Where are all of the Constitution Thumpers when African Americans constitutional rights are violated?

EYE should be celebrating a joyous and historic  time,  but EYE find myself Pi$$ed Off instead. 

After parading the Mothers of the Movement on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia PA, and a reintroduction by her spouse  and former President Bill Clinton,  Hillary Clinton made history to became the first women to be nominated as President of the United States of America by a major party.

Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton famously said her first White House bid had put“about 18 million cracks” in the glass ceiling, one for each voter who’d cast a ballot for her in the 2008 primary.
On Tuesday, that glass ceiling finally came down.
Clinton was formally named the Democratic nominee for president at her party’s convention in Philadelphia, making her the first woman ever to top a major party’s ticket for the White House.
More than 200 other women have sought the presidency since 1872, but none have come this far. The female Democratic leaders gathered in Philadelphia this week have waited their entire lives to see one of their own reach this point, just a step away from the Oval Office. To them, Clinton’s nomination represents the culmination of decades of work devoted to tearing down the barriers women have faced seeking high office in America.

Despite having a black judge,prosecutor, and mayor all charges were dropped against all six of the police officers in the death of #Freddie Grey.  

Prosecutors in Baltimore dropped all charges against the three remaining Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray despite holding firm in their belief that Gray's death was a homicide.
“We do not believe that Gray killed himself. We stand by the medical examiner's determination that Freddie Gray’s death was a homicide," Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby told reporters this morning, delivering a strong defense for her decision to prosecute six officers involved in Gray's death.

At the motion’s hearing for State v Garrett Miller this morning, prosecutors announced they would not pursue the remaining cases related to the arrest and death of Gray, bringing to an end one of the most closely watched police prosecutions in the country. The gag order against all parties involved, including prosecutors and defense attorneys and their clients, has also been rescinded.

Then EYE find out Republican Presidential nominee,  Donald Trump is calling on the Russia to help him take down his political opponent.  Uh, isn't that like Treason...

We The Peeps dare not unite,  organize, rise up,  and exercise the First Amendment , because our Government will label the protest(ers) violent and roll out their tax payer funded, government  issued weapons of mass destruction and kill up a bunch of us.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

EYE will wait.

Update: "Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History" and "Well Done Protest is Always Inappropriate" #BlackHistoryMonth2016

Update:  Clinton apologizes for 1996 remarks on 'super-predators' after encounter with activist.

In case you haven't heard, the woman who is attempting the break the already cracked glass ceiling to  become the first female President of the United States of America was confronted by a young, black, female activist at a private, $500.00 per person fundraiser in Charleston, SC last night.  Yes, the interruption was rude and disruptive, but so was Hillary's response.

For those who have been living under a rock, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are in a fight to the finish for the black vote.  Both of them, as my Daddy used to say, are N-wording up.

With the Democratic candidates’ first test in the South approaching, a battle of high-profile surrogates is intensifying as Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders vie for the support of African-American voters, who are expected to make up more than half of the primary electorate in the Palmetto State.

As Super Tuesday draws near EYE am still undecided which democratic candidate EYE will vote for.  Just when EYE think my mind is made up, one of the candidates, or their supporters, do or say something that brings me right back to being undecided.

 

EYE don't know who is advising Hillary, but EYE HOPE it's not the same people who advised President Obama and others to pander to those who might vote for them at the expense of those who did, and will vote for them.  It was  not a good look to be campaigning with the Mothers of victims of gun and police violence one day and marginalize their daughters the next day.  

Listen up Bernie and Hillary, the young people are sick and tired of photo ops and lip service.

Pulley said Thursday she was not interested in being a part of what she called "a photo opportunity and a 90-second sound bite for the president."
"I was under the impression that a meeting was being organized to facilitate a genuine exchange on the matters facing millions of Black and Brown people in the United States," Pulley wrote in an op-ed piece. "I could not, with any integrity, participate in such a sham that would only serve to legitimize the false narrative that the government is working to end police brutality and the institutional racism that fuels it. For the increasing number of families fighting for justice and dignity for their kin slain by police, I refuse to give its perpetrators and enablers political cover by making an appearance among them."

The young people aren't the only ones who are sick and tired of being sick and tired. If either of you really want to understand the fear, yes EYE said fear, of being black in America, and the significance of the Black Lives Matter Movement, yes, EYE said Movement, as in the Civil Rights Movement both of you like to use as props, watch last nights' episode of black-ish, then go out and earn the Black vote.

We want our HOPE for Change we can Believe in Back.

#BlackHistoryMonth2016

In honor of Black History Month and since South Carolina is Ground Zero for the battle for the hearts and minds of Black voters, here an excerpt from a previous post reminding us about the history of South Carolina.

So now it's on to the racist, I mean conservative, Christian, red, republican, Confederate, slave state of South Carolina. Which may explain why Willard starting slinging red meat in his victory speech,accusing President Obama of not knowing what it means to be an American, who wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. Code for birth certificate, welfare, food stamps. 

Here are some facts about the conservative state of South Carolina, which according to the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads, is known for it's bare knuckles politics.

South Carolina is the home of The Orangeburg Massacre at South Carolina State University where three black students were shot and killed by police during a peaceful protest. 

South Carolina is the home of former republican U.S. Senator Strom Thurmon, racist by day, hypocrite by night. 

South Carolina is the home of current republican U.S Senator Jim "Waterloo" Demint. 

South Carolina is the home of U.S. Congressman Joe "You Lie" Wilson. Speaking of Congressman Joe "You Lie" Wilson, he will address a group of defense and military leaders at a $1,000.00 per person luncheon in Huntsville, AL today. Dale "voter suppression with the state seal of approvall" Jackson will introduce Congressman Mo "I will do anything short of shooting them" Brooks who I'm assuming will introduce Wilson. What's up with out of state/city Congress Critters raising money in North Alabama? 

South Carolina is the state vowing to sue the United States Department of Justice, to enact a state voter ID law, which they have already said punishes black voters.
South Carolina is the state where republican Governor Nikki Haley rejects the NAACP push to remove the Confederate Flag from atop the Statehouse. 

I can't wait to see which candidate will emerge victorious in the Battle for South Carolina.

RedEye

Note:  The quotes in the title are by  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Matthew Williams

I do not want to hear another word about what Alvin Holmes said. Not one.

State Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery

It is not my intention, in this post, either to defend what state Rep. Alvin Holmes (D) said, or to praise what state Rep. Alvin Holmes said.  It is my intention to defend Rep. Alvin Holmes right (pun intended) to say what he said.

Once upon a time, a black man would never raise his voice at a white man. Once upon a time, when a white man told a black man to do something, the black man would say, "Yes sir boss." Those days are gone.
Even nowadays, many black politicians are afraid to be perceived as "the angry black man" or "the angry black woman".  Many lower their voices and moderate their speech patterns, expressions and mannerisms to appease hyper-sensitive white voters.

Thank goodness state Rep. Alvin Holmes is not that kind of black elected official.  I commend Rep. Holmes for speaking out for the rights of all Alabama women to choose to have a safe, legal, abortion.  Because make no mistake, this bill will not prevent any women with means from having access to an abortion, this bill adversely and disproportionately affects black/brown/poor Alabama women and children who are already born.  Children republicans don't want to have access to quality affordable health care, access to a quality public education, or even  food.

If you want to know who and what the Alabama GOP panders too,  all you have to do is read some of the comments on  Al.com.  See what I mean below:

 Actually, Holmes can bait for race or race for bait....whites have grown totally indifferent to the whining, crying and moaning of the black underclass. For anyone who could possibly be concerned, consider the source.

 Mr. Holmes is just angry because he knows the days of race baiting by black politicians is coming to an end. The black vote has been bought and paid for by the Democrat party and the party has moved on to the new kid in town....illegal aliens.

 Alvin Holmes is a race baiter. He always plays the race card to get the uninformed voters to vote for him. He does nothing but stir up hate, He is what wrong with Alabama now.

State Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery is dumbing down those who vote for him. Vote him out before everyone is owned by the Government.

I don't agree with the point of view expressed above, but I defend their right to express their point of view without being vilified/castigated. Racism is not about what was said,  it's about what is done.

I am sick and tired of some (not to be confused with all) white people telling grown a$$ black folks what they can or cannot say, how loud they can play their music, what they can wear , or, when they can protest about the way they are being treated. It is condescending at best, racist/racism at worst.

Enough!

"It is apparent that Mr Holmes was decrying the blatant hypocrisy of most of the legislature members. They bring to the forum legislation written by outside sources such as ALEC that is divisive, unnecessary, and counter to existing law. A thinking person wonders why his words would bring the ire of so many. The answer for me is that they know he is speaking the truth and cannot deal with it."

 It's not about what Alvin Holmes said, it was about what house republicans did.

One and Dunn

Now that Michael Dunn has been convicted of attempted murder of the three young men with Jordan Davis the day he was murdered in cold blood for loud music, his family will have to endure another trial. "The state attorney for Jacksonville, Angela Corey, said immediately after the verdict that she planned to retry Mr. Dunn on first-degree murder. Ms. Corey discussed "overcharges" and that she hoped jurors would explain why they could not agree on that charge, which could help her team in the new trial. Even without that new trial, Michael Dunn will be in prison for possibly 60-75 years. He is scheduled to be sentenced March 24th. And if Michael Dunn was afraid of a car full of teens playing rap music, his convictions give him new reasons to be afraid. Prison justice is calculated, covert, swift and severe.
The actions of George Zimmerman (the one who "won") and Michael Dunn (who is so-o-o done) show it's open season on young black men. The George Zimmerman trial taught racists how to kill a black teenager and legally get away with it. (George, by the way, now bemoans the fact that he can't live a "normal life," is homeless and thinks he is suffering from PTSD - a probable pitch for disability.) Not that I care, if only to say that he ought to be damn happy to live a life in obscurity, always looking over his shoulder, anticipating some dreadful event. Life, after all, is what he denied Trayvon Martin.
Jordan's mother, Lucia McBath, became an advocate with Moms Demand Action, fighting to end "Stand Your Ground" laws, "...also called “shoot first” laws because they empower armed vigilantism – are associated with a clear increase in homicides, resulting in up to 700 more homicides nationwide each year...".
Moms Demand Action notes that Stand Your Ground laws: embolden vigilante behavior and tripled the justifiable homicide rate; disproportionately affects communities of color; and, doesn't deter crime. All of which support the most egregious fact that when: "white shooters kill black victims, the resulting homicides are 11 times more likely to be deemed justifiable than when the shooter is black and the victim is white."
That's a fact that Michael Dunn quite possibly could have known when he reached for his handgun to discharge his magazine into the red SUV. He might have known his chances of getting away with it were pretty good. After all, he considered himself pretty smart, according to his neighbors, and he had learned the nuances of Stand Your Ground during the George Zimmerman trial. His neighbors describe Michael Dunn as a violent, perverse man so eager to make a buck that he was willing to screw his own parents, and as a man willing to kill somebody.
Jordan's father, Ron Davis, said simply though it wasn't in his nature to be stoic, he would do so for his son, Jordan: "[Dunn] is going to learn that he must be remorseful for the killing of my son, that it was not just another day at the office.”

Veteran's Day Witnesses War on Freedom and the Constitution

This Veterans Day remember, on average, at least 22 Vets commit suicide daily. America doesn’t do enough for our returning Vets and it’s not getting better. That is wrong on every level. And it disgusts me. The VA report can color it however they want…it’s still wrong that more Vets die by their own hand than in Afghanistan. They are the invisible casualties of war.

Legal Schnauzer: Bleak Veteran's Day Witnesses War on Constitution in Legal Schnauzer First Amendment Case: There is a war being waged on the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights by the rich, powerful, well-connected and corrupt. And the travesty involved in the Legal Schnauzer first amendment case is on the front lines of that war. Police brutality, prior restraint, unlawful search and seizure, police harassment, denial of due process, false arrest and malicious prosecution, as well as, suppression of free speech and freedom of the press--our civil liberties are currently under assault.

 Justice for Renisha McBride! Justice for Trayvon Martin! Justice for Jonathan Ferrell! Justice for Jordan Davis! We must end all forms of racial profiling and racial violence. We must repeal Stand Your Ground laws. 

 Why MORE Black People Need to say F^*k THE POLICE We want the police to quit STOPPING and FRISKING us at every single turn just because of the melanin in our skin, and prosecuting us at rates unseen in other communities.

Seriously. This is not fair.

We want the police to stop using citizens to feed America’s prison industrial complex, and actually help us build and patrol our less advantaged communities without making us all culprits.
- See more at: http://www.thisisyourconscience.com/2013/11/why-more-black-people-need-to-say-fk-the-police/#sthash.cWEoxEB8.dpuf

We want the police to quit STOPPING and FRISKING us at every single turn just because of the melanin in our skin, and prosecuting us at rates unseen in other communities.
We want the police to stop using citizens to feed America’s prison industrial complex, and actually help us build and patrol our less advantaged communities without making us all culprits.
- See more at: http://www.thisisyourconscience.com/2013/11/why-more-black-people-need-to-say-fk-the-police/#sthash.cWEoxEB8.dpuf

RedEye's Week in Reviw

Fist Dap jobsanger: Don't Back Down

The week ended just like it started, with the republicans still in state of denial, and the media trying to turn the losers (republicans)  into the winners (democrats).

We seem to be in a cycle that mimics the movie "Groundhog Day." The election ended with the resounding re-election of Barack Obama, something the Republican Party, with its customary rabid partisanship, refuses to accept.    

I wonder what part of  significant reforms to entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, deep spending cuts and not raising tax rates for the wealthy LOST on election day don't they understand?  Been there, done that, and guess what, it didn't work then, it's not working now, and it won't work in the future. If their way worked we wouldn't be in this mess.

Conservative economic thought is based on a single simple premise, which just so happens to be wrong. The premise is that if you make sure businesses* have as much money as possible, they'll hire more workers. One easy way to do that, they claim, is to lower their taxes.
If that were really the case, though, the economy would be in great shape. After all, corporate profits after taxes are at all-time highs (and the same is true even after accounting for inflation. So why aren't more businesses hiring?

 Annoy the media, it's time for democrats to act like democrats and stop pandering to voters who MIGHT vote for them at the expense of voters who DO vote for them.  What good is electing democrats if they are going to govern like a republican?

In 2010, Beltway Democrats miscalculated badly. Many of them-- with the acquiescence and even the encouragement of the leadership-- decided the safer bet was to vote like a Republican rather than to embrace and explain a progressive vision for solving real problems that face the country. So Democratic voters didn't go to the polls and dozens of House Democrats-- mostly Blue Dogs and New Dems but a few good people as well-- lost their seats. Preventing another catastrophe like that should be a big focus of the House Dems.

No more Twinkies, the execs get $1.76 million in bonuses, 18,500 workers get the shaft. Blame the Union.

But before you jump, be sure to blame it on the union workers. Those workers who were too greedy to swallow yet another pay cut, this time for eight percent. Or see their pension fund gutted, and their benefits slashed 17 percent. Or take these demands from a CEO who saw his own personal salary triple from $750,000 to roughly $2.5 million.

NOT.  Blame the gop infused media enabled Tea Party and the Suckers who elected them.

 On the other side you’ve got the Tea Party supporters, brandishing their swords and demanding free enterprise unfettered by government. In another world that might be a good idea, but apparently nobody’s told them that the corporate-political machine is playing them like puppets on a string. In the end, they’re nothing but bouncers for that top one percent.

The White on Rice Offensive was in full gear this week as republicans blamed United Nations Ambassodor Susan Rice for being the National Security Adviser on 9/11,  the Secretary of State in 1998, and a political operative in 2012.  There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy.

 “We find it utterly incredulous that the Honorable Senators who uncritically supported the war against Iraq, based on inexplicably flawed intelligence or outright deception, could even perk their lips to criticize Ambassador Rice.”

Wednesday nights memorial service for 17 year old Jordan Davis was of course very sad and full of emotion
as his parents prepare to bury him in Powder Springs, Georgia on Saturday.   Davis was shot and killed after 45 year old Michael Dunn  fired 8-9 bullets in the car he was riding in because he (Dunn)  thought he had the right to order a car load of African American teens to turn their music down.  After the shooting Dunn fled the scene because he was afraid a gang of blacks were going to come after him.  I wonder why he would think something like that?  Sounds like Florida is a good place to be from, and the home of  black parents worst nightmare.

To sum up, Dunn shot at an unarmed group of teens (of color) because they cursed at him while refusing to turn down their music, which evidently makes them gang members. It sounds to me like Dunn, much like George Zimmerman, may actually believe he is the victim here.