By now you may have seen this video, which Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government promoted with great fanfare yesterday

For those of you who didn’t watch it, the clip begins with title cards that declare that Shirley Sherrod, until this week the Georgia director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “admits that in her federally appointed position, overseeing over a billion dollars…She discriminates against people due to their race.” The footage that follows supposedly supports that narrative.

It turns out that the story Sherrod tells in the clip actually took place 24 years ago, and that she was working for a private organization at the time, not the USDA. Also, in context it’s clear that her anecdote was about overcoming prejudice, not celebrating it; the tale ends with Sherrod recognizing that she wants to help poor people of all colors, not just blacks. It’s equally clear that her audience understood that this was the point of the story.

Nonetheless, after the video went viral Sherrod’s bosses quickly ousted her from her job. Breitbart’s site now wants to focus on why the USDA and/or the White House pushed her out the door with so little evidence. Not a bad topic, but first you might want to acknowledge the fact that your entire story has fallen apart.

The punchline: The first three words in Breitbart’s original post were “Context is everything.”

http://reason.com/blog/2010/07/20/the-big-implosion-of-big-breit

The Entire Speech

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The United States Government shut down about 73,000 WordPress blogs on a single Web site in a move that some fear signals an increasing disregard for individual free speech rights. The action follows the high profile government seizure of seven online movie sites weeks ago. The U.S. move dwarfs current Chinese government activity that shut down only “dozens” of blogs in China.

Recently targeted by federal action, the free WordPress blogging site Blogetery abruptly came offline after hosting provider BurstNet complied with undisclosed demands from authorities. A message viewable upon visiting the Blogetery site gives this message from its owner: “After being BurstNet customer for 7 months our server was terminated without any notification or explanation.” A link on the site leads to a forum called Web Hosting Talk, where the site operator has posted correspondence with BurstNet, that suggests feederal involvement in the incident.

Read More: http://www.helium.com/items/1893892-why-73000-wordpress-blogs-were-shut-down-by-the-us-government

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By Vanessa Jean Louis

Black Culture critics typically don’t get as much airtime as those who perpetuate victim hood. However, if we are to make progress as people of color, we must combat some of the counter-intuitive and counterproductive views that plague our communities. Shedding light on the issues is only one of a series of steps that must be taken to foment an “Urban Conservative” counter culture.

“Low-skilled jobs typically held by minorities in the inner city are being outsourced, yet let’s continue to support/vote for Democrats so they can raise taxes on the rich to close the economic gap.”

Leftists call it “greed,” I call it “common sense”. Most corporations get into business to make a profit and share the dividends of theirs profit with their shareholders. In the midst of making money allocating scarce goods and resources (capitalism), these corporations hire people giving these employees means of economic subsistence. Since the 1960s, because of increased labor costs, many corporations have outsourced their companies into countries where the cost of operating is cheaper. In other words, as prices to operate business in America go up, profit margins go down-so it only makes sense that these businesses harbor in places that will help increase their profit margins. That’s not greed, that’s Business 101.

During the Great Depression, whatever toils experienced by White America were felt at least two-fold by those in the Black community. The same holds true today. While the national unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent, it’s over 50 % higher in the Black Community. Understanding how tax policy and regulation can have a retardant or stimulative effect on the economy is pivotal. Hence why Conservatives like Jack Kemp wanted the Federal Government to play an integral part in “Enterprise Zones/Communities”. In Enterprise Zones/Communities, states and federal taxes are lowered temporarily. Moreover, regulation that would otherwise be confiscatory is lifted in order to foment economic activity and increase employment in areas with high poverty and other social maladies that are often correlated with decrepit social conditions.

I always ask my liberal brothers and sisters to explain the contradictory nature of complaining about lack of jobs and opportunities when they support a political ideology that supports raising taxes and increasing the regulatory burdens placed by bureaucrats–which has an inevitable effect on employment opportunities. So, if low employment opportunities are a huge problem, why support politicians who are for hurting the small business owners who are most likely to employ low-skilled workers who disproportionately represent the inner city cohort?

Moreover, many business owners assert that since demand is low due to the recession, the temporary “tax-credits” that are being offered by the Obama administration aren’t going to be enough of an incentive for small businesses to hire new workers.

Black Conservatives and Republicans are “sell-outs”, but the criminals involved in the penal system aren’t?

After years of working in the inner city, some people who have come to know me through my writings have called me a “sell-out” by virtue of not identifying with the Black monolith, politically. As unabashed Black Conservatives and/or Republicans, it’s just the name of the game that we have to deal with. I must admit, it’s growing on me (like fungus would grow on a host)-albeit very uncomfortable since I pride myself in being a “conscious” (semi-Afrocentric) Conservative…never mind the fact that I’m in the trenches everyday…

How is it that the criminals and the street thugs who terrorize their neighborhoods aren’t considered “sell-outs”? I’ve grappled with this for a while. I’ve read the writings of other black/urban conservatives lamenting on this very issue. I can’t seem to understand how my “blackness” is constantly questioned, but those who kill, maim, and get people who look like me addicted to drugs aren’t ever really questioned about their allegiance to the Black community? What’s even more ironic is how rappers who glorify the “thug life” (who have helped in part produce a generation of what I call the “un-conscious”) rarely have their “blackness” questioned. I find most disheartening the members of the Black Intelligentsia who defend these culprits involved in the penal system as “victims”—when the people who they oppress by their actions are really the ones we need to worry about.

“Despite centuries of oppression that only ended in the past few decades, Black people are incredibly resilient BUT the proverbial “system” has enough power to hold us back?

The resiliency of Black folks is something that should never go unspoken. With over 250 years of chattel slavery, and decades of Jim-Crow- the Black family managed to stay virtually intact (until the 1960s) ONLY through faith in Christ, and self-sufficiency coupled with mutual aid networks. The fact that the “Black Wall Street” (Greenwood, Tulsa Oklahoma) was rebuilt to bring about another economic resurgence in the 1950s after it was burned by angry White men in the 1920s (who envied the economic prosperity that the free markets and capitalism brought to blacks) is also testament to that fact.

If we are such “victims” of a purported establishment, why were we able to accomplish so much before it became politically opportunistic to help us? I’m not in any way diminishing the role of Government when it came to acting as a fiduciary for Black civil rights. What I’m saying is, what excuses do we really have in 2010 when there are hoards of programs in higher education actively (to the point of frivolous lawsuits) seeking more and more members to add to the growing numbers of the Black Intelligentsia?

In addition to many minority recruitment initiatives, when it comes to small business development, there are special set asides for minorities to start their own businesses. The fact is that our progenitors who opened up their own businesses didn’t have the opportunities that we have today.

Moreover, if we are indeed resilient how can we believe that our economic, social, and political achievements can be stifled…in 2010? I’m not deluding myself about there being barriers to success; I just refuse to believe that those blockades can stop us (in theory and in practice).

Unfortunately, any attempts to say “Enough is enough” are clouded by culture apologists who are more comfortable with the status quo because it cements their position as power brokers and “leaders” in the Black community. While I don’t necessarily automatically discount the validity of some of the views I feel are contradictory to our objectives as people of color, I think it’s important to shine light on these blatant contradictions for the sole purpose of our social advancement. As an urban conservative, I experience first hand how the liberal side seems to dominate the dialogue and thus the agenda. That needs to stop.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Vanessa Jean Louis better known as the “afroconservative”, has been working in the inner city as a school counselor for the last several years.She is a self-described “urban conservative” who believes in strong families, school choice vouchers, and fiscal policies that help lift people out of poverty-not perpetuate deleterious cycles of government dependence. Vanessa holds a Master’s degree in Counseling but she is currently working towards a second Master’s Degree in Political Economy.

vanessa@afroconservative.com

http://blog.afroconservative.com

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By  Michael Steele

Fifty-six years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Brown v. Board of Education what our founders declared self-evident — that all men are created equal.

Until President Lincoln and the Republican Party abolished the horror of slavery, my ancestors were legally treated as mere chattel. Sadly, emancipation didn’t translate to equality back then, especially in the Democratically controlled segregated states. And tragically, Brown v. Board of Education was not the end of the story.

Today, education has emerged as the civil rights battle for the 21st century. Access to a quality education is something all parents want for their children. In some communities, public schools are great. But in many, they are failing, and to that end parents should be empowered to put their children in charter, private or parochial schools no matter where they live.

President Obama had the freedom to attend private schools and is assured that same freedom for his two daughters. My wife and I made the same choice for our own children, in part because of the choice my parents were able to make for me, thanks to a scholarship program at Washington’s Archbishop Carroll High School.

While some remarkable students manage to succeed within a public school that seems more like a war zone, expecting that heroic feat of most children is simply too great a burden. Indeed, a 2009 study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education found that only 16 percent of African-American students in Washington have “access to well-resourced, high-performing schools.”

In 2003, I was proud when our Republican Congress provided hope to some of the remaining 84 percent by instituting a program permitting a small number of low-income, mostly African-American families in D.C. to send their children to private or parochial schools.

To quell howls of protest from defenders of the status quo, the program was funded by a new appropriation rather than shifting funds from the public school budget to the vouchers. In other words, for every child who entered the program, the public school system gained money they otherwise would have spent on that child.

Despite the modest amounts invested in the Opportunity Scholarship program, it has been an unqualified success.

It has boosted student achievement and provided hope to poor children who otherwise would have faced bleak futures. The program has earned the support of Democratic D.C. mayors as well as D.C.’s public school chancellor. Even the resolutely liberal editorial board of The Washington Post has strongly backed the program, stating:

“Democrats should spare us their phony concern about the children participating in the District’s school voucher program. If they cared for the future of these students, they wouldn’t be so quick as to try to kill the program that affords low income, minority children a chance at a better education. … [T]he debate unfolding on Capitol Hill isn’t about facts. It’s about politics and the stranglehold the teachers unions have on the Democratic Party.”

The special-interest government unions that fund Democratic campaigns insist that payback requires throwing poor minority students under a failing public school bus. Democrats have kept their end of the campaign-cash deal. In one of the earliest acts in Obama’s term, Democrats enacted legislation that killed the Opportunity Scholarship program and abandoned struggling minority families who had the audacity to hope for a better life for their children.

It was a deeply cynical act Democrats did not even bother to try to justify. When the Senate held a hearing on the program, the administration did not send a single witness to defend the administration’s position.

Obama, having made millions on two autobiographies with “Hope” and “Dreams” in their titles, has denied the hopes and dreams of poor, minority families who simply seek the opportunity that he and I and so many other Americans had — quality education despite our families’ income.

Fifty-six years after Brown v. Board of Education, Democrats are again standing in the schoolhouse door and on the wrong side of history. That’s why it is critically important we stand on the right side of history and elect Republican candidates to office.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Stephen Steele – is an American politician, serving since January 2009 as the first African American chairman of the Republican National Committee. From 2003 to 2007, he was the seventh Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, the first African American elected to statewide office in Maryland

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General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre has bragged in TV commercials and newspaper columns that GM has paid back its bailout “in full and ahead of schedule.”

As with the Pontiac Aztek, an ugly exterior masks an ever darker problem: Whitacre is being fanciful to the point of deceit. GM received $50 billion in TARP funds (never mind that TARP was only supposed to cover financial institutions). About $7 billion of that came in the form of a straight-up, low-interest loan. And about $13 billion came in the form of an escrow account.

So how has GM, which lost $38 billion in 2007 even as it sold 9.4 million cars, paid back its debt? It took money from the escrow account to pay back the $6.7 billion loan.

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents gave you $20 to buy them a Christmas present? You bought them something worth $3 and pocketed the rest? That’s what GM has just done.

Oh, and do you remember when you hit your parents up for college? GM has applied for a $10 billion, low-interest loan from the government to modernize its plants so its cars will meet new federal mileage standards.

If you think all this constitutes paying back their debt in full and ahead of schedule, you might want to check out the new line of GM cars. And hope that the company’s safety engineers are better at math than their CEO.

http://reason.tv/

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In New York’s 23^rd congressional district, it’s déjà vu all over again. Internecine fighting has broken out between candidates in the district’s Republican primary, and the race threatens to be a repeat of the divisive 2009 special election that saw a Democrat take a historically Republican district.

On Monday, the Oneida Republican county committee endorsed Matt Doheny, a businessman who lives in the district. This comes on the heels of three endorsements from other Republican county chairs.

Doug Hoffman, who failed to win the Republican nomination in 2009 but then ran on the Conservative Party ticket, has so far failed to receive any local endorsements. Yesterday, his campaign claimed that the Oneida endorsement was another case of backroom establishment deal-making, and that they were never invited to make their case before the Oneida Republican Committee.  ‘Doheny uses Scozzafava insider tactics against Hoffman,’ screamed a story headline in the Gouverneur Times.

Read Entire story – http://www.frumforum.com/its-deja-vu-all-over-again-in-ny-23

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By Dennis Sanders

Are there really any moderate Republicans in office anymore?

Clive Crook is beginning to doubt it , and to be honest, so am I.  John McCain is trying to pretend he never was a “maverick” and as Crook notes, thoughtful leaders like Mitt Romney are running away from their more moderate stances. It seems that there is a spirit running within the GOP that crushes any differences and imposes a soul-killing conformity that screams meaningless phrases like “secular socialist machine.”

Crook notes that the passage of Obamacare should have prompted a more reasonable response that would have captured fustrated centrists.  He writes:

Republicans are right to say that the Obama administration has over-reached. Democrats failed to convince the country that their healthcare reform was the right solution to an obvious and pressing problem, yet passed their law anyway. Many voters are angry about this, and entitled to be. Also, despite the administration’s denials, the reform will most likely add to public borrowing, which was on a dangerously high trajectory to begin with. Again, they are right to be concerned.

Disenchantment with Mr Obama and the Democrats is especially pronounced in the political centre. (Conservatives, of course, were dismayed before the evidence was even in.) You might have thought this would commend a centrist platform to the Republican party approaching November’s mid-term elections. Swing voters decide who wins, and they were up for grabs. Why are Republicans steering to the right?

Crook then says the culprit is the Tea Party. The GOP sees this still forming movement as its salvation and has focused all its energy on that movement. Populism is always more sexy than the usually dowdy centrism.  Right now, GOP leaders either feel forced or want to try to go for the sexy sizzle of the Tea Party partriots, than the steady and boring centrists.

Crook also notes that the current incarnation of the GOP is many things, but one thing it is NOT is fiscally conservative, which might spell doom for us all:

There is a good chance that control of the House will switch. In narrow electoral terms, the Republicans’ militant posture is working. This dynamic has disturbing implications. A populist-right Republican party is not a party of fiscal conservatives. It is a party of tax-cutters and middle-class entitlement protectors – budget deficits be damned. A populist-right Republican party has no trouble calling for lower taxes, opposing cuts in Medicare (the programme that poses the greatest fiscal danger), and deploring public borrowing, all at the same time. This, in fact, has been its line on healthcare reform.

That reform, with its $1,000bn of extra costs over 10 years, is now law. Democrats may flinch, like Republicans, at cutting Medicare to pay for it, but they have no strong objection to raising taxes once that becomes inescapable. A Republican-controlled House would have strong objections. It might very well refuse to do it, preferring possible fiscal catastrophe to higher taxes.

It’s funny that this party that seems to talk about the spectre of socialism and about “a government takeover of healthcare” are also the ones that want to protect entitlement programs. Because raising taxes is a no-no and we are too chicken to make meaningful cuts, if the GOP gets back into power, we will just go back to “borrow and spend,” which of course is so much better than the Democrats “tax and spend.”

Crook thinks the GOP is basically a narrow sect instead of a “broad church.”  I would agree.  The GOP is dazzled by the Tea Party, but what happens when reality sets in?  The Tea Party is not America, after all.  What if the GOP doesn’t do as well in November?  What if they lose big time in 2012?  What if the Tea Party goes and creates a new party?  What if the economy goes south again and the public demands some kind of government action?

Most moderate groups like the Republican Leadership Council or Republican Mainstreet Partnership, which were calling for a bigger tent in the GOP after the 2008 elections have either grown silent or have gone along to get along in wake of the new environment, lest they be targeted.  The same goes for moderate politicians.  After Dede Scozzafava, very few moderates dare tout their centrist credentials.

My own guess is that there will be some breaking point where the current strategy will fail.  It might be that the economy gets better and the Dems pick up more seats than expected.  It might be a landslide election in 2012.  Whatever it is, there will come a point where the moderates in hiding will be tired of hiding.

I’m looking forward to that day, but it will be hellish in the meantime.

Dennis Sanders is a pastor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has worked on centrist Republican issues for years, including stints as President of the Minnesota chapter of Log Cabin Republicans (a gay/lesbian advocacy group) and Republicans for Environmental Protection. Dennis blogs at NeoMugwump and Republicans United he happily lives with his partner Daniel and serves two cats, Morris and Felix

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(hat tip: Booker Rising )

Kenneth Durden, a libertarian-conservative blogger, opines: “Pat Buchanan, semi-closeted bigot, has come out against what he calls ‘The New Intolerance.’ Buchanan attacks CNN’s Roland Martin for speaking out against Gov. Bob McDonnell for declaring Confederate History Month in Virginia. Martin called it a recognition of terrorists. Buchanan is incensed and calls it intolerance.”

He continues his commentary: “Pat Buchanan has no clue what he’s talking about. He has no idea what the Confederacy represents to black people, especially to those who grew up in the former Confederate states. Buchanan never had family picnics interrupted by Confederate-flag-waving yahoos yelling ‘N___r!’ He never had the experience, as a 16-year-old boy simply mowing his lawn, of having Confederate flag-waving freaks threatening to kill him or rather yelling ‘Die n____r!’. Buchanan makes a good point of how slavery existed in Maryland and many other northern states throughout the Civil War. I’m not stupid enough to think racism only exists in the former Confederacy. I often laugh when I hear people say that they didn’t know anything about racism until they visited the South. Come on. Some of the most blatant racism/prejudice I’ve experienced in my adult life has been in New York (Manhattan) and in the burbs of Los Angeles and Pennsylvania. Message to Buchanan and others: Don’t defend the Confederacy and tell people like me what it really means. The Confederacy has meant something to me my entire life. It’s not something I imagined. It’s something I’ve seen. I want no part of it.”

More: “We should no more celebrate or recognize the ’sacrifice’ of the Confederacy as something noble any more than the Germans should celebrate Nazis. Surely Germans loved their sons who fought defending their nation. But does that mean they should fly the old flag and dedicate months to their valiant Nazi past? Like Germany’s past, America’s Confederate past is history. Leave it as just that.”

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By Richard Ivory

It goes without saying that most Jewish voters, like African Americans in the United States, vote overwhelmingly Democratic.  Although the reasons vary,  what is certainly undisputed is the fact that most American Jews live in large Democratic urban areas. Most historians note that during the second half of the 19th century, many Jews did vote Republican in large numbers. In fact, Florence Prag Kahn who was the first Jewish American Woman ever to serve  in Congress in The United States was a Republican.  Since 1916, however,  and with the arrival of the New Deal, many Jews have historically and faithfully supported Democrat Candidates. Today there is no expectation to this rule.

From New York to Los Angeles, the Jewish Community has always had a strong kinship with urban centers. One could argue strongly that the failure of the Republican Party to compete in urban settings has left most Jewish voters with only one Party to negotiate with – The Democrats. One has only to look at the political affiliations of Jewish candidates elected each year to fully grasp that nothing has changed. Today there are about 14 Jews in the entire US. Senate and all of them are Democrats. In the House of Representatives there is only one Jewish Republican representative.  His name is Eric Cantor.

Two years ago the GOP had two Jewish Republican members in the Senate: Norm Coleman and Arlen Specter. One switched sides to become a Democrat while the other was defeated in his Senatorial race.  Despite losing two Jewish Republican Senators last year, nevertheless, there is some hope that this year the numbers of elected Jewish Republicans to Public office will rise.

 These include such individuals as Joel Pollack, who is a human rights lawyer and author, from Skokie, Illinois. Joel is running in IL 9th Congressional District. According to his site bio, Pollack emigrated with his family to the U.S. from South Africa in 1977 and became a U.S. citizen in 1987. He went on to Harvard, where he was the first student to combine the fields of Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy.

His issues are job creation.  On his site he says in order to get jobs back “We need a temporary investment tax credit to get small businesses past the uncertainty of the present moment. We need to lower taxes on investments and business taxes, which will improve confidence and very likely increase revenues. And we need to put a hold on new government programs and entitlements until we can actually afford them.

Then there is Randy Altschuler, who isa young entrepreneur, running for a chance at New York’s first Congressional District. He is mounting an aggressive campaign against Democrat Tim Bishop. According to his website bio he received his B.A. with High Honors from Princeton University, and his MBA with Distinction from the Harvard Business School following study in Vienna, Austria as a Fulbright Scholar. His campaign has already raised close to one- million dollars. According to Hotline: Altschuler is a member of the Young Guns program.  He got in the race against Bishop early and is off to a fast fundraising start. The seat is one GOPers will have to win if they are going to take back the majority.

In California, Mattie Fein, who is the wife of the well know conservative lawyer Bruce Fein, is running in California’s 36th District. She is challenging Democrat, Jane Harman whose campaign focus is job creation and National Security. She recently told a local paper that “Joblessness in the 36th District, combined with economically toxic bailouts, have placed in jeopardy the overall fiscal viability and, specifically, the homeownership of many in our district,”. Another candidate, named David Ratowitz,a former staff member for Congressman Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty is seeking a run for Illinois 5th Congressional District located in Chicago.  The attorney and former real estate developer will be running against Congressman, Mike Quigley (D -IL 5) an incumbent with a well financed campaign.

In Maryland, Dr. Eric Wargotz , who is a physician and a count commissioner is seeking to topple Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski. In an interview when he was asked “what made you decide to run for US Senate”,? Eric replied, “I believe in a better America, a healthier and stronger America, an America where people want a “hand-up” not a “hand-out”. I am running for US Senate because friends, family, and constituents whom I serve believe that I have the knowledge, know-how, integrity and will as a citizen-legislator, an independently-minded Republican find reasonable and just solutions to the challenges facing our Nation.”

Another Jewish Republican candidate running this year is Dr. A.J. Otjen, who is a self-described “Teddy Roosevelt Republican.” She is running for Congress in Montana and is a Professor at Montana State University. Interviewed and quoted for this articlea bout the future of Jews and the Republican Party she stated “Ourfuture requires a strong country. This means an educated, healthy, clean and prosperous country. It requires both parties to have reason and foresight in their discourse and decision making. Jewish Americans are not the only ones determined to insuring this future, but we certainly know what it means to lose it.  Fiscal discipline and individual rights are the hall mark of the Republican Party and we must sustain those principles. The alternative is unimaginable.

Although Jewish Voters tend to vote for candidates from The Democratic Party , it would appear that there are many who are willing to represent the values inherent in The Republican Party in 2010.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Richard Ivory is the Publisher and Founder, of HipHopRepublican.com, a blog that delves into urban issues from centrist perspective. Mr. Ivory is a political consultant who has worked on dozens of political campaigns around the country. He has worked for both the Republican National Committee and was the College outreach director for Republican Youth Majority. He is presently the founder of The John Langston Forum and is the College outreach director for Republicans for Black Empowerment

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