Usa Thread

[cavanami]

Just shows the stupidity in the DC area!

[Flashermac]

 

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

Like Bush, Obama rebuffs pardon for boxing great Jack Johnson

 

 

WASHINGTON — For nine years, a pair of Capitol Hill lawmakers have asked the President of the United States to posthumously pardon American boxing legend Jack Johnson.

 

President George W. Bush failed to act, but in 2009 the Congressmen thought they might be able to convince the nation’s first African-American president to do so on behalf of the world’s first African-American heavyweight boxing champion. But President Barack Obama hasn’t issued a pardon either, and his administration says it’s unlikely he will.

 

That isn’t stopping the lifelong boxing fans from trying again.

 

Republicans Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Peter King of New York, now joined by two Democrats, again introduced a congressional resolution last week calling on Obama to pardon Johnson a century after his racially motivated conviction of taking a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.

 

“As we look back on our nation’s history, the Jack Johnson case is a shameful stain, apparent to all,†McCain said recently. “Rectifying this injustice is long overdue.â€

 

The Justice Department, however, generally doesn’t consider pardons for people after they die, according to department guidelines. Those investigations are lengthy and complex, and the department would rather spend its resources on the pardon and commutation requests of living people, the guidelines say.

 

“It is the department’s position that the limited resources which are available to process requests for president clemency – now being submitted in record numbers – are best dedicated to requests submitted by persons who can truly benefit from a grant of the request,†pardon attorney Ronald Rodgers wrote to King in December 2009. The pardon attorney, at Justice, assists the president in the exercise of executive clemency.

 

Posthumous pardons are extremely rare but they have been granted.

 

In 1999, President Bill Clinton pardoned Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the Army’s first African-American to graduate from West Point, who’d been forced out of the military in 1882 after white officers accused him of embezzling commissary funds. In 2008, Bush pardoned Charles Winters, who’d been convicted of violating the Neutrality Act in 1948 by helping to transfer two B-17 aircraft to Israel.

 

The White House referred questions about Johnson to the Department of Justice. A Justice spokesman didn’t comment except to say the department doesn’t have a pending application for Johnson.

 

Johnson, born to former slaves in Texas, was initially denied the right to fight professionally because of his race. When he was finally granted the opportunity, he defeated the title holder to become the first African-American heavyweight champion. He reigned over the boxing world from 1908 to 1915 before losing his heavyweight title to a white fighter – Jess Willard – in Havana, Cuba, in 1915. But he kept his influence over the boxing world, including future fighter Muhammad Ali.

 

Johnson’s success in the ring – and indulgent lifestyle – prompted resentment as well as a search for a white boxer who could defeat him, dubbed the “great white hope.†After Johnson defeated a white champion who’d returned from retirement to fight him, race riots broke out in several cities.

 

Soon after, an all-white jury convicted Johnson of transporting a white girlfriend across state lines, under the Mann Act, a law designed to prevent trafficking of women for prostitution. He eventually served 366 days in prison.

 

“Jack Johnson was a legendary competitor who defined an era of American boxing and raised the bar for all American athletics,†said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a former boxer who added his name to this year’s resolution. “Johnson’s memory was unjustly tarnished by a racially motivated criminal conviction, and it is now time to recast his legacy.â€

 

In 2004, Congress failed to pass a similar resolution. In 2008, the House of Representatives approved a resolution but the Senate did not. In 2009, the Senate and House passed the resolution, the first time since 1974 that both chambers had passed a concurrent resolution recommending a posthumous pardon for Johnson. They did so again in 2011.

 

Johnson died in a car crash in North Carolina in 1946 at age 68, after being refused service at a diner near Raleigh. His story has been chronicled in numerous stage and film productions of “The Great White Hope,†including a 1970 film starring James Earl Jones, and more recently in “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson,†a PBS documentary by Ken Burns.

 

“Jack Johnson was one of the great African-American athletes,†said Sen. William “Mo†Cowan, D-Mass. “His skill and perseverance to get back up every time he was knocked down made him a champion in the eyes of the sports world and for those who, like him, pursued their dreams despite racial intolerance.â€

 

 

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/11/185467/like-bush-obama-rebuffs-pardon.html#

[Flashermac]

Jack Johnson did court trouble, defiantly taking his white "girl friends" with him everywhere he went in a very racially conscious America. But his conviction was a sham. Pardon the guy, for Pete's sake!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUqhJzgSj4M

[Steve]

Obama's pardons on the way out the door will be interesting. The last few Presidents had some questionable ones. Clinton pardoning Marc Rich was one of the worse but I guess not as bad as the elder Bush pardoning anyone connected to Iran-Contra.

[Flashermac]

Maybe he'll pardon his aunt Zeituni.

[Flashermac]

[Flashermac]

George P. Bush Runs for Office in Texas

 

 

George P. Bush is officially running for Texas land commissioner — ending months of speculation about which statewide office the grandson of one former president and nephew of another planned to seek.

 

An attorney from Fort Worth and Spanish-speaker whose mother, Columba Bush, is from Mexico, Mr. Bush is considered a rising star among conservative Hispanics.

 

Mr. Bush, 36 years old, is the son of Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who is considered a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate. He is the nephew of former President George W. Bush and the grandson of former President George H.W. Bush.

 

George P. Bush’s spokesman, Trey Newton, told the Associated Press that Mr. Bush spoke with current Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson before filing the official paperwork Tuesday. Land commissioner can be a stepping stone to higher office in Texas. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst served in the post before winning his current job.

 

Mr. Bush unveiled a new campaign website and featuring a three-minute video in which he says, â€Texas is an exceptional state because we as Texans are exceptional.â€

 

Mr. Bush has been working to use his Maverick PAC to tap a new generation of 20- to 30-something donors that haven’t been actively involved in the Republican Party.

 

 

http://blogs.wsj.com...ffice-in-texas/

[dean]

He must be one of the few Mexican Americans in Texas with health insurance.

[Coss]

Apart from Jeb ( a good hillbilly name ) is every male in this family called George? Probably makes their names easy to remember.

 

Home sweet hoecake all you rounders. Ain't no lie went a court'n, wildwood flower! Cluck old hen hoecake scratching out dough died when I was young Juney bug soldier's joy run hot corn rye whiskey hot corn, shady grove nine-pound hammer. The cuckoo rambling. Work one day rolling down the track buried in the ground peg and awl going to town died when I was young.