If you already have DACA status and it expires between September 5, 2017, and March 5, 2018, you MUST apply to renew your status BEFORE October 5, 2017, in order to protect yourself from deportation.
Alliance San Diego is sponsoring DACA workshops this month to assist with the application process. [Read more…]
Time for an inspirational video. Here’s one of my “Go To” people when I’m looking to be uplifted and motivated: the Rev. William J. Barber. Here he’s dealing with the events of Charlottesville and the issue of “Who Is a Racist?” and is somehow able to bring the idea of systemic racism into the conversation (“It’s not then just a statue. It’s the statutes.”) without being boring or pedantic. And what a way with words! How can we resist wanting to be “moral defibrillators that revive the heart of this country”? [Read more…]
Do you remember when Senator Bill Cassidy went on the Jimmy Kimmel show to say he would never vote for any bill that didn’t pass the “Jimmy Kimmel test”? Jimmy remembers. And what he remembers is that Cassidy “just lied right to my face”. His new message to Senator Cassidy: “Stop using my name. I don’t want my name on it.” He also proposes a new “Jimmy Kimmel test”. The new one involves a lie detector. [Read more…]
Here’s more information to supplement yesterday’s post on that Republican last ditch attempt to repeal Obamacare in the Senate, the Graham-Cassidy bill. Chris Hayes on MSNBC’s “All In” interviews Senator Brian Schatz. A gob-smacking bit of information revealed by Senator Schatz is that according to Senate rules the time left for debate on this bill is somewhere between ninety seconds and two minutes! ! For those interested in the gory details of the bill, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a comprehensive analysis here. [Read more…]
Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s “All In” interviews Ta-Nehisi Coates after his recent article in The Atlantic, “The First White President”. This is the article referenced on ESPN anchor Jemele Hill’s FaceBook page and which informed her controversial Tweet. [Read more…]
R.I.P. Harry Dean Stanton (July 14, 1926 – September 15, 2017). Here’s Harry Dean Stanton singing the melancholy and wistful “Canción mixteca” from the movie “Paris, Texas”. [Read more…]
As trumpeter Keyon Harrold says on the YouTube page of this video:
In tribute to the many unarmed woman, men, and children killed tragically and unjustifiably before their time.
Now, from St. Louis, there are reports of unrest at the exoneration of former police officer Jason Stockley in the Dec. 20, 2011, shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. Charles P. Pierce’s ruminations are insight into why this lament includes this latest injustice.
[Read more…]
SamBee is back! Here’s her in-depth investigative report on a counter-terrorism effort directed at the homegrown domestic kind. On hand to help are Fred and Carrie from Portland(ia)!
Don’t be stupid. Be a smarty. Undermine the Nazi party! [Read more…]
ESPN sportscaster Jemele Hill in a recent Tweet stated that “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” and “His rise is a direct result of white supremacy. Period.” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when asked to comment on the Tweet, said that “I think that’s one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make and certainly something that I think is a fireable offense by ESPN.” All In’s Chris Hayes invites Brittney Cooper, Professor of Africana Studies, Rutgers University, and Jason Johnson, Professor of Political Science, Morgan State University, to discuss. [Read more…]
By Unknown
A common and seemingly reasonable argument for white pride or white nationalism is, “Why can’t I be proud of my culture?”
Well, you can. Always have been able to.
We have Irish pride celebrations, we have German drinking festivals, we have Serbian food festivals. Any European culture you can think of has multiple organizations in North America dedicated to taking pride in their heritage and no one gives them shit for it.
But, you see, when you start talking “white pride,” that’s not a culture. That’s a skin color. There is no white culture; never was. There is no pan-European culture, never was. Europe is a continent, not a culture or ethnicity.
Now, some of you are probably about to go, “But wait! Black pride! How is that okay?“ [Read more…]
R.I.P. Edith Windsor (June 20, 1929 – September 12, 2017). Edith and her partner of over 40 years, Thea Spyer, were married in Toronto, Canada in May 2007. Thea had been diagnosed in 1977 with progressive multiple sclerosis and at the time of their marriage was already gravely suffering from related conditions. Thea died from complications related to her heart condition on February 5, 2009. On Thea’s death, Edith inherited her estate, and she was subsequently presented with a bill for $363,053 for federal estate taxes. If federal law had recognized the validity of their marriage, she would have been eligible for an unlimited spousal deduction and would not have owed anything in federal tax. Edith attempted to claim the spousal deduction but the IRS denied the request citing Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as the reason and compelled her to pay. Even though on the surface the issue was one of tax liability, fundamentally it was about equality. Thus, on November 9th, 2010, Edith filed the federal lawsuit seeking a refund that would eventually become the Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor where she succeeded in having the court declare Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. [Read more…]
Launched on Oct. 15, 1997, reaching Saturn in June 2004, after two decades in space, the Cassini satellite is making it’s Grand Finale on September 15th by plunging into the planet’s atmosphere. As a sort of retrospective here’s an animation from “In Saturn’s Rings”, a project that uses high resolution images from the Cassini to create videos that portray the journey of the satellite as it orbits the ringed planet and passes near its moons. This video is from 2014 and includes a glimpse of Titan in the lower left at the beginning, then a fly-by of Mimas with a good view of the Herschel Crater followed by a transit of the ring plane, leading into a fly-by of Enceladus, an ice-geyser moon. [Read more…]
