By GottaLaff
Los Angeles surpassed its 100,000 count at their immigration rally, per CNN. Gutierrez was in D.C.:
Police arrested Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez at an immigration rally outside the White House on Saturday.
Several people interviewed said they had not been to a pro-immigration march since the massive protests in 2006, but that Arizona's law compelled them to come out.
By GottaLaff
Racial profiling has been going on for some time in Arizona, thanks to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, as we've posted over and over. Today the L.A. Times is reporting that very same thing, and it's not pretty:
[...] Latino activists and civil rights attorneys contend that profiling is already a reality in the Maricopa County, where two-thirds of the state's residents live. [...]Arpaio even pulls over his supporters. What better way to maintain popularity with your base?
Since 2008 [Arpaio] has sent hundreds of his deputies and sworn volunteers on "sweeps" through immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, where they stop jaywalkers or drivers with broken taillights and ask for identification and immigration information. An analysis by civil rights lawyers found 70% of those arrested in these operations have Spanish surnames. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and Scottsdale, is only 31% Latino, the majority of whom are legal residents or U.S. citizens.
Arpaio's tactics, which he says are necessary to suppress crime, have made him wildly popular in Arizona.
[T]he deputy made him wait 10 minutes before letting him go with the words: "I don't want you to think this has anything to do with racial profiling."
The new Arizona law in effect orders every Arizona law enforcement officer to respond like Arpaio's deputies.
By GottaLaff
As Tiggrr1 says, Arizona's Anti-Immigration Bill puts Arizona in the same boat as segregationists in the 1960s. He's right.
1964 to be exact. Watch:
Via the L.A. Times:
Arizona lawmakers on Tuesday approved what foes and supporters agree is the toughest measure in the country against illegal immigrants, directing local police to determine whether people are in the country legally. [...]
Immigrant rights groups were horrified, and contended that Arizona would be transformed into a police state.
"It's beyond the pale," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "It appears to mandate racial profiling."
The bill, known as SB 1070, makes it a misdemeanor to lack proper immigration paperwork in Arizona. It also requires police officers, if they form a "reasonable suspicion" that someone is an illegal immigrant, to determine the person's immigration status.
Currently, officers can inquire about someone's immigration status only if the person is a suspect in another crime. The bill allows officers to avoid the immigration issue if it would be impractical or hinder another investigation.
By GottaLaff
A federal judge Tuesday ordered a rural county in southwestern Mississippi to stop segregating its schools by grouping African American students into all-black classrooms and allowing white students to transfer to the county's only majority-white school, the U.S. Justice Department announced.
The order, issued by Senior Judge Tom S. Lee of the U.S. District Court of Southern Mississippi, came after Justice Department civil rights division lawyers moved to enforce a 1970 desegregation case against the state and Walthall County.
I was listening to someone on a progressive radio station today (I wish I could remember who, and hopefully one of you will remind me) who was adamant that the most important issue of the day does not involve who ends up being the Supreme Court nominee or who wins the 2010 Congressional elections. No, it's President Obama's sluggish, molasses-like pace in filling federal judge slots, and replacing some with ones who might even have, you know, 21st century mindsets.
Currently, the guest reminded us, they are occupied by Rovian dreams-come-true and control our lives more than anyone in the country. And that's just the way BushCo wanted it.
We can see why replacing Bush era judges is mandatory. Stat.
"More than 55 years after Brown v. Board of Education, it is unacceptable for school districts to act in a way that encourages or tolerates the resegregation of public schools," said Thomas E. Perez, U.S. assistant attorney general in charge of the civil rights division, in a written statement. "We will take action so that school districts subject to federal desegregation orders comply with their obligation to eliminate vestiges of separate black and white schools."
By GottaLaff
Click on image to enlarge:
By GottaLaff
The climate of hatred and racism in this country is nauseating.
Segregation is not a thing of the past.
By GottaLaff
Nine out of ten of Republican ideas are in the Senate bill that are in the House bill... We're very close on this.
You can only do reforms if everyone's in the pool. ... cost controls... this all hangs together. You can't pick one out and do it without doing the other.... It's like throwing a 10 foot rope to someone who's drowning... then a 20 foot rope... He'll drown. [paraphrased]
We don't want to allow segregation in our country... nor on the basis of disability... yet we still allow it on the basis of your health. Why should we? Why should we?... Whenever I hear the word "pool", I think "segregation."
By GottaLaff
In an appearance at the University of Arizona, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia "said he likely would have dissented from the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared school segregation illegal and struck down the system of 'separate but equal'; public schools," the East Valley Tribune reports.This from the man who thought nothing of executing the innocent. And here's a peek at a few more chestnuts of judicial wisdom:
"He said that decision, which overturned earlier precedent, was designed to provide an approach the majority liked better."
"I will stipulate that it will,'' Scalia said. But he said that doesn't make it right.
Thank you,"Right to abortion?'' he asked. "Come on. Nobody thought it violated anything in the Constitution for 200 years. It was criminal.''
The same, said Scalia, is true of homosexual sodomy. Yet the nation's high court has struck down state laws banning both.
By GottaLaff
This audio is just a teaser:
Boss LimpDong should have his voice revoked:
In a remark extraordinary even by the standards of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio heavyweight declared on his program Wednesday that the United States needed to return to racially segregated buses.Referring to an incident in which a white student was beaten by black students on a bus, Limbaugh said: “I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.”
More here.
A full transcript of Limbaugh’s comments on his radio show is available at MediaMatters.org.
By GottaLaff
By GottaLaff
For more than a year, Virginia’s largest women’s prison rounded up inmates who had loose-fitting clothes, short hair or otherwise masculine looks, sending them to a unit officers derisively dubbed the “butch wing,” prisoners and guards say.
Hey, you over there with the short hair. We're gonna make your life miserable:
Dozens were moved in an attempt to split up relationships and curb illegal sexual activity at the 1,200-inmate Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, though some straight women were sent to the wing strictly because of their appearance, the inmates and corrections officers said.
Civil rights advocates called the moves unconstitutional punishment for “looking gay.” The warden denied that any housing decisions were made based on looks or sexual orientation, and said doing so would be discriminatory. The practice was stopped recently after the Associated Press began questioning it, according to several inmates and one current employee.
Two current guards and one of their former co-workers said targeting masculine-looking inmates was a deliberate strategy by a building manager. Numerous inmates said in letters and interviews that they felt humiliated and stigmatized when guards took them to the separate wing — also referred to by prisoners and guards as the “little boys wing,” “locker room wing” or “studs wing.”
Coupled with this, and all the recent horrific events, I'm beside myself here.
How about putting those cowardly little homophobes in the "studs wing" for a day or twelve? And if they complain about their treatment, it can just be attributed to a figment of their effing imaginations.Living conditions in wing 5D weren’t worse than the rest of the prison, and no prisoner said she was denied services other inmates received. However, the women said they were verbally harassed by staff who would make remarks such as, “Here come the little boys,” when they were escorted to eat, and they were taken to the cafeteria first or last to keep them away from other inmates. The three guards confirmed such remarks were made.
The two current guards and former guard William Drumheller said Building 5 manager Timothy Back, who is in charge of security and operations for that area, came up with the idea to break up couples by sending inmates to the wing. [...]
“I heard him say, ‘We’re going to break up some of these relationships, start a boys wing, and we’re going to take all these studs and put them together and see how they like looking at nothing but each other all day instead of their girlfriends,”’ Drumheller said.
Drumheller said Back told him the plan one day in a prison office. The other two guards, who are both female, said Back’s reasons for moving the prisoners were commonly known among guards, though officials would deny the reasons for the moves if inmates asked or complained.[...]
Warden Barbara Wheeler called the policy a figment of the inmates’ imaginations. [...]
A dozen inmates interviewed in person or by letter contradicted Wheeler, saying there’s no doubt why they were moved. Triolo said she had gone four years without getting in trouble until she shaved her shoulder-length brown locks. She soon was moved to 5D, away from her girlfriend. [...]
“Point blank, this institution is ran by homophobes, and the rules instated here are based on your sexual preference not what is right or wrong,” wrote inmate Casey Lynn Toney.
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