Thank you—and we're sorry.
- On Thursday, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a stay preventing implementation of remedies ordered to bring "Stop and Frisk" into constitutional compliance in Floyd v. City of New York and Ligon v. City of New York, and removed the judge, Shira Scheindlin, from both cases. The reason? Not that Judge Scheindlin had issued a bad ruling in either Floyd or Ligon—that remains to be determined following resolution of the appeal on the merits. Instead, the Appellate panel concluded that Judge Scheindlin had violated the judicial canons requiring the "appearance of impartiality" (because she told an attorney in another stop and frisk case, Daniels v. City of New York that if he thought they had proof of racial profiling they should bring another suit and relate the case—leading to the filing of Floyd.) Oh, and for defending the court against harsh criticism in the media. So, for now, the NYPD can party like it's 1999 (again), since briefing on the appeal on the merits of the case won't be done until March 2014 and knowing how fast the wheels of appellate justice run, there won't be a ruling until sometime in 2015. But who cares? It's not as if all the Black and Latino folks profiled under these policies have any right to be free from the racism that allows even liberal folks to make excuses for the NYPD's racist implementation of otherwise lawful stop and frisk practices in New York City.
- Even the best airport security can't stop a determined, level headed lunatic. On Friday, Terminal 3 of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX to those who love to hate it) was shut down after a lone gunman calmly entered it, opened fire, and went upstairs to the screening area where he fatally shot a TSA screener, wounded a second, then continued apace looking for even more TSA agents to kill until he was finally stopped (with gunshots) by law enforcement. This effectively disrupted airline travel nationwide as flights were diverted from LAX, not exactly a minor traffic hub, or stuck on the tarmac for hours after landing. The terminal is still closed, continuing the disruption. The gunman has been identified as 23 year-old Paul Ciancia. There is no confirmed reason why Mr. Ciancia felt compelled to shoot at innocent people just because they worked for the TSA, but according to the cops he was apparently "disappointed in the government." May Gerardo I. Hernandez, the slain TSA employee who apparently did nothing more than be in the right place at the wrong time, rest in peace.
- On Friday, a 5% cut in benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka Food Stamps) went into effect for 47 million Americans. For the average family of 4, they will lose $36 in benefits a month. That may not seem like much, but when that $36 is coming off an already lean-and-mean maximum benefit amount of $668/month? It's going to hurt, and hurt bad. But of course here in America nobody goes hungry, right? They are just "food insecure." Or "lazy". Or all driving Lexuses and eating steak and lobster.(Don't believe me? Just read the sick, sick, sick comments from the so-called-public in response to almost any online article about this subject—but bring a barf bag.) Fortunately, USA Today has come to the rescue, with a helpful video on how to survive on $1.40/meal.
- Now that activists in Germany have interviewed Ed Snowden about the scope of US spying by the NSA against Germany, the German government is interested in hearing more. One small wrinkle: it wants Snowden to testify in Germany (presumably before the Bundenstag.) Snowden's reported response? He would like to testify—in Washington. (I presume he means DC, unless there's a Washington in Germany?) At the same time, Snowden is willing to testify in Germany about the scope of spying against Germany only if he is not at risk of being returned to the United States (where Washington DC is.) Meanwhile, Snowden's lawyer is contradicting Snowden, saying that he may not testify to anyone at all about anything if it's not in his best interests (same position that any self-respecting lawyer, including me, would take; I'd especially put a lid on that "amazingly talkative" part of him reported by the BBC) I do wish the man would make up his mind about what he's trying to do, though. First Snowden's cause was stopping allegedly-unconstitutional spying by the US government on US citizens (which we haven't heard much from him about lately). Now it's exposing global spying by the United States and every other nation on earth apparently (the Asian continent is currently going ballistic over Australia's role—per Snowden leaked documents—in all of this). This is right up, consistency-wise, with Snowden first insisting that he wasn't hiding from the law while in Hong Kong, at the same time refusing to return face the possible consequences of the law in the US.
- In another judicial reversal, on Thursday the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay against implementation of that state's newest draconian TRAP law requiring hospital admitting privileges for all abortion providers. This reversal came just three days after the injunction had been issued by the District Court in Austin. The reason? Even though of course the record hasn't been fully developed yet below, the appellate court believes that the law is perfectly constitutional and imposes no undue burden on the abortion right--even though it is predicted to shut down virtually every non-urban abortion provider in Texas and many of the urban ones, too.
- For those of us who simply cannot do without our tablet, smartphone, or Candy Crush addiction while flying, good news: the ban on the use of many of these devices under 10,000 foot altitude may be coming to an end soon. Joy. Yet another salvo in the war to ensure that no waking moment of a person's day has him or her disconnected from technology, even if it means safer airplane landings and take-offs (since the FAA has lifted the ban before all the airlines have all actually concluded that there is, in fact, no increased safety risk to any of their airplanes), or anything unimportant like that.
- All the sound and fury that has taken up billions of words over the implementation of the ACA since October, and the insistence on both sides of the discussion that there is either nothing wrong with the program and that folks complaining about skyrocketing costs are just political operatives, or those claiming that the End Times are upon us because of all this socialized private insurance, is enough to make your head hurt. Too few are willing to admit that the reality is that aspects of the ACA rollout are fuckin' awesome, good, bad, and fuckin' ugly—largely dependent upon where your family's insurance situation stood before October 1 and upon what state you live in—and the truth about the law's day-to-day financial impact on individuals and families remains firmly planted somewhere in between. Ahh well, at least the Democratic party leadership is focused on fixing things as much as possible for the real people affected badly and celebrating the things that are going well for the real people who truly are benefitting, instead of worrying about how this rollout is hurting their future electoral chances.
- Shopping While Black (SWB, to those of us who have actually had to live with it) has roared back into the headlines, following the multiple lawsuits filed by young folks buying high end merchandise at stores like Barney's New York and Macy's. You'd think nobody ever heard of it before, despite it being the subject of a famous "What Would You Do" segment on mainstream TV ½ a decade ago. In case you missed it:
Yet somehow, this is news, to the point where famous Black and Latino people are now in the mix, either saying "Yes, I pay the "respectability tax" too" or "Why you dissing me for not saying a peep, especially since I was formerly not a famous billionaire, but a base runner who got a rare second chance in life?"
- One of America's shames will be, when current events become history, the failure of its justice system to criminally punish those responsible for their role in engineering the financial catastrophe known as the the Great Recession (or, let's be honest, the Second Great Depression). One of its pride and joys in the midst of that shame? The herculean efforts of a humble, low-profile government attorney who got his degree in night school to persuade his colleagues that use of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989(FIRREA)—the RICO-like law that was put in place after the savings and loan debacle—was a way to ensure at least some financial punishment was levied upon those most responsible. Talk about unsung American heroes: DOJ has been following his lead. And it's working (even though the numbers are still not high enough.)