Jack & Jill Politics

hat tip:W.E.E. See You

President Obama addresses the National Urban League.

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Good Morning.

TGIF, and spend some of it here with us at JJP.

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And always, have a peaceful day.

I read this on Daily Kos and started hollering. Hat Tip to Fossil, who’s diary I’m excerpting.  You can always wake up a Republican by hitting them in the pocketbook.

“Even Republicans say they aren’t voting Republican anymore,” the soft-spoken former technical writer says. “You have millions of unemployed people out there. If even half of them voted, they could swing a nationwide election.”

Remember, the Republicans said we, the Unemployed, were:

Lazy

Didn’t want to work

Drug-addicted,

and should go back to being Hoboes, like they had during the Great Depression.

Now, all that obstructionism will hopefully come back to bite them in the ass, because when they alluded to the unemployed, I think they thought they were targeting Democrats, while shooting their own Republican base in the feet.

Yeah, we’re so lazy, don’t want to work, drug-addicted and entitled, we’re not wasting time being hoboes.  Instead, according to the Washington Independent, the unemployed are organizing like a union for the mid-term elections.

People are angry at repubs calling them lazy or deficient in work ethic or skills even as they promote policies that benefit wealth over labor or create the conditions for arbitrage of labor.  And they appear to be organizing on the net.

To me this is great.  An awakening to the realization that the past 30 years of reactionary policy has sold out the American public.  I hope it destroys the urban myth that low taxes will make them rich or that free trade floats all boats.  30 million people have sunk below notice of our government and what remains of the middle class is barely afloat.  Perhaps people, thinking about low taxes and free trade are asking, in the words of a TV personality; “How is that working for ya?”

Yepper, that last comment about the “hope-y, changey; how’s that working for ya” Mama Grizzly Queen Grifter looks like its going to get turned on its head.  While the Democrats appear to be going in the right direction by tying the Tea Baggers to the GOBP (“one and the same”), I remain skeptical that some DLC Blue Dog is going to come along and gum up the works.

However, if all us unemployed vote for better Democrats and remember that we couldn’t pay our bills and the entire summer sucked because the GOBP blocked the passage of an extension of UI benefits, maybe we can get a more responsive government working for us, the American people.

Remember when I said this?

And when I’m back on my feet, I will make it my PERSONAL mission to personally target each and every Democratic Senator who helped the ReThugs block unemployment benefits and continue to engage in the ugly secret of continued VICTIMIZATION.  If that’s the best these mofos can do in representing our best interests, maybe unknowns like Democratic Senate candidate Alvin Greene will start to look better and better to US. 

My post got tweeted and picked up by those very internet blogs doing this organizing.  So, I’ve contributed a little, but, boy, am I ready to fire it up for more!  I’ve already signed up with their activism blogs (google: SUPPORT FOR THE UNEMPLOYED and several sites will appear, suggesting organization, newsletters and listing the Congress members who blocked the benefits, while paying homage to BP.)

I said I refused to go out THAT EASY. 

The DNC is running a campaign to tie the GOP to the Teabaggers – that they are one in the same.

As our own CPL said – it’s about time!

Why not use the Tea Baggers as an anvil; tie it around their necks, and toss them in the ocean and allow them to DROWN.

The Tea Baggers are a gift horse that the DNC can’t afford to ignore.

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Good Afternoon.

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

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Good afternoon family.

I’m so happy to be here at JJP, and hope to contribute on a regular basis. For those who don’t know me, I am a minister, activist, and the President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus Education Fund.

Our Hip Hop Caucus movement got started in 2004. I was the Political and Grassroots Director for Russell Simmons and we were registering voters and getting out the vote at the time. I also was a co-creator of the “Vote Or Die!” campaign with P. Diddy, and I ran an operation out of AFL-CIO called Hip Hop Voices through which we were registering voters in target states, all in 2004.

Some of the folks who were working with me at the time and I knew, however, that there needed to be a sustainable political institution for the Hip Hop generation and the Hip Hop community to plug into. So in September 2004, the first Hip Hop Caucus was held at Howard University, and from there our movement grew. Today the Hip Hop Caucus Education Fund has nearly 700,000 members around the country.

Here is a short video that talks about our movement work in the 2008 election: POLITICO on the Hip Hop Caucus movement

I look forward to sharing more with you and hearing from you as well.

For Future Generations…
Rev Yearwood

Fox News has always obsessed about the Netroots Nation conference. That’s because they are genuinely freaked out by the power of blogs and twitter to counter their sick racist memes and to provide an alternative vision for our nation built on real American values truth, justice, equality and opportunity.

This year, Glenn Beck covered the NN10 conference Monday with a vengeance literally. He was clearly aroused by just how many people — particularly, especially black people — mentioned his name at the conference. I’m not only on the Board of Directors of Netroots Nation the organization, but I also sat on the Agenda committee this year and helped recruit some of the panelists seen in Glenn Beck’s video. A lot of people mentioned Beck’s name as an example of the worst messaging the right has to offer. Yet, you’d think from his telling of it, that only mainly black people wanna take him down at Netroots Nation. And for the first time I can remember as a regular viewer of his very strange show, he actually referenced James Rucker of Color of Change directly and talked about the campaign that you’ve helped with here at JJP — asking advertisers to stop supporting a racist TV program. But don’t believe me — see if you see the pattern yourself:

Know that your efforts to hold Beck accountable for his racist and distorted diatribes are having an effect on the man. Otherwise, he wouldn’t go to so much trouble to listen to everything every black person had to say at Netroots Nation. The only reason I’m not included: I never actually said his name at NN10 — not even once! Sorry Glenn — maybe next time…

Here’s what Beck had to say about James Rucker, btw:

JAMES RUCKER, COLOR OF CHANGE CO-FOUNDER: Unfortunately, Glenn Beck is in my brain all the time. It’s bad for your health — psychological health.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Gee, that’s too bad, James. I haven’t spent a single moment thinking about you and my business has never been more successful. We’re having our best year of all time. But Rucker knows that we’re exposing the progressive agenda to the light of day and he doesn’t like it:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUCKER: No one knew what Tides was until Glenn Beck started — I mean people outside of our political world knew what Tides was until they were on Glenn Beck’s blackboard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Why would you want the American people to know about Tides? Aren’t they helping people? Aren’t they working for “social justice?” Isn’t that what all of your progressive friends are working towards?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUCKER: One of the campaigns we ran last year, Color of Change, was basically going after Glenn Beck’s advertisers where we thankfully stripped him of normal brands, companies you’d recognize. But the reality is — and we knew this — we weren’t trying to — well, we were trying to, actually, we were trying to marginalize Beck. We didn’t expect we would get him off the air. We wanted to make him untouchable to a certain degree.

Being on the other side of Beck it can be kind of a stressful thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Gosh James, I’m sorry. I’m sure that barely being mentioned on my show is much more stressful than four advisers to the president of the United States running smear and boycott campaigns against you. I can’t imagine how hard one or two mentions on my show has been for you.

Somehow, Beck thinks that the fact that a black man was rightfully elected in America (just: not by the majority of white people) means that we’re about to “crown a new earthly king”? How is it exactly that black and brown and red and yellow people plus the white people who love them voting successfully for their champion using the same ballot boxes as everybody else equals communism or socialism? Can someone please explain that me? Because I’m pretty sure Beck can’t. Apparently democracy is different when you and I apply it – now ain’t that strange?

Hey fam — I thought you might be interested in this video from the Netroots Nation conference last weekend. I’m a member of the board of directors at NN and they asked me to represent the netroots community in an Ask the Speaker Keynote session in Las Vegas. As you know, we reached out to get your good questions from twitter, facebook, blogs like JJP and Daily Kos and email. It was a little scary with all the lights and people and tv cameras. But I just kept breathing and thinking of all the folks who were relying on me here at JJP to not choke on stage and ask the Speaker some good questions. The last question I asked the Speaker was my own and I think the one that moved people the most.

It was also a pleasure to meet and introduce Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). She was very impressed with my iPad. She’s the person who led the successful fight to put freshness dates on supermarket food. She told me that when she has trouble getting a bill passed in the House, she goes to the supermarket and watches people check the freshness dates on items. How cool is that?

Rep. Donna Edwards was also there up front – she’s super-nice. Fortunately I had only one heckler — I threatened to release the Krakken on her! :-)

And as for the Speaker herself, well, she’s all sincerity, sugar & smarts with a little steel. Cuz ya needs that if you’re gonna be the Speaker, sista. She’s an amazing woman who left us with the call for American women to “Know Your Power” – if you want to be successful in the world of politics. That’s also apparently the title of her autobiography, which I’m definitely planning to download to my Kindle with a quickness.

It was very cool to meet Christine Pelosi, activist, mom and the Speaker’s daughter. She gave me a super-nice shoutout in her wrapup HuffPo post re: NN10 that looks back to NN05 aka YearlyKos:

Having participated in this movement for several years, I’m particularly proud of our progress on the “pluribus” front. I can recall Howard Dean running for President and DNC chair talking about having to diversify the online progressive movement to bring in people on the other side of the digital divide. At the first netroots convention in June 2006 — called Yearlykos — there was a question “should more women and people of color be blogging?” By 2010 we had a woman of color — Cheryl Contee, aka Jill Tubman of www.jackandjillpolitics.com –interviewing America’s first woman Speaker of the House – Nancy Pelosi – as well as expanded ranks of women bloggers, presenters, and candidates.

[...]

What leaders survive in this bold new world? Those who have the guts and grit to pick up the banner, stand for the cause, and keep their word. Those who aren’t uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, who can channel their inner FDR and say to netroots activists what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told Frances Perkins about Social Security “you’ve convinced me; now make me do it.” Those who can successfully navigate the inside maneuvering and outside mobilization. Lately much has been made of whether activists pull parties to the left or right — my impression from the trenches is that activists pull them from the pragmatic to the ideal. Over and over I heard people say we shouldn’t start in the middle or water down our values — we should start with the ideal not the lowest common denominator.

Anyway, thanks so much for all of your love, support and prayers. I’m needing those now more than ever.

hat tips: Booker Rising and W.E.E. See You

Former Secretary of State Condi Rice and Aretha Franklin teamed up for charity.

Condoleezza Rice is no stranger to the whims of royalty. So when the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, decided the two should get together to play a song or two for charity, it was decreed.

The former U.S. secretary of state and Franklin took the stage Tuesday evening at Philadelphia’s Mann Music Center in a rare duet for Rice, the classically trained pianist, and Franklin, the divalicious voice of a generation. Their aim was to raise money for inner-city youth of Philadelphia and Detroit and awareness for music and the arts.

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hat tip-The Daily Dish

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

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hat tip-W.E.E. See You

President Obama on Citizens United: “Imagine the Power This Will Give Special Interests Over Politicians”

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hat tip:W.E.E. See You

Hardball: Willie Brown and E. Steven Collins discuss the media’s role in Sherrod story

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Good Afternoon.

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

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Jack And Jill is going to the White House tomorrow for a discussion on how the Wall St. financial reform will affect on the African American community. They want to know what questions our audience has. So please leave a question in the comment box on what you would like to know about Wall St. reform and we will take the best questions and ask them tomorrow. We will be live streaming the Q&A at some time next week.

For background from TPM

Five months after President Obama announced a $1.25 billion settlement for black farmers who faced overt discrimination by the USDA in the eighties and nineties — and several days after the Sherrod case brought the issue up again — Congress again refused to authorize the money.

On Thursday, the Senate quietly stripped the funding for the Pigford II settlement and several other programs from a supplemental war funding bill. Senators then unanimously passed their version of the bill, which will go back to the House.

Conservative opposition to the settlement came to light last week in the aftermath of the Shirley Sherrod scandal. A farm collective founded by Sherrod and her husband that was forced out of business by the discriminatory practices received a $13 million settlement as part of Pigford last year, just before she was hired by the USDA. Some, including Rep. Steve King (R-IA), have called the settlement a fraud.

Majority Leader Harry Reid blamed Republicans for the failure to pass Pigford.

“I hoped that tonight the Senate could finally right a wrong that has been left unresolved for far too long. But Republicans stood in the way,” he said in a statement. “As recent events have reminded us, the fact that justice and fairness were denied to black farmers for so many years continues to have ramifications today. … Republicans should be held accountable for standing in the way of justice for those affected.”

But several Democrats — including Sens. Evan Bayh (IN) and Tom Carper (DE) — also voted to block the bill.

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From Crooks and Liars

WALSH: — is class as much as race. I’m not giving her a pass. But I think the idea that she shouldn’t be able to say Fox or Breitbart is racist preposterous. She gets to say that because it’s true, and because from her vantage point it’s especially true.

KURTZ: Well, in fairness, it’s certainly debatable.

Excuse me, but WTF, Howie? There is nothing fair about that statement. This is a woman who has endured INSTITUTIONALIZED racism her whole life–watching the murderer of her father go free by a white grand jury, who organized and was then denied the ability to create a cooperative for black farmers, who ultimately lost her family farm because of Lester Maddox denying loans to black farmers, who was part of the largest successful civil rights violation lawsuit in the US, whose husband was a leading member of non-violent coordination in Georgia during the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, as the visibly seething Joan Walsh points out. Shirley Sherrod has lived with and tried to rise above the oppression and bigotry that you can’t even contemplate, taking responsibility to make the world better for those who come after her.

But privileged Caucasian Howie Kurtz, sitting comfortably in his DC digs with his Republican fundraiser wife, can decide that it’s “debatable” whether Shirley Sherrod, who has spent her life trying to help those who are poor and oppressed (rather than navel-gazing on the role of the media), knows racism when she sees it.

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hat tip – ProfGeo

Next segment of Reliable Sources had 3 African Americans, a new world record? Toward the end they got around to Sherrod but they discussed the overall dearth of black faces in MSM, a much better discussion IMO. Intro & snippet:

KURTZ: Something really striking happened when I tried to book the segment you’re about to see about minorities and the media.

I talked to several very prominent African-American journalists who said they would love to come on the program but the subject was just too sensitive to discuss publicly, or their bosses did not want them speaking out in public.

Look at the people who have gotten the latest primetime hosting jobs in cable news: Lawrence O’Donnell at MSNBC; Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker at CNN. They join people like Sean and Bill and Keith and Rachel and Anderson. They join the Sunday show hosts and the evening news anchors and the principal network morning hosts. Not an African-American face among them except for GMA’s Robin Roberts.

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US First Lady Michelle Obama applauds as 10-year-old Christina McCray throws a ceremonial first pitch at Camden Yards in Baltimore on July 20, 2010 before the Baltimore Orioles take on the Tampa Bay Rays. Major League Baseball, the Major League Baseball Players Association and the White House announced a new joint initiative as part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move program.
—-NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

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