Pictured above are some of the estimated 50-60,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan who marched in Washington, D.C., August 8, 1925. It was a time when as many as 3,000 of them had been elected or appointed to high posts in states of the North and South and West. Colorado and Indiana both had Klan governors at the time. Founded in 1915, the second Klan was inspired by the film
Birth of a Nation, which painted the organization's terrorist Reconstruction Era predecessor in adoring hues. Though separated by half a century, the two organizations had much in common, not least of which was deep racism, anti-semitism, anti-Catholicism and a willingness to violently shut up anyone who objected to its activities. When this photo was taken, the KKK claimed 3 million members. It was the peak of Klan power. H.L. Mencken, the "Sage of Baltimore," satirist and social critic, was on hand to watch and write.
Sixty-six years later, in 1991, Tim Warren wrote where Mencken had done the same for nearly 40 years, the Baltimore Sun:
"Perhaps some journalists presented their distaste for the parade in a straightforward and outraged tone (and understandably so), but not Mencken, who saw the Klan members for what they were: petty and cowardly and abysmally ignorant. One of the parade's leaders was an 'imperial profligate' whose uniform 'was a mass of glittering gems, the love-offering, no doubt, of his lieges sweating on foot behind him. He acknowledged the huzzahs of the rabble with graceful sweeps of the left hand. A regal fellow, and much happier in patriotic work, you may be sure, than he ever was in the lime and cement business.'"
Tara Culp-Ressler reports Alabama’s Abortion Law Puts Minors On Trial And Gives Their Fetuses A Lawyer:
Supreme Court precedent has historically dictated that states are allowed to require parental consent for minors’ abortions as long as there’s an alternate process in place for the teens who may not be able to ask their parents’ permission. That could include a teen from an abusive household, a foster child who doesn’t have legal guardians, or a girl who’s become pregnant because someone in her family has raped her. This process is called judicial bypass.
But under Alabama’s new law, this bypass process is significantly more difficult for teens. In its suit, the ACLU contends that the new law “radically alters the judicial bypass process in a wholly unprecedented manner that goes well beyond any judicial bypass statute that has ever been upheld by a federal court.”
Now, the state is allowed to call teachers, parents, neighbors, boyfriends, or peers to testify against the teenage girl, even if that means disclosing her pregnancy to people in her life who didn’t previously know about it. Alabama may also hire someone to represent the fetus’ “best interests” in court. So the new law ultimately ensures that a minor who needs an abortion and isn’t comfortable telling her parents will be up against the whole legal system. She’ll be forced to defend herself against a district attorney who’s arguing she’s unfit to make this decision on her own.
This isn’t a hypothetical situation; we’ve already seen other states arguing that minors shouldn’t be allowed to exercise their abortion rights for that reason. Last year, the highest court in Nebraska ruled that a 16-year-old in foster care — who was in court asking for permission for an abortion because she didn’t have parents — wasn’t “mature” enough to choose an abortion and should be forced to continue with the pregnancy.
But it gets worse for the teenagers in Alabama. Even if the judicial bypass is granted, the law allows the state to file an appeal. It’s possible that the legal process will be dragged out for so long that the teen will hit the legal limit for abortion—Alabama has a 20-week ban on the books, cutting off access even before Roe v. Wade officially does—and be unable to end the pregnancy in the state.
“At best, this law destroys the confidentially of any teen participating in the judicial bypass process. At its worst, this law will force a teen to resort to an illegal and unsafe abortion; to seek parental consent, even if it’s not safe for her to do so; or to have a child against her will,” the ACLU says in a press release regarding the legal challenge.
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Republican John Boehner Hasn't Met Single American Who Wants Public Option:
Minority Leader John Boehner, to Politico:
"I'm still trying to find the first American to talk to who's in favor of the public option, other than a member of Congress or the administration" said Boehner, whose sole recent foray into a public discussion of health care reform was a tea-party-style event in Ohio a few weeks back. "I've not talked to one and I get to a lot of places," he told reporters at his weekly press availability. "I've not had anyone come up to me—I know I'm inviting them—and lobby for the public option." |
Just ponder for a moment about what it means if John Boehner isn't lying—because as we know, it's wrong for politicians to lie and they almost never, ever do—but that he really, honestly has never met anyone who was in favor of the public option during this entire debate.
Let us all pause to reflect the sheer magnitude of the insular, self-inflating bubble that would be required of Boehner to never meet or talk to a single American that thought that way, when 2/3rds of the country do, and the majority of people in his own state do. He must roll to and from work in a giant, government-provided hamster ball. |
Tweet of the Day
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, Arkansas AG candidate may be disqualified, for multiple voter registrations!
Greg Dworkin rounds up the latest on ebola. Secret Service director Julia Pierson has resigned. Can that really make a difference?
Gideon solicits comment on the
Daily Kos community effort to draft a proposed legislative response to "over-policing." It's an exercise consciously conceived of as a response to ALEC, about which there's always plenty to say. And speaking of ALEC, here's yet another way the sort of privatizers who make up their constituency have devised to soak the poor: skimming off cash transfers to prisoners.
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