The GrassCity Gazette

[AK Infinity]

YouTube - Citizens Grand Juries

[AK Infinity]

YouTube - Race-Baiting Justice: Buchanan's War...

Finally "white males" have an advocate as forceful as Jesse Jackson. It's about time someone stood up for them, they've been discriminated against for long enough. This country has a long tortured history of beating up on white men for no good reason at all. But from out of the wilderness came the voice of a white male like no other that framed the argument in terms that every white male could understand.

[MountyBounty]

Originally Posted by AK Infinity

YouTube - Race-Baiting Justice: Buchanan's War Against Judge Sotomayor

Finally "white males" have an advocate as forceful as Jesse Jackson. It's about time someone stood up for them, they've been discriminated against for long enough. This country has a long tortured history of beating up on white men for no good reason at all. But from out of the wilderness came the voice of a white male like no other that framed the argument in terms that every white male could understand.

Whenever Pat Buchanan comes up I always remember these lyrics...

It was, more than a tragedy, emotions be grabbin' me,
Plane fell from the sky, we tryin' to figure what happened,
Burnin' churches, fearin' God, Who could be so cruel?
We all ignorant to AIDS, 'till it happens to you,
Just be a man, make plans, listen to your voice,
A woman's tryin' to make decisions, we should leave 'em a choice.
'Cause who are we to say who lives or dies, breathes or stops?
All these judgements on other lives, needs to stop,
What are we livin' for? Givin' more back than takin',
On my knees still waitin' for my own salvation,
Now I feel abandoned, 'cause Pat Buchanan say I'm greedy,
You can take my taxes, send me to war, but can't feed me?
It's so easy to regret things, after they done,
Babies catchin' murder cases, scared to laugh in the sun,
The tragedy is that we all need, love in doses,
It's times like these, we feel closest, the good die young.

2pac---- The good die young

[Dickie4:20]

Think Progress » Sanford’s Priorities: Nix School Funding And Reform, Allow Guns At School

insanity.

[AK Infinity]

YouTube - President Obama Speaks to the Muslim...

[aaronman]

^^^ Good speech. Reactions to Obama's Speech

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Israel is World's Fourth Least Peaceful Country

A study of the world's most peaceful countries released Wednesday ranks Israel as fourth to last among the 144 countries ranked.

According to the Global Peace Index, an annual ranking of the world's nations on the basis of how peaceful they are, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq are the only countries more dangerous than Israel.

Directly more peaceful than Israel on the list are Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad and Pakistan. Lebanon ranks 132nd, Iran ranks 99th and Syria ranks 92nd.

America is 83rd, somehow.

[aaronman]

A great commentary on the Sotomayor/Racism story:

Identity Politics in the age of Obama

Editor's note: Abigail Thernstrom is the author of "Voting Rights -- and Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections," published this month by the AEI Press. She is the vice-chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Her writing can be found at http://www.thernstrom.com/.

Abigail Thernstrom says ethnic and racial politics haven't faded away with the election of Barack Obama.





(CNN) -- Some of us thought the election of Barack Obama as president might signal a fading away of the old identity politics.

The assumption that fundamental lines of division in politics are set by race and ethnicity would seem to be a bit passé when 43 percent of white voters cast their ballots for a proudly "post-racial" African-American.

But the president himself has made identity politics front-page news with his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. She played an important role in the New Haven firefighters' case (Ricci v. DeStefano) now awaiting decision by the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor and two colleagues simply brushed aside the important constitutional and statutory questions raised by the city's decision to discard the results of a race-neutral test given to applicants for promotions within the department. Too many men of the "wrong" color had passed it -- that is, all of those who scored highest were white except for one Hispanic.

Those firefighters had worked hard to get the test results they did; the lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci, is dyslexic, but he had been on the force for 11 years and was determined to become a lieutenant, so he paid an acquaintance more than $1,000 to read textbooks onto audiotapes and make flash cards. Ricci gave up his second job in order to study long hours -- and aced the test.

President Obama, in his famous Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, race speech during the campaign, said that when whites hear "that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed ... resentment builds over time." Yes. And when firefighters are denied promotions they earned simply because they are white, resentment builds. Discarding that test has struck many as an instance of racial preferences run amok.

Will the real Barack Obama please stand up? Did he mean to imply in that Philadelphia speech that the "empathy" he claims to celebrate extends not only to minority victims of injustice, but also to whites? And is he a man who remains eager to move beyond identity politics, as he suggested numerous times in the course of his campaign -- or not?

Questions abound. He has tried to downplay Sotomayor's now infamous declaration that "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," suggesting that it was nothing more than a poor choice of words.

But in the same speech, Sotomayor wondered "whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society." And, most remarkably, she stated: "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences ... our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

"Inherent physiological or cultural differences"? Can the president possibly believe that Latina women -- and indeed minority women in general -- are born to see questions of law in a different and better light than white men or even men of color? It's in their physiological and cultural makeup. A fact of nature. If indeed the president believes in such disturbing racial determinism, weep for our nation.

Either the president is a man of many parts, untroubled by his own conflicting views, or he is an immensely skilled and coldly calculating politician who is eager to court the Latino vote and knows that few senators are likely to vote against a "first."

Identity politics is on the line in Ricci and also in another forthcoming Supreme Court decision, a key case involving minority voting rights. Later this month, the Supreme Court will decide whether in 2009, black candidates for public office can win running in majority-white settings.

At issue in "Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder" is the constitutionality of a key, temporary provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that was renewed for the fourth time in 2006 on the theory that voting discrimination had just become "more subtle" than it was four decades earlier.

The renewal meant that the Justice Department could continue to insist on districting maps that were carefully racially gerrymandered to elect black and Hispanic candidates. Legislative quotas have been the remedy for persistent racial exclusion -- seats reserved for candidates who are the choice of minority voters.

But is America still a nation steeped in the muck of old-fashioned racism -- the results of the 2008 election notwithstanding? Are we condemned to identity politics in choosing firefighters for promotion, in drawing districting maps for legislative bodies (from school boards all the way up to congressional delegations), and in a multitude of other spheres into the indefinite future?

Sonia Sotomayor's nomination suggests that the answer will be yes. A sad thought.

[MountyBounty]

Originally Posted by Dickie4:20

Think Progress » Sanford’s Priorities: Nix School Funding And Reform, Allow Guns At School

insanity.

I don't know how SC is on that issue but I do remember back in middle school we had too many snowdays and had to have a half day on opening season for rifle hunting... we were allowed to bring our hunting rifles into school and leave them in the principles office. Guess things are different when you are raised in a small town and taught to respect firearms??

[MountyBounty]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky pastor is inviting people to bring their guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.

New Bethel Church is welcoming "responsible handgun owners" to wear their firearms inside the church on June 27, a Saturday.
An ad says there will be a handgun raffle, patriotic music and information on gun safety.
Church pastor Ken Pagano says guns must be unloaded and private security will check visitors. He says recent church shootings make it necessary to promote safe gun ownership.
Marian McClure Taylor is executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches.
She says churches work to prevent violent harm and promote peace, but most "allow for arms to be taken up under certain conditions."

FoxNews

[Dickie4:20]

Remember the massacre on the Washington Mall


The little guy with a white plastic shopping bag in each hand stopping a line of tanks made you think that China was really going to change. Even the people in Tiananmen Square didn’t believe that the Army was firing real bullets at them. Instead of running, they turned and charged at the troops.

They had been told for decades that the Peoples Army loved the people and would never hurt them. In fact the crack down had to be delayed for days as the government brought in troops from a remote province that didn’t have any affinity to the people of Beijing.

Do we as Americans have any right to criticize China for that massacre after the atrocities of the last eight years? We do if we face up to and demand justice for the crimes of our "leaders" or rather "rulers" since they weren’t elected.

How close did we come to having Blackwater troops massacring protesters here? Far closer than most people want to believe. If our past rulers hadn’t been incipient cowards, almost certainly that would have happened here. The far right has fully embraced the idea and has been doing it on a individual basis, doing it as a mob isn’t that far away and they would put on the Brown Shirts in a heartbeat. (in hushed tones) "Remember the massacre on the Washington Mall" or maybe it would be shouted as a battle cry. Is that the difference between us and China? Or is there any difference?

[MountyBounty]

Campaign for Liberty & HR 1207

YouTube - Angel talks about Campaign for Liberty...

[wackdeafboy]

^^
/facepalm

[Deutschbag]

Unemployment Now at 9.4% - Real Clear Politics – TIME.com

Unemployment Now at 9.4%
Posted by Kyle Trygstad | Email This | Permalink | Email Author The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced this morning that the unemployment rate has risen to 9.4 percent, up half-a-percent from last month. The BLS also stated in its monthly report that the number of unemployed persons increased by 787,000, to a total of 14.5 million.
"Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 7.0 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 4.5 percentage points," the report states.
Congress's Joint Economic Committee will meet this morning at 9:30 a.m., as it does every month, to discuss the new numbers.

[Dickie4:20]

Think Progress » Inhofe Rips Obama As ‘Un-American,’ Suggests He’s On The Side Of Terrorists

Did anyone else see this coming?

[aaronman]

Taliban calls Obama speech "deceptive"

LONDON (Reuters) – The Taliban said on Saturday that U.S. President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world was full of "deceptive slogans" and did nothing to change relations between America and Muslims.

The speech, which Obama delivered at Cairo University on Thursday, "had nothing substantial in terms of content in order to reduce the dissonance that has reached its peak between Muslims and America," the Taliban leadership said in a message posted on Islamist Internet forums and translated by SITE Intelligence Group.

"His occupation and transgressing forces continue to kill, torture and arrest Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq, trample upon their deserved rights with their feet, mercilessly kill them for defending their rights and throw them in the most horrible prisons in the world," the message added.

Obama's address, lasting almost an hour, was merely the "continuation of the previous deceptive slogans of America," the message said.

Violence in Afghanistan has surged to its highest levels since the 2001 U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban, which had harbored the al Qaeda network responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Washington also is worried about the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan in face of a growing insurgency and has urged action against militants to help defeat al Qaeda and disrupt support for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army launched an offensive against Taliban fighters and their allies in the Swat valley in the northwest of the country last month.

The message from the Taliban was its first reaction to Obama's speech, which has been widely scrutinized in the Muslim world.

Many Muslims who listened to Obama's address welcomed the change in tone from Washington but said they wanted to see more specifics about how he would heal long-running sores that include the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood, a group that renounced violence decades ago, said the speech was mainly for public relations.