Hillary Clinton speaking before roughly 2100 at Atlanta rally pic.twitter.com/R3usUTHOyb
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Jesse Jackson, to standing ovation, at HRC event in Atlanta: "It's healing time. It's hope time. It's Hillary Clinton time."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Rep. John Lewis in Atlanta with HRC: "Hillary Clinton is without a doubt the most qualified person to be president of the United States."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Black Lives Matter protesters interrupt Hillary, who says, "Yes, Black Lives do matter!" to loud cheers.
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Fewer than 10 protesters singing near front of podium. They're getting quieter as Hillary continues.
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) October 30, 2015
John Lewis has joined Clinton back on stage as protesters continue to chant and sing over her speech.
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 30, 2015
Huge "let her talk" chant breaks out.
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) October 30, 2015
Black Lives Matter protesters leaving venue.
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) October 30, 2015
From Peoples’ AP report:
… At multiple campaign stops, the Democratic presidential front-runner outlined her plans for criminal justice reform, an issue that she and her rivals — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley — each pitch as they court black voters who will help choose a nominee. But for Clinton this time, a mostly friendly audience at Clark Atlanta University included several protesters from the Black Lives Matter Movement.
They sang and chanted for nearly 12 minutes as Clinton tried to speak over them. Rep. John Lewis, a hero in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, urged them to stop, as did the musician Usher. But they persisted until the crowd of more than 2,000 students, most of them black, chanted, “Let her talk!”…
The former secretary of state encountered no such trouble later Friday in North Charleston, South Carolina, where she was warmly received at an NAACP banquet held less than 10 miles from Emanuel African American Episcopal Church, a historic black congregation where a white gunman killed the pastor and eight others in June.
Clinton sat silently through a ceremony for the families of “The Emanuel 9,” then during her later remarks praised them for their “grace and resilience.”
She also used the venue to emphasize her support for tougher gun laws. “The murder of nine innocents at Bible study has renewed the call to do something about the senseless gun violence that stalks our country,” she said. “The question for us is how many more people have to die before we take action.”…
Clinton called Friday for eliminating sentencing disparities between crack cocaine crimes and those that involve powder cocaine. The changes would build on a 2010 act of Congress that narrowed the disparity between crack crimes — which are concentrated among minorities — and powder crimes, which are more likely to involve whites. Clinton’s plan would make the change retroactive.
She proposed a legal ban on racial profiling by police. The policy would forbid federal, state and local officers from “relying on a person’s race when conducting routine or spontaneous investigatory activities,” unless they have information linking a suspect to a crime. Clinton hasn’t detailed how her idea would go beyond existing law, but her campaign cited previous congressional proposals that would make it easier for alleged profiling victims to recover damages from government agencies in civil court.
Clinton also embraced the movement to “ban the box,” or prevent the federal government and contractors from asking about criminal history during initial job applications. Studies have shown that employers are reluctant to consider applications with a criminal history, but job prospects improve for former felons if hiring managers hear about their qualifications before their criminal records.
“I believe in second chances,” Clinton said in South Carolina.
Clinton has made frank discussion about the country’s lingering racism a central theme of her primary campaign, in an effort to woo the coalition of minority, young, and female voters who twice catapulted Barack Obama into the White House.
In Atlanta, she stressed her determination to build upon Obama’s legacy. “It will be up to me assuming we get this done to be a president who builds on what we have achieved and goes even further,” she said…
Sounds to me like HRClinton is making all the right points!
SiubhanDuinne
You want to see something really cute? Go over to Digby’s place and scroll down to about the third photo in the White House trick-or-treat thread. Little kid dressed as the Pope, driving a Popemobile. LOL.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com
Okay, now I’ll read about Hillary in Atlanta.
SiubhanDuinne
I am, somewhat to my surprise, really liking this HRC I’m seeing recently. I was always going to vote for her in the general, of course, and do GOTV volunteering on her behalf, but didn’t anticipate doing so with much enthusiasm. Happily, that is changing. I hope it continues to.
Mike J
A future president and her security detail. Halloween in Des Moines.
Ruckus
I dislike the point made in the article that she is trying to woo minority voters. It sounds like she is pandering rather than she actually believes what comes out of her mouth. I’d bet pandering is the last thing out of one’s mouth on any black issue if John Lewis is supporting you.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: The thing that surprises me about many people’s opinions about HRC is that they seem to focus on her at a particular time. 1993, 2008, whatever… What I have seen is a person who learns from mistakes, works hard, and is bright as hell. She may not be as incandescently charismatic as her husband or Barack Obama, but that’s a rather impossible standard. She seems to be making all the right moves in this campaign. Working on the ground game, not trying to wing the day, and so on. Who did that a few years ago?
BillinGlendaleCA
Can’t we talk about the GOP some more, these Dems are sooo boring.
amk
I doubt that crowd is at 2100. Or the campaign sucks at photography.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed.
Was just thinking about people who bring up her history when she was 20 or so and that she hasn’t grown at all. That may be more indicative of the person questioning her rather than any issue she has. I see her as having grown quite a bit in just the last few years and she wasn’t all that bad 25 yrs ago. In 2008 she hired some shit political talent and was up against one of the strongest candidates in my lifetime. I was against her then for hiring such crap talent more than anything else. She sure doesn’t seem to be making that mistake now.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: The photo isn’t from the campaign.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: As I understand it, she has locked up all of the Obama people who are still in the game. FWIW, I voted for Obama in the Ohio primary in 2008, but I would have been perfectly comfortable voting for HRC if she had won.
amk
@efgoldman: I would estimate around 200 from the photo.
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed, but she is a reporter covering her campaign and the campaign could draw flak if her claim is false.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: Okay, if she is a reporter who will draw flak for a false report, why are you disputing her estimate?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh I would have voted for her if she was the nominee. But it wasn’t all that difficult for me to make the choice I did. Am I glad it turned out the way it did? That’s a hard call. But I think she is a much better candidate today than she was then.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I think the better candidate won in 2008. I also think that HRC learned a lot from that elections and the subsequent political events. I may agree with Bernie on a few more specifics but when I think about the candidate most likely to kick the ass of a GOP nominee, Clinton tops my list right now. And that is really my priority.
Ruckus
@amk:
Are you thinking you are seeing the entire gym? Looks to me like there is a lot more of it than the one corner shown in the picture. Plus I’d bet there is a pretty good door count, what with the SS and all the security I’m sure happens.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Once again, agreed on all points.
ETA What’s the old saw? “It’s like I’m talking to myself.”
amk
@Omnes Omnibus: Read my posts, see the pic.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I was about to address the camera placement issue. Thanks.
amk
@Ruckus: If you claim a certain number, then show the pic that supports it. These are minor things a smart campaign should address.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: As a couple of us have noted, that photo is not of the full crowd. It is shot from the right side of the stage, catching HRC and the some of the bleachers on the left of the stage.
FWIW, I read your posts and saw the pic.
Ruckus
@amk:
How’s that handful of straws treating you?
jl
Nice to see good news and a positive story about the HRC campaign.
I agree with commenter above that the ‘woo’ characterization is lame. Like, first, HRC doesn’t really have to ‘woo’ them. Don’t see that kind of language when GOP goes after working and middle class white bigots, but then the image of Trump trying to woo some random middle age white people In Iowa will probably drive away readership.
I look forward to a relatively boring, grown-up issues oriented Democratic debate next week. And I expect both HRC and Sanders (and the other guy, O;Malley) to handle BS moderator questions better both during and after the debate. And not to gripe about any very hard but fair issues questions, or necessary and responsible follow-ups (ha ha, like that would ever happen very much).
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: She seems to be much better this time around. Maybe it is because she is an intelligent person who can learn. OTOH, I may be a credulous dipshit. Who knows?
amk
@Ruckus: It was a neutral observation. So, whatever tickles your bone.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: I will again note that the pic and the number came from a media outlet not the HRC campaign.
amk
@efgoldman: sure.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Right on all points?
Really, at this point I’m just glad we have someone who doesn’t make me want to see how far I can force an ice pick into my ear, like I’d be doing if I was capable of voting republican. That Clinton is about as far from that as I’d ever expect a candidate to be is nice.
Twenty one yr old at work the other day made a comment that everyone of the republican candidates is an outright idiot and clown. Maybe there is hope for youth after all.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: That is my theory.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: amk was blaming the HRC campaign for it.
Ruckus
@amk:
Two points.
Neutral? That’s neutral? What the hell is high gear like?
Tickles my what? And no, I’m not in the least bit interested. You aren’t my type. Not in any way, shape or form. You like living in a bakery?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: My step-daughter said, without prompting, that she thinks tRump is an idiot. I told her, he’s a clown.
ETA: I’ll have to suggest she see “Being There” so she can understand Dr. Carson.
Ruckus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s a twofer. He’s both. But he has company in his fight to be the number one idiot clown.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: Sabrina Saddiqui is a real reporter, easy on the eyes too.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Cheers and good night.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: You have a point there.
magurakurin
Another shot of the crowd.
Hard to count, I suppose. But I figure the bleachers on the far wall are 6 people high and I count about 60 along the row. So about 300+ there and then maybe the same on the near side bleachers, so 6 or 700 people there. The crowd in the middle looks to be about 20 people wide and 30 deep another 600 or so. Maybe 1200 to 1400 in what this photo shows and the crowd looks to go deeper out of the photo. 2100 seems reasonable. 200 does not.
Ruckus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I mean sure life is tough when first leaving home and only having a million, which was just pocket change around 1970. A damn big fucking pocket by the way. Except that not all that much later he seemed to have come into 40 million from the same source, his dad. And he’s turned it into about the same amount of money if he’d just stuck it in most any decent mutual fund. That takes real brains, courage and stamina. Wonder how he managed?
Omnes Omnibus
@magurakurin: amk, any response?
Amir Khalid
Meanwhile, the big news from the Jeb campaign is that they’ve let the COO go. As I said in an earlier thread, that sounds like something you do if the org is already dead. Which — for me, anyway — raises the question: could the Jeb campaign actually be shutting down?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: One million in 1970. Sure, my dad used to give me that to buy bubble gum at the 5 and dime.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: It’s not dead, just in a vegetative state. Jeb? knows how to handle that.
magurakurin
I don’t think the BLM protesters did anything wrong and I don’t think Clinton did, either. The BLM group is doing what they think is best. I’m pretty sure they must expect to get ushered out if they won’t let the speakers speak. Clinton doesn’t have much choice either. If people won’t let her speak, she has to have them ushered out. I don’t think anyone can say for sure what is the best way or the most effective way to protest or bring attention to a cause. I imagine every method has its good points and bad points. As long as it doesn’t include violence, all protests are valid in my opinion, no matter the form they take.
Omnes Omnibus
@magurakurin: I think it worked perfectly for all involved. BLM made their point. HRC agreed. When BLM continued, John Fucking Lewis came back to HRC’s stage. I think a point was made.
Ruckus
@magurakurin:
I think their cause certainly needs a voice that get heard. Standing outside with a sign doesn’t seem to work, maybe this is the only real way to be taken seriously.
At some point it will probably become counterproductive but it is still having a positive effect. I’d bet it would be even more so if the protesters would sit back down and see what happens next, see if they get positive feed back and widespread respect that I bet they would. But then I’m not what you’d call a directly effected party to their grievances, other than being a fellow human being.
mclaren
@SiubhanDuinne:
Here’s the thing — Hillary has been forced to entrench and commit deeply enough to some serious genuinely leftist reforms that she and her administration are going to have some serious problems if they try to back down after the inauguration. Because once you get the general public geared up about reform and excited and enthused, people start flooding congress with phone calls and mail and protests. So even the tyrannosaurs in the Republican-dominated congress will start to get crushed by the outspoken will of the general public for reform.
This is why the cynics who sneer “Oh, HRC will just fake left and move right, like Obama!” are wrong. Once a candidate creates a sufficiently critical mass for change, the changes starts to become self-perpetuating and both congress and the candidate must bow before the momentum of public sentiment.
Back in 2009 we had a mandate for change from the Bush-era warmongering, and that’s what we got. We did not yet have a mandate for criminal justice reform or reducing inequality, because those issues weren’t on the radar the same way they are today. Back in the 2008 campaign, the Global War on Terror was the big issue — not inequality.
This year, I’m hearing criminal justice reform and inequality as THE big issues. So I suspect something’s going to get done about those issues even if Hillary is elected. Sometimes the events force the hand of the candidate. Look at FDR, who ran on a relatively conservative platform and wound up getting forced into becoming a radical reformer by the pressure of events.
Only one of many reasons why I’m extremely optimistic about the prospects for change in this election.
mclaren
@Amir Khalid:
Naw, the Bush campaign is only sleeping.
Oh, look! Now you’ve stunned it!
Ruckus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Closest I’ve ever come to that much money was owning machines worth a bit over $600,000. Of course they didn’t all show up at once and I was using them to actually be productive in business. Not sure any part of that statement could ever be applied to tRump in any fashion.
Amir Khalid
@mclaren:
That’s giving Hillary scant credit for sincerity.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@magurakurin:
I don’t know if I’d describe what they did as wrong, but I’m definitely reaching the point of calling it pointless and ineffective. If you’re BLM, you need to recognize when the people you’ve been targeting have done what you wanted, namely speaking about your issue in the way you said you wanted, and advancing the policy agenda you said you wanted.
Continuing to interrupt the Democratic candidates may generate some publicity, but not of a sort you really want. At that point, you aren’t making your issue known; you’re coming off as petulant and unable to take yes for an answer. If you want to protest, there are a gazillion targets who haven’t bought into your program, and showing up there will highlight your cause rather than yourself.
This is the point where Occupy started to wander around aimlessly, and BLM is heading down the same path. Absent some sort of central organization that can make coordinated decisions, they’re going to fritter away their moment, just as Occupy did. Like Occupy, it won’t have been worthless, because they really did advance their cause and get Democratic candidates talking about their issue with their framing, but it will be a shame if they can’t take that next step.
mclaren
@Amir Khalid:
These are politicians, Amir. If you want sincerity, get a dog.
seaboogie
@SiubhanDuinne: @Omnes Omnibus: Not exactly inspired in a transformative way like Obama, and also a deep respect for how Hillary continues to bring it….
mclaren
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
But not quite as pointless and ineffective as getting gunned down by racist muggers with badges and refusing to speak out against the ongoing slaughter.
Look, neither you nor I are black. Therefore we are not fucking qualified to pontificate about how pointless and ineffective direct action by black people who continue to be targeted by racist cops might or might not be.
Amir Khalid
@mclaren:
There’s a difference between identifying with the cause, which is what you’re talking about, and critiquing strategy, which is what Tissue Thin Pseudonym is doing.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@mclaren:
Uh, huh. If you had any intellectual honesty, this argument would basically lead you to stop posting altogether except in the pet threads.
Of course, you don’t have any intellectual honesty, and so you will continue to accuse people of doing things wrong on a near constant basis. And in and of itself, that’s the right thing to do. Your problem isn’t that you shouldn’t be offering advice to people; it’s that your judgment is terrible. That, and that you never use a sentence to say anything of five paragraphs will do.
As soon as we declare that no one should offer a critique unless you are just like the person you are critiquing, the whole conversation stops as we watch well meaning people walk off a cliff. Yes, we should keep in mind what other people’s experience is when we offer critiques, but they still need to be offered. In this case, disrupting Clinton campaign events isn’t direct action; it’s very much indirect, and misdirected, action. You’ll never stop racist police behavior by aiming at the targets who have already done what you asked.
mclaren
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
You have a bad habit of going berserk whenever someone disagrees with you. That’s not helpful to your argument.
The plain fact of the matter is that I don’t weigh in, generally speaking, on what black people should or shouldn’t do because I’m not black. It’s very easy for privileged white people to sit around and blow smoke up their asses about what black people should or should not do.
Let’s be blunt: for a well-to-do white person like you to instruct black people on how they should address violent assaults on their bodies is racism, pure and simple. It makes you look like an asshole. If you want to continue to look like an asshole, fine. That’s your business. Don’t expect anyone to take you seriously, though.
That’s the fallacy of the excluded middle. It’s a form of lying. The lie you’re telling us is that either affluent white suburbanites get to lecture poor inner-city blacks on what the black people should do about being gunned down and beaten and tased like dogs until they’re dead in the street and left to rot in the sun for hours, or no one can say anything.
Wrong.
That kind of stupid lie (the fallacy of the excluded middle) makes you look dumb as sack of rocks as well as an asshole. You know just as we know that there’s a whole world of options between your privileged affluent white nattering about impoliteness to impoverished blacks who are getting gunned down like dogs, and doing nothing.
Pro tip: if you’re going to make yourself look like a liar, at least avoid also making yourself look stupid in the same post.
mclaren
@Amir Khalid:
There’s also a difference between being able to walk down the street without ending up dead in a chokehold or blown away by 9 mm bullets, which you have to worry about if you’re black every single day, and not having to worry about any of that.
“Identifying with the cause” doesn’t have a damn thing to do with white obliviousness and white privilege. And critiquing a strategy that continues to work and get headlines doesn’t seem very useful, does it?
Let’s start critiquing BLM’s strategy when they stop getting headlines and when the white politicians stop acknowledging that there’s a serious problem with white cops murdering innocent black people for no reason.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@mclaren:
This is where your argument completely falls apart. As long as we’re pulling out argumentation jargon, what you have posited is a false dichotomy. Those are not the only two possibilities here. Yes, there are a whole slew of alternatives, and it’s best if we can all actually discuss them rather than saying that only some people’s opinions have value.
The really funny thing is that, if there’s anyone ignoring what actual black people have said about this incident, it’s you. You’re asserting that John Lewis’ opinion on the event should be ignored. You’re arguing that the opinion of most of the people in a mostly black audience should be ignored. You are not defending the right of black people to be heard on the issue; you’re arguing that a small minority of those involved should have a privileged position on it, a position that, purely coincidentally, I’m sure, was the one you held ahead of time.
If that’s not being a patronizing asshole, I’m not sure what is.
mclaren
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
That’s flatly false. I specifically said that I’m not qualified to talk about what BLM should do because I’m not black.
How does that translate to saying that what black people say about BLM doesn’t matter?
You’re not making sense. You need to sleep it off. You’ll be coherent in the morning.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@mclaren:
Uh, huh. That’s why you went after the commenters who expressed approval of BLM’s tactics with the same vociferousness you came at me with. Your pretense that you’re just objecting to anyone who isn’t black offering a critique of the event is bullshit.
Keith G
@mclaren: BLM are political actors – as they should be. In a mature, open, arguably democratic society, all of those who enter public politics are subject to the possibility of having their actions critiqued. That’s as it should be. That’s part of legitimate social interaction.
Such discussions are not an attempt to silence a group, but are just an honest evaluation of effectiveness (and that evaluation may well be wrong).
It seems to me that to categorically label such discussions as racist or as an appendage of privilege evidences a logical disconnect and even a bit of social immaturity. To complicate matters, such discussions might be a part of a racist agenda, but one would need a bit more evidence to honestly make that claim.
msdc
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
This. Or to put it more broadly: it would be nice if progressives could learn when and how to take the fucking win.
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
This, too.
Davis X. Machina
@Amir Khalid:
I spend decades hanging out in Irish circles in Boston and Worcester who were unwilling, or incapable, of drawing the same distinction.
Mike E
This has been another episode of Somebody’s Wrong On The Internet.
kc
@mclaren:
I hate to break it to you, but the person who looks like an asshole in this exchange is not RTP.
Thoughtful Today
@Mike E:
…
Omnes Omnibus
@Thoughtful Today: Possibly your most cogent post ever.
Thoughtful Today
@Omnes Omnibus:
And you’re right out the gate with the insult … :)
I dub thee: The Walmart Board Member of Balloon-Juice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Thoughtful Today: Dude, it’s not like your previous posting history doesn’t exist. There is no reason for me to pretend that you are a real progressive with anything useful to contribute to the conversation.
kc
@kc:
TTP, damn it …
Another Holocene Human
@Thoughtful Today: Amazing. You hung around an hour just for this. Now that’s obsession.
Thoughtful Today
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m just noting that you’re the type of troll who will insult someone right out the gate, even when I quite literally didn’t say anything.
Amir Khalid
@Thoughtful Today:
Omnes is no more a troll than I am a slaver.
Gian
@Omnes Omnibus:
You know who the Honorable Mr. Lewis is, but do the folks from BLM?
The fuss with Hillary when she asked for policy proposals, and recently in LA they disrupted a meeting of the mayor at a local Black Church with Black community leaders.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-black-lives-matter-mayor-garcetti-20151023-story.html
I’ll snip a quote from the mother of a mentally ill man who was killed by cops in LA from that article:
Personally I think they may have reached a point of diminishing returns with disrupting democratic politicians, and that Hillary has a point about having concrete policy proposals.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Forget it, Jake. It’s faux-progressivetown.