Veterans Administration Battles Backlog of Claims for Wounded Soldiers

DemocracyNow

On Veterans Day, we look at a major new investigation by journalist Aaron Glantz that questions the government’s commitment to soldiers struggling to re-enter civilian life. Called "Accuracy isn’t priority as VA battles disability claims backlog," the report reveals how thousands of veterans have been denied disability benefits as a result of errors by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Glantz tells the story of Navy veteran Hosea Roundtree, whose claim for disability compensation was denied by the VA despite Roundtree suffering flashbacks of a shelling he witnessed in Beirut while aboard a U.S. Navy ship in 1983. The VA has a duty to assist veterans in developing their facts and evidence to support their claims, but the department reprimanded one of its own employees for attempting to do just that for Roundtree. Jamie Fox lost her job in 2008 after she wrote a memo to her boss arguing that Roundtree’s disability benefits were being denied wrongfully. An internal VA document later showed the agency failed to perform its duty to assist in nearly 11,000 cases at the time, despite the VA acknowledging it makes mistakes on 14 percent of disability claims. We speak with Fox and Glantz, who is a reporter for the Bay Citizen, a part of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. He is also the author of three books, most recently, "The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans."

Black Owned L.A. bank created to serve black community to foreclose on several black churches

TheGrio

A group of Los Angeles pastors are protesting the foreclosure proceedings on a number churches, to be executed by a black-owned bank that was created to serve a once-segregated black population.

Broadway Federal Bank started in the 1940s to provide financial services to the black community. Today, according to the Los Angeles Times, “the bank had over 12% of its loans and other assets in delinquency or foreclosure, and seven repossessed churches on its books.” The bank can no longer take on additional church clients. The church pastors have promised to stand up to the bank.

Read the rest of this story on Madame Noire Business.

Nearly 400,000 People Call On Macy’s To Dump Donald Trump

ThinkProgress

A grassroots campaign for Macy’s to end their association with Donald Trump has caught fire. Nearly 400,000 people have added their name to a petition on Signon.org for Macy’s, which exclusively sells Trump’s clothing line and fragrance, to dump the controversial businessman.

Trump gained prominence during the 2012 election for relentlessly promoting the discredited conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States. He vocally maintains that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that the election results were “a travesty, a total sham, a disgusting injustice” and “urged Americans to march on Washington.” He claims global warming is “a concept created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Trump also promotes dangerous conspiracy theories about vaccines.

Macy’s touts themselves as a “socially responsible” company. Nevertheless, they have continued to embrace their relationship with Trump and will prominently feature him in its holiday Television ads.

Matt Drudge = a white man practicing racism

TheHill

Dear Mr. Drudge:

I have written before that, whether I like it or not, you are the one of the most influential forces in modern media, possibly THE most influential single player. You tower above your peers in what you do. Despite my failed efforts, no liberal or Democrat has even tried to create a legitimate competitor to what you do. But with your influence comes power, and with power comes responsibility, and the Drudge Report in recent months has become inundated, and saturated and permeated with baiting stories about the president's race, and about blacks generally. These are beneath the standards you should set for yourself and your profession.

You should be, and I hope you will be, a better citizen and more worthy professional than is suggested by the sheer number of race-related and often race-baiting stories that you regularly banner on the Drudge Report.

COINTELPRO 101 (Part 2)

Truthout

COINTELPRO, the secret FBI project to infiltrate and disrupt domestic organizations thought to be “subversive,” targeted many African-American, Native-American, and other movements for self-determination by people of color in the U.S..  Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI conducted more than 2,000 COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) operations.  This week we broadcast the second half of the documentary film “COINTELPRO 101,” produced by The Freedom Archives.

US drone spied on Iranian oil - report

Rt.com

Tehran has reportedly accused Washington of spying on its oil tankers after the Islamic Republic's fighter jets shot at an American drone on November 1. Iran says the Predator was "flying over Kharg island to gather information about economic activity on the island, and the arrival and departure of oil tankers," ISNA news agency quoted General Amir-Ali Hadjizadeh, head of the elite Revolutionary Guards air and space forces, as saying. Iran claims that the drone violated its territory, while Washington insists the Predator was in the international airspace.

Rap Genius: White Yale Graduates Seek a Hip-Hop Degree

NYTimes

IT started with confusion over a Cam’ron lyric.

In 2009, Tom Lehman, a computer programmer, was puzzled by the line, “80 holes in your shirt: there, your own Jamaican clothes” in the rap song “Family Ties.” What were “Jamaican clothes,” he wondered?

A friend from Yale, Mahbod Moghadam, guessed that the lyric referred to the tattered clothing worn by impoverished Jamaicans. That turned out not to be true, but it was enough to inspire Mr. Lehman to build Rap Genius, a Web site that seeks to decipher every lyric in hip-hop.

While rap lyric sites are not new, Rap Genius distinguished itself by adding a Wikipedia-esque twist, allowing anyone to annotate lyrics with words, photos and videos. More than 250,000 people have submitted explanations to date, with contributions vetted by 500 editors, many of them high school or college students.

The result is a mélange of decoded slang, interpretations of varying plausibility and dorky jokes that has struck a chord. The site draws two million unique visitors a month, according to comScore, an independent analytics firm, and last month Ben Horowitz, a well-known venture capitalist in Silicon Valley with a soft spot for hip-hop, announced he was investing $15 million in the site.

But the project has also been dogged by awkward questions about race and authenticity, including a recent dispute over conversations in a chat room that some call racist. Not helping matters is the sometimes-outlandish behavior of its three founders, Mr. Lehman, Mr. Moghadam and a third buddy from Yale, Ilan Zechory.

Rap Genius is run out of two penthouse apartments in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where the founders seem to fancy themselves as hip-hop personalities in their own right. NYTimes

White Woman Loses Job Over Racist facebook Assassination "joke" About Obama

Complex.com   

2-year-old Denise Helms has won the scorn of the nation after leaving a Facebook status update where she referred to President Obama as "the nigger," and called for his assassination during his second term. For her ignorance, Helms lost her job at Cold Stone Creamery and earned the attention of the Secret Service. Though she admitted that the whole "assassination" part of her comment was harsh, she wasn't apologetic at all.

"I'm not saying like I would go do that or anything like that, by any means" she said. "But if it was to happen, I don't think I'd care one bit." She also denied that her use of the word "nigger" makes her racist, saying that she was only stating her opinion. But when asked if she associated the word with President Obama, she said yes. Apparently, in her warped mind, that makes sense.

Cold Stone Creamery store director Chris Kegle didn't take too kindly to her comments, so he fired Helms. A Secret Service agent from the Sacramento office reached out to her, saying that her comments will be reviewed. 

The Lost Presidential Debate of 2012: Binders Full of Black Men, Tang-Colored White Boys, and Other Shit I Don’t Like

Gawker.com

BILL O'REILLY – "It's not a traditional America any more. And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama…"

I'm black-folks-blushing at Rove, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and the FOXy crew lamenting the supposed loss of their country to lazy black and brown Americans in search of free "stuff." But in an hour or so, I assume these American patriots will be driven to their million-dollar homes to check on their stock shares and make sure the trust funds of their children's children's children are nice and supple, in this, the second reign of that racist, socialist, leftist revolutionary, President Barack Hussein Obama. When the wealthiest, most despicable Americans among us, lose, don't they always still find a way to win? Isn't the answer to that question what makes them (and us) so emotionally and morally sick? What would happen if we changed the questions we asked these Americans, our Presidential candidates, and ourselves? Might honest, probing, imaginative questions and memories nudge all of us to reckon with our painfully dishonest, unimaginative, socially unjust American lives? [MORE]  

Justice for Alan Blueford (JAB) Rallies Against Police Brutality in Oakland

IndyBay

In 2012, Bay Area police have killed at least 12 Black and Brown people. 

Only 1 officer has ever been convicted of killing a Black or Brown person; Johannes Mehserle, who killed Oscar Grant, served only 11 mos in prison and now wants to return to a law enforcement job. 

Alan Blueford, an 18-year-old African American student from Skyline High School, was shot and killed by Oakland Police Officer Miguel Masso on May 6, 2012. The Blueford family and JAB coalition strongly condemn the DA's report and reject all attempts to cover up their son's murder. We demand Masso be fired and prosecuted,  and all racial profiling practices, including stop and frisk, be stopped immediately! 

Alan's mother, Jeralynn Blueford, "This is a march in honor of my son and others that has suffered police brutality. We are for change not violence and vandalism."

The Koch Brothers Turn On Chris Christie for his "Betrayal" and Warn Him About Setting Up Obamacare

PoliticsUsa and Wonkette

Most people understand that public servants, especially politicians, serve the people and part of their service includes following the law according to their oath of office, but Republicans reject the law when it contradicts ultra-conservative think tanks funded by wealthy industrialists Charles and David Koch. The Constitution is clear on how legislation becomes the law of the land, and one expects elected officials to reject special interest groups demands when they oppose established law, but over the past four years Republicans have demonstrated their disdain for the Constitution when neo-conservative think tanks have a different agenda.

The Affordable Care Act was hotly contested after it passed both houses of Congress and President Obama’s signature making it a legitimate law, and after it was upheld in the Supreme Court, one thought Republicans would finally accept that it cleared every legal challenge and begin implementing provisions at the state level to help 20-30 million Americans get access to affordable health care. One of the mainstays of Willard Romney’s campaign was his promise to repeal the ACA on his first day in office that not only displayed his ignorance of the repeal process, but also his lack of concern that millions of Americans would once again be at the mercy of the predatory health insurance industry and suffer from lack of healthcare. However, Romney’s defeat was not the end of the battle over the ACA and, as expected, Republican governors are doing the bidding of the Koch Brothers to frustrate the health law’s implementation.

The Koch Brothers think-tank, Americans for Prosperity, handed down a warning to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for not rejecting provisions in the ACA to submit health insurance exchange plans ahead of the health law’s full implementation. Republicans were already furious with Christie for praising President Obama’s rapid response to the super-storm Sandy that ravaged parts of the East Coast last week, and now the Koch Brothers are pressuring him to reject a New Jersey exchange bill to rebuff the ACA’s requirement before a November 16 cutoff date for states to set up health insurance exchanges. If states fail to set up the exchanges, the federal government does it for them and the provision gave individual states leeway to set up a healthcare marketplace according to their resident’s needs.