President Obama: ‘Before We are Democrats or Republicans, We are Americans’

Apropos in the aftermath of the Tuscon shooting tragedy and on this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.



Related from The White House Blog:

– Celebrating MLK Day with City Year

– Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King’s Life and Legacy.

Today, President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and other Administration officials will honor Dr. Martin Luther King by participating in a National Day of Service.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service – website | twitter | facebook

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Would Probabaly Be Part of the Anti-War Movement Today!

Martin Luther King Jr gave this sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967. [note: As part of the process of creating imagery for this video, the speech was edited for length. The whole speech is reprinted HERE. Sections in bold were omitted in the video.]

As The Real News urges, once you’ve watched the video, read the speech in its entirety.

Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier Returns to Haiti After Exile

As if Haiti hasn’t already gone through enough! *Smdh….*

Related:

Catherine Porter says: Baby Doc’s return bodes ill for Haiti. [Toronto Star]

Michael Steele Withdraws from RNC Chairmanship Race

Seriously, I’m gonna miss that guy. Just for the comedy factor alone!

Read more via The Root.

Racists Totally Freak Out Over Muslim ‘Batman of Paris’

“Another day, another racist freakout over non-white superheroes. But unlike the hilariously dishonest racism we saw when the Council of Conservative Citizens called for a boycott of Marvel’s Thor movie on account of a mythical Norse god’s depiction as a black man, a recent round of conservative attacks on Nightrunner — DC’s Muslim Batman of Paris — are prejudicial in a more insidious way. While the CCC put forth a laughably tenuous justification for their outrage, it was with respect to one specific character in one specific context. The argument against Nightrunner, led by conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston, is based on the bigoted belief that a Muslim superhero is by definition an exercise in deceitful political correctness, and that Muslims are natively evil.

Introduced in this month’s Detective Comics Annual #12 and Batman Annual #28, Nightrunner is a 22-year-old Algerian Muslim who’s lived in Paris his entire life (it seems reasonable to assume he was born in France, but at the very least he was raised there). Born Billai Asseiah, the character is uncommonly adept at the highly YouTubeable gymnastic form known as parkour. That and Asseiah’s sense of justice make him an ideal recruit for Bruce Wayne’s new Batman, Inc. initiative, whereby he franchises Batmen to cities all over the world.

Huston views French Muslims — which is to say, immigrants or those descended from immigrants — as inauthentically French, and, as such, that Batman would choose a Muslim as Paris’ champion is gravely offensive to him and his loathsome ilk….”

CLICK HERE to read the full article.