The Slackers Guide to Politics

The Herman Cain Show

2011-10-31T18:57:00.000-07:00

this negro is singing again!
Is he running for President or American Idol?

Herman Cain is no Peter Norman

2011-10-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

His Name Was Peter Norman

When Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave a gloved Black Power salute on the Olympic podium in October 1968, Herman Cain was staying out of trouble by moving to the back of the bus. The photograph of the two men with their heads bowed, each of them with an arm raised in the air and a fist clothed in a black leather glove, is one of the most striking images of the 20th Century.

But who was the other man on the platform?

His name was Peter Norman.

The silver medalist was a laid-back Australian, an up-and-coming runner called Peter Norman who, in the words of his coach, "blossomed like a cactus" when he got to Mexico. While observers expected the Americans to make a clean sweep of the 200m medals, Norman kept them interested by breaking the world record in the heats.

In Mexico, that was enough for Norman, who felt compelled to join forces with his fellow athletes in their stand against racial inequality.

The three were waiting for the victory ceremony when Norman discovered what was about to happen. It was Norman who, when John Carlos found he'd forgotten his black gloves, suggested the two runners shared Smith's pair, wearing one each on the podium.

And when, to the crowd's astonishment, they flung their fists in the air, the Australian joined the protest in his own way, wearing a badge from the Olympic Project for Human Rights that they had given him.

The repercussions for Norman were immediate. Seen as a troublemaker who had lent a hand to those desecrators of the Olympic flag, he was ostracized by the Australian establishment. Despite qualifying 13 times over and being ranked fifth in the world, he was not sent to the following Munich games, where Australia had no sprinter for the first time in the Olympics. Norman retired soon afterwards without winning another title.

"Peter didn't have to take that button, Peter wasn't from the United States, Peter was not a black man, Peter didn't have to feel what I felt, but he was a man," says Carlos.

"He was that committed, and I didn't know that," adds Smith.

So when Herman Cain was taking care of his “sick relative,” Peter Norman stood in his spot like a man when he didn’t even have to.

Read the whole article at
BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The other man on the podium

Lawrence O'Donnell, Herman Cain Argue About The Civil Rights Movement (VIDEO)

SALUTE
The Peter Norman Story.Directed by Matt Norman.

Herman Cain's Civil Rights Moment

2011-10-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

Who gives a my dog ate my homework excuse on civil rights, really, you gave a doctors note to people getting there brains knocked out so you could have the freedom to say this ignorant stuff.

Did Herman Cain just give the equivalent of "my grandma died" so I can't march for freedom?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Being Elmo

2011-09-28T20:33:00.001-07:00

2011-09-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

U.S. Private Prison Population Grew 37 Percent Between 2002-2009 As Industry Lobbying Dollars Grew 165 Percent

By Zaid Jilaniposted from ThinkProgress

Today, the Michigan Messenger reports about how the private prisons behemoth Corrections Corporations of America grew over the last decade, expanding both its prisoner population and its political clout. The Messenger cites data from the U.S. Department of Justice showing that the private prison population grew from 87,369 to 129,336 from 2000 to 2009:

U.S. Private Prison Population Grew 37 Percent Between 2002-2009 As Industry Lobbying Dollars Grew 165 Percent | ThinkProgress

2011-09-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

Ohio Becomes First State To Sell Off A Prison, Giving It To Prison Director’s Former Private Employer
By Scott Keyes posted from ThinkProgress

JusticeAfter John Kasich won the Ohio gubernatorial election last fall, one of his first appointments was Gary Mohr to be the state Director of Rehabilitation and Corrections. Prior to his appointment, Mohr worked as managing director for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a company that not only pushes states to build more private prisons, but also lobbies lawmakers to put more people in jail in order to fill the new supply of prison beds.

In his first nine months on the job, Mohr has already made one major shift in Ohio correctional policy. This month, Ohio became the first state in the nation to sell off a public prison to a private company:

A lockup along the shores of Lake Erie has become the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private company.

Lake Erie Correctional Institution in northeastern Ohio’s Ashtabula County is the only one of five state prisons up for sale that will be sold, state officials said Thursday. Corrections Corporation of America will buy it for $72.7 million, more than the $50 million needed from the privatization effort to balance the state’s prison budget.

The CCA said it plans to add 304 prison beds to the prison.

Though Mohr recused himself from the selection process of which corporation would buy the prison, Ohio lobbying records show that the CCA met with Mohr to lobby him just one month into Kasich’s tenure:

Ohio Becomes First State To Sell Off A Prison, Giving It To Prison Director’s Former Private Employer | ThinkProgress

A Nation Of Slackers

2011-09-17T20:04:00.001-07:00

What If the Tea Party Wins?

2011-09-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

What If the Tea Party Wins?
They Have a Plan for the Constitution, and It Isn’t Pretty

In the Tea Party’s America, families must mortgage their home to pay for their mother’s end-of-life care. Higher education is a luxury reserved almost exclusively to the very rich. Rotten meat ships to supermarkets nationwide without a national agency to inspect it. Fathers compete with their adolescent children for sub-minimum wage jobs. And our national leaders are utterly powerless to do a thing.

At least, that’s what would happen if the Tea Party succeeds in its effort to reimagine the Constitution as an antigovernment manifesto. While the House of Representatives pushes Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan to phase out Medicare, numerous members of Congress, a least one Supreme Court justice, and the governor of America’s second-largest state now proudly declare that most of the progress of the last century violates the Constitution.

It is difficult to count how many essential laws would simply cease to exist if the Tea Party won its battle to reshape our founding document, but a short list includes:

Social Security and Medicare
Medicaid, children's health insurance, and other health care programs
All federal education programs
All federal antipoverty programs
Federal disaster relief
Federal food safety inspections and other food safety programs
Child labor laws, the minimum wage, overtime, and other labor protections
Federal civil rights laws
Indeed, as this paper explains, many state lawmakers even embrace a discredited constitutional doctrine that threatens the union itself.

What’s at stake? What If the Tea Party Wins?

Justice for Troy Davis

2011-09-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

Georgia Sets Sept 21st Execution Date For Troy Davis
Written by Associated Press

Georgia corrections officials have set an execution date for a high-profile death row inmate who claims he’s innocent of killing a Savannah police officer.

The Department of Corrections said Wednesday that Troy Anthony Davis will be executed at 7:00 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) on Sept. 21 for the 1989 slaying of Mark MacPhail.

It marks the fourth time since 2007 that state officials have set a date to execute Davis. The order comes after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution by refusing to overrule a federal judge who decided Davis failed to clear his name after getting a rare chance to prove his innocence.

Davis has become a focal point for anti-death penalty activists in the U.S. and abroad, attracting supporters including former President Jimmy Carter.

An Innocent Man Facing Execution in Georgia

Troy Davis | Amnesty International USA
Troy Anthony Davis

Prostitutes.... Or football

2011-09-07T22:23:00.000-07:00

Sen. Vitter Skipping Obama’s Jobs Speech To Watch Football
By Travis Waldron

President Obama is slated to outline his plan to create jobs and boost the economic recovery during a joint session of Congress Thursday night, a date that was chosen after House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) objected to Obama’s pre-selected time Wednesday night. Republicans have provided different reasons for skipping the speech, whether it is to hold tele-town halls like Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) or because they’re upset Obama didn’t provide a written copy first, like Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Sen. Vitter Skipping Obama’s Jobs Speech To Watch Football | ThinkProgress

10 Things About Ronald Reagan

2011-09-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

10 Things Conservatives Don't Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan

1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser.
2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit.
3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts.
4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously.
5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to choose.
6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.”
7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants.
8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran.
9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act.
10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.

10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan | ThinkProgress

No Church In The Wild

2011-09-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

Kanye West & Jay-Z - No Church In The Wild

Is this Blasphemous? What do you think of the video?

Obama Requests A Joint Session Of Congress For Major Jobs Speech [UPDATED]

2011-08-31T14:22:00.001-07:00

1st - You say the President doesn't have a plan for jobs.

2nd - Rush him to get a plan.

3rd - The President has a plan

4th - Hey, can you hold that plan for a minute Mr. President.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

How do you really feel about Glenn Beck

2011-08-27T17:36:00.000-07:00

What the right wing( his target audience. ) believes about Glenn Beck.

What????? Slavery is Legitimate

2011-08-25T22:36:00.000-07:00

It starts off stupid and gets real ignorant around 2:48.
Bishop Robert E Smith Sr is an Uncle Ruckus

The full Uncle Ruckus List Coming Soon.

What?????

2011-08-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama's BBQ 2011

2011-08-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

Martin Luther King on Economics

2011-08-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech "Where Do We Go From Here," in which he talks about economic possibilities beyond the false binary of Capitalism and Communism.

Developing a Program?

We must develop a program that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income. Now, early in this century this proposal would have been greeted with ridicule and denunciation, as destructive of initiative and responsibility. At that time economic status was considered the measure of the individual's ability and talents. And, in the thinking of that day, the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber. We've come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operations of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. Today the poor are less often dismissed, I hope, from our consciences by being branded as inferior or incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available. In I879 Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote in Progress and Poverty:

The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves driven to their tasks either by the task, by the taskmaster, or by anirnal (sic) necessity. It is the work of men who somehow find a form of work that brings a security for its own sake and a state of society where want is abolished.

Work of this sort could be enormously increased, and we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. The poor transformed into purchasers will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes who have a double disability will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts among husbands, wives and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on the scale of dollars is eliminated .

Now our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth.

About Communism

Now, don't think that you have me in a "bind" today. I'm not talking about Communism.

What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

If you will let me be a preacher just a little bit - One night, a juror came to Jesus and he wanted to know what he could do to be saved. Jesus didn't get bogged down in the kind of isolated approach of what he shouldn't do. Jesus didn't say, "Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying." HE didn't say, "Nicodemus, you must stop cheating if you are doing that." He didn't say, "Nicodemus, you must not commit adultery." He didn't say, "Nicodemus, now you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively." He said something altogether different, because Jesus realized something basic - that if a man will lie, he will steal. And if a man will steal, he will kill. So instead of just getting bogged down in one thing, Jesus looked at him and said, "Nicodemus, you must be born again."

He said, in other words, "Your whole structure must be changed." A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them - make them things. Therefore they will exploit them, and poor people generally, economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. What I am saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!"

25 Days of Summer

2011-08-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Facing 9.5 % Unemployment, Reagan Set Off On 25-Day Summer Vacation
by Eric Boehlert

The annual summertime ritual of conservatives attacking Obama for going on summer vacation is swinging into high gear, as the president and his family prepare for a trip to Martha’s Vineyard.

Partisans are insisting the president doesn’t deserve a break and that it sends an awful message to the nation for him to take ten days off.

Context, though, is sometimes helpful in terms of highlighting how silly the cries of protest from the far-right media really are. For instance, at the same juncture of his first term, Ronald Reagan, like Obama, was battling a bad economy. Unemployment stood at 9.5%. Reagan’s response his third August in office? He set off for a nearly month-long vacation.

Not only did Reagan go on a secluded, 25-day California retreat, but his top aides reportedly stopped relaying news events to him so as to not disturb the president’s sojourn.

From the Washington Post, Aug. 22, 1983 [emphasis added]:

As President Reagan relaxes on his mountaintop ranch northwest of Santa Barbara, tucked away from the workaday cares of Washington, his top advisers have decided to put an end to what one of them calls "unnecessary news stories."

The negative news coverage that the president abhors was a topic of discussion at a White House breakfast the day before Reagan left on his present 25-day trip, the 17th stopover at his ranch since his election.

FLASHBACK: Facing 9.5 % Unemployment, Reagan Set Off On 25-Day Summer Vacation | Media Matters for America

Rick Perry FOR SALE

2011-08-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Bank of America Lobbyist Tells Rick Perry The'll Help Him

Allen West Said What?

2011-08-18T15:02:00.000-07:00

FROM: THINK PROGRESS

2011-08-18T14:57:00.001-07:00

ThinkProgress

Tavis Smiley Hates Black People

2011-08-15T14:55:00.000-07:00

But he loves that Wells Fargo money!!!!!!!!!!

State of The Black Union

Sponsored by:
Wells Fargo, ExxonMobil and Nationwide

Ise Lyfe

2011-08-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

DAVID BANNER "SWAG"

2011-08-11T20:50:00.001-07:00

DAVID BANNER

From "THE MAKE BELIEVE ALBUM"
Produced by David Banner co-produced by Swiff D
www.davidbanner.com

2011-08-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

Bachmann’s ‘Must-Read’ List Included A Book That Claims Blacks Were ‘Better Off In Nearly Every Way’ Under Slavery
By Travis Waldron

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) has already made one slavery-related gaffe during her presidential campaign, signing a pledge produced by the Iowa FAMiLY LEADER that included language suggesting black children were better off under slavery than they are now. Bachmann offered half-hearted apology at the time, saying she had only signed the “candidate vow,” not the part that included slavery, and compared it to “economic enslavement” brought on by taxes.

But in his profile of Bachmann released yesterday, The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza revealed that Bachmann’s “worldview” on slavery goes much deeper. In 2002, then-state Sen. Bachmann’s campaign posted a “must-read” list of books on her web site. Included in the list were the Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and a book titled, “Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee,” authored by J. Steven Wilkins. The Lee biography includes this apologetic passage:

Northerners were often shocked and offended by the familiarity that existed as a matter of course between the whites and blacks of the old South. This was one of the surprising and unintended consequences of slavery. Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded on racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause.

The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith.

Wilkins goes on to claim that slavery existed on a “relationship of trust and esteem,” that positive race relations may have progressed further if the pro-slavery South had won the war, and that Lee, despite being a slave-owner himself, “never held any animosity for blacks.”

After explaining the “cruelty and barbarism” of “pagan” Africa, he goes on:

The fact was (and is) easily demonstrable that, taken as a whole, there is no question that blacks in this country, slavery notwithstanding, were “immeasurably better off” in nearly every way [than they were in Africa].

In Lee’s view, however, emancipation could only be accomplished successfully if it was gradual. Time was needed for the sanctifying effects of Christianity to work on the black race and fit its people for freedom. [...]

Abolitionism was not the best answer.

The idea that the relationships between white slave owners and black slaves were not founded on racial animosity has no basis in history. Whites viewed themselves as inherently superior to blacks, who were bought and sold as property and, for population counts, were worth only three-fifths of a white person. The idea that sanctifying blacks through Christianity made them “immeasurably better off” than they would have been in Africa, meanwhile, ignores the utter loss of humanity caused by enslavement. It ignores the untold number of blacks who died on slave ships, the sale of blacks at auctions as if they were livestock, the families split up at an owner’s whim, and the loss of all basic human rights, not least of which was their own free will.

Bachmann has a history of using slavery analogies, and she has made multiple mistakes regarding American history already in her campaign. None, however, is nearly as disturbing as her love for a book that attempts to explain away the horrors of slavery by rewriting history to make it seem like it was a minor price to pay for the sanctifying favors whites did blacks by bringing them to America as slaves.

Bachmann’s ‘Must-Read’ List Included A Book That Claims Blacks Were ‘Better Off In Nearly Every Way’ Under Slavery | ThinkProgress

Glenn Beck: Call Me A Racist

2011-08-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

They're Going To Call Me A Racist For Saying It

Glenn Beck channels Cornel West and Tavis Smiley

2011-08-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Beck Suggests Obama Is Intentionally Causing "Suffering," Keeping Unemployment High "For The African-American"

DOWNGRADE

2011-08-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

REPORT: S&P TO DOWNGRADE U.S. CREDIT, WILL CITE GOP REFUSAL TO RAISE TAXES.

ABC News reports: “A government official tells ABC News that the federal government is expecting and preparing for bond rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the rating of US debt from its current AAA value.” Among the reasons cited will be “Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal.”

REPORT: S&P to downgrade U.S. credit, will cite GOP refusal to raise taxes. | ThinkProgress

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R) calls President Obama a "TAR BABY"

2011-08-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

ASSOCIATING WITH OBAMA IS LIKE
‘TOUCHING A TAR BABY’

Appearing on the Caplis and Silverman radio show last Friday, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) said, “Now I don’t even want to have to be associated with [Obama], it’s like touching a tar baby and you’re stuck, you’re part of the problem now. You can’t get away.” The term “tar baby” is often considered a slur towards African Americans. Indeed, the term has such a derogatory history that the Oxford American dictionary revamped its definition to reflect the word’s racial undertones. If Lamborn wishes to cross-check, he should ask both then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — both of whom caught controversy for uttering the distasteful phrase.

GOP Rep. Lamborn: Associating With Obama Is Like ‘Touching A Tar Baby’ | ThinkProgress

Red Tails (2012)

2011-07-31T20:50:00.000-07:00

Debt Ceiling

2011-07-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

West Wing

TEA PARTY CONGRESSMAN DEAD BEAT DAD

2011-07-28T20:53:00.000-07:00

Rep. Joe Walsh Defends Not Paying $117,000 In Child Support: ‘This Is Where Real America Is’
By Marie Diamond

Last night the Chicago Sun-Times broke the story that Tea Party freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who has spent months lecturing President Obama and Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes $117,437 in child support to his ex-wife and three children. Laura Walsh has asked a judge to suspend his driver’s license until he pays his child support. Despite loaning his own campaign $35,000 — and paying himself back at least $14,200 for the loans — Walsh claims he failed to make the payments because he “had no money.”

READ ARTICLE HERE:

Rep. Joe Walsh Defends Not Paying $117,000 In Child Support: ‘This Is Where Real America Is’ | ThinkProgress

You Are Not Honest

2011-07-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

Juan Williams Confronts Hannity

Republicans want to HURT YOU:

2011-07-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

We’re Going to Hurt Some People.

The House GOP leadership team, often described as fractious, showed complete unity behind closed doors and in public Tuesday. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Republicans he was “150 percent” behind Boehner and his plan, according to Republicans who attended Tuesday morning’s closed-door meeting. He told Republicans to “stop grumbling and whining and to come together as conservatives” to support the Boehner proposal.

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the party’s vote counter, began his talk by showing a clip from the movie, “The Town”, trying to forge a sense of unity among the independent-minded caucus.

One character asks his friend:

I need your help.

I can’t tell you what it is.

You can never ask me about it later.

And we’re going to hurt some people.

“Whose car are we gonna take,” the character says.

After showing the clip, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), one of the most outspoken critics of leadership among the 87 freshmen, stood up to speak, according to GOP aides.

“I’m ready to drive the car,” West replied, surprising many Republicans by giving his full -throated support for the plan.

Read Full Article Here:
House GOP Plays Ben Affleck Movie Clip To Rally Caucus: ‘I Need Your Help… We’re Going To Hurt Some People’ | ThinkProgress

Gov. Rick Scott in bed with the GEO Group?

2011-07-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

Florida Looks For The Lowest Bidder As It Privatizes 30 State Prisons
By Marie Diamond

Florida is seeking bids from private companies to take over management of 30 state prisons in an 18-country area in South Florida. The “fastest privatization venture ever undertaken by the state of Florida” is an effort by Gov. Rick Scott (R) to save the state money by outsourcing prison oversight to the lowest bidder:

In an effort to cut costs, Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature set a Jan. 1, 2012, deadline to privatize 30 state prisons, road camps and work release centers. [...]

The state will hire only one company to run all those prisons, which sets up a high-stakes competitive battle between the nation’s two biggest private prison operators: Corrections Corp. of America, based in Nashville, and the GEO Group of Boca Raton. Both companies already operate prisons in Florida. [...]

The bidding process is moving ahead despite a lawsuit filed by the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the bargaining agent for unionized correctional officers.

PBA Executive Director Matt Puckett said he had not thoroughly analyzed the bid documents and could not comment on them in detail. But the union leader said many PBA members in South Florida are “devastated” at the prospects of having to find new jobs or move upstate to keep their prison jobs.

As ThinkProgress previously reported, Scott has long advocated privatizing prisons which “could open a lucrative door to politically connected vendors who stand to profit.” GEO Group already manages two of the state’s seven private prisons and is a “prime financier of the Republican Party” that gave more than $400,000 to GOP in the 2010 election cycle alone and gave the maximum $25,000 to Scott’s inaugural fund.

The Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest corrections company, also has close connections to GOP statehouses across the country. The company has spent $373,000 in political contributions in Florida since 2003, over 60 percent of which have gone to Republicans.

And the private prison industry isn’t just lobbying to take over state prisons; it’s also “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” According to a report by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), private prisons spend millions on lobbying to put more people in jail, which translates to more profits for them. Last year, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group made over $2.9 billion in revenue.

Florida Looks For The Lowest Bidder As It Privatizes 30 State Prisons | ThinkProgress

John Boehner is Really BAD at his Job

2011-07-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

“I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR GOING MANO-A-MANO WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.” - John Boehner

Boehner overheard leaving Capitol: “I didn’t sign up for going mano-a-mano with the President of the United States.” | ThinkProgress

2011-07-25T17:05:00.000-07:00

Black Student Can't Be Valedictorian
By EMMALEE ABEL

A high school southeast of Little Rock would not let a black student be valedictorian though she had the highest grade-point average, and wouldn't let her mom speak to the school board about it until graduation had passed, the graduate claims in Federal Court.

Kymberly Wimberly, 18, got only a single B in her 4 years at McGehee Secondary School, and loaded up on Honors and Advanced Placement classes. She had the highest G.P.A. and says the school's refusal to let her be sole valedictorian was part of a pattern of discrimination against black students.

Wimberly says that despite earning the highest G.P.A. of the Class of 2011, and being informed of it by a school counselor, "school administrators and personnel treated two other white students as heir[s] apparent to the valedictorian and salutatorian spots."

Wimberly's mother is the school's "certified media specialist." She says in the federal discrimination complaint that after her daughter had been told she would be valedictorian, the mother heard "in the copy room that same day, other school personnel expressed concern that Wimberly's status as valedictorian might cause a 'big mess.'"

McGehee Secondary School is predominantly white, and 46 percent African-American, according to the complaint. Bratton says that the day after she heard the "big mess" comment, McGehee Principal Darrell Thompson, a defendant, told her "that he decided to name a white student as co-valedictorian," although the white student had a lower G.P.A.

Bratton says she tried to protest the decision to the school board, but defendant Superintendent Thomas Gathen would not let her speak, because she allegedly had "filled out the wrong form. Instead of 'public comments,' Gather [sic] said Bratton should have asked for 'public participation.'" The superintendent told her she could not appeal his decision until the June 28 school board meeting; graduation was May 13.

(The superintendent's name is spelled Gathen in the heading of the complaint, but is spelled Gather throughout the body of it.)

The last African-American valedictorian in McGehee School District was in 1989. Wimberly says the school discourages black students from taking honors and advanced placement classes, "by telling them, among other things, that the work was too hard."

"Because of defendants' continuous disparate treatment of African-American students, defendants' actions toward the plaintiff can properly be classed as intentional," the complaint states.

"Defendants did not support African-American students, and did not want to see Wimberly, an African-American young mother as valedictorian.

"But for Wimberly's race, defendants would not have selected a student with a lower G.P.A. than Wimberly to also be a valedictorian."

She seeks punitive damages for constitutional violations, and an injunction declaring her sole valedictorian of the school's Class of 2011. She is represented by John Walker of Little Rock.

Courthouse News Service

Cornel West admits he is Jealous.

2011-07-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

Cornel West Flunks the President

By ANDREW GOLDMAN

What’s with the black suit, white shirt, black tie outfit you always wear? Do you have anything else in your closet?
I’ve got four black suits that I circulate, and they are my cemetery clothes — my uniform that keeps me ready for battle.

Your cemetery clothes?
It’s ready to die, brother. If I drop dead, I am coffin-ready. I got my tie, my white shirt, everything. Just fix my Afro nice in the coffin.

So let me ask you: in 2007, you introduced Barack Obama as your “brother, companion and comrade.” But in May, you referred to him as “the black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs” and the “head of the American killing machine.” What in the world happened?
It was a cry from the heart. What happened was that greed at the top has squeezed so much of the juices of the body politic. Poor people and working people have not been a fundamental focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment but a kind of betrayal.

But you have also acknowledged that this is more than just political — you’ve said that after campaigning for him at 65 events, you were miffed that he didn’t return your phone calls or say thank you.
I think he had to keep me at a distance. There’s no doubt that he didn’t want to be identified with a black leftist. But we’re talking about one phone call, man. That’s all. One private phone call.

He was running a successful candidacy for president. He might have been busy.
So many of the pundits assume that it’s just egoism: “Who does Cornel West think he is? The president is busy.” But there’s such a thing as decency in human relations.

O.K., but did you also have to say that Obama “feels most comfortable with upper-middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart”?
It’s in no way an attempt to devalue white or Jewish brothers. It’s an objective fact. In his administration, he’s got a significant number of very smart white brothers and very smart Jewish brothers. You think that’s unimportant?

When Larry Summers was president of Harvard, he told you your rap album was an “embarrassment” to the university, and you quit soon after. He was one of Obama’s first appointments. Did that strike a particular feeling in your heart?
I couldn’t help it. I’m a human being, indeed. Given the disrespect he showed me? Oh, my God. Again, it’s political much more than it’s personal. Summers was in captivity to Wall Street interests. But it’s personal too.

You have 30 seconds of private time with the president — what do you say to him?
I would say: “Look at that bust of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Oval Office and recognize that tears are flowing when you let Geithner and others shape your economic policy, when you refuse to focus on poor and working people or when you drop the drone bombs that kill innocent civilians. Tim Geithner does not represent the legacy of Martin King.”

How can Obama be the president you want him to be when he’s facing this Republican Congress?
I’ll put it this way, brother: You’ve got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects it. If you’re just going to reflect it and run by the polls, then you’re not going to be a transformative president. Lincoln was a thermostat. Johnson and F.D.R., too.

You lament in your book “Race Matters” that there’s a lack of black leadership. You’re smart, very charismatic — why did you never become what we would consider a black leader in the mold of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X?
Well, one, it’s because we live in an age where there are no movements. But second, and most important, I have to be true to my calling. Martin King’s calling was to be a Christian preacher. Mine is much more linked to the life of the mind and being able to move back and forth. This weekend I was with Bootsy Collins at B.B. King’s. We wrote two songs together on his new album — that’s just one context where I try to play a very important role outside the academy. But my calling is still one of being an intellectual warrior and spiritual soldier.

INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.

Talk - Cornel West - NYTimes.com

GOP: All White Affair

2011-07-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

Republican Party Gains White Voters, Loses Hispanics Since Obama's Election
By Patricia Zengerle
(Editing by Will Dunham)

The Republican Party has made big gains among white voters, particularly younger and poorer ones, since Democrat Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, according to a survey released on Friday.

Fifty-two percent of white voters identified themselves as Republicans compared with 39 percent who called themselves Democrats in the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The rest said they were independents.

In 2008, 46 percent of white voters said they were Republicans versus 44 percent for Democrats.

The survey also showed Republicans losing ground among Hispanic voters and picking up slightly among black voters since 2008.

The findings pose a challenge to Obama as he seeks re-election next year. Republicans made big gains in the U.S. Congress and state governments in the 2010 mid-term elections and are attempting to deny Obama a second term as president.

"There was a large enthusiasm gap in 2010, with Republicans far more enthusiastic and interested in the election," said Leah Christian, a senior researcher at the Pew Center who worked on the report.

"A lot of what we're seeing in the data is a continuation of where we were in 2010," she said.

Christian said the researchers had not detected evidence that Obama's race had anything to do with Republicans picking up more support among white voters. Obama is the first black U.S. president.

Overall, 43 percent of Americans described themselves as Republicans and 47 percent as Democrats in the survey, compared to 39 percent who labeled themselves Republicans and 51 percent as Democrats in 2008.

HISPANIC VOTERS

Republicans lost ground among Hispanics. The poll found that 22 percent of Hispanics called themselves Republicans, compared to 28 percent in 2008.

Black voter identification with the Republicans has edged up by 2 percentage points to 8 percent since 2008, the poll found. Eighty-six percent of black voters called themselves Democrats, compared to 88 percent in 2008.

Young voters played a huge part in Obama's 2008 victory.

But the party's 7 percentage point advantage among whites under age 30 in 2008 has flipped to an 11 percentage point Republican advantage now, the poll found.

There was a big shift among whites making less then $30,000 per year, a group Christian said had favored Hillary Clinton early in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary fight, and so might be less strongly in favor of Obama.

In 2008, 37 percent of them said they were Republicans, and 52 percent identified as Democrats. Those numbers now are 47 percent Republican and 43 percent Democratic.

The report was based on a compilation of 223 surveys and about 300,000 interviews among registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center from January 1990 to June 2011.

Can Two Monkeys Stop a Show?

2011-07-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

Cornel West & Tavis Smiley + FOX NEWS

Which one of their books did they donate all the proceeds to "the poor"?

Criticism of the President is a good thing. Out right lies are another.

Obama has....

Saved the collapse of the American automotive industry by making GM restructure before bailing them out, and putting incentive money to help the industry.

Appointment of first Latina to the Supreme Court.

Has made education a national priority by putting emphasis and money behind new ideas like charter schools, but speaking directly to school children in telling them they have to do their part.

Expanded the SCHIP program to cover health care for 4 million more children.

Provided the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) with more than $1.4 billion to improve services to America’s Veterans.

Funds for high-speed, broadband Internet access to K-12 schools.

Increasing student loans.

Increasing opportunities in AmeriCorps program.

Provided tax credit to workers thus cutting taxes for 95% of America’s working families.

HEALTHCARE REFORM

assed the Lilly Ledbetter Act (equal work for equal pay).

Things Obama has done… | The Best Article Every day

What the fuck has Obama done so far?

Fox News Crimes?

2011-07-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

150+ Fox News Bias videos at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A3BD2524FE99BD4D

Despite the way it's sometimes been downplayed on Fox News, the British phone hacking and police bribery scandal involving Fox News' parent company, News Corporation, may have significant American legal implications as well as raising questions about Fox News' ethics and methods, as I show in this video.

The clip I use of the "Fox News Watch" panelists' discussion during the commercial break comes from a longer July 9, 2011, segment uploaded to the Fox News website, currently available online at http://bit.ly/10footDurbin

The other clip I use of Judith Miller comes from a longer segment of Fox News' July 16, 2011, broadcast of "Fox News Watch" which I have not found available online.

The clip I use of NPR's David Folkenflik comes from a longer segment of CNN's July 17, 2011, broadcast of "Reliable Sources" available online athttp://bit.ly/r1fCpG

The clip I use of The New Yorker's Ken Auletta comes from a longer segment of ABC's July 17, 2011, broadcast of "This Week" available online athttp://abcn.ws/pYZHVs

The clip I use of Sen. Dick Durbin comes from a longer segment of NBC's July 17, 2011, broadcast of "Meet The Press" available online athttp://on.msnbc.com/mP1n2q

The clip I use of Howard Kurtz comes from a longer segment of CNN's July 17, 2011, broadcast of "Reliable Sources" which I have not found available online.

The image I use of the New York Times May 2004 apology for bad reporting on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq involving Judith Miller is available online at http://nyti.ms/WMDApology

The image I use of the Department of Justice's informational page on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is available online athttp://1.usa.gov/ForeignBribes

The statute I cite showing "character" is a qualification for getting or renewing a broadcasting license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is available online at http://bit.ly/47USC308

GoTO:LiberalViewer on YouTube

Allen West said What? Again!

2011-07-19T19:03:00.000-07:00

Allen West Calls DNC Chair ‘Vile,’ ‘Despicable’ And ‘Not A Lady’
Evan McMorris-Santoro

Maybe it's the stress of the debt ceiling debate or maybe it's his well-documented short fuse, but Rep. Allen West (R-FL) appeared to cross any number of lines in an email sent to DNC chair and fellow Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Tuesday.

The message, which was obtained by Politico's Ben Smith and confirmed to TPM by a Wasserman Schultz aide, was sent to Wasserman Schultz, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and West's Chief of Staff.

West's tirade against Wasserman Schultz came after she chastised him on the House floor for supporting the Cut, Cap and Balance debt ceiling deal favored by the House GOP. Wasserman Schultz called out West -- not by name -- for supporting a plan she said would "increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries," which she said was "unbelievable from a Member from South Florida."

Here's video of Wasserman Schultz on the floor, posted by the DNC:

This triggered the following response from West:

Subject: Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman-Schultz

Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional ,and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up. Focus on your own congressional district!

I am bringing your actions today to our Majority Leader and Majority Whip and from this time forward, understand that I shall defend myself forthright against your heinous characterless behavior......which dates back to the disgusting protest you ordered at my campaign hqs, October 2010 in Deerfield Beach.

You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!

Steadfast and Loyal

Congressman Allen B West (R-FL)

Needless to say, whatever their personal feelings may be, members of Congress generally keep it pretty polite when addressing each other in Congress. One can only wonder the response from conservatives like West had it been revealed that Wasserman Schultz said something similar about a Republican.

Update: Wasserman Schultz' congressional spokesperson, Jonathan Beeton, sends over this response to West's email:

"I don't think that Congressman West is upset at the Congresswoman, but rather with the fact that she highlighted that he and other Republicans are once again trying to balance the budget on the backs of seniors, children and the middle class. As someone who lives in Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz's Congressional district, Congressman West knows that we have hundreds of thousands of seniors in South Florida who have paid into Medicare throughout their lives and now rely on this program to keep them healthy and active. The truth hurts."

Allen West Calls DNC Chair 'Vile,' 'Despicable' And 'Not A Lady' | TPMDC

5 Democrats vote for radical Cap, Cut & Balance plan:

2011-07-19T18:28:00.000-07:00

Congressman Dan Boren (D) Oklahoma
Congressman Dan Boren | Representing the 2nd District of Oklahoma

Congressman Jim Cooper (D) Tennessee
Congressman Jim Cooper - Home

Congressman Jim Matheson (D) Utah
Congressman Jim Matheson - Welcome

Congressman Mike McIntyre (D) North Carolina
Representative McIntyre

Congressman Heath Shuler (D) North Carolina
Home | Heath Shuler, Representing the 11th District of North Carolina

Allen West said what?

2011-07-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

Allen West: Obama Supporters Are ‘A Threat To The Gene Pool’
By Marie Diamond

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) is no stranger to controversy and seems to relish in making outrageous statements just to provoke a reaction. But the freshman congressman may have outdone himself with a rambling, far-ranging post on the site “Red Country” in which he calls supporters of President Obama “a threat to the gene pool”:

I believe we are headed towards the ultimate ideological clash in America. There is a widening chasm which has developed between those who believe in principled fiscal policies and those desiring the socialist bureaucratic nanny-state. [...]

And all we hear from the President is talk about “shared sacrifice,” “tax the rich,” and “increase revenues by tax hikes.” It was just December 2010 that President Obama and the Democrats extended the Bush era tax rates for two years…now less than a year later they are FLIP-FLOPPING! [...]

I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.

In the same post, West equated the Libyan rebels fighting against dictator Muammar Qaddafi to the Taliban, and falsely claimed that “47 percent of wage earning households in America do not pay federal income taxes.” He also accused Obama of threatening “our nation’s senior citizens and Military Veterans/Retirees,” when it is in fact proposals and demands by members of his own party that are doing that.

West’s disdain and harsh rhetoric for those who don’t agree with him is nothing new. He frequently disparages political opponents – often personally. He once said anti-war congressmen should “get shot a few times,” and claimed “if you support Medicare…you can kiss the United States of America goodbye.”

West, who was discharged from the Army for abusing an Iraqi, has also said he can’t possibly be Islamophobic because he brought “the light of freedom into the Islamic world.”

Allen West: Obama Supporters Are ‘A Threat To The Gene Pool’ | ThinkProgress

Romney Trails Bachmann

2011-07-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

Poll: Romney Trails Bachmann Nationally For GOP Primaries
Eric Kleefeld

A new national survey from Public Policy Polling (D) has a shocking message for the Republican primary race: Michele Bachmann leads Mitt Romney in a two-way race, and also edges ahead in the multi-candidate race without Sarah Palin in it.

In an initial field, including Sarah Palin:
Romney 20%
Bachmann 16%
Palin 12%
Perry 11%
Cain 10%
Paul 9%
Gingrich 6%
Pawlenty 5%
Huntsman 2%

Then in a second question, without Palin in the race:
Bachmann 21%
Romney 20%
Perry 12%
Cain 11%
Paul 9%
Gingrich 7%
Pawlenty 5%
Huntsman 3%

Finally, a two-way race with Bachmann and Romney:
Bachmann 44%
Romney 41%.

Poll: Romney Trails Bachmann Nationally For GOP Primaries | TPMDC

Negotiation

2011-07-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

Murdoch Apparently Attacked With White Foam During Hearings

2011-07-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

Murdoch Apparently Attacked With White Foam During Hearings
Jillian Rayfield

Murdoch Apparently Attacked With White Foam During Hearings | TPMMuckraker

The hearings over the News Corporation phone hacking scandal were briefly suspended after a man apparently attacked Rupert Murdoch with a plate of white foam.

Murdoch's wife, Wendy Deng, hit the man back before he was pulled away and taken away in handcuffs.

Sky News identified the man as comedian Jonnie Marbles. Marbles tweeted shortly before the incident: "It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat."

Here's the video:

Cut, Cap and Balance

2011-07-19T09:11:00.003-07:00

14th Amendment

2011-07-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

news flash..........

Former President Clinton would invoke the 14th Amendment solution to raising the debt ceiling “without hesitation.” “I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy,” Clinton said in an interview, saying he would “force the courts to stop me” from unilaterally raising the limit.

Morning Briefing: July 19, 2011 | ThinkProgress

FBI Investigating News Corp.

2011-07-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

FBI Investigating News Corp.

The News of the World phone hacking scandal has crossed the pond: The FBI has reportedly opened an inquiry into claims News Corp. tried to hack into the phones of 9/11 victims.

The News of the World phone hacking scandal has come Stateside. A law enforcement official says the FBI has opened an investigation into claims that News Corp. tried to hack into the phones of people who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks. The News Corp. tabloid News of the World is believed to have hacked into the voicemail of the victims of the 2005 London train bombings, as well as the families of dead soldiers. Seven people have been arrested so far in connection the hacking scandal, and Rupert and James Murdoch have agreed to go before Parliament next week.

The Daily Beast Homepage

135 Billion Short

2011-07-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

Deadbeats!!!!!!

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

2011-07-12T19:53:00.001-07:00

2012 is going to get ugly

2011-07-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

is it rasict?

Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are STUPID

2011-07-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

The FAMILY Leader’s Marriage Pledge Says Unwed Slaves Preferable Parents For African-Americans
By Zack Ford

The FAMILY LEADER’s 14-point marriage pledge for presidential candidates references various historic anecdotes to contextualize its principles. The very first point it makes, however, suggests the group didn’t quite do all their history research:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.

While the laws governing slavery varied from state to state, one point was consistent: slaves were property and could not be party to a contract, including a marriage contract. This meant that no slave unions were legally recognized, and even the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) did not change this. For example, the 1860 District of Columbia’s Slavery Code dictated that ministers shall not “join in marriage any negro whatsoever or mulatto slave with any white person” (Sec. 56 on p. 19). Slaveowners encouraged slaves to couple (so as to reproduce free new slaves) and slaves certainly held religious marriage ceremonies, but those marriages had no legal validity. Owners had no obligation to respect them or even keep married couples together on the same plantation. Most importantly, as Baratunde Thurston points out, children born into slavery were the property of their master.

In footnote 8(1) of the pledge, The FAMiLY LEADER notes their “never disproven” belief that the health and well-being of children is “best upheld” through “legal marriage, especially faithful monogamy, as between only one man and one woman.”

Essentially, The FAMiLY LEADER has used its marriage pledge to suggest an exception for African-American children — that not only were they better off born into slavery, they were also better off having unwed parents.

Since the pledge was released yesterday, GOP presidential hopefuls Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (PA) are the only two candidates to have signed it.

The FAMiLY Leader’s Marriage Pledge Says Unwed Slaves Preferable Parents For African-Americans | ThinkProgress

CLASS WARFARE?

2011-07-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

FUNNY!!!

2011-07-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

Steven Levitt: Why do crack dealers still live with their moms?

2011-07-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

Freakonomics author Steven Levitt presents new data on the finances of drug dealing. Contrary to popular myth, he says, being a street-corner crack dealer isnt lucrative: It pays below minimum wage. And your boss can kill you.

Republicans Watch More Porn?

2011-07-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

!!!!!!!!!!BIG GOVERNMENT GOP!!!!!!!!
BACHMANN PLEDGES TO BAN "PORNOGRAPHY"
By Judd Legum

Tonight, Michele Bachmann became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge created by THE FAMiLY LEADER, an influential social-conservative group in Iowa. By signing the pledge Bachmann “vows” to “uphold the institution of marriage as only between one man and one woman” by committing herself to 14 specifics steps. The ninth step calls for the banning of “all forms” of pornography. The pledge also states that homosexuality is both a choice and a health risk. You can read all the details of the pledge here

BREAKING: Bachmann pledges to ban pornography | ThinkProgress

So she just lost the Republican and Mormon vote:

And she is a communist or a Muslim:

She Did It?

2011-07-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

Prosperity Politician

2011-07-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

Jesus on the mainline tell him what you want.

Bachmann’s Parable For The Poor: Have Faith In God And You Won’t Need Welfare
By Marie Diamond
ThinkProgress filed this report from a town hall in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Bachmannia descended upon South Carolina last week as GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann stomped for votes at events across the state. Wearing a yellow dress to honor the yellow Tea Party flag, Bachmann roused a rally of supporters in Greenville on Wednesday before heading to Rock Hill for a town hall event at Winthrop University. Bachmann answered many audience questions with personal anecdotes from her past. When one woman asked her how we can “move people from dependence to independence” in this country, Bachmann responded by recounting how her own family made it through tough times when she was young by relying on God and forsaking government assistance:

BACHMANN: We went from middle class to overnight below poverty. And my mother had to leave the home and get a job…and I had to go out and get babysitting jobs…to help out. … We did not go on dependency programs. And I don’t begrudge anyone who does when I say that, but we didn’t do that. We had our faith in God, we depended on our neighbors, we depended on ourselves, and we just did without. We made do, we did without. [...] And we were just grateful for what we had. We knew that one day things would be better than they were. And God was faithful, and they were better.

The recession has raised the poverty rate to a 15 year high, with the total number of Americans in poverty reaching 44 million, or one in seven residents. According to the New York Times, “Millions more were surviving only because of expanded unemployment insurance and other assistance.” But Bachmann suggests these families could simply “go without” (nevermind that many families are already living hand-to-mouth). Her best advice is to “be grateful” and “be faithful to God.” This seems like an inadequate solution to greatest poverty crisis in a generation.

Although Bachmann was careful to say she didn’t begrudge those who are on government aid, she clearly looked down upon those who, as she put it, “are in a mindset of dependency.” At one point she said, “We can’t deal with” those people. Also insulting is her suggestion that people living in poverty don’t want to take advantage of “opportunity” and need to be lectured to get off “dependency programs.”

Bachmann is now a millionaire, according to financial disclosures. It’s disappointing that someone who claims to have experienced poverty has such a bad track record of voting to deprive the truly needy of aid and redistributing wealth upward.

A constant critic of welfare programs, Medicaid, and Medicare, Bachmann herself has come under scrutiny recently for personally taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in government aid and Medicaid funds for her family farm and counseling clinic.

Bachmann’s Parable For The Poor: Have Faith In God And You Won’t Need Welfare | ThinkProgress

in other words:

The Myth of Reagan

2011-07-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

Republicans Fail the Reagan Litmus Test
By Jon Perr

On July 4, U.S. officials, foreign dignitaries and conservative luminaries gathered outside the American embassy in London to unveil a $1 million statue of Ronald Reagan. As it turns out, the timing was more than a little ironic. Because even as the Gipper was honored in Britain, it's increasingly clear he would have no place in today's Republican Party.

From Grover Norquist's anti-tax promise and the Republican Study Committee's "cut, cap and balance" pledge to the draconian anti-abortion oath of the Susan B. Anthony List, hardline conservative litmus tests are proliferating at a dizzying pace. And Ronald Reagan would have failed them all.

If a reanimated Ronald Reagan suddenly appeared in 2011, there is little question his GOP descendants would brand him a Republican In Name Only (RINO) and cast off him off into the wilderness. (As California Rep. Duncan Hunter put it, "a more moderate/former liberal like Ronald Reagan...would never be elected today in my opinion.") Here's why:

Reagan tripled the national debt
Reagan raised taxes 11 times
Reagan expanded the size of government
Reagan supported the "socialist" Earned Income Tax Credit
Reagan negotiated with terrorists in Tehran
Reagan sought to eliminate nuclear weapons
Reagan gave amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants
Reagan approved protectionist trade barriers
Reagan signed abortion rights law in California
Reagan eventually debunked AIDS myths Republicans continued to perpetuate

Read More: Republicans Fail the Reagan Litmus Test | Crooks and Liars

The Tea Party's Truth

2011-07-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

Racist in the Tea Party or Party full of Racist?
Excerpt from The Daily Beast Article White Supremacists Running for Political Office in 2012 in Growing Numbers - The Daily Beast written by Eve Conant

"One key precinct for politically minded white-rights activists: Stormfront, the nation’s largest white-supremacist website, where thousands of “racial realists” talk about everything from homeschooling and the news to uniting into a single party. Stormfront founder and radio host Don Black tells The Daily Beast the strategy is to start from the ground up, “where we have a chance of winning. It’s impossible to get into the Senate or Congress but state legislatures or smaller offices can work.” Black says the Tea Party’s influence spurred hopes among his ideological soulmates—but that the initial excitement has given way to a realpolitik sense that the Stormfront crowd will have to go it alone. “Many of our people are involved in the Tea Party,” says Black. “But much of their leadership is skittish when it comes to talking about racial realities. The Tea Party is a healthy movement but many are too conditioned to run like scared rabbits when called racists.”

also see:

The 5 Types Of Tea Party Racists [OPINION] | News One

Uncle" THREE PAGES" Ruckus

2011-07-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

Is Herman Cain a real life Uncle Ruckus?
By Michael Arceneaux

Contrary to popular belief, liberals -- black and white alike -- don't loathe black conservatives simply because they are of a darker hue and dare to stand on the farthest right side of the political aisle.

It's a point GOP presidential contender Herman Cain tried to argue in a recent interview with FOX News' Juan Williams. Cain was hitting back at comedian Jon Stewart, who poked fun at the easy target during an episode of The Daily Show. Cain claimed, "Jon Stewart does not like me, in my opinion, because I'm an American black conservative."

Considering Stewart's line of work he may not have any strong feelings about Cain one way or another. As for the rest of us, it's not so much about Cain's political beliefs as it is the means in which he expresses them. Given his vilification of all things African and his attempts to shoo away from legitimate talks of racial insensitivity, it's no wonder Cain draws comparisons to the self-hating Uncle Ruckus character from the now defunct animated series, The Boondocks.

Take for instance, Cain perpetuating the already debunked myth about President Obama's origins. In an interview with Bloomberg, the former Godfather's Pizza CEO said, "Barack Obama is more of an international. I think he's out of the mainstream and always has been."

He went on: "Look, he was raised in Kenya, his mother was white from Kansas and her family had an influence on him, it's true, but his dad was Kenyan, and when he was going to school he got a lot of fellowships, scholarships, he stayed in the academic environment for a long time. He spent most of his career as an intellectual."

With Donald Trump officially no longer wasting anyone's time with a pretend presidential run anymore, Herman Cain is the only person still clinging to this level stupidity among the would be Republican presidential nominees. It's sad that a black man willfully chooses to do so given xenophobia has long thwarted diversity in American politics and business.

When Cain isn't promoting anti-intellectualism and trying to make President Obama sound as if he just left the set of The Jungle Book, he's going out of his way to pacify white conservatives about the racist fringe element among their factions.

Speaking before the Conservative Political Action Committee in February, Cain told the audience, "You will get called racist simply because you happen to disagree with a president who happens to be black. You are not racists! You are patriots because you are willing to stand up for what you believe in!"

Click here to continue reading >

Why does Herman Cain turn into Chicken George in front of white people

2011-07-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Memo to Herman Cain: Obama is a real black man
By David Swerdlick

If former Godfather's Pizza CEO and current GOP presidential contender Herman Cain is sticking with his claim that President Barack Obama isn't a "real black man," then he needs a better definition of what he thinks a real black man is.

Because Obama doesn't have to prove he's black to anyone.

Put aside the stereotypes that might offer circumstantial evidence of Obama's blackness: he played high school hoops, smokes Newports, and pulls only for the White Sox -- never the Cubs.

And dispense with technicalities: Cain can proudly trace his roots to African-American slaves -- but to pinpoint his own African heritage, all that President Obama really needs is Google maps.

What's at issue isn't any one man's definition of blackness. It's Cain's willingness to play the "blacker than thou" card to hang onto the spotlight that's already begun fading from his grasp.

Doubling down on his claim that liberals are scared that "a real black man might run against Barack Obama," Cain -- who's never held elected office -- tells the New York Times Magazine in this coming Sunday's issue that Obama isn't "a strong black man that I'm identifying with," and then chides that "a real black man is not timid about making the right decisions" before smoothing out his attack with the meaningless caveat that "If he wants to call himself African-American, fine. I'm not going down this color road."

Right -- because there's nothing racial about telling a black man that he's not a "real" black man.

Cain must figure that he's "keeping it real" every time he jumps at the chance to point out that he grew up in the Jim Crow South while not-so-real Obama's "mother was white and father was from Africa." But before the self-described "American Black Conservative" gets to pat himself on the back for how real he thinks he's keeping it, there's a few items he might want to ponder:
From Another Mother -- But Still A Brother
If Cain thinks it's breaking news that a biracial guy who grew up in Honolulu hasn't had the "typical" black experience, he's a little late with that information. He might want to check out a library book called We Already Covered This In '08.

Click here to continue reading >

We Must Destroy BET

2011-06-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

New Mitt Romney Ad?

2011-06-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney for President 2012?

what the.........

Private Prisons Want More People In Jail

2011-06-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

Private Prisons Spend Millions On Lobbying To Put More People In Jail
By Andrea Nill Sanchez

Yesterday, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report chronicling the political strategies of private prison companies “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” The report’s authors note that while the total number of people in prison increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, correspondingly. Government spending on corrections has soared since 1997 by 72 percent, up to $74 billion in 2007. And the private prison industry has raked in tremendous profits. Last year the two largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group — made over $2.9 billion in revenue.

JPI claims the private industry hasn’t merely responded to the nation’s incarceration woes, it has actively sought to create the market conditions (ie. more prisoners) necessary to expand its business.

According to JPI, the private prison industry uses three strategies to influence public policy: lobbying, direct campaign contributions, and networking. The three main companies have contributed $835,514 to federal candidates and over $6 million to state politicians. They have also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on direct lobbying efforts. CCA has spent over $900,000 on federal lobbying and GEO spent anywhere from $120,000 to $199,992 in Florida alone during a short three-month span this year. Meanwhile, “the relationship between government officials and private prison companies has been part of the fabric of the industry from the start,” notes the report. The cofounder of CCA himself used to be the chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party.

The impact that the private prison industry has had is hard to deny. In Arizona, 30 of the 36 legislators who co-sponsored the state’s controversial immigration law that would undoubtedly put more immigrants behind bars received campaign contributions from private prison lobbyists or companies. Private prison businesses been involved in lobbying efforts related to a bill in Florida that would require privatizing all of the prisons in South Florida and have been heavily involved in appropriations bills on the federal level.

Tracy Velázquez, executive director of JPI recommends that we “take a hard look at what the cost of this influence is, both to taxpayers and to the community as a whole, in terms of the policies being lobbied for and the outcomes for people put in private prisons.”

Private Prisons Spend Millions On Lobbying To Put More People In Jail | ThinkProgress

Thank You White Lady

2011-06-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

How Michele Bachmann has 'failed' Black America
By Michael Arceneaux
from: theGrio | African American Breaking News and Opinion

Michele Bachmann wants to let people of color know that she cares about our plight.

During a speech at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans over the weekend, the Minnesota congresswoman discussed the disproportionally high unemployment rates for blacks and Latinos. The Tea Party crusader took shots at President Obama, arguing, "This president has failed the Hispanic community. He has failed the African-American community. He has failed us all when it comes to jobs."

If there were any place where I'd love to hear a Republican talk about black failure it's in the city of New Orleans. Unfortunately, hers was conspicuous message issued out of convenience. As nice as the thought of a high profile Republican running for president finally speaking on high minority jobless rates is, Michele Bachmann has some nerve feigning interest in black unemployment while simultaneously laying the blame for it squarely on the president.

Bachmann voted against the stimulus package that arguably saved even more jobs from being lost. Of course, she's also the same person who asked for the money she voted against for her own district but I suppose what's hypocrisy amongst colleagues?

Speaking of Minnesota's 6th congressional district, the population of blacks hovers around a whooping 1 percent. She has very few black constituents to pay lip service to; however, there's plenty of criticism to go around in her own home state.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics placed Minnesota's 2010 black jobless rate at 22 percent. That figure is 3.4 times the white rate of 6.4 percent, giving the state the largest gap in the country. Moreover, The Star Tribune reported that in a 2009 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute that the Twin Cities -- where much of the state's black population is concentrated - had the biggest gap between white and black employment.

She can target President Obama on the nation's piss poor stats about joblessness among minorities, but she's kept mum about the even sadder figures with the neighbors in her own state. That's not to say Bachmann hasn't completely shied away from past comments about matters pertaining to race, though.

Michele Bachmann is no stranger to race talk, only it's typically in the form of racially tinged language that many have considered flat out racist or at the very least, factually deficient.
She has a habit of defending Tea Party members from accusations of racism while making auspicious claims about non-white Americans at Tea Party rallies. In February, Bachmann told the National Press Club at a Tea Party Express Forum that, "Other than Native Americans who were here, all of us have the same story."

Bachmann's remake of American history says that we are all descendants of "a risk-taker from their home country, doesn't matter what the country is, but they took a risk, and they came here." Those risk-takers "knew when they came here they weren't coming for a welfare state."

A month prior she made the erroneous claim that America was founded on racial and ethnic diversity. Yes, slavery existed, "but we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."

When she's not giving American history teachers reasons to cry, she's angering people with declarations that Barack Obama is anti-American -- a charge that's as xenophobic as it is stupid.

Legislatively, Bachmann drew controversy after she blamed the economic crisis on minority lending at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in 2008. Bachmann took aim at the Community Reinvestment Act, which was passed to fight the banking industry's discriminatory lending practices, In Bachmann's view the CRA made it to where "loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else." In response to deserved criticism, Bachmann quipped, "It does not mean that I'm a racist...because I'm critical of that bill."

No, just dishonest. The same can be said of her dismissing the landmark $1.2 billion settlement compensating black farmers for decades of discrimination as "fraud." Though she claimed they were looking or a handout, her own family accepted federal farm subsidies, essentially making her the welfare queen her ilk like to complain about all the time.

There is room for Obama criticism about high black unemployment, but not from Michele Bachmann. We are not her priority, just a ploy for political points. I can't knock her completely for trying, but she has a better shot at hosting the 2012 BET Awards than she does convincing me to embrace her newfound "concern."

How Michele Bachmann has 'failed' black America

Socialism vs. Capitalism?

2011-06-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

Socialism vs. Capitalism?

Stocks Of Socialized Countries Have Outperformed U.S. Since Reagan Era

Stock Market Chart of the Day: Socialism vs. Cowboy Capitalism : CJR

Republicans Hate Jobs

2011-06-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

Jobs Bill Blocked in Senate
By Steven T. Dennis
Roll Call Staff

A Republican-led filibuster blocked a Senate jobs measure Tuesday, a month after the GOP halted a small-business bill in a dispute over allowing Republican amendments.

Just 49 Senators voted to end debate; 60 are needed. Four Democrats — Sens. Tim Johnson (S.D.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) — joined 45 Republicans to oppose ending debate, and no Republicans voted in support.

The Economic Development Administration reauthorization bill had become bogged down with more than 90 amendments filed on it, the vast majority of which having nothing to do with the underlying bill.

For example, an amendment that would eliminate the 45-cents-a-gallon ethanol tax subsidy and a 54-cent tariff on imported ethanol was approved 73-27 last week, even though revenue provisions must originate in the House. The provision could still be attached to a future House bill.

Read Article At: Jobs Bill Blocked in Senate : Roll Call News

Clarence Thomas Should Resign

2011-06-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

It's time for Clarence Thomas to resign.

Dear Friends,

A New York Times expose published Sunday details the improper ties between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and influential rightwing funder and activist Harlan Crow.

Crow is a major contributor to conservative causes and a stalwart supporter of Clarence Thomas. In past years he reportedly gave Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, $500,000 to exploit the Citizens United decision and start a shadowy, Tea Party-related group called Liberty Central. He gave Thomas a bible (estimated value $15,000) that once belonged to Frederick Douglass, and allegedly provided the Supreme Court Justice with access to his yacht and private jet.

As if that wasn't enough, the New York Times has revealed that Thomas may have improperly solicited a multi-million dollar donation from Crow to benefit one of his own pet projects near his birth place in a remote coastal community outside Savanna, Georgia.

Enough is enough. I just signed a petition, calling on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign. You should sign the petition, too. Click below to take action.

Go Here: http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/resign_clarence_thomas/?r_by=-4175990-OzgBuox&rc=paste2

Jon Huntsman's Iranian Missile Problem

2011-06-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

Issue for Jon Huntsman: His family's Iran business
By GLENN THRUSH & KASIE HUNT

Shortly after Jon Huntsman began his tour as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to China, an unwelcome letter from an anti-Iran nuclear watchdog group arrived at Huntsman Corp., the chemical company founded by his father.

The bluntly worded missive singled out a Tehran-based subsidiary — purchased when Huntsman worked for the company — for selling polyurethane that could be used in solid fuel for Iranian missiles, among other things.

“How can it be that Ambassador Huntsman could persuade the Chinese government to impose further economic sanctions on Iran when his namesake former company continues to do business in Iran?” read the letter from United Against a Nuclear Iran, a nonpartisan group founded by the late diplomat Richard Holbrooke and veteran Mideast envoy Dennis Ross.

After three months of back-and-forth, the company founded by Jon Huntsman Sr. and run by Huntsman’s younger brother Peter reluctantly shuttered its Iran operations in January 2010 to avoid “reputational risk.”

But the issue of the subsidiary — first brought to POLITICO’s attention by a Huntsman opponent — suggests that Huntsman faces political risk from his connection to Huntsman Corp., which has 12,000 employees worldwide and revenue exceeding $9 billion as of 2010, when, as expected, he declares his candidacy for president.

Read The Article At: Issue for Jon Huntsman: His family's Iran business - Glenn Thrush and Kasie Hunt - POLITICO.com

Fiasco of an Interview

2011-06-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

Fox ~~News~~'s Mr. O'Reilly Interviews Rapper Lupe Fiasco

What's Behind Bill O'Reilly's Beef With Hip-Hop? | News One

Clarence Thomas Caught in Yet Another Ethics Tangle

2011-06-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

Justices have Been Forced To Resign For Doing What Clarence Thomas Has Done

By Ian Millhiser on Jun 19, 2011 at 1:19 pm

Justice Clarence Thomas is an ethics problem in a black robe. Just eight months after ThinkProgress broke the story of Thomas’ attendance at a Koch-sponsored political fundraiser, we learn that Thomas doesn’t just do unethical favors for wealthy right-wing donors — they also do expensive favors for him.

Read Full Story at:

Justices Have Been Forced To Resign For Doing What Clarence Thomas Has Done | ThinkProgress

Romney and Huntsman Mormon Problem

2011-06-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

Mormon candidates must confront religion's racist past
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has made no public comment on The Book of Mormon musical that's been knocking them dead on Broadway. Romney, of course, would be mum on it for two good reasons.

First off the plat taunts, teases, hectors, lampoons and ridicules the Mormons on their holy book, history, practices and doctrinal statements. But most importantly, the play skewers Mormons for the church's decades of racial prejudice and for their prodigious proselytizing activities in Africa. But the satire could just as easily apply to the long history of Mormons' long standing purported curse of Ham teachings about blacks. It's a play no devout, respectable Mormon would have anything good to say about.

The other reason that Romney would be mum on anything that tosses an ugly glare on his Mormon faith is that there's no way at this stage of the election game to say whether his Mormonism will help or hurt him, or mean nothing to voters. Polls have been mixed.
In a 2006, Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll more than one third of voters said they wouldn't back a Mormon for president. A June Quinnipiac Poll, which is the most recent poll on voter attitudes toward a Mormon in the White House, found that voter attitudes had softened somewhat. One third of voters didn't flatly say they wouldn't vote for a Mormon, just that they were "somewhat" or "entirely uncomfortable" with a Mormon as president.

But faith, religious and personal beliefs, and prejudices aside, Romney, and newly declared Republican candidate Jon Huntsman, despite the intense efforts of the church's ruling elders to make its racial past go away, are still saddled with the heavy burden of the religion's racial history.

For more than a century the Mormons rigidly enforced their policy that blacks could not be priests, serve on missions or be married in their temples. Some Mormon scholars tried mightily to debunk the curse of Ham teaching about blacks by citing various passages in the Book of Mormon that appeared to condemn color discrimination. But that did nothing to charge the iron clad prohibition against blacks having anything that resembled equal status in the church. The Mormons finally backed away from their ban after church leaders claimed they got a revelation from God in 1978 that declared blacks were now equals.

But the revelation came years after the heyday of the civil rights movement, and when discrimination and racial bigotry had become a legal, political and social taboo in America. The Mormon leaders counter attacked against the claims that despite the revelation on race, they were still closet bigots. They touted their much-publicized genealogical research on African-American families, their aggressive missions in Africa, and the increased number of blacks that serve in the important church body known as the Quorum of the Seventy to prove it.
But Mormon leaders would not relent on one thing. They rebuffed all calls for them to publicly apologize for the church's long, stubborn, and dogmatic defense of alleged biblical encoded racism.

This did not set well with many blacks who could not easily forgive let alone forget the decades of Mormon Church sanctioned exclusion. A number of black Mormons continually called on the church to come clean on its past, and send the real message that Mormonism was truly an open, inclusive, non-insular, non-sectarian, even too some, scary religion. Their efforts for a public mea culpa were in vain.
It's not the Mormon faith's racial past or the recanting of that past, though, that makes Romney and Huntsman non starters with most African-Americans. It's their politics. They are right wing conservatives. That stems not just from their party allegiance, but their religious allegiance as well. Mormons are rock solid political and social conservatives. Polls not surprisingly show that the overwhelming majority of Mormons vote Republican. Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming with their heavy concentration of Mormons and Mormon voters have not backed a Democratic presidential candidate in decades.

Romney and Huntsman will parade their conservative credentials on issues such as education, military spending, slashing government programs, and limiting civil rights on the campaign trail. They will bend over backward to curry favor with Tea Party leaders and activists, even if that means subtle pandering to their pet themes about big government, alleged runaway social programs, and the need to curtail or eliminate affirmative action programs.

Romney and Huntsman's record on diversity as respectively Massachusetts and Utah governors will be sharply scrutinized to see what they did or didn't do in making their administration's inclusive when it came to the number of blacks, Latinos and women they appointed to key posts in their administrations and in state agencies. And blacks will take a hard look at just how effectively they enforced civil rights laws in their states during their gubernatorial tenures.

Romney and Huntsman have repeatedly said that religion shouldn't be an issue in determining who is fit to sit in the White House. But given the long and suspect history of Mormons on race, the two candidates are kidding themselves if they think that their church's history won't be an issue. Put simply, Mormonism has for most of that history been no laughing matter for blacks.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com. Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Mormon candidates must confront religion's racist past

The Evil Empire

2011-06-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

Billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch have been dominant financiers for conservative front groups and nonprofits for nearly three decades. Their money has flowed to organizations dedicated to lobbying for corporate and upper income tax cuts, as well as to groups responsible for mobilizing Tea Party rallies against President Obama. But the Koch family’s association with fringe right-wing groups began a generation earlier with Fred Koch, the patriarch of the clan.

Fred not only founded the company now known as Koch Industries, he also was a founding member of the John Birch Society. As a founding board member, Fred helped engineer a hysterical wave of attacks on labor, intellectuals, public education, liberal clergy members, and other pillars of society he viewed as a threat. Birchers decried everyone from former President Eisenhower to water utility administrators as pawns in a global communist conspiracy. In the last two years, as the Koch name has become synonymous with right-wing plutocracy in the United States, the Koch family has played down its relation to the Birchers.

However, the New American, the official mouthpiece of the John Birch Society, published a piece this morning celebrating Fred and the Koch family’s pivotal role in developing the group:

Koch warned that American institutions were honeycombed with communist subversives, from labor unions and tax-free foundations to universities and churches. Art and newsprint, radio and television — all these media had been transmuted into vehicles of communist propaganda. [...] Fred Koch was no fly-by-night pamphleteer. He spent a generous portion of his later years using his wealth and influence to fight the communism he abhorred. He was an early member of the The John Birch Society’s National Council, an advisory group to JBS founder Robert Welch. Koch supported a variety of freedom-related causes, all the while continuing to build the company today known as Koch Industries.

The Bircher ode to Koch glosses over Fred’s record of bigotry. In a booklet he authored, Fred railed against civil rights leaders, and claimed the movement against racial segregation was a communist plot to use African Americans to destabilize the country. The Koch-funded Birchers held numerous rallies during the ’60s claiming integration would lead to a “mongrelization” of the races.

Although the present-day Koch brothers try to eschew explicit racism, their top Tea Party front group, Americans for Prosperity, is currently pursuing similar racial segregation goals. In North Carolina, the Americans for Prosperity chapter led a campaign to end a highly successful public school integration system.

Bush Tax Cuts

2011-06-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

The $2.5 Trillion Tragedy: What America Has Given Up For 10 Years Of Bush Tax Cuts
By Zaid Jilani

Today marks the 10th anniversary of former President George W. Bush signing into law his 2001 tax cuts (he passed a second round in 2003). While doing so, Bush promised prosperity and growth, but the nation got neither.

The cost of these budget-busting 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was, as estimated by Citizens for Tax Justice, roughly $2.5 trillion through 2010. But America didn’t have to go down this route of cutting taxes and hoping for growth to miraculously appear. There were other policy options available to policymakers.

ThinkProgress, using data on various social spending projects from the National Priorities Project — which does these calculations for the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars — has estimated ten other possible policies we could’ve paid for at the same $2.5 trillion price of the Bush tax cuts. While not all of these policies are currently performed by the federal government, they do represent an accurate calculation of the monetary tradeoffs, and each one individually would cost the same as the Bush tax cuts. Here are ten alternatives we could’ve pursued instead:

- Give 122.7 Million Children Low-Income Health Care Every Year For Ten Years

- Give 49.2 Million People Access To Low-Income Healthcare Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 43.1 Million Students With Pell Grants Worth $5,500 Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 31.5 Million Head Start Slots For Children Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide VA Care For 30.7 Million Military Veterans Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 30.4 Million Scholarships For University Students Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 4.19 Million Firefighters Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 3.67 Million Elementary School Teachers Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 3.6 Million Police Officers Every Year For Ten Years

- Retrofit 144.6 Million Households For Wind Power Every Year For Ten Years

- Retrofit 54.2 Million Households For Solar Photovoltaic Energy Every Year For Ten Years

Read the Article at:
The $2.5 Trillion Tragedy: What America Has Given Up For 10 Years Of Bush Tax Cuts | ThinkProgress

GoogleMe Baby

2011-06-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

Rick Santorum:

Why African-Americans prefer post-1965 America
By David A. Love

Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) thinks that America was on point before 1965. Recently, the hardline conservative -- who just became a contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination -- expressed his sentiments at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington, DC. According to Santorum, things were just fine in the U.S. before the creation of the welfare state. And he claims that President Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism.

"Social conservatives understand that America was a great country because it was founded great," Santorum told the crowd. "Our founders, calling upon in the Declaration of Independence, the supreme judge, calling upon divine providence, said what was at the heart of American exceptionalism...'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.'"

"He was talking about Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance, and it was in response to the Ryan budget," Santorum said, referring to Obama. "And he said this, talking about these three programs: He said 'America is a better country because of these programs. I will go a one step further: America is a great country because of these programs."

"Ladies and gentlemen, America was a great country before 1965," Santorum added. But was it?
In 1965, in the middle of the civil rights movement, the country was in the midst of eliminating the vestiges of Jim Crow racial segregation, a system that disenfranchised African-Americans. That year, police brutally attacked voting rights protestors during a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The previous year, three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, where they were registering blacks to vote. President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which enforced the Fifteenth Amendment that was ratified 95 years earlier.

The act states that "No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." The legislation was special because it allowed for direct federal action to help blacks register to vote. The U.S. Attorney General was now empowered to appoint supervisors to oversee voter registration where literacy tests and other poll tests were in use, or where fewer than half of voting age residents voted or were registered to vote in 1964.

The Voting Rights Act was a perfect complement to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbade discrimination by race and gender. The act outlawed discrimination in voter registration and public accommodations, encouraged public school desegregation, and authorized the withholding of federal funds to agencies that discriminate. In addition, Title VII of the act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin in businesses with 15 or more employees. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was established to enforce Title VII.

Civil rights legislation was an integral part of Johnson's Great Society program. "The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning," President Johnson said in remarks at the University of Michigan in 1964. "The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.... It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods."

With laws against discrimination in daily life came legislation banning discrimination in America's immigration policy. The Immigration and Nationality Act ended discriminatory quotas based on race and ethnicity, which allowed primarily Northern and Western European immigrants to enter the U.S. As a result of the act, immigration increased dramatically, as did the country's ethnic diversity. In the 1950s, 53 percent of immigrants were Europeans, and only 6 percent were Asians. Meanwhile, by the 1990s, only 16 percent were Europeans and 31 percent were Asians.

Another element of Johnson's Great Society was the Social Security Act of 1965, which gave birth to the signature government programs known as Medicare and Medicaid. The former -- which would undergo dramatic changes and become a private voucher system under Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-WI) proposed budget plan -- provides federal health insurance coverage to people 65 years and over and the disabled. The latter provides medical benefits for the poor.

The 1965 of which Rick Santorum speaks was a big year in the war on poverty. The Omnibus Housing Act provided federal funds to construct housing for low-income Americans. School breakfast programs and food stamps have helped millions of families fight hunger. And Head Start was launched that year to help with the social and cognitive development of low-income preschool children through educational, health, nutritional, social and other services. Conservatives opposed Head Start, characterizing it as a Soviet-style program that interfered with parents raising their children.

Under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal government for the first time committed itself to funding American public schools. Special education has aided children with learning disabilities, and bilingual education has helped transition Spanish-speaking students so that they do not fall by the wayside. In addition, Congress made legal services available to the poor through the Economic Opportunity Act, while Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) served as a domestic Peace Corps by providing vocational training to the underprivileged.

With the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities would fund artists and galleries with public money, and make theater accessible to a national audience through the development of new orchestras, opera and dance companies and playhouses. Two years later, Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). CPB provides funding to PBS, NPR, and public radio and television stations.

Conservatives such as Santorum decry liberal judges, and favor conservative judges who believe in the "original intent" of the Founding Fathers. Santorum once called for the abolition of the Ninth Circuit Court, a federal appeals court on the West coast that is regarded by conservatives as a liberal body with a high proportion of Democratic appointees. He campaigned against three Iowa state judges who ruled in favor of legalizing same sex marriage, and said liberal judges are "destroying traditional morality, creating a new moral code and prohibiting any dissent."

Meanwhile, in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, a liberal-leaning Supreme Court voted unanimously to overturn the anti-miscegenation laws, Jim Crow statutes that prohibited interracial marriage.

That year, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 prohibited employment discrimination against people 40 years of age or older. And the 1968 Civil Rights Act provided for equal opportunities in housing, and prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of housing based on race, religion, or national origin.

In one respect, however, things actually were better in the good old days whose praises Rick Santorum sings. However, it might not be what the presidential candidate had in mind. Since the 1970s, income inequality in the U.S. has increased, and is now at an 80-year high. Arguably, the rising inequality is due to attacks on the Great Society legacy, including banking deregulation and taxation policies that benefit the wealthy -- ranging from Reagan-era trickle-down economics to Clinton-era neoliberalism -- policies which Santorum favors.

So the question remains, was America better before 1965? Well, it depends on your point of view. If you are a conservative who views the Great Society legacy as a big government intrusion into the lives of people, then the answer is yes. If you think government has no business protecting civil rights, funding schools and feeding hungry children, increasing economic opportunity and promoting the arts, your answer will undoubtedly be yes.

However, if you are an African-American who enjoys exercising the right to vote, or a senior who doesn't want anyone touching your Medicare, or someone who believes the federal government has a role to play in fighting poverty, chances are you have a different view of things.

Why African-Americans prefer post-1965 America

Let Sarah Hate

2011-06-07T10:36:00.001-07:00

All the Broken Promises

2011-06-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

42 broken promises for 44.

135 promises have ben kept while 331 have been either compromised, stalled, or in the works.PolitiFact | The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises

A non-Violent Palestine?

2011-06-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

Israeli Forces Murder 20 Middle Eastern Protesters

2 Kids And A Dream Productions

2011-06-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Wha Cha Don't Wanna Tap Into

"Wha Cha Don't Wanna Tap Into" is an intimate one-of-a kind, production specifically designed to captivate any audience provoking conversation, which most people wouldn't discuss openly. We have invited the audience to become apart of this amazing show with laughter, sigh's of emotions, and a vary of uh - huh's as our YES! Talented artist's ranging from rhythm and blues, hip hop, pop, classical and alternative, bringing all interdisciplinary forms of art under one roof.

Juel Lane and Ursula Kendall-Johnson, Atlanta native dancers and choreographers, master minds behind "Wha Cha Don't Wanna Tap Into", had the opportunity to present there production May 1st, 2010 at the Southwest Arts Center Dance Week and packed the capacity beyond its limits. This production is presented by Two Kids And A Dream, LLC., and has the opportunity to present to audiences across the united states of america.

Happy Memorial Day

2011-05-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

Pledge of Allegiance by: The Whitest Kids U' Know

2011-05-30T13:13:00.001-07:00

If Democrats would have done this........

2011-05-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

Rep. Rob Woodall - Dumbest person on Earth

2011-05-26T20:12:00.000-07:00

Health Care Hypocrisy
Zennie62

Georgia GOP Congressman Rob Woodall (GA District 7) was caught at a town hall meeting making a statement, or a series of them, that could only be borne of hypocrisy.

While lecturing a constituent about self-reliance, and saying "You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, 'When do I decide I'm going to take care of me?'"

But the woman he was trying to talk down to wasn't have any of it. She said I have a question about taking care of you. You have government subsidized health care, but you are not obligated to take that if you don't want to. Why aren't you going out on the free market in the state where you're a resident and buy your own health care? You lead by an example. Why aren't you leading by example?"

Congressman Woodall tried to dodge the question, but she's having none of it. Finally, after she pressed him regarding why he doesn't go and get health care on the open market, and takes the free, government-sponsored health care provided by the people of America, he says "Because it's free... Folks, if you give people something for free, you should expect them to take it."

Those are the words of a person who cares only about himself. The question is, does Congressman Woodall's selfishness represent the entire GOP?

Rob Woodall, Georgia GOP Congressman Health Care Hypocrisy : Zennie Abraham : City Brights

It's not free.
Tax payers pay for it.
Lets help him take care of himself.
Vote him out!!!!!!

List of People you should write/call about black jobs.

2011-05-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Congressional Black Caucus Members of the 112th Congress

The Honorable Karen Bass
California, 33rd District
U.S. House of Representatives
408 Canon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ph: 202-225-7804

The Honorable Sanford D. Bishop, Jr.
Georgia, 2nd District
U.S. House of Representatives
2429 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-3631

The Honorable Corrine Brown
Florida, 3rd District
U.S. House of Representatives
2336 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-0123

The Honorable G.K. Butterfield
North Carolina, 1st District
U.S. House of Representatives
413 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-3101

The Honorable Andre Carson

Indiana, 7th District
U.S. House of Representative
425 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ph: 202-225-4011

The Honorable Donna M. Christensen
Delegate, Virgin Islands
U.S. House of Representatives
1510 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-1790

The Honorable Hansen
ClarkMichigan, 13^thDistrict
U.S. House of Representative
1319 Longworth Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ph: 202-225-2261

The Honorable Yvette Clarke
New York, 11th District
U.S. House of Representatives
1029 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ph: 202-225-6231

The Honorable William Lacy Clay, Jr.
Missouri, 1st District
U.S. House of Representative
2418 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ph: 202-225-2406

The Honorable Emanuel Cleaver II
Missouri, 5th District
U.S. House of Representative
1027 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-4535

The Honorable James E. Clyburn
South Carolina, 6th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2135 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-3315

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
Michigan, 14th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2426 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-5126

The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings
Maryland, 7th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2235 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-4741

The Honorable Danny K. Davis
Illinois, 7th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2159 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-5006

The Honorable Donna Edwards
Maryland, 4th District
U.S. House of Representatives
318 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-8699

The Honorable Keith Ellison
Minnesota , 5th District
U.S. House of Representatives
1027 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ph. 202-225-4755

The Honorable Chaka Fattah
Pennsylvania, 2nd District
U.S. House of Representatives
2301 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-4001

The Honorable Marcia L. Fudge
Ohio, 11th District
U.S. House of Representatives
1019 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-7032

The Honorable Al Green
Texas, 9th District
U.S. House of Representatives
236 Canon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-7508

The Honorable Alcee L. Hastings
Florida, 23rd District
U.S. House of Representatives
2353 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-1313

The Honorable Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
Illinois, 2nd District
U.S. House of Representatives
2419 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D. C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-0773

The Honorable Eddie Bernice Johnson
Texas, 30th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2468 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-8885

The Honorable Hank Johnson
Georgia , 4th District
U.S. House of Representatives
1427 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ph. 202-225-1605

The Honorable Barbara Lee
California, 9th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2267 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-2661

The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee
Texas, 18th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2160 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-3816

The Honorable John Lewis
Georgia, 5th District
U. S. House of Representatives
343 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-3801

The Honorable Gregory W. Meeks
New York, 6th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2334 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Ph: 202-225-3461

The Honorable Gwendolynne Moore
Wisconsin, 4th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2245 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-4572

The Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton
Delegate, District of Columbia
U.S. House of Representatives
2136 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-8050

The Honorable Donald M. Payne
New Jersey, 10th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2310 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-3436

The Honorable Charles B. Rangel
New York, 15th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2354 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-4365

The Honorable Laura Richardson
California, 37th District
U.S. House of Representatives
1330 Longworth House Office Buiding
Washington, DC 20515
Ph: 202-225-7924

The Honorable Cedric Richmond
Louisiana, 2^nd District
U.S. House of Representatives
415 Canon House Office Building
Washignton, D.C. 20515

Ph: (504) 288-3777

The Honorable Bobby L. Rush
Illinois, 1st District
U.S. House of Representatives
2268 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-4372

The Honorable David Scott
Georgia, 13th District
U. S. House of Representatives
225 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-2939

The Honorable Robert C. Scott
Virginia, 3rd District
U. S. House of Representatives
1201 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-8351

The Honorable Terri A. Sewell
Alabama, 7th District
U. S. House of Representatives
113 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-2665

The Honorable Bennie Thompson
Mississippi, 2nd District
U. S. House of Representatives
2466 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-5876

The Honorable Edolphus Towns
New York, 10th District
U. S. House of Representatives
2232 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D. C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-5936

The Honorable Maxine Waters
California, 35th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2344 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-2201

The Honorable Melvin L. Watt
North Carolina, 12th District
U. S. House of Representatives
2304 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-1510

The Honorable Allen West
Florida, 22nd District
U.S. House of Representatives
1708 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-3026

The Honorable Frederica Wilson
Florida, 17th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2430 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-4506

Run Fat Boy, Run

2011-05-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

The Amazing Racist

2011-05-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

Fox News Host Says Obama Is “Chuggin 40s” In Ireland

Fox News Host Says Obama Is "Chuggin 40s" In Ireland | News One

40s is slang for 40 oz bottles of beer, usually malt liquor, that was popular in hip hop in the 90s.

Cornel West is giving ammunition to racist.

2011-05-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

Cornel West is on a mission to tear down President Obama.

The Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist right wing hate group Council of Conservative Citizens | Southern Poverty Law Center took notice of Princeton professor Cornel West critic of the President calling him a black militant who feels betrayed by Obama.

From the site from racist people:

Black militants, radical left feel betrayed by Obama.

“Form Newsone for Black People

Princeton professor Cornel West is on a mission to tear down President Obama.

The latest stop on his tour was on MSNBC’s The Ed Show. On the show, West complained about the issue of Black unemployment and his belief that the president doesn’t care about poor people.

He even went as far to say that Obama feels more comfortable around “Jews and whites” than around “free Black men” who he believes the president fears.

I think he does have a predilection much more toward upper-class white brothers and Jewish brothers and a certain distance from free black men who will tell him the truth about himself as well as what’s going on in black communities, brown communities, red communities and poor white and working-class communities.

This wasn’t the only story that emerged yesterday concerning West and Obama. An article written by Chris Hedges in TruthDig has West referring to Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats….he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”

The piece also mentioned the endless campaigning West feels he did for Obama in 2008 on his way to the presidency. He talks about Obama never returning his calls and said he once felt like “smacking him upside the head” when he didn’t receive a ticket to his 2009 inauguration.”

Mr. West and Mr. Smiley are not being honest with people about how government works. Just throwing stones at the President and not taking the other branch of government "where laws are actually made" to task is disingenuous

Leroy Fick: Breaking down stereotypes

2011-05-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Millionaires on Food Stamps
Leroy Fick, a Michigan man who won $2 million in the state's lottery, has sparked outrage after he admitted earlier this week that he still uses food stamps.

Fick, 59, won $2 million last year on "Make Me Rich!," a Michigan lottery television show. He drives an Audi convertible but still uses the Michigan Bridge Card, an electronic food stamps card.

WNEM-TV broke the story when reporter Bill Walsh confronted Fick at his home. In the video, Fick says, "I think it's fair because of the way they took the taxes."

The Michigan Department of Human Services said that Fick's lump-sum payment does not count as income so he is still able to collect benefits.

The Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan lawmakers are working quickly to revise the rules so Fick will no longer be able to use food stamps.

Wu-Tang Republican's

2011-05-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

From the same party that brought you the out (R)age over the rapper Common going to the White House.

Senate Republican Leader Christine Radgono, R-Lemont, reads a letter from the rap group Wu-Tang Clan.

Not all conservatards like Rep. Allen West

2011-05-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

conservatives cheered for their own destruction
Conservatives cheer for their own destruction | JAMES EDWARDS
by: Racist Scum Bag James Edwards

Here’s one time. ~~Go to around the 12:00 mark~~ where Uncle Tom Allen West assures the crowd that they can’t be racist, because there’s a black man speaking at their convention. In other words, conservative white people should be presumed to be evil racists. Their political opinions don’t count unless they can find a black person to front for them. Yes, this is the same Allen West who says that white people who use the word “Negro” in private conversation should lose their job. He says white people using the word “Negro” is “disgusting, despicable and unacceptable”, and any white person who would use such language, even in a private conversation, should lose his job. Because he’s all about freedom and liberty… The theme of West’s speech was that there’s a New America dawning. Yes, there sure is. It’s a non-white, Third World America, and every conservative who backs people like Allen West and Herman Cain is helping to make it happen.

Governor Deal's Office Bans FOX

2011-05-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

Governor Deal's Office Bans FOX 5 Reporter from Immigration Bill Signing
Justin Gray

By MYFOXATLANTA STAFF/myfoxatlanta

VIDEO: Governor Deal's Office Bans FOX 5 Reporter from Immigration Bill Signing

FOX 5’s cameras were refused entry into Governor Nathan Deal’s office for the signing of the controversial immigration bill on Friday, one day after the FOX 5 I-Team reported on an investigation into a payment made Deal’s campaign to a fundraising company linked to the governor’s daughter-in-law.

Georgia State Patrol troopers stopped FOX 5 reporter Justin Gray and a photographer from entering Governor Deal’s office for the bill signing. One of the troopers told Gray, “We’re following the governor's press office’s instructions to prevent you from coming in at this time.”

Moments later, a representative from the governor’s press office came to the door. Video shot by FOX 5’s cameras shows the press agent telling Gray his crew would be allowed in,” As soon as FOX 5 apologizes for the lies you all told about us.” When Gray asked if he was being banned from the public press event because the governor’s office doesn’t agree with FOX 5’s reporting, the press agent responded, “You’ve sensationalized and lied about us, yes.”

VIDEO: Deal's Office Bans FOX 5 Reporter from Immigration Bill Signing: MyFoxATLANTA.com

Rush Beck out

2011-05-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Right-Wing Talk-Radio Flame Out
by John Avlon

Ratings for Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other hyper-partisans are declining as listeners seek honest talk from hosts like Michael Smerconish over angry rants. A more civil conversation will add value to our political debate, writes John Avlon.

There’s new evidence to suggest a demand for something different than hyper-partisanship in the world of talk radio and political media.

It’s not just the sunset of the Glenn Beck Show on Fox or the dispatch of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC to CurrentTV. It’s the shuttering of a pioneering conservative radio station and data showing the demographic decline of Rush Limbaugh.

In contrast, growing numbers of listeners are tuning in to independent voices who can be honest brokers in debates and don’t just angrily parrot talking points.

In February, I wrote a column asking whether right wing talk radio was dying and ruffled some feathers in that flock. A more accurate means of measuring listeners showed that conservative talkers’ ratings had either declined or flatlined in the heat of the 2010 election, while the world-journalism focus of the John Batchelor Show had seen a decided ratings climb. Now, a look at radical centrist Michael Smerconish’s national ratings growth since the start of the year provides more evidence of this emerging market.

First, here’s a snapshot that puts the shift in perspective: Just days after the 2010 election, the nation’s first all-conservative talk radio station, KVI in Seattle, switched back to a classic-rock format after 17 years. Its innovation had become media saturation—and music became an appealing alternative to the drone of a dozen Rush Limbaugh imitators.

Rush is a giant in his field, reaching more listeners than anyone in political talk, but even he has seen erosion in his numbers. Analysis of industry data shows that in market after market, Rush’s ranking has declined decisively over the past five years among advertisers’ coveted 25-54 age group. For example, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Rush fell from sixth to 12th between 2005 and 2010. In Portland, Oregon, he fell from fourth to eighth. In San Francisco, he’s seen a similar decline. Among listeners 65 and older, Rush remains No. 1. He can sell bedpans and resentment forever. But the demographic trend is not his friend.

It’s not that “the angry white guy conservative political talk format”—as consultant and former Clear Channel talk radio programming director Gabe Hobbs calls it—is over. It’s just got little room to grow, going forward.

“Rush has been around for 23 years. They’re not necessarily making new Ditto-heads. You have to fish where the fish are,” says Hobbs, who helped launch the radio career of Glenn Beck, among others. “We’re singing to this choir, that’s great, they’re worth a lot of money and they do a lot of wonderful things, but boy, there’s a lot over here we could do.”

“This civil and smart approach—like [John] Batchelor and Michael Smerconish and some other shows—to me is kind of a ‘duh,’ '' adds Hobbs, indicating that it should have been obvious long ago. “The numbers that NPR is drawing clearly portends to something. I’ve seen it myself in research. It’s the tone; it’s the approach. Some people don’t want to be engaged at that loud, angry level—that hard right or left ideological approach where it’s my way or the highway.”

A Republican turned Independent who supported President Obama in 2008, Smerconish is a pioneer, putting himself out in the world of daytime political talk radio as a radical centrist, surrounded by the old hyper-partisan voices. He is currently an island, but he is far from alone, reflecting the 41 percent of American voters who now identify as Independent but are seriously underrepresented in our political and media debates.

This is no mushy middle. Smerconish memorably described his policy profile in The Washington Post as “someone who supports harsh interrogation, thinks we should be out of Iraq but in Pakistan, doesn't care much if two guys hook up, and believes we should legalize pot and prostitution.” (Note the Pakistan comment—Smerconish has been beating that drum long before most Americans had heard of Abbottabad.)

“I choose subjects and offer my opinions without regard to any party's talking points,” Smirconish says. “I have plenty of opinions, but they do not fit neatly into those faux, talk- and cable-created ideological boxes. And it matters not to me whether the audience at the other end is a conservative, liberal or independent—I don't check registration cards."

Since he gave up his Philadelphia morning drive-time slot in January to focus solely on his nationally syndicated radio show, Smerconish has been seeing startling success: “I've been letting my Independent freak flag fly and people are responding.”

In Austin, Texas, Smerconish has increased the station’s drive-time ratings in the 25-54 demographic by more than 150 percent over the first three months of 2011, according to Arbitron ratings. In his evening Dallas time slot, Smerconish has increased the ratings among men age 25-54 from 0.5 to 2.7—a 500 percent increase. Over in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Smerconish has led a 146 percent-share jump for his station. In Syracuse, New York, he increased the station’s ratings for adults 25-54 more than 500 percent in the first three months of 2011.

In Boston, he’s more than doubled the ratings among women—an audience often alienated by angry talk radio. “If women are listening to it, then two things are probably true,” reflects Ian Punnett of Minneapolis’ MYTalk107. “First, they're creating word of mouth about it because it’s something fun. Second, it's something which might reflect the popular culture more than any one particular political ideology. It's more informative than it is exclusive. It creates a bigger tent.”

The industry is starting to get the message. “What I feel has really shifted in the past six months is that we're getting calls from stations saying ‘I want to do talk but I don't want it to be angry. I don't want it to be really polarizing. I don't want it to be just about politics,’” says Amy Bolton, senior vice president and general manager of news and talk for Dial Global, an independent, full-service radio network company providing national advertising sales representation for more than 100 independent producers and syndicators, including Michael Smerconish. “You hear program directors out there saying, ‘It's like listening to somebody bang on the same piano note over and over and over again.’”

What’s triggered this shift? In large part, it’s an emperor-has-no-clothes realization driven by data. The radio industry changes in the way that ratings are measured, from diary-style self-monitoring to a more scientific method known as PPM. This changed the focus from rewarding voices with hardcore fans—like Limbaugh’s “Ditto-heads”—and reflected more accurately what people actually listen to throughout their day.

“The hard left-wing stations and hard right-wing stations that were voted on by their fans in the diary—which was more of a popularity contest—seem not to be doing so well,” explains Jack Swanson, the program director at San Francisco’s KGO-AM. “Nationwide, I think we are seeing a trend of some weakness in the hard right and the hard left on both sides.”

“We’re seeing some things like Smerconish and some things like John Batchelor doing better,” Swanson continued. “Is this a trend? I don’t know. I do believe we’re at a tipping point in talk radio, though… It’s not just a Left or a Right or a Republican or Democrat thing. It’s a million points of light out there on the Internet in terms of the discussion of ideas and ideals. And one size doesn’t fit all anymore.”

One day we just might look back on the past two decades and see the hyper-partisan group-think that has disproportionately dominated talk radio as odd. The signs are all around us, from the PPM ratings that give a better idea of what people actually listen to during their day, to the implosion of Air America’s "Limbaugh of the Left" model while the thoughtfulness of NPR enjoys great and growing listener loyalty.

This is still an emerging market, a rebellious project. But a more civil, smarter conversation will add value—not venom—to listeners’ lives. It will bring light, rather than just heat, to our political debates. And in the process, it will more accurately reflect the essential diversity of American life.

John Avlon's most recent book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the Web and in paperback. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and a CNN contributor. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.

Rush Limbaugh and Right Wing Talk Radio Flame Out As Listeners Tune To Independents - The Daily Beast

Smiley and West

2011-05-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

Open Letter To Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, And The Obama Critics
Written by Ryan Mack

Read Article at: An Open Letter To Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, And Obama Critics | News One

The recovery of the Dow Jones which almost doubled since its lows during the end of the Bush presidency and the start of the Bush recession (Dow gained 30% in one year)

The GDP contracted as much as 6.8% in the final quarter of the Bush Presidency to within A YEAR we had expanded 5% which is almost a 12% turnaround – the largest turnaround in such a short of a time frame in the history of this country

We have created 2 million jobs in the past year with almost a third of those jobs coming from the first quarter of this year alone

Through it all TARP funds were almost all returned (have to give President Bush half the credit on this) and will only cost approximately $25 billion

He signed the Lily Ledbetter Act for equal pay for women

The drastic increase in investments in alternative energy that will finally decrease our dependence on foreign oil

He has issued the toughest ethics requirements for those working in his administration than any other previous President

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell…gone!

He signed into law the State Children’s Health Insurance Program

He enacted the largest reform in the history of this country of the student loan program through the Student Aid and Financial Responsibility Act (SAFRA) making college more affordable for those who wish to further their education (Dr. West…I assumed you would have loudly praised this as the banks lost billions of dollars on this legislation because they were previously the middle man in the transaction between the US Government and students….President Obama took them out of the equation. A clear example of you Dr. West highlighting how the banks profit under President Obama but disregarding discussing with as much assertiveness those instances that disprove your argument of his “selling out” to the oligarchs.)

He instituted the largest reform of oversight through the Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act in 2009 which also caused the banks to lose out on billions in revenue (Where was the praise from this Dr. West and Mr. Smiley? He certainly didn’t sell out to the oligarchs with this legislation.)

He was able to accomplish the most comprehensive nuclear arms treaty with the Russians making us more safe through smaller amounts of nuclear arms availability (START Treaty ratification)

He has improved America’s image and reputation abroad

He has started construction on a new high speed rail system

He actually put $4.3 billion into the previously unfunded “No Child Left Behind” legislation to help schools improve their performance

Don’t forget about the negotiated rescue of the Americans from Somali pirates

He has made more major terrorist captures in two years than the entire 8 years of the Bush presidency including the most obvious Bin Laden

He SAVED the Detroit automotive industry from collapse through bailouts of Chrysler, GM, and GMAC which have largely been paid back (Don’t many of those in my home town who still have jobs count as assistance to working poor and the working class Dr. West?)

He poured $18 billion in tax breaks for small businesses into a jobs bill through the HIRE Act to spur hiring and also gave $20 billion for transit and highways programs (Dr. West and Mr. Smiley…I do a lot of work in providing jobs for those in construction and many of these jobs are filled by people who would be considered “working poor”…doesn’t this count?)

He extended unemployment insurance again in the middle of one of the most productive lame duck sessions in the history of the country (More money given to the unemployed…aren’t they are part of the impoverished since they don’t have a job? Doesn’t assistance towards them count as help for the underserved? How much more tangible can you get outside of directly giving them a check and putting billions into community colleges and job readiness programs which our President has done?)

2011-05-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

Whose Foreign Policy Is It?

By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: May 8, 2011

For those with eyes to see, the daylight between the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama has been shrinking ever since the current president took the oath of office. But last week made it official: When the story of America’s post-9/11 wars is written, historians will be obliged to assess the two administrations together, and pass judgment on the Bush-Obama era.

The death of Osama bin Laden, in a raid that operationalized Bush’s famous “dead or alive” dictum, offered the most visible proof of this continuity. But the more important evidence of the Bush-Obama convergence lay elsewhere, in developments from last week that didn’t merit screaming headlines, because they seemed routine rather than remarkable.

One was NATO’s ongoing bombing campaign in Libya, which now barely even pretends to be confined to humanitarian objectives, or to be bound by the letter of the United Nations resolution. Another was Friday’s Predator strike inside Pakistan’s tribal regions, which killed a group of suspected militants while the world’s attention was still fixed on Bin Laden’s final hours. Another was the American missile that just missed killing Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric who has emerged as a key recruiter for Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate.

Imagine, for a moment, that these were George W. Bush’s policies at work. A quest for regime change in Libya, conducted without even a pro forma request for Congressional approval. A campaign of remote-controlled airstrikes, in which collateral damage is inevitable, carried out inside a country where we are not officially at war. A policy of targeted assassination against an American citizen who has been neither charged nor convicted in any U.S. court.

Imagine the outrage, the protests, the furious op-eds about right-wing tyranny and neoconservative overreach. Imagine all that, and then look at the reality. For most Democrats, what was considered creeping fascism under Bush is just good old-fashioned common sense when the president has a “D” beside his name.

There is good news for the country in this turnabout. Having one of their own in the White House has forced Democrats to walk in the Bush administration’s shoes, and appreciate its dilemmas and decisions. To some extent, the Bush-Obama convergence is a sign that the Democratic Party is growing up, putting away certain fond illusions, and accepting its share of responsibility for the messy realities of the post-9/11 world.

It’s a good thing, for instance, that President Obama has slow-walked the American withdrawal from Iraq, and it’s a sign of political maturity that his base hasn’t punished him for doing so. It’s a good thing that this White House didn’t just send every Guantánamo prisoner to a civilian court (or back home without a trial). It’s a very good thing that many Democrats seem willing to opt for frontier justice over procedural justice when the circumstances call for it — as they did in Abbottabad last week.

But there are dangers in this turnabout as well. Now that Democrats have learned to stop worrying and embrace the imperial presidency, the United States lacks a strong institutional check on the tendency toward executive hubris and wartime overreach. The speed with which many once-dovish liberals rallied behind the Libyan war — at best a gamble, at worst a folly — was revealing and depressing. The absence of any sustained outcry over the White House’s willingness to assassinate American citizens without trial should be equally disquieting.

As Barack Obama has discovered, an open-ended, borderless conflict requires a certain comfort with moral gray areas. But it requires vigilance as well, and a skepticism about giving the executive branch a free hand in a forever war. During the Bush era, such vigilance was supplied (albeit sometimes cynically, and often in excess) by one of the country’s two major political parties. But in the Obama era, it’s mainly confined to the far left and the libertarian right.

This vigilance needs to be mathematical as well as moral. The most dangerous continuity between the Bush and Obama presidencies, perhaps, is their shared unwillingness to level with the country about what our current foreign policy posture costs, and how it fits into our broader fiscal liabilities.

Instead, big government conservatism has given way to big government liberalism, America’s overseas footprint keeps expanding, and nobody has been willing to explain to the public that the global war on terror isn’t a free lunch.

The next president won’t have that luxury. In one form or another, the war on terror is likely to continue long after Osama bin Laden’s bones have turned to coral. But we’ll know that the Bush-Obama era is officially over when somebody presents us with the bill.

Whose Foreign Policy Is It? - NYTimes.com

slow news week

2011-05-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

Thug Friends

2011-05-06T11:52:00.001-07:00