NORTON META TAG

28 June 2013

VA Gov. Candidate Cuccinelli Asks Supreme Court to Revive Ban on Oral, Anal Sex 27JUN13 & SNL Colonel Angus comes Home Skit (Full Video) - Saturday Night Live 2003

REPIGLICAN / TEA-BAGGER cuccinelli, candidate of the party that wails and moans about government intrusion in the lives of Americans for governor of Virginia, wants to insert the Commonwealth government into our bedrooms and private lives even more than they already are. I'll bet it is all based on his personal guilt trip about doing these things at some point in his life, and because he is still suffering from it the rest of us have to too. Really ken, aren't there more pressing issues facing the state? And if your real concern is for children not being sexually exploited get the legislature in Richmond to pass a law specifically addressing that issue, not block it as you did in 2004. This from Mother Jones, followed by that classic SNL skit about Colonel Angus (video). AND I think it would be great if everyone would send the link to this video ((SNL Colonel Angus comes Home Skit (Full) - Saturday Night Live http://youtu.be/5xzAVEF-wuw )
to the cuccinelli campaign at info@cuccinelli.com , I did ;-)
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the GOP's nominee for governor, filed an appeal on Tuesday asking the Supreme Court to revive the state's law banning oral and anal sex. In a statement, Cuccinelli claimed that the law, which the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled unconstitutional earlier this year,is "an important tool that prosecutors use to put child molesters in jail." Cuccinelli warned that the appeals court's decision to strike down the statute "threatens to undo convictions of child predators that were obtained under this law" since 2003, when the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that laws criminalizing oral and anal sex—sometimes referred to as sodomy bans—are unconstitutional.
Cuccinelli wants the court to reconsider a March 2013 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit striking down the state's "crimes against nature" statute. The 4th Circuit ruled that the law did not pass muster in light of the Supreme Court's 2003Lawrence v. Texas decision, which struck down the latter state's anti-sodomy law as an unconstitutional criminalization of Americans' sexual conduct. The Virginia law, however, remained on the books.
The 4th Circuit ruled in favor of William Scott McDonald, who was convicted in 2005 at age 47 under the Virginia statute for soliciting a 17-year-old girl to commit sodomy. That law broadly makes oral and anal sex a Class 6 felony. While such laws historically targeted gay men, they have also been used against heterosexual activity.
The three-judge panel ruled that an unconstitutional law could not be used to convict McDonald. It added that the Virginia Legislature could pass another law to criminalize sexual conduct specifically between a minor and an adult. The Lawrence ruling applied only to consensual adult conduct.
Virginia has a notably low age of consent, which means, in effect, that vaginal sex between a 47-year-old and a 17-year-old is legal, but oral and anal sex between the same two people is not. Cuccinelli claims he will only use the sodomy law to bring cases involving minors or sexual assault, and argues that Virginians need not worry about him prosecuting "consenting adults," because the part of the law that would enable him to do so was defanged by the Supreme Court's Lawrence decision. But in 2004, when a bipartisan group of state Senators was trying to fix the sodomy law so that it would only apply to cases involving minors and non-consensual sex, Cuccinelli, then a state Senator, blocked the effort. And in 2009, as my colleague Andy Kroll has noted, Cuccinelli made clear that he objected to oral and anal sex (at least between gay people) on principle, telling the Virginian-Pilot, "My view is that homosexual acts—not homosexuality, but homosexual acts—are wrong. They're intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it's appropriate to have policies that reflect that...They don't comport with natural law."
As Mother Jones noted, some 90 percent of Americans would be felons if the Virginia law were to be applied nationally. Cuccinelli has remained mute as to whether he's one of them.

Thomas Stackpole is an editorial fellow in Mother Jones' Washington, DC, bureau. He has also written for The New Republic and MSN News. Email him tips at tstackpole [at] motherjones [dot] com. You can follow him @tom_stackpole.


The Day Nelson Mandela Walked Out Of Prison 27JUN13

I remember the day Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa. My sister Jennie and me watched it on TV, and we were so happy he was finally free. It was a glorious day for all freedom loving people, but especially for South Africans. Now, with Mr Mandela gravely ill and confined to a hospital, we can only offer our prayers that he be at peace and not suffering and be prepared for the time, which may be soon, that he leaves us. Thank you Mr Mandela, for your conviction, your courage, your strength, your faith and your forgiveness. We are all better people for you having been among us. God Bless and Godspeed ! From NPR.....

Nelson Mandela, with his wife, Winnie, walks to freedom after 27 years in prison on Feb. 11, 1990, in Cape Town.
Nelson Mandela, with his wife, Winnie, walks to freedom after 27 years in prison on Feb. 11, 1990, in Cape Town.
AP
One of the most remarkable days of Nelson Mandela's extraordinary life was Feb. 11, 1990, when he walked out of prison after 27 years behind bars. Greg Myre, the international editor of NPR.org, covered Mandela's release for The Associated Press and recounts that day.
The evening before his release from 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela was ushered into a secret meeting with South African President F.W. de Klerk for a conversation that sounded straight from the theater of the absurd.
De Klerk told Mandela he would be a free man the next day, making good on a pledge the president had made a week earlier, though without setting the exact date. Yet Mandela was still caught off guard.
"I deeply wanted to leave prison as soon as I could, but to do so on such short notice would not be wise," Mandela wrote later in his autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom. "I thanked Mr. de Klerk, and then said that at the risk of appearing ungrateful I would prefer to have a week's notice in order that my family and my organization could be prepared."
Taken aback, de Klerk excused himself to consult with his advisers. Several minutes later, he returned and insisted that Mandela, like a house guest who had hung around too long, would have to check out the next day whether he liked it or not. Mandela relented, and the jailer and the jailed shared a glass of whiskey.
Seismic Change
It would be impossible to overstate the electric sense of anticipation that coursed through South Africa as Mandela's release grew imminent. Apartheid was still the law of the land, but de Klerk had declared sweeping changes that were rapidly dismantling the system of racial segregation. South Africans, black and white, knew their country was about to undergo seismic change, yet no one knew where it would lead.
Nelson Mandela, pictured in the early 1960s, before he was sentenced in 1964 to life in prison for sabotage. The government did not release photos of Mandela during his many years in prison, and few people knew what he looked like at the time of his release.
Reuters /Landov
The black majority saw Mandela as their deliverance from more than three centuries of white domination. Many whites feared his release could unleash an explosive civil war along racial lines.
As the nation projected its hopes and fears onto Mandela, the reality was that only a tiny circle of people had seen or heard him for the past quarter century.
Mandela had disappeared from view in 1964 after giving a four-hour speech at the conclusion of his sabotage trial, where he was convicted and received a life sentence. He was a rugged young man in his 40s, a former boxer who had full cheeks, a beard and mustache and was always dressed in a suit at his court appearances.
He spent most of his prison term on Robben Island, South Africa's version of Alcatraz. On this island fortress, Mandela often labored at a limestone quarry during the day, where the glaring sun harmed his eyes. At night, he could see the twinkling lights of Cape Town in the distance. The damp conditions on the island likely contributed to the tuberculosis he contracted.
During this time, Mandela's jailers, his fellow inmates and several family members were among the only people who saw him. The white government, in a futile attempt to diminish his reputation, never released photos of Mandela during his years of captivity.
However, the law of unintended consequences prevailed. As time passed and the anti-apartheid movement grew, Mandela's invisibility only added to his mythic status and helped transform him into an international icon.
A Polished Statesman
Shortly after that odd meeting in Cape Town between de Klerk and Mandela on the eve of his release, the South African government reversed its long-standing policy and began handing out a photo of Mandela to the journalists who had converged on Cape Town.
It was a simple snapshot of Mandela standing stiffly in a suit and tie, and yet it was mesmerizing. He had gone gray, though he still had a full head of hair. He was clean shaven and had become noticeably thinner in his face and torso. He looked even more distinguished as an elder statesman than as the combative figure of the 1960s.
Still, there was no clue about what kind of leader he would be.
Would he be out of touch and too moderate for the young black activists born after he was incarcerated? Could he, or anyone, live up to his billing as a national savior? Would this 71-year-old man be up physically for the enormous demands of his new role?
An Explosion Of Joy
Mandela began to answer those questions shortly after he walked out the front gate of the Victor Verster Prison in suburban Cape Town on the sun-splashed afternoon of Feb. 11, 1990, arm-in-arm with his then-wife, Winnie. Each raised a fist in triumph.
Black South Africa exploded with joy. A raucous crowd of some 100,000 blacks squeezed into the Grand Parade grounds outside Cape Town's City Hall, infusing it with the energy of a rock concert. Mandela was to deliver his first speech there, at what was almost certainly the largest black crowd ever to gather for an event in what was still formally a white city.
Yet for several excruciating hours after he left prison, Mandela again vanished from public sight. His organization, the African National Congress, did not want the white South African security forces present in large numbers at his first public appearance. The ANC was worried about the both the symbolism and the potential for violent clashes.
However, the ANC, which had only recently been unbanned, had no experience organizing such a massive, unruly event.
This was the first of many such dances between the white authorities and Mandela's ANC as they launched negotiations that would ultimately bring down apartheid.
Mandela Is Mobbed
Meanwhile, Mandela's journey from prison to City Hall came to a virtual standstill as his car approached downtown Cape Town and was mobbed by supporters.
"People began knocking on the windows, and then on the [trunk and the hood]," Mandela wrote. "Inside it sounded like a massive hailstorm. Then people began jumping on the car in their excitement. Others began to shake it and at that moment I began to worry. I felt as though the crowd might very well kill us with their love."
Rather than continue into the crowd, Mandela diverted the driver to the nearby home of Dullah Omar, one of Mandela's lawyers. Omar was stunned to find Mandela at his front door. "Aren't you meant to be at the Grand Parade?" he asked.
Mandela went in for a cold drink at Omar's home, but shortly afterward Archbishop Desmond Tutu called in great distress.
"The people are growing restless. If you do not return straightaway, I cannot vouch for what will happen. I think there might be an uprising," Tutu told Mandela.
Several hours after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela made his first speech on the balcony of Cape Town's City Hall. As he prepared to speak, he realized he had left his glasses in the prison. So he borrowed a pair from his wife Winnie.
Udo Weitz/AP
Mandela got back in the car, only to be mobbed again as he approached City Hall. He eventually arrived at twilight, facing a sea of frenzied supporters from the balcony. He took out his prepared remarks ... and realized he had left his reading glasses at the prison. So he borrowed Winnie's.
His First Public Words
He then uttered the first words most South Africans had ever heard him speak:
"Comrades and fellow South Africans, I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom," said Mandela. "I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you the people. ...
"Today, the majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. It has to be ended by our decisive mass action," he said in a speech frequently drowned out by roars from the crowd. "We have waited too long for our freedom."
For a man cut off from the world for so long, Mandela looked at home in the spotlight, connecting with the black crowd that worshipped him, while taking the first steps to win over skeptical whites. However, Mandela later acknowledged that he felt anything but comfortable as he was thrust onto the world stage.
"Frankly, when I saw that crowd, I must confess that I didn't have the courage, the confidence to speak to them. It rather took me by surprise," he wrote in his autobiography.
After speaking for 30 minutes, Mandela was whisked away. He wanted to spend his first night of freedom among black South Africans, yet for security reasons, he was taken to Tutu's home. However, the archbishop's official residence happened to be in a leafy, posh Cape Town suburb that was officially a whites-only neighborhood. Tutu was allowed to live there only because of his position.
Across the country, celebrations and violent clashes lasted until dawn. Black South Africans danced and drank the night away in the black townships. White police fired on black looters. Rival black factions battled each other.
Difficult days lay ahead. Political violence would claim more than 10,000 lives over the next four years, almost all of them blacks. Negotiations between de Klerk's government and Mandela's ANC stalled and broke down on multiple occasions before the country's first all-race election that elevated Mandela to the presidency in 1994.
But on that summer's day in 1990, South Africa entered a new era, and Nelson Mandela was the man who led the way.

BRAVE NEW FOUNDATION: BEYOND BARS (U.S. JUSTICE SYSTEM), CUENTAME (IMMIGRATION REFORM) & WAR COST (AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, DRONES) 28JUN13

HERE is an update from Brave New Foundation focusing on the media campaigns they have been running on immigration reform, the American justice system, War Cost, and the American military's and "intelligence" communities use of drones. I have donated to some of these campaigns (BNF has also taken on the koch brothers and their repiglican / tea-bagger allies ) and these media campaigns do have an impact. Check them out......
Brave New Foundation

CREATING MEDIA THAT MAKES AN IMPACTDONATE
Beyond Bars Wins Prestigious AwardThe National Council on Crime & Delinquency honored Beyond Bars as part of its annual Media for a Just Society Awards. “Law & Disorder”, which contrasts the criminal justice system on TV with the one in real life, won in the TV/Video category. The piece was screened for high school, college, and law school students as part of a live webcast with the ACLU last year for Constitution Day. Beyond Bars won the award among a field of nominees which included Mother Jones, NPR, and BBC.

beyondbars_image_june-2.png

Immigration Reform Efforts Celebrated by AILACuéntame’s Immigration Reform campaign is being recognized by the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association through its 2013 Advocacy Award. The award recognizes outstanding efforts in support of AILA’s legislative and media advocacy agenda, which is to advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, primarily through informing the public with media outreach. Cuéntame’s latest video exposes the rampant abuse conducted by border patrol officers and the harsh human cost that results.

cuentame_image_june.png

War Costs Fights 'Signature Strikes'Our War Costs campaign is in high gear working on Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars and recently released a short investigative video that pinpoints the U.S.’s use of ‘signature strikes’ and their detrimental effects. You can also sign a petition asking Congress to end signature strikes and if we get enough signatures, we will use the petition to get a Member of Congress to introduce legislation ending signature strikes that kill innocent civilians. If you aren’t already, you can still become a Producer on Unmanned and help us in these crucial last months.

warcosts_image_june.png
Dear Supporters,
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court made a historical decision by ruling that the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, violated the Fifth Amendment. This ruling will allow same-sex couples to receive federal benefits.
Thanks for your continued support,
Hamida Rehimi
Development Associate

Also Find Us On

Brave New Foundation · 10510 Culver Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232, United States
 
You can also keep up with Robert Greenwald on Twitter or Facebook.
Brave New Foundation