Thank you for having me again, and i think it was symbolic. I think it was an opportunity, of course, to open up a dialogue, but the governor the benefit of Monday or Tuesday and Wednesday of last week to hear on a number of outlets what our demands were, and so a meeting to further discuss our demands and then to tell us, no, must be symbolic and indicative of what he has determined to be his plan of action moving forward. So, yeah, i do, I think it's a way forward, a beginning of a way forward, but as I said last week, our people and people from around the country have encouraged us to stay. We're determined to stay because we believe that we have a plan to win.
Agnew tells Hayes that the Dream Defenders will stay in the capital until Scott calls a a special session to repeal the "Stand Your Ground" law.
This is a disturbing graph. Texas has more executions than Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida and Missouri combined. Texas is set to execute its 500th inmate. The details of the murder committed by Kimberly McCarthy are gruesome. I am not arguing that she is a saint. However, the reinstatement of the death penalty was suppose to lower the murder rate. There is no evidence that the death penalty prevents murder. There is also the question of how many innocent men are women have been executed. Anthony Graves is the perfect example. Grave was wrongly sentenced to death by the state of Texas. His charges were dismissed in 2010.
Graves wrote this op-ed. Graves details the brutal conditions in the Texas prison system.
The jury had already convicted me of murdering six people and burning their house down to cover up the crime. I was completely innocent: they had the wrong guy. I was scared of dying for a crime I did not commit, but I knew I was innocent and hoped someone, somewhere would make it right.
What I didn't know then was that this wrongful death sentence was only part of the torture I would experience for the next 18 1/2 years. I didn't know that I would be forced to live in an 8-foot, by 12-foot cage. I didn't know I would have to use a steel toilet, connected to my steel sink, in plain view of the male and female corrections officers who would walk the runs in front of my cell. I didn't know that for years on end I would have no physical contact with a single human being.
I didn't know that guards would feed me like a dog, through a slot in my door. Instead of providing basic nutrients, the food sometimes contained rat feces, broken glass or the sweat of the inmate who cooked it. This diet caused me health problems that continue today.
The prison gave me no phone to call my loved ones, no television to keep up with the world and local events, and no real medical care. I lived behind a steel door, with filthy mesh-covered windows looking out to the run.
Ask yourself if wrongly imprisoning Graves and sentencing him to die prevented one murder.
Progressive activist and comic book fan Elana Brooklyn tweets that Rep. John Lewis is about to become a comic book hero.
Civil Rights hero Rep John Lewis has a #graphicnovel coming out about the movement. We have a sneak peak @GraphicPolicy Radio
I am guessing that the graphic novel will likely feature Lewis' years as a civil rights activist. Here is Danny Glover reading Lewis' speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
"All I was doing was trying to get home from work."
Rosa Parks.
No person of color will ever have to give up their bus seat because of the courage of Rosa Parks.
Via Gawker: TSA agents at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport put a dying woman at risk of infection by making her peel back her bandages and puncturing her saline bags.
Michelle Dunaj is dying of leukemia. Dunaj was denied a private screening. She was forced to have her skirt be lifted up publicly.
"I asked them if they thought that was an appropriate location, and they told me that everything was fine," she said.
KOMO News has a video interview with Dunaj.
For the record: passengers have the right to request to be screened in a private room. TSA denied Dunaj her right.
Video of the Trayvon Martin rally held in Samford, Florida yesterday. Protesters marched from a local church to the Sanford police station. The protesters called for the resignation of Police Chief Bill Lee. In an effort to keep his job, Lee temporarily resigned. Lee is kidding himself, if he thinks he can keep his job.
T-shirts calling for the arrest of George Zimmerman were seen at the rally. I'm not sure if this is an act of protest or a vender making money off of a tragedy.
In what will come as a shock to one. Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos will not have a special committee to examine Martin's death, and the Stand Your Ground law.
UPDATE: Senate President Mike Haridopolos also says “no” to a special committee on the use of the “stand your ground” law.
“The Senate President feels that Governor Scott is currently taking all of the appropriate steps to address the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin. Additionally, the Senate President is confident that the circumstances surrounding this shooting will be closely examined by lawmakers, and if the Senate concludes that laws need to be revised they will be addressed in the future,” Haridopolos’s spokeswoman Lyndsey Cruley said in an e-mail.
Haridopolos was forced to drop out of the U.S. Senate race because of his shady book deal. Haridopolos' book for Breward Community College had the appearance of a payoff to Haridopolos for school funding. Haridopolos also was admonished by the by the Commission of Ethics. Haridopolos failed to disclose his consulting firm's business. The interesting thing was Haridopolos was the only employee with MJH Consulting Company. The clients of MJH often lobbied the Florida legislature. Haridopolos was getting paid by people lobbying the Florida legislature.
Haridopolos won't have a special committee for Martin, unless there is something in it for him.
Occupy Tampa Protesting the National Defense Authorization Act
Sen Carl Levin said on the floor of the Senate that President Barack Obama asked Congress to write language into the National Defense Authorization Act that would give the President the power to detain people indefinitely without a trial. The military will have the power to detain United State citizens on American soil.
In the video, Levin says that the President asked that the language to exclude United States citizens from detention by the military on U.S. soil.
LEVIN: The administration asked us to remove the language which says U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section. Is the Senator familiar with the fact that it was the administration asked us to remove the very language which we had in the bill? Which passed the committee, and that we removed it at the request of the administration...
How much clearer can Levin be?
Here is the language in the bill that allows for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens.
The language in the bill says "indefinite detention." According to Levin, the Obama administration objected to the language that would have legally protected the Fifth amendment rights of American citizens.
Amendment 5
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The Iraq war is officially over. We have a timetable to leave Afghanistan. Exactly how does President Obama and Congress justify holding U.S citizens without due process?
Update: Occupy Tampa will protest in Ybor City at 5 o’clock at Centro Ybor today. WMNF has a report on the upcoming protest.
Breast cancer survivor Cathy Bossi went through a humiliating body search conducted by T.S.A. agents. Bossi was forced to remove for bra in front of agents.
She says two female Charlotte T.S.A. agents took her to a private room and began what she calls an aggressive pat down. She says they stopped when they got around to feeling her right breast… the one where she'd had surgery.
Pat-down Backlash: Child groped during pat-down? What are the rules?
"She put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?'. And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that'."
Cathy was asked to show her prosthetic breast, removing it from her bra.
"I did not take the name of the person at the time because it was just so horrific of an experience, I couldn't believe someone had done that to me. I'm a flight attendant. I was just trying to get to work."
The original goal of the T.S.A. screenings was to make flying safer from potential terrorist attacks. What we are seeing now is citizens being humiliated and having legally questionable searches conducted on their bodies. People have had enough of having to be accosted in airports.
John Mica is the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. A CBS News story reports that Mica is a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration. That is interesting considering that Mica's committee oversees TSA. Mica also crafted the legislation that created TSA. It is interesting that Mica is an opponent of something he helped create.
Mica is using the TSA controversy to privatize TSA. This would personally benefit Mica and his campaign contributors.
Companies that could gain business if airports heed Mica's call have helped fill his campaign coffers. In the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports.
What is interesting is Mica has written no legislation requiring people traveling on private planes to go through screenings, no showing of ID and patdowns.
Mica was at the forefront of the legislative effort to create the Transportation Security Administration. He placed the risks associated with private air travel in the context of an entire spectrum of risk. In other words, he reminded me, the United States has more urgent vulnerabilities than spring flights aboard Cessnas.
"We're concerned," Mica told me, "but you can't protect yourself against every single small aircraft or every vehicle. So you look at the biggest risk, the terrorist plot that can do the most damage. They're not interested in taking out a few folks, as we've seen. They're interested in taking out thousands and doing a lot of psychological damage, which also affects our economic stability. Again, you just can't protect yourself against every eventuality."
Short version: Mica isn't going to require wealthy people go through intrusive patdowns or long waits. Mica's reasoning is "but you can't protect yourself against every single small aircraft or every vehicle." If Mica really feels that way then why even have screenings.
Unlike Glenn Reynolds, Ron Paul actually sounds like a civil libertarian on privacy issues. I'm not a Paul supporter. Paul does make a compelling argument on the stupidity of the TSA x-rays and pat downs. Paul rightly argues if you or I tried to take photos or grope people we would be arrested.
The New York Times has called Joe Arpaio "America's worst Sheiff." Arpaio certainly qualifies as the strangest after he tweeted that he gave Sarah Palin pink undies. The Justice Department is suing Arpaio for violating civil rights of Hispanics. Arpaio has publicly stated he will not cooperate with the Justice Department investigation. U.S. District Judge Neil Wake ruled that Arpaio's Maricopa County, Arizona jail failed to meet the medical and mental health of the inmates. Arpaio was serving spoiled food to the inmates. Judge Wake ruled the conditions of the jail were unconstitutional.
Arpaio just gets weird by giving Sarah Palin pink undies. Arpaio announced this on Twitter. These is the same underwear Arpaio makes his male inmates wear in order to humiliate them.
Proper etiquette would dictate not given Palin underwear. Arpaio doesn't seem to respect women, the constitution or humane treatment of others. What amazes me is Palin accepted this gift from this clown. If Palin was a real feminist she would have told Arpaio she could not accept his bizarre gift.
The Democratic National Committee has a new civil rights web site. John Aravosis has voiced his displeasure. There is nothing from the DNC about protecting the 14th amendment rights and citizenship of Hispanic children born in America. Nothing on gay marriage. Instead, the Democratic Party proposes civil unions. Courts will strike down civil unions for the same reason Jim Crow era "separate but equal" laws were ruled unconstitutional. All laws are to be imposed equally for all Americans. We can't create different laws for different groups of people. It is illegal and morally wrong.
Below is the DNC's new civil rights platform. I don't see this exciting the base.
* Strengthening the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to better protect voting rights;
* Enacting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which includes measures prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity;
* Ensuring full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples;
* Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security;
* Ending racial, ethnic, and religious profiling; and
* Building a fair and more equitable criminal justice system that provides non-violent offenders a second chance at a rehabilitated life.
The thing about bigots is they are cowards and will never have the conviction to stand by their principles. Pence may try to run away from his anti-gay positions but the internet will archive everything.
