"SO WHY DON'T WE STOP AND FRISK GUYS LIKE THIS EVERY TIME THEY LEAVE THE HOUSE?"

No More Mister Nice Blog: SO WHY DON'T WE STOP AND FRISK GUYS LIKE THIS EVERY TIME THEY LEAVE THE HOUSE? (updated)

When John Russell “Rusty” Houser was evicted from [his] quiet corner house in March 2014, sheriffs said, he trashed the place, dousing it in paint and gasoline and stuffing concrete down its pipes.
When the new home-owners decided to renovate, they had to call the fire department twice in one day after booby-trapped doors burst into flames.
“There was some tampering with the gas line that ran into the fireplaces,” said Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor. Tracie Chancey, who has lived on 32nd Street with her husband and children since 2007, feared that the arson could have been much worse. “It shook us up when we found out what he did to that home.”And even after that he was walking around free and with access to guns. What a country.

 Probably because Homeland In-Security is too busy surveying the Black Lives Matter Movement

As if to echo the FBI surveillance of the civil rights movement and Black liberation organizations in the 1960s, The Intercept has learned through a Freedom of Information Act request that the Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring the Black Lives Matter movement since its formation in the protests of Ferguson.
“The reports confirm social media surveillance of the protest movement and ostensibly related events in the cities of Ferguson, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and New York. They also show the department watching over gatherings that seem benign and even mundane. For example, DHS circulated information on a nationwide series of silent vigils and a DHS-funded agency planned to monitor a funk music parade and a walk to end breast cancer in the nation’s capital,” according to George Joseph in the Intercept report.
Joseph also raises the question as to whether DHS, which was formed largely to combat terrorism, has engaged in mission creep as its budget has exceeded $60 billion. 

Louisiana Shooting Suspect Obtained Gun Legally, Had Extensive Criminal History In Georgia http://t.co/w3J3lNtYlv How is this ok, America?

— Propane Jane (@docrocktex26) July 27, 2015

How indeed.

The fear of blacks with guns was one of the reasons behind the Supreme Court’s notorious decision in the Dred Scott case. Chief Justice Roger Taney’s opinion insisted that blacks could not be citizens because, if they were, they’d have all the protections of the Bill of Rights, including the right to “full liberty of speech... to hold public meetings on political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
America’s most horrific racist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, began with gun control at the very top of its agenda. Before the Civil War, blacks in the South had never been allowed to possess guns. During the war, however, blacks obtained guns for the first time. Some served as soldiers in black units in the Union Army, which allowed its men, black and white, to take their guns home with them as partial payment of past due wages.

  Fear of the Black Gun Owner, white gun owners not so much. 

The Racist Roots of Gun Laws in America

Who knew the NRA (National Rifle Association), the KKK and Ronald Reagan worked to control guns?

Who knew the  Founding Fathers required and regulated gun ownership?

Who knew no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear arms in public than the Black Panthers?

Who knew the fear of  blacks with guns was behind the Dred Scott Decision?
 

What if more young white children were loss to gun violence than soldiers in Iraq?

What if the gun fatality rates for whites exceeded that for blacks?

What if black folks joined the NRA?

Today's Must Reads
Is Gun Control Racist?
The Secret History of Guns
U.S. gun laws --guilty by reason of insanity
Black Man with a Gun

"The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia"

Lyrical story

A young woman tells the story of her unnamed older brother who returns home after a two-week trip from a place called "Candletop." The brother meets his best friend, Andy Wolloe, at Webb's Bar ("Andy Wolloe said hello, and he said, 'Hi, what's doing, Wo?'"), and Andy informs the brother that his young wife (who is later described as "cheatin'") has been seeing another man in town, Seth Amos. Andy then reveals that he, too, has been sleeping with his friend's wife. The brother is understandably upset, which scares Andy, who leaves and walks home. The brother assumes his wife has left town, gets his gun, and heads out to the back woods to sneak up on Andy and confront him. When the brother arrives at Andy's house, he finds tracks outside ("tracks that were too small for Andy to make") and discovers that someone has already killed Andy. The brother, in a moment of panic ("he started to shake"), fires his gun in the air to summon a passing sheriff. When the sheriff approaches the scene, the brother is immediately accused of murder. A "backwoods Southern lawyer" doesn't keep the sheriff and a judge from convicting the brother in a kangaroo court ("the judge said 'guilty' in a make-believe trial / slapped the sheriff on the back with a smile"), and hang him that same night, effectively lynching him. This was apparently the same night of a statewide electrical blackout, although the phrase "the night the lights went out in Georgia" could refer to the fact that the "light" of justice went out that night as an innocent man was killed by the law.

The "light" of justice went out for real last night as Troy Davis was killed by the law. What is the difference between killing your own people and the death penalty? Isn't that the excuse, I mean justification, our country used for regime change in Iraq and Libya?

The decision of the United States Supreme Court to deny a stay of execution for Troy Davis will join The Dred Scott Decision, Bush v. Gore and Citizens United in infamy as one of the stupidest decisions ever. How could the voices of millions of people be ignored?. I guess they showed us who was Boss.

Huge numbers of people all over the world are begging them to reconsider but it seems to be falling on callously deaf ears. This is a travesty.

The execution of Troy Davis illustrates all the flaws in the death penalty, and why it should be abolished. H/T Booman

The debate about Troy Davis should have been about whether he had been wrongly imprisoned for two decades, not over whether he could prove his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.

How did we arrive at a system where so much discretion is stripped away from the decision makers?

This case highlights every flaw with the death penalty. Even from the point of view of advocates of the death penalty, it took 20 years to get 'justice.' Whether we abolish the death penalty or not, this case proves that it is in need of an overhaul. Georgia might have killed an innocent man last night simply because the system didn't allow people to save him, despite the obvious doubts about his guilt.

It's time for America to stop condoning cruel and unusual punishment.

According to Amnesty International, 137 countries have abolished the death penalty. Argentina, Chile, and Uzbekistan outlawed the death penalty in 2008. During 2007, 24 countries, 88% in China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States alone, executed 1,252 people compared to 1,591 in 2006. Nearly 3,350 people were sentenced to death in 51 countries. More than 20,000 prisoners are on death row across the world.

Ask yourself the following, "What kind of society do I want to live in?". What kind of society do I want future generations to live in? What if Troy Davis were my son/brother/father/uncle/cousin/friend?

Do you want to live in a society where people, prideful, imperfect, deceivable people reserve unto themselves the right to kill other people?

Because I guarantee you that so long as we think that people en masse under the guise of The State have the right to kill they are going to find ways to exercise that power.

We must not let the lights of Justice be extinguished.

Defiant until the end, Troy Davis was executed Wednesday night for the murder of an off-duty police officer. He convinced hundreds of thousands of people around the world, but not a single court, that he was innocent.

As he lay strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, the 42-year-old told relatives of Mark MacPhail that he was not responsible for his 1989 slaying.

"I am innocent. The incident that happened that night is not my fault. I did not have a gun," he insisted.

"All I can ask ... is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth," he said.

Davis was declared dead at 11:08 p.m. The lethal injection began about 15 minutes earlier, after the Supreme Court rejected an 11th-hour request for a stay.

Let us march on until victory is won. The movement continues.
This movement couldn’t stop Davis’ execution — but it’s a movement that won’t die with Troy Davis. There’s no better way to honor Troy’s memory than to keep fighting for justice.

You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression ... If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until "justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream." Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It's all about demanding R-E-S-P-E-CT

Maybe President Obama should have requested Aretha Franklin, sing her hit song Respect at his Inauguration as the first (and if TeaPublicans have their way,the last) African American President of the United States of America instead of My Country Tis of Thee.   H/T Mack Lyons who says This President doesn't have any rights and conservatives are bound to respect. Here is the money quote;

I can't remember any other president being disrespected to the degree President Obama has over these past 4 years. I can't remember Bill Clinton catching this much hell over the Monica Lewinsky mess. And while legislators may have held a low opinion of George Bush, they maintained professional decorum and didn't blatantly disrespect the president over such. But #44? Whoooo boy..

Psst Mack! Did you forget republicans impeached Bill Clinton over the whole Monica Lewinsky mess? I would say that was hell, wouldn't you? :) But it goes to show republicans don't have an ounce of respect for democrats, strike that, real (liberal) democrats regardless of race. And you know why? Because they don't demand their R-E-S-P-E-C-T they plead for R-E-S-P-C-T.

"Respect" is a song written and originally released by Stax recording artist Otis Redding in 1965. "Respect" became a 1967 hit and signature song for R&B singer Aretha Franklin. The music in the two versions is significantly different, and through a few minor changes in the lyrics, the stories told by the songs have a different flavor. Redding's version is a plea from a desperate man who asks a woman for his due respect. In Franklin's version, however, she declares that she deserves respect rather than pleads for it.

And therein lies the problem with not only this President, but the democratic status quo in general. They won't demand no damn R-E-S-P-E-C-T so they get no damn R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

These days, it seems like everyone wants to disrespect the president. If it isn't foreign leaders and news media outlets pushing the man around, then it's the usual suspects -- die-hard white conservative members of the "grassroots" Tea Party and other similar organizations. Even the people you'd figure would have Obama's back are now gunning for the man to be primaried within his own party. No disrespect intended to Digby's Hullabaloo or Firedoglake, but I do find it disturbing when you piss and moan about the guy just because he hasn't shoved a stack of hundreds or a pony under your pillow just yet.

Uh, why should we the people have Obama's back when he hasn't had ours? And NO, that doesn't mean shoving a stack of hundreds or a pony under our pillow that means standing up for the agenda he campaigned on instead of compromising and capitulating to the TeaPublicans at every turn.

As reported by the NY Times, Senators Susan Collins, Harry Reid, Arlen Specter, Olympia J. Snowe and Joseph I. Lieberman after an agreement was reached.Congressional negotiators announced Wednesday afternoon that they had reached agreement on a $789 billion economic stimulus bill, clearing the way for final action and President Obama’s signature.“The differences between the House and Senate versions, we’ve resolved,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said in a Capitol news conference. The differences were resolved by a lot of intense “give and take,” Mr. Reid said, “and if you don’t mind my saying so, that’s an understatement.”Negotiations had been going on all day, following extensive talks on Tuesday night, to close the gap between the Senate and House versions. In the end, the agreed-upon package will pare back Democrats’ proposed spending on education and health programs in favor of tax cuts that were needed to win Republican votes in the Senate. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a centrist Republican whose support was crucial to the outcome, said the final package includes $150 billion in spending on infrastructure, including transportation facilities, and considerable tax relief. Moreover, she said, it includes significant money to aid state governments.Despite intense lobbying by governors, the final deal slashed $35 billion from a proposed state fiscal stabilization fund, eliminated $16 billion in aid for school construction and sharply curtailed health care subsidies for the unemployed.

AAPRP: you read it right, Despite intense lobbying by governors, the final deal slashed $35 billion from a proposed state fiscal stabilization fund, eliminated $16 billion in aid for school construction and sharply curtailed health care subsidies for the unemployed.

See what I mean? But this is just one example of many where our President compromised democratic principles. Hope for Change We Can Believe In turned the winners into the losers and the losers into the winners. *sigh*

Unfortunately, the current color aroused bout of collective insanity will end only when the goal of removing Obama from office has succeeded and a white president, preferably a white Republican with southern tendencies and a lack of empathy for poors, blacks and other detritus collecting at the bottom of America's social swimming pool. The red cloth will disappear from in front of the bull and all of the glass in the china shop will be swept up and thrown away. All will be well with the world once again, as far as many are concerned.

If my friend Mack Lyons is right (no pun) and this comes to pass, America will show the world we are a country who can't demand R-R-E-S-P-E-C-T because we don't deserve R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
"It is difficult, at this day, to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the constitution was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior race, and altogether unfit to associate with the white races, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit." Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's opinion on the Dred Scott decision, circa 1857

I agree with most of what my friend Mack Lyons writes in this piece regarding the racism, but I don't cast the blame entirely on conservatives, the media and those who are supposed to have President Obama's back. Some of the blame has to go to the President who let the white, male dominated media define him thereby enabling the gop to obstruct his agenda.

I blame this President who surrounded himself with key people who publicly refereed to liberal activist(aka the people who VOTED for him) as F*cking Retarded and the Professional Left like that was a bad thing.

As a black man, he has no rights which his fellow whites are bound to respect. As the president, he still has no rights that are worth respecting, as far as his fellow whites, conservatives particularly, are concerned.

This President could have demanded R-E-S-P-E-C-T by standing up to the right wing Bully's from the beginning, but for what ever reason he chose not to. And therein lies the problem.

Dred Scott, Bush v. Gore and now this

Vincent Bugliosi called them the Felonious Five after the 5-4 Bush v. Gore ruling. I call them the Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. Five. The 5-4 decision to grant corporations citizenship rights is right up there with the Dred Scott decision and the Bush v. Gore decision. Both were wrong and had lasting negative impacts on our country.

Dr. Boyce Watkins says the Supreme Court has sold out the American people and the 5-4 decision saying corporations had the same rights as human beings are the teabaggers worst nightmare come to life since they're always hollering about taking their country back. I wonder if they are going to try and take their country back from the corporations?

The Supreme Court has weakened the knees of politicians who are already manipulated heavily by corporate America. No elected official in his or her right mind is going to support any initiative that votes against corporate interests. America just took a double dose of Capitalism 101, and as a professor of finance, I seriously wonder if our nation understands how unfettered capitalism will ultimately destroy a society.

And we thought republicans didn't want any of them there "activist" judges making up laws and stuff.

Let this be a lesson for voters. The President has the power and authority to appoint Supreme Court justices for life. We can thank Ronald Reagan (r.CA),George H. Walker(r.TX), and his son George W. Bush(r.TX) for this court and this ruling. Remember that when election times come around. You're not electing a President, you're electing a Supreme Court. For life.