Tweet of the Day

What to do you when you have no plan, no agenda, and no ideas?  Attack those who do.

John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." @GOP's response? pic.twitter.com/FKrusgh5HB
— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) November 23, 2013

RedEye-I- am, RedEye don't like the GOP

 

 

 

 

Eye do not like them
in the house.
Eye do not like them
  in the senate.
Eye do not like them
in the courts or on TeeVee.
  Eye do not like them
on the radio.
Eye do not like them anywhere.
 Eye do not like them, RedEye-I-am.

To be continued......

I thought "front page privileges at Left in Alabama come with a somewhat higher responsibility"?

Tutwiler Prison for Women

Evidently Resident Righty, and Left in Alabama Legal Issues Blogger Old Prosecutor is not required to fact check information before reporting it like mooncat admonished me to do, shortly before my front page privileges were suspended for supposedly posting factually incorrect information on the front pages and refusing to correct it. 

 I'm not accusing you of lying (0.00 / 0)

But I do say that too often you don't check your facts before you post, with the result that inaccurate information sometimes ends up on our front page under your byline. That is A Problem. When the inaccuracy is noted, you don't always correct it. Another Problem. This goes directly to your credibility and that of this blog, which is my Problem. Kathy is trying to do you the favor of pointing out that you aren't the least bit consistent in your statements. My read is that you're about a hairsbreadth from calling her a racist which would be not only inaccurate, but a damned lie.You are absolutely entitled to your opinion and to include your opinion in any diary. But front page privileges come with a somewhat higher responsibility -- to make an attempt to check information before you report it, because you are reporting to a rather wide audience here. Expressing opinion is fair game, and so is passing on interesting information from other sources, but I remind you that you do have a responsibility to our readers to make a good faith attempt to insure information is accurate before you pass it on.  We aren't a gossip sheet, nor do we want to be one.  I say this publicly because all our readers need to know that the facts matter to us here. Our readers may prefer to fact check for themselves -- good for them -- but I hope they don't catch us in errors very often. Facts matter, that's job one for me, and an important guideline for our front pagers. 

Old Prosecutor  either intentionally omitted some information, or, posted factually incorrect information on the front page of Left in Alabama. regarding Alabama's prison population.

The basic problem is that Alabama prisons are at appx 180% capacity and the Stae, especially the Legislature, is afraid that a lawsuit may result either (1) a Federal Court ordering mass releases (see California) or (2) a Federal takeover with huge financial mandates.

Alabama prisons are at maximum capacity, but the fear of  mass releases or a federal takeover with huge financial mandates is speculation at worst, and opinion at best.

Many suggest that the problem is that Alabama is imprisoning huge numbers of non violent criminals, Yet the numbers show 75% of all inmates are there for violent crimes.

According to the Montgomery Advertiser a survey response from the state of Alabama for a 2012 report by the Southern Legislative Conference show 75% of all inmates are there for violent crimes, and according to Old Prosecutor it just ain't so large numbers of people are in prison for marijuana possession,  but these figures tell  a different story.

After years of representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality, and investigating patterns of drug law enforcement, and trying to help people who were released from prison face one barrier, one legal roadblock after another to get a job, getting access to housing, getting even food stamps–you know, I had an awakening that our criminal justice system now functions more like a system of racial and social control, than a system of crime prevention or control,” Alexander said on PoliticsNation Monday.
“Our nation’s prison population has more than quintupled,” she said. “And this is due largely to the war on drugs and the ‘get tough’ movement. The drug war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color even though studies have consistently shown now for decades that contrary to popular belief, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but by waging this drug war almost exclusively in poor communities of color, we’ve now created a vast new racial under-caste.”
Since 1971, when President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs, there has been a 700% increase in the U.S. prison population. Today, African-Americans are also more likely to spend time in prison for drug related offenses than their white counterparts. According to the Sentencing Project, African-Americans make up 12% of the nation’s drug users, but represent 34% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 45% of those in state prison for such offense as of 2005.

Now I'm not saying there is a double standard when it comes to posting factually incorrect information on the front page of Left in Alabama, but there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy at best, which goes to the creditability of Left in Alabama.

There can be no unity if there is no justice.  Know justice, know peace.  No Justice, no peace. 

If it's Sunday, it's time to Meet the Pest

Poor White Cash:  GOP and Food Stamps

The Republican Party is engaged in class warfare against poor and middle-class white Americans. It is a little-discussed fact but an ironic one worth noting, since those are the very same people who elect them.

According to the Blog-o-sphere, President Obama ripped the republiklans a new one at the Congressional Black Caucus Dinner last night, which might explain why the feed was bad on the only network (MSNBC) carrying the remarks live. I guess since PBO wasn't reminding the CBC He's not Black President Obama wasn't newsworthy.  But hey, everybody knows it's not the media's job to educate the public.  It's the media's job to uniform the misinformed.  They are doing a Heck of a Job.

Speaking at the annual Congressional Black Caucus dinner, President Obama excoriated congressional Republicans Saturday night for risking a government shutdown, and vowed to stop their efforts to defund his health-care plan.
“It is time for these folks to stop governing by crisis,” Mr. Obama said at the Washington Convention Center. “Some want to shut down the government rather than provide people with health care!”
Referring to Republicans’ strategy to defund Obamacare, the president said he wanted to speak “as clearly as I can.”
“It’s not going to happen,” he said.

 The New Left is Coming!!!  The New Left is Coming!! Yippee Kayay!

Maybe Bill de Blasio got lucky. Maybe he only won because he cut a sweet ad featuring his biracial son. Or because his rivals were either spectacularly boring, spectacularly pathological, or running for Michael Bloomberg’s fourth term. But I don’t think so. The deeper you look, the stronger the evidence that de Blasio’s victory is an omen of what may become the defining story of America’s next political era: the challenge, to both parties, from the left. It’s a challenge Hillary Clinton should start worrying about now.

Why do republican hate America?

I've never understood the logic of putting in government positions people who really hate the very idea of government. There's something profoundly hypocritical about guys like Ted Cruz, whose raison d'etre is to hate government, and yet they cash their government paycheck just like the teachers and firemen and federal workers they excoriate even as they check their bank balances on their government-issued hand-helds. But if there's one thing they hate more than the idea of government, it's Democratic presidents in general, and Barack Obama in particular. And they hate Americans. They really, really, really hate every American that isn't funnelling large sums of soft-money into their campaign coffers.

Trust  us, there's nothing to see here.  Apples and oranges.  Now, please move on.

Now, there may be some among you who would seek to find some link between these stories, to see an underlying commonality in a story about members of a white North Carolina school board who see no literary value in the great American Classic Novel of African American alienation and residents and police officers of a North Carolina city who react to the pleas of a wounded African American man with fear and deadly violence.

InJustice American style

A Texas Court overturned former U.S. Congressman Tom Delay (r.Texas) conviction for money laundering,  a  Federal Judge in New Orleans overturned the conviction of four police officers tied to the shooting of unarmed citizens in the aftermath of Katrina,  George Zimmerman is acquitted for shooting an unarmed teen, and former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is still in prison for a crime that doesn't exist under the law.

And they want us to sing God Bless America?

"For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are constantly experiencing it." - Barbara Smith

Tweet of the Day

MAYBE IT'S TIME TO 'REPEAL' THE REPUBLICANS!!! #CleanHouse2014 pic.twitter.com/B2lbweIMHs
— #ABWisdom (@adbridgeforth) September 19, 2013

No Time for Excuses

What's wrong with this picture?

 

This is a photo of the class of 2013 at Morehouse College braving the pouring rain listening to the Father in Chief  standing high and dry under a covered podium telling them there is no time for excuses. 

 

 Excuse me? First of all,  President Obama is not their Father, and will never be their Father, so he has no moral authority to lecture any body's sons or daughters. 

These young men are the norm, not the stereotype,  They have done everything right, and on their way to contributing to society in a positive way.  And what to they get....rained on and preached too.  It's the story of our lives.

Indeed, if we objectively look at Obama’s presidency, African-Americans are in a worse position than they were before he became president. At the end of January 2009, unemployment for African-Americans was 12.7 percent. Four years later, the situation is worse, and unemployment is higher at 13.8 percent.

 

It's no excuse for Morehouse College not to have the foresight, money (?), or  common decency to implement a rain plan. 

 If there is no time for the graduates of Morehouse to make excuses.... there is no time time for the President of Morehouse to make excuses.

If the graduates of Morehouse can't use racism as an excuse..... then President Obama can't use racism by the republicans as  an excuse either.

But here’s the issue.  Telling black Americans to stop using racism as an excuse allows President Obama to create a set of excuses for his own significant, even embarrassing, lack of action to help alleviate the clearly documented, undeniable, legislatively-enforced poison of racial inequality that continues to impact our society.   As he tells the Morehouse men to take more responsibility for their own lives, the mirror of personal responsibility should also be turned on the most powerful black man in the history of the world to use his massive platform to help confront systematic racism that affects us all.  I also wonder if the president is going to follow this speech with one telling gay men that they can’t use homophobia as an excuse to complain, or that women shouldn’t be speaking out about s****l assault.   The double standard is actually borderline frightening:  The president’s skin color creates a human shield protecting the White House from being attacked for saying things that would lead to riots were Obama 100% white instead of just 50%.

I'm just saying.....

"Fast and Furious" Saturday Open Thread~Updated

H/T Jobsanger

Zimmerman Audio Tapes Bring Into Question Credibility.  Again.

• I hope people know the reason why he's saying Trayvon Martin said those words and the way he said it right? It's because he want to make Trayvon sound like a thug and he know white people will back him(Zimmerman) if Trayvon is labeled as a thug

• No what it does is try to make Trayvon Martin look like a hood or a a hoodlum. Because black people don't say "homey" no more and also when he got shot ain't nobody going to say "all man you got me" but see white people still think black people still talk like that. So now they like its more believable for white people because most of them have that kind of stereotype upon black people

Making a living off of Government Contracts coming to a school district near you!

Race Baiting for Votes goes on and on....

It's tough to stop Voter Fraud when there is none. 

Did we see the republican playbook for  2012?  Steal the November Election?!?!

Report:  Issa Staffer offered to stop Holder Contempt vote in exchange for the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Beurer. 

During a phone call last week with a senior Justice official, Issa's chief investigative counsel, Stephen Castor, broached a possible settlement. As the conversation began, according to two sources familiar with the conversation, Castor asked the official where things stood on "accountability." By that, Castor meant would any heads roll at Justice. Castor mentioned Lanny Breuer, the head of the department's Criminal Division, whom Republicans had been gunning for because of his knowledge of gun-walking techniques that had been used during the Bush administration. (Their theory was that Breuer should have taken aggressive steps to ensure that such measures were not repeated in future operations.) According to these sources, Castor said that if Breuer resigned, they could head off the looming constitutional clash. 

New Pressures on Corbett's Failure to Prosecute Sandusky When He Had the Chance 

They are not Happy in Happy Valley

Edit~I don't think George Zimmerman will be arrested~Redux

I don't think George Zimmerman will be arrested, much less tried and convicted, for killing  Trayvon Martin. After all, Trayvon is just another one of them there government nig, I mean bluh,  who wants the government to take care of him, and everyone knows the government doesn't care about very poor/bluh people who would rather have food stamps than jobs.

Like this

This

This

And this

Nothing to see here, move along.


Snark

Post SOTU Commentary

"Do you think we should spend more federal dollars we don't have to keep people in houses they can't afford?"  Imus in the Morning replacement Joe Scarborough said NO, they should be tossed out into the street, in response to President Obama's proposal of a new task force to tackle investigation of bank's mortgage lending practices.  So, how did investigating banks who put people in homes they couldn't afford morph into spending more federal dollars we don't have to keep people in houses they can't afford?

The gop infused, media enabled, Tea Party politics of Obstructionism and Negativity is coming home to roost.   Despite what the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads say, the majority of the American people,not to be confused with the Suckers, blame republicans, not democrats, for the grave state of our Union.

Despite the misinformed opinion of some, food stamps is not an entitlement program, and black folks aren't issues food stamps because their black.  Food stamps are issued based on need.   Thanks to republican polices and obstructionism, more Americans need food stamps.

The gop doesn't have a plan, so they use weapons of mass distraction like an Atlanta, Georgia judge orders President Obama to appear in court on Thursday to counter a birther claim.  I thought republicans were for tort reform? Snark

Although President Obama used his speech to obliterate the gop lies and obstructionism, his team must desegregate.

Do the math.
In 2008, encouraged by Obama’s surprisingly strong showing in the caucuses in overwhelmingly white Iowa, Black voters launched their own grassroots efforts to elect the “first Black president,” Obama won, despite receiving just 43 percent of white voter support nationwide.
The problem in 2012 is that Axelrod and “Team Obama” seem intent on delivering the same basic approach they used in 2008, wrapped in high-tech gadgetry and bolstered by more money than has ever been spent in a presidential campaign.
At its core, however, the outreach strategy, is flawed, and unless the campaign takes steps very soon to ensure African American senior-level strategic input, and an effort that reflects a healthy respect for Black voters, the “First Black president” will only get to serve one term in office.

Today's Must Reads
With Democrats like Artur Davis who needs republicans?
Hollering  Anti Semitism-Edited

Must See Videos
TYT on The State of the Union 
S#it Republicans say about Black People

Alabama is the #1 State for College Football

More than 1 in six Alabamians live in poverty.

1 in 4 children in Alabama live in poverty.

Alabama has the 2nd largest income gap.

Alabama has a 41.4% high school dropout rate.

Alabama is the second most obese, 4th most diabetic state.

Alabama is responsible for the increase in Food Stamp recipients

Alabama has one of the toughest immigration laws in the nation.

The Poverty rate for Louisiana is 19.6%

Louisiana is ranked 49th nationwide on the well being of children.

Louisiana is ranked 44th in graduation rates.

Just something to chew on while you're watching the Allstate BCH championship game tonight.

Newt Gingrich at the NAACP Convention (Satire)

Newt;  Good morning all you Darkies, you don't have to bow and scrape, just bow


Audience bends over, drops their pants, and show Newt their backsides in unison


Newt;  More of you lazy black folks are on food stamps under President Obama than ever before.  


Audience  You Lie!


Newt:  Y'all need to make some more babies so they can grow up to be janitors.


Audience  Yo Mama

Today's Must Read God's candidates

Redeye's Week in Review and Rant

All politics is local. You won't read it in the Huntsville Times or see it on TeeVee but the Merts Center Monitor has the scoop on the past and present Superintendents, and one HCS Board members' travel expenses for non travel.

Did ex-Superintendent Ann Roy Moore travel 1455 local miles in June?

If not, once again, the Huntsville City Schools have paid money for nothing.

What do you want to bet if this were about a Councilman getting 40 dollars worth of gas for his daughter in the after math of a natural disaster or a school principal falsifying documents, or a high school football coach being arrested for drunken driving on campus this would be all over the news? Speaking of the fired Grissom High School football coach, check this out about the interim football coach;

Football coach resigns after five seasons at helm

Madison Academy became the fourth metro area school that is searching for a new football coach when Matt Clouser offered his resignation Friday after five seasons.
The Mustangs join Grissom, Bob Jones and Westminster in seeking a new coach.
"We'll start the search immediately,'' Madison Academy president Bob Burton said. "We'd like to have someone in place to go through spring practice.''
Burton said logistics was a key issue in Clouser's resignation. Clouser operates his own business, is not employed by the school as a teacher and couldn't get to the school until late afternoon.

Hmmmm. I wonder if they got that little issue worked out? See, this is why teacher tenure and due process is important, so employees can't be fired because someone in the community reports them being drunk on campus and replaced with cronies.

Talk about a waste of time. Ardent Terri Sewell fan, I mean supporter, LiA editor mooncat is longing to attend an issue forum sponsored by, the Congress Socialite, Socialite, I mean woman, during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Legislative Conference later this month, entitled Voting Trends in South in the Age of Obama where do we go form here? WTF? Psst Congresswoman Sewell, in light of the voter suppression laws being passed by southern governors, including your own, don't you think a better issue would be Dismantling the Black Vote? That's where we are going from here in the "age of Obama". And send mooncat a ticket. :)

Can't let the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina pass without comment. Six years after Katrina the battle for New Orleans continues.

The anger at the changes in New Orleans’ black community is palpable. It comes out at city council meetings, on local black talk

radio station WBOK, and in protests. “Since New Orleans was declared a blank slate, we are the social experimental lab of the world,” says Endesha Juakali, a housing rights activist. However, despite the changes, grassroots resistance continues.

I wonder how we can get a radio station like this to combat a radio station like this?

Despite the fact the USDA says food stamps kept more people from going hungry the republican governor of Michigan signs a 48 month welfare limit bill. Our resident righty HOPES Alabama's republican Governor follows suit despite the fact Alabama is number 1 in the nation of people on food stamps. I guess they want to people starve to death.

Rant over.

Alabama is #1!

No, not the Auburn University Tigers or the University of Alabama Crimson Tide Football teams, but the great state of Alabama is numeral Uno in people using Food Stamps.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) - Alabama has made it's way to the top of a national list and it's not good news.

According to recent numbers released by The Food and Nutrition Service, Alabama is now the state with the greatest number of residents receiving food stamps.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or "SNAP," shows that in May of 2010, just over 808,000 people were collecting food stamps. This year, that number jumped to over 1.7 million. That's an increase of 118 percent.

And before some of y'all start blaming them there illiterate Aborigines and them there shiftless illegals who just want the Guvermint to take care of them, the majority of the people are the working poor and the unemployed.

In 2010, the total number of people on the SNAP food stamp program was a little over 40 million, and in the first five months of this year, that number has grown over 10%. Continued unemployment, and lack of jobs in the economy have led more people to require food stamps to supplement their monthly bills, especially as price inflation continues to grow at a faster pace.

As food stamp usage by the American people reaches an all-time high here on the final day of May, reliance upon the government program should continue to grow and quickly surpass the already 44 million users who need the benefits to buy food staples for their families. This growth in a program that cost the government over $64 Billion in 2010 will add to the fiscal burden already being experienced by Washington who needs to find ways to cut spending.

In the case of Sweet Home Anti Guvermint Spending Alabama, nearly 1/3 of Alabamians receive food stamp assistance.

The state Department of Human Resources reports there were a record 1.43 million Alabamians in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. The number was higher than normal because 43 of Alabama's 67 counties were receiving disaster assistance due to the deadly tornadoes in April.

I wonder what Mo Brooks and our other Congress Critters are doing on their summer vacations?

As the market closes on one of the worst weeks we've had in years—down more than 10 percent in the last two weeks, with at least $1 trillion in stock market wealth destroyed since the budget deal was reached—we also learned with Friday morning's jobless numbers that, according to Bloomberg, the share of the population holding a job fell to 58 percent, the lowest since July 1983. The headlines are screaming, the charts and graphs are horrible, and people are scared.

Yet Congress is gone on vacation. They're on a scheduled five-week recess, not back until after Labor Day. As Jerry Seinfeld would ask, Who's the marketing genius who came up with that idea?

Yep. We're #1!
SMH