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Images of the Day:
Cold empty bed, springs hard as lead Feels like ol’ Ned wished I was dead What did I do to be so black and blue Even the mouse ran from my house They laugh at you and scorn you too What did I do to be so black and blue
I’m white inside but that don’t help my case’ Cause I can’t hide what is in my face How would it end, ain’t got a friend My only sin is in my skin What did I do to be so black and blue
How would it end, ain’t got a friend My only sin is in my skin
What did I do to be so black and blue — Video, Black & Blue
Videos of the Day:
U.S.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
United States Priorities — The New Jim Crow — Education to Prison Industrial Complex Slave Labor Pipeline: Since 1980, spending on prisons has grown three times as much as spending on public education: State and local spending on prisons and jails has grown three times as much over the past three decades as spending on public education for preschool through high school, according to a new analysis of federal data by the U.S. Education Department. By Emma Brown and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel 
Bernie Sanders Endorses the World’s Greatest (Presumptive) Evil : Bernie Sanders ran an extraordinary race, making lots of noise and causing great consternation, but never daring to leave the corporate duopoly. Now his job is to deliver the bulk of his sheep into Hillary Clinton’s enclosure. This final mission will require lots of lying, but Bernie got off to a good start with his surrender speech. “The Clintons have an infinite capacity for lying, and now they’ve got Bernie Sanders lying for them, too.” A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
World Recoils as U.S. Slave Patrollers Kill in Defense of Empire: The Bahamas has warned its citizens to be cautious in the U.S., and Black Londoners rallied in solidarity with Black American resistance to racist violence. “Leaders on the African continent, such as, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana as well as the Caribbean and South America, must also stand to account and express their solidarity with the struggle of Africans in America.”by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Adebayo
We Must Resist Attempts to Silence Our Voices on Police Violence: The man who targets people for assassination every Tuesday has no moral authority to counsel Black folk on how to resist oppression. “We know that Obama, the Black Mis-Leadership Class, and the majority of the U.S. public really does not believe in the equal value of all life, and certainly not in the value of poor, working class black life.” We are a peaceful people, but this will not be “a one-sided war.”by BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka
The Obama legacy Part III: Destroying Public Education As We Know It: No president has done more damage to education than Barack Obama, who has “virtually eliminated public education in service of capitalists such as Eli Broad and Bill Gates.” His Race to the Top was a mad sprint to school privatization. “Districts that fired teachers en masse, closed the most schools, and opened the most charters were favored for funds.” Charter school enrollment went up 62 percent during Obama’s first five years in office. by Danny Haiphong
I am Micah: “I may not kill but I am armed to deconstruct bullshit.”by Rev. Reynard Blake, Jr.
Blacks Pay for Police “Reforms” With Their Lives: The spectacle of wanton police killings of Black people “is carried out in public space, with public dollars, much in the way lynchings were” – a state tactic designed to inflict terror on the targeted population. But the U.S. state is never charged with terrorism. It requires massive quantities of Black suffering to make the slightest impact on the white American mind. Consent decrees and meaningless “reforms” are written in Black blood. by Bryan K. Bullock
Micah Xavier Johnson: Made in America, a Failed Human Rights State by Dr. Randy Short: Not all Black people are appalled at Micah X Johnson’s day of rage in Dallas. The author isn’t, and believes he has lots of company. Johnson is far from alone in his hatred of white cops. However, “unlike the majority of Blacks who complain amongst themselves, Johnson went postal – like white folks do all the time, for far less serious reasons.” He is a harbinger of things to come. 
Beyond Bernie: Socialist Alternative endorses Jill Stein: The Socialist Alternative party urges leftists to unite behind Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. “We are urging all Sandernistas to help us register the strongest possible vote for Jill in November and to use Jill’s campaign and this historic moment to prepare the ground for a new mass party to unite the 99%.” by Ann Garrison
Labor:
Economy:
Old Guard Labor Party Bureaucrats ‘allow’ Jeremy Corbyn to be on the Ballot, but set up a poll tax to desinfrachise 130, 000 Labor Party members: James Schneider, a spokesman for the Corbyn-backing Momentum organisation, said the January 12 cut-off for securing a vote in the leadership poll was “not fair”. Mr Schneider told the BBC: “We’ve seen since the Brexit vote probably the largest surge in political party membership in this country’s history, with almost 130,000 people joining the Labour Party and a great number of those joined on the basis that they would be able to vote in a future leadership election.”
Fury as new members barred from voting in fresh Labour leadership contest by NEC Ruling body decides people who have been party members for less than six months cannot vote By Caroline Mortimer
Between a rock and a hard (South China) place: The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, backed by the UN, essentially ruled that there is no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to vast sections of the South China Sea included in the ‘nine-dash line’. Here it is, in full legalese: “China’s claims to historic rights, or other sovereign rights or jurisdiction, with respect to the maritime areas of the South China Sea encompassed by the relevant part of the ‘nine-dash line’ are contrary to the Convention and without lawful effect to the extent that they exceed the geographic and substantive limits of China’s maritime entitlements under the Convention.” By Pepe Escobar
Health, Education, and Welfare:
‘Black and Blue’
Quotes of the Day:
Baton Rouge: ‘Put Those Damn Weapons Down!’: These are non-violent protestors. They are not an invading army. Bill Quigley 
Gestapo America: FBI Director James Comey got Hillary off the hook but wants to put you on it. He is pushing hard for warrantless access to all of your Internet activity. By Paul Craig Roberts
Environment:
Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters: 
World: