Move Over Bumper…The Growler is Here!

A “Beer Bucket”

Before Prohibition in this country, it was common that urban dwellers would buy beer by the bucket, and take it home.

With the explosion of micro-brewerys in many areas, the ability to buy beer straight from the brewery has once again become a fairly common fixture, leading to the development of the beer “growler”. A growler is a bottle or jug which can be filled at the local brew pub for consumption at home. They come in various sizes including 32 oz, 64 oz, and 128 oz.And they can be as basic as a “brown jug”, or fancy with carrying handles or made out of ceramic.

 

Seems that this system sort of works everywhere but Florida…

Fla. Brewers Push to Legalize 64-Ounce Beer Jugs

David Wescott has two 32-ounce growlers he brings into Proof Brewing Company to fill up and take home.

Why two? Because Florida is one of only three states where it’s illegal to fill one 64-ounce beer container, known as a growler. He can get as many of the 32-ounce containers filled as he wants, and Florida breweries can also fill unlimited 128-ounce growlers for customers to take home. But the size preferred by most beer enthusiasts is banned.

“If you’re bringing some beer home for you and the wife, that’s two beers,” Wescott, whose wife calls him a beer snob, said of the quart-sized growlers. “It makes no sense to me. It’s just not logical — 128s are probably too much, 32 is too small. I’d love to get a 64.”

Two lawmakers have filed bills to legalize the half-gallon jugs, but a group of beer distributors is fighting both measures and appears to have helped effectively kill both for the year.

Never been much of a beer drinker – but the patchwork of the country’s liquor laws are amazing. I live in a state where there are still “dry” counties, and where the sale of “hard” liquor is confined to State owned stores. What I mean is anybody can buy a hundred guns at a time in my state, and the Republican Governor recently overturned legislation limiting gun purchases to one a month. But… Despite vociferous campaign promises we still haven’t privatized the sale of liquor in the state… Or normalized the law in all of the State’s counties.

How come you can regulate beer in this country… But you can’t regulate guns?

The Cost of the NRA’s Version of the 2nd Amendment…

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

Supreme Court Strikes Down Republican Feel Good Law

In 2005, in response to a guy claiming to have won the Congressional Medal of Honor, who had not – the Rethugs passed a “feel good” law banning all such future false claims. This was a perfect exercise in making a lot of noise for the plastic patriot set, making a law to punish a minuscule population instead of Minorities. Of course – folks who have never read the Constitution don’t know how it works – so as usual, the Retugs overstepped their bounds.

Supreme Court strikes down Stolen Valor Act

The Supreme Court today struck down the Stolen Valor Actthat made it illegal to falsely claim to be the recipient of military honors and decorations, SCOTUSblog.com reports.

The court found that the statute violates the First Amendment.

The decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, says the law, as written, “seeks to control and suppress all false statements on this one subject in almost limitless times and settings without regard to whether the lie was made for the purpose of material gain.”

Kennedy writes that permitting the government to decree this kind of speech as a criminal offense “would endorse government authority to compile a list of subjects about which false statements are punishable.”

He notes, however, that Congress might be able to rewrite the law “to achieve the government’s objective in less burdensome ways.”

Congressional Black Caucus Pushback Against Tea Party Begins

Well… The fuse is lit on this one. And while it has been a long time coming, derailed by a number of other issues…

It’s about time.

I have argued on this site that the Congressional Black Caucus needs to take a more aggressive approach in Congress to fight back. Maybe these guys are listening?

The New Jim Crow implemented since the Bushit stole office has been focused on “disparate impact”. Ergo, attacking those elements of the economy, and government policy which disproportionally favor minorities. An example of this is that more minorities tend to work for the Government than private industry due to historical and ongoing discrimination in the private workplace. So privatization of Government work results in transforming a Government workforce which is 40% Minority, to a privatized workforce which is less than 10% minority. The net result of this is a 54% drop in net wealth in black families, compared to an 18% drop in white families net wealth. Almost across the board, the Tea Baggers have pushed policies which exacerbate the impact of the economic recession in minority communities.

Essentially the Old Jim Crow, dressed up in a suit and tie.

Democratic Rep: Tea Party Would Love To See Black People ‘Hanging On A Tree’

 

 A leading voice in the Congressional Black Caucus told supporters last week that Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers are devastating the black community economically and would be happy to see black people “hanging on a tree.”

Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), the CBC whip, told attendees at the CBC’s Job Tour visit to Miami that the Tea Party is actively taking steps to keep down the black community and other vulnerable populations.

“This is the effort that we’re seeing of Jim Crow,” Carson said. “Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens.”

“Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.”

An audio and partial video of Carson making the remarks first surfaced on Tuesday on Glenn Beck’s website, The Blaze. When contacted by The Huffington Post, Carson’s office confirmed them and didn’t back down, saying they were in response to frustrations felt by many around the country regarding Congress’ inability to boost the economy.

“The Tea Party is protecting its millionaire and oil company friends while gutting critical services that they know protect the livelihood of African-Americans, as well as Latinos and other disadvantaged minorities,” Carson spokesman Jason Tomcsi said in a statement.

Tomsci specifically pointed to GOP efforts to cut funding for child nutrition, job creation and training, housing assistance and Head Start, a national program that promotes school readiness, as examples of ways the Tea Party agenda hurts vulnerable populations.

“A child without basic nutrition, secure housing, and quality education has no real chance at a meaningful and productive life,” he said. “So, yes, the Congressman used strong language because the Tea Party agenda jeopardizes our most vulnerable and leaves them without the ability to improve their economic standing.”

Michigan Segregation/Apartheid Law Overturned (Temporarily)

Not to worry conservative folks – the fix is in on this one with the 5 Thugs in Robes of the (formerly) Supreme Court – now known as the “Cash and Carry”. The re-Segregation of America will proceed on schedule!

Appeals court panel strikes down Michigan’s affirmative action ban

Affirmative action is back on the menu in Michigan, but for how long is anyone’s guess.

On Friday, a federal appeals court struck down Proposal 2, the 2006 Michigan constitutional amendment that banned affirmative action in college admissions, employment and contracting.

“It’s a tremendous victory,” Detroit attorney George Washington said after a U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled in a 2-1 decision that Proposal 2 was unconstitutional.

He represents a coalition that sued the governing boards of Michigan’s three largest universities — the University of Michigan and Michigan State and Wayne State universities — to overturn the proposal.

Not so fast, countered state Attorney General Bill Schuette, who said he plans to ask the entire U.S. 6th Circuit to reconsider the ruling. In the meantime, Proposal 2 will remain the law, Schuette said.

Proposal 2 — which Michigan voters approved 58%-42% — “embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law. … Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit, and I will continue the fight for equality, fairness and rule of law,” Schuette said.

The ballot proposal was prompted by a long legal fight brought by three white students who claimed to have been denied admission because of racial preferences in U-M admissions. The Supreme Court ruled narrowly in favor of the universities in 2003.

Legal experts said a final decision by the 6th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court, if the case gets that far, could go either way…

The appeals court said Proposal 2, which state voters approved 58%-42%, is unconstitutional because it restructured Michigan’s political process in a way that placed special burdens on minorities that deprived them of equal protection under the law. White people overwhelmingly voted for the proposal, polls showed, while black people overwhelmingly opposed it.

“The majority may not manipulate the channels of change in a manner that places unique burdens on issues of importance to racial minorities,” Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. wrote in an opinion joined by Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey. Judge Julia Smith Gibbons dissented, saying Michigan voters didn’t restructure the political process by amending the constitution, “they have merely employed it.”…

Texas – “Oh Lawd – Don’t Take My Lawn Care Away!”

Texas - Don't Want Your Kind Comin' 'Round Here...Except to Trim the Bushes.

Texas Republican would like to join their whack job bretheren in other states like Arizona on bashing illegal immigransts and implementing Jiminez Crow…

Honest they would…

But then who is going to cut the grass and change Junior’s diapers? And then there is the small problem that there are now fewer white Republicans in Texas… Than folks with a permanent tan. Come election time, that is a sure remedy to a State’s Red stature.

In a scene from the movie “A Day Without a Mexican”, a Texas legislator bellies up to getting really tough on people who hire illegal aliens…

Except at home.

Bill: Hire An Illegal, Go to Jail — But Maids Are OK

The latest bill addressing illegal immigration and the hiring of undocumented workers in Texas would broaden the scope of employers subject to scrutiny — and extend the penalties for violators to include possible jail time and thousands of dollars in fines. Exempt from the proposed rule? People who hire undocumented workers as domestic helpers in their family homes.

House Bill 1202, authored by state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, would make it a state jail felony to knowingly hire undocumented workers in Texas. The bill would punish those who “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” hire or contract with an “unauthorized alien”, or with someone who knowingly subcontracts with an undocumented worker. The maximum fine is $10,000, and guilty parties could face a stint in prison of 180 days to two years. (Riddle has also filed HB 17, legislation that would make being in the state illegally a trespassing offense.)

There are exemptions in HB 1202, however, including one that could make the proposal more acceptable to House Republicans concerned with the federal electronic employment verification system known as E-Verify. While several Republicans have filed bills mandating the use of E-Verify, others suggest it has proven flaws and could potentially act as a deterrent to otherwise capable and legal applicants. Riddle’s bill doesn’t specify E-Verify and says employers have an out if they make a concerted effort to verify status in any manner “that is more likely than not to produce a correct and reliable result.”

Jon English, Riddle’s chief of staff, said E-Verify wasn’t specified because Riddle didn’t want to constrain employers to one system. “As far as we’re concerned, it will be up to whoever is prosecuting the case, what juries are going to say fits the definition of ‘recklessly,’” he said. “But we’re pretty sure that if you make anything that amounts to a good-faith attempt to verify anybody’s information … that that would prevent you from being prosecuted.”

There is also an exception for domestic help. People who hire or contract with someone for work “exclusively or primarily at a single-family residence” are off the hook.

English said that exception was geared toward not “stifling the economic engine” in Texas, so that people who contract out for work in or on their homes don’t have to vet everyone.

 

Another Republican Initiative…Another Bigot.

Just like in Arizona – people from Hate groups now have access to state legislatures through Tea Party and Republican majorities. So expect a lot of Jim Crow legislation. Further, taking advantage of legislative majorities in a number of states, there are laws all Republican state legislatures are in lockstep trying to pass. One such law is a law prohibiting the use of Sharia Law in consideration of a court case. It’s nonsense – but Republican bigots are hot to attack Moslems – and just about every other minority group with punitive legislation. It’s time to fight back, just as the Unions are doing in Wisconsin, Indiana, and several other states…

Tea Party Republican Conservatism -- The Rise of the Fourth KKK

 

Meet the White Supremacist Leading the GOP’s Anti-Sharia Crusade

Last week, legislators in Tennessee introduced a radical bill that would make “material support” for Islamic law punishable by 15 years in prison. The proposal marks a dramatic new step in the conservative campaign against Muslim-Americans. If passed, critics say even seemingly benign activities like re-painting the exterior of a mosque or bringing food to a potluck could be classified as a felony.

The Tennessee bill, SB 1028, didn’t come out of nowhere. Though it’s the first of its kind, the bill is part of a wave of related measures that would ban state courts from enforcing Sharia law. (A court might refer to Sharia law in child custody or prisoner rights cases.) Since early 2010, such legislation has been considered in at least 15 states. And while fears of an impending caliphate are myriad on the far-right, the surge of legislation across the country is largely due to the work of one man: David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based white supremacist who has previously called for a “war against Islam” and tried to criminalize adherence to the Muslim faith…

But it’s not just Muslims who draw Yerushalmi’s scorn. In a 2006 essay for SANE entitled On Race: A Tentative Discussion (pdf), Yerushalmi argued that whites are genetically superior to blacks. “Some races perform better in sports, some better in mathematical problem solving, some better in language, some better in Western societies and some better in tribal ones,” he wrote.

Yerushalmi has suggested that Caucasians are inherently more receptive to republican forms of government than blacks—an argument that’s consistent with SANE’s mission statement, which emphasizes that “America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white.” And in an article published at the website Intellectual Conservative, Yerushalmi, who is Jewish, suggests that liberal Jews “destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite.” Unsurprisingly, then, Yerushalmi offered the lone Jewish defense of Mel Gibson, after the actor’s anti-Semitic tirade in 2006. Gibson, he wrote, was simply noting the “undeniable Jewish liberal influence on western affairs in the direction of a World State.”

Despite his racist views, Yerushalmi has been warmly received by mainstream conservatives; his work has appeared in the National Review and Andrew Breitbart’s Big Peace. He’s been lauded in the pages of the Washington Times. And in 2008, he published a paper on the perils of Sharia-compliant finance that compelled Sen. Minority Whip John Kyl (R-Ariz.) to write a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Chris Cox.

 

15 States Try and Enact Arizona Jim Crow Law

The New Jim Crow, just like the Old Jim Crow…

Just dressed up in a suit.

15 States are trying to pass Arizona Hate Legislation.

States seek to copy Arizona immigration law

Arizona’s hot-button immigration law is on hold, pending court appeals, but its effects are rippling across the country as state legislatures reconfigured by the November elections begin their new sessions.

The disputed Arizona law would allow law enforcement officers to stop people and demand proof of legal immigration status. In July, a U.S. district judge granted the Obama administration’s request for an injunction blocking parts of the trailblazing law, which raised many legal questions, including whether local officials can legally enforce federal immigration law and whether such local enforcement could lead to unconstitutional racial profiling.

That hasn’t deterred elected officials elsewhere — legislation closely modeled on Arizona’s law has been introduced in at least 15 other states since the beginning of the year. (See box below.) And legislators in other states say they’re awaiting clarification from the courts before introducing their own measures.

The issue is simple, they say: Illegal immigrants are breaking the law, taking jobs and services from U.S. citizens and legal residents.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant of Mississippi, where the state Senate last month became the first state legislative chamber to pass a bill modeled on the Arizona measure.

Opponents contend that such measures would unconstitutionally institutionalize racial profiling, leaving anyone who looks or sounds “different” vulnerable to being targeted by police — “just like the way African-Americans were discriminated years before,” said Sole Arrellano, an organizer for the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance.

Democratic state Sen. David Jordan, who is black, also said opposition to the bill crossed racial and ethnic lines.

“Those of us who have been in the struggle to see how things were done have to be skeptical of anything targeting African-Americans and Latinos,” Jordan said…

 

 

Young Man, Raised By Lesbian Couple – Kicks Hell Out of Iowa Republican Bigots

You have to love the Republican Argument that Obamacare is “the Governmen regulating people’s lives” …

But passing legislation to ban gay marriage isn’t. Tossing aside any moral considerations about whether homosexuality fits or doesn’t fit one’s religious beliefs – for me at least it is the core issue that goes back to the ideological ancestors of the current Republicans institution of anti-miscegenation laws to block people of different races from marrying (laws that weren’t overthrown that long ago in Loving vs. Virginia) now trying to control people by sexual orientation.

The very same people squealing the loudest about the government “controlling their lives”.

Too bad there aren’t any bought judges like Thomas, Scalia, and Alito on the liberal side. It would be downright amusing to see a decision that while the government can’t mandate you have Health Care…It also can’t mandate who you can or can’t marry. Seems to me if it can’t be in your personal life one way – it can’t be in your personal life in another…

Eat that, conservative scum!

Another Conservative Failure – Getting Tough on Crime and the Prison Industrial Complex

Thanks to conservative failure to understand the cost of the highest level of incarceration in the world, hundreds of former prisons now sit empty because they are too expensive to operate costing taxpayers billions.

Since Raygun Republicans have embraced the idea of building prisons and ever more draconian penalties. The problem is – conservatives are real big on action…

But not real big on thinking. It never occurred to them that prisons cost money. Like tax cuts, being tough on crime has been a conservative staple – betting that the average Faux News addicted not too bright Republican voter is way too stupid to figure out that just like in your household income … The government has expenses.

One of the results of the 2010 election is that giant, rotten Dodo bird has come home to roost, with Republicans now in charge of the majority of State Houses in the middle of many states going broke.

They now have to fix the mess they created.

Republican lawmakers paying for tough crime laws

When Harry Coates campaigned for the Oklahoma state Senate in 2002, he had one approach to crime: “Lock ‘em up and throw away the key.”

Now, Coates is looking for that key. He and other tough-on-crime lawmakers across the country, faced with steep budget shortfalls, are searching anxiously for ways to let inmates out of prison faster and keep more offenders on the street.

Oklahoma’s preferred answer for crime has collided head-on with a budget deficit estimated at $600 million, and prison costs that have increased more than 30 percent in the last decade. For years, lawmakers have pushed each other to lengthen prison sentences and increase the number of criminals behind bars. Not now: This week, new Republican Speaker of the House Kris Steele is expected to unveil a package of proposals that would divert thousands of nonviolent lawbreakers from the prison system and ramp up paroles.

The New Jim Crow — Enslavement By Dis-education

In most slave holding states prior to the Civil War in the United States it was illegal to teach slaves to read. There was a genuine fear that if they could read, they might read something  - Like the Declaration of Independence, which would cause them to resist their condition en masse.

Keeping folks ignorant of their history has been a prime method of enslavement and repression throughout history…

Things that go bump in the night in conservative minds...

Which is exactly why conservatives in Arizona are afraid of “diversity studies”, and conservatives in Texas “whitewashed” the textbooks.

One of the conceptual foundations roiling conservatives in Arizona is “Raza” studies. The following provides a thread of the precepts of Raza…

What State Officials Don’t Want Arizona School Children to Know

For the next few months, the world will be focusing on Arizona’s SB 1070 – the state’s new racial profiling law. However, in this insane asylum known as Arizona, where conservatives have concocted one reactionary scheme after another, another law in particular stands out for its embrace of Dark Ages-era censorship – the 2010 anti-ethnic studies HB 2281 – a law that seeks to codify the “triumph” of Western Civilization with its emphasis on Greco-Roman culture.
Unless it is blocked, HB 2281 – which creates an inquisitorial mechanism that will determine which books and curricula are acceptable in the state – will go into effect on January 1, 2011. Books such as “Occupied America” by Rodolfo Acuña and “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire, have already been singled out as being un-American and preaching the violent overthrow of the US government.

Both laws are genocidal: one law attacks the physical presence of red-brown peoples; the other one, our minds and spirits.

Lost in the tumultuous debate regarding what can be taught in the state’s schools is the topic of what actually constitutes ethnic/Raza studies.

Burka Rage!

Wow! This is much less productive than that annual Filene’s Basement “Running of the Brides” sale  every year that results in a hoedown or two between the ladies (and unfortunately this year several tramplings) -

Veil Ripped off in French ‘Burka Rage’

The first known case of “Burka rage” has erupted in France where a furious female lawyer ripped the veil from a Muslim woman in a clothing store in the town of Trignac. The lawyer made “snide remarks” about the other shopper’s burka and said she couldn’t wait until France enacted a burka ban now winding through the legislature, according to cops. The attorney compared burka-wearers to the fictional French horror demon Belphegor, who haunts the Louvre and wears a black face mask to hide his hideous features. Suddenly, the women were scuffling, and the veil ripped off, reports the Telegraph.

The store owners broke up the pair, and they were hauled in by cops. The Muslim woman has accused the lawyer of racial and religious assault, and the attorney has accused her fighting partner of assault. The veil ban measure before the French legislature declares burkas and other forms of Islamic dress to be “an affront to the nation’s values.” Such a ban has already been enacted in Belgium. Critics say the bill unfairly targets women, who are often ordered to wear the veil by their husbands.

Damn! Ripping off her veil?

After checking out our new Miss USA Rima Fakih, it might just be worthwhile to cop a seat on the beach in the French Riviera…

And wait for a Bikini-Burkini fight!

Dept. of Education Starts to Enforce Civil Rights Laws Again

After a 8 year hiatus in enforcing any Civil Rights Laws, except those of the majority population – the new Administration has finally turned it’s focus on to enforcing Civil Rights again. I’m not sure what took the Obama Administration so long to figure out the Civil Rights well had been poisoned by the anti-Civil Rights conservatives of the Bushit Administration leading to a number of structural issues from education to jobs to the destruction of Minority Small Business…

But they seem to have gotten there – if a bit belatedly.

What will be interesting about the DOE’s efforts, is how they intend to execute against this objective. Since the Supreme Court hasn’t seen a Civil Rights violation it couldn’t overlook since the appointment of the infamous 5-4 majority – legal action, even in egregious cases isn’t likely to be successful. The SCUMUS 5 are no more likely to be sympathetic to the Civil Rights of Minority children, than a KKK Grandmuckus to the victim of a lynching. And that doesn’t even get into the issue of the lower courts poisoned with ideologues and syncopates during the Bushit.

Officials Step Up Enforcement of Rights Laws in Education

Bloody Sunday, Police Attack Civil Rights Workers in Voting Rights March. Cong John Lewis is seen on the Ground After Being Hit in the foreground.

Seeking to step up enforcement of civil rights laws, the federal Department of Education says it will be sending letters in coming weeks to thousands of school districts and colleges, outlining their responsibilities on issues of fairness and equal opportunity.

As part of that effort, the department intends to open investigations known as compliance reviews in about 32 school districts nationwide, seeking to verify that students of both sexes and all races are getting equal access to college preparatory curriculums and to advanced placement courses. The department plans to open similar civil rights investigations at half a dozen colleges.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan is to announce the initiatives in a speech on Monday in Selma, Ala., where on March 7, 1965, hundreds of civil rights marchers were beaten by Alabama state troopers.

Mr. Duncan plans to say that in the past decade the department’s Office for Civil Rights “has not been as vigilant as it should have been in combating gender and racial discrimination and protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities,” according to a text of the speech distributed to reporters on Sunday.

It continues, “We are going to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement.”

At the end of high school, white students are about six times as likely to be ready to pursue college-level biology courses as black students, and more than four times as likely to be ready for college algebra, department officials said. White high school graduates are more than twice as likely to have taken advanced placement calculus classes as black or Latino graduates…

Some civil rights advocates said they had hoped the administration would move more quickly last year to ramp up the activity of the Office for Civil Rights, the department’s second-largest, with 600 employees.

“This whole area has been a dead zone for years, and people were worried that new actions were too slow in coming,” said William L. Taylor, chairman of the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, a Washington group that monitors federal policy and practices. “There had been strong hopes that they would move more quickly. This sounds like positive movement, which we’ve all been asking for.”