Van Jones acceptance speech at the NAACP Awards. In view that Republicans have gone to the wall to defeat every single proposal which would possibly lift America out of the economic malaise created by Rethugly policies during the Bushit Administration…Is it any wonder they hate a guy who wants to help fellow Americans go back to work?
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Senator Bunning of Kentucky single highhandedly blocked jobs legislation in the Senate which would have extended jobless benefits to tens of thousands of his constituents.
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Despite the size of the earthquake in Chile being two orders of magnitude worse than that of Haiti’s – the damage is going to be substantially different for a number of reasons. First, the Chilean quake epicenter was along the coastline in Chile, which is sparsely populated. Second, because Chile has had numerous earthquakes, with the most active geological fault in the world running down the center of the country, they have extensive knowledge (and building codes) in the area of building earthquake resistant structures. Coastal Chile has a history of deadly earthquakes, with 13 temblors of magnitude 7.0 or higher since 1973 – as a result, newer buildings are constructed to help withstand the shocks.
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Most of the serious damage in Chile will be a long the coastline and the major highway running North-South, although damage in Santiago is reported to be substantial.
Saturday’s quake was 700 to 800 times stronger than the 7.0-magnitude quake that struck Haiti in January, leaving 212,000 people dead and more than a million homeless.
However, it occurred at a greater depth — 21.7 miles — compared to the shallow 8.1-mile depth of the Haiti quake, which contributed to much of the damage there. As such, the basic infrastructure damage (hospitals, fire, police) hopefully is far, far less than the total destruction we saw in Haiti.
With that said, the people of Chile will still need international support, to get food and materials on the ground until the Chilean Government can put things back together. Unlike Haiti, Chile has a strong, stable government, and the most stable economy in South America.
Back to the controversy that black folks are bad tippers…
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I wasn’t impressed by Whiney Houston’s performance at her free concert in New York to herald her return. Despite substantial electronic help – her voice appeared to be a shadow of it’s former strength and timbre…
Apparently her fans in Australia agree –
PETA plans to release a billboard featuring Tiger Woods, despite not having any advertising or contractual relationship with Tiger…
Indeed, the ad is for …”Wood cutting”.
PETA's Tiger Billboard
PETA wants to stop little tigers from getting wood
According to PETA –
“Tiger has no formal affiliation with the organization and has not previewed or endorsed the ad but the image and the idea were too good to pass up when it comes to helping find homes for animals who will otherwise be left out in the cold,” PETA explained in a statement.
Gov. Paterson Will End Campaign
Less than 48 hours after the New York Times revealed in a bombshell story that the administration of Gov. David Paterson had intervened in the domestic violence case of a top aide, Paterson has decided to pull the plug on his campaign for governor, the Daily News and the Post are reporting.
No official announcement has been made, but the Post says one is expected later today. Two sources familiar with the decision confirmed to TPM that Paterson will end his campaign.
A Democratic source familiar with New York politics tells TPM the Times story was a “profound disappointment” to Paterson’s friends and staff. “There’s an ongoing discussion about resigning his office,” the source said.
National Democrats are confident that they can hold the New York governorship, an official with the Democratic Governors Association tells TPM.
In response to the Times story, which was published online Wednesday evening, Paterson’s deputy secretary for public safety resigned, saying she had been lied to about the involvement of the state police in the domestic violence case of top Paterson aide David Johnson.
Ben Smith notes that calls for Paterson to resign have been snowballing, with the Daily News running a front-page editorial today headlined “TIME TO GO.”
According to the Times story, state police intervened with a woman who was seeking a protective order against Johnson following an alleged assault on Halloween. The story also said that Paterson had spoken to the woman on the phone Feb. 7, the day before she failed to show up in court for a scheduled hearing.
The circumstances of that call are unclear, with Paterson claiming that it was initiated by the woman. The woman’s lawyer says Paterson called her.
New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley responds to confession by New Orleans Police officer that he covered up the murders of 2 innocent people, and shooting of 4 others on the Danizger Bridge by New Orleans Police. This was one incident of a number of murders committed by the police and other parties in the immediate aftermath of Katrina which, in this case has taken 4 1/2 years to wind their way through the courts.
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Ex-New Orleans Cop Pleads Guilty To Massive Cover Up In Post-Katrina Shootings
A veteran New Orleans police officer pleaded guilty yesterday to orchestrating an elaborate cover-up of a shooting in the days after Katrina in which police gunned down six unarmed city residents, killing two and seriously wounding four.
The development — which the Times-Picayune calls a “potentially devastating blow” to other officers linked to the case — is the first plea in a wide-ranging federal probe of several post-Katrina police shootings. The Feds are reportedly looking at possible crimes in both the shootings themselves as well as the subsequent investigations.
The Danziger Bridge shootings occurred on Sept. 4, 2005, just six days after Katrina hit. The victims were reportedly stranded on a part of Chef Menteur highway that was surrounded by flooding; the police involved were working out of a temporary station at a reception hall nearby.
In federal court Wednesday, former Lt. Michael Lohman plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice in the incident. He arrived on the bridge after a group of officers had opened fire at two groups of unarmed citizens, leaving Ronald Madison, a mentally disabled 40-year old man, dead from six gunshot wounds, and James Brissette, 19, dead from seven gunshot wounds.
In charge of supervising the police investigation, Lohman drafted a bogus 17-page report on the incident, and helped other officers prepare false reports that would agree on a single narrative. When another investigator planted a handgun at the scene, Lohman questioned him to make sure it was “clean.”
Lohman admitted “he knew that the civilians on the bridge had not actually possessed guns, and he knew that the investigator had also falsified statements by the civilians,” according to the government’s press release. Read the rest of this entry »
I think most of you will remember the vicious smear campaign last year by the right wing’s propaganda arm, Faux News to “get” President Obama’s staff. Such a low brow attack on the staff of an incoming President is unparalleled. One of the early victims of the Faux smear campaign was the Administration’s “Green Czar”, Van Jones. Tarred as a “Giant Negro” – “Angry Black Man” by the right-wing echo chamber’s racist outlets, Van Jones chose to step down, rather than to become a impediment to the new Administration. One of the accusations against Van Jones was that he was a 911 “Truther”, amusing – since it appears the 911 “Truther” faction now seems healthily represented in the Tea Bagger movement in the Republican Party.
Van Jones
NAACP Image Award to be given to former WH ‘green czar’
While Van Jones may have left the White House under a cloud, the NAACP says that’s not his whole story.
The group considers him a pioneering hero for the environment and civil rights — so much so that it is awarding him one of its highest honors Friday: an NAACP Image Award. It’s a move that is just becoming public now, which is sure to stoke the fire from Jones critics. Read the rest of this entry »
The Hip Hop HNIC is flying high in private jets, and livin’ large on the RNC’s expense account! Mikkie is the Republican version of “Dollar Bill” Jefferson – and it wouldn’t terribly surprise me if some of those “outrageous fees” paid private consultants isn’t making it’s way into Uncle Mikkie’s freezer.
Got Bling?
Michael Steele’s spending spree angers donors
Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is spending twice as much as his recent predecessors on private planes and paying more for limousines, catering and flowers – expenses that are infuriating the party’s major donors who say Republicans need every penny they can get for the fight to win back Congress.
Most recently, donors grumbled when Steele hired renowned chef Wolfgang Puck’s local crew to cater the RNC‘s Christmas party inside the trendy Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, and then moved its annual winter meeting from Washington to Hawaii.
For some major GOP donors, both decisions were symbolic of the kind of wasteful spending habits they claim has become endemic to his tenure at the RNC. When Ken Mehlman served as the committee chairman during the critical 2006 midterm elections, the holiday party was held in a headquarters conference room and Chic-fil-A was the caterer.
A POLITICO analysis of expenses found that compared with 2005, the last comparable year preceding a midterm election, the committee’s payments for charter flights doubled; the number of sedan contractors tripled, and meal expenses jumped from $306,000 to $599,000.
“Michael Steele is an imperial chairman,” said one longtime Republican fundraiser. “He flies in private aircraft. He drives in private cars. He has private consultants that are paid ridiculous retainers. He fancies himself a presidential candidate and wants all of the trappings and gets them by using other people’s money.”
Louis M. Pope, who chairs the RNC’s Budget Committee, defends Steele’s expenses, arguing that a bump in costs is unavoidable for a party that lacks control of any of the levers of government. “Michael Steele does travel more, but he’s in far more demand. He’s a huge part of the fundraising apparatus,” said Pope. “Nobody is living it up at the RNC. There are a number of upscale events, but those are all profitable.”
But disclosure reports document the exodus of prominent donors who have decided to shift their giving to other party committees. In 2005, the RNC raised $46 million from donors who gave more than $250 and $55 million from small donors. In 2009, Steele’s RNC brought in just $24 million — nearly half as much — from big donors and $58 million from small donors.
When Steele took over the chairmanship last winter, he inherited a $23 million surplus. Since then, the former Maryland lieutenant governor has raised $10 million less than the party collected in 2005 and has spent $10 million more. By the end of 2009, the committee’s surplus had shrunk to $8.4 million, according to campaign finance reports.
What Will Replace Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union?
Tavis’ conference created conversation, but those conversations are moot without action. What is our next step for moving from conversation to action? For some like Minister Patrick Shaffer in Chicago, action means putting together HIV-awareness activities for our communities so that we can burst the bubble of silence that is leading to death and hopelessness. For others, such as Pauline Feimster in Charlotte, N.C., it means leading the charge for the Pride Entrepreneur Education Program that ensures that worthy students get encouragement from corporate and private leadership, access to opportunity and scholarship money.
For us all—particularly at this critical time—it means doing what Washington has not done but what Tavis’ SOBU attempted: working together across ideological, socioeconomic and geographic lines in order to improve America—particularly black America. The bashing of black Republicans who bring suggestions to the table to improve our communities must end. At the same time, the amnesic and condescending attitudes of certain black Republicans toward the black community must also cease. The political and social viability of black America is at stake and is too valuable to be a casualty of political and ideological wars.
We must work to restore a greater sense of community among black professionals and those with resources to invest in our struggling urban environments. The toxic credos of underclass black America that denigrate common sense and common decency need to be retired so that the groundwork for prosperity and change can take root. Perhaps a new set of bipartisan black politicos can create the policy bridges that allow these two groups to find common ground.
The growing apathy toward social conditions that is again hurting black America (despite having a black president) must be replaced with a passion for change among our diverse people, from academia and the ministry to civics and business. As the State of the Black Union showed, we are not at a point where we can segment our talent into silos, fail to communicate with each other well and not exchange ideas for solutions. We must share the stage, push each other with respect and fight for black America with a sense of honor and togetherness that has been lost on our younger generations. We must be infected with a sense of history and immune to the HNIC syndrome.
We will disagree on the methods and solutions, but we must not be afraid to find the energy it takes to move a culture of millions past a dark time in our history. With the door of Tavis’ conference closed, the window of opportunity for a new generation of black leaders has opened. We need a new level of political savvy and balance, a new activism that looks primarily within ourselves for solutions and a new paradigm of leadership—particularly within young black America. We must work to create a union that is more perfect in the days to come.
Looks like the conservative attack on ACORN has succeeded in forcing the organization to dissolve their national structure…
Meaning now, there will be 50 or 100 ACORNS!
1 Little...Two Little... Three Little... ACORNS Everywhere!
ACORN ‘dissolved as a national structure’
The embattled liberal group ACORN is in the process of dissolving its national structure, with state and local-chapters splitting off from the underfunded, controversial national group, an official close to the group confirmed.
“ACORN has dissolved as a national structure of state organizations,” said a senior official close to the group, who declined to be identified by name because of the fierce conservative attacks on the group that began when a conservative filmmaker caught some staffers of its tax advisory arms on tape appearing to offer advice on incorporating a prostitution business.
The videos proved a rallying point for conservatives who had long accused the group of fomenting voting fraud. Though the videos did not produce criminal charges, they appear to have been fatal to the national organization.
“Consistent with what the internal recommendations have been, each of the states are developing plans for reconstitution independence and self-sufficiency,” said the official, citing ACORN’s “diminished resources, damage to the brand, unprecedented attacks.”
The new organizations, he said “will be constituted under new banners and new bylaws and new governance,” he said, consistent with the recommendations of an outside panel.
Much of the group’s strength lay in its local chapters in places like New York, which appear to be continuing to operate as normal. New York’s City Hall News reported today that the local group there had re-emerged under the name “New York Communities for Change.”
The SCUMUS 5 are at it again in their ongoing effort to assure the safety of Jim Crow in America.
Appropriate Attire for the 5 Thugs In Robes Sitting the Supreme Court
Supreme Court to consider another case on racial bias in hiring
Chicago firefighters say they were illegally discriminated against through test scores. A lawyer calls it the flip side to last year’s case involving white firefighters in New Haven, Conn.
Reporting from Washington – The controversy over racial bias, testing and firefighters that blew up at both the Supreme Court and the Senate last year returns Monday, this time as the justices decide whether blacks who were not hired in Chicago because of their test scores are due damages for years of lost wages.
The potentially $100-million civil rights case comes before a high court that has already shown its skepticism toward such claims.
Last year, the justices ruled for white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who said they were victims of illegal racial discrimination when the city threw out the results of a promotion test. The whites had earned high scores and would have gotten nearly all the promotions. City officials dropped the test results because they feared being sued by blacks who were denied promotions. Read the rest of this entry »
Virginia has a new Republican Governor, last seen making a fool of himself in responding to president Obama’s State of the Union Address in January. Now, this guy Bob McDonnell campaigned as a moderate Republican, but since taking office has lurched over to the far right. I have a feeling, there is going to be a pushback.
Now, this clown – State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas, is about par for the course for the ignorance level of Virginia’s redneck Republican faction .
Legislator: Disabled kids are God’s punishment
State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas says disabled children are God’s punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy.
He made that statement Thursday at a press conference to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood.“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said Marshall, a Republican.
“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”
Marshall was among more than 20 people, mostly Christian pastors and clergy, who gathered for the press conference in the General Assembly Building.
They called on Virginia officials to eliminate state funding for Planned Parenthood because the organization provides abortions
Gosh, you mean Sarah Palin’s (AKA the Sno’ Ho’) Down’s Syndrome kid, Trig – is because she had an abortion? Read the rest of this entry »
Hat tip to NewsOne and Bossip –
White Sorority Wins Sprite Step-Off Competition
Stepping, which is deeply rooted in the tradition of historically Black Fraternities, has moved into the mainstream. At the Sprite Step Off, a traditionally white sorority with all white members, Zeta Tau Alpha won the $100,000 prize. Bossip was in the audience and they agreed that Zeta Tau Alpha “brought it.”
This can be considered of another example of how Black culture becomes mainstream and becomes appropriated by Caucasian people and becomes a greater part of American culture as a whole.
BTx3 watched the clips and has to admit – the young ladies of Zeta Tau Alpha “brought it”. Congrats to Zeta Tau!
Alphas, Deltas, Sigmas, and Q’s … You gotta kick it up a notch or two to remain competitive.
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Politicians Who Have Been "Elected" By 12 Jurors
The New Jim Crow, More Sneaky Than the Old
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