economic opportunity

Taundra Copley

In Their Own Words: #PowersForThePeople Voters Speak Out (video)

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Taundra Copley
Taundra Copley, stay-at-home Mom and my neighbor

Tomorrow is the Democratic Party Primary. August 30, 2016 has been in the back of my mind since I created my Pamela Powers Hannley for House Campaign Committee on August 19, 2016.

The campaign has been a heart-warming, physically-demanding, soul-searching, eye-opening, stress-inducing educational experience. Today’s post is not mine, though. It belongs to my supporters. Nine of my supporters– all LD9 voters, including several LD9 precinct committee people– agreed to make testimonial videos.

What do a world-renowned cardiologist, a stay-at-home Mom, two small business owners, two retirees, a college student, a painter, and a jeweler all have in common? They’re all voting for me in the August 30 Democratic Party Primary. Videos after the jump.

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The root causes of urban violence in America are poverty and lack of economic opportunity

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President Obama held a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Abe, who is in Washington, D.C on a state visit.

President Obama was asked about the situation in Baltimore by Chris Jansing of NBC News. He provided a lengthy response, but I want to focus on his sixth and final point. Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Abe of Japan in Joint Press Conference:

And I’ll make my final point — I’m sorry, Mr. Prime Minister, but this is a pretty important issue for us.

We can’t just leave this to the police.  I think there are police departments that have to do some soul searching.  I think there are some communities that have to do some soul searching.  But I think we, as a country, have to do some soul searching.  This is not new.  It’s been going on for decades.

baltimore-cover-finalAnd without making any excuses for criminal activities that take place in these communities, what we also know is that if you have impoverished communities that have been stripped away of opportunity, where children are born into abject poverty; they’ve got parents — often because of substance-abuse problems or incarceration or lack of education themselves — can’t do right by their kids; if it’s more likely that those kids end up in jail or dead, than they go to college.  In communities where there are no fathers who can provide guidance to young men; communities where there’s no investment, and manufacturing has been stripped away; and drugs have flooded the community, and the drug industry ends up being the primary employer for a whole lot of folks — in those environments, if we think that we’re just going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there without as a nation and as a society saying what can we do to change those communities, to help lift up those communities and give those kids opportunity, then we’re not going to solve this problem.  And we’ll go through the same cycles of periodic conflicts between the police and communities and the occasional riots in the streets, and everybody will feign concern until it goes away, and then we go about our business as usual.

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