U.S. Supreme Court, split 4-4, blocks Obama immigration plan

CLG

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday dealt President Barack Obama a harsh defeat, splitting 4-4 over his plan to spare millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation and give them work permits, leaving intact a lower-court ruling blocking the plan. The court, with four conservative justices and four liberals, appeared divided along ideological lines during oral arguments on April 18 in a case brought by 26 states led by Texas that sued to block Obama's 2014 executive action on immigration that bypassed Congress. The 4-4 ruling was possible because there are only eight justices following February's death of conservative Antonin Scalia.

Invoking Orlando, Freaky Senate Republicans [all white] Say FBI Should be Able to Read Your Emails & Browsing Info

CLG

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation's authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week's mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers. [MORE]

Supreme Court upholds race-based college admissions program

CLG

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the practice of considering race in college admissions, rejecting a white woman's challenge to a University of Texas affirmative action program designed to boost the enrollment of minority students. The court, in a 4-3 ruling written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, decided in favor of the university in turning aside the conservative challenge to the policy, meaning a 2014 appeals court ruling that backed the admissions program was left intact. The Supreme Court was weighing for the second time a challenge to the admissions system used by the University of Texas at Austin brought by Abigail Fisher, who was denied entry to the school for the autumn of 2008.

Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media

[MORE]

The FBI is One of the Biggest Terrorist Organizations in the World

3 Chiefs In 9 Days: Oakland Police Department In Scandal Meltdown

ThinkProgress

The Oakland Police Department is now under civilian control after a series of incidents of misconduct recently came to light. Multiple police chiefs stepped down after allegations that officers raped an underage sex trafficking victim, covered up crimes, and sent racist text messages.

Oakland has gone through three police chiefs in the past nine days. The latest acting police chief, Paul Figueroa, resigned from his post on Friday but Mayor Libby Schaaf did not say why. She only said that Figueroa would take a leave of absence because he was “unable to fulfill the functions of the Acting Chief of Police,” according to CBS News. The department’s command staff now reports to Sabrina Landreth, the city administrator.

The latest controversy is over racist text messages, such as a text obtained by NBC News that showed a picture of a Ku Klux Klan member on a cereal box. The box message read, “Brad, I heard you got boxes of these in your cupboards” as well as a text using the n-word. Schaaf said that the texting scandal is not widespread throughout the department. Yet racism within the department has been a longstanding issue. Stanford researchers found that during a 13-month period, looking at 28,000 field reports of stops, 17,000 of those stops involved officers halting black people on the street.

The department is still under federal oversight after incidents in 2000 where veteran police officers, known as the “Rough Riders,” planted evidence and beat citizens. In 2012, the department came under scrutiny from a federal judge for its handling of the Occupy Oakland protests. The department was supposed to engage in a number of reforms since then and had begun to rebuild trust with the public as violent crimes and use-of-force complaints were down, the Mercury News reported.

Anti-Muslim ‘cartoon contest’ is the Latest Episode of Staged War on Terror Events - White Media Insists there is an "ISIS Link" because of Tweets

Non-aligned Media

What a surprise – another extremely dubious, synthetic scandal that played out the familiar neocon script of ‘violent Muslims are attacking free speech’ has hit the American south.

Since the Ottawa shooting back in October of 2014, the Neocon-Zionist false flaggers who control most Western governments have executed a series of highly choreographed public relations stunts designed to re-enforce the contrived ‘war on terror’ narrative as well as submerge the public in fear, thereby ripening the masses for government power-grabs in the form of ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation.

According to media reports, on May 3 two assailants purportedly opened fire outside an anti-Muslim ‘cartoon contest’ event organized by Pamela Gellar, a radical Jewish activist who has made a career out of vilifying Muslims and inciting for more Zionist wars in the Middle East. Gellar’s event, held in Garland, Texas, challenged people to submit derogatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed in a similar vein to Charlie Hebdo’s rancid provocations. Gellar offered a $10,000 prize for the “best depiction of Muhammad.”

We are told that two American Muslims, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, showed up at the event with automatic assault rifles and managed to shoot and injure a police officer before being gunned down in front of the Curtis Cullwell Center. It is difficult to confirm if any of this actually happened.

Media are insinuating that the two men had tenuous links to ISIS, but these ‘links’ amount to nothing more than pro-ISIS Twitter accounts praising them.

What is for certain is that one of the alleged shooters, 30-year-old Elton Simpson, was on the FBI’s radar since 2007 and had even been convicted in 2011 for lying to Federal authorities about trying to join the al-Shabaab group in Somalia. Court records show that Simpson was in contact with an FBI informant named Daba Deng who was paid more than $100,000 by the notoriously corrupt agency to befriend Simpson. Strangely, Simpson was only given three months probation and released.

What are the odds that the FBI didn’t continue to keep tabs on Simpson after his arrest and conviction in 2011? What are the chances that Simpson and his alleged co-conspirator were able to purchase a stash of handguns and rifles that they supposedly used in the failed Garland attack without the Feds noticing? What is the likelihood that the FBI, in conjunction with the Zionist neocon clique led by Pamela Gellar, didn’t fabricate this whole scenario out of thin air as per the neocon ‘big lie’ technique? [MORE]

Black Parole Officers Sue NYPD After Being Racially Profiled By White Cops

BNB

Four NYPD parole officers have filed a civil lawsuit against the Ramapo Police Department after claiming they were racially profiled during a recent traffic stop, CNN reports.

The officers were stopped on April 21 while attempting to carry out an arrest warrant and wearing their badges, bulletproof vests, and a placard on their truck’s dashboard.

The force claims they received a 911 call about “four big people” with “bulletproof vests on” riding in an unmarked car. According to CNN:

Mario Alexandre and his colleagues — Sheila Penister, Annette Thomas-Prince and Samuel Washington — are all black New York State Parole officers. The parole officers have filed a civil lawsuit, alleging that they were racially profiled by the white officers and that their detainment was unnecessarily malicious and reckless.

In addition to being punched by a lieutenant, Alexandre says he showed his badge but was ignored by the rest of the officers.

Penister said that when she attempted to show her New York State ID to a police sergeant, he “became enraged and approached her in a threatening manner with his hand held on the butt of his gun,” court documents state. When all parole officers were identified, they allege they were still forcibly detained and not permitted to leave.

Penister later told reporters she still suffers anxiety towards other officers. All of the parole officers have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ramapo Town Assistant Attorney Dennis Lynch says the police officers acted accordingly.

Lynch said called the actions of the police officers “reasonable under the circumstances” and that the “parole officers had not notified the town that they would be in town.”

The officers have not been placed on suspension, despite demands from the victims.

Conyers Reintroduce Bill to End Racial Profiling

CRO

Sen. Ben Cardin, D. Md., and Rep. John Conyers, D. Mich., on April 22 reintroduced the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA), which would prohibit profiling by federal, state, local, and Indian tribal law enforcement authorities on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

CIA 'mission accomplished' in Afghanistan: Afghan poppy farmers say new seeds will boost opium output

BLN

It's the cash crop of the Taliban and the scourge of Afghanistan — the country's intractable opium cultivation. This year, many Afghan poppy farmers are expecting a windfall as they get ready to harvest opium from a new variety of poppy seeds said to boost yield of the resin that produces heroin. The plants grow bigger, faster, use less water than seeds they've used before, and give up to double the amount of opium, they say.

Criminal Cops in North Carolina arrested in major drug bust

BLN

More than a dozen law enforcement officers, including 11 in North Carolina, have been arrested in a government sting that included the FBI, the government announced Thursday. Thomas Walker, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, said multiple people were arrested Thursday morning in a major sting of cocaine and heroin operations. Those arrested include five current members of the Northampton County sheriff's office. They were charged with trafficking cocaine and heroin up and down the I-95 corridor.

In Louisiana prosecutor offices, a toxic culture of death and invincibility [white supremacy/racism]

WashPost

Letter: ​White supremacy is a global and local evil

Daily Tarheel

On April 1, Duke students found a noose hanging from a tree on their campus. The racially charged symbol of violence remains potent in a region responsible for the extrajudicial killings of nearly 3,500 African-Americans between 1882 and 1968. 

On March 18, UVa. honors student Martese Johnson suffered a brutal beating at the hands of police in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In January, an extremist group in northern Nigeria massacred up to 2,000 civilians, while media attention focused on the 20 victims of Paris’ Charlie Hebdo attacks.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), investigators uncovered over 400 bodies earlier this month, likely murdered during government crackdowns on peaceful protests. English-language media did not report the discovery until days later.

In South Africa, students at the University of Cape Town advocate for the removal of landmarks honoring colonial figureheads, as students at UNC continue a 15-year fight demanding accountability for a legacy of violent racism.

What do these events have in common? In an increasingly interconnected world, “the West” can look with pride upon the spread of the internet and democracy. We can follow with amusement the globalization of Coca-Cola and Beyonce.

But we also must take ownership of the international consequences of an ideology of racial inequality that continues to inform the present.

While institutional racism does not operate identically in Cape Town or Chapel Hill, in Durham or Kinshasa, the scourge of white supremacy continues to define the lived experiences of black lives across the globe.

Danielle Allyn

Senior

Global studies, sociology

Punitive White People in California Cities Band Together To Preserve Their Right To Treat Homeless People As Criminals

ThinkProgress

A group of California towns is fighting for their right to criminalize homelessness as state lawmakers weigh new protections for the destitute on Tuesday.

The League of California Cities (LCC) is opposing a new statewide “Right to Rest” bill protecting homeless people’s right to sleep and eat in public. The bill would pre-empt local ordinances that impose fines and jail terms for homeless people over their use of public spaces for non-criminal activity. Such local efforts to make homelessness illegal have cropped up all around the country in recent years, even as homelessness advocates have piled up evidence that it is far cheaper to provide permanent housing to the homeless than it is to lock them up.

The “Right to Rest” law, which gets its first hearing before a Senate committee on Tuesday afternoon, is inspired by a rapid uptick in law enforcement targeting of the unsheltered and a new understanding of how many California towns have laws that criminalize homeless people’s day-to-day activities. Law students from Berkeley found more than 500 separate anti-homeless laws in a review of just 58 cities’ codes, and concluded that California cities are twice as likely as other American towns to ban homeless people from sleeping in their cars.

Their report found that arrests for vagrancy offenses have surged as arrests for disorderly conduct slipped, “suggesting that homeless people are being punished for their status, not their behavior.” That attitude was on full display in San Rafael, CA, earlier this year when Mayor Gary Phillips closed a city park favored by the homeless because “I want to break the cycle so this is not a place for them to hang out.”

The bill up for a hearing Tuesday is broadly written, but intended to “end the criminalization of the non-criminal activities of life exercised by homeless people” in public spaces. Its author notes federal findings that laws like the ones LCC is working to defend are ineffective at protecting the public interest and even exacerbate homelessness by adding criminal records and institutionalization to an already long list of challenges. The LCC’s legislative letter against the bill argues that it would undermine the basic definition of property rights that “are the foundation of our social order,” and grant special rights to anyone defined as homeless. The group has asked member towns to send letters of opposition to the senator sponsoring the bill.

“Right to Rest” is just one piece of homelessness legislation facing the state this session, and looking at it in connection with the others makes the LCC’s position harder to understand. Assembly Speaker Sheila Atkins (D) has proposed a sweeping overhaul of the state’s financing system for affordable housing that would inject hundreds of millions of dollars into construction and upkeep of buildings that could keep the working poor off the streets.

The LCC supports those Atkins bills, and claims that its opposition to “Right to Rest” is consistent with that affordable housing stance. LCC spokeswoman Eva Spiegel told ThinkProgress that the group supports Atkins’ ideas because they correspond with a national consensus “that the key to helping the homeless get back on their feet is through a combination of housing and supportive services.”

But the criminalization law “creates another excuse for not making the commitment to house and serve the homeless,” Spiegel said. Spiegel declined to clarify exactly how decriminalizing homelessness would distract from the holistic efforts that LCC supports.

It isn’t an obvious connection. Criminalizing homeless people’s sleeping habits, minimal property holdings, and access to fresh food doesn’t do anything to facilitate their getting into permanent supportive housing. Cities that have committed to the criminalization path have sometimes found themselves on the wrong end of the courts, as in the case of Fort Lauderdale, FL and Dallas, TX.

If the goal is to devote more resources to housing and counseling solutions that are proven to be effective, criminalizing people’s behavior when they don’t have access to a house may actively get in the way. One study has found that it costs over $30,000 per year in law enforcement and health care expenses to leave a homeless person on the street and criminalize her behavior, but barely $10,000 a year to put him into a permanent housing unit.

NYPD receives $180M grant to aid 'fight against terrorism'

CLG

Money will also be used to pay for anti-terror teams at airports, bus and train stations | 2 April 2015 |The NYPD will be getting a boost of federal funds to help combat terrorism, officials announced Wednesday. The city will receive $180 million as part of a nationwide grant program from the Department of Homeland Security that aims to better prepare local and state governments and law enforcement agencies in the event of a terrorist attack. The NYPD will be getting the lion's share of the cash, which will go toward surveillance and terror fighting equipment like cameras, bomb-sniffing dogs and communications infrastructure, according to DHS secretary Jeh Johnson.

Obama commutes prison sentences of 22 drug offenders

Sentencing Project

In a single stroke, President Obama on Tuesday doubled the number of sentence commutations he has granted to federal prisoners since taking office, clearing the way for the release of 22 drug offenders. The move was part of an administration effort to reduce disparities in drug sentencing and scale back mandatory minimum prison sentences.

Mothers And Children Allegedly Locked In A Dark Room For Protesting Detention Conditions

ThinkProgress

Detention officers allegedly locked migrant mothers and children in a dark room, took away internet access, and threatened to take their children away from them after some went on a hunger strike to protest conditions at a Texas immigration detention center, according to lawyers and advocates. In a five-day strike that ended Saturday, about 78 women went on a hunger and work strike or acted in solidarity to demand better food and medical care, as well as their release from the Karnes Detention Center.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took away internet access and email privileges, threatened mothers with deportation, or told them that they could lose custody of their children, three individuals advocating on behalf of two separate detainees told ThinkProgress. Three mothers, and their children between the ages of two and 11, were also placed in the “medical infirmary” on the first day of the hunger strike, advocates said. Mohammad Abdollahi, the advocacy director at the immigration rights group Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), explained that the infirmary reportedly acted as a solitary confinement cell for the three families.

The lights would only turn on when they were getting fed.

“They were placed in a dark room,” Abdollahi said. “The lights would only turn on when they were getting fed. One woman cupped her hands, asking, ‘You can do this to me, but why are you doing this to my child?'”

Abdollahi added, “There was sensory deprivation involved, preceded with the threat that they would lose custody of their children. Other women emailed us frantically that [the three families] were being sent to a medical infirmary. They went to the medical section [at the detention center] where ICE was interrogating them to protest, so they were able to get the woman with her two-year-old released.”

Though ICE has denied that a hunger strike took place, advocates told McClatchy over the weekend that “investigators from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties are expected to talk to the mothers about their allegation that they and their children were assigned to the facility’s medical clinic to punish them for the hunger protest.”

In a section dedicated to hunger strikes, a 2011 ICE handbook stated, “Any detainee who does not eat for 72 hours shall be referred to the medical department for evaluation and possible treatment by medical and mental health personnel. Prior to 72 hours, staff may refer a detainee for medical evaluation, and when clinically indicated, medical staff may refer the detainee to a hospital.” The handbook also stated that hunger striking detainees could be kept in isolation.

“In terms of conditions within the [Karnes] facility, one of the biggest issues has to do with medical conditions and the lack of appropriate food,” Christina Fialho, the co-founder of the immigration advocacy group Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), said. CIVIC has visitation policies with 39 detention centers nationwide. Fialho has not visited Karnes, but is advocating on behalf of a detainee named Sonia.

Because Karnes County, Texas sits on one of the most active drilling sites used for fracking, the water at the detention center has to be heavily chlorinated, which often causes stomach issues for detainees. The food provided was previously described as “inedible” by other detention center visitors.

Lynette [last name withheld by request], a detention visitor told ThinkProgress, has known Sonia and her children for 15 years. Lynette hadn’t known that Sonia attempted to cross the border with her children until immigration officials caught them at the border last year. They are keeping in contact through email. Since the hunger protest, email access at Karnes was reportedly cut off for at least one day. Lynette, who went on a two-day solidarity hunger strike for Sonia, said “they all had lost weight since I’ve seen them in June. Her [nine-year-old] son was given clothes when they first arrived and the pair of pants he was given now falls off of him, so clearly he’s lost a significant amount of weight.”

White woman starts GoFundMe account to help Wrongly Convicted Black man Released from Alabama Death Row

AL.com

A North Carolina woman has created an online fundraising campaign to help former Alabama Death Row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton get a new start on his life after being freed last week after nearly 30 years of being a condemned man.

Lisa Simonsen, who lives in Huntersville, N.C., (near Charlotte) created the GoFundMe account for Hinton on Sunday.

"Please consider donating to help him start on the next phase of his life," Simonsen writes on the GoFundMe page.

"After reading the news stories about this case I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help Mr. Hinton," Simonsen writes on the page. "I live in Charlotte, NC and I do not know him but I admire his courage and faith. I hope he can use these donations to get settled and enjoy the rest of his life as a free man!" [MORE] 

Marcus Vincent Brown: Punish first, rationalize later

BY MARCUS VINCENT BROWN 

There has been an anomaly in the litany of cases in which unarmed African-Americans are brutalized by the police. This anomaly is the case of African-American University of Virginia student Martese Johnson.

Johnson was arrested outside a bar on March 18 and charged with public intoxication and obstruction of justice. During the arrest, Johnson sustained injuries resulting in widely circulated photos of him handcuffed and bleeding profusely from his head and face. Officers from the Virginia Department of Alcohol Bevarage Control made the arrest, not the Virginia State Police. What is unusual about this case is not the circumstances of the encounter but rather the media’s response to it.

The exact details of the interaction are still unknown, and the case has been continued until May 28 in order allow time for a thorough investigation to be completed. Although many key elements in the case are inconclusive, I am relieved that coverage of this ongoing story has not followed the typical format.

The format I am talking about is one in which an African-American is beaten or killed by law enforcement, and the following days become a race to uncover as much incriminating details from the victim’s past as possible. At some point, that is what news reporting has become. The story becomes less about informing the people and more of a retroactive justification for the actions against the victim. The word “victim” being the operative term.

In the case of Johnson, it would be difficult for anyone to try to blame the victim. Johnson is a third-year Honor student at a nationally ranked university with no criminal record. In this case the means to rationalize the behavior of law enforcement are simply not there.

As disappointed as I am that this happened to Johnson, I cannot deny that part of me was overjoyed when more details became public. I was happy when I read that he is a Honor student. I was happy when witnesses stated he was not belligerent before the time of his arrest. I was happy when the potential ammunition I was certain would be used against Johnson was disproven or challenged. I was happy because this is important. It is important for people to remember that blame doesn’t always rest on the head of the face-down black man handcuffed or dead in the street.

The case of Johnson is important because it can help stop the perpetuation of a certain way of thinking. It can help stop the perpetuation of a wrong way of thinking. We publicly sympathize with a wrongful death and tweet #BlackLivesMatter, but in the back of our minds, a seed has been planted. This seed will eventually sprout into the idea that in some way due to actions past, present, or future, the victim was at fault.

The questions inevitably asked are “What did he do wrong?” “Did he have a record?” and “Whose fault was it really?” There will certainly be times in which the accused is truly at fault, but we can’t get used to assuming that. Our initial recourse cannot be punish first and rationalize later.