Day then calls on the black churches to become potential agents of change and leaders in addressing the unequal social and economic structures that hold captive these poor women. The goal is to empower poor black women to develop assets that will prevent long-term poverty and allow them to flourish.
via Keri Day: Black Women, the Black Church, and the Struggle to Thrive in America | KineticsLive.com.
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It’s not just email. In July, Rep. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, cajoled major cellphone carriers into disclosing the number of requests for data that they receive from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies: In 2011, there were more than 1.3 million requests. As ProPublica reported at the time, “Police obtain court orders for basic subscriber information so frequently that some mobile phone companies have established websites — here’s one — with forms that police can fill out in minutes. The Obama Administration’s Department of Justice has said mobile phone users have ‘no reasonable expectation of privacy.'”
via Was Petraeus Borked? – ProPublica.
Low Income Mothers Could Face Penalties For Giving Birth While On Welfare
MAURICE GARLAND 3 weeks ago
Pennsylvania bill would slash assistance, unless women proved they were raped.
Life may just get a little tougher for “welfare moms.”
A Pennsylvania bill proposed on October 17 would allow the state to cut back government assistance from low income mothers who have more children while currently on welfare.
The bill was brought forth by lawmakers Rose Marie Swanger (R), Tom Caltagirone (D), Mark Gillen (R), Keith Gillespie (R), Adam Harris (R), and Mike Tobash (R).
via Low Income Mothers Could Face Penalties For Giving Birth While On Welfare | Loop21.
Will the Supreme Court Strike Down Part of the Voting Rights Act?
by Lois Beckett
ProPublica, Jan. 10, 2012, 2:35 p.m.
(Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
As noted below, this guide has been updated. This guide was originally published on Jan. 9, 2012.
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a Texas redistricting case that could have major implications for minority voters — as well as determine which party is likely to control Congress after the 2012 elections.
Here’s our guide to why the case matters, why it could pose a challenge to part of the Voting Rights Act, and what impact the Court’s ruling could have on voters across the country.
Our update on Monday’s oral arguments is here.
How did this case end up in front of the Supreme Court?
At its most basic, the case is contesting which district maps Texas will use in the 2012 elections.
This seems like a dry question, but it’s not. Thanks to population growth, Texas is gaining four seats in Congress, and how the district lines are drawn is likely to determine whether those additional seats will be won by Democrats or Republicans — and how big an impact minority voters will have in deciding who the new representatives will be.
via Will the Supreme Court Strike Down Part of the Voting Rights Act? – ProPublica.
Discussion: What Should Communities Be Doing To Further Fair Housing?
by Amanda Zamora
ProPublica, Nov. 1, 2012, 2:34 p.m.
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination and mandated that the government “affirmatively further” fair housing. But the law didn’t make it clear exactly what that meant.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development, charged with enforcing the law, has since granted billions of dollars in block grants to communities on the condition that they track obstacles to fair housing and their efforts to overcome them, and prove that they do not discriminate. But HUD has only withheld funding for violations only twice since 1974. Meanwhile, segregation levels have barely budged.
So what should communities be doing to “affirmatively further” fair housing? We asked fair housing experts and readers to weigh in on Quora.
Find excerpts of that discussion below, or visit our discussion page on Quora to tell us what you think.
Setting community goals
via Discussion: What Should Communities Be Doing To Further Fair Housing? – ProPublica.
The authors of the 1968 Fair Housing Act wanted to reverse decades of government-fostered segregation. But presidents from both parties declined to enforce a law that stirred vehement opposition.
A new lawsuit brought by eight inmates of the Idaho Correctional Center alleges that the company is cutting back on personnel costs by partnering with violent prison gangs to help control the facility. Court documents and an investigative report issued by the state’s Department of Corrections show how guards routinely looked the other way when gang members violated basic facility rules, negotiated with gang leaders on the cell placement of new inmates, and in one instance may have even helped one group of inmates plan a violent attack on members of a rival gang.Private Prison Company Allegedly Partnered With Violent Gangs To Save Money | ThinkProgress.
Facing Rates Of $17 For 15 Minutes, FCC Takes Up Regulation Of Prison Phone Industry
By Nicole Flatow on Nov 19, 2012 at 10:30 am
Phone calls between prisoners and their families can cost as much as $17 for a 15-minute call, reaping generous profits in many states for both the phone companies that provide the service and the states, which receive what amount to legalized kickbacks. Recognizing the drastic obstacle these costs impose on children staying in touch with their parents, a bipartisan coalition launched a campaign this past Mother’s Day calling for regulation of this industry. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission entertained these calls, announcing at a rally that it would seek public comment on prison phone rules and rates. In a scathing September report, the Prison Policy Initiative’s Drew Kukorowski explains why the industry needs regulating:
via Facing Rates Of $17 For 15 Minutes, FCC Takes Up Regulation Of Prison Phone Industry | ThinkProgress.
Palestinian men carry an injured woman out of a destroyed house after an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, November 18, 2012. (Photo: Wissam Nassar / The New York Times)Gaza is a window on our coming dystopia. The growing divide between the world’s elite and its miserable masses of humanity is maintained through spiraling violence. Many impoverished regions of the world, which have fallen off the economic cliff, are beginning to resemble Gaza, where 1.6 million Palestinians live in the planet’s largest internment camp. These sacrifice zones, filled with seas of pitifully poor people trapped in squalid slums or mud-walled villages, are increasingly hemmed in by electronic fences, monitored by surveillance cameras and drones and surrounded by border guards or military units that shoot to kill. These nightmarish dystopias extend from sub-Saharan Africa to Pakistan to China. They are places where targeted assassinations are carried out, where brutal military assaults are pressed against peoples left defenseless, without an army, navy or air force. All attempts at resistance, however ineffective, are met with the indiscriminate slaughter that characterizes modern industrial warfare.
Elites Will Make Gazans of Us All.
OCG 