Political Activism

"Let me tell you a story," says the silver-haired man. There are these two fishermen fishing for crabs. In the boat they have two large barrels. One barrel has a top, the other does not. One fisherman says to the other , "The crabs we're putting in the barrel without the top, they're going to climb out." Says his friend , "Don't worry. These are Mexican crabs." The other guy asks, "What does that mean?"

A New York federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that opponents contend could subject them to indefinite military detention for political activism, news reporting or other 1st Amendment activities. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan ruled Wednesday in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and the Defense Department. Obama signed the bill into law Dec. 31. The complaint was filed Jan. 13 by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges.

Robert Dunne tried hard to live like a man. He got a job in heavy construction and became a skilled sheet-metal worker. He got married--three times. But for nearly 30 years, he knew he wasn't being true to himself. Finally, he decided to have a sex change operation, but when word leaked out at his workplace, he found himself without a job. Now Robert has become Roberta, and the onetime hermit has blossomed into an activist fighting discrimination against transsexuals and cross-dressers.

The allegation was serious: Someone might be playing politics with Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich's personnel file from his days as a county prosecutor. Trutanich, who is campaigning to become the next district attorney, complained to state authorities last week that his file was missing and asked for an investigation into "suspicious political activity" in the district attorney's office. In his letter to the attorney general's office, Trutanich noted that Los Angeles County Dist.

It was the weekend before Christmas, but rather than searching frantically for gifts, Kathy Yandell stood outside a Beverly Hills retailer Saturday, starring in the role of the anti-shopper. The Redondo Beach animal rights activist, along with four fellow supporters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, were displaying protest signs and urging holiday shoppers to avoid the Nature Company.

The playground of Santo Nino Center filled up with families from its downtown L.A. neighborhood one recent evening. Parents, grandparents and children ventured into a part of town where most people stay home after dark, but this gathering meant enough to them that they were willing to risk the danger. As representatives of the Los Angeles Police Department, L.A.

They are the "Redwood Rabbis" quoting Torah and Talmud on sacred stewardship to dissuade a Jewish magnate from wiping out some of the world's most ancient forest groves. They are the "Noah congregations" of evangelical Christians plying conservative Republicans with biblical passages on why saving God's creatures from extinction is a religious responsibility.

When the NAACP's conference ended here last week, civil rights leaders left behind a portrait of black men in crisis. Too many young black men, said the civil rights group, are underemployed, alternately feared and reviled, and living at risk. Now come the men of Sigma Pi Phi, a once-secret black fraternity that celebrates the professional and material success of black men.

Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - In 1988, well-heeled gay activists went to Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign with an offer to raise $1 million for his election effort. The campaign said no, according to the activists. "They turned us down flat because it was gay money," said longtime gay rights advocate David Mixner. Less than a quarter-century later, the gay and lesbian community ranks as one of the most important parts of President Obama's campaign-finance operation.

So obscure that his conviction for four murders barely made headlines, death row inmate Stanley Tookie Williams owes his notoriety as much to a determined woman who stood by him and to committed death penalty opponents as to his shift from gangster to anti-gang activist. During a jailhouse visit in 1993 to research a book on gangs, writer Barbara Becnel discovered that Williams, who is scheduled to be executed Dec. 13, had renounced his gang past.

Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - In 1988, well-heeled gay activists went to Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign with an offer to raise $1 million for his election effort. The campaign said no, according to the activists. "They turned us down flat because it was gay money," said longtime gay rights advocate David Mixner. Less than a quarter-century later, the gay and lesbian community ranks as one of the most important parts of President Obama's campaign-finance operation.

Until the mats, blankets and other comforts of Necessity Village were finally packed up at sunrise Tuesday, Jerome Clark had been sleeping soundly for the first time in years. For the last decade, the 65-year-old homeless man's on-and-off residence has been the Santa Ana Civic Center, usually the lawn. Like others who live on the streets of Orange County's second largest city, Clark said his nights were fitful, sleep always elusive as he worried about being slapped with a ticket for violating the city's no-camping ordinance.

Nancy Crop is a Palo Alto civil rights attorney. Cushon Bell is a Pasadena educational activist and former teacher. Teri Levy is a Los Angeles creative artist in fashion and photography. But even though all three high-powered women are privileged to send their children to excellent public schools, they say they are haunted by the countless California children stuck at low-performing campuses. This weekend, they are giving up free time to train with 100 other parent leaders organizing for more school funding, top-notch teachers and a high-quality education for all students.

Mention "social welfare organization" and the last thing that comes to mind is a group that expends millions of dollars to influence a federal election. But Crossroads GPS, which spent more than $17 million in 2010 to elect Republicans to Congress, claims to be a social welfare organization — which gives it tax- exempt status and allows it to conceal the identities of its donors. Now two campaign-reform groups have written to the Internal Revenue Service challenging the right of Crossroads GPS and three other organizations to 501(c)

Rodney Hunt, fresh off work in a starched, buttoned-down shirt, joined the crowd that was streaming into a meeting of the Central Mississippi Tea Party. It was just after the state primaries, and Hunt, 65, a reserved man by nature, had emerged as something of a Mississippi kingmaker. Hunt's organization, the Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, or MFIRE, had endorsed Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, who had just crushed his opponent in the GOP primary and appeared destined to become governor, partly because he was promising voters he'd push for a tough anti-illegal-immigration law -- the group's signature issue.

Last year, as the Karl Rove-backed group Crossroads GPS dumped more than $17 million into helping elect Republicans in congressional districts across the country, a duo of campaign finance reform advocates asked the IRS to investigate the special tax status claimed by Rove's group. As a self-styled “social welfare” group, Crossroads was able to accept unlimited anonymous donations and used the money to air advertisements supporting or opposing candidates.  Today, those same reform advocates have gone back to the IRS with a new complaint aimed not just at Rove's group, but at three others, including one group that was started last spring by former Obama aides.  In a letter sent to the IRS on Wednesday, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center challenged the social welfare tax status claimed by Crossroads GPS, American Action Network, Priorities USA and Americans Elect.  “The idea that these organizations are social welfare groups is nonsense,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. “The overriding purpose of these groups is to participate in and influence elections, which makes them ineligible for tax exempt status.” Jim Landry, a spokesman for American Action Network - a group that spent $26 million on election advertising in 2010 -- called the IRS petition “a baseless complaint.” “The American Action Network takes its legal responsibilities seriously and complies with all of them,” Landry...

Students and fellow educators are rallying behind a fired Jordan High School teacher they say was sacked for encouraging political activism among her students. About 60 students rallied Wednesday at the Watts campus, while a colleague of the fired teacher said he and 15 other instructors planned to resign or transfer to other schools to protest the dismissal of Karen Salazar, a second-year English teacher. The dust-up has gone digital as well.

QUANELL X stared confidently into the television camera and told a heart-tugging tale about the frail man sitting by his side: Dennis Garnier was roughed up and disrespected, all because police didn't have their facts straight. A SWAT team burst into his house and hogtied him. It had the wrong address; the drug dealer lived a few doors down. Garnier has suffered memory loss and has become so scared of guns that he can't work as a security guard anymore.

Politics and the pulpit Re "Pastors heed a political calling," Sept. 11 I was deeply dismayed to read about the pastors who are becoming politically active ahead of the 2012 election. They do not speak for the thousands of Christians like me who refuse to have our politics defined by a handful of vague biblical references to abortion or homosexuality. Do they read the same Bible I do? What shapes my political worldview are the pervasive references to caring for the poor.

An epic redistricting battle is shaping up at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors that could result in the first nonwhite board majority in modern history and further reduce the clout of Republicans in county politics. Latino activists are pushing for the county to create a second Latino-majority district, saying demographic shifts in the last decade demand it. Latinos now make up 48% of the county population, up from 45% in 2000, census data show. And Latinos constitute a third of the county's potential voters, up from a little more than one in four a decade ago. "I hope the board is going to recognize the demographic changes in this county," said Gloria Molina, the county's first nonwhite and first person of Latino heritage to be elected supervisor in more than a century.