Bachmann's Slavery Comments Ingored By GOP Leaders; Whoopi Responds!

Has Anyone Other Than Myself Noticed How All Of Michelle Bachmann's Slavery Comments Are Being Ignored By The GOP Leaders On Capitol Hill?

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Family Leader Under Fire Over Slavery Comment in Marriage Defense Pledge

After two presidential candidates signed onto a pledge supporting traditional marriage values, the pledge’s sponsor retracted a part of the vow that suggested African-American children were better off under slavery.

The Family Leader, an Iowa-based conservative activist group, removed a sentence Saturday from the introduction of their “Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family” that said: "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was the first to sign the pledge Friday followed closely by fellow candidate Rick Santorum.

Whoopi Goldberg was outraged by the pledge on Monday’s The View saying the slavery reference was “a stupid allegation.”

“You don’t know anything about how slaves raised their kids or why people work together,” Goldberg said. “Just don’t add stuff like that if you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A Bachmann spokesperson told Politico Saturday that the congresswoman only signed onto the “candidate vow” portion of the pledge, which has no mention of slavery.

"In no uncertain terms, Congresswoman Bachmann believes that slavery was horrible and economic enslavement is also horrible,” Bachmann’s campaign spokesperson Alice Stewart told Politico.

Bachmann “stands behind the candidate vow - which makes absolutely no reference to slavery." Stewart added.

The candidate vow portion asks signers to reject same-sex marriage, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, outlaw pornography and reject anti-women Islamic Sharia law.

Santorum said politicians should vow to be faithful to their wives, as the first provision of the candidate vow states. Those who are not faithful cause people to “disrespect and disregard members of Congress,” Santorum said in a Sunday interview on CNN.

“When I first read it I was taken aback. I can’t argue that I wasn’t, but I understand why they’re saying it,” he said. “If we can’t count on you to be faithful to those closest to you how can we count on you to be faithful to those of us you represent?”

Bachmann’s campaign was immediately available for comment.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the Santorum campaign said the senator thinks the Family Leader did the right thing by removing the slavery passage and questions why more people are not signing on to the pledge.

"Senator Santorum was pleased to sign the Iowa Family Leader's pledge because he is committed to standing up for traditional marriage," said spokesperson Virginia Davis in a statement. "The bigger question here is why aren't more Republicans having the courage to stand up for the institution of marriage and signing this pledge."


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Sources: ABC, MSNBC, The View, Youtube, Google Maps

GOP & 2010 Black Voters: Ignore Nixon's "Southern Strategy"

"The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”
Richard Nixon

GOP Should At Least Try With Black Voters


If there’s one thing we can predict with confidence about the upcoming election, it’s that Black voters will overwhelmingly vote Democrat. “This is perfectly rational political behavior—but in many ways it’s a shame,” writes Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post.

Yes, Robinson believes in the Democrats’ progressive platform, “but I also believe that in politics, as in business, competition is good. Monopolies inevitably take their customers for granted.”

Democrats have surely done that, but Republicans just haven't tried to capitalize. Their problems date back to Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” the idea that, as one strategist put it in 1970, “the more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”

But that was long ago, and if Republicans would at least try to address black issues, they might make real gains with suburban or socially conservative blacks. Instead, African Americans will once again back the Democratic Party, “which at least asks for our votes.”





Why Won't The GOP Compete For African American Votes?


This has been such an unpredictable political year that it's hard to have confidence in any of the forecasts for November. How unpredictable? Well, I'd like to meet the pundit or prognosticator who imagined that a major-party candidate for the U.S. Senate would begin a campaign ad by declaring, "I'm not a witch."

Christine O'Donnell's sorcery problem aside, there's one thing I can say with confidence about next month's midterm election: African Americans will vote overwhelmingly for Democratic Party candidates at every level. This is perfectly rational political behavior -- but in many ways it's a shame.

Don't misunderstand. I'm firmly convinced that the progressive agenda championed by the Democrats is much better for African Americans, and for the nation as a whole, than the conservative agenda favored by Republicans. But I also believe that in politics, as in business, competition is good. Monopolies inevitably take their customers for granted.

And this, frankly, is what Democrats have been doing with black voters for decades. As far as African Americans are concerned, the only issue is whether they'll turn out in substantial numbers for the midterm balloting. No one wonders how they'll cast their votes.

African American support for the Democratic Party hovers around 90 percent. This qualifies as monolithic, even though black Americans are increasingly diverse -- economically, socially, culturally and geographically. There are millions of affluent black suburban households who fit the demographic profile of independents or Republicans. There has been an unprecedented influx of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean who view the political landscape with fresh eyes. Polls show that on some hot-button social issues, such as gay marriage, many African Americans are quite conservative. You'd think that somewhere, somehow, the GOP would have managed to get a foothold.

The problem is that the Republicans haven't tried -- not seriously, at least. And it will take a lot more than appointing a figurehead like party chief Michael Steele, or nominating a surprising congressional candidate like Tim Scott in South Carolina, to overcome decades of indifference and antipathy.

The history of the Republican Party's estrangement from African Americans is well known. In 1960, Richard Nixon won 32 percent of the black vote. In 1964, Barry Goldwater -- who had opposed the landmark Civil Rights Act -- received just 6 percent of the black vote. This dramatic shift made possible Nixon's "Southern strategy," which political strategist Kevin Phillips explained to the New York Times in 1970, using some archaic terminology:

"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that," Phillips said, "but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

In other words, the idea was to capitalize on the racial fears and grievances of Southern whites -- by letting black voters drift away from the GOP and even encouraging them to stay away.

Ours is a different era, and I'm not suggesting that the old Southern strategy persists in unreconstructed form. The Republican Party's dominance among white Southerners is not based on the kind of raw, unambiguous race-baiting that we saw decades ago.

What I am saying is that the Republicans have made no serious effort to appeal to black voters. Such an initiative would begin with an acknowledgement of the specific problems that African Americans face -- including the legacy of centuries of oppression and discrimination -- and a proffer of policies to address those problems. But this would contradict the GOP's dogmatic stance that government should be severely limited in its ambition.

Democrats, at least, are much better at talking the talk. But is the Democratic Party offering any new ideas -- or even the promise of meaningful resources -- to eliminate the stubborn, multigenerational poverty and dysfunction in which far too many African Americans are trapped? Are Democrats addressing the vast gap in wealth between middle-class blacks and their white counterparts?

Given the stakes, I see no real choice for African Americans but to go to the polls in November and stick with the Democratic Party, which at least asks for our votes. The Republicans haven't offered an alternative. I wish someday they would.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com


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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Newser, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Haley Barbour Disses Virginia Confederacy-Slavery Flap, "Its A Nit"

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Barbour Calls Virginia Slavery Flap "A Nit"


Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour thinks Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell didn't need to apologize for failing to include a mention of slavery in a declaration of April as Confederation History Month -- and bristled at Michael Steele's claim he was held to a higher standard because he's black.

When CNN "State of the Union" anchor Candy Crowley asked Barbour, a onetime lobbyist and former head of the RNC, if the slavery omission was a mistake, he said, "I don't think so, my legislature has made an active holiday of Confederate Memorial Day... Anyone who thinks that you have to explain that slavery is a bad thing, it goes without saying... It's sort of feeling that it's a nit, it's not significant, it's trying to make a big deal."

In a "State of the Union" interview that aired Sunday, Barbour predicted that Michael Steele, the target of resignation calls, would "be the head of the party through his term," pointedly adding, "His term ends in January of next year."

He said he sympathized with Steele, but disagreed with the RNC's head's contention that criticism of him had anything to do with race:

Steele saying he was targeted because he was black was like Barbour saying he was being slammed because he was "a fat redneck with an accent like this," the governor drawled.


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Sources: ABC News, CNN, Politico, MSNBC, TPM, Youtube, Google Maps

Deep South Still Isn't Ready To Lead Nation...No Sidewalks, No Innovation, Its Embarassing!

Banking boomtown loses one of its biggest players. Charlotte, N.C. is the country's second largest banking center, but the recent failure of Wachovia has the entire city bracing for fallout from thousands of executive-level layoffs. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.

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A changing, more urbanized South (In Your Dreams!)


You know the images that say "Southern." Kudzu on a red clay bank. A sharecropper's shack abandoned in a field of cotton (or tobacco). Moonshiners vrooming down country roads.

That iconography that has embedded itself in our Southern souls is rural. Even Southern food is the food of rural poverty - the pig parts, greens, sweet potatoes, and corn in multiple manifestations (including distilled into a jug).

Yet a group of Southern leaders and thinkers who gathered last weekend at Davidson College outside Charlotte heard experts describe a region that has become more urban than rural.

Mindsets, though, change more slowly than demographics.

The group was pulled together by a nonpartisan nonprofit group, the Center for a Better South, based in Charleston, for the purpose of devising an Agenda for a Better South - major areas on which Southern leaders should concentrate their efforts. The agenda, still in drafting stages, is to be released in the coming week.

Of course, we talked about education, poverty, race relations, taxes and crime, among other issues. No self-respecting group of "progressives" would otherwise. The agenda's goals are ambitious and admirable. One example, from the draft: To improve health, "each Southern state should increase life expectancy to levels on par with Canada."

Achieving the goals would make this region safer, smarter and healthier. So this isn't a critique of the goal-setting (a process I had to miss). However, I found some of the other topics more thought-provoking.

The South is urbanizing, its demographics changing.

Ferrel Guillory, director of UNC Chapel Hill's Program on Public Life, discussed how in-migration to the South is enriching education and income levels, and for blacks as well as whites.

People are flowing into major metro areas: "The South has shifted from an agrarian to a metropolitan society."

I think much of the Southern leadership infrastructure still puts rural problems ahead of urban ones. Guillory illustrated this: He's been studying South Carolina's poverty-ridden Interstate 95 corridor. Yet, he pointed out, in South Carolina more distressed people live in the city of Columbia than in the I-95 region.

"We're looking at place-based solutions," Guillory said. Instead, maybe we should just focus on people in need, urban or rural.

Should the South forget "Leading"?

Jay Barth of Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., dared ask this. He thinks Southern progress is hindered by several qualities, such as an inability to embrace diversity, including race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Another hindrance, he said, is the South's increasing suburbanization. Much of its 20th-century growth has been suburban, unlike the 19th- and early 20th-century growth in the cities of the North.

Suburbanization allows class and race separation to continue, Barth said, and lets suburban residents disconnect from the larger metro region.

In a similar vein, former U.S. Rep. Glen Browder from Alabama was blunt about how the rest of the world views the South. If you think it's a problem that people see an invisible D(emocrat) or R(epublican) behind your name, he said, realize that Southerners have "an invisible S."

"Our brand is broken," he said. "It's tainted."

"Quit dreaming about leading the nation," he advised. Instead, concentrate on improving your state.

Yet from all this emerged no visions that directly confront an urbanizing region. Had I been in the goal-setting, I'd have pushed for one to reduce vehicle travel, for environmental and wellness reasons, or to openly advocate more money for transit.

Old images die hard. Those sepia-tinted memories of mules and music remain powerful for many Southerners. Somehow, the newer image of a minivan in the Target parking lot hasn't embedded itself in anyone's soul - and isn't likely to.



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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, MSNBC, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Southern Voters Feeling Neglected By Obama's Administration....They Want Jobs!

Poll: Southerners want federal help, fear for jobs


A new poll shows Southerners are fretting about job loss and the economy and don't think the federal government is doing enough to address either.

The Winthrop Poll of 866 respondents in 11 Southern states found the economy was the top concern of four in 10 - the same share of people who said they were concerned about losing their jobs.

Overall, the economy was the biggest worry for 39 percent of the Southerners, followed by health care and unemployment at 12 percent each. Meanwhile, 38 percent said they were somewhat concerned or very concerned about possibly losing their jobs during the next year.

"More than one in three employed persons worried about losing their job means a lot of people who will put off spending and investing and that will slow economic recovery on the whole," said Scott Huffmon, a political science professor who oversees the poll and runs Winthrop University's social and behavioral research lab.

The poll found abundant finger-pointing for the economic mess as nearly three-quarters of the respondents said banks and financial institutions took unnecessary risks and shouldered a "good amount" or "great deal" of the blame. The same percentage blamed economic problems on consumers for taking on too much debt and big businesses for poor management decisions.

Getting out of the nation's financial mess is something the government should take the lead on, the poll respondents overwhelmingly said.

Nearly 72 percent said they favored new government programs to create jobs. Meanwhile, 63 percent said the federal government needs to give aid to states in serious financial trouble. Those positions were strongest among Democrats and independents, while Republicans were narrowly opposed.

Nonetheless, nearly 58 percent of the Southerners polled said the current federal stimulus efforts were making things worse or having no effect.

Huffmon said that's a sign of ambivalence.

"People definitely feel it is the role of the government to step in during this crisis. However, they do not feel the way they are doing it is working," he said. He compared it to the government addressing transportation problems by giving out bus passes - even to people who don't have access to public transit.

But it can make the ongoing debate on reviving the economy tough. To these respondents, Huffmon said, the stimulus and recovery program isn't working. "That's a blow to supporters of the current program," he said. Yet the sentiment is strong for government intervention, a blow to conservatives who want the government's hands off the recovery.

"Neither side should be fully happy with these results," Huffmon said.

The Winthrop Poll also found a sizable number of people who weren't decided on a national health care overhaul, the nation's biggest ongoing political and policy debate. Southerners were asked if they'd call on their federal legislators to vote for or against the legislation. Just under a third said they would encourage a vote for the bill and 42 percent said they'd encourage a vote against it.

However, a quarter had no opinion. "That ought to be a stunning finding given how much information has been put out there about the health care debate," Huffmon said.

President Barack Obama mostly faired well in poll, with 84 percent saying he was good communicator, 76 percent that he was warm and friendly and 54 percent that he was trustworthy, a question that broke sharply along partisan lines.

More than 61 percent said Obama "cared about like people like me," including 51 percent of white males.

The Winthrop Poll involved randomly dialed land and cellular telephone interviews with 886 people 18 and older in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The interviews were conducted between Oct. 24 and Nov. 7. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percent.






Winthrop Poll Results Cover Southern Opinions on Economy and Healthcare


The results of the latest Winthrop Poll, of 866 respondents in 11 Southern states, taken between Oct. 24 and Nov. 7 are in.

The poll was conducted among those 18 years and older from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. The survey used Random Digit Dialing (RDD) and wireless phone number sampling. Data utilizing all respondents has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.33 percent.

To learn about the methodology, history and staff of the Winthrop Poll, click here.

Among the Winthrop Poll findings:

• As Democrats clamor to re-claim the affection of Independent voters prior to mid-term elections next year, a majority of Southern Independent respondents said they disapprove of how Barack Obama is handling his job as president; handling healthcare policy; and handling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost three-out-of four disapprove of how Congress is handling its job.

• As President Obama leaves on a trip to Asia this week, his travels abroad are proving a sore point for more than one-in-four Democrats and three-in-four Republicans who said he should spend less time traveling abroad and focus on problems at home.

• And as Obama heads to Oslo a month from today, almost 55 percent of Southerners polled say he did not deserve to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

• Over one-third of Southerners polled say President Obama is untrustworthy.

• Southerners are almost evenly divided on whether the economy is getting better or worse.

• Despite Obama declaring Swine Flu a national emergency, over 55 percent of Southerners say they are not worried about getting the Swine Flu.

• Meanwhile, nearly 45 percent say that they either don’t intend to have their children get the Swine Flu vaccine, or their children haven’t gotten it yet.

• Southerners polled lay almost equal blame for the current economic situation on banks/financial institutions, large business corporations and consumers.

• Almost 40 percent of those polled are concerned about the possibility of losing their job in the next year.

• When asked separate questions about whether companies should be allowed to require employees who smoke—or who are obese or very overweight—to pay higher health insurance premiums, the results were almost the exact opposite of each other. Smoking: almost 58 percent yes, almost 38 percent no.
Overweight/obese: almost 38 percent yes, almost 55 percent no.

• Nearly three-out-of-five Southerners said the economic stimulus plan has either made the economy worse or had no effect.



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Sources: Miami Herald, Winthrop University, Business Report, AP, Youtube, Google Maps

The KKK: How It Looks Today....A New Generation Of Racial Hatred & Ignorance (US Dept. Homeland Security Investigates)

Huffington Post, MSNBC----

(Late Entertainer Michael Jackson performs one of his hits, "Its Black, Its White". Race should no longer matter in today's society, however for some people its their life's mission to focus on hating Blacks, Latinos, Indians, Asians, etc., How sad. I'll keep praying for those individuals.)

Michael Jackson - New Music - More Music Videos

(MSNBC Political Pundit Pat Buchanan tells the wonderful Rachel Maddow (I just love her show!) that "White Men made this country!"....Despite his disparaging comments about Minorities, I still don't think Pat is a Racist. Even if his bone-headed views on American History are delusional.)




(Text from Life.com:)

The US Department of Homeland Security recently issued a chilling report: Americans, it said, can expect an upsurge in "rightwing extremism" from White nationalists, militias, and groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, of course, has had a hand in some of the nation's most infamous acts of racial terror and murder.

But what does the KKK look like today? Photographer Anthony Karen has documented the modern-day Klan in their homes, at rallies, and at Klan gatherings, taking us deep inside a world we would otherwise never see -- a world most of us might not even want to know about. The unnerving photos featured here, exclusively on LIFE.com, are from his new book, "The Invisible Empire: Ku Klux Klan."

"The majority of people I've come across," Karen told LIFE, "you'd only know they were in the Klan if they decided to share that."

See more photos at Life.com



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Sources: Huffington Post, MSNBC, US Dept of Homeland Security, Life.com, MTV, Google Maps