After Election Destruction - Bitter Angry Old White Guys Attack Susan Rice

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TheGrio

The Republicans really need to lay off UN Ambassador Susan Rice. The image of a party of angry old white dudes going after an accomplished black woman will not give them the image makeover they need.

Not unlike their outrageous behavior over the past four years—and this election season in particular—the party is guilty of overreach. Despite the thrashing the GOP received on election day, and the lessons they should have learned when President Barack Obama cleaned Romney’s clock, old habits are hard to break.

The Grand Old Party has engaged in relentless attacks on Ambassador Rice’s intelligence and reputation, turning her into a scapegoat for the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.  At issue for Republicans are Rice’s statements on the Sunday talk show circuit following the attack.

The diplomat characterized the Benghazi incident as a protest by extremists against an anti-Muslim video—an assessment based on the best intelligence the CIA had at the time.  Rice had nothing to do with Benghazi, and yet, as a brilliant black woman in the upper echelons of the Obama administration, she is a convenient target for a party that has problems with women and black people.

Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) have led the charge, with Graham saying Rice is “disconnected to reality” and disqualified from a “promotion” to secretary of state.  McCain said he would do “everything” in his power to block her nomination.  And 97 members of Congress wrote a letter to the president opposing her potential selection as Hillary Clinton’s replacement as Secretary of State.

 

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Congressional Black Caucus chooses new leader: Rep. Marcia Fudge

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theGrio 

The Congressional Black Caucus has named Ohio Democratic Congress member Marcia Fudge as its leader for the next two years, according to The Plain Dealer.

The decision, made by members last Wednesday, will give Fudge the responsibility of setting the political agenda for 43 black U.S. House of Representatives members. She will also act as a national spokeswoman on African-American issues.

“I am humbled by the vote of confidence of my colleagues who have selected me to serve as the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus during the 113th Congress,” Fudge said in a statement. “Leadership of the CBC will be shared among all officers selected and I will continue to work hard and serve with dedication, the people who sent me to Congress.”

She said she plans to concentrate on health care, unemployment and poverty during her term.

“We call ourselves the ‘Conscience of the Congress,’” Fudge said about the CBC. “We are a collective voice for millions of people around the country who need us to champion their issues and protect their future.”

“I look forward to leading this venerable Caucus, and to speak and act on behalf of its members who share a vision and commitment to move our nation forward,” she added.

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Cory Booker Plans to Live Off Food Stamps for One Week

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ColorLines

Lets you and I try to live on food stamps in New Jersey (high cost of living) and feed a family for a week or month. U game?@mwadenc

-- Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) November 19, 2012

Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker plans to live off food stamps for one week. Booker's decision came by way of a challenge after Twitter user "Twitwit" told him that "nutrition is not a responsibility of the government." 

Booker made the announcement on Twitter after an exchange with a self-described "Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR), fighting against any and all forms of socialism/communism."

Booker responded to "Twitwit" and challenged her to see if they could both live off food stamps for a week. "Lets you and I try to live on food stamps in New Jersey (high cost of living) and feed a family for a week or month. U game?"

CBS News has more details:

Booker eventually challenged "Twitwit" to experience what people on food stamps are going through. "Lets you and I try to live on food stamps in New Jersey (high cost of living) and feed a family for a week or month. U game?" After "Twitwit" - the aforementioned Daughter of the American Revolution who identifies as an "Army Veteran, Army Daughter, Army Wife" - said yes, Booker wrote, "We will have to get a referee - DM me your number so we can see if we can work out details." He also tweeted, "Lets film it and see how we do."  

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Wal-Mart Accused of Threatening Workers With Retaliation Ahead of Black Friday Walkouts, Protests

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DemocracyNow

Wal-Mart workers across the country are planning to stage unprecedented walkouts and protests on Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. Wal-Mart has sought to counter the effort by filing an unfair labor practice charge against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and, according to critics, threatening workers with retaliation. We’re joined by William Fletcher, a Wal-Mart worker and member of the employee advocacy group OUR Walmart; and Josh Eidelson, a contributing writer for The Nation.

Senate bill, quietly rewritten, allows feds to read e-mail without warrants

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CitizensforLegitGov

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law. CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week. Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.

Congress’s Shameful Support for Israeli Bombing - They vote time after time for war

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TheProgressive

Here’s a two-part quiz for you.

Late last week, Congress weighed in on Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

Question Number One: How many House members voted to condemn that bombing?

Question Number two: How many members of the Senate voted to condemn it?

If you guessed anything but zero and zero, you flunked the quiz.

Both the House and the Senate passed an identical resolution (pasted in at bottom), by a unanimous vote, that said that each chamber “strongly supports” Israel’s “inherent right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against acts of terrorism.”

The only violence the resolution condemned was the violence from Hamas.

Not a peep about Israel’s violence.

Not a word about Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s military leader.

Not a word about Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza.

Not a word about the suffering the Palestinians are enduring, or have endured, under Occupation.

You can’t get any more lopsided than this.

In fact, the lopsidedness led to some gruesome gloating on the part of JTA.org, which describes itself as “The Global News Service of the Jewish People.”

“Unlike statements of support for Israel's actions from the Obama administration, the resolutions do not call on both sides to exercise restraint or express regret at casualties on both sides,” said the JTA article.

To date, more than 90 people in Gaza have been killed, many of them children, and more than 700 Gazans have been wounded. Israel has lost three people to rocket attacks from Hamas.

Benjamin Netanyahu loves to come to speak before Congress. And no wonder: He has them in his pocket.

But this unconditional support for brutal Israeli actions won’t make Israel any safer. Killing and wounding so many civilians in Gaza only further incites hatred against Israel, and any military advantage gained by these bombings will quickly evaporate as Hamas regroups.

 

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Palestinian Toll Mounts in Gaza as Obama Defends Israeli Assault

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DemocracyNow

President Obama has announced his full support for Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip even as dozens of Palestinians, including many civilians, continue to be killed by U.S.-supplied weaponry. At least 37 people have been killed in Gaza since Sunday, including at least 20 civilians. In the deadliest attack to date, 12 civilians, most of them members of the same family, died on Sunday when an Israeli warplane bombed their home in Gaza City. The victims included four small children and five women, one of them the children’s mother. Overall, at least 95 Palestinians have been killed — half of them believed to be civilians — since Israel began its assault last week. The number of Palestinians wounded nearly doubled on Sunday to 660 as Israel carried out its deadliest day of bombings to date. But as the Israeli attack escalated, President Obama gave his full backing while on a visit to Thailand.

President Obama: "There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. So we are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians."

The Palestinian death toll is believed to include at least 20 children, including seven killed on Sunday. Speaking at a hospital in Gaza, a young Palestinian child issued a plea to the world for help.

Nawal Azard: "To the world and [its] people: Why should we be killed, and why shouldn’t we have a normal childhood? What did we do to face all this?"

Newark Police Settles Lawsuit Over the Arrest of Black Teen with Cellphone Video

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ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ), Seton Hall Law School's Center for Social Justice (CSJ) and the City of Newark have reached a successful settlement in the case of Khaliah Fitchette, a Newark teenager who was illegally detained by police for using her cellphone to record an incident on a public bus in March 2010.

Fitchette was riding a public bus through downtown Newark after school on the afternoon of March 22, 2010. When the bus rolled down a hill, a seemingly intoxicated man fell from his seat and into the aisle, creating a scene. The driver pulled over and called Newark Police for assistance. Fitchette, who habitually used her phone to record or take photographs, began recording the incident. When the police arrived, an officer ordered Fitchette to stop recording and turn off the phone.

Fitchette stopped recording, but refused to turn off the phone to avoid missing any calls from her mom. The officer grabbed Fitchette by the arm and pulled her off the bus. One officer seized her phone and deleted the video. The police handcuffed and detained Fitchette for more than an hour, ignoring her pleas to call her mother. They finally dropped a tearful Fitchette at her mother's workplace.

The ACLU-NJ and CSJ filed a lawsuit on Fitchette's behalf on March 28, 2011, alleging the officers violated her constitutional rights to free expression. The lawsuit also alleged the search and seizure of Fitchette's phone was illegal.

Recognizing the importance of taping police officers in public, the ACLU has challenged illegal police confiscations of cameras, which has become more prevalent across the country, including in New Jersey. 

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Neely Fuller Jr. on So-Called Secession - 'Seceding from what? Stop the Razzle Dazzle. The system of white supremacy is worldwide'

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Talktainment Radio

"They're not seceding from me. They have a beef with somebody else. They are not making it clear who it is. If they do have a beef with me then step forward and say what it is. Have them tell me what am I taking from you - that you don't owe me by the way." The Compensatory Concept - Episode: 11/14/12 Dr Neely Fuller Play

Ron Paul Spends Time Entertaining white folks having racial temper tantrum over election - un-vetted "secession" petitions from out of state white guys

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LewRockwell

by Ron Paul

Is all the recent talk of secession mere sour grapes over the election or perhaps something deeper? Currently there are active petitions in support of secession for all 50 states, with Texas taking the lead in number of signatures. Texas has well over the number of signatures needed to generate a response from the administration, and while I wouldn’t hold my breath on Texas actually seceding, I believe these petitions raise a lot of worthwhile questions about the nature of our union.

Is it treasonous to want to secede from the United States? Many think the question of secession was settled by our Civil War. On the contrary, the principles of self-government and voluntary association are at the core of our founding. Clearly, Thomas Jefferson believed secession was proper, albeit as a last resort. Writing to William Giles in 1825 he concluded that states “should separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left are the dissolution of our union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers.”Keep in mind that the first and third paragraph of the Declaration of Independence expressly contemplate the dissolution of a political union when the underlying government becomes tyrannical. Do we have a government without limitation of powers yet? The federal government kept the union together through violence and force in the Civil War, but did might really make right?

Secession is a deeply American principle. This country was born through secession. Some thought it was treasonous to secede from England, but those “traitors” became our country’s greatest patriots. There is nothing treasonous or unpatriotic about wanting a federal government that is more responsive to the people it represents. That is what our revolutionary war was all about and today, our own federal government is vastly overstepping its constitutional bounds with no signs of reform. In fact, the recent election only further entrenched the status quo.
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Following White Party (GOP) Loss, White Party Boss Rush Limbaugh Downplays His Influence On GOP

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MediaMatters

Rush Limbaugh complained that he was being attacked by Republicans following Mitt Romney's loss, claiming he has no influence over party decisions. But Limbaugh has a long history of touting his power and influence on conservatives and party officials.

On the November 19 edition of his syndicated radio show,  Limbaugh complained that he was being blamed for Romney losing to President Obama, claiming that attacks against him by conservative consultants are unfair because he doesn't have "authority or power" in the Republican Party:

LIMBAUGH: You guys need to start asking yourselves some questions. You pick the candidates and you're getting the candidates that you want. You're getting the issues that you want. I'm not in charge of any Republican Party platform. I'm not in charge of anybody's campaign.  I have nothing to say, officially or unofficially, about what the Republican Party does as it tries to win elections. Zilch, zero, nada. I am simply a powerful, influential member of the media commenting on such things.  But I can tell you that very little of what I thought should have happened in the campaign, very little of what I thought should have happened actually did. You wouldn't find my fingerprints on much of this at all because not much of it is stuff I would have done had I had the authority or power, which I didn't.

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'Bidnesss Man' Mittens' Surprisingly Unbusinesslike Campaign

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MotherJones

I've read several election postmortems that claim Mitt Romney paid a whole lot more for his TV ads than Barack Obama did. Today, Matt Lewis confirms this. His source tells him that Romney typically paid a big premium for non-preemptable ads even in early September, when ads are rarely preempted. Why?

According to our source, Team Obama simply did the “due diligence to find where the lowest unit rate was,” a tedious process which “takes manpower.” Conversely, it appears Team Romney simply didn’t want bother with the hassle. So they threw money at the problem — and walked away.

In other words, Obama ran his campaign like a business, outsourcing specialized tasks like media buys to outside firms and keeping a tight rein on costs. Conversely, Romney ran his campaign like a millionaire's personal fiefdom, figuring that his buddies could do the job as well as anyone else. But although they were pretty deft at making excuses for their inefficiency, it turned out they couldn't. What's more, outside the world of TV ads, he directed a tremendous amount of campaign money to his friends:

Mitt Romney's campaign has directed $134.2 million to political firms with business ties to his senior staff, spotlighting the tightknit nature of his second presidential bid and the staggering sums being spent in this election....Ryan Williams, a Romney spokesman, said payments to firms with connections to staff members were not only for consulting, but also were used to purchase a variety of services, including "polling, video production, political mail, get-out-the-vote phones, online advertising, website development, and budget and compliance management, among other things."

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Sign the Petition for Clemency for Leonard Peltier

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People Of Color Organize! 

Leonard Peltier is an Amnesty International registered prisoner of consciousness and Lakota / Anishinabe Native American held by the US government in custody for 37 years on falsified evidence. Leonard has consistently spoken out in defense of his people´s liberty and the denial of their basic human rights. Leonard did the one thing that any [...]

Human rights violations ongoing at Immigrant Detention Center in Southern Illinois

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DailyKos

Progress Illinois reported that human rights violations were being committed at the Tri-County Immigrant Detention Center in Ullin, Illinois, in the southernmost part of the state.

The main problem at Tri-County IDC is the lack of working telephones, which is the only way that detainees can communicate with their lawyers. Additionally, expensive calling cards was another major problem at Tri-County. According to Tara Tidwell Cullen of the National Immigrant Justice Center, "access to phones and lawyers is a major issue that we see system-wide, often the phones don’t work and that’s detainee’s only connection to their lawyer." Illinois's own Democratic U.S. Senator, Dick Durbin, tried to use one of the phones at Tri-County while visiting there earlier this year, but the phones were not working. The NIJC lists Tri-County as one of the 10 worst immigrant detention centers in the country, and has cited "ICE’s failure to hold the facility accountable and the ongoing human rights and due process violations" as the reason why it is calling for Tri-County to be closed.

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Why Big U.S. Retailers Can Afford To Increase Wages

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ThinkProgress

By 2020, more than one-quarter of U.S. workers will be working low-wage jobs, not making enough money to keep a family of four out of poverty. The corporations that employ the most low-wage workers, meanwhile, “have largely recovered from the recession and most are in strong financial positions.” 92 percent of them were profitable last year, while three-quarters are making more in revenues than they were before the recession.

The retail industry is one of those that employs the most low-wage workers. (About 36 percent of low-wage workers work in retail.) And according to a new report from Demos, big retailers could afford to boost their workers’ income to $25,000 per year without eating into their bottom line:

The cost of increasing the living standards of more than 5 million Americans, adding $11.8 to $15.2 billion to GDP, and creating no less than 100,000 jobs amounts to just a small portion of total earnings among the biggest firms. The retail sector takes in more than $4 trillion annually and firms with 1000 or more employees account for more than half of that. At the same time labor compensation in the sector contributes only 12 percent of the total value of production, making payroll just a fraction of total costs. Large retailers could pay full-time, year-round workers $25,000 per year and still make a profit – satisfying shareholders while rewarding their workers for the value they bring to the firm. A raise at large retailers adds $20.8 billion to payroll for the year, or less than 1 percent of total sales in the sector. At the same time it is very likely the firm will experience benefits that offset the cost of the wage increase — in the form of productivity gains and higher sales per employee — making the net cost of the new wage even lower.

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Helping to Slave America: Wisconsin Governor (a white man) Proposes New Limits On Voter Registration

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ThinkProgress

Two weeks after Barack Obama and Sen.-elect Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) carried the state of Wisconsin with the support of minorities and young voters, Gov. Scott Walker (R) announced one of his major policy proposals for the upcoming session: ending the state’s 40-year old law that allows citizens to register to vote on Election Day.

And with Republicans now back in control of the Wisconsin state legislature, Walker may well get his way next year.

In 2008, Wisconsin enjoyed the second highest turnout of any state in the nation (72.4 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot), due largely to the fact the Badger State law allows residents who aren’t registered or have recently moved to register at the polls. That year, approximately 460,000 people used Election Day Registration, 15 percent of all Wisconsinites who cast a ballot.

Walker pressed his case for ending same-day registration during a speech at the Ronald Reagan Library in California on Friday:

“States across the country that have same-day registration have real problems because the vast majority of their states have poll workers who are wonderful volunteers, who work 13 hour days and who in most cases are retirees,” Walker said. “It’s difficult for them to handle the volume of people who come at the last minute. It’d be much better if registration was done in advance of election day. It’d be easier for our clerks to handle that. All that needs to be done.“

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World Bank Says Globe Risks 'Cataclysmic Changes' From Global Warming

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CitizensforLegitGov

The globe risks "cataclysmic changes" caused by extreme heatwaves, rising seas and depleted food stocks as it heads toward global warming of 4 degrees Celsius this century, according to a World Bank report. Current national pledges to reduce greenhouse gases wo't do much to change the current trajectory of temperatures, which are set to rise by about double the United Nations target of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, the scientific study e-mailed by the World Bank shows today. That level of warming threatens to cause sea levels to rise by a meter (3 feet) or more by 2100, flooding cities in nations from Mexico to Mozambique and the Philippines, according to the study.

Making Trouble: Vallejo Police Demand Vallejo Copwatch to Remove Public Information about Killer Cop

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Indybay

The Vallejo Copwatch Post and the Disingenuous Demand for Removal 

The Vallejo Copwatch post entitled "Vallejo Police Officer who murdered Mario Romero has been identified" states that "On September 2, 2012, Mario Romero was approached and gunned down while sitting in his parked car in front of his home by a Vallejo Police Officer, identified by multiple witnesses as Officer Dustin B. Joseph (age 32)." The post additionally lists a number of prior complaints against officer Joseph reportedly found in public records.  

As is common in letters from lawyers demanding the removal of content, citations of law are used erroneously in an attempt to intimidate the Indybay Collective into removing the objectionable material. In the case of the recent Vallejo Copwatch post, attorney David E. Mastagni refers to California Government Code Section 6254.21:  

No person, business, or association shall publicly post or publicly

display on the Internet the home address or telephone number of any

elected or appointed official if that official has made a written

demand of that person, business, or association to not disclose his or

her home address or telephone number. 

(Gov. Code §6254.21 (c)( 1 )(A))

Yet there is no home address or telephone number listed within the post. The demand letter seems to deliberately conflate "personally identifying information" with the officer's name and alleged record of complaints on public record. The same could be said for another penal code cited in the letter, 146e, which forbids the disclosure of residences or telephone numbers with the intent to obstruct justice or cause or threaten physical injury to police officers. Similarly, the implied mention of misdemeanor and/or felony charges for "posting personally identifying information" confuses the issue that Indybay was not the entity which created the post; it originates from a third party.  

Oddly, the demand letter cites the federal RICO Act as it informs Indybay that the "individuals who have contributed the above-linked content on your site have also posted the same information on other websites." Indybay is certainly not aware of every other posting on every other website and could not be held responsible for such content as part of some sort of "conspiracy," regardless of David E. Mastagni's threat of potential civil and criminal liability.