Hating in America again, and sleeping while black.

       The funniest part about the Donald trump David Duke flap is watching folks like Joe Scarborough act as if  him (trump) not quickly disavowing Duke and the Klan will actually hurt him in the South.

Scarborough and his co-host seemed shocked this morning when he talked about trump thinking that disavowing Duke would somehow hurt him among Southern white voters. Not.

He just got the endorsement of Jeff Sessions (Google this man when you get a chance) who is a known segregationist that called the  NAACP a "commie" organization for crying out loud.

Say what you will about trump, he knows where his bread is buttered, and he knows, like the rest of us who observe racial issues in America, that not disavowing Duke and the Klan will actually help him among white voters in the South.

Sorry Joe, this is what your political party has become.

Give credit to Jake Tapper (the man who initially lobbed what he thought was a softball question to trump about Duke, but got the non- answer which is causing this latest media flap) he knows that this will only help trump among GOP voters. The right- wing media is already jumping to trump's defense, and to them this as just another case of liberals going after a good man. Give me a break!

Anyway, trump is now blaming his actions this past Sunday on a bad television earpiece.

"I'm sitting in a house in Florida with a very bad earpiece that they gave me," Trump said on NBC's Today show regarding an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. "And you can hardly hear what he was saying."

 (Yes, because it's so hard to understand the words Klu lux Klan) 

Maybe Mr. trump didn't want to disavow the Klan because he has deeper ties to that organization than we first thought.

If papa trump was still alive I suspect that he would have been mixing it up in Anaheim, California on Saturday. That is where a bunch of Klansmen and their supporters were mixing it up with some other folks.

I say that because it seems that papa Trump was brawling back in the day with some Klansmen and it got him in a bit of trouble.

"A newly surfaced report from a 1927 edition of the New York Times suggests Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's late father may have had a connection to the Ku Klux Klan.

A man named Fred Trump was among those arrested in a massive brawl between KKK members and police at a 1927 Memorial Day parade in New York City, according to a contemporaneous Times article surfaced Wednesday by the blog Boing Boing.

The Times article listed the arrestee's address as 175-24 Devonshire Road in Jamaica Estates, Queens. Past local news reports noted that the Republican presidential frontrunner's father.....lived at that address. Donald Trump's German immigrant grandfather, who anglicized his own name to Fred Trump, died nine years before the incident occurred.

While six other men arrested in the brawl faced charges, the Times report noted that Fred Trump was discharged. All seven of the men who were arrested were represented by the same team of two lawyers, according to the Times report.

The Times reported that police said the brawl broke out because the Klan reneged on an agreement not to wear any of their symbols to the parade. The Klan members, for their part, accused the police of exceeding their authority in trying to keep them out of the parade, according to the report.
The elder Trump was born in 1905, which would put him in his early '20s when The New York Times covered the brawl. His wife, Mary Anne, didn't give birth to the couple's son Donald until 1946.

Donald Trump's presidential campaign did not immediately return Boing Boing's request for comment. Similarly, the campaign did not immediately return TPM's request for comment.
It's unclear to what extent, if any, Fred Trump was involved with the group, based on the New York Times report. As the incident happened nearly 20 years before Donald Trump was born, it's also unclear whether the real estate mogul knew anything of his father's youthful arrest.

As TPM has reported, many self-styled white nationalists have voiced their support in recents weeks for Donald Trump, particularly his hardline immigration platform. Their support does not make Trump himself a white supremacist. The billionaire's former adviser, Roger Stone, also told TPM in a recent interview that he would disavow the support of white supremacists." [Source]

Of course getting their support does not make trump himself a white supremacist, but not being clear about denouncing them sure makes him look like one. 

Finally, the next time someone tells you that the Black Lives Matter movement is a bunch of crap, tell them about the following story:

"A young black couple who were killed in a police shooting last week were reportedly “unconscious” inside a vehicle when officers first arrived.

Inglewood, California Mayor James Butts Jr. revealed these startling details at a press conference, to NBC Los Angeles. The mayor would not comment on what specific action triggered police to use deadly force.

The victims have been been identified as Kisha Michael, 31, a single mother of three sons, and Marquintan Sandlin, 32, a single father of four daughters.

Butts told NBC Los Angeles the police tried to “rouse” the couple for roughly 45 minutes, something he described as an attempt to ‘de-escalate’ the situation.

Officers first reported that the woman inside the vehicle had a gun in her hand, which caused officers to retreat and then engage the couple with their guns.

–“Obviously at some point they were conscious because somebody felt threatened,” Butts said.

Friends and family of the two victims said they didn’t know why either would be in possession of a gun. The specific reason why deadly force was used is still unknown at this time." [Source]

So let me get this straight, they were actually sleeping while officers tried to wake them for 45 minutes and that caused for a "de-escalating " of the situation. 

My lord! What were they doing? Snoring too loud?

Now we can add sleeping while black to the list of practices that have become all too dangerous in our current American police state.

*Pic from change.org

Disavowing Duke.

 Unfortunately for some of my black brothers and sisters jigging can carry a burden. In the case of folks like Pastor Mark Burns, jigging for the likes of Donald trump can cause a crisis of conscience.

Knowing what he knows about David Duke , it is making it tough for him to keep supporting a man who has refused to disavow him and his endorsement.

So now, as any good house Negro would do, Pastor Burns is trying his best to rehabilitate his master to the masses by helping him do a little damage control.

"COLUMBIA, S.C. — Pastor Mark Burns is planning to have a talk with Donald Trump about the Ku Klux Klan on Sunday.

 

Burns is one of a number of black pastors who supports Trump’s presidential campaign and met with him last December. Since then, Burns has been traveling the country and speaking at Trump’s rallies. Yahoo News called him on Sunday to ask about Trump’s interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper in which Trump declined to condemn the KKK and former KKK grand wizard David Duke. Burns, who was at an airport flying between Trump campaign events in Tennessee and Alabama, said he had a “brief conversation” with Trump about the issue on Saturday night and planned to discuss it further at a meeting Sunday.

 

“We do have a meeting today about that very thing. … We’re leaving one rally and flying to … Huntsville,” Burns said. “We had a brief conversation last night prior to this interview. … We were going to discuss some things that need to be spoken so that he continues to be a unifier and be a president for all the people.”

 

Burns said he “absolutely” will be advising Trump to explicitly denounce the KKK.

 

“That’s one of the reasons why I am here, so I can help be that ear for Mr. Trump to make sure, you know, that he is coming across, because obviously … he wants everybody’s vote. Obviously, he wants to win. We want to win,” Burns said. “We want him to become the next president of the United States. But at the same time, he is not going to endorse any hate group, any hate group. And so, if that means coming out and saying, … ‘I don’t stand behind what the KKK stands for or what David Duke stands for,’ then that is what he’s going to do and say. That’s our advice.” [Source]

 

My "advice" to you Pastor is to stop jigging and save your breath. Donald trump knows exactly what he is doing.   

 

Finally,  there has been a lot of cases of killings in the news lately. We all know about the despicable acts of Cedric Ford, the man who took out the rage he felt after getting  served with a Protection From Abuse Order on innocent citizens and co-workers.  

 

Then there is that Uber driver in Michigan, the slaughter of that family in Washington by a family member, and the tragic way a rookie police officer lost her life on the first day of the job while responding to a domestic violence call in Virginia.

 

All these killings are sad and horrific, and they all have a familiar theme. 

 

A friend of mine who happens to be a homicide detective here in Philly, once told me that over 90% of homicides occur because of love or money. And my life experience tells me that this is true. It always comes back to those two things. Whether it's a drug dealer killing a rival for moving in on his corner, or a husband --or boyfriend--- being angry because his relationship isn't turning out the way that he wants it to.

 

Sadly, I suspect that we will soon learn that the Uber driver in Michigan killed for one of those reasons as well. If he didn't,  his actions might be the most disturbing of all.  

 

*Pic from salon.com

 

   

 

 

 

  

 

     

 

 

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

Example: My god! That thing on his head moved on its own.

*Pic from 570news.com

"Mr Meltdown" fights back.

      This trump Rubio feud  is getting serious. I mean these cats are beefing like Biggie and 2Pac.

Ugly stuff. I saw their rallies today and the way they were carrying on was not becoming of two men who are seeking the highest office in the land.

Poor trump seemed a little rattled last night after Rubio stepped in that ass. It got so bad that he (trump) started using words like "bigly" (it's a real word), and he changed color so many times that I thought that there was something wrong with my television.

Poor Wolf Blitzer lost control of the debate early on, and it went downhill from there.

You have to wonder, though, what took one of the candidates so long to expose trump and call him out on things like his illegal immigrant workers, his tax returns, and Trump University.  

Now that the gloves are off Rubio seems to feel embolden to keep playing the dozens with the orange one. It should be fun, because others have tried before and failed. Trump has been non-stop in his counter attacks on the upstart Cuban American, but Rubio seems to be really getting under his skin.

"He called me Mr. Meltdown," Rubio said.

Rubio added:

Let me tell you, during one of the breaks — two of the breaks — he went backstage. He was having a meltdown. First he had this little makeup thing, applying makeup around his mustache, because he had one of those sweat mustaches. Then he asked for a full-length mirror. I don't know why, because the podium goes up to here. Maybe he was making sure his pants weren't wet. I don't know."

Your mama. No, your mama.

*Pic from star-telegram.com


  

Open thread.

There is a republican debate tonight on CNN, and I will be watching. (Houston, hopefully we won't have a problem.)

I will try to live tweet it (@fieldnegro) if I can stay up.

I hope that I don't run out of popcorn.

I would like to hear your thoughts on what you saw.

Mr. Trump's America.

  Congrats to Donald trump for winning Nevada last night.

It now seems that he is clearly on his way to becoming the republican nominee to be president of these divided states of America.

Seven years of unadulterated hatred for the man in the White House has gotten the republicans this mountebank to emerge as their leader. It couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch.

I have heard the constant refrain of, I don't support everything trump says, but I like the way he shoots from the hip, and I think he will shake up Washington.  He might in fact do those things, but you can't separate who trump is and what he represents from supporting his policies and the influence that he will have on the political class. 

The following article sums it up perfectly:

"Let's take a page from Donald Trump's book and ignore political correctness for a moment: If you support Trump, you support his sexist, bigoted and racist views.

There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. And this is especially true for GOP party leaders, elected officials and even community leaders.

 

Some have said things such as, "I don't like Trump's history of demeaning women, but I think he will be good for the economy." Sorry, you don't get a pass because you like one of his policy proposals. It's akin to saying, "I supported Hitler for his tax plan." And no, I'm absolutely not comparing Trump to Hitler. But Anne Frank's 86-year-old stepsister, Eva Schloss, who survived Auschwitz, did just that a few weeks ago, telling Newsweek that Trump "is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism."  So when elected officials such as South Carolina Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster or Republican New Jersey state Sen. Mike Doherty -- shockingly a person from my home state -- endorse Trump, we need to ask them why. Do they support resolving disagreements with women by publicly referring to them as "fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals"? Because Trump does.

 

And what about the other elected officials who have endorsed Trump such as Arizona Treasurer Jeff DeWit, Rhode Island state Rep. Joseph A. Trillo or Iowa state Sen. Brad Zaun. What moved them to endorse Trump?

 

Could it be these elected officials admire the way Trump stoked the flames of hate toward Latinos? His labeling of Mexicans as "rapists"?

 

Maybe they admire the way Trump bullied and mocked not one but two disabled reporters: Serge Kovaleski and Charles Krauthammer -- Trump despicably ridiculed Krauthammer, a man paralyzed from the waist down, as "a guy that can't buy a pair of pants."

Do these officials admire Trump's call to tread on the rights of American Muslims using warrantless surveillance? Perhaps they enjoyed his race-baiting story -- lacking in any factual basis -- that "thousands" of Muslims were cheering in New Jersey on 9/11 to celebrate the attacks on the World Trade Center?

 

Or perhaps these Republican officials are drawn to Trump for defending violence against those who dared to disagree with him at campaign rallies. The most alarming incident came in November at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama, when a Black Lives Matter protester interrupted the candidate. The GOP front-runner called on the crowd to get the man out of there. His supporters then beat up the man, reportedly calling the black protester "the N-word" and a "monkey." Shockingly the next day Trump defended those actions, saying, "Maybe he should have been roughed up."

 

And Monday night, Trump again invoked violence in stifling dissent at a rally, telling the crowd as a protester was being thrown out: "The guards are being very gentle with him. I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you that."

 

We must assume that those who endorse Trump know this history, given that the media have widely covered it. We must also assume they are not just endorsing Trump's policy positions but his disturbing sexist and bigoted history as well.

 

The same goes for people such as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who recently proclaimed he would vote for Trump if he wins the GOP nomination because he feels compelled to back his party's nominee. Sorry, you don't get a free pass by saying you are in essence "following orders" by voting for the Republican nomination. You have a choice.

 

That's exactly why well-known conservative Erick Erickson wrote an article Monday titled simply, "I Will Not Vote For Donald Trump. Ever." Erickson, who I have vehemently disagreed with in the past, has offered a profile in courage knowing Trump's minions and even fellow conservatives will attack him.

 

Erickson first calls out Trump as a "liberal masquerading as a conservative." He writes that he simply can't support a candidate who "preys on nationalistic, tribal tendencies and has an army of white supremacists online as his loudest cheerleaders." That is one of several good reasons that no good person should support Trump.

 

GOP party leaders, elected officials and community leaders must realize that if they endorse Trump, the rest of us will be forced to assume they are just as bigoted and hateful as he is. " [Source]

 

Think about that for a minute. Erick Erickson, of all people, will not support trump because of his bigotry and the bigots who support him. 

 

That's scary stuff. 

 

This might all be too late, though, because I am afraid the genie has already left the bottle.

 

As America we must now prepare ourselves for the very real possibility that Donald trump could be her next president.  

 

Calling the Mandeville, Jamaica  Parish office now to make sure that my taxes are caught up.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lying about a movement.

   Folks in the majority are up in arms over a couple of recent performances from black entertainers.

Beyoncé Knowles  (Carter) and Kendrick Lamar recently found their black side as they performed for a national audience and it made some folks uncomfortable. "This is too much". It is anti police. It is glorifying the Black Lives Matter movement. Who are these Panthers? Weren't they black terrorist? What about little white girls? " And on and on it went. There were even calls for a boycott of the artists and various forms of hand-wringing from my white friends.

And then, to top it off, police officers who have sworn to serve and protect are now refusing to protect Beyoncé's bayou bootie.  (Don't worry Bey, the NOI has your back if needed.) Something about her Formation video being anti-police. I saw the video and the only issue police should have with it is that the police car she was sitting on seemed to be sinking so quickly.  One of them  (police officers) is even blaming Bey for shots being fired outside of his home as well as what he perceives is an uptick in police killings and shootings.

But alas it seems that this is all a bunch of crap. Beyoncé and the Black Lives Matter movement is not the reason police officers  are being killed.

In fact.....

"..... According to a New York Daily News column written by Shaun King, seven out of eight officers killed by gunfire in the United States so far in 2016 died at the hands of white men. (The Officer Down Memorial Page cites nine police deaths by gunfire; the Daily News left out the death of Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics special agent Lee Tartt, also killed by a white man.) 

The deaths of the seven officers killed by white men, cited in the Daily News, seem to follow no other noticeable pattern.

In January, Ohio police officer Thomas Cottrell was found dead without his weapon or cruiser and was later discovered to have been shot by a man named Hershel Jones. According to NBC, Jones' ex-girlfriend called in a tip earlier that night, stating he had "left with weapons and was looking to kill an officer."

Phillip Ferry, who had 41 prior arrests, fatally shot Seaside, Oregon, police Sgt. Jason Goodding, making Goodding the first officer in the state to die in the line of duty since the 1800s.

Hartford County, Maryland Sheriff's Deputy Patrick Dailey and Deputy Mark Logsdon were both killed when David Brian Evans shot Dailey in a Panera Bread. Logsdon was killed in the ensuing shootout.

Utah officer Douglas Barney was killed by gunshot at the hands of 31-year-old Corey Lee Henderson. North Dakota officer Jason Moszer was killed when he responded to a domestic disturbance, and is suspected to have been shot by Marcus Schumacher. Seventeen-year-old Austin Holzer is alleged to have killed Colorado officer Derek Geer while Geer was questioning him. 

The only officer killed by a black person was Major Gregory "Lem" Barney — the first black police chief in the history of Riverdale, Georgia — who was shot by a man named Jerand Ross. 

"These shootings have nothing to do with Black Panthers or modern black activism," wrote King in his column. "That, though, is the popular story in America right now and it is nothing more than a lie."' [Source] 

Lies, yes. But it fits the narrative that some folks want to push. You know, that one about those "evil black folks."

Even if they are just entertainers.

*Pic from alternet.org.

Making Virginia "happy".

Bless Virginia McLaurin's heart.  She got to dance with America's first black president and his wife in the White House.

A lot of the folks on my twitter timeline said that they were tearing up after watching the video of Miss Virginia, and they were feeling proud that they voted for America's first black president.

Miss Virginia has had quite a life. She was born in the South in 1909; she remembers the country being led by President Hoover; she remembers using kerosene instead of electricity; she remembers using a well for water; and  she remembers seeing a Ford automobile for the first time. [Source] 

Sadly, when Miss Virginia was coming up in America, there was no civil rights for black people, so I can only imagine the unspeakable indignities that she suffered here in the "land of the free."

"I tell you, I am so happy," she told President Obama.
"A black president, yay, and his black wife."

Go on and shake your feet Virginia. You deserve it.

Finally, after reading about Virginia, the following article is apropos:

"Let's say you're driving down the street and someone rear-ends you. You get out of your car to assess the damage. The person who hit your vehicle gets out of his car, apologizes for the damage and calls his insurance company. Eventually, you receive a check for the harm done. 

Now, let's say that for years, if not generations, your family and families like yours have been damaged by your country's political and economic system -- by law and widespread practice, with the intent of benefiting families not like yours -- then the checks for the harm done would be called reparations.

Beginning with more than two centuries of slavery, black Americans have been deliberately abused by their own nation. It's time to pay restitution.

Black activists and intellectuals have been making that point with increasing volume over the last few years, turning what was an obscure thought problem into a political issue. The question of reparations has even entered into the Democratic primary, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) struggling to explain to black voters why he has built such a strong social justice platform on every issue but this one. 

Sanders was put on the spot last month when a reporter asked him if he would support reparations as president. "No, I don't think so," he said, describing the likelihood of congressional passage as "nil" -- as if those odds normally stopped him.

Every year since 1989, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has introduced the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. As the name indicates, H.R. 40 does not require reparations. It simply calls for comprehensive research into the nature and financial impact of African enslavement as well as the ills inflicted on black people during the Jim Crow era. Then, remedies can be suggested.

Every year, the bill stalls.

Fifty-nine percent of black Americans think that the descendants of enslaved Africans deserve reparations, according to a June 2014 HuffPost/YouGov poll. Sixty-three percent of black folks support targeted education and job training programs for the descendants of slaves. 
Most other Americans still aren't listening.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, perhaps the most prominent voice now pushing reparations, laid out why black Americans deserve even more than repayment for slavery in a sweeping 2014 article, "The Case for Reparations." The exploitation didn't stop with the Emancipation Proclamation, so any restitution must reckon with the discrimination that followed and deal with the living victims of these ills.
Last month, Coates criticized Sanders' decision to shy away from the issue:  

If not even an avowed socialist can be bothered to grapple with reparations, if the question really is that far beyond the pale, if Bernie Sanders truly believes that victims of the Tulsa pogrom deserved nothing, that the victims of contract lending deserve nothing, that the victims of debt peonage deserve nothing, that that political plunder of black communities entitle them to nothing, if this is the candidate of the radical left -- then expect white supremacy in America to endure well beyond our lifetimes and lifetimes of our children.

Let's change that -- let's bother to have the hard but necessary discussion of what black Americans are owed for what was taken from them. If reparations ever come, what would they look like?" [More]

The author goes on to say how reparations would be paid  for and who would be eligible to receive it.

I know one person who would be eligible, and she was dancing at the White House last week.

  
  

    

 

Confederate endorsements and killing sprees.

   From the dog bites man department, this pro-confederate flag group in South Carolina endorsed Donald trump for president.

"COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina group dedicated to “defense of the proudly Confederate South” rallied at the State House here on

Saturday, showcasing a mixture of Confederate flags and signs supporting Donald Trump as the Republican presidential primary unfolded across the state.

 

The South Carolina Conservative Action Council said the event was held in observance of the anniversary of the burning of Columbia after Union soldiers invaded the city in February 1865. Along with marking the burning of Columbia, the rally promoted the group’s recent endorsement of Trump’s presidential campaign. Trump eventually won the South Carolina primary handily, creating an even bigger problem for the Republican establishment.  

 

Several neo-Confederate and white supremacist groups have expressed support for Trump. His campaign did not respond to multiple requests for a comment from Yahoo News asking whether it accepts the SCCAC’s endorsement and why such groups are drawn to Trump."

 

Hey, it must have helped, because trump easily beat his two  one Cuban American and one Canadian opponent in the South Carolina primary Saturday night. (Maybe this is why Cruz was trying to paint trump as being anti-confederate.) In the words of my Philly homeboys, McFadden & Whitehead, there ain't no stoppin him now.  Jeb dropping out (Americans have seen enough Bushes for one lifetime) gives Rubio a glimmer of hope, but in my humble opinion it will not be enough. Yes, Marco will get some cash now, but money alone can't win you elections anymore.

 

Just ask Jeb.   

 

 Finally, did you hear the horrific story of that Uber driver who killed six people at random in Michigan this weekend? Scary stuff.  It makes you want to delete your Uber app and just start taking the good old yellow cabs again.  

 

And there are reports that he was picking up fares in the middle of his killing spree.

 

They are saying that the guy is an "average Joe" with no prior criminal record, and that they still don't  have a motive. 

 

Six innocent people minding their own business only to have their lives cut short by this monster.

The motive might be that he is just an evil dude who hates people.

 

 "Joshua B. Plotkin ‏@jplotkin 52m52 minutes ago Philadelphia, PA                          

Joshua B. Plotkin Retweeted Michⓐel Eisen

@fieldnegro https://twitter.com/mbeisen/status/701503541920141312 …

Joshua B. Plotkin added,

Michⓐel Eisen @mbeisen

Yes, America, that's right. The problem with #Kalamazoo shooter Jason Dalton was that it was too easy for him to become an @Uber driver. "

 

Joshua, we know that really wasn't the problem, and we know what it really was too easy for him to get his hands on. And guess what; it wasn't that contract with Uber.

 

But I am just going to let that one sit out there,  cause....you know.... *blue in the face*.    

 

*Pics from yahoo.com & wgntv.com