Voting Rights Act: Clarence Thomas Puts On His White Robe

Earlier this week, by an 8 to 1 vote, the high court decided that the time wasn’t quite right to discard a provision of the act that requires most Deep South states and more than 12,000 municipalities to seek permission from the Justice Department before changing polling places or times or reshaping electoral districts or any number of other things that could make it tough for blacks and other minorities to vote. Of course, the court narrowed the act a bit by lifting the pre-clearance provision for the Texas water district that brought the lawsuit and by allowing municipalities that have a clean record to ask for a bailout.

A surprisingly unified court found a compromise that allowed it to sidestep questions about whether the key provision of the law is constitutional, therefore avoiding a divisive showdown with Congress, which just three years ago found that the 1965 act was still needed. 

The court’s eight white justices – even Scalia – decided not to gut the act that made it possible for blacks across the South to vote without having to recite the Constitution word for word or without having to guess how many bubbles were in a bar of soap as a prerequisite to vote.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s lone African-American, found the provision unconstitutional.

According to Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas Black voters no longer need voting protection.  According to Thomas, the South has changed enough so that the Voting Rights Act was no longer needed. He said, “The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains.”

Clarence Thomas is a complete ass because things have not changed that damn much; if he read the newspaper on election day he would know what continues to happen!  Of course black voters no longer encounter Ku Klux Klansmen or racists armed with guns at polling stations or are asked ridiculous qualifying questions as they did during the Jim Crow days but today there are more subtle things being done that will disenfranchise blacks and other minorities from voting. 

In the 2008 general elections blacks in Georgia (where Thomas is from) and other Southern states would show up to vote to the polling place listed on their voter registration cards to find that the polling station had been recently moved to a neighborhood that is five miles away – making it impossible for them to get to the polls before closing since many were working class and they had to work and take public transportation. There were many polling stations that opened in black and minority neighborhoods but had no machines or had broken machines plus a plethora of unbelievable voter disfranchisement scenarios. This was just 7 months ago!!!

A look at the electoral map shows that the above scenarios aren’t born of paranoia, but of reality. Currently the Republican Party – a party that built its ranks by playing to the fears of Southern whites – has largely been isolated to the Southern region of the United States. John McCain carried states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas. Those states have every reason to fear huge turnouts of black and minority voters since that could most probably upset the outcome in certain political contests and further loosen the Republicans’ hold on the south.

Myers Anderson, Clarence Thomas’ grandfather who raised him often said to Thomas, “Don’t shame me. And don’t shame our race.”

There is no way of knowing what Myers Anderson would think of his grandson’s performance as a Supreme Court Justice.  Anderson, whom Thomas called “Daddy” died two days before his 76th birthday in 1983 while Thomas was still chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Would Myers Anderson, a black man who struggled mightily to do for himself and who, according to Thomas, routinely put up his property as bond to bail student protesters out of jail, take pride in his grandson’s service on the high court?

Would “Daddy” be able to reconcile the steadfast support that he gave the local NAACP chapter in Savannah, Georgia with his grandson’s votes on race and civil rights-voting issues, which Thomas’ black critics have characterized as traitorous?

How would “Daddy” feel if he could hear people of color say the man he helped raise from childhood should be ashamed of himself for having dishonored the seat Thurgood Marshall held?

Shame on Clarence Thomas.  His vote against the Voting Rights Act that allowed his grandfather “Daddy” to vote will forever be his legacy.  Shame on Thomas.

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We Want Health Care Reform!!!

Just like Kanye West chanted “we want pre-nup” in ‘Gold-digger’, I am chanting and we should all be chanting “we want health care reform!”

President Obama won the general elections and when he won one of the things that we Americans voted for was health care.  Like President Obama has rightfully said, “we won”.  Why would Congress have the impudence to not vote and pass President Obama’s health care reform bill?  Well, I don’t care what congress’ political reasons are, “I want health care reform!”

I am willing to organize family, friends and neighbors, call members of Congress and the Senate and cajole and pressure our elected officials so they do what the ‘people’ want.  I hope you’re ready to organize and make calls as well. 

Here is why we need health care reform.  Simply put families need to be able to get the care they need, from a physician of their choice, at a price they can afford.

Many families’ wages have been stagnant for years and our budgets have been undermined by the rising cost of living and health care. We have a dysfunctional and unsustainable health insurance system and families need Congressional action to assure quality and affordable care. We wanted health care reform twenty years ago; today we NEED it desperately!

Excessively high health care costs are a drag on our economic recovery since working families are putting more and more money into health care instead of buying things from retailers or what have you and helping the economy.

Hard working people like me and you are falling further and further behind in bills and too many people have filed for bankruptcy just because they got sick.  It is sick that the number one reason for personal bankruptcy in the United States is a major health care crisis.  That is ridiculous and inexcusable; this is THE United States of America – the greatest country in the world – shouldn’t we have health care for all our citizens?

At the same time small businesses and companies that provide satisfactory employee health care benefits are at a severe economical disadvantage against companies that do not provide adequate coverage to their employees and that’s not right; companies doing the right thing should not be penalized financially.

Our current system is utterly unaffordable. Health care costs Americans $2.3 TRILLION a year and 50 million people aren’t even covered.  Lower health care costs will help to expand access to more people and at the same time take some financial pressure off even those of us with insurance.

Health care providers have to also do their part to eliminate the imbalance in health care and all employers must be required to pay their fair share.

Changing the way we pay for health care must also be a part of the solution. We cannot continue to pay for expensive technology and treatments that have no evidence of effectiveness. Health care providers should be compensated for the quality – and not the quantity – of health care they deliver.

We must streamline and modernize the way we access medical records and eliminate inefficiencies and flaws in the system that cost money and cost lives.

Despite protests by those who offer NO solutions, it is clear that our government must have a role in controlling costs and regulating private insurance. We need a quality public insurance plan option that will end the dominance and price gouging of private insurers.

I am demanding it.  The public is demanding it.  76% of Americans are demanding a quality public health care option and WE must be prepared to fight Congress to get it. 

I hope you’re ready to fight!

Happy Father’s Day!

If you’re a great hands on Dad who is a positive influence in your child(ren)’s life – Happy Father’s Day to you!!! 

If you’re not, it’s never too late to start actively participating and being an integral and positive influence in your child(ren)’s life. Our collective future needs you to be a responsible, accountable and  good father so we have well adjusted young people who grow up to be well adjusted responsible adults.  As an adult you know that life can be difficult so why create unnecessary insecurities in your child’s life by being absent?  Why make your child(ren) a statistic?

As a candidate and now president, Barack Obama has been telling men what sort of father they should be. It has become his Father’s Day ritual. He’s asking  ALL American men to be better fathers than his own.

The president showcased fatherhood in a series of events and a magazine article in advance of Father’s Day this Sunday. He said he came to understand the importance of fatherhood from its absence in his childhood homes — an estimated 24 million Americans today are growing up without a dad!

Fathers run deep in the political culture as they do everywhere else, for better and worse. Michelle Obama has said many times how her late dad, Fraser, is her reference point and rock — she checks in with him, in her mind, routinely and at important moments. 

A Kenyan goat herder-turned-intellectual who clawed his way to scholarships and Harvard, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. left a family behind to get his schooling in the United States. He started another family here, then left his second wife and 2-year-old Barack Jr. to return to Africa with another woman.

His promise flamed out in Africa after stints working for an oil company and the government; he fell into drink and died in a car crash when his son was 21, a student at Columbia University.

“I don’t want to be the kind of father I had,” the president is quoted as telling a friend in a new book about him.

His sister, Maya, called his memoirs “part of the process of excavating his father.”

Obama now cajoles ALL men to be better fathers — not the kind who must be unearthed in the soul.

His finger-wagging is most pointed when addressing other black men, reflecting years of worry about the fabric of black families and single mothers, but it applies to everyone.

Father’s Day 2007: “Let’s admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child.”

Father’s Day 2008: “Any fool can have a child. That doesn’t make you a father. It’s the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.”

Father’s Day 2009: “We need to step out of our own heads and tune in. We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids, and listening to them, and understanding what’s going on in their lives.”

He doesn’t hold himself out as the ideal dad. No driven politician can.

“I know I have been an imperfect father,” he writes in Sunday’s Parade magazine. “I know I have made mistakes. I have lost count of all the times, over the years, when the demands of work have taken me from the duties of fatherhood.”

He volunteered for those demands, as all people do when they want power. His years as a community organizer, Illinois lawmaker, U.S. senator and presidential candidate often kept him apart from family.

At the same time, he went to great lengths in the 2008 campaign to find time with his girls and wife, and now considers the routine family time one of the joys of living and working in the White House.

The new book “Renegade” by Richard Wolffe recounts strains in the marriage early this decade, arising from his absences and from what Michelle Obama apparently considered his selfish careerism at the time. The author interviewed the Obamas, friends and associates.

Obama himself attributed his “fierce ambitions” to his dad while crediting his mother — a loving but frequently absent figure — with giving him the means to pursue them.

“Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father’s expectations or make up for his father’s mistakes,” he once wrote, “and I suppose that may explain my particular malady as well as anything else.” By malady, he meant the will to achieve.

Obama was a schoolboy in Hawaii when his father came back to visit. He gave his dad a tie. His father gave him a basketball and African figurines and came to his class to speak about Kenya. He was an impressive, mysterious figure whom Obama found compelling, volatile and vaguely threatening.

The visit took a sour turn when Obama went to watch “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and his father made him shut off the TV, saying he watched too much. Obama slammed the bedroom door; a loud argument ensued among grown-ups.

Be present inyour child(ren)’s life. They need your time – now.

Happy Father’s Day to MY G-R-E-A-T Dad!

New Study – Homosexual Behavior Widespread In Animals

 The pairing of same sex couples had previously been observed in more than 1,000 species including penguins, dolphins and primates.

However, in the latest study the authors claim the phenomenon is not only widespread but part of a necessary biological adaptation for the survival of the species.

They found that on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, almost a third of the Laysan albatross (large seabirds) population is raised by pairs of two females because of the shortage of males. Through these ‘lesbian’ unions, Laysan albatross are flourishing. Their existence had been dwindling before the adaptation was noticed.

Other species form same-sex bonds for other reasons, they found. Dolphins have been known engage in same-sex interactions to facilitate group bonding while male-male pairings in locusts killed off the weaker males.

A pair of “gay” penguins recently hatched an egg at a German zoo after being given the egg that had been rejected by its biological parents by keepers.

Writing in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Dr. Nathan Bailey, an evolutionary biologist at California University, said previous studies have failed to consider the evolutionary consequences of homosexuality.

He said same homosexual behavior was often a product of natural selection to further the survival of the species.

Dr Bailey said: “It’s clear same-sex sexual behavior extends far beyond the well-known examples that dominate both the scientific and popular literature – for example, bonobos, dolphins, penguins and fruit flies.”

“Same-sex behaviors – courtship, mounting or parenting – are traits that may have been shaped by natural selection, a basic mechanism of evolution that occurs over successive generations,” he said.

“But our review of studies also suggests that these same-sex behaviors might act as selective forces in and of themselves.”

Original post:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/5550488/Homosexual-behaviour-widespread-in-animals-according-to-new-study.html

President Obama Swats A Fly – It Makes The News Cycle and PETA Protests!

 

Come on now news media!  How ridiculous is it that this is in the news cycle??? It is absurd, foolish, and ludicrous that this even made the news. Just plain dumb!

Once upon a time not so long ago when America had real journalists and we could depend on the news being newsworthy, this “fly-killing” would have be edited out so as not to embarrass the President of the United States whether he was a Democrat or a Republican.  It is preposterous that the news division of CNBC edited this into their broadcast to create news.  This is NOT news.  CNBC should be embarrassed that they no longer have a reputable news team and are depending on insects to create their lead story.  I am dumb founded!

It is even more ridiculous that PETA is protesting the “Killing of the Fly”.  They have just lost any creditability they had with me.  Flies are dirty, germ and disease carrying pests and they all need to be whacked! 

Flies are NASTY by nature and collect pathogens on their legs and mouths when females lay eggs on decomposing organic matter such as feces, garbage and animal corpses.  Houseflies carry diseases on their legs and the small hairs that cover their bodies. It takes only a matter of seconds for them to transfer these pathogens to food or touched surfaces. Diseases carried by houseflies include typhoid, cholera and dysentery.

I am happy to have a President who is a Ninja fly killer!  As a matter of fact, let he or she who has never swatted a fly cast the first rock — um — whack!

Is Dick Cheney Now Anti-American?

In an interview with Jane Mayer for The New Yorker magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta generated some media attention for saying that “it’s almost as if he is wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point.”

Cheney has repeatedly criticized the Obama Administration’s approach to terrorism and Panetta was responding to a speech the former vice president made at the American Enterprise Institute, where he accused the Administration of making the United States less safe for ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, halting enhanced interrogations of suspected terrorists and reversing other Bush administration initiatives he says helped to prevent attacks on the U.S.

Panetta’s exact statement was, “I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue. It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics.”

Vice President Joe Biden was asked during an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he agreed.  The VP said that “he wouldn’t question the motive behind Cheney’s criticism. He said, “I think Dick Cheney’s judgment about how to secure America is faulty. I think our judgment is correct.”

Complete New Yorker article:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/22/090622fa_fact_mayer

Confirmation That Rush Limbaugh Is INSANE! Believes That White Supremacist Is A Leftist!!!

It was just a matter of time before divisive rhetoric and ideology like Rush Limbaugh’s send insane people over the edge and cause serious harm to communities in the United States.

Rush Limbaugh needs to be responsible and recognize that words are powerful and influence people.  Limbaugh has been selling fear to his listeners with extreme right wing propaganda.  It is dangerous.

It seems that guilt has taken hate monger Rush Limbaugh so much waaay over the edge that he’s now saying that cold blooded murderer James von Brunn, the man that murdered museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns (who was kind and held the door open for him at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC) was influenced by the left wing!

This proves either that Limbaugh is c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y delusional and needs psychiatric help or that he is c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y selfish and is willing to destroy the Republican Party.

Limbaugh is uneducated about the facts he speaks about, he’s ignorant, selfish, dim-witted and a security hazard and at this point I think someone in the Secret Service should go to his office and have a conversation with him.

Watch the asinine and fanciful video of Limbaugh saying that white supremacist, Aryan Nation advocate, Jew hater, black people hater James von Brunn is a leftist: