[sandandglass]

The Half Hour s05e01 – Noah Gardenswartz

[wilwheaton]

[tpfnewsdesk-deactivated20181216]

Voters Just Kicked One of America’s Deadliest Prosecutors Out of Office

On Tuesday, Florida voters kicked Jacksonville prosecutor Angela Corey out of office. Corey garnered just 26 percent of the vote in the Republican primary. Her rival, Melissa Nelson, defeated her by a 38-point margin. Nelson is reform-minded but also touts an NRA endorsement. She will run unopposed in November.

Corey is widely known as one of the cruelest and deadliest prosecutors in America. She is infamous for vigorously prosecuting Marissa Alexander, a black woman who fired a warning shot into a wall during an altercation with her abusive husband. Under Florida’s stand-your-ground law, this action was perfectly legal—but Corey secured a 20-year jail sentence for Alexander, arguing that she fired the shot out of anger. A judge later overturned her conviction, ordered a retrial, and released Alexander; Corey has since fought to send her back to jail, alleging untruthfully that she had violated parole. Corey also hoped to secure a 60-year sentence for Alexander at her retrial.

Two years before the Alexander incident, Corey gained notoriety for ordering prosecutors to charge 12-year-old Cristian Fernandez as an adult for the murder of his younger half-brother. (Her best evidence was drawn from a “confession” of dubious constitutionality.) Fernandez was born to a 12-year-old mother whose boyfriend molested him. Another of his mother’s boyfriends shot himself in the head in Fernandez’s presence. By prosecuting Fernandez as an adult, Corey would have been able to hold him in an adult jail during trial, and secure a mandatory life sentence before Fernandez became a teenager. Pro bono counsel eventually intervened and negotiated a plea deal that allowed Fernandez to serve just a few years in juvenile jail. The attorney who secured that deal was Melissa Nelson, who just unseated Corey. (After the Fernandez incident, Corey continued threatening to charge juveniles as adults to coerce them into accepting harsh plea deals.)

During the span of her term, Corey sent far more people to death row than any other Florida prosecutor.  Most of these capital defendants were black men. She was unapologetic about her use of the death penalty; when one victim’s mother said she opposed capital punishment for her daughter’s killer, Corey declared on live radio that the mother was “more interested in publicity than actually grieving for her daughter.” Yet Corey was oddly lenient on several high-profile defendants accused of killing black men, including George Zimmerman. Corey avoided race entirely when prosecuting Zimmerman, who shot unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. She was widely accused of botching the prosecution by overcharging Zimmerman.

Corey also employed a medical examiner who may have suffered from dementia. Her critics allegethat Corey continued to put the examiner on the stand to secure murder convictions after she became aware of his diminished mental state.

Florida voters also unseated prosecutor Jeff Ashton on Tuesday; he was defeated by a black woman whose husband previously served time in prison. Ashton was similarly known for his overzealous prosecutions of minorities, and for condoning an employee’s offensive Facebook rants. In 2014, Kenneth Lewis, one of Ashton’s assistant prosecutors wrote, “Happy Mother’s Day to all the crack hoes out there. It’s never too late to turn it around, tie your tubes, clean up your life and make difference to someone out there that deserves a better mother.” Lewis also posted a picture of Justice Sonia Sotomayor and wrote, “Reason enough why no country should ever engage in the practice of Affirmative Action again. This could be the result. Where would she be if she didn’t hit the quota lottery? Here’s a hint: ‘Would you like to supersize that sir?’ ”

When reporters asked Ashton about Lewis’ posts, he explained that “I do not police the private thoughts, views or expressions of those in my employ.” On Tuesday, Ashton lost his primary race by 14 points.

Over the last year, voters have also rejected exorbitantly retributive prosecutors in Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio, and Texas. In Chicago and Cleveland, voters were especially irate that ostensibly “tough on crime” prosecutors seemed to target young black men while failing to charge, try, or convict police officers who shoot young black men. Replacing these prosecutors with reform candidates is a major goal of the Black Lives Matter movement. With the toppling of Corey, this campaign to unseat unjust prosecutors scored its biggest victory yet.

[hustleinatrap]

School girls threatened with arrest for wearing natural hair in Pretoria hight school. 

#StopRacismAtPretoriaGirlsHigh

[wereallygoneactlike-deactivated]

“Why y'all so mad it’s just hair.”

[spinelessdemsandwhinyrepublicans]

I couldn’t agree with you more, Mr. Trump.

[iryvka]

Is it just me or does it look like Louisiana is a silhouette of the devil with two middle fingers up?

[iryvka]

33

Distance is not categorically physical

[mysharona1987]

[whatwhiteswillneverknow]

[iryvka]

I can't with this irony... Like do you hear yourself?

[socialjusticepapi]

Melania Trump, a White woman married to a man born into millions, plagiarizes a speech about “hard work” from a Black woman to a room full of people that say Black people are looking for handouts… sounds like the entire narrative of our country or something

[iryvka]

Couldn't make this shit up

[reverseracism]

Peeped on the petitions on WhiteHouse.gov today.

This is our country.

[rosecoveredtardis]

Here’s a link to the second one, in case you want to change this as well as boost the above image to make a point

[reverseracism]

I just signed.

You guys it takes less than 60 seconds to sign.

[bendstowardjustice]

To be Black in America is to fear for your life. 

As Black people, our governments give guns to people that fear and hate us, we pay them to “police” us, and are then forced to video tape as they murder us.

“So that people could see.” That’s the answer Lavish Reynolds gave when asked why she live-streamed her, Philando Castile, and her 4-year-old daughter’s bloody encounter with the police.

Lavish Reynolds is the embodiment of what it is to be Black in America. 

Because Black people are documenting our own murders at the hands of police for mere acknowledgement.

State-sponsored terrorism of Black people at the hands of police is so ubiquitous and expected that Black people know that no matter why, where, or how we’ve been become the target of police, our only sliver of hope is to turn on a camera and pray that if we are brutalized and murdered that the circumstances of our victimhood are different enough from the last “viral video” of Black death to garner a hashtag and a fresh wave of outrage.

So we hold our cameras up to the faces of our badged murderers to stop people from denying the brutal truth we live–the truth that is killing us. Because we know all too well that incontrovertible video proof of our murders is still not enough for even a mere indictment–a simple declaration that murdering a Black person is a crime–much less a conviction. 

Because if a person with a badge fears for their life, no one else’s matters. 

And that is because American policing grew out of slave patrols. It’s because police exist to protect and serve whiteness. That is why America tolerates the obvious perversion of labeling police “civil servants” while elevating their worth of their lives above the civilians they’re supposedly here to protect. 

If police are meant to serve and protect civilians, then why are they empowered to murder said civilians when they fear for their lives? Spoiler Alert: Because the people they’re empowered and encouraged to kill are Black. That’s why Dylan Roof can slaughter a church full of praying Black people then be arrested without incident and treated to Burger King while Philando Castile committed no crime and complied with police requests, yet was murdered on camera. 

Because the only thing a white person with a gun and a kevlar vest fears is Blackness. 

That’s why “police reform” is pointless.

The police must be de-formed, unformed, undone.

As long as our existence as Black people sparks fear into the hearts of police wearing badges, carrying guns, and empowered by the State to murder us, there will always be another video, another hashtag, another Black life lost. We will continue to be forced, as Lavish Reynolds was, to compartmentalize our fear, grief, and pain so that we can document it well enough to be believed. To be acknowledged. To be seen. 

But to be seen isn’t enough. We must live. 

Yet, as long as a white person with a gun “fearing for their lives” justifies murdering a Black person, while Black people’s justified fear of that reality is met with derision and calls for silence, we will never be free. 

We can no longer prioritize white fear of Black people over the right of Black people to exist. Modern policing is the weaponization of that prioritization. We must disarm and disband this system. The cost of white fear can no longer be Black lives. Only then will Black people be able to exist without fear. Only then will be able to live. 

[iryvka]

^^ Potent words that describe state sponsored lynchings. American culture falls back on the narrative that the officer had every reason to shoot the black man or woman, despite the fact this officer creates a situation where any form of compliance results in death. For all we know, police have now been trained to shout "gun" to absolve them of responsibility.

Our complaisance as a society has exacerbated the problem. And we all need to rally. That means acknowledging that our justice system has been targeting black people since slavery, that this is a new version of that - one with its own set of justifications. If you can't see it then you have bought into the narrative. This is dire. This should terrify everyone.

[buttonpoetry]

I am the only one who’s seen what the inside of you looks like, who’s tasted your blood in my small teeth, who understands your suffering.

FROM THE VAULT: Kaycee Filson - “Hush” (NPS 2014)

Performing during prelims at the 2014 National Poetry Slam. Subscribe to Button on YouTube!

(via buttonpoetry)

[macleod]

Bernie Sanders won Methuen by literally one vote

If you don’t believe YOUR vote counts, consider this:

Hillary won six districts in Iowa because of coin tosses. If ONE MORE Bernie supporter had shown up, there would have been no coin toss.

In this district in Massachusetts, the ONE person DID show up.

So, the moral of the story? Every vote counts. Show up, mark the little oval, push the button, whatever. Just show up.

[think-progress]

Drug Testing Welfare Recipients Is A Popular New Policy That Cost States Millions. Here Are The Results.

In 10 states, someone who applies for welfare cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program doesn’t just have to deal with complicated paperwork at a time when there’s a good chance she’s already in a state of financial crisis. She also has to be screened and possibly tested for substance abuse. And if she tests positive, she won’t receive benefits.

Check out the rest here

[unexplained-events]

Researchers have used Easter Island Moai replicas to show how they might have been “walked” to where they are displayed.

VIDEO

[huffpost]

Why We Need To Talk About White Feminism

Have you ever wondered what White Feminism is? Are you vaguely familiar with the term, but still unclear on what it actually means – and how it affects you?

WATCH the full video for give you a brief, basic introduction to White Feminism, and explain why we need to start talking about it more.

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

BREAKING: #MoralMonday protesters shut down 8 lanes of traffic in both directions on I-70 at Blanchette Bridge

Part 1

Monday, August 10, 2015