Saturday Open Thread [6.27.15]

Seriously? Multiple choice Mitt is reported by the WaPo to be gathering his team to get into the Presidential race for 2016.

In the conversations, Romney said he is intent on running to the right of Bush, who also is working vigorously to court donors and other party establishment figures for a 2016 bid. Romney has tried to assure conservatives that he shares their views on immigration and tax policy — and that should he enter the race, he will not forsake party orthodoxy.

To the RIGHT of Jeb Bush. As if that part of the Clown Car isn’t already overflowing.

And while we’ve been taking victory laps for the ACA, gay marriage and the Federal Fair Housing Act strongly surviving the Supreme Court, there is one more liberal victory this week — the federal version of the “3 strikes” law called the Armed Career Criminal Act has a key provision gutted by the Court:

In the case Johnson v. United States, the Supreme Court just struck down a provision of the Armed Career Criminal Act that says that someone’s past crimes count as “violent” if they involve a risk of serious injury to another person — even if the crime didn’t actually involve violence.[…]

The Supreme Court is forcing Congress to make a choice. It can fix the law by coming up with a more precise definition of what actually counts as a violent felony. Or it can decide it’s satisfied with a much more limited Armed Career Criminal Act, that only hands out long sentences in the particular circumstances laid out in the more specific parts of the law.

So this decision stops letting the Feds squint at prior acts in order to reach for enough violent incidents to invoke the greater penalty. That works for me.

Badass Bree Newsome Climbs S.C. Flagpole To Remove Confederate Flag — Right On!

Early this morning, activist Bree Newsome climbed a flagpole in Columbia, South Carolina and removed the Confederate flag that still flies in front of the capitol building.

According to the Guardian, Newsome is a 30-year-old organizer from Charlotte, North Carolina. She had reached the midpoint of the flagpole—about fifteen feet—when police ordered her to come down. Newsome defied their orders and continued to climb to the 30-foot top and remove the flag. She had come prepared, using tree climbing equipment to get to the top.

The Guardian reports that Newsome and James Ian Dyson were arrested by the capitol police and detained. It’s unclear whether or not the two have been charged, some news outlets are reported that they have.

I think that they have been charged now, and CREDO has set up a fundraising page to raise money for these two (and the others who will try to keep taking the flag down) to pay for bail and legal costs. Click below to help support them: