NINA SIMONE'S DAUGHTER FEELS BAD FOR ZOE SALDANA, DOESN'T ENDORSE BIOPIC OF HER MOTHER

NINA SIMONE'S DAUGHTER FEELS BAD FOR ZOE SALDANA, BUT DOES NOT ENDORSE BIOPIC:

LISA SIMONE KELLY CARES ABOUT INTEGRITY & TRUTH NOT JUST MONEY.

Sources: TIME, YouTube

**** Nina Simone’s Daughter Is ‘Not Upset’ at Zoe Saldana Over Biopic Role

"I really didn’t feel much of anything except for poor Zoe"

Remarks by Lisa Simone Kelly

Actress Zoe Saldana doesn’t deserve the sharp backlash she has received for her portrayal of legendary singer Nina Simone, the daughter of the late jazz great said Thursday.

Lisa Simone Kelly, the singer’s only child, told TIME she was unaware that the verified Twitter account representing her mother’s estate had slammed the actress after she tweeted a quote attributed to Simone. “Please take Nina’s name out your mouth. For the rest of your life,” the tweet directed to Saldana said.

It’s unclear who runs the late singer’s Twitter account. 

Her family said they had hired family friend Aaron Overfield to manage the official website and Facebook page years ago. Overfield did not return requests for comment.

The star — who dons dark makeup to play the late jazz and blues singer in the upcoming biopic, Nina — has come under fire since being cast for the role over a black actress with darker skin that would more closely resemble Simone’s. 

But most of the criticism is misdirected, Simone’s daughter told TIME in a rare interview Thursday. “It’s unfortunate that Zoe Saldana is being attacked so viciously when she is someone who is part of a larger picture,” said Simone Kelly, 53, who is also an actress and singer.

 “It’s clear she brought her best to this project, but unfortunately she’s being attacked when she’s not responsible for any of the writing or the lies.”

Outrage over the casting and storyline should be steered towards the film’s director, Cynthia Mort, Simone Kelly said. 

The daughter has disavowed the movie for at least a decade and said the family was not consulted during its production. 

Nina focuses on Simone’s personal relationship with her manager Clifton Henderson, played by David Oyelowo. 

The cinematic version of the story falsely depicts the iconic singer, her family said. It’s about the “the name you know” but “the story you don’t,” according to the biopic’s trailer, which was released Wednesday.

“The movie is about a relationship between my mother and Clifton which never took place. They never had an amorous relationship,” Simone Kelly said, adding that Henderson was a gay man. 

“The project has been tainted from the very beginning. Clearly, it is not the truth about my mother’s life and everyone now knows that. This is not how you want your loved ones remembered.”

Watching the trailer didn’t stir much emotion for Simone Kelly, who has been vocal against its production since 2006. “I really didn’t feel much of anything except for poor Zoe,” she said. Simone Kelly’s husband, Rob Kelly, said it was difficult to watch the clip, which begins with a scene in which Saldana is strapped to a hospital bed after fighting doctors. 

“Everything from the first scene when she’s strapped to a gurney is a lie,” Kelly, 49, said. “We’re both very passionate about her legacy being told the right way. What she actually accomplished is not common, and most people don’t know that.”

RLJ Entertainment, which is the distributor for Nina, didn’t comment on the storyline but defended Saldana in a statement to TIME on Thursday. “Zoe Saldana delivers an exceptional and mesmerizing tribute to Nina Simone. 

She gave her heart and soul to the role and displayed her extraordinary talent,” said Robert Johnson, the company’s founder and CEO. “The most important thing is that creativity or quality of performance should never be judged on the basis of color, or ethnicity, or physical likeness.”

While the family is “not upset with Zoe,” Simone Kelly said she didn’t think the actress was the “proper choice, appearance-wise.” “There are many superb actresses of color who could more adequately represent my mother and could bring her to the screen with the proper script, the proper team and a sense of wanting to bring the truth of my mother’s journey to the masses,” she said. “And Nina, in my opinion, doesn’t do any of that.”

Nina Simone died in her home in France in 2003 at the age of 70 after devoting a lifetime to being a civil rights activist. 

Her daughter said she’s more at peace with the controversial film after the release of the authorized documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?

 The film, directed by Liz Garbus, received a 2016 Oscar nomination and accurately depicts the life of the prominent recording artist, according to the family.

“I’m no longer bothered by it because the truth is already out there,” said Simone Kelly, who is releasing her second musical album in France next week. “I don’t have to justify, define or educate anybody about my mother anymore. It’s a wonderful feeling. I’m free in a way that I have never been before.”

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated RLJ Entertainment’s relationship to Nina. It is the film’s distributor.

New Jersey Rated Least Corrupt State By Watch Dog Group

Fuggedaboutit: NJ rated least corrupt state gov't


A nationwide study finds state governments lack transparency and accountability to citizens, and remain at high risk for corruption.

In the ranking, not a single state received an A from the probe, done by the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity.

There's a surprising state atop the list of most transparent and accountable governments: New Jersey.

Despite — or perhaps because of — recent corruption scandals, New Jersey gets the top ranking because of steps it took to combat corruption, including tough ethics and anti-corruption laws it adopted in response.

The report states: "The strong ethics rules were signed into law at the end of the 2004-05 legislative session. They were, in part, a reaction to the abbreviated, scandal-plagued administration of Gov. Jim McGreevey."

Reporters in each state researched 330 corruption risk indicators across 14 government categories.

Eight states got an F. They are: North Dakota, Michigan, South Carolina, Maine, Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota and Georgia.

On Georgia, the worst-ranked state, the report claims that while the Peach State does have good ethics laws on the books, numerous reports of people and companies circumventing those laws "underscore what can sometimes be a gaping divide between Georgia's legal standards for public accountability, on the one hand, and everyday practice."

To see how your state did, visit the full report here.


Report: Most states do poor job in guarding against Corruption


Most American states are doing a subpar job in protecting against corruption and assuring accountability, according a study released Monday.

The joint report -- from the Global Integrity nonprofit advocacy group, Public Radio International and Center for Public Integrity investigative news organization -- used data on a host of measures to score all 50 states.

No state received an A grade, while five got Bs and 19 were given Cs.

The majority got grades that would be considered not passing in American schools, including 18 Ds and eight with failing grades.

"What's behind the dismal grades? Across the board, state ethics, open records and disclosure laws lack one key feature: teeth," said an overview of the report written by Caitlin Ginley from the Center for Public Integrity.

The report assessed 330 "Corruption Risk Indicators" across 14 aspects of government such as ethics enforcement, lobbying disclosure, auditing practices and executive, legislative and judicial accountability.

The top-ranked state, after an analysis of these measures, was New Jersey.

It got a score of 87, equivalent to a B+. It was followed closely by Connecticut.

The only three other states earned above-average scores of B- or better: Washington, California and Nebraska.

On the other end of the spectrum was Georgia, which ranked at the bottom of the report's rankings when it came to transparency and accountability.

Citing one reason for Georgia's failing grade, the report claimed "more than 650 government employees accepted gifts from vendors doing business with the state in 2007 and 2008" despite this being a clear violation of state ethics laws -- adding that the state hadn't issued a related penalty since 1999.

The Peach State wasn't alone in scoring an F. It was joined by South Dakota, Wyoming, Virginia, Maine, South Carolina, North Dakota and Michigan.

The report's overview notes that low grades in some sparsely populated Western or Plains states may be attributable to "libertarian roots, a small-town, neighborly approach and the honest belief that 'everybody knows everybody' (that) has overridden any perceived need for strong protections in law."

But overall, the study concludes that many failings are preventable, whether by giving more power to ethics boards, bolstering penalties, increasing openness and transparency, or taking stronger measures to decrease the influence of money in politics.

This is despite some public steps in recent years aimed ostensibly at fighting corruption.

"State officials make lofty promises when it comes to ethics in government.

They tout transparency of legislative processes, accessibility of records and the openness of public meetings. But these efforts often fall short of providing any real transparency or legitimate hope of rooting out corruption," wrote Ginley.
The report offers a number of examples.

One is former West Virginia Gov. Arch Moore, in office for three terms in the 1970s and 1980s, who went to a local dealership and took a car on a "test drive" and ended up keeping it for four years, while the dealership earned state contracts.

Then, the report references a North Carolina legislator who owned five billboards and sponsored a bill to loosen billboard construction regulations, with an ethics commission finding no violations. And it also faults a Tennessee ethics commission that hasn't issued a penalty in its six years in existence and that doesn't make complaints available to the public.

Scandals and a history of political corruption can be prime drivers of effective reforms, according to the report, which points to the positive measures taken in New Jersey, Illinois and Louisiana.

It also credits widespread improvements in transparency, in which legislation and "some government records are easier to retrieve than ever." But Ed Bender of the National Institute on Money in State Politics says in the report that such information often isn't presented in an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand format.

Ginley, in the report's overview, also claims the study found that "lobbyists find ways" around even retooled laws and that "across the board, enforcement is weak."

"When it comes to money, influence and power in state government, interest groups and big-money donors will find ways around just about any limit," she wrote.


North Carolina: The story behind the score

When an influential North Carolina lawmaker named Stephen LaRoque helped sponsor and pass a 2011 bill loosening regulations on billboards, he was the co-owner of five billboards and president of a firm that owned four others.

But when LaRoque asked the North Carolina Ethics Commission to review his key legislative role, it found no conflict, citing what it called a “safe harbor” stemming from the fact that his law would benefit everyone owning billboards.

The case reflected what many analysts say is the prevailing state of North Carolina’s ethics regulations: A lengthy set of rules has been enacted to help keep public officials honest, but enforcement has sometimes not been strict. They also complain that the extensive rules haven’t adequately curbed the influence of monied interests on state policymaking.

North Carolina –a state of 9.7 million residents that will host the Democratic National Convention in September — ranks 18tth with a grade of C- and a score of 71 percent from the State Integrity Investigation, a collaborative project of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity, and Public Radio International.

No state received an A, but North Carolina ranked lower than many others on measures of its public access to information, executive accountability, state budget processes, and its procurement. It bested all other states on its lobbying disclosure rules.

Many of its ethics requirements stem from legislation enacted in 2006, following a major scandal in which a powerful lawmaker bribed a rank-and-file legislator. In exchange for his vote the legislator received campaign donations and a government job for his son. A smaller package of changes was enacted in 2010, boosting disclosure requirements and imposing stiffer penalties for illegal fundraising.

The ethics legislation was “a breakthrough, a quantum jump in the way all kinds of things are regulated,” said Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina, a non-partisan group that promotes government accountability. “We improved our regulation of the whole system.”

There have been some notable accomplishments, signaling the determination of some officials to punish ethics violators: In 2007 the two politicians involved in the bribe went to prison, in 2008 a legislator was expelled for violating ethics rules, and in 2010 a former governor pleaded guilty to a felony campaign law violation.

But campaign financing loopholes remain, enforcement is dispersed among several state agencies and commissions, and critics say the Ethics Commission – the principal body charged with policing conflict of interest standards —lacks sufficient staff and authority to punish violators.

“For the most part, they lack teeth,” said Frank Perry, a former Ethics Commission staff member who now directs investigations for the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service, a North Carolina watchdog group. “They could be a serious force in preventing and exposing and attacking corruption, and sadly we don’t have any proof that they’re doing it.”

The Commission – with four members appointed by the governor and four by the legislature — oversees the filing of financial disclosure reports, issues advisory opinions to officials, and launches a few investigations every year in response to complaints.

But its actions are mostly confidential, and the most severe punishment it can issue is a private admonishment. The Commission also can refer cases to the Governor, legislative leaders, or other elected officials for further action, but it never has done so. The Commission received more than 300 complaints between 2006 and 2010, and investigated fewer than twenty.

Commission Executive Director Perry Newson said most complaints are dismissed because they lack adequate factual support; in some cases, complainants refuse to reveal their identities and sign sworn statements, as the law requires.

But Chris Fitzsimon of NC Policy Watch, the group that first called attention to LaRoque’s financial interests, says the commission “seems to be unwilling to issue firm rulings that might not be in the interest of public officials.”

In LaRoque’s case, his group noted, two state officials with ties to billboards withdrew from a mandated review of the law’s implementation, citing their own conflicts of interest. Of the ethics commission decision to approve LaRoque’s role, Fitzsimon said, “That’s a very narrow interpretation of ethics laws.”

A different state government agency – the Board of Elections — administers campaign finance laws, while the Judicial Standards Commission governs judges’ behavior; legislative ethics committees investigate allegations against members of the General Assembly; the Secretary of State regulates lobbyists; and an elected State Auditor serves as a general government watchdog.

Recent efforts by state leaders to combine agencies and clarify their duties have provoked turf battles and partisan debates, partly because some of the regulatory boards are controlled by Democrats and others by Republicans.

But persistent confusion over enforcement authority was highlighted in January 2012, when a judge acquitted a lobbyist for a steel importer and other firms of charges that he had failed to register properly with the Secretary of State. The judge said the law is ambiguous and that the Secretary lacked authority to impose a $30,000 fine.

Scandal provokes reforms

The lobbying reforms, for which North Carolina scored the best, grew out of a 2002 encounter in the men’s room at an International House of Pancakes in Salibury.

Present were two state legislators: Democratic Rep. Jim Black, who was desperate for power, and Republican Rep. Michael Decker, who was desperate for money.

Black needed one more legislator’s vote to be elected a third time as Speaker of the House. In the IHOP bathroom, as Decker later admitted in federal court, he agreed to provide it in exchange for $50,000 in campaign donations and a job for his son.

The deal was part of a pattern of corruption involving Black, investigators eventually concluded. The former speaker pleaded guilty to accepting money from industry groups in exchange for legislation and admitted to the State Board of Elections that he collected blank checks from donors. By 2007, both he and Decker were in federal prison.

Other North Carolina politicians, meanwhile, spent campaign money on children’s clothing, home repairs, and merchandise from Victoria’s Secret. Lobbyists not only raised funds for politicians’ campaigns, but invited them to sports events and golf outings, and picked up the checks for legislators who ate at expensive restaurants near the capitol.

“One lobbyist told me that if he took three legislators out to dinner, three others legislators would send their checks over to him,” said Jane Pinsky of the North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform. “There were legislators who thought it was their prerogative to be wined and dined.”

State legislators responded to the disclosures of these acts by prohibiting the personal use of campaign funds, banning gifts from lobbyists, and establishing the ethics commission.

The ethics law also restricted contributions and gifts from lobbyists to elected officials.

While Pinsky said the revised law still has a few loopholes that allow lobbyists to entertain lawmakers, there’s no longer a culture of lavish hand-outs.

“Lobbyists and legislators work really hard to make sure they don’t cross the line,” she said. “I don’t think that everyone even saw the line before.”

Loopholes and gaps remain

The law has a few holes in it. Lobbyists no longer can buy meals for individual legislators, but still can sponsor receptions for large groups of lawmakers. Benefactors also can treat public officials to trips or outings that are classified as “educational meetings.”

Though lobbyists no longer personally can contribute to political campaigns, the political action committees or interest groups that employ lobbyists are free to donate when the legislature is out of session or on recess. Political parties and caucus committees also have taken a more active role in funneling money to individual candidates, allowing politicians to bypass some of the fundraising restrictions.

“Every time I think we’ve done something smart, they do something at least as smart if not smarter,” Pinsky said. “There’s a level of corruption that has to do with the campaign finance system and the way money dominates politics…that has not gone away,” said Hall of Democracy North Carolina.

Public officials still engage in “pay to play” – in which major donors are rewarded with favorable legislation, state contracts, or appointments to powerful government boards and commissions.

“They put in an inordinate amount of money and have special status,” Hall said of big campaign contributors, noting that relatively small industries, such as video poker operators, have gained influence in state government by showering politicians with donations.

He recently documented how contributions from the commercial finance industry helped Republicans win control in 2010 of both houses of the legislature for the first time since the late 1800’s. Months later, GOP leaders tried to fast-track a bill allowing the industry to charge consumers higher interest rates.

“There was over $100,000 in small donations from commercial lending outfits going to targeted Republican challengers who became the majority,” Hall said. “It looks like a pay to play."

The funds were part of a large infusion of money in 2010 from wealthy conservatives, often to advocacy groups and think tanks, which prompted the New Yorker magazine to profile North Carolina politics in October 2011 under the headline, “State for Sale.”

Leaders of both parties still reward their contributors with appointments to powerful government boards and commissions, such as the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, the Wildlife Commission, and the Board of Transportation. The transportation board “acts like an ATM machine for the governor and other state politicians,” Hall wrote in a 2008 report.

“I think the reforms that we put in place, the reporting that we put in place, and the penalties that we put in place are working pretty well,” said Democratic Rep. Joe Hackney, who sponsored the 2006 ethics bill, then succeeded Jim Black as House Speaker in 2007. “We’ve demonstrated that we will take action.”

Hackney notes that during his tenure as Speaker, the House of Representatives expelled a member for violating ethics rules – the first time in more than a hundred years a North Carolina legislator was forced from office.

A legislative ethics committee concluded that Rep. Thomas Wright – a top lieutenant of Jim Black – failed to report $180,000 in campaign contributions and mishandled a similar amount of money in loans and charitable contributions. Wright is now imprisoned for fraud and obstruction of justice.

Since then, another North Carolina House member resigned amid an investigation of questionable campaign spending, the State Board of Elections assessed almost a million dollars in fines and penalties against politicians who violated campaign finance laws, and in 2010 former governor Mike Easley pleaded guilty to a felony for failing to report a contribution.


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Sources: CBS News, CNN, Fox News, State Integrity.org, Google Maps

Pres. Obama Is Example of A Politician Who Embodies Integrity and Intelligence

Politico----



Let’s be honest: Pres. Barack Obama is better than you are.

He’s a better father — taking breaks from running the world to cheer on his daughters at soccer and basketball games.

He’s a better husband — zipping his wife off for dinner in New York and Paris.

He’s got a better diet — nibbling on vegetables from his homegrown garden to keep his love handles in check.

And he’s got a terrific jump shot.

You? Not so much.

Call it the politics of personal perfection. The Barack Obama brand is as much about being a personal example to the nation as it is about being a political figure. But the danger of that frothy mix of glamour and domesticity is that President Obama could become in the public mind something he never sought to be: the Martha Stewart of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

And political veterans say the fine line between what’s inspiring and what’s annoying can be difficult to spot in advance.

Obama veered further toward Martha Stewart Living territory in an interview with a Pakistani newspaper on June 21. He told the interviewer about his college travels in Pakistan and talked about the exotic dishes he learned to cook there.

“Keema ... daal ... you name it, I can cook it,” Obama said.

Also, the president noted, he reads Urdu poetry.

All this is driving certain people — mostly Republicans — nuts.

“This is a guy who was elected as a celebrity and is governing as a celebrity,” said Republican consultant Rick Wilson. “If George Bush had been photographed taking his daughters out for ice cream [as Obama was on Saturday], it would have been: ‘Nero fiddles while Rome burns.’”

Comedian Jon Stewart, exasperated by the Obamas’ high-visibility romance and date night on Broadway, complained that the president was making life tough on men across the country. “How do you compete with that?” Stewart griped. “Take it down a notch, dude.”

Obama’s image as a family man is shining even brighter today, against a backdrop of marital calamity engulfing the Republican Party over the past week.

Being too perfect can be dangerous for politicians. Just ask Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential candidate is a spectacularly good-looking man, extremely wealthy, well-spoken and accomplished in his professional career. And a segment of the voting public hated him for it.

Says Republican media strategist Mark McKinnon, “President Obama and his team should be careful about trying to be perfect. Voters are suspicious of perfect. They actually prefer someone who is human. And has flaws. Like them.”

Michael Feldman, a former senior adviser to Vice President Al Gore, says White Houses sometimes need to “let a little air out of that bubble” by reminding voters of a president’s foibles. “Shining a little light on a flaw is not a bad thing,” Feldman said.

Don’t look for help with that project among the professional brand-management set — the industry seems to be in collective awe of Obama.

“He’s so g-ddamned smart and such a good representative for the country,” said Alan Siegel, a corporate branding expert and CEO of the marketing firm Siegel & Gale. “I admire him.”

“They’ve just done so many things so well,” said Susan Hodgkinson, principal of The Personal Brand Co. “You have to tip your hat to them and say, ‘Brilliant.’”

Can it ever be too much?

Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson doesn’t think so. “My instinct is that people are like dogs,” he said. “They want a leader they think is better than them.” And Carlson thinks it’s working well for Obama. “People naturally defer to others they think are superior.”

Superior or not, pollsters find that Barack Obama the man is immensely popular.

According to a Pew Research Center report released June 18, 72 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of the president, and only 25 percent have an unfavorable opinion. Those figures are extremely high — in July 2001, George W. Bush netted a mere 61 percent favorability score, but that was enough that the pundit class deemed him extremely popular at the time.

Higher still are the popularity numbers for the first lady. Seventy-six percent of Americans have a favorable impression of Michelle Obama, the poll found, and only 14 percent had an unfavorable opinion. (In July 2001, then-first lady Laura Bush scored higher than her husband, too, with 64 percent favorability, Pew reported.)

But Democrats say the president is just being himself. “Voters react badly to politicians who are sanctimonious or hypocritical but not to those they see as genuinely virtuous,” said Jim Jordan, a longtime Democratic consultant. “The quality of his performance is just first-rate. There’s nothing artificial about it.”

And on the issue of his performance as a husband and father, Jordan says there’s little downside for the new president, even though every recent White House eventually has faced scandal of one kind or another.

“It’s almost inconceivable that he’s going to be linked to some scandal that goes to personal morality,” Jordan said. “It’s an extraordinary thing that we are debating whether the commander in chief is too virtuous.”

To be fair to Obama, he went out of his way to point to his own weaknesses as a father — highlighting his brutal travel schedule, which made it difficult to spend the time he wanted to with his daughters. And Michelle Obama has repeatedly done what she can to bring the president down a peg or two — remember her comment in 2007 about her husband being “snore-y and stinky”?

That may be because the Obamas know personal perfection is not what Americans always want — or get — in a president. We like our chief executives with endearing flaws, imperfections that show their human side — the side that, perhaps, is most like ourselves.

George W. Bush could never quite pronounce “nuclear.” Bill Clinton used to love to jog but often ended up at McDonald’s wolfing down Big Macs. George H.W. Bush didn’t like to eat broccoli — and banned it from the White House.

It’s very hard to imagine Barack Obama barfing on the lap of a foreign head of state, as the elder Bush once did.

The closest thing Obama has to a character flaw to date is his inability to stop smoking. Republican strategist McKinnon thinks that may be just the humanizing flaw the president needs now. “Yes, it’s a terrible example. An awful habit. Sends all the wrong signals,” McKinnon said. “But it brings him down to earth and makes him more interesting and accessible.”

Still, the president can’t quite bring himself to confess. Obama bristled at a news conference on Tuesday when Margaret Talev of McClatchy asked about his smoking.

Obama called himself a “former smoker,” adding, “I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No. ... I would say I’m 95 percent cured.”

Which makes smoking, perhaps, 5 percent of the flaw Obama needs.


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Sources: Politico, Google Maps

Prez. Obama Keeps his Puppy Promise to Malia and Sasha!

Recent Global news reports of the First Daughters, Malia and Sasha receiving their puppy as daddy promised earlier, further proves that President Barack Obama is a man of his word.

The First Puppy named Bo, a Portuguese Water dog about six months old, will now be a new occupant in the White House.

Bo was a gift to the Obamas from Senator Ted Kennedy. awwwww, how cute!

I don't know about you folks but Prez. Obama keeping his "Puppy Promise", to his girls certainly wins points with me.

After all what good does it do for a Leader to present an appearance of Integrity to the world, yet behind closed doors live the life of a Liar in front of his or her own family?

Family matters. Family is where it all starts.

If Politicians don't treat their families (ALL of them; good; bad & the ugly) with Love and Respect behind closed doors where it really matters, then they won't treat their Constituents right in public either.

Therein another reason why voting for Barack Obama last November 4Th was the right reason.

Enjoy the new puppy girls!

God Bless


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Sources: MSNBC, Wonkette, Breederretriever.com, Google Maps