"Were you there when they crucified the poor?"

Occupy Catholics and Catholics United protesting Congressman Paul Ryan's budget today outside St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York

National Review Writer Pens Racist Screed: ‘Avoid Concentrations Of Blacks,’ ‘Stay Out Of’ Their Neighborhoods

THINK PROGRESS

Popular conservative columnist and National Review writer John Derbyshire topped all of his previous racist screeds (and sexist rants) today by posting a long breakdown of all of the important lessons he has taught his children about race — and he’s outdone his own racism with this one.

Derbyshire wrote the column in the third person, as a list of lessons to his kids about race. The lessons are his response to “the talk” that black parents have with their children — conversations they are forced to have because of real, persistent racism. After spending a few minutes bemoaning that he can’t say a racist slur (“What you must call ‘the ‘N’ word’ is used freely among blacks but is taboo to nonblacks”) and opining on the hostility he believes all black people feel toward white people like himself (though he says he isn’t white before calling himself white several times), he cuts to the heart of his lessons for his children:

(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.
(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.
(11) The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”

While they are not included in the quote above, Derbyshire peppers the post with links to news stories of crimes, a few random videos, and his own columns. The only “fact” included in the entire piece (and just a small image, at that) is from the offensive book The Bell Curve. Every other hateful, racist claim is based on a one-off story or his own foregone conclusions.

Intuit Is Now The Fourth Company To Drop Voter Suppression Group ALEC

THINK PROGRESS

Software company Intuit, the makers of programs such as Turbo Tax and Quicken, announced today that they will join Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Kraft as the fourth company to end their partnership with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council this week.

The Center for Media & Democracy, which launched ALECexposed.com last year, broke the news:

A stampede seems to be on the way as more and more groups break ties and dump ALEC. Intuit, Inc. (maker of Quicken and QuickBooks accounting software) told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Intuit also decided not to renew its membership after it expired in 2011. That comment came from Bernie McKay, Vice President of Government Affairs. He gave this response when CMD identified that Intuit was no longer listed on the board and contacted the company. CMD began its effort to spotlight Intuit and other corporate funders and tie these corporations to the ALEC agenda when it launched ALECexposed.org in July 2011. … Intuit’s McKay explained to CMD that the company doesn’t “usually issue statements about membership in any organization” and declined to comment further.

Although Pepsi quietly left ALEC as recently as last January, the growing exodus of companies’ from ALEC’s began earlier this week when the progressive group Color of Change announced a petition and boycott campaign targeting ALEC’s corporate supporters. Other corporations that have not yet publicly renounced their support of ALEC include Koch Industries, Wal-Mart, Pfizer, Reynolds American, Altria/Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Exxon Mobil and British alcohol firm Diageo (makers of Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker).

As a recent Center for American Progress report explains, ALEC is one of the leading proponents of so-called Voter ID legislation that potentially disenfranchises millions of low-income, minority, student and elderly voters in an effort to exclude groups that tend to vote Democratic from the franchise. ALEC is also linked to state “Stand Your Ground” laws that can potentially enable accused murders such as Trayvon Martin’s accused assailant George Zimmerman to remain free.

Mitt Romney versus Reality

Gingrich think tank files for bankruptcy

RAW STORY

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s health-care think tank on Wednesday filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, with up to $10 million in debt and as little as $50,000 in assets.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported on Thursday that The Gingrich Group LLC, doing business as the Center for Health Transformation, filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Georgia.

The bankruptcy filing (PDF) indicates that the organization has between 50 and 99 creditors, assets between $50,000 to $100,000 and liabilities of $1 million to $10 million.

The Washington Post reported last year that the Center for Health Transformation had collected more than $37 million from health care insurers and other industry grounds since opening in 2003. The think tank offered health-care companies “access to Newt Gingrich” and “direct Newt interaction.”

Firms like AstraZeneca, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Novo Nordisk were included among some of the biggest funders.

“This ends his campaign,” Emory University political science professor Merle Black told the Business Chronicle. “He’ll now be completely on the defensive about this.”

University of Georgia political science professor Charles S. Bullock III agreed that the news effectively put an end to the former House Speaker’s 2012 presidential hopes.

“Much like his presidential campaign, even the receipt of millions of dollars could not keep Newt Gingrich’s health-care think tank afloat,” Bullock said. “While health-care costs have bankrupted many without insurance, Gingrich may be the first to go broke studying health-care delivery.”

Stefan Passantino, counsel to the Gingrich campaign, insisted that the filing was proof that the country needed a leader like Gingrich because the bankruptcy did not happen on his watch............

Arizona Senate: ‘Energy Efficiency’ Is UN Plot For One-World-Order

Move over, Tennessee. Not only did Arizona get the same crazy John Birch email forward you did, but theirs has actually passed the Senate, a House committee, and (fingers crossed!) is ready to be heard by the whole Arizona House! To recap, for those who unaccountably missed this exact same goddamn story in Tennessee: Twenty years ago, under George H.W. Bush, the US signed onto a nice UN sustainability plan called the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, or Agenda 21. 

Here is where Arizona differs from Tennessee: they have not said (to our knowledge) that Agenda 21 causes forced abortions. 
Here is where it is the same: they want to defund any programs for clean energy or energy efficiency, because “blackhelicoptersUNplotMicheleBachmanncrazeyesSatan.” READ MORE »

Immigration Proposal To Keep Families Together Sparks Conservative "Amnesty" Attack

Right-wing media have attacked a proposed Obama administration rule change that would reduce the amount of time required for undocumented immigrants who are immediate relatives of American citizens to apply for residency as "stealth amnesty" by a "lawless regime." 

But the proposed rule change would allow eligible immigrants to obtain a lawful return visa without a long separation from their families; moreover, immigrant-rights activists have said that the current system encourages people to remain here illegally. Read More

Former New Orleans officers sentenced in Katrina shootings

Reporting from Atlanta—

Punctuating what New Orleans' mayor called a "dark chapter" in his city's history, five former local police officers were sentenced Wednesday for their role in the Danziger Bridge shooting incident, which left two innocent people dead and four others seriously wounded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. District Court Judge Kurt Englehardt handed down long sentences for four of the officers, ranging from 38 to 65 years in prison. The fifth, former Sgt. Arthur Kauffman -- who was not involved in the shootings, but was involved in an attempted cover-up -- received six years.

The Danziger case was the most notorious of several instances of violent police misconduct in the days after Hurricane Katrina, when great swaths of the city were flooded, looters roamed the streets, and many public services, including the Police Department, were in dramatic disarray.

In August, after a six-week trial, a jury found the former officers of the New Orleans Police Department guilty of federal civil rights and obstruction of justice statutes.  ......................................