AND FLORIDA - The Homophobic State Stuck in the 40's

IMHO: Again, government at any level should NOT regulate the relationships between citizens, including parents and their children.

"How Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law regulates school lessons on gender, sexual orientation" PBS NewsHour 3/30/2022

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A controversial new law went into effect in Florida this week.  Coined by opponents as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, it forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for kindergarten through third grade.  But those who oppose the bill say it doesn't protect parents, it just harms children.  Ana Ceballos, a reporter for the Miami Herald, joins John Yang to discuss.

VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - Transformed by Walter Mondale (1928 - 2021)

"From figurehead to partner: How Walter Mondale transformed the office of Vice President" PBS NewsHour 4/20/2021

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Former Vice President Walter Mondale passed away Monday night at his home in Minneapolis.  He was a lifelong public servant who transformed the role of Vice President, and championed civil rights under Jimmy Carter before losing his own run for the presidency to Ronald Reagan.  William Brangham has this look at Mondale's life and legacy.

 

 

"Al Gore on how Walter Mondale made the Vice President’s role a ‘substantive partnership’" PBS NewsHour 4/20/2021

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Former Vice President Walter Mondale passed away Monday night at the age of 93.  He was a lifelong public servant who transformed the role of Vice President, and championed civil rights under President Jimmy Carter.  For more on the way he changed the role of Vice President and his political legacy, we are joined by another former Vice President Al Gore.

MEMORIAM - Elijah Cummings 1951-2019

"Congress mourns Elijah Cummings, veteran lawmaker and civil rights advocate" PBS NewsHour 10/17/2019

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Veteran Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland died early Thursday at age 68, after suffering long-standing health problems.  The Baltimore Democrat was a highly regarded figure in both political parties, known for his advocacy on civil rights issues.  Cummings was chair of the House Oversight Committee and had been playing a central role in the impeachment inquiry.  Amna Nawaz reports.

ACLU - Amazon Rekognition and the Secret Surveillance State

Imagine attending a protest, and the police automatically identify and label you as suspicious from a photo of the crowd.  Or you start a new life in this country, and ICE watches you in real time.  You may not be suspected of criminal activity, but the government tracks your whereabouts – and the whereabouts of anyone they want.

This disturbing surveillance state is exactly what Amazon is powering with its facial recognition technology, Rekognition.

Amazon's own marketing materials tout Rekognition's alarming tracking capabilities, and documents that the ACLU recently obtained demonstrate just how eager Amazon is to hand this product over to the government.  Amazon isn't just actively selling to law enforcement, it's partnering with them to ensure that authorities can fully utilize Rekognition's capabilities.

Amazon's Rekognition WEB page (link above):

Amazon Rekognition makes it easy to add image and video analysis to your applications.  You just provide an image or video to the Rekognition API, and the service can identify the objects, people, text, scenes, and activities, as well as detect any inappropriate content.  Amazon Rekognition also provides highly accurate facial analysis and facial recognition.  You can detect, analyze, and compare faces for a wide variety of user verification, cataloging, people counting, and public safety use cases.

Amazon Rekognition is based on the same proven, highly scalable, deep learning technology developed by Amazon’s computer vision scientists to analyze billions of images and videos daily, and requires no machine learning expertise to use.  Amazon Rekognition is a simple and easy to use API that can quickly analyze any image or video file stored in Amazon S3.  Amazon Rekognition is always learning from new data, and we are continually adding new labels and facial recognition features to the service.

ACLU Petition:

AMAZON: GET OUT OF THE SURVEILLANCE BUSINESS.

Amazon has entered the surveillance business, and they're selling to the government.

Amazon's product, Rekognition has the power to identify people in real time, in photos of large groups of people, and in crowded events and public places.  At a time when we're joining public protests at unprecedented levels, and discriminatory policing continues to terrorize communities of color, handing this surveillance technology over to the government threatens our civil rights and liberties.

Facial recognition is not a neutral technology, no matter how Amazon spins this.  It automates mass surveillance, threatens people's freedom to live their private lives outside the government's gaze, and is primed to amplify bias and inequality in the criminal justice system.

Amazon has no business allowing governments to use Rekognition – and powering a surveillance state.

Already, Rekognition is in use in Florida and Oregon.  Government agencies in California and Arizona have sought information about it, too.  And Amazon didn't just sell Rekognition to law enforcement, it's actively partnering with them to ensure that authorities can fully utilize Rekognition's capabilities.

Amazon has branded itself as customer-centric, opposed secret government surveillance, and has a CEO who publicly supported First Amendment freedoms and spoke out against the discriminatory Muslim Ban.  Yet, Amazon is powering dangerous surveillance that poses a grave threat to customers and communities already unjustly targeted in the current political climate.

We must make it clear to Amazon that we won't stand by and let it pad its bottom line by selling out our civil rights.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM - Charlottesville

White Nationalists and Supremacists are terrorists and should never be tolerated.

"White nationalist rally brings clashes in Charlottesville" PBS NewsHour 8/12/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in Charlottesville on Saturday as hundreds of white nationalists and alt-right activists clashed with police and counter-protesters.  It was the second rally to protest the city’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park.  The NewsHour's P.J. Tobia joins Hari Sreenivasan from Charlottesville.

"Charlottesville mayor blames Trump for violent weekend" PBS NewsHour 8/13/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  As locals grappled with the aftermath of a white nationalist rally that left three people dead on Saturday, Mayor Michael Signer wasted no words on denouncing President Donald Trump for what he says is his culpability in the violence.  But a white nationalist leader told The NewsHour's P.J. Tobia that the radical left is at fault.

"Local gives history of civil rights in Charlottesville" PBS NewsHour 8/13/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Rallies on Friday and Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia that were reminiscent of Ku Klux Klan gatherings shook people who have for generations fought for civil rights in Virginia and across the country.  Activist, writer and educator Leontyne Peck with the University of Virginia’s President’s Commission on Slavery unpacks the weekend’s events with Hari Sreenivasan.

"U.S. sees 300 violent attacks inspired by far right every year" PBS NewsHour 8/13/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Despite the nation’s focus on Islamic terrorism since 9/11, homegrown, right-wing extremists have also killed dozens of Americans.  Peter Bergen, the director of the National Security Studies program for New America, joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the toll of homegrown terrorism in light of the Charlottesville white nationalist rally car attack.

MAKING THE GRADE - Social Media 101

"Schools are watching students’ social media, raising questions about free speech" PBS NewsHour 6/20/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  As universities have started paying close attention to the internet presence of prospective students, high schools have also begun cracking down, sometimes hiring outside companies to police social media posts for bullying or abusive language.  But monitoring raises other problems, and civil rights groups are paying attention.  Special correspondent Lisa Stark of Education Week reports.

TRUMP AGENDA - His Dark Government & Anti-Rights

"Trump Administration Quietly Rolls Back Civil Rights Efforts Across Federal Government" by Jessica Huseman and Annie Waldman, ProPublica 6/15/2017

Previously unannounced directives will limit the Department of Justice's use of a storied civil rights enforcement tool, and loosen the Department of Education's requirements on investigations.

For decades, the Department of Justice has used court-enforced agreements to protect civil rights, successfully desegregating school systems, reforming police departments, ensuring access for the disabled, and defending the religious.

Now, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the DOJ appears to be turning away from this storied tool, called consent decrees.  Top officials in the DOJ civil rights division have issued verbal instructions through the ranks to seek settlements without consent decrees — which would result in no continuing court oversight.

The move is just one part of a move by the Trump administration to limit federal civil rights enforcement.  Other departments have scaled back the power of their internal divisions that monitor such abuses.  In a previously unreported development, the Education Department last week reversed an Obama-era reform that broadened the agency's approach to protecting rights of students.  The Labor Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have also announced sweeping cuts to their enforcement.

“At best, this administration believes that civil rights enforcement is superfluous and can be easily cut.  At worst, it really is part of a systematic agenda to roll back civil rights,” said Vanita Gupta, the former acting head of the DOJ's civil rights division under President Barack Obama.

Consent decrees have not been abandoned entirely by the DOJ, a person with knowledge of the instructions said.  Instead, there is a presumption against their use — attorneys should default to using settlements without court oversight unless there is an unavoidable reason for a consent decree.  The instructions came from the civil rights division's office of acting Assistant Attorney General Tom Wheeler and Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Gore.  There is no written policy guidance.

Devin O'Malley, a spokesperson for the DOJ, declined to comment for this story.

Consent decrees can be a powerful tool, and spell out specific steps that must be taken to remedy the harm.  These are agreed to by both parties and signed off on by a judge, whom the parties can appear before again if the terms are not being met.  Though critics say the DOJ sometimes does not enforce consent decrees well enough, they are more powerful than settlements that aren't overseen by a judge and have no built-in enforcement mechanism.

Such settlements have “far fewer teeth to ensure adequate enforcement,” Gupta said.

Consent decrees often require agencies or municipalities to take expensive steps toward reform.  Local leaders and agency heads then can point to the binding court authority when requesting budget increases to ensure reforms.  Without consent decrees, many localities or government departments would simply never make such comprehensive changes, said William Yeomans, who spent 26 years at the DOJ, mostly in the civil rights division.

“They are key to civil rights enforcement,” he said.  “That's why Sessions and his ilk don't like them.”

Some, however, believe the Obama administration relied on consent decrees too often and sometimes took advantage of vulnerable cities unable to effectively defend themselves against a well-resourced DOJ.

“I think a recalibration would be welcome,” said Richard Epstein, a professor at New York University School of Law and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, adding that consent decrees should be used in cases where clear, systemic issues of discrimination exist.

Though it's too early to see how widespread the effect of the changes will be, the Justice Department appears to be adhering to the directive already.

On May 30, the DOJ announced Bernards Township in New Jersey had agreed to pay $3.25 million to settle an accusation it denied zoning approval for a local Islamic group to build a mosque.  Staff attorneys at the U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey initially sought to resolve the case with a consent decree, according to a spokesperson for Bernards Township.  But because of the DOJ's new stance, the terms were changed after the township protested, according to a person familiar with the matter.  A spokesperson for the New Jersey U.S. attorney's office declined comment.

Sessions has long been a public critic of consent decrees.  As a senator, he wrote they “constitute an end run around the democratic process.”  He lambasted local agencies that seek them out as a way to inflate their budgets, a “particularly offensive” use of consent decrees that took decision-making power from legislatures.

On March 31, Sessions ordered a sweeping review of all consent decrees with troubled police departments nationwide to ensure they were in line with the Trump administration's law-and-order goals.  Days before, the DOJ had asked a judge to postpone a hearing on a consent decree with the Baltimore Police Department that had been arranged during the last days of the Obama administration.  The judge denied that request, and the consent decree has moved forward.

The DOJ has already come under fire from critics for altering its approach to voting rights cases.  After nearly six years of litigation over Texas' voter ID law — which Obama DOJ attorneys said was written to intentionally discriminate against minority voters and had such a discriminatory effect — the Trump DOJ abruptly withdrew its intent claims in late February.

Attorneys who worked on the case for years were barely consulted about the change — many weren't consulted at all, according to two former DOJ officials with knowledge of the matter.  Gore wrote the filing changing the DOJ's position largely by himself and asked the attorneys who'd been involved in the case for years to sign it to show continuity.  Not all of the attorneys fell in line.  Avner Shapiro — who has been a prosecutor in the civil rights division for more than 20 years — left his name off the filings written by Gore.  Shapiro was particularly involved in developing the DOJ's argument that Texas had intentionally discriminated against minorities in crafting its voter ID legislation.

“That's the ultimate act of rebellion,” Yeomans, the former civil rights division prosecutor, said.  A rare act, removing one's name from a legal filing is one of the few ways career attorneys can express public disagreement with an administration.

Gore has no history of bringing civil rights cases.  A former partner at the law firm Jones Day, he has instead defended states against claims of racial gerrymandering and represented North Carolina when the state was sued over its controversial “bathroom bill,” which requires transgender people to use the facility that matched their birth gender.

All of the internal changes at the DOJ have left attorneys and staff with “a great deal of fear and uncertainty,” said Yeomans.  While he says the lawyers there would like to stay at the department, they fear Sessions' priorities will have devastating impact on their work.

The DOJ's civil rights office is not alone in fearing rollbacks in enforcement.  Across federal departments, the Trump administration has made moves to diminish the power of civil rights divisions.

The Department of Education has laid out plans to loosen requirements on investigations into civil rights complaints, according to an internal memo sent to staff on June 8 and obtained by ProPublica.

Under the Obama administration, the department's office for civil rights applied an expansive approach to investigations.  Individual complaints related to complex issues such as school discipline, sexual violence and harassment, equal access to educational resources, or racism at a single school might have prompted broader probes to determine whether the allegations were part of a pattern of discrimination or harassment.

The new memo, sent by Candice Jackson, the Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, to regional directors at the department's civil rights office, trims this approach.  Jackson was appointed deputy assistant secretary for the office in April and will remain as the acting head of the office until the Senate confirms a full-time assistant secretary.  Trump has not publicly nominated anyone for the role yet.

The office will apply the broader approach “only” if the original allegations raise systemic concerns or the investigative team argues for it, Jackson wrote in the memo.

As part of the new approach, the Education Department will no longer require civil rights investigators to obtain three years of complaint data from a specific school or district to assess compliance with civil rights law.

Critics contend the Obama administration's probes were onerous.  The office “did such a thorough review of everything that the investigations were demanding and very expensive” for schools, said Boston College American politics professor R. Shep Melnick, adding that the new approach could take some regulatory pressure off schools and districts.

But some civil rights leaders believe the change could undermine the office's mission.  This narrowing of the department's investigations “is stunning to me and dangerous,” said Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department's civil rights office from August 2013 until January 2017 and currently chairs the United States Commission on Civil Rights.  “It's important to take an expansive view of the potential for harm because if you look only at the most recent year, you won't necessarily see the pattern,” said Lhamon.

The department's new directive also gives more autonomy to regional offices, no longer requiring oversight or review of some cases by department headquarters, according to the memo.

The Education Department did not respond to ProPublica's request for comment.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has also proposed cutting over 40 positions from the civil rights office.  With reduced staff, the office will have to “make difficult choices, including cutting back on initiating proactive investigations,” according to the department's proposed budget.

Elsewhere, Trump administration appointees have launched similar initiatives.  In its 2018 fiscal plan, the Labor Department has proposed dissolving the office that handles discrimination complaints.  Similarly, new leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed entirely eliminating the environmental justice program, which addresses concerns that almost exclusively impact minority communities.  The Washington Post reports the plan transfers all environmental justice work to the Office of Policy, which provides policy and regulatory guidance across the agency.

Mustafa Ali, a former EPA senior adviser and Assistant Associate Administrator for Environmental Justice who served more than 20 years, quit the agency in protest days before the plan was announced.  In his resignation letter, widely circulated in the media, Ali suggested the new leadership was abandoning “those who need our help most.”

NATIVE AMERICANS - Speak Out

"Voices From the Movement for Native Lives" by Stephanie Woodard, In These Times 10/25/2016

Advocates talk about the country's “silent, comfortable genocide.”

As In These Times reported in “The Police Killings No One Is Talking About,” Native Americans are shot by police—or die in their custody—at the highest rate of any group.  Yet the general public has almost no awareness of this.  Or, as Darleen Tareeq, whose fiancé Philip Quinn of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe was shot and killed by police in September 2015, puts it, “Everyone is cool with it.”

In a recently released study of this national blind spot, Claremont Graduate University researchers Roger Chin, Jean Schroedel and Lily Rowen agree, writing that the minimal coverage of the issue indicates that Native people are ignored and their issues devalued.

As Black Lives Matter, Idle No More and other social justice movements have proliferated, “Native Lives Matter” has been taken up as a rallying cry by Natives grieving the loss of loved ones to police violence, as well as those calling attention to numerous other injustices—such as the routing of the Dakota Access Pipeline so as to imperil the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation's water source, which the tribe opposes.

In These Times spoke with five advocates who devote their time and energy to promoting the concept that Native Lives Matter.

Troy Amlee, or Akicita Sunka-Wakan Ska (White Horse Soldier), a hip-hop and dubstep musician from the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes, and JR Bobick, a French Canadian descendant from St. Paul, Minn.—both activists with 'Idle No More Twin Cities'—were outraged by the December 2013 police-shooting death of Cheyenne-Arapaho teen Mah-hi-vist Goodblanket.  Together, they posted on 'Idle No More's' pages, then created the Native Lives Matter Facebook page in 2014 to document and bring awareness to the deaths.

Darleen Tareeq, of White Earth and Leech Lake Ojibwe heritage, spoke to In These Times a year to the day after police killed her fiancé, Philip Quinn.  Before getting on the phone with In These Times, she, Amlee and Bobick attended a vigil for Quinn.  The event included a dinner, honor songs, speeches by Quinn's family and friends, fireworks and a traditional giveaway of gifts from the family to supporters.  “It was a beautiful night,” says Tareeq.

Attorney Chase Iron Eyes helped raise the movement's profile by hosting a Native Lives Matter rally in Rapid City, S.D., in December 2014 and penning a report on the subject for the Lakota People's Law Project in 2015.  A member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Iron Eyes is running for Congress as a Democrat from North Dakota.

In early 2015, Marlee Kanosh, of the Paiute Tribe of Utah, began administering the Facebook page Native Lives Taken By Police.  The loss of her brother Corey in a 2012 police shooting drew her to the online community of people suffering similar tragedies, and what she describes as “a whole world of people going through the same thing for a very long time.”

How do you define Native Lives Matter?

Chase:  It's a movement for reclaiming our inherent spiritual dignity.  Native Lives Matter is a healing and a way to move beyond what has been imposed on us for 500 years—since the arrival of Europeans.

Black Lives Matter brought attention to police brutality and institutional racism, and we were very aware of that when we coined our version of the term.  We want Native Lives Matter understood as expansive—including improvement in many quality-of-life issues that affect our communities, in addition to police shootings specifically.  As such, it's a comprehensive call to action for social justice reform.

JR:  The mainstream media doesn't follow Native issues, so we base the content of our Facebook page, Native Lives Matter, on what our community wants, not on what we want as organizers.  As a result of listening to the people, we have covered many subjects in addition to police brutality.  The issues relate to each other.  This approach has brought the page nearly 100,000 “Likes” so far.

Troy:  We have also tried to make our page a reliable source for news about the Dakota Access Pipeline, a big concern for Native people these days.  As a group, we support positive issues and projects.  We advocate for healthy eating and living, encourage planting of backyard gardens and hold clothing drives.  We are showing up for the people.

Marlee:  As administrator for the Facebook page Native Lives Taken By Police, I focus on police brutality.  My posts are also very personal.  In addition to research, I talk to the families, find out who the victims really were and get permission to use their photographs and other material.  I have met some of the families, including Daniel Covarrubias's mother and sister at Rise Up October in New York City in 2015.  [As reported in In These Times, Lakewood, Wash., police shot and killed Covarrubias earlier that year.]

What moment brought you to this issue?

Marlee:  My brother Corey was shot and killed [by police] in 2012 in Millard County, Utah.  There are so many questions about his death.  It doesn't add up.  The medical examiner said no major organs or veins were hit, so the shots weren't immediately fatal.  It seems that he was just allowed to die.  [Kanosh reportedly did not receive care after he was shot, but rather lay face-down in the dirt until morning, when his mother was notified he was dead.]  Why was Corey not given medical aid?  Isn't there a law requiring this?  We are citizens of this country, and we have rights.  We feel lied to and betrayed.  I didn't know how to deal with this other than to use my feelings, my pain and my hurt, to be helpful—to share others' stories.  I know how the families feel when this happens. 

Chase:  In December 2014, friends and I organized a rally in Rapid City to make clear the contrast between what Natives contribute to the local economy and what we suffer.  We were attending the Lakota Invitational Basketball Tournament, which brings a significant amount of money to Rapid City.  In addition, the nearby Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations have few businesses, so money from local Native residents and people living on the reservations flows directly to Rapid City business owners throughout the year.  And you know the statistics—just about every quality-of-life indicator for Native people­ is very bad.  We suffer disproportionate incarceration, and our children are taken from their families and placed in foster care far more often than non-Native children.

[A local man named] Allen Locke, who is Lakota, happened to attend the rally.  The next day was the championship game.  I went to buy Christmas gifts, and when I returned to the tournament, everyone's Facebook timelines were going crazy with the information that cops had shot someone in a development called Lakota Homes.

Some of us went over and learned it was Allen.  His family asked us for help dealing with the police and the media.  We said, “Yeah, absolutely,” and hung out to make sure they had what they needed.  After that, we went to the Lakota People's Law Project office in Rapid City, which became the base camp where we held press conferences, produced literature and got information out.  I wanted to document what was occurring and wrote the report “Native Lives Matter.”

Troy:  Five years ago, a lot of tokala warriors [members of a traditional warrior society] attended the funeral of my uncle Beau Little Sky, who was in AIM, the American Indian Movement.  I was 19 at the time and observed that they had a consciousness about them.  So I was curious.  I joined AIM and did homeless feeds and cop-watch patrols, which involved going around Minneapolis/St. Paul with a police scanner and listening for minority-related calls.  Through cop-watching, I got involved with Occupy Minnesota and 'Idle No More Twin Cities.'  The Native Lives Matter page JR and I put together now has nine admins in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Colorado.

Darleen: Today is the one-year anniversary of the day my baby's father was murdered by police.  Marking that anniversary is an Ojibwe tradition, which we did at Indian Mounds, an ancient burial mound in St.  Paul.  There was a lot of support.  Families of other victims, such as Marcus Golden, also killed in 2015, joined us.  His dad is indigenous, and his mom is African American.  Family members of Jamar Clark, an African-American man shot last fall, were there as well.

I got involved in this grassroots Native Lives Matter group because I wanted to be part of listening to and protecting the people.  Native people nationwide are being murdered at a higher rate than other people.  We have been living a silent, comfortable genocide.  Everyone is cool with it—us dying and our cultures being taken away. 

How has the idea spread?

Chase:  Everywhere there are reservation bordertowns or large Indian populations, there is tension—from Oklahoma and states surrounding the Navajo Nation to rural areas of Montana and Minnesota.  As the Native Lives Matter idea has grown, it has also come to include cities like L.A.  and Denver.  Natives everywhere have taken it over in ways that let them get out their own message.

Marlee:  Without the Internet and social media, each of us would be talking to small communities.  With online connections, we can talk to the larger community.

Chase:  Indians are tribal people.  There are few degrees of separation between any of us.  We're also highly involved Internet users, with the ability to go viral even though we're a small percentage of the U.S. population.  Tweets about opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline were trending high on Twitter long before there was any mainstream media coverage, long before elected officials were talking about it.  They live in a world that doesn't exist anymore, a world where you had to get a [TV] network to cover you.  That's old school.

How does your work affect you?

Marlee:  I have so many dreams.  Every night after I do a story for the page, I dream about it.  Today, opening up the page and seeing all the stories there overwhelmed me.  I have done about 80 and have a couple of additional names to get to as well.  I know there are even more.  Being helpful makes me feel better, though.  I also do a lot of praying and meditating.

Any more thoughts?

JR:  Our Native Lives Matter page is about helping build a community.

Marlee:  Through Native Lives Taken By Police, I want to help people keep their family member's story alive.  It has been important for my own family to do this, so I am doing what I can for others.

Chase:  It is painfully clear that some people can't expect justice.  We want to stop being ignored.  In our eyes, Allen Locke gave his life for that.

JUSTICE IN AMERICA - Sandra Bland Arrest

aka 'Don't Smoke in Texas While Black'

"Should Sandra Bland have been arrested?" PBS NewsHour 7/22/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  New video of Sandra Bland's traffic stop shows the aggressive arrest before she died in police custody in Texas.  Gwen Ifill learns more about the investigation into Bland’s death and the officer’s conduct from Alana Rocha of The Texas Tribune.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  So how does that disputed video change our understanding of what happened?  And where does that promised thorough investigation stand?

For that, we turn to Alana Rocha, multimedia reporter for The Texas Tribune.  I spoke with her a short time ago.

Alana Rocha, thank you for joining us.

This story seems divided into two parts, the story about the disputed video and of course, three days later, the dispute over how she died.  Let’s talk about the video first.  What is at the root of that dispute over what we saw on that video?

ALANA ROCHA, The Texas Tribune:  Well, her initial reason or the officer’s initial reason for pulling her over was simply changing lanes without signaling.

She tried to explain to him, when she was saying why she was frustrated, that she saw him coming behind her, and she wanted to get out of the way and maybe she just wasn’t thinking and didn’t signal.  But she’s obviously frustrated, expresses that to him.  He obviously doesn’t like her attitude and uses unnecessary force is what DPS is saying, that he, you know, violated protocol in that stop.

GWEN IFILL:  Is there any way, looking at that video, that you can determine — I know you have had a chance to look at more of it than we were able to show on the program — that she did anything that we see on tape that was illegal?

ALANA ROCHA:  No.

I mean, I think that him asking her to put out the cigarette was the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you will, and you hear him put down his clipboard after she refuses that request and says, “I’m in my car, I’m within my rights.”

We have talked to legal experts since that video came out yesterday saying she is within her rights to be smoking in her car.  But they also say that when a law enforcement officer asks you to do something, whether it’s right or not, sometimes it’s best to just comply.  And she doesn’t.

SUPREME COURT - Gay Marriage

IMHO:  As my readers may ascertain from past post on this subject...

• Same-sex (gay) marriage is a Human Right, the right of personal relationships between any consenting adults
• It IS a matter of Equal Rights under the law
• Protection from having ANY religious-based belief being imposed on others by using the law of the land

"Supreme Court considers whether it’s time for nationwide same-sex marriage" PBS NewsHour 4/28/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Today the Supreme Court tackled a highly anticipated and historic case that could set the definition of marriage in the U.S.  The justices heard arguments on whether all states must allow same-sex marriage, and if not, whether states must recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.  Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal joins Judy Woodruff to discuss what happened in court.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  It was a historic day at the Supreme Court, at stake, the definition of marriage.

Justices split the issue into two questions:  Must every state permit same-sex marriage?  And, if not, do states have to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere?

Protesters from both sides of the debate crowded outside the court building in Washington this morning.

Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal was there and she joins us now.

MARCIA COYLE, The National Law Journal:  Hi, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  So, Marcia, big day at the court. Knowing that, what is it, 36 of the states…

MARCIA COYLE:  Plus the District of Columbia.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  … already declare same-sex marriage legal, what were the petitioners today asking the court to decide?

MARCIA COYLE:  Well, basically, they’re laying claim to the 14th Amendment’s guarantees of equal protection and due process of law.

They’re saying that the court has recognized that there is a fundamental right to marry, and under the 14th Amendment, they have been — they deserve to be part and to participate in that fundamental right.

The states that still do ban same-sex marriage, they claim, are excluding them from that fundamental right to marry.  It was a packed courtroom, Judy, and the arguments were fast-paced and intense.  And I hope anybody who is interested will listen to the full audio and read the transcript.

(Full Audio and Transcripts) Obergefell v. Hodges; Docket Number: 14-556-Question-1, Docket Number: 14-556-Question-2

HISTORY - The Legacy of Freedom Schools 50yrs Later

"Need persists for new generation of Freedom Schools, 50 years after first summer" PBS NewsHour 8/8/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  And it’s been 50 years since Freedom Summer galvanized the civil rights movement, registering voters in Mississippi and urging them to the polls.

But the young volunteers focused on the children as well, creating Freedom Schools that still exist in another form today.

Gwen reports for our American Graduate series.  It’s a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Marian Wright Edelman was a young lawyer when she headed south half-a-century ago determined to change the world.

Were you breeding young activists?

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, Children’s Defense Fund:  Absolutely.

And this — when you begin to teach people about the importance of reading — and Frederick Douglass talked about the importance of literacy to anything.  Once you know how to read, it’s very hard to make you a slave.

And, secondly, once you learn about your history, and learn to question, rather than just to accept, you create a new child.

HEALTH CARE - What Should Be the Government's Involvement

My answer, government at all levels has a moral responsibility to see that citizens get health care.  Look at Norway.

"What role should the government play in the health care of its citizens?" PBS Newshour 11/28/2013

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour):  Now a look at some of the larger issues raised in the ongoing debate over the Affordable Care Act, questions of how deeply a government should involve itself in the personal welfare of its citizens, of individual rights and collective responsibilities, even whether the law's troubled rollout might be seen as a challenge to the viability of the liberal philosophy at its core.

The latest major setback came yesterday, when the Obama administration announced a one-year delay in launching the federal Web site for small businesses to enroll their employees with insurers.

Jeffrey Brown gets two views on these bigger issues at stake.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  And for that, we're joined by Jacob Hacker, director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University.  He worked on the broad blueprint of the health care law and has written a number of books about social policy in the U.S.  And Avik Roy is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the new book "How Medicaid Fails the Poor."  He served as Mitt Romney's health care adviser during the 2012 presidential campaign.

AMERICA - The Ripple Effect of Civil Rights Movement

"How the Civil Rights Movement Launched the Fight for LGBT, Women's Equality" PBS Newshour 9/2/2013

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JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  And now we turn to the legacy of the March on Washington, 50 years later, as seen by scholars of other civil rights movements who were broadly represented at last week's anniversary celebration.

For a century after the Civil War, the black struggle for equal rights reminded America of its unfinished business.

Tonight Ray Suarez examines whether that struggle changed the way we think and talk about rights for everyone.

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour):  For that, we get two different perspectives.

Ruth Rosen is a professor emerita of history at the University of California, Davis, and author of the book "The World Split Open:  How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America."  And George Chauncey is co-director of the Research Initiative on the History of Sexualities and a professor of history and American studies at Yale University.

AMERICA - Can We Honor the Expectations of the 'March on Washington'

"Can America Fulfill the Demands Made by Those Who Marched on Washington?" PBS Newshour 8/30/2013

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JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  Now we wrap up our coverage of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

First, longtime civil rights activist Linda Chapin of Orlando, Fla., recalls coming to the Capitol as a 22-year-old.

LINDA CHAPIN, civil rights activist:  It was, as much as anything -- for my group of friends who met up in Washington the day before, it was exciting.  It was passionate.  It was fun, all of those things.

(LAUGHTER)

LINDA CHAPIN:  And we didn't know that it would come together to be one of the largest protests in the history of the United States.

And another thing that interests me greatly is that the organizers didn't all have the same goal.  Some of them were there to support President Kennedy's Civil Rights Act.  Some of them were going there to say, no, we don't support that; it's not strong enough.  Some of them were there to say something different.

And, yet, it all came together in this incredibly symbolic and historic event.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  That was Linda Chapin of Orlando, Fla.  You can find her story and other firsthand accounts at Memories of the March on the PBS Web site Black Culture Connection.

And now Gwen Ifill has the final installment of her series of conversations on the march.

OPINION - Equal Rights for Gays, CPAC Doesn't Get It

"What social progress looks like" by Steve Benen, Maddow Blog 3/19/2013

Organizers for this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, as they've done in the past, made a deliberate decision to prohibit Republican groups advocating gay rights from participating in the event.  On the main stage, attendees saw notable GOP leaders like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) proclaim that his desire to discriminate against LGBT Americans does not make him a "bigot."

But away from the speakers and organizers, it was clear to many that the marriage debate is effectively over, the right has lost, and even CPAC activists no longer seem to care.

Consider the results of the new Washington Post/ABC News poll.

I put together this chart (at top) to show the trajectory over the last decade, and the trend line isn't exactly subtle.

But the closer one looks at the results, the more striking they are.  Among Americans aged 18 to 29, support for marriage equality is 81%, which reinforces the simple fact that opponents are not only fighting against social progress, they're also fighting a losing battle against a calendar that's indifferent to their culture war.

Indeed, even among white evangelicals protestants, 31% back marriage rights for same-sex couples, which may not sound especially impressive, but that total has more than quadrupled over the last decade.

Also note, history suggests movements on social progress rarely go backwards, and there's nothing to suggest opponents of marriage equality will suddenly reemerge and become the majority again.  That trend line in the poll is only going to keep moving in a progressive direction, and there's not much Republicans can do about it.

At this point, the ideal solution for GOP officials would for the Supreme Court to simply rule in favor of same-sex marriage, end the debate, and take the issue out of the hands of politicians altogether.

"What's Behind the Dramatic Shift in Public Opinion Over Gay Marriage?" PBS Newshour 3/19/2013

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SUMMARY:  A new survey shows a majority of Americans support gay marriage.  Support has also grown in the courts and among politicians, including former State Secretary Hillary Clinton and Sen. Rob Portman.  Gwen Ifill examines the shift with Michael Dimock of the Pew Research Center and Greg Lewis of Georgia State University.

OPINION - History of Voting Rights Act

The Rachel Maddow Show
MSNBC 2/27/2013

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OPINION - Violence Against Women Act

"Violence Against Women Act clears House, headed to Obama's desk" by Steve Benen, Maddow Blog 2/28/2013

In the last Congress, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) played a critical role in blocking reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.  In this Congress, Cantor was so eager to get VAWA passage over with, he told House Republicans yesterday to either clear the way for the already passed Senate version or risk causing a "civil war" within the party.

The warning appears to have had an effect.  Indeed, the VAWA plan we discussed yesterday was executed this morning exactly as intended.

The final legislation passed the lower chamber by a vote of 286 to 138 after a protracted battle over an expansion of the law and its impact in tribal communities.  A majority of Republicans voted against the legislation, with 87 GOP members and all Democrats supporting it.

Republican leaders first tried to pass a House-drafted version of the bill, which Democrats said did not do enough to protect gay couples, immigrants and Native Americans.  That measure failed by a vote of 166 to 257.

The House then passed the same five-year reauthorization that was approved by Senate by an overwhelming majority in February.

Because the House passed the expansive Senate version -- and rejected the watered-down alternative -- VAWA will now go directly to the White House, where it will receive President Obama's signature.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who has been the Democratic point person on the Violence Against Women Act, told me this morning, "This is a long delayed, hard won, and badly needed victory for millions of women, especially those who were told that they weren't worthy of VAWA's protections.  It means that finally, after over 16 months of struggle, tribal women, the LGBT community, immigrants, and women on college campuses will have the tools and resources this life-saving bill provides.

For those counting on the law's protections and resources, today's vote is obviously excellent news.  But in a purely political context, the difficult process offered some illuminating lessons.

First, after 20 years of overwhelming bipartisan support, opposition to the Violence Against Women is now the mainstream Republican position.  About half the Republicans in the Senate voted against the law, as did more than half the Republicans in the House.

As recently as 2005, there was a Republican majority in the House, for example, and VAWA was reauthorized in a lopsided, near-unanimous vote.  Since then, the number of House GOP members opposed to the law has grown from 2 to 138.  What was a fringe position in 2005 is now the GOP majority position in 2013.

Second, we're learning something important about House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the so-called "Hastert Rule."  For those who need a refresher, under modern Republican norms, the Speaker only considers legislation that enjoys "majority of the majority" support -- if most GOP House members oppose a measure, it won't even be considered, whether it can pass the chamber or not.

The non-binding rule is great for party discipline, but lousy for democracy and governing.

For Boehner's part, the Speaker had long believed in enforcing the "Hastert Rule," but he's finding far more flexibility on the issue than we're accustomed to seeing.  When it was time to approve the "fiscal cliff" deal, Boehner ignored the rule to pass a bipartisan Senate plan.  When he needed to pass relief aid to Hurricane Sandy victims, he bypassed the rule again.

At the time, the Speaker said these were isolated incidents that wouldn't be repeated, but here we are again -- most of Boehner's caucus opposed the Violence Against Women Act, but he brought it to the floor and passed it anyway.

To reiterate a point from several weeks ago, this may seem like inside baseball, but it's extremely important.  If Boehner, in the name of getting stuff done, is open to bringing important bills to the floor, and passing them with mostly-Democratic support, there's an opportunity for real governing in the near future.  It means comprehensive immigration reform is more likely, and popular measures on preventing gun violence may have a credible chance of success.

If the Hastert Rule is unraveling, that's very good news, indeed.

"Congress Extends Violence Against Women Act, Ending Standstill" PBS Newshour 2/28/2013

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SUMMARY:  Almost 18 months after it expired, the House voted to renew the Violence Against Women Act and extend the law's protection to gays and lesbians, immigrants and Native Americans, among others.  Judy Woodruff talks to Ashley Parker of the New York Times and Cindy Southworth from the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

WOMEN - Modern Women's Movement Today

"Gloria Steinem: Women Can't 'Have It All' Until There's Equality" PBS Newshour 2/26/2013

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SUMMARY:  A new PBS documentary, "MAKERS: Women Who Make America," looks at the women's movement and the groundbreaking contributions and struggles made by women today.  Judy Woodruff interviews activist Gloria Steinem about the film and about the current state of feminism and gender equality.

"Makers" Trailer

Watch MAKERS: Women Who Make America Trailer on PBS. See more from Makers: Women Who Make America.

ANNIVERSARY - Rosa Parks, Mother of the Freedom Movement

"Known for Single Act of Defiance, Rosa Parks Trained for Life Full of Activism" PBS Newshour 2/7/2013

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GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  By the time Rosa Parks died in Detroit in 2005, her place in the history books was assured.  She was the first lady of civil rights, the mother of the freedom movement.  Mourners lined up in three cities to pay their respects, in Montgomery, Ala., at the U.S. Capitol, where she was the first woman and only second African-American to lie in honor, and in her adopted hometown of Detroit, where her funeral ran for more than seven hours.

Everyone agreed that the 92-year-old Parks had made history when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus in 1955.  Her arrest sparked a 382-day bus boycott that caught the attention of a movement and a nation.

But there was more to Rosa Parks' action that day, which was neither as random or as isolated as it has come to be seen.  Now, on the 100th anniversary of her birth, a new biography explores "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks."

The author is Jeanne Theoharis, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

The word rebellious doesn't usually appear in the same sentence as Rosa Parks.  She is a different person than we thought.

SUPREME COURT - Same-Sex Marriage

"Supreme Court Agrees to Review Laws Banning Same-Sex Marriage" PBS Newshour 12/7/2012

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MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): The justices agreed to hear arguments in two cases.

One is California's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, adopted by voters as referendum Proposition 8 in 2008. It was challenged on grounds that gay citizens have the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals. The justices will also review a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.

That deprives legally married gay couples of federal benefits that are available to heterosexual couples.

Same-sex marriage is legal or will be soon in nine states and the District of Columbia. But 31 other states have amended their constitutions to bar gay unions.

Here with us to explain today's decisions and where they could lead is Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal.