Sunday's Doonesbury- Tired of being demonized!

Toon: Handbook for Homophobes

Cover up the art and shutter the library!

The Kansas Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that will purge literature from our schools, censor art classes, and stop field trips.

Senate Bill 401 does two things:

Under current law, one can defend the display of art in an art history class because of the importance of a particular work of art. For example, works that include nudes - Michelangelo's statue of David, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Fall of Man - are important in the history of art. Students can see them as part of instruction and, if a parent objects and accuses the school of promoting obscenity, the "affirmative defense" allows the school to argue the artistic merit of the piece in question.

Senate Bill 401removes from public, private and parochial schools the defense of literary or artistic merit or significance when someone accuses the school of exposing students to "offensive" materials.

The same applies to literature. For years people have tried to get books pulled from literature classes and school libraries. Huckleberry Finn, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret are three examples of books that have been challenged over the years. But the defense of literary merit has been allowed. Senate Bill 401 removes that defense from public, private, and parochial schools.

If you think this only has to do with "obscenity," you are wrong. While the bill does address obscene materials, its provisions also apply if "a reasonable person would find that the material or performance lacks serious literary, scientific, educational, artistic or political value for minors." This language is so broad as to include almost anything. Could someone challenge Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry as lacking "political value?"

more

http://view.email.nea.org/?j=fe8517747d6c027471&m=fe9215707263027971&ls=fe3211707060077e771774&l=ff901d76&s=fe571372746d007c7c13&jb=ffc912&ju=fe5d1070736207747617&r=0

Disney to pull Boy Scouts funding by 2015 over policy banning gay leaders

CNN) -- The Walt Disney Company has given notice to the Boy Scouts of America that it will pull all funding to the group starting in 2015 because of a BSA membership policy that bans gay leaders, the entertainment company said Friday.

Disney does not give money directly to the national organization or local BSA councils. However, through its VoluntEARS program, Disney allows employees to do volunteer work in exchange for cash donations to the charities of their choice.

Employees taking part in the VoluntEARS program will no longer be able to submit the funds to the Boy Scouts, the organization said. The new policy will not affect Walt Disney employees who volunteer with the Scouts, the company said.

"We believe every child deserves the opportunity to be a part of the Scouting experience, and we are disappointed in this decision because it will impact our ability to serve kids," BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in a statement. "America's youth need Scouting, and by continuing to focus on the goals that unite us, we continue to accomplish incredible things for young people and the communities we serve."

more
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/28/us/disney-pulls-boy-scouts-funding/index.html

Bemidji Minnesota: 6-year-old girl found frozen to death

BEMIDJI, Minn. -- A 6-year-old Bemidji girl was found dead of exposure to the winter elements Thursday morning at her apartment complex.

The girl's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and autopsy results. She was a first-grader at Horace May Elementary School. Officials said they expect to release the name today.

Bemidji police Capt. James Marcotte described the death as "tragic" and said it is under investigation. Marcotte said Beltrami County dispatch received two telephone calls at 6:23 a.m. Thursday, one from the victim's mother and the other from a neighbor.

Marcotte said officers and medical personnel arrived on the scene within minutes of the 911 calls and were directed to a 6-year-old girl who was located inside the front entrance to the apartment building. She was wearing a jacket, boots, hat and mittens when emergency personnel arrived.

more

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25246646/bemidji-6-year-old-girl-found-frozen-death

Alabama Man Convicted of Raping 14-Year-Old Continues to Avoid Prison Time

An Alabama man who was punished with only probation for three rape convictions in a case involving an underage girl does not have to serve prison time, a state criminal appeals court ruled Friday.

In September, a local jury found Austin Smith Clem, 25, guilty of raping his teenage neighbor three times—twice when she was 14, and once when she was 18.

Clem was convicted on one count of first-degree rape and two counts of second-degree rape. In November, a judge sentenced Clem to a mere three years of probation, touching off a national outcry and prompting Limestone County District Attorney Brian Jones to make a series of legal moves to ensure that Clem would be incarcerated. Friday's order is a response to Jones' second request that the court find that Clem's sentence was illegally lenient.

Under the appeals court's Friday decision, Clem will serve the punishment he was handed by a county judge when he was resentenced December 23—five years of probation, and prison time of up to 35 years if he violates the terms of his probation.

more

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/02/alabama-man-convicted-raping-teenager-prison-time

Walker Violated Public Records Law: So say former AG and Milwaukee supervisor

A former Wisconsin attorney general and a Milwaukee county supervisor who was subpoenaed by the John Doe prosecutor are both wondering why Scott Walker wasn’t charged with violating the state’s public records law while he was Milwaukee county executive.

The recently released 27,000 pages of documents from the first John Doe investigation provided enough evidence to bring such a charge, they say.

John Weishan, a Democrat and a critic of Walker on the Milwaukee County board, submitted an open records request for the computer communications in the county executive’s office back in the spring of 2010. Weishan suspected at the time that Walker or members of his staff were doing campaign work on the public dime, which turned out to be the case.

But Weishan received only four vacuous pages back in response to his request, along with a bill for $2,800 and the accusation from Walker’s staff that the supervisor was engaged in a “fishing expedition.”

Today, Weishan says, he feels vindicated. The document dump “proves that everything I thought was going on at the time did take place,” he says.

more

http://www.progressive.org/walker-violated-public-records-law

Wisconsin income gap widening faster than nation as a whole

MIKE IVEY | The Capital Times

Income inequality in Wisconsin is increasing at a faster rate than the nation as a whole, a trend that authors of a new report warn is causing social upheaval and straining government services.

The top 1 percent in Wisconsin — households with incomes over $283,000 — captured 15.7 percent of all the income generated in the state in 2011. That compares to a 7 percent slice for the top 1 percent four decades ago, according to a joint report issued by the liberal-leaning UW-Madison’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Wisconsin Budget Project.

Moreover, inflation-adjusted income for the bottom 99 percent of Wisconsin residents has actually fallen by 0.4 percent since 1979 while incomes for the upper 1 percent more than doubled over the period.

“Put another way, all the growth in income that occurred between 1979 and 2011 in Wisconsin wound up in the pockets of the top 1 percent,” says the report released Friday.



Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/writers/mike_ivey/wisconsin-income-gap-widening-faster-than-nation-as-a-whole/article_acc8a776-a0be-11e3-a5f1-001a4bcf887a.html

US Border Agents Intentionally Stepped in Front of Moving Vehicles to Justify Shooting at Them

The Los Angeles Times obtained an internal review of US Border Patrol’s use-of-force policies, which US Customs and Border Protection has refused to release publicly (members of Congress have seen a summary). While the Times did not offer the report in full, the paper did publish previously unseen snippets that portray a law enforcement agency operating under loose use-of-force standards and little accountability.

The review was completed in February 2013 by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit that develops best practices for law enforcement use-of-force policies. It examined sixty-seven use-of-force incidents by federal border agents near the US-Mexico border that resulted in nineteen deaths.

Here are some key findings of the review, revealed by the Times Thursday:

Border Patrol agents have intentionally and unnecessarily stepped in front of moving cars to justify using deadly force against vehicle occupants.

Agents have shot in frustration across the US-Mexico border at rock throwers when simply moving away was an option.

Border Patrol demonstrates a “lack of diligence” in investigating incidents in which US agents fire their weapons.

It’s questionable whether Border Patrol “consistently and thoroughly reviews” incidents in which agents use deadly force.

TSA Harasses Traveler After 'Seeing Bitcoin' In His Bag

The TSA attempted to "screen" airline passenger Davi Barker for the virtual currency Bitcoin.

Barker is co-founder of BitcoinNotBombs, a Bitcoin advocacy group that gets donation-based organizations and social entrepreneurs set up to handle the currency. He's written a very detailed telling of what happened right here. After going through security (he opted out of the body scanner but was successfully cleared through the checkpoint), two people stopped him, and it got uncomfortable quickly.