Tuesday Reads: Wisconsin Recall, Willard on the Defensive, SCOTUS, Another School Shooting, and Trayvon Martin Updates
Posted: April 3, 2012 Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Crime, Labor unions, Mitt Romney, morning reads, religion, Republican presidential politics, SCOTUS, U.S. Politics | Tags: Benjamin Crump, Bob Dylan, FBI, George Zimmerman, interracial marrage, Medgar Evers, Mormon church, Norman Wolfinger, Oakland CA, Oikos University, Sanford FL, School Shooting, Scott Walker, strip searches, Trayvon Martin, Wisconsin primary 38 Comments
Tea and Scones, by Kristine Diehl
Good Morning!!
Today is the Wisconsin primary, but there isn’t much suspense. It looks like Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee, even though no one really likes him. I guess Romney wants the job so bad, he doesn’t care that that he’s basically a laughing stock. [UPDATE: Maryland and the District of Columbia also hold their primaries today.]
Yesterday, Romney was asked some uncomfortable questions at a Town Hall meeting in Howard, Wisconsin. One man, a Ron Paul supporter, asked Romney whether he agreed with Mormon Church scriptures that say interracial marriage is sinful. Romney became visibly upset.
The questioner, Bret Hatch, 28, a local supporter of Rep. Ron Paul’s, read from typed notes as he asked Romney whether he agreed with a verse from Moses 7:8 from the “Pearl of Great Price.” As he began citing the verse, Romney interrupted: “I’m sorry, we’re just not going to have a discussion about religion in my view. But if you have a question, I’ll be happy to answer your question.”
Hatch asked his question. “If you become president,” he asked, “do you believe it’s a sin for a white man to marry and procreate with a black?”
“No,” Romney said. “Next question.”
Then another person asked Romney “about his ability to connect to average Americans.” Romney then cited his experience as a church leader in the Boston area.
“That gave me the occasion to work with people on a very personal basis that were dealing with unemployment, with marital difficulties, with health difficulties of their own and with their kids,”
He then claimed that he is running for President because he wants to help people like that.
The big excitement in Wisconsin isn’t about the primary, but about the recall of Governor Scott Walker.
For Wisconsinites, the most important political news of the season came Friday, when the state’s Government Accountability Board announced that the effort to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker had amassed enough valid signatures to force an election June 5. It will be the first such election in state history, and if Wisconsin votes out Walker, he will be only the third sitting governor in U.S. history to be recalled, joining North Dakota’s Lynn Frazier in 1921 and California’s Gray Davis in 2003.
The precipitating event was Walker’s quick move, upon taking office, to reward the 1 percent with a tax cut while asking the 99 percent to sacrifice. He didn’t campaign on his antipathy for public unions. Yet within his first few weeks as governor, Walker declared war on public-sector workers (except for police and firefighters, many of whom supported his candidacy), cutting benefits, limiting pay increases and sharply curtailing collective bargaining rights, even after the unions agreed to many of his demands.
Minx wrote about the horrible SCOTUS decision that came out yesterday, but I wanted to give you a little background on the case they heard. This decision is shocking, IMO.
Albert Florence, his wife and little boy were on their way to his parents’ home in 2005, when they were pulled over by a state trooper. Mrs. Florence was at the wheel, but the trooper’s roadside state records check showed a seven-year-old outstanding arrest warrant for Albert Florence for failing to pay a fine. Florence said he had paid the fine, and pulled out a receipt, which he kept in the car. But the trooper said there was nothing he could do. Florence was handcuffed and taken to the local county jail.
The state would later admit it had failed to properly purge the arrest warrant, but at the time of the arrest, the error turned into a “nightmare,” Florence said. He was held in jail for seven days and strip-searched twice.
Florence said the experience “petrified” and “humiliated” him. Upon entering the jail, he was ordered to take a delousing shower, then inspected by a guard who was about “an arm’s distance” away and instructed Florence to squat, cough and lift up his genitals.
If that isn’t an unreasonable search, I don’t know what would be. But five “conservative” justices think it’s just fine for law enforcement officials to strip search people even for minor offenses. This will surely have the effect of frightening people away from being involved in peaceful political protests.
Occupy and political protesters beware. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday held that local police can strip-search anyone who is arrested for minor offenses if they are to be held within the jail’s general population before being released.
The 5-4 decision, with the Court’s conservative majority overruling its four moderates, is a further erosion of the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unlawful search and seizure. It overturns laws in 10 states that place limits on suspicionless strip-searches and upholds a technique used by some local police forces against Occupy protesters last fall, prompting protesters to sue.
Among the jurisdictions seeking expanded authority to strip-search anyone arrested were the City of Chicago, where the NATO summit will be held this May and where protests have been planned, as well as the state of North Carolina, where the Democratic National Convention will be held in early September in Charlotte.
There was a school shooting at a Christian college in Oakland, California yesterday. Seven people were killed and three injured.
Police captured the suspected gunman inside an Alameda grocery store five miles away from the shooting site at Oikos University after he allegedly walked to the customer service counter and told employees, “I just shot some people.”
A law-enforcement source close to the investigation confirmed to The Chronicle that the suspect is 43-year-old One Goh of Oakland.
The suspect used a .45-caliber handgun, spraying a classroom with gunfire and firing additional shots as he ran out, said the source, who did not wish to be identified because the investigation is ongoing.
Goh had been a nursing student at Oikos University, located at 7850 Edgewater Road in East Oakland, and there was some kind of dispute that may have resulted in him getting kicked out of at least one class, the source said.
I have a number of Trayvon Martin links. I won’t quote extensively from them, but I’m still very interested in the case and want to pass on things that I’ve learned.
Some new recordings have come out that show that either George Zimmerman or police decided he didn’t need to go to the hospital after the shooting. If Zimmerman had actually had his head pounded on concrete multiple times, he would have had to be evaluated for a serious head injury, because sometimes you can have internal injuries or hemorrhaging that doesn’t show on the outside.
Trayvon Martin’s parents have formally requested that the Feds investigate whether Norman Wolfinger, the states attorney actually interfered with a police detective who wanted to arrest Zimmerman on the night of the shooting. But Wolfinger is denying that it ever happened. He didn’t deny it in a very nice way either.
Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the Martin family, asked the Justice Department in a letter on Monday to investigate those reports. Though the letter reported the events without attribution, Crump told Reuters his information came from the media reports and he did not have independent verification….
“I am outraged by the outright lies contained in the letter by Benjamin Crump,” Wolfinger said. “I encourage the Justice Department to investigate and document that no such meeting or communication occurred.” [….]
Lynne Bumpus-Hooper, a spokesman for Wolfinger, said the state attorney never spoke with Lee on the night of the shooting. Instead Sanford police consulted that night with Kelly Jo Hines, the prosecutor on call, Bumpus-Hooper said. She declined to say what was discussed.
“Police officers can make an arrest at virtually any dadgum point they feel they have enough probable cause to make an arrest,” Bumpus-Hooper said. “They do not need our permission and they do not seek our permission.”
So who made that decision? The plot thickens.
Today FBI agents appeared in Sanford and began examining the area in which the shooting occurred, and reviewing evidence in a “parallel investigation” with the one being carried out by special prosecutor
The New York Times had an excellent review of Zimmerman’s evolving story about what happened on the night of February 26. If you’re at all interested in this case, be sure to read it. It’s very helpful.
Richard E.J. Escrow had an interesting think piece on the Trayvon Martin case. His conclusion comes from Bob Dylan’s song about the murder of Medgar Evers: Zimmerman is “only a pawn in their game.”
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school …
That the laws are with him, to protect his white skin
To keep up his hate, so he never thinks straight
‘Bout the shape that he’s in, but it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
Escrow writes:
Whose game? As it turns out, the ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws used to protect shooters like Zimmerman were written and promoted by ALEC – the American Legislative Exchange Council. As the Center for Media and Democracy notes, the corporate-funded right wing group behind Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on worker rights is the same group that has promoted ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws all around the country.
You could put a thousand people on Neighborhood Watch and they’d never see the real threats to Zimmerman’s community. Those threats can’t be seen with the eye. The real threats are things like joblessness, financial insecurity, hunger, lack of medical care. They’re threats you can’t protect yourself from with a gun.
Shooters like George Zimmerman are the product of an economic system that benefits from misdirected fear and anger – emotions that are too often channeled into violence instead of peaceful change.
Here’s Dylan performing his song at a voter registration rally in Greenwood, Mississippi in 1963.
Have a great day everyone! Now what’s on your reading list today?
Komen Cut Funds to Planned Parenthood Under Pressure from Catholic Bishops
Posted: March 15, 2012 Filed under: abortion rights, birth control, religion, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: Cardinal-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Catholic Church, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 9 Comments
Timothy Dolan, Cardinal-Archbishop of NY and President of the US. Conference of Catholic Bishops
According to a Reuters story published this afternoon, the decision by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure to end the charity’s donations to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening came in response to Bishops in several states ordered Catholic churches and schools not to donate to Komen. Yet, at the same time, Catholic Church-run organizations receive millions in funds from the breast cancer charity.
The earliest signs of discord came in 2005, when South Carolina’s Catholic diocese pulled out of the local Komen fundraiser. It was followed over the next four years by individual dioceses in Arizona, Indiana, Florida, Missouri and other states, where bishops either spoke out against Komen or took steps to stem donations to the charity, mainly because of its Planned Parenthood link.
The momentum picked up in 2011 when top Ohio clerics met in Columbus. High on their agenda was the question of whether the state’s nine dioceses should participate in Komen fundraisers.
Eleven Ohio Bishops agreed to ban all donations to Komen from the state’s Catholic schools and churches.
No Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio receive Komen money. But the bishops decided that diocese funds should no longer benefit the charity, for fear that money sent from local Komen affiliates to the Dallas headquarters could wind up in Planned Parenthood’s coffers or help fund research on stem cells collected from human fetuses, according to church officials….
The Ohio bishops would soon be joined by the North Dakota Catholic Conference, which cautioned its nearly 190,000 parishioners against donating to Komen. The charity’s officials in California also say they received their first request in two decades to meet with Catholic bishops, who expressed concern about Planned Parenthood but took no action.
According to Reuters, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops hasn’t been officially involved in these decisions, because they are made at the local level, but
Observers say the local bishops’ focus on Komen and other social issues reflects a larger conservative shift within the American church since New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan became chairman of the Conference in November 2010.
Under Dolan’s leadership, the conference last year set up a new ad hoc committee on religious liberty to oppose government policies that conflict with church teachings on abortion, contraception and gay marriage.
So now we know. When the Tea Party candidates swept into Congress in 2010, Dolan saw an opportunity to step up attacks on abortion, contraception, and therefore on women’s health generally. Yet at the same time, Catholic hospitals and universities accept millions in donations from Komen. These are the same organizations that are opposing the Obama administration’s ruling that health insurance plans must cover contraception without co-pays.
What a tangled web! But the one thing we know for sure is that the Catholic Bishops are using every available avenue to pursue their war on women.
Apologies And Cockroaches
Posted: February 24, 2012 Filed under: abortion rights, birth control, Feminists, fetus fetishists, Girl Scouts, Planned Parenthood, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, religion, religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, War on Women 10 CommentsI’m always amazed when politicians/public personas do or say something truly idiotic, catch flack for it in the press and/or the court of public opinion, and then apologize in a half-ass way
It’s those girl scouts, again!
This is often referred to as: Making A Bad Situation Worse!
And so here comes the utterly pathetic apology of Bob Morris, Republican State Rep from Indiana, who went on a moral crusade against the Girl Scouts of America, charging they were a secretive arm of Planned Parenthood [automatically bad in Morris’s opinion] and as such were indoctrinating our daughters in the corrosive ideas of feminism, lesbianism and yes, even communism. Morris made these accusations in a ‘letter of concern,’ which he sent to fellow Indiana legislators. How could he know that his written opinion [the result of tireless web-based research by his own admission] would go public, putting him and his ravings on review?
The world is truly an unfair place!
No doubt the publicity proved problematic for Morris because he has now offered an apology. Of sorts. He’s willing to admit that his words were: emotional, reactionary and inflammatory. He did not mean to impugn those families active in Girl Scout organizations that are run in a responsible manner, those promoting leadership, community involvement and family values.
This flies in the face of earlier comments [Tuesday of this week] to a local radio station, where Morris said:
“The Girl Scouts of America don’t stand for anything. They let those girls do what they want in their troop meetings.”
How quickly these righteous warriors fold when exposed to the daylight. Now Morris says he should not have painted the Girl Scouts with “such a broad brush.”
“Had I known this letter would have gone to a wider audience, I would have cited further evidence for my position,” Morris wrote.
Let me play a little inside betting on this one: I’ll stake you 10:1 that had Morris known the letter would have gone public, he would never have written it. It’s easy to be a bully and nincompoop when you think the team is squarely on your side. It’s an altogether different scenario when you’re exposed for what you are: a religious reactionary with an axe to grind, in this case against anything or anyone connected to Planned Parenthood. And where would a Bob Morris get the sense that smearing the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood was A-okay?
From the rah-rah being given to the likes of Rick Santorum, whose recent ravings have been heralded ‘as sincere, steadfast.’ I’m sure the judges in Salem were viewed with the same sanguine eye.
Morris’s full apology can be found here.
Satan's Wafers
On March 5, 2004, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America’s CEO, Kathy Cloninger, stated in an interview on the NBC Today Show that the Girl Scouts USA partners with Planned Parenthood with regard to sex education for Girl Scouts. To my knowledge, the Girl Scouts USA have not rescinded, corrected or denied that statement.
There you go. Sex education = sexualization. Why? Because we all know that ignorance is bliss. In fact, Rick Santorum disclosed to Mania Meister Glenn Beck that higher education is a dangerous thing, that the President’s plan to extend college educations to ever more students is a dark, nefarious plot:
On the president’s efforts to boost college attendance, Santorum said, “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely … The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”
He claimed that “62 percent of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it,” but declined to cite a source for the figure. And he floated the idea of requiring that universities that receive public funds have “intellectual diversity” on campus.
Yes sir, keep those kids down on the farm ‘cause, golly shucks, you give ‘em an education how you going to convince ‘em the earth is only 6000 years old or that cavemen saddled up the dinosaurs.
Why let scientific evidence stand in the way when magical thinking is so much more soothing. And ideologically correct.
Oprah has her own list about making ‘good’ apologies but here’s Peggysue’s suggestions for future mea culpas:
If you don’t mean it, don’t say it. This is a turn on the Thumper philosophy: If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.
A Cockroach caught in the daylight.
Do not come kicking and screaming to an apology, regardless of what your pollsters say. Resistance shows and just makes you look like a bigger cockroach.
Do not state an additional challenge in an apology. Example: Okay, I got caught with my pettiness and religious right-wing bona fides showing but here: PROVE THIS WRONG.
The essence of any apology is humility. If you can’t manage humility and/or your acting abilities are subpar? Just hang it up. You are a cockroach and will likely remain a cockroach.
You can avoid apologies altogether by remaining in the shadows. There’s a reason cockroaches hang together in the dark. Because the light makes them vulnerable. In the light, the rest of us get to see what a nasty piece of work a cockroach really is.
Btw, here’s a factoid about the insect world: a cockroach can survive weeks without its head.
Color me positively unsurprised!
Sunlight, the best disinfectant
Thursday Reads
Posted: February 23, 2012 Filed under: 2012 primaries, legislation, Marriage Equality, morning reads, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, religion, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: constitution, DOMA, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Republican Debate, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul 47 Comments
Good Morning!!
There was another Republican debate last night, and it may actually be the last one! We live blogged it here. I watched the debate and all it did was remind me how distasteful–actually repulsive–every one of these candidates is. Romney is the slimiest, liar ever; Gingrich is nothing but a grifter; Ron Paul is a whiny old geezer; and Santorum is a sanctimonious, preachy theocrat. After this election, the Republican Party may be truly dead. It’s already brain dead.
Here are a few reactions to the debate for those who are interested.
Paul Begala: Romney Wins the battle, but it may lose him the war.
Andrew Sullivan: The winner’s in the White House.
TPM: Rick’s rough night.
Hot Air: Tough night for Santorum
In state legislatures around the country women are fighting back against the Republican war on women. Yesterday, Governor Bob O’Donnell of Virginia was forced to back down on the anti-woman state-sanctioned rape law that he had originally said he’d sign. In Georgia, (via Charlie Pierce), state rep. Yasmin Neal
was the driving force behind a brilliant bill filed yesterday that would outlaw vasectomies in Georgia on anti-abortion grounds — namely, that the lives of millions of potential “persons” were snuffed out because of the vas deferens between the way we see men as reproductive critters and the way we see women as reproductive critters:
Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies,” said Rep. Yasmin Neal, D-Riverdale, author of the Democrats’ bill. “It is patently unfair that men can avoid unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly, while women’s ability to decide is constantly up for debate throughout the United States.”
Now some Democrats are fighting back at the federal level.
The House Judiciary Committee recently passed a bill that would ban selective abortions based on race or gender by a 20-13 vote. The biggest hurdle to passage was the bill’s name.
Democrats proposed calling the bill “The Ronald Reagan Impose Your Beliefs on a Woman’s Womb Act” and “The Tea Party Determines What Rights a Woman Has Act.”
The legislation (H.R. 3541), sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), was originally entitled the “Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Non-discrimination Act of 2011.” But after objections by committee Democrats and an amendment by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the bill, which passed on Feb. 16, was changed to the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA) during mark-up sessions last week.
Thirteen Democrats voted against the measure claiming it violated the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide, and would “make it more difficult for women of color to obtain the basic reproductive health care services.”
The GLBT community is fighting back against the GOP haters too. Not too long ago, an anti-gay Tennessee state legislator was asked by the owner, Martha Boggs to leave her restaurant because of his bigoted public statements. Today, Antonio a gay hairdresser in Santa Fe, said he will no longer cut Republican New Mexico governor Susannah Martinez’s hair. Even {gasp!} Alan Simpson is getting in on the act. He says Rick Santorum is “rigid and a homophobic.”
Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.) weighed in on the Republican presidential primary on Wednesday, calling Rick Santorum “rigid and a homophobic.”
In an interview with CBS News’ Bob Schieffer, Simpson faulted the Republican field for making issues like same-sex marriage and reproductive rights central to their platforms, warning that they would lose favor with voters if the conversation does not change.
“I am convinced that if you get into these social issues and just stay in there about abortion and homosexuality and even mental health they bring up, somehow they’re going to take us all to Alaska and float us out in the Bering Sea or something,” said Simpson, long known for colorful commentary. “We won’t have a prayer.”
He continued, “I watch Republicans, they give each other the saliva test of purity, and then they lose and they bitch for four years.”
Simpson supports Romney, who also claims to be homophobic, anti-choice, and anti-birth control. Oh well….
Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and one of those mainline Protestant churches that Rick Santorum thinks have been taken over by Satan offered drive-thru ashes! Someone needs to tell Rick! It’s the Devil’s work!!
Over the weekend, Newt Gingrich tried to look macho by claiming “you can’t put a gun rack on a Chevy Volt!” But lots of people have stepped forward to prove him wrong.
A GM exec came forward to prove Newt was incorrect.
Chevrolet executive Selim Bingol fired back this morning via GM’s new blog, called BTW:
“Newt Gingrich has taken up saying that ‘You can’t put a gun rack on a Volt.’ That’s like saying ‘You can’t put training wheels on a Harley.’ Actually, you can. But the real question is ‘Why would you?’ In both examples:
It looks weird,
It doesn’t work very well, and
There are better places for gun racks and training wheels — pickup trucks and little Schwinns, respectively.
Seriously, when is the last time you saw a gun rack in ANY sedan?”
OK, I know I haven’t posted much serious news this morning. I guess I’m just punch drunk from that debate last night. We did get a bit of good news last night though. A federal judge in California–a Bush appointee yet–found the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional.
You may recall that Martha Coakley got the ball rolling in Massachusetts in 2010, convincing the Obama administration to stop defending the law. Yesterday’s decision is the third time a court has called DOMA unconstitutional
The New York Times has an interview with the mother of Marie Colvin, who was killed in Syria yesterday. Colvin was majoring in anthropology at Yale in the late 1970s,
but took a course with the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer John Hersey. She also started writing for The Yale Daily News “and decided to be a journalist,” her mother said.
On Wednesday, Marie Colvin, 56, a veteran correspondent for The Sunday Times of London, was killed as Syrian forces shelled the city of Homs. She was working in a makeshift media center that was destroyed in the assault. A French photographer, Rémi Ochlik, was also killed.
At her family’s split-level home on Long Island, the telephone rang at 5 a.m. It was so early, her mother said, that “I knew it was something terrible.”
“She was supposed to leave Syria” on Wednesday, Ms. Colvin said. “Her editor told me he called her yesterday and said it was getting too dangerous and they wanted to take her out. She said she was doing a story and she wanted to finish it and it was important and she would come out” on Wednesday.
Photojournalist Remi Olchlik was also killed in Syria yesterday
Remi Ochlik didn’t waste any time celebrating after he won one of photojournalism’s most prestigious prizes two weeks ago. Hours later, he was on a plane headed back to work in Middle East danger zones, a friend recalled.
On Wednesday, the promising 28-year-old French photographer was dead, killed in a barrage of gunfire and shelling by government forces in Homs, Syria, where he had arrived just the night before….
Colleagues remembered Ochlik as careful and experienced despite his young age, but driven to cover a string of conflicts that won him a reputation as one of the world’s best young photojournalists.
At just 20 years old, Ochlik got his professional start covering riots in Haiti in 2004. The next year he set up photo agency IP3 Press and covered sports, society and politics. When the “Arab Spring” erupted last year, Ochlik was all over it: In Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, and most recently, Syria.
That’s it for me this morning. What are you reading and blogging about?
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