Haters gonna hate, and goodbye Ted.

"The Fox News page running an AP story on Malia Obama‘s recent acceptance into Harvard is missing its comment section after the story was met with an avalanche of vile, racist responses from the site’s readers.

The most anodyne comments simply accused Malia of only getting into Harvard because of Affirmative Action. Other Fox News readers just went right for the jugular — lobbing her with a host of racial and religious (specifically Muslim) epithets, as well as smearing her and her mother’s appearance and wishing openly that the president’s daughter would get afflicted with “cancer/aids or one of those colored diseases.”

Addicting Info has posted screengrabs of some of the more repugnant comments, a few of which are viewable below:








"

Wow! And I thought that the comments on TFN blog were bad.

Finally, congrats to Donald trump. It is looking like he will clean up in the Hoosier state. Now we can rest assured that there will be no fight at the republican convention in Cleveland. 

Poor Ted Cruz, or, as the former republican speaker calls him, Lucifer. That fall by Carly Fiorina  was a perfect metaphor for his entire campaign. It was just awful.

It might be time for Ted to take his act back to Texas and work on  his outsider shtick a little bit more. (Thankfully, we will be spared having to look at that face in the picture above.)

I will give him this much, he was one of the last men standing of the seventeen plus republicans who wanted to follow his Oness. 

But hey, he should look at the bright side, at least he can change his citizenship and run to become the Prime Minister of Canada.   

*Pic from abcnews.com

"Hot sauce Hillary" and the politics of pandering.

    Man that Hillary is really working hard for the black and minority vote. First she sits down for a game of bones,  in Harlem, and then she tells some folks on urban radio that she always travels with some "hot sauce".

Bernie is pushing that poor woman so far left that she is going to claim to have a secret black lover before this is all over. But it's all good.  Hot sauce or no hot sauce, us black folks have seen enough of Hillary and her husband to know exactly what we are going to get with them.

Not to be outdone, Bernie was giving some serious dap to some young buck in South Carolina. Nice. It's no wonder the young black folks have so much love for Bernie. They don't sense  that he is a phony. Plus, I am sure that his message of making college free  for all doesn't hurt. No more student loans! Yeah! 

Call it pandering if you will, but at least the democratic candidates are trying to reach out to us and hear our concerns for the future of the country.

Contrast that to the guy leading the field on the republican side and you kind of get the picture. I mean they are selling confederate themed shirts at his rallies for crying out loud! (h/t Shaun King) 

 Donald Trump has 99 problems, and race is definitely one of them. 

And don't even get me started on Ted Cruz. When he made his infamous New York values comments I think we all knew exactly what (or who) he was talking about: Their values aren't like our values. They actually embrace diversity and shit.  They welcome foreigners and different people to their city.

I just wish that the republicans were coming to my city and not Cleveland this summer for their convention. We would roll out the red carpet for them and show them some brotherly love. We can do it. Did you see how nice we were to the Pope?

Anyway, we are going to have the democrats.

Sadly, though, I suspect that their convention is going to be a lot more boring.

 Unless, of course. Hillary all of a sudden loses her love for hot sauce.

  





   

Cruz control, and Princeton backs a segregationist.

 Congrats to Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders for winning their primaries in cheesehead country tonight.

It has been a tough week for Donald trump, the orange one has made more than a few missteps, and now the cracks are starting to show. (Five different positions on abortion in three days?)

Ted Cruz, who always sounds like he is auditioning for a Shakespearean play, was downright giddy tonight.  I tried listening  to Ted's victory speech but it was hard. That face. Dude was quoting JFK and taking about a safe and "sane" future for the country. He was calling for "unity" for crying out loud. Yes, this Ted Cruz. 

On the dem side Hillary is obviously going to have to get used to Bernie and his peeps "feeling the Bern." The old man is not going away, and neither, apparently, is the FBI.     

Finally, one of America's finest institutions of higher learning has decided to keep their monuments to a racist.

"Princeton University's board of trustees has decided that it will not remove Woodrow Wilson's name from its School of Public and International Affairs and from a residential college, despite student protests over the former president's segregationist views.

At the same time, the trustee committee weighing the issue said the university "needs to be honest and forthcoming about its history." It adds: "This requires transparency in recognizing Wilson's failings and shortcomings as well as the visions and achievements that led to the naming of the school and the college in the first place."

I hear ya Princeton, but being a devoted segregationist and blocking African American students from entering your university is more than just a matter of "failings".

But this is what happens when you are on the wrong side of history, it always comes back to bite you.

*Pic from gawker.com  

Hump Day thoughts.

It's Hump Day, and I have some things on my mind.

First and foremost, RIP Phife Dawg. You were a truly great lyricist.

You and Q- Tip went together like peanut butter and jelly.

 “MCs like to meddle, but here’s my proposition / I let my lyrics flow, and juxt your whole position”

There is lots more where that came from. The "five foot assassin" will be missed.

Second, just when you thought the republicans couldn't get any lower, they start going after each other's wives. This is some really low down stuff.

This has all gotten  so bad that at the next debate I fully expect to see Ted Cruz walk across the stage, get in the orange man's ugly mug, and demand an apology.

I expect it, but I am quite sure that it won't happen. Politicians just aren't built like that. Especially slimy self-centered ones like Ted Cruz.

Then there is Michelle Bachmann. I must admit that when I first heard this story I thought that it was from The Onion. I figured that it was just too preposterous to be true. But then, I realized, we are talking about Michele Bachmann.

“Our feckless U.S. president appeared unfazed by the message he portrayed of American incompetence and historic irrelevance,” Bachmann wrote in a column for World Net Daily.

“In fact, the president appeared pleased with himself and seemed to revel in his infallible cleverness,” she added. “Only he could break the barriers of isolation his misguided predecessors had painstakingly built. Only he could vouchsafe freedom against attack from legions of murderous Communist regimes and Jew-hating ayatollahs.”

But, she said — not without some satisfaction — “the turn of world events humiliated him,” and she wondered if ISIS terrorists might even have been doing God’s will when they bombed an airport and subway station in Brussels, Belgium.

“Maybe our president’s humiliation comes in a manner so devastating it makes one wonder whether the Creator of humankind isn’t reminding this world of the inferiority of foolishness in the face of wisdom,” Bachmann said.

“The president once again mocked his nemesis, the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, by cleverly turning the international press corps toward his brilliant work in Cuba, instead of covering ongoing Islamic attacks against the Jewish state as outlined that very same day at the annual pro-Israel AIPAC meeting in Washington, D.C.,”  [Source]

You know what's even scarier than what she wrote? The fact that "normal" citizens actually voted to send her to Washington over someone else.

Finally, it seems that even dying while black has become a problem.

"MONDAY, March 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Black heart attack patients are more likely than whites to have their ambulance diverted to another hospital due to overcrowding in the closest emergency department, a new study shows.

The researchers also found that long diversions reduced black patients' chances of receiving specialized heart care and increased their risk of death within a year.

The study looked at 2001-11 Medicare data. The researchers included information on nearly 30,000 heart attack patients who were transported by ambulance to hospitals in 26 California counties.
Half the patients had no ambulance diversion, the study found. Another quarter had diversions lasting six hours or less, researchers said. Fifteen percent of heart attack patients had six to 12 hours of diversion, and 10 percent had more than 12 hours of diversion, the study said.

Diversions were more likely to occur for patients being taken to hospitals that served minorities -- particularly those that served large numbers of black patients, according to the study.
Patients with more than 12 hours of ambulance diversion were:

• 4.4 percent less likely to be treated in cardiac care units
• 3.4 percent less likely to be treated in catheterization labs or facilities specializing in procedures to improve blood flow to the heart
• 4.3 percent less likely to receive catheterization
• 9.6 percent more likely to die during the following year.

The study was published recently in the journal BMJ Open."
 [Source]

 

"Diversions". Another fancy term for institutionalized racism.

 

Enjoy what's left of your Hump Day, people.  

Viva La Cuba.

"I kill a communist for fun" ~Tony Montana, Scarface~

That was a classic quote from the movie, Scarface. Tony Montana's character was a criminal in Cuba, and he had no love for Fidel Castro or his government.  He called himself a "political prisoner", but as we all remember from the movie, he was nothing more than a drug dealer and a murderer.

Unfortunately too many leaders in our history have had a similar simplistic view of the Fidel Castro government like the fictional character from the Scarface movie.

Personally, I tend to disagree with Tony's assessment of the Cuban leader, and I am glad for the president's historic trip to Cuba today. I have never understood the trade embargo and sanctions against Cuba for all these years when we were trading with the Chinese and Russians for crying out loud.  

I remember as a kid in Jamaica, listening to one of Fidel Castro's speeches, I didn't know a word of Spanish, but even before the interpreter told us what he was saying, I remember cheering my ass off. He was that charismatic.

Maybe it's because the man who I consider one of the greatest leaders in history, Michael Manley, had to turn to Fidel at a time when the American government and the West turned their backs on the Jamaican people, as we tried to cope with the draconian benchmarks for the country's recovery set by the IMF.

It was Castro and the Cuban government that gave Jamaica micro- dams, adult literacy, trained physicians ,quality health care, and innovative teaching methods that merged education and sports.

And, if that wasn't enough, it was the Cuban government and Fidel Castro who helped to end Apartheid in South Africa . It was also Cuban soldiers who fought alongside the Angolan people in their fight for liberation. 

Throw in the fact that the people who were in Cuba ---who didn't have a pot to piss in before the revolution--- look more like I do than Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and you can see where I am coming from. Afro Cubans didn't flee to Miami with their riches, because they had no riches.

Barack Obama and is family going to Havana sends a powerful message to those Cubans living on the island and to the world.

It is a message that is long overdue.

Now if you will excuse me I have a  cigar to smoke.


*Pic from AP.





 

Election night.

   It's election night once again in these divided states of America.

From where I sit it looks like we are heading for a Hillary versus Donald showdown come November.

Donald, the xenophobic bully and head divider, vanquished "little Marco" in his own state. Poor Marco, the man recently touted as the future and "savior" of the GOP on the cover of Time Magazine , is now, like Mitt Romney before him, just another republican also ran.

Hillary bless her e-mailing heart, once again ran through the South like Sherman's army, and poor Bernie is left with a ton of money but not enough delegates to scare the pants suit wearing wonk who is probably- next to Ted Cruz- the most right leaning pol left in the race.

The night is still young, but it looks like Hillary Clinton and Donald trump (too little too late Governor Kasich) will be the big winners tonight.

Thoughts?

*Pic from cnn.com



 

Bringing the sleaze.

I swear I can't keep up.

Now the Pope is feuding with the leading republican candidate for president.

The Pope says that trump's behavior, as it relates to the Mexican border, is not a Christian.

Now if you  happen to be a Catholic who also happens to be a trump supporter, what do you do?
Do you support the leader of your church? Or do you support the man you want to lead the country?

"After the pontiff’s remarkable contention that Mr. Trump “is not Christian” in proposing deportations and a wall with Mexico, the candidate said Francis’ criticisms were “disgraceful” and “unbelievable,” and he contended that the Mexican government had hoodwinked the pope into criticizing him."

If you are standing next to trump, now might be a good time to step away. You don't want that lightening strike to hit you.

Then there was Ted cruz calling the president "faithless". This, after he and his campaign fraudulently and nefariously photoshopped the picture of his opponent in a campaign ad. Man this guy has some serious cujones.  I am not sure how he thought that he could get away with doing a silly photoshop from a stock photo in this Internet age. *[See pic above]

Anyway, such is life in politics, the sleazy people will do anything to win. And this guy has the nerve to rip the president's morals.

But things are getting down and dirty in the republican primaries (the dem primary as well), and trump and cruz are going at it, hard. 

Cruz is peddling the narrative that trump is a secret liberal to the base, and trump thinks that cruz is a lying duplicitous scumbag. (Ok, he didn't actually say scumbag, but you get the point)

Of course this could all be because there is a new national poll showing that cruz is actually beating trump. Fortunately for trump, it is the only one, and the word among pollsters is that it is an outlier. We will see.

I just had a scary thought: What if trump wins and chooses cruz as his running mate? Don't laugh. Crazier things have happened. Did you think, for instance, that a self-promoting game show host who has been named in almost 170  federal lawsuits would be on the verge of being the GOP nominee for president? 

Exactly.

News Day.

Tonight I am just going to point out some of my favorite news items from today.

First, how about this doozy?

Woman's husband thinks he has her killed, and then she appears at her own funeral to confront him.

Serves him right. And why didn't he demand proof from the people he ordered to make the hit of his partner's demise?

"Is it my eyes?” she recalled him saying. “Is it a ghost?”

Nope, no ghost. It's you spending the next nine years of your life in prison.

Then there is the Ted Cruz fraud story that just won't go away. It seems that the "born again" Canadian Christian has been up to some very unChristian like behavior.

"Ted Cruz has won the Iowa caucus, but he only did so after rampant accusations of cheating which have all been backed up by evidence – and now Cruz has apologized for a dirty trick that his campaign played on Ben Carson. The Cruz campaign sent emails instructing its supporters in Iowa to tell Carson’s supporters that Carson had already dropped out of the race, so they’d change their votes in favor of Cruz instead. And it’s far from the only documented instance of Ted Cruz cheating in Iowa."

Shame on you, Ted. 

Sunday is the Super Bowl, and it's the "thug" versus America's golden boy for all the marbles.

But guess who is in the news for all the wrong reasons? Yep, the golden boy.

"Charlie Sly, responding to a report in The Washington Post that said Peyton Manning's lawyers sent investigators to his home before the release of an Al-Jazeera America documentary in December, says he didn't believe investigators were there to intimidate him into cooperation.

Speaking to Outside The Lines on Thursday night about the investigators, Sly said: "Those guys were great guys. Like, very good guys. Very professional."

Sly is the Indiana pharmacist at the center of the Al-Jazeera America documentary that aired Dec. 27. In it, the network reported that Manning's wife had received shipments of human growth hormone. Manning has denied the allegation, calling it "completely fabricated, complete trash, garbage." In the documentary, Sly -- caught on hidden camera -- named several professional athletes as possible dopers.

According to Brownsburg, Indiana, police, the two investigators went to the home of Sly's parents on Dec. 22 looking for him. Sly's sister, apparently alarmed, called 911 and said the men claimed to be law enforcement. Police responded, but the men provided identification and were invited into the family home. Sly was not there at the time. No arrests were made, and no incident report was filed.
Sly would not say when he spoke to the investigators.

Manning's lawyers launched the private probe shortly after Al-Jazeera America started contacting athletes who would be named in the documentary in December.

They hired investigators to identify, locate and interrogate Sly and sent a lawyer to examine the medical records of Manning and his wife, Ashley, at the Guyer Institute of Molecular Medicine in Indianapolis, according to Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary and current crisis-management consultant hired by the Denver Broncos quarterback." [Source]

"Crisis management consultant"?! OK then. Folks, choose your heroes carefully, remember what happened to another golden boy a few years back. 

Speaking of illegal drugs, If you don't think that we still have a drug problem in America, consider this: Border patrol agents busted a shipment of $172 million dollars worth of cocaine today. That's a lot of yayo. Somebody is going to have some splaining to do.

Finally, we know that terrorist are evil people, but apparently they are pretty dumb as well.

"A wheelchair bound suicide bomber may have been responsible for the explosion which tore a hole in the side of a jet in Somalia, investigators have said.

 

They said the suspected terrorist, thought to be part of the Al-Shabaab Islamist group, may have faked a disability to bypass security checks at Mogadishu airport.

 

The suspected bomber is also thought to be the man who was sucked out of the plane after blowing a hole in the fuselage, shortly after the plane filled with more than 70 passengers took off from the Somali capital. The man who fell from the plane has been named by local officials as Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh, 55, from Somaliland, but they did not confirm if he was the suicide bomber." [Source] 

 

No words.

 

*Pic from gsfc.nasa.gov

Gloom, doom, and "brutalism".

  I must confess that I am as cynical as they come, and I trust no one. It's sad to admit to such a thing, but I basically hold a very unfavorable view of humans.

 But hey, I am a criminal defense attorney in a major city, and I preside over family law cases, so I have earned my cynical stripes. My question to the GOP is this: What's your excuse?

You are a major political party in what is supposed to be the most optimistic and hopeful country in the world, and yet, it's all "doom and gloom" with you guys. I could throw in "fear" in there as well.

I recently read an article  by David Brooks in the New York Times were he wrote about the "brutalism" of Ted Cruz, a man who I consider to be typical of the leading politicians on the right these days.

"In 1997, Michael Wayne Haley was arrested after stealing a calculator from Walmart. This was a crime that merited a maximum two-year prison term. But prosecutors incorrectly applied a habitual offender law. Neither the judge nor the defense lawyer caught the error and Haley was sentenced to 16 years. 

 

Eventually, the mistake came to light and Haley tried to fix it. Ted Cruz was solicitor general of Texas at the time. Instead of just letting Haley go for time served, Cruz took the case to the Supreme Court to keep Haley in prison for the full 16 years.

 

Some justices were skeptical. “Is there some rule that you can’t confess error in your state?” Justice Anthony Kennedy asked. The court system did finally let Haley out of prison, after six years.

 

The case reveals something interesting about Cruz’s character. Ted Cruz is now running strongly among evangelical voters, especially in Iowa. But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace. Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism: an overzealous application of the letter of the law in a way that violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy.

 

Traditionally, candidates who have attracted strong evangelical support have in part emphasized the need to lend a helping hand to the economically stressed and the least fortunate among us. Such candidates include George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.

 

But Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them. When he is speaking in a church the contrast between the setting and the emotional tone he sets is jarring.

 

Cruz lays down an atmosphere of apocalyptic fear. America is heading off “the cliff to oblivion.” After one Democratic debate he said, “We’re seeing our freedoms taken away every day, and last night was an audition for who would wear the jackboot most vigorously.”                   

 

As the Republican strategist Curt Anderson observed in Politico, there’s no variation in Cruz’s rhetorical tone. As is the wont of inauthentic speakers, everything is described as a maximum existential threat." [Source]

 

But it's not just Ted Cruz. Watch the next republican debate and try to find a sense of optimism among the people on stage. You won't be able to do it. It will be all fire and brimstone, gloom and doom. America, if you let them tell it, is going to hell in a hand-basket, and getting their fast.

 

Watch Donald Trump and his brown shirt thugs get physical with someone at one of his campaign stops for just exercising their right to free speech. Or watch him single out some poor cameraman or reporter for derision from the crowd for just doing their job and earning in a year what he makes in an hour. Watch Chris Christie bully people for asking simple questions at one of his previous town hall meetings.  

 

This is the GOP way: Meaner, angrier, and louder than those soft, kumbaya singing, hand holding, dems.  It's become the party of John Wayne, and  not a moment too soon for their base of angry Americans looking for someone to blame for all of their anger. We will be tough, mean, and heartless, because that is what is needed to keep the America we love and cherish safe.

 

I am still trying to figure out what the hell they are all so angry about. And I am curious to know that if having someone from the majority population in the White House will cool some of that anger. I suspect that it will, because looking at it objectively, there is absolutely nothing for them to be angry about.

 

Let's "Make America Great Again!" If it will make you all less angry I am all for it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birther II.

I could never be elected president of these divided states of America. Not because I wouldn't love to lead this great nation, but because I was born in Jamaica to Jamaican parents. Being married to an American (bless my wife's American born and bred heart) does not make me anymore qualified.  Article Two of the Constitution clearly states that the person must be a natural-born citizen of the United States and must have been a permanent resident of the United States of America for at least 14 years, and that each candidate must be at least 35 years of age. 

Which brings me to our friend, Ted Cruz. Ted is the closest presidential contender on the republican side to Donald trump, and now it seems that Ted, like president Obama before him, has come under some birther fire from the orange colored one. Let's call this Birther II.

“Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question: ‘Do we want a candidate who could be tied up in court for two years?’ That’d be a big problem,” Trump said when asked about the topic. “It’d be a very precarious one for Republicans because he’d be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision. You don’t want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head.”

This is a hell of a time for Donald to go birther. Just when Cruz is gaining some ground on him in the polls. Although I must say that I was wondering when this would happen. Trump made no bones about believing that our current president is not legitimate. But if you objectively compare Obama to Cruz you will have to say that the president checks off way more boxes when it comes to qualifications to be president than Cruz. Born on American soil? Check. Parents are citizens? Check. (At least one of them.) 35 Years old? Check. Resident of the United States for 14 years. Check. Lived  Let's examine Mr. Cruz. Born to American citizens. Check. (At least one of them.) 35 years old? Check. Resident of the Unites States for 14 years? Check. Born on American soil? Nope. Can't check this one. In fact, Ted Cruz just renounced his Canadian citizenship a couple of years ago. Canada is a nice country, and we share a lot of things, but it isn't America.

Let's be clear, legal experts have pretty much said that there should be no problem with Ted Cruz becoming president, but the courts have not ruled on the case of ted Cruz, and while we can assume that the courts will say that he is a "natural born citizen; we just can't say for sure. 

The case of President Obama is different. The facts are beyond dispute: He is a "natural born citizen".

Anyway, Ted Cruz, like president Obama before him, will probably have to deal with some birhter questions from trump for the foreseeable future. This of course will be a harder sell to trump's rabid base. Because, let's face it, to them president Obama just looks a lot more foreign than Ted Cruz.  

*Pic from salon.com









    

"The power of fear."

*Congrats to Donald trump for  picking up an important endorsement from the New England police union. I guess that he has been speaking their language of late.

And congrats to him for leading the GOP field in places like South Carolina, even after his statement about Muslims entering America.

Anyway, now might be a good time for this editorial from the New York Times:

"Go ahead, deplore Donald Trump. Despise his message. Reject his appeals to exclusion and hatred. But do not make the mistake of treating him as a solitary phenomenon, a singular celebrity narcissist who has somehow, all alone, brought his party and its politics to the brink of fascism.

He is the leading Republican candidate for president. He has been for months. The things he says are outrageous, by design, but they were not spawned, nor have they flourished, in isolation.

 

The Republican rivals rushing to distance themselves from his latest inflammatory proposal — a faith-based wall around the country — have been peddling their own nativist policies for months or years. They have been harshening their campaign speeches and immigration proposals in response to the Trump effect. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush want to allow only Christian refugees from Syria to enter the country, and Mr. Cruz has introduced legislation to allow states to opt out of refugee resettlement.

 

And party officials around the country, attuned to the power of fear, have developed homegrown versions of the Trump approach. In 31 states, governors — most but not all Republicans — have formed an axis of ignorance, declaring their borders closed to refugees fleeing the Islamic State in Syria. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has sued the federal government and a nonprofit relief agency to keep refugees out. Indiana’s refusal forced one family to seek refuge in Connecticut. Georgia is seeking to deny displaced Syrians federal benefits, like food stamps, and keep their children out of school.

 

Civil rights organizations — the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center — are defending the displaced against blatant discrimination. That it is even necessary to protect the victims of Islamic extremism from being victimized again, in the United States, is a national disgrace.

 

This is the force that Mr. Trump feeds on and that propels him. It is bigger than he is, and toxic. Not a vote has been cast in the 2016 presidential race. But serious damage is already being done to the country, to its reputation overseas, by a man who is seen as speaking for America and twisting its message of tolerance and welcome, and by the candidates who trail him and are competing for his voters.

Mr. Trump has not deported anyone, nor locked up or otherwise brutalized any Muslims, immigrants or others. The danger next year, of course, is giving him the power to do so. And the danger right now is allowing him to legitimize the hatred that he so skillfully exploits, and to revive the old American tendency, in frightening times, toward vicious treatment of the weak and outsiders.

 

The internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, as some Republicans have either forgotten or never understood, was a dark episode in American history. It is remembered today with regret, as something the nation struggled with, learned from, and moved beyond. But there are millions of Muslims who have good reason to fear that the darkness is falling again.

The time to renounce Mr. Trump’s views was the day he entered the race, calling Mexico an exporter of criminals and rapists. He played to the politics of nativism and fear that was evident last year, when a wave of Central American mothers and children, fleeing gang-and-drug warfare to the Texas border, presented themselves upon the mercy of the United States, and were met with derision and hysteria.

 

The racism behind the agenda of the right wing on immigrants and foreigners has long been plain as day. Mr. Trump makes it even plainer. After his remarks on Muslims, how many of Mr. Trump’s rivals have said they would reject his candidacy if he won the nomination? As of Wednesday, none." [Source]

 

*Pic courtesy of sandiegofreepress.org

 

 

Stars and scars.

Man these right-wingnuts needed this confederate flag flap like they needed a hole in their heads.

It's been interesting to see all the twisting and "pretzel-logic" going on as they try to avoid calling that despicable symbol of hatred for fear of turning off their base. I mean Mitt, bless his Wonder Bread heart, came out against the flag. But then he is no longer running for president. The others...well, not so much. Although Nikki Haley played the good party soldier by finally coming out against the flag and giving the republican candidates for president some cover.

And before we start treating what Haley did as if it was some profile in courage, let's not forget where she stood on this subject not too long ago. I guess there is nothing like a little pressure from the business community to make some of these governors all of a sudden find moral clarity.

"Today we are here in a moment of unity in our state without ill will to say it is time to remove the flag from our capitol grounds," Haley, the state's first non-white governor, said. "This flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future of our great state."'

 

Why just a little over a year ago the governor said this:

 

"What I can tell you is over the last three and a half years, I spent a lot of my days on the phones with CEOs and recruiting jobs to this state,” Haley said. “I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag.”

 

Maybe it took a conversation with a CEO or two to help her see the light.   

 

 

This is all very interesting. It's not only governor Haley. Republican politicians have been all trying to prove to the rest of us that many their supporters are not racist. (Good luck with that.)

 

We learned today that Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Rick Santorum gave back money that was given to them by the same racist organization that inspired Roof to kill those nine innocent people last Wednesday night.  

 

"The campaigns of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rick Santorum said they would donate the money received from Holt to a fund set up by Charleston's mayor to assist the victims' families.

"I abhor the sentiments Mr. Holt has expressed," Santorum said in a statement. "These statements and sentiments are unacceptable. Period. End of sentence"

 

Let me translate that for you: Now that the rest of America knows what I  have suspected all along, that this man and his organization are racists, I cannot take this money from him without being exposed as a possible racist myself.

 

It's been funny to see George Will and the folks over at FOX VIEWS throw themselves into a tizzy over the president saying Nigger (whoops, sorry, I meant n-word) in a candid moment while doing a popular podcast.

 

You have to wonder why some folks get  upset when folks who have a license to use that word do just that. It's almost as if they are angry that they can't say it  themselves.

"George Will was troubled by Obama’s comment about how the legacy of slavery and racism is “still part of our DNA that’s passed on; we’re not cured of it.”  

Will said race relations can’t possibly be getting better if that’s the case, calling it a “most unfortunate rhetorical reach” by Obama.

And if his point is, Will concluded, that America is “by nature racist,” “'it’s an unfortunate indictment of the nation and he should take it back.'”

What the president really said:

"I always tell young people, in particular, do not say that nothing has changed when it comes to race in America, unless you've lived through being a black man in the 1950s or '60s or '70s. It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours," Obama said."

You know what's worse than being a racist? Being a liar and a racist.

*Pic from theatlantic.com








 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mean people.

     With the mean and heartless comments by Ted Cruz about Joe Biden ---after the death of his son--- still fresh in my mind, I thought that I might share an article that I recently found with you.

"I grew up and did my early work in politics in Nebraska, and my wife is a farmer's daughter from rural Missouri. I spent about 10 years organizing and door-knocking for campaigns in rural Iowa. So I know a lot about the kind of Bob Dole conservatism that used to be the dominant political culture of those places. Since I became a progressive Democrat, I didn't agree with those conservatives on many things, but I mostly liked and respected them. Wary of the unintended consequences of change, suspicious of big government, fiscally conservative, traditionalist in many ways, they were generally decent folks with much to admire in them, and very worthy political opponents.

To my great sadness, though, I feel like the modern conservative movement (and the Republican Party, which has been completely captured by this movement) has devolved into something quite different. It's not necessarily more conservative (in some ways it is, in other ways not), mostly just a whole lot meaner.

At conservative conferences and Republican gatherings over the last decade, we have seen the crowds turn ugly. Remember the Republican presidential debates four years ago, with audiences cheering for torture and people dying because they had no health insurance, and booing soldiers, decorated for their heroism, because they were gay? Remember the McCain/Palin rallies of 2008 where the audiences were openly racist and called Obama a Muslim terrorist? Here's another example that still chills me: Glenn Beck giving a speech to CPAC a few years back, talking about how there should be no safety net because "in nature, the lions eat the weak." The audience burst into applause and laughter, and these are the same folks preaching Christian values.

It is important to note, though, that there are two different kinds of meanness that animate the modern conservative movement, and they are very different from each other. Two recent videos illustrate that difference.

The first is of the kind mentioned above: that nasty, racist meanness that animates so many conservatives. The woman speaker from the audience is the mother of David Bossie, one of the leading figures in the conservative movement and the head of Citizens United. Listen to her compare immigrants to rats and roaches while the audience goes crazy, cheering her on:

Note that the moderator of the session, famed GOP pollster Frank Luntz, not only doesn't push back but praises her and asks the crowd if they would support her for president. This kind of undiluted racism takes my breath away.

However, there is another kind of meanness that is even more central to modern conservatism. If you are looking for a philosophical forebear to this kind of philosophy, read some Ayn Rand, who proclaimed that selfishness is good and that government help for poor people, or even charity, is bad because it encourages the leeches of society. This kind of meanness is a lot smoother and more sophisticated than the rats-and-roaches kind of meanness, but it is just as nasty. Check out this truly sobering interview by my colleague Lauren Windsor with this senior Cato Institute staffer, George Selgin. He says bank runs are good because they will make the economy stronger and bank customers more savvy :

Now, remember how influential Cato is: It is the Koch brothers' leading think tank, pushing their philosophy, and it advises Republican presidential candidates and members of Congress. At the conference where this interview took place, leading Republican appointees to financial regulatory agencies were the keynote speakers. And their banking policy guy, Selgin, argued that the Federal Reserve, FDIC deposit insurance, and almost any regulation of financial markets should be eliminated. Because that worked out so well during the Great Depression!

Selgin actually thinks that the onus should be on consumers to evaluate the safety of a bank by researching their balance sheets. Given that the nature of banking is to lend out or invest the money that they get from depositors, and given the complexity of modern finance -- the "best CEO on Wall Street" couldn't figure out that the London Whale was going to lose billions overnight for JPMorgan Chase -- this is a pretty incredible philosophy. And at its heart it is meanness in its most distilled form: It doesn't matter if millions of people lose their life savings, their homes, and their jobs in a financial collapse, because, hey, they deserve it if they didn't know better in the first place. And in the meantime, if financial charlatans and speculators become billionaires for setting up these market failures and getting out just before the crash, so be it.

This is not the kind of conservatism I grew up around. This is devil-take-the-hindmost conservatism: Every man for himself, and let the unlucky ones starve if it works out that way. These two kinds of meanness together -- the Ayn Rand kind and the nasty, racist kind -- paint a very ugly picture of modern conservatism." [Source]

I never thought that I would miss the likes of Bob Dole and Jack Kemp on the American political scene, but I do.

How to stop being n/a.

The Field Negro education series continues.

"Black people have an awful lot to say about Ben Carson, even if President Ben Carson is pure fantasy. No reason to think otherwise: The legendary neurosurgeon’s bizarre quest for No. 1 gives us little confidence he’s pulling this one off. His Monday announcement in Detroit (you have got to watch it), including an offbeat circus collection of gospel Eminem and a bizarre drill show of aging, pot-bellied soldiers onstage, cements that view.

Does it really matter what African Americans think about Ben Carson? No, not really, so this Washington Post piece on the subject was probably an exercise in futility. Black people aren’t voting for Republicans anyway, much less participating in GOP presidential primaries.
 

Now, it goes without saying that black people made Dr. Ben. The wild success of Carson’s first book, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, the foundation for two decades of public life and a TNT movie, was pushed by black America’s once quasi-fanatic embrace of the Detroit native’s struggle-to-the-top story. You could find Gifted Hands in many a random black church and Sunday school as something of a second Bible.

But that was before folks got to know political Dr. Ben and that ill-fated 2013 National Prayer Breakfast babble where he blasted President Barack Obama’s health care law—with the president sitting right there watching. At that point, Carson went from favored black son of Motown to alien friend of Rush Limbaugh. With his edgy, oddball rants on race, constantly spiced with an incessant focus on the “black laziness” archetype, Carson only cares about what white conservatives think.
 

And why shouldn’t he? Carson’s blimp-sized brand appeal snags him 29 percent favorability ratings among black voters, according to last week’s YouGov poll (pdf)—just 1 percentage point of black support ahead of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). (Yes—apparently 28 percent of black voters see something in Ted Cruz.)
 

He doesn’t care because total black-voter participation during the 2012 Super Tuesday Republican primary was just over 2 percent. Two Southern states with massive black populations, South Carolina and Mississippi, each registered a 2 percent black primary turnout. Republican pollsters tabulating primary exit polls don’t even bother factoring in black voters, frequently classifying them as “n/a.”
 

Black America’s acute distaste for the Republican brand and its candidates is well-known and documented. There’s probably nothing wrong with that, considering the GOP establishment’s open hostility to black-favored policy outcomes.
 

Still, how you feel about a political party has little to do with whether or not it works for you. Like corporations mulling over markets, political parties operate as complex business operations with limited cyclical resources. While it’s incumbent upon all political parties like the GOP to pimp themselves in any election as a better ballot alternative, it’s also crucial for politically active populations to strategically position their interests." [More]

This is all very interesting. But it's something I have heard from quite a few black folks: As black people we need to consider voting for the republican candidates and register as republicans so that both parties will have to compete for our votes.

This of course is easier said than done.

I recently met a sharp republican brother running for council at large here in Philly.

He seemed to have his act together and we agreed on quite a few things about how to move our city forward and address the needs of the black community.

The thing is, though, that his party wasn't really supporting him. He was frustrated that he was not getting the support that he needs and was out on an island trying to spread their message.

"They (the party) would rather put their weight behind some white guy who is given them the same old same old. They just won't get behind someone like me."

That's really a shame, because if the republican party is serious about reaching out to minorities and improving the perception of their party, they will start supporting and putting their weight behind candidates like James Williams.

Building grass roots candidates from local communities is how they would start making inroads into our community. Not getting on some cable talk show and telling us how sincere they are about reaching out to people of color.

I am sorry, but candidates like Ben Carson, Allen West, and Herman Cain, are just not going to get it done.

Until the republicans in Washington realize this fact, we will always just be "n/a" in their book.
 

Not their brother's keepers.

Race and ethnicity can be a tricky and nuanced subject.


I was watching a pundit (Chris Matthews I think) lament the fact that the two highest profile Hispanic republicans are against amnesty for immigrants and immigration reform. He thought it was "weird". "Why aren't these two men empathizing with other Hispanics?" One of the other pundits at the table reminded him that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are of Cuban descent, and, as a result, they do not have any empathy or connection to Mexicans and Central and South Americans who illegally come to the United States. 


That exchange brought back memories of an old high school classmate of mine. I attended a boarding school in Jamaica and one of my classmates was a kid named Franz Newman. Franz was Jamaican, but if you saw him you would think that he just got off a Lufthansa flight from Munich and was just in Jamaica for a vacation. Dude was blond-haired with blue eyes and had the whole Aryan thing down.


But Franz had never left Jamaica, and in many ways he was more Jamaican than most Jamaicans I knew. I never saw him as anything but a Jamaican.


Once Franz got in a fight with a classmate over something which I don't remember what right now. The kid was African American who was born and raised in New York and his parents (who I think were Jamaican)sent him to Jamaica to attend high school. They went at it pretty hard and I remember thinking at the time that I wanted Franz to kick his ass. (Which, if I remember correctly, he did.) Franz was my friend and the American kid was not. 


I understand now that Franz (who currently lives in Canada) will benefit from privileges that the other kid will never have throughout his life. At the time, though, my friendship and the shared ethnicity I had with my fellow countryman trumped any connection I might have had with the other kid because of our shared race.


I suspect that senators Rubio and Cruz do not consider themselves Hispanics like those other Hispanics who come to America from poor Third World countries. They don't share the same reality as some poor family coming to America for a better way of life. They are already living the American dream. They consider themselves Americans first, and in their world amnesty for illegal immigrants will destroy America.


"Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday continued to slam President Barack Obama’s move to shield nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, saying the president was getting into the business of counterfeiting.


“For 4 to 5 million people here illegally, he’s promising to print out and give out work authorizations — essentially, he’s gotten in the job of counterfeiting immigration papers, because there’s no legal authority to do what he’s doing,” the Texas Republican charged on “Fox News Sunday.”' [Source]


I wonder how Franz feels about amnesty for undocumented immigrants.


Finally, now that the Benghazi conspiracy theories have been debunked (by republicans no less) I am guessing that the wingnuts and the folks over at FOX VIEWS will not spend a lot of time telling us how wrong they were.


Wait....just as I suspected; less than 30 seconds.


Of course this will not be enough for folks like Lindsey Graham. Poor Lindsey has spent a lot of time helping folks who play the Benghazi drinking game get drunk, so this is bad news for the senator.


"Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning that last week’s the House Intelligence Committee’s Benghazi report, which hollowed out a number of Republican arguments on the incident, was “full of crap.”


Guest host Gloria Borger asked whether Graham was accusing the House Intel Committee of lying.


“No, I’m saying the House Intelligence Committee is doing a lousy job policing their own,” he said. “I’m saying that anybody who has followed Benghazi at all knows that the CIA deputy director did not come forward to tell Congress what role he played in changing the talking points. And the only way we knew he was involved is when he told a representative at the White House, I’m going to do a hard review of this, a hard rewrite.”'


*Drink... drink.... gulps.*