ELIJAH CUMMINGS DEFENDS HIS 23 YR BALTIMORE REPRESENTATION (SO DO THE RATS)

ELIJAH CUMMINGS DEFENDS HIS 23 YR BALTIMORE REPRESENTATION (SO DO THE RATS):

WAS TRUMP RIGHT? IS BALTIMORE STILL “THE WIRE”??

HOW MANY BLACK MEN HAS CUMMINGS HELPED TO (SECRETLY) INCARCERATE INSTEAD OF HELPING THEM TO BECOME GAINFULLY EMPLOYED?

CONGRESSMAN ELIJAH CUMMINGS (“THE BULLY”) IS KNOWN TO RETALIATE AGAINST ANYONE WHO DOESN’T AGREE WITH HIM OR CHALLENGES HIM.

IN FACT, MANY OF HIS CONSTITUENTS ARE AFRAID OF HIM WHICH EXPLAINS WHY HE’S BEEN IN PUBLIC OFFICE 23 YRS.

SO WILL CUMMINGS USE HIS CONGRESSIONAL JUDICIAL COMMITTEE POWER TO RETALIATE AGAINST PRES TRUMP OVER HIS BOLD TWEETS ABOUT BALTIMORE?

WILL CUMMINGS RETALIATE AGAINST ALL THE JOURNALISTS & BLOGGERS WHO REPORTED ON THIS STORY?

STAY TUNED.


Post Sources: Baltimore Sun, DW News, Fox News, NBC News, Turning Point USA, Washington Examiner, Youtube



**** The trouble with Trump's tweets about Baltimore is that they are true


President Trump’s recent tweets about Baltimore, rats, and the city’s political leadership have roiled Washington and prompted another round of cries of “racism” from the usual race hustlers, who are seeking out every camera they can find. But rather than focus on whether or not Trump is a racist, how about we focus on the man’s words? Are they true?

Yes, they are.

First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1995, Elijah Cummings has represented Maryland’s 7th Congressional District (which includes Baltimore City) for the past 23 years. Prior to that, Cummings was an elected member of Maryland's House of Delegates, representing District 39 (also Baltimore City) beginning in 1983. In all, Cummings has represented Baltimore for 36 years.

What has Baltimore to show for Cummings’ years of representation? Here are a few examples. In 2017, 13 high schools in the city of Baltimore were found to have zero students — not a single one — who were proficient in math. And out of the 3,804 students in all who took the state math proficiency test, only 14 were proficient.

Baltimore’s schools perform this poorly despite the fact that residents of Baltimore pay 3.2% city income tax, the maximum local income tax rate allowed by state law in an already high-tax state. Take that as further proof that throwing money at problems doesn’t necessarily solve them.

Crime in Baltimore is, simply put, out of control. With over 2,000 violent crimes per 100,000 people, in the year 2017 Baltimore was well within the most dangerous 1% of U.S. cities.

And then, there’s the rats, the mention of which generated much of the ire directed at Trump. He claimed that Baltimore is “rat infested," causing some left-wing pundits to claim he was using code to refer to “black and brown people.” Yet, once again, the issue is whether he was right. And he was. The city has a very real rat infestation problem.

Baltimore’s rats have long been the subject of commentary in the news and in social media. From both sides of the political aisle, everyone from Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders to Ben Carson and Baltimore’s former Mayor Catherine Pugh (who resigned in May amid federal and state corruption investigations) have been outed on the web for having publicly commented on the city’s filth and squalor in years past. A 2018 video has surfaced of Pugh touring her miserable city and nearly gagging on her own words as she exclaimed, “You can smell the rats … Oh my God, you can smell the dead animals.”

So, yes, there are rats. A lot of rats. So many rats that one citizen created a full feature-length documentary film about Baltimore’s rats. The city and county themselves launched the “Rat Attack Program” to battle the epidemic, sadly without much success.

On Monday, Baltimore’s local Fox broadcasting affiliate WBFF was reporting on Trump’s tweetstorm when, as if sensing its opportunity for two seconds of fame, a rat ran through the frame effectively photobombing the Fox45 reporter’s live shot!

As a black American pundit, I am often asked whether I think Trump is a racist. I do not, but the answer I always give is that I don’t care. What I care about is the truth.

The point is that the overarching focus on race accomplishes nothing. And if the focus is simply on truth, then in this case, Trump is unquestionably right.

That Baltimore’s political leadership has failed its constituents is inarguable. That's why those same political figures, along with the race hustlers of the day, repeatedly pull out the same card they’ve been playing for decades. They get away with it by accusing their own accusers of racism. They choose to focus on accusations of intent rather than substance of the issue.

Baltimore is steeped in squalor, and the black community there bears the brunt of its inept, corrupt political leadership. Trump hasn't had time to cause that in his less than three years in office. But in less than three seconds, his tweet has shone a glaring spotlight onto it, and that bright light is causing the rats to scurry.

Obama & Democrats Losing Black Supporters, Black Vote

Rep. Elijah Cummings appears on MSNBC's "Morning Joe Show" discussing concerns Congressional Black Caucus members have with the Obama Administration.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Are Blacks Abandoning Pres. Obama?


Danny Glover, Jesse Jackson, and other activists talk to Lloyd Grove about disappointment in the African-American community with the president’s first year.



Danny Glover heaved a sigh when I asked him recently what he thought of President Obama’s performance so far.

It wasn’t a sigh of relief.

“I think the Obama administration has followed the same playbook, to a large extent, almost verbatim, as the Bush administration. I don’t see anything different,” the activist movie actor said of Obama’s policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. “On the domestic side, look here: What’s so clear is that this country from the outset is projecting the interests of wealth and property. Look at the bailout of Wall Street. Why not the bailout of Main Street?”

More in sorrow than in anger, Glover went on: “What choice does he have—in four years, eight years? Let’s just call a spade a spade. Really. There are no choices out there. He may be just a different face, and that face may happen to be black—and if it were Hillary Clinton, it would happen to be a woman—but what choices do they have within the structure?”

Glover is among a growing chorus of African-American opinion leaders who are publicly and privately expressing varying degrees of resignation, disappointment, and outright anger concerning a presidency on which so many hopes have ridden. Who can forget the iconic image of the tear-streaked Rev. Jesse Jackson—who in 1984 and 1988 waged formidable campaigns of his own for the Democratic presidential nomination—as he stood overcome with emotion amid the jubilant crowd at Chicago’s Grant Park as Obama gave his victory speech?

These days Jackson is decidedly dry-eyed.

“Let me distinguish African-American support for the president from the need to challenge policies and protect our interests,” Jackson said. He argues that vocal and effective activism on Obama’s left flank could alter the political dynamic and help him accomplish such goals as health-care reform, job creation, and stricter regulation of Wall Street—in much the same way that civil-rights marches in the South, and the media attention they received, captured the nation’s moral imagination and helped Lyndon Johnson pass landmark legislation in the mid-1960s. “But this doesn’t always turn on a race-based analysis,” Jackson cautioned. “It doesn’t always have to be a function of animus” of one African American for another.

Yet in recent weeks, such prominent voices as Rep. John Conyers, the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and New York Times columnist Charles Blow have been among those taking shots at Obama over his policies, rhetoric, and political positioning.

“A lot of people are pissed off out there,” said one well-known political player who slams the president for embarrassing African-American Gov. David Paterson of New York by trying to shove him out of next year’s Democratic primary election in favor of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and campaigning vigorously for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine’s unsuccessful reelection race while ignoring African-American candidate Bill Thompson’s closer-than-expected mayoral bid against Mike Bloomberg. “Thompson could have won that race,” says this politico, who—for the moment, anyway—is keeping his powder dry and declining to criticize the president on the record.

Conyers, in a remarkable outburst to The Hill newspaper, recounted how he cut Obama off a few weeks ago when the president phoned to demand an explanation for the congressman’s blunt criticisms of the troop surge in Afghanistan (“he’s getting bad advice from clowns”), Obama’s compromises on health-care reform (“bowing down” to the “nutty right wing”), and his alleged mishandling of the promised prison shutdown at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

“He called me and told me that he heard that I was demeaning him and I had to explain to him that it wasn’t anything personal, it was an honest difference on the issues,” Conyers told The Hill. “And he said, ‘Well, let’s talk about it.’ ” But the 80-year-old Conyers informed the president that he was in no mood to chat. “I’ve been saying I don’t agree with him on Afghanistan, I think he screwed up on health-care reform, on Guantánamo and kicking Greg off,” Conyers added, referring to the forced resignation of White House counsel Gregory Craig over the Guantánamo prison issue.

The New York Times’ Blow, in his Dec. 4 column, noted the president’s surprising lack of empathy for blacks suffering disproportionately from the dire effects of recession.

“There was an expectation, particularly among African Americans, that the first African-American president would at least be vocal about feeling their pain,” Blow said last week on MSNBC’s Hardball. “I think that has not been the case. The president has given a couple of speeches and he has been very heavy on the stick and not very heavy with the carrot… Just in the inability for him to commiserate with that group of people, people feel a bit deflated… He said he’s not going to focus separately on African-American issues at all. That let a lot of people down.”

These sentiments are mirrored in recent polls suggesting that while overall support for Obama among black voters continues to be overwhelming, hovering in the 90 percent range, the intensity of that support appears to be diminishing—a trend that could end up affecting black turnout in next year’s congressional midterm elections and possibly even the presidential election of 2012.

A breakout of black voters in Washington Post surveys over the past eight months shows that those who “strongly” approve of Obama fell from 85 to 69 percent, while his disapproval rating quintupled—from 2 to 11 percent. Admittedly, that’s still very low number, but it’s evidently moving in the wrong direction.

Senior research associate David Bositis, of the African-American-oriented Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says record black turnout was among the factors that delivered six key swing states to Obama, totaling 107 electoral votes, in the 2008 election—Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Bositis predicted that black turnout for Obama will remain strong in 2012—and that the president enjoys significantly higher approval ratings among black voters than African-American members of Congress in their own districts. But independent pollster Matthew Towery, a former Republican strategist, said even a slight diminution in turnout could have an outsize impact.

“In a state like Florida, which Obama won by two percentage points, a falloff of 10 percent in black turnout might have changed the result and given the state to McCain,” said Towery, who recently conducted a statewide poll showing the president with an astonishing 35 percent disapproval rating among African Americans in Georgia. Towery cautioned that the startling statistics might be a peculiarity, owing to the brutal economic downturn in a state that was only recently booming.

“My best guess is that the current black polling numbers for Obama are somewhat unusual in Georgia because black professionals and the black middle class here have had to get in the unemployment line alongside younger workers who've only recently moved to the city and state; and many of them, too, have seen their houses foreclosed on,” Towery wrote in a recent column.

He added: “Will government’s apparent inability to effect the promised positive 'change' begin to fan discontent in other black communities across the nation? Or will this encroaching uneasiness with Obama stay limited to this one snapshot in time in this one Southern state? We can't yet know, but the early signs are there.”

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Black in the Age of Obama


A hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Dickens opened “A Tale of Two Cities” with the now-famous phrase: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. ...”

Those words resonated with me recently while contemplating the impact of the Obama presidency on blacks in America. So far, it’s been mixed. Blacks are living a tale of two Americas — one of the ascension of the first black president with the cultural capital that accrues; the other of a collapsing quality of life and amplified racial tensions, while supporting a president who is loath to even acknowledge their pain, let alone commiserate in it.

Last year, blacks dared to dream anew, envisioning a future in which Obama’s election would be the catalyst for an era of prosperity and more racial harmony. Now that the election’s afterglow has nearly faded, the hysteria of hope is being ground against the hard stone of reality. Things have not gotten better. In many ways, they’ve gotten worse.

The recession, for one, has dealt a particularly punishing and uneven hand to blacks.

A May report from the Pew Research Center found that blacks were the most likely to get higher-priced subprime loans, leading to higher foreclosure rates. In fact, blacks have displaced Hispanics as the group with the lowest homeownership rates.

According to the most recent jobs data, not only is the unemployment rate for blacks nearly twice that of whites, the gap in some important demographics has widened rapidly since Obama took office. The unemployment rate over that time for white college graduates under 24 years old grew by about 20 percent. For their black cohorts, the rate grew by about twice that much.

And a report published last month by the Department of Agriculture found that in 2008, “food insecurity” for American households had risen to record levels, with black children being the most likely to experience that food insecurity.

Things on the racial front are just as bad.

We are now inundated with examples of overt racism on a scale to which we are unaccustomed. Any protester with a racist poster can hijack a news cycle, while a racist image can live forever on the Internet. In fact, racially offensive images of the first couple are so prolific online that Google now runs an apologetic ad with the results of image searches of them.

And it’s not all words and images; it’s actions as well. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2008 hate crimes data released last week, anti-black hate crimes rose 4 percent from 2007, while the combined hate crimes against all other racial categories declined 11 percent. If you look at the two-year trend, which would include Obama’s ascension as a candidate, anti-black hate crimes have risen 8 percent, while those against the other racial groups have fallen 19 percent.

This has had a sobering effect on blacks. According to a Nov. 9 report from Gallup, last summer 23 percent of blacks thought that race relations would get a lot better with the election of Obama. Now less than half that percentage says that things have actually gotten a lot better.

The racial animosity that Obama’s election has stirred up may have contributed to a rallying effect among blacks. According to a Gallup report published on Nov. 24, Obama’s approval rating among whites has dropped to 39 percent, but among blacks it remains above 90 percent.

Also, this hasn’t exactly been a good year for black men in the news. Plaxico Burress was locked up for accidentally shooting off a gun in a club. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was locked up for intentionally shooting off his mouth at his own home. And Michael Jackson died after being shot full of propofol. Chris Brown brutally beat Rihanna. Former Representative William Jefferson was convicted. And most recently, the “personal failings” of Tiger Woods portray him as an alley cat. Meanwhile, the most critically acclaimed black movie of the year, “Precious,” features a black man who rapes and twice impregnates his own daughter. Rooting for the president feels like a nice counterbalance.

However, the rallying creates a conundrum for blacks: how to air anxiety without further arming Obama’s enemies. This dilemma has rendered blacks virtually voiceless on some pressing issues at a time when their voices would have presumably held greater sway.

This means that Obama can get away with doing almost nothing to specifically address issues important to African-Americans and instead focus on the white voters he’s losing in droves. This has not gone unnoticed. In the Nov. 9 Gallup poll, the number of blacks who felt that Obama would not go far enough in promoting efforts to aid the black community jumped 60 percent from last summer to now.

The hard truth is that Obama needs white voters more than he needs black ones.

According to my analysis, even if every black person in America had stayed home on Election Day, Obama would still be president. To a large degree, Obama was elected by white people, some of whom were more able to accept him because he consciously portrayed himself as racially ambiguous.

In fact, commiserating with the blacks could prove politically problematic.

In a study to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences this month, researchers asked subjects to rate images of the president to determine which ones best represented his “true essence.” In some of the photos, his skin had been lightened. In others, it had been darkened. The result? The more people identified him with the “whiter” images, the more likely they were to have voted for him, and vice versa.

The Age of Obama, so far at least, seems less about Obama as a black community game-changer than as a White House gamesman. It’s unclear if there will be a positive Obama Effect, but an Obama Backlash is increasingly apparent. Meanwhile, black people are also living a tale of two actions: grin and bear it.





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Sources: The Daily Beast, NY Times, The Hill, MSNBC, Morning Joe Show, USA Today, Examiner, McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, AP, Google Maps

Congressional Black Caucus Members Should Leave Obama Alone!

Here we go again on this issue. Hopefully it will be the last time.

Although I and many other African-Americans agree wholeheartedly with the Congressional Black Caucus' attempt to capture Pres. Obama's attention as it relates to helping Black Communities which have suffered much more so than White Communities in this terrible Recession, the Obama Administration appears to be playing "dirty politics" by reversing the CBC's newsworthy concerns.

Now it seems as if Obama's Administration appears to be trying to make the CBC look like a bunch of whining, immature Politicians unwilling to work along with his agenda to help our hurting Economy bounce back.

Thus the CBC's cries for help have fallen upon death ears.

Its very obvious Obama is Black as his light complexion can't hide his Black genealogy by no means.

No personal offense but Pres. Barack Obama seems to have forgotten he is still a Black man who despite having a White Mother, did NOT grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth.

For him to ignore the current plight of HIS Black Community (yes its HIS Black Community because he's our country's President), is just a shame and disgrace.

Continuing to compare Black America's brutal Economic Hardship with White America's less harsh circumstances, is alienating Pres. Obama from his Black Voters.

What is Rahm Emanuel's solution to circumventing this potentially Politically dangerous situation?

Directing White Voters anger over Obama's Policies into frustration towards our nation's "Whining, Complaining, Ungrateful Blacks".

The end result:

White Voters will sympathize with Pres. Obama and hate or dislike Blacks. At least this way Obama won't lose his White Voter support of which he seemingly cherishes much more so than Black Voters.

And...if White America blames Black America for our country's problems, no one will focus on HIS Policies right?

Pres. Obama is a Slick, Professional Politician and nothing more.

Did you think he could spend all those years in Chicago and not learn anything or that he would be able to avoid the stench of "Chicago's Way" from contaminating his soul at all?

Come on people be real!

Haven't you noticed everything President Obama does seems to be for Political purposes ONLY?

If keeping White Voters happy to secure their ballots in 2012 means more than helping America's severely wounded Black Communities, than so be it!

Please understand that I'm NOT opposed to White America, nor am I writing this post to encourage or create Militant Black behavior toward White citizens.

I'm just stating a plain fact whether anyone chooses to agree with my opinion or not.

Earlier this year I was 100% behind Pres. Obama and his Policies but since he now appears to be throwing Black Voters, Senior Citizens, Middle Class and Low Income Voters under the bus, my support for his Administration is waning.

Going forward I would suggest to Congressional Black Caucus members that as it relates to helping America's Black Community, they stop attempting to get Obama's attention.

Instead channel their Energies and Political Clout into fighting for Equality within their own districts.

Congressional Black Caucus members should do more for their communities by directing Federal Funds to credible, HONEST organizations within those communities thus ensuring their Constituents receive the help they so desperately need.

CBC members should also use a percentage of their Campaign funds to set up additional Political offices in those communities so their Constituents will have more access to them.

After all Visibility never hurts any Politician.

Last but not least, Congressional Black Caucus members should begin to put their Votes where their complaints are.

If CBC members truly believe Pres. Obama's Administration is intentionally ignoring Blacks, Senior Citizens, Middle Class and Low Income citizens, than why are they continuing to vote for his Policies???

That just doesn't make sense!

No wonder Pres. Obama isn't taking them seriously!

Since they are continuing to vote for his Policies despite their concerns, he sees their attempts to get his attention as "Fake Smoke & Mirrors".

Its no secret many CBC members are up for re-election in 2010, so are their complaints about Obama's Administration just for show or to appease Black Voters?

Either shut up and keep voting for President Obama's Policies or put your votes where your concerns are by becoming more focused on your districts and STOP voting for Obama's Policies.

If CBC members don't have the guts to NOT vote for Pres. Obama's Policies, than shut up!

With this I say Congressional Black Caucus members should leave Pres. Obama alone, go back to THEIR communities, roll up their sleeves and get in the trenches with THEIR Constituents.

Whatever happened to being a Community Organizer?

Isn't that part of what being a Politician is all about?

That's right CBC members! Stop Whining and put forth some action.

Quit the "Political Gimmicks"!

Isn't Pres. Obama the First Black President in American history?

Think about what you are demonstrating to our Minority Youth?

Stop giving White America something else to point fingers and laugh at! (Black Leader against Black Leader)

Either you support Pres. Obama or you don't. You can't have it both ways!

If you don't support Pres. Obama's agenda, be Man or Woman enough to back up your claims or decision not to vote for his Policies with logical, truthful arguments.

In fact neither Pres. Obama nor the CBC can have it both ways.

Congressional Black Caucus members should NOT be throwing Pres. Obama's administration under the bus to save their Political Careers.

By the same token Pres. Obama should NOT be throwing Congressional Black Caucus members or Black Voters under the bus to save his.

If Pres. Obama's heart, motives and agenda isn't for helping "the people" (ALL people), God will soon expose him and than it will be up to ALL people (including Black Voters) to see if he deserves another term in the Oval office.

So stop the drama and move on!

Congress, America needs your help.

Help from ALL of you. Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Independents, etc.

Please stop bickering and help your Constituents.

United we stand, divided we fall.

Peace

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Congressional Black Caucus: "W.H. not doing enough for Blacks"


Congressional Black Caucus members continued to air their differences with the Obama administration on Sunday.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said that the administration hasn't done enough to target the African-American community when drafting economic recovery plans. African Americans, she said, have suffered a “devastation” during the economic downturn unlike the pain felt in other communities.

“When you have disproportionate pain, when you have the kind of devastation that we’re having in our community….You have to target legislation and actions so that you can deal with that devastation,” Waters said on TV One's "Washington Watch." “You have two sick patients. One has pneumonia and one has a cold. You don’t give aspirin to the one with pneumonia.”

Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) agreed.

“It’s absolutely ludicrous to us that most Americans took a haircut in the recession,” Cleaver said. “African Americans took a beheading. To say that we’re going to ignore the community in terms of doing damage, but to say that we’re not going to target them [in the recovery is] ludicrous.”

But members took care not to take shots at Obama himself, and also stressed that they want to work with the administration, despite warnings earlier this month that they might team up with Republicans on key legislation.

“There’s no rift between the Congressional Black Caucus and the president and the administration,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). “I believe the president gets it.”

“We’re not taking on this president. We want to help him,” Waters said.

Added Cleaver, “This has nothing to do with the White House.”



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Sources: Politico, USA Today, MSNBC, Morning Joe Show, Congressional Black Caucus, Wikipedia, AP, Google Maps

Obama's Black America: An Ugly Future For His Black Voters...Just Politics

President Obama talks about the African American community and "getting out of this together."





Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Elijah Cummings converses with Morning Joe show panel members about stark differences between White and Black U.S. Unemployment rates.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Black in the Age of Obama


A hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Dickens opened “A Tale of Two Cities” with the now-famous phrase: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. ...”

Those words resonated with me recently while contemplating the impact of the Obama Presidency on Blacks in America. So far, it’s been mixed. Blacks are living a tale of two Americas — one of the ascension of the first black president with the cultural capital that accrues; the other of a collapsing quality of life and amplified racial tensions, while supporting a president who is loath to even acknowledge their pain, let alone commiserate in it.

Last year, blacks dared to dream anew, envisioning a future in which Obama’s election would be the catalyst for an era of prosperity and more racial harmony. Now that the election’s afterglow has nearly faded, the hysteria of hope is being ground against the hard stone of reality. Things have not gotten better. In many ways, they’ve gotten worse.

The recession, for one, has dealt a particularly punishing and uneven hand to blacks.

A May report from the Pew Research Center found that Blacks were the most likely to get higher-priced subprime loans, leading to higher foreclosure rates. In fact, blacks have displaced Hispanics as the group with the lowest homeownership rates.

According to the most recent jobs data, not only is the unemployment rate for blacks nearly twice that of whites, the gap in some important demographics has widened rapidly since Obama took office. The unemployment rate over that time for white college graduates under 24 years old grew by about 20 percent. For their black cohorts, the rate grew by about twice that much.

And a report published last month by the Department of Agriculture found that in 2008, “food insecurity” for American households had risen to record levels, with black children being the most likely to experience that food insecurity.

Things on the racial front are just as bad.

We are now inundated with examples of overt racism on a scale to which we are unaccustomed. Any protester with a racist poster can hijack a news cycle, while a racist image can live forever on the Internet. In fact, racially offensive images of the first couple are so prolific online that Google now runs an apologetic ad with the results of image searches of them.

And it’s not all words and images; it’s actions as well. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2008 hate crimes data released last week, anti-black hate crimes rose 4 percent from 2007, while the combined hate crimes against all other racial categories declined 11 percent. If you look at the two-year trend, which would include Obama’s ascension as a candidate, anti-black hate crimes have risen 8 percent, while those against the other racial groups have fallen 19 percent.

This has had a sobering effect on blacks. According to a Nov. 9 report from Gallup, last summer 23 percent of blacks thought that race relations would get a lot better with the election of Obama. Now less than half that percentage says that things have actually gotten a lot better.

The racial animosity that Obama’s election has stirred up may have contributed to a rallying effect among blacks. According to a Gallup Report published on Nov. 24, Obama’s approval rating among whites has dropped to 39 percent, but among blacks it remains above 90 percent.

Also, this hasn’t exactly been a good year for black men in the news. Plaxico Burress was locked up for accidentally shooting off a gun in a club. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was locked up for intentionally shooting off his mouth at his own home. And Michael Jackson died after being shot full of propofol. Chris Brown brutally beat Rihanna. Former Representative William Jefferson was convicted. And most recently, the “personal failings” of Tiger Woods portray him as an alley cat. Meanwhile, the most critically acclaimed black movie of the year, “Precious,” features a black man who rapes and twice impregnates his own daughter. Rooting for the president feels like a nice counterbalance.

However, the rallying creates a conundrum for blacks: how to air anxiety without further arming Obama’s enemies. This dilemma has rendered blacks virtually voiceless on some pressing issues at a time when their voices would have presumably held greater sway.

This means that Obama can get away with doing almost nothing to specifically address issues important to African-Americans and instead focus on the white voters he’s losing in droves. This has not gone unnoticed. In the Nov. 9 Gallup poll, the number of blacks who felt that Obama would not go far enough in promoting efforts to aid the black community jumped 60 percent from last summer to now.

The hard truth is that Obama needs white voters more than he needs black ones.

According to my analysis, even if every black person in America had stayed home on Election Day, Obama would still be president. To a large degree, Obama was elected by white people, some of whom were more able to accept him because he consciously portrayed himself as racially ambiguous.

In fact, commiserating with the blacks could prove politically problematic.

In a study to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences this month, researchers asked subjects to rate images of the president to determine which ones best represented his “true essence.” In some of the photos, his skin had been lightened. In others, it had been darkened. The result? The more people identified him with the “whiter” images, the more likely they were to have voted for him, and vice versa.

The Age of Obama, so far at least, seems less about Obama as a black community game-changer than as a White House gamesman. It’s unclear if there will be a positive Obama Effect, but an Obama Backlash is increasingly apparent. Meanwhile, black people are also living a tale of two actions: grin and bear it.





Pres. Obama Gets an "F" from Black Agenda Report


Bruce A. Dixon at Black Agenda Report, a progressive “journal of African American political thought and action,” has graded the first 100 days of Barack Obama’s Presidency on 18 general issues…

1. Health Care Reform (9 points)
2. Creating New Jobs and Preserving Old Ones (5 points)
3. Fully Funding and Preserving Public Education (6 points)
4. War & Peace (9 points)
5. Transportation (5 points)
6. Caribbean and Latin America (4 points)
7. Obama’s Africa Policy; Our Brotherman and the Motherland (5 points)
8. Wall Street Bailout (6 points)
9. Debt and Foreclosure Crises (6 points)
10. Investigating Bush-era Crimes (5 points)
11. Criminalizing Immigration, Militarizing the Border (5 points)
12. Broadband For Everyone and a Just and Fair Media (5 points)
13. Environment (5 points)
14. Agricultural Policy, and Policy Toward Black Farmers (5 points)
15. Mass imprisonment (5 points)
16. Employee Free Choice Act (5 points)
17. Urban Policy (5 points)
18. Privatization of Government Agencies and Services (5 points)

Out of 100 possible points, 55 was considered passing.

Pres. Obama scored 22.5

This is so far down in the failing scores that the most appropriate letter-grade is probably… "F-"



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Sources: NY Times, TPM, Black Agenda Report, Gallup Report, MSNBC, Morning Joe, Coast Guard Report, Whitehouse.gov, Newsweek, USA Today, CBC, NAACP, AP, Flickr, Google Maps

Pres. Obama Rejects CBC's Complaints...His Black Community Report Card

President Obama talks about the African American community and "getting out of this together."





Congressional Black Caucus pressures White House. Rep. Elijah Cummings converses with Morning Joe show panel members.

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Pres. Obama rejects Congressional Black Caucus criticism


President Obama said today it would be wrong for him to narrowly focus on the troubles blacks face in the recession, rejecting criticism from the Congressional Black Caucus that the government was ignoring the economic plight of minorities.

"I will tell you that I think the most important thing I can do for the African-American community is the same thing I can do for the American community, period, and that is get the economy going again and get people hiring again," the president told Richard Wolf of USA TODAY and Justin Hyde of the Detroit Free Press in an exclusive joint interview.

On Wednesday, 10 members of the black caucus -- of which Obama was a member when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois -- boycotted a key House committee vote on financial reform. The group said it would push harder for Congress and the White House to tackle problems including an unemployment rate for blacks of 15.7%, higher than the national rate of 10.2%

"We can no longer afford for our public policy to be defined by the worldview of Wall Street," members of the caucus said in a statement Wednesday. "Policy for the least of these must be integrated into everything that we do."

Obama said in today's interview, held ahead of this afternoon's White House summit on job creation, that he agreed with some of the goals the CBC had outlined such as making sure black-owned small businesses had access to credit. But he stressed that he needed to keep a broader view.

"I think it's a mistake to start thinking in terms of particular ethnic segments of the United States rather than to think that we are all in this together and we are all going to get out of this together," he said.

Rich and Justin will have more on their interview with the president in Friday's editions of USA TODAY and the Free Press, which are both owned by Gannett.

See this post for Obama's comments on the White House gate crashers.





Pres. Obama Gets an "F" from Black Agenda Report


Bruce A. Dixon at Black Agenda Report, a progressive “journal of African American political thought and action,” has graded the first 100 days of Barack Obama’s Presidency on 18 general issues…

1. Health Care Reform (9 points)
2. Creating New Jobs and Preserving Old Ones (5 points)
3. Fully Funding and Preserving Public Education (6 points)
4. War & Peace (9 points)
5. Transportation (5 points)
6. Caribbean and Latin America (4 points)
7. Obama’s Africa Policy; Our Brotherman and the Motherland (5 points)
8. Wall Street Bailout (6 points)
9. Debt and Foreclosure Crises (6 points)
10. Investigating Bush-era Crimes (5 points)
11. Criminalizing Immigration, Militarizing the Border (5 points)
12. Broadband For Everyone and a Just and Fair Media (5 points)
13. Environment (5 points)
14. Agricultural Policy, and Policy Toward Black Farmers (5 points)
15. Mass imprisonment (5 points)
16. Employee Free Choice Act (5 points)
17. Urban Policy (5 points)
18. Privatization of Government Agencies and Services (5 points)

Out of 100 possible points, 55 was considered passing.

Pres. Obama scored 22.5

This is so far down in the failing scores that the most appropriate letter-grade is probably… "F-"




Frustrated Congressional Black Caucus plays hardball with White House


The long-simmering family feud between the Congressional Black Caucus and the first African-American president burst into the open on Wednesday, with members boycotting a financial overhaul vote as a warning shot at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The 43-member caucus — which included Illinois Sen. Barack Obama from 2004 to 2008 — has chafed against President Obama and his top aides since the Inauguration, complaining that the White House takes it for granted and plays favorites with conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

Ten CBC members decided to boycott the House Financial Services Committee vote en masse after a tumultuous morning meeting at the Capitol between Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel failed to yield a deal, according to people familiar with the meeting.

The bill passed easily, but Waters suggested the CBC’s 43 members could vote with the GOP to scuttle a variety of Democratic bills if Obama and Emanuel don’t address what she thinks is a lack of understanding of the CBC’s wide-ranging goals of reducing urban unemployment, home foreclosures and bank failures.

“I think that it is important for us to educate those people around [Obama],” Waters told reporters. “We’ve got to get his people educated and moving. We have not brought these issues to him personally — it is important first to educate those people around him so they understand.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), who recently accused Obama of bowing down to the GOP on health care reform, was more pointed, shouting “Yes!” when asked if he was disappointed with Obama’s level of attentiveness to African-Americans’ needs.

He added that he had an extensive list of issues with the president — a list he said was too long to disgorge in a hallway conversation with a reporter.

“There are those who choose not to speak about African-Americans or the working class,” Waters said. “We can no longer be in denial that certain sectors of our population, including the African-American community, are feeling the recession to a greater extent.”

Waters, a former CBC chairwoman and one of its most outspoken members, clashed often with Emanuel during his days in the House and has also had a rocky relationship with the president, according to staffers.

But the volatile Los Angeles Democrat isn’t the only CBC member to have run-ins with the equally combustible Emanuel.

For years, caucus members have complained that Emanuel worked against their interests by failing to appoint a sufficient number of blacks to senior staff positions when he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Many still believe Emanuel favors the conservative, mostly white Democrats he helped elect to battleground districts in the South, West and Midwest.

CBC members have long said they would rather deal with Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who is black, but have been forced to negotiate with Emanuel, Obama’s point man in the House.

But, increasingly, the members’ grievances have focused on Obama himself.

In the lead-up to February’s stimulus vote, many caucus members grumbled that Obama buckled by allowing the GOP to strip out nearly $60 billion in aid to states to make way for an extension of the alternative minimum tax that will largely benefit the middle class.

CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) is still bothered by Obama’s selection of New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg as commerce secretary — an appointment that ended with Gregg’s voluntary withdrawal over ideological differences with the White House.

And many felt Obama waited too long — nearly two months into his term — to invite them to their first White House meeting.

Waters has been meeting with Emanuel and other officials for weeks with an a-la-carte list of programmatic demands, ranging from pumping more Troubled Asset Relief Program funding into troubled inner-city banks to steering Census Bureau advertising dollars to church newsletters to appointing minority members to a consumer protection commission.

Aides say Emanuel and his staff are aware of the need to address the concerns of predominantly black inner-city districts, which often have 20-plus percent rates of unemployment. “We share the concerns raised by CBC members about struggling minority communities, and that’s why we’ve engaged in a positive way to make progress on these issues,” said Obama spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki. “We have not been informed of the reasoning behind their decision not to vote on the bill, but we continue to think it is important to move financial reform forward to prevent future crises from damaging our economy and disrupting the lives of millions of Americans, including African-Americans.”

Even though no caucus members voted for it, the administration inserted several of the CBC initiatives into the financial overhaul package, including the expansion of the consumer commission and the addition of minority liaisons at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Treasury Department.

Until Wednesday, Waters and other CBC members had been reluctant to spell out their Obama wish list, with Financial Services Committee members refusing even to say why they skipped the vote.

The caucus released a2½-page handout to answer those questions on Wednesday, with an emphasis on addressing the economic problems of members’ districts, ranging from the crisis engulfing minority-owned auto dealerships and newspapers to the need for more-targeted foreclosure mitigation programs.

But Waters says the CBC’s point was a larger one — a statement that the group would “use our strength and our influence to better represent our communities.”


Sources: USA Today, Black Agenda Report, TPM, Politico, MSNBC, Morning Joe Show, AP, Congressional Black Caucus

"Morning Joe's" Public Option Showdown: Rep. Cummings (1) vs. Mika brzezinski (0)

During his appearance on today's "Morning Joe" show hosted by Mika brzezinski, Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had to remind Mika not to get distracted when discussing Health Care Reform.

Now don't get it twisted people! I'm a huge fan of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.

In fact its part of my daily ritual and I watch it everyday.

You may not agree but in this instance Mika was wrong. (My opinion)

She was trying to deal with an old argument (Rep. Joe Wilson's formal congressional reprimand), while Congressman Cummings wanted to discuss Health Care Reform.

I must say Mr. Cummings handled Mika very professional and did NOT allow Mika, nor the other panelists to take him there. (If you know what I mean.)

Good job Rep. Cummings!

Let's stop being silly people and keep down the drama.

It really doesn't matter if you personally like Pres. Barack Obama (for whatever reason) or not.

What matters is that America's Health Care Insurance System is in badly need of Reform, this includes offering people a Robust Gov't Public Option plan.

That's the only way to help drive down costs, ensure Fair competition and stop Fraud.

(Miss ya Joe. I can hardly wait for your return.)



Mika "0", Congressman Cummings "1"!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Is the Public Option dead?

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A Morning Meeting panel, including Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, discuss the defeat of the public option, and how it’s only a prelude to other debates before a final bill is passed.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pres. Obama's Secret Bill: White House Drafts Health Care Legislation

The White House has been secretly drafting its own health care legislation that it may unveil at some point during the debate if officials believe it would help secure passage of a bill, according to sources familiar with the effort.

Sources differed on how far the process has gotten, with some saying a bill is basically finished and others saying they are aware only of a partially completed effort. White House officials, though they know their preferences, also appear to be constructing different options that could be thrown together depending on how the legislation is shaping up in Congress.

But all sources knowledgeable about the effort agreed the measure includes significant detail and possibly even some legislative language that could ensure the bill is ready to go the moment it is needed.

“They are getting ready for a backup,” said one veteran observer of health care debates who was knowledgeable about the effort. “It will be parachuted in if necessary.”

The White House measure appears designed to entice moderate Democrats and perhaps even Republicans into supporting a health care overhaul if legislative efforts in Congress fail or if they move too far to the left. Sources said one possibility would be to invoke the measure if the Senate cannot rally 60 votes to break a filibuster. Another option may be to present details of what the White House wants during a conference between the House and the Senate.

But the White House effort may never see the light of day.

At the moment, the Senate Finance Committee is moving legislation that includes many provisions and a price tag supported by President Barack Obama, and the need for a White House bill may now be moot. One of the reasons for embarking on the project was to have a detailed proposal ready in case the Finance Committee failed to move a bill that could pass the Senate.



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Sources: MSNBC, Morning Joe, House.gov, Huffington Post, Roll Call, Whitehouse.gov, Babble.com, Wikipedia, Google Maps