Thank You
- From JoanMar, 2thanks, and Support the Dream Defenders -
To President Obama, for signing the Death in Custody Reporting Act, visiting prisons, commuting the sentences of non-violent drug offenders, and forming the Task Force on 21st Century Policing that looked into new guidelines for law enforcement.
[President Obama delivers remarks to the press following a meeting with members of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, March 2, 2015.]
To the 703 Kossacks who supported the group Support the Dream Defenders in the early days of writing and editing the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act.
To Hilary Shelton of the NAACP for guiding us and motivating us soon after we crowd-sourced the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act. Hilary Shelton is the Director of the NAACP's Washington Bureau / Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy.
To Chris Magnus, Chief of Police of Richmond, California, for holding a Black Lives Matter sign during a protest.
To Jennifer Bellamy, Legislative Director of the Criminal Justice Division of the ACLU in Washington, DC. (No picture available.)
To a2nite, rexymeteorite, DefendOurConstitution, Tortmaster, elenacarlena, and JekyllnHyde, members of Support the Dream Defenders, a special shout-out for posting stories on Friday nights when we needed them, for promoting those stories, and to members of the group and members of Daily Kos who support us every week in the stories by commenting. We also had people assist us in the states on our Freedom of Information Act project to expand Medicaid.
A Simple Gift: The Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act
When you are talking to your legislator or their staffer or your friend or your family member, or if you send them a note, please take ownership of the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act. Whether or not you happened to be one of the 703 Kossacks who supported us in the early days, we all made this law. Members of the Daily Kos group Support the Dream Defenders could not have built the law without all members of Daily Kos. You own it. We give it to you.
We did that. We did that. None of us could have done that alone. We all did that. Even if you did not participate directly in the development of the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act, you came to Daily Kos, you brought traffic to the site, you cast messages to social media.
We give you permission to say: "I am a member of Daily Kos. We crowd-sourced the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act. Have you heard of it?"
The Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act (all 3500 words). Just the Summary. The state version.
About Support the Dream Defenders
Members of the Daily Kos group Support the Dream Defenders invigorate four ongoing projects:
1. We coalesced to support the Dream Defenders in Florida and their mission, our first project and the origin of our name. The Dream Defenders defend the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr. by "develop[ing] the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise our independent collective power; building alternative systems and organizing to disrupt the structures that oppress our communities." Please donate here.
2. Our Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act, crowd-sourced at Daily Kos in the fall of 2014 after the death of Michael Brown. Our bill quickly earned endorsements from the NAACP and the ACLU. The NAACP forwarded our bill to members of Congress, and we distributed it to members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other progressive members of Congress. President Obama signed into a law a small piece of our bill in December 2014. The Department of Justice included parts of our law in their reports on Ferguson, Missouri, in 2015. Our state version of the MBOPRA is currently in committee in the Kansas legislature.
3. Our Freedom of Information Act project. Nineteen Republican governors chose to kill poor people by not expanding Medicaid. Ebola has killed about 9000 people in total; Republican governors kill 23,000 people PER YEAR by refusing federal support for Medicaid, a story ignored by traditional media. Our project forces those governors to out themselves, clapping them in a Catch 22. With the support of readers, we publicize our results through letters to the editor, press releases, and petitions.
4. Our Law Enforcement Documentation Act of 2016.
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