No Rest for the Resistance in Kentucky

The Kentucky repugs are already gearing up to steal the governship from Andy Beshear, and they're not even trying to hide it.

There are obstacles, but they could definitely do it.  This isn't politics anymore; it's fighting to the death.  Every day, over everything large and small.

But there are election results far more disturbing than possibly losing the governorship.

Repugs have taken the only two state officers held by Democrats, and they are the most important ones:  Attorney General and Secretary of State.

With those in Democratic hands even while repugs took the entire fucking legislature and the Governor's Mansion, Democrats could still protect Kentuckians from the worst of Bevin's attacks on women, teachers, and families of disabled children, and from the massive voter suppression and election fraud repugs always run when they have the Secretary of State position.

The repug AG and SoS have more power than even a repug governor like Bevin had, and they will try to turn Kentucky into fucking Mississippi as fast as they can.

If they succeed, We. Are. Completely. Fucked.

There's only one way to stop them: Donate to the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, who will be filing a blizzard of lawsuits to try to stop the Mississippification of Kentucky.

Keeping Beshear in the Governor's Mansion is great.  Obstructing the repug Attorney General and Secretary of State is absolutely critical.

It's Not About the Fireworks

Adam Serwer:

Black Americans did not abandon liberal democracy because of slavery, Jim Crow, and the systematic destruction of whatever wealth they managed to accumulate; instead they took up arms in two world wars to defend it.

Japanese Americans did not reject liberal democracy because of internment or the racist humiliation of Asian exclusion; they risked life and limb to preserve it.

Latinos did not abandon liberal democracy because of “Operation Wetback,” or Proposition 187, or because of a man who won a presidential election on the strength of his hostility toward Latino immigrants.

Gay, lesbian, and trans Americans did not abandon liberal democracy over decades of discrimination and abandonment in the face of an epidemic.

This is, in part, because doing so would be tantamount to giving the state permission to destroy them, a thought so foreign to these defenders of the supposedly endangered religious right that the possibility has not even occurred to them. 

But it is also because of a peculiar irony of American history: The American creed has no more devoted adherents than those who have been historically denied its promises, and no more fair-weather friends than those who have taken them for granted.

As Molly Ivins wrote, the history of America is one long struggle to bestow the rights the Constitution gave to only rich white men to all those the Constitution left out: black people and female people and brown people and poor people and asian people disabled people and LGBTQ people.

Extending and expanding those rights makes this nation stronger.  Denying them makes us weak.

Fire every fucking white cop and start the fuck over with public SERVANTS

AND take every penny, every square inch of personal property, vehicles and belongings from these pieces of shit masquerading as cops and give it to this innocent, abused young man.

It is exactly this kind of stormtrooper behavior that CAUSES the problems these motherfuckers claim they need abuse and torture to deal with.

I am so fucking sick of this SHIT. Fire every white cop in the state, burn the stations to the ground and salt the earth so nothing can be built there again.

From the Courier:

He was homecoming king at Central High School and had just graduated with several scholarships.

He had never been arrested or in trouble before and had a steady job selling new cars at a major dealership.

But 18-year-old Tae-Ahn Lea is black and lives in Park Duvalle, in Louisville’s West End. And when he borrowed his mom’s car to go get a slushie one day last August, he found himself being pulled over by the Louisville Metro Police Department's Ninth Mobile Division for the most minor of traffic violations — making a "wide turn" onto another street.

Before he was let go 25 minutes later, he was pulled from his car, frisked and handcuffed. His car was searched by a drug-sniffing dog, then by police officers who went through his wallet and even looked under the lid of his drink for contraband.

He was forced to stand on the street, embarrassed, as traffic drove by, with the cuffs chafing his wrists, as one officer asked him, "Why do you have this negative view towards the police?"

Nearly 1 million people have since viewed a video of the traffic stop on YouTube, and more than 17,000 have commented on it. Many said it shows exactly why minorities distrust law enforcement.

Louisville is not taking this lying down.

From the Courier:

Civil rights leaders and several Metro Council members said Thursday they were enraged by a traffic stop in which a teenager was pulled from his car, frisked and handcuffed last summer after an alleged minor traffic violation.

Councilwoman Jessica Green, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, said she has asked Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad to appear before Metro Council to answer questions about the stop of Tae-Ahn Lea and the department’s tactic of "hyper-policing" to fight violent crime in the West End.

Green, D-District 1, said the stop described in a Courier Journal story and viewed a million times on YouTube shows how Louisville residents are "hunted down because of the color of their skin and where they live."

Sadiqa Reynolds, president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League said when she watched the video with a group of black parents on spring break, "We found ourselves talking back to the video, holding back tears."

"We understand the violence, we understand the drugs," she said. "But one fact remains, many of our children are innocent. 

"Police need to find a better way."

Conrad has declined to comment on Lea’s stop, saying it is the subject of a pending internal-affairs investigation, although he has defended the department's strategy of aggressive policing in high crime corridors. A police spokeswoman said the department has no plans on dropping the strategy.

I give it three days before Conrad absolves the cops and gives them medals for refraining from killing Lea, which they could have done with no consequences.

LGBTQ Pride in Pikeville

This is exceptionally good news.  This is a huge step forward for liberal values and progress in a deeply conservative part of Kentucky.  All is not lost, fellow progressives, as long as we can make this happen.

From the Herald:

Kyle May always thought he would have to leave Eastern Kentucky to find a place he belonged.

“For years I tried to get out,” said May, who is gay. “I tried to move. I tried to get jobs elsewhere. I tried interviewing relentlessly.”

But the chance to leave never came for the Pikeville native who graduated from Morehead State University in Rowan County, went to graduate school at Alice Lloyd College in Knott County and eventually moved to Paintsville.

May, 29, now works as a clinical director at Mountain Comprehensive Care in Prestonsburg.

May’s urge to leave reflects the feelings of many LGBTQ people who grow up in this rural and mostly-conservative part of the state, said Gina Bryant, who helped organize a gay pride event in Pikeville this weekend — the first of its kind for the city.

The festival, planned for Saturday afternoon in Pikeville City Park, will include music, a drag show, a “free hugs” booth, vendors and speakers. The restaurant Bank 253 will host an after-party.

Bryant and May, who also helped organize the event, hope the celebration signals a more inclusive and progressive future for Pikeville and Eastern Kentucky.

LGBTQ people who grow up here often feel isolated because of the lack of an organized and active community, Bryant said, and that feeling of isolation drives them out of the region, often to Lexington or Louisville.

“Most of us felt like we would have to move out of this area to really feel accepted and to really find a community,” said Bryant, who is bisexual. “So I think this is something, for most of us, that we’ve been wanting our entire lives.”

The Only Answer is Abortion on Demand

We should have started massive protests back in 1976, when the Hyde Amendment barred using Medicaid funds for abortion.  And ramped them up in 1992, when the Supreme Court told freakazoids they could restrict abortion with bullshit laws.

We should have been screaming then that abortion is a civil and human right and none of your fucking business.

Instead we've treated abortion like a shameful special favor that women get only after abasing themselves and enduring humiliation.

The Orange Loser's Supreme Court nominee is going to kill abortion rights in this country.  Never mind just overturning Roe v. Wade; the anti-abortion motherfuckers are going after contraception, employment, and the right to vote.

Oh, not that explicitly of course. Every small step they make sound sooooo reasonable, until women can't move without permission.

Scott Lemeiux at LGM:

The focus on term limits is a diversionary tactic intended to conceal a pincer movement carefully designed to strangle a woman’s right to choose. On the one hand, the number of weeks a woman has to obtain an abortion gets smaller and smaller; on the other hand, the hurdles for women seeking an abortion in a timely matter grow higher and higher.

This is particularly important because permitting onerous regulations targeted at abortion clinics is one way the Supreme Court can empower states to make abortion inaccessible without immediately and explicitly overruling Roe.

Stop saying OK, just this one little rule, then we can still have some abortions, in some states, for some (rich) women. That's how women are losing everything.

Abortion on Demand!  Free of charge, no questions asked, 24-7 clinics on every street corner.

Don't listen to me; listen to Michelle Wolfe:

Meet Your New ScapeGoat Class of Deportees: The Muslims!

This is the Constitution stating flat-out: No discrimination of any kind on religious grounds EVER. And the Supreme Court responding: Yeah, fuck religious freedom: discriminate all you want as long as it's against some brown ragheads.

Zandar, writing before today's decision:

Once again, this is all part of a plan to create a system where the government can rapidly detain and deport large numbers of people quickly.  It's only a matter of time of course before this mass deportation infrastructure, without due process, is used not just on those crossing the border now, but used on those already here.

Once you establish that those who are declared non-citizens by the government are not subject to due process, the government has the ability to strip citizenship -- and the legal rights that citizenship guarantees -- from anyone it chooses.  And once you have established that, that non-citizens have no legal rights, well, you can do pretty much anything to them.

I cannot overstate the dangers here.

History tells us exactly what authoritarian governments do in situations like this. 

And the ACLU, with reasons not to despair, but to fight:

It's a dark day in American history. The Supreme Court just allowed the Muslim ban to continue.

In a 5-4 ruling, justices sided with this cornerstone of Trump's discriminatory immigration policy. The latest version of the ban limits entry to the United States from citizens of five Muslim-majority countries in addition to a miniscule number of North Koreans and Venezuelans.

Let's be clear: This is a loss. But this isn't the end of the fight – we're committed to taking down this discriminatory ban on every front – in Congress, in the courts, and on the streets.

Here's what you can do to help RIGHT NOW:

• Take to the streets to shout NO MUSLIM BAN EVER and show your commitment to fighting back: Visit peoplepower.org to join a rally in your community today.
• Congress can end Trump's Muslim ban – but they won't do it unless we force them to: Sign the petition and demand action.
• Stand together: Attend a community forum bringing together Muslim communities and allies.
• Make it known that we're still fighting by posting this #NoMuslimBanEver graphic on Twitter and Facebook.

This isn't the first time the Supreme Court has gotten it wrong. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled in Korematsu v. United States to allow the government to rip Japanese people out of their homes and imprison them based on false claims of national security. It's one of the most shameful chapters of U.S. history – and now the Muslim ban decision joins it. History will judge today's decision harshly.

But I have hope. It's ultimately the people of this country who'll determine its character and future. In the first 24 hours of the Muslim ban, two of the defining themes of the Trump presidency emerged: Trump's determination to stamp anti-Muslim bigotry into national policy, and the key role of the courts and the public in stopping him. Today, the court failed. Now the public is needed more than ever.

I'm confident that our country will ultimately defeat the Muslim ban – as well as Trump's other hateful policies, like tearing children away from their parents at the border, hunting travelers on Greyhound buses, and turning away asylum seekers fleeing domestic violence. But we can't let up the fight – our rights depend on making our voices heard.

Thanks for keeping up the fight,



Omar Jadwat
Director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project

 

Three Kentucky Sites on New National Civil Rights Trail

Despite Kentucky having waited until the war was over to join the Confederacy, or perhaps because of that, activists here stepped up when it counted,

From the Herald:

Kentucky and 11 other states are debuting a U.S. Civil Rights Trail on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

The trail, which includes more than 130 landmarks, will highlight three sites in Kentucky: Berea College, Louisville and the Simpsonville birthplace of civil rights leader Whitney Young. 
 
“It is an honor to have Kentucky’s historic sites included in the U.S. Civil Rights Trail,” said Kristen Branscum, Tourism Commissioner for the Kentucky Department of Tourism. “This trail presents us the unique opportunity to reflect on our history and inspire us as we embark on our path to be a multicultural destination for residents and visitors alike.”

The trail was created after National Park Service director Jonathan Jarvis challenged historians two years ago to inventory surviving civil rights landmarks. 

Berea College was the site of a 20-hour pro-integration sit-in; in the 1960s, Louisville became known for a city-wide civil rights movement; and Simpsonville’s Young received the Medal of Freedom in 1968 for his work fighting employment discrimination, according to the Kentucky Department of Tourism.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article194702284.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article194702284.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article194702284.html#storylink=cpyThe trail was created after National Park Service director Jonathan Jarvis challenged historians two years ago to inventory surviving civil rights landmarks.

Moving Statues Isn't Enough

Kentucky can take the next step by replacing jeff davis in the capitol with Muhammad Ali.

Erik Loomis at LGM:

The only way to fight against all of this is to make interpretations of the Civil War a central part of the left agenda. It’s not enough to say that we will move the Lee and Davis statues to cemeteries. They need to be eradicated entirely. We need monuments to John Brown, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass erected where they once stood. The bland statues of a typical Civil War soldier you see in towns through the South (and the North) should be replaced by monuments to slaves. We need to make sure that every textbook used by your children has a proper interpretation of the Civil War and when it doesn’t, to raise hell about it with the teachers and the school board. When conservative white male teachers tell your students that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, they need to face repercussions for that. Again, this is a battle that will never end and it’s part of the larger battle against racism and for genuine freedom and justice in this nation. This isn’t some sideshow of a bunch of historians. It is critical to the future we all share.

Veterans Know Kaepernick Is Right

Let's keep our eye on the ball.  Colin Kaepernick and the few who accompanied him starting more than a year ago had a single purpose for kneeling during the national anthem - which is still the worst anthem on the planet, an unsingable paean to violence and imperialism and just a fucking song - and that purpose was and remains this:

Protesting the police murders of unarmed black men and women.

And the general racism and inequality that pervades American society.

Not protesting the flag, which is just a fucking flag.  Not protesting the Orange Menace, as much as it deserves vigorous, widespread protest.  Not showing solidarity - that's what your union is for.

Colin Kaepernick's kneeling is about protesting racism and police brutality against black people.

Even paying attention to anything else taking place on the football field is promoting the distraction from the real issue.  Let's keep our eyes on the prize.

Bill Barnwell at ESPN:

There just isn't a strong enough case for teams to pass on Kaepernick, given the desperate public outcries for useful quarterbacks and the nature of his protests. Even if you disagree with his stance, it's bizarre to contrast his peaceful political dissent as a crime that should keep him off rosters in a league in which even marginal players embroiled with confirmed or alleged incidences of domestic and/or sexual assault can sustain careers.

Watching so many NFL teams willfully make ignorant choices and then complain about the lack of quarterback options while leaving a clearly qualified candidate on the sidelines makes it seem like the quality of decision-making in the modern NFL is far worse than the quality of play.

And veterans, who literally fought for Kaepernick's right to protest, know what the issue is.

U.S. Army veteran Richard Allen Smith felt like he was walking with a rock in his shoe all day. In the aftermath of Colin Kaepernick’s protest of the national anthem, Smith heard a lot about how he had been disrespected by what the San Francisco 49ers quarterback had done and said from a lot of folks who never served in the armed forces.

Kaepernick has been sitting during the singing of The Star Spangled Banner the entire preseason, although it was only noticed last Friday when he was dressed to play. In an exclusive interview with NFL.com’s Steve Wyche, Kaepernick explained his protest: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”

Smith said that people burning the quarterback’s jersey “with the troops and veterans being the reason seemed ridiculous.” Being used wasn’t a new feeling. Smith said politicians and corporations often use the military and its servicemen and women for promotion. That leaves some veterans, like Smith, feeling like props for people who haven’t made the sacrifice, but want to cloak themselves in their credibility.

By writing this letter, which was written on Medium, it was an opportunity for him and other vets to counter that rationale. Although the 31-year-old works as a media strategist with the National Education Association, the letter was thought of, created and crafted as something entirely outside of his job and among some of Smith’s friends and colleagues.

One of the most important things about the letter is the diversity of the people signing it and the reasons that they are putting their names on it.

“I wanted to put something out there in the world … to say that ‘There are veterans who not only agree with Colin Kaepernick’s right to do that, but also agree with the substance of the action,’ ” Smith said. “And are willing to stand up and say Black Lives Matter and this is an important issue that we need to address in our country.

“This is an incredibly diverse list of people. I didn’t know how many signatures I was going to get – if I’m going to get five or 10 signatures on this letter. … There’s diversity in service – every branch of the service is represented here – there are black people, white people, Latinos, a Native American person on here. Gay veterans, straight veterans, female veterans, male veterans from both coast to southeast, to southwest, the heartland, pretty much any sort of identity you can imagine, it’s signed onto this letter in the form of one person or more.”

---

In 1947, former Army officer Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Robinson experienced taunts, epithets, and threats of violence for simply standing up to the status quo of segregation in America.

Since 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick engaged in a silent protest to bring attention to the state of emergency facing people of color in America, a chorus of detractors have lined up to denounce his stand, or more accurately his sit. Fans have burned his jersey. A presidential candidate suggested he leave the country. Many have claimed his protest disrespected American veterans.

Jackie Robinson isn’t here today to tell us what he would think of Kaepernick’s protest. But he did convey the same sentiment about the national anthem as Kaepernick in his 1972 autobiography, writing, “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world.”

As military veterans, we write to express our support for the tradition of advocacy by athletes that is embodied by Jackie Robinson and carried on by Colin Kaepernick.

For generations, American athletes have used their public voice to force our collective attention towards the crises and issues that challenge our national conscience. Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Ariyana Smith, the Minnesota Lynx, the Missouri Tigers football team, and stars across professional sports declaring that #BlackLivesMatter, are all part of a brave tradition of protest by athletes. Far from an anomaly, athletes leading on social change has been the norm in America.

The right for those athletes, and all Americans, to protest is one we all pledged to defend with our lives if necessary. Far from disrespecting our troops, there is no finer form of appreciation for our sacrifice than for Americans to enthusiastically exercise their freedom of speech.

While we would not all personally choose to protest in a manner identical to Kaepernick, we respect and honor his choice, and whole heartedly join him in stating unequivocally that BLACK LIVES MATTER. The current state of affairs for people of color in America is unsustainable and unacceptable. According to analysis by the Washington Post, black people in America are two and a half times more likely to be shot and killed by police than white Americans. Far too often, people of color are dying at the hands of law enforcement personnel in the streets, our jails, and their homes. Indictments are rare and convictions are essentially nonexistent.

This status quo outrages us as men and women who raised our right hands and pledged to defend, with our lives if necessary, a Constitution that proclaims intent to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” Those ideals are simply not being upheld for all Americans.

As veterans, we implore all Americans to find your own way to challenge this status quo and advocate for “a more perfect union.” Your method of protest may not be to refrain from the traditions surrounding our national symbols, and it doesn’t have to be. You have the same right as Colin Kaepernick to choose whether and how to advocate, a right we support and served for. However you choose to use your voice, please do so with an understanding that many veterans do not condemn the protest of activists like Jackie Robinson, Colin Kaepernick and everyday Americans seeking justice. Indeed, we see no higher form of patriotism.

This Is Not the Religious Freedom We Fought For, But It Is the One They're Looking For

The freakazoids don't have to get the constitutional convention they are drooling for if they just destroy the one we have one right at a time.

Charlie Pierce:

But, seriously, Ambassador At Large For Religious Freedom? How is that even a job under a secular Constitution? And given Brownback's history as a radically conservative Catholic, one of those Crisis/First Things types who look with great envy at how Pat Robertson does business and who long for the days when a pope could terrify people at a distance, I suspect that easing the pain of the prejudice that might be afflicting, say, Muslims in Europe is not going to be at the top of agenda.

Even so, how is this even a thing? Are we going to have Ambassadors to all First Amendment freedoms? Because I'd really like to be Ambassador At Large For Press Freedom. How about the whole Bill of Rights? I think, in some countries, Ambassador At Large Against Quartering Troops might be a tougher job than it sounds. No, alas, I suspect this, along with the bizarre presidential* announcement about transgender troops on Wednesday morning, is one of the opening shots in the 2018 midterm elections, which apparently are going to be conducted according to 1998 rules, and which I already hate with a considerable passion.

In 1817, in what have come down to us as his Detached Memoranda, James Madison discussed the appointments of congressional chaplains. Mr. Jemmy was not impressed.

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation. The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority.

Damn that little feller. He saw all of this coming, centuries down the road.

UPDATE -- To some of the Top Commenters, I am aware that the position was not created specifically for Brownback, which is why I didn't say it was. I don't believe it ought to exist at all.

Protests for Civil Rights Older Than You Think

White Supremacy never dies, and never quits fighting to restore the 1850s.  The Resistance can't stop, either.

From the NAACP:

We celebrate the centennial of the NAACP’s Silent Protest Parade, held on July 28, 1917.




At the break of summer 1917, racial tension simmered across the nation. In East St. Louis, white residents launched a bloody attack on the rapidly expanding black community. Dozens of black residents were killed and thousands more were left homeless after their neighborhood was burned to ashes. The NAACP wasted no time in composing a retort and soon issued a call for a Silent Protest Parade. “You must be in line,”  the Association commanded. 


On July 28, nearly 10,000 black men, women, and children wordlessly paraded down New York’s Fifth Avenue. Silently marching to the beat of a drum, the throngs of protesters clutched picket signs declaring their purpose and demanding justice. 

“Make America safe for democracy.”

“We march because we deem it a crime to be silent in the face of such barbaric acts.”

“We march because we want our children to live in a better land.”

Their tactic was silence, but their message resounded: anti-black violence is unjust and un-American.  It was the first protest of its kind in New York, and the second instance of African Americans publicly demonstrating for civil rights. 


The NAACP has issued marching orders many times in the years since: in 1965, we marched in Selma in pursuit of our right to vote; in 2012, we held a second Silent March in New York to denounce stop-and-frisk policing; in 2015, we marched 1,002 miles from Selma to Washington, D.C. on our Journey for Justice.   


At our 108th Annual Convention in Baltimore this week, we marked the Silent Parade’s centennial with an interactive art installation. Art Force 5 invited convention attendees to collaborate on a mosaic memorial that will debut today in New York City.





  
Activists created the NAACP in 1909 to fight racialized violence. Then, we called it “lynching.” Today, we call it “police brutality.” But the effect is the same, and so is the ferocity of our retort. 

For more than a century, the NAACP has protested, litigated, and legislated to defend our dignity and our lives. Today, we keep marching. We are at school board meetings, county courthouses, and in the halls of government fighting for our rights because we still cannot afford to stand idle in the face of an administration that is so keen on rolling back our rights. 

We’re marching. And we need you beside us.

But Blue Lives Matter

It ends with Sam DuBose and Philando Castile and Eric Gardner and Tamir Rice and all the rest.  

 

This is how it starts: 

But if anyone has any further lingering questions about why black people might have some issues with the police, I suggest they take a moment and think about how they would feel if this was how they were treated for getting caught jaywalking or selling water, and reconsider things. Because boy, this is all very fucked.

New Rule:  saying, writing or typing "Blue Lives Matter" or "All Lives Matter" is irrefutable proof of irredeemable racism.

Justice, for once

The history of humanity is the long struggle to acknowledge the full human-ness of those Not Like Us.  Members of other tribes, people with different skin color, people who worshipped different gods, people who stand in the way of our territorial expansion, people who do not have a penis, people who have sex in ways we don't like. 

And finally, people whose appearance and born sex organs don't match.

Shakezula atLLGM:

Joshua Vallum has been sentenced for the murder of Mercedes Williamson.

A Mississippi man has been sentenced to 49 years in prison for the first-ever conviction on federal hate crime charges arising from the killing of a transgender person.

A federal judge on Monday sentenced Joshua Vallum, who had previously been sentenced to life without parole on state murder charges.

Vallum acknowledged guilt in the 2015 death of 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson. The case had been closely watched by LGBT advocates nationwide.

He could have received life without parole. I suppose I should settle for being pleasantly surprised that he was convicted at all. But half a century – with likely early release – for killing a girl seems a bit light.

After Vallum’s “trans panic” defense failed, he claimed he killed Williamson to keep his fellow gang members from finding out about their relationship.

Some papers are focusing on the fact that Vallum was a gang member. Dramatic, but I think it muddies the waters. Vallum didn’t kill Williamson because he was a gang member. He killed her because he saw her as the rest of society sees transgender women: Something disposable.

Unity, Not Compromise

Conservatives used to sneer at liberal "open-mindedness" by pointing out that an open mind lets your brains fall out.  

They were wrong.  But now I say that a too-open tent that lets your enemies in is suicidal.

People who fought for the other candidate in the Democratic presidential primary are not our enemy. 

 

People who want to deny our basic human rights are our enemy.

• People who think it's OK for cops to shoot and kill unarmed black people with impunity are not our allies.
• People who think women are mindless wombs who must be forced to give birth are not our allies.
• People who think it's OK to treat non-cis, non-straight people like criminals or sub-humans are not our allies.
• People who think it's OK to discriminate against somebody else's religion but demand special favors for their own are not our allies.
• People who think workers are drones who don't deserve a living wage or a union are not our allies.
• People who descended from immigrants but think all other immigrants should be deported are not our allies.
• People who think torture works are not our allies.
• People who support the death penalty are not our allies.
• People who think climate change is real but we need fossil fuels so there's nothing we can do about it are not our allies.
• People who think for-profit corporations can operate public services like schools and water and parks better than government can are not our allies.
• People who think rich people need more money are not our allies.
• People who think poor people are lazy, criminal drug addicts are not our allies.
• People who think health care is a privilege reserved for those who can afford it are not our allies.
• People who think the War on Drugs is a great idea are not our allies.
• People who think marijuana is worse than heroin but alcohol is not are not our allies.
• People who think war is the answer are not our allies. 
• People who think that some people shouldn't be allowed to vote are not our allies.

Open the Democratic tent to everyone who shares ALL our values.  And no one else.

Political Animal:

The issues that suddenly divide us? Apparently whether we, as a party, will be unyielding in a woman’s right to choose. Taking a page out of the right’s playbook, Jane Sanders called fighting for that right “political correctness.” I see it as core and just as central to who we are as a party as the bullet points above. We’re apparently arguing over whether economic equality would keep immigrant families from being torn apart by immigration authorities (it wouldn’t), or keep African Americans from being shot in the streets and killed in jail cells (it wouldn’t), or keep Donald Trump from grabbing a woman’s pussy (it hasn’t).

From there Markos discusses where he sees the current divide.

It is interesting to me that these are sometimes referred to as “cultural issues.” But if you are a woman whose economic survival is threatened by a pregnancy, I’m sure that the right to chose can’t simply be relegated to a cultural phenomenon. Same would be true if your family’s survival depends of what an ICE officer decides to do with his time, or if you are a black man in the middle of getting pulled over by a police officer. In all of those instances, these are life and death matters. That is why women and people of color react so strongly to being told that speaking up about them is divisive. It is actually the other sides trampling of their lives that is divisive. We need to be clear about that.

A lot of this discussion was reignited when Bernie Sanders chose to endorse a Democratic candidate who was openly anti-choice. I tend to think about that this way: would I vote for an anti-choice Democrat if the only alternative was the mini-me Trump that is my current representative? You betcha I would! That is what politics is often about in a two-party system.

On the other hand, this morning I read an article from Politico about why the Christian right is so thrilled with Donald Trump’s presidency and have become the one constituency he can rely on. It is all based on what we call “cultural issues” – and that is overwhelmingly about the steps this president has taken (and promised to take) to strip women of their right to chose. So let’s be honest…these are the battles we face right now. Any backing off from fighting them will destroy decades of progress that our predecessors fought for so valiantly.

The challenge Democrats have always faced can be summed up with questions like this:

• Are men prepared to fight for a woman’s right to chose?
• Are white people prepared to fight against racism?
• Are citizens prepared to fight for those who are undocumented?
• Are white collar workers prepared to fight for unions?
• Are the wealthy prepared to fight for the middle class?
• Are those who have good health insurance through their employer prepared to fight for those who don’t?
• Are members of the upper and middle class prepared to fight for those in poverty?
• Are the middle-aged prepared to fight for seniors?
• Are seniors prepared to fight for young people?

I could go on, but perhaps you get the point.

Whenever the answer to one of those questions is “no,” or when the message is sent either directly or indirectly that “my issue is more important than yours,” the divide widens. That is what makes the challenge more difficult for Democrats than Republicans. We can’t afford to play a zero-sum game. We have to care about people who aren’t like us because that is the definition of what “liberal” means.

Marcos ends his piece with a powerful quote from Australian Aboriginal activist Lilla Watson.

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.

But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

The over-arching goal of liberalism is that “your liberation is bound up with mine.” That is what it means to form a coalition. That was Bernice Johnson Reagon’s message way back in 1981 and it is what Rev. William Barber is talking about when it comes to “fusion politics.” It is the only path forward for Democrats.

The Resistance: Wisdom From Suvivors

One march, one rally, one law won't do it.  Reaction never quits, so we have to keep fighting.

No Rights for Ideas

Divine Irony:

atheistcartoons:

Ideas should be discussed without any fear of any physical consequences of any kind. 

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ” -Thomas Paine

The Resistance: Who We Really Are

Send this everywhere.

Political Animal:

To demonstrate, please forgive me for quoting at length from President Obama’s amazing speech at the 50th anniversary of the march in Selma. It’s as good of a summary as you’re likely to find.

For we were born of change. We broke the old aristocracies, declaring ourselves entitled not by bloodline, but endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. We secure our rights and responsibilities through a system of self-government, of and by and for the people. That’s why we argue and fight with so much passion and conviction — because we know our efforts matter. We know America is what we make of it.

Look at our history. We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers and miners, and entrepreneurs and hucksters. That’s our spirit. That’s who we are.

We are Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, women who could do as much as any man and then some. And we’re Susan B. Anthony, who shook the system until the law reflected that truth. That is our character.

We’re the immigrants who stowed away on ships to reach these shores, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free –- Holocaust survivors, Soviet defectors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. We’re the hopeful strivers who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a better life. That’s how we came to be.

We’re the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the South. We’re the ranch hands and cowboys who opened up the West, and countless laborers who laid rail, and raised skyscrapers, and organized for workers’ rights.

We’re the fresh-faced GIs who fought to liberate a continent. And we’re the Tuskeegee Airmen, and the Navajo code-talkers, and the Japanese Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty had been denied.

We’re the firefighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11, the volunteers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge.

We are storytellers, writers, poets, artists who abhor unfairness, and despise hypocrisy, and give voice to the voiceless, and tell truths that need to be told.

We’re the inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.

We are Jackie Robinson, enduring scorn and spiked cleats and pitches coming straight to his head, and stealing home in the World Series anyway.
 

We are the people Langston Hughes wrote of who “build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how.” We are the people Emerson wrote of, “who for truth and honor’s sake stand fast and suffer long;” who are “never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”

That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit.

Watch it here or below.

Religious Liberty

From Political Animal:

Tl;dr:  If you object to what someone else is doing, that's not religious liberty.

The Resistance: Record the Atrocities

Digby:

This is a useful exercise. Amy Siskind is keeping a list of the weekly Trump atrocities on Facebook. Here's just this week.

This is by far the worse:

28. After Congress was briefed by Intelligence chiefs, Rep John Lewis said, "I don't see Trump as a legitimate president."
29. Next morning, Trump tweeted a disparaging attack on Lewis, on MLK weekend, saying he was all talk.

That would be this John Lewis:



Digby again:

Obviously Trump has no clue who John Lewis is or he's the last person he would say is "all talk." In fact, Trump saying that about anyone is insane, but to say it about a man who was beaten half to death fighting for civil rights is obscene. 

But our new president doesn't know that because he really doesn't know much of anything. He is an imbecile.

I think he does know who John Lewis is and leaped at the opportunity to smack down an uppity ni**er.

This Is The Resistance, Too

Ninja Onion Choppers Alert!

Political Animal

If your faith in humanity has taken a hit lately, you’ll want to watch this as a way of restoring it just a bit. But fair warning: grab a kleenex first.

Karim Sulayman - I trust you from Meredith Kaufman Younger on Vimeo.