By Associated Press. President Obama said the United States has not overcome its history of racism and is using the N-word to make his case.
In an interview, Obama weighed in on the debate over race and guns that has erupted after the arrest of a white man for the racially motivated shooting deaths of nine black church members in Charleston, South Carolina.
“Racism, we are not cured of it,” Obama said. “And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.”
Obama’s remarks came during an interview out Monday with comedian Marc Maron for his popular podcast, where crude language is often part of the discussion.
The president said while attitudes about race have improved significantly since he was born to a white mother and black father, the legacy of slavery “casts a long shadow and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on.” (Read more from “Obama Drops the N Word in Recent Interview on Racism” HERE)
By Jordyn Phelps. President Obama did not plan to use the n-word in his interview with comedian Marc Maron, but he doesn’t regret the word choice either.
“As is as evident from the conversation, it was a free-flowing conversation,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl at Monday’s press briefing. “It was pretty wide-ranging, and there was no decision made on the part of anybody here at the White House that we are going to capitalize on this audio interview from somebody’s garage in California, that this would be an opportune time for him to get this particular point off his chest.”
Although the president’s word choice was unconventional in the interview on Maron’s “WTF” podcast, Earnest said, the point he was making was “entirely consistent” with a message he has made numerous times on race relations — that although much progress has been made in recent decades, “we’re not cured” of the “legacy of slavery” and Jim Crow.
“It’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say n***** in public,” the president told Maron. “That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.”
While the president said the history of slavery still “casts a long shadow” on American society, he also reflected on the progress that’s been made. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-23 03:58:462016-04-11 10:59:44Obama Drops the N Word in Recent Interview on Racism
By Kara Pendleton. Morgan Wheeler was getting ready to leave the store parking lot when a wheelchair-bound man crossed her path. Struggling, he waved at her in an apologetic way for delaying her car from backing out.
She could have impatiently waited for him to pass and then been on her way. Instead, she did something that’s inspiring people who read her story:
I walked out of Wal Mart today and got in my car. As I began to pull out, I had to wait for a man in a wheelchair to pass by. As I watched him, I noticed that he was missing his right leg from the knee down and was wearing, what appeared to be, old, government issued, combat boots. He was (from my guess) in his late sixties/early seventies and seemed to be stopping to take a break. He had not realized that I had started my car and was attempting to pull out, so when he saw me, he waved in an apologetic manner and rolled forward three more times and took another break. I backed up my car the inches I had previously pulled forward, put it in park, turned off the engine, and got out. I walked up to him and introduced myself. I asked him if I could assist him with his shopping today, and he, quite grumpily, said that he was doing just fine and was not getting much anyways. Me, being as stubborn as I am, insisted and proceeded to push him and tell him a little about myself. He interrupted me and said that he only needed help to the door, to which I picked up where I had left off before he interrupted me. I told him about Fayetteville, and my horses, and my nephews (I had parked a good ways away from the doors). And when I reached the doors, I continued to push him and talk. We reached the produce area and I asked him to tell me about himself. He reluctantly looked at me and began telling me that he lived in Sod- Lincoln County, and that he just recently lost his wife. I asked him if he was a veteran, to which he replied that he was- but with pain on his face, so I changed the subject and asked if he had made a shopping list. He handed me a list with only four things on it: peanut butter, soup, bread, and bananas. So we began shopping and I continued to talk… hard to believe- I know. Once we had gotten the items he needed, I asked if he needed the essentials: milk, eggs, butter. He told me that he might not make it home, without them going bad. So I questioned how he got to the store. He told me that he did what he was doing in the parking lot until he got to 119 and then hitch hiked with a trucker to the parking lot. So I called a taxi for him and grabbed the essentials plus a few other things and put them in the cart. After placing a gallon of milk in his cart he was crying. People were passing by us, looking sideways at him. I knelt down and asked him what was wrong and he replied, that I “was doing far too much for an old man that I barely knew.” I told him that where I am from, and from the family I was raised in, we help one another, no matter the task and that I had never met a stranger. I also told him that he deserved everything I was doing for him because he fought for my freedom and sacrificed so much. We made it to the check out line and I paid for his groceries, against his request. When we got outside, we waited for the taxi together. He thanked me over and over again and appeared- to me- to have been in a much better mood than when I found him. When the taxi arrived, I helped him load his groceries and wheelchair into the taxi and asked the driver to take him home and help him into his house with his groceries. I gave him the only cash I had on me- $44, also against his will. I told him thank you for his service before closing the door. Tears formed again and he thanked me one last time and said, “God bless you.” I returned to my car, and could not help but cry. This is the world we live in today. How many people passed him and would have continued to pass him while he struggled? How many people are willing to give their money to Vanity Fair to read all about Bruce Jenner and not help a veteran pay for his groceries? Today was a truly humbling experience for me, and I consider myself extremely blessed to have the capability of understanding what is truly important in this world. THAT man was a HERO, and far too many will say otherwise. I am sorry that this post was so long, and if you have read it to this point, I hope you are as humbled as I was. God bless the men and women who have fought for our right to view the wrong people as heroes, and thank God for the people who know better.
Toward the end of her post, the West Virginia woman shares her thoughts on the significance of the experience:
“I returned to my car, and could not help but cry. This is the world we live in today. How many people passed him and would have continued to pass him while he struggled? How many people are willing to give their money to Vanity Fair to read all about Bruce Jenner and not help a veteran pay for his groceries?”
(Read more from “A Disabled Vet Was Struggling Through the Parking Lot When a Woman Stopped and Brought Him to Tears” HERE)
Veterans Face Complications in Getting Medical Care
By Melissa Blasius. From a secret patient waiting list to a piles of prescription pills, KUSA exposes the Veterans Affairs Department’s casualties of care.
This 30-minute news special culminates a year of investigation, including discussions with current and former VA employees and dozens of veterans who rely on the VA for care.
KUSA found:
The former director of the Denver VA hospital knew about an unauthorized patient list in the sleep clinic in 2011. More recently, hospital administrators were aware of other scheduling improprieties involving specialty doctor referrals, according to emails sent to scheduling staff.
Mental health patients say they’ve had to wait months to see a therapist. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-06-23 03:58:362016-04-11 10:59:44A Disabled Vet Was Struggling Through the Parking Lot When a Woman Stopped and Brought Him to Tears [+video]
Walmart is selling several posters and prints glorifying dead communist thug Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Guevara was a notorious anti-Black racist from Argentina who murdered hungry children and became an icon for leftists around the world for his role in the 1959 communist takeover of Cuba . . .
In 2006, Walmart competitor Target pulled a CD carrying case with a Che Guevara image after customers complained, according to the AP.
In 2012 Urban Outfitters stopped selling Che Guevara posters in response to customer outrage.
Walmart has several pages of Che Guevara merchandise for sale on its Website. While books and movies about Guevara are not objectionable, posters and fine art prints glorifying Guevara that Walmart also sells crosses a line to de facto endorsement of the racist, communist murderer.
Most of the seventeen Che Guevara posters and prints Walmart is selling are based on the iconic photo of the beret-wearing Guevara taken by the late Alberto Diaz Gutierrez, aka Alberto Korda, entitled Guerrillero Heroico. (Read more from “Walmart Sells Che Guevara Items Glorifying Racist Communist Thug” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-23 03:58:282016-04-11 10:59:45Walmart Sells Che Guevara Items Glorifying Racist Communist Thug
A crowd estimated in the hundreds of thousands gathered in Rome’s San Giovanni Square on June 20 to engage in a Family Day protest against a bill backed by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi that would create civil unions for same-sex couples. The square, adjacent to the Basilica of St. John Lateran, can hold an estimated 300,000 people, but the crowd of protesters overflowed beyond its boundaries, an AFP photographer said.
The bill that Renzi has attempted to push though Parliament would, in addition to establishing civil unions for homosexuals, provide for the teaching of “gender theories” in Italian schools. It passed the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of Parliament) on June 10 and must now be approved by the Senate. Renzi seeks a Senate vote on the legislation during the next few weeks, with the aim of it being enacted before the end of July. The prime minister is a member of Italy’s Democratic Party, which is often described as being “center-left,” but has inherited a legacy of socialism from its predecessors.
Italian Democrats were energized in their push for civil unions after voters in Ireland — which like Italy, has a large majority of Catholics — approved a referendum on May 23 legalizing same-sex “marriage by a 62.1-percent affirmative vote. Following that vote, Renzi said: “Civil unions [in Italy] cannot be delayed any longer.”
And Italy’s Democratic Party leader Roberto Speranza called the Irish vote a “joy,” adding that “now it is Italy’s turn.” Another party leader, Laura Boldrini, the president the Chamber of Deputies, tweeted an approving message on the day of the Irish referendum that translates as: “being European means recognizing rights.”
While the Democrats may be the strongest political party in Italy, with a large plurality in both houses of parliament, they still face formidable opposition to passage of their civil unions bill — particularly from the Catholic Church, which seems to have a stronger influence on Italian society that it does in Ireland, where most Catholic voters ignored a statement published by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference in opposition to its passage. (Read more from “Rome: Hundreds of Thousands Protest Against Same-Sex Unions” HERE)
The Islamic State group is training its next generation of fighters by locking them in a steel cage and forcing them to fight each other, a chilling new propaganda video has revealed.
The Daily Mail first reported that a seven minute-long video [at the bottom of this article] released by ISIS-linked social media accounts shows young boys, known as “cubs of the caliphate”, wrestling inside a giant ring encircled by black ISIS flags while an armed armed commander yells encouragement.
A later scene in the video, which is believed to have been filmed at an ISIS base in Iraq, shows the same commander beating the children with a stick as they move through an assault course, and then walking across their stomachs as they lay on the floor.
Other disturbing scenes in the propaganda video show the masked boys breaking tiles with their heads, practicing fighting moves and crawling through metal tubes as ISIS fighters fire rounds over their heads . . .
ISIS, which seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate throughout the Middle East, is notorious for using children to further their aims. In March, the militants released a disturbing video in which several of its fighters were shown cutting off the heads of eight men who were led to their execution by teenage boys. (Read more from “ISIS Releases Shocking Video of Young Boys Fighting in Locked Steel Cage” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-23 03:58:022016-04-11 10:59:45ISIS Releases Shocking Video of Young Boys Fighting in Locked Steel Cage [+videos]
American evangelical theologian and preacher Russell Moore contended that the “religious right” will eventually win the heated culture war issue of same-sex marriage. Regardless of how the U.S. Supreme Court rules, he plans to stand by the definition of traditional marriage between a man and a woman.
In a phone interview conducted by Lila Shapiro of the Huffington Post, Moore elaborated on why he hasn’t thrown in the towel on standing up against same-sex marriage. He is currently president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
“I’ve been predicting for years that the court is hell-bent on imposing same-sex marriage on all 50 states, so that’s what I’m expecting the court to do,” Moore said. . .I didn’t want evangelicals caught flat-footed the way that evangelicals were by Roe v. Wade, not anticipating that any such thing could happen”. . .
“If the court rules as I anticipate, evangelicals will still stand where we’ve always stood on marriage — as a union of one man and one woman,” Moore said. “We have no option to capitulate on that, because marriage in a Christian vision of reality isn’t just a social contract. Marriage points to something beyond the natural order — the union of Christ and his church.”
Moore highlighted that Christians previously had to define traditional marriages throughout history. “That’s not a new situation for Christians — that’s what’s happening in the context of the New Testament, defining Christian marriage over and against a Greco-Roman sexual culture,” Moore said. “But it’s a new situation for American evangelicals.” (Read more from “Evangelical Theologian Russell Moore: Religious Right Has ‘No Option to Capitulate on’ Traditional Marriage” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-06-23 03:57:562016-04-11 10:59:45Evangelical Theologian Russell Moore: Religious Right Cannot Capitulate on Traditional Marriage, Will Eventually Win
A prison worker accused of helping two convicted killers break out of a maximum-security New York jail earlier this month smuggled them vital tools that were concealed inside frozen chunks of hamburger meat, according to a report published late Monday.
Joyce Mitchell, 51, has been charged with felony promoting prison contraband and misdemeanor criminal facilitation in connection with the escape of Richard Matt and David Sweat from Clinton County Correctional Facility on the night of June 5-6. Court documents allege that Mitchell provided the men with hacksaw blades, chisels, a punch and a screwdriver bit in the weeks prior to the escape.
Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that Mitchell came up with the idea to sneak the tools into the jail masked by the frozen food.
Meanwhile, authorities said they had recovered items from a remote cabin in northern New York state, near the Canadian border, that may be linked to Sweat and Matt.
State Police Maj. Charles Guess said at a news conference that authorities had “specific items” from the Adirondack cabin some 20 miles west of the prison and sent them to labs for DNA and other testing. He would not elaborate on the items but characterized the latest search effort — one of many over the past 17 days — as a confirmed lead. (Read more from “Hamburger Helper: Jail Worker Smuggled Tools to Killers in Meat” HERE)
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has “very advanced” and “very aggressive” cancer of the lymph nodes, but he said Monday he will continue to work as the state’s chief elected official.
Hogan said the cancer is B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He says it may be Stage 4, or at least a very advanced Stage 3.
He spoke at a hastily organized news conference in Annapolis, surrounded by members of his family and cabinet . . .
At the news conference with his wife, daughters, sons-in-law and granddaughter, Hogan said that he had noticed a painless lump along his jaw earlier this month. He also felt some back pain, which, he said, was caused by a tumor pressing on his spinal column.
While vowing to continue to work, Hogan allowed that he will miss days of work while undergoing intensive chemotherapy. He said he will lose his hair — “I won’t have these beautiful gray locks” — and maybe lose some weight. (Read more from “Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Says He Has Cancer of Lymph Nodes” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-23 03:57:342016-04-11 10:59:45Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Says He Has “Very Aggressive” Cancer of Lymph Nodes
Unmanned aerial vehicles are an integral part of the battlefield and now Microsoft is planning to enlist drone aircraft in the war on disease.
It has launched Project Premonition, a program designed to detect infectious disease in developing countries, reports Business Standard.
Drones would snatch up mosquitoes and scientists would examine them for signs that potentially harmful viruses are spreading.
The drones would be equipped with a new type of mosquito trap that uses less energy and is lighter weight.
A new bait system is designed to lure the flying insects into the trap. A sensor would automatically sort the mosquitoes from other bugs. Chemicals in the trap preserve the mosquitoes until they can be analyzed in a lab. (Read more from “Drones to Catch Mosquitoes in Effort to Combat Diseases” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-23 03:57:192016-04-11 10:59:45Drones to Catch Mosquitoes in Effort to Combat Diseases
Moosie is finally among his fellow moose in Alaska after spending two months traveling in a mattress.
In April, the 2-year-old tabby’s owners, Kymberly and Jesse Chelf, were packing up to move from El Paso, Texas, to Jesse’s new army assignment in Fairbanks, Alaska, when Moosie disappeared, reports the Associated Press.
“We just assumed he had run away, which was very unlike Moosie,” Kymberly Chelf said. “He’s just a very loyal, loving cat.”
The feline was still MIA when the movers arrived to begin the long 3,700-mile journey to the last frontier, so the Chelfs stayed behind three extra days searching for their beloved pet. Alas, their search turned up nothing . . .
It took 64 days for all of the belongings, cat-carrying futon included, to arrive in Fairbanks. As soon as the mattress was unwrapped and taken into the house, Moosie made his presence known, letting out his mightiest meow. (Read more from “Cat Survives 2-Month Move to Alaska Inside Mattress” HERE)
