Virginia needs to restore the voting rights of ex-felons

The good news for Virginia Republicans is that they lost the governor's race by only a little more than 50,000 votes. The bad news is that 450,000 adults were ineligible to vote because they are ex-felons, and that an overwhelming majority of those adults would vote Democratic if they could. Virginia is one of two states that prohibits ex-felons from voting (Kentucky is the other). These people have served their sentences but are not allowed to vote.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the states may restrict voting rights of ex-felons based on the ambiguous language of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Amendment says that states may revoke voting rights for "rebellion or other crime[s]". The conservative Burger Court ruled in 1974 that this meant that the states had broad discretion in denying the vote to ex-felons. This is yet another example of how the Fourteenth Amendment, which was intended to guarantee voting rights to African-Americans, has been used to disenfranchise the very people it was intended to help. About half of the disenfranchised voters are African-Americans. Ninety percent of African-Americans who voted in 2013 voted for McAuliffe.

In Virginia, ex-felons may petition the governor to have their voting rights restored. Governor McDonnell promised to restore voting rights to more Virginians than any previous governor, but he fell well short of that goal or any real progress in reinstating ex-felons. McDonnell reinstated fewer than 4,000 ex-felons, less than 1 percent of those unable to vote. McDonnell placed restrictions on ex-convicts, such as a waiting period of 2 to 4 years, that made it more difficult and time-consuming to process applications. Thousands of ex-felons, many of them guilty of non-violent offenses, continue to be punished long after their terms of imprisonment are over.

Terry McAuliffe should be to return the right to vote to all ex-felons. This could be done by the governor acting alone. It would be better, of course, to pass a law that makes this change permanent, but the legislature in Virginia is still very reactionary.

Another way to accomplish this result is for the U.S. Congress to pass a law that applies to every state. There is no need for a constitutional amendment since the current state of affairs stems from a Supreme Court interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, not the Amendment itself. Once the federal government passes a law, the states will be precluded from legislation in this area of law.

At least 250,000 African-Americans would be reinstated for future elections. Republicans will have a hard time winning statewide office in Virginia until they discover a way to counteract white racism in the state and in the party.

No new tax cuts

Grover Norquist and the Republican Party in DC have banded together in an attempt to stop any new taxes ever. Government requires flexibility, just as our personal finances require flexibility. Individuals need new revenue to counteract unexpected expenses, like a child who needs help in school, or an unemployed person who needs to relocated to find work.

Governments need flexibility to face new challenges as well. In the past few years, the federal government spent large sums of money fighting overseas wars and the so-called War on Drugs at home. The Republican response to these needs has been to borrow more money instead of raising taxes. This resulted in over $4 trillion in new federal debt during the Bush administration. New spending was exacerbated by tax cuts and a severe recession that cut revenues and increased expenditures for programs like unemployment insurance.

During the Obama administration, Republicans have steadfastly refused to raise taxes or increase federal spending to spur economic growth. But taxes have been raised; they're not called taxes, but fees for service or raised penalties for traffic violations. Only taxes on the rich have been forbidden, not cuts in programs that help the poor. So the latest Republican budget has cut $4 billion from SNAP, a program that provides food to the poor. Republicans justify this action, which disproportionately hurts children and the elderly, because they claim--without evidence--that there are abuses in the program.

Progressives have taken a long time to wise up to Republican tactics. The administration has offered to offset tax cuts with spending cuts, but this policy is unwise. Any cuts in revenues, which are sorely needed, will never be replaced under the "no new taxes" program. Therefore, any programs that result in savings to the federal government should not be returned to taxpayers. Instead they should be applied to programs that are hurting the most under current Congressional leadership, programs for the poor and disadvantaged.

It is very difficult to compromise with people who are willing to jeopardize the world economy to get their way. Just as progressives must take a hard line against shenanigans like closing the government and refusing to raise the debt limit, we must also take a hard line against passing any programs favored by the Republicans without a commensurate raise in revenues to pay for them.

NSA gets a leash

President Obama has been slow to move in countering the excesses of his predecessors. Part of his reluctance derives from the institutional nature of government. Presidents come and go, but the bureaucracy stays forever.

Whistleblower William Binney revealed in 2007 that the National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on every single data transmission in the US as well as all foreign transmissions that reached the US. No one cared. Binney was neither arrested nor charged with leaking classified information.

Obama took office in 2009. He didn't care to oppose NSA, either. The new president had plenty of reasons for his reluctance. NSA is a huge organization. The Sunday Times reports that NSA's HQ in Maryland

contains almost 70 miles of roads, 1,300 buildings, each identified by a number, and 18,000 parking spaces as well as a shopping centre, golf courses, chain restaurants and every other accoutrement of Anywhere, USA.

NSA has other facilities around the world, including the Utah Data Center where it stores all data collected from US electronic signal monitoring. NSA spent $1.5-$2 billion to construct this facility.

Reforming an agency that large would meet strong resistance both from within the organization and from its supporters, like Orrin Hatch, Senator from Utah at that time. Conservative politicians and media would have accused Obama of being soft on terrorism, although none of them know much about what NSA does or whether it is effective. William Binney claimed that the multi-billion-dollar Utah Data Center was useless because NSA lacked the ability to interpret its data in a timely manner.

But last week NSA lost its mojo. Politicians from countries around the world began complaining about being bugged by NSA. Among those complaining loudest was Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany and one of our most important allies. Spokesmen for the Obama administration, including the president himself, fell all over each other claiming that they never eavesdropped on anyone and that they would never do it again. They thus began making the reforms that NSA has needed all along.

The incident and its aftermath reveal a great deal about Obama and his administration. Republicans have been right to fear the president and oppose his every move. Obama plans to do nothing that Republicans can legitimately oppose--until the moment that they can't oppose it any longer.

This is known in the martial arts as the No-Fight style. You refuse to fight your opponent and let him exhaust himself by attacking you. When an opening appears, you attack. By this time, your opponent has not got the strength to resist you.

Obama's strategy goes beyond temporary measures, however. He is clearly planning to leave an administration that will not embarrass a Democratic candidate for President. George W. Bush left so much broken crockery around the world--in Afghanistan, Iraq, and on Wall Street--that his party had little chance of retaining the presidency. Obama, by contrast, is quietly cleaning up messes and refusing to become embroiled in bureaucratic struggles which he cannot win.

The next president will be a Democrat and will be able to continue the progressive agenda modestly begun by Obama.

DC Marijuana Decriminatlization: Chris Hayes drinks the Kool-Aid

Chris Hayes recently did a segment on his nightly show in which he discussed the Marijuana decriminalization bill currently before the DC City Council. I have discussed this issue in depth in a previous post. Hayes did his usual professional job of discussing the bill before falling into the error of believing the bill's backers' propaganda (also known as drinking the Kool-Aid).

Hayes mentioned that the bill would decriminalize simple possession of Marijuana and that the proponents of the bill claim they have the 10 votes to override a mayoral veto if it comes. He did not mention that the police department supports this bill and that the police make 9.000 arrests each year for simple possession. I estimate that each arrest nets the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) $8,500. So 9,000 completely useless arrests net the MPD up to $76 million a year. 1 Another way to put that is that the MPD receives $76 million from the city and taxpayers of DC for its activities arresting people for simple possession of marijuana. Any way you put it, that's a lot of wasted money.

The MPD has a substantial vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and they support decriminalization, not legalization. While questioning the Police representative at the hearing, Marion Barry brought out the point that while possession might be legal, possession for sale would still be a felony, and possession for sale could apply to any amount of marijuana, even a single joint. So decriminalization would open up a different way for DC Police to harass its citizens: by charging a person with possession for sale, the police would still get a felony arrest and the individual arrested would still be injected into the court system.

Furthermore, there would still be a fine of $100 for simple possession of marijuana. Many, if not most, of the people arrested by the police for possession are poor. For them, a fine that steep would be difficult to pay, and there they are injected into the criminal justice system again.

I applaud Chris for bringing this issue to the attention of the public. He should also discuss the merits of legalization, which could save the city more than $76 million a year, because incarceration of convicted users comes from the Department of Corrections, not the police department.

1. The figure of $76 million is based on the total budget of the MPD, $410 million in 2012, divided by the number of arrests (48,000), then multiplied by the number of arrests for simple possession of drugs. This is a very rough estimate, yet it still does not include the costs of incarceration for people who are imprisoned for simple possession.

Not plagiarism: Rand Paul quotes Wikipedia

Rachel Maddow ran a segment about how bad it was for Rand Paul to quote a Wikipedia article on Gattaca. It was bad, of course, because Paul continued the dishonest Republican tradition of treating works of fiction as fact. During the run of 24 Hours, Fox commentators frequently discussed how torture works to extract information from captives because it worked for Jack Bauer, who portrayed torture as normal, effective, acceptable and glamorous. OK, I'm quoting Wikipedia there. But it's not plagiarism.

Paul cited a number of passages from Wikipedia where the omnipotent state uses the analysis of a person's DNA to determine their function in life, a subject covered much more artistically in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. But Paul is using these passages to scare his listeners into believing that such things are now possible, or soon will be. He wants people to believe that our government is omnipotent and dictatorial, like the one in Gattaca. It's not. Paul is using a fictional example of something that doesn't exist--and never will--to attack our actual government falsely.

Paul, as despicable as his purpose might be, is not plagiarizing because he is reviewing the plot from the movie, Gattaca. Paul says at the beginning of his remarks that all these ideas come from the movie, Gattaca. His use of the plot elements are therefore not plagiarism, but fair use. He never pretends that the ideas are his own. 

Maddow showed several passages that Paul had lifted from Wikipedia's description of the movie without giving credit to the source. Wikipedia, however, does not copyright its stories. Much of its historical information comes from encyclopedias, like the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, that are now in the public domain. Wikipedia's stated purpose is to 

Empower and Engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content and either publish it under a free license or dedicate it to the public domain.Disseminate this content effectively and globally, free of charge.

The contents of Wikipedia are covered by a copyright agreement that allows people freely to 

Read and Print our articles and other media free of charge.Share and Reuse our articles and other media under free and open licenses.

When someone gives you permission to share and reuse their work, there cannot be any plagiarism of it.

Maddow should spend her time criticizing the substance of Rand Paul's speeches, not their style.

Red Onion Prison: Virginia's Shame

Despite its reputation as a liberal city, Washington, DC, sends men convicted of felonies, even non-violent drug offenders, to one of the most inhuman, degrading, and shocking prisons in America: Red Onion Prison.

Inmates at Red Onion Prison in Virginia suffer cruel and degrading treatment at the hands of prison guards and the Virginia Department of Correction (VDOC). This treatment is systematic and condoned by prison authorities and by politicians, both in Virginia and in the District of Columbia. DC courts send men convicted of felonies, both violent and non-violent, to Red Onion, because there is no prison in the district. Virginia authorities also send non-violent convicts to Red Onion and Rollins Ridge because of overcrowding.

Red Onion Prison has been the subject of investigations by Human Rights Watch, which found that the VDOC

"has failed to embrace basic tenets of sound correctional practice and laws protecting inmates from abusive, degrading or cruel treatment."¹

The District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DCDOC) sends persons who have been convicted of felonies to Red Onion because DC has no prison facilities of its own. All prisoners, whether violent or non-violent, are sent to this Super-Maximum prison. As a result, non-violent persons are thrown into a violent criminal population where they are treated more harshly than those convicted of similar crimes in other prisons. VDOC apparently believes that it must control prisoners through aggressive, demeaning, and frequently violent treatment.

There are two kinds of cells at Red Onion, progressive and solitary. In progressive housing, two prisoners share a cell. Non-violent prisoners are routinely placed in cells with violent criminals. Any sign of insubordination can result in solitary confinement, where prisoners are confined in a small, windowless room for 23 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Red Onion and its nearby twin, Wallens Ridge Prison, were constructed during the administration of Virginia Governor George Allen (1984-1988), who ran for election on a severe anti-crime platform. The result of the governor's advocacy was a suite of laws consistent with American Legal Exchange Council (ALEC) recommendations that increased mandatory minimum sentences, delayed parole eligibility until 85% of the sentence is served, and made sentences up to 10 times as long. In some states, “three-strike” laws were adopted that guaranteed men who were convicted on a third felony, no matter how minor, a sentence to prison for life. These laws led to long sentences for non-violent offenders and increased the number of prisoners in Virginia's state prisons.

Red Onion and Wallens Ridge were deliberately located in a remote region of Virginia. Red Onion is 4 hours from Charlottesville, the nearest city, and 7 hours from DC. Relatives of prisoners rarely visit them there. These prisons were intended to be dehumanizing, according to Ronald Angelone, a former Virginia Director of Corrections: “It's not a nice place, and I designed it not to be a nice place.²

Human Rights Watch released its report on Red Onion in 1999. In it they described conditions at the prison but also gave details on what HRW was not permitted to do. They could not visit the prison facilities or interview prisoners or prison employees about conditions there. HRW reported that the DOC used prison walls to keep investigators out. Much of what comes out of the prison is based on rumor and hearsay. Prison officials keep facts away from media and the public.

HRW reported the following abuses in 1999:

• Prisoners who are not incorrigible are arbitrarily deprived of the activities and freedoms available ordinarily even in maximum security prisons.
• Prison staff use force unnecessarily, excessively, and dangerously. Inmates are fired at with shotguns loaded with rubber pellets and have been injured for minor misconduct, non-threatening errors, or just behavior that guards have misinterpreted.
• Prison staff routinely use electrical stun-guns.
• All prisoners are subjected to remarkable levels of control and forced to live in oppressive and counterproductive idleness, denied educational, behavioral, vocational and work programs and religious services.
• Correctional officers and other prison staff threaten inmates with abuse and subject them to racist remarks, derogatory language and other demeaning and harassing conduct.³

The preponderance of inmates at Red Onion are black, and the staff is almost entirely white, drawn from the rural coal-mining area in which the prison is located. Many of the staff have family or community ties with each other. They have had little or no direct contact with blacks before beginning work at Red Onion.

We do not know what selection process or special training the DOC has provided staff at Red Onion. Inmates assert that many of the staff are respectful and professional. But they also describe some officers as determined to show “they can be badder than we are.” These officers are quick to use derogatory terms and slurs, quick to use force, quick to impose their authority unnecessarily and capriciously. One inmate described to HRW the relations between staff and inmates as follows: “The guards are young—for the most part—and possess the mentality of juveniles—as do most of the prisoners—and they are into the macho mentality—as are most of the prisoners. The two do not mix well.”⁴

Tensions and misunderstandings perhaps inevitably arise from a clash of cultures in which both black prisoners and white staff hold misconceptions and believe in caricatures about the other. But in a well-run facility with appropriate staff selection, training and supervision, those tensions can be minimized and kept from escalating into provocation, confrontations and violence. Unfortunately, white and black inmates alike at Red Onion describe an atmosphere of pervasive and blatant racism. Inmates claim that officers routinely use such terms as “boy” and “n*r”. One white inmate told HRW that an officer said to him, with reference to a black inmate with a reputation for sexual misbehavior, “What do you expect from a fucking n*r?” Another white inmate wrote to HRW that he had talked with an officer escorting him about a shooting. He described the officer as “so excited about being able to shoot ‘n*rs...’[H]e couldn’t wait to shoot some of them black bastards.”

Men in Red Onion prison have started hunger strikes on at least 2 occasions. VDOC has shut down all communications with the outside world at those times and spread misinformation to the public about how many men were protesting, what conditions they were protesting, and how they were being treated by VDOC. After the hunger strikes ended, leaders were identified and transferred to other prisons as far away as Washington state.

1Red Onion State Prison: Super-maximum Security Confinement in Virginia 1, Human Rights Watch, 1999, at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/redonion/Rospfin.htm#P59_713.

2Craig Timberg, At Virginia's Toughest Prison, Tight Controls C1, Washington Post, April 18, 1999, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/april99/supermax18.htm

3HRW 1.

4HRW §VII.

Washington, D.C. pushes bogus marijuana decriminalization bill

Anyone who's seen a Fox “News” program knows how they work. One talking head reads a news story and the others comment on it, using the most violent distortions of the truth. For instance, one might say, 89 percent of the persons arrested for simple possession of marijuana in the District of Columbia are African-Americans or another minority. Then the Fox commentator says, I wonder why that is? And another one goes into a long-winded reply about how that's the way people are.


Or, on another occasion, someone might read a news item that indicates that marijuana is neither addictive nor harmful. It is certainly not a gateway drug to anything except entanglement in the prison system. Then the other Fox commentator says, surely we can't let this dangerous drug be distributed to our children. Another Fox commentator says, certainly we can't permit this dangerous drug to be legalized.


This sort of comedy show is very popular on Fox. Firmly held opinions of the status-quo are endlessly repeated, no matter how discredited those ideas have been. But these little falsehoods were repeated in DC City Council Chambers last Thursday, October 24, 2013, where the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety was holding hearings on the “decriminalization” of marijuana. The ring master for this farce was Tommy Wells, who I understand is running for mayor. It was Councilman Wells's responsibility to see that witnesses were truthful and all points of view were considered. Unfortunately, Wells did not do that. Instead, he permitted reams of falsehoods to be entered into the record.


Take, for example, the study by Washington Lawyers' committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. This careful study, based entirely on records of the Metropolitan Police Department, showed that 89 percent of arrests made in DC for simple possession were African-Americans. What did Wells say about this disparity in treatment of different races by the police department? He asked the witnesses for the Lawyers' Committee what could be the reason for this startling figure.


Let me make this clear. Wells did not ask the representative of the Mayor, Andrew Fois, how the police intended to fix this problem. No, Wells acted as if it wasn't a problem. Then he sat and listened while Fois explained how decriminalization would work. Mere possession would be legal, but not using the drug on the street. But possession itself would be illegal in City Parks and near schools.


Possession for sale, of course, would still be illegal. Councilman Marion Barry asked how much marijuana a person would have to have before he could be arrested for intent to sell.


Andrew Fois: Oh, any amount.
Barry: Even a single joint?
Fois: Yes.
Barry: So if you had a single joint in your pocket you could be arrested for intent to sell?


At this point one of Fois's deputies jumped in to rescue his boss from the blind alley he had wandered into. “Oh, no,” he said. “There would have to be some other evidence.” What the other evidence might be was not revealed.


When my turn came to testify, I asked the court why they were not considering total legalization. David Rosso has introduced a bill to that effect. It seemed to me inevitable that marijuana would be legalized eventually. Why not now?


Wells got a little hot under the collar. I suppose he was angry at me for disrupting his dog and pony show, where official witnesses lined up to tell Wells what a great guy he was, and what a great job the police are doing, busting 40,000 African-Americans a year, mostly for nothing at all, and how we really can't legalize marijuana right now because, as Wells explained

1. The Congress might do something if we did.
   
2. Legalization of marijuana would do nothing to halt use of more dangerous drugs.
   
3. The time isn't right.
   

To which I would have responded (if Wells had the courtesy to ask what I thought of the matter, instead of pontificating at length about what he thinks,

1. Congress hasn't done anything yet. It is likely, however, that the courts will do something soon about the prevalence of racial profiling, as they did in Floyd v. City of New York.
   
2. Legalization of marijuana only legalizes marijuana, it is not intended to resolve all of society's drug problems. To oppose legalization because it doesn't stop other drugs doesn't make logical sense.
   
3. The time is always right to stop enforcing an unjust law that police use to harass African-Americans.