The Oakland police department’s history of misconduct — particularly involving African-Americans — has made it the subject of federal oversight for 13 years. Wednesday, Stanford researchers released the results of a two-year-long study into the department, confirming that Oakland officers exhibit significant racial biases in their day-to-day work.
A Congresswoman who is “sick and tired” of drug testing welfare recipients has introduced a bill in Congress that would subject the rich to many of those same requirements.
Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., unveiled Thursday the Top 1% Accountability Act, which would require those claiming itemized deductions of more than $150,000 on their tax returns to submit to drug tests or file for less generous tax deductions.
The proposal is a shot across the bow at Republican governors in states, including Moore’s home state of Wisconsin, that require the recipients of certain welfare benefit programs to be drug tested in order to remain eligible to receive assistance.
“As a strong advocate for social programs aimed at combating poverty, it deeply offends me that there is such a deep stigma surrounding those who depend on government benefits, especially as a former welfare recipient,” Moore said in a statement. “Sadly, Republicans across the country continue to implement discriminatory policies that criminalize the less fortunate and perpetuate false narratives about the most vulnerable among us.”
Moore, who represents Milwaukee, used welfare benefits to work herself out of poverty when she was younger and has said that her goal is to ensure others have the same opportunity.
“I’m grateful for the taxpayers for [welfare], and I have given back tenfold,” Moore told the Guardian. “I think everyone should have that same opportunity.”
Read more: Lawmaker wants the rich to be drug tested before receiving high-dollar tax deductions
Condoleezza Rice, who served George W. Bush as national security adviser and then secretary of state, has zero interest in being Donald Trump’s running mate, her chief of staff said Friday.
“Dr. Rice has repeatedly said in past cycles as well as this one, she’s not interested in being vice president,” Georgia Godfrey told Yahoo News in a statement. “She’s happy at Stanford and plans to stay.”
Rice will also stay away from Cleveland, where Republicans are expected to anoint the volatile entrepreneur as their candidate. “She does not plan to go to the convention,” Godfrey said.
Read more: Condi Rice rules out being Trump’s VP
Oprah Winfrey signaled her endorsement of presumptive Democratic party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in an interview that aired today on “Good Morning America.”. Watch the announcement below.
I'm sure by now that you have read or heard about Donald Trump's racist attacks against Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel. Whay you may not have heard and may not know is that Curiel is a member of the black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi. Thomas L. Battles, Jr. the Grand Polemarch has released the following statement backing their brother.
Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity is proud to acknowledge that The Honorable Gonzalo P. Curiel is a member of the Fraternity having been initiated at the Alpha Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, at Indiana University Bloomington, where in 1911, undergraduate student Elder Watson Diggs,and 9 other bold men founded the organization.
Judge Curiel is a highly regarded jurist whose distinguished academic and professional career personifies Kappa Alpha Psi's founding motto: "Achievement in Every Field of Human Endeavor." Judge Curiel, like Johnny Cochran, Earl B Dickerson and many others before him, continues to serve this nation as judges, lawyers, and supporters of the constitution.
Headquartered in Philadelphia PA, Kappa Alpha Psi is an international historically Black Greek-lettered Organization. Having been founded in an era of Jim Crow and racial segregation, Kappa Alpha Psi's 10 Founders took great pains to make sure no man would ever be excluded from membership into the fraternity due to his religion, color, creed or national origin. In fact, today Kappa Alpha Psi enjoys a diverse membership of high achieving men from all backgrounds with chapters in Germany, The Republic of Korea, Japan, and throughout Africa.
Kappa Alpha Psi stands firmly against the practice of judging a man solely by his race, creed, or national origin. We believe all Americans are entitled to the freedoms afforded by the Constitution without regards to race. Our fraternity will continue to oppose all forms of racism and rebuke those who promote this evil.
Yours in the Bond,
Thomas L. Battles, Jr. Grand Polemarch
By George L. Cook III EMAIL
Today, an annoyed President Obama addressed Donald Trump's ridiculous statements about a Muslim ban in the wake of the Orlando shootings. He also took on those who whine because President Obama and his administration doesn't use terms like radical Islam or radical jihadist terrorism. In his own way he broke it down to say that it doesn't make a difference what we call them, they will still try to attack us. Most rational people would get the President's argument but Trump and his supporters and like ilk just don't get it. So I'm here to explain it to them using something they can understand, zombies.
We all know what zombies are and can agree that they are not very nice to be around with their nasty habit of trying to eat people. The living dead go by many names like zombies, walkers, biters, or the infected. For arguments sake, I have invented the term Radical Infected Dead Cannibal to describe the living dead.
Now must sane people know no matter what you call them things are going to end badly if you encounter them.
If a zombie bites you, you're f*cked!
If a walker bites you, you're f*cked!
If a biter bites you, you're f*cked!
If one of the infected bites you, you're f*cked!
If a Radical Infected Dead Cannibal bites you.....................................................your still f*cked.
You see, what you call a threat doesn't matter. Do you think calling a zombie a Radical Infected Dead Cannibal is going to make that zombie suddenly stop and say, 'Hey, that hurt my feelings. I'm just going to leave and not bite you now?"
Do you think the military or police would fight the dead hordes differently based on what term you chose to call them? No, those entities are still going to try to eliminate the threat.
Now even Trump supporters should have picked up the pattern there and are probably feeling an unusual feeling coming from their brain region. Don't worry that's called thinking and it won't hurt you.
How about we stop wasting time arguing a useless thing like what to call terrorist and worry about how to keep a terrorist from getting assault rifles while in the United States. You know like keeping people under incestigation for terrorism or that or own the no fly list from buying weapons? That would actually help.
George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.com
The Rev. Jesse Jackson endorsed Hillary Clinton on Saturday, continuing a recent string of high-profile endorsements for the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Jackson, speaking in Chicago, said he trusts that Clinton will look out for the interests of marginalized communities including refugees, immigrants and the poor.
"We trust her to work on health care, to fight for the poor ... for the willingness to fight for civil rights," Jackson said.
President Obama delivered a statement on the tragic shooting that took place overnight in Orlando, Florida. Watch his statement below:
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"In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another. We will not give into fear." —@POTUS https://t.co/i7fOS38GzH
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 12, 2016
The White House Office of the Press Secretary has released the following statement on the mass shooting at an Orlando, Florida night club.
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
The President was briefed this morning by Lisa Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, on the tragic shooting in Orlando, Florida. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims. The President asked to receive regular updates as the FBI, and other federal officials, work with the Orlando Police to gather more information, and directed that the federal government provide any assistance necessary to pursue the investigation and support the community.
[SOURCE]
The site of an important civil rights sit-in in 1958 in Wichita will be getting a memorial for the first time.
Young black protesters sat at the lunch counter in the Dockum Drug Store in July 1958. After three weeks of sit-ins, the drug store agreed to serve the black students at the counter, the Wichita Eagle reports. It is considered one of the first successful lunch counter sit-ins in the nation that eventually helped lead to desegregation.
On Thursday, two participants in the sit-ins, Joan Williams and Galyn Vesey, attended a ceremony where the Kansas Health Foundation presented a $50,000 grant to the Kansas African American Museum and Ambassador Hotel for the memorial project. The Dockum Drug Store lunch counter stood in what is now Siena Steakhouse in the hotel.
“In the face of threats, in the face of name-calling and hate, they stayed strong,” said Steve Coen, president and CEO of the Kansas Health Foundation. Coen said that the foundation began discussing funding a memorial last fall.
Organizers have not determined what form the memorial will take, or what it will include. The memorial may include an indoor public exhibit on the second floor of the Ambassador Hotel and an outdoor recognition of the sit-in site with a plaque or statue. Tad Stricker, general manager for Ambassador Hotel Collection, says the hotel no longer has the original lunch counter and believes that it was removed during a remodel of the building in the 1970s.
According to Stricker, the hotel, which celebrated its 90th anniversary in May, has wanted to honor the sit-in since the hotel opened in January 2013. Mark McCormick, executive director of the Kansas African American Museum, said that he wants the public to help provide ideas for the memorial project and offer input about how the historical moment should be represented.
[SOURCE]
The great boxing promoter, Don King, just endorsed me. Nice!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2016
Thousands of fans, dignitaries and faithful from across the globe filled a Kentucky arena Thursday to honor Muhammad Ali at a traditional Muslim prayer service where he was remembered as a global icon who used his celebrity to promote unity among faiths, races and nations.Watch the entire service below:
President Obama has formally endorsed Hillary Clinton. Watch his endorsement video below.
Many Trump and Sanders supporters believe that Hillary Clinton has no chance at winning in November. They believe in all the negative hype that Clinton detractors have been putting over the decades, and that Trump will not just win, but win easily. That's simply not the case, here are six reasons why she will win and become the first female President of the United States.
1. Hate her or love her, she is simply the most qualified candidate ever to run for president. She has forgotten more about politics and world affairs than Sanders and Trump know combined.
2. She will have the Obama Coalition behind her and with that comes Barack Obama, The Campaigner, and Chief. He is very popular among Democrats and would energize those that sat the primary season out. Many of those supporters want to protect the Obama legacy and trust Clinton to do just that.
3. She will have arguably the greatest group of surrogates ever out there stomping for her campaign. Those surrogates would include President Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Elizabeth Warren. (If Bernie Sanders can stop pouting and come to his senses then he could also be on that list.) That's political star power no matter which one shows up at a rally or on television.
4. She has a superior campaign organization. She has veterans of winning presidential campaigns working for her and has ground games ready to go in toss-up states and important states such as Ohio, Florida, California, New Jersey, and Michigan.
5. She is facing a media personality, not a true candidate. Donald Trump can't help but be Trump, and he will self-implode under the stress of a presidential campaign where everything you do and say is vetted and questioned.His lack of substance will bite him in the ass.
6. Many Republicans simply can't bring themselves to vote for Trump. They will stick to their ideals and principles and take the loss this year so that they can win in 2020. They will not publicly support or endorse Hillary Clinton, but they will vote for her.
So that's my opinion Hilary Clinton will win in November. So what do you think?
George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com
California’s first open U.S. Senate seat in nearly a quarter-century will remain in Democratic hands, as Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez outpaced 32 other candidates Tuesday to deny the state Republican Party a place in the fall runoff.
Harris, the state attorney general, clinched a first-place finish in the contest to succeed U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, more than doubling the percentage of Sanchez, a 10-term congresswoman from Orange County.
As vote-counting continued, Harris led with 39.8 percent of the vote. Sanchez had 17.3 percent, followed by Republican Duf Sundheim at 9 percent.
Read more here: Kamala Harris, Loretta Sanchez advance in U.S. Senate race
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D) easily defeated college professor Alexander Kucsma of Somerset in the NJ congressional Democratic Primary. Coleman won U.S. House - District 12 with 94% of the vote.
The final tally was Coleman 66,029 Alexander Kucsma 4,463
Brooklyn College Campus Safety Officer Hubert Evans didn’t waste much time obtaining his bachelor’s degree. After attending Medgar Evers College for just two years and 9 months, the 87-year-old achieved his long time dream and joined fellow graduates at the Barclays Center on May 24 for their commencement ceremony. Evans majored in political science and minored in physics.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Evans moved to Brooklyn to join his family in 1980. After a career in the military, he joined the Brooklyn College staff full time in 1993. He raised seven children in the process, including a son who graduated from Brooklyn College.
"I found that other officers were taking courses at the college because of the free tuition offered to us," Evans said. "It was an opportunity to achieve something I always wanted."
His colleagues also supported his endeavor.
"He’s been an inspiration to all of us," said Ursula Chase, deputy director of the Office of Campus and Community Safety Services. "We constantly encouraged him and supported him throughout as he completed his coursework.This is a man who walked to the college, from his home—quite a bit away—after a huge snowstorm, stopping once to call and say he’d be a little late; he doesn’t let anything get in the way of where he wants to go."
Evans’ goal is to begin a career as a counselor, helping others to obtain a college education. In the meantime, he has a way of keeping himself busy.
He smiled. "I’m looking at the fall course schedule to see what I want to take," said Evans.
[SOURCE]
