Primary Argument:
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA of 1964) prohibits discrimination based on religion, sex, sexuality, and race in hiring and other business endeavors for both public and private companies. It's also made clear that discrimination is absolutely allowed where it matters, like when it concerns IQ for high level jobs, or sex for jobs like strippers etc. Nothing wrong with the government regulating public companies, but doing this for private companies violates the basic freedom of association and violates private property rights.
Consider this: If I own a trampoline, and I share that trampoline with all my male neighbors, and we all have a great time, but I absolutely refuse to share that trampoline with my female neighbors (in this hypothetical I would be a raging misogynist i suppose lol), should I be forced to share MY trampoline by the government and fined for discrimination? Most people, and also the law, would agree that I should not be forced to do anything concerning my private property. This is because of two principles that:
1) I have the freedom of association to associate with and also NOT associate with whomever I please for whatever reason. and
2) This freedom extends to my usage of private property, which I am allowed to use in any way that does not infringe on others' freedoms.
As a matter of fact, ALL freedoms and rights are absolute, and apply to everyone in every case and situation with the ONLY exception being that it infringes on others' freedoms and/or rights. If anything, this only further evidences the absolutism of freedoms and rights, as they are only justified to be taken away in protection of other freedoms and rights.
Now, as private companies are also private property, and thus are granted the same freedoms as individuals, prohibiting some forms of discrimination in the hiring of is a violation of both freedom of association and private property rights. Blatant infringement of basic freedoms.
The constitution limits the power of the government, and provides rules for the government. Freedom of speech, for example, means that the GOVERNMENT may not suppress free speech, but private companies totally can. That's what freedom of association means. This doubly invalidates the CRA of 1964, as:
1) While the government may not have the authority to discriminate amongst "men who are made equal" according to the constitution, private companies totally do have that right.
2) The freedom of association itself and alone renders the CRA of 1964 unconstitutional.
So, sure, it's not legally consistent, and violates the constitution, but why should it be repealed? Well, right off the bat, the fact that it violates the constitution and isn't legally consistent is reason enough. We cannot afford to have sham laws that don't abide by our own rules in a country that respects rule of law. Not only that, but it tramples all over the values that we stand for as a people, as previously explained in this post.
Even in a practical sense, however, the CRA of 1964 is prosecuted horribly. The prosecution in related cases "proves" that a certain company is unlawfully discriminatory by simply showing that the proportion of hires belonging to an identity group in the company don't match up with the proportion seen in the population. This should set off loud alarm bells in any reasonable persons head, as there is absolutely no causal link. Of course, in such cases, the defense will argue this, and will also say that there is no way to attribute inequality of outcome to unequal treatment, as ideological/circumstantial/biological differences exist between different groups of people. And this is absolutely true. So, it all comes down to what a judge or jury decides. Don't get me wrong, subjective decisions by judge and jury are often the best way to determine things like originality when it comes to copyright and intellectual property cases and such, but doing so in discrimination law suits where there are so many confounding variables that have been shown time and time again to be largely significant is short sighted and unfair.
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FAQ:
I organized this section by two parts, the first being about the constitutionality and legal consistency of CRA of 1964 and the second being whether or not it should be repealed. In both sections, I ordered them from worst questions to best questions, meaning that I got all the stupid stuff out of the way first, that midwits would say, and left the more substantive questions at the bottom. I know most of you guys wouldn't make any of the dumb arguments, but I put them there anyway as to not deal with annoying people. Keep in mind, I tried my level best to steel-man any opposing position, but if I missed anything, please comment/lmk.
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Section 1:
"You're a racist/sexist/religious extremist/ (insert group) supremacist etc.!"
>>> This is a non argument. I'm a staunch supporter of judging people individually based on the content of their characters. Even if I was some evil monster bigot, this statement doesn't refute any of my points. It's just ad hominem.
"But it's a law! You're not a lawyer, what do you know?"
>>> Again, non argument and appeal to authority fallacy. People who say this aren't willing to engage with the argument, either that, or they're unable to.
"Racism/sexism/etc etc. should be illegal."
> Nope. Those things are abhorrent and irrational, but violating freedom of association to criminalize them is also abhorrent and irrational. HATE CRIMES that directly hurt others are another topic, but just being racist/sexist/whatever else and not associating with any group of people is perfectly within our rights.
"Freedoms only apply in certain situations."
>>> I addressed this earlier, but the only situations where freedoms wouldn't apply are situations where they infringe on other rights/freedoms. Seeing as people have no rights or entitlements to other people's private property, it is unconstitutional to infringe on the freedom of association in this situation.
"Companies are not private property"
>>> Just plain wrong. Maybe public companies are not private property, but private companies are, and the CRA of 1964 unconstitutionally also applies to private companies. Not only is it legally recognized as a normative truth, but even the Supreme Court ruled that companies have the freedom of association in NAACP vs. Alabama 1958. In this specific court case, it concerned the NAACP (national association for advancement of colored persons) freedom with whom TO associate, and I already know some idiots are gonna say that that doesn't extend to with whom NOT to associate, and sorry to break it to you but freedoms go both ways. Freedom of association includes both to associate with and choose not to associate with. Refer back to the trampoline example. Most damningly, the court case I mentioned itself also includes a boycott, which is the freedom to NOT associate. And boycotts are protected under constitutional law. Another potential way to undermine the aforementioned court case would be to say "it only covers expressive freedoms of association." Again, horrible misrepresentation. The court case was about the way that Alabama was in violation of the constitution in the way that a government infringed on a private company's freedom of association, and while the intent of the NAACP boycotts were, in fact expressive, the Supreme Court makes no distinction about freedom of association only applying in expressive scenarios. Again, you are allowed to not associate with anybody for any reason.
"Government upholds private companies as institutions and thus should be allowed to play a role in how they conduct business."
>>> The government doesn't "uphold" private companies any more than they uphold private property. The fact that a government exists and acts doesn't undermine the authority of freedoms and private property rights. Does the fact that the government protects your body in the case of a potential assault or rape or something else, thus protecting your bodily autonomy give them authority to infringe on your bodily autonomy? NO. Does the fact that they protect your private property from theft, and uphold the private property allow to them to infringe it? Again, NO. Also, again, Alabama vs NAACP 1958, like I mentioned in the last answer.
"What about the Heart of Atlanta Motel vs. United States Supreme Court case where the Supreme Court ruled that the United States had authority to exercise their Civil Rights Law to prohibit racist discrimination in the private Heart of Atlanta Motel?"
>>> This is probably the best rebuttal and it was borne from my own research. Although I haven't heard it from anybody, I still wanted to include it as yet again falls short of justifying CRA of 1964. The reasoning the Supreme Court gave in this case to allow the United States to regulate the discriminatory business endeavors due to the commerce clause which reads, "[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; . . ." By the Supreme Court's reasoning, motels not allowing black residents would discourage tourism and therefore impact interstate commerce. Thus, the Supreme Court ruled that the United States had authority to regulate the Heart of Atlanta Motel. This ruling does not uphold the CRA of 1964 because firstly, it's a dubious interpretation of the law, secondly and more importantly, it does not interrogate all businesses but rather only companies that affect interstate commerce, and thirdly and most importantly, it concerns the extent and jurisdiction of the Commerce Clause, but not the constitutionality of the CRA of 1964. First, it's very commonly acknowledged that the government has long been abusing the commerce clause to exercise overbearing control. When the commerce clause was written, it was written as a limitation on power, as was the rest of the Constitution, and as many early court cases regarding it show where it meant that the federal government could only regulate interstate commerce and not commerce directly within the states, as well as that states themselves could not jeopardize interstate commerce. Saying that the Heart of Atlanta Motel is included within interstate commerce is a drastic reach. Even granting that it's a valid reach, the fact remains that this Supreme Court decision says nothing about every other business that does not impact interstate commerce. And of course, the argument that ALL companies and businesses impact interstate commerce as it is referred to in the Commerce Clause is ridiculous, as it wouldn't have been specified if all commerce was within the scope, especially since the Constitution is a document limiting government power. Finally, while the court case mentioned here is tangentially related to the CRA of 1964, it doesn't interrogate it's constitutionality, but rather interrogates the scope of the Commerce Clause. Thus, this court case cannot be used to argue for or against the validity of CRA of 1964.
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Section 2
"Just because it's not legally consistent doesn't mean it shouldn't be law. It helps a lot of people."
>>> It's not just "not legally consistent," it infringes on basic freedoms. We have no tolerance for that in our law. And we shouldn't. The fact that it helps a lot of people matters not, as it does so by disenfranchising the basic freedom of association of most/all others.
"It should still be law because it helps the economy."
>>> Again, we cannot infringe on basic freedoms for "the greater good." That violates rule of law, which our entire country and most western civilization is built upon. Also, it doesn't help the economy as much as you think. First off, most people aren't racist nor would they discriminate in hiring or business today. Secondly, those who did discriminate would be at a huge disadvantage because they would be foregoing a huge proportion of smart and hard working employers and/or customers, and thus, would be marginalized or forced out of the market.
"Black Americans wouldn't died and stayed in horrible poverty if not for CRA of 1964."
Yeah. That's true. That's horrible. But CRA of 1964 wasn't the only solution. In fact, it was the worse solution. The right thing to do would have been to grant reparation to the former slaves. The people whose labor was taken advantage of should've been given land and money so that they could establish their own sustainable economy, especially if any of the then land owners didn't want to associate with them. In fact, this was actually the plan. But after Lincoln got assassinated and the horribly racist Democratic candidate got elected into the presidency, the plans for reparations were cancelled and a whole lot of one of the most abundant peoples in America were thrown to the curb. This whole problem then required CRA of 1964, as there was no way to accommodate those people and grant reparations by 1964 as lineages were difficult to trace back. So, while CRA of 1964 could've been justified as maybe an executive order back then, for the very existence of our country, all it is now is a huge infringement of freedom now that shows no existential benefit. In fact, it was just the 3rd wrong in a series of mistakes.
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End
Thank you so much for reading! I look forward to your responses and comments! MWWWAH!

I recently read an extensive piece by Bill Ackman on DEI. Bill, known as the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, is a prominent hedge fund manager with a reputation for activist investing. Despite previously supporting DEI, his latest views offer a critical perspective on its impact at Harvard and beyond.
Bill critiques Harvard's DEI movement, linking it to campus antisemitism and arguing it promotes reverse racism and suppresses free speech. They call DEI divisive, contrary to meritocracy, and suggest it influenced the unqualified selection of Harvard's former President. The author urges for board resignations, a new constitution promoting academic freedom, and a merit-based leadership selection process.
What are your views on DEI and its impact on you, your organization and your people?
Note: I was banned on u/AskHR for posting this article. A similar post on u/HR resulted in a swift ban. These two groups are captured by moderators who will not allow this kind of discourse on DEI. Hence the creation of u/HR_Underground.
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Bill Ackman on X: "In light of today’s news, I thought I would try to take a step back and provide perspective on what this is really all about. I first became concerned about @Harvard when 34 Harvard student organizations, early on the morning of October 8th before Israel had taken any military…" / X (twitter.com)
In light of today’s news, I thought I would try to take a step back and provide perspective on what this is really all about.
I first became concerned about u/Harvard when 34 Harvard student organizations, early on the morning of October 8th before Israel had taken any military actions in Gaza, came out publicly in support of Hamas, a globally recognized terrorist organization, holding Israel ‘solely responsible’ for Hamas’ barbaric and heinous acts.
How could this be? I wondered.
When I saw President Gay’s initial statement about the massacre, it provided more context (!) for the student groups’ statement of support for terrorism. The protests began as pro-Palestine and then became anti-Israel. Shortly, thereafter, antisemitism exploded on campus as protesters who violated Harvard’s own codes of conduct were emboldened by the lack of enforcement of Harvard’s rules, and kept testing the limits on how aggressive, intimidating, and disruptive they could be to Jewish and Israeli students, and the student body at large. Sadly, antisemitism remains a simmering source of hate even at our best universities among a subset of students.
A few weeks later, I went up to campus to see things with my own eyes, and listen and learn from students and faculty. I met with 15 or so members of the faculty and a few hundred students in small and large settings, and a clearer picture began to emerge.
I ultimately concluded that antisemitism was not the core of the problem, it was simply a troubling warning sign – it was the “canary in the coal mine” – despite how destructive it was in impacting student life and learning on campus.
I came to learn that the root cause of antisemitism at Harvard was an ideology that had been promulgated on campus, an oppressooppressed framework, that provided the intellectual bulwark behind the protests, helping to generate anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate speech and harassment.
Then I did more research. The more I learned, the more concerned I became, and the more ignorant I realized I had been about DEI, a powerful movement that has not only pervaded Harvard, but the educational system at large. I came to understand that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was not what I had naively thought these words meant.
I have always believed that diversity is an important feature of a successful organization, but by diversity I mean diversity in its broadest form: diversity of viewpoints, politics, ethnicity, race, age, religion, experience, socioeconomic background, sexual identity, gender, one’s upbringing, and more.
What I learned, however, was that DEI was not about diversity in its purest form, but rather DEI was a political advocacy movement on behalf of certain groups that are deemed oppressed under DEI’s own methodology.
Under DEI, one’s degree of oppression is determined based upon where one resides on a so-called intersectional pyramid of oppression where whites, Jews, and Asians are deemed oppressors, and a subset of people of color, LGBTQ people, and/or women are deemed to be oppressed. Under this ideology which is the philosophical underpinning of DEI as advanced by Ibram X. Kendi and others, one is either an anti-racist or a racist. There is no such thing as being “not racist.”
Under DEI’s ideology, any policy, program, educational system, economic system, grading system, admission policy, (and even climate change due its disparate impact on geographies and the people that live there), etc. that leads to unequal outcomes among people of different skin colors is deemed racist.
As a result, according to DEI, capitalism is racist, Advanced Placement exams are racist, IQ tests are racist, corporations are racist, or in other words, any merit-based program, system, or organization which has or generates outcomes for different races that are at variance with the proportion these different races represent in the population at large is by definition racist under DEI’s ideology.
In order to be deemed anti-racist, one must personally take action to reverse any unequal outcomes in society. The DEI movement, which has permeated many universities, corporations, and state, local and federal governments, is designed to be the anti-racist engine to transform society from its currently structurally racist state to an anti-racist one.
After the death of George Floyd, the already burgeoning DEI movement took off without any real challenge to its problematic ideology. Why, you might ask, was there so little pushback? The answer is that anyone who dared to raise a question which challenged DEI was deemed a racist, a label which could severely impact one’s employment, social status, reputation and more. Being called a racist got people cancelled, so those concerned about DEI and its societal and legal implications had no choice but to keep quiet in this new climate of fear.
The techniques that DEI has used to squelch the opposition are found in the Red Scares and McCarthyism of decades past. If you challenge DEI, “justice” will be swift, and you may find yourself unemployed, shunned by colleagues, cancelled, and/or you will otherwise put your career and acceptance in society at risk.
The DEI movement has also taken control of speech. Certain speech is no longer permitted. So-called “microaggressions” are treated like hate speech. “Trigger warnings” are required to protect students. “Safe spaces” are necessary to protect students from the trauma inflicted by words that are challenging to the students’ newly-acquired world views. Campus speakers and faculty with unapproved views are shouted down, shunned, and cancelled.
These speech codes have led to self-censorship by students and faculty of views privately held, but no longer shared. There is no commitment to free expression at Harvard other than for DEI-approved views. This has led to the quashing of conservative and other viewpoints from the Harvard campus and faculty, and contributed to Harvard’s having the lowest free speech ranking of 248 universities assessed by the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression.
When one examines DEI and its ideological heritage, it does not take long to understand that the movement is inherently inconsistent with basic American values. Our country since its founding has been about creating and building a democracy with equality of opportunity for all. Millions of people have left behind socialism and communism to come to America to start again, as they have seen the destruction leveled by an equality of outcome society.
The E for “equity” in DEI is about equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity.
DEI is racist because reverse racism is racism, even if it is against white people (and it is remarkable that I even need to point this out). Racism against white people has become considered acceptable by many not to be racism, or alternatively, it is deemed acceptable racism. While this is, of course, absurd, it has become the prevailing view in many universities around the country.
You can say things about white people today in universities, in business or otherwise, that if you switched the word ‘white’ to ‘black,’ the consequences to you would be costly and severe.
To state what should otherwise be self-evident, whether or not a statement is racist should not depend upon whether the target of the racism is a group who currently represents a majority or minority of the country or those who have a lighter or darker skin color. Racism against whites is as reprehensible as it is against groups with darker skin colors.
Martin Luther King’s most famous words are instructive:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
But here we are in 2024, being asked and in some cases required to use skin color to effect outcomes in admissions (recently deemed illegal by the Supreme Court), in business (likely illegal yet it happens nonetheless) and in government (also I believe in most cases to be illegal, except apparently in government contracting), rather than the content of one’s character. As such, a meritocracy is an anathema to the DEI movement. DEI is inherently a racist and illegal movement in its implementation even if it purports to work on behalf of the so-called oppressed.
And DEI’s definition of oppressed is fundamentally flawed.
I have always believed that the most fortunate should help the least fortunate, and that our system should be designed in such a way as to maximize the size of the overall pie so that it will enable us to provide an economic system which can offer quality of life, education, housing, and healthcare for all.
America is a rich country and we have made massive progress over the decades toward achieving this goal, but we obviously have much more work to do. Steps taken on the path to socialism – another word for an equality of outcome system – will reverse this progress and ultimately impoverish us all. We have seen this movie many times.
Having a darker skin color, a less common sexual identity, and/or being a woman doesn’t make one necessarily oppressed or even disadvantaged. While slavery remains a permanent stain on our country’s history – a fact which is used by DEI to label white people as oppressors – it doesn’t therefore hold that all white people generations after the abolishment of slavery should be held responsible for its evils. Similarly, the fact that Columbus discovered America doesn’t make all modern-day Italians colonialists.
An ideology that portrays a bicameral world of oppressors and the oppressed based principally on race or sexual identity is a fundamentally racist ideology that will likely lead to more racism rather than less. A system where one obtains advantages by virtue of one’s skin color is a racist system, and one that will generate resentment and anger among the un-advantaged who will direct their anger at the favored groups.
The country has seen burgeoning resentment and anger grow materially over the last few years, and the DEI movement is an important contributor to our growing divisiveness. Resentment is one of the most important drivers of racism. And it is the lack of equity, i.e, fairness, in how DEI operates, that contributes to this resentment.
I was accused of being a racist from the President of the NAACP among others when I posted on u/X that I had learned that the Harvard President search process excluded candidates that did not meet the DEI criteria. I didn’t say that former President Gay was hired because she was a black woman. I simply said that I had heard that the search process by its design excluded a large percentage of potential candidates due to the DEI limitations. My statement was not a racist one. It was simply the empirical truth about the Harvard search process that led to Gay’s hiring.
When former President Gay was hired, I knew little about her, but I was instinctually happy for Harvard and the black community. Every minority community likes to see their representatives recognized in important leadership positions, and it is therefore an important moment for celebration. I too celebrated this achievement. I am inspired and moved by others’ success, and I thought of Gay’s hiring at the pinnacle leadership position at perhaps our most important and iconic university as an important and significant milestone for the black community.
I have spent the majority of my life advocating on behalf of and supporting members of disadvantaged communities including by investing several hundreds of millions of dollars of philanthropic assets to help communities in need with economic development, sensible criminal justice reform, poverty reduction, healthcare, education, workforce housing, charter schools, and more.
I have done the same at Pershing Square Capital Management when, for example, we completed one of the largest IPOs ever with the substantive assistance of a number of minority-owned, women-owned, and Veteran-owned investment banks. Prior to the Pershing Square Tontine, Ltd. IPO, it was standard practice for big corporations occasionally to name a few minority-owned banks in their equity and bond offerings, have these banks do no work and sell only a de minimis amount of stock or bonds, and allocate to them only 1% or less of the underwriting fees so that the issuers could virtue signal that they were helping minority communities.
In our IPO, we invited the smaller banks into the deal from the beginning of the process so they could add real value. As a result, the Tontine IPO was one of the largest and most successful IPOs in history with $12 billion of demand for a $4 billion deal by the second day of the IPO, when we closed the books. The small banks earned their 20% share of the fees for delivering real and substantive value and for selling their share of the stock.
Compare this approach to the traditional one where the small banks do effectively nothing to earn their fees – they aren’t given that opportunity – yet, they get a cut of the deal, albeit a tiny one. The traditional approach does not create value for anyone. It only creates resentment, and an uncomfortable feeling from the small banks who get a tiny piece of the deal in a particularly bad form of affirmative action.
While I don’t think our approach to working with the smaller banks has yet achieved the significant traction it deserves, it will hopefully happen eventually as the smaller banks build their competencies and continue to earn their fees, and other issuers see the merit of this approach. We are going to need assistance with a large IPO soon so we are looking forward to working with our favored smaller banks.
I have always believed in giving disadvantaged groups a helping hand. I signed the Giving Pledge for this reason. My life plan by the time I was 18 was to be successful and then return the favor to those less fortunate. This always seemed to the right thing to do, in particular, for someone as fortunate as I am.
All of the above said, it is one thing to give disadvantaged people the opportunities and resources so that they can help themselves. It is another to select a candidate for admission or for a leadership role when they are not qualified to serve in that role.
This appears to have been the case with former President Gay’s selection. She did not possess the leadership skills to serve as Harvard’s president, putting aside any questions about her academic credentials. This became apparent shortly after October 7th, but there were many signs before then when she was Dean of the faculty.
The result was a disaster for Harvard and for Claudine Gay.
The Harvard board should not have run a search process which had a predetermined objective of only hiring a DEI-approved candidate. In any case, there are many incredibly talented black men and women who could have been selected by Harvard to serve as its president so why did the Harvard Corporation board choose Gay?
One can only speculate without knowing all of the facts, but it appears Gay’s leadership in the creation of Harvard’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging and the penetration of the DEI ideology into the Corporation board room perhaps made Gay the favored candidate. The search was also done at a time when many other top universities had similar DEI-favored candidate searches underway for their presidents, reducing the number of potential candidates available in light of the increased competition for talent.
Unrelated to the DEI issue, as a side note, I would suggest that universities should broaden their searches to include capable business people for the role of president, as a university president requires more business skills than can be gleaned from even the most successful academic career with its hundreds of peer reviewed papers and many books. Universities have a Dean of the Faculty and a bureaucracy to oversee the faculty and academic environment of the university. It therefore does not make sense that the university president has to come through the ranks of academia, with a skill set unprepared for university management.
The president’s job – managing thousands of employees, overseeing a $50 billion endowment, raising money, managing expenses, capital allocation, real estate acquisition, disposition, and construction, and reputation management – are responsibilities that few career academics are capable of executing. Broadening the recruitment of candidates to include top business executives would also create more opportunities for diverse talent for the office of the university president.
Furthermore, Harvard is a massive business that has been mismanaged for a long time. The cost structure of the University is out of control due in large part to the fact that the administration has grown without bounds. Revenues are below what they should be because the endowment has generated a 4.5% annualized return for the last decade in one of the greatest bull markets in history, and that low return is not due to the endowment taking lower risks as the substantial majority of its assets are invested in illiquid and other high-risk assets.
The price of the product, a Harvard education, has risen at a rate well in excess of inflation for decades, (I believe it has grown about 7-8% per annum) and it is now about $320,000 for four years of a liberal arts education at Harvard College. As a result, the only students who can now afford Harvard come from rich families and poor ones. The middle class can’t get enough financial aid other than by borrowing a lot of money, and it is hard to make the economics work in life after college when you graduate with large loan balances, particularly if you also attend graduate school.
The best companies in the world grow at high rates over many decades. Harvard has grown at a de minimis rate. Since I graduated 35 years ago, the number of students in the Harvard class has grown by less than 20%. What other successful business do you know that has grown the number of customers it serves by less than 20% in 35 years, and where nearly all revenue growth has come from raising prices?
In summary, there is a lot more work to be done to fix Harvard than just replacing its president. That said, the selection of Harvard’s next president is a critically important task, and the individuals principally responsible for that decision do not have a good track record for doing so based on their recent history, nor have they done a good job managing the other problems which I have identified above.
The Corporation board led by Penny Pritzker selected the wrong president and did inadequate due diligence about her academic record despite Gay being in leadership roles at the University since 2015 when she became dean of the Social Studies department.
The Board failed to create a discrimination-free environment on campus exposing the University to tremendous reputational damage, to large legal and financial liabilities, Congressional investigations and scrutiny, and to the potential loss of Federal funding, all while damaging the learning environment for all students.
And when concerns were raised about plagiarism in Gay’s research, the Board said these claims were “demonstrably false” and it threatened the NY Post with “immense” liability if it published a story raising these issues.
It was only after getting the story cancelled that the Board secretly launched a cursory, short-form investigation outside of the proper process for evaluating a member of the faculty’s potential plagiarism. When the Board finally publicly acknowledged some of Gay’s plagiarism, it characterized the plagiarism as “unintentional” and invented new euphemisms, i.e., “duplicative language” to describe plagiarism, a belittling of academic integrity that has caused grave damage to Harvard’s academic standards and credibility.
The Board’s three-person panel of “political scientist experts” that to this day remain unnamed who evaluated Gay’s work failed to identify many examples of her plagiarism, leading to even greater reputational damage to the University and its reputation for academic integrity as the whistleblower and the media continued to identify additional problems with Gay’s work in the days and weeks thereafter.
According to the NY Post, the Board also apparently sought to identify the whistleblower and seek retribution against him or her in contravention to the University’s whistleblower protection policies.
Despite all of the above, the Board “unanimously” gave its full support for Gay during this nearly four-month crisis, until eventually being forced to accept her resignation earlier today, a grave and continuing reputational disaster to Harvard and to the Board.
In a normal corporate context with the above set of facts, the full board would resign immediately to be replaced by a group nominated by shareholders. In the case of Harvard, however, the Board nominates itself and its new members. There is no shareholder vote mechanism to replace them.
So what should happen?
The Corporation Board should not remain in their seats protected by the unusual governance structure which enabled them to obtain their seats.
The Board Chair, Penny Pritzker, should resign along with the other members of the board who led the campaign to keep Claudine Gay, orchestrated the strategy to threaten the media, bypassed the process for evaluating plagiarism, and otherwise greatly contributed to the damage that has been done. Then new Corporation board members should be identified who bring true diversity, viewpoint and otherwise, to the board.
The Board should not be principally comprised of individuals who share the same politics and views about DEI. The new board members should be chosen in a transparent process with the assistance of the 30-person Board of Overseers. There is no reason the Harvard board of 12 independent trustees cannot be comprised of the most impressive, high integrity, intellectually and politically diverse members of our country and globe. We have plenty of remarkable people to choose from, and the job of being a director just got much more interesting and important. It is no longer, nor should it ever have been, an honorary and highly political sinecure.
The ODEIB should be shut down, and the staff should be terminated. The ODEIB has already taken down much of the ideology and strategies that were on its website when I and others raised concerns about how the office operates and who it does and does not represent. Taking down portions of the website does not address the fundamentally flawed and racist ideology of this office, and calls into further question the ODEIB’s legitimacy.
Why would the ODEIB take down portions of its website when an alum questioned its legitimacy unless the office was doing something fundamentally wrong or indefensible?
Harvard must once again become a meritocratic institution which does not discriminate for or against faculty or students based on their skin color, and where diversity is understood in its broadest form so that students can learn in an environment which welcomes diverse viewpoints from faculty and students from truly diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Harvard must create an academic environment with real academic freedom and free speech, where self-censoring, speech codes, and cancel culture are forever banished from campus.
Harvard should become an environment where all students of all persuasions feel comfortable expressing their views and being themselves. In the business world, we call this creating a great corporate culture, which begins with new leadership and the right tone at the top. It does not require the creation of a massive administrative bureaucracy.
These are the minimum changes necessary to begin to repair the damage that has been done.
A number of faculty at the University of Pennsylvania have proposed a new constitution which can be found at http://pennforward.com, which has been signed by more than 1,200 faculty from Penn, Harvard, and other universities. Harvard would do well to adopt Penn’s proposed new constitution or a similar one before seeking to hire its next president.
A condition of employment of the new Harvard president should be the requirement that the new president agrees to strictly abide by the new constitution. He or she should take an oath to that effect.
Today was an important step forward for the University. It is time we restore Veritas to Harvard and again be an exemplar that graduates well-informed, highly-educated leaders of exemplary moral standing and good judgment who can help bring our country together, advance our democracy, and identify the important new discoveries that will help save us from ourselves.
We have a lot more work to do. Let’s get at it.
1:03 AM · Jan 3, 2024
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The Martin Luther King holiday
When Ronald Reagan arrived in office, a handful of states had a holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Many more had chosen not to have one. Reagan signed a federal King holiday into law in 1983. Glorious and tragic though King's life was, the felt need to commemorate it was waning in the 1980s. The city council in San Diego had changed the name of Market Street to Martin Luther King Way in 1986, only to see voters reverse the change by a landslide margin in a referendum a year later. Young and politically active blacks were themselves not sure that King was the civil rights hero most deserving of commemoration. The more confrontational strategies of Malcolm X, assassinated three years before King, were more popular. Though many whites saw the King day as a "black holiday," there was a case for white people to honor him as well. It was like the case that the abolitionist Charles Francis Adams, Jr., writing decades after the Civil War, had laid out for calling Robert E. Lee an American hero and not just a Southern hero—that he had forsworn violence even as many of his allies were urging it. King, similarly, had created a middle ground where the two races could meet. Now, though, it was a different world. Immigration was beginning to create a country with several races, not two. King's vision of desegregation had been one in which his children would "not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." The institutions of desegregation set up by the courts rejected that approach. They took
account of race as never before. The more distant King's vision of race relations became, the more imperative it became to advertise it as if that were the vision of race relations the country had gotten. By the end of the 1980s, there were only three states left that did not have a King holiday: New Hampshire, Montana, and Arizona. Each commemorated civil rights in its own way, but the idea of states' going their own way was now intolerable. It was not enough that everyone have some kind of holiday celebrating racial harmony—every single state must now honor King, and affirm its delight in doing so. This was deemed more important than respecting democratic forms.
In May 1986, when the Arizona state legislature rejected a bill creating a King holiday, Governor Bruce Babbitt declared one by executive order. The sequel hinted at the politics America would fall into three decades later. A gauche Air Force veteran and Pontiac salesman named Evan Mecham complained about the new holiday. "It has the effect of elevating King while demoting Washington and Lincoln," he said, "which I think is a disgrace." A stickler would say Mecham was wrong, but he had a point: The federal Uniform Monday Holiday Act, passed in 1968, had moved the celebration of George Washington's birthday (February 22) to the week before, where it often falls in the same week as Lincoln's (February 12) but never on Washington's birthday itself. Most states renamed the moved holiday Presidents' Day, although its official federal name remained (and remains) Washington's Birthday. Mecham was arguing that that consolidation had somehow "made room" for a King day. Arizonans would probably have let the matter go, had Mecham not been able to paint Babbitt's move as a constitutional usurpation. Mecham was zealous about the Constitution; on such matters he professed himself the follower of a firebrand fellow Mormon named W. Cleon Skousen. Behind a Republican coalition, unusual at the time, of retirees and the less educated, Mecham won the governorship and canceled the holiday. The movement for a King holiday now became a movement to oust Gov. Mecham by any possible means. A recall drive was launched against him in his first days in office. (He was eventually impeached for misuse of campaign funds, though no crime was ever proved against him.) A gay insurance millionaire named Ed Buck led the drive, eliciting invidious bumper stickers ("Queer Ed Buck's Recall") from Mecham's supporters. Once it was apparent that Babbitt's executive order would not stand, vast resources were devoted to diverting Arizona's democracy from the channels in which it had flowed. Two referenda were held in 1990 to restore the holiday, under a threat from the NFL to move the 1993 Super Bowl, scheduled for Phoenix, if an MLK holiday did not result. Voters rejected both referenda, giving one of them less than a quarter of their votes. The NFL made good on its threat within hours. Trade associations canceled a quarter-billion dollars' worth of conventions. Voters eventually passed the holiday in a 1992 referendum. Somehow the passage of a holiday honoring King in one state had turned out to be a vital matter for boardrooms not just in Phoenix but everywhere. Corporations and businesses put up almost all of the uncounted millions behind the Yes campaign. (The No campaign raised only $6,000.) Whatever it was that stirred business about the holiday, it was not King himself. Consultant Paul Mandabach, whose public relations firm, WinneWagner & Mandabach ,marketed the campaign, later said that the key to passing the holiday had been "messages emphasizing American values—not Dr. King's life." Businessmen rallied behind the King holiday in the name of those values, arguing not so much in political terms as in religious ones. It was a "battle for Arizona's soul." Political activists were coming to relish this kind of theological talk. The adjective "iconic" was creeping into American English as a replacement for "famous" or "significant"—it would be used ten times as frequently in the early twenty-first century as it had been at the end of World War II. Now there were sacraments of both adoration and anathema.
Bono Hewson (as he was then called) and his band, U2, were scheduled to play two concerts at Arizona State University in early April of 1987, three months into the controversy over the King holiday. Activists made contact with them. Their manager offered to cancel their shows if that was the "mood of the community." But this was not what the holiday campaigners wanted. Instead, U2 agreed to a deal by which they would contribute money to a Recall Mecham committee and read a denunciation of Mecham onstage—in a controversy of which U2 had had no knowledge when they landed at Sky Harbor.
Paul Eckstein, the Phoenix lawyer who led the impeachment proceedings against Mecham, explained that King was to be celebrated because he had "brought an end to our national shame." Eckstein was wrong. He misunderstood and underestimated King and his method. In a 1963 interview on a Massachusetts public television station, King had been questioned about Malcolm X's criticism that his non-violence played "into the hands of the white oppressors." King replied that no one who had the slightest familiarity with the dynamics of Southern protest would say such a thing:
I think it arouses a sense of shame within them often. In many instances, I think it does something to touch the conscience and establish a sense of guilt. . . . This approach certainly doesn't make the white man feel comfortable. I think it does the other thing. It disturbs this conscience and it disturbs this sense of contentment he's had. People whose contentment has been disturbed are not usually grateful.
For many white Americans, particularly outside the South, the King holiday did the opposite of what Eckstein said it would. It marked not the end but the beginning of shame, of an official culture that cast their country's history as one of oppression, and its ideals of liberty as hypocrisies. The official understanding of the American race problem now came to resemble in almost every particular the Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) through which Germans had for decades been confronting their responsibility for Nazism and the Holocaust. Certain whites, however, far from feeling the shame of racism, stood in a newfound moral effulgence as fighters against it, sharing a little bit of Martin Luther King's glory. It seemed coincidence at first that they were generally society's leaders. CEOs, lawyers, professors, and other rich and well-educated people who had allied with civil rights activists to prevail against Arizona's uncooperative democracy—these were now the custodians of America's conscience, the priests of the nation's repentance.
As we have noted, this was a "postmodern" era, when all narratives of religion, patriotism, material progress, scientific objectivity, and gentlemanly virtue were under suspicion. But the narrative of racial justice that had motivated the activists of the 1960s was an exception. Alone among historical accounts, it was above suspicion. As the unique surviving narrative, it became a moral beacon. When President Gerald R. Ford first officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to "honor the too-often-neglected accomplishments of black Americans," it seemed a negligible development, a perfunctory bit of officialese. The New York Times gave the story two small paragraphs at the bottom of the fifth column on page 33 of a Wednesday morning paper. Yet by the twenty-first century, black history was far from neglected. It was fair to say that ethnic studies had taken over not just college curricula but even primary and secondary school history teaching. In 2008, education professors from Stanford and the University of Maryland asked 2,000 eleventh and twelfth graders to name the ten most significant Americans who had never been president. Three standbys of Black History Month—Martin Luther King, the anti-segregationist protester Rosa Parks, and the escaped slave Harriet Tubman—ranked 1, 2, and 3, far ahead of (for example) Benjamin Franklin, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford.
The exemplary destruction of Al Campanis
At the start of the 1987 baseball season, Ted Koppel, the host of ABC's Nightline, invited Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis to discuss the fortieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson's rookie season as the first black
player in the major leagues. Perhaps Campanis was expecting a sleepy chat. Koppel confronted him with the question of why baseball had been so slow to hire blacks as managers and general managers. "I really can't answer that
question directly," Campanis said. There were black managers, he explained, and perhaps the most prominent former players had found better opportunities elsewhere. "Baloney," Koppel replied. "Is there still that much prejudice in baseball today?"
Campanis suddenly found himself in an awkward position—defending his employers and his colleagues against a charge of bigotry. He responded with a string of clumsy answers. "They may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager," he said. Then, perhaps as a way of parrying any sinister interpretation that might be put on the word "necessities," he started blurting out his thoughts, which grew more and more tangled. "Why are black men not good swimmers?" he asked, before answering his own question. "Because they don't have the buoyancy." Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley tried to defend Campanis, but there was pointed rage from baseball hero Hank Aaron, the NAACP, the Urban League, and prominent black politicians in Los Angeles, including mayor Tom Bradley. Assemblywoman Maxine Waters came up with an activist innovation. She demanded that the Dodgers cut all ties with Campanis, who had been working for the Dodgers since 1943. O'Malley gave in to this demand, making clear to the Los Angeles Times that Campanis "will not be given another position in the organization, nor will he serve as consultant." Discouraging or disciplining racist attitudes was no longer enough—it had become necessary to destroy the life and livelihood of anyone even suspected of harboring them. To understand Campanis's position, one must understand his role in Jackie Robinson's life. The two had been teammates with the Montreal Royals in 1946, at a time when Robinson was the target of ostracism by rival players and hostility from fans. Campanis became Robinson's roommate in the middle of that controversy, and would remain his friend until Robinson's death in 1972. Well after Campanis and Robinson's time, until the turn of the 1970s, in fact, blacks and whites rooming together was almost unheard of. "That's why you'd usually see an even number of blacks on teams," Robinson's teammate Carl Erskine later recalled. Robinson never had a white roommate in the major leagues.
Campanis, that is, had been invited to the interview that would end his career because he was a hero of racial integration. Interviewed twenty years later about the incident, Koppel, admitting to knowing "nothing" about baseball, said: "Al Campanis must have been a pretty extraordinary guy." His humiliation was a watershed. Half a year later, the CBS on-screen football bookmaker Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder, drunk at a Martin Luther King Day lunch at Duke Zeibert's bar in Washington, D.C., tried to address the issue before a black journalist and a cameraman for WRC-TV. "If they take over coaching like everyone wants them to, there's not gonna be anything left for the white people," he said. Then he baldly stated that "the black is a better athlete to begin with" and made a few speculative comments about how blacks had been bred for strength during "the Civil War." (He was not a historian.) His friendships with the football stars Walter Payton, Ahmad Rashad, Irv Cross, and Gene Upshaw, all of whom later vouched for his character, were insufficient to rescue him. CBS did not merely fire Jimmy the Greek. It denounced him, terming his remarks "reprehensible."Such episodes showed the double-edged nature of civil rights. The major leagues established an affirmative action program within days of Campanis's disgrace and hired a sociologist to lead an executive search. Retired first baseman Bill White became the first black president of the National League. The young ABC producer who had first booked Campanis, while admitting to feeling "slightly tinged by guilt," consoled himself that all this activity on behalf of diversity was "not a bad legacy." That is uncertain. The price of that legacy was a system of censorship. People resisted calling it by its name, but censorship it most certainly was—government censorship, adapted for an age in which all sorts of government functions, from troop provision to prison construction, were being outsourced to private entities.
It worked through a civil court system that had seen its scope and punitive capacities enhanced by civil rights law. Litigation could make it embarrassing, expensive, and potentially fatal to an organization like the Los Angeles Dodgers or CBS to have anyone in their employ speculating, woolgathering, or talking off the cuff. It was an institutional innovation. It grew directly out of civil rights law. Just as affirmative action in universities and corporations had privatized the enforcement of integration, the fear of litigation privatized the suppression of disagreement, or even of speculation. The government would not need to punish directly the people who dissented from its doctrines. Boards of directors and boards of trustees, fearing lawsuits, would do that. Campanis and Snyder were both in their seventies: old men. "What a shame," their contemporaries would have muttered. But you can imagine the effect that their disgrace would have had on a 29-year-old in the Dodgers' front office who was still five promotions away from occupying Campanis's position. Americans in all walks of life began to talk about the smallest things as if they would have their lives destroyed for holding the wrong opinion. And this was a reasonable assumption. Over the decades, one hapless white after another would see his career brought to a sudden stop when a tantrum, a drunken slip, or some imperfectly calibrated phrase revealed wrong attitudes about race, gender, or sexuality. Cant was the only way a sensibly self-protective person would talk about race in public—and when it came to civil rights, every place was public. Because there was no statutory "smoking gun" behind it, this new system of censorship was easily mistaken for a change in the public mood, although it remained a mystery how a mood so minoritarian could be so authoritative. The system itself came to be called political correctness.
Political correctness
Never did a movement seem more assured of history's derision. Political correctness, or P.C., as it was called by everyone except its adherents, was a grab bag of political stances descended from queer theory, critical race theory, critical legal studies, post-colonial studies, and various other new academic schools of thought. It aimed at the redesign of institutions and philosophies so that they might recognize, accept, vindicate, validate, and console groups deemed disadvantaged: blacks, women, gays, immigrants. The intellectual signature of P.C., wherever it appeared, was an unwillingness to distinguish between institutions (which could be oppressive) and opinions (which could only be misguided). But the origins of P.C. were political, not intellectual. They lay in feminist and anti-racist activism. Of all the battles that pitted students against forces of order in 1968—from demonstrations against administrative high-handedness at Columbia University to clashes with police at the Chicago Democratic convention—the most consequential, in retrospect, was the five-month strike launched by the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) at San Francisco State University that fall. At the end of it, the university established the first ethnic studies departments in the United States. Thus began a process that would saturate the national culture with racial and gender politics.
These ethnic studies departments, which had spread to virtually all universities by the end of the 1970s, aimed not so much at understanding power relations among ethnic groups as at transforming them. Another purpose was to provide a welcoming landing spot for students admitted under affirmative action programs. By the end of the 1980s, the spirit of "teach-ins" had taken over entire colleges. Antioch in Ohio instituted a policy, designed by a group called Womyn of Antioch, requiring explicit verbal assent at every stage of an escalating romantic encounter and establishing the on-campus position of "sexual offense advocate." The Modern Language Association gave its academic conferences over to such panels as "The Muse of Masturbation."At City College of New York, the Afrocentric scholar Leonard Jeffries laid out theories of how his own people ("sun people") had invented virtually everything worthwhile in Western philosophy and culture. They had been robbed of the credit, though, by "ice people," as Jeffries called the "slick and devilish and dirty and dastardly" people descended from Europeans. Jeffries meant that eighteenth-century classicists denied Egyptians credit for the columned temples they ascribed to Athens and that modern historians wrote black inventors like Benjamin Banneker and Granville Woods out of their narratives, the better to glorify Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. Running blacks down, he said, was the aim of a "conspiracy, planned and plotted and programmed out of Hollywood" by "people called Greenberg and Weisberg and Trigliani and whatnot."
Armed with such anecdotes, P.C.'s enemies presented it as an enthusiasm of radical, intemperate, and disreputable scholars. But that was not the heart of P.C. at all. The heart of it was a set of sober procedures promulgated by cautious academic administrators and government regulators frightened of civil rights law. The University of Maryland reprimanded students flying American flags out their dormitory windows, on the grounds that "this is a very diverse community, and what may be innocent to one person may be insulting to another." The University of Connecticut banned "inappropriately directed laughter." Disciplinary or counseling programs for those with conservative views were set up at Stanford, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Traditionally there had been extraordinary expressive freedom in the United States. "Free speech, free press, free exercise of religion are placed separate and apart," wrote Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas. "They are above and beyond the police power; they are not subject to regulation in the manner of factories, slums, apartment houses, production of oil and the like." This conception of First Amendment freedoms was being eroded. Douglas's warning came in the form of a dissent in Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952), in which the Supreme Court asserted that it was possible to libel a group. The case involved an activist who had handed out pamphlets defending racist housing practices in metropolitan Chicago. Douglas didn't endorse the man's opinions, but they didn't strike him as a reason to narrow the First Amendment, either. He wrote:
Today a white man stands convicted for protesting in unseemly language against our decisions invalidating restrictive covenants. Tomorrow a Negro will be haled before a court for denouncing lynch law in heated terms. Farm laborers in the West who compete with field hands drifting up from Mexico; whites who feel the pressure of Orientals; a minority which finds employment going to members of the dominant religious group—all of these are caught in the mesh of today's decision.
How strange that passage sounds in our day. Douglas not only considered all these positions legitimate ones to argue over, he implied that only a tyranny would restrict them. By the end of the Cold War, all these opinions, save that of the black man denouncing lynch law, would have been dangerous to express in public.
Diversity and the Pax Americana
National newspapers and magazines started raising alarms over political correctness during the 1990–91 academic year, shortly after Nina Wu was expelled from the University of Connecticut. Wu had put a sign on her dorm room door to the effect that "preppies," "bimbos," "men without chest hair," and "homos" were to be "shot on sight." Although she assured the university authorities she had not intended it literally, they accused her of violating a student behavior code that banned "making personal slurs or epithets based on race, sex, ethnic origin, disability, religion or sexual orientation." This was not a behavior code of the sort that colleges had traditionally drawn up and passed down. It contained no ancient campus lore. It recapitulated the language that ran through the Civil Rights Act of1964, punctiliously including the collectivities that had been brought under its protection in the years since. The speech code's purpose was to demonstrate a good faith that might shield the university from the tornado of public prosecution and private litigation that civil rights law had unleashed. We have discussed this before: The goal of the civil rights laws, at least as they were understood by a sentimental public, was to short-circuit the sham democracies of the American South, to bring them into conformity with the Constitution. But it turned out to be harder than anticipated to distinguish between the South's democracy and everybody else's. If the spirit of the law was to humiliate Southern bigots, the letter of the law put the entire country—all its institutions—under the threat of lawsuits and prosecutions for discrimination. What made political correctness different from other persecutory interludes in twentieth-century America, including McCarthyism, was its direct access to the courtroom. By Nina Wu's time, national university accrediting bodies, themselves operating under the fear of litigation, had begun to use "diversity" as a criterion in their deliberations. The University of Connecticut would be better positioned to defend itself in court against a charge of discrimination if it could show it had come down on Nina Wu like a ton of bricks.
In early press accounts, the enforcers of P.C. appeared as hate-filled and totalitarian. They reminded the Berkeley philosopher John Searle, who covered various campus battles for the New York Review of Books, of Nazis.
"The objective of converting the curriculum into an instrument of social transformation" he wrote, ". . . is the very opposite of higher education. It is characteristic of the major totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century—leftist and rightist." The correspondent for New York magazine called P.C. "more frightening than the old McCarthyism" and likened it to apartheid. Others brought up the Spanish Inquisition. But the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and its repudiation everywhere made the rise of P.C. hard to take seriously. Campus radicals must just have been the last to get the news of leftism's demise. Political correctness was unpopular. By 59 to 24 percent, Americans considered it a "bad thing." But above all, it was absurd. Pointing out its fallacies, its ignorance, and its intolerance was like shooting fish in a barrel. It would be a fad, New York magazine predicted. Closing its account of the fate of Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom, hounded for his failure to include more slave narratives in his "Historical Studies A-25 (The Peopling of America)," the magazine reassured its readers, "Resistance to this sort of robotic sloganeering is beginning." Searle, assuming that the biggest risk from P.C. until its inevitable demise would be "silliness rather than catastrophe," saw signs that "the tide is turning." By 1993, newspapers were writing obituaries for P.C. "Trendy Movement Is on Its Last Legs," ran one headline. At a time when people were still naming airports after Ronald Reagan, few thinkers understood how tenacious identity politics had become. But the
writer Paul Berman did. He made the bold suggestion in A Tale of Two Utopias that Western progressives not only had not gone down with the communist ship—they had emerged from the Cold War triumphant and even strengthened.
Berman looked at the dissident circle around the Czech playwright (later president) Václav Havel. He found them to have been more inspired by rock musicians, by Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground, than by any Reaganite talk about the virtues of capitalism. Most countries shaken by student activism in 1968, he wrote, had undergone a "two-step evolution—from a dream of orthodox social revolution to a movement for personal liberation." By the former Berman meant socialism; by the latter he meant civil rights. The politics of civil rights proved America's most successful late twentieth-century export. European political advisors who had attended American law schools, or were at least familiar with the American style of "rights talk," sought to tap into its power. By the 1990s, Berman noted, virtually all the leaders of gay rights movements in non-Western countries had spent time in the West. The United States was still the rich countries' rule maker and enforcer, as it had been during the Cold War. But now its diversity mission also gave it the Cold War role of the Soviet Comintern—as a repository of hope for many of those who would overturn the world order's injustices. The task that civil rights laws were meant to carry out—the top-down management of various ethnic, regional, and social groups—had always been the main task of empires.
At the turn of the twenty-first century, the real place of the Vietnam War in the history of American diplomacy became much clearer. It had not been an aberration, the blunder of a handful of militarists allowed too much power—no, it had merely been one of the less successful of the experiments in global "governance" that the United States was doomed by its imperial position to make. It laid the groundwork for the "humanitarian invasions" of the 1990s and beyond. All the country's interests and incentives remained in place, but they were now buttressed by a new set of universalist justifications for intervening.
The war for the soul of America
Patrick J. Buchanan, the former speechwriter to Nixon and Reagan, was alone among conservative political figures in correctly assessing the power of political correctness. In 1992, he challenged George H. W. Bush for the
Republican nomination and won a stunning 38 percent in the New Hampshire primary. Nostalgic, protectionist, isolationist, often misunderstood, Buchanan argued on behalf of the declining American "woodwork," and warned that there was a "war for the soul of America." going on. His campaign was about globalization, which his friend and supporter Samuel Francis defined as "the managed destruction of the nation, its sovereignty, its culture, and its people."
Americans were not thinking about globalization yet—or at least not a presidential majority's worth of them. "If Buchanan loses the nomination," Francis wrote when Buchanan ran again four years later, "it will be because his time has not yet come, but the social and political forces on which both his campaigns have been based will not disappear, and even if he does lose, he will have won a place in history as an architect of the victory those forces will eventually build." Buchanan's supporters aside, conservatives were confident to the point of exuberance. Republican National Committee chairman Rich Bond belittled a group of liberal protesters outside the Houston convention in the summer of 1992, saying "We are America! These other people are not America!" How disorienting the end of the Cold War must have been for people like Bond. Republicans would lose that election to Bill Clinton, who had spent his college years protesting Vietnam. The Republican party's Cold Warriors would get nothing from their Cold War victory, nor would its culture warriors get anything from a decade of Reaganism. The Reagan era had in retrospect marked a consolidation, not a reversal, of the movements that began in the 1960s. In the quarter-century after Reagan, conservatives lost every battle against the substance of political correctness. Almost no claim made for expanded rights or recognitions for women or minorities would be deemed to have "gone too far." Already in 1988, Stanford had replaced its Western Culture requirement with a more flexible, multicultural rubric called
"Culture, Ideals and Values." The five hundred mostly minority students who on January 15, 1987, had marched with Rev. Jesse Jackson down Palm Drive in Palo Alto, chanting "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Western Culture's got to go!" were snorted at on campus and mocked in newspapers from coast to coast. Then they won. Change spread beyond the universities to corporations, foundations, and government offices. CNN founder Ted Turner ordered his company's personnel to refer to things outside the United States as "international" rather than "foreign," threatening to levy fines (which he would donate to the United Nations) on those who disobeyed. Political correctness was not a joke after all. It was the most comprehensive ideological capture of institutional power in the history of the United States. Those who pooh-poohed P.C. assumed that the partisan arrangements that had governed Western thinking in the Cold War would last forever. True, the "conservative" "hawks" had outlasted the "liberal" "doves" and the anti-communists the communists. And true, most of the groups now clamoring for rights and recognition had belonged, in one way or another, to the dovish side in that conflict. But that had been a matter of expedience. Campaigners for civil or women's or gay rights had never had any particular affinity for Marxist ideas of economic organization and the Soviet state that defended them.
Now, in fact, it was possible for people who had wanted a different racial or sexual order to demand it of the American system without incurring the suspicion that they were working against the country's national security. To blacks and women, immigrants and gays, it was exhilarating. This minority coalition, pursuing a more or less unpopular set of programs, racked up victories as if it were a righteous majoritarian crusade. In the course of it, these minorities discovered, perhaps to their own surprise, that civil rights law gave them an iron grip on the levers of state power.
A radical understanding of race and gender arrived on campus at the same time as Baby Boom professors. It has thus been tempting to trace P.C. to a "takeover" of the universities by 1960s radicals. That is not exactly how it worked. In 1990, Baby Boom professors were between their late twenties and their mid-forties. They were not, as we noted earlier, the makers of the 1960s revolution. They were what the sociologist Max Weber called "successors"—a generation that undertakes the routinization, the bureaucratization, of the charismatic movement that preceded it. In the academy, the Baby Boomers never enjoyed the demographic veto that they did in the voting public at large. By 1990, in fact, they were as under-represented on college faculties as they were over-represented everyplace else, making up only about a quarter of professors. The underrepresentation had a natural cause: a logjam of now tenured professors who had been hired to teach the Boomers in the 1960s. A calcified corporate structure thwarted efforts to transform the university right away. At the dawn of political correctness, American faculties, even humanities faculties, were not particularly progressive. A 1991 poll found that 58 percent of professors considered themselves either moderate or conservative, against 42 percent who called themselves leftist or liberal. Universities may have been radicalizing not because radical Baby Boomers were entering the faculty but because conservative Baby Boomers were exiting the student body. In their place was a different population, on the other side of a generational razor's edge. In 1983, no Harvard undergraduate had a computer; in 1986, as the youngest Baby Boomers graduated from college, practically no one did not. That was also the year the high-tech developer Oren Etzioni was granted the first Harvard undergraduate degree in computer science. A year later, the Chicago philosophy professor Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, which spent four months atop the New York Times bestseller list and ushered in a climate of worry about ideologized teaching in universities that has never lifted since. Hip-hop, or rap, as it was then always called, began with the Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" (1979), a hit just as the first post-Boomers entered high school, and imposed itself on a national radio audience with Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" (1982), just as they were heading off to college. Searle noted that by 1990, more than half of the students at Berkeley were non-white.
There was no clamor in the general public to suppress heterodox thinking. Americans' views on free speech had been remarkably consistent. In 1955, in the immediate aftermath of McCarthyism, the Harvard sociologist Samuel A. Stouffer published a classic study called Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties. His goal was to figure out how willing people really were to let communists do three things: make a speech in their community, teach in a university, or have a book kept in the public library. After 1972, the National Opinion Research Center added several scenarios to Stouffer's to test communities' tolerance for speech that insulted their sensibilities on race, religion, and democracy. On no issue did the eagerness to ban speech rise significantly in the decades preceding political correctness. In fact, the percentage of people who would permit a library to lend a racist book rose slightly, from 60 percent in 1972 to about 63 percent in 1990.
Political correctness was a top-down reform. It was enabled not by new public attitudes toward reactionary opinions but by new punishments that could be meted out against those who expressed them. The power of political correctness generally derived, either directly or at one remove, from the civil rights laws of the 1960s. "Subversive" became a term of praise in academia around then—but it was deployed in an unusual sense. "Subversive" scholars were supporting the very same things the government was mustering all its budgetary and enforcement power, and the corporate and foundation sector all its funding and ingenuity, to bring about. Rarely did professors now seek to subvert (as they had in the past) promiscuity or atheism or pacifism. Today's "subversive" opinions—that there ought to be more blacks in positions of authority, that a gay relationship is just as good as a straight one—were given special protection by civil rights laws, and there were now hundreds of thousands of people a tall levels of government and business who had been trained to impose them.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A group of South Carolina parents and teachers' advocates filed a challenge Thursday to a new Republican-backed law allowing taxpayer dollars to help families pay for private schools.
As it stands, up to 15,000 students will eventually access $6,000 annually in publicly funded savings accounts that can be used toward private K-12 tuition. The South Carolina Education Association and state chapter of the NAACP want the state's highest court to toss out the program that they said runs afoul of a prohibition on the use of government funds to directly benefit private educational institutions.
Plaintiffs say the voucher program violates several other sections of the South Carolina Constitution. They argue the state is failing its duty to provide a “system of free public schools open to all children” by covering costs at private schools that are neither free nor open to all.
The challengers expressed concern that state money would make its way to private schools that could discriminate against their disabled or LGBTQ children, while also undermining support for rural districts and exacerbating segregation.
The law also “impermissibly” expands the authority of the state Superintendent of Education beyond her role overseeing public education by tasking her office with administering the program, according to the plaintiffs.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters on Thursday that the money goes to parents, not schools — a move that makes him confident the law will stand. Plaintiffs noted that parents would only select the school where funds get sent from accounts controlled by the state Department of Education.
A conservative think tank called the Palmetto Promise Institute compared the accounts to existing state programs like tuition grants that college students can use for private higher education.
One lawmaker central to the effort also expressed certainty in the constitutionality of the program.
“On behalf of the parents and children of our state, I’m looking forward to a quick victory in favor of disadvantaged students who deserve better,” Republican state Sen. Larry Grooms wrote in a statement to AP.
The Republican-controlled state Legislature passed the decades-long priority this year amid a wave of GOP support for the “school choice" movement. Groups that study the programs report that as many as 16 states have some form of the vouchers. Families in South Carolina are slated to begin taking advantage of the program next fall, but other states are already seeing more people take the offer than officials anticipated.
Supporters expect the vouchers to expand opportunities for students in districts that aren't meeting their needs and increase guardians' control over their children's learning environments.
The measure's largely Democratic opponents argued the funds would be better spent improving under-resourced public schools, rather than subsidizing the high tuition costs at unaccountable private educational institutions.
Officials may have another option in the event the program does get struck. The South Carolina House has already passed a bill to let voters decide if they should jettison a state constitutional amendment that could stand in Republicans' way. The question of whether to maintain a provision barring the use of public funds for the direct benefit of religious or private schools would make the ballot at the next general election if the measure gets two-thirds support in the state Senate."
(All italics mine.)
​
Make no mistake about it, every cent sent to 'private' (read, Religious Schools') is a penny taken away from already struggling public schools. And while vouchers may improve the education of some students. it will greatly negatively impact many, many more.
And let's face it, there are many so-called 'religious' schools that actually teach hate, racism, and division and the current voucher bill makes no provision to differentiate between the decent schools and the truly vile institutions.
Vouchers only aid the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
​

(Public service announcement: Hello fellow Redditors! Before we delve into this thought-provoking discussion on Black activism and social justice, let's remember to keep the conversation respectful and open-minded. This topic is deeply important and emotional for many people, so let's approach it with empathy and understanding. Now, let's get started!)
Title: Black Activism & Social Justice: Exploring the Power of Solidarity 💪🏿🤝
Hey there, colorful folks of ColorClickNews! Today, I want to dive into the deep end of the pool and discuss the ongoing battle for social justice through the lens of Black activism. Hold on tight because it's going to be a wild ride! But seriously, buckle up and grab your thinking caps, folks!
We cannot deny that Black activism has played an essential role throughout history in dismantling oppressive systems and advocating for equality. It has paved the way for positive change, challenging the status quo and demanding justice for marginalized communities. This discussion aims not only to unveil the successes of Black activism but also to address some crucial questions that underpin this ongoing movement. Let's explore this hot topic, shall we?
🌍 Global Impact: Black activism reaches far beyond geographical borders, uniting people who share a common vision of social justice. From the United States to South Africa and from Brazil to Australia, the global context of Black activism reminds us that this issue knows no boundaries. But what do these shared experiences mean, given the diverse cultural backgrounds of those who march under this banner? How does this continuum of activism evolve across regions?
💖 Solidarity & Allyship: Black activism often intersects with the fight against other forms of discrimination, bridging gaps and highlighting the importance of solidarity. But what about other marginalized communities? How can the different struggles coexist and reinforce one another? Can solidarity propel the social justice movement forward, or do various causes risk diluting the impact of each other's fight?
🏛️ Legislative Changes: Legislative progress has undoubtedly been achieved through Black activism, shaking outdated systems to their core. But what's next? Discussing the need for structural changes in society becomes essential. How can Black activism continue to drive legislative transformations, ensuring lasting change instead of temporary Band-Aids?
🤝 Intersectionality: Recognizing that experiences of race and discrimination do not exist in isolation, intersectionality emphasizes how layers of oppression intertwine. This concept urges us all to reflect and untangle the intricate web of our privileges and disadvantages. How can we better understand intersectionality and apply it effectively in the pursuit of social justice?
And there you have it, my friends! Our journey into the world of Black activism and social justice has only just begun. These questions are not easy, but grappling with them is crucial for our growth as individuals and as a society. So, grab a cup of coffee, put on your thinking caps, and let's embark upon this incredible adventure together! Remember, respect and open-mindedness are critical here. Let's ignite enlightening and constructive discussions that can truly drive change. See you in the comments!⚡️💬
(Supporting organizations: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), #BlackLivesMatter, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU))

"I'm proud that President Trump likes me." - RFK, Jr., who will take anything at this point

Affirm Denied

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Thursday that the race-conscious admission policies of Harvard College and the University of North Carolina violate the Constitution, bringing an end to affirmative action in higher education.

• Thursday’s ruling was deemed “truly a tragedy for us all” by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissenting opinion. The ruling will mean a sharp decline in black and Latino students, particularly at elite private and public universities. Nine states already banned the use of race-based college admissions and, as a result, have seen diversity decline on their campuses. When Michigan instituted this policy in 2006 the percentage of black students was seven percent, but dropped to four percent by 2021.
  
• The majority opinion (all Republican) did not admit that the court was overturning its own decades-old precedent from Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 case that held universities could consider race as a factor in admissions decisions. Justice Clarence Thomas did write in concurrence, however, that “The Court’s opinion rightly makes clear that Grutter is, for all intents and purposes, overruled.” Well, there it is. The ruling also cited the 14th amendment as the basis of the law, which is an extra slap in the face, considering the amendment was adopted after the Civil War to affirmatively remediate the legacy of slavery.
  
• Biden predictably came out against the ruling. He responded to a question about whether the court had gone rogue by saying, “This is not a normal court.” All of the Republican presidential candidates have gone on record in support of the court’s decision. Even Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the lone black Republican senator and presidential primary candidate, said that it was "a good day for America" during an interview on Fox News shortly after the decision.
  

But it won’t affect everyone and the window has been left open for colleges to use other tools to determining which applicants deserve special consideration. And the rest of the world is waking up to the need for affirmative-action laws.

• Globally, dozens of countries have enacted their own affirmative-action initiatives. Some Brazilian universities have adopted race-based quotas for admissions to increase the share of black, brown, and indigenous students. India has also implemented its “reservation” system of affirmative action in admissions which reserves spots at universities for members of historically disadvantaged castes. It’s not a love blanket for the globe but progress is being made.
  
• It won’t affect the vast majority of schools that accept all applicants who meet their requirements. The elite schools, however, will likely lose some of their diversity. Time will tell how this affects kids of a variety of backgrounds. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life.” This leaves the option open for schools to find their own methods of evening the playing field—some universities have already announced they will revive or reweight personal essays in their admissions processes. But perhaps the best final words on the subject came from NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who said, “The worst thing about affirmative action is that it created a Clarence Thomas who benefited from the program, and now is in a position where he’s going to deny many young African-American talented individuals an opportunity.”
  

It’s no longer about racist barriers preventing young people from achieving their goals, it’s general adversity, y’all. Can’t wait until the court gets to student-loan debt.

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

On the most recent episode of Work Appropriate, host Anne Helen Petersen is joined by Alisa Chang, one of the hosts of NPR's All Things Considered. Together, they delve into Alisa' story of being a successful lawyer into her early 30s but realizing she was totally miserable. The two answered listener submitted questions about escaping a post-college career without direction, explaining career pivots in job interviews, monetizing hobbies, and the essence of a career itself.

Under The Radar

A Russian general suspected of aiding the Wagner mercenary revolt is missing. Or isn’t missing at all, depending whom you ask. You can’t ask the general because he has not been seen or heard from publicly since the mutiny began. Gen. Sergei Surovikin—who is also known as General Armageddon, was reportedly arrested on Sunday and was being held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison. According to one Russian news outlet Baza, Surovikin was released from custody. But still, no one has heard from him. Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, wrote on Telegram that Surovikin has not been in contact with his family for three days and that his guards are not responsive. Although one member of the family disagrees. His daughter Veronika Surovikina maintained that “Nothing happened to him, no one arrested him, and he’s in his office.” Although the recording that quote was pulled from has not been verified.
The Kremlin (always trustworthy) also says he’s fine. The idea that Surovikin was working with Prigozhin was not a big leap as he has reportedly been an honorary member of the Wagner group since 2017 when he worked closely with Prigozhin in Syria, where he earned his other nickname as “the butcher of Syria.” But apparently, there may have been more than one cog in the wheel, as Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top general, is also missing. It’s been speculated that Putin may have allowed the mutiny to begin, using it as an excuse to purge the ranks in military leadership. Big "I meant to do that" energy.

What Else?

The Supreme Court also ruled in favor of a Christian postal worker who refuses to work on Sundays as it is a day of worship. But what about all of those poor priests that still have to go work?
Three were arrested for insider trading related to a planned merger between Digital World Acquisition Corp. and Trump-owned Truth Social. Trump has not yet been implicated but fingers crossed.
Yankees Pitcher Domingo Germán threw Major League Baseball’s first perfect game since 2012 on Wednesday. If you don’t know, a “perfect” game is when none of the other team's batters get on base. And we wonder why no one watches baseball anymore.
Protests have broken out in Paris, after police murdered a teen driver on Tuesday, with 40,000 officers deployed to further terrorize the public. Hundred have been arrested and the police officer who pulled the trigger will face charges.
The Koch Network is wading into its first Republican primary and has raised 70 million dollars with only one goal in mind—to defeat Trump. It was assumed that would mean backing Ron DeSantis but his early stumbles have fanned consideration of who will ultimately give them the best hope of denying Trump the nomination.
Speaking of stumbles, presidential woeful Ron DeSantis steered $92 million last year in leftover federal coronavirus stimulus money to a controversial highway interchange project that directly benefits a top political donor. Swampy, but hey it's Florida.
Presumed human remains were found in the recovered wreckage of the Titan submersible.
Two Florida parents who are both high-ranking police officers are under investigation after admitting to putting their three-year-old in jail because he was struggling with potty training. The child was brought to the jail on back-to-back days and handcuffed the second time.
Bill Cosby is being sued by nine more women for sexual assault. This only covers assaults that occurred in Nevada and it brings his total number of accusers to over 60 women.
Overstock.com is changing its name to Bed Bath and Beyond after buying the company’s name, domain, and loyalty program assets for $21 million.
That Chinese spy balloon used American-made parts, and did not transmit data. Cool freakout, though...
Texas's abortion ban resulted in an additional 9,800 live births between September, when the ban went into effect, and December of last year.

Be Smarter

The news just keeps getting worse for Donald Trump. His precious Diet Cokes might just be on the wrong side of history. Aspartame, one of the world's most common artificial sweeteners, is likely to be declared a possible carcinogen next month by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organization. The study doesn’t take into account how much of the product could be safely consumed. And you’re probably fine unless you are consuming Trump levels of Diet Coke. But it’s not just sodas, Aspartame is sold as Nutrasweet and Equal and can be found in reduced sugar gums, jams, syrups, and drink mixes. Studies have shown increased cases of cancer in those who consume aspartame but it hasn’t been enough to find a conclusive connection.
But Americans are way more lax with what we put in our bodies than other countries so the threat that it will be pulled in this country remains low. The list of American products banned in other countries over safety concerns is long. Gatorade and Skittles are widely banned globally due to the use of artificial dyes. Wheat Thins and Frosted Flakes are banned in Europe and Japan due to the inclusion of BHT, which some consider a carcinogen as well. Previous decisions from the IARC have sparked ire, particularly resulting from their classification of processed meats as carcinogenic and even listing “working overnight” as a possible carcinogen.

What A Sponsor

Whether you’re searching for a buzzy new memoir, riveting true crime, or a fantasy novel that sweeps you away, Bookshop.org has just the book you’re looking for. Their online bookstore is stocked with a range of titles that will keep you entertained for hours. From Deepti Kapoor’s “Age of Vice" to "I’m Glad My Mom Died" by Jennette McCurdy, there's something for everyone. Book recommendations on Bookshop.org also come from real people who love books, not algorithms.
And the best part? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you’re supporting over 1,800 local, independent bookstores across the country.
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Light At The End Of The Email

“Recovering Bigot” attends a pride parade to tell the LGBTQ community how sorry he is for his former views.
Portugal generated enough renewable energy to power the whole country in March. Water and wind are the main sources of energy.
Transgender youth care bans blocked by Courts in Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
Einstein might have actually been a pretty smart guy as part of his theory of relativity has been confirmed. Violent events that happened over the course of the past 13 billion-plus years, like supermassive black holes for instance, regularly ripple the fabric of space and time.

Enjoy

Matt Goldich on Twitter: "About 40 years late on this but just realized "Chips Ahoy" is a pun"

from https://www.angelfire.com/stars3/aaliyah14/
bio:
Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born January 16,1979 in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York to Michael and Diane Haughton.
Everyone knew she was special straight out of the womb. Her grandmother, Mintis L. Hicks Hankerson, would tell her cousins stories of how she had a full-set of hair at birth and all the other stories grandmothers would tell their grandchildren about their cousins they've never met.
At the age of five, she, her older brother Rashad, and parents moved to Detroit to be closer to family. Diane gave up school teaching to raise Rashad and Aaliyah full-time. Aaliyah's mother would always play Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and other legends while she would clean around the house. Aaliyah soon learned all the words to all her parents records and started to sing along with her mother.
Aaliyah's mother realized Aaliyah could carry a tune at the tender age of 6. Aaliyah was soon enrolled to a private Catholic school, Gesu Elementary, and participated in all the school's musical productions. She had one little speaking part as an orphan in her first grade production of Annie that convinced her she wanted to be an entertainer.
At the tender ages of only 8 and 9, Aaliyah would belt-out the very tunes that she would listen to at home in weddings around Michigan.
At 11 years old, she landed a spot on the nationally syndicated talent show, Star Search. She sang My Funny Valentine, lost, and was ripped up like any other child would have been; but her mother's encouraging words propped her up to get back to doing what she loved.
At that time Aaliyah's uncle, Barry Hankerson, was married to Soul Legend Gladys Knight when he took his then 11-year-old niece to perform with her for five nights at Bally's Las Vegas Casino. The two would duet on Believe In Yourself and Aaliyah would belt out solo Home. Being that Aaliyah was nervous and didn't move much the first night, Knight taught Aaliyah how to work a crowd and loosen them up.
A couple of years later, Barry Hankerson had R. Kelly, whom he was managing at the time, flew up to Detroit to hear Aaliyah sing. Kelly was impressed with what he heard so Barry signed her, at only 13-years-old, to his label, Blackground Enterprises. R. Kelly ended up writing and producing all the tracks on Aaliyah's first album, Age Ain't Nothing But A Number. Hip-Hop historians and critics accredit Aaliyah's debut album, Age Ain't Nothing But A Number, for paving the way for Brandy, Monica, and the plethora of other teen stars who go by one name. Aaliyah acquired the world's attention at the young age of 15 when her first single Back and Forth landed #1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart; dethroning her then Svengali, R. Kelly and his track Your Body's Callin. Shortly afterwards, her album was released under Jive records in 1994 and another top five gold single was spawned. Not only was this single a remake of an Isley Brothers classic, but it also flexed Aaliyah's octave range and vocal versatility. Her rendition of At Your Best (You Are Love) ripped the airwaves and its listeners with its tumultuous and sensuous harmonies. A few other hit singles followed including the light hip-pop jam Down With The Clique and the adulterated title track. The album went sell onto platinum+ status but slowed down due to vicious rumors arising. The provocative nature of the album's title and lyrics, as well as the mystery of her true age sparked a media frenzy about an alleged marriage between Aaliyah and her then mentor. This frenzy blossomed into a barrage of media rumors threatening to thwart a prosperous career. Till this day no one is certain if there was ever a union between the two parties, but those two parties involved. However, Aaliyah denies ever being married to R. Kelly and R. Kelly refuses to comment. In addition, Aaliyah states that the reason she kept her age on the low was because she wanted the world to accept her for her music and not based solely on her age. Despite the rumors, critics gushed and Entertainment Weekly had this to say (6/17/94) ...Imagine En Vogue packed into one teenage body and backed by hip-hop Svengali R. Kelly, and you have Aaliyah... a promising start...
After the storm had settled, Aaliyah went back into the studio to knock out a second record. She left behind R. Kelly to show her growth as an artist and to prove that she can make it without him. The setting was 1996 and Aaliyah was gearing up for the release of her sophomore album appropriately titled, One In A Million. She made a sonic breakthrough with One In A Million which proved that Aaliyah would forever make her mark on the ever-changing music industry by emphasizing the strength and maturity in her voice. Along with this maturity, Aaliyah carried the once underground producers Missy and Timbaland to new heights. The music they created on One In A Million took the music industry by storm, having every artist and producer try to imitate their unique sound. Hit after heart-pounding hit would follow, ultimately making her 1st sophomore single, the sexy, seductive, and taunt, If Your Girl Only Knew the #1 spot on the R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart and the other singles radio heavy as well. Before the close of '97, One In A Million (a #1 radio play single also) would rake up numerous nominations from various award shows, and hit double platinum+ status with the success of 4 Page Letter, Hot Like Fire, and "The One I Gave My Heart To (a top 10 hit on the Hot 100 singles chart); shaking away any worries of a sophomore slump.
In early 1998, Aaliyah made her first major impression on America during the Academy Awards when she performed the Best Song nominee, Journey to the Past, from the Anastasia soundtrack.
In the summer of that year, she had continued to make a mark on the entertainment industry with the infectious, Grammy nominated, #1 hit song, Are You That Somebody, from the Dr. Dolittle soundtrack. With that track, she really got a taste of the mainstream.
Aaliyah soon took a hiatus from the music world and hooked-up with acting coach, Joanne Baron. Baron had worked with the likes of Tom Cruise and Matt Damon, with his lessons being very intricate and demanding in the scripts he chose. Baron recalls this memory of Aaliyah, "...before Queen of the Damned was shot, Aaliyah was going through an audition process. She came to the house, and she immediately blew my mind, because she had prepared a piece that Michael Rymer had asked her to do from a play called Salome'. She came in on her knees like a cat, growling, 'I'm the woman that you left.' And she did this with such physicality and vocality... We worked rigorously to get her this part. She put her heart, her time, her love, and her life into it. She just ripped it out."
In the summer of 1999, Aaliyah flew to Vancouver, Canada for 4 months to shoot Romeo Must Die, her debut starring role in a film. She co-starred alongside Jet-Li in this adrenalin-stoked/hip-hop action flick, in which she was executive producer of the film's soundtrack. She had the pleasure of releasing the first single, Try Again, from the movie's soundtrack; which went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and wa the first single ever to reach #1 on airplay alone. The movie was released on March 24, 2000 and debuted at #1 on the box office. The film grossed over 58 million dollars and the soundtrack sold over a million copies. Aaliyah garnered rave reviews for her acting skills and was soon sought through-out Hollywood. Movie producer Joel Silver was so impressed with her performance in Romeo Must Die, he decided to signed her up for the Matrix II and III. She soon signed a deal to remake Whitney Houston's production of Sparkle, film an Anne Rice novel-based movie Queen of the Damned, and star in a tv/movie, Some Kind of Blue.
Later in 2000, Aaliyah won two MTV Movie awards and a Grammy nomination for Try Again, and went to start filming Queen of the Damned deep in Melbourne, Australia. The film was Aaliyah's second starring role in only her second motion picture, showing that she was more than a cross-over singeactress. She simultaneously filmed the movie and recorded her highly anticipated 3rd album, AALIYAH, doubling her workload. After she filmed the movie, she took a small break to, as she would say, "rejuvenate and get my creative juices flowing." Five years had passed since she released One In A Million so she was aware of her presence, or lack there-of, in the music world. She released the dark, sassy, first single, We Need A Resolution, which had a luke-warm response from music-goers. A couple of months later on July 17, she finally released the eagerly anticipated, AALIYAH. The album debuted at #2 on the charts and sold over 200,000 copies it's first week. Rock the Boat and More Than A Woman were getting heavy rotational airplay, so Blackground planned to release them as back-to-back singles. Aaliyah took time out of her promotional tour to film a funky, club-like, dance video for More Than A Woman, and Rock the Boat a couple of weeks later. Little did anyone know, Rock the Boat would be her very last video shoot.
It was August 25, the set was laid-back, and everyone was laughing and having a care free time. Aaliyah had just completed filming her video for the island themed "Rock The Boat", directed by Hype Williams, and felt it was time to go home a day early to be with her boyfriend, Rock-A-Fella CEO owner Damon Dash, and her family before heading back to promoting the album. The entourage of 8 boarded the small Cessna 402 which was departing from the Marsh Harbor airport bound for Opa-locka, Florida, when it crashed shortly after takeoff at approximately 6:50pm, police say. The plane is said to have crashed approximately 200 feet from the end of the runway killing six people instantly. Three others died later due to their injuries. The people who were killed along with Aaliyah were: Gina Smith, 29, of New Jersey, Aaliyah's product manager at Blackground Records; Blackground Records own Keith Wallace, 49, of Los Angeles; Douglas Kratz, 28, Virgin Records' director of video production; her bodyguard Scott Gallin, 41; Aaliyah's personal hair stylist Eric Forman, 29, of Los Angeles; hair stylist Anthony Dodd, 34, of Los Angeles; and makeup artist Christopher Maldonado, 32, of New York; as well as the plane's pilot, identified only as L. Maradel.
Her funeral and a public memorial service was held in honor of Aaliyah on Friday, August 31st, 2001 in New York City. A continuous loop of Aaliyah's videos, performances and music ran throughout the day. Fans were encouraged and invited to attend, pay tribute to Aaliyah's life and career and mourn this great loss. Her white casket was transported from Campbell Funeral Home to St. Ignatius Church - where her funeral was held - in a white carriage pulled by two white horses. Dozens of white and pink roses lay on the top of the carriage. Her boyfriend, Damon Dash, and one of her "Romeo Must Die" co-stars, Delroy Lindo, were among the loved ones who walked the streets behind the carriage en route to the private service. Aaliyah's mom released 22 white doves in the air, each symbolizing a year in Aaliyah's great-lived life. Fans converged at the funeral home as early as 6:30 a.m. to pay their respects to this remarkable human being. They wrote messages in the home's condolence books and followed the procession. Police estimated 1,000 fans were there.
Six months later, Queen of the Damned hit movie stands on February 22, 2002, debuting at #1 in the box office; it racked in over $14 million it's opening weekend.
With the 2 films and timeless music, she left her legacy for us to still enjoy. She's "The Highest, Most Exalted One;" THE BEST.

• Aaliyah Online

Timeline
1979

• January 16, 1979- Aaliyah was born in Brooklyn, NY.

1990

• At age 11 when she sang on-stage with Gladys Knight's troupe in Las Vegas.
• Was on Star Search

1994

• Aaliyah's uncle, Barry Hankerson (Gladys Knight's ex-husband) introduced Aaliyah to a performer he was managing, R. Kelly. The meeting resulted in Kelly producing (and writing most songs on) Aaliyah's debut LP, Age Ain't Nothing But A Number.
• June
• Age Ain't Nothing But A Number was released and gave Aaliyah 2 Top 5 pop hits: "Back And Forth" and "At Your Best (You Are Love)." R. Kelly wrote all the songs on the LP (except "At Your Best (You Are Love)).
• Entertainment Weekly said of Aaliyah: "...imagine En Vogue packed into one teenage body and backed by hip-hop svengali R. Kelly and you have Aaliyah..."
• As Aaliyah's star began to rise, rumors surfaced about a possible marriage between 15 year-old Aaliyah and 25+ Kelly. The rumor was never confirmed or denied.
• The single "Back & Forth" was certified gold.
• July
• Age Ain't Nothing But A Number was certified gold.
• September
• Age Ain't Nothing But A Number was certified platinum.
• October
• The single "At Your Best" was certified gold.

1995

• Aaliyah appeared on the soundtrack for Low Down Dirty Shame with "The Thing I Like."

1996

• # 86 Singles Artist of the Year
• April
• Aaliyah can be heard on the soundtrack for Sunset Park with "Are You Ready."
• August
• Aaliyah's alliance with Kelly was not present on her 2nd LP released - One In A Million. The LP gave Aaliyah another Top 10 pop hit with "If Your Girl Only Knew" as well as the hits "One In A Million" and "4 Page Letter." Another track on the LP was a remake of Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up." Aaliyah extended her reputation for sultry, street-wise sounds and videos. The Source proclaimed: "...Aaliyah is ready to showcase her mature side..."
• September
• Aaliyah hit the Top 40 with "If Your Girl Only Knew."
• October
• One In A Million was certified gold.
• Aaliyah hit the Top 10 with "If Your Girl Only Knew."

1997

• # 20 Singles Artist of the Year
• January * Aaliyah hit the Top 40 with "One In A Million."
• "One In A Million" topped the Billboard R&B Singles Airplay chart for 6 weeks.
• February
• One In A Million was certified platinum.
• June * One In A Million was certified 2x platinum.
• Graduated from Detroit High School for the Fine and performing Arts with a 4.0 at age 18.
• July * Aaliyah hit the Top 40 with "4 Page Letter."
• October
• A good start with getting into movies came with Aaliyah's contribution to the Anastasia soundtrack with the track "Journey To The Past."
• Aaliyah hit the Top 40 with "The One I Gave My Heart To."
• The single "The One I Gave My Heart To" was certified gold.
• Aaliyah hit the Top 10 with "The One I Gave My Heart To."

1998

• # 36 Singles Artist of the Year
• June
• Aaliyah could be heard on the Dr. Doolittle soundtrack with the Top 5 hit "Are You That Somebody?" (and seen in the film with a cameo appearance).
• As for her next LP, Aaliyah told MTV: "I haven't really started anything just yet... I do have some ideas... I'm gonna keep them a secret... but definitely I will be working with my family (including Missy Elliott and Ginuwine)... but as far as other ideas, I haven't really decided a lot of things just yet."
• Aaliyah was nominated for a Soul Train Award for Best R&B/Soul Single, Female ("One On A Million").
• August
• Aaliyah hit the Top 40 with "Are You That Somebody?" * Aaliyah topped the Billboard R&B Singles Airplay chart with "Are You That Somebody?" for 8 weeks.
• Septmeber
• Aaliyah hit the Top 10 with "Are You That Somebody?"

1999

• January
• Aaliyah was nominated for an American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist.
• February
• Aaliyah was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance ("Are You That Somebody?").
• Aaliyah was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Music Video (all for "Are You That Somebody?").
• August
• Aaliyah was nominated for 2 Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Song and Best R&B/Soul or Rap Music Video ("Are You That Somebody?").
• September
• Aaliyah was nominated for 2 MTV Video Music Awards for Best R&B Video and Best Video from a Film ("Are You That Somebody?").
• Aaliyah could be found on the soundtrack for Music Of The Heart with "Turn The Page."
• December
• Aaliyah showed up on the soundtrack for Next Friday with "I Don't Wanna."

2000

• # 34 Singles Artist of the Year
• March
• New material by Aaliyah could be found on the soundtrack for Romeo Must Die including a track with DMX, "Come Back In One Piece" and the tracks "Try Again" and "Are You Feelin' Me?" Aaliyah also starred in the film. She also talked with MTV about the movie and her next LP: "I had to stop the album to do the movie and then stop it again to do the soundtrack."
• April
• Aaliyah hit the Top 40 with "Try Again."
• May
• The Romeo Must Die soundtrack was certified platinum.
• June
• Aaliyah hit the Top 10 with "Try Again" which also hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week (the first song without a commercial single release to ever do so).
• August
• Aaliyah was nominated for 2 Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Single - Solo and Best R&B/Soul or Rap Music Video ("Try Again").
• September
• Aaliyah took home 2 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Female Video and Best Video from a Film ("Try Again") and the video was also nominated for Best Choreography (Fatima Robinson). The video was also nominated for 2 Billboard Music Video Awards for Maximum Vision Video and Best R&B Clip of the Year.

2001

• # 110 Singles Artist of the Year
• February
• Aaliyah was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance ("Try Again").
• July
• Aaliyah released Aaliyah. Aaliyah said of her new LP to Billboard: "There is always a bit of pressure to do a good album... to do good work, period. I really put a lot of pressure on myself, more so than other people. But I try not to let that overwhelm me to the point where I can't even do good work. I just put it aside and do the best that I know I can."
• Aaliyah hit the Top 40 with "We Need A Resolution."
• August
• Tragedy struck on August 25th, when Aaliyah and 8 others were killed when their plane crashed in the Bahamas shortly after take off on route toward Miami. Aaliyah had just finished shooting a new music video for the single "Rock The Boat" and was returning to Florida. Reports about the plane crash cause vary from engine failure to the plane being overloaded with baggage. Aaliyah had been set to start filming her role in the sequel to The Matrix. Aaliyah did finish her work with the film Queen Of The Damned which was released in 2002. Aaliyah had also planned to work on a remake of the film Sparkle which was to be produced by Whitney Houston.
• Aaliyah was certified platinum.
• Aaliyah was nominated for a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award for Best R&B/Soul or Rap Song of the Year ("Try Again").
• Remembrances: Gladys Knight: "...Her star had just begun to shine so brightly. Though she was ours for only a short time, what a time it was. I love Aaliyah, and I will miss her for the rest of my life." "Quincy Jones: "She was like one of my daughters, she was one of the sweetest girls in the world." Timbaland: "She was like blood, and I lost blood." DMX: "(she was a)... down-to-earth sister with enough energy to put anyone on a cloud." Puff Daddy: "She was one of those individuals that would light up a room. She always greeted you with a smile."
• September
• Aaliyah, topped the Billboard 200 Albums chart for a week - selling over 300,000 copies in the US during the week after her death.
• "Rock The Boat" hit the Top 40.
• October
• Aaliyah was certified 2x platinum.
• December
• Aaliyah's brother, Rashad, helped with the finished product of Aaliyah's film Queen Of The Damned by adding dialogue touch-ups.

2002

• January
• Aaliyah was awarded 2 American Music Awards for Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Album.
• Aaliyah topped the UK Singles chart with "More Than A Woman."
• February
• Aaliyah was nominated for 2 Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance ("Rock The Boat") and Best R&B Album (Aaliyah).
• Aaliyah's film Queen Of The Damned was released and was the #1 movie in its opening week.
• March * Aaliyah hit the Top 40 with "More Than A Woman."
• Aaliyah won a Soul Train Award for Female R&B/Soul Single ("Rock The Boat").
• May
• Aaliyah's parents filed a lawsuit against Virgin Records and Blackhawk International Airways accusing them of negligence and contributing to the death of their daughter.
• Aaliyah's video for "Rock The Boat" was nominated for a MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video.

Quotes
"I met Robert before he came out with Born in the 90's [his first album]. He came to my house and I sang for him, and from there we went into the studio and started working together."
"People are gonna look up to me because I'm young, black, and female."
"That's why I work every day. Ev-er-y day. "I want to knock people out."
-- VIBE Magazine, 1995
"I'm a survivor, and I can handle anything. I'm very confident about that. I come from a very strong family, and they are always there to protect me. If I need any help, I'll just call on my mummy or my daddy or my brother, to whom I'm very close."
"Everyone who was involved thought that some space was needed after all the negative things that were said. R. Kelly is a wonderful producer and a wonderful artist. He's all good, but that time was very tense, so it's not really appropriate for us to see each other."
"When you get into this business you have to grow up quickly. But I wouldn't say I've lost any of my childhood, I've always been a mature child. My Mom says I've been like that since I was little kid. I make time for my friends, and I make time for things that other kids do. This is a business and I knew what I was getting into. I make time for being a kid, but I also know when to put on my business hat and go for the business."
"Of course, the advantage is that, being in this business, you get to learn a lot, experience a lot of new things, and you can become real successful. The disadvantage is, of course the negative media. People may try to manipulate you and control you, and those are the things you have to avoid. But if you maintain strong family values and you believe in God, you can be successful. So, it's been tough, but I've gotten through it because I stuck with my family and my deep belief in God."
"I go through the same problems all young people go through. Being in this business, I accept that there are positives and negatives but having a strong family base and a belief in God enables me to weather the storms."
-- MusicGala.com, 1995
"I think sometimes people negate the fact that training is important. I mean, I feel blessed to have that theory. I still take vocal lessons. I take dance...I take acting classes. And all that helps in the long run."
"You know we're in a business where things are just unpredictable. You don't know what's going to happen...we were lucky Blessed, I think is a better way to put it."
"I don't know what's going to happen in the next five or 10 years. At some point I wanted to have a family and settle down, but I don't see that happening for a very long time because I really love this. This is my life, my world."
-- Honey Magazine, April 2000
"I think rumors are hilarious. I don't pay attention. It goes in one ear and out the other. When you're in this business, you hang out with people, and people are like, 'I wonder, are they seeing each other?' I never dated Jay-Z. I never dated Ginuwine. Damon and I are very good friends. I'll keep it at that right now."
--VIBE Magazine, August 2001
"These days, hip hop, R&B - it's just basically the beats and sometimes tracks can get a little bit monotone. I asked the kids I worked with to challenge themselves, to give me tracks that were melodic, where there are changes and different instrumentation and the song actually goes somewhere.
It's fun to be creative and innovative and come up with something crazy. So I need people to work with who are not going to be afraid to take it to the left a bit."
I wanna be the best at what I do. I wanna sing, I wanna dance, I wanna act. That's about it."
-- The Daily Telegraph in London (July 19, 2001)
"I wanted to be different and original but still have it be something my fans could get into. There also are some big, beautiful ballads. I told my producers that I wanted tracks that are going to blow up in the clubs, but I also wanted songs that were very melodic and with a lot of instrumentation."
"I want to do it all. I've always been athletic. I love sports, and I used to be a swimmer, and I've been a dancer all my life."
USA Today (July 17, 2001)
"There is always a bit of pressure to do a good album -- to do good work, period. I really put a lot of pressure on myself, more so than other people. But I try not to let that overwhelm me to the point where I can't even do good work. I just put it aside and do the best that I know that I can."
-- Dallas Morning News (July 22, 2001)
"It's in how you carry yourself. I've always been a very mature person, and I've always known what I wanted. And I go after it no matter what."
--The Fader, Summer 2001
"It's hard for me to say what I want my legacy... what I want people to say when I'm... long gone. I want people to remember me as a full on entertainer... and a good person."
MTV News 2001 - The Last Interview
Crash
One of the most tragic days in R&B history was Saturday, August 25, 2001, when singeactress Aaliyah Dana Haughton was killed in a plane crash. There is still some debate on what had happened on that day.
She was one of nine people aboard a twin-engine plane that crashed seconds after taking off from Marsh Harbour International Airport on Abaco Island in the Bahamas, according to Grand Bahama police superintendent Basil Rahming. All nine died.
She died instantly when the plane, a Cessna 402B, exploded on impact just 200 feet beyond the end of a runway at Marsh Harbour International Airport on Abaco Island at 6:45 p.m. The craft, which was bound for Opa-Locka Airport, just northwest of Miami, apparently suffered engine failure upon liftoff. Others killed in the accident included Aaliyah makeup artist Eric Foreman, 29, and Virgin Records representative Douglas Kratz, 28. Two other women and three other men, including the pilot, died in the crash; another male passenger died early Sunday morning in Nassau, where he was awaiting airlift to a Miami hospital. They were in the Bahmas shooting the video Rock The Boat.
Investigators have moved the wreckage of the Cessna 402B to a hangar at Mount Harbour International Airport on Abaco Island. the investigation - a joint effort between the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the islands' Civil Aviation Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Morales, 30, was pulled over on August 7 when he drove his car through a stop sign in Pompano Beach, Florida, according to the Broward County Sheriff's records. The police officer searched the car, found pieces of crack cocaine and booked Morales on a felony cocaine-possession charge, as well as charges of driving with a suspended license and running a stop sign, records show. Morales told the arresting officer he was in the area to purchase powder cocaine for a friend, according to the arrest report. On August 13, Morales entered a no-contest plea to the possession charge, as well as to a November charge of possessing stolen property, records show. He was given three years' probation, and the judge did not enter a decision on the condition that Morales successfully complete the probation, which included mandatory drug tests, according to the Broward County clerk of courts. Morales' no-contest plea meant that his pilot's license should have been revoked under Federal Aviation Administration rules. While Morales' license hadn't been revoked yet, he was not authorized to fly the plane, which was operated by Blackhawk International Airways even though Morales had a clean flying record with no enforcement actions against him.
Blackhawk is cleared to fly charter planes under a "single pilot certificate," meaning that only one pilot was authorized to fly the plane that crashed. Such certificates are common for small air taxi services like Blackhawk, which only has two planes. The pilot's name was not released, but it was not Morales. Morales' license qualified him to fly Cessna 402B planes, but he was not on Blackhawk's certificate. It was not be appropriate for the FAA to release the name of the authorized pilot. While Blackhawk International is on record as the plane's operator, a company named Skystream is listed as the plane's owner. Both companies list the same Pembroke Pines, Florida, address as their headquarters. Calls to Blackhawk were not returned, and no phone number was available for Skystream.
Blackhawk International Airways, the plane's operator, was cited by the FAA four times between 1997 and 2000 for a total of nine violations that included failure to follow drug-testing rules and failure to perform proper maintenance, according to FAA documents. Three of the citations resulted in "letters of correction" from the agency, while one - a 1998 citation for failing to comply with a foreign country's regulations while flying in that country - drew a $1,500 fine, according to documents. Though the FBI declined to comment, as is their policy with all pending investigations, a 26-page affidavit filed in support of a search warrant charges that Gilbert Chacon, owner of Blackhawk Aviation, has been withholding airport and engine logs and records for the Cessna twin-engine plane involved in the accident. Chacon is also suspected of lying to federal investigators, concealing information, falsifying documents and obstructing and impeding due process.
Up to this point, Chacon had provided some information to investigators via his attorney, Michael Moulis, but had not produced the aircraft and engine logbooks as well as many requested documents, saying that they were not in his possession because he had leased the Cessna to Morales, which absolved him of responsibility for the aircraft.
Investigators now believe Chacon lied about the lease, the transfer of records and logs to Morales prior to the crash, and efforts to locate those records after the crash.
Morales' father, according to the affidavit, insists that the plane was never leased to his son and that Chacon has never inquired about any documents.
The pilot's belongings were searched during the process of retrieving his personal effects, and no aircraft logs were recovered. Morales' father also claims that his son had no means to lease a $250,000 aircraft and that he was paid cash on a per flight basis. The pilot in the plane crash that killed Aaliyah in August had traces of cocaine and alcohol in his body, the Bahamas Department of Civil Aviation announced Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
An autopsy of Luis Morales III, who died in the accident with the singer and seven members of her entourage showed cocaine in his urine and alcohol in his stomach. The department is still investigating how the substances might have affected the 30-year-old pilot.
U.S. agents seized Chacon's business records from his Fort Lauderdale, Florida-area residence on Monday, but mostly found training forms and bank statements, according to news reports from Miami television station WSVN. The affidavit contends that Chacon is concealing his responsibility for the plane, since Blackhawk Aviation did not have permission from the Bahamas to conduct commercial flights there, according to the Civil Aviation Department of the Bahamas. To fly without permission would be in violation of FAA policy.
Since the crash, Chacon - who in 1993 pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud involving another charter service, Caribbean Express - has given up his operating certificate.
Chacon has claimed in the past that he was not responsible for the employ of his pilot, since he had been fooled by Morales about the extent of his experience, which Chacon characterized as inflated.
Moulis even filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration in a letter filed September 10 that accused the late pilot of falsely logging hours: "It is alleged that Mr. Morales inappropriately logged hundreds of hours as pilot in command when it is questionable whether he was even a pilot of the flight," the letter read.
In the report released recently, aviation officials also noted the Cessna 402B aircraft Morales was flying may not have undergone fuel-pump wiring modifications required three years prior to the accident. Particles and corrosion in the fuel filters also suggested routine maintenance had not been performed.
The department is still working to track down the owner of the plane and inspect the aircraft log, which should provide maintenance records.
Although the exact cause of the crash is still uncertain, The report does rule out a few possibilities. The authorities said the plane's engine, airframe, propeller and fuel tank showed no malfunction.
The tiny Cessna aircraft was overloaded, a report from investigators in the Bahamas shows. In a statement issued, it was said the Cessna 402B was loaded with fuel and cargo to a weight of 5,495 pounds. Since the craft's maximum authorized takeoff weight is 6,300 pounds, that left only 805 pounds available for the passengers and pilot - just under 90 pounds per person. Overloading alone may not be enough to cause a crash, witnesses said it veered sharply to the left soon after takeoff - suggests the load was not balanced evenly, which would have made the craft more difficult to handle. The report said the location of the bags on the aircraft before the crash has not been determined. The report also said the plane's center of gravity was too far toward the tail and "significantly outside the flight envelope."
The report also said both of the plane's engines were in good working order and that the craft showed no evidence of "pre-crash damage." the information on the plane's maintenance records and pilot is still being gathered and that the craft's propellers were to be examined in the U.S.
In May, Aaliyah's parents filed a lawsuit against the owners of plane, Virgin Records and several other companies, alleging negligence and recklessness caused the crash.
A continuous loop of Aaliyah's videos were played during a public memorial service for the singer on Friday on August 31, 2001 in New York.
The service ran from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Cipriani's 42nd Street, located at 110 E. 42nd St. Fans were invited to come and pay tribute to the singer. Separate funeral service arrangements were being kept private at the request of the family.
At her family's request, the Aaliyah Memorial Fund has been established, with donations going to breast cancer research and patient support. Half of the funds will benefit the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program, a Virgin Records spokesperson said. The other half will go to the beneficiaries of the October 27 Breathe concert, which will raise money to help underprivileged women suffering from breast cancer. Aaliyah was scheduled to perform at the all-star event
Video director Hype Williams said the time he spent working with Aaliyah during her last days was among the most memorable of his life, and he wants the world to see the footage they shot for "Rock the Boat."
"Those four days were very beautiful for everyone. We all worked together as a family," Williams said Monday, adding that the camaraderie on the set was a refreshing change from the usual shoot. "The last day, Saturday, was one of the best I've had in this business. Everyone felt part of something special, part of her song." They began shooting the video Wednesday, flew down to the Bahamas Thursday and shot all day Thursday and Friday, he said. Williams wants people to see what they created.
"It's a very special project. Everyone put their heart and soul into the work, as we always do, with the intent that the world would enjoy it," he said, speaking slowly and softly. "I know there's a lot of pain involved, but that's all the more reason people would appreciate what we've done as a group."
The video was released Tuesday, October 9, 2001 on BET at 8pm ET.
Aaliyah shot another video, for "More Than a Woman," earlier in August in Los Angeles with director David Meyers. Later it was released.
This summer, Aaliyah will continue to live on through her music with a still-untitled album, according to her label, Blackground. A spokesperson for the project says no exact date has been set and that it was too early to tell what material it would include.
For complete coverage of the Aaliyah tragedy, check out "The Aaliyah Reports."
Aaliyah was one of the first of young teens to get into the music business before Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and others. She was a sweet warm person with a good heart. She even has a signature sound, so original that just by the beat, you know it's her. She was an Angel on Earth and truly One In A Million.

"Turns out the group behind the claim made it up. We have no clue why anyone would do such a thing." - Laura Ingraham deflecting the fact that Fox News aired the hell out of a fake story in which undocumented immigrants were “displacing homeless people in hotels.”

Ceiling Out Of Whack

[Sweating] At what point is it appropriate for us to start panicking about the debt limit?

• President Biden will meet today with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy—the king of making us say “Is this guy fucking serious?”— as misbegotten negotiations to stop Republicans from plunging the country into a recession remain at an impasse. With as few as 10(!) days left until the nation runs out of borrowing authority—the money it needs to honor its debts—McCarthy is running out the clock, prolonging his extortion scheme, which could send the United States into default for the first time in history. At the end of the Monday meeting, the two camps had still reported that no deal had been struck, but McCarthy and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) expressed positivity about the meeting, which we have to be honest, does not make us feel good about the trajectory of negotiations.
  
• McCarthy has repeatedly stated that default is not an option, but he always follows up that assertion with the word, “but…” The speaker and president spoke on Sunday while Biden was on Air Force One making his way back early from a trip to Asia that included a stop at the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. Biden reported that the phone call “went well,” and that the two men would speak again on Monday, but members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are skeptical that these discussions will go anywhere useful.
  
• This stalemate (driven by GOP avarice and the party’s ideological commitment to hurting the most vulnerable Americans as much and as often as possible) has already begun to harm financial markets and the economy. The Dow Jones fell by about 140 points by the end of trading on Monday. So yes, even if we don’t default, the mere threat of default could cost the economy wealth and jobs. Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service have already indicated that they could place the country’s credit under review if the GOP brings us too close to default, just as they did when Republicans held the economy hostage like this in 2011.
  

So the question remains: Is Kevin McCarthy going to cut the bullshit, or unleash a global economic collapse for no reason?

• The Treasury Department issued its latest warning Monday morning, employing its most urgent language yet, saying that the U.S. is “highly likely” to run out of money and other options in early June. It bears repeating that if the debt-limit crisis leads us to a first-ever default on our national debt and/or a recession, the effects would be felt the world over. According to chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi, “No corner of the global economy will be spared.” Now, I’m not much of a numbers guy, but that sounds bad!
  
• It also bears repeating that the GOP is holding the government hostage over spending cuts to certain government programs, namely the ones that help the most disadvantaged Americans. The $857 billion annual defense budget seems like it would be a reasonable place to look for fat to trim. A new 60 Minutes investigation reveals that defense contractors are overcharging the Pentagon for almost everything. But for congressional Republicans, defense cuts and tax increases (i.e. Things Republicans Don’t Like) are completely off the table. That’s how you know it’s extortion and not a legitimate negotiation.
  

Wow! Pretty infuriating stuff! We have to lay blame at the feet of Kevin McCarthy, and all of the bad actors in his orbit telling him that’s a good idea. (Hi, Donald Trump!) And Biden and congressional Democratic leaders should explain to their supporters why they didn’t eliminate the debt limit when they had the chance, and how they got hoodwinked into a negotiation they insisted they’d never tolerate again. But I propose we also take a moment of silence to be mad at the New York State Democratic Party, which fumbled the 2022 midterms so badly that even Rep. George Santos (R-NY)—who now stands indicted on 13 felony counts—managed to win, while the GOP flipped three other House seats in a state where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans two-to-one. Isn’t it nice that there’s enough blame to go around?

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Under The Radar

Remember Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old Air National Guardsman with a long history of racist behavior behind one of the biggest leaks of classified documents in modern history? Well, an early initiative by the Biden administration seeking to root out ideological extremism in the military was designed specifically to identify people like Teixeira, but the effort never got off the ground, because our institutions are addicted to cowering in fear of Republicans when they pretend to be mad about stuff. The kind of anti-government, White-supremacist views espoused by Teixeira would have put him squarely in the crosshairs of the Pentagon’s Countering Extremism Working Group, but senior officials folded under pressure from Republican members of Congress, who labeled the initiative “wokeism in the military.” Wokeism. In. The. Military. Do we live in the dumbest possible timeline? Perhaps.
The working group was initially headed by combat veteran Bishop Garrison, before he came under GOP fire for having criticized disgraced former president Donald Trump in a tweet before taking his role. The fact that Garrison is Black also made Republicans suspicious that he would be too mean to White supremacists. The idea that Garrison was too “biased” against MAGA chuds led to the erosion of his support within the Department of Defense. Adding to Garrison’s issues was the fact that the U.S. military is still in denial over the issue. For instance, in an April 2021 congressional hearing, two four-star military commanders testified that the military simply does not have an extremism problem. When conservative officials demonstrate that they’re too afraid of being accused of “wokeism” to root out actual White supremacists serving in the military, maybe we should stop listening to them on this matter!

What Else?

One of disgraced former president Donald Trump’s recently-departed lawyers, Timothy Parlatore, told CNN that he quit last week because another member of Trump’s gargantuan legal team, Boris Epshteyn, was blocking necessary access to Trump and his properties necessary for him to conduct a proper legal defense.
The federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into disgraced former president Trump stealing mishandling classified White House documents issued a subpoena for records of his foreign business dealings since he took office in 2017. Now we’re talkin’!
The NAACP issued a travel advisory for the state of Florida on Saturday, saying “Beware that your life is not valued,” citing the state’s legalized permitless concealed carry, and its Don’t Say Gay law, as well as “Desantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.”
A fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon in Washington, DC, caused a real-world dip in the stock market after it spread across social media, and it appears to have been created by artificial intelligence. Seems bad!
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) announced he will not seek reelection, opening up the seat in 2024.
Two of Marianne Williamson’s top 2024 advisors have quit her campaign. Recharge those crystals, Marianne!
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) officially announced his long-shot candidacy for president.

Be Smarter

Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, Europe’s lead privacy regulator, slapped Facebook parent company Meta with a record $1.3 billion fine over its handling of user information. The DPC has given the company a deadline of five months to stop transferring users’ data to the United States, after Meta continued to violate a 2020 E.U. court ruling. Meta’s Facebook data has been the subject of controversy and legal challenges for over a decade, and was a big part of the disclosures made by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. In a statement, Meta announced that it will appeal the ruling and the “unjustified and unnecessary fine,” which the company says “sets a dangerous precedent for countless other companies.” Meta will also seek a legal stay of the suspension orders. This is the latest development in a long legal battle to reconcile American consumer-data laws with more privacy-minded European laws.
According to Crooked Media political contributor, resident Big Tech expert, and author of The Chaos Machine, Max Fisher, in the past, these fines have rolled off Meta’s back because it could easily absorb the financial hit as a cost of doing business. But the tightening economy for big tech means that’s no longer true. Plummeting share price value, massive layoffs, and rising interest rates means investors are pushing Meta to deliver on every penny, and it’s unclear if they will be able to under these conditions. Couldn’t have happened to a more ethically dubious corporation!

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Light At The End Of The Email

New York columnist E. Jean Caroll is seeking additional damages from disgraced former president Donald Trump after he, once again, defamed her during his town hall after she won her initial $5 million defamation lawsuit against him.
States along the Colorado River have just reached an historic agreement with the White House to conserve an unprecedented amount of the water supply in exchange for $1.2 billion in federal funding.
A new voter focus group shows that people’s fears of disgraced former president Donald Trump eclipse discomfort about Biden’s re-election in swing states. Okay, we’ll take it!
Vermont lawmakers just approved a $125 million annual investment in the state’s underfunded child care system.

Enjoy

merrin on Twitter: "ohhhhh my god u journaled ur thoughts instead of tweeting them ? should we call the new yorker? should we tell joan didion?"

https://www.whitehouse.gov/environmentaljustice/justice40/
PEOPLE. POWER. PROSPERITY.
https://www.thejustice40.com/
There will be no prosperity they frame so much in a good light but many cannot see it.
https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/luskin-justice40-final-web-1.pdf
"Can we advance our socialized industry at an accelerated rate while we have such an agricultural basis as small-peasant economy, which is incapable of expanded reproduction, and which, in addition, is the predominant force in our national economy? No, we cannot. Can Soviet power and the work of socialist construction rest for any length of time on two different foundations: on the most large-scale and concentrated socialist industry, and the most disunited and backward, small-commodity peasant economy? No, they cannot. Sooner or later this would be bound to end in the complete collapse of the whole national economy. What, then, is the way out? The way out lies in making agriculture large-scale, in making it capable of accumulation, of expanded reproduction, and in thus transforming the agricultural basis of the national economy."
As we see with many movements in the schools, colleges, gov as nothing is equitable, they will use those that are easy to sway to destroy.
"has made it a goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. President Biden made this historic commitment when he signed Executive Order 14008 within days of taking office."
One "disadvantage" community destroyed themselves due to the destruction of family and the gov was ready to swoop in with money which further destroyed the family's. When one looks at the affects of single mothers and institutionalized generational welfare it creates perfect armies for the gov to control.
Read the mindset of those that hate relentlessly:
​
https://naacp.org/sites/default/files/documents/Abre%27%20Conner%20-%20HS%20Hearing%20Testimony%209.19.22.pdf
" Indeed, Black people have continued to persevere despite seemingly insurmountable barriers. "
There are no barriers at least at IBM/NetApp/Cisco etc, I'm Cherokee enough for a black manager to put down my skin color but not enough be allowed to file a complain for repeatedly doing so. We had a high turn over rate for TSE's at NetApp it due to the high stress. Watch two whites get fired for not being able to handle the job or perform. They hired a black man who lied on his resume for 3rd shift and put him at a TSE3. He slept at his job and did not perform, the unwritten rule is that you stay in TSE position for a year. Since he could not do the job they promoted to a manager position in under 4 months. It was the same at IBM, Cisco if you were "disadvantaged" you did not have to perform the same or take on the same amount of test loads that others did.
Hindsight into the doubleminded.
https://naacp.org/resources/naacp-reaffirms-its-call-genuine-immigration-reform-and-its-opposition-immigration-reform
" to be consistent with deeply held NAACP humanitarian and civil rights values and with the need to treat all individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender or religion with respect and dignity; and "

It may or may not be intentional but leftists are literally destroying civilization by attacking the very concept of things math as white supremacy. I shared a post earlier but it only showed the title so didn’t get much engagement. I hope to get more engagement with this title. Critical Race Theory is an assault on education:
https://www.reddit.com/libertarianunity/comments/qfngsd/there_is_no_such_thing_as_black_or_white_culture/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
In that post I mentioned Success Academy, African American students coming from the inner city are earning higher scores than white students from rich neighborhoods. Democrats don’t like the school and it is the most controversial charter school in the country. Why would this be? They are doing the opposite of what Democrats want, they are changing the culture because they encourage parents to get involved with the education. This is why Asian and Jewish kids do so well in schools, because the parents push them to do well. One would think Democrats would love this but they are vehemently against this school. It’s like everything leftists want is anti-civilization.
“A revealing look at America’s most controversial charter school system”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-revealing-look-at-americas-most-controversial-charter-school-system/2019/08/16/a3c09034-c02b-11e9-a5c6-1e74f7ec4a93_story.html
“The problem is not too much pressure on the network’s mostly disadvantaged kids. They blossom in a vigorous and unusually cohesive education culture. What will prevent anyone else from achieving Success Academy’s results is that few other schools — not even the other famous charters — would dare make such relentless demands on parents…
Families received “parent investment cards” grading them on compliance with school policies.”
“Despite the proven success of charter schools, both the NEA and NAACP want them stopped”
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/despite-the-proven-success-of-charter-schools-both-the-nea-and-naacp-want-them-stopped/
The “National Association for the Advancement of Colored People” wants to end charter schools even though African American students do better than at public schools. Do they actually want to hold black students back?
Democrats hate charter schools even though African American kids from poor backgrounds are competing with white kids from rich backgrounds!
“Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz is having a very good week”
https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2017/6/12/21099935/success-academy-ceo-eva-moskowitz-is-having-a-very-good-week
“In 2016, for example, all of Success Academy’s elementary and middle schools placed in the top 10 percent of schools in New York state for advanced academic performance in English, math, and science, according to a press release from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. The network’s black and Hispanic students performed better that year, on average, than white students across the entire state of New York. And its low-income students performed better, on average, than non-low-income students across the state in English, math, and science.”

Housekeeping:

• HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces publicly no matter what - paywalls suck.
  
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The narrative

Republicans made a spectacle of a judicial nominee hearing on Wednesday by pushing their anti-transgender agenda using an unverified, months-old story. Current Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Holly Thomas, nominated to serve on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has a strong civil rights background and support of prominent organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and the Alliance for Justice. She worked as an assistant counsel at the LDF for five years, spent another five years as an appellate attorney in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, a year as special counsel to the Solicitor General of New York, and two years at the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. If confirmed, she’d be the second black woman to ever serve on the Ninth Circuit.
Despite her extensive expertise, GOP lawmakers focused on the unfounded threat of transgender individuals using bathrooms that are consistent with their gender identity. Their evidence for this threat is a months-old, misreported incident in Loudoun County, Virginia, that rightwing media hopes to use to energize the Republican base in the state’s governor’s race.
The narrative, as originally told by the Daily Wire (archived version), goes like this: A male in a skirt entered a girls’ bathroom in a trans-inclusive high school on May 28 and sexually assaulted a female student. The right-wing media sphere quickly spread the story, warning that “Assaults like these are the natural result of transgender bathroom policies” (archived version).
As anyone with basic media literacy can tell, however, the outlets in question spun the story to fit their own agenda. There is no evidence the male student identified as transgender; the father of the victim—oft-quoted by rightwing media—even admits this fact in the Daily Wire article. Furthermore, the transgender-inclusive policy was not in effect at the school at the time and the incident wasn’t covered up by the school, as the Daily Wire claimed.

In the article, Smith seemed to acknowledge that the suspect might not have been affected by the district's trans-inclusive policy, which allows students to use facilities that align with their gender identity. He said, “The person that attacked our daughter is apparently bisexual and occasionally wears dresses because he likes them. So this kid is technically not what the school board was fighting about." However, he then seemed to blame the policy, saying, “The point is kids are using it as an advantage to get into the bathrooms.”

So why make this five-month-old incident the focus of the GOP’s questioning time during a judicial hearing? Because of the tight governor’s race in Virginia. Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin has employed anti-trans positions to energize his base, calling trans female students “biological males” and launching “Parents Matter” to defend parents being “attacked” by LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter advocates.

"He not only wants to stand between you and your children. He wants to make government a tool to silence us," said Youngkin of McAuliffe to a crowd of about one hundred Virginians in Winchester Wednesday evening, mischaracterizing an effort by Attorney General Merrick Garland to address the increasing threat of violence faced by educators and school board members.
Youngkin's campaign, in response to McAuliffe, also launched an initiative called "Parents Matter," circulating petitions and distributing fliers at community events to grow the anger at McAuliffe.
Many of the parents in attendance at Youngkin's event on Wednesday expressed similar views to Davey. They said their children weren't being taught what they thought mattered and that too many kids were getting participation trophies. Tammy Yoder, whose kids are also private school educated, didn't like books she saw when she said she researched what was offered in the local school district, defining "what marriage is" and "what families look like."

• Further reading: “The Fight For Transgender Rights In Loudoun County Schools,” Northern Virginia Mag. “The Unlikely Issue Shaping the Virginia Governor’s Race: Schools,” NYT. “Fox is still passing off GOP activists as concerned parents,” Media Matters.

The hearing

Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) opened by reading a summary of the Daily Wire’s article (clip):

Grassley: Last week we learned that the Loudoun County School Board in Virginia covered up the fact that a male wearing a skirt had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in the girl's bathroom at the school. The same boy allegedly later assaulted another girl at a different school. In 2016, you argued in multiple briefs that concern the safety of young girls in school bathrooms were unfounded. In one brief you argued “no data or tangible evidence in support of that claim that allowing people to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity will lead to increased violence or crime.” In light of the troubling news about Loudoun County, do you still believe that concerns about safety and privacy—especially for young girls in school bathrooms—are valid?
Thomas: Thank you for the question, Senator Grassley. When I was an advocate and at the New York Solicitor General's office in that case, I advocated the views of my clients. So we filed a brief taking a certain position. I'm not familiar with the case that you just mentioned but what I will say is that as a judge, I know that my role is to set aside whatever it is that I did as an advocate and be guided only by the law. And that I promise you is what I do now and what I will continue to do if confirmed.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) brought up past filings Thomas made as a lawyer (clip):

Hawley: Let me ask you about the North Carolina case first. You argued there that Title VII prohibits disadvantaging someone because of gender non-conformity regardless of the birth-assigned gender or current gender identity. The brief also suggested that privacy and safety concerns underlying North Carolina's proposed bathroom separation of boys and girls are unfounded and that the state had not demonstrated any public safety risk… Do you stand by your comments in these briefs that there is no evidence of violence or crime in restrooms by allowing biological males to use biological females’ restrooms?
Thomas: Thank you for the question, Senator Hawley. As I explained to Senator Grassley, in every case that I had as an advocate, it was my duty to represent the views of my clients and that's what I did in those briefs… I understand well being a judge now the difference between being an advocate advocating for your clients and being a judge who is duty-bound, who takes an oath—and one that I take very seriously—to apply the law to the facts and the record. And to review each matter individually as it comes before you. And that's what I would do were that issue to come before me if [I’m] confirmed.

After asking her again if she stood by her past comments, and Thomas again explaining that she was an advocate at the time, Hawley also brought up the Daily Wire piece:

Hawley: Now we have reports in various parts of the country, but Loudoun County most immediately and most publicly, about [an] assault by a biological male of a ninth-grade girl and then a second assault happening. It's exactly what you said in these briefs wouldn't happen. I just wonder, what would you say to the parents of this girl who was assaulted in a restroom at school? She's in ninth grade. I mean would you maintain to them that their concerns are unfounded and that they shouldn't be concerned about what happened? I mean is that the message?
Thomas: Thank you, Senator Hawley. I'm sitting here as a judge. My duty is to review the cases that come before me on the evidence that comes before me. I can't comment on a case that's pending, on a case that might come into—
Hawley: Well, this case isn't pending before you.
Thomas: I can't comment on a case that's pending anywhere per the California Code of Judicial Ethics.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told Thomas that Tennessee voters are very concerned about her nomination to the West coast 9th Circuit (clip):

Blackburn: Judge Thomas, returning to Senator Hawley's question, I think that it should not be lost on you how unsettled that Tennesseans that I represent are by your nomination because of what you have said about the transgender rights and the assault that happened in Loudoun County...people want to know that their children are going to be safe and they want to make certain that you are not going to be an activist judge. So I want you to talk to me for just a minute about your judicial philosophy and about activism on the bench and how you will set that aside
Thomas: Thank you, Senator Blackburn. The oath that you take when you become a judge, the promise that you make to the litigants who come before you is that your personal views have no role in your decisions.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) criticized Thomas’ inability to see the future (clip):

I want to get back briefly to what Senator Hawley was talking to you about the brief that you submitted in Texas versus [the] US… One of the things that I found concerning in the brief that you submitted was that you said that “in states where nondiscrimination protections are already law, Texas's predicted safety harm has never materialized.” It then went on to classify Texas's concerns as “anxiety about possible future bathroom crime as nothing more than unsupported speculation.” I totally understand you were writing that on behalf of a client in that case and you had an argument to make, but how did you know or how would anyone know in that circumstance that you knew that no harm could ever materialize? And do you dispute today the fact that harm could materialize by someone manipulating a policy perhaps crafted with the best of intentions in order to subject people to harm?
Thomas: Thank you for that question, Senator Lee. So stepping outside of that case and that context, I don't dispute the proposition that you mentioned but when you're you're working on a case, as you know, you're working on that case on behalf of your clients, on the facts that you have. And similarly, as a judge, you're ruling on cases one by one as they come before you based upon the facts, based upon the record. That is what I do now and what I would continue to do.

Finally, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) claimed that “women and girls never have any rights” in an angry diatribe (clip):

Cruz: As I look at your record, it continues a pattern of the Biden administration of nominating individuals to the bench who have long careers as activists. Throughout the course of this hearing, you have explained some of your prior positions as simply representing a client, but when I look at your career I don't see that. I see that you are passionately committed to a particular vision of the law. it has ranged from filing briefs in litigation in the state of Texas defending race-based discrimination in university admissions to, most consistently, transgender activism—and I would submit extremism… You have been involved in litigation on the extremes of transgender issues and in particular, you've carved out an expertise for yourself using litigation to force institutions to allow biological males to use restroom facilities and locker facilities that are also used by girls—young girls—that are used by women… The thing I find troubling about these arguments is it seems the women and girls never have any rights.

He finished his time with criticism of “activist judges”:

Cruz: You made a bold aggressive factual statement by the way in North Carolina. You said safety concerns were “unfounded.” You were an aggressive advocate. An activist advocate. And I believe the statements that you represented to the court—and those are statements that you're making as an officer of the court—I believe they were false and they are extreme. You testified to this committee that you were not aware of what happened in Loudoun County until this morning. I find that remarkable for someone who has spent years as one of the leading activists for allowing transgender biological men to use girl’s restrooms and women's restrooms... Why did you represent to the court that concerns about violent sexual predators committing violent crimes against young girls are unfounded and speculative? Why did you represent that to the court?
Thomas: Thank you for the question. I advocated on behalf of my clients based upon the data that we had at the time and I zealously did so in those cases and in every other case that I handled. Senator Cruz, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the merits of my personal views regarding litigation that I handled on behalf of my clients.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), chairing the Senate committee in Durbin’s absence, cut in between questioning to push back on Republican attacks (clip):

Padilla: For the record, I’d just like to acknowledge that assaults from Loudoun County that our Republican colleagues are pointing to happened earlier this year. And of course, we share sympathies with the victims but let me note that as a matter of chronology, Judge Thomas worked in the New York Solicitor General's office in the year 2015. Six years ago. And asking her repeatedly to comment six years later as a sitting judge about new facts and matters that continue to come before the courts is unfair.

Fact check

NBC News:

There is no evidence that letting transgender people use public facilities that align with their gender identity increases safety risks, according to a [2018] study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. The study is the first of its kind to rigorously test the relationship between nondiscrimination laws in public accommodations and reports of crime in public restrooms and other gender-segregated facilities.
“Opponents of public accommodations laws that include gender identity protections often claim that the laws leave women and children vulnerable to attack in public restrooms,” said lead author Amira Hasenbush. “But this study provides evidence that these incidents are rare and unrelated to the laws.”

Lambda Legal’s “FAQ: Answers to Some Common Questions about Equal Access to Public Restrooms.”
“Trans Women and Public Restrooms: The Legal Discourse and Its Violence,” Frontiers in Sociology, 2021.

Housekeeping:

• HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces publicly no matter what - paywalls suck.
  
• NOTIFICATIONS: You can signup to receive a once-weekly email with links to my posts.
  

Virginia Commission

The newly-created Virginia Redistricting Commission, approved by voters during the 2020 election, failed to approve final district maps after members walked out to prevent a quorum. Instead of the legislature drawing district boundaries, the commission shares power evenly between eight Republicans and eight Democrats. There is no tie-breaking mechanic. Further, the Republican members include a woman who insists Trump won the 2020 election and a man who made vulgar online comments about Trump opponents.
It is therefore no surprise that the commission has been mired in controversy from the start. The group has been unable to reconcile maps proposed by each party and argued over the consideration of race in redistricting:

The Democratic team sees race as a more central consideration, advising the commission it has a legal duty to seize every chance to draw districts favorable for minorities without straying too far from other rules requiring compact, cohesive districts. Instead of simply ensuring Black majorities in some districts, they say, the commission must work to create “opportunity districts” that racial minorities could effectively control by comprising 40 to 50 percent of the voting-age population therein...
The Republican team disagrees. They acknowledge drawing majority-Black districts is essential for Voting Rights Act compliance, but insist the commission isn’t obligated to go beyond that and draw as many opportunity districts as possible. Doing so, they argue, is a legally risky approach that overemphasizes race for political ends. “Opportunity for what? To elect more Democrats?” Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin said at a meeting Saturday.

Their failure to reach a compromise on the state maps has resulted in the conservative-leaning Virginia Supreme Court gaining control of the process. If the Democrat-controlled legislature had maintained their power to draw the redistricting maps, they’d likely be able to pick up a seat or two in the General Assembly. Now, with the state Supreme Court choosing the boundaries, it is possible they’ll lose a seat in a state that Biden won by 10 percentage points.

Ohio Commission

Like Virginia, Ohio voters also recently approved a constitutional amendment to create a bipartisan state legislative redistricting commission. But, unlike Virginia, Ohio did not require the Commission to be evenly split between both parties. The seven members include Governor Mike DeWine (R), State Auditor Keith Faber (R), Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R), Speaker of the House Robert Cupp (R), Senate President Matt Huffman (R), Senator Vernon Sykes (D), and House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes (D).
The Commission failed the gain bipartisan support for their state maps, passing the House and Senate redistricting plans along party lines. Consequently, the maps will only be valid for four years instead of the usual 10. Nevertheless, numerous legal challenges have been filed against the approved boundaries.
The new maps lock in a Republican supermajority in what should be a fairly purple state, favoring Republicans in 62 House districts and Democrats in 37. In the Senate, Republicans are favored in 23 districts and Democrats in 10. Over the past decade, Republican candidates garnered between 46.2% and 59.7% of statewide vote totals.

"No General Assembly district plan shall be drawn primarily to favor or disfavor a political party. In contrast, the maps adopted today go to absurd length to create a Republican monopoly on legislative power that they have not earned at the ballot box," said Emilia Sykes.
A provision in the constitution says the redistricting commission must draw districts that split along party lines proportional to statewide election results over a 10-year span. In Ohio, that amounts to votes that have split about 54% Republican and 46% Democratic.

Arkansas

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) refused to veto a new congressional map, despite agreeing with critics that the plan negatively impacts the state’s minority population. The Republican-drawn U.S. House map divides Pulaski County—the state’s most populous, containing Little Rock—between three districts, shifting Black and Hispanic residents out of the 2nd Congressional District and into the 1st and 4th Districts (pdf).

“While the percentage of minority populations for three of the four congressional districts do not differ that much from the current percentages, the removal of minority areas in Pulaski County into two different congressional districts does raise concerns,” Hutchinson said at a news conference.
The Republican governor, however, said he decided to not veto the new map out of deference to legislators and the political process. “This will enable those who wish to challenge the redistricting plan in court to do so,” he said.

All four of Arkansas’ US representatives are white Republican men. According to critics, the new maps cement this status quo:

“We have never elected an African-American to Congress,” Dianne Curry, Little Rock Chapter NAACP president, said. “With this being the way, it was presented they won’t even ever be a possibility because you won’t be able to have a minority-majority.”

Texas Hires Outside GOP Operative

Texas reportedly hired a Republican operative who played a key role in Wisconsin’s secretive and contested 2010 redistricting process to help draw their own state’s maps. Records show that Adam Foltz was hired in May by the Texas Legislative Council and is being paid a $120,000 salary. However, behind the scenes he is working for the House Redistricting Committee chaired by state Rep. Todd Hunter (R) of Corpus Christi.

Foltz’s involvement in Wisconsin’s 2011 redistricting was shrouded in controversy. He was hired as a staff member for the Speaker of the Assembly to help redraw the state’s maps following the 2010 census. Though he was an aide to the speaker, Foltz and another staffer worked out of a law firm that was also brought on to help with the process.
He held meetings there under what a federal court called a “cloak of secrecy” with every Republican member of the State Assembly — but no Democrats — who were each required to sign confidentiality agreements that bound them from discussing what was said. Despite Republican efforts to keep them secret, documents released during the litigation over the maps Foltz helped draw showed that he was also asked to help witnesses prepare their public testimony in support of them.
A federal court that considered the state’s maps eventually found violations of the Voting Rights Act in two assembly districts where map drawers improperly diluted the vote of Latinos. In that ruling, the court said the drafting of the maps was “needlessly secret, regrettably excluding input from the overwhelming majority of Wisconsin citizens.”

Following public outcry of obvious racial gerrymanders, the Texas House made last minute changes to the Senate-approved map on Saturday. Instead of forcing two black Democrats—Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Rep. Al Green—into the same district, the House redrew boundaries that potentially allow both to keep their seats. The chamber also restored a Hispanic-majority district in Central Texas that the Senate had shrunk.
However, early Sunday morning, the Senate rejected those changes and requested a conference to reach a compromise. A final vote is due by the end of the special session on Tuesday.

West Virginia

West Virginia is experiencing its own gerrymandering crisis, focused not on the federal district boundaries but on its state office plans. At the last minute, after obtaining bipartisan support for a state senate map, the Republican-controlled legislature abruptly amended the bill with entirely new boundaries that disadvantage Democrats (pdf).
The most recent map cuts across county boundaries and divides urban areas multiple times, lumping sections of the most populous cities with more rural conservative outskirts.

[T]he last-minute state Senate map was so partisan that Ken Martis, professor emeritus of geography at West Virginia University, and a national expert on gerrymandering, said Thursday, “I don’t know how they could honestly go to sleep and do this. I honestly mean that.”

The state House redistricting map also divides urban areas and combines existing districts, pitting Democratic incumbents against each other (pdf). For instance, current 5th District Del. Dave Pethel (D) would be forced into a primary with 4th District Del. Lisa Zukoff (D) under the Republican-approved proposal.

In an emotional floor speech, Pethel said he would rather retire and support Zukoff for the new seat. Pethel has served in the House of Delegates representing Wetzel County and the western portion of Monongalia County for 30 years.
“I prayed about it and asked the Lord to give me a clear sign as to what I should do,” Pethel said. “When I saw the first draft map that put Wetzel into four districts and (Zukoff), who I have great respect for, and I in the same district, I knew that was my sign to retire and I will not seek re-election in 2022. I made a pledge to her that I will do everything to support her and see that she wins the Democratic primary and the general election next year.”

The NAACP recently came out with a paper rejecting carbon pricing of all kinds. While the criticisms are most directly leveled at cap and trade and carbon offsets, carbon fee and dividend does not escape the line of fire. In this post I aim to highlight the NAACP's criticisms and refute them where they apply to a fee and dividend type policy. Not all carbon pricing is equal and I will not attempt to defend cap and trade or (deeply problematic) carbon offsets.
Sidenote: the Clean Electricity Standard, which features prominently in Biden's climate plan and other progressive climate policies, is generally formulated as (percentage) cap and trade applied only to the electricity sector, but no progressive organizations seem to have a problem with that!
The report begins by defining terms including environmental, climate, and energy justice and the concept of a Just Transition. Revenue neutral carbon tax and carbon fee and dividend are also defined. An interesting quote that is found here:

“A tax is also just saying we are accepting that you are going to continue doing this. It’s almost like, well he cheats on me, but every time he cheats, he buys me a Birkin.”
Kari Fulton, Frontline Policy Coordinator at the Climate Justice Alliance

Well, we are going to continue doing this. We would like to burn less and less fuel over time, but I like to think of the transition as a car driving full speed at a cliff. You want to turn around, but if you turn too tightly, you'll flip the car over which could kill you just as much as going off the cliff could.
On to the main criticisms of carbon pricing in the report:

#1: Missing the Bigger Picture
Carbon pricing proponents say: Market-based solutions are “elegant” and “efficient.” When a price is assigned to carbon emissions, polluters will be incentivized to reduce emissions and encouraged to invest in alternative forms of energy and production practices. “US pollution trading schemes have cut only short-term costs, and only for some actors, have raised many questions of equity, and in many ways have distracted attention from fundamental issues.” Larry Lohman in Carbon Trading – A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power 59
Reality: Carbon pollution is not a technical problem that can be fixed with a market-based solution that allows fossil fuels to continue to be extracted from the earth and burned. Climate change is a symptom of—not technical problem within—the dig, dump, and burn economy. Climate change is the earth’s cry for us to profoundly rethink our relationship with each other as humans, and with the larger ecosystems of which we are a part – not simply to tweak prices for fossil fuels.

A carbon fee and dividend does not "allow" fossil fuels to be extracted any more than they currently are when the carbon price is 0. If you think of a ban as an infinite price, carbon pricing, especially a rapidly escalating carbon price as in the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, is at least closer to a ban than the present situation. It would certainly make continued extraction less profitable at the very least.

#2: Carbon Pricing Schemes Are Not Designed to Produce Localized Emissions Reductions
Carbon pricing proponents say: “Carbon pricing reduces emissions in the cheapest, most efficient means possible.”
Reality: Carbon pricing makes pollution hot spots worse and fails to reduce localized emissions, by design. Rather than stop pollution at the source, carbon-pricing schemes often add to and reinforce the toxic and disproportionate burdens that BIPOC, low-income communities, and other frontline communities already face from polluting-facilities—such as power plants, industrial facilities, or trash incinerators.
Carbon-pricing schemes are not designed to produce localized emissions reductions, as the California’s cap and trade program has demonstrated. By spreading emissions cuts around so that the “cheapest,” “most efficient,” and “easiest” cuts are made first, carbon pricing explicitly neglects—and actually continues to erase and reinforce—the conditions of sacrifice communities. The health and well-being of these communities has been sacrificed in order to further the interests of those benefiting off of the extractive economy.
By reducing the climate emergency to a crisis of carbon, carbon-pricing policies also fall short in addressing the co-pollutants that are produced from industrial facilities—notably, particulate matter, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and air toxics (roughly six hundred chemicals subject to Toxics Release Inventory reporting and beyond). Fossil fuel combustion is not only the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, but a major source of local ambient air pollution. Numerous studies indicate that such co-pollutants are connected to a variety of detrimental health impacts. The World Health Organization estimated that in 2012, approximately three million deaths were attributable to ambient air pollution. This underscores the importance of monitoring co-pollutant emissions during the design and implementation of climate policies.

Conveniently, one of the worst air polluters, coal, is also the energy source which would be hit hardest by a carbon fee and dividend. Unlike with cap and trade offsets, it would simply become more expensive to burn fossil fuels in the sacrifice communities and that would cause economic pressure to stop or decrease burning if economics is allowed to work (what is in this link is extremely concerning and probably deserves it's own post to be honest).

#3: The Origins of Carbon Pricing Advanced Programs Designed to Benefit Polluters Carbon pricing proponents say: “Everybody agrees—Republicans, Democrats, Investors, Fossil Fuel Companies—carbon pricing is the best way to address the climate crisis.”
Reality: Carbon markets were created so that governments and fossil fuel companies could “flexibly” meet emissions reductions standards without having to significantly change their own pollution practices. Carbon pricing programs are politically popular, in part, because they are perceived as the least expensive and most-industry friendly approach to reducing carbon pollution. Indeed, carbon markets originated as a means through which responsible entities (i.e. governments and corporations) could “flexibly” meet emissions reductions standards without having to make significant operating changes. This is especially true with mechanisms which offer compliance loopholes such as free allowances or carbon offsets that allow companies to continue polluting at rates that deny direct air quality benefits to those communities living in the shadow of their facilities.

Carbon fee and dividend does not suffer from this critique. Emitting entities would have to make significant operating changes or pay the rising carbon price. Truly effective carbon capture could be an exception, but this is only thought to be economical above a carbon price of $150/ton.

#4: Existing Carbon Markets Haven’t Produced Significant Results
Carbon pricing proponents say: Carbon pricing is an efficient and effective way to reduce emissions.
Reality: Existing carbon markets have not produced significant emissions reductions at the rate we need. Carbon prices have consistently been low. Policymakers have often had more success in reducing emissions by imposing direct regulations. Beyond the deeply flawed ideological basis of carbon markets, existing carbon pricing approaches have dismal track records of producing significant emissions reductions.
Countries where governments have imposed fees on carbon emissions haven’t shown significant decline in carbon emissions. As a matter of fact, after remaining flat for three years, global greenhouse emissions rose to an all-time high in 2017. Take British Columbia, Canada, for example, where carbon emissions have actually increased since a carbon tax was introduced in 2008.88 Recent data indicates that CO2 emissions went up from 61.3 million tons in 2015 to 62.3 in 2016; CO2 emissions have increased in five of the last six years that data is available. In the United States, existing carbon pricing programs are encountering difficulties achieving reductions or spurring innovation. There is concern in California, for instance, that an oversupply of allowances could result in industries buying and hoarding so many that they might evade the need to actually reduce emissions in the future, when the state’s emission targets tighten.90 In many cases, governments are unwilling to impose carbon prices that are high or broad enough to make a significant difference. In 2017, a group of economists known as the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices concluded that carbon prices would need to be between $40-$80 per metric ton by 2020, and between $50-$100 by 2030 in order to achieve the emission cuts called for in the Paris Climate Accord. (It’s worth noting that the goals set by the Paris Agreement are widely considered to be insufficient.) A report from the United Nations called for a steeper price, estimating that governments would need to impose effective carbon prices of $135 to $5,500 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution by 2030 to keep overall global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.92 Of the global emissions now subject to a carbon price, only one percent are priced at or above $40, while three-quarters are priced below $10. Only 0.15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are subject to a carbon price that economists deem high enough to make much of an environmental difference.

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission increases are being largely driven by Asia, not places that have carbon pricing. Research from 2015 found a 5-15% decrease in GHGs from 2012 to 2016. To the point that CO2 emissions increased in the last 5 of 6 years even with the carbon tax, there is something funky going on. Going to government data from British Columbia it is clear that since 2012 GDP and population have grown, while GHG emissions have grown at a lower rate. GHG per capita dropped from 2013 to 2015, but rose until 2018 to be at the same level as in 2013. Does this mean the carbon price didn't work? Not necessarily, since GDP and population grew mostly independently of emissions The report does make a good point that carbon prices need to be higher to really see a strong effect. I agree with that; giving the collected money back as a dividend is argued to be the best way to raise prices quickly as the poor and middle class would be less likely to protest the tax if they are receiving checks. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act and many other proposed carbon prices that have some sort of dividend built in, would reach the level above $100 by 2030, consistent with the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices statement.

“Polluters Pays” Discourse
Carbon pricing proponents say: “Carbon pricing makes polluters pay!”
Reality: Carbon pricing allows polluters to buy their way out of stopping their pollution. If you’ve been pitched a carbon pricing policy in recent years, you’ve likely encountered “make polluters pay” discourse. Especially when attempting to frame carbon pricing as a solution rooted in economic justice, “make polluters pay” is one of the most common catch phrases used by carbon pricing pundits. So, the rhetoric goes, carbon pollution is not free, and everyday people are shouldering the cost of carbon pollution— paying to clean up after natural disasters, paying for their medical expenses due to poor air quality, etc. Advocates for “Carbon Price and Invest” claim that by making polluters pay for their emissions, we can reinvest those funds in programs that benefit communities. In other words, by putting a price on carbon, polluters will be required to pay what some call, “the true cost of carbon” while also creating an opportunity for revenue generation for programs and communities.
On its head, this framing of the ‘polluter pays principle’ sounds reasonable: Of course, we agree that polluting industries should be accountable for the impacts of their pollution. But, as demonstrated by numerous carbon-pricing case studies, “The ‘polluter pays’ principle has been turned into a ‘polluter buys his way out’ principle.” Even if a price on carbon were to slowly grow over a period of time and eventually shift the way energy is generated in favor of a renewable energy economy, we take issue with the health, well-being, and survival of our communities being reduced to the outcome of a cost-benefit analysis. And, as we discuss in the following section, allocating revenue generated from a price on carbon to frontline communities absolutely does not make up for or resolve the fundamental problems with carbon pricing or it’s inadequacy as a climate policy solution.

With a carbon fee and dividend there would be no way to buy your way out. I understand not wanting the survival of your community to be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis, but money really is the best way to motivate corporations and aligning incentives in a way that makes them want to reduce fossil fuel use and air pollution over time is what these communities should be hoping for.
A few more quotes to work through:

“To date, there is little evidence to indicate that the revenues derived from carbon pricing schemes genuinely supports communities of color over the long term. On the contrary: there is much evidence to demonstrate the harms produced by carbon pricing schemes.”
Tamra Gilbertson in Carbon Pricing: A Critical Perspective for Community Resistance

This may be true in cap and trade, but a carbon fee and dividend benefits ~96% of households in the lowest quintile and since that quintile is disproportionately POC, it's fair to say that it would be supporting these communities the most.

“A price on carbon is like a sales tax—it doesn’t make polluters pay for greenhouse gas pollution. It makes end-users pay (emphasis mine). A regulatory solution, that phases out fossil fuel extraction and use, can be designed to penalize those who are responsible for the problem, not everyone else.”
Basav Sen, Climate Justice Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies

Yes, that's the point. When the carbon price is passed down into consumer products, the cleanest items become the cheapest, or are at least comparatively cheaper. The dividend more than makes up for the increased prices in most cases. Also, not all of the price will be passed down, some will be absorbed by capital markets.

“While we would like to think that there might be some justice in solving the climate crisis by penalizing the businesses causing the problem, the reality is that businesses can pass their carbon costs down to their employees in the form of wage cuts, loss of benefits, worsened working conditions, or job loss. Businesses can also pass costs further down to other workers on the supply chain and to communities who consume their products or services. The phrase “polluter pays” is used to substitute “carbon tax,” but this is misleading because it is not necessarily the employer who feels the brunt of the carbon tax, it is the workers who feel the impact directly on their lives and the community consumers who pay more at the register.”
Irene HongPing Shen from Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED), “Carbon Pricing Toolkit,”

Carbon intensive workplaces will do worse under a carbon price, true, but THEY ARE THE PROBLEM. They are causing climate change with their choices and must face the consequences of that. There is no way to address climate change without having polluting businesses significantly change their practices, or shut down. For the workers, there can be more supports on career transition from the government, and they will also be supported by the dividend.
Finally to the meat:

But What about a Carbon Fee or Tax as a Revenue Generator via Dividends or Other Mechanisms?
Too often, a carbon tax is framed as a “miracle cure-all” alternative to carbon trading. While directly taxing carbon emissions avoids some of the pitfalls associated with carbon trading, it’s misleading to assert that a carbon tax alone is capable of solving the climate crisis. In fact, carbon taxes have many of the same problems of carbon trading. Just like cap and trade, carbon taxes rely on incremental cost changes to redirect investment rather than directly tackling the root problems associated with the production of the pollution itself. To be clear, some carbon tax models are better than others, both in their ability to reduce carbon emissions and to do so equitably. Put forth as a component of a broader strategy to reduce emissions, taxation can be a potential source of revenue generation for climate financing. However, ultimately, we believe that there are better ways for climate movements to build power towards a Just Transition; several are introduced in the final section.

Few people are suggesting only doing a carbon fee and dividend so the "carbon tax alone is capable of solving the climate crisis" is a strawman. Modeling has shown that it can work well with other policies to drive emissions to net-zero over just a few decades. Many of the carbon fee and dividend plans formulated today have a rapidly escalating carbon price that I would not call an "incremental cost change".

Carbon pricing proponents say: “Carbon pricing helps deliver economic justice while fighting climate change.”
Reality: Token revenues distributed to environmental justice communities, via Carbon Fee and Dividend or other models, will never make up for the destruction resulting from the source of that revenue. Some iterations of carbon pricing policy attempt to make-up for the shortfalls described above by claiming to advance economic justice or function as a revenue generator for “disadvantaged” communities. Communities that policymakers often characterize as “disadvantaged” have long experienced systemic discrimination and oppression in the United States, often as a direct result of the policies and systems designed and implemented by U.S. policymakers. The suggestion that these communities should have to rely on funds generated from cap-and-trade or other carbon pricing schemes— which disproportionately harm the very communities that are supposedly receiving financial benefits from carbon markets—is frankly insulting.

The report misses the point, carbon price advocates want the sources of emissions to shut off as quickly as possible, not to keep them on so they provide revenue to harmed communities! Presently communities are being harmed from fossil fuel emissions with no compensation, isn't some compensation better than none? Would the NAACP oppose implementing a wealth tax and giving that money to poor communities? Replace cap and trade, carbon pricing and carbon markets with "the rich" and see how it reads:

The suggestion that these communities should have to rely on funds generated from cap-and-trade or other carbon pricing schemes the rich— which disproportionately harm the very communities that are supposedly receiving financial benefits from carbon markets the rich—is frankly insulting.

Would they rather not have the money?

Carbon pricing proponents say: “Putting a price on carbon isn’t perfect, but we don’t have time to wait for a better solution.”
Reality: We don’t have time for false solutions like carbon pricing that fail to disrupt the power of the fossil fuel industry. There are numerous more effective, real solutions that promote the structural changes we urgently need. Throughout this section, we’ve argued that carbon pricing is an ineffective, false solution that gets in the way of the solutions we need to address the root causes of the climate crisis. A common response to these critiques sounds something like, “Sure, carbon markets aren’t perfect, but there is no alternative” or “It’s better than nothing.” For example, Democratic Representative Salud Carbajal of California remarked, for example, “I’m for anything and everything that moves the ball forward. What the carbon pricing legislation does is move forward the only significant bipartisan legislation that seems to be out there.” Many environmentalists, especially in the global North, concede to some of the limitations of carbon pricing, but argue that addressing the climate crisis is too urgent to wait for the political will to pursue other solutions. Citing broad support—among governments, industry, finance institutions—for carbon pricing mechanisms, many argue that the only “realistic” policy measures for climate action are carbon markets.
Indeed, the pervasiveness of this belief is apparent, as some environmental justice advocates have felt compelled to join the carbon pricing discourse to shape a policy that is perceived as inevitable into having the best possible outcomes for frontline communities. The imagination for what is possible has been so stifled by the dominant neoliberal mentality that carbon pricing has become, in the minds of many, the only feasible solution to climate change.
While we absolutely agree that taking bold action on climate is urgent, we reject the suggestion that carbon markets are the only “realistic” avenues through which change can occur. In fact, we’re doubtful as to the extent that carbon pricing will bring any gains at all towards the change we need. For whom is carbon pricing the most “realistic” or “efficient” solution? Certainly not for communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel extraction, transportation, combustion, or waste storage, for whom significant improvements in environmental conditions have not occurred even as carbon pricing mechanisms are imposed. As Gilbertson and Reyes remark, “Carbon trading has failed to change the way we acquire and use energy, while short-circuiting demands for the fundamental reforms we need.

A rapidly escalating carbon price, made possible by the dividend structure, would crush the fossil fuel industry, especially coal. Many of the complaints about current carbon pricing schemes can be summarized as the price being too low to have an effect.
Despite fully condemning the concept of carbon pricing, NAACP does give policy recommendations for a carbon price if one must be implemented:

1. Mandate point source reductions with a priority on facilities located in environmental justice communities. Evidence demonstrates that without taking explicit preventative measures, carbon-pricing programs tend to produce or exacerbate pollution hot spots. Given the disproportionately negative impacts hot spots have on BIPOC and low-income communities, measures must be taken to ensure that emissions reductions cannot be in the aggregate. As noted by researchers James K. Boyce and Manual Pastor who have studied the environmental justice impacts of California’s cap and trade policy, “This pitfall could be addressed through strategies such as declaring high-priority zones where no polluter could buy out of emission reduction requirements. A just carbon pricing policy should be accompanied by provisions that ensure emissions reductions where they matter most.”
   
2. Carbon pricing policies must also account for co-pollutants. There are costs that must be paid for -- not only carbon pollution but also co-pollutants, such as particulate matter, and other greenhouse gases, such as methane. While carbon pollution is the primary source of global climate change, each of these pollutants harm the environment and have a disproportionate and negative impact BIPOC and low-income communities.
   
3. The “price” must be set high in the short-run and quickly ramp up through 2030. Past and existing carbon prices have been too low to drive the steep reductions we need to advance a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.
   
4. Prohibit carbon offsets and other loopholes that allow emitters to avoid localized emission reductions while still complying with the pricing mechanism.
   
5. A carbon pricing model’s equity analysis must factor in multiple environmental and socioeconomic indicators and be shaped by the direct participation from communities most affected in order to adequately respond to the direct experiences of BIPOC and low-income communities which face overlapping socio-economic disparities and environmental hazards. Cumulative effects mapping analysis is one way to identify disparities, inform decision making, and guide solutions. Such methodology is the best way to ensure that investments are allocated equitably and that BIPOC and low-income communities stand to benefit from the policy.
   
6. Mechanisms must be built into the policy to ensure the pricing mechanism is responsive to the most impacted communities. This can be achieved through an environmental justice oversight board.
   
7. Revenue generated from carbon markets must be equitably allocated in ways which support the transition to clean, resilient communities, including dedicated and targeted funds for workforce transition and funding to the communities most affected.
   

Many modern carbon fee and dividend bills meet the requirements of 2 and 3. The general allowance for carbon capture may violate 4 and it is unclear if full equal dividends would satisfy 7. Some of the bills do have carve outs to support vulnerable communities specifically.
What does NAACP actually want on climate policy in lieu of carbon pricing?

1. Restructure the utility system, including shifting away from centralized energy generation and transitioning to community-owned and distributed energy generation.
   
2. Invest in large-scale public works projects that promote energy efficiency and develop community-based clean energy infrastructure.
   
3. Create pathways for displaced fossil fuel workers to transition into the clean energy economy.
   
4. Push for affordability policies that reduce energy cost and lowers the energy burden for low-income and frontline communities.
   
5. Promote zero energy homes and buildings to curb emissions from the built environment.
   
6. Move away from investments in highway capacity expansion projects for single-occupancy vehicles to public transit.
   
7. Put an end to corporate agricultural consolidations and restore localized food systems.
   
8. Set aggressive targets to completely transition the entire economy away from fossil fuels.
   
9. End new fossil fuel exploration and extraction immediately.
   

10.Cease the operation of currently-producing fossil fuel infrastructure near adjacent communities experiencing present-day and generational impacts to human and environmental health resulting from energy infrastructure.
11.Bring utility systems and energy-generating infrastructure into public ownership.
12.Expand conventional, direct regulation to accelerate a managed transition away from fossil fuels.
13.Develop strategies that maximize the reductions of co-pollutants while achieving a specific greenhouse gas reduction goal.
14.Reject policies built around false solutions which include loopholes that allow facilities or jurisdictions to meet emissions obligations without reducing their own emissions, such as through emissions offsets and allowances.
15.Phase out subsidies for fossil fuel exploration, extraction, refining, and transport, including direct subsidies to corporations as well as other tax benefits.
16.Shift funds away from military expenditures. Representing a majority of the federal discretionary budget, the United States military budget is as large as that of the next seven countries put together.
17.Pursue legal action against climate offenders to provide justice and compensation for past and current harm inflicted on frontline communities.
18.Finally, we should consider going even beyond regulation to criminalization. Allowing corporations to buy the ability to pollute is sanctioning murder, (or at least negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter if we are being super charitable) whether it’s through the poisoning of the air, water, and land of communities to fatal effect, or it’s through the deadly impacts of climate change, including the increasing severity of disasters that are claiming the lives of thousands. Being responsible for fatalities, if performed by any other means, is against the law.

Whew, that was a lot!
No one is saying some of these things can't be passed in addition to a carbon fee and dividend. A modern rapidly escalating carbon fee and dividend would further goal 2, could provide money for 3 and 4, would make homes in goal 5 closer to price parity, would greatly incentivize goal 6, would virtually accomplish goal 8, would provide a driving force toward goal 10, and would assist goal 13. Goal 15 does not recognize that the greatest subsidy toward fossil fuels is that there is not a carbon price. It is unclear why NAACP is supportive of eliminating direct subsidies, which would raise prices of gasoline and other essentials with no compensatory dividend, but is opposed to a carbon fee and dividend and carbon pricing generally. Carbon pricing would provide impetus to the military to use cleaner technology and vehicles (16), but the level of military funding is out of scope for focused climate policy. On goal 17, carbon pricing is thought to be a way to extract compensation from climate offenders, but done over time instead of a massive settlement.
The NAACP has some legitimate criticisms of cap and trade and carbon offsets, but is off target when it comes to applying these criticisms to a carbon fee and dividend. Modern rapidly escalating carbon pricing implemented in a fee and dividend structure would further many of the climate and environmental justice goals of the NAACP without precluding the implementation of more specific policies to help frontline and BIPOC communities.

"Weird to admit that your boss is an Election Liar but ok." - CNN's Jake Tapper to Josh Hawley's top-notch flack

'Chin Splints

A quick housekeeping note: Our unofficial slogan here at Crooked Media—“H.R. 1 or we’re fucked!”—has been conveniently shortened to just the last two words, thanks to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).

• In a rambling and logically incoherent opinion column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail announced he will vote against the For the People Act when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer brings it to a vote later this month. That effectively dooms the legislation, which could only pass with unanimous Democratic support, and only if Democrats first abolished or reformed the filibuster. No H.R. 1, thus, we’re fucked!
  
• H.R. 1 would’ve established a federal floor for access to the ballot box, ended partisan gerrymandering, reformed campaign-finance laws, and enhanced disclosure requirements for federal officeholders. Manchin took no position on any of those very good reforms, but rejected them all outright simply because Republicans uniformly oppose them, essentially ceding legislative control over American democracy to the party actively trying to destroy it.
  
• Manchin’s announcement also all but closes the door on narrower federal-legislative responses to sweeping state-level GOP efforts to suppress the Democratic vote and seize the power to overturn election results. Manchin claims to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would re-establish federal power to block discriminatory state-level voting laws, in part because it has “bipartisan support" in the form of a single Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). But Manchin also insists he “will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster,” and Murkowski has told reporters “she ha[s] been unable to attract another co-sponsor from her party in the six years since the bill was first introduced.”
  

As is often the case, Manchin leaves us parsing whether we are completely fucked, or just very likely fucked, with a slim chance of averting outright fuckedness.

• Not too long ago, Manchin conceded that the filibuster should be harder to abuse. Would he vote for changes that don’t weaken or eliminate the filibuster, and that he can describe as strengthening it? We will likely find out this month. Schumer has teed up votes on a series of bipartisan bills he expects Republicans to passively filibuster, seemingly to demonstrate to Manchin that the rules should change to allow legislation like the John Lewis Act to pass. (On the other side of the debate is Donald Trump, who supported abolishing the filibuster for his entire presidency, but now praises Manchin for “doing the right thing.”)
  
• Manchin will be under relentless pressure to get out of the way. Rev. Dr. William Barber has announced that the Poor People’s Campaign will hold a “Moral March on Manchin” in West Virginia, and a Tuesday meeting between Manchin and the NAACP has been broadened to include Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill, and other civil rights luminaries.
  

So what do we mean by “fucked”? We definitely do not mean that the situation is hopeless. We mean that Democrats will enter the next election cycle facing greater structural disadvantages to winning than they did before—even if they get the most votes. But they prevailed over existing unfairness in the past two cycles because people refused to grow complacent and turned out in record numbers to overcome the obstacles. Those tasks remain unchanged.

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

You love reading What A Day the newsletter every night, which means you’ll probably love listening to What A Day the podcast every morning. Akilah and Gideon pick up right where we leave off and keep you updated on all the latest news. It’s quick, it’s fun, it’s smart and thoughtful—all the things you love about this (we hope!)—and it’s available every morning Monday through Friday at 4am EST. Give it a listen and subscribe to What A Day wherever you get your podcasts.

Under The Radar

A Senate Judiciary Committee investigation has unearthed a number of scandalous emails from then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen seeking Justice Department investigations of ludicrous conspiracy theories, for the purpose of sowing doubt about, or even nullifying, Joe Biden’s victory. The most bonkers of the requests was for an investigation of the so-called Italygate conspiracy theory, which holds that Italy had used military-intelligence capabilities, including satellites, to remotely switch votes cast on U.S. machines from Trump to Biden. Rosen does not appear to have complied with the requests, but has not yet reached agreement with congressional committees or the Justice Department’s inspector general to testify about the Trump administration’s efforts to abuse federal power to overturn the election. The revelation suggests those efforts went much further than we knew.

What Else?

In his first public speech since overseeing a violent transfer of power, and with his pants possibly on backward, disgraced former President Donald Trump fomented further insurrection, calling the 2020 election “the crime of the century” and asserting that “our country is being destroyed by people who perhaps have no right to destroy it.” Hear that? Only Trump has the legitimate right to destroy America!
Here’s a development that couldn’t possibly foreshadow any future revelations about the January 6 attack: It turns out that the Republican lawmaker in Oregon who helped armed insurrectionists breach the state's capitol also coached those same insurrectionists days beforehand on how to access the building.
In insurrection-adjacent news, Benjamin Netanyahu sure seems to be trying to foment his very own January 6.
The Justice Department has seized over $2 million worth of cryptocurrency paid in ransom to the hackers who forced the Colonial Pipeline to shut down.
The Orange County, CA, sheriff’s department instructed officers not to join or parrot insurrectionist and white supremacist groups, as part of an “extremism awareness” training that nevertheless drew a false equivalence between left-wing and right-wing threats.
Feast your ears on Rudy Giuliani bribing Ukraine to manufacture dirt on the Bidens.
Jeff McConney, who serves as senior vice president and controller of the Trump Organization, has testified to the New York grand jury that will decide whether to bring criminal charges against Trump, his company, or its top executives.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is reportedly lobbying to kill a resolution that would reverse Trump-era regulations that allow predatory lenders to evade state-level caps on interest rates.
Royal Caribbean Cruises will work around Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) by requiring passengers who can’t or won’t document their vaccination status to undergo testing and other yet-to-be-announced procedures.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has signed own DeSantis law, prohibiting businesses from requiring proof of vaccination from customers.
Rep. Moe Brooks (D-AL) had been hiding from a process server to avoid an insurrection-based civil lawsuit for several weeks, so the legal team behind the suit served the complaint to Brooks’s wife instead, and he was so mad about it that he accidentally shared his email password with the entire internet.
More like Jeff Spaceos.

You Gotta Be Fucking Kidding Me

A George W. Bush-appointed federal judge has declared California’s assault-weapons ban unconstitutional, in an unhinged opinion dusted with anti-vaxx disinformation. In his ruling, Judge Roger Benitez compared assault rifles like the AR-15, which are particularly popular among mass shooters, to the Swiss Army Knife, and asserted, falsely, that “More people have died from the Covid-19 vaccine than mass shootings in California.” Benitez stayed his own ruling for 30 days, which means it won’t take effect as California prepares its appeal, but it serves as an example of both the extent of right-wing extremism on the federal bench, and the kind of rulings we should expect year in, year out indefinitely, as those same judges tee up radical theories in the hope that the stolen Supreme Court will make them the law of the land.

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Light At The End Of The Email

ACA enrollment reached an all-time high of 31 million, and Presidents Biden and Obama took a moment to celebrate the milestone.
A number of prominent elected Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, will introduce legislation to codify Roe v. Wade.
Speaking of Schumer, he’s thrown his weight behind, Myrna Perez and Dale Ho, both prominent voting-rights advocates, urging President Biden to nominate them to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has pledged to expedite visas for Afghans who assisted U.S. forces to protect them from Taliban retribution.

Enjoy

gene park on Twitter: "Mark Zuckerberg is training to be an apex predator backed by Audioslave songs and it makes me nervous"

"Please cowboy up." - Texas State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, with a simple ask for Joe Manchin

Texas Scold 'Em

Texas Democrats spared no parliamentary effort in defeating a sweeping GOP anti-voting bill, before turning around and asking the Senate filibuster-defenders why they’re too gutless to do the same.

• On Sunday night, a group of Democrats staged a coordinated walkout from the Texas House just before the end of the legislative session, depriving Republicans of a quorum to pass one of the most extreme voter-suppression bills in the country. In addition to its provisions targeting voters of color and declaring “yeehaw” to voter intimidation, S.B. 7 included a last-minute addition that would allow Texas judges to void elections without any actual evidence of voter fraud.
  
• The walkout marked the most aggressive action by state lawmakers to protect voting rights yet, but it may not be a permanent victory. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said he would have Republicans finish up their dirty work in a special legislative session later this year, and, in his infinite wisdom, also threatened to withhold legislators’ salaries in retaliation. Lawmakers’ salaries are protected by the state constitution, so by defunding the legislature, Abbott would just wind up hurting maintenance workers and the (mostly Republican) legislative staff.
  
• Texas Democrats used their revolt to refocus pressure on Senate Democrats to enact nationwide reforms by whatever means necessary. As Texas state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer put it, “Breaking quorum is about the equivalent of crawling on our knees begging the president and the United States Congress to give us the For the People Act and give us the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.” They’re not alone: On Tuesday, more than 100 scholars of democracy issued a statement outlining why our whole democracy is in peril, and urging Democrats to hurry up and ditch the filibuster to save it. President Biden announced that Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the administration’s push for voting protections, calling the GOP voter-suppression bills an “unprecedented assault on our democracy.”
  

Days after Republicans filibustered the creation of a January 6 commission, removing the rule from their arsenal shouldn’t be a difficult sell.

• Particularly when you take into account that Trump allies spent the holiday weekend angling for an insurrection re-do. At a singularly unhinged QAnon conference in Dallas, former national security advisor Michael Flynn advocated for a Myanmar-style coup in the United States. Flynn later vehemently denied doing so, in spite of video footage from the event and also all of the other documented times Flynn has called for the military to overturn Donald Trump’s defeat.
  
• Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), the lone member of Congress to speak at the same event, continued to insist that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was a) no big deal and b) perpetrated by MAGA flag-waving leftists: “It wasn’t just right-wing extremists.” Trump himself has reportedly started telling people that he expects to be reinstated in office by August, which would be easier to dismiss as the wishful ramblings of a madman under federal investigation if Republicans around the country weren’t setting the stage for the continued undermining of election results and attendant violence.
  

Democrats in the Texas legislature have become the first lawmakers to act on a basic principle that nearly all Senate Democrats now seem to understand: No procedural norm should stand in the way of urgent action to protect democracy. More or less everything depends upon convincing Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to reach the same conclusion.

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

It’s a family affair on the latest episode of Takeline. First, Jason Concepcion and Renee Montgomery are joined by WNBA champion and Renee’s former teammate, Devereaux Peters to talk about her efforts to raise awareness around gun violence in America. Then, Jason’s mother stops by to explain the ongoing beef between golf pros Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau!
New episodes of Takeline every Tuesday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts →

Under The Radar

President Biden unveiled a set of policies aimed at narrowing the racial wealth gap during a Tuesday speech in Tulsa, OK, as he commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Those policies include directing federal contracts towards minority-owned businesses, setting aside $10 billion in infrastructure funds to rebuild disadvantaged neighborhoods, and initiatives to shore up the Fair Housing Act. Biden’s plans conspicuously did not include a pledge to cancel student debt, drawing criticism from the NAACP: “You cannot begin to address the racial wealth gap without addressing the student loan debt crisis.” Biden met with survivors of the massacre ahead of his speech, and called on Americans to reckon with the country’s uglier history. ICYMI last week, this is a pretty astonishing 3-D model of the community that the 1921 massacre destroyed.

What Else?

New Mexico held a House special election to replace Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Tuesday, with Democrats counting on Melanie Stansbury defending the seat against GOP candidate Mark Moores, who’s been running a one-note campaign around rising crime.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that tribal police officers can stop and search non-Native suspected criminals on tribal lands, since the alternative would limit tribes’ capacities to protect their members.
Authorities are still searching for the three gunmen who opened fire outside a South Florida banquet hall on Sunday, killing two people and injuring 21 others.
The Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc First Nation announced that it had found the remains of 215 children on the grounds of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous boarding school, prompting calls for more searches at former residential schools across the country.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed an anti-tran sports ban on the first day of Pride Month, making this a particularly meaningful day to support Nikki Fried’s newly-announced bid for Florida governor.
House Democrats are still trying to get their hands on Trump’s tax returns, but the Biden Justice Department has given no indication that it intends to turn them over.
China has reported the first human case of the H10N3 bird flu but said that the risk of a serious outbreak was “very low.” Anyway, hope everyone had a fun long weekend before it was too late! (In a drunken yet troop-respecting way, of course.)
A cyberattack on JBS, the world’s largest meat producer, has shut down slaughterhouses around the world. The Joe Biden Veganism Offensive has entered Phase II.
China announced it will allow couples to have three children in a bid to boost its population, but it’ll now have to convince parents to have more kids in spite of an inadequate social safety net and workplace discrimination against pregnant women.
Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open a day after she was fined $15,000 for skipping her mandatory press conferences, citing her entirely reasonable need to protect her mental well-being.
Scientists have found a rare mineral in the extremely hard teeth of mollusks known as the “wandering meatloaf.” Joe Biden Veganism Offensive, Phase III.

What In The World?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future is back in jeopardy, after right-wing leader (and Netanyahu protégé) Naftali Bennett announced on Sunday that he would seek to form a coalition government with Netanyahu’s rivals. If successful, that deal would install Bennett as Israel’s next prime minister, maintaining the far-right’s chokehold on Israeli politics but finally ending the country’s electoral deadlock. Bennett and centrist Yair Lapid have until midnight on Wednesday to agree on a coalition, and Netanyahu has taken the development in stride. Hahaha, no, he immediately gave a rebuttal speech urging lawmakers not to support a “dangerous, leftist government,” and as his allies ramp up violent threats against his opponents, Netanyahu has declined to condemn them.

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Light At The End Of The Email

The U.K. reported zero daily coronavirus deaths for the first time since the pandemic began.
The Biden administration has suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Wilberforce University, a private HBCU in Ohio, surprised the classes of 2020 and 2021 by clearing their student debt.
Minnesota will become the first state to stop separating incarcerated mothers from their newborns.

Enjoy

Samantha Ruddy on Twitter: "Happy pride I will never forget what my grandmother said to me when I came out to her at age 18. The words have really stuck with me. She said “stop crying we’re at a Chinese buffet I don’t care if you’re gay”"

"My friends are leaving California. My hangar, the guy right across, he was packing up his hangar and I said, where are you going?" - Caitlyn Jenner, connecting to the common voters with a tale of private plane ownership
Heads up: There will be no What A Day email on Friday (tomorrow). See you back in the inbox on Monday, May 10.

On The Ron Track

Sure, the GOP election-rigging effort has racked up another victory, a Republican House leader is about to be forced out for challenging the Big Lie, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced that obstruction is the name of the game. But why are Democrats so opposed to bipartisanship?

• Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed Florida’s new voter-suppression measures into law on Thursday during an appearance on Fox and Friends, as one does. No local media outlets were allowed into the signing event. You wouldn’t think a closed-door anti-voting law signing ceremony could get much shadier than the arrest of a state legislator trying to bear witness, but credit to DeSantis, he will find a way to be the worst.
  
• A coalition of civil-right groups that includes the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Black Voters Matter Fund filed a legal challenge immediately. The lawsuit targets provisions that would limit ballot drop boxes, require voters to request mail-in ballots more frequently, and restrict volunteers from returning completed ballots on behalf of voters. A second lawsuit filed by the NAACP and other groups argued that the law will disproportionately harm voters of color and disabled voters.
  
• Texas Republicans are hustling to go next, in spite of pushback from HP, Microsoft, Unilever, and other major corporations that joined forces with local businesses and chambers of commerce. Texas’s H.B. 6, which would functionally authorize a voter intimidation army, was poised to pass a House floor vote just hours after Florida’s new restrictions became law.
  

Meanwhile, down in the fake fraud mines:

• The Justice Department has written to Arizona’s Republican Senate President Karen Fann to express concerns about the chaotic GOP-backed election audit in Maricopa County. Ballots and voting systems were removed from the custody of election officials—a potential violation of federal law—and handed over to the profoundly unqualified contractor Cyber Ninjas, which has been just...leaving those things laying around. (When it’s not putting them under UV lights, for no clear reason.) Cyber Ninjas also said it would be knocking on doors to “confirm” voter registration addresses, which, the DOJ wrote, sounds a bit like illegal voter intimidation.
  
• Lest anyone think Republicans have been solely focused on stealing the next election, Mitch McConnell offered a Wednesday reminder that they’re also working very hard to block President Biden’s agenda: “One hundred percent of my focus is on standing up to this administration.” In response, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has of course changed his mind about the filibuster and apologized for his hubris stuffed his fingers in his ears: “I can assure you there are Republicans working with Democrats.”
  

It’s a bad cocktail that could bring a permanent hangover: Democrats will be at a considerable disadvantage in the 2022 midterms, and if our broken electoral system costs them the House, they may not get another chance to fix it. S1 or we really are fucked.

Look No Further Than The Crooked Media

In the latest Hysteria episode, comedian, activist and step-mom Lindy West joins Erin Ryan, Alyssa Mastromonaco, and an all-female panel to talk about the different paths to motherhood, reasons why women choose not to have kids, and how we can celebrate all the maternal relationships in our lives. Check it out and subscribe to Hysteria wherever you listen to podcasts →

Under The Radar

The Biden administration has come out in support of waiving intellectual-property protections for coronavirus vaccines (woo!), but there are still several hurdles to clear before developing countries start seeing more doses. All members of the World Trade Organization must unanimously decide to relax the patent rules, meaning the U.S. will now need to bring other wealthy nations on board. Germany has sided with pharmaceutical companies in opposing the plan, and there are a few other holdouts that could slow down a consensus. The waiver alone won’t do the trick: Rich countries will also need to invest in vaccine manufacturing in low-income countries, and a waiver won’t solve the problems of raw material shortages or a lack of supply shortages. In other words, the decision won’t mean a sudden flood of vaccines into countries like India, but it’s an important first step.

What Else?

Two students and a custodian were wounded in a shooting at an Idaho middle school on Thursday, all with non-life-threatening injuries. Authorities have taken a suspect into custody.
The Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to recommend that Congress ban political campaigns from using pre-checked boxes to tricking supporters into recurring donations, after the Trump campaign used that tactic repeatedly.
The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate received nearly 3000 new reports of anti-Asian racism in the month of March alone. There were at least four unprovoked attacks on Asian people across the U.S. in the past week, including two older Asian American women who were stabbed at a San Francisco bus stop.
The New York attorney general’s office found that the FCC’s proposal to repeal net neutrality drew in nearly 18 million fake comments. A broadband industry group spent $4.2 million to generate about 8.5 million fake pro-repeal comments, while a single California college student submitted more than 7.7 million comments in favor of net neutrality.
South Carolina lawmakers have voted to allow execution by firing squad, which does not seem like a step in the best direction.
Pfizer will provide vaccines for Olympic athletes at the Tokyo Games, which are still scheduled to happen this summer. On the one hand, there is an ongoing pandemic! On the other hand, Canada already bought jean jackets.
A large chunk of a Chinese rocket will be hurtling back to the Earth this weekend, and nobody’s quite sure where it’ll land. Best of luck! <3
An Ohio state senator was caught driving during a government video call, on the same day lawmakers were considering a distracted-driving bill. Come for the poor timing, stay for the attempted cover-up (living room Zoom background betrayed by unmistakeable seatbelt).
Polls close soon, but if you are in line to vote for What A Day at the Webby Awards, stay in line.

Be Smarter

A number of senior Democrats have said they’re scared to pressure Justice Stephen Breyer (age 82) to retire, out of concern that it might backfire. Last month, Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) publicly called on Breyer to step down, citing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death as a valuable cautionary tale: “My goodness, have we not learned our lesson?” But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and other Democrats have suggested that pressure might prompt Breyer, who’s adamant about keeping (sorry, “keeping”) the Supreme Court free of political influence, to dig in his heels and serve past the midterms. Then there’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) (age 87), who thinks Breyer’s retirement would be a “great loss.” If and when Breyer does step down, progressives have their eye on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson—a former clerk of Breyer’s—to replace him.

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Light At The End Of The Email

Two new studies found the Pfizer vaccine to be extremely effective at protecting against the coronavirus variants first identified in South Africa and the U.K.
San Francisco will redirect $3.75 million from the city’s police budget to organizations supporting Black small business and entrepreneurs.
New York City will launch a $25 million program that will give money to artists and performers to create public works across the city.
Laurel Hubbard, a New Zealand weightlifter, is set to become the first transgender athlete to compete in the Olympics.

Enjoy

Kristin Wilson on Twitter: "My weird dog takes himself for walks now."

Preface

This was an assignment for an Educational Equities class, and has now been graded by the professor, and I am confident in sharing it. Forgive my writing skills though, it's not that great. It includes an infographic alongside it.

Infographic

See here.

Essay

In May 17th 1954, a momentous occasion was taking place in the nation of race, one of the question of who has the right to be properly educated, in the Supreme Court of Brown v. Board of Education. The landmark ruling, “the Court declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, effectively overturning the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision mandating "separate but equal."” But outside of the celebrations, those many watching, knew that the work has just begun, just as slavery was declared unconstitutional 91 years before. The SF NAACP were watching closely next, at San Francisco Unified School District, then in the 1950s, heavily segregated. Little did they know, that progress within the next 70 years, would not only be hard fought, but a hidden powerful enemy that would stymie their efforts for years to come. The modern form of segregation, that is, school choice. (Part I, 2020)
Nearly two decades after Brown v. Board of Education, the SF NAACP would culminate years of efforts to one day in Johnson v. SFUSD, where the judge found that SFUSD was intentionally drawing segregated zones, and force the district to adopt a new plan, called the Horseshoe plan and later Operation Integrate when the program included middle and high schools. The plan assigned students for the sake of racial balance, and aggressively bused students to desegregate. And it worked, going from 72% in 1971 to 31% by 1972 in schools with one group above 45% in the district, only for sometime. But in Lau v. Nichols, bilingual education became a civil right, and the district created the TAP or “Temporary Attendance Permit” that allowed students to apply to schools that had bilingual education, something sinister occurred, with TAP requests being abused as a loophole to disrupt desegregation goals. By 1977, 1/3rd of these requests were used to ignore the goal. This exception would become the largest problem, even to the present, of parents moving to whatever end to ensure their child would have the best education possible. In addition to White Flight and also Asian flight to a lesser extent. A problem of exclusion by leaving, similar to Lemon Grove where desegregation efforts first began in 1931, thereby impoverishing the services of the area under the guise of being an “undesirable area” of their own making. (Part II, 2020)
By 1978, the district created a new system called Education Redesign, after many complaints about busing and in response to White Flight. This time, it sought for racial unideidentifiability or no racial group exceeding 45% in one school with at least four ethnic groups. The TAP was made more universal, and into OERs or Optional Enrollment Request, allowing transfers as long as space was allowed and maintained racial unideidentifiability. Black students were also disproportionately assigned to be bussed due to only requiring busing if areas were not “naturally integrated”, and in hindsight from the Yellow Grove incident, this was essentially the same as the burden of a less equal facility, that of access, that was only different by race. The SF NAACP, once again sued SFUSD over Education Redesign, and finally, a solution was found, an aggressive solution, but extremely effective. (Part II, 2020)
In 1983, the NAACP and SFUSD would enter into a desegregation consent decree, developing the OER system, with two goals, efforts into academic excellence with a focus for Black and Latino students and the elimination of segregation or identifiability to the highest extent. This aggressive approach was widely successful, with the court monitor in 1993 saying “finding that the district had ”largely achieved the Decree’s desegregation goals,” while also noting the continuing achievement gap for black and Hispanic students.” Standardized test scores also increased seven years in a row between 1992 and 1999, of every race and ethnicity, except a slight drop for certain topics for two groups, Korean and Native American. Only 0.8% of the district enrolled more than 50% of a single group. (Alsup, 2005)
But after 1983, demographics changed and enrollment of Black and White students declined while Chinese and Latino grew, where the hard cap of 45/40% enrollment ceiling was hit, and started excluding students. By 1993, the system was failing, because of OER requests growing in heavy use by parents, 40% of parents in 1991 and by 1999, it was 56%. 1996 brought the end of race, sex, or ethnicity in public education. Meaning the consent decree was in jeopardy, with a new system to be made. A settlement was struck with the NAACP and the Ho family, due to the NAACP being unlikely to win the case, but many civil rights groups along with the NAACP worried that race-blind factors would resegregate the district. This, too, was another problem of exclusion and unequal facilities, for Asian Americans being unable to attend schools due to their race, still a persisting struggle since the start of the efforts at Lemon Grove. (Part II, 2020)
The Diversity Index Lottery came into existence in 2002, ending the 1983 consent decree, and a new consent decree was born. Using multi race-neutral factors like mother education level, socioeconomic status, test scores, English proficiency to lead to diverse schools. Again, it was also left to school choice, with a list to apply to the top seven schools, self-reporting race-neutral factors, and took no account of racially isolated districts. (Part II, 2020) The nightmares of the NAACP along with other organizations were not unfounded, with the court appointed monitor discovering 30 schools heavily resegregating in 2001-2002, by 2004-2005 it grew to 43 schools, all having the most significant achievement gaps by nearly every measure. The consent decree was an absolute failure, with District Judge Willian Alsup, “In short, since the settlement of the Ho litigation, the consent decree has proven to be ineffective, if not counterproductive, in achieving diversity in San Francisco public schools.”, ending the decree in 2005. (Alsup, 2005) Again, similar to Lemon Grove, making decisions without proper knowledge, so indifferent and unproven to the sensitivities of racial isolation, not only falling short, but worse than before. A change that was unprepared for, and again, the disadvantaged taking the burden.
By 2010 to the present, the problems remain with school choice, even when using tiebreakers for the disadvantaged and random numbers to assign students to schools. (Part II, 2020) The problem was that school choice remained a problem overpowering the mitigation factors, the disadvantaged were least likely to participate in the choice process. From Lemon Grove to the present, the disadvantaged being excluded from schools, looked down upon, few resources and given unequal treatment in the school system has culminated in past discrimination creating an environment of parents whom choose schools that seem the best, but in practice, these “magnet” schools in every level take resources and investment that will never go towards the poorer “worse” schools that are only “worse” since it is currently funded and assisted by parents who simply do not have the resources to assist them due to past discrimination. A cycle of segregation if left alone, perhaps in perpetuity. Many in this diverse city typically argue that the rich do not need so much money past a certain point, yet it eludes me that this discussion does not apply to our public education system. Over the course of this analysis, school choice has stymied desegregation efforts in every opportunity it was given, affirmed from decades of analysis. From redlining, wealth flight to private schools, and the myth of investment is very similar to where we started, in Lemon Grove. The myths of equitable treatment, comparable education, and built so it was “closer” to the disadvantaged when in fact to keep them away and isolated. These past inequities maintain this slippery slope of segregation, now inherent in school choice. A neutral sounding term commonly associated with freedom and alternatives, but, to a public school system, one that seeks to divide and segregate left unchecked.

Afterword.

Today, these choice schools are called “magnet schools”, and threaten the fabric of any chance to revise the system, which is by far the largest probable reason why the SF Board of Education made this decision to convert Lowell to the standard system, knowing well that the current system will start to desegregate the school to lower levels than current, but not solve it for the moment. A new zone based system, similar to the Horseshoe plan except with additional exceptions and smaller zones that can be revised at the discretion of SFUSD policy advisors bring some hope to desegregate the district with more control and reeling back some school choice, not only for a few moments in time, but in the long term. But one figure in this entire conversation continues to stand out, the NAACP. Overseeing much over half a century since Brown v. Board of Education, they are again in full force this decade, as they always have all this time with the Chinese for Affirmative Action(CAA) and many other groups. I am not confident what the future lies for their efforts as resistance against desegregation as the SF Board of Education starts a new phase to solve this issue, but they will look ever onwards with conviction of hope, if not this decade, so be the next as they always have since their founding.

Essay citations:

1. Facing our Past, changing our Future, Part I: A century of segregation in San Francisco Unified school DISTRICT (1851–1971). (2020, September 16). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.sfusd.edu/facing-our-past-changing-our-future-part-i-century-segregation-san-francisco-unified-school-district
   
2. Facing our Past, changing our Future, Part II: Five decades of desegregation in SFUSD (1971-TODAY). (2020, September 9). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.sfusd.edu/facing-our-past-changing-our-future-part-ii-five-decades-desegregation-sfusd-1971-today
   
3. Alsup, W. (2005, November 11). Order Denying Proposed Extension of Consent Decree [ECF# 1474]. Retrieved from https://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/SD-CA-0002-0001.pdf
   

Infographic citations:

1. Facing our Past, changing our Future, Part I: A century of segregation in San Francisco Unified school DISTRICT (1851–1971). (2020, September 16). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.sfusd.edu/facing-our-past-changing-our-future-part-i-century-segregation-san-francisco-unified-school-district
2. Facing our Past, changing our Future, Part II: Five decades of desegregation in SFUSD (1971-TODAY). (2020, September 9). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.sfusd.edu/facing-our-past-changing-our-future-part-ii-five-decades-desegregation-sfusd-1971-today
3. Keeffe, O., & O’Connell, H. (2020, August 31). Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment. Retrieved from https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/sfusd/Board.nsf/files/BSZVNB8187E0/$file/(August%2031%2C%202020)%20Ad%20Hoc%20Committee%20Presentation%20(1)%20(1).pdf

If you don't own your representation and political voice you do not own your future. If the asian community is not united and/or does not have a united mission we may never go the right path. If you do not collaborate with other asians (to gain the few advantages of being a minority group vs majority group) you are at a disadvantage because a segment of the population will not work with you /hire/promote you for being asian(bamboo ceiling). Lastly, if the asian community does not gain political capabilities in the future at least half as powerful as the ADL and NAACP there is lesselittle control of our image, ability to publically raise concerns, and being proactive in stopping hate.
In my opinion we need to take on and cultivate the very few advantages/privileges of being a concentrated group (minority) which we have left on the table. A minority group like the jewish, or black community has a public political/social presence, representation, and unity.
Asians should develop a new asian american culture, political capability, representation, mentality, behaviour, and effective education/career paths. The asian american community should slowly start to unite more, collaborate together to gain shared resources and capabilities that are necessary for a minority community to survive and thrive.

Brnovich v DNC...
...for overturn of LWV v Pennsylvania(charter plantations), for the greater good of all women and caucusing democracies...
Marbury v Madison or...
Don’t Come Crying To Me...
Pith and Marrow or...
Constitution and Declaration...
Gerrymandering...
LWV v Pennsylvania...Davis v Bandemer
Roe v Wade... women's sovereignty...
Questions as to precedents' enduring application of principles, in an age of advancing women's sovereignty, medical interventionism & predation, religious & shamenistic decline... ...And the approaching medical and election cases on the horizon from 2020... that appear as more a test of convention and than adaptation... as we have seemingly awoken a plague married to a pandemic of drug addiction... over the course of a century...
Trapped by Marshall between a yet unsettled past & revisionism and the stormfront on the horizon, as terror grips... for rational and moral guidance that may not always hold course for idealism, but for survival... will the court continue to wait hundreds of years... for division and corrupt power to settle with law, the battle for the soul of the nation... too easily manipulated by plutocratic media thinktanks’ violent coersion... will the court act as an anchor to the past principle dragging us down into a global flood OR... clearly act where other branches have not... to respond to siege tactics and fashion through grounded precedent a new foundation in the sky, lest we hang from the bottom of the ocean in tempest tost waters...
The fashioning of this foundation or ark should command more from the principles of our Declaration of Independance with inclusion... of those selectively edited out by our constitution...amended later in *footnotes...
Shall every case not be a test of abilities to think profoundly, interpret wisely, and act swiftly to sustain liberty eternally...
The court should question more peripherally from approaching case law 'turning on a dime' to reach the crests on the horizon that will soon darken the skies... working steadfastly in concert with the other branches, not always the ' fiddler on the roof ' amid a sea of sorrow... a process of reformation must come to a foot... to change for the better those institutions that symbolize vaguely, their principles and ideals of enshrinement... commanding meager respect to a menagerie of indulgences... with a rotting floor... does little to achieve an audience when women & people of colour, nearly 3/5th's of this nation, were selectively disposed of... between wars and insurections... between our independance and constitutional convention... Where amendments have made clear through sufferage, that this document is neither perfect nor human...legal doctrine must always find future root in the commonlaw, perhaps referencing concordance with principles, ideals, and justifications... but as a court of action, not philosophy, should we endevour to always seek to understand and maintain communion with the people...
Landmark cases are a breath of fresh air in a rotten potatoe cellar...but, a Declaration of Justice is an ARK... free and independant over the sea of nations, like a hanging garden... oasis of cornucopia, as a beacon or lighthouse to LIBERTY...
Our Courts of Law do not represent a balance of powers, but a late-check that bounces & warns of it's own impeachable impotence, since Marshall's Marbury v Madison... corrupt power that thows-back progress for Congressional debauchery, division & debate, in the process of taxing & extorting the people, before once again being scalped of their sovereignty by the Executive... this elite system of predation seldom wants for foot-soldiers it can draft, while Quartering imperialist units of domestic and foreign asymmetrical warfare... the Declaration is the Spirit and the Constitution the Cage...
De Minimus avec Maximum
Outcome & Opportunity...
United States Supreme Court hears...
Brnovich v DNC...
ARIZONA et al VS. DNC et al...
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2020/19-1257
In this Election Rights Integrity suit for amends to... Strict adherance to precinct jurisdictional prohibitions against voting outside of geographically defined limits as to one's residency & voter registration... AND... the prohibition of harvesting or collection of mail-in early or absentee ballots by third parties... outside of strict USPS mailing and legally provided boxes...
Here before the Court lies a case tested by an expanded protection of the Federal Voting Rights Act 1982 Section 2... which states that the abridgment or denial of protections to the means of voting by legislation, policy, or unusual standards... would violate or conflict with federal supremacy until judicial review relieved the petitioners of the burden of proof...
Before the court, the State of Arizona enjoined by the RNC... presented the necessary evidence in briefs and oral arguments... to clearly demonstrate that neither did in person precinct provisional limitations, nor... mail-absentee ballot collections-havesting prohibitions violate the most inclusive or exclusive polarities of the Federal Voting Rights Act...
Either by proximate cause of legislative intent, nor... as a failure to modify strictures of polling place procedures to be more inclusive where newer technology might be argued to permit...
The Dole Compromise of the 1982 Section 2 Provision as shown... https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/01/us/compromise-likely-on-voting-rights.html ...gives common law standard of weighing the merits of arguments before the court... and held in the lower District Court, that beyond lax statistical abstracts with limited or null impacts... marginal standards with demonstrated or proven evidence of fraud... would require higher standards that protect... voter intent to ‘voluntarily’ cast their ballots, where clear collection efforts maintained by third parties sought to leverage collectivized risks and legal suceptibility, against their individual security or by coercive means of enticement to surrender their ballots to outside parties... ...and the longheld standard of jurisdictional precinct protections against corruption of their local elections or verification procedures for higher offices, statewide, and federal... that might jeopardize their record, reputation, or auditing qualifications... to the expense of invalidating all parties...
The Voting Rights Act, which in all of its revised forms, reaches towards an ideal of language construction that seeks to remove bias... however hypothetical and historical the arguments presented here, on all sides and from the bench, did little to shore up the achievements of the legislation and revelled in the racially charged and geographically misplaced standards... that did little to demonstrate concern to obvious disproportionate outcomes and opportunities that actually have more root in failures of USSC precedent than in current legislative defense... For parties that continue to seek exception as Native Americans, for the elderly or infirmed to actually seek legal, verifiable aid from objective or 'interested' representative parties, and the grandmother of them all... discrimination and intimidation of women voters... from registration, through harvesting... these communities fail to gain representative expression in the demographics of congress and other elected offices... due to partisan and afrocentric gerrymandering which heavily favor the lost causes of the democrats to ‘champion and suppress’ disempowered minorities & women... with rhetoric of intimidation, so vast... that entire psychological compendiums have been versed in the mythos of robinhood-romanticism & stockholm syndrome, that exhonerates ‘victimhood' from the piracy of the masses... not only has our common law perpetuated the internalization and justification of discrimination based on race against women & natives... falsley applying "de minimus" to the maximum... of demographic exploitation... but, the shadowy hand of death that reaches from the grave has reduced dead, disabled, mentally impaired, and the socially castrated block of seniors (also women...)... into a basket of deplorables and lies... where last rights seem to be the only protected spiritual counsel... where the political science of "lies, more lies, and statistics" does accurately frame USSC precedent that seeks too often to COWER behind an anti-activist federalism that castrates the constitutional protections from which their power derives...
Not since Marbury vs Madison or... Dredd Scott... has the court gone beyond expectations and dissapointed so much... but, as till now... in the present reality with the future before them... waiting for at least some greater response to these meager arguments AND...with the church still operating as the censured moral authority... to which no legal custody be granted so long as the justices profess secular supremacy over natural law...
If the court maintains or demures to the petitioners on the side of the law it will give little affect to the cause of justice, to which they are promised, if they do not at least... seek exception for natives in their wise shamanistic reclusiveness... for the elderly & infirmed whose periodic suspension from rolls or whose legal advisement(spiritual counsel) might be reciprocated & facilitated... and by greater grace from above, protect the nest of domesticated women who have yet the courage, wits, or ilk...to stand for their sovereign and unique representation to which no man can muster even the faintest surity of what a woman thinks, feels, or knows is right, when it comes to political survival...
This long harping of afro-centrism that has only helped blacks to misrepresent themselves with obscure jurisdictions, odd-couple political marriages..., and alienation from other minorities, that the NAACP and the late Justice Marshall represented... especially in this case where Kagan has argued this case from the bench in an activist vein to the ‘exclusion of the Latino’ parties actually represented... just does not comport with the facts.. of the means, times and places of the facilitated voting rights protections that ARIZONA doth seek to defend... and establish as 'precedent', to ensure the will of the voter to be protected as self governing, through representation that reflects black women & black men as equally as one would seek to represent all sexes, ages, colors, and creeds...
for this reason we seek amends to overturn the minimal findings of the LWV v Pennsylvania... To establish that a presuposition or institutional predjudice does exist for 'legacy partisan favour' to gerrymander...where natural rights of men & women should be the prevailing concern... where in the course of electoral history it has been demonstrated that women have completely justified their rights, candidacy, and abilities enough... to at least afford them their sovereignty for representation to the federal offices which they seek...
Why is this the fitt and proper case to throw against the wall like limp spaghetti... to see if it sticks...
Do these institutional provisions fail the voter to protect themselves from fraud... NO... BUT FOR... lack of more of the same... ...or does the legal representation of limits to the vote provisions deny or abridge their political voice in a way that that does not seek to protect from misinformation or misrepresentation of the individual within the jurisdiction... were one to accept that the precinct, jurisdiction, district, county, or state lines were correct...NO... ...The great outstanding fact of institutional discrimination of the case is that “not all counties have early vote centers”... BUT FOR... lack of more of the same... should this facilitate subjective vote harvesting advice & consent by third parties where the state has failed...NO... ... OR... will the state be forced to maintain equal facilities & access at a cost to their state budget...YES {¿ In precinct voting should not resolve to manipulate tenuous electronic security through pollbooks... which only represents redundant security against intimidation & fraud... as a defense Electronic GPS has pin-point accuracy... for your polling locations...which the polls will help you find ?}
Vote Harvesting is not ‘mobile voting facilities’...NOR is it... a broad non-geographic free association caucus AND... guarantee for women’s protection under the violence against women act... could, through their State Attorney General register women to vote in a ‘single P.O. Box for women's shelters in the state’... non-gerrymanderable and acting only upon free association for self-representation(indivisible by outside forces)...
However, one may argue that those lines are incorrect within their time; ...whether given standing to do so may be limited by contempt... but a fair argument in terms of hypothetical/realities might permit the conjecture that the USSC is burried in malarky of their own precedents, emasculated of their Federal Marshalls... and lack the will to do justice to their name... let alone the aged-women, children, & natives that will be swept under the red carpet on the path to open ‘cartel civil war’ in these next few years...
Protecting the right of others to vote for white men is really not to different from white men representing themselves... if you don't fix the jurisdictions & the districts to conform to NON-GEOGRAPHIC self-representing free association... the geographical predisposition of the Senate in the Constitution is an oxymoron if ever a paradox did exist... fit in its opportunity to represent one man & one woman from each state but... incapable of surrendering its authority amongst the multitudinous rainbow of free associating representative districts, when state lines surrender to federalism... as nothing more than incorporations... like the cities' business units that operate free from taxation... trapped in a self replicating tax-dumpster of jurisdiction on top of another jurisdiction, in denial of representation and republican democracy...from within judicial jurisdictional supremacy...
What does greater disservice here is that the minorities so confined in this system of 'love nests' & disempowered captivity... are blind to all the substandard "compelling" candidates out there who are misdirected by the jurisdictional lines to represent their opportunistic 50+% WASP constituency with those opposed... and vice versa... with 60+% white male outcome practically guaranteed... Although turnout opportunity & outcomes have a direct correlation registering in the right district and working out of residency would require a national strategic index (CENSUS) to assure more than marginal representation with a hive identity politic...
BUT FOR... MORE OF THE SAME... Peripherally, why aren't primary requirements for same-day voting maintained like election day... even if... It were 24/7 vote week primary or an 8 hour election holiday... and done such that a federal jurisdiction crossreference (CENSUS)would allow voting in only one jurisdiction...per election... instead of the multiple small to big primaries that ‘partisan voting machines’ and ballot initiatives operate between... when time manner and place are not regular and conforming to a voting right act normative guideline of ‘ONE CITIZEN, ONE VOTE’
Like Marshall again & again trapped by your ghost you doeth find yourself sued for feigning lax penmanship and an even weaker sword...While those gripped by the struggles of your delusion fight for a layman's opus to cure the world's ill of your rot...
Many of the questions from the Court are standards tests, that are triggering mechanisms or “thresholds” to present or argue standing either peripherally or marginally under Federal Civil Rights Voting Law... But do little to argue the supremacy of 'dependant clauses' to direct Constitutional mandate for Representative Districts delineated by State Legislature... To create open ended points of entry by third party or individuals into the chain of custody either in “error" or in contravention of established processes to maintain validity of ‘non-partisan or partisan observation & challenge boards' party to the review & verification of said chain of custody... When both challenged processes under state law require closed circuts from ‘Voter’ through proscribed manner to secure federal representation standards, to exclude signature of taint to the ballot box and subsequent tallying process...Unless one believes the federal standards have been arbitrarily drawn or directly drawn against established constitutional principle or redrawn by the states to discriminate or misrepresent the assurity of representation... akin to Gerrymandering Districts that deny or abridge the right to vote through unequally applied measure...
Questions of balance within precedents or underpinnings...
¿Ratcheting abridgement or contraction of opportunities?... because the harvesting process implementation failed to provide safeguards to abuse...not a prima facia denial...akin to polltaxes... or regressive limitation of sufferage to landclasses...
Opportunity v. Outcome?...historical & proportional demographic realities of 'racial' discriminaltion...? Instead... interpretation of sex in place for racial... sex being more distinguished as function of human diversity... race being only skin deep...women have overcome turnout with registration but, not the gerrymandering... even as the majority of the vote, women are the most disproportionately represented...perhaps racial & partisan gerrymandering have repressed expression of the will of the voter, to the exclusion of women, as less than a quarter of Congress as a whole... Turnout $&$ Political Contributions are higher amongst women for pro-life appointments & legislation... but women are consistently registered & vote to a much higher degree of certainty than any other demographic... because of the League of Women Voters being a modern foundational suffragette platform augmented by the Susan B Anthony & Emily's List... which further suuports the claim of state legislative gerrymander replicated in federal representation...
Is Affirmative Action Voting Unconstitutional...? {Title VI & VII... Race or Creed Discrimination of Employment or Federal Assistance... (& IX?)} {Arlington v MHDC... *footnote 21intent/outcome...} The Ubiquity of socio-economics & Recreation?
UBIOpportunity, other social services outreach, and full disclosure of grant opportunities to all citizens & residents... blind to official status, ‘is an abuse' overextending ‘senior citizens’ social security’ as a fundamental human right... Provided by who...? Regardless of criminal status...? Or SSI WORK CREDITS...? Does money grow on trees...? Or is Under-Utilization as a function of education and class...? NO
Turnout & registration as a function of compelling initiatives & gravitating candidates pervades ... not curbing Voter ID into obscurity to permit or facilitate machine fraud... by partisan 3rd parties...who do nothing to actually increase political motivation or actualizing Dreams... This is an invalid proxy that fails to build good habits with the false promise that money grows on trees... The ability to maintain representative government should require greater conventional changes to effect election policy... For Harvesting, Curing & Observation...to also be held accountable through FEC reqirements to impartiality and full disclosure... for independant 3rd parties... on par with challenging of signatures & intent...for Gaps within Intersectional Demographics activism, adjudication, & write-in enforcement...and where ‘free association Caucusing’ might cure abuse of democratic values...
Further where are the substantive arguments?...as to voter INTIMIDATION that radical violent extremeism's underground represents.... while voter suppresion arguments aren't being made against GOOGLE et al.... for high tech lynching...doxing or facilitation of vote harvesting harrasment, and intimidation as functions of third party intervention... without FEC protections, OR... voters voluntary selection of a postal delivery system... via USPS certified mail...? {CARTER-BAKER}
The system is turned on it's head, without legal status as to who can claim confinement or infirmity, as is similarly lax no-excuse absentee voting... AND... without a certified observation chain of custody for...FEC regulated USPS, to be further subsidized as a marginal vote process, or expanded further through early voting mobile units... the maximization of opportunities that do not disadvantage voters of security & full disclosure...will not be realized...
Spiva ‘Discrimination Exists’... But, it is up to the high court to accept the predjudice of their precedents in allowing Congress to treat Constitutional Amendments as a *footnote, for the court to act upon after injury... when arguing minority-majority cultural cleavage and hetero-homogeneus assimilation & exchange... realize this is a melting pot... and a charge should not be lead by yelling backwards... white or black...and we must call for the immediate future and peripheral present to be enjoined in a Declaration of Justice... ...for women's sovereignty and free association amongst men, abandoning the anti-federalist proposal that States could do anything but gerrymander for their own interests, the representation of citizens from within, to be represented in a federal convention as masters of their own destiny, free from the bonds of state incorporated servitude... The people's house is purposefully abusive to women & others because it is a direct replication of state legislative corporate governance... and the Senate is it's board of governors' elite proxy... As a melting pot of *footnotes, have we grown mature enough to recognize our personal differences as being separate from the institutional bonds AND... from there, will we see free association and the sovereignty of women as an opportunity to expand liberty... Overcoming factionalism and appreciate eachother’s spiritual communion amongst a spectrum of illumination...
https://youtu.be/fPWTUHBULjI
https://youtu.be/862fAkHW5aw
Citizens for a Better Arizona...NO The LaFaro Video was considered admitting vulgar & abusive hearsay... further used to establish compounding the ‘justifications/ramifications’ of HB2023, originally introduced in the House and ‘sponsored’ by #metoo's Senator Shooter, AND...was not considered motivating by the district court... as to proximate cause or intent... Do we the rely on 9th circut lies, more lies & Statistics {¿...Mobile v Bolden(1980)... held... Disproportionate Effects absent Purposeful Discrimination is insufficient to establish a claim or racial discrimination...affecting voting...} {Cat’s Paw Staub v Proctor... as applied to the proximate cause of HB2023...} ...{Crawford v Washington(2004)...hearsay admissibility in criminal cases...via crossexamination [disagrees with lower court as to the reliability of the statement by the (victim) wife presumably testifying against her defendant husband...after possibly being sexually assaulted](Ohio v Roberts)}... Is this Doug Doucey OR the Impeachable Brian Kemp treating chicanos as Suburbia Dingos... ¿¿¿...Or like Pejoratives... equally applied to whites???' {Dole 82...Amendments opportunities were provided for prophylaxis, as part of the legislative process, this was not an unconstitutional executive denial or abridgement...} Latinos need greater registration drives as do all of us... selectivity of third parties "get out the vote drives"... involve educational materials & qualified personel, requiring time & economic resources management... This is demonstrated further in the lower turnout where visible lack of gravitation & usefullness to ‘a cause’ or candidate is a hinderance... AND...When the presidency is not at stake turnout is down... Post 1960's Civil Right Act longterm studies of age & race demographics by the FEC & CENSUS... interpreted for minoritiess voters by registration & turnout... demonstrate disparity over time for party, age, race & race of the incumbant president... large congressional omnibus action... WAR... national civil rights & immigration acts...
Why focus away from the methodology of voter turnout on open ended elections chain of custody verification, without realizing how parties act to squeeze the vote... without answering how their party stabs people in the back... southern Black history in the democrat party... versus the contentious immigration & emmigration pattern of Chicanos or Latinos into both parties and the country... not the same at all and most visably marred in periods of various wars and economic decline... to Latinos credit they have not become ‘domesticated' party loyalists, but... pragmatic strategists and realistic about the value and outcome of ticket spliting...

https://www.facebook.com/Police-Brutality-Corruption-Injustice-in-US-Criminal-Justice-System-101748924941107
Have you ever been at home, relaxing, in your pajamas, watching a football game, not hurting a fly, heard a knock at the door, and gotten up to answer it…and looked up to an AR-15 and shotgun pointed at your face and head…by sheriff’s deputies?
Have you ever been beaten, stomped on, tazered, tortured and subjected to a fate worse than death by sadistic law enforcement officers despite having harmed nobody, having no interest in harming anyone, no history of violence or criminal activity beyond a couple parking tickets sometime in the previous two decades and though no saint, no criminal act any jury would convict and imprison any citizen for in any state…except for opposing corruption in backroom deals in a county with a history and “culture of corruption.”
Congress, if it has a shred of integrity, a shred of honor, must decline Merrick Garland’s nomination as the wrong choice for A.G. at a time when a no-corruption, pro-justice, dedicated reformer intent on eliminating the rampant institutional corruption that dominates every office and action within the U.S. Justice Dept. and prevents any initiative to substantively reform broken criminal justice and policing organizations and SOPs, and training and oversight, at the local level from coast-to-coast.
Corrupt local governments, prosecutors, judicial and law enforcement officials have operated free from any accountability or interest in upholding the Rule of Law and American ideals of justice and the rights and liberties of citizens for far too long, while too many innocent people were tortured and tormented, deprived of liberty, property, careers, livelihoods, civil rights, legal protections, Constitutional rights and liberties, and basic human decency.
I know what it is like to be attacked by a media establishment devoid of any ethics, integrity or even a semblance of minimal human decency for the crime of opposing corruption and being the first and only official to monitor the numerous concealed legal settlements costing taxpayers millions of dollars every month – almost all the result of sadistic violent misconduct by law enforcement.
My life was not merely threatened. I was subjected to approx. 80 illegal and violent detentions to intimidate and prevent my exercising the solemn duty to represent the people as I was elected to do and did as consistently as possible with my pledges made in the process of campaigning, which I did even when doing so was contrary to my best interests or literally dangerous – not in theory but deliberate and premeditated retaliation for threatening what the FBI called a “culture of corruption” – the D.A. made it known (recording provided to FBI) that no matter what the crime, if I was murdered, under no circumstances would his office investigate or prosecute any party involved…
…and the crimes were frequent, increasingly savage, including assaults, being threatened by 12 sheriff’s deputies in my pajamas in my home watching Sunday night football, more than 10 AR-15s and shotguns pointed at my face and head, finger on trigger, and several inches from my sweet golden retriever’s head as his life was threatened as well for the crime of expressing “dissent” – advocating reforms such as mitigating totally criminal embezzlement in Wilmington’s head start program, where funds intended for education and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children was diverted to the personal bank account of the executive director and her five best friends, with the corrupt D.A. Ben David and equally sadistic, homicidal, deceitful, pal sheriff Ed McMahon, one of numerous serious crimes the FBI was fully aware of and clear a conviction at trial would have been a virtual certainty.
As an elected official I was beaten, attacked, threatened, tortured (by law enforcement) slandered, mocked, defamed, called everything under the sun for being uncompromising in opposing corruption and promoting justice and liberty and equality, alone, as no other official of any gender, race, creed, or party affiliation shared these priorities, and at the time police reform and criminal justice reform were not cool and I was surrounded by officials, black, white, men, women, dem, rep., more interested in real estate deals and their self-interests, even the NC NAACP, ACLU, etc.. didn't care about police brutality or the epidemically broken criminal justice system at the time. so, the ACLU of NC and NAACP, SPLC, ADL, none cared as the sadism and brutality and deaths grew without media or public activist interest.
I was the only official who even monitored these secretive settlements of lawsuits, 90-percent of which involved law enforcement misconduct and extreme violence and rights violations from law enforcement misconduct and brutality incidents. nobody else in public office even monitored these concealed lawsuit settlements or the criminal misconduct occurring with great frequency, and many times, death of totally harmless persons of all races and the costly lawsuits for taxpayers resulting from total public official indifference.
Every month the County was settling approx. 12 lawsuits every month stemming from sadistic violence often resulting in death or permanent injuries to unarmed, vulnerable victims rarely guilty of any crime rising beyond misdemeanor or guilty of no crime at all, victims of all races and ages.
It is long past time to hold corrupt government, judicial and law enforcement officials accountable for corruption and criminal misconduct. There can be no real notion of justice in the epidemic, systemically broken “justice system,” with District Attorneys like New Hanover county, NC’s Ben David, his corrupt mentor and crony former attorney general (and current NC governor) Roy Cooper, and the U.S. DOJ and FBI which have almost without exception violated their mission, defiled justice, civil and Constitutional rights, and assisted in public corruption and sadistic acts of brutality and violence, against even law-abiding citizens.
The same number of times each month, approx. 12, I would be harassed in my car or home by six or more members of law enforcement with ar-15s and shotguns pointed at my face, beatings, threats, even my dog, a golden retriever named "boomer" had a gun pointed at his head as a deputy threatened both our lives. the terror, threats and violence from law enforcement, directed by district attorney ben David, documented for the FBI, which was in collusion and protecting D.A. Ben David along with his pal, then North Carolina AG, now Gov. Roy Cooper, would escalate to more pronounced violence, torture and worse as well as death threats and false imprisonment to keep me, an elected official, from carrying out my duties to represent the voters who put me in office in the first place.
When will enough be enough?
I was often stalked, harassed 8-12 times per mo. by dozens of deputies, lights flashing, just for sitting in my vehicle texting constituents. no crimes of course. death threats, multiple incidents of loaded guns pointed at my face, head, threats to kill my dog “boomer,” were common.
Despite doing nothing illegal...
How many lives would have been saved?
How many families spared unthinkable grief?
If you want law-abiding, decent law enforcement and ethical officials...if you value ethical government:
Contact: (202) 514-3847 or click here: https://civilrights.justice.gov/#crt-landing --reporting to demand an investigation into, and reasonable intervention based upon, the extensive knowledge, evidence and facts pertaining to law enforcement and judicial misconduct "under color of law," and an extensive pattern of civil rights and constitutional rights and human rights abuses by your elected leaders.
…maybe George Floyd would still be alive. …maybe Sandra Bland would still be alive. …maybe Tamir Rice would still be alive. …maybe Eric Garner would still be alive. …maybe Daniel Shaver would still be alive. …maybe lt. Richard Black would still be alive. …maybe Elijah McClain would still be alive. …maybe Wendy Newton would still be alive. …maybe Nicolette Green would still be alive. …maybe Cory Jones would still be alive.
or the poor kid down the street who was shot up with ketamine until his heart exploded for committing no crime.

https://youtu.be/tgrlmp7qbp4https://youtu.be/a8hwgrz6zmy

I was often stalked, harassed 8-12 times per mo. by dozens of deputies, lights flashing, just for sitting in my vehicle texting constituents. no crimes of course. death threats, multiple incidents of loaded guns pointed at my face, head, threats to kill my dog “boomer,” were common.
Despite doing nothing illegal...
http://www.twitter.com/brianberger56
January 6th didn't happen except as a direct result of congress refusal to reform and hold accountable the broken U.S. DOJ and state & local criminal sociopaths including North Carolina gov. Roy Cooper, corrupt sadist D.A.'s like Ben David and the sadistic & homicidal law enforcement officers who have made police brutality, murder, zero integrity and zero accountability an epidemic from coast-to-coast...
...Congress is the problem and had they acted or cared about those of us beaten and tortured and left with irreversible neurological damage while Bernie Madoff was actually guilty of criminal activity and on the other side of the electrified razor wire and prevented at gunpoint facing real lynching for refusing to betray my duty to represent the people.
Tell Congress to do one honorable thing and investigate, hold hearings, and as appropriate, prosecute the criminals who have defiled their oaths and defecated on justice and liberty abusing government powers and rendering law enforcement as sociopathic and dishonest as the post-ethics media. it's time to replace the DOJ and FBI if they can't act honorably and to be blunt, they are as dishonest and corrupt and devoid of credibility as the media - fix it or replace it with a real watchdog to provide oversight. And prosecute criminal cops and judicial officials!
Too many lives and families have suffered…been destroyed, TELL CONGRESS TO FIX WHAT SHOULD’VE BEEN FIXED DECADES AGO – END THE INSTUTITIONAL CORRUPTION that has permeated the U.S. DOJ & FBI, do not affirm the appointment of Garland or any candidate likely or certain to continue the bipartisan practices of a U.S. Justice Dept. committed to policies and corrupt abuses of power that subvert justice, liberty, equality, and the Rule of Law by the U.S. DOJ & FBI responsible for preventing & prosecuting these sick crimes and brutality that has become epidemic and threatens every citizen’s liberty, property and even life itself.
https://www.facebook.com/Police-Brutality-Corruption-Injustice-in-US-Criminal-Justice-System101748924941107https://youtu.be/a8hwgrz6zMY
Wilmington officer tosses K9 onto suspect
“Injustice anywhere is injustice EVERYWHERE!” ___________________________________________________
In lieu of appointing the most extreme advocate of government criminality in memory, Merrick Garland, Congress ought to investigate, hold hearings, and hold accountable and prosecute, if appropriate under statute, those officials who have engaged in prosecutorial or judicial misconduct or police brutality, and public corruption that has cost taxpayers millions every month while being concealed from them, and by far the most costly and evil is the epidemic law enforcement brutality, and murders, and deprivations of liberty and justice that destroys lives, families, communities and causes indescribable damage to human souls.
This must end. It’s long past time for Congress to spend a fraction of the time and energy devoted to corruption and personal hatreds and vindictive plots against President Trump or anyone who doesn’t join the leftist, goose-stepping intolerant narcissistic bigots and elitists of the unethical, manipulative and deceitful mainstream media, Big Tech and even some Members of Congress.
Individual kooks buy into crazy conspiracy theories on the Internet, but it is the tyrannical, intolerant, hate-fueled deceit and manipulative subversion of freedom and democracy, transparency and integrity, by government officials protected by the U.S. DOJ & FBI, who have contributed to such conspiratorial thinking by becoming so deranged with hatred that even once common lip service paid to “journalistic ethics” and “factual reporting” has been completely and unapologetically thrown in the trash, doused in gasoline and set ablaze – the propaganda, intolerance of differences, hatred and evil intent of media and big tech and government and academia and wall street is far worse and more pervasive than any Nazi book burning and its getting even more extreme and intolerant. Members of Congress like Speaker Pelosi, Jason Crowe and AOC have advocated Stalin-style purges and retribution instead of modeling their conduct and agendas after champions of freedom and justice and statesmanship.
Garland’s testimony indicates every intention of repeating the mistakes of the past when the FBI burned and murdered with cowardly snipers innocent women and children under the guise of addressing a crisis of “domestic terrorism,” “white supremacists” and “gun-toting militias” after very few incidents and very poor conduct and communication by Justice Dept. and FBI officials –
– similar to the conduct of those agency’s in recent years and practically identical to the inexcusable incompetence and misguided judgement of the corrupt Bureau and DOJ brass preceding January 6th – another reason for Congress to demand a competent authentic reformer – which Garland is clearly NOT.
He is simply not the right choice for this moment in time when visionary, ethical leadership is so necessary and more important than trying to make amends for the perceived slight of the past when he was a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Past wrongs should not be righted at the expense of American justice and liberty, the Rule of Law, and the Constitutional rights, civil rights, human rights and lives and legal protections of American citizens. ______________________________________________________________________
I was willing to get pummeled and tasered without moving my hands from straight at my sides because if you so much as flinch or try to shield your face, law enforcement will shoot you dead without remorse, without a pang of conscience or humanity. and they made it clear under the barrel of numerous ar-15s and shotguns that they would gladly kill me and were planning on it, and they meant it. they threatened to shoot my golden retriever too.
I do not support "defunding. I do support liberty and justice and the human rights of all my countrymen...and anyone who experiences anything like what I was subjected too is usually left, if they live, with permanent scars and PTSD and an uncompromising mission to try to raise awareness by sharing our stories so nobody else endures the suffering caused every day, esp. in black and brown communities but white families too, sadists rarely limit their victims...anyone vulnerable who they can abuse.

https://www.facebook.com/Police-Brutality-Corruption-Injustice-in-US-Criminal-Justice-System-101748924941107

It has gone on too long. destroyed too many lives and families, tell them to fix what should’ve been fixed decades ago – end the institutional corruption that has corrupted and defiled justice, liberty, equality, aided by the U.S. DOJ & FBI responsible for preventing & prosecuting these sick crimes and brutality that has become epidemic.
Tell Congress: Stop this hatred & violence. Reform corrupt justice & defend American’s rights! _____________________________________________________________________
Support for Merrick Garland is an assault on Justice, Freedom and democracy. It is a carte blanche to make the institutionally corrupt and criminal, murderously inclined for political self-interests Department of Justice and FBI more political, corrupt, lawless and indifferent to America lives, justice, transparency, the Constitution, civil rights and human rights with the most dangerously political Attorney General in decades, a more extreme and indifferent bigot and enemy of justice than Eric Holder, and the laundry list of Attorney Generals dating back decades who have neglected their stated jurisdiction and responsibilities for providing oversight, protections, investigation and when appropriate, prosecutions of criminal misconduct by local law enforcement and public officials.
Tell Congress to amicably vote “Nay on Garland” AND pursue public corruption mitigation to ensure that the U.S. Constitution, laws and civil rights, and human rights are not disregarded and ignored by corrupt State and local governments, criminal justice and law enforcement agencies and officials when (as in North Carolina) State and local officials are too corrupt, deceitful, conspiratorial, prejudicial or sadistic, greedy or otherwise inclined to abuse the powers of their office(s) or agency to respect the laws and rights of citizens and uphold the U.S. Constitution. Protect and defend the democratic process and protect human life and justice, and liberty.
Merrick Garland has made it clear that he has no such intention, rather he has expressed the most political and dangerous, justice-indifferent agenda in modern American political history. He has expressed the most discriminatory, prejudicial, lawless, corrupt ideological agenda in decades, heralding the same misguided support for a broken, corrupt and unjust criminal justice system and law enforcement organizations just as epidemically corrupt.
Congress, if it has a shred of integrity, a shred of honor, must decline Garland’s nomination as the wrong choice for A.G. at a time when a no-corruption, pro-justice, dedicated reformer intent on eliminating the rampant institutional corruption that dominates every office and action within the U.S. Justice Dept. and prevents any initiative to substantively reform broken criminal justice and policing organizations and SOPs, and training and oversight, at the local level from coast-to-coast.
In lieu of appointing the most extreme advocate of government criminality in memory, Garland, Congress ought to investigate, hold hearings, and hold accountable and prosecute, if appropriate under statute, those officials who have engaged in prosecutorial or judicial misconduct or police brutality, and public corruption that has cost taxpayers millions every month while being concealed from them, and by far the most costly and evil is the epidemic law enforcement brutality, and murders, and deprivations of liberty and justice that destroys lives, families, communities and causes indescribable damage to human souls.
This must end. It’s long past time for Congress to spend a fraction of the time and energy devoted to corruption and personal hatreds and vindictive plots against President Trump or anyone who doesn’t join the leftist, goose-stepping intolerant narcissistic bigots and elitists of the unethical, manipulative and deceitful mainstream media, Big Tech and even some Members of Congress. ____________________________________________________________________________
Support for Garland is support for continued police and District Attorney violations of the law, corruption, deceit, and systemic, sadistic violence and murder that includes torture, murders and deprivations against people of all races, genders, political affiliations and even ages as both children and grandparents are fair game for murder with NO integrity, accountability, transparency or oversight as Garland made clear he has no intention of enforcing those laws and policies the US Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Division and FBI claim as part of their mission and under their statutory authority despite decades of neglect. In fact, these agencies have murdered in cold blood completely innocent men, women, even children…
Garland has made it clear that the burning alive of children and mother’s being shot in the face while holding their babes as has too often occurred is more acceptable and likely to be Biden-Harris policy. Both the President and V.P. have, with all do respect, built their entire careers creating and implementing such policies while supporting the same collusion and protection for criminal prosecutors and homicidal law enforcement and all forms of public corruption that serves extreme, pandering political ends that ultimately boil down to self-interest at the expense of democracy, human life, justice and the law.
A vote to confirm Merrick Garland is highly-likely to become blood on the hands – the hands of those Members of Congress who support criminal misconduct “under Color of Law” and given the conduct of the US Dept of Justice and FBI for decades, with the direct cold-blooded murders of dozens of children, white and black, and total aid and support for prosecutorial and policing sadism and homicides with NO accountability by State and local officials.
Reforms and effort to fix such institutional corruption and abuses of power is clearly not on the Biden Administration radar and Garland has made clear that he (and Congress should it support such a deceptive and political AG) has every intention of doing NOTHING to investigate, and prosecute, the criminals who dominate District Attorney and judicial offices, State and local governments and their corrupt cronies in law enforcement who systemically abuse citizens and deprive the law-abiding of the most basic human and civil rights, defile justice and defecate on liberty and lives without remorse or accountability.
None of this is new. Biden and Harris have spent their entire lives NEVER wavering from championing the most heinous acts of injustice and brutality imaginable and the appointment of Garland to be Attorney General of the United States is a direct reflection of their intention to continue to pursue the corruption and sociopathic motives that they have both championed without exception or human decency at any point prior to 2020 and a pandering, hate-fueled, race-baiting disingenuous campaign for the White House and selfish ambitions that have no basis in real criminal justice and policing reforms for ALL citizens regardless of race and political agendas – as Garland clearly articulated the latter to be his primary mission once appointed.
Garland claimed he would be apolitical while contradictorily stating the most political mission and anti-justice policy intentions of any nominee for Attorney General in the past half century perhaps, and articulated a Goebbels’s style propaganda model barely veiling his intention to advanced discriminatory application of the Law, civil discord, public corruption, and opposition to reforms long overdue to end the Justice Department and FBI’s role in promoting and aiding the very criminal misconduct those Federal agencies are charged with investigating and prosecuting.
It is simply disingenuous to claim that the US government and public institutions including the mainstream media are remotely factual and ethical or that any real substantive or ethical distinction between historic media organizations and the darkest, worst aspects of "social media" exists in regards to integrity, ethics, trustworthiness or moral purpose -
IN FACT, the worst social media "hoaxes" are no less honest or more dangerous than the sinister, racist, hate-fueled, deceptively manipulative sociopathic intentions from Good Morning America and ABC's racist unethical lies disguised to "look" like news - like the "Post-Ethics" institutions of law enforcement, government agencies, Congress, and education, the reality of once trusted institutions is no more credible than the craziest social media conspiracy theories.
–Mere days before January 6th, I reached out to Rep. Jason Crowe’s Office and the Colorado Congressman, turned Drama Queen despite being protected and safe at all times, like AOC despite her apparent inability to tell the truth, according to some close colleagues, or empathize with those who have ACTUALLY had death threats, made at gunpoint, from serious perpetrators (with badges) because of political motives. In my own case these started as written communications, escalated to recorded messages, and in my case, despite significant, irrefutable evidence the responsible leader of a premeditated, organized campaign of terror, violence, sadistic brutality and torture, and worse, not to mention dozens of property crimes…
…Approximately 80 extreme, totally unlawful acts of illegal stalking, intimidation by dozens of uniformed law enforcement officers with deadly weapons and more aggressive, excessively violent, overwhelmingly dramatic and heavily armed, platoons of violent, finger-on-trigger squads with 10-12 or more assaultive, bullying militarized officers, using numerous vehicles, lights flashing, sirens blaring, for intimidation or to create as much out of the ordinary attention and extreme show of force to not merely threaten and intimidate and punish political action consistent with political statements articulated while campaigning and considered beyond compromise, esp. opposition to historic corruption and secrecy behind closed doors that has long defined political and government activities and policies in the Cape Fear region and Wilmington, NC.
DA Ben David and Rep. Ted Davis planned prior to my taking the Oath of Office – unknown to me at the time but later revealed by Wilmington, N.C. Mayor Bill Saffo, because of my campaigning and practice without compromise once in office, to pursue pledges made during the campaign, notably my uncompromising, not for sale at any price, opposition to corruption and representation of ordinary citizens and taxpayers traditionally ignored and even despised by local officials and their profiteering, corrupt cronies who enjoyed almost total power with no opposition at all, what the FBI called in the 1980s a “Culture of Corruption in Southeast North Carolina,” a tradition nobody dared challenge before I did so…
At least in the previous 100 years when a group calling themselves the White Supremacists succeeded in the only Coup d’état in American history. In 1898, the region’s leading families and patriarchs since the pre-Civil War days violently murdered or ran out of town, never to return, the white Republicans and successful members of perhaps the most advanced, skilled and cosmopolitan black communities at the end of the 19th Century, those who didn’t flee for their lives were in large numbers machine gunned and slaughtered – the Cape Fear River turned red with the blood of the murdered free black citizens and sympathetic white Republicans, who were robbed of all property even if they were lucky enough to escape with their lives as so many perished in continuous hail of bullets, fires, and the orgy of murder and violence…so clear was the statement made that its intended impact lasted more than a Century, continues to influence the region, those who led the Coup d’état overthrowing the government remain the most influential, affluent and patriarchal citizens of Wilmington to this day.
Nobody else would dare the stupid risks I was willing, and stupidly, committed too and there’s no company, no support groups, no State or Federal officials including then Attorney General and current N.C. Governor Roy Cooper, then Gov. Pat McCrory, US DOJ or FBI officials, and a small, fake, unethical, virtually non-existent local media.
Members of Congress who suddenly cared about democracy and political violence on January 6, 2021 – not a day prior - would between them asked a total of zero questions, not one ever inquired even casually asking others whether there was any truth to my statements made under penalty of perjury, not one even asked if I was okay or expressed any interest in the corruption and systemic abuses and crimes that the U.S. government has long known permeates Southeastern NC.
The U.S. DOJ and FBI under Eric Holder possessing many years of evidence and knowledge, supplemented by hundreds of documents, recorded conversations, and far more extensive admissible evidence handed right into the arms of the government than I provided, only to learn that the Gov. Cooper, N.C. State Bureau of Investigations, U.S. DOJ, FBI and politicians with the ability to act are in reality so close to DA Ben David, who stated that even if I “was murdered in broad daylight,[he would] never investigate or prosecute anybody for any crime committed against me” without exception including murder. This is government, this is law enforcement, this is criminal justice, in North Carolina.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein and Governor Cooper are respectively D.A. Ben David’s mentor and prodigy, all in line to become Governor of the State in the future, and the FBI and DOJ are so close that they are not only in collusion with this corruption, but actively aid and protect prosecutorial misconduct “Under Color of Law” and police brutality, and homicides, as a standard protocol without exception, ever.
https://www.facebook.com/Police-Brutality-Corruption-Injustice-in-US-Criminal-Justice-System-101748924941107
_________________________________________________________________________
Not a single national media representative or Member of the US Congress, not the ACLU, NAACP, or any presumed watchdog including those who have devoted more than four years to exclusive, blind hatred of President Trump, who I did not vote for in 2016, nor did I ever not once vote against the stated wishes of the corrupt Sheriff and that 100% pro-police voting record remains, as I do not support “defunding law enforcement.”
I’ll never take a knee during my national anthem, but nobody has been a more active, genuine, singularly focused advocate for criminal justice and policing reforms than I have been for more than a decade, including the NAACP and ACLU and black and white elected officials and police and community leaders who’s hatred of President Trump is matched only perhaps by their completely non-existent interest in justice reform or opposing rather than supporting police brutality – this was true both publicly and behind closed doors.
In four years not one political official in one meeting, white or black, Republican or Democrat, ever even said the word “justice,” let alone advocated or inquired about routine brutality and murders disproportionately impacting black and brown community members. They were far more interested in discussing real estate deals and their success as career politicians and law enforcement brass if not Federal agents supports that priority whereas I was beaten and tortured to the point of having to relearn how to talk, have irreversible neurological damage, and was robbed of nearly everything, left homeless in a car with a dead battery after being convinced to leave, finally, with a gun to my head and a serious promise that if I did not leave I would be lynched.
Though I was threatened many times prior to that night, with more AR-15s and shotguns inches from my head and face, and guns to my golden retriever’s head too. No doctor in town would take me s a patient, which mattered esp. because I was experiencing seizures at that time, simply going to a doctor’s office would be an invitation for the media to show up. Nobody would rent an apartment to me even after seeing my name despite being quite willing before hearing my name, and even with a full-year paid upfront once they learned my name the conditional and cheerful approval became a flat “no.”
To this day, while Jussie Smollett is praised and receives the hugs, adoration and Barbara Walters specials from Robin Roberts and the media not a single so-called journalist has ever even once asked me “are you okay” and never asked one question, out of about 1000 reporters, not one asked even one question about this elected official being truly, genuinely threatened with murder at gunpoint, and beaten, tortured, subjected to things I can’t and never have discussed and trauma, well, I have to live with it because nobody has experienced anything remotely similar, and AOC and Jason Crowe’s indifference just days before Jan 6th when I had contact with Crowes team…

https://www.facebook.com/Police-Brutality-Corruption-Injustice-in-US-Criminal-Justice-System-101748924941107
Have you ever been at home, relaxing, in your pajamas, watching a football game, not hurting a fly, heard a knock at the door, and gotten up to answer it…and looked up to an AR-15 and shotgun pointed at your face and head…by sheriff’s deputies?
Have you ever been beaten, stomped on, tazered, tortured and subjected to a fate worse than death by sadistic law enforcement officers despite having harmed nobody, having no interest in harming anyone, no history of violence or criminal activity beyond a couple parking tickets sometime in the previous two decades and though no saint, no criminal act any jury would convict and imprison any citizen for in any state…except for opposing corruption in backroom deals in a county with a history and “culture of corruption.”
Congress, if it has a shred of integrity, a shred of honor, must decline Merrick Garland’s nomination as the wrong choice for A.G. at a time when a no-corruption, pro-justice, dedicated reformer intent on eliminating the rampant institutional corruption that dominates every office and action within the U.S. Justice Dept. and prevents any initiative to substantively reform broken criminal justice and policing organizations and SOPs, and training and oversight, at the local level from coast-to-coast.
Corrupt local governments, prosecutors, judicial and law enforcement officials have operated free from any accountability or interest in upholding the Rule of Law and American ideals of justice and the rights and liberties of citizens for far too long, while too many innocent people were tortured and tormented, deprived of liberty, property, careers, livelihoods, civil rights, legal protections, Constitutional rights and liberties, and basic human decency.
I know what it is like to be attacked by a media establishment devoid of any ethics, integrity or even a semblance of minimal human decency for the crime of opposing corruption and being the first and only official to monitor the numerous concealed legal settlements costing taxpayers millions of dollars every month – almost all the result of sadistic violent misconduct by law enforcement.
My life was not merely threatened. I was subjected to approx. 80 illegal and violent detentions to intimidate and prevent my exercising the solemn duty to represent the people as I was elected to do and did as consistently as possible with my pledges made in the process of campaigning, which I did even when doing so was contrary to my best interests or literally dangerous – not in theory but deliberate and premeditated retaliation for threatening what the FBI called a “culture of corruption” – the D.A. made it known (recording provided to FBI) that no matter what the crime, if I was murdered, under no circumstances would his office investigate or prosecute any party involved…
…and the crimes were frequent, increasingly savage, including assaults, being threatened by 12 sheriff’s deputies in my pajamas in my home watching Sunday night football, more than 10 AR-15s and shotguns pointed at my face and head, finger on trigger, and several inches from my sweet golden retriever’s head as his life was threatened as well for the crime of expressing “dissent” – advocating reforms such as mitigating totally criminal embezzlement in Wilmington’s head start program, where funds intended for education and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children was diverted to the personal bank account of the executive director and her five best friends, with the corrupt D.A. Ben David and equally sadistic, homicidal, deceitful, pal sheriff Ed McMahon, one of numerous serious crimes the FBI was fully aware of and clear a conviction at trial would have been a virtual certainty.
As an elected official I was beaten, attacked, threatened, tortured (by law enforcement) slandered, mocked, defamed, called everything under the sun for being uncompromising in opposing corruption and promoting justice and liberty and equality, alone, as no other official of any gender, race, creed, or party affiliation shared these priorities, and at the time police reform and criminal justice reform were not cool and I was surrounded by officials, black, white, men, women, dem, rep., more interested in real estate deals and their self-interests, even the NC NAACP, ACLU, etc.. didn't care about police brutality or the epidemically broken criminal justice system at the time. so, the ACLU of NC and NAACP, SPLC, ADL, none cared as the sadism and brutality and deaths grew without media or public activist interest.
I was the only official who even monitored these secretive settlements of lawsuits, 90-percent of which involved law enforcement misconduct and extreme violence and rights violations from law enforcement misconduct and brutality incidents. nobody else in public office even monitored these concealed lawsuit settlements or the criminal misconduct occurring with great frequency, and many times, death of totally harmless persons of all races and the costly lawsuits for taxpayers resulting from total public official indifference.
Every month the County was settling approx. 12 lawsuits every month stemming from sadistic violence often resulting in death or permanent injuries to unarmed, vulnerable victims rarely guilty of any crime rising beyond misdemeanor or guilty of no crime at all, victims of all races and ages.
It is long past time to hold corrupt government, judicial and law enforcement officials accountable for corruption and criminal misconduct. There can be no real notion of justice in the epidemic, systemically broken “justice system,” with District Attorneys like New Hanover county, NC’s Ben David, his corrupt mentor and crony former attorney general (and current NC governor) Roy Cooper, and the U.S. DOJ and FBI which have almost without exception violated their mission, defiled justice, civil and Constitutional rights, and assisted in public corruption and sadistic acts of brutality and violence, against even law-abiding citizens.
The same number of times each month, approx. 12, I would be harassed in my car or home by six or more members of law enforcement with ar-15s and shotguns pointed at my face, beatings, threats, even my dog, a golden retriever named "boomer" had a gun pointed at his head as a deputy threatened both our lives. the terror, threats and violence from law enforcement, directed by district attorney ben David, documented for the FBI, which was in collusion and protecting D.A. Ben David along with his pal, then North Carolina AG, now Gov. Roy Cooper, would escalate to more pronounced violence, torture and worse as well as death threats and false imprisonment to keep me, an elected official, from carrying out my duties to represent the voters who put me in office in the first place.
When will enough be enough?
I was often stalked, harassed 8-12 times per mo. by dozens of deputies, lights flashing, just for sitting in my vehicle texting constituents. no crimes of course. death threats, multiple incidents of loaded guns pointed at my face, head, threats to kill my dog “boomer,” were common.
Despite doing nothing illegal...
How many lives would have been saved?
How many families spared unthinkable grief?
If you want law-abiding, decent law enforcement and ethical officials...if you value ethical government:
Contact: (202) 514-3847 or click here: https://civilrights.justice.gov/#crt-landing --reporting to demand an investigation into, and reasonable intervention based upon, the extensive knowledge, evidence and facts pertaining to law enforcement and judicial misconduct "under color of law," and an extensive pattern of civil rights and constitutional rights and human rights abuses by your elected leaders.
…maybe George Floyd would still be alive. …maybe Sandra Bland would still be alive. …maybe Tamir Rice would still be alive. …maybe Eric Garner would still be alive. …maybe Daniel Shaver would still be alive. …maybe lt. Richard Black would still be alive. …maybe Elijah McClain would still be alive. …maybe Wendy Newton would still be alive. …maybe Nicolette Green would still be alive. …maybe Cory Jones would still be alive.
or the poor kid down the street who was shot up with ketamine until his heart exploded for committing no crime.

https://youtu.be/tgrlmp7qbp4https://youtu.be/a8hwgrz6zmy

I was often stalked, harassed 8-12 times per mo. by dozens of deputies, lights flashing, just for sitting in my vehicle texting constituents. no crimes of course. death threats, multiple incidents of loaded guns pointed at my face, head, threats to kill my dog “boomer,” were common.
Despite doing nothing illegal...
http://www.twitter.com/brianberger56
January 6th didn't happen except as a direct result of congress refusal to reform and hold accountable the broken U.S. DOJ and state & local criminal sociopaths including North Carolina gov. Roy Cooper, corrupt sadist D.A.'s like Ben David and the sadistic & homicidal law enforcement officers who have made police brutality, murder, zero integrity and zero accountability an epidemic from coast-to-coast...
...Congress is the problem and had they acted or cared about those of us beaten and tortured and left with irreversible neurological damage while Bernie Madoff was actually guilty of criminal activity and on the other side of the electrified razor wire and prevented at gunpoint facing real lynching for refusing to betray my duty to represent the people.
Tell Congress to do one honorable thing and investigate, hold hearings, and as appropriate, prosecute the criminals who have defiled their oaths and defecated on justice and liberty abusing government powers and rendering law enforcement as sociopathic and dishonest as the post-ethics media. it's time to replace the DOJ and FBI if they can't act honorably and to be blunt, they are as dishonest and corrupt and devoid of credibility as the media - fix it or replace it with a real watchdog to provide oversight. And prosecute criminal cops and judicial officials!
Too many lives and families have suffered…been destroyed, TELL CONGRESS TO FIX WHAT SHOULD’VE BEEN FIXED DECADES AGO – END THE INSTUTITIONAL CORRUPTION that has permeated the U.S. DOJ & FBI, do not affirm the appointment of Garland or any candidate likely or certain to continue the bipartisan practices of a U.S. Justice Dept. committed to policies and corrupt abuses of power that subvert justice, liberty, equality, and the Rule of Law by the U.S. DOJ & FBI responsible for preventing & prosecuting these sick crimes and brutality that has become epidemic and threatens every citizen’s liberty, property and even life itself.
https://www.facebook.com/Police-Brutality-Corruption-Injustice-in-US-Criminal-Justice-System101748924941107https://youtu.be/a8hwgrz6zMY
Wilmington officer tosses K9 onto suspect
“Injustice anywhere is injustice EVERYWHERE!” ___________________________________________________
In lieu of appointing the most extreme advocate of government criminality in memory, Merrick Garland, Congress ought to investigate, hold hearings, and hold accountable and prosecute, if appropriate under statute, those officials who have engaged in prosecutorial or judicial misconduct or police brutality, and public corruption that has cost taxpayers millions every month while being concealed from them, and by far the most costly and evil is the epidemic law enforcement brutality, and murders, and deprivations of liberty and justice that destroys lives, families, communities and causes indescribable damage to human souls.
This must end. It’s long past time for Congress to spend a fraction of the time and energy devoted to corruption and personal hatreds and vindictive plots against President Trump or anyone who doesn’t join the leftist, goose-stepping intolerant narcissistic bigots and elitists of the unethical, manipulative and deceitful mainstream media, Big Tech and even some Members of Congress.
Individual kooks buy into crazy conspiracy theories on the Internet, but it is the tyrannical, intolerant, hate-fueled deceit and manipulative subversion of freedom and democracy, transparency and integrity, by government officials protected by the U.S. DOJ & FBI, who have contributed to such conspiratorial thinking by becoming so deranged with hatred that even once common lip service paid to “journalistic ethics” and “factual reporting” has been completely and unapologetically thrown in the trash, doused in gasoline and set ablaze – the propaganda, intolerance of differences, hatred and evil intent of media and big tech and government and academia and wall street is far worse and more pervasive than any Nazi book burning and its getting even more extreme and intolerant. Members of Congress like Speaker Pelosi, Jason Crowe and AOC have advocated Stalin-style purges and retribution instead of modeling their conduct and agendas after champions of freedom and justice and statesmanship.
Garland’s testimony indicates every intention of repeating the mistakes of the past when the FBI burned and murdered with cowardly snipers innocent women and children under the guise of addressing a crisis of “domestic terrorism,” “white supremacists” and “gun-toting militias” after very few incidents and very poor conduct and communication by Justice Dept. and FBI officials –
– similar to the conduct of those agency’s in recent years and practically identical to the inexcusable incompetence and misguided judgement of the corrupt Bureau and DOJ brass preceding January 6th – another reason for Congress to demand a competent authentic reformer – which Garland is clearly NOT.
He is simply not the right choice for this moment in time when visionary, ethical leadership is so necessary and more important than trying to make amends for the perceived slight of the past when he was a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Past wrongs should not be righted at the expense of American justice and liberty, the Rule of Law, and the Constitutional rights, civil rights, human rights and lives and legal protections of American citizens. ______________________________________________________________________
I was willing to get pummeled and tasered without moving my hands from straight at my sides because if you so much as flinch or try to shield your face, law enforcement will shoot you dead without remorse, without a pang of conscience or humanity. and they made it clear under the barrel of numerous ar-15s and shotguns that they would gladly kill me and were planning on it, and they meant it. they threatened to shoot my golden retriever too.
I do not support "defunding. I do support liberty and justice and the human rights of all my countrymen...and anyone who experiences anything like what I was subjected too is usually left, if they live, with permanent scars and PTSD and an uncompromising mission to try to raise awareness by sharing our stories so nobody else endures the suffering caused every day, esp. in black and brown communities but white families too, sadists rarely limit their victims...anyone vulnerable who they can abuse.

https://www.facebook.com/Police-Brutality-Corruption-Injustice-in-US-Criminal-Justice-System-101748924941107

It has gone on too long. destroyed too many lives and families, tell them to fix what should’ve been fixed decades ago – end the institutional corruption that has corrupted and defiled justice, liberty, equality, aided by the U.S. DOJ & FBI responsible for preventing & prosecuting these sick crimes and brutality that has become epidemic.
Tell Congress: Stop this hatred & violence. Reform corrupt justice & defend American’s rights! _____________________________________________________________________
Support for Merrick Garland is an assault on Justice, Freedom and democracy. It is a carte blanche to make the institutionally corrupt and criminal, murderously inclined for political self-interests Department of Justice and FBI more political, corrupt, lawless and indifferent to America lives, justice, transparency, the Constitution, civil rights and human rights with the most dangerously political Attorney General in decades, a more extreme and indifferent bigot and enemy of justice than Eric Holder, and the laundry list of Attorney Generals dating back decades who have neglected their stated jurisdiction and responsibilities for providing oversight, protections, investigation and when appropriate, prosecutions of criminal misconduct by local law enforcement and public officials.
Tell Congress to amicably vote “Nay on Garland” AND pursue public corruption mitigation to ensure that the U.S. Constitution, laws and civil rights, and human rights are not disregarded and ignored by corrupt State and local governments, criminal justice and law enforcement agencies and officials when (as in North Carolina) State and local officials are too corrupt, deceitful, conspiratorial, prejudicial or sadistic, greedy or otherwise inclined to abuse the powers of their office(s) or agency to respect the laws and rights of citizens and uphold the U.S. Constitution. Protect and defend the democratic process and protect human life and justice, and liberty.
Merrick Garland has made it clear that he has no such intention, rather he has expressed the most political and dangerous, justice-indifferent agenda in modern American political history. He has expressed the most discriminatory, prejudicial, lawless, corrupt ideological agenda in decades, heralding the same misguided support for a broken, corrupt and unjust criminal justice system and law enforcement organizations just as epidemically corrupt.
Congress, if it has a shred of integrity, a shred of honor, must decline Garland’s nomination as the wrong choice for A.G. at a time when a no-corruption, pro-justice, dedicated reformer intent on eliminating the rampant institutional corruption that dominates every office and action within the U.S. Justice Dept. and prevents any initiative to substantively reform broken criminal justice and policing organizations and SOPs, and training and oversight, at the local level from coast-to-coast.
In lieu of appointing the most extreme advocate of government criminality in memory, Garland, Congress ought to investigate, hold hearings, and hold accountable and prosecute, if appropriate under statute, those officials who have engaged in prosecutorial or judicial misconduct or police brutality, and public corruption that has cost taxpayers millions every month while being concealed from them, and by far the most costly and evil is the epidemic law enforcement brutality, and murders, and deprivations of liberty and justice that destroys lives, families, communities and causes indescribable damage to human souls.
This must end. It’s long past time for Congress to spend a fraction of the time and energy devoted to corruption and personal hatreds and vindictive plots against President Trump or anyone who doesn’t join the leftist, goose-stepping intolerant narcissistic bigots and elitists of the unethical, manipulative and deceitful mainstream media, Big Tech and even some Members of Congress. ____________________________________________________________________________
Support for Garland is support for continued police and District Attorney violations of the law, corruption, deceit, and systemic, sadistic violence and murder that includes torture, murders and deprivations against people of all races, genders, political affiliations and even ages as both children and grandparents are fair game for murder with NO integrity, accountability, transparency or oversight as Garland made clear he has no intention of enforcing those laws and policies the US Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Division and FBI claim as part of their mission and under their statutory authority despite decades of neglect. In fact, these agencies have murdered in cold blood completely innocent men, women, even children…
Garland has made it clear that the burning alive of children and mother’s being shot in the face while holding their babes as has too often occurred is more acceptable and likely to be Biden-Harris policy. Both the President and V.P. have, with all do respect, built their entire careers creating and implementing such policies while supporting the same collusion and protection for criminal prosecutors and homicidal law enforcement and all forms of public corruption that serves extreme, pandering political ends that ultimately boil down to self-interest at the expense of democracy, human life, justice and the law.
A vote to confirm Merrick Garland is highly-likely to become blood on the hands – the hands of those Members of Congress who support criminal misconduct “under Color of Law” and given the conduct of the US Dept of Justice and FBI for decades, with the direct cold-blooded murders of dozens of children, white and black, and total aid and support for prosecutorial and policing sadism and homicides with NO accountability by State and local officials.
Reforms and effort to fix such institutional corruption and abuses of power is clearly not on the Biden Administration radar and Garland has made clear that he (and Congress should it support such a deceptive and political AG) has every intention of doing NOTHING to investigate, and prosecute, the criminals who dominate District Attorney and judicial offices, State and local governments and their corrupt cronies in law enforcement who systemically abuse citizens and deprive the law-abiding of the most basic human and civil rights, defile justice and defecate on liberty and lives without remorse or accountability.
None of this is new. Biden and Harris have spent their entire lives NEVER wavering from championing the most heinous acts of injustice and brutality imaginable and the appointment of Garland to be Attorney General of the United States is a direct reflection of their intention to continue to pursue the corruption and sociopathic motives that they have both championed without exception or human decency at any point prior to 2020 and a pandering, hate-fueled, race-baiting disingenuous campaign for the White House and selfish ambitions that have no basis in real criminal justice and policing reforms for ALL citizens regardless of race and political agendas – as Garland clearly articulated the latter to be his primary mission once appointed.
Garland claimed he would be apolitical while contradictorily stating the most political mission and anti-justice policy intentions of any nominee for Attorney General in the past half century perhaps, and articulated a Goebbels’s style propaganda model barely veiling his intention to advanced discriminatory application of the Law, civil discord, public corruption, and opposition to reforms long overdue to end the Justice Department and FBI’s role in promoting and aiding the very criminal misconduct those Federal agencies are charged with investigating and prosecuting.
It is simply disingenuous to claim that the US government and public institutions including the mainstream media are remotely factual and ethical or that any real substantive or ethical distinction between historic media organizations and the darkest, worst aspects of "social media" exists in regards to integrity, ethics, trustworthiness or moral purpose -
IN FACT, the worst social media "hoaxes" are no less honest or more dangerous than the sinister, racist, hate-fueled, deceptively manipulative sociopathic intentions from Good Morning America and ABC's racist unethical lies disguised to "look" like news - like the "Post-Ethics" institutions of law enforcement, government agencies, Congress, and education, the reality of once trusted institutions is no more credible than the craziest social media conspiracy theories.
–Mere days before January 6th, I reached out to Rep. Jason Crowe’s Office and the Colorado Congressman, turned Drama Queen despite being protected and safe at all times, like AOC despite her apparent inability to tell the truth, according to some close colleagues, or empathize with those who have ACTUALLY had death threats, made at gunpoint, from serious perpetrators (with badges) because of political motives. In my own case these started as written communications, escalated to recorded messages, and in my case, despite significant, irrefutable evidence the responsible leader of a premeditated, organized campaign of terror, violence, sadistic brutality and torture, and worse, not to mention dozens of property crimes…
…Approximately 80 extreme, totally unlawful acts of illegal stalking, intimidation by dozens of uniformed law enforcement officers with deadly weapons and more aggressive, excessively violent, overwhelmingly dramatic and heavily armed, platoons of violent, finger-on-trigger squads with 10-12 or more assaultive, bullying militarized officers, using numerous vehicles, lights flashing, sirens blaring, for intimidation or to create as much out of the ordinary attention and extreme show of force to not merely threaten and intimidate and punish political action consistent with political statements articulated while campaigning and considered beyond compromise, esp. opposition to historic corruption and secrecy behind closed doors that has long defined political and government activities and policies in the Cape Fear region and Wilmington, NC.
DA Ben David and Rep. Ted Davis planned prior to my taking the Oath of Office – unknown to me at the time but later revealed by Wilmington, N.C. Mayor Bill Saffo, because of my campaigning and practice without compromise once in office, to pursue pledges made during the campaign, notably my uncompromising, not for sale at any price, opposition to corruption and representation of ordinary citizens and taxpayers traditionally ignored and even despised by local officials and their profiteering, corrupt cronies who enjoyed almost total power with no opposition at all, what the FBI called in the 1980s a “Culture of Corruption in Southeast North Carolina,” a tradition nobody dared challenge before I did so…
At least in the previous 100 years when a group calling themselves the White Supremacists succeeded in the only Coup d’état in American history. In 1898, the region’s leading families and patriarchs since the pre-Civil War days violently murdered or ran out of town, never to return, the white Republicans and successful members of perhaps the most advanced, skilled and cosmopolitan black communities at the end of the 19th Century, those who didn’t flee for their lives were in large numbers machine gunned and slaughtered – the Cape Fear River turned red with the blood of the murdered free black citizens and sympathetic white Republicans, who were robbed of all property even if they were lucky enough to escape with their lives as so many perished in continuous hail of bullets, fires, and the orgy of murder and violence…so clear was the statement made that its intended impact lasted more than a Century, continues to influence the region, those who led the Coup d’état overthrowing the government remain the most influential, affluent and patriarchal citizens of Wilmington to this day.
Nobody else would dare the stupid risks I was willing, and stupidly, committed too and there’s no company, no support groups, no State or Federal officials including then Attorney General and current N.C. Governor Roy Cooper, then Gov. Pat McCrory, US DOJ or FBI officials, and a small, fake, unethical, virtually non-existent local media.
Members of Congress who suddenly cared about democracy and political violence on January 6, 2021 – not a day prior - would between them asked a total of zero questions, not one ever inquired even casually asking others whether there was any truth to my statements made under penalty of perjury, not one even asked if I was okay or expressed any interest in the corruption and systemic abuses and crimes that the U.S. government has long known permeates Southeastern NC.
The U.S. DOJ and FBI under Eric Holder possessing many years of evidence and knowledge, supplemented by hundreds of documents, recorded conversations, and far more extensive admissible evidence handed right into the arms of the government than I provided, only to learn that the Gov. Cooper, N.C. State Bureau of Investigations, U.S. DOJ, FBI and politicians with the ability to act are in reality so close to DA Ben David, who stated that even if I “was murdered in broad daylight,[he would] never investigate or prosecute anybody for any crime committed against me” without exception including murder. This is government, this is law enforcement, this is criminal justice, in North Carolina.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein and Governor Cooper are respectively D.A. Ben David’s mentor and prodigy, all in line to become Governor of the State in the future, and the FBI and DOJ are so close that they are not only in collusion with this corruption, but actively aid and protect prosecutorial misconduct “Under Color of Law” and police brutality, and homicides, as a standard protocol without exception, ever.
https://www.facebook.com/Police-Brutality-Corruption-Injustice-in-US-Criminal-Justice-System-101748924941107
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Not a single national media representative or Member of the US Congress, not the ACLU, NAACP, or any presumed watchdog including those who have devoted more than four years to exclusive, blind hatred of President Trump, who I did not vote for in 2016, nor did I ever not once vote against the stated wishes of the corrupt Sheriff and that 100% pro-police voting record remains, as I do not support “defunding law enforcement.”
I’ll never take a knee during my national anthem, but nobody has been a more active, genuine, singularly focused advocate for criminal justice and policing reforms than I have been for more than a decade, including the NAACP and ACLU and black and white elected officials and police and community leaders who’s hatred of President Trump is matched only perhaps by their completely non-existent interest in justice reform or opposing rather than supporting police brutality – this was true both publicly and behind closed doors.
In four years not one political official in one meeting, white or black, Republican or Democrat, ever even said the word “justice,” let alone advocated or inquired about routine brutality and murders disproportionately impacting black and brown community members. They were far more interested in discussing real estate deals and their success as career politicians and law enforcement brass if not Federal agents supports that priority whereas I was beaten and tortured to the point of having to relearn how to talk, have irreversible neurological damage, and was robbed of nearly everything, left homeless in a car with a dead battery after being convinced to leave, finally, with a gun to my head and a serious promise that if I did not leave I would be lynched.
Though I was threatened many times prior to that night, with more AR-15s and shotguns inches from my head and face, and guns to my golden retriever’s head too. No doctor in town would take me s a patient, which mattered esp. because I was experiencing seizures at that time, simply going to a doctor’s office would be an invitation for the media to show up. Nobody would rent an apartment to me even after seeing my name despite being quite willing before hearing my name, and even with a full-year paid upfront once they learned my name the conditional and cheerful approval became a flat “no.”
To this day, while Jussie Smollett is praised and receives the hugs, adoration and Barbara Walters specials from Robin Roberts and the media not a single so-called journalist has ever even once asked me “are you okay” and never asked one question, out of about 1000 reporters, not one asked even one question about this elected official being truly, genuinely threatened with murder at gunpoint, and beaten, tortured, subjected to things I can’t and never have discussed and trauma, well, I have to live with it because nobody has experienced anything remotely similar, and AOC and Jason Crowe’s indifference just days before Jan 6th when I had contact with Crowes team…