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Moral Monday Protest 6/3/13
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RALEIGH – More than 100 people were arrested Monday at the largest demonstration yet of the state NAACP’s weeks-long protest of the conservative policies of the Republican-led General Assembly.Police estimated that roughly 1,000 people attended the rally late Monday afternoon behind the Legislative Building on Halifax Mall. Hundreds then entered the building. Upwards of 150 people were arrested outside the doors to the state Senate chambers, where demonstrators chanted, sang and delivered speeches decrying what they called a regressive agenda that neglects the poor.
Others estimated about 1600 at the rally.
It’s What’s In Your Heart That Matters
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“RACE DOESN’T MATTER!” Ask some Obama haters. Some raise their voices at the suggestion that race is still an issue in this country. (I’ve seen this in person.) Others saw it in March at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
This week, General Foods proved otherwise after it launched its commercial, “Just Checking,” and posted it to YouTube.
Gawker wrote late on Thursday:
A nice Cheerios advertisement whose only discernible difference from other Cheerios commercials is that it depicts an interracial family was forced to disable its YouTube comments section today after it became inundated with virulent racism.
Slate offered a printable sample: “If the dad was stereotypical black, I don’t think they would have needed more than 2 actors for the commercial.”
General Mills responded:
The ad will “absolutely not” be withdrawn, Meredith Tutterow, associate marketing director for Cheerios and Multigrain Cheerios at General Mills in Golden Valley, Minn., said Friday.
“There are many kinds of families,” Ms. Tutterow said, “and Cheerios just wants to celebrate them all.”
The Cheerios Facebook page is full of smiles. By Friday morning, “thumbs up” comments were outpacing the negatives by over five to one. So hey, maybe those conservatives at CPAC were right that race doesn’t matter. At least for growing number of Americans who have no problem with mixed-race families and mixed-race presidents.
(Cross-posted from Crooks and Liars.)
Sunday Morning Music
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For some reason last night I was pondering the endless panoply of wingnut night terrors when a song from childhood TV popped into my head. When I looked up the lyrics and video, I was astonished. You will be too.
Like Standing in Long Lines to Vote?
Posted by: | CommentsThen you’ll love what the NC General Assembly has in mind for you.
Pay No Attention to the Misleading Headline
Posted by: | CommentsThis is my second experience with misleading headlines today. The first was the headline on my letter on the opinion page. Then this.
Politico: Poll: 54 percent against Obamacare
Fifty-four percent of Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, according to a CNN poll released Monday, while 43 percent support the law.
But that headline is misleading, which the reader finds out a few paragraphs later. From the CNN poll:
According to the poll, 43% of the public says it supports the health care law, a figure that’s mostly unchanged in CNN polling since the measure was passed in 2010 by a Congress then controlled by Democrats and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Fifty-four percent of those questioned say they oppose the law, also relatively unchanged since 2010.
But wait! There’s more. A minor detail someone finally decided to ask [emphasis added]:
The survey indicates that 35% oppose the health care law because it’s too liberal, with 16% saying they oppose the measure because it isn’t liberal enough.
Protests Grow In NC Against Hard Right Turn
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A century and a half after the Civil War ended, the GOP-dominated North Carolina legislature is finishing the destruction Gen. Sherman’s troops never got to visit upon Raleigh, NC. Over 150 people have been arrested at the Legislative Building in four weeks of protests led by the NAACP. A crowd of 600 gathered last week for the latest Moral Mondays protest against a flood of conservative legislation targeting the poor and minority voters.
A few short years after Barack Obama won the state’s electoral votes, Republicans are firmly in control of the legislature and the Governor’s Mansion. They are busily unmaking the American Century in what has been one of the South’s most progressive states. The Washington Post calls it “a sweeping conservative agenda”:
Legislators have slashed jobless benefits. They have also repealed a tax credit that supplemented the wages of low-income people, while moving to eliminate the estate tax. They have voted against expanding Medicaid to comply with the 2010 federal health-care law. The expansion would have added 500,000 poor North Carolinians to the Medicaid rolls.
War Zone/Comfort Zone
Posted by: | CommentsHomelessness, unemployment and PTSD among women veterans. In the last decade, the USA went into wars with no plan for the aftermath. The armed services recruited women to serve in those wars with no plan for their aftermaths. America can and must do better.
A documentary by Squidface Films.
Understanding the iScam
Posted by: | CommentsMelissa Harris Perry’s panel analyzes corporate taxes and overseas tax havens. Tech and pharma leeching off the American taxpayer’s largesse.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Friday Open Thread
Posted by: | CommentsHope you got your tickets for Just Economics of Western North Carolina’s JUST BREW IT Homebrew Festival this Saturday.
JUST BREW IT —NO MEMBERSHIPS SOLD AFTER 11:59 5/24/2013
May 25th, 2-5pm Outside of the Wedge Brewery in the River Arts District, Asheville
No Difference?
Posted by: | CommentsRemind me how the two major parties are the same.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioning Treasury secretary Jack Lew about the lack of movement on shrinking too-big-to-fail banks.
Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) insists that Congress apologize to Apple for daring to question gimmicks by which the corporation evades paying billions in taxes.
Choose a side: Colonist or Royalist?
