Showing posts with label Civil Rights leaders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Civil Rights leaders. Show all posts

Friday, November 12, 2010

Our Leaders Are All Corrupt - We Should More Than Question Them

Our national leaders think we are in their way. We are inconvenient to them.  We want them to do their jobs while that is the very last thing they want to do.  They want to enhance their resumes at our expense. They just have us in the way of getting and keeping a perfect resume.  If you want to have our leaders listen to you, start a corporation. 

Here's why:

The Subject of This Complaint is Denial of Civil Rights to a United States Citizen under color of law on the basis of race, ethnic origin, gender and/or religious beliefs as prohibited by federal law.
I experienced harassment by Alexandria City police pursuant to my complaint against the City of Alexandria alleging denial of voting rights. Although this complaint was resolved in my favor, as the voting officials of the city were found to have indeed engaged in malfeasance and/or misfeasance against me as a United Sates citizen, I soon thereafter was the victim of vicious misfeasance and malfeasance by local police officials such that I was denied equal protection of the laws under the 5th Amendment to the United States Constitution extended to the State of Virginia by the 14h Amendment. This denial of civil rights under color of law was perpetrated by officers of the law, Alexandria City police officials.
As my right to vote has already been tampered with by the city of Alexandria, consider this part of the original complaint part of the pattern and practice alleged in the original complaint submitted to voting rights officials in the City of Alexandria or as a separate pattern and practice of police conduct independent of that original action taken against me. I do not expect a good faith effort to protect my rights in the City of Alexandria, and I expect even more police and other official harassment on both state and local levels as well as by the federal government.
I understand that Mayor William Euille holds a law degree from the most distinguished Quinnipiac School of Law, and as I am only a graduate of the George Washington University Law School, without a group of fine outstanding Virginia lawyers to assist me, I hope you do not dismiss my complaint lightly.
I wish to establish here a pattern and practice of discrimination against me as a United States citizen in the City of Alexandria.
I also wish to establish that there is a case where the United States Supreme Court struck down an ordinance or statue against loitering and disorderly conduct in the rural South during the Civil Rights Movement. The facts involved Civil Rights workers sitting in a car near a levee perhaps and arrested by the police. The civil rights workers were of both the Caucasian and African American race or whatever current euphemism is now being recognized by the courts but at that time, I believe the term used by the majority in that case, indicated “Negro.”
The majority opinion, written by Justice William O. Douglas, struck down the local ordinance or state statute prohibiting loitering and/or disorderly conduct as “void for vagueness.” Pursuant to that decision, an ordinance believed to be so narrowly tailored as to survive scrutiny by the court was passed by the City of Alexandria. That statute prohibited loitering or disorderly conduct for the purpose of selling drugs. In 1981, the United States Supreme Court struck down that Alexandria City ordinance specifically giving a clear message to the police of the city of Alexandria that such a statute was unconstitutional.
Despite that history, the city of Alexandria persists in arresting United States Citizens under color of law for loitering and disorderly conduct. In fact, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, under the William Jefferson Clinton Administration on many occasions has also prosecuted United States citizens on federal property under disorderly conduct charges, such that United States Citizens developed arrest records which were never expunged due to the misconduct of court appointed criminal attorneys who were never disciplined by the Virginia Bar for malfeasance and/or misfeasance in providing ineffective assistance of counsel. Such ineffective assistance of counsel as well as prosecutorial misconduct resulted in the deprivation of United States Citizens of their 5th Amendment rights under color of law.
Both the Assistant United States attorneys and the Court appointed Virginia attorneys who defended these United States Citizens being prosecuted in the Eastern District of Virginia should be disbarred by the Virginia bar and the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice inspect the case files of all those appointed by the court in the Eastern District of Virginia under the Administration of William Jefferson Clinton as president of the United States to determine whether these court appointed attorneys were engaging in waste, fraud and abuse in obtaining United States Criminal Justice Act funds.
I did not originally wish to send this communication as my impression of Mayor Euille is that he is ineffectual, even in such matters as pertaining to the provision of electric power in a city following a storm. Mayor Euille was a member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, he told us in an unforgettable speech once, when such men as Phil Hirschberg were law students at George Washington University working on the U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia. In other words, Mayor Euille was living in a state where it was an offense for an African American man to marry a white woman, just several years after the birth of Barack Hussein Obama in Hawaii and he was attending law school at a time when the now sitting president of the United States was born.
At that time, Mayor Euille found no crying need to challenge the deprivation of civil rights of United States citizens of his own race. However, he was so proud to tell us in a speech he made that he was working with the Alexandria Junior Chamber of Commerce.
It seems to me that with a man like that as mayor I would be wasting my time with such complaints as I am bringing now.
However, as I desire no more police misconduct and acts of harassment against me, I am writing this particular letter.

Marjorie B. Salwin,
Attorney at Law,
Resident and Property Owner
Alexandria, VA


Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Schnader Harrison, Outstanding Civil Rights Attorneys in Washington, DC Claims Important Civil Rights Victory for Arlington Civil Rights Activist Chris Zimmerman

http://www.schnader.com/news/xprNewsDetail.aspx?xpST=NewsDetail&news=899

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Schnader Achieves Important Victory for the County of Arlington, Va. in a Dispute over a Proposed Highway Project

05/20/2010

John B. Britton and Neil T. Proto prevailed in the first round of arguments related to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Arlington County, Virginia (the County) against the state and federal governments regarding a proposed High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes project proposed for the I-395/I-95 corridor in northern Virginia. On April 15, 2010 the United States District Court for the District of Columbia rejected in part the motion to dismiss brought by the state defendants and upheld the right of the Arlington County Board to move forward with all of its claims intact.

The lawsuit – filed on August 19, 2009 against the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), and their representatives – alleges that, in allowing the HOT lanes project to move forward, defendants violated the Constitutional rights of minority residents, particularly in the County, due to the project’s disparate environmental and public health impacts. The defendants also failed to conduct comprehensive environmental and public health analyses and public review as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), instead relying on an improperly issued “Categorical Exclusion” classification. Although the project’s likely impacts warrant a full environmental and public health review, the defendants improperly segmented the project and used traffic and air quality modeling that was deficient and inconsistent with standard practices to reach the unsupportable conclusion that the project would not significantly impact the human environment. Further, the County believes that VDOT exaggerated the benefits of the project and underestimated the adverse impacts of the project, both regionally and in Arlington particularly. Beyond traffic, environmental and public health impacts, concerns have been raised about degraded emergency response capacity, local and regional air quality impacts, enforcement, pedestrian/bicycle conflicts, and local funding needs to mitigate the impacts on local streets and maintain the current level of transit service.

With respect to the discrimination claims -- violations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Virginia Constitution – the County asserts that the proposed HOT lanes and their interchanges would have a disproportionately disparate impact on minority and low-income communities adjacent to the proposed route and disproportionately benefit exurban and white single-occupancy-vehicle drivers. If constructed as proposed, the project will worsen air quality in the region, particularly along the project corridor and in those areas where congestion and traffic queues will increase, primarily in Arlington at the I-395 interchanges and surrounding local roadways and intersections.

Combining the anti-discrimination provisions of the Civil Rights Act and NEPA’s environmental and socio-economic analysis requirements to support the claim of intentional discriminatory behavior by the government agencies and their representatives is an innovative and unusual legal strategy. Yet, it accurately represents the full spectrum of damages that has already and could possibly result if the HOT lanes project were to move forward under the Categorical Exclusion classification. The County of Arlington seeks to have the Categorical Exclusion classification withdrawn and the initiation of a proper and comprehensive analysis and public review as required by law.

The District Court’s April 15 order is a significant step forward in ensuring the proper review and analysis of the proposed project’s environmental, public health and community impacts will be completed. Additionally, the Court denied VDOT’s motion to dismiss the former Secretary, Pierce Homer, from the case; with respect to the civil rights and constitutional claims, the former secretary remains in the case in his personal capacity. The Court also allowed the County lawsuit to continue with respect to the other environmental claims against the agencies and the current heads of the agencies in their official capacities.