Hold on!

My fellow Americans, if you find yourselves heading over a "fiscal cliff" as we head into 2013, you can thank the house republicans and the rest of the clowns in Washington for your fall. Still, some folks in Washington gave it the old college try, (I see you Uncle Joe) but old habits die hard. Heck the wingnuts in Congress won't even vote on a deal. And so....

"It’s official. With reports that Congress was close to a deal this morning which would avert the fiscal cliff and the president holding a press conference to bolster support for a last minute fix, reports that that the Senate will not be holding a vote on Monday night on this deal. The House has opted to adjourn for the day. At midnight tonight, the United States will go over the fiscal cliff, ushering in all the across-the-board tax hikes and automatic spending cuts that entails.

CNN Congressional reporter Dana Bash confirmed that there would be no vote tonight on Twitter early this afternoon." [Source] 

Those mother f*****s!!!

Folks, while some of you are popping your Cristal and singing Auld Lang Syne, I will be crying over stocks in my portfolio dropping in earnings and my already high taxes going up even more.

Anyway, while both sides are to blame for this fiasco, I would like to give a special f**k you to wingnuts on the hill. I came to this conclusion after reading Joshua Green's article in Bloomberg Businessweek.

"On Sunday evening, after a long, fruitless day of haggling, talks between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to avert the fiscal cliff broke down and the Senate adjourned until Monday. Republicans had spent much of Sunday pushing to get Social Security cuts included in the deal, and when that effort fell apart, momentum toward a resolution disappeared.

If Republicans don’t have a change of heart fast, we’ll go over the cliff, and they’ll waste a huge opportunity—even without the Social Security cuts, Democrats are offering them an incredibly good deal.

With the caveat that no reporter is privy to the details of the offers being swapped, here is the deal that seemed to be emerging: Democrats would get an extension of unemployment benefits for 2.1 million people; they’d patch the alternative minimum tax for a year to protect the middle class from sharp tax hikes; and they’d implement a “doc fix” to ensure that Medicare reimbursement rates to doctors don’t fall precipitously and limit patients’ access to medical care. Republicans would get to preserve Bush-era income tax rates for households making up to $400,000 (rather than the $250,000 limit Democrats prefer). They’d also get a lower tax rate and a much higher threshold for inheritance taxes (set to revert to 55 percent on estates of more than $1 million on Tuesday). And significantly, Republicans would hold onto their greatest point of leverage in upcoming negotiations over entitlement cuts, because the deal wouldn’t raise the debt limit.

Here’s what’s important about everything Democrats would get: It’s temporary; everything expires (presumably) within a year. Here’s what’s important about what Republicans would get: it’s permanent. The tax rates won’t expire.

That means Democrats are offering a huge gift to Republicans and getting almost nothing in return because on Jan. 1, if no deal is struck, Democrats will get even more revenue than they’re asking for without conceding a thing. And if, as polls suggest, voters would blame Republicans for going over the cliff, Democrats are also offering to save Republicans from their worst impulses—which, at least for the time being, since they haven’t yet agreed, is to reject this deal.

I’m amazed liberals aren’t furious." [Source]

Actually, some liberals are furious. But since when did that matter? They are not in the driver's seat. Sadly for America, the guys (and gals) in the driver's seat are going way too fast to stop in time to avoid the cliff up ahead.

 





 

The top ten House Negroes of 2012.

*

"There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes – they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good ’cause they ate his food — what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, “We got a good house here,” the house Negro would say, “Yeah, we got a good house here.” Whenever the master said “we,” he said “we.” That’s how you can tell a house Negro.

If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself." ~ Malcolm X~

My friends and fellow field-hands, 2013 is almost here, and I could not let the year end without recognizing the top ten House Negroes of 2012. (No Stacey, you didn't make the list.)They are not necessarily in order of importance.

1. Herman Cain-This Negro could have been on this list for 2011 as well. He came on the scene with a lot of promise, and he could have really elevated the republican party in the Negro community. But,  sadly, he turned out to be just O.J. Simpson (he loved those blondes, too) with catchy political one liners and a knack for buffoonery.

2. Juan Williams- I could add all the Negroes over at FOX NEWS cashing those Rupert Murdock checks. But Juan is the most high profile of the bunch so he deserves top House Negro billing.

3. Trenton Mayor, Tony Mack- This Negro represents a long line of black politricksters who care more about lining their pockets than the people they serve. There will be another one of these crooks on the list in 2013. That we can count on.

4. Rev. C.L. Bryant- The Rev. thinks that he is a runaway slave and he wants other blacks to runaway with him from the "democratic plantation". Rev. that's called "jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire." The Rev. also declared that blacks voted for Obama because he is black....duh!

5. Clarence Thomas- Come on now; as long as Clarence is one of the supremes he will be on this list.

6. Allen B. West-Thank you for your service, but you can leave the house now. Actually, you were just voted out of the house. Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.

7. Tavis Smiley-Tavis, it's cool to criticize Obama, but why weren't you criticizing W for not fighting the war on poverty here in America? Besides, your conscience shouldn't be guided by a check.

8. Chris Brown-This Negro represents everything that is wrong with hip hop culture these days.

9. Joe Oliver-This is the Negro who came out of nowhere to declare that he was friends with Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman. Turns out that he was just another House Negro looking for some shine. 

10. Carl Lewis-This hating Negro questioned the legitimacy of the Jamaican sprinters in London. That will get you top HN status in my book every time.

*Stephen from Django Unchained.

 





    

Throw a Hindu onto the train, and the NRA and the Black Panthers.

I have a very important request for all of you bigots out there: Please read some some books and do some research on the people and groups that you are hating on before you commit your hate crime.

"New York (CNN) -- A 31-year-old Bronx woman has been charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime in the death of a man shoved in front of a subway train, Queens prosecutors said Saturday.

District Attorney Richard A. Brown identified the woman as Erika Menendez. She was awaiting arraignment.

 

"(She) said in sum and substance 'I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up,'" the prosecutor said in a statement.
 

Witnesses said a woman paced the platform and talked to herself Thursday evening shortly before pushing the man as the 11-car train entered the station. The 46-year-old man's body was pinned under the second car after it came to a stop.

 

The woman made "statements implicating herself in the death of Sunando Sen," Paul Browne, the New York Police Department's chief spokesman, said earlier. Security video showed a person running from the scene."

 

If this woman really did commit this heinous crime , it would indeed be a sad thing as Hindus had nothing to do with the terrorist attack on New York city.
This woman obviously has some mental issues. But what about the perfectly "normal" folks who  believe that Hindus and Muslims are one and the same? These are the same folks who believe that the president is a Muslim and that he was born in Kenya. They just don't go pushing Hindus into subway trains. Not yet.

So Michael Moore pissed off winguts by saying that one of the reasons that folks own guns is because of their fear of the Negro in America. This got me thinking about the role race played in America's love affair with the Second Amendment. Personally, I don't think that Moore was that far off base, but I read an article by Richard Prince which raised some interesting and thought-provoking points about the rise of the Black Panther Party and the NRA.

I will share some of it with you.
 

*

"The National Rifle Association was inspired by the Black Panthers?
Yes, according to Adam Winkler, a professor of 
constitutional law at UCLA School of Law and author of "Gunfight: The 
Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America."

Winkler said over the weekend on NPR's "On the Media":

"One of the surprising things I discovered in writing 'Gunfight' 
was that when the Black Panthers started carrying their guns around 
in Oakland, Calif., in the late 1960s, it inspired a new wave of gun 
control laws (audio). It was these laws that ironically sparked 
a backlash among rural white conservatives, who were concerned that 
the government was coming to get their guns next.

"The NRA mimicked many of the policy positions of the Black 
Panthers, who viewed guns not just as a matter of protection for the 
home, but something you should be able to have out on the street, and 
also protection against a hostile government that was tyrannical and 
disrespectful of people's rights. . . . "
Winkler wrote about the connection more expansively in "The Secret 
History of Guns," a September 2011 article in the Atlantic that 
preceded the book's publication.

"The eighth-grade students gathering on the west lawn of the state 
capitol in Sacramento were planning to lunch on fried chicken with 
California's new governor, Ronald Reagan, and then 
tour the granite building constructed a century earlier to resemble 
the nation's Capitol," the article began. "But the festivities were 
interrupted by the arrival of 30 young black men and women carrying 
.357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols.

"The 24 men and six women climbed the capitol steps, and one man, 
Bobby Seale, began to read from a prepared statement. 
'The American people in general and the black people in particular,' 
he announced, must

" 'take careful note of the racist California 
legislature aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless. 
Black people have begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated, and 
everything else to get the racist power structure of America to right 
the wrongs which have historically been perpetuated against black 
people. The time has come for black people to arm themselves against 
this terror before it is too late.'

"Seale then turned to the others. 'All right, brothers, come on. 
We're going inside.' He opened the door, and the radicals walked 
straight into the state's most important government building, loaded 
guns in hand. No metal detectors stood in their way.

"It was May 2, 1967, and the Black Panthers' invasion of the 
California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement." [More]

I suspect that if there was a Black Panther type organization today openly brandishing guns on public streets, there would be a shift in public sentiment about restricting access to guns. Just a guess.

*Pic from theRoot.com 















 

 

 

We are not safe anywhere.

My goodness, you are not safe anywhere in America these days. Some lunatic bent on death and destruction will find you in the mall; in church; in school; and now, even in the police station for crying out loud.

"Three New Jersey cops are in the hospital after a shooter opened fire inside of their police headquarters this morning.

The three officers were shot at the Gloucester Township police headquarters by a suspect who was then shot and killed by police, Gloucester Police Chief Harry Earle told reporters today.

"Fortunately, two of those officers are in stable condition and being treated for their wounds and should be released sometime today," Earle said.

The third officer was shot at least twice and is undergoing surgery at Cooper University Hospital, the chief said.

The shooter was a suspect being held at the police station, according to the Associated Press. It is unclear how the suspect was able to obtain a weapon.

The shooting occurred inside the police station where the suspect was also killed. Medics responded to the station at around 5:30 a.m., according to ABC News' Philadelphia station WPVI-TV.

"Obviously, there is a very intense investigation regarding this back at the Gloucester Township police headquarters," Earle said." [Source]

"I'll be back." Remember that scene from The Terminator? But this is not a Hollywood movie; this is real life. It's getting harder and harder to separate the two these days.

Anyway, it seems that this nut had some type of fatal attraction thing going with his ex and he decided to commit "suicide by cop". Unfortunately for him, though, he got his wish.

What's up Chicago? I think you are number one when it comes to murders here in America this year. You hit that five hundred murder milestone today and I mourn for your city and the families of every one of those victims.

In the city of Chicago they are asking the president to come to the funeral of the 500th victim. This, of course, will not happen. Obama will no doubt lament about the killings in his hometown during a private moment with Michelle, but we all know that the killing of just another black person in Chicago is not enough to fuel up Air Force One for a trip north.    

Here in Philly we have had 329 murders so far this hyear, and I suspect that there will be more before the ball drops in Times Square.

"The police department went back and forth Friday, first verifying the 500th killing, then backing off and saying an earlier death was still being investigated.
By late Friday, police confirmed 40-year-old Nathaniel Jackson had become the 500th homicide victim when he was fatally shot in the head outside a convenience store on the city's West Side."

I don't know anything about Nathaniel Jackson, but I know this: his killer more than likely looked just like he did.

Finally, a memo to those of you who take the train on a regular basis: please watch your back. I sense a sad trend developing.

"All My Babies Mamas"?

"Field, last night you blogged about a "pecking order" when it comes to American lives; please tell us what you think the pecking order is from top to bottom."

I am always glad to oblige someone who reads the field's blog and takes the time to send an e-mail.

1. White women.

2. White children.

3. White men.

4. Others. (Hispanics,Asians, etc.)

5. Black children.

6. Black women.

7. Pets.

8. Black men.

You are welcome.

Finally, I am going to have to take a minute to attack black.

My brothers and sisters, why is it that some of you choose the worst aspects of family life to glorify? Children being raised in broken homes and around all types of "baby mama drama" is not cool. 

And the folks over at the Oxygen Network should get a big "gas face".

"The cable network has announced the production of a new one-hour special, “All My Babies’ Mamas,” which features the day-to-day drama-filled shenanigans of Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo (pictured), his 10 baby mamas and their army of 11 children, reports TV By the Numbers.  

The one-hit wonder rapper and G-Unit member, whose actual name is Carlos Walker, is surrounded by the women he bedded as well as their offspring. The project focuses on how everyone is vying for the attention of the homestead’s head honcho (who, by the way ain’t nothing at all to look at) and anti-birth control poster child.

Each baby mama has an eye-catching title such as the ‘First Lady E’Creia,’ who handles Lo’s finances and who was actually engaged to him at one point after he already had three children. Then there’s Angela, the “Fighter Baby Mama,” Amanda, the “Jealous Baby Mama,” Sujuan, the “Wanna-be Bougie Baby Mama” and Tamara, the “No-Drama Baby Mama.” [Source]
 
My "peoples".......*shaking head*

America, please do not watch this mess. Let the folks at the Oxygen Network (and others like them) know that we have had enough of the Springerfication of our country. 

Sadly, I guess these baby mamas are seeing the success of shows like Basketball Wives and Real Housewives of Atlanta, and they are saying, why not me? 

The day after Christmas.

Still getting over my Christmas Day hangover. No drama in the field's life. Other than my sister- in- law crying over Michael Ealy's new marital status, the fam is all good and enjoying the season.   

So a few stories have me shaking my head as we bring 2012 to a close.

The first one is this dude in Western New York who killed two firefighters and his sister after setting his house on fire.

Now here is the thing, dude was back on the streets after killing his grandmother with a hammer back in the day. Let me repeat that: He killed his grandmother with a hammer! How do you kill your grandma with a hammer and not get life without parole? And now we are finding out that my man used the same type of rifle that was used in the Newtown, Connecticut massacre.

"A convicted killer, who shot dead two firefighters with a Bushmaster assault rifle after leading them into an ambush when they responded to a house fire he set in Western New York, left behind a typewritten note saying he wanted to "do what I like doing best, killing people," police said.

William Spengler, 62, set his home and a car on fire early Monday morning with the intention of setting a trap to kill firefighters and to see "how much of the neighborhood I can burn down," according to the note he wrote and which police found at the scene. The note did not give a reason for his actions."  [Source]   

Then there was Dr. Cornel West saying that "politicians only talk gun control when vanilla people get shot". Now that's a conversation starter for your ass.

  Dr. Cornel West, who has long been a vocal critic of the plutocrats and oligarchs controlling the beltway, has never shied away from being politically incorrect, and he didn’t start with the tragic massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Speaking candidly on the Smiley & West Show, which he co-hosts with his close friend and adviser, Tavis Smiley, West said that though he’s glad that celebrities and politicians are finally beginning to call urgent attention to the national issue of gun control, it’s a shame that horror had to affect the “vanilla side of town” for it to happen:

“We can’t just shed tears for those on the vanilla side of town,” West said, “they are precious, but they are no less or more precious than our poor brothers and sisters on Indian reservations (who are killing each other) or be they black or brown or what have you.”

“But it’s a good thing that we now have a discussion on gun control. We need one on drone control,” he continued, “not a peep, not a mumbling word when black folk get shot. But now, Newtown, Connecticut, vanilla side — low and behold we got a major conversation. That’s wonderful. Each life is precious but it just upsets me when we’re so deferential.”
 

This is not the first time that West has made mention of the melanin-lite side of the tracks.

Speaking on the murder of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham, who was chased by NYPD officers to his grandmother’s home, where they kicked in her door and gunned him down in an upstairs bathroom, West said that the “cowardly” President Barack Obama would not dare be silent on that kind of tragedy in the White community.

If the same thing happened on the vanilla side of town, among the upper-middle class white brothers and sisters, there would be a major outrage and in fact we’d probably get some comment from the White House, we’d get comments from the governor. We’d get comments not just from the mayor, but from a whole wave of people who for the most part are silent about these things. And it’s just sad and ridiculous that we have to deal with this kind of double standard.

As previously reported by NewsOne, Dr. West made waves earlier this year when he called Obama a “Rockefeller Republican in Blackface.”
President Obama immediately held a solemn press conference, during which he seemed on the verge of tears, following the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza, shot his mother in the head while she slept in her bed in the wealthy enclave, drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School, slaughtered 20 children and 6 adults at close range, and then killed himself as law enforcement closed in on him.

First Lady Michele Obama penned an open letter to the victims’ families." [Source] 

Yes Dr. West, we all understand the "pecking order" here in America when it comes to lives. But honestly, if this tragic incident is what it takes to start a serious conversation about gun control in this country, I am not going to trip over the double standard.

Finally, some of you are upset about Spike Lee calling out the new movie, "Django Unchained" for being "disrespectful" to our ancestors.

"Director Spike Lee, who has had a Black woman play a crackhead, a Black man get drunk and kill his wife and a Black teenager have a threesome with White women, says that he won’t be watching the Quentin Tarantino film ‘Django Unchained’ because it’s disrespectful to his ancestors, reports Essence.com."

This is interesting. But I haven't seen the movie, so I will withhold judgement until then.

Finally, let this be a lesson to all you news anchors who want to get all cute and try to use visuals to make a point.

"WASHINGTON (AP) — District of Columbia police say they are investigating an incident in which NBC News journalist David Gregory displayed what he described as a high-capacity ammunition magazine on "Meet the Press."

Gun laws in the nation's capital generally restrict the possession of high-capacity magazines, regardless of whether the device is attached to a firearm. Gregory held up the magazine as a prop for Sunday's segment, apparently to make a point during an interview, even though D.C. police say NBC had already been advised not to use it in the show.

"NBC contacted (the Metropolitan Police Department) inquiring if they could utilize a high capacity magazine for their segment. NBC was informed that possession of a high capacity magazine is not permissible and their request was denied. This matter is currently being investigated," police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said in a written statement. She declined to comment further.

While interviewing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre for Sunday's program, Gregory held up an object that he said was a magazine that could hold 30 rounds." [Source]  

Oh lawd! I sure hope that the District police won't throw David Gregory in the slammer. That dude couldn't last one night in there. If they do lock him up, maybe we will get lucky and they will keep him all day Sunday. I am getting tired of these Sunday talk shows.   










  

Happy Holidays!

*Due to an official edict from the HNIC (AKA Mrs. Field), there will be no blog postings tonight.

I will holla at you all tomorrow.

Enjoy your *sorrel-drink and eggnog.

Peace.

Will these ten people steal Christmas?

Christmas Day is almost here, and so, in honor of one of the most infamous characters associated with the season, I have compiled a list of the most memorable people with Grinch like qualities for 2012.

1. Wayne LaPierre- Wayne suggested armed guards in every school at a cost of over 2 billion dollars after the Newtown massacres. And meanwhile, four firefighters were shot (two fatally) after responding to a fire this morning. Now do we need armed guards on every fire truck? Yes Wayne, we do think that you are "crazy".

2. Bashar al-Assad-My man is the current president of Syria, and he has routinely tortured, killed, and imprisoned his political opponents. Now his country is in the middle of a civil war because most of his people want him to go and he refuses to step down.

3. Rush Limbaugh/Mike Gallagher/Newt Gingrich- I guess if I looked like these clowns I would always be angry, too.

4. Mitt Romney-  Forget  the 47% comments. Something about this guy just took all the fun out of the 2012 elections.

5. The sour grapes wingnuts- Secession isn't such a bad idea. At least not for the rest of us.

6. The Muslims practicing Sharia Law in the 21st Century-Stoning women to death for adultery and participating in a beauty contest?

7. Todd Akin and other republicans who declared war on women- If we could just find a way for them to shut their brains down. 

8. The people in America who oppose same sex marriage-

9. Scott Walker-Preventing families from having a living wage is not something to be proud of.

10. Rick Santorum- As a "blah" person in America I am truly glad that Rick will now be politically irrelevant.


 



   

The most dangerous man in America?

I sure hope that poor Piers Morgan will be around to enjoy Christmas in America. Unfortunately for Piers, his days might be numbered here in the land of the (only some are) free. Believe it or not,there is a movement to have Piers deported to jolly old England because he questioned the logic of the Second Amendment and has engaged in what they call "hostile attacks" against it. (Lawrence O'Donnell is lucky he is an American.) 

This, of course, seems to be a classic example of dueling Amendments. Doesn't Piers have certain rights protected by the First Amendment? I think being able to speak freely in a public forum about a nationally debated issue is protected. I mean it's not like Piers is shouting fire in a crowded theater. 

But as the wingnuts march closer to forming their version of the CEDA  , there will be more Piers Morgans along the way to suffer the consequences of their strict totalitarianism. 

They need 25,000.00 signatures for the White House to review the petition and there is no doubt in my mind that they will get enough.Heck there are millions of people paying $35 per year to be members of the NRA, and their numbers actually went up after the Newtown massacre. There is nothing like having an NRA card in your pocket to protect you from a mass murderer. Not.

Still, if I were Piers I wouldn't worry too much. I suspect that as long as his ratings don't go in the tank he will be around with us for awhile.

Finally, this has to come as a huge disappointment to all the winguts who supported Flipper this past election. Now his son is saying that he didn't really want to be president in the first place.

 "A new story in the Boston Globe dissects possible causes for Mitt Romney‘s loss in the presidential election and attributes his “private” nature as a big one. Tagg Romney says of his father, “He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run.”
Tagg says he and his mother Ann Romney were really the ones to convince dad Mitt to run. He goes on:

“If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn’t love the attention.”

According to the piece, “Romney’s inner circle of family and friends understood the candidate’s weakness all too well.” He was “deeply private,” and had “an aversion to reveal­ing too much of himself to the public.” The campaign was concerned that if Romney didn’t reveal more of his personality, he would “too easily be reduced to caricature.” The description? “A calculating man of astounding wealth, a man unable to relate to average folks, a man whose Mormon faith put him outside the mainstream.” 

Mitt spent a lot of time and money to finally realize that he wasn't cut out to run for president. I am sure that there are a lot of folks out there who wish that he had found out sooner.





  

"Yield not to temptation."

There are some news stories out there that leave us all scratching our heads.

Take for instance the following:

"Horndog bosses in Iowa have a new tool to save their marriages — they can fire employees who are too hot for the workplace.

The state’s all-male supreme court ruled 7-0 Friday that an Iowa City dentist legally canned his female assistant because she was “irresistibly attractive” and a threat to his marriage.

The bombshell ruling came after Melissa Nelson, 32, *{Not the person in the pic that goes with this post. In fact, I have no idea why there is a pic of Amber Rose up there.}  sued her boss of 10 years, Dr. James Knight, for gender discrimination.

The married mother claims she was fired in January 2010 after Knight’s wife became jealous of the pair’s relationship, which included harmless text messages between them outside of work.

“These judges sent a message to Iowa women that they don’t think men can be held responsible for their sexual desires and that Iowa women are the ones who have to monitor and control their bosses’ sexual desires,” Nelson’s attorney, Paige Fiedler, told the Associated Press. “If (the bosses) get out of hand, then the women can be legally fired for it.”

Knight, 53, admitted that Nelson was a great worker, but complained in the final months of her employment that her tight clothing was too much of a distraction.
He even once told her that if his pants were bulging, she would know her outfits were too revealing, according to the lawsuit.

He also quipped about her irregular sex life, describing it as “like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it,” the court papers show.

Knight, who is also married with children, exchanged text messages with Nelson regularly. They primarily consisted of banter about personal matters. But Knight’s wife, who works in the same office, found out about the out-of-office conversations and demanded Nelson be fired.

The dentist, after consulting with a local pastor, soon terminated her and gave her one month’s severance. Knight later admitted to Nelson’s husband that he feared he would eventually try to start an affair with her.

Nelson did not claim sexual harassment, but said that she wouldn’t have been fired if she were a man.

After the ruling from the all-male high court, one of only a few testosterone-only panels in the nation, Justice Edward Mansfield wrote that allowing Nelson’s suit would have stretched the definition of gender discrimination.
Knight’s lawyer, Stuart Cochrane, said the decision was a home-run for family values.

“While there was really no fault on the part of Mrs. Nelson, it was just as clear the decision to terminate her was not related to the fact that she was a woman,” he told the Associated Press. “The motives behind Dr. Knight terminating Mrs. Nelson were quite clear: he did so to preserve his marriage.” [Source]

Wow, talk about a slippery slope. So this church going man doesn't think that he will be able to keep his johnson in his pants, and his worker has to suffer because she is too "attractive". Wow!

Mrs. Knight, it might be time to find yourself a good divorce lawyer.

 

 

The NRA's blame game.

I saw the NRA's clown show press conference today, and, as is to be expected, they doubled down on their insane position on the proliferation of guns in America. Wayne LaPierre actually called for armed guards at every school in America. (Where is the money going to come from for this brilliant idea? And an armed guard at Sandy Hook would have simply meant that 27 people would have been killed at the school and not 26. And Ms. Lanza was a woman of some means, but I am sure that she couldn't afford an armed guard at her bedroom door, 24/7. Bye bye Ms. Lanza. )

"the next Adam Lanza," the man responsible for last week's mayhem, is planning an attack on another school.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," LaPierre said.

Or not having a gun at all. Dope!

It got worse. LaPierre went on to blame video games (one of them over a decade old), the president, and Big Foot for the Newtown, Connecticut killings. But he refused to accept any blame or offer any meaningful solutions to the daily incidents of killings and carnage taking place in America.

His speech was so idiotic and insensitive, that it left former republican party chairman, Michael Steele, speechless. Not to mention current republican governor, Chris Christie, flat out saying what the NRA proposes is a bad idea.

So the madness continues. And the NRA and their lemmings refuse to back down. They have drawn a line in the sand- right outside of the police crime tape- and they refuse to move.

While I was writing this post I heard about yet another mass killing which took place today in Pistolvania. Some animal shot three people to death on a Western Pistolvania road and injured state troopers who were pursuing him.

On a day when the nation was observing a moment of silence at the exact time of the massacre in Newtown, the shooter in Pistolvania decided to carry out his despicable act at almost the very same time.   

"The shooting took place with much of the United States still highly sensitive to gun violence one week after a gunman killed 20 school children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Pennsylvania state trooper Adam Reed said the shooting was believed to take place between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.

At 9:30, Newtown held a moment of silence on Friday in remembrance of the children and teachers killed exactly one week ago in Connecticut."

Now that we know that the Mayan Calendar was wrong and that most of us will be here tomorrow, can we at least start trying to make sure that more of us will get a chance to ride this thing called life out to its natural conclusion?    

The right to bear ping pong balls.

Table tennis, when played right, can be a beautiful game. I played with a buddy of mine at a club he had joined a few weeks ago, and I had a blast. He destroyed me, but given that I hadn't played a serious game in years I didn't feel too bad.

So where am I going with all this table tennis talk? Well it seems that one republican lawmaker in Texas doesn't share my view of table tennis. In fact, he actually believes that it is more dangerous to play table tennis than to play with guns.

"Incoming Texas State Rep. Kyle Kacal says guns don’t kill people—ping-pong kills people.

"I've heard of people being killed playing ping-pong—ping-pongs are more dangerous than guns," he says. "Flat-screen TVs are injuring more kids today than anything."'

OK, the flat screen TV could probably hurt kids, but "ping-pong"?
Let's forget, for a minute, that according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission this is not true. But the very thought of a lawmaker coming up with "ping-pong" as one of the things that a parent should be concerned with for their child is just...well it boggles the mind.

Finally, I am glad to see that the republicans will stay in Washington after their "Plan B" vote tonight. I am sure that Mr. Tan Man will pull enough of his members in line to get enough votes. But I have to wonder if there is a Plan C, though. I mean raising income taxes on those who make over a million dollars is not quite what we had in mind when we asked both sides to reach a compromise. And then, to top it off, Plan B would actually end up raising taxes on lower middle class folks. This is not good.

Keep working boys, and don't leave Washington until that cliff is averted.

"Borked" forever, and more on guns.

Robert Bork is dead.

On the Civil Rights Act:

"a principle of "unsurpassed ugliness” --

On the banning of discrimination in employment and public accommodations.

" they would “compel association where it is not desired,” and he had “serious constitutional problems” with the measure.

My momma always told me that I should never speak ill of the dead. So.....

Anyway, did you hear the one about the 11 year old in Utah who brought a gun to school because he was afraid of a "Newtown- style attack"?

 "SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - An 11-year-old Utah boy who said he brought a gun to school to protect himself from a Newtown-style attack, then brandished the pistol at three classmates during recess, has been detained on assault and weapons charges, a school spokesman said on Tuesday.

The boy, a Utah sixth-grader, took the unloaded .22-caliber handgun to his school south of Salt Lake City in his backpack on Monday, a spokesman for the Granite School District said.

Some ammunition was also found in the backpack, but it did not appear to go with the gun, said the spokesman, Ben Horsley.

No one was injured in the incident, which occurred as jittery parents, teachers and students around the country faced their first day back at school since 20 children and six adult staffers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, were shot to death by a lone gunman last Friday.

The 11-year-old student at Utah's West Kearns Elementary, who was not publicly identified, has insisted he brought the gun to school to "protect himself and his friends from a Connecticut-style incident," Horsley said." [Source]

You have got to love these responsible gun owning parents out there. No doubt the little guy in Utah has been listening to conservative radio in his daddy's car while on his way to school.  

Finally, can we all agree that if we are going to argue over guns it will not lead to gun play? I mean this is ridiculous.

"An eastern Missouri man is charged with armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a weapon after shooting at a fellow barber shop patron during a discussion about last week's mass shooting in Newtown, Conn." [Source]

That story pretty much sums up what we are dealing with in this gun crazed society of ours. Mr. Biden, you are in an unenviable position.

Thou shalt have no other guns before me.

Here in America we are still trying to come to grips with how one of our own could be so evil. Adam Lanza was not some "crazed" Arab terrorist or one of those young threatening urban males we associate with violence and depravity. He lived in a 4,000 square foot suburban home in a neighborhood that most Americans could only dream of living in. And yet, he was the manifestation of evil.

We are learning that he wasn't even as crazy as many folks would have us believe. (Now, all of a sudden, everyone is Adam Lanza's mother) Now it seems that he "meticulously" planned his killing spree for maximum effect.

So what does this say about us? That, as James Dobson suggests, we need God? Or have we just become a society that celebrates madness and mayhem? And, if this is the case, is this really something new? (Let's not forget how this country was built)Would God really approve of all these guns and the way we celebrate and embrace them?

I read a great essay by Garry Wills, and I would like to share some of it. (h/t to Greg Fuller)

"Few crimes are more harshly forbidden in the Old Testament than sacrifice to the god Moloch (for which see Leviticus 18.21, 20.1-5). The sacrifice referred to was of living children consumed in the fires of offering to Moloch. Ever since then, worship of Moloch has been the sign of a deeply degraded culture. Ancient Romans justified the destruction of Carthage by noting that children were sacrificed to Moloch there. Milton represented Moloch as the first pagan god who joined Satan’s war on humankind:

First Moloch, horrid king, besmear’d with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,
Though for the noise of Drums and Timbrels loud
Their children’s cries unheard, that pass’d through fire
To his grim idol. (Paradise Lost 1.392-96)

Read again those lines, with recent images seared into our brains—“besmeared with blood” and “parents’ tears.” They give the real meaning of what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday morning. That horror cannot be blamed just on one unhinged person. It was the sacrifice we as a culture made, and continually make, to our demonic god. We guarantee that crazed man after crazed man will have a flood of killing power readily supplied him. We have to make that offering, out of devotion to our Moloch, our god. The gun is our Moloch. We sacrifice children to him daily—sometimes, as at Sandy Hook, by directly throwing them into the fire-hose of bullets from our protected private killing machines, sometimes by blighting our children’s lives by the death of a parent, a schoolmate, a teacher, a protector. Sometimes this is done by mass killings (eight this year), sometimes by private offerings to the god (thousands this year).
The gun is not a mere tool, a bit of technology, a political issue, a point of debate. It is an object of reverence. Devotion to it precludes interruption with the sacrifices it entails. Like most gods, it does what it will, and cannot be questioned. Its acolytes think it is capable only of good things. It guarantees life and safety and freedom. It even guarantees law. Law grows from it. Then how can law question it?

Its power to do good is matched by its incapacity to do anything wrong. It cannot kill. Thwarting the god is what kills. If it seems to kill, that is only because the god’s bottomless appetite for death has not been adequately fed. The answer to problems caused by guns is more guns, millions of guns, guns everywhere, carried openly, carried secretly, in bars, in churches, in offices, in government buildings. Only the lack of guns can be a curse, not their beneficent omnipresence.

Adoration of Moloch permeates the country, imposing a hushed silence as he works his will. One cannot question his rites, even as the blood is gushing through the idol’s teeth. The White House spokesman invokes the silence of traditional in religious ceremony. “It is not the time” to question Moloch. No time is right for showing disrespect for Moloch.

The fact that the gun is a reverenced god can be seen in its manifold and apparently resistless powers. How do we worship it? Let us count the ways:

1. It has the power to destroy the reasoning process. It forbids making logical connections. We are required to deny that there is any connection between the fact that we have the greatest number of guns in private hands and the greatest number of deaths from them. Denial on this scale always comes from or is protected by religious fundamentalism. Thus do we deny global warming, or evolution, or biblical errancy. Reason is helpless before such abject faith....
 

It has the power to distort our constitutional thinking. It says that the right to “bear arms,” a military term, gives anyone, anywhere in our country, the power to mow down civilians with military weapons. Even the Supreme Court has been cowed, reversing its own long history of recognizing that the Second Amendment applied to militias. Now the court feels bound to guarantee that any every madman can indulge his “religion” of slaughter. Moloch brooks no dissent, even from the highest court in the land.

Though LaPierre is the pope of this religion, its most successful Peter the Hermit, preaching the crusade for Moloch, was Charlton Heston, a symbol of the Americanism of loving guns. I have often thought that we should raise a statue of Heston at each of the many sites of multiple murders around our land. We would soon have armies of statues, whole droves of Heston acolytes standing sentry at the shrines of Moloch dotting the landscape. Molochism is the one religion that can never be separated from the state. The state itself bows down to Moloch, and protects the sacrifices made to him. So let us celebrate the falling bodies and rising statues as a demonstration of our fealty, our bondage, to the great god Gun." [Source]

So Americans know but one "god". And I have some bad news for Pastor Dobson; it isn't the one he is worshiping.   

Bing is a liar, and the Tea Party weighs in on a tragedy.

So I am in Macy's with Mrs. Field the other night, and, as us guys tend to do, I finished my shopping in about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, as I said, I was with the Mrs. Therefore I had another hour (or two) to wonder through the store. So anyway, while trying to pass the time, I found myself listening to Christmas carols playing throughout the store. One song in particular caught my attention. (And I don't know why I never noticed this before.) What's up with that song, I'll Be Home for Christmas? It has got to be the cruelest most disingenuous song ever written.

"I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas"

So now we are all thinking that Bing will be home for Christmas, and then... bang; he kicks us in the gut.

"I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams"
Huh? "If only in my dreams"?! What happened to "you can count on me"?

So Mrs. Field finished her shopping and on the way home I am telling her about this totally fraudulent Christmas song. "Field", she says, "you might have some issues."

Americans love being let down by a Christmas carol and I am the one with the issues. 

Anyway, moving right along.

Leave it to the wingnuts in this country to say or do something totally stupid after a national tragedy.

"Tea Party member Timothy Birdnow lamented yesterday that had George Zimmerman “been at the front door” of Sandy Hook Elementary School, “those children would still be alive.” According to Birdnow, Zimmerman was the perfect “neighborhood watch,” and we should “support” activities like his.
In a piece posted to the Tea Party Nation website, Birdnow blames the Newtown, Connecticut shooting on everything from teacher’s unions to lack of spanking in schools. Changing our gun laws, Birdnow believes, is not the answer.

The piece, entitled, “Barbarians at the Gates of Sandy Hook,” prescribes a number of solutions to our nation’s violence problem, including homeschooling children and a “more frank discussion of race and culture.” According to Birdnow, “for far too long we have tiptoed around these issues, fearful of being branded a racist.” He believes, “If black thugs kidnap and rape a woman,” we should “ask if there is something in the black culture that fostered that.” Birdnow also suggests a restriction of “the sex in movies, television, on the internet,” claiming young people that commit violent crimes have “their passions…eternally inflamed.” “They wander the Earth with no outlet for their overstimulated glands,” he says.

He laments the absence of God from our society, saying the “key” to our “cultural disintegration,” is that we’ve “kicked God out of our collective sight.” He claims that American pop culture “has made murder, rape, mayhem, hatred, and violence ‘cool.’” [Source]

First, I do believe that this animal was home schooled. And second, George Zimmerman only shoots "thug" looking black kids armed with Skittles.

Finally, congrats to Tim Scott for becoming the first African American Southern senator since Reconstruction. He was appointed and not elected, but we will take progress anywhere we can get it.

Tim, of course, is a tea party wingnut, but not liking his politics doesn't mean that I can't praise the guy for his accomplishments. 

Affirmative action, and ticking time bombs.

It must be nice to belong to a certain group in America.

Let's see now, Bobby Petrino is dismissed from the University of Arkansas for inappropriate conduct with a female student and he just got the head coaching job at Western Kentucky. No scandal for Joker Phillips, Randy Shannon, Turner Gill or Sylvester Croom, and they can't sniff a job.

Larry Mendte, now a convicted felon, is fired from KYW(CBS) television here in Philly after hacking a co-worker's e-mail account and is back on the air in  Philly and in New York. Meanwhile, a Shreveport weather woman is fired from her on air job for responding to a racist on facebook.(Remember what happened to Jennifer Livingston?Her station backed her.) Let's see how long it takes Ms.  Lee to get another job.

Anyway, did you hear about the dude who shot up a busy mall parking lot in California, today? (He is the sweet looking guy in the pic.) Fortunately no one was killed. It might be time to start watching for these copy cat actors out here. Somehow I suspect that there are a lot of ticking time bombs among us just waiting to go off.    

Some people are thrashing David Sirota for his comments today, but.....

"On Sunday morning’s broadcast of “Up w/Chris Hayes,” liberal Salon.com columnist David Sirota suggested that Republicans will resist efforts to closely monitor and track dangerous mentally disturbed individuals, simply because many loners with mental illness are white.
 The way we’ve accustomed ourselves to think about security post-9/11 … is: ‘OK, here’s what we need to do. We need to create a whole new profiling regime to keep track on people with diagnosed mental illness, and essentially follow them around like suspected terrorists to make sure they don’t do anything like this,’” Hayes said.

“And that is a really chilling thought, and also it doesn’t seem like a particularly productive policy, but I can see that being a very appealing policy,” he added.
But Sirota said that kind of profiling system would be politically untenable.
“The issue with it will be politically, I think, the profile is white men,” Sirota said. “The profile, that’s a profile that’s not essentially in America, allowed to be profiled. That’s the one profile in America that’s not allowed to be profiled. If this was any other kind of demographic, you would be hearing that I think, in a different way — a much uglier way.”

The columnist reminded viewers that Republicans trashed a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report that warned law enforcement officials about dangerous right-wing extremists.

“Will you see the same reaction from the Republican Party back when there was the … report [that] came out raising flags over right-wing militias and veterans? …” Sirota asked. “The Republicans said, ‘This is the way to demonize essentially white America or good God-fearing Americans.’” [Source]

Sometimes "good God-fearing Americans" are the ones we should fear the most.

A culture of madness.

"We challenge the culture of violence when we ourselves act in the certainty that violence is no longer acceptable, that it's tired and outdated no matter how many cling to it in the stubborn belief that it still works and that it's still valid." ~Gerard Vanderhaar~
What on earth would possess someone to shoot a six year old eleven times??!!

We always think that the human soul can't get any darker, but, sadly, somehow it always does. We thought Columbine was as bad as it could get, but here in America alone there has been 31 deadly  school shootings since Columbine, and we are all left wondering when the madness will end.

Maybe this tragedy in Connecticut will be a tipping point in this ongoing debate about where we should stand with guns in our culture. There is no doubt that we live in a violent society. Guns (and the glorification of them) are everywhere. They are in our games, our movies, and in our art. We embrace guns and we celebrate the fact that it is in our Constitution. Now, astonishingly, pro gun advocates are saying that if the kindergarten teachers were armed this tragedy would not have happened. (Yeah, that's the ticket, arm kindergarten teachers in every school in America.)

Now we are learning that the animal who slaughtered these children in Connecticut was raised by a mother who embraced the gun culture.

"Nancy Lanza took her son, Adam, to a shooting range and taught him how to use a firearm before he turned a gun on her and shot her dead, then executed more than two dozen terrified children and teachers at an elementary school.

Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza was an avid gun collector who had legally purchased five firearms, all registered in Connecticut, according to police records.
'She said she would often go target shooting with her kids,' Dan Holmes, owner of the landscaping firm Holmes Fine Gardens, told Reuters.

He recalled that she once showed him a 'high-end rifle' that she had purchased.
'She was very proud of it,' he told the New York Daily News. 'She loved her guns.'"

Unfortunately, so did her son.

Here we go again.

"The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.”  ~Thomas Jefferson~

The "people of a nation", of course, includes its children.

I am sure that the parents of those twenty children who lost their lives in that bucolic community in Connecticut today thought that their children were safe. They were not. The truth of the matter is that you are not safe anywhere in America, anymore. There are a lot of urban high schools with metal detectors. Statistics show us that those children are certainly not safe. Rural elementary schools in upper middle class neighborhoods do not have metal detectors. And before today that was not even subject to debate. Now, after these horrific events, we find ourselves soul searching again.

This is not a gun control post. Regular readers on this blog know how I feel about the NRA, the pimps who run it, and the prostitutes' politicians who take their money. To be fair, there are some reasonable voices on the other side of this debate, and I have to hope that at some point we can find some common ground on this issue. 

I saw the president crying today while he was addressing the country about this latest tragedy. Maybe he was thinking about his children. Maybe he was thinking of all the children who were slaughtered on the streets of his hometown this past summer. And, maybe, just maybe, he was overwhelmed with the weight of it all. Honestly, how many of these shootings can one nation take?

"We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years and each time I hear the news, I react not as a president but as anybody else would, as a parent. That was especially true today.

I know there is not a parent in America whodoesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do. The majority of those who died today were children. Beautiful little kids between the ages of five and 10 years old.
They had their entire lives ahead of them. Birthdays, graduations, weddings. Kids of their own.

Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.

Our hearts are broken today for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children and the families of those adults who were lost.
Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well. For as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children’s innocence has been torn away from them too early and no words will ease their pain.

As a country, we have been though this too many times. Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, a shopping mall in Oregon, or a Temple in Wisconsin, a movie theater in Aurora or a street corner in Chicago, these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, these children are our children."

Yes they are, and so are our guns.






 

Matt Drudge has "N*gger" fever.

I am still all over this D'Vante Dotson story in Baton Rouge. I know that some folks think that it's a non story, but, to me, it's a pretty big deal.

I am still waiting on my friend who is a top flight ADA in Baton Rouge to call me and tell me why the BRPD is so silent about this case. BF, (only initials for now) I am waiting on that call.

"Baton Rouge Police Department talked with witnesses and determined the incident was an accident caused by Dotson who team mates said was drinking alcohol at the time of the accident."

Riiiight.

Anyway, let's talk about my man Matt Drudge for a minute. You have to give it Drudge, he sure knows how to grab attention with his headlines. He seems to be part of a growing list of wingnuts who are crying a river about the movie Django Unchained. (Nothing like a slave killing a white man to piss off a wingnut.) The movie itself has gotten all kinds of Golden Globe love.  

Drudge wasn't satisfied with just one "N*gger" in his headlines. He had to drop ten of them. Ten! (Why did he bother to leave out that one I? *shaking head*) Of course, Matt being Matt, he made some false claims about what was in the movie as well. "What's going on here? Tarantino uses n*gger hundreds of times..." Ahhh, no he didn't.

Anyway, I agree with what Goldie Taylor told Martin Bashir:

"Bashir asked for Taylor’s reaction to the right’s newfound “war on Jamie Foxx.”
Taylor said that Drudge would never become an arbiter of “what is racially unacceptable in this country.” She savaged his site for peddling material like this to “line their own pockets.”

“In terms of a war on Jamie Foxx, for making a mockery for the world that is Matt Drudge, I mean, how black is that?” Taylor jokingly asked, in reference to Foxx’s controversial SNL monologue.

“How black is that,” Touré agreed.

Taylor insisted that Foxx has regularly made fun of “that far-right fringe” that is frustrated with the fact that the President of the United States is black, implying that Drudge’s anti-Tarantino headline caters to this group. "

I agree with what Chris Haire wrote as well:

"Now, I'm not really sure what Matt Drudge's fedora is trying to accomplish with all of this "n*gger" stuff. But as near as I can tell, the hating hat is apparently upset that white people — like say Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh, and, oh, Sean Hannity — can't just use the word "nigger" like they used to.
In today's world, Spike Lee can say it. And Jamie Foxx can say it. And the actors in Quentin Tarantino the anti-slavery, Spaghetti Western-inspired epic "Django Unchained" can use it. But Drudge and the rest of the angry white men of America can't. And, well, that's just not fair.

Or at least that's what Matt Drudge's fedora is saying to me. Perhaps you're hearing something else entirely." [Source]

No Chris, I am hearing the same thing.