Conservatives programed to trigger at words "Black Lives Matter" by Russian trolls.

hanimmal said:

Was there a reason that they singled you out when it happened to you? That is when it gets placed into the shitty category when there isn't a reason other than you are different.

I agree that it can happen to anyone, when someone gets it in their ass to single someone out, humans can be dicks. And we don't have the full context (like was he stumbling around drunk causing a scene just before the camera got turned on) or was it just a case of hoteling while black and caused someone to get nervous, or any of the infinite reasons that it could have started.

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cannabineer said:

It was the finger

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hanimmal said:

Like he gave someone the finger and the hotel called him out?

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

i think he meant that was why they bothered me, but i could be mistaken....

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hanimmal said:

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

they know we know they know we know they're fucking liars...so why don't we all just quit pretending, tell the fucking truth, and go from there?
"your beliefs threaten my carefully crafted prejudices, and could possibly force me to admit that i have been wrong, and that i've been acting like a complete and total fucking asshole for most of my life."....see, it was easy to type, start practicing it in the mirror, ron....

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/29/2144348/-House-Sargent-At-Arms-told-J6-Committee-they-would-have-used-deadly-force-if-the-crowd-was-black?pm_source=story_sidebar&pm_medium=web&pm_campaign=recommended

this is a misleading title...it is designed to make you think that they have standing orders about race...while this is just one man's opinion.
i agree with him, actually...but to make this seem like an official policy and not a personal opinion, is misleading.
the media doesn't need to be doing shit like this, and if just gives the fascist a place to stand on...the truth is more than damning enough without any embellishment on the media's part.
that being said, he is right in what he says, and that is wrong. just tell the simple truth, every time...many of us can still see it without being led to it by subterfuge.

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In Mississippi, where elected officials have a long history of praising self-sufficiency and condemning federal antipoverty programs, a welfare scandal has exposed how millions of dollars were diverted to the rich and powerful — including pro athletes — instead of helping some of the neediest people in the nation.

The misuse of welfare money rankles Nsombi Lambright-Haynes, executive director of One Voice, a nonprofit that works to help economically vulnerable communities in Mississippi.

“It’s shameful and disgusting, especially when we’ve been a state where we hear discussion every year about poor people not needing resources and poor people being lazy and just needing to get up to work,” she said.

The state has ranked among the poorest in the U.S. for decades, but only a fraction of its federal welfare money has been going toward direct aid to families. Instead, the Mississippi Department of Human Services allowed well-connected people to fritter away tens of millions of welfare dollars from 2016 to 2019, according to the state auditor and state and federal prosecutors.

Former Human Services Director John Davis has pleaded guilty to charges tied to welfare misspending in one of the state’s largest public corruption cases.

The scandal has ensnared high-profile figures, including retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre, who is one of more than three dozen defendants in a civil lawsuit that the current Human Services director filed to try to recover some of the welfare money wasted while Davis was in charge.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money helped fund pet projects of the wealthy, including $5 million for a volleyball arena that Favre supported at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi Auditor Shad White said. Favre’s daughter played volleyball at the school starting in 2017.

Another $2.1 million of TANF money went toward an attempt to develop a concussion drug by a company in which Favre was an investor, White said. Favre has asked a judge to dismiss him from the lawsuit, with his attorney arguing that the Department of Human Services — not Favre — is responsible for “grossly improper and unlawful handling of welfare funds.” Favre is not facing criminal charges.

Some of the money that was intended to help low-income families was spent on luxury travel for Davis and on people close to him, drug rehab for a former pro wrestler and boot camp-style gym classes for public officials.

In contrast, some welfare recipients say they found little relief but plenty of bureaucratic headaches from collecting modest monthly TANF payments.

“What may seem like an easy handout program is not,” said Brandy Nichols, a single mother of four children age 8 and younger.

Mississippi requires TANF recipients to prove they are actively looking for employment and Nichols, of Jackson, said the job search is time-consuming.

“It’s work, and sometimes work takes away my ability to find a true, stable job,” she said.

TANF is for families that have at least one child younger than 18. To qualify in Mississippi, the household income must be at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. The current upper income limit for a family of three is $680 a month.

The Associated Press researched poverty statistics for 1982 through 2021, which show Mississippi was the poorest state for 19 of those 40 years and among the five poorest for 38 years. In 2021, the U.S. poverty rate was 11.6% and Mississippi’s was the highest in the nation, 17.4%.

Federal statistics show a dramatic decrease in the number of Mississippi residents receiving individual TANF aid starting in 2012, the first year Republican Phil Bryant was governor, and continuing into the term of current Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. Bryant chose Davis to lead the Department of Human Services.

During the 2012 budget year, 24,180 Mississippians received TANF. By the 2021 budget year, that was down to 2,880 in a state with nearly 3 million residents.

Robert G. “Bob” Anderson, the current Mississippi Department of Human Services executive director, told Democratic state lawmakers in October that about 90% of people who apply for TANF in Mississippi don’t receive it, either because their applications are denied or because they abandon their applications.

Those who do qualify get the lowest payments in the country, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

April Jackson, a single mother with children ranging in age from a few months to 13 years old, said she received about $190 a month in TANF when she was pregnant with her third child.

Eleven years ago, the monthly payment “bought diapers and stuff like that.” But she said that after she started receiving child support from the father of her oldest son, Human Services ended her TANF benefits because she was suddenly over the income limit for the aid.

“It messed me up real bad,” said Jackson, who lives on a tight budget. “I wasn’t able to pay my part of the bills. I couldn’t buy my kids clothes for school or the shoes they needed.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said that in 2020, New Hampshire had the highest TANF payment in the country, $862 a month for a single parent and one child. Mississippi’s monthly payment for a family of two was $146.

In 2021, Mississippi increased its TANF payments by $90 per month, per family — the state’s first increase since 1999 — at Anderson’s recommendation. The increase cost $2.8 million, and Republican Sen. Joey Fillingane said during a Senate debate that it was all paid by federal money, not state money.

“We’re not talking about a lot of money,” Fillingane said. “These are the poorest of the poor in our state.”

“Of course, those are all our dollars,” replied Sen. Melanie Sojourner, one of 18 legislators — all Republicans — who voted against the increase.

The federal government sends Mississippi about $86.5 million a year for TANF and allows states wide leeway in spending. Records show Mississippi does not always spend its entire allotment, sometimes carrying millions of dollars from year to year.

During Mississippi’s 2016 budget year, the Department of Human Services sent $17.3 million in direct aid to recipients, about half of the state’s TANF spending. During the next three years under Davis, the department decreased the amount of TANF money going to individuals.

By the 2019 budget year, Human Services was spending $9.6 million on direct aid, 16% of the TANF money. About $27.6 million, 46% of the money, was going to the Mississippi Community Education Center. The organization — run by Nancy New and one of her sons, Zachary New, who have pleaded guilty to state charges in the welfare misspending case — said it was fighting poverty by working on parenting skills, school dropout prevention, job readiness and other programs.

For Nichols — who spoke to Democratic state lawmakers about her experience on TANF — maintaining steady employment has been difficult at times because some of her children have health problems and she has to care for them.

She has worked as a cashier, waitress, housekeeper and certified nurse assistant. But when she has been unable to find a job quickly, she has had to work volunteer hours in a state Department of Human Services office as a condition for keeping TANF payments.

“That’s not career development,” she said. “That’s called being stuck in limbo.”

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Brittney Griner of the United States in action with Sandrine Gruda of France at Saitama Super Arena during their Tokyo 2020 Olympic women's basketball Group B game in Saitama, Japan August 2, 2021. © Sergio Perez, Reuters

The Louisiana Republican State Central Committee voted Saturday to condemn the Biden administration’s prisoner swap with Russia that led to the release of basketball star Brittney Griner.

Members of the GOP committee attending their quarterly meeting in Lafayette supported a resolution condemning the Griner exchange through a voice vote. No members raised objections to the matter, once a reference to Griner being a “woke” gay woman was removed from the statement.

The Republican Party did not provide a written copy of the resolution to a reporter who requested one. Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Louis Gurvich said resolutions approved during the meeting wouldn’t be available for at least two weeks.

Griner, a WNBA superstar, was swapped for infamous Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in December after being detained for 10 months. She was arrested at a Moscow airport in February, when Russian authorities said they found cannabis oil in vape cartridges in her luggage. After pleading guilty over the summer, Griner started a nine-year sentence at a Russian penal colony.
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Prominent Republicans, including U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, accused President Joe Biden of working to free Griner over other Americans detained overseas because of domestic political pressure. In addition to being gay, Griner is a Black woman and has endorsed left-leaning causes such as Black Lives Matter.

The person who Russia received in exchange for Griner also makes people uncomfortable. Bout has been characterized by the U.S. government as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers.

On Saturday, Louisiana Republicans initially considered a version of their resolution that described Griner as “LGBT woke” until Grover Rees petitioned his colleagues to remove the language.

“There is no need to point out the sexual orientation [of Griner], which is irrelevant,” said Rees, a former U.S. ambassador to East Timor who lives in Lafayette.

Suzanne White, who drafted the resolution, pushed back on Rees’ amendment. White said Griner was released because she is a “woke” LGBTQ woman. She also criticized the WNBA for being “all about” LGBTQ rights.

Other committee members said they were more concerned that Griner, a basketball player, had been freed before Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who is now an executive for a security company. Whelan has been detained in Russia for four years, longer than Griner or Trevor Reed, another American freed from Russian detainment through a prisoner exchange in April.

The Biden administration had hoped to swap Bout for both Griner and Whelan, but Russian authorities balked. Whelan has been accused of spying on Russia, a charge that experts told The New York Times is far more serious than those Griner and Reeves faced.

Late last month, Griner asked her own supporters to advocate for the release of Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian penal colony. On social media, she shared an address where people can send letters of support to Whelan, according to the Associated Press.

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hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/louisiana-republican-party-objects-to-brittney-griner-prisoner-swap/
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Roger A. Shrubber said:

while that is an incredibly racist, bigoted thing to do...it's fucking Louisiana...i'm from Tn and we look at Louisiana and say "god damn, what a fucking racist place.".....

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hanimmal said:

It sucks people are so shitty to actually use their political power to do this.

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hanimmal said:

It sucks people are so shitty to actually use their political power to do this.

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

openly...not even in the middle of the night, with the light covered...just right the fuck out in public.
my grandpa was a great guy, an engineer for the Santa Fe railroad, owned a kiwi farm and raised honey bees, everyone in town (Lumas Ca. )loved him.
He was one of the first people to help out if there was any kind of problem, flood, fire, whatever, he would be there, helping, this giant of a man...
it didn't seem to make any difference who he was helping, either. hispanic, black, asian...if they needed help, he helped.
this same man got so upset when a black family bought the house across the road that he bought a black labrador retriever and named it ""Nigger" so he could stand in his yard and yell "NIGGER"...claiming he was calling his dog...which taught me a valualble lesson about what people DO NOT SHOW OTHER PEOPLE....these people aren't even bothering to get the dog...and it's the state legislature.

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