Sergeant Testifies of Racist Cartoons of Blacks as Apes Posted at the San Diego Police Department in Discrimination Trial

Courthouse News

A San Diego Police sergeant’s testimony Tuesday in his discrimination case against his employer and the city made one thing clear: the case is about more than just a couple racist cartoons.

Sgt. Arthur Scott sued the San Diego Police Department in 2015 on claims of discrimination and retaliation stemming from incidents involving racist cartoons posted in a police department locker room, as well as a 1909 cartoon used during training.

Scott says in 2011, someone posted racist pictures in a police locker room that depicted President Barack Obama as an African chief with the word ‘Obamacare’ underneath. Scott complained to a supervising lieutenant who told him he was being “hyper sensitive.” Eventually the pictures were taken down but no one apparently knows who removed the pictures.

When Scott complained years later, in 2014, about a racist cartoon from a 1909 San Diego newspaper displayed at San Diego’s police museum and shown to officers during a training visit was when, Scott’s attorney Daniel Gilleon told jurors, the “wheels of retaliation began.”

The cartoon depicted San Diego’s first black police officer, Frank McCarter, as an ape and used racial slurs to describe Asian-Americans.

Scott said Tuesday while other higher-ups within the department agreed the image should not be shown during police training, the assistant police chief strongly disputed the cartoon was racist.

One day in September 2014, Scott told jurors, he was at San Diego Police Department headquarters participating in an interview panel to select field training officers. Scott said he passed by Assistant Chief Todd Jarvis’ office and thanked the chief for helping to secure raises and additional benefits for officers, when the conversation turned to the cartoon of McCarter displayed in the police museum.

Jarvis told Scott he wanted him to know he did not think the cartoon was racist. Scott adamantly disagreed with Jarvis’ take on the cartoon.

“I said ‘Well chief, I disagree, and I’m sure if Officer McCarter was alive today he’d agree that it wasn’t a real depiction of him,’” Scott said.

The conversation ended when Jarvis glared at Scott, the sergeant testified.

“It made me feel uncomfortable and I got a little scared I got the chief unhappy with me and he might come after me,” Scott said.

During that sergeant training visit to the San Diego Police Museum, Scott said he and his colleagues were shown pictures of many of the department’s “firsts,” including the first female police officer and first Latino officer. But when McCarter’s accomplishments were discussed during the visit, a racist cartoon was shown rather than an actual picture of the officer.

“When I saw it, I expected to see a real picture of Frank McCarter. I looked at it and thought, ‘Wow this isn’t Frank McCarter.’ I thought it was offensive and had no place in our training, especially for supervisors,” Scott said in noting the cartoon violated the department’s policy on offensive images.

Scott pointed out the cartoon wasn’t shown in the context of discussing racism within the department, but was shown to sergeants during a discussion about McCarter’s success at the department.

During his opening statements on Jan. 12, Scott’s attorney Gilleon told jurors: “Racism and retaliation within the ranks of the San Diego Police Department – that’s what this case is going to show – racism and retaliation against one of their own.”

Gilleon went on to read to jurors many of the high marks Scott received during performance reviews and commendations he’s received since joining the force in 2004.

Those evaluations included: “Scott was the first one in the field and last one at the end of his shift,” “was always on time and ready to work,” has “excellent leadership qualities and strives to increase job knowledge and expertise” and is an “asset to the department.”

He is still employed as a sergeant but was transferred from the Southeastern Division, where he served the neighborhood he grew up in, to the Central Division. Gilleon said the “unwanted transfer” was an adverse employment action taken after Scott spoke up about racism and discrimination in the department.

Scott currently serves as vice president of the San Diego Black Police Officers Association.

Gilleon said Scott “did his job well, by the book, by the letter of the law” and was selected as a field training officer to teach new officers how to do the job. The attorney said the police department itself “spoke very highly” of Scott until recently. Scott even received a recognition letter from the ethics and integrity deputy, Gilleon said.

The sergeant also teaches criminal justice courses at ITT Technical Institute and University of Phoenix.

Scott often took on leadership roles and served as acting sergeant before getting promoted to a permanent sergeant position in March 2013.

When Scott’s attorney James Mitchell questioned him Tuesday about how he took on leadership responsibilities, Scott said communication was very important in his goal to “effectively administer justice and have a service mentality.”

City Attorney George Schaeffer painted a different picture of Scott during his opening statements, saying Scott had failed to report a racial slur he heard an officer use against another officer. Scott also apparently received a one-day suspension for parking outside his house while on duty.

Schaeffer disputed whether Scott had really complained about the racist Obama posters, saying the lieutenant Scott says he reported the incident to does not remember discussing it with him.

While Schaeffer didn’t dispute the controversy over the McCarter cartoon, he said the cartoon has “historical significance” and the police museum got the blessing of the president of the Black Police Officers Association before displaying it.

Schaeffer disputed Scott’s claim he’s been passed up for promotions after complaining about racism in the department.

“You’re going to have to decide if you believe these people [police officials] or if there was some kind of conspiracy to deny Mr. Scott a promotion,” Schaeffer said.

Schaeffer said Scott was “offered a fresh start” in the new division after some officials with the Southeastern Division “had lost confidence in Sgt. Scott’s judgment.” He denied the move was an adverse employment action, saying “he’s doing amazing” and “the plan worked” in that he’s succeeding as a sergeant at the Central Division.

The trial is being presided over by San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright and is expected to continue through next week.

Feds Blast NYC Board of Elections for Purging Brooklyn Voters

Courthouse News

The Department of Justice is intervening in a lawsuit against New York City’s Board of Elections, claiming the board illegally purged more than 117,000 Brooklyn voters in the run up to last April’s presidential primary.

Common Cause New York, a grassroots group focused on government accountability, filed suit against the Board of Elections on November 3 to restore the registration of Brooklyn residents who were removed from voter rolls solely because they had failed to vote in past elections or respond to notices confirming their eligibility.

In a brief filed Thursday in the Eastern District of New York, the U.S. government says the board violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and that without intervention their lax oversight of voter list maintenance procedures could lead to similar problems in the future.

“Unless and until ordered to do so by this Court, the Defendants will not take timely and comprehensive actions necessary to fully remedy the violations and prevent the same or similar violations from recurring,” government attorneys wrote in the brief.

Section 8 of the NVRA allows a state to remove voters from registration lists based on reliable information that the voter has moved, but first it must send a confirmation notice to the voter’s home and allow two federal general elections to pass.

The Board of Elections failed to follow these steps, according to the brief, improperly dropping thousands of Brooklyn voters between November 2015 and April 2016.

“Federal law demands careful maintenance of the voter rolls to ensure lists are kept accurate, without unjustifiably and unlawfully purging eligible citizens,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a press release. “The department appreciates the continued cooperation of the New York City Board of Elections, including proactive steps taken to start remedying violations that have occurred – but more is necessary to reach full compliance with the law.”

The federal government seeks a declaration that the Board of Elections violated Section 8 of the NVRA and an order that it comply with the law.

Common Cause New York and the Board of Elections did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

Trump Campaign Made A Deal With Sinclair Broadcasting For “Straighter Coverage” During Election

Media Matters

Donald Trump’s campaign made a deal with Sinclair Broadcasting Group for more favorable media coverage during the election, adding to the growing lists of conflicts between Trump and the media.

President-elect Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a key member of his transition team, “struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage” for Trump in exchange for “more access to Trump and the campaign,” according to Politico.

On December 16 Politico reported Sinclair Broadcast Group promised Kushner they “would broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary” using their “television stations across the country in many swing states.” Scott Livingston, vice president of news at Sinclair, claimed the deal was aimed at “hear[ing] more directly from candidate on the issue instead of hearing all the spin and all the rhetoric”:

Donald Trump's campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage, his son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives Friday in Manhattan.

Kushner said the agreement with Sinclair, which owns television stations across the country in many swing states and often packages news for their affiliates to run, gave them more access to Trump and the campaign, according to six people who heard his remarks.

In exchange, Sinclair would broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary, Kushner said. Kushner highlighted that Sinclair, in states like Ohio, reaches a much wider audience — around 250,000 listeners — than networks like CNN, which reach somewhere around 30,000.

[...]

“Our promise was to give all candidates an opportunity to voice their position share their position with our viewers. Certainly we presented an opportunity so that Mr. Trump could clearly state his position on the key issues,” Livingston said. “Our commitment to our viewers is to go beyond podium, beyond the rhetoric. We’re all about tracking the truth and telling the truth and that’s typically missing in most political coverage.”

A Trump spokesman said the deal included the interviews running across every affiliate but that no money was exchanged between the network and the campaign. The spokesman said the campaign also worked with other media outlets that had affiliates, like Hearst, to try and spread their message.

“It was a standard package, but an extended package, extended story where you’d hear more directly from candidate on the issue instead of hearing all the spin and all the rhetoric,” Livingston said.

[...]

Sinclair, a Maryland based company, has been labeled in some reports as a conservative leaning local news network. Local stations in the past have been directed to air “must run” stories produced by Sinclair’s Washington bureau that were generally critical of the Barack Obama administration and offered perspectives primarily from conservative think tanks, the Washington Post reported in 2014.

During the campaign, Donald Trump’s campaign treated the press with unprecedented hostility. As president-elect, he is using media allies like Fox’s Sean Hannity to build support for keeping the mainstream press out of Trump’s way.

Kushner’s deal with Sinclair Broadcasting Group, an organization with proven right-wing leanings, reveals yet another way the Trump campaign manipulated national and local media to stem the tide of disastrous coverage from Trump’s myriad scandals.

With Only a Few Days Left in Office, President Obama Announces 209 More Commutations

NACDL 

Today, President Obama announced 209 grants of commutation. Of today's 209 grants, 100 were in cases supported by Clemency Project 2014. That brings the total number of commutations granted by President Obama thus far to 1,385, of which 705 were supported by Clemency Project 2014.

"President Obama has again used commutation to reunite families. We are grateful to President Obama, and we are hopeful for more commutations in his final days in office," said Cynthia W. Roseberry, project manager for Clemency Project 2014.

Clemency Project 2014, an unprecedented, wholly independent effort by the nation's bar, has recruited and trained nearly 4,000 volunteer lawyers from diverse practice backgrounds and completed screening of the more than 36,000 federal prisoners who requested volunteer assistance. The Project's painstaking review of these cases revealed that the overwhelming majority of those requests were by applicants who did not meet the criteria put forward by the Department of Justice in April 2014. To date, Clemency Project 2014 has submitted nearly 2,600 petitions to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. [MORE]

Penthouse Offers $1 Million For Compromising Urination Trump Tapes

IBNTimes

Adult magazine Penthouse has received three claims for its $1 million offer to anyone who could provide real tapes of President-elect Donald Trump’s alleged and unproven sexual escapades at the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow, the publication’s editor exclusively revealed to International Business Times Thursday.

Penthouse editor Raphie Aronowitz said the magazine isn’t conducting a “witch hunt,” but wants to prove whether the allegations against Trump are true. Aronowitz said the lucrative offer falls in line with the magazine’s well-established brand, though to his knowledge Penthouse has never made such an exorbitant offer before.

“If the story is real, which we don’t know if it is or not, it really kind of hits at the intersection between politics, scandal and sex, which as a brand both historically and currently is our sweet spot,” Aronowitz said in a phone interview.

He also said the advent and effect of “fake news” – articles containing false or inaccurate information spread by social media sites that many have credited with helping Trump win the Oval Office, including President Barack Obama - played a role in the offer.

“For us, this was the type of story that we wanted to jump all over. But at the same time there’s been so much floating around - as far as fake news stories – there have been so many people who have just been taking shots at President-elect Donald Trump because he’s an easy target, and we as a brand and as an informational source, we didn’t want to jump on the bandwagon,” Aronowitz said. “We wanted to make sure this story could be verified, that the murmurings of their being actual video documentation that corroborates the allegations, do exist. For us, this was a very real ask, which is just ‘Give us some facts, and let us share the real story with our readers and with the public.’”

Aronowitz’s comments fell in line with the statement released by Penthouse Global Media CEO Kelly Holland following the offer’s announcement Tuesday on Twitter. The magazine, best known for publishing pornography, offered $1 million for exclusive rights to videos proving the allegations against Trump. 

Arnowitz said Penthouse, which has published controversial documents and interviews in the past, has not received physical tapes or video files but individuals have responded to the offer via email and its customer help line.

Should Penthouse receive a tape or file, Aronowitz said it will then turn it over to experts formerly affiliated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation – how they were affiliated Aronowitz would not explain – in order to authenticate it. Aronowitz said he hoped to see a video by the end of the week but that there is no set time frame or deadline.

Christopher Steele, Ex-British Intelligence Officer, Said to Have Prepared Dossier on Trump

Wall Street Journal  [PDF]

Former spy is director of London-based Orbis Intelligence Ltd.

A former British intelligence officer who is now a director of a private security- and-investigations firm has been identified as the author of the dossier of unverified allegations about President-elect Donald Trump’s activities and connections in Russia, people familiar with the matter say.

Christopher Steele, a director of London-based Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd., prepared the dossier, the people said. The document alleges that the Kremlin colluded with Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and claims that Russian officials have compromising evidence of Mr. Trump’s behavior that could be used to blackmail him. Mr. Trump has dismissed the dossier’s contents as false and Russia has denied the claims.

Mr. Steele, 52 years old, is one of two directors of the firm, along with Christopher Burrows, 58.

Mr. Burrows, reached at his home outside London on Wednesday, said he wouldn’t “confirm or deny” that Orbis had produced the report. A neighbor of Mr. Steele’s said Mr. Steele said he would be away for a few days. In previous weeks Mr. Steele has declined repeated requests for interviews through an intermediary, who said the subject was “too hot.”

A LinkedIn profile in Mr. Burrows’s name says he was a counselor in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with foreign postings in Brussels and New Delhi in the 2000s. The Foreign Office declined to comment. A LinkedIn profile for Mr. Steele doesn’t give specifics about his career. Intelligence officers often use diplomatic postings as cover for their espionage activities.

Orbis Business Intelligence was formed in 2009 by former British intelligence professionals, it says on its website. U.K. corporate records say Orbis is owned by another company that in turn is jointly owned by Messrs. Steele and Burrows. It occupies offices in a building overlooking Grosvenor Gardens in London’s high- end Belgravia neighborhood.

The firm relies on a “global network” of experts and business leaders to provide clients with strategic advice, mount “intelligence-gathering operations” and conduct “complex, often cross-border investigations,” its website says.

The dossier consists of a series of unsigned memos that appear to have been written between June and December 2016. Beyond creating the document, Mr. Steele also devised a plan to get the information to law-enforcement officials in the U.S. and Europe, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“We have no political ax to grind,” Mr. Burrows said, speaking about corporate- intelligence work in general terms. He said when clients asked a firm like Orbis to investigate something, you “see what’s out there” first and later “stress test” your findings against other evidence.

No presidential campaigns or super PACs reported payments to Orbis in their required Federal Election Commission filings. But several super PACs over the course of the campaign reported that they paid limited liability companies, whose ultimate owners may be difficult or impossible to discern.

The dossier’s emergence—it was published online and widely circulated Tuesday—has generated a firestorm less than 10 days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. U.S. officials have examined the allegations but haven’t confirmed any of them. The Wall Street Journal also hasn’t corroborated any of the allegations in the dossier.

“It’s all fake news,” Mr. Trump said in a news conference Wednesday. “It’s all phony stuff. It didn’t happen.”

The dossier contains lurid and hard-to-prove allegations. The FBI has found no evidence, for example, supporting the dossier’s claim that an attorney for Mr. Trump went to the Czech Republic to meet Kremlin officials, U.S. officials said. The attorney has also denied the claim.

The author of the report had a good reputation in the intelligence world and was stationed in Russia for years, said John Sipher, who retired in 2014 after 28 years in the CIA’s clandestine service, where he specialized in Russia and counterintelligence. Mr. Sipher is now director of client services at CrossLead Inc., a Washington-based technology company set up by retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Private-intelligence firms like Orbis have a growing presence. Major corporations use them to conduct due diligence on potential business partners in risky areas, but quality control can be loose when it comes to high-level political intrigue, executives of private intelligence companies say.

When government intelligence agencies produce clandestine political reports, they often include thick sections about sources, possible motivations behind their information and the methods used to approach them. Such background helps decision makers determine how reliable the information is.

Andrew Wordsworth, co-founder of London-based investigations firm Raedas, who often works on Russian issues, said the memos in the Trump dossier were “not convincing at all.”

“It’s just way too good,” he said. “If the head of the CIA were to declare he got information of this quality, you wouldn’t believe it.”

Mr. Wordsworth said it wouldn’t make sense for Russian intelligence officials to expose state secrets to a former MI6 officer. “Russians believe once you are an agent, you’re an agent forever,” he said. [MORE]

Intelligence Reports Claim Trump Hated the Obamas So Much That He Defiled their Hotel Bed by having Hookers Urinate on it

Buzzfeed

A dossier, compiled by a person who has claimed to be a former British intelligence official, alleges Russia has compromising information on Trump. The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors.

A dossier making explosive — but unverified — allegations that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks.

The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump.

Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.

One such compromising allegation is the following which states, 

3. However, there were other aspects to TRUMP's engagement with the Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit personal obsessions and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable 'kompromat' [compromising material] on him. According to Source D, where s/he had been present, (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA {whom he hated] had stayed on one other official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.

4. The Moscow Ritz Carlton episode involving TRUMP reported above was confirmed by Source E, [about six words redacted] who said that s/he and several of the staff were aware of it at time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source E provided an introduction for a company ethnic Russian operative to Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story. Speaking separately in June 2016, Source B [the former top level Russian intelligence officer) asserted that TRUMP's unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years had provided the authorities there with enough embarrassing material on the now Republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished. [MORE]

Read it for yourself [HERE], [HERE] and [HERE] 

Dread Scott: "Trump is a Facist"

Pressure on Liar Trump to keep campaign promises [lies] made to voters who wanted to be deceived

DL Hughley says "Fuck Trump"

The Bizarre Far-Right Billionaire Behind Trump's Presidency

Feds will retry ex-Sheriff Lee Baca on corruption charges

Daily News

Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca will be retried on federal corruption charges that stem from his alleged involvement in trying to thwart an investigation into inmate abuse within Men’s Central Jail, prosecutors announced in court Tuesday.

The announcement came about three weeks after a six-man, six-woman jury deadlocked on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice against the 74-year-old Baca.

U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson declared a mistrial last month after learning that jurors were split 11-1 in favor of acquitting Baca.

Federal prosecutor Brandon Fox said Tuesday the government would like to try Baca again on three counts, the charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct as well as a third charge for allegedly making false statements.

Anderson ruled earlier last year to allow a separate trial to be held for the third charge. He agreed with prosecutors that testimony from a defense expert who is expected to say Baca was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease while being investigated would result in juror confusion and unfair prejudice to the government because Baca would appear sympathetic.

end articleparagraph1.pbo start articleparagraph1.pbo

Prosectors backed away from that argument on Tuesday, saying they are willing to move forward and take a risk on trying him on all three charges at once.

“We understand the prejudice,” Fox told Anderson. “We may suffer from the prejudice. We’re prepared to move forward.”

About 30 witnesses testified during the nearly two-week trial in downtown Los Angeles in December, when the jury heard prosecutors argue that Baca tried to hinder an FBI investigation in 2011 into inmate abuse at the Men’s Central Jail by hiding an informant and threatening a federal agent.

Baca’s defense team rebutted those claims, saying that the former sheriff knew nothing of the plan to derail the investigation but instead was open to improving conditions for inmates. Both sides repeated those themes throughout their lengthy closing arguments.

Last summer, federal prosecutors had no intention of putting Baca on trial on conspiracy charges. Instead, they had negotiated a plea deal with the retired sheriff. He pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators, and that admission would have included a six-month jail sentence. The plea was rejected by Anderson, who had presided over the convictions of about a dozen of Baca’s former deputies and Undersheriff Paul Tanaka. [MORE]

Baltimore & [the Appearance of] Justice Department Reach Agreement on a Consent Decree

From [HERE] A spokesman for Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh says the city and the U.S. Justice Department have reached agreement on a consent decree that will require the city to reform its police department.

“Negotiations are done,” Anthony McCarthy said Wednesday. “The final document has gone to the principals” to be signed.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch is expected to speak on community policing Thursday at the University of Baltimore Law School, as well as meet with community members, law enforcement and other local officials.

At a news conference before McCarthy spoke, Pugh stopped short of confirming that an announcement would be made Thursday, but said the city is “very very close” to finalizing the agreement.

“We are going to get it done,” she said.

The Justice Department opened a formal investigation of the department’s patterns and practices after the death in police custody of a 25-year-old black man, Freddie Gray. Six police officers were charged but none were convicted in the arrest and death of Gray, whose neck was severed inside a police van.

The Justice Department opened similar investigations into about two dozen local law enforcement agencies under President Obama, including Albuquerque, New Mexico; Chicago; Cleveland and Ferguson, Missouri.

In Baltimore, one of the largest departments to come under such scrutiny, the city agreed to enter into a binding consent decree when a Justice Department report released in August found pervasive civil rights violations by the police department.

The report found that officers routinely used excessive force, discriminated against African-Americans and made unlawful arrests. It found that officers stop large numbers of people - mostly in poor, black neighborhoods - with dubious justification and unlawfully arrest citizens for merely speaking in ways police deem disrespectful.

It also found that physical force was often used unnecessarily, including against the mentally disabled, and that black pedestrians and drivers were searched more often than people of other races.

It also identified serious training deficiencies, accusing the department of “systemic failures” that violated the Constitution and the rights of citizens.

The federal investigation found that blacks accounted for 95 percent of the people stopped at least 10 times by Baltimore police, and roughly 84 percent of all pedestrian stops, between 2010 and 2015. Some individual black residents were stopped 30 times or more.

The report also said officers use unreasonable and excessive force, including against juveniles and civilians who aren’t dangerous or pose an immediate threat. Force is often used as a retaliatory tactic in instances where officers “did not like what those individuals said,” the report concluded.

The details of the agreement have not been made public, but will likely mandate reforms to the way officers handle sexual assault complaints and how they respond to juveniles and individuals suffering from mental illness. The agreement also will likely outline new requirements for training officers and ensuring oversight.

The police department has already begun addressing some issues outlined in the report and equipped officers in the field with body cameras.

Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said Tuesday that officers are now required to undergo 80 hours of in-service training - twice the time required by the state - and that new technology will ensure that officers receive, review and understand rules and policies.

Cory Booker takes stage to rail against Jeff Sessions nomination

CNN

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker gave an impassioned and unprecedented plea to the Senate on Wednesday to vote against Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general and his fellow senator, Jeff Sessions.

Booker, civil rights legend Georgia Rep. John Lewis and Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Cedric Richmond each delivered emotional testimony that Sessions' record on civil rights disqualifies him from serving atop the Justice Department under President-elect Trump.

"The arc of the moral universe does not just naturally curve toward justice, we must bend it," Booker said. "America needs an attorney general who is resolute and determined to bend the arc. Sen. Sessions record does not speak to that desire, intention or will."

Booker became the first sitting senator to testify against a fellow sitting senator at a confirmation hearing for a Cabinet position. His panel with other lawmakers and supporters of Sessions was added to the hearings at the request of the top Democrat on the committee, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, though Democrats criticized Chairman Chuck Grassley for scheduling the members of Congress at the end of all proceedings. [MORE]

Texas Exoneration Review Commission calls for electronic recording of interrogations

Houston Chron

Texas tops the country with 229 wrongful convictions that led to exonerations in the last 25 years, an issue lawmakers are expected to take up when they meet next month.