Barack Obama, The DINO in the White House

President Obama's election as president came with a giddiness that most of us still can't explain and a happiness that finally, finally things would change in this country for the working man.

After all, he was a Black man, a working man who had pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He was not born to the manner, so to speak. In other words, his daddy didn't hand it to him on a silver platter.

One would imagine that thinking outside the box would come natural. In fact, most people thought that outside the box solutions would become the norm when Barack Obama took over.

However, the election of Barack Obama proves two things. First, that white people in America are not inherently racist and are more than willing to elect a Black man who seems to have a plan to lead them. Second, that Black people can be just as comfortably conservative as most whites who make their home inside the right wing of the Republican party.

From jump, I have been concerned about President Obama's choices to help him right the economy and bring down the deficit. He has repeatedly chosen clueless academics more comfortable addressing theory rather than dealing in the reality of living with those theories. I didn't doubt their abilities. What I doubted was their empathy and understanding of what is happening on main street to the middle class, rather than on wall street and in Manhattan or the upper East Side.


Today, I'm not a happy camper. In fact, I suffering major “buyer's remorse,” after reading this preliminary report, because to sum it up in popular terminology, this plan simply says "Fuck you, America."

The President put together a think tank to address the deficit. It is called his Deficit/Fiscal Commission. Right off the bat, he puts two right winged Republicans in charge. There is not a democratic bone in the body of either Erskine Bowles or Alan Simpson. They don't understand the term “middle class.” If Erskine Bowles changed his name to Glen Beck, nobody would know the difference. He is that far right of center. From jump street, all republicans and most spineless blue dog Democrats were happy at Obama's selection of Bowles and Simpson, and I'm sure they're absolutlely ecstatic after this first preliminary report release.

Caveat....this plan is preliminary. It is not the final plan. Honestly, if this is the blueprint, middle America is about to be deep sixed permanantly, because this plan has declared war on medicare, on social security and every other social service safety net for helping those who can't help themselves, while allowing the true culprits, guilty of tanking this country to get off scott free.


Cutting Social Security-While the GOP has promised not to cut the benefits of those who are retired or those who are close to retirement, the deficit commission wants to immediately increase retirement age, limit yearly cost of living increases, tying it to inflation rather than wage growth. This would drop benefits right now, by 3% for those who have been retired for 10 years or more and 6% after they've been retired for 20 years. For those who don't know, retirement age is already going up to 67 by the year 2027. By 2050 retirement age will be 68 and by 2075, it will be 69.


Cuts Taxes for the Rich-Cutting taxes increases the deficit, so why is it part of a plan to lower the deficit, huh? This deficit commission wants to drop the tax rates on the highest tax brackets to 23%, down from 35%. Corporate rate would decrease to 26%.


Bend over Middle Class-The biggest cut in this plan is to change the benefit formula to start at the 50th percentile which is the real middle and hurts the most people. The biggest amount of decrease would happen here, dramatically reducing what few benefits exist for the Middle Class.

Using “Caps” to cut medicare and other social programs designed to keep people from falling into poverty-Items in this part of the plan involve increasing fees and asking doctors, lawyers, insurance companies and health care providers to “play nice” and voluntarily go easy on raising costs of a procedure or treating pre existing conditions or kicking grandma and grandpa to the curb or in front of a death panel. Just no more nasty restrictions on big pharma or health care providers such as Wellpoint. This plan caps expenditures at no more than 1% of the GDP. Can you say “Rationed Health Care.”


Cut the Defense Budget- This is a good thing. However it does not go nearly far enough. The plan calls for a reduction of 20% of the Pentagon's budget, mainly by freezing salaries and cutting the manufacture of useless and weapons and equipment. But it is just a drop in the bucket and needs to go further. Doesn't address ending the wars or shuttering useless military bases around the world.


Hurts Veterans-It's not enough Vets and servicemembers get shot up and wounded in illegal wars, when they come home, the deficit commission wants them to pay for their treatment by adding co-pays to TRICARE, freeze noncombat pay for 3 years, and shut down all schools on military bases, making the kids go to public school.

Federal Workers- The plan calls for freezing federal salaries, bonuses, and other compensation for 3 years. The deficit commission wants to cut the federal workforce by 10% as well as eliminate 250,000 non defense service and staff contractors.


What this plan does not do: It does not address spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, those two illegal wars that pushed us over the brink.

It does not address the low tax rates paid by the rich-after all the Bush tax cuts are at the root of the problem and due to add even more money to the deficit if extended, as apparently President Obama is on the verge of allowing, if current reports are true.

This plan does not address the excess of Wall Street and the Banking Industry, or the Medicare prescription drug bill written by Big Pharma.

It was not Medicare, Social Security, the Middle Class, the Poor, Veterans or Federal workers who screwed this country. Yet it is us who will be forced to pay the price, if Obama allows any parts of this plan to see the light of day.

Swine Flu Vaccine Ready

Still skeptical about Big Pharma-The 1976 fiasco.....2009 Problem

I will admit upfront, that I'm a total skeptic when it comes to government vaccination programs. Just like all Americans my age, I went through them as a kid. They didn't really hurt me or anything, but then my Mom was in charge. She said take them, I took them. I was only five years old after all.

As I have gotten older, I have come to learn that we don't really know what is in the medicines that we take.

A lot of the medicines on the market are there purely to make a profit for someone, at the expense of you and me.

I don't take the yearly flu vaccinations even though I'm considered high risk.

Having lived through the swine flu epidemic of 1976, I'm not sure if I will ever trust my government or the big drug companies to do the right thing.

Not the way it was set up then...and certainly not the way it is now. Because as bad as the drug companies were back then...

They are a hundred times worse now in their disregard for consumers, viewing them only as cannon fodder for their big profit money making machine.

If you think that is a misstatement or a wrong statement then check out what is really going on in Africa with the drugs that could save so many, but are being withheld by their makers in order to make greater profit.

This is done by simply not making the drugs available because the people cannot afford the price that the drug companies want to charge to support their profit scenario in Africa.

Back in 1976, the big drug companies demanded that the US government take the fall if the swine flu vaccine turned out bad, because they didn't want to get sued. It did. The government took the hit.

The same thing is going on today with health care reform and this so called developing flu vaccine. I have no proof, but my mature gut tells me that we, the people are being screwed again, despite the fact that Obama is in charge. But I will wait and reserve judgment until the reform bill is passed and we get through the flu season.

One of the big players in 1976 and today in 2009 is Roche, the big pharmaceutical company. Roche makes Tamiflu, which you may know, the United States government, as well as other governments, worldwide have stockpiled in recent years to combat Swine and Bird flu.

The US decided to stockpile Tamiflu after Bush elevated Donald Rumsfeld to Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld made millions off the drug....He has stock in the company that created Tamiflu. Gilead Sciences sold Roche the rights to manufacture the drug.

Our government paid Roche $100 a dose to buy the drug...that works out to $2 billion dollars for useless meds.

Rumsfeld allegedly recused himself from all governmental decisions concerning the stockpiling of the drug. However, with the lies that are now coming to light...

Who knows what Rumsfeld did back in the day...

Rumsfeld and Bush just got the ball rolling. Tamiflu is held up as the treatment for the flu, which really it is not...

Tamiflu is only effective if taken at the first sign of the flu...It is not a cure...or vaccine....If you don't take it at onset....

In other words, if you don't have it in your house..then you're wasting your time.

And there are some nasty side effects to the drug, too...Deaths were reported in Japan to children given the drug, shortly after it came on the market.

If it has to be taken immediately...then wouldn't stockpiling be a waste of time, considering that the government can't get it to you in time to save you...they can't mobilize fast enough...

Think that's wrong...think Katrina....the only thing that's changed since the Katrina debacle is the President...the mechanism for saving American lives...is the same...

Obama has not changed the mechanism, yet. I love Barack Obama...He's like that Nia Long line from the movie The Best Man, while referring to the Terrance Howard character... (pretty M*****), and it's way too early to make any judgments....

But so far, all I'm seeing is same old, same old...lots of charisma and very little change...Just like Bill Clinton....Love em...however...they are both consummate politicians...

And as I've said before...if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck....you can finish...

The difference that I'm seeing between the last administration and the new one..is that one of them is giving us vaseline before telling us to bend over...

Back to this new developing vaccine in time for the coming flu season. As I said, I don't trust it. When they tried this in 1976, more people died from the vaccine then the so called epidemic.

In fact, in 1976, only one person died from the swine flu and he was the first one who contracted it..

He was patient zero, in other words.

It happened at Fort Dix and you can read the story here.

I can't tell you what to do for you and your children when the time comes to face this latest “flu bug.”

It is almost upon us and they are just beginning to test. Officials have already said it's going to take 3 shots.

The shots won't be effective until a couple of weeks after you take the second one...Given the roll out..that will be halfway through the school year..

If that is the case, what is the point of taking the drug...Seems to me your immune system is working effectively already.

What I'm hearing on the news does not sound confident...it sounds panicked...and that scares me..A panicky government is the last thing we need....

Here is how the Center for Disease Control “reflects on the situation."

Let's hope the government learned its lessons from 1976.

Friday Rap

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor....has a wonderful ring to it, doesn't it...

I just wish people, including the main stream media, would stop saying “Puerto Rico” as if it was some kind of foreign country...

Get a clue people....Puerto Rico is American soil...”they” is “us”....

Points to my main argument for dropping these ethnic prefixes...ie “African” American...or Puerto Rican American.....

These terms are successfully used to keep us divided.....

We, Blacks, have always been Americans...why do we have to look elsewhere to justify our ethnic identity...

I am proud to be an American...not an African American...but an American..especially since “African” in this usage... doesn't necessarily refer to the continent, as was originally intended, when first coined back in the day.....but has everything to do with simply using another word to identify us by color...as in African=Black...

You may not like the above statement...but consider this...there have been no all Black/African genes coming into the American Black gene pool for decades.. since 1619 in fact....geneticists, biologists and anthropologists will tell you that Black Americans are literally fading in color...Anyone who can trace their ancestry back to slavery probably has almost no Black blood in him/her in the first place, despite outward appearance..

Even Dr. Henry Gates, the man who popularized genealogy so that we can track back to the motherland has spent the past couple of weeks trumpeting his “percentage of whiteness” incorporated in his Blackness...as he stands next to his white wife and ¾ white kids...

There is nothing pure about the gene pool...Black or white...if you're American...you're mixed...period..

Time to get over it and move on...

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Let the Big Dog Run

He is useless when it comes to detail, that's Hill's job, but his grasp of the big picture is perfect...so it was masterful to turn Big Bill loose on North Korea this week....Dear Leader was cheesing in the photo like he was standing next to Elvis reincarnated...and that's okay...

Mission really accomplished...the girls are home...safe..

Who cares if the honorary Black man doesn't like the half Black man in the White House...they make beautiful music together like Lennon and McCartney...and as every Beatle fan knows...they didn't always get along either...

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Riddle me this....

Who did you like better in the Batman movie....the caped crusader...or the Joker?

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GOP Mob Rule

Remember back to the year 2000 when all those white people rioted during the hanging chad fiasco during the election in Florida? Turns out the rioters were GOP operatives trucked in from DC to stir up the stupid masses into a frenzy against the coloreds....

Happened again in Florida last night....Can lynchings, beatings and cross burnings be too far behind? Or is that stuff just too blatant for today's modern racist sensibilities?

If these racists, er protestors were really serious...why not a protest to tear up their medicare cards...how about they give back their government sponsored public health care that they don't want the rest of us to have...

How about the GOP racists in Congress and the Blue Dog Democrats...give back their public financed health care coverage....

Bet if they did the money given back would put a nice dent in that deficit they keep screaming about...

Meantime...I'm sure Big Pharma and the Insurance companies are laughing all the way to the bank, as they plan their next government subsidized vacation in Rio or Monaco, or where ever the hell, the nouvo-riche travel these days..

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Is it Just me...

Or don't you wish Obama would grow some balls and start taking names and kicking ass?

Back in the day I quit going to civil rights demonstrations because I'd reached my saturation point...I can only stand so much of being called a nigger before I get mad and decide to body slam somebody..

I'm at that point again.....I need to meditate more, I guess..

Turn the other cheek didn't work for me then...and I can't find any Buddhist teachings that I can get lost in to calm me down now...

There were two things I learned from practicinng martial arts......It is better to walk away from a fight....

But during kumite (fighting) it feels so damn good to clock somebody a couple of times upside the head..

It's almost orgasmic in feeling...(I like to fight..feels gooooooooooooood!)

But it represents the ultimate war for self control...”conquer others...win the battle...conquer yourself...win the war”

Grasshopper is listening Mr. President..

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Walking Wastes of Oxygen Nominees

Eric Cantor....unAmerican, unpatriotic...flat out traitor to the country he purports to represent

Michelle Malkin...Coulter light

Michele Bachmann.....Hall of Fame nominee

Senator Grassley....took off his hood again this week

Beck...main cattleherder riding shotgun on the anti health care reform mob

Lou Dobbs....major disappointment

DINOs (Democrats in Name Only)

Fake Democrats working to sabotage Health Care

There are several old timer phrases that will fit what's going with the Democrats and Health Care reform in Congress......

“Give them a minute and they will figure out a way to screw it up..”
or
“Democrats, always ready, willing and able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory..”

That last phrase was used a lot in the past election...because even when it became obvious that Obama was going to win...Democrats were as always, their own worst enemies...

Today with health care reform...it's SOSDD...same old shit different day....

Every single poll out there says the people want health care, they need health care, they understand the health care issues being presented...

Yet, fake democrats, who are very well covered with Congressional health benefits, which we pay for, are working to sabotage the worker's health care reform, by watering down various proposals or talking against the public option...

These fools work for us..and it is time to call them on it....

Or maybe they don't really work for us....just because we elected them....So the question becomes..

Who is paying them...which insurance company is bankrolling the fake democrat's kids college education?

Who paid for the last vacation taken by the Congressman and his family or current mistress?

Who does the Congressman play golf with when he's not ducking votes on the floor in the Capital?

Which Big Pharmaceutical company employes which Congressman's kid as a consultant?

From what's been in the news lately, seems these fake democrats....starting with Tom Daschle, who we already know is bought and paid for....are attempting to kill the public option of the reform...

They say many things...It is socialism....it costs too much....it's not good for the people....

The truth is.....

Anything good for the people is labeled socialism these days...by idiots who don't even know what socialism actually is....somebody told them something in 7th grade government class and they've been running with it ever since..

Costs too much....yes, it will cost a lot...but it still won't cost what Bush's last round of tax cuts cost...

It's not good for the people.....In whose world?

The only people who don't stand to benefit are the health insurance companies, Big Pharmaceutical, and their fake ass political puppets who have been screwing us for years....collecting billions of dollars off our backs...

Count the kickback money paid by big Pharma to their Congressional puppets and the country could probably put forth a free health care system that nobody would have to pay for...

What is making me really steamed is these guys are hiding....They are refusing to talk about what it is they are trying to do...

If what they are doing is right....Then come forward and tell us about it...

They don't give a damn about the people who put them in office......

And isn't Congress Democratically controlled...the last time I looked the man in the White House is also a Democrat.....

Then what is the problem....are we still worried about phony bipartisan participation...are we worried about hurting GOP feelings if we don't include them in the decision making?

Michael Steele is trying to take the GOP hip hop...that means he wants to play by street rules...Okay..That means he has taken his boys to the mattresses and he will understand.....

In street rules....it's “us versus them”......

In other words.......”F*** the insurance companies....F*** Big Pharma......

And

F*** any Democrat who dares to stand in the way of health care reform with a public option..

In the street....if you have to choose between me and mine and you and yours...

It's always going to be me and mine...which is the way fake democrats are playing it with us, for years, by the way...

So they will understand when and if we decide to take them out, if they disappoint us again...

This is war...and if they want war....they got it...

It's time for Obama to turn into Nino Brown and put his Bill Cosby back in the closet.