Rise and Shine

A year ago …… July 16, 2012: President Obama kisses First Lady Michelle Obama for the “Kiss Cam” while attending the U.S. Men’s Olympic basketball team’s game against Brazil at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.

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Today (All times Eastern):

10:0 Vice President Biden will swear in Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) as the freshman Massachusetts senator at the U.S. Capitol

11:0: President Obama is interviewed by Spanish language news anchors

12:45: Press Briefing by Jay Carney

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On Thursday, the First Lady, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule, will visit Urban Alliance Chicago, a year-long career education and employment program for underserved high school seniors which enriches students’ lives through paid internships, formal training, and mentoring. The visit is part of the First Lady’s focus on youth empowerment and providing more opportunities for young people to achieve their full potential.

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George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush present President Obama with a pair of socks, July 15 (Photo by Pete Souza)

‏@ObamaFoodorama

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Steve Benen: For three-and-a-half hours last night, nearly every member of the Senate met behind closed doors in the Old Senate Chamber to discuss a political crisis of sorts: whether the minority would continue to block President Obama’s executive-branch nominees and what the majority intended to do about it.

The meeting itself was rather odd. Senators already have a forum in which they can hold a debate — it’s called the Senate. But their usual chamber has cameras and public seating, and last night, for whatever reason, members wanted to debate in private for a candid conversation.

By all accounts, it was a constructive conversation, but there was no resolution. As I type, there are some back-channel talks underway, but barring a breakthrough, the Senate Democratic leadership intended to move forward with its “nuclear option” plans.

More here

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OFA

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Nobody seems to care that Obama is hurting small businesses! pic.twitter.com/V7lvQMyN #WhiteRage

— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat) July 15, 2013

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Eugene Robinson: Justice failed Trayvon Martin the night he was killed. We should be appalled and outraged, but perhaps not surprised, that it failed him again Saturday night, with a verdict setting his killer free. Our society considers young black men to be dangerous, interchangeable, expendable, guilty until proven innocent. This is the conversation about race that we desperately need to have — but probably, as in the past, will try our best to avoid. Jurors knew that Zimmerman was an overeager would-be cop, a self-appointed guardian of the neighborhood who carried a loaded gun. They were told that he profiled Martin — young, black, hooded sweatshirt — as a criminal. They heard that he stalked Martin despite the advice of a 911 operator; that the stalking led to a confrontation; and that, in the confrontation, Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest.

If anyone wonders why African Americans feel so passionately about this case, it’s because we know that our 17-year-old sons are boys, not men. It’s because we know their adolescent bravura is just that — an imitation of manhood, not the real thing. We know how frightened our sons would be, walking home alone on a rainy night and realizing they were being followed. We know how torn they would be between a child’s fear and a child’s immature idea of manly behavior. We know how they would struggle to decide the right course of action, flight or fight. And we know that a skinny boy armed only with candy, no matter how big and bad he tries to seem, does not pose a mortal threat to a healthy adult man who outweighs him by 50 pounds and has had martial arts training (even if the lessons were mostly a waste of money). We know that the boy may well have threatened the man’s pride but likely not his life. How many murders-by-sidewalk have you heard of recently? Or ever?

More here

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Morgan Whitaker: As the trial weighing the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s voter identification began in Commonwealth Courts Monday, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case say they believe they have begun the legal battle that will ultimately see the ID law declared unconstitutional. The particular ID law is one of the strictest in the country, only accepting certain forms of government or state-issued photo ID. While it was passed more than a year ago, it has yet to take effect as the result of a series of temporary injunctions issued over concerns of potential disenfranchisement.

“This lawsuit is really about a bad law that’s badly written and can lead to only one result: that thousands of voters will lose their right to vote,” Michael Rubin—an attorney on the case from the law firm of Arnold and Porter—told reporters on a conference call before the trial. The law’s opponents have provided analysis that finds more than 650,000 registered voters lack a valid PennDOT or DOS ID, more than 8% of the total number of registered voters. While the law’s supporters point to the creation of a special photo ID that is available for free to voters who need it, the opponents say only about 17,000 of those IDs have been issued to date.

More here

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This is a MUST WATCH. Joy Reid once again doing brilliant work

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THIS is reality for so many black people in America

Cord Jefferson: Tonight a Florida man’s acquittal for hunting and killing a black teenager who was armed with only a bag of candy serves as a Rorschach test for the American public. For people of color, it’s a vivid reminder that we must always be deferential to white people, or face the very real chance of getting killed. When I was junior in college in Virginia, my then-girlfriend and I decided one night to meet up for a quick snack while studying for midterms. We bought some sandwiches at a 24-hour deli and, rather than waste time going to either of our homes, which were in opposite directions, we decided to eat in her car in a parking lot near a fancy hotel off-campus. We were listening to music and laughing about something when I saw a security guard’s headlights in the rear view mirror, and I stopped laughing as I watched him—a white man in his mid-40s—walk up to my girlfriend’s door and ask her to step out of the car. “Uh, OK,” she said, clearly as confused as I was about what we’d done to warrant his attention.

He walked her away from her car toward his, but they were close enough that I could hear their conversation. He asked her her name, a slight southern lilt lengthening his vowels. She told him. Then he said, “Are you OK?” “What do you mean?” she said. “Are you safe right now?” he asked again. My girlfriend was white. I am not. It is a complicated thing to be young, black, and male in America. Not only are you well aware that many people are afraid of you—you can see them clutching their purses or stiffening in their subway seats when you sit across from them—you must also remain conscious of the fact that people expect you to be apologetic for their fear. It’s your job to be remorseful about the fact that your very nature makes them uncomfortable, like a pilot having to apologize to a fearful flyer for being in the sky.

More here

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Facts to counteract the ignorance

Jamelle Bouie: There’s a huge problem with attempt to shift the conversation: There’s no suchthing as “black-on-black” crime. Yes, from 1976 to 2005, 94 percent of black victims were killed by black offenders, but that racial exclusivity was also true for white victims of violent crime—86 percent were killed by white offenders. Indeed, for the large majority of crimes, you’ll find that victims and offenders share a racial identity, or have some prior relationship to each other.

There is no such thing as "black-on-black crime." Crime is driven by proximity. Get the facts and stop the ignorance. thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/…

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Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) July 15, 2013

What Shapiro and others miss about crime, in general, is that it’s driven by opportunism and proximity; If African-Americans are more likely to be robbed, or injured, or killed by other African-Americans, it’s because they tend to live in the same neighborhoods as each other. Residential statistics bear this out (PDF); blacks are still more likely to live near each other or other minority groups than they are to whites. And of course, the reverse holds as well—whites are much more likely to live near other whites than they are to minorities and African-Americans in particular.

Nor are African-Americans especially criminal. If they were, you would still see high rates of crime among blacks, even as the nation sees a historic decline in criminal offenses. Instead, crime rates among African-Americans, and black youth in particular, have taken a sharp drop. In Washington, D.C., for example, fewer than 10 percent of black youth are in a gang, have sold drugs, have carried a gun, or have stolen more than $100 in goods.

More here

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Everyone still needs to monitor JurorB37 because she can self-publish/hire another literary agent. Anyone who would profit off Trayvon Martin’s murder in such a way; is a monster.

David D: A lot has been made about the controversial Zimmerman Trial Juror B37. First she appeared on Anderson Cooper and made comments expressing sympathy and support for Zimmerman. But she really sparked an outrage by announcing — fewer than 48 hours after George Zimmerman was declared Not Guilty — that she’d signed a book deal. Well, one passionate person on Twitter who goes by @MoreandAgain took things into her own hands. First, she sought out the publishing company that signed the juror…she quickly whipped up a Change.org petition calling for literary agent Sharlene Martin to drop Juror B37. Within minutes, the petition had more than a thousand supporters. Martin eventually caved and released this statement: “After careful consideration regarding the proposed book project with Zimmerman Juror B37, I have decided to rescind my offer of representation in the exploration of a book based upon this case.”

Juror B37 fondly refers to Trayvon Martin's killer as "George" and will profit from a black child's death. Think about that for a minute.

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Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) July 16, 2013

Naturally, it was only a matter of time before the juror came to her senses (or realized she was getting dropped by Martin and the book deal was a dead end) and released her own statement: “I realize it was necessary for our jury to be sequestered in order to protest our verdict from unfair outside influence, but that isolation shielded me from the depth of pain that exists among the general public over every aspect of this case. The potential book was always intended to be a respectful observation of the trial from my and my husband’s perspectives solely and it was to be an observation that our ‘system’ of justice can get so complicated that it creates a conflict with our ‘spirit’ of justice. Now that I am returned to my family and to society in general, I have realized that the best direction for me to go is away from writing any sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before I was called to sit on this jury.”

More here

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Fantastic news from what has been a horrible few days

WOW!! Tom Joyner is offering Rachel Jeantel a full ride scholarship to any HBCU of her choosing. *tears*

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Miss Pearl (@Lucy_Pearl) July 16, 2013

Tom Joyner sent Genarlow Wilson to Morehouse on a full scholarship & now he's going to look out for Rachel's education.

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  (@Shugah) July 16, 2013

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The amazing Rachel Jeantel

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On this day….

Vice President Biden and President Obama look at an app on an iPhone in the Outer Oval Office, July 16, 2011.(Photo by Pete Souza)

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It’s been a painful and hard few days but there is always hope; so go out into the world and treat people like you would wish to be treated. Have a Baracktastic Day! 😀

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