Showing posts with label naacp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label naacp. Show all posts

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Stand With Women ~ Scenes from the Struggle

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From Texas, to North Carolina, to Ohio, to Wisconsin women must stand and fight back against the Republican attempt to control women's bodies and freedom. Sneaky Governors and Legislators are conspiring to pass draconian bills that hurt poor women and take away legal choices that are rights in this country. This isn't about being "pro-abortion" but protecting the right of women to control their own bodies. This is about the right of doctors and women to be free to discuss healthcare issues in a private way uncontrolled by the state. This is about the GOP closing down clinics for poor women and children in the name of being "Pro-life" whatever that means.

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Thanks to gerrymandering and spineless state officials we can't win every battle, but if we keep it up, we WILL win the war . . . again. This is a struggle going back to the Suffragettes and the Women's Liberation movement in the 70s, and we can't forget those who fought before and made great strides in equality. Whatever nonsense the GOP comes up with next, there will be no surrender. But we all have to vote and work and text and tweet and network and make signs and stand up for ourselves and our daughters.

Edward Snowden can call himself a patriot, but he ran away on his own to be a man without a country. Meanwhile, real men and Women are standing and fighting for their states and their lives, willing to go to jail for what they believe. That is REAL civil disobedience as it was lived by Thoreau, Gandhi, and Mandela.









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Thursday, July 12, 2012

Romney Brought A Black Entourage to the NAACP

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You can't make this stuff up. I saw this on the Ed Show last night and was staring at the TV in disbelief, and because it is such a strange story held it until today to see if more information was available.

According to NAACP members on the ED Show, Romney brought his own entourage of African Americans to the convention, either bussed or flown in. You can see the original article and video below, but here is the new information from this afternoon:

MSNBC ~ Romney Brought in Black Supporters
The Romney campaign Wednesday night denied to Lean Forward that it brought in supporters to cheer during the candidate's speech to the NAACP, as several attendees have claimed. But one prominent black Republican told us she was invited to the event by the Romney campaign, and another African-American conservative said he was urged to go by people connected to the campaign.

"I was invited by Governor Romney," Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll of Florida, a Republican, told Lean Forward in a phone interview Thursday afternoon.

Asked who paid Carroll's way, her office referred Lean Forward to the Romney campaign's press office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

. . . Niger Innis, a conservative activist, told Lean Forward Thursday that he was encouraged to attend the Houston speech by friends in the NAACP, as well as "some folks that were aligned with the Romney campaign," declining to elaborate. Innis said he paid his own way.

. . . The TV host Roland Martin, Hilary Shelton of the NAACP, and the radio host Mark Thompson all have claimed that the Romney campaign brought in supporters to the speech. Shelton said on MSNBC Wednesday that the goal was "to provide the cheering for [Romney]." Thompson said the supporters served as "applauders for his applause lines."

Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman, told Lean Forward Wednesday night that Shelton's claims were "not true." Asked Thursday about Carroll's statement that she attended the speech as a guest of the Romney campaign, and Innis's that he was urged to go by people connected to the campaign, Saul did not immediately respond.

No joke, folks. Romney is one weird candidate. If he brought in people to clap and support him, maybe they were also the ones booing him on cue as well. Honestly - it begs the question. The whole thing stinks to high heaven, if you ask me.

From The Ed Show Blog

Romney said today that after the speech, at which he was booed for saying he'd repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, he met with black leaders who told him they support his policies but are afraid to do so publicly.

But on The Ed Show, (Hilary) Shelton said those were likely people brought in by the Romney camp "to actually provide the cheering for him."

"Quite frankly, the campaign actually gave me a list of African-American VIPs that they brought into the NAACP meeting," Shelton told Ed Schulz. "So we were aware that they had people brought in specifically for the campaign. So I'm sure those were the ones they sat down with, because quite frankly none of the rank-and-file NAACPers met with him."

Indeed, despite the boos, cheering can be heard at various points during the speech, including when Romney criticized President Obama over the economy and education.

Shelton said that none of the people Romney met with were active NAACP leaders, and that Romney's referring to African-American conservative politicians like Niger Innis who "was brought in from New York."

Pressed by Ed Schultz about whether Innis and the others were actually members of the NAACP, Shelton said: "They're bringing people in that they know will support his agenda from other places, that aren't active with the NAACP. These are people who are brought in to actually provide the cheering for him, so there will be some support along those lines."

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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Mitt Dog-Whistles to his Base at the NAACP


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Why would Mitt Romney to make a fool of himself at the NAACP convention in Houston? Why would he tell an audience of mainly Democratic Obama Supporters that he wants to repeal "Obamacare," causing them to boo him off the stage?





But wait ~ isn't he trying to gain African American support in the November election? Isn't he trying to appeal to black independent voters?

Actually, no, he isn't trying to do that at all.

What he's trying to do is show the Tea Party Republicans that he's a "real man" who will stand up to Democrats, and especially people of color.

So he got up in front of the NAACP and blew his "dog whistle," or a message that most of us will take one way, but the "in crowd" of Republicans will hear another way, just as a dog can hear a dog whistle that is inaudible to most humans. Most Democrats or Independent voters will think "poor Romney, he screwed up again," while the Tea Party will cheer it as a victory.

Unlike Ted Nugent or Rush Limbaugh, a man running for the highest office in the land has to use a subtler form of dog whistle. He has to pretend that he wants to be everyone's president, which is what he said today, but at the same time he gave his party red meat with the contradiction that no matter what the members of the NAACP want from a President, they won't get it from him. And that's how we know it was a dog whistle, not some slip-up by an incompetent campaign.

Oh, and also too . . . he admitted that he expected to get booed. He knew he was going to get a reaction that would be a sound-byte on the news.

ABC News Story
Mitt Romney said after being booed at the NAACP today that he "expected" the strong objection in response to his pledge to repeal President Obama's health care law.
. . .
Avis Jones-DeWeever, the executive director of the National Council of Negro Women, said Romney had accomplished a "calculated political ploy" by signaling to conservatives that he's willing to tell backers of the health law that he wants to cut it.

"That was like a victory lap on Fox News," she said. "That was exactly what he went there intending to do."

Martin Bashir Discussion on MSNBC

Bashir: Was Mitt Romney really addressing the audience that he was in front of or was he speaking to some other people in that speech? Because -- the speech itself was a stump speech that I have heard when he's been in New Hampshire, when he has been in Wisconsin. It didn't seem any different. Who was he really speaking to?

Jonathan Capehart: He was speaking to both audiences and in his stump speech is void of any specifics which has, you know, Democrats and Republicans alike scratching their heads and begging for more. But -- in all speeches there are multiple audiences. On the one hand he's saying to African Americans you are just like everyone else I talk to. You are a part of the united states . Here's my overall message.

Bashir: Thank you for reminding us of that. Excellent.

Capehart: But the other audience is still his core constituency. His base. His being booed by saying he will repeal Obamacare, I think that will inure to his benefit. It shows his constituency that, one, he is not afraid to say "Obamacare" to the audience that's the most loyal constituency to -- to president Obama. And that he then took in the boos and went off script and ad-libbed this study that you called bogus shows he . . . he's not afraid of -- not afraid of a fight. So he's doing -- he is doing multiple things. I think tactically speaking, politically speaking, not so bad.

Bashir: Clarence , what do you think that Mitt Romney actually welcomed the booing in some ways? Maybe it kind of was helpful to him because of course he's going off to Montana and then he's going to see Dick Cheney in Wyoming, he can go there and wave this one and say "look, boys, I got booed at the NAACP."

Clarence Page: Martin, how can you have such a cynical Machiavellian notion as to think that Mitt Romney might find some value in triangulating a situation like this?
(laughter)
Seriously. I was wondering the same thing. I don't know the -- I don't mean Mitt Romney wants to be portrayed as a man black people don't like. When you look at the speech, indeed it was the same talking points he normally gives when campaigning to his base. But also, the same words, I mean, when you talk about Obamacare, to say Obamacare to the NAACP, it's like praising cheeseburgers to a convention of vegans.
(laughter)
This organization has been very much -- in favor of Obamacare for a variety of Republican Code. He never says "Romneycare." He's very happy to say "Obamacare." It was very much loaded like he was talking to a group of Tea Party folks. I don't think he was really surprised by the booing. and certainly he scores points either way with middle of the road folks important just the fact he showed up. But he's making the outreach. George W. Bush did it as a candidate but then went several years without showing up at the NAACP as President.


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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Eric Holder Strikes Back ~ Voter ID Laws are Poll Taxes

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At the NAACP conference in Houston, Texas, Attorney General Eric Holder struck back by calling voter suppression laws "Poll Taxes."

This is great stuff, and I would love to see all these laws get struck down by the courts before the election.

Huffington Post Story

Under the law passed in Texas, Holder said that "many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them – and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them."

"We call those poll taxes," Holder added spontaneously, drawing applause as he moved away from the original text of his speech with a reference to a fee used in some Southern states after slavery's abolition to disenfranchise black people.

The 24th amendment to the constitution made that type of tax illegal.

Holder spoke a day after a trial started in federal court in Washington over the 2011 law passed by Texas' GOP-dominated Legislature that requires voters to show photo identification when they get to the polls.

Under Texas' law, Holder noted, a concealed handgun license would serve as acceptable ID to vote, but a student ID would not. He went on to say that while only 8 percent of white people do not have government-issued photo IDs, about 25 percent of black people lack such identification.


Context: Via Infoplease
In the United States, the poll tax has been connected with voting rights. Poll taxes enacted in Southern states between 1889 and 1910 had the effect of disenfranchising many blacks as well as poor whites, because payment of the tax was a prerequisite for voting. By the 1940s some of these taxes had been abolished, and in 1964 the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution disallowed the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting in federal elections. In 1966 this prohibition was extended to all elections by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that such a tax violated the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

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