Jack & Jill Politics

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Commentary: Who killed Malcolm X?

“The full force of the blast perforated the chest, cutting into ‘the thoracic cavity, the left lung, pericardium, heart, aorta, right lung.’”

Medically, this is how Malcolm X died, according to the new book “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” by Manning Marable.

But who fired the shotgun?

The last of Malcolm X’s three convicted assassins was paroled last year, which might seem like odd timing for questions about guilt.

But Marable’s painstakingly researched book contends some of the wrong men did time for the killing. It’s indisputable that there were several shooters.

Marable, who died days before his book’s release last week, believed a man who was never charged fired the fatal shot. And he also believed that one man who served time wasn’t even at the New York ballroom where Malcolm X died.

It’s likely the dogged pursuits of Kansas City-based legal sleuth Alvin Sykes will be involved if anything new is proved about the conspiracy-laden 1965 murder.

Sykes is responsible for a federal bill that created a unit in the Department of Justice to prosecute old civil rights era murders.

He’s requesting the Malcolm X case be reviewed and/or investigated.

Sykes enjoys tracking splinters of information as much as he covets time to ferret out arcane pieces of legal language. I’ve known him for 20 years.

Never once has he cited a federal code, a court citation, a snippet of newly unearthed evidence that I couldn’t verify.

Marable’s work includes new interviews, source documents and theories long bantered about, but never fully denied or proved. Malcolm X’s death has long been shrouded by the dealings of that era: informants, infighting among black militants, power struggles within the Nation of Islam and allegations of lackluster handling of the initial investigation.

Sykes is already at work contacting Department of Justice officials, combing legal sources to see how jurisdiction can be established and tapping networks to connect with Malcolm X’s children for their support in pressing the new leads.

The work will also help Sykes continue questioning how the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is being implemented. It was a huge achievement when he got it passed in 2008. But that’s a moot point if more cases aren’t carefully chosen for attention and then pursued fully.

Those who argue it’s best to leave the past dead and buried tend to discount how unsolved murders — or clouded cases such as this — chase the living through the descendants of the murdered, the accused, the never fully exonerated.

Rarely are these old civil rights cases as simplistic as people wish to believe. Their nuances often challenge how we’d like to recount history.

And sometimes, it seems the truth simply won’t let itself be known until a proper amount of time has passed.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/14/111972/commentary-who-killed-malcolm.html#ixzz1JVF9s9W8

Breitbart, RightOnline coming to Minneapolis
Conservatives counter Netroots Nation with summit by Koch-backed group
By Andy Birkey | 04.13.11 | 3:36 pm
Billed as a “counter to the leftwing Netroots Nation Convention” being hosted by Minneapolis in June, RightOnline has announced it’ll also be coming to Minnesota’s largest city this summer. The conference will feature Andrew Breitbart, a blogger whose selective editing of video has generated heated criticism, along with conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck protoge S.E. Cupp, and Minnesota blogger Ed Morrissey. The convention is a project of Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which was founded by the Koch brothers.
Breitbart made waves in 2009 when he posted videos that purported to show an ACORN employee giving advice to a pimp and prostitute; the video was ruled by investigators in several states to have been highly edited and, in some cases, possibly in violation of state law. Despite the misleading videos, the flap contributed to ACORN’s demise and to Congress stripping its funding. Breitbart got the videos from colleague James O’Keefe, who months later was arrested by the U.S. Marshals and charged with entering the office of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

Breitbart rose to fame again in 2010 when he posted selectively edited footage of Shirley Sherrod, Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture, during a NAACP event in which she appeared to be making a racist statement. The full video, however, showed that Sherrod had not made a racist statement. Despite that, she lost her position at the USDA.

Sherrod filed a lawsuit against Breitbart in February alleging defamation. Breitbart told Newsweek that he regretted posting the video, but declined to publicly apologize to Sherrod.

The convention will be held at the Minneapolis Hilton on June 17 and 18.

http://minnesotaindependent.com/80151/breitbart-rightonline-coming-to-minneapolis

Arizona Senate passes Obama birther bill after boost from Donald Trump

The Arizona Senate approved the so-called ‘birther’ bill requiring 2012 presidential candidates to prove they were born in the U.S. and are thus eligible to run for president.

The measure, House Bill 2177, is aimed at President Barack Obama and those on the political right who want him to produce a birth certificate proving he was born in Hawaii and not Kenya, where his father is from.

The Arizona Legislature passed the bill 20-8 on a party-line vote in the State Senate with Republicans backing and Democrats opposing.

The measure includes some changes that allow for other documents beside birth certificates to be produced by presidential contenders. It now goes back to the Arizona House of Representatives for another vote. The House previously approved the birther bill without new Senate changes.

The birther bill has come up several times at the Arizona Legislature. The measure has received a recent boost from real estate mogul and television personality Donald Trump, who wants Obama to produce a birth certificate. Trump is considering a run for president in 2012 and recently met with Arizona Rep. Carl Seel, R-Anthem. Seel is the author of the birther bill aimed at Obama and the 2012 race.

A candidate that can’t produce records proving he or she is eligible to run for U.S. president might be excluded from next year’s ballot.

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2011/04/13/arizona-senate-passes-obama-birther.html

Married Without Children, Ctd
Many more readers are sounding off. One writes:

I was content to leave this topic alone, but with the email from your reader who exhorts the joys of being The Fun Aunt, along with your comments on the matter, have spurred me to wander into the fray. I wonder if the childless out there know that we, the parents of your beloved nieces and nephews, sometimes feel a sense of loss when you decide not to have any children.

My husband and I are the oldest of all our siblings, and have recently found out that we are never going to have the chance to be Aunt and Uncle. I was surprised to find myself shedding tears when I heard the news. I had looked forward to being an aunt for the same reasons you and some of your readers have suggested: to spoil our nieces and nephews a little, teach them things, take them places their parents might not have. Parents don’t always have the luxury of doing these things – or, if so, they’re drowned out in the day to day thankless and routine parts of parenting.

While I would never say that anyone should have kids to give me something in my life, and think that the “to have or not to have” question remains deeply personal, I wanted to let you know that some of us parents aren’t jealous that you have freedom, or a better job, or a better sex life … we’re just a little sad for what we see as a missed opportunity.

Another writes:

The notion that the childless by choice tend to be introverts and “planners” hits home with me. I have encountered many, many strange and irritating reactions to the decision of my wife and me not to have children. But none is more insulting – or frankly, common – than the insinuation that we haven’t thought it through.

“Who will care for you when you are older?” “Aren’t you afraid of being old and alone?” To which the only honest answers are, respectively, “I don’t know,” and “who isn’t?” regardless of whether one has children or not. No one knows whether the baby you have now will be able (or willing) to be your caretaker 30 or 40 years hence. Moreover, this seems a particularly selfish reason to bring a child into the world.

Another:

I have a problem with idea that married couples who choose not to have children are the only kind of people who “think before they act.” This is a little arrogant and condescending. I am a new father of a one-month-old daughter. Did I weigh heavily the responsibilities of being a parent, and the freedoms of not being a parent? Of course. Did I consider the economic and social impact my decision to have a child would have on me and my family. Of course I did.

By all means people should be free to be married and not have children. But to classify those people as individuals who think more deeply than those who decide to have children or as having a special ability to avoid being “led into a conventional life” (whatever that means) is bullshit. We all can think deeply. And we can all feel a reward and enjoyment in our lives based on the decisions we make. I thought long and hard with my wife about having a child. My life is so different and much more rich because I am now a father. It was the best deep thought I’ve had.

Another:

You said, “But I got to leave and merely enjoy this kid after a few hours, not stay and take care of him, or to endure a week of his sickness, or a minute of his nightly cries.”

Ah, but you see, that’s one of the things that makes having children so great: there is nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life quite like the feeling when I lay in bed with one of my boys when they’ve got a spiking fever. I know there isn’t anyone else in the world (besides my wife) that they’d rather be with at that moment. The fact that I can be that for them is just a thrilling feeling.

I tell people all the time that I love my wife in ways that are deep and profound, but the love I have for my children is just on a whole other level. And I didn’t know until I had them.

One more:

I am 34 and single and will likely never have children of my own. In the last ten years, however, I have fostered a little boy who is now 15 and an integral part of my life; I worked full-time at a homeless shelter with the children who lived there; I led a church youth group; and I have been able to open my door to several teenage mothers, be it for a weekend or for a month, to teach them how to parent their newborns.

I figured out a while ago that I could either be absorbed in two or three children of my own, or I could be the adult who stands in the gap for a larger number of inadequately parented children, being the adult they need to demonstrate love, discipline and loyalty. I have chosen the latter and never regretted it.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/

The Road to Serfdom Ends at a Tea Party Gathering
by mistermix

Ian Murphy is the Green Party candidate in the NY-26 special election. He was denied entrance to a Tea Party endorsement meeting (spoiler alert: they endorsed the Republican, Jane Corwin), so he hung out in the parking lot dressed like a founding father, handing out literature. I set up the video to start when he encounters a tea partier who’s extremely concerned that raising taxes on the rich will make them move away, thus wrecking the economy.

I may just be in a nutpicking mood this morning, but this is the rawest example of pure serfdom I’ve seen in a long time. If the king moves away, how will the peasants eat?

Buffalo Pundit’s whole post on the Tea Party fail parade in NY-26 is worth a read
.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/04/14/the-road-to-serfdom-ends-at-a-tea-party-gathering/

Alright now! :)

Michelle Obama, Jill Biden to guest on ‘The View’

http://www.whas11.com/news/national/119839579.html

NEW YORK (AP) — ABC says First Lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, will be guests on Monday’s edition of “The View.”

They will be appearing live on the weekday talk show to discuss their campaign for national support of military families, ABC announced Thursday. Both women have been outspoken advocates for service members and their families.

While Mrs. Obama has previously guested on “The View,” this will be Mrs. Biden’s first appearance.

“The View” airs weekdays on ABC at 11 a.m. Eastern time. Its panel of co-hosts includes Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar (BAY’-har), Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd.

tee hee hee

On Poverty, The Ryan Budget’s Rhetoric Doesn’t Match Reality
Our guest blogger is Desmond Brown, a consultant for the Half in Ten campaign at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last week, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his fiscal 2012 budget. While Ryan couches his proposal in nice language, his plan would erode the health care safety net for seniors and low-income Americans, eliminate employment and training programs for millions of workers, shrink access to higher education for low-income students, and enforce harsh restrictions on nutrition assistance for families struggling to find employment during this fragile economic recovery.

His plan would do more to push fragile families into poverty than promote the type of prosperity that it rhetorically claims. The Wonk Room has assembled this chart showing where Ryan’s rhetoric doesn’t match his budget’s reality:

Ryan’s Rhetoric Reality
“Protecting Assistance for Those in Need” The plan block grants and places time limits on the nation’s most effective nutrition safety net, SNAP, which was extremely effective in meeting the nutrition needs of families hard hit by unemployment during the recent recession. $127 billion in SNAP funding would be cut over ten years.
“Preparing the Workforce for a 21st Century Economy” The plan proposes cuts to Pell grants, even though they are one of the most effective programs to help low-income students gain a foothold on the middle class through higher education.

The plan would “consolidate” job-training programs, code for cutting job training opportunities, as was illustrated in House Republicans’ fiscal 2011 proposal to eliminate funding for Workforce Investment Act (WIA) services for program year 2011.

“Repairing a Broken Medicaid System” The plan block grants the program, which will result in reduced services for the most vulnerable families as capped federal resources would not respond to meet growing health care demands in states during economic downturns.
“Saving Medicare” The plan creates a new voucher system that will dramatically increase the cost of health care services for seniors.
“State Flexibility to Develop Programs” The plan would simply shift more federal responsibility to economically challenged states. For states with high rates of poverty and deficits, this plan would limit their ability to leverage federal resources to provide necessary services to assist people in need.

Ryan’s plan will not lead to prosperity. The plan would further expand the gap between wealthy Americans and those trying to get a foothold on the middle class. At a time when our country should be focusing on investments for jobs in new innovative industries, strengthening our health care system, and rebuilding our infrastructure, the plan attacks all of these progressive strategies by scaling back access to higher education, workforce training, and demolishing the nation’s health care safety net

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/04/13/ryan-budget-poverty-chart/

Fireworks expected as Gov. Walker heads to Hill to talk unions
By Kevin Bogardus – 04/14/11 06:07 AM ET

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) could be in for a rowdy welcome from unions and liberal groups when he comes to Capitol Hill on Thursday to testify about his work on reducing the state’s budget deficit.

A coalition of liberal groups including People for the American Way, Common Cause and Public Campaign is scheduled to give a press conference outside the hearing room before Walker testifies, and union members are traveling in from Wisconsin to attend.

Walker’s appearance before Congress will be his first since his standoff with public-sector unions over collective bargaining rights began earlier this year.

“We are going to make our messaging felt,” Marge Baker, executive vice president for policy and programs at People for the American Way, told The Hill. “We want people at the hearings, inside the room and outside. We want the committee to hear from the American people.”

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) is also holding a press conference with union members after the hearing to respond to Walker’s testimony.

Walker is a Republican-invited witness at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the panel’s chairman, will praise Walker for his “courageous efforts” at cutting spending in his state’s budget, according to a statement.

“To understand impediments to reform and what it takes to climb out of a deep fiscal hole, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will testify about how he successfully championed sweeping reforms that will keep his state solvent. Moody’s, a credit rating agency, recently announced that the reforms will have a positive impact on Wisconsin’s credit rating, a further testament to the merits of Gov. Walker’s courageous efforts,” Issa is expected to say in his opening statement.

Walker is expected to discuss his battle with labor over legislation to strip collective bargaining rights for most public workers. Others slated to attend include Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, and Andrew Biggs, once the principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration and now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

To continue the Wisconsin theme, committee Democrats considered inviting Wisconsin Senate Democratic Leader Mark Miller as their lone witness. Miller was among the 14 Wisconsin state senators who fled the state in a failed bid to block Walker’s union bill.

But committee Democrats instead chose Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin to provide a different take on this year’s budget battles.

“As an executive of a state in the process of navigating its own projected budget shortfall, Gov. Shumlin will provide valuable insight as his state and the entire country continue to recover from the recent economic recession,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the committee’s ranking member, said in a statement. “Gov. Shumlin will also bring a perspective that is markedly different than that of the majority’s witness, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, allowing the committee to obtain a wider and more balanced range of views on these issues.”

Activists see the influence of conservative financiers Charles and David Koch in the hearing, noting that campaign contributions from the brothers and the political action committee of their company, Koch Industries, have gone to several of the committee’s GOP members.

“This fictional debt ‘crisis’ is a distraction created by Walker and those like David Koch, who is funding this crusade,” Harold Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said in a statement. “They want to transfer wealth from middle-class workers to the super-rich and silence the voices of ordinary workers and their unions in the process.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/155937-fireworks-expected-as-gov-walker-heads-to-capitol-hill-to-discuss-unions

Birtherism=WHITES, TEABAGGERS, FOX, GOP. THE PHUCKING END!

Too late to try and put the ugly PANDORAS back in the box, MOFOs.

Rikyrah,

check your email when you have a chance.

AFTERNOON OPEN THREAD IS UP

“I figured out a while ago that I could either be absorbed in two or three children of my own, or I could be the adult who stands in the gap for a larger number of inadequately parented children, being the adult they need to demonstrate love, discipline and loyalty. I have chosen the latter and never regretted it.”

Nice sentiment. There are a lot of black children in the system.