Black Conservative – Just Say No to Beck

One of the things the overheated racial rhetoric from the Tea Bagger right seems to be doing is clarifying the issues between black folks and conservatives. Even conservative and Republican black folks, with 20/200 vision – are beginning to read the handwriting on the wall.

In this article, a black conservative explains why he won’t be onstage for the Beckapalooza…

Why This Conservative Won’t Be at Glenn Beck’s Rally

I understand why some black conservatives feel the need to participate in the Restoring Honor event in Washington, D.C. However, I have declined the invitation.

It could have been an honor to attend. It would have been something to tell my grandchildren about one day. I could have said that I participated in a historic event —  Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally that will be a notable point in the story of the Tea Party movement in America.

Instead, I felt that I had a greater obligation to history — the Aug. 28, 1963, “I Have a Dream” rally in Washington, D.C. — than I had to being present in Washington, D.C., this Aug. 28.

For me, it was clear why I — and perhaps many other black conservatives — had to say no.  I understand that there are some who will participate in the rally on Saturday. For example, anti-abortion Dr. Alveda King (niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) will be one of the featured speakers.

The Frederick Douglass Foundation will attend the rally as “esteemed” guests, sitting on the speakers’ stage, primarily in support of King. I get this. It is important that pro-life advocates grab advantageous platforms to address and eradicate the black genocide via abortion in our communities — and since the political left is not willing to provide an opportunity to address these grievances, opportunities such as Saturday’s will have to do.

Yet for me, after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s defense of Dr. Laura during the “n-word” controversy and Glenn Beck’s feigned gratitude to “divine providence” for picking the Aug. 28 date, it just seems historically improper for most black conservatives to acquiesce to the spirit of this event, particularly as some of the principal personalities involved have long sidestepped the crisis in black America today — the very issues that King spoke to back in Aug. 1963.

 

Beckapalooza!

Stewart Hammers the Beckapalooza…

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A Caribou Barbie Roast in Alaska

Folks in Alaska are getting increasingly disenchanted with the wayward wingdizzie – the Sno’ Ho’. The President of the AFL-CIO in Alaska is giving a speech today which includes the following:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is expected to blast Sarah Palin in a speech set to be delivered Thursday in Anchorage, Alaska.

What is this crazy magnet that’s pulling people to the right? I mean, look at your former governor….

Who is she, anyway?

Sarah Palin?

She used to have a job, your governor…. You knew her…. Or thought you did…. I know I thought I did. She seemed like a decent person, an outdoorswoman. Her husband’s a steelworker. She seemed to take some OK stands for working families.

And then things got weird. After she tied herself to John McCain and they lost, she blew off Alaska. I guess she figured she’d trade up…shoot for a national stage. Alaska was too far from the FOX TV spotlight.

I bet most of you, on a clear day, can see her hypocrisy from your house.

I think Sarah Palin quit so she wouldn’t have to be accountable… so she wouldn’t have a record that could be scrutinized…

Instead, she’s hanging out on cable TV, almost a parody of herself, coming out with conspiracy theories about Obama and his “death panels….” Talking about “the real America.” Talking about building schools in “our neighboring country of Afghanistan.” Writing speech notes to herself on her hands.

 

Pink Elephants

One of the unspoken things around Washington is the number of “closet queens” in power positions or influential positions in the right wing hierarchy. What deeply angers the Gay community is that many of these folks gay bash, and support anti-gay positions such as partner rights and the Bushit Marriage Amendment…

The latest to come out of the closet is Ken Mehlman, former RNC Chairman and Bushit advisor.

Mehlman news fuels divisive reaction

Is former top Bush aid Ken Mehlman – who has told friends and family he is gay – a courageous conservative or shameful hypocrite?

That’s the debate raging through political circles and around the blogosphere a day after the former Republican National Committee chairman and 2004 Bush campaign manager told The Atlantic magazine he is gay.

In one corner are those who say Mehlman has arrived at the end of a difficult journey of self acceptance, and should be praised for coming out publicly and pledging to work with groups that advocate for same-sex marriage in the future.

In the other are those whose memory still remains fresh – of the Bush administration’s stance on gay rights in general and particularly Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, of which Mehlman was a chief architect, that repeatedly used the issue of same-sex marriage to increase conservative turnout at the polls.

R. Clark Cooper, the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans – a group that aims to work within the GOP to advance gay and lesbian rights – says Mehlman should be commended for putting himself on the line and pledging to work toward equal rights in the future.

“I am looking at it from a forward looking view, as in onward and upward,” Cooper told CNN. “Let’s take advantage of this moment. Let’s get the Republican Party back to basics, back to its core values and away from its divisive social issues.”

As for whether Mehlman deserves criticisms for steering the party down a course that embraced a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, Cooper says others should not speculate what Mehlman’s thought process was.

“There’s not an on and off switch [to being gay]. There’s a huge conflict in one’s mind…I don’t know when or where on the calendar Ken started doing the reconciliation process,” Cooper said. “But…when one starts having those conflicts and feelings, there is the immediate reaction to try to fix it.”

Christopher Barron, of the gay conservative group GOPProud also praised Mehlman’s decision to go public.

“Poll after poll shows the most powerful thing we can do to change hearts and minds about gay issues is to come out,” he told CNN, “I applaud Ken for having the courage to take this important step. I think everyone should remember that each of us has our own personal journey as it relates to coming to terms with our own sexuality and coming out.

Meanwhile the Victory Fund, a gay and lesbian political group, issued a more tepid response, saying, “We hope the fact that Ken Mehlman has reached this level of honesty will now encourage other political leaders to reject divisive anti-gay campaign tactics which, as Mr. Mehlman now admits, are purely cynical attempts to manipulate the American public.”

But some more liberal-leaning bloggers aren’t willing to shower the former Bush aide with adulation, no matter how difficult his own self acceptance may have been.

“The three people most responsible for the anti-gay actions of the Bush reelection campaign are Mehlman, Karl Rove and Bush,” wrote Mike Rogers, a liberal blogger who has long sought to out gay Republicans. “Ken Mehlman is horridly homophobic and no matter how orchestrated his coming out is, our community should hold him accountable for his past.”

The Stonewall Democrats, a group of Democratic gay and lesbian activists, expressed a similar sentiment, saying in a statement, “Mehlman presided over the Republican Party at a time when the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans were used to ill ends – marriage amendments in dozens of states, vitriolic attacks on our families, our soldiers, our very lives – all for political expediency, votes at the ballot box, and power.”

Blogger Joe Jervis added, “You don’t have be GAY or OUT to know that discrimination and bigotry is wrong. Don’t let Mehlman’s “personal journey” babble snow you.”

 

MLK III – Still Striving!

Well worth a read. The difference between what MLK stood for and Glenn Beck and the Sno’ Ho’ stand for is simple, and can be seen in current events. King’s vision was for all people, and was inclusive. Beck and Palin are merchants of hate, as evidenced in virtually every word they say. Palin’s defense of Dr. Laura, Becks declaration that President Obama is “anti-white”, the movement’s stand against the “Ground Zero Mosque”, their stand against the Constitutional rights of immigrants, and warping of the very Constitutional principles this country was founded on defines them as the antithesis of King’s Dream.

Still striving for MLK’s dream in the 21st century

This weekend Glenn Beck is to host a “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial. While it is commendable that this rally will honor the brave men and women of our armed forces, who serve our country with phenomenal dedication, it is clear from the timing and location that the rally’s organizers present this event as also honoring the ideals and contributions of Martin Luther King Jr.

I would like to be clear about what those ideals are.

Vast numbers of Americans know of my father’s leadership in opposing segregation. Yet too many believe that his dream was limited to achieving racial equality. Certainly he sought that objective, but his vision was about more than expanding rights for a single race. He hoped that even in the direst circumstances, we could overcome our differences and replace bitter conflicts with greater understanding, reconciliation and cooperation.

My father championed free speech. He would be the first to say that those participating in Beck’s rally have the right to express their views. But his dream rejected hateful rhetoric and all forms of bigotry or discrimination, whether directed at race, faith, nationality, sexual orientation or political beliefs. He envisioned a world where all people would recognize one another as sisters and brothers in the human family. Throughout his life he advocated compassion for the poor, nonviolence, respect for the dignity of all people and peace for humanity.

Although he was a profoundly religious man, my father did not claim to have an exclusionary “plan” that laid out God’s word for only one group or ideology. He marched side by side with members of every religious faith. Like Abraham Lincoln, my father did not claim that God was on his side; he prayed humbly that he was on God’s side.

 

Guide For Tea Baggers to Avoid Non-Whites In DC

For the Glenn Beck Klan Rally in DC, it is especially important that the Tea Baggers avoid contact with black folks and other minorities while visiting the city. Unfortunately, this threatens to temporarily turn some nice areas of the city into  low rent districts until the unwelcome Tea Baggers can be herded out of town. I have put together this handy map, based on a Tea Baggers “travel guide” and a few hints from an area native,  so the visitors can be aware of the dangers they may face. The “Anti-Christ” area includes the Mormon Temple and an area traditionally with a higher Jewish population. We can’t have any Tea Baggers running into anyone with an IQ above room temperature!

Safe Areas for Tea Baggers!

The ethnic makeup of the DC Metro Area is substantially different from Tea Bagger home towns – in 2006

• White : 51.7%
• Black : 26.3%
• Asian : 8.4%
• Hispanic : 11.6%
• Mixed and Other : 2.0%

As such, it is not entirely possible to avoid non-white people! Even in Fairfax and Loudon Counties, two of the wealthiest counties in the nation, the non-white population tends to hover around 20%! And no – there ain’t no Motel 6 in McLean.

Advice handed out to Tea Baggers by a local Tea Bagger includes –

Safety and Mores

DC’s population includes refugees from every country, as the families of embassy staffs of third world countries tend to stay in DC whenever a revolution in their homeland means that anyone in their family would be in danger if they went back. Most taxi drivers and many waiters/waitresses (especially in local coffee shops like the Bread and Chocolate chain) are immigrants, frequently from east Africa or Arab countries. As a rule, African immigrants do not like for you to assume they are African Americans and especially do not like for you to guess they are from a neighboring country (e.g. Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia) with whom they may have political or military tensions. It’s rare to meet anyone who gets really offended, but you can still be aware of the issue.

Many parts of DC are safe beyond the areas I will list here, but why chance it if you don’t know where you are?

If you are on the subway stay on the Red line between Union Station and Shady Grove, Maryland. If you are on the Blue or Orange line do not go past Eastern Market (Capitol Hill) toward the Potomac Avenue stop and beyond; stay in NW DC and points in Virginia. Do not use the Green line or the Yellow line. These rules are even more important at night. There is of course nothing wrong with many other areas; but you don’t know where you are, so you should not explore them.

If on foot or in a cab or bus, stay in Bethesda, Arlington (preferably north Arlington), Crystal City, Falls Church, Annandale, or Alexandria, or in DC only in northwest DC west (i.e. larger street numbers) of 14th or 16th streets, or if on Capitol Hill only in SE Capitol Hill (zip 20003) between 1st and 8th Streets, not farther out than 8th (e.g. 9th, 10th etc). (Or stay on the Mall and at the various monuments.) Again there are many other lovely places, from the Catholic University of America to Silver Spring, Maryland. But you don’t know where you are so you cannot go, especially at night, unless you take me with you.

 

Paid Political Bloggers Exposed

This has been going on in the blogsphere for quite a while.  Especially over on the Republican side, who first recognized the value of Internet political entertainment. The fact that the Democrats organized and fought back isn’t any surprise.

Several of your favorite black conservative bloggers, especially the ones who fill the Internet with vitrol are paid to do so.

BTx3 is not and has never been paid to blog anything. The only advertising on my blog is that imposed by the provider,  and that required to get certain widgets free.

Blogging Payola

Of course, looking at what the Republicans are paying for so few eyeballs… I maybe got some space on the right (and left) columns!

True stories of bloggers who secretly feed on partisan cash

Katie Couric once described bloggers as journalists who gnaw at new information “like piranhas in a pool.” But increasingly, many bloggers are also secretly feeding on cash from political campaigns, in a form of partisan payola that erases the line between journalism and paid endorsement.

“It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.”

In California, where former eBay executive Meg Whitman beat businessman Steve Poizner in a bitterly fought primary battle in the campaign for governor, it sometimes seemed as if there was a bidding war for bloggers.

One pro-Poizner blogger, Aaron Park, was discovered to be a paid consultant to the Poizner campaign while writing for Red County, a conservative blog about California politics. Red County founder Chip Hanlon threw Park off the site upon discovering his affiliation, which had not been disclosed.

Poizner’s campaign was shocked to learn of the arrangement, apparently coordinated by an off-the-reservation consultant. For Park, though, it was business as usual. In November 2009, for instance, he approached the campaign of another California office-seeker — Chuck DeVore, who was then running for Senate — with an offer to blog for money.

“I can be retained at a quite reasonable rate or for ‘projects,’” Park wrote in an e-mail to campaign officials. In an interview, Park defended himself by claiming, “nobody has any doubt which candidates I’m supporting,” and noting that his blog specifies which candidates he “endorses.”

But while Red County’s Hanlon expressed outrage at Park’s pay-for-blogging scheme, questions arose about his own editorial independence when it emerged that Red County itself had been taking money from the Whitman campaign.

In December of 2009, Red County received $20,000 from the Meg Whitman campaign, which has sent the site $15,000 a month since then.

The money is ostensibly for advertising, yet by conventional measures the numbers don’t add up. According to Quantcast, Red County reaches around 125,000 unique viewers per month. Two new media industry experts confirmed that, given such a readership, Whitman’s ad purchase is “ridiculously” expensive, surpassing the going market rate for such ads by 1,000 percent or more.

In an interview, Hanlon said he had a “very, very direct conversation” with the Whitman campaign that “advertising and editorial are two very different things.” Notably, Whitman’s penchant for throwing money around is well known in California political circles.

Ad purchases at above market rates are a common means by which some campaigns seek to influence bloggers, according to numerous campaign operatives and bloggers.

Bloggers, aware of this, have begun to request improbably high rates on their own.

Florida political blog Shark-Tank.net, which reaches about 15,000 viewers per month, is asking campaigns for $3,200 a month for a large banner ad. For that same price, an advertiser could purchase similar space on political blogs reaching over 1 million readers each week. (more)

 

Alvin Green, The Sarah Palin of Democrats – Gets Booted From Restaurant

Our boy down in South Carolina apparently is coming out swinging…

And winding up going out the door with a Police escort.

Alvin Greene expelled from S.C. restaurant by police

South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Alvin Greene was ejected from a South Carolina restaurant by police on Tuesday after his companion got into a fight with other patrons, the Associated Press reports.

According to police, Greene had originally been invited to address officials at a monthly meeting of the Oconee County Democratic Party, but the invitation was rescinded following Greene’s Aug. 13 felony indictment on charges of disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity, after he was accused of showing pornography to a college student.

Seneca Police Chief John Covington told the AP that Tuesday that Greene showed up at the event despite the withdrawing of his invitation, whereupon his female companion began to fight with other patrons. Organizers called police, who escorted Greene and his companion, who was not named in the report, from the restaurant.

Greene has not responded to requests seeking comment about the incident.

In November, he is set to face incumbent favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Green Party candidate Tom Clements for the Senate seat.

 

Rejecting the Hate on the 28th

Ed hosts Al Sharpton to discuss the March to reject Beck’s KKK Rally on the Mall on the 28th of August, the anniversary of the MLK “I Have a Dream” Speech.

If you can – be there in the spirit of King and the Freedom Riders.

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Now in case you missed it, or have been living in right wing hate land where the local provider doesn’t carry anything except Faux News…

 

Newt’s a Bigot

Harold Ford makes an interesting point here…

Faux News and the Tea Bagged right wing in this country are killing American Troops.

They are also killing American business, destroying our ability to go after 1 billion Muslim customers worldwide.

These people are not Patriots – they are anything but…

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Faux News Owned by “Radical Muslim”!

Jon Stewart points out that Faux News Corporation is owned by the very same “Radical Muslim” guy who is funding the “Ground Zero” Mosque…

And he’s not a “Radical Muslim funding terrorist activities around the world”…

Unless you consider Faux News a “Terrorist Organization”.

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Ty-rone!

Looks like another job for an Ebonics translator has opened up at Syngenta…

Dr. Tyrone Hayes of UC Berkeley

Prof Attacks Chemical Firm Using … Hip-Hop Lyrics

Chemical company Syngenta has filed an ethics complaint over a Berkeley professor’s trash-talking. The company, the world’s largest producer of the controversial herbicide artrazine, complains that Tyrone Hayes has sent offensive emails quoting rap lyrics to company execs, Gawker reports. Hayes’ research has linked artrazine to cancer in humans and sex changes in frogs.

“So go ahed, bring your boys, cuz I’m bringing the noise. I told ya, you can’t stop the rage. You been bragging, but we’ll see who’s tea baggin’ when TDawg hits the stage,” Hayes taunted in one email. Hayes—whose research has formed the basis for several legal actions against Syngenta—says he grew up in a tough community and was merely reacting to intimidation from the company in a way he felt was appropriate. “Where I came from, people did a lot more,” says the prof.

 

Giant Negro Alert! Adolph Hitler

Damn – just when we get past the illegitimacy thing, and crime rate…

We find out Hitler was “one” too! No wonder he always wore those baggy pants! 🙂

Hitler ‘had Jewish and African roots’, DNA tests show

Saliva samples taken from 39 relatives of the Nazi leader show he may have had biological links to the “subhuman” races that he tried to exterminate during the Holocaust.

Jean-Paul Mulders, a Belgian journalist, and Marc Vermeeren, a historian, tracked down the Fuhrer’s relatives, including an Austrian farmer who was his cousin, earlier this year.

A chromosome called Haplogroup E1b1b1 which showed up in their samples is rare in Western Europe and is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.

“One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised,” Mr Mulders wrote in the Belgian magazine, Knack.

Haplogroup E1b1b1, which accounts for approximately 18 to 20 per cent of Ashkenazi and 8.6 per cent to 30 per cent of Sephardic Y-chromosomes, appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population.

Knack, which published the findings, says the DNA was tested under stringent laboratory conditions.

“This is a surprising result,” said Ronny Decorte, a genetic specialist at the Catholic University of Leuven.

“The affair is fascinating if one compares it with the conception of the world of the Nazis, in which race and blood was central.

“Hitler’s concern over his descent was not unjustified. He was apparently not “pure” or ‘Ayran’.”

It is not the first time that historians have suggested Hitler had Jewish ancestry.

His father, Alois, is thought to have been the illegitimate offspring of a maid called Maria Schickelgruber and a 19-year-old Jewish man called Frankenberger.

 

Black Conservative Develops Cajones

Damn – Juan Williams?

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Ebonics Translator Jobs!

Damn, I know the slang in the city moves pretty fast – but this is amazing! A problem I can see they are going to have immediately is regionalization. The Gangstas in Atlanta don’t speak the same language as the Gangstas in New York…

It don’t mean a thang if it ain’t got that twang!

Ain’t it funny after all these years of trying to get young urban folks to speak the English Language…

Now they got a career speaking “Ghetto”?

Yo' Dawg!

Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts

The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.

A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media”

The DEA’s need for full-time linguists specializing in Ebonics is detailed in bid documents related to the agency’s mid-May issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) covering the provision of as many as 2100 linguists for the drug agency’s various field offices. Answers to the proposal were due from contractors on July 29.

In contract documents, which are excerpted here, Ebonics is listed among 114 languages for which prospective contractors must be able to provide linguists. The 114 languages are divided between “common languages” and “exotic languages.” Ebonics is listed as a “common language” spoken solely in the United States.

Ebonics has widely been described as a nonstandard variant of English spoken largely by African Americans. John R. Rickford, a Stanford University professor of linguistics, has described it as “Black English” and noted that “Ebonics pronunciation includes features like the omission of the final consonant in words like ‘past’ (pas’ ) and ‘hand’ (han’), the pronunciation of the th in ‘bath’ as t (bat) or f (baf), and the pronunciation of the vowel in words like ‘my’ and ‘ride’ as a long ah (mah, rahd).”

Detractors reject the notion that Ebonics is a dialect, instead considering it a bastardization of the English language.

The Department of Justice RFP does not, of course, address questions of vernacular, dialect, or linguistic merit. It simply sought proposals covering the award of separate linguist contracts for seven DEA regions. The agency spends about $70 million annually on linguistic service programs, according to contract records.

In addition to the nine Ebonics experts, the DEA’s Atlanta office also requires linguists for eight other languages, including Spanish (144 linguists needed); Vietnamese (12); Korean (9); Farsi (9); and Jamaican patois (4). The Atlanta field division, one of the DEA’s busiest, is the only office seeking linguists well-versed in Ebonics. Overall, the “majority of DEA’s language requirements will be for Spanish originating in Central and South America and the Caribbean,” according to one contract document.

The Department of Justice RFP includes a detailed description of the crucial role a linguist can play in narcotics investigations. They are responsible for listening to “oral intercepts in English and foreign languages,” from which they provide verbal and typed summaries. “Subsequently, all pertinent calls identified by the supervising law enforcement officer will be transcribed verbatim in the required federal or state format,” the RFP notes.