Scary Black Men

I know I should be incredibly offended by the faux New Black Panther Party Scandal trumped-up by The Right and Fox News. I just can’t though. It’s so utterly ridiculous to think that videotape of a cuckoo-ball at a polling station wielding a club and screaming cuckoo-ball stuff was going to topple the Obama Presidency. As fas as I could see, no one seemed intimidated. They just avoided homeboy and gave him some serious side-eyes. If you are a regular Fox News watcher though, this guy was the Scary Black Man made of nightmares. The jack boot wearing, revolutionary spouting boogeyman whose mission in life was frighten the poo out of good ol’ Americans.

Gimme a break, will you? The New Black Panther Party is a joke. They get no love. In fact the only time anyone pays attention to them is when one of them goes on Fox News. But we’re supposed to believe they are in cahoots with the Obama Administration to suppress voting rights? I know this requires a bit of attention, but the NBPP doesn’t care for Obama too much either. Actually they don’t care for anyone who doesn’t adhere to their separatist ideology.  That pretty much includes about 99.9% of the Black population in this country. But to The Right, it doesn’t matter. They fit right nicely into the Scary Black Man meme. Unfortunately, folks were eating it up.

Until the facts came out. See, it was the Bush administration that chose not to pursue Voter intimidation and suppression charges against the NBPP. In fact, they banned them from appearing at polling places until 2012. They were quite satisfied with the response of the local authorities who escorted the members from the polling place and took away their big stick. No muss, no fuss. No need to worry about a big, black, beret wearing Negro jumping behind a voter and screaming, “Boo!” before the lever is pulled.

Too bad the Faux pundits got their knickers all in a twist about it. Poor Megyn Kelly blew a gasket at the mere mention that all this was much ado about nothing. “It’s not about race!”, she cried. “It’s about the law!”. Uh, okay. I don’t remember her being that upset when the Bush led Department of Justice sought to destroy ACORN and purged members from the department when they didn’t cooperate. I know, they weren’t Scary and Black though.

Good thing that all the baiting will probably lead to nothing. Fox News will have to find another Scary Negro to prop up in front of its viewers because Scary Negro Number 1, President Obama just isn’t doing the trick anymore.

Stay tuned.

a not so fresh pick

President Barack Obama announced his SCOTUS pick (24 hours after it had been leaked by the media) in a press conference this morning. After weeks of accurate speculation, Solicitor General Elena Kagan was introduced. Like clockwork, those on the Left tried to find something right with it, while those on the Right tried to find something wrong with it. Those in middle were relegated to quibbling about her Beltway ties and her sexual orientation. All very tedious but expected.

Whatever hopes had about Kagan being in lockstep with Justice Stevens were misplaced. The days of a Liberal majority in the Supreme Court are long gone. The Middle and The Right have yet to get over the sweeping social and economic changes of the ’60′s and ’70′s, and the members of those camps have made it their life’s work to make sure they don’t happen again. Liberal is a dirty word that no one wants to be called. Liberals don’t even like to be called Liberals. The term is “Progressive” now-and don’t you frigging forget it. Thanks to a major propaganda campaign, Liberal is synonymous with Socialism, government hand-outs, and a hatred of freedom.

It’s utterly ridiculous but incredibly effective. The President knows this. He’s no Liberal. He also doesn’t want a huge fight with the Republicans, so he chose a candidate who isn’t a Liberal. This is something that Liberals Progressives will have to deal with. There’s no way in hell that a vengeful Republican party is going to allow the Supreme Court to veer to the Dark-Liberally-Side. They aren’t even interested in participating in a smooth nomination process. The stakes are too high and there’s still a lot of work to do to erase the memory of Roe vs. Wade & etc from the annals of judicial history.

I don’t know that much about Kagan right now and I refuse to watch any coverage. I’ll wait until the hearings start. Unlike others, I prefer to hear from Kagan herself about what kind of Justice she will be. What I do know already is that she will be prepared to stay right in the middle of any issue presented to her.

As expected.

7.5 hours of what?

The President met with Congressional Republicans at the Blair House this morning to talk about Healthcare. You couldn’t call it a meeting of the minds or an effort to compromise. The Republicans have no intention of seeing this through and everyone knows it. So basically the public watched over 7 hours of Republicans regurgitating the same old talking points while President Obama swatted them away like tsetse flies. At times it was fascinating. Even after watching PBO speak at various events for the past 3 years, I still marvel at his utter command of information. I still have to pinch myself as reminder that we now have a smart President.

Like I said, some of it was engrossing. Most of it was snoozeworthy. The question was whether or not anything actually got accomplished. Well, the Democrats still seemed really squeamish about the use of reconciliation and the Republicans were content to poo poo everything. So I would say no. Interesting political theater but useless nonetheless.

Now that the pundits feel like they’ve actually earned their checks, can the rest of us get a health care bill passed?

polls and purges

It’s been awhile but I had to deal with some things in the real world.  They haven’t been completely dealt with but, here I am. Writing supposedly heals the soul. I’m about to do some healing right now. 

Well last night was election night.  A year and almost a day before, one of the most historic elections in our country’s history took place. Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President and the world rejoiced. This year after tirelessly campaigning against Obama, the opposition sought to wrest seats and the conscience of the electorate from him. After the results came in late last night, The Right were celebrating gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey. They were well within their rights to. Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell ran smart campaigns that focused on the issues of their respective states. Moderates and Independents flocked to the polls while the Democrats stayed away. The massive Obama ground game was non-existent and even an appearance by the man himself didn’t help. So, these wins were a referendum on Obama and the Democratic controlled Senate right?

Not so fast. State elections in an off-presidential year have had little effect historically. Meaning, gains in one election cycle don’t necessarily mean the same gains in the next one. Also, let’s be real. John Corzine and Craig Deeds weren’t the best candidates. Corzine’s popularity numbers were in the low 30′s. Deeds-Crikey! This dolt actually thought he could win being an anti-Obama Democrat. He was trounced and rightly so. That just goes to show that a campaign is only as good as the campaigner. You can’t make a rose out of a weed. These guys did not appeal to young voters, minorities, and left leaning Independents-the core coalitions of the Democratic Party. They did very little to inspire the base so no wonder why the stayed away in droves. If anything, Obama upped the bar significantly for modern politics. You have to be an outstanding candidate with command of the issues, you have to rally the base, you have to appeal to those outside your party, and you must have a top notch campaign staff. Neither Democratic had any of these things and as a result, the Republicans won.

But those races weren’t the most significant ones of the night. The race that everyone’s attention was focused on was a special election Congressional race in the 23rd District in New York State. Republican DeeDee Scozzafava was hand-picked by the GOP bigwigs in the district to run for the seat. Initially, they saw no problems. NY-23 was solidly Republican and Scozzafava was a fiscally conservative/socially moderate candidate who fight right in with the East Coast Republican establishment. That is until The Right of the right set their sights on the seat. Soon, the nationwide Republican Purge hit and Scozzafava was labeled a liberal and a radical and was displaced in favor of a handpicked Conservative by the name of Doug Hoffman. Armed with a cache of out of district money, the blessings of Dick Amrey, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Tea Party talking points, Hoffman positioned himself as the main contender to battle Democrat Bill Owens. Scozzafava saw the writing on the wall and bowed out of the race.

Funny how things just seem to right themselves (don’t pardon the pun, it was bad). Hoffman seemed to have everything in hand. He was the right wing’s blessed child running in a solid red district. Forget the fact that he didn’t actually LIVE in the district. Forget the fact that he was completely disinterested in local issues. Forget the fact that he pissed off the local press by skirting questions and bringing everyone’s favorite Astro-turfer Dick Armrey to a sit down interview. Forget the fact that Scozzafava had one more card up her sleeve. Two days before the election, she endorsed OWENS. She even made a round of robo calls stating that Owens would be the best choice. Hell hath no fury and all that. Fox News, Michael Steele, and the others who had endorsed Hoffman over her were left with egg all on their mugs. Credit to them for recovering quickly and predicting a Hoffman victory. Too bad they underestimated the voters of NY-23 like they underestimated Scozzafava.

They just never seem to get things right, those folks. By Wednesday morning,  Bill Owens was declared the winner of a house seat that hadn’t had a Democratic butt sit in it in about a century. The folks of NY-23 weren’t fooled by the fly by night Conservative. They weren’t swayed by Sarah Palin’s Facebook encouragement. They weren’t turned on by Rush’s invective. Good for them. Good for the rest of us. The purge didn’t work this time, and if they keep making the same mistakes, it will never work. This was the race that was supposed to be the real test of the resurgent Republican Party. It was supposed to be a statement against President Obama.

See how well that turned out….

The Laureates of WTF?

Harvard Law Graduate, best selling author, United States Senator, President, Nobel Laureate for Peace. Barack Obama has accomplished more in his 48 years than many. Why is it so damn hard for some folks to acknowledge those accomplishments? The amount of hate is sickening. He is the 3rd African American and the first American sitting President since Woodrow Wilson to win the Nobel Prize. Where’s the pride? Seriously.

The Republican’s response included trotting out Chairman Michael Steele who declared that Obama didn’t deserve the award. The Right’s reaction sank to even lower levels with various pundits and internet warriors stating that they agreed with the Taliban and that Obama should give the award back. The most egregious statement was that Obama’s win was the result of an affirmative action quota. This, from the people who claim to love America so much?

My God, what is wrong with these people? Once again, folks from other countries are showing more love towards our President than people living right here. Even those on The Left were sniping. I’m just so done. If it matters, I’m proud and happy. Even though I have disagreed with some of PBO’s policies, I think his winning the Nobel Prize is freakin’ awesome. I’m encouraged to follow the President’s call for action for peace. Lord knows we need it–especially right here in the good ol’ U.S.A.

dashed hopes

The healthcare fight has been comprised lately of anger, lies, misdirection, and now appeasement. This weekend, President Obama and his top surrogates started to throw the Public Option under the bus and conservative Democrats have been touting the concept of co-op healthcare. It’s safe to say with the apparent waffling from the administration, those on the Right are delighted and those on the Left are befuddled.

At a town hall meeting in Colorado, the President asked healthcare reform supporters to knock on doors and get the message out. Huh? With all the confusion about what’s going to be reformed and what isn’t, how are they supposed to spread a message they don’t understand. To me, that’s the biggest reason why their hasn’t been a huge pushback against healthcare opposition. There simply isn’t much to support at this point.

On the one hand, you have the Republicans who are dead set against any kind of reform. Then you have the Conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats who come from swing districts are are afraid they will be booted out of office. Let’s not forget the Congressmen and women whose pockets are lined with health insurance money. Oh, and the Liberal Democrats who are pissed because the single payer option was never considered. Throw in lobbyists, pundits, conspiracy theorists, and ex-Presidents, and it’s just a big ol’ mess. The already complicated matter of changing the way Americans receive and pay for their health seems even more complicated.

I hate to do this but I gotta place a lot of the blame on PBO. In his desire to try to get the Republicans to hop aboard his Change train, he allowed the reins of the debate to be taken away from him. As a result, the townhall mobs got more media attention than he did. While his getting on the trail and holding townhalls of his own is appreciated, in order to satisfy his real base, he needs to declare what HIS vision of healthcare should be. He then needs to direct the Democrats to follow suit. If the Republicans are down it’s all good, if they aren’t then he needs to let them know that healthcare reform is going to pass with or without their help.

Finally, he needs to take into account of what Progressives want. Much of the spin coming from the White House involved placating the fears of seniors, on-the-fence Independents, and pharmaceutical companies. The Public Option must be included. Our voices must be heard, the real story of what this healthcare crisis entails must be told. Otherwise, what support he had counted on will be gone as well.

Real Talk.

have gun will travel

So today, President Barack Obama held a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, NH to discuss health care and with all the craziness lined with astroturf that’s been highlighted during previous town hall meetings, everyone was on their toes to see what would stick today.

Lo and behold, the nut wing of The Right didn’t disappoint. A guy named William Kostric showed up with a gun strapped to his leg. No he wasn’t taken out by snipers, tased, or handcuffed and taken away because according to New Hampshire law, he was well within his rights to stand outside of an event featuring the President with a loaded gun. Gotta love America! A Harvard professor can be arrested inside his own home for giving the po po attitude, but Mr. Kostric can be in plain view of the police and Secret Service and remain unmolested.

If anyone can tell me how carrying a loaded weapon has anything to do with health care reform I’d like to know. I have an inkling that it further symbolizes the fear that more than a few in this country have about any change that will affect them economically, socially, or culturally. See, I think Mr. Kostric could care less about the details of public option and end of life decisions. He being the coward that he is (and yes, cowards carry guns. in fact there is a correlative effect: the less guts you have, the bigger the gun) wanted to show America that as a White Christian male, he was not content to stand idly on the sidelines and let this Black Man make any decisions that will change his way of life-even if it’s for the better. It was much easier for him to hold a sign misquoting Thomas Jefferson than to actually go inside the venue with an intelligent and well reasoned question or statement (and without a gun).

But that’s asking too much I know. Instead we were all treated to this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/11/chris-matthews-to-town-ha_n_256952.html

sell crazy somewhere else because i’m not buying

I just want to go on record as saying that this whole Birther movement is a crock of poop and that the people behind it are nuttier than squirrel shit. In the beginning, these wackos were mainly seen as a joke. They comprised of your garden variety conspiracy kooks, disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters, and Right Wingers who were searching for another Democratic Presidential Nominee to destroy. But now, their craziness has trickled into the mainstream and even Press Secretary Robert Gibbs found himself answering questions about the Administration’s response to the madness. What’s even more sickening is that there are elected Republican officials who are overtly and covertly supporting these fools.

Look, if anyone hasn’t bothered to tell you, I will: Ya’ll are a bunch of whacked out racists. Deep in your hearts you KNOW that Obama is a natural born American Citizen but your hatred and fear will not allow you face that truth. So instead you file your little lawsuits, post your crazy blogs, ambush moderate Republicans, and spam any site worth reading with your drivel. You’ve even recruited some equally crazy and self hating Negroes like Alan Keyes (putting the C in crazy all day every day) and Reverend David (Robbin’ and Stealin’) Manning (P H of D) to help your cause.

You idiots.

As if legitimate state and federal agencies would ever let a black man become President without checking him from back to front, sideways, up and down and perpendicular. The only reason why Barack Obama was able to successfully win the election is because his enemies could find nothing on him. Nothing! For him to be able to pull this great scheme off, he would need to cooperation of every state and federal entity available going back 47 years. Let me reiterate; there’s no way a brother could get the Justice Department, The Supreme Court, the Department of Homeland Security, The House of Representatives, The Senate, and the states of Illinois and Hawaii to buy into the hype no matter how smart he was or how big his grin is. Not even a safe negro like Bill Cosby could pull that shit off. Please!

Face it, the only reason why people are actually paying attention to you freaks is because it is the human tendency to laugh and mock those who lick windows in their spare time. It boosts us regular folks’ self esteem when we see middle aged white women screaming about how they don’t want the flag to change. It also makes those of of who lean slightly to the Left feel good to see those on the Right dig their graves a little deeper by trying to pass laws that require candidates to provide birth certificates.

Call this a dose of tough love if you will.  Get some help. Get a new hobby. Switch tinfoil brands. Look for a new conspiracy. (Look! Another C Street resident is caught doing the horizontal mambo with a chick who isn’t his wife!)  Do something else besides try to bring the national discourse down to the lowest common denominator because you can’t accept the fact that a black man now occupies the White House. The shit is old and it’s tired. This type of crazy is so 1994.

Get over yourselves, please!

final thoughts

It all started with a question during President Obama’s prime time press conference on Wednesday. Lynne Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times asked him about his thoughts concerning the highly publicized arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. PBO said he thought that the Cambridge police officers acted “stupidly”. The ensuing uproar over that one word was so ridiculous and unnecessary that by Friday when the President asked Gates and the arresting officer to the White House for a beer, I was already through.

For one, I knew that in the end no one was going to be satisfied because within the black/white dichotomy of race in this country, people rarely if ever are satisfied. African Americans were upset with the President’s perceived capitulation and Whites were upset that he bothered to get involved in the fray in the first place. Everyone’s wrong as far as I’m concerned. The President has his own mind and no matter the occasion, he should feel free to express his thoughts as he wishes. African Americans need to understand that the President cannot suddenly don a Malcolm X T-shirt and walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with Spike Lee shouting, “Fight The Power” whenever there is racial incident. And white folks, *sigh* they just need to get a clue. Let me break it down real simple like, African Americans and other minorities have a very different view of the police than you. To many of us, the police aren’t always right, their motives sometimes lay outside the boundaries of law and order, and they often posses the same prejudices that the general population do. We’ve seen the video from Los Angeles, Oakland, and Houston. Many of our brothers have shared stories of being stopped for no reason, handcuffed, beaten, illegally searched, arrested, and sometimes killed.

There was a moment during PBO’s press conference that clearly illustrated this difference in attitude. The President joked about getting shot while trying to get into his own home and the crowd of mostly white journalists roared with laughter. For African Americans and Hispanics however, his statement was no laughing matter. That was the real “teachable” moment in my opinion, that even the President of the United States knows that sometimes justice isn’t for all.

don’t believe the hype

A picture’s worth a thousand words. A video’s worth 10 times that.