MSNBC’s James Peterson ‘More Concerned’ With Republican Legislatures Than Ku Klux Klan

Folks in Springfield, MO got an unwelcome surprise over the weekend when the Ku Klux Klan dropped “Neighborhood Watch” flyersattached to rocks on residents’ lawns. The leaflets featured an illustration of a hooded klansman (not sure where Geraldo is on that), and urged residents to call their toll-free “Klanline,” which is presumably also listed in the White Pages. From The Grio:

The flyers were discovered by residents on Sunday morning, who woke up to find the piece of paper in a plastic bag and weighted down by a small rockreports KY3 News.

The flyer, which shows an image of a masked and hooded Klansman, was made in attempt to recruit members of the community to launching a neighborhood watch program.

“Are there troubles in your neighborhood? Contact the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan today!” it says. “You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake!”

One resident, Steven Burchett said he was “furious” when he came across the flyer in his front yard.

MSNBC contributor Dr. James Peterson wasn’t all that impressed, telling Martin Bashir that “I’m less concerned about the KKK, and more concerned about Republican legislatures and other political officials trying to block or impede access to the polls.”

“I’m also concerned about conservative commentators and others who want to talk about cultural depravity as one of the sort of ruling reasons for the decline of a city like Detroit,” he added.

Peterson’s comment is as much a comment on the (fortunately) pathetic state of the Klan as anything else. While still a potent symbol of a terrifying past that continues to reach into our present, organizationally, the Klan is a shell of its former self, fragmented and devoted to a doomed grasp at respectability. They’re about as scary as a rogue book club. As Peterson notes, however, Republicans have, with mixed success, conducted an all-out assault on voting rights that shows no sign of letting up, and commentators have been conducting a dangerous propaganda campaignagainst urban black communities.

Via: Mediaite

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5 Ways Liberalism Destroyed Detroit

"Does anybody think it's OK to have 40-year-old trees growing through the roofs of dilapidated houses?" -- Detroit's Emergency ManagerKevyn Orr

"A few years ago, the nonpartisan Bay Area Center for Voting Research rated Detroit as the most liberal city in America." -- Michael Tanner

Detroit was once one of the world's great cities. It was the 4th largest metropolis in America, jobs were plentiful because of the auto industry, and Motown even kept it on the cutting edge musically.

Unfortunately, from 1962 until the present day, the mayor of Detroit has been a Democrat.

The result?

Detroit's population has dropped from 1.8 million to just over 700,000, the unemployment rate is over 50% if you count the people who've given up on finding jobs, property values have dropped so much you can buy homes in the crime-ridden city for $500, and Detroit has gone bankrupt.

How did Democrats kill one of the most prosperous cities in America? With the same sort of unfettered liberalism that Democrats like Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi want to foist on the rest of the nation.

Via: Townhall

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New EPA chief: Can everybody please “stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs?”

BOSTON — The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency told an audience at Harvard Law School on Tuesday that cutting carbon pollution will “feed the economic agenda of this country” and vowed to work with industry leaders on shaping policies aimed at curbing global warming.

“Climate change will not be resolved overnight,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told the 310-member audience. “But it will be engaged over the next three years. That I can promise you.”

McCarthy made a full-throated defense of her agency’s right to address greenhouse-gas emissions and other pollutants, saying that air-quality regulations and environmental cleanup efforts have already produced economic benefits in the United States.

“Can we stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs, please?” she asked, prompting loud applause. “We need to embrace cutting-edge technology as a way to spark business innovation.”

She also made a joke of her strong Boston accent by repeating, “And I said, ‘spaahrk.’ ” McCarthy also joked about the challenge she faced in getting her post, calling her confirmation “the honor of a lifetime.”

“That’s a very good thing, because I swear it took two lifetimes to get confirmed,” she said.

The speech represented a homecoming for McCarthy, a Boston area native, who was introduced by her  27-year-old daughter, Maggie McCarey, a program coordinator at the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources.

McCarthy, a veteran of Republican administrations in Massachusetts and Connecticut, has spent much of the past four years at the EPA shepherding through air regulations, which have come under attack from business groups for helping shut down power plants. Her nomination to succeed former EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson dragged on for more than four months as several GOP senators used the pick as a way to highlight their problems with President Obama’s environmental agenda.

Via: The Washington Post

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Kids are rejecting school lunch mandates, adults should too

During the 1950s, school lunches were prepared on site. Children enjoyed the smell of baking bread and roasted meats which wetted their appetites. Jell-O filled with fruit, hot dishes containing corn, green beans, and carrots, topped with tatter tots, sweet potatoes and ham smothered in raisin sauce, big chunks of chicken with gravy over mashed potatoes; creamed tuna on shoe string potatoes were among the favorite menus. All meals were served with vegetables and fruit. The menus were so popular many recipes were reprinted in local newspapers.

School boards across the United States are currently working on budgets and analyzing their expenditures. The cost of school lunches plays an important role in balancing them. The Rice Lake, Wisconsin, school district is a microcosm of districts across America. Their students are tossing the cauliflower and broccoli and turning their noses up at the offer of endless fruit and vegetables. The federal program requires schools to provide less protein, and all recipes used by the district must be approved by the federal government.

Corn, one of the few vegetables enjoyed by most children, was discouraged by the federal government because it is too high in carbohydrates. Some cooks wonder whether the real reason is that the federal government wants the corn to be used to dilute gasoline rather than feed our children.

Parents are complaining that their children are starving by the end of the school day. This is a typical consequence when the federal government takes control of anything. An inordinate amount of money is spent, but the goal is not met.

Of course, the real reason kids are hungry is that they aren’t as keen on their new federally-regulated diets as the First Lady, and one-size-fits-all regulations are unsuited for meeting their needs. American children ages five to eighteen are rejecting the new school lunch program, even as adults quake in fear of being punished with the loss of federal dollars.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Veteran Journalist on Obama: 'What a Remarkable Combination of Arrogance and Impotence'

What If Obama Can't Lead?

Why the president's defenders are wrong when they argue Obama is impotent.

Two New York Times reporters recently posited for President Obama this grim scenario: Low growth, high unemployment, and growing income inequality become "the new normal" in the nation he leads. "Do you worry," the journalists asked him, "that that could end up being your legacy simply because of the obstruction ... and the gridlock that doesn't seem to end?"

Obama's reply was telling. "I think if I'm arguing for entirely different policies and Congress ends up pursuing policies that I think don't make sense and we get a bad result," he said, "it's hard to argue that'd be my legacy."

Actually, it's hard to argue that it wouldn't be his legacy. History judges U.S. presidents based upon what they did and did not accomplish. The obstinacy of their rivals and the severity of their circumstances is little mitigation. Great presidents overcome great hurdles.

In Obama's case, the modern GOP is an obstructionist, rudderless party often held hostage by extremists. So … get over it. His response to The New York Times is another illustration that Obama and his liberal allies have a limited—and limiting—definition of presidential leadership.

I call it the White Flag Syndrome.

Their argument is best expressed by Ezra Klein of The Washington Post, who posted a thoughtful rebuttal in May to journalists like me who demand more leadership from the White House.

"The problems of American politics today are not overly complicated, or even overly controversial. They're just hard to fix.

 The two political parties have polarized. Unlike in the 1960s, when Jesse Helms was a Democrat, and George Romney was a Republican, today's Republicans agree with Republicans, and today's Democrats agree with Democrats. That, plus the zero-sum nature of elections and the rise of an ideological media and interest-group infrastructure that credibly threatens dissenters with primary challenges, has made bipartisan consensus on most big issues structurally impossible.

 That's fine. It's how most political systems operate, in fact. But our political system, which is centered around Congress rather than the White House, requires extraordinary levels of consensus to operate smoothly. That leaves us with two choices: Either figure out a way to depolarize the parties or change the rules of the political system so it can operate more smoothly even amid polarization."

Klein wrote that we're not going to depolarize the parties, and thus the goal must to identify what "tweaks and reforms" we can make to the political structure so that it can withstand polarization. That won't be easy, Klein wrote.

Via: National Journal

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8th woman claims she was sexually harassed by Bob Filner

SAN DIEGO - The eighth alleged victim of sexual harassment by Bob Filner said Tuesday the San Diego mayor twirled her wedding band and kissed her cheek following a meeting two years ago.

Lisa Curtin, an administrator with San Diego City College, told 10News' media partner KPBS the encounter took place after the two discussed the use of property near the former Naval Training Center in Point Loma.

According to Curtin, Filner pulled her aside and asked her if the ring was real, and she said it had been for 25 years.

"He then told me if it could come off while I was in D.C., and if I would go out with him," Curtin told the station. "I said, 'I really didn't think so.'

 "And at that point, he pulled my hand closer to him and he reached over to kiss me," Curtin said. "I turned my head at that moment, and on the side of my face, I got a very wet, saliva-filled kiss, including feeling his tongue
by my cheek."

Curtin said she told her aides about the incident but never contacted authorities because he had made a point about how powerful he was. She has since contacted a hotline set up by the San Diego Sheriff's Department for women who believe they have been harassed by Filner.

One woman, former mayoral Communications Director Irene McCormack Jackson, hired high-profile Los Angeles lawyer Gloria Allred and sued Filner and the city last week.

The other victims have revealed their identities via KPBS interviews and accused the mayor of various unwanted sexual advances.

The mayor has conceded that he has a problem and plans to enter a behavioral therapy center Monday for two weeks. However, he has insisted on due process regarding the allegations, and has rebuffed numerous calls for his resignation.

Via: ABC 10 News

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