Author: Ezra Grant

I'm just tired of the lies and nonsense coming from the GOP, so this is my little contribution to combat the nonsense!

Categories
Nelson Mandela Politics

President Obama in Jail…

President Obama yesterday stood alone in the cramped Robben Island prison cell in South Africa that once held Nelson Mandela, gazing out at the blue sky through a barred window.

Obama, who says his political career was inspired by Mandela’s nonviolent fight against apartheid, again drew inspiration by touring the penal island with First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha.
Obama had visited before, but it was a new experience for the rest of his family.

“Nelson Mandela showed us that one man’s courage can move the world,” Obama said later in a speech at the University of Cape Town.

“There was something different about bringing my children. Malia’s now 15, Sasha is 12, and seeing them stand within the walls that once surrounded Nelson Mandela,” he said, “I knew this was an experience that they would never forget.”

The tour was led by Ahmed Kathrada, a former inmate and anti-apartheid activist imprisoned with Mandela.
Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years captive in the grim confines of cell 7B, where Obama entered alone and briefly reflected.

Mandela, 94, has been hospitalized in critical condition for three weeks with a lung infection.

Categories
Entertainment

“Enter The Dragon” Co-Star Jim Kelly Dies at 67

US actor and karate expert Jim Kelly, who starred with Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, has died at the age of 67.

Kelly became famed for his cool one-liners and fight scenes as the charismatic Williams in the 1973 martial arts classic.

His other films included Black Belt Jones, Three the Hard Way, Golden Needles and the Black Samurai.

Marilyn Dishman, Kelly’s ex-wife, said he died on Saturday of cancer at his home in California.

Enter the Dragon is considered to be one of the most popular kung fu films of all time, it was Lee’s first film in the English language and was released days after his death at the age of 32.

In the 1980s, Kelly re-trained as a professional tennis coach.

In an interview with the LA Times in 2010, Kelly said: “I broke down the colour barrier – I was the first black martial artist to become a movie star. It’s amazing to see how many people still remember that, because I haven’t really done much, in terms of movies, in a long time.”

He added: “I never left the movie business. It’s just that after a certain point, I didn’t get the type of projects that I wanted to do. I still get at least three scripts per year, but most of them don’t put forth a positive image.

“There’s nothing I really want to do, so I don’t do it. If it happens, it happens, but if not, I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished.”

Categories
edward snowden Politics

Rep Hank Johnson – Clarence Thomas Worse Than Edward Snowden

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said Wednesday that the fact that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas voted this week to gut the Voting Rights Act — the 1965 law aimed at protecting disenfranchised voters — ranks him somewhere below the likes of Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified information about U.S. surveillance programs to the press.

“Comparing it to Snowden, I’d say the offense is worse,” Johnson told The Huffington Post.

Johnson, who is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Snowden was wrong to leak top-secret materials to the media but was also “mistaken” in thinking that NSA’s activities were illegal. By contrast, Thomas, who is black, is “legally aware of the consequences” to the black community of striking down a core piece of the Voting Rights Act, Johnson said, yet he did it anyway.

“He consciously repeats those same steps over and over again to the detriment of the African-American community,” Johnson said of Thomas’ conservative voting record.

Categories
Politics

Chris Christie – Very Unhappy with Supreme Court’s Ruling on DOMA

Chris Christie is not too happy with the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage.

“I don’t think the ruling was appropriate,” said Christie, who is running for reelection in a blue state, one in which Democrats have hailed the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage.
“I think it was wrong,” Christie continued, calling it “typical of the problem we see” in New Jersey’s own Supreme Court.

He blasted the U.S. Supremes for substituting “their own judgment for the judgment of a Republican Congress and a Democratic President. In the Republican Congress in the ‘90s and Bill Clinton. I thought that Justice Kennedy’s opinion was, in many respects, incredibly insulting to those people, 340-some members of Congress who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, and Bill Clinton.”

“He basically said that the only reason to pass that bill was to demean people. That’s heck of a thing to say about Bill Clinton and about the Republican Congress back in the ‘90s. And it’s just another example of judicial supremacy, rather than having the government run by the people we actually vote for,” said Christie, who recently appeared with Clinton at a Clinton Global Initiative conference.

Clinton himself has walked away from the signing of DOMA, and in a statement said he was pleased with the court’s ruling.

Christie is polling as a top prospect for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, and a number of evangelical leaders made clear after the SCOTUS ruling that the base of the party will remain opposed to same-sex marriage.

Yet, Christie is running in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and wooing Democrats has been a huge part of a strategy aimed at driving up his margin of victory, should he win over rival Barbara Buono.

Categories
Abortion Politics Texas Wendy Davis

Someone Fire-Bombed Wendy Davis’ Office

NOTE: This story was originally published in 2012

At least two fire bombs were thrown at the Fort Worth office of state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) on Tuesday night, according to the Star Telegram.

Davis was not in her office at the time, but some staff members were present. They used a fire extinguisher to put out the small blaze.

No one was injured in the attack, but the lawmaker’s office was damaged by the fire.

“It’s unfortunate when things like this happen in the public arena,” she said. “It reminds us of how important it is for us to remain very civil in our discourse and to work not to foment this kind of anger in our community as we discuss things that are challenges that we all face and care about.”

Anthony Spangler, Davis’ communications director, said he had no idea what motivated the attack.

Categories
Nelson Mandela Politics

Another Day Passes, And Nelson Mandela Still In Critical Condition

After hours of vigils and secret family meetings, South Africans awoke to another day of unease Wednesday as ailing anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela remained hospitalized in critical condition.

“Former President Nelson Mandela’s condition remains unchanged in hospital and doctors continue to do their best to ensure his recovery, well-being and comfort,” the government said in a statement late Tuesday night.

As the nation remained on edge, police barricaded the street leading to the hospital’s main entrance.

Well-wishers hung balloons, stuffed animals and messages of support along the wall outside his Pretoria hospital . Crowds hovering nearby sang “where is Mandela” as they matched toward the entrance.

Mandela has been hospitalized since June 8 for a recurring lung infection, and authorities have described his condition as critical in the last few days.

Categories
New York Politics

I Saw This Guy Today In The Subway Station – Video

A one man band. He “played his… instrument on the Grand Central subway station, leading to the number 4 and 6 trains. Is it music or a whole lotta noise?

Categories
Abortion Politics Wendy Davis women's rights

Democrat Wendy Davis Marathon Filibuster for Women’s Rights in Texas

Wearing pink tennis shoes to prepare for nearly 13 consecutive hours of standing, a Democratic Texas state senator on Tuesday began a one-woman filibuster to block a GOP-led effort that would impose stringent new abortion restrictions across the nation’s second-most populous state.

Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth began the filibuster at 11:18 a.m. CDT Tuesday. To derail a vote in the GOP-dominated Senate, she must keep speaking on the bill until midnight — the deadline for the end of the 30-day special session.

Before Davis began speaking, her chair was removed. CBSDFW.com reports that Davis must speak continuously — and stay on topic — the entire time. She is not allowed to lean against something for support. And she will not be able to stop or take a break, not even for meals or the restroom, during the entire 13-hour ordeal.

Davis offered some insight to her plans Monday night on Twitter.

Categories
Politics

For What It’s Worth, Harry Reid Is Promising “To Act” on The Voting Act

If Harry Reid is our only hope, we probably have no more hope left. Remember, Harry Reid was the same guy who promised to do something about the Republican abused Filibuster, just to sit on his hands when the time came for him to act.

Now, after the Supreme Court voted down Section 5 of the Voting Act, Harry Reid is once again promising to act.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Tuesday that the “Senate will act” to address the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

First, Reid said he will task Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to hold “wide-ranging hearings” on the subject beginning next month after Senate Democrats huddled on the issue during their lunch caucuses on Tuesday.

“There’s general displeasure — and that’s an understatement — in my caucus about what the Supreme Court did. Especially in light of what happened this last election cycle, with Republicans doing everything they could to suppress voting,” Reid told reporters after the lunches. “This is a dark day for the Supreme Court. But it’s been pretty cloudy over there for some time now.

(Full text: Supreme Court Voting Rights Act ruling)

Some Democrats added that the threat posed to minority voting rights — especially through hotly-contested voter ID laws — was just as present as it was when the VRA went into effect. But Republicans argue that the voting situation is much improved since the the act first passed.

“It’s an important bill that passed back in the ’60s at a time when we had a very different America than we have today,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky, who declined to elaborate beyond that statement: “At this point I think I’m just going to have to read it first.”

Categories
Entertainment

This Picture Is Not Kim And Kanye’s Baby

It is being described as a bogus baby picture.

Kim and Kanye West just gave birth to their daughter, a baby their named… North. And ever since North was born, people have been fixated, trying to get a picture of what the little bundle of joy looks like.

Then this picture began surfacing the internet. But according to TMZ, this is not North West, this is an Imposter Baby…

The saga continues…

Categories
Politics the supreme court

Supreme Court Strikes Down Parts of The Voting Rights Act

Justice Scalia

Thanks to the Conservative controlled Supreme Court, some southern states can now legally take away the voting rights of some of their residents.

The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court.

The 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, found that “things have changed dramatically” in the south nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed.

“There is no doubt that these improvements are in large part because of the Voting Rights Act,” the court ruled. “The Act has proved immensely successful at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process.”

“Section 4 and 5 were intended to be temporary, they were set to expire after five years,” the justices added.

Consider this two steps forward, three steps back.

Categories
Military Politics Rape sexual assault

Report: 53% of Military Sexual Assault Are Against Other Men

A new Pentagon report shows that most of the sexual assault in the military are against men.

In its latest report on sexual assault, the Pentagon estimated that 26,000 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, up from 19,000 in 2010. Of those cases, the Pentagon says, 53 percent involved attacks on men, mostly by other men.

“It’s easy for some people to single out women and say: ‘There’s a small percentage of the force having this problem,’ ” said First Lt. Adam Cohen, who said he was raped by a superior officer. “No one wants to admit this problem affects everyone. Both genders, of all ranks. It’s a cultural problem.”

Though women, who represent about 15 percent of the force, are significantly more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than men, experts say assaults against men have been vastly underreported. For that reason, the majority of formal complaints of military sexual assault have been filed by women, even though the majority of victims are thought to be men.

“Men don’t acknowledge being victims of sexual assault,” said Dr. Carol O’Brien, the chief of post-traumatic stress disorder programs at the Bay Pines Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Florida, which has a residential treatment program for sexually abused veterans. “Men tend to feel a great deal of shame, embarrassment and fear that others will respond negatively.”

But in recent months, intense efforts on Capitol Hill to curb military sexual assault, and the release of a new documentary about male sexual assault victims in the military, “Justice Denied,” have brought new attention to male victims. Advocates say their plight shows that sexual assault has risen not because there are more women in the ranks but because sexual violence is often tolerated.

“I think telling the story about male victims is the key to changing the culture of the military,” said Anuradha K. Bhagwati, executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy group that has sharply criticized the Pentagon’s handling of sexual assault. “I think it places the onus on the institution when people realize it’s also men who are victims.”

Exit mobile version