Yellowback Donkeys Set to Cave to Chumph

The chickcrats are at it again…Watch them fold

Senior Senate Democrat Calls for Congressional Probe of Russian Meddling in US Election

Still, the Ds aren’t mounting a fierce push, and the Rs seem uninterested.

The future top Democrat in the Senate has called for a congressional investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who will succeed the retiring Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as the Senate minority leader in the Congress that convenes in January, has signed on to the demand for a congressional inquiry into the Russian hacking of political targets—including the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign—during the 2016 campaign. “Foreign interference in our elections is a serious issue, and deserves a vigorous investigation,” Schumer tells Mother Jones.

Two weeks ago, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the House oversight committee, sent a letter to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the committee’s chairman, asking that Chaffetz launch an investigation of Russian intervention in the election. This request came two days after the chief of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, said a “nation-state”—meaning Russia—had messed in the 2016 elections “to achieve a specific effect.” Rogers was referring to the hacking of Democratic targets and the release of the pilfered information via WikiLeaks. Cummings noted in his letter that Chaffetz had told him that he was “open to considering such an investigation.” But Chaffetz has yet to respond to Cummings, according to a Cummings spokesperson. And a spokeswoman for Chaffetz did not respond to a request for comment.

Talking to reporters earlier this month, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the top House Democrat, said Democrats would demand such a probe: “Something is not right with this picture and I think the American people deserve an investigation into how a foreign government had an impact on our election.” And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was harshly critical of Trump during the campaign, proposed that Congress hold hearings on “Russia’s misadventures throughout the world,” including the DNC hack. “Were they involved in cyberattacks that had a political component to it in our elections?” Graham recently asked.

In August, Harry Reid demanded the FBI investigate “Russian government tampering in our presidential election” and connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow. (In October, he claimed the FBI possessed “explosive information about close ties and coordination between Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government.) A congressional inquiry would differ from an FBI criminal or counterintelligence investigation in that it could result in public hearings and a public report. An FBI investigation would not necessarily yield any public information, unless it led to an indictment. Any CIA and NSA investigation of Russian hacking would likely remain secret.

Though Democrats have urged a congressional investigation of Moscow’s involvement in the 2016 election, this call has hardly been full-throated. Pelosi has not repeatedly demanded a probe, and Schumer has not yet signaled this as a top priority. The Obama administration issued a statement in October declaring that the “U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.” But President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have not said much about the Russian operation or directly voiced support for a public investigation. In October, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, “There are a range of responses that are available to the president, and he will consider a response that is proportional.” He added that the president’s decision might never be acknowledged or disclosed.

So with the exception of Cummings’ effort, there has been no fierce push for an investigation that would dig into the covert Russian campaign to affect US politics and that would inform the public about what happened, what investigations were conducted by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and what has been done to prevent further meddling in order to ensure the security of US elections.

Yet more than 150 academic experts on cybersecurity, national defense, authoritarian regimes, and free and fair elections have signed a letter requesting a congressional investigation. The letter noted:

We represent a wide range of viewpoints on most issues, but on one point we agree: our polarized political climate must not prevent our elected representatives from doing what is right. In this case, what is right is simple: our country needs a thorough, public Congressional investigation into the role that foreign powers played in the months leading up to November. As representatives of the American people, Congress is best positioned to conduct an objective investigation…With concerns rising on both sides of the political aisle about myriad practices that challenge free and fair elections, a public investigation promises to provide the transparency needed to calm Americans’ fears and restore faith in our political process. As voting American citizens, we know that nothing could be more important for our country.

In his letter to Chaffetz, Cummings wrote, “Elections are the bedrock of our nation’s democracy. Any attempt by a foreign power to undermine them is a direct attack on our core democratic values, and it should chill every Member of Congress and American—red or blue—to the core.” But few legislators are acting as if they are indeed chilled to the core. And Democrats, who were the victims of the hacking attributed to Vladimir Putin’s regime, are generally not in an uproar about the matter. With Republican leaders showing little interest in scrutinizing Russian interference in an election that handed the GOP the White House and both houses of Congress, Democrats might have to be more vociferous in their demand for an investigation to have any chance of delivering to the public an explanation of what happened to US democracy in 2016.

 

Losing the Black Millenials – Hillary and the Democrats

Chances are in this election, Hillary is going to win. It however is going to turn out to be a much closer battle than it should be.

Hillary is busy making noises about sidling up to Republicans. Excuse my French …But fuck that.

Hillary’s problem is she isn’t seen as a progressive. And the 25% of the under 34 black population, which certainly isn’t going o vote for Trump…

Isn’t going to come out to vote for her.

They quite frankly, and with good reason…Don’t trust her.

Some of Hillary’s problem goes back o her Husband’s administration. Some of it goes back to Obama’s decision to play handsie with Republicans, holding back, while they screwed the country and black folks into the ground during his first term.

You don’t make peace with a rabid fox or raccoon. You kill it. I currently live in the country, and if, as has happened in the past, a rabid animal comes staggering across my yard, the the next sound you hear is my 300 Win Mag putting one through it’s heart. Why? Because there are only two alternatives when you run away. First it bites another animal propagating the problem, and second – it bites the neighbor’s kid playing in a sandbox next door. Same in politics. The Republican Party which embraced it’s “Southern Strategy” during Nixon has festered to the Party of Trump, whose racist followers have declared open season on unarmed black boys on the street corners of America. Dropping a rock on Trump doesn’t man calling him a racist. Everybody in America has already figured that isht out. I have been in the Marketing organizations of major corporations in my lifetime – driving hundreds of million of dollars, and even billions in revenue. You don’t make that kind of money advertising to two winos on a corner.

So it is time for Democrats, and Hillary to get to some reality here.

1. 25% of black folks in this here US of A live in “poverty”. But only 3% of black folks actually receive “welfare”. That means that 97% of the black folks in the US find some way to put food on the table without the assistance of Uncle Sam.
2. Only 7% of the black population of the United States lives in “the Ghetto” anymore. By Ghetto I mean concentrated inner city environs. About 90% of the murders and violent crimes happen within 10 miles of these locations. So what we have here is a small, dysfunctional portion of the black community as a whole, driving the entire conversation. Now, assuming I were a Millennial, I would feel real bad about a group of hardheads killing other hardheads (and collateral damage), but what gets close to my heart is having two college degrees, and not being able to pay the rent because I can’t get a job I’m trained for. You can stand on the podium and talk about the “plight” of poor black folks all you want – but WTF are you going to do for me? The funny thing about this – is the Chumph “gets it”.
3. Yeah – the school to pipeline system is a problem. But there is even a bigger problem. I’ll call it the Ferguson System. The issue is a legal system in the municipal town and city courts designed to make it as difficult as possible for anyone caught up in it to move up financially. Got a flower pot on your front porch…They got a ticket, and a $50 fine which doubles every 3 days for that.Ergo, we have a system in this country which has totally gone away from serving the public…To serving the system. Under Obama, AG Loretta Lynch has begun to attack the foundations of that. Some of the Red States have started “Debtors Prisons” to enforce their will. The problem here being a municipal “tax” on the poor, for no other reason than being poor.
4. Jobs…Yeah JOBS
5. Fixing the banking system

The sad fact is the Republican’s accusations are at least partially true – Democrats have not delivered for the black community, one of their largest constituencies.

Young Blacks Voice Skepticism on Hillary Clinton, Worrying Democrats

Brittany Packnett, 31, a St. Louis-based activist, said young black voters wanted more than “a candidate who is better than the alternative.”

When a handful of liberal advocacy organizations convened a series of focus groups with young black voters last month, the assessments of Donald J. Trump were predictably unsparing.

But when the participants were asked about Hillary Clinton, their appraisals were just as blunt and nearly as biting.

“What am I supposed to do if I don’t like him and I don’t trust her?” a millennial black woman in Ohio asked. “Choose between being stabbed and being shot? No way!”

“She was part of the whole problem that started sending blacks to jail,” a young black man, also from Ohio, observed about Mrs. Clinton.

“He’s a racist, and she is a liar, so really what’s the difference in choosing both or choosing neither?” another young black woman from Ohio said.

Young African-Americans, like all voters their age, are typically far harder to drive to the polls than middle-aged and older Americans. Yet with just over two months until Election Day, many Democrats are expressing alarm at the lack of enthusiasm, and in some cases outright resistance, some black millennials feel toward Mrs. Clinton.

Their skepticism is rooted in a deep discomfort with the political establishment that they believe the 68-year-old former first lady and secretary of state represents. They share a lingering mistrust of Mrs. Clintonand her husband over criminal justice issues. They are demanding more from politicians as part of a new, confrontational wave of black activism that has arisen in response to police killings of unarmed African-Americans.

“We’re in the midst of a movement with a real sense of urgency,” explained Brittany Packnett, 31, a St. Louis-based leader in the push for police accountability. Mrs. Clinton is not yet connecting, she said, “because the conversation that younger black voters are having is no longer one about settling on a candidate who is better than the alternative.”

The question of just how many young African-Americans will show up to vote carries profound implications for this election. Mrs. Clinton is sure to dominate Mr. Trump among black voters, but her overwhelming margin could ultimately matter less than the total number of blacks who show up to vote.

To replicate President Obama’s success in crucial states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, she cannot afford to let the percentage of the electorate that is black slip far below what it was in 2012. And while a modest drop-off of black votes may not imperil Mrs. Clinton’s prospects, given Mr. Trump’s unpopularity among upscale white voters, it could undermine Democrats’ effort to capture control of the Senate and win other down-ballot elections.

Mrs. Clinton’s difficulties with young African-Americans were laid bare in four focus groups conducted in Cleveland and Jacksonville, Fla., for a handful of progressive organizations spending millions on the election: the service employees union, a joint “super PAC” between organized labor and the billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, and a progressive group called Project New America. The results were outlined in a 25-page presentationby Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster, and shared with The New York Times by another party strategist who wanted to draw attention to Mrs. Clinton’s difficulties in hopes that the campaign would move more aggressively to address the matter.

Word of the report has spread in the constellation of liberal operatives and advocacy groups in recent weeks, concerning officials who saw diminished black turnout hurt Democratic candidates in the last two midterm elections.

Adding to the worries is a separate poll of African-Americans that Mr. Belcher conducted earlier in the summer indicating that Mrs. Clinton is lagging well behind Mr. Obama’s performance among young blacks in a handful of crucial states.

In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, 70 percent of African-Americans under 35 said they were backing Mrs. Clinton, 8 percent indicated support for Mr. Trump and 18 percent said they were backing another candidate or did not know whom they would support. In 2012, Mr. Obama won 92 percent of black voters under 45 nationally, according to exit polling.

Over 25 percent of African-Americans are between 18 and 34, and 44 percent are older than 35, according to 2013 census data.

“There is no Democratic majority without these voters,” Mr. Belcher said. “The danger is that if you don’t get these voters out, you’ve got the 2004 John Kerry electorate again.”

In Ohio, for example, blacks were 10 percent of the electorate in the 2004 presidential race. But when Mr. Obama ran for re-election in 2012, that number jumped to 15 percent.

What frustrates many blacks under 40 is Mrs. Clinton’s overriding focus on Mr. Trump.

“We already know what the deal is with Trump,” said Nathan Baskerville, a 35-year-old North Carolina state representative. “Tell us what your plan is to make our life better.”…Read More Here…

 

 

 

Democrats In House Finally Grow Some Cajones

If the Institution refuses to do the peoples work, then it is time to bring the Institution to its knees. Democrats should have been doing this all along. By any means necessary…

Democrats Stage Sit-In On House Floor Over Gun Bills

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis led the charge. “We will be silent no more.”

Democrats literally sat down on the floor of the House chamber on Wednesday — and forced the House into a temporary recess — as part of an effort to compel Republican leadership to vote on gun control legislation.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon who led sit-ins all through the 1960s, spearheaded the effort with a fiery, sermon-like denunciation of Congress for its failure to act in the wake of mass shootings.

“For months, even for years, through seven sessions of Congress, I wondered, what would bring this body to take action?” Lewis said while Democrats slowly surrounded him at the microphone. “We have lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people to gun violence. Tiny little children. Babies. Students. And teachers. Mother and fathers. Sisters and brothers. Daughters and sons. Friends and neighbors. And what has this body done? Mr. Speaker, not one thing.”

After about 10 minutes of escalating questions — and shouting, “Where is our soul? Where is our courage?” — Lewis said it was time for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to bring up some of the pending gun control bills. In the meantime, he said, he’d just take a seat. Moments later, he sat down on the floor. And so did all the other Democrats with him.

“Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary. Sometimes you have to make a way out of no way. We’ve been quiet for too long,” Lewis said. “Now is the time to get in the way. We will be silent no more. The time for silence is over.”

As another Democrat began to speak, the Republican lawmaker sitting in the chair gaveled the House into a temporary recess until noon. The House cut off the C-SPAN cameras that normally broadcast the floor. Later, when lawmakers reconvened, Democratic members still refused to budge, forming a circle in the well of the floor while chanting. Republicans were forced to gavel into recess once more.

It’s not clear what GOP leaders plan to do now.

“The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed subject to the call of the chair,” said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong.

In the absence of cameras, Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) broadcast clips on Twitter of members speaking. C-SPAN then broadcast Periscope and Facebook Live streams of the action.

Democratic senators also showed up to stand or sit with their colleagues. Among them were: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Chris Coons (Del.), Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Al Franken (Minn.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii). Presidential candidate and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)joined late in the afternoon.

Lewis’ effort was a dramatic attempt to force the hand of Republicans before the chamber adjourns later this week for a weeklong recess. But it’s not the only disruption House Democrats are planning. According to multiple aides and lawmakers, Democrats will try to essentially hijack the House floor both Wednesday and Thursday in an effort to get gun control measures a hearing.

The “No Bill, No Break” campaign centers on clever and repeated use of procedural rules. Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) has already tried and failed, twice, to bring up legislation to deny people on the no-fly list the right to purchase a firearm.

But the extent of the party’s plans has been kept largely under wraps out of concern that Republicans would move to undermine the strategy. Several aides have described it as a “disruption” campaign. One Democratic lawmaker said the party was “devising a variety of parliamentary tactics to pressure the GOP in D.C. this week, then in individual districts next week during recess.”

“Watch the floor carefully this week,” the lawmaker added.

The old Lion finally roars.

 

The Next US Senator From California…Will be a Woman of Color

There is no Republican candidate left standing in the California US Senate race. IN California’s system all candidates vie in an electoral “scrum”, and the top two become the candidates running for the Senate. This year, both candidates are Democrats.

The numbers right now significantly favor California Attorney General Kamala Harris, principally because of statewide name recognition – but, anything can happen between now and November. Looks like a win-win for the folks from California, and the country.

This is also the first time no Republican was selected by the voters to be one of the candidates for a statewide ticket. Looks like the Ch-trump is already paying dividends for Democrats.

No Matter What Happens, The Next Senator From California Will Be A Woman Of Color

Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez, both Democrats, are set to face off in November’s general election.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez came out on top in Tuesday’s primary for California’s open seat in the U.S. Senate, all but ensuring a woman of color will represent the Golden State in the upper chamber next year.

Harris and Sanchez are both Democrats. California has what’s known as a “jungle” primary system, where candidates from all party affiliations compete against each other in the nominating contest. The top two vote-getters advance to the general election in November. (Thirty-four candidates, including 12 Republicans, ran for the seat this year, but most failed to gain any traction.)

No matter who wins in November, the election is expected to break some important barriers. Sanchez would be the first Latina in the Senate, while Harris would be the first black woman elected to the upper chamber in over two decades. Harris’ motherwas from India, which means Harris would also be the first South Asian-American in the Senate.

Either Sanchez or Harris would be the first woman of color to represent California in the Senate. November’s election will also mark the first time a Republican does not appear on the ballot for a statewide race.

 

How the CBC Became Irrelevant

The Congressional Black Caucus is one of he most reliably Democrat organizations in politics. This has created a “go along to get along” mentality, which often fails to serve the black community has too often been the operational motif of the CBC. Part of that is due to a generational gap between the membership in the CBC and groups and organizations in the black community increasingly started and led by millennials, The other part of that dysfunction has to do with the Faustian bargain with conservative Republicans which essentially created “Black Zones”, principally concentrated in urban areas. A long term loosing proposition because of gentrification, and black flight to the suburban areas. Leaving the largest population of black folks in the US without representation, as black lawmakers respond to a steadily decreasing urban base, and urban issues.

On the flip side, the artificial gerrymandered whitening of the Districts surrounding urban areas provides ample fodder for white Republican candidates who cannot win in a district with above 20% minority population, and who are either diametrically opposed to the black/minority community, or see no political interest in serving it’s interests. Encouraging racial politics, and enabling a Republican majority in the House far beyond what any general vote totals would accord. The most egregious recent example of which is North Carolina.

The result of this is that the CBC ill serves those groups of black folks who either don’t live in the urban center, or whose educational, economic, and professional interests extend beyond asking for a welfare check. Ergo the very people driving black economic empowerment and inclusion into the social fabric of the nation. The very people who are the center of Color of Change and the BLM movements.

Another day, another Gala…

The Increasing Irrelevance of the Congressional Black Caucus

The group has failed to connect with young voters, which is not a good sign for its future.

On January 25, 1972, Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the United States Congress, announced her candidacy for president in a stump speech that sounded very much like those of today’s presidential candidates. Shetold the Brooklyn crowd, “I am not the candidate of any political bosses or fat cats or special interests. I stand here now without endorsements from many big name politicians or celebrities or any other kind of prop.” She also stood there without the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, which she helped found the previous year. The reason? Some of the CBC’s members thought Chisholm’s focus on gender and outreach to other groups subverted the caucus’s mission and explicit focus on race.

Four decades later, Representative Donna Edwards sought to become the first black senator from Maryland and only the second black woman ever elected to the body. Like Chisholm, she also did not enjoy the explicit support of the CBC. Edwards confronted CBC members, and they cited her “difficult nature” and failure to establish good relationships as reasons for not endorsing her. On Tuesday, Edwards lost her bid for the Senate seat in a close primary race that may have turned out differently if she’d received the endorsement from more members of the nation’s most powerful body of black legislators.

Among young African Americans, there is a growingsense that there are significant generational differences with the CBC and that the organization may have lost its conscience. Hillary Clinton has taken heat for the 1994 crime bill that led to the disproportionate incarceration of black people, but the bill was only assured passageonce the CBC withdrew its opposition. CBC members have clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters. And activists have criticized the CBC Political Action Committee, a separate but associated group, for the board’s ties to private prisons and big tobacco.

While some of these criticisms are valid, there is little question that the CBC is of immense value to African Americans and the nation at large. For decades, it’s been the organ through which the concerns of black Americans have entered the halls of Congress and the means by which policy victories have been delivered for disenfranchised minority communities. There is simply no doubting that the interests of black America remain central to the caucus’s aims. But there is also little doubt that the black electorate is changing, and the CBC will have to keep pace with this evolution if it wants to remain relevant to black Americans…

Protest is very much a part of the CBC’s character—many of today’s CBC members are contemporaries of the civil-rights movement. It would seem that today’s protest movements would be fertile ground for CBC goals. But many of today’s black activists are not as interested in what they see as respectability politics or dressing in their Sunday best for protests like their civil-rights-era predecessors. They are taking the stage whenever they choose and demanding that presidential candidates hear them. They are challenging leaders from previous generations, and some of those leaders don’t necessarily like it. In the black community, where eldership is revered, the boldness of today’s protesters has rubbed some CBC members the wrong way. Many black activists don’t care; they are less concerned with paying homage to elected officials and more interested in expedient policy outcomes…Read the Rest Here…

 

.

 

.

 

 

Why Some White Democrats Are Supporting Trump

It is all about race and economics…

Some of Trump’s strongest supporters are registered Democrats. Here’s why

Among Trump’s most loyal supporters are registered Dems who now identify as Republicans. There’s a reason for that

Many progressives believe that economic recessions and financial crises, by increasing economic anxiety among Americans, will bolster support for more liberal policies. Others believe that economic mismanagement by Republicans, either federally, or at the state level, will lead voters to support more left-leaning politicians. However, evidence suggests that financial crises actually bolster support for right-wing parties, and even Republicans whose governance is objectively disastrous can pull off re-election.

In the current cycle, a white nationalist is leading the GOP race, and garners much of his support from ideological moderates and self-identified Republicans who are registered Democrats.

Why?

We argue that economic insecurity tends to increase feelings of racial resentment, and that white liberals and marginally attached Democrats are particularly susceptible to increased racial resentment during times of economic crisis. This racial resentment undermines support for liberal policies designed to provide protection to the poor in times of economic crisis. For those interested in building a coalition to support progressive policy goals to reduce economic inequality, the lesson is that attention must first be paid to the continuing problems of racism and racial inequality.

In a previous piece we showed that racial resentment, not economic peril, strongly affects support for the Tea Party and views on government spending. In a separate piece, we showed that racial resentment affects support for government action to reduce economic inequality, while economic peril has very little effect. Here, we explore how economic peril affects views of racial resentment and could be driving formerly independent or moderate voters toward Trump. Our analysis uses data from the 2012 American National Election Study, a wide-ranging survey of the political attitudes and behaviors of over 5,000 respondents. To measure feelings of economic insecurity we created a variable scale that combines five questions related to financial well-being — for example, whether an individual is worried about their finances. Racial resentment attitudes are measured with a scale created from five questions that characterize color-blind racial attitudes (for instance, “If Blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites”). We control for individual race-ethnicity, age, income, gender, geographic region, party identification, ideology, political knowledge, importance of religion, feelings toward illegal immigrants, and overt racial stereotypes.

We begin by exploring how the relationship between economic insecurity and racial resentment varies with individual race-ethnicity. The results, illustrated below, show that increased perception of economic insecurity is associated with increased levels of racial resentment, but only among whites. Among people of color, economic peril has no effect on attitudes of racial resentment.

When we examine only whites to discover how economic peril interacts with resentment across partisanship and ideology, we find that the relationship between racial resentment and economic peril is particularly acute among white liberals and Democratic partisans. The graph below shows that conservatives and Republicans have higher levels of racial resentment compared to liberals and Democrats. Possibly because of this, increased perception of economic peril has no significant effect on racial resentment for Republicans and conservatives. However, the results show that increased sense of economic peril substantially increases racial resentment among both liberals and Democrats. At above-average levels of economic peril, the resentment attitudes of white Democratic partisans become almost indistinguishable from those of Republicans. Additionally, the attitudes of white liberals become indistinguishable from those of ideological conservatives. This may help explain one of the most confusing parts of the Trump phenomenon: his success with moderates, independents and even some liberals.

The implications of this finding become clear when we examine the relationship between racial resentment and support for federal spending to aid the poor. The graph below shows that as resentment increases, white liberals and conservatives begin to have the same preferences on welfare spending. At the highest level of resentment, white liberals and conservatives have the same preferences on welfare. (We find that aid to the poor does not have this relationship, suggesting that welfare is racialized, while aid to the poor is not)…

Read the Rest Here

 

Hillary and BLM

Good conversation here on Bill Maher’s show…Michael Eric Dyson does an excellent job of laying out the case here.

 

Democrats Black Staff Pay Problem

Hmmmm…Democrats need to answer for this one…

This picture of part of Obama’s Campaign Staff was part of a critique of his campaign by black Conservative Larry Elder. I am afraid to say Elder was right on this one. Of course, Republicans don’t have this problem, as there simply aren’t any minority campaign staff in their party.

Democrats Pay Black Staffers 30% Less

Campaign staffers who are people of color routinely get paid less than their white counterparts, and are often given less glamorous jobs. How an antiquated understanding of race relations results in minority staffers getting the short shrift.

If you’re a person of color hoping to get hired by a political campaign, here’s the ugly truth: You’ll probably get paid less than your white counterparts, if you’re even hired at all.On both sides of the aisle, there is a racial pay gap in campaign politics. Asian, Black and Latino staffers are paid less than their white counterparts, according to an analysis by the New Organizing Institute.

For example, African-American staffers on Democratic campaigns were paid 70 cents for each dollar their white counterparts made. For Hispanic staffers in Democratic campaigns, the figure was 68 cents on the dollar.

And a recent study by PowerPAC+, funded by a major Democratic donor, revealed that less than 2 percent of spending by Democratic campaign committees during the past two election cycles went to firms owned by minorities.

Political operative Michael Gomez Daly worked on two congressional campaigns in 2012 with similar budgets. On one campaign, Daly, who describes himself as “a very light-skinned Hispanic,” was brought in as a field director, primarily for his skills as a Latino operative who could reach out to the Hispanic community. On the second campaign, where they did not know he was Hispanic, “I just came in as ‘Michael Daly,’ instead of ‘that Latino operative,’” he said. “Right off the bat they offered me twice the amount for the same job.”

Most of the operatives interviewed for this article, all of whom have years of experience in campaign politics, said they had to make an early, conscious decision to avoid being pigeonholed as a specialist in minority outreach. For minority campaign staffers, they said, the path to enduring success lies in saying “no” to jobs like that early on in your career.

“It was pretty clear to me early on that you can get put in a box pretty quickly. You get offers for jobs: African-American outreach, Asian-American outreach. Oftentimes when you start doing that work, it’s hard to get out of it,” said Sujata Tejwani, president of Sujata Strategies, a Democratic firm.

Added Rodell Mollineau, a past president of the progressive tracking organization American Bridge, “As a person of color [at the start of your career], you’re always put in situations where a primary part of your job is communicating with or working with other people of color.”

The NOI statistics on the campaign race pay gap compare all staffers of each race, and average out the salaries. One of the explanations for lower minority wages could be that they tend to be represented in lower-paying campaign roles.

 

Winning the War With ISIS

One of the reasons Republicans avoid the issue of what to do against ISIS – other than to sabre rattle for the easily mislead low intelligence base, and Democrats have a hard time enunciating a strategy is that the only way to actually end the ISIS threat involves a number of politically unpalatable choices. And I don’t mean toesies on the ground type stupid.

ISIS, like Al Qaeda is a creation of the wahabi sect. Said sect is financially supported and provided cover throughout the Middle East by (gasp) our “friend and ally” Saudi Arabia.

There are two basic ways to end Middle East Terrorism:

1. Go “Medieval”
2. Destroy the engine driving the creation of new terrorists.

#1 is executed by raising the level of terror, regardless of civilian casualties to the level nobody in the Middle East will ever want to consider attacking the West again. Red Army/Roman obliteration of enough folks, everyone else is too busy hiding under a rock to cause any more trouble. Think WWII and Dresden or Hiroshima type destruction. Make it clear that in any further terrorist attack the home cities, or cities in which they trained will be leveled. It may take Hitler/Stalin level carnage to get the message through.

#2 is to go after the source. Ergo, pick a Holy Day, and declare a drone free day simultaneously bombing each and every Mosque and Madrassa in the Middle East where Wahabi Witch Doctors spew their hate. Within 24 hrs, completely shut down all Saudi (and Turkey) international holdings, whether gold, property, or money, and deport all Saudi Citizens from the US (and Europe). Cut the entire financial string. Seize all ships, businesses, and other assets. Pick the hometowns of the current ISIS and Al Qaeda Leaders, Send a few dozen B-52’s and obliterate it – whether they are there or not. Declare null and void all treaties, toss Turkey out of NATO, and declare them Pariah States until such time as the Governments take substantive action to end the support of, and financing the proselytization of Wahhabism worldwide, and material or other support for ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Of course such will likely cause the collapse of the tottering House of Saud…And possibly an internal revolution in Turkey. Let them fight each other, with the understanding that should the fundamentalist crazies win – the only thing they have done is to provide hard targets.

And lastly…Learn to live with ourselves afterward.

 

How ISIS pacifies an area

Paris Attack Shows Why Al Qaeda Might Have Been Right About ISIS All Along

At this point, there are important components to events which are not clear: Were the plans for the downing of the Russian airliner in Sinai, last week’smultiple suicide attacks in Beirut and the bombings in Paris, conceived within the Islamic State leadership and the operations executed according to the wishes and directions of the ISIS leadership in Raqqa or Mosul?

President François Hollande implied a connection to Raqqa, but gives no evidence. But if this indeed is so, and let us presume it is, it signals a major shift in strategy by ISIS. The consequences imply that the West may no longer be able to fend off acknowledging the Wahhabist origins of movements such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, nor ignore their umbilical connection to Saudi Arabia, which has succored them — even as the House of Saud now fears that its monstrous progeny is intent on “cleansing”Arabia of the Al Saud themselves, and returning it the pristine Wahhabism on which Saudi Arabia originally was founded — the “one, true Islam” that ISIS insists upon.

In the wake of 9/11, the fact that 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi citizens was airbrushed out from the landscape in favor of claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — which Washington wished the world would focus on more. It will not be so easy to ignore the historic dimension now.

America may have to take a deep breath and fundamentally reconsider the nature of its alliances with the likes of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which both openly proclaimedtheir intent, in Syria today, to go on aiding the gamut of these Caliphate forces (ISIS, Al Qaeda and Ahrar al-Sham). Recall that ordinary Syrians have been living Paris’ Friday terror on a daily basis, for five years now. It is hard to see how the West can continue its ambiguous game of footsie with such forces, in the wake of what may have happened in Sinai, in Beirut and Paris.

So, what can have prompted this major strategic shift by ISIS? Well, there has always been one major point of dissent between Al Qaeda and ISIS: Al Qaeda’s leadership hassaid, openly, that it believes that ISIS had erred by proclaiming the Caliphate, the Islamic State. The ISIS proclamation was premature and the conditions were not propitious, Al Qaeda’s leaders stated.

Al Qaeda military operations focus on the “vexation and exhaustion” of America and its Western allies, which would eventually lead to an overextension of Western forces in many ways: morally, militarily, politically and economically. A reflection of this different approach to ISIS has been Al Qaeda’s willingness to work and cooperate with other insurgent forces in Syria; whereas ISIS rejects cooperation, demanding instead absolute allegiance and obedience.

ISIS opted for the absolute: an all out push to establish God’s “Principality” (a Caliphate), here and now, on physical territory, with borders, administration, Sharia law and a system of justice. The big difference between the two movements in effect, is “territoriality.” Al Qaeda is global, ephemeral and virtual, whereas ISIS is territorial.

But what if ISIS fears to lose this territoriality? Strange things are happening in Syria. Villages that have been held by ISIS for two years are falling to government forces in hours. Everywhere small gains are being made by the Syrian army or its allies, across contested areas. It is too early to say that ISIS is collapsing — but a part of it may be.

And if ISIS begins to lose its distinguishing feature — that it is a territorial power in Syria and Iraq — then perhaps its leadership might conclude that Ayman al-Zawahiri was right: Al Qaeda was right, and ISIS, if it faces losing its territoriality, must adopt Al Qaeda strategies (Al Qaeda has already called for a united stand with ISIS against the Russian and Iranian interventions in Syria).

But what, on the other hand, if this is not a strategic decision by the ISIS leadership, but rather that the bomb on the Russian aircraft and the suicide bombings in Beirut and Paris were spontaneous, copycat attacks by local elements and not conceived, ordered and operationally initiated in Raqqa or Mosul?

In this case, Europe has a different problem — but one no less serious. In some ways, the public evidence does not lean towards a Raqqa-led initiative. It leans the other way. From what we know to date, all of those involved in the Paris attacks were European citizens. In short, it was a case of European on European war. It is not clear that any of the perpetrators were returnees from the conflict in Syria (the authenticity of the Syrian passport found at the scene has been questioned).

And if there was no direct order from the ISIS command, there is prima facie in Europe, a shadow Al Qaeda-like structure taking shape: the attacks in Paris were well-planned, prepared and executed. The claims of responsibility are not definitive: there have been examples where Islamic leaderships have accepted responsibility andclaimed an attack even when they did not order it — and whereby claiming it, severely damaged the movement.

Robert Fisk has noted:

Omar Ismail Mostafai, one of the suicide killers in Paris, was of Algerian origin — and so, too, may be other named suspects. Said and Cherif Kouachi, the brothers who murdered the Charlie Hebdo journalists, were also of Algerian parentage. They came from the five million-plus Algerian community in France, for many of whom the Algerian war never ended, and who live today in the slums of Saint-Denis and other Algerian banlieues of Paris.

If this is so then not just France, but other European states, too, will need to take a deep breath and wonder how their policies have metamorphosed, from ostensible multiculturalism, into a “soft apartheid” in which Europe’s Muslim citizens feel the discrimination and contempt of many of their fellow citizens… Read the rest here…

 

 

DNC Accepts Black Lives Matter Town Hall

Going to be interesting to see if the RNC follows suit.

DNC gives blessing to Black Lives Matter presidential town hall — but won’t add debate

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday gave its blessing to two of the most prominent activist groups associated with the Black Lives Matter protest movement — the #BlackLivesMatter network and Campaign Zero — to host a presidential town hall focused on issues of racial justice, but stood firm in its stance that there will be no additional debates on the 2016 campaign schedule.

In letters addressed to leaders of the #BlackLivesMatter network and prominent activist DeRay Mckesson, the DNC invited the activist groups to coordinate and host a presidential town hall similar to those currently being planned by some state-level Democratic parties and some liberal groupsincluding MoveOn.org.

‘We believe that your organization would be an ideal host for a presidential candidate forum — where all of the Democratic candidates can showcase their ideas and policy positions that will expand opportunity for all, strengthen the middle class and address racism in America,” wrote Amy K. Dacey, chief executive officer of the DNC, in the letters which were obtained by The Post. “The DNC would be happy to help promote the event.”

The letters come one day after organizers with the #BlackLivesMatter network — an activist collective with the same name often applied to the broader protest movement — called on the DNC to sanction an additional debate themed around issues of racial justice, which was only referenced once during the CNN presidential debate in Las Vegas earlier this month.

In an interview on Wednesday, Black Lives Matter organizer Elle Hearns said the umbrella group had yet to decide if it would proceed with an attempt to host a town hall, and said that she was still personally disappointed that the DNC will not sanction an additional debate.

“Their response to our request is unsatisfactory,’ Hearns said, and added that it is irresponsible for the Democratic National Committee to host so few debates. “Debbie Wasserman Schultz should be more mindful of her responsibility not only to the DNC, but to the American people.”

Mckesson, however, said he has been in talks with DNC officials to coordinate a presidential town hall and has also reached out to the Republican National Committee with the hope of including GOP presidential candidates as well.

Activists, many of whom were politically unaffiliated prior to the current protest movement, continue to grapple with how to best influence the ongoing presidential campaign. While many of the most prominent activists and organizers have gained national followings, and most of the leading presidential campaigns — especially in the Democratic field — have worked to ensure they remain in the movement’s good graces.

In a letter McKesson sent to DNC officials earlier this week, Mckesson noted the national conversation about race and criminal justice prompted in large part by the protests following the August 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

“The issues of police violence, state violence, mass incarceration, and the impact of systematic inequity have been at the forefront of these conversations and they should also be centered during the 2016 Presidential Campaign,” Mckesson wrote. “We have an opportunity to create space for a robust and transformational conversation about a set of issues that are key to millions of voters.”

In an interview on Wednesday, Mckesson said he hopes to secure commitments from all current presidential candidates — both Democrats and Republicans — and that he has begun reaching out to potential venues and corporate partners. Mckesson said he has reached out to contacts at Twitter, the social network on which he is one of the most prominent users, to gauge their interest in co-hosting the town hall.…More Here…

 

 

 

Welcome to the Confederate States of What Used to be America

Welcome to the Confederate States…Your new Republican Congress will be passing a bill shortly to replace the Stars and Stripes….

With the Stars and Bars.

A Tea Party Celebration on the Courthouse Steps

Most of the autopsies of the mid-term election have a number of reasons Democrats lost. Not the least of which had to do with failing to energize their base, despite some fairly desperate pleas in the last few days before the voting.

One of the reasons those efforts fell flat – is in terms of real action, folks are not seeing one hell of a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats talk a good line – but are noticeably absent when it is time to put some solid legislation on the books…Or to swat their Republican counterparts into some form of sanity.

And by Democrats, I am also including the Congressional Black Caucus – which singularly is the most useless non-performing group of useless arsed black people in the country. They are real good at throwing parties and benefits – but don’t do shit when it comes time to put anything of value in action.

The Republicans in the last Congress pointed out a really simple way to bring legislation to a halt. It is called the Filibuster. With 42 black members in the House, you would think these fronting Cabaret has beens could mount one. You want to bring some rationality to what the right wing bozos in the House are going to do the next 2 years…

You stop the fuckers cold. Each time…And every time. You been too chickenshit to do it so far.

If they try and stop the filibuster by shutting down your speech… Bring the house down by raising hell on the floor until they back down – or you decide to walk out en masse.

Here’s the deal. The very first bill they bring to the floor…Kill it. Kill the Keystone pipeline bill. There aren’t any black jobs in there anyway. Obamacare repeal? Kill it. If you don’t then the blood of 30,000 black babies murdered a year by lack of, or indifferent medical care is on your hands.

Keep killing everything that comes to the floor…And maybe your white Democrat cohorts will grow some backbone.

Make absolutely sure the racist clowns understand the program.

Black voters…It i past time to hold these folks in Congress who are supposed to be representing you… accountable.

It is all still about race: Obama hatred, the South and the truth about GOP wins

In 1964, there were five black members of the House of Representatives — barely over 1 percent — compared to the 11 percent of the population who were black. But the American people were evenly split, 30 to 31 percent, on whether blacks should have more or less influence, with 28 percent saying things were “about right” as they stood. What’s more, those opposed to government social spending programs were three times more likely to say blacks should have less influence compared to those supporting social spending.

Those historical tidbits, from “The Political Beliefs of Americans; a Study of Public Opinion” by Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril, immediately came to mind last week when Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, locked in a tight reelection fight — as always — made a lot of headlines with her comments noting that race had something to do with President Obama’s unpopularity in the state.

“I’ll be very, very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans,” she told NBC News in an interview. “It’s been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader.”

This is hardly earth-shattering news from the state that brought us Plessy v. Ferguson in the 1890s, and the deeply racialized devastation of Katrina less a decade ago, after which even President Bush admitted that “deep, persistent poverty” in the area “has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.” Speaking of Katrina, according to a PPP poll last year, the good people of Louisiana “were evenly split on who was most responsible for the poor Hurricane Katrina response: George W. Bush or Obama, 28/29.” Given that Obama was a first-year senator at the time of Katrina, it’s not hard to see what Landrieu was driving at.

What’s more, the role of race was only a tertiary matter in Landrieu’s account. When asked why the president had such a hard time in the state, Landrieu first said it was “because his energy policies are really different than ours,” then when pushed further, she added, “because he put the moratorium on offshore drilling,” after the disastrous BP oil spill.

It was only after laying out those policy complaints that Landrieu got around to discussing race. Yet, predictably, fourth-tier 2016 GOP presidential wannabe Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s governor, instantly made an ass of himself, calling her comments “remarkably divisive,” which takes a lot of chutzpah, coming from a racial panderer who just three years ago pledged he would sign a “birther” bill if it reached his desk.

Jindal also claimed that “the people of Louisiana are willing to give everyone a fair hearing,” a claim belied by that PPP poll, and that certainly didn’t apply to Jindal’s own exclusive focusing on Landrieu’s tertiary reference to race. Nor does it comport with the tenacity of birtherism, which has only grown more intense, the more thoroughly it’s been discredited.

Birtherism, you see, has become the GOP’s more widespread manifestation of racial codespeak in the Obama era. Although Obama deftly quieted the elite media trolls with the release of his long-form birth certificate just after Donald Trump had ridden birther hysteria to the top of the GOP primary field in April 2011, the GOP base was never really dissuaded. In fact, nine months later, in January 2012, a YouGov poll found that more Republicans than ever questioned Obama’s citizenship. Those denying his American birth outright were up 50 percent, from 25 percent of all Republicans to 37 percent, while those accepting his American birth were down 10 percent, from 30 percent to 27 percent of all Republicans.  Indisputable hard evidence did nothing at all to dissipate the birther delusion, it only made it stronger. That’s not something Mary Landrieu made up. The GOP’s own partisan media did that.

Although birtherism is a complex phenomenon in its own right, Landrieu — like Bush before her — was referencing a much broader problem facing Obama, as well as herself, and the Democratic Party as a whole. You’re not supposed to call it “racism,” because racism means KKK mobs in hoods, and police siccing snarling dogs on young children, and we’re not like that anymore — see, we’ve got armored vehicles and sound cannons now!

But 40 years of data from the General Social Survey — the gold standard of American public opinion research — say otherwise.  They tell us that Southern whites overwhelmingly blame blacks for their lower economic status, ignoring or denying the role played by discrimination, past and present, in all its various forms, and that the balance of Southern white attitudes has barely changed at all in 40 years. At the same time, attitudes outside the white South have shifted somewhat — but still tend to blame blacks more than white society, steadfastly ignoring mountains of evidence to the contrary — such as 60 years of unemployment data, over which time “the unemployment rate for blacks has averaged about 2.2 times that for whites,” as noted by Pew Research. It is only Democrats outside the white South who have dramatically shifted away from blaming blacks over this period of time, and the tension this has created within the Democratic Party goes to the very heart of the political challenge both Obama and Landrieu face — a challenge that is not going to simply go away any time soon.

Before turning to the GSS data, it’s worth noting that it’s hardly an anomalous finding. A 2011 study from Tufts (press release/full study) found that whites as a whole see racism as a zero-sum game, such that decreases in discrimination against blacks over the decades are reflected in increases in discrimination against whites, so that now whites are more discriminated against than blacks.  This perception is not simply mistaken, it’s downright delusional, flying in the face of mountains of objective data. For example, a June 2014 study by Young Invincibles, “Closing the Race Gap,” found that blacks need to complete two more levels of education to have the same probability of employment as their white counterparts. Nonetheless, as explained in the Tufts press release:

On average, whites rated anti-white bias as more prevalent in the 2000s than anti-black bias by more than a full point on the 10-point scale. Moreover, some 11 percent of whites gave anti-white bias the maximum rating of 10 compared to only 2 percent of whites who rated anti-black bias a 10. Blacks, however, reported only a modest increase in their perceptions of “reverse racism.”…more…

 

Nuke ‘Em, Harry!

Harry Reid has had enough…

So have virtually all Democrats in the Senate.

Let’s hope at least 51 Democrats have the cajones to hang on – and not go Yellowback Donkey.

Reactionary Rethugs have derailed and objected to virtually every President Obama appointee, abusing rules which were put there to protect the Minority Party Vote in the Senate…Not as a tool to bring the entire legislative process to it’s knees as a policy.

Senate poised to limit filibusters in party-line vote that would alter centuries of precedent

The Senate on Thursday opened a contentious debate about striking down the long-standing filibuster rules for most presidential nominations, with Democrats appearing poised to do so on a party-line vote that would alter nearly 225 years of precedent.

Infuriated by what they see as a pattern of obstruction and delay over President Obama’s nominees, Democrats tried to trigger the so-called “nuclear option” by bringing up one of the judicial nominees whom Republicans recently blocked by a filibuster.

“It’s manifest we have to do something to change things,” Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in remarks on the Senate floor to open the debate. Reid argued that the Senate has wasted way too much time on things that should be relatively routine — like approving judges and executive-branch nominees.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) responded by accusing Democratsof a power grab and suggesting that they will regret their decision if Republicans regain control of the chamber.

“We’re not interested in having a gun put to our head any longer,” McConnell said. “Some of us have been around here long enough to know that the shoe is sometimes on the other foot.”

McConnell then addressed Democrats directly, saying: “You may regret this a lot sooner than you think,” he said.

Shortly after 11 a.m., the senators began voting on a motion to reconsider the nomination of Patricia Millet to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That vote could set in motion a complicated parliamentary process that would end with a simple-majority vote to set a new rule, allowing for swift confirmation of executive branch nominees and most selections for the federal judiciary without having to clear a 60-vote hurdle.

If Democrats go through with the threat, it will pave the way for confirmation of several nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit who have recently been stymied by GOP filibusters, amid Republican assertions that the critical appellate court simply did not need any more judges…

 

Bill Maher – Trayvon Killed Because of Democrat Complicity on Gun Control

Bill has this one right. The whack jobs in this country have gotten way to much power on gun control and need badly to be reigned in…

 

Herman Cain – House Negro of the Decade

This one starts with Malcom X’s talk on the “House Negro” and the “Field Negro”…

 

President Obama – Fighting Words!

“I think it’s fair to say that I have gone out of my way in every instance — sometimes at my own political peril and to the frustration of Democrats — to work with Republicans to find common ground to move this country forward. Each time, what we’ve seen in games-playing, a preference to try to score political points rather than actually get something done.” – President Obama