Jack & Jill Politics

Sen Jeff Sessions announced his intentions to do crack cocaine

What an ignorant cracka.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xKffT3heA

Rikyrah - cool picture alert

slide pic 10 Travels of the Obama Presidency
FRANCE, June 2009
The president's name is written on a beach near Colleville-sur-Mer, France, June 6, 2009, during commemorations to mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day. On June 6, 1944, allied forces landed in Normandy, France, then occupied by Nazi Germany.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Travel/popup?id=...

Secessionist Gov. Rick Perry Asks For Federal Loan After Rejecting Stimulus

In March, Texas Gov. Rick Perry rejected $555 million in federal stimulus money that would have expanded unemployment benefits for Texans. Perry argued at the time that accepting the stimulus dollars would force the state to expand eligibility to include thousands of low-wage workers -- including part-time employees like single mothers, college students and senior citizens -- which Perry bemoaned would burden tax payers with "higher taxes and expanded obligations." When explaining the decision, Perry told Fox News, "this was pretty simple for us." But now Perry is reversing his decision.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/16/perry-follo...

Rick Perry - 0

Karma - 1

Everytime they take her on, they lose. Karma is undefeated.

Miss Celie: "Til you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna fail!"

By: Jason Rosenbaum Wednesday July 15, 2009 6:30 pm

Health care reform will be a lot of things to this country beyond providing quality, affordable health care for everyone. It can be seen as economic stimulus to get our country moving again. If we increase taxes on those making more than a quarter of a million dollars per year to pay for it, as the House has proposed, we can reform the tax code to be more progressive as we're passing health reform. Health care reform can be all these things.
And it can also fight racism.
Today, Health Care for America Now released a report today [pdf] on the inequities evident in our health care system, complete with state by state data. Here are the irrefutable facts:

As a result people of color are trapped in a vicious cycle of disease, poor quality of care and insufficient access to non-emergency and preventive services. This comes at a terribly high cost. Were racial disparities absent from our health care, the deaths of more than 880,000 African Americans would have been averted from 1991 to 2000, according to a recent analysis of mortality data. The implications are profound when one considers the demographic trends at work today. The Census Bureau projects that 62 percent of the U.S. population will consist of people of color by 2050, when the U.S. population is expected to reach 439 million, up from 302 million today.

Compared to non-Latino whites, African Americans and Latinos are more likely to go without health care because they can’t afford it. A larger share of African Americans and Latinos lack a usual place of health care, and they are less than half as likely as whites to have a regular doctor. Low-income residents and people of color always score lower in measures of preventive health, such as frequency of cancer screenings and well-visit checkups. Inequities in health are accompanied by disparities in health insurance coverage. People of color have the highest rates of uninsurance.
...
The effects are devastating to a multicultural society. They include shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates, lower quality care, greater risk of diabetes, higher likelihood of death from cancer, less access to life-extending high-tech procedures, and increased risk of receiving undesirable treatments, such as limb amputations.

To put it another way, people of color die because our health care system doesn't serve them nearly as well as those of us who are white.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/

"Were racial disparities absent from our health care, the deaths of more than 880,000 African Americans would have been averted from 1991 to 2000, according to a recent analysis of mortality data."

What part of the so-call healthcare reform debate addresses this?

Honoring Paul Wellstone’s Legacy: Fighting Like Hell for Health Care Reform
By: MikeElk Wednesday July 15, 2009

I had the rare privilege of meeting one of my heroes, Paul Wellstone, shortly before his death in 2002 when I visited Washington as part of a conference for high school students interested in politics. We had the opportunity to meet several senators during our time in Washington, but Paul Wellstone treated us differently -- more like we were friends coming over for a cup of coffee than a bunch of nerdy high school students on a trip. He insisted that we not call him "senator," but instead simply Paul.
While other senators were going on and on about their accomplishments or telling corny jokes, Paul went around and asked what issues were important to us and what we were doing currently to advocate for these policies. He suggested ideas about how we could become more involved, more effective, and what other issues we might want to get involved in. He encouraged us "to go out and fight because that was the only way change has ever been achieved." Paul's faith in my ability to achieve social change inspired me so much that I spent the rest of my summer volunteering full time to help elect Ed Rendell as governor in Pennsylvania.

A few months later. I was in tears as I listened to the news over NPR that Paul Wellstone and his loving wife, Shelia, had died in a plane crash on their way to a funeral of a steelworker in Northern Minnesota. Paul Wellstone, a tireless champion of the working class served as an inspiration to a generation of activists during the dark days of a decade long Republican reign. For the last seven years, I have kept a photo of Paul Wellstone and me on my desk as a source of inspiration for when the times get tough.
Paul came to the United States Senate under the most unusual of circumstances. He was a college professor who had been arrested protesting with union workers and had previously spent most of his career organizing welfare mothers and poor farmers. No one had expected him to win his first campaign for Senate against an incumbent Republican Senator as he was outspent nearly seven to one. Paul had a secret weapon though his ability to inspire regular people to get out and organize. Unemployed, single mothers held bake sales to help fund his campaign, youth not old enough to vote spent hours volunteering for him. He formed a grassroots army of thousands of ordinary folks and trained them in community organizing.

When Paul Wellstone was elected to the Senate, he never forgot the thousands of ordinary folks that put their hopes and their dreams in him by working to get him elected. He summed up his philosophy about why he was in the Senate by saying, "I don't represent the big oil companies, the big pharmaceuticals or the big insurance industry. They already have great representation in Washington. Its the rest of the people that need representation."
Many Senators had referred to Paul as "The Conscience of the Senate." Only 5 feet 4 inches tall and walking with a severe limp, Wellstone would stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate and rail against corporates interests with the tenacity of the All-American wrestler that he was once. And then he would go back home on the weekends and teach those people how to community organize and fight against the powerful interests that were ruining their lives. Its unknown how many people Wellstone inspired, but to this day you can still see thousands of green bumper stickers in Minnesota with the phrase "W.W.W.D. -- What Would Wellstone Do?"

Last week, Al Franken, a friend of Paul's who had been inspired to run for office by Paul's death, took back Paul's old seat from Republican Norm Coleman. After reading, I found myself wondering of what Paul would be doing now if he was still a U.S. senator. Paul had spent the majority of his career in the minority party in the Senate. In his book Conscience of a Liberal, Paul admitted that in his time in the U.S. Senate he spent nearly 85 percent of his time defending against Republican attacks on working families and he never had the opportunity to fight for things like the big reform measures that he craved. I thought about how Paul would be down on the floor of the Senate to talk about the 20,000 people that die every year due to a lack of health coverage, or to talk about how his access to quality health care as a United States senator allowed him to continue having a productive life despite his semi-debilitating multiple sclerosis.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6376

Obama as Health Care Salesman...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/arch...

Conserv1 as .. . . .

I take it back. Even though you deserve it.

Too late...

I already read what you wrote

teehee

CIA Assassin Program Was Nearing New Phase
Panetta Pulled Plug After Training Was Proposed
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 16, 2009

CIA officials were proposing to activate a plan to train anti-terrorist assassination teams overseas when agency managers brought the secret program to the attention of CIA Director Leon Panetta last month, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The plan to kill top al-Qaeda leaders, which had been on the agency's back burner for much of the past eight years, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight because of proposals to initiate what one intelligence official called a "somewhat more operational phase." Shortly after learning of the plan, Panetta terminated the program and then went to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers, who had been kept in the dark since 2001.

The Obama administration's top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, yesterday defended Panetta's decision to cancel the program, which he said had raised serious questions among intelligence officials about its "effectiveness, maturity and the level of control."
But Blair broke with some Democrats in Congress by asserting that the CIA did not violate the law when it failed to inform lawmakers about the secret program until last month. Blair said agency officials may not have been required to notify Congress about the program, though he believes they should have done so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

HEALTH CARE UPDATE: CBO Chief Criticizes Democrats’ Health Reform Measures: Director Says Proposed Changes Would Weaken Economy. “Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would worsen an already bleak budget outlook, increasing deficit projections and driving the nation more deeply into debt, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Barbara Boxer Plays the Race Card Against a Black Businessman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNFWRRaTL5I&eurl...

Played the race card how? Because some borderline nutcase with dark skin went ballistic because she read from an NAACP statement endorsing climate change legislation?

co-signing eclecticbrotha

eclecticbrotha i love u, but i have seen the tape and i whole heartdly agree with the guys reaction....she was very very condescending!!!!

I disagree. Conserv1 linked to a chopped up version of the incident. Alford was arguing against the climate change legislation and claiming he represented "the black viewpoint." Boxer cited instances of other black organizations that supported the legislation, trying to show that her side had a diversity of support. She cited more than just black group, a Pew study and an oil company also was mentioned. Alford went all Unca Ruckus trying to turn it into a racial confrontation.

Why did she feel it necessary to point out to this man that a 'black' organization had endorsed climate-change legislation? Does Boxer, believe that all black people should feel the same about every given issue?

If he came there with the intent of trying to portray the "black viewpoint", she wasn't wrong in presenting another black viewpoint. It looked to me like everyone was grandstanding, especially those white conservative commenters at Politico, who all of a sudden are so appalled by percieved anti-black racism. You know...like the above commenter here. Stop trying to bullshit people.

Say it again

Wow.

McNair leaves no will; wife to adminster estate

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The widow of slain former NFL quarterback Steve McNair says in court documents that her husband left no will and a judge in Nashville has ruled that she will oversee his estate.

Davidson County Probate Judge Randy Kennedy granted Mechelle McNair's request to administer the estate and gave her 60 days to file an inventory of her late husband's assets. She says in court documents that she did not know her late husband's worth, but documents contend it is "of sufficient size to be administered."

Police say McNair was shot to death on July 4 by a girlfriend who later turned the gun on herself. Nashville police have ruled it a murder-suicide.

Mechelle McNair listed herself and her two sons, Tyler and Trenton McNair, as the heirs to the estate. McNair also has two other sons from a previous relationship.

BTW, his two sons from a previous relationship are much older than his kids with his wife. One son is 17 or 18 yrs old.

Since the two elder sons were not inlcuded as heirs to the estate, will they now have to sue the estate for their share? This sounds like it will get messy. Can't believe that he didn't have a will. I always thought that the NFL had folks on staff who helped the players get this sort of thing together.

I think anyone making substantial income even though they're young and single should still have a will set up. Didn't Heath Ledger's family have to go to court too? Even Anna Nicole's family was fighting up in court over her estate....but especially those who are the providers for their parents (like McNair was at the time of his death) - he provided for his mother, what happens now?

Estates laws may vary by state, but since he died intestate (without a will) the state will get their cut FIRST.

If the probate court gave the estate to Mechelle McNair to administer, she can do what she wants to do with it, since he didn't say what he wanted done with it.

So, yes, they may have to sue if they want money from his estate. It's not automatically theirs just because they are his kids. In fact, she could make them take a paternity test to prove that they are his...

Ugly...

Messy, indeed. So now the state will take some of what otherwise should have been distributed to his wife and children. Unbelievable!

I can't believe McNair left his wife in the dark about his finances. I'm not saying she needed to know his assets down to the penny, but you have to plan for all kinds of eventualities. This is going to be a hot mess that could have been avoided.

I can't believe she didn't make it her business to know about the family finances. If not for selfish reasons, she should have made sure that a will was in place to protect her children. Hasn't every black women seen Waiting to Exhale! LOL! Seriously, every woman should have her own bank account and credit cards and should know where every penny being made by her partner/spouse is going. This should be the case whether he makes $30k/yr or $30M/yr. If you don't understand finances LEARN!

dup

dup

dup

dup - server issues

They do. The unfortunate fact is the player still has to sign the document(will).

I had a peace sign on my old car back in the 60s. Brings back memories.

LZ Granderson: Gay is not the new Black

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/16/granders...

(CNN) -- Far from flowing rainbow flags, the sound of Lady Gaga and, quite honestly, white people, stands a nightclub just outside of Wicker Park in Chicago, Illinois, by the name of The Prop House.

The line to get in usually stretches down the block, and unlike many of the clubs in Boystown and Andersonville, this one plays hip-hop and caters to men who may or may not openly identify as gay, but without question are black and proud.

And a good number of them are tired of hearing how the gay community is disappointed in President Obama, because they are not.

In recent weeks, one would have thought the nation's first black president was also the nation's biggest homophobe. Everyone from Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black and radio personality Rachel Maddow to Joe Solmonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay advocacy group, seem to be blasting Obama for everything from "don't ask don't tell" to Adam Lambert not winning American Idol.

In their minds, Obama is not moving fast enough on behalf of the GLBT community. The outcry is not completely without merit -- the Justice Department's unnerving brief on the Defense of Marriage Act immediately comes to mind. I was upset by some of the statements, but not surprised. (After the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, President Ronald Reagan's initial handling of AIDS and, more recently, Katrina, there is little that surprises me when it comes to the government and the treatment of its people.)

Still, rarely has criticism regarding Obama and the GLBT community come from the kind of person you would find standing in line at a spot like The Prop House, and there's a reason for that.

Despite the catchiness of the slogan, gay is not the new black.

Black is still black.

And if any group should know this, it's the gay community.

Bars such as The Prop House, or Bulldogs in Atlanta, Georgia, exist because a large number of gay blacks -- particularly those who date other blacks, and live in the black community -- do not feel a part of the larger gay movement. There are Gay Pride celebrations, and then there are Black Gay Prides.

There's a popular bar in the heart of the nation's capital that might as well rename itself Antebellum, because all of the white patrons tend to stay upstairs and the black patrons are on the first floor. Last year at the annual Human Rights Campaign national fundraiser in Washington, D.C. -- an event that lasted more than three hours -- the only black person to make it on stage was the entertainment.

When Proposition 8 passed in California, white gays were quick to blame the black community despite blacks making up less than 10 percent of total voters and whites being close to 60 percent. At protest rallies that followed, some gay blacks reported they were even hit with racial epithets by angry white participants. Not to split hairs, but for most blacks, the n-word trumps the f-word.

So while the white mouthpiece of the gay community shakes an angry finger at intolerance and bigotry in their blogs and on television, blacks and other minorities see the dirty laundry. They see the hypocrisy of publicly rallying in the name of unity but then privately living in segregated pockets. And then there is the history.

The 40th anniversary of Stonewall dominated Gay Pride celebrations around the country, and while that is certainly a significant moment that should be recognized, 40 years is nothing compared with the 400 blood-soaked years black people have been through in this country. There are stories some blacks lived through, stories others were told by their parents and stories that never had a chance to be told.

While those who were at Stonewall talk about the fear of being arrested by police, 40 years ago, blacks talked about the fear of dying at the hands of police and not having their bodies found or murder investigated. The 13th Amendment was signed in 1865, and it wasn't until 1948 that President Harry S Truman desegregated the military. That's more than an 80-year gap.

Not to be flip, but Miley Cyrus is older than Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell." That doesn't mean that the safety of gay people should be trivialized or that Obama should not be held accountable for the promises he made on the campaign trail. But to call this month's first-ever White House reception for GLBT leaders "too little too late" is akin to a petulant child throwing a tantrum because he wants to eat his dessert before dinner. This is one of the main reasons why so many blacks bristle at the comparison of the two movements -- everybody wants to sing the blues, nobody wants to live them.

This lack of perspective is only going to alienate a black community that is still very proud of Obama and is hypersensitive about any criticism of him, especially given he's been in office barely six months.

If blacks are less accepting of gays than other racial groups -- and that is certainly debatable -- then the parade of gay people calling Obama a "disappointment" on television is counterproductive in gaining acceptance, to say the least. And the fact that the loudest critics are mostly white doesn't help matters either.

Hearing that race matters in the gay community may not be comforting to hear, but that doesn't make it any less true.

This should be posted at DailyKos. Maybe it'll give some of them some perspective.

Hell, who am I kiddin'? They'll keep bitchin' and moanin'.

Hey rikyrah, I think this article might need it's own post.

Wow, somebody needs to send this article over to J Avarois over at Americablog, Rachel Maddow, and DKOS pronto!

Hearing that race matters in the gay community may not be comforting to hear, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Great article!

Great article. Comparing movements often leads to competitive victimology and oppression olympics. . . which gets us nowhere (at least that's how I see it). And though some say blacks don't own the issue of "civil rights" it certainly can't be argued that we don't own our history and struggle as a people.

Each struggle has it's own history and should be respected as such. Of course there may be similarities. But each struggle also presents it's own set of obstacles.

Don't presume to know my struggle and I won't presume to know yours. I have no problem with those who want to learn from what blacks have gone through. What pisses me off is when people think they can LECTURE us about our own struggle and history (as in that whole "you should know better, go sit at the back of the bus" type of argument I see on a lot of websites).

I didn't appreciate it when Tina Fey proclaimed "B*tch is the new black" back when Hillary was getting beat in the primaries. I don't appreciate the "gay is the new black" slogan now. Especially when some of the same people shouting that will get upset when others use "gay" as a pejorative (e.g., "that shirt is so gay" etc.).

Fist in the air to LZ Granderson!

Thumbs up to this article for breaking it down

This right here made my kitchen stand up 'cuz it's so on point:

But to call this month's first-ever White House reception for GLBT leaders "too little too late" is akin to a petulant child throwing a tantrum because he wants to eat his dessert before dinner. This is one of the main reasons why so many blacks bristle at the comparison of the two movements -- everybody wants to sing the blues, nobody wants to live them.

Weeeeeeeeeelllll!

LOL that reminds me of another saying: "Everybody wants to be black until the cops show up" LOL

LMBAO!

RAOTFLMAO

Classic

Epic.

My favorite line: "everybody wants to sing the blues, nobody wants to live them"

Bam!

Wow, what a great article. And seeing Perez Hilton on the cover of the latest Advocate magazine certainly tells you something. He's now saying he wanted to call will.i.am the 'N' word but thought calling the F word would be worse. Really?
So the HRC has no blacks in its' organization? That's really interesting...

You KNEW PerezHilton wanted to call will.i.am the 'N' word. I could see it in his eyes when I saw his rant. I could see it.

Someone needs to whoop his little monkey-ass again.

he put it excellant bout how african-americans in the gay community here in chicago feel!!!!

Wow. Well said.

Eclecticbrotha as a Chicagoan with gay friends that has frequented the prop house before this article is so so so tru.....black gays in chicago have been feeling left out for the longest and don't really identify with the white gays in chicago...marriage is not their main concern their main concern is how am i gonna pay my bills or is my job gonna be the next one 2 start laying off.....hell the club even has a drink named after the POTUS that is a club favorite...lol!!!!

The prop house !!! Did you ever go to the Mendal parties, Saures and 206 Jefferson aka the Warehouse .

i'm not that old DJ...lol....hell i just made 30 yesterday...lol

Happy belated birthday!

Happy belated Birthday.Live long and Prosper.

if this article didn't hit the nail on the head!!!!

Hello JJPfam: this is so good, I'm sharing with all my networks! Read at the blackgivesback blog today: Ty'Sheoma Bethea, the young lady who wrote the letter to her SC congressperson about her deplorable school conditions is now on the panel to consider grant requests for classroom upgrades sponsored by WalMart. See below for this wonderful but time-sensitive opportunity for every educator you know:


" Entrants can submit their 500-words-or-less letter at www.writetochangetheclassroom.com outlining their school supply needs (e.g. basic educational materials, classroom furniture, technology, etc.) and explaining how these materials will be used throughout the school year. Supply needs might include everything from new computers, to replacing aging, broken or depleted classroom supplies. All entrants must be at least 18 years of age. Any state-accredited elementary (K-6), junior high (7-8) and senior high (9-12) and traditional school is eligible to receive the supplies. The call for entries period will run from July 14 through July 24, 2009.

For more information regarding the Walmart "Write to Change the Classroom" program, please visit http://www.writetochangetheclassroom.com/."

So this is the pic that drove those freepers crazy huh? And Laura Ingraham thought the guy with Malia 'looked like a rapper'. Yeah OK, Laura.

Yes Shazza!

Their heads exploded @ the sight!

if these right wing idiots had taken the time 2 find out any info then they would know that the guy with Malia is a former classmate of mine from Percy L. Julian High School in Chicago by the name of Johnny Wright who is also the FLOTUS personal hairstylist!!!!!

Even if they did find out info on the guy, they wouldn't have accepted it. Those rabid dogs wanted to spew hate @ a little girl.

Are you related to Michelle Allen?

Oh you know better than to confuse those folks with actual facts. Their brains can't handle it. What makes him look like a rapper-the shades or the bling?

oh no no Shazza it's not the shades or the bling.....it's his color!!!!

True!

Switched Dora to the Second Sotomayor Thread for today.

Rikyrah

You know you're too cute with Dora!

I love Dora!

The mean old racist Senators are Swiper trying to steal this nomination & Justice Sonia Sotomayor need Diego to help! Swiper don't swipe it! :)

LOL Swiperstopswiping!!

BWA HA HA HA HA HA

Yipp-yipp-yippee - ya posted it! I wanted you to but held back.

I love Dora...

Wow, epic win with the cartoon.