As we head out to vote tomorrow, a burned out church stands in Mississippi.

   So his Oness just gave what might be his final speech to the country at a massive rally for Hillary at Independence Hall here in Philly. Michelle spoke as well, and as usual she was on point. I suspect that most of y'all are going to miss that family.

We will see if all that hype and those great speeches tonight worked for Hillary when folks go out to the polls in the 66 wards and all their divisions across Philly tomorrow. The mass transit strike is over and the weather should be nice, so that's a good sign for the candidate who wants to be the first to be called Madam President in our history.

Anyway, on the night before we all go to vote I want to do a cut and paste job of what I believe is a very important story.

"GREENVILLE, MIssissippi — The latest instance of the insanity this election has wrought took place on a dead-end street in a black neighborhood, where someone burned a 111-year-old baptist church and wrote “Vote Trump” on the side.

Hillary Clinton immediately took to Twitter to condemn the act, saying, “This kind of hate has no place in America.” It was signed “H” to show it was from Clinton herself. But when it came to the burning of a black church in his own name, Trump’s little fingers didn’t touch his favorite means of reaching millions of supporters, Twitter. Instead, his campaign issued a boilerplate statement.

So these are stakes of this election: a potential president who would not even condemn in his own words terrorism done in his own name.

The inside of the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church looked like a deranged modern art exhibit when viewed on Friday afternoon. Pews, an organ, the podium for the Bible—all covered in what looked black paint. It was instead soot from the flames that licked up the walls and busted out the windows, burning so hot that firefighters at first had to watch it burn before finally being able to approach the building to try to save it.

They failed.

“We will rebuild,” said Marshall Wilson, a Greenville native and a deacon at the church for the last 38 years. The church will have the help of more than $200,000 raised online in the last few days.

“It’s overwhelming,” Wilson told The Daily Beast on Friday afternoon.

Whether the arsonist was a Trump supporter, someone hoping to throw off the authorities—although Wilson noted no one in the community that he knows of has every had a problem with church, especially not enough of one to spark flames—or someone else hoping to wreak some havoc of their own, is now up to authorities to find out.

“What the Devil do, whoever did this, his plan’s not gonna work,” Wilson said. “God’s got a plan for everything.”

So do a lot of other people.

They include the three men who are accused of planning to bomb a Somali mosque in Kansas, a crime that has federal authorities referring to the men as domestic terrorists. “The only way to turn around this country is a bloodbath,” one member of the group said in a phone call recorded by law enforcement.

The men were arrested in October after an eight-month long investigation.

Somali immigrants, a largely Muslim community, were targeted in North Dakota as well. Police eventually arrested a man for firebombing a Somali cafe there in December, writing “Go home” in spray paint on a window.

But the string of violence against minorities  this election season may have begun in August 2015, when two men in Boston beat and urinated on a homeless Hispanic man simply because of his race, allegedly invoking Trump in the attack.

“Donald Trump was right; all of these illegals need to be deported,” one of the men said after he was arrested, according to police.

The GOP presidential candidate, in characteristically spineless fashion, said then he “would never condone violence” from his supporters. Our possible next president did not say, unequivocally, that he did not condone this specific act, because that wouldn’t fit into the dog whistle nature of his candidacy. During a press conference following the attack, Trump took his non-condemnation a step further, saying his supporters are “very passionate,” and that they “just want this country to be great again.”

For some of those supporters, that greatness is best shown by beating the hell out of someone who is a different color than you.

But the Trump-related violence didn’t stop there. The Daily Beast in March compiled a list of violent confrontations between Trump supporters and protesters at the GOP candidate’s rallies. At that time, Trump’s mostly white gang of thugs had roughed up men and women in at least six incidents, including one that month in which a white man cold-cocked a black protester. Trump at the time pledged to pay the attacker’s defense fees.

Like virtually everything that Trump promises, that ended up not happening. Some protesters, however, have taken legal action and are seeking $1 million in damages for the violence inflicted on them at Trump rallies.

Finally, and most ironically for the “law and order candidate,” is the man who killed two Iowa police officers in early November. A Trump-Pence lawn sign was planted in the front yard of the home where Scott Greene lived and we know that he is angry enough at blacks to record himself waving a Confederate flag in the faces of African-Americans at a high school football game. Police escorted Greene out following the incident.

The Trump tweet came first, then one from Clinton, expressing condolences for the families of the two fallen officers.

Clinton’s tweet condemning the arson at the Greenville church compared to Trump’s silence on his chosen platform is an important distinction to make. Twitter is the place where Trump is at his most “unshackled” where he regularly berates and bullies opponents, reporters, citizens, foreign leaders and whomever else chooses to question his manhood, sanity, or bonafides as a presidential candidate or basic human being. It’s also where he pushes conspiracy theories and fake news, where he utilizes plagiarism as a campaign tactic, and where he occasionally blames interns of questionable existence for insulting the entire state of Iowa.

That Trump had nothing to say on his own about the church doesn’t bother Deacon Wilson.

“The church was still smoking when the firemen brought out the Bible,” he said as investigators continued to comb through the wreckage on Friday afternoon. “It hadn’t been touched. You can’t burn God’s word.”' [Source]

If you cant condemn the burning of a church in your name, are you really qualified to lead the "greatest country" on earth?

*Pic from nbcnews.com

 

Two requests.

So Labor Day is over, and the circus to elect our next president is in full swing.

The candidates crossed paths today in Ohio, and Hillary unveiled her new plane while coming out of hiding (and fundraising) from the press. trump actually attended a fair in Ohio, where he mixed and mingled with the people and got some good old fashioned white blue collar love.

So anyway, I just have a couple of requests for the candidates, and I hope that they can indulge me as soon as possible.

The first one is for Hillary:

Please hold a press conference and announce to the American people that you have turned over every e-mail correspondence that you have ever had to agencies in charge of investigating them. And tell us everything that you can remember to the best of your knowledge about said emails. Even shit that you might find embarrassing.    

Personally, I don't care about you and your damn e-mails, but apparently the republican spin machine has convinced the American people that it's a thing.

The second one is for Donald:

Please release the letter from the IRS informing you of the audit of your tax returns.

Audit or no audit, you  should still release them. This will at least prove to the American people that you are in fact under an IRS audit and that you are not lying to prevent releasing your tax returns.  

*Pic from play.google.com

 





   

Birds of a feather.....

This just in: Roger Ailes will apparently be helping Donald trump prep for the upcoming debates with Hillary. Those two guys really deserve each other. They honestly seem to have a lot in common.

But I wonder what he will teach him about debating Hillary? How to chase her around the podium? I mean for a guy who is supposedly seeking the female vote, choosing to team up with an alleged sexual harasser is not a good look.

Speaking of FOX, they  have dedicated close to zero coverage about Roger and the despotic culture that he created over there. I guess they would  have to be an actual news organization to report the news no matter where it leads.  

They are so in the tank for trump over there, that you have to actually feel sorry for them. They don't even hide their fear of trump losing and the hated Hillary becoming president anymore.

Their hosts are even hoping for a very sad and strange "October surprise."   

"During the Fox News show "The Five" on Aug. 16, co-host Jesse Watters told the panel that a terror attack in October would help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (video below).

According to Mediaite.com, the panel was discussing Trump's low polling among younger voters and how he could improve it.

And if there’s one more terror attack, maybe in October, this is going to make Trump’s plan look a lot more appealing," Watters stated.

Co-host Juan Williams responded: "Oh my god, what wishful thinking. Anti-American. That’s unbelievable."

"Why would you say that that’s what I’m thinking, Juan?" Watters replied. "How dare you? ... How dare you?"

Watters insisted that he was doing "political analysis," which Williams said he took as "desperation."

"No, I know about October surprises," Watters insisted." [Source]

Sure you do Jesse, and you would love nothing more than a big one to change the tide of  this election. No matter what type of "surprise" it is.

Sick.

*Image from youtube.com

 

When your surrogates are as over the top as you are..

Over at the sex assault network, they are freaking out over the thought of Donald trump getting his ass handed to him by a lady. And to the much hated Hillary no less.

By all accounts, trump is getting a major beat down in all the polls, and for a guy who claims to be a winner, this cannot be good.  It 's probably why he is already declaring that the elections will be rigged and warning us that if he loses it will be because those blacks in places like Philly cheated. And, sadly for him, now (some) in the press are finally doing their job and some real investigative reporting. This might be why he has been running against the New York Times and other media outlets of late. 

Things have gotten so bad for the orange haired one that his surrogates are starting to sound as over the top and as irrational as he is. From Rudy Giuliani declaring that there were no terrorist attacks on American soil before Obama (Pssst, remember September 11th?), to Katrina Pierson declaring that
Barack Obama started the Afghan war.

All of this of course won't slow down the trump train. It will continue to motor down the tracks, running on the fumes from his oversized ego, and the energy from the clueless minions who have rallied around his movement.

Ready or not, here it comes, and the only thing that can stop it is a reality check.

Speaking of reality checks, Justin Gatlin got one last night when he tried to run against fellow yawdie and GOAT,  Usain Bolt.

Congrats to Usain Bolt for winning three gold medals in three different Olympic games while competing in the 100 meter dash.

Yes yawdies, "a wi a run tings".  

*Pic from huffingtonpost.com




 

Trouble for the "trump train."

Someone I respect, and who happens to be a regular reader of my blog, confronted me today and wanted to know why I was being so hard on Donald trump.

"You have been relentless in your criticism of this guy. I follow you on twitter and you are even harder on him over there."

Guilty as charged. But I need folks to understand that my utter contempt for the man is not based on some type of ideological or political hatred. The truth is, if the republican nominee for president was say Jeb Bush, Jon Huntsman, John Thune, or John Kasich I might disagree with some of their policies, but I would not believe, as I do with trump, that they would be totally unfit to hold the office.

I am sorry, but as a person of color, red flags go up for me when I hear the head of the American Nazi party say that a trump victory would be an "opportunity for white nationalist". Or, when black folks are openly called the n-word by trump supporters at his rallies, and when he tries to question  the legitimacy of the first African American president by questioning where he was born. When I consider all of these things, I have to question the sanity of African- Americans who would actually support the man.

But it's not only me, well respected republicans are running away from the guy faster than Usain Bolt in Rio.  And the polls are starting to show that the rest of Americans are coming to their senses as well. Donald loves to talk about polls, but he is down double digits to Hillary in most polls and is tied with her in states like Georgia, which is a state that republicans have been winning since Jimmy Carter left office.

"Come on man, get on the Trump-train, there is room for everybody."

I'll pass. I got a glimpse of the operator, and I don't like what I see.

*Pic from usatoday.com

Convention, heat, and hackers.

 With apologies to Nelly, it's hot "herr" in Philly this week, folks. The heat came just in time for the dems big party.

I gotta give it to Bernie's peeps, they were out in full force in the midday heat trying to make their voices heard. Meanwhile, my Jamaican ass was running for the closest air conditioned building. (Hey, I was in a suit; they were in shorts and flip flops.) That type of dedication is what wins elections. Hillary better hope and pray that they put some of that energy into getting her elected.

Sparks are already flying at the convention. Bernie's people actually gave their leader a real Philly welcome for all the world to see.

They are pissed because hacked e-mails confirm what they already knew: That the DNC was favoring Hillary over Bernie.

Now I get it, Bernie was never really a democrat, but he ran as one, and the fair thing to do would have been to give him equal treatment in the race. Sadly, Debbie Wasserman Shultz did not do that, and now, thankfully, she is gone.   

Dems are saying that the Russians hacked their e-mails to embarrass them and give trump the edge in the upcoming election. Apparently the trump Putin bromance runs deep, and word is that Vlad would love to see his buddy Donald running things in the most powerful country on earth.

They sure seem to have a lot in common, and there sure seems to be a history between them.

"Over the last year there has been a recurrent refrain about the seeming bromance between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. More seriously, but relatedly, many believe Trump is an admirer and would-be emulator of Putin's increasingly autocratic and illiberal rule. But there's quite a bit more to the story. At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies which go back decades through administrations of both parties. There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men.

Let me start by saying I'm no Russia hawk. I have long been skeptical of US efforts to extend security guarantees to countries within what the Russians consider their 'near abroad' or extend such guarantees and police Russian interactions with new states which for centuries were part of either the Russian Empire or the USSR. This isn't a matter of indifference to these countries. It is based on my belief in seriously thinking through the potential costs of such policies. In the case of the Baltics, those countries are now part of NATO. Security commitments have been made which absolutely must be kept. But there are many other areas where such commitments have not been made. My point in raising this is that I do not come to this question or these policies as someone looking for confrontation or cold relations with Russia.

Let's start with the basic facts. There is a lot of Russian money flowing into Trump's coffers and he is conspicuously solicitous of Russian foreign policy priorities.
I'll list off some facts.

1. All the other discussions of Trump's finances aside, his debt load has grown dramatically over the last year, from $350 million to $630 million. This is in just one year while his liquid assets have also decreased. Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks.
2. Post-bankruptcy Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia, most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin. Here's a good overview from The Washington Post, with one morsel for illustration ...

Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

3. One example of this is the Trump Soho development in Manhattan, one of Trump's largest recent endeavors. The project was the hit with a series of lawsuits in response to some typically Trumpian efforts to defraud investors by making fraudulent claims about the financial health of the project. Emerging out of that litigation however was news about secret financing for the project from Russia and Kazakhstan. Most attention about the project has focused on the presence of a twice imprisoned Russian immigrant with extensive ties to the Russian criminal underworld. But that's not the most salient part of the story. As the Times put it,

"Mr. Lauria brokered a $50 million investment in Trump SoHo and three other Bayrock projects by an Icelandic firm preferred by wealthy Russians “in favor with” President Vladimir V. Putin, according to a lawsuit against Bayrock by one of its former executives. The Icelandic company, FL Group, was identified in a Bayrock investor presentation as a “strategic partner,” along with Alexander Mashkevich, a billionaire once charged in a corruption case involving fees paid by a Belgian company seeking business in Kazakhstan; that case was settled with no admission of guilt."

Another suit alleged the project "occasionally received unexplained infusions of cash from accounts in Kazakhstan and Russia." [More]

Ok, so maybe the theory that the Russians hacked the DNC e-mails to get trump elected is not so far -fetched after all.

TGIF, but not for all the news it brings.

This has been quite a news day.

There was another terrorist attack in Europe. This time it was in  Germany , where some nut-job decided to kill at least nine people (including children) before killing himself. (That might just eliminate the radical Muslim jihadist angle.)

Dude was yelling  "you fucking Turks", and his rampage comes on the anniversary of a white supremacist shooting and killing 77 people in Norway. (77!!)  

If it does turn out that this was some nationalist nut job acting alone,  and not the work of a Middle Eastern terrorist group, look for the coverage to change.

Whoever it is, it won't stop  Donald trump from using this as just another reason to ramp up the fear factor. (Is he still giving his address?) The world is going to hell in a hand- basket and only I alone can fix it.

And will someone please tell the folks in the republican party that optics matter? Retweeting something posted on a white supremacist website on your convention jumbotron in the middle of your nominee's speech, was not a good look. The white only elevator signs we can live with, because we understand that it might have been an oversight. (Might.) But at some point you have to start wondering about the motivations of these folks.   

Hilary also picked her running -mate today. I guess if you want safe and steady Tim Kaine is the way to go. Virginia would be a nice feather in Hillary's electoral college cap, although with the latest ruling from the supreme court in Virginia it won't be that easy.

Finally, the most troubling news of the day comes from Austin, Texas. Where some police officers in that department decided that it was cool to dehumanize and abuse a woman of color.

Her name is Breaion King; she is a school teacher, and what happened to her should sicken every person of conscience in this country.

Watch the video tape, and listen to what they say about black people.

"First and foremost, let me just say this to Breaion King, her family, her friends, her neighbors, her supporters: 'I’m sorry that on the day that you were stopped for going 15 mph [above the speed limit], you were approached in a manner and then treated in a manner that is not consistent with the expectations of this police chief," Acevedo said. "There’s a way to do this job, and that day, we did not approach it anywhere near the way we should’ve approached it."

Acevedo said that "the chain of command" who reviewed Richter's use of force in the incident determined that "the incident was not consistent with the expectations of the department." Richter was told to attend training and counseling. "

 

Chief, all the counseling in the world will not help that man and you know it.

 

Ms. King, I am just glad that you are still alive.  We all know that things could have turned out a lot

worse for you and your family.

 

*Pic from abcnews.go.com

 

 

Memo to HIllary: Time to hide Bill.

I am now convinced that Bubba does not want his wife to become president of the United States. I mean how else do you explain his boneheaded move to ----not so secretly meet with the Attorney General on an airport tarmac of all places? 

Bill Clinton is supposed to be a world class politician, so he had to have known what the optics of such a meeting would mean. He had t have known that wingnuts and the FOX VIEWS crowd would be all over it. And honestly, I can't blame them. It just wasn't a good look.

Now the AG seems to be a fine lady, and I take her at her word that there was no discussion about the e-mail investigation with Bubba's wife, but as an experienced lawyer she should know the dangers of having anything even resembling an ex-parte conversation.

I don't take calls from other lawyers or litigants involved in any of my cases for a reason.  

Finally, Hillary's husband is doing his best to sink her campaign, but she can take comfort in the fact that her opponent is trying to torpedo his own campaign as well.

Consider his numerous idiotic pronouncements over the past few days. Mexican planes attacking? Are you serious? No wonder his campaign is in chaos and his staff is bailing on him faster than a vegetarian from a steak house.

Now that I think about it, trump might not want to be president, either. I think that this was all initially a big joke to him, and that he woke up one day and said, Holy crap! I'm winning?!

Yes Donald, you are wining, and if Hillary doesn't put her husband in check, you will really be surprised come November.    

*Pic from democracynow.org

   

 

   

Rocky would be proud.

 This fight between Hillary and Bernie is really getting nasty. It has now become a literal one.

They actually picked the perfect place to have the Democratic National Convention this summer, because here in Philly we just love a good fight.

I have been watching the back and forth on twitter, and it hasn't been pretty. Hillary's peeps say that Bernie's peeps are crazy, and that they are risking giving the presidency to the republicans and their billionaire groper, because of their dogmatic, obdurate, and unyielding behavior.

Bernie's peeps, on the other hand, believe that Hillary is no different than the republicans who they so resent, and that she is nothing more than a dishonest career politician who is prone to duplicitous behavior. They believe that they have been wronged by the democratic party, and they are threatening to take their G.H. Bass shoes and go walking.

Things got so bad that Hillary supporter, the actor Wendell Pierce, was arrested for allegedly assaulting a Bernie supporter. Apparently they were having a political discussion in the lobby of the Loews Hotel in Atlanta when things got a little heated. I hate when that happens.

The bottom line to all of this is that Bernie doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, even though it s mathematically impossible to overtake Hillary in the delegate count.

All poor Hillary wants to focus on the orange haired one, but she can't, because Bernie and his peeps keep yapping at her heels. 

I was talking to a friend of mine today who was excited that her daughter had been selected to be one of the 10,000.00 volunteers at the convention here this summer. "It will be a great experience for her", she said. "A great resume builder." 

I didn't have the heart to tell her that her daughter might be getting a crash course in something else: how to become a professional boxing referee.

Things could get that ugly.   

Finally, speaking of ugly, did you see what the my former mayor and governor said about "ugly women" to the Washington Post?

"Former DNC Chairman and ex-Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a huge Hillary Clinton backer, did his best Donald Trump impersonation Wednesday, saying the GOP front-runner’s condescending comments about women will backfire because there are “there are probably more ugly women in America than attractive women.”

In  an eye-opening interview with The Washington Post, Rendell, 72, was discussing Trump’s electoral prospects in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where Rendell was mayor from 1992 to 2000, when his comments suddenly began to resemble the mogul’s.

“Will he have some appeal to working-class Dems in Levittown or Bristol? Sure,” Rendell said. “For every one he’ll lose one and a half, two Republican women. Trump’s comments like ‘You can’t be a 10 if you’re flat-chested,’ that’ll come back to haunt him.”

“There are probably more ugly women in America than attractive women. People take that stuff personally,” added Rendell, who is a superdelegate in the 2016 Democratic race backing Clinton."'[Source]

Clearly the man has never been to Louisiana.

"A classic Clinton operation"?

There were a lot of federal agents all over my town today. They were here for the Penn graduation. Donald trump's daughter and the Vice President's granddaughter were graduating, and both men were in attendance. I wonder if they had a chance to meet with each other.

If they did see each other poor Biden must have been looking at trump and wishing that it was him and not Hillary running against him for president. 

Given Hillary's high negatives and her inability to put away Bernie I can see why he would feel that way. Although part of the reason Hillary is not doing well with a certain type of voter is because of her close association with Barack Obama. She beat the pants off of him in West Virginia in 2008, but then she aligned herself with him and, as a result, got crushed by Bernie in the same state. (Here is a little tidbit to remember: Just like with money, when folks say it's not about race, it is always about race.)  

Speaking of Hillary, her campaign is now being accused of planting that wonderful illuminating piece about trump's treatment of women which ran yesterday in the New York Times. If we are to believe everything in the article, Donald has Bubba beat when it comes to how he views and  treats some women.

"Donald J. Trump had barely met Rowanne Brewer Lane when he asked her to change out of her clothes.

Donald was having a pool party at Mar-a-Lago. There were about 50 models and 30 men. There were girls in the pools, splashing around. For some reason Donald seemed a little smitten with me. He just started talking to me and nobody else.
He suddenly took me by the hand, and he started to show me around the mansion. He asked me if I had a swimsuit with me. I said no. I hadn’t intended to swim. He took me into a room and opened drawers and asked me to put on a swimsuit.
–Rowanne Brewer Lane, former companion

Ms. Brewer Lane, at the time a 26-year-old model, did as Mr. Trump asked. “I went into the bathroom and tried one on,” she recalled. It was a bikini. “I came out, and he said, ‘Wow.’ ”

Mr. Trump, then 44 and in the midst of his first divorce, decided to show her off to the crowd at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Palm Beach, Fla.

 

“He brought me out to the pool and said, ‘That is a stunning Trump girl, isn’t it?’ ” Ms. Brewer Lane said.

 

Donald Trump and women: The words evoke a familiar cascade of casual insults, hurled from the safe distance of a Twitter account, a radio show or a campaign podium. This is the public treatment of some women by Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president: degrading, impersonal, performed. “That must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees,” he told a female contestant on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Rosie O’Donnell, he said, had a “fat, ugly face.” A lawyer who needed to pump milk for a newborn? “Disgusting,” he said."

 

What a guy.

 

Anyway, the RNC chairman and others are blaming her for the  John Miller story as well. They must really think that Hillary and her peeps are powerful. They are alleging that the stories are phony and are a part of a "classic Clinton operation." It's possible, of course, that the Clintons did do some Clintonesque stuff, but let's not lose sight of the real story here: That the republican nominee for president is a lying narcissistic fraud.

 

Of course it all won't make a difference. The dance will continue and the American people will continue to get suckered by one of the greatest cons in the history of American business. 

 

The sun is coming out and the day is looking better as I type this.

 

Donald must have left the city.    

 

*Pic from crooksandliars.com

 

    

     





    

Hillary vs. Donald.

Tonight is election night here in Philly, and as I stated in previous posts, it seems that we are heading for a showdown between the orange one and Hillary in November.

With all due respect to the political Batman and Robin, all the partnering and scheming in the world will not stop trump's big mo.

Sorry folks, there are just too many clueless people in America. Every angry white man in America will be pulling the lever for trump, and those who are not already registered are breaking their necks to get on the voter rolls.

The two leading candidates are already looking around for a running mate.

Hillary is thinking male Latino, and trump is thinking, woman. Any woman.   

Finally, speaking of elections, shout out to the governor of Virginia for restoring the voting rights of over 200,000 felons.

"Gov. Terry McAuliffe will allow more than 200,000 ex-cons in Virginia to register to vote in the upcoming presidential election, one of the biggest actions taken by a state to instantly restore voting rights.

The change applies to all felons who have completed their sentences and been released from supervised probation or parole. The Democratic governor’s decision particularly affects black residents of Virginia: 1 in 4 African Americans in the state has been permanently banned from voting because of laws restricting the rights of those with convictions.

“Once you have served your time and you’ve finished up your supervised parole. . .I want you back as a full citizen of the commonwealth,” McAuliffe said. “I want you to have a job. I want you paying taxes, and you can’t be a second-class citizen.” [Source]

That's a beautiful thing. True democracy in action.

Contrast that to the federal Judge in North Carolina who upheld the voting rules laws in that state which makes it harder for citizens to vote. 

"The opinion, by Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of Federal District Court in Winston-Salem, upheld the repeal of a provision that allowed people to register and vote on the same day. It also upheld a seven-day reduction in the early-voting period; the end of preregistration, which allowed some people to sign up before their 18th birthdays; and the repeal of a provision that allowed for the counting of ballots cast outside voters’ home precinct.

 

It also left intact North Carolina’s voter identification requirement, which legislators softened last year to permit residents to cast ballots, even if they lack the required documentation, if they submit affidavits.

 

The ruling could have significant repercussions in North Carolina, a state that Barack Obama barely won in 2008, and that the Republican Mitt Romney barely won four years later.

 

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which sits in Richmond, Va., will be the first to consider an appeal, which the law’s opponents said they would pursue." [Source]

 

Stay vigilant and engaged people. There are a lot of things going on in this country which you need to be know about. 

 

I am watching Donald trump's victory speech now, and he is telling his supporters that he will bring back jobs and make America great again, and blah blah blah.

 

 Hillary's speech will be next.

 

Buckle up people.  

 

*Pic from abcnews.go.com  

 

 

 

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



 

Drinking coffee while black, and the Democrats have a debate.

I, like most working professionals, will sometimes hit up Starbucks or my local coffee shop in the mornings before I get my work on.

Sometimes there is nothing like a little jolt of java to get your juices flowing.

This is, of course, unless you happen to be a black man in America.

Tonight my racism chase takes me to Cincinnati, Ohio.   

"It was just another morning in Cincinnati, Ohio for 29-year-old Charles Harrell when he was making his way back from a early morning coffee run. Filming his trip, Harrell recorded his interaction with police officer Baron Osterman, who can be seen trailing behind Harrell on a bicycle. Sharing that the police office asked if he “had a problem,” Harrell noted that this was a normal occurrence in his hometown.

 

“This is what we have to go through in Cincinnati, harassment” he said. “You can’t be a black man and enjoy your morning, because the police are going to harass you in Cincinnati, Ohio.”

 

As the video continues to roll, Osterman approaches Harrell for allegedly crossing against the light. In response, Harrell admits that he was frightened by the officer’s trailing of him, stating, “You were scaring me, sir. I don’t know why you’re following me anyway. You followed me all the way down the street.” Osterman then demands that Harrell put his phone and coffee on the ground. Refusing to lay his objects down, Harrell instead offers his I.D., and the officer become physical, warning him: “Don’t reach around.” Harrell is pinned against the wall and handcuffed.

 

According to Cincinnati.com, this is not the first time Officer Osterman has been linked to the use of excessive force. He reportedly was involved in the death of a black man, Nathaniel Jones, in 2003 in a local White Castle restaurant. The Citizen Complaint Authority ruled that Osterman and his fellow officer James Pike used excessive force in subduing Jones in 2004. They were both cleared in 2008 and awarded financial compensation.

 

Harrell was arrested for a pedestrian violation, resisting arrest and possession of a small amount of marijuana. The police department released a statement saying that the incident was up for internal review. Watch the footage of the incident below: [Video and story]

 

I hope, for his sake, Charles had decaf.  

 

Finally, I am watching the democrats debate each other, and Bernie is doing his usual shouting about Wall Street, and Hillary is trying her best to tell the people what they want to hear by wrapping herself around his Oness.

 

The moderators are having a much easier job with this one, because there are only two people and they are both, for the most part, sticking to the issues. No my d**k is bigger than yours shouting match going on with these two.

 

Bernie is telling Hillary to release her transcript of her speeches on Wall Street and I believe that she should. She has to stop hiding behind this argument that she will do it when ALL of her opponents to the same. That argument just has disingenuous written all over it.  And worse, it is giving Donald trump and the New York Times cover for their disgraceful refusal to release the transcript of his "off the record"  conversation with the Time's editorial board where he allegedly told them that his entire campaign when it comes to immigration might be a scam. 

 

Sorry Joe Concha, I get the whole confidentiality thing, but this man is running to be the president of the United States for crying out loud. Nothing a presidential candidate thinks or have said in the past should be kept from the American people. 

 

This election is way too important to allow a scam artist to pull the wool over our eyes.

 

Oh wait....too late.

 

*Pic from rawstory.com