Welcome To aBlackWeb

Register

The Official World Politics Thread

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/congressional-black-caucus-mississippi-gov-despicable

CBC Chair Calls MS Gov ‘Despicable’ For Not Acknowledging Black Lawmaker

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman said Mississippi’s governor is “clearly despicable” for not acknowledging work by the state’s only black congressman to get the home of a slain civil rights leader named a national monument.

Democratic Rep. Karen Bass of California told reporters during a conference call Friday that Republican Gov. Phil Bryant was petty to ignore Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson.

“I don’t know much about the governor of Mississippi, but he is clearly despicable,” Bass said. “There is no way in the world he shouldn’t acknowledge Bennie Thompson. … For him to specifically ignore him is an example of his pettiness. The entire Congressional Black Caucus was highly offended that he would be so disrespectful of one of our most important members. I hope the governor knows the slight will not go unnoticed.”

An effort to reach Bryant’s spokesman late Friday was not immediately successful.

President Donald Trump signed a bill Wednesday creating five new national monuments, including the Medgar and Myrlie Evers home in Jackson. Medgar Evers was the Mississippi NAACP leader when he was assassinated outside the home in June 1963 while his wife, Myrlie, and their three children were inside.

On Twitter, Bryant praised Trump and Mississippi’s two Republican U.S. senators for the monument designation.

Thompson tweeted back: “Give adequate credit. I’ve worked on this for 16 years.”

Bryant, who is white, responded in a statement to Jackson television station WJTV that Thompson was seeking personal acclaim and was shattering what should be a time of celebration over the national monument designation.

“His anger and hatred are the very characteristics that separated our people in the civil rights era,” Bryant said. “He has become a tragic figure who has squandered this opportunity to help bring our state together.”

Medgar Evers was a World War II veteran who fought in Europe and returned to his native Mississippi, where he again faced harsh segregation. As the first field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP beginning in 1954, he led voter registration drives and boycotts to push for racial equality. He also investigated lynchings, beatings and other violence that black residents suffered at the hands of white segregationists.

Myrlie Evers was national chairwoman of the NAACP from 1995 to 1998. After living in Mississippi in recent years, she has moved back to California, where she raised her three children after their father’s death

The federal government will take over the ranch-style home from Tougaloo College, which supports the change, bringing money for preservation. The Evers family donated the home to historically black Tougaloo in 1993, and it is open by appointment for tours. The three-bedroom home stood vacant for years after the family moved away in the 1960s, and it was restored in the mid-1990s. It is now filled with midcentury furniture, and one of the bedrooms has a display about the family’s history. A bullet hole is visible in a kitchen wall.

The National Park Service named the home a national historic landmark in 2016.
Click to expand...
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/world-news/brazil-president-jair-bolsonaro-cia-visit

Brazil’s Far-Right President Makes Unusual CIA Visit On First Official US Trip

WASHINGTON (AP) — The president of Brazil visited CIA headquarters Monday on his first official trip to the U.S., an unusual move that reflects the country’s shift in leadership to a more pro-American stance.

President Jair Bolsonaro planned to discuss “international themes in the region” at the visit to headquarters in Langley, Virginia, according to his son, Eduardo, a Brazilian lawmaker accompanying him.

Eduardo Bolsonaro described the CIA as “one of the most respected intelligence agencies in the world,” in a tweet that was likely to raise eyebrows back home in Brazil, where the U.S. and its spy services have been regarded with suspicion in recent years.

In 2013, leaks from Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency had wiretapped conversations of then-President Dilma Rousseff, leading to a years of frosty relations between the U.S. and Brazil.

“No Brazilian president had ever paid a visit to the CIA,” said Celso Amorim, who served as foreign minister under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and is a Bolsonaro critic. “This is an explicitly submissive position. Nothing compares to this.”

The CIA had no comment on the visit.

Bolsonaro visited the agency with his justice minister, Sergio Moro, leading daily O Globo reported. The paper noted that the visit was not published in the president’s agenda and press were not allowed to accompany him inside

The far-right Bolsonaro was elected last year and is an admirer of President Donald Trump. He sought to underscore his pro-America stance with a tweet upon his arrival Sunday.

“For the first time in a while, a pro-America Brazilian president arrives in DC,” he said in the tweet. “It’s the beginning of a partnership focused on liberty and prosperity, something that all of us Brazilians have long wished for.”

Bolsonaro was scheduled to speak to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce later Monday.

He is to meet with Trump on Tuesday, when he is expected to discuss trade and cooperation on the international campaign to press Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to give up power to the opposition.
Click to expand...
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fox-corp-standalone-hiring-paul-ryan

Fox Corp. Emerges As Standalone Company, Names Paul Ryan To Board

Fox Corporation — a new standalone company that owns Fox News, among other properties — announced Tuesday the hiring of former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to its board of directors.

“Mr. Paul D. Ryan served as the 54th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019, in which capacity he spearheaded efforts to revise the federal tax code, rebuild the national defense, expand domestic energy production, combat the opioid epidemic, and reform the criminal justice system,” the company said in a press release.

Tuesday marked the full separation of the Fox Corporation from Twenty-First Century Fox, which Disney recently acquired, and the first day it will be a publicly traded company.
Click to expand...
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/biden-preps-for-early-choice-running-mate-focus-beating-trump

Biden Preps For Early Choice Of Running Mate To Keep Focus On Beating Trump


Former Vice President Joe Biden is aware of his weaknesses as a candidate, and plans to choose his running mate early, if he does decide to run in April, to keep the focus on defeating President Donald Trump.

According to a Monday CNN report, he also plans to roll out big-name endorsements early and to run on the legacy of the Obama administration.

Biden met with former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams recently, but the vice presidency was reportedly not formally discussed.
Click to expand...
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...lls-250-millions-shadow-banning-conservatives

Nunes Sues Twitter, Trolls For $250 Million For Allegedly ‘Shadow-Banning Conservatives’


Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is seeking $250 million in damages in a lawsuit filed against Twitter and several troll Twitter accounts — including one called “Devin Nunes’s Mom” and another called “Devin Nunes’ Cow” — for “shadow banning conservative,” Fox News was first to report.

In the complaint filed on Monday, Nunes alleges that Twitter has a history of “knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice and financial incentive to the defamers – thereby facilitating defamation on its platform,” the lawsuit reads. Nunes attorney told Fox News that the suit is designed to “hold Twitter fully accountable for it’s abusive behavior and misconduct.”

During an interview with Sean Hannity on Monday evening, Nunes told Fox that the lawsuit was just the “first of many” actions he intends to take to stand up to what he, and other conservatives, like Donald Trump Jr., sees as fakes news and a social media campaign against conservative voices.

“We’re actually going after Twitter first because they are the main proliferator and they spread this fake news and the slanderous news,”
Click to expand...

















 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...r-trolls-targeting-him-says-more-suits-coming

Nunes Whines About Twitter Trolls ‘Targeting’ Him, Says More Suits Coming

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) went on Fox News on Monday evening just after filing a lawsuit against Twitter and a few individual users — for, essentially, trolling him — to complain that he’s been targeted online and to perpetuate a conspiracy theory among conservatives that social media platforms are out to censor right-wing folks.

Nunes told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that his $250 million suit is the “first of many.” The former chair of the House Intelligence Committee said he was going after Twitter first because the social media website is the “main proliferator” in spreading “slanderous news.”

“The case we’re basically making is this was an orchestrated effort,” he said, after directing viewers to Fox News’ website to read the suit. “So people were targeting me, there (were) anonymous accounts that were developed. Look, there are not supposed to be — these accounts aren’t supposed to exist. Twitter says they don’t have accounts that do this.”

He went on to suggest that his personal cyberbullies was comparable to the Russian trolls who interfered with the 2016 election.

“But there were several fake news accounts, whether its regards to the Russian investigation or to me, and we have to hold all of these people accountable. Because if we don’t, our First Amendment rights are at stake here,” he said, bemoaning that Twitter allegedly “shadow-banned” him last summer.

“This isn’t 20 years ago, Sean. What’s happening is that Twitter becomes the gas lighting for all the news,” he continued. “When they are regulating us, they’re regulating what people can see on my tweets, which they have done, and they are proliferating out things that they agree with with the algorithms that they develop, they need to come clean.”

Twitter and one of the users named personally in the suit, Liz Mair, a Republican communications operative, is declining to the comment on the lawsuit. When reached via email on Tuesday, Mair had an automatic reply that lamented she has been “inundated with emails” and pointed reporters to her legal defense fundraising site: the Swamp Accountability Project.

“I have yet to fully review the legal documentation in question and am therefore declining comment,” her auto-reply says.
Click to expand...

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top