Obama Recalls Vietnam Vets' Treatment as 'National Shame'

Military Veterans More Likely to be Homeless, Black and Latino study says [MORE] 

From [HERE] In his second address this Memorial Day, President Obama paid specific tribute to those perished during the Vietnam War on the 50th anniversary of its beginning. He recalled the sacrifice of the troops who served there and the unjust blame that was heaped on them upon their return.

"It was a national shame, a disgrace that should have never happened. That's why here today we resolve that it will not happen again," Obama told vets and their families gathered at the Vietnam War Memorial on the national mall. "You were often blamed for a war you didn't start when you should have been commended for serving your country with valor."

The 50th anniversary, Obama argued, is another chance to set the record straight and "tell your story as it should have been told all along."

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US House Votes Unlimited Military Aid to Israel

From [HERE] Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives quietly passed a bill that critics insist effectively guarantees unlimited military aid to the government of Israel. HR 4133, dubbed the “United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012,” makes it “the policy of the United States to help Israel preserve its qualitative military edge” and “to provide Israel the military capabilities necessary to deter and defend itself by itself against any threats.” The bill passed by a vote of 411-2 with 9 members voting “present.” The two “No” votes were cast by Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and Congressman John Dingell (D-MI), former Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the longest currently serving member of Congress. Mr. Paul assailed the bill for being “one-sided” and “counter-productive” and argued that it weakened the U.S.’s claims of being an honest broker seeking peace in the Middle East. He also took issue with the bill’s statement that U.S. policy should be to defend “the security of Israel as a Jewish state.” “According to our Constitution,” argued Mr. Paul, “the policy of the United States government should be to protect the security of the United States, not to guarantee the religious, ethnic, or cultural composition of a foreign country.”

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Richmond Police Officers Made Threat Comments about Obama during visit

(left) President Obama gives speech behind bullet proof glass in Chicago.

From [HERE]  Richmond police officers allegedley made inappropriate, threatening comments about the President. The statements were made earlier this month while Richmond police were preparing for the Commander-in-Chief and Michelle Obama’s visit to VCU.  Richmond was one of two cities where the President kicked off his re-election campaign.

An officer was there providing extra security to the President on that day at the Siegel Center.  Over the phone, the supervisor said to that particular officer, “You’re down there, right?  So you can take a couple of shots.  You might have to kill yourself, but you can take a couple of shots.”

The Richmond Police Department source says the alleged incident took place during the department’s roll call.

“Another officer in the background started talking and he said, ‘Yeah, somebody should plant a bomb underneath the stage while they’re on there and blow it up.’”  The source claims this comment was made by a 20-year police veteran.

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Milwaukee Police Release Video of Officer Punching Handcuffed Black Woman

From [HERE] and [HERE] MILWAUKEE (AP) -- The Milwaukee Police Department has released a squad car video [HERE] that shows an officer punching a handcuffed Black woman restrained in the backseat of a police car. Police say the officer, Richard Schoen, was fired May 1 for violating the department's code of conduct. The incident happened in September.

Police determined that Schoen "punched a prisoner in the face, removed her from the squad by her hair and struck her to the body with his knee, while she was handcuffed in the squad." The victim, Jeanine Tracy, said the incident started last September when she was driving on North 51st Boulevard and she saw police lights in her rearview mirror. Police say Schoen also struck her with his knee while she was on the ground, but that's not on video.

"Never, never have I been more scared than this," Tracy said. "He was, like, 'Do you have any open cases,' I said, 'You can just run the check, you have my license. Then I asked the other officer could he stop talking to my daughter because she's a minor." Tracy said the officer ordered her out of the car.

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1 in 4 Texas Voters is Latino - the 'Vanishing White Majority' may Lead to the End of the Republican Party

From [HERE] The National Association of Latino Elected Officials Fund, the biggest organization promoting the participation of Latinos in the U.S. political process, released Wednesday its report for 2012, which states that close to one out of every four Texas voters is Latino.

Between 2000 and 2010 the population of Texas grew by 20.6 percent, from 20.9 million to 25.1 million, while the Hispanic population expanded by 41.8 percent, from 6.7 million to 9.5 million. The Latino vote in Texas during the presidential election increased from 1.3 million in 2000 to 1.7 million in 2008, a jump of 31 percent. There are currently 12.76 million registered voters in Texas, of whom 23.6 percent are Hispanics.

Overall in the U.S. the white population is in decline. According to the US Census minorities account for the majority of all new births in the US. 

As stated by Republican Patrick Buchanan [HERE], "what do these statistics mean politically? Almost surely the end of the Republican Party as a national governing institution.

Republicans now depend on the vanishing majority for fully 90 percent of their votes in presidential elections, while the Democratic Party wins 60 to 70 percent of the Asian and Hispanic vote and 90 to 95 percent of the black vote

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Racist Whites Mock Trayvon Martin Tragedy with "Trayvoning Trend"

From [HERE] and [HERE] and [HERE] There is a new fad that has white people emulating the death of murdered Florida teen, Trayvon Martin. Photos have surfaced online of people lying on the ground with hoodies on, as if they were dead, holding a can of iced tea and a pack of Skittles, mocking the death of the teen who was shot dead by a neighborhood watchmen.

The photos have appeared on various websites. On Thursday, a Facebook page dedicated to “Trayvoning” was removed after it sparked public criticism. Trayvoning is like Tebowing, but with white kids posing as a gunshot victim, wearing a hoodie and holding Skittles and an iced tea, which is what Trayvon Martin had on him when George Zimmerman shot him to death in February.

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Report Shows Blacks & Latinos Only 16% of Congressional Members

The publication shows that for congressional representation, diversity among the combined 535 House and Senate members only about 16 percent are people of color. Specifically, 44 (8 percent) are African American, 27 (5 percent) are Latino/Latina, 10 (2 percent) are Asian Pacific American, and 1 (less than 1 percent) is Native American. Also according to the data, staffs of U.S. Representatives are under-represented in key positions: only 13 percent of chiefs of staff are people of color; approximately 13 percent of House legislative directors are people of color; and only about 22 percent of senior legislative aides and legislatives aides are people of color.

The report illustrates that state and local governments don’t fair much better. In state government among the 50 governors of the United States, 92 percent are of White, non-Hispanic heritage, and that only 13 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia have a chief diversity officer on record. Among the five most diverse states, people of color are under-represented in state legislatures, including the state house of representatives/assembly and the state senate.

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Civil Rights Groups call on Georgia governor to diversify judiciary

FROM [HERE]ATLANTA — A coalition of civil rights and attorney groups says African-American judges are being replaced by white appointees in one of Georgia’s most heavily populated black counties and called Thursday for Georgia’s governor to fill vacancies with judges who reflect their communities’ diversity.

The coalition, led by the Rev. Joseph Lowery, said black representation on the bench has decreased from 44 percent in 2002 to 30 percent. They say every African-American judge who has resigned or retired from Fulton County Superior Court replaced by gubernatorial appointment since 2002 has been replaced by a white appointee. Fulton County is 44 percent African-American, according to the latest Census figures.

“We need fairness,” said Lowery, head of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, as he stood on the steps of the courthouse. “Do the right thing. We’re not here to ask them for favors. We’re asking them for justice.”

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Census Undercounts Minorities by 1.5 Million

From [HERE] The 2010 census failed to count over 1.5 million minorities, as the Census Bureau struggled to count black Americans, Hispanics, renters and young men.

The Census Bureau on Tuesday released an extensive assessment of its high-stakes, once-a-decade headcount of the U.S. population. Based on a sample survey, the government analysis has been a source of political controversy in the past over whether to "statistically adjust" census results to correct for undercounts, which usually involve minorities who tend to vote Democratic.

The findings show the 2010 census over-counted the total U.S. population by 36,000 people, or 0.01 percent, due mostly to duplicate counts of affluent whites owning multiple homes. That is an improvement from a census over-count of 0.5 percent in 2000.

However, the census missed about 2.1 percent of black Americans and 1.5 percent of Hispanics, together accounting for some 1.5 million people.

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Video and Emails Show Zimmerman had Friendly Relationship with Sanford Police

From [HERE] George Zimmerman's view of the Sanford, Fla., Police Department shifted during an eight-month period in 2011, CNN is reporting.

Zimmerman, who is charged with second-degree murder in the death of teenager Trayvon Martin, called what he saw on ride-alongs with police "disgusting" at a public community forum in January 2011.

However Zimmerman changed his tune in a September 2011 email where he commended the city's police chief and described a member of his department as displaying the  "highest level of professionalism."

Zimmerman's relationship with police has been in the spotlight, with critics charging that he received preferential treatment from the city's department as a part of the neighborhood watch program, according to media reports. These new findings come days after four witnesses in the highly publicized case changed their stories, some "in ways that may damage" Zimmerman.  Court documents released last week of an email exchange between Zimmerman and the Sanford Police Department showed a cordial, "even friendly" relationship between Zimmerman and police, according to the CNN report.

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Black Man exonerated of rape conviction 10 years later

From [HERE] LONG BEACH, CALIF. — A former high school football star whose dreams of a pro career were shattered by a rape conviction burst into tears Thursday as a judge threw out the charge that sent him to prison for more than five years.

Brian Banks, now 26, pleaded no contest 10 years ago on the advice of his lawyer after a childhood friend falsely accused him of attacking her on their high school campus.

In a strange turn of events, the woman, Wanetta Gibson, friended him on Facebook when he got out of prison. During a meeting later with him, Gibson said she had lied; there had been no kidnap and no rape and she offered to help him clear his record, court records state.

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No Visa No Problemo for Europeans, Israelis: Congressman Wants Visa Waiver Program to Include Israel

From [HERE] and [HERE] US Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) introduced legislation on Friday that would no longer require Israelis to obtain visas to visit the United States for tourism or business purposes.

The Visa Waiver Program allows nationals from certain countries (30 European countries [HERE]) to enter the US as temporary visitors for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa from a US consulate abroad.

The bipartisan bill received the support of powerful House Republicans, including Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) -along with Black Congressional members Charles Rangel (left), and Edolphus Towns.

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A Fair Trial? Since 1991: National Registry Counts More than 2000 False Convictions - 90% Black

Bennie Starks (left) of Chicago spent 20 years in prison after being convicted of rape. DNA evidence pointed to another man, and charges against Starks were dropped May 15.

(AP) and [MORE] WASHINGTON - More than 2,000 people who were falsely convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated in the United States in the past 23 years, according to a new archive compiled at two universities.

There is no official record-keeping system for exonerations of convicted criminals in the country, so academics set one up. The new national registry, or database, painstakingly assembled by the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, is the most complete list of exonerations ever compiled. The leading causes of wrongful convictions include perjury, flawed eyewitness identification and prosecutorial misconduct (by products of white supremacy-bw). 

The database compiled and analyzed by the researchers contains information on 873 exonerations for which they have the most detailed evidence. The researchers are aware of nearly 1,200 other exonerations, for which they have less data. Of these, 885 have profiles developed for the registry's website  exonerationregistry.org.

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Florida Purges Thousands of Blacks from voting rolls

From [HERE] TALLAHASSEE — As Florida scours its voter rolls in search of non-U.S. citizens, another form of purging continues: stripping felons of the ability to vote, including high numbers of Democrats and African-Americans.

In the first four months of 2012, election supervisors removed nearly 7,000 voters from the rolls following recent felony convictions. The system of regaining voting rights in Florida is so lengthy and strict that many will likely never vote again.

The Times/Herald analyzed state data that included the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, age and race of 6,934 purged voters from January through April. In Florida, a felony conviction means the loss of civil rights, including the right to vote, serve on a jury or run for office.

According to the data, Democrats were three times more likely than Republicans to be removed. Blacks were almost as likely as whites to be removed (44 percent of those removed were white; 43 percent were blacks), while blacks make up 16 percent of the state's population.

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Campaign aide to Shady DC Mayor pleads guilty to funneling campaign funds to another candidate

From [HERE] WASHINGTON - In a case that revealed underhanded tactics used to get Vincent Gray elected mayor of Washington, a former Gray campaign aide pleaded guilty Tuesday to funneling campaign funds to another mayoral candidate and shredding records of the transactions.

Thomas Gore admitted in U.S. District Court that he converted excessive or unattributed cash contributions to Gray's 2010 campaign into money orders that were given to Sulaimon Brown, a minor candidate. The payments were intended to keep Brown in the race so that he could continue making negative comments about then-mayor Adrian Fenty as he sought reelection, Gore acknowledged.

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