Tag: web video

The percentage of rapes committed by white people is higher than the percentage of white Americans

Leslie Salzillo, a contributor to the progressive website DailyKos, wrote this piece about an online video showing a white woman, who was harassing a black man, falsely accusing the black man of threatening to rape her. You can view the video here.

I want to make a couple of points here.

First, rape and fear of rape have been used since before the founding of the United States of America in a racist manner against black people. Examples of this include Europeans in the 17th century falsely accusing black slaves of rape, accusations of rape being committed by black people being used to cover up crimes committed by white people, and the infamous Willie Horton ad that was aired on American television by a political organization supporting Republican George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential bid. Rape is a serious crime, and, if you’re using rape or the fear of rape to spew bigotry towards minority groups, you’re part of the problem when it comes to the pervasive rape culture in this country. While some black people are rapists (a famous example being former professional boxer Mike Tyson), and all rapists are criminals, black people are often falsely accused of rape, while actual white rapists often get no punishment or very light punishment for violating women.

Secondly, these are actual statistics on the demographics of American rapists, as well as the demographics of American aggravated assaulters and American automobile thieves:

For the sake of completion, 63.7% of the total American population is Non-Hispanic White, meaning that the percentage of rapes committed by white people in America (67.2%) is higher than the percentage of total white people in America.

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Donald Trump uses imagery of Russian soldiers in campaign ad, retweets a neo-Nazi

In the last couple of days, Donald Trump has done two things to prove how awful his candidacy for president truly is.

First, Trump took to Facebook and used imagery of Russian soldiers to claim that undocumented immigrants in the United States are treated better than American veterans:

Donald Trump put a new veteran-focused campaign ad up on Facebook today, but it was pulled down before most anyone could see it after commenters pointed out that the footage clearly depicted Russian veterans wearing the distinctive St. George ribbon and pins with the Communist hammer and sickle.

…“Our great veterans are being treated terribly,” Trump intones his most serious voice. “The corruption in the Veteran’s administration, the incompetence is beyond. We will stop that.” The ad then cuts away from Trump sitting at his desk and to footage of faceless decorated veterans who happen to be wearing a distinctive orange-and-black ribbon.

That is absolutely disgusting, and, sadly, it’s something along the lines of what Trump has done in the past. When Trump ran his first television ad of the campaign, he used a video of Moroccans trying to enter Melilla, a Spanish city on the African continent.

Second, Trump retweeted a picture of Jeb Bush that was originally posted by a neo-Nazi who uses a “white genocide” Twitter handle:

Donald Trump’s penchant for retweets once again raised eyebrows, after he recirculated a tweet on Friday from a user with the handle “WhiteGenocideTM.”

The profile — with about 2,300 followers — used the name “Donald Trumpovitz,” linked to a website containing a pro-Adolf Hitler documentary, featured a background photo with red lettering saying “Get the F— Out of My Country” and had a location of “Jewmerica.” The account also includes a photo of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party.

The account’s Twitter feed was largely a collection of retweets about violence allegedly committed by African-American suspects and anti-Arab posts.

The truth of the matter is that there is no genocide of white people either ongoing or imminent. Furthermore, the fact that Trump would retweet anything from someone with overtly racist views is just the latest example of how much of a danger Trump is to America.

Mike Huckabee spews anti-transgender bigotry and brags about wanting to creep out showering girls

As reported by Vox’s German Lopez, the far-right website World Net Daily uncovered controversial remarks by Former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, in which Huckabee spewed anti-transgender bigotry and bragged about wanting to creep out showering girls:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee perpetuated one of the most pervasive myths about transgender people at a convention earlier this year, suggesting that men can abuse trans-friendly laws for voyeurism in women’s bathrooms.

“Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE,” Huckabee said in a video resurfaced on YouTube over the weekend by World Net Daily, according to a report by BuzzFeed’s Megan Apper and Andrew Kaczynski. “I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.'”

Regardless of whether or not Huckabee was joking, I did not find what Huckabee said one bit funny.

First off, Huckabee repeated a common canard that bigots will use to oppose equal rights for transgender people. They believe enacting laws and ordinances prohibiting discrimination against transgender people would lead to men claiming to be women so that they can creep out, or even sexually assault, women in women’s public bathrooms. That’s an absolutely false claim, as, in states where transgender people enjoy legally-protected rights, there has been not one documented instance of sexual assault or voyeurism that has been attributed to laws prohibiting discrimination against transgender people.

Secondly, for Huckabee to claim that he wanted to claim that he’s a woman in order to creep out girls showering in a high school locker room is absolutely disgusting. Huckabee is, in effect, condoning bathroom voyeurism by men against women, which is flatly inappropriate. Huckabee shouldn’t be anywhere near the White House with that kind of attitude towards girls and women.

Oh, by the way, I strongly encourage people to read this article about how to talk about transgender people properly.

ENDORSEMENT: Russ Feingold for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin

It’s official…the old Russ Feingold that Wisconsinites have known and remembered for decades is back and running for a seat in the United States Senate.

Initially, I was skeptical of whether or not the old Feingold, known for his crusades for progressive, pro-middle class, and pro-good government ideals, as well as creative campaign ads, would return. Well, HE’S BAAAAAAAAAAACK!!! Feingold is sharply criticizing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed free trade agreement that is a key part of President Obama’s plan to destroy American sovereignty and kill the American economy. Oh, and Feingold is posting some cool web videos, which feature him meeting with ordinary Wisconsinites, to his Facebook page. You can view a couple of his web videos here and here.

While I would have zero problem with a competitive Democratic primary in the U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin, don’t hold your breath for one. In the unlikely event that one or more Democratic primary challenger(s) enter the race, I will consider pulling my endorsement of Feingold and endorsing a primary challenger to him, although it would require a near-perfect candidate for me to endorse a primary challenger to Feingold. I’m not a fan of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) endorsing Feingold despite the fact that it’s over a year until the congressional and state legislative primaries in Wisconsin.

Judging by what I’ve seen on social media, Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson and the Wisconsin GOP apparently think they’re running against failed gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke for some odd reason. Johnson and his far-right Republican allies have tried to paint Feingold as a political insider, a label that easily stuck to Burke, but doesn’t fit Feingold at all. Of course, the only reason the Republicans are trying to paint Feingold as a political insider is because Johnson has a track record of voting against the interests of Wisconsinites, making political attacks against college students, protecting sex abusers, and just plain being dumb.

For Bernie Sanders to be President of the United States and Russ Feingold to be back in the Senate would be a delight, to put it mildly.

Nation Consulting’s ties to Republican firms run even further

AUTHOR’S NOTE #1: This is an update to a previous blog post about Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Nation Consulting’s ties to Republican front groups.

AUTHOR’S NOTE #2: I have made edits to the blog post in order to ensure that the blog post is 100% accurate.

Since my last blog post about Nation Consulting’s ties to Republican organizations, I’ve had an individual point out to me via a Facebook group that Coalition for the New Economy (CftNE), a group that opposes government-owned broadband internet services in areas where the private sector operates broadband services, had paid DCI Group, a mostly right-wing public relations, lobbying, and consulting firm, a total of $666,957 for work that DCI Group did for CftNE as an independent contractor, per a 2012 IRS 990 filing by CftNE (you can find that filing here; the information I mentioned in this paragraph comes from page 9 of the PDF file). CftNE was led by Thad Nation at the time of the filing; Nation is also the founder of Nation Consulting, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based consulting firm.

While DCI Group supported the effort to allow openly-LGBT people to serve in our nation’s Armed Forces, something which should have been done sooner, a lot of the other things they’ve been involved with is, in my opinion, clearly against the best interests of the American people.

DCI Group has been behind anti-climate change campaigns, including an infamous YouTube video in 2006 that spoofed the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth, in which Gore, who was Vice President of the United States during the presidency of Bill Clinton, talked about how serious of a threat climate change is to this planet. While DCI Group has never actually acknowledged its role in the Gore parody, multiple media outlets reported that a Yahoo! email from the same person who uploaded the YouTube video originated from a computer registered to DCI Group. DCI Group’s officials include, among many others, Doug Goodyear, the CEO of the firm and a former political director of the Colorado Republican Party, and Craig Stevens, who worked on two Republican presidential campaigns and also worked for Tommy Thompson when he was U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under Republican President George W. Bush. Perhaps the worst thing that DCI Group has associated itself with is the former military junta in the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, also known as Burma. DCI Group conducted public relations work on behalf of the Burmese junta from 2002 to 2003. The Burmese junta was known for flagrant human rights violations, including the politically-motivated house imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi. DCI Group’s work with the Burmese junta became a major controversy in the 2008 presidential election here in the U.S., as Goodyear worked with the McCain campaign prior to the media publishing reports about DCI Group’s work with the Burmese junta.

It’s 100% clear to me that Thad Nation, who is the founder of Nation Consulting and either is or was the head of CftNE, plays both sides of the street politically. While their founder, Thad Nation, has at least indirectly funded right-wing organizations, Nation Consulting, which Nation himself founded, also employs Jason Rae, who also happens to be a Democratic National Committee (DNC) member and a candidate for Chairperson of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW). That is an inconvenient truth for Rae, as it’s at least an apparent conflict of interest, if not an outright one, for Rae to be DPW chair and working for a firm led by someone who either is or was also the head of a different organization that gave money to Republican and Republican-leaning organizations simultaneously.

My video entry to the MAYDAYin30 video contest

I’ve decided to enter the MAYDAYin30 video contest that MAYDAY PAC, the Lawrence Lessig-led, crowd-funded SuperPAC that supports ending the culture of big-money politics in this country by, among other things, overturning the Citizens United v. FEC U.S. Supreme Court decision by a federal constitutional amendment.

My submission is a video supporting the campaign of Staci Appel, the Democratic U.S. House nominee in the 3rd Congressional District of Iowa. Appel, who has been endorsed by MAYDAY PAC. Staci supports amending the U.S. Constitution in order to overturn the Citizens United v. FEC U.S. Supreme Court decision and end the era of big-money campaigns and SuperPACs that can raise unlimited amounts of money from big-wig donors.

Here’s my video:

If you like my video and would like to see it aired as a TV ad on stations covering Central and Southwestern Iowa, you can vote for my video here!