Trump Audio Exposes Him as a Clueless Idiot Planning his Presidential Voyage with Paper Boats

Dummy at the Washington Post with the editorial board. From March 23, 2016 

South Carolina Legislators Introduce Three Bills Targeting Police Stingray Use

TechDirt

It's really, really difficult to give the South Carolina legislature any credit whatsoever. In the past few years, it has offered up bills that:

- required journalists to register with the government before enjoy their First Amendment rights (to make a point about the Second Amendment)

- criminalized profanity in public forums (including the internet)

- criminalized the recording of criminal acts

- required computer sellers to install default porn blockers in devices (that could be removed for $20)

The track record of this state's legislature is less than stellar. Hell, it's less than passable. 1/5 would not re-elect.

But there are still a few legislators with good ideas trying to do good things within the confines of a state where adultery is still considered a criminal act. The Tenth Amendment Center briefly highlights three new bills targeting law enforcement Stingray device use, all with their own merits.

The first, brought by state rep J. Todd Rutherford, is the most extreme of the three.

The legislation would prohibit any state or local law enforcement agency in South Carolina from purchasing cell site simulators, commonly known as “stingrays.”

At this point, use of these devices by South Carolina law enforcement is unconfirmed. If, indeed, no agencies are in possession of IMSI catchers, this bill would maintain the status quo. If agencies are already in possession of the devices, the bill would require these agencies to discontinue use and... ask Harris Corp. for a refund, I guess. This wouldn't prevent state agencies from asking for federal assistance and borrowing their devices, but it's still the most restrictive Stingray-related legislation proposed yet.

As such, it will probably never become law. The other proposals have a much better chance of reaching the governor's desk. Rutherford's backup proposal would prevent agencies purchasing cell tower spoofers from entering into nondisclosure agreements with manufacturers.

The third bill being introduced should be pushed in concert with Rutherford's second bill. Rep. Cezar McKnight's proposal would prevent state law enforcement agencies from signing nondisclosure agreements with the FBI, which has been standard procedure since the modified military tech began making its way to police departments around the nation. This would help ensure any evidence obtained with these devices will be properly presented in court, rather than obscured behind parallel construction. Or it could, theoretically. The bill ties this to warrant usage, so nondisclosure agreements would be allowed if the agreement doesn't stipulate the devices should be deployed without securing a warrant first. This ties it to the DOJ's current Stingray guidelines, which is better than continuing to obscure device deployment behind pen register orders. [MORE]

Prosecutor Seeks Virtual Evidence from Amazon Alexa Device in Defendant's Home

NY Times

In a move that promises to raise new questions about electronic privacy, detectives investigating a murder in Arkansas are seeking access to audio that may have been recorded on an Amazon Echo electronic personal assistant.

So far, the online retail giant has resisted demands by the police and prosecutors in Bentonville, Ark., for the information. Without addressing the specifics of the case, Amazon said in a statement that, as a matter of course, it “objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands.”

The tug of war over access to the audio, which was reported by the website theinformation, began when the police started to investigate the death of Victor Collins, who was found on Nov. 22, 2015, in a hot tub at the home of James Bates, according to court records. Investigators discovered signs of a struggle, including spots of blood, broken bottles and pieces of the spa that were on the ground.

Detective Cpl. Josh Woodhams of the Bentonville Police Department wrote in an affidavit that he found an Amazon Echo on the home’s kitchen counter. The voice-activated device has seven microphones, and is equipped with sensors to hear users from any direction up to about 20 feet. Among other things, it can play music, make to-do lists, stream podcasts and provide real-time news and information.

In February, Mr. Bates was charged with murder, and as part of the investigation, the police sought from Amazon “electronic data in the form of audio recordings, transcribed words, text records and other data” captured by the Echo.

The request has raised concern among some right-to-privacy supporters.

Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in an email that there should be a “clear legal standard that governs law enforcement access” to machines that make up what has become known as the internet of things. The reference is to the constellation of devices — such as cameras, cellphones and appliances — connected to the internet.

But Lynn Terwoerds, the executive director of the Executive Women’s Forum, which founded and sponsors the Voice Privacy Alliance, said in an email that the request for the information was built on a faulty premise.

She said the Echo is always listening for a “wake word” — Alexa, Amazon or another customizable term — and records only what is said after it has been activated. She said it has 60 seconds of recorded sound in its storage. “What this ‘always listening’ means is that the device is not eavesdropping and interpreting everything you’re saying,” Ms. Terwoerds wrote.

Once it detects the wake word, according to Amazon, the Echo starts streaming audio to the cloud, where it is secured until the customer permanently deletes it.

The case raises “serious privacy concerns with this kind of nonspecific warrant,” Ms. Terwoerds said, adding, “We have to fight against the myth of Echo listening in on our every word and sending that data to Amazon — it’s simply untrue.”

Jon Simpson, the police chief in Bentonville, which, by car, is about three hours northwest of Little Rock, referred questions to Nathan Smith, the prosecuting attorney in Benton County. In an email, Mr. Smith said Amazon had yet to fully comply with two requests, although he said it had provided “some very limited subscriber information.”

The company said in a statement that it would not “release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on us.” Mr. Smith said that officers had followed the proper procedure in seeking a search warrant from a judge based on probable cause, and that he hoped Amazon would comply and that no further steps would be necessary.

While many right-to-privacy supporters have expressed interest in the request, Mr. Smith said the case was “ really about seeking justice for the victim.” He added that it was the responsibility of the police to seek the data to determine its relevance to the investigation. A lawyer for Mr. Bates did not respond to an email and a phone call seeking comment.

The Arkansas case is reminiscent of an episode in which the federal government sought to legally compel Apple to unlock an iPhone used by a gunman in a shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., last year that killed 14 people. The case became contentious as Apple refused to assist the authorities, prompting a debate about whether privacy or security was more important. Federal officials said in March that they found a way to unlock the phone without help from Apple.

The lack of clear-cut legislation over who is legally entitled to the data from such devices means these kinds of cases will continue to surface, Mark A. Testoni, the president and chief executive of SAP National Security Services, which helps agencies track those suspected of terrorism through open source data, said in an interview.

“It’s such a massive gray area,” he said.

Brother Polight Says LAPD Falsely Arrested Him & Snatched his Phone

From [HERE] Brother Polight's attorney released the above video and the following statement;

A serious incident of POLICE BRUTALITY, SEXUAL ASSAULT, MISCONDUCT AND RACIAL PROFILING occurred Wednesday December 21, 2016 at the 24-hour Western Union 6565 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, CA 90028 at about 10:30pm.

VICTIMS: Noted activist and national teacher, and celebrity consultant and Beverly Hills resident Michael Noak, Jr. (aka Brother Polight) and his associate Ms. Vyktoria Lamore. The victims are African-American and the officers were White.

WHAT HAPPENED: Vyktoria Lamore drove Mr. Michael Noak to the Western Union on Hollywood Boulevard in a 2002 white Ford Explorer when she pulled up to the Western Union at about 10:30pm.

Ms.  Lamore parked on the corner directly in front of the check cashing location. Polight (Michael Noak, Jr.) left the truck to go into the Western Union. Three minutes elapsed while Noak was in Western Union. While Lamore waited outside, a police car pulled up behind her. The LAPD started screaming for her to get out of the car and they had their guns drawn. They then screamed at her saying “get out the car, show us your hands.” Ms. Lamore got out of the car. The male police officers physically rushed, accosted and groped her and dragged her body from the street to the sidewalk. Noak sensing that something was not right and came out of the Western Union to witness Ms. Lamore being accosted and seized by law enforcement. Noak hung up the phone and began to record the incident. Lamore was slammed to the wall and was cuffed and arrested without reason.

Then Noak’s phone was seized and he was violently slammed to the wall. Guns were put to his head during this process. Noak’s (Polight) phone was illegally seized. After some time the officers uncuffed and released the pair. The officers explained that they had wrongly believed the pair were a pimp and a prostitute. Both pair had to seek and receive emergency room treatment. Astoundingly they were harassed by the LAPD at the hospital in an effort to make the whole matter disappear.

Obama Signs ‘Emmett Till Bill’ To Reopen Civil Rights Cold Cases

Breaking News For Black America

According to PBS, President Obama recently signed a bill that would give the FBI the chance to reopen more cold cases from the Civil Rights Era.

The legislation, titled the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes bill, was initially introduced by activist Alvin Sykes in 2005. He named the proposed bill after Till because he vowed to his mother, Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley, he would fight to reopen the case. The Department of Justice did reopen the case in 2004; it was closed three years later after a jury decided not to indict Carolyn Bryant, the woman who accused Till of whistling at her. Two years after the case was reopened, the FBI started to look into over 100 civil rights cases. In 2008, the bill was placed into law.

The upgraded legislation, which President Obama signed on December 16, will now get rid of the limitations on cases that occurred prior to 1970 and will allow ongoing investigations conducted by the FBI surrounding civil rights cases. This will create an avenue for cases that occurred during the height of the Jim Crow Era to be reopened. Under the revised bill, dubbed Till Bill 2, groups including Emory University’s Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project and the Cold Case Justice Initiative at Syracuse University would receive funding to help solve civil rights cases.

Many politicians believe the updated law will allow more cases to be opened and solved. Senators Claire McCaskill and Richard Burr backed the bill at the Senate level. In the House, it was reviewed by Rep. John Conyers, Rep. John Lewis, and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner.

Black Soldier To Be First Military Execution [Murder by the Government] In 50 Years

Breaking News for Black America

The federal government plans to execute a former solider after a judge lifted a stay of execution last week that stood for eight years, the Fayetteville Observer reports.

A Jury convicted Ronald Gray in 1988 of two murders and three rapes while stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The former Army cook also pleaded guilty to two other murders and five rapes in civilian courts. He’s on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

During the legal battle, the Observer said Gray’s defense team has centered its appeal on the argument that the military court lacks jurisdiction to prosecute him. However, U.S. District Court Judge J. Thomas Marten, who has presided over the case since 2014, has consistently ruled that the defense has failed to prove that a legal error occurred.

President George W. Bush signed a warrant in 2008 that authorized Gray’s execution, which is required for military executions, according to CNN. If the military goes forward with its plans, Gray’s execution would be the first since 1961, when the military hanged John A. Bennett for rape and attempted murder.

The Death Penalty Information Center, a District of Columbia-based group, reports that six men are currently on the military’s death row. Three of them are African-American.

With No Evidence Racist Fox News Says Food Stamp Fraud is ‘at an all-time high’

ThinkProgress

On Tuesday, Fox News revisited its longstanding disgust for poor people with what appeared to be a simple question: “Food stamp fraud is at an all-time high. Is it time to end the program?” Their onscreen graphic cited “2016 USDA” as the source of this information. However, according to the Department of Agriculture website, the most recent data available is from 2015.

In fiscal year 2016, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) is expected to cost about $70.8 billion. If Fox News’ claim of $70 million in waste is correct, that would still mean that less than one-tenth of one percent of SNAP dollars are spent fraudulently. SNAP overall comprises about 0.1 percent of the federal budget. Compared to the $125 billion of waste that the Department of Defense recently tried to cover up, that figure appears even more microscopic.

SNAP usage overall is actually down to its lowest levels since 2011, and current program costs are slightly higher than they were in 2010. In spite of the prevailing conservative narrative, SNAP is not a wasteful program.

As ThinkProgress reported in 2013, the program doesn’t even reach millions of people who qualify for it, because they get caught up in red tape. If there is waste in relation to SNAP and other government assistance programs, it comes not in the form of the recipients abusing the system, but in the form of state governments subjecting citizens to unnecessary drug tests and other bureaucratic measures that yield few results.

Gallup: Obama Bests Trump as Most Admired Man in 2016

Gallup

President Barack Obama finished ahead of President-elect Donald Trump in Gallup's 2016 most admired man poll, 22% to 15%. Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman.

Map of the Trump Family Network

Cryptome

click to enlarge 

In Food Industry Black Women Earn 42 Cents for Every Dollar Earned by a White Man

The Nation

One of the great contradictions of the American economy is that the workers who feed us are the workers who struggle the hardest to feed themselves. The corporations that produce and market America’s sustenance are also the monopolies whose low wages have pauperized a workforce of more than 21 million nationwide. And now the American diet is about to get even costlier under an administration that campaigned on cheap taco bowls and Trump-brand steaks.

The “food-supply chain,” which includes production, processing, distribution, retail, and food service, constitutes the largest sector of the labor force, and has expanded by 13 percent since 2010. Yet food-chain workers are also the country’s poorest, typically earning just $10 an hour ($16,000 annually, less than half the median annual earnings of workers in all industries). And they’re getting hungrier, according to an analysis of food-industry jobs by Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA), a nationwide advocacy coalition: “Food insecurity in households supported by a food chain worker rose to 4.6 million during the Great Recession.” So those in the food labor force earn starvation wages to supply food they can’t afford to eat.

Their pay scales are dictated by a race-and-gender pecking order, with white men on top. The black-white wage gap among male food-supply workers is 60 cents to the dollar. White women earn about 50 cents per dollar earned by a white man, and black, Latina, and Native women workers earn 45, 42, and 36 cents, respectively. Women in the food chain are often providers of the unwaged labor of procuring and preparing food at home; that means a mom who works for tips as a restaurant server goes home to the double indignity of going hungry so her kids can have a full dinner instead.

Job segregation enforces these trends. Most food-production and agricultural-industry CEOs are white men, while women and people of color fill the ranks of the frontline workers who cook, serve, and process food. Promotion opportunities are scarce in the lower-wage tiers, in part because of the exploitation of temporary and part-time labor (half the food-prep and -service workforce worked part-time in 2014, for instance). Low unionization rates exacerbate wage inequality and discrimination, while curtailing workers’ ability to negotiate fair pay. Structural economic shifts linked to transnational trade, labor migration, and automation have made food-chain jobs more precarious on a global level.

FCWA’s interviews with workers depict how these industry-wide trends weigh on workers’ lives as each day at work exposes them to toxic fumes, brutal treatment from bosses, and gender oppression.

A poultry-plant worker recalled being driven to a frenzied pace as she processed chicken carcasses so rapidly she couldn’t even avert her eyes from her assembly line or she’d risk getting barked at by a supervisor: “They always pressure people to work faster and faster, and they are always there with us checking to see that we’re not stopping.”

Gender-based violence and oppression, according to researchers, are rife in intensely hierarchical low-wage workplaces. In fields like food service, sexual harassment is often normalized as just a part of workplace culture—an issue that recently spurred a series of federal sexual-harassment claims against McDonald’s.

For rural migrant laborers, the structure and seasonal nature of the work sometimes feel close to bonded labor. A tomato farmworker recalled: “The way they treated you, it was as if you were an animal.… We lived in trailers, like 20 or 30 people in a trailer. They punished us if we missed any work, treated us like we were slaves.”

All workers surveyed had been injured at work or had known a fellow worker who was, but many lacked medical insurance. Immigrant poultry-plant workers reported getting chopped by machinery and attending an on-site clinic, only to be sent back to work the same day.

Chronic exhaustion also erodes workers’ health. One production worker observed, “Working in this industry…the schedules, the exhaustion, all of that, your body is weaker, and you are getting sick more frequently, so this affects you a lot because there isn’t enough money to cover the medical bills.” [MORE]

Vaccine Found 100 Percent Effective at Preventing Ebola Infection

Democracy Now

In medical news, a new study finds an experimental vaccine was 100 percent effective in protecting West Africans against the Ebola virus during an outbreak in 2014-15, raising the prospect that the future spread of the deadly disease could be halted. The finding was reported Thursday in the British medical journal The Lancet. An assistant director-general of the World Health Organization said the study compared about 6,000 residents of Guinea who received the vaccine with a similar-sized group who hadn’t.

Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny: "What we have shown is that in the vaccinated people, we have had zero cases of Ebola, while, at the same time, we have had 23 cases in the people who were not vaccinated with Ebola. So you compare zero to 23, and you can calculate that you have a vaccine which has shown a 100 percent efficacy."

Researchers caution that the vaccine has unpleasant side effects and that it appears to work on only one of the two most common strains of the Ebola virus. An Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 claimed more than 11,000 lives. Critics say those lives could have been spared if researchers had poured more resources into finding a vaccine years ago.

Trump to enter the White House as the least-popular incoming president in the modern era of public-opinion polling

Politico 

President-elect Donald Trump will descend on Washington next month, buoyed by his upset victory and Republican control of Congress to implement his agenda.

But he’s facing a major obstacle: Trump will enter the White House as the least-popular incoming president in the modern era of public-opinion polling.

The down-in-the-dumps figures raise hard questions about whether he’ll have the political capital needed to push through his more controversial nominees and his aggressive legislative goals of repealing Obamacare, passing a major infrastructure spending plan and reforming immigration and tax policies.

On Election Day, just 38 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of Trump, compared to 60 percent who viewed him unfavorably — unheard of for a presidential-election victor. (Still, Trump won about 15 percent of the vote among those who had an unfavorable opinion of him.)

While Trump has received a boost in public opinion after his victory, he still badly lags past presidents-elect when it comes to personal favorability. Currently, his average favorable rating stands at 43 percent, according to HuffPost Pollster, while a 49-percent plurality views him unfavorably. More respondents viewed Trump unfavorably than favorably in the most recent batch of public polls from NBC News/Wall Street Journal, Suffolk University/USA Today, Fox News,CBS News and POLITICO/Morning Consult, all conducted in early- or mid-December.

Compare that with President Barack Obama, who entered 2009 with a 68-percent favorable rating – and only a 21-percent unfavorable rating.

Trump’s persistent and deep unpopularity – combined with the fact that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million ballots – means he lacks the potent argument that the will of the people are behind his agenda. [MORE]

"140 degrees in jail" - Louisiana spent 4X the cost of installing Air Conditioning in a prison to defend their right to not have to

The Intercept

IN THE SUMMER months, 84 inmates at the Price Daniel Unit, a medium-security prison four hours west of Dallas, share a 10-gallon cooler of water that’s kept locked in a common area. An inmate there can expect to receive one 8 oz. cup every four hours, according to Benny Hernandez, a man serving a 10-year sentence at the prison. The National Academy of Medicine recommends that adults drink about twice that amount under normal conditions and even more in hot climates. According to Hernandez, in the summer the temperature in his prison’s housing areas can reach an astonishing 140 degrees.

The prison provides ice for the cooler twice a day, but the ice has long melted before the hottest part of the day, he wrote in a post on Prison Writers, a website where inmates share their experiences behind bars. “Prisoners look upon the summer months in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) with dread and trepidation,” he wrote. “For one is acutely aware that one may not survive another summer. Many do not.”

The TDCJ, which runs Texas prisons and houses more than 146,000 inmates, is currently in the middle of litigation over what inmates and advocates have said is deadly heat in its facilities. But Texas is not the only state facing such lawsuits. Louisiana is defending its refusal to install air conditioning on death row, while prisons and jails across the country have been ordered by courts to address their sweltering temperatures and extend protections to inmates, particularly the ill and elderly.

A spokesperson for TDCJ wrote in a statement to The Intercept that “the well-being of staff and offenders is a top priority for the agency and we remain committed to making sure that both are safe during the extreme heat.” He said that only 30 of the state’s 109 prisons have air conditioning in all inmate housing areas, because many were built before that became a common feature and retrofitting them would be “extremely expensive.” Instead, he said, the agency has taken measures like offering water and ice, restricting inmate activities, and training staff to recognize heat-related illness. The spokesperson said that inmates have “the ability to access water throughout the day” and that ice and water coolers are refilled continuously — contradicting the accounts of inmates who said that ice rations are often reduced and sometimes outright denied, that in some facilities they are given no ice or cold water for days at a time, that ice is so scarce that inmates will buy it off each other, and that inmates residing in a given cell block are given ice water to pass down the row of cells, which often leads to violence and hoarding of the vital resource.

Hernandez, the Price Daniel Unit inmate, acknowledged that prison officials there took some “precautionary measures,” like the water cooler and placing fans in common areas of the prison, but said that was hardly enough. Inmates have fans in their cells only if they can afford to buy them from the prison commissary, and “once the temperature exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the fans simply circulate hot air,” he wrote.

“It routinely feels as if one’s sitting in a convection oven being slowly cooked alive.”

In a 2014 report documenting the “deadly heat” inside Texas prisons, researchers with the University of Texas School of Law’s Human Rights Clinic found that since 2007, at least 14 inmates had died from extreme heat exposure in prisons across the state. The report documented at length the failures of prison officials to prevent heat-related injury to inmates and concluded with a series of recommendations, including frequent monitoring of inmates at higher risk and the installation of air conditioning to ensure temperatures do not exceed 85 degrees. A year later, nothing had changed, and the same researchers issued a second report condemning the “reckless indifference” of prison authorities. [MORE]

White San Diego Deputies Who Shot Latino Marine 37 Times Are Immune From Suit

CourtNews

The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday found that San Diego sheriff’s officers who riddled a young Marine with bullets after a slow-speed car chase eight years ago did not violate his civil rights.

Robert Medina was shot 37 times on Nov. 16, 2006, after a slow-speed chase through Oceanside, near Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base. Medina had fought with his wife and Highway Patrol officers followed him as he drove erratically on Interstate 5.

Medina refused to pull over and swerved to avoid hitting a spike strip put down by sheriff’s Officer Mark Ritchie. Other officers thought Medina was trying to hit Ritchie and radioed in an attempted assault with a deadly weapon.

The officers eventually forced Medina’s truck to the dirt side of the freeway and Ritchie ordered him to get out of his truck. Officers said he refused, and aimed the truck at Ritchie, trying to run him over, and they opened fire.

Medina’s wife, Jennifer, filed the civil rights case in 2008. U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant – the third judge to preside over the case – denied the county’s motion for summary judgment in November 2014. The county appealed five days later.

In the unpublished, 7-page ruling Wednesday, U.S. Circuit Judges Richard Tallman and Morgan Christen were joined by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly of Illinois in finding CHP and sheriff’s officers did not violate Medina’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights when they killed him with dozens of bullets.

“Taking the facts in a light most favorable to plaintiffs, the evidence shows that the officers who fired shots at Medina had probable cause to believe that, at that point, he posed a threat of serious physical harm to the officers,” the panel wrote.

Because the officers did not violate Medina’s civil rights, the county cannot be held accountable for policies that would instruct officers to shoot and kill Medina, the judges said, granting summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity.

Jennifer Medina was represented by Anton Gerschler and Dena Acosta.

Gerschler said they are considering other appellate options.

The county was represented by county counsel Ricky Sanchez, who did not return an email request for comment.

FLA Supreme Court says: Over 100 death sentences are invalid & must go back to trial courts for resentencing

NY Times

Well over 100 death sentences in Florida are invalid and must go back to trial courts for resentencing, the State Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, potentially placing a major burden on prosecutors, defense lawyers and the courts.

The court vacated most capital sentences imposed since a 2002 ruling by the United States Supreme Court, but said that its decision did not apply to older sentences. That creates an odd situation: Procedures were considered valid for some death row cases, but not for others. In cases that followed identical procedures for death row inmates, some are considered valid while some are not.

The court said its ruling did not overturn any convictions or set anyone free. In cases in which execution is ruled out, the result would be a life prison sentence.

“The difference is not guilt or innocence but, instead, life or death,” the court wrote in ruling on the case of John F. Mosley, a death row inmate.

Until this year, if a jury convicted a defendant in a Florida capital case after the sentencing phase of the trial, the panel voted on recommendations to the judge. But those recommendations were nonbinding, and it was the judge who decided whether there were aggravating factors that could justify capital punishment, whether they outweighed any mitigating factors and whether to impose the death penalty.

In January, the United States Supreme Court ruled that system unconstitutional in Hurst v. Florida. The court, relying on its 2002 decision in Ring v. Arizona, said the power must rest with the jury to find aggravating factors, and to decide on a punishment.

Two months ago, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that to impose a death sentence, those jury decisions must be unanimous, raising the bar for capital punishment still higher.

On Thursday, the state court ruled that in effect, Florida’s death penalty law was invalid from the time of Ring v. Arizona and, by a 5-to-2 tally, vacated the death penalty of Mr. Mosley, who was sentenced in 2006.

But in another case also decided on Thursday, the court said that pre-Ring death sentences remained valid, and by 5 to 2 upheld the sentence of Mark J. Asay, who was sentenced in 1988. Mr. Asay would be the first white person executed in Florida for killing a black victim since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.

The state attorney general’s office said it needed time to review the rulings before commenting. The Florida Public Defender Association and the governor’s office did not return calls seeking comment on Thursday.

In cases sent back for resentencing, prosecutors must decide whether to seek the death penalty again, in a new hearing, which can require as much time and preparation as an ordinary trial.

But it is unclear exactly how many sentences were upended. Florida’s Department of Corrections lists 384 people on death row, and 159 of them were sentenced after the Ring decision.

The state’s Supreme Court said that its Mosley ruling did not apply to defendants who waived jury trials and were found guilty by judges. And it said there were a small number of other cases in which it was unclear whether the decision would apply.

Mr. Mosley, now 52, was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Linda Wilkes, and their infant son, Jay-Quan, to avoid paying child support. The jury voted 8 to 4 to recommend execution.

Mr. Asay, also 52, was convicted of killing two men, Robert Lee Booker and Robert McDowell, in separate confrontations on the same night. The jury voted 9 to 3 in favor of a death sentence.

Black Man wrongly imprisoned for 31 years Denied Compensation & Exoneration by Tennessee Board of Parole

From [HERE] A Black man who served 31 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit is petitioning the state to compensate him $1 million for the years of his life that were taken away. All he's gotten so far is $75.

In October 1977 a Memphis woman was raped in her home by two intruders. She later identified one of them as her neighbor, Lawrence McKinney, who was 22 at the time. He was convicted on rape and burglary charges in 1978 and sentenced to 115 years in jail.

DNA evidence cleared him of the charges in 2008, and when he was released in 2009, the Tennessee Department of Corrections gave him a $75 check to restart his life.

"Because I had no ID it took me three months before I was able to cash it," McKinney told CNN.

Now the 61-year-old is asking Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam to exonerate him. The Tennessee Board of Parole, which makes recommendations to the governor, denied McKinney's request by a 7-0 vote at a hearing in September.

A formal exoneration could open a pathway to $1 million in compensation from the state Board of Claims for the decades McKinney was wrongfully imprisoned.

"The (parole) board reviewed all relevant information related to the crime, conviction and subsequent appeals, as well as all information provided by the petitioner," said Melissa McDonald, spokesperson for the Tennessee Board of Parole. "After considering all of the evidence, the board did not find clear and convincing evidence of innocence and declined to recommend clemency in this matter."

One of McKinney's attorneys, Jack Lowery, believes the decision should rest solely with Haslam.

"The parole board is not qualified to make these decisions and should not," he said. "For the parole board to step in when many (of them) are not trained in the law is ridiculous."

According to John Hunn, McKinney's pastor and most ardent supporter, the board cited a list of 97 infractions that McKinney incurred while he was in jail, including the alleged assault of a fellow inmate, who testified against McKinney at the hearing. McKinney told the board he'd been in prison for years, and that "only the strong survive," Hunn said. Hunn testified at the hearing on McKinney's behalf.

"Lawrence has told that story at our church," Hunn said. "He doesn't deny that story. He was in prison, man."

The parole board also knew that 28 years into his sentence, McKinney admitted to the burglary charge he was convicted of. McKinney said his lawyers at the time told him that if he wanted any chance of being released early, he would need to admit to something.

While he and his team are optimistic, McKinney knows this is his final opportunity for exoneration. This is his second attempt; he initially tried in 2010, but then-Gov. Phil Bredesen never acted on the board's recommendation against exoneration before leaving office. When Haslam became governor, McKinney was given the opportunity to apply again.

According to McDonald, Tennessee's governors have granted two exonerations in the past 16 years, and both were in January 2011, just over a week before Bredesen vacated the governor's mansion.

Since his release, Hunn said, McKinney has worked hard to put his life back together and salvage the time he has left. In 2010 he married a pen pal with whom he corresponded during his time in jail. The two attend Immanuel Baptist Church in Lebanon, Tennessee, where McKinney participates in a Bible study five nights a week and where he has found a supportive community that has rallied around him time and time again.

"Although I've spent more than half of my life locked up for a crime I did not do, I am not bitter or angry at anyone, because I have found the Lord and married a good wife," McKinney said. "All I ask is that I be treated right and fair for what has happened to me. I didn't do nothing, and I just want to be treated right."

Thin Skinned Cops w/ Low Tolerance for Criticism Need A Safe Space: Largest police union asks Amazon to pull 'offensive' BLM shirt

Guardian 

The biggest US police union is pressing Amazon to follow Walmart and remove from third-party sale a shirt that seeks profit in relation to the Black Lives Matter protest movement. 

The shirt, which carries the words “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter”, was removed from online sale by Walmart on Thursday, after the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) said it was “offensive”.

In an open letter, FOP president Chuck Canterbury appealed to Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos to support the FOP in “increasing the bonds of trust between the men and women of law enforcement and the communities they serve”.

The shirt was still available for sale via Amazon.com on Friday. Amazon declined to comment.

Speaking to the Guardian, Canterbury said he was not surprised, describing Amazon “as a pretty liberal marketer”.

The issue was relevant, he said, because of the “amount of violence demonstrated at Black Lives Matter marches and the fact that eight police officers had been assassinated while protecting Black Lives Matter protests”.

Canterbury said he was referring to officers who were shot in separate incidents in Dallas and Baton Rouge last summer.

The gunmen in those shootings were not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement. In Dallas, a gunman shot dead five officers during an anti-violence protest. In Baton Rouge, three officers were killed in an ambush. [MORE]

New Resolution Proposes to Diversify Senate Staff: 80% of Top Staffers are White [3 Blacks]

RollCall

The next Senate Minority Leader is backing a measure to establish a permanent office focused on boosting staff diversity in the next Congress.

New York Democrat Charles E. Schumer supports a resolution that the Senate Black Legislative Staff Caucus recommended to Senate offices last month. It would establish a nonpartisan office to assist in developing and implementing plans to diversify the ranks of Senate aides.

The office would also focus on collecting data on staff diversity. Currently no entity is tasked with doing so, a factor that is blocking solutions, according to some staffers.

A Dec. 2015 Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies report found racial disparities among senior Senate staff. Of 336 top Senate staffers, the report found 24 aides of color. Twelve were Asian-American, seven were Latino, three were African-American and two were Native-American. The disparities among senior staff are prevalent on both sides of the aisle.

"Having the support and leadership of Senator Schumer, the incoming Democratic leader, is an important first step toward making the Senate more representative of the diverse communities we serve," said Senate Black Legislative Staff Caucus president Don Bell. "We look forward to working with Senator Schumer and others in a bipartisan manner in the 115th Congress."

Bell said the caucus believes there is "growing bipartisan support" for the SBLSC and other staff associations' recommendations.

While Schumer’s support is noteworthy, it is not clear if the resolution will be taken up on the Senate floor. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not immediately respond to a request for the Kentucky Republican’s position on the resolution. [MORE]

Puerto Ricans Push Obama to Free Oscar Lopez Rivera, Independence Activist Jailed for 35 Years