14 years of the same ISH

Sometimes I feel as if I am in a bad dream, it is as if President Obama and President George W. Bush are one in the same, for the policies I was vehemently against while GWB was in office, I am still against and have been put in effect a lot more viscerally under Obama.  What I saw with Bush: the incessant wars, taxbreaks for the wealthy, the banks and Wall Street getting wealthier without any threat of prosecution for criminal wrong doing and war mongering, I see two times in President Obama.

Bush did not place U.S. domestic issues as being our main priority, and nor does Obama. Bush was preoccupied with Iraq, and Afghanistan and Mr. Obama, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, and now the Ukraine. Currently the latter is more like some dystopian Fourier reality, that for him is dynamic and fascinating, but for the majority of Americans, wasteful and unnecessary. It is as if the Ukraine and parcels of land 99 percent of Americans will never see or set foot upon, deserves more attention than the millions of Americans with major financial needs like the hungry, the homeless, or the millions who can’t pay their rent or mortgages or whom need jobs at living wages.

There is no valid reason to be occupied with the Ukraine when what we face at home is a true national security threat economically. Just this past week, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen informed the Joint Economic Committee of Congress that under current policies the federal government’s deficits “will rise to unsustainable levels.” Unemployment, depressed wages and unadmitted inflation is killing us. We are over our head and drowning in deficit spending so all we left with is printing “mo money, mo money and mo money,” to use a phrase from “In Living Color.”

Why is the U.S. economy more of a national security issue than the Ukraine? First, at last count, about 5 trillion or approximately 47% of U.S. debt is owned by foreign investors, the largest being China and Japan at (plus $1.1 trillion each). Unlike us, the Russian government expects to have a budget surplus according to the IMF. Add to this, Russia also has a trade surplus which increased to $18.86 billion while the U.S. trade deficit continues to fall. If anything, maybe the U.S. wants a war so it can rev up its dire economic prospectus. For it is clear that what we observed when George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, the same can be noted, applied and said for the Obama Administration – the economic and financial need ­of conflict with another energy rich nation.

Why else make a big fuss about nothing? Obama in his neoliberal caricature resembles Balzac’s master criminal Vautrin more than the leader of the free world as the U.S. has been coined. Big oil and Wall Street made a killing under Bush. The U.S. invasion of Iraq crushed that country, destroyed Iraq’s state-owned oil industry, and grew the price of   crude from $20 a barrel to $147 a barrel in 2008 (needless to state Exxon Mobil’s most profitable year ever). The point being whenever sanctions are placed on an energy rich nation, U.S. plutocrats get paid. Obama is just extending the Bush playbook and we saw such in 2011 when sanctions were placed on Iran and Sudan. And when they don’t work, we have good ole NATO, who implemented an undeclared war on Libya, not to forget the CIA efforts in Syria. Thus, it doesn’t take a high school graduate to foresee the impact or likely impact the disruption of the flow of Russian energy to Europe would mean for big U.S. oil companies.

Obama and Bush are in policy, one and the same person, the only differences are gang, I mean political affiliation and ethnicity. The U.S. I suspect see the Ukraine as a means to grow and escalate military spending across Europe, making the U.S. military industrial complex more loot on behalf of U.S. oil interest. See, what corporate U.S.A and Wall Street know is that war drives capital into the United States, which keep U.S. banks the main feature of the global economy by cutting the deficit and artificially propping up the dollar. This is the only conclusion that is both reasonable and logical for as German MP Alexander Neu noted, “Not a single NATO country is in any way threatened,” by the actions in the Ukraine. Plus, what would we expect, there are more than 6000 German companiesactive in Russia with more than $27 billion invested in the nation. Meaning just like Iraq was no threat, or Libya, or Syria, Obama economic and foreign policy is no different than his predecessor with the exception it is on steroids.

 

Detroit Is the Future

One thing for certain, is that in politics, ethics and morality is a sign of cowardice.  They are the dead weights of any autocratic disposition when it comes to profits and financial gain, in particular when buttressed on the backs and hard work of those whom anyone seeking and securing the highest office in these United States of America – the presidency, need to obtain power.

Thus it should come as no surprise, as was the case with presidents before him, that Barack Obama has learned this lesson well.  Since he has taken office, while implementing the same policies of Bush and Clinton before him, U.S. businesses have never had it so good. As we speak, the masses are working harder than ever before, that is if they have a job or if under employed.  The global banking houses and large multi-national corporations have more loot than they can ever use and continue to add more and more each day, whether we are speaking in terms of cash on balance sheets or in terms of their proportion of ownership of the U.S. economy.

I start with Clinton because it was in the 1990s when our service industry began to bloom and our manufacturing base declined, and it may have had its signature moment when he signed into law, with Republican approval, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (welfare reform) in 1996. Yes, this was the start of the rapid growth of the so-called 1 percent, which Obama has increased more dramatically in economic prosperity in five years than the sixteen combined years of both Bush and Clinton.  It continued when Clinton ended Glass-Stegall, Signed GATT and NAFTA into law and implemented the Commodities Futures Modernization act which not only gave way to new fancy smancy accounting methods but also the mass proliferation of various complex papers based on selling debt.  And with a debt based economy come the obvious, less jobs, less employment, less value in the dollar, a decline in available jobs and an increase in overall poverty.

You see, it isn’t particle physics, but rather the natural result of Keynesian political/economic philosophy that results in what we see in places like Detroit. In simple terms, from this perspective, growth in corporate profits is directly correlated to people being paid less and less. This means that if profits continue to grow for the few, wages will continue to decline for the majority. And as wages continue to decline the US labor market will never ever be able to reach full employment – ever. Namely because companies make their profits by employing as few workers as possible and by transporting what jobs are available abroad to places like India and China.

This is not by accident. As I pen this, we are in a time in which working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps. It used to be the elderly and children. All because government polices produced within the beltway are nothing more that state supported economic theft and terrorism. Policies that over leverage economic gain singularly toward the direction of corrupt plutocrats in the form of capital misallocation courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank in the form this time of what is called Quantative Easing. In 2012 alone, more than 200 people became billionaires which when added to the more than 1400 billionaires in the US, gives them an estimated $5.4 trillion in combined net worth.

President Obama’s focus on deficit spending doesn’t and will never help the folk who may or may not have voted for him but it does help those whom he appoints to political positions and his other large campaign contributors. The people on Wall Street have access to funding, at a cheap price too given the Federal Reserve Bank’s penchant for hold down interest rates near zero while people who are the heart of America see their rent and food and gas cost steadily rise.  Many call this outcome “internal devaluation,” and is what we have seen abroad in Europe especially in nations like Italy, Greece, Spain  and more recently the Ukraine.

Now if you watch TV or even listened to the President’s State of The Union Address, you probably think it is all good, but that is only because of “newspeak” and selectively telling you what they want you to know.  For example, the only reason they can report that American competitiveness increased by over 10%, is because folks are getting paid less and due to all the benefits and wealth that is counted is what is on the books of big corporations.  They will tell you that  in December that that employment grew by 74,000 jobs and that as a consequence, the unemployment rate went from 7.0% to 6.7%.  But what they won’t say is that to keep up with the new folk entering the work force (which are not counted as unemployed) the nation needs 250,000 jobs just to maintain pace for this group of available workers alone. Or that the same month, the net number of folk with jobs (full-time and part-time) fell by 400,000 to a 35 year low. Then to add insult to injury, they will say that American economic productivity has grown in the area of about 7 percent since 2007, as if that is a good thing, but won’t say that during the same period in China it grew 90 percent.

 These are dire times in America and unfortunately, President Obama and his economic team are not making things any better for the majority of US citizens. What they are doing is developing the middle class in China at the expense of the middle class here for all the jobs that were once middle class (like in Detroit) are now in China. And this is their game, to artificially promote fake progress, while lowering the wages of Americans and growing unemployment, while the rich get richer, because they want a global market place with a global labor pool that they can pick and choose who to pay what.  By doing this, American job seekers will by default have to take lower wages, meaning the middle class is gone and that Detroit, is the future of America.

Neoliberalism and Foreign Policy in the Obama Adminisration

Undoubtedly the Obama Administration inherited a complete mess from the prior administration covering both the economy and foreign policy. And true to form, he in many respects has continued the aforesaid policies of the former president from the bail out of the Auto industry, TARP, extending the Bush tax cuts and even Bush’s neoconservative foreign policy undertakings. In the classic sense, a large assemblage would propose that Obama’s foreign policy strategy is diametrically opposite to the neoconservative hawks of the prior administration. Maybe, but in the verity of evidence suggest that the present administration has only morphed neoconservative dogma into neoliberal dogma.

This case can be made singularly by presenting the current Obama administration policies regarding Iran, Israel, Libya, and even tertiary nations like Nigeria, Somalia and the Congo, IT IS NOT FAR FETCHED TO draw the aforementioned parallel within a historical context. As a nation the foreign policy approach of the Obama administration to be fair, remains in the tradition of the fallacy of the first crusades which resulted in the capture of Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks in 1099. This remains to be the premise of what we see between the west (US and Europe) and the East (Arabs, Persians and Asians).

What do I mean you may ask? Well today as then, the US is a representation of the crusader state – meaning that our goals through foreign policy are to promote a universal culture of values “that must be spread throughout the world in the righteous cause of peace.” This is the basic tenant of Wilsonian idealism the way I have understood political history and put in action by both Obama and Bush. Neoconservative appears to be conservative yet support and favor big government, interventionism, and hostility to religion in politics and government.

Neoconservatives played a small role in the Ronald Reagan Administration, but came out the closet during the George W. Bush Administration after 2001. In comparison, the same can be said of Obama whose primary foreign policy goal demonstrates zeal to expand world peace and preserve American exceptionalism at any cost.

As I recall, Obama campaigned against President Bush’s policies, yet he continues most of these policies today. Like Bush, he has increased funding for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and has quadrupled overseas deployments. In Somalia for example, the Obama administration “has put in place policies to limit food aid to the region, using food as a weapon of war and killing hundreds of civilians weekly via its use of US drone strikes. Recently he has sent US troops to oil rich Uganda (Uganda has yet to produce a single barrel of oil) to intervene militarily to help Uganda fight the rebels of the LRA who are currently in the Central African Republic. Recently, more information has surfaced asserting that the U.S. Army has been making “preparations for possible direct military intervention in Nigeria.”

All I am saying is that the manner in which many pundits attacked neoconservative foreign policy was appropriate and the same amount of scrutiny needs to be directed at this new neoliberal foreign policy of Obama. The only difference between the two is not idealism but rather methodological. Bush proffered a less technological approach than Obama currently employs.

Although the present administration is providing the appearance of getting of Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama continues to stay the of Bush neoconservative policy in the Middle East pushing out longtime rulers, as was the case in Libya and as he is attempting to do in Syria. Albeit his first act as President was signing an executive order to close the facility holding terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay within a year, he still maintains the policy of the former administration as well as has continued a version of the Bush practice of renditions. I wonder how essential it was to hold and water boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a secret prison in Eastern Europe to help get info to identify Osama bin Laden’s couriers?

Also, Obama in concert with Eric Holder continue the practice of indefinite detentions and continue to trample the civil liberties of US citizens just as Bush did with the Patriot Act and the FBI’s ability to obtain certain phone records without warrants. The Obama’s Justice Department has given legal authority for the continuation of these policies.

Now I did not get a chance to speak on the example of Ira and Israel, but I will and soon, just not here. The only point I wanted to try and make that the neoconservative philosophy many conservatives applaud today has not been removed from the current Whitehouse. In fact it has changed and mutated into a more vile policy perspective, that has taken us even further back to the times of the crusades, one which says to the world it is our way or the high way. My only concern is that other nations don’t forget the pangs of neocolonial practices they see make nations like the US richer, while they barely have food to eat and water to drink.

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

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.

Nec Spe, Nec Metu

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.

What If George Bush Said What Obama Said?

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.

How George W. Bush and Barack Obama Destroyed the Black Middle Class

In June, a poll conducted by the largest social network for African Americans, BlackPlanet.com, and NewsOne.com of 1,100 African Americans, revealed that 88 percent of them believe the economy has been better under President Obama than former President George W. Bush. The truth of the matter is that both Bush and Obama have basically, through their expansionary economic policy, destroyed the black middle class.

Since 2005, the wealth of African Americans — who now have the highest unemployment rate at 16.2 percent — dropped 53 percent from $12,124 to $5,677. The median wealth of white U.S. households in 2009 was $113,149, compared with $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks, according to the analysis released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.

When President Bush took office, unemployment stood at a respectable 4.6 percent. Next, Bush put in place a tax policy that favored the rich and created a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time the current president leaves Washington. Now we have a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris — or even the Yukon — becomes a venture in high finance.

Despite their political differences, both President Bush and Barack Obama have employed the same fiscal policy, since both were confronted with recessions. But unfortunately, their expansionary economic approach did more harm and impacted African Americans disproportionately. First, it increased the federal debt. Obama’s fiscal year 2012 budget proposed a $1.07 trillion deficit, even though the recession was over and first budget in fiscal year 2010 ran the highest deficit ever — $1.6 trillion. Prior to Obama, Bush’s last budget, for fiscal year 2009, started out with a $500 billion deficit. However, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s TARP plan was added to it, not to mention the $500 billion deficit to fund the war on terror.

During the administration of George W. Bush, the U.S. economy started a downward trend. Consequently, those hurt the most were blacks, since the average black household lost over half its wealth between 2005 and 2009. Black homeownership hit an all-time high in 2004, with 50 percent of African Americans owning their homes, according to census data. Presently, the black homeownership rate is 45 percent, with around 8 percent of African Americans who bought homes from 2005-2008 losing them to foreclosure, compared with 4.5 percent of whites, according to an estimate by the Center for Responsible Lending.

For millions of African Americans, under Bush and Obama, the reality is that unemployment is still rising and job loss is pushing many back into poverty at historic levels.

In 2004, the median net worth of white households was $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute. By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860; the median black net worth had fallen 83 percent to $2,170.

Yes, many will point to Obama inheriting the Bush economic mess as a reason to defend the current president. But the truth is that he, in concert with Bush, contributed to the growing black unemployment rate and the reduction of the black middle class.

Body Blow: How Obama killed the Bin Laden, the GOP and Neo-Cons with one Punch

Strange how things come full circle. Cartesian mathematics could not have had a better postulate for the circle than Obama’s terse maneuvers to take out the aging and dialysis requiring Osama Bin Laden. During the election, Obama made it clear that he was not opposed to all wars but rather Iraq was not a battle that targeted Al Qaeda. He made it clear that, if elected, he would focus on both Afghanistan and Pakistan. John McCain ridiculed him for adding Pakistan as his main focus.

Obama’s announcement that Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, occurred just two years into his Presidency, successfully keeping his promise to capture and kill America’s public enemy number one.

Obama has always been underestimated by the GOP even when for 8 years, Bush falsely elevated terror alert levels to provide a fake penumbra the safety of America was priority number one. Especially when we consider that the Bush administration was warned by the CIA on Monday, August 6, 2001, that this attack by Al Qaeda was imminent and that he did nothing about it. The GOP incessantly suggest that Democrats are “soft” on terrorism, while the bloodiest attack on this country since Pearl Harbor happened on the GOP’s watch. Also recall how the Bush administration, swiftly flew members of the Bin Laden family out of the country before they could be questioned. Yes, how quick we are to remember that OBL was a member of the Saudi Royal family. I will not even introduce how Bush pulled our military out of Tora Bora when they were within an inch of capturing bin Laden.

Obama has even taken it from the left when he vowed to escalate the fight in Afghanistan – a tactic that placed more pressure on bin Laden. He alone directed Panetta to make it a priority to get Osama and personally authorized the hit.

Although a great week (he has put the birther movement to shame, visited the tornado ravaged south, and was a star at the Whitehouse comedy gala this past weekend). Yes he has been vindicated. The query now is if he will use this to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan and cut our military budget, and save Medicare and our economy?

I hope note, the first part that is and would like to see him use this model in Yemen to get American-born Anwar Al-Awlak. The president has demonstrated that actions speak louder than words. While Trump and the birthers were looking for birth certificate and threating to close own the federal government, Obama looked for and found bin Laden and kept it a secret with his stellar poker face.

Obama's Poland

A few years ago on an August day, a pact was made between the United States and Poland to deploy US made ‘interceptor missiles’ on Polish soil. Althought it was implemented under the penumbra of protecting European NATO allies from a Russian nuclear attack a move that some considered to be a dangerous move towards nuclear war.

The US also planned to deploy a radar in the Czech Republic as part of this missile defense system as part of a US-controlled missile shield for Europe and North America. In theory it is to protect us and western nations from so-called potential "rogue states," such as Iran but the real deal is Russia.

This is why START is so important for the Obama administration. A while back Russian President Vladimir Putin exposed the shallowness of the US propaganda line by offering a startled President Bush that Russia would offer the US use of Russian leased radar facilities in Azerbaijan on the Iran border to far better monitor Iran missile launches. The Bush Administration simply ignored the offer, exposing that their real target is Russia. In addition The signing of the agreement may lesson tensions between Russia and NATO and reduce the probability of a brand new Cold War arms race in Theory.

Obama backs missile defense too but has cancelled plans to station an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Obama’s foreign policy adviser is Zbigniew Brzezinski and his foreign policy team in addition to father Zbigniew Brzezinski, includes Brzezinski’s son, Ian Brzezinski, current US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs. Ian Brzezinski - all supporters of US missile defense policy.

It was just last year that Obama said he was not going to go with the Bush plans in Poland. But how quickly things change. Refusing to continue the Bush era propsal is what maybe got the deal signed with Russia in the first place - a deal that was signed in April. What is for certain are the comments by Czech Prime minister Jan Fischer, who has indicated that Obama said the US was suspending efforts in Poland but did not give any specific reason.

How quickly do things change. Obama has flip-flopped, in order to the the START treat signed, he has now agreed to continue with Bush's proposed US-controlled missile shield in Europe. Less than 2 weeks ago President Barack Obama committed the United States to "basing land-based SM-3 interceptors in Poland in the 2018 timeframe as part of its NATO" - wide missile defense system in a joint statement with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski when he came to the White House,

They said that detractors of the New START Treaty disagree with the Preamble of the Treaty which contains the following statement, but it seems that Obama has had the last word, getting it passed and all he had to do was give the GOP what Bush desired - a missile defense system in Poland designed to keep an eye on Rusia more so than North Korea and Iran.

How Bad the Economy really is

fundamentals still aint sound

As of late I have become disappointed. Now I am a man who lives at his means, well really below my means in the current economic climate. I just wish the folks in Washington, them in the Whitehouse and them on Capital hill could see such. Now I know many get mad because I hold our leadership to task, but it is what we do given the principle of liberty. And if any of yawl know in 2003, I wrote an essay in my book Dirt Behind My Ears, predicting that Obama would be our first African American President. 4 years before he even ran and 6 years before he was sworn in - so don’t trip.

But what bothers me is the lack of clarity and I hate to say it, transparency. I mean the Democrats won the white house by being very critical of the Bush Approach to the war and the Economy. Not to mention John McCain gave them the Whitehouse when he said the “fundamentals of the Economy were sound.” Particularly, it was how Obama kept hammering at Bush by saying that the deficit spending of his administration was irresponsible – which it was. The problem for me is that although in office briefly, his first proposed budget triples this fiscal year’s current deficit.

This is not an example of the government tightening their belts. As an individual American, I cant triple my debt and expect to survive or be economically responsible without fear of loosing my home or my business. I in fact have had to tighten my economic belt just to make ends meet. Why can’t the current administration and the folks in Congress do the same?

And I am talking as a person who started his own business with $60,000 of my own cash, as a person who pays himself and as a single parent. I am not one who depends on others to write me a check to live on and I don’t expect folk who don’t to really get what I am attempting to say. I mean this budget as well as the bail out place US and tax payers to more exposure and risk than the government, more so now than anytime in history.

Not to mention I am tired of folk giving me the okie doke about the Wall Street financial giants saying they are too big to fail. Folk, this is capitalism, business fail all the time and others take their place. If they to big to fail, to me they too big to exist. Then you talk about Banks and Bank holding companies in one breath as if they are the same. They are not. The FDIC can deal with banks, but can’t go into Bank Holding companies like AIG or Citigroup. So You not putting loot in banks, but rather bank holding companies.

Dumping money in a failing institution aint the way to solve this problem Mr. President, we need to restructure our finical system in concert with giving these folk loot. All around the nation, from the local to state level, governments are reducing their budgets not expanding them. Why can’t the federal government do this? And its not just the Dems, it’s the GOP too. They talk all that mess and don’t even have one constructive suggestion to suggest. They just complain. Now true I said a long time ago Geitner was the wrong man for the job and gave out about 10 others I thought were better to get us out this mess. But he there now so I aint tripping, but for the GOP to say he should leave without offering who they would replace him with, and bich over little nit picking shit borders on stupidity.

So I say April 15^th, if you owe some loot tell them folk to suck your private parts and don’t pay. If they aint got the balls to let the banks fail, or tell these mf’s they giving our loot too who still run the companies that got us in this mess to resign, or don’t revisited getting the laws on the book that got us in this mess such as the commodity futures modernization act, they can fail economically too. Cause our fundamentals still aint sound.

death of the free market economy

It is very difficult for me to actually encapsulate the significance of what may lie ahead for our nation and maybe even for the world. True I have the practical ability to evaluate and examine, even project out comes with respect to a diversified corpus of subject – yet I am no sooth sayer and don’t own no crystal ball. All I can do is speculate and opine with the circumscribed and ineffectual information and faculties I have.

I am concerned that none of these folks inside the belt way can be honest with me or the public regarding the economy. The truth is that nobody knows what will work. And to go on and tell folks that something will work when they do not know is a bold face lie – regardless of who delivers the message. And yes I group all of them as the same from Obama to Bush, to Clinton to Regan with respect to this problem as well as all of the senators and congressmen who let this shit occur on their watch while they were giving themselves annual salary increases. Under Bush we accumulated more debt than that of the entire prior 42 Presidents of this country combined.
What really gets me is this talk of a “global new deal” and makes me wish I could read the transcripts of what was actually said between President Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown because that April meeting will be here before you know it. I just wonder if we are seeing the beginning of the end of US sovernity. Since Regan, 78% of our economy is based on consumption, that is to say we buy more from others and produce nothing, and that for decades we have been spending more than we earn and borrowing more over the same period, it would be hard for me to see another nation or organization telling us what to do.

The truth is folks can talk about the stimulus as needed and that it is the solution, but it is not. We need way more than $900 billion to deal with this problem and I have estimated $2 trillion will be needed for the banks to be supported alone. Why, because we are a $14 trillion dollar economy in a global market place with more than $40 trillion dollars in lost equity worldwide. This is just the start of a real long period of stagnation and if over here we see bigger government and more government spending as the answer that means even a bigger government, like one international government may be what will be on the table when the G-20 meets in April. I mean when they speak of “coordinated efforts” this is what I hear and that means I won’t even rule out the creation of a single global currency.

I say be on the lookout, I wrote a while back about despots and even before then as to how Rome may be showing its ugly head again. So live it up while you can, and Mr. President, go on and spend that money albeit I’d prefer you give each citizen a check $240000) instead of bank and financial institutions that are gonna fail anyway. So get gone and get health care cost under control Mr. President and spend some loot in the states, shit it is about time we spend some loot at home domestically after 8 years of the tax breaks put in under the GOP. Because we citizens gone keep on borrowing and buying from other countries (which I why I indicated before that the combined debt of American households is larger than GDP of China and India combined). So enjoy the last days of the USA and don’t be surprised after the April meeting if we start seeing G-20 buildings in every country and in DC, or hearing the words G-20 on every news cast (since newspapers in America will die off). So cheers to the death of the free market economy - Good day.

Ye old revolving doors

I was some what amazed at the Bernard Madoff scandal, maybe not amazed, but rather amused. Not because a few folks killed themselves, or a lot of rich folks lost all they loot, but rather because this crook, was also once the former chairman of NASDEQ. Now if that aint funny nothing is, not to mention that his investment arm was not even registered with the SEC until September 2006. Add to that, who would not be leery of a man with the name made-off? But that is how Washington and Wall Street insiders act, they used to going through them revolving doors from Washington to Wall Street, and to the SEC in this example. Madoff had a good reputation with folk on Wall Street and for a typical insider that is good enough for them. That’s the problem.

The SEC will never work as an effective watch dog over folk like Madoff. Namely because they are folk. Madoff as others on Wall Street interchange jobs like a connecting flight through Hartsfield/Jackson international Airport. The Madoff scandal is a black eye to the reputation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who is supposed to police shit like this. However, folks like outgoing SEC Chairman Christopher Cox seem to have no clue or worse, turn a blind eye to their own kind. Cox after all said that Bear Stearns was in good shape three days before this investment house belly-flopped. Not to mention he mad at folks in the SEC (when they had been informed for decades) for not being able to notice the foul stuff being implemented by Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.

Folks around the world took looses because institutions like the SEC and our Federal government care more about the folks who they know and support them than the implementation of objective critical thought. In the United Kingdom, Kingate Global Fund Ltd, reportedly lost $2.5 billion. Ascot Partners $1.8 billion, Access International Advisors $1.4 billion, Maxam Capital Management LLC $280 million and the banks HSBC and RBS have lost $1 billion and $600 million. The Spanish bank Banco Santander and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBV), have reported losses of $3.1 billion and $405 million accordingly.

I do not see these types of acts changing in the near future, and suspect a many more complex hustles in the futures and securities markets to be still in play, even with Obama naming the current head of the Wall Street Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Mary Schapiro, as the new head of the SEC. Why do I say this? Well truth is known is that the folks who work for the big banks and financial institution of Wall Street are the same ones who work in the SEC. They go back and forth like the rubber ball in a game of dodge ball. Take Cox for example, which from 1978 to 1986, who was a venture capital and corporate finance lawyer with the international law firm of Latham & Watkins. He was supposedly over the Corporate Department in Orange County (they went bankrupt a few years back). He also received a MBA and JD from Harvard as well as taught federal income tax courses at the Harvard Business School.

Schapiro is no different. She was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to be chairperson of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission – we see where that got us today, although she was supposed to be responsible for regulating the US futures markets. Before that, she served for six years as a Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission being appointed in 1988 by President Reagan and reappointed by President Bush in 1989.

The SEC, regardless of who runs it, will never look out for the common man (folks who don’t work on Wall Street or hold political office). In October of last year, they gave "preferential treatment" to Wall Street executive John Mack during an insider trading investigation because he was about to become CEO of the Morgan Stanley investment banking firm. Now I am only saying that it is impossible for folks to police themselves. I don’t think you would let Crips police Crips in a federal correctional facility, so what is difference here? None, nada, zero is the answer. I don’t know why folks are so protective of the next president of these United States of America; likewise, I do not know why they are hypersensitive of folks who review and evaluate his proposed policies and his cabinet choices. It only makes logical sense to me. I remember doing the same regarding the current Bush – especially with respect to his incessant mentioning of “compassionate Conservatism.” His words, policies and appointments demonstrated neither compassion nor conservatism to me, especially with appointments of folk the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. No one, in particular black folks didn’t say a word against my evaluative pragmatism then.

Obama is the president and as president it is our job to be critical and free thinking about his office, policy and problem solving capacity – especially with respect to his words and what he said he will do. The only difference outside of his color for me is that his mantra is not “compassionate conservatism” but rather “change.” Show me some change, or better yet, where is the beef. For we will continue to have these problems until we clean house. These same old Washington folks done messed things up enough, don’t you agree? I feel that we can find just as competent folk, if not more competent folks outside the beltway. I’m just glad medicine isn’t like that, or else one would only be able to have an expert physician or Surgeon in Washington, DC.

actions speak louder than words

For the record, I love me some Africa. And I have been blessed to have lived in Nigeria for 13 months, 3 months in Ethiopia, four summers in a row in South Africa, and two six month stints in Senegal. I won’t even mention the Malawi’s, the Benin’s the Zimbabwe’s or score of other countries I have visited.

As we get closer to that historic day on which the President Elect is expected to take his oath of office, I have started to think about how or what his main foreign policy targets will be. Sure I’m certain that he will deal with the Asian countries located in what many call the Middle East, and that he will have to bump heads with Putin in Russia, but I’m not so sure where he will place the needs of the continent I love so dearly.

I would suspect or hope that the tope two will be Sudan and the Congo, followed closely by Rwanda. We know that genocide is the rule of thumb in the Sudan and has been so for a while. As a national government, all we have done is utter words, phrases and clauses and looked, on purpose the other way. I wonder what is Obama’s plan for dealing with the Sudanese Government and the Arab Janjaweed militias which are supported by Khartoum? Even after a July 30th UN Security Council resolution the Sudan still has yet to meet its commitment to rein in these militias.

I say this for almost 15 years after the atrocities we saw in Rwanda we must not let history repeat itself. I say this for I believe we have not learned our lesson since 1994 as a nation supposedly of moral statue. I was looking for any position papers that he may have written on the Sudan, Congo or Rwanda – but could not find any (just a statement from 2007). I just wonder if Obama really meant what he said that the United States should support the immediate deployment of an effective international force to not only protect civilians and proffer the delivery of humanitarian aid, but also to disarm militia, or support the African Union troops to do such.

Since this shit started in 2003, an estimated 450,000 plus have died as a function of and disease, and another 2 to 3 million displaced to neighboring countries. I know Obama was hard on Bush for his inaction, but my query is what is his plan, and what actions does he plan to take to support his prose? Yep, the economy needs to be dealt with, as well as issues of national security, but what will he do of substance outside of imposing tougher fiats that target Sudan’s oil revenue or implementing effective diplomacy? I know he has co-sponsoring six bills on the conundrum – but they still remain words on paper that have not yielded any results.

I’m not saying Obama can really do anything, but he can try. Especially now since we see what did happen in Rwanda, may be starting up again via the Congo. General Laurent Nkunda has actively recruited member of the Rwanda military to accomplish his stated goal to “eliminate” the militias who assisted in the genocide of nearly a million folks in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Even using and forcing children to kill in his effort.

So Mr. President elect, you were right to hold Bush accountable for his strong words but non action, just hope you don’t mind if we don’t forget, and remind you, or hold you to the same standard.

Why in year 6

Given the preoccupation with the general media distributed information, I certain there is a lot of news that is occurring, or rather information that we may or may not be privy too. And not to dwell on such for the sake of information, as I have been known to do so in the past, I just want to try and put two and two together.

A few days ago the US military implemented a clandestine cloak and dagger operation in Syria in the village of Sukariya to try and catch, not a known, but rather a SUSPECTED al-Qaeda operative.

Thanks to cellphone telephony, we have an amateur video of the operation. But again, as I said with respect to information, this is neither here nor there. First, this was conducted basically two weeks before the general election. Why now, is it maybe because the Bush Whitehouse doesn’t believe that McCain can win, or has a chance to win? Is it their goal to leave the rookie Obama administration with an additional foreign policy conundrum to deal with?

The way I see it, and I have little if any understanding of military protocol, but a remote controlled Drone could have gone five miles across the Syrian border and accomplished the same thing – kill some folks and some civilians. But nope, they used helicopters with military personnel telling me that they went it to get somebody or something.

It may not be much, I mean its not as significant to the general public as the tragedy that struck Jennifer Hudson’s family (albeit if she was not famous we would have never heard about it) or that show about the housewives in Atlanta (and I still say if its on TV it’s acting and no where close to reality), but it does make one think. The way I see it we aint done jack in Iraq (im a rapper now) in the last two years except put pay the awakening councils – the same folks shooting at us, to continue secular neighborhood warfare.

So you tell me, why now, in year six? Are we flexing, or is Bush flexing? Are we trying to add another Middle Eastern headache to the fledgling Obama Administration (if he wins)? And will we ever see the big picture? I mean 12 military deaths in Iraq this month so far, and 12 military deaths in Afghanistan this month too. And Syria is already talking about pulling a drive by in retaliation. So what says you, I mean if you gave it thought or even heard or read about it, because the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas don’t get down like that. Not to mention that Bush and McCain and Obama claim to have top shelf foreign policy game, buttaruh aint none addressed this nor how The U.S. raid into Syrian territory will not assist Turkey's efforts to promote a stable Middle East through mediations it has been holding between Israel and Syria. I mean it’s just a question.