Free Republic

Black activists Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are planning a 15-city "Poverty Tour" to bring attention to the needy and to what they say are the failings of President Barack Obama. West, a Princeton University professor, and Smiley, host of a PBS talk show, expect to begin the bus trip Aug. 5 at a Native American reservation in Wisconsin. With visits to soup kitchens, housing projects, farms, families and low-wage workers, they say they hope to create momentum for large-scale job creation programs and put poverty on the 2012 election agenda. SNIP Although their tour does not have a specific...

Ever since the NAACP began stepping up its attacks on the limited government movement through charges of racism against the Tea Parties, it’s become rather apparent that there was a concerted effort behind this rhetoric. After reading the words of Mary Frances Berry, one of the more prominent leaders in the far-left black political scene, one need no longer merely surmise this. In an astonishingly frank email to Politico, Berry declares that the tea-partiers-as-racists meme is “an effective strategy for Democrats” despite the fact that she believes “there is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than...

Mary Frances BerryProfessor of American Social Thought and History, U. Penn. : Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.

Black power has arrived — with some new challengesAP Wire Friday, December 4, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP) — Ten months after Democrats took over the Capitol and the first African-American president moved into the White House, black lawmakers are in control of some of the most powerful positions in Congress — and face new challenges to using their long-sought influence. There have been some victories — guaranteeing that stimulus money reaches the poorest parts of the country, expanding hate crimes legislation and moving to close health care disparities. But “in some ways, our strategies haven’t caught up with our own power,”...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights refused Friday to seat - or even recognize - a new commissioner appointed by President Bush. Cleveland labor lawyer Peter Kirsanow watched quietly from the audience as attempts by the three Republican commissioners to have him seated or acknowledged were repeatedly voted down 5-3. Kirsanow attempted to vote for the first 10 minutes of the session but he was ignored and eventually sat silent as his allies continued debate. The meeting opened with an attempt by Republican commissioners to adjourn until the dispute over the commission's makeup is resolved. But Chairwoman ...

Deeply in the red, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted yesterday to conduct an audit of how it has spent its $9 million annual budget over the past several years.

WASHINGTON..In contemporary American politics, as in earlier forms of vaudeville, it helps to have had an easy act to follow. Gerald Reynolds certainly did.The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights new chairman follows Mary Frances Berry, whose seedy career...

When Mary Frances Berry left the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in early December, after 25 years as either vice-chairman or chairman, she did so without the anticipated bruising public fight. (The Bush administration apparently changed the locks on the Commission offices and reassigned the bank accounts.) Berry, whom new vice-chairman Abigail Thernstrom characterizes as "a remarkably divisive person," had a history of picking fights, and in fact took pride in it. The fights tended to devolve to a single issue: that Berry, representing all African Americans, had been discriminated against, and was going to get hers (and theirs) back. Thus...

"...divisive racial politics have followed Mary Frances Berry from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission...Berry defended her attempts as an effort to bring diversity to the station, whose programmers and listeners she derided as "white male hippies over 50."...What's striking is the fact that the Civil Rights Commission she chairs has also been mired in controversy and management woes in the last decade -- but few liberals have bothered to raise their voices about her management practices there...even African-Americans with civil rights records equal to or more impressive than her own. More than one African-American politician and journalist have suffered a...

Mary Frances Berry, chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, is resigning. Those scratch marks on the floor may be from her fingernails as they dragged her from the building by her feet. Berry has been a member of the commission for 24 of its 47 years -- a record probably unmatched even in Washington, D.C., a city of sinecures.

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Dec. 9 - It is not that the new chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights doubts racial discrimination still exists, as his detractors have charged, it is that he is not quick to see it. He is not sure he has personally experienced it. "I just assume somewhere in my life some knucklehead has looked at me and my brown self and said that they have given me less or denied me an opportunity," said the chairman, Gerald A. Reynolds, 41, an African-American lawyer. "But the bottom line is, and my wife will attest...

President Bush will appoint two new members to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights this week, possibly as early as today, and replace panel Chairman Mary Frances Berry. Several sources close to the commission told The Washington Times yesterday that the new panel members will be Ashley Taylor, a former Virginia deputy attorney general, and Gerald Reynolds, the former assistant secretary in the Department of Education's civil rights office. The new members will replace Ms. Berry and Vice Chairman Cruz Reynoso on the eight-member panel. The White House has insisted over the past two weeks that those terms expired last...

REPORTING FOR DUTY Sen. John Kerry and his Massachusetts minions insist he has not decided on whether he will run for president again. But actions speak louder than words, and when one does things like set up leadership PACs, and take time away from holiday celebrations to hang out with campaign volunteers and state fundraisers, one's intentions ring loud and clear. Last weekend saw Kerry in New Hampshire thanking his statewide campaign staff and meeting with Democrat officials. This coming weekend finds the Man from Mope in Des Moines, Iowa, for yet another party with his supporters. Kerry advisers and...

WASHINGTON - Mary Frances Berry, blunt-spoken chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, resigned Tuesday after more than two decades of criticizing the governments, both Democratic and Republican, that she served. Berry, an independent, and Democratic Vice Chairman Cruz Reynoso sent resignation letters to President Bush (news - web sites) a day after the White House moved to replace the two. Both had resisted leaving Monday, arguing their terms wouldn't expire until midnight Jan. 21, 2005. The White House maintained that their six-year terms expired Sunday, and Berry and Reynoso had been replaced. In brief letters to Bush, Berry and...

Mary Frances Berry, the outspoken chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, was replaced yesterday by President Bush as her term expired, after 24 years on the panel.     Gerald Reynolds, former assistant secretary in the Department of Education's civil rights office, was appointed chairman of the eight-member panel. Ashley Taylor, former deputy attorney general of Virginia, also was appointed to the commission, to replace panel Vice Chairman Cruz Reynoso.     Mr. Reynolds was appointed chairman, and Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican appointee but political independent, was appointed vice chairman. The moves, effective immediately, confirmed information first reported yesterday in...

President Bush on Monday moved to replace Mary Frances Berry, the outspoken chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission who has argued with every president since Jimmy Carter appointed her to the panel a quarter century ago. But Berry balked at leaving now, arguing through a spokesman that she and vice chairman Cruz Reynoso, who also is being replaced, have terms that run until midnight Jan. 21, 2005. The White House maintained that their six-year terms expired Sunday and that Berry and Reynoso had been replaced. and White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said the administration considered the matter closed. "We...

Mary Frances Berry's term as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights ended at midnight Sunday, but as of this writing she maintains that her term doesn't end until January 21, 2005, and imperiously refuses to step down. Her claim is nonsense. Her primary commission documents, signed by President Bill Clinton when he appointed her to her now-expired term, show that her term ended on December 5, 2004. If that alone wasn't enough, the Congressional Research Service issued an opinion to the House Oversight Committee to the same effect. Finally, the decision of the U.S. Court of...

A House Judiciary subcommittee is investigating the finances of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, whose chairman, Mary Frances Berry, is in a dispute over whether her term ends this week or next month.     "We are looking into management, financials, contracting ...," confirmed Mindy Barry, oversight counsel for the Constitution, civil rights and property rights subcommittee, which has authorized but not yet used a subpoena to obtain the needed information.     The subpoena seeks "all documents referring to all contracts, specifically dealings with [public relations firms] McKinney and Associates and McKinney and McDowell; all documents regarding any fees paid to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of a divided federal civil-rights watchdog agency accused President Bush of deepening racial divisions, in a parting shot after years of sparring with his administration.Mary Frances Berry, chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and Vice Chairperson Cruz Reynoso delivered a 166-page report to the White House harshly criticizing the administration for setting back race relations and failing to promote civil rights in any meaningful way. But the report is not an official document, because four of the eight commissioners, all of them Republican appointees, voted against adopting it and rejected the charges as politically...

Her appointment at the Civil Right's Commision expires next month There's something about Mary ...