The 2007 Battle of the Billionaires winner currently masquerading as President really wants you to know he’s a white nationalist. If it’s not the continued employment of Stephen Miller despite being outed as a white nationalist, it’s shit like this.
Y’all, I simply love reporting on the failures of white supremacists. It’s probably a top 3 favorite thing for me besides food and talking to anyone who will listen about why Def Jam: Fight For NY is easily a top 5 fighting game of all time.
While we’ve seen a rise in blatant white nationalism since the start of this presidency, Black History Month always has a particular way of bringing out the worst in racists.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey is asking the court to throw out nearly 66,000 marijuana convictions, some of which date back decades.
At a news conference Thursday, Lacey said her motion represents something that has never been done before in state history.
“We believe it is the largest effort in California to wipe out old criminal convictions in a single court motion,” Lacey told CBS Los Angeles.
Initially, Lacey said prosecutors had been working to reduce past marijuana convictions from felonies to misdemeanors after Proposition 64 passed in 2016. But she said she didn’t think this went far enough.
READ MORE: How Blacks became the unwitting villains and the victims of the War on Drugs
“I’ve instructed my deputy district attorneys to ask the court to dismiss all eligible cannabis-related convictions,” Lacey said at the press conference, according to CBS Los Angeles. “I also took the will of the voters one step further. I expanded the criteria to go above and beyond the parameters of the law to ensure that many more people will benefit from this historic moment in time.”
People eligible to potentially have their convictions thrown out include anyone 50 years of age or older, people who have not been convicted of a crime over the past 10 years, people with convictions who successfully completed probation and people under the age of 21 with convictions.
READ MORE: How this Black woman cannabis entrepreneur is breaking down barriers in Michigan
“As a result of our actions these convictions should no longer burden those who have struggled to find a job or a place to live because of their criminal record,” Lacey explained.
Lacey filed the motion on Tuesday, also requesting that the court seal the convictions. In total, this would impact about 62,000 felony cannabis convictions and 3,700 were misdemeanor possession convictions, across L.A. County, including Burbank, Pasadena, Inglewood, Santa Monica, and Torrance.
“If you have a record, you don’t have to worry about even going through and having it sealed…We’re making a motion to seal it because we realize that’s the issue,” Lacey said, reported CBS Los Angeles. “When you go to apply for a job, you go to apply for housing and your record comes up, even though we’ve expunged it, that may not give you help.”
Lacey made the move three weeks before the March 3 Primary, where she is hoping to get re-elected to a third term. Her challengers include George Gascon, the former San Francisco DA, and Rachel Rossie, a former federal public defender.
People can call the L.A. County Public Defender’s Office to see if their case is eligible for dismissal at 323-760-6763.
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The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office, in partnership with the county branch of the NAACP, hosted a voter registration drive at the county jail last week.
The event resulted in 38 inmates filling out applications to become registered voters, the sheriff’s office said in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The DeKalb County NAACP conducts its voter outreach program with incarcerated individuals every year.
“It is important that every citizen who has the right to vote also has a chance to exercise that right,” DeKalb Sheriff Melody Maddox said in the statement, the AJC reported. “Many incarcerated individuals don’t realize that they can still cast absentee ballots in elections while they are in custody, but they must first be registered voters.”
READ MORE: Illinois accidentally cancels voter registrations for almost 800 former inmates
DeKalb NAACP representatives gave inmates a primer as to the registration process and helped them complete their applications. NAACP officials said they will return the finished applications to be processed by the county elections office. Once applications are approved, registered inmates will receive absentee ballots to use in various elections.
Georgia law prohibits convicted felons who have not completed their sentence, which includes probation, parole, fines, and fees, from voting. However, men and women who have been arrested and are currently in the county jail waiting for their cases to be heard can cast ballots.
READ MORE: Files expose how North Carolina Republican systematically stopped Black people from voting
Georgia has seen a spike in the number of people registering to vote. For example, last year, 322,000 active voters were added to the rolls, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Georgia voters between the ages of 18 to 34 have jumped 68% since October 2016, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the state’s voter lists. That group now comprises 31% of the state’s total voters.
Voters this year will choose a president, two U.S. senators and three representatives to Congress.
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