Left of Center

If you are thinking that Texas governor Rick Perry might make a good president, consider this quote made by a primary voter during his race with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. A voter said of Perry, "It takes balls to execute an innocent man."

As of Sept. 5, Perry has executed 235 people, or one every 17 days, and the next execution is imminent. This figure should be shocking for several reasons. The death penalty, as practiced in America, is a highly flawed process. The Innocence Project has received widespread publicity for the fact that it has freed hundreds of inmates from death row. Before the advent of DNA, death row convictions largely relied on eye-witness evidence and questionable testimonies. In many cases these testimonies where given under duress or even extracted by good-old fashioned torture.

Some of the techniques used by the Chicago Police Department, for example, include beating suspects with phone books (they don't leave bruises), whippings with rubber hoses and chaining suspects to radiators. The Illinois criminal justice system was so flawed that a few years ago former Gov. John Ryan released all of the inmates from death row. And a Chicago Police captain, who lead a squad that extracted several false confessions using torture techniques, was recently jailed for his crimes.

At this time, I don't have evidence that Texas law enforcement officials have extracted confessions using torture, but there is ample proof that the Texas criminal justice system is highly flawed. Craig Watkins, the first black district attorney of Dallas County, went through past death penalty cases and found most of them were suspect. According to a 2007 NPR report, Dallas had gone through 36 cases and found 12 of the men innocent. The Dallas DA's office has exonerated more than 20 people so far.

So from this information, you can summarize that a good number of the 235 people that Perry has killed were likely innocent. Apart from the inaccuracy of the death sentence process, one also has to look at the racial aspect of it. According to the Innocence Project, there have been 273 post-conviction exonerations and 70 percent of those exonorees where minorities.

This leads to the troubling case of Duane Edward Buck, an African American who killed two people and wounded another person in a 1995 domestic shooting. During his trial Dr. Walter Quijano testified that Buck was more prone to violence because he was African American. According to Fort Worth Star-Telegram writer Bobby Ray Sanders, "The prosecutor asked if Butler's African-American race increased the likelihood of his being a further danger. The psychologist said it did. As it turned out, Quijano made a reputation of testifying that a person's race or ethnicity, namely black and Hispanic, made it more likely that they would continue to be a threat to society -- something (John) Cornyn as attorney general noted was, in fact, an egregious error." According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Quijano has also given testimony in 100 capital cases.

There are several major problems with Quijano's testimony:

Most scientists agree that race is an artificial construct of society. What does Quijano defines as race, skin color or ethnicity? Is an African native raised in an upper-class London neighborhood as likely to commit violence as an African American kid raised in an impoverished single parent home in South Central? One could argue that they both come from the same race, but their backgrounds are very different.
While about 60 percent of the inmates of the American justice system are black or Latino, it could be argued that this has more to do with racist sentencing practices than cultural behavior. Studies have shown that convicts faced harsher sentencing for possession of crack, which was used by black drug users, than drug users who used cocaine, which was seen as a drug used by wealthy white people. So it could be argued that the reason why there are more blacks and Latinos in jail is not because they are more prone to violence, but because the racist justice system is more likely to throw them in jail for crimes. In addition, there is a much greater chance of a crime being investigated if the victim is white. Crimes against minorities are often not a high priority for police. The vast majority of capital crimes involve white victims, while a much higher percentage of victims of capital crimes are in fact minorities
Quijano's suggestion that blacks and Latinos are more violent than other races ignores several historical facts. For example, World War II, the most violent war in the history of mankind, extinguished about 72 million lives, and it was conducted largely by Europeans (whites).
The introduction of Western (white) colonists to Africa, the Americas and Australia has been a disaster for native people. White people spread across the United States because of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the native people. The Native American population pre Columbus was estimated to be up to 18 million, now it is down to about 4 million. In Australia, the indigenous population, before the advent of white people was between 750,000 to 1 million, now the figure is down to about 400,000.
Many black nationalists such as Malcolm X have accused white people of being the most efficient practioners of genocide. Joseph Stalin was believed to have killed about 20 million people, and Adolph Hitler was responsible for about 10 million deaths. Europe has been awash in bloodshed for centuries. The longest period of peace was post-World War II to the Yugoslavian war in the 1990s.
Criminal profilers have said the majority of serial killers are white males. The most notorious killers, people like John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson, were all white. It is only in recent years, where we have heard of black serial killers like the DC Sniper and the Grim Sleeper. In addition, the majority of work place and school shootings are committed by white males. So one could make an argument that white males are more prone to serial killings and work place shootings than people of color.

You can find incidence of violence and mass murder among all races. Ghengis Khan and Mao Tse Tung, both Asian, were efficient killers and in Rwanda an ethnic war generated more than 1 million corpses in less than a year. But it's particularly shocking that a so-called expert would use the questionably concept of race to justify the execution of black and Latino prisoners.

Unfortunately, this callous disregard for human life is not surprising in Texas, a state that seems to revel in its frontier attitude towards justice. This is exemplified in the troubling case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texan who was given the death penalty for arson.

A Texas arson investigator later concluded that there was no evidence of arson and sent his findings to the Gov. Rick Perry and the Board of Pardon and Paroles to no avail. It seems that once the Texas Death Machine has been set in process, not even innocence is enough to stop it.

Threats of Insurrection, Violence Are Common on the Right

2011-08-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

By Clavell Jackson

It is clear to me that there is a large segment of this country which is clinically insane -- and much of this madness is motivated by the election of President Barack Obama. There is even a term for this -- Obama Derangement Syndrome.

There is plenty of evidence of this on FOX News and AM radio, but that pales in comparison to the hard-core lunacy on web sites such as World Net Daily and Big Government. World Net Daily, also known as World Nut Daily, is home to conspiracy theories which warn that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim and also publishes the embarrassing work or real-life ditz and Saturday Live vet Victoria Jackson (no relation). Jackson's drivel is so factually and grammatically incorrect that even a high school paper would hesitate to publish her articles. One of her recent columns accused Obama of being similar to Hitler, because Hitler "had a white mother, had a secret army and hated Jews."

Right-Wing Watch, a web site funded by People for the American Way, tracks inflammatory comments from the Religious Right, a group that has always mixed madness with political intensity. A recent article on Right-Wing Watch about William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, an anti-immigration group, said Obama is such a threat to White America that his group no longer accepts him as a legitimate president and was considering "extra-political activities that I can’t really talk about because they’re all illegal and violent." Yes, a political group just threatened a violent insurrection against the U.S. government.

Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. Over the last three years we have seen an increasing tide of disrespect and violent rhetoric coming from political figures and media commentators. Lunatic presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) once said that she suspected Obama of having anti-American views and former Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle suggested angry voters should take up "second amendment remedies" if the polls didn't work.

Is it any wonder that many media sources reported that Obama was getting 30 death threats a day stretching the Secret Service to breaking point. Yes, many people are upset about the recession, but this is more than economically-motivated frustration. This is refusal to accept Obama as the nation's leader. America has been through tough economic times before when Franklin Roosevelt was president, but we didn't see this level of violent rhetoric. FDR did face an attempted coup from a group of oligarchs, including Prescott Bush, who wanted to install a fascist government. You won't find much information about the "Business Plot," in American history books though.

I have to believe that much of this is racial. Although the myopic GOP continues to say that is not, the evidence is in plain sight. FOX News has a long string of racial slights such as accusing Obama of "having hoodlums in the hizzouse," and "chugging forties." Glenn Becks rants were so offensive, FOX finally had to let him go. And there is a long history of racist comments from GOP politicians which include comparing Obama to a monkey, using the phrase "tar baby" and sending cartoons of the White House lawns festooned with watermelons. If you want to see really vile comments check out the commentary section on Foxnews.com. A recent story about Somalia referred to the country as "Niggadishu." Note to the GOP, if you can't see it, that's because you don't want to see it.

Many of the Obama haters will call him a communist, a Muslim, a liberal, even if he is none of those things. Obama has pursued largely moderate positions, to the point of alienating his liberal supporter. But it seems that some white people cannot swallow the idea of a black man in the White House. How dare Obama address the nation, how dare he go on vacation, how dare he take off his jacket in the Oval Office and how dare he fly on Air Force One? Like the other presidents didn't do any of the same things.

This hatred has sunk deep into the core of the political system. We now have an opposition party that will vote against any legislation if it has the hint of making Obama and the Democrats look good. As the recent debt crisis showed, Republicans are willing to crash the economy to achieve their political point.

The future does not look any better. If Obama wins a second term, and I believe he will, the GOP will try to impeach him. Presidential candidate Herman Cain has already said this would be a good idea! It will probably fail and cost the nation a lot of time and money, but as long as it gives the Democrats a black eye, the GOP is happy.

We are only in the Summer of 2012, we have almost a year of political campaigning ahead of us and I am already exhausted. We've got a bumpy ride ahead of us.

Tea Party Monster is Choking its Republican Creator

2011-08-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

It's a sign of how awful the mainstream media is when some of the best reporting is found in Rolling Stone. Yes, Rolling Stone, a magazine that is known for covering drug-addled rock stars, broke the story that took down former Afghan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. And Rolling Stone Matt Taibi has also done some of the most hard-hitting and insightful writing about the mortgage crash and Wall Street's shenanigans.

Taibi also did one of his trade mark acerbic pieces about the Tea Party. Taibi says, "A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it."

The article features an illustration where a Frankenstein-like monster, representing the Tea Party, is being stitched together by Sen. Mitch McConnell. It's interesting because the Tea Party, which was a creation of the Republican party, is beginning to look like it's eventually going to choke its creator.

The fiscally conservative Tea Party was supposed to have sprung up in opposition to President Barack Obama's health care reform legislation. But where were these people when President George W. Bush was waging two unfunded wars, giving tax cuts to billionaires and pushing the Medicare prescription drug benefit? According to figures from the Congressional Budget Office, Dubya increased the deficit by $5 trillion, while Obama has only increased the deficit by $1.4 trillion so far. (In spite of their reputation for fiscal conservatism, Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased the deficit, while President Bill Clinton left a budget surplus.)

In reality, the Tea Party is a triumph of branding. It was the same GOP repackaged in a new shiny box, kind of like the new coke. The Tea Party, a supposedly grass roots movement, is actually funded by Americans for Prosperity, a group that is headed by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey. It's sponsored by the Koch brothers, some of the wealthiest political backers in the country. The brilliance of the Tea Party is that it managed to get middle-class Americans to get out and march in the sun for policies that benefit billionaires!

But then something unexpected happened, the Tea Party began to get out of control. The Tea Party's popularity let clueless politicians like Christine O'Donnell, who has never won a race in her life, and Sharon Angle, who became famous for running away from the media, and mistaking Latinos for Asians, get a national spotlight. O'Donnell and Angle were so wacky, that voters ended up electing Democrats, even though the mood of the nation was supposed to be turning against them.

But it didn't stop there. The Tea Party movement also swept up politicians like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who bragged about secession while balancing the budget with Obama stimulus money, and the idiotic Rep. Michele Bachmann, who claims she is for small government, even though she has received millions of dollars in federal money, and used to work for the IRS!

Now we have a lot of angry, white people who are pushing for the Tea Party's fascist mantra. The Tea Party is steering the Republican party even further to the right. So what happens when you push a party that is already pro corporation and anti-regulation even farther? You get fascism. As Benito Mussolini said, fascism occurs when the state and corporate interests merge.

Mainstream Republicans are worried. Former White House adviser Karl Rove actually said Tea Party presidential candidates were coming across as too far right. In an interview with Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Dallas Tea Party leader Phillip Dennis called Karl Rove, "a big-spending, big-government moderate!" Now when Karl Rove, the man who was nicknamed "Bush's brain," is called a moderate, the crazy train has left the station.

The thing is politicians like Speaker John Boehner and Karl Rove, are old-time insiders. They know how the system works, and they realize that Republicans can't get elected if they let a bunch of lunatics, who say they want to let the U.S. default on its debt, who don't believe in global warming and who want to turn Medicare into a voucher system, get elected, the Republicans are screwed. Senior citizens vote en masse, and they won't take kindly to politicians who want to eliminate the programs that keep them alive.

And it seems the American public is finally waking up to the fact that by voting in Tea Party politicians, they essentially handed the lunatics the keys to the asylum. Tea Party governors Rick Scott, John Kasich and Scott Walker are already facing revolts at home as voters realize they are trying to cut essential services and go after teachers, cops and firefighters. According to a recent New York Times article, the Tea Party is less popular than Muslims and atheists.

But the genie seems to be out of the bottle. The Tea Party has unleashed a wave of wild-eyed ideologues who are going to drive the Republican party right off the cliff. And right now the Democrats are pulling up a deck chair and grabbing some pop corn.

Bachmann campaign means the joke's on us

2011-08-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Bachmann

If you want to read some really depressing writing, read some of ex-New York Times writer Christopher Hedges' work. Hedges writes some of the most insightful and frightening articles and books documenting the gradual descent of America. One of the central arguments of Hedges' book, "Empire of Illusion," is many Americans are so poorly educated they can't tell fiction from reality. During the last Mid-Term elections this became increasingly clear as many Americans, clueless about the true causes of the financial collapse opted to vote in members of the same party who had been largely responsible for the economic disaster.

It also explains the success of Rep. Michele Bachmann, who recently won the Iowa Straw poll. According to Rachel Maddow, she managed to pull this off after she bought and handed out about 6,000 ballots.

Bachmann is the type of candidate that makes the rest of the world scratch its head. Is it any wonder why Standard and Poors decided to downgrade the United States' triple A credit rating, when you have people like this in charge of this country?

Bachmann is a sad joke of a politician. Almost everything she says is a lie or wildly incorrect. If Bachmann tells you she is going to the bathroom, double check it. Bachmann tells so many untruths that one must assume that she not just fact-challenged, but a shameless liar.

She claims to be a small-government conservative, but has spent years sucking on the government teat. Bachmann used to work as an attorney for the IRS, where her job was chasing down Americans who didn't pay their taxes. While she was at the IRS, Bachmann also took liberal use of their maternity policy. Yet in spite of this, she has cast herself as a Tea Party favorite, a party that is supposed to stand for taxed enough already!

Bachmann's family farm has also received more than $250,000 in government subsidies and her husband's Marcus, an unlicensed psychologist, has received more than $130,000 in Medicaid payments, even though it has been accused of using reparative therapy, which aims to make gay people straight. And while she brags about serving as a foster mom to 23 children, she fails to mention that she also received money from the government for her generosity.

The Bachmanns also used a federally-backed loan program to finance their home, even though Bachmann later criticized the program. Basically, Bachmann's believes it's great for me, but not for anyone else.

And there is the issue with her problem with facts. But here are just a few whoppers:

She confused the home towns of serial killer John Wayne Gacy and actor John Wayne.
She said the Founding Fathers, fought against slavery, even though most of them were slave owners, and there was that whole thing about the Civil War.
She also signed a pledge stating that black families were more intact during slavery, even though slaves could not legally marry.
And most recently she confused Elvis' birthday with the day he croaked on the toilet.
Last weekend on "Meet the Press," she denied calling for the United States to default on its debt, yet on July 28, CBS.com featured video of Bachmann vowing not to raise the debt ceiling.

In addition, there is her frightening fundamentalist views. Former Evangelical Frank Schaeffer describes Bachmann as a dominionist, an extremist sect, which wants to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy. While she was still a home maker in Minnesota, she tried to get the Disney carton "Aladdin" banned from her Christian school, because she though it promoted witchcraft.

With her extreme views, her faulty memory and her blatant hypocrisy, Bachmann, should have trouble getting elected to the local school board. But somehow, she has not only been elected to Congress, now she is among the front runners in the Republican presidential race. This is not without controversy. The conservative Wall Street Journal, recently wrote an editorial where they essentially said of Bachmann and the other GOP presidential candidates, "Isn't there anyone else?"

Why do some Americans support Michele Bachmann? Maybe it's her religion, it surely can't be for her spotty resume and her legislative achievements. In a Politico article, a Minnesota Democratic legislator said Bachmann had no significant legislative achievements.

Maybe it's like what Hedges says, Bachmann supporters can't tell fact from fiction. They are attracted to Bachmann's fervor and religiosity, even if she is a pathological liar and doesn't believe in half of what she says. Consider this quote from a Daily Beast article: "Donna Fouts, 73, doesn’t seem to care that Bachmann planned to vote against the debt-ceiling compromise that would ensure the arrival of her Social Security check and the military benefits owed to her sons and nephews. 'Well, I’m sick of all them other politicians that tell me what to do with my life, she answers. 'Something about her tells me to follow her.'"

So people like Fouts want to vote for Bachmann because she sounds good, and makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside. And they trust her to solve the Middle East crisis, fix the nation's economy, and track down terrorists? God help us!

Why A Black Spider-Man is Important

2011-08-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

A small ripple occurred in the Marvel universe, when it was announced that following the death of long-running Spider-Man Peter Parker, he would be replaced by a Black Latino teenager named Miles Morales.

Now, I should add that this happened in the Marvel Ultimate series, which updates long-running super heroes with a distinctly more modern spin. By the way, Col. Nick Fury, head of the S.H.I.E.L.D. spy agency, has also be been "retconned" (retroactive continuity) as an African American, which is why he is played by Samuel. L. Jackson in the movies. (The original Nick Fury's image was based on Dean Martin.) Peter Parker is still alive and kicking Marvel's other lines.

Changes like that are not unusual in the super hero universe, which has some of the most creative writers in the world. Characters are regularly killed, resurrected, sent to alternate universes and sent back and forth in time on a regular basis. In addition, there is a central idea that a super hero mantle is like a crown that can be passed on to different people. Several characters have worn the cape and cowl apart from original Batman Bruce Wayne. And other super heroes such as Captain Marvel, Captain America, the Green Lantern and the Flash have been played by different people over the years.

But with Spider-Man becoming black, it is a turning point. Spider-Man is one of the most recognized characters in the comic book world and some would call him the flagship of the Marvel line.

While some people have applauded this bold move, it has also becoming politicized. The right-wing noise machine, which tries to pin anything bad on President Barack Obama, claimed this was another incidence of the politically correct media run amok. Right-wing lunatic Glenn Beck said that "Michelle Obama had lead to a gay black Spider-Man." And of course, he got 80 percent of the story wrong.

The First Lady had nothing to do with this choice. The writer of the new Spider-Man line had merely said that in the future there could be a gay super hero. But when did the right-wing media ever let the facts get in the way of a good story?

There are many critics who wonder why the need to change Spider-Man's race, but to me it makes a lot of sense. The world is changing and diversity is becoming the norm, the president is black and so is Will Smith, arguably the world's biggest movie star. And the music world has long been dominated by black artists. The public has different expectations, and Marvel realizes that. Today many young people have black idols, so why not a super hero?

There are many black, Latino and Asian super heroes in the pantheon, but most of them are minor and not on the level of Spider-Man. The comic book world has been surprisingly progressive with pushing forward ideas of racial inclusivity. The super hero genre has always had a subversive message. While many might see Superman as American as apple pie, he is actually an illegal alien trying to blend in. Critics have pointed out that Superman's creator Jerry Siegel was Jewish, and that is where much of the Man of Steel's dual identity comes from. Siegel also had to deal with having to live a double life as a Jewish person in a largely Christian country.

In addition, Marvel debuted the character Black Panther, an African super hero, before the political movement, also named the Black Panthers, was born. Comic book legend Stan Lee said that his creation of mutants like the X-Men was a way of trying to explore issues like prejudice. And what could more be like racial prejudice than people being discriminated because of the way they were born -- an issue that Marvel's mutants constantly struggle with.

But a Black Spider-Man can also lead to a host of new story lines. Spider-Man has always struggled as the everyman super hero. Sure he can climb walls, but he still has to struggle with paying rent and a demanding boss. Now, with Miles Morales, he can deal with host of other issues such as racial discrimination, profiling, immigration, ect.

And this is an important message to all those people of color who still read comic books. As corny as they are, with their spandex costumes and ludicrous plot lines, super heroes are mythical, idealized figures. Children look up to them.

Many black celebrities and even politicians say they were comic book fans. President Obama is said to be a Spider-Man fan. My theory is that comic books have always been a fairly cheap art form, so whether you were a kid living in the American ghetto or a kid living in an African village, you parents could afford a comic book.

And when kids opened those pages, they found a world where people, who had many of the same problems as them -- discrimination, bigotry, poverty -- were struggling against the odds, and sometimes succeeding. This is a powerful message.

As a kid growing up, I read comic books and pretty much all of the heroes I followed, Tony Stark (Iron Man), Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Clark Kent (Superman), were all white.

I think it's great that the billions of people around the world who still read comics can look at a super hero and see someone who looks like them staring back. Just like seeing a black president, it says that someday you can be the most important person in the world.

Right-Wing Pundits Strive to Keep Americans Dumb

2011-07-30T21:53:00.000-07:00

Bill O'Reilly

I do not understand the American right wing. I don't understand how people who make less than $100,000 vote for policies that benefit millionaires, and I don't know why people who are on their third marriage constantly prattle about family values.

Much of the commentary coming from the right wing is baffling because it is glaringly inaccurate. Some would say it is blatant lies. Liberal media watchdog group Media Matters is constantly kept busy fact checking and stating the errors from the right-wing noise machine.

In many cases, it is obvious that the commentary is incorrect, so I must conclude that this is done deliberately. Right-wing commentators must know they are talking nonsense, but they continue to say it because they need the great unwashed masses to believe, and act on it.

For example, Americans are lead to believe universal health care is an evil socialistic plot . This message is constantly repeated in the right-wing media, yet European countries like Sweden, Norway, France and Britain, have socialized medical systems which are far superior to the U.S. The United Nation ranks France as having the most efficient health care system in the world. (The U.S. is ranked no. 37.) In addition, you don't see Canadians scurrying across the border to use our profit-driven health care system.

I was reminded of the fallacy of the right-wing media when watching Bill Maher's "Real Time," often the most intelligent hour on television. Right-wing commentator Margaret Hoover, a great-granddaughter of President Herbert Hoover, said that you could not compare Andres Breivik, the suspect in the Norwegian massacre, to Muslim terrorists. Hoover said that unlike Al-Qaeda, Breivik was not connected to an internationally terror network.

Huh? How can a commentator with a national stage spout such nonsense? There is a long trail of evidence showing that Breivik had connections with Islamophobes in America, such as Pamela Geller, author of the blog Atlas Shrugs, and the neo-fascist English Defense League in Britain. Geller has gained prominence for her virulent hatred of Muslims. She has also been given a platform on FOX News to promote wacky views such as accusing Jewish Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan of supporting Nazi ideology.

Commenting on Breivik's ties to the international Islamophobe network, Max Blumenthal writes: "Judging from Breivik’s writings, his hysterical hatred of the Labor Party’s immigration policies and tolerance of Muslim immigrants likely led him target the government-operated summer camp at Utoya. For years, the far-right has singled Norway out as a special hotbed of pro-Islam, pro-Palestinian sentiment, thanks largely to its ruling Labor Party In 2010, for instance, the English Defense League called Norway a future site of 'Islamohell,' where unadulterated political correctness has ruled the roost, with sharp talons, for decades.'"

And Slate.com writer William Saletan states: "In a manifesto posted online, the admitted killer, Anders Behring Breivik, praised Geller. He cited her blog, Atlas Shrugs, and the writings of her friends, allies, and collaborators—Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, Islam Watch, and Front Page magazine—more than 250 times."

To add insult to injury, FOX News blowhard Bill O'Reilly said that the liberal media was eager to brand Breivik a Christian. According to O'Reilly, "no one believing in Jesus commits mass murder." Of course, as Bill Maher pointed out, anyone with a superficial knowledge of history can reel off a long list of "Christians" who have killed large numbers of people.

This is ridiculous. O'Reilly and other right-wing commentators must know what they are saying is BS. O'Reilly is not a stupid man, before he went down the FOX News hole, he was an Emmy-winning journalist and he also has a master's degree from Harvard -- one of those Ivy League colleges that he lambasts.

In a Playboy magazine interview Deepak Chopra says that O'Reilly is not as ignorant as he seems, and just plays a bigot on TV. And this may be true with other FOX commentators. A few years ago, Gretchen Carlson, a Rhodes scholars, said she had to go and look up what the word ignoramus meant.

So if we assume that FOX News commentators know what they are saying is incorrect, what is their goal? To keep the ignorant in the dark, if that is the case, they may be a method to their madness and it seems to be working.

A 2010 University of Maryland study described FOX News viewers as "the most consistently uninformed." The study said that FOX News viewers were more likely to believe blatantly incorrect statements like Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and President Barack Obama was largely responsible for the deficit. (All the facts point to the Bush tax cuts, two underfunded wars and the Medicare drug benefit as causes of the budget deficit.)

Is it any wonder that FOX News viewers constantly regurgitate these lies? And maybe that was Roger Ailes goal all along. Ever since his days in the Nixon White House he has dreamed of creating a propaganda network that broadcasts directly to American living rooms. Maybe FOX should change its motto to "We report the propaganda, you decide to believe it."

Lupe Fiasco Bashes Obama, Gets FOX Gig

2011-06-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

Lupe Fiasco

We live in cynical times. Many black people have realized the best way to get publicity it to say something negative about President Barack Obama. FOX News loves this stuff and this has been proven accurate by the recent news that conscious rapper Lupe Fiasco has recently been invited to debate Bill O'Reilly on "The O'Reilly Factor."

Now you would wonder why O'Reilly, a noted hip hop hater, would have a mildly famous rapper on his show. FOX tends to view any rapper (and black person) as a thug, as seen in it recent trashing of Common, a rapper famous for writing love songs and being a vegetarian. However Lupe Fiasco recently called Obama a terrorist, for his support of the American war machine and in particular his support of Israel.

Lupe Fiasco is considered to be one of the more deeper thinkers in the rap community -- but even that isn't saying much. Hip hop's golden era of Public Enemy is long gone. Most of today's hip hop is knee-deep in materialism, violence and sex -- all messages approved by Corporate America.

I tend to think that entertainers should stick to entertaining and people shouldn't turn to them for political guidance. Political comic Bill Maher said he deliberately changed the format of his show "Real Time," to limit the celebrity segment, because so many of the entertainers could not string together an intelligent sentence.

Fiasco has written some intelligent songs criticizing conflict diamonds and has supported worldwide clean water iniatives, but you wonder how deep his knowledge is? Some of his comments on Global Grind, show he is all over the place. He said "admires some of the things that Glenn Beck does," and questions why Obama is raising funds for his campaign, but doesn't give "$100 million to the people of Detroit." Even more damning in his initial interview, where he called Obama a terrorist, was his admission that he doesn't vote.

Lupe Fiasco simply does not understand how the political system works. I remember reading an Vibe magazine interview with Jessie Jackson about 10 years ago. Jackson said he once encountered an young man who was angry at the economic situation. After listening to the man rant for several minutes, Jackson asked him if he voted, the young man said no. Jackson then said that he was outside the political system, and the only way to effect change is from inside the system.

The political system runs on money, and in this society money equals power. Lupe Fiasco is a man of means, I bet he could raise $1M. He could use that to create a Political Action Committee (PAC), called say LupePAC, and donate $1M. That PAC could hire a dozen lobbyists who could badger politicians until they affect the political change that Lupe Fiasco wants. A PAC could also hire a PR company to make sure the airwaves are flooded with issues that LupePAC supports. They could also make sure armies of volunteers are kept informed with e-mails and phone calls urging them to contact their elected representatives. That is how you get things done, son.

And this has actually happened. Hip hop veteran Russell Simmons has created political action groups to lobby politicians to reduce mandatory drug sentencing laws, which have been responsible for sending many black and Latino men away for long sentences.

Maybe Lupe Fiasco, like a lot of people on the far left, simply do not have a realistic understanding of the political system. The system is horribly tarnished by money, and it moves at snail's pace. More pointedly, the Supreme Court's Citizen's United ruling allows unlimited amounts of money to be dumped into the political process. If liberals want real change, they need to reelect Obama so he can appoint more progressive voices to the Supreme Court. They also need to elect more progressive representatives and senators, and make sure they stick to their campaign promises. But this is like the chicken and the egg problem, in a political system ruled by money, progressive voices have a hard time getting elected because they get outspent in the fundraising arms race.

As Jesse Jackson said, if you want to effect change you have to work within the system. Choosing not to vote is like opting out of the system. And those who choose to opt out of the system have no room to complain when things get worse. Just look at what Republican governors like Rick Scott and Scott Walker have done in their short terms. This is what happens when people on the left stay home.

An Open Letter to African American Herman Cain

2011-06-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

Herman Cain

Dear Herman,

You don't know me, and until recently I didn't know you, but because I am a political junkie, I have been forced to learn about you. And boy, where do we start?

Firstly, I have figured out your game. I know you are not really running for president, you are running for a position on FOX News. You see, running for president is a great branding tool, because it raises your profile and the press writes about everything you say and do. No one knew who you were a few months ago, and now you are household name. And after you lose, you can go back to your media career and sell some more books.

There is a long history of no hopers running for president -- talk to Donald Trump. Cybill Shepherd, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson also said they were running for president at one point, and look where they are now?

But this letter is not about your political views, and it's not about the fact that business skills do not necessarily make a great president. We all remember how well the last "CEO president" turned out. But this is about your apparent self loathing of black people and Africa.

I was particularly disturbed by your recent comment stating, "I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African-American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people."

Herman, this sounds dangerously like self hatred. Malcolm X said, "You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself." If you are black man living in America, how did you get here? How were the original black Americans brought to America, and where did they come from? And why is a black man trying to deny his link to Africa? I can't imagine that an Irish American would ever deny his cultural ties to his ancestral home.

Herman, I can understand how you may feel that you have nothing in common with Africa. Your view of Africa is probably formed from the America media, which shows nothing but starvation and warfare. But you can't run from your roots. You are the descendant of Africans, and there is no hiding it.

If you ever did a DNA test, you would discover what ethnic group you are descended from. And if you actually visited Africa, you would see people who look just like you. You might actually learn that it looks nothing like the images you see on FOX and CNN.

Herman, in my 40 odd years on the planet, I have learned that you can't run from who you are. You have to embrace it -- both the good parts and bad parts. Let me tell you my story, I come from an African family who also lived in the Diaspora. When I was younger, I was embarrassed by my African name and wanted to be like other Africans in the Diaspora, who had Westernized names.

I even lived in Africa and was turned off by the chaos and poverty I experienced over there. It has been a long journey, but over the years I have learned to embrace my African heritage, I have studied and learned of the contributions African have made to the world civilization. And I have learned that Africa had empires, language, art and religion long before Europeans arrived. I am a black man, my parents come from Africa, and I have an African name. Herman, this is your background too. Running from it would be like trying to run from your shadow.

Yes, there are some cultural differences between Black Americans and Africans, but we have a shared heritage. Maybe we are not brothers, but were definitely cousins.

So do us all a favor and just accept who you are. This is really getting embarrassing. Odabo, brother. (That means goodbye in Yoruba!)

Photo by Gage Skidmore

FOX News, Right-Wing Media Propagate Racism 2.0

2011-06-07T21:08:00.000-07:00

Roger Ailes, president FOX News

Many people on the right like to think that with a black president in the White House, racism is dead. They even have prominent spokespeople like Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who beat their chest and say, "How can America be racist if a black person is the Tea Party's leading candidate for president?"

Racism exists in 2011, but in a different form from the racism that existed in the 1960s. Back then racism was blatant -- whites only lunch counters, segregated drinking fountains, and black people completely barred from high-level jobs.

However, because racism was out in the open, it was much easier to challenge by direct action such as protests, boycotts and marching. Forty years later we have made a lot of progress, but there are still many racial disparities. Structural racism exists, but in a more subtle and amorphous form.

Right wingers fail to see these disparities. So I ask them, if you think America doesn't have racial problems, let's look at this from a scatological approach. Let's analyze America by its by products.

And what do we have? An ineffective criminal justice system that is predominately black and brown, black unemployment at twice the unemployment rate of white people and consistent evidence of police brutality and extra judicial killings mainly focused on black people.

What we are dealing with in the 21st century is what I would call Racism 2.0. Racism 2.0 is much more difficult to analyze and fight. At times it is like boxing a ghost, an enemy you can't see or lay a finger on.

With Racism 2.0 we do not have blatantly segregated neighborhoods, but we have redlining, where black home buyers are steered into black neighborhoods, or given loans with higher interest rates than whites. There are also incidents where white homeowners refuse to sell their homes to people of color to make sure the neighborhood's complexion doesn't change.

Racism 2.0 is seen in white flight, where wealthy and middle-class whites move to the suburbs, ostensibly for better schools, but also to get away from the colored folks. It is also seen in public education where wealthier whites take their kids out of the state-funded school system and enroll them in private Christian academies. Then these same people refuse to vote for funding increases to public schools, because they claim they don't have children in the system.

And most importantly it's seen in the right-wing media, which is full of race-baiting stories. Last year, the White Right, as activist Tim Wise likes to call them, spent hours of air time running stories about the New Black Panther Party and alleged voter intimidation.

After months of hype, the story was eventually debunked when a Bush appointee said that the right-wing's accusations about the Justice Department's failure to look into incidents of vote intimidation against white people were false.

The main culprit of Racism 2.0 is FOX News. The brain child of Roger Alies, who cut his teeth running dirty tricks for Richard Nixon, FOX News is a primary distributor of neo-racist propaganda. With Barack Obama, a black man with a Muslim name, in the White House, FOX News has made its viewers feel they are under siege. FOX realizes that is audience is about 90 percent white (figures backed by Nielsen), and they make sure they fine tune their message to fit the tastes of their audience, who are scared about the nation's changing demographics.

But in 2011, it is politically incorrect to say that you don't like black people and even FOX realizes this. So instead they use a series of code words to imply animosity. These phrases include implying Obama is a Muslim, using his middle name, Hussein, and implying he has foreign values, as mentioned by Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee.

And then there are phrases that skate as close to outright racism as you can get. FOX commentator Eric Bolling recently said Obama should have been dealing with the tornado victims instead of "drinking 40s." (He was actually drinking Guinness while he was in Ireland.)

Now anyone familiar with urban media realizes that 40-ounce malt liquor is associated with inner city black people and was heavily marketed towards this group. It has also been embraced by the hip hop community.

And not surprisingly FOX News tried to turn rapper Common's appearance at a White House poetry reading into an example of Obama associating with a gangster and thug. By the way, Common is an intelligent rapper, who is also a vegetarian and has campaigned for gay rights and animals rights. He has also appeared on Sesame Street and in Gap ads. Yeah, real dangerous.

As the great comedian Dave Chappelle once said, "I am a connoisseur of racism." And I think that applies to black people in general, we know it when we see it, even it comes in version 2.0.

Herman Cain is a Placebo for White Racism

2011-06-03T22:20:00.000-07:00

Herman Cain

After watching Tea Party favorite and GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain's new campaign video, I finally came to a realization. I had long wondered what was the attraction was for the only African American Republican presidential candidate. But then I realized that Cain is running as an apologist for white racism. And that is why the Tea Party loves him.

Cain, with his rags to riches story of rising from the son of a chauffeur to a CEO, fits in perfectly with people who want to believe America does not still have issues with race. Republicans can vote for Cain and say, "Well, we aren't racist, we voted for a black man." I guess they have forgotten about all those signs they had at the health care rallies a few years ago, depicting President Barack Obama as everything from a witch doctor to a monkey.

I have several problems with Cain, apart from his apologetic tour. He has no political experience. His only other political campaign was losing a GOP primary in Georgia, and while some may see that as an advantage, it isn't. The last time a non politician was elected to the White House was Dwight Eisenhower, who lead Allied forces in World War II. And if you want to know how well non politicians do in office, just ask California how Arnold Schwarzenegger worked out.

Cain's main selling point is his business experience. But after the Wall Street excesses that nearly crashed the world economy, why do Americans keep screaming for government to be run more like a business? Do they really want government run like Lehman Brothers and Enron?

Corporate chiefs don't have the temperament for the political world, as can be seen in the disastrous reign of Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is fast-gaining a reputation as the worse governor in the country. Scott, a former health care executive who was fired after his company received the largest fine in American history for Medicare fraud, is facing animosity from the left and the right.

Scott has barely been in office six months and Floridians are already talking about a recall. Cain has already flubbed questions about the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so who knows how worse he will do under even more scrutiny?

But the really troubling thing about Cain, is how he is so willing to pander to racial politics. He bandies about phrases like, "leaving the Democratic plantation," and being a "Son of the South."

Cain is appealing to Nascar Dads, which is ironic because many of these people also expressed some of the most virulent hatred towards Obama because he was "Muslim," or "foreign." And at his lowest point Cain, pandered to bigots by bragging that he would not name a Muslim person to his cabinet. (He later tried to backtrack on this.)

Republicans like to say that Cain's popularity shows that the GOP has embraced diversity, but I suspect that if he was made the Republican presidential candidate, he would split the party. Some of the ex Dixiecrats, who were seduced by Nixon's Southern Strategy, would split off and join a party that expressed more radical racial views.

But even if Cain was white, he would still be like Sarah Palin, a joke of a candidate, who has no chance of getting elected. He is just lapping up the media attention in his "I'm Trying to Get Paid" tour." The campaign has done wonders for his name recognition. And if he has to become the latest conservative black minstrel, he seems wiling to pay that price. He has plenty of company alongside Alan Keyes, Juan Williams and Jessie Lee Peterson in FOX News' Brotherhood of Self-Loathing Brothers.

Will Says Newt Not a serious candidate

2011-05-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

George Will 2012 Republicans | Mitch Daniels | Newt Gingrich | Mediaite

Newt Gingrich Racism | President Obama Food Stamps | Detroit | Mediaite

2011-05-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

Newt Gingrich Racism | President Obama Food Stamps | Detroit | Mediaite

John McCain Responds To Glenn Beck's Mockery Of Meghan McCain (VIDEO)

2011-05-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

John McCain Responds To Glenn Beck's Mockery Of Meghan McCain (VIDEO)

Fareed Zakaria Admits He's Advising Obama (VIDEO)

2011-05-14T04:41:00.000-07:00

Fareed Zakaria Admits He's Advising Obama (VIDEO)

Meghan McCain, Cindy McCain Fire Back At Glenn Beck (VIDEO)

2011-05-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

Meghan McCain, Cindy McCain Fire Back At Glenn Beck (VIDEO)

ThinkProgress » While South Carolina Proposes Ban On Sharia Law, Former State AG Says He’s Never ‘Encountered’ It

2011-05-14T04:35:00.000-07:00

ThinkProgress » While South Carolina Proposes Ban On Sharia Law, Former State AG Says He’s Never ‘Encountered’ It

ThinkProgress » EXCLUSIVE: NY-26 GOP Nominee Jane Corwin Invests Millions In Companies That Ship American Jobs Overseas

2011-05-14T04:33:00.000-07:00

ThinkProgress » EXCLUSIVE: NY-26 GOP Nominee Jane Corwin Invests Millions In Companies That Ship American Jobs Overseas

ThinkProgress » Florida Republicans Blast Gov. Scott’s Plan To Privatize Prisons: ‘We Should Never Privatize Public Safety’

2011-05-14T04:30:00.000-07:00

ThinkProgress » Florida Republicans Blast Gov. Scott’s Plan To Privatize Prisons: ‘We Should Never Privatize Public Safety’

ThinkProgress » Jane Corwin Voted To Allow Women To Be Shackled During Childbirth

2011-05-14T04:29:00.000-07:00

ThinkProgress » Jane Corwin Voted To Allow Women To Be Shackled During Childbirth

ThinkProgress » High School Sophomore Challenges Bachmann To Basic ‘Fact Test’ On U.S. Constitution

2011-05-14T04:28:00.000-07:00

ThinkProgress » High School Sophomore Challenges Bachmann To Basic ‘Fact Test’ On U.S. Constitution

ThinkProgress » VIDEO: Tea Party Voters Don’t See Threat from Sharia Law

2011-05-14T04:26:00.001-07:00

ThinkProgress » VIDEO: Tea Party Voters Don’t See Threat from Sharia Law

2011-05-14T04:26:00.000-07:00

ThinkProgress » VIDEO: Tea Party Voters Don’t See Threat from Sharia Law

ThinkProgress » TN Bill Calls Two Or More Observant Muslims A ‘Sharia Organization’

2011-05-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

ThinkProgress » TN Bill Calls Two Or More Observant Muslims A ‘Sharia Organization’

John Cusack: Goldman Sachs Basically Is The Government

2011-05-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

John Cusack: Goldman Sachs Basically Is The Government

Bill O'Reilly Defends Trump From Mort Zuckerman (VIDEO)

2011-05-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

Bill O'Reilly Defends Trump From Mort Zuckerman (VIDEO)

Keli Goff: Is the GOP Finally Ready to Tackle Its Race Problem in 2012?

2011-05-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

Keli Goff: Is the GOP Finally Ready to Tackle Its Race Problem in 2012?

Mosques Vandalized After Osama Bin Laden's Death

2011-05-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

Mosques Vandalized After Osama Bin Laden's Death

Dobbs: "We Legalize More Citizens" Than Other Countries Because The Left Turns Anti-Illegal Immigration Into A "Racial" Issue | Media Matters for America

2011-05-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

Dobbs: "We Legalize More Citizens" Than Other Countries Because The Left Turns Anti-Illegal Immigration Into A "Racial" Issue | Media Matters for America

Obama, Osama and the NBA Factor

2011-05-02T00:51:00.000-07:00

Osama Bin Laden

President Barack Obama has achieved what two other American presidents failed to do -- kill Osama Bin Laden.

I first learned of this on social media and I soon started checking out reliable news sites to confirm the news. Soon, the AP and CNN confirmed that a military strike had indeed killed the world’s most wanted terrorist.

But this leads to a deeper point about the presidency and race. Obama has already broken through the glass ceiling and achieved a position that many thought was reserved for white men. That in itself has created much anxiety among some White Americans who were already fearful about their rapidly shrinking majority.

I believe many white people were secretly scared not of Obama failing, but of him succeeding. This is what I call the NBA factor. The NBA was once an industry made up of exclusively white males. But in the 1950s, black athletes were allowed to compete, and eventually dominated the industry. Now the NBA is almost 80 percent black and black athletes are the face of the sport.

The NBA is an example of a place where black men have been given a chance, and have not only succeeded but also dominated. The NBA factor translates these fears to the board room and now politics. I believe many white employers are reluctant to let black men into the board room, because they are scared of them succeeding.

Obama’s presidency was unique because he simply couldn’t fail. If he done a terrible job, many Americans would have said, “That’s the last time I am voting for a black candidate.”

Now Barack Obama has done a more than competent job as president. including rescuing the economy from collapse, saving the U.S. car industry, passing health care reform, withdrawing troops from Iraq and now killing Osama Bin Laden, you have to wonder if some white people are saying, “It’s like the NBA, now they are going to take over.”

Phony Conservatives Court ‘Values Voters’

2011-03-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

Gingrich

One of the mysteries of the GOP is it's relationship with so-called values voters. This issue has become especially pertinent considering that several Republican presidential candidates are planing to speak at “Rediscover God in America,” a telecast that will beamed to millions of church goers.

One of the speakers at this event is Newt Gingrich. Yes, that Newt Gingrich, who is married to his third wife, who used to be a staffer. The same Newt who got booted as speaker of the House for failure to impeach President Bill Clinton. While he was trying to impeach Clinton, Gingrich was also getting blow jobs from Callista, now wife no. 3. Apparently, he did this so he would not have to lie about having extra-marital sex. Like Clinton, apparently Newt does not consider oral sex to be sex.

My first thought when I read about this, why do social conservatives keeping buying this crap? You often wonder who is really fooling who here?

Most of the GOP presidential candidates seem to be sophisticated political operators and I doubt if they believe in the Rapture (even though they claim to) or really hate gays. Evidently they must be okay with gay people, because they tolerated former closeted gay man, Ken Mehlman, running the GOP during the Bush years.

The conservative voters who are supposed to suck up this family values crap, are not much better. The Conservative South is known for its frequent divorces and remarriages, high teen pregnancy rate and high STD rate.

The GOP sticks to these wedge issues because it knows that they will always garner the votes of “conservative” working, class people. It seems that while Jim Bob and Darlene, might like universal health care, voting against gay marriage and abortion is more important.

In reality, Americans love their porn, quickie divorces, the right to choose and don’t mind gay people, as long as they stay in the closet. And here are two statistics that indicate how conservative red states really are. According figures from the adult entertainment industry, the state that consumes the most online porn is conservative Utah, second only to Missippi. And the no. 1 day for online porn use? Sunday.

King Hearings Make Muslims The New Racial Bogey Man

2011-03-10T00:44:00.000-08:00

As a black person who has lived 40 years on this planet, I’d like to think that we have made racial progress. But then you hear about things like Rep. Peter King’s Congressional hearings on Islamic terrorism.

King’s hearing on home-grown Muslim terrorism kick off Thursday. This McCarthy-like circus is the culmination of about 12-month of rising anti-Muslim hysteria. This has included protests in the streets of New York over Park51, a mosque scheduled to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero, demonstrations against mosque construction in California and Tennessee and frenzied warnings about alleged plans to impose Sharia law in the United States. (It should be noted that Muslims currently account for less than 0.5 percent of the U.S population.)

This Islamophobic propaganda has been disseminated by a host of shrill, racist commentators. People such as Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, who claimed that the NASA sign had hidden Muslim symbols, Pam Geller, a lunatic blogger, who claimed that President Obama was Malcolm X’s son, and Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, who has said we should end Muslim immigration.

And all of these propagandists get an open forum on the neo fascist/neo racist FOX News, which is ironically partially owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal who also funded Park51. (Although this has been covered extensively by Think Progress and “The Daily Show,” you won’t find this information on FOX or other right-wing outlets.)

Islamophobia is not just words, it has spurred violent action. In Sacramento, two Sikhs were killed in an attack which police believe was a hate crime, and a video from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) showed Tea Party protestors haranguing Muslims, including children, at a fundraiser in Orange County. Speaking at the event, Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly said, “As a matter of fact, I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise.”

Now King brings this rising Islamophobia to a head with his farcical hearings. King claims that about 80 percent of American mosques harbor radical imams. Ironically, he doesn’t plan to call any senior law enforcement or intelligence officials to testify at the hearings. Maybe, because they would disprove his accusations.

According to an article in Think Progress, more domestic terrorist attacks have come from non-Muslim terrorists, than Muslims terrorists. Writer Zaid Jilani says: “In fact, right-wing extremist and white supremacist attacks plots alone outnumber plots by Muslims, with both groups being involved in 63 terror plots, 18 more plots than Muslim Americans have been involved in.” Jack O’Reilly Jr., mayor of Dearborn, Mich., a city with a 30 percent Arab population, has described King’s accusations as “just not true.”

King himself has a long history with terrorism. His great uncle was a member of the IRA, which was responsible for a series of terrorist bombings of London in the 1970s and 1980s. King was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and according to the New York Times he said, ““If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.” He was also accused by a Belfast judge of being “an obvious collaborator.”

It’s questionable why King has launched his quixotic campaign against terrorism. His anti-Islam hearings could be a cynical attempt to boost his profile. And it's seems to be working, because he is all over the media. If you didn't know who he was before, you do now. Maybe King, like pseudo-politicians Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, he is following the format of making outrageous comments to sell more books and book more media appearances. But this sudden outburst of Islamophobia is more calculated. Studies show that anti-Muslim rhetoric spiked in the run up to the mid-term election. This is really about politics and scaring people into voting against their own interests.

The upper-class whites who controls this country don’t care about working-class whites who drive Toyotas and shop at Wal-Mart. The only thing that alligns them with working class whites is racism. And over the last 40 years, the Republican party has mined that fear to get people to vote. For a long time it was blacks, with fears of integration and “welfare mothers in Cadillacs,” then it was fear of gays, who were destroying the traditional family, then it was Latinos threatening American culture with the Spanish language. But all of these minority groups have largely been mainstreamed.

The new ethnic bogey man is Muslims (read Arabs.) The right doesn’t seem to care that not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs. To them it doesn’t matter as long as it gets NASCAR dads and Tea Baggers to forget about their vanishing 401ks, declining home prices, the awful health care system and the cost of two foreign wars. Muslim is the new black.

What do you think of the Rep. Peter King hearings?Market Research

Ohio Gov. John Kasich Sees Nothing Wrong With All-White Cabinet

2011-01-23T15:02:00.000-08:00

John Kasich

Occasionally there are some news stories that just leave you open-mouthed with wonder. And that is how I felt when I heard the news that Ohio Gov. John Kasich recently named an all-white cabinet. This is the first time this has happened in more than 40 years.

It is not surprising that a Republican would be so blind about the issue of race, that he saw nothing wrong with an all-white cabinet in a state that has a 15 percent minority population.

When quizzed about his curious decision, Kasich fell back on a response often heard from white people when pressed about their monocultural office environments. He said that he wanted to get hire, “the best people.”

So is the governor saying that he couldn’t find any qualified Black, Latino or Asians candidates for these cabinet-level positions? Is he implying that people of color are not qualified?

Sadly Kasich doesn’t seem to understand how having an all-white executive team hurts his state. Apart offerning Ohioan minorities, he is also driving business away from his state. Can you imagine, how businessmen from ethnically-diverse states feel when they are courted by all-white Ohio delegations? I know that if I was a businessman who was considering moving to Ohio, I would be concerned about the lack of diversity at the top.

Kasich’s argument for the lack of diversity in his cabinet is full of holes and one of the glaring emissions is former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a black Republican who has held a high-level position. Apart from the weak argument about hiring the most qualified person, Kasich’s decision also shows either glaring ignorance or stunning indifference. Governments are supposed to be representative of the people they serve, and that means hiring people who resemble the make up of your state.

I can just imagine the media outrage that would occur if a black politician named an all-black team of executives. Hate mongers like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck would be besides themselves, screaming that the blacks, were trying to take over the government, and turn marginalize white people. (Where is anti-racism activist Tim Wise when you need him?)

Sadly, Kasich’s actions mirrors Corporate America. Many blacks have run into the same glass ceiling and the same lame excuses. And like Kasich, many managers see nothing wrong with having all-white offices. In many cases, blacks only get hired when these companies are faced with legal action. I once worked for a state agency, that hired it’s first black employee in 1990, after they were threatened with legal action by the NAACP. Apparently for more than 30 years after the Civil Rights Act, they had operated without hiring any black employees and thought nothing of it.

And things are not better in supposedly liberal academia. CNN commentator Dr. Boyce Watkins has written about how Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management has never offered a black professor tenure in 100 years! I find it hard to believe that in all its years of its existence the Whitman School of Management has never came across one black candidate who they thought was worthy of tenure! Just as I find it hard to believe that Kasich couldn't find one person of color to appoint to his cabinet.

Kasich’s comments mirror the actions of Republicans who simply refuse to deal with issues of race and diversity. It seems that many Republicans consider race problems to be about as real as a unicorn. They seem happy to hide behind the “most qualified candidate” lie, even if it produces a lily-white environment. And that’s what it is -- a lie. I have worked in Corporate America long enough to realize that best candidate doesn’t always get hired.

I have seen many “qualified” candidates get hired and flame out three months later. I have also seen white men hired, who were later fired for sexual harassment (one guy I knew e-mailed photos of his nipple piercings and tattoos to female employees.) I have also heard of white men who were fired for downloading kiddie porn and many other acts of staggering incompetence. At the same time I have known many talented people of color who can never get their foot in the door. And when they are hired, they are expected to be near perfect and are crucified if they make one mistake.

So please Gov. Kasich, don’t give me that BS about hiring the most qualified candidates. There are thousands of qualified minority candidates, you just hired an all-white cabinet, because you like it that way. And that’s scary.

Corporate Cynicism, Personality Clashes End Olbermann’s MSNBC Career

2011-01-23T00:07:00.001-08:00

Keith Olbermann

People familiar with the workings of Corporate America should not be surprised by the sudden departure of MSNBC star Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann's focus on liberal issues, and passionate denunciation of the Bush administration and its disastrous Iraq war, turned him into star and raised the network’s profile. MSNBC carved out a reputation as place where progressives could go to hear opinions that echoed their views and even beat CNN in the ratings. Buoyed by the success of Olbermann’s “Countdown,” the network later added similar voices such as Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Ed Shultz.

But cracks were beginning to appear in the Olbermann-MSNBC union. Olbermann himself is a prickly character, who had a history of clashing with networks chiefs and being fired from other cable channels. Things came to a head last year when he was suspended for making donations to Democratic politicians.

The suspension was odd, because the NBC’s policy was not clear. Olbermann said he was not aware of the ban on political donations, and other MSNBC hosts such as Joe Scarborough were only punished after Olbermann, even though they had done the same thing. But this foreshadowed things to come. Just like other corporations, MSNBC decided that they did not want to fire their problematic star, so they would just make life so difficult for him that he would not want to stay.

I am sure that MSNBC’s recent purchase by COMCAST had something to do with the hostility directed at Olbermann. COMCAST chairman Ed Snider also owns the Right Network which is trying to create another channel dedicated to conservative programming. The last thing he wanted was an employee, who had a reputation from mocking conservative icons like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.

MSNBC was always an oddity. It recently billed itself as a home for liberal voices, but it was still owned by corporate titan, GE, the same company that owns major defense contractors. This was the same station that fired Phil Donohue, also it’s top-rated star at the time, for his criticism of the Iraq War, back when they were trying to be conservative.

And although MSNBC promoted liberal talkers like Maddow and Olbermann, you had to believe that they didn’t want them to be too critical of right-wing politics. The network probably decided that Olbermann was too much of a wild card and decided to offload him before the new management started sending them angry memos. So much for progressive commentary on TV.

But, I am not worried, I get most of my information from the Internet, and I am sure Olbermann will turn up on another outlet. He has a following, who will stay with him, if he has a radio show, newspaper column, TV program or Internet production. The firing of Keith Olbermann shows me that there is little room for independent thought on network TV. And as for Maddow and co., I would suggest they start dusting off their resumes. Olbermann was first, but your next on the chopping block.

Political Violence Confirms We’re Living in Third World America

2011-01-09T01:23:00.001-08:00

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

Jan. 8., that was the day when Americans realized how screwed up their country really is. Left-wing journalist Arianna Huffington has been recently hawking her book called “Third World America,” and how can you argue with her? A Third World country is characterized by massive debt, (check), corrupt and broken elections (check), and a powerful ruling class (check.) And now we can add to that list political violence as seen in the Tuscon, Ariz. shooting that left six people dead and moderate Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition.

Of course, this is shocking but not surprising. In fact it was inevitable. For the past year I have been playing Cassandra and warning that the hatred coming from the right wing would eventually push people over the edge. We are in a precarious time in our country, with mass unemployment, home foreclosures, looming debt, foreign wars and a political system that has been strangled by corporate interests. It is easy for working class Americans to feel frustrated and want to lash out at someone.

After the 2008 elections, the right wing, realizing that working class was beginning to get riled up at the corporate class, diverted this anger to the Tea Party, which is funded by corporate interests. In a brilliant piece of bait and switch, the GOP, badly-tarnished by the disastrous Bush years, was re-branded as the Tea Party, which is essentially GOP 2.0 -- same bullshit, but in a different package.

So now, all those Americans who were angry about bailouts and government spending now are now mad at President Barack Obama, even though George W. Bush approved the bank bailout and ran up the budget with tax cuts to the rich and two unfunded wars. That would have been bad enough, but this rage wasn’t mere political annoyance, it was white-hot rage that had all the possibility of turning into violence. And the end product was politically-motivated terrorism that saw overweight seniors on Medicare screaming about how they wanted to keep government out of health care. During the 2009 health care debate, several Democratic legislators were targeted by violence, including having shots fired at their offices, having their offices targeted by racist graffiti and having gas lines cut at their homes.

Violence has been encouraged with demagogues like Sarah Palin calling for her followers to “reload” and putting Democrats, including Giffords, in cross hairs. Tea Party darling Sen. Sharron Angle suggested people take “second amendment remedies,” if the ballot didn’t work, and Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as the nuttiest person in Congress, said she wanted her followers “armed and dangerous” about Barack Obama.

And of course there is the 24-hour stream of vitriol and disinformation coming from the right-wing media. FOX News regularly features commentators who accuse the president of being the anti Christ and warn of his government’s administrations attempts to destroy America. And FOX star commentator Glenn Beck has shot to prominence selling his brand of apocalyptic nonsense to people who fear that a black, moderate Democrat will destroy America as they know it.

Beck is the worst culprit and his acolytes have a considerable history of violence. In August 2009, Nancy Genovese was arrested outside an Air Force base along with a pair of binoculars, an assault rifle, shotgun and several rounds of ammunition. A year later Byron Williams, an unemployed carpenter and Beck fan, was arrested by the California Highway Partrol, while wearing body armor and carrying several guns. Williams was on his way to start a revolution by attacking the Tides Foundation, a little know left-wing non profit that was a regular target of Beck’s ire. After his arrest, Williams’ mother said her son was a regularly viewer of FOX News and Glenn Beck in particular.

What has been going on over the past 20 years is an increasing stream of eliminationist rhetoric directed at the left. According to David Neiwert, author of “The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right,” "Eliminationism is a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination."

This attitude was largely inspired by Rush Limbaugh, who did his best to turn liberal into a curse word, and carried on by harpy Ann Coulter, who has called for liberals to be executed and said The New York Times’ building needed to be blown up. Beck merely put the icing on the fruit cake.

Democrats have long warned of this. Former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was ridiculed when she warned that right-wing rhetoric would lead to ‘60s style violence . Speaking to the Huffington Post, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who received death threats and racist literature for his stance against Arizona’s immigration laws said, “The climate has gotten so toxic in our political discourse, setting up for this kind of reaction for too long. It's unfortunate to say that. I hate to say that. If you're an opponent, you're a deadly enemy."

In April 2009, the Department of Homeland Security release a much-maligned report, warning of the danger of right-wing terrorism. Turns out they were all to right. We have seen the enemy -- and the enemy is us.

ThinkProgress � Texas University Art Director Forced To Resign After Protesting Rep. Gohmert’s ‘Terror Babies’ Claims

2010-10-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

ThinkProgress � Texas University Art Director Forced To Resign After Protesting Rep. Gohmert’s ‘Terror Babies’ Claims

Giannoulias To Kirk: 'You're Trying To Suppress The African-American Vote' | TPMDC

2010-10-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

Giannoulias To Kirk: 'You're Trying To Suppress The African-American Vote' | TPMDC: "'We have a corruption problem in our state,' Kirk said. 'We've become a punchline on late night television.'

But Democrat Alexi Giannoulias countered that the program was targeting African Americans, because 'there has never been an accusation of fraud on the West or South side of Chicago.'

'You're trying to suppress the African American vote,' Giannoulias said."

Maddow Reveals GOP's Scare Tactics

2010-10-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

Rachel Maddow: GOPs southern strategy rises again

If you ever doubted that the GOP caters to white rage and resentment, the evidence is right here. I guess the GOP figures that if they can convince poor white folks that the blacks, Muslims and Mexicans are stealing their jobs, they won't go after the real enemy -- Corporate America.

Juan Williams gets "nervous" around Muslims on airplanes

2010-10-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

Juan Williams you are a coon-ass negro, who jumps when Rupert Murdoch pulls the chain.

Shame on you, as a black man, you should understand what racial profiling is. But I guess when you

work for FOX you have to get with the program. Did your control chip hurt when they put it in?

Robert Reich: The Perfect Storm That Threatens American Democracy

2010-10-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Robert Reich: The Perfect Storm That Threatens American Democracy: "Hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring into advertisements for and against candidates -- without a trace of where the dollars are coming from. They're laundered through a handful of groups. Fred Maleck, whom you may remember as deputy director of Richard Nixon's notorious Committee to Reelect the President (dubbed Creep in the Watergate scandal), is running one of them. Republican operative Karl Rove runs another. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a third."

Think slavery is a thing of the past? Think again - Home News, UK - The Independent

2010-10-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

Think slavery is a thing of the past? Think again - Home News, UK - The Independent: "Thippawal, 36, from Bangkok, paid an agency to bring her to Britain for restaurant work in 2008 so she could send money home for her daughter's schooling. But when she arrived in the UK she was locked up and made to work as a prostitute.

'When I got to Heathrow, the man that met me took my passport. He took me to a house in west London and said I had to work as a prostitute. I showed them the contract which said I had to work in a restaurant, but they just laughed. They said if I tried to leave I would die. They made me work 24 hours a day saying I had to pay off my debt to them for bringing me over – which they said was �65,000. I had to have sex with 20 men a night and some of them would hit me."

GOP lawmaker: Illegal immigrants are like ‘Hitler’, should be shot | Raw Story

2010-10-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

GOP lawmaker: Illegal immigrants are like ‘Hitler’, should be shot | Raw Story

Inside Sharron Angle's fundraising mega-haul - 2010 Elections News | Midterm Elections: Senators, Governors - Salon.com

2010-10-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

Inside Sharron Angle's fundraising mega-haul - 2010 Elections News | Midterm Elections: Senators, Governors - Salon.com

So Sharron Angle pulled in $14 million in the third quarter, but spent $12 million.

Glaring double standard in tolerance for anti-Muslim bigotry - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

2010-10-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

Glaring double standard in tolerance for anti-Muslim bigotry - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

We all knew FOX was Islamophobic. They responded to Brian Kilmeade's latest anti-Muslim comments with slap on the wrist. Rick Sanchez and Helen Thomas got fired when they made anti-Semitic comments.

Sexual Assault and Abuse Rampant in America’s Immigration Detention Centers - Campus Progress

2010-10-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

Sexual Assault and Abuse Rampant in America’s Immigration Detention Centers - Campus Progress: "Three years earlier, the facility, located in Taylor, Texas, had come under fire after news broke that a guard had engaged in sexual acts with a detainee—while her young son lay sleeping in the same small cell. Security cameras had caught the man entering and exiting the room. The guard was fired, but he was not prosecuted."

Noam Chomsky on right wing Tea Party protests, " People with real grieva...

2010-10-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Mimics Facebook Connect With "Y Connect"

2010-10-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Mimics Facebook Connect With "Y Connect"

'Foreclosure Mill' Employees Got Gifts For Altering Documents, Witness Says

2010-10-18T19:02:00.001-07:00

'Foreclosure Mill' Employees Got Gifts For Altering Documents, Witness Says: "At a large Florida 'foreclosure mill,' a manager signed up to 1,000 documents a day without reading them and employees were given gifts to speed up foreclosure paperwork, according to depositions released today by the Florida Attorney General's Office."

Russian spy Anna Chapman handed top state medal by President Medvedev for spy work in the West | Mail Online

2010-10-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

Russian spy Anna Chapman handed top state medal by President Medvedev for spy work in the West | Mail Online

Rosie O'Donnell: Bill O'Reilly 'Incites Hatred'

2010-10-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

Rosie O'Donnell: Bill O'Reilly 'Incites Hatred' (AUDIO)

'View' Women Say O'Reilly did it for the ratings

2010-10-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

Man Gets Revenge on Ex-Girlfriend on C-SPAN 2

2010-10-18T17:26:00.000-07:00

Will Fox News kill Beck's show after assassination plot?

2010-10-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

Will Fox News kill Beck's show after assassination plot?: "Beck is a delusional and opportunistic little man who, like other bullies, taunts and demonizes people to mask his own foibles, his own inadequacies. Either that, or he's just doing it for the money and the ratings. Nevertheless, Beck is a prominent face on the network of hate, part of a Southern Strategy if you will, an overall campaign of violent racial rhetoric throughout the Fox News lineup. Ultimately, Fox must decide if Beck's incitement to violence is good for their bottom line. Based on the successful anti-Beck boycott effort, in which 296 advertisers have asked Fox not to air their commercials on his show, maybe they already have the answer."

The Big Business Wall Street Won't Discuss

2010-10-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

Here is another piece of great old-fashioned reporting. It turns out the big banks, which provide mortgages, also own the collection companies which force people to sell their houses when they fall behind on their property taxes. Sounds like a scheme worthy of Toni Soprano.

Joe Miller Security Guards Handcuff & Detain 'Alaska Dispatch' Editor

2010-10-18T05:58:00.000-07:00

Joe Miller Security Guards Handcuff & Detain 'Alaska Dispatch' Editor

One more step towards fascism. This editor was on public property and was charged with trespassing. And when did security guards have the power to arrest people?

Slide Show: The GOP's Worst Ideas | The Nation

2010-10-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

Slide Show: The GOP's Worst Ideas | The Nation: "Kris Kobach, the Republican candidate for Kansas’s Secretary of State, has joined Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce’s push to deny American citizenship to children born in the US of undocumented parents. Republicans are divided on this issue, but candidates such as Kobach think that targeting “anchor babies” will stymie the “immigrant invasion” far-right candidates have been decrying throughout this election season. The problem is, as Robin Templeton points out in “Baby Baiting,” Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly states that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”"

Republicans Struggle To Say How They Would Pay For Tax Cuts (VIDEO)

2010-10-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

Republicans Struggle To Say How They Would Pay For Tax Cuts (VIDEO): "FIORINA: But you know what, Chris? The budget just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And every year as it gets bigger, particularly in the last two, there is more waste, fraud and inefficiency. And you're right, nobody ever gets around to it. It's why voters in California and, I believe, a lot of voters all across the country are tired of career politicians. [...]

WALLACE: I'm going to try -- I'm going to try one last time and if you don't want to answer it, Ms. Fiorina, you don't have to. [...] You're not willing to put forward a single benefit -- I'm not even talking about"

New Black Panther Case Served As Cash Cow For GOP Lawyers Group | TPMMuckraker

2010-10-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

New Black Panther Case Served As Cash Cow For GOP Lawyers Group | TPMMuckraker

And so this is what it all boils down to -- money. The GOP is falling back on the old scare whitey tactic to raise money. This story has been proven to be patently false, by a former Bush appointee, and yet it continues to circulate. Plus the New Black Panthers are a tiny fringe group, who could not really affect anyone.

Tea Party, Conservative Groups In Minn. Put $500 Bounty On Voter Fraud Convictions (VIDEO) | TPMMuckraker

2010-10-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Tea Party, Conservative Groups In Minn. Put $500 Bounty On Voter Fraud Convictions (VIDEO) | TPMMuckraker

FL Political Candidates Rick Scott, Pam Bondi Spoke At GOP Lawyers' Meeting | TPMMuckraker

2010-10-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

FL Political Candidates Rick Scott, Pam Bondi Spoke At GOP Lawyers' Meeting | TPMMuckraker: "As TPMmuckraker has reported extensively, Republicans have a habit of ginning up fears of voter fraud just before national elections, often focusing on minority areas. This year, tea party groups have taken up the mantle in places like Minnesota and Texas -- but that doesn't mean the big national Republican groups, like the RNLA, have stopped."

On Meet The Press, Ken Buck Compares Being Gay To Alcoholism | TPMDC

2010-10-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

On Meet The Press, Ken Buck Compares Being Gay To Alcoholism | TPMDC: "'I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things,' Buck continued. 'But I think that, basically, you have a choice.'"

When are we going to find out he is gay, or has gay staffers?

Angela Merkel: German multiculturalism has 'utterly failed' | World news | guardian.co.uk

2010-10-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

Angela Merkel: German multiculturalism has 'utterly failed' | World news | guardian.co.uk: "Merkel said too little had been required of immigrants in the past and repeated her argument that they should learn German in order to cope in school and take advantage of opportunities in the labour market.

The row over foreigners in Germany has shifted since former central banker Thilo Sarrazin published a highly-controversial book in which he accused Muslim immigrants of lowering the intelligence of German society.

Sarrazin was censured for his views and dismissed from the Bundesbank, but his book proved popular and polls showed Germans were sympathetic with the thrust of his arguments."

Are Elections Meaningless in a Corporatocracy? | The LA Progressive

2010-10-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

Are Elections Meaningless in a Corporatocracy? | The LA Progressive

Best of CEATEC 2010: 9 Amazing Innovations (PHOTOS)

2010-10-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

Best of CEATEC 2010: 9 Amazing Innovations (PHOTOS)

Voters dislike “government,” like what it does | Cynthia Tucker

2010-10-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Voters dislike “government,” like what it does | Cynthia Tucker: "A new study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University shows that most Americans who say they want more limited government also call Social Security and Medicare “very important.” They want Washington to be involved in schools and to help reduce poverty. Nearly half want the government to maintain a role in regulating health care."

Isn't this typical of Teabagger logic? Cut the government, but not the programs that affect me. Everyone loves the government when it is helping them out. I say if you want to move to a country with no government, try Somalia. How come none of these Teabbagers complain about the billions of tax-payer dollars spent on the Military Industrial and Prison Industrial Complexes?

That is government money that directly supports two huge industries!

Dying Girl Kathleen Edward Cyberbullied by 33-Year-Old Neighbor: Why? - Health Blog - CBS News

2010-10-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

Dying Girl Kathleen Edward Cyberbullied by 33-Year-Old Neighbor: Why? - Health Blog - CBS News: "More recently, neighbors in Trenton, Mich., told the local news station that Petkov and her husband decorated their pickup to look like a hearse, strapped a homemade coffin on top, and drove it back and forth in front of the home Kathleen shares with her father and step mother. Petkov said it was just a Halloween prank."

This is the craziest story I have read in a while.

What Your Computer Might Look Like in 10 Years

2010-10-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

What Your Computer Might Look Like in 10 Years

Europe's Identity Crisis Fuels Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiment

2010-10-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

Europe's Identity Crisis Fuels Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiment: "The Sweden Democrats party -- which started out as a neo-Nazi movement -- last month entered parliament for the first time, winning 5.7 percent of the vote on the back of campaign ads that featured burqa-clad Muslim women knocking aside white Swedish pensioners and grabbing their state benefits. In the Netherlands, the anti-Islam Freedom Party of Geert Wilders -- who believes the 'fascist' Koran should be banned, along with immigration from Muslim countries -- gained a record 24 seats in the June elections. And in Britain, thousands of hooligans from the English Defence League -- which claims to be against extremist Islam, and boasts that its membership includes Jews and Sikhs -- regularly stages marches in largely Muslim urban areas, shouting anti-Islamic slogans and intimidating local residents."

The 10 Biggest Corporate Campaign Contributors in U.S. Politics - DailyFinance

2010-10-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

The 10 Biggest Corporate Campaign Contributors in U.S. Politics - DailyFinance: "1. AT&T (T) -- $45.6 million
Between 1989 and 2010, AT&T gave more than $45 million in campaign donations to both Republican and Democrat candidates. In the 2009-2010 cycle, its biggest contribution was $30,000 to the campaign of Nevada Senator Harry Reid, but three Republican congressmen -- Joe Wilson of South Carolina, Pete Olson of Texas and Roy Blunt of Missouri -- were among its top five. While impressive, however, these contributions were dwarfed by AT&T's lobbying expenses, which topped $25 million in 2006 alone."

This indicates exactly what is wrong with this country's political system. We do not have a democracy. We have a corporatcry.

Felice Arenas: Inside Job Director Talks Future Films, Says Wall Street 'Not Entirely Sane'

2010-10-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

Felice Arenas: Inside Job Director Talks Future Films, Says Wall Street 'Not Entirely Sane': "The very prosperous (and the very free) Richard Fuld, former Lehman Brothers CEO, and Frank Raines, former Fannie Mae CEO, among others, make pretend baddies from big-budget thrillers look small time. Their egregious actions led to millions of people losing their jobs, their homes and their confidence in governmental control."

Ryan O'Connell: Auditioning for the Real World Is Too Real

2010-10-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

Ryan O'Connell: Auditioning for the Real World Is Too Real: "When you graduate from college, you often do things that compromise your dignity. Some people become telemarketers. Some work at American Apparel. I audition for irrelevant reality shows like The Real World.

Unsurprisingly, the experience was demoralizing, dehumanizing and any other word that you can attach a 'de' to. The aspiring Real Worlders I encountered that day were, hands down, the most delusional and sad people I've ever met. Everyone seemed to know each other from previous reality show auditions and they all took pride in belonging to this bizarre subculture of reality star wannabes. They brought laminated resumes -- perhaps to impress the casting director with their jobs at Chili's and Bebe -- and also felt it was necessary to do complex gymnastic routines and vocal warm-ups in line. To them, auditioning for The Real Word was like being in the running for a Martin Scorcese film."

Jim Wallis: MLK and the "Progressive Hunter"

2010-10-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

Jim Wallis: MLK and the "Progressive Hunter": "I read an alarming report last night on a recent interview with Byron Williams, who was arrested after a July 18 shootout with the police. He had a car full of guns and planned to kill people at the Tides Foundation and ACLU in San Francisco. Williams said in this interview that he sees Glenn Beck as his 'teacher,' and that he was agitated by the virulent things his teacher had to say about the people at Tides. While it is unfair to blame Beck for everything his audience might do, it isn't unfair to ask Beck to make the connection that King did between the violence of the tongue and that of the fist, and to take responsibility for how he speaks about those with whom he disagree"

Mitchell Bard: The Tea Party All-Stars: The Worst of Extreme GOP Midterm Candidates

2010-10-17T07:47:00.001-07:00

Mitchell Bard: The Tea Party All-Stars: The Worst of Extreme GOP Midterm Candidates

Christine O'Donnell named worst Tea Party candidate.

Mitchell Bard: The Tea Party All-Stars: The Worst of Extreme GOP Midterm Candidates

2010-10-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

Mitchell Bard: The Tea Party All-Stars: The Worst of Extreme GOP Midterm Candidates

Christine O'Donnell named worst Tea Party candidate.

If Sarah Palin falls in a forest? - Sarah Palin - Salon.com

2010-10-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

If Sarah Palin falls in a forest? - Sarah Palin - Salon.com

The scariest movies of all time - Del Stone - Open Salon

2010-10-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

Salon columnist names Alien scariest movie of all time.

The scariest movies of all time - Del Stone - Open Salon

Secrets of the polygamists - Sister Wives - Salon.com

2010-10-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

Secrets of the polygamists - Sister Wives - Salon.com: "That happens frequently in our families. It isn't the husband that's out looking for another wife. It's one of the existing wives that frequently makes the suggestion: Why don't we have her over and see how she gets along?"

NPR poll: Republican midterm tide has crested - 2010 Elections News | Midterm Elections: Senators, Governors - Salon.com

2010-10-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

NPR poll: Republican midterm tide has crested - 2010 Elections News | Midterm Elections: Senators, Governors - Salon.com

Don't believe the media narrative. Just go out and vote. The MSM story has been changing every damn day.

Angelo Mozilo's slap on the wrist - Mortgage Crisis - Salon.com

2010-10-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

Angelo Mozilo's slap on the wrist - Mortgage Crisis - Salon.com: "Angelo Mozilo will pay a fine of $67.5 million to settle SEC charges of insider trading and fraud. Most people would consider that a pretty penny, but maybe not Mozilo. Let's not forget, he raked in around $140 million in 2007, while laying off 12,000 Countrywide workers. He can afford to pay a few traffic tickets."

Only in corporate America can you get rewarded for failing.

Sharron Angle denies race-baiting charges - Immigration - Salon.com

2010-10-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

S harron Angle denies race-baiting charges - Immigration - Salon.com

Robots Are Stealing American Jobs, According to MIT Economist

2010-10-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

I am sure corporations like the idea of worker they don't have to pay and who can never complain.

Robots Are Stealing American Jobs, According to MIT Economist

GOP Policies Will Create Feudalistic Society

2010-10-08T00:13:00.000-07:00

Christine O'Donnell

We are entering the final leg of one of the craziest and most exhausting political seasons in history. This year the GOP has fielded the most extreme and unhinged candidates in recent memory. With her talk of refusing to pay for maternity care, Nevada senate candidate Sharon Angle, who beat out a woman who wanted people to barter chickens for healthcare, was the kookiest candidate on the block, but then along came Minnesota GOP senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, who dabbled in witchcraft, lied about her college education and also fudged her dad’s history as the official Bozo the Clown.

This would all be amusing, but there is something deadly serious about their message. It is clear from some of their statements that the GOP/Tea Bag candidates want a return to a form of government that seems to look at lot like feudalism. And by that, I mean they want a society where the landed gentry controls everything and the peasants eke out a living as dirt farmers.

More evidence of the GOP’s contempt for the poor can be seen in statements from Alaska GOP senate candidate Joe Miller, who recently called the minimum wage unconstitutional. Linda McMahon, a GOP senatorial candidate in Connecticut, has echoed Miller’s ideas. Miller is also against unemployment insurance, even though his wife used it after she quit her job,

Many of these current GOP candidates want to strip the government down to its most limited functions. They claim that federal and state workers control the government through their powerful unions. (God forbid that unions actually lobby for decent wages and benefits.) GOP candidates would do away with unions, worker rights and labor laws, allowing bosses (the landed gentry) to have all the power.

California GOP candidate Meg Whitman, former CEO of Ebay, wants to do away with about 40,000 state jobs in a bid to streamline government and make it more businesslike. But here is the dirty little secret. That work still needs to be done. Someone needs to arrest criminals, process government paperwork, write tickets or do the other mundane government tasks we take for granted.

And this is where the second part of the GOP’s plan to restore feudalism comes into play. Whitman has said that she plans to make government more efficient by turning these government jobs over to private firms. So what will probably happen is that a firm will take over the government contract for a couple of million, and then farm out the work of 10 people to two contractors. If the contract is worth $20,000 the owner will probably keep half, and split the rest among the contractors, who also don’t get benefits and can be fired at will.

However these contracts will probably end up going to companies with ties to the Whitman campaign or even companies that she owns. She is supposed to be a smart business woman, so I doubt if she would spend $140 million of her own money and not expect some kind of return. This kind of situation has happened before, under the George W. Bush administration which mastered the art of crony capitalism. After the Iraq war. massive no-bid contracts were given out to Halliburton, which was formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton also has contracts to supply and feed troops, jobs that used to be performed by the military at a lower cost.

If the GOP wins, it won’ t just stop at state contracts. Republicans have their eyes on other government services such as Medicare and Social Security. They may claim they want to make these programs more efficient, but its all about money. The plan to privatize Social Security, which Sharon Angle said she was for then against, has been called the next big heist. Wall Street stole trillions of dollars from working Americans through the Great Mortgage Crash, and now it has social security in it sights.

It will be the same scenario if the GOP gains power, they’ll push through legislation authorizing the privatization of Social Security. People will be encouraged to open private accounts, that means trillions of money for Wall Street, and more potential victims.

Wall Street will play on Americans’ greed, just like they did with the Housing Bubble. Sign up for this complicated savings plan, which you don’t understand, and you might get 50 percent more in your retirement account. What they won’t tell you is that you also might lose your shirt, and your broker gets a commission for every customer he steers towards a certain investment fund. (This has happened before.) Also, your broker is going to charge you monthly fees for watching your money. This has been tried before, under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and workers found they ended up getting less money because of broker fees. According to a 1995 article in the New York Times by Larry Rohter: “Even many middle-class (Chilean) workers who contributed regularly are finding that their private accounts - burdened with hidden fees that may have soaked up as much as a third of their original investment - are failing to deliver as much in benefits as they would have received if they had stayed in the old system.”

If history repeats itself, Wall Street will create another bubble that will explode, and the federal government will be forced to bail out the banks -- again. This has happened at least twice before, with the Savings and Loans crisis (total cost $124.6 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office), and the recent Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout, which bailed out banks drowning in the mortgage crisis to a tune of up to $700 billion.

This form of crony capitalism will create a new generation of robber barons (feudal lords) whose wealth is based on their proximity to the government. If you want to see how this ends, look at Russia which is now controlled by a few oligarchs who became fabulously wealthy after the fall of Communism. During this time, a handful of men became overnight billionaires because they were able to cut shady deals with their political friends.

One of the most controversial oligarchs is Roman Abramovich, a 43-year-old, worth about $11 billion and the 50th richest person in the world. Abramovich made his fortune after he bought Russia’s oil and gas company on the cheap during the post-communist Yeltsin era and resold it for a huge fortune, during the rush to privatization. (There’s that word again.). In Russia he is a controversial figure because he is seen to have defrauded the people, but in Britain he is a somewhat popular figure because of he is the benefactor of Chelsea Football Club.

If GOP politicians get elected they will enact polices that will create hundreds of Abramovichs. You have been warned.

The 10 Commandments of the Modern Worker

2010-10-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

Don’t trust your boss. He hates you and would outsource your job to Siberia if he could get away with it. Or even better, he would vote for legalized slavery so he wouldn’t have to pay you at all. If possible start up your own business, because no one will take care of you like yourself.
There is no loyalty. It’s all about you. If you get a better deal, don’t think twice, your boss won’t hesitate to lay you off, when things get tough.
Always keep your resume up to date. You never know when you are going to need it.
Always be on the look for another job. You never know when you are going to need it.
Take everything management says with a grain of salt. f they say the company is doing fine, start updating your resume. Remember what happened at Enron and Goldman Sachs?
Befriend your competitors. When things go belly up your services could be mighty useful.
Back up all your personal contacts and info. to the Internet or your personal computer. When your boss asks for the work computer back, all your contacts go with it.
Network on the job. Pass your business card out at conferences and remember all those contacts. They’ll come in handy when you get pink slipped. Look at your job as an opportunity to enhance your earning power and business contacts.
Unionize if possible. There is strength in numbers. Management hates organized labor because they make it harder to drive down wages and bully workers.. Weak or non-existent unions means, low pay. Low pay means more money for management. In the absence of a union, familiarize yourself with labor laws (available at the Department of Labor web site), you’d be surprised how many laws your boss is breaking.
See no. 1.

Beck Rally Confirms Maher’s Claims About Dumb Americans

2010-08-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

Political humorist Bill Maher often gets in trouble for calling Americans stupid. But after watching about 90,000 people show up to a rally thrown by entertainer/cult leader Glenn Beck can there be any further discussion?

Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally simply revealed that Americans are willing to follow a charismatic leader even if he has a wacky agenda. After all, televangelists who hawk the widely discredited prosperity gospel also have huge followings, and Beck’s credibility is on par with the men who beg for money on TBN and professional wrestlers.

The rally itself was a strange event, which moved away from a political fest, (Tea Baggers were told to leave their hate signs at home) and turned into a quasi-religious revival. And this too is strange because Beck is a Mormon, and follows a faith that many Evangelicals don’t even recognize as mainstream Christianity.

Marsha White, writing on the conservative web site RenewAmerica, said, “Mostly he (Beck) uses Christian terminology, which is misleading. It would seem that Beck is a Christian. But how can that be? Mormons deny the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Mormon beliefs do not line up with Scripture yet they insist on calling themselves Christian when they clearly are not.”

If the curious religious nature of the event is surprising. It is nothing compared to the political comments of the attendees:

According to Talking Points Memo, Carolyn Cassaberry of Newport News, Va, who attended the rally, said that she was not sure if President Barack Obama is a Muslim and needed more documentation.
Many attendees were happy at the religious tones of the rally, but they had no idea Beck is a Mormon.
The Velvet Revolution website interviewed a Black Tea Bagger from New Jersey who felt that something needed to be done about the health care system, but believed the “free market” was the answer, even though countries like France, Germany and Canada have much more efficient government-run health care systems.
Other rally attendees supported Tea Party supporter Ted Nugent’s idea of “putting a bullet in illegal immigrants.”
But the best quote comes from an AP story that interviewed Ricky Thomas, a father from Chesapeake Beach, Md., who said he wanted the government to stay out of people’s lives. Thomas is a SWAT officer who makes his living kicking down doors and arresting people, who may or may not be guilty. He also draws a nice government pension and has employer-provided health care. So if Thomas hates the government so much why doesn’t he quit his job and give up those tax-payer provided benefits?

But this is the level of discourse we expect from people who gather all their information from FOX News, a station that runs race-baiting stories round the clock and tells its viewers that Obama is a Marxist-Muslim terrorist who wants to destroy America.

And why should we expert accuracy or intellectual honesty from a rally organized by a man who says he wants to reclaim civil rights, but thinks the president is a racist? Beck also later said that he did not agree with the economic goals of the Civil Rights movement.

In a rambling interview with Chris Wallace on “FOX News Sunday,” Beck also called Obama’s faith a “perversion of Christianity” (even though many Christians do not identify with Beck’s faith). He also criticized people on the left for using racial politics, even though he works for a network that has spent the entire summer running what MSNBC host Rachel Maddow calls “scare white people stories,” such as the false Shirely Sherrod story and the fake New Black Panther story.

It pains me to write about Beck, who has said that his primary goal is making money and doesn’t care about the political system, but when almost 90,000 show up to follow the rantings of a clueless man, something has to be said. Beck is a showman who thrives on attention, negative or positive, but liberal writers have to at least point out his lies and hope someone is paying attention.

During his interview with Wallace, Beck did drop a few nuggets of honesty into his sea of lies. He said that even though his followers wear Palin-Beck T-shirts, he could never get elected president. And that is something we can agree on.

Muslim is the New Black

2010-08-14T00:48:00.000-07:00

The new wave of Islamophobia is embarrassing and frightening

It seems that some elements of the GOP always need to have a new enemy to hate. Almost 30 years ago, Richard Nixon used the Southern strategy to end the Democratic party’s stranglehold on the former Confederate states.

Black people have been a convenient whipping boy for the GOP over the last few decades, through code words such as “welfare queens” and “state rights.” Then after the growth of the gay rights movement and the rise of AIDS, gays become a convenient enemy for the newly invigorated fundamentalist wing of the Republican party.

But after 9-11, Muslims seem to have become public enemy no. 1. There were a few unfortunate incidents of anti-Muslim violence after 9-11, but it did not reach the level of hysteria we have seen in the past few months. The rhetoric coming from the Tea Party and the GOP is both embarrassing and frightening. Recently we have seen:
A concerted effort from activists to prevent the construction of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. This has inspired race-baiting comments from presidential aspirants Newt Gingrich and pinup pundit Sarah Palin.
Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who declared that “Islam was not a religion, and more like a cult.”
Evangelical churches and synagogues have hosted Brigette Gabriel, a speaker who says that Muslims “do not have souls,” and a Florida church held a “Burn a Koran” day.
Pam Geller, an unhinged right-wing blogger who lies every time she opens her mouth, has spouted nonsensical claims such as President Barack Obama is a secret Muslim who cavorts with hookers, Muslims have infiltrated the government and military, and Muslims plan to introduce Sharia law.
Several Christian groups have protested the proposed construction of new mosque around the country, even in supposedly liberal California. Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association said that he would like to see construction of all mosques cease.

Much of this new wave of Islamohobia is driven by fact-free propaganda spread through pseudo news outlets like FOX News and AM radio. A recent study by Media Matters showed that 75 percent of the guests on FOX News, the “fair and balanced network,” were opposed to construction of the mosque near Ground Zero. The Tea Party has also amplified this xenophobia. One of the current memes spreading through the right-wing media is the idea that Muslims want to secretly take over America by out-breeding good Christian folk.

In a recent New York Times article, Tea Bagger Diane Serfain says, “As a mother and a grandmother, I worry. I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented.” This would take a few generations because according to a 2001 study by the City University of New York, Muslims make up 0.5 percent of the U.S. population.

Americans who are swallowing this garbage should stop and ask themselves, what do the people spreading these lies actuality know about Islam? Sarah Palin just left the country for the first time a few years ago, and barely understands English and Christianity, so is she really the best person to go turn to for advice about Islam? And as for Ramsey, a Methodist, who has spent his entire life in Tennessee which is 1 percent Muslim, has he even had a conversation with a real-life Muslim?

These Islamohobes also seem to forget that freedom of religion is one of the central tenets of this country and is enshrined in the constitution. A few years ago. Gen. (rtd.) Colin Powell criticized Islamophobes and said that many Muslims had given their lives for this country serving in the military. Recently President Obama declared that "I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country.”

The terrorists attacks on 9-11 also killed several hundred Muslims. Al-Qaeda kills indiscriminately, they do not care if their bombs rip into Muslims who happen to be in their way, which I am sure is one of their many violations of the Koran.

Islamic terrorists seem to be doing to their religion what the KKK,did to Christianity. Although the Klan claimed they were good Christian men fighting to protect women and the Southern way of life, anyone with half a brain knew they were as far from being Christian as a Satanist.

American Islamophobes are taking the worst parts of Islam to to stereotype a whole group of people. Christianity also has it’s own dark periods such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the church-backed conquest of Africa and the Americas. Also many American clergyman, including Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, supported segregation and were against the Civil Rights movement. It would unfair to judge Christianity by these examples, although many black people have rejected the religion because of its ties to colonialism and white supremacy..

This hatred is not unfamiliar to black people. There was a time when “Christians” said we did not have souls. And many police officers still believe that black men are guilty until proven innocent, But in the age of Obama and Republican neocoons like Alan Keyes and Jesse Lee Patterson, you can get away with a lot more with anti-Muslim hatred.

Islamophobia is a new potent form of racism,because it is backed by religion, which always appeals to irrational thoughts, and many Muslims are well, foreign-looking. (However a visit to a mosque will tell you that Muslims come in every shade of color found on this planet.)

Unfortunately it is easy to demonize a small group of people, who practise a religion that most close-minded Americans know nothing about. And the War on Terror gives people all the more reason to be suspicious of Muslims and anyone who looks Middle Eastern. Americans can now hide their xenophobia behind patriotism, because hating minorities is as American as apple pie.

CEOs Make Politicians Look Like Angels -- So Why Vote for Them?

2010-07-31T21:58:00.000-07:00

Meg Whitman

In my adventures in journalism, I once met a brother who told me that the most important lesson he had learned in business school was the number one goal of a corporation is to maximize profits. And corporations are supposed to do this, even it means discarding employees, engaging in immoral practice or selling deadly products

Now, understanding that philosophy is it surprising how Corporate America treats employees? Wake up American workers, your corporate bosses don’t care about you. Actually they really despise you, because unfortunately American workers demand half-decent salaries. They need them to pay back those huge college loans and keep buying those products that drive America’s consumer economy.

But over the last decade or so, Corporate America has made a concerted effort to drive down wages or limit worker benefits. First it was retirement, which morphed into the Ponzi scheme called 401ks, then it was health care benefits, which are sinking faster than Lindsey Lohan’s reputation. Now it’s actual salaries, which have been either stagnant or going down for years.

The recent trend is to fire employees and use those savings to reward share holders. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes, “In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.”

Some companies have even taken this one step further by turning former paying jobs in to internships, where they don’t have to pay employees anything. What could be better than having an employee who works for free?

Considering the many sins of Corporate America -- outsourcing, cutting benefits, age and racial discrimination and dishonest accounting, as done by Goldman Sachs, Enron and Tyco -- how can we be expected to trust these people to run the government?

However, there seems to be a move, led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, towards electing former corporate titans to office. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is running neck and neck with former California Gov. Jerry Brown for the job of CEO of California. And Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, is challenging Sen. Barbara Boxer for her seat.

Those on the right argue that CEOs will bring a business-like attitude to government and help get the state running more efficiently. But having seen Corporate America’s practices why would we want to let this people near the halls of power? Consider budding California politicians Fiorina and Whitman.

Whitman has poured $90 million of her personal funds into the race for California governor and she says she is prepared to spend $150 million. All this for a job that pays $200,000? If Whitman is the smart business woman she claims to be, I can guarantee that she intends to recoup that money. She has also said she plans to help get California out of the red by laying off up to 40,000 state employees. (Whitman also settled a physical abuse case for $100,000 while she was at eBay.)

Corporate America’s solution to a problem is to privatize it and outsource it. This also turns out to be a great new side business for those close to the politicians. If Whitman plans to outsource California’s government services, you can bet that some of her pals are lining up to get those contracts, much like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who passed a tough, new immigration law, that would result in hundreds of new prisoners. She also has ties to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a company that operates private prisons, which would get millions of new federal dollars from housing detainees. This is crony capitalism at it’s worst!

As bad as Whitman is, she is streets ahead of Fiorina, who was fired from her job as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, where she slashed 30,000 jobs. CNBC listed Fiorina as one of the worst CEOs of all time. According to MarketWatch, Hewlett-Packard stocks plunged 50 percent under Fiorina and increased after she was fired. Fiorina walked away from Heweltt-Packard with a $20 million severance package.

Unfortunately Fiorina and Whitman are not the only two CEOs who have thrown their hats into the political arena. Former Columbia/HCA CEO Rick Scott is running for governor in Florida. Scott’s former company made it’s money denying patients’ health care, stiffing doctors and ripping off the government. According to Politifact, Scott was forced to resign after Columbia/HCA was hit with 14 felonies and charged a $1.7 billion fine for over billing the government for Medicare and Medicaid. Scott’s reputation is so bad that even the local GOP is trying to encourage him to stay out of the race.

So compared to this motley crew of conmen and abusers, isn’t your average slick-talking politician looking good right about now?

Arizona Is Now a Fascist State

2010-07-25T12:18:00.001-07:00

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is an evil, amoral fascist -- those are strong words, but after reviewing the political climate in Arizona, that is the only way I can describe her.

How else would you describe someone who knowingly implements a law that will inflame white fears against the growing brown (Latino) population. Yes, I know Arizona has a problem with illegal immigration, but that problem has been around for decades, long before Brewer got there. And it probably won't go away soon.

As long as Arizona borders Mexico, a poor, crime-ridden country, people will cross the border to seek work. And as long as American employers continue to employ migrant labor, the flood of workers is not going to stop.

Brewer's new anti-immigrant laws have more to do with bolstering her political support by tapping into white rage. White people are still currently a majority, but with the growing Latino population, that is going to end soon. Brewer knows her laws appeal to white voters who are angry with some of the current problems in Arizona, unemployment, crime and overcrowding, which they blame on illegal immigrants.

But in reality, crime is down in Arizona. Although you wouldn't know it if you listened to Brewer, who has warned of headless corpses (proven to be false) and accused all illegal immigrants of being drug mules. According to a story by CBS 5 reporter Morgan Lowe, FBI figures show that Arizona has seen a 50 percent drop in crime since 2003. The Border Patrol also says that migrant traffic is down.

It's bad enough that Brewer and other white-leaning politicians have appealed to the worse part of the American psyche. Arizona has now become a destination for white supremacists, some who have taken to patrolling the border.

But Brewer also has a financial stake in this issue, news reports says that several people in the Brewer administration have ties to the private prison industry. So if Brewer passes a law that will lead to mass arrests, guess who is going to benefit from this? The state run prisons will probably turn this problem over to private prisons, and this is where Brewer's cronies clean up.

According to Lowe's story, Paul Senseman, Brewer's deputy chief of staff, is a former lobblist for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a company that bills the government $11 million per month to hold detainees. Chuck Coughlin, a Brewer policy adviser and campaign chair, currently lobbies for CCA.

In the 1990s, under Gov. Frank Keating, Oklahoma passed several get-tough-on crime laws and outsourced prisons to CCA, who had made large donations to Keating's campaign fund, according to an article by the Journal Record.

According to a letter from the Oklahoma Senate, Keating approved a contract worth $6-15 million for the government to buy additonal beds from the private prison industry. He also signed the Truth in Sentencing law, which made offenders serve longer sentences.

I believe the idea of a corporate-run prison is evil. The main goal of a corporation is to generate profit. When corporations get involved in the corrections industry, they are generating profit off bondage and misery. In addition, politicians like Brewer and Keating, have a vested interest in keeping inmates locked up for long periods of time. The longer inmates are incarcerated, the more money the corporation makes. Making profit off bonded labor sounds dangerously like slavery to me.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini once said that the correct definition of fascism was the melding of state and corporate interests, which sounds like a perfect definition of what is going on in Arizona.

Geithner: Allow Bush Tax Cuts to Expire

2010-07-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Tim Geithner has taken a lot of flak for his time on Wall Street, but maybe he is coming to his senses. Or maybe he is just looking at a ballooning deficit that shows no signs of slowing.

The Bush tax cuts and military adventures ruined the economy. No sane economist is going to recommend increasing expenditure and reducing income. If the Obama administration is serious about cutting the deficit and balancing the budget it needs to look at all measures, raising taxes and slashing spending, both on military and some social programs. Also ending that trillion-dollar war in Afghanistan would also be a big help.

Juan Williams Debunks FOX's Black Panther Obsession

2010-07-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

I guess you can never tell where people are coming from, but I would have never expected Juan Williams, one of FOX's resident black apologists, to have actually gone against the network.

But Williams, who has often come across as FOX's lukewarm "liberal," gave a pretty good account of why the much-hyped New Black Panthers story is not a story. He shredded the credibility of J. Christian Adams, the former Justice Department official, who is making the rounds talking about the case -- even though all of his evidence is hearsay and he never actually participated in the case.

Williams also points out that Adams is trying to deflect attention from the fact that under George W. Bush, the Justice Department did a lousy job of prosecuting Civil Rights cases. Bush seemed to stock the Civil Rights division with people who were hostile to minorities and did not even believe in the cases they were supposed to prosecute.

This story is BS and FOX knows it. But this is not journalism, but then again neither is FOX News. This is a cable-mounted smear campaign. And like any good smear campaign, it doesn't need to true, all it needs to do is make your opponent look bad. Unfortunately FOX's audience believes everything that runs on the network is the gospel truth!

Angle Distances Herself from Her Own Comments

2010-07-05T12:59:00.001-07:00

I hope Nevada voters come to their senses and reelect Sen. Harry Reid, because the other option is downright frightening. State Sen. Sharron Angle is challenging Reid for the U.S. senate seat, but her views are so extreme, that even she is trying to distance herself for her own views.

Her latest stunt is trying to sue the Reid campaign for publishing comments from her old web site. Angle has a new web site, which has been scrubbed of her old controversial views such as privatizing Medicare and opposing abortion under any circumstance.

Angle's new web site is part of her rebranding campaign, which has meant largely avoiding the media. However the Reid campaign has published her old comments at a web site called Sharronsundergroundbunker.com.

I am not an expert on media law, but I don't think you can sue someone for publishing comments which are true. Also, even if you take a down a web site it still lives on on the Internet. Apparently Angle doesn't seem to realize that.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/angle-sends-cease-and-desist-to-reid-for-reposting-her-own-website.php?ref=tn

FOX Using Black Panthers Case to Stoke White Fear

2010-07-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder

Just when you thought FOX News could not get any lower, they prove you wrong. FOX News' audience is 95 percent white and many of their stories play on white fears. John Gibson, a former FOX News contributor, reporting on a story about the nation's changing demographics came out point blank and said that "white people need to have more babies."

The latest story to get white people diving under the beds and reaching for their guns is a claim that the Department of Justice dropped a case involving white voter intimidation. During the 2008 election some members of the New Black Panther party were spotted patrolling election booths to guard against voter intimidation. They were armed with dangerous weapons such as "sticks."

FOX News tried to promote the story, but it disappeared quickly. Now former Justice Department lawyer J. Christian Adams is claiming Attorney General Eric Holder deliberately dropped the case because "voter intimidation cases involving white people were not important."Adams is a self-described conservative who also writes for Pajamas Media, a right-wing web site, so he is not exactly objective. Media Matters also reports that while Adams was with the Justice Department, officials declined to pursue civil rights charges against the Minutemen for intimidating Hispanic voters.

Justice Department officials have described Adams as a "disgruntled employee who distorted the facts." And judging by the many incidents of death row inmates being released due to false testimony, this would definetly not be the first case of a prosecuting attorney embellishing the facts.

There are several things wrong with this story. First of all, any black person who has had a run in with the law knows that the authorities have no problem throwing brothers in jail. Secondly the Justice Department, under the Bush administration, was a hot bed of cronies who were selected based on their loyalty to the president, rather than on their legal ability. In addition, the Bush Justice Department was infamous for not acting on civil rights cases. The Black Panthers in question where guarding a voting booth in a largely black neighborhood, which probably did not attract many white voters. And it is sadly ironic that the Bush administration tried to pursue a voting intimidation case against black people, when there were hundreds of clear cases of voter intimidation in black neighborhoods in the 2000 election.

The Holder Justice Department looked into the case and likely dropped it because they knew there was nothing to it. One of the Black Panthers was an accredited poll watcher and he did not have a weapon in his hand.

Of course that never stops FOX. They have folded this story into their continued narrative about white people being under threat by the encroaching black and brown hordes. Evidently FOX never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. By the way Adams' story has been picked up by Stormfront, white supremacists' favorite online destination.

Senatorial Candidate Urges White People to 'Take Our Country Back'

2010-07-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

The Tea Party loves to argue that they are not racist. They claim they are simple (literally) Americans who are unhappy with the direction the country is going. Although these same people seemed to be loudly silent when President George W. Bush was shredding the Bill of Rights, running up the deficit and pursing two questionable foreign wars.

But here is one more piece of glaring evidence that shows the true motivation of the Teabbagers. Consider Glenn Miller Jr., who is running for Senate in Missouri. Miller, a convicted felon and white supremacist, made headlines when several stations ran his racist ads, and then realized their error and pulled them.

Miller's ads are the standard racist garbage with talk about white people being outnumbered by the "coons and mud people," but what is revealing is his other choice of words. His call to action is for God-fearing white folks to "take our country back." Where have we heard that before?

You can check out the ad below and compare it to statements from Tea Partyers. You can't make this stuff up !

Tea Party message: