Rank and file NAACP members in opposition of the ultra progressive NAACP hierarchy? Now that’s progress!
BTW: Although Obama has not made an appearance at the NAACP convention since 2009, he was a no-show again this year. Leading some to believe he is taking them for granted.
CNN’s Jim Acosta discussing Mitt Romney’s usage of ‘Obamacare’ during his address to the NAACP:
He [Mitt Romney] used the term ObamaCare, which, by the way, you know, that’s fine in Republican circles, but there are a lot of Democrats who sort of bristle at using the term ObamaCare. We at CNN use the term “the president’s health care law,” at least in our news reporting.
http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1207/11/cnr.03.html
Is CNN behind the times? Are they having trouble keeping up? Because, from the looks of this bumper sticker, ObamaCare’s namesake Obama the Top Dem Dog himself has no problem with the term.
Link: https://store.barackobama.com/featured-15/obamacare-bumper-sticker-combo.html
According to CNN’s Roland Martin it was.
The Romney quote in question:
Any policy that lifts up and honors the family is going to be good for the country, and that must be our goal. As President, I will promote strong families – and I will defend traditional marriage.
The “loudest applause line thus far“.
So much for the NAACP’s official position in support of gay marriage.
A coalition of 1,300 black pastors will go to Houston for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) convention this week — to host a protest against the NAACP’s decision to follow President Obama in backing gay marriage.
“ The Black church founded the NAACP, and it is not the organization for the advancement of gays and lesbians — whatever the merits of that movement,” said Rev. William Owens, president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors. “Return to your roots and stand with the Black Church on marriage.” >>>
Update: Video of the NAACP crowd cheering Romney at Mediaite.
Previously:
Moxie.
(kiradavis422) –My response to Rep.Cleaver after he suggested Mitt Romney should not criticize Obama in front of Black people
See Kira’s related post here.
Meanwhile citing a busy schedule, Barack Obama turned down an invite to address the NAACP, he will be sending Joe Biden in his stead.
Previously: Transcript: Mitt Romney’s NAACP Address — Received Standing Ovation At The End
Mitt Romney speaking at the NAACP Convention Houston, Texas (July 10, 2012)
Thank you, Bishop Graves, for your generous introduction. Thanks also to President Ben Jealous and Chairman Roslyn Brock for the opportunity to be here this morning, and for your hospitality. It is an honor to address you.
I appreciate the chance to speak first – even before Vice President Biden gets his turn tomorrow. I just hope the Obama campaign won’t think you’re playing favorites.
You all know something of my background, and maybe you’ve wondered how any Republican ever becomes governor of Massachusetts in the first place. Well, in a state with 11 percent Republican registration, you don’t get there by just talking to Republicans. We have to make our case to every voter. We don’t count anybody out, and we sure don’t make a habit of presuming anyone’s support. Support is asked for and earned – and that’s why I’m here today.
With 90 percent of African-Americans voting for Democrats, some of you may wonder why a Republican would bother to campaign in the African American community, and to address the NAACP. Of course, one reason is that I hope to represent all Americans, of every race, creed or sexual orientation, from the poorest to the richest and everyone in between.
But there is another reason: I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African American families, you would vote for me for president. I want you to know that if I did not believe that my policies and my leadership would help families of color — and families of any color — more than the policies and leadership of President Obama, I would not be running for president.
The opposition charges that I and people in my party are running for office to help the rich. Nonsense. The rich will do just fine whether I am elected or not. The President wants to make this a campaign about blaming the rich. I want to make this a campaign about helping the middle class.
I am running for president because I know that my policies and vision will help hundreds of millions of middle class Americans of all races, will lift people from poverty, and will help prevent people from becoming poor. My campaign is about helping the people who need help. The course the President has set has not done that – and will not do that. My course will.
When President Obama called to congratulate me on becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, he said that he, “looked forward to an important and healthy debate about America’s future.” To date, I’m afraid that his campaign has taken a different course than that.
But, in campaigns at their best, voters can expect a clear choice, and candidates can expect a fair hearing – only more so from a venerable organization like this one. So, it is that healthy debate about the course of the nation that I want to discuss with you today.
If someone had told us in the 1950s or 1960s that a black citizen would serve as the forty-fourth president, we would have been proud and many would have been surprised. Picturing that day, we might have assumed that the American presidency would be the very last door of opportunity to be opened. Before that came to pass, every other barrier on the path to equal opportunity would surely have come down.
Of course, it hasn’t happened quite that way. Many barriers remain. Old inequities persist. In some ways, the challenges are even more complicated than before. And across America — and even within your own ranks — there are serious, honest debates about the way forward.
If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, then a chronically bad economy would be equally bad for everyone. Instead, it’s worse for African Americans in almost every way. The unemployment rate, the duration of unemployment, average income, and median family wealth are all worse for the black community. In June, while the overall unemployment rate remained stuck at 8.2 percent, the unemployment rate for African Americans actually went up, from 13.6 percent to 14.4 percent.
Americans of every background are asking when this economy will finally recover – and you, in particular, are entitled to an answer.
If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, black families could send their sons and daughters to public schools that truly offer the hope of a better life. Instead, for generations, the African-American community has been waiting and waiting for that promise to be kept. Today, black children are 17 percent of students nationwide – but they are 42 percent of the students in our worst-performing schools.
Our society sends them into mediocre schools and expects them to perform with excellence, and that is not fair. Frederick Douglass observed that, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Yet, instead of preparing these children for life, too many schools set them up for failure. Everyone in this room knows that we owe them better than that.
The path of inequality often leads to lost opportunity. College, graduate school, and first jobs should be milestones marking the passage from childhood to adulthood. But for too many disadvantaged young people, these goals seem unattainable – and their lives take a tragic turn.
Many live in neighborhoods filled with violence and fear, and empty of opportunity. Their impatience for real change is understandable. They are entitled to feel that life in America should be better than this. They are told even now to wait for improvements in our economy and in our schools, but it seems to me that these Americans have waited long enough.
The point is that when decades of the same promises keep producing the same failures, then it’s reasonable to rethink our approach – and consider a new plan.
I’m hopeful that together we can set a new direction in federal policy, starting where many of our problems do – with the family. A study from the Brookings Institution has shown that for those who graduate from high school, get a full-time job, and wait until 21 before they marry and then have their first child, the probability of being poor is two percent. And if those factors are absent, the probability of being poor is 76 percent.
Here at the NAACP, you understand the deep and lasting difference the family makes. Your former executive director, Dr. Benjamin Hooks, had it exactly right. The family, he said, “remains the bulwark and the mainstay of the black community. That great truth must not be overlooked.”
Any policy that lifts up and honors the family is going to be good for the country, and that must be our goal. As President, I will promote strong families – and I will defend traditional marriage.
As you may have heard from my opponent, I am also a believer in the free-enterprise system. I believe it can bring change where so many well-meaning government programs have failed. I’ve never heard anyone look around an impoverished neighborhood and say, “You know, there’s too much free enterprise around here. Too many shops, too many jobs, too many people putting money in the bank.”
What you hear, of course, is how do we bring in jobs? How do we make good, honest employers want to move in and stay? And with the shape this economy is in, we’re asking that more than ever.
Free enterprise is still the greatest force for upward mobility, economic security, and the expansion of the middle class. We have seen in recent years what it’s like to have less free enterprise. As President, I will show the good things that can happen when we have more – more business activity, more jobs, more opportunity, more paychecks, more savings accounts.
On Day One, I will begin turning this economy around with a plan for the middle class. And I don’t mean just those who are middle class now – I also mean those who have waited so long for their chance to join the middle class.
I know what it will take to put people back to work, to bring more jobs and better wages. My jobs plan is based on 25 years of success in business. It has five key steps.
First, I will take full advantage of our energy resources, and I will approve the Keystone pipeline from Canada. Low cost, plentiful coal, natural gas, oil, and renewables will bring over a million manufacturing jobs back to the United States.
Second, I will open up new markets for American products. We are the most productive major economy in the world, so trade means good jobs for Americans. But trade must be free and fair, so I’ll clamp down on cheaters like China and make sure that they finally play by the rules.
Third, I will reduce government spending. Our high level of debt slows GDP growth and that means fewer jobs. If our goal is jobs, we must, must stop spending over a trillion dollars more than we earn. To do this, I will eliminate expensive non-essential programs like Obamacare, and I will work to reform and save Medicare and Social Security, in part by means-testing their benefits.
Fourth, I will focus on nurturing and developing the skilled workers our economy so desperately needs and the future demands. This is the human capital with which tomorrow’s bright future will be built. Too many homes and too many schools are failing to provide our children with the skills and education that are essential for anything other than a minimum-wage job.
And finally and perhaps most importantly, I will restore economic freedom. This nation’s economy runs on freedom, on opportunity, on entrepreneurs, on dreamers who innovate and build businesses. These entrepreneurs are being crushed by high taxation, burdensome regulation, hostile regulators, excessive healthcare costs, and destructive labor policies. I will work to make America the best place in the world for innovators and entrepreneurs and businesses small and large.
Do these five things – open up energy, expand trade, cut the growth of government, focus on better educating tomorrow’s workers today, and restore economic freedom – and jobs will come back to America, and wages will rise again. The President will say he will do those things, but he will not, he cannot, and his record of the last four years proves it.
If I am president, job one for me will be creating jobs. I have no hidden agenda. If you want a president who will make things better in the African American community, you are looking at him.
Finally, I will address the institutionalized inequality in our education system. And I know something about this from my time as governor.
In the years before I took office our state’s leaders had come together to pass bipartisan measures that were making a difference. In reading and in math, our students were already among the best in the nation – and during my term, they took over the top spot.
Those results revealed what good teachers can do if the system will only let them. The problem was, this success wasn’t shared. A significant achievement gap between students of different races remained. So we set out to close it.
I urged faster interventions in failing schools, and the funding to go along with it. I promoted math and science excellence in schools, and proposed paying bonuses to our best teachers.
I refused to weaken testing standards, and instead raised them. To graduate from high school, students had to pass an exam in math and English – I added a science requirement as well. And I put in place a merit scholarship for those students who excelled: the top 25 percent of students in each high school were awarded a John and Abigail Adams Scholarship – which meant four years tuition-free at any Massachusetts public institution of higher learning.
When I was governor, not only did test scores improve – we also narrowed the achievement gap.
The teachers unions were not happy with a number of these reforms. They especially did not like our emphasis on choice through charter schools, particularly for our inner city kids. Accordingly, the legislature passed a moratorium on any new charter schools.
As you know, in Boston, in Harlem, in Los Angeles, and all across the country, charter schools are giving children a chance, children that otherwise could be locked in failing schools. I was inspired just a few weeks ago by the students in one of Kenny Gamble’s charter schools in Philadelphia. Right here in Houston is another success story: the Knowledge Is Power Program, which has set the standard, thanks to the groundbreaking work of the late Harriet Ball.
These charter schools are doing a lot more than closing the achievement gap. They are bringing hope and opportunity to places where for years there has been none.
Charter schools are so successful that almost every politician can find something good to say about them. But, as we saw in Massachusetts, true reform requires more than talk. As Governor, I vetoed the bill blocking charter schools. But our legislature was 87 percent Democrat, and my veto could have been easily over-ridden. So I joined with the Black Legislative Caucus, and their votes helped preserve my veto, which meant that new charter schools, including some in urban neighborhoods, would be opened.
When it comes to education reform, candidates cannot have it both ways – talking up education reform, while indulging the same groups that are blocking reform. You can be the voice of disadvantaged public-school students, or you can be the protector of special interests like the teachers unions, but you can’t be both. I have made my choice: As president, I will be a champion of real education reform in America, and I won’t let any special interest get in the way.
I will give the parents of every low-income and special needs student the chance to choose where their child goes to school. For the first time in history, federal education funds will be linked to a student, so that parents can send their child to any public or charter school, or to a private school, where permitted. And I will make that a true choice by ensuring there are good options available to all.
Should I be elected President, I’ll lead as I did when I was governor. I am pleased today to be joined today by Reverend Jeffrey Brown, who was a member of my kitchen cabinet in Massachusetts that helped guide my policy and actions that affected the African American community. I will look for support wherever there is good will and shared conviction. I will work with you to help our children attend better schools and help our economy create good jobs with better wages.
I can’t promise that you and I will agree on every issue. But I do promise that your hospitality to me today will be returned. We will know one another, and work to common purposes. I will seek your counsel. And if I am elected president, and you invite me to next year’s convention, I would count it as a privilege, and my answer will be yes.
The Republican Party’s record, by the measures you rightly apply, is not perfect. Any party that claims a perfect record doesn’t know history the way you know it.
Yet always, in both parties, there have been men and women of integrity, decency, and humility who called injustice by its name. For every one of us a particular person comes to mind, someone who set a standard of conduct and made us better by their example. For me, that man is my father, George Romney.
It wasn’t just that my Dad helped write the civil rights provision for the Michigan Constitution, though he did. It wasn’t just that he helped create Michigan’s first civil rights commission, or that as governor he marched for civil rights in Detroit – though he did those things, too.
More than these public acts, it was the kind of man he was, and the way he dealt with every person, black or white. He was a man of the fairest instincts, and a man of faith who knew that every person was a child of God.
I’m grateful to him for so many things, and above all for the knowledge of God, whose ways are not always our ways, but whose justice is certain and whose mercy endures forever.
Every good cause on this earth relies in the end on a plan bigger than ours. “Without dependence on God,” as Dr. King said, “our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest night. Unless his spirit pervades our lives, we find only what G. K. Chesterton called ‘cures that don’t cure, blessings that don’t bless, and solutions that don’t solve.’”
Of all that you bring to the work of today’s civil rights cause, no advantage counts for more than this abiding confidence in the name above every name. Against cruelty, arrogance, and all the foolishness of man, this spirit has carried the NAACP to many victories. More still are up ahead, and with each one we will be a better nation.
Thank you, and God bless you all.
Upon completion Romney received a standing ovation.
Standing ovation for Romney as he finishes his remarks to NAACP. — Garrett Haake (@GarrettNBCNews) July 11, 2012
CNN chose to focus on the negative while ignoring the positive: Romney Gets Standing Ovation From NAACP, But CNN Calls Reception ‘Very Negative’
Right Scoop has the full video here.
First the back story:
(Daily Caller) In a letter obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller on Monday, a family member of George Zimmerman ripped Seminole County, Fla. NAACP president Turner Clayton for a rush to judgment in the Trayvon Martin case.
…..
The letter also described how Zimmerman was one of “very few” in Sanford, Fla., who spoke out publicly to condemn the “beating of the black homeless man Sherman Ware on December 4, 2010 by the son of a Sanford police officer.”“Do you know the individual that stepped up when no one else in the black community would?” the family member wrote. “Do you know who spent tireless hours putting flyers on the cars of persons parked in the churches of the black community? Do you know who waited for the church‐goers to get out of church so that he could hand them fliers in an attempt to organize the black community against this horrible miscarriage of justice? Do you know who helped organize the City Hall meeting on January 8th, 2011 at Sanford City Hall??”
“That person was GEORGE ZIMMERMAN. Ironic isn’t it?”
“The main point for this letter is to explain to you that the black community has labeled George a racist without any investigation at all,” the letter continued. “Regardless of the fact that George personally spoke to many of your constituents, not one has stepped forward and said, ‘Hey I know that face. That is the Hispanic guy that was standing up for Sherman Ware. That was the only non‐black face in the meetings for justice in this case.’”
“You know as well as I do that there are many NAACP followers that recognize George from the Ware case as well as many other good things that he’s done for the black community.” [...]
Video of the knock out punch:
WFTV:
SANFORD, Fla. — A witness with a camera caught a homeless man being punched by a Sanford police lieutenant’s son, who was never arrested or charged for the incident.
In the video, the homeless man is seen trying to break up a fight when the police officer’s son, Justin Collison, the Assailant sneaks up from behind and punches the man in the back of the head.
However, Collison was not finished. He took a few steps and slammed another bar patron to the ground.
“Justin! Justin! What the f*** are you doing? Justin, get off him!” Collison’s friend said in the video.
Then a unknown officer arrives and places the Assailant into his police car. The Police officer proceeds pacing around the knocked out victim seeming not knowing what to do. Its quite a long time as seen in the video and I am puzzled that nothing seems to be done for this injured knocked out homeless guy.
The Orlando Sentinel identifies the victim as ‘Sherman Ware’:
Earlier in the day, Sanford police Capt. David Del Rosso said Collison hadn’t been charged because the man who was punched, Sherman Ware, hadn’t sworn out a formal complaint and couldn’t be found to make one.
Mid-afternoon the department issued a news release, asking anyone with information on how to find Ware to come forward.
That apparently worked. Police interviewed Ware Wednesday afternoon. Hargrett would not say what the homeless man said, but added, “Oh, yes, he does feel like he was a victim.”
H/T @RightyWhitey
Irony strikes again:
(WFTV) –In them [the flyers], he [George Zimmerman] demanded the city fire the former police chief, Brian Tooley, along with officers who refused to arrest Collison.
Ironically, some of those same officers were at the scene the night Zimmerman was not arrested for killing Martin.
Also see: Zimmerman Complained About Sanford Police in Defense of Homeless Black Man
Dear monsters, an unbridled savage assault against an innocent victim is NOT justice.
(WKRG) –MOBILE, Alabama –Mobile police need your help to catch a mob that beat Matthew Owens so badly that he’s in critical condition.
According to police, Owens fussed at some kids playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive about 8:30 Saturday night [April 21, 2012.] They say the kids left and a group of adults returned, armed with everything but the kitchen sink.
Police tell News 5 the suspects used chairs, pipes and paint cans to beat Owens.
Owens’ sister, Ashley Parker, saw the attack. “It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed.” Parker says 20 people, all African American, attacked her brother on the front porch of his home, using “brass buckles, paint cans and anything they could get their hands on.”
[Cowardly] Police will only say “multiple people” are involved.
What Parker says happened next could make the fallout from the brutal beating even worse. As the attackers walked away, leaving Owen bleeding on the ground, Parker says one of them said
“Now thats justice for Trayvon.”
Police canvassed the area, but did not find any suspects. They’re asking anyone with information to call them at 251-208-7211, Crime Stoppers at 251-208-7000, or text a tip to 274637 and include the keyword CRIME 411.
Is Trayvon becoming an excuse for racism fueled violence?
Update: Move along folks, no hate crime here.
(FOX) –Asked if the incident was being investigated as a hate crime, [Mobile police spokeswoman Ashley] Rains replied: “No, it’s not. It’s being investigated as an assault.” Eugene A. Seidel, first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, declined to comment on the case when reached by FoxNews.com.
“Our policy is not to comment one way or another about cases,” Seidel said when asked if his office has inquired about the incident. “All I can say is no comment.”
Via RS McCain
Previous “justice for Trayvon” incidents:
Toledo: Mob Of 6 Black & White Youths Assault 78 Year Old Man: “This is for Trayvon…Kill That White”
Florida: Black Mob Violently Assault White Man In Name Of ‘Trayvon!’ “Permanent Disfigurement”
This report has no mention of a “justice for Trayvon” claim, but the ferocious assault occurred in Sanford Florida, the ground zero of racial incitement in the name of Trayvon:
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell
(TC Palm) –Whatever ideological differences members of the NAACP might have with U.S. Rep. Allen West, the local chapter was willing to put them aside for one nonpolitical night.
Its leaders invited the Republican from Plantation to give the keynote speech at its annual fundraiser in Martin County, the Freedom Fund Banquet. The theme was “Still Standing For Freedom and Equality,” and they wanted to hear West speak about his rise to fame.
Instead, the NAACP chapter pulled the plug on the event Tuesday — four days before it was to be held at a Palm City country club.
The reason:
“There’s a certain statement he made about Communists,” said Jerry Gore, president of the Martin County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Gore was referring, of course, to West’s remarks at an April 10 campaign event in Jensen Beach.
“I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party,” West said that night at the Jensen Beach Community Center. After a long pause, he added, “It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”
……
The NAACP is a nonpartisan group. Hosting West after he tossed around such allegations would thrust the group into a very partisan realm, Gore said.
The NAACP is nonpartisan? [Insert eye roll] Since when?
‘I beat up some random white dude, ’cause I am mad about the Trayvon Martin case’. Misdirected vengeance. How civilized!
If Obama had a son..yada...yada...yada...
(FOX Chicago) –Maywood, Ill. – Alton L. Hayes III, a west suburban man charged with a hate crime, told police he was so upset about the Trayvon Martin case in Florida that he beat up a white man early Tuesday.
Hayes and a 15-year-old Chicago boy walked up behind the 19-year-old man victim and pinned his arms to his side, police said. Hayes, 18, then picked up a large tree branch, pointed it at the man and said, “Empty your pockets, white boy.”
The two allegedly rifled through the victim’s pockets, then threw him to the ground and punched him “numerous times” in the head and back before running away, police said. Hayes and the boy are black; the victim is white.
After being arrested, Hayes told police he was upset by the Trayvon Martin case and beat the man up because he was white, Cook County State’s Attorney’s office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said, citing court records.
……
Hayes, 18 of the 1200 block of North Woodbine Avenue in Oak Park, was charged with attempted robbery, aggravated battery and a hate crime, all felonies, Oak Park police Detective Cmdr. Ladon Reynolds said.Hayes was ordered held on $80,000 bond and remained in the Cook County Jail on Friday. He will next appear in court May 11. The boy was referred to juvenile court. [...]
This public death threat against George Zimmerman by New Black Panther Chairman Mikhail Muhammad, was conveniently omitted on CNN’s report.
“You kill mine G*d dammit, I got to KILL yours”
Here it is as reported on Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly:
The official CNN report which conveniently filtered out the volatile statement:
Gee, I wonder why NBPP Chair Mikhail Muhammad has no reservations about waging public death threats against a specific person during a live news conference.
What used to be illegal is now acceptable under the Obama Regime, for those of a certain pigmentation that is.
So much for “equal justice under the law”.
Linked at Marshall Frank…thanks!
