https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/30/chilling-mississippi-city-claims-undocumented-man-killed-police-had-no

A court filing publicized late last week drew outrage on Monday over the case of Ismael Lopez, a 41-year-old man who was killed by police two years ago in Southaven, Mississippi.

To avoid responsibility for the man's death, attorneys for the city are arguing that Lopez had no constitutional rights due to his status as an undocumented immigrant—blatantly contradicting U.S. law and numerous rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, was among the immigrant rights defenders who drew attention to the case on social media.

Cops in Southhaven Mississippi knocked on the door of the wrong house and killed an innocent man, Ismael Lopez - shooting him in the head

His family sued the city

The city is now moving to dismiss the case, arguing that undocumented people have no rightshttps://t.co/x1ePIfYJCE

— Kristen Clarke (@KristenClarkeJD) September 29, 2019

Lopez was shot in the back of the head when the police came to his home, where he'd lived for 16 years, in July 2017. His widow, Claudia Linares, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Southaven this past summer, a year after a grand jury declined to indict the two officers involved in his death.

..............

I can't even wrap my head around this type of thinking.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/26/just-digital-privacy-advocates-warned-bezos-admits-amazon-writing-its-own-laws

....

A casual announcement made Wednesday by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that his company is writing facial recognition regulations for legislators to enact is exactly what "digital rights activists have been warning" would emerge from Silicon Valley unless lawmakers pass a full ban on facial recognition surveillance.

Bezos told reporters at a product launch event that the company's "public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations."

"It makes a lot of sense to regulate that," Bezos said. "It's a perfect example of something that has really positive uses so you don't want to put the breaks on it. At the same time there's lots of potential for abuses with that kind of technology and so you do want regulations."

Amazon earlier this year released facial recognition guidelines that it hoped lawmakers would consider when creating regulation.

Now, Amazon is writing draft legislation to pitch to lawmakers, Jeff Bezos said in a surprise media appearance yesterday https://t.co/MdWwkWZxgj pic.twitter.com/YMOnKjBL9r

— Jason Del Rey (@DelRey) September 26, 2019

For a form of technology that digital rights advocates call "uniquely dangerous," regulations—especially those that Amazon lobbyists have a hand in developing—are not sufficient to keep Americans safe from the privacy violations facial recognition can cause, said Fight for the Future.

....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/nyregion/trump-tax-returns-lawsuit.html

Lawyers for President Trump argued in a lawsuit filed on Thursday that he could not be criminally investigated while in office, as they sought to block a subpoena from state prosecutors in Manhattan demanding eight years of his tax returns.

Taking a broad position that the lawyers acknowledged had not been tested, the president’s legal team argued in the complaint that the Constitution effectively makes sitting presidents immune from all criminal inquiries until they leave the White House.

Presidents, they asserted, have such enormous responsibility and play a unique role in government that they cannot be subject to the burden of investigations, especially from local prosecutors who may use the criminal process for political gain.

Several constitutional law scholars interviewed by The New York Times said that if the lawyers’ position were accepted by the court, it would set a sweeping new precedent.

.............

I wonder what legal basis they are using to underpin that argument.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/the-incredible-belief-that-corporate-ownership-does-not-influence-media-content/

.....

As a journalist who has worked both inside and outside of establishment media, I see influence as embedded in a corporate media culture rather than in isolated cases of CEO dictates. It happens in little ways, such as how an interviewer frames a question, and in big ways, like the decision to exclude a topic, a person or a group of people from the airwaves.

Like most US companies, news organizations are hierarchies, which people who have worked in corporate offices can readily understand. Given that “90% of the United States’ media is controlled by five media conglomerates,” the top executive at many news outfits is likely the CEO of a multinational corporation. The word comes down from the business execs to the company’s division chiefs, as seen in countless movies (like the 1976 classic Network). This was how it was when I worked on primetime national news at CBS in the 1990s.

On the inside, it wasn’t easy to see organizational bias, when job security and team work required overlooking it. The response to the heavily promoted primetime news pairing of two well-known anchors exemplified how news personnel learn to toe the line. The two anchors had zero chemistry, but no one mentioned it, as if an unwritten code had been instantly internalized. This dragged on for two years, pulling down the network’s ratings.

Higher-ups would never offer editorial staff direct input on content. That’s what the executive and middle management were for. Would these managers confide to their staff that the big guns gave them a certain direction? No. Whatever it was, they would present it as their own, and it would be adopted.

.....

https://theconversation.com/trumps-fight-to-count-us-citizens-and-non-citizens-5-questions-answered-120957

by Jeffrey W Ladewig, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut


The U.S. is still months away from the start of the 2020 census – but the decennial count of the country’s population is already controversial.

After the Supreme Court’s decision at the end of June, President Donald Trump conceded that the administration would no longer pursue a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. Census.

Instead, Trump announced that he signed an executive order instructing the executive branch to share all citizenship data with the U.S. Census. He suggested that the augmented data could be used in the apportionment and redistricting processes.

I have studied and taught how the U.S. apportions seats in Congress and redraws congressional districts for two decades. These topics have been of paramount importance to democratic representation since, at least, the founding of the U.S. And both are critical for the future legitimacy of the American government after the 2020 Census.

......

https://theconversation.com/the-difference-between-left-and-liberal-and-why-voters-need-to-know-120273

According to press accounts, all of the Democratic contenders taking the stage this week rank on a spectrum of more or less “liberal.”

They don’t.

While most are liberal, two or three are leftist, not liberal. It’s important that voters start distinguishing between those terms because the primary presents them a stark choice between the two.

Leftism and liberalism are distinct political categories with different histories. Understanding the problem of fusing them requires a quick tour of British history from around 1845 to 1980 with just a few stops along the way to the U.S. in 2019.

......

Interesting article and well worth reading.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/heres-how-lawyers-enabling-trumps-obstruction-can-have-their-livelihoods-stripped-from-them-by-anyone/

(original story on The Daily Beast is behind a paywall)

....

According to Brad Miller, who represented North Carolina in Congress between 2003 and 2013, the way in which former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment was handled — and the penalty he eventually received — is a road map for legal retaliation even if Democrats in Congress won’t do it.

Pointing out the numerous lawyers in the Trump administration who have refused to comply with subpoenas and answer lawmaker’s questions, Miller suggests formal complaints can be lodged with the Bar that can lead to disciplinary action or even disbarment.

....

According to the ex-lawmaker, a referral to the Bar need not come from Congress — it can come from anyone.

“Who can file a grievance with the District of Columbia Bar,” he wrote. “All God’s children. Members of the House OGR [Oversight] Committee can; the lawyers in the citizenship question lawsuit can; anyone can.”

***********

This includes going after AG Barr who is licensed in Virginia

My response would go something like this; "If you didn't think America was great when you voted in Nov/2016, why didn't you leave then?

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/harvard-laws-laurence-tribe-warns-the-census-fight-isnt-over-heres-the-new-way-trump-wants-to-rig-elections-for-a-decade/

...

But as Harvard Law professor and constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe warned, the fight is not over. In fact, the seeds of Trump’s next, and possibly even worse, scheme to rig American democracy was hidden in Trump’s announcement of his alternate proposal for collecting citizenship data.

“Some states may want to draw state and local legislative districts based upon the voter eligible population,” said Trump. “Indeed, the same day the Supreme Court handed down the census decision, it also said it would not review certain types of districting decisions, which could encourage states to make such decisions based on voter eligibility.”

This meaning is clear: Trump’s purpose in collecting citizenship data is to encourage states to draw districts based on the “voter eligible population,” rather than the total population, which is historically how every state has done so. As Tribe explained, the consequences of that could be huge:

...

Evenwel v. Abbott was a Supreme Court decision in 2015, in which the justices unanimously ruled that it is constitutional for states to use the total population in legislative apportionment. Crucially though, the court did not rule that it was mandatory to do so — and Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito wrote that they believe states are free to choose to only count eligible voters if they wish. All of this hints that if GOP-controlled states decide to take up Trump on his suggestion and only count eligible voters for district lines, the federal courts will not stand in their way.

...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/here-are-10-photos-and-maps-that-will-freak-you-out-about-tropical-storm-barry-headed-for-new-orleans/


This is some scary shit.