Archive for the Category »POLITICS «
Sarah Palin and her supporters may think she’s hot stuff, but reality says different.
According to a new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll, 59 percent of Americans think Sarah Palin is not fit to be president of the United States
Meanwhile, 26 percent say they think she would be an effective commander-in-chief. The poll also shows Republicans splitting 47-40 on the question of whether Palin can lead the country.
Those numbers should be comforting to liberals, but on the other hand, 76 percent of respondents said Mel Gibson’s recent misogynistic and racist tirade won’t affect whether or not they’ll see his movies
The Cabinet minister actually in charge of the controversial file raises a good point: Why hasn’t the captain or the crew of the Tamil refugee ship been busted for trafficking in human cargo?
Surfacing for the first time since the MV Sun Sea docked in Victoria three weeks ago, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says it seems a “sensible” result.
However, the fear-mongering face of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who was eager to blast the ship as a terrorist trawler when it docked in August, is mostly silent on the situation now.
Cracking down on human smuggling is the number one issue on voters’ minds if office feedback is any indication, Mr. Kenney insists, pooh-poohing the notion of scandals like the long-form census controversy as a figment of unimaginative media minds.
So where’s the rap sheet for the guy at the helm of a rustbucket that charged the equivalent of 20 first-class return air fares for one person’s ticket into a ship’s cargo hold?
Mr. Kenney defers to the cops. The way the RCMP explains it, the captain and crew are missing. They mingled with the refugee claimants departing the Sun Sea gangway and disappeared under a conspiratorial cone of silence.
How 492 Tamils could have roamed the Pacific for four months until they arrived in Victoria on Aug. 13 without passengers noting the person or persons in charge is one of those head-scratching scenarios mere Canadian pleasure boat users cannot comprehend. But police plead for more time as they sort passengers from crew while gathering data to make any charges stick. It could take a long time.
Says RCMP Constable Michael McLaughlin: “I can’t comment yet. The investigation is ongoing and it’s nowhere near its conclusion.”
Now, apparently, this is not unusual. The first Tamil ship, Ocean Lady, docked in Victoria last October carrying 76 men and they still haven’t charged anybody. But Mr. Kenney insists it’s only a matter of time before the bad guys face the music as smugglers who could qualify for a life sentence.
“Anyone who was paid to facilitate this voyage in terms of crew members are likely involved in human smuggling,” Mr. Kenney said in an interview. “But these are complicated situations and a lot of fear is used as a tool…. [The operators] have a way of keeping people quiet.”
American Frankenstein is written as a timely response to the need to revisit the history and realities of the Black existence in America… As with Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, African-Americans have been aimlessly trying t find their way in society, trying to fit in… Likewise, as with Dr.
Frankenstein’s creature, the African-American plight has been filled with hatred, mistrust, neglect, and outright violent rejection…
Society demonized and criminalized the Black man… and relegated him to second-class status, capable only of menial, labor-intensive, low-wage employment… While African-Americans strived to assimilate into society… they were still, by and large, unaccepted and unappreciated… They were generally rejected just as Frankenstein was.
The irony is that if care and fairness had replaced hatred and bigotry, the African-American would have developed into one of the country’s greatest human assets over the last few hundred years… The question is, is there enough compassion in American society to recognize the error of its ways and enough esteem left in African-Americans to correct for past indiscretions?” — Excerpted from the Introduction
*Given the ascendancy of Barack Obama to the Presidency, and the country’s concomitant cultivation of black billionaires like Oprah Winfrey, and Bob and Sheila Johnson, there are many who point to such successes as proof that America has finally arrived at a point where it should congratulate itself for finally achieving that colorblind society envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King. Not so fast, suggests Kyle Stanford Cramer who argues that U.S. still has a long way to go to be considered post-racial.
In his thought-provoking book, American Frankenstein: How the United States Created a Monster, Mr. Cramer makes a novel analogy between the history of mistreatment of African-Americans and the way the misunderstood movie villain was so heartlessly hunted down by an intolerant mob of townspeople armed with torches and pitchforks. The author is admirably earnest in his endeavor, recounting in chronological fashion how black folks have repeatedly been denied access to mainstream society, despite exhibiting extraordinary patience, bending over backwards while waiting for that ever-elusive opportunity to assimilate.
He says that the disparity created during slavery was not corrected in the wake of emancipation, given that the government reneged on the promise of 40 acres and a mule. The failure of Reconstruction was followed by the rise of Jim Crow segregation which was brutally enforced by the Klan via a century-long reign of terror which can only be described as domestic terrorism.
Cramer concedes that the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties made some significant inroads, however even that effort was effectively undermined by the backlash of white flight from the inner cities, the crippling crutch of welfare and the tease of token affirmation action. He persuasively augments his arguments with both statistical evidence and personal anecdotes recounting his own experiences as a black kid growing up in Chicago where he miraculously overcame the odds to earn a master’s degree at Northwestern University.
Seeing himself as an anomaly, Kyle Stanford Cramer is today committed to alleviating the persistently-desperate plight of the bulk of the still-marginalized masses of black people. His solution? While stopping short of a call for reparations, he nonetheless adamantly insists that America ought to opt to make amends by belatedly funding a Federal Reconstruction program which he envisions as incorporating everything from an apology for slavery and subsequent oppression to mental healthcare to an overhaul of the criminal justice system to education reform to job training to social support services to genealogical research critical to retracing roots and thereby knowing oneself. That’s a man with a plan.
Frankenstein resuscitated as a civil rights figure. I love it, What’s next, using The Joker to make the case for gay marriage? I think I just gave somebody an idea.
Here we go again. The Hurricane Katrina nightmare continues. A story at the Washington Post tells the tale of how New Orleans’ recovery diverges for affluent whites and low-income blacks.
“For people who were well-off before the storm, they are more likely to be back in their homes, back in their jobs and to have access to good health care,” said one leading advocate. “For those who were poor or struggling to get by before the storm, the opposite is true.”
Earlier this month, Lousiana’s program to hand out grants to property owners whose holdings were damaged by the hurricane was found to discriminate against black homeowners.
In Mississippi, low-income, uninsured homeowners were hurt by a decision to refuse rebuilding grants to property owners who suffered wind damage.
And a recent survey found that African-Americans in New Orleans are more than twice as likely to believe they have not yet recovered from Katrina.
Although it wasn’t too glamorous, the evening was sure pumped with star power at Tuesday night’s screening of Andrew Young’s documentary “Change in the Wind.”
Atlantamagazine.com reports that the film chronicles the secret correspondence between Gone with the Wind author Margaret Mitchell and Morehouse College president Benjamin Mays, and the unlikely friendship that developed between the Civil Rights crusading educator and the author of the novel glorifying the Old South and eventually led to Mitchell’s decision to (secretly again) sponsor Morehouse medical students.
Atlanta Daily World publisher Alexis Scott and other big timers perused the lobby filled with artifacts from the University of Georgia. Other big wigs who attended include Kasim Reed, broadcast journalist, Margaret Mitchell House & Museum founder Mary Rose Taylor, Jasmine Guy.
Penn writes…
As Wyclef Jean announces his regrettable turn-about to contest Haiti’s electoral rule of law (a law he has no previous record of dissension toward), his PR team is mobilizing. See Ms. Marian Salzman’s recent blog on the Huffington Post (August 23, 2010). In it, Ms. Salzman, hired to frame perception of Mr. Jean, claims that I “lambasted” Mr. Jean’s candidacy on CNN. Furthermore, she reduced the political dialogue that took place that day by calling the discussion a “celebrity feud”. In fact, a sensationalized celebrity feud, is and was, as far from my mind as the alleged “lambasting.” Though he and his camp came back with many disparaging comments in my direction, I felt that ignoring my initial impulse to react and respond allowed the attention to refocus on the real issues facing Haitians.
One can YouTube the segment of the August 8 Larry King Live in question. In the clip, Wolf Blitzer interviews Wyclef Jean upon his announcing his candidacy. The viewer will also see a response from someone (myself) who runs an NGO in Haiti, someone who has spent most of the last six months following the devastating earthquake, side by side in that country, with so many others, doing whatever we could to lend a hand. I have never met Wyclef Jean, and all I really know of him on any personal level has come through the fond comments of a few mutual friends. Hence, nothing I might say, was in ANY way personal, or intended to be lambasting to anyone. My comments were critical observations of a political candidate and a leader of an organization in Haiti.
Ms. Salzman also works to make the case that Wyclef Jean gave indispensable world attention to Haiti’s incredible misfortune. I was there for those 6 months after the earthquake and so many of us on the ground wondered where he was when that kind of attention was so necessary and absent, and why he was NOT helping to keep this desperate situation in the news. None among us felt or expressed anger toward it, but rather a universal sadness for his silence, as he is America’s most admired cultural link to Haiti. As the six-month Anniversary approached, it triggered the return of the world media, and of Wyclef Jean to Haiti. He’d referred to himself as “His Excellency Wyclef Jean” and “The most famous man in Haiti” on a self-generated flier in the lead up to his troubling announcement
On the Larry King Show, I was an invited guest answering questions and expressing concerns about Wyclef Jean’s place in Haiti’s election. [Watch clip above.] In particular, I voiced the responsibility of Americans and the American media to ask critical questions before jumping to support a candidate simply because they are familiar with him. I asked specifically for those Americans, or American companies, to dig deeper in assessing their own agendas, who might contribute any financial support to a candidate running for office in a country not our own. It’s clear that Mr. Jean can have an important place in drawing attention to Haiti’s needs. However, when New York press agents circle wagons of ignorance and sell as deep insight the advertisement of that which charms them about a client, the lives and needs of the Haitian people are sidelined. The very notion of a celebrity feud is one driven by a culture un-Haitian. And, in this reckless self-interest, Ms. Salzman’s is an obscene input. This said, it is neither my place nor Ms. Salzman’s to cast a vote. My support is with the Haitian people, and whomever they lawfully select as their next President. It is, it seems, folly for we Americans to assume “our Haitian” is their answer, simply because we enjoy the sense of identification we may feel, or are paid to espouse.
It should be said that laws that put limitation on the contribution by Haitians returning to their own country following an education abroad are worthy of review. And it would have been a valuable contribution had Wyclef Jean drawn attention to it in another moment, or in a less divisive ambition. However, the only attention that Haiti seems to be getting today is on a presidential campaign of personality that threatens to create a new swell of social unrest in a plagued country. I would caution Mr. Jean against research, or prospective policy, by sound bite.
When he chose to attempt to discredit me, claiming on the Gayle King Show on August 9 that my time in Haiti had been restricted to “one particular area”, that area he was referring to is the 55,000 person IDP Camp that I and my organization were tasked to manage by the International Office of Migration. Indeed it is at that camp where we are based, but in fact, I and those I work with have operated 24-7 throughout the city of Port Au Prince and the country at large for all these months, distributing thousands of water filters, food, medicine, medical supplies and volunteers throughout the days and nights from the back of pick-up trucks and helicopters. We have directly been responsible for hiring and supervising rubble removal crews, heavy equipment, and coordinating multiple NGO actions from Cash for Work and food/water distribution.
Lastly, I would like, again, to invite the reader to view CNN’s Larry King segment in full. Watch carefully for Mr. Jean’s responses to two questions. First, the one about his consecutive residential status where he states, “I have residency for over five years in Haiti.” Then see his response regarding his fluency in either French or Creole. I’ll let the reader decide if his answers are as forthcoming as his uninformed disparagement of one who was simply there to help.
So, yes, we still must ask questions. Yes I still support those Haitians who believe in him. But, I recommend that Mr. Jean and his advisers keep their future musings on more important topics than discrediting someone involved with a really good NGO. The real and devastating human issues in Haiti must be handled and led by a qualified president’s deft hand. These elections are crucial, and I have no part in them. Neither should Mr. Jean.
As previously reported, conservative radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck is hosting a rally in Washington, D.C., Saturday on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech — but he says the date was not chosen intentionally.
“Whites don’t own Abraham Lincoln,” Beck said in a recent broadcast of his Fox News show. “Blacks don’t own Martin Luther King. Those are American icons, American ideas, and we should just talk about character, and that’s really what this event is about. It’s about honoring character.”
The “Restoring Honor Rally,” which has Sarah Palin booked to speak, will taking place at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday- the sight of Dr. King’s speech – and is intended to “celebrate America by honoring our heroes,” according to the event’s website.
Beck, who has called President Obama a racist, says the rally is not political, and will even spend time celebrating Dr. King.
Meanwhile…
Rev. Al Sharpton will also hold an event in D.C. on the same day to honor the 47th anniversary of the famous speech.
“When we heard about Glenn Beck, it was puzzling,” Sharpton told the New York Daily News. “Because if you read Dr. King’s speech, it just doesn’t gel with what Mr. Beck or Mrs. Palin are representing.
Beck is expecting approximately 100,000 people at the event.
DC Metro Map
For readers who live in the DC area or are familiar with its metro system, writer Jason Linkins wrote a hilarious piece last week about a real visitors guide from rally organizers warning attendees to avoid certain stops on the Orange and Blue Lines, and to stay away from the Green and Yellow Lines altogether.
Linkins wrote in his Huffington Post piece: ”As someone who rides the Green and Yellow Lines all the time, I can assure you that there are no ‘rules’ that state these subway lines must be avoided at all times, especially at night. But then, I guess I’m not using ‘A Cliche-Ridden Guide To Avoiding The Black People On The Subway In Washington’ as a rulebook.
Voters in northern New Jersey have chosen to retain a mayor who is facing federal corruption charges.
Ridgefield voters chose not to recall Mayor Anthony Suarez. According to unofficial results provided by city clerk Linda Prina, 1,023 voters rejected the recall and 985 voted for it.
Ridgefield has between 5,000 and 6,000 registered voters.
Suarez has remained in office since his arrest last July during a massive federal sweep. He is scheduled to go to trial in early October.
Suarez and a tax preparer are accused of taking $10,000 from a federal informant posing as a corrupt developer seeking building permits.
Two other mayors, Peter Cammarano III of Hoboken and Dennis Elwell of Secaucus, also were among the 44 people arrested but stepped down soon afterward
It seems that the chairman and CEO of OneUnited, the bank at the center of the ethics investigation against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), has a troubled past himself, reports the Washington Post.
Not only has Kevin L. Cohee reportedly been arrested twice on sexual-assault and drug charges-although he has denied the arrests-the federal government also issued a “cease and desist” order to the bank due to his supposed living allowance that allowed him to live in a mansion.
Cohee’s bank purchased or leased luxury real estate for him-including an $880,000 condominium in Miami and a $26,250-a-month mansion in Santa Monica owned by Bruce Springsteen’s drummer-and reportedly paid for his Porsche.
Cohee promoted the bank as a responsible investor in minority communities, which Waters then helped promote in her district. Waters has described herself as a “professional and social” friend of Cohee.
A judge is ordering Wells Fargo Bank to pay customers $203 million for overdraft fees.
According to reports, the bank has been manipulating accounts to make customers pay for unwarranted overdraft fees.
The bank has been in some trouble for its deceptive practices for years, including accused loan
discrimination against Blacks.
San Francisco U.S. District Judge William Alsup has also ordered the bank stop its deceptive practice of charging excess overdraft fees.
Wells Fargo will appeal the ruling.
The case is Gutierrez v. Wells Fargo
07-05923, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).