You won't believe Rush Limbaugh. He just accused President Obama of trying to intentionally wreck the economy, saying that Obama wants to put more people on welfare and food stamps, and implying that he wants to redistribute the country's wealth to Black people.1
This is not just an ugly attack on President Obama from Rush Limbaugh -- these are words from the man who is being held up as the face of the Republican Party. Virtually no Republican leaders have been willing to denounce his divisive rhetoric, or even disagree with him.2 Instead, they say he's an important part of their party, and a friend.
When Republican leaders refuse to denounce this kind of race-baiting from someone they call a leader, the message they send is that they embrace it. It's time to force Republican officials to say where they stand. Please take a moment to help us publicly confront them:
Here's what Rush said about President Obama's economic policies:
"The objective is unemployment. The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation's wealth and return to it to the nation's quote, "rightful owners." Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on."3
It's a direct appeal to racial fear and paranoia, and it's deeply insulting to the President, to Black people, and to anyone who cares about the future of this country. We've seen this kind of thing from Rush before.4,5 But now, Republican politicians are refusing to denounce what he says, or even disagree with him. When they do, they usually take it back the next day, begging Rush to forgive them.6
Colin Powell is perhaps the only prominent Republican who has consistently stood up to Limbaugh and urged other Republicans to turn away from his divisive rhetoric. Powell recently said this: "I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without."7
The response from Limbaugh and other Republicans? Rush repeated an old attack on Powell, accusing him of supporting Obama during the election solely based on race.8 Meanwhile, Dick Cheney took to the airwaves to attack Powell and make it clear that he stands with Rush Limbaugh when it comes to the future of the Republican Party.9
Rush speaks. Republicans in government do the work.
You might think Rush and Cheney merely represent the party's extremes, but that misses the larger context. The Republican Party has made it clear that they don't want Obama to succeed--even if it means further damage to the economy and to the lives of everyday Americans. It's evident in the 'no' votes Republican members of Congress cast against Obama's budget, the refusal of Republican governors to allow stimulus dollars to flow into their states, and their leadership's refusal to denounce the rhetoric coming from Rush and others. Rush has said clearly that he wants Obama to fail, and Republican elected officials have been clear in their actions.
Please join us in demanding that Republican leaders say publicly where they stand. Do they reject Rush Limbaugh's divisive fear-mongering, or do they stand with him? If they refuse to denounce what Rush said, they'll be making it perfectly clear what the Republican Party stands for. And we'll do our best to make sure the media tells the story.
-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
May 26th, 2009
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Models at the 2009 Sao Paulo Fashion Week
The race disparity was called out earlier this month by the black advocacy group Educafro, who called for a second, parallel Sao Paolo Fashion Week that would feature only black models. More HERE
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Five Birmingham police officers were fired Wednesday for beating an unconscious suspect ejected from a car after a chase, an attack captured on a patrol car videotape that didn't surface publicly for a year. Police Chief A.C. Roper said the officers, who were not identified, were seasoned veterans but acted in a "shameful" manner.
The video shows police pursuing Anthony Warren's van on Jan. 23, 2008. One officer on foot was hurt when the van swerved through traffic. It overturned on a ramp, ejecting Warren, who lay motionless as officers ran toward him. The video shows them beating him with their fists, feet and a billy club.
An attorney representing Warren in a civil case said he was hospitalized after the chase and didn't realize he'd been beaten until a prosecutor preparing for his trial requested the tape, saw the attack and told the defense about it.
Roper said the department had "terminated 50 years of combined service due to 10 seconds of injustice."
The officers can appeal. More HERE
AAPP says: The brother was wrong for endangering the lives of people in that high speed chase, yet the police acted like out of control animals. Yes, the department had "terminated 50 years of combined service, one has to wonder if this is the only 10 seconds of injustice by these guys." Congratulations Mayor of Birmingham for your quick decision. Now fire more people who covered this up.
I guess they would love to have a lynching party.
The Alabama Bureau of Investigation is investigating the beating, who altered the tape, in what agency that alteration occurred, and whether it was intentional. The FBI said Wednesday night it had launched a civil rights investigation of the incident.
The tape of the beating of Anthony Shannon Warren, which the Birmingham Police Department released publicly Wednesday, is drawing national attention and has spawned additional internal and criminal investigations.
The five officers' attorney, Gayle Gear, said the men believed Warren posed a threat and responded in accordance with their training.
The incident happened Jan. 23, 2008, when a police officer tried to question Warren, now 38, about possible drug activity. A 22-minute chase followed, during which Warren struck a Hoover police officer and then was thrown from his own van after he crashed.
Authorities said he was unconscious when the five officers began kicking him and beating him with a billy club and fists. The battering was captured on police video until a sixth officer turned off the lights and siren in the cruiser that held the camera, automatically shutting off the camera.
Warren was charged with attempted murder of the Hoover officer, but later pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. More HERE
There is more - You have to read the whole story at The Birmingham News. Don't forget to email Carol Robinson at: crobinson@bhamnews.com regarding her great coverage and indepth investigation.
Unaware of his beating
The allegation of tampering is also an issue raised in a claim filed with the city of Birmingham on behalf of Warren, shortly after he entered his guilty plea.
The claim detailed Warren's injuries, which included a concussion and a skull fracture, but also alleges the Police Department interfered with the administration of justice and conspired to tamper with evidence.
"Also of great concern to us is the fact that .¤.¤. everything after the van flipped, the entire beating, was deleted on the tape given to the defense counsel, with clear intent to suppress," said lawyer Wendy Crew, who represents Warren. "The tampering with the evidence and the editing of the video and proffering it was clearly a conscious and deliberate act."
Crew said Warren was shot with a Taser before the high-speed chase, and contended that the chase should have never started.
Warren, who was hospitalized for five days after the incident, was unaware he had been beaten until the video came to light.
"This case isn't about Anthony Warren," Crew said. "It's about a systemic problem with training, with failing to intervene, with the culture of tolerance of this kind of behavior and about the deliberate tampering with evidence."
Roper said all aspects of the incident remain under investigation.
"One thing is for certain, the video, as incriminating as it is, was kept safe and secure by this department for over a year," he said. "When it came to our attention, we launched an internal investigation which is still continuing."
No response to order
Gear, the officers' lawyer, said they all responded according to procedure. None saw Warren ejected from the van, she said, and they approached him presuming he was dangerous and were unaware he was unconscious.
She said Dewitt saw Warren on the ground and approached, shouting: "Show me your hands!" as he was trained to do. When Warren did not comply, Dewitt struck him with a baton to make him show his hands.
Other officers followed suit.
As Doran approached, Dewitt slipped. Thinking Dewitt had been shot, Gear said, Doran hit Warren.
"In those 11 seconds we had two officers frantic to get this man to show his hands," Gear said.
Cleveland, the third man to arrive, hit Warren in the pressure points on the neck, non-lethal strikes within Birmingham policy, Gear said.
"He tries the procedures," she said. "When it doesn't work, he backs off."
Boackle struck Warren on a part of the leg intended to disable him before seeing he was unresponsive. Prevo was the last officer to hit Warren.
If supervisors thought the officers had used excessive force, they would have reprimanded them on the scene or included it in reports of the incident that went through several people before ending up on the police chief's desk, Gear said.
First disciplinary action
The officers, whose time on the force ranges from seven to 13 years each, have appealed their dismissals to the Jefferson County Personnel Board.
Two of the five officers who were fired changed positions after the January incident. Boackle was promoted to sergeant in August 2008, Gear said. Prevo moved from the narcotics unit to the burglary unit in October 2008.
This was the first time any of the officers have been called before the police chief for a disciplinary matter, Gear said. One of the officers, Doran, received a legislative medal of honor for carrying a woman to safety from a second-floor apartment during a fire, Gear said. Another, Dewitt, had been honored as a finalist for the FOP Officer of the Year Award.
She said they are devastated by the entire disciplinary process.
"These are the best examples of our fine police force that we have," Gear said.
AAPP: Hmmm....
President Obama at the National Archives building on Thursday.
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For these reasons, the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" should be immediately and explicitly prohibited by the United States - PERIOD!
Bruce says: A few weeks ago Radio One founder Cathy Hughes, echoed by Tom Joyner and dozens of other radio personalities, sounded the alarm. HR 848 they cried, a bill to make stations pay a “performance rights” fee for every song played, was a mortal threat to black radio. In a widely circulated blog post which was echo-blasted to everybody on any Radio One email list, Hughes cited black radio's stellar contributions of news, diversity and local content as reasons why African American communities should rally to protect it. She even claimed black talk and gospel were “money losing formats [1]” as if these were public services and tithes offered out of Radio One's bottomless reservoir of corporate good will.
The laughter was pretty hard to suppress. Commentators like Paul Scott and Mark Anthony Neal ran columns titled “Should We Save Black Radio? [2]” and “Should Black Radio Die [3]?” to which they answered “probably not” and “maybe.” The widely known fact, as BAR's Glen Ford pointed out six years ago in “Who Killed Black Radio News [4]” is that Radio One led the industry in purging news, public service and local content of all kinds from its airwaves in favor of cheap, syndicated, uninformed talk, mostly about celebrities and relationships. Radio One's payola-influenced playlists are indistinguishable from its white-owned black radio competitors. Perhaps to protect their audiences from too many confusing facts, Tom Joyner, Cathy Hughes and the rest of the "save black radio" posse never mention that white broadcasters, the National Association of Broadcasters in fact, are just as opposed to HR 848 as they are, for most of the same reasons. So the truth is surely more complicated than Cathy Hughes and her posse would have us believe.
HR 848, the so-called Performance Rights Act, which Hughes says may be the death knell of black radio is sponsored by Detroit congressman John Conyers. It has dozens of high-profile celebrity boosters. The legislation will supposedly compensate performing artists – authors, composers and copyright holders are already taken care of by other intellectual property laws – when their work is played on the radio. Putting aside for the moment the economics of radio stations, it doesn't sound like an inherently bad idea. Artistry is work, and work ought to be paid, right?
Will Revenue From the Performance Rights Act Actually Reach Performers?
The answers here are: not much and not likely. Given the historic business practices of the industry, and the provisions of HR 848, it's safe to say artists won't see much of this money. It will be extracted from radio stations,and collected and disbursed by Sound Exchange or other representatives of the same suits who have made an industry out of stealing from artists since the dawn of time, or at least since recording business managed to make the recorded product it distributed and controlled, instead of the artists' live performances which it did not control, the music industry's main revenue stream. HR 848 also guarantees industry execs the right to rake an unspecified portion off the top for handling charges.
Section 6(1)(1)(a) of the law says that entitlement of the artist to these payments is “...in accordance with the terms of the artist’s contract,” rather than in addition to or outside of and not subject to the contract. In plain English that means a cleverly written or dishonestly administered contract can easily divert these new “performance royalties” to pockets other than those of the performers.
As Mark Anthony Neal put it:
“Record companies are simply disingenuous when they suggest that artists will benefit from the passing of HR 848, when their own business practices guarantee the average artist less than 10-percent of profits generated from the sale of their recordings and the companies will themselves take part of the proceeds generated from the collection of a “performance tax.” If the RIAA and Record companies were really so concerned with the plight of artist, they would create less exploitive relationships with artists. ”
The representatives of RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, clearly wrote this law for their own benefit, not that of artists. It's no secret that CD sales, and recording industry profits have been on the downtourn for years. The RIAA blames this on digital technologies and downloading, and it has used its lobbying muscle in Congress to pass one law after another against what it calls digital "piracy.". According to Lawrence Lessig, RIAA has aided the Department of Justice in prosecuting 25,000 people over the last few years for downloading songs over the internet without paying license fees. As far as anybody knows not a penny recovered has gone to artists. Two years ago RIAA imposed a similar fee structure on internet radio, making it prohibitively expensive for many of those stations to incorporate any sort of music in their programming. The defenders of internet radio saw the handwriting on the wall; they predicted that broadcast radio would be next. Tom Joyner, Cathy Hughes and the rest did nothing, and now the wolf is at their door. Read more at: blackagendareport.
I'm glad that the new internet based Black Talk Radio Network™ is up and going. It will eliminate much of the politics involved in radio, and provide more control to average black Americans.
PS: Don't forget to join Black Opinion.com and Black Talk Radio Network™ and take the Online Black Talk Radio Survey
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, working the room at a luncheon gathering of party officials yesterday, had the same parting words for each man he met: "Stay out of trouble." Or, if speaking to a couple, he would tell the woman: "Keep him out of trouble."
Coming from Steele, this advice had an ironic ring.
The RNC chairman has managed to get into trouble with comic regularity during his first few months on the job. His latest brush with trouble had come only minutes before the lunch, when Fox News broadcast an interview with Steele in which he complained that party leaders -- the very people he was about to have lunch with -- have "their knives bared" for him.
"I was thinking of changing my cologne," he confessed to Fox's Carl Cameron.
But it's what's coming out of Steele's mouth, not his pores, that's causing him trouble.
He called Rush Limbaugh "incendiary" and "ugly." He described abortion as an individual choice. He spent $18,500 decorating his office, which he had called "way too male for me." He offered some "slum love" to Indian American Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, and speculated that the GOP base rejected Mitt Romney "because it had issues with Mormonism."
Steele had promised to reach "urban-suburban hip-hop settings" as part of his an "off the hook" party-building effort, but party officials moved to give the chairman the hook: They called this week's special meeting of the party and were considering a no-confidence vote when Steele, trying to prevent a mutiny, agreed to have some of his spending powers stripped.
Dreamworks Studios said in a statement it had secured the rights to make the film from the King estate, which it hoped would create the "the definitive portrait" of the murdered activist's tumultuous life.
"We are all honored that the King Estate is giving us the opportunity to tell the story of these defining, historic events," Spielberg said.
"It is our hope that the creative power of film and the impact of Dr King's life can combine to present a story of undeniable power that we can all be proud of." More HERE
AAPP: oops, rewind! USATODAY.com reports,
Get this, as reported by USATODAY.com
AAPP: King, Inc. You got to be kidding me.... King, Inc. These children of Martin and Coretta are acting like little children. Their legal disputes regarding their parents' intellectual property in the past year have been an insult to the lives of their parents. But then again, they all seem to be more interested in tarnishing their parents' legacy with his "business decisions" that peddle Martin Luther King, Jr., for thier own economic interest.
Martin Luther King III says, "It's not that we are against a film," he said. "It's very interesting to me that a company would engage in a business arrangement knowing that there's severe controversy around many issues pertaining to the estate of Martin Luther King Jr."
I agree, DreamWorks should have layed low, or at least partnered with black film makers and black writers in this planned production. I'm still concerned about the representation of black people in films.
At this point, Dexter King seems to be nothing more than a two bit hustler. This guy even used his name to get an $800,000 licensing deal with the foundation tasked with building a memorial to their father on, of all places the
I finally purchased an IPhone and was disappointed that I could not use Microsoft products. Well, that was until I read on how Citrix has Microsoft Windows apps on the iPhone too.
Citrix launched the Citrix Receiver iPhone app, available now free for download from the iPhone App Store. I had a chance to spend some time today with the Citrix Receiver iPhone app connected to the Citrix Cloud Center.
Citrix Receiver was surprisingly speedy to launch and very responsive when running apps like Solidworks, and Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In addition to running desktop windowed apps, Receiver also supports Silverlight, Flash, and Flex based applications.
Along with its good responsiveness, the touch interface of the iPhone worked well tapping and controling icons, menu items, popup menus, and buttons. Citrix has also added a well designed landscape keyboard (something most iPhone apps will have to wait for until iPhone OS 3.0 is out this summer) that even includes Alt+Tab, Delete, Esc, and page up/down keys. I wonder if Ctrl-Alt-Del will reboot my iPhone, lol.
I've included some screenshots and you can see full sized images here. You can check the Citrix Receiver by getting a demo account at www.citrixcloud.net and then download the client on your iPhone. Check it out. I'd love to hear what you think.
For more information about enterprise networking, go to NetworkWorld. Story copyright 2008 Network World Inc. All rights reserved.
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