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Halle Berry believes that ifyoure all talk and no substance when it comes to making a difference, dont whine when nothing gets done.

READ: Halle Berry Motions Shes Pregnant, Twitter Is Confused

According to Page Six, the Oscar-winning actress discussed the latter at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity Girls Lounge, in reference to the Black Lives Matter movement.

In my world, I get so tired of people complaining about, Oh black lives matter, and they pontificate and pontificate about it, and I say, Well, what are you doing about that? she explained. It may not seem significant to you, but thats how we start. Have you called your local politicians, have you written a letter?

When they say theyve done nothing, I say, Well, dont talk to me, because you are part of the problem, because you are sitting here spewing negativity and complaining, she continued. I dont have time for people who talk the talk but dont walk the walk.

READ: Halle Berry: 50 And Flawless

Berry has reportedly been overseas to work with tech and marketing teams to re-lauch her website and social media platform, Hallewood, which drops next month.

Excerpt from:
Halle Berry Comments On Quiet Black Lives Matter Supporters - Vibe

Stevie Wonder is no fan of Black Lives Matter.

It is in your hands to stop all the killing and all the shooting wherever it might be. Because you cannot say black lives matter and then kill yourselves, the 67-year-old singer told a gathered crowd at a North Minneapolis peace summit, which was focused on ending gun violence among youth.

Because, you know, weve mattered long before it was said, but the way we show that we matter, the way that we show all the various people of color matter, is by loving each other and doing something about it," Wonder said. "Not just talking about it, not just waiting to see the media and press come when theres a horrible thing."

Wonder had some sharp and direct words for the crowd about black-on-black violence.

The first thing you must do is stop believing the fallacy of you not being important, he said. Because it is completely unacceptable for one to hate themselves so much that anyone that looks like you, you want to kill.

The singer closed his words in the most appropriate way he could with music.

He played Loves in Need of Love Today and Higher Ground.

Here is the original post:
Stevie Wonder Chides Black Lives Matter - LifeZette

In the wake of Tuesday night's hope-crushing defeat of House candidate Jon Ossoff in Georgia's special congressional runoff election, the Democratic Party is once again casting about for the ideal political archetype in this fallen, Trumpified world of ours. As fate would have it, Yahoo News floated a suggestion just hours before Ossoff's rebuke: "Eric Holder joins the anti-Trump resistance and mulls a presidential campaign of his own." From the article:

"Up to now, I have been more behind-the-scenes," Holder told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview about his plans. "But that's about to change. I have a certain status as the former attorney general. A certain familiarity as the first African-American attorney general. There's a justified perception that I'm close to President Obama. So I want to use whatever skills I have, whatever notoriety I have, to be effective in opposing things that are, at the end of the day, just bad for the country.[...]

"If opposition is to be the courseand it must bewe must recognize and remember that the power of the American people has been too often underestimated. Once roused we are a mighty force."

Feeling the Holder yet?

About the best thing you can say about Barack Obama's longtime attorney general and self-described "wingman" is that he's not Jeff Sessions, and that in the final two years of his tenure he started taking tentative steps in the direction of long-overdue criminal justice reform (this after four years of cracking down hard on medical marijuana, among other unwoke practices). But as flawed as Holder is, he slots almost uncannily well into the odd and off-putting place the modern Democratic Party finds itself in, as the two-party pendulum swings away from Trumpism yet with little noticeable enthusiasm for the fast-approaching #resistance fighters on the left.

In how many ways is Eric Holder the ideal candidate for the Democratic Party, if not the rest of America? I count at least three:

1) He's intolerant of Republicans. Forget Hillary Clinton's half-hearted "basket of deplorables," which after all only accounted for "half of Trump's supporters" (and for which she later issued a tepid regret)Holder has suggested just flat banning Republicans from respectable venues of discourse.

Three days after the election, the federal government's former chief law enforcement officer was the lead guest on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, and beginning at about 5:40 in this clip went on a remarkable tear against Maher's tendency to invite onto his program Republicans such as Rep. Darrell Issa:

Holder: The one thing I didn't like about your show, given all the crap I had to deal with him, I had to watch your show and then see him up here, you know.

Maher: Well, you know...

Holder: Ban him!

Maher: Uh, no, that'swe can't do it that way. Come on. We have to come together, we have to listen to both sides.

Holder: Not in this new world we have. We push our side!

"We push our side" fits snugly into the post-Ossoff lefty punditry just flat writing off Republicans as irredeemable. "This not a failure of Democrats," as one wrote, "but toxic, vindictive voters willing to elect hateful bigots." Republicans don't need tough love, they need tougher hate. Send Eric!

2) He's a Deep Stater. In an era where former CIA/Goldman Sachs employee Evan McMullin is getting thunderous liberal ovations (except when suggesting that maybe the authoritarian tendencies of this presidency are cause to at least question the size and scope of government), and where Vox is running headlines such as "The FBI is America's best hope against Trump," what better candidate than a guy who spent 12 years in the Justice Department, five years as a Superior Court judge, four years as U.S. Attorney, and four years as deputy attorney general, before elevating to Justice Department's top slot (with some hot Wall Street action on the side)? We need authority to rid ourselves of authoritarianism, people!

Holder has the kind of record that would be routinely portrayed as problematic if attached to the letter R. As Nick Gillespie pointed out in 2013, not only did the then-A.G. "sign off on the search warrant for Fox News's James Rosen's personal emails, he is at the center of questions over the state's broad surveillance of the AP, an operation that has raised hackles across the political spectrum regarding First Amendment issues and civil-liberties concerns." But hey, that was back before the nation slipped into true darkness. Speaking of which...

Media Research Center3) He's a hypocrite about the attorney general's independence from the presidency. The same man who while still in office referred to Barack Obama as "my boy" is now furrowing his brow about (in this Buffalo News paraphrase) "whether current Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be able to put aside a political relationship with President Trump and work with some independence from him." Do tell.

Holder, lest we forget, was officially held in contempt by Congress (including by 17 Democrats) for refusing to divulge documents to an oversight committee looking into the Fast and Furious scandal. As attorney generals tend to do, he performed the liver function in the body of the Obama administration, filtering out whatever toxic Republican accusations were thrown its way. (Hence his particular ire for Issa, who was always poking around Holder's business via oversight committees.)

In the political spot-changing season that comes every time the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania switch hands, Capitol Hill anxiety about the A.G.'s independence from POTUS has gone from a fringe Democratic opinion to an urgent national priority. When Obama's wingman left office, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) gushed, "I hate to see Eric Holder leave....I've been here throughout with a lot of attorneys general. Nobody's done it better than he has." Leahy was considerably less hospitable to the arrival of Jeff Sessions:

I am concerned that the independence of the Justice Department will be in jeopardy under this administration. It is already clear that the cost of saying "no" to the president is your job. Now more than ever, we need an Attorney General willing to pay that cost. I am not convinced that describes Senator Sessions. Throughout his nomination, he has not demonstrated the independence that he himself once demanded of nominees.

Eric Holder dutifully hates the Electoral College. He thinks Trumpism represents "the worst of us." He has greased the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street as well as anybody. He may just be the perfect 2017 Democrat.

"[P]lease let this 'Eric Holder for 2020' thing actually be real," Stephen A. Crockett Jr. prayed over at The Root. After all, nothing says #resistance like getting behind the former chief prosecutor in all the land. "Whatever he decides his new role would be," wrote Essence's Malaika Jabali, "Holder's legal expertise and public platform defending civil rights are sorely needed now, as the President has become intent on undoing practically all of the progressive gains of Obama's administration."

Reason on Eric Holder here.

Go here to see the original:
3 Reasons Why Eric Holder Is the Perfect Presidential Candidate for ... - Reason (blog)

Sacramento Bee

Eric Holder: Cutting sanctuary city funds unconstitutional Sacramento Bee Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck are continuing to push legislation that would prevent California law enforcement officers from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. They joined California ... L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck endorses 'sanctuary state' bill that ...Los Angeles Times Eric Holder, LAPD chief say 'sanctuary state' bill will restore trust between immigrants, policeLA Daily News LAPD Chief Endorses Disputed 'Sanctuary State' BillNBC Southern California all 68 news articles »

Originally posted here:
Eric Holder: Cutting sanctuary city funds unconstitutional - Sacramento Bee

DOJA new report from the Justice Department's inspector general, noted here the other day by C.J. Ciaramella, sheds some light on the question of how many federal drug offenders benefited from a 2013 change in charging policy that Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently reversed. It looks like the policy Sessions rescinded did have a significant impact on the sentences received by nonviolent, low-level drug offenders, although precise numbers remain elusive.

In an August 2013 memo, Attorney General Eric Holder instructed federal prosecutors to omit drug weight, which triggers mandatory minimum sentences, from charges against nonviolent drug offenders without leadership roles, significant criminal histories, or significant ties to large-scale drug trafficking organizations. At the time, Paul Hofer, a policy analyst at Federal Public and Community Defenders, estimated that the new policy might result in shorter sentences for 500 or so defendants each year. Figuring out what actually happened is hard without better data on prosecutors' charging decisions, but the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) looked at a few indirect measures.

In a survey of assistant U.S. attorneys, the OIG found that nearly half (49 percent) said Holder's directive had affected their charging decisions. Another 20 percent said "it was already their practice...not to charge low-level, non-violent defendants with mandatory minimum-triggering drug quantities."

Looking at data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the OIG found evidence that federal prosecutors really did change the way they charged drug offenders. The share of federal drug offenders who did not qualify for the statutory "safety valve" (a narrower, pre-existing exception) but who nevertheless did not receive mandatory minimums rose from 25 percent in fiscal year 2012 to 35 percent in fiscal year 2015. Among drug defendants with a base offense level of 24 or higher and two criminal history points, which made them ineligible for the safety valve but not necessarily for the prosecutorial forbearance urged by Holder, 32 percent received mandatory minimums in FY 2015, down from 45 percent in FY 2013.

The OIG also cites evidence that federal prosecutors responded to Holder's reminder that they should focus their resources on the most serious drug offenders. "The percentage of drug defendants who possessed a weapon rose from 15 percent in FY 2012 to 16.2 in FY 2014, and to 17.2 percent in FY 2015," the report notes. "The percentage of defendants with an aggravating role in the offense, such as leadership of a drug conspiracy, under the sentencing guidelines also increased, from 6.6 percent of drug offenders in FY 2012 to 7.1 percent in 2014 and 7.7 percent in 2015."

Meanwhile, fewer low-level drug offenders were being prosecuted in the federal system. The report notes says "offenders who were eligible for the safety valve (first-time, non-violent drug offenders whose cases did not involve guns) fell from 38.5 percent of those federally sentenced in FY 2012 to 32.3 percent by FY 2015."

After Holder's memo, it seems, nonviolent, low-level drug offenders were less likely to face federal prosecution and less likely to receive mandatory minimums. Those were positive, if modest, changes, unless you share Jeff Sessions' view that there is no such thing as a nonviolent or low-level drug offender in the federal system and never has been.

Read more:
More Evidence That Eric Holder's Charging Memo Helped Drug ... - Reason (blog)