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tagged w/ 14th Amendment
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BREAKING: NAACP Endorses Marriage Equality
"The NAACP’s move comes as attitudes about gays and lesbians in the African American community are changing rapidly. A recent poll found that 54% of African Americans supported President Obama’s recent decision."
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/05/19/487265/breaking-naacp-endorses-marriage-equality/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014124692"The NAACP’s move comes as attitudes about gays and lesbians in the African... more-
- ClassicalGas
- added this
- 10 days ago
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- 59 comments
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The Existentialist Cowboy: How U.S. Elections May Violate the 14th Amendment
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
The ideal of 'one man, one vote' has NEVER been achieved. If your VOTE does not carry the same weight as does the vote of someone else, then YOUR rights under the 14th have been violated! For example, it is possible that a Presidential candidate could get a greater number of popular votes but, by losing a few large states, get fewer 'electoral college votes and, thus, lose the White House.
That's only one example and a more obvious one. On any given election, votes are NOT equal. Someone else's vote may be 'worth' more than yours or yours may be worth more than another person's. Votes are NOT equal. And, in some cases, some votes --perhaps your vote --may not even count.
In a democratic election between two candidates, the winner is the person with the majority of the votes. But when three or more candidates run, things are seldom so simple. The winner often amasses only a plurality, not a majority, of the votes. (Bill Clinton, for example, won the presidency with 43 percent of the vote; Jesse Ventura won the Minnesota governorship with 37 percent.) The plurality winner could be everybody else's least favorite candidate and could even lose to each of the other candidates in a head-to-head battle. As Saari puts it: "The plurality vote is the only procedure that will elect someone who's despised by almost two thirds of the voters."
--Discover Magazine, May the Best Man Lose, November 1, 2000
(click on the link for the full article)by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy The ideal of 'one man, one vote'... more-
- Vierotchka
- added this
- 4 months ago
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- 2 comments
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The Obama Administration Will Not Veto Defense Authorization Bill!
Cenk is steamed to say the least!-
- Leen61
- added this
- 6 months ago
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- 203 comments
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This Is What “Indefinite Detention” Looks Like (Video)
THIS EXAMPLE VIDEO IS AN ''EXAMPLE'' OF WHAT THEY CAN DO LEGALLY NOW, READ INFO BELOW:
Many of us have wondered if directed to; would our own military turn on us? It appears that this is the plan and has been all along, yet the question remains......would they actually do it if ordered to?
S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill. Senators Carl Levin (D) MI and John McCain (R) AZ, are bringing this bill to the Senate floor on Monday after having held secret committee meetings while never holding even one hearing on this bill which authorizes military action against US citizens, right here in the United States.
While the bill appears on the surface to be about authorizing defense funding for the illegal wars, the ongoing unwarranted surveillance of the US population and the continuing violations of the 4th Amendment as applied to US citizens, many of the provisions of the bill do not pertain to unidentifiable terrorists or any other villain carefully crafted to terrorize the country. The fact is, as a result of the false flag attacks on 9/11, we have massive numbers of police state "laws" on the books which created "terrorists" or redefined "terrorist activity" to include everything from political dissent and free speech, even including targeting of US citizens for mentioning or referencing the Constitution or supporting third party, non-approved candidates for public office.
When this bill passes with these police state provisions included (I believe it will) you can expect your senator who voted "yes" on the bill to maintain that they only did so because otherwise the funding for the wars would have ceased (we could only hope) and they have to continue to fight the terrorists, terrorism, or what ever lame excuse pops into their heads to explain why they voted to pass what is clearly a police state bill.
The bill itself was drafted in secret and I believe it would be to our benefit to know who actually drafted that bill.
Who were the "stakeholders" who actually wrote the bill introduced by these two traitorous senators. We know they didn't write it, they never do. All bills are written by stakeholders who blow through the doors of congress carry bags of cash to buy the support of politicians who make their living selling off our rights along with anything else that isn't nailed down.
S.1867 includes these provisions highlighted by the ACLU:
If enacted, sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA would:
1) Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside theUnited States;
(2) Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and
(3) Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hG_R6U_FfesTHIS EXAMPLE VIDEO IS AN ''EXAMPLE'' OF WHAT THEY CAN DO LEGALLY... more-
- letsliveinpeace
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- 6 months ago
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- 5 comments
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Any American can be arrested without cause on US soil - NDAA Martial Law Plan
Any American can be arrested without cause on US soil - NDAA Martial Law Plan
This is what could happen if we don't stop the NDAA from being passed by the White House. For more info, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=24jKCIhLzlQAny American can be arrested without cause on US soil - NDAA Martial Law Plan This... more-
- letsliveinpeace
- added this
- 6 months ago
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- 13 comments
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Republicans Infected by "Constitutional Conservative" Virus
http://goo.gl/G972l -- A virus has taken hold within the modern conservative movement. No one knows for sure what has caused this plague but many believe it is transmitted through close contact at boisterous tea parties. The most obvious, visible symptom is the incessant need to refer to oneself as a "constitutional conservative."http://goo.gl/G972l -- A virus has taken hold within the modern conservative movement.... more-
- karlfrisch
- added this
- 8 months ago
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- 0 comments
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Troy Davis Put to Death in Georgia | Photos | Videos | Commentaries
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/21/justice/georgia-execution/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
CNN...
Troy Davis put to death in Georgia
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 11:56 PM EST, Wed September 21, 2011
Davis case to become global 'scandal'
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Inmate tells victim's family he was not guilty
Troy Davis put to death late Wednesday
U.S. Supreme Court denied stay of execution
The original prosecutor says the facts support Troy Davis' sentence
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PART ONE...
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Jackson, Georgia (CNN) -- Troy Davis, whose case drew international attention, was put to death by lethal injection for the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Georgia, prison officials announced Wednesday night.
Davis was defiant to the very end. After he was strapped to the death gurney, he lifted his head to address the family of the slain officer.
He told the family of Mark MacPhail that he was not responsible for the officer's death and did not have a gun at the time, according to execution witnesses.
Davis said the case merited further investigation, talking fast as officials prepared to give him the lethal cocktail.
The execution followed the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of a stay, allowing the state to proceed. Davis was declared dead at 11:08 p.m. ET.
Throughout the day, Davis' lawyers and high-profile supporters had asked the state and various courts to intervene, arguing he did not murder MacPhail in 1989.
Davis initially had been scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. ET. But the proceeding was delayed more than three hours as the justices pondered a plea filed by his attorney.
Several hundred people, most of them opposing the proceeding, gathered outside the state prison in Jackson where Davis, 42, awaited his fate. Others held a vigil in a nearby church.
The inmate's sister, Martina Davis-Correia, was among those who held a vigil outside the prison. Before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, she said officials needed to take more time to examine the case. "When you are looking at someone's life, you can't press rewind."
More than 100 officers, many in riot gear, stood guard over the largely-quiet gathering, which featured candles, occasional prayers and songs. At least three people who crossed the street had been taken away in handcuffs.
"Tonight the state of Georgia legally lynched an innocent man," Davis' lawyer Thomas Ruffin Jr. said. "Tonight I witnessed something tragic."
Davis' supporters, who also rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court building, argued that his conviction was based on the testimony of numerous witnesses who had recanted, including a jailhouse informer who claimed Davis had confessed.
"There's a genuine feeling among people here and across the nation that we're about to do the unthinkable," said Isaac Newton Farris Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
But prosecutors have stood by the conviction, and every appeal -- including the last-minute petitions filed Wednesday -- has failed.
Davis's supporters cheered and hugged each other when news of the earlier delay reached them. But it did not sit well with McPhail's mother, who remained at home.
CONTINUED...
.http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/21/justice/georgia-execution/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 CNN...... more-
- EthicalVegan
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- 8 months ago
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- 139 comments
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Debt and the 14th Amendment
President Bill Clinton spoke recently about the debt, how he handled it and what he thinks Pres. Obama should do. Maybe it is time to change the phasing and put the burden squarely on the RIPublicans by stating that the debt has been incurred by the two unfunded wars and the Medicare benefits that RIPublicans passed.
“The reason that raising the debt limit is so unpopular is that people think you’re voting to keep [increasing] deficit spending, instead of voting to honor obligations that were already incurred,” he said. “I think [the Gingrich Republicans] figured I’d be smart enough to explain to the American people that they were refusing to pay for the expenses they had voted for when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were president. And that would make ‘em look bad.”
Obama could offer precisely the same explanation in the present circumstances, where most of the current debt can be traced to the profligate military spending and tax cuts of the last Bush administration. Just as the nation’s debt had tripled or quadrupled between 1981 and 1993, in the dozen years of Republican rule before Clinton’s first inauguration, as he points out, so the second Bush administration plunged the budget from surplus to deep deficit before Obama spent one penny on economic stimulus or anything else.
Although Clinton says that if he were in Obama’s place he would raise the debt ceiling without legislation – “if it came to that” -- he believes the crisis will be resolved before August 2. “It looks to me like they’re going to make an agreement, and that’s smart.”
http://www.nationalmemo.com/article/exclusive-former-president-bill-clinton-says-he-would-use-constitutional-option-raise-debtPresident Bill Clinton spoke recently about the debt, how he handled it and what he... more-
- kvb1
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- 11 months ago
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Rand Paul's Abortion, Immigration Hypocrisy - The Daily Beast
The new senator's pushing to ban abortion while also restricting birthright citizenship. Ben Adler on the contradictory pulls on the Constitution and the resurgence of Republicans' social issues.
Sometimes new members of Congress take some time to get settled in before proposing legislation.
Not Rand Paul, the new Republican senator from Kentucky. Paul inherited many traits from his father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX): Like his dad, Rand is a doctor who entered politics to advance a fiercely held commitment to the family's quirky ideology. (The enthusiastic young volunteers for Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign called it "Goldwater conservatism" in reference to Barry Goldwater, the patron saint of the small-government set, not Paul's desire to return to the gold standard. And this week it became apparent that—like his father, who has introduced many quixotic bills such as the Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act—Rand Paul intends to regularly introduce legislation with no realistic chance of passing.
While Paul might be expected to take after his father in this regard, the causes he has taken up have been surprising. Whereas Ron Paul has focused his career on fiscal conservatism and foreign-policy isolationism, Rand Paul is promoting socially conservative positions.
On Monday, Paul announced that he is joining Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) in cosponsoring the Life at Conception Act. The law would declare that a person's life begins at conception. Paul and Wicker reason that if fetuses become legal persons protected under the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the laws, then it will override the constitutional right to an abortion that the Supreme Court found in Roe v. Wade.
Of course, if fetuses had all the rights of a person, it might lead to interpretations that—ironically, given that Paul campaigned on a strong commitment to privacy and liberty,—would vastly expand government power. For example, if a pregnant woman smokes or drinks alcohol, or simply eats unhealthily, could she face prosecution for reckless endangerment of a child? In any case, Paul confidently predicted that "passage of the Life at Conception Act would reverse Roe v. Wade without the need for a constitutional amendment."
But he is not averse to amending the Constitution when necessary. On Thursday, Paul and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced a resolution that would amend the Constitution to prevent children born to illegal immigrants from gaining automatic citizenship. Under the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which Paul and Vitter oppose, citizenship is given automatically to anyone born on U.S. soil. So Paul wants to expand the 14th Amendment to cover the fertilized embryos of American citizens while restricting it to exclude the babies of illegal immigrants. It's not clear where the fetus in an illegal immigrant's uterus would fit into this equation.
That Paul is focusing on social issues suggests the new crop of Republicans in D.C. may not be any less socially conservative, or any less interested in social issues, than their predecessors.
It's notable that Paul has decided to start his career with multiple pieces of legislation that take a staunchly conservative stance on a contentious social issue. During the 2010 campaign, there was much chatter about how the Tea Party movement was focused on economic and financial issues rather than emphasizing cultural battles like gun control, gay rights, abortion and immigration that played a prominent role in previous Republican campaigns. While some Republican candidates, such as Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, had a long history of promoting social conservatism, Paul was regarded as the epitome of the new GOP. Paul opposes the Patriot Act and the federal war on drugs, which was an electoral liability for him. That Paul is focusing on social issues suggests the new crop of Republicans in D.C. may not be any less socially conservative, or any less interested in social issues, than their predecessors.
Or maybe it's just a sign that the traditionalist wing of the GOP is resurgent and will be getting more attention in the months ahead. Some major conservative institutions like the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation are boycotting the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference to protest the inclusion of GOProud, a gay organization. Several potential 2012 Republican candidates, including Ron Paul, are expected to speak at CPAC. It will be interesting to see how much time they devote to social issues.The new senator's pushing to ban abortion while also restricting birthright... more-
- Holly348328
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- 1 year ago
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Vitter, Paul Target Birthright Citizenship For Children Of Illegal Immigrants
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sens. David Vitter (La.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) announced on Thursday their new push to deny birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants via a congressional resolution, a legislative backdoor that they hope will prove easier than trying to amend the pertinent section of the U.S. Constitution.
The Supreme Court has consistently held that the Fourteenth Amendment grants automatic citizenship to those born on U.S. soil, but Vitter and Paul said Thursday that right should not extend to children of undocumented parents and that their resolution would close this "loophole." Passing an amendment to the Constitution is near-impossible, so the senators are instead introducing a "resolution that would amend the Constitution," according to a statement from the senators.
It's incorrect to assume "the 14th Amendment confers birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens, either by its language or intent," the statement said. "This resolution makes clear that under the 14th Amendment a person born in the United States to illegal aliens does not automatically gain citizenship."
This is the primary argument the two Republicans will have to stand on. They're walking a fine line between their broad ideology of strict adherence to the Constitution -- Paul in particular has been a darling of the Tea Party -- and their animus for undocumented immigration.
The debate over interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment hit a fever pitch in Congress last summer, when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said undocumented immigrants come to the country to "drop and leave" their children and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said he feared "anchor babies" would be used by al Qaeda to raise radicals with American passports.
At the state level, legislation similar to the Vitter-Paul resolution is already underway. Arizona state Sen. Ron Gould (R) and state Rep. John Kavanagh (R) agreed to unveil bills jointly on Thursday that would limit citizenship to children with at least one parent who "has no allegiance to a foreign country." The bills have already garnered support from state Senate President Russell Pearce, the author of Arizona's controversial 2010 immigration law SB 1070. A number of other state lawmakers plan to introduce similar legislation.
Because states administer birth certificates, state legislators claim they have the right to change how citizenship is defined under the Fourteenth Amendment. This could, however, create a patchwork system of citizenship criteria.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/27/vitter-paul-resolution-birthright-citizenship_n_814986.htmlWASHINGTON -- Republican Sens. David Vitter (La.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) announced on... more-
- Radical_Centrist
- added this
- 1 year ago
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- 3 comments
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Weekly Diaspora: In 2011, Birthright Citizenship in the Crosshairs
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Yesterday, a coalition of anti-immigrant lawmakers from 14 states unveiled their much-anticipated birthright citizenship bill. The measure would thwart the 14th Amendment by denying citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. As Julianna Hing notes at ColorLines, sponsors unabashedly admit that, after passing the legislation at the state level, they aim to push it through Congress. If passed, it would effectively become federal law while at the same time force a court case challenging the traditional application of the 14th Amendment.
The bill is is unlikely to do much more than upset the national debate on immigration reform, but it’s nevertheless a sobering reminder of how far some conservatives will go to segregate immigrants further. While immigration reform advocates faced an uphill struggle last year, with few victories to show for it, the stakes are even higher in 2011, as immigration issues become more brazenly racially divisive.
Arizona’s retrogressive policy takes effect
In the “Papers Please” state, where the birthright citizenship bill will make its debut, a controversial K-12 ethnic studies ban has already gone into effect—prohibiting curricula that promotes ethnic solidarity or is designed for students of a particular race or ethnicity. Attorney General Tom Horne, who proposed the ban while he was the superintendent of public instruction, has unabashedly singled out the Tuscon Unified School District (TUSD)’s Mexican American Studies program as its target.
Alex DiBranco reports at Change.org that—prior to assuming his new position as attorney general—Horne declared the TUSD to be in violation of the newly enacted law and threatened to withhold $15 million in funds from the school district if it failed to eliminate the Mexican American Studies program within 60 days. TUSD, for its part, is appealing the law while refusing to alter its curriculum.
Immigrant growth results in more Congressional seats…for Republicans
The results of the 2010 census are in and, thanks to a considerable boost in the new immigrant population, southern and western states are now set to gain additional Congressional seats. Sarah Kate Kramer at Feet in 2 Worlds reports that Hispanics, in particular, accounted for at least half of the growth in Texas, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.
While the growth of the Hispanic population has undoubtedly contributed to the election of a number of Hispanic legislators and could set the stage for greater political representation in the long term, the immediate effect of the apportionment looks bleak. The irony, as Kramer notes, is that while immigrant growth secured the apportionment of new congressional seats, those seats will represent predominately Republican states—effectively increasing the power of anti-immigrant lawmakers.
Few victories for immigrants
At the dawn of a new year, undocumented immigrants have gained little ground. New America Media/La Opinion reports that unemployment is still very high in sectors, such as construction, that typically employ large numbers of undocumented laborers, and remains high for Latinos, in particular.
Congress also failed to pass the bipartisan and politically popular DREAM Act, letting down scores of undocumented youth, and Arizona’s SB 1070 is spreading like wildfire to other states. To top it off, 2010 proved to be a record year for deportations—meaning that 2011 is seeing the largest number of divided families to date.
Obama Administration dropped the ball on immigration
The retrogressive nature of the immigration debate has a lot to do with the rise of conservative extremism following President Barack Obama’s election. In the past year, anti-immigrant lawmakers have gone to unprecedented lengths to commandeer immigration reform, defy the Obama administration’s policy goals and, in general, make quite a clamor. But reform advocates, too, have done their fair share to muck up the prospect of comprehensive immigration reform.
As Monica Potts at TAPPED argues, the administration’s consistent focus on enforcement, at the expense comprehensive reform, pushed the immigration debate further to the right—and may have even cost Democrats the Hispanic vote:
President Obama embraced conservatives’ enforcement rhetoric by ramping up deportations without prioritizing reform. This was a self-defeating approach: by buying into a harsh enforcement paradigm, he made the argument for reform much harder.
Whether the administration has learned from its 2010 mistakes remains to be seen. If not, then the gun-slinging lawmen of Arizona will continue defining the nation’s most pressing immigration issues.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulseby Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger Yesterday, a coalition of... more-
- MediaConsortium
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- 1 year ago
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Weekly Diaspora: Arizona vs. ‘Anchor Babies’
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After commanding the world’s attention in 2010 with its cavalier stance on immigration, the Arizona state legislature is threatening—once again—to dominate national immigration discourse and policy.
This week, Arizona state Senator and Senate President-Elect Russell Pearce (R) spoke candidly with CNN’s Jessica Yellin about his plans to introduce a birthright citizenship bill in Arizona this coming January—a move likely to be echoed in the impending Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Invoking the hysterical “anchor baby” hype that dominated some right-wing circles earlier this year, Pearce intends to pass state legislation denying automatic (or “birthright”) citizenship to the the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Though birthright citizenship is constitutionally mandated under the 14th amendment and protected by Supreme Court precedent, it has nevertheless become a rallying cry for number of extremely anti-immigrant Republicans.
And while Pearce pushes the measure in Arizona, an influx of Republican U.S. representatives headed by Steve King (R-IA), the incoming chairman of the subcommittee that oversees immigration, will likely attempt to push a similar bill through Congress, according to Valeria Fernández at New America Media.
The plan, Fernández notes, is to take the contentious issue all the way to the (largely conservative) Supreme Court. But even if the issue makes it that far, it’s unlikely that the court would rule in its favor. This issue has reached the Supreme Court twice before (United States v. Wong Kim Arkin in 1898 and Pyler v. Doe in 1982) and in both cases the court maintained that birthright citizenship is constitutionally guaranteed.
Arizona: A model police state
As Pearce pushes the envelope on contentious immigration legislation in 2011, a flock of lawmakers from other states are scrambling to imitate his 2010 trailblazer, SB 1070—the controversial immigration law currently being challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice and a host of public interest organizations. Luke Johnson at the Washington Independent reports that legislators from 25 states are planning to introduce SB 1070 copycat bills next year. While the individual bills vary in scope and detail, they abide by the gist of SB 1070—criminalizing “illegal” immigrants, empowering or requiring law enforcement to ascertain and share the immigration status of individuals based on scant (or no) evidence, etc. Immigrant rights groups are concerned that the copycat bills would lead to racial profiling and the unlawful detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants without criminal records.
While few, if any, of the proposed measures are likely to pass unchallenged, the immense control Republicans now wield over state legislatures is cause for concern—as is the apparently immense influence Arizona lawmakers wield over their conservative neighbors.
Courtesy of the Washington Independent, here’s a breakdown of the states proposing copycat measures, and the likely outcomes:
Most likely to pass: Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina
Maybe: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia
Less Likely: Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island
Arizona’s ethnic studies ban goes into effect
Meanwhile, at the national level, the GOP plans to build support for its hard-line immigration agenda by propagating the fallacious notion that “illegal”immigrants steal American jobs and thus weaken the economy, according to Suzy Khimm at Mother Jones.
Accordingly, incoming House Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) hopes to expand the E-Verify program—a controversial, federally-managed electronic system that allows employers to check the immigration status of potential employees. The program is supposed to drive down undocumented immigration by helping employers identify and then avoid hiring undocumented immigrants, but it has taken heat lately after a study suggested it was inaccurate 50 percent of the time.
Again, the fate of this immigration initiative could be shaped by what happens in Arizona, where an employer sanctions law requiring businesses to enroll in E-Verify has been challenged by the United States Chamber of Commerce. The case was heard before the Supreme Court earlier this month, with the federal government challenging the law on many of the same grounds upon which it is challenging SB 1070—chiefly that it preempts federal law. If the court rules against the employer sanctions law, the ruling could present serious implications for the proposed expansion of E-Verify which, while voluntary, is already unpopular with businesses concerned about the program’s cost and accuracy.
Arizona remains center stage in immigration debate
In 2010, Arizona legislators dominated the national immigration debate. As evidenced by Sarah Kate Kramer’s recap of the year in immigration at Feet in 2 Worlds, immigration discourse and policy across the national centered on several key events in Arizona. Most notably, Arizona made history by passing SB 1070 and a host of other controversial bills including bans on ethnic studies and equal opportunity programs. A campaigning Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) reinvented himself—from an immigrant sympathizer and DREAM Act supporter to a hard-line immigration hawk who just wants to “complete the danged fence.”
Perhaps the most powerful discourse- and policy-shaping tools wielded by Arizona officials, however, were simply lies. In March, public mania over border violence peaked after Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever erroneously claimed that Arizona rancher Robert N. Krentz Jr. was shot dead by an undocumented immigrant. Then, in June, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer made the outrageous (and widely disproven) claim that law enforcement agencies had found beheaded corpses in the Arizona desert.
Through the crafting of draconian immigration laws and the unabashed spread of misinformation, the Arizona legislature cast itself as a major player in the national immigration debate this year. Having done so, it looms as a a powerful force to be reckoned with in the next.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger After commanding the... more-
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A Super Modest Proposal
Pops Logan has a solution to the problem of immigrant children becoming citizens.-
- Progresshiv
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- 1 year ago
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- 12 comments
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Dorothy Height, African-American Heroine of Civil Rights and Women's Rights Era, Is Dead at 98
The New York Times
April 20, 2010
Dorothy Height, Heroine of Civil Rights Era, Is Dead at 98
By MARGALIT FOX
PART ONE...
Dorothy Height, a leader of the African-American and women’s rights movements who was considered both the grande dame of the civil rights era and its unsung heroine, died on Tuesday in Washington. She was 98.
The death, at Howard University Hospital, was confirmed jointly by the hospital and the National Council of Negro Women, which Ms. Height had led for four decades. A longtime Washington resident, Ms. Height was at her death the council’s president emerita.
That the American social landscape looks as it does today owes in no small part to Ms. Height. Originally trained as a social worker, she was president of the National Council of Negro Women from 1957 to 1997, overseeing a range of programs on issues like voting rights, poverty and in later years AIDS. A longtime executive of the Y.W.C.A., she presided over the integration of its facilities nationwide in the 1940s. With Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan and others, she helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971. Over the decades, she advised a string of American presidents on civil-rights matters.
If Ms. Height was less well known than her contemporaries in either movement, it was perhaps because she was doubly marginalized, pushed offstage by women’s groups because of her race and by black groups because of her sex. Throughout her 80-year career, she responded quietly but firmly, working with a characteristic mix of limitless energy and steely gentility to ally the two movements in the fight for social justice.
As a result, Ms. Height is widely credited as the first person in the modern civil-rights era to treat the problems of equality for women and equality for African-Americans as a seamless whole, merging concerns that had been largely historically separate.
The recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and other prestigious awards, Ms. Height was accorded a place of honor on the dais on Jan. 20, 2009, when Barack Obama took the oath of office as the nation’s 44th president. In a statement on Tuesday, President Obama called Ms. Height “the godmother of the civil rights movement and a hero to so many Americans.”
Over the years, historians have made much of the so-called “Big Six” who led the civil rights movement: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young. Ms. Height, the only woman to work regularly alongside them on projects of national significance, was very much the unheralded seventh, the leader who was cropped out, figuratively and often literally, of images of the era.
In 1963, for instance, Ms. Height sat on the platform an arm’s length from Dr. King as he delivered his epochal “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington. Ms. Height was one of the march’s chief organizers and a prizewinning orator herself. She was not asked to speak, although many other black leaders — all men — addressed the crowd that day.
Ms. Height recounted the incident in her memoir, “Open Wide the Freedom Gates” (PublicAffairs, 2003; with a foreword by Maya Angelou). Reviewing the memoir, The New York Times Book Review called it “a poignant short course in a century of African-American history.”
Dorothy Irene Height was born on March 24, 1912, in Richmond, Va. (The family name is pronounced like the word “height.”) Her father, James, was a building contractor; her mother, the former Fannie Burroughs, was a nurse. A severe asthmatic as a child, Dorothy was not expected to live, she later wrote, past the age of 16.
When Dorothy was small, the family moved north to Rankin, Pa., near Pittsburgh, where she attended integrated public schools. She began her civil-rights work as a teenager, volunteering on voting-rights and anti-lynching campaigns.
In high school, Ms. Height entered and an oratory contest, sponsored by the Elks, on the subject of the United States Constitution. An eloquent speaker even in her youth, she soon advanced to the national finals, where she was the only black contestant. She delivered a talk on the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments — the Reconstruction Amendments — designed to extend constitutional protections to former slaves and their descendants. The jury, all white, awarded her first prize: a four-year college scholarship.
As Ms. Height told The Detroit Free Press in 2008, “I’m still working today to make the promise of the 14th Amendment of equal justice under law a reality.”
A star student, the young Ms. Height applied to Barnard College and was accepted. Then, in the summer of 1929, shortly before classes began, she was summoned to New York by a Barnard dean.
There was a problem, the dean said. That Ms. Height had been admitted to Barnard was certain. But she could not enroll — not then, anyway. Barnard had already meet its quota for Negro students that year.
Too distraught to call home, as she later wrote, Ms. Height did the only thing possible. Clutching her Barnard acceptance letter, she took the subway downtown to New York University. She was admitted at once, earning a bachelor’s degree in education there in 1933 and a master’s in psychology two years later.
CONTINUED...The New York Times April 20, 2010 Dorothy Height, Heroine of Civil Rights Era, Is... more-
- EthicalVegan
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- 2 years ago
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Colbert Report: Let Freedom KA-CHING!
Stephen Colbert talks about the Citizens United v FEC case. WATCH THIS-
- asherp
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- 2 years ago
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Grassroots Movements Mobolizing all over Country for Queer Rights March October 11th in DC
Efforts are being led by many grassroots organizers to mobilize for this October's upcoming National Equality March called by gay rights activist Cleve Jones, following the California Supreme Court ruling to uphold Proposition 8. Visibility from the queer community and its supporters is crucial to turning the tide of this civil rights movement for equality. Make sure to check out the map to see who to get in touch with about getting involved and finding transportation to DC. It is time to hold Obama accountable for his promises to repeal DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell!Efforts are being led by many grassroots organizers to mobilize for this... more-
- hardluck12
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- 2 years ago
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Neo-Confederate 'Buries' 14th Amendment
Olaf Childress wants to kill the amendment making blacks U.S. citizens.
Don't expect Olaf Childress to shed any tears when he puts the 14th Amendment six feet under.
And Childress isn't speaking metaphorically, either. The neo-Confederate stalwart plans to transport a casket bearing a copy of the 14th Amendment from his southern Alabama home to the shores of the Potomac River for burial.
"Naturally, we'll conduct a little ceremony, and we'll have a caravan going to Washington, D.C.," Childress, 76, told the Intelligence Report. "There'll probably be quite a convoy by the time we get there."
The vehicle carrying the deceased will be none other than Childress' "Death to the 14th Amendment" hearse. After buying the 1995 Buick Roadmaster about a year and a half ago, Childress outfitted it with magnetic Confederate battle flags on both front doors and the words "Death to the 14th Amendment" on the rear doors. The back of the hearse directs fellow travelers to his website, www.14thfraud.com. (The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868, granted full citizenship rights to all people born in the United States, including former slaves, and barred states from denying any resident "equal protection" under the law. The amendment is one of the legal foundations for desegregation and other civil rights initiatives.)Olaf Childress wants to kill the amendment making blacks U.S. citizens. Don't... more-
- AcaiHelios
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- 3 years ago
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I don't know why gays think they deserve rights
Marriage is a God-ordained union between a man and a woman.-
- stephanielh
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- 4 years ago
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