"Black lives matter" to at least one Republican candidate.

     Holy crap! An honest to goodness republican actually made sense when referring to the "Black Lives Matter " movement.

 "Republican presidential candidate John Kasich took up the cry of a movement drawing attention to the deaths of young black men at the hands of the police, saying in a CNN interview that “black lives matter.”

CNN’s Dana Bash began by listing some of the Democratic candidates’ forays into the Black Lives Matter movement. “Hillary Clinton met here in New Hampshire yesterday with some Black Lives Matter protesters. I don’t know if you saw, Bernie Sanders had a disruption at one of his events because of protesters.”

“Martin O’Malley apologized for saying ‘all lives matter.’ Do you think that it’s appropriate to apologize for that?” she said the Ohio Governor. “What’s your view on all this?”

“I’ve been very involved in Ohio,” Kasich said. “We have a collaborative effort with community leaders, African-Americans, law enforcement, and they came up with 23 recommendations.”
“Should a public official apologize for saying all lives matter?” she repeated.

“I don’t know about that issue…” he responded. “And all lives do matter. Black lives matter, especially now, because there’s a fear in these communities that, you know, justice isn’t working for them.”

“But it’s about balance,” he added. “I’m not going to get myself caught in some sort of a wedge. The community has to understand the challenges of police, and the police have to understand the challenges of the community.”

If I didn't know better I would say that the poor guy doesn't want to win the republican primary. I mean how can he expect to win with statements like the one that he made above?

Mr. Kasich, you can move to the head of the republican class for now. (Is it me, or does he always look like he had a little too much to drink?) It's a shame that you are so far down in the polls, because you seem like you are actually willing to step back for a minute, view the landscape, and not demagogue every issue just to grab headlines.

Anyway, I bet your supporters aren't taunting the Black Lives Matter protesters.

"Wednesday night, Black Lives Matter protesters made good on their promise to keep the heat on presidential candidates, turning their sights on Jeb Bush (R). At a rally in North Las Vegas, Nevada, protesters called on Bush to speak out about racial injustice. At the end of the event, the protesters chanted “black lives matter,” which was quickly met with “white lives matter” and “all lives matter” chants.

Black Lives Matter advocates asked the presidential hopeful how he personally connects to matters of race in justice, after he said, “we have serious problems and these problems have gotten worse in the last few years. Communities, people no longer trust the basic institutions in our society that they need to trust to create, to make things work.” [Source] 

Jeb's people are just mad because folks can't stay awake long enough when they try listening to him to actually hear what he has to say. Dude is getting his clock cleaned by the likes of Donald Trump and Ben Carson for crying out loud! If I supported this guy I would be pretty angry  as well.

Did you happen to see his foreign policy proposal? Yes it's bad. But what else did you expect? The guy's name is, after all, Bush.

The Koch brothers should consider John Kasich, and an old interview with the Field Negro.

The Field Negro education series continues.

I read this very interesting article, recently.

"The St. Croix River War has exploded into open hostilities. Hide the hotdish, mother!

 

For a couple of years now, Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, has been embarrassed regularly by the economic performance of neighboring Minnesota, which is governed in a completely different fashion by a Democratic governor, Mark Dayton. So, on Thursday, as part of his campaign to sell himself as a possible president, which requires him to sell the rubes a State of Wisconsin wholly different from the actual one that he is selling off for parts, Walker dropped by Minnesota. A former mayor of Minneapolis was there to greet him.

In 2010, both Wisconsin and Minnesota faced similar budget woes and a worrisome economic future amid a national recession. Both are also Midwest states, deeply invested in manufacturing and agricultural economic drivers. The only difference was that Minnesotans elected DFL Gov. Mark Dayton to turn Minnesota around, while Wisconsinites chose Scott Walker to lead their state's recovery. Only one governor was successful.

Then he gets harsh.

In Minnesota, Dayton has moved forward Democratic policies like increasing the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and investing in the middle class, and now we are seeing one of the most business-friendly states in the country. Just this year, Forbes ranked Minnesota as the ninth best state for business, seventh in economic climate and second in quality of life. In Wisconsin, Walker opposed a minimum-wage increase and equal-pay legislation, rejected federal funds to expand Medicaid, and attacked Wisconsin workers with right-to-work and anti-collective-​bargaining policies. As a result, the cost of doing business in Wisconsin is higher than the national average, and median household income is thousands less than in Minnesota. The facts are clear: Walker and the Republican trickle-down economic policies have made it practically impossible for Wisconsin to recover from the recession, and the state consistently sits at the bottom of the region in private-sector job growth.

The Minnesota-Wisconsin comparison has dogged Walker ever since the press and the general public first noticed it. (This is partly because Dayton, while a fine governor, has a very eccentric attitude toward tooting his own political horn -- to wit: he won't do it. Drives political people up the wall.) And, judging by what he said to his carefully screened audience in the Twin Cities -- once again, Scott Walker bravely faces down his political opponents by avoiding them -- it's starting to get under Walker's skin more than a little.

Walker's closed-door session with legislators — and later gatherings with top business leaders and a conservative group — come as he nears an announcement on a White House campaign after taking several preliminary steps toward a bid, including hiring staff and taking repeated trips to states with early primaries. He said a formal decision would come once Wisconsin lawmakers set a new budget, probably in early June..."You've had the advantage of other than a two-year period of having Republicans in charge of at least one part of government for some time. Before we came into office for many years, there was a Democrat governor, a Democrat assembly and a Democrat Senate," Walker said, noting the state's peak 9.2 percent unemployment rate before his election in 2010 and its 4.6 percent standing now. Nationally, the unemployment rate was above 9 percent throughout 2010 and has fallen to 5.5 percent now.

Wisconsin has trailed the national average in private-sector job growth since six months after Walker took office. He fell short of a signature campaign promise to create 250,000 private-sector jobs, although 145,000 new positions appeared, and Wisconsin ranked 40th nationwide in private-sector job growth in the 12-month period ending in September. As he tours the country, Walker has boasted that new businesses are starting up in Wisconsin at a higher rate than the rest of the country and that income growth for residents exceeds the national average.

To which Dayton replied.

Dayton, a supporter of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, offered a polite "Welcome to Minnesota" to Walker and said he should come back as often as he likes. "I'm not going to engage in presidential politics at this point," Dayton said.

Like I said. The guy is a real fireworks display.

It is becoming part of the general campaign narrative that we have at least three potential Republican candidates -- Walker, Chris Christie, and the increasingly ludicrous "Bobby" Jindal -- who are running on their interpretations of how well they've done in office. All three currently have approval ratings in their own states that are headed toward the root cellar. All three of their states are a complete mess in one way or another. Yet all three of them are out there, pitching fantastical visions of states that have nothing to do with actual reality. It's campaign by karaoke.

Now, the idea that governors make the best presidents is largely shibboleth, as has been noted elsewhere. But, if the Republicans are looking for someone to make that case in actual reality, then John Kasich is their only choice. (I am not in any way endorsing this proposition, because Kasich is running his campaign based on The Worst Idea In American Politics.) He's relatively popular. When he tried to Walkerize his state workforce, the voters beat him over the head with a hammer and he backed off, and he hasn't tried again. He took the Affordable Care Act's FREE MONEY (!) He's got Green Room cred that the others -- except possibly Christie -- don't have. Unlike Christie, Walker, and Rick Perry, he's under neither indictment nor investigation, always a plus.

Economically, the man's ideas are from Jupiter, but that's to be expected. He is a Reagan cultist, after all, But, compared to, say, Jindal, whose state university is preparing for the possibility of bankruptcy, Kasich looks like Pericles. Yet, when it comes down to it, the basic problems for Kasich in a Republican primary process are that: A) he can't raise money, and B) he has made the barest modicum of sense on too many occasions. That bespeaks a deeper problem, I'd say." [Source]

And then there is Lady Hillary with all her...ahem, ahem, money problems.

2016 should be really interesting.

Finally, someone just sent me this interview I did with another blog a few years back.

Thought I would share.

"Interview With Wayne Bennett, Author of The Field Negro

       P   O   S   T   E   D       B   Y       A   L   B   E   R  T

Wayne Bennett’s blog, The Field Negro, explores race in America in an unexpected way. His writing mixes cultural polemics with humor to provoke conversation and insight about one of our country’s most fraught subjects. He’s always a good read. The following interview was conducted by e-mail …
1. You write a blog called “The Field Negro.” That’s a provocative name for a blog. Why did you choose it?

I chose it because of one of my favorite speeches of all time: The Malcolm X speech to the SNCC workers in Alabama in 1965. This is where he outlined the dichotomy between the house and field Negroes in America, and why, as a result, it is hard for black folks to unify around particular causes.

I wanted to identify with the field Negroes in my writing because that’s how I view myself in the ongoing debate. Someone who works hard and represents the masses.
Besides, I wanted a title that makes people uncomfortable.

2. Do you ever get called out for what you write on your blog? What’s the one thing that, in retrospect, you most regret having written? What was the post that generated the most controversy?

I get called out all the time. I get more nasty e-mails than you could ever imagine.
I rarely regret anything I write, but if you put a gun to my head I would have to say calling Condy Rice “the bad perm lady.” After the Don Imus incident where he called the Rutgers basketball players “nappy headed hoes” and I ripped him for it, I realized what a hypocrite I was, because I was in essence doing the same thing to Secretary Rice.

It’s hard to say which post generated the most controversy. I have had a few. My post about white people and their pets pissed off a lot of white folks. And my post about the 12% rule for black folks pissed off a lot of black people. I always get a lot of heat for supporting the Jewish people on various issues as well.

3. [The foundation I work at] administered a poll to [the members of a] giving circle …, and one of their questions was this:

In the long run, the most effective way to address a region’s racial inequities is to (choose only one):

1. engage the entire community in discussions about race and white privilege
2. address systemic issues (e.g., laws, policies, etc.) that lead to unequal outcomes
3. empower low-income communities politically (through voter registration drives, etc.)
4. bring more low-income people into the middle class through literacy and skills training, small business development programs, and improving public education
5. just wait another 50 years until younger, less bigoted generations assume positions of responsibility and power

How would you answer this question and why?

I love numbers 3 & 4. Education. Education. Education. It is the greatest equalizer in America. I would also push for more political involvement among underserved communities—if it’s one thing a politician fears is numbers at the ballot box—and financial education for poor people. It is very important that we learn how to save and manage our money.

4. As regards conversations (and actions) in the public sphere touching on matters of race and ethnicity, what trends have you seen over the past ten years?

It’s getting better, but folks in the majority are still afraid to talk openly about race and ethnicity. The mainstream media won’t touch it because they know that it makes most folks in America uncomfortable. The only time we talk about it (race) is when we have to. (See the Henry Louis Gates incident at Harvard which led to Obama’s “teachable moment.”) And when it infringes on the political debate such as the case with immigration reform.

5. What do you regard as the most definitive work (book or article) for anybody wishing to understand race in America?

Oh my, where do I start? There are so many great ones … I have a couple: Why Black People Tend To Shout by Ralph Wiley. The Racial Contract by Charles Mills. The Arrogance Of Race by George Fredrickson. The Mis-Education Of The Negro by [Carter G.] Woodson, and All God’s Children by Fox Butterfield. From the conservative side I would recommend Shelby Steele’s The Content Of Our Character. There are more, but those jump out at me.
Oh, and how could I forget? You have to read The Field Negro.

6. In your view, how important a force has Hip Hop been in bridging racial divides? What are the cultural and other forces that you believe have the most promise in helping to unite us?

Hip Hop, in a way, has helped to bridge the racial divide. Especially among young people. They are our future, and young white kids from the burbs are trying to relate to young black kids from urban areas. Which, to me, is a good thing. Music and the arts is probably the best way to bridge the racial divide without actually getting down and talking to each other. But this comes with a caveat from me. Unfortunately these kumbaya moments can be somewhat superficial. We still have to explore our differences and try to understand each other on a deeper level and in more meaningful ways to have true racial harmony in America.

7. What can we look for in The Field Negro in the coming months? What other blogs would you recommend to our [readers]?

I am just going to keep writing about what I see every day and how I feel regardless of who it offends. I hate to say it, but I really don't have time to read a lot of other blogs. Still, there are other bloggers who I admire. Rippa from the Intersection Of Madness & Reality comes to mind, and I love all the bloggers in the Afrosphere. They all work so hard and put so much energy into their blogs" [Source]

I don't think the blog responsible for this interview is with us anymore. Like so many others before them, I think that they fell victim to blog burnout.

Sadly, I am starting to relate.

 

  

These clowns are not funny.

Call this the republi-clowns gone wild post. WTF? Republican governors calling the po po idiots, and elected leaders telling the working man that if budget cuts causes him to lose his job, "so be it"? Yes, if you can't feed little Johnny and if you lose that house to foreclosure, it's all on you. You should have started a business when you went into the work force. Busting your ass while serving your government is just no good. Next time become a politician. (Whenever I think of poli-tricksters I think of that song by Dire Straits .)

Here is the thing about John Boehner, though. The man is actually sending about $450 million in earmarked "pork" to his own Ohio district while he gives his cut em high and cut em low speech. (We are talking a million jobs if tan man gets his way.)I swear, if honesty was a bed that man would never sleep. Well, unless it was a tanning bed.

And then there is that other republi-clown from Ohio:

"In a speech last month Ohio Gov. John Kasich emphatically referred to a police officer who ticketed him for a driving violation as "an idiot."

Kasich, now the Republican governor, was ticketed on Jan. 11, 2008, for "approaching a public safety vehicle with lights displayed" on Route 315 in Columbus and later paid an $85 fine. But he was not happy about it.....

"Have you ever been stopped by a police officer that's an idiot," Kasich asked the seated audience, pausing his speech as he moved around the room. "I had this idiot pull me over on 315. Listen to this story. He says to me, he say, uh, he says you passed this emergency vehicle on the side of the road and you didn't yield."

"I said, officer I, are you kidding, I didn't, I didn't see any, I didn't even see any, where the heck was it?" a stammering Kasich recalls. "The last thing I would ever do would be to pass an emergency, are you kidding me?"

View full sizeAP fileOhio Gov. John Kasich, shown in a 2010 photograph.
"He says, 'Well I understand that. Give me your license,'" Kasich continues. "He goes back to the car, comes back, gives me a ticket and says you must report to court, if you don't report to court we're putting a warrant out for your arrest."

Then Kasich stills himself and bellows, "He's an idiot! We just can't act that way. What people resent are people who are in the government who don't treat the client with respect.'" [Source]

Nice.

Finally, Tucker Carlson joined the wingnuts gone crazy parade by saying that the first lady wants to "raise your children at GUN POINT." To Tucker, there is nothing like a gang banging first lady to scare your children into doing things her way. It's what they do in Chicago. They might be living in the White House, but those two Negroes are still representing the South side.

John and Rick deserve each other.

You have got to love wingnut politicians. I will start with my man John Kasich, the governor of the Buckeye state. (h/t to Keith Olbermann for turning me on to this story)

It seems that my man has him a very white and very male (as in zero blacks and four females-- out of 20 people) cabinet as he takes over that wonderful diverse Midwestern state. Apparently it is the first white out since 1962. Oh my!

Anywhoo, no harm no foul, it is, after all, his cabinet. He can choose who he wants to work for him. He says he is unfazed and he doesn't see color. He only wants the best people for the job.

The new governor claims to be unfazed by this. He says he did not intend to appoint an all-white group -- and there is absolutely nothing in his background to suggest otherwise. Kasich tells Plain Dealer Columbus Bureau Chief Reginald Fields that he simply set out to find "the best possible team I can get, and hopefully we will be in a position that we are fully diverse as we go forward."

Given Ohio's many problems, Kasich says, it was far more important to make the right hires out of the gate than "to find somebody to fit this metric." [Source]

Ok Gov. fair point. (And look, I am not even going to rip you for mixing up St. Patty's day and MLK Day. They are only a couple of months apart, and King might even be an Irish name. Who knows? Anybody can make a mistake.) But why did you slip a couple of black folks in for the photo op. of your swearing in? If you are color blind you are color blind. Why throw in some pepper with the salt for appearances only?

Gov. if what Olbermann is alleging is true, it smashed whatever little credibility you had on the race front. Not that you cared. But hey, I just thought you should know. I sure hope my cousins in Ohio are taking note.

Finally, you have got to love Rick (I belong in a ) Sanitarium. My man is running for President so he is stepping up the attacks on his O ness.

"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer -- is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person -- human life is not a person, then -- I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'we're going to decide who are people and who are not people." [Source]

HUH? Rick, I am guessing that Barack Obama is praying that you win the republi-clown primary and run against him in 2012.

Before I forget, shout out to the MMTC folks for putting on a wonderful conference here in DC. I had to mingle with half of Rev. Inc. earlier, and there are just too many lawyers in the house for my taste. But, other than that, it's a first class event. I just wish I knew all the technical stuff that everybody is throwing around. But hey, it will come to me.