marble falls
marble falls's JournalCornel West gives rousing introduction for Bernie Sanders at historically black college
WATCH: Cornel West gives rousing introduction for Bernie Sanders at historically black college
Tom Boggioni
12 Sep 2015 at 15:05 ET
Cornel West introducing Bernie Sanders at Benedict College - screenshot
Follow @rawstory
Activist and academic Cornel West, who recently endorsed the upstart candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT-I), put his boots on the ground for the progressive candidate by appearing with him at historically black Benedict College in South Carolina.
While Sanders has had his difficulties with Black Lives Matter activists, he has the full-throated support of West who calls him “Brother Bernie.”
“What I love about Brother Bernie is he’s a brother of integrity and honesty and decency,” said West, stating “He’s not just on the move. He’s going to win!”
Referring to polls showing Sanders surging, particularly among younger voters, West said, “Oh, if the election could be held right now, and only those who voted had to be 25 and younger, he’d be president at the moment.”
After his introduction, West sat with the students and led them in a standing ovation as Sanders mentioned the names of black Americans who have died at the hands of police officers.
Watch video of West’s introduction, uploaded to YouTube by Bernie 2016:
Bernie introduced by Cornel West at Benedict College
Was Sandra Bland Dead Before Her Mugshot Was Taken?
Donald Trump & white America’s anxiety: The political throes of a forgotten country
Donald Trump & white America’s anxiety: The political throes of a forgotten country
Liberals, don't kid yourselves: "The Donald" is not just a media creation. He's a tribune of our past — and future
Elias Isquith Follow
The New York Times’ Charles Blow is a fine columnist. But if you want to understand why Donald Trump has become the mad king of American politics, the thundering attack on “The Donald” that Blow wrote last week, entitled “Enough Is Enough,” could hardly serve you worse.
The basic theory of Blow’s column, which soon went viral, is that the Trump campaign is a “shallow farce,” sustained by a “drooling” and “naïve” media. “Yes, the Republican Party created this Frankenstein [sic] of hatred, hubris, narcissism and nativism,” Blow grants, “but the media is giving it life.” He’s not alone in this conviction: Political scientist John Sides maintains that Trump is fundamentally no different from other short-lived bizarro presidential candidates, such as Newt Gingrich or Michele Bachmann.
Well, sorry not sorry, but this is all wrong. Donald Trump is not running a Potemkin presidential campaign. He is not simply the beneficiary of a restless and vapid press corps. He is not the Herman Cain of 2016. He is not some carnivalesque distraction, seducing us into avoiding “the real issues.” Ignoring him, as Blow has vowed to do, may be good for one’s blood pressure. But as a recent in-depth look at Trump’s support from the New York Times found, no amount of wishful thinking will make him disappear.
<snip>
Although their complaints are often unsympathetic and their solutions are frequently barbarous, they are not exactly wrong. Republicans are, on the whole, older and whiter than Democrats. They’re also more religious, more discriminatory in their sexual mores (or at least their professed ones) and more likely to live in rural areas. For the vast majority of their lives, the American mainstream has been white, Christian and at least suburban, if not rural.
<snip>
Like Long and Wallace before him, what Trump offers these people is not only a return to a glorious past, but also a reassurance. Specifically, Trump’s vision of a nation purged of immigrants — both documented and otherwise — and cleansed of “political correctness” suggests to these voters that America-as-they-knew-it is not historically contingent. And that the transformation of the country was not an inevitability. He promises them, in effect, that they will not be so easily swept aside.
These are forces decades in the making. But there’s no doubt that nearly seven years of an African-American president — one named Barack Hussein Obama, no less — has had an impact. In the America they knew, an African-American does not become president, full stop. But he certainly doesn’t do it if he’s an intellectual cosmopolitan who does not hide his affection for LGBTQ people or his fundamental belief in the welfare state. And he is not reelected after using big government to help moochers.
advertisement
<snip>
Elias Isquith is a staff writer at Salon, focusing on politics. Follow him on Twitter at @eliasisquith.
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/31/donald_trump_white_americas_anxiety_the_political_throes_of_a_forgotten_country/
Bernie Sander's Brother on British TV talking about Bernie's Run
NRA to Alison Parker's family: Don't be 'so emotional'
NRA to Alison Parker's family: Don't be 'so emotional'
August 31, 2015 3:24 PM MST
The NRA and their spokesman Colion Noir are telling the parents of slain journalist Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward to stop being "so emotional" when fighting for gun control.
[youtube]
After journalist Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were murdered on live TV last week, the entire country mourned their deaths. Parker's father, Andy Parker, has been an outspoken advocate for gun control since his daughter's death, but the National Rifle Association (NRA) thinks he should just calm down.
The family of slain journalist Alison Parker is pleading for stricter gun laws following the murder of their daughter.
Just in their mid-twenties, Parker and Ward were living their dream of delivering the news to their viewers. That dream quickly turned into a nightmare at the hands of former network employee Vester Flanagan, otherwise known as Bryce Williams. After pleas for stricter action on gun control by the Parker family, the NRA released a video on August 31, with spokesman Colion Noir telling the Parker and Ward family to stop letting their emotions cloud their judgement.
“Grief-inspired advocacy can be extremely effective and powerful,” Noir said, saying he understands he has "no right" telling them how to grieve, but hopes they understand who the real enemies are. "Sometimes in a fight we can become so emotional everyone and thing starts looking like the enemy, even if they’re there to help us."
"Turning this murder into a gun control dog-and-pony show minutes after the shooting because you can’t make sense of what just happened is ridiculous."
Noir then went on to attack President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, referring to them as the "gun control Wu-Tang Clan" who are using average American "ignorance" to win votes. The United States currently has the highest rate of gun related deaths compared to any other industrialized country in the world. While stricter gun control might not stop every mass shooting, it's a positive step in the right direction regardless of what some at the NRA might be preaching.
To me this less about gun control than it is about a total lack of sensitivity.
I own firearms and the NRA does not speak for me.
Were officials too quick to tie Texas deputy shooting to Black Lives Matter?
Were officials too quick to tie Texas deputy shooting to Black Lives Matter?
Law enforcement officials have arrested and charged a man in the shooting of a Houston deputy. The motive remains unclear.
Christian Science Monitor By Jessica Mendoza
21 hours ago
Law enforcement officials on Saturday arrested Shannon J. Miles, of Cypress, and charged him with capital murder in the fatal, “execution-style” shooting of Harris County deputy Darren H. Goforth, NBC News reports. Deputy Goforth was filling up his patrol car at a Houston Chevron gas station when the gunman approached from behind, opened fire, and fired again as Goforth lay on the ground, according to Reuters.
While the motive behind the shooting remains unclear, officials were quick to link the incident to Black Lives Matter, the series of demonstrations against police misconduct. Goforth was white, Mr. Miles is black.
"We've heard black lives matter; all lives matter. Well cops' lives matter too," County Sheriff Ron Hickman said at a news conference following the arrest. "At any point where the rhetoric ramps up to the point where calculated cold-blooded assassination of police officers happen[s], this rhetoric has gotten out of control.”
Authorities took Miles in for questioning early Saturday, after deputies found the shooter’s suspected vehicle – a red, extended-cab pickup truck – parked in Miles’ driveway less than a mile away from the scene, The Houston Chronicle reports.
Miles, who has not identified any motive for the shooting, has previously been convicted of resisting arrest, trespassing, and disorderly conduct with a firearm, according to CNN.
Harris County district attorney Devon Anderson, who appeared with Sheriff Hickman, also pushed back against widespread criticism of police. “There are a few bad apples in every profession,” she said. “That does not mean that there should be open warfare declared on law enforcement.”
Despite ongoing efforts to improve relations between law enforcement and black communities across the nation, tensions remain high between police and the public. From Ferguson, Mo. to New York City, high-profile, violent confrontations between officers and unarmed black men and women continue to be the focus of calls for sweeping police reform.
In Texas, State Representative Garnet F. Coleman (D) of Houston criticized Hickman’s remarks.
“It strikes me as politicizing a death that, I don’t know that anyone knows what was in the mind of the shooter,” said Rep. Coleman, who is leading an inquiry into the death of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman found dead in a Waller County jail cell in July, according to the Times.
“I think black lives matter,” he continued. “I think deputy sheriffs’ lives matter. But I think the statement shows a lack of understanding of what is occurring in this country when it comes to the singling out of African-Americans.”
At least one of the movement’s leaders has also criticized Sheriff Hickman’s comments as misguided.
“It is sad that some have chosen to politicize this tragedy by falsely attributing the officer's death to a movement seeking to end violence,” civil rights activist DeRay McKesson tweeted.
Still, the shooting – which shocked the suspect’s neighbors as well as Harris County, the most populous in Texas – could be an opportunity for the community to come together. On Saturday night, hundreds attended a vigil for Goforth, who leaves behind a wife and two children and whom colleagues described as a passionate officer and a family man.
"We need a lot of healing rather than anger," Houston police Lt. Roland De Los Santos, who met Goforth decades ago, told KPRC Houston. "We need for the community to understand that most of us are out here to help. We really are out here to do good."
#BlackLivesMatter disrupts Clinton rally to demand she cut ties with prison industrial complex David
#BlackLivesMatter disrupts Clinton rally to demand she cut ties with prison industrial complex
David Ferguson
David Ferguson
27 Aug 2015 at 17:06 ET
Image: #BlackLivesMatter activists disrupt a Hillary Clinton rally in Cleveland, OH (GetEQUAL)
<snip>
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s rally in Cleveland, Ohio on Thursday was interrupted by #BlackLivesMatter protesters who called on the candidate to acknowledge the recent deaths of multiple trans women of color.
According to Fusion, BLM staged the protest in conjunction with the GetEQUAL campaign — a grassroots LGBT rights group — to also demand that the former Secretary of State, New York Democratic Senator and U.S. First Lady to “divest from private prisons and invest in the liberation of black transgender women.”
ADVERTISING
Video from today’s #BlackTransLivesMatter action calling on @HillaryClinton to divest from private prisons… pic.twitter.com/yo2RqkZLFu
— GetEQUAL (@GetEQUAL) August 27, 2015
According to a press release from the two groups, “The organizers interrupted Clinton’s speech in order to name the three black trans women who have been recently murdered in the state of Ohio including Cemia Dove, a black trans woman murdered in Cleveland.”
Angela Peoples, one of the protesters — and co-director of GetEQUAL — said, “Bankrolled by private prison companies and lobbyists like Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group, Hillary Clinton is part of the system of violence that criminalizes and kills Black trans people — how can we take her policy suggestions to curb mass incarceration and detention seriously while she’s accepting this money?”
As the activists disrupted her presentation, Clinton pointed to them and said, “I’ll be happy to meet with you later, but I’m going to keep talking.”
Fusion’s Jorge Rivas wrote, “At least 20 transgender women have been killed this year, 14 of them black women. In nine of those cases, Fusion found last week, charges have been filed.”
“Hillary Clinton must stand with Black people, especially Black trans women, by refusing to accept funds from or bundled by executives of or lobbyists for private prison companies — and investing the money she’s already accepted from those companies in the work toward Black trans liberation,” said GetEQUAL’s Rian Brown in a statement sent to Fusion. “Until that happens, we cannot for a moment think that Hillary believes Black Lives Matter.”
Video at article
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/blacklivesmatter-disrupts-clinton-rally-to-demand-she-cut-ties-with-prison-industrial-complex/
Why Surprising Numbers of Republicans Have Been Voting for Bernie Sanders in Vermont
Why Surprising Numbers of Republicans Have Been Voting for Bernie Sanders in Vermont
If ends up being the Democratic nominee for president, his GOP opponent is going to have a very hard time beating him.
By Thom Hartmann / AlterNet
August 18, 2015
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-surprising-numbers-republicans-have-been-voting-bernie-sanders-vermont
Ann Coulter knows who she wants to be the Democratic nominee for president, and who that person is, well, it may surprise you.
She wants Hillary Clinton to be the nominee, and thinks that if Bernie gets the nod, he'll beat whoever the Republicans come up with to run against him.
You won't hear me say this often, but Ann Coulter is right.
If Bernie Sanders ends up being the Democratic nominee for president, and it looks more and more every day like he will be, his Republican opponent is going to have a very hard time beating him.
And that's because of all the Democratic candidates running, Bernie Sanders has the best chance of capturing Republican votes.
I've seen how Bernie does this, up close and personal.
Despite its reputation as a place filled with liberal hippies, Vermont, like most of rural northern New England, is home to a lot of conservatives.
Anyone running for statewide office there needs to win these conservatives' votes, and Bernie is great at doing that.
Back in 2000 when Louise and I were living in Vermont, it wasn't all that uncommon to see his signs on the same lawn as signs that said "W for President."
Seriously, I'm not kidding.
And as NPR's "Morning Edition" found out last year, some of Bernie's biggest fans are in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, the poorest and most conservative part of the state.
It's people from the Northeast Kingdom who've overwhelmingly elected Bernie to almost 20 years in Congress and two straight terms as senator, and it's people like them in the rest of the country who will probably send Bernie to the White House if he gets the Democratic nomination for president.
So why is that?
Why is Bernie Sanders, a socialist, so popular with people who should hate "socialism?"
The answer is pretty simple.
While Americans disagree on social issues like gay marriage and abortion, they're actually pretty unified on the bread and butter economic issues that Bernie has made the core of his campaign.
In fact, a recent poll by the Progressive Change Institute, shows that Americans overwhelmingly agree with Bernie on key issues like education, health care and the economy.
Like Bernie, 75 percent of Americans poll support fair trade that "protects workers, the environment and jobs."
Seventy-one percent support giving all students access to a debt-free college education.
Seventy-one percent support a massive infrastructure spending program aimed at rebuilding our broken roads and bridges, and putting people back to work.
Seventy percent support expanding Social Security.
Fifty-nine percent support raising taxes on the wealthy so that millionaires pay the same amount in taxes as they did during the Reagan administration.
Fifty-eight percent support breaking up the big banks.
Fifty-five percent support a financial transaction or Robin Hood tax.
Fifty-one percent support single payer health care, and so and so on.
Pretty impressive, right?
And here's the thing - supporting Social Security, free college, breaking up the big banks, aren't "progressive" policies, they're just common sense, and 60 years ago they would have put Bernie Sanders smack dab in the mainstream of my father's Republican Party.
This is why Ann Coulter is so scared of Bernie becoming the Democratic nominee.
She knows that he speaks to the populist, small "d" democratic values that everyday Americans care about, regardless of their political affiliation.
That's the really radical part of Bernie's 2016 campaign, and what's what maybe, just maybe, might make him the 45th President of the United States.
Thom Hartmann is an author and nationally syndicated daily talk show host. His newest book is "The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America — and What We Can Do to Stop It."
Louisiana Drug Task Force Spent 11 Months to Nail Some Teens for Pot
Louisiana Drug Task Force Spent 11 Months to Nail Some Teens for Pot
Elite drug task forces are supposed to be taking out major drug dealers. But all this Louisiana squad could find was a handful of kids.
By Matt Agorist / The Free Thought Project
August 12, 2015
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/louisiana-drug-task-force-spent-eleven-months-nail-teens-pot
Terrebonne Parish, LA — The Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Task Force, Houma Police Department, State Police Narcotics Division and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, created an elite task force whose combined efforts over an 11-month period helped to bring down one of the country’s most dangerous criminal elements.
Or so the war on drugs would like you to believe.
ADVERTISING
What actually took place was a huge waste of taxpayer money and law enforcement resources in an attempt to bust a group of kids who were suspected of selling a plant, which is legal in 5 states, to willing customers.
Below is a breakdown of the charges and the laughable and embarrassingly tiny amount of drugs the teens were carrying.
— Austin Ferrill, 19, two counts of marijuana distribution, two counts of principal to marijuana distribution, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was charged with obstruction of justice and a turn signal violation. Agents found .80 grams of marijuana, 10 capsules of synthetic MDMA and 11 hydrocodone pills in Ferrill’s bedroom. His bond is $205,000.
For less than a single gram of pot, 10 hits of ecstasy, and pills that are in half of the medicine cabinets across the country, this young man’s life is now ruined. There were no victims.
— Cameron Clement, 19, one count of marijuana distribution. His bond is $35,000.
No drugs were found on Clement, but as he was associated with the other teens, he was kidnapped and caged and his bond set at a ridiculously high amount.
— Jude Boudreaux, 19, one count of marijuana distribution. Agents found 20 grams of high-grade marijuana in his vehicle. His bond is $50,000.
As for Mr. Boudreaux, he had an entire 20 grams. This criminal dared to carry over a half ounce of a plant that is legal in 5 states, and for this “crime,” his bail was also set ridiculously high.
It should also be noted that officials refer to the marijuana as “high-grade” in an attempt to justify wasting tens of thousands of dollars in local taxpayer money to take it off the street. In the meantime, however, someone in Colorado can walk into their local dispensary and purchase this “high-grade” marijuana, show it to a cop outside, and face no consequences.
— Gage Fontana, 19, distribution and possession with intent to distribute marijuana. His bond is $60,000.
Perhaps Fontana did not have enough weed for the cops to measure as the weight of his “high-grade” marijuana wasn’t listed on the arrest report. Still, his bail was set at a staggering $60K.
— Dylan Brewer, 17, principal to marijuana. He was apprehended at 3902 Southdown Mandalay Road, and his bond is $35,000.
And lastly, is Mr. Brewer who facing down a $35,000 bail for the preposterously vague charge of “principal to marijuana.”
Thanks to the brave men and women in the various associations participating in this asinine sting operation, these “drug kingpins” have been robbed of their future opportunity for selling a product to a willing customer.
Just in the past week, we’ve seen police officers vaginally rape a woman in public in search of marijuana. We’ve seen a Memphis cop killed as he tried to arrest someone for a small amount of pot. We’ve also seen a teenager shot and killed for simply driving a female friend to get some marijuana.
Enough is enough.
There is no such thing as winning this war on drugs as its entire existence is a failure. One day humanity will look back at the innocent lives ruined and taken in the state’s immoral conquest to control our bodies and wonder how the hell we didn’t stop this madness sooner.
Profile Information
Name: had to removeGender: Do not display
Hometown: marble falls, tx
Member since: Thu Feb 23, 2012, 04:49 AM
Number of posts: 57,075
