#Mississippi Constitution

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A white supermajority of the Mississippi House voted after an intense, four-plus hour debate to create a separate court system and an expanded police force within the city of Jackson — the Blackest city in America — that would be appointed completely by white state officials.

If House Bill 1020 becomes law later this session, the white Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would appoint two judges to oversee a new district within the city — one that includes all of the city’s majority-white neighborhoods, among other areas. The white state Attorney General would appoint four prosecutors, a court clerk, and four public defenders for the new district. The white state Public Safety Commissioner would oversee an expanded Capitol Police force, run currently by a white chief.

The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.

Mississippi’s capital city is 80% Black and home to a higher percentage of Black residents than any major American city. Mississippi’s Legislature is thoroughly controlled by white Republicans, who have redrawn districts over the past 30 years to ensure they can pass any bill without a single Democratic vote. Every legislative Republican is white, and most Democrats are Black.

After thorough and passionate dissent from Black members of the House, the bill passed 76-38 Tuesday primarily along party lines. Two Black member of the House — Rep. Cedric Burnett, a Democrat from Tunica, and Angela Cockerham, an independent from Magnolia — voted for the measure. All but one lawmaker representing the city of Jackson — Rep. Shanda Yates, a white independent — opposed the bill.

“Only in Mississippi would we have a bill like this … where we say solving the problem requires removing the vote from Black people,” Rep. Ed Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton, said while pleading with his colleagues to oppose the measure.

For most of the debate, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba — who has been publicly chided by the white Republicans who lead the Legislature — looked down on the House chamber from the gallery. Lumumba accused the Legislature earlier this year of practicing “plantation politics” in terms of its treatment of Jackson, and of the bill that passed Tuesday, he said: “It reminds me of apartheid.”

Hinds County Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten, who served in the House before being elected judge and would be one of the existing judges to lose jurisdiction under this House proposal, also watched the debate.

Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, who oversees the Capitol Police, watched a portion of the debate from the House gallery, chuckling at times when Democrats made impassioned points about the bill. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the only statewide elected official who owns a house in Jackson, walked onto the House floor shortly before the final vote.

Rep. Blackmon, a civil rights leader who has a decades-long history of championing voting issues, equated the current legislation to the Jim Crow-era 1890 Constitution that was written to strip voting rights from Black Mississippians.

“This is just like the 1890 Constitution all over again,” Blackmon said from the floor. “We are doing exactly what they said they were doing back then: ‘Helping those people because they can’t govern themselves.'”

The bill was authored by Rep. Trey Lamar, a Republican whose hometown of Senatobia is 172 miles north of Jackson. It was sent to Lamar’s committee by Speaker Philip Gunn instead of a House Judiciary Committee, where similar legislation normally would be heard.

“This bill is designed to make our capital city of Jackson, Mississippi, a safer place,” Lamar said, citing numerous news sources who have covered Jackson’s high crime rates. Dwelling on a long backlog of Hinds County court cases, Lamar said the bill was designed to “help not hinder the (Hinds County) court system.”

“My constituents want to feel safe when they come here,” Lamar said, adding the capital city belonged to all the citizens of the state. “Where I am coming from with this bill is to help the citizens of Jackson and Hinds County.”

Opponents of the legislation, dozens of whom have protested at the Capitol several days this year, accused the authors of carving out mostly white, affluent areas of the city to be put in the new district.

In earlier sessions, the Legislature created the Capitol Complex Improvement District, which covers much of the downtown, including the state government office complex and other areas of Jackson. The bill would extend the existing district south to Highway 80, north to County Line Road, west to State Street and east to the Pearl River. Between 40,000 and 50,000 people live within the area.

The bill would double the funding for the district to $20 million in order to increase the size of the existing Capitol Police force, which has received broad criticism from Jacksonians for shooting several people in recent months with little accountability. The new court system laid out in House Bill 1020 is estimated to cost $1.6 million annually.

Many House members who represent Jackson on Tuesday said they were never consulted by House leadership about the bill. Several times during the debate, they pointed out that Republican leaders have never proposed increasing the number of elected judges to address a backlog of cases or increasing state funding to assist an overloaded Jackson Police Department.

Democratic members of the House said if they wanted to help with the crime problem, the Legislature could increase the number of elected judges in Hinds County. Blackmon said Hinds County was provided four judges in 1992 when a major redistricting occurred, and that number has not increased since then even as the caseload for the four judges has exploded.

In addition, Blackmon said the number of assistant prosecuting attorneys could be increased within Hinds County. In Lamar’s bill, the prosecuting of cases within the district would be conducted by attorneys in the office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is white. Blackmon said the bill was “about a land grab,” not about fighting crime. He said other municipalities in the state had higher crime rates than Jackson. Blackmon asked why the bill would give the appointed judges the authority to hear civil cases that had nothing to do with crime.

“When Jackson becomes the No. 1 place for murder, we have a problem,” Lamar responded, highlighting the city’s long backlog of court cases. Several Democrats, during the debate, pointed out that the state of Mississippi’s crime lab has a lengthy backlog, as well, adding to the difficult in closing cases in Hinds County.

Lamar said the Mississippi Constitution gives the Legislature the authority to create “inferior courts,” as the Capitol Complex system would be. The decisions of the appointed judges can be appealed to Hinds County Circuit Court.

“We are not incompetent,” said Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson. “Our judges are not incompetent.”

Democrats offered seven amendments, including one to make the judges elected. All were defeated primarily along partisan and racial lines. An amendment offered by Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, to require the Capitol Police to wear body cameras was approved. Lamar voiced support for the amendment.

Much of the debate centered around the issue of creating a court where the Black majority in Hinds County would not be allowed to vote on judges.

One amendment that was defeated would require the appointed judges to come from Hinds County. Lamar said by allowing the judges to come from areas other than Hinds County would ensure “the best and brightest” could serve. Black legislators said the comment implied that the judges and other court staff could not be found within the Black majority population of Hinds County. When asked why he could not add more elected judges to Hinds County rather than appointing judges to the new district, Lamar said, “This is the bill that is before the body.”

#us politics #news #2023 #Mississippi today #Mississippi #conservatives #republicans #gop #institutional racism #end institutional racism #Mississippi Supreme Court #House Bill 1020 #jackson #Mississippi Legislature #Rep. Ed Blackmon #Chokwe Antar Lumumba #1890 Constitution #jim crow #Rep. Trey Lamar #Jackson Police Department #Mississippi Capitol Police #Hinds County #Lynn Fitch #Mississippi Constitution #racism #racists

[thenightisland]

my night got completely derailed by a post that had a map of what constituted the midwest and i just want to take that person gently by the hand and tell them that no, memphis and nashville tennessee are not, by any stretch of the imagination, midwestern

#this has been a useless text post you may now resume your normal programming #the person who made it is from the actual midwest #and i'm truly just baffled beyond all reason at the inclusion of a city #that is regularly included in maps of what constitutes the deep south #it even included parts of northern mississippi. MISSISSIPPI!!!! #this perturbs me so much it shouldn't but it does #like i assure you memphis is regrettably deeply deeply southern lol #i've gotten nothing done i've just been Puzzling over this #want to study this person's brain under a microscope

[angry-gryphon]

The issue with America is that, since it's founding, it has been institutionally messed up. From the writings of the constitution, 200 years on.

You can't expect a codified and entrenched document written by a few rich, white, cis-gendered, heterosexual men, of whom were also colonisers, to really consider any human beings besides those within their class and social demographic.

From the get-go, it started wrong. In it's initial writing, slaves were only ⅗ of a person, and only 7% of the population is considered. Women weren't even included in it.

Not only that, they only had around 13 states when shaping that document, now it's 50 - they had no concept of globalisation as it stands today, with guns that can fire 10 bullets a second; they had muskets and guns that could fire 1 bullet a minute.

The Supreme Court had so little written about them (1,000 words roughly) that they easily have the most flexibility in power; literally gave themselves the power of Judicial Review when they set the precedent for it. No wonder AOC, a democratically elected official (and woman, minority, and ethical human being), says that limitations should be placed on the power of Judicial Review, created by the unelected body that uses it, which can essentially override any branch of government if the case is brought to them.

It's in my personal belief that the Supreme Court is the most powerful branch of government in the US. And by that, should they really be unelected individuals who can sit in that position for life (or until impeachment and retirement)? Should there not be more consideration for who is elected to it? Justice Jackson, (when she takes her seat), arguably had one of most frustrating Senate hearings of the Justices so far; asking her about critical race theory, what defines a woman, rambling about religion, a very partisan environment with very little said and asked about the actual job, when the only thing her job entails, or should, is specific cases; not a political agenda. She is easily the most qualified to sit on the court, having been in pretty much every legal court she can sit on, yet had some of the most irrelevant questions asked. Meanwhile, Republican Amy C-Barret could falsify an entire constitutional notion (super precedent; literally does not exist) and literally have such poor knowledge of the freedoms granted by the constitution that she didn't even know them all — yet be rushed through in 27 days and still be considered "well qualified" by the ABA (American Bar Association). Incorrect, she didn't even know the freedoms by heart, how is she well qualified to then literally interpret those freedoms case by case? Clearly the very appointment process is in need of work, especially since it is just 9 people determining the rights and law of millions, and some of it's members cannot even remember the basic freedoms.

The only branch that could overpower the SC is Congress, via constitutional amendment, yet they haven't. First, there's only been 27 amendments (2 of which were just about alcohol), and second, who then interprets that? SC. But honestly, do you not agree that the elected branch, particularly the law makers, should be in charge of such a highly political topic such as abortion? The Supreme Court is not meant to be political, yet here we have arguably the most political court to date.

The US has been broken from the start. The Founding Fathers had no concept of how today would look and therefore a document they wrote centuries ago has become fossilised, and the document itself was not perfectly functional, but in a country that salutes the flag in schools and is rife with propaganda, do we really expect it to improve?

If your rights are literally dependent upon whether an unelected judge can look at the words written centuries ago, words written by men who only considered <10% of the population when writing it, do you not think it's a broken system? You literally have to hope that each of those individual judges is nice enough to interpret it liberally enough that they permit your rights by majority.

But even those of a conservative, strict constructionist and originalist approach to the constitution, at least in regards to abortion, are blatantly wrong if they also support owning guns. The original meaning of the 2nd amendment is that the people of a militia have the right to bear arms, of which were basically muskets to protect a regularly invaded country — not every single average citizen with AK-47s. Yet, they support owning guns across the board; but not abortion? Abortion, an interpreted right brought in by a liberal, loose and living interpretation? But they support guns for everyone, which is arguably also a loose approach too, as if they truly interpreted the original words and context to it's writing then that average American should not have a gun, only a militia.

It's all backwards, really. The US system is riddled with so many imperfections that you would truly have to abandon the constitutional system as it is to fix it. Don't even get me started on elections.

I hope, as someone who supports human rights and common sense (one enables the other), that there is some way to legalise abortion across the whole US again; constitutional amendment, re-examining of the Mississippi Case (the recent ruling that abortion is not constitutional and the legality is thus to be determined by the individual states, overruling their previous ruling in Roe v Wade), etc. Some way, some how, I hope you get your rights, and I'm sure there are constitutional loopholes found by experts who may be able to aid in that.

But those same arguments against the constitutionality of abortion can be applied to aspects such as same sex marriage, voting rights, interracial relationships and even segregation. It starts here. It doesn't end here. Justice Thomas already wants to reassess same sex marriage (Obergefell v Hodges) and contraception. Either get a democrat leaning court, constitutional amendment via Congress, or remove the whole system, because that's your only way out.

I really wish common sense...was actually common among people. Or just, like, basic decency and critical thinking skills.

Rant temporarily over.

#usa #us #supreme court #mississippi case #roe v wade #constitution #congress #same sex marriage #supreme court justices #amy coney barrett #justice thomas #aoc #I don't hate the USA - I just wish that it made sense #women's rights #human rights #women's rights are human rights #sorry for any typos #im half asleep #and tired

[batboyblog]

The governor was firm: Nebraska would reject the new federal money for summer meals. The state already fed a small number of children when schools closed. He would not sign on to a program to provide all families that received free or cut-rate school meals with cards to buy groceries during the summer.

“I don’t believe in welfare,” the governor, Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in December.

A group of low-income youths, in a face-to-face meeting, urged him to reconsider. One told him she had eaten less when schools were out. Another criticized the meals at the existing feeding sites and held a crustless prepackaged sandwich to argue that electronic benefit cards from the new federal program would offer better food and more choice.

“Sometimes money isn’t the solution,” the governor replied.

.......

The new $2.5 billion program, known as Summer EBT, passed Congress with bipartisan support, and every Democratic governor will distribute the grocery cards this summer. But Republican governors are split, with 14 in, 13 out and no consensus on what constitutes conservative principle.

One red-state governor (Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas) hailed the cards as an answer to a disturbing problem. Another (Kim Reynolds of Iowa) warned that they might increase obesity. Some Republicans dismissed the program as obsolete pandemic aid. Some balked at the modest state matching costs. Others hinted they might join after taking more time to prepare.

The program will provide families about $40 a month for every child who receives free or reduced-price meals at school —$120 for the summer. The red-state refusals will keep aid from about 10 million children, about a third of those potentially eligible nationwide.

......

As with Medicaid, poor states are especially resistant, though the federal government bears most of the cost. Of the 10 states with the highest levels of children’s food insecurity, five rejected Summer EBT: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

Like the school lunch program, it serves families up to 185 percent of the poverty line, meaning a family of three would qualify with an income of about $45,500 or less.

......

Some Republicans, in rejecting the aid, found critics in their own ranks. After Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina dismissed Summer EBT as a duplicative “entitlement,” State Senator Katrina Shealy, a fellow Republican, wrote a column with a Democratic colleague warning that “hunger does not stop during summer break.”

In an interview, Ms. Shealy said the state should not reject $65 million “just because Biden is president,” and perhaps just partly tongue-in-cheek wrapped her plea in Trumpian bunting: “Everyone wants to say, ‘America First’ — well, let’s feed our children first.”

Oklahoma initially said it rejected the program because federal officials had not finalized the rules. But responding to critics, Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, sharpened his attack, calling Summer EBT a duplicative “Biden administration program” that would “cause more bureaucracy for families.”

Tribal governments, which have influence over large parts of the state, stepped in. Already feuding with Mr. Stitt, they promised to distribute cards to all eligible families on their land, regardless of tribal status, while bearing the $3 million administrative cost. The five participating tribes will cover nearly 40 percent of Oklahoma’s eligible children, most of them not Native American.

“I remain dumbfounded that the governor of Oklahoma would turn down federal tax dollars to help feed low-income children,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

-------------------------

some of the most stunning highlights of this story.

All I got to say is, let's feed the children? every single Democratic Governor took the money to feed the kids, every governor who rejected it, every single one, is a Republican. If you don't vote for Democrats you are STEALING food out of kids mouths.

#food #food insecurity #Poverty #politics #school lunch #feed the children #Republicans #2024 elections

[jstor]

From all of us at JSTOR, happy Black History Month!

The profound impact of African American writers, artists, politicians, and academics, along with countless others, is indelibly etched into the fabric of American history–and we'll be highlighting them all month long.

Image credit: 

Fink, Larry (1941-2023). Malcolm X, Rally for Birmingham, Harlem, NY, May, 1963. 1963, printed 2019. Archival pigment print, 22 x 17 in. (55.88 x 43.18 cm). 

Levy, Mark. Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964. 1964. Queens College Special Collections and Archives.

Borg, Erik. Toni Morrison. August 26, 1977. 

Lisa Kuzia. Angela Davis. 1980-1985. Black and white photography, 4 3/4 x 3 3/4 in. Special Collections and Archives, Colby College Libraries, Waterville, Maine. 

Padow-Sederbaum, Phyllis. Junior NAACP Demonstration. 1963. Queens College Special Collections and Archives. 

Allied Printing Trades Council. Placard from Memorial March Reading “HONOR KING: END RACISM!” 1968.  National Museum of African American History and Culture; On View: NMAAHC (1400 Constitution Ave NW), National Mall Location, Concourse 1, C1 053; Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Created by C. M. Battey, American. W.E.B. Du Bois/. 1918. Silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper. National Museum of African American History and Culture; Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Mosley, John W. Civil Rights Demonstrators at Girard College. Philadelphia PA: Temple University Libraries, 1965-07-17. Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection.

#jstor #black history month

[action]

Supreme Court overturns Roe V. Wade, ending federal abortion rights.

Abortions will be banned immediately in:

Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming

These states have laws to protect the right to an abortion:

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Washington DC, Vermont

Click here for details on where abortion stands in your state.

Here is what you can do:

Donate to an abortion fund to provide help for those whose rights have been stripped or jeopardized.

Find a local protest or call your representative to make your voice heard.

Consider purchasing abortion pills or emergency contraception. For information on your rights to self-managed abortion, visit reprolegalhelpline.org

#abortion rights #roe v wade #signal boost #reproductive rights

[whenweallvote]

After the Supreme Court ruled that James Meredith — a Black college student — had the constitutional right to register for classes at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett personally blocked Meredith's admission.

On September 29, 1962, President Kennedy deployed federal marshals to Oxford, Mississippi. Ultimately, it took 3,000 U.S. troops, federal marshals, and national guardsmen to get James Meredith to class in the midst of a violent, pro-segregation riot that left two dead and 300 injured.

Meredith received his Bachelor of Arts degree in August of 1963. He had already taken several years of college courses at an all-Black college before enrolling at Ole Miss.

We cannot live up to our greatest ideals without confronting the realities of our history.

#whenweallvote #jamesmeredith #olemiss

[familyabolisher]

Before electing to name himself for the state to which he owed a significant portion of his family tree, Tennessee Williams toyed with penning his work under the pseudonym of Valentine Sevier. To do so would be to take the name of an ancestor and early settler of the Tennessee frontier who fought both in the American Revolutionary War and in the series of battles against indigenous populations that constituted the process by which the land was claimed and settled by Europeans and their descendants, and naming himself as such would have marked his corpus of work as a continuation of the process that the first Valentine Sevier started — that of negotiating the frontier with ultimate intent to conquer it.

The echo of such an impulse continues to reverberate even in the name he ultimately selected for himself. Williams was from Mississippi — whilst we can attribute his choice of pseudonym in no small part to the common-sense fact that ‘Mississippi Williams’ simply lacks the musicality that ‘Tennessee’ manages to carry, the flicker of the frontier and the desire to posit himself as agentive within a family mythology cannot be entirely disappeared; indeed, such a desire bleeds into his writing in forms that are often weird, and contradictory, and indulgently horrifying. The individual Williams is articulated through and within the land, and the process of individual identity-making (through his infamously heavy autofictional tendencies) is carried out in negotiation with the process of settlement; long after the disappearance of a traditional ‘frontier’ as the whole American continent came under the control of the agents of settler colonialism, the lingering presence of a space which is conquered, ordered, and sustained and a space which exists beyond the processes of ordering and sustention is the key ingredient in articulating anxieties of American sexuality. In name, Williams as the momentum behind such figures as Blanche and Laura and Maggie the Cat becomes not just a man but a body of land; moreso, he becomes the ideology baked into the naming of that body of land as ‘Tennessee.’ As such, Williams’ plays, so frequently preoccupied with the artificial yet brutally enforced social limits of desire against the plenitude of the human spirit, necessarily anchor themselves in the landed space through which those same paradigms of desire that sway their movement must be understood.

What does it mean to read Williams’ plays in such a manner? Certainly his major scholars have shied away from the suggestion that anything of serious political import might be read into his work; Williams was a deeply emotive writer who tended to mete out his appeals to social issues very lightly and sparingly and reserved the best of his grandiosity and conviction for statements about the condition of the individual human heart, and though he was a self-proclaimed ‘Socialist’ in name, he was no political firebrand and certainly no communist. Yet this question of land — lost land, settled land, land that was sacrificed to ‘epic fornications’ — pervades his work and haunts his very particular imaginary, and provides an easy point of reference by which those very same questions of desire and the human heart can be teased out and re-examined from a differently illuminating angle.

Ko-Fi / Patreon

hello, at long last, here is my piece on tennessee williams; questions of desire and literary production and how american writers attempt to uneasily negotiate the land they write on. thanks!

#mine #tennessee williams

[soberscientistlife]

Biddy Bridget Mason (1815-1891) was born into slavery and "given" as a wedding gift to a Mormon couple in Mississippi named Robert and Rebecca Smith. In 1847 at age 32, Biddy was forced to walk from Mississippi to Utah tending to the cattle behind her master’s 300-wagon caravan.

After 4 years in Salt Lake City, Smith took the group to a new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California in search of gold. Biddy Mason soon discovered that the California State Constitution made slavery illegal, and that her master's had a plan to move them all to Texas to avoid freeing them.

With the help of some freed Blacks, she and the other Slaves attempted to run away to LA, but they were intercepted by Smith and brought back.

Biddy had Robert brought into court on a writ of habeas corpus. She, her daughters, and the ten other Slaves were held in jail for their own safety to protect them from an angry and violent pro-slavery mob until the Judge heard the case and granted their freedom.

Now free, Mason and her three daughters moved to Los Angeles where they worked and saved enough money to buy a house. Biddy was employed as a Nurse, Midwife, and Domestic Servant.

She used part of her land as a temporary resting place for horses and carriages, and people visiting town paid money in exchange for the space. That particular area was considered the first "parking lot" in Los Angeles.

Biddy began a philanthropic career by opening her home to the poor, hungry, and homeless. Through hard work, saving, and investing carefully, she was able to purchase large amounts of real estate to help build schools, hospitals, and churches.

Her financial fortunes continued to increase until she accumulated a fortune of almost $300,000. In today's money, $6M. Her most noted accomplishment is the founding of the First AME Church in California.

I love the stories of the enslaved that work for their freedom and beat the oppressive system to become successful.

[bfpnola]

So many trigger laws are about to go into effect. Announced about 5 mins ago… I wanna cry.

[ID: “JUST IN: The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade Friday, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion.

Going forward, abortion rights will be determined by states, unless Congress acts.

In early May, Politico had obtained what it called a draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would strike down Roe v. Wade.” End ID.]

#reaux speaks #resources #current news #abortion #reproductive rights #reproductive health #reproductive justice #supreme court #government

[decolonize-the-left]

The legal offensive, led by Dana Remus, who until 2022 served as President Biden’s White House counsel, and Robert Lenhard, an outside lawyer for the party, will be aided by a communications team dedicated to countering candidates who Democrats fear could play spoiler to Mr. Biden. It amounts to a kind of legal Whac-a-Mole, a state-by-state counterinsurgency plan ahead of an election that could hinge on just a few thousand votes in swing states. The aim “is to ensure all the candidates are playing by the rules, and to seek to hold them accountable when they are not,” Mr. Lenhard said.

WHAT???

You're telling me that this guy

Suddenly gives a single shit about the rules???

The headlines about this are fucking insane also

"will giving voters access to vote for whatever candidate they want dooming democracy"

Normal headline for a country that definitely isn't being run by fascists.

Btw this is Dana Remus

"In August 2022, President Biden questioned in a 60 Minutes interview “how anyone can be that irresponsible” when asked about classified documents in the possession of former President Trump. But when President Biden said this, he knew he had stashed classified materials in several unsecure locations for years, dating back to his time as vice president and even as U.S. senator."

[...]President Biden’s attorneys claim to have first discovered classified material at Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022. However, President Biden and his lawyers kept it secret from the American people before the midterm elections. CBS News broke the story in January 2023, leaving Americans to wonder if the White House had any intention of ever disclosing that President Biden hoarded classified documents for years.

You know what else they did together? Lied about codifying Roe v Wade if they won mid-terms. 6months AFTER dems won a narrow majority, Rie v Wade was overturned.

And like not to be a wacky conspiracy theorist who's right again but

"The case concerned the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi state law that banned most abortion operations after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Mississippi law was based on a model by a Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, with the specific intent to provoke a legal battle that would reach the Supreme Court and result in the overturning of Roe"

Guess what the Alliance Defending freedom works with and serves an agenda for?

Project 2025 yeah, the heritage foundation lists them as partners

Yeah remember how Dana Remus worked with Samuel Alito? Guess who's vote helped overrule abortion rights?

Samuel Alito, correct. Guess who else? Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett.

All Trump appointments.

Odd company to find yourself in without having ANY ties to the ADF or heritage foundation or project2025.

I wonder who the lawyers involved were?

Scott G Stewart. Interesting. Well who appointed him, right?

In 2021, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch appointed Scott G. Stewart as Solicitor General for the State of Mississippi.

Oh so she was voted in.

Well im sure it was a normal election that Democrats didn't tamper with or anything. Like SURELY they didn't intentionally platform this woman using the Pied Piper method? SURELY NOT after platforming Trump and making the entire 2016 elections about anti-Trumpism. SURELY, they wouldn't have tried to make themselves look better by positioning themselves against extremists only to LOSE the bet they were making.

SURELY WE DIDNT LOSE ROE V WADE BECAUSE DEMOCRATS WONT STOP USING THE PIED PIPER STRATEGY TO WIN ELECTIONS? R I G H T???

Riley Collins, 53, is running against the state's treasurer, Lynn Fitch, who was the chair of the group Mississippi Women for Trump in 2016. Riley Collins is running an explicitly anti-Trump message, saying Monday that she doesn’t understand how Donald Trump's Christian supporters can reconcile their politics with their faith

Oh.

Welp.

Everyone thank democrats for Trump and the stacked supreme court and the loss of Roe V Wade. It Truly couldn't have happened without them blasting primetime tv with alt right candidates 24/7.

One day democrats will stop platforming right wing extremists and election tampering but I guess it won't be anytime soon.

Let me ask, what's the biggest argument for voting blue this year?

Right.

And how's that going? Y'all feel confident in that strategy right now?

And don't forget what they did to Bernie. Because Biden is very poetically doing the same fucking shit to sabotage 3rd parties right now.

Remember to act surprised when Trump wins.

Like voters and progressives and leftists haven't been saying for MONTHS that we won't vote Biden. Like swing states aren't voting uncommitted. Like labor unions aren't voting uncommitted. Like he isn't tanking the polls.

You know I will say that this election is a little different. Clinton didn't have nearly this much pushback so early in the race.

Biden's massive gap of votes compared to Trump is gonna look like the grand fucking canyon.

#vote #dont vote #biden #3rd parties #trump #roe v wade #2024 #2025 #project2025 #politics #news #current events #facsism #democrats #Republicans #RFK #usa elections

[reasonsforhope]

"Two years ago, the biggest battles in state legislatures were over voting rights. Democrats loudly — and sometimes literally — protested as Republicans passed new voting restrictions in states like Georgia, Florida and Texas. This year, attention has shifted to other hot-button issues, but the fight over the franchise has continued. Republicans have enacted dozens of laws this year that will make it harder for some people to vote in future elections. 

But this year, voting-rights advocates got some significant wins too: States — controlled by Democrats and Republicans — have enacted more than twice as many laws expanding voting rights as restricting them, although the most comprehensive voter-protection laws passed in blue states. In all, 39 states and Washington, D.C., have changed their election laws in some way this year...

Where voting rights were expanded in 2023 (so far)

Unlike two years ago, though, we’d argue that the bigger story of this year’s legislative sessions was all the ways states made it easier to vote. As of July 21, according to the Voting Rights Lab, [which runs an excellent and completely comprehensive tracker of election-related bills], 834 bills had been introduced so far this year expanding voting rights, and 64 had been enacted. What’s more, these laws are passing in states of all hues.

Democratic-controlled jurisdictions (Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island and Washington) enacted 33 of these new laws containing voting-rights expansions, but Republican-controlled states (Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming) were responsible for 23 of them. The remaining eight became law in states where the two parties share power (Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia).

That said, not all election laws are created equal, and the most comprehensive expansive laws passed in blue states. For example: 

New Mexico adopted a major voting-rights package that will automatically register New Mexicans to vote when they interact with the state’s Motor Vehicle Division, allow voters to request absentee ballots for all future elections without the need to reapply each time and restore the right to vote to felons who are on probation or parole. The law also allows Native Americans to register to vote and receive ballots at official tribal buildings and makes it easier for Native American officials to get polling places set up in pueblos and on tribal land.

Minnesota followed suit with a law also establishing automatic voter registration and a permanent absentee-voting list. The act allows 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote too. Meanwhile, a separate new law also reenfranchises felons on probation or parole.

Michigan enacted eight laws implementing a constitutional amendment expanding voting rights that voters approved last year. Most notably, the laws guarantee at least nine days of in-person early voting and allow counties to offer as many as 29. The bills also allow voters to fix mistakes on their absentee-ballot envelopes so that their ballot can still count, track the status of their ballot online, and use student, military and tribal IDs as proof of identification. 

Connecticut became the sixth state to enact a state-level voting-rights act, which bars municipalities from discriminating against minority groups in voting, requires them to provide language assistance to certain language minority groups and requires municipalities with a record of voter discrimination to get preclearance before changing their election laws. The Nutmeg State also approved 14 days of early voting and put a constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot that would legalize no-excuse absentee voting.

No matter its specific provisions, each of these election-law changes could impact how voters cast their ballots in future elections, including next year’s closely watched presidential race. There’s a good chance your state amended its election laws in some way this year, so make sure you double-check the latest rules in your state before the next time you vote."

-via FiveThirtyEight (via FutureCrunch), July 24, 2023

#voting rights #voting matters #united states #us politics #new mexico #Minnesota #Michigan #Connecticut #voting rights act #ballot box #civil rights #elections #election 2024 #election law #constitutional amendments #felon voting #native american #first nations

[profeminist]

Breaking News: US ready to sink further into right wing theocracy

"The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and obtained by POLITICO.

The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Read the full piece here: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473

CLARIFICATION:

"Every reporter picking up this Politico scoop needs to be very clear — this is a leak of a DRAFT. No ruling has been made public. If a patient has an appointment, they can continue to receive care. Those draconian anti-choice trigger laws in certain states DO NOT APPLY yet."

Christina Henderson

UPDATE:

"Supreme Court lawyer Neal Katyal: "My thoughts on politico story saying the Court voted to say Roe v. Wade is fully overruled. I’ve quickly scanned the draft opinion and it appears legitimate. This means there was a preliminary vote to fully overrule Roe V Wade and that a majority of the Court agreed.

This opinion says states can criminalize abortion, with no rape or incest exception. It is exactly the hardline position I’ve been saying the Court is going to impose for the last 3 years. It will set women back in profound ways. Congress must act ASAP."

THREAD: https://twitter.com/neal_katyal/status/1521292108975513601

The Supreme Court may toss Roe. But Congress can still preserve abortion rights.

A simple majority vote in the Senate would nullify the threat to reproductive health posed by the Mississippi case.

Readers, I'll post "what do we do now" info soon. In the meanwhile here's my post on the 100% hypocrisy of the so-called “Pro Life” movement

#feminism #feminist #abortion #roe vs. wade #roe v wade #reproductive rights #reproductive freedom #abortion rights #pro-choice #pro choice #prochoice

[ltwilliammowett]

David Debias was a Black Sailor who served on USS Constitution as a ship’s boy in the early 1800’s.

Debias became the youngest Sailor to ever serve on the Constitution after his father sent him aboard USS Constitution at just eight years old. He was assigned to Master’s Mate Nathaniel G. Leighton as a servant was given the rank of ship’s boy. Ship’s Boys were the lowest ranking position aboard USS Constitution and typically served as servants to officers and carried powder to supply the guns during battle. On February 20, 1815, USS Constitution engaged in battle with HMS Cyane and HMS Levant and eventually defeated both. While sailing as part of the HMS Levant’s prized crew Debias and Master’s Mate Leighton were captured by a British squadron and imprisoned in Barbados until May 1815.

After his release Debias returned to Boston and re-enlisted into the Navy in 1821 and served on USS Constitution once more in the Mediterranean until 1824 when he joined the merchant service. In 1838, he was picked up as a fugitive from slavery and was held captive in Mississippi. Though Debias’ fate is unknown, a local lawyer named Thomas Falconer believed Debias was a free man and pleaded with the Secretary of the Navy for his naval records to prove his Naval service to our Country

- Text by USS Constitution Museum

#naval history #black sailor #david debias #uss constitution #early 19th century #persons of the navy #lower decks #age of sail #us navy

[odinsblog]

The Supreme Court is trying to drag America backwards to “Separate but Equal”

President Andrew Johnson vetoed the nation’s inaugural Civil Rights legislation because, in his view, it discriminated against white people and privileged Black people. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (which Congress enacted over the veto) bestowed citizenship upon all persons — except for certain American Indians — born in the United States and endowed all persons with the same rights as white people in terms of issuing contracts, owning property, suing or being sued or serving as witnesses. This law was proposed because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans, free or enslaved, were ineligible as a matter of race for federal citizenship, and because many states had barred African Americans from enjoying even the most rudimentary civil rights.

Johnson vetoed the act in part because the citizenship provision would immediately make citizens of native-born Black people while European-born immigrants had to wait several years to qualify for citizenship via naturalization (which was then open only to white people). According to Johnson, this amounted to “a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the Negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have just now been suddenly opened.” Johnson similarly opposed the provision in the act affording federal protection to civil rights, charging that it made possible “discriminating protection to colored persons.”

A key defect of the Civil Rights Act, according to Johnson, was that it established “for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the general government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.” Johnson opposed as well the 14th Amendment, which decreed that states offer to all persons equal protection of the laws, a provision which he also saw as a wrongful venture in racial favoritism aimed at assisting the undeserving Negro.

In 1875, Congress enacted legislation that prohibited racial discrimination in the provision of public accommodations. Eight years later, in a judgment invalidating that provision, the Supreme Court disapprovingly lectured the Black plaintiffs, declaring that “when a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws.”

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promulgated Executive Order 8802, which prohibited racial discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission to carry out the order. Assailing the order, Representative Jamie Whitten, a Mississippi segregationist, complained that it would not so much prevent unfairness as “discriminate in favor of the Negro” — this at a time when anti-Black discrimination across the social landscape was blatant, rife and to a large extent, fully lawful.

Segregationist Southerners were not the only ones who railed against antidiscrimination laws on the grounds that they constituted illegitimate preferences for African Americans. In 1945, the New York City administrator Robert Moses inveighed against pioneering municipal antidiscrimination legislation in employment and college admissions. Displaying more anger at the distant prospect of racial quotas than the immediate reality of racial exclusions, Moses maintained that antidiscrimination measures would “mean the end of honest competition, and the death knell of selection and advancement on the basis of talent.”

Liberals, too, have attacked measures they deemed to constitute illicit racial preferencing on behalf of Black people. When the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, proposed “compensatory” hiring in the early 1960s — selection schemes that would give an edge to Black people on account of past victimization and the lingering disabilities caused by historical mistreatment — many liberals resisted. Asked about CORE’s demands, President John F. Kennedy remarked that he did not think that society “can undo the past” and that it was a mistake “to begin to assign quotas on the basis of religion, or race, or color, or nationality.”

Kennedy’s comment that it would be a mistake “to begin” to assign quotas reflects a recurring misimpression that racial politics “begins” when those who have been marginalized make demands for equitable treatment.

When Kennedy spoke, unwritten but effective quotas had long existed that enabled white men to monopolize huge portions of the most influential and coveted positions in society. Yet it was only when facing protests against monopolization that he was moved to deplore status-based quotas.

This same dynamic has been recurrent in subsequent decades: Every major policy seeking to advance the position of Black people has been opposed on the grounds that it was race conscious, racially discriminatory, racially preferential and thus socially toxic. That racial affirmative action in university admissions and elsewhere has survived for so long is remarkable, given the powerful forces arrayed against it.

(continue reading)

#politics #scotus #education #affirmative action #separate but equal #republicans #racism deniers #white supremacy #two americas #double standards #racism

[tomorrowusa]

Tuesday is Election Day in many parts of the US.

VOTE! 🗳 🇺🇸

A number of sites provide you with an opportunity to see who is on your ballot and what issues are being contested. They don't include an actual image of your ballot but they do let you know what's on it.

VOTE411 Voter Guide

Sample Ballot Lookup - Ballotpedia

Vote Informed on the Entire Ballot - BallotReady

Of course check the site of your local election authority. In some places it's the county clerk and in others it's a board of elections. The elections mentioned in this post are a small number of those around the US on November 7th.

Because of the GOP SCOTUS overturning of Roe v. Wade, state legislatures now determine whether a state supports reproductive freedom or not. State governments have been badly neglected by liberals for decades — and that situation needs to end.

Both chambers of the state legislature in Virginia are up for election on Tuesday. If both fall under Republican control then the state will join the rest of the South in restricting abortion.

Virginia is not the only state having elections for its state officials.

STATES HOLDING ELECTIONS FOR STATE LEGISLATURE

Virginia

New Jersey

Mississippi

Louisiana

STATES HOLDING ELECTIONS FOR GOVERNOR

Kentucky

Louisiana

Mississippi

There are numerous municipal elections, special elections, ballot measures, and constitutional amendments to be decided on Tuesday.

The biggie is the Ohio constitutional amendment on reproductive freedom. Voters in Ohio have the opportunity to overturn the gerrymandered Ohio Republican legislature's ban on abortion. Vote YES on Ohio Issue 1.

A very local but important contest is the special legislative election in New Hampshire to fill a vacancy in Hillsborough County District 3 (in the Nashua area). Right now Republicans have a one seat advantage in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. If Democrat Paige Beauchemin wins this seat then Republicans will be forced to share power with Democrats in the chamber.

Good candidates for federal office often emerge from state and local government. Before he was elected to the US Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served several terms in the Illinois legislature.

There is no such thing as an unimportant election.

#election 2023 #vote! #reproductive freedom #roe v. wade #ohio issue 1 #state legislatures #virginia #louisiana #new jersey #mississippi #governors #kentucky #new hampshire special election #paige beauchemin #there is no such thing as an unimportant election #vote blue no matter who #never miss an election #vote locally think nationally