Alabama Chief Justice Learns 11th Commandment

Thou shall not screw with the law of the land!

This guy has been trying to jam his religion down everyone’s throat since he was selected to office. Long past time for him to go.

Anti-Gay Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore Suspended for Gross Judicial Misconduct

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended without pay from the state supreme court on Friday—a suspension that will last through the remainder of his term, which ends in 2018. The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Committee found that Moore violated ethics laws and judicial canons by repeatedly attempting to block same-sex marriage in Alabama long after the federal judiciary required it.

Moore’s misconduct regarding same-sex marriage litigation was sweeping and extensive. In January of 2015, a federal judge invalidated the state’s same-sex marriage ban. Moore promptly wrote letters to probate judges insisting that they remained legally prohibited from marrying gay people—in effect, demanding that they violate a federal court order. In May of that year, the judge explicitly held that probate judges must issue marriage licenses to all couples, same-sex or opposite-sex. The next month, the Supreme Court held that same-sex marriage bans violate the 14^th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Yet in January of 2016, Moore issued yet another letter ordering probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Then, in March, Moore penned a bizarre opinion calling the Supreme Court’s decision “immoral,” “tyrannical,” and “unconstitutional.” He declared that he would refuse to follow it and urged all other state judges to follow suit. In response to Moore’s repeated defiance of federal court orders, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a judicial ethics complaint against him. Moore secured Mat Staver, Kim Davis’ attorney, to defend him.

Alabama’s judicial ethics committee is not a beacon of progressivism. Its judgment in the Moore case begins with a declaration that many members of the committee do not “personally agree” with the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling or think it was “well reasoned.” But the committee unanimously concluded that Moore had abused his position, violated the integrity of the judiciary, failed to comply with the law and perform his duties impartially, and brought “the judicial office into disrepute.” In addition to suspending Moore, the committee ordered him to pay “the costs of this proceeding.”

Moore has already been removed from the bench once, in 2003, for refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a massive granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama State Judicial Building. Alabama voters, however,reelected him in 2012. In response to the Moore proceedings, the Alabama Republican Party is attempting to diminish the ethics’ committee’s independence.

 

Man Attempts to Goad BLM Protesters Into Violence With Racist Outfit

Seems to me this one should fall under the category of attempting to incite a riot.

Hope this boy gets to spend a few months in jail so he can develop “better relations” with black folks…

Student arrested after wearing gorilla mask, handing out bananas at Black Lives Matter protest

An East Tennessee State University student was arrested Wednesday after going to a Black Lives Matter protest on campus wearing a gorilla mask and handing out bananas.

Tristan Rettke, an 18-year-old freshman, wore overalls and a gorilla mask and, wandering barefoot while holding a burlap sack with a Confederate flag and a marijuana leaf on it, offered bananas to students who were protesting, according to a report by ETSU police. He was arrested and charged with civil rights intimidation.

According to campus police, after being read his rights Rettke told officers that a couple of days earlier he had seen on social media that there would be a Black Lives Matter event in the “free speech” area of Borchuck Plaza on the Johnson City, Tenn., campus. He said he went to a store Tuesday to buy rope to tie to a bunch of bananas. While there he also bought the mask and brought it all to the event on Wednesday.

According to the police report, Rettke said the stunt was an attempt to provoke the protesters.

Rettke did not immediately respond to messages from The Washington Post seeking comment Thursday.

Tristan Rettke (Photo courtesy of Washington County Detention Center)

In a video posted on social media, the protesters appear to be trying to ignore Rettke, although one protester says on the video that his hands are shaking with anger. A woman at the protest called police.

The East Tennessean, the newspaper on campus which first reported the incident, quoted one of the protesters explaining why they didn’t react angrily. “I was going to let him stay as long as he wanted to,” Jaylen Grimes told the East Tennessean, “because once white people see how the counterpart of their same culture acts, they can just reflect on that and see, ‘Oh, I’m not like that. Oh, I actually might want to help.’ And they might want to push against what his thoughts and what his beliefs are.”

“Violence is not our answer to anything,” Grimes said. “Because once you fight fire with fire, it just starts a larger fire. And where there’s more fire, there’s more destruction.”

Grimes did not immediately respond to a message from The Washington Post requesting comment Thursday.

It was the latest in a series of ugly incidents on campuses across the country as the school year begins with racial tensions high. This month at the University of Michigan, racially offensive posters were found on campus advising white women not to date black men. At Eastern Michigan University, someone painted KKK and slurs on campus walls. At Kansas State University, a photo of a former student with her face painted black and a racial slur was shared on social media.

Of course… The guy is a Trump Troll.

 

Not a Happy Customer

A customer in France marched into an Apple Store and began to smash the merchandise…

Apparently he was upset about a refund.

The man was arrested outside the store, and charged,

Ouch! Hope this guy won the French Lottery…He’s going to need it to pay for all that!

 

Why YOU Need to Vote – Goose Steppers for Trump

The alt-right white nationalist types know full well there is going to be a payback to them if their man wins…Which is why they are all out to support the Chumph.

White nationalist leader: ‘Every alt-right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign’

Although Donald Trump has repeatedly disavowed the support of David Duke and other white nationalists, they’ve never stopped loving him or his campaign.

In fact, the Los Angeles Times has an interview with several leading white nationalist figures in which they crow about the ways that Trump’s campaign has given them and their ideas publicity that they never would have had otherwise.

In return, it seems that the American neo-Nazi movement is giving Trump an army of grassroots volunteers who will proudly goosestep across the country in their quest to make America great again. For instance, recall Trump campaign volunteer Grace Tilly, who earlier this year was photographed with white supremacist tattoos adorned all over her arms.

“Virtually every alt-right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign,” Andrew Anglin, editor of the white nationalist Daily Stormer website, told the Los Angeles Times.

Infamous former Klan leader David Duke was similarly giddy about what Trump’s campaign had done for his movement, and he told the LA Times that “the fact that Donald Trump’s doing so well, it proves that I’m winning.”

“There’s a connection — it isn’t always policy — but a deep visceral, you could say emotional connection between the alt-right and his campaign,” said Richard Spencer, an alt-right activist who wants to transform the United States into a giant “safe space” for white people. “I think he does recognize that he has this alt-right army behind him…. I think he also realizes if he backs down, if he stops being combative, he is in danger of losing that.”

 

Speaking of Failing Systems

In Europe and probably China – the train system has a number of safety controls which prevent operators from…Driving a train into a platform. Or, as in the case of the wreck in Philadelphia last year, going around a turn at speeds in excess of what the train can handle.

This is all accomplished by the existence of a digital radio system, which monitors and manages the train for unsafe conditions.

The reason we don’t have this is in part the FCC, and in second part Congress, which is often paid by special interests to suppress technology.

So we just get along with what happened today…Again

So far in 2016 – 11 of the rail crashes in the entire world have been in the United States. That’s 22% of all the crashes.

Train Crashes Into Hoboken Terminal, Killing 1, Injuring Scores Of People

A commuter train in New Jersey crashed into Hoboken Terminal in New Jersey on Thursday morning, resulting in multiple injuries and visible structural damage.

One person was killed and at least 65 people were injured, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York. New Jersey transit officials said at least 100 people were hurt, Stephen Nessen of WNYC reports.

Joseph Scott, the CEO of Jersey City Medical Center, said the hospital had admitted some victims in critical or serious condition.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey told MSNBC and CNN shortly before noon Eastern that everyone trapped on the train has been rescued or removed, and that there was no indication that the crash was anything but an accident.

The train that crashed originated in Spring Valley, N.Y., and “collided with the platform” at Hoboken Terminal at around 8:45 a.m. Eastern, Cuomo said in a statement.

Nessen reports that passengers on from the train that crashed say it approached the station at “full speed” before slamming into the barrier at the end of the track, with the impact throwing riders onto the floor.

WNYC’s Nancy Solomon arrived on the scene shortly after the crash, and says she personally saw 20 to 30 injured people, including at least four who were unable to walk.

She says a train had traveled “all the way into the station — not into the waiting room but into the outdoor part where people transfer.”

 

Why Can’t America Build Anymore?

Before Raygun, America was known as a country of engineering marvels. The worlds tallest buildings, the Hoover Dam, the best highway system, soaring bridges…

Not anymore.

You want to see engineering marvels anymore – you have to go to China or Europe.

We got nothing.

The reason for that isn’t “little fish in creeks” which might go extinct…It is conservatives. People who bought into the idea that everything is free. You don’t need taxes, you don’t need bonds – no money at all, because the rich folks are going to take care of it.

In China and Japan – the commuter trains between major cities run 200 MPH. There are a couple which run 300 MPH. In the US – the fastest train runs 125 MPH…over about 50 miles of track, the rest of the time it is running well under 80 MPH.

Rode the TGV in France a few years back from Paris to Marselles. 482 miles in 3 hours or less at 200 MPH with stops. The TGV is capable of speeds of over 320 MPH in perfect track conditions.

The funny thing is, a lot of the engines and engine parts for these super-fast trains are made right here in the USA by General Electric – even though GE is more known for building Freight Engines. GE builds about 80% of the world’s electric motors. GE also owns Alstom, the French Company that makes the TGV.

So the only reason you don’t see those beautiful Orange liveried babies taking you from DC to Boston in 2 hours, or NYC to Chicago in 3 hours…Is political will, and mostly right wing perfidy.

Now Trump, despite Hillary wiping the floor with him in the first debate, made on very good point. Why is it that it costs billions and trillions of dollars to build these weapons systems for the Military anymore…Only to keep winding up with failures?

The new F-35 Fighter jets cost over $200 million apiece to build. One of the aircraft it was supposed to replace was the A-10 Thunderbolt (AKA “Warthog”)…which cost $18.6 million. And, besides being too expensive to lose – the F-35 can’t do the job. Need we discuss tens of billion on the Coast Guard’s new fleet…Which won’t float?

Here are some of the other failures.

What we need here is a new vision. Something similar to President Eisenhower’s Interstate road system… Hopefully the grown-ups will be in control once again after this next election…

And the Yellowback Democrats don’t make another disastrous appearance.

China plans world’s deepest high-speed rail station, right under the Great Wall

Ancient China’s greatest feat of engineering, meet modern China’s.

The Chinese government plans to build the world’s deepest and largest high-speed railway station under a popular section of the Great Wall, as part of plans to link the capital with the site of the 2022 Winter Olympics, state mediareported Thursday.

The station will be situated at Badaling, 50 miles northwest of Beijing, which is already the most popular spot on the Great Wall. It received 30,000 tourists in just one day during the Chinese New Year holiday week, according to the China National Tourism Administration.

The new high-speed rail line will cut the journey time between Beijing and Zhangjiakou, the site of the Winter Olympics, to 50 minutes, from more than three hours now.

Passenger Trains being readied for service in China – capable of speeds over 200 MPH

“The Badaling station will be located 102 meters below the surface, with an underground construction area of 36,000 square meters, equal to five standard soccer fields, making it the deepest and largest high-speed railway station in the world,” Chen Bin, director in charge of construction for China Railway No 5 Engineering Group, told state media.

China’s superlatives rest on some semantic fine-tuning, however. The planned station would be the deepest high-speed rail stop, China says, but not the farthest underground station for passenger rail. In Kiev, for example, the Arsenalna subway platform is billed at more than 105 meters, or 344 feet, below the surface.

Badaling will be one of 10 stations on the 110-mile route, designed to cope with maximum speeds of 215 miles an hour. There will also be a branch line to Chongli, which will host skiing events during the Olympics.

US Passenger train…80 MPH

There was controversy earlier this month when it was revealed that authorities had laid concrete over a crumbling section of the Great Wall in a restoration project criticized as “crude” and “ugly.”

But railway engineers said they will be careful to ensure this construction project does not damage the Unesco world heritage site.

“It will run through mountains where the Great Wall is winding, so we adopted some of the world’s advanced explosion technologies to guarantee it would not affect the Great Wall,” said Luo Duhao, chief engineer of the railway group for the Badaling section.

China has in the midst of an ambitious program of railway construction that is supposed to see it invest $400 billion to build in a 10,000-miles network by 2020.

 

 

Texas Prison Bans Books By Langston Hughes… But Hitler and David Duke Are OK

Yeah…The Aryan Nations Criminal Gang is just fine…Because they are white.

Texas prisons ban books by Shakespeare and Langston Hughes — but Hitler and David Duke are OK

When a prisoner is behind bars, he or she typically has access to a library of donated books to pass the time. There are stories about incarcerated people getting their GED or even taking college classes, others learned enough law to fight for appeals. Then some just read the classics available on the shelves. That is, unless you’re in jail in Texas.

According to the Houston Press, the type of books available are growing smaller and smaller each year. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has consistently been working to rid jails of specific titles for decades, but after banning Wolf Boys due to finding a single page to be offensive, they’re finally drawing public outrage.

The new Dan Slater book is about two Mexican-American teenagers in Texas. They get drawn into a life of crime by the drug cartels and a Mexican-born Texas detective is tasked with finding them. According to reviews, the tale is a little violent and the outlook isn’t great, but according to The Guardian, it serves as a “thoughtful look at American society and the war on drugs.”

Before the book was even published, it was banned due to two sentences that described the way someone smuggled illegal drugs.

“The system is so aggressive and arbitrary,” the author said. “If you asked me to name 100 sentences that might have gotten my book banned those would not have made the list.”

But Slater’s book isn’t the only strange choice. Books by Langston Hughes, Gore Vidal, Flannery O’Connor, Sinclair Lewis and Thomas More have all been banned.

The guidelines for Texas are so loose that realistically anyone could ban any book for any reason. They were supposed to be banned if there is any mention of how to make weapons, drugs or explosives and if there is anything in the book that would “incite a prison riot” or has “sexually explicit images.” By that same logic, The Bible depicts murder, rape, sex and one of it’s leading characters encourages breaking laws and revolts against the King.

Strangely enough, books The Color Purple, which won a Pulitzer Prize, has been banned. A book of Shakespeare’s Sonnets was banned because of a nude painting on the cover. Dante’s Inferno and Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights are also on the blocked list. A collection of Leonardo Da Vinci’s sketches was also banned for nudity, but a kinky sex book titled The Pleasure’s All Mine passed through. To make matters worse, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and David Duke’s My Awakening also get the Texas Corrections sign of approval. As does Che Guevara’s Guerrilla Warfare, proving the book ban is not only arbitrary but ridiculous.

A 2011 investigation from the Texas Civil Rights Project found about 11,800 titles on the banned list. In just five years that’s grown to over 15,000.

While the issue is a national problem, Michelle Dillon, program coordinator of the Seattle-based non-profit Books to Prisoners, told The Guardian, “Texas is less rational than other states.”

To make matters worse, the decision of whether to ban is essentially left up to a mail clerk, who decides when books come in if they’ll be passed through to the inmate or not.

“There is no accountability,” Dillon says. She also noted there’s no consistency because one clerk will let a book go to the inmate while another will ban the same book because he or she is having a bad day or even because he or she has conservative values.

 

Louisiana Cops Chump Out On Their Duty In Response to HS Protest

I don’t think the oath of office cops take in Louisiana says they only get to protect those people they like.

Chickenshit.

All of the Cops who refuse…Should be fired. They don’t deserve to wear the uniform.

Louisiana deputies throw tantrum after teen football players protest national anthem

Sheriff’s deputies in Louisiana have determined a high school football team isn’t worthy of their protection after many players protested police brutality by kneeling during “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

A majority of the players from Bonnabel High School’s varsity football team declined to participate in the national anthem before last week’s game, and a photograph of their protest gained widespread attention, reported WVUE-TV.

The superintendent of Jefferson Parish Schools said he was “taken aback at first,” but he understands the students are acting within their legal rights to refrain from standing during the national anthem.

“They do have a right, and legally we do not have any right to punish or offer any sanctions against the team or team members,” said Isaac Joseph, the superintendent.

But sheriff’s deputies disagree and are refusing to provide security at the school’s games to punish the team for their expression.

“My understanding is, we’ve had some officers that said they will not work the Bonnabel High football games,” said Sheriff Newell Normand. “I understand why, in light of Colin Kaepernick’s comments, specifically when he says, ‘Cops are getting paid leave for killing people.’ That’s not right, that’s not right by anyone’s standards. The fact of the matter is we risk our lives each and every day for the safety and security of our constituency throughout this country.”

Normand said some of his deputies are refusing to sign up for the voluntary security detail.

“The same way that the Bonnabel players have every right to kneel during the national anthem, my officers have every right not to volunteer to work the Bonnabel high school football game,” said the Jefferson Parish sheriff.

He’s sure there will be enough deputies to work the extra security detail and he won’t allow the school to go without protection, but Normand won’t force deputies to work if they feel disrespected by the students’ protest.

“That fuels the disappointment in my officers when they see this happen, and I can fully understand their disappointment and frustration,” Normand said. “When they’re on the clock and they’re working for me, they’ve got to do what they’ve got to do, because that’s what they’re hired to do. That’s not what this is – this is a voluntary detail where they volunteer to work this extra detail separate and apart from what they’re hired to do.”

He said the refusal is no different than when deputies decline to work security details for concerts or events if they disagree with the artist or message.

 

 

Taco Trucks on Every Corner…Registering Voters

One of the reasons I believe the polls showing the Chumph being within a few points of Hillary (or tied) are wrong is the fact they are mostly based on what are called “likely voters”. Just as in 2008 and 2012, those polls massively miss the number of new voters. The likely voters model favors older whites and utterly misses minority voters because their voting record tends to be spotty.

This year, over 4 million Hispanic voters have newly registered. One of the driving reasons behind that is the Chumps racism against Hispanics. So…Most of the polls have a 4 million voter under-count – roughly 90% of which is going to vote for Hillary.

I love what these folks in Texas are doing. Turn Texas BLUE!

‘Register to vote, get a taco’: Houston taco trucks put voter registration booths ‘on every corner’

Taco trucks of Houston, Texas have joined together to become voter registration booths.

Earlier this month, Latinos for Trump founder Marco Gutierrez warned that there would be “taco trucks on every corner” if Donald Trump lost the 2016 presidential election.

That prompted designer Thomas Hull to team up with Latino activist group Mi Familia Vota to turn the taco trucks of Texas into voter registration booths, according toHouston Public Media.

Hull explained to KBMT that he found Gutierrez’s comments humorous “because here in Houston we do have taco trucks on every corner and love them.”

“Listening to the debate last night, people are starting to clue in to the fact that however you vote, your vote will effect you and your personal life,” Hull added.

 

Another Police Shooting – San Diego

Another controversial Police shooting, this time in San Diego of a mentally ill black man.

 

California police shoots and critically wounds man who witnesses say was unarmed with hands showing 

San Diego-area police critically wounded a man who witnesses said was mentally ill and unarmed with his hands in the air Tuesday afternoon.

Gunfire rang out around 2 p.m. local time in a parking lot at the Broadway Village Shopping Center in El Cajon, Calif., cops said. Witnesses and family members said that the as-yet-unidentified man shot by police is a mentally-challenged black man.

The man didn’t follow orders when officers arrived on the scene, El Cajon police spokesman Rob Ransweiler told reporters at a news conference. The officers showed up at Broadway and N. Mollison Ave. after three separate radio calls reporting the man’s “erratic” behavior, Ransweiler said, adding he was “walking in traffic, that kind of stuff.”

Ransweiler said a single officer opened fire. The unidentified victim was rushed to a hospital where he was in critical condition Tuesday evening.

It was not immediately clear if the victim was armed when he was shot. Ransweiler disputed witness accounts the man had his hands in the air, adding he was “confident that the community will support the decision made by the officer.”

“The investigation just started, but based on the video voluntarily provided by a witness, the subject did NOT have his hands up in the air,” El Cajon police said on Twitter late Tuesday.

Nonetheless, several dozen people gathered at the scene of the shooting roughly 15 miles outside San Diego. Many cursed at officers guarding the scene and video showed several protesters at one point pushing through police tape.

An employee at a nearby restaurant said her colleague voluntarily turned over a cell phone with video of the shooting to police.

The San Diego ACLU chapter said it’s too early to condemn the officer who opened fire, but blasted the El Cajon police department for seizing eyewitnesses’ cellphones.

“By seizing phones, police would likely be preventing the dissemination of video captured by bystanders,” the organization said in a statement. “The public has the right to film police in public places, and police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photos or video without a warrant.”

 

United Nations – The US Owes Reparations

The UN is on a roll this week… The “Racial Terrorism” part is ongoing.

How about some legislation which covers the ground in terms of the Justice System mentioned by Hillary Clinton in the debate last night…

As well as some anti-discrimination laws with teeth.

United Nations: US owes blacks reparations over slavery and ‘racial terrorism’

The United States should give African Americans reparations for slavery, UN experts said Tuesday, warning that the country had not yet confronted its legacy of “racial terrorism.”

Amid a presidential election campaign in which racial rhetoric has played a central role, the UN working group on people of African descent warned that blacks in the US were facing a “human rights crisis.”

This has largely been fuelled by impunity for police officers who have killed a series of black men — many of them unarmed — across the country in recent months, the working group’s report said.

Those killings “and the trauma they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynchings,” said the report, which was presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday.

Addressing the deeper causes of America’s racial tensions, the experts voiced concern over the unresolved “legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality.”

“There has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report said.

Working group chairman Ricardo A. Sunga told reporters that the panel believed several models of reparations could work in the US context, including “elements of apology” and a form of “debt relief” to the descendants of enslaved people.

Asked about the campaign and accusations that Republican nominee Donald Trump has made racially inflammatory remarks, Sunga voiced alarm over “hate speech…xenophobia (and) Afrophobia.”

“We are very troubled that these are on the rise,” he added, without naming Trump specifically but calling on officials and “even candidates” to watch their words.

Trump and his camp have denied all racism charges.

In the campaign’s first debate on Monday, Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton accused Trump of launching his campaign on the “racist lie” that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

The UN working group visited the several US states in January before producing their final report.

 

The “Money” Moves on North Carolina

When the big money pulls the plug on a state or country…You are well and truly screwed.

The “bathroom Bill” in North Carolina has already cost the state $400 million in revenue. The NCAA has pulled out, The NBA has pulled out. Even the flagship ACC Tournament has pulled out…Not to mention major companies like Paypal who have cut expansion plans and are looking for another place to locate.

When the big money moves …That means there isn’t going to be any shiny new Volkswagen or Toyota plant in your state. Your Bond rating takes a hit, and it becomes increasingly difficult to borrow money. It becomes increasingly difficult for the companies in your state to borrow money because of insurance bonds (meaning they leave…quickly). If you really piss these guys off, your state economy is F87545ed.

The problem in North Carolina has gone from a really stupid set of laws put in place by right wing Tea Party whack jobs – to the loss of confidence in the State legislators and Governor to manage the state’s affairs in the best interest in the state. So even if the Governor sees the light tomorrow, he has screwed his state out of at least $2 billion in business revenue, and he and the wing nuts have tarnished the state’s reputation long term.

The folks in the state who aren’t rock stupid right wingdizzies need to have one of those marches on the Capital with some tar, feathers, and a rail to save things at this point.

Gay people can get isht done in this country…Too bad so many bad black leaders don’t understand how.

Investors Worth $2.1 Trillion Want NC To Flush ‘Bathroom Bill’

The group warns that the bill’s damages could soon be “irreversible.”

The fallout from North Carolina’s House Bill 2 continues six months after Gov. Pat McCrory signed it into law.

In the latest blow to the controversial “bathroom bill,” 60 investment managers from across the country representing more than $2.1 trillion in managed assets have called for the state to repeal the law, which effectively bars transgender people from using the restroom that best corresponds with their gender identity.

The chief executive officer of Trillium Asset Management, which has an office in Durham, North Carolina, warned that the Tar Heel State could be headed for “a state-government-inflicted recession” because of the bill, which McCrory hasaggressively defended since signing March 23, the Associated Press reports.

Blasting North Carolina for having “written discrimination into state law,” Matt Patsky told The Charlotte Observer that the “unintended consequence has been a backlash that is having material, negative impact on the economy of the state. HB2 must be repealed immediately before this damage becomes irreversible.”

Patsky spoke at a Monday news conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he presented the initiative on behalf of Trillium along with other organizers, including Croatan Institute, an environmental research group, and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Unfortunately, McCrory didn’t seem fazed by the latest opposition. Officials from the Republican governor’s re-election campaign released a statement from McCrory Monday that read, “For New York hedge fund billionaires to lecture North Carolina about how to conduct its affairs is the height of hypocrisy.” The statement, whichcan be read in full on local ABC affiliate WTVD’s site, also blasted Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton for having raised “ungodly amounts of money” from Wall Street for her own campaign.

Still, McCrory’s statement overlooks the fact that his state has been experiencingnear-constant pushback from various industries over the controversial bill. Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Cirque du Soleil have all opted out of North Carolina performances in the wake of the legislation, and the law was also cited by Deutsche Bank and PayPal as incentive to scrap expansion plans in the state.

The governor’s decision to back the bill in spite of the backlash hasn’t gone over too well with residents, either. A Monmouth University poll published in August found that 55 percent of North Carolina voters opposed House Bill 2, while seven out of 10 voters believe it had hurt North Carolina’s national reputation.

 

 

Most Improved Bigot Ribbon

 

The Coming University Trainwreck

Discrimination is the new normal.

An Ivy League professor on why colleges don’t hire more faculty of color: ‘We don’t want them’

In “The five things no one will tell you about why colleges don’t hire more faculty of color,” a piece first published in the Hechinger Report, Marybeth Gasman took on a common question: Why aren’t college faculties more racially diverse? 

It’s a question gaining increased urgency from student protesters demanding change on campuses nationally.

While giving a talk about Minority Serving Institutions at a recent higher education forum, I was asked a question pertaining to the lack of faculty of color at many majority institutions, especially more elite institutions.

My response was frank: “The reason we don’t have more faculty of color among college faculty is that we don’t want them. We simply don’t want them.” Those in the audience were surprised by my candor and gave me a round of applause for the honesty.

Given the short amount of time I had on the stage, I couldn’t explain the evidence behind my statement. I will do so here. I have been a faculty member since 2000, working at several research universities. In addition, I give talks, conduct research and workshops and do consulting related to diversifying the faculty across the nation. I have learned a lot about faculty recruitment over 16 years and as a result of visiting many colleges and universities.

First, the word ‘quality’ is used to dismiss people of color who are otherwise competitive for faculty positions. Even those people on search committees that appear to be dedicated to access and equity will point to ‘quality’ or lack of ‘quality’ as a reason for not hiring a person of color.

Typically, ‘quality’ means that the person didn’t go to an elite institution for their Ph.D. or wasn’t mentored by a prominent person in the field. What people forget is that attending the elite institutions and being mentored by prominent people is linked to social capital and systemic racism ensures that people of color have less of it.

Second, the most common excuse I hear is ‘there aren’t enough people of color in the faculty pipeline.’

It is accurate that there are fewer people of color in some disciplines such as engineering or physics. However, there are great numbers of Ph.D.’s of color in the humanities and education and we still don’t have great diversity on these faculties.

When I hear someone say people of color aren’t in the pipeline, I respond with ‘Why don’t you create the pipeline?’ ‘Why don’t you grow your own?’

Since faculty members are resistant to hiring their own graduates, why not team up with several other institutions that are ‘deemed to be of high quality’ and bring in more Ph.D.s of color from those institutions?

If you are in a field with few people of color in the pipeline, why are you working so hard to ‘weed’ them out of undergraduate and Ph.D. programs? Why not encourage, mentor, and support more people of color in your field?

Third, I have learned that faculty will bend rules, knock down walls, and build bridges to hire those they really want (often white colleagues) but when it comes to hiring faculty of color, they have to ‘play by the rules’ and get angry when any exceptions are made.

Let me tell you a secret – exceptions are made for white people constantly in the academy; exceptions are the rule in academe.

Fourth, faculty search committees are part of the problem.

They are not trained in recruitment, are rarely diverse in makeup, and are often more interested in hiring people just like them rather than expanding the diversity of their department.

They reach out to those they know for recommendations and rely on ads in national publications.

And, even when they do receive a diverse group of applicants, often those applicants ‘aren’t the right fit’ for the institution. What is the ‘right fit’? Someone just like you?

Fifth, if majority colleges and universities are truly serious about increasing faculty diversity, why don’t they visit Minority Serving Institutions — institutions with great student and faculty diversity — and ask them how they recruit a diverse faculty.

This isn’t hard. The answers are right in front of us. We need the will.

For those reading this essay, you might be wondering why faculty diversity is important. Your wondering is yet another reason why we don’t have a more diverse faculty. Having a diverse faculty — in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion — adds greatly to the experiences of students in the classroom. It challenges them — given that they are likely not to have had diversity in their K-12 classroom teachers — to think differently about who produces knowledge. It also challenges them to move away from a ‘white-centered’ approach to one that is inclusive of many different voices and perspectives.

Having a diverse faculty strengthens the faculty and the institution as there is more richness in the curriculum and in conversations taking place on committees and in faculty meetings. A diverse faculty also holds the university accountable in ways that uplift people of color and center issues that are important to the large and growing communities of color across the nation.

Although I have always thought it vital that our faculty be representative of the nation’s diversity, we are getting to a point in higher education where increasing faculty diversity is an absolute necessity and crucial to the future of our nation.

In 2014, for the first time, the nation’s K-12 student population was majority minority. These students are on their way into colleges and universities and we are not prepared for them. Our current faculty lacks expertise in working with students of color and our resistance to diversifying the faculty means that we are not going to be ready anytime soon.

I’ll close by asking you to think deeply about your role in recruiting and hiring faculty. How often do you use the word ‘quality’ when talking about increased diversity? Why do you use it? How often do you point to the lack of people of color in the faculty pipeline while doing nothing about the problem?

How many books, articles, or training sessions have you attended on how to recruit faculty of color?

How many times have you reached out to departments with great diversity in your field and asked them how they attract and retain a diverse faculty?

How often do you resist when someone asks you to bend the rules for faculty of color hires but think it’s absolutely necessary when considering a white candidate (you know, so you don’t lose such a wonderful candidate)?

Rather than getting angry at me for pointing out a problem that most of us are aware of, why don’t you change your ways and do something to diversify your department or institution’s faculty?

I bet you don’t, but I sure hope you do.

 

Hillary Opens a 10 Gallon Can of Whoop-A on the Chumph

10 Gallon?

Yeah … Apparently she is saving the other 90 for future “debates”.

While she scored big points on his Tax Returns, DOJ Discrimination lawsuits, and bankruptcies…She left out his numerous fraudulent businesses (Trump University, Trump steaks, Trump wine), his comments on “Mexican rapists”, and the black community. Next time.

She pricked his ego time after time, which led to the typical Chumph meltdown.

Then she calmly explained detailed policy proposals including ending mass incarceration, the shutdown of private prisons, fixing the judicial system, and retraining Police.

While self described rich guy Chumph bragged about not paying taxes, went into several rants about how people loved him, and being a “successful” businessman.

MELTDOWN!

Now – none of this is going to change the minds of his base, because his base is motivated by racism. And you can’t reason anyone out of a position which reason didn’t get them into in the first place.

Last Night a poll was released by The Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University which seems to derail a lot of the polling showing the Chumph catching up to Hillary-

1. In a head-to-head matchup, Clinton is favored by 48 percent of likely voters in Virginia, and Trump is backed by 38 percent.
2. In the two-way matchup, Clinton leads Trump among women by 28 points, 57 percent to 29 percent. Trump, however, has an advantage among men, 49 percent to 37 percent.
3. Clinton leads among white, college-educated voters, 45 percent to 40 percent, and Trump has a large advantage among noncollege educated white voters, 64 percent to 24 percent.
4. According to the poll, 53 percent of Virginia voters think Trump is racist.

Admittedly, there are a lot of uneducated white men out there…But not enough to win an election.

Hillary’s Trump trap: Clinton laid a series of snares, and Donald charged right into them

Hillary Clinton had two tasks for that debate: Looking presidential and making Trump look like a fool. Nailed it

There’s an iconic scene at the end of the dark 1980s comedy classic “Heathers” in which Veronica (Winona Ryder), watches J.D. (Christian Slater), an occasionally charming but mostly terrifying psychopath, blow himself up. J.D., who is forever ranting and raving about how the world doesn’t respect him enough, had intended to destroy their high school with his bomb. Veronica was able, through great effort, to stop him. Victorious, she puts her cigarette in her mouth, waits and watches as J.D.’s own bomb destroys him, while also lighting her cigarette.

That’s how the first general election presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump played out Monday night.

The high school that is our nation isn’t safe yet, but Clinton did exactly what she needed to do during this first debate: She established herself as smart, calm and presidential, and then stood silently by while her opponent blew himself up.

As an experiment, I eschewed reading Twitter or watching post-debate analysis on cable news in order to watch the proceedings in a packed bar in Brooklyn. The crowd wasn’t a cross-section of America, to be sure, but they were exactly the liberal base that Clinton needs to get fired up for November, and from my vantage point, she did exactly that. She staked out openly progressive positions on a variety of issues, ranging from job creation to criminal justice reform (her comments about implicit bias and the evils of stop-and-frisk went over especially well with the New York crowd). She emphasized, with repeated references to her website, that she is the candidate who actually has policy proposals to get things done, instead of vague, hyperbolic promises.

But it was clear that Clinton’s main goal was goading Trump into revealing his true self, and proving conclusively that no amount of training or pleading from aides will turn Trump from the narcissistic hothead that he is into someone that can be trusted with the nuclear codes. The plan worked, and from Clinton’s triumphant and eminently gif-able wiggle in the middle of the debate, it’s clear that she knew it.

Trump began the debate with a subdued tone, eschewing his usual shouting for a half-hearted imitation of what a responsible statesman looks like, and maintained that composure for a whopping 10 minutes, perhaps even 15. Then Clinton rolled out her first piece of bait.

“You know, Donald was very fortunate in his life, and that’s all to his benefit,” she said. “He started his business with $14 million, borrowed from his father, and he really believes that the more you help wealthy people, the better off we’ll be and that everything will work out from there.”

Clinton went on to detail how she would prefer to invest in the middle class, and from then it was on. Trump took the bait, issuing an angry defense of his father giving him money, and with the plug pulled out, the incoherent ranting lunatic that he was barely containing inside came pouring out.

And the angrier Trump got, the more confident Clinton became (as you do when your carefully laid plans blossom into glorious fruition). She was even able to pull off a number of zingers, which are not exactly her strong suit.

Much credit goes to moderator Lester Holt, who largely steered away from “gotcha” questions that so many journalists mistake for hard questions, leaning more towards open-ended, policy-oriented questions. Conservatives will no doubt be furious, since answering such questions requires coherence and an ability to explain the details, two skills Trump hasn’t mastered. But it’s worth remembering this is a presidential race, not a kindergarten class. If Trump can’t handle the basics of being a politician, the voters need to know that.

The most telling section of the debate was the lengthy exchange about race and criminal justice. Clinton emphasized the value of nuanced policy that balances the need for safety with protecting human rights: Training police to address racism, ending the private prison system, enacting gun safety measures to reduce violent crime, getting rid of unjust mandatory minimum sentences and doing more to help people with mental health issues so they don’t end up in ugly encounters with police.

Trump, in contrast, claimed that “African-Americans, Hispanics are living in hell” andcompared living in major American cities to living in a “war-torn country.” He then suggested that black voters are a bunch of dupes who have “been abused and used in order to get votes by Democrat politicians.”

At that point it got even worse for Trump, because Holt asked him the question that countless people have been demanding:

Mr. Trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim that the nation’s first black president was not a natural-born citizen. You questioned his legitimacy. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: The president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?

Rather than answer the question, Trump rolled out an incoherent right-wing conspiracy theory accusing the 2008 Clinton campaign of starting the birther movement. (It didn’t, and her campaign was diligent about firing people who spread the rumor).

He then crowed, “She failed to get the birth certificate. When I got involved, I didn’t fail. I got him to give the birth certificate.”

Clinton knew better than to dispute a conspiracy theory that’s really only known to people who refresh Breitbart all day long.

Instead, she responded by saying, “Well, just listen to what you heard.”

She then reminded the audience both that she was working for Obama when Trump was dogging him about his birth certificate and that Trump has a history of being sued by the Department of Justice for racial discrimination.

His response? “We settled the suit with zero — with no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do.”

And then again, for emphasis: “Because I settled that lawsuit with no admission of guilt, but that was a lawsuit brought against many real estate firms, and it’s just one of those things.”

Perhaps “no admission of guilt” should be the Trump campaign’s new motto. It has a certain ring to it.