Jack & Jill Politics

Sharing some videos for you.

Stephanie Cutter: Get the facts on Mitt Romney, Big Oil, and the Koch Brothers

Ed Schultz discussing the President going on offense against Willard.

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

Senator Boxer discusses paycheck fairness.

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

” Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”

And, it was all Willard’s doing…no really….Rachel Maddow explains this latest etch-a-sketch moment from Camp Willard.

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

Good Afternoon.

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And continue to have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Another byproduct of GOP Voter Suppresion 2012.

Reuters.com:

Can cash-strapped cities afford the 2012 election?
By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON | Wed Apr 25, 2012 12:28pm EDT

The economy looms large over November’s general election in a basic way for strapped cities and counties: can they afford it?

In Detroit, the city clerk warned last week that the Rust Belt city would have trouble holding the November 6 presidential election under a slimmed-down budget the mayor proposed to address years of deep financial problems.

In Jefferson County, Alabama, the local government was so short of cash for elections that it used road repair crews to staff the state’s Republican presidential primary last month.

And in South Carolina, a $500,000 shortfall after the state’s Republican primary in January led elections officials to consider a sponsorship deal with comedian Stephen Colbert, who plays a mock conservative pundit on his late-night TV show.

With cities and counties across the United States in dire financial straits, many local officials are struggling to come up with the millions of dollars they will need to hold the November 6 elections. That is likely to mean fewer election workers and long lines for voters, which could reduce turnout.

It is a problem that could affect candidates and political parties in November but particularly President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats, who are relying on support from big cities such as Detroit.

High-turnout elections typically are better for Democrats, who usually fare well among low-income, minority and less-educated voters whose election turnout is inconsistent, said University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Franklin.

For example, he added, “The people with the least flexible job and day schedules are more affected by those long lines, and at least to some extent those may be hourly workers who may lean Democratic.”

New, stricter voter registration laws in some states such as Florida could exacerbate the problem by raising the need for more elections workers to verify voters’ eligibility.

Local governments across the nation are planning to shift costs – putting off road repairs for a few days while transit crews work on elections, or borrowing workers from other departments to help count votes.

But they also are laying off staff who would have helped with voter questions, and cutting back the hours that polls are open.

Besides raising constitutional questions about whether some people will have enough opportunity to vote, the situation could have an impact on close elections, analysts say.

Good Morning.

As you make it through the day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And always, have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Kirk Clay

I was recently recruited to help train a team of young political organizers on micro targeting voters of color (VOC). The training marked the launch of a collaborative voter empowerment program by national and local organizations of color. This was part of their efforts to lay the ground work for capturing and energizing 18 -29 year old voters. As I began to pull together research data on voting trends for my presentation, I began to realize how important the young VOC will be in 2012:

●A recent poll from Gallup shows President Obama with a lead over Mitt Romney among voters under 30.

● According to new poll from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, President Obama has increased his lead over Romney by 6 points to a 17 point margin.

● In 4 months, Obama’s job approval has increased from 52% to 66% among Latinos.

● Obama leads Romney in a head-to-head by thirty-nine points.

● Latinos are not the only young VOC feeling the President; he leads with African Americans by seventy-eight points.

After seeing these facts and figures, I immediately began to search for issues and places where this dynamic may have an impact. I talked to a young friend who lives in Missouri to get a “heartland” perspective about the findings. He immediately agreed with the survey, “I see it too, just look at the whole student loan mess.”

Read more…

hat tips-The Obama Diary, Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog:

Good Afternoon.

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And continue to have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »

The President went to Afghanistan and spoke with the troops and to the American people.

President Obama Speaks to Troops at Bagram Air Base

President Obama speaks to troops during an unannounced trip to Afghanistan where he signed a strategic partnership agreement with President Hamid Karzai that marks the beginning of the end of the war there.

President Obama Speaks on Ending the War in Afghanistan

President Obama addresses the nation from Afghanistan after signing a historic agreement between the United States and Afghanistan that defines a new kind of relationship between our countries — a future in which Afghans are responsible for the security of their nation, we build an equal partnership between two sovereign states, and a future in which the war ends, and a new chapter begins.

Read the rest of the story at the link above.

Good Morning.

As you make it through Hump Day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And always, have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just wanted to share some videos with you.

Swiss Bank Account

Charniele Herring, Virginia State Delegate and Reproductive Rights Caucus chair, talks with Rachel Maddow about Virginia Governor Bob “Vaginal Ultrasound” McDonnell’s double reversal on forcing women to bear the child of rape or incest.

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

More on the GOP War on Women.

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

Good Afternoon.

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And continue to have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Lauren Victoria Burke

There is an ongoing discussion regarding Black hiring in the Obama Administration and this 2012 campaign begs the question: How does President Obama rank when compared to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush with regard to the number of Blacks hired for top jobs in his Administration?

The current tally:

• Obama 4 (in 3 years, 4 months)
• Clinton 9 (in 8 years)
• Bush 6 (in 8 years)

To be in the President’s cabinet means having the power to oversee billion dollar budgets and thousands of jobs.  Near the end of his first term, President Obama currently has one African American in a top level cabinet position: Attorney General Eric Holder.  Holder oversees a budget of $27 billion and over 111,000 employees after the President appointed the first Black Attorney General in history.

Though the United Nations Ambassador, U.S. Trade Representative and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator are not technically members of the President’s 15 person cabinet, all three are top high ranking positions frequently referred to as “cabinet level.” The difference between cabinet and non-cabinet or “cabinet-level” is considerable in terms of budgets and staff.  President Obama has hired three African Americans to these positions.  Lisa Jackson is the EPA Administrator, Ron Kirk is the U.S. Trade Representative and Susan Rice is the UN Ambassador. In total, President Obama has hired four African Americans to top positions in less than 4 years.

Read more…

Detroit has been identified by its crime rate for a long, long time. That reputation didn’t just happen to us by accident, most Detroiters can tell you there’s considerably more to Detroit than the violence. And what Detroiters can also tell you is that, as a predominantly African American city that has in many ways become synonymous with the term Urban America (so goes Detroit, so goes Black America), there are clearly identifiable reasons why it is so easy for many to casually dismiss Motown as another casualty of blackness. Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee earned a huge amount of my respect when he spoke so clearly on those issues in a recent issue of a local publication, the Michigan Citizen. The following two quotes from a much longer article (well worth reading) are the ones that immediately grabbed my attention – and my appreciation:

Many believe Detroit is a violent city, is that accurate?

I think it’s grossly inaccurate. There’s a small percentage of people involved in a great percentage of the problems. And what I am very resistant to doing is bowing to media pressure to “get tough on crime,” which to me is a euphemism to crack down on these young Black folks. When you indiscriminately do that and paint everybody with the same brush, you’re going to catch kids that are not bad kids up in that web. You are going to make the mistake and over police and violate the rights of somebody that is absolutely doing nothing that deserves that. I want my department to be one … that honors the rights of the citizens of the city of Detroit. Not to be compliant with a consent judgment, but because it’s the right thing to do.

 

Do you see any correlation between youth violence and the demise of the Detroit Public School system?

I think they definitively go hand in hand … If you look at some of the socio-economic factors that play in to the issues in the city of Detroit … for instance the illiteracy rate, how high it is and people say we just need jobs in Detroit. Well, that sounds good, but if you bring a job base into the city and you have the structurally unemployed that for all intents and purposes are unemployable because the education system has failed them or we have failed them in some kind of manner, where if somebody can’t read … or do the things necessary to hold that job … or don’t have the requisite job skill, then we’re just doing a song and dance … if you travel back to October/November when people were starting to be put off public assistance and the law was retroactive, it is no mistake that my larcenies are going up. It is no mistake that my car thefts are going up. Because … these social nets that were just snatched without a transition, well these folks have got to eat. Then it becomes a matter of survival. Is it an excuse? Absolutely not. But it exacerbates what’s already a very difficult situation on the ground for our citizens.

 

This is being cross-posted at Black Liberal Boomer and Detroit Life

No Mojo Mitt tried to go gangsta on Mon, asserting that any fool worth something would have pulled the trigger on bagging Bin Laden. A chump actually said with a smirk:

Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order!

It was a total no-brainer, right? Then how come George W. Bush, cowboy extraordinaire, didn’t manage to get the job done after 2 terms and 7 years? How come it was insisted by the neo-cons that invading Iraq, a country that – unlike Osama’s Al Qaeda – never attacked us, was a much higher priority worth billions of dollars and thousands of lives, both American and Iraqi. I’m sorry, did we ever find any WMDs over there? Did that happen?

Oh I got more beef for a GOP that claims Obama is taking undue credit for his success in capturing and killing one of the world’s top criminals. I’m sorry, but this is a campaign promise that Obama actually kept, y’all. He said he’d make it a top priority to get the man who masterminded a series of attacks on American soil and later in the countries of our allies such as Spain, India and the U.K. And he did it. There’s one big dog in the world right now re: saving America from terrorists and that’s Barack Obama, bitchez. Ya betta recognize…

Obama gave some pushback and a little “how ya like me now?” today. From ABC News:

Asked about Romney’s comments from earlier this morning belittling how difficult the decision to go after bin Laden may have been, the president said “As far as my personal role and what other folks would do, I’d just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and take out bin Laden. I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. That’s been at least my practice.”

The president was alluding to Romney’s 2007 comments about bin Laden that “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” The Obama campaign last Friday released a web ad suggestion that this sentence suggests he would not have been willing to take the risk and order Navy SEALs to cross into Pakistan and infiltrate bin Laden’s Abbotabad compound.

Continued the president, “I said that I’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.”

The fact is that the conservative policy choices of the last decade or so have led to complete failures on national security and the global economic inequity & disfunction that people are protesting today on May Day. Are they really trying to swift boat the Prez and make one of his greatest triumphs a liability? Are they really gonna go hard and front like that?

What do you think? Should the GOP have a seat and pipe down already with they ignorant selves? Or what?

President Obama speaking at the Women’s Leadership Forum

First Lady Michelle Obama welcomes young people to the White House on Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. April 26, 2012.

Good Morning.

As you go through your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And always, have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Latoya Livingston

It is an unfortunate fact, but nearly one-fourth of all students—and nearly forty percent of African-American, Hispanic, and Native American students—fail to graduate with their class.  In an effort to combat those numbers, AT&T launched its “Aspire Initiative” in 2008, which is specifically focused on confronting the high school dropout crisis and to help ensure that students will graduate prepared for the future challenges of continuing education and the workforce.

While education funding has been hit hard these past few years, the $100 million philanthropic program is doing its part to ensure that technology-based programs aren’t a casualty to budgeting push and pull.  Yesterday, Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s Chairman and CEO, upped the ante when he pledged an additional $250 million investment into its Aspire Initiative to a crowd of hundreds at America’s Promise Alliance’s “Building a Grad Nation” Summit.  This came on the heels of Charlene Lake’s—AT&T’s Sr. Vice President of Public Affairs and Sustainability Officer—nationwide announcement of the investment on CNN’s “Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien” earlier that same morning.

AT&T Aspire, the largest education initiative in AT&T’s history, is designed to “support high school success and workforce readiness.”

Read more…

From making trips to Washington D.C. to provide input on initiatives ranging from Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign to providing ideas to the Department of Interior on ways to engage African American families in outdoor recreation, Rue Mapp, Outdoor Afro Founder and CEO, realized, “I can’t do all of this myself,” and sought out more leaders to work along side her to engage more African Americans with the outdoors.

Over the past four months, she recruited thirteen Outdoor Afro volunteers (“disciples” she likens them to), who share her passion for nature and connecting more people to it. But these folks are not just advocates. They will organize outdoor activities across the country, from day hikes to overnight camping trips.

The Outdoor Afro Leadership Team (OALT) will organize trips on a quarterly basis, but Rue is prepared for the effort to grow beyond that.

Leveraging the Outdoor Afro social media community to recruit volunteers, she said, “I feel blessed to have found a group of like-minded people who can help literally move African Americans into the outdoors in greater numbers than I could alone.” The team represents a wonderfully diverse group from around the country, with a range of interests and expertise.

Introducing the Outdoor Afro Leadership Team!

• Alisha Pye, a Los Angeles, CA Pilates instructor and mother of two.

• Beky Branagan of North Carolina has an M.S. in Recreation Administration and served as a medic in the US Army Reserve. She volunteers as an Outdoor Skills Facilitator; teaching Girl Scout Leaders about how to take their troops camping.

• Charles Yellowday, a Bronx, NY based social services professional.

Read the rest of this entry »

hat tips-The Obama Diary, 3CHICS:

Improving Educational Opportunities for Service Members, Veterans and Their Families
First Lady Michelle Obama and President Obama speak at Fort Stewart about a new executive order that will help ensure all of America’s service members, veterans, spouses, and other family members have the information they need to make informed educational decisions and are protected from aggressive and deceptive targeting by educational institutions. April 27, 2012

Good Afternoon.

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And continue to have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for Willard’s Lies of the week.

Once again, I will point out the site on the blog roll: Romney The Liar: because there are Liars, Damn Liars, and then there’s Mitt Romney.

Steve Benen, now at The Maddow Blog:. Here’s last week’s entry of Chronicling Mitt’s mendacity:

The Opening:

Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity, Vol. XV
By Steve Benen – Fri Apr 27, 2012 3:11 PM EDT.

After winning several more presidential primaries this week, Mitt Romney delivered a speech his campaign billed as the unofficial kickoff of the general election. And while making his pitch as the presumptive Republican nominee, the former governor said President Obama intends to “run a campaign of … distortions.”

I very nearly fell out of my chair. After watching Romney closely for years, I’ve never seen any candidate in either party run a campaign of distortions as shamelessly as this guy, and this claim seemed to take the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” tactic to new levels.

To appreciate the scope of Romney’s distortions, consider the 15th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt’s mendacity.

1. Romney argued in Pennsylvania earlier this week that President Obama has “apologized for America.”

The fact that Romney continues to repeat this lie every day is pretty depressing.

2. The Romney campaign argued this week that college tuition costs are going up is because “this president decided to take over the student loan market.”

As a matter of policy, that’s ridiculous, and as a matter of accuracy, it’s completely untrue.

hat tip-The Obama Diary:

Good Morning.

As you begin a new week, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate.

Give us trivia and gossip too.

And always, have a peaceful day.

Read the rest of this entry »