Pinch Me

I agree with Condoleeza Rice??

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding.

"Black Americans were a founding population," she said. "Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together -- Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."

As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that." Read the rest...

What I disagree with here, is her statement that she supported Bush because of No Child Left Behind. If she really believed it would help poor and minority children, she was very ignorant. From the time it was first proposed, professional educators (and not just rank and file teachers) criticized it as bad policy that would hurt low income children the most. Frankly, I think Condi's being disingenuous making this claim.

(One of these days soon I am going to write a post specifically about NCLB.)

Anyway, this article makes me wonder who Condi supports for president. Interesting.

Is voter suppression now the norm?

I just read this article at Alternet about tactics that the Clinton campaign is allegedly using to block Obama supporters from voting. If this is true, it is disgusting and clinches it for me: I will not vote for Hillary Clinton.

The headlines say the latest schism among the top Democratic presidential candidates is over gender and race. But on the ground in the presidential season's opening states, there is a darker narrative: that Hillary Clinton will not just fight hard, but fight dirty, to win. And her tactic of choice is attempting to suppress the votes of her rival's supporters.

The latest example is from Nevada, where the Nevada State Education Association is widely seen as filing a suit on Clinton's behalf to stop Las Vegas' most powerful union, Culinary Workers Local 226, from caucusing inside downtown casinos after the union endorsed Barack Obama. The tactic foments a split along racial and class lines in arguably the strongest union city in America.

"It's horrible," said one longtime Nevada activist, who didn't want his name used. "It will cause fights and damage that will last for years."

But the Clinton campaign has made similar moves in New Hampshire and Iowa.

We have had 2 stolen national elections and too many years of the dirtiest of politics. I won't pretend that anyone else is squeaky clean, but I think this shows her hunger for power and her contempt for the American people. Enough is enough.