13th amend

<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 10 22</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Residents of Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont will vote on referenda in the November midterm elections to remove slavery loopholes from their states' constitutions, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterms-13th-amendment-slavery-4a0341cf82fa33942bda6a5d17ac4348?utm_source=hubpage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_02" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the Associated Press reported on Thursday</a>.AP noted that "nearly 20 states have constitutions that include language permitting slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishments. In 2018, Colorado was the first to remove the language from its founding frameworks by ballot measure, followed by Nebraska and Utah two years later."The outlet explained that "the effort is part of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/or-state-wire-race-and-ethnicity-lifestyle-juneteenth-963c58a1a19ba501f5677343b9c786e0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a national push</a> to amend the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">13th Amendment</a> to the United States Constitution that banned enslavement or involuntary servitude except as a form of criminal punishment. That exception has long permitted the exploitation of labor by convicted felons."READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/white-men-silver-stake-democracy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="self" title="view post: White men refusing to share power is a silver stake piercing the heart of American democracy" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">White men refusing to share power is a silver stake piercing the heart of American democracy</a>Prisoners are frequently forced into performing labor for little to no money and can face severe consequences if they refuse to cooperate.Nonetheless, each state has its own objectives, although there is some overlap between them. Per AP:Alabama is asking voters to delete all racist language from its constitution and to remove and replace a section on convict labor that’s similar to what Tennessee has had in its constitution.Vermont often boasts of being the first state in the nation to ban slavery in 1777, but its constitution still allows involuntary servitude in a handful of circumstances. Its proposed change would replace the current exception clause with language saying 'slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited in this State.'Oregon’s proposed change repeals its exception clause while adding language allowing a court or probation or parole agency to order alternatives to incarceration as part of sentencing.Louisiana is the only state so far to have its proposed amendment draw organized opposition, over concerns that the replacement language may make matters worse. Even one of its original sponsors has second thoughts — Democratic Representative Edmond Jordan told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate last week that he’s urging voters to reject it.AP pointed out that Louisiana's constitution currently states that “slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, except in the latter case as punishment for a crime.” The proposed changes would read: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, (but this) does not apply to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice.”But its proponents argue that Jordan's perspective is part of a push to maintain the status quo.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/commitment-to-america-solution-problem/" target="self" title="view post: The GOP's 'Commitment to America' contains Confederate solutions to made-up problems" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The GOP's 'Commitment to America' contains Confederate solutions to made-up problems</a>Max Parthas, state operations director for the Abolish Slavery National Network, told AP that "if this doesn’t pass, it will be used as a weapon against us." He also stressed that "we’ve never seen a single day in the United States where slavery was not legal" and that "we want to see what that looks like and I think that’s worth it.”Section I of the 13th Amendment decrees that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."That wording has long been a source of anger among civil rights activists and supporters of criminal justice reform. In 2020, Democrats in the House and Senate introduced a <a href="https://www.merkley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/The%20Abolition%20Amendment%20Text.pdf" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">joint resolution</a> called the "<a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/942413221/democrats-push-abolition-amendment-to-fully-erase-slavery-from-u-s-constitution" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Abolition Amendment</a>" aimed at eliminating the "punishment" clause.Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), who co-sponsored the Senate version of the proposal along with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), said in a statement at the time that "as we take on the long and difficult challenge of rooting out systemic racism in our nation, ending the slavery loophole in the 13th Amendment is [a] critical step in that challenge." He added that "slavery is our nation's original sin and this loophole has been exploited for far too long to criminalize Black and Brown Americans."Leading the House coalition, then-Representative Lacy Clay (D-Missouri) said that Congress needs to "finish the job that President [Abraham] Lincoln started" and that "no American should ever be subject to involuntary servitude, even if they are incarcerated."READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/ron-desantis-2658332899/" target="self" title="view post: 'Goes beyond ignorance' Historians slam DeSantis' claims about American slavery" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Goes beyond ignorance' Historians slam DeSantis' claims about American slavery</a></div><div style="font-size: small;"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;">=</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/09/23/facebook-sued-over-kenosha-killings/">https://theintercept.com/2020/09/23/facebook-sued-over-kenosha-killings/</a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;">WHEN 17-YEAR-OLD Kyle Rittenhouse killed two Black Lives Matter protesters (and wounded a third) in late August in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he instantly became a hero among white nationalist circles, in which the Second Amendment is sacrosanct.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;">
</div><div data-reactid="217" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px;">On Wednesday, Rittenhouse and the members of the armed militias that supported him, including the Kenosha Guard and Boogaloo Bois, were named in a federal lawsuit brought under the post-Civil War Reconstruction amendments that aimed to establish Black equality.The suit also names what it alleges was the militia groups’s most prominent enabler: Facebook. All of the parties, the complaint contends, helped deprive Kenosha Black Lives Matter protesters of their First Amendment right to assemble, thus violating the Black Lives Matter activists’ 14th Amendment right to equal protection.attorneys Jason Flores-Williams and Jennifer Sirrine filed the case in the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin, which covers Kenosha. Along with a handful of protesters harassed by the militia groups, the plaintiffs include Hannah Giddings, the life partner of 26-year-old Anthony Huber, who was gunned down by Rittenhouse while trying to disarm the teenager.</div><div data-reactid="228" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px;">According to the complaint, the Kenosha Guard, Boogaloo Bois, and Facebook all partook in a conspiracy that resulted in Huber’s death (thus causing harm to Giddings) and deprived the other plaintiffs of their ability to peacefully protest.Both the First and 13th amendment stipulations were key to Griffin v. Breckenridge, a U.S. Supreme Court case that was decided in 1971 and is cited in the complaint. That case concerned the right to travel, which is also an issue in the Kenosha protests. Some of the plaintiffs had their tires slashed and were otherwise impeded.The 14th Amendment provided the constitutional basis for federal statutes §1985 and §1986, which prohibit interference by private groups with other’s exercise of their rights. Established under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, the statutes were <a href="https://virginialawreview.org/volumes/content/when-white-supremacists-invade-city" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">recently applied</a> in the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacist protest in 2017.</div><a class="InstreamPromo InstreamPromo--promo" href="https://theintercept.com/collections/protests-for-black-lives/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); display: block; font-size: 20px; margin: 40px 0px 40px -20px; padding: 20px 0px; width: auto !important;">
<span class="InstreamPromo-text-callout" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; display: block; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 5px; text-transform: capitalize;">Read Our Complete CoverageProtests for Black Lives</a><div data-reactid="230" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px;">In order to recruit foot soldiers for the August 25 protest, the Kenosha Guard created an event page on its Facebook account. Titled “Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property,” the posting summoned “patriots willing to take up arms … and defend our City from the evil thugs.”Over 450 Facebook users alerted the platform’s moderators that the Guard’s violent rhetoric violated the company’s policies. According to BuzzFeed News, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/kenosha-militia-facebook-reported-455-times-moderators" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">four Facebook moderators</a> deemed the Guard’s posts “non-threatening.”In Flores-Williams’s view, Facebook’s actions subsequent to the event — shutting down the Guard’s account and admitting to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called an “operational mistake” in not heeding the 450 warnings — amounted to a recognition it behaved with negligence.“Facebook’s negligence enabled the conspiracy here,” said Flores-Williams. He maintains that “this is not a First Amendment issue. It’s a matter of responsibility on the part of Facebook.”“I would love to see Facebook change their moderation policies and for them to take accountability. One way to do that would be for them to make the moderators work directly for the company instead of <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/18/facebook-moderator-ptsd-settlement-accenture/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">outsourcing</a> them,” added Sirrine.Citing the likelihood of voter intimidation by armed militias on Election Day, and the possibility that those same groups may try to keep Donald Trump in the White House should he lose in November, Flores-Williams hopes that the action in federal court will send the company a message.“If Facebook won’t change their M.O.,” he said, “then a judge needs to tell them to enforce their own standards and stop allowing violent groups to use their site as a recruiting station.”A Facebook spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;">=</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/architects-behind-violence-charlottesville-may-have-doomed-alt-right" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/architects-behind-violence-charlottesville-may-have-doomed-alt-right</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the biggest cases of the year isn’t before the Supreme Court; it doesn’t involve an adult film star, corrupt operatives, Russia, or the president. It pits celebrities of a different type against one another: superstar litigators Karen Dunn and Roberta Kaplan—who argued the landmark gay rights case United States v. Windsor—are taking on ignominious white supremacist Richard Spencer and 24 of his ilk who planned, executed, and celebrated the Charlottesville riots together.</div>Funded by <a href="https://www.integrityfirstforamerica.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Integrity First for America</a>, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to defending democratic principles, the suit charges the defendants with <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1985" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">conspiracy to deprive plaintiffs of their civil rights</a> and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1986" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">failing to stop </a>the anti-civil rights conspiracy under federal law.The two federal provisions under which Kaplan is bringing suit were Congress’s attempt at codifying the 13th Amendment. That’s a little unusual: The 13th Amendment was passed to end slavery and interpreted by the courts to extend to “the badges of slavery.” Today, it’s rarely invoked.<div id="TeadsNative" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When I spoke to Kaplan in February, a month-and-a-half after the amended complaint was filed, I asked her about her choice of charges. She pointed out that the deprivation of rights in Charlottesville did center on race. Echoing my gut reaction, she commented, “No one would think we’d be litigating the 13th Amendment anymore in 2018.”The complaint includes an even wider-reaching set of charges under Virginia law. It’s not just the array of charges that makes the case a sizable undertaking. “Not just the size of the conspiracy and the complexity of the story,” Kaplan points out, “but the massive cost because of who the opponents are.” The case against the white nationalists comes down to three points:<ol><li>  They planned to do this.</li><li>  They did it.</li><li>  They celebrated successfully doing this.</li></ol>There’s extensive evidence of planning, irrefutable multi-media documentation of the rally and its sequelae, and an abundance of proof of the celebrations that followed. Though portrayed some places as a case about incitement, it’s not. Rather, as Kaplan says, “it’s all in the family.” The defendants allegedly conspired with one another and with one another’s groups to commit violence.The defendants’ first-line defense, as I noted before, is the First Amendment. They’re claiming they were just exercising their rights to free speech, association, and assembly. I stand by my comparison: It’s about as viable as Ocean’s Eleven asserting a First Amendment defense to conspiracy charges.Their second-order defense was no better; in fact, it wasn’t really based in law at all.Essentially, they claim the lawsuit is part of a scheme to oppress white supremacists and hate-minded compatriots.Lately, they’ve been pushing a self-defense defense. "It's become clear that part of their defense in the case was going to be, 'This is all self-defense,'" Dunn told <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/talalansari/lawsuit-charlottesville-violence" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">BuzzFeed</a>. As with their planning, execution, and celebration, however, the defendants left ample evidence of their intent to falsely claim self-defense. The parties are currently waiting on the outcome of a May 24 hearing: The defendants have made a number of motions to dismiss. None appear viable, thanks in part to the embarrassment of evidence against the defendants. But, in a way, this is a critical juncture, if you recognize the significance of discovery in this case. As I <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/13/1740995/-The-Charlottesville-lawsuit-that-could-take-down-the-alt-rightv" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">wrote in February</a>, this suit could expose the far-right’s structures, networks, and funding streams. If Kaplan and Dunn win the case altogether, their victory will do more than set back this particular iteration of the far-right. They’re seeking a declaration from the court that the defendants’ actions deprived the plaintiffs of their civil rights, an order instructing the defendants not to violate rights again, and damages....<div>
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