She got 12 years for $31 of pot. Years after her parole, she was jailed for the unpaid court fees.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/12/patricia-spottedcrow-marijuana-year-sentence/

This article is from September 12, 2019. However it is a reminder of several factors of our justice system. First the hysteria around cannabis needs to be addressed at the federal level. I don’t know if it is older people not able to process that reefer madness was a complete lie made up to scare people / kids off using the devil’s weed. The other thing I noticed was that the sentence was way over the top. Why? Racism clearly. She is Native American in a state known for being very racist against the first people. The third thing I noticed was the lack of rehabilitation the state had just looking for her to be returned to prison. The lack of support for a former inmate, the stigma of the conviction in the population, and the crazy need for the state to keep applying more pressure to get money / harass a former inmate until they break and are returned to prison. Please notice the difference in treatment a poor woman got in the legal system vs what wealthy tRump got. Hugs

===============================================================

By Antonia Noori Farzan

Sitting in her jail cell this week, Patricia Spottedcrow couldn’t imagine where she was going to get the money she needed for her release.

In 2010, the young Oklahoma mother, who had been caught selling $31 worth of marijuana to a police informant after financial troubles caused her to lose her home, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. It was her first-ever offense, and the lengthy sentence drew national attention, sparking a movement that led to her early release.

But once she was home free, Spottedcrow still owed thousands in court fees that she struggled to pay, since her felony conviction made it difficult to find a job. Notices about overdue payments piled up, with late fees accumulating on top of the original fines. On Monday, the 34-year-old was arrested on a bench warrant that required her to stay in jail until she could come up with $1,139.90 in overdue fees, which she didn’t have. Nearly a decade after her initial arrest, she was still ensnarled in the criminal justice system, and had no idea when she would see her kids again.

“I had no idea how I was going to pay this off,” Spottedcrow told KFOR on Wednesday, after strangers raised the money for her release. “I knew I was going to be sitting here for a while.”

In 2011, Spottedcrow became an unwitting poster child for criminal justice reform when the Tulsa World featured her in a series about women incarcerated in Oklahoma. Then 25, she had just entered prison for the first time, and didn’t expect to be reunited with her young children until they were teenagers.

At the time of her arrest, Spottedcrow was unemployed and without a permanent home, the paper reported. She was staying at her mother’s house in the small town of Kingfisher, Okla., when a police informant showed up and bought an $11 bag of marijuana. Two weeks later, he returned to buy another $20 worth of the drug from Spottedcrow. Both mother and daughter were charged with distribution of a controlled substance, and, because Spottedcrow’s children were at home when the transaction took place, possession of a dangerous substance in the presence of a minor.

“I was home on vacation and it was just there, and I thought we could get some extra money,” Spottedcrow told the paper. “I’ve lost everything because of it.”

The two women both were offered plea deals that would have netted them only two years in prison, the World reported, but Spottedcrow didn’t want her 50-year-old mother, who has health issues, incarcerated. Because neither had a prior criminal record and they had sold only a small amount of pot, they took their chances and pleaded guilty without negotiating a sentencing agreement, assuming they would be granted probation.

Instead, the judge sentenced Spottedcrow to 10 years in prison for the distribution charge, plus another two years for possession. Her mother received a 30-year suspended sentence so that she could take care of the children. Kingfisher County Associate District Judge Susie Pritchett, who retired not long afterward, told the World she thought the sentence was lenient. The mother-daughter pair had been behind “an extensive operation,” she claimed, adding, “It was a way of life for them.”

Spottedcrow said that wasn’t true. “I’ve never been in trouble, and this is a real eye-opener,” she told the paper at the start of her prison stint. “My lifestyle is not like this. I’m not coming back. I’m going to get out of here, be with my kids and live my life.”

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After the World’s story published in 2011, supporters rallied around Spottedcrow’s cause, urging officials to reconsider her punishment. At the time, Oklahoma had the highest per capita rate of female incarceration in the country, a title it continues to hold today. Advocates contended that lengthy sentences like hers were part of the problem, and questioned whether racial bias could have played a role — Spottedcrow is part Native American and part African American.

That same year, a different judge reviewed Spottedcrow’s sentence and agreed to shave off four years. Then, in 2012, then-Gov. Mary Fallin (R) approved her parole. Spottedcrow got home in time to surprise her kids when they stepped off the school bus. The American Civil Liberties Union described her release as a “bittersweet victory,” noting that serving only two years of a 12-year sentence was highly unusual, but the penalty that she received for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense wasn’t out of the ordinary for Oklahoma.

It also wasn’t the end of her troubles. In 2017, five years after Spottedcrow was released from prison, Ginnie Graham, a columnist for the World, checked in to see how she was doing. The picture that she painted was dispiriting: Spottedcrow’s growing family was living in a motel off the interstate because having a felony drug conviction on her record made it virtually impossible for her to find housing, and she hadn’t been able to find work, either.

“I’ve never had Section 8 or HUD, but I need it now,” she said. “I even called my (Cheyenne and Arapahoe) tribe to help, and they didn’t. I called the shelters, and they don’t take large families.”

That same year, at a forum on criminal justice reform, Spottedcrow explained that she couldn’t go back to working in nursing homes like she had done before her arrest because of her felony conviction. And in a small town like Kingfisher, every other potential employer already knew about her legal woes.

“I can’t even go in and act like I feel good about getting this job, because they already know who I am,” she said. “So it’s been really hard.”

While Spottedcrow struggled to care for her six children, the Kingfisher County Court Clerk’s Office mailed out more than a dozen notices saying she had fallen behind on her payments. Each letter meant that the court had tacked on another $10 fine, and that another $80 would be added on top of that if the office didn’t get the money within 10 days. When Spottedcrow first reported to prison, she owed $2,740 in fines. After her release, she made payments at least every other month, according to the World. But it barely made an impact on her ballooning debt: When she was arrested this week, she owed $3,569.76.

“We ask folks for years and years to continue to not have any interaction with law enforcement, to pay these fines and fees, and to pay for this supervision,” Nicole McAfee, director of policy and advocacy for the ACLU of Oklahoma, told KFOR. “In a way, we just oftentimes set folks up for failure.”

Spottedcrow’s arrest on Monday brought renewed attention to her nearly decade-old court case. KFOR morning news anchor Ali Meyer, who detailed the saga in a widely shared Twitter thread, noted that cannabis has been a booming industry in Oklahoma ever since the state legalized medical marijuana in 2018, and left it up to doctors to determine who qualified.

On Tuesday afternoon, Meyer posted the number for the Kingfisher County Court Clerk’s Office, which would allow anyone to make payments on Spottedcrow’s behalf. By Wednesday, seven anonymous supporters had covered not just the $1,139.90 that she needed to get out of jail, but her entire $3,569.76 outstanding balance, the station reported.

She’s out! Patricia Spottedcrow walked out of the Oklahoma Co. Jail today with no court fines hanging over her head. Guys, this is the face of a fresh start. To the generous, compassionate donors.. she says, “Thank you for everything!” pic.twitter.com/qaqlMHRtA2
— Ali Meyer (@amanchor) September 11, 2019

Smiling broadly as she left the Oklahoma County Jail, Spottedcrow thanked the strangers whose donations meant she was finally free.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “It feels wonderful. I don’t even know what to say. It just feels really good. I feel like I hit the lotto.”

Peace & Justice History for 1/13

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january13

Bill Maher Admits Trans Rights Are Civil Rights

Suggestions for Resources, Actions

Building an open web that protects us from harm

We live in a world where right-wing nationalism is on the rise and many governments, including the incoming Trump administration, are promising mass deportations. Trump in particular has discussed building camps as part of mass deportations. This question used to feel more hypothetical than it does today.

Faced with this reality, it’s worth asking: who would stand by you if this kind of authoritarianism took hold in your life?

You can break allyship down into several key areas of life:

Who in your personal life is an ally? (Your friends, acquaintances, and extended family.)
Who in your professional life is an ally? (People you work with, people in partner organizations, and your industry.)
Who in civic life is an ally? (Your representatives, government workers, individual members of law enforcement, healthcare workers, and so on.)
Which service providers are allies? (The people you depend on for goods and services — including stores, delivery services, and internet services.)

And in turn, can be broken down further:

Who will actively help you evade an authoritarian regime?
Who will refuse to collaborate with a regime’s demands?

These two things are different. There’s also a third option — non-collaboration but non-refusal — which I would argue does not constitute allyship at all. This might look like passively complying with authoritarian demands when legally compelled, without taking steps to resist or protect the vulnerable. While this might not seem overtly harmful, it leaves those at risk exposed. As Naomi Shulman points out, the most dangerous complicity often comes from those who quietly comply. Nice people made the best Nazis.

For the remainder of this post, I will focus on the roles of internet service vendors and protocol authors in shaping allyship and resisting authoritarianism.

For these groups, refusing to collaborate means that you’re not capitulating to active demands by an authoritarian regime, but you might not be actively considering how to help people who are vulnerable. The people who are actively helping, on the other hand, are actively considering how to prevent someone from being tracked, identified, and rounded up by a regime, and are putting preventative measures in place. (These might include implementing encryption at rest, minimizing data collection, and ensuring anonymity in user interactions.)

If we consider an employer, refusing to collaborate means that you won’t actively hand over someone’s details on request. Actively helping might mean aiding someone in hiding or escaping to another jurisdiction.

These questions of allyship apply not just to individuals and organizations, but also to the systems we design and the technologies we champion. Those of us who are involved in movements to liberate social software from centralized corporations need to consider our roles. Is decentralization enough? Should we be allies? What kind of allies?

This responsibility extends beyond individual actions to the frameworks we build and the partnerships we form within open ecosystems. While building an open protocol that makes all content public and allows indefinite tracking of user activity without consent may not amount to collusion, it is also far from allyship. Partnering with companies that collaborate with an authoritarian regime, for example by removing support for specific vulnerable communities and enabling the spread of hate speech, may also not constitute allyship. Even if it furthers your immediate stated technical and business goals to have that partner on board, it may undermine your stated social goals. Short-term compromises for technical or business gains may seem pragmatic but risk undermining the ethics that underpin open and decentralized systems.

Obviously, the point of an open protocol is that anyone can use it. But we should avoid enabling entities that collude with authoritarian regimes to become significant contributors to or influencers of open protocols and platforms. While open protocols can be used by anyone, we must distinguish between passive use and active collaboration. Enabling authoritarian-aligned entities to shape the direction or governance of these protocols undermines their potential for liberation.

In light of Mark Zuckerberg’s clear acquiescence to the incoming Trump administration (for example by rolling back DEI, allowing hate speech, and making a series of bizarre statements designed to placate Trump himself), I now believe Threads should not be allowed to be an active collaborator to open protocols unless it can attest that it will not collude, and that it will protect vulnerable groups using its platforms from harm. I also think Bluesky’s AT Protocol decision to make content and user blocks completely open and discoverable should be revisited. I also believe there should be an ethical bill of rights for users on open social media protocols that authors should sign, which includes the right to privacy, freedom from surveillance, safeguards against hate speech, and strong protections for vulnerable communities.

As builders, users, and advocates of open systems, we must demand transparency, accountability, and ethical commitments from all contributors to open protocols. Without these safeguards, we risk creating tools that enable oppression rather than resisting it. Allyship demands more than neutrality — it demands action.

https://werd.io/2025/building-an-open-web-that-protects-us-from-harm

Jill Bearup’s Transphobia is Even Worse in 2025 (Just Stab Me Now)

Again Ethel is a woman I have been following since she was a teenager. She has gone through all the stages of transitioning, from doubt, trying to make it something else to finally admitting to herself and the world she is a woman and now living her life as one. The grand thing is she still fights so very hard for trans people despite the costs to her for taking on one of the growing popular atheist anti-trans people and others. She lost 2/3rd her income but never backed down, always telling the truth. She makes every video well researched and documents it, also she provides a transcript for those who would rather read than listen. I admit I admire her and her strength in her life struggles. But if you wish to learn more about those attacking trans stuff or the false idea that trans women are destroying female sports, I would watch her videos. Hugs

The 19th Explains: How Trump’s Cabinet nominees will get confirmed

Originally published by The 19th

The 119th Congress was officially sworn in Friday, meaning the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate will soon begin the process of confirming President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution enables the president to appoint officials to the Cabinet and other positions with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. Many of the committees, all of which have a majority of Republicans, will hold hearings on the nominees related to their area of expertise: the Senate Judiciary Committee, for example, holds hearings for the nominees for attorney general and other top posts at the Department of Justice. Those hearings will begin soon, with senators likely prioritizing confirming nominees to national security positions.

Republicans will control the Senate 53 to 47 seats once Senator-elect Jim Justice of West Virginia is sworn in later in January and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine appoints a senator to fill Vice President-elect JD Vance’s seat.

Some nominees like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, are expected to easily sail through the Senate, while others are likely to garner more opposition and scrutiny. Here’s how the process will work:

When do hearings start?

Sen. Roger Wicker, who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee, is set to hold Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing for secretary of defense starting January 14, even before Trump’s inauguration. The hearing for former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence in the Senate Intelligence Committee is also set to take place that week, according to Punchbowl News. The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to prioritize confirming Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, and his nominees for deputy attorneys general before taking up the nomination of Kash Patel to lead the FBI, the outlet reported.

Are hearings required for every nominee?

Not necessarily. There are over 1,300 political appointee positions that require Senate confirmation, and some nominees, like military promotions, often go straight to the Senate floor. But nominees for the Cabinet and other high-profile political appointments almost always have confirmation hearings.

What happens at a confirmation hearing?

Before a hearing, senators on relevant committees will request biographical information and a financial disclosure from the nominee. At the hearing, senators will ask questions about a nominee’s background, their qualifications and their views. Nominees for positions that require a security clearance also traditionally undergo an FBI background check.

Gabbard and Patel are expected to draw scrutiny for their records and stances on national security issues. Democrats will likely question Hegseth about a past allegation of sexual assault against him, which he denies, as well as his previous comments opposing women in combat roles. Senators on both sides of the aisle are also likely to question Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, on his views on abortion, vaccines and food policy.

How does a nominee get confirmed after a hearing?

After a committee holds a hearing, its members can report the nomination favorably or unfavorably to the full Senate for a final vote. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led his fellow Senate Democrats in changing the chamber’s rules to require only a simple majority to invoke cloture, or end debate, on presidential nominations other than Supreme Court nominees. A simple majority is also needed for final confirmation. In 2017, then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans also lowered the threshold for Supreme Court nominees.

Historically, it’s been very rare for the Senate to reject a president’s Cabinet nominee. The last time the Senate voted down a Cabinet nominee was in 1989, when senators rejected Sen. John Tower, then-President George H.W. Bush’s nominee for defense secretary, due to concerns about his drinking. Some Cabinet nominees like former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general, also bow out of the process before they go up for confirmation.

‘Trans Panic’ Was ALWAYS A Right-Wing Culture War Distraction

Free Idea: What If Senate Democrats DIDN’T Vote For The Fascist Anti-Immigrant Bloody Shirt Bill? by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Oh, we’re helping Trump deport people for more minor offenses now, to avoid being ‘soft’ on immigration? Read on Substack

(I’m not putting the piece here, because it’s obvious to me that I’m not the only one who dislikes the news of the day. However, if your writingtapping fingers are warm or want to be, there’s an action within; writing or calling to our US Senators to oppose the Laken Riley Act. The article, couched in angry humor/humorous anger, gives good insight on the act, along with listing unintended consequences, because of course Republicans don’t read what they write and can’t think ahead about what words mean. Anyway, go read, or not; just call or email your Senators. And thanks!)

I made a mistake, read what I shouldn’t, now can not stop thinking about it.

**** Trigger warning, talk of abuse with a few graphic details. ****

I had stopped going to the male survivor site as it was causing me to spiral badly into the bad places in my head, triggering my negative emotions, getting seriously depressed and spending hours stuck in my memories, crying, then having horrible nightmares as I tried to sleep.

Look even without going to the site I still scream out in my sleep. It is agonizing because in my dreams I am struggling to verbalize the words, get them out and it feels like my mouth is locked shut, sort of my like my lips are sewn together. In my nightmares I can speak and scream normally until it gets so intense it seems I struggle to get the sounds out and they become much more guttural. That seems to be when I am getting audible in the awake world. When it seems I am able to unlock my jaws or rip my lips open is when I am in reality shouting out in my sleep. Ron had to wake me just two days ago when I was shouting help help help. I spared him the description of the abuse even though he is always willing for me to tell him the memories or nightmares because he knows it is very helpful for me to talk about it or get it out. Especially when it has just happened.

Anyway back to this morning. So a new friend who is a survivor who has been on the Male Survivor site much more than I have been and posts there often about everything going on in his life, like I do here, this person has been saying to me that they wrote about their holidays so could I go to their posts to see what had been going on with them. I went to the MS site, I started reading new posts before I got to his posts. And I never made it to Steve’s posts.

The post was about being anally raped and the person leaving their cum inside you that you try to prevent leaking out. The post and the people replying / joining the conversation all also wrote about their underwear being stained with poop and cum or in some cases blood. The conversation was about trying to get rid of or wash the evidence out before it was discovered by a mother or other who cared for them and they did not want to find out they were being abused.

I did not have this problem. My abuse was much more open and known in the house so I did not have to hide it or wash my sheets after. I did get in trouble if I wore my white underwear after without cleaning myself up which would leave stains / marks in the white underwear. So those if I saw that I would wash them myself soon as I could like the people in the conversation said they did. When the wet underwear was discovered after a few times of me doing that, I was caught in the act cleaning them. I was yelled at for it, told I was so stupid then pulled to the kitchen in front of everyone while naked, while my adoptive mother “taught me how to wipe my bottom and clean myself” after being raped. I was told to rather than lay in the bed or put my underwear on, that as soon as the person was finished with me and they did not want to use me anymore I should go empty myself. Then wipe / wash my bottom. I then had to repeat and show I knew how to do this in front of the laughing hell spawn. All that taught me was to wash and dry them before I put them in the laundry basket.

So this brings me to what I can not get out of my head this morning. Before I got side tracked by my memories and started the downward spiral, I was busy reading news articles, adding to my posting of crazy stuff that the right was doing, and gathering memes of Sunday’s meme post. Then it all came to a halt and I started to crash. Writing this out is helping. So what about the above triggered me?

See I could hold it in, the fluids inside me normally while laying in the bed, or in the short timeframe from when it was over until I could get to the bathroom or if outside until I could dump / empty my bowels, but that left nothing to wipe with so I would have to carry my underwear until I could do so hoping not to soil my pants. But there was one place and time I couldn’t do any of that. It was when raped and abused at school.

Please stay with me and try to understand the feelings / thinking of a small kid as I try to describe this without being too graphic. It started at school when I was 7 and continued but tapered off as I became a teenager. So imagine being 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 and being taken to a supply closet, empty room, or after school hours to the principal’s office. Once there told to drop my pants. Being fondled and touched. Then ordered to my knees to give oral sex to a male. So far none of that deals with what I wrote about above, soiling myself. But that comes from when instead of being told to kneel, I was instead told to turn around and stand on something, or picked up and draped over something, (more than once being forced to lay over the copy machine as it dug into my chest / belly while my ass was used to make the male staff / teachers happy) when I was very small I would be made to take my pants off then placed on my back on a shelf with my legs pined up as my back was bent to position my butt hole correctly for their use.

Ok I tried to put if off as long as I could. This is the part I was trying to get to and that the conversation on the site was about. After being used, trusted into sometimes with lube and sometimes without, filled with those fluids and possible messiness, my bottom full of the ejaculate of the guy who just … fucked me, I would be told to get dressed and go back to class. Of course the person who used me wanted to make the time I was away from class as short as possible if I was taken from class for the abuse. So if I had been summoned or escorted from the classroom, I would be told to get dressed quickly and return to class. I knew better than to tell. If it had been painful and hurtful, I would be told to stop crying and wipe my face on my shirt.

So this gets back to the stained underwear. I would have to put my underwear on, no choice, and go back to class not knowing if I was messy or not. I would only know my butt hurt, maybe my belly, back, or legs would also hurt. I would have to enter the classroom trying to not show anything wrong, feeling like everyone in the room was looking at me knowing what had just happened, what I had just done. Again if it was oral all I struggled with was the taste in my mouth. But if it had been anal specially if it had been forceful, in a bad position for me, or if no lube had been used, then my butt / asshole would be very sore and full of fluids. I would be forced to try to sit still, and desperately pinch my butt cheeks together as painful as that was or let the liquids mixed with poop ooze out creating both smell and stains. Most teachers soon understood and did not scold me for not paying attention or being not being still in my seat. It was the same as when I had been given a belting, spanking, or bad paddling before school, they seem to understand the pain I was in that my clothing / pants covered.

As soon as I could or when the teacher would quietly whisper in my ear asking if I needed to use the bathroom, I would leave the classroom walk carefully to the bathroom where I would rush into a toilet stall. I would also check my underwear as best I could. I would do the same as I walked or rode my bike home. I lived about a mile and half from the school. It was so much better in the warm months trying to do it in when bundled up for the cold was horrible. Because in warm months I could run in to the woods or somewhere not able to be easily seen, strip off my lower clothing and then remove my underwear, and redress. Then I could take the underwear to a brook like the one we had behind our home, wash the underwear, hang it in the sun to dry off something where I should be able to retrieve it later. Stories of what happened the few times I was caught doing this another time.

Many abuse victims just threw their soiled clothing out. I couldn’t do that. Punishment for losing my clothing was as severe as for soiling them.

So that was what has destroyed my emotions and focus for the last 7 hours. Taking the time to write this has helped me calm down and recenter. But the remembered pain of being so small, the over whelming emotion of feeling that everyone knew when I entered the classroom, and the fear that it was leaking into my underwear knowing that I would be publicly punish and possibly also privately punish if they were stained. Maybe most parents finding semen, blood, or poop stains all over the back of their child’s underwear would cause them to question what happened or rush to defend / help their son. Not mine, if they felt anything at all maybe they were happy it was happening to me. Maybe it relieved their own guilt knowing others did the same to me. I don’t know.

Just more from my childhood I have to deal with. Anyway, no more meme hunting today, nor news about the stuff the right is doing. Today I am going to answer comments and concentrate on the love and out pouring of support I get from this community. Oh and tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment. Hugs.