Happy FRY-day! Hope you’ve enjoyed Smokey week here at 3 Chics.
You Really Got a Hold on Me
The Love I Saw in you was Just a Mirage
Quiet Storm
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Black Girls Rock!
Flickr Photos
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Potus Takes Oath of Office
Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China
My Brothers Keeper
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AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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3Chics Action Alert
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Vote 4 Democrats
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President Barack Obama
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Obama Love
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President Obama & Bo
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Presidential hug
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http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2013/07/16/richard-smith-race-relations-in-florida/
I love the song “You’ve Really got a hold on me”. The piano gets me every time.
Health Care Reform:
Health Insurance & Affordable Care Act
Quick Start Guide
1 Learn the Basics
2 Understand Costs
3 Know Your State Plan
4 Get Ready
http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/default.htm
JAY CARNEY RESPONDS BEAUTIFULLY TO A STUPID QUESTION FROM A JACKAL……
—————————————————————–
Q It is that time of the year again, presidential vacations. And that means the other party is saying the incumbent party is taking too much time off. The Republicans are saying President Obama spends too much, is too extravagant on his vacations, that he is spending too much time while other problems are going on. What do you say to that kind of criticism?
MR. CARNEY: I would just check what they said six years ago.
LOL!
Who asked that question? Ed Henry? Or Major Garrett? Ass clowns!
another gif for you
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxx6smv10F1qm4heyo1_500.gif
Luvvie’s back with a Scandal Post:
The 5 Stages of Watching Scandal
[ 37 ] August 9, 2013 | Luvvie
It’s been two and a half months since the Scandal season 2 finale episode left us all unable to deal. We wailed in despair for Scandal’s summer neglect, wondering what we were going to do to occupy our time and cope with the withdrawal. Chile, the struggle for us Gladiators is REAL outchea!
But I gotta admit it. We needed summer break from Scandal because watching it is stressful. It’s a weekly journey into a glass case of emotions and it’s probably healthy for us to take a break. HOWEVER, since BET got the rights to air Scandal reruns, we can now get back to watching it together!
For those of you who have never watched Scandal and will be catching the episodes for the first time during BET’s marathon this Saturday, then let me school you on the process of watching the show everyone is obsessed with. For those of us veteran Gladiators, I wanted you to know we’re in this together!
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So yes. I’m back in Gladiator mode and will be watching BET’s marathon of the first two seasons of Scandal. The first marathon block kicks off tomorrow (Saturday, August 10) from 8 am to 10 pm EST. They’ll be showing all of season one and some of season two. And the second marathon with most of season 2 happens next Saturday (August 17) from 8am to 10 pm also. Finally, on Wednesday, August 21, BET will finish airing the complete second season with a two-hour, back-to-back block, which starts at 9pm EST.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2013/08/stages-of-watching-scandal.html
An absolutely crazy gif
http://d22zlbw5ff7yk5.cloudfront.net/images/stash-3-5057d7cb04b30.gif
Oprah on being a recent victim of racism.
a gif for today
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3zextscrU1rqfhi2o1_250.gif
‘That is what happens when politics drives public health’
By Steve Benen
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Thu Aug 8, 2013 4:52 PM EDT
The Austin Chronicle reports today on the striking decline of women’s health care access in Texas. A state-based effort to discourage women from seeking services at Planned Parenthood hasn’t worked out at all (thanks to my colleague Kent Jones for the heads-up).
The fact is, Texas’ Women’s Health Program was rather effective, partnering with Planned Parenthood and subsidized heavily by federal dollars. Then Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Republican state lawmakers intervened, not because the program was faulty, but because their ideological goals said the program needed to change.
The result is fewer women receiving family planning and reproductive health services.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/08/19936585-that-is-what-happens-when-politics-drives-public-health?lite
I am off now to read the book I ordered which just came in the mail — “Fierce Angels: The Strong Black Women in American Life and Culture” by Sheri Parks.
I have read the intro…….the book is going to be good!
this began with this comment:
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HNIC.
Dedicated to #Team NFTG
White Tears Are Delicious:
44 Cocktail Recipes Using The Tears of White Racists by Barack Obama
Chapter 23: BITCH, I WILL CUT YOU!! The Second Presidential Debate.
#PBObooktitle
Chapter 22
Ya’ll Musta Forgot: The 2012 Election
Chapter 10: The Signifying Monkeys: Tavis Smiley and Cornel West
#PBObooktitle
You Ain’t Know, You Betta Axe Somebody (Yeah I Said “Axe”)
by Barack Obama
I Wish a Motherfucker Would: Reflections On My Presidency by Barack Obama
hashtag!! #PBObooktitle
Y’all Thought I Was Playin’, Huh? by Barack Obama B
Al Qaeda Ain’t Want NONE Of This! by Barry Obeezy
Fuck What You Heard by Barack Obama
I’m especially looking forward to chapter 17 Shame on a Nigga: The CBC from 2008-2016
Or chapter 18 – Who’s Ya Daddy: The 2012 Campaign
Chapter 7 – Harpo, Who Dis Woman?: The Rise and Gall of Sarah Palin
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
Benghazi liar Jon Karl wants POTUS to reveal U.S. plan on Al-Qaida. Pres. Obama: “I will not have a discussion about operational issues.”
2:44 PM – 9 Aug 2013
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
POTUS: “The Al-Qaida that attacked us on 9/11 have been broken apart” Says what the military is focused on is weakening AQAP.
2:43 PM – 9 Aug 2013
ForUS50 @FORUS50
At presser, POTUS beats the crap out of the GOP “defund” strategy and then holds up the dead carcass of GOP lies for all Americans to see.
3:27 PM – 9 Aug 2013
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
POTUS: “If in fact he (Snowden) believed what he did was right, then like any American citizen, he can come here with his lawyer and make his case.”
2:27 PM – 9 Aug 2013
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
Pres. Obama: “Mr. Snowden has been charged with three felonies.”
2:27 PM – 9 Aug 2013
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
POTUS: “No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden is a patriot. I called for review of our surveillance efforts before Mr. Snowden made these leaks.”
2:25 PM – 9 Aug 2013
Bill Moyers Essay: The Hypocrisy of ‘Justice for All’
Issa finds a new toy to play with
By Steve Benen
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Fri Aug 9, 2013 8:48 AM EDT
The discredited IRS controversy clearly didn’t work out the way House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) had hoped, to the point that he no longer remembers the serious-but-false allegations he carelessly threw around just a month ago. The far-right Californian now wants to “expand” his investigation, which is a pleasant-sounding euphemism for, “The questions I asked produced answers that didn’t fit my preconceived narrative, so I’ve come up with new ones.”
And this week, after Issa grew tired of his broken old toys, he found something new to play with: officials at the Federal Election Commission apparently asked the IRS’s tax exemption division last year about the status of some conservative political groups. Issa pounced, ordering the FEC to produce “all documents and communications between or among any FEC official or employee and any IRS official or employee for the period January 1, 2008 to the present.”
So what seems to be the trouble? There’s no evidence that the IRS shared private information with the FEC, but Issa and his allies want to know if maybe it happened anyway, and if there’s some convoluted way to connect this to the debunked “scandal” Issa was so invested in.
As Dave Weigel explained, there’s just not much here.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/09/19946975-issa-finds-a-new-toy-to-play-with?lite
Richwine returns
By Steve Benen
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Fri Aug 9, 2013 9:28 AM EDT
Remember Jason Richwine, the co-author of the Heritage Foundation’s condemnation of immigration reform? The conservative scholar ran into some trouble in May after we learned that Richwine has argued, for several years, that white people are more intelligent than people of color. It didn’t help when reports showed he contributed published pieces to a white nationalist website.
Indeed, Richwine’s “research” shaped a fairly specific racial and ethnic vision: there are “real differences between groups,” he’s argued, with Jews on top as the smartest people, followed by “East Asians, then you have non-Jewish whites, Hispanics, and then blacks.” These “differences” in intelligence, Richwine has said, should help shape U.S. public policy.
It wasn’t long before the far-right think tank cut its losses and accepted Richwine’s resignation. Three months later, Politico published a nearly 2,000-word piece from the conservative, asking, “Why can’t we talk about IQ?”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/09/19947425-richwine-returns?lite
Cuccinelli’s cash-flow problem
By Steve Benen
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Fri Aug 9, 2013 3:22 PM EDT
When Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) hired a crisis-management team to deal with his corruption scandal, the team of lawyers and consultants told him to stop the bleeding: return the gifts he’d received from Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams. So why has state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican who hopes to replace McDonnell, refused to do the same?
Last week, Cuccinelli said he couldn’t return the $18,000 in gifts because they weren’t tangible goods — unlike the luxury goods McDonnell received, Cuccinelli received dinners, trips, and vacation lodging.
But that wasn’t much an excuse — Cuccinelli could determine the value of these gifts and pay his benefactor back, or perhaps donate a comparable amount to charity.
And that brings us to today, when the far-right gubernatorial candidate came up with a brand new excuse.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/09/19951507-cuccinellis-cash-flow-problem?lite
Couple Jailed in Qatar After Being Accused of Murdering Adopted Daughter
By Babble.com | Parenting – 5 hours ago
Have you heard yet about Matthew and Grace Huang, the American couple jailed in Qatar since January of this year? No? neither had I. Now that I have, I’m compelled to share their story.
Matt and Grace’s adopted daughter, Gloria, died suddenly on January 15th, 2013 for reasons unknown.The next day, Matt and Grace were jailed in Doha, Qatar and charged with her murder.The California Innocence Project has since taken on their case.
The Huangs are Asian-American with three children adopted from Africa. According to the investigative report, they could not have had a legitimate reason to adopt children who were not “good-looking” and who did not share their “hereditary traits.”.
Whoa.
Related: The REAL cost of adoption in 13 countries around the world
But there’s more. The investigative reports theorize that Matthew and Grace “bought” their children in order to harvest their organs, or perhaps to perform medical experiments on them.
Did I mention this was in writing? By government officials? It’s one thing to have suspicions, gossip or ask grieving parents inappropriate and prying questions. But to write it down in an official report? This signals a culture difference that most Americans probably can’t wrap their heads around. However, it’s really American culture that is abnormal, not Qatar’s.
The U.S. has more adoptions than all other countries combined. Most countries in the Middle East don’t have any legal proceedings that would allow for adoption (needless to say they are not a Hague Adoption Country). The concept is just that foreign. Kathryn Joyce recently wrote a fascinating book on the American Christian adoption movement, The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption. I would highly recommend reading it.
Complicating matters, Qatar is a Muslim country, and Islamic law doesn’t recognize adoption. Adoption isn’t forbidden – it just doesn’t make much sense. Blood ties determine everything: marriage, inheritance, and one’s spiritual and physical place in the world. An exchange of papers doesn’t reset a person’s biological family. As an adoptee and (almost) adoptive parent, adoption has always been imbedded in my worldview. I really have to strain to consider a culture that considers the relationship I have with my parents and that with my daughter as foreign.
The autopsy report on 8-year-old Gloria is confusing and continues to be debated. Gloria, adopted from Ghana, had eating issues that are common in children from countries with poor food security. Having worked with the World Food Program and UNHCR in Ghana, much of my time was focused on attempting to treat children with feeding disorders. I watched dozens of children sit daily, for hours during the supplemental feeding visits, refusing to eat. The reasons vary and are too numerous to list.
I don’t know what happened to little Gloria, but it’s easy to imagine that this transracial family was so odd, and their claim of relation so bizarre in the context of this tiny Middle Eastern country, The Huangs were wrongly accused.
– By Rebecca
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/couple-jailed-qatar-being-accused-murdering-adopted-daughter-135200735.html
Rand Paul’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week
By Steve Benen
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Fri Aug 9, 2013 10:19 AM EDT
It’s probably safe to say Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has had better weeks. Just over the last few days he started to lose his cool on NPR when asked about a neo-confederate he co-authored a book with; he was caught making ridiculous boasts about his record on minority rights; and he repeated a bizarre conspiracy theory about George Stephanopoulos that’s already been debunked.
And then, after all of this, the Kentucky Republican sat down for a chat with Businessweek’s Josh Green.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/09/19948061-rand-pauls-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-week?lite
If House GOP leaders decide they want immigration reform, we’ll get it
By Greg Sargent, Published: August 9 at 12:08 pm
It isn’t every day that a House Republican steps forward to chastise the GOP leadership. But the Modesto Bee reports that GOP Rep. Jeff Denham of California, at a meeting with immigration advocates and constituents, was sharply critical of his own party’s leaders and their foot-dragging on immigration reform:
“The Senate bill won’t get a vote in the House, and it’s something that could have helped this community,” Denham said to the some 25 people present. “I am frustrated. I thought we’d get this done before the August work period. I think the Senate made tremendous progress. It was done bipartisan and I thought that would be enough to get the House moving forward.”
The assembled group included concerned residents, area attorneys, church pastors, union representatives, chamber members and Latino organizers. Many wanted to know why a comprehensive reform seemed out of reach in the House.
“I don’t know I have a good answer,” Denham said. “It probably has a lot more to do with politics than policy.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/08/09/if-house-gop-leaders-decide-they-want-immigration-reform-well-get-it/
‘It’s more of a religion than a science’
By Steve Benen
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Fri Aug 9, 2013 12:29 PM EDT
About a year ago, former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) made the case that his party has no choice but to come around on climate change — “the facts,” he said, will “overwhelm” Republican resistance.
Last week, Inglis’ argument picked up some welcome support from four former EPA chiefs from Republican administrations, all of whom got together to write a New York Times op-ed on the “Republican Case for Climate Action.”
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) must have missed it.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/09/19949544-its-more-of-a-religion-than-a-science?lite
The Morning Plum: The Obamacare trap
By Greg Sargent, Published: August 9 at 9:16 amE-mail the writer
Republicans are under increasing pressure from conservatives to stage a government shutdown this fall to defund Obamacare. Dems will seize on the resulting drama to remind Americans that Republicans are more driven by pathological anti-Obamacare animus than by any desire to propose constructive solutions of their own. However unpopular Obamacare is, proposing to blow up reform and replace it with nothing meaningful may not be great politics, either.
What to do? Answer: Republicans are set to roll out another replacement for Obamacare. Roll Call reports:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/08/09/the-morning-plum-the-obamacare-trap/
Another day of setbacks for GOP outreach to minority communities
By Steve Benen
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Fri Aug 9, 2013 1:50 PM EDT
10
The Republican National Committee has said repeatedly, for quite a while, that it wants to expand beyond its older, white base, and bring in more racial and ethnic minorities. I think it’s safe to say today was not a helpful day in this effort.
In New Jersey, for example, the leading Republican U.S. Senate candidate was forced to delete a racist tweet, directed at Newark Mayor Cory Booker, from his official campaign account. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R) was forced to fire an administration official who equated undocumented immigrants with “Satan.” In D.C., Jason Richwine is talking again about minorities being intellectually inferior on a genetic level.
And then there’s Oklahoma.
http://youtu.be/kXJd5ug4uto
As Scott Keyes reported this morning, Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R) hosted a town-hall meeting in his Oklahoma district yesterday, and fielded a question from a self-described “Birther Princess.” Mullin wasn’t eager to pursue the racist conspiracy theory — not because he considers it ridiculous, but because he believes it’s too late.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/09/19950558-another-day-of-setbacks-for-gop-outreach-to-minority-communities?lite
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Charlie Rangel is Right: The Evidence is Overwhelming That the Tea Party is in Fact a Group of ‘White Crackers’
In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Representative Charlie Rangel stated that the Tea Party is akin to the “crackers” who fought against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. Predictably, Rangel’s description of the Tea Party was greeted with claims of “reverse racism” by conservatives, the Right-wing media, and their black conservative lapdog apologists.
Precision is important when discussion the relationship between race and language.
Cracker is a word used by African-Americans to describe white people who are racist and bigoted towards them.
While the exact origins of the word cracker (or its other version “cracka”) have not been determined, it was most likely based on the sound that an overseer’s whip would make as it tore and scarred the flesh of black human chattel. Whatever its etymology, the word “cracker” is in no way equivalent to the word “nigger”.
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The feigned offense and hysterical response by the Right-wing media to the use of the word “cracker” by
African-Americans, as seen several weeks ago during the Trayvon Martin murder trial, and now in the aftermath of Rangel’s interview with The Daily Beast is simply one more example of the White Right crying the victomology blues in order to gin up support for their sick fiction and delusion that white people are now oppressed by racial minorities in the United States during the Age of Obama.
Rangel’s suggestion that the Tea Party is comprised of white crackers is actually a claim that can be empirically evaluated. If a cracker is a white person who holds anti-black animus and feelings—what can range from “old fashioned” open and public bigotry, to “backstage racism” and more subtle types of implicit bias—then what does the actual evidence tell us about the Tea Party GOP and its members’ racial attitudes?
In the most obvious and public examples, Tea Party rallies have featured signs depicting Barack Obama as an African “witchdoctor” or “savage”. Tea Party supporters have also carried signs emblazoned with the Confederate flag, or used monkey and ape imagery to describe the country’s first black president at their rallies.
Silence and complicity is endorsement: the attendees at these rallies were not rejected or condemned by their fellow Tea Party members; rather, their racist message was embraced and supported.
http://www.chaunceydevega.com/2013/08/charlie-rangel-is-right-evidence-is.html
Here is a map showing the number of hate groups by state:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map
“The Year in Hate and Extremism” :
http://www.splcenter.org/home/2013/spring/the-year-in-hate-and-extremism
Jim DeMint Says GOP Will Destroy America To Stop Obamacare
By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Aug. 9th, 2013
The Republicans seem to be aware that their obsession with killing the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, is unpopular and damaging to their party. Certainly, most everyone else is. Forty votes to repeal a healthcare overhaul based on a Republican healthcare overhaul and not a single jobs bill since 2008.
Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), whom you might remember dropping out of politics in April to go into…a more lucrative, seven figure form of politics with the Heritage Foundation, told Newsmax TV yesterday that the GOP should be willing to destroy America if that is what it takes to get rid of medical care for the American people.
Interestingly, DeMint says Obamacare is more damaging to America “than anything I’ve seen pass in my lifetime.”
Obamacare apparently being more damaging than a Republican destruction of America itself. So what he is saying is that the GOP must be willing to do more damage to America than the most damaging thing they’ve seen so far, in order to stop the second-most damaging thing done to America.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/09/jim-demint-gop-destroy-america-stop-obamacare.html
Millionaires Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan Plan To Cut Off Food for 4 Million Americans
By: Jason Easley
Aug. 9th, 2013
In September a bill pushed by Reps.Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor will if passed cut off food assistance to 2-4 million of America’s poorest citizens.
House Republicans will be voting on a Cantor/Ryan bill in early September that will double the cuts to the food stamp program (SNAP) to $40 billion over ten years.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities these cuts would literally push millions of Americans deeper into poverty:
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I am sure that Cantor and Ryan think that they are targeting urban minority Obama voters who in their minds are the ultimate “takers,” but the reality is that the majority of the people that they will be harming are white people in suburban and rural areas. These people are also known as the kind of voters who Republicans are supposed to be wooing in order to win elections. Every election year, the media proclaims the importance of the suburban vote to Republican candidates, so Cantor and Ryan are about to shoot themselves in the foot with these very same people. (These cuts will also harm Hispanic voters, but the House Republican position on immigration has virtually made getting Hispanic voters back into the Republican coalition a lost cause.) Cantor and Ryan have been laying the groundwork for this attack on the poorest Americans for weeks.
Paul Ryan recently told NBC News, “I think it’s insensitive to not have a work requirement for food stamps, and what I mean when I say that is: our goal in these programs is not to make poverty easier to handle and tolerate and live with, our goal in these program ought to be to give people a temporary hand so that they can get out of poverty.”
What Ryan didn’t mention was that his proposed work requirement would mean that people have three months to find a part time job or they will be thrown off the program.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/09/millionaires-eric-cantor-paul-ryan-plan-cut-food-4-million-americans.html
The Confederacy Rises Again and Assumes The Identity of Republican Racism
It is not unusual for children to harken back to a special event they hold onto dearly and yearn to return to, and there are many adults who may not cling to any specific day, but certainly aspire to return to a period of their life the regard as special. Over the past four-and-a-half years, Americans unhappy at the notion of “change” President Obama campaigned on have looked longingly to return to a different era they remember as special regardless they may not have been alive but Republicans promise to revisit if they control Washington. For many conservatives disenchanted with 21st century America, the 1950s are the golden era they would like to “take their country back” to, and for many Southern conservatives, the Confederacy is their personal Utopia primarily for the supremacy the white race lorded over indentured slaves. In Virginia recently, neo-confederates leased some land near a highway and erect a 50-foot pole to fly the Confederate battle flag to “welcome visitors and commuters to Richmond and remind them of our honorable Confederate history and heritage” that was founded on the preservation of slavery and white supremacy.
The honorable heritage so many Americans, not just Southerners, aspire to return to was best summed up by the Confederacy’s vice-president, Alexander Stephens, who explained in a speech in 1861 that “Our new government is founded on and its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.” Now, there are Americans who claim those days are long past and any mention that they still exist predictably garners claims that anyone who thinks, or speaks, otherwise is a racist and it is a favorite charge of Republicans and their sycophants. The rampant racism borne of white supremacy is nearly exclusive to Republican supporters and sadly, many politicians aligned with the GOP. For example, last month it was revealed that a vocal neo-Confederate worked for United States Senator Rand Paul running his new media as well as being the ghost writer for Paul’s first book. On many occasions Paul has eluded to his disdain for civil rights and attempts to couch it in libertarian terms, but he is still a racist.
The racism infecting the Republican ranks is borne of white supremacy and it is evident in opposition to free and fair elections and immigration reform. It is important to note that if minorities voted the way white Republicans told them to, there would be no voter suppression efforts in this country or opposition to immigration reform. In Texas recently, an honest Republican said as much in explaining why he hates the idea of giving 11-million Hispanic immigrants a path to citizenship and the right to vote.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/09/confederacy-rises-assumes-identity-republican-racism.html
They try to falsely assert that only 2% owned the slaves.
In reality:
they always want to minimize their evil
Okay, I just went to my collection and pulled this handsigned letter written by A. Philip Randolph on his “Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porter” stationery with him listed as its International President. He dated it July 13, 1961 and addressed it to Mr. Howard N. Meyer:
The article that A.Philip Randolph was referring to is at the following Reader’s Digest link.
(Reader’s Digest republished it with permission from the Commonweal:
http://books.google.com/books?id=g7MDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=%22civil+war+centennial%22&hl=en&ei=aMlSTtHEN6Hu0gHIq6ilBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=true
Yes, they do, Rikyrah.
Here is a post from the blogsite “Raving Black”
Ford Foundation Names Darren Walker as New CEO
The Ford Foundation reached into its own ranks to tap Darren Walker—a longtime foundation professional with extensive nonprofit and corporate experience—as its next president.
Mr. Walker, a gay black man who grew up in a small town in Texas, worked for nearly a decade as a lawyer and bond salesman on Wall Street before giving up corporate life in 1995 to volunteer for a year at a school in Harlem.
He went on to become chief operating officer at Abyssinian Development Corporation, a community-development group in Harlem. Mr. Walker then worked for many years at the Rockefeller Foundation, before moving to Ford in 2010 as vice president for education, creativity, and free expression.
http://philanthropy.com/article/Ford-Foundation-Names-Darren/140535/
Could Old People Give the Gavel to Pelosi?
by BooMan
Fri Aug 9th, 2013 at 09:53:52 AM EST
The results are from a partisan Democracy Corps poll, so apply all appropriate caveats, but…
We all know that the Republicans have done a great job of gerrymandering the House districts, which is supposedly going to give them an impregnable majority at least after the next census in 2020. However, that analysis is based on demographic groups remaining fairly stable in their partisan preferences.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/8/9/95352/43300
Oprah gets Swiss apology for racist encounter
by Associated Press | August 9, 2013 at 8:56 AM
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey says she encountered racism while shopping in Switzerland — and the national tourism office agrees.
The media mogul, who is one of the world’s richest women, told the U.S. program “Entertainment Tonight” that a shop assistant in Zurich refused to show her a handbag because it was “too expensive” for her.
Forbes magazine estimates that Winfrey earned $77 million in the year ending in June.
A spokeswoman for the Swiss tourism office, Daniela Baer, told The Associated Press on Friday “we are very sorry for what happened to her.”
The tourism office also posted an apology on Twitter, saying “this person acted terribly wrong.”
Winfrey was in town to attend last month’s wedding of longtime pal Tina Turner, who lives in Switzerland.
http://thegrio.com/2013/08/09/oprah-gets-swiss-apology-for-racist-encounter/
they give me hope
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Dream Defenders Voter Drive Targets 61,500 People, Rick Scott’s 2010 Margin Of Victory (VIDEO)
By Vanessa Martin
n their quest to fight Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, Dream Defenders, the Miami-based protesters, aren’t just continuing a 25-day sit-in at Gov. Rick Scott’s office.
Thursday, they announced a voter drive with a very specific target in mind: 61,500 people, the number of votes by which the governor won in 2010.
“The Dream Defenders value many things: we value love, we value peace, we value unity, and more than anything, we value the power of our vote,” Dream Defenders Executive Director Philip Agnew said at a press conference. Watch the video above.
The drive is in response to Scott’s intent to resume his controversial voter purge, Agnew said. “We intend to register the people that are forgotten: the black, the brown, the indigent, the poor, the LGBTQ community.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/dream-defenders-voter-drive_n_3727818.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics
FCC VOTES TO CAP, SLASH PRISON PHONE RATES
By SUZANNE GAMBOA— Aug. 9 12:59 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — A decade after families of prison inmates asked for action, the Federal Communications Commission agreed to limit how much companies can charge for phone calls made from behind bars.
The FCC voted 2-1 during an emotional meeting to cap interstate phone rates at 21 cents a minute for debit or prepaid calls and 25 cents a minute for collect calls. Companies wanting to set higher rates would have to file a request for e a waiver and could not charge more until that waiver was granted.
“For 10 years, the families and friends of inmates have been asking the FCC to ease the burden of an inmate calling rate structure. Their wait is finally over,” said FCC acting chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, who took over the interim spot in May.
Her voice, and that of commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, cracked with emotion as they read statements about the decision.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fcc-address-high-phone-charges
Senate Candidate Tweets Racist Attack On African American Opponent Cory Booker
By Ian Millhiser on August 9, 2013 at 10:13 am
The U.S. Senate campaign of Steve Lonegan, who is widely expected to be the Republican nominee in a special election to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), tweeted a racist attack on Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the likely Democratic nominee. Lonegan’s tweet, which has since been deleted, read “#breaking just leaked – Cory Booker’s foreign policy debate prep notes,” and included an image of the city of Newark divided up according to various ethnicities:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/09/2443091/senate-candidate-tweets-racist-attack-on-african-american-opponent-cory-booker/
Progress Illinois: Protesters Stage ‘Die-In’ Against Stand Your Ground Laws At ALEC Conference
http://youtu.be/lwi-reenGqk
This is great.
People are taking action and demonstrating!
This movement WILL snowball!
@jahvaris_martin
A huge thank you for all the prayers that have come this way. My family and I wouldn’t be able to do it without your support. #TrayvonMartin
“JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON: Tracy Martin on Moving Forward
THE LATE TEEN’S FATHER JOINS THE CONVERSATION ON PROTECTING OUR BLACK BOYS”
http://www.ebony.com/news-views/justice-for-trayvon-tracy-martin-on-moving-forward-986#axzz2bUcAAxUD
One important point that Tracy made:
Dept. of Justice & SEC Sue Bank of America for Bush-Era Mortgage & Securities Fraud
http://occupydemocrats.com/doj-and-sec-file-suit-against-boa/
The Department of Justice (DoJ) and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have filed a suit against Bank of America (BoA), for deceiving and lying investors about the risks associated with their investments. The bonds were backed by Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities, or RMBS. The charges stem back to 2008 for an approximate value of $850 million. The SEC is accusing Bank of America of filling the bonds with 70% riskier loans, but did not disclose such information to their investors.
The lawsuit was filed in Federal Court on August 6, 2013, in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Bank of America is out of. The lawsuit lays out a case in which Bank of American officials intentionally deceived the SEC and investors by disguising the risks in filings. According to the Justice Department, BoA did this by “knowingly and willfully making materially false and misleading statements and by failing to disclose important facts about the mortgages collateralizing the RMBS, including Bank of America’s failure to conduct loan level due diligence in the offering documents.”
This is the beginning. Finally some corporate crooks will soon be on their way to jail. One more pet peeve of mine to cross off the list. I say this because it damn sure couldn’t be me putting a million 2520’s out of their houses and walking with $850 million.
Tell it!
President Obama Holds a Press Conference. August 09, 2013 3:00 PM EDT. http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
Obama: “I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot”
http://bit.ly/17CRMOW
President Obama: “We are not going to completely eliminate terrorism. What we can do is weaken it.”
President Obama on the GOP and ObamaCare: “They don’t have an agenda to provide people with healthcare.”
Thanks for keeping us informed on President Obama’s press conference, SG2!
Terry McMillan ✔ @MsTerryMcMillan
Never have I seen a president so disrespected than President Obama, and by folks who live and breathe the Constitution.
6:08 PM – 8 Aug 2013
In honor of the VRA’s anniversary, here are five recent and egregious examples of minority discrimination that were blocked by Section 5, the part of the law the Supreme Court eviscerated in June:
In 2001, the all-white board of aldermen in the town of Kilmichael, Mississippi (pop. 830),canceled town elections after an unprecedented number of black candidates made it onto the ballot. When the Department of Justice (DOJ) forced an election and the town finally voted, it elected its first black mayor and three black aldermen.
During a 2004 city council primary in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a Vietnamese American candidate, Phuong Tan Huynh, ran against white incumbent Jackie Ladnier. Ladnier and his supporters challenged about 50 Asian American voters at the polls. Their reason? If they couldn’t speak English well, they might not be citizens. The DOJ intervened, and Huynh became the first Asian American on the city council.
Texas is perfect example of the continued need for the VRA. The state has been repeatedly blocked from implementing both local and statewide changes that blatantly disenfranchise minority voters, from redistricting schemes to the elimination of polling places and early voting in minority districts. A report from Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund found that the between 1982 and 2006 Texas was second only to Mississippi in the number of DOJ objections under Section 5. One example: In 2007, officials in Waller County, home to the historically black Prairie View A&M University, enacted strict voter registration rules (without federal approval) that allowed them to reject voter registration applications, mostly from PVAMU students, for minor errors or omissions. After the Justice Department sued the county, a local judge told the Houston Chronicle that registrars “were maybe being a little picky with some of the things they were rejecting for.”
In 2008, Alaska submitted for federal preclearance a plan that would have required some Native Alaskan voters to travel by air or boat to cast a ballot. The state withdrew its submission after it was challenged by the DOJ.
After the 2010 Census indicated that blacks had become the majority of the voting-age population in Georgia’s Augusta-Richmond, a consolidated city and county, the state Legislature passed a bill that rescheduled voting from November, which had a traditionally high black voter turnout, to July, which had a low turnout overall, but especially for blacks. The change only affected Augusta-Richmond, and, not surprisingly, was rejected under Section 5.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/08/voting-rights-act-anniversary-discrimination-laws
“Now That’s What I Call Gerrymandering!”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/republicans-gerrymandering-house-representatives-election-chart
I posted this comment back in November of 2012 under an NBC article entitled “Supreme Court to hear key voting rights case” :
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah and Everybody!
You have been posting great articles, Rikyrah. Thanks for keeping me informed!
Good Morning, everyone! Happy Friday!