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Ben Crump, the Rev. Al Sharpton says, is Black Americas attorney general.

In less than a decade, the Florida-based attorney has become the voice for the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd -- Black people whose deaths at the hands of police and vigilantes sparked a movement.

He has won multimillion-dollar settlements in police brutality cases. Hes pushed cities to ban no-knock warrants. He has told a congressional committee that reform is needed because its become painfully obvious we have two systems of justice; one for white Americans and one for Black Americans.

And hes stood with Black farmers taking on an agribusiness giant, and families exposed to lead-contaminated water in Flint, Michigan.

Hes a real believer in what hes doing. He has taken the attacks. He has taken the cases that others wouldnt take, Sharpton said, adding, People can go to him. The reason I trust him is because he has never misled me. Good or bad, hell tell me the truth about a client.

These days, he seems to be everywhere. In April, he joined with George Floyds family in celebrating the conviction of ex-cop Derek Chauvin. Then he was among the mourners at the funeral for Daunte Wright, who was shot during a traffic stop in suburban Minneapolis in the week leading up to Chauvins verdict a juxtaposition he finds incredible.

If ever there was a time for police to be on their best behavior, if ever there was a time for them to use the greatest standard of care, if ever there was a time for them to de-escalate, it was during this trial, which I believe was one of the most consequential police (and) civil rights cases in our history, Crump told The Associated Press.

After Wrights funeral, he was back in Florida to call for a federal investigation of a deputy who fatally shot two Black teenagers. And he began this past week demanding that police in North Carolina be more transparent after deputies fatally shot a Black man outside of his house.

Critics see him as an opportunist who never fails to show up amid another tragedy. But those who know Crump say hes been fighting for fairness long before his name was in headlines.

Where theres injustice, thats where he wants to be, said Ronald Haley, a Louisiana attorney, whos among a wide network of lawyers Crump works with on lawsuits. He understands hes needed everywhere, but he also understands he cant be everywhere.

Crump, 51, is a tireless worker who mixes Southern charm, a talent for attracting media attention to his cases and a firm belief that racism afflicts the nation, and the courts are the place to take it on.

He has an uncanny way of making his clients feel like kin, they say.

He has never missed a Thanksgiving to check in on me, he calls on Christmas, said Allisa Findley, who first met Crump three days after her brother, Botham Jean, was fatally shot in his apartment by a white Dallas police officer who mistook the Black mans apartment for her own.

Even the little things, he makes time for it, when there are no cameras rolling, she said. He does feel like family. I consider Ben family.

Terrence Floyd, the 42-year-old brother of George Floyd, said Crumps attention and care for his family over the last year has bonded them beyond the attorney-client relationship.

It feels like its more family-based than business, he said. After a while, I went from calling him Mr. Crump to calling him Unc, like he was one of my uncles.

Crump keeps up a dizzying schedule that takes him all over, but he makes sure hes home for Sunday services at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church. He lives in Tallahassee with his wife and their 8-year-old daughter, Brooklyn; he also helped raise two cousins and became their legal guardian.

I look at my daughter, Crump said, I look in her eyes, and then I look in the eyes of my nieces and nephews, and my little cousins all these little Black and brown children. You see so much hope, so much optimism in their eyes. Weve got to give them a better world.

He added: What Im trying to do, as much as I can, even sometimes singlehandedly, is increase the value of Black life.

Crumps path to becoming a lawyer and advocate began while growing up in Lumberton, North Carolina, where he was the oldest of nine siblings and step-siblings.

In his book Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People, he described learning in elementary school that a white classmates weekly allowance was as much as what his mother made in a week working two jobs at a shoe factory and a hotel laundry.

I wanted to understand why people on the white side of the tracks had it so good and Black people on our side of the tracks had it so bad, he wrote.

He often recounts how he learned about the world by reading the newspaper to his grandmother and how his mother taught him the story of famed civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall, who became his hero.

He has always gravitated toward leadership and being the answer to injustice, said Sean Pittman, an attorney who has been his friend for 30 years, since they met at Florida State University. There, Crump was president of the Black Student Union and led protests to bring attention to how the school recruited and treated Black students.

But his rise from personal injury attorney to a voice of Black America began in 2013 when he represented the family of Trayvon Martin, a teenager killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida. He then took on the case for the family of Michael Brown who was fatally shot by a white officer near St. Louis.

Crump organized marches and brought media attention to both of their deaths each happening during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

He has gone on to win financial settlements in about 200 police brutality cases. In March, the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a civil lawsuit from George Floyds family, which Crump said is the largest pretrial civil rights lawsuit settlement ever.

I keep hoping and believing, if we can make them pay multimillions of dollars every time they shoot a Black person in the back, that there will be less Black people shot in the back, Crump said. Thats my theory, but it remains unanswered because they keep killing us.

In recent years he has produced and hosted an A&E documentary Who Killed Tupac? and launched a production company to make shows about injustice and civil rights.

Crump even had a brief role in the 2017 film Marshall, which tells of the early life of his hero, who became the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice.

His higher profile has brought more scrutiny and turned him into a frequent target. Conservative author Candace Owens in April accused Crump of trying to profit from police shootings and encouraging violent protests.

Keeping racial issues alive has become a business in America, she told Fox News Channels Laura Ingraham. Its Al Sharpton yesterday, Jesse Jackson tomorrow, Ben Crump today.

It doesnt really bother Crump: You cant care what the enemies of equality think of you, he said. It would be the height of arrogance to think that everybody is going to love you. Its not a popularity contest.

Its fitting that he is now mentioned among the giants of civil rights, said John Bowman, who has known him since Michael Browns killing and is now president of the St. Louis County NAACP.

I cant get in his head and say he charted out this course, and said, Im going to be the next strongest voice for injustice, Bowman said. I do know that when the call was made, he didnt shy away or step back from it.

But Crump says he eventually would like to step back from it all.

I literally pray for the day when I can close down the police brutality division of my law firm, he said, because I am so tired of seeing Black people killed by the police unjustifiably. Id like to tell my staff that we no longer have to fight in the courts, or be counselors to so many grieving mothers and fathers.

____

Morrison reported from New York City. Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.

____

Morrison is a member of APs Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison. Also, follow Seewer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jseewerap.

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'Black America's attorney general' seems to be everywhere - Associated Press

Its a Washington axiom that when a power player dies, their influence and secrets do as well. One night this spring, my phone chimed with a text message that showed otherwise. Sally Atwater, the widow of the legendary Republican political operative Lee Atwater, had died. She had been married to the bad boy of the G.O.P. during the Reagan and Bush years until his untimely death, thirty years ago. The Atwaters eldest daughter, Sara Lee, who lives in Brussels and is a Democrat, invited me over to her parents home to read through cartons of papers from her late father, whom I knew well when I covered the Reagan White House. They included seven chapters of Lee Atwaters unpublished draft memoir, which had remained untouched since he succumbed to brain cancer, in 1991, at the age of forty, and at the height of his political career.

The house on a quiet street in Northwest Washington was the kind of tidy, brick place that bespeaks proper family life. The scene inside was something else. Its first-floor rooms were filled with a jumble of cardboard and plastic containers, overflowing with manila folders, crammed with everything from the former Republican Party chairmans elementary-school papers to his dying thoughts, dictated to an assistant during his final days.

Some of the memorabilia was surprising. Despite Atwaters well-deserved reputation for running racist campaigns, there were friendly private notes and photos of him with Al Sharpton and James Brown, whose onstage acrobatics Atwater was famous for trying to mimic in his own blues-guitar performances. There were also personal notes from underground-film stars of the John Waters era. According to his daughter, Atwater was a huge underground-film aficionado. While the Republican Party he chaired trumpeted family values and the Christian right, on the side he helped a friend open a video store in Virginia specializing in pornography, blaxploitation, and his own favorite genre, horror movies. Atwater experienced horror in his own life early. When he was five, his baby brother died of burns from an overturned vat of hot grease in the familys kitchen. Atwaters papers contained no mention of the tragedy, but he said that he heard the sounds of his brothers screams every day of his life.

Atwater died before he could finish his memoir. What remains of it are hunks of yellowing typewritten pages, held together by rusting staples and paper clips. But the seven surviving chapters suggest that, far from dying along with him, the nihilism, cynicism, and scurrilous tactics that Atwater brought into national politics live on. In many ways, his memoir suggests that Atwaters tactics were a bridge between the old Republican Party of the Nixon era, when dirty tricks were considered a scandal, and the new Republican Party of Donald Trump, in which lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost have become normalized. Chapter 5 of Atwaters memoir in particular serves as a Trumpian precursor. In it, Atwater, who worked in the Office of Political Affairs in the Reagan White House, and managed George H. W. Bushs 1988 Presidential campaign before becoming the Republican Partys chairman at the age of thirty-seven, admits outright that he only cared about winning, not governing. Ive always thought running for office is a bunch of bullshit. Being in a office is even more bullshit. It really is bullshit, he wrote. Im proud of the fact that I understand how much BS it is.

In the nineteen-eighties, Atwater became infamous for his effective use of smears. Probably his best-known one was tying Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, Bushs Democratic Presidential opponent in 1988, to Willie Horton, a Black convict who went on a crime spree after getting paroled in the state. A menacing ad featuring Horton was a blatant attempt to stir fear among white voters that Dukakis would be soft on crime. At the very end of his life, Atwater publicly apologized to Dukakis for it. But Atwaters draft memoir makes clear that he had already mastered the dark political arts as a teen-ager. In fact, it seems that practically everything Atwater learned about politics he learned in high school. Its easy to see the future of the Republican Party in the anti-intellectual dirty tricks of his school days.

Born in Atlanta, Atwater grew up in a middle-class white family in South Carolina. His father worked in insurance, and his mother was a teacher. But from the start, Atwater was an ambitious and charismatic rebel, or, as he put it, a hell-raiser. While secretly gorging on history and literatureUpton Sinclairs The Jungle was one of his favorite bookshe went out of his way to seem unstudious at school. He sneered at the top grade-getters and student-government leaders. His aim, he wrote, was to be seen as too smart and too cool to care. In high school, the only office he sought was to be voted the wittiest. To that end, he tried every day to do something funny. If it wasnt funny, it at least screwed somebody up. Every damn day, Id screw people up. And thats fun and funny. And I pulled a lot of shit. Over time, he organized a group of about a hundred students to disrupt the school at his command. When speakers came to assembly, Atwater would signal his followers to rise in unison and turn their backs for a few seconds, or cross their legs in synchronized motions, or break out in wild applause. But Atwater was cunning. He writes that there was a secret to screwing everything up successfully. He always understood the line that he needed to stay within in order not to get caught. The No. 1 lesson was to be so subtle that they cant nab you for anything.

Atwater could be amusing. As he rose in American politics, candidates and reporters alike were drawn to his subversive sense of humor, despite themselves. But throughout his life he displayed more than a tinge of amorality. In his memoir, Atwater describes, without remorse, falsely accusing another student of instigating a fight that he had started, and remaining silent after the student was paddled twenty-five times. I didnt tell the truth worth a shit, he admits. He describes organizing six hundred and fifty students to spew spit wads at a female official who, he writes, hadnt been screwed in 20 years. The best moment, in his view, was when a fellow-student threw a glass of ice at her, and it really hurt her which was the funny part.

The first presidential campaign that Atwater managed was a bid to get a friend of his elected as student-body presidentagainst the friends wishes. He created a list of false accomplishments and devised a fake rating system that ranked his friend first. He plastered the school with posters declaring his friends platform of false promises of Free Beer on Tap in the CafeteriaFree DatesFree Girls. The campaign took a darker turn when Atwaters sidekicks stomped on the bare feet of a hippie-like student until his feet bled profusely. Afterward, the group threatened to do the same to younger students unless they voted for Atwaters candidate. Atwater recalls that he privately revelled in the tactics, and was proud that he could participate in intimidating his fellow-students. But publicly he feigned concern, or, as he writes, I was acting like Eddie Haskell saying, My gosh young people, you could be next. His candidate won an upset victory, but the school declared it void owing to a technicality. I learned a lot, he writes. I learned how to organize... and I learned how to polarize.

Although Atwaters adult professional rise was meteoric, toward the end of his life his double game of paying homage to Black cultural leaders while milking racism for political gain caught up with him. His appointment to the board of trustees at Howard University, in Washington, shortly after Bush won the White House, provoked an uproar on campus. The student newspaper at the prestigious and historically Black university denounced him, and the students occupied an administration building in protest. In his papers, Atwater complains that Jesse Jackson duped him, writing, If theres anybody on the political scene whos done me dirty, its Jesse Jackson. Atwater writes that Jackson talked him into resigning from Howards board with a promise to lionize Atwater for doing so. Instead, the day after Atwater agreed to resign, Jackson went to Howard and just kicked my guts out. Sara Lee Atwater, who loved her father but not his politics, finds it somewhat fitting that as racial politics evolved, The trickster got tricked.

Originally posted here:
The Secret Papers of Lee Atwater, Who Invented the Scurrilous Tactics That Trump Normalized - The New Yorker

Just a day after the independent autopsy reports revealed where exactly Andrew Brown Jr had been fatally shot by North Carolina cops, news of his funeral service came from the reverend who will eulogize him.

Brown died on April 21 when Pasquotank County deputies serving drug-related search and arrest warrants opened fire at him for fleeing the scene. Brown had managed to get inside his car when he was shot by cops four times in his arm, and once in the back of his head. The bodycam footage of the shooting shown to attorneys reportedly shows Brown slumped on the steering wheel as he is fired at. While the FBI announced they are opening a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting, Brown's funeral will take place next Monday, May 3, at noon, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

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Reverend Al Sharpton is going to deliver the eulogy at Brown's funeral next week, while other details of the arrangement are still being settled, local outlet WFAE reported. Lawyers for Brown's family informed the outlet of the funeral timings and other details, adding that Sharpton was asked to deliver the eulogize as the family thinks the civil rights leader would do justice in honoring Brown's legacy. Lee Ferebee, the uncle of Browns son Khalil Ferebee, told the outlet, We had a really good conversation about giving Andrew the kind of sendoff that we felt like he was worthy of. So, Rev Sharpton, we reached out to him, and we confirmed that hes going to be performing the eulogy for us.

Sharpton, who had delivered the eulogy at Daunte Wright's funeral just last week, told the Associated Press in a phone interview that he had agreed to the family's request by phone on Monday night, April 26. Wright was shot and killed by former Minnesota cop Kim Potter during a regular traffic stop, and she has been charged with second-degree manslaughter since. Although the cops who fatally shot Brown are unidentified, seven of them involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave and three have already resigned.

Sharpton told the outlet how he has been working with the local clergy and civil rights leaders from North Carolina to draw attention to racial injustice. Among those he's been in correspondence with is Reverend William Barber II, the leader of the Poor Peoples Campaign. The family ought to know that the value of his life is being saluted around the world, Sharpton told the outlet. While he wants to celebrate Brown's life, Sharpton also wants to help in shedding light on larger problems associated with policing. I would want to get across that this is a human being. And for us, its part of a continual abuse of police power, he said.

There's been a nationwide uproar against why Brown, a non-violent father of 10, was killed by the police over a drug arrest warrant. As the public demands the bodycam footage from the incident be released, Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten said on Monday, April 26, that attorneys have already filed a motion requesting the same.

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When is Andrew Brown Jr's funeral? Al Sharpton who gave Daunte Wright's eulogy to honor Black dad killed by co - MEAWW

It shouldnt feel so hard to write about voting rights in a way that will not offend partisan sensibilities. It didnt used to be this way. In 2006, Congress reauthorized the 1965 Voting Rights Act with a unanimous vote in the Senate, 98-0. It was promptly signed into law by President George W. Bush, who did so in honor of Fanny Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in attendance.

Sadly, much has changed in the last 15 years, and such bipartisan cooperation seems like another era.

While the task is difficult, I cannot let my desire to avoid accusations of partisanship overcome the need to speak truth and advocate for justice as I see it.

One person, one vote is the ideal that forms the bedrock of our democracy. It aligns with the fundamental Christian belief that all people are created in Gods image and are therefore equal. It is one of the reasons I am a Baptist.

One person, one vote is the ideal that forms the bedrock of our democracy.

Our congregational polity means each church member is empowered to vote on important matters of church life and governance. In our country, each citizen should be empowered to have their voice contribute equally to determine who represents us and how our government operates. A government by, for and of the people.

Of course, whether or not each voice is valued and given equal weight never has been a settled question. The vote has been the subject of conflict and debate throughout U.S. history. Originally, it was reserved for landowning white men, and Black slaves counted as only 3/5 of a person when considering Congressional representation. While the 15th Amendment gave Black males the right to vote, that right was rarely protected. Eventually, and after a sustained movement, women were given the vote in 1920. Less than 60 years ago, the Voting Rights Act finally put the weight of the federal government behind the promise of Black suffrage. Although in application, that fight continues.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 set up a process of federal approval for changes to voting laws in states with a history of discrimination. Those pre-clearance provisions were undone by the Shelby v. Holder Supreme Court ruling in 2013. Proposed changes to voting laws have picked up pace since then.

According to experts at the Brennan Center for Justice, as of March 24, 361 bills with restrictive voting provisions have been filed in 47 state legislatures this session. Fortunately, 843 bills have been filed to make voting access more expansive.

These dueling proposals demonstrate the partisan nature of this fight. Whether it is non-citizens, dead voters or Russian hackers, both parties should be committed to free, fair and secure elections. Faith in democracy is heightened when people believe their voice is counted and valued.

Both parties should be committed to free, fair and secure elections.

We should make it as easy as possible for every eligible voter to register and vote. Free and fair elections should mean each person is able to exercise their right to vote with few barriers and in a manner that ensures security. Any bill that restricts access and makes it more difficult for some to participate should provide rock-solid evidence of a problem and explain how the bill addresses it. Unsubstantiated accusations and hypotheticals are not enough, especially in light of our history.

Despite our partisan reality, recent polling shows broad agreement among the public on several measures that would make voting easier. Seventy-eight percent of Americans think early in-person voting should be available for at least two weeks before an election; 68% believe Election Day should be a national holiday; and 61% believe everyone eligible should be automatically registered to vote.

In many states, the law is moving in the opposite direction. Georgia and Texas are two states garnering substantial attention.

The law recently passed in Georgia was not as extreme as some of the proposed provisions, but it is problematic. Under the new law, there will be less time to request absentee ballots, fewer drop boxes with less accessible hours, local officials can no longer mail absentee ballot applications to all voters, and voters have half as long to request absentee ballots. The law also bans mobile voting sites, (polling places on wheels.) Such sites have been used only by Fulton County, which has the largest Black population in the state.

The most notorious change is the criminalization of passing out food and water to those waiting in line to vote. Why would anyone want to make it harder to stand in line to vote unless there was substantial evidence that handing out free pizza and water bottles was buying votes?

A better question might be, why are people having to stand in line so long that they need sustenance?

A better question might be, why are people having to stand in line so long that they need sustenance? The provision is more nefarious when the same law contains a mechanism for the state to take over elections from local officials. Will lines intentionally be made longer in particular counties or precincts, which will deter or suppress certain voters?

In Texas, 49 bills have been filed to restrict voting access or make voting more difficult. The two making their way through the legislature right now are SB7 and HB6. These bills would restrict the freedom of local communities to expand early voting and would make voter intimidation much more likely and difficult to stop. They also make it more difficult for those with disabilities to receive help voting.

During the presidential election of 2020, Harris County, which includes the incredibly diverse city of Houston, utilized 24-hour early voting locations and drive-through voting, which helped increase turnout by 10%. Voters of color made up more than half those who took advantage of these polling places. Although there has been no credible evidence of increased fraud, both these options would be outlawed by SB7. One can reasonably wonder if high turnout and minority participation are the problems these bills seek to solve.

Proponents justify these provisions and others by a stated need to prevent voter fraud. At best, such provisions could limit hypothetical voter fraud schemes. They are not responses to proven instances of voter fraud and will certainly make it more difficult for some to vote.

Independent analysis shows voter fraud in Texas this century is extremely rare: only 174 people have been prosecuted out of 94 million votes cast since 2005. The Brennan Center has a comprehensive list of studies that show similar results, including studies from Arizona State University, which show 10 cases of voter impersonation fraud nationwide from 2000 to 2012. According to a Houston Chronicle investigation conducted just two weeks ago, there are 43 people with pending voter fraud charges with the Texas attorney generals office. Only one of those is from the 2020 election in which more than 11 million votes were cast.

While voter fraud itself is almost nonexistent, the term is frequently used in political debate.

While voter fraud itself is almost nonexistent, and thus does not affect election outcomes, the term is frequently used in political debate. A recent Houston Chronicle editorial outlined an extensive history of racially motivated voting restrictions. In each case all-white primaries, poll taxes, re-registration and voter purges the stated justification of these clearly discriminatory laws was the same, to prevent voter fraud.

Voter fraud is exceedingly rare, and rather than impacting the outcome of our elections, it most often is used as the pretext for racially discriminatory and restrictive voting laws. We are therefore facing a conflict between fictitious, hypothetical fraud, and an undeniable history of racial discrimination.

No doubt the increase in bills that limit voting access or institute new restrictions are based in part on the widespread and entirely unsubstantiated allegations of massive voter fraud following the last presidential election. Rather than rebut conspiracies, Ill only point out that those who so fervently claimed fraud and promoted the allegations are now in court defending themselves from civil defamation lawsuits. Their most common defense no reasonable person would believe such claims. It was nothing more than political hyperbole.

Unfortunately, their made-up lies have real-world consequences. These claims, debunked in more than 60 courts, have become the basis of public policy.

The authors of such bills claim they are necessary because public faith in our elections has been shaken. But the same politicians who sowed seeds of doubt cannot now use that doubt as an excuse for new voting restrictions. People believe lies about the election because they keep telling them. Public policy should not be based on lies.

It is not surprising that politicians and parties want to protect their power, but we also should expect them to uphold democratic ideals when attempting to do so.

The corporate reaction to the new law in Georgia and proposed bills in Texas has been swift. I commend the computer CEOs and airline executives who have spoken up for democracy and in defense of historically marginalized voters.

Do we now expect more moral leadership from corporations than church leaders just so we dont offend the diehard partisans in our pews?

Shouldnt pastors and other people of faith do the same? Do we now expect more moral leadership from corporations than church leaders just so we dont offend the diehard partisans in our pews? I know it is not easy. Ive been quiet for too long and done too little myself. Im grateful for the pastors and people of faith who have spoken out, and I encourage you to join them.

Christians concerned about the common good, those trying to follow Jesus in his mission to free the oppressed, those who want to do justice, must be willing to engage. When it comes to voting, we should give particular deference to and speak up alongside those who find it harder to vote neighbors who work overnight shifts or multiple jobs to support their families, those with disabilities, and those without reliable transportation or child care.

We should hold those promoting changes to voting laws to a high standard. Suspicion from minority communities is well-earned, based in historical fact and justified.

Police violence against Black Americans has caused an awakening among many white Christians to the reality of systemic racial injustice. Those looking to engage in racial justice and reconciliation work should take this opportunity to fight voter suppression alongside our Black and Latino brothers and sisters. Our commitment to justice must be stronger than our desire to avoid partisan fights.

Stephen Reeves serves as executive director of Fellowship Southwest. This column appears concurrently on BNG and on the Fellowship Southwest website.

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Voting rights and the ninth commandment Baptist News Global - Baptist News Global

smartphone letter to the editor mail stock image

These are treacherous times. Our principal institutions have been overtaken by the Left. We are fast approaching French Revolutionary levels. However dysfunctional and disturbed they may be, the Left rules us, and they grow more authoritarian and imperious as we speak.

The latest example of their audacity and command of our dominant institutions is the response to Georgias modest election law (SB202 or The Election Integrity Act). It included ID requirements for mail-in ballots, banned the practice of giving food or water to voters in line at polling stations, limited the number of drop boxes, and shortened early voting, none of which was racial or restrictive in the least. But the carefully orchestrated mass rollout of hair on fire outrage was classic Leftist agitprop, perfected through the decades. So absurd were the accusations that, absent an utterly compliant press, a political movement or party could never get away with it.

Shortly after Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law, President Joe Biden on ESPN referred to it as Jim Crow on steroids and supported Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta where it was scheduled this year. MLB, indeed, rolled over instantly, moving the event to Denver. Not insignificantly, this years summer classic also planned to honor the memory of Hank Aaron, one of baseballs greatest players, who passed away recently and played with the Atlanta Braves. That Hank Aaron was a black man and that Atlanta is a black majority city that would be negatively impacted by the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars seemed not an afterthought. Biden later called the bill sick, un-American and an atrocity. Former President Barack Obama agreed with the sentiments as did the entire Democrat Party apparatus and its poodle media.

Voting Rights activists called for boycotting Georgia-based and other companies if they did not condemn the legislation. Prominent corporations and professional sports teams folded at breakneck speed. AFLAC, the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks, Coca Cola, Delta, Home Depot, JP Morgan Chase, Facebook, Citigroup, Merck, Cisco, Apple, Wal-Mart, Under Armour, Google, Twitter, Este Lauder, HP, Microsoft and ViacomCBS all succumbed to a sudden attack of wokeness and vigorously denounced the bill. Thus far, nearly 200 major corporations joined in. A group of 72 prominent black corporate executives, in an open letter published in the New York Times, condemned it. Several black civil rights groups including the Georgia NAACP, Black Votes Matter and Stacey Abrams Fair Fight, condemned the law as well. Lawsuits have been filed. The National Black Justice Coalition called on the PGA Tour to pull the Masters Tournament from the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia where it has been played since 1934.

LeBron James, NBA star, co-owner of the Boston Red Sox, and otherwise oppressed billionaire, too, voiced his support for MLBs decision to move the summer classic out of Atlanta, stating that he was now a proud part of the MLB family.

Lebron and many of the coalition of the irate have had no trouble doing business with the democratic Chinese Communist Party and their slave empire. Prominent liberal sports writers and figures, including the reliable Al Sharpton, also got on their soap boxes.

American Airlines and Southwest came out against a similar such election bill in Texas.

The various election laws passing through Republican states are a result of the election debacle that occurred on Nov. 3, 2020. Particularly in battleground states, election laws were unlawfully changed in the lead-up to the election, because of lawsuits by Democrat lawyers, generally bypassing the state legislatures who constitutionally have the final say on election law. Criticisms by leftist groups and the Democrat party invariably accuse the bills of being restrictive and causing voter suppression, by which they mean the suppression of blacks and other minorities.

The bills, of course, did nothing of the kind. They were intended to prevent election fraud, which Democrats depend on to win elections.

The over-the-top reaction to the Georgia legislation, however, is merely a prelude to the passage of the For The People Act (HR1 and S1), in which Democrats at the federal level, engaging in typical doublespeak, seek to nationalize election law and enshrine the changes they engineered in 2020 for perpetuity, thus ensuring a one party nation under Democrat rule forever.

How should conservatives respond?

It is up to the red states.

And the response should be vigorous and unapologetic. Each state dominated by Republicans, where Republicans hold both houses of the state legislature, of which there are 31, and then the trifecta, which would also include the governorship (24 such states), should pass election integrity laws. All should eliminate unsolicited mail in ballots, something done unnecessarily because of COVID, but allow for absentee ballots, as always, which must be verified well in advance with proper explanation (illness, disabled, out of state, in the Military).

Eliminate same day registration and motor-voter registration. Abolish computer systems. Return to paper ballots, hand counted with poll watchers from both parties present.

Require proof of citizenship. Limit early voting to two weeks or consider eliminating it all together. Mandate one election day, as was standard until relatively recently, not election season. Declare it a holiday. Clean up voter rolls regularly. And, of course, mandate photo ID, something that for Democrats, is akin to daylight for vampires.

The Democrats may never win a national election again.

But there is more.

No longer can conservatives allow companies and sports entities, professional or otherwise, to bully and abuse us.

It is time for red states to pass anti-bullying legislation against the Left and their corporate minions. Any company, sports entity and individual athletes or celebrities that disrespect our nation and flag or threaten to or implement a boycott of a red state for passing entirely legitimate legislation should be banned from all future and existing state contracts, tax breaks, set asides, anti-trust protections (where appropriate) and further business dealings with the state.

Legislation considered within the purview of the state, wholly reasonable, would contain laws and protections involving religious liberty, protecting children and students from the various and sundry depredations of Leftist theories and policies including such gems as transgenderism and critical race theory, bogus refugee and illegal alien resettlement, and, of course, ensuring the integrity of our elections.

Consider also forbidding companies, athletes, sports leagues and entities that have business ties with Chinas totalitarian regime from business relations or other benefits, tax breaks, and contracts with the state.

Attorney generals of red states should aggressively litigate against leftwing corporations and Big Tech that infringe on the rights of their states citizens including the enforcement of speech codes, censorship of conservatives, canceling (also known as crushing and destroying) individuals who espouse conservative or traditional beliefs, and otherwise prohibiting normal, free, and open expression. Similarly, they should file suits against corporations that engage in boycotts and threats against the state. Red states must coordinate their efforts.

Finally, Republican officials at all levels, state and federal, should demand that woke corporate hypocrites boycott the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.

The conservative, pro-founding, pro-American, nationalist movement has for decades been inattentive to our culture and commanding organs, including corporate America. As a result, it has largely ceded them to the Left who have been diligently infiltrating them. They have completed their long march through our institutions and now control them, as they do the nation. But we still have power at the state level. We must fight back as viciously as the Left using the tools that we have.

That means the red states.

It is time to save the country, if it is to be saved at all.

Richard Moss, M.D., a surgeon practicing in Jasper, was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send comments to awoods@aim mediaindiana.com.

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Red states: The last bastion - Seymour Tribune