Kamala Harris on Her 2020 Presidential Campaign and Trump’s Vanity Wall ...

America, America, What's Going On? | A Moral Critique by Rev. Dr. Willia...

October 25th, 2018 - Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II lectures at St. John's University in New York.

Stacey Abrams v Brian Kemp: inside the bitter battle for Georgia's soul

Shields and Brooks on the mail bombs and politics as an identity

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The GOP "Has Been Playing With Fire" | All In | MSNBC

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The GOP "Has Been Playing With Fire" | All In | MSNBC

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates was born September 30, 1975). He is an American author, journalist, comic book writer, and educator. Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about cultural, social and political issues, particularly regarding African Americans. Author of "Between the World and Me","We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy", and the new book You Might Be A White Supremacist'. Coates’book, “We Were Eight Years In Power,” collects essays he published during the Obama administration and appends them with new writing and reflections.

Coates has worked for The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, and Time. He has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, O, and other publications. In 2008 he published a memoir, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood. His second book, Between the World and Me, was released in July 2015. It won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and was a nominee for the Phi Beta Kappa 2016 Book Awards. He was the recipient of a "Genius Grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2015. He is the writer of a Black Panther series for Marvel Comics. Ta-Nehisi Coates: The GOP "Has Been Playing With Fire" | All In | MSNBC Ta-Nehisi Coates explains what makes President Obama unique

Poor People’s Campaign rally revives Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission

        
Poor People’s Campaign rally revives Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission

It’s a culmination of a six-week Christian-led campaign against income inequality and racism.
 By Tara Isabella Burton 

 Earlier this month, several White House representatives cited the Bible verse Romans 13 to justify a vision of Christianity that, for example, demands submission to GOP politics and legitimizes the separation of migrant families at the US-Mexico border.

 Saturday, at 10 am, in front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, DC, two Christian faith leaders will spearhead a thousands-strong interfaith cross-party rebuke to that theology. Led by Rev. William Barber, a civil rights activist and mainline Protestant pastor within the Disciples of Christ denomination, and Rev. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian minister and co-director of Union Theological Seminary’s Kairos Center, the Poor People’s Campaign is a revival of the historic Martin Luther King Jr.-led movement of the same name.

 King’s original movement consisted of a 1968 rally in which the civil rights leader set up a protest camp of 3,000 people of all racial backgrounds on the National Mall. The camp remained there for six weeks.

 ”All of us can feel the presence of a kind of social insanity which could lead us to national ruin,” King said at the time, arguing that civil rights could only take place alongside a radical addressing of income inequality across America.

 Fifty years later, Barber and Theoharis’s Poor People’s Campaign is indebted to that original vision. Over the past six weeks, reflecting the six weeks of the King protest, Barber, Theoharis, and campaign representatives have participated in a number of protests, rallies, teach-ins, religious services, and planned acts of civil disobedience across the United States. (Both Barber and Theoharis have been arrested during the Campaign for blocking access to the United States Capitol.) 

The six weeks of campaigning will culminate in Saturday’s rally. Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was an influential figure in the original 1968 rally, will attend, as will the actor and activist Danny Glover.

 According to Barber, who spoke to journalists with Theoharis on a press call on Friday, the rally will heavily feature marginalized and impacted voices, not just “people speaking for the poor, but [rather] impacted people of every color and sexuality … from Alabama to Alaska.”

 Afterward, Barber said, the group would march from the National Mall to the Capitol and attempt to deliver letters with demands — including reforms to the prison system, the health care system, voting rights, and more — to Congress. Barber likened the action to Martin Luther’s nailing his 95 theses to a church door, which was considered the spark of the Protestant Reformation.

 The campaign, Barber stressed, would not be limited to a single issue, whether racial justice, immigration reform, or income inequality. Rather, he said, the campaign would focus on the intersection of all these issues. “We resist those who say poor people need to ask for one thing. … We want all of what the Constitution promises.

” Both Barber and Theoharis’s statements were characterized by richly theological language and a desire to frame their political aims in an explicitly Christian context. Barber quoted Matthew 18:6, a verse in which Jesus admonishes those who fail to care for children and tells his apostles, “it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.” And he dismissed the Trump administration’s nationalistic approach to Christianity as “a heretical form of theological malpractice.”

 Barber also rejected the label of the “religious left,” or the “left” more generally, to describe the campaign. “We are talking about the moral center,” he said, citing past examples of bipartisan collaboration, such as the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

 Barber and Theoharis expressed hope for the significance of tomorrow’s event. But, Barber reminded journalists, “This is the Poor People’s Campaign, not the Poor People’s March or the Poor People’s Saturday.”

 Already, the campaign has seen some lasting results. On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) led a two-hour hearing on Capitol Hill to examine the effects of poverty in America.

 In other words, there is a long road to travel. Saturday’s event is just the beginning.



 https://www.vox.com/2018/6/22/17494070/poor-peoples-campaign-rally-revives-martin-luther-king-william-barber

The Poor People’s Campaign

        Group demands better wages, jobs and housing
By Rick Jones | Presbyterian News Service

 Police in Washington, D.C., took the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins and other faith leaders into custody on Monday afternoon during a demonstration outside the U.S. Supreme Court building. Hawkins, director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Public Witness, was taking part in the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. 

Standing under a banner that read “Everybody’s Got a Right to Live,” the group joined participants in nonviolent demonstrations in 40 state capitals around the country. The 40-day campaign focuses on a different topic each week. This week’s focus is on living wages, jobs, income and housing.

“We have tremendous economic, political and justice issues in this country which are compounded by leaders who produce harmful and vindictive legislation attacking health care, living wages and voting rights,” said Hawkins. “As a Christian, I am called to speak for and stand with those whose voice is stifled and silenced. We are called to be the proclaimers of ‘good news to the poor.’ ”

Hawkins has been mobilizing the faith community in and around the D.C. area since the start of the campaign.

“The voice of the church is called to speak loudest when times are most dire and to act in ‘such a time as this,’” he said. “In faithful conscience and obedience to God, I could do no less than to have my freedom limited in order to expand theirs.”

Hawkins and the others were arrested for demonstrating on Supreme Court grounds, a misdemeanor. After spending the night in jail, they were expected to be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon.

The Poor People’s Campaign kicked off on Mother’s Day as a continuation of the initiative launched by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 50 years ago when he called for direct action at statehouses across the country as well as the U.S. Capitol.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber II and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian pastor and co-director of the Kairos Center, are co-chairing the national effort. The campaign will conclude with a mass mobilization at the U.S. Capitol on June 21. Hawkins says it’s just the beginning of a multi-year moral revival that will continue with mass voter registration in the fall.


https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/rev-jimmie-hawkins-other-faith-leaders-arrested-in-poor-peoples-campaign-demonstration/

Charles Barkley 'disgusted' with Trump presidency

                           Charles Barkley 'disgusted' with Trump presidency

Maddow

New Survey Reveals Trump Voters Think Blacks Are Less Deserving Than "Av...

The Huffington Post recently conducted a survey which found that Donald Trump's supporters were more motivated by an interesting notion associated with race.

The website found that Trump supporters believe African-Americans are less deserving than average Americans.

Want more Roland Martin? Watch NewsOne Now every weekday morning starting at 7AM ET on TV One.

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Roland Martin Slams Carson For Proposed Change To HUD’s Mission Statement

   Roland Martin Slams Carson For Proposed Change To HUD’s Mission Statement



Secretary Ben Carson proposed a major change to the mission statement of HUD. The change would remove anti-discrimination language from the organization's mission statement.  See what Roland Martin had to say about the proposed change Carson floated in a memo to staff.

If you have not read it, check out Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s book, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" http://amzn.to/2FSoHeZ

Also, pick up Dorothy F. Cotton's book, "If Your Back's Not Bent: The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement"  http://amzn.to/2FDgVlA     

Palestine to Black Lives Matter

                  Palestine to Black Lives Matter



In Democracy Now!’s special broadcast of the final 2016 U.S. presidential debate, they asked Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza what the major-party candidates should have addressed in their exchange: “I want to see more conversation about what it is going to take to preserve the quality of life of black people in this country, who are being systematically murdered, incarcerated, and otherwise marginalized and disenfranchised.”

The first woman presidential candidate

By Margaret Carlson
Monday, 24 Oct 2016

When a woman scores points in a debate, Donald Trump calls her “nasty.” When women hear a woman make solid points, they call her someone they will vote for.

In the final debate on Oct. 19, Trump failed at the critical task of bringing women home. Hillary Clinton had me at hello, even though I am one of the voters suffering from a serious enthusiasm gap.

Like many women, I want the first woman presidential candidate to be perfect. But watching Trump, her imperfections have all but disappeared. Women have to stop buying into the notion that a woman has to be twice as good as a man to get half as much credit.

In one exchange, she spoke for every woman who is overlooked. Her recitation of what she's accomplished — for example, fighting discrimination while he has been sued for it — exemplified the double standard.

She capped her list of contrasts with “On the day I was in the Situation Room monitoring the raid that brought Osama bin Laden to justice, he was hosting ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’”

Trump was oddly OK with that, nodding and arching an eyebrow with pride, as if he actually believes hosting a reality show is equivalent to a career in public service.

 There have been many such moments in this campaign, but this one should finally make Republicans drown in shame for letting Trump take over their party. It wasn’t even a hostile takeover.

From the birther movement on they saw his power to energize the base and let him waltz in. Their craven acquiescence will not only lose them the White House but possibly their majorities in Congress, too.

There aren’t enough angry white men to make up for the gender chasm Trump’s behavior has opened. But rather than narrow the gap, almost every word out of his mouth seemed designed to widen it.

And that was before male bravado wouldn’t allow him to walk back his refusal to commit to respecting the election results if they didn’t turn out in his favor. Despite almost universal condemnation, he repeated the whopper on Thursday with a lame joke that he’d accept the results “if I win.”

In fairness, Trump held himself together for about 20 minutes of the debate, like a child given a warning kick under the table to behave at dinner. He made an inaccurate but nonetheless troublesome point about late-term abortions that Clinton did not have a good answer for.

But he went downhill quickly. When Clinton said something he disagreed with and he couldn’t reclaim the floor by loudly butting in (35 times), he leaned into the mike and said “Wrong” (five times) and “Give me a break” (twice).

Clinton would have had a harder time responding to a question about the Clinton Foundation’s “pay to play” if Trump hadn’t broken in to take back the floor that she was quietly happy to cede. A small interjection proved Clinton’s point that anytime he loses he says the game was rigged.

To her charge that he slammed the Emmy awards when he didn’t win one, he retorted “Should have gotten it.”

The U.S. Television Academy, which administers the awards, said in a tweet: "Rest assured, the #Emmys are not rigged."

Those are just the tics of behavior that so drive women to distraction that they don’t even focus on the substance, such as Trump’s determination to overturn Roe v. Wade and his resistance to any pushback against untrammeled gun rights.

 He’s also nuke-happy. When Clinton said he’d been “very cavalier, even casual” with statements like “if we have them why don’t we use them,” he just called her “a liar.”

He had no rebuttal for body-shaming Miss Universe or calling her an eating machine.

He didn't even try to respond to the women who accused him of sexual assault who came out en masse after the airing of a tape in which he can be heard bragging about sexual assault: In a nutshell, his accusers are making it up and, anyway, those women don’t meet his standards for the kind of women he would be tempted to grope and, oh, Clinton got them to lie.

That’s when focus groups jerked their dials as low as they could go. When Trump declared, “Nobody has more respect for women than me,” Chris Wallace, the moderator, had to quell the laughter in the hall.

Trump volunteered that he was so sure he hadn’t done anything wrong that “I didn’t even apologize to my wife, who’s sitting right here, because I didn’t do anything. I didn’t know any of these — I didn’t see these women.”

Never mind that his wife recently broke her silence to give an interview in which she said he’d apologized. In Trumpland, being a real man means never having to say you’re sorry.

Even his responses that weren’t gender-related would set your typical suburban mom’s teeth on edge. Consider the twisted logic of Trump’s assertion that he has a soft spot for Vladimir Putin because the Russian president has said he likes him.

 When she said Putin likes him because he wants a puppet, he snarled “You’re the puppet."

The all-out effort to repel women culminated when, as Clinton talked about her plan to ensure the solvency of Social Security, he muttered “Such a nasty woman,” He couldn’t resist the T-shirt ready insult because she said “My Social Security payroll contribution will go up, as will Donald’s, assuming he can’t figure out how to get out of it.”

Granted, if the forum in Las Vegas had been a primary debate, Trump would have won it with the Archie Bunker billionaire vote and those women now wearing “Talk Dirty to Me” T-shirts at his rallies. He doesn’t need more of them, nor does the party he’s slapped his brand on.

Thursday morning he said Clinton had been given the debate questions, a ridiculous charge but also an excuse for why she’d done better. She didn’t cheat, but she did win. Trump no doubt thinks he’d be less of a man if he admitted it.

Margaret Carlson is a former White House correspondent for Time, and was Time's first woman columnist. She appeared on CNN's "Capital Gang" for 15 years. Carlson has won two National Headliner Awards as well as the Belva Ann Lockwood alumni award from George Washington University Law School.

Civil Rights Leader Condemns Trump’s Call To Return Stop & Frisk

Civil Rights Leader Condemns Trump’s Call To Return Stop & Frisk

Trump's response to healing the racial divide in America is to offer the Black community more "law and order."

Written By NewsOne Now

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met face-to-face on Monday night for their first presidential debate at Hofstra University.

The two candidates touched on a number of issues and spent a considerable amount of time addressing racial tensions around the nation. During their exchange, Clinton and Trump addressed race, policing, and stop and frisk practices, on which both candidates offered their opposing views.

Roland Martin and his panel of guests discussed the candidates’ responses during Tuesday’s edition of NewsOne Now. Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of the Color of Change and one of the many individuals who worked on the campaign to end stop and frisk in New York City, said, “Not only did it not work, but it created tensions between communities and law enforcement where people didn’t trust law enforcement.”

Robinson added, “People were treated like enemy combatants in their own neighborhoods.”

Instead of using stop and frisk policies in cities around the country to end crime in the Black community, Robinson suggested that, “If you want to actually deploy stop and frisk, let’s stop and frisk Donald Trump for his taxes. Let’s stop and frisk Donald Trump for his foundation records and the money that he’s used in inappropriate ways.”

Trump’s response on how to heal the racial divide was to offer the African-American community more “law and order.” NewsOne Now panelist Lauren Victoria Burke, Political Analyst and Writer for NBCBLK, said Trump’s response essentially “brands Black people to crime.”

“Every time he [Donald Trump] brings African-Americans up, it’s about something negative and it’s usually something criminal, in fact, it’s almost always something criminal,” said Burke.

Spencer Overton, President of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, explained Trump did not offer an answer to heal the racial divide and believes a major part of the issue deals with the vilification of Black communities. He said Trump’s views make African-Americans look as if they are not human beings.

Overton also agreed with Robinson’s assertion that stop and frisk policies “make communities less safe” and explained if African-American communities aren’t working with police because of a lack of trust, then everyone is unsafe.

Later during his remarks about Trump’s responses to racial issues, Overton said, “law and order applies to police” just as well as it can be applied to the communities in which law enforcement officers serve.

Watch Roland Martin and the NewsOne Now panel discuss the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the video clip above.


Civil Rights Leader Condemns Trump’s Call To Return Stop & Frisk: Roland Martin and NewsOne Now discuss Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s remarks regarding race, policing, and healing the racial divide.

Leaked Colin Powell Emails

             Leaked Colin Powell Emails Rip 'Racist' Trump as 'National Disgrace

 Former Secretary of State and retired four-star Gen. Colin Powell, who served under three Republican presidents, called Donald Trump "a national disgrace" and an "international pariah" in a personal email, BuzzFeed News reported.

According to the outlet, the June 17 email to Emily Miller, a journalist who was once Powell's aide, took steely aim at the GOP nominee, saying he "is in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him" – and at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, whom Powell wrote "is calibrating his position again."

BuzzFeed reported the website DCLeaks.com — which has reported but unconfirmed ties to Russian intelligence services — obtained Powell's emails. BuzzFeed reported it has seen the posts.

According to the outlet, in an Aug. 21 email, Powell blasted Trump for embarking on a "racist" movement insinuating President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

"Yup, the whole birther movement was racist," Powell wrote, according to BuzzFeed. "That's what the 99 percent believe. When Trump couldn't keep that up, he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.

"As I have said before, 'What if he was?' Muslims are born as Americans everyday."

Powell also derided former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who advises Trump, saying the sex scandal-plagued executive would hurt Trump's chances among women voters.

"And Ailes as an advisor won't heal women, don't you think?'" Powell wrote, per BuzzFeed.

According to BuzzFeed News, the other emails included:

One from May with the subject line "racism," Powell wrote: "Or as I said before the 2012 election, 'There is a level of intolerance in parts of the Republican Party.'"

A December 2015 email to CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria, that observed: "You guys are playing his game, you are his oxygen. He outraged us again today with his comments on Paris no-go for police districts. I will watch and pick the timing, not respond to the latest outrage."

An email to an unnamed recipient about not wanting to give Trump media attention: "To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him."

A July 21, 2015, email responding to Trump's giving out South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham's phone number which called the move a "celebrification of society," and adding "Trump has no sense of shame."

Trump’s Tall Tax Tales

By Jim Hightower

An old saying asserts that falsehoods come in three escalating levels: Lies, damn lies, and statistics. But now there’s an even higher category of lies: a Donald Trump speech.

Take his recent address on specific economic policies he’d push to benefit hard-hit working families, including an almost-hilarious discourse on the rank unfairness of the estate tax.

“No family will have to pay the death tax,” he solemnly pledged, adding that “American workers have paid taxes their whole lives, and they should not be taxed again at death.”

But workers aren’t taxed at death. The first $5.4 million of any deceased person’s estate is already exempt from this tax, meaning 99.8 percent of Americans pay absolutely zero. And the tiny percentage of families who do pay estate taxes are multimillionaires — not workers.

Of course, Trump knows this. He’s shamefully trying to deceive real workers into thinking he stands for them, when in fact it’s his own wealth he’s protecting.

In the same speech, he offered a new childcare tax break to help working families by allowing parents to fully deduct childcare costs from their taxes. With a tender personal touch, Trump said his daughter Ivanka urged him to provide this helping hand to hard working parents because “she feels so strongly about this.”

Another deception — 70 percent of American households don’t have enough yearly income to warrant itemizing deductions. So the Americans most in need of childcare help get nothing from Trump’s melodramatic posturing.

Once again, his generous tax benefits would only flow uphill to wealthy families like his, giving the richest Americans a government subsidy for purchasing platinum-level care for their kids.

As an early 20th century labor leader noted, “Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure.”

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson

Michael Eric Dyson is a New York Times op-ed contributor, MSNBC political analyst, and a professor in the Sociology Department at Georgetown University He has been named by Ebony as one of the most influential black Americans and is the author of 17 books. His upcoming book,The Black Presidency, is a provocative look—sharply critical at times, affirming at others—into the legacy and meaning of America's first black presidency.

     Status of Black Males in American Society

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson eloquently articulates the on going issue of stereotypes and stigmas of black male identity
From Wikipedia:
Michael Eric Dyson (born October 23, 1958) Described by Michael A. Fletcher as "a Princeton Ph.D. and a child of the streets who takes pains never to separate the two", Dyson has authored or edited 18 books dealing with subjects such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Marvin Gaye, Nas's debut album Illmatic, Bill Cosby, Tupac Shakur and Hurricane Katrina.

Dyson was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Addie Mae Leonard, who was from Alabama. He was adopted by his stepfather, Everett Dyson. He attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on an academic scholarship but left and completed his education at Northwestern High School. He became an ordained Baptist minister at 19 years of age. Having worked in factories in Detroit to support his family, he entered Knoxville College as a freshman at age 21. Dyson received his bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from Carson–Newman College in 1985. He obtained his master's and Ph.D in religion, from Princeton University. Dyson serves on the board of directors of the Common Ground Foundation, a project dedicated to empowering urban youth in the United States. Dyson and his third wife, writer and ordained minister Marcia L. Dyson, are regular guests and speakers at the Aspen Institute Conferences and Ideas Festival. Together, they lecture on many American college campuses.

Dyson has taught at Chicago Theological Seminary, Brown University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University, DePaul University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Since 2007, he has been a Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. His 1994 book Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X became a New York Times notable book of the year. In his 2006 book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster, Dyson analyzes the political and social events in the wake of the catastrophe against the backdrop of an overall "failure in race and class relations".

In 2010, Dyson edited Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic, with contributions based on the album’s tracks by, among others, Kevin Coval, Kyra D. Gaunt ("Professor G"), dream hampton, Marc Lamont Hill, Adam Mansbach, and Mark Anthony Neal. Dyson's own essay in this anthology, "'One Love,' Two Brothers, Three Verses", argues that the current US penal system disfavors young black males more than any other segment of the population. Dyson hosted a radio show, which aired on Radio One, from January 2006 to February 2007. He was also a commentator on National Public Radio and CNN, and is a regular guest on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Beginning July 2011 Michael Eric Dyson became a political analyst for MSNBC. In May 2013, Dr. Dyson's credibility was questioned by the conservative website The Washington Free Beacon when he said that Attorney General Eric Holder, who was under criticism for the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press telephone records in an investigation of security leaks, "shouldn’t give up his office. What he should understand is that he is the chief law giver of the United States so to speak. He’s the Moses of our time and at least for this administration."

     Michael Eric Dyson spells it out for white people: Police won't 'kill your child'

    Racist Right-Wing Media Obliterated by Michael Eric Dyson


    Dr. Michael Eric Dyson: Obama isn't Moses, he is Pharaoh

Michael Eric Dyson on the Black Presidency

Michael Eric Dyson on the Black Presidency