Romney alleged to have brought ringers to NAACP speech

Romney was concerned that blacks might not be receptive to him, so he reportedly brought his own blacks to the NAACP speech.  Or worse, he planned the entire thing so he could tell Fox that he spoke with a lot of blacks who weren't going to vote for Obama, without acknowledging that they were ringers.  From the Atlanta Black Star:

An official with the NAACP suggested that Republican challenger Mitt Romney brought his own black supporters to the NAACP speech yesterday to give the appearance that NAACP members were applauding him. And when Romney later told Fox News that black people at the event gave him a standing ovation and said in a private meeting they would vote for him because of dissatisfaction with Obama, they were actually his own people, the official suggested.

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Romney to woo black voters simply to convince white women that he likes blacks

Wow, that's terribly cold and calculating.

And it's consistent with what a Republican friend told me years ago.

I remember being worried about former RNC chair Ken Mehlman's outreach to blacks, a good eight years ago. And a Republican friend corrected me, telling me not to worry about black voters defecting - the Republicans didn't want or expect their votes. What they were actually doing was trying to convince white suburban middle-of-the-road soccer moms that Republicans weren't a hateful, intolerant, racist party because - see! - we're wooing blacks!

Washington Post:

Mitt Romney’s campaign team has been quietly laying plans for an outreach effort to President Obama’s most loyal supporters — black voters — not just to chip away at the huge Democratic margins but also as a way to reassure independent swing voters that Romney can be inclusive and tolerant in his thinking and approach.

Despite the obvious difficulties, Romney’s outreach to black voters could reap dividends even if he is unable to significantly chip into Obama’s support. “Suburban voters will be a real battleground, and upscale white voters like to think of themselves as tolerant and they won’t vote for a candidate that is seen as exclusionary, and the Romney folks must be aware of that,” said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “He has to persuade suburban voters that he isn’t Rick Santorum. He could break the mold a little bit and do some campaigning in African American communities. It would get people talking, and it would be all gain and very little pain.”

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Music: Lambert, Hendricks and Ross at the Playboy mansion, 1959

I was going to offer you quite the treatise on a particular version of the Beach Boys' wonderful "Vegetables" — a version I have on my iPod from god-knows-where. But I couldn't find that version on the iTubes, so there you go — five-part-harmony and episodic-contrapuntal analysis down the drain. Oh well.

In its place, this treat. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross — the geniuses of three-part jazz scat — performing on the earliest Playboy TV show, Playboy's Penthouse (not Playboy After Dark, a later show that included clips of the earlier show).

The first video is the three of them scatting away. If you don't know what scat-singing is, just watch. Genius stuff. The piano is Count Basie, which you'll see if you watch the second vid (below). First this:



Now Annie Ross sings the ever-popular "Twisted". Not their best, but far from their worst, and perhaps their most famous. Note Count Basie's piano solo — the man has touch:



And now, if you want to hear the LH&R recorded version of "Twisted" click here (opens big in a new tab). It's excellent — a triumph of professional producing.

Five-part contrapuntal analysis at a later date. (If anyone can locate the 3:30 version of "Vegetables" that includes the cross-fade to the last (fifth) section, please email or Twitter me. I've got the whole post written. Sigh. And thanks.)

I hope you noticed, by the way, that this is an inter-racial trio — in 1959. Courage, folks; and persistence.

GP

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French youth supporting far right party in upcoming election

It's about as strange as American youth supporting Ron Paul though whereas the Paul supporters are mostly just annoying, the Le Pen supporters are barking mad. (What is it that makes young Paul supporters so completely unlikable?) With high unemployment now and in the future, it's understandable enough that the youth are supporting an extremist candidate, but Le Pen?

It's never good when the youth are so supportive of racist politicians but this is also what happens when a country fails to address its problems of addressing race. The US still has a serious race problem, but compared to Europe, the US is a few decades ahead. The Guardian:

The leader of the Front National has the support of 26% of voters aged 18 to 24, according to a survey for Le Monde, with the Socialist Francois Hollande on 25%, Nicolas Sarkozy on 17% and the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon on 16%.

Le Pen has led a fierce public relations drive to style herself as more palatable, modern figure than her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was recently convicted of contesting crimes against humanity for saying the Nazi occupation was not "particularly inhumane".

Capitalising on the working-class and protest vote, she has risen in popularity among young people – mainly those from poorer backgrounds – partly because of France's crippling youth unemployment problem, which has fuelled suggestions that what scarce jobs exist should be for the French first, not immigrants. In the 1990s, her father scored well among young people who felt they had no prospects.

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Does ABC video show Zimmerman told the truth?

Police video enhanced by ABC

Crop of just Zimmerman's head

Zimmerman's head enlarged 300%

Yeah it matters.

We've all been litigating this entire case in the public, and people have been getting important facts wrong.

First everyone was convinced that Zimmerman was white (I said he was Latino and was roundly corrected - guess what, he's Latino).

Then we were told that Zimmerman called 911 forty-some times over the preceding two months, proving that he was a vigilante nut.  In fact, the story cited as proof of this said nothing about 911, but rather seemed to suggest they were calls to the police non-emergency number, which is significantly different than calling 911.

I've also repeatedly heard that Trayvon Martin was clearly innocent of any wrongdoing because he didn't have a weapon on him.  When I was mugged, and two young thugs quite efficiently tried to strangle me to death several years back, neither of them had a weapon.  (And it was outside of a 7-11.)

A lot of the crowd-sourced "truths" in this case aren't necessarily true.

And perhaps the most important factual error, we were told that Zimmerman had no visible injuries to his head the night he was arrested, so he clearly lied about being in a physical scuffle with Trayvon Martin.  ABC News appears to have found those injuries in a video ABC enhanced with the help of experts. (I used Perfect Resize to enlarge the ABC image 300%.)  The question of proof of a scuffle goes to the self-defense claim.

As for why the marks on Zimmerman's head matter.  I was told the other day that it doesn't matter if Travyon slamed Zimmerman's head repeatedly into the sidewalk, as Zimmerman claims, because Zimmerman started it by not staying in his car.  Well, that's not always the way the claim of "self-defense" works in the law.  In law school, we were taught that it doesn't matter if the other guy starts it if you use more force than is necessary to stop him (unless he's in your home).  It may not sound "fair," but it's how the law generally works.

George Zimmerman may be guilty as sin.  But we're not going to find the truth by embracing falsehoods.  I agree with those who say that we were given no choice but to litigate this in public, otherwise no one would have even investigated whether Zimmerman actions were a crime.  And that's true.  Without the uproar the police, and Justice Department in Washington, would have done nothing, and we'd never know the truth.  But what concerns me are all the "conclusions" that folks are reaching based on "facts" that we've learned from newspapers and TV shows.  Facts that keep changing.

Zimmerman may be guilty as hell.  But this case needs to go to a judge and a jury for us to find out what actually happened.  And the uproar has helped to ensure that it will. All I'm asking is that you keep your inner skeptic alive when listening to "conclusions" about what "definitely" happened in this, or any other, case.  Facts have a funny way of changing the more you learn about what really happened. Read the rest of this post...

Supreme Court okays strip searches for traffic fines

Your Supreme Court at work. Five-four decision (natch). Do you think this decision will be used by some to target more blacks than whites, more women than men, more Latinos? Or to intimidate Occupyers? (So do I.)

Via the Guardian (my emphasis and paragraphing):

The US supreme court ruled on Monday that jails do not violate privacy rights by routinely strip-searching everyone, even those arrested on minor traffic offenses. By a 5-4 vote and splitting along conservative-liberal ideological lines, the high court ruled that privacy rights involving the searches were outweighed by security concerns by jails about a suspect hiding drugs, weapons or other contraband.

Writing the opinion for the court's conservative majority, justice Anthony Kennedy concluded the jail search procedures struck a reasonable balance between inmate privacy and the needs of the institution.

You remember Kennedy, don't you? He's the great "centrist" hope.

The case on which this was decided is particularly egregious.

Attorneys for Albert Florence, who was strip-searched twice at two New Jersey jails in a six-day period after his arrest for an unpaid traffic fine, argued jailers must first have reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

I've seen reports [see update below] that not only had he paid the fine, but he had proof of that in the car — 'cause, you know, driving-while-black and all. Didn't matter, apparently, to Mr Moderate-Justice Kennedy.

Oh, and not to forget, this tickled my fancy as well:

The decision was a victory for ... the Obama administration, which argued for an across-the-board rule allowing strip-searches of all those entering the general jail population, even those arrested on minor offenses.

Cornel West, anyone? (Just asking.)

Your SCOTUS news of the day. For more information, watch this excellent Maddow Show segment — she interviews the subject of the case and provides her thoughts.



Sigh.

UPDATE: Here's the report that Mr. Florence had proof of payment in his glove box at the time of his arrest. Wash Post:

He spent seven days in jail because of a warrant that said, mistakenly, that he was wanted for not paying a court fine. In fact, he had proof that the fine had been paid years earlier; he said he carried it in his glove box because he believed that police were suspicious of black men who drove nice cars.

Driving While Black? Only the arresting officer knows for sure.

GP

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New Rules—Trayvon shooting is what happens when Dems "lay down and give the Right what it wants"

This is both hilarious (the jokes are really well crafted) and deathly serious.

Maher, like someone else I could name, blames the Democrats, but this time for defensible reasons. Yes, Alter's piece may have been ironic. Maher's isn't. Watch:



A few of the tasty bits:

Save some blame for the liberal politicans who unconditionally surrendered in the fight for sensible gun laws. When are they going to stand their ground? ...

This is a cautionary tale — about what happens when the Democrats completely lay down on an issue and let the right completely get whatever they want.

Amen to that. And now for a funny one, just a tease:

Arming panicky untrained vigilantes like George Zimmerman and telling them it's OK to shoot whenever they're afraid ... is like dumping all the Milkbones on the kitchen floor and telling your dog, "Just eat when you're hungry."

OK, maybe the armed-fetuses joke was funnier.

My serious point (and obviously Maher's as well) — There's a price for triangulation, and it's measured in lives.

GP

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Should a white guy lead the Black Student Union?

It happened in Northern Virginia at an elite high school.  And it wasn't a joke, or done to be funny.  The guy was a longtime, and active, member of the Black Student Union, and finally ran for president.

It's an interesting question, and it's something we've debated in the gay community as well.  Is it ever okay to pick a straight person to run a gay organization.

In principle, I've never had a problem with the notion of a straight person running a gay group.  Yeah, it's different.  And yes one could argue that they wouldn't 100% understand what it means to be gay, but I'm not entirely sure that they couldn't learn.  And there is something to be said for the advantages a straight person would have explaining gay rights to other straight people, or a white person would have explaining the plight of African-Americans to a white audience.

And let's not under-appreciate the devotion it takes for a white high school kid (even in an elite high school) to choose to run for the president of a black student group (of which he was already a member).

I'm also curious "who" voted for him - meaning, were the only people eligible to vote current members of the Black Student Union, if so, then that gives him more legitimacy.  Also, more generally, can you really limit the membership and/or leadership of an organization to one race, one sexual orientation, etc?

And while that might sound discriminatory to someone not a member of the group in question, I know for gay stuff I get the notion of keeping it "gay" once in a while.   The whole idea behind gay softball leagues and gay bars, for that matter, is to have somewhere safe and reaffirming for your own community, a community in which you grow up not always feeling very safe or affirmed.  If a gay softball league were 99% straight, it wouldn't be much of a gay softball league.  If gay cruises were 99% straight then they would really be gay cruises.

Then again, this is the argument the Irish Catholics use to keep gay Irish Catholic groups out of the St. Patrick's Day parades.

What do you think? Read the rest of this post...

Trayvon Martin death tape—Audio experts say "screams are not Zimmerman"

Thanks to the eagle-eyed crew at The Political Carnival, we have two MSNBC interviews with audio analysts who've listened to the Trayvon Martin "death tape" — the 911 call made by a neighbor as she listened to the tragedy unfold. (Sorry, I can't describe it any other way — we're hearing the moments that led to a gunshot and death.)

I've embedded the second interview segment below. The quote in my headline is from MSNBC's displayed segment title.

Before you listen, consider:

• There's no guarantee that the screaming is Martin; the experts are simply saying that the screaming is not Zimmerman, the shooter.


• Which means that the screaming could be voices of ear-witnesses, people who were hearing what the caller was hearing, and reacting with shouts of their own.


• Is it possible that Trayvon started the scuffle that led to Zimmerman pulling the gun, then screamed himself? That's one of the options not ruled out.


• It's certainly true that the screaming preceded the gunshot, at least in the segment of the 911 call played at the start of the interview.

That said, watch the segment. First they play part of the 911 call, made by someone in the neighborhood. Then the audio analyst, Tom Owen, is interviewed.



In an earlier MSNBC interview (first video here), Kerry Sanders, who works for NBC in Miami, talked about the conclusions of two audio experts (one of whom was Tom Owen) who analyzed this tape.

He reported that a second analyst (not Owen) said the screaming voice wasn't someone as old as 30, based on the pitch and range of the voice itself. Zimmerman is 28 years old; Martin was 17.

Offered for your consideration.

UPDATE: The people at The Political Carnival have put together one of their Blunt videos using the 911 call featured here and a number of citizen comments. It's quite touching and worth a watch. (If you wish to add your voice to a future Blunt video, go here; they're always looking for contributors.)

GP

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Secret docs show lead anti- "gay marriage" group wanted to "fan" race war

Ben Smith at Buzzfeed sums up the secret documents that he calls "explosive":

Final line I'm amazed NOM put on paper: Goal of "fanning the hostility" btw blacks and gays

This is seriously f'd up.

A "confidential" internal document of the lead anti-"gay marriage" group, the National Organization for Marriage" (NOM), shows that the organization was not simply content at taking civil rights away from gay couples, they wanted to start a political race war between black, Latino and white Democrats, and they admitted it in writing. They outright admitted that "the" top goal of the anti-"gay marriage" movement is "fanning the hostility" between blacks and white gays, and between Latinos.

Here are their own words:

"The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks - two key democratic constituencies. We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party. Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key..."

That last line is referring to a blow up in the gay community following Prop 8 when an exit poll showed that an overwhelming majority of African-Americans voted in favor of the anti-gay amendment. In other words, the religious right wants to fan the flames of racial hatred between blacks and whites.

They write of the black community, and Latinos, as if they're mere puppets for the religious right to manipulate. They continue:

"Consider pushing a marriage amendment in Washington, D.C."

What they mean is, DC is a majority black and Democratic town with a large gay community. They want to start a race war in the nation's capital.

This line was also particularly crude:

"Find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally."

Again, it's all about promoting a race war between blacks and whites in order to hurt gays and the Democratic party, to hell with what it does to the black community, the civil rights movement, or the future of this country.

None of this is a surprise. What is surprising is that they would put talk of fanning a race war in writing.

Here's a second document, below, and Joe has a third over at AMERICAblog Gay. We'll have much more on this tomorrow.

20100716 Doc 128b NOM Depo - Exhibit 2 - NOM Depo Exhibit 12 Nat'l Strategy for Winning 12-15-09 Read the rest of this post...

What was said on the Trayvon Martin shooting 911 tape?

There is some controversy over what was said by the shooter in the Trayvon Martin case, George Zimmerman, during his 911 call, especially at the 2 minute and 21 second mark. He seems to say "f--king" and then another word. Some think the second word was a racial epithet, others don't hear it.

Since there's a growing discussion over this case, and over the 911 call, we thought we'd post it so you can listen for yourself.

Here's the Trayvon 911 tape. Listen at 2:21.



What do you think? Some say he said "cold" or "punks". Some say it's indecipherable. And some claim he spoke a racial slur. Your thoughts?

GP

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Will there be justice for Trayvon Martin?

Seventeen year old Trayvon Martin was shot by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman on February 26th while visiting his father in Florida.  Outrage over the case has been growing, and last night we learned that the FBI was launching an investigation.  First the background...

Zimmerman had called a non-emergency dispatch number with concerns about a suspicious looking African-American teenager. He later pursued Martin against the directions of the dispatch operator. Moments later, a fight accompanied by cries for help broke out, followed by gunfire. Zimmerman admitted to killing Martin but claimed self-defense. The police took him at his word, failing to perform the drug and alcohol test that is standard practice in homicide investigations, despite one expert saying Zimmerman sounded intoxicated on the recording of the call.  The outcry has been over why the police didn't investigate further.

ThinkProgress has compiled an incredibly damning set of facts surrounding the incident. I've copied a few to consider here:

Zimmerman called the police to report Martin’s “suspicious” behavior, which he described as “just walking around looking about.” [Orlando Sentinel]

Zimmerman was carrying a 9 millimeter handgun. Martin was carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. [ABC]

Zimmerman called the police 46 times since Jan. 1, 2011 "to report disturbances, break-ins, windows left open and other incidents. Nine of those times, he saw someone or something suspicious." (One news outlet claimed that he had called 911 forty-six times --in fact the article being cited as proof of this does not make clear whether he called 911 or a non-emergency number.) [Miami Herald]

According to neighbors, Zimmerman was “fixated on crime and focused on young, black males." [Miami Herald]

A police officer “corrected” a key witness. [ABC News]

Three witnesses say they heard a boy cry for help before a shot was fired. [Miami Herald]

As mentioned above, Zimmerman has claimed self-defense in his decision to shoot Martin. However, given Zimmerman's intentional disregard of the dispatch operator's instructions not to follow Martin, and to let the police handle it, and reports of cries for help coming from the boy holding the Skittles instead of the man with the gun, there are understandable concerns that an innocent 17 year old may have just been gunned down in the street because someone didn't like the way he looks.  The police should have taken the case more seriously.  And to add insult to injury, the local police reportedly have a spotty record in dealing with African-Americans.  This is one more reason that they should not have dismissed this case out of hand, and one more reason they may have.

The Department of Justice issued a statement last night regarding the incident, and has indicated that the FBI will open an investigation. The DOJ statement reads in part:

“The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, and the FBI opened an investigation into the facts and circumstances of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.  The department will conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence and take appropriate action at the conclusion of the investigation...With all federal civil rights crimes, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person acted intentionally and with the specific intent to do something which the law forbids – the highest level of intent in criminal law.  Negligence, recklessness, mistakes and accidents are not prosecutable under the federal criminal civil rights laws...”

It would be great to live in a country that has outgrown its painful history of hatred and violence. Sadly, it appears that America may still have some growing left to do. Read the rest of this post...

Santorum said 'blah' people, not 'black' people when discussing welfare

You can't make this stuff up. Watch the original and decide for yourself what he said. Even if he said "blah" people, it's clear what his intention was with that remark. Read the rest of this post...

Obama promotes diversity for universities

This was the right thing to do. We're not going to grow as a country unless we embrace the diversity that already exists.

The Obama administration on Friday urged colleges and universities to get creative in improving racial diversity at their campuses, throwing out a Bush-era interpretation of recent Supreme Court rulings that limited affirmative action in admissions

The new guidelines issued by the Departments of Justice and Education replaced a 2008 document that essentially warned colleges and universities against considering race at all. Instead, the guidelines focus on the wiggle room in the court decisions involving the University of Michigan, suggesting that institutions use other criteria — students’ socioeconomic profiles, residential instability, the hardships they have overcome — that are often proxies for race. Schools could even grant preferences to students from certain schools selected for, among other things, their racial composition, the new document says.

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The black vote and President Obama

From the Washington Post:

Recent Washington Post-ABC News polls have shown a drop in the number of blacks who have ”strongly favorable” views of Obama and those who think his policies are improving the economy. This has coincided with vocal criticism of the president among some members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other African American leaders.

But the focus on sticking together has prompted criticism from some who call it an overly simplistic view that shuts off dialogue about Obama’s achievements and his failures.

“It truncates vibrant conversation in the black community,” said Eddie Glaude Jr., a professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University. “What I hear them saying is, ‘Black folk need to get in lock step because we don’t want Republicans to take the White House.’ There is a kind of disciplining of the black polity that doesn’t lend itself to a vibrant and detailed consideration about political issues.”

I don't really have a problem with exhortations towards solidarity amongst the members of a group. We Greeks were told to vote for Dukakis because he was Greek, and a lot did. In the gay community we have an organization whose sole purpose is to help gay candidates get elected. And none of that bothers me. And it doesn't necessarily bother me if some people argue that the black community should support President Obama because he's black.

But. There is a problem if we're asked to stop thinking entirely simply because of the race or sexual orientation, or whatever other defining characteristic, of the candidate - that we should vote for him regardless of what we think of him simply because he's gay or black or whatever. The problem is that this can be a license for the candidate, or elected official, to do whatever they choose, or break whatever promise, with impunity. Elections at their best impose a certain check and balance on politicians and their promises. And as the old adage goes, there's no reason to buy the cow if you can get the milk for free.

At some point, politicians need to earn our vote. And we need to earn their respect. Or we're never going to get anything better than "at least I'm not the other guy." Read the rest of this post...

President lectured blacks as well about their "grumbling"

I realize the President thinks this is good politics.

President Obama's fiery speech to the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Foundation's dinner on Saturday evening drew a stiff rebuke Monday from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who questioned whether it was warranted for the president to tell black voters to "stop grumbling" and "put on your marching shoes."

"Some of his words were not, I think, appropriate and surprised me a little bit," Waters said Monday morning on CBS. "I was curious about it."

He should have learned by now not to trust his gut on what makes good politics. He's ticking people off. And judging by the increased frequency of these outbursts, it's clearly part of a coordinated campaign strategy that some brainiac came up with.

The President needs to be taking advantage of the GOP's insanity to rally everyone to his side, not condescend everyone to his side.  The condescension thing has already been tried, and failed miserably.  Let's not try it again.  There's too much at stake. Read the rest of this post...

Social prejudice is bad for the economy

Interesting.

The report "Does Prejudice Prejudice Growth?" by UBS economist Paul Donovan compared data on competitiveness from the World Economic Forum and survey evidence of prejudice from the World Values Study Group.

The report found that there was a strong correlation between social inclusion, competitiveness and economic development, and argued that "prejudice, in whatever form – including racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance – irrationally destroys the value of human capital."

While prejudice is something that rarely features in investment decisions, the destruction of human capital through social prejudice in the 21st Century is at least as significant as that the destruction of physical capital wrought by the Luddites, the anti-technology groups who sabotaged machinery during the industrial revolution, Donovan wrote.

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Top DOD official says MLK would have supported wars in Iraq/Afghanistan

Wow.

Although the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is best remembered by the American public for fighting against racial discrimination, he was also an outspoken opponent of war and violence, most notably of the war in Vietnam. A top Obama administration official at the Department of Defense, however, argued Thursday that if King were alive, he would support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At a Pentagon commemoration of King's accomplishments, DOD General Counsel Jeh Johnson said that today's wars are in line with the reverend's teachings.

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Next Senate unlikely to include black members

Funny that the Republican wave doesn't include blacks. Read the rest of this post...

England and Wales have a major race problem

There's no other way to explain such statistics. The Guardian:

The proportion of black people in prison in England and Wales is higher than in the United States, a landmark report released today by the Equality and Human Rights Commission reveals.

The commission's first triennial report into the subject, How Fair is Britain, shows that the proportion of people of African-Caribbean and African descent incarcerated here is almost seven times greater to their share of the population. In the United States, the proportion of black prisoners to population is about four times greater.

The report, which aims to set out how to measure "fairness" in Britain, says that ethnic minorities are "substantially over-represented in the custodial system". It suggests many of those jailed have "mental health issues, learning disabilities, have been in care or experienced abuse".

Experts and politicians said over-representation of black men was a result of decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system and an overly punitive approach to penal affairs.

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