NYPD COPS CAUGHT DIRTY DANCING AT WEST INDIAN DAY PARADE

NYPD Police Officers Bump and Grind at West Indian Day Parade Video

Conservatives Create Class Warfare Game| Republican Culture War In A Board Game!

Jillian Rayfield October 27, 2011, 5:55 AM 4300 69

There is no “Go” space in the anti-welfare board game “Obozo’s America,” but rest assured — you can still collect welfare benefits as you pass the “First Of The Month” space.

The game is called “OBOZO’S AMERICA: Why Bother Working for a Living?” with the tagline “The Most Timely and Original Board Game of the Decade!” The website describes it as “a fun fantasy board game based on the preposterous notion that a Marxist clown, running on the vague and shaky platform of hope and change, could become President of The United States.”

The object is to keep collecting benefits while avoiding the “Working Person’s Rut.” From the rather embarrassingly low-tech website:

Get your initial $1,000 cash grant at the First of the Month, then maneuver along Obozo’s Welfare Promenade. Get cash for your out-of-wedlock children. Draw from a stack of Welfare Benefit Cards. Get extra cash from Saturday Night crimes: Gambling, Armed Robbery, Drugs, and Prostitution. Play the lottery and the horses. Get your live-in a job on the Government Cakewalk. Experience the Jail Jaunt. Avoid landing on one of those dreaded “Get a Job” blocks forcing you onto the Working Person’s Rut (Somebody has to pay for Obozo’s Welfare Promenade). 50 Welfare Benefit Cards. 50 Working Person’s Burden Cards. Lots of funny money.

The site features the game’s mascot “Obozo The Marxist Clown” — who also graces the game’s fake currency — and boasts of the “welfare benefit cards” like “you lose perspective and apply for a job, but are denied it. Oboze says: Scream ‘racism’ until welfare lawyer gets you $1,000 settlement.”

In the Economy version of the game, you get “a stack of over a half-a-million dollars in play money (we’re talking serious welfare fraud here), 50 Welfare Benefit Cards, 50 Working Person’s Burden Cards, 30 Out-of-Wedlock Children.” The Deluxe version has a spill-proof surface and the out-of-wedlock children are easier to cut out of the paper they’re printed on.

Here’s the play money:

And the board game:

You can see the full-size board as a pdf here.

The game was created by Ron Pramschufer and Bob Johnson, who run Hammerhead Enterprises in Maryland, and was originally released in 1980 as “Public Assistance: Why Bother Working for a Living?”

“We didn’t invent this game, government liberals did,” Johnson said then. “We just put it in a box.”

In a press release Wednesday, Johnson announced that the game was coming back, claiming it “was forced off the retail market in the 1980s by government officials working with the NAACP, NOW, and other welfare ‘rights’ groups.”

“We intended the game as a parody of government liberalism, with a special focus on the able-bodied loaferism, welfare fraud, and social chaos its domestic policies promote,” Johnson wrote in 2009. “Threatened by the game’s popularity, embarrassed liberals successfully implemented a nationwide government plan to ‘remove the game from the marketplace.’”

The game was entangled in a number of lawsuits after several government officials and the NAACP criticized it as racist and sexist for its depiction of “welfare queens” and other stereotypes. Pramschufer and Johnson first sued (sub req.) a New York City official who sent a letter to retailers urging them not to sell the game, saying “keeping this game off the shelves of your stores would be a genuine public service.” They lost the case and their ultimate appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court, but they also filed a suit against the NAACP and NOW, according to the AP (sub req.).

But in the 90s when they re-released the game — complete with a new “Criminal Justice” side of the board — and claimed it had been banned, the Attorney General of Maryland said there was never a ban on the game. “The state wouldn’t have had the authority to ban this game whatsoever,” then-AG Kathy Schultz said (sub req.), according to the Washington Times.



Via Ashley Lopez of The Florida Independent.

U.N. Experts to SEC: Conflict Minerals Bill is Working in Congo | Enough

U.N. Experts to SEC: Conflict Minerals Bill is Working in Congo | Enough: The United Nations Group of Experts on Congo wrote to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday to say, in sum, “Since the signing into law of the Dodd Frank act, a higher proportion then before of tin, tungsten and tantalum mined in the DRC is not funding conflict.” The full letter is posted as a pdf here.

This is a significant statement, coming from an internationally mandated group that has done in-depth research at hundreds of mines across eastern Congo over the past year. The group highlighted several key points:

White Men’s Hostility to Black Women: A Deeper Look

White Men’s Hostility to Black Women: A Deeper Look

Florida Welfare Drug Testing Law Blocked By Federal Judge | The Republican Culture War

ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge temporarily blocked Florida's new law that requires welfare applicants to pass a drug test before receiving benefits on Monday, saying it may violate the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Judge Mary Scriven ruled in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Navy veteran and single father who sought the benefits while finishing his college degree, but refused to take the test. The judge said there was a good chance plaintiff Luis Lebron would succeed in his challenge to the law based on the Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals from being unfairly searched.

The drug test can reveal a host of private medical facts about the individual, Scriven wrote, adding that she found it "troubling" that the drug tests are not kept confidential like medical records. The results can also be shared with law enforcement officers and a drug abuse hotline.

"This potential interception of positive drug tests by law enforcement implicates a `far more substantial' invasion of privacy than in ordinary civil drug testing cases," Scriven said.

The judge also said Florida didn't show that the drug testing program meets criteria for exceptions to the Fourth Amendment.

The injunction will stay in place until the judge can hold a full hearing on the matter. She didn't say when that hearing will be scheduled.

More than two-dozen states have also proposed drug-testing recipients of welfare or other government assistance, but Florida was the first state to enact such a law in more than a decade. Should any of those states pass a law and face a court challenge, Scriven's ultimate ruling would likely serve as a legal precedent.

The law's proponents include Gov. Rick Scott, who said during his campaign the measure would save $77 million. It's unclear how he arrived at those figures. A spokesman for the Florida Department of Children and Families deferred all comments to the governor's office.

"Drug testing welfare recipients is just a common-sense way to ensure that welfare dollars are used to help children and get parents back to work," said Jackie Schutz, a spokeswoman for Scott. "The governor obviously disagrees with the decision and he will evaluate his options regarding when to appeal."

Earlier this year, Scott also ordered drug testing of new state workers and spot checks of existing state employees under him. But testing was suspended after the American Civil Liberties Union also challenged that policy in a separate lawsuit.

Nearly 1,600 applicants have refused to take the test since testing began in mid-July, but they aren't required to say why. Thirty-two applicants failed the test and more than 7,000 have passed, according to the Department of Children and Families. The majority of positives were for marijuana.

State officials said Monday that applicants previously denied benefits for testing positive or refusing the test could reapply immediately. The Department of Children and Families will also approve all pending applications that await drug test results.

Supporters had argued applicants skipped the test because they knew they would have tested positive for drugs. Applicants must pay $25 to $35 for the test and are reimbursed by the state if they pass. It's unclear if the state has saved money.

Under the Temporary Assistance For Needy Families program, the state gives $180 a month for one person or $364 for a family of four.

Those who test positive for drugs are ineligible for the cash assistance for one year, though passing a drug course can cut that period in half. If they fail a second time, they are ineligible for three years.

Lebron, who is the sole caretaker of his 4-year-old son, said he's "happy that the judge stood up for me and my rights and said the state can't act without a reason or suspicion."

The ACLU says Florida was the first to enact such a law since Michigan tried more than a decade ago. Michigan's random drug testing program for welfare recipients lasted five weeks in 1999 before it was halted by a judge, kicking off a four-year legal battle that ended with an appeals court ruling it unconstitutional.

Hate Groups Channel Their Rage At Illegal Immigrants and Hispanics/Latinos!

Anti-Latino Hate Crimes Rise As Immigration Debate Intensifies

 

Huffington Post writer Cristina Costantini notes the growing right wing rage at immigration reform. The culture war Republicans started includes this and many other noted controversies. Not one of these issues focuses on jobs or the ailing economy.


Juan Varela was shot in the neck in his front yard in Phoenix, Ariz., last May by his neighbor Gary Kelley. Moments before killing Varela in front of his mother and brother, Kelley yelled, "Go back to Mexico or die!" Varela was not an illegal immigrant, but a fifth generation American of Mexican descent, said Carlos Galindo, the family's spokesperson in a phone interview.

In May 2009, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul Flores were murdered by members of a Minuteman vigilante group. The child and her father were both American-born U.S. citizens. Leader Shawna Forde broke into the Flores home in Arivaca, Ariz., with two men she recruited to help her fund her splinter Minuteman organization. After the group shot and killed her father, Brisenia pleaded with the Forde and her accomplices, saying, "Please don't shoot me." One of the masked figures then shot her in the face at point blank range, her mother, the lone survivor, said in her testimony. Forde was convicted of first degree murder in February of 2011 and sentenced to death.

Last November, two Mexican nationals, cousins Alex Cauich and Jose Omar Cauich, were brutally assaulted by a group of white men while standing in front of a bar in San Francisco. Witnesses on the scene heard the assailants yelling "run like you ran across the border" during the incident. Last week, three men with connection to a white supremacist group were convicted in the assault. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, who worked as a police officer in Arizona and California for more than twenty years, told The Huffington Post that he perceives this crime and others like it to be part of rising anti-Latino sentiments around the country.

Recent studies conducted by the National Institute of Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the FBI and the Pew Research Center seem to show that these incidents were not isolated hate events, but part of a greater trend.

The preliminary findings of a congressionally-mandated study by the National Institute of Justice suggest that anti-Latino hate crimes rose disproportionally to other hate crimes between 2004 and 2008. The study estimates that in 2003 there were 426 hate crimes against Latinos, while in 2007 there were 595 nationally.

According to the same study, California and Texas saw the most anti-Latino hate crimes, as well as more dramatic increases of such incidents than other states. Data collected by the FBI also indicates a steady rise in anti-Latino hate crimes across the country from 2003 to 2007.

A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Montgomery, contends that the number of "radical right groups" in America -- including hate groups, "Patriot" groups and nativist groups -- increased in 2010 for the second year in a row.

Although recent studies indicate anti-Latino hate crimes have been on the rise over the last decade, many believe their numbers are even greater than those reported. Mark Potok, a spokesperson for the SPLC, said in an interview with The Huffington Post that, "one thing to understand is that Latinos, and in particular undocumented immigrants, are among the least likely to report hate crimes because they fear deportation."


RACE AND POLICY DEBATES

Many, including the family members of victims, associate a rise in anti-Latino hate crime and an increase in anti-Latino sentiments with the on-going, virulent immigration debate around the country.

Varela's family in Phoenix told The Huffington Post that they believe his murder was provoked by the heated controversy surrounding the passage of Arizona's S.B. 1070 law two weeks prior. According to Carlos Galindo, the family's spokesperson, Kelley's attorney admitted in court that his client was going to the Varela home on the day of Juan's murder in order to discuss the the family's attendance at an S.B. 1070 protest. Galindo also said the immigration debate created a dangerous environment for Latinos in his state.

"It's gone from a frustration with the federal government not doing their job, to a frustration with the immigrants and with Latinos in general," said Galindo. "People are encouraging this kind of demonization and this culture of hatred which results in violence," he added.

In 9-year old Brisenia's murder, the Associated Press reported that Shawna Forde was motivated to break into the Flores home because she "considered Raul Flores a drug smuggler and wanted to use his drug proceeds for a paramilitary organization to seal off the border to immigrants." According to CNN reports, no drugs were found in the Flores home.

  Raul "Junior" and Brisenia Flores were killed by a minuteman group with ties to the White Nationalist Movement.

George Gascón, the San Francisco district attorney, said in an interview with The Huffington Post that he associates the brutal assault of the Cauich cousins and a "recent surge of anti-Latino hate crimes" in his city, with economic factors and the immigration debate. Gascón believes that immigration debates in Arizona, Utah, Georgia, South Carolina and now Alabama have been "fueled by race-based sentiments."

"It's going to take a lot of good people with a lot of good intentions on both sides of the debate to shift the dialogue away from race, and back to policy," Gascón said.

Mark Potok, the SPLC spokesman, believes that reporting around the immigration debate has led directly to a more hostile environment for Latinos in America because it "focuses a lot of negative attention around Latinos." He explained, "When leaders and politicians get press and promote stereotypes, it encourages others to hate Latinos as well -- so it helps to spread the poison... There are ways of having a debate about immigration without demonizing one group of people."

But while Potok also blames "nativist" groups like Minuteman organizations for spurring hatred against Latinos and immigrants, Howie Morgan, the national political director of the Minuteman Project said in a phone interview with The Huffington Post that his organization has never framed the debate in racial terms.

 

Shawna Forde, a former prostitute, beautician who has ties to a white supremacist group. Her involvement in a minuteman group that killed Raul "Junior" and Brisenia Flores. Forde is currently sitting on death row for the murder.

"We have never demonized Latinos. In fact, we have been demonized as racists by 'La Raza' -- which means 'The Race' by the way... When we have come across organizations in the Minuteman movement that align themselves with racism, we've thrown them out and repudiated their statements. We continue to make sure this not about race, but about policy. We are a pro-immigrant organization, and calling us racist is simply inaccurate," he told HuffPost. Morgan was referring to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) which considers itself the "largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization" in the country.

But Gascón, thinks the Minutemen are ignoring an "elephant in the room."

"I'm glad the [Minuteman Project's] official stance is that it shouldn't be a race-based conversation," Gascon said in a phone intervew. "But the elephant in the room when you talk about immigration is that a very large number of immigrants come from Latin America. If you start talking about illegal immigration, what comes to mind? Do you think of someone from Eastern Europe or Asia or do you think of a Latino?"

According to a 2009 study, more Americans think that Hispanics are the targets of discrimination in American society than say the same about any other major racial or ethnic group. According to Mark Hugo Lopez, the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population, the PHC's studies found that, prior to 2009, African Americans were perceived to be the group most discriminated against.

Lopez also said that on average, Latinos are thinking about discrimination and immigration as bigger issues for their community than they did just a few years ago. In 2010, 61 percent of Latinos believed that discrimination against Hispanics is a "major problem," up from 54 percent in 2007. And in 2010, when asked to state the most important factor leading to discrimination, a "plurality of 36 percent cited immigration status as most important, up from a minority of 23 percent who said the same in 2007," reported Lopez.


In an interview with a local paper, Gilberto Esquivel, a member of the Riverside Human Relations Commission, said that the 50 percent increase in hate crimes against Latinos in California in 2010 was directly tied to the passage of the S.B. 1070 immigration law in Arizona. In Esquivel's county alone, the FBI documented 21 hate crimes in 2010, up from 12 in 2009.

Esquivel believes "anti-Latino and anti-immigrant remarks became more numerous and hateful on conservative talk radio, in newspaper letters to editors and on the Internet."

"The hate is there," Esquivel said. "[S.B. 1070] gives it legitimacy."

Jury Finds Aggravating Factor in Neighbor's Murder: MyFoxPHOENIX.com