Jack & Jill Politics

Black History Fact: Thomas L. Jennings (1791 – 1859) was the first African-American to receive a patent in 1821. It was for a dry-cleaning process in 1821. He used the money earned from the patent to purchase relatives out of slavery and support abolitionist causes
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl…

The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse

2/05/2010
Richard Shelby's Earmark Extortion:
See? This is what happens when you negotiate with terrorists who want to undermine the election process of the United States and sow seeds of doubt and dissent in the legitimacy of the government. Republican Richard Shelby, one of the most despicable fucks in the Senate, is now emboldened by Barack Obama's faith in bipartisanship to simply go nuts with demands. In essence, Shelby is extorting money out of the Obama administration.

Depressingly, that's not hyperbole. Shelby is a man who loves his pork. That motherfucker piles on the pork like a drunken fat guy at an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. Of course, his pork, also known as “earmarks,” is so much better than anyone else's earmarks, as he said in March 2009 on This Week with George Stephanopoulos's Hair. Responding to a question about having more earmarks than most, Shelby said what every other member of Congress who wants to bring home the cash would say: “I can defend every earmark. Every one of my earmarks have been released to the press. Every one has, I think, been vetted in the committee and publicly in my state. I don't want an earmark that has no merit.” Give that redneck bastard more bacon. He likes his piggy extra-crispy.

Now, Shelby has placed one of those oh-so delightful single Senator holds on dozens of President Obama's nominees to various executive branch positions that need Senate approval. Is it because he has a problem with the actual nominees? Oh, no. That'd be vaguely rational. Shelby's just being a dick because he doesn't like the way a contract on a tanker is being…and really, who the fuck cares? It's power for power's sake. It's an attempt to get more earmarks to Alabama.

In other words, he's impeding the ability of the government to function in order to squeeze money from it. If you told your neighbor you weren't going to let his car out of his driveway unless he gave you a hundred bucks for a lawn ornament, you'd be arrested. Or your neighbor might run you over.

Obama and the Democrats have handed over the keys to Republicans in the Senate. At this point, Shelby oughta be shitting himself in fear of having all earmarks stripped out of bills. That's fuckin' hardball. You don't like that your state might not get an FBI explosives analysis center so you're gonna dick over the working of the entire executive branch? How about a few less roads, motherfucker? Instead, Shelby is emboldened by Obama's willingness to compromise to make unprecedented use of Senate rules.

Yesterday, a barbershop quartet of assholes farted in harmony about earmarks. Republican Senators DeMint, McCain, Graham, and Lemieux held a press conference to address their concerns about the very subject, calling for an earmark moratorium and a balanced budget amendment. Said DeMint, “[I]f we have 535 congressmen and senators who still want their earmarks and are not willing to take even a one-year timeout, then we have a huge problem addressing our debt.”

The Rude Pundit doesn't outright oppose earmarks. One Congress member's poison is another's meat. But it takes 60 votes to overcome Shelby's hold over Alabama getting its sausage. It seems a pretty easy vote for Republicans who are anti-earmark. Then again, we are talking about Republicans.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has a new genealogy series on PBS. Faces of America, premiering Wednesday February 10 and running through March 3.

This series will feature professor and poet Elizabeth Alexander, chef Mario Batali, comedian Stephen Colbert, novelist Louise Erdrich, journalist Malcolm Gladwell, actress Eva Longoria, musician Yo-Yo Ma, director Mike Nichols, Her Majesty Queen Noor, television host/heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, actress Meryl Streep, and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/facesofamerica/?gclid=C…

TerranceDC at Booman Tribune

has written on the CHILD THIEVES:

Kidnapping (Even for Christ) Is A Crime, Pt. 1

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/2/5/936…

Kidnapping (Even for Christ) Is A Crime, Pt. 2

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/2/5/131…

the more people that write on this, the better.

House Dems. will have a vote on opposition to privatizing Social Security
by Joe Sudbay (DC) on 2/05/2010 03:54:00 PM

The House Democrats have had it with the GOP's games over the budget, Social Security and Medicare. So, they're finally giving the Republicans a chance to vote on one of the right wing's favorite issues: privatizing Social Security. Actually, it's not that the Democrats are giving them a chance. It's that Democrats are finally playing hardball by pushing a resolution opposed to privatizing Social Security. So, GOPers, put up or shut up:

House Democrats are going to force their Republican colleagues to vote on a resolution opposing the privatization of Social Security. The move shows Democrats are putting their full political muscle into painting the Republicans as enemies of Social Security and using the chief GOP budget writer Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to cut benefits as evidence.

Rep. John Larson (D-CT) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) this afternoon introduced the resolution which “expresses the will of House Democrats to preserve Social Security and reaffirms our commitment to working in a bipartisan way to make common sense adjustments to strengthen the program for generations to come.”

It's the sort of tough political vote that Democrats have rarely pushed Republicans on since winning back control of Congress in 2006, and similar to resolutions the GOP constantly forced the Democrats to take positions on when they were in power.
Can't wait to see the roll call vote on this one.

Democrats don't force tough votes, but they should. It's the best way to expose the GOP's agenda.
http://www.americablog.com/2010/02/house-dems-w…

There is an opening in the US Attorney office.Put someone in there that have no ties to Alabama and let him/her go to work on shelby.Time to play hardball.

A grand jury on Thursday declined to indict a white police officer who shot an elderly black man in the small Louisiana town of Homer in a case that heightened racial tension and sparked protests.

The panel returned a “no true bill,” meaning the case won’t go to trial, after considering and rejecting a range of charges including murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide against former police officer Tim Cox.

Many in the rural town of 3,800 were outraged by the shooting last February of Bernard Monroe, a 73-year-old left voiceless by cancer. Police said Monroe was armed when he was shot outside his home, but witnesses said he didn’t have a weapon.

The grand jury heard testimony from 20 witnesses over two days, said Kurt Wall, director of the criminal division of the state attorney general’s office. The attorney general handled the case after the local prosecutor recused himself.

“We believe it was a full, complete, accurate and thorough presentation conducted at a neutral site. We respect the grand jury’s decision,” Wall said.

An FBI spokeswoman said the bureau is continuing to investigate the case.

The leader of the local chapter of the NAACP was angered by the decision not to charge Cox.

Cop Is Not Charged In Shooting Of Unarmed 73-Year-Old Man

make them go on the record.

Can you Build a Credit History Without Getting a Credit Card
http://www.suburbandollar.com/2010/01/27/build-…

Justin Barrett, the Boston police officer who sent an e-mail that used a racial slur to describe Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., was fired from the force today by Police Commissioner Edward Davis.

Boston officer fired over Gates case comments

Call their asses out.Its time to play hardball.

he is correct. a million dollars is not a lot of money.

Great find. Is it OK to post it elsewhere?

I just keep wondering when someone is going to grind a baseball bat into her chest. See the grifters w/ Angela Huston and John Cusack

Hey JJP,

Here's a little something something about the article I had to read for my class:

“In “What Katrina Teaches about the Meaning of Racism” the author Nils Gilman makes use of Kanye West’s “infamous “ statement on the live television fundraiser for Katrina in 2005, i.e. “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”, as a segue into discussing the difference way in which whites and blacks in America, view the issues of racism and bigotry differently.

Kanye West’s statement started a firestorm of racial debate on not only whether or not racism played a part in Hurricane Katrina, but also a debate over what does and does not constitute racism. The author states the essential divide in the debate over racism in the US is one between those who believe that racism is a question of individual psychology versus those who believe that it’s a social/structural phenomenon.
One of the fundamental problems with discussing race in America is the “tendency of people to equate racism with racial prejudice”. As the author suggests, people who have this tendency will define racism as not a social condition (i.e. institutional, widespread, local, state, & national governmental policies), but as an individual persons “disdain for other people based solely on supposed racial characteristics”. In other words, this type of racial thinking essentially says that racism is not a societal problem, but one of the individual “racist mind. It equates racism with individual bigotry and prejudice. In today’s world of course, this form of bigotry is getting less and less common (or people are less likely to openly voice this form of bigotry). Racial prejudice still exists, but as more and more people are having to interact with people of other races and creeds in the workforce and out in society, it is less common for people to openly despise people because of race (as compared to the open display of racism/prejudice during the integration fights of the 60’s & 70’s. The idea that someone would be denied access to public transportation, or the ability to refuse service to someone due to the color of their skin would be taboo today. This can lead some people to believe that racism is no longer a significant problem in America. This is course is not the case.
As the author notes, the problem with have the above view of racism equal to individual racial prejudice, is that it does not address the fact that racism takes place not just in the direct or indirect actions of the individual racist, but also as a result of “deep social and institutional practices and habits. Just because the individual racist are fewer in number (openly) doesn’t not mean that the long-standing historical social patterns are not still in play. As the author says, “these social and institutional structures…are constructed on prejudicial racialist foundations… they are bearers of the racist past, even though they may no longer be populated by active bigots.” This is essentially what “racism” as we see it today is really about.
The examples that the author gives of the racialist foundations, is historical exclusion (and continued exclusion) of blacks from social organizations, particularly the all-white country club. The barrier to entry by blacks is not an active rule excluding them from joining. Rather in many cases, what really excludes blacks is that many members of the club know few blacks that would be considered “social equals” outside of the club. This is not to say that the club members are necessarily prejudiced against blacks, it’s just that these clubs manifest the longstanding historical practice by many upper class whites who while not against socializing with blacks, it is just that the idea of socializing with blacks was not done in many cases it was the law of the land to separate the races and even after the law’s were revoked, it was already a part of the social fabric, so the separation continued on for years until, all of a sudden it stopped (see article on first interracial prom in 2008, in Charleston, MS)

Also from the class, in reference to a comment saying that residents of NOLA were in denial of the hazards of living in a “flood-zone”, I wrote:

Also in reference to the idea that some residents in NOLA were in denial about the hurricane hazards, I wrote the following:

A little aside, no one living in those area were in denial about the nature of hurricanes or on the effects it could have on the city. New Orleans had seen it's share of hurricanes that actually caused flooding & damages from the hurricane wind and rain that was brought into the area by the hurricanes, but key difference was that in those other cases, the levees, which were supposed built to withstand a category 3 hurricane, held strong, and therefore protected the city.

The flooding in New Orleans in 2004, was not because of the Hurricane. Katrina brought the rain, but the levee systems broke. Had the levee systems held strong, the story of Katrina would be very different.

I would say that the residents were not in denial over the hazards, but that state, local, and federal oficials had just become complacent about the need to re-stabilize the levees. In other words, the levees held before during other Category 3 Hurricanes (Andrew) so the needed refortification just kept being put off. Not by the residents, but there was never “enough money”, although, there always seemed to be enough money to re-finish the French Quarter tourist areas. Those areas are built on higher ground, and as long as the levees held, they would not see as much flooding as the other areas. What katrina exposed was the extent to which those residents who complained about the levee system being sub-par were being ignored, until Katrina proved them right.

Good Lord,

Rachel Maddow is in New Orleans! Ya'll I'm gonn abe on pins and needles this whole weekend.

I'm wishing I was home right now. I'm hoping the Saints win, so I can have a happier excuse to go home for Mardi Gras.

Anyway, a little history on the New Orleans Saints

Thank you. Engineer dude on Rachel's show just said exactly what I did about the levees breach being the real cause of the flooding in NOLA. The levees were build during the Reagan administration. Had they been designed better, the levees woulda stayed strong.

Have you read Paul Ryans plan on reducing the deficit?He is the ranking rethug member on the budget commitee.
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/paul-…

Okay

I need some advice. I'm gonna be in New York for 1 day & 1/2 this April. I've been assigned the task of finding and selecting a tour company and planning oru day in NYC. What would ya'll suggest we do? What tour company would ya'll recommend? When in New York, what do you just HAVE to do?

I need some ideas ASAP. So whatcha got?

wow, 1 day and a half.

ok, I don't know what tour company, but I say:

1. ride the Staten Island Ferry
2. Empire State Building
3. go up to Harlem
4. Times Square
5. something in Central Park.
6. go see the thieves on Wall Street

Parents may get their children into charter schools but the charters can 'counsel' a student out force them back to un-served under-served public schools. We are then back to separate and unequal. The system must work for ALL.

This is the problem I have w/ the charter school movement. You must remember that all private and parochical school can do the same thing in terms of problem children. Many state and parochical governments fund private and parochical schools.