For the second year in a row, a federal court in Columbus, Georgia, has sentenced activists to six-month prison terms for trespassing on the US Army's Fort Benning base during protests against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). This is the maximum sentence for the offense, and US federal magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth surprised observers when he imposed the penalty on three activists in January 2010.

The right-wing chattering and blogging classes are squealing with unanimous denial that Jared Loughner was influenced by their recent effluence of ultra-bellicose thunder. Timothy P. Carney on the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog takes issue with Paul Krugman's sensible call in the New York Times ("Climate of Hate," Jan. 9) for partisans to refrain from "eliminationist rhetoric." Writes Carney:

Although no other evidence is given, Fox News on Jan. 9 quoted a Department of Homeland Security memo stating that Jared Lee Loughner—primary suspect in the previous day's shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson—is "possibly linked" to American Renaissance, a self-styled far-right think-tank that DHS says promotes views that are "anti-government, anti-immigration, anti-ZOG [Zionist Occupational Government], anti-Semitic."

Sholom Rubashkin, former CEO of the Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa—which made national headlines when it was the target of a massive ICE raid of undocumented workers in 2008—this week filed an appeal of his conviction to the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Rubashkin was convicted in November 2009 of 86 counts of fraud stemming from a $26.8 million loss to lenders after the immigration raid found nearly 400 undocumented workers at his plant. Although the indictment included charges of harboring unauthorized immigrants for profit, federal prosecutors opted not to pursue the immigration charges after the fraud conviction. A state trial acquitted him of knowingly employing underage workers.

The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a lawsuit Nov. 4 challenging the constitutionality of State Question 755, which amends the state constitution to ban the use of Islamic or international law in state court decisions. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, seeks to block the Oklahoma State Board of Elections from certifying this week's election results, in which voters approved the measure by a vote of 70 to 30%. CAIR argues that the law violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The law would prevent Oklahoma courts from "look[ing] to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures," requiring them only to look to legal precedents of other states for guidance, provided that state does not use Islamic law.

A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Oct. 25 struck down a portion of an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration. The court held that the law, Proposition 200, was inconsistent with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which was passed with the intent of increasing voter registration and removing barriers to registration imposed by the states. The NVRA requires voters to attest to the validity of the information on their registration form, including their citizenship, but does not require them to provide additional proof of citizenship. Proposition 200 went beyond the federal statute, requiring applicants to show proof of citizenship before registering to vote.

A protest was held in Albuquerque, NM, on Sept. 18, demanding police intensify their search for a culprit in a mass grave discovered at West Mesa on the outskirts of the city last year. The protest, called by the group Justice of the West Mesa Women, was held outside the city police headquarters, with marchers carrying crosses draped in women's clothing. In February 2009, authorities in West Mesa found the bodies of 11 women, including one who had been pregnant, in a mass grave. At least 10 other women in the West Mesa area have been reported missing, and authorities fear that there are more missing persons that may have gone unreported. Most of the women went missing between 2001 and 2005. The case has drawn parallels to the Ciudad Juárez femicide. (The Scribe, University of Colorado, Sept. 20; KOB-TV, Albuquerque, Sept. 18)

Federal agents searched homes of anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis Sept. 24 in an investigation of possible links with terrorist organizations. Some 20 FBI agents spent most of the day searching the Logan Square residence of activists Stephanie Weiner and Joseph Iosbaker. In Jefferson Park, neighbors saw FBI agents carrying boxes from the apartment of community activist Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the Arab American Action Network. Chicago activist Thomas Burke said he was served a grand jury subpoena that requested records of any payments to Abudayyeh or his group.