Un-freakin’ believable!
And you wonder why people think Cops are racist.
Two clips on this incident. The first from a guy in Texas –
This one from Cenk –
Tag Archives: response
A Tale of Two Detroits – Trumps Speech at a Black Church
First – in fairness Trump’s speech at a black church in Detroit. Kudos to the Church Members for giving a warm, respectful black American welcome.
“As his remarks ended, church leaders then placed a Jewish prayer shawl upon Trump’s shoulders,” the Detroit Free Press reports.
And BTW – there was a Taco Truck parked outside the Church…
Doing a Box Office business.
Taco Truck Owner Racks Up Sales At Trump Event In Detroit
Free Hug Project – Sanders/Trump Rallies
What sort of people attend Trump and Sanders events?
How do the attendees handle social contact?
Ken Nwadike started his “Free Hugs” campaign after the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon. The response was both warm and amazing and made the National News.
This year he attended both Sanders and Trump events…The differences in response were amazing and say a lot about the people who support each candidate.
Governor Nikki Haley Does the Unthinkable
As remarkable as President Obama’s speech last night was, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s speech was an unexpected breath of fresh air. No, she didn’t stray from failed conservative policies and beliefs in terms of taxes, opposition to Obamacare, and virtual slavery by the rich. But what she did do was two very important things. First admit Republican culpability for the gridlock and failure of Government at the National level. And second, denounce the bloviating voices of the far right advancing hate against immigrants and minorities.
For that heresy, she is being excoriated in the conservative press. Because bigots have to be bigots, a lot of the vitriol aimed at her is based on the fact that she is the child of immigrants from a brown country.
Right-wing backlash to Nikki Haley’s GOP State of the Union response grows to reveal ugly racial undertones
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley finds herself in the unenviable position of having the just delivered the dreaded (and perhaps cursed?) Republican response to President Obama’s seventh, and final State of the Union address. While by nearly all measures she outperformed her predecessors, Haley has come under withering criticism from the most conservative voices in her party the morning after — voices like commentator Ann Coulter’s who demanded the rising GOP star and daughter of Indian immigrants be deported.
Coulter, who dismissed Haley’s move to remove the confederate flag from the capitol state grounds last summer, arguing that “she’s an immigrant and does not understand America’s history,” continued her attacks on the Republican governor and her heritage after Haley aimed significant portions of her response speech at criticizing growing anti-immigrant sentiments within the GOP base.
When Haley recited lines like, “during anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation,” she was implicitly taking a swipe at GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, as she confirmed to NBC News this morning: “Mr. Trump has definitely contributed to what I believe is irresponsible talk.”
Trump enthusiasts and right-wing conservatives, of course, were none too pleased with Haley’s pile-on after President Obama devoted significant portions of his final address to push-back against Trump’s brand of xenophobia:
Tavis Smiley Obliterates Donald Trump on Don Lemon’s CNN Show
Don was searching for an angle to support his boy, Trump…But it didn’t work. Tavis UNLOADS!
Trump’s attack on Tavis Smiley backfires when PBS host skewers him for pandering to racists
Tavis Smiley, author and public television talk show host, hit back at Donald Trump for calling him a racist, noting that the GOP presidential candidate had failed to condemn the white supremacists who support his 2016 campaign.
The host of Tavis Talks on PBS went on the ABC talk show This Week and said Trump is an “unrepentant, irascible religious and racial arsonist” for his comments calling undocumented immigrants criminals and calling for a ban on Muslims entering the country. In response, Trump tweeted that Smiley is a “hater & racist.”
When asked about his comment by CNN host Don Lemon on Monday night, Smiley repeated it and also said the news media is asking the wrong questions when it comes to Trump’s prominence among American voters.
“What troubles me quite frankly is that we keep talking about… Trump rising in the polls as if somehow this is happening miraculously,” Smiley said.” It’s happening in part because, as your lead-in shows with these now white supremacists supporting him — it’s happening because he’s appealing to a certain base voter in this country. He’s appealing to the dark side, the night side of America and that’s why he’s rising in the polls. And we ought not cover him without condemning him for doing that.”
Smiley then chided Trump about his tweet.
“First of all, for a guy with a Wharton degree, he’s got to do better than ‘hater and racist,’” Smiley said. “Can we just remove the word ‘hater’ from our lexicon?”
He then question how Trump could conclude that Smiley was a racist after failing to condemn a white supremacist group for making campaign robocalls for his campaign.
“I’m on your program tonight because I made a comment about Donald Trump yesterday on a morning show,” Smiley said. “And within a matter of hours, Donald Trump had tweeted about me… So if that story broke over the weekend about this white supremacist — again, he can’t be responsible for who is supporting him. But how can he get around to calling me a racist and a hater in less than 24 hours, but since the weekend he hasn’t gotten around to condemning a white supremacist for supporting his campaign.”
He then pointed out that “nobody in the media is asking these questions.”
Winning the War With ISIS
One of the reasons Republicans avoid the issue of what to do against ISIS – other than to sabre rattle for the easily mislead low intelligence base, and Democrats have a hard time enunciating a strategy is that the only way to actually end the ISIS threat involves a number of politically unpalatable choices. And I don’t mean toesies on the ground type stupid.
ISIS, like Al Qaeda is a creation of the wahabi sect. Said sect is financially supported and provided cover throughout the Middle East by (gasp) our “friend and ally” Saudi Arabia.
There are two basic ways to end Middle East Terrorism:
- Go “Medieval”
- Destroy the engine driving the creation of new terrorists.
#1 is executed by raising the level of terror, regardless of civilian casualties to the level nobody in the Middle East will ever want to consider attacking the West again. Red Army/Roman obliteration of enough folks, everyone else is too busy hiding under a rock to cause any more trouble. Think WWII and Dresden or Hiroshima type destruction. Make it clear that in any further terrorist attack the home cities, or cities in which they trained will be leveled. It may take Hitler/Stalin level carnage to get the message through.
#2 is to go after the source. Ergo, pick a Holy Day, and declare a drone free day simultaneously bombing each and every Mosque and Madrassa in the Middle East where Wahabi Witch Doctors spew their hate. Within 24 hrs, completely shut down all Saudi (and Turkey) international holdings, whether gold, property, or money, and deport all Saudi Citizens from the US (and Europe). Cut the entire financial string. Seize all ships, businesses, and other assets. Pick the hometowns of the current ISIS and Al Qaeda Leaders, Send a few dozen B-52’s and obliterate it – whether they are there or not. Declare null and void all treaties, toss Turkey out of NATO, and declare them Pariah States until such time as the Governments take substantive action to end the support of, and financing the proselytization of Wahhabism worldwide, and material or other support for ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Of course such will likely cause the collapse of the tottering House of Saud…And possibly an internal revolution in Turkey. Let them fight each other, with the understanding that should the fundamentalist crazies win – the only thing they have done is to provide hard targets.
And lastly…Learn to live with ourselves afterward.
How ISIS pacifies an area
Paris Attack Shows Why Al Qaeda Might Have Been Right About ISIS All Along
At this point, there are important components to events which are not clear: Were the plans for the downing of the Russian airliner in Sinai, last week’smultiple suicide attacks in Beirut and the bombings in Paris, conceived within the Islamic State leadership and the operations executed according to the wishes and directions of the ISIS leadership in Raqqa or Mosul?
President François Hollande implied a connection to Raqqa, but gives no evidence. But if this indeed is so, and let us presume it is, it signals a major shift in strategy by ISIS. The consequences imply that the West may no longer be able to fend off acknowledging the Wahhabist origins of movements such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, nor ignore their umbilical connection to Saudi Arabia, which has succored them — even as the House of Saud now fears that its monstrous progeny is intent on “cleansing”Arabia of the Al Saud themselves, and returning it the pristine Wahhabism on which Saudi Arabia originally was founded — the “one, true Islam” that ISIS insists upon.
In the wake of 9/11, the fact that 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi citizens was airbrushed out from the landscape in favor of claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — which Washington wished the world would focus on more. It will not be so easy to ignore the historic dimension now.
America may have to take a deep breath and fundamentally reconsider the nature of its alliances with the likes of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which both openly proclaimedtheir intent, in Syria today, to go on aiding the gamut of these Caliphate forces (ISIS, Al Qaeda and Ahrar al-Sham). Recall that ordinary Syrians have been living Paris’ Friday terror on a daily basis, for five years now. It is hard to see how the West can continue its ambiguous game of footsie with such forces, in the wake of what may have happened in Sinai, in Beirut and Paris.
So, what can have prompted this major strategic shift by ISIS? Well, there has always been one major point of dissent between Al Qaeda and ISIS: Al Qaeda’s leadership hassaid, openly, that it believes that ISIS had erred by proclaiming the Caliphate, the Islamic State. The ISIS proclamation was premature and the conditions were not propitious, Al Qaeda’s leaders stated.
Al Qaeda military operations focus on the “vexation and exhaustion” of America and its Western allies, which would eventually lead to an overextension of Western forces in many ways: morally, militarily, politically and economically. A reflection of this different approach to ISIS has been Al Qaeda’s willingness to work and cooperate with other insurgent forces in Syria; whereas ISIS rejects cooperation, demanding instead absolute allegiance and obedience.
ISIS opted for the absolute: an all out push to establish God’s “Principality” (a Caliphate), here and now, on physical territory, with borders, administration, Sharia law and a system of justice. The big difference between the two movements in effect, is “territoriality.” Al Qaeda is global, ephemeral and virtual, whereas ISIS is territorial.
But what if ISIS fears to lose this territoriality? Strange things are happening in Syria. Villages that have been held by ISIS for two years are falling to government forces in hours. Everywhere small gains are being made by the Syrian army or its allies, across contested areas. It is too early to say that ISIS is collapsing — but a part of it may be.
And if ISIS begins to lose its distinguishing feature — that it is a territorial power in Syria and Iraq — then perhaps its leadership might conclude that Ayman al-Zawahiri was right: Al Qaeda was right, and ISIS, if it faces losing its territoriality, must adopt Al Qaeda strategies (Al Qaeda has already called for a united stand with ISIS against the Russian and Iranian interventions in Syria).
But what, on the other hand, if this is not a strategic decision by the ISIS leadership, but rather that the bomb on the Russian aircraft and the suicide bombings in Beirut and Paris were spontaneous, copycat attacks by local elements and not conceived, ordered and operationally initiated in Raqqa or Mosul?
In this case, Europe has a different problem — but one no less serious. In some ways, the public evidence does not lean towards a Raqqa-led initiative. It leans the other way. From what we know to date, all of those involved in the Paris attacks were European citizens. In short, it was a case of European on European war. It is not clear that any of the perpetrators were returnees from the conflict in Syria (the authenticity of the Syrian passport found at the scene has been questioned).
And if there was no direct order from the ISIS command, there is prima facie in Europe, a shadow Al Qaeda-like structure taking shape: the attacks in Paris were well-planned, prepared and executed. The claims of responsibility are not definitive: there have been examples where Islamic leaderships have accepted responsibility andclaimed an attack even when they did not order it — and whereby claiming it, severely damaged the movement.
Robert Fisk has noted:
Omar Ismail Mostafai, one of the suicide killers in Paris, was of Algerian origin — and so, too, may be other named suspects. Said and Cherif Kouachi, the brothers who murdered the Charlie Hebdo journalists, were also of Algerian parentage. They came from the five million-plus Algerian community in France, for many of whom the Algerian war never ended, and who live today in the slums of Saint-Denis and other Algerian banlieues of Paris.
If this is so then not just France, but other European states, too, will need to take a deep breath and wonder how their policies have metamorphosed, from ostensible multiculturalism, into a “soft apartheid” in which Europe’s Muslim citizens feel the discrimination and contempt of many of their fellow citizens… Read the rest here…
One Ghanaian African View of the Gates “Blame” Article
Because we are having a really good discussion here (and I thank James for his contributions to the discussion) – I thought I would throw this one in as indicative of what Africans think of the Gates article. This one is from Modern Ghana by Paul I. Adujie. I haven’t been able to pull up reactions from Nigeria yet.
Ending The Slavery Blame-Game By Henry Louis Gates, A Rejoinder
Nigerian-American Designer Lola Faturoti's New Obama Inspired Attire
It is with considerable agitation, and extreme irritation, with which I read Henry Louis Gates’ pedestrian essay on slave trade and reparations, published in The New York Times, titled Ending The Slavery Blame-Game.
Louis Gates is obviously seeking relevance and redemption after his arrogant altercations with a Cambridge police officer in 2009. Louis Gates it will be recalled, engaged in a shouting match in belligerent, intransigent and cantankerous manner, as he prevented a police officer from carrying out legitimate police work. At that time, it was pointed out by some, that Louis Gates was merely engaged in racial racketeering, as he accused the police officer of racism without basis. An accusation and serious charge of racism against a fine police officer, which was not based on the facts and the evidences.
Perhaps it is Henry Louis Gates’ calling card and nature, to make sundry conclusions while shirking away from the intellectual dexterity required to sift through facts and evidences, and engage in empirical analysis, particularly so, for anyone with pretension to academic credentials, and with desire to be taken seriously. In the all important matter of slave trade, slavery and overdue reparations, Gates has come with a claptrap and a hack job to absolve, exculpate and exonerate his historical tormentors?
Louis Gates lazily, engaged in this silly pretensions to rewrite and revise the well settled history of the profound evil of slavery, the worst evil, in human history, and yet, Gates offered obfuscations and parroting of recycled garbage, and sought to cover all these with his happenstance of being a Harvard University employee!
Gates’ inane contribution to revisionists efforts at retelling of the horrors and brutalities of slave trade is shameful. Gates writes about the slave trade as some sorts of friendly business transactions between willing seller and equally willing buyer, as would seller and buyer of pork barrels or barrels of sweet crude or commodities at the New York or Chicago Stock Exchanges; in which merchants of equal statuses seal deals with warm and endearing handshakes, with scheduled caviar and cocktails to follow.
Gates’ flimsy portrayals of Africans as conspiring, conniving and colluding collaborators, with those who came from thousands of miles to far away Africa, to kidnap, snatch and bundles and brutalize Africans into slavery, is an effort, which is worse than useless on the part of Gates. Gates’ melodramatic lies failed to inform his readers of Oba Ovoramwen of Benin, a king of the Bini Kingdom who was dethroned and exiled outside of his domain, because he opposed Europeans horrors and brutalities and oppression in his kingdom. And there were many others like Oba Ovaramwen and the Mau Mau, during slavery and colonialism, who opposed Europeans, and paid with their lives or were jailed by Europeans! Gates obviously have not read a single page about Belgian Congo and King Leopold? Read the rest of this entry »
Btx3's Blog 