From [ThinkProgress] President Trump can finally say his administration has added 1 million jobs, thanks to a jobs report released by the Department of Labor on Friday.
But while Trump and his surrogates were quick to present this as a huge accomplishment, it is less than meets the eye.
On Sunday, David Bossie, former Deputy Campaign Manager to Donald Trump and chairman of Citizens United went on Fox News and proclaimed that economic growth is “something we haven’t seen in a very long time.”
But the job growth under Trump is actually down slightly from the final 12 months of President Obama’s presidency. As Politico noted, “an average of 184,000 jobs per month have been created this year, compared to 187,000 in 2016. If you eliminate January, when President Barack Obama was still in office, the monthly average is a somewhat lower 179,000.”
While one million is a nice number that looks great on headlines and cable news chyrons, the Trump administration has said in previous weeks it reached this number when it hadn’t. As reported in Politico, on June 1 Trump said he’s added 1 million jobs when at that point, the Labor Department only reported about 600,000. Last Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration has created over a million new jobs since Trump took office in January.
From [HERE] A 12-month-long Media Matters study of evening cable news programs and broadcast morning shows and nightly newscasts found that discussions of voting rights and issues related to voting featured misinformation pushed by Republican lawmakers and were dominated by President Donald Trump’s false claims about voter fraud and noncitizen voting. Additionally, coverage also lacked discussions of gerrymandering, the impact of voter suppression on the 2016 election, and laws on the state level to curb voting rights.
Key findings from 12 months of broadcast and evening cable news coverage of voting rights
Media Matters analyzed morning news programs and nightly newscasts on ABC, NBC, and CBS, and evening cable news programs on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC from July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017, for segments featuring a substantial discussion of issues related to voting and voting rights. The resulting 561 segments were then coded for mentions of state-based voter suppression efforts, the election, legal issues, and gerrymandering. Segments were also coded for the number of accurate or inaccurate statements each speaker made on the following topics: widespread voter fraud, noncitizen voting, voter ID laws, voter registration inaccuracies, early voting, and gerrymandering.
Based on this analysis, Media Matters identified the following key findings and coverage patterns about issues related to voting and voting rights:
Fox News far outpaced other networks in spreading falsehoods on voting.
Republican politicians made 88 false statements about voting -- as determined by a list of inaccuracies coded for -- while Democratic politicians made no such false statements.
Only five segments mentioned gerrymandering.
Less than 9 percent of segments acknowledged the impact voting restrictions had on the 2016 election.
Fewer than 30 percent of segments mentioned state-based efforts to suppress votes.
Over 70 percent of segments on voting featured Trump’s debunked voter fraud accusations.
Fox News far outpaced other networks in spreading falsehoods on voting
Overall, over twice as many truths were told about voting than falsehoods. Hosts and guests who spoke about voting on broadcast and cable news over the past year made 995 true statements about voting and 433 false statements.
Broadcast morning shows featured over 80 more truths than lies about voting. Over the past year, broadcast morning news programs featured 85 true statements about voting four false statements on the topic. [MORE]
Blacks Unfit For Citizenship? Despite clear commands from the Supreme Court, since 1880 the right of African Americans to serve as jurors has been elusive. There are only a few ways that Americans can meaningfully exercise their citizenship; enlisting in the military, running for national office, voting and serving on a jury. Jury service is a basic right of citizenship . As Justice Thurgood Marshall explained, "no one can be expected to perceive himself to be a full participant in our society as a whole, when he is told by a representative of the government that, because of his race, he is too stupid or too biased to serve on a particular jury." [MORE] and [MORE]
Puppetician Unfit to Run a KFC? From [ThinkProgress] Famed defense attorney and Harvard University Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, a racist suspect, told a talk radio host on Friday that the large African American population in the District of Columbia could prove problematic to the Trump administration as special counsel Robert Mueller moves forward with his investigation of potential coordination between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.
In an interview with WABC Radio host Rita Cosby, also a racist supsect, Dershowitz said Washington has always been solidly Democratic and “has an ethnic and racial composition that might be very unfavorable to the Trump administration.” Mueller has reportedly impaneled grand juries in Washington and Northern Virginia as part of his ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Dershowitz said the make-up of the grand jury in Northern Virginia does not concern him as much because the region “is a swing area, sometimes Democrat, sometimes Republican.”
Cosby asked Dershowitz if he thinks the location of the grand jury “stacks the deck” against Trump. Dershowitz said he does, adding, “I think it’s a tactical move designed to send a message that if the prosecutor decides to prosecute, he will have a real advantage with the jury pool where the case will be held.”
In a 2016 interview prior to the presidential election, Dershowitz said he has found Trump “very pleasant” and “very charming” the couple times he has met him. “I liked him as a person,” recalled Dershowitz, who said his view of Trump is that the president “is not a bigot.”
From [NYTimes] In a test of labor’s ability to expand its reach in the South, workers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi overwhelmingly rejected a bid to unionize, an election that the union quickly criticized.
Out of roughly 3,500 employees at the Canton-based plant who voted Thursday and Friday, more than 60 percent opposed the union. It was an emphatic coda to a yearslong organizing effort underwritten by the United Automobile Workers, which has been repeatedly frustrated in its efforts to organize auto plants in the region.
The union accused the company of waging an unusually aggressive fight against the organizing effort. “Perhaps recognizing they couldn’t keep their workers from joining our union based on the facts, Nissan and its anti-worker allies ran a vicious campaign against its own work force that was comprised of intense scare tactics, misinformation and intimidation,” Dennis Williams, the U.A.W. president, said in a statement after the vote.
The company said its employees had spoken and urged the U.A.W. to “respect and abide by their decision and cease their efforts to divide our Nissan family.”
The election campaign at the plant, where a large majority of workers are African-American, frequently took on racial overtones. Some employees alleged that white supervisors dispensed special treatment to white subordinates, a charge the company emphatically denied. [MORE]
In photo former Oklahoma County prosecutor Brad Miller was suspended from practicing law for only 180 days for “reprehensible” misconduct in a 1993 murder case, which lead to death sentences for 2 Black men [MORE] In 2006, a federal judge dismissed the murder convictions of Paris Powell and Yancy Douglas after finding that a deal made between the prosecutor and the key witness in the case was never disclosed to the defense attorneys. The Oklahoma Supreme Court found that Miller misused the subpoena process to force witnesses to cooperate, failed to disclose evidence to defense attorneys, and prevented the defense from accessing evidence. [MORE]
From [HERE] A former Oklahoma Black death row inmate freed after a court found prosecutorial misconduct has settled his lawsuit against a former prosecutor and the state of Oklahoma for an undisclosed amount.
The Oklahoman reported SaturdayYancy Douglas accepted the settlement in the federal case in which he initially sought $32 million for wrongful imprisonment, malicious prosecution and other claims.
Douglas and another former death row inmate, Paris Powell, filed separate federal lawsuits in 2010 after their murder convictions were overturned.
The two were convicted in the fatal drive-by shooting of a 14-year-old girl in south Oklahoma City in 1993. But a federal appeals court overturned their convictions in 2009 after concluding the racist suspect prosecutor, Brad Miller, knowingly used false testimony from the only eyewitness.
The federal appeals court condemned the prosecutor for his "knowing use of false testimony" from the only eyewitness.
From [HERE] White resentment put Donald Trump in the White House. And there is every indication that it will keep him there, especially as he continues to transform that seething, irrational fear about an increasingly diverse America into policies that feed his supporters’ worst racial anxieties.
If there is one consistent thread through Mr. Trump’s political career, it is his overt connection to white resentment and white nationalism. Mr. Trump’s fixation on Barack Obama’s birth certificate gave him the white nationalist street cred that no other Republican candidate could match, and that credibility has sustained him in office — no amount of scandal or evidence of incompetence will undermine his followers’ belief that he, and he alone, could Make America White Again.
The guiding principle in Mr. Trump’s government is to turn the politics of white resentment into the policies of white rage — that calculated mechanism of executive orders, laws and agency directives that undermines and punishes minority achievement and aspiration. No wonder that, even while his White House sinks deeper into chaos, scandal and legislative mismanagement, Mr. Trump’s approval rating among whites (and only whites) has remained unnaturally high. Washington may obsess over Obamacare repeal, Russian sanctions and the debt ceiling, but Mr. Trump’s base sees something different — and, to them, inspiring.
Like on Christmas morning, every day brings his supporters presents: travel bans against Muslims, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Hispanic communities and brutal, family-gutting deportations, a crackdown on sanctuary cities, an Election Integrity Commission stacked with notorious vote suppressors, announcements of a ban on transgender personnel in the military, approval of police brutality against “thugs,” a denial of citizenship to immigrants who serve in the armed forces and a renewed war on drugs that, if it is anything like the last one, will single out African-Americans and Latinos although they are not the primary drug users in this country. Last week, Mr. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions put the latest package under the tree: a staffing call for a case on reverse discrimination in college admissions, likely the first step in a federal assault on affirmative action and a determination to hunt for colleges and universities that discriminate against white applicants.
That so many of these policies are based on perception and lies rather than reality is nothing new. White resentment has long thrived on the fantasy of being under siege and having to fight back, as the mass lynchings and destruction of thriving, politically active black communities in Colfax, La. (1873), Wilmington, N.C. (1898), Ocoee, Fla. (1920), and Tulsa, Okla. (1921), attest. White resentment needs the boogeyman of job-taking, maiden-ravaging, tax-evading, criminally inclined others to justify the policies that thwart the upward mobility and success of people of color.
For the first time in this prestigious institution’s history, the incoming class of students at Harvard University is majority minority.
That has never happened in its 380 years of existence. The class of 2021 is 50.8 percent minority, and is comprised of Blacks, Hispanics or Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native Americans or Pacific Islanders, the Boston Globe reported.
“To become leaders in our diverse society, students must have the ability to work with people from different backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives,” Harvard spokeswoman Rachael Dane said in the statement. “Harvard remains committed to enrolling diverse classes of students.”
This milestone was close to happening a year ago as minority students made up 47.3 percent of the incoming freshman class, the publication reported.
Neely Fuller explained a long time ago that "Most white people hate Black people. The reason that most white people hate Black people is because whites are not Black people. If you know this about white people, you need know little else. If you do not know this about white people, virtually all else that you know about them will only confuse you."
Dr. Frances Cress Welsing added on, "to take Fuller's account a step further, it should be noted that, in the majority of instances, any neurotic drive for superiority usually is founded upon a deep and pervading sense of inadequacy and inferiority. Is it not true that white people represent in numerical terms a very small minority of the world's people? [the world is over 90% white] And more profoundly, is not "white" itself the very absence of any ability to produce color? I reason, then, that the quality of whiteness is indeed a genetic inadequacy or a relative genetic deficiency state, based upon the genetic inability to produce the skin pigments of melanin (which is responsible for all skin color). The vast majority of the world's people are not so afflicted, which suggests that color is normal for human beings and color absence is abnormal. [MORE] and [MORE]
People who classify themselves as White, who wish to be taken seriously, and who are righteous and responsible, will only talk about ending White Supremacy (Racism) and replacing it with Justice. [MORE]
From [HERE] New polling indicates that a majority of voters view the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) negatively. The survey data indicated a profound racial disagreement over how people perceived the activist movement. It also indicated that the country was evenly split on whether the criminal justice system was stacked against African Americans.
On Aug. 2, a Harvard-Harris survey found that 43 percent of registered voters viewed BLM favorably while 57 percent of respondents viewed the movement unfavorably. Caucasians were far more likely to disapprove of the group than African Americans; 83 percent of black respondents viewed BLM favorably while only 35 percent of white respondents shared that sentiment, The Hill reports.
The poll also found a partisan difference of opinion about BLM. Only 21 percent of Republican respondents viewed the movement favorably while a majority 65 percent of Democrats approved of the group. [MORE]
"Most white people hate Non-White people. The reason that most white people hate Non-White people is because whites are not Non-White people. If you know this about white people, you need know little else. If you do not know this about white people, virtually all else that you know about them will only confuse you." - Neely Fuller
From [HERE] An Asian woman in Sydney, Australia sustained multiple facial fractures after a racist Australian man assaulted her while she was walking her dog with a friend.
In the video of the brutal assault aired on 7 News, 34-year-old Steven Burke can be seen dishing out multiple punches on a defenseless 29-year-old Jing Song.
The attacker, who was identified as a former security worker in Iraq, reportedly went on a verbal racist tirade against Song when they encountered each other on the street.
When Burke’s tirade began turning physical, Song took out her phone to record the attack.
“Get out of my face,” Burke can be heard shouting as he went for a punch.
“You are punching a woman! ” she screams. “Why? Help!” [MORE]
White People’s behavior & attitudes toward Blacks. According to Dr. Bobby Wright, "Behavioral scientists generally agree that the outstanding characteristics of the psychopathic personality are the almost complete absence of ethical or moral development and an almost total disregard for appropriate patterns of behavior. This characteristic has led to a misunderstanding of the psychopath as someone who does not know the difference between right and wrong. This belief is not true; psychopaths simply ignore the concept of right and wrong. By ignoring this trait in the White race (the lack of ethical and moral development) Blacks have made and are still making a tragic mistake in basing the worldwide Black liberation movement on moral suasion. It is pathological for Blacks to keep attempting to use moral suasion on a people who have no morality where race is the variable." [MORE]
From [HERE] New video appearing to show a black labourer in South African being forced into a coffin by two white farmers and threatened with being burned alive has brought a courtroom to tears.
Twenty extra armed police officers have been drafted in to keep law and order after the full two-minute coffin clip was shown, in which terrified Victor Mlotshwa begs for his life.
In the disturbing video, Mr Mlotshwa is seen with his hands clasped together in prayer, begging and screaming as he appears to be forced into the coffin.
One of his alleged attackers is then seen pressing the lid down with his foot as the victim screams in terror, believing the pair were about to pour petrol in.
From [MediaMatters] The White House has endorsed the RAISE Act, a staunchly anti-immigrant piece of legislation that would drastically cut legal immigration to the U.S. on the false premise that immigrants have a negative impact on the economy. To defend its support for the bill, the White House relied on widely-criticized studies by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and cited the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and NumbersUSA for their praise of the bill. CIS, FAIR, and NumbersUSA are anti-immigrant nativist groups that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has labeled “hate groups.” After years of right-wing media promoting their policies and mainstream media legitimizing them in their reports, the Trump administration is finally manifesting their nativist wish list.
The White House backed an immigration reform bill that would slash legal immigration
Wash. Post: Trump endorsed RAISE Act, legislation that would limit legal immigration. On August 2, President Donald Trump endorsed an immigration bill co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), The Washington Post reported. According to the Post, The Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act would “create a ‘merit-based’ immigration system” and “reduce the annual distribution of green cards awarding permanent legal residence to just over 500,000 from more than 1 million.” The bill would also “create a point system based on factors such as English ability, education levels and job skills to rank applicants for the 140,000 employment-based green cards distributed annually,” the Post reported. The legislation was “quickly denounced” by Democrats and, according to the story, “is also likely to face resistance from ... moderate Republicans.” From the August 2 report:
Trump appeared with Republican Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and David Perdue (Ga.) at the White House to unveil a modified version of a bill the senators first introduced in February to create a “merit-based” immigration system that would put a greater emphasis on the job skills of foreigners over their ties to family in the United States.
The legislation seeks to reduce the annual distribution of green cards awarding permanent legal residence to just over 500,000 from more than 1 million. Trump promised on the campaign trail to take a harder line on immigration, arguing that the growth in new arrivals had harmed job opportunities for American workers.
[...]
The bill would create a point system based on factors such as English ability, education levels and job skills to rank applicants for the 140,000 employment-based green cards distributed annually.
[...]
The legislation was quickly denounced by congressional Democrats, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and immigrant rights groups. It is also likely to face resistance from some business leaders and moderate Republicans in states with large immigrant populations.
Typically, presidents don’t get very long to push Congress to pass their agendas. And for President Trump, who has yet to pass any major legislation, time is quickly running out.
Barack Obama had only two years of unified Democratic control of Congress, from 2009 to 2011. George W. Bush enjoyed four years of GOP dominance from 2003 to 2007, as well as the spring of 2001. Bill Clinton had two years — 1993 to 1995. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush never had a Republican House.
And yet each of those presidents used his legislative majority to significant effect. Obama passed a stimulus package, the Affordable Care Act, and the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. Bush passed Medicare Part D and several waves of tax cuts. Clinton narrowly got his 1993 budget package, including big tax hikes on the rich and a huge expansion of the earned income tax credit, as well as a crime bill. Even George H.W. Bush and Reagan were able to get major tax changes, cuts to social services, and hikes for defense through a Democratic House.
We’re now about 25 percent of the way through the 115th Congress, which could very well be the only two years in which Donald Trump has a Republican majority in Congress. And Trump has no major legislative achievements to show for himself.
But its first major legislative initiative, health care reform, has stalled, potentially for good. Barely any progress has been made on tax reform. An infrastructure plan is nowhere to be seen. Even funding for Trump’s beloved border wall hasn’t passed yet. [MORE]
Don't Snitch On Yourself, Don't Talk to Cops. From [TheIntercept]ON A SWELTERING July afternoon, Houston police officer Jesus Robles slowed his squad car as he passed a pushcart vendor hawking popsicles called paletas in a park named after the father of Mexican independence.
“This is the heart of Magnolia,” he explained, using an affectionate term for the longtime immigrant community served by the Houston Police Department’s Eastside Division. “These are humble people who don’t ask for much other than to be left alone to work and take care of their families.”
Robles himself is a Mexican immigrant whose mother swam across the Rio Grande with him in her arms. She was granted amnesty under Ronald Reagan, allowing Robles to eventually gain citizenship two decades later. Now he says undocumented residents who used to seek his help are alarmed by a Texas law that will let police check the immigration status of anyone they detain.
“These are the people who would become afraid to call us or be witnesses to crimes,” Robles said, gesturing toward the vendor, adding that even legal immigrants avoid contact with police in order to protect undocumented family members or friends.
Set to take effect September 1, Senate Bill 4 bans local law enforcement agencies from adopting “patterns or practices” that limit cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Sheriffs, police chiefs, and jail administrators face Class A misdemeanor charges and fines up to $25,500 if they violate the law by instructing officers not to inquire about immigration status or comply with so-called detainer requests to transfer jailed immigrants to ICE custody.
From [HERE] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is accusing the Justice Department of using harsh and the"bullying tactics" to force cities to comply with its immigration policies.
The DOJ offered financial aid to 12 cities struggling with increased violent crime in June to help them combat gang activity and drug trafficking. But on Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent letters to four of the selected cities—Baltimore; Albuquerque, N.M.; Stockton, Calif.; and San Bernardino, Calif.—telling them that in order to receive the extra funding they would need to comply with federal immigration authorities.
The cities' leaders were ordered to give federal agents access to their jails and to notify immigration authorities before an undocumented immigrant is released from jail.
"By protecting criminals from immigration enforcement, cities and states with so-called 'sanctuary' policies make all of us less safe," said Sessions.
Sunday, August 6, 2017 at 11:49PM 
