When Roger West first launched the progressive political blog "News From The Other Side" in May 2010, he could hardly have predicted the impact that his venture would have on the media and political debate. As the New Media emerged as a counterbalance to established media sources, Roger wrote his copious blogs about national politics, the tea party movement, mid-term elections, and the failings of the radical right to the vanguard of the New Media movement. Roger West's efforts as a leading blogger have tremendous reach. NFTOS has led the effort to bring accountability to mainstream media sources such as FOX NEWS, Breitbart's "Big Journalism.
Roger's breadth of experience, engaging style, and cultivation of loyal readership - over 92 million visitors - give him unique insight into the past, present, and future of the New Media and political rhetoric that exists in our society today.
What we are against:
Radical Right Wing Agendas
Incompetent Establishment
Donald J. Trump
Corporate Malfeasence
We are for:
Global and Econmoic Security
Social and Economic Justice
Media Accountability
THE RESISTANCE
I guess that Benghazi thing isn't panning out so well for the American Taliban, they don't care about spying on the AP, and the IRS scandal is losing steam. So on to the next one! But ... is there anything more stupid than this? This umbrella thing is nothing but pure unadulterated racism. Not matter how its sliced and diced, how you spin it, it's racism, to the very core.
On the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the Senate impeachment hearings that eventually brought down President Richard Nixon, the right-wing has found yet another “Watergate” to try to pin to Obama. Not the Benghazi attacks, or even the IRS targeting scandal–but it does involve water.
Republicans and right-wing talkers, gleefully embracing every bit of scandalous news they might be able to peg to the president, picked yet another issue to badger President Obama on Thursday.
TEA BAGGER UMBRELLA-GATE
OTHER SMEAR TACTICS OF THE AMERICAN TALIBAN
His umbrella.
Specifically, his decision to have a Marine hold an umbrella for him while he spoke at a press conference alongside Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan Thursday.
Pundits like Sean Hannity and Eric Bolling used the moment as a metaphor to bash the president on Obama again. “ Wouldn't it be nice if he had them covered the way they have him covered?” Bolling asked. Hannity said, “They were protecting him and maybe in this case he should have been protecting them and the people in Libya.
Why paint the president as a gracious host when you can paint him as a lazy elitist instead?
TWITTER RACIST
TWITTER HATE MAP
Where are the Racist, Hateful Tweets Coming From?
"Twitter has the capacity to ignite revolutions and enable small acts of kindness, but there's also a darker side to the micro-blogging network.
Floating Sheep, a group of geography academics, created the "Geography of Hate," which maps racist, homophobic and ablest tweets in the U.S. "
Where are the most hateful, racist, homophobic tweets coming from? A "Geography of Hate" map can tell you, and probably dishearten you in the process. Are people comfortable with making hate public?
If you study the map GOP, states [red] are the ones that contain the most red, which are the most racist and homophobic states we have. Surprised? I am not.
Unless you have been hiding under a bed of late you have to be cognizant of Wisconsin's Governor (R) Scott Walker and his attempt to "trim' the states deficit.
State workers in Wisconsin are protesting a statement by Republican Governor Scott Walker that, union reps say, amounts to a threat to use the National Guard to help break the public union.
Citing a $137 million budget deficit, Walker announced a plan last week which would essentially take away the public union's collective bargaining rights and slash benefits for state employees. Meanwhile, the share of corporate tax revenue funding the state government has fallen by half since 1981 and, according to Wisconsin Department of Revenue, two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes.
The only thing readers is that if you view the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau numbers cited Jan 31, 2010, two months prior to walker taking over - says "that our analysis indicates a general fund gross of $121.4 million and a net balance of 56.4 million exists" in the Wisconsin 'till". Not a 137.0 million short fall as regurgitated by Scotty.
What has happened is that "Scotty" invoked the number one republican rule, which is to slash taxes on the rich, which in Scotty's short term (two months) as Governor will reduce Wisconsin's general fund tax collections by 55.2 million in 2011-2012 and 62.0 million 2012-2013.
"concludes that the adoption of combined reporting would increase corporate income tax receipts on the order of 10 to 25 percent." This "write off" to the corporations would cost Wisconsin 187 million dollars over two years.
Walkers "Cuts" to the unions would cost the state 9,000 jobs and 111.0 million dollars in lost revenue.
Is this really how we want "red states" and republican governors running our states?
These "enemies of the state" are on one mission, and that mission is too bust every union that is under republican governorship rule. This choreographed attack is also taking roost in New Jersey, Alabama, Arizona and the list goes on. Some thirty states are now governed by radical tea bags, to include my own of Virginia.
This scene may become a familiar one to other states that are considering similar measures:
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is supporting a bill that will potentially eliminate collective bargaining for all state workers. Governor Kasich has said he may propose additional measures such as eliminating automatic pay increases and banning public-employee strikes, both to help cut down the state’s $8 billion budget gap. On Tuesday, hundreds of people jammed into the state capitol to protest the measures.
A bill moving through the Tennessee state legislature will, if passed, eliminate collective bargaining rights for unionized state teachers and make achieving tenure more difficult.
A bill moving through the Tennessee state legislature will, if passed, eliminate collective bargaining rights for unionized state teachers and make achieving tenure more difficult.
In Michigan, a state commerce committee introduced legislation in January that would dismantle the power unions have in negotiating state-worker contracts.
On Wednesday, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D) signed a bill that limits certain state workers’ rights to join a collective bargaining unit.
This republican mentality of "letting the tail wag the dog" has established itself well within the rank and file of teas.
Last November our President lost his testicular fortitude in the "shellacking" during the mid-term voting.
While progressives anxiously await for Barack's testis to descend, Democrats are left to defend the rights of unions by themselves. Until the President can stand up with his pair firmly entrenched where they need to be, middle class America will continue to suffer at the hands of republican leaders.
The biggest irritant for the Obama administration so far this calendar year has not come from Senate Republicans eager to filibuster, nor from recalcitrant House Republican leaders threatening a government shutdown.
Rather, the most effective stymieing of the White House has come from a relatively new batch of governors buoyed by the national political climate and eager to showcase their conservative bona fides in opposition to the administration.
Regardless of what's compelled Republican governors to rebel, the political ramifications remain both unknown and potentially drastic.
In modern history our governors have been, of necessity, both pragmatic and moderate. Today, there are a more than few of these Republicans, like in Florida and Wisconsin, who just seem to be so radical, extreme and ideological.
Clearly the numbers above show that the "unions" are not the down fall for the "cheeseheads" woes.
This "subliminal" message, or the hidden agenda of the radical right is to push the envelope when it comes to governing states. Unions are not the fault of huge deficits that reside within states.
If Faux News and radical republicans thought the "Egyptian Revolution" was bad, should righties continue down this ugly road, then republican governors can only expect that the "Madison Revolt" will cascade and escalate to a national voice of displeasure for right wing ideology.
Karl Rove explained it best on Faux news, stating that busting up the unions is just and right for they are the formidable opponent to the next tea bag to run for office. A great strategy from camp tea bag, but I am not sure the "majority' of Americans are on the same page as the delusional tea partier.
Unions are verybeneficial to workers here in the United States. For if not there would not be:
Vacations, minimum wage wouldn't exist (meaning your current salary would be less than this current rate), collective bargaining would not be available. All unequivocally are the staples to the working folk in the USA.
So Mr. and Ms. republican, keep encouraging "union busters", for soon all Americans can say that have been treated like the 8 year old Nike worker in Singapore.
Two incidences within the last 24 hours assure most that at least in some form or fashion the 'redenck", "civil war" mentality is strong and bountiful in the good ole USA.
African-American leaders have reacted with shock at a plan to feature an early Ku Klux Klan leader on Mississippi license plates.
The proposal by the Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) asked that the state issue a series of license plates between now and 2015 to honor the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
A 2014 plate would feature Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who became an important leader of the Klan after the war.
Forrest was most known for directing a massacre of black Union soldiers who had already laid down their arms at Fort Pillow in April 1864.
"It is in connection with one of the most atrocious and cold-blooded massacres that ever disgraced civilized warfare that his name will for ever be inseparably associated," according to an obituary published in The New York Times at his death in 1877.
"The garrison was seized with a panic: the men threw down their arms and sought safety in flight toward the river, in the neighboring ravine, behind logs, bushes, trees, and in fact everywhere where there was a chance for concealment. It was in vain. The captured fort and its vicinity became a human shambles."
"The news of the massacre aroused the whole country to a paroxysm of horror and fury," the Times added.
"Forrest probably did not object to the violence, per se, as a means of restoring the pre-war hierarchy, but as a military man, he deplored the lack of discipline and structure that defined the growing KKK," according to a biography by PBS' Antiques Roadshow.
NAACP president Derrick Johnson reacted with surprise when first told about SCV plans to honor Forrest.
"Seriously?" he said. "Wow."
A Facebook page titled "Mississippians Against The Commemoration Of Grand Wizard Nathan Forrest" had 820 members at the time of publication.
"We are united in sending a message to the state government of Mississippi that WE WILL NOT STAND for the public glorification of one of the original leaders of the Ku Klux Klan," the page said.
Robert McElvaine, director of the history department at the private Millsaps College in Jackson and a member of the Facebook group, told The Associated Press that Forrest should should not be honored due to his role in the massacre.
"The idea of celebrating such a person, whatever his accomplishments in other areas may have been, seems like a very poor idea," he said.
Celebrating Forrest is not something that is unprecedented in the South. In 1998, a statue was erected of the Civil War leader in Nashville, Tennessee.
NFTOS occupies space and resides in the glorious state of Virginia. "having live here for over 35 years you see this "hillbilly" mentality constantly in the south" said Roger West, Editor-in-Chief of NFTOS.
Since African Americans started voting in the south - openly racist position are not rare to find, but here is what history tells us.
In 1948 Strom Thurmond running on a segregationist platform carried LA, MS, AL and SC.
In 1968 George Wallace carried AR, GA, LA, MS, AL, all of these states are about 1/3 black except AR which was at 15% .
Average Black Victims of Lynchings per year per 100,000 Blacks 1882-1930
Virginia 38.0
Mississippi 52.8
Georgia 41.8
Louisiana 43.7
Alabama 32.4
South Carolina 18.8
Florida 79.8
Tennessee 38.4
Arkansas 42.6
Kentucky 45.7
North Carolina 11.0
In a 50 year adult life time a black male in most of these states would have had a more than 2% probability of being Lynched.
It would appear with Montana, Mississippi, that "lynching's" still exist in some fashion in America circa 2011.
There is no "MOST" Racist state in our "Union".......... the most racist are the people of these United States.
All states have the same problem, and the amount of racism depends on what type of racism you are talking about, and so it appears that still today African Americans are still exposed to "racial lynching's".
