The War

There’s a war going on and no, I’m talking about the one in Afghanistan. I mean the one that’s being waged against a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices. The latest battle pits the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer Research vs. Planned Parenthood. Earlier this week, the Foundation board of directors led by an unsuccessful pro-life gubernatorial candidate voted to pull their funding of Planned Parenthood. Now, they claim they yanked the funds because Planned Parenthood is under federal investigation. Mind you, the investigation is being led by a pro-life Republican Senator. It was NOT POLITICAL claimed the paid puppet on MSNBC today to Andrea Mitchell. Ok. Then why haven’t they pulled the plug on the funding for Penn State, which also happens to be under federal investigation?

Good thing is, the response has been swift and direct. The Komen Facebook page has been filled with posts from people opposed to the decision. Two high-ranking officials have resigned and several state chapters of the Foundation have spoken out against the National Board. The best result is that Planned Parenthood has raised more than enough to cover the loss of the funds. Even New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg donated $250,000. That’s more than awesome, but like I said this is one battle in a wide ranging war.

Unfortunately, there has been a State by State campaign to defund Planned Parenthood. The Anti-Choice front has moved to attack on as many fronts as possible. Even though federal money can’t be used to fund abortions, Anti-abortionists have attempted to dismantle Planned Parenthood at every level possible. Forget the fact that Planned Parenthood provides cancer screenings (including mammograms), the idea that it also dispenses affordable birth control and performs abortions means that has to be destroyed.

It’s sickening to think that a charitable organization can be bullied by political pressure into not helping women who deserve these services the most. I personally didn’t know anything about breast cancer until I went to Planned Parenthood and received information about it. Since my first visit nearly fifteen years ago, I still do a monthly check of my tatas in the shower as directed. Just think of the women who have been saved because of the very same information. Then think of the alternative: Countless women being denied a chance to save themselves.

Feel any way you want to about abortion. I really don’t care. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t ever have one. But stop trying to prevent women from making their own choices. One person’s ideology shouldn’t cause another to possibly lose their life. Planned Parenthood has helped so many women lead healthier lives. If the Komen Foundation no longer wants to be a part of that, then so be it.     I just need for the Powers That Be behind this decision to be honest with themselves and the rest of America. It was more important for them to appear good, than to actually do good.

not angry, just tired

In an interview with CBS news today, First Lady Michelle Obama sought to straighten the record after excepts of Jodi Kantor’s just released book, “The Obamas” were leaked to the New York Times last week. In the article, Kantor characterized Mrs. Obama as an anxious yet fierce ally of her husband who often clashed with the President’s inner circle.

“That’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since, you know, the day Barack announced, that I’m some angry black woman,” She said when asked about her thoughts on the book’s description of her. Her statement is nothing but the truth too. I’ve heard it and read it myself about the FLOTUS.

“Why doesn’t she ever smile?”

“She looks so mean!”

“She seems like a Grouch!”

“She looks angry because she’s not proud of her country.”

I know the instinct to protect precious brain cells prevents most people from subjecting themselves to the Yahoo comments section or the message boards of FoxNews.com, but just stop by one day if you are in doubt. There is some serious First Lady hatred going on and it has yet to let up in the three years since the election. For black women, it is par for the course and I could just sense a collective head nod occurring when she talked about the criticism that has been aimed at her.

“The Angry Black Woman” meme has become the gold standard stereotype leveled at African American women. It’s as if people think it’s been imprinted on our DNA to mean mug and roll our necks. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially in the case of Michelle Obama. She’s one of the most photographed women in the world. There are plenty of pictures out there of her smiling, laughing, and hugging people. But the critics of the administration and thirsty journalists aren’t trying to put that bit of fact out there.

Then again, even if they did who would believe them? Even if a picture of Michelle Obama was published on the cover of USA Today that had her cheesing like a Cheshire cat, it still wouldn’t make that much of a difference. Some people would still find something wrong, just like they do with the rest of us. How many sistas have been pulled aside and told by a boss or a co-worker and told that they have a bit of an attitude? When was the last time some random stranger veered out of their lane and directed one of us to, “SMILE!”? I have a dozen examples, and those are just my own. It’s tiresome to say the least.

Maybe the focus should be on , “The Tired Black Woman”. She’s real and she’ll tell you that she is sick of the lies. Black women are as diverse in their dispositions as they are in their body types. It’s too damn sad that the First Lady of the United States has to defend herself for being who she is, like so many of us have had to do.

 

 

who’s the man?

Tonight was the Republican primary in New Hampshire and Willard “Mitt” Romney has clinched the win with an overwhelming 40% of the vote. A much better showing than in the Iowa primary where he nudged just ahead of Rick Santorum with 29%.

You can look at these victories in two ways. One, Romney is on his way to becoming the Republican nominee even after the fickle attention given to Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich along the way. He has more money, more connections and he’s slightly less right of right than the other candidates. Or two, even after 4 years of trying to be President, that 40% is the highest number he has achieved so far. I’m guessing that Republican voters are still trying to get used to the fact that Romney is now a real contender. That sentiment isn’t hard to understand considering Romney’s history of policy switches, playing loosey-goosey with the truth and his general likeness to a Ken Doll. I’m sure some of them are hoping that a late comer will sweep in and make them all feel good about being Republicans again.

That’s not looking too likely. Ron Paul might stick around just to annoy Romney. The die hard Social Conservatives might keep Santorum sniffing around for a few more weeks, but the money is on Romney. It was predicted before the Republican race even started. Far from an ideal nominee, he has a while to go before he’s ready to engage in a national campaign against the greatest political candidate in Presidential history. He’s their man though.

Good luck with that. 

while the smoke clears

From the firebomb set off by the Republicans tonight, the Democrats can take solace in the fact that it wasn’t a total massacre. They did manage to maintain control of the Senate. They can also be a bit happy that the more high profile Tea Party candidates were defeated. Then again,  I’m sure a lot of Republicans are breathing a sigh of relief over not having to hear from Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell and Carl Paladino again for a while. But no one can deny that the Dems took a real butt spanking tonight. Almost all the gains from 2008 were lost. It looks like some very rough days ahead as the newly recharged Right goes about the business of dismantling democracy.

The Dems can try to spread the blame around but they will know that most of it will be heaped at their own collective feet. One thing I can say about the blue team, they have an innate talent for ruining any momentum that they gain. Their failure to come together as a collective voice for progressiveness is a sad story that’s been repeated time and time again. Why are they so afraid to lead when they finally get their grubby hands on the reins? Why do they continuously allow the other side to define who they are and what they believe in? Why do they fail so miserably at communicating their successes to the public at large?

These are questions I can’t answer. It would take too much time and effort and frankly thinking about the crumbling spines of the Democrats gives me a migraine. Hopefully they will waste little time in licking their wounds and get back to drawing board and come up with a new plan to win and to stay winning. Otherwise two years from today, there will be more carnage.

i could but i won’t

Go over the whole Shirley Sherrod fiasco. It was probably the most ridiculous and shameful political display this year. I was hoping that the media would find some more foolishness to latch onto, but nooooo. They have to wring out the last bit of crap like water from a dirty ass rag. Just stop already.

1. We know racism still exists. (Duh!)
2. We know that both The Right and The Left like to stir up the deepest fears of the masses in order to get votes.     The Right : Black People; The Left: Black people who don’t do what they want.
3. Fox News is a propaganda channel. They wouldn’t know real journalism if it came up and kicked them in the  crack of their ass.
4. Somebody’s going to get paid some big bucks from all of this. My guess is Sherrod. “Next on Lifetime, The Shirley Sherrod Story: Slander and Guilt and How I Made it Over!”
5. We’ve got other things to worry about.

So don’t fear. I will not be pontificating about Andrew Breitbart’s assholery. I don’t want to dirty up my blog with that. I’m so over it. I prefer some real outrage over some that’s manufactured.

*drops mic and walks away*

dummy of the day

Poor Mark Williams. In his attempt to defend the Tea Party Movement against charges of racism from the NAACP, he writes what he claims is a satirical letter on his blog that is nothing short of racist. As a result, the Tea Party Federation expelled Williams today calling the letter, “offensive”.

Williams isn’t new to controversy. He once called President Obama a , “Muslim Welfare Thug”. He also called said that Muslims worship a , “Monkey God”. However, instead of embracing his inner racist, Williams would rationalize it and claim that his critics were overly sensitive or racists themselves.

Looks like Williams just rationalized himself out of a job now. The thing is, while Williams was the tone deaf and  culturally insensitive public face of the Tea Party, there are many more Mark Williams’ behind the scenes and in the ranks. We’ve seen the signs. We’ve heard the comments. We’ve seen the pictures. It says a lot about the organization that claimed it wasn’t racist by having this man speak on their behalf time and time again.

His ousting is just symbolic and way too late. Although it took the NAACP months to finally criticize the Tea Party, anyone who’s been paying attention to politics knew long before what exactly the Tea Party is all about. Better late than never? Not a chance.

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.

In name only

Well it happened. Michael Steele, the beleaguered Chairman of the Republican National Committee managed to REALLY piss off the bigwigs of the party. Calls are now pouring in for him to resign and they are expressing their displeasure in every media outlet possible. Looks like Chairman Steele really said the wrong thing when he opined over America’s war with Afghanistan. He laid our involvement at the feet of President Obama (totally wrong), and said that we had no business being there (totally right).

Once again, Steele forgot what party he represented and who’s writing the checks. Modern Republicanism LOVES war. It really loves war in foreign countries with our soldiers battling enemies against the American Way of Life. WAR means big contracts, WAR means looking tough in the face of our critics and foes. WAR means money for congressmen, lobbyists, private contractors. Steele spoke against the WAR. That was the wrong thing to do, even though it was the right sentiment.

We have no business in Afghanistan, just like we had no business invading Iraq. Both wars have dragged the economy and our collective morale into the gutter. Thousands of lives have been lost. Those that have survived are dealing with life altering injuries and mental problems. But that’s not what you are supposed to say and think when you are trying to pry money from the chickenhawks. Poor, blundering, Mike.

So now the word is he’s an island unto himself. The RNC runs itself without his direct knowledge or consent. He’s become a figurehead-dare I say, a token. Steele won’t be fired because the Republicans know that it will make them look bad. He probably won’t resign because he’s too stubborn and short-sighted to see that it would benefit him in the long run to walk away. From what Steele has taught us though, it’s better to be the HNIC in name only than to be nothing at all.

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?