Boo!

So I am watching this cable news show this morning (the one with the host who allegedly lost an intern under very Chappaquiddick like circumstances) and they were going on and on about

how America has become afraid of Isis and terrorism.

 Make no mistake, the press has been complicit in spreading this narrative, because nothing says money like ratings, and nothing says ratings like sensationalized news stories that make us fearful.  

Of course the aforementioned host was blaming the president. "He is too cool. Americans want action, they want true leadership." Harold Ford, still upset that he didn't become Obama before Obama came along, actually said that we should bring back the NSA surveillance program that spied on American citizens. And the beat goes on. Some folks want to bring back torture, some want boots on the ground, and some, like a certain presidential candidate, would ban those of the Muslim faith from our country all together.

This fear, of course, is reflected in all the latest polls, and in the behavior of Americans who are rushing to gun shops in droves.  Donald trump would like to thank you all, because without your fear and panic he would not be leading the field of republican presidential candidates. I mean just look at him, if anyone can stare down those evil Isis dudes in black, it's Donald.

All of this fear and angst is nothing new to black folks in certain parts of America. I guarantee you that the last thing some poor mother in the hood is thinking about is Isis blowing up her neighborhood while she is waiting in line at the grocery store. Real terror for these poor folks is not having enough money to buy food, or getting put out on the street with their child because they can't afford to pay the rent. At that moment their landlord is Isis.

Sadly, terror is nothing new to us; we live  with terror every day. We worry about getting shot by the police, getting shot by some young buck who thinks that life is a rap video, and just being beaten down every day by the terror that is institutional racism.

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."

~Bertrand Russell~

Well then there are a lot of folks running around who are just not very wise.

*Pic from Wikimedia.org

"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

 

 

Those Negroes are just not that smart.

I am tired of writing about Donald trump. Tonight I want to focus on another powerful racist in America.

His name is Antonin Scalia, and he makes decisions that have more of an impact on your life than even the president of the United States.

"In the oral arguments Wednesday for a Supreme Court affirmative action case, Justice Antonin Scalia—a well known critic of affirmative action—suggested that the policy was hurting minority students by sending them to schools too academically challenging for them.

Referencing an unidentified amicus brief, Scalia said that there were people who would contend that "it does not benefit African-Americans to -- to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less -- a slower-track school where they do well."

He argued that "most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas."

"They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're -- that they're being pushed ahead in -- in classes that are too -- too fast for them," Scalia said." [More]

This is truly scary. And it is just wrong on so many levels. I could talk about the countless amount of African American youngsters who I am personally familiar with who are destroying their white classmates at Ivy League and other fine schools in this country. (My little cousin, bless her heart, graduated with high honors from Swarthmore not too long ago with a degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology or something like that.)But what would be the point of this? The racist and unintelligent among us, like Antonin Scalia, would never believe it. 

Mr. Scalia is not alone. In the state of Michigan a republican lawmaker made his feelings known about the cognitive abilities of blacks as well.

"As a first-term state senator, Marty Knollenberg of Troy is far from high-profile. He's not in Congress, though he is the son of a man who served eight terms in the U.S. House.

Sen. Knollenberg, a 52-year-old Allstate agent,  is suddenly less obscure -- though not in a good way.
The Republican is the subject of articles at two national news sites -- Huffington Post and Raw Story. He's also the target of criticism and ridicule on social media, including comments at his legislative Facebook page.

The outcry is provoked by widespread posting of videotaped remarks at a Senate education hearing, where the Oakland County politician said: "You mentioned these school districts failing, and you mention economically disadvantaged and nonwhite population are the contributors to that.  I know we can’t fix that.  We can’t make an African-American white.  That's just, it is what it is.” [Source]

"It is what it is" indeed.

The Donald might just become our next president after all.  He is, after all, "the anger translator" for all the secret (and not so secret) racists in America.

*Pic from motherjones.com














 

Will "hillbilly paranoia" doom the GOP?

Take it away Drew Magary.

"A few weeks back, I was watching a documentary about the Ku Klux Klan, because I will watch pretty much anything that’s about the KKK, serial killers, or Hitler. And the reason that the KKK eventually faded out of the American mainstream was not only because they were a legitimate terrorist organization, but because they were so needlessly VISIBLE. People in the KKK quickly realized that there wasn’t much advantage to parading around in hoods and inviting massive public scrutiny when they could simply wear plain clothes, spend the rest of their lives being quietly racist, and get away with it. And so the KKK became a punchline while real racism took on a subtler but no less effective guise, a guise that lingers to this day.

Donald Trump is not a subtle man. The only surprising thing about Donald Trump’s announcement yesterday—in which he demanded a magical anti-Muslim forcefield established around the American border—is that he didn’t make the announcement months ago. After all, keeping out dirty FURRINERS, or even Americans who kinda LOOK like dirty FURRINERS—has long been the centerpiece of Trump’s campaign platform. This is not a man who disguises his intentions, and that has earned him a fervent and devoted following from Americans who pride themselves on being just as blunt about their beliefs as he is…“We need to get the Muslims out of the country, before they start killing our families!”

 

Make no mistake: There’s a fairly sizable portion of the American electorate that supports that take, and you can go a long way in this country by courting them, in subtle ways if you prefer. Donald Trump isn’t stupid. He knows that keeping American citizens out of the country solely for their religious beliefs is neither Constitutional nor practical. But he knows what works. He knows there’s a solid voting bloc out there cheering him on to up the stakes every successive week, and they won’t desert him. He’s only gonna get crazier from here.

 

And you know what? I’m still rooting for him to win the nomination. I’m rooting for his candidacy like I used to root for mass chaos in college football's Bowl Championship Series. I want him to sweep the primaries and make a porn star his veep and get a primo convention slot that results in mass chaos and lots of urgent backstage maneuvering to kick him out of the party. I don’t want him to branch off and run as an independent. I want him to be VISIBLE. I want him to be the standard bearer. Filthy rich GOP donors know that a Trump nomination would essentially doom their party, and that’s exactly what those fuckers deserve, now and forever.

 

Because if you think the prospect of Trump’s leadership is terrifying, I have bad news for you: You already have MANY elected leaders who are just as bad, if not fucking worse. Like Texas congressman Louis Gohmert. Or New York loony toon Peter King. Or any number of Tea Party members who have won by exploiting the same kind of hillbilly paranoia that Trump is currently whipping into a froth. Trump’s great sin is that he is so terribly PUBLIC with his courtship, while the rest of GOP has quietly dined out on these people for ages now.

 

It’s way past due for this scam to be blown wide open. This is the braying, gullible 20 percent of the American population that has stonewalled a great deal of our progress and DESERVES to be left behind, in the dust. In a lot of Trump thinkpieces (like mine!), you’ll see writers attribute the Trump phenomenon to anger. “Say what you will, these people are angry!” And today, more than ever, I could give half a shit about that anger. Are you angry America isn’t what it used to be? EAT SHIT. I don’t care that you’re mad it’s not 1951. I don't care that an immigrant coder stole your job at the wagon factory. I don’t care that your only solution for your plight is to SEETHE about it. I don’t care that your American ideal is booting out half the population while arming yourselves to the teeth. The sooner you people die off and have your political influence quashed, the better. You deserve to have your political movement burst into flames in front of a live television audience. You deserve to blindly follow your idiot pied piper into oblivion."

[More]

 

Go on and drop the mic young fellow.

 

Can you say brokered convention boys and girls? *fingers crossed*

 

*Pic from newsweek.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fear mongering in America.

   "A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational."

I just heard Donald trump's latest speech where he doubled down on his ludicrous and preposterous plan to ban all Muslims from entering the United States until we "can figure out just what the hell is going on." If  it wasn't for all the rabid fans of the turmpster cheering as if they were at a Saturday night lynching in Starkville, Mississippi, circa 1892, I would  have thought that I was watching a bad SNL skit. 

Of course the other republican candidates are now condemning trump with what the press is calling a "quick response".  The general consensus is that he has gone too far, and that what he is doing is not good for the country because it only serves to divide us. 

The irony is, of course, that it was these same republican candidates who took us down this slope in the first place. The most conservative of the bunch, Jeb Bush, was actually calling for some kind of religious test for folks coming into the country. That's a very trump like position.

This plan of Trump's opens up all kinds of doors. I am a Muslim American and I decide to take a vacay down to the beautiful town of Port Antonio, Jamaica. After my wonderful vacation I try to return to my stateside home only to be told that I cannot enter the country because of an edict from President trump. I have a job, a mortgage, an American wife, children.....Sorry kids, daddy is going to be at camp trump down in Cuba for awhile.  Anyway, you get the picture, this is not only inimical to our Constitution, it is just flat out stupid and unworkable on a practical level.

But hey, the snake oil salesman is selling a gullible and easily fooled American public something they are yearning for: safety, packaged in a nice little box of bigotry.  

"But if you doubt the marketability of bloodlust in a panicked America, look no further than Donald Trump, who leads the GOP field by a mile, and who literally wants to do unspeakable things to combat terrorism. That’s saying a lot, because there is very little that Donald Trump is unwilling to say. On several occasions recently, the things that Donald Trump has planned for fighting terrorism at home have been too awful for even him to say, and he’s on record supporting waterboarding.

On Friday, at a rally that was fraught with interruptions from protesters, Trump told an audience member who asked him how he would respond to the San Bernadino shooting that he couldn’t tell her, because he’d get into trouble with the press:" [Source]

 

I doubt it Donald, the press loves you. You have them eating out of your hand. 

 

The American people love you as well , at least the ones who are too scared to know better.

*Pic from cnn.com

 

 

 

The F word.

 I was listening to Van Jones and some other political pundits chop it up on CNN this morning, and Jones was lamenting the fact that the president is being too "lawyerly" in his assessment of the threat that Isis poses to the United States.

He needs to be more forceful as he addresses this issue, and he needs to say with no uncertainty what a serious threat Isis has become to our homeland. I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist of what  he and the others panelists were saying.

Now here is the thing, and this will upset the fear mongers among us, but the truth is that Isis does NOT pose an existential threat to the United States.  Russia poses an existential threat. North Korea poses an existential threat. China poses an existential threat. But Isis (sorry right-wingnuts) does not.

You would never know this of course given the climate of fear and consternation that has been gripping the country. The leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination is calling on us to set up a data base to track Muslims, and he wants to round up their family members and kill them if they are related to terrorists. And, believe it or not, the leader of a large university is calling on his student body to arm themselves and shoot Muslims when they dare to step on his campus.

I wasn't around Germany in 1933, but I can imagine that this is what it felt like.

Benito Mussolini; Fumimaro Konoye; D. F. Malan; Adolf Hitler; Donald Trump. All these men have something in common. If you pay close attention to what is happening in America , I am sure that you can figure out what it is.

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

Example: The blacks always have such nice products in their hair.

*Pic from theroot.com

Hide the hijab.

    America is quite a country. In the wake of the horrific shootings in San Bernardino, Americans are actually buying up more guns. If you own shares of stock belonging to gun manufacturers you are probably laughing your way to the bank.  

Meanwhile, a man the New York Daily News called a terrorist must be smiling at his handy work these days. The leader of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, has managed to buy off just about every politician in Washington. 

Just imagine this for a minute: There was actually some sensible gun legislation that would have blocked terrorist (yes, I said terrorists), the mentally ill, and felons from buying guns, but the GOP said no. I know I know, I am shocked, too.

To them, any such legislation might weaken the "right to keep and bear arms", because any day now the evil government led by the Kenyan Muslim might kick our doors down and take all of grandpa's guns from the attic.

"To say it's okay for would-be terrorists to buy guns after what happened in Paris in California shows just a total disregard for public safety and a total fear of the NRA. and it's hard to believe the NRA could be so unreasonable. They're digging their own grave," 

No they are not Senator Schumer, they will be just fine.  Money can fix everything. Politicians need it to get reelected, and a clueless electorate----- after a few ads that distort the Second Amendment, will vote them right back in.

Speaking of the San Bernardino shootings, as a result of said shootings, Islamophobia is now running rampant. It started with the media, and it just took off from there. (The ignoramos leading the GOP pack actually made this asinine statement: "Take a look. I mean, you look at the names, you look at what’s happened. You tell me,” Trump said, adding he thinks “it was terrorism"  You can't make this stuff up folks. And that's not the only one. There are plenty more like that in the orange colored one's arsenal. Good for Chris Matthews for calling him out.   

The GOP is doing their best to politicize the entire sordid episode because god forbid they miss an opportunity to score political brownie points at the expense of  the dead. Their minions and thralls are actually calling on "moderate" Muslims to fix their Muslim problem. Imagine that. I don't recall us telling moderate Christians to fix their Christian problem when Christian mass murders were terrorizing us. Or, for that matter, telling suburban moms to fix their child problem when their kids were killing their classmates in record numbers. 

The thing is, this type of ignorance and Islamophobia is playing right into the hands of Isis. They want us to lash out at Muslims so that they can say to other Muslims: See, this is what they think of you. Being a moderate Muslim will not help you. They (the West) will be against you no matter what.

Thanks to the right wing and their fellow fanatics, the Isis plan seems to be working.

*Pic from theguardian.com/ tweeted by Everytown.





 

Terror in California, and abuse of power in Alabama.

     We have had an entire day to process the horrific killing of 14 people in So Cal by this Muslim version of Bonnie & Clyde yesterday.

Authorities still can't figure out exactly how this went down. Although they are now saying that the male shooter was "radicalized". (I am still not sure what that means. ) Dude was actually born in America, but somewhere along the line it would appear that he developed some bad feelings about his country and its culture.

Anyway, the hand- wringing will now start in earnest. We will hear that we have to be more vigilant, that we have to do something about guns, and that we have to stem the flow of immigrants into our country. Muslims in America will be subject to extra scrutiny. (Been there done that. Black folks enjoy the break. )

There was another shooting in California this week, and this one, like others of late, brings into question how justice is administered in this country.

"In the video, a semi-circle of police officers surround a man backed up against the wall of a building. When he starts to walk away from them, a volley of shots ring out.

The footage, which appears to have been filmed by a passenger on a bus next to the scene, was posted to Instagram Wednesday night and quickly lit up the internet. But San Francisco police say the man had a knife and that they first fired beanbags and shot the ground in front of him with another less lethal weapon.

“We have since recovered or found some video, they appear to show the officers encircle him and they appear to show the suspect moving toward the officer before the shots were fired,” Police Chief Greg Suhr told the San Francisco Examiner. The police say the man was in the same area where someone got stabbed about 45 minutes earlier.

The man’s identity has not been released yet." [Source]

His identity is irrelevant. He was young, black, and most likely poor. Unfortunately for him, that was not a good look for San Francisco's gentrified face.

Finally, speaking of young and black, if you were in that group and you have been living in and around Dothan, Alabama, you should think about calling a civil rights lawyer.

"A newly-leaked report has just proven what many African Americans in Alabama have been saying for years: that police officers in the City of Dothan had been planting evidence on African American men they didn’t like, for many years.

The shocking new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Justice Project reveals that police officers in Dothan, Alabama, planted drugs and weapons on thousands of African Americans – of which hundreds are still in prison on false charges.

The proof of these claims has been revealed by none other than police officers themselves, who say that “the public has a right to know that the Dothan Police Department, and District Attorney Doug Valeska, targeted young black men by planting drugs and weapons on them over a decade.
Most of the young men were prosecuted, many sentenced to prison, and some are still in prison. Many of the officers involved were subsequently promoted and are in leadership positions in law enforcement.

 They hope the mood of the country is one that demands action and that the US Department of Justice will intervene.”

Their revelation tells that a narcotics investigation squad for the police department in Dothan planted drugs and weapons on young African American men since the mid-1990s.

All of this has happened with the knowledge and approval of their supervisors. One of them has even ascended to the position of the state’s Assistant Director of Homeland Security.

According to the Henry County Report, Andy Hughes had been a sergeant in the department during the time when he was overseeing the unit in question.

During that time, he was also a leader in a neo-Confederate group that was largely made up of police officers and fellow supervisor Steve Parrish.
Now Parrish, who was at the time a lieutenant, is the city’s police chief.

Both Parrish and Hughes have been frequently mentioned in an internal affairs investigation. But the then-Police Chief John White and District Attorney Doug Valeska never notified federal or state officials about the probe. "[Story and report here.]

So a bunch of racists infiltrate an entire police department and abuse the civil rights of citizens of color.

Nothing to see here folks; move along.

This story took place in Dothan, Alabama, but it might as well have been [insert city here], USA. 

*Pics from cnn.com and forwardprogressives.com

 




















 

No words.

My thoughts are with the families of the victims of this latest shooting in America.





*Pic from kolotv.com

Waiting on another video in Chicago.

   We all know the story of Laquan McDonald by now. He is the Chicago teen who lost his life in what seemed to be a callous and cold hearted way, to a person who was sworn to protect his community and not assassinate its sons.

His killing has sparked outrage in that city and in certain communities across the country, and now there are cries for the Mayor and police chief to step down. (One out of two is a start)

Sadly, this is nothing knew to the city, as there has been a sick culture of those in law enforcement abusing the power given to them for some time.

S0 you know about Laquan McDonald, but I bet you haven't heard about the case of  Ronald “Ronnieman” Johnson. His mother is displaying true field Negro behavior and refusing to take the settlement offer from the city of  Chicago for her son's death.

"The mother of a man shot and killed by Chicago police last year said she has rejected the city’s proposed settlement and wants it to release dashcam footage of the slaying because it shows her son was unarmed when he was killed.

The mother of Ronald “Ronnieman” Johnson, Dorothy Holmes, told reporters during a press conference Tuesday that she has declined a proposed settlement by the city of Chicago in her federal civil lawsuit over her son’s death. Holmes said she will not take hush money from a city that has been doling it out in the millions to cover-up questionable police shootings, like the $5 million paid to Laquan McDonald’s family this past summer.

'You can’t put a price on my son’s life,” Holmes said with a shaken voice.'

Her son was running through Washington Park on Oct. 12, 2014, on Chicago’s South Side when Officer George Hernandez shot him to death. Then, a familiar story was told to the press.

Johnson had a gun, Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden told the media. (Camden is the same de facto cop spokesman who claimed McDonald “lunged” at police with a knife, causing them to open fire.) Hernandez was not in uniform and driving an unmarked car when he responded to a call of shots fired. Johnson became an automatic suspect because he was running. Camden said Johnson was carrying a gun when at one point he turned toward Hernandez, causing the officer to shoot.

Holmes and her attorney said they’ve seen the dashcam video and it shows police are lying.

'He’s running with palms up,' said William Calloway, an activist who speaks on behalf of Johnson’s family. 'The video’s not blurry. It’s not grainy. It is clear as day.'

'They killed him and he was unarmed,' he told The Daily Beast. 

Even worse, according to a stunning and volatile allegation by Holmes’s attorney, is that police framed Johnson after they killed him by planting a gun on his person.

'Her prerogative the whole time has been to get this officer arrested and indicted,” Calloway said of Holmes.'" [Source] 

For now these are just "allegations" of police misconduct and a cover -up; hopefully we will be able to see the video for ourselves  to determine if the "allegations" are true.  

*Pic from newsone.com