Sympathy for the Devil…Black Folks and Ben Carson

In an America where segregation is part of living memory of many over 55, and black periodicals published and lauded many black “firsts” – for some it is very difficult to see past skin color, and look in askance at a fellow black person. The black community has been continuously harmed, time after time in supporting black politicians who are crooks (Kwame Kilpatrick, Ray Nagin, “Dollar Bill” WIlliam Jefferson, Larry Langford ), or have moral failures, DC’s own Marion Barry. Few have accomplished more harm to black communities around the country than the corrupt, the crooked, and the wicked who misuse their positions of trust…

Yet that “skin like me” thing typically provides scant shelter to that class of black folks whose moral and ethical standards allow them to carry the banner for conservative racism. That isn’t to say that being Republican and black makes one persona non grata. We certainly have seen evidence of community support for Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. The buckdancing Uncle Tom conservative types don’t feel the love, AKA Herman Cain, and Alan West.

Republicans try and counter that in seeking out black folks of “exceptional accomplishment”. It’s a thin wallpaper.

So why are some black folks still confused about Uncle Ben Carson?

Home is where the self-hatred is…Indeed.

Many African-Americans see two sides to Ben Carson

Ayauna King-Baker loved Ben Carson’s “Gifted Hands” memoir so much that she made her daughter Shaliya read it. So when Carson showed up in town to sign copies of his new book, King-Baker dragged the giggly 13-year-old along to the bookstore so they could both meet him.

To King-Baker, Carson’s “up-by-your-bootstraps” life story makes him a genuine celebrity worth emulating in the African-American community. But she’s also a Pompano Beach Democrat watching Carson rise in the Republican presidential polls.

For King-Baker and many other African-Americans, the vast majority of whom are Democrats, there are two Carsons: One is a genius doctor and inspirational speaker and writer who talks of limitless horizons; the other is a White House candidate who pushes conservative politics and wishes to “de-emphasize race.”

How they reconcile the two may help determine whether Republicans can dent the solid support Democrats have enjoyed in the black community for decades.

President Barack Obama won 95 percent of the black vote in 2008 and 93 percent in 2012. Carson wasn’t immune to the excitement of seeing the U.S. elect its first black president.

“I don’t think there were any black people in the country that weren’t thrilled that that happened – including me,” Carson told The Associated Press in a recent interview when asked about Obama’s first victory. “Everyone had hope this would be something different. It was nice having that hope for a little while.”

Carson has since become an aggressive critic of Obama. Carson rose to prominence in the tea party movement after repudiating the president’s health care law in front of Obama during the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast. Today, Carson charges that Obama’s performance has actually set black candidates back.

“I don’t think he’s made my path any easier,” he said. “So many people said there’d never be another black president for 100 years after this.”

Carson has not gone out of his way to court black voters this year. He insists he won’t change his message to attract specific audiences, although his campaign tried a rap-filled ad this month.

He already has one convert – King-Baker. She says she plans to change her registration to vote for the doctor in the Florida primary. “He has the momentum, he has the conversation, he’s very serious, he’s speaking to the people, and I just think he would be a very good president,” she said.

None of this will matter unless Carson survives the primaries, where he’s been leading in early preference polls.

Black votes aren’t a major factor in GOP primaries. Only about 16 percent of African-American voters affiliated with the Republican Party in 2012. But they will be a factor in the November general election.

African-American voters are one of the few growing segments of the voting public. The percentage of black voters eclipsed the percentage of whites for the first time in 2012, when 66 percent of blacks voted, compared with 64 percent of non-Hispanics whites and about 48 percent of Hispanics and Asians.

Carole Bell, a professor of communication studies at Northeastern University, estimates that Carson could attract as much as 25 percent of the African-American vote if he’s the GOP candidate. “That would be a tremendous accomplishment for the GOP at this stage,” she said.

Carson is better known by African-American voters than were other black Republicans who ran for president, such as businessman Herman Cain, who achieved passing prominence in the 2012 race, and former ambassador Alan Keyes before him.

Carson was a celebrated figure before he entered politics because of his work as a neurosurgeon. Carson led a team that successfully separated conjoined twins, which led to movie appearances, best-selling books, a television biography and a motivational speaking career that crossed racial lines.

“Black people were proud that Carson had become a famous surgeon and had accomplished what no one else ever had in separating the twins,” said Fredrick Harris, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University.

That’s part of his appeal, said Rebecca Britt, 43, a registered Democrat who also came to see Carson in Fort Lauderdale and buy his most recent book. “He’s one of the heroes in our community, with what he’s been able to accomplish in the medical field,” she said.

But can that translate into many black votes?

Carson has said he would not support a Muslim for president, a position his campaign says helped him raise money and attract conservative support. He’s been critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, which drew its name from protests that followed the death of an unarmed black 18-year-old, Michael Brown.

The retired neurosurgeon told the AP that Americans should take the focus off of race during a recent trip to Brown’s hometown, Ferguson, Missouri.

Carson may draw support from conservative African-Americans and those already in the GOP, but it’s unlikely that he would make major inroads in the Democratic Party’s dominance among blacks in a general election, said D’Andra Orey, a political science professor at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi.

Given the GOP’s fraught history with African-Americans, it could be “nearly impossible for blacks to support a Republican who espouses what they deem to be racially conservative rhetoric,” Orey said. “Put short, it’s an uphill battle for any Republican who seeks out the black vote.”

 

 

Battling Experts – Tamir Rice Murder

This one is going the usual way – the Police and DA get “experts” to declare that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the actions of the Police in the Tamir Rice murder. The Family hires actual experts in the specific area of “use of force” who find there are some very seriously wrong things with the actions of the Police. The experts hired by the family think that the officers are guilty,  for the same reason I believe Officer Darren Wilson is guilty of killing MIchael Brown.

 

Expert reports ordered by Tamir Rice family attorneys call shooting ‘objectively unreasonable’

Attorneys for the family of Tamir Rice released reports Saturday from two use-of-force experts who determined the shooting of the 12-year-old boy by a Cleveland police officer was “objectively unreasonable.”

The reviews stand in direct contrast to three expert reports commissioned and released by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty, who Tamir’s family, activists and religious leaders have repeatedly called to remove himself from the case.

Cleveland attorney Subodh Chandra and the New York law firm of Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff & Abady have called McGinty’s expert reports “utterly biased and deeply flawed.” The attorneys represent Tamir’s mother in a pending civil lawsuit filed against the city, the two officers involved in the shooting and the Cleveland police department.

At the legal team’s request, police procedures consultant Roger Clark and former deputy police chief of the Irvine Police Department Jeffrey J. Noble, both California-based nationally renowned experts in police use-of-force issues, pored over investigative material and determined the shooting was not justified.

Clark and Noble, in a combined 31 pages of documents, reasoned that officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback placed themselves in harm’s way by driving within feet of Tamir and shooting him Nov. 22, 2014 outside the Cudell Recreation Center on Cleveland’s West Side.

They pointed to a 2008 U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the case of Kirby v. Duva that determined: “Where a police officer unreasonably places himself in harm’s way, his use of deadly force may be deemed excessive.”

The experts also partially blamed the shooting on a culture of corruption in the Cleveland police department that tolerates misconduct. They condemned the department for hiring Timothy Loehmann, the officer who shot Tamir,  without examining his file from a former job that described him as an inept officer.

The officers’ poor tactical decision-making and systemic failures within the department resulted in a death of a child that was “completely avoidable…and should never have occurred,” Clark wrote.

The attorneys sent a letter to McGinty Saturday asking him to present their findings to the grand jury. The prosecutor invited the attorneys in June to offer input and evidence while a case for the grand jury is prepared.

McGinty after receiving the letter told cleveland.com that he would include the reports in the grand jury presentation.

“Our stated policy in all use of deadly force cases is to welcome all relevant evidence and let the grand jury evaluate and make the decision,” McGinty said. “This process is a wide open search for the truth.”

Clark’s and Noble’s analysis examined the officers’ tactics from the moment they were dispatched to the park.

The partners failed to follow police procedure that requires officers to develop a plan and call for backup before approaching a person who may be armed, the experts wrote.

“Reasonable police officers responding to a man-with-a-gun call would have stopped their vehicle prior to entering the park to visually survey the area to avoid driving upon a subject who may be armed,” Noble wrote.

Clark also noted that the officers couldn’t have known for sure whether Tamir was the subject being described by the 911 caller. The caller said the person was on the swings, but Tamir was seated at a table in the gazebo when police arrived.

“In my opinion there was nothing in the dispatch information that would positively identify Tamir as the certain target of the call to the responding officers,” Clark wrote.

Further, if the officers determined that Tamir was the suspect in question, the park surveillance video makes it clear that Tamir was not a threat, Clark wrote. The man who called 911 told a dispatcher that the person was pointing a gun at people and scaring them.

But the video shows that Tamir didn’t appear threatening as Loehmann and Garmback arrived, the experts said, and despite this, Garmback pulled the cruiser next to the gazebo.

The position of the car placed Loehmann, who was in the passenger’s seat, in a difficult position, Noble wrote. Loehmann was forced to make a split-second decision about whether to use deadly force because he had no cover.

The experts bolstered this opinion with a statement from Judge Ronald Adrine of the Cleveland Municipal Court, who in June announced that he found probable cause to charge Loehmann with murder and other counts.

“The video in question is notorious and hard to watch,” Adrine wrote. “After viewing it several times, this court is still thunderstruck by how quickly this event turned deadly.”

But the fault was not just Garmback’s, the experts wrote. Loehmann also acted too quickly when he drew his gun and fired twice without warning.

While Loehmann has not provided an official statement in the investigation, a report from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department shows that Loehmann says that he yelled commands to Tamir before he shot him.

But the fact that Loehmann shot the boy within 1.7 seconds of exiting the car proves that he did not give any verbal commands to Tamir, much less give him time to act on them, Noble wrote. The video makes it clear that there was no time for a “meaningful exchange” between the two, he said.

All of this, they wrote, goes against a basic tenet of policing that deadly force should be used only as a last resort and when someone is in danger of dying or being seriously hurt…. Read Further Detail Here…

 

Ex-Soldier Saved Lives With Dying Breath at Planned Parenthood Massacre

The right-wing extremists leading the Republican Party are now in full backpedal mode after one of their disciples murdered 3 people and shot 9 at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado. This is a direct result of the hate speech directed at Liberals and Minorities. This brave ex-Soldier perhaps prevented the toll from being worse…

Iraq vet used dying moments to warn others after getting shot by Planned Parenthood terrorist

Ke’Arre Stewart, the Iraq War veteran gunned down by right-wing terrorist Robert Louis Dear on Friday, used his dying moments to tell people inside the building to take cover.

According to NBC News, Stewart, 29, had stepped outside the building to use his cell phone when he was shot by Dear, who killed two other people and injured nine in the attack. Stewart, a devoted husband and father of two, rushed into the building in spite of his injuries and shouted for everyone to take cover.

His brother Leyonte Chandler told Today on Monday morning that Stewart’s military training must have compelled him to help others in the line of fire.

“I believe that’s his military instinct, you know: Leave no soldier behind, leave no civilian behind, just leave no one behind,” Chandler said. “So he ran back inside, trying to help out others. I don’t know where he was at, as far as how many more breaths he had, but he knew. And before his time ran out I guess that was his main priority…to help and save other lives.”

“He tried to run back inside the building — well, he did — and tell the other people inside, you know, ‘Take cover, get down.’ People started taking cover, hiding in bathrooms and whatnot,” Chandler recounted.

“People were terrified, people were crying and scared, seeing other people get shot,” he continued. “I believe my brother put his life on the line to prevent that. That’s definitely heroic.”

During his five-hour rampage at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood location, Dear killed police officer Garrett Swasey and 29-year-old mother of two Jennifer Markovsky.

When police apprehended Dear, he revealed to them that the shooting was motivated by his belief that Planned Parenthood is engaged in the illegal sale of fetal organs, a right-wing myth propagated by the anti-choice movement and anti-abortion extremist groups like the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), which released a series of misleading videos accusing the health provider of running a ruthless, bloodthirsty trade of embryonic human tissue.

“No more baby parts!” ranted Dear to police.

Anti-abortion conservatives like presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz have tried to defray blame for the shooting, making false claims that Dear was a “transgendered leftist activist.”

However, many are calling on the media and public officials to call Dear what he really is, a right-wing, Christian terrorist.

 

 

The Largest Hate Group in America

Since the Republican Party became the party of the South, it has drifted into extremist Southern Politics. No surprise that the core of onservative belief is held together by the bailing wire of racism.

The Republican Party is now America’s largest hate group

The Republican Party has put down the dogwhistle and picked up a megaphone.

After two Bostonians allegedly beat up a homeless Hispanic man in August, one told police he was inspired by Donald Trump’s message that “all these illegals need to be deported.” In response, Trump explained “that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.” Later, he clarified that in no way, of course, does he does condone violence.

In June, Trump kicked off his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and drug-trafficking criminals. “Some, I assume, are good people,” he added.

On Monday, five people were shot at a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis. Three white men have been arrested in connection with the incident. It is important to emphasize that the investigation is in its very early stages, and it has not been confirmed who did this, or why.

It is, however, clear that leading Republicans have engaged in extraordinarily racist and xenophobic rhetoric that incites and legitimates vigilante violence. On Saturday, Trump fans allegedly attacked a Black Lives Matter protester at a Birmingham rally. “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” Trump said.

It’s not that brazen racism is new to the Republican Party. In 1964, Sen. Strom Thurmond — who ran for president on the segregationist Dixiecrat ticket in 1948 — became a Republican in protest of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s passage. That year, he worked hard across the then-solidly-Democratic South to support the Republican candidacy of libertarian and militarist Barry Goldwater, a Civil Rights Act opponent.

In 1968, Richard Nixon ran a television ad stoking fear of black riot and student anti-war protests, unsubtly declaring that freedom from street violence at home was in reality the “first civil right.”

It was in 1990, that Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, as the New York Times recounts, “unveiled a nakedly racial campaign advertisement in which a pair of hands belonging to a white job-seeker crumpled a rejection slip as an announcer explained that the job had been given to an unqualified member of a minority.” And it was in 2002 that incoming Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott strongly suggested that America would have been better had de jure segregation been kept in place.

“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him,” said Lott, a Mississippian. “We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

What’s remarkable, and hard to imagine happening today, is that Lott was successfully pressured to resign his leadership position.

The Trump candidacy has combined fears over terrorism, crime and a coming white minority into a spectacular fever dream of dangerous refugees and a criminal threat posed by black people and Hispanic immigrants. That danger, in the right-wing view, is abetted by liberals who criticize police so harshly they are afraid to do their jobs, invite menacing foreigners to live amongst us, and restrain our military because of excessive concern for civilian casualties.

Trump, the white Republican id, has suggested that Muslims be placed on a database and claims, despite it being (or maybe precisely because it is) demonstrably false, that he watched “thousands and thousands of people” in heavily Arab Jersey City “cheering” as “the World Trade Center came tumbling down.”

Ben Carson initially agreed that he too saw this on the news, but generously held back from condemning every single Muslim on earth for it. “I don’t know if, on the basis of that, you can say all Muslims are bad people. I really think that would be a stretch.” He ultimately decided that it had actually been clips from the Middle East that he had seen.

Trump, Carson and neo-McCarthyite Ted Cruz make some very conservative people seem centrist by comparison. These so-called moderate conservatives, after all, claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan, a one-time right-wing challenger to the Republican establishment. Today, mainstream Republican Jeb Bush has suggested that we should prioritize Christian refugees, and Chris Christie has stated that many Black Lives Matter activists “advocate for the murder of police officers.”

It was Trump was who outrageously declared that Syrian refugees could be a “Trojan horse” for terrorism. But every single Republican governor save for Utah’s Gary Herbert has called for barring the refugees from their state….Read the Rest Here…

 

 

Conservative Black Child YouTube Darling Has an Epiphany

Black conservative tool, C J Pearson

Viral conservative YouTube star CJ Pearson turns his back on the GOP because of Laquan McDonald video

Back in the 1990s, I was groomed to be aconservative activist. This was before the days of viral YouTube videos and smartphones. In those days, the Internet was confined to clunky desktop computers on dial-up connections. Whenever we could, we’d advocate for conservative political campaigns or participate in anti-abortion rallies.

I was taught to call into AM radio talk shows to repeat conservative talking points, or write letters to newspapers about abortion and family values. Eventually, I became an adult and began my exodus from the Republican party. Looking back now, it is extremely embarrassing to think about, but it was a learning experience that I now use against the right-wing.

Over the past year or so, right-wing websites have made a big deal about young man from Georgia named CJ Pearson. Mr. Pearson is an African-American teenager who has gained a lot of attention in conservative circles for his videos bashing President Obama and Democrats.

Now CJ Pearson has apparently renounced his activism for the Republican Party and has announced his intentions to be independent in his viewpoints.

Via CNN:

“Over the past few days, I thought about essentially how I don’t want people to follow me because I’m that anti-Obama kid, or who called out Hillary Clinton or who took Bernie Sanders to task,” Pearson said. “I don’t want to be the conservative wonder kid that people follow because I make them feel good and like young people are part of their movement. I want to be followed because I’m the voice of a generation that doesn’t have a voice at the table.”

He said the video of Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times by a police officer in Chicago helped open his eyes to the systemic problems of racial discrimination in America and the need to look at the issues objectively. (Source)

I’m going to remain skeptical on this announcement, considering the fact that this young man has a history of making things up – including the claim that he was blocked by President Obama on Twitter. I have no doubt that his parents have used his Internet fame for their own benefit, which is par for the course for political activism and our society’s obsession with going viral.

CJ Pearson was also named as a youth leader for Ted Cruz’s campaign, and has been a conservative celebrity on social media. Now, if we’re taking him at his word, he wants to turn away from that and become independent.

Here’s my advice for CJ Pearson, as someone who was indoctrinated into right-wing politicsat an early age: go enjoy being a kid and leave the politics behind. Both liberals and conservatives love to use kids as props for their agenda, and they’re both convinced that what they’re doing is right and justified.

You’re only a kid once, and once you’re an adult, you can decide whether you want to be a progressive or a conservative. Put the political agendas that other people want to use you for aside, and go be a kid. Take it from me, you’re only young once.

 

 

 

 

Rev Mack Daddy At It Again

Rev Mack Daddy Manning of the ATLAH “church” is at it again. Once a regular on the black conservative Lawn Jockey Circuit, he has proven to be too much of a nutcase to even make the Faux News channel…

Frenzied pastor shouts ‘n*gger f*ggots’ at ‘Love not Hate’ protesters outside his NY church

A notorious New York pastor addressed “Love not Hate” protesters outside his church by shouting racist and anti-gay slurs.

The “Love not Hate” rally outside of Pastor James David Manning’s Atlah Worldwide Church on Monday was organized by the group Harlem Against Violence, Homophobia, and Transphobia to protest the church for demonizing LGBT people. The demonstration drew more than 100 people, according to DNAinfo, including New York state Assemblyman Keith Wright.

Video of the event posted by blogger Joe My God shows Pastor Manning repeatedly singing, “Oh, f*ggots, please come out tonight.”

“Where are all the n*gger f*ggots?” Manning yells. “Where are the n*ggers? Why are ya’ll white?”

The pastor eventually spots a black protester, and begins yelling about a “n*gger lesbo.”

“Hey, you lesbo, come over here,” he shouts repeatedly.

Pastor Manning — who has admitted to having been tempted by the gay “lifestyle” — gained international notoriety after claiming in a video that Starbucks baristas were secretly adding semen to customers’ lattes as part of a gay plot. His church in Harlem frequently displays signs with anti-gay messages, including calling for the stoning of LGBT people.

“The messages displayed by the ATLAH Church are not reflective of this community, but are grossly offensive hate speech that have no place in the streets of Harlem,” Assemblyman Wright said in a statement. “Today, humankind finds itself surrounded by the tragedies of war. In upper Manhattan and abroad, we are crippled by problems of inequality. Record-high debt is ensconcing countries, communities, families and individuals. There is no time or attention left to spend spreading a message of bigotry. Today, the truest members of the Harlem community ‎are speaking up and we reject this display of hatred by ATLAH Church.”

 

 

New Fascism Spreads From America to Australia

Nazi Propaganda Poster From WWII-

White Student Union Picture –

University of Queensland condemns ‘racist’ Facebook campaign for white student union

The University of Queensland has condemned a “racist” Facebook page attempting to garner support for a “white student union” on its campus.

The so-called University of Queensland White Student Union page was created this week and purports to be “a safe place to support and promote the interests of domestic students of European descent” at the university.

The first post published on the page contains a rant about the number of international students enrolled with the institution.

“We’re forced to do group work with internationals who can’t speak English. We carry the load and do all the work, while our marks are dragged down,” it says.

“We’re forced to put up with the antisocial behaviour of a particular group of students who treat study spaces as social spaces and constantly attempt to ‘reserve’ public resources, such as computers.”

The university released a statement today distancing itself from the page.

“The University of Queensland is in no way affiliated with the so-called University of Queensland White Student Union Facebook page, and no ‘white student union’ exists at UQ,” the statement read.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Joanne Wright said the university prided itself on diversity.

“We thoroughly condemn any attempt to undermine the importance of fostering an equitable society, both on campus and more broadly,” she said.

The page has 27 likes on Facebook, but has responded to the university’s statement, saying it plans to apply to become an official group next year.

“Our group has never claimed to be an ‘official’ club or society but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” it said.

“There are numerous student groups that aren’t UQU affiliated but exist nonetheless.

“If we have sufficient support from the student body we will apply to affiliate a White Student Society at UQ in 2016.”

Page part of larger US trend promoting white supremacy: UQ

The university said the page appeared to be part of a larger trend that has spread from North America, where dozens of similar pages have appeared, each claiming affiliation with university communities.

According to US media, “white student union” Facebook pages have popped up at colleges across the country in recent days, including at Princeton, Berkeley and Stanford.

The pages are suspected to be in response to a wave of anti-racism protests which have been taking place on campuses this month.

The trend come days after photographs of black Harvard Law faculty members were defaced on the university’s famous Boston campus.

 

Trump Lies

Found this partial list of the whoppers told by Trump on the campaign trail… Man obviously has an aversion to the truth.

1. On 9/11, he personally saw thousands of Muslims in Jersey City cheering.
2. He never said Marco Rubio was Mark Zuckerberg’s “personal senator.”
3. There are actually 93 million people not working and the real unemployment rate is about 40 percent.
4. The Obama administration is sending Syrian refugees to red states.
5. Climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese.
6. He opposed the Iraq War and has dozens of news clippings to prove it.
7. Thirteen Syrian refugees were “caught trying to get into the U.S.” (Actually, they just walked up and requested asylum.)
8. He never said the stuff Megyn Kelly accused him of saying in the first debate.
9. He will allow guns at Trump golf resorts.
10. People on the terrorism watch are already prohibited from buying guns.
11. Among white homicide victims, 81 percent are killed by blacks.
12. America has thehighest tax rate in the world.
13. CNN lied when it reported that aspeech he gave in South Carolina was one-third empty.
14. His criticism of Ford prompted the company to move a factory from Mexico to Ohio.
15. Vaccines cause autism.
16. The Obama administration wants to admit 250,000 Syrian refugees.
17. ISIS built a luxury hotel in the Middle East.
18. He was on 60 Minutes with Vladimir Putin and “got to know him very well.”
19. He was never interested in opening a casino in Florida.
20. November 17: The United States only started bombing ISIS oil fields “two days ago.”
21. His campaign is 100 percent self-funded.
22. Mexico doesn’t have birthright citizenship.
23. The Iran deal forces us to “fight with Iran against Israel” if Israel attacks Iran.
24. We still “really don’t know” if Barack Obama was born in the United States.
25. More than 300,000 veterans have died waiting for VA care.
26. The Bush White House begged him to tone down his “vocal” opposition to the Iraq War.

 

And  Trumps newest lie – just today

Trump’s Lies Slander Civil War Dead

Gettysburg has its “Valley of Death,” Antietam has its “Bloody Lane,” and Perryville has its “Slaughter Pen”—all places where Americans killed one another for four years during the Civil War. Today, we can add to that list, Donald Trump’s “River of Blood.”

The New York Timesreports that the outspoken Republican candidate’s golf course on Lowes Island, along the Potomac River in Virginia includes a historical marker that notes the following: “Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot … The casualties were so great that the water turned red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.’” No date is given on the marker as to when this engagement took place. No military units or commanding officers are identified because, according to local historians, there is no evidence that anyone was killed in military combat at this spot during the Civil War.

You can’t travel for long in Virginia without coming across a Civil War battlefield. The state proved to be fertile ground for some of the largest and most costly battles owing to the proximity of both the Confederate capital in Richmond and Washington, D.C. Signs for the battlefields of Cold Harbor, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Manassas dot the major roads between the two cities. To many Americans these hallowed landscapes deserve protection as places of reflection and serve as a reminder of the price paid to preserve this union and abolish slavery. To Donald Trump, it is a history that can be manipulated, even invented whole cloth, as part of a public relations campaign for his Trump National Golf Club.

I am a local Historian who in the past identified an area where there was a previously undocumented skirmish – finding miniball bullets, as well as guns and a sword. While there was a Union fortification on a ridge near Lowes Island (7-8 miles) – they never fired a shot. There was serious fighting 30 miles away near the town of Leesburg, called the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, which was a river crossing, as well as 30 miles to the southeast after the Battle at Bull Run, in Chantilly, Va. Trump is full of smoke.

 

This is Going to End Badly

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the 60’s white racist attacks on Civil Rights workers were common. The very racism of the right wing led the to badly underestimate what was actually going on in America, and the fact that a lot of white folks were getting pissed off because of their violence as well. Anti War sentiment, as well as anti-racism and the assassinations of MLK and Bobby Kennedy led to the evolution of left wing groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which spun off groups like the Weathermen, or more officially, the Weather Underground.

Ergo – Violence begets violence. And egged on by racist right wing news commentators and periodicals… Things are headed that way in this country…Again.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are better ways to handle protest than to have your supporters attack and beat protesters as Trump has done, then crow about it on National News. It appears that Trump is either too stupid, or arrogant to understand that what sits at the bottom of the candle he insists on lighting isn’t the better America…It is the worst of America.

Israel found out the hard way what systemic oppression and violence brings.

The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

During the Vietnam War, some anti-war protestors actually committed suicide by setting themselves on fire to protest the war. Islamic groups not infrequently have members willing to strap on explosive devices and blow themselves up in restaurants and gathering places. Just a reminder of how far powerless and oppressed folks will go. And while power comes out of the barrel of a gun…Courage doesn’t.

This Domestic Terrorism against peaceful protestors and over the top racist rhetoric encouraging violence needs to stop.

Trump rallies get rough

Protesters and supporters increasingly mix it up in the most combustible atmosphere on the campaign trail.

Last month, protesters interrupted a Donald Trump rally in Virginia with chants of “Dump Trump” and clashed with his supporters, one of whom was caught on camera spitting in a protester’s face. Another video caught a protester chanting “black power” and a Trump supporter responding with “white power” as a police officer stood between the two.

Multiple groups of Hispanic protesters interrupted the mogul at a rally in Miami, where video showed a Trump supporter dragging a protester to the ground and kicking him. In September, outside a Trump rally in Dallas, dozens of police officers, some on horseback, pushed back hundreds of shouting protesters after breaking up a tense standoff with the real-estate tycoon’s supporters.

On Wednesday, a protester who was once convicted of bringing a bomb to a military facility was arrested at a rally in Massachusetts, and on Saturday video showed supporters punching and kicking a protester who interrupted a rally in Alabama, while Trump himself later suggested that the man had it coming.

Welcome to the most combustible presidential campaign in recent memory.

The candidate’s angry rhetoric — on subjects like undocumented Mexican immigrants, political correctness and “thugs” in Baltimore — has made his run a magnet for disaffected supporters and for identity politics protesters determined to steal the spotlight and disrupt his events. Trump’s relish for confrontation, where other politicians would seek to minimize it, has only fueled the fire.

“Isn’t a Trump rally much more exciting than these other ones?” Trump said on Wednesday as police escorted a protester yelling, “Trump’s a racist” from a rally in Worcester, Massachusetts. “That kind of stuff only adds to the excitement,” he added.

Indeed, many observers say that Trump’s rallies seem to be more turbulent than those of any presidential candidate since the 1960s, with a clash of opposing cultural factions reminiscent of those outside abortion clinics or the Supreme Court on the day a divisive decision is announced.

“Trump brings something that we haven’t really seen on this scale before,” said Erik Bergling, CEO of EPG Security, which protects the Republican National Convention and other political events.

Benjamin Ness, a former Secret Service agent who has protected several presidential candidates and a co-founder of a private security firm, Fidelis Protection Group, that works political events, said Trump’s high profile makes him an attractive target for protesters. “Protesters know they’re going to get more attention at a Trump rally than at a Kasich rally,” said Ness.

While Black Lives Matter protesters have interrupted several events for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — Democratic candidates who claim to be more sympathetic to their cause — Trump is the only Republican candidate they have regularly targeted to date.

 

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More Gunshots Fired Near Minneapolis BLM Protest

Appears that the white supremacist types are trying to intimidate the protesters by guns.

This is the video of armed white supremacists seeking to terrorize the protesters. It is unclear whether these are the people who shot 5 demonstrators.

More gunshots fired overnight at Minneapolis protests: ‘CALL THIS WHAT THE F*CK IT IS — TERRORISM’

More gunshots were fired overnight at the site of ongoing protests of the Minneapolis police killing of Jamar Clark.

Police confirmed that shots were fired about 2 a.m. Wednesday near the Fourth Precinct, where five Black Lives Matters protesters were wounded about 27 hours before during a dispute with three white men, reported the Washington Post.

Authorities were unable to provide any details about the latest shooting — including information about who fired the shots or why.

Reports of the gunfire circulated early Wednesday on social media, where video was posted online showing the moments shortly after the shots were fired.

The video shows demonstrators running for cover behind a barricade or lying flat on the ground near their campfires as activists shouted “get down.”

“F*ck this laying down shit,” one activist shouts. “Let’s shoot back.”

Police arrested three men Tuesday afternoon in connection with the shootings and released a fourth man after questioning.

A spokeswoman for the local NAACP chapter claimed the police department allowed the men to bully protesters for days and stood by during the shooting and initially refused to help the victims.

Authorities have been reluctant to agree with witnesses who described the men as white supremacists, but social media posts by the suspects reveal frequent use of racial slurs and a fascination with Confederate imagery and right-wing militia groups.

The suspects — identified by police as 23-year-old Allen “Lance” Scarsella, 21-year-old Nathan Gustavsson and 26-year-old Daniel Macey — have not been formally charged but remain jailed on suspicion of assault.

Emails and online videos show the men plotted to disrupt the protests — and activists said they appeared daily since last week, wearing military clothing, masks and bulletproof armor as they recorded video of demonstrators’ faces and harassed them at their camps.

Their supporters claim the men acted in self-defense after witnesses said they were punched during an altercation with protesters, who asked them to take off their masks or leave, but many people have described the men as “terrorists.”

 

 

 

Haiti – The Painter From Jalouzi

Jalouzi is a village built on the mountains on the south side of Port au Prince, which sits in a valley between two ranges. It sits adjacent to Haiti’s wealthiest town, Petionville. Most of it was built during the term of President Aristide, who changed the area’s restrictive zoning laws to the chagrin of the wealthier neighbors. It sits only a few miles from the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake, but survived catastrophic damage because of certain factors having to do with the geology of the area, as did the adjoining Petionville. By far, it is not the worst slum in Haiti. If you look at the walls he is painting in the video, you will see a very low grade of concrete, which is used to construct the houses of the poor there. In the areas which were subjected to severe shaking by the earthquake, that concrete vaporized. It is the principal reason so many people died, as their homes just collapsed on top of them. For several months after the earthquake, the streets were covered in an inch or so of fine choking concrete dust. I don’t believe most of these houses have running water, electricity, or sewer. Cooking is done by charcoal fire which covers the entire city in smoke in summer. There is no glass in the windows in most of these homes, which means everyone is exposed to the air pollutants. Which is why Haiti has the highest level of Tuberculosis in the world, and an average life expectancy of only 59 years.

This video shows a bit of the indomitable spirit of the Haitian people.

 

 

NAACP Communications Manager Claims Police Involved in Minnesota BLM Shooting

I hope this woman has her act together, and isn’t just mouthing her personal beliefs. Data the NAACP obtained did assist in the apprehension of the 3 white men who shot BLM protestors less than a block from the Police Station.

Minnesota NAACP leader shocks CNN: Police are ‘behind’ the Black Lives Matter shooting

Raeisha Williams, communications chair of the Minneapolis NAACP, told CNN that members of law enforcement were “behind” the Monday night shooting of Black Lives Matter protesters.

During an interview on Tuesday, CNN host Brooke Baldwin asked Williams to react to breaking news that two men had been arrested in connection to shootings that injured at least five people who were protesting the killing of Jamar Clark.

“We’re hearing two [arrests] at this time,” Williams explained. “But we don’t necessarily trust that. We know that the police department is behind this, this is our personal belief after receiving witness accounts.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Baldwin interrupted. “You said you believe the police department is behind what?”

“We believe the police department is facilitating the injustice, bullying the protesters,” Williams replied. “And we also believe that they’re involved in this shooting. We know from blackboards and chat rooms and also videos that we have posted on our website that police that are from different counties, police from different districts have come down to entice the protesters, have come down to bully the protesters.”

Baldwin, who was broadcasting from Paris, noted that Williams had made “serious allegations” on national television.

“And we are standing behind it, we do not back down from these allegations,” Williams insisted.

“Where is your evidence that they were involved in the shooting?” Baldwin pressed.

According to Williams, police were “lurking” near the shooting and then refused to provide help to the injured protesters.

“This is what you’ve been wanting,” she recalled one of the officers saying.

“It took 15 minutes for the police to even arrive and shortly after that, they began to Mace the crowd,” Williams said. “So if you’re not part of the problem, if this is not something you’re trying to cover up, why would you not attend to victims who paid for your salaries?”

Williams said that her group had “video evidence of an undercover cop getting into an unmarked car.”

“We believe — and we stand behind our belief — that the Minneapolis Police Department is not protecting us and therefore they stand with racist white supremacists who want to destroy a peaceful movement,” she concluded.

 

Video of Police Murder of Laquan McDonald

This is hard to watch. Contrary to police testimony after the shooting McDonald was at least 15 ft away from any of the officers, posed no threat, and was walking away from them when he was shot in the back.

The Police Officer has been charged with First Degree Murder…Only because of the video.

 

 

 

Police Arrest 2 in Minnesota BLM Shooting

The police apparently have arrested two suspects, although it isn’t clear whether they actually were involved in the shooting.

Minneapolis High School Students who had walked out to join march.

 

Police arrest two suspects in shooting of Minnesota Black Lives Matter protesters

Minneapolis police said on Tuesday they have arrested a 23-year-old white man and a 32-year-old Hispanic man in relation to the shooting of five people near a city police station where demonstrators have gathered for more than a week to protest the killing of an unarmed black man by officers.

The police said the younger suspect was arrested around 11:20 a.m. local time (1720 GMT) in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, while the older man was arrested in his vehicle about 45 minutes later in south Minneapolis.

“We are sparing no efforts to bring any and all those responsible to justice,” Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges said after the first arrest. In an earlier video statement, she said she abhorred the attack on the demonstrators.

The police, however, have not yet confirmed a connection between the shooting and the protest. The police also said they will release the suspects’ names after charges are filed while the search for any additional suspects continues.

Police earlier said they were looking for three white male suspects in the shooting late on Monday. It occurred a block from the police station where protests have been held since the fatal Nov. 15 shooting of Jamar Clark, 24, Minneapolis police said in a statement.

None of the injuries in the Monday shooting were life-threatening and the wounded were taken to local hospitals.

The Black Lives Matter Minneapolis group protesting Clark’s killing said on its Facebook page that five unarmed protesters were shot by what it described as white supremacists who had been asked to leave the area and were followed out by protesters before they opened fire.

It is being reported that there is an email chain between white supremacists planning the shooting…

Emails reveal racists plotted confrontation with Black Lives Matters activists days before shooting

Three white men wearing bulletproof vests and covering their face with masks shot five Black Lives Matter protesters Monday night in Minneapolis — and some social media users are claiming the gunmen fired in self-defense.

The men, described by some witnesses as white supremacists, wounded five demonstrators shortly before 11 p.m. outside the city’s Fourth Precinct during an ongoing protest of the police shooting death of 24-year-old Jamar Clark.

Demonstrators say masked men wearing military-style clothing have been harassing them for days during the protests, and Black Lives Matter Minneapolis posted a video Friday of two men on their way to disrupt the protests.

White supremacists have discussed various strategies online for sparking confrontation at the demonstration, which they described as a “chimpout.”

“Do you know if the BLM n*****s are planning to protest again tomorrow, and if so, at what time?” one white supremacist asked in an email chain.

They agreed to wear camouflage clothing and display a four of clubs to identify each other, and the white supremacist agitators argued over whether they should carry guns or wear Guy Fawkes masks.

The white supremacist mocked “social justice warriors” and other anti-racist whites, who they described in psychosexual terms.

“Best to act as much like a beta white cuck as much as you can,” one the racists said.

The activists said groups of men had been appearing at the demonstration and “acting shady” since Friday, so they put together a “safety committee” to watch for potential agitators and escort them away from the protests.

That’s apparently what happened just before the shooting, when some of the protesters confronted three men, described by witnesses as two white men and possibly one Asian man.

Witnesses say the gunmen were trying to record demonstrators’ faces on cell phone video shortly before opening fire, and the two groups argued.

Then a group of protesters charged at the men and demanded they remove their masks, but witnesses said the men shouted back, “f*ck no,” and continued recording cell phone video.

A demonstrator, who spoke on camera with a mask covering his face, said one of the men was carrying a Black Lives Matter sign.

 

Dystopian Racist View of Black College Students

 

I’ll take this one apart out front – so you don’t have to.

1. University of Missouri is not a “selective School”
2. The lie about “very large admissions preferences” is belied by the fact that the numbers of African-American kids at the top 100 selective universities has flatlined or gone down.
3. To white racist like this writer, there are only two types of black kids on campus – those on athletic scholarship or those unqualified because of “affirmative action”.
4. Black kids have increased their proportion of STEM degrees. The numbers of master’s degrees earned by Black and Hispanic students more than doubled from 1999–2000 to 2009–10 (increasing by 109 percent and 125 percent, respectively).
5. 72% of black students earning STEM Bachelors do so at HBCUs, with Howard University graduating 33% of all black students with STEM Degrees. They are 3 times more likely than their white counterparts to pursue Master’s and Doctoral Degrees, usually at selective Universities. About 90% of all black Students earn Bachelors/Masters/PHds in the US, do so at schools east of the Mississippi.
6. Although 22% of white students enroll in STEM, only 6% are awarded degrees in 4 years. 21% of black students enroll in STEM, and 3% graduate in 4 years. The differential is not significant, as it tends to level out in 6 years where 16% of black, Hispanic, and white kids gain Bachelors.  The difference between Asian students and whites is very significant, in that 30% of Asian kids who enter the STEM curriculum graduate.
7. Many lower level and mid-range schools still use academic testing in terms of the SAT and ACT. Most of the selective schools have either dropped the SAT/ACT entirely or made it optional. There is no difference in graduation rates between those that use the SAT and those that don’t – proving SAT Score are irrelevant. Indeed, differences in SAT scores are largely arbitrary and can be influenced heavily by coaching, which typically in unaffordable by lower-middle income parents.

So what we got here, is another group of racist lies in an attempt to discredit black students because they are (successfully) protesting.

A LITTLE-UNDERSTOOD ENGINE OF CAMPUS UNREST: RACIAL ADMISSIONS PREFERENCES

They are some of the most privileged students in the nation plunging into a racial grievance culture and upending their campuses as though oppressed by Halloween costumes they don’t approve, imagined racial slights, portraits of Woodrow Wilson, a tiny handful of real racial epithets, and the like?

The reasons are of course multifaceted. But one deserves far more attention than it has gotten: Many or most of the African-American student protesters really are victims — but not of old-fashioned racism.

Most are, rather, victims of the very large admissions preferences that set up racial-minority students for academic struggle at the selective universities that have cynically misled them into thinking they are well qualified to compete with classmates who are, in fact, far stronger academically.

The reality is that most good black and Hispanic students, who would be academically competitive at many selective schools, are not competitive at the more selective schools that they attend.

That’s why it takes very large racial preferences to get them admitted. An inevitable result is that many black and (to a lesser extent) Hispanic students cannot keep up with better-prepared classmates and rank low in their classes no matter how hard they work.

Studies show that this academic “mismatch effect” forces them to drop science and other challenging courses; to move into soft, easily graded, courses disproportionately populated by other preferentially admitted students; and to abandon career hopes such as engineering and pre-med. Many lose intellectual self-confidence and become unhappy even if they avoid flunking out.

This depresses black performance at virtually all selective schools because of what experts call the cascade effect. Here’s how it works, as Richard Sander and I demonstrated in a 2012 book, Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It:

Only 1 to 2 percent of black college applicants emerge from high school well-qualified academically for (say) the top Ivy League colleges. Therefore, those schools can meet their racial admissions targets only by using large preferences. They bring in black students who are well qualified for moderately elite schools like (say) the University of North Carolina, but not for the Ivies that recruit them. This leaves schools like UNC able to meet their own racial targets only by giving large preferences to black students who are well qualified for less selective schools like (say) the University of Missouri but not for UNC. And so on down the selectivity scale.

As a result, experts agree, most black students at even moderately selective schools — with high school preparation and test scores far below those of their classmates — rank well below the middle of their college and grad school classes, with between 25% and 50% ranking in the bottom tenth. That’s a very bad place to be at any school.

This, in turn, increases these students’ isolation and self-segregation from the higher-achieving Asians and whites who flourish in more challenging courses. At least one careful study shows that students are more likely to become friends with peers who are similar in academic accomplishment.

Put yourself in the position of manyHispanic and especially black students (recipients of by far the largest racial preferences) at selective schools, who may work heroically during the first semester only to be lost in many classroom discussions and dismayed by their grades.

As they start to see the gulf between their own performance and that of most of their fellow students, dismay can become despair. They soon realize that no matter how hard they work, they will struggle academically.

It is critical to understand that these are not bad students. They did well in high school and could excel at somewhat less selective universities where they would arrive roughly as well prepared as their classmates.

But due to racial preferences, they find themselves for the first time in their lives competing against classmates who have a huge head start in terms of previous education, academic ability, or both.

Researchers have shown that racial preference recipients develop negative perceptions of their own academic competence, which in turn harms their performance and even their mental health, through “stereotype threat” and other problems. They may come to see themselves as failures in the eyes of their families, their friends, and themselves.

Such mismatched minority students are understandably baffled and often bitter about why this is happening to them. With most other minority students having similar problems, their personal academic struggles take on a collective, racial cast….Read the Rest Here if you can stomach it…