Tuesday, April 09, 2013 11:57:26 PM
Rick Perry Speculates Mexican Drug Cartels, Unsecured Border Behind Texas DA Killing
Posted: 04/05/2013 5:35 pm EDT
It doesn’t take evidence for this Texas governor to start leaning toward a conclusion.
News reports suggest a white supremacist group called the Aryan Brotherhood may be connected to the murders of Texas District Attorney Mike McLelland, his wife Cynthia Woodward and Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse.
But when Fox News asked Perry on Wednesday about the murders [ http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/rick-perry-border-security-texas-da-murders-89596.html ], he speculated that Mexican drug cartels and border security problems were behind the killings, saying:
We know the drug cartels are very, very active in our country now… I would suggest to you, it is really at the heart of this issue. You secure the border, then it makes it harder for these individuals to have access into this country as well as it addresses this whole issue that's hanging out on immigration.
Police haven’t named suspects yet [ http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/05/17614794-second-texas-man-charged-with-making-terroristic-threat-after-das-killing ].
Under fire for his foundation-less ramblings, Perry walked back the comments the following day at a press conference.
“It is very premature to be making any statements about who may or may not have been involved with this,” Perry said Thursday.
Perry did, however, try to save some face by adding: “There was a report by the Texas Department of Public Safety that said the greatest threat to Texas safety were the drug cartels.”
The Texas governor has offered a $200,000 reward for information for that leads to the arrest of the killers, according to NBC News.
By many measures, the border is more secure than it has been in decades [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/6-misconceptions-about-mexico-border-illegal-immigration_n_2759479.html ]. More than 20,000 Border Patrol agents are stationed on the border now -- about twice as many as there were in 2004.
*
Related
Republican Immigration Stance May Threaten GOP Dominance In Arizona
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/republicans-immigration_n_3008382.html
Joe Walsh On Immigration: Democrats Support Path To Citizenship Only To Get Votes
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/joe-walsh-immigration_n_3015773.html [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqOlIO095E0 , embedded]
Lindsey Graham: 'The Politics Of Self-Deportation Are Behind Us'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/07/lindsey-graham-immigration-self-deportation_n_3033044.html
*
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/rick-perry-speculates-mexican-drug-cartels-da-killing_n_3023656.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Two white supremacists sought in probe of Colorado prison chief's slaying
Thomas Guolee, 31, is seen in an undated handout photo from the Colorado Department of Corrections. Guolee and James Lohr, 47, are being sought in connection with the killing of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements, who was shot at the door of his home last month.
Credit: Reuters/Colorado Department of Corrections/Handout
DENVER | Thu Apr 4, 2013 9:12am EDT
(Reuters) - Colorado authorities probing the killing of the state's prisons chief, who was shot at the door of his home last month, were seeking two members of a white supremacist prison gang in connection with the case, a sheriff's spokesman said on Wednesday.
The men being sought were known associates of a gang called the 211 Crew and were considered armed and dangerous, said Lieutenant Jeff Kramer, a spokesman for Colorado's El Paso County Sheriff's Office. Kramer named them as James Franklin Lohr, 47, and Thomas James Guolee, 31.
Authorities have blamed the killing of prisons chief Tom Clements on white supremacist former convict Evan Spencer Ebel, who died in a roadside gun battle with police in Texas on March 21 after a high-speed chase.
Authorities have said Ebel, a member of the 211 Crew, was also a suspect in the killing of pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon in the Denver area two days before Clements was shot dead when he answered the door at his home 45 miles south of Denver.
In the wake of the killings, Colorado authorities have said Ebel, 28, had skipped out on his parole on an assault conviction days before the slayings, and that he had been mistakenly released from prison in January - four years early - due to a clerical error.
Kramer said the names of Lohr and Guolee surfaced during the Clements investigation but that they were not suspects in the death. Authorities have issued an "officer safety BOLO" - or "be on the lookout" - alert for the pair, Kramer said.
He added that the two were also wanted on warrants unrelated to the case, and the department had unconfirmed information that they could be headed for Nevada or Texas.
Authorities have said they were looking for ties between the murder of Clements and the January slaying of Mark Hasse, a prosecutor in the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office. Kaufman County is east of Dallas.
The January 31 murder of Hasse occurred on the same day that the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office was among the agencies involved in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist group.
On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found with fatal gunshot wounds at their home near the Texas town of Fourney.
(Reporting By Keith Coffman; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Peter Cooney and Will Dunham)
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/04/us-usa-colorado-shooting-idUSBRE93304Q20130404 [no comments yet]
--
Associate of suspected Colorado killer arrested
From Jim Spellman, CNN
updated 10:37 AM EDT, Sat April 6, 2013
(CNN) -- Colorado Springs police have arrested a man whom authorities want to question in relation to the March shooting death of prison chief Tom Clements.
James Lohr, described by police as a member of a white supremacist prison gang, is an associate of Evan Ebel, the man suspected of killing Clements, Lt. Jeff Kramer of the El Paso County, Colorado, sheriff's office said.
Lohr had three outstanding arrest warrants unrelated to the Clements investigation, and it was not immediately clear whether he is facing new charges.
Lohr is scheduled to receive a court advisement via video in El Paso County on Monday afternoon. Arrested after a police chase, Lohr is facing accusations of felony vehicular eluding and three traffic offenses -- reckless driving, speeding and failing to obey a traffic control devise, the sheriff's office said.
Authorities also recovered a gun allegedly thrown from Lohr's vehicle during the chase. A business surveillance video caught a man picking up the firearm. It was turned in to law enforcement to be used as evidence, Kramer said.
In addition to Lohr, police were on the lookout for another Ebel associate, Thomas Guolee, 31.
Meanwhile, authorities were questioning another two people associated with Ebel, whom a source close to the investigation declined to name.
Police want to question Lohr and Guolee -- whom police described as associates of the white supremacist 211 Crew gang -- in relation to the death of Clements. Ebel, the man suspected of shooting the chief, was also a 211 Crew member. He died in a shootout with Texas deputies.
The other two men, brought in for questioning in recent days by El Paso County authorities, are also 211 Crew members, the source said. Both associated with Ebel in the days before Clements' death, the source said, and at least one is a parolee.
Authorities have also served a search warrant related to one of them, the source said. The source declined to say what the warrant named.
Investigators have said they were looking into whether Ebel might have conspired with other inmates to kill Clements.
Clements was widely recognized for cracking down on prison gangs, including the 211 Crew.
Ebel also is suspected in the killing of part-time pizza deliveryman Nathan Leon.
Authorities have speculated Ebel might have killed Leon for his uniform so he could use it as a disguise in the killing of Clements, who was gunned down on March 19 after he opened his front door.
Due to a clerical error, Ebel had been released early on parole, which he later violated.
He had been sentenced to eight years in prison in 2005 for armed robbery. In 2008, he was sentenced to another four years -- to be served consecutively -- for punching a prison guard.
Two days after Clements was killed, Ebel died in northern Texas in a gun battle with authorities that left a sheriff's deputy wounded.
CNN's Mayra Cuevas and Cristy Lenz contributed to this report.
*
Related
Questions haunt prisons chief slaying case
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/05/us/colorado-ebel-killings/index.html
Exclusive: Anger 'won't bring him back:' Wife of slain prisons chief
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/us/colorado-prisons-chief-wife/index.html
Two men questioned as manhunt continues
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/us/colorado-prison-chief-killing/index.html
*
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/05/us/colorado-prison-chief-killing/index.html [with embedded video reports, and comments]
--
Dudley Brown, Colorado Gun Rights Lobbyist, Says Next Election Is 'Time To Hunt Democrats'
04/03/2013
[...]
"I liken it to the proverbial hunting season," Brown said. "We tell gun owners, 'There's a time to hunt deer. And the next election is the time to hunt Democrats.' "
[...]
Dudley Brown speaks out on gun control at the Liberty Political Action Conference on Sept. 15, 2012:
--
No place for threats, intimidation in American political discourse
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 3, 2013
Rachel Maddow contrasts the intimidation tactics of gun rights advocates with the activism of gun safety advocates like Nicole Hockley, mother of Sandy Hook Elementary victim Dylan Hockley, and emphasizes that political differences in America are not settled with arms for intimidation or otherwise.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51423589 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/03/17590835-links-for-the-43-trms (with comments)]
--
Connecticut poised to pass sweeping gun reforms
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 3, 2013
Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy talks with Rachel Maddow about the gun legislation on the verge of passing in his state, including its unusual focus on ammunition, and the political pressures Connecticut legislators faced in developing the new laws.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51423590 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/03/17590835-links-for-the-43-trms (with comments)]
--
Defying extremist threats, clinic reopens with community support
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 4, 2013
Julie Burkhart of the Trust Women Foundation talks with Rachel Maddow about re-opening Dr. George Tiller's women's health clinic in Wichita, Kansas, and how she deals with the threats and intimidation from the vocal minority of anti-abortion extremists in the community.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51436351 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/04/17607617-links-for-the-44-trms (with comments)] [and see e.g. (linked in) "Del. Dwyer admits to drinking in Arundel boating accident - Magothy River accident injured six others, including children", http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-08-23/news/bs-md-ar-boat-accident-20120822_1_natural-resources-police-dnr-police-boat , and "Drunky Maryland Pol: Gay Marriage Crashed That Boat, Injured That 5-Year-Old Girl", http://wonkette.com/497025/drunky-maryland-pol-gay-marriage-crashed-that-boat-injured-that-5-year-old-girl (with comments)]
--
Senate GOP embarrasses US on world stage again
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 4, 2013
In teasing an upcoming segment about Republican indulgence of absurd conspiracy theories getting in the way of US foreign policy and global leadership, Rachel Maddow reviews the previous instance in which this was the case.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51436423 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/04/17607617-links-for-the-44-trms (with comments)]
--
Conspiracy paranoia infiltrates Senate GOP, undermines US global authority
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 4, 2013
Rachel Maddow reports on how Senate Republicans in the grips of right-wing conspiracy theorists are again getting in the way of U.S. leadership in the world and putting America in the company of Iran, Syria, and North Korea in opposing a new UN treaty.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51436641 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/04/17607617-links-for-the-44-trms (with comments)]
--
Man With [Rifle-Like] BB Gun Arrested Near Obama's Motorcade
04/09/13 08:30 AM ET EDT
BLOOMFIELD, Conn. — Police in Connecticut say they arrested a man who pulled out a rifle-like BB gun as President Barack Obama's motorcade passed by him.
Authorities say the man was pacing back and forth and then pulled out the gun Monday as the motorcade went by in Bloomfield while returning to Bradley International Airport, after the president gave a speech on gun control at the University of Hartford.
Bloomfield police have not released the man's name or the charges against him.
Police say officers noticed the man acting suspiciously and took him into custody by force when he pulled out the gun.
The man is expected to be arraigned in Hartford Superior Court on Tuesday.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/man-with-bb-gun-arrested_n_3043890.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Mike Huckabee: Comparing Obama Gun Agenda To Nazism Isn't 'Crazy,' It's 'True'
04/04/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/mike-huckabee-obama-nazi_n_3015242.html [with embedded audio, and comments]
--
Larry Pratt, Gun Owners Of America Chief, Suggests 'Angry Liberals Should Not Have Guns'
04/03/2013
--
Charles Krauthammer Stuns Fox News Panel Into Silence With Obama Comments
Posted: 04/05/2013 8:34 am EDT | Updated: 04/05/2013 7:22 pm EDT
Charles Krauthammer managed to stun a Fox News panel into silence on Thursday when he said President Obama just wants "cash" instead of new gun control laws.
The "Special Report" panel was discussing Obama's struggles to get tougher laws on the books. All were agreeing that he was bound to be disappointed. But Krauthammer provoked a full three seconds of silence--an eternity in television time--when he said, "All he wants now is the money."
"You don't really mean that," host Chris Wallace eventually said. Krauthammer made it clear that he did.
"He's lost on gun control," he said. "...He is not going to get the solution he wanted, so he'll make an issue. And that's the way he operates. He does it on immigration. He does it on a lot of stuff. If you can't win on a solution or get your way, you turn it into cash. He is excellent at turning stuff into cash."
(h/t Mediaite [ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/krauthammer-shocks-fox-panel-by-saying-obama-lost-the-gun-control-fight-and-now-all-he-wants-is-the-cash/ ])
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/charles-krauthammer-obama-guns-silence-fox-news_n_3019645.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
President Obama Speaks on Reducing Gun Violence
Published on Apr 8, 2013 by whitehouse
President Obama continues asking the American people to join him in calling on Congress to pass common-sense measures to reduce gun violence. April 8, 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7MYLbOV9fY
--
Inhofe: gun debate has nothing to do with Newtown families
Associated Press
By Steve Benen
Tue Apr 9, 2013 4:42 PM EDT
I've long marveled at Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), and his, shall we say, unique perspective [ http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2011/04/12/6457245-james-inhofe-creates-own-reality-again ] on the world around him, but even by Inhofe standards, today's argument [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/james-inhofe-guns-newtown_n_3046969.html ] about the gun debate was a doozy.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Tuesday that the gun control debate doesn't have anything to do with the families of the Newtown, Conn., shooting victims, and that the only reason those families think it does is because President Barack Obama told them it did. [...]
"See, I think it's so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn't," Inhofe said.
By "these families," Inhofe was referring to 11 family members of victims killed during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. Inhofe believes, and is willing to argue publicly to reporters, that efforts to prevent gun violence have nothing "to do with them."
As the Huffington Post report added, when someone suggested the families of Newtown victims actually believe the gun debate pertains to them, Inhofe responded, "Well, that's because they've been told that by the president."
Hmm. So in the mind of the senior senator from Oklahoma, those whose loved ones were killed in a brutal school shooting are detached from the debate over gun violence. And these folks would realize this truth were it not for the rascally president convincing them otherwise.
Inhofe, incidentally, is one of the 15 Republican senators who has vowed to block any effort to debate any legislation that changes any gun law in any way.
© 2013 NBCNews.com (emphasis in original)
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/09/17674938-inhofe-gun-debate-has-nothing-to-do-with-newtown-families [with comments]
--
Riverview Gun Sales, Shop That Sold Firearm To Newtown Mom, Loses License
The Riverview Gun Sales shop sits closed on December 21, 2012 in East Windsor, Connecticut. According to the Hartford Courant, sources investigating the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown have said the Bushmaster rifle used by the gunman Adam Lanza was legally purchased at the shop by his mother Nancy Lanza. The Courant also reports that records show the guns used in a previous mass shooting in Connecticut in 2010, where Omar Thornton killed eight people and himself[, were purchased there.]
04/05/13
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/riverview-gun-sales-newtown_n_3020029.html [with comments]
--
Guns, marijuana plant seized from NC home where walls of pit collapsed on 2 children
In this image made from video and provided by WSOC-TV Charlotte, authorities work to rescue two children at a construction site, Sunday, April 7, 2013, in Stanley, N.C.
(AP Photo/WSOC TV)
Published April 08, 2013
STANLEY, N.C. – Authorities have confiscated a marijuana plant and firearms from a North Carolina property where a man was digging a deep hole that collapsed on two children, including his daughter.
The bodies of 6-year-old Chloe Jade Arwood and 7-year-old James Levi Caldwell were pulled Monday from a 24-foot-deep pit in the town of Stanley, outside of Charlotte.
Rescuers had been digging for the children since Sunday, when the girl's father, Jordan Arwood, called 911.
Later on Monday, sheriff's deputies removed firearms and the marijuana plant from the mobile home. The 31-year-old father is a felon who is not allowed to have guns. He was convicted in 2003 for possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Rescuers on Monday recovered the bodies of two young cousins buried when a wall of dirt fell on them while they were playing in a hole at a home construction site in North Carolina.
The bodies of 6-year-old Chloe Jade Arwood and 7-year-old James Levi Caldwell were pulled from a 24-foot-deep pit in the town of Stanley, outside of Charlotte.
"We've been working a horrific scene here," Lincoln County Emergency Services spokesman Dion Burleson told reporters gathered near the rural site on a two-lane road dotted with modular and mobile homes.
Crews had been searching for the children since Sunday afternoon, when the girl's father Jordan Arwood called 911 to report the collapse. Officials were on the scene within minutes but couldn't get to the children.
The father had been digging with a backhoe on the site earlier in the day, Sheriff David Carpenter said. He would not say what was being built or if Arwood was doing it alone or had professional help. He did say authorities didn't know of any permits that had been issued for the work or plans detailing the project.
Burleson described the pit as 20 feet by 20 feet with a sloped entrance leading down to the 24-foot bottom. The children were at the bottom of the pit retrieving a child-sized pickaxe when the walls fell in on them, Carpenter said.
He said his deputies would continue to investigate what happened.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Carpenter later said deputies had not yet interviewed the family living in the home but planned to follow up on neighbors' reports that Arwood was excavating the two-story pit to build some sort of a protective bunker.
"They were so distraught we hope to be able to talk to them today and come up with some information on that," Carpenter said. "It's a very large hole. It would look to be something like that, but I don't know. ... We're going to find out exactly what his intentions were."
He said deputies would be speaking with county planning and zoning officials about any potential building code violations at the site.
Andrew Bryant, a planner with the Lincoln County Planning & Inspections Department, said no permits had been issued.
Neighbor Bradley Jones said the children often played in the pit when the boy's father was working there. Jones, who said he works in construction, said there was no structure to support the pit's tall dirt walls and that he questioned the man about the hole's depth.
"I told Chelsea not to go in," Jones said, referring to advice he gave his teenage daughter, who babysat the children. "It was dangerous. There was nothing to reinforce those walls."
Associated Press Writer Michael Biesecker in Raleigh contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/08/guns-marijuana-plant-seized-from-nc-home-where-walls-pit-collapsed-on-2/
--
4-year-old boy accidentally kills Tenn. deputy's wife
Andy Humbles, The Tennessean
7:10a.m. EDT April 9, 2013
LEBANON, Tenn. — A 4-year-old who picked up a gun at a family cookout [ http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130408/NEWS03/304080039/Wife-deputy-shot-killed-Wilson-County-accident ] killed the wife of a Wilson County sheriff's deputy, authorities said Monday.
Josephine G. Fanning, 48, died Saturday at her home about 7 miles south of Lebanon, according to the Wilson County Sheriff's Office.
The shooting occurred while her husband, Wilson County Deputy Daniel Fanning, 51, was with another relative looking at guns in a bedroom of their home, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
The 4-year-old and Josephine Fanning walked into the bedroom where a loaded weapon was on top of the bed, TBI spokeswoman Kristin Helm said. The boy picked up the gun and fired one round that struck Josephine Fanning. It was unclear Monday whether the child was a relative of the couple.
Sheriff Robert Bryan called the shooting a terrible accident and said the boy picked up the gun almost immediately after Fanning had placed it on the bed.
"Within seconds this small 4-year-old comes into the room, unbeknownst to the officer, and just picked up the gun and shot her," Bryan said. "Danny Fanning is going to have to live with it. Our prayers, our thoughts go out to him and the child."
Alcohol was present at the gathering, Helm said. Daniel Fanning was not on duty at the time of the shooting.
"He was a good officer who did his job," said former Wilson County Sheriff Terry Ashe, who hired Daniel Fanning.
The gun that the 4-year-old fired was Fanning's personal weapon and not his police gun, Helm and Bryan said. The deputy's weapons are normally stored in a safe.
No charges are pending, but the state is continuing to investigate, Helm said.
"(It) appears accidental at this time," Helm said.
Tennessee ranks among the highest in the nation for accidental firearm deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Copyright 2013 The Tennessean
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/08/boy-accidental-shooting/2064627/ [with embedded video report]
--
6-year-old boy shot in head by 4-year-old in Toms River remains in serious condition
April 09, 2013
http://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/2013/04/4-year-old_who_shot_6-year-old_in_toms_river.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Serbia's worst peacetime massacre as gunman kills 13 in village rampage
A Serb veteran of the Balkans War has shot dead 13 neighbours and relations in Serbia’s worst peace-time massacre in the country’s modern history.
09 Apr 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/serbia/9980839/Serbias-worst-peacetime-massacre-as-gunman-kills-13-in-village-rampage.html
--
Report: Anti-Semitic incidents surged in 2012
A man comforts a school child as they leave the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, southwestern France, March 19, 2012 after a man on a scooter opened fire outside the school killing two children and one adult, a police source said. Five people were injured in the attack, which occurred as students were arriving for morning classes at the Ozar Hatorah school, a city official said.
Jean-Philippe Arles / Reuters, file
By Ariel David
April 7, 2013
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli researchers and Jewish leaders on Sunday reported a 30 percent jump in anti-Semitic violence and vandalism last year, topped by a deadly school shooting in France, and expressed alarm about the rise of far-right parties in Hungary, Greece and other countries.
Following a two-year decline in the figures, the annual report on worldwide anti-Semitic incidents recorded 686 attacks in 34 countries, ranging from physical violence to vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries, compared to 526 in 2011. The report was issued at Tel Aviv University [ http://www.kantorcenter.tau.ac.il/ ], in cooperation with the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella group representing Jewish communities across Europe.
The report linked the March 2012 shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, where an extremist Muslim gunman killed four, to a series of copycat attacks, particularly in France, where physical assaults on Jews almost doubled.
Researchers who presented the report at the university on Sunday said they had also found a direct correlation between the strengthening of extreme right-wing parties in some European countries and high levels of anti-Semitic incidents, as well as attacks on other minorities and immigrants.
They said Europe's economic crisis was fueling the success of parties like Jobbik in Hungary, Golden Dawn in Greece and Svoboda in Ukraine.
Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress, called for strong action by the European Union, charging that governments — particularly Hungary —were not doing enough to curb these parties' activities and protect minorities.
"Neo-Nazis have been once again legalized in Europe, they are openly sitting in parliaments," said Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress.
Golden Dawn swept into Greece's parliament for the first time in June on an anti-immigrant platform. The party rejects the neo-Nazi label but is fond of Nazi literature and references. In Hungary, a Jobbik lawmaker has called for Jews to be screened as potential security risks. The leader of Ukraine's Svoboda denies his party is anti-Semitic but has repeatedly used derogatory terms to refer to Jews.
The report by the university's Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry found little correlation between the increase of anti-Semitic attacks and Israel's military operation in Gaza in November. While there was a spike in incidents at the time, it was much smaller in number and intensity than the one that followed the Toulouse attack, said Roni Stauber, the chief researcher on the project.
"This shows that the desire to harm Jews is deeply rooted among extremist Muslims and right-wingers, regardless of events in the Middle East," he said.
The release of the report was timed to coincide with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was starting Sunday at sundown.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/07/17317787-report-anti-semitic-incidents-surged-in-2012 [with comments]
--
Ben Carson: White Liberals Are 'The Most Racist People'
04/02/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/ben-carson_n_2999140.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Richard Cebull, Federal Judge Who Sent Racist Obama Email, Retires
04/03/2013
U.S. District Judge Richard F. Cebull, the federal judge in Montana who sent [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/richard-cebull-judge-obama-racist-email_n_1312736.html ] an email last year suggesting that President Barack Obama's mother had sex with a dog, has retired following an investigation into his conduct.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/richard-cebull-retires_n_3006753.html [with embedded video report "North Alabama Football Player Kicked Off Team For Racist Obama Tweet", and comments]
--
Lindsey Graham: Obama Criticism Is 'Good Politics'
04/02/2013
[...]
"Anytime you challenge the president, Obama, it's good politics," Graham said [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/us/politics/grahams-immigration-bid-starts-in-south-carolina.html?pagewanted=all ].
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/lindsey-graham-obama_n_2998459.html [with comments]
--
Police on Alert After White Group Vows Patrols in Maryland
March 26, 2013
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (Reuters) - Police at Maryland's Towson University will increase their campus presence at night, the university said on Tuesday, after a group calling itself the White Student Union promised its own patrols to curb what it sees as rising black-on-white crime.
The White Student Union has been drawing attention since one of its members defended segregation during a panel discussion earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an influential forum in Republican Party politics.
The roughly 50-person union was formed to celebrate European-American culture, and members attend church and the shooting range together, said Matthew Heimbach, 21, the founder and self-professed commander.
[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/03/26/us/26reuters-usa-race-maryland.html
--
Timothy Dluhos Supporters Threaten New York Post Reporter Candice Giove For Uncovering EMT's Racist Tweets
Candice Giove. (Twitter/ @CandiceGiove)
'Bad lieutenant': FDNY EMS Lieutenant Timothy Dluhos sobs after he was confronted by New York Post reporters over racist and anti-Semitic tweets he posted
[ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298398/FDNY-lieutenant-breaks-street-confronted-racist-tweets-called-mayor-King-Heeb-used-ethnic-slurs.html ]
Posted: 03/29/2013 11:19 am EDT | Updated: 03/29/2013 11:31 am EDT
After New York Post reporter Candice Giove [ https://twitter.com/candicegiove ] confronted New York City EMT Timothy Dluhos about his secret, racist "Bad Lieutenant" Twitter account [ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298398/FDNY-lieutenant-breaks-street-confronted-racist-tweets-called-mayor-King-Heeb-used-ethnic-slurs.html ], the 34-year-old broke down in tears.
"TWEET JUSTICE [ https://twitter.com/candicegiove/status/316153604002181121/photo/1 ]" was delivered, and Dluhos-- who tweeted about "coloreds," "chinks," called Mayor Bloomberg "King Heeb," and bragged about his Nazi paraphernalia-- was suspended from his $93,000-a-year job.
Now supporters of Dluhos have unleashed a series of vile tweets directed at Giove, in some instances wishing physical harm upon the reporter, for example:
@ElChiprucabra
Lyle Chipperson
@candicegiove Tss! Yeah I hope you get raped and murdered or sumthin
The Post now reports a reader named Ryan Collins sent a message to the paper threatening violence on their reporters, adding, "Just hope you don’t need ems when it happens [ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bigots_spew_bile_rY0wrBIZTijFNcecp1xeiK ].”
Additionally, The Post reports Footer and P-Rock, hosts of an online radio show called "The Red Show [ http://morelikeradio.com/shows/the-red-show ]," heaped praise on Dluhos this week.
"He’s a brave motherf--ker, but in the end he’s going to come out fine . . ." said P-Rock. "He’s been cornered as a racist, and that’s not true. Tim’s our guy.”
After Dluhos called into thank the duo, Footer took a shot at Giove, saying, “Like I said to that dumb c---, ‘He’s out there saving lives!’
The hosts then attacked Giove for her apparent ethnicity. “For me she looked a little yellow, like Middle Eastern. I don’t think she should be allowed to carry a backpack.”
Supporters of Gluhos have also launched a fundraiser for the disgraced EMT. A page called "HelpTim [ http://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/t052/helptim ]" on the online platform Give Forward shows they have raised $355 of their $1,200 goal to help Dluhos recover from losing his job.
Dluhos' racist tweets were uncovered just days after another city EMT, Joseph Cassano-- son of FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano-- was busted for his own racist, anti-semitic tweets [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/joseph-cassano-son-of-fdny-commissioner-tweets_n_2899850.html ]. Joseph later resigned from his position.
Also this week, the NYPD issued a warning to officers to be careful of what they post to Facebook and Twitter [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/28/nypd-social-media-guidelines-facebook_n_2973041.html ]. More than a dozen officers were punished last year after posting racist comments to a Facebook page titled, "No More West Indian Day Parade [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/nypd-group-no-more-west-i_n_1131830.html ]."
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/29/timothy-dluhos-supporters-new-york-post_n_2979030.html [with embedded video "Racist EMT Breaks Down After Racist Tweets Exposed", and comments]
--
Voting Rights Group Decries Virginia's New Restrictive Voter ID Law
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signed a new voter ID law in the state on Tuesday.
03/27/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/voting-rights-virginia_n_2958591.html [with comments] [and see (linked in) "Virginia Republicans Fend Off Financial Scandals", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/virginia-republicans_n_2998079.html (with comments)]
--
DNC Targets Pennsylvania Republicans Over Electoral College Redistricting Plan
Pennsylvania state Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R) is pushing a plan to change the way the state allocates its Electoral College votes in presidential elections.
03/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/dnc-pennsylvania-redistricting_n_2947993.html [with comments]
--
Tennessee Legislators Advance Bill To Partially End Direct Election Of Senators
03/26/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/tennessee-election-senators_n_2958663.html [with comments]
--
Brooklyn judge slams birther lawsuit as 'fanciful, delusional and irrational' and orders theorist to pay $177G
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that President Barack Obama's Hawaii birth certificate is a forgery and that he was really born outside of the U.S.
Susan Walsh/AP
Brooklyn Judge Arthur Schack slammed a birther conspiracy theorist's case calling it 'fanciful' and 'delusional.'
Jesse Ward/for New York Daily News
Christopher Earl Strunk posing for a portrait in Brooklyn outside of court. He has filed a number of lawsuits claiming President Obama was not born in America. A judge is ordering him to pay more than $177,000.
Julia Xanthos/New York Daily News
Judge Arthur Schack wrote that if the case brought by Christopher Earl Struck claiming President Barack Obama was not truly born in Hawaii were a movie script it would be entitled 'The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da VInci Code.'
By Oren Yaniv / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, April 3, 2013, 12:54 AM
A birther's lawsuit was born of a crackpot theory.
That’s what an irritated Brooklyn judge said in slapping a preeminent conspiracy theorist with a hefty bill for filing “a frivolous” suit and wasting the court’s time.
Christopher Earl Strunk sought to have President Obama disqualified as a candidate. The author of some 20 other lawsuits — most of which have been dismissed — Strunk was ordered to pay $167,707 in attorney fees plus a $10,000 sanction for the 2011 lawsuit that named Obama, New York’s Board of Elections and a list of others as defendants.
“If the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da Vinci Code,’ ” wrote Judge Arthur Schack, calling the allegations, “fanciful, delusional and irrational.”
When the judge dismissed the suit a year ago, he blasted birther arguments that contend Obama isn’t a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Schack also mocked Strunk for claiming a “massive conspiracy to defraud American voters (that) was perpetrated by hundreds of individuals, at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church and especially the Jesuits.” He imposed the fees for three law firms that opposed Strunk’s lawsuits.
“I’m going to have this thing overturned and I’m not going to pay a dime,” vowed Strunk.
*
Related
Alabama man who belongs to anti-government militia, FEAR, pleads guilty to Twitter threat to assassinate President Obama
"Let's kill the president. F.E.A.R.," Jarvis Britton, 25, of Birmingham, Ala., tweeted on Sept. 14.
March 18, 2013
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/1.1292113
Survey shows Republicans more likely to believe that aliens crashed in Roswell, shape-shifting reptilian people run the world and autism caused by vaccines
April 3, 2013
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/survey-shows-republicans-conspiracy-theories-article-1.1306229
*
© Copyright 2013 NYDailyNews.com
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/brooklyn-judge-slams-birther-case-orders-theorist-pay-177g-article-1.1306268 [with comments]
--
Hero Judge Teabags Birther To Tune Of $177 Large
by Major Major Major Major
2:00 pm April 7, 2013
Brooklyn judge Arthur Schack pulled out his punking thesaurus [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/brooklyn-judge-slams-birther-case-orders-theorist-pay-177g-article-1.1306268 (just above)] the other day to slap down birther Christopher Earl Strunk’s latest frivolous lawsuit (of around 20), which claims that your Barry Soetoro is not eligible to run for preznet.
In a written order, Schack went all Gabe Kotter on Strunk, saying that his 2011 suit was “fanciful, delusional and irrational,” and that Strunk’s sister was so low that she plays handball on the curb (probably). Lest Strunk miss the point of this dozening and think about suit No. 21, Schack also charged him $167,000 for opposing attorney’s fees, and fined him $10k, for larfs.
Strunk took the whole thing in stride, as a man who aspires to Orly Taitzdom naturally would. “I’m going to have this thing overturned and I’m not going to pay a dime,” he said. Such optimism is reasonable, given that Strunk was merely pointing out the Jesuit-led, Roman Catholic voter-fraud conspiracy that involves hundreds of people and pretty much all high-ranking officials in New York. Everybody knows about that one.
This kind of smackdown is nothing new for Schack [ http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/justice-schack-id-rather-handle-killers-divorcing-couples ], who used to teach social studies in public school (no shit!), and later was the lawyer for the Major League Baseball Players Association. When he’s not ranking on birthers, he likes to cockblock bank foreclosures on the slightest technicaliity, and generally swagger about being awesome.
Schack also supplied a little film criticism in his order, in memory of the late Roger Ebert: “If the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da Vinci Code,’ ” he wrote. We have already written a pitch letter for the screenplay, so mitts off!
©2013 Wonkette Media LLC
http://wonkette.com/510684/hero-judge-teabags-birther-to-tune-of-177-large [with comments]
--
Bathroom Birther John Kavanagh Dumps Potty-Cop Bill, Still Wants to Regulate Toilets
Shitter Sergeant John Kavanagh's toilet police badge.
Mar. 26 2013
Toilet policeman and Republican Representative John Kavanagh has dumped his "bathroom birther" bill, which would have criminalized the use of a public restroom if the sex on someone's birth certificate doesn't match the sign on the door.
Still, Kavanagh's not giving up -- he's got another proposal to regulate toilet usage in the state of Arizona.
*
See also:
-Bathroom Birther John Kavanagh Delays His Toilet-Police Bill
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/03/bathroom_birther_john_kavanagh.php
-Lawmaker Wants People to Use Birth Certificate to Prove They're in the Right Bathroom
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/03/bathroom_birther_lawmaker_want.php
*
[...]
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/03/bathroom_birther_john_kavanagh_1.php [with comments]
--
Jim Gile, Kansas County Official, Apologizes For Racist Comment
Saline County Commission Jim Gile
By John Celock
Posted: 04/09/2013 2:18 pm EDT | Updated: 04/09/2013 4:28 pm EDT
A Republican county commissioner in rural Kansas is resisting calls for his resignation after a comment he made during a public meeting last week.
Saline County Commissioner Jim Gile (R) used the term "nigger-rigging" during a commission discussion April 2 about hiring an architect to work on a county building, the Salina Journal reported [ http://www.salina.com/news/Gile2013-04-06T04-27-33 ] on Saturday. Gile apologized for the comments, but residents called for his resignation during a commission meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The Salina Journal reported:
In a recording made by County Clerk Don Merriman of the study session, Gile, who is white, can be heard to say the county needed to hire an architect to design the improvements rather than "nigger-rigging it."
His comment brought laughter from others in the room. Salinan Ray Hruska, who attends most commission meetings and study sessions, asked Gile what he said.
"Afro-Americanized," Gile replied.
"He's like that congressman from Alaska," Commission Chairman Randy Duncan can be heard to say of Gile's comment.
Gile told the Salina Journal that he knew the term he used from when he was growing up and that he meant to say "jury-rigged." He also insisted that he is not racist, noting that a friend he considers a sister is black.
"I am not a prejudiced person," Gile told the Salina Journal. "I have built Habitat homes for colored people."
Gile kicked off Tuesday's county commission meeting by apologizing again, Salina Journal reporter Chris Hunter posted on Twitter [ https://twitter.com/chrishunterSJ ]. County and state Democrats are questioning whether Gile should continue in office.
Kansas Democratic Party spokesman Dakota Loomis told The Huffington Post that Gile should rethink his stance.
"It's shocking in this day and age that he would use this type of language and find it to be such a non-issue," Loomis said. "He needs to take a real hard look at how he represents the people in Saline County. This demonstrates a complete and utter lack of awareness. It calls into question his fitness to serve."
Gile is not the first Republican to find himself in hot water in the last year over racially tinged remarks. In 2012, Inge Marler, a Tea Party leader in rural Arkansas, was forced to step down [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/15/inge-marler-arkansas-tea-party-richard-caster_n_1600376.html ] after making a racist joke during a rally [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/inge-marler-tea-party-arkansas-leader-racist-joke_n_1597334.html ]. The Montana Republican Party was criticized for having a bullet-riddled outhouse [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/18/montana-republican-convention-obama-outhouse_n_1605567.html ] marked as the "Obama Presidential Library" at its state convention also in 2012.
UPDATE: A Republican lawmaker has added his voice to those criticizing Gile for his remarks. State Rep. J.R. Claeys (R-Salina) said that Gile's remark and the fact that it was backed up during the meeting raises concerns about the county government, which he called "dysfunctional." He also said that Gile's attempt to use his age to mask the comment is unacceptable, noting that people should know that the term he used is discriminatory.
"I think every citizen in our county should take a long, hard look at every individual in that room who allowed those comments to slide without immediately correcting and repudiating, not one, but multiple comments that are absolutely unacceptable in private, let alone a public meeting," Claeys told HuffPost. "This speaks to a systemic problem with the makeup and operation of county government that is already viewed as a good ol' boys club and needs to be dismantled by the people in such a way that it can no longer operate in this manner."
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/jim-gile-kansas_n_3045720.html [with embedded video "West Virginia Paper Publishes Racist Rant", and comments]
--
Gripes and Gratitudes • 3/20/13
Click below to read the original gay teacher firing story:
Fired teacher denies 'trying to turn them gay'
White and right
We were really glad to hear that School Board is getting rid of them queers. The next thing is we need to get rid of all the n****rs, the spics, the kikes and the wops. You know even them Catholics, they are wrong as baby eaters. We need to clear them people out and have good, white, God fearing Christians and everybody else needs to be put to death for their abominations. We'll keep Lincoln County white and right. Thank you.
© Copyright Lincoln Journal
[at] http://lincolnjournalinc.com/Gripes-and-Gratitudes-93.htm [and see e.g. http://freakoutnation.com/2013/03/21/west-virginia-paper-publishes-anti-gay-racist-rant-wants-death-for-nggers-spics-kikes-and-wops/ (with embedded video, and comments), and the video embedded in the item just above]
--
The right wing’s Supreme Court whisperer
Meet the right-wing non-lawyer who may get the Supreme Court to kill affirmative action and voting rights
Mar 24, 2013
On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog, and in the Supreme Court, no one knows you’re not a lawyer. Or if they do, it doesn’t matter because you can still rewrite vast swathes of important legal code without having ever taken Torts 101.
At least that’s the lesson of Edward Blum, a conservative legal activist who, despite lacking formal legal education, has successfully pushed 14 cases to the nation’s highest court. Of the nearly 9,000 cased filed with the court last year, just 79 got oral arguments. Blum got two of them, and they’re both among the most-watched cases currently before the justices.
One, Shelby County v. Holder [ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/shelby-county-v-holder/ ], could gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The other, Fisher v. University of Texas [ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/fisher-v-university-of-texas-at-austin/ ], could outlaw affirmative action in college admissions and possibly elsewhere. Progressive legal activists and civil rights groups have sounded the alarm, putting both cases at the top of their agendas and warning that a bad decision could undermine decades of protections for minorities.
If you see a pattern between the two cases, it’s because there is one. Since a failed 1992 Congressional bid in a heavily gerrymandered majority-minority district in Houston, Blum has been obsessed with race and public policy, seeking to tear down what he sees as special treatment for subgroups wherever they exist in the law. When lobbying elected officials didn’t work, Blum turned to the courts, despite not having a law degree.
[...]
... Blum is not alone on the right. For instance, there’s Jim Bopp [ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the/309086/ ], the RNC committeeman who has single-handedly rolled back decades worth of campaign-finance laws. “He filed cases that everyone else in the business thought were completely crazy, but with his victory in Citizens United, he’s the one who’s laughing now,” Winkler said.
There’s also the troika of libertarian lawyers [ http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-much-heller-case-lawyers ] who pushed the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller gun-rights case.
[...]
... In the affirmative action case, the argument is that Abigail Fisher was unfairly denied admission to UT Austin because the school gives favorable treatment to minorities.
But Fisher was hardly an outstanding student, and university officials say she would have been rejected even if she received points for being a racial minority. An investigation by ProPublica [ http://www.propublica.org/article/a-colorblind-constitution-what-abigail-fishers-affirmative-action-case-is-r ] lends credence to that assertion, showing that her SAT scores were well below the school’s mean and that her GPA was merely average. And while the school did offer provisional admission to students with lower scores than hers, just five of those students were black or Latino — 42 were white.
In the voting-rights case, the argument is that the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary because widespread racial discrimination is no longer a major problem. But Blum’s plaintiff, Shelby County, Ala., has had plenty of problems with voting discrimination.
“Think about this state that you’re representing,” liberal Justice Elena Kagan said during oral arguments [ http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-96.pdf ]. “It’s about a quarter black, but Alabama has no black statewide elected officials. If Congress were to write a formula that looked to the number of successful Section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act] suits per million residents, Alabama would be the number one state on the list.”
[...]
... the Supreme Court has become undeniably more conservative [ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/us/25roberts.html?pagewanted=all ] and corporate friendly over the years, giving conservative legal entrepreneurs like Blum a big leg up.
Laumann [of the Alliance for Justice, http://www.afj.org/about-afj/ ] also took issue with Blum’s image as a lone wolf. “He’s really part of this huge web of conservative groups. The bulk of his money comes from a group called Donors Trust, which is a basically a clearing house that funds front groups to push a whole bunch of right-wing policy goals, from tort reform to climate change denial to school choice to voter rights challenges.”
Indeed, Donors Trust provides the legal fees Blum pays to lawyers who take up his cases — “millions” over the years. The organization is sort of like the United Way of conservative political philanthropy in that big donors can funnel money to the group, which then distributes it to friendly organizations.
On its website [ http://donorstrust.org/ ], the group says it is “explicitly devoted to supporting organizations that promote liberty” and calls itself “an innovative charitable vehicle for donors who wish to safeguard their charitable intent to fund organizations that undergird America’s founding principles.” Liberals have called it a “an anonymous tax-deductible policy slush fund” that’s “almost a laundering operation [ http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/donors-trust-anonymous-tax-deductible-polic ]” for wealthy donors.
[...]
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/24/the_right_wings_supreme_court_whisperer/ [with comments]
--
Supreme Court Poised To Upend Civil Rights Policies
By HOPE YEN
03/31/13 02:26 PM ET EDT
WASHINGTON — Has the nation lived down its history of racism and should the law become colorblind?
Addressing two pivotal legal issues, one on affirmative action and a second on voting rights, a divided Supreme Court is poised to answer those questions.
In one case, the issue is whether race preferences in university admissions undermine equal opportunity more than they promote the benefits of racial diversity. Just this past week, justices signaled their interest in scrutinizing affirmative action very intensely, expanding their review as well to a Michigan law passed by voters that bars "preferential treatment" to students based on race. Separately in a second case, the court must decide whether race relations – in the South, particularly – have improved to the point that federal laws protecting minority voting rights are no longer warranted.
The questions are apt as the United States closes in on a demographic tipping point, when nonwhites will become a majority of the nation's population for the first time. That dramatic shift is expected to be reached within the next generation, and how the Supreme Court rules could go a long way in determining what civil rights and equality mean in an America long divided by race.
The court's five conservative justices seem ready to declare a new post-racial moment, pointing to increased levels of voter registration and turnout among blacks to show that the South has changed. Lower federal courts just in the past year had seen things differently, blunting voter ID laws and other election restrictions passed by GOP-controlled legislatures in South Carolina, Texas and Florida, which they saw as discriminatory.
"Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes," Justice Antonin Scalia said in oral arguments earlier this year, suggesting that it was the high court's responsibility to overturn voting protections overwhelmingly passed by Congress in 2006.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, part of the court's more liberal wing, countered that while conventional discriminatory tactics may have faded, new ones have emerged. "Congress said up front: We know that the (voter) registration is fine. That is no longer the problem. But the discrimination continues in other forms," she said.
The legal meanings of "equality," "racism" and "discrimination" have been in flux since at least 1883, when justices struck down a federal anti-discrimination law, calling it an unfair racial advantage for former black slaves. Today, justices face the question of whether the nation has reached equality by a 1960s definition or some new standard.
By some demographic measures, America has reached a new era. But the latest census data and polling from The Associated Press also show race and class disparities that persist.
President Barack Obama, the nation's first black chief executive, was re-elected in November despite a historically low percentage of white supporters. He was aided by a growing bloc of blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and gays, and a disproportionate share of women, who together supported him by at least a 2-to-1 margin.
Another sign of shifting times: Among newborns, minorities outnumbered whites for the first time last year, the Census Bureau reported. "The end of the world as straight white males know it," one newspaper headline said on the morning after the November election.
Still, issues linger by race, age and class:
_Jobs and income. Black poverty has fallen by half since 1959, to 27.6 percent, but is still nearly three times the poverty rate of whites. Black and Hispanic men are twice as likely as whites to work in the low-paying service sector. Since the 1970s, the unemployment rate for blacks has remained double that of whites.
_Wealth. The wealth gap between whites and minorities is at its widest since 1984. Predominantly younger minorities were hit hard when home prices fell, while older whites were more likely to invest in 401(k) retirement plans and stocks, which have rebounded since the recession. The median net worth of white households was $113,149 in 2009, compared with $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks.
_Class and education. By some measures, the gap between rich and poor has stretched to its widest since 1967. Globalization and automation have eliminated many mid-skill jobs, leaving a polarized pool of low-wage work and high-skill jobs requiring advanced degrees. About 40 percent of whites age 25-29 graduate from college, compared with 15 percent for Latinos and 23 percent for blacks.
_Racial bias. Prejudice against blacks worsened slightly in the four years since Obama was first elected in 2008, according to an AP poll. In all, 51 percent of Americans expressed explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in 2008. Questions designed to ferret out subconscious bias raised the proportion with anti-black sentiments to 56 percent, and the share of people expressing pro-black attitudes fell.
Roderick Harrison, a demographer who is black, says he felt pride in Obama's re-election, which to him reaffirmed a historic achievement not only for black Americans but also a broader coalition of racially diverse groups. Still, he worries that demographic change and Obama's success may lead to a tipping point in the opposite direction, where people in the United States are led to assume racial equality has fully arrived.
The strength of minority support behind Obama was aided by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and other protections, he said.
The term "minority" often refers to an unequal or disadvantaged status and isn't always about numbers or counts, said Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau. The District of Columbia, Hawaii, California, New Mexico and Texas already have populations of racial and ethnic minorities that collectively add up to more than 50 percent. Across the U.S., more than 11 percent of counties have tipped to "majority-minority" status.
"Minority status is a matter of exclusion from full participation in society, remaining long after a nation becomes `majority minority,'" Harrison said.
*
To Bradley Poole, 21, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, racial progress is measured by the little things. An advertising major, Poole became a member and then president of the school's Black Student Alliance, seeking camaraderie after noticing he often was the only African-American in his classes.
"I definitely feel the difference," he said.
The university automatically grants admission to the top 10 percent of students in each of the state's high schools. That helps bring in students of different backgrounds because Texas high schools are highly racially segregated, reflecting decades of segregated neighborhoods.
In a state where blacks now make up 11.5 percent of the population and Hispanics 38 percent, the university's enrollment of 50,000 students never rose above 3 percent to 4.5 percent black and 13 percent to 17 percent Hispanic. So in 2004 it decided to allow students who miss the 10 percent cutoff to be considered for admission based on a range of socioeconomic factors, including race.
The share of black students has since increased slightly to 6 percent, while Hispanic enrollment rose to 26 percent.
The university's affirmative action plan is being challenged in the Supreme Court by Abigail Fisher, a white student who missed the cutoff and was rejected. Fisher says she was denied fair consideration because of her race.
A 2003 Supreme Court opinion said universities may consider race only as one of several factors to promote diversity. The court said diversity benefits everyone because in a global economy it fosters leaders who can relate to people of different backgrounds.
In the last week, justices also agreed to take up a second affirmative action case this year, deciding whether states may pass laws that restrict the use of race preferences in college admissions. That case involves an appeal to a lower court ruling that found a 2006 voter-approved ban in Michigan unconstitutional, reasoning that such bans put minorities at a disadvantage.
The justices' decision to hear the Michigan case next fall – with their decision in the Texas case still to be announced this spring – suggests that the court will not decide in the Texas case to eliminate affirmative action programs in higher education.
In the seven or so states that enacted bans on affirmative action at their public universities, freshman enrollments of blacks and Hispanics almost always fell afterward – as much as 50 percent at UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley – although in some cases they later rebounded. Those states now include Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. A Supreme Court ruling that further restricts affirmative action could shake up college admissions policies nationwide, perhaps shifting focus to low-income students or low-performing schools.
Before opting to enroll at Texas, Poole says he considered attending a mostly white university in Iowa and a historically black college in Louisiana. The college course he now values the most: an advertising seminar that he attended along with a Hispanic, a female student-athlete and an Asian-American. No one in that class was a "minority," he said, and there was a range of perspectives.
Outside class, Poole says his organization has experienced racial incidents. One white student ran up in "blackface" to where members were gathered on campus, daring them to respond. A legal brief filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on behalf of Poole's group lists other racial incidents in recent years, some of which led to suspensions or public apologies.
"Racial diversity is a conversation we need to have," he said.
*
Not since the tumultuous 1960s have U.S. ideals of equality been more closely contested. Legal analysts say a Supreme Court holding of a colorblind Constitution, either as a matter of law or practical effect, could begin to emerge in two rulings on voting rights and affirmative action due out by late June. A third ruling in the Michigan affirmative action case will come next term.
The five conservative justices who make up a majority could overturn the 2003 opinion or take a less dramatic step. The court may opt for tighter restrictions that make it difficult for colleges to consider race or rule narrowly that in a situation like Texas, its unique top 10 percent plan is enough on its own to achieve diversity.
In the court's other racial case, a conservative majority may declare the 1965 Voting Rights Act constitutionally flawed for its focus on racism in the South but leave it up to lawmakers to sort it out.
The court could also find a less sweeping, more technical way of deciding the voting rights case, much as they did four years ago. Back then, Chief Justice John Roberts suggested Congress should update the law to reflect improved conditions in the South. Congress hasn't done so.
Prominent legal bloggers are already warning of sharp public reaction, especially if justices strike down federal voting protections.
"If the court rules in a conservative direction, this will be a pivotal year with regard to race in the Constitution and a year that could have a devastating effect on racial diversity," adds Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Irvine law school.
*
Has the country put its racist past behind it? That question is at the core of the challenge to the Voting Rights Act. The arguments before the court raised questions about whether new, more subtle forms of voting discrimination have taken the place of Jim Crow laws.
In 1870, the Constitution guaranteed blacks the right to vote. But for many decades afterward, whites in the post-slavery South used poll taxes and literacy tests to block African-Americans from voting.
That changed in 1965 with enactment of the Voting Rights Act, which let minorities file lawsuits against voter discrimination. Section 5 of that law went even further, requiring nine states, mostly in the South, and scores of counties and townships in seven other states, all with histories of disenfranchisement, to get federal approval before making any election change. Changes can include everything from a different poll location to a new political redistricting map.
The voting act was renewed by Congress in 2006 for another 25 years. The Justice Department and the federal courts last year used Section 5 to block voter restrictions in South Carolina, Texas and parts of Florida. That saved hundreds of thousands of votes that would otherwise have been lost in November, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Many were cast by blacks and Hispanics who turned out for Obama.
Lawyers for Shelby County, Alabama, which is challenging Section 5, say the tables have turned in a nation that is now much more racially diverse, with minority voters possibly holding an unfair advantage.
"You have a different constituency from the constituency you had in 1964," attorney Bert Rein told the justices. "Senators who see that a very large group in the population has politically wedded themselves to Section 5 are not going to vote against it."
Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Election Law Blog, says the "smart money" now is on the Supreme Court striking down Section 5, leading to consequences for minority voters such as "more brazen partisan gerrymanders, cutbacks in early voting and imposition of tougher voting and registration rules in the formerly covered jurisdictions."
But if the court strikes down "a crown jewel of the civil rights movement," he said, that could spark a public backlash that sends Congress back to the drawing board, with any resulting new law applying equally to all states.
Associated Press writer Mark Sherman and AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.
Online:
www.census.gov
www.supremecourtus.gov
www.utexas.edu
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/31/supreme-court-civil-rights-affirmative-action-voting-rights-act_n_2987996.html [with comments]
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86225697 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86383560 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86418350 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86641880 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86645050 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78915505 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61643992 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=60232115 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86648317 and following
Posted: 04/05/2013 5:35 pm EDT
It doesn’t take evidence for this Texas governor to start leaning toward a conclusion.
News reports suggest a white supremacist group called the Aryan Brotherhood may be connected to the murders of Texas District Attorney Mike McLelland, his wife Cynthia Woodward and Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse.
But when Fox News asked Perry on Wednesday about the murders [ http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/rick-perry-border-security-texas-da-murders-89596.html ], he speculated that Mexican drug cartels and border security problems were behind the killings, saying:
We know the drug cartels are very, very active in our country now… I would suggest to you, it is really at the heart of this issue. You secure the border, then it makes it harder for these individuals to have access into this country as well as it addresses this whole issue that's hanging out on immigration.
Police haven’t named suspects yet [ http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/05/17614794-second-texas-man-charged-with-making-terroristic-threat-after-das-killing ].
Under fire for his foundation-less ramblings, Perry walked back the comments the following day at a press conference.
“It is very premature to be making any statements about who may or may not have been involved with this,” Perry said Thursday.
Perry did, however, try to save some face by adding: “There was a report by the Texas Department of Public Safety that said the greatest threat to Texas safety were the drug cartels.”
The Texas governor has offered a $200,000 reward for information for that leads to the arrest of the killers, according to NBC News.
By many measures, the border is more secure than it has been in decades [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/6-misconceptions-about-mexico-border-illegal-immigration_n_2759479.html ]. More than 20,000 Border Patrol agents are stationed on the border now -- about twice as many as there were in 2004.
*
Related
Republican Immigration Stance May Threaten GOP Dominance In Arizona
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/republicans-immigration_n_3008382.html
Joe Walsh On Immigration: Democrats Support Path To Citizenship Only To Get Votes
04/04/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/joe-walsh-immigration_n_3015773.html [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqOlIO095E0 , embedded]
Lindsey Graham: 'The Politics Of Self-Deportation Are Behind Us'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/07/lindsey-graham-immigration-self-deportation_n_3033044.html
*
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/rick-perry-speculates-mexican-drug-cartels-da-killing_n_3023656.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Two white supremacists sought in probe of Colorado prison chief's slaying
Thomas Guolee, 31, is seen in an undated handout photo from the Colorado Department of Corrections. Guolee and James Lohr, 47, are being sought in connection with the killing of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements, who was shot at the door of his home last month.
Credit: Reuters/Colorado Department of Corrections/Handout
DENVER | Thu Apr 4, 2013 9:12am EDT
(Reuters) - Colorado authorities probing the killing of the state's prisons chief, who was shot at the door of his home last month, were seeking two members of a white supremacist prison gang in connection with the case, a sheriff's spokesman said on Wednesday.
The men being sought were known associates of a gang called the 211 Crew and were considered armed and dangerous, said Lieutenant Jeff Kramer, a spokesman for Colorado's El Paso County Sheriff's Office. Kramer named them as James Franklin Lohr, 47, and Thomas James Guolee, 31.
Authorities have blamed the killing of prisons chief Tom Clements on white supremacist former convict Evan Spencer Ebel, who died in a roadside gun battle with police in Texas on March 21 after a high-speed chase.
Authorities have said Ebel, a member of the 211 Crew, was also a suspect in the killing of pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon in the Denver area two days before Clements was shot dead when he answered the door at his home 45 miles south of Denver.
In the wake of the killings, Colorado authorities have said Ebel, 28, had skipped out on his parole on an assault conviction days before the slayings, and that he had been mistakenly released from prison in January - four years early - due to a clerical error.
Kramer said the names of Lohr and Guolee surfaced during the Clements investigation but that they were not suspects in the death. Authorities have issued an "officer safety BOLO" - or "be on the lookout" - alert for the pair, Kramer said.
He added that the two were also wanted on warrants unrelated to the case, and the department had unconfirmed information that they could be headed for Nevada or Texas.
Authorities have said they were looking for ties between the murder of Clements and the January slaying of Mark Hasse, a prosecutor in the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office. Kaufman County is east of Dallas.
The January 31 murder of Hasse occurred on the same day that the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office was among the agencies involved in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist group.
On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found with fatal gunshot wounds at their home near the Texas town of Fourney.
(Reporting By Keith Coffman; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Peter Cooney and Will Dunham)
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/04/us-usa-colorado-shooting-idUSBRE93304Q20130404 [no comments yet]
--
Associate of suspected Colorado killer arrested
From Jim Spellman, CNN
updated 10:37 AM EDT, Sat April 6, 2013
(CNN) -- Colorado Springs police have arrested a man whom authorities want to question in relation to the March shooting death of prison chief Tom Clements.
James Lohr, described by police as a member of a white supremacist prison gang, is an associate of Evan Ebel, the man suspected of killing Clements, Lt. Jeff Kramer of the El Paso County, Colorado, sheriff's office said.
Lohr had three outstanding arrest warrants unrelated to the Clements investigation, and it was not immediately clear whether he is facing new charges.
Lohr is scheduled to receive a court advisement via video in El Paso County on Monday afternoon. Arrested after a police chase, Lohr is facing accusations of felony vehicular eluding and three traffic offenses -- reckless driving, speeding and failing to obey a traffic control devise, the sheriff's office said.
Authorities also recovered a gun allegedly thrown from Lohr's vehicle during the chase. A business surveillance video caught a man picking up the firearm. It was turned in to law enforcement to be used as evidence, Kramer said.
In addition to Lohr, police were on the lookout for another Ebel associate, Thomas Guolee, 31.
Meanwhile, authorities were questioning another two people associated with Ebel, whom a source close to the investigation declined to name.
Police want to question Lohr and Guolee -- whom police described as associates of the white supremacist 211 Crew gang -- in relation to the death of Clements. Ebel, the man suspected of shooting the chief, was also a 211 Crew member. He died in a shootout with Texas deputies.
The other two men, brought in for questioning in recent days by El Paso County authorities, are also 211 Crew members, the source said. Both associated with Ebel in the days before Clements' death, the source said, and at least one is a parolee.
Authorities have also served a search warrant related to one of them, the source said. The source declined to say what the warrant named.
Investigators have said they were looking into whether Ebel might have conspired with other inmates to kill Clements.
Clements was widely recognized for cracking down on prison gangs, including the 211 Crew.
Ebel also is suspected in the killing of part-time pizza deliveryman Nathan Leon.
Authorities have speculated Ebel might have killed Leon for his uniform so he could use it as a disguise in the killing of Clements, who was gunned down on March 19 after he opened his front door.
Due to a clerical error, Ebel had been released early on parole, which he later violated.
He had been sentenced to eight years in prison in 2005 for armed robbery. In 2008, he was sentenced to another four years -- to be served consecutively -- for punching a prison guard.
Two days after Clements was killed, Ebel died in northern Texas in a gun battle with authorities that left a sheriff's deputy wounded.
CNN's Mayra Cuevas and Cristy Lenz contributed to this report.
*
Related
Questions haunt prisons chief slaying case
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/05/us/colorado-ebel-killings/index.html
Exclusive: Anger 'won't bring him back:' Wife of slain prisons chief
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/us/colorado-prisons-chief-wife/index.html
Two men questioned as manhunt continues
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/us/colorado-prison-chief-killing/index.html
*
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/05/us/colorado-prison-chief-killing/index.html [with embedded video reports, and comments]
--
Dudley Brown, Colorado Gun Rights Lobbyist, Says Next Election Is 'Time To Hunt Democrats'
04/03/2013
[...]
"I liken it to the proverbial hunting season," Brown said. "We tell gun owners, 'There's a time to hunt deer. And the next election is the time to hunt Democrats.' "
[...]
Dudley Brown speaks out on gun control at the Liberty Political Action Conference on Sept. 15, 2012:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/dudley-brown-hunt-democrats_n_3007267.html [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P46aQKK2tvE , as embedded; with comments]
--
No place for threats, intimidation in American political discourse
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 3, 2013
Rachel Maddow contrasts the intimidation tactics of gun rights advocates with the activism of gun safety advocates like Nicole Hockley, mother of Sandy Hook Elementary victim Dylan Hockley, and emphasizes that political differences in America are not settled with arms for intimidation or otherwise.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51423589 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/03/17590835-links-for-the-43-trms (with comments)]
--
Connecticut poised to pass sweeping gun reforms
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 3, 2013
Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy talks with Rachel Maddow about the gun legislation on the verge of passing in his state, including its unusual focus on ammunition, and the political pressures Connecticut legislators faced in developing the new laws.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51423590 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/03/17590835-links-for-the-43-trms (with comments)]
--
Defying extremist threats, clinic reopens with community support
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 4, 2013
Julie Burkhart of the Trust Women Foundation talks with Rachel Maddow about re-opening Dr. George Tiller's women's health clinic in Wichita, Kansas, and how she deals with the threats and intimidation from the vocal minority of anti-abortion extremists in the community.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51436351 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/04/17607617-links-for-the-44-trms (with comments)] [and see e.g. (linked in) "Del. Dwyer admits to drinking in Arundel boating accident - Magothy River accident injured six others, including children", http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-08-23/news/bs-md-ar-boat-accident-20120822_1_natural-resources-police-dnr-police-boat , and "Drunky Maryland Pol: Gay Marriage Crashed That Boat, Injured That 5-Year-Old Girl", http://wonkette.com/497025/drunky-maryland-pol-gay-marriage-crashed-that-boat-injured-that-5-year-old-girl (with comments)]
--
Senate GOP embarrasses US on world stage again
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 4, 2013
In teasing an upcoming segment about Republican indulgence of absurd conspiracy theories getting in the way of US foreign policy and global leadership, Rachel Maddow reviews the previous instance in which this was the case.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51436423 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/04/17607617-links-for-the-44-trms (with comments)]
--
Conspiracy paranoia infiltrates Senate GOP, undermines US global authority
The Rachel Maddow Show
April 4, 2013
Rachel Maddow reports on how Senate Republicans in the grips of right-wing conspiracy theorists are again getting in the way of U.S. leadership in the world and putting America in the company of Iran, Syria, and North Korea in opposing a new UN treaty.
© 2013 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/51436641 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/04/17607617-links-for-the-44-trms (with comments)]
--
Man With [Rifle-Like] BB Gun Arrested Near Obama's Motorcade
04/09/13 08:30 AM ET EDT
BLOOMFIELD, Conn. — Police in Connecticut say they arrested a man who pulled out a rifle-like BB gun as President Barack Obama's motorcade passed by him.
Authorities say the man was pacing back and forth and then pulled out the gun Monday as the motorcade went by in Bloomfield while returning to Bradley International Airport, after the president gave a speech on gun control at the University of Hartford.
Bloomfield police have not released the man's name or the charges against him.
Police say officers noticed the man acting suspiciously and took him into custody by force when he pulled out the gun.
The man is expected to be arraigned in Hartford Superior Court on Tuesday.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/man-with-bb-gun-arrested_n_3043890.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Mike Huckabee: Comparing Obama Gun Agenda To Nazism Isn't 'Crazy,' It's 'True'
04/04/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/mike-huckabee-obama-nazi_n_3015242.html [with embedded audio, and comments]
--
Larry Pratt, Gun Owners Of America Chief, Suggests 'Angry Liberals Should Not Have Guns'
04/03/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/larry-pratt-guns_n_3006350.html [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjnoG4xIWKQ , from http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pratt-angry-liberals-should-not-have-guns ]
--
Charles Krauthammer Stuns Fox News Panel Into Silence With Obama Comments
Posted: 04/05/2013 8:34 am EDT | Updated: 04/05/2013 7:22 pm EDT
Charles Krauthammer managed to stun a Fox News panel into silence on Thursday when he said President Obama just wants "cash" instead of new gun control laws.
The "Special Report" panel was discussing Obama's struggles to get tougher laws on the books. All were agreeing that he was bound to be disappointed. But Krauthammer provoked a full three seconds of silence--an eternity in television time--when he said, "All he wants now is the money."
"You don't really mean that," host Chris Wallace eventually said. Krauthammer made it clear that he did.
"He's lost on gun control," he said. "...He is not going to get the solution he wanted, so he'll make an issue. And that's the way he operates. He does it on immigration. He does it on a lot of stuff. If you can't win on a solution or get your way, you turn it into cash. He is excellent at turning stuff into cash."
(h/t Mediaite [ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/krauthammer-shocks-fox-panel-by-saying-obama-lost-the-gun-control-fight-and-now-all-he-wants-is-the-cash/ ])
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/charles-krauthammer-obama-guns-silence-fox-news_n_3019645.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
President Obama Speaks on Reducing Gun Violence
Published on Apr 8, 2013 by whitehouse
President Obama continues asking the American people to join him in calling on Congress to pass common-sense measures to reduce gun violence. April 8, 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7MYLbOV9fY
--
Inhofe: gun debate has nothing to do with Newtown families
Associated Press
By Steve Benen
Tue Apr 9, 2013 4:42 PM EDT
I've long marveled at Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), and his, shall we say, unique perspective [ http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2011/04/12/6457245-james-inhofe-creates-own-reality-again ] on the world around him, but even by Inhofe standards, today's argument [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/james-inhofe-guns-newtown_n_3046969.html ] about the gun debate was a doozy.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Tuesday that the gun control debate doesn't have anything to do with the families of the Newtown, Conn., shooting victims, and that the only reason those families think it does is because President Barack Obama told them it did. [...]
"See, I think it's so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn't," Inhofe said.
By "these families," Inhofe was referring to 11 family members of victims killed during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. Inhofe believes, and is willing to argue publicly to reporters, that efforts to prevent gun violence have nothing "to do with them."
As the Huffington Post report added, when someone suggested the families of Newtown victims actually believe the gun debate pertains to them, Inhofe responded, "Well, that's because they've been told that by the president."
Hmm. So in the mind of the senior senator from Oklahoma, those whose loved ones were killed in a brutal school shooting are detached from the debate over gun violence. And these folks would realize this truth were it not for the rascally president convincing them otherwise.
Inhofe, incidentally, is one of the 15 Republican senators who has vowed to block any effort to debate any legislation that changes any gun law in any way.
© 2013 NBCNews.com (emphasis in original)
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/04/09/17674938-inhofe-gun-debate-has-nothing-to-do-with-newtown-families [with comments]
--
Riverview Gun Sales, Shop That Sold Firearm To Newtown Mom, Loses License
The Riverview Gun Sales shop sits closed on December 21, 2012 in East Windsor, Connecticut. According to the Hartford Courant, sources investigating the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown have said the Bushmaster rifle used by the gunman Adam Lanza was legally purchased at the shop by his mother Nancy Lanza. The Courant also reports that records show the guns used in a previous mass shooting in Connecticut in 2010, where Omar Thornton killed eight people and himself[, were purchased there.]
04/05/13
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/riverview-gun-sales-newtown_n_3020029.html [with comments]
--
Guns, marijuana plant seized from NC home where walls of pit collapsed on 2 children
In this image made from video and provided by WSOC-TV Charlotte, authorities work to rescue two children at a construction site, Sunday, April 7, 2013, in Stanley, N.C.
(AP Photo/WSOC TV)
Published April 08, 2013
STANLEY, N.C. – Authorities have confiscated a marijuana plant and firearms from a North Carolina property where a man was digging a deep hole that collapsed on two children, including his daughter.
The bodies of 6-year-old Chloe Jade Arwood and 7-year-old James Levi Caldwell were pulled Monday from a 24-foot-deep pit in the town of Stanley, outside of Charlotte.
Rescuers had been digging for the children since Sunday, when the girl's father, Jordan Arwood, called 911.
Later on Monday, sheriff's deputies removed firearms and the marijuana plant from the mobile home. The 31-year-old father is a felon who is not allowed to have guns. He was convicted in 2003 for possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Rescuers on Monday recovered the bodies of two young cousins buried when a wall of dirt fell on them while they were playing in a hole at a home construction site in North Carolina.
The bodies of 6-year-old Chloe Jade Arwood and 7-year-old James Levi Caldwell were pulled from a 24-foot-deep pit in the town of Stanley, outside of Charlotte.
"We've been working a horrific scene here," Lincoln County Emergency Services spokesman Dion Burleson told reporters gathered near the rural site on a two-lane road dotted with modular and mobile homes.
Crews had been searching for the children since Sunday afternoon, when the girl's father Jordan Arwood called 911 to report the collapse. Officials were on the scene within minutes but couldn't get to the children.
The father had been digging with a backhoe on the site earlier in the day, Sheriff David Carpenter said. He would not say what was being built or if Arwood was doing it alone or had professional help. He did say authorities didn't know of any permits that had been issued for the work or plans detailing the project.
Burleson described the pit as 20 feet by 20 feet with a sloped entrance leading down to the 24-foot bottom. The children were at the bottom of the pit retrieving a child-sized pickaxe when the walls fell in on them, Carpenter said.
He said his deputies would continue to investigate what happened.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Carpenter later said deputies had not yet interviewed the family living in the home but planned to follow up on neighbors' reports that Arwood was excavating the two-story pit to build some sort of a protective bunker.
"They were so distraught we hope to be able to talk to them today and come up with some information on that," Carpenter said. "It's a very large hole. It would look to be something like that, but I don't know. ... We're going to find out exactly what his intentions were."
He said deputies would be speaking with county planning and zoning officials about any potential building code violations at the site.
Andrew Bryant, a planner with the Lincoln County Planning & Inspections Department, said no permits had been issued.
Neighbor Bradley Jones said the children often played in the pit when the boy's father was working there. Jones, who said he works in construction, said there was no structure to support the pit's tall dirt walls and that he questioned the man about the hole's depth.
"I told Chelsea not to go in," Jones said, referring to advice he gave his teenage daughter, who babysat the children. "It was dangerous. There was nothing to reinforce those walls."
Associated Press Writer Michael Biesecker in Raleigh contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/08/guns-marijuana-plant-seized-from-nc-home-where-walls-pit-collapsed-on-2/
--
4-year-old boy accidentally kills Tenn. deputy's wife
Andy Humbles, The Tennessean
7:10a.m. EDT April 9, 2013
LEBANON, Tenn. — A 4-year-old who picked up a gun at a family cookout [ http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130408/NEWS03/304080039/Wife-deputy-shot-killed-Wilson-County-accident ] killed the wife of a Wilson County sheriff's deputy, authorities said Monday.
Josephine G. Fanning, 48, died Saturday at her home about 7 miles south of Lebanon, according to the Wilson County Sheriff's Office.
The shooting occurred while her husband, Wilson County Deputy Daniel Fanning, 51, was with another relative looking at guns in a bedroom of their home, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
The 4-year-old and Josephine Fanning walked into the bedroom where a loaded weapon was on top of the bed, TBI spokeswoman Kristin Helm said. The boy picked up the gun and fired one round that struck Josephine Fanning. It was unclear Monday whether the child was a relative of the couple.
Sheriff Robert Bryan called the shooting a terrible accident and said the boy picked up the gun almost immediately after Fanning had placed it on the bed.
"Within seconds this small 4-year-old comes into the room, unbeknownst to the officer, and just picked up the gun and shot her," Bryan said. "Danny Fanning is going to have to live with it. Our prayers, our thoughts go out to him and the child."
Alcohol was present at the gathering, Helm said. Daniel Fanning was not on duty at the time of the shooting.
"He was a good officer who did his job," said former Wilson County Sheriff Terry Ashe, who hired Daniel Fanning.
The gun that the 4-year-old fired was Fanning's personal weapon and not his police gun, Helm and Bryan said. The deputy's weapons are normally stored in a safe.
No charges are pending, but the state is continuing to investigate, Helm said.
"(It) appears accidental at this time," Helm said.
Tennessee ranks among the highest in the nation for accidental firearm deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Copyright 2013 The Tennessean
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/08/boy-accidental-shooting/2064627/ [with embedded video report]
--
6-year-old boy shot in head by 4-year-old in Toms River remains in serious condition
April 09, 2013
http://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/2013/04/4-year-old_who_shot_6-year-old_in_toms_river.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Serbia's worst peacetime massacre as gunman kills 13 in village rampage
A Serb veteran of the Balkans War has shot dead 13 neighbours and relations in Serbia’s worst peace-time massacre in the country’s modern history.
09 Apr 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/serbia/9980839/Serbias-worst-peacetime-massacre-as-gunman-kills-13-in-village-rampage.html
--
Report: Anti-Semitic incidents surged in 2012
A man comforts a school child as they leave the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, southwestern France, March 19, 2012 after a man on a scooter opened fire outside the school killing two children and one adult, a police source said. Five people were injured in the attack, which occurred as students were arriving for morning classes at the Ozar Hatorah school, a city official said.
Jean-Philippe Arles / Reuters, file
By Ariel David
April 7, 2013
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli researchers and Jewish leaders on Sunday reported a 30 percent jump in anti-Semitic violence and vandalism last year, topped by a deadly school shooting in France, and expressed alarm about the rise of far-right parties in Hungary, Greece and other countries.
Following a two-year decline in the figures, the annual report on worldwide anti-Semitic incidents recorded 686 attacks in 34 countries, ranging from physical violence to vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries, compared to 526 in 2011. The report was issued at Tel Aviv University [ http://www.kantorcenter.tau.ac.il/ ], in cooperation with the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella group representing Jewish communities across Europe.
The report linked the March 2012 shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, where an extremist Muslim gunman killed four, to a series of copycat attacks, particularly in France, where physical assaults on Jews almost doubled.
Researchers who presented the report at the university on Sunday said they had also found a direct correlation between the strengthening of extreme right-wing parties in some European countries and high levels of anti-Semitic incidents, as well as attacks on other minorities and immigrants.
They said Europe's economic crisis was fueling the success of parties like Jobbik in Hungary, Golden Dawn in Greece and Svoboda in Ukraine.
Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress, called for strong action by the European Union, charging that governments — particularly Hungary —were not doing enough to curb these parties' activities and protect minorities.
"Neo-Nazis have been once again legalized in Europe, they are openly sitting in parliaments," said Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress.
Golden Dawn swept into Greece's parliament for the first time in June on an anti-immigrant platform. The party rejects the neo-Nazi label but is fond of Nazi literature and references. In Hungary, a Jobbik lawmaker has called for Jews to be screened as potential security risks. The leader of Ukraine's Svoboda denies his party is anti-Semitic but has repeatedly used derogatory terms to refer to Jews.
The report by the university's Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry found little correlation between the increase of anti-Semitic attacks and Israel's military operation in Gaza in November. While there was a spike in incidents at the time, it was much smaller in number and intensity than the one that followed the Toulouse attack, said Roni Stauber, the chief researcher on the project.
"This shows that the desire to harm Jews is deeply rooted among extremist Muslims and right-wingers, regardless of events in the Middle East," he said.
The release of the report was timed to coincide with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was starting Sunday at sundown.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/07/17317787-report-anti-semitic-incidents-surged-in-2012 [with comments]
--
Ben Carson: White Liberals Are 'The Most Racist People'
04/02/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/ben-carson_n_2999140.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Richard Cebull, Federal Judge Who Sent Racist Obama Email, Retires
04/03/2013
U.S. District Judge Richard F. Cebull, the federal judge in Montana who sent [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/richard-cebull-judge-obama-racist-email_n_1312736.html ] an email last year suggesting that President Barack Obama's mother had sex with a dog, has retired following an investigation into his conduct.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/richard-cebull-retires_n_3006753.html [with embedded video report "North Alabama Football Player Kicked Off Team For Racist Obama Tweet", and comments]
--
Lindsey Graham: Obama Criticism Is 'Good Politics'
04/02/2013
[...]
"Anytime you challenge the president, Obama, it's good politics," Graham said [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/us/politics/grahams-immigration-bid-starts-in-south-carolina.html?pagewanted=all ].
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/lindsey-graham-obama_n_2998459.html [with comments]
--
Police on Alert After White Group Vows Patrols in Maryland
March 26, 2013
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (Reuters) - Police at Maryland's Towson University will increase their campus presence at night, the university said on Tuesday, after a group calling itself the White Student Union promised its own patrols to curb what it sees as rising black-on-white crime.
The White Student Union has been drawing attention since one of its members defended segregation during a panel discussion earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an influential forum in Republican Party politics.
The roughly 50-person union was formed to celebrate European-American culture, and members attend church and the shooting range together, said Matthew Heimbach, 21, the founder and self-professed commander.
[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/03/26/us/26reuters-usa-race-maryland.html
--
Timothy Dluhos Supporters Threaten New York Post Reporter Candice Giove For Uncovering EMT's Racist Tweets
Candice Giove. (Twitter/ @CandiceGiove)
'Bad lieutenant': FDNY EMS Lieutenant Timothy Dluhos sobs after he was confronted by New York Post reporters over racist and anti-Semitic tweets he posted
[ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298398/FDNY-lieutenant-breaks-street-confronted-racist-tweets-called-mayor-King-Heeb-used-ethnic-slurs.html ]
Posted: 03/29/2013 11:19 am EDT | Updated: 03/29/2013 11:31 am EDT
After New York Post reporter Candice Giove [ https://twitter.com/candicegiove ] confronted New York City EMT Timothy Dluhos about his secret, racist "Bad Lieutenant" Twitter account [ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298398/FDNY-lieutenant-breaks-street-confronted-racist-tweets-called-mayor-King-Heeb-used-ethnic-slurs.html ], the 34-year-old broke down in tears.
"TWEET JUSTICE [ https://twitter.com/candicegiove/status/316153604002181121/photo/1 ]" was delivered, and Dluhos-- who tweeted about "coloreds," "chinks," called Mayor Bloomberg "King Heeb," and bragged about his Nazi paraphernalia-- was suspended from his $93,000-a-year job.
Now supporters of Dluhos have unleashed a series of vile tweets directed at Giove, in some instances wishing physical harm upon the reporter, for example:
@ElChiprucabra
Lyle Chipperson
@candicegiove Tss! Yeah I hope you get raped and murdered or sumthin
The Post now reports a reader named Ryan Collins sent a message to the paper threatening violence on their reporters, adding, "Just hope you don’t need ems when it happens [ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bigots_spew_bile_rY0wrBIZTijFNcecp1xeiK ].”
Additionally, The Post reports Footer and P-Rock, hosts of an online radio show called "The Red Show [ http://morelikeradio.com/shows/the-red-show ]," heaped praise on Dluhos this week.
"He’s a brave motherf--ker, but in the end he’s going to come out fine . . ." said P-Rock. "He’s been cornered as a racist, and that’s not true. Tim’s our guy.”
After Dluhos called into thank the duo, Footer took a shot at Giove, saying, “Like I said to that dumb c---, ‘He’s out there saving lives!’
The hosts then attacked Giove for her apparent ethnicity. “For me she looked a little yellow, like Middle Eastern. I don’t think she should be allowed to carry a backpack.”
Supporters of Gluhos have also launched a fundraiser for the disgraced EMT. A page called "HelpTim [ http://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/t052/helptim ]" on the online platform Give Forward shows they have raised $355 of their $1,200 goal to help Dluhos recover from losing his job.
Dluhos' racist tweets were uncovered just days after another city EMT, Joseph Cassano-- son of FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano-- was busted for his own racist, anti-semitic tweets [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/joseph-cassano-son-of-fdny-commissioner-tweets_n_2899850.html ]. Joseph later resigned from his position.
Also this week, the NYPD issued a warning to officers to be careful of what they post to Facebook and Twitter [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/28/nypd-social-media-guidelines-facebook_n_2973041.html ]. More than a dozen officers were punished last year after posting racist comments to a Facebook page titled, "No More West Indian Day Parade [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/nypd-group-no-more-west-i_n_1131830.html ]."
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/29/timothy-dluhos-supporters-new-york-post_n_2979030.html [with embedded video "Racist EMT Breaks Down After Racist Tweets Exposed", and comments]
--
Voting Rights Group Decries Virginia's New Restrictive Voter ID Law
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signed a new voter ID law in the state on Tuesday.
03/27/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/voting-rights-virginia_n_2958591.html [with comments] [and see (linked in) "Virginia Republicans Fend Off Financial Scandals", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/virginia-republicans_n_2998079.html (with comments)]
--
DNC Targets Pennsylvania Republicans Over Electoral College Redistricting Plan
Pennsylvania state Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R) is pushing a plan to change the way the state allocates its Electoral College votes in presidential elections.
03/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/dnc-pennsylvania-redistricting_n_2947993.html [with comments]
--
Tennessee Legislators Advance Bill To Partially End Direct Election Of Senators
03/26/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/tennessee-election-senators_n_2958663.html [with comments]
--
Brooklyn judge slams birther lawsuit as 'fanciful, delusional and irrational' and orders theorist to pay $177G
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that President Barack Obama's Hawaii birth certificate is a forgery and that he was really born outside of the U.S.
Susan Walsh/AP
Brooklyn Judge Arthur Schack slammed a birther conspiracy theorist's case calling it 'fanciful' and 'delusional.'
Jesse Ward/for New York Daily News
Christopher Earl Strunk posing for a portrait in Brooklyn outside of court. He has filed a number of lawsuits claiming President Obama was not born in America. A judge is ordering him to pay more than $177,000.
Julia Xanthos/New York Daily News
Judge Arthur Schack wrote that if the case brought by Christopher Earl Struck claiming President Barack Obama was not truly born in Hawaii were a movie script it would be entitled 'The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da VInci Code.'
By Oren Yaniv / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, April 3, 2013, 12:54 AM
A birther's lawsuit was born of a crackpot theory.
That’s what an irritated Brooklyn judge said in slapping a preeminent conspiracy theorist with a hefty bill for filing “a frivolous” suit and wasting the court’s time.
Christopher Earl Strunk sought to have President Obama disqualified as a candidate. The author of some 20 other lawsuits — most of which have been dismissed — Strunk was ordered to pay $167,707 in attorney fees plus a $10,000 sanction for the 2011 lawsuit that named Obama, New York’s Board of Elections and a list of others as defendants.
“If the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da Vinci Code,’ ” wrote Judge Arthur Schack, calling the allegations, “fanciful, delusional and irrational.”
When the judge dismissed the suit a year ago, he blasted birther arguments that contend Obama isn’t a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Schack also mocked Strunk for claiming a “massive conspiracy to defraud American voters (that) was perpetrated by hundreds of individuals, at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church and especially the Jesuits.” He imposed the fees for three law firms that opposed Strunk’s lawsuits.
“I’m going to have this thing overturned and I’m not going to pay a dime,” vowed Strunk.
*
Related
Alabama man who belongs to anti-government militia, FEAR, pleads guilty to Twitter threat to assassinate President Obama
"Let's kill the president. F.E.A.R.," Jarvis Britton, 25, of Birmingham, Ala., tweeted on Sept. 14.
March 18, 2013
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/1.1292113
Survey shows Republicans more likely to believe that aliens crashed in Roswell, shape-shifting reptilian people run the world and autism caused by vaccines
April 3, 2013
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/survey-shows-republicans-conspiracy-theories-article-1.1306229
*
© Copyright 2013 NYDailyNews.com
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/brooklyn-judge-slams-birther-case-orders-theorist-pay-177g-article-1.1306268 [with comments]
--
Hero Judge Teabags Birther To Tune Of $177 Large
by Major Major Major Major
2:00 pm April 7, 2013
Brooklyn judge Arthur Schack pulled out his punking thesaurus [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/brooklyn-judge-slams-birther-case-orders-theorist-pay-177g-article-1.1306268 (just above)] the other day to slap down birther Christopher Earl Strunk’s latest frivolous lawsuit (of around 20), which claims that your Barry Soetoro is not eligible to run for preznet.
In a written order, Schack went all Gabe Kotter on Strunk, saying that his 2011 suit was “fanciful, delusional and irrational,” and that Strunk’s sister was so low that she plays handball on the curb (probably). Lest Strunk miss the point of this dozening and think about suit No. 21, Schack also charged him $167,000 for opposing attorney’s fees, and fined him $10k, for larfs.
Strunk took the whole thing in stride, as a man who aspires to Orly Taitzdom naturally would. “I’m going to have this thing overturned and I’m not going to pay a dime,” he said. Such optimism is reasonable, given that Strunk was merely pointing out the Jesuit-led, Roman Catholic voter-fraud conspiracy that involves hundreds of people and pretty much all high-ranking officials in New York. Everybody knows about that one.
This kind of smackdown is nothing new for Schack [ http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/justice-schack-id-rather-handle-killers-divorcing-couples ], who used to teach social studies in public school (no shit!), and later was the lawyer for the Major League Baseball Players Association. When he’s not ranking on birthers, he likes to cockblock bank foreclosures on the slightest technicaliity, and generally swagger about being awesome.
Schack also supplied a little film criticism in his order, in memory of the late Roger Ebert: “If the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da Vinci Code,’ ” he wrote. We have already written a pitch letter for the screenplay, so mitts off!
©2013 Wonkette Media LLC
http://wonkette.com/510684/hero-judge-teabags-birther-to-tune-of-177-large [with comments]
--
Bathroom Birther John Kavanagh Dumps Potty-Cop Bill, Still Wants to Regulate Toilets
Shitter Sergeant John Kavanagh's toilet police badge.
Mar. 26 2013
Toilet policeman and Republican Representative John Kavanagh has dumped his "bathroom birther" bill, which would have criminalized the use of a public restroom if the sex on someone's birth certificate doesn't match the sign on the door.
Still, Kavanagh's not giving up -- he's got another proposal to regulate toilet usage in the state of Arizona.
*
See also:
-Bathroom Birther John Kavanagh Delays His Toilet-Police Bill
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/03/bathroom_birther_john_kavanagh.php
-Lawmaker Wants People to Use Birth Certificate to Prove They're in the Right Bathroom
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/03/bathroom_birther_lawmaker_want.php
*
[...]
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/03/bathroom_birther_john_kavanagh_1.php [with comments]
--
Jim Gile, Kansas County Official, Apologizes For Racist Comment
Saline County Commission Jim Gile
By John Celock
Posted: 04/09/2013 2:18 pm EDT | Updated: 04/09/2013 4:28 pm EDT
A Republican county commissioner in rural Kansas is resisting calls for his resignation after a comment he made during a public meeting last week.
Saline County Commissioner Jim Gile (R) used the term "nigger-rigging" during a commission discussion April 2 about hiring an architect to work on a county building, the Salina Journal reported [ http://www.salina.com/news/Gile2013-04-06T04-27-33 ] on Saturday. Gile apologized for the comments, but residents called for his resignation during a commission meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The Salina Journal reported:
In a recording made by County Clerk Don Merriman of the study session, Gile, who is white, can be heard to say the county needed to hire an architect to design the improvements rather than "nigger-rigging it."
His comment brought laughter from others in the room. Salinan Ray Hruska, who attends most commission meetings and study sessions, asked Gile what he said.
"Afro-Americanized," Gile replied.
"He's like that congressman from Alaska," Commission Chairman Randy Duncan can be heard to say of Gile's comment.
Gile told the Salina Journal that he knew the term he used from when he was growing up and that he meant to say "jury-rigged." He also insisted that he is not racist, noting that a friend he considers a sister is black.
"I am not a prejudiced person," Gile told the Salina Journal. "I have built Habitat homes for colored people."
Gile kicked off Tuesday's county commission meeting by apologizing again, Salina Journal reporter Chris Hunter posted on Twitter [ https://twitter.com/chrishunterSJ ]. County and state Democrats are questioning whether Gile should continue in office.
Kansas Democratic Party spokesman Dakota Loomis told The Huffington Post that Gile should rethink his stance.
"It's shocking in this day and age that he would use this type of language and find it to be such a non-issue," Loomis said. "He needs to take a real hard look at how he represents the people in Saline County. This demonstrates a complete and utter lack of awareness. It calls into question his fitness to serve."
Gile is not the first Republican to find himself in hot water in the last year over racially tinged remarks. In 2012, Inge Marler, a Tea Party leader in rural Arkansas, was forced to step down [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/15/inge-marler-arkansas-tea-party-richard-caster_n_1600376.html ] after making a racist joke during a rally [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/inge-marler-tea-party-arkansas-leader-racist-joke_n_1597334.html ]. The Montana Republican Party was criticized for having a bullet-riddled outhouse [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/18/montana-republican-convention-obama-outhouse_n_1605567.html ] marked as the "Obama Presidential Library" at its state convention also in 2012.
UPDATE: A Republican lawmaker has added his voice to those criticizing Gile for his remarks. State Rep. J.R. Claeys (R-Salina) said that Gile's remark and the fact that it was backed up during the meeting raises concerns about the county government, which he called "dysfunctional." He also said that Gile's attempt to use his age to mask the comment is unacceptable, noting that people should know that the term he used is discriminatory.
"I think every citizen in our county should take a long, hard look at every individual in that room who allowed those comments to slide without immediately correcting and repudiating, not one, but multiple comments that are absolutely unacceptable in private, let alone a public meeting," Claeys told HuffPost. "This speaks to a systemic problem with the makeup and operation of county government that is already viewed as a good ol' boys club and needs to be dismantled by the people in such a way that it can no longer operate in this manner."
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/jim-gile-kansas_n_3045720.html [with embedded video "West Virginia Paper Publishes Racist Rant", and comments]
--
Gripes and Gratitudes • 3/20/13
Click below to read the original gay teacher firing story:
Fired teacher denies 'trying to turn them gay'
http://lincolnjournalinc.com/burns-appeals-firing-naked-pictures-denied-p9699-1.htm [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnA4VrEU-kI , as embedded]
White and right
We were really glad to hear that School Board is getting rid of them queers. The next thing is we need to get rid of all the n****rs, the spics, the kikes and the wops. You know even them Catholics, they are wrong as baby eaters. We need to clear them people out and have good, white, God fearing Christians and everybody else needs to be put to death for their abominations. We'll keep Lincoln County white and right. Thank you.
© Copyright Lincoln Journal
[at] http://lincolnjournalinc.com/Gripes-and-Gratitudes-93.htm [and see e.g. http://freakoutnation.com/2013/03/21/west-virginia-paper-publishes-anti-gay-racist-rant-wants-death-for-nggers-spics-kikes-and-wops/ (with embedded video, and comments), and the video embedded in the item just above]
--
The right wing’s Supreme Court whisperer
Meet the right-wing non-lawyer who may get the Supreme Court to kill affirmative action and voting rights
Mar 24, 2013
On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog, and in the Supreme Court, no one knows you’re not a lawyer. Or if they do, it doesn’t matter because you can still rewrite vast swathes of important legal code without having ever taken Torts 101.
At least that’s the lesson of Edward Blum, a conservative legal activist who, despite lacking formal legal education, has successfully pushed 14 cases to the nation’s highest court. Of the nearly 9,000 cased filed with the court last year, just 79 got oral arguments. Blum got two of them, and they’re both among the most-watched cases currently before the justices.
One, Shelby County v. Holder [ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/shelby-county-v-holder/ ], could gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The other, Fisher v. University of Texas [ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/fisher-v-university-of-texas-at-austin/ ], could outlaw affirmative action in college admissions and possibly elsewhere. Progressive legal activists and civil rights groups have sounded the alarm, putting both cases at the top of their agendas and warning that a bad decision could undermine decades of protections for minorities.
If you see a pattern between the two cases, it’s because there is one. Since a failed 1992 Congressional bid in a heavily gerrymandered majority-minority district in Houston, Blum has been obsessed with race and public policy, seeking to tear down what he sees as special treatment for subgroups wherever they exist in the law. When lobbying elected officials didn’t work, Blum turned to the courts, despite not having a law degree.
[...]
... Blum is not alone on the right. For instance, there’s Jim Bopp [ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the/309086/ ], the RNC committeeman who has single-handedly rolled back decades worth of campaign-finance laws. “He filed cases that everyone else in the business thought were completely crazy, but with his victory in Citizens United, he’s the one who’s laughing now,” Winkler said.
There’s also the troika of libertarian lawyers [ http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-much-heller-case-lawyers ] who pushed the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller gun-rights case.
[...]
... In the affirmative action case, the argument is that Abigail Fisher was unfairly denied admission to UT Austin because the school gives favorable treatment to minorities.
But Fisher was hardly an outstanding student, and university officials say she would have been rejected even if she received points for being a racial minority. An investigation by ProPublica [ http://www.propublica.org/article/a-colorblind-constitution-what-abigail-fishers-affirmative-action-case-is-r ] lends credence to that assertion, showing that her SAT scores were well below the school’s mean and that her GPA was merely average. And while the school did offer provisional admission to students with lower scores than hers, just five of those students were black or Latino — 42 were white.
In the voting-rights case, the argument is that the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary because widespread racial discrimination is no longer a major problem. But Blum’s plaintiff, Shelby County, Ala., has had plenty of problems with voting discrimination.
“Think about this state that you’re representing,” liberal Justice Elena Kagan said during oral arguments [ http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-96.pdf ]. “It’s about a quarter black, but Alabama has no black statewide elected officials. If Congress were to write a formula that looked to the number of successful Section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act] suits per million residents, Alabama would be the number one state on the list.”
[...]
... the Supreme Court has become undeniably more conservative [ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/us/25roberts.html?pagewanted=all ] and corporate friendly over the years, giving conservative legal entrepreneurs like Blum a big leg up.
Laumann [of the Alliance for Justice, http://www.afj.org/about-afj/ ] also took issue with Blum’s image as a lone wolf. “He’s really part of this huge web of conservative groups. The bulk of his money comes from a group called Donors Trust, which is a basically a clearing house that funds front groups to push a whole bunch of right-wing policy goals, from tort reform to climate change denial to school choice to voter rights challenges.”
Indeed, Donors Trust provides the legal fees Blum pays to lawyers who take up his cases — “millions” over the years. The organization is sort of like the United Way of conservative political philanthropy in that big donors can funnel money to the group, which then distributes it to friendly organizations.
On its website [ http://donorstrust.org/ ], the group says it is “explicitly devoted to supporting organizations that promote liberty” and calls itself “an innovative charitable vehicle for donors who wish to safeguard their charitable intent to fund organizations that undergird America’s founding principles.” Liberals have called it a “an anonymous tax-deductible policy slush fund” that’s “almost a laundering operation [ http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/donors-trust-anonymous-tax-deductible-polic ]” for wealthy donors.
[...]
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/24/the_right_wings_supreme_court_whisperer/ [with comments]
--
Supreme Court Poised To Upend Civil Rights Policies
By HOPE YEN
03/31/13 02:26 PM ET EDT
WASHINGTON — Has the nation lived down its history of racism and should the law become colorblind?
Addressing two pivotal legal issues, one on affirmative action and a second on voting rights, a divided Supreme Court is poised to answer those questions.
In one case, the issue is whether race preferences in university admissions undermine equal opportunity more than they promote the benefits of racial diversity. Just this past week, justices signaled their interest in scrutinizing affirmative action very intensely, expanding their review as well to a Michigan law passed by voters that bars "preferential treatment" to students based on race. Separately in a second case, the court must decide whether race relations – in the South, particularly – have improved to the point that federal laws protecting minority voting rights are no longer warranted.
The questions are apt as the United States closes in on a demographic tipping point, when nonwhites will become a majority of the nation's population for the first time. That dramatic shift is expected to be reached within the next generation, and how the Supreme Court rules could go a long way in determining what civil rights and equality mean in an America long divided by race.
The court's five conservative justices seem ready to declare a new post-racial moment, pointing to increased levels of voter registration and turnout among blacks to show that the South has changed. Lower federal courts just in the past year had seen things differently, blunting voter ID laws and other election restrictions passed by GOP-controlled legislatures in South Carolina, Texas and Florida, which they saw as discriminatory.
"Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes," Justice Antonin Scalia said in oral arguments earlier this year, suggesting that it was the high court's responsibility to overturn voting protections overwhelmingly passed by Congress in 2006.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, part of the court's more liberal wing, countered that while conventional discriminatory tactics may have faded, new ones have emerged. "Congress said up front: We know that the (voter) registration is fine. That is no longer the problem. But the discrimination continues in other forms," she said.
The legal meanings of "equality," "racism" and "discrimination" have been in flux since at least 1883, when justices struck down a federal anti-discrimination law, calling it an unfair racial advantage for former black slaves. Today, justices face the question of whether the nation has reached equality by a 1960s definition or some new standard.
By some demographic measures, America has reached a new era. But the latest census data and polling from The Associated Press also show race and class disparities that persist.
President Barack Obama, the nation's first black chief executive, was re-elected in November despite a historically low percentage of white supporters. He was aided by a growing bloc of blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and gays, and a disproportionate share of women, who together supported him by at least a 2-to-1 margin.
Another sign of shifting times: Among newborns, minorities outnumbered whites for the first time last year, the Census Bureau reported. "The end of the world as straight white males know it," one newspaper headline said on the morning after the November election.
Still, issues linger by race, age and class:
_Jobs and income. Black poverty has fallen by half since 1959, to 27.6 percent, but is still nearly three times the poverty rate of whites. Black and Hispanic men are twice as likely as whites to work in the low-paying service sector. Since the 1970s, the unemployment rate for blacks has remained double that of whites.
_Wealth. The wealth gap between whites and minorities is at its widest since 1984. Predominantly younger minorities were hit hard when home prices fell, while older whites were more likely to invest in 401(k) retirement plans and stocks, which have rebounded since the recession. The median net worth of white households was $113,149 in 2009, compared with $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks.
_Class and education. By some measures, the gap between rich and poor has stretched to its widest since 1967. Globalization and automation have eliminated many mid-skill jobs, leaving a polarized pool of low-wage work and high-skill jobs requiring advanced degrees. About 40 percent of whites age 25-29 graduate from college, compared with 15 percent for Latinos and 23 percent for blacks.
_Racial bias. Prejudice against blacks worsened slightly in the four years since Obama was first elected in 2008, according to an AP poll. In all, 51 percent of Americans expressed explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in 2008. Questions designed to ferret out subconscious bias raised the proportion with anti-black sentiments to 56 percent, and the share of people expressing pro-black attitudes fell.
Roderick Harrison, a demographer who is black, says he felt pride in Obama's re-election, which to him reaffirmed a historic achievement not only for black Americans but also a broader coalition of racially diverse groups. Still, he worries that demographic change and Obama's success may lead to a tipping point in the opposite direction, where people in the United States are led to assume racial equality has fully arrived.
The strength of minority support behind Obama was aided by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and other protections, he said.
The term "minority" often refers to an unequal or disadvantaged status and isn't always about numbers or counts, said Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau. The District of Columbia, Hawaii, California, New Mexico and Texas already have populations of racial and ethnic minorities that collectively add up to more than 50 percent. Across the U.S., more than 11 percent of counties have tipped to "majority-minority" status.
"Minority status is a matter of exclusion from full participation in society, remaining long after a nation becomes `majority minority,'" Harrison said.
*
To Bradley Poole, 21, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, racial progress is measured by the little things. An advertising major, Poole became a member and then president of the school's Black Student Alliance, seeking camaraderie after noticing he often was the only African-American in his classes.
"I definitely feel the difference," he said.
The university automatically grants admission to the top 10 percent of students in each of the state's high schools. That helps bring in students of different backgrounds because Texas high schools are highly racially segregated, reflecting decades of segregated neighborhoods.
In a state where blacks now make up 11.5 percent of the population and Hispanics 38 percent, the university's enrollment of 50,000 students never rose above 3 percent to 4.5 percent black and 13 percent to 17 percent Hispanic. So in 2004 it decided to allow students who miss the 10 percent cutoff to be considered for admission based on a range of socioeconomic factors, including race.
The share of black students has since increased slightly to 6 percent, while Hispanic enrollment rose to 26 percent.
The university's affirmative action plan is being challenged in the Supreme Court by Abigail Fisher, a white student who missed the cutoff and was rejected. Fisher says she was denied fair consideration because of her race.
A 2003 Supreme Court opinion said universities may consider race only as one of several factors to promote diversity. The court said diversity benefits everyone because in a global economy it fosters leaders who can relate to people of different backgrounds.
In the last week, justices also agreed to take up a second affirmative action case this year, deciding whether states may pass laws that restrict the use of race preferences in college admissions. That case involves an appeal to a lower court ruling that found a 2006 voter-approved ban in Michigan unconstitutional, reasoning that such bans put minorities at a disadvantage.
The justices' decision to hear the Michigan case next fall – with their decision in the Texas case still to be announced this spring – suggests that the court will not decide in the Texas case to eliminate affirmative action programs in higher education.
In the seven or so states that enacted bans on affirmative action at their public universities, freshman enrollments of blacks and Hispanics almost always fell afterward – as much as 50 percent at UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley – although in some cases they later rebounded. Those states now include Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. A Supreme Court ruling that further restricts affirmative action could shake up college admissions policies nationwide, perhaps shifting focus to low-income students or low-performing schools.
Before opting to enroll at Texas, Poole says he considered attending a mostly white university in Iowa and a historically black college in Louisiana. The college course he now values the most: an advertising seminar that he attended along with a Hispanic, a female student-athlete and an Asian-American. No one in that class was a "minority," he said, and there was a range of perspectives.
Outside class, Poole says his organization has experienced racial incidents. One white student ran up in "blackface" to where members were gathered on campus, daring them to respond. A legal brief filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on behalf of Poole's group lists other racial incidents in recent years, some of which led to suspensions or public apologies.
"Racial diversity is a conversation we need to have," he said.
*
Not since the tumultuous 1960s have U.S. ideals of equality been more closely contested. Legal analysts say a Supreme Court holding of a colorblind Constitution, either as a matter of law or practical effect, could begin to emerge in two rulings on voting rights and affirmative action due out by late June. A third ruling in the Michigan affirmative action case will come next term.
The five conservative justices who make up a majority could overturn the 2003 opinion or take a less dramatic step. The court may opt for tighter restrictions that make it difficult for colleges to consider race or rule narrowly that in a situation like Texas, its unique top 10 percent plan is enough on its own to achieve diversity.
In the court's other racial case, a conservative majority may declare the 1965 Voting Rights Act constitutionally flawed for its focus on racism in the South but leave it up to lawmakers to sort it out.
The court could also find a less sweeping, more technical way of deciding the voting rights case, much as they did four years ago. Back then, Chief Justice John Roberts suggested Congress should update the law to reflect improved conditions in the South. Congress hasn't done so.
Prominent legal bloggers are already warning of sharp public reaction, especially if justices strike down federal voting protections.
"If the court rules in a conservative direction, this will be a pivotal year with regard to race in the Constitution and a year that could have a devastating effect on racial diversity," adds Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Irvine law school.
*
Has the country put its racist past behind it? That question is at the core of the challenge to the Voting Rights Act. The arguments before the court raised questions about whether new, more subtle forms of voting discrimination have taken the place of Jim Crow laws.
In 1870, the Constitution guaranteed blacks the right to vote. But for many decades afterward, whites in the post-slavery South used poll taxes and literacy tests to block African-Americans from voting.
That changed in 1965 with enactment of the Voting Rights Act, which let minorities file lawsuits against voter discrimination. Section 5 of that law went even further, requiring nine states, mostly in the South, and scores of counties and townships in seven other states, all with histories of disenfranchisement, to get federal approval before making any election change. Changes can include everything from a different poll location to a new political redistricting map.
The voting act was renewed by Congress in 2006 for another 25 years. The Justice Department and the federal courts last year used Section 5 to block voter restrictions in South Carolina, Texas and parts of Florida. That saved hundreds of thousands of votes that would otherwise have been lost in November, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Many were cast by blacks and Hispanics who turned out for Obama.
Lawyers for Shelby County, Alabama, which is challenging Section 5, say the tables have turned in a nation that is now much more racially diverse, with minority voters possibly holding an unfair advantage.
"You have a different constituency from the constituency you had in 1964," attorney Bert Rein told the justices. "Senators who see that a very large group in the population has politically wedded themselves to Section 5 are not going to vote against it."
Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Election Law Blog, says the "smart money" now is on the Supreme Court striking down Section 5, leading to consequences for minority voters such as "more brazen partisan gerrymanders, cutbacks in early voting and imposition of tougher voting and registration rules in the formerly covered jurisdictions."
But if the court strikes down "a crown jewel of the civil rights movement," he said, that could spark a public backlash that sends Congress back to the drawing board, with any resulting new law applying equally to all states.
Associated Press writer Mark Sherman and AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.
Online:
www.census.gov
www.supremecourtus.gov
www.utexas.edu
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/31/supreme-court-civil-rights-affirmative-action-voting-rights-act_n_2987996.html [with comments]
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86225697 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86383560 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86418350 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86641880 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86645050 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78915505 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61643992 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=60232115 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86648317 and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
