MSNBC'S Hart-Perry Apologizes For Poking Fun At Mitt Romney's Black Grandchild

So the Romney's have an adopted black grandchild, Kieran, and Mitt and Ann had a lovely portrait photographed surrounded by all their grandkids.

In very bad taste, MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry and her co-panelists chose to make Kieran the punch-line of a segment on the show. Video here.

Melissa starts off with:

"Everybody loves a baby picture, and this was one that really a lot of people had emotions about this baby picture this year." "This is the Romney family. "And, of course, there on Gov. Romney's knee is his adopted grandson, who is an African-American, adopted African-American child, Kieran Romney."

You can then hear Pia Glenn in the background singing:

 "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just isn't the same." 

The others start laughing and then Glenn then pipes in:

"And that little baby, front and center, would be the one" 

The pot-shots continue, and comedian Dean Obeidallah comes in with his oh-so-funny:

 "I think this picture is great. It really sums up the diversity of the Republican party, the RNC. At the convention, they find the one black person."

How's that for racism. And using a baby boy as political fodder is shameful. Even CNN was outraged, and Harris-Perry has since apologized. Big deal.

Kieran was adopted by Mitt's son Ben and daughter-in-law Andelynne.

Imagine had the same thing happened on a FOX show.

Harris-Perry was the stupid woman who claimed that the Boston Bomber's Muslim faith was irrelevant. Right.

Pakistani Woman Refuses Arranged Marriage Gets Charged With Blasphemy

Only in Pakistan does a refusal of marriage get you maimed or killed or possibly executed for blasphemy.

Combine arranged marriages with women considered to be chattel, and you have a recipe for disaster. And you can't always blame it on ignorance. Eraj Sajjad's dad is a senior bureaucrat in the Sindh government (so I assume he must be somewhat educated), who arranged for his daughter to be married to a wealthy businessman. She refused and the spurned would-be groom leveled a blasphemy charge against her. When she went to the Federal Interior Ministry for help- security and the charges dropped- they said sorry, no can do.

Federal Interior Ministry and Senior Minister Sindh Nisar Khuhro refused to help her. The Interior Ministry, in a letter to her, said that as she had been formally implicated in a case of a serious nature and this ministry could not help her.On the other hand, Senior Minister Nisar Khuhro, while refusing her any help, suggested approaching the proper forum of the court of law.

In her letter, she narrated that she had escaped from her residence in Lahore because her parents wanted her to marry a businessman Imtiaz Alam against her will. According to her, Imtiaz Alam belonged to a wealthy family and was an influential person therefore he managed to register a false blasphemy case by using his influence and money against her to get revenge as she had refused to marry him. In her letter, she sought protection and withdrawal of the false blasphemy case against her.

But it wasn't just Imtiaz trying to harm Eraj, according to Eraj when she fled her parents house, Imtiaz and her mum and dad wanted to honor kill her.

I suppose the best alternative to honor killing the woman is to charge her with blasphemy, which can garner the death penalty in Pakistan.

Source

Why It's Important For Millenials To Sign Up For Obamacare- Video

Revealing Politics has put together a little video explaining just why it's so important for the young 'uns to sign up for Obamacare.

In the words of Patty Fontneau of Connect for Colorado we see why the Millenials are needed, and Revealing Politics shows the marketing strategy to get those young working kids to sign on. It's "cool" to sign up, but they leave out some very important information that will impact them.

Hollande's 'Tax Millionaires 75%' Gets Court Approval

France is about to sock it to the wealthy for several years: retroactively for 2013 and 2014. If you make over 1 million euros ($1.4 million) you're going to be hit with a hefty 75% tax. Actually, the companies that pay you that amount will be liable for a 50% duty on those wages in addition to some other taxes and "social charges" for a whopping total of 75%.  At least that's what Bloomberg.com claims.

The constitutional court of France approved Socialist President Francoise Hollande's proposal.

“The companies that pay out remuneration above 1 million euros will, as expected, be called upon for an effort of solidarity on remuneration paid in 2013 and 2014,” the Economy Ministry said in an e-mailed statement.

Hollande, who once said he “didn’t like” the rich, announced the 75 percent tax in February 2012 as part of his presidential campaign to appeal to his Socialist base. It has become a symbol of his government’s record-high taxation rate. [snip] The total amount is limited to 5 percent of a company’s revenue.

Hollande tried last year but failed because individuals rather than households were to be taxed.

It appears the current incarnation (taxing companies) went to the courts because it was opposed by a bunch of MPs and senators.

I wonder if there will be a mass exodus of the wealthy from France.

Ex-Muslimah- Oppression Of Muslim Women Exists

"Marwa" is a "mostly-liberal" Arab, Middle-Eastern, ex-Muslimah, atheist blogger living in the U.S., and she's written an interesting response to an article she read on PolicyMic by Lauren Rankin. Rankin is a white, liberal feminist Western woman, who was being very critical of a series of tweets by Joyce Carol Oates equating the rape and sexual harassment of women in Egypt with religion.  Ms. Oates wrote:

Where 99.3% of women report having been sexually harassed & rape is epidemic--Egypt--natural to inquire: what's the predominant religion?
1:50 PM - 5 Jul 2013

Rankin launches into the typical accusations of Islamophobia, which she stupidly believes is a form of racism, claiming that it's patriarchy not religion that contributes to the oppression of Muslim women.  Marwa  begs to differ.

I love my feminist allies and friends, but sometimes white Western feminists get things all backwards when they try to speak about the experiences of foreign women of color. Especially if they’re talking about people they’ve never met, places they’ve never lived, religious and legal and patriarchal systems they are unacquainted with, and make broad, sweeping generalizations about those systems. This is such an example. I understand that it might be driven by a reflection of the voices of Muslim women who freely choose and cleave to their religion and rail out against accusations that they are being oppressed–what I do not understand is how the experiences and insights of free women with agency and self-determination can speak to the experiences of their sisters who do not have such freedom–the woman who is free to practice Islam or not, to wear hijab or not–this woman does not speak for me or my ex-Muslim and Muslim friends who suffer under Islamic systems any more than a Western woman does.

To be clear, I applaud the instinct to try to reduce anti-Muslim hate and bigotry. It is the approach here that I think is utterly misguided and frankly dangerous. Rankin is attempting to object to Islam being characterized in a monolithic manner…by characterizing it in a monolithic manner, as something that never contributes to or causes misogyny, rape, and oppression of women in Muslim-majority countries. And while I myself am a champion of trying to oppose anti-Muslim bigotry, I believe the strongest and most compassionate way of doing this is by resisting the characterization of Islam as a monolith. What has happened here is that Rankin has engaged in what I say is a dangerous refusal to examine the very real influences and intermingling of religion and patriarchy in violence and oppression against women and children in Muslim-majority countries.

The rest here on her blog Between a Veil and a Dark Place. It's an interesting read, not what some oppressed Muslim women and liberal idiots like Rankin would have you believe.

Marwa also wrote a great article about freedom and living in fear.

Billy Crystal's "Schmuck Dynasty" on Jimmy Fallon.

Billy Crystal's "Schmuck Dynasty".   Prior to the present controversy, of course.

Muslims Kill Christians In Iraq On Christmas

So yesterday was Christmas, but not such a merry day for Christians in Muslim-majority countries, however. Especially in Iraq where more than 37 Christians were killed in two different bomb attacks on one of their most holiest of days. And this in spite of high security, barbed wire and blast walls.

There aren't many Christians left in Iraq, they've either left the country or been killed. Of 1.5 million pre-Iraq War, only about half that amount are still there. According to rights activist William Warda every single day around 10 to 20 Christians leave.

“Many Christians ... are fleeing from the country because of this issue, because there is no sign of a bright future.”

Who can blame them. He does have a wee bit of hope: the government declared Christmas a national holiday this year. Not that it prevented the massacres from occurring.

And Christian religious leaders are trying to persuade their flock not to desert the Arab world.

“Immigration is not the solution,” said Monsignor Pios Cacha, a priest at Mar Yousif.

“Leaving the country means wiping out our identity, it means the end of our presence here. And our presence as Christians is a symbol of peace.”

And the Shi'ites (although the majority) are reaching out to the Christian minority, since they too are targets of al-Qaeda terrorists. In fact, Shi'ite politician Ammar Al-Hakim made an appearance at the Mar Yousif's Christmas Eve mass.

Hakim, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shi’ite party that has sometimes allied with and sometimes opposed Maliki, rose after the sermon and spoke of tolerance, forgiveness and peace, saying Jesus Christ was an example. Then he turned to al-Qaeda.

“They target you like they target us. There are people in this country who believe that anyone who has a different opinion should be killed,” he said as a small army of burly bodyguards in suits fanned out through the church.

“We are partners as targets. We are partners in this challenge. And we will remain partners in confronting extremism, violence and terrorism,” Hakim said.

One car bomb exploded near a church as worshippers were leaving a Christmas Day mass, 27 were killed, 56 or so wounded.  The other bomb exploded near a predominately Christian outdoor market killing 11 and wounding around 14. As is usually the case, those numbers could change.

People used to say that the violence in Iraq was a direct result of foreign 'occupation'- that was when foreign troops were still there- but they've been gone a few years and the violence continues. Big time. So much for that theory.  Extremists just like to fight, and kill, and that's not going to change any time soon.

Pajama Boy Touts Obamacare

Maybe not everyone knows, but for Obamacare to work the government needs as many to sign on to the programme, especially the young ones. They have been somewhat reluctant to do so, and even if they were interested, it's been pretty dang hard to accomplish that feat.  So step in team-Obama with 'pajama boy', an ad attempting to appeal to the young 'uns.

A photo that was posted on Twitter, and has subsequently become the laughing stock of social media and the media itself, you see a nerdy, metro-sexual model wearing a onesie, hot chocolate in hand, encouraging people to wear their jammies, drink some hot chocolate and "talk about getting health insurance."

Even MSNBC ridiculed it.