President Barack Obama will provide the words and Aretha Franklin the song Sunday for the long-delayed dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial.
Some 50,000 people are expected to converge on Washington's National Mall to witness the official welcoming of the first monument to honor an African-American to the grounds dotted with stone tributes to presidents and war heroes.
More than 250,000 people had been anticipated for the memorial's originally scheduled Aug. 28 dedication, which was postponed because of Hurricane Irene.
The nearly two-month delay and the fact that thousands of people already have visited the tranquil 4-acre monument of stone, greenery and trees along the northwest edge of Washington's Tidal Basin won't take the luster off Sunday's festivities, advocates said.
"It's still fresh," said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights icon and a King protege. "I'm excited. And I know many, many people still plan to come from Dr. King's hometown, from Atlanta, and from the heart of the Deep South, where he was best known."
The memorial is not without its detractors, but that's true of many of these memorials. And as Rep. John Lewis, a contemporary and friend to King, says on Saturday's Up with Chris Hayes, there's still much work to be done to achieve racial equality.
However, for today, let's just recognize the embodiment of the movement who stood together, who marched, who believed in non-violent protest because "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Because that's a concept that we must embrace still to achieve the change we need.
GOTV, people. I'm proud of all the help Blue America has received from the readers of C&L, Hullabaloo, DownWithTyranny and the entire blogosphere. We've raised almost a million dollars for progressive candidates and causes this year on all our many pages.
Chris Hayes makes a smart pitch over at the DKOS GOTV project tonight. He acknowledges the conventional wisdom about tomorrow and then focuses on something we haven't heard a lot of people talk about: Margins Matter
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Our system is not a winner-take-all system, as we learned sometimes to our frustration over the last two years. If enough people get out and vote tomorrow, there's going to come a time in the next two years when Republicans are just a few votes short of getting something they really want, something that would be genuinely awful for the country. You're the last defense...read on
Breitbart had the audacity to attack John Lewis and called him a liar. Fortunately, we know what's what.
If you need help finding your polling place or reporting any voting irregularities, the Democratic Party has set up a Voter Protection Hotline at (1-800-311-VOTE), as well as the www.RaiseYourVote.com voter education website.
Let us know how your voting went today. What you saw, any irregularities or observations, etc. And those of you that haven't voted yet get out there!
His "proof" that black congressmen lied about being called "nigger" is as useless as his ACORN clips. Andrew Breitbart isn't fit to spit-shine the shoes of civil rights hero and Congressman John Lewis. It's ludicrous to think that the right-wing bully believed he had the moral or political standing to call Lewis a liar, after Lewis and two other black congressmen reported they were called "nigger" by tea partiers during the healthcare reform vote March 20. Lewis's word on the confrontation is good enough for me.
Now comes news that Breitbart is the liar – or at least the misleader. Video he's been peddling to "prove" the congressmen were not called the N-word was actually after the slurs occurred. As a friend notes, "It's like running video of the Twin Towers on 9/10 to prove 9/11 didn't happen." Of course the videos Breitbart peddled to claim ACORN helped a supposed pimp and prostitute set up a child-prostitution ring have also been found misleading, at best. The California Attorney General's review said they were "severely edited" and in fact "showed no violation of the law." New York authorities concluded the same thing.
A reconstruction of the events shows that the conservative challenges largely sprang from a mislabeled video that was shot later in the day.
Breitbart posted two columns on his Web site saying the claims were fabricated. Both led with a 48-second YouTube video showing Lewis, Carson, other Congressional Black Caucus members and staffers leaving the Capitol. Some of the group were videotaping the booing crowd.
Breitbart asked why the epithet was not captured by the black lawmakers' cameras, and why nobody reacted as if they had heard the slur. He also questioned whether the epithets could have been shouted by liberals planted in the crowd.
But the 48-second video was shot as the group was leaving the Capitol — at least one hour after Lewis, D-Ga., and Carson walked to the Capitol, which is when they said the slurs were used.
Questioned about using a video on his Web site from the wrong moment, Breitbart stood by his claim that the lawmakers were lying.
"I'm not saying the video was conclusive proof," he said.
AP also reports that Rep. Heath Shuler – a Blue Dog Democrat from North Carolina, no raving lefty – says he heard the slurs too.
That's four congressmen vs. Breitbart and his tea-party bullies. Which story do you believe?
He says his videos aren't conclusive proof on his site. Really, you Richard Nixon wannabe. Then WTF are they on your site for you?
I met with Barney Frank last week and he backed up the claims of hatred that happened to him and told me that he was indeed called a faggot.
Hey Andrew, bring over the 100K to my house. We have mutual friends that can set it up. I'm here waiting to collect it and I'll deliver the money to John Lewis.
Remember when Andrew Breitbart swore no racist slurs were hurled at the Congressional Black Caucus the day of the health care vote? He sneered at the possibility that any teabagger had behaved in a racist or inappropriate fashion just before he promised to donate $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund if he was proven wrong.
Seems to me the video up above is pretty clear and convincing evidence of spitting, racism and hate, and it seems Breitbart thinks so, too. Now that he can't deny it happened, he's choosing to blame John Lewis et al for walking through the group of angry teabaggers.
In truly despicable fashion, Breitbart let Hannity's audience know how outraged he was at the unfairness of it all:
BREITBART: The very act of the Black Congressional Caucus, walking through the tea party people while holding all those videos was an act of provocation. They need this desperately and one last thing. The language that Nancy Pelosi is using about the civil rights movement, comparing the unpopular health care bill to the civil rights movement ties into this… They’re all on the talking points, basically telling black people that the white people are trying to take your health care from you. This is a racial, racist, racially divisive strategy that they’re playing that’s very dangerous in the United States.
The noise machine is cranked up to full volume and steaming right ahead. In classic blame-the-victim style, Breitbart suggests that John Lewis and Emanuel Cleaver should have walked around the murmuring mob of nasty white folks rather than through them, because obviously the mere presence of black Congressmen was so inflammatory as to throw all caution (and spit) to the wind.
Never mind that they were walking up stairs to the building where they work as representatives elected by the majority of voters in their districts. That doesn't matter to Andrew Breitbart, because he just cannot stand the unbearable weight of intellectual honesty.
His remarks prove how deeply racist he, and the movement he champions, truly are.
At Pelosi's side were Georgia congressman and civil rights-era leader John Lewis and her close friend Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.).
Speaking to HuffPost's Arthur Delaney, Rep. Dingell expressed confidence that reform would pass when asked if he thought Democrats had the votes.
"I wouldn't be walking this way if I didn't," said the Michigan Democrat, who ambled into the meeting on crutches instead of in a wheelchair. The caucus could be heard applauding him when he entered the room.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) told HuffPost that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and his anti-abortion bloc of Democrats were not discussed during a last-minute morning meeting of Democrats. He echoed Speaker Pelosi in saying he expected the bill would pass. Asked whether Stupak would be a 'yes' vote, Rep. Sandy Levin said, "I think so."
Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) claimed Saturday that health care protesters at the Capitol directed racial epithets at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) as he walked outside.
Carson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus along with Lewis, told The Hill that protesters called Lewis the N-word.
Tea Party protesters held a rally outside the Capitol on Saturday, which included speeches by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and actor Jon Voight, and then proceeded into the halls to lobby members at the 11th hour.
Lewis was one of the leaders of the civil rights movement alongside Martin Luther King. Jr. Asked if racial epithets were yelled at him, Lewis responded, "Yes but it's OK. I've heard this before in the 60s. A lot of this is just downright hate."
Many of these people were hiding in the shadows until FOX News promoted the tea party movement. They aren't just a sliver of the make-up of the crowds. They ARE the crowds. And it's not limited to name-calling either. A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn said that protestors spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. HuffPo got a statement from Clyburn:
Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.
"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn told the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."
"It doesn't make me nervous as all," the congressman said, when asked how the mob-like atmosphere made him feel. "In fact, as I said to one heckler, I am the hardest person in the world to intimidate, so they better go somewhere else."
Asked if he wanted an apology from the group of Republican lawmakers who had addressed the crowd and, in many ways, played on their worst fears of health care legislation, the Democratic Party, and the president, Clyburn replied:
"A lot of us have been saying for a long time that much of this, much of this is not about health care a all. And I think a lot of those people today demonstrated that this is not about health care... it is about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful."
And if that's not disgusting enough, Barney Frank was called a "f****t," today too.
Everything you needed to know about this hateful movement is expressed in this one story. It wasn't just one bigot. The entire crowd of teabaggers erupted in laughter. Hell of a movement Dick Armey has created - after all, he called Barney Frank the same thing, "fag," back in the 90s.
Rep. Barney Frank got an uglier version of the treatment. Just after Frank rounded a corner to leave the building, an older protestor yelled "Barney, you f****t." The surrounding crowd of protestors then erupted in laughter.
At one point, Capitol police officer threatened to throw a group of protestors out of the building but that only seemed to inflame them more; and apparently none were ejected.
Just wait. We will see violence like our generation hasn't seen in many a decade. Anyone thinking of joining up with them go right ahead at your own risk. They will never sign on to anything that is remotely liberal. Ever.
Back in August, Republican presidential candidate John McCain stunned the audience at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Forum by citing Democratic Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis as one of the "wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration." On Saturday, Lewis offered McCain some sage advice - and a stern warning - about the disgusting turn his increasingly ugly campaign had taken. Unsurprisingly, the supposed maverick shunned his supposed adviser's wisdom that the McCain campaign and its Republican allies were "playing with fire" by "sowing the seeds of hatred and division."
At Warren's Saddleback event with Barack Obama this summer, McCain surprised many by adding Lewis to a troika of trusted advisers featuring the usual suspects General David Petraeus and former Bay CEO Meg Whitman:
WARREN: This first question deals with leadership and the personal life of leadership. First question, who were the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?
MCCAIN: [...] I think John Lewis. John Lewis was at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Had his skull fractured. Continues to serve. Continues to have the most optimistic outlook about America. He can teach us all a lot about the meaning of courage and commitment to causes greater than ourself...
Afterwards, Congressman Lewis responded to the news of his previously unknown role as a Republican presidential adviser by noting:
The American Civil Liberties Union cheered the House of Representatives for passing H.R. 923, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, by a vote of 422-2. The bill authorizes $10 million annually to establish a special federal investigator in the FBI's civil rights unit focusing on solving crimes committed before 1969. In addition, it allocates additional funds to assist local law enforcement agencies with investigating and prosecuting unsolved civil rights crimes.
The bill would re-open hate crime cases during the Civil Rights Era, focusing on investigating and prosecuting murder cases occurring prior to 1970. Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and Hulshof (R-MO) sponsored the legislative counterpart in the House. Only Congressman Paul and Westmoreland voted against the bill. It was set to sail through the Senate via unanimous consent. And then, Tom "rampant high school lesbianism" Coburn put a hold on the bill.
"My colleagues and I have fought long and hard for this bill in order to bring to justice people who have perpetrated heinous crimes based on racial hatred," said Dodd. "It has been a bipartisan effort, and I am angry that one of my colleagues is delaying this bill's passage under false pretense. While we allow another day, another week, another month to pass before enacting this legislation, we allow racist criminals to live the lives of innocent people when they should be apprehended and brought to justice. After so many decades, to further delay justice and solace to the families of the victims of these horrific crimes is simply unimaginable."
Try to imagine yourself as Rosa Parks did when she left work that day in 1955. Exhausted from working long hours in the department store, she looked to take a seat like always; but making sure she sat in the right section of that bus at the risk of being handcuffed. You can't-can you? It took this incredible woman to refuse to give up her seat to a white man on that bus to change the course of American history.
She added, "I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind." U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a Democrat "By sitting down, she was standing up for all Americans."
Back in August, Republican presidential candidate John McCain stunned the audience at Pastor 
