[Via Bloomberg Businessweek]

This is the Bloomberg Businessweek cover for this week. What were they thinking?!?

It seems they've issued an apology for the illustration:

"Our cover illustration last week got strong reactions, which we regret," Josh Tyrangiel, the magazine's editor, wrote in a statement sent to POLITICO. "Our intention was not to incite or offend. If we had to do it over again we'd do it differently."

"The idea is that we can know things are really getting out of hand since even nonwhite people can get loans these days! They ought to be ashamed," writes Slate blogger Matt Yglesias, who described the illustration as "racist."

The company that syndicates Rush Limbaugh entered a float into the Christmas Parade in Raleigh, North Carolina...what could possibly go wrong?

Bob Dumas is the local right-wing shock jock in Raleigh, North Carolina. He and his show G105 “Showgram” decided to have a "special" float .

As described by the News & Observer:

The entry featured a black man dressed in a skirt with fairy wings, strapped to a harness that was suspended from the back of a tow truck. Dumas, riding on the float, described the scene to parade goers as “Tyrone the Black Christmas Fairy” who was going to turn “crackers” into Beyonce.

No need to adjust the settings on your computer, or make an emergency appointment with the optometrist, it says exactly what you think it says.

Radio Ink reports that the stunt follows "a familiar pattern: the hosts enrage some of the local citizenry, Showgram fans rally to their defense, the station gets free publicity and then apologizes."

Jennifer Martin of The Greater Raleigh Merchants Association told Radio Ink:

“We were told it would be the ghost of Christmas Present Angel, and he would be floating over the air and not hanging from the back,” Martin said. “I can tell you we are going to have a sit-down with G105 with and their producers.”

Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane wrote on Facebook to a concerned citizen. “Raleigh will not tolerate racism or anything that comes remotely close. This parade is a Raleigh tradition that includes everyone and should be treated as such.”

Jennifer Martin, executive director of the merchants association, said “They apologized for what they’ve done and they regret that what they did was insensitive, and they will not be doing that display again.”

Got that? No racism in Raleigh, so just move along now...nothing to see here.

Is the GOP employing a racist strategy to get Mitt Romney into the White House? Watch this video to find out.

Thousands of people from civil rights groups walked down New York City's Fifth Avenue in total silence Sunday, marching in protest of "stop-and-frisk" tactics employed by city police.

The quiet was interrupted only by the tapping of feet on the pavement and birds chirping as protesters strode along Central Park from Harlem to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's town house on the Upper East Side townhouse.

For almost 30 city blocks, the march moved slowly and silently. Then, as they passed Bloomberg's home on East 79th Street, the crowd erupted in protest chants. The house was blocked by police barricades.

It was not known if Bloomberg was at home when the protesters passed.

Critics say the NYPD's practice of stopping, questioning and searching people who police consider suspicious is illegal and humiliating to thousands of law-abiding blacks and Hispanics. Last year, the NYPD stopped more than 600,000 people, up from more than 90,000 a decade ago.

Via:

Tensions increased between police officers and a group of protesters who tried to keep walking down Fifth Avenue below East 77th Street.

Police officers on scooters lined both sides of the avenue and officers on foot formed a line to keep people on the sidewalk. Several scuffles broke out between screaming protesters and officers who pushed them behind barricades on the sidewalk.
...
"The silence ended and the people's voices came out," said Matthew Swaye, 34, a former Bronx school teacher and self-described longtime Occupy protester.

"We were told to go home and we weren't ready to go yet," said Swaye, who added that his wife, Christina Gonzalez, 25, was one of the protesters arrested in the melee.

The practice of silent marches dates to 1917, when the NAACP led a protest through New York against lynchings and segregation in the U.S.

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[Video of the brutal beating of 19-year old Jateik Reed during an NYPD "Stop and Frisk"]

The NYPD on Sunday spoke with glowing praise of their under-fire "Stop and Frisk" policy that allows them to throw anyone they please up against a wall, and sometimes worse (See Jateik Reed video above).

Comparing numbers from the first three months of 2012 to the same period last year, the number of such stops increased 10% while the number of illicit guns taken away went up 31%, according to a New York Police Department statement from Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

Meanwhile, New York's murder rate has plunged 21% year-to-date as of last Friday -- meaning, if the current trend continues, the yearly number of murders in the city would be the lowest since such statistics first were recorded, as such, in 1963.

"New York City continues to be the safest big city in America, and one of the safest of any size, with significantly less crime per capita ... than even small cities," the department said.

Police cited Operation Impact and the "stop and frisk" policy as key reasons for the improving crime statistics. But the policy has been criticized sharply by some as grounds for racial profiling.

The statement drew a harsh response from the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) as executive director Donna Lieberman accused the NYPD of trying to "massage the numbers to make this look like an effective and worthwhile program."

Just last Wednesday, the NYCLU released a report of their own based on the information cited by the NYPD in Sunday's statement from Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne:

More young black men were stopped and frisked by police last year than actually live in the city, according to an analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

About 168,000 black men between the ages of 14 and 24 were stopped under the controversial NYPD program in 2011 -- compared to the 158,406 who live in the five boroughs.

The NYCLU report also revealed of five precincts with blacks and latinos comprising as little as 8 percent of the population, they still accounted for up to 77 percent of of the stops in those areas.

The NYPD denies any claims of racial profiling, and says that it targets only "those who commit crimes." Yet as was revealed in the case of Jateik Reed, claims by police that he was carrying drugs have been shown to be false, and that his arrest was unfounded and he shouldn't have even been stopped when an outdoor surveillance camera video surfaced.

As for the NYPD claims of being the "safest big city in America," well, see here...and here...here...here...and here to view but a few counter-arguments to that claim.

Another awesome video from the folks at anothernyc.org, and the weekend's scheduled events for NYC.

May 10-15: A Week of Actions Against Budget Cuts and Austerity

Tuesday May 15 @ 6 PM: Mass Convergence in Times Square on Global Day of Action

Say no to the system that produces record profits for the 1% by impoverishing the 99% of us; say yes to a fair city and a better world!

Beginning on May 10th and culminating on May 15th in a mass convergence at Times Square, NYC organizations and individuals from all across the city will join together in action around the many issues we face: from cuts in social services, to an austerity agenda that redistributes your tax revenue into private hands, to the financial institutions (that we bailed out) that continue to make record profits at our expense.

As part of a global resistance, as part of the Occupy movement, as a broad movement for social, political, and economic justice, we say enough! We reject Bloomberg's New York, and we demand another city. We reject the notion that there is no alternative, and we demand a better world. Join the week of actions, take to the streets, raise your voice, and come to Times Square on May 15th at 6 PM to stand together as a global movement and declare that another city, and another world, is possible!

MORE INFO

Website: www.anothernyc.org

Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/events/451664224850611/

Twitter: #AnotherNYC

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On February 29th, Occupy Portland calls for a national day of non-violent direct action challenge society's obsession with profit and greed by shutting down the corporations.

We are rejecting a society that does not allow us control of our future. We will reclaim our ability to shape our world in a democratic, cooperative, just and sustainable direction.

We call on people to target corporations that are part of the American Legislative Exchange Council which is a prime example of the way corporations buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves the interests of corporations and not people. They used it to create the anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin and the racist bill SB 1070 in Arizona among so many others. They use ALEC to spread pro big business laws around the country.

For more information visit:

Portland Action Lab