John Harmon, a diabetic who owns a marketing company, was pulled over after low blood sugar levels made him swerve into another lane. The sheriff's deputies smashed his window, Tasered him, and charged him with resisting arrest. Now he's suing.

The Obama administration is likely to "establish indefinite detention as a long-term... policy." On the plus side, now that we've abandoned even the pretense of a commitment to universal civil rights, no one will ever die in a terrorist attack.

Presidential hopeful Haley Barbour has clarified his fond remembrance of the White Citizens Councils of the Civil Rights-era South, whose members weren't community heroes so much as they were Klansmen in suits. Barbour added today that the Councils were "indefensible."

Mississippi Gov. Haley "Boss Hogg" Barbour is a funny guy, and he should run for president. The former Washington mega-lobbyist gives great interviews. What was it like, for example, when he saw Martin Luther King Jr. as a teenager?

James Fowler, a 77 year-old white former state trooper in Alabama, has pleaded guilty and received six months in prison for the 1965 killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson—whose shooting death inspired the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights marches. [Montgomery Advertiser]

Justice Department officials took the controversial step yesterday of invoking the government's state secret privilege to try and dismiss a terrorism lawsuit over the "targeted killing" of a U.S. citizen.

The Justice Department has thrown yet another lawsuit at America's loony desert dingbat moon colony, Arizona. This one, however, was filed against obnoxious self-serving tyrant Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County, for refusing to cooperate in a civil rights investigation.

The state's racist immigration bill has pissed off a lot of people, and some, like Al Sharpton, are calling for an economic boycott. But will it succeed in changing state law? It has before.

Dorothy Height, who spent 40 years as president of the National Council for Negro Women, died this morning at the age of 98. She "was arguably the most influential woman at the top levels of civil rights leadership." [WP]

Here is a terrible, tragic story about the separation of an elderly gay couple by Sonoma County, California, the subsequent death of one member of that couple, and the auctioning of their property. A suit has been filed.

Benjamin Hooks, who became the head of the NAACP in 1977 and spent 15 years adding hundreds of thousands of members to the flagging civil rights group, has died at the age of 85.

Mississippi: leading the fight for resegregation. Happy Confederate History Month, everyone!

What is Congress going to do this summer? The House plans on taking it easy, and the Senate will work very hard. Which means the House will get only twice as much done as the Senate for a change.

Martin Luther King. Jr. made the Southern Christian Leadership Conference one of the greatest civil rights groups of 20th century America. Today: their target demographic asks, "Who are they, exactly?" You're not that interested, are you? That's the problem. [LAT]

Hey, gay couples can apply for marriage licenses in DC tomorrow!

Once upon a time, gay activists hated Vaughn Walker for legally squashing the Gay Olympics. But this weekend The San Francisco Chronicle definitively revealed that the Prop. 8 judge is gay.

Are you watching the Don't Ask, Don't Tell hearings on the C-SPAN3 right now? (Or maybe you are reading Ana Marie Cox's liveblog?) Guess what: John McCain is the worst.

After two board members were charged with theft and sexual harassment, members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference marched through Atlanta "with signs...calling the [SCLC's own] board members thieves and liars." The view from the mountaintop is unspeakably beautiful. [NYT]

You won't be seeing a wedding between The Situation and Pauly D—or Snooki and J-WOWW—on the next season of MTV's Jersey Shore, unfortunately. The New Jersey State Senate defeated a bill to legalize gay marriage late this afternoon. [AP, photo via WOW]

It was embarrassing enough that the New York State Senate voted down a bill to legalize gay marriage last week. Now it looks like a similar bill in New Jersey may end up passing before the end of the year, which would make it the sixth state to do so, not to mention remind us all that the land of Tony Soprano is officially more progressive and open-minded than its neighbor on the other side of the Hudson. [NYT, previously]