The DISH

Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use

Vol. 13 Issue 19…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…May 10, 2010

Hood Notes

White-Only Service

Wadner Tranchant is a Haitian-American. The 40-year-old waiter and 15-year employee of the posh Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Naples, Florida is suing his employer. Tranchant claims his supervisors forbade him from serving a white family at their request.

According to the lawsuit, a British family checked into the swanky hotel on February 28 and demanded they be served by whites only. In addition to refusing to be served by people of color or those with a foreign accent, the suit alleges that when the Morgan family checked into the hotel, a note was put in the hotel's computer stating "this couple is very, very prejudice [d]." Naples News reported that the head of the family, Rodney Morgan, made the request, which the lawsuit alleges the hotel honored.

Two weeks into the Morgan's stay, Tranchant's supervisors stopped him from serving them at the hotel's restaurant. Tranchant was left feeling humiliated and intimidated, according to his lawyers. The stressful episode eventually resulted in the need for medical and psychological treatment. Tranchant is seeking at least $75,000 in damages from the Ritz-Carlton Co. for allegedly violating the U.S. Civil Rights Act.

"My client was prevented from waiting on this couple because he was black," said attorney Michael McDonnell. He added that he has nine witnesses willing to testify about the racist request. And, the lawsuit claims that this wasn't the first discriminatory demand made by a guest and honored by the hotel. "Other employees of defendant Ritz also encountered similar treatment on multiple occasions," the complaint reads.

The hotel's vice president and director, Edward Staros, the executive named in the lawsuit, is regarded as an ethics authority within the company. In a statement, the hotel chain said, "The Ritz-Carlton cannot comment on pending litigation but can say the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company does not allow discriminatory actions by employees or guests." On its website, the five-star Ritz-Carlton Hotel boasts that it offers "impeccable service."

The 450-room hotel, whose suites range from $449 to $4,999 a night, is featured on Conde Nast Traveler's 2010 Gold List, which praised it as "very family oriented."

Bit of History

Antonio Nuñez

"Young children who commit serious crimes may need punishment but those punishments must be reasonable and thoughtful. Hopelessly condemning 14-year-old children to die in prison is at odds with everything our constitutional norms and values are designed to protect." Equal Justice Initiative Attorney Bryan Stevenson

In 2000, shortly after his 13th birthday, Antonio Nuñez was riding a bicycle near his home in South Central Los Angeles, California, when he was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting. His brother, who was 14 years old, ran to help him and was shot in the head and killed. Antonio was critically injured and underwent emergency surgery to repair his intestines.

Nuñez subsequently developed post-traumatic stress disorder. His mother succumbed to grief and depression, rarely managing to get out of bed; his father's alcohol abuse worsened; and his siblings required treatment for anxiety and trauma.

After his release from the hospital, Nuñez left South Central. He spent more than six months with relatives in Nevada before the probation department required him to return to Los Angeles.

Within weeks of his return to South Central, 14-year-old Nuñez got into a car with two older men who picked him up at a party. One of the men later claimed to be a kidnap victim. The car was chased by the police; shots were fired. Nuñez was arrested on April 25, 2001 and charged with kidnaping Santa Ana businessman Delfino Moreno and shooting at officers with an AK-47.

On the day of his arrest, Nuñez acknowledged responsibility for his actions. He testified that when plainclothes police in unmarked vans chased their car, he fired a gun out of fear that the occupants of the van would shoot him, just as he had been shot the day his brother was killed.

When he saw a marked police vehicle activate its light, Nuñez dropped the gun to the floor and left it there. Seconds later, the car crashed into some trees. He was arrested and charged with several offenses, including aggravated kidnaping. No one was injured.

In 2003, Nuñez was tried in Orange County, California in a joint trial with the 27-year-old driver. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Juan Diego Perez, his accomplice, was also convicted and sentenced to life without parole.

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) has documented over 70 cases throughout the United States in which children 14 and younger have been condemned to die in prison, often without consideration of the child's age or life history. The United States is the only country in the world where children as young as 13 and 14 are sentenced to die in prison.

At the time of his sentencing, Nuñez was one of the youngest defendants in California history to receive such a penalty. In addition to life without parole, Judge William Froeberg of Orange County Superior Court, who rejected arguments that the sentence was cruel and unusual punishment, sentenced the young defendant to four life terms and 121 years, since he had been found guilty of attempted murder of a police officer, assault, evading police, street terrorism and committing crimes for the benefit of a street gang.

A defense lawyer, Joel Garson, asked the judge to consider the ''mental maturity'' of Nuñez, whose reading and math skills were said to be at a second-grade level. He also said Nuñez had a ''very minor'' past criminal history and a traumatic family life.

On April 2, 2007, EJI filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the California Supreme Court on behalf of Nuñez, challenging his sentence as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States Constitution, the California Constitution, and California law. On April 30, 2009, a California Court of Appeal held that the death-in-prison sentence imposed in the Nuñez case was "so arbitrary that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution and the California Constitution. (Sources: www.nytimes.com and www.eji.org/eji/node/298 )

Intuit's Vibe

Imagine If the Tea Party Was Black

By Tim Wise

Let's play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called "Imagine." The way it's played is simple: we'll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes, we'll envision black folks or other people of color. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let's begin.

Imagine hundreds of black protesters descended upon Washington, DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And, imagine that some of these protesters -- black protesters -- spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn't like were enforced by the government? Would these protester -- these black protesters with guns -- be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that's what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation's capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country's political leaders, if the need arose.

Imagine white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine a rap artist said, in reference to a white president: "He's a piece of s*** and I told him to suck on my machine gun." Because that's what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Imagine a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister -- who also works for the organization -- defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and "going through a tough time in his life," would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that's what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America's Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.

Imagine a black radio host suggested that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by "hating black people," or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn't want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough--"living fossils" as he called them--"so we will never forget what these people stood for." After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said about Barack Obama's administration, Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.

Imagine a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president's policies, that he was ready to "suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do." This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.

Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been "destroying" the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to "hang `em high." And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for "speaking common sense" and likened his hate talk to "American values?" After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.

Imagine a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her "typical redneck trash," or a "whore" whose mother entertains her by "making monkey sounds." After all that's comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as "ghetto trash."

Imagine black protesters at a large political rally walked around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that's what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic Party leaders in Congress.

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark "other" does so, however, it isn't viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and "American-ness" of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the s*** we do, on a daily basis. Game Over.

News You Use

Sherry Peel Jackson, Political Prisoner

By Junious Ricardo Stanton

"Sherry Peel Jackson, 45, of Stone Mountain, Georgia, a former IRS Revenue Agent, was sentenced on February 14, 2008 to four years in federal prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release; she was taken into custody immediately after sentencing. Jackson was convicted by a federal jury on October 30, 2007, after a two-day trial, on four counts of failure to file her individual tax returns for the years 2000 to 2003. Beginning in 2000, Jackson operated a tax preparation business and continued to prepare, submit and file individual tax returns for her clients. For the next three years, however, Jackson intentionally did not file her own tax returns, despite an income of over $400,000 during that time period." www.justice.gov/usao/gan/press/2008/

With so much disinformation, distraction, discombobulation and disguising going on, I can see why we would be unaware that a courageous black woman had been arrested prosecuted and sentenced to four years in federal prison for failing to pay her income taxes over a four year period. What is interesting about her case though is the fact the defendant, Sherry Peel Jackson, was a CPA and former IRS agent who was seen prominently in the film America Freedom To Fascism produced by the late film-maker Aaron Russo. Russo, who had produced such Hollywood movies as Trading Places, Wise Guys and The Rose, became an activist film-maker. I suggest you rent the movie or go online to watch it so you get a better idea about why I am writing this piece.

Sherry Peel Jackson from all indications I've seen was a law abiding, religious black woman, wife and mother who was awarded numerous citations and awards while working for the IRS as a fraud investigator. She was employed by the IRS from 1988 to 1995. She left the IRS according to her to devote more time to her family and young children. She practiced her profession as a Certified Public Accountant until one day she saw an ad challenging anyone to prove there was an actual law on the books mandating US citizens pay income taxes. The ad offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who could: (1) show how to file a federal income tax return without waving one's 5th amendment rights and (2) identify the section of the Internal Revenue Code that makes a typical worker liable to pay an income tax.

Mrs. Jackson decided to take the challenge. She reviewed all her old IRS manuals and books, went to the library and researched for several days trying to win the prize money. However, she soon made a startling discovery; to her chagrin she wasn't able to prove there was any such law. Here is how she described her dilemma, "The next week, while sitting at my desk, scratching my head, I realized that there was a BIG problem with what the people are told versus what the codes and regulations say. At that point I had to make a decision. Not only was it a personal decision but a moral decision. My Christian background taught me to be honest and truthful, but above all, choose GOD over man. Here before me was credible evidence that the American people are being robbed of their hard earned wages, that this fraud has been perpetuated for almost a century through fear and intimidation, and that our government is ignoring the cries of the people for answers to this crisis. I had to decide whether I was going to be an informed slave or get off of the plantation. I decided to get off of the plantation and actively educate others and myself about the misapplication and misrepresentation of the federal income tax."

She says, "This money actually goes to pay interest on our federal debt. The federal debt is paid to the Federal Reserve, which is not a part of the government but is a privately owned non-auditable banking cartel. To make it plain, your hard earned money is paid to the Federal Reserve to maintain control over your lives and the lives of countless other human beings on this earth. You can find several Internet sites that clock the federal debt as it rises per second. We currently pay the Federal Reserve over 36 million dollars per hour in interest. Obviously this money isn't going to current owners, but is being put in trust for children that are not even born yet - while you slave away trying to make ends meet."

She started speaking out, joined the anti-tax movement and attended rallies. She even took the bold step of not filing her personal income tax returns. She became the darling of the growing anti-tax movement and Libertarian movements. Eventually she gained fame and notoriety because she was part of the Russo film. She came to the attention of the federal government and was subsequently arrested, tried, convicted on February 14, 2008 and sentenced to four years in prison for failing to file her income tax returns. The judge gave her a harsher, longer sentence than the "sentencing guidelines" suggested in order to "teach people like her a lesson that they can't not pay their income taxes." Sherry Peel Jackson is federal prisoner # 59085-019 currently being held in Tallahassee Florida.

Visit her Website and read her story for yourself. When you type her name into your Web browser you find she has not fared well in prison. There are allegations the Federal prison authorities have been mistreating her and denying her medial attention/treatment. This is not unusual for political prisoners nor any other prisoners for that matter. Sherry Peel Jackson is part of the burgeoning US prison industrial complex. She is no different from the millions of others this country routinely arrests and imprisons. The fact she is a person of conscience and conviction makes her even more of a threat to the status quo.

There is clearly a two tiered system in this country, the rich and influential and the rest of us. It must be true, especially when you consider several nominees for positions in the Obama administration also failed to pay their income taxes, yet none of them were arrested nor sent to jail. Makes you go hmmm doesn't it? How is it people like Tom Daschle ($140,000 owed), Nancy Killefer (a $947 tax lien was filed against her D.C. house by the city of Washington D.C. for failing to pay taxes on a domestic employee), Timothy Geithner ($40,000 owed but he was pushed through and Confirmed as US Treasury Secretary anyway) and Kathleen Sebelius ($ 7918 in back taxes and fines were paid just prior to her nomination/confirmation hearings) can get away with not paying taxes. And this doesn't count the multi-national corporations who pay comparatively little taxes compared to their earnings. It seems the only ones who pay taxes these days are chumps and suckers like us.

How can they can get away with not paying taxes and we can't? Ever wonder how and why none of the people responsible for protecting the country on 9-11, the Joint Chiefs, the military, the CIA, FBI, FAA, all those people who failed so abysmally yet were never censured, demoted, fired nor put on trial? It all runs counter to the law of averages, don't you think? I guess it's a D.C./ ruling elite thing.

Learn more about Jackson's plight at http://sherrypeeljackson.com.

Politics Y2K10

Felony Disenfranchisement Aids Republicans

By Amy Goodman

As I raced into our TV studio for our Super Tuesday morning-after show, I was excited. Across the country, initial reports indicated there was unprecedented voter participation, at least in the Democratic primaries, several times higher than in previous elections. For years I have covered countries like Haiti, where people risk death to vote, while the U.S. has one of the lowest participation rates in the industrialized world. Could it be this year would be different?

Then I bumped into a friend and asked if he had voted. "I can't vote," he said, "because I did time in prison." I asked him if he would have voted. "Sure I would have. Because then I'm not just talking junk, I'm doing something about it."

Felony disenfranchisement is the practice by state governments of barring people convicted of a felony from voting, even after they have served their time. In Virginia and Kentucky, people convicted of any felony can never vote again (this would include "Scooter" Libby, even though he never went to jail, unless he is pardoned). Eight other states have permanent felony disenfranchisement laws, with some conditions that allow people to rejoin the voter rolls: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee and Wyoming.

Disenfranchisement -- people being denied their right to vote -- takes many forms, and has a major impact on electoral politics. In Ohio in 2004, stories abounded of inoperative voting machines, too few ballots or too few voting machines. Then there was Florida in 2000. Many continue to believe that the election was thrown to George W. Bush by Ralph Nader, who got about 97,000 votes in Florida. Ten times that number of Floridians are prevented from voting at all. Why?

Currently, more than 1.1 million Floridians have been convicted of a felony and thus aren't allowed to vote. We can't know for sure how they would have voted, but as scholar, lawyer and activist Angela Davis said recently in a speech honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Mobile, Ala., "If we had not had the felony disenfranchisement that we have, there would be no way that George Bush would be in the White House."

Since felony disenfranchisement disproportionately affects African-American and Latino men in the U.S., and since these groups overwhelmingly vote Democratic, the laws bolster the position of the Republican Party. The statistics are shocking. Ryan King, policy analyst with The Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., summarized the latest:

About 5.3 million U.S. citizens are ineligible to vote due to felony disenfranchisement; 2 million of them are African-American. Of these, 1.4 million are African-American men, which translate into an incredible 13 percent of that population, a rate seven times higher than in the overall population. Forty-eight states have some version of felony disenfranchisement. All bar voting from prison and participation while on parole or probation. Two states, Maine and Vermont, allow prisoners to vote in prison, as does Canada and a number of other countries.

The politicians and pundits are all abuzz with the massive turnouts in the primaries and caucuses. There are increasing percentages of women participating, and initial reports point to more young people. The youth vote is particularly important, as young people have less invested in the status quo and can look with fresh eyes at long-standing injustices that disenfranchise so many. In this context, one of The Sentencing Project's predictions bears repeating here: "Given current rates of incarceration, 3 in 10 of the next generation of black men can expect to be disenfranchised at some point in their lifetime. In states that disenfranchise ex-offenders, as many as 40 percent of black men may permanently lose their right to vote."

The Sentencing Project's King said: "We are constantly pushing for legislative change around the country. But, public education is absolutely key. There are so many different laws that people simply don't know when their right to vote has been restored. That includes the personnel who work in state governments giving out the wrong information."

I called my friend to tell him he was misinformed. He hadn't been on probation or parole for years. "You can vote," I told him. "You just have to register." I could hear him smile through the phone. (Source: www.alternet.org/story/76340/)

Venue for an Artist

When Are WE Going to Get Over It?

By Andrew M. Manis

For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it?

Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color? Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham, " Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."

Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.

We, white people, have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes.

Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.

But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -- that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president.

But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."

Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can - once and for all - get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?

How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?

I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners?

How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?

How long before we start "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?

Until this November 4, 2008, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem.

But here's my three-point plan: First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people. Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama. Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."

About Me: Andrew M. Manis is associate professor of history at Macon State College in Georgia and wrote this for an editorial in the Macon Telegraph.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email catonine@yahoo.com... AG: Youth prescription drug abuse on rise in ND...Young people are abusing prescription drugs with alarming frequency, sometimes during "pharm parties" where pills are set out like candy, a man whose son died of an overdose of painkillers told a conference Tuesday. "Kids refer to them as skittles or trail mix," Dan Pearson said. "It's real. It's very real." Pearson, of St. Cloud, Minn., spoke at the conference to brief social workers, medical professionals and law enforcement officers about what Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem says is a rising prescription drug abuse problem in North Dakota. More than 300 people attended the conference. Stenehjem is holding another meeting Wednesday in Fargo and said he expected a similar turnout. "We need to create and promote public awareness of the extent of this problem in North Dakota," the attorney general said. "The problem is out of control. Illegal prescription medications are everywhere." The state Department of Public Instruction said a recent survey of North Dakota youth behavior indicated illegal use of prescription drugs has been increasing for both middle school and high school students. A separate 2008 survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 2.9 percent of eighth graders and 9.7 percent of high school seniors had abused Vicodin, a narcotic painkiller.

Email www.americanprospect.com ...Senate Says No to Ending Crack Disparity ...By Adam Serwer..."Sen. Dick Durbin announced that he and Sen. Jeff Sessions had reached a 'compromise' in the Senate gym over Durbin's bill, which would have eliminated the 100 to 1 sentencing disparity for crack vs. powder cocaine. "'If you ever wonder if anything good ever happens there, it appears something good might have happened there,' Durbin said, which may or may not have been an oblique reference to former Congressman Eric Massa's tale about being lobbied by Rahm Emanuel in the House gym. 'Senator [Orrin] Hatch was there to witness it.' "The compromise was that Durbin would accept Sessions' amendment to change the disparity from 100 to 1 to 20 to 1. In return, Sessions offered to withdraw his amendments that would have narrowed the circumstances under which a judge could reduce penalties for offenders who acted with 'fear, impulse or affection,' and would have imposed a 10-year mandatory maximum for simple possession rather than eliminating the five-year mandatory minimum for simple possession entirely. "'My position is for one to one, equity and equality in sentencing, but in order to get things done you have to be prepared to make mutual concessions,' Durbin said. 'That's what we have done.' "The Judiciary Committee passed the bill, which will go to the full Senate for a floor vote. Instead of eliminating the crack/powder disparity, which practically everyone in the committee acknowledged disproportionately affects black Americans, the senators opted to make the law one-fifth as racist as it used to be. "The senators on the committee spent the rest of the markup complimenting each other on all they had achieved with their bipartisanship."