The blog Feministing has flagged a troubling story from Cobb County, Georgia. An Atlanta-area mother attempted to cross the street with her children from a bus stop to her home, and lost her son to a hit and run:

On April 10, she and her three children — Tyler, 9, A.J., 4, and Lauryn, 3 — went shopping because the next day was Nelson’s birthday. They had pizza, went to Wal-Mart and missed a bus, putting them an hour late getting home. Nelson, a student at Kennesaw State University, said she never expected to be out after dark, especially with the children.

When the Cobb County Transit bus finally stopped directly across from Somerpoint Apartments, night had fallen. She and the children crossed two lanes and waited with other passengers on the raised median for a break in traffic. The nearest crosswalks were three-tenths of a mile in either direction, and Nelson wanted to get her children inside as soon as possible. A.J. carried a plastic bag holding a goldfish they’d purchased.

“One girl ran across the street,” Nelson said. “For some odd reason, I guess he saw the girl and decided to run out behind her. I said, ‘Stop, A.J.,’ and he was in the middle of the street so I said keep going. That’s when we all got hit.”

An all-white jury has convicted the woman, an African American, of vehicular homicide, even though she was not driving a car. Jerry Guy, the man who struck the boy with his car and fled the scene, pleaded guilty to hit-and-run, and has already served a six-month sentence. As reporter Elise Hitchcock notes, the woman “may serve more time than the driver who hit and killed her 4-year-old son.”

From news reports of the event, it appears the incident was an accident and the mother, who struggled to control her several children at the time, simply had difficulty ensuring that her son did not run into the middle of the road. Moreover, her jury, reportedly all white and from middle class backgrounds, were not her peers. It is unlikely they have had experience raising a family while in college on a low income, and without the luxury of a car to get around a suburban area. “The culture of criminalization, particularly of low-income people of color, has risen to such heights in this country,” laments Miriam from Feministing.

Conservative Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has butted heads with Democrats over many issues since taking office in January. But when it comes to immigration, it seems they may have common ground. Snyder is bucking the trend of GOP governors across the nation signing draconian anti-immigrant legislation modeled on Arizona’s notorious SB1070. Not only did Snyder recently denounce such “divisive” laws, he’s saying his state would welcome more immigrants:

“One of the keys that made us successful in the past is going to again be the key to our future, and that’s…immigration,” Snyder told hundreds of people attending the New Michigan Media conference. [...]

The Michigan Department of Civil Rights and the Michigan Economic Development Corp. are working together through the Snyder administration’s Global Michigan Initiative to find ways to team graduating immigrants with companies that might be able to help them gain a work visa by saying they’ll hire them. [...]

He wants the federal government to deal with the issue and opposes Arizona-style laws that allow police enforcing other laws to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.

“That’s a divisive situation,” he said, noting he opposes bills already introduced that would bring similar laws to Michigan. “Such negative issues…actually cause more trouble than anything.”

Michigan was particularly hard-hit by the recession and is seeing the health and vitality of the state decline as many people move away. Snyder recognizes that immigration is key to economic growth and an important part of rebuilding cities that have lost much of their population. Detroit, for instance, has lost 26 percent of its population in the past decade.

(HT: Washington Independent)

Now that four Courts of Appeal are considering whether the landmark Affordable Care Act is constitutional, the many trial courts faced with this question have faded into the background. Nevertheless, dozens of Republican state officials and conservative individuals and interest groups have filed lawsuits seeking to strike down the law and these lawsuits remain pending in multiple federal district courts.

Today, George W. Bush appointee Judge Christopher Conner will hear oral arguments in Goudy-Bachman v. HHS, one of these many remaining cases. Ominously, Conner denied the Department of Justice’s request to dismiss the case as the earliest possible stage last January — and two of the district judges who denied such a motion went on to strike down the law.

Additionally, there is reason to worry about Conner’s partisan connections. Prior to his appointment by Bush, Conner made a max dollar donation to Bush’s presidential campaign, and he also contributed generously to former Sen. Rick Santorum and to various GOP campaign committees.

Hopefully, however, Conner will be able to put aside his partisan stake in this case and acknowledge the basic fact that the plaintiffs challenging the Affordable Care Act have no case. Moreover, while Conner may have denied DOJ’s motion to dismiss in January, a lot has happened since then. Most importantly, Judge Jeffrey Sutton — a former clerk to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, and a leader of the conservative states rights movement — recently joined the first Court of Appeals decision to reject a challenge to the ACA. The law hasn’t changed one bit since Sutton rejected this utterly meritless lawsuit, so Conner has an obligation to place the Constitution ahead of party and follow Sutton’s lead.