Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalLawsuit Alleges 'Modern-Day Slavery' In Alabama Prison System
Current and former prisoners in Alabama filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday arguing that the state’s prison labor system amounts to a “modern-day form of slavery” that violates the U.S. and Alabama constitutions.
The complaint, brought with the support of labor unions, alleges that Alabama profits to the tune of more than $450 million a year through coerced work, and that fast food companies and other private corporations benefit from an unlawful “labor trafficking scheme.”
The proposed class action lawsuit seeks to abolish a “captive labor source” for the state and award current and past prisoners with damages. The defendants include the state’s Republican governor, Kay Ivey, and its Republican attorney general, Steve Marshall, along with Alabama corrections and parole officials.
Janet Herold, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a press conference Tuesday that the prison work programs are “the modern reincarnation of the notorious convict-leasing system that replaced slavery after the Civil War.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alabama-prisoners-sue-state-modern-day-slavery_n_6578b23ee4b0db9d2ab74317
In other words, nothing is new.
GOP presidential candidates forced to weigh in on the Kate Cox Texas abortion case
Abortion — and how far Republicans were willing to go in banning it — was once again thrust to the front of the presidential campaign, as the GOP candidates were forced to address a particularly controversial case in Texas.
None of the candidates who commented on the matter this week were willing to outright say they disagreed with Texas’ decision to deny Kate Cox an abortion, but they also weren’t jumping to defend the Republican politicians in the state.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called for more “compassion” Tuesday in comments to NBC News.
“We don’t want any women to sit there and deal with a rare situation and have to deliver a baby in that sort of circumstance any more than we want women getting an abortion at 37, 38, 39 weeks,” Haley said, emphasizing that she is “pro-life.” “We have to humanize the situation and deal with it with compassion.”
Cox has made national headlines, galvanizing abortion rights supporters who say her case shows the harm in such restrictive abortion bans passed by Republican state legislatures — and putting some GOP politicians in uncomfortable positions as they try to play down what has been a losing issue for them at the polls.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/gop-candidates-forced-weigh-kate-cox-texas-abortion-case-rcna129431
There's an awful lotof waffling and shit in this article. Read on....
FBI arrests an 'internet pornography personality' on Jan. 6 charges
The FBI has arrested an "internet pornography personality" who went by the name "GodHypnotic," accusing him of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Paul Caloia was arrested last week, according to court records, and faces four misdemeanor charges. An FBI affidavit features images of the man identified as Caloia climbing in through a broken window. His arrest was first reported by The Detroit News.
An FBI affidavit stated that the bureau received a tip on Jan. 12, 2021, in which a witness related that an "internet pornography personality" had been "bragging" on Skype about participating in the Jan. 6 attack.
"Witness 1 further stated that as God Hypnotic was bragging about his involvement in the January 6 riots, another individual in the chat asked God Hypnotic why he went to the Capitol. At that point, Witness 1 said that God Hypnotic backtracked and said he went to the Capitol for reporting purposes," the FBI affidavit stated.
Online "Sedition Hunters" — online sleuths who have identified hundreds of Capitol rioters and aided in numerous FBI investigations — had been tracking Caloia as well. They had given him the nickname "RightWingRedWing" because they identified him in videos on Jan. 6 wearing a Detroit Red Wings hat.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/fbi-arrests-internet-pornography-personality-jan-6-charges-rcna129325
Another one bites the dust....
Texas high school basketball player beat up coach after being benched for poor sportsmanship
A Texas high school basketball player, upset that he was benched and facing suspension, allegedly pummeled his coach during a postgame parking lot beatdown, officials said Tuesday.
The 17-year-old player and his 22-year-old brother were booked on suspicion of assaulting a public servant before each posted a $20,000 bond and being released on Wednesday, the Montgomery County Jail said. NBC News does not usually name minors charged with a crime.
“I would have never thought in a million years this would happen to me with this his particular kid," Willis High School coach Jeremy Clark told NBC News on Tuesday.
Hours before the alleged Dec. 5 assault, about 50 miles north of Houston, the player had been taken out of Willis' game at Conroe High School for arguing with an opponent and referees, according to his coach.
Clark, 37, said he wanted the 17-year-old to cool off but the player angrily told an assistant coach and his teammates not to speak to him, leading to the benching.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-high-school-basketball-player-beat-coach-benched-poor-sportsmans-rcna129277
What an entitled little shit.
'Stunning' threat in Texas abortion case steps up Paxton criminalization crusade
When a Texas court ruled that a 31-year-old woman with a non-viable pregnancy could have an abortion despite the state’s strict bans, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, responded with a brazen threat to prosecute “hospitals, doctors, or anyone else” who would assist in providing the procedure. The letter he sent Texas hospitals hours after the ruling, threatening first-degree felonies that could result in life in prison, was a “stunning” move indicative of his longstanding crusade to criminalize abortion care, say legal experts and advocates.
“It is extraordinary that Paxton would threaten hospitals and doctors with this letter before even winning an appeal,” Mary Ziegler, a UC-Davis law professor who focuses on reproductive rights, told the Guardian. “It’s a very unusual maneuver, but does certainly reflect his ultimate goal of wanting to go after abortion providers and supporters at all costs.”
After Paxton sent his menacing letter to Texas hospitals, the state petitioned the all-Republican Texas supreme court to block the ruling allowing Kate Cox to access an abortion in Texas. On Friday, the state’s highest court temporarily halted the lower court order that had allowed Cox to receive emergency abortion care, before ruling on Monday to vacate the order that would have permitted her to get care in her home state.
With a risky pregnancy that threatened her health, Cox waited nearly three days for the Court to issue a final order. On Monday, hours before the final order from the court, she finally fled out-of-state for abortion care at 20 weeks pregnant.
Cox’s attorneys called Paxton’s strategy a “fearmongering” tactic and an effort to “bulldoze the legal system” to ensure Cox continued to suffer.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/12/texas-abortion-ken-paxton-kate-cox
Propriety forbids my suggesting the next step against Paxton....
GOP Sen. Flabbergasted on CNN When Pressed on Unsubstantiated Claim
When asked Monday about Republicans in Wisconsin having falsely claimed to be electors for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) claimed that Democrats have done the same “repeatedly in all kinds of different states”—yet failed to provide even one example, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins merely to “check the books.”
On The Source, Collins mentioned how 10 Republicans in Johnson’s state settled a lawsuit last week that was brought by Wisconsin’s legitimate electors, who had sought $200,000 from each elector. Though no fine was handed down, each elector admitted that Joe Biden won the election and agreed to not be an elector in 2024 or any election in which Donald Trump was a candidate. They also agreed that by posing as electors, they were “part of an attempt to improperly overturn” the election results.
One elector, however, will remain on the state’s nonpartisan elections commission, as Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said Monday that he would not rescind his appointment of Bob Spindell to the post. The commission has three Republicans and three Democrats.
When asked if he supported calls for Spindell’s resignation, Johnson made clear that he didn’t.
“No. Again, there was an active court case. There were all kinds of irregularities in Wisconsin in the 2020 election. In order to make sure that the case just wasn’t determined to be moot, they had to have an ultimate slate of electors, just like Democrats have done repeatedly in all kinds of different states,” he said. “There is nothing untoward about what they did. There is nothing illegal about what they did. They are just an alternate slate of electors.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-sen-ron-johnson-flabbergasted-on-cnn-when-pressed-on-unsubstantiated-claim
RoJo is glad Tuberville is there or he would be the Senate's dumbest senator......
'Thankful': Bronny James Makes USC Debut Nearly 5 Months After Cardiac Arrest
Bronny James showed off his defensive skills in his college debut for Southern California nearly five months after he suffered cardiac arrest and expressed gratitude for the doctors and family who supported him.
He had four points, three rebounds and two assists on Sunday, coming off the bench to play in front of his superstar father LeBron James.
“I just want to say I’m thankful for everything,” Bronny James said afterward in brief comments to a horde of media. He thanked the Mayo Clinic, where he received treatment, as well as his parents, siblings, coach Andy Enfield and his teammates “during this hard time in my life.”
He left without taking any questions.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bronny-james-usc-debut_n_657697ebe4b0881b7917a36d
They're doing it right, bringing him back slowly. Welcome back, Bronny!
Damning Report On Texas Death Row Cases: 'The System Is Utterly Broken'
Harris County, Texas, has executed more people than anywhere else in the country. In most Harris County cases ending in a death sentence over the previous 20 years, defense lawyers failed to find and present compelling evidence that could have kept their clients off of death row, according to a two-part report published on Monday by the Wren Collective, a group of former public defenders who do criminal justice research and policy.
The report authors reviewed 28 cases, which accounts for the vast majority of Harris County cases that resulted in a death sentence over the past two decades. The authors excluded a handful of cases in which post-conviction litigation, which provides insight into what occurred at trial, had either not been filed at the time of review or contained insufficient detail about trial proceedings. They reviewed court filings, jail visit records, billing records and interviewed judges, trial and post-conviction lawyers and mitigation specialists.
In each of those cases, the report authors found that trial attorneys missed important evidence that could have convinced a prosecutor to drop a death sentence or a juror to choose a life sentence, including evidence of mental illness, intellectual disability, physical abuse and sexual abuse. In many cases, attorneys failed to prepare key witnesses until the day they were scheduled to testify.
“The stakes of capital murder cases could not possibly be higher, and yet for decades, people have gone to death row with serious intellectual disability claims and lengthy histories of severe physical and sexual abuse,” said Wren Collective founder Jessica Brand, who has previously worked at the Texas Defender Service. “It is not because juries did not believe their stories — it’s because they never heard them.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/harris-county-texas-death-penalty-report_n_6574d077e4b0fca7ad20fd27
Raise your hand if you're surprised.....
Supreme Court let's stand Washington state 'conversion therapy' ban for LGBTQ+ minors
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a challenge to a ban on "conversion therapy" for minors, avoiding an appeal from a Christian marriage and family counselor who said the prohibition violated his First Amendment rights.
The scientifically discredited practice is used to try to “convert” LGBTQ+ individuals to heterosexuality or to change a person's gender identity. Washington state passed a law in 2018 barring licensed therapists from engaging in the practice with patients under 18 − joining roughly half of U.S. states with similar laws.
By declining to hear the appeal, the Supreme Court left in place a decision from an appeals court that upheld the law. As is common, the Supreme Court did not explain its reasoning for denying the appeal.
Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh said that would have granted the appeal.
Under the Washington law, Thomas wrote, "licensed counselors can speak with minors about gender dysphoria, but only if they convey the state-approved message of encouraging minors to explore their gender identities. Expressing any other message is forbidden − even if the counselor’s clients ask for help to accept their biological sex."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/11/supreme-court-conversion-therapy-ban-lgbtq-transgender/70985750007/
Thomas can go commit a biological impossibility on himself.
For survivors of Covenant School shooting, nightmares persists
She saw the face of the killer who gunned down her friends. The shooter looked mean. Angry.
For weeks, the 9-year-old perched atop a set of stairs as night fell. There, inside her family’s two-story home, the girl, whose free time was once consumed by dancing and crafts, kept vigil, watching passing headlights that beamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Within days of the Covenant School shooting in late March, this survivor began an evening ritual — checking exits, searching for signs of suspicious cars, identifying hiding spots and always thinking of escape plans — on the off chance a killer tried to shoot their way into her home.
She even asked her parents to install bulletproof glass.
Before the school shooting, her mother said, she was a happy girl. Silly and funny. Delightful. Since then, she’s become more withdrawn. She lost 50% of the hearing in her left ear, a consequence of being so close to the shooter, inside the third-grade classroom that was riddled with more than 150 bullets.
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/2023/12/10/nashville-covenant-school-shooting-survivors-say-their-pain-remains-fresh/71604990007/
Here, and everywhere else there's been a shooting. When will it STOP?
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