Donna Brazile to Meet with Cornel West to Discuss President Obama

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action



The black political grapevine recently informed me that respected political strategist Donna Brazile plans to meet with Professor Cornel West at Princeton University. The meeting was apparently arranged in response to the “moral outrage” that West has expressed toward the Obama Administration over recent weeks. The disappointment came to a head during a highly-publicized feud between Prof. West and Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC.

Dr. West’s outspoken demeanor couldn’t come at a worse time for President Obama and his party. As the Democrats work to smooth talk their way out of a year of tone deaf behavior toward a suffering African American community, West comes in as one of a small number of major black public figures willing to rain on the presidential party.


There is a large part of my psyche that appreciates Professor West’s willingness to speak honestly on African American suffering. Politicians in Washington seem to behave as if racial discrimination doesn’t exist, and there is almost no consideration for the fact that people of color suffer more than nearly anyone else as it pertains to our treatment in our economic, educational and criminal justice systems. I know Dr. West to be a righteous man of tremendous integrity, so his critiques should be taken seriously.

The other side of me hopes that Dr. West’s cozy relationship with noted Obama-hater Tavis Smiley isn’t tainting his perspective. While Smiley has been quiet as of late, his silence may be driven by the fact that he’s lost a great deal of credibility in his critiques of the president. Also, there isn’t much that Tavis needs to say, now that Cornel West is doing enough talking for the both of them. The truth is that there is almost nothing that President Obama could do that would satisfy Smiley, since they are deeply-entrenched political enemies. Given that West has begun to sound a lot like Tavis, one has to wonder how far the apple has fallen from the political tree.

My other quiet hope is that the dialogue between West and Brazile is a two-day conversation and free exchange of ideas. I expect that the seriousness with which West has challenged the Obama Administration dictates that this highly-intelligent scholar can’t be convinced to simply change his mind about the Democrats. I also hope that the conversation is not full of empty political promises designed to appease West and protect the tremendous loyalty black voters have to the Democratic party. Brazile needs to listen to West and the Democrats need to respect his comments about the need for an adequate response to the Great Black Depression being experienced as we speak.

The simple problem for Dr. West and the African American community is simple: Black people are unemployed, incarcerated and miseducated more than any other group in America. Having a black president has not helped as much as some hoped, further reducing the black incentive to support any political party. Unless the Democrats can show an ability and willingness to help alleviate some of the challenges of being black in America, it is difficult to get excited about any political candidate.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition.

The sweet little old folks of the Tea Parties seem to have a lot of extremism and bigotry bubbling up around them. Hmmmmmm.

here's some footage you won't see on The O'Reilly Factor or over at Big Ego. This comes from Channel 12's reportage on this weekend's ugly Tea Party event in Phoenix:

TEA PARTIER: That's why you don't have a higher standard of living than Mexico! The United States has a higher standard of living than Mexico because it's populated by white people. Mexico is a [BLEEP]!

The reality, as I've said many times, is that no matter how hard the Tea Partiers and their right-wing-media apologists try, they'll never be able to paper over their very real and deep extremist base. They'll never be able to keep all the nutcases they've gathered in one place under a lid forever.

Republican Tea Partiers just can't seem to get enough of those Obama/black people/chimpanzee jokes

This is the image e-mailed to her friends by Orange County Republican committeewoman and Tea Party activist Marilyn Davenport
Republicans seem to have a really, really narrow idea of what constitutes racism -- which is how they're able to claim that the Tea Parties aren't riddled with racism throughout.

But then little stories like this one from Orange County keep bubbling up to the surface of their fetid little Tea Party cesspool:

The Weekly has obtained a copy of an email sent to fellow conservatives this week by Marilyn Davenport, a Southern California Tea Party activist and member of the central committee of the Orange County Republican Party.

Under the words, "Now you know why no birth certificate," there's an Obama family portrait showing them as apes.

As always, the "sweet little old lady" who sent the mail had no idea that anyone might possibly construe the mail as racist, even though comparing black people to various kinds of apes has always been a stock feature of racist denigration in America. Why, some of her best friends are black!

Reached by telephone and asked if she thought the email was appropriate, Davenport said, "Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black. Besides, I only sent it to a few people--mostly people I didn't think would be upset by it."

The image did upset several local Republicans.

"It's unbelievable," one high-ranking OC GOP official told me. "It's much more racist than the watermelon email. I can't believe it was sent out. I'm not an Obama fan but how stupid do you have to be to do this?"

Another GOP official, who also asked not to be identified, said that Davenport is "a really, really sweet old lady so I am surprised to hear about this."

Scott Baugh, chairman of the OC Republican Party, told Davenport that the email was tasteless, Davenport--a Fullerton-based political activist--admitted to me during the telephone interview.

"You're not going to make a big deal about this are you?" she asked me. "It's just an Internet joke."

But Baugh believes the email is a big deal.

"When I saw that email today I thought it was despicable," Baugh said. "It is dripping with racism and it does not promote the type of message Orange County Republicans want to deliver to the public. I think she should consider stepping down as an elected official."

And just remember: There's nothing, NOTHING racist about those Tea Partiers, either. Just another isolated incident. Move along, please.

Live mic catches Obama’s candor: Paul Ryan is ‘not on the level’

By Sahil Kapur

April 15, 2011

In what he reportedly thought was a private conversation at a fundraiser Thursday night, President Barack Obama called into question the fiscal seriousness of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), the author of the GOP's budget plan that dramatically cuts government spending under the guise of deficit reduction.

"When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant," Obama told his supporters at the event, according to remarks relayed on a live mic and reported by CBS News [1] pooler Mark Knoller.

"This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for. So it's not on the level," Obama said.

Obama gave a nationally televised speech Wednesday [2] laying out his misgivings about the proposal and offering a plan of his own. But the president didn't question Ryan's credentials as a deficit hawk.

Last year, Obama publicly praised Ryan's "roadmap" -- a blueprint upon which his current budget was based -- as a serious plan. "Paul, for example, head of the budget committee, has looked at the budget and has made a serious proposal," Obama said [3].

Ryan's ten-year proposal would cut trillions in federal spending while privatizing Medicare, slashing Medicaid, and reducing taxes on corporations and the highest income earners. He's been [4] praised [5] as a bold, visionary and serious thinker who's deeply concerned with the debt.

Yet the Bush tax cuts, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Medicare Part D program -- all of which Ryan voted for -- have been among the most significant drivers of today's $14 trillion national debt.

Nobel Prize-winning liberal economist Paul Krugman has called the Ryan plan a "fraud [6]," alleging that its deficit numbers are cooked and its underlying assumptions are unrealistic.

The proposal has been touted by Republicans as the most serious plan on the table to reduce the deficit in the long term. It has become a pinata for Democrats who say it leaves seniors and poor people out in the cold while giving tax breaks to the wealthy.

It's poised to pass the GOP-controlled House Friday, but it is seen as a nonstarter in the Democratic-led Senate.

During Bush Presidency, Current GOP Leaders Voted 19 Times To Increase Debt Limit By $4 Trillion

After pushing the government to brink of shutdown last week, Republican Congressional leaders are now preparing to push America to the edge of default by refusing to increase the nation’s debt limit without first getting Democrats to concede to large spending cuts.

But while the four Republicans in Congressional leadership positions are attempting to hold the increase hostage now, they combined to vote for a debt limit increase 19 times during the presidency of George W. Bush. In doing so, they increased the debt limit by nearly $4 trillion.

At the beginning of the Bush presidency, the United States debt limit was $5.95 trillion. Despite promises that he would pay off the debt in 10 years, Bush increased the debt to $9.815 trillion by the end of his term, with plenty of help from the four Republicans currently holding Congressional leadership positions: Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl. ThinkProgress compiled a breakdown of the five debt limit increases that took place during the Bush presidency and how the four Republican leaders voted:

June 2002: Congress approves a $450 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $6.4 trillion. McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor vote “yea”, Kyl votes “nay.”

May 2003: Congress approves a $900 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $7.384 trillion. All four approve.

November 2004: Congress approves an $800 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $8.1 trillion. All four approve.

March 2006: Congress approves a $781 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $8.965 trillion. All four approve.

September 2007: Congress approves an $850 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $9.815 trillion. All four approve.

Database searches revealed no demands from the four legislators that debt increases come accompanied by drastic spending cuts, as there are now. In fact, the May 2003 debt limit increase passed the Senate the same day as the $350 billion Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

When Bush was in office, the current Republican leaders viewed increasing the debt limit as vital to keeping America’s economy running. But with Obama in the White House, it’s nothing more than a political pawn.

150 Years Later, Tea Partiers Still Aren’t Over The Civil War

April 12th was the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginning, when secessionists fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. According to a new poll from CNN, the Civil War’s legacy remains unresolved. The poll finds that Republicans and Tea Party supporters are more likely to support the Confederacy and confederate leaders than Democrats or Independents.

According to the poll, nearly one in four Americans sympathize with the Confederacy more than with the Union. That number grows to nearly four-in-ten among white Southerners. Among Tea Party members, 26 percent sympathize with the Confederacy more than the Union, and that number grows to 28 percent among Republicans.

Meanwhile, while respondents overall viewed slavery as the main reason for the war by a 54-42 margin, Tea Partiers and Republicans held different views. Fifty-two percent of Republicans believed slavery was not the main reason, and that number rose to 54 percent among Tea Partiers.

The poll comes at a time when Republicans and Tea Partiers are rehashing the battles that both led to and came out of the Civil War. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and others have come out in support of nullification laws. In both Texas and Tennessee, lawmakers have floated the possibility of secession. And across the country, Republicans have attempted to revoke the 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship. And, of course, there was Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-GA) reference to the “Great War of Yankee Aggression” on the House floor.

Even though these battles are radical and out of the mainstream, it isn’t that shocking that these Republicans are attempting to refight them. According to these poll numbers, that’s exactly what large segments of their base want them to do.

Shock poll: 46% of Mississippi Republicans think interracial marriage should be illegal

By Stephen C. Webster
Thursday, April 7th, 2011

A new poll out of Mississippi finds that in a bastion of America's south, many Republican voters have tightly held onto the old, hateful views of race as a dividing line in society.

A full 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans said they believe interracial marriage should be illegal, according to the left-leaning survey group Public Policy Polling. Only 40 percent said they thought it should remain legal, with the rest unsure.

Republicans who said they were in favor of banning interracial marriages were most frequently supporters of Fox News contributor Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor (R) who quit half-way through her first term. Their least liked candidate was Mitt Romney, the former radio executive and Governor of Massachusetts (R).

Romney, Palin and Fox News employee Mike Huckabee are widely considered to be the top three most likely Republican front-runners. None of them have officially announced their candidacy.

The poll found that overall, Mississippi Republicans want Gov. Haley Barbour as their nominee over other potential candidates. Barbour won 37 percent of the survey's respondents, compared to 19 percent for Huckabee and 10 percent for former Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich, the one-time Republican Speaker of the House.

Barbour's popularity may have something to do with the mentality of his constituency in Mississippi. For instance, in a state where almost half of the Republicans believe interracial marriage should be illegal, Barbour has praised a civil rights-era group that fought against segregation and refused to denounce an effort to get a state license plate to honor a former leader of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan terrorist group.

Barbour was most recently in the headlines after it was revealed that he spent over $300,000 on out-of-state travel in 2010, campaigning with fellow Republicans and meeting with wealthy benefactors.