Monday, January 18, 2021
Sunny Hostin Slams Trump Allies For ‘Enabling A Racist President,’ Then Quoting MLK
“How dare they,” the co-host of “The View” said of Melania Trump, Ted Cruz, Kayleigh McEnany and others.The View” co-host Sunny Hostin condemned President Donald Trump’s allies for quoting Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday after enabling the president’s racist actions and rhetoric and helping to uphold white supremacist values. “I saw today, unbelievably, in my view, [Sen.] Ted Cruz, [White House press secretary] Kayleigh McEnany, [Republican National Committee chair] Ronna McDaniel, Melania Trump quoting Dr. King, tweeting Dr. King,” Hostin said. “Those are the same people, like Melania Trump with this birther lie, Ted Cruz challenging the Electoral College [vote]. Kayleigh McEnany just over and over again with her propaganda.” Cruz, McEnany, McDaniel and Melania Trump all shared tweets on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, praising his legacy Monday after empowering a leader whose values are antithetical to almost everything the civil rights icon fought for. “How dare they. How dare they try to quote Dr. King on the celebration of his birthday when they enabled, enabled a racist president causing this insurrection and attack on our democracy,” Hostin added, referring to the Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol carried out by pro-Trump extremists. King said in a 1967 speech that, although society had seen progress, “we must not allow this progress to cause us to engage in a superficial, dangerous optimism.” “I think that is what happened to us,” Hostin said, citing Kamala Harris’s historic selection as the next vice president, and the wins for Democrats in the Georgia Senate runoff and presidential elections. “I think we saw that ― we are going to have the first female vice president who is African American and Southeast Asian, and we saw such promise with Georgia, you know, turning blue. We saw such promise, and then on Jan. 6 we see that white supremacy is very much so alive and well.” “While we have some progress, we just have such a long way to go,” she concluded. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sunny-hostin-martin-luther-king-jr-trump-allies_n_60060ef2c5b697df1a083471
The Words of Martin Luther King Jr. Reverberate in a Tumultuous Time
By Audra D. S. Burch, John Eligon and Michael Wines
Dr. King’s speeches have particular resonance today amid a year of sickness and death, Black Lives Matter protests and the storming of the Capitol.He lived and died in a time of tumult and a racial awakening, so perhaps it is no surprise that the 35th national celebration of the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday has particular resonance amid one of the most traumatic seasons in memory: A raging pandemic. Protest and civil unrest after the killing of Black people by the police. A momentous election. And an insurrection. Even the title of his final book — “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” — seems ripped from today’s headlines. “I think it’s still an unanswered question,” said Clayborne Carson, a history professor at Stanford University, referring to the title of Dr. King’s book. “I think the most important word in that question is ‘we’ — who are we, and until you figure that out, it’s very hard to tell where we are going,” said Dr. Carson, who is also the founder and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, which is publishing a collection of Dr. King’s papers. Amid the change and upheaval, the words of Dr. King, both those celebrated and the less familiar, feel more urgent then perhaps ever before, both as a guide and a warning. From oft-quoted speeches to the words he never had a chance to deliver before his assassination, Dr. King talked about his vision of a just world, about the power of peaceful protests, and about disruption as the language of the unseen and the unheard. We asked Dr. Carson and others from across the country to choose words from Dr. King and reflect on how they resonate today. Here’s what they had to say. “Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We’ve got to see it through.” — from the last speech given by Dr. King, on April 3, 1968, in Memphis, the day before he was assassinated. The Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a chairman of the Poor People’s Campaign, said Dr. King’s words spoke to the daunting challenge that civil rights leaders faced helping the poor and marginalized. He drew a parallel to today’s challenges of systemic racism, ecological devastation and a lack of access to health care. The election of a Democratic president, he said, is no reason to slow down. “It’s not enough to have an election and put new people into office,” Dr. Barber said. “We must push and continue to push for the kind of public policy that really establishes justice.” “We really must now go about the business of lifting up those who are poor and those without health care,” he added. “That’s the only way we can heal the nation — we have to heal the body.” “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” — from Dr. King’s speech at the Washington National Cathedral on March 31, 1968. Connie Field said Dr. King’s quote had guided much of her work as an award-winning documentary filmmaker. “Dr. King presented a vision of an equal, multiracial society,” she said. “He presented a vision of economic equality. And he presented a vision of a political struggle that’s nonviolent. Those are three things that we can all try to live by and strive for today.” She added: “What’s going on in the United States, what we witnessed on Jan. 6, all has to do with a backlash to the fact that our world is changing. It’s going on here in America; it’s going on in Europe. We’re becoming a more intertwined world, a more multicultural world. That’s the trajectory of history, and there’s no going back on that. That quote completely underscores everything I’m talking about — a just world is an equal world, equal no matter what our race is.” “Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”Bernard Lafayette, 80, recalled the words from the “I Have a Dream” speech as a reminder that the turmoil the country is witnessing today “is not the way things have to be, and it’s not something we have to accept,” but should be understood as another step on the long journey that Dr. King described, with each shift connected to the events that precede it. The violence at the Capitol, he said, reflected the fear from some members of our society that they were losing political power. “You have to ask the question, ‘What are these people afraid of?’ Well, they are afraid they would lose power, they would lose control and the election in Georgia exacerbated that,” he said. “These fears that are being perpetrated, they’re really false fears, because no one is going to take anything away from them.” “I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.” — from Dr. King speech in Memphis on April 3, 1968, a day before he was assassinated. Rutha Mae Harris, 80, of Albany, Ga., said she believed Dr. King’s speeches often warned of the kind of conflict that unfolded in Washington on Jan. 6. Ms. Harris, who marched with Dr. King during the civil rights era, recalled, in particular, the famous speech he gave in Memphis a day before he was killed. “With the rhetoric of Trump, I myself knew that something would happen,” she said. “This had been building up for four years.” She said Dr. King was a man of vision, but that the vision captured the darkness as well as the light. She noted, “He said, ‘I might not get there with you,’ and, of course, you can read in between the lines.” “Why America May Go to Hell” — title of a sermon that Dr. King had planned to deliver at his church on Sunday, April 7, 1968. For the Rev. Amos C. Brown, the pastor of Third Baptist Church, a historically Black church in San Francisco founded in 1852, the words of Dr. King that come to mind this year are the ones he never had a chance to speak. When he was assassinated, Dr. King had been planning to give a sermon, he said, called “Why America May Go to Hell.” In the sermon, Dr. King planned to warn that the country needed to use its vast resources to end poverty, and to offer all of God’s children the necessities of life. The hell that Dr. King stood against is still deeply embedded in America today, said Mr. Brown, who is attending the inauguration as a guest of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris (who attends his church). “We are about to fall over the precipice into, figuratively speaking, hell in this nation — sure, we ought to be concerned about what’s going on now,” he said, referring to the attack on the Capitol. “But people are just now beginning to experience what Black folk have gone through since the Atlantic slave trade began. Hell.” “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” — from Dr. King’s speech in St. Louis on March 22, 1964. For Antwan T. Lang, a member of the Chatham County Board of Elections in Savannah, Ga., Dr. King’s words meant we cannot be afraid to learn from one another and understand our differences and similarities. “My hope is that one day white America will understand that we harvest no hate, but we want to be seen not as a Black man, Black entrepreneur, Black superintendent, Black doctor, Black lawyer, Black teacher, Black insurance agent, Black funeral director, but as a human being wanting to freely be ourselves without having to walk on eggshells in fear of becoming a statistic,” he said. “It is clear to me that our protest and our plea to America is that we want to be free, to simply be a human being with real feelings, emotions, dreams and goals,” Mr. Lang said, “to be able to live long enough to accomplish those goals, dreams and ambitions.” “Oh no, Brother Gray. This is no ploy at all. If we are to succeed, I am now convinced that an absolutely nonviolent method must be ours amid the vast hostilities we face.” — Dr. King’s response in 1955 to a suggestion that his nonviolence tactics were for attention. Fred D. Gray was the lawyer who represented Rosa Parks, Dr. King and the Montgomery Improvement Association during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, the event that inaugurated the 20th century’s civil rights movement. The quote, found in Mr. Gray’s account of that battle, “Bus Ride to Justice,” was Dr. King’s response to a suggestion that his commitment to nonviolence was a ploy to gain attention in the press. “I became a lawyer so I could use the law for the purpose of destroying every act of segregation that I could find,” Mr. Gray said. “There were other people whose roles were to make speeches, and others who demonstrated, but you had to put it all together and do it in a nonviolent fashion.” Regarding the protests over the past year against killings of unarmed African-Americans by police officers, Mr. Gray said: “I think we’re going to have to go back to what Martin said about nonviolence and social change. All the things that Dr. King did, all the things we did in the Montgomery bus boycott were to get rid of racism and inequality. We were able to do a little bit, but not do it all.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/martin-luther-king-words-protests.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
CHRISTIAN RECEIVES DEATH SENTENCE FOR BLASPHEMY CHARGE IN PAKISTAN
A Christian sentenced to death for a blasphemy conviction was acquitted Oct. 5 by a Pakistani high court.
Sawan Masih, 40-year-old Catholic father of three, was sentenced in 2014 after a Muslim friend accused him in 2013 of blaspheming Islam’s prophet Muhammad. Blasphemy is punishable by imprisonment or death.
The friend’s initial report against Masih included no words of blasphemy, but a supplement filed eight days later did.
In 2013 after a mosque broadcast by loudspeakers the friend’s accusation, more than 3,000 Muslims attacked Joseph Colony, a predominately Christian area in Lahore. More than 150 shops, homes and church buildings were burned; Christians fled. In Lahore High Court, Masih’s defense presented concerns about the police investigation, initial report, supplement, and Masih’s death sentence on testimony of only one witness.
In the Oct. 5 acquittal, the court stated the prosecution failed to prove Masih blasphemed.
Pakistan remains No. 5 on Open Doors’ World Watch List of places most difficult to be a Christian.
https://www.thealabamabaptist.org/christian-receives-death-sentence-for-blasphemy-charge-in-pakistan/?share=125360
'Foreign funding case against Imran must be made public'
"We want to establish the democratic rule in the country and will only use democratic ways to remove Imran Khan from power," Bilawal said at a press conference in Karachi on Saturday.
During the briefing, the PPP chairperson said that in terms of the country's economy and its health sector, "Imran Kahn government has failed and this is why the people are suffering. This is why we demand that they step down."He also mentioned that anti-corruption body Transparency International says the "most corrupt government" in Pakistan is the PTI government.
Seeking details about the foreign funding case against Imran Khan's PTI, he said: "There are very serious allegations that PTI is a foreign-funded party. Their own member has raised allegations. But unfortunately, whether it is the court or the election commission, the truth has not been put forth before the people.""This is why the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) will protest on January 19 outside the Election Commission of Pakistan and will demand that the case be taken to its conclusion and all the facts of the case be made public," Bilawal said.
He asserted that the public must be made aware of the countries that "gave so much money to PTI".
He said he believes "if such a senior member has provided proof of such a serious allegation", the truth of these allegations should have been put before the public by now, The News International reported.
The foreign funding case against PTI in November 2014 was registered by Akbar S Babar, one of the founding members of the party, alleging major financial irregularities in the party's accounts.
The allegations made by Babar included illegal sources of funding, concealment of bank accounts in the country and abroad, money laundering, and using private bank accounts of PTI employees as a front to receive illegal donations from the Middle East, Dawn reported.
The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an 11-party opposition alliance, has demanded the resignation of the Prime Minister by January 31.
Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari are among major leaders who have said that they will send the Imran-led government packing and have organised several PDM rallies including those in Peshawar, Gujranwala, Karachi, Quetta, Multan, and Lahore since October 16, 2020.
https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/267557400/foreign-funding-case-against-imran-must-be-made-public
#Pakistan - The #PTI government does not have a house for the common man, Chairman #PPP
Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that the PTI government does not have a house for the common man.
Addressing a function in Sukkur to distribute 1,024 flats constructed for the workers by the Sindh Department of Labor and Manpower, the PPP Chairman said that the present PTI government’s housing project is for the rich to whiten their black money. “Whether it is an island or a residential project to be built on the Ravi River, these projects are for billionaires and trillionaires,” he said adding that these are not plans like the ones that Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had made available plots and residential colonies for the poor during his rule.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that in the name of operation against encroachments, the shadow of the roof was being snatched from the heads of poor citizens adding that PTI regime is anti-worker and unless it is ousted, workers will not get their rights.
He said that the provinces were not being given their due share under NFC, institutions like EOIB were not being handed over to the provinces. “Gas was not being provided, while preparations were being made to snatch institutions like NICVD,” he added.
PPP Chairman said that the formula under which the notification has been issued by the federal government for the occupation of hospitals in Sindh is the same formula due to which the health system in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has come to a standstill.
He said that he wanted to empower the workers to have the right to register themselves adding he would soon introduce Benazir Mazdoor Card from Sindh government. He said that despite the financial difficulties, the Sindh government has completed the Labor City plan for the workers, which has provided accommodation as well as treatment and vocational training to the children of the workers.
Meanwhile, the PPP Chairman also inaugurated the Children’s Emergency Satellite Center set up by the Sindh government in Sukkur, where treatment facilities are absolutely free.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, PPP Sindh President Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, Provincial Ministers Saeed Ghani, Nasir Hussain Shah, Jam Ikramullah, Owais Shah, Imtiaz Sheikh and Sohail Anwar Sial, MNA Shazia Marri, Farrukh Shah, Nawab Wasan and Arsalan Sheikh were also present on both occasions.
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/24310/
پی ٹی آئی کے خلاف فارن فنڈنگ کیس ملکی تاریخ کا سب سے بڑا نیشنل سکیورٹی اسکینڈل ہے، چئیرمین پی پی پی بلاول بھٹو زرداری
پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا ہے کہ پی ٹی آئی کے خلاف فارن فنڈنگ کیس ملکی تاریخ کا سب سے بڑا نیشنل سکیورٹی اسکینڈل ہے۔ ہر پاکستانی پوچھ رہا ہے کہ وہ کون لوگ تھے، جنہوں نے پی ٹی آئی کو فنڈنگ کی تھی۔
پارٹی کے اسیر رکنِ قومی اسمبلی سید خورشید احمد شاہ کی رہائشگاہ پر پریس کانفرنس سے خطاب کرتے ہوئے پی پی پی چیئرمین نے کہا کہ موجودہ حکومت کے قائم ہونے کے بعد جو اسٹریٹجک فیصلے لیئے گئے، ان کے نتیجے میں پاکستان کو نقصان ہوا ہے۔ میں نے سنا ہے کہ پی ٹی آئی کو فنڈنگ کرنے والے لوگوں کی فہرست میں بھارت اور اسرائیل کے شہری بھی شامل ہیں۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ ہر پاکستانی کے ذہن میں سوال اٹھ رہے ہیں کہ بھارت اور اسرائیل کے شہریوں نے کیوں فنڈنگ کی اور جواب میں موجودہ حکومت نے ان کو کیا دیا ہے۔
انہوں نے مزید کہا کہ الیکشن کمیشن پی ٹی آئی کے خلاف فارن فنڈنگ کیس کے حقائق عوام کے سامنے لائے، جو خود تسلیم کر چکی ہے کہ فنڈنگ کے دوران اگر کچھ غلط ہوا ہے تو اس کا ذمیدار ان کا ایجنٹ ہے۔ ان کا کہنا تھا کہ حکمران جماعت کے خلاف فارن فنڈنگ کیس کے حقائق کو چھپانے کی خاطر پی ٹی آئی اور اس کے سہولتکاروں نے پیپلز پارٹی کے خلاف جھوٹے الزامات لگائے ہیں۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے زور دیا کہ ہر ادارے کو غیرجانبدار اور غیر سیاسی ہونا چاہیئے۔ 2018ع کے متنازعہ انتخابات سے پورے ملک پر منفی اثرات مرتب ہوئے ہیں۔ الیکشن کمیشن کی جانب سے پیپلز پارٹی کو 18 جنوری کو طلب کرنا سیاسی اقدم تھا۔
انہوں نے کہا کہ پی ڈی ایم میں شامل سب جماعتیں ایک پیج پر ہیں کہ نیب ایک متنازعہ ادارہ بن چکا ہے۔ نیب سکھر تو مختلف جگہوں سے آنے والی ٹیلیفون کالز پر چلتا ہے، جسے حکم دیا جاتا ہے کہ پیپلز پارٹی کے امیدواران اور ارکان اسمبلی کو ہراساں کرو، اور وہ اس پر عمل بھی کرتا ہے۔ خورشید شاہ کے خلاف کوئی کیس نہیں ہے، بلاجواز جیل میں رکھا ہوا ہے۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ نیب اتنا سیاسی ادارہ بن چکا ہے کہ جو فقط سیاسی مخالفین کے خلاف کاروائیاں کرتا ہے۔ وہ بی آر ٹی پشاور، بلین ٹری منصوبہ، مالم جبہ، آٹا بحران، چینی کی چوری اوراس جیسے دیگر معاملات پر کچھ نہیں کرتا، جن میں حکومتی لوگ ملوث ہوں۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے تجویز دیتے ہوئے کہا کہ صوبوں خواہ وفاق میں اس طرح کا قانون بنانا چاہیئے کہ انسداد بدعنوانی پر کام کرنے والے سرکاری ملازمین پر بھی نظر رکھی جاسکے کہ کہیں وہ خود بھی کرپشن میں ملوث تو نہیں۔ ایسے ملازمین کے سرکاری ملازمت میں آنے سے قبل اور اس کے بعد کے اثاثوں کی تفصیلات عوام کے سامنے آنی چاہئیں۔
ایک سوال کے جواب میں کہا کہ پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی چاہتی ہے کہ میڈیا سمیت تمام انڈسٹریز میں کام کرنے والے محنت کشوں کے حقوق کو تحفظ ملے۔
دریں اثناء، پی پی پی چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے سندھ کے محکمہ محنت و افرادی قوت کی جانب سے محنت کشوں کے لیئے تعمیر شدہ 1024 فلیٹس کو الاٹیز میں تقسیم کیئے اور اس سلسلے میں منعقد تقریب سے خطاب کیا۔ مزید برآں، پی پی پی چیئرمین نے حکومتِ سندھ کی جانب سے سکھر میں بنائے گئے چلڈرن ایمرجنسی سیٹلائیٹ سینٹر کا بھی افتتاح کیا، جہاں علاج و معالجے کی سہولیات بالکل مفت ہیں۔
اس موقعے پر وزیر اعلی سندھ مراد علی شاہ، پی پی پی سندھ کے صدر نثار احمد کھوڑو، صوبائی وزراء سعید غنی، ناصر حسین شاہ، جام اکرام اللہ، اویس شاہ، امتیاز شیخ اور سہیل انور سیال، ایم این اے شازیہ مری، فرخ شاہ، نواب وسان اور ارسلان شیخ امیت پارٹی کے دیگر رہنما بھی موجود تھے۔
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/24312/