What I'm reading today

This has been one of those real life days where I didn't watch cable *cough* news, so I don't know what happened during the President's press conference. I only know what the *ahem* Talking TeeVee Pundit heads tell me I know. Thank goodness for Blogging Bloggers or we wouldn't know squat about what's really going on.

Uh, remember when Congressman Anthony Weiner said his Twitter account was hacked? Remember how the media ignored him and focused on his male member instead?

Speaking of the media, all white is not right (no pun).

If you've ever wondered why anyone would vote republican read the top 10 reasons that would cause someone to vote republican. Here is an excerpt.

"#10: I shall vote Republican next time because I am a white male. It does not matter if they are otherwise against me, but since I am a white male, and they say that they are for white males, I am for them too! Lies matter not to me. I am a white male.

What if Caylee Anthony had been black?

How is it that the tragic death of one little girl could attract so much more attention than the tragic deaths of four sisters?

The easy answer is that the disparity in coverage is about race and class. Media critics argue that if Caylee had been black, her disappearance and death would never have received as much attention. There were indeed sharp contrasts: Caylee, white, from a middle-income home in suburban Orlando, in the shadow of Disney World; the Jacks sisters, black, from a lower-income Southeast Washington neighborhood besieged by drugs and crime, just blocks from the Capitol.

Here we go again. The Alabama Democratic Party is taking a plastic knife to a gun fight. RedEye roll. Hey ADP! Is State Scott Beason still the of the rules committee? F the dumb stuff.

Obama didn't cause this mess, but he's trying to get us out of it.

Would someone please tell the GOP infused, media-enabled TeaPublicans it's not about spending cuts, it's about paying for what we've already bought?. Namely, three wars.

That's right (pun intended), the pro-war GOP wants to pay for the war on the backs of single mothers, the poor, the elderly and the disabled, while bending over backward to support tax cuts for their base, aka the super-rich.

How anyone that is not super rich can call themselves a republican is beyond me. Maybe when their social security and Medicare are cut off they will realize they've been duped. But then again, they hate democrats/liberal/Obama (in that order) more than they love themselves, which is why they can be counted on to vote against their self interest at every turn like good little sheeple.

Social Security cuts under consideration by the White House in deficit-reduction talks would drive 245,000 people into poverty and lower widows' benefits $1,200 a year by 2050, according to Social Security Administration calculations provided to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Changing the way inflation is measured to determine Social Security benefits is one option on the table in high-stakes budget negotiations that resume Sunday at the White House. The so-called Chained Consumer Price Index on average results in a lower inflation levels than the more common formula used to adjust benefits.

"The result would be devastating cuts for millions of American seniors and people with disabilities," said Sanders. As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, Sanders asked the Social Security Administration's Office of Retirement Policy to calculate the impact on poverty rates and benefits if the revised inflation gauge were to be adopted.

In 2030, according to the report prepared for Sanders, there would be 173,400 more people living in poverty in the United States. The revised formula also would dramatically lower benefits for retirees. Widows would receive almost $70 a month less in benefits, a reduction of $840 a year. People who are 70-79 would receive $49 a month less, a drop of $588 a year. Benefits for those who are 80-89 would drop by $80/month or $960 a year. Benefits for women would fall by 3.5 percent overall while men's benefits would drop by 2.9 percent.

Until I hear from the President's mouth instead of some "White House official" I'm not going to rush to judgment on the Medicare and social security rumor because at this point that's all it is. For all we know Harold Ford (DINO) could be the source. Let's wait and see what the President says and not what some unnamed White House official says.

IF, and I mean IF, the rumors are true and cuts to Medicare and social security are on the table why did John Boehner stomp out of the meeting? I mean, that is what they wanted isn't it? Me thinks the republicans are caught between Barack and a hard place. They are damned if they insist on cuts to Medicare and social security and damned if they don't.

Laurence Lawerence says We shouldn't be talking about deficits.

That's the worst part about the entire debate. And from that fundamental problem all others follow. In the midst of the most tenuous of recoveries from one of the most severe recessions, we should be talking about jobs and mortgages and stimulus. We should be talking about reinventing our economy to be green not lean and mean. We should be talking about the Republicans as depraved agents of regression and extremism. We should not be talking to them as if they are willing to negotiate in good faith. We should not be talking to them as if they are capable of making sound decisions on policy.

I don't know what part of the republicans are trying to destroy you President Obama doesn't understand.

The reality is that the Republicans know that for one of them to return to the Oval Office, and for their party to retake one or both houses of Congress, this presidency must be perceived as a failure. The consequences to the country of this presidency actually being a failure are irrelevant to them. They want it to fail. They work for it to fail. They know that any successes by this president undermine their party's chances, so they will do their best to prevent any successes, in any ways they can. The Republicans are a party that impeached a twice-elected president for lying about sex. There is no depth too low, and no sewage too rank, for their pernicious partisan wallowing.

So now that we know the republicans are mean and immoral are we going to let them win?

The last time the U.S. government shut down in the mid-1990s, it was Newt Gingrich who tried to capitalize politically on stories about closed signs in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Of course it backfired, since Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996 in a landslide and Gingrich ended up resigning as House Speaker in an ethics scandal.

This time, however, if an agreement cannot be reached to keep the government operating, millions of poor people will suffer enormously when the Social Security checks stop coming and Medicare and Medicaid won’t pay the hospital bills. Yes Wall Street will crash again, and even the middle classes will lose their retirement. But that’s not even the worst of it.

If an agreement is not reached by August 2, the Dog Days of Summer will take on a whole new meaning. Many poor people will simply die.

Don't be distracted by the media hype, we have bigger problems than the Casey Anthony verdict.

What's the greater moral outrage: the guilty going free or the innocent wrongfully convicted? The death of little Caylee was a tragedy, but her mother's case went through the system, and the system worked as it is designed to do. Don't let the media attention and hyped "moral" outrage distract you from the real challenges to U.S. civil rights and liberties. The next innocent victim could be you!

I'm just saying...

I weep for the future of our country

For the first time in my adult life I am concerned about the future of our country. I don't know when or how it happened, but a mean spirit is on the lose and in control of our government. A mean spirit that evokes fear and bigotry. A mean spirit that pits Americans against each other. A mean spirit that HOPE can't seem to Overcome.

I weep for the children of War

Children of war are collateral damage.

I think of candles for Caylee and segue to the candlelight vigils in which I’ve participated to honor the dead, not just for our own servicemen and women but also civilians. Then I transition to another acknowledgment, a graveyard of empty boots and shoes, representing troops who’ve died and civilians killed. This exhibit is fall-to-the-ground painful—especially the small pieces of canvas or leather, the children’s shoes.

I remember former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s frigid response when questioned about the deaths of 576,000 Iraqi children (from sanctions in Iraq): “This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.” Yes, 576,000 children. Really, five hundred and seventy-six thousand Caylee Anthonys.

Formal research shows a link between U.S. armed service members deployed six months or more in Iraq and Afghanistan and increased mental illness in their children—problems significant enough to require hospitalization. No surprise. But extend this further, to the places our military personnel deploy, and imagine the psychic damage inflicted on children who endure war's savagery.

A site, Iraq: the Human Costs (http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/) provides a glimpse into what is neglected in mainstream political discourse, war's effect on those who live in the countries we invade. Read it, weep, and understand that Iraq is also Afghanistan, Pakistan, or any country ours chooses to devastate.

I weep for our once non violent leaders who now support War over peace.

On Wednesday morning June 29, 2011 a delegation of mostly black Georgia residents and others from the Diaspora met in front of the downtown Atlanta office of Congressman John Lewis. Some of them, including former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney, had recently returned from Libya. They came --- I should say we came, since I was one of them, though I was not among those returning from abroad --- to take Congressman Lewis to task for his inexcusable vote to fund the US armed intervention in Libya.
Near the end of his long career, the Atlanta congressman enjoys a reputation as a man of peace and nonviolence, a reputation somewhat tarnished by his occasional votes during the Bush years and perhaps afterward, to fund unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it was the latest stain upon the Lewis legacy, his vote to fund the so-called humanitarian bombing of African people in Libya that provoked this visit.

I weep for our sons and daughters who are fighting, dying and being maimed for life trying to win a war against a tactic.

The main problem with responding to the September 11 attacks by proclaiming a "War on Terror" is that terrorism is a tactic. Bush had a better approach before his national security team got together and decided to conquer the Middle East and Central Asia.

I weep for those who care more about politics than they care about women's lives and grown folks having a job.

We’ve all done it and lived to regret it. Last night I went down the rabbit hole of comments posted in response to the news about our filing suit against North Carolina for singling out Planned Parenthood and banning us from doing business with the state.

Aside from the nut jobs that refuse to admit Planned Parenthood provides health care, there were two strands of comments that made me a bit crazy. Several people seemed genuinely baffled as to why we were shocked to have been cut. Let me say for the record, we wouldn’t have been shocked had we simply been cut. I mean, we’re all aware of the devastating cuts wreaked on education by the new legislative majority.

So, no, we’re not suing because our funding was reduced. We’re suing because we were BANNED from doing business with the state in a purely political move by the new legislative majority despite a gubernatorial veto.

For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5 New Living translation 2007

State Senator Hank Sanders tried to tell y'all the republicans want to bring back slavery

What's that you say? Representative Michelle Bachman (r. MN) is running for President on a pro slavery anti porn platform? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you. NOT.

GOP Presidential candidate and front runner, Rep. Michelle Bachman was the first Joker, I mean gop candidate to sign the Family Leader's pro-marriage pledge

The Family Leader, a prominent Iowa group that promotes Christian conservative social values, said Thursday it is asking all presidential candidates to sign a pledge regarding their personal convictions on traditional marriage.

The pledge is entitled, “The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family.”

The organization’s chief executive officer is Bob Vander Plaats, a conservative evangelical leader who was the state chair of Mike Huckabee’s Republican presidential campaign when he won the 2008 Iowa Caucuses. Vander Plaats said the Family Leader will not support any candidate who declines to sign the pledge.

“If you are looking at being a leader of our great country….we would like to have you pledge personal fidelity to your own spouse and a respect for the marital bonds of others,” Vander Plaats told reporters at a news conference on the steps of the Iowa Statehouse.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, quickly signed the pledge Thursday, while an aide to to former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said he never signs any pledges. A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, said the congressman has reservations, while a representative of President Barack Obama’s Democratic campaign committee declined comment.

Now all of that sounds good and well, but the Devil is in the details.

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President.

There they go re-writing history again.

Actually, the wording of that piece is also wrong. There were no Black "households". Blacks couldn't own property. Also, while Blacks were parents, they were powerless. Their kids didn't belong to them, but the Massa. So it really wasn't a "two parent" household at all. It was the slavemaster, his family, his paid employees, all the other white folk--any of whom could, at any time, usurp the parents or discipline the children. So, yeah, not really a household at all but a labor camp. Also? Back in the white folk days of yore, white kids were most likely to be raised with two parents, even when their mothers were little more than chattel and kids were forced to work almost as soon as they could stand. Oh, for those wonderful days of old!

"Oh, for those wonderful days of old!" This is what Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders was talking about in his mad as hell robo call to democratic voters;

Hello this is Hank Sanders, Alabama state Senator, and I’m still mad as hell. I say hell no! I ain’t going back to the cotton fields of Jim Crow days. I’m going forward with Ron Sparks, Jim Folsom and others who would do right by all of us. I hope you are mad as hell and will not go back, and you have the power to choose. I will stand until hell freezes over for Ron Sparks for Governor and Jim Folsom for Lt. Governor on November the 2nd.

Paid for by Alabama New South.

The threat is real.

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. (AP) -- Civil rights groups have criticized a white city councilman in Warner Robins, Ga., for telling a black colleague during a public meeting that he should work in a cotton field.
The exchanged happened during an argument Monday between Councilman John Williams, who is white, and Daron Lee, who is black.
"I was disrespected last Monday," Lee said in televised comments. "I'm getting tired of y'all talking to me any kind of way. I'm sorry, I'm not in a cotton field. OK?"
"You should be," Williams replied.
Lee said in an interview with WXIA-TV that he considered Williams' comment a racial remark. Black slaves labored in the cotton fields of Southern plantations until slavery was banned in 1865 after the U.S. Civil War.

This is how they feel and who they are. This is why The Alabama State President of the NAACP objected to The Azalea Trail Maids being the only official representative in the Inaugural Parade of President Barack Hussein Obama. There were some who just couldn't understand why it was a reminder of Slavery. It was the opening salvo.

When you see a single young woman, let alone fifty, as a neon-colored caricature of Miss Scarlett at the Barbecue, it calls to mind, well, Miss Scarlett at the Barbecue. I’m sure girls north of the Mason-Dixon line wore hoop skirts too—we’ve all seen Little Women—but the silhouette of the big ruffledy Barbie-cake skirt and parasol is forever linked in the American mind with the antebellum South. And not just any aspect of the South, but the sprawling, colonnaded white plantation house, where in the evening by the moonlight you can hear those darkies singing. And when we choose to present that as the single representative image for our state, it looks like we’re yearning to hear ‘em singing again. It just does, y’all.

If President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder don't get off their Donkey's and reign in the gop we will be singing and slaving again.

WASHINGTON -- Former President Bill Clinton went after Republican governors and legislators on Wednesday for their "disciplined, passionate, determined effort" to pass controversial voter ID laws that could keep some traditionally Democratic voters from casting a ballot in 2012.
"There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today," Clinton said in his keynote address to a roomful of young progressives at the Campus Progress National Conference.
"This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 election look more like the 2010 election than the 2008 election."
Clinton specifically chastised Florida Gov. Rick Scott ® for imposing a five-year waiting period on the restoration of voting rights for ex-prisoners, many of whom fall into racial groups that have traditionally voted Democratic -- and would likely vote for Democratic candidates in 2012.

I wish I were in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten.

Can you hear him now?

Playing catch up, Casey Anthony, gop greed, and a message to mooncat

I'm back! Did you miss me? Every now and then I have to take what I call a mental health break from the world of politics and do what my family calls normal stuff. Ironically my mental health break took me to Orlando, Florida home of the infamous Casey Anthony trial. I'm going to admit I didn't pay close attention while the trial was in process, but it was wall to wall 24/7 coverage in Orlando. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was following the trial with eager anticipation of her guilt and execution. You know why? Because the mainstream media had convinced them she was guilty.

I thought they were going to have to call out the National Guard when the jury found her not guilty. I also thought I was going to be run out of town on a rail when I reminded friends and family this is America where we are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law and not guilty until proven innocent by the media, of the media, for the media. I wish the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads and arm chair Lawyers would exercise some discretion and stop trying people in the court of public opinion. I wonder who Nancy Grace and company will go after next?

Race played a factor. We all know of the horrendous things that happen to little black girls everyday but they don't get coverage like this.

O.J.'s trial outed every liberal or racist who found a cause to justify their negative feelings towards blacks and especially those who "allegedly" kill white folks. The fact that one of them got away has become a cyclic issue for many and will remain so for many years to come.

The Casey Anthony trial was white on white crime--if there was one and this was a nightmare and a cause of concern across all ethnic and socioeconomic lines. The dreaded issue of maternal filicide!

BTW: I'm concerned about Nancy Grace. The intensity and obsessiveness shown on her show has been rather alarming. The murder of her fiance years ago and with the birth of her twins--she seems to be eerily off centered in re: to the homicidal tendencies of others.

What's that you say? republicans might be willing to tank the economy to put President Obama in his place? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! Not. So,someone floated the rumor President Obama was considering cuts to Social Security and Medicare which riled up the democratic base And rightly (no pun) so.

If I’m being charitable, I’ll just assume the White House is floating a trial balloon in order to make the eventual Republican rejection look even worse. AKA “we even offered to cut social security!” But if there’s any reality to this proposal, I hope that at the very least a senator like Bernie Sanders and the few remaining Senate Dems who aren’t spineless or bought off will filibuster.

But here is what I think is going on. The republicans walked out of the debt ceiling negotiations, remember? In order to get them back President Obama had to put cuts Social Security and Medicare on the table. Just because it's on the table doesn't mean it's going to happen. In any event now republicans are caught between Barack and a hard place *snicker*. They are damned if the cut Social Security and Medicare and they are damned if the force an economic collapse in order to protect the rich. It's not President Obama's fault gop means greed over people.

Message to mooncat, not being a native Alabamian, you may or may not know the history of the formation of the ADC (Alabama Democratic Conference)

The Alabama Democratic Conference, formerly known as the Black Political Caucus of Alabama, was established in 1960. Its leaders were African Americans who wished to encourage all voters, but especially other African Americans, to vote for the democratic candidate, who at the time was John F. Kennedy with vice president Lyndon B. Johnson. The founders of this influential group include Arthur Shores, Rufus Lewis, Dr. C.G. Gomillion, Q. D. Adams, Isom Clemon, and Beulah Johnson. All of these individuals held respectable positions in their communities and were looked up to by the people, especially by other African Americans.

The mission of the ADC is as follows

The mission statement of the Alabama Democratic Conference is simple. It is to "organize" and to "unify" the vote of the African American population and also to make the African American vote and opinion appreciated and respected. The organization worked tirelessly for ten years after its inception before these results truly began to manifest themselves. It was a long, hard road, but the members were simply not willing to give up on what they thought as important. Things really changed for this group in 1970 when it began to screen and endorse actual democratic candidates. This brought more attention to and knowledge of the group. The Alabama Democratic Conference also focused on having voter registration drives, monitoring voting, employing African Americans, and helping African Americans to be able to run for office and to hold high positions. Thanks to the group's hard work, there are now more African American elected representatives in Alabama than there are in any other state. While this cannot be due entirely to the Alabama Democratic Conference, it certainly wouldn't have been possible without its dedicated efforts and concern.

The ADC suit has merit because banning PAC to PAC to transfers will eliminate the organization, which is the goal of whites who want to suppress and dilute black voices and the black vote. You said it yourself.

Those payments, coming as they do from other campaign committees or PACs, are now prohibited. For ADC and organizations like it (Alabama New South Coalition is in a similar position) to survive under the new rules, they must change their philosophy and begin raising the bulk of their money directly from individuals and/or corporations.

I'm sure individuals and/or corporations will line up to give money to the ADC and Alabama New South Coalition. Snark

Your understanding of the work, and the mission of the ADC is dead wrong.

As far as I can tell from public records, the bulk of ADC's contributions come from Democratic candidates, other PACs and the Alabama Democratic Party. A candidate who wants to speak at an ADC meeting has to pay, a candidate who wants help from ADC for GOTV has to pay, if the Alabama Democratic Party wants help from ADC for GOTV they have to pay -- it seems backwards if the goal is supporting like-minded candidates and helping them get their message out.

The ADC was formed because blacks were shut out of the Alabama Democratic Party. Political Action Committees are not the root of all evil.

A Political Action Committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation.[1] Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a matter of state and federal law. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, an organization becomes a "political committee" by receiving contributions or making expenditures in excess of $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election.

This is not about as you say making it easier for ordinary citizens and the press to see how money influences Alabama government. Nor is it about informing and putting more power in the hands of the people for the good of our democracy. It's about putting Dr. Joe L. Reed and the rest of the uppity blacks in their place.


White Alabama Democrats have some serious soul (pun intended) searching to do.

White Alabama democrats have some deep soul(pun intended)searching to do. Speaking only for myself, I'm tired of the "we want black democrats to be seen but not heard" mentality of the party elite. I'm tired of the African American vote being taken for granted. I'm tired of conservatives running as democrats to take advantage of the black vote then governing like republican. I'm tired of democratic candidates pandering to the right at the expense of the traditional base. I'm tired of African Americans being treated like second class citizens with a nod, nod, wink, wink. To quote Dr. Joe Reed;You cannot curse Bubba and Cooter, Big Man, and June Bug in the daytime and beg them at night. If I wanted a republican representative/governor/senator I would vote republican.

I don't have to be member of the Alabama Democratic Party, I chose to be a member of the Alabama Democratic Party because I believed we shared goals and values. I choose not to be a member of a democratic party who would rather lose than stand up and fight for what is right.

What Old Fart said all the damn way!
This is, to put it succinctly, a political hatchet job.

I am glad and proud the Alabama Democratic Conference is fighting back.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The state's oldest black political group filed a federal lawsuit today challenging last year's changes to Alabama's campaign financing law banning transfer of money between political action committees.

The Alabama Democratic Conference says in the lawsuit that the new law hurts its get-out-the-vote efforts in elections and cuts money available for minority candidates.

The Alabama Democratic Conference and five of its members filed the federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama against Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange and two district attorneys, Robert Broussard in Madison County and Bryce Graham Jr. in Colbert County.

This is the kind of Alabama Democratic Party I wish we had instead of the Alabama Democratic Party we have.