Bobby Jindal Stays Silent on Louisiana Sodomy Arrests

—By Tim Murphy

| Tue Jul. 30, 2013 7:47 AM PDT

134

Patrick Fallon/ZUMA Wire

On Sunday the Baton Rouge Advocate reported on a disturbing trend: A full decade after the Supreme Court struck down anti-sodomy laws as unconstitutional violations of a right to privacy, the East Baton Rouge sheriff's department was continuing to enforce the state's version of the statute. Not only that, but it was going out of its way to do so, setting up stings to find and arrest gay men for the crime of having sex—even though the district attorney had pointedly refuse to prosecute those cases. "Whether the law is valid is something for the courts to determine, but the sheriff will enforce the laws that are enacted," a sheriff's department spokesman told the paper, apparently oblivious to the fact that a court had already made such a determination.

So how does Louisiana's arch-conservative Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, feel about the parish's continued enforcement of the invalidated sodomy law? He's been silent. His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday, nor has he previously commented on the sodomy statute.

The sheriff's department does have a point. The anti-sodomy statute is still on the books in Louisiana, and in 12 other states across the country. And in many of those cases, it remains on the books for a very particular reason: Republican lawmakers want it to. Lawmakers in Texas have quietly killed every legislative effort to erase its anti-sodomy statute (the one that was actually stricken down by the Supreme Court), which makes sense when you consider Gov. Rick Perry is on the record defending it, and the state GOP recently made a sodomy ban part of its official platform. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback left his state's sodomy statute out of a 2012 push to purge outdated laws. The last serious repeal push in Louisiana came in 2003, shortly before the Supreme Court decision, with opponents warning that legalized sodomy would lead to disease and child abuse—two things that, thanks to the sodomy ban, Louisiana had been mercifully free of for the last 207 years.

Keeping anti-sodomy statutes on the books serves no real function, since the crimes are impossible to prosecute. Mostly, the laws' supporters just don't want their states to legally acknowledge that there's something OK about homosexuality. So-called crimes against nature, like other 19th-century relics such as mutton chops, DIY canning, and income inequality, are kind of "in" right now. In July, Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who is running for governor as a Republican, launched a new website to defend his state's anti-sodomy law.

Felon voting rights have a bigger impact on elections than voter ID laws

When it comes to minority voting rights in the US, restrictions on felons and ex-felons are the largest issue

• 
• • Harry J Enten
  • theguardian.com, Wednesday 31 July 2013 09.30 EDT
  • Jump to comments (37)

A Chicago voter casts her vote with her two children at a polling place in a cellular store during the US presidential election in Chicago, Illinois. Photograph: Jeff Haynes/Reuters

Voter identification laws have Democrats up in arms. One of the reasons, as Nate Cohn illustrated last week, is that they disproportionately affected non-white and Democratic voters in North Carolina. This effect, however, only would have padded Romney's lead in the state by 0.5pt to 0.8pt. In other words, it would only have made a difference in the tightest of elections, and North Carolina isn't close to being the state that determines the winner in presidential elections.

If Democrats want to be upset about something, they should turn their attention to felon and ex-felon voting restrictions. As I investigated last summer, these rules are quite unusual by international standards. Moreover, they have far more potential to actually change election outcomes than voter ID laws.

In a 45-country study by ProCon.org, 21 countries have barely to no restrictions of any type on felon voting. This includes Germany, Israel, and South Africa. Another 15 countries have limited restrictions. This includes Australia, France, and New Zealand. Putting the two groups together means that less than 20% of the countries studied had complete bans of felon voting. Only 11% of the countries had bans post-release. Even Russia wasn't on this list.

Compare this to the United States where most states prohibit felons from voting. The two states that allow it are Maine and Vermont. These two states also happen to be the whitest states in the nation. Another 13 states and the District of Columbia allow felons on parole to vote. Most of these 13 states have incredibly small black populations such as Montana, New Hampshire, and Utah. An additional four states allow those on probation to vote. Nineteen states allow voting once release is final. And the real kicker is that 12 states stop felons from voting permanently if they don't meet certain requirements.

The people overwhelmingly affected by these laws are minorities. Only 2.5%, 5.8 million people, in the voting age population were made ineligible to vote by felon voting laws in 2010, according to the Sentencing Project (pdf). That percentage tripled to 7.7% among African-Americans. Another way of putting this is that 38%, 2.2 million, of all those stopped from voting by felon restrictions are black. About a million black ex-felons (i.e. those who have "paid their debt to society") are disenfranchised.

Not surprisingly, these voters would vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Astudy of felon voting patterns (pdf) from 1972 to 2000 found on average 30% of felons and ex-felons would vote if given the chance, and about three out of four would vote for the Democratic nominee for president. This would have doubled Al Gore's margin in the national vote. Of course, it's the vote tallies at the state level that determine winners in United States elections.

I don't need to tell you that African-American voting rights and the southern United States don't exactly have a glorious history. None of the 21 states where incarcerated felons, those on parole, or on probation can vote are in the south. In Alabama, 15% of voting-age blacks are kept from voting by felon laws, and 14% of voting-age blacks are stopped in Mississippi. This percentage climbs to 19% in Tennessee.

In terms of pure numbers, 137,478 of African-Americans in Alabama, 107,758 in Mississippi, and 145,943 in Tennessee are kept from voting. Of the voters made ineligible by felon voting laws in Tennessee, over 40% are black. That percentage is above 50% in Alabama and Mississippi. The vast majority of these are people who have not only been released prison, but are off probation and parole as well.

The ability to reapply for voting rights can be as simple as submitting an application to the board of elections, but some states make it much more tedious. In Alabama, you can never regain your enfranchisement for certain offenses. In Mississippi, one might lose the right to vote for felony for writing a bad check. Said person would then have to get the state legislature to pass a specific bill allowing them to vote. That's probably too much for someone who likely has a lot of difficulty just finding a job, which is why only 0.28% of ex-felons in Mississippi (pdf) had their voting rights restored in the last decade.

So why hasn't there been more outrage over prisoner and ex-prisoner voting? The reality is that most states are simply uncompetitive in most elections. It wouldn't make a lot of difference.

Florida and Virginia, however, are very competitive* and have very strict felon laws whereby even ex-felons can have difficulty voting. Neither of these states have sterling records when it comes to civil rights overall. In Florida, all ex-felons must wait at least five years before asking an executive board for the right to vote. Some more violent offenders must wait seven years thanks to a rule signed by its Republican governor. Virginia's Republican governor has recently loosened its rules, but all ex-felons must still pay outstanding fines to the courts and some must still wait five years before re-applying.

Over 20% of the black populations in each state are disenfranchised because of felon and ex-felon voting restrictions. That includes about half a million blacks in Florida and a quarter of a million blacks in Virginia. Over 15% of the black populations in each state are disenfranchised because of ex-felon voting restrictions. More than half of the voters made ineligible by Virginia's felon and ex-felon restrictions are black.

In terms of electoral results, President Obama would have added 2.6pt to his 0.9pt Florida margin had felons and ex-felons been allowed to vote. Even if we just count ex-felons, it would have been 2.2pt. Al Gore would have easily won the state given this data. Obama would have tacked on another 1.6pt to his 3.9pt win in the swing state of Virginia if it had the felon voting rules of Maine or Vermont. It would still have been an additional 1.2pt including just ex-felons – as allowed in the vast majority of states.

Thus, laws prohibiting felons and ex-felons have a major impact on elections and may determine a winner in the near future. I don't expect people to take up the banner of felon and ex-felon voting rights. They're not are as sexy as a topic as voter identification for obvious reasons. But if you're looking for voting restrictions that afflict minorities in the south and can have major electoral implications, then felon and ex-felon voting laws have a far greater impact than voter identification laws.

*The competitive state of Iowa has recently switched its rules to tighten ex-felon voting thanks to its Republican governor. Up-to-date data, however, is unavailable on how many people this would affect. John Kerry likely would have won Iowa (pdf) had felons been allowed to vote.

Fast food strikes build in Michigan, Chicago

Philip DeFranco ‏@PhillyD30 Jul

I don't always mention religion and the economy but when I do I get 200% more dislikes. Cant stop. Wont stop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ZXMl_TLNo&feature=youtu.be&a …

Fast food strikes build in Michigan, Chicago

Non-unionized workers continue intensifying spate of walkouts against low wages

BY NATASHA LENNARD 

TOPICS: FAST FOOD STRIKE, FAST FOOD FORWARD, WALKOUTS, LABOR RIGHTS, UNIONS, MCDONALDS, MINIMUM WAGE, STRIKES, BUSINESS NEWS, LIFE NEWS, NEWS

Demonstrators in support of fast food workers protest outside a McDonald's (Credit: AP)

Wednesday marked the third day in a row of walkouts by fast food workers around the country, protesting low wages. Workers from 80 restaurant chain sites in Detroit and Flint, Mich. walked off the job, joining workers in New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Kansas City who have carried out similar actions recently in the fight for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation.

Chains including McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King and Wendy’s have seen their workers walk out in protest and solidarity, despite the fact that the corporate structure of the fast food industry in this country , as Time noted this week, “has been able to keep any sorts of unionization efforts from creeping into the workplace for decades.”

The Michigan strikes too were bolstered by similar efforts Wednesday in restaurant chains across Chicago. “Inspired by the courage and success in winning raises and other workplace victories following the first Chicago based fast-food and retail strikes of April 24, hundreds of workers from new fast-food and retail store locations in and beyond downtown Chicago will join this week’s strikes,” a release from strike organizers noted.

Writing for Salon earlier this week, Josh Eidelson recounted how the walk out efforts have intensified since they began with a short-term strike in New York last year, involving 200 restaurant workers across the city:

Over the past four months, that walkout has been followed by similar work stoppages in five other cities, and a second New York City strike roughly twice as large. Each of those strikes has been backed by the Service Employees International Union and local allies, and each has shared the same demands: a raise to $15 per hour, and the chance to form a union without intimidation by management. This week’s strikes will include five of those six cities – New York, Chicago,St. Louis, Detroit, and Milwaukee- and two new ones: Kansas City and Flint, Mich. (A spokesperson for the campaign in Seattle, where workers struck in May, told Salon to expect “a series of escalating direct actions” there this week.)

---

---

Commenting on whether the continued labor activism was likely to bring the desire wage hikes (from the minimum $7.25 to $15), MSNBC’s Ned Resnikoff noted that pushing for a federal minimum wage hike was unlikely to yield success any time soon, and certainly not without a good deal of political jockeying within the halls of Capitol Hill:

Federal legislation has the potential to raise the wage for all low-wage workers in one fell swoop. There is currently legislation pending in both the House and Senate that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. That is well below fast food workers’ asking price but is nonetheless significantly higher than the current federal minimum wage of $7.25. It’s even higher than the most generous state-level minimum wage, Washington state’s $9.19 per hour.

But the legislation, known as the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, has little chance of passing a Republican-controlled House. As a result, members of the House Progressive Caucus are seeking other avenues for an increase, such as attaching a wage-hiking amendment to a more Republican-friendly bill.

The GOP’s shutdown showdown

House Republicans, in their final days at work before taking a five-week vacation, have come out with a new agenda: “Stop Government Abuse.”By Dana Milbank, Published: July 30

A more candid slogan might be: “Stop Government.”

Tom Toles draws Republicans: A collection of cartoons about the GOP.

Gallery

The best editorial cartoons of 2013 (so far): A collection of cartoons from around the country.

This is traditionally one of the busiest weeks of the year, when the House rushes to complete the dozen annual spending bills so that the Senate can pass them before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. But there is no hurry this time. Instead of taking the lead on spending bills as the House traditionally does, lawmakers are instead proceeding with bills such as one “guaranteeing a citizen’s right to record conversations with federal regulators.”

That legal protection for recording devices might be a fine idea. But the real “government abuse” is what the House itself is doing: Only four of the 12 appropriations bills have cleared the chamber so far. And because the House plans to be in session justnine days in September, that guarantees that government finances won’t be in order in time for the new fiscal year.

House Republicans aren’t even trying to get the job done — which would seem to confirm the suspicion that they are precipitating a crisis.

The budget and appropriations processes have been a mess in recent years under both parties’ control, and there was no expectation this year would be different. But this time the slow walk serves conservatives’ singular purpose of undermining Obamacare. Because the appropriations won’t be completed by Oct. 1, Congress will have to pass a temporary extension, or “continuing resolution.” This kitchen-sink measure gives House Republicans the power to shut down the federal government if President Obama doesn’t agree to their demands — particularly the repeal of health-care reform.

On Monday, leaders of influential conservative groups such as the Club for Growth, Heritage Action, Family Research Council, FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax Reform sent a letter to House leadersbegging for a donnybrook. “The best and last chance for House Republicans to stand up and thwart this law before its new entitlements kick in is during the upcoming funding debate,” they wrote, “and the House should live up to the moment and pass a bill funding the government but denying any funding for Obamacare.”

Newcomer Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who is pushing for a shutdown showdown, spelled it out on Andrea Tantaros’s radio show: “We need 41 Republicans in the Senate or 218 Republicans in the House, to stand together, to join me” in saying that “we will not vote for a single continuing resolution that funds even a penny of Obamacare.” Cruz has since taunted “scared” Republicans who oppose his idea and dismissed as “cocktail chatter” the notion that a government shutdown would be a bad move for Republicans.

Happily, a number of Senate Republicans have called that idea daft. But it’s a different matter in the House, where the obsession with rolling back Obamacare takes on yet another form Friday with a vote on a bill blocking the Internal Revenue Service from implementing the health-care law. In that sense, the lack of urgency with which the House is handling the spending bills makes perfect sense: It gives Republicans another swing at Obamacare. So what if economic chaos is a side effect?

“ ‘Irresponsible’ is a term that doesn’t go nearly far enough,” says Norm Ornstein, the American Enterprise Institute scholar who has become a scold of congressional Republicans. “You could say it’s a do-nothing Congress but that doesn’t do justice to it. These guys are doing something, which is to destroy the economic fabric of the country by holding the functions of government hostage to a non-negotiable demand to eliminate Obamacare.”

In a sense, the inaction on spending is just another sign of the dysfunction in the chamber that has prevented negotiations on an overall budget framework, put bipartisan immigration legislation on ice and created a standoff on the farm bill that will, if not overcome, cause milk prices to jump to as much as $8 per gallon next year. But provoking a government shutdown would take things to a whole new depth.

A shutdown is unlikely to achieve the goal of repealing health-care reform; Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), one of the top political minds in the House, cautions his colleagues that shutting down the government would be a “suicidal political tactic.” Polls suggest the same.

But such calculations assume the shutdown crowd cares about the politics or the chance of success. For them, “stop government” is more than a slogan; it’s a way of life.

Plainclothes officers in trouble - didn't recognize off-duty chief

By Alison Gendar / DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, May 10, 2008, 1:02 AM

Three-star NYPD Chief Douglas Zeigler

At least one cop has been disciplined for ordering the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed black officer out of his auto while the three-star chief was off-duty and parked in Queens, the Daily News has learned.
"How you can not know or recognize a chief in a department SUV with ID around his neck, I don't know," a police source said.
Chief Douglas Zeigler, 60, head of the Community Affairs Bureau, was in his NYPD-issued vehicle near a fire hydrant when two plainclothes cops approached on May 2, sources said.
One officer walked up on each side of the SUV at 57th Ave. and Xenia St. in Corona about 7 p.m. and told the driver to roll down the heavily tinted windows, sources said.
What happened next is in dispute.
In his briefing to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Zeigler said the two cops, who are white, had no legitimate reason to approach his SUV, ranking sources said.
After they ordered him to get out, one officer did not believe the NYPD identification Zeigler gave him.
The cops gave a different account:
When one officer spotted Zeigler's service weapon through the rolled-down window, he yelled "Gun!" according to sources who have spoken with the officers.
Both cops raised their weapons and ordered the driver out of the car, sources said.
Instead of saying he was an armed member of the NYPD, Zeigler shouted, "Don't you know who I am?" the sources said.
When one cop reached over to check the identification badge around Zeigler's neck, the chief pushed him away, sources said.
Only then did Zeigler tell the two officers his name and rank, those sources said.
Zeigler, in his discussions with Kelly, said the officers never yelled "Gun!" sources said.
One cop got into a heated argument with the chief even after seeing the ID, sources said.
That cop was stripped of his gun and badge and placed on modified duty last night, sources said. The status of the second officer was unclear.
The incident occurred as the NYPD is under fire for record numbers of pedestrians being stopped and frisked, the majority of them black or Hispanic. Some 145,098 people were stopped by the NYPD in the first quarter of this year.
Zeigler has headed the Community Affairs Bureau since January 2006. His wife, Neldra Zeigler, is NYPD deputy commissioner for equal employment opportunity.

Car Towed - STORY TIME WITH ANDREA - @AndreaRussett

Huntington Beach Residents Voice Concerns After Riots

Huntington Beach Residents Voice Concerns After Riots

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (KTLA) — A special city council meeting was held in Huntington Beach on Tuesday to address the riots that erupted after the U.S. Open of Surfing.

Hundreds of residents and business owners packed City Hall to voice their concerns about Sunday’s violence.

Crowds of people vandalized city property after the close of the annual Vans U.S. Open of Surfing.

They tipped over portable toilets, smashed through a store window with a stop sign and looted, injuring some police officers.

Police had to use tear gas and rubber bullets to control the crowd.

On Tuesday, concerned citizens asked that changes be made to the event, which many said attracts troublemakers.

All but one of the seven people arrested on Sunday were visitors.

Many residents expressed anger at the response time to the incident, saying it took at least 15 minutes for police to arrive on scene.

“I want the city to start responding to the needs of the people that live in downtown, not just the vendors, bars and restaurants that seem to have so much influence,” one resident said.

“That means more resources, more planning and more common sense when it comes to events like the U.S. Open,” he said.

One of those arrested during the disturbance was 30-year-old Fullerton firefighter Michael John Lytle, Huntington Beach police said.

The Anaheim resident, who joined the Fullerton Fire Department in 2008, was facing charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

“This is not something that I would have expected from this individual or any firefighter for that matter,” Fullerton Fire Chief Wolfgang Knabe said.

“Traditionally, we’re held in pretty high esteem in the community. For any organization when something like this happens, it’s not a good thing.”

Lytle was placed on administrative leave as the department and police conducted separate investigations, Knabe said.

Another alleged rioter in hot water was 19-year-old Chase Scott Chrisman, of Simi Valley. He was charged on Tuesday with vandalism, inciting a riot and refusal to disperse.

Read more: http://ktla.com/2013/07/31/huntington-beach-residents-voice-concerns-after-riots/#ixzz2admidfn2