by Dr. Boyce Watkins, The Institute for Black Public Policy
Nearly three years ago, two black college students and a friend were murdered in a schoolyard in Newark, NJ. Monday, a jury returned guilty verdicts for three of the murders and one attempted murder after deliberating for less than a day. Rodolfo Godinez, a 26-year old gang member and native of Nicaragua, was convicted of all charges against him, including multiple counts of robbery, weapons possession and conspiracy. He can get up to 30 years to life for each murder count, and the sentences can be given out consecutively. "This man will never see the light of day," said Robert D. Laurino, the acting Essex County prosecutor. Sentencing for Godinez is set for July 8. His lawyer, Roy Greenman, said,"Obviously, there will be an appeal on a number of grounds," but he declined to state the grounds on which he'd be filing. The prosecution did not assert that Godinez was the one who hacked at the victims with a machete or shot each of them execution-style, in the back of the head. He was argued, however, to be the one who summoned the other gang members to the schoolyard on the night when the murders took place. The murders were particularly chilling because all four of the victims were "good kids" with no criminal history and educational plans for the future.
"And California, via Los Angeles, is complaining about Arizona immigration law? At least Arizona is not BORROWING MONEY FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to pay for unemployment benefits." - Syreeta L. McNeal, CPA, JD
EconomicPolicyJournal.com has learned that 32 states have run out funds to make unemployment benefit payments and that the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make their payments to the unemployed. In some cases, states have borrowed billions. As of May 20, the total balance outstanding by 32 states (and the Virgin Islands) is $37.8 billion.The state of California has borrowed $6.9 billion. Michigan has borrowed $3.9 billion, Illinois $2.2 billion.Below is the full list of the 32 states (and the Virgin Islands) that have borrowed from the federal government to make unemployment payments, and the amounts that remain borrowed as of May 20 . (Numbers in red are billions)
Alabama $ 283 million Arkansas 330 million California 6.9 billion Colorado 253 million Connecticut 498 million Delaware 12 million Florida 1.6 billion Georgia 416 million Idaho 202 million Illinois 2.2 billion Indiana 1.7 billion Kansas 88 million Kentucky 795 million Maryland 133 million Mass. 387 million Michigan 3.9 billion Minnesota 477 million Missouri 722 million Nevada 397 million New Jersey 1.7 billion New York 3.2 billion N.C. 2.1 billion Ohio 2.3 billion Penn. 3.0 billion R.I. 225 million S.C. 886 million S.D. 24 million Tennessee 21 million Texas 1.0 billion Vermont 33 million Virginia 346 million Virgin Islands 13 million Wisconsin 1.4 billion Total $37.8 billion
The fiancé of Sean Bell, the unarmed man gunned down on his wedding day by New York police, will finally have her day in court now that a judge will allow her civil rights case against the NYPD to proceed to trial.
A federal court judge ruled Tuesday to allow Nicole Paultre-Bell and two of Bell’s friends injured in the shooting, to have a trial for a wrongful death lawsuit filed for Bell’s 2008 murder.
City officials were once again asking for a three-month delay on the ruling because police officials have still not decided whether to discipline the five officers involved in the shooting.
Luckily for Nicole Paultre-Bell, Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. stepped in and the trial is scheduled to begin in July.
The news of the impending trial came at a particularly ironic time, the day after Sean Bell’s would be 27th birthday and the day a street in Jamaica, Queens was named Sean Bell Way in his honor.
As previously reported the Justice Department ruled in February that the officers did not violate his civil rights and lacked evidence to prove that they violated his constitutional rights.
The attorney representing the family of Aiyana Jones, a 7-year old who was shot dead during a police raid, says police are trying to cover up the truth about exactly what happened. Geoffrey Fieger, the attorney for Aiyana's family, said he's seen three or four minutes of video footage of the raid and claims that the video evidence contradicts what the officers say happened at the scene. Police are saying that officers threw a flash grenade through the first-floor window of the two-family home and that the girl was killed when an officer's gun accidentally discharged during a struggle with the girl's grandmother inside the house. Fieger argues, however, that the evidence shows an officer throwing the grenade into the home and then shooting into the house from the front porch. Prior reports from Detroit Police were claiming that Aiyana was shot by a stray bullet from a firearm that accidentally discharged during a scuffle with the child's grandmother. But Attorney Fieger is saying that this is not the case.
The United State Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the federal government has the right and power to keep sex offenders incarcerated after they've served their sentences. To keep him/her, the government must prove that the the offender may be "sexually dangerous" in the future.
"The federal government, as custodian of its prisoners, has the constitutional power to act in order to protect nearby (and other) communities from the danger such prisoners may pose," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the opinion for the majority.The primary plantiff in the case, Graydon Comstock, was certified to be dangerous six days before his prison term was set to end. Comstock had been arrested for processing child pornography and was filing suit with other inmates at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.
Elena Kagan's supporters don't do her or gay Americans any favors by publicly expressing their views on her sexual orientation. Whether or not a future justice is a heterosexual or homosexual is irrelevant to questions about fitness to serve on the Supreme Court. That there are some bigoted Americans who would make sexual orientation an issue is no reason to grant them any legitimacy, which occurs when their perverse and offensive interests are addressed. The proper response is to treat the question of sexual orientation as the non-issue that it is and place the burden on the bigots to make their case in the public square… if they dare.
To the disappointment of the Black Women's Roundtable, Elena Kagan was the latest white American to leapfrog in front of black women for a chance to serve on the Supreme Court. The second-class citizenship of African American women has been consistently enforced by our nation, going back 221 years to the date that the Supreme Court was founded. This nomination was especially disheartening for those who felt that the year of Dorothy Height's death would be the perfect time for the nation's first black President to do what should have been done long ago and nominate a black woman for the highest court in the land.
"Needless to say, we are disconcerted by the perceived lack of real consideration of any of the extremely qualified African American women as potential nominees," reads the statement released by the Black Women's Roundtable. After this is over, President Barack Obama will have serious trouble re-inspiring the millions of African American women who left the Hillary Clinton camp to back his "Hope and change" campaign. There was no logical reason for him to pass over a black woman for consideration for this post, only political reasons. Kagan was the nominee that could shore up the white female vote for mid-term elections and help the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party stop the bleeding set to occur in November. Roland Martin does a wonderful job of breaking down the losses within the black female demographic that are set to occur as a result of the Kagan snub on the Supreme Court.
No one is more delighted than I am that esteemed presidential historian, Annette Gordon- Reed will join the faculty at Harvard Law School. Despite the fact that she was recruited by then Dean Elena Kagan, I respectfully disagree with Charles Ogletree that Elena Kagan is a good choice for the Supreme Court.
Do these numbers speak to the quality and caliber of student life? Are Harvard graduates fully engaged and can they provide an effective and vigorous understanding with matters pertaining to race? Or, are they merely defenders and justifiers of the status quo?
I suggest that Professor Ogletree look at the April 30, 2010 blog post written by Diane Lucas. Ms. Lucas was a guest blogger for FEMINISTE and authored a piece entitled, "The Racist Breeding Grounds of Harvard Law School". Lucas wrote this article to discuss the racist behavior of Stephanie Grace, a graduating student, and to discuss her own experience as a Black student at HLS. Lucas critiqued Kagan's leadership before she knew that Kagan was the U.S. Supreme Court nominee.
From Politic 365: The announcement of Elena Kagan could not really be called a surprise, since the White House went out of its way to all but announce her as their pick over the last week. The Obama Administration dropped hints by the dozens to their favored reporters, who dutifully shared their information with the rest of us. I had come to accept it as a done deal, even though I had been a little perturbed at the way the D.C. pundits only mentioned three or four names from the president's short list, as if the rest of the names on it, like Georgia's ownLeah Ward Sears, were invisible.
It wasn't until I called a friend of mine, an African American lawyer here in Atlanta who had been a diehard Hillary supporter and then a reluctant Barack Obama supporter after he became the Democratic nominee, that I realized that others felt the same way. "First he puts a Hispanic woman on the court. Fine. He's paying back the Hispanics for their support," she said. "Then he puts a white woman on the court. Okay – he's paying them back for coming over to his side after Hillary lost. I see that.
Obama’s second Supreme Court nominee clerked for one of history’s greatest racial justice champions. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her career since.
Despite all the hubbub Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination will generate, the truth of the matter is Kagan won’t make much difference to a judicial balance of power that leans rightward. She’ll maintain the status quo: four reliably liberal justices, four reliably conservative justices and one center-right swing voter in Justice Anthony Kennedy. Importantly, that means she will also do little to alter the court’s rightward trajectory on racial justice.
Both Kagan and the White House have made much of her time as a clerk for her self-described mentor, Thurgood Marshall. The hapless Republican National Committee has responded with a bizarre effort to tar her association with one of history’s most celebrated justices. But both sides overstate the connection. Kagan hasn't exactly spent her career as a champion of the racial justice principles Marshall articulated. We need to be asking why that’s the case.
As a Democratic president’s nominee, to be confirmed by a Democratic Senate, we can expect a would-be Justice Kagan to align herself consistently with the liberal voting bloc. After all, today’s Supreme Court appointments rarely let down the presidents who nominate them. Sure, David Souter—whom a wise Latina replaced last summer—was the bane of George H.W. Bush’s existence because of his pro-choice opinions. And retiring Justice John Paul Stevens certainly grew, during his three and a half decades on the court, to become a disappointment for President Gerald Ford’s legacy. I just don’t see that happening to our current constitutional-law-professor president.
I started the day thinking about Elena Kagan, Barack Obama's most recent nominee to the Supreme Court. I was wondering how in the world the president could appoint someone who has no experience on the bench, given the number of highly qualified judges he had to choose from. Then I was informed that this might be a good thing, since the Republicans don't have a judicial record to scrutinize. No problemo.
I then noticed that Kagan has past affiliations with The University of Chicago, The Harvard Law School and Goldman Sachs, and that she was appointed to her position at Harvard by Lawrence Summers, the head of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. I was starting to get uncomfortable at that point, because Kagan's appointment would mean that the entire Supreme Court would be filled with Harvard and Yale grads, which effectively says that every other law school in the country need not apply (so much for having a meritocracy). I also saw a very disturbing pattern of cronyism, elitism and Wall Street loyalty that lets us know that perhaps the President of Hope and Change is not quite what we ordered, making back room deals with his buddies, all for the sake of keeping American power locked into tiny social circles.
Reports suggest that Solicitor General Elena Kagan may be President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court vacancy.
Like everyone in the legal academy over the last decade, we have watched with admiration the amazing changes that Elena Kagan brought to Harvard Law School. A fractured faculty, divided among ideological lines, seemed finally content, if not united. A boisterous student body was finally pacified. The logjam that had stopped faculty hiring had burst. Indeed, she hired so many new faculty the Harvard Law School’s newspaper’s 2008 April Fool’s issue declared, "Dean Kagan Hires Every Law Professor in the Country."
The first woman Dean of Harvard Law School had presided over an unprecedented expansion of the faculty -- growing it by almost a half. She had hired 32 tenured and tenure-track academic faculty members (non-clinical, non-practice). But when we sat down to review the actual record, we were frankly shocked. Not only were there shockingly few people of color, there were very few women. Where were the people of color? Where were the women? Of these 32 tenured and tenure-track academic hires, only one was a minority. Of these 32, only seven were women. All this in the 21st Century.
The NCAA men's basketball tournament is expanding, starting next season, but not on the large scale once expected.
The sport's signature event will grow to 68 teams from 65 in conjunction with a new 14-year, nearly $11 billion television agreement with CBS and Turner Sports announced Thursday. That gives the NCAA a 41% hike in annual media and marketing rights connected to the tournament — and "financial stability through the first quarter of this century," interim President Jim Isch said — without the controversy of a more dramatic move to a 96-team bracket.
Negotiations with CBS/Turner, ESPN and Fox Sports initially had targeted a 96-team field, drawing concern and criticism from traditionalists and others over the impact on the tournament's aesthetics, effect on college basketball's regular season and conference tournaments and potential for further intrusion on players' time and studies.
By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent April 30, 2010
We know one thing for sure about the fight over Arizona's new immigration law. Civil-rights groups will file a lawsuit trying to kill the law and will ask a federal judge to issue an injunction to keep it from taking effect as scheduled this summer. What we don't know is how those proceedings will be affected by the Obama Justice Department, which is contemplating the highly unusual step of filing its own suit against the state of Arizona. Also unknown is the influence of President Obama himself, who has gone out of his way to raise questions -- some of them strikingly uninformed -- about the law.
The drafters of the law knew the lawsuit was coming; a lawsuit is always coming when a state tries to enforce the nation's immigration laws. What the drafters didn't expect was Obama's aggressive and personal role in trying to undermine the new measure.
....
The problem for Obama and Holder is that the people behind the new law have been through this before -- and won. Arizona is three-for-three in defending its immigration measures. In 2008, the state successfully defended its employer-sanctions law, which made it a state crime to knowingly employ an illegal immigrant. Facing some of the same groups that are now planning to challenge the new law, Arizona prevailed both in federal district court and at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation's most liberal federal appeals court.
In federal court in 2005, Arizona successfully defended Proposition 200, which required proof of citizenship for voting and also restricted benefits to illegals. And in 2006, officials won a state-court challenge to Arizona's human smuggling law.
The arguments that liberal groups make against the new law are similar to those made in the past. Foremost among them is the claim that only the federal government can handle immigration matters, and thus the Arizona measure pre-empts federal law. Lawmakers thought of that ahead of time. "This law was carefully drafted to avoid any legal challenge on pre-emption in two ways," explains Kobach. "One, it perfectly mirrors federal law. Courts usually ask whether a state law is in conflict with federal law, and this law is in perfect harmony with federal law.
"Two, the new law requires local law enforcement officers not to make their own judgment about a person's immigration status but to rely on the federal government," Kobach continues. Any officer who reasonably suspects a person is illegal is required to check with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "As long as the state or city is relying on the federal government to determine immigration status, that will protect against a pre-emption challenge," says Kobach. But what if the Obama administration argues that the law is a burden on the federal government? Or refuses to assist Arizona in determining a person's legality? The drafters thought of that, too. There's a federal statute -- 8 USC 1373, passed during the Clinton years -- requiring the feds to verify a person's immigration status any time a state or local official asks for it. The federal government cannot deny assistance to Arizona without breaking the law itself.
OPINION - Imagine my shock when I learned the company accused of squashing the financial security of millions, is now a sponsor of the NAACP's annual convention ...
OPINION - We understand, Mr. Boyce. We know you're an ally and a friend of the NAACP and our cause of justice. We know some people just don't believe anyone will hold their supporters accountable, even though we have done so for a century...
The NCAA just got a bit richer this year, signing a new contract with CBS Sports and Turner Sports for $10.8 billion dollars over 14 years. This contract is a 41% increase over the mammoth deal they originally signed back in 2001. They are also going to expand their tournament field to 68 teams, from the original 65. This is not the total annual revenue for the league. Instead, it simply represents the television rights to air March Madness each year.
The league also has a $55 million dollar, three-year contract with ESPN for the womens basketball tournament and 21 other NCAA championships. Beyond that, the league is also attempting to sell the rights to 60 other national national championships. To make a long story short, the NCAA is making money hand over fist and it's all because they have the biggest, baddest, most entertaining product that "hoods" across America can produce.
As a Finance scholar and businessman, when I hear that someone is working to "sell" something and get money in return, I think about free enterprise and capitalism. I think about the fact that someone (that someone being the NCAA) is working overtime to ensure that they get fair market value for the product they are offering to the world. These ideas of free enterprise also translate to college basketball coaches, many of whom earn as much as $4 million dollars per year, with salaries on par with NBA coaches. In fact, the NCAA earns more money during its post-season tournament than the NFL, NBA and Major League baseball. These are all the symptoms of a professional sports league, and some argue that college athletes should be paid for their work.
By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch, 2 hrs 51 mins ago
LOS ANGELES – The nation's largest court system is in the midst of a painful budget crisis that has shut down courtrooms and disrupted everything from divorce and custody proceedings to traffic ticket disputes.
The Los Angeles court system has already closed 17 courtrooms and another 50 will be shut down come September unless something is done to find more money. The judge who presides over the system predicts chaos and an unprecedented logjam of civil and family law cases in the worst-case scenario.
The crisis results from the financially troubled state's decision to slash $393 million from state trial courts in the budget this year. The state also decided to close all California courthouses on the third Wednesday of every month.
What has emerged is a hobbled court system that is struggling to serve the public.
Custody hearings, divorce proceedings, small-claims disputes, juvenile dependency matters and civil lawsuits have been delayed amid the courtroom shutdowns in Los Angeles. Drivers who choose to fight traffic tickets now have to wait up to nine months to get a trial started.
Complex civil lawsuits, those typically involving feuding businesses, could really feel the hit. It now takes an average of 16 months for such cases to get resolved, but court officials expect the cuts to bog down these civil matters to the point that they take an average of four years to finish.
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)-Legal challenges to the national health care overhaul signed last month by President Barack Obama will be heard eventually by the U.S. Supreme Court, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer predicted Thursday.Appearing before the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science & Related Agencies, Breyer said the nearly $1 trillion health care plan will likely be heard by the nine-member high court, just as most major federal legislation is reviewed by the justices.Breyer and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas were on Capitol Hill today to testify before the subcommittee on the Supreme Court's budget request for the next fiscal year.As for the high court's relatively light caseload in recent years, Breyer, in response to a question, said that trend could shift given that Congress recently "passed a law with 2,400 pages," referring to the health care reform championed by Democrats.
The rich and famous now have something in common with hundreds of thousands of middle and lower-class Americans: The bank is about to take their homes.
Houses with loans of $5 million or more will likely see a sharp rise in foreclosures this year, according to a RealtyTrac study for The Wall Street Journal.
Just this week, a Tudor mansion in Bel-Air belonging to film star Nicolas Cage was in foreclosure auction and reverted to the lender. On Wednesday, Richard Fuscone, a former top Wall Street executive, declared personal bankruptcy, forestalling a foreclosure auction that had been scheduled this week on his 14-acre Westchester mansion. Last month a Manhattan condominium owned by Italian film producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori was sold in a foreclosure auction for $33.2 million.
In February alone, 352 homes nationwide in this category were scheduled for foreclosure auction, the final step before a bank acquisition. That is the largest monthly number of these so-called notices of sale since the financial crisis began. By comparison, in all of 2009, there were 1,312 such notices.
Economists say the super-wealthy are among the last to lose their homes in a mortgage crisis because they usually have high savings, better access to credit and other means for staving off foreclosure. But many of them work in financial services and other industries hit especially hard by the crisis, and have seen their wealth shrink in the market crash.
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer Mark Sherman, Associated Press Writer –
3 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's oldest member and leader of its liberal bloc, is retiring. President Barack Obama now has his second high court opening to fill.
Stevens said Friday he will step down when the court finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July. He said he hopes his successor will be confirmed "well in advance of the commencement of the court's next term."
WASHINGTON — Two weeks after President Barack Obama signed the big health care overhaul into law, Americans are struggling to understand how — and when — the sweeping measure will affect them.
Questions reflecting confusion have flooded insurance companies, doctors' offices, human resources departments and business groups.
"They're saying, 'Where do we get the free Obama care, and how do I sign up for that?' " said Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com. The California-based company sells coverage from 185 health insurance carriers in 50 states.
McLean said the call center had been inundated by uninsured consumers who were hoping that the overhaul would translate into instant, affordable coverage. That widespread misconception may have originated in part from distorted rhetoric about the legislation bubbling up from the hyper-partisan debate about it in Washington and some media outlets, such as when opponents denounced it as socialism.
"We tell them it's not free, that there are going to be things in place that help people who are low-income, but that ultimately most of that is not going to be taking place until 2014," McLean said.
Adults with pre-existing conditions are frustrated to learn that insurers won't have to cover them until 2014 (though those under 18 will be protected in late September); then they become both hopeful and confused upon learning that a federal high-risk pool for them will be established in the next few months. "Health insurance is so confusing. You add this on top of it and it makes it even more confusing," McLean said.
The Obama administration is embarking on a years-long public education campaign about the overhaul, including a Web component. However, much of the guidance will depend on Department of Health and Human Services regulations that are still being developed.
"We welcome the partnership of Indiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Nevada and Arizona as we continue fighting to protect the constitutional rights of American citizens and the sovereignty of our states," Bill McCollum said.
"In my humble opinion, this is not a new phenomenon. Every lawyer of color knows this to be the case in this profession. It is no different in any other privilege profession. One way to improve minority attendance is to have potential and current law school students actively seek relationships with the Alumni of the specific law school. Now, this is not an easy task because most lawyers and judges are very busy and have limited time to devout to extra curricular activity. But, if you are proactive and plan in advance opportunities for networking with alumni of color in the legal profession, it can work.
There is old saying that its takes a village to raise a child. Well, the same analogy still applies in the legal profession. It takes a network of lawyers (and/or judges) of all colors to raise students to become excellent lawyers (or judges) in the legal profession. If you can create this environment, then you will surely see opportunities open for people of color in the legal profession." - Syreeta L. McNeal, CPA, JD
Please review the article below:
By JENNA ROSS, Star Tribune Last update: April 6, 2010 - 11:06 PM
More minority students are applying to Hamline University Law School. Acceptances are up, too. But overall diversity? Down a tick from a decade ago.
"That's where the challenge remains," said Donald Lewis, dean. "Our issue is convincing the people we've accepted to come here."
Hamline's struggle is common. Law schools across the nation vie for students of color to diversify classrooms -- and ultimately, courtrooms. Greater diversity will lead to a fairer legal system, they say, and clients demand it.
Yet growth is slow, and, as a recent study shows, representation of some races has even dropped.
That has law schools and law firms working in high schools, preparing undergraduates and launching new admissions programs. Starting April 15, the University of St. Thomas School of Law will accept some students without LSAT scores, which, statistics show, are generally higher for whites than minorities. Other schools are considering similar steps.
April 6, 2010 8:15 AM PDT by Declan McCullagh Cnet.com
The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to impose strict Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. A three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. unanimously tossed out the FCC's August 2008 cease and desist order against Comcast, which had taken measures to slow BitTorrent transfers and had voluntarily ended them earlier in the year.
Because the FCC "has failed to tie its assertion" of regulatory authority to any actual law enacted by Congress, the agency does not have the authority to regulate an Internet provider's network management practices, wrote Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Tuesday's decision could doom one of the signature initiatives of current FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat. Last October, Genachowski announced plans to begin drafting a formal set of Net neutrality rules -- even though Congress has not given the agency permission to begin. (Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg, for instance, has said that new regulations would stifle innovative technologies like telemedicine.)
This data was gathered from the prison initiative and shows that there is more racism in the US prison system than there was in South Africa During Apartheid:
Incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment
by Peter Wagner Updated June 28, 2005
On June 30, 2004, there were 2,131,180 people in U.S. prisons and jails. That's a rise of 2.3% during the 12 previous months. Federal prisons are growing almost 5 times faster than state prison populations.
As of June 30, 2004, the U.S. incarceration rate was 726 per 100,000 residents. But when you break down the statistics you see that incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment.
U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2004
Gender is an important "filter" on the who goes to prison or jail:
Look at just the males by race, and the incarceration rates become even more frightening
If you look at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer
Or you can make some international comparisons
South Africa under Apartheid was internationally condemned as a racist society. What does it mean that the leader of the "free world" locks up its Black men at a rate 5.8 times higher than the most openly racist country in the world?
Statistics as of June 30, 2004 from Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004, Tables 14; except for the race rate statistics which are calculated from Table 13 and Census Bureau population estimates. South Africa figures from Marc Mauer, Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration. All references to Blacks and Whites are for what the Bureau of Justice Statistics and U.S. Census refer to as "non-Hispanic Blacks" and "non-Hispanic Whites".)
For over a year, the Federal Reserve has been pouring money into American mortgages. Buying "mortgage-backed securities" (MBS), financial instruments whose value is based on a pool of underlying mortgages.
When the financial crisis broke, the market for MBS dried up. Buyers feared that homeowners would default on their mortgages. Driving the value of these assets to almost nothing, or worse. Financial institutions in America and around the world were left holding trillions of dollars worth of non-saleable MBS. It appeared these holders would be forced to mark down the value of their MBS holdings, potentially triggering another wave of bank (and pension fund, insurance provider, etc.) failures.
The Fed moved decisively to prevent this. Stepping into the MBS market and buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of MBS weekly in early 2009. Taking these assets off the hands of financial groups.
Of course, to pay for these purchases, the Fed created new money. MBS purchases are one of the major items responsible for ballooning the U.S. monetary base by $1.2 trillion since October 2008.
This is a massive intervention in a troubled market. One that is apparently now over. According to previous announcements, Fed officials planned to wrap up MBS purchases by March 31, 2010. Yesterday should have been the first "Fed-free" day for the mortgage market.
This is a critical change (if in fact the Fed sticks to its plans).
Will the MBS market hold up absent government intervention? Or are there more skeletons in closet, despite the appearance that the economy is getting back on track?
A pullback in Fed buying could expose weaknesses still lingering in the system. Providing some unpleasant surprises for the economy, stock markets and investors.
Keep an eye on these numbers to see if the Fed does indeed go cold turkey. If they do, be extra vigilant on the rest of the mortgage-related data for the next few months.
Here is a form letter you can use to write your Congressman about the Democracy Restoration Act, an act sponsored by Russ Feingold and John Conyers. The act would restore voting rights to ex-convicts in federal elections. In case you are unaware, slavery in the United States was never fully abolished. Actually, it was only abolished for those who were not convicted of a crime. Therefore, many hundreds of thousands of African Americans are still victims of slavery and involuntary servitude. This has got to stop now. To read more on this issue, please click here.
Here is the sample letter you can cut and paste to send to your representative.
To whom it may concern,
I am a member of the Your Black World Coalition, as well as a concerned American. I would like to write to express my support for HR3335 - The Democracy Restoration Act, sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).
I strongly believe that when felons have paid their debt to society, they deserve an opportunity and incentive to become a part of that society again. Voting and participating in federal elections is an important part of being an American, and would serve to reduce recidivism, which hurts us all. Additionally, it would ensure that these men and women receive the representation they deserve from elected officials, since most of us would agree that taxation without representation is fundamentally unfair and unAmerican.
We will continue to campaign on this matter, and hold our officials accountable. Please do the right thing and vote "yes" on the Democracy Restoration Act.
"Where are all these jobs being promised by this Congress and the Obama Administration?" - Syreeta L. McNeal, CPA, JD
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US economy shed 23,000 private-sector jobs in March, a payrolls firm said Wednesday in a report that was dramatically worse than market expectations.
Non-farm private payrolls fell 23,000 in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, payrolls firm ADP said.
Investors had expected around 40,000 jobs to be created this month.
March's job losses eased slightly from February, when 24,000 jobs were shed according to a revised figure also published on Wednesday.
Despite the apparently bleak picture, ADP cautioned that the figures may distort the true state of the economy.
The firm said severe winter weather may have again weighed on hiring levels.
"The lack of improvement in employment from February to March is consistent with the pause in the decline of initial unemployment claims that occurred during the winter," ADP said in a statement.
"The March employment decline was the smallest since employment began falling in February of 2008," it added.
"I have a feeling, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide this interesting piece of legislation after Obama signs it into law tomorrow." - Syreeta L. McNeal, CPA, JD
When I heard that Clarence Thomas' wife Virginia was launching a Tea Party group, I wasn't really shocked. I was, however, confused that the Thomas family would allow for such a blatant revelation of their political biases. Not only is Clarence Thomas seen as a profound disappointment to the African-American community, he has now further embarrassed the legal profession and undermined the integrity of the bench. When you sleep next to someone who has openly admitted that she wants to undermine the president's "hard-left agenda," you can hardly call yourself impartial. In Virginia Thomas' words, "I have come to know and love the Tea Party patriots. It has been a privilege to become a bit of an ambassador of sorts for the national board."
NYU Law Professor Stephen Gillers says that Virginia breaks no rules by becoming a Tea Partier, "Ideological issues, as opposed to monetary ones, are not a subject of concern." A judge's spouse, he said, "can have a full political life, and take positions on political issues and legal issues, even ones that come before his or her spouse."
OPINION - While some might call this political pragmatism, others might describe this outcome as the modern-day version of the Three-Fifths Compromise...
OPINION - In an address to a joint session of Congress in 2001, then President Bush blasted racial profiling, "It's wrong and we will end it in America." It hasn't...
OPINION - A new study shows that blacks are more economically optimistic than whites, with 36 percent stating that we expect our financial future to improve...
OPINION - By associating Dominican players with blacks, it disguises the fact that MLB has a long way to go in competing with the NFL and NBA in urban communities...
Mar 11 12:48 PM US/Eastern By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH Associated Press Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Kansas City's school superintendent said Thursday the plan to shutter nearly half the district's schools, while "painful," will move forward quickly so that all the closures will be complete by fall.
The school board narrowly approved the plan Wednesday night to close 29 of the district's 61 schools to try to stave off bankruptcy. The closures have angered many parents, students and teachers, but administrators say they had no choice because without them, the district would have been in the red by 2011.
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Although other districts nationwide are considering closures as the recession ravages their budgets, Kansas City's plan is striking. In rapidly shrinking Detroit, 29 schools closed before classes began this fall, but that still left the district with 172 schools. Most other districts are closing just one or two schools.
Chief Justice John Roberts says he’s not sure why the Supreme Court still attends the State of the Union address, indicating that perhaps it was time for that tradition to end.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday the scene at President Obama’s State of the Union address was “very troubling” and the annual speech has “degenerated to a political pep rally.”
Obama chided the court, with the justices seated before him in their black robes, for its decision on a campaign finance case.
Responding to a University of Alabama law student’s question, Roberts said anyone was free to criticize the court, and some have an obligation to do so because of their positions. “So I have no problems with that,” he said. “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”
Breaking from tradition, Obama criticized the court’s decision that allows corporations and unions to freely spend money to run political ads for or against specific candidates. “With all due deference to the separation of powers the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said in January. Justice Samuel Alito was the only justice to respond at the time, shaking his head and mouthing the words “not true” as Obama continued.
Roberts told the students he wonders whether justices should attend the speeches. “I’m not sure why we’re there,” said Roberts, a Republican nominee who joined the court in 2005. Justice Antonin Scalia once said he no longer goes to the annual speech because the justices “sit there like bumps on a log” in an otherwise highly partisan atmosphere. Six of the nine justices attended Obama’s address.
Roberts and Scalia are right. It’s not so much that Obama’s dig at the Court was improper but that the nature of the address has gradually evolved over the years into a more partisan, overtly political affair. Perhaps that’s to be expected, since American politics has similarly changed. But it may well be time for the Justices to stop attending, lending the impression that the SOTU is some sort of national unity moment. Ditto, incidentally, the Joint Chiefs.
UPDATE: Via the comments, I see that Glenn Greenwald has an interesting alternative viewpoint:
It’s not actually a unique event of oppression or suffering to have to sit and listen to a speech where someone criticizes you and you can’t respond that very moment (but are able, as Roberts just proved, to respond freely afterward). Even in the State of the Union Address, it’s completely customary for the President to criticize the Congress or the opposition party right to their faces, while members of his party stand and cheer vocally, and — as the reaction to Joe Wilson’s outburst demonstrated — “decorum” dictates that the targets of the criticism sit silently and not respond until later, once the speech is done. That’s how speeches work. Only Supreme Court Justices would depict their being subjected to such a mundane process as an act of grave unfairness (and, of course, Roberts’ comrade, Sam Alito, could not even bring himself to abide by that decorum).
What makes Roberts’ petty, self-absorbed grievance all the more striking is that this is what judges do all the time. It’s the essence of the judicial branch. Federal judges are basically absolute tyrants who rule over their courtroom and those in it with virtually no restraints. They can and do scold, criticize, berate, mock, humiliate and threaten anyone who appears before their little fiefdoms — parties, defendants, lawyers, witnesses, audience members — and not merely “decorum,” but the force of law (in the form of contempt citations or other penalties), compels the target to sit silently and not respond. In fact, lawyers can be, and have been, punished just for publicly criticizing a judge.
[...]
The very idea that it’s terrriby wrong, uncouth, and “very troubling” for the President to criticize one of their most significant judicial decisions in a speech while in their majestic presence — not threaten them, or have them arrested, or incite violence against them, but disagree with their conclusions and call for Congressional remedies (as Art. II, Sec. 3 of the Constitution requires) — approaches pathological levels of vanity and entitlement.
All fair points.
But here’s the thing: The president, the Congress, and the Supreme Court are theoretically equals. Judges and those appearing before them are not.
In reality, though, the president and the Justices aren’t equals. The former presents himself as the leader of the country and gets to lecture everyone else. There are no comparable venues where the president comes and sits quietly while judges berate him.
It’s true that presidents criticize Congress in these speeches and outburts such as “You lie!” are considered poor form. But it’s not true that Congress is expected to sit there and take it; they cheer and jeer as a matter of course. The Justices, meanwhile, are supposed to present the illusion of impartiality.
Further, unlike the president and Congress, the Court is not an elected, political institution. They’re supposed to be impartial arbiters separate from politics. That’s a transparent fiction, of course, but one that must be maintained. If the Supreme Court is finally revealed to be nothing more than a band of partisans, their authority will vanish.
Finally, Roberts isn’t arguing that the Justices should get to shout “You lie!” when they’re insulted. He’s merely questioning whether they should attend political speeches where they’ll be scolded.
So what are your thoughts on the lively discussion between President Obama and the U.S. Supreme Court and the role of the President's State of the Union? - Syreeta L. McNeal, CPA, JD
I was invited this week to speak to the Stanford University NAACP about whether or not college athletes should be paid. When I am asked whether I think college athletes should be compensated for their labor, I simply respond to the question with another question: “Why shouldn’t they get paid? Did they not earn the money? Is someone else earning money from their labor? Is the labor of the athlete essential to the revenue-generating process?” Answers to these questions help us to understand how insane it is that athletes earn billions of dollars for coaches, but aren’t entitled to any of that money for themselves. I’ve seen race horses get better deals than that.
The state Commission on Public Integrity charged Gov. David A. Paterson on Wednesday with violating state ethics laws when he secured free tickets to the opening game of the World Series from the Yankees last fall for himself and others. The announcement came as the governor, already mired in scandal, met with his cabinet and insisted he would stay in office.
In addition to violating the state’s ban on gifts to public officials, the commission found that Mr. Paterson falsely testified under oath that he had intended to pay for the tickets for his son and his son’s friend. The commission determined that Mr. Paterson had never intended to pay for the tickets and only did so after inquiries from the media, after which he submitted a backdated check as payment.
The commission had referred the case to the Albany County District Attorney, P. David Soares, as well as Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, for further investigation. Mr. Cuomo is already investigating Mr. Paterson’s role in allegedly trying to suppress a domestic-violence case involving a close aide, David Johnson.
Mr. Johnson also attended the Yankees game in question and was involved in soliciting the tickets from Yankees officials. The tickets, with a face value of $425 each, seated them a few rows behind home plate.
Remember the suit that OJ Simpson wore when he was acquitted of murder in 1995? I'm sure you do. The images of OJ breathing a sigh of relief after his acquittal were viewed all around the world. You probably remember exactly what you were doing at that precise moment, similar to the 911 attacks. Well, the Smithsonian Institute has announced that they do not want OJ's suit, claiming that it is "inappropriate for their collection."
The announcement came after a 13-year legal fight over what to do with the suit. Since that time, it has been in the possession of Simpson's former sports agent, Mike Gilbert. Fred Goldman, father of one of the men Simpson was accused of killing, has been fighting for the suit since the 1990s. Simpson told authorities that the suit was stolen from him.
The suit was also part of the reason that Simpson is in prison right now. OJ was arrested and convicted for an incident in which he robbed men in Las Vegas in order to reclaim memorabilia that he believed to be stolen. He'd been told that the suit was among the list of things being offered for sale.
Singing great Anita Baker barely missed going to jail Friday in a dispute with her ex-husband over music royalties. The 52-year old Baker found herself in a heated battle with Walter Bridgforth, her ex-husband, over the details of their divorce settlement. "I'm so happy. ... I have never been in such a position before," Baker said in the hallway outside court. "And we don't intend to ever be in such a position ever again. I just wanna go home,and I'm happy to go home. ... As horrific as it could have been, it was lovely to feel supported, though, on the other end." Baker was faced with a deadline Wednesday to sign documents that empower court-appointed music contract expert Howard Hertz to obtain information from record labels regarding how much Baker owed her ex-husband. The deadline passed and Baker still had not signed. This led to the Wayne County Chief Family Court Judge Lita Masini Popke ordering Baker to either show up in court on Friday or go to jail.
“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” – Conservative activist Paul Weyrich, at a 1980 training session for Christian conservatives While there are a number of very worthy issues that need to be addressed in this area, I propose that we include the issue of felon disenfranchisement in our deliberations. Felon disenfranchisement is critical as it impacts the outcomes of elections throughout the country. Too often, conservative, anti-minority candidates are elected because of the disproportionate removal of African Americans and other minorities from the election rolls. As the policies that disenfranchise felons disproportionately impacts African Americans (both those caught up in the criminal justice system AND the larger Black public which does not get the policies that it could because supportive people are not elected to office), we must understand it undermines the policies that we believe to be helpful to our community.
Federal authorities will not pursue charges against the officers involved in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell, the unarmed bridegroom who died in a hail of police bullets outside a Queens strip club just hours before his wedding.
Prosecutors said there was "insufficient evidence" that Bell's civil rights were violated when undercover officers unloaded on a car carrying Bell and two friends on a Jamaica street in November, 2006.
Three officers were acquitted in 2008, including Michael Oliver, who police said reloaded while firing 31 of the 50 shots that filled the vehicle and surrounding streets.
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — U.S. foreclosure filings rose 15 percent in January from a year earlier and exceeded 300,000 for the 11th consecutive month as modification programs failed to keep delinquent borrowers in their homes, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
A total of 315,716 properties received a notice of default, auction or bank seizure last month, or one in 409 households, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said today in a statement. Filings fell 10 percent from December.
Bank seizures, also known as real-estate-owned or REOs, may rise to a record 3 million this year, RealtyTrac said last month. About 66,000 delinquent loans out of a targeted 4 million by 2012 were permanently modified as of Dec. 31 under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, according to the Treasury Department. About 787,000 mortgages are in trial programs that change loan terms, the Treasury said Jan. 19.
“It’s almost inevitable that modifications will fail,” Michelle Meyer, New York-based U.S. economist for Barclays Capital Inc., said in an interview. “Over the next several months, we should see REOs increase at an accelerated pace.”
Foreclosure filings also fell in January of last year from December, only to rise in subsequent months, RealtyTrac said.
“If history repeats itself we will see a surge in the numbers over the next few months as lenders foreclose on delinquent loans where neither the existing loan modification programs or the new short sale and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure alternatives works,” James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s chief executive officer, said in the statement.
From Politic 365
