Raw Dawg Buffalo

MegaUpload Fiasco Show DC Politicians Have No Gonads to Go After Wall Street

2012-02-01T11:57:00.010-05:00

Riddlemethis? Would the Government or Obama administration arrest banking Presidents/CEOs and seize their assets because it contained the money of drug kingpins? Would the Government or Obama administration arrest and seize the assets of red W. Smith, the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Federal Express because their truck may transport 10 kilograms of cocaine or a warehouse may contain 20 tons of marijuana? I don’t thinks so.

It is obvious that the Federal Government do not have the gonads to tackle corruption and white collar crime objectively. Just last week, an action reminiscent of Elliot Ness pouring beer into a river occurred when the FBI and Justice Department seized the website Mega Upload accusing the owner of causing $500 million in copyright infringements. My query is why is doing the work of the motion picture and recording industries more vital than the work of the people?

Either Congress or the President is so brazen or so cretinous, that they cannot envisage what they are doing me their efforts to censor the website Mega upload. Maybe a little bit of bot now that I think about it. Brazen because it is pronounced their actions are mainly taken on the bequest of the motion picture and recording industry lobbies. Stupid because most politicians prefer to brag on their ignorance on internet technologies and their low level use of such resources that attempting to learn more about the – a myopia more prescient of Washington politicians dysfunction than seeing the desires and needs of the common, non-super Pac affiliated US denizen.

The Obama administrations seizure of the site and the owner’s assets is more an attestation and forewarning of America’s fascist future of protecting US oligarchs than the penchant of protecting liberty. I mean really, going after a site and using the FBI and department of Justice Resources for what is basically a cloud-based repository for data storage, is like the examples I cited in the beginning of this essay.

No bank or Delivery company or website can track all of the user lot, packages or uploaded data which it hosts. To assume that one could, is silly. Meaning - to arrest the site’s founders under the assumption that they knowingly participated in copyright infringement, is moronic if we’re blaming site owners for user uploaded content now, we’d better start arresting people affiliated with all industries from YouTube to Bank of America (THEY HAVE MORE THAN $1 BILLION IN TOXIC ASSETS).

Now I know inside the belt way folks don’t understand. As an artist, mega upload allows me to get 90% on all the music I write, make and produce without the need of a record company gatekeeper who wants to Romanesquly decide for the public if they should hear or have the right to purchase my music. Not to mention this 90% on every dollar made allows them to get my music for free.

Maybe it is about the loot. Former Democratic senator and current head of the Motion Picture Association of America Chris Dodd have given tons of loot to the campaign of President Barack Obama. DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg raised at least $500,000 for the campaign and the Democratic National Committee and contributed $2 million to a super PAC backing the president was his biggest donor. Not to mention the zillion times the President has held fund raisers held by Hollywood big wigs the likes of Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein and Sony Pictures .

I also think that we have ignorant folks making laws and talking about things they have no honest understanding about. I’m sure there are large numbers of individuals inside the beltway like Senator Ted Stevens describing said internets as “a series of tubes,” or Rep. Mel Watt who proudly asserts that declares proudly that he doesn't understand internet/computer technology.

The truth is that a host of variables and factors are involved with the recent and present this financial crisis including everyone from the rating agencies, the bankers and the brokers, and that there is strong evidence for criminal culpability. However, no Wall Street banker wreaking havoc via their exotic derivatives has been charge criminally. What Madoff did to individual investors is what the mortgage & banking industries and Wall Street did to the US taxpayer and the US economy. No one from Goldman Sachs, Lehman’s, Countrywide, Citi, AIG, Bea Sterns or Wachovia just to name a few have been charged criminally or prosecuted by the Obama Administration. Why because we do not count and although the majority of Americans would see greater value in using the FBI and department of Justice Resources by going after criminals that looted $100s of millions and even billions of dollars, congress and Obama do not have the gonads to do such and wag the dog by going after mega uploads $42 million.

Wall Street controls D.C. As long as the financial companies can donate as many dollars as they have been to both sides of the aisle, you will see little in the way of reform of the financial sector and even less in the way of prosecution of wrong-doers. Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild was correct when he said, "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws”

5 Major US banks Face Potential Massive Default Due to credit default swaps

2012-01-31T09:18:00.001-05:00

Democrat or Republican: Just Crooks by Different names

2012-01-30T12:31:00.002-05:00

It is true that the GOP have not dealt with or attempted to address job creation until recent months, but it is also true that it took until late in 2009 for Obama to deal with it as well when he introduced his stimulus bill. Like the GOP he did not touch the jobless issue until 18 months after his taking office.

I say this because I have noticed the difficulty I have in attempting to understand the vagueness of language that the democrats and GOP use to define each other and make their positions display a penumbra of divarication. First, I cannot buy the doggerel assertion by democrats, in particular President Obama, that he has not been as effective because of an obstructionist congress. I cannot accept this since the first 24 months of his administration he had both a democratic congress and senate ye never placed any budget nor jobs program on their desk since he was occupied with health care like a young mans attracted to a naked lady on his first visit to Magic City. Likewise, I do not get why they cannot proffer a genuine argument against the GOP either inductive or deductive, regardless of conditional propositions, implication or the fallacies of visible and observed assertive consequence presented via Republican outcomes. It would be an easy task.

For example, it is often suggested by Republicans that the present democratic administration is responsible for the present economic problem and that his policies have only made it worse. It is as if the republican Governors and state legislatures around the nation have no say s in what is occurring.

The way I see there has to be some culpability on both sides but the democrats cannot understand this. I find it while the GOP point fingers at the Whitehouse and Obama, six of the ten states with the highest rates of unemployment are run by Republican Governors [Nevada – 12.6%, Mississippi – 10.4%, Florida – 9.9%, Georgia – 9.7% and South Carolina – 9.5%]. Also, six out of eight states with the highest rates of foreclosures are also under the leadership of GOP governors [Nevada , Florida ,Michigan , Ohio ,Georgia and Arizona ].If I add in the majority in terms of state legislatures, it is clear that The GOP took back both chambers in North Carolina [unemployment 9.9%], took control of the state legislatures in Michigan and Ohio by winning the House -- they already held the Senate in those states.

My question is why have the democrats not jumped on these facts and presented them to the American electorate? Well for one, they are just as dumb from top to bottom as the GOP and care more about lining their pockets than serving the interest of the folks on ground level. And sorry to state, this is also true for President Obama.

Obama is not really serious about job creation or the middle class as he speaks. Although since he has taken office, the President has been talking about the need for corporate tax reform, declaring that the system is too complicated and those companies pay too much. Likewise, that he is interested in creating jobs but his actions say otherwise.

Take the case of the CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt, who was appointed by Obama to serves as the chairman of Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. While running General Electric, his company filed a 57,000-page federal tax return earlier but didn't pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. It was the second year in a row that GE recorded billions in profits and paid no taxes. Then there is the observation that GE has lain off 21,000 American workers, closed around 20 factories over the past few years and has half of its workforce outside the United States. Last year, the company announced that it would be moving its 115-year-old X-ray business (part of General Electric's GE Healthcare unit) from Waukesha, Wisconsin to Beijing, China.

For many of us politics is a battle between right and wrong in appearance, but frankly it is not. This is just a game they use to lace us against them. Unfortunately, African Americans fall for the okie doke every time. Obama and the democrats can do no wrong and anyone who points this out is the enemy, even if it is true. As a result, we target anything we do not like on cosmetic more so than pragmatic merit. For example, mention Ron Paul and Black folks say he stated he would have voted against the civil rights act as if one item along makes one unworthy of voting for them.

We forget that Franklin Roosevelt, the longtime hero and standard bearer of the Democrat Party, headed up and implemented one of the most horrible racist policies of the 20th Century [the Japanese Internment Camps during World War II] and appointed two vicious segregationists to the United States Supreme Court (South Carolina segregationist Democrat Jimmy Byrnes and Democrat Senator Hugo Black of Alabama] Both once member of the Ku Klux Klan but we ignore that when speak of FDR.

Or that Democrat-controlled state legislatures in the South that placed the Confederate battle flag on their state capitol flags and that no democrat voted for the 14th amendment and that then Senator John F. Kennedy – with an eye on the Democrat presidential nomination for 1960 – voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Yet we still venerate John Kennedy.

We as a nation are lost in space and a nightmare is descending upon us all and continues to get even worse yet all we do is point fingers at each other and circle the wagons for our beliefs without objective examination. All we have to do is speak up as a nation and keep ourselves and one another informed. We must avoid the partisanship around if we can and try to be objective like our parents; for the simple reality is that “no nation can be freer than its most oppressed, richer than its poorest, wiser than its most ignorant…” Henry George.

A video of mindset that is developing all across America.- Dependency

2012-01-30T11:53:00.000-05:00

Google: March 1st Youtube Changes Much Bigger and InvassiveThan Thought

2012-01-28T13:46:00.001-05:00

Fox news banned in canada: canada has a no lying law for media

2012-01-28T10:41:00.001-05:00

New POLICE DEVICE Can SEE THROUGH CLOTHING (Video)

2012-01-21T12:58:00.001-05:00

Obama Administration Desire for Iranian conflict not well thought out

2012-01-19T09:13:00.009-05:00

Unlike some folks, I remember the day the people of Iran overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979. Looking at our current contrived grievance with Iran, I wonder if our current administration does. Over the past year, due to the omnipotent pressure and power of the US Zionist lobby, we have seen multiple military attacks on Iran nuclear facilities and even the kidnapping and assassination of leading Iranian academics and scientist. We have even seen pressure placed on democrats by this lobby in particular, the loss of the New York 9th district congressional seat vacated by Anthon Weiner, to such an extent that the present administration sent bunker buster bombs to Israel to appease their supporter. In fact just this New Year, Obama signed into law sanctions against Iran oil exports. I guess it was designed to show America’s Jewish lobby and Israel that we are hard on Iran.

I have been taking my time writing on this because I want to see how all the chips fall. Just last week Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner attempted to get Chinese policy makers to join an American-led campaign to reduce oil exports from Iran because of its nuclear program. However like Russia, they have rejected to participate in the US/European sanctions or the oil embargo directed toward the Persian nation. This will be problematic since it will be the Treasury Department responsibility to enforce sanction laws, especially given that the new legislation, which would prevent access by nations who do not support sanctions on Iran to the American financial system. Although loop holes in the law allow for selected exemptions, in all honestly, I do not think that the President, just as presidents past, is ready for this may proffer in an election year or to our economy. Currently, China's trade surplus with the United States widened 24.2 percent to $17.4 billion in December.

China exports $1.5 trillion of its production and ships 20% of its exports to the U.S., which created a $252 billion trade deficit in 2010.Not to mention that as of last year China owned $1.16 trillion in U.S. debt in the form of Treasury bills, notes and bonds - 26% of the total of $4.5 trillion held by the public. Consequently, this makes China is America's largest banker, giving it leverage over the US as evident when China threatens to sell part of its holdings whenever the U.S. pressures it to raise the value of the yuan. It is no wonder that the U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

Another concern is that some fear Russia fears Israel is pushing America to war on Iran “which could retaliate by blocking” Persian Gulf oil shipments. It is clear that Russia will do what it perceives as necessary to protect its strategically important Tartus, Syria base, its only Mediterranean one (there is as we speak a Russian aircraft carrier battle group is positioned nearby). Then we have 15,000 combat troops in Kuwait, inclusive of two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit along with two aircraft carrier battle groups remains in the region.
It is clear that the Obama policy is another political divertissement of imperious old men who have never been to war and like to say they have a right to prevent other nations from self determination, especially when it comes to developing nuclear power. Even it is in the form of weapons, history shows that the only folk who have used nuclear weapons have been the United States. So important is this that we will assist in the assignation of scientist – an act that if implemented by the Taliban or Iranians we would call terroristic. Now we have even indicated to them that any effort to control their own geopolitical borders via the Strait of Hormuz would evoke a swift response from the US military. France’s Le Figaro said “the US and Israel have carried out multiple acts of sabotage against sensitive nuclear installations, while ordering targeted killings of Iranian nuclear experts.” Meaning that both Israeli and US recruit Iranian assets to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, “which includes targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear experts….”Again strange since we say one reason we are hard on Iran is because they are a vehicle for state sponsored terrorism.

As it stands, Obama will likely find some excuse to save face, and maybe even attack Iran. As we speak, he is trying to gain support from Middle East allies in preparation for an impending US-Iranian confrontation. This is hard to understand for two reasons. First, we just got out of Iraq and are trying to get out of Afghanistan, why do we want another war so soon with a country of 75 million in which historically, sanctions have never worked. Moreover we as a nation cannot distance our self from targeted assassinations and other subversion in Iran.
He may as well give up on any support from China and when they and Russia do not go along, he will have do-do on his face because he will be powerless to do anything against them: Russia could damage our economy by artificially raising the price of crude oil and China by stop purchasing our debt and/or selling US papers in bulk causing more devaluation of the dollar. I hope the Obama administration thinks this out, for every indication suggest that Washington, Israel and NATO allies cannot wait to bump heads with Iran and Syria. This even when the fact remains that no evidence whatever suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program, according to the latest March 2011 US intelligence assessment.

Strange, since while the White House is plotting against Tehran, the living standards of the American working class continue to fall. According to Reuters, 23.7 million American workers are either unemployed or underemployed right now. I can figure out why spending billions on another military effort (war) is more important than spending that money here at home where it is needed.

Stuff Obama Supporters Say (VIDEO)

2012-01-18T12:57:00.001-05:00

Cop Turns Off Video Equipment, Beats 66-Yr-Old Man w/ Dementia

2012-01-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

Stephen Colbert Rips Obama Over The NDAA Bill

2012-01-13T09:41:00.001-05:00

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Farrakhan on Ron Paul & Exposing the Federal Reserve and International Bankers

2012-01-10T13:58:00.000-05:00

Atlanta: students given math assignment that referenced slavery and beatings.

2012-01-09T09:44:00.001-05:00

President Barack Obama Signs Police State legislation Into Law

2012-01-09T08:36:00.002-05:00

With all political attention focused on the Republican Presidential race or the recent holiday season, President Barack Obama under the cloak of little attention signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on New Year’s Eve.

This is not your basic run of the mill law and was passed in the same manner of another law over the holidays on December 23, 1913 - the Federal Reserve Act, also known as the Glass-Owen Bill. Many see the NDAA as against all that is written in the constitution of the United states. The NDAA effectively revokes the democratic right, habeas corpus, which prevents arbitrary imprisonment of individuals by the government by requiring that the government present evidence to a judge or court to justify taking a person into custody. Yes, one of the provisions included in the 2012 NDAA allows for American citizens suspected of terrorism to be indefinitely detained in military custody without charge or trial.

The Bill goes far beyond terrorists linked to the 9/11 attacks, to include anyone defined by the president as “engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” Under the new law, the president of the United States can designate any American citizen if desired, to be arrested and detained for life by the US military. This means that it could include domestic opponents of US military action and/or the Us government, including opponents of any war or even the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

The bill provides $662 billion for the US military and even authorizes the US military to seize individuals anywhere in the world and hold them in a military detention facility indefinitely, without a trial or any other legal recourse. In the signing statement, Obama stated he had “serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

Section 1021 affirms the executive branch’s authority to detain persons covered by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) and Section 1022 seeks to require military custody for a narrow category of non-citizen detainees who are “captured in the course of hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”

He signed the bill into law although he had reservations and previously indicated that he would not sign the bill. In addition, it is another demonstration of the President breaking another campaign promise, specifically not to use signing statements and executive orders to circumnavigate legislation signed into law.
By making this the law of the land, Obama has provide himself and any other Presidents to follow, the right to indefinitely detain any American citizen in the future just by the arbitrary position of the executive branch. He has just implemented a de facto police state similar to those observed historically in fascist and totalitarian regimes globally.

Forethought pertaining to this legislation suggests that certain liberties and freedoms must be sacrificed in the name of protecting the country from further terrorist attacks. Obama did not have to sign the bill and could have done what President Truman did when he vetoed an indefinite detention bill. Guess Obama doesn’t see that The NDAA is more of a threat to our freedom and our rights than any terrorist ever can or will be.

Japanese Scientists Create Touchable Holograms

2012-01-05T09:14:00.001-05:00

U.N. Agenda 21 Taking Over City Councils Across America?

2012-01-04T12:54:00.001-05:00

New York Policeman Officers Caught on Dashcam Planting Drugs

2012-01-03T14:11:00.002-05:00

Funny: man trys to escape prison down toilet

2012-01-03T12:34:00.000-05:00

New Global Currency announced 1-1-12

2012-01-02T10:53:00.000-05:00

Fema Camps, one near you? Here's a list

2011-12-28T10:38:00.000-05:00

View FEMA Concentration Camps (2 pages) in a larger map

Mythbusters Barred From Talking About RFID By Visa, Mastercard, TPTB

2011-12-27T10:41:00.000-05:00

U.S. Jets Enter Iranian Airspace, Oil Depot Bombed? 12-22-11

2011-12-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

President Obama States: He Can Have ANY American Citizen Killed

2011-12-22T13:17:00.004-05:00

Newt’s Campaign Comes Down To Earth As Iowan Calls Him ‘F—king A—hole’ To His Face

2011-12-21T12:43:00.001-05:00

2 dead, hit by CA deputy driving without sirens - Witnesses said family members were put in handcuffs

2011-12-20T10:45:00.001-05:00

Shocking facts On American Prisons -VIDEO

2011-12-19T10:08:00.000-05:00

Urban Radio Has Dropped The Ball on Explaining Eurozone Crises to African Americans

2011-12-14T13:18:00.000-05:00

This issue wit Europe regarding the sovereign debt crisis is irksome. in particular in terms of the US response and more specifically, how urban radio has not taken charge to explain the impact of this on the lives of average african Americans. It as if the discussion of things that have no tangible impact on the lives and well-being of their listeners like a short marriage between celebrities or the alleged sexual sexcapades of a Herman Cain or a Jheri curled Atlanta minister with a propensity for sexting and wearing Toupee made of adolescent male pubic hairs.

There is no excuse for urban radio not too present these issues in discussion format when possible too their listening audience. From Frankski on his morning show in Atlanta to Al Sharpton, or Lorraine White to Tom Joiner, there are rarely attempts to deal with politics and the impending economic implosion in an erudite and astute manor. This is even more needed based on the toxic environment in Washington in which Neither President Obama nor the Congress are will to tell us the truth regarding how bad the US economy is and solutions are rare and disfunction is the way of the day.

Explaining to the general public the importance of what is occurring in Europe is essential if the average American citizen, in particular African Americans are to be prepared for what may be on the horizon. Instead, our radio talk show personalities only speak of politics as if they have to protect Obama more than the people he and Republicans are supposed to serve. We should be critical of his effort to send Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to Europe to tell them to deal with the debt situation urgently in a political fashion when he cannot do the same here at home.

The ongoing global financial crisis is serious and something that should discussed openly by all. First, this is more than a crisis. What we are seeing is a “full-fledged, irreversible and unsustainable Global Financial Collapse that, if not properly addressed, may bring down the whole global economy with it.”

It is a function of troubled banking practices ranging from fractional lending, usury compound interest, fraudulent derivatives, and creative accounting practices that prey on the middle and lower class and enrich corporatist who reign free without regulation. These cancers have resulted in the collapses of Bear Stearns, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and the bailouts of Goldman Sachs and CitiCorp among others.

These are complex issues and cannot be addressed, discussed or explained in a cursory manner. It is imperative that urban radio address these concerns in an objective fashion void of politics so that the consumer and average African American will be empowered to make informed political decisions. Protecting Obama from his detractors or discussion the alleged affairs of Eddie Long or Herman Cain or even the racial undertones of Newt Gingrich do not accomplish anything to serve the needs of a community most impacted by the down turn in the US Economy. WE have to address these issues or else do what we all have the tendency to do historically: be reactive instead of proactive,

Obama Administration passes laws to detain us citizens

2011-12-09T11:23:00.001-05:00

'End of euro road in 48 hours if no summit solution'

2011-12-08T12:37:00.001-05:00

New Federal Government Funded Street Lights Capable of “Recording Conversations”

2011-12-06T10:47:00.001-05:00

Europe’s Sovereign Debt Crisis and Germany’s Historic Economic Conundrum

2011-12-01T11:02:00.004-05:00

I have been giving the global economic crisis a considerable amount of thought. If you have been reading my essay’s on this blog for any considerable length of time, you are aware of my predictions as early as 2007, with respect to how the US, Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian economies would falter as a function of unsustainable fractional banking practices of central and private banks, poorly formulated and conceived economic political policy, the incessant propensity to employ Keynesian economic philosophy to provide the fasade of short-term solutions to providing economic growth, and how these problems are not due to a liquidity issue but rather a massive debt contraction in which printing and disseminating additional paper money only makes things worse (quantitative easing).

The predicament that Germany finds itself in is unique and historically explains why they have taken the position they have. Many western nations including the US and its major European counterparts have been giving Germany the business for not want to bailout nations heavily burden by debt in which their citizens receive big pension pay outs so that they can retire before age 50 and live club-med life styles.

Since the times of Bismarck, Germany has been considered a threat to the rest of Europe. : This both economically and militarily. Ever since Prussia defeated France in the war of 1870-71, this has been the case. Even after the war, Germany did not really rebound economically until 1895. By the time they did, around 20 years later the First World War had started and in-between that time the British government, among others was taking a page from Napoleon and the US Civil War to destroy German economic growth via an extensive counterfeiting operation.

Unlike the European nations who are in dire economic straits and begging for Germany to take on their massive debt burden, they remember how the Allies dictated the harsh terms in the armistice signed at Compiegne, France. The reparations imposed as a function of the Treaty of Versailles led to hyperinflation in 1923 which only got worse when the depression hit the world in 1929 which resulted in massive deflation. The treaty resulted in Germany giving up an eight of its territory which equaled near 7 million people, all of its international investments and it colonies outside of Europe. Leaving the nation with close to 150 billion Marks in debt.

Neither the European Union nor the US has a Dr. Hjalmar Schact to assist them in this present crisis. It was Schact who revived the 1920s Weimar Republic of Germany from post WW 1 hyperinflation. A period before then which saw a currency exchange rate of 1 trillion Marks for 1 US dollar. German as well as the rest of Europe knows this recent fix is short term and is equal to using dental floss to splint a compound fractured leg. Just today banks in Britain still acknowledge that the euro zone crisis was the biggest threat to the UK's banking system. This is why Germany is reluctant to assist in the massive Euro zone bailout in which they would assume most of the exposure. German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has rejected the notion that the debt deal agreed in Brussels recently could be renegotiated to give Greece more generous terms while he was speaking in Istanbul.

This is why the World’s central banks (led by the US Federal Reserve) reduced rates to prop up the broken legged Euro zone economy once again. “The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank (ECB), the United States Federal Reserve and the Swiss National Bank on Wednesday announced a coordinated attempt to provide liquidity support to the global financial system to avert further global financial distress.”

The Federal Reserve, in a morning press release, said that it will take measures to provide easier access for European banks that hold dollar-denominated currencies for dollar loans to U.S. currency. This translates simple into Washington politicians from Obama to the Congress made easy millions by buying stocks knowing they were to bail out some countries in Europe.

The bottomline truth about today's Federal Reserve-led coordinated effort by developed worlds' central banks to ease the liquidity problems of European banks is this: It doesn't change anything. European leaders still have the same tough decision to make. Either impose even stricter austerity measures on Europe's struggling nations or force Germany and other stronger European nations to come forward with an even bigger bailout, or, of course, kiss the Euro good-bye. Germany keeps all of this in perspective and in the back of their collective unconscious, they have to remember the Treaty of WW 1 and the hardships of hyper-inflation suffered them and after WW 2. Thus it is no wonder they are hesitant to help the very nations who destroyed their economy. The parliament remembers because they suggest that German participation in bailout process violates limits of acceptable integration within the EU, interfering in sovereign affairs of other member states. This even if Angela Merkel and the German courts do not. The reality is that no matter the German court ruling, its decision has little to do with saving the euro in the long term. The state of Europe will eventually show it’s jaundiced and gangrene infected economic limbs and do as all bacterial infected cells do, and Germany will survive waiting in the wind while the rest of Europe remains helpless.

If I can recall of this history, surely the Germans can and the rest of Europe. But as to the Us Federal Reserve and President Obama, I doubt it and this really scares me about the economic prospect for Americans long-term future, one in which we are trying to create with short-term and temporary fixes.

Obama: Melissa Harris-Perry's Santa Claus

2011-11-30T11:14:00.002-05:00

I am putting down “Lords of Finance” by Liaquant Ahmed to write this. It is history of the first great depression and Second World War Last week I read an essay on the nation.com written by Melissa Harris-Perry. As most of her commentaries, the focus was on President Barack Obama. IN a nut shell, she asserted that “Electoral racism, “specifically “the tendency of white liberals to hold African-American leaders to a higher standard than their white counterparts” is the causal predictor variable in Obama’s decline in support among whites from 61 percent to 33 percent currently.

To support her claim, she notes that Obama’s “legislative record for his first two years outpaces Clinton’s first two years” and offers several other comparisons. However she seems to avoid several factors and even fails to lack a more substantial comparison with one President Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, who in policy are more akin to the President than Clinton. Notwithstanding, the impact of a political climate in which people are equally disappointed in all politicians inside the beltway regardless of party affiliation.

Now not being white, or a political “scientist” (emphasis on the word scientist) or as astute on the matters as Professor white, my sciolism may be lucid for all to see. However being an academic as well, with a focus on behavioral epidemiology and a specialty in statistics, it is difficult for me to discern how she can come to such a conclusion as a reasonable answer for his drop in support among white liberals. First, incumbents serving in severe economic times always have lower approval and popularity ratings. Add to this, incessant high unemployment which has remained very high, military involvement in an increasing number of countries, and political paralysis in Washington. There is plenty of reason to question Obama's effectiveness.

Obama is more of a conservative than a liberal truth be told. This is evident from his consistent promotion of conservative corporate policies that serve the wealth more than the poor and middle class. But this is not important in Dr. Harris-Perry’s analysis. As an Obama apologist, she only can compare and list his accomplishments, unfortunately his record is clear. He serves Wall St and K street first and foremost and has demonstrated himself to be “more neo-conservative than any neo-conservative and seems to use “regime change” just as much as George W. Bush and his inner circle. “Just looking at the reckless manner in which we disrespect and lessen the value of lives there via the US policy of using drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to kill civilians in the hundreds daily is evidence of this alone.
The Obama administration put into place a legal standard albeit it untested, that allows for the singular approval from the Executive branch of the federal government, without proof to allow the federal government to target individual American citizens for assassination.

He has ignored his campaign promise to protect government whistleblowers, and instead has persecuted and prosecuted more government whistleblowers than ever in US History.

Last and more important, one can simply examine how he works with his economic team to objectively examine his skill set in terms of management ergo concluding something is lacking. I can use the dysfunction of Obama's retinue of economic advisors to demonstrate why I have this opinion and come to the aforementioned conclusion. To start off with, Larry Summers (former Director of National Economic Council), Paul Volcker (former Federal Reserve Chairman), Christina Romer (former Economic Advisor), Elizabeth Warren (former Special Advisor to the Treasury Secretary), Peter Orszag (former Budget Director), and Tim Geithner (Secretary of the Treasury) alone provide me with more than enough substance to make this argument. Just looking at documented occurrences covering the Volcker rule, issues regarding Citibank, the bailout and the first stimulus, gives one an additional layer for discussion.

For example, the Obama administration’s $500 billion plus proposal was only beneficial to the banks and big dollar investors at the expense of the US tax payer.
All I can say is that for Dr. Harris Perry to blame his failing numbers on racism is feculent and ignores the aforementioned. Not to mention that she does not separate support falling between liberals versus independents in her statement that it has fall among “whites.” And I know she will get on me since for me to openly criticize the economic approach of President Obama is tantamount to being an uncle tom, racist or something even worse. Albeit it has nothing to do with the person, his race and/or political affiliation, and more a dissonance with Keynesian economic philosophy, because I am an African American my position is untenable and unreasonable.

Even if I state what I agree with and approve of that the President has implemented thus far, I am still considered against the President just because I am in disagreement with a single policy. I was supportive of the administration’s efforts to implement tougher regulations that would have reduced the amount of federal financial aid flowing to for-profit colleges that prey on mainly low income African Americans. However, I eventually became disappointed when his administration caved to the industry’s lobbyists and their campaign against the Obama administration. I was able to applaud the first bill he signed into law on approving legislation that expands workers' rights to sue over discrimination and the fact that so far he is setting records for the number of women and minorities nominated to lifetime appointments at the level of the Federal Courts. Nearly half of the 73 candidates he has tapped for the bench have been women. In all, 25% have been African Americans, 10% Hispanics and 11% Asian Americans. He is the first president who hasn't selected a majority of white males for lifetime judgeships, far exceeding the percentages in the two-term administrations of Bill Clinton (48.1 percent) and George W. Bush (32.9 percent).

I was also supportive of President Obama’s $1.15 billion measure to fund a settlement for African American farmers reached more than a decade ago via the 1997 Pigford v. Glickman case against the U.S. Agriculture Department over claims of discrimination. This made it possible for approximately 70,000 African American farmers to receive cash payments and debt relief from the federal government. However when I question the decision to pander to #ocupywallstreet protesters and the same night attend an upper East Side DNC $35,800 a plate fundraiser resulting in $2.4 million added to his re-election campaign from Wall Street financiers and call it hypocrisy, my position was vilified. When I spoke out against the President’s policy decision to ask Congress to make it easier for private debt collectors to call the cell phones of consumers delinquent on student loans and other debt owed the federal government using robo calls I was condemned.

If I speak out and say I disagree with the Obama’s administration decision to waive legally mandated penalties for countries that use child soldiers and provide those countries U.S. military assistance, just like he did last year I am a hatter. The White House will issue a series of waivers for the Child Soldiers Protection Act, a 2008 law that is meant to stop the United States from giving military aid to countries that recruit soldiers under the age of 15 and use them to fight wars, for Yemen, South Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Last year, the White House didn't even tell Congress when it ended the Child Soldiers Prevention Act penalties. Their rational was suspect at best.

Dr. Harris-Perry would like to reduce Obama’s lack of support among whites and maybe even other racial/ethnic groups on racism but doing so in my purview misses the point. As such it places here in the class of other Jerry Springer-esque political pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Eric Dyson and Sean Hannity. As scientist we must base causation on facts and not emotions. For it seems it has never crossed her mind that Obama may not being a good job and this standard as such has nothing to do with race. I guess Obama’ is her Santa Claus. Meaning it is ok to tell kids that he brings toys, rides on a sleigh pulled by reindeer and slides down the chimney to bring kids toys, even when the house doesn’t have a chimney.

Bill Would Allow Military To Detain U.S. Citizens Indefinitely

2011-11-29T10:08:00.002-05:00

Cops beat woman over Dog Poo

2011-11-28T10:10:00.001-05:00

PS: S.1867: National Defense Authorization Act 2012 - military will be able to arrest anyone for no reason at anytime.

Video: Why African Americans Should Vote Ron Paul Over Obama

2011-11-23T12:07:00.001-05:00

Shame on You, Washington Politicians

2011-11-21T12:28:00.007-05:00

My America is land of the free and home of the brave. But this is only in theory. The actual truth is that the bravest folk in our great nation are those who think, read, who are of the middle and lower classes have no insurance or jobs and tend to be in the military. Yes this is the back bone of our great nation and all of the rest seem to be holding on milking other for their ride.

Take for example our politicians. All I can say is “shame on you.” You cannot do the work of the people and tend to only do what is best for your wealthy associates regardless of party affiliation for the simple truth in policy, action, and money there is no distinction between any politicians in Washington. Last I heard Obama was just as bellicose as Dick Cheney and has dropped more bombs from drones than Donald Rumsfeld ever did.

What if any, additional evidence do we need to see that our political system is completely broken? These super committee fools couldn’t even come up with at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over the next decade in a two month period. Meanwhile back at the ranch, the U.S. national debt has passed the $15 trillion dollar mark and we are facing trillion dollar deficits – can you say national financial disaster. Now we are going to have automatically triggered budget cuts of $1.2 trillion in starting in 2013. And we will have to wait and see because mathematically, we may not have even this many in cuts since they include almost $170 million in savings projected to occur as a function of reduced interest cost on our national debt.

Yep folks, shame on them, they are too weak, ductile and fleecy to roll up their sleeves and do some actual work. They are not brave enough to do what needs to be done and should be ashamed since our men and women fighting over seas in wars they did not ask for are the epitome of bravery.

But what can we expect, my America is a nation that gives a single mother more time in federal prison for lying on her food stamp application than anyone involved in the Wall Street mortgage fraud, sub-prime lending or complex paper schemes that help produce Americas and the worlds debt based conundrums. Last week, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate sentenced Anita McLemore, 47, the mother of two teenage children, to three years in prison. The mother of two pleaded guilty in July to one count of submitting a false claim to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Temporary Assistance and Food Stamps program.

Ms. McLemore, received $4,367 in benefits. This in comparison to six defendants in two related mortgage fraud cases involving fraudulent loans totaling about $5.8 million received sentences ranging from house arrest to 30 months in prison. In addition to the three-year sentence, Wingate fined McLemore $250 and placed her on supervised release for three years after serving her sentence.

These fools obviously do not get it, from Obama to the Congress, they do not have a clue; they cannot see that as a nation, there is a very good chance that we will suffer another major credit downgrade on U.S. debt. And if this happens, a large proportion of the financial transactions that occur worldwide would not be able to happen if that takes place. No one with the exception of Ron Paul (this is a must see video of Dr. Paul in 11/19/11). He would end the Federal Reserve and starts issuing debt-free money, and move to cut our budget deficits. All these folks on TV want to do is fix a broken system, without out acknowledging that it became broke in 1913, prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the national debt was only about $2.9 billion.

We are in the last days of the Euro and the Union possibly and we are no better as a nation. According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, America has lost an average of 15 manufacturing facilities a day over the last 10 years and last year alone, as a nation we lost an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day . Data reported by the Economic Policy Institute, notes that our economy loses more than 9000 jobs for every $1 billion of goods that are imported from overseas.

And what do we have to show for it? A dysfunctional Supper Committee, a dysfunctional Congress and a dysfunction White House Administration. I am sorry but shame on all of you Washington, DC politicians. We are suffering, we see the problems, but you don’t and will not listen to us. But why should they? The average net worth for a member of Congress is now approximately 3.8 million dollars and more than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.

Private Prisons Spend Millions on Lobbying to Put More People in Jail

2011-11-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

White police kill another black man in Lafayette, LA

2011-11-18T19:18:00.001-05:00

Immortal Technique Exclusive: "Obama is A War President"

2011-11-17T12:44:00.000-05:00

Sciolism on both sides of the aisle and in the hood

2011-11-15T10:00:00.007-05:00

America is dead. Yes we are basically attending the wake of our once great nation. I wanted to hold off before I wrote this but this week sent me over the edge. I realized this when the situation at Penn State and Dr. Conrad Murray’s trial were headlining most news outlets like they were actually that important. I had an inkling that this was the case when they started leading with Herman Cain’s alleged sexual miscues, but the Penn State fiasco made it all clearer.

As a people we do not have the intellectual capacity to put things in perspective. I know molesting kids is wrong but it would still be just as heinous if it was done by a teacher at a local school and doesn’t warrant being on TV as the first story, equally to the Dr. Murray and Cain mess as if it is really important on the problems we are confronting as a nation today. Even worse is that we do not have the foresight to even question why such is on each day and worse, question ourselves why we don’t.

It is almost magical, just a few days after the brutal execution and solemnization of Col. Mumar Gaddafi, there has been little word about the nation. Likewise, there has also been a reduction of the coverage regarding the atrocities of what is occurring daily in Syria. Why this is is my query and as such I have a few suggestions I would like to offer in support of my observations. I may even throw in a little Israel into the mix for good measure.

Seems like it was clear from the start, Obama and US higher ups (corporations) had a desire to see Gaddifi out of the picture. So much so that the same higher ups had Obama do their bidding by asking the UN war with Libya, Barack Obama's administration is breaking new ground. Obtaining a U.N. Security Council resolution has legitimated U.S. bombing raids under international law. But the U.N. Charter is not a substitute for the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress, not the president, the power "to declare war."

My question is what make Libya different from Syria, and why has the Present administration said nothing about either? I mean constitutionality we had no authority for our Libyan intervention, since Libya did not attack our "armed forces." Why not do the same for Syria? It is obvious the President doesn’t need the support of congress to do such since, in the Libyan case; the president had plenty of time to get congressional support.

Maybe the reason we no longer mention Libya in media outlets is because of the results. We already see horrifying reprisals from the US-backed rebels against their political opponents given their incessant killing of each other as well as supporters of the previous regime. Not to mention that the civilian toll from NATO bombs grew albeit they were supposed to be protecting a civilian population. Obama stated that his actions in Libya were “in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive."

True, Obama has called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is an ally of Iran, foe of Israel and sponsor of the armed militant group Hezbollah, to leave office but that is about it. Although Assad and his ruling circle are members of the minority Alawite sect, which makes up about 12 percent of Syria's population, Obama has not even asked the UN or NATO to intervene to protect civilians there. I mean there were no massacres taking place in Libya before the NATO attack but they are occurring in Syria.

All I can say is that the President has shown himself to be more neo-conservative than any neo-conservative and seems to use “regime change” just as much as George W. Bush and his inner circle. Now he has extended this purview by ending US funding of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) after they held a vote to approve the Palestinian Authority’s full membership in the agency.

And all of this for what? Is it to appease Israel; is it to show he is in charge prior to 2012? I cannot say but I will assert that it is more of the political same – WAGGING THE DOG. By this I mean “When something of secondary importance improperly takes on the role of something of primary importance.”

Truth is that Obama tends to foreign policy because he is lost in what to don domestically. I cannot figure out why it is important for him to make it easier for foreign corporations to invest in American than American corporations to invest here at home. While abroad we see what has happened in Europe and know that the head of China's biggest ratings agency, Dagong Global Credit Rating, is warning that it may downgrade the US's sovereign debt rating again because of Washington's failure to tackle the federal budget deficit.Why can’t he do our business in the same manner he does for his wealthy donors?

Over the last year, the Obama administration aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, although we do not need such or don’t even know if the drug will work. What we do know is that the no-bid contract went to New York-based Siga Technologies Inc.; a company who’s a major share holder is billionaire and a longtime Democratic Party donor. Ronald O. Perelman.

I just do not get it. Our national debt is almost 15 trillion dollars, if you include interest it's almost 55 trillion dollars, making my of this debt is just under $175,000. And if you didn’t know Mr. President, my personal value and net worth is shrinking while you’re folk on Capital hill’s is growing. The collective net worth of all of the members of Congress increased by 25 percent between 2008 and 2010.

Just help me understand and I will have your back, otherwise I will call it like I see it, that from the White House to the congress there is sciolism on both sides of the aisle and in the hood too, since most folks too dumb to think or look for themselves and would prefer to attend to who Herman Cain tried to get give him fellatio allegedly, or how many little boys a perverted coach has molested.

Jay-Z sells 'Occupy' T-shirts but will not share profits with the Movement

2011-11-12T13:38:00.001-05:00

When we mention Hip-hop music is if difficult to get through any conversation without bring up the name of Sean “Jay-Z” Carter. He is a great lyricist, a business man and married arguably, to one of the most attractive women in America. Now he is getting involved with the Occupy movement that has sprouted in nearly every community across the nation. However, his actions maybe are more self serving than for the benefit of the masses.

It has been reported that Jay-Z will be releasing a new line of T-shirts in support of the occupy Wall Street movement (#OWS) via his Rocawear clothing label. Unfortunately he and his company will not be sharing any of the profits with the protesters according to his spokesman. According to a representative of his clothing company Rocawear, there is not an "official commitment to monetarily support the movement," which is taking a stand against corporate greed and corruption.
The rapper/mogul was even recently seen wearing one of the shirts, which tweaks the phrase "Occupy Wall Street" by crossing out the "W" and adding an "S" to make it read "Occupy All Streets." 

I guess it should only be expected that another rapper is interested in avarice as equally as the big Wall Street banks. Neither gives back but only takes from those who cannot afford to live as they do to only become richer. In simple terms, this represents another concern with hip hop culture other than its strong focus of materialism, going for self and producing songs with lyrics that border of instructional psychpathy – I is more important that the we or community.

The spokesperson went on to add "The 'Occupy All Streets' T-shirt was created in support of the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement. Rocawear strongly encourages all forms of constructive expression, whether it be artistic, political or social. 'Occupy All Streets' is our way of reminding people that there is change to be made everywhere, not just on Wall Street. At this time we have not made an official commitment to monetarily support the movement."

If Unemployed, You Should Starve, says Michele Bachmann

2011-11-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

RON PAUL 70% on CNBC's poll, yanked after 15 min

2011-11-10T10:21:00.000-05:00

Wall St. Made More Money In 2.5 Years Of Obama Than 8 Years Of Bush

2011-11-09T11:14:00.000-05:00

VIDEO: Israeli Checkpoint Cruelty to Palestinians

2011-11-08T13:12:00.002-05:00

11-9-11 Blackout: Tsunami Exercise or Preparation for Martial Law

2011-11-07T08:40:00.002-05:00

Russia warns US against military strike on Iran

2011-11-03T10:12:00.001-04:00

The Kim Kardashian syndrome: Why Black Pay More Attention to Things That Don't Impact Them

2011-11-02T09:33:00.006-04:00

If you go on twitter, it is not hard to see what the average African American considers as being important and worthy of incessant attention. For that matter, you can also conclude why our community is in the state of disarray it is. Our main problem is not being able to prioritize in concert with not engaging our attention to matters and issues that proffer a tangible importance to our collective well-being.

Ask the average black person about Greece, they may something about the debt crisis, but for certain than can speak astutely on its salads and yogurt more than the former. Comparatively speaking, ask them about anything related to Ms. Kim and some self-absorbed rapper, they can speak with the prowess of a Neil Bohr on particle physics. This is what I find problematic: occupation with mundane idiocy that has nothing to do with our lives than those issues that do.We question why African American youth perform poorly academically in schools, or why we don’t attend or graduate from college, yet we never examine our own practices and behaviors that contribute to this. For the way I see it, it would be more reasonable to attend to the high unemployment and dropout rates in our community than what one Kardashian does.

This is not funny. Now I know folks say I am piling up on my folk, but really I am not. It reminds me of the student I may have in my class who is failing who ask for extra credit at the last moment just to pass, when they did not attend class regularly, did not do their homework and didn’t take notes when they did attend.This is equally comparable to our inattention to the Greek and European sovereign debt crisis.

For the record, the European sovereign debt crisis has more of an impact on our daily lives and is way more import than any Kardashian or Jay-Z and Kanye West Concert will ever have. Sadly I want to believe people know this, but more sadly is the possibility that they do and still don’t care to inform themselves on the topic as much as they do the Kardashian or the concert.

To put is plainly. Countries like Greek and Ireland and Spain and Italy have borrowed lots of money from other European nations and now they cannot pay it back. America in turn does business, a lot of business with Europe so it will hit us making us suffer just as bad also. Why because the global market is based on the massive buying, selling and trading of bonds and complex papers that bundle risk that folks buy in hopes of making a profit.

As it stands, short term Greek Bonds are still trading at 50% or less of face value. With the new Plan announced last Thursday the Bonds should be trading close to, or at par but they won’t since the Greek Prime Minister just announced that he will place acceptance of the Eurozone bailout up for a popular vote. A vote many Greek citizens equal to blackmail.

If they refuse, it means Greece and Germany will not agree to the conditions of the new Plan and that Greece won’t get an 8 billion-euro payment in mid-November that would most likely run out during January that would leave the government with no funds to function. This is not a good look for American citizens. And seeing that more than 60 percent of Greek citizens do not desire a bailout, and that G20 leaders are trying to get China to drop some loot to help folk out if all goes to ####.

Greek Prime Minister Papandreou, whose PASOK party has pushed sweeping austerity measures through parliament while protesters rally in the streets, has asked for major budget cuts. Now Italy Bonds are trading at the largest spread between Germany bonds in history because of the exposure contained by the major banks of Europe. Shares in France's Society General tumbled 17 percent and Credit Agricole was down almost 12.5 percent.

We can see the impact right here just by looking at MF Global Holdings Ltd. Like other major US banks, the folks who run these massive pension and hedge funds have provided most of the wealth of banks via negative rates of interest that guarantee their liabilities, and that in effect bailed them out unconditionally with our invested money. This means as Greece goes so do all of the other debtor nations, like the US. The more we ignore the importance of these events in Europe, our large indebted and over leveraged economy accomplished by our propensity for investing in financial instrument widely used by speculators to discredit government bonds, and undermine the country's weakening creditworthiness like credit default swap (CDS)., the more danger we are in.

The end result may be a freeze in the credit markets, similar to what we saw after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Consequently, it will also result in a net-negative impact on the job creation reducing the ability of U.S. manufacturers to sell their goods in Europe. This will give European manufacturers a significant pricing advantage over US manufactures because of the decline in the exchange rate. Thus a weaker European economy means reduce demand for U.S. exports, because with no disposable income, European consumers will not be able to buy autos, appliances and other goods.

So the significance of the Greek sovereign debt crisis has a large impact on the average American citizen.Yet still, it seems that what happens to Kim Kardashian is more important to most African Americans than the aforementioned. I do not know why but I would like to call this the Kim Kardashian syndrome – the reason why black folk attend and care more about things that do not impact them than things that do.

Too many Sunday Only Preachers

2011-10-28T09:33:00.007-04:00

As I observe the police crackdown of the Occupy movements from Atlanta to New York and from Oakland to Chicago, I am troubled. Namely for two reasons the first being how inept many of us African Americans are in supporting and understanding the axiological meaning of the protest and second, how fickle, taciturn and downright ill-informed we are as African Americans and a nation as a whole. This is made even more obvious as I listen to talk show host that seem to consistently abrogate logic for the sole purpose of manifesting partisan political support. Unfortunate also is the fact that many who lead these charges offer their myopic positions on the premise of objectivity yet fail to encourage the type of fully involved intellectual discussions that were the foundations of both the platforms of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.

To the first point, I am amazed. It seems as if we as a culture, albeit not monolithic, purport ourselves in a monolithic disposition. Taking the support for our current President alone and his political party, it has been estimated that regardless of affect or effect, African Americans support both at an astonishing 95 percent clip. More astonishing is that the section of our community that used to engage in the politics of what was best for the people as opposed what was best for political accomplishment is no longer in existence. Instead they have returned back to the day prior to Dr. King and are more akin to the black ministers who engaged him to stop his protest and accept the status quo as opposed to stand on the side of right, liberty and justice.

Now I know that the average African American only functions at a 6th grade math level, but what is it hard to understand about the top 1 percent controlling more than 40 percent of this nation’s wealth or that their rate of income has increased 275 percent over the past decade compared to under 30 for the rest of the nation? Why is it so difficult to understand the impact of fractional banking and the production of complex financial instruments and papers, worth nothing, that make this populous rich on the burdens of the poor and middle class? How can it not be visible that the rates of unemployment and incarceration and disease are disproportionately impactful on the poor, middle class and minority communities? I just do not get it. Even worse, how we as a segment of the population turn the other cheek, look away and dare not hold the current presidential administration to the same standard we held the prior?

We are quick to jump on Herman Cain for his inconsistencies, flip flopping and other miscues – and rightly so, but we seem to intentionally avoid acknowledging the same for Obama. I believe as Malcolm X, in 1964 while addressing a church in Cleveland when he stated:

“It was the black man's vote that put the present administration in Washington, D.C. Your vote, your dumb vote, your ignorant vote, your wasted vote put in an administration in Washington, D.C., that has seen fit to pass every kind of legislation imaginable, saving you until last, then filibustering on top of that. And you’re and my leaders have the audacity to run around clapping their hands and talk about how much progress we're making. And what a good president we have.”

Malcolm was not even speaking of our current administration but his words ring just as true today. He was speaking of our leadership and more importantly, to us to ignore facts for no purpose at all. For example I have spoken with people about my concerns with the health care bill. We talk and when I point out that premiums increase and that dental and eye care is not included, they ask where I heard that. I ask them if they read the bill and in each case they say no. How can we talk to someone who supports from only what others have told them and never even having read something for themselves? The same is true with many of the other issues proposed by Obama.

The Jobs bill for example, listening to black talk radio from Dr. Lorraine White to the Rev. Al Sharpton, it is as if they want this implemented regardless, and that it will actually do what it is said to do – create jobs. Now I am all for trying, but after reading it, it seemed to be just another $450 billion for the top 1 percent. I said the same with the first stimulus that resulted in 2.5 million lost jobs. Reading it on the surface the Jobs Bill sounds good, but when you examine it, it really on serves the wealth. For example, there is a proposal to give tax incentives to business that hire folks who have been out of work for 6 months or longer. This may sound good, but thinking as I do; there is nothing in there to stop them from hiring these folks, firing folks they already have and pocketing the loot. How many jobs would actually be created if you hire 20 and fire 20?

Then there is the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. This 27-member council — made up mostly of corporate executives and academics, wants to get rid of Sarbanes-Oxley, the antifraud law passed in 2002 in response to Enron, WorldCom and the dot-com bust. Based on a recent report , almost all of this body want Congress to remove the accounting and auditing safeguards put in place to keep Enron and recent Wall street level fraud from occurring - a goal of corporate America since its establishment.

Even his recent flip-flop on his own administration’s commitment to clean air (by deciding not to raise Federal ozone standards for air pollution) when he said he would seems that the President is more a friend on big corporations more than the common man. Reminiscent of the late Ronald Reagan, who also overruled the EPA. Obama did this unilaterally against the unanimous opinion of its independent panel of scientific advisers, and directed administrator Lisa Jackson.

None of our community gate keepers, especially from the clergy ever say anything about this. Instead they continue to make excuse for practices as inconsistent as Michelle Bachmann’s or Rick Perry’s understanding of history.

In the past religion mainly in the form of our Christian churches served a purpose, but no longer. The old time religion many once asked for in song has mutated into corrupted hard drives formatted for mass marketing success in the form of profit at the expense of its congregations. Preachers nowadays have chauffer driven limousines while many of their flock subsist on MARTA tokens and catch the bus. In our past religion as well as the church were purposeful. Not only where they spiritual in essence and focus, they were also social institutions that put the community from which they originated first and foremost even before the word of God.

In the past from Fred Shuttlesworth to Martin Luther King Jr., to Adam Clayton Powell to Joseph Lowery, ministers, preachers and the pulpits they orchestrated did more than spread the divine word, they also if not more so engaged in taking part and in most cases advancing the social and political injustices confronted by African Americans regardless of demonization or social class. Their faith was on the surface first but secondary in action with respect to their incessant fight for civil rights and social injustice. Running Sunday schools was as equally (if not less) important than the bus boycotts and sit-ins they organized. They were not only preachers on Sunday but every other the day during the weeks for teaching people about their rights and local laws that empowered their congregations to reinforcing the importance of education.

Now in the political year approaching (2012) even with a presupposed African American President, our churches no longer see the utility of serving to assist in the fight against oppression, economic inequality, social injustice or exploitation exalted toward the mass majority of people of color in our nation. Where ever we are, we will be inundated with politicians begging us for our vote selling the snake oil dreams and promises that they know they will not keep. All, even Obama, will ask and send us to wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to fight for reason we do not have any connection too yet we fight with courage but don’t have the courage to fight for what is ours here at home.

The Malcolm speech I cited was called “the Ballot or the Bullet. In that speech he also stated, “, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate.” Continuing he said about the ballot or the bullet, “you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get on out of the country; you should get back in the cotton patch; you should get back in the alley. They get all the Negro vote, and after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return. All they did when they got to Washington was give a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big Negroes didn't need big jobs, they already had jobs. That's camouflage, that's trickery, that's treachery, window-dressing.”

Like him, I am neither republican nor democrat, and as such have the clearest vision of the treachery crooks of both of the political cloth demonstrate. And as for as the inaction in my community, all I can say is that we have too many “Sunday Only Preacher,” and we need a lot more of the everyday kind who are willing not only to be honest with their community, but themselves as well.

Archival footage of Rioting Across America - The Great Depression

2011-10-27T10:23:00.000-04:00

Chairman of Homeland Security Rep. King defends "skinheads" and "Aryan Nations"

2011-10-26T10:29:00.000-04:00

Obama’s African Policy in Somalia Resembles Neocolonialist Genocide

2011-10-25T10:14:00.006-04:00

I often wonder what Obama’s father would say about his son’s incessant intervention in Africa. For certain, I know he would not say Obama’s loves him some Africa. Maybe he would because every time we look around, he sending troops to the continent left and right and in all cases to date, to murder established leaders. We saw what his intervention in Libya resulted in and we know that the goal in Uganda is to kill Joseph Kony, the leader of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). And in Somalia, a nation that has not had a functioning government since 1991 when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, we may be doing our most dirtiest job.

Mohammed Siad Barre came to power via a military coup in October 1969 scientific socialism as Somali state policy - Somali nationalism with the goal of uniting all Somali people under one flag. Once (1970s), the United State provided military and economic assistance to Somalia, and the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu became one of the biggest American diplomatic missions in Africa. After being criticized by the world for providing military support to the Siad Barre regime, efforts in Congress to cut off military assistance to Somali finally succeeded in 1989.

Although we know that the present food and refugee emergency in Somalia is considered to be the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, placing millions at immediate risk via disease, drought and massive starvation, the Obama administration sent a U.S. Marine task force to the region instead of focusing on humanitarian aid and has escalated drone attacks in Somalia that contribute even more to the starvation and death of additional millions of Africans. For it is the administrations belief that the al-Shabab resistance is mostly responsible for the drought emergency.

Strange since the Obama administration has put in place policies to limit food aid to the region in an effort to starve out those who might be supporting the Shabab. Yes food as a weapon of war in Somalia. What we forget is that the problems of today can be connected to our action four yeas ago when we got the Ethiopian government to invade Somalia in an effort to overthrow an Islamist government that had established peace by ended street battles between warlords and militias via islamic fundamentalist law..

But what is more problematic for me as an African American who has lived in the region (Ethiopia in 1999) and visited Somalia, is the reckless manner in which we disrespect and lessen the value of lives there via the US policy of using drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to kill civilians in the hundreds daily. In addition, this is not even mentioned on the news nor is discussed openly by President Obama almost Bush-like. Maybe this is why the President is seeking to ban the access of international news agencies the likes of Press TV who reports such daily.

When I lived in Africa, Press TV, BBC, Der Welt Television (Germany) and Al-Jazerra were watched more than any American News outlet and to me are equal to ITN and PBS in their coverage of world news. Since I do not have cable television, I am left to reading the web sites of these respected news agencies. Case in point, the information I have found on the aforementioned in the past two weeks alone is startling and unbeknownst to most US citizens.

On Oct 14, 2001, an attack by a US UAV resulted in the killing of at least 78 people and injured 64 others in southern Somalia. The attack, which occurred near Qooqani town located in southern Somalia happened the same day another US drone attack killed 11 civilians and wounded 34 more in Hoosingow district in the south of the country. Oct 21, 2001 another attack by a US unmanned aerial vehicle killed at least 44 civilians and injured 63 others in southern Somalia near Ras Kamboni town in the Badhaadhe district of Lower Juba region near the border with Kenya. Several hours latter, a US done attack killed 22 in Kudhaa Island in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya.

Somali military officials reported an attack on Oct 22, 2011 near the town of Bilis Qooqani, an unmanned US drone strike killed at least 49 people in famine-stricken in southern Somalia, while injuring at least 68 others. The next day, Oct 23, 2011, US drones carried out attacks near the Bilis Qooqani districts in southern Somalia, leaving 9 dead and 14 others wounded.

The following day, On Oct 24, 2011, an attack took place in the Somali island of Kudhaa near the country's border with Kenya according to Somali army officer Colonel Aden Dheere in which killed at least 36 Somali people. Latter that day, another 59 people were killed and dozens more injured during French military attacks on Kudhaa.

In each case Washington claims the airstrikes target militants, though most such attacks have resulted in civilian casualties in Somalia. More recently representatives of the Obama administration have denied any “US involved or supported airstrikes in Somalia: a claim friends and associates of mine from my days living in the region contradict.

Whatever the case, the facts remain the same. First, Somalia strategic location in the horn of Africa and its vast natural resources cannot be questioned. Second, It is not implausible that the US would do anything to keep China, India and Russia out of the region. Third, the nation is a geopolitical prize that has brought about the United States via the Obama administration to use neocolonial approaches to develop a foothold in the nation as well as offers a reason to employ resources of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), to achieve any clandestine objectives, especially in the context of the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP). Supported by the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and the Special Operations Command (SOCAFRICA). Not to mention they are involved with assisting the brother of President Yoweri Museveni in training troops for military efforts both in Somalia and Uganda. Strange since the Obama administration as recently as yesterday denied any involvement in arial strikes in Somalia. Like I said, very Bush-like.

Minister Farrakhan on Ron Paul & Exposing the Federal Reserve and International Bankers

2011-10-24T10:25:00.000-04:00

Obama Sends Troops to Another Oil Rich African Nation

2011-10-22T11:53:00.006-04:00

Is it just me, or is it strangely funny and coincidental that over the past decade everywhere we sent US troops in which we aided in the death; killing or assignation of a sovereign foreign head of state has been in an energy rich country with vast amounts of oil and/or natural gas. Saddam Hussein was in Iraq and he was hanged. Kaddafi was in Libya and he was summarily executed. In Afghanistan, no telling how many tribal and regional leaders (since they historically never had a nation state with a central government) we have killed. And as I stated in each case they have what we need to paraphrase the great Biz Markie – Oil and natural gas. This tradition is continuing with the recent deployment of US service personnel to Uganda. Oil and Uganda? Yes.

If you didn’t know Uganda is sitting on tons of oil. Oil exploration began in Uganda’s northwestern Lake Albert basin nearly a decade ago and according to estimates by the Energy Ministry, the African nation has over two billion barrels of oil. The British firm Tullow Oil operates three oil blocks in the region, and had sold off part of its stake to Total and China's CNOOC. But the sale was halted following the allegations of bribery. Specifically that Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has been accused of receiving funds to lobby for oil production rights on behalf of the Italian oil firm ENI, which eventually lost its bid for exploration rights to British firm Tullow Oil. In addition, Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa and Internal Affairs Minister Hilary Onek have also been accused of taking bribes from Tullow Oil worth over US$23 million and $8 million respectively.

As a result of these activities occurring over the past few weeks, it is ironic the Obama has decided to intervene with the rebels he claims are wrecking havoc in the region and fostering social unrest. Obama notified House Speaker John Boehner, of deploying the mostly Special Operations Forces, to central Africa with the first troops reportedly arriving in Uganda on last Wednesday.

Truth is that the rebels are representative of the people just as those he sent NATO forces to protect in Libya. It was hoped that the discovery of oil would improve the economic conditions of the masses of which 51 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The Uganda economy is suffering from a 20-year high double-digit inflation now at 28.3 percent.

Oil exploration began in Uganda’s northwestern Lake Albert basin nearly a decade ago, with initial strikes being made in 2006 and is scheduled to begin oil refining in 2014 . The 2.5 billion barrels of crude along Uganda's western border with Congo will be extracted upon the development of a refinery in a phased manner, starting with capacity of around 40,000-60,000 barrels a day before peaking at 150,000 barrels a day by 2016.

Many are unaware that Africa's exports of oil to the United States, largely from Nigeria and the dictator state of Equatorial Guinea, at rates almost equal to those of the Middle East. But again why now? I have outlined several factors including the suggestion of US intervention by, the International Crisis Group, which is the principal author of “Responsibility to Protect,” the military doctrine used by Obama to justify the U.S. led NATO campaign in Libya. Even more coincidental is that billionaire George Soros is a member of its executive board and personally, just recently recommended the U.S. deploy a special advisory military team to Uganda.

Soros, via his Open Society Institute is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, as well as other Institute advisors including Samantha Power, the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights, who also aided in the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Soros himself maintains close ties to oil interests in Uganda. As early as April of 2010, Soros’ International Crisis Group, or ICG, released a report sent to the White House and other lawmakers advising the U.S. military to run special operations in Uganda to seek Kony’s capture. It makes sense seeing that in 2008 a National Oil and Gas Policy, proposed with aid from a Soros-funded group, was supposed to be a general road map for the handling and use of the oil.

Like in Libya, the U.S. mission will be to advise forces seeking to kill or capture Joseph Kony, the leader of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). In the past, the Obama administration has stated it would only deploy US troops in the Middle East, Africa or Central Asia to target terrorist groups and rogue states that threaten the U.S. Unfortunately this is not an apt description of the Lord’s Resistance Army

So why is it that all of a sudden we are sending troops to another African nation? Not any nation but one rich in oil? We know the region, which includes South Sudan - which became an independent state in July after a two-decade civil war with the government in Khartoum, is also one of the emerging oil-rich states producing 500,000 barrels per day. This account for 80 percent of the country’s untapped oil deposits: meaning our presence may provide for increased penetration by Western-based oil firms in the United States and Europe. We know that the U.S. was a major proponent of splitting off South Sudan from the central government, as well as supporting the secessionist rebel movements in the western region of Darfur.

South Sudan became an independent state in July after a two-decade civil war with the government in Khartoum. Sudan is one of the emerging oil-rich states producing 500,000 barrels per day. The oil concessions in Sudan were largely in partnership with the People’s Republic of China and other Asian and Middle Eastern states.

Uganda has yet to produce a single barrel of oil, but it is obvious that its presence has played a key role in the Obama’s administration via the influence of George Soros to intervene militarily to help Uganda fight the rebels of the LRA who are currently in the Central African Republic.

I find this puzzling since we had these opportunities before oil was found and neglected to get involved. Now we are and the only fact that has changed is that the country is now rich in oil and we want to get out hands on it. To do such, we will most likely kill another person in another nation who has the support to the people more than the elected government does.

Pay in Cash Go to Jail: New Louisiana Law Bans Cash For Second Hand Transactions

2011-10-21T10:43:00.003-04:00

Watch Out: Government Can assassinate a US Citizen Anytime they Want

2011-10-20T11:58:00.003-04:00

I am thoroughly convinced that the American people do not know or understand the constitution and could care less if their unalienable rights are trampled on, for most of us accept without question whatever the government does or states. And don’t let it be implemented by a half white half black president – the first African American to serve in such a capacity in our nation’s history.

To be honest, I could care a rat’s azz about the death of anyone who formulates murder against any US citizen, in particular if it is one Anwar al-Awlaki. But I have reservations concerning the logic that would proffer such an outcome as being accepted in the annals of legal jurisprudence.

The Obama administration put into place a legal standard albeit it untested, that allows for the singular approval from the Executive branch of the federal government, without proof to allow the federal government to target individual American citizens for assassination. Did I say the executive branch singularly and without proof? All one has to do is be seen as being an enemy combatant or organizer against the US government. I wanted to write about this last week but I did not, hoping, maybe even anticipating that the Obama Administration would release, make available to the public the presupposed legal guidance his team of legal advisors developed to approve such targeted assignations. I expected such because after all, it was he who stated his administration would be the most transparent ever. However the Obama Administration has refused to release or make public its finding for this action that makes it ok and constitutionally legal to assassinate American citizens of speculation and allegation alone without due process.

This too means that the President, if he decides can make the decision to kill anyone, even me, without due process if they perceive my words as action as being as being a threat to US (their executive branch) interest. Meaning if they perceive my words to be an enemy to what they propose from a policy perspective, they can send a drone to my little residence in the world, without the authority of congress or a judicial body and kill me and my family with no questions asked.

Due process is the basic concept that laws and legal proceedings must be fair. Our constitution guarantees that the government cannot take away a person's basic rights to 'life, liberty or property, without due process of law. It originates in the Fifth Amendment and says to the federal government that no one shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." It is even mentioned again in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868.The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the deprivation of liberty or property without due process of law. A claim that is cognizable only if there is a recognized liberty or property interest at stake.

I didn’t support the Bush Administration’s position on this subject nor do the Obama administration acknowledged continuance of this Bush-era policy authorizing the killing of US citizens abroad. Also I find it difficult for either administration as they saw it, to define the entire world as being a battlefield. My fear and questions pertains to the designation of either picking up arms against this country or being described as “hostile” and/or displaying “hostilities” to the US government mean?

>The reason we have the second amendment is for average folk to be able to organize and fight against the rise of a tyrant or coterie of tyrants who may happen to rise into a power of leadership in our government. Moreover, there is no definition of what hostile is with respect to the abrogation of one’s constitutional rights. Could one be hostile for writing a vehement opinion against the government, elected official? Could a radio caller or host be held to the same standard?

A president should not be able singularly to order a targeted “hit” on any US citizen regardless of location. I also think that his legal advisors and the Attorney General should explain the basis in law for such a policy that violates individual constitutional rights. After all it was President Obama who stated on his campaign website: “Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.” Instead he has dramatically increased governmental secrecy.

All I can say is watch your back because it is evident that the present administration is no different from the last and will invoked unconstitutional executive secrecy to do whatever it desires. He has ignored his campaign promise to protect government whistleblowers, and instead has persecuted and prosecuted more government whistleblowers than ever in US History. I just hope the government doesn’t consider me hostile and target me if they see fit one day while I am teaching class or driving down the street with my family.

1000 Days: Brilliant But No Management Skills

2011-10-19T09:24:00.005-04:00

Our current President, Barack Obama is a brilliant man. Personally I would rank him as one of the smartest Presidents we have had since Richard Nixon and in the same breath with Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson. But as history has shown us, to be a brilliant President does not necessarily translate into being and effective or efficient one. Yes Obama is brilliant, but just using the example of his efforts to gain traction with our current economic conundrum, it is obvious he lacks the management skills required to astutely address this nation’s economic woes.

Now I am no Obama cognoscenti nor is this to state that he cannot manage, sure he can however much remains to be said of management skills regarding economics. Sure he is a competent jurist and astute in constitutional law, but one can simply examine how he works with his economic team to objectively examine his skill set in terms of management ergo concluding something is lacking. For the record before I proceed, I want to say I stated before and now that Tim Geithner was the wrong man for the job of Treasury secretary and I still stand by this. First I still maintain distrust for former Republicans that turn democrat in particular if they once worked for Kissinger and Associates. Second he is and foremost a banker and will always be as opposed to those of us on main street. I also had a problem when Geithner was living with Daniel Zelikow, as a top JP Morgan Chase executive, while he was overseeing the bailout of several huge Wall Street banks, including JPMorgan, which received $25 billion in federal rescue funds from the TARP program.

I can use the dysfunction of Obama's retinue of economic advisors to demonstrate why I have this opinion and come to the aforementioned conclusion. To start off with, Larry Summers (former Director of National Economic Council), Paul Volcker (former Federal Reserve Chairman), Christina Romer (former Economic Advisor), Elizabeth Warren (former Special Advisor to the Treasury Secretary), Peter Orszag (former Budget Director), and Tim Geithner (Secretary of the Treasury) alone provide me with more than enough substance to make this argument. Just looking at documented occurrences covering the Volcker rule, issues regarding Citibank, the bailout and the first stimulus, gives one an additional layer for discussion.

With respect to Larry Summers, it could be implied that the reason he resigned as director of the National Economic Council was his incessant economic blunders and what some could assert criminal actions. As an economist at Harvard and at the World Bank, Summers argued for privatization and deregulation in several areas, including finance. Prior to this under Clinton, he Summers oversaw passage of both the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Glass-Steagall and Commodity Futures Modernization Act (which banned all regulation of derivatives, including exempting them from state antigambling laws) as well as permitted the previously illegal merger that created Citigroup. Not to mention, Summers, in concert with Greenspan, and Rubin and dismissed all warnings regarding the impending economic turmoil that we currently experience.

It was a major mistake to place Summers in an advisory role as a man who one did not perceive America’s economic crisis as a serious threat and two, as a man that developed many of the rules in which began this crisis.But this was more the fault of Obama obviously not having studied his past thoroughly and accepting on face value recommendations from his fat cat Wall Street donors.

In concert with Geithner, Summers cost us regular taxpaying citizens up to a trillion dollars or more. How because Obama puts on a front in front of the regular citizen hammering out loud at the banking industry and its faults, yet employs the very same men who rigged this game on behalf of the banking industry. Thus it is hard to say you are hard on banks and want them to get their acts together when behind closed doors you give them everything they ask for and more. Even with respect to Elizabeth Warren, the woman Obama wanted to head his Consumer Protection Agency, Geithner worked against the President wishes, for he insured the Banking industry and Wall Street she would not be approved for nomination, against the wishes of the President.

For example, the Obama administration’s $500 billion plus proposal was only beneficial to the banks and big dollar investors at the expense of the US tax payer. Why? Because we gave money to bailout make believe a false alarm problem contrived by bankers singularly. If one consider a toxic asset held by Citibank with a face value of $1 million, but with zero probability of any payout and therefore with a zero market value, most investors would not purchase such an asset. However, if Citibank itself sets up a Citibank Public-Private Investment Fund (under the Geithner-Summers plan), this allowed the bank to bid the full face value of $1 million for the worthless asset because it can borrow $850K from the FDIC, and get $75K from the Treasury (BAILOUT) to make the purchase - meaning the bank will only have to come $75K out of pocket. This means the bank (Citibank in this instance) would get $1 million for the worthless asset, while the fund in its name ends up with a pile of worthless assets against $850K in debt to the FDIC – allowing the fund to declare bankruptcy and make an easy $1 million. This is the best hustle since buying Newports in the South and selling up North.

I know I said I would present a discussion on the Volcker rule, but I do not want to bore you any further. In summary, regardless of being a President, Mayor, or Governor, Obama does not seem to have or display the management skills required to understand the creative use or utility of power at his hands. Unlike Maynard Jackson, Coleman Young, Richard Nixon, Willie Brown or even a Hank Parker, Obama appears to lack in terms of economic prowess and maybe even social acumen, the apperception that he is in a distinctive place in which the suitable exercising of influence can gather immense efficacy. Unlike the other African Americans mentioned above, although not serving as the President, Obama, has not shown he knows how to use power creatively and find the balance to take chances to correct existing inequities regardless of the political risk.

Like I said Obama is smart, but his management skills lack something: what I cannot say. The turnaround of the members of his economic top advisors suggest this alone. It is one thing to have high turnover, but if any other business or organization showed similar levels of turnover, they would go out of business or become inoperable. Moreover, it is clear that no other parts of his top advisors in other areas (state department, or Justice for example) have displayed similar high rates of attrition. No wonder the economy is in shambles.

I agree the prior presidents from Reagan to Bush 43 got us in this mess, but I also acknowledge that trying to suppurate consensus is not the same as making a decision. Selecting the wrong people (smart folks who do not get along or see eye to eye) is not helpful either and doesn’t equals being able to make a decision. Obama may be too smart for his own good, thinking that coming to a consensus is more important than making a decision. Sometimes a president or a governor or mayor must manage situations accordingly and decide on one policy over another. Can Obama do this has yet to be determined pertaining to his economic policy.

New York City Criminalizes Food Stamp Recipients By Requiring Fingerprints

2011-10-18T10:34:00.002-04:00

When we think of fingerprinting, the first thing that often comes to fruition is its use in criminal investigations and its strong association with one being considered a criminal. It is so powerful a tool in tracking alleged suspects of criminal activity that last spring, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began the roll-out of a nationwide biometric identification system for suspects, inclusive of a new fingerprinting database for law enforcement.

However, now it seems that fingerprinting is being used for less than criminal activity. In New York City, the Bloomberg Administration has implemented a program that will require applicants for food stamps to be electronically fingerprinted. This requirement makes the city one of only two jurisdictions in the country that require applicants to be fingerprinted along with Arizona. Approximately 1.8 million people receive food stamps in New York City.

California used to have this requirement, but just this month, Gov. Jerry Brown acted to eliminate the requirement that food stamp recipients in California be fingerprinted. Brown signed a bill that ended the Statewide Finger Imaging System for the 3.8 million Californians participating in the federally funded Cal Fresh program, starting Jan. 1 – a program that is designed to increase participation in programs to feed the poorest residents.

Politicians, in particular suggest that fingerprinting is an effective way to reduce and prevent fraud. However there has yet to be any evidence that such is the case with respect to efficacy and utility. Not to mention that economist have pointed out that the process cost an estimated $187,364 a year to implement for the already cash-strapped city and state.

Research from the Urban Institute, as cited by New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, estimates that around 30,000 people are deterred from getting food stamps because of the fingerprinting requirement.

Use of fingerprinting in the current economy in which a majority of African Americans are disproportionately impacted, will only serves to criminalize being poor.In addition, there are no guarantees that this information will not end up in the data bases of law enforcement agencies bring to the fore a forth and fourteenth amendment concerns. Last, it adds more to the already existing stigma around applying for federal aid by treating poor and minority individuals like criminals for trying to access a legal program.

The question is why it does in New York City when it is not required anywhere else in the state of New York?

SWAT Teams in St. Louis Protecting Bank of America; Refusing Customer Withdrawals

2011-10-17T11:01:00.000-04:00

Israel’s New Bouncer

2011-10-17T09:54:00.010-04:00

The first time I read about it, I doubted its truth on historical and political merits alone. Not saying it was not true, but rather it was questionable with respect to the aforementioned and its timely manifestation. I am referring to the recent and weird allegation made suggesting that Iran was behind a plot to assassinate Adel al Jubeir and bomb the Israeli embassy. According to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the plot was "directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government and, specifically, senior members of the Quds Force." But the catch is that according to U.S. officials, the suspect would pay $1.5 million to the Los Zetas drug cartel to kill the Saudi ambassador at a Washington restaurant also frequented by congressmen and senators.

I have written in this very forum about the US and Iran, most recently as it concerned our inability to be consistent with our positions taken concerning how we decided who should be ousted and what citizenry we supported during the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa starting with Tunisia last year and more specifically, how we tend to look the other way in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain but not Libya or Uganda. Not to mention the taciturn neglect the current administration shows to African Americans while kowtowing to the American Zionist lobby.

Even our own history should have the less than average reader concerned about our allegations concerning this plot. First, we should be reminded that the US government gave Saddam Hussein biological weapons and urged him to use them against Iran. Although Hussein decided that biological weapons went too far and backed down from the US plan, we used the same biological weapons we gave to Hussein as a basis to invade Iraq, even though UN monitors had already verified that the weapons had been destroyed.

Then there was the recent fiasco in which we provided support and approval for Israel to assassinate several leading Iranian nuclear scientist over the past two years in an attempt to impede Iran’s progression toward nuclear self sufficiency.

Like I am actually supposed to believe that Iran is a threat to us. We are just another bouncer under the auspice of a new administrative head. We already fund Israel's military, why should we fight wars for them as well? Maybe it is a ploy to take some heat away from Eric Holder is getting slammed for the illegal “fast and furious” gun running activities. After all who else better to assert that Iran tried to recruit a Mexican drug cartel to kill the ambassador of Saudi Arabia via a weed smoking used car salesman from Texas than Holder? Maybe it is a way for us to justify the Obama administrations giving cluster bombs to Israel just a week after Former New York mayor Ed Koch stated openly that Obama was no friend of Israel.

Maybe Iranian parliament member Alaeddin Boroujerdi was right when he said the accusation “a plot to divert the public opinion from the crisis Obama is grappling with.” Plus the informant is dubious to say the least seeing he was “previously charged in connection with narcotics offenses….in exchange for … various narcotics investigations” being dismissed. This based on the indictment of course.

The case made by the US is more media PR than actual fact since they are not supported by any hard evidence. The only evidence we have, which isn’t even related to this adduced collusion is the history of our relationship with this Persian nation - the only Persian nation in the world who happens to be surrounded by nations who hate Persians. Also they are the only Shia run regime in the world, surrounded by regimes that hate Shia. True they are a major producer of oil, but still have to import gasoline.

My question is why the suspect would even ask if the others involved were “any good with explosives?” We know that the US Intelligence indicates Iran's Qods Force are the best in the world when it comes to improvised explosive devices and explosively formed penetrators into Iraq. Seems as if Obama wants to show Israel we will do anything for them even start a war with Iran. Seems as well that we have been doing all in our might to fabricate a reason for such a war just to appease the Israel lobby. The only query that remains is why now and I suspect we will be finding out more real soon. But I am skeptical seeing this is the week we have a masive airlift drill in mediternanian with Saudi Arabia and Israel.

For the media and common idiots who dont understand #occupywallstreet

2011-10-14T09:14:00.001-04:00

How Did Obama Know About 'Fast And Furious' Before Holder?

2011-10-14T08:58:00.000-04:00

Nec Spe, Nec Metu

2011-10-13T08:54:00.008-04:00

An associate of mine who I have grown sincere admiration and respect for and a friend used twitter yesterday to foster a discussion regarding President Obama and why people would or would not decide to support him during the 2012 election. What I noticed was that people, in particular African Americans have a real strong conviction and evince such with passion. In addition, I also noticed that it was frequent that people would challenge individuals to “check their facts” or charge “racism” if one disagreed with the President or ANY of his policies.

As you may or may not know, I am a free thinker and a habitual call-it-like-I-think-it-err. Just stating this because regardless of race or political affiliation, or rather one is a racist or a punk (synonymous in my purview) - I call them as I see them. I was reminded of this when a fellow blogger called in on my radio show and indicated that it was funny to him how when I was writing about George W. Bush, my post obtained anywhere from 80 to 100 comments daily but that when I held Obama to the same critical standard, they dropped to less than 5 comments a post.

Getting back to my associate, the results of his forum indicated just how much as a populous we 1] neglect significance in being politically astute, 2] how defensive we get when the person (especially if he is black) is the politician we support and 3] how quick all logic is disregarded when the information or point of contention has a negative impact on African Americans in particular and is accurate.

For example, for me to openly criticize the economic approach of President Obama is tantamount to being an uncle tom, racist or something even worse. Albeit it has nothing to do with the person, his race and/or political affiliation, and more a dissonance with Keynesian economic philosophy, because I am an African American my position is untenable and unreasonable.

Even if I state what I agree with and approve of that the President has implemented thus far, I am still considered against the President just because I am in disagreement with a single policy. I was supportive of the administration’s efforts to implement tougher regulations that would have reduced the amount of federal financial aid flowing to for-profit colleges that prey on mainly low income African Americans. However, I eventually became disappointed when his administration caved to the industry’s lobbyists and their campaign against the Obama administration. I was able to applaud the first bill he signed into law on approving legislation that expands workers' rights to sue over discrimination and the fact that so far he is setting records for the number of women and minorities nominated to lifetime appointments at the level of the Federal Courts. Nearly half of the 73 candidates he has tapped for the bench have been women. In all, 25% have been African Americans, 10% Hispanics and 11% Asian Americans. He is the first president who hasn't selected a majority of white males for lifetime judgeships, far exceeding the percentages in the two-term administrations of Bill Clinton (48.1 percent) and George W. Bush (32.9 percent).

I was also supportive of President Obama’s $1.15 billion measure to fund a settlement for African American farmers reached more than a decade ago via the 1997 Pigford v. Glickman case against the U.S. Agriculture Department over claims of discrimination. This made it possible for approximately 70,000 African American farmers to receive cash payments and debt relief from the federal government. However when I question the decision to pander to #ocupywallstreet protesters and the same night attend an upper East Side DNC $35,800 a plate fundraiser resulting in $2.4 million added to his rer-election campaign from Wall Street financiers and call it hypocrisy, my position was vilified. When I spoke out against the President’s policy decision to ask Congress to make it easier for private debt collectors to call the cellphones of consumers delinquent on student loans and other debt owed the federal government using robo calls I was condemned.

If I speak out and say I disagree with the Obama’s administration decision to waive legally mandated penalties for countries that use child soldiers and provide those countries U.S. military assistance, just like he did last year I am a hatter. The White House will issue a series of waivers for the Child Soldiers Protection Act, a 2008 law that is meant to stop the United States from giving military aid to countries that recruit soldiers under the age of 15 and use them to fight wars, for Yemen, South Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Last year, the White House didn't even tell Congress when it ended the Child Soldiers Prevention Act penalties. Their rational was suspect at best.

The truth is that I have problems with the policies and not the man. I would have had the same problems if they were implemented by a man or woman, republican or democrat of any race and ethnicity. The problem is to be an African American and voice these concerns means accepting the vilification asserted in the opening paragraphs. Unfortunately, like politicians the people who support selected candidates do not use binary decision to make responses that respond to logic gates like computers and tend to ignore transient memory for better or for worse. As in football, they will accept a holding called missed by a referee if their team scores but scorn and excoriate the same referee that misses the same call on the other team.

This is the world of the astute and adroit individual of color who examines the etiology of the political actions (especially if they pertain to President Obama). For being objectives means we can examine and understand this dystopian political frontier as the malicious state it is. It portends a dark future in which all power is concentrated in the hands of a few turning our nation into an oppressive state. The sad reality is that the voting populous and pundits in their sciolism do not have a clue that for us it is “Nec Spe, Nec Metu” - Without hope, without fear. For we know that Bacillus cannot live with antibodies.

Obama Panders to Cantor’s Mob

2011-10-11T10:34:00.004-04:00

With the recent protest across America, one single observation that can be drawn is the level of two-faced hypocrisy evident in the elected leadership residing in Washington, D.C. The only consistent factor is the irony that both President Obama and the Tea Party Republicans were elected to implement change. Unfortunately neither has produced and continue to serve the oligarchs and plutocrats that fill their campaign coffers instead of the common citizenry of this once great nation.

Obama has done every shuck and jive dance move to pass his jobs bill that he only needs to wear black face to complete his vaudvillesque act. The Republicans namely Eric Canto and John Boehner have done everything in their power to make it seem as if they are actually working for the people when they are not, seeming to always leave their white sheets hanging in the closet at home as opposed to showing their true colors.

Eric Cantor and Barack Obama are both bought and paid for by the people they claim to dislike on behalf of Obama, and protect on behalf of Cantor. From the recent discussion on Israel, it is obvious that they care and want to give more loot without any query to Israel equally than they do the American people. Just ask Benjamin Netanyahu who Eric Cantor tried to play against the President. The problem is that American voters, in particular black folk do not understand that people like Eric Cantor or Barack Obama do not represent mainstream American interests or the interest of the American citizenry in generally.

Obama talks a better game about main street and the common man but all the ambassadors he has appointed and the majority of his cabinet members all gave his campaign $500,000 or more. He as cantor, have stood by and enabled America's Wall Street and Corporate criminal elite resulting in this economic imbalance in our nation. Do not get me wrong, this includes every national politicians since Andrew Jackson since in my locution, he was the last President who genuinely understood the plight of the people albeit he was a crooked white supremacist. The sad reality is that with the assistance of the media, both the leadership of the democratic and Republican Party’s act as if their only public duty is to tell us regular folk what and how to think.

We on the ground level see what our elected leadership does not – that our social structure only is efficient and works to service the desires of a few and is inequitable for the majority. In addition it is more than obvious that this approach they foster is not sustainable forever, unless they intend to rule by brute force.

These, our elected official via policy are more concerned with the views and support of the market manipulators on Wall Street than the American people. The same Wall Street that has bought our Congress and the President for they are merely corrupted element within an otherwise legitimate system. So what he have learned from the occupy Wall Street protest is that the America police will do what these oligarchs of wealth and power desire before they serve the poor and middle class. They will arrest, beat and pepper spray regular Americans who only desire to exercise their constitutional rights to assembly and free speech although they are paid to protect and serve the innocent.

To Eric Cantor and the police departments around the USA we are mobs and in the eyes of Obama, we only deserve to be pandered to in an effort to be re-elected. Mobs as opposed to Americans protesting injustice, political corruption and corporate fascism. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, who openly states that flood, hurricane and tornado victims must pay for their own recovery by cutting social programs so his party and their supporters can continue to rape the middle class. It is clear that Eric Cantor, from his voting record and spends without repute his donations, that he represents big business, executives on Wall Street, and those who have power no differently than the democrats who go to Washington.

Cantor serves to helps companies abuse their employees by opposing unemployment benefits. He has consistently with banks that fund his campaign even voting to bail out a bank that his wife works for, and sits on the board of directors. A bank in which the minimum account balance for its wealth management division is $40 million. He has side with big oil and is one of the best fund raisers in the Republican Party. Open records indicate that he spent $7,400 of donor money on gourmet chocolates last year alone. But that is possible when you are getting money from lobbyist for Genworth Financial and AstraZeneca PLC. When asked if he would pass any elements of the Obama Jobs bill, he said yes - a provision that allows government contractors to collect all the money that is due to them rather than have 3% withheld for taxes (costing US tax payers $14 million over next ten years).

Obama is just as bad. As I wrote earlier this year, “ though Obama vowed to end “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, and/or won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests. Just for raising $50,000 to $500,000 for his campaign. In total, 184 of 556, or about one-third, of Obama bundlers or their spouses joined the administration in some role. In fact, 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took key administration posts. Also, President Obama's appointment of William Daley as his chief of staff is another example. Daley was an executive at JPMorgan Chase, the investment bank that received a $12 billion bailout during the financial crisis”

As I write this, forty-six states are trying to keep the poor, elderly and minorities from voting in the next election by putting up roadblocks to them getting a "valid" photo ID, all under the guise of republican leadership. Just last night, Obama, after he said he understood the protestors, attended an Upper East Side DNC fundraiser to wine and dine Wall Street big wigs that cost attendees $35,800 each. An event that raised him $2.4 million from more than 60 financiers running the top funds on Wall Street. Yes, our current President claims to be for change and the people but he gives billions to Banks and corporations like Solyndra.Wall Street has trampled the American dream and politicians on both sides of the aisle are the reason us regular folks continue to have night mares.

America’s Celebration of Disease and Genocide

2011-10-10T08:42:00.002-04:00

It is not uncommon for people to offer praise to individuals for their historical impact. The consternation however begins when we applaud these individuals in complete absence of their entire body of work. The case can be made for example with Confederate General and the mass murdering founder of the Ku Klux Klan Nathan Bedford in several states across the south. But more prescient is the inchoate historical record of Christophoro Colombo , who we know better as Christopher Columbus.

Americans the descendent of the first illegal immigrants will give national praise to this man today for reasons I cannot ascertain, although the excuse is that he discovered America – a place where people had already occupied and had been living for centuries prior to his first voyage.

A holiday in theory is a day of celebration or honor.If this is the case, let us be clear of what there is to honor or celebrate Columbus for. Outside of making Europeans happy and proud, the only reality was that his voyage to the new world was a “harbinger of genocide” to non Europeans. We honor a ruthless slave master and a plundering megalomaniac. He schemed support from the Spanish crown in a manner that would make Wall Street Bankers seeking a bailout proud.

History informs us he discovered America in October 1492, but it was that month on the 12^th in the Bahamas’ and from their sailed his three infamous ships to the coast of Cuba and Hispaniola (I always wondered why the people already there renamed their island after Spain). I called him a megalomaniac because his fellow Europeans of the time, his main interest was women, conquest and gold. In fact, among the individuals he called “Indians” in Hispaniola, he decreed that they must offer tributes of Gold to him or suffer death. His options were either convert and accept Christianity or be exploited or enslaved. Ironically he did not convert as many to Christianity for it reduced the number of folks he could make slaves.

Way I see it, giving Columbus a holiday means you should give one to the man who enslaved, killed and stripped inhabitants of their flesh in Mexico and feed them to the dogs – Bartolome de Las Casas a holiday too. The celebration of this man is merely a celebration of greed and the near total annihilation of the indigenous people of the places he landed. Thus this Columbus day as all of the ones before and in the future is just another way for America to honor and celebrate disease and genocide in what they termed the new world.

Non-Performing Papers

2011-10-08T11:40:00.002-04:00

The present global economic crisis is the result of black market economics. By black market, I mean the same economic practices that allow the criminal underworld to function. A world in which few if any records exist regarding their profits – a shadow economy.

The new business of America and much of Europe operates without standards or oversight and the known value of most paper assets or financial instruments. Such to the extent that they cannot even be used to guarantee credit, a consistent observation in plain view in the US market and those in Europe. If one was to ask what were these papers and why they cannot be given accurate value, I could not answer because there are so many and no regulation for them that the only proof that they exist is reduced to growing unemployment, homelessness and protestors in the streets worldwide. I can say this because it has been “estimated” there combined value to be between $600 and $700 trillion – ten times the GDP of the entire world.

We see their weight on all markets. Take America for example, it is difficult not to see the impact of derivatives, mortgage backed securities, interest rate swaps or credit default swaps on the destruction of our economy. Both nongovernmental credit and private lending has dropped and contracted more than 20 percent since 2007. Namely because regulations that once existed that may have prevented this crisis have been reduced to nonexistent. Used be a time when people knew who own a mortgage for a house. Now such is impossible because the paper trail does not exist since most have been pooled and packaged into liquid Mortgage backed securities that allowed for them to get around the usual means to record the owners of said mortgages. Now most are hidden in a “shell company (MERS)” instead of banks or companies that have an actual interest in reclaiming the mortgage debt. This means that the value of even the bonds backed by mortgage backed securities will always be questionable and housing prices will continue to fall.

The same is true with default swaps. In an effort to avoid the tedious processes involved in recording and tracking the value of paper products and the foolish leveraging practices that created MBS’s, credit default swaps were invented. These “made out of thin air” papers were created so that lenders could insure the risk of papers with no know value and sell them to others. Now it is impossible for anyone to know who bears the risk for these instruments they are supposed to guarantee. This overlapping of paper means that no one can even accurately say what is owed or what their value are.

I intentionally did not include “off-balance sheet accounting “because it would show how our current fiscal crisis is truly the consequence of criminal activity, although our President says there are now laws to suggest that criminal activity was conducted by large Wall Street banks. I would disagree.

It is criminal because their actions has resulted in the number of Americans on food stamps increasing 74 percent since 2007 and 77 percent of US citizens now living from pay check to paycheck to date. Yet no such increases have proffered by bankers and corporate big wigs and their precious hedge funds created around these complex papers although most are none performing – not worth their stated value.

It is criminal when we question the rationale for the intense dislike for Wall Street when the President and Congress, who are recipients of large donation from this group and their K street lobbyist, are connected at the hip. We are a nation where the ratio of household debt to personal income is 154 percent. Yet the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.

Yes it is criminal and unfortunately the President, Congress and Senate are criminal as well if they cannot see or understand such. But what can one expect when the percentage of millionaires in congress is more than 50 times those in the general public? Yes our crisis is the result of lawmakers who made money from rules that created these non-performing papers. Papers that obviously perform for politicians, CEOs and Wall Street bankers, but not for us.

Global Financial Meltdown In 2 To 3 Weeks says IMF Advisor

2011-10-07T08:55:00.001-04:00

Obama and the Congress: Returning America to Hooverville

2011-10-06T11:18:00.010-04:00

Riddle me this, what will it take for Obama groupies to take their heads out the sphincter of the President and what will it take for Tea party groupies to take their heads out of the same opening of the Tea Party? Is it just me or am I the only one who see that no matter what, Obamafied folk hate all the Tea party supporters and the Tea Baggers hate without though or question, all who support President Obama. The least common denominator both conglomerates fail to observe is that regardless of republican or democrat, male or female, gay or straight, or black or white, these people all represent the same thing from their K-street lobbyist influence to wealthy campaign donors. Yes, republicans and democrats are the same inside the beltway political party crooks. Some may take issue with this and their feeble thought processes may still wish to make delineations between the two but the math will prove unflappable.

Just this week, employers announced plans to shed 115,730 workers from their payrolls in September, making it the worst job cut month in over two years.Telling me if this is September, and what we know from history, which the President and the Congress seem not to be able to learn from, it is only going downhill from here given the federal government penchant for across-the-board cuts in spending put in place by President Obama and the congress during their debt ceiling debate. September job cuts were 126% higher than the 51,114 announced in August and 212% higher than September 2010, making it the highest since April 2009. Telling us regular no politician and non-wealthy political party donors what we already know – it’s hard out here. But what does the president do? He wants Congress to make it easier for private debt collectors to robo-call the cellphones of consumers delinquent on student loans and other billions owed the federal government via a hidden clause in his $3 trillion deficit-reduction plan Obama submitted to Congress. It should have been expected given how close the President is to campaign funders including the private debt collection industry – strange since he wanted Elizabeth Warren to fight these same folk, ACA International (the collection industry trade association).

It is apparent that neither Obama nor the congress care to solve our present economic crisis nor are they adult enough to tell the American people the truth regarding the severity of what we encounter from an economic perspective. Instead, they would prefer to bicker and move our nation towards Hooverville.

During the great depression of the 1930s, camps of dispossessed and destitute people grew across the nation after the stock market crash of 1929. These camps, comprised of homeless men, women and children who were forced to take up residence in shacks as a result of the Great Depression became known as Hooverville's in honor of President Herbert Hoover.
Policies of the federal government were so inept and out of touch with the seriousness of the economic forlornness most of America was experiencing (as now) that the little resources that the federal government made available often did not go to the hungry and homeless but rather to corrupt politicians and corporations who and kept those valuable resources to themselves (Wall Street Bailout and loans for big corporations).

As the economy continued to get worse, more people and families were impoverished due to rising unemployment and mortgage foreclosures. In fact estimates suggest that between 1929 and 1933, more than 100,000 businesses failed across the nation. Like Obama currently, by the end of President Hoover tenure in 1933, there were at least 13 million unemployed (around 25% of America's work force).

The Obama Administration and the congress are heading toward turning America into a country of Hooverville’s. The stock market crash in October 1929 helped trigger a devastating depression that led to massive homelessness and joblessness once the economy began to crumble in the early 1930s, resulting in these make shift shanty towns springing up across the nation. Seattle's main Hooverville covered nine acres and lasted from 1931 to 1941. One of the largest Hooverville's in the U.S. sprouted along the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri in 1930. In New York City’s Central Park, a Hooverville existed from 1931-33. There was even one in Washington, D.C. on the Anacostia flats south of the Capitol in the spring and summer of 1932.

The problems were similar to now. As today, during the Great Depression the Federal Government’s did not deal head on in terms of their response to the economic collapse since all of their Depression-era policies failed to alleviate unemployment and address the social crisis led to the creation of Hooverville’s. The real problem was the Federal Reserve banks and their practice of fractional banking.

Prior to 1913, there had only been two other times the Unites States had a federal reserve bank. The first central bank was created in 1791 amidst major dissent against such in the Congress and chartered for 20 years. Like the Federal Reserve Bank of today, it used its control of the currency to defraud the public and establish a legal form of usury. Its practice of fractional lending at a 10:1 rate (ten dollars of loans for each dollar they had on deposit) caused so much public outrage that the charter was not renewed and the bank ceased to exist in 1811.

The second central bank of the US came to fruition after the war of 1812. European and American bankers used this tumultuous time to influence Congress to charter the Second Bank of the United States in 1816. President Andrew Jackson won the presidency in 1828 with the promise to end the national debt and eliminate the Second Bank of the United States and during his second term as President he withdrew all government funds from the bank and on January 8, 1835, paid off the national debt allowing the charter to end in 1836.

The Federal Reserve Act of December 23, 1913 was designed “to provide for the establishment of Federal Reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.” The tricky part was the “for other purposes,” which basically meant it could create money from nothing and collect interest on it.

The Federal Reserve Act, which was passed without discussion during the Christmas recess, transferred all the rights and profits from the creation of money from the citizens and the U.S. Government to private banks. Basically giving private banks the right to create money out of thin air and turn us regular folks into slaves of debt. This debt is the result of fractional banking. Fractional banking or fractional lending is the ability to create money from nothing, lend it to the government or someone else and charge interest.

It is clear that President Obama, his administration and the congress do not understand our problems as a nation and ergo do not see the negative role the Federal Reserve Bank and it fractional banking approaches have played in what we are experiencing now.

Historically we have seen banks deciding on their own to shut off the debt/money, citing the need to control inflation resulting in massive bankruptcies, unemployment and foreclosures. They singularly have the power to engender both prosperity and depression. All wealth that is created in America is eventually transferred to the central bank and becomes what we poor folks view as a process of consolidating the wealth. The basic math is that the FRB creates inflation, and then restricts credit and the market’s collapse while the rich get richer – just look out ours and across the pond in Europe.

When we as a nation did not have a central bank to manipulate the supply of money, the US experienced unprecedented growth for 60 or 70 years. Consequently in 1910 Senator Nelson Aldrich (originator of the Sixteenth Amendment - income tax), then Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, in collusion with representatives of the European central banks, devised a plan to pressure and “deceive Congress into enacting legislation that would covertly establish a private central bank.”

Obama and congress are in the pockets of the wealth oligarch of Wall Street. They have jobs and benefits. Their wages continue to increase while ours do not. They are not interested in how we are supposed to live and survive. All they want to do is allow the Federal Reserve Banks to print more money so we can sell the only thing we make – weapons. To grow our economy it is simple, end the Federal Reserve and bring production back to America. We must end fractional banking system. There was time when a person could walk into a bank and exchange a dollar for gold. We can’t do such any more. They President and congress will bailout banks to the tune of billions but not us. Soon there will be no middle class.

Thomas Jefferson said, "If the America people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Sad thing is nothing will change because we too stupid to see this. Nothing that is until we get money out of politics in the form of the Koch Brothers, George Soros and warren Buffet and end the fractional banking practices that got us in this mess. But like I said it is against the interest of the wealthy, even those in politics from Obama to Ryan. They will be better served financially when America once again becomes a country of Hooverville’s.

America for Dummies

2011-10-05T08:54:00.005-04:00

One thing you can say about us Negroes is that most of us care and know more about the 2-pac sex tape, the Michael Jackson voluntary manslaughter trial and the BET hip hop awards than events that actually have an impact on our present and future lives such as the European sovereign debt crisis.

Not to be sarcastic, but the economic crisis in Europe is tenfold more important and impactful on the lives of African Americans because it directly impact how much money we have in our pockets, more so even than the supposed jobs plan proposed by the president. Like our economy, the major participants in the European Union, mainly Germany, have implemented another temporary fix to stop the hemorrhaging via a new bailout package. We tried a bailout here under Bush and Obama, the second of which resulted in a loss of 2.5 million more jobs and more paper money added to the economy albeit liquidity was never at issue.

In theory, the goal is to calm markets and to isolate the problems of Greece from the rest of the EU and subsequently the rest of the world, most importantly the US. But this can never happen when you add Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and even France into the mix. The simple truth is no matter how much money stronger European nations throw onto the already massive debt, it will not help and result in more debt, like any pyramid scheme does.

Seeing the unrest in Greece, the demand for additional collateral from Finland and backroom deals that want bankers to take a large reduction of the value of their Greek bond holdings to reduce their national debt, what we may see in the next coming weeks may be more problems for global markets. It hard for at least me to see why hasn’t dumping all of this bailout money on the problem has not resulted in a drop in the credit rating for countries like France and Italy, especially when countries like Venezuela, who have 60 billion or more in surplus, have lower ratings than the aforementioned.

It is apparent that Greece will eventually default and Germany will be put in a position to protect its banks first and for the record, we do not know or at least I cannot discern how much loot French, Spanish and Italian banks have on hand to do the same let alone how much US exposure exist with our big insurance corporations and all. If this does happen, it would not be unreasonable for one to speculate bank failures in Europe leading to a global sovereign debt and banking crisis simply due to not knowing the value of all the varied derivatives and complex papers banks around the world hold.

And back to Germany, if rumors hold true and they reinstate the Mark, debt will continue to accrue because without the existence of a single EU bond, there is no mathematical way to support the massive debt in the EU’s struggling markets. We may see some evidence of such now for just this week we saw France and Belgium guarantee the financing of the troubled cross-border bank Dexia, as its shares plunged just on reports that it will be broken up.

I could go one for days but in simple terms several things are true. The people of the bailout giving nations from Germany to Finland do not want to bail out Greece and other struggling national economies in the union. Second, all that is being done is to the benefit of creditors and foreign investors and not to address the structural impediments at the root of the current crisis. Last, if a bank like Dexia cannot survive, which is the leading provider of local government financing in France, the it will be only a matter of time before other French banks, who currently buffer the crisis nations from the rest of the EU will become insolvent. Why, because the worsening of the European sovereign debt crisis and the tensions on the interbank market means that all of the world will have a clear picture of how troubled non-strategic assets weigh on EU banks as a whole regardless of what country they are located in.

I admit I am no economist, just a reader and a free thinker. Math is my tool and although I cannot say who is the rapper of the year, or who is brought out in the Jackson trial, I don’t need too because it does not and will not impact my life more than what I see occurring in Europe. Maybe someone should write a book for me and call it “America for Dummies” to help me out. Or better yet, I should write that book, for only a nation of dummies would pay more attention and be more knowledgeable of pop culture garbage that doesn’t have a real significance on their survival than event that do.

Six Supreme Court Cases African Americans Should Follow Closely

2011-10-04T09:50:00.003-04:00

It is ironic, that after the death of Troy Davis, this upcoming Monday, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) returns to the bench to address many issues, most of which deal with the criminal justice system. This may the first time in a while such a docket has presented itself in which outcomes may serve to deal with inequalities in criminal law that impact African Americans disproportionately. Three cases in particular may have greater impact on African Americans than any other racial ethnic group in America.

The United States v. Jones: In this case, FBI agents planted a GPS device on a car while it was on private property and then used it to track the position of the automobile every ten seconds for a full month, without securing a search warrant. The question is whether or not the police need a warrant to attach a tracking or GPS device to a car and track its movements over extended periods of time.

Florence V. Board of Freeholders: This case will examine whether a correctional facility violates the Fourth Amendment rights of arrestees charged with minor and non-indictable offenses by conducting strip searches and visual body cavity searches prior to being admitted to the general prison population. Albert Florence was arrested on a bench warrant from Essex County, New Jersey. The warrant charged Florence with the non-indictable offense of failure to pay a fine. Florence protested indicating that he had paid the fine and, after his arrest and detention, the charge was, in fact, dismissed. Florence was strip searched and subjected to a visual body cavity search upon his arrival at the Burlington County Jail, immediately after his arrest, and was strip searched and subjected to a visual body cavity search six days later upon his transfer to the Essex County Correctional Facility

Maples V. Thomas: Maples v. Thomas is an Alabama death penalty case. Cory R. Maples was a death row inmate who lost his chance to appeal a decision against him because his lawyers had missed a filling deadline. The two lawyers from the prestigious New York law firm who had agreed to represent him had quit some time before, without informing Mr. Maples. A clerk attempted to notify the lawyers of the court’s action, but the letters were returned unopened; Maples discovered that he had missed the deadline for appealing to the next level. The court will determine if the missed deadline due to the law firm and not the inmate should be suspended, when a representative of the court in the form of a clerk did nothing to inform other the court mail had be returned marked “return to sender.”

Perry V. New Hampshire: This case will deal with the question of what the Constitution has to say about the use of eyewitness evidence and due process protections against unreliable identification made under suggestive circumstances. Barion Perry is in prison for breaking into a car in 2008. A woman informed Nashua, N.H., police that she saw Perry from the window of her apartment taking things out of a parked car. She identified Perry at the scene but later could not pick him out of a photo lineup or describe him to police. Perry filed a motion to suppress the photo identification because it was "unnecessarily suggestive" that he was a criminal because he was in handcuffs. The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld his conviction.

Connick V. Thompson: In 1985, John Thompson was convicted of murder in Louisiana already been convicted in a separate armed robbery case. He decided not to testify on his own behalf in his murder trial and was sentenced to death and spent 18 years in prison of which 14 he was in isolation on death row. A month before his scheduled execution, a lab report was discovered proving his innocence that the prosecutor withheld during his trial. Withholding exculpatory evidence is a criminal act thus a reviewing court vacated both convictions, and Thompson was found not guilty in a retrial on the murder charge. The issue and question the court will address regards does imposing failure-to-train liability on a district attorney's office for a single Brady violation?

Missouri V. Frye: In this case, Missouri prosecutors offered Galin E. Frye two deals while seeking his conviction for driving while his license was revoked. However, Frye’s lawyer never told him about the offers. Frye pleaded guilty to a felony charge and was sentenced to three years in prison. He appealed, saying his lawyer should have told him about the previous deals. A Missouri appeals court agreed. Prosecutors contend that not knowing about the deals they offered doesn't mean that Frye didn't know what he was doing when he decided to plead guilty. The question will be whether or not a defendant who validly pleads guilty asserts a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel by alleging that, but for counsel's error in failing to communicate a plea offer; he would have pleaded guilty with more favorable terms?

Occupy Wallstreet: Marines are Coming to PROTECT the Protesters

2011-10-03T09:51:00.000-04:00

What Obama Can Learn From Mugabe that Ron Paul Did

2011-09-30T12:24:00.007-04:00

Hard to imagine it was just four years ago that pundits across the globe were slinging harsh and vilifying attacks against Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. They asserted that Mugabe under the banner of populism and black sovereignty had run and was continuing to run the country's economy into the ground. Inflation's was at an unimaginable rate of 100,000 percent which eventually grew to 231 million percent.The shelves of many stores were almost empty and prices were constantly increasing due to hyperinflation. For the general population, it was estimated that four out of five people were unemployed and that the situation was so bad that about 3,000 people a day were reported to be crossing Zimbabwe's borders into neighboring countries.

This no longer is the case, thanks namely to policies put in place and established by the same supposedly villainous Robert Mugabe. No longer does the African nation suffer with the highest rate of inflation in the world. Now just a few years’ latter goods are back on the shelves of local stores. Why, because of the government's decision to replace the Zimbabwe dollar with the South African rand and the US dollar.

The Zimbabwe's economy has produced economic growth for two successive years due to positive policies and strong commodity prices, and this according to the International Monetary Fund. Although this southern African country's economy was beaten down by hyperinflation (drops in value) which reached 500 billion percent in 2008 and grew 5.7 percent in 2009, now as it stands, Zimbabwe has a budget surplus and demonstrates additional signs of improvement. The economy of Zimbabwe grew close to 8 percent in 2010 is expected to grow near 10 percent this year.

The question for many remains how did this happen after being vilified by the United States and Europe just 5 years ago for not doing enough to improve the economy and the nation’s policy for land redistribution from Europeans to native Zimbabweans? How is this possible when once the rest of the world was saying that the people of Zimbabwe were not capable of self-government? First higher gold and platinum prices have boosted exports and government revenues in 2010. In addition, not being the victim of severe droughts as other African nations around the horn have resulted in conditions contributed that have led to increase in agricultural output. The policies of Mugabe targeted several areas including but not limited to reducing rigid labor market constraints, establishing security of land tenure, clarifying ownership requirements under the indigenization legislation, and addressing concerns about governance in the diamond sector. They also implemented other reforms including actions that have resulted in a more than 50 % increase of livestock folds across the country. Last but not least, there were the strict reforms imposed in the banking system.

Given all of the aforementioned, I often wonder why have these occurrences in Zimbabwe and imposed by President Mugabe received vapid coverage in mainstream western media and not openly discussed and acknowledged by President Obama? After all it was just last year when the nation‘s central bank introduced a $50 billion note (at the time enough to buy just two loaves of bread). It was implemented to avoid cash shortages because like our dollar, theirs was virtually worthless. The simple lesson for the President should be to learn from what we observe transpire in Zimbabwe, but he will not. Some economist have suggested that with the Federal Reserve Bank incessant use of quantitative easing (printing fiat money willy nily), that the U.S. economy will enter “hyperinflation” similar to what we saw in Zimbabwe. Why because no matter what, the artificiality of the US economy will be subjected to the reluctance of the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. We are already seeing large increases in everything from commodities to basic goods and with government debt growing so much, inflation has to start to accelerate at a dangerous rate.

From a policy approach it is obvious that Obama doesn’t comprehend, understand or believe the aforementioned as being a tenable outcome. Dr. Ron Paul does since he understands and states that “a thriving economy is not the but the result of a free people.” The actions of the President and a House that currently only serves to manage economic forces in an effort to mandate how business should be conducted, fail to egage the larger picture. Although not completely flawless, Dr. Paul’s economic principles rest on the idea that humans have the right to choose how to interact with one another. The clearest example concerns how we conduct foreign policy as nation and how these actions inherently impact our potential for economic growth negatively. For him, there is no reason to provide $3 billion to Israel annually while at the same time give their Arab neighbors and enemies and $12. Paul is the only current politician who has stated the reality of the US economy being considerably in worse shape than Europe.

First we owe Japan more than a trillion dollars, not to mention we are in worse shape than Japan, even after their natural disasters since they do have major exports to lean on and higher rates of savings available. The question should be why are US politicians from the President on down not addressing the citizens of this nation honestly about our economic conundrum? What are we doing to maintain our competitive edge in the world while all other nations are acting? Nothing, we fuss and bicker and Obama doesn’t show the will or ability to work on this from a serious purview and neither do Republicans. While Zimbabwe is going through with their plans for a gold-backed currency and China Becomes World’s Largest Gold Buyer, our economy is slowing down and we applaud an artificial stock bubble like it means we are back on track. Things that Paul openly supports.

As opposed to trying to solve our problems, our federal government only attempts to spends, borrow, and print money our-way out of debt so much that the dollar is null. Why, because our politicians figure the best way to grow (which isn’t growth) our economy is by printing new money to pay its debts, and borrows hundreds of billions abroad in the form of Treasury obligations that someday must be paid. All of this even when they know such is in contradiction to the laws of economics. From what has been said and written, it is pellucid that Dr. Paul understands this as well as Robert Mugabe. The query is does or can President Obama and can he learn from them both?

Tale of 2 America’s: Separate and Unequal

2011-09-29T08:55:00.006-04:00

America is falling apart and is reverting to what it always was: two nations inside of one. A frightening prospective but not unexpected given the lack of leadership in Washington; both party’s included as well as each branch of government. Maybe unbeknownst to the President also, given that he is asking people to fight on his behalf yet forgetting that it is hard for people to fight when they are hungry or homeless.

Once the call of this nation was separate but equal, a statement that cannot be validated even by simple algebra. Unfortunately in today’s parlance, all indicators reveal the overt reality that as a nation, we are separate and unequal – a lucid fact visible in black and white. If this divide is not mended, there will be hell on the avenues across this great nation.

Although we excel in some things, as a people, African Americans comprise 13% of Americans but only 4% of U.S. physicians, 3.2% of Lawyers, and less than 1% of architects but 69% of NFL, 80% of NBA and 98% of all rappers. The infant mortality rate of African Americans is 13.4 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to 5.5 and 5.7 for Hispanics and whites accordingly. Just 12 % of AA fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 % of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

What is real is that we are our worse enemy and that the American oligarchical powers have used this to their advantage. A new report has just been released confirming that as Africa Americans we watch more TV than any other racial/ethnic group in the U.S. according to figures released on March 30, 2011. Moreover, Based on data collected in November 2010, African Americans used their TVs an average of 7 hours, 12 minutes each day — above the U.S. average of 5 hours, 11 minutes. Yet still, the disparities across the board are due to systemic practices of racism that elected leaders, regardless of race and political affiliation ignore as well.

Between 2003 and 2007, African American mothers had infant mortality rates at least twice as high as white mothers and AA children ages 17 and under were nearly 50 percent more likely to be without private or government health insurance than white children and that AA children ages 18 and under were three times more likely to live in single-parent households than white children. Nearly two-thirds of all AA children lived in a single–parent household and were twice as likely as white children to live in a household where no parent had full-time or year-round employment. Just one-third of AA children had a parent with a high school diploma, 24 % had a parent with at least some college experience, and less than 15 % had a parent who held a bachelor’s degree. These figures are not from the Ante-bellum south or during Jim Crow, but from the past few years and are just some of the reasons why one out of every three AA children lives in poverty compared with one out of every ten white children.

We are poor, jobless and in pain yet the nation’s first African American President and his political party ignore our desperate pleas as equally as the Republicans. Although Obama has proposed a job plan, it is difficult to see, unless targeted in urban areas and toward African American businesses, how this will aid in reducing the massive rate of unemployment we face.

For example, the dramatic difference with respect to access to capital. According to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data, the median level of net worth among blacks is $6,200, eleven times lower than whites. Evidence shows that at startup, black entrepreneurs experience higher loan denial and tend to pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses. Moreover, white-owned businesses have more than $80,000 of initial capital on average compared to black-owned businesses have less than $30,000 startup capital.

Regardless of the systemic constraints, we also must face the truth of aiding in our own demise and allowing these two nations within one to exist. From education to the correctional system this is observable. More than two-thirds of African American male dropouts are expected to serve time in state or federal prison. It would be idiotic to overlook the impact that arrests and incarceration have on African American families and communities. Since the 1990s, nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 were under criminal justice supervision, while more than two out of five had been incarcerated. Making African American males being incarcerated (4,618 per 100,000) 6 times more likely to be held in custody than white males: resulting in an estimated 1,559,200 children had a father in prison at midyear 2007; almost half (46%) were children of black fathers.Something is wrong with this America, the segment that has basically forgotten the sacrifices others made decades before them in order for them to be complacent, for they believe that they have theirs and that is all that matters.

But this is not reality. Today’s African American youth watch TV around 6 hours a day compared to 3 hours to whites and are exposed 6 hours more in total to all media when compared to white youth Even worse is that reading newspapers or books is basically none existence for African American youth, with whites and Asians reading way more each day, especially books, which if data is accurate, African American read on average 11 minutes a day and 33 minutes in total in terms of all print media.

If they do reach the point of completing High school and attending college, the nationwide graduation rate for African Americans is 42 %, most of which are females. As of five years ago, fewer than 8 % of young African American males graduated from college compared to 17% of white males in the same age group. What does this mean? It means that "The 4.5 million African American men ages 15 to 29 represent 14% of the U.S. male population of that age and
12% of all African Americans in the U.S. Their high rates of death, incarceration, and unemployment, and relatively low levels of college graduation rates raise concerns for African American families and the nation’s economy."

Yes America used to be a tale of two nations, black and white and separate but equal. Now this has returned however this time these two places are substantially unequal. Yes Obama wants us to get to marching, but he is missing the big social picture. People cannot march when sick and hungry. And they will not if the president is not open equally to hearing their pain. Instead they will be stealing copper from air conditioners and telephone poles, forming flash mobs and robbing stores and driving truck through beauty supply stores and stealing natural Indian hair.This is the new America and once people really get hungry, there will be hell to pay.

All Obama Need is Gonads to Deal With GOP

2011-09-28T09:11:00.011-04:00

The Solyndra debacle has shown us average Americans how buddy-buddy American politics really is in its relationship to wealth donors and big corporations. It has shown us that the democrats are no more concerned about the needs of the average citizen as well as the two-facedness of the GOP. Last week, republicans jumped all over the 2009 decision by the Obama administration to provide the solar energy corporation with a $535 billion dollar government loan and the subsequent fact that the company filed for bankruptcy. Republicans have used this platform to move further to criticize the administrations “clean energy” projects as a viable means to create jobs across the nation. However, they fail to mention that behind closed doors, the request and receive funds for their state from that very same program.
For example, although Republican Representative Lamar Smith of Texas recently requested the office of the Attorney General to appoint an investigator to determine how the department of Energy doles out clean energy funding, in 2009 he wrote the Secretary of the DOE to approve loan guarantees from stimulus money for the Texas based Tessera Solar. Then there is Senator Mitch McConnell, who called the clean energy program a bust. McConnell, of Kentucky, has worked tirelessly to get income for clean-energy projects in Kentucky, including writing Energy Secretary Steven Chu to approve $235 million in sovereign loans for a plant to build electric vehicles in Franklin in 2009.
In fact the more one looks the more hypocrisy that can be isolated. Another Republican, Sen.
David Vitter said that the Obama administration was "reckless" for subsidizing renewable-energy projects, but the Louisiana Republican wrote to the Energy Department at least seven times since 2009 for clean energy funding for projects that would benefit his home state. One of which for a company that makes activated carbon to reduce pollution at coal-fired power plants at a $245 million lick (loan guarantee). Specifically he wanted a loan approved for Red River Environmental Products of Coushatta, La. Vitter’s next door neighbor, Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who heads the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee and chairs a subcommittee investigating the Solyndra deal, also has backed clean energy jobs. Sterns wanted money for the Saft America plant (makes lithium-ion battery cells for military hybrid vehicles and solar and wind energy storage) in Jacksonville. For his efforts they received a $95.5 million grant from the Energy Department. He was also able to obtain $125 million for New Planet BioEnergy, a biofuel refinery plant.

True, the Solyndra loan had been fast-tracked by the Obama administration to get it approved in time for a scheduled visit to the California plant by Vice President Biden. But if McConnell and other in the GOP leadership are upset at the Obama administration for wasting more than half a billion dollars on the California company, then he has to come to grips with what they sees in the mirror. I am sure I could have mentioned a few more, like Rep. Darrell Issa’s own involvement in clean energy loans or GOP Representative Fred Upton of Michigan. Funny, if I can find this in the public domain, I wonder why Obama can’t or better yet, why doesn’t he call them out on their hypocrisy. The only thing I can think is that either he is scared of white republicans or he just doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to stand his ground. It shouldn’t be too hard to point out that what they hammer him on regarding Department of Energy loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc.; they are doing the exact same thing. Strange how politics work.

What If George Bush Said What Obama Said?

2011-09-27T10:07:00.006-04:00

To complain simply is to express grief, pain or discontent. I take it is difficult for President Obama to accept, feel or believe that some people, in particular in the African American community have such feelings. That we have grief of no longer having health insurance or being able to buy for our kids things that we once took for granted. That we feel pain when we struggle to keep our homes or maintain balanced diets to place in front of our family for breakfast lunch and dinner. Or that we feel discontent when we see the government making massive bailout to millionaires who work on Wall Street but barely lift a finger to deal with our concern with the exception as he did recently, to order us to stop complaining and “shut up.” Because he was tiered of us voicing or grief, pain and discontent.

I wonder why this posture is taken. Funny, I didn’t hear such a tone or statement made toward Jewish Americans recently when thye COMPLAINED about President Obama’s statements regarding a return to the 1967 borders of Israel. Nor did I hear a similar statement addressed to the Gay and Lesbian community when they voiced outrage and discontent toward not having the rights of marriage or concerning don’t ask don’t tell in the military. Nor did I hear him make such statements regarding Latino and Hispanic immigrants when they voice their pain of having to leave their families if caught up in the web of draconian attacks on supposedly illegal immigration. Yet I do with respect to African Americans.

Strangely, it reminds me of the posture of the mulatto half-breed house slave in diametric opposition to the field slaves. They were the ones to say that all would be good, yet they stayed inside with the slave master while the field slave risked all to the elements, the scraps that served as food and trying to maintain dignity in a world that saw a hierarchy in status based on skin color.

I cannot say why Obama was so brazen to use these words to those who look more like him than Zionist and others of European descent, but I can speculate it has to do a little bit with fear – that he fears the wrath of his master more so than the wrath of his kindred.

The presentation to the CBC I fell was a discussion between house slaves, including the President and the elected representatives and all who have jobs, and insurance and are not having to fight each and every day to keep their homes. The President said what he did and to ask those with a history of protest and complaint against a government who has traditionally ignored and neglected them is out of place, for in the same voice he asks us to speak out and complain against the republicans on Capitol Hill. It was disturbing for theirs was a discussion between themselves and did nothing to address the pain that we on Main Street are feeling. I say this because if George WW, Bush addressed the same body and told black folks to stop complaining we would not be defending his rhetoric. It is just speculation but I do not think we would support such an assertion on his behalf and that we only do so because the President happens to look like us.

If I am asked, as a man, not to voice my complaints to the government or a president, then what I am being told is that my voice or opinion is not important, doesn’t matter and doesn’t count. Now there will those who disagree but I can respect their opinion. The question is if they can accept mine. For sadly, I do not know if they experience the pain and discontent that I do, being under employed, going from 6 figures annually for more than 15 years of my life to less than $30,000 annually.

I think it would be wise for the president to reconsider such a tone with his most vehement supporters. For I feel that he is faling into a trap set by his enemies of divid and conquor. The ame approach used by house slaves against the field slaves. What he may not be aware of is that he was not just addressing the people of staus in that roo alone, but all of us. The poor, the underclas and the forgotten.

Yes, the President showed his true colors during that address. Its ok to speak down to African American mothers who struggle to put food on the table, its ok to tell men encapsulated by the wrath of a criminal justice system they they should not speak out to the government or president about the misery they suffer, that it is not ok for the three of every five African Americans living in poverty to ask for change and express their pain and suffering. If you do, you will be told to accept your lot and to not complain. I just wonder if George Bush would have the same support in the African American community if he said the same thing to the same body. I think not.

Smart money knows the stock market is finished. Get prepared

2011-09-26T09:39:00.001-04:00

African Americans To Selfish To Support Divestment of Georgia For Davis Execution

2011-09-24T17:29:00.000-04:00

This past week Troy Davis was executed in the state of Georgia. The event was both preceded and followed with loquacious disdain and vehement sadness. Georgia as a state has a history of disparities in executions when the defendant is an African American and the victim is white. That withstanding, the outrage that has manifested may be a blessing in disguise with respect to trying to abolish the death penalty nationwide.

Amidst this discussion has come suggestions of how to show our disappointment against the injustice of this execution under the banner of legalized state murder. One is a request to boycott the state of Georgia by filmmaker Michael Moore. Moore has called for an economic boycott of the state of Georgia to protest Wednesday's execution of Troy Davis. And although I live in this state, I support and believe in this form of economic non-violent moratorium.

The reality as sad as it may be is that African Americans are too selfish to support a massive divestment movement. Sure in the 1980s we supported divestment against the racist state of South Africa, but that was not home and truthfully speaking, that generation was massively more socially conscience than the current generation. I cannot see the actors or producers of the hit BET series “The Game” ending their production for the large social principal of social injustice under the auspices of the mass incarceration and disparate executions of African Americans. I cannot envision that the recently held conference “For sisters only” would stop holding their annual event here because of a call of disinvestment due to the Troy Davis execution. I cannot imagine or could I see Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye West, or any other R&B/Hip Hop artist not attending the BET Hip Hop Awards which also are held in the state of Georgia yearly.

Maybe I am wrong but I doubt it, for the reason Troy Davis got attention anyway was because it was on television recently, and not by accident. The query remains where were these people since 1989 in the calling for justice for Davis or any other African American bum rushed by the US correctional system? Where were their calls for Mumia Abu Jamal? I tell you, likely calling for the release of TI, Lil Wayne and Gucci Mane.

I would like to wish a unified effort of divestment would be possible, but I cannot see no rapper saying he will not frequent a Georgia strip club and make it rain to the tune of at least $10,000. Face it, we do not care, won’t put our money where our mouth is and care more about ourselves than the community. After all, I got a Maibach and you do not. I frequent red carpets and V.I.P. and you don’t, for the way it really is, me comes before we.

Bilderberg agenda exposed in EU parliament

2011-09-23T09:10:00.000-04:00

Our African American Political Followship

2011-09-22T12:43:00.008-04:00

With the intense attention given to the inveighed execution of Troy Davis, it has become clear, in a lamentable yet derisory way, how hushed elected African American political officials (elected or appointed) have been on this subject. So reticent are this corpus and their associate vitiated apostasy to this issue that I feel they should be described as elected followers instead of elected leaders.

This obvious and intractable observation is applicable across the board. Now I do not expect President Obama to speak out against such, for his overall presentation is one that minimizes and even approaches race as an inchoate vagueness of language singularly that has no place in politics if one’s goal is simply re-election. Although I wish that he would have asserted himself into the debate, and I know when states’ rights issues of the past, saw Presidents send national guards to protect freedom riders for example, I know that the cowardice displayed in him is based on the fear of losing political capital.

With that said, I do however espouse a direct indictment against the policies evinced by the government at all levels with respect to the incarceration of African American men. As well, I also place the same egregious outcome at the inaction and silence of what we consider or elected political leadership, for they are a part of the aforementioned government.

Just using the example of Troy Davis, I have read nothing regarding their positions or antagonism against the proposed execution of Mr. Davis. I may be wrong and maybe they have, but I have not. I think I read somewhat more than the average person in particular regards to economics, politics, science and history. Nothing from Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice or Charles Rangel. Nothing from Harold Ford, Jr., Tim Scott, Allen West, Deval Patrick, Kamala Harris or Atlanta’s own Kasim Reed, not a whisper. Leaders if they are such should desire to make and produce more leaders as opposed to the penchant to collect followers just to support their individual political gain in the form of re-election.

It is as if once elected, regardless of party affiliation, they develop what Randall Kennedy termed “negrophobia.” Although history and practice dictates the impct of race on political and social outcomes, it is apperant that overtly, a discussion of such by African American political officials is apparently taboo. One can speculate about why such is the case, but such cannot be ignored. As voters we are chastised for not showing up in mass numbers at the polls but the same level of accountability for elected African American officals is abrogated, not for the collective but specific individual gain (a presidency, congressional seat or governorship.This in light of factual accords that even Helen Keller could see.

We know that Black males ages 30 to 34 had the highest custody incarceration rate of any race, age, or gender group at midyear 2007 and that in 2001, the chances of going to prison were highest among black males (32.2%). We know that Black children (7.0%) were nearly 9 times more likely to have a parent in prison than white children (0.8%) and that a large majority of African-American men – 55 percent in Chicago, for example are labeled felons for life or that roughly 70 percent of those on federal death row are minorities, mostly African Americans. We know that since 1990 in Georgia, Black Defendant / White Victim murders resulted in 253 executions and that the rate at which blacks are incarcerated compared to whites in Texas: 7 to 1. The icing on the cake from a political perspective is that 1.46 million Black men out of a total voting population of 10.4 million have lost their right to vote due to felony convictions. In summary meaning that 1 in every 20 black men over the age of 18 is in a state or federal prison, compared to one in every 180 whites.

The question remains if this is an intentional avoidance in an effort to appease the white power elite oligarchy that runs this nation? Such objective outcomes in the real sense marginalize the poor and minorities as evidenced by current incarceration, unemployment and poverty rates.It is possible that I am wrong to expect that elected African American politicians should fight vehemently against racial discriminatory outcomes and the policies that result in such.
Unfortunately for me it is the practices mandated by lay that produce such disparities, tend to be maintained by these people who feel we are obligated to select them to political office for our vote. I have asked the question, where have black folk been since 1989 regarding troy Davis? Asking to Free TI and Gucci mane but not him or Mumia Abu-Jamal. But I will continue to ask where are the African American politicians on the pandemic of incarceration plaguing our community. Or their views on the execution of Troy Davis? In conclusion, just as those more concerned with the release of hip hop artist from prison, these elected politicians too are followers, way more so than leaders.