African American Political Slugfest

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Congressional Black Caucus V Barack Obama... why can't they just get along?

AAPP says: I have been trying to understand why the Congressional Black Caucus and Barack Obama seem not to get along. Candidly, this appears to be a case of "old USA negro self -hatred vs new black political thinking and doing."

The Congressional Black Caucus announced new leaders without mentioning President-elect Barack Obama until asked. Members disputed the notion that his historic presidency would affect their profile or their role. Read more at African American Political Pundit.com

Friday, November 21, 2008

Boston Political Corruption, Black Political Corruption

More black political corruption.

First it was, Massachusetts State Senator Diane Wilkerson "BUSTED" by FBI

This time again in Boston. Get this Chuck Turner, a Boston City Councilman, whom this AAPP has known for years is caught taking silly $1,000 dollar from federal agents. Damn, this brotha is going down for a $1,000 ??? Silly man. I guess he will be going to Federal prison for taking a silly bribe instead of just doing his work. He gets paid enough as a city councilman, why is he disgracing himself and black folks like this? Now i understand why he defended Diane Wilkerson, who got caught on tape by the FBI as well. He has turned out to be just like her, a two-bit crook, who attacked Latino Leadership in Boston to cover himself and Dianne Wilkerson. I feel sorry for my old home of Roxbury, Massachusettts, as they come to grips with the fact that black leadership in Boston has sold them out, If I lived in Boston I would run for his seat.

By Shelley Murphy, Jonathan Saltzman, John C. Drake, and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

As reported by the Boston Globe The FBI arrested Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner this morning on charges he accepted a $1,000 bribe and then lied about taking the money in a widening federal corruption probe.

Chuck Turner

A 12-page affidavit filed this morning in US District Court alleges that Turner was surreptitiously videotaped accepting the cash in his district office on Aug. 3, 2007, in exchange for pushing for a liquor license of the Roxbury nightclub Dejavu. Included with the affidavit are two photographs of Turner allegedly accepting the bribe. In one image, Turner's trademark white goatee is clearly visible as folded green bills are pressed into his hand.

Turner was arrested at 7 a.m. at City Hall on charges stemming from the undercover probe, which lead to the arrest on Oct. 28 of state Senator Dianne Wilkerson on allegations she accepted eight bribes worth $23,500. The day of Wilkerson's arrest, two FBI agents visited Turner at his City Hall office and he "repeatedly denied ever being offered the money," according to the affidavit. During the interview, however, Turner rued the pervasiveness of corruption among politicians.

"If you took out all the corrupt politicians, you take out 90 % and be left with us 10 %," Turner said, according to the affidavit.

The five-term city councilor is expected to make his initial appearance today in US District Court in Worcester before Magistrate Judge Timothy Hillman, who is handling Wilkerson's case. Turner's alleged crimes took place in Boston, but Hillman ordinarily sits in Worcester.

“The public deserves, and should expect, honest services from our public officials,” US Attorney Michael Sullivan said in a statement. “Public officials who line their pockets with cash while claiming to act in the public interest, violate our laws and the trust and confidence of the public we serve." More HERE

H/T BlogTalkRadio Host/and activist, Seventies Soul Child for the link.

Read more Political Opinion at: African American Political Pundit.com

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Hillary Clinton For Sec. of State? Keep Your Enemies Closer?

Tell me it's not true. No Hillary Rodham Clinton has not emerged as a top contender to be Secretary of State. I know it is said, keep your friends close but your enemies closer, but why keep a color aroused bigot so close? but here is the challenge folks, if chosen by Barack, won't Hillary just gain international experience for two or three years, create on diversion, disagree with Obama on a policy issue, resign as Secretary of State, and run against him in 2012? The PUMA group would love it. One also has to wonder why Barack obama would nominate Clinton, who voted to authorize the war in Iraq? Would she be able to send the message of change throughout America and around the world?

I guess some have forgotten the racial tensions and disgraceful bigoted campaigning caused by Hillary. I'm reminded of Doug Thompson and his blog post on the blog, Capitol Hill Blue, in April of this year, when he wrote, "Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania because she pandered to the overt racism that exists among blue collar whites as well as the latent racism in too many others. She won because the bulk of her appeal comes from the less-educated, the less-tolerant and the less-intelligent among us. If you're a stupid, illiterate, gun-totin' white hick you probably voted for Hillary. And so did your ignorant, baby-popping, big-haired wife as well as that bleached-blond bar maid that you're seeing on the side." More HERE

Get this folks, as reported by the LA Times, she flew into Chicago to meet privately with President-elect Barack Obama, former advisors to the senator from New York said. More HERE

I wonder if Hillary was coming clean with Barack obama about her lies during the primaries about her coming under sniper fire in Bosnia?

If Obama is going to select her, he probably needs to watch the television footage showing otherwise. The fact of the matter is Hillary Clinton has no foreign policy experience. She traveled with her husband, shaking hands and smiling.

Lisa Lerer at Politico.com reports many Women's groups are worried with the early indications that men might dominate the hierarchy of Obama administration. There is a growing chorus, as reported by Politico, who are pushing for Hillary Rodham Clinton for Secretary of State post.

“There’s definitely been a reaction to the few groups that have been named so far,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. “I agree with those who are concerned that it would have been nice to see more women.”

Politico also notes that women’s rights advocates acknowledge it’s still early in the transition process, but they say early staff picks and the lists of rumored Cabinet nominees send the wrong signal.

“It’s appropriate that Obama’s vetting Clinton, but she’s one women,” said Amy Siskind, co-founder of The New Agenda, a nonpartisan women's rights group founded by former Clinton supporters. “We want to see parity in the representation of women in the Cabinet.”

AAPP: Speaking of growing Chorus line, get this folks, after Hillary and Bill Clinton's massive color aroused campaigning, now Francis L. Holland, who was a former early supporter of Hillary Clinton, turned Barack Obama supporter, is now supporting Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. Holland, who first wrote that he agreed with Latino leaders that Bill Richardson would make an "excellent pick," now says, Sen. Clinton would make a "good" leader in that position.

Hmmm... Read More HERE

Sunday, November 2, 2008

List of 60 Influential Black Political and Social Action Bloggers.

African American Political Pundit 's list of 60 Influential Black Political and Social Action Bloggers. I'm providing this list for those who would like to read what black Americans have to say about the upcoming Presidential elections. Although the list is numbered it is only numbered to help me count to 60.

Note: There are a number of bloggers included in this list who don't blog only about political issues. I didn't include black church organizations or local NAACP chapters.

More of the list HERE at African American Political Pundit.com

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The New Faces of Republican Bigotry, Intolerance and Ignorance

The Palin/McCain team continue to support their audiences who shout 'Socialist!', 'Kill him!', 'Traitor!', 'Treason!', 'Terrorist!', 'Off with his head!', and 'Bomb Obama!'

Now get this, Here is the new face of Republican bigotry.

As reported by The Washington Post, the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party has compared Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden because of the Illinois senator's past association with Bill Ayers, who has confessed to domestic bombings as a member of the Vietnam War-era Weather Underground.

According to a report in this week's Time magazine, the Virginia party chairman, Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick (R-Prince William), told Virginia volunteers working for GOP nominee John McCain that Obama and bin Laden "both have friends that bombed the Pentagon. More HERE and HERE:

"[Frederick] climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points -- for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: 'Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,' he said. 'That is scary.' It is also not exactly true -- though that distorted reference to Obama's controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. 'And he won't salute the flag,' one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, 'We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born.' Actually, we do; it's Hawaii."

Now get this, Frederick (below) stood by his remarks, even though the McCain camp called them "not appropriate."

AAPP: Not appropriate? that's it Mr. McCain?

Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick heads Virginia's GOP.

Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick

This is not the first time the "Palin/McCain" ticket had to address internal bigotry and color arousal within the Republican Party. Check this out, as reported by The Chicago Tribune, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign has ousted a prominent Virginia GOP figure who wrote a newspaper column mocking a potential Barack Obama administration. A McCain spokeswoman said Bobby May was dropped this week from his job as McCain's Buchanan County campaign chairman.

May wrote in his column, "The (clarified) platform of Barack Hussein Obama," that if the Democratic senator were elected he would hire rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black and change the national anthem to the "Black National Anthem." More HERE

AAPP: We should not be surprised with the rise of bigotry with the Republican Party. Both Palin and McCain have attacked Obama with every bigoted and color aroused reference they could. Now we learn the Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates that the color aroused and bigoted campaign style just has not worked, and just may have worked against the palin/McCain ticket. Maybe Palin and McCain are getting good faith guidance.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Lynch Mob Mccain, And His Sidekick Sarah Palin = Bigotry and Racism

Enough is Enough!

Mark Karlin's Editor's Blog over at buzzflash.com says it best, It's a John McCain/Sarah Palin Lynch Mob politics.

As Mark writes, "There was the raw smell of scary stupid ignorance in the air, and even Jon Stewart could barely conceal his disgust with what was supposed to be a comic sketch.

Palin has been going around the nation inciting mobs with the kind of emotional appeals (although in a more coded form) that one used to find at segregationist rallies. A video of some rabidly ignorant crowd at a Palin speech in Ohio has gone viral on the Internet, and it’s a brief and scary insight into the reality that the ugly, bigoted heart of America’s dark underside is still beating strong – and has just gotten a second life with the incendiary direction of the McCain campaign.

Given that the mainstream media has still not picked up on the video of Sarah Palin welcoming, this year in 2008, the Alaskan Independence Party to their yearly meeting –- which we have posted on BuzzFlash several times -– it is hard to understand how the irony of a governor who has clearly documented close ties to a group that regards the United States as an "occupying force" gets away with the ugly farce of basically calling Obama a terrorist. (Yes, it’s in coded language, but that is what Palin and McCain are doing, inciting the fears of the "dark other," the man with the middle name of "Hussein.") One of the bigots at the Palin Ohio rally said that terrorism was in Obama’s "bloodline." This is the kind of talk that brought Hitler to power.

In 2008, the McCain campaign has decided to use the Salem Witch Trials as its model for running for the highest office in our great land."

More HERE

Meanwile, The head of the nation's biggest labor federation is joining the chorus of voices warning about the increasingly angry crowds coming to John McCain's campaign events. This as reported by the Boston Globe.

At rallies this week, McCain's criticisms of Democrat Barack Obama have been met with shouts of "terrorist," "liar," and other harsh words.

"Sen. John McCain, Gov. Sarah Palin and the leadership of the Republican party have a fundamental moral responsibility to denounce the violent rhetoric that has pervaded recent McCain and Palin political rallies," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, which has endorsed Obama. "When rally attendees shout out such attacks as 'terrorist' or 'kill him' about Sen. Barack Obama, when they are cheered on by crowds incited by McCain-Palin rhetoric -- it is chilling that McCain and Palin do nothing to object.

AAPP: Lets not forget how this all started. People throughout America have been tracking it on Youtube. It all started when McCain and Palin incited almost a color and idealogical war.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Is John McCain a bigot? Trying To Rise Up The Bigots In America?

Is john McCain a color aroused bigot? This AAPP thinks so. There are many other people who feel that John McCain's bigoted remarks are troubling. Remember, this is a guy who voted against MLK Day at almost 50 years of age. But the again, what’d you expect from someone who voted against the MLK holiday?

There are many other reasons why many in America have concluded that John McCain is a bigot, take for example what he recently said on his campaign bus. John McCain told reporters, "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." Although McCain said he was referring only to his prison guards, there are many reasons why his use of the word "gook" is offensive and alarming.

As Katie Honk noted in her recent article, 'It is offensive because by using a racial epithet that has historically been used to demean all Asians to describe his captors, McCain failed to make a distinction between his torturers and an entire racial group" More HERE

The fact of the matter is John McCain is a troubled man. He seems to hate the fact that a black man stands in between him and the presidency. This guy is an old school bigot.

It gets me that during last night's debate, John McCain said we need "a cool hand at the tiller," but McCain has proven to be a loose cannon. He has accosted his Congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle on everything from the federal budget to diplomatic relations. He is known for hurling profanities rather than settling disagreements calmly. His belligerence is legendary. Even conservative Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi has said, "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

When someone earns the nickname "Senator Hothead," the public ought to call his character into question. McCain's propensity to explode undermines his abilities as a rational decision maker, particularly on national security issues -- which could prove disastrous considering our country is already involved in two wars.

As reported by Doug thompson at the blog Capitol Blue, "John McCain, a member of the House of Representatives in the mid-1980s, often held court at a table near the bar at Bullfeathers, a popular Capitol Hill watering hole, telling jokes and matching hangers-on drink by drink.

As a Capitol Hill chief of staff, I often drank at Bullfeathers and was invited to join the throng at McCain's table one evening. A few minutes listening to the racism, bigotry and homophobia of the Arizona Congressman told me all I needed to know.

McCain loved to tell jokes about lesbians, blacks, Hispanics and the Vietnamese community that occupied a large section of Arlington County, Virginia, just south of the District of Columbia."

Of course, McCain didn't use polite language in the jokes: He used names like "fags" or "queers" or "dykes" or "niggers" or "spics" or "wetbacks" or "gooks."

A typical McCain joke (overheard at Bullfeathers):

Two dykes are talking at a bar and one leaves. As she walks toward the door, the other watches her leave and says out loud: "God, I've love to eat her out."

Two men are standing near by and one turns to the other and says: "I'd like to do the same. Guess that makes me a dyke."

Or another (also overheard at Bullfeathers):

Question: Why does Mexican beer have two "X's" on the label?

Answer: Because wetbacks always need a co-signer.

(McCain has a documented history of lesbian jokes. He's also come under fire for other jokes about rape.)

Exampe:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?

Because Janet Reno is her father.

Another example:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’

When he ran for the Senate, I attended a gathering of GOP operatives at the National Republican Senatorial Committee where McCain outlined his campaign strategy:

I play to win. I do whatever it takes to win. If I have to fuck my opponent to win I'll do it. If I have to destroy my opponent I won't give it a second thought.

McCain's so-called sense of humor has no limits when it comes to simple human decency. Shortly after former President Ronald Reagan announced he had Alzheimer's Disease, McCain told this joke at a GOP Fundraiser:

Do you know the best thing about having Alzheimer's?

You get to hide your own Easter eggs.

Even his wife is not immune. Writes Cliff Schecter in his book, The Real John McCain:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

This is the man the Republican Party thinks should be the next President of the United States. What else should we expect from a party that promotes racism, homophobia and discrimination against anyone with a different skin color, sexual orientation or ethnic origin? More HERE

I guess I understand why John McCain refused to shake Barack Obama's hand. He is a true old school... bigot. So is his running mate, Sarah Palin. He is a bigot, still stuck in Vietnam.

McCain referred to Americans as his "fellow prisoners." Watch:

Yes, Bigots, who even the NY Times are questioning when they wrote, "Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember. They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison." More HERE