Louisiana Overhauls Fucked Up (The Arse) Laws

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Louisiana Overhaul of Discriminatory Law: Hundreds Cleared from Sex Offender List

Community groups and lawyers deal blow to the state's over 100 year-old 'Crimes Against Nature' law
Sarah Lazare
June 13, 2013

Over 700 people accused of selling or soliciting sex for money were wiped from the sex offender registry in Louisiana last night after a historic settlement to beat back the state's archaic 'Crimes Against Nature' laws.

The development marked a huge victory for sex workers, members of the LGBTQ community, poor people, and women, who disproportionately bore the brunt of a law that slapped heavy punishments on accused sex workers.

The victory came after Women with a Vision, BreakOUT!, and the Center for Constitutional Rights worked with affected communities to file a class action lawsuit.

"Yesterday when I heard, I was so excited. This was a grassroots, queer-led, effort. People were screaming for change, and they won," declared Deon Haywood, executive director of New Orleans-based Women with a Vision.

Louisiana's Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (CANS), was created in the late 1800s to criminalize sexual devience, and today targets the selling of oral or anal sex for a fee.

Before 2011, police had full discretion over whether to charge accused sex workers with prostitution, which results in a misdemeanor, or CANS, which mandates registration as a sex offender.

Salon reports:

In practice — and particularly in New Orleans, whose police department is currently under a federal consent decree for discriminatory practices — that has meant the disproportionate charging of people of color and LGBT people for “crimes against nature.” The Department of Justice report on discrimination in the New Orleans Police Department noted that “in particular, transgender women complained that NOPD officers improperly target and arrest them for prostitution, sometimes fabricating evidence of solicitation for compensation. Moreover, transgender residents reported that officers are likelier, because of their gender identity, to charge them under the state’s ‘crimes against nature’ statute — a statute whose history reflects anti-LGBT sentiment.”

"There is a thing called guilty of walking while transgender," explained Haywood.

The Center for Constitutional Rights explains that sex offender status heavily penalizes already marginal communities.

People affected by this law have been barred from homeless shelters, physically threatened, and refused residential substance abuse treatment because providers will not accept registered sex offenders at their facilities. As in the earlier case, all plaintiffs in this action proceeded anonymously for fear of retaliation.

A federal judge last year ruled that forcing people convicted of CANS to register as sex offenders violates their constitutional rights. Yet, when hundreds remained on the registry after this federal ruling, community organizations worked with the affected community and lawyers to file the class action lawsuit that was settled last was settled last night.

Community groups explain that the victory was won by people directly affected by the law. "This case would move forward by people standing in their truth and sharing their stories," explains Deon Haywood, whose organizatin takes on issues of Sex Worker Rights, Drug Policy Reform, HIV Positive Women’s Advocacy, and Reproductive Justice outreach, according to their website.

"We did something people said we couldn't do," says Haywood. "They said we couldn't organize the population represented in this case. They said we couldn't win because of who we were. People say change doesn't happen in the south. But it just did." Common Dreams

 - - - - -

The Centre For Constitutional Rights has this, endorsing as it does, everything I said in my previous article.

In Louisiana, people accused of soliciting sex for a fee can be criminally charged in two ways: either under the prostitution statute, or under the solicitation provision of the Crime Against Nature statute. This archaic statute, adopted in 1805, outlaws “unnatural carnal copulation,” which has been defined by Louisiana courts as oral and anal (but not vaginal) sex. Police and prosecutors have unfettered discretion in choosing which to charge. But a Crime Against Nature conviction subjects people to far harsher penalties than a prostitution conviction. Most significantly, individuals convicted of a Crime Against Nature are forced to register as sex offenders.

The registry law imposes many harsh requirements that impacts every aspect of our clients’ lives. For example, they must carry a state driver’s license or non-drivers’ identification document which brands them as a sex offender in bright orange capital letters. They must disclose the fact that they are registered as a sex offender to neighbors, landlords, employers, schools, parks, community centers, and churches. Their names, address, and photographs appear on the internet.

Many of our clients have been unable to secure work or housing as a result of their registration as sex offenders. Several have been barred from homeless shelters. One has been physically threatened by neighbors. And another has been refused residential substance abuse treatment because providers will not accept sex offenders at their facilities. more

Louisiana Louisiana I Despair

And I bet I'm not the only one.

I ran this story a couple of months ago, albeit in a slightly different format, but what harm running it again?

But what I didn't realise until I did a 'Louisiana' search in the search function, was just how much I had featured Louisiana in the past. I shall leave links at the bottom of the page. (Update: now tagged)

14 Wacky "Facts" Kids Will Learn in Louisiana's Voucher Schools
By Deanna Pan
Aug. 7, 2012

Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lord—all on the state taxpayers' dime.

Under Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher program, considered the most sweeping in the country, Louisiana is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class students from the state's notoriously terrible public schools receive a private education. While the governor's plan sounds great in the glittery parlance of the state's PR machine, the program is rife with accountability problems that actually haven't been solved by the new standards the Louisiana Department of Education adopted two weeks ago. Blah blah

1. Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out: "Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

2. Dragons were totally real: "[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007
3. "God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ."—America: Land That I Love, Teacher ed., A Beka Book, 1994
4. Africa needs religion: "Africa is a continent with many needs. It is still in need of the gospel…Only about ten percent of Africans can read and write. In some areas the mission schools have been shut down by Communists who have taken over the government."—Old World History and Geography in Christian Perspective, 3rd ed., A Beka Book, 2004 Read on

And as always, with posts of this nature, you may wish to strap in prior to proceeding.

Louisiana Vying For Title America's Most Stupid State?

More Louisiana Lunacy: A Special Report From Loch Ness

Louisiana's Fucked Up (The Arse) Laws

Justice Thomas He's a Louisiana Man

I Don't Know What Justice Looks Like But I'm Sure It Doesn't Look Like This: Waterproof Louisiana

God Bless The Louisiana Department of Corrections

Louisiana Tops Again: Shut Your Mouth Or I'll Smash Your Face In

Modern-Day Court Lynching; Jena Louisiana

Diaper Dave And The Louisiana Loonies

More Louisiana Lunacy: A Special Report From Loch Ness

Well maybe not exactly Loch Ness, but it is from Scotland.

This is similar report on the story I covered under the title, Louisiana Vying For Title America's Most Stupid State? only this time the report comes from this side of the pond. I'll wager they are still rolling about in Scotland.

Updated with this priceless graphic, borrowed from William Hamby who is also running this story.

How American fundamentalist schools are using Nessie to disprove evolution
Rachel Loxton
24 June 2012

IT sounds like a plot dreamed up by the creators of Southpark, but it's all true: schoolchildren in Louisiana are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real in a bid by religious educators to disprove Darwin's theory of evolution.

Thousands of children in the southern state will receive publicly-funded vouchers for the next school year to attend private schools where Scotland's most famous mythological beast will be taught as a real living creature.

These private schools follow a fundamentalist curriculum including the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme to teach controversial religious beliefs aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.

One tenet has it that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man then Darwinism is fatally flawed.

Critics have damned the content of the course books, calling them "bizarre" and accusing them of promoting radical religious and political ideologies.

The textbooks in the series are alleged to teach young earth creationism; are hostile towards other religions and other sectors of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism; and present a biased version of history that is often factually incorrect.

One ACE textbook – Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc – reads: "Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur."

Another claim taught is that a Japanese whaling boat once caught a dinosaur. It's unclear if the movie Godzilla was the inspiration for this lesson.

Jonny Scaramanga, 27, who went through the ACE programme as a child, but now campaigns against Christian fundamentalism, said the Nessie claim was presented as "evidence that evolution couldn't have happened. The reason for that is they're saying if Noah's flood only happened 4000 years ago, which they believe literally happened, then possibly a sea monster survived.

"If it was millions of years ago then that would be ridiculous. That's their logic. It's a common thing among creationists to believe in sea monsters."

Private religious schools, including the Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, Louisiana, which follows the ACE curriculum, have already been cleared to receive the state voucher money transferred from public school funding, thanks to a bill pushed through by state Governor Bobby Jindal.

Boston-based researcher and writer Bruce Wilson, who specialises in the American political religious right, compares the curriculum to Islamic fundamentalist teaching.

"They are being brought up to believe that they're at war with secular society. The only valid government would be a Christian fundamentalist government. Obviously some comparisons could be made to Islamic Fundamentalists in schools.

"One of these texts from Bob Jones University Press claims that dinosaurs were fire-breathing dragons. It has little to do with science as we currently understand. It's more like medieval scholasticism."

Wilson believes that such teaching is going on in at least 13 American states.

"There's a lot of public funding going to private schools, probably around 200,000 pupils are receiving this education," he And the majority of parents now home schooling their kids are Christian fundamentalists too. I don't believe they should be publicly funded, I don't believe the schools who use these texts should be publicly funded."

Daniel Govender, managing director of Christian Education Europe, which is part of ACE, said the organisation would not comment to the press on what is contained in the texts.

Of course, the Scottish tourist industry might well reap a dividend from the craziness of the American education system. Nessie expert Tony Drummond, who leads tours as part of Cruise Loch Ness, has a few words of advice to the US schools in question: come to the loch and try to find the monster.

"They need to come and investigate the loch for themselves," says the 47-year-old. "We've got some hi-tech equipment. They could come out on the boat and do a whole chunk of the loch.

"We do get regular sonar contacts which are pretty much unexplainable. More research has to be done, but it's not way along the realms of possibility."

But he's not convinced that the legend of the Loch Ness Monster is being taught the right way. "That's Christian propaganda," he says. "And ridiculous."

Textbooks of some state-funded Christian schools praise the Ku Klux Klan.

The violent, racist organisation, which still exists in the US, advocates white supremacy, white nationalism and anti-immigration.

One excerpt from Bob Jones University Press American history textbook has been reported as saying: "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross ... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."

Other views taught include claims that being gay is a learned behaviour.

It isn't just America where the bizarre Christian Nessie myth is being taught as a reality. The UK has similar religious schools but they do not receive cash from the state. Nevertheless, the Evangelical Christian curriculum they follow has been approved by UK Government agency, the National Recognition Information Centre (Naric) which guides universities and employers on the validity of different qualifications.

Naric judged the International Certificate of Christian Education (ICCE) as officially comparable to qualifications offered by the Cambridge International exam board.

It is estimated around 2000 pupils study at more than 50 private Christian schools in Britain for the certificates as well as several home-educated students.

The courses are based around the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme, which originated in Texas in the 1970s.

Pupils study a range of subjects, including science and English, but spend half their studies learning from Bible-influenced US textbooks. heraldscotland.com

Louisiana Vying For Title America's Most Stupid State?

I know it will have a bit of a job on knocking Texas of the puerile pedestal, but it won't be for the want of trying.

I found the presentation of the article featured a bit scrappy, so I was in two minds whether to run with it or not. But the sheer audacity of the claims, of these people who are going to be in charge educating kids, couldn't I suppose, be ignored. And it is in the main, only those claims that you will find posted below. To read the article proper, you will have to follow the link.

But there was something else about the article I recognised, something I had made mention of in the past. Only on that occasion it involved the full blown theocratic state of Iran, unlike America of course, that is still at the wannabe stage.

Mind you, what it was that drew my attention, is far from uncommon when the jesoids are trying to make their case for the outlandish theories that they espouse. "Some scientists believe" or words to that effect, litter their arguments like confetti at a wedding. They never seem to produce these scientists, but that's by the by. Unless less of course it's the likes of Arnold Mendez. (Texas)

But returning to Iran for the moment, I had this to say earlier in the year:

Iran Warns World of Coming Great Event

Well I don't know what you will make of this. I found it a bizarre bit of reading, and should you agree; just wait till you see the video.

I know we are two different cultures, but until I watched the video, I never knew just how different. Polar opposites doesn't even come close.

The video is a half hour long, but I just couldn't stop watching the thing. But what does it say for its target audience? A flock, and I mean a flock, a flock of adult children who can't be in possession of a critical thought between the lot of 'em.

As a piece of propaganda, it's unlike anything else I have ever seen. You might notice a recurring get out of jail card throughout. ''Some scholars believe'' then add whatever it is you want say.

And if you think the jesoids of America have got it bad for the second coming, again, you ain't seen nuthin yet. Article Do watch, I beg you.

There are links in the article proper, to a couple of clips that physically show the publications that these absurdities are taken from. Just in case you have trouble believing what you are about read. You know how it is I'm sure.

The Loch Ness Monster Is Real; The KKK Is Good: The Shocking Content of Publicly Paid for Christian School Textbooks

Thousands of Louisiana students will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools. What will they learn there?
By Bruce Wilson
June 18, 2012

This 2012-2013 school year, thanks to a bill pushed through by governor Bobby Jindal, thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution and states that the alleged creature, which has never been demonstrated to even exist, has been tracked by submarine and is probably a plesiosaur. The curriculum also claims that a Japanese fishing boat caught a dinosaur.

~

Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.

Have you heard of the `Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? `Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all."

Extract from Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc. (1995)

Is the text still in use today? The answer is yes, according to U.K. critic Jonny Scaramanga, who was raised on the ACE curriculum and now runs a blog titled "Leaving Fundamentalism: Examining Christian Fundamentalism in The UK".

~

Some scientists speculate that Noah took small or baby dinosaurs on the Ark.... are dinosaurs still alive today? With some recent photographs and testimonies of those who claimed to have seen one, scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence...

~

- Science Proves Homosexuality is a Learned Behavior

- The Second Law of Thermodynamics Disproves Evolution

- No Transitional Fossils Exist

- Humans and Dinosaurs Co-Existed

- Evolution Has Been Disproved

- A Japanese Whaling Boat Found a Dinosaur

- Solar Fusion is a Myth

~

- Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.

- "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."

- "God used the 'Trail of Tears' to bring many Indians to Christ."

- It "cannot be shown scientifically that that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere's ozone layer."

- "God has provided certain 'checks and balances' in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists."

- the Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda.

- "Unions have always been plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created."

- Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential win was due to an imaginary economic crisis created by the media.

- "The greatest struggle of all time, the Battle of Armageddon, will occur in the Middle East when Christ returns to set up his kingdom on earth." Article proper.

God Bless The Louisiana Department of Corrections

US inmates' 40 years in solitary must end: Amnesty

LONDON — Two US prisoners who have been held in solitary confinement for nearly 40 years should have their isolation ended immediately, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

Albert Woodfox, 64, and Herman Wallace, 69, have been held in solitary at Louisiana State Penitentiary ever since they were convicted of murdering a prison guard in 1972, the London-based human rights group said.

Their four-decade ordeal "is cruel and inhumane and a violation of the US's obligations under international law," said Guadalupe Marengo, Amnesty's Americas deputy director.

"We are not aware of any other case in the United States where individuals have been subjected to such restricted human contact for such a prolonged period of time."

The pair are suing the Louisiana authorities claiming that their prolonged isolation is "cruel and unusual punishment" and so violates the US constitution.

"The treatment of these men by the state of Louisiana is a clear breach of US commitment to human rights," said Marengo.

"Their cases should be reviewed as a matter of urgency, and while that takes place authorities must ensure that their treatment complies with international standards for the humane treatment of prisoners."

Amnesty said the men were confined to their cells, measuring two metres (6.5 feet) by three metres, for 23 hours a day, and have never been allowed to work or have access to education. AFP

Euronews
h/t Maren

Former Black Panther Leader, Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt, Wrongfully Imprisoned for 27 Years, Dies in Tanzania

We look at the life of former Black Panther, Geronimo ji-Jaga Pratt, who died in Tanzania on Thursday. In 1972, Pratt was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Caroline Olsen for which he spent 27 years in prison, eight of those in solitary confinement. He was released in 1997 after a judge vacated his conviction. The trial to win his freedom revealed that the Los Angeles Black Panther leader was a target of the FBI’s counterintelligence program, or COINTELPRO. We play an excerpt of a Democracy Now! interview with Pratt and one of his attorneys, Johnnie Cochran, Jr., in 2000. We also speak with his friend and former attorney, Stuart Hanlon, and with Ed Boyer, the Los Angeles Times reporter who helped expose his innocence. "The FBI followed Geronimo every second, almost, of his life, and they knew he was in Oakland at the time of the homicide," says Hanlon. "When we started litigating this, rather than turning it over, for the first time anyone could remember FBI wiretaps disappeared. And of course they knew where he was. It didn’t matter what the truth was, because he was the bad guy, and the truth had to take second place, even in the courtroom." Pratt ultimately won a $4.5 million civil rights settlement against the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. Watch Democracy Now

Louisiana Tops Again: Shut Your Mouth Or I'll Smash Your Face In

‘U.S. Peace Index’ finds most violence in conservative southern states

Southern states are more violent than any region, according to a recently released crime index created with U.S. government statistics.

The Institute for Economics and Peace said the index was their first U.S. Peace Index, and pulled from data compiled by compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the FBI, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Louisiana came in dead last, while Maine came in first.

A list of the top ten least-peaceful states follows:

1. Louisiana
2. Tennessee
3. Nevada
4. Florida
5. Alabama
6. Texas
7. Arkansas
8. Oklahoma
9. South Carolina
10. Maryland

Here are the top ten most-peaceful states: more

Justice Thomas He's a Louisiana Man

Clarence Thomas apart, prosecutors who pull stunts like this should be charged, not with malicious prosecution, but with attempted murder, because it's nothing short of it.

And what would we charge Clarence Thomas with, being a disgrace? Seeing as the scene is Louisiana, perhaps "a crime against nature" would be more fitting, because he certainly fucked this fellow in the ass.

What Does Clarence Thomas Have Against Black People?
Tonyaa Weathersbee, New America Media
8 April 2011

Maybe John Thompson reminded Clarence Thomas of a childhood nemesis.

Maybe Thompson, who spent 14 years on Louisiana's Death Row when prosecutors deliberately withheld evidence that would have proved his innocence, reminded the Supreme Court justice of one of the bullies who taunted him about his coal-black skin.

Or maybe, at least in Thomas' eyes, Thompson quickly morphed into a black man who was looking for a handout instead of justice.

Or maybe it's all of the above. It has to be. Because there's no way that any fair-minded jurist would turn the sort of legal cartwheels

that Thomas and his four other conservative colleagues on the high court recently turned to side with the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office in tossing out a $14 million verdict in Thompson’s favor.

Here's what happened. In 1985, Thompson, then 22, was convicted of murder and armed robbery in Louisiana. He was sentenced to death on the murder conviction and came within weeks of being executed in 1999 when his investigators learned that prosecutors failed to turn over evidence that would have freed him.

Among that evidence was the fact that the main informant had received a reward from the victim’s family and that the eyewitness identification didn't match. Most of all, prosecutors deliberately concealed blood evidence and a lab report that would have cleared Thompson.

This they hid for 20 years.

Thompson's convictions were overturned, and he sued Harry Connick Sr., the district attorney for Orleans Parish, for not schooling his prosecutors about their legal obligation to turn over such evidence to the defense. That obligation was laid out in a 1963 case, Brady v. Maryland, in which the Supreme Court said that to withhold such evidence is a violation of the defendant's constitutional rights.

Connick, in fact, even conceded that he didn't completely understand what Brady encompassed. A jury awarded Thompson $14 million.

But it seems that Thomas – who wrote the majority opinion in tossing out the verdict – was more than willing to join his white conservative cohorts in trampling the Constitution to give the powerful more ammunition to keep the powerless in their place.

Incredibly, in writing for the 5-4 majority, Thomas said that Thompson didn't deserve any money because he couldn't prove that there was a pattern of similar violations in previous cases, or that prosecutors deliberately set out to violate the Constitution.

He and his buddy, Antonin Scalia, basically said it was unfair for the entire prosecutor's office to be held responsible for one bad act. As if it wasn’t unfair for Thompson, who is now 40, to have spent 18 years of his life – 14 of those on Death Row – locked up for a crime he didn't commit.

That's a heartless, wrongheaded decision – and one that flies in the face of what Thomas is supposed to be about.

Thomas is, after all, a man who is supposed to be a champion of individual responsibility for black people.

So then, why doesn't he extend that expectation of responsibility to powerful institutions, such as district attorney's offices, to make sure that prosecutors don't almost cause an innocent person to be put to death because they withheld evidence that could free them?

Why is it that Thomas, a black man who grew up in Georgia during a time of lynchings and other injustices against black men, is so willing to contort the Constitution and human decency to make a decision that will invariably give prosecutors more leeway to get innocent black people like Thompson killed?

I have to believe it's either a need for revenge against his childhood tormentors or all those blacks who cheered on his adult nemesis Anita Hill. Or maybe it's a just a need to be different.

Many times, for black people, being different means having no history. It means being willing to sidestep the truth and fairness to show how colorblind they are and how they are not like all those other black people.

And, in the end, it's a sad place to be. newamericamedia

Related: Clarence Thomas, the Anti-Black

Remember Nifong, one day in jail?

Louisiana's Fucked Up (The Arse) Laws

Louisiana's Fucked Up (The Arse) Laws

But it isn't just Louisiana is it? It starts with the Federal Government and filters down to each and every state. What am I talking about? getting fucked up the arse. I guess I am, in a literal sense as far as Louisiana goes, and metaphorically regarding the country as a whole.

Am I being fair if I call it, the Constitution of the United States, the biggest crock of shit ever written, after all it was only a bit of politicking when all said and done. Well if it wasn't a crock when it was written, every subsequent administration since, has done damnest to ensure it is one now.

....dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Well that fucker can go straight in the bin for a start.

But for my purposes today it is this line that is of interest, specifically the last bit.

...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Government for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Well old love, just like yourself it perished long ago, only whereas you are duly boxed and buried, this one's still around stinking up the place with its fetid carcass. That it should have long ago joined you under the earth there is no doubt. But shabby Pols keep the thing handy, wheeling it when occasion warrants, to serve some self interest, or to foster in the plebs the illusion of democracy, a democracy that stinks more than than the long dead promise itself.

For there is one thing you can be sure of, this is no government for the people. Governments for the people don't toil endlessly, bringing to the statutes every petty, mean, insidious, unjust law that they can dream up, and every one of those laws aimed at ruining the lives of its citizens.

And not just ruined for whatever unjust and over-long period of incarceration that it can inflict on its hapless citizens, but ruined forever by implementing legislation, so deliberate, that it ensures any kind of return to normality by a once convicted felon, is virtually impossible.

No government for the people, spends in such proportions, time and money to entrap its citizens and then try to pass it off as law enforcement. And its not just the hooker and john merrygoround that springs to mind, how about Operation Lucky Bag, justice! fuck me you couldn't make it up. Here, have bit more, a story to get your dick out for, or maybe not. America The Shabbiest Country On Earth

No government for the people brings before the court its citizens on charges, so petty, so mean, that these charges would be laughed out of court in the majority of industrialised nations. Laughed out of course, if they were ever to be brought, but first they would have to be on the statute books.

No government for the people sets mandatory minimum sentences, sentences so arbitrary, so draconian, so utterly unjust, that they make a mockery of the very word justice.

No government for the people, goes to such measures to extend its punishment of felons, post release. Felons have done their time, who have paid their debt to society, as we see in this example below. Going so far as to deny them a bite to eat no less. But look at the whole thing, no welfare, no shelter, no food, and as much a chance of getting a job as a snowball in hell. What then he going to end up doing in order to try and feed himself?

Under federal law persons with drug convictions like Garner are permanently barred from receiving financial aid for education, food stamps, welfare and publicly funded housing.

But only drug convictions trigger these exclusions under federal law. Violent bank robbers, white-collar criminals like Wall Street scam artists who steal billions, and even murderers who’ve done their time do not face the post-release deprivations slapped on those with drug convictions on their records, including those imprisoned for simple possession, and not major drug sales. more Mass Incarceration Creates Costly Disaster Across America

Right so, we will leave the government of the people and take look at the government of Louisiana, who by strange coincidence I featured the other day in an article, The Five Most Ruthless Police States in America, you wouldn't like to hazard a guess to who came out on top would you?

These aren't axe murderers, they're sex workers for fuck's sake.

Those who have been victimized by this law must carry a state identification card with the words "sex offender" printed below their name. If they have to evacuate because of a hurricane, they must stay in a special shelter for sex offenders that has no separate facilities for men and women. They have to pay a $60 annual registration fee, in addition to $250-$750 to print and mail postcards to their neighbors every time they move. The postcards must have their name and address, and a photo is often required, as well. Failing to register and pay the fees, a separate crime, can carry penalties of up to ten years in prison.

These sex workers' names, addresses and convictions are also printed in the newspaper and on a public online sex-offender database, and are also displayed at public sites like schools and community centers. Women

Have at it, justice Louisiana style.

Sex Workers File Civil Rights Suit Against Louisiana's "Crime Against Nature" Law
7 April 2011
by Jordan Flaherty, Truthout

The third week of February, attorneys from New Orleans-based and national organizations brought a federal civil rights complaint against Louisiana's 205-year-old "crime against nature" statute, a law designed to penalize sex acts associated with gays and lesbians. The law, as enforced, specifically singles out oral and anal sex for greater punishment for those arrested for prostitution, including a requirement that those convicted register as sex offenders in a public database. Advocates say the law has further isolated women on the fringes of society, including those who are forced to trade sex for food or a place to sleep at night.

In 2003, the Supreme Court outlawed this country's sodomy laws with its decision in Lawrence v. Texas. However, instead of striking down Louisiana's law in its entirety, the state has chosen to only enforce the portion of the law that concerns "solicitation" of a crime against nature.




The decision on whether to charge those who are accused of selling sex of committing a "crime against nature," which is a felony, instead of misdemeanor prostitution is left entirely in the hands of police and prosecutors. "This leaves the door wide open to discriminatory enforcement targeting poor black women, transgender women and gay men for a charge that carries much harsher penalties," says police misconduct attorney and organizer Andrea J. Ritchie, a co-counsel in the lawsuit. Seventy-five percent of those on the database for crime against nature offenses are women, and 80 percent are African-American. Evidence gathered by advocates suggests a majority are poor or indigent.

Louisiana is the only state that requires people who have been convicted of crimes that do not involve sexual violence or sex with minors to register as sex offenders. In 1994, Congress passed Megan's Law, also known as the Wetterling Act, which mandated that states create systems for registering sex offenders. The act was amended in 1996 to require public disclosure of the names on the registries and again in 2006 to require sex offenders to stay in the public registry for at least 15 years.

The Wetterling Act, also known as the Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was clearly not targeted at prostitution. However, Louisiana lawmakers opted to apply the registry to the crime against nature statute as well, and at that moment started down the path to a new level of punishment for sex work. "This archaic law is being used to mark people with a modern-day scarlet letter," says attorney Alexis Agathocleus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, another party in the lawsuit. "Inclusion on the sex-offender registry violates basic constitutional equal protection principles and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment."

Those who have been victimized by this law must carry a state identification card with the words "sex offender" printed below their name. If they have to evacuate because of a hurricane, they must stay in a special shelter for sex offenders that has no separate facilities for men and women. They have to pay a $60 annual registration fee, in addition to $250-$750 to print and mail postcards to their neighbors every time they move. The postcards must have their name and address, and a photo is often required, as well. Failing to register and pay the fees, a separate crime, can carry penalties of up to ten years in prison.

These sex workers' names, addresses and convictions are also printed in the newspaper and on a public online sex-offender database, and are also displayed at public sites like schools and community centers. Women - including one mother of three - have complained that because of their appearance on the registry, they have had men come to their homes demanding sex. A plaintiff in the suit had rocks thrown at her by neighbors. "This has forced me to live in poverty, be on food stamps and welfare," explains a man who was on the list. "I've never done that before."

In Orleans Parish, 292 people are on the registry for selling sex, versus 85 people convicted of forcible rape and 78 convicted of "indecent behavior with juveniles." Almost 40 percent of those registered in Orleans Parish are listed solely because they were accused of offering anal or oral sex for money. Legal advocates credit on-the-ground organizing and the advocacy of Women With a Vision (WWAV) for making them aware of this discriminatory law. WWAV, a 20-year-old New Orleans-based organization, provides health care and other services to marginalized communities, including women involved in survival sex work. "Many of these women are survivors of rape and domestic violence themselves," says WWAV executive director Deon Haywood, "yet they are being treated as predators."

Speaking anonymously on a recent phone call set up by advocates, some of the plaintiffs in the suit shared their stories.

"Ian Doe" was homeless from the age of 13 and began trading sex for survival. When an undercover officer approached him and asked him for sex, "All I said was, 'Fifty dollars,' and they put me away for four years," he said. In prison, Ian was raped by a correction officer and by other prisoners and contracted HIV. Now, he says, potential employers see the words "sex offender" written on his ID and will not hire him. "Do I deserve to be punished any more than I've already been punished?" he asks. "I was 13 years old. That's the only way I knew how to survive."

"Eve Doe" is a transgender woman living in rural southern Louisiana. She was molested as a child and kicked out of her home at the age of 14. She spent two years in prison. During her time behind bars, she was raped and has also contacted HIV. "I have tried desperately to change my life," she says, but her status as a sex offender stands in the way of housing and other programs. "When I present my ID for anything," she says, "the assumption is that you're a child molester or a rapist. The discrimination is just ongoing and ongoing."

"Hiroka Doe," a New Orleans resident, was the last person to speak on the call. "I had just graduated from high school and was just coming out as transgender," she says. Hiroka was arrested and convicted while still a teenager. As she began to describe her experience, Hiroka's voice began to shake. "I was being held with men in jail at the time.... " she began. Then there was silence on the line. Holding back tears, Doe then apologized for being unable to continue.

The Louisiana legislature recently passed a reform of the crime against nature statute, but for the vast majority of those affected, the reform makes little to no difference. Although the new law takes away the registration component for a first conviction, a second conviction requires 15 years on the registry, and up to five years imprisonment. A third conviction mandates a lifetime on the registry. More than 538 men and women remain on the registry because they were convicted of offering anal or oral sex, with more names added almost every day.




The lawsuit, called Doe v. Jindal, has been filed in Louisiana's US District Court Eastern District on behalf of nine anonymous plaintiffs. It was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ritchie and the law clinic at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. The anonymous plaintiffs include a grandmother, a mother of four, three transgender women and a man, all of whom have been required to register as sex offenders from fifteen years to life as a result of their convictions for the solicitation of oral sex for money. truthout

And just to finish off, this from NOLA, not new but part of my ''recommended for you'' at Youtube. It's the Billo bit we are interested in, it in turn promoted me to dig out the second clip. Wouldn't you think New Orleans had enough problems already, without making the efforts it does to fuck up yet more lives?

I don't know what proportion of these guys are sex offenders, but it is under a bridge that they usually end up, the result of the draconian conditions of abode set them by the State.






What's wrong with Lolita?




http://justtellmewherethebridgeis.blogspot.com/

I Don't Know What Justice Looks Like But I'm Sure It Doesn't Look Like This: Waterproof Louisiana

Race and Politics in a Rural Louisiana Town Attract National Attention
by: Jordan Flaherty
24 March 2011

A legal dispute in the rural Louisiana town of Waterproof has attracted the attention of national civil rights organizations and activists. Color Of Change, an online activist group that helped garner national attention for the Jena Six Case,* recently rallied their members in support of Waterproof mayor Bobby Higginbotham, who has been held without bail since May of 2010. Advocates say the town’s mayor and police chief, both African American, were targeted by an entrenched white power structure, including a Parish Sheriff and District Attorney, who were threatened by newly empowered Black political power in the town and are seeking to use the court system to undo an election.

While the mayor and police chief were both found guilty last year, their defenders say the trials have not resolved the conflict. Rachel Conner, a lawyer representing Higginbotham in his appeal, says she has never seen a case with so many flaws. “Essentially, every single thing that you can do to violate someone’s constitutional rights from beginning to end happened in his case,” she says.




The charges and counter charges are difficult to untangle. At the center of the case is a state audit of Waterproof that found irregularities in the town’s record keeping. The Parish District Attorney says the audit shows mayoral corruption. The mayor says the problems pre-date his term, and he had taken steps to correct the issues. The mayor’s opponents claim he stole from the town by illegally increasing his salary. His supporters say he received a raise that was voted on by the town aldermen. The mayor initially faced 44 charges; all but two were dropped before the trial began. Those charges – malfeasance in office and felony theft – were related to the disputed raise and use of the town’s credit card. Miles Jenkins, the police chief, faced charges related to his enforcement of traffic tickets.

The mayor was quickly convicted of both charges but lawyers have raised challenges to the convictions, bringing a number of legal complaints. For example: in a town that is 60% African-American, Mayor Higginbotham had only one Black juror. Higginbotham’s counsel was disqualified by the DA, and the public defender had a conflict of interest, leaving the mayor with no lawyer. Two days before trial began, the DA gave Higginbotham 10 boxes of files related to his case. Higginbotham’s request for an extension to get an attorney and to examine the files was denied.




There’s more: during jury selection, when Higginbotham – forced to act as his own lawyer – tried to strike one juror who had relationships with several of the witnesses, he was told he could not, even though he had challenges remaining. There was also a problem with a sound recorder that the court reporter was using, and as a result there is no transcript at all for at least two witness’ testimony. Finally, during deliberation, the judge gave the jury polling slips that had “guilty” pre-selected, and then later hid the slips.

When Higginbotham was convicted, the judge refused to set bail in any amount. Although a possible sentence for the crime was probation, and despite former mayor’s obvious ties to the community, Higginbotham has spent the last ten months in jail while his lawyers have worked on his appeal. “He’s not a flight risk,” says Conner. “He’s tied to Waterproof and he’s got a vested interest in clearing his name.” more

*Jena Six, now tagged.

Live How We Say: Abortion And Fundamentalist Fervour In Dixie

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It may be hard for other non Americans to grasp just how dangerous an occupation it is being an abortion provider in America. If, after reading the article below, you may wish to go to the Paul Hill Message Board and experience the religious fervour if not downright insanity that of which is penned by Hill's supporters.

Paul hill was an anti-abortion activist who murdered two abortion providers with a shotgun outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola Florida. Hill was executed in Florida in 2003.

If you follow other "Army of God" links from Hill's message board be aware there are some extremely graphic photographs relative to abortion.

Anti-Abortion Movement Borrows Tactics from the KKK
Carrie Kilman
October 10/2007

Every state in the Deep South -- Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina -- restricts low-income women's access to abortion. Most ban abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy. None explicitly protect heath care facilities from harassment or violence. All have mandatory delay laws that unfairly burden women who have limited access to transportation and time off work, and Louisiana and South Carolina both passed unconstitutional laws requiring a husband's consent for a married woman's abortion. In the past 16 months, two abortion clinics in Alabama have closed, and new regulations are making it difficult for other clinics to stay open. Now, anti-abortion groups are strategizing ways to outlaw birth control and eliminate sex education.more

One only has to read my previous post to witness the outcome when fundamentalist fanatics get their unfettered way.
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Diaper Dave And The Louisiana Loonies

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A tad ironic really given that I was calling the Bangladeshies fit to burn in my previous post over their dark age mentality, one doesn't have to travel to the other side of the world to find the ignorant and the delusional.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. David Vitter, R-La., earmarked $100,000 in a spending bill for a Louisiana Christian group that has challenged the teaching of Darwinian evolution in the public school system and to which he has political ties......


The group's stated mission is to "persuasively present biblical principles in the centers of influence on issues affecting the family through research, communication and networking." Until recently, its Web site contained a "battle plan to combat evolution," which called the theory a "dangerous" concept that "has no place in the classroom." The document was removed after a reporter's inquiry.......


In a video clip the group posted on the Internet site YouTube, Mills said the two senators' situations are far different. "Craig is denying the allegations," he said. "Vitter has repented of the allegations. He sought forgiveness, reconciliation and counseling."more

Ah yes let us not forget the counseling, must be the the biggest growth industry in America.

So much for separation of church and state.

Take a look see who sponsored the billboard, seems I wouldn't have to travelling an awful long way to meet the ignorant and delusional either.

h/t C&L

Modern-Day Court Lynching; Jena Louisiana

Justified or not, whenever I see a headline that has a number as a suffix, as in "Jena Six" alarm bells go off.

And it wouldn't the recent case of the "Duke Three" that sets the bells to ringing, you see we have had one or two cases of miscarriage of justice ourselves, we have had the "Guilford Four" the "Bridgewater Four" and our very own six, the "Birmingham six."

So don't be thinking you have the injustice market sown up, you don't, not at all at all.
What you might have however is the monopoly on Blatant injustice, the one with the capital B, because let's face it these Klansmen down in Scrotumville (Jena) Louisiana could give George W lessons in "Fuck You."

In truth this isn't a case I have been following, not deliberately so, just unaware of it before today.
So I'm not going to try and bring you lots of background but it's not hard to pick up the gist in this case of judicial skulduggery.

Let us first hear a couple of snippets from the father of Mychal Bell. who already has been convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery.


MARCUS JONES: (father) I was furious and real mad about the conviction, ’cause I know that it was wrong. I know my son is innocent of the charges that the DA put on him, and it's just wrong. You know, this is just a 2007 modern-day court lynching here.


Now I wouldn't be knowing the occupation of Mister Jones but he sounds quite knowledgeable the subject of Southern Justice, if you are delusional enough to name it that.

.......the judge had called all the witnesses up front. So he put me and my son’s mother on the witness list, not informing us that he was going to do that. Now, what made him do that? I don't know. But right then and there, we smelled a rat. So the judge had put a gag order on all the witnesses, where they couldn't be present in the courtroom, couldn't talk to the press, couldn’t talk to nobody outside court room about the case. So right then and there, we -- I mean, you know, we smelled a rat then.

AMY GOODMAN: (Democracy Now) And were you called up to testify?

MARCUS JONES: No, no, no, no.

AMY GOODMAN: So you couldn't speak about the case, and you were kept out of the trial?

MARCUS JONES: Yes, the whole while. We was allowed -- only time we was allowed back in the courtroom, when the verdict came back........

MARCUS JONES: ’Cause he wanted Mychal to take a plea. Well, see, you’ve got to remember, any time a plea bargain be thrown on the table for any man here in LaSalle Parish, that person is innocent. Here in LaSalle Parish, whenever a black man is offered a plea bargain, he is innocent. That’s a dead giveaway here in the South..........


Then Goodman talks to Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans Journo and editor who broke the original story.

..........AMY GOODMAN: Paint a picture of Jena for us.......

JORDAN FLAHERTY:.........There’s the system of justice for white folks in Jena and for black folks in Jena, just as there is a system for folks like Scooter Libby, ( I think Libby's name is going to be quoted in many a courthouse for many a year. me) who gets his sentence commuted by the Bush administration, and then there’s the sentence for everybody else that doesn’t have the personal favors, that doesn’t have the white system of justice and the power structure behind them.

AMY GOODMAN: Aggravated battery, what Mychal Bell was charged with, has to have a dangerous weapon in Louisiana under Louisiana law. Explain the weapon, Jordan.

JORDAN FLAHERTY: Tennis shoes. They were using his sneakers. And, you know, remember, this was originally attempted murder, and then they lowered it to aggravated battery...........

.........And Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate of any state in the US. If Louisiana were a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world.........

........and 90% of the people in that prison will die in that prison. And that’s, you know, what we’re seeing in prisons all around Louisiana. It’s not about reform. It’s not about rehabilitation. It’s about people being sent there to die.......

I think you get the idea, it's a read of a fair length but it's certainly educational, or there is streaming audio here.
Lynching image from withoutsanctuary.org disturbing.

Wankers Of The Week. Delcambre Louisiana

Offenders will also risk up to six months in jail.