The Romney campaign has released a new campaign commercial targeting African-American voters. It includes footage from Romney’s polarizing appearance at the NAACP’s annual convention in Houston. Perhaps not surprisingly, the boos the presumptive GOP nominee for president received are edited out. The overarching theme of the commercial is job creation and “getting the economy back on track.” Watch the video below and let me know if you buy the hype.
Broadcast journalist MarÃa de la
Soledad Teresa O'Brien is anchor of CNN's morning news program Starting Point
which premiered on January 2, 2012 . O'Brien co-anchored American Morning
from July 2003 to April 2007, with Miles O'Brien. Their common surname is coincidental.
After leaving the morning anchoring position, O'Brien worked with the "In
America" documentary unit on CNN.
If you're asking, I'm answering. No folks, I'm not talking about Donna Reed, the television actress who starred in her namesake weekly show of the 1950's and '60's. That Donna Reed passed away January 14, 1986. I hope you took the journey through the television archives and met Donna Stone (The Donna Reed Show), Harriet Nelson (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet), Lucy Ricardo (I Love Lucy) and Margaret Anderson (Father Knows Best). These are the women, wives, and mothers of the 1950's and early '60's. Unfortunately, politicians continue to legislate and create public policy with these women and their fictional families in mind. In case you didn't notice, they are quite different from the women, wives, and mothers of the Twenty First Century.
If you're carrying extra pounds, you're not alone. In this case, following the crowd could be risky. While an expanding waistline is sometimes considered the price of getting older, carrying weight around the waist is a greater risk of serious health problems, even death, than accumulating fat in other areas. Belly fat is nothing to joke about.
Three alleged white supremacists who violently beat an African-American man while he waited at a Houston bus stop have been found guilty of a federal hate crime.
On Monday, a federal jury convicted Charles Cannon, 26, Michael McLaughlin, 41, and Brian Kerstetter, 32, of a federal hate crime charge related to the racially motivated assault of 29-year-old Yondell Johnson last summer.
Growing up in the 1950's, I watched vintage television and viewed a bunch of shows that tried to portray just what a "real woman" should be. A present day article in the New York Times focusing on unwed mothers who are causing the rising inequality had me travelling back to the good old days of the 50's T. V. moms. The author of the article compared a married, college educated woman's circumstances to those of a single mother of three. Wow, the New York Times shows us what many would say are the results of "poor choices" and failure for those who don't adhere to "Christian values". Take a moment and relive "those thrilling days of yesteryear".
Anyone who's tried to lose weight knows it's not a piece of cake. But, as with everything, we can learn from others and their successes. One of the things I love about attending Weight Watcher meetings is hearing from others who have gone through the process and succeeded. It let's me know I can reach my weight loss goal.
According to a Daily Beast report, a record 5.85 million convicted felons aren’t allowed to vote, according to a report out today (PDF) by The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice research and advocacy group. That’s about 500,000 more than were disenfranchised in 2004—and potentially enough to decide this year’s tightly-contested presidential election.
By some estimates, the election could be decided by a margin of roughly two points, or a mere 2.5 million people. The disenfranchised felon voting block is “absolutely enough” to swing an election, says Sasha Abramsky, author of Conned: How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House.
Comic Jimmie "JJ" Walker slamming President Obama and implying that Blacks vote based on race raises my blood pressure. He must agree with the folks in the Hamptons who paid $30,000 per person to attend a fundraiser for Mitt Romney and managed to get media attention to their views that Blacks are less educated, don't understand our (political) system and therefore don't know how to vote on the issues. Resegregation, racial profiling, increasing crime rates, in adequate public schooling, voter suppression, increasing incarceration- so many issues tell me that unless we make good decisions in Election 2012, women and minorities are going backward and YO-YO (you're on your own).
There are many
lung diseases out in the world, but few are as deadly to the body as Pulmonary Tuberculosis. Thisdisease on average kills
3 million people every year, and has infected almost a third of the human
population. In 2010, it infected almost 9 million people, and was a factor to
over 15 million deaths in the U.S alone. If caught soon enough, then the
symptoms could be killed off with some medicines.If not, then you will have to take them for a
longer period of time, around six months to be exact. The disease is easily preventable
and treatment isn’t too rough on your body either.
One of the trials and tribulations of the rich and famous is the pesty laws suits filed by fans, friends and foes alike. Take a look at some of the behind the scenes drama your well know on screen personalities have faced.
In July 2011,Christian rocker
Bradlee Dean sued MSNBC host Rachael Maddow
claiming she mischaracterized his views on gay rights and Sharia law. Dean, filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit. He said that
Maddow omitted a line from his statement, in which the Christian rocker said he
was against the killing of gay people. Maddow, however, read the line. MSNBC
and Maddow pushed back against the lawsuit, calling for its
dismissal.
Comedian
Chris Rock is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to
explorations of racism and stereotypes. He sparked a lot of conversation, sending
out this tweet to his followers: "Happy white peoples independence day the
slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed fireworks."
Some took the remarks as unpatriotic
and fired on Rock and some even went so far as to give the comedian a brief
history lesson. Some saw both the humor and relevance in Rock's joke.
Comedian
and activist Elon James White, host of the web series This Week In
Blackness gave his perspective to the Huffington Post:
I
find this Chris Rock backlash absolutely ridiculous. Really? Someone tells the
truth and you mad? I'm American. I never claim otherwise. I never give the
"We didn't land on Plymouth rock" speech unless its in a really funny
way. But part of being American, to me, is that I have to acknowledge all the
bullshit that comes with it. Basically some folks came over, stole other
people's land, killed them, then started a country on the backs of my people,
while killing them, and then at some point they freed the slaves but then
oppressed them and killed them some more. Do I have the ability to do things
here that I wouldn't in some parts of the world? Yes. But my family paid the
price for that in actual blood, sweat and tears. If more people were like Rock
and acknowledged the truth maybe we'd be in a better place as a Nation.
MSNBC
host Melissa Harris-Perry shared her thoughts on Independence Day in a recent
show. After
calling America's "complicated history", Harris-Perry called the men
who founded America "embarrassingly imperfect."
"The
land on which they formed this union was stolen," she said. "The
hands with which they built this nation were enslaved. The women who birthed
the citizens of the nation were second class. But all of this is our
story."
Fox
hosts Bill O'Reilly and Gretchen Carlson were critical of the remarks and laid
into Harris-Perry for taking such an approach to discuss the holiday.
"She's not wrong historically," Carlson said. "But you know what
Bill, on the Fourth of July, do you think any American really wants to hear
about the negatives of this country?"
"Well
people who watch that network do," O'Reilly said of MSNBC viewers.
"The far left in America, which is entirely what watches that, they hate
the country. They want to break it down and build back a totally new
America." In
a segment titled "Word Police," Harris-Perry reacted to O'Reilly and
Carlson's criticism.
"Out
came the word police, with their frankenbite, selective excerpts of what I had
to say," Harris-Perry said of her Independence Day monologue while a
graphic of O'Reilly and Carlson appeared on screen. "Out came their
condemnation of any criticism of the nation so close to the day commemorating
our founding -- a founding based on the very principle of the right to
criticize, oppose, even at times, to revolt. Revolt -- world police -- holster
your weapons, pocket your badges. This is not a revolution being televised.
It's just television. We're just talking, with our words, just as those who
came before us fought and died so that we could."
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank has tied the knot with his longtime partner in a ceremony
officiated by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.
Frank, who has decided not to run for re-election, is the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage. More than 300 guests were in attendance.
Frank spokesman Harry Gural says the 72-year-old congressman married
42-year-old Jim Ready in a Saturday evening wedding at the Boston Marriott hotel
in Newton. Gural says more than 300 friends, family and colleagues attended. Frank, a Democrat who is retiring after more than three decades in office, represents the 4th Congressional District in southeastern Massachusetts. Ready, of Ogunquit, Maine, has a small business doing custom awnings, carpentry, painting, welding and other general handyman services. He's also a photographer.
"There’s an unintended benefit," he told New York magazine earlier this year. "I want to get married. I do think, to be honest, if I was running for reelection, I might have tried to put the marriage off until after the election, because it just becomes a complication. But I did want to get married while I was still in office. I think it’s important that my colleagues interact with a married gay man."
While volunteering to get folks registered to vote, I notice
that many of the black males I approached declined to register. When I pressed
them a bit further, they let me know that they were “felons” and are not
allowed to vote. So how, for all these years, I never knew that “felons were
not allowed to vote”.I was surprised
and puzzled as to why these American citizens had been disenfranchised. Right
to my trusty computer I went to research the issue. Pull up a chair and let me
share the information I found about this issue.
In an article from StraightDope.com, I learned the short
answer that “felons can't vote because voting is a
civil right and you forfeit certain rights, temporarily anyway, when convicted
of a serious crime”. Here are some of the facts:
Convicted felons have been denied various
privileges granted to other citizens going all the way back to ancient Rome and
Greece--this practice is laced throughout the common law that serves as the
basis for U.S. law.
Although some felons have been legally
disenfranchised, others have not. Specifically, while only four states allow
felons to vote while they are in prison, 18 allow felons to vote while they are
on parole and 21 allow them to vote while on probation. Only 10 states
permanently disenfranchise all felons and another handful do so to some
ex-offenders or restore the ability to vote after a time limit.
The Sentencing Project, a prisoner advocacy
group, says that 13% of black males are disenfranchised under these laws. Clearly, this is a big deal.
In Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 (1974), a majority of the Supreme Court found that the 14th Amendment
gives the states clear permission to deny the vote to felons. William Rehnquist, then a green associate
justice, wrote for the majority that this language (and the accompanying
legislative history) made it clear that the states may abridge the rights of
those convicted of "other crimes."
According to The Sentencing Project, an advocacy organization that promotes reforms in sentencing policy and alternatives to incarceration, 5.3 million Americans are denied the right to vote because of laws against convicted felons. An example of this injustice is that nearly 378,000 have lost their right to vote in Virginia--almost seven percent of the population.
Isn't it ironic that purpose of the 14th Amendment was to encourage
states to extend voting rights to newly-freed slaves. There is a glimmer of hope. In Hunter v.Underwood, 471 U.S. 222 (1985), the court found that the right to
disenfranchise felons was not absolute. Specifically, the court found that a
disenfranchisement law reflecting "purposeful racial discrimination"
was not constitutional. So if one could show that the pattern of convictions of
blacks vs. whites in the war on drugs or otherwise showed "purposeful
racial discrimination," one might be able to get Wild Bill and the
Supremes to reconsider. When you go to argue the case, be sure to point out
that states with tough anti-felon laws tend to be located in the South and that
a lot of these laws were beefed up around the turn of the century to include
crimes thought to be more commonly committed by blacks.
There's more information on felon-disenfranchisement laws from The Sentencing Project, along with information on sentencing policy, drug policy, racial disparity, women's issues, and other topics of importance. I appreciate their assistance with information in this article.
Governor Rick Scott has been successful in returning Florida's voting laws to the post-slavery days of the Black Codes.
Scott and his Cabinet passed an archaic rule requiring nonviolent felons to wait five years after completing their sentences before applying to have their voting rights restored. This means citizens won't be able to participate in the most basic tenet of our democracy, despite having paid their debt to society.
Forbes has released its list of the highest paid actors. The earning period was May 2011 to May 2012. To determine who the highest-paid actors in Hollywood are, Forbes considered upfront pay, profit participation, residuals, endorsements and advertising work. They talked to manager, agents, lawyers and other in-the-know folks to come up with their estimates. They did not deduct for things like agent fees or the expenses related to being a celebrity.
You might want to jot down your picks for highest paid and compare your choices with the Forbes List. There are a few surprises:
If you're carrying extra pounds, you're not alone. In this case, following the crowd could be risky. While an expanding waistline is sometimes considered the price of getting older, carrying weight around the waist is a greater risk of serious health problems, even death, than accumulating fat in other areas. Belly fat is nothing to joke about.
