Happy Saturday one and all!
ICYMI
President Obama: “There’s a reason fewer Republicans are preaching doom on deficits—because the deficits have come down at almost a record pace, and they’re now manageable. There’s a reason fewer Republicans are running against Obamacare–because while good, affordable health care might seem like a fanged threat to the freedom of the American people on Fox News, it’s working pretty well in the real world.”
“A LOOK AT CASES BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_GLANCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Excerpts (listing some of the cases):
-Alabama redistricting: Democrats and black lawmakers contend that Republican leaders in Alabama drew a new legislative map that illegally packed black voters into too few voting districts to limit minority political power. Republicans say they complied with the law by keeping the same number of districts in which black voters could elect candidates of their choice.
-Housing discrimination: For the third time, the court has agreed to hear a challenge from Texas to an important tool the government is increasingly using to fight discrimination in housing. Two earlier cases settled before the justices could weigh in on the legality of determining discrimination from the results of a policy that disproportionately affects minorities, rather than by showing any intent to discriminate.
-Religious discrimination: Retailer Abercrombie and Fitch is defending its denial of a job to a woman wearing a Muslim headscarf by arguing that she did not say during her interview that she wears the hijab for religious reasons.
-Voting disputes: Identification requirements and limits on early voting are among state voting laws that could make their way to the Supreme Court this term. The court already has jumped preliminarily into a case over early voting in Ohio and seems likely to want a full-blown review. But a decision on hearing that case could come late enough in the term to push back the argument and decision to the following term that begins a year from now.
-Contraception: The next fight over the new health care law’s requirement that contraception be offered to women among a range of preventive services at no extra cost concerns the responsibilities of religious not-for-profit universities, hospitals and other institutions. The Obama administration already allows those organizations to shift responsibility for coverage to their insurers, but the groups say that so-called accommodation still is a burden on their religious consciences. In June, the justices said family-owned corporations with religious objections do not have to pay for contraceptives for women covered under their health plans.
-Health care subsidies: Legal challenges to the health care law continue in several states that would drastically reduce the number of Americans eligible for subsidies to make health insurance affordable. One appeal of a court ruling denying a challenge to the subsidies already is pending at the Supreme Court, although the pace of the other cases suggests the justices are more likely to wait, if they even are willing to undertake another high-stakes fight over the health care law.
-Affirmative action: The court could get another crack at the University of Texas admissions policy that takes race into account among many factors in filling some seats in entering freshmen classes. Lower courts upheld the Texas policy following a Supreme Court decision in 2013 that ordered a new review. The case currently is being appealed to the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2014
The Real Problem With the Boston Herald’s Barack Obama Watermelon Cartoon
The Boston Herald published an editorial cartoon by Jerry Holbert which depicted President Barack Obama brushing his teeth with watermelon flavored toothpaste. The original intent of the joke was to lampoon and skewer the ineffectiveness and incompetence of the Secret Service. Its topical humor was eclipsed by the controversy surrounding Holbert’s use of an ugly racial stereotype. The Boston Herald has issued an obligatory “apology” as no “offense” was intended by the cartoon.
Once more and again, the myth of the liberal media is exposed. In reality, the American media routinely circulates racist images, narratives, and distortions of empirical reality about non-whites. While “prime time blackness” has helped to transform the global public’s awareness of racial issues by priming whites (and others) to be more “progressive” and “inclusive”, the American (and Western) media continues to operate through the white racial frame.
Consequently, it normalizes whiteness and routinely presents non-whites as somehow exotic, deviant, or abnormal. The ostensibly liberal news media channels an empty post civil rights era notion of fashionable diversity through the multicultural culture industry–which I suggest has done little to substantively improve the life chances of black and brown Americans en masse.
Holbert’s watermelon cartoon has incited a range of responses.
For example, the always sharp Charles Pierce has linked Holbert and the Herald’s obvious race baiting to the paper’s target demographic of aging conservative whites.
Jonathan Chait–he who did not learn his lesson from the public butt whooping he received by Ta-Nehisi Coates–has bloviated a white victimologist explanation for Holbert’s bigoted cartoon.
Chait’s comments are instructive: they are boilerplate colorblind racism in action where he or she who is racist (sexist, homophobic, etc.) can decide the terms and context of how the target of their bad behavior ought and should respond to it in terms that are pleasing and acceptable to the former.
Moreover, Chait’s excuse-making defense reminds us that white supremacy and white privilege are many things; ugly hubris and arrogance are among the most noxious of the day-to-day personality traits of those who are invested in whiteness as a type of material and psychological property that colours the behavior of the whole person.
http://www.chaunceydevega.com/2014/10/the-real-problem-with-boston-heralds.html
https://twitter.com/robaeprice/status/518499421659889664/photo/1
https://twitter.com/oldpicsarchive/status/518484713112371200/photo/1
The media will have folks believing that Ebola is more deadlier than Darren Wilson and the rest of the killer cops in America. These cops are the bigger THREAT.
Bad cops are a bigger threat than Ebola and ISIS added together because they are everywhere in this country ALREADY.
Thank you! Seriously how in the living HELL can this country tag ISIS as a threat to America, when the SCOTUS,the GOP, and the KKK KOPS are doing their dirty work to take us back to before reconstruction?
Throw in the media as being a THREAT to our democracy
And getting paid to help erase people.
LUVVIE’S RECAP
The State of the Union: Scandal Episode 402 Recap
LUVVIE
Let’s just get right into this latest episode of Scandal.
Booty Calls – Liv and Jake go running and he tells her he booked them a hotel suite for booty calls. Do you see why he is perpetually been shutdown? He don’t know his place. Ever. HA! She tells him she doesn’t do “booty calls.”
Friendly Blackmail – Cyrus and Liv meet up and he says he’s a vegetarian (forced).
He says she looks like crap. Friends are great for your #selfofsteam. He wants a favor and she is all “I don’t work for the White House anymore” but because Cy is an evil troll, he tells her there’s money sitting in her bank account from the government already and he will call the IRS. If your friends can’t blackmail you, who can? O___O
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/10/state-union-scandal-episode-402-recap.html
Great recap. Thanks for the link, Rikyrah.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Loco En La Cabeza
Posted by Zandar
Latino advocacy groups aren’t even being subtle about their disappointment with President Obama on the push from Senate Democrats to leave immigration until after Election Day. The message from those groups: if you lose because we don’t show up to vote, blame someone else.
Disenchanted with President Barack Obama for delaying executive action on reforming the nation’s deportation system, apathetic about Democratic candidates that for the most part haven’t made a direct appeal to Hispanics and without a galvanizing bogeyman on the right to vote against like Mitt Romney in 2012, Hispanic voters are poised to let Democrats lose Senate races and state houses they could otherwise win, key Hispanic advocates said Monday during a briefing at the National Council of La Raza.
The preemptive blame-shifting comes as Democrats across the spectrum – from Mr. Obama on down – fear diminished turnout from the base in November’s midterm elections. Gary Segura, a Stanford University professor who is co-founder of the polling firm Latino Decisions, said Latino voters would show their influence by letting some Democrats, like Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, be thrown out of office.
In any instance where a Latino-preferred candidate loses and that Latino community turned out in smaller numbers because of the disillusionment, Latinos did make a difference. The decision not to vote is still a political decision and is not necessarily irrational,” Mr. Segura said. “If you’re a Latino in North Carolina and the president delayed his decision to help Kay Hagan in her election, why would you go vote for Kay Hagan? … Latinos can have influence by letting people lose, just as they can have influence by helping people win.”
If this sounds familiar, it’s the same tactic far left liberals have been using for years. To which I will say this: abdication of voting is cowardice, plain and simple. If you make the political decision to stay home and not vote in order to punish politicians, you are a coward, and you deserve no voice at all in our political process.
Too many people have fought and died for women, African-Americans, Hispanic and Latino, Asian, and other minorities to be able to vote. Walking away from that is not only irrational, despite what Gary Segura says, but suicidal. If you feel that you are voiceless, why make yourself voiceless by not voting?
I can respect voting for the other candidate in order to punish the one you’re angry with. That’s at least still exercising the right people bled for. But to stay home and do nothing? Insanity. You only assure that you will not be taken seriously in the future and that your concerns will be ignored.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/10/loco-en-la-cabeza.html
Friday, October 3, 2014
Jobapalooza
Posted by Zandar
September jobs numbers came out this morning, and they were BEAST MODE.
…………………
BEAST MOOOOOODE. The internals are pretty good too. Unemployment among African-Americans has gone from 13% to 11% in just one year, that’s huge. But tell me again how President Obama isn’t doing anything for black America.
This is another big jobs report. We’re finally under 6% unemployment under Obama. He turned this economy around but he will continue to get nothing but hate from the left and the right, and that saddens me greatly.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/10/jobapalooza.html
Friday, October 3, 2014
Last Call For Voting Your Conscience
Posted by Zandar
An instructive lesson on voting, political power, and influencing elections: first, the reaction of the black community reaction in Missouri to police brutality and mass incarceration, a place where Democrats have notably failed and Republicans have no intent to make it better…
Voter registration jumped 30 percent in Ferguson, Missouri between August 9 — the day unarmed teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by Officer Darren Warren — and September 30. As protests and clashes with police continue, the town’s residents want to see more race representation in their local government in the near future.
Approximately 3,300 citizens in the town of 21,000 registered to vote after Brown’s death, totaling two-thirds of new voters in St. Louis County. Currently, 5 of 6 Ferguson council members are white, but roughly 70 percent of the city’s population is black. And Ferguson’s mayor is white Republican James Knowles.
Recent voter registration is due, in large part, to community efforts to boost civic engagement. Organizations like the NAACP and League of Women Voters, in addition to sororities and fraternities, are actively involved in registering the city’s residents. Other community members are handing out registration cards for voters to mail them in.
Second, the reaction of the Latino community in Arizona to immigration and deportation, a place where Democrats have notably failed and Republicans have no intent to make it better…
Sandra Bernal plans to boycott the upcoming midterm election.
“It’s a peaceful way of protesting,” she told ThinkProgress in Spanish, “It’s saying, ‘We’re here and we’re tired of so many broken promises.’”
Bernal, a US citizen from Mexico who has lived in Phoenix for nearly 20 years and raised three children on her own, said her views on politics were shaken to the core by two recent events: the arrest of her undocumented sister, andPresident Obama’s decision to delay a planned executive order to stop some deportations. She said the mostly-Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s decision to go along with the President’s new deadline for action alienated her even further.
“I think they’re doing nothing more than dragging this out, giving us false hope so that we keep voting for the Democratic Party,” she said. “They’re using us like puppets, thinking we’ll go along with their game. Unfortunately, many Latino groups are working right now to get out the vote. But I think it would be better for us as a community, as a people, to boycott, to not vote. Then they’ll learn that without the Hispanic vote, they’re not getting anywhere.”
One group is trying to see the issues important to them fixed by voting and taking part. The other group is trying to see the issues important to them fixed by not voting and not getting involved.
If you’re still pondering which approach is more effective, you’re the reason why these issues aren’t going to get fixed anytime soon.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/10/last-call-for-voting-your-conscience.html
Saturday, October 4, 2014
A House Afire Situation
Posted by Zandar
The Supreme Court named on Thursday some of the cases it will take up starting later this month as the new term begins, and one of those cases could end up meaning the effective end of the Fair Housing Act.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide whether people suing for housing discrimination must prove they were victims of intentional bias, in a case that may give long-sought protection to the lending industry.
The justices today said they will hear an appeal from Texas officials sued under the U.S. Fair Housing Act over tax credits for low-income building projects. The question is whether people can sue by showing a practice had a “disparate impact” on racial minorities, or whether they must meet a higher standard by proving intentional bias.
The court will consider jettisoning the disparate-impact theory, which has helped the Obama administration get hundreds of millions of dollars in fair-lending settlements with Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and other financial institutions. The court has twice before granted review on the issue, only to have settlements scuttle the case.
“The far-reaching scope of disparate-impact liability makes this a question of exceptional importance,” Texas officials led by Attorney General Greg Abbottargued in their appeal.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/10/a-house-afire-situation.html
Classic DW episode!
THIS
love pics like this
http://photos-d.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xpa1/1389340_1541715026062395_1113886087_n.jpg
North Carolina College Republican shuts down campus voter registration drive
04 OCT 2014
The head of the College Republicans at one North Carolina college is determined to stop voter registration drives on her campus, whether they’re being sponsored by conservative or liberal groups.
According to MSNBC, Chairwoman Leigh Thomas of the High Point University College Republicans was caught on camera on Wednesday telling a conservative group that it could not register voters on campus because she wasn’t comfortable with it.
Wednesday, as MSNBC’s Zachary Roth noted, was also the day that state Republicansvowed to keep pushing for more restrictions on North Carolina voters, even if that means taking the fight all the way to the Supreme Court.
In the video, published by the group Campus Reform, Thomas can be heard telling Bree Binder of the conservative action group Turning Point, “I just do not want to have people being registered to vote, whatsoever.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/north-carolina-college-republican-shuts-down-campus-voter-registration-drive/
https://twitter.com/oldpicsarchive/status/518355493073719297
Rightgeous AFROs on two fierce WARRIORS.
This says it all:
http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2014/08/15/08/08/1jlsUM.AuSt.91.jpeg
Hi Yahtzee. It’s spot on.
BooMan posted again…..glad to see him back!
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)