Civil/Human Rights

Rep. Keith Ellison is urging members of Congress not to scrap the Goldstone report (pdf) on war crimes allegedly committed during the conflict culminating in December 2008 and January 2009 between Hamas and Israel. A resolution in Congress, backed by Republicans, would condemn the report, written by UN investigator Richard Goldstone, as unfriendly to Israel. [...]

In making the case for his federal same-day voter registration bill, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison points to how much voter fraud was alleged in the “highly scrutinized” Norm Coleman-Al Franken U.S. Senate contest due to Minnesotans’ ability to register to vote on Election Day: none.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison has introduced a bill that would extend Minnesota-style, same-day voting rights to all eligible Americans in federal elections.

President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act into law on Wednesday ending a decade of efforts by LGBT and human rights groups to get sexual orientation and gender identity included in federal hate crime laws.

The U.S. Senate passed the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday with the controversial Matthew Shepard Act attached. The act would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate crimes laws. The bill now heads to the desk of President Obama, who at last week’s Human Rights Campaign dinner promised LGBT advocates he’d [...]

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, attached to a large military policy bill, passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday by a vote of 281 to 146 — with support from Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen and opposition from Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson. Next Monday is the 11th anniversary of the murder of 21-year-old college [...]

Al Flowers believes the cops are out to get him. The mayoral candidate filed a lawsuit in Hennepin County District Court today alleging that Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies violated his Constitutional rights while executing a search warrant at an Edina home last month.

Saying it protects the free market, U.S. Sen. Al Franken sounded optimistic in a speech today about the chances for preserving net neutrality by law. “For the first time, it looks like we might actually do this,” Franken told the Future of Music Coalition in Washington, D.C.

The National Socialist Movement, a homophobic and anti-semitic white supremacist group, is threatening to protest a workshop at the Minneapolis YWCA about white privilege and white supremacy. It will be the first public NSM event here since a 2007 book-burning, and several groups of Twin Citians say they plan to make that visit an unwelcome [...]

Jason Andersen, the police officer who shot and killed Fong Lee (pictured), has been fired by the Minneapolis Police Department. The development comes after the fourth-year officer was arrested following a domestic disturbance in June. A criminal charge against Anderson was dismissed two weeks ago, but apparently the incident prompted an internal affairs investigation that [...]