Dozens of Staffers Just Walked Out of Congress. This Powerful Picture Shows Why.

On Thursday afternoon, dozens of congressional staffers walked out in protest of the recent grand jury decisions failing to indict the two officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The result was an incredible display of solidarity, with staffers raising their hands in the air to invoke Brown's "hands up, don't shoot" image.

Prosecutor Manipulates Grand Jury Process to Shield Officer

You know the fix is in when a suspect who shot an unarmed man voluntarily provides four hours of un-cross examined testimony to a grand jury without taking the Fifth.

On August 9, Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson gunned down 18-year-old African American Michael Brown. Since that fateful day, people across the country have protested against racial profiling, excessive police force, and the failure of the criminal justice system to provide accountability.

The nail in the coffin of "equal justice under law" came on November 24, when the St. Louis County grand jury refused to indict Wilson for any criminal charges in the shooting death of Brown. In a virtually unprecedented move, St. Louis Prosecutor Robert McCulloch in effect deputized the grand jurors to sit as triers of fact as in a jury trial.

In a normal grand jury proceeding, the prosecutor presents evidence for a few days and then asks the grand jurors to return an indictment, which they nearly always do. Of 162,000 federal cases in 2010, grand juries failed to indict in only 11 of them, according the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The standard of proof for a grand jury to indict is only probable cause to believe the suspect committed a crime. It is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is required for conviction at trial. Yet McCulloch's team presented testimony and documents to the panel for three months, evidence not subjected to adversarial testing by cross-examination.

Justice Antonin Scalia explained the function of the grand jury in United States v. Williams as follows:

Republican Candidate Gets Purged From Voter Rolls In Arkansas Because Of GOP Voter Suppression Laws

The Republican Party is throwing a temper tantrum after one of their own candidates was purged from the Arkansas voter rolls, and they only have themselves to blame.

Leslie Rutledge is the GOP candidate in the race to become Arkansas’ next Attorney General. Well, she used to be anyway. As it turns out, the state constitution requires candidates for public office to be registered voters, but because of voter suppression laws passed by the GOP, Rutledge has not only been disqualified as a voter, she could be disqualified as a candidate because of it.

Pulaski County Clerk Larry Crane booted Rutledge’s name off the voter rolls because she failed to follow proper procedure. She failed to cancel previous registrations in Washington DC and Virginia before she moved to Pulaski County, where she failed to re-register to vote.

Of course, this caused Republicans to accuse Crane, a Democrat, of engaging in “dirty tricks,” but Crane says he was legally bound to remove Rutledge’s name from the rolls after receiving a letter about the issue of her registration.

Rutledge isn’t the only person in Arkansas to be tossed from the voter pool. Thousands of Arkansas voters have faced the same treatment. They’ve been thrown off the voter rolls, interrogated about their personal information, and had their legal vote discarded entirely due to restrictive anti-voting measures passed by Republicans. But because their own laws are affecting one of their own, only now are they upset. In fact, Republicans are so pissed that karma came back to bite them in the ass that they’re complaining about a tactic that they themselves have defended ruthlessly for months across the country. In short, they’re being hypocrites.

The chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Association decided to defend Rutledge by whining about her being “systematically removed from voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election.” He also claimed that Democrats were responsible for this voter suppression.

The fact is that it is a clear and unmistakable attempt at the most harmful kind of voter suppression in violation of federal law – removing a qualified female voter from the rolls notwithstanding her valid registration and actual votes in the last 4 elections in violation of her civil rights. Democrats should be embarrassed.

Democrats, however, are not the ones who have pushed voter suppression laws in states around the nation. The Republicans did that. Where were they when citizens who have been voting for decades were denied their right to vote because of the laws they themselves passed? Oh, that’s right, they didn’t give a damn because the laws they passed are supposed to target Democratic voters, not Republican voters.

But in this case, the voter suppression laws enacted by the GOP not only affected a Republican voter, it took down a Republican candidacy. And now they’re throwing a fit and accusing Democrats of voter suppression. Unfortunately for the GOP, Democrats are not to blame for their own misfortune. They already know who the true culprit is, all they have to do is look in a mirror.

Racist Who Terrorized Disabled Black Kids and Their Mother Forced to Wear ‘I’m a Bully’ Sign

A despicable racist has been sentenced to an unusual punishment in a suburb of Cleveland. 62-year-old Edmond Aviv was ordered to hold a sign that says in part, “I’m a Bully” at a busy intersection this weekend. Mr. Aviv has been accused of harassing his neighbor of more than ten years, Sandra Prugh.

He allegedly called Ms. Prugh “Monkey Mama” as she held her disabled, African-American adopted children. He has also spit on her and smeared dog feces on the children’s wheelchair ramp and on their car windows. His record also includes trying to run down the wheelchair-bound kids, blaring loud music at their house, and shining spotlights in their windows at all hours of the night.

South Euclid Municipal Court Judge Gayle Williams-Byers handed down the sentence after Aviv pleaded no contest to charges of fourth-degree disorderly conduct last month. He will be spending this Sunday, April 13th sporting the sandwich board. The sign and its lettering must be large enough to be read from 25 ft. away and must say:

“I AM A BULLY! I pick on children that are disabled, and I am intolerant of those that are different from myself. My actions do not reflect an appreciation for the diverse South Euclid community that I live in.”

If this seems humiliating, but still not harsh enough for this horrible creep, not to worry. The sentence also includes 15 days in jail, seven months’ probation, 100 hours of community service, anger management classes and mental-health counseling. He will also be required to publish a letter of apology to Prugh in a local paper.

Moral March on Raleigh draws tens of thousands

Protesting against the regressive laws passed by extremists in the General Assembly last year, upwards of 80,000 people marched on the state capitol Saturday morning, according to the march’s logistics and planning experts. Called the Moral March on Raleigh, the event’s multiracial, inter-generational crowd also advanced an agenda for moral and constitutional public policy.

Convened by the North Carolina NAACP and more than 160 partner organizations in the Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) People’s Coalition, the march was the largest gathering in the South since the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. It also marked the eighth annual convening of the HKonJ People’s Coalition, bringing together diverse voices from the civil rights, faith-based, labor, student, women’s rights, environmental protection, LGBT and immigrant justice communities.

“We are black, white, Latino, Native American,” said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, president of the NC NAACP and convener of HKonJ. “We are Democrat, Republican, independent. We are people of all faiths, and people not of faith but who believe in a moral universe. We are natives and immigrants, business leaders and workers and unemployed, doctors and the uninsured, gay and straight, students and parents and retirees. We stand here–a quilt of many colors, faiths, and creeds.”

This year’s assembly built off momentum that the Forward Together Moral Movement set in motion last year with more than 30 “Moral Mondays” demonstrations against the General Assembly’s regressive agenda.

“Every major faith tradition lifts up the high standard of justice,” said Dr. Barber, further citing the U.S. and North Carolina State Constitutions for underscoring government that is vested in the good of the whole. “When we look at these high standards for North Carolina and for America, we must declare there are those who have chosen to live, govern, and act mighty low. In policy and politics, we face two choices: One is the low road to destruction, and the other is a pathway to higher ground.

… Those of us who love freedom and justice are being called to take this state and nation from the low lands of injustice and division to higher ground.”

To get there, the NC NAACP has designed a “5-M” grassroots mobilization plan to motivate every citizen to fight against these extremist policies; meet every challenge to suppress the right to vote; mobilize all North Carolinians to the polls regardless of party affiliation; make every effort to fight in the courts against voter suppression and for the restoration of the Voting Rights Act; and move every obstacle that could keep people from voting.

Here's A 5-Minute Video That'll Make You Rethink Our Entire News Media Circus

Thank goodness for the people behind these smartphones and cameras because otherwise ... well, without them, who would know that these things are happening?

WARNING: Some violent/graphic content is shown.

Looks Good on Her