Obama Needs to Launch Massive Federal Action in Wake of Zimmerman

Update: Andrew Cohen in The Atlantic: "What the verdict tells us is, to the astonishment of tens of millions of us, you can go looking for trouble in Florida, with a gun and a great deal of racial bias, and you can find that trouble, and you can act upon that trouble in a way that leaves a young man dead, and none of it guarantees that you will be convicted of a crime."

As black and brown Americans work to recover lost ground just to vote in America, President Obama should urge the federal Dept of Justice to pursue a violation of civil rights case against George Zimmerman, for beginners.

This is precisely what the NAACP is advocating in gathering 100,000 signatures in hours a national petition to urge Atty General Holder to move in a civil rights action against Zimmerman.

Broadly, President Obama needs to make a national address specifically on the Zimmerman case, and speak with Americans on the imperative for government to fight for equality and justice under the law.

And President Obama needs to act fast ... with all deliberate speed.

America is losing ground fast in racial justice, and it's coming on the watch of the first black president.

Losing ground because the Republican Party has effectively declared itself a white party, and they are not backing away.

Racism is here, it's in the heart and actions of George Zimmerman stalking and killing Trayvon Martin.

It's here in Wisconsin with too many tragic examples echoing the racist killing of Bo Morrison by Adam Kind in Washington County last year.

It's in the Republican Party, as the national and local Republican parties are doubling down on its whites-only electoral strategy as Republicans continue to demonize and disenfranchise people of color.

Killing of black folks has become an all-too-common occurrence, as modern-day lynchings (often accomplished by local police, see Fruitvale Station for one gruesome example) are carried out with only whispers of community disapproval.

Fight racism peacefully where you see it, you won't have to look very long.

No cause on the Zimmerman verdict to launch recriminations against the jurors; jurors need to be free from recriminations for the 'justice' system to function at even a minimal level.

But by no means should we respect the verdict in Sanford, Florida, the end result of a racist society, worse in Florida.

The verdict needs to be condemned in the most broad action in the most harsh tones.

We do need to ask ourselves what the media mean when they refer, idiotically, to "unrest" after the Zimmerman verdict reaches all of America.

Unrest, as opposed to lassitude?

Brian Austin on ALEC in Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground

"The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away."
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Our neighbor from down the street had a dog that loved to run wild through the neighbors' yards, right as the kids are getting ready for school and the parents are getting ready for work.

It is no great surprise that the young man running with his younger brother to corral the dog often ended up in the backyards of neighbors. I told the kid to feel free to use our fenced-in yard, the next time his dog did what dogs do: Run.

Prior to that, what were our understanding neighbors and we to do? Shoot the young man for trespassing into our "castles?" Our neighbors watch out for each other.

We don't presume our neighbors are hostile until we know otherwise; its called a neighborhood, even a community.

Brian Austin of Cops for Labor has a superb piece on the idiocy of the Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground Laws, "promoted with such enthusiasm by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)."

Austin's piece is the best I've read on the topic so far.

Bo Morrison Killing Was Self Defense Against Milwaukee Types—Blacks



Segregation in Milwaukee area - Blue is white, red is black

Young women hosted an unreasonably loud party around 1:00 A.M. and party-goers treated the next-door neighbor, Washington County homeowner Adam Kind—the killer of Bo Morrison—with disrespect in early March.

These are not capital offenses; inviting black guests in Slinger, Wisconsin is.

"Police reports said the homeowner [Adam Kind] had ongoing issues with his next-door neighbors. The homeowner told officers he'd seen people deal drugs and stated he knows the girls mingle with individuals from the Milwaukee area, but he told police he didn't report it then for fear of retaliation," reads a report from WISN.

Milwaukee area, you know: Blacks. Who cares if 20-year-old Bo Morrison is from West Bend. Yeah, he looks like Milwaukee to me.

Kind says he feels he cannot tell police the girls hosting the party mingle with individuals from the Milwaukee area, for fear of retaliation; but Kind feels empowered to shoot and kill with a 45-caliber pistol a crouching, young black man hiding after the break-up of the party, without fear of retaliation.

Something smells in Washington County: Adam Kind.


Adam Kind's death chamber


In a related development, PolitiScoop notes Washington County District Attorney, Mark Bensen ruled the killing: Self defense, Slinger Shooting – Not Castle Doctrine After All.

This murder investigation should not be over now, not by a long shot.

"He took one bullet and killed my son," Bo's mother, Lauri Morrison said.

Don't think the Slinger, Wisconsin, police and Washington County DA are too hot on the idea of looking into the killing of this young, black man.

Adam Kind took away everything from Lauri Morrison; 'too bad,' say the Slinger, Wisconsin police and Washington County DA.

Bo Morrison Was Murdered, Empowered by NRA-Corporate-backed Front Group

Sign From the 2011 Wisconsin Protests

Adam Kind is the killer of Bo Morrision of Slinger, Wisconsin.

Kind and other killers like George Zimmerman are legally empowered by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Castle Doctrine Act model legislation that has been enacted across the nation.

In Florida, the Stand Your Ground law uses the same language as the Castle Doctrine Act, and both are pushed by ALEC, as reported in the Center for Media and Democracy.

ALEC is a front group run by several corperations, the Koch brothers and the NRA.

Sure, ALEC alum Scott Walker signed the Wisconsin ALEC Castle Doctrine bill into law, but he did so with a lot of Democratic support.

As reported by SourceWatch:

ALEC’s agenda extends into almost all areas of law. Its bills undermine environmental regulations and deny climate change; support school privatization; undercut health care reform; defund unions and limit their political influence; restrain legislatures’ abilities to raise revenue through taxes; mandate strict election laws that disenfranchise voters; increase incarceration to benefit the private prison industry, among many other issues. 

ALEC legislation is running wild in the states. Let's hope Democrats challenge this threat to democracy and life before someone else gets killed.

As Paul Krugman writes:

[L]anguage virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC’s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin’s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society — and our democracy. ...

What is ALEC? Despite claims that it’s nonpartisan, it’s very much a movement-conservative organization, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and so on. Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn’t just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 ALEC-written bills have been introduced, many almost word for word. And these bills often become law. ...

Yet that’s not all; you have to think about the interests of the penal-industrial complex — prison operators, bail-bond companies and more. (The American Bail Coalition has publicly described ALEC as its “life preserver.”) This complex has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and the prisons, whether it’s exaggerated fear of racial minorities or Arizona’s draconian immigration law, a law that followed an ALEC template almost verbatim.

Think about that: we seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from a larger prison population.

New Black Panthers vow to hunt for Trayvon Martin's killer

Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign kickoff speech
at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi

We need a presidential address to the nation on race and the license to kill now.

The rightwing and Republicans will groan, but on matters of race, sexism, sexuality (gays are possessed by demons, Pat Robertson) and equality generally they simply cannot be taken seriously anymore.

Commentary around the world instructs on the urgency of the moment.

RT (Russia Today) - A new development in the Trayvon Martin case could cause further pandemonium. This after The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense is calling for a militia of 5,000 black volunteers to help capture Trayvon’s murderer, George Zimmerman.

CNN - From coast to coast, protesters demand justice in Trayvon Martin case

Politiscoop - In Wisconsin, in the wake of the Bo Morrison-Castle Doctrine murder, victim Morrison's relatives are calling for peace, though the DA and police are covering up.

Midiaite -  Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Sinbad, say good people need to speak out.

Eugene Robinson - "The 'Stand Your Ground' laws in Florida and other states should all be repealed. At best, they are redundant. At worst, as in the Trayvon Martin killing, they are nothing but a license to kill."

President Barack Obama - "It is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this. … But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son he’d look like Trayvon. And I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves and get to the bottom of exactly what happened."

Newt Gingrich - President’s remarks are "disgraceful" ... Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot that would be ok because it didn’t? because it didn't look liked him?"

Forbes Josh Barro - "If conservatives keep letting Newt get away with these sorts of comments, why should they be taken seriously on issues relating to race?"

Adam Kind and George Zimmerman are killers.

Young black men being killed is fairly common.

It's past time for us to say, 'not in our name,' and repeal all Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine laws, modeled by the American Legislative Exchange Council, (ALEC) "the corporate-funded group that aligns special-interest organizations and corporate donors with pliable legislators," as John Nichols points out, using the research on ALEC conducted bythe Center for Media and Democracy.  See the July 2011 Special Report on ALEC's Funding and Spending by the Center for Media and Democracy for continuing updates.

The stakes are high.

Let's hope President Obama leads our country away from a path onto which we are quickly veering, towards a place where we will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last!

If we do not; Bo Morrison and Trayvon Martin are just the beginning.

Adam Kind of Slinger Is a Killer; Gov Candidate and Dem Sens Voted: Aye

Memorial Service for Bo Morrison

Update: Killer to Bo Morrison at approximately two minutes and thirty eight seconds into 911 call: "You stupid fucking kid." Nice.

Adam Kind is the admitted killer of 20-year-old Bo Morrison.

The killing by Adam Kind occurred in Slinger, Wisconsin, a village in Washington County, population: 3,901. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Vielmetti) and PoltiScoop (Tascoupe) have excellent reports.]

The Washington County DA ruled the killing by Adam Kind is justified under the controversial Wisconsin Castle Doctrine, passed 26-7 in the Wisconsin State Senate last November, including the votes of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, Spencer Coggs (D-Milwaukee), Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee), and Bob Wirch (D-Pleasant Prairie). Of course the State Assembly overwhelmingly voted for passage as well, 71-24. The Castle Doctrine is close to the Florida Stand Your Ground law that was the basis of killing young Treyvon Martin. Most states also have Castle Doctrine laws.

But we're not kidding our selves.

Life is cheap for Adam Kind, George Zimmerman, and apparently for the politicians like Kathleen Vinehout, Coggs, Taylor and Wirch, who one would believe know better.

Wonder if these folks are having second thoughts now about their votes. Giving legal permission, it turns out, to load 45-caliber pistols, aim and shoot trespassers results in death by bullet. Who knew?

A we-were-wrong statement from all legislators and Scott Walker is a good beginning. Somehow I do not think this is forthcoming. At last Democrats and Walker have found something in common: Never admit a mistake.

Take a close look at the deceased, young Bo Morrison at right, and surprise: He's black and the killer is white.

Well, a bunch of young, loud, likely obnoxious underage kids were drinking and maybe smoking pot at a party at 1:00 a.m., got scared and ran when the party was broken up.

One of the kids ran inside Adam 'the killer' Kind's porch to hide. Kind, who moments before was on the phone with the 911 operator and police, had confronted the kids in the drive-way next door who were partying too loudly, went back and decided he had no choice when he heard a "banging," but to load his gun and kill Bo Morrison.

This was a lawful killing. But among the rational, this was a murder.

"When police arrived, they found Morrison still crouched between the dresser and refrigerator [on the porch], but found a bullet hole in the wall 49 inches from the floor. Morrison had been shot through the heart and lung" (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). Have a look at the Journal-Sentinel's timeline and graphic.

Privatizing murder is not the way forward for Wisconsin or any civilized society.