Bruce M.Wright

Judge Bruce Wright Speaks on Vimeo

Judge Bruce Wright Speaks from Freedom Archives on Vimeo.

Judge Bruce Wright Speaks on Vimeo

Forgetting Why We Remember - NYTimes.com

What Did the Framers Really Mean? - NYTimes.com

"The Second Amendment begins, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” and that’s where Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, begins, too. He has gone back into the framers’ original arguments and made two essential discoveries, one surprising and the other not surprising at all."

The surprising discovery is that of all the amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights, the Second was probably the least debated. What we know is that the founders were deeply opposed to a standing army, which they viewed as the first step toward tyranny. Instead, their assumption was that the male citizenry would all belong to local militias. As Waldman writes, “They were not allowed to have a musket; they were required to. More than a right, being armed was a duty.”

Muslims and the N.Y.P.D. - NYTimes.com

"New York City’s police commissioner, William Bratton, made the right decision last month when he said he would disband a unit used by his predecessor, Raymond Kelly, to spy on law-abiding Muslims as they worshiped or patronized businesses in their communities. Beyond proving useless for intelligence purposes, the Demographics Unit undermined the fight against terrorism by alienating Muslims who were understandably angry about being singled out, not for illegal conduct but because of their religious affiliation.

This problem has yet to be fully resolved. As The Times’s Joseph Goldstein reported, the department is still running a program that singles out Muslims in a problematic way, this time to recruit them as informants. The department says the program, run by a squad of detectives euphemistically known as the Citywide Debriefing Team, has led to breaks in important cases. But the department has a long history of trampling on people’s rights during investigations of political activity, while making inflated claims about the value of its intelligence operations."

Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Melissa Harris-Perry show

Melissa Harris-Perry on msnbc

Melissa Harris-Perry on msnbc

The 'Case for Reparations' is solid, and it's long past time to make them | Errin Haines Whack | Commentisfree | The Guardian

"Ta-Nehisi Coates's piece reveals the conversation that Americans need to start about our history of racial oppression"

End Mass Incarceration Now - NYTimes.com

" For more than a decade, researchers across multiple disciplines have been issuing reports on the widespread societal and economic damage caused by America’s now-40-year experiment in locking up vast numbers of its citizens. If there is any remaining disagreement about the destructiveness of this experiment, it mirrors the so-called debate over climate change.

In both cases, overwhelming evidence shows a crisis that threatens society as a whole. In both cases, those who study the problem have called for immediate correction.

Several recent reports provide some of the most comprehensive and compelling proof yet that the United States “has gone past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,” and that mass incarceration itself is “a source of injustice.”

Anti-Semitism, illustrated: David Duke working on a new “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” - Salon.com

"White supremacist  has a new book coming out, of sorts – a repackaged and “illustrated” version of the notorious anti-Semitic hoax, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” But unlike previous editions of the text – all of which attempted to claim that the book was a genuine transcript of a gathering of wealthy Jews who conspired to bring about the enslavement of Western civilization – Duke is taking a different tack.
“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Duke now claims, is in fact a work of fiction – which means, he says, that the hoax issue is moot. Instead, as he explains in his promotional video for the book, the text is like all “great literature” – a work of art whose value lies in the greater truths it supposedly reveals about the world."

This Missouri Prisoner Wants His Execution Videotaped | Mother Jones

Next week, Missouri is scheduled to execute Russell Bucklew, who has a serious health condition, with a lethal drug whose source is being kept secret from the public. On Friday, Bucklew's attorneys filed a motion requesting that a videographer be allowed to tape the execution in order to preserve evidence. Bucklew has tumors partially blocking his airway, and attorneys allege that there is "a very significant risk" that he will die "a torturous death" in violation of the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment.

According to the motion:

Mr. Bucklew seeks this Order so he can preserve vital evidence of the events occurring during his execution. His head, neck, throat and brain are filled with clumps of weak, malformed blood vessels that could rupture, causing coughing, choking and suffocation, or impairing the circulation of the lethal drug, causing a prolonged and excruciating execution while he struggles for air. Mr. Bucklew seeks to document these events.

This Missouri Prisoner Wants His Execution Videotaped | Mother Jones

Sixty years after 'Brown v. Board of Education,' the fight goes on | MSNBC

Sixty years after 'Brown v. Board of Education,' the fight goes on | MSNBC

Fast food protests go global | MSNBC

Fast food protests go global | MSNBC

Father sentenced to 6 months in jail for paying too much child support | Police State USA

HOUSTON, TX — A father will spend half of 2014 behind bars for doing too much for his son.  After overpaying child support and seeing his son too often — breaking terms that were secretly modified without his knowledge — a judge sentenced him to a lengthy jail sentence.

Clifford Hall has been doing his best to give care to his 11-year-old son, who lives with his ex-wife.  He pays his child support and visits regularly.  “I’m his father it’s my responsibility to take care of him,” Hall said.

Last November, his child support payments were paid in full.  Sometime between then and now, the child support agreement between Hall and his wife was modified without his knowledge.  Hall wound up overpaying by $3,000, a fact that Harris County District Court Judge Lisa Millard found contemptible.

Another term that was modified without his knowledge was his visitation schedule.  Subsequently, Hall was found to have over-visited his son.

Judge Millard ended up finding Hall in contempt of court.

“When she said I remand you to the Harris County Jail for 180 days my mouth just dropped,” Hall told FOX 26 Houston.

In addition to the six month jail sentence, Judge Millard is forcing Hall to pay his ex-wife’s attorney fees.

“I can’t be there for my son in jail,” Hall said. “I can’t pay child support in jail. This is not in the best interest of the child.”

Father sentenced to 6 months in jail for paying too much child support | Police State USA

After Innocence - Trailer

Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women | Mother Jones

AS JENNIFER LONGDON STEERED her wheelchair through the Indianapolis airport on April 25, she thought the roughest part of her trip was over. Earlier that day she'd participated in an emotional press conference with the new group Everytown for Gun Safety, against the backdrop of the National Rifle Association's annual meeting. A mom, gun owner, and Second Amendment supporter, Longdon was paralyzed in 2004 after being shot in her car by unknown assailants, and has since been a vocal advocate for comprehensive background checks and other gun reforms.



Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women | Mother Jones

"Happy Mother's Day" threat from Fla. gun instructor