Jack & Jill Politics

The Houston family has been gracious enough to allow us to see the homegoing service for Whitney Houston. Come on in and join us.

RIP, Whitney.

Aretha Franklin tribute to Whitney Houston, Charlotte, NC 2

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/_05nG_3rOPo ]

Creating jobs at home and strengthening the manufacturing industry

This week, President Obama discussed jobs and the manufacturing industry. Focusing on one of several issues, the tax code, President Obama offered ways to encourage job creation at home in the United States, not overseas:

President Obama’s Weekly Address:

Good Morning.

As you spend this weekend with family and friends, don’t forget JJP.

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

And always, have a peaceful day.

XXL Magazine has published a video of a 45-year-old rapper encouraging teenage boys to force themselves on underage girls. The graphic monologue is disturbing. So is the willingness of Harris Publications, which owns XXL, to give this kind of dangerous rhetoric a platform.

ColorOfChange is calling on Harris Publications to fire XXL Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Satten, who presides over the workplace culture that allowed such a grave misstep. Here’s the message we sent to our members, after you read it please join us.

hat tip-The Obama Diary:

Our First Lady greeted visitors to the White House.

Here is the entire thing, and underneath are wonderful clips from it:

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/0hLMc-6ocRk ]

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/2FjsHU7ilkk ]

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.

And continue to have a peaceful day.

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On Thursday, Pat Buchanan used his column to announce that he has officially parted ways with MSNBC. He credited the more than 86,000 ColorOfChange members who flooded the network with emails and phone calls late last year. Buchanan writes:

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Imagine this – you’re walking down the street near your home on the way to the local market to buy some food. It’s hot so you’re wearing a short-sleeved shirt that shows off your muscled arms and colorful tatoos. The police stop you and ask about your tatoos – are you part of a gang? You say no, but they don’t believe you and the next thing you know you’ve been arrested and put in jail. You continue to protest your innocence but are told it will be several weeks before you’ll be able to go before a judge and tell your story.

So, through no fault of your own, you find yourself locked up in a severely overcrowded jail with thousands of others, lacking adequate food, water and basic sanitary facilities. It’s hell but you console yourself with the belief your innocence will eventually win your release. You’re lying in your cell thinking of your family and suddenly you smell smoke and hear people yelling, “FIRE”. You search for an exit, but there is none……You realize that you’re trapped……..is this how it ends for you?

Sounds like the script of a bad t.v. movie, but it was real life for hundreds of prisoners trapped in a Honduran jail this week. More than 350 people died when fire raged through an overcrowded jail near the capital, Tegucigalpa.

As reported in the Washington Post:

Lest one thinks these types of tragedies only happen to prisoners in other countries, let’s not forget what happened in New Orleans to the prisoners who were unfortunate enough to be locked up in the Orleans Parish Prison when Hurricane Katrina struck. In the clip below, a New Orleans law enforcement officer recounts the conditions he observed at Orleans Parish Prison in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of people, many of whom had been picked up for minor offenses were abandoned and left to die when the levees broke and the building flooded.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/RDbgH_E0v_c?fs=1

Similarly, James Ridway of Mother Jones talks to Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision not to evacuate the thousands of people being held on Rikers Island in preparation for Hurricane Irene.

PRISONERS ARE PEOPLE TOO!! Join the movement for Justice = OCCUPY4PRISONERS.ORG

It really doesn’t get any better than this for the Democrats.

Yesterday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy when he wouldn’t allow a woman to be placed as a witness for a committee hearing he was chairing about contraception. He later defended his decision by saying the woman’s testimony would have been irrelevant because she “wasn’t a member of the clergy” and therefore really wasn’t qualified to be on the panel of imminently ‘qualified’ men. Men who were called to testify about contraception in a hearing called to ’examine’ the Obama administration’s new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Because only men are qualified to testify about this religious freedom issue (Issa’s words) which actually has nothing to do with women but is strictly about “what would Jesus do?” or something like that.

Riiiiiight.

In truth, the only purpose of Issa’s hearing is to put Obama’s new policy on trial in an election year when the Republicans are running out of issues and are stuck with a pack of bad jokes in place of candidates. Sad, but in an entertaining sort of way.

Darrell Issa issa crazy.

At this point all I want is for the Republicans to keep handing the Democrats ammunition. They really are making this too easy.

This is being cross-posted at Black Liberal Boomer

hat tips-The Obama Diary, 3CHICSPOLITICO

President Obama Speaks About Insourcing Jobs

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/akXxULef4gM ]

Supporting Military Spouse Employment

TGIF and Good Morning.

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

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

And always, have a peaceful day.

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Most people think slavery in the U.S. ended with the passage of the 13th Amendment right after the Civil War. The 13th Amendment is short and sweet in its Declaration:

As it turns out, that simple phrase ‘except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted’ is an exception that has come to include so many people, that in many ways it can be argued slavery never really ended in the United States. I believe the abolitionists and their radical Republican representatives could not have anticipated that this non-controversial exception for convicted felons would end up putting more black men into penal servitude than had lived under chattel slavery when the Civil War began.

It seems the old adage is true, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. There has always been a will within the U.S. economic system to exploit human resources. Slavery represents the ultimate exploitation of human resources – people are considered property to be utilized and disposed of at the will of those with legal control over them.

Almost 150 years after the Civil War, far from becoming a “freer” society, the United States leads the world in penal servitude. The rate of incarceration in the United States surpasses that of every other nation by a wide margin — and as documented conclusively by Michelle Alexander in the New Jim Crow, African-Americans have been systemically and deliberately targeted by law enforcement practices that have created a new and more pernicious racial caste system in which criminalization brands one for life as a member.

Via: Criminology

One would think given these statistics there would be a serious discussion in this country about whether we’ve gone overboard in the use of punishment and incarceration as a means of controlling people. There is a national conversation about prisons, but it’s not really about whether they are humane or effective, rather the debate is all about the BENJAMINS – the costs of corrections and law enforcement as a percentage of state budgets.

Republicans propose a solution from their all-purpose playbook – ‘Privatize It!’. Private prisons are all the rage among conservatives as part of their ‘fiscal austerity’ agenda. According to them, private companies such as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) can do a better job than government of managing our prisons without compromising public safety and/or prisoner health. Leading the debate has been Governor Rick Scoot – Tweedledum to Scott Walker’s Tweedledee – who supported legislation that would have dramatically expanded the role of private prisons in Florida’s correctional system – a state with the sixth largest prison population in the country.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/EpekN7fujLA?fs=1

As has been true of a lot of his political agenda, Governor Scott miscalculated. It turns out a lot his erstwhile Tea Party supporters did not believe his claims regarding the fiscal benefits of privatizing state prisons, as reported by the Wall Street Journal:

After fierce debate and lobbying by the Governor and his legislative supporters, the proposal was defeated in the Florida senate this week. The rebuke of Scott and the state’s Republican leadership on this issue was motivated in part by concern over the almost 4,000 corrections officers whose jobs would be jeopardized, as well as growing evidence from other states that privatization is not the panacea many think. Contrary to the claims of proponents, private prisons are actually less safe – more incidents of assaults against guards and other prisoners and they have less experienced personnel who often cave under pressure.

Russian TV has done a more thorough job of reporting on this issue than most US media – Private Prison in Florida, Report from RTV: Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks discusses:

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/QTHlxunoRpg?fs=1

Rather than focusing on saving money by cutting costs on prisoners and the people who manage them, we should look for alternatives to incarceration and demand our leaders pursue public safety strategies that value PEOPLE OVER PROFITS!!

Then – black prisoners = free labor in Reconstruction South:

Now – black prisoners = free labor in the New South:

This article was first published on PolicyMic.com

On September 17, 2011, a group of young people occupied Zuccotti Park in New York City’s financial district. Shortly thereafter, their oft-repeated slogan of being the “99%†started to ricochet in the news media. The heavy news coverage has allowed their slogan to seep into the public consciousness.
Henceforth, the “Occupy movement,†as it became known, started influence political conservation. Before the launch of the movement, the issue of inequality was a mere afterthought. The agitation of the Occupiers put the spotlight on the ever-growing chasm between the “1%†and the “99%.†Their plight will make economic inequality one of the central issues in the upcoming presidential campaign.
As this debate starts to percolate, it is important to examine some of the factors that have contributed to this deep inequality. From 1945 to 1986, the top tax rate ranged from 90% to 50%. During those decades, there was a consensus between both parties that the government had to be funded by keeping taxes at an appropriate level. Many Republicans opposed President Kennedy’s tax cuts because they feared that it could lead to deficit.
Unlike the decades following World War II when the economic prosperity was broadly shared, those at the top of the economic ladder began to enjoy a greater share of the economic pie during the 1980s. Moreover, since the 1970s, the income of the average worker started to stagnate.
The economy, however, had been able to produce enough jobs to keep the unemployment low for most of the past three decades. The en-mass entry of women into the job market had cushioned the blow that would have resulted from this income stagnation, since one paycheck could no longer provide economic security.
Even though the economy was still producing jobs, the country had seen a rise in service jobs that neither paid nor provide the same benefits as manufacturing jobs. As a result, even households with two paychecks sometimes struggle to maintain a middle class lifestyle. The economic boom of the 1990s helped strengthened the middle class because of the tremendous number of jobs that were created and other policy initiatives targeting middle income Americans.
Whereas the 1990s was a decade in which the middle class had made some economic gains, the following decade has been characterized as a “lost decade.†During those years, the income of the middle class had barely budged; in fact, it was the first recorded decade to see a decline in median income and a zero net job growth. Worse yet, a great number of Americans ran up their credit cards or borrowed money on their homes, especially during the housing bubble, to maintain their middle class lifestyle. During the Bush years, there was a weak economic expansion driven in part by home construction. In the words of the economist Paul Krugman, Americans “made a living by selling houses to each there.” This housing boom was fueled by easy credit, which was seemingly given to anyone.
The bursting of the housing bubble and the financial collapse that ensued has wiped out the home equity of a large number of Americans. This negative equity has sunk many middle class families into debt. Even worse, millions of people lost their homes. In a society where owning a home had always been synonymous to having a foothold in the middle class and living the American Dream, this loss turned that dream into a recurring nightmare for those Americans.
In the past 30 years the wages of many middle class families have not kept up with the increase in the cost of living. The housing devastation occurred in the midst of this. In an excellent article, Michael Hirsch highlights the bleak economic realities. For instance, he points out that it would require a yearly salary of $68,000 for a family of four to pay for their mortgages, college and health care costs, along with their gas prices. In 2010, however, half of the jobs in the U.S. pay“less than $33, 840.†It is no wonder, then, that many families are drowning in debt.
While American manufacturing has never been more productive, change in technology and competition from China and other emerging economies have led to the elimination of millions of jobs. This post industrial economy tends to disproportionately benefit the well educated and the wealthy. But with a high school diploma, it is nearly impossible to secure a job that would afford one a middle class lifestyle. Instead of looking for innovative solutions to this vexing problem, the Republican Party has embraced a rigid tax cut ideology. For many conservatives, tax cut is a panacea that cures whatever ills the economy. The tax cuts that they favor are those that chiefly benefit the wealthy. This approach to taxation has been predicated on the belief that a lower rate on the investor class would spur economic growth. Thus, it would be “a rising tide that would lift all boats.†For more than thirty years, however, many struggling middle and working class Americans are still awaiting this growth.
In the past, when the economy was still growing jobs and the overall economic situation had not been as desperate as it is today, conservatives had been successful in stifling any serious debate about inequality and the need for any increase in taxes by characterizing the very discussion as “class warfare.†They quickly resorted to the same characterizations when Obama began to talk about tax fairness. We are living in different times. Those oft-repeated buzzwords do not carry the same resonance at a time when people are still reeling from the financial collapse.
As long as the average American continues to feel the pinch of the Great Recession, economic inequality, which has been exacerbated by a regressive tax policy that decidedly favors the super rich, will be a potent political issue in the presidential election. Even more important, if the “class warfare†slogan continues to lose its resonance among the public, the Republicans, particularly the party’s nominee, would need to come up with concrete proposals to address the growing economic inequality, and the slow recovery that has been turning a significant segment of middle income Americans into MINO, middle class in name only.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

I’ll be dropping some videos this afternoon.

From Rev. Al: He talks about Willard doubling down about ‘ Let Detroit Go Bankrupt’.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In case you didn’t know it, Mr. Grover ‘ Drown Government in a Bathtub’ Norquist, said some interesting stuff about Willard.

From Lawrence O’Donnell:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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.

And continue to have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »

With Obama-logo bedazzled pick in hair, ?uestlove lays it down on why he’s still down with the President.

He says it’s not a quick fix and that we’ve got to have the Prez’s back. Here’s the text of the vid in case you’re at work and can’t pop your audio:

If you agree, head on down to the new website that’s just for us: http://AfricanAmericans.BarackObama.com

I’m a big fan of the Roots myself — and I love that they’ve stood by positive black leaders like Van Jones and have stood up for causes like Earth Day before. Make a little black history – go on with your bad self!

hat tip-The Obama Diary:

First Lady Michelle Obama greets a chef while visiting the dining facility at Little Rock Air Force Base in Little Rock, Ark., as part of a tour celebrating the second anniversary of the “Let’s Move!†initiative, Feb. 9, 2012. Little Rock Air Force Base is part of a pilot program that has enhanced food service quality, variety, and availability through new acquisition processes and redesign efforts.
—Official White House Photo by Sonya N. Hebert

The First Day of The First Lady’s Lets Move! Anniversary Tour

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/DVTnvr79M-M ]

Good Morning.

As you make it through your day, don’t forget JJP.

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

And always, have a peaceful day.

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From The Maddow Blog:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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.

And continue to have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »