Cain: Effort to ‘Intimidate Me’ Will Not Succeed

Presidential candidate Herman Cain struck back at black leaders who criticized him as callous toward the poor and ignorant of history, saying he will not allow people who “don’t want black people to think for themselves” to try and “intimidate” him into keeping silent.

The businessman and Republican presidential candidate, in an interview on Fox News, vigorously defended himself against critics unhappy with his recent comments on race and the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Singer Harry Belafonte called Cain a “bad apple.” Princeton University professor Cornel West said Cain’s remarks reflect a “coldness toward poor people.”

But Cain said the “offensive” criticism is just a familiar tactic to marginalize him. He suggested his status as a prominent black conservative makes him a target, but said the attacks will not succeed.

“I left the Democratic plantation a long time ago. And all that they try to do when someone like me … the only tactic that they have to try and intimidate me and shut me up is to call me names, and this sort of thing. It just simply won’t work,” Cain said.

As for West’s criticism, he said the professor has “been in academia too long.”

“I’ve been in the real world. He’s been in academia,” Cain said. “So he’s back on this symbolic stuff.”

West singled out Cain — who recently stirred controversy by saying those who don’t have jobs and aren’t wealthy should blame themselves — during an interview on Fox News on Monday.

Read more here.

A lesson for the Occupy Wall Street crowd

The Occupy Wall Street children are upset with .. well .. Wall Street. They are also upset with politicians being “bought” by Wall Street and dictating elections. So let’s take a look at the type of politician that the Occupy Wall Street children are protesting …

* The politician who has received more money from Wall Street than any other over the past 20 years.

* The politician who has received more money from Bank of American than any other candidate dating back to 1991.

* The politician who racked up $8.9 million from 56 bundlers in the securities and investment industry.

* The politician who had 20% of total campaign funds coming directly from Wall Street.

* The politician who, in one election, racked up $15.8 million from executives at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, UBS AG, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley.

Oh wait, that politician would be Barack Obama.

Christians under siege in Egypt

The violence is part of a region-wide attack on Christians by fundamentalist Muslims:

These scenes of destruction and murder have been repeated all over the Middle East. Whatever one can say about tyrants like Saddam Hussein​ and Hosni Mubarak​, they feared the Islamists and kept them from causing the kind of mayhem that is afflicting Christian populations across the region. And the destruction of churches and murders of Christians are not isolated incidents. There has been a systematic targeting of Christians in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Iran, as well as Egypt. The attacks are inspired by extremist clerics, and condoned to one degree or another by authorities.

Despite Christians living and worshiping in the Middle East for 2,000 years, those communities are now in danger of disappearing. A report by the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights reveals that 100,000 Christians have fled Egypt since March, with 250,000 expected to leave before the end of 2011. In Iraq, it’s even worse. A State Department report last year on religious freedom around the world showed that 50% of Iraqi Christians had left the country since the US invasion. And in Sudan, tens of thousands of Christians in the Nuba Mountains are being bombed daily by Sudanese military forces and suffer house to house raids at the hands of President Bashir’s forces.

One is forced to confront an uncomfortable reality: if any other minority group – racial, ethnic, or tribal – was suffering from government-condoned persecution carried out by out of control mobs, the outrage in the Western press and from Western governments would be loud and sustained. So why don’t Christians in the Middle East rate that kind of concern?

In Egypt, where perpetrators are rarely arrested and never punished, the mourning continues:

The violence Sunday night, which left 26 dead and about 500 injured, began when thousands of Coptic Christians marched to the state television building to stage a sit-in over a recent attack on a church. As they marched, state television called on civilians to “protect” the army, casting the Christians as a mob seeking to undermine national unity.

Witnesses among the protesters said the march started out peaceful but turned violent when the Christians were attacked by civilians wielding sticks, throwing stones and firing birdshot. What happened next is not fully clear. But a video circulating widely shows at least two military vehicle plowing through crowds of Christian protesters at high speed and running some of them over.

Rights activists and witnesses also say soldiers fired directly at protesters. State television claimed protesters had attacked soldiers. Clashes then broke out between Muslims backing riot police and soldiers on one side, and Christians and some Muslims on the other side. Forensic reports showed many of the deaths were caused by armored vehicles that ran down protesters, or by gunshots.

In the shadow of the birthplace of their faith, Christians are being hounded and persecuted.

CEOS don’t pay taxes?

As I said … the Occupiers in Manhattan are on the march. For weeks they have been occupying a park downtown near Wall Street. Today they will be marching up Fifth Avenue to the Upper East Side to see how “the 1%” live. Here’s how it is described on Facebook:

Wanna “see how the 1% lives”? Then join us on a walking tour of the homes of some of the bank and corporate executives that don’t pay taxes, cut jobs, engaged in mortgage fraud, tanked our economy…..all while giving themselves record setting bonuses!

Don’t pay taxes? Where on earth are they getting this from? Are we to believe that these protestors believe that rich people don’t pay taxes? According to IRS data, 1,470 millionaires and billionaires paid zero taxes in 2009. That is just .7% — less than one percent — of the 200,000+ Americans who earn over a million dollars a year. The other 99.3% of millionaires and billionaires are paying 29.1% of their income in federal taxes, compared to households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 that pay about 15% of their income in federal taxes. Keep in mind that in the same year of 2009, 47% of households paid zero federal income taxes. In fact, the bottom 40% of income tax filers made a PROFIT from their federal income tax return. So it’s OK for these people to make a profit off of someone else’s hard work, but it is not OK for a corporation to make a profit to benefit their stockholders.

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