Nigga with a Gun! Duck! Oh, It's Just Obama...

Considering all the crap that's gone on since Obama was elected to the White House, one would think his apparent discomfort with firearms would bring peace to white America.

But no. As soon as he admits to skeet shooting once in a while at Camp David, to demonstrate his regular guy-ness, everybody wants to see the pictures. White women line up to challenge him, betting they are better shots than the brown man who leads.

White men haven't challenged, apparently self checking into the Dick Cheney “I shot my friend in the face” column, assuming they are more manly than our current mocha prez. It's the same, tired old shit. Any white man is better than the best black one, at anything. Really?

Because that's all this crap is, another way of implying that President Obama is soft. That he is not ever up to the task of being the President of the United States again. For a second landslide term, another four years as voted by “we the people” of the United States.

And who gives a damn, anyway? The gun control debate is not about how well, or even if Obama can shoot. It's about all the fools running around with weapons of war in an alleged civilized society. That's all it's ever been. Except when it turns racial, like now, when the focus is on Obama's “manliness” or when Black Panthers were legally carrying weapons in public, back in the day. Talk about about faces, the NRA nearly gave itself whiplash back peddling on guns in public when black men took to the streets peacefully inside their own neighborhoods. The panthers didn't kill anybody, but the government declared open season and killed them.

Today, the Tea Party has been doing the same thing within the past four or five years and nobody bats an eye. GOP legislators can't change the laws quick enough to allow this blatant guns in public, anti social/racist behavior, yet all anyone can talk about is whether or not our president can shoot a gun.

Any fool can shoot a gun, just ask Dick Cheney's buddy with the shot off face.

Let's get serious. The United States Constitution allows citizens to own a gun. Second Amendment. Fine. This law also means that no one is a criminal until they pull the trigger and or kill someone. Therefore, in order to protect society from criminals, all citizens have to be regulated, because criminals will only reveal themselves through their illegal actions.

You can't just say “keep the guns away from the crazy and the criminal,” because there is no way to know them before the fact, unless there is a screening procedure and or background checks for past behavior.

And considering what happened at Sandy Hook and Columbine and all the other schools and workplace shootings, these shooters, most of them, would have passed the background checks as well as the screenings, because they are to the manor born, white guys with access to money.

Face it, the masters of the universe do not want to deal with the fact that they are raising crazy violent children. But they must if we are to survive as a civilized society.

Then again, maybe that is the issue, shrink the US until it's small enough to be drowned in a bathtub.

Is that the game being played right now? We can't have it so we're going to make sure that you don't? Really?

And don't for one minute, one second, think that I am letting Black America off the hook. There is no fucking reason on the face of this earth that justifies all the Black kids dying in Chicago, in my neighborhood and all the other urban neighborhoods in the US.

This is not a white man's problem...this is US, period. White people aren't killing US. WE are killing each other and it's got to stop.

When will the so called leaders, so called civil rights groups, so called Black religious organizations, churches wake the fuck up?

Black on black violence is not about the number of guns. It's facilitated by the abundance of weaponry, but not precipitated by it.

Our kids have been dying for a long time. Do we need a Black Sandy Hook before WE wake up, too?

Inquiring minds want to know....

Obama-Boehner Smackdown The Thrilla Outside Wasilla

Talks have once again broken down with Boehner walking away from the table and the deal. This time around President Obama was visibly pissed off. You could see it on his face and hear it in his tone. He has summoned the parties to the White House for a rare Saturday session.

As we wait and watch helplessly from the hinterlands...Here are some things to consider:

TRUTH-America is in an unsustainable deficit situation coupled with massive unemployment.

TRUTH-The present deficit/economic situation has never been seen before in the history of the USA.

TRUTH-President Obama inherited this mess. He made it worse by not increasing revenues allowing the Bush tax cuts to go forward, unchallenged. He has allowed himself to be caught inside a dangerous game of "good cop-bad cop" being played by Cantor and Boehner. The people are suffering.

TRUTH-Obama has moved so far  right of center that his policies resemble those of Richard Nixon, rather than any Democrat living or dead. There will be no compromise, only capitulation on the part of the Democrats.

TRUTH-Repeated White House cave-ins are not compromise nor bipartisan behavior.

TRUTH-The past election was not a mandate for teabag policy changes. It was an election that most voters sat out, thinking the problems of the past, were past....or a waste of time from the point of view of so called progressives who remain in the midst of a gigantic temper tantrum because they didn't get their way as quickly as they think they should...

TRUTH-John Boehner is protecting his own ass rather than representing the American people. Teabaggers have made it plain to Boehner that he will lose the Speaker of the House position if he compromises and strikes a deal with the White House.  What happened to "taking one for the team?"

TRUTH-Teabaggers have the power to force Boehner out of office...they have the power to reshape America into it's own bizarro view, but only if we the people allow it to happen as we did during the past election. The teabaggers aren't just playing politics...they are playing crazy politics and they are willing to destroy America in order to get their way...

TRUTH-Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling 17 times during his tenure in the White House, but you'd never know it listening to conservative republicans. Dubya raised it 7 times during the last administration.

TRUTH-Giving rich people tax cuts does not  generate jobs. Never has...never will. Statistics have shown over and over that the rich people hide and save their money, while the poor and middle class spend their money, putting it back into the economy.  Trickle down economics is a myth....pure and simple voodoo..or doo-doo...take your pick...

TRUTH-You can't have full economic recovery without increasing the revenue base. Reagan raised taxes, Nixon raised taxes, Daddy Bush raised taxes...Got to be done...Dubya sent the country into a spiral by cutting taxes and spending our resources on two illegal wars actions and a big pharma deal that gave a bunch of money to his corporate cronies...leaving us holding an empty bag...

TRUTH-When asked how to jumpstart the economy a few years ago, Dubya said "everyone go buy something."  That's a paraphrase, but the gist of how the economy really works. Cutting everybody but the rich cats a $10,000 check would go a long way in re starting the recovery.

TRUTH-Think a non-regulated totally free enterprise capitalistic system works?...take a look at South America...several countries tried it for a while, before the people voted socialism back in. The totally free enterprise system made five or six people rich and completely ground down everybody else...the same thing is going on here in America, albeit, at a slower pace.

TRUTH-Obama has said he is willing to cut a big deal, even if it means he loses the next election. He's got the American people bent over...wondering if his latest deal comes with or without vaseline. There has been no reciprocation on the part of the teabaggers.

TRUTH-At no time have the congressional teabaggers offered to share the pain of the American people...they still have their health care...they still have their salaries...they still have their merit raises...they still have their retirement....

TRUTH-teabag recalcitrance on Capital Hill is also tanking the states...will the governors speak up? If the USA credit line is lowered....so is  the credit line for the states....The states are caught between a rock and a hard place...

TRUTH-In an effort to get this deal, there will be no tax increases or closures of tax loopholes...but you can bet there will be lots and lots of cuts to programs that matter.....The Republican party....the GOP is dead....snuffed out by teabags...

So when do  we start this revolution?

Obama Wins!

All the GOP had to do was to swallow a couple of tax loophole closures. That's all. There has never been a desire expressed on the part of Barack Obama to really raise taxes on the wealthy.

Historian that he is, Obama knows that no republican congress man or woman has voted for a tax increase since 1991. Not one. Not no time. Not no how. He wasn't asking for anything out of the realm of ordinary. A deal is do-able.  John Boehner knows that. Eric Cantor is too busy making a power grab to see it.

Obama has said he would bite the bullet and take the hit on entitlements, in return for minimum cooperation from the GOP.  But they don't get it. Or I should say the teabaggers don't understand when to say "yes" to the deal. They've blown it. They've blown a chance to get real fiscal stability through real compromise.  Obama wins. The people, the polls say are siding with him against the GOP.  The GOP is viewed as cowtowing to the fringe element that is the tea party. The people, even the old people who voted to return power to the GOP during the last election, are wishing for a do-over.

The Tea Party upstarts are already dead. They just haven't fallen down yet.  Cantor, Bachmann, et al are deadmen walking. You can't govern by throwing a temper tantrum and threatening to hold your breath if you don't get your way. There must be give and take. Compromise and everybody wins.

Even the right wing economists are saying the tea party is wrong for not supporting a deficit ceiling increase.

During this entire deficit ceiling fiasco discussion, I have felt that I was listening to a Republican President talking to his party about how to govern the people.  The people don't matter in this sense. The deficit is going to be balanced on the backs of the poor, right on top of the budget, crushing the middle class.  I have called Obama a DINO before and I am more convinced now than ever. He has been pushed so far to the right, he can't even read his own message anymore.

The one certainty out of all this is the rich are going to get richer. They don't lose. They don't suffer. They don't have to bite any bullets.

The only thing going on this weekend is whether or not Obama is going to hand us a jar of vaseline when he asks us to bend over.

The people suffer because there is no one in Congress or in the White House with a big enough brain to see down the road. If there is one lesson to be learned from the first three years of Obama, it is that America is neither post racial, nor post partisan. The can is once again being kicked for someone else to handle. There will be a deal, I believe, but it won't come until August 1st, at 11:59pm.

All this stress and angst is not necessary. The fringe needs to be sent to the cloak room and paddled for being so damn stupid.

This Congress misses the likes of Ted Kennedy and Dan Rostenkowski and Everett Dirksen and Lyndon Baines Johnson. These guys understood the art of the deal and made things happen even when they weren't part of the majority or liked what was on the table. They could see the big picture and even though they liked power, understood they worked for us.

Bet they're laughing their asses off while passing around the scotch and cigars sitting on their special cloud somewhere in the sky.

Obama wins.

Barefoot, Pregnant and Raped, Oh Well

The proposed plight of women in the teabagger/taliban run world. 

Now that the knuckle draggers of Congress think they have the mandate to change America back to their imagined fantasy world, they have been more forthcoming with specifics. With little fanfare, I would guess, because even their own little women might have a problem with it, a couple of bills have been introduced for consideration on Capital Hill. The bills differ in detail, but their intent is the same-strip women of their rights as human beings, relegating us to little more than sperm vessels for their precious seed.

The House GOP majority, led by Speaker John Boehner, wants to literally change the definition of rape. In other words, it is not rape, unless there is force. What this means is date rape is no longer a crime. Sexing up a teenage girl or boy by a legal and consenting adult, is no longer statutory rape. The intent is to prevent women from using medicaid funds to get an abortion in these cases, since current law allows for an abortion in instances of rape and incest. To their neanderthal way of thinking, if there is no rape, there can be no abortion.

 Another instance, if your 10 year old daughter is repeatedly raped by your 25 year old neighbor and impregnated, she would not qualify for a medicaid funded abortion, again because there was no force involved, as is the case with most incidents of this type. Statistics show that statutory rape and incest  almost never involves the use of force. And, if your daughter is over the age of 18, then the whole situation becomes consensual.  The law allowing for an abortion stands only if the impregnated girl is a minor and the rapist is a relative.

And don't think you can use your Health Savings account to pay for the medical work either because this same bill also bans the use of tax exempt funds...your money...from paying for the abortion as well. Claiming the medical work on your taxes is also history, if this bill passes.

You can read more about it here. 

The second proposal, cosponsored by the arrogant young Randal Paul wants to fix the legal definition of life at conception. In other words as soon as egg meets sperm, a woman is pregnant and subject to the whims of her government and male overseers. Her body is no longer her own, it is a baby manufacturing plant, whose sole purpose is to turn out a tiny human being regardless of concern for the woman, her mental and physical state, the circumstances of conception, and whether or not the she can afford to care for another human being for the next 20 or so years. In this teabagger/GOP world women simply become more second class then they are now.

Make no mistake about it, if this backward thinking contingent of Congressional idiots gets its way, the impregnated woman will also not be able to seek financial recourse through  federal funds of any kind to help her raise the child, either. If Paul gets his way, women will virtually have no choice but go back to trading their bodies for financial support to the so called masters of the universe. In fact, the way things are going economically, soon, under these bills, only the rich guys like Paul, will be able to erase their little "accidental" ejaculations. 

This heinous measure is called the Life at Conception Act and makes the egg and sperm combination a legal person with full protection from the 14th amendment, which as originally written guarantees equal protection under the law to those born on American soil. It conferred human status on slaves, back in the day. Paul's new definition would make the 14th amendment override Roe v. Wade. Passage of the Life at Conception Act makes it unnecessary to amend the US Constitution, according to Paul the Younger.

I don't know about you, but it boggles my brain that anyone who actually campaigned on the premise of getting government out of the lives of citizens would turn around and sponsor bills such as these. Think about it. If these measures become law, what happens when a woman decides to do something...anything....like eating food containing gluten, for example...that may be considered by some to be harmful to  the fetus, because it may set off an allergy...what happens to the woman...is she hauled off to jail for endangering a minor?

At the same time, Paul, in a bill sponsored with prostitute-loving David Vitter (see, women do have a place in the GOP), wants to prevent babies born to illegal immigrants on American soil from automatic citizenship. These are the so called anchor babies. Well, my question is this....what about the wombs of these illegal females....if the product of their womb is illegal automatically...how does the law govern the body of the illegal woman? Can she be jailed for getting pregnant? Will she simply be arrested as soon as she shows up at a hospital? Or will there be a new natal police force, formed to patrol poor neighborhoods, airports, boat harbors and train stations looking for obese women who may be pregnant and not just fat.

The teabaggers like Paul claimed to be only interested in economic and fiscal issues, however the first words out of their collective mouth reveals them to be no different than the failed moral majority social conservatives of the past. These American Taliban simply hid their real pro birther agenda and fooled enough people to get elected, and closer to where they can do some real damage to women, the poor and other racial and gender minorities.

Unless women stand up, the attempts to strip women of human being status will continue. Talking about revolution, ya'll!

GOP...What Cha Gonna Do Now?

Okay, it's been six days since the country vented its economic frustrations on the Democrats in last Tuesday's election and what has been accomplished so far?

Well, Michele Bachmann is plotting how to crack the old boys leadership club and bring her bratty teabag family with her....Mitch McConnell is plotting overthrow of President Obama in 2012, seemingly not worried about any alleged mandate from the people to fix the economy and find some jobs......John Boehner the new boss of the House of Representatives is a bit more subdued, because he seems to be celebrating where most of us can't find him, although we can hear it in his voice.

The arrogant smirk on the newly elected teabag darling from Kentucky, Rand Paul has taken up permanent residence on his face. He is plotting outright takeover of the country.

As he has been saying from jump, “he wants HIS country back”.........not really understandable since he is to the manner born...a tried and true master of the universe, who has had absolutely nothing to worry about ever.

The people of Kentucky simply freed Rand Paul up to be the 400 pound gorilla in the china shop that he came into this world being.  If anyone is living the American dream, it is Senator elect Randal Paul smack inside his own personal Norman Rockwell painting, with his three towed headed boys, a bottle blond trophy of a wife, his medical degree and his father's name. What else is there except world or at least country domination?

These guys spent less than two years in exile after trashing the country. Under the law that amounts to probation for being caught with a joint cocked behind your ear. They didn't have enough time to figure out what it is that they did wrong, before they are back in power, with crazy riding shotgun.

The GOP is great at winning elections because the Democrats haven't figured out how to talk to its constituents and deliver a coherent message about their accomplishments.

The Dems did more for the people of this country than any other administration in history. But you'd never know it by looking at and listening to the average American.

At least John Boy Boehner is smarter than Newt Gingrich, in that he is not making any brash promises about what his party intends to do. Probably because they don't really know what they intend to do with the exception of beating Obama in two years.

Their Pledge to America is empty. There is nothing in it, written between the front and back covers except empty words that echo what the GOP has been telling us for the past ten years. Heck, it's unchanged since the days of their patron Saint Ronald of Reagan more than 30 years ago.

The Pledge to America basically promises to hold the line on government spending while assuming that lower spending is all that's needed to bring back the country from the brink of destruction. In other words, keep government small and the situation will take care of itself.

This Pledge is not a plan. It is not a method of governance and sidesteps the real reasons why the GOP was kicked out of power back in 2008. Yes, the Bush Administration screwed up the spending, drastically increased the deficits with its two illegal wars, but the main problem was that it did not address the problem of the struggling and shrinking middle class, which teetered off the deep end long before the Black man took over the White House.

In addition, amidst the unchecked corporate quest for massive personal riches, the United States was allowed to fall out of competition with the rest of the world. The USA became like the Muhammed Ali who fought George Foreman rather than the man who destroyed Sonny Liston-still effective in the ring, but only a shadow of the magnificent heavyweight champion of the world that he once was.

There are three problems that need solving: Jobs and the current quagmire of the jobless recovery in which we find ourselves, the disappearing middle class, drowning in an unperforming economy, and the very long term problem of spending on entitlements like social security and medicare. This problem brought about by the increasing numbers of people who are simply living longer.

The GOP/teabag hyrbrid that took over the House of Representatives has presented no answers. Not one solution for these problems. Furthermore, they are not united on any of these fronts. There are a few ideas floating around, from individual Congressmen. However they have no power to make it happen, nor do they have the ear of the White House with its veto power still intact.

Shutting down the government and freezing spending is dangerous and not the answer. It is just another temper tantrum because they can.

Impeaching or attempting to impeach Obama is a mistake, period.

Repealing healthcare and returning even more power to the insurance industry is not a solution.

Failing to address basic tax code reform is again not a viable way to return to prosperity.


Nor is privatizing social security and medicare while doing away with medicaid, thereby sentencing millions of Americans literally to death, as the State of Texas is apparently mulling over as a way to handle its budget short falls.

Working to defeat Obama in two years is also not the answer despite the dreams of Mitch McConnell, because at least Obama's programs are working, right now.   It is crazy to spend the next two years working to remove what may be an immovable object by the time you get there.

It is time for the GOP to get serious about policy, if it can, because what it is showing now is confusion and too much willingness to rely on the proven failed policy of the past ten years.

And this time, we don't have a parachute to cushion our fall.

For Want of a Statesman

Is there not one principled man or woman within the Republican Party willing to step forward and take responsibility for the rabid and violent masses running roughshod over our country? Is there not one person in the GOP who found the uncivil actions of the mob this past weekend, reprehensible and worthy of condemnation?

Or is this what politics and public discourse have become, foul name calling, spit hurled amid threats of violence against those who harbor differing opinions?

Is America just one violent incident away from an attempt to tip over the melting pot that we sorta celebrate as the foundation of the American Dream? Is the dream dead? Or perhaps I should say, are the dreams dead, the American one and Martin's vision of America? Has it died, too?

No one of a certain age in this country is surprised at hearing the words nigger and faggot thrown at us, just because. The only thing missing this past weekend, were the angry police, attacking dogs and fire hoses. Maybe that's progress, ya think? This kind of behavior was at one time codified in law, and continues to be taught as gospel in huge segments of the population. This behavior, if you can get close enough to talk to some of them view it as their god given first amendment right to exercise against us or our ideas. They have a right to say anything and in any way they choose because they were born to this right.

But this is not first amendment. This behavior is not written into the Constitution. This is not protected speech under the law. What happened this past weekend was the exercise of white privilege and the inherent belief that Black and Native Americans are inferior and are therefore subject to the whims of the perceived majority.

The perceived majority, (and I use that term only to reflect that white people are disappearing as quickly as real Black people), has never apologized for anything. The perceived majority has never acknowledged the actions of the past. It refuses to recognize that what this country is today is built on a foundation created from the blood, sweat, tears and determination to survive of people of color. Oh yes, the majority apologized to the Japanese, even paid them to be quiet-reparations for unjust internment that lasted what, five or six years at the most?

Native Americans have never really been absorbed into the fabric while Black people, well we stand out on the fabric like sequins on a party dress, impossible to hide or blend in. Other ethnicities have come to America, and been met with the same vicious discrimination, but with a difference. These other ethnicities, the Irish, and the Italians and the Polish and Slavs, all have white skin, a natural camouflage that eventually allowed them access. So they stepped up and over us, and joined in the “coon-hunt” because we can't blend in, ever.

Anyone who has ever looked at pictures of the 4000 some lynchings that took place in this country and wondered how could so called good people take part, need look at what happened in DC this past weekend at the Tea Party rallies and understand. And for the record, lynching has never been outlawed in America. People simply stepped up to stop it. But who is stepping forward now?

What was different about the past, is that there were people who were willing to come forward, to take the reins and say “enough.” There were people who were willing to lead by both word and example out loud, reminding their mob that we are all children of somebody's god.

There were men who were willing to say “I'm sorry” and know innately that “I'm sorry” would not diminish their character or statesmanship, but would, on the contrary, enhance it. They were not perfect men, by any stretch of the imagination and usually took part in some of the foolishness themselves. However, they were decent men and principled men, tempered in the fires of morality and justice. They knew when they crossed the line and when to step back.

These men didn't stand in the well of the Peoples' House and rant, attempting to substitute lies and profanities for truths and statesmanship. True statesman don't catcall their fellows or verbally attack Presidents, nor condone the cretinous actions of the mob toward the so called opposition.

Real statesmen don't employ a blame the victim mentality, hiding behind hollow words and excuses. At least in sports, the players still shake hands after the game is contested and a winner has been declared. After the game the players and coaches go on television to talk about what went wrong, but not to blames or to castigate the other team. The coach takes responsibility. The players take responsibility for their actions.

Why are there no coaches in politics? Why are there no statesmen or women stepping forward to squelch the ugliness of their followers? Thuggery should not be tolerated in the halls of congress or on the streets of America, especially when directed at other Americans, because in this game, we are all American.

This country is not your country, it is not my country, it is our country. Like or not, we will live and we will die together.

Tea Party Questions....

Okay....So We had a tea party....

And they were protesting because they don't like the fiscal policies of Barack Obama...

They do have that right....after all....this is America....land of the free, home of the brave and sometimes of the monumentally stupid....

90% of those who protested in Cincinnati yesterday....got a tax cut, not a promise...Are they going to give it back.....,, are they going to refuse to allow Obama to pad their paychecks with the rest of us deadbeats?

They marched on City Hall demanding that the City refuse stimulus money...okay...does that mean that all the senior citizens in the crowd are now going to refuse their social security or their medicare?

Aren't those the socialist programs that they are railing against?

Isn't the patriotic thing to do is to not take any of the government's money? Or is picking and choosing which socialistic activity that you engage in the way to do it..

George Bush/GOP socialism okay.....Barack Obama socialism=equals welfare for black people...not okay....just askin'....I'm trying to understand...

How about all those student loans...did they all come from the private sector...or are there some Pell grants thrown in.....you young'uns refusing that money and allowing your parents to foot the bill for your 8th grade education?


They are protesting policies...policies that were put into place by George Bush...

They were silent while Bush took a government surplus and turned it into two wars costing a billion dollars a month...two wars that we still have to pay for and to deal with....Americans are still dying for lies....

They were silent while Bush gave Obama and us.. a 1.6 billion dollar deficit....

Tax laws haven't been changed for 16 years....Obama didn't do that.....

Since these guys are also against education....how could they know that capitalism in its purest form is a consumer driven situation.... a survival of the fittest, darwinian system..the kind of system that is currently killing us and would kill them...

because 90% of the protestors at the tea party are road kill in a pure capitalistic system... and god forbid that we should ever turn to pure capitalism like George Bush tried to do...by privatizing everything including social security...

Hell....how could they know...since they don't like books or learnin'.....that America is a republic...not a democracy....how could they know that democracies lead to tyranny...without fail...

I would say go back and look at the past eight years if you don't believe me.... but would they understand....given their demonstrated level of understanding and comprehension....

How could they know the difference between capitalism, communism, socialism and fascism...they keep tossing those words around with nary a clue as to what they are talking about....c'mon now...the best way to seem smart...when you don't know...is to keep your mouth shut....

For the record....the Boston Tea Party...the last time I checked....was about "no taxation WITHOUT representation" .......well, we have representation in America...trouble is..the protestors don't like their representation.....King George (I love that) wanted to tax the colonies to pay for the French Indian War..And he wanted to do this without giving the colonies representation in the British House of Lords..


Oh yeah...one other bone to pick....the news media said the crowd was diverse....the phrase was....out of the mouth of my old friend at channel 9...who said "diverse...young, old, men, women"....c'mon Tom....you didn't finish it....young, old, men, women, black, white...

Where was the black-white part of that standard diversity phrase straight out of reporting school...

Maybe because the only black people and brown people down there...were the ones protesting the protestors....huh..ya think?