The nanny from hell, and a win for Hobby Lobby.

True story.




My cousin lives in California and is an executive for a toy company out there.




He and his wife live hectic hard charging lives, so they hired a live- in nanny from Central America after the birth of their first child.




Anyway, they noticed that after awhile the child could only communicate to them in Spanish. It turns out that while she was at home with the nanny during the daytime hours, the lady would only watch Telemundo and other Spanish channels and she would only communicate with their child in Spanish.




I am reminded of my cousin's adventures in the world of nannies after reading about the story out of his home state where the nanny thing went terribly wrong.




Can you imagine? Things aren't working out with the nanny and you tell her that it might be time to part ways. You start to write out her final check and she tells you, Not so fast. I am not going anywhere.



Well this is what happened to poor Mr. and Mrs. Bracamonte.

"A Southern California couple is taking legal action to evict their live-in nanny who they say refused to work or leave. Marcella Bracamonte, 31, and her husband hired Diane Stretton, 64, off of Craigslist in March as a live-in nanny to care for their three children, Bracamonte said. The first few weeks of Stretton's tenure went smoothly, allowing Bracamonte to pursue work outside her family's home in Upland, California, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. But Stretton became a burden: She left her bedroom only for meals and later claimed she was suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Bracamonte said. "She complained about me leaving her with the kids too long. I tried to be patient with her," Bracamonte said. "She just stopped working altogether." The home gradually became more hostile, and Bracamonte was unable to fully pursue a new job with a multi-level marketing company. The couple fired the nanny after she stopped working, but Stretton asserted her rights as a tenant and hasn't left. She has threatened to sue the couple for elder abuse, Bracamonte said. Eviction papers filed against Stretton were denied. Bracamonte said the court documents were filled out by a paralegal. On Friday, the family hired attorney Marc Cohen, who said he plans to file a new round of eviction papers. [Source] Lord have mercy! Black folks reading this are like, Hell. To. The. No! Background checks, people; background checks. Anywhoo, I am sure that you all heard about this Hobby Lobby ruling from the Supremes by now. Progressives are up in arms because they think that once again the Supreme Court is telling the women of America that being a woman is not cool in 2014. Hobby Lobby doesn't want to pay for certain types of contraceptives for their female employees because it goes counter to their religious beliefs. (Yes, corporations are people, so they can be a part of a religion as well. ) Needless to say that I side with Justice Ginsburg's dissenting opinion: "In the Court’s view, RFRA demands accommodation of a for-profit corporation’s religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on third parties who do not share the corporation owners’ religious faith—in these cases, thousands of women employed by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga or dependents of persons those corporations employ. Persuaded that Congress enacted RFRA to serve a far less radical purpose, and mindful of the havoc the Court’s judgment can introduce, I dissent.....until today, religious exemptions had never been extended to any entity operating in 'the commercial, profit-making world.'" Jesus cannot be pleased. He was not a "commercial, profit-making" kind of guy.

Negroes don't jaywalk in Arizona, and the WGI just keeps on growing.

My friends over at Phxsoul.com tweeted about the following story earlier, and I need to know your take on it.


"An Arizona State University professor who was arrested by campus police last month is claiming self-defense, and the incident is getting a whole lot more attention now that 3TV has obtained video of it.

“The reason I’m talking to you right now is because you are walking in the middle of the street,” Officer Stewart Ferrin said to ASU professor Dr. Ersula Ore after stopping her near campus. She was crossing College Avenue, just south of Fifth Street.


Click here to view the raw video


But in less than a minute, the conversation quickly began to escalate.

“Let me see your ID or you will be arrested for failing to provide ID,” Ferrin said.

“Are you serious?” Ore asked.

“Yes, I am serious. That is the law,” Ferrin replied.

According to police reports, Ore said she was trying to cross College Avenue in the same fashion as several others trying to avoid construction.

“I never once saw a single solitary individual get pulled over by a cop for walking across a street on a campus, in a campus location. Everybody has been doing this because it is all obstructed. That’s the reason why,” Ore said to the officer. “But you stop me in the middle of the street to pull me over and ask me, 'Do you know what this is? This is a street.' ”

“Are you aware that this is a street?” Ferrin asked.

“Let me finish,” Ore said.

“OK, put your hands behind your back,” Ferrin said.

“Don't touch me,” Ore said. “Get your hands off me.”

Seconds later, things escalated even further.

“Put your hand behind your back. I’m going to slam you on this car. Put your hand behind your back,” Ferrin said.

“You really want to do that? Do you see what I’m wearing? Do you see?” Ore said.

She was wearing a black dress and after being "slammed" onto the car, she was wrestled to the ground. Her dress hiked up and her body was exposed.

While both Ore and Ferrin suffered some minor injuries, Ore was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer in addition to criminal damage and obstructing a thoroughfare. She intends to fight the charges.
Ore's attorney, Alane Roby, says Ore is claiming self-defense.


"She was exposed, told officer she was exposed," Roby said of her client while she was on the ground. "Her dress was up; the officer was reaching toward her anatomy. She felt uncomfortable with hands going there."


Professor Ore is an English professor whose research interests include cultural studies, according to ASU's website.

ASU released this statement to 3TV:

“ASU authorities have reviewed the circumstances surrounding the arrest and have found no evidence of inappropriate actions by the ASUPD officers involved. Should such evidence be discovered, an additional, thorough inquiry will be conducted and appropriate actions taken.

"Because the underlying criminal charges are pending, there is not much more we can say at this time. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has reviewed all available evidence, including the police report, witness statements, and audio and video recordings of the incident, and decided to press criminal charges of assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, refusing to provide identification when requested to do so by an officer, and obstructing a highway or public thoroughfare.”


True confessions, I am giving the po po a side-eye on this one for two reasons: The obvious racial dynamic, and the jay walking charge.


Now I get it, I live on the East Coast, so the whole jaywalking thing is not something that I can even relate to. I can't tell the last time a cop in Philly gave a ticket for jaywalking.


But sadly, here we are. Another "color aroused" confrontation gone wrong.


And keep in mind that we are talking about Arizona. We all know that they have some issues out there in Alabama West.


Some are questioning why the professor didn't just take the ticket and keep it popping. As black folks we are all supposed to know the rules, but I can understand if sometimes you just don't want to play along. Folks have day to day problems that can be exasperated by these types of events.


Anyway, what started out as a jaywalking ticket turned into an aggravated assault charge.


I will be following this story.


Then there is Rick Santorum, he doesn't think that it was such a bad idea if everyone didn't have an opportunity to vote back in the day.


I know that there are a lot of black conservatives out there, and I would really like one of them to justify that position for me.



I am serious; I would like to have a civil debate on the issue with you. I know you will never turn on one of your own publicly, so feel free to shoot me an e-mail and we will talk about it.


fnblg@yahoo.com


Finally, I know that Philly is the city of brotherly love, but poor Bill Walters isn't feeling any love from his neighbors.


Bill believes that he is being discriminated against because he is a member of the Klan. Yes Bill, in America, Klansmen have rights as well. It's just that your neighborhood watch friends have rights as well, and they just don't think it's a good look for you to be a part of their group right now.


"We are a conservative Christian group,” Walters said of the KKK. “My rights were infringed upon. I can’t believe in what I want to? This has infringed on my First Amendment rights. It’s reverse discrimination.” He has reached out the ACLU for support in a legal case against the neighborhood watch group, but they turned him down.


The town watch president Joe Nicoletti explained the decision to kick Walters out of the group, saying, “We received information that Bill had been distributing flyers in the neighborhood trying to recruit new members. And part of our bylaws state that members must promote harmony in the neighborhood, and we all know that harmony is not what the KKK is about.”


Walters insists that the KKK is not a hate group, saying, “I know we have a bad name, but it’s not that way no more.” For instance, he asked, “When was the last time a black or Hispanic got hung on a tree?” [Source]


Bill, I think it's been awhile. I think. 


But don't give up just yet, go back and work on your public relation skills.


I am sure you will be getting a call from FOX News real soon, so that might be a good place to start. They have a way of feeding the white grievance industry. (WGI)


Oh, and don't forget Rick Santorum; I bet you will get a friendly ear from him as well.


 


 

Caption Saturday.

Please give me a caption for this pic.


Again, no profanity, or the blog host will disavow any knowledge of your comment.

Another great is gone, and some questionable candidates.

I would like to start this post tonight by saying rest in peace to the legendary Bobby Womack.


That man was soul personified and one of America's greatest artist.


In honor of him I think I will slip He'll Be There, and If You Think You're Lonely Now on my playlist tonight.


Anywhoo, in today's news, here is just one more reason why we should be careful who we vote for.


"A Republican candidate is contesting the results of a primary race he lost this week with a rather shocking and extremely out-there allegation: his opponent, incumbent congressman Frank Lucas, is dead, and the man he ran against is a lookalike.


This is what Tim Murray (who challenged Lucas last time as a Democrat and this time switched to the Republican side) actually says on his actual campaign website: “It is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike. Rep. Lucas’ look alike was depicted as sentenced on a white stage in southern Ukraine on or about Jan. 11, 2011.”


Yes, he’s claiming that a Republican member of Congress went to Ukraine and was “depicted as being executed” on live TV, and obviously, after you die, you are “not eligible to serve as a Congressional Member after that time.”
When asked about this bonkers theory, Lucas simply said, “I’ve never been to Ukraine.”


Sure, that’s what the elites want us to think!" [Source]


What would we do without the tea party to offer us all comic relief?


But seriously, these political parties really have to do a better job of vetting their candidates.


 "..Jordan D. Haskins, the only Republican candidate running for Congress in Michigan’s 95th State House District.


Haskins, you see, has a checkered past: he’s a parolee with “stints in prison systems in two states,” according to the Saginaw News. While most of his felonies include larceny, auto theft, and breaking and entering, two of his charges — misdemeanor charges of unlawful use of a motor vehicle and malicious destruction of property — occurred when he broke into a state property, pulled spark plugs and wires out of police cars, and then…masturbated:

According to that incident report, Haskins again said that he damaged county vehicles by pulling spark plug wires to “masturbate while cranking the engine.” Deputies said he told them the act is a sexual fetish he learned about online. 

Haskins told The Saginaw News that he has difficulty explaining what drove him to again and again repeat that behavior.  

“I was in a messed-up state of mind mentally and emotionally when I did what I did,” he said. “That’s the only way I can even explain it.”

He also liked to masturbate in police cruisers and vehicles, in stolen trucks, and in a city mosquito control car. It is unclear whether he would masturbate on a boat, with a goat, here or there, or anywhere.


Looking back, Haskins said that he was in “a whole phase of my life where I was young and stupid,” and that he’d faced some problems at home. Now, however, he’s ready to clean up his messy past. “I feel that, yes, I’ve made mistakes in my past. But I’m working to correct those things and to try at least to put in my small part and help others in my community and try to make things right. I hope the citizens of the city and the 95th District will give me that chance.”


The state’s Republican Party has neither condemned nor offered their endorsement of the candidate." [Source]


Young Mr. Haskins can be encouraged by the fact that a car thief is actually a very powerful man in Washington these days. I guess it's not where you start as much as where you finish.


Good luck Jordan, just remember to report to your parole officer.


 

"Presidential powers" are only for certain presidents.

Congrats to the USA for making it through the "group of death" and on to the next round of the World Cup. I just watched the game against Germany. (I am home, and this has nothing to do with the World Cup being on. I just happen to feel a bit under the weather....) They were outclassed on a wet pitch by a better German team. Still, even though they lost the game they won the battle.


So anyway, "the man" continues to try to show the Negro in the White House who is really in charge.


In a test run to find out the mood for an impeachment battle, John Boehner and his pals are planning to sue the president. And today the supremes ruled that the Negro in chief is forgetting his place here in America.

"The US Supreme Court today limited a president's power to make recess appointments when the White House and the Senate are controlled by opposite parties, scaling back a presidential authority as old as the republic.

The case arose from a political dispute between President Obama and Senate Republicans, who claimed he had no authority to put three people on the National Labor Relations Board in January 2012 when the Senate was out of town.

He used a president's power, granted by the Constitution, to "fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate." But the Republicans said the Senate was not in recess at the time the appointments were made, because every three days a senator went into the chamber, gaveled it to order, and then immediately called a recess. " [Source]

Oh my! Mr. President I feel your pain. What you have to understand is that rules that apply to other presidents do not necessarily apply to you.

As for the lawsuit, well.....

"In response, White House press secretary Josh Earnest accused congressional Republicans of obstruction and said they had left Obama with little option but to make greater use of his executive authority.


"The fact that they are considering a taxpayer-funded lawsuit against the president of the United States for doing his job, I think, is the kind of step that most Americans wouldn't support," Earnest said.


The suit would be filed on behalf of the House and its mere existence would likely set off a partisan struggle. Three Republicans and two Democrats comprise a bipartisan group charged with overseeing House legal matters.
The group must meet to approve filing a suit on behalf of the House, and a party-line vote is all but certain.


Boehner strongly brushed aside a question of whether impeachment proceedings could result from the suit. "This is not about impeachment. This is about his (Obama's) faithfully executing the laws of our country," he said."


When a politician like John Boehner says that something isn't about something; you just know that it is about that something.


Still, I think I speak for quite a few people in this country and say, bring it on.


*Pic from NewsOne

The Negroes deliver for the old senator.

You Negroes done did it now; you really pissed off the tea party folks by coming out to vote for Thad Cochran last night. Rush Limbaugh is calling you all Uncle Toms and the right wingnuts are shocked that Negroes could actually vote for a republican. Glenn Beck got so mad that he reached for his gun and was actually shooting while he ranted against the Washington establishment, and the man that beat Cochran was so ticked off that he refused to concede.


Anyway, I honestly don't know what to think of this. Apparently quite a lot of you Negroes down in Mississippi have love for the old senator because he has "looked out" for you all in the past. But isn't this the same guy who refused to vote for a resolution apologizing for the senate not passing anti-lynching laws?


 "I'm not in the business of apologizing for what someone else did or didn't do," he told me. "I deplore and regret that lynching occurred and that those committing them weren't punished, but I'm not culpable.."


Ok then, but this is from the same article:


"The trouble with that explanation is that Cochran did sign on as a co-sponsor of bills apologizing for the government's treatment of Native Americans and for the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.


Why did he find it so difficult to apologize for the Senate's failure to deal with the anti-lynching legislation passed by the House?"


Because we are talking about Negroes. The same Negroes who voted for him.


Still, as bad as Cochran is, his opponent might have been worse. This might explain why the Negroes down in Mississippi decided to make sure that he didn't go to Washington.


The irony of all of this is that the architect of the Cochran's victory was a disciple of none other than Lee Atwater who is a master of playing to the fears of Southern white voters to get their votes. This time Haley Barbour pulled a political switcheroo, and he played on the fears of the black voters to get his way.






 

Negroes needed in Mississippi.

I feel for my cousins down in Mississippi who are caught in the middle of a very nasty republican fight.


A quick update: A tea party candidate with a dubious and rather interesting history is challenging the incumbent who has been the senator there since my cousins were picking cotton. (OK, it only seems like it's been that long, but you get the idea.) And a very heated race has come to a head.


Mississippi has an open primary, and the saner of the two candidates is begging black folks to come out and vote for him , because apparently he represents the lesser of two evils.


Negroes, please come out and vote for Thad Cochran, he needs you.


So now, the tea party being the tea party, are going to have their loyal soldiers patrolling the polling places to watch for cheating Negroes.


They are calling it the "voter integrity project", but they might as well call it the keep Negroes from voting project, because that's exactly what they want to do.


Anyway, I wonder who is going to watch the conservative poll watchers while they poll watch.


 "An array of conservative groups supporting Chris McDaniel, including the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Tea Party Patriots, and True the Vote have said they’re sending poll-watchers to the state amid reports that some Mississippi Democratic operatives are working to turn out black Democrats in support of McDaniel’s opponent, Sen. Thad Cochran. The poll-watching effort is being organized in part by Christian Adams, a former Bush Justice Department lawyer who has long sought to publicize claims of voter fraud and illegal voting."


There was a time when folks went to Mississippi to advance civil rights, now, sadly, the times have changed. These folks are going to do the exact opposite thing.


Finally, I really wish that Dick Cheney would just stop. Honestly, he is hurting himself and his party more than anyone else at this point.


Besides, all anyone has to do is to click on this link to see why everyone in the Bush administration during the lead up to the Iraq war needs to just STFU.


"Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s media tour showed no signs of slowing Tuesday with appearances on The Rush Limbaugh Show and now Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. On the latter, Cheney said he believes there will be another major terrorist attack on the homeland before the end of the decade, this one “far deadlier” than 9/11.


Asked by Hewitt if he thinks we can “get through this decade without a massive attack on the homeland,” Cheney answered, “I doubt it.”


“I think there will be another attack and this time I think it’s likely to be far deadlier than the last one,” he added.


From there, Cheney began to fantasize about “what would happen if someone could smuggle a nuclear device, put it in a shipping container and drive it down the beltway outside of Washington, D.C.”


When Hewitt suggested there would have to be “military rule” in the United States if something like that were to happen, Cheney detailed the “continuity of government” program, which was set up during the Cold War to ensure a “government in waiting” that could step in if needed. "


Lord have mercy, now the man is telling terrorists how to attack America.


If you love that man you will lock him in the attic and throw away the key.










































 

"The beautiful game".

It's been a wonderful thing to watch these World Cup games and to see the beautiful people of all different races and cultures coming together to cheer on their home team as well.


I know that there is always going to be one or two knuckle heads in every crowd, but for the most part the crowd has been passionate and well behaved.
There has been no bananas being thrown on the pitch and no monkey sound taunts. I guess those racists in Europe just couldn't afford to go to Brazil. Which, if you think about it, kind of makes sense.


America is still in it, so Americans will be engaged for the next few days. The bars will remain full with overnight--front running-- soccer fans, who are full of with patriotic fervor and zeal cheering on the old Red White & Blue. 


We will see if Jurgen and the boys can keep giving them something to cheer about.


One thing that I have found fascinating about these games (which has been a recurring theme for the last few World Cups) is the ethnic makeup of squads from places like The Netherlands, Belgium, and England. Heck even the Italians and the Swiss have some color sprinkled in their lineups. Their squads have been shaped by the migration of immigrants due to decolonization.


Of course this is not the case with Eastern European countries that tend to be poorer and driven by more extreme right wing politics.


Then there are the "ethnically homogeneous" squads from Japan and South Korea. These are both countries where the immigrant populations are very small, so they can be excused for not having the same level of diversity when they take the pitch.


The thing you have to understand about world football as well is that "citizenship is negotiable". Just look at the makeup of the American team with all those German and European based players, whose connection to America is not exactly a strong one.  


Personally, I love it. I love the fact that nationalistic lines are being blurred and that more and more people are becoming world citizens.


 "In all of these countries the changing makeup of the national team has served as both an optimistic emblem of successful integration and a lightning rod for accusations of inauthenticity; who does and does not sing the national anthem before the games has become a touchstone of citizenship for many far-right commentators."


Get over it. The world is changing.










  


   

Ricky's story falls apart.

When will white folks like Ricky Wagoner learn?

The black man did it excuse is just not going to cut it anymore. It has been used too many times in the past and it always turns out not to be true.


This type of race blaming goes way back, and it has a deep history in this country.


Anyway, Ricky tried to get a little creative with his story, and he made himself look like quite the hero.


He was actually hailed as a hero at the time, and publications wrote about his bible saving his life. Cute.

"He heard suspects say that it was time to kill a polar bear to get into a club,''' Dayton Sgt. Michael Pauley told reporters. 


The assailants shot Waggoner in the leg and stabbed him in the arm, but he told a 911 operator that he was able to fight back. He stabbed one of them with a pen before all three men ran away. 


"I didn't want to stay there,'' he said in the recording of his 911 call. "I took the gun and knife away from them and shot at them." 


The 911 dispatcher asked him about his injuries, which led him to discover his good fortune. 


"I just looked at the chest,'' he told the dispatcher. "It just feels like I've been hit with a sledgehammer. I've got a book in my pocket, and I don't think they made it through this book."


Sure you did Ricky. Must be all those "knock out game" stories you have been listening to.


"RTA bus driver’s claim that three black teenagers shot and stabbed him is not supported by the evidence and reconstruction of the incident by a police investigation.


Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl said during a press conference Wednesday that key elements of driver Rickey Wagoner’s story - in particular the sequence of events and ballistics tests on the gun said to be used in the shooting - could not have happened as described.


In a release posted on the Dayton Regional Transportation Authority’s website at the same time the police news conference was underway, RTA Executive Director Mark Donaghy said that Wagoner has been accused as part of the employee disciplinary process with violations of RTA’s Employee Standards of Performance. He remains on paid administrative leave.' {Source}


Hey at least Ricky is still being paid.


Maybe he can give some money to his imaginary black friends.

Caption Saturday.

Please give me a caption for this pic.


I got some good ones last week. Keep the win streak going.


No profanity, please.

Spiritually awakened to piss on the prez.

Classy folks those right wing Christians. You know them, right? They are the ones whose leader declared that the only way to save America is to "undergo a moral and spiritual awakening".


If America is to ever become a Christian theocratic state, these are the guys who will take us there.


Anyway they are such good Christians, that this is what they are doing at their conference down in Washington.


"The 2014 Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference is underway in Washington, D.C. and one of the fun features they have apparently included this year is the ability to pee directly on President Barack Obama’s face. That’s right, there are Obama urinal cakes in the men’s room.


The Huffington Post’s Igor Bobic shared the image you cannot un-see with the world on Twitter:"





Anyway, at least the White House is taking it all in good spirits:


"Dan Pfeiffer        ✔ @pfeiffer44 Follow

@samsteinhp @igorbobic Totally uncalled for: Those ears are huge

11:50 AM - 20 Jun 2014" [Source] 

Is Scott Walker going to Washington or to jail ?

I guess republicans can strike another potential opponent to Hillary Clinton off the list.


It seems like some slick stuff has been going on up in cheese country.


"Documents unsealed by a federal judge Thursday revealed prosecutors’ allegations against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R), whom they called the center of a “criminal scheme” to coordinate funds during the 2011-12 recall elections.


Prosecutors accuse Walker and two deputies, R.J. Johnson and Deborah Jordahl, of circumventing election law by machinating fundraising efforts among various GOP candidates and conservative groups. The apparent smoking gun is an email from Walker to Republican strategist Karl Rove outlining the coordination and naming Johnson, also chief adviser to Wisconsin Club for Growth, as the conductor.


The documents were unsealed due to a lawsuit by the Club for Growth, which has temporarily halted the investigation." [Source]


There is that Karl Rove guy again. ("Romney by a landslide") He is hurting more than helping candidates at this point.


But Walker has no one to blame but himself for his latest issues. Like his larger than life cohort and political soul-mate in New Jersey, Scott Walker started to read and believe all those flattering press clippings about Scott Walker.


Still, as is to be expected, the Governor is blaming his problems on others.


"Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker responded on Twitter earlier tonight about prosecutors’ allegations over his involvement in a “criminal scheme” to coordinate fundraising efforts.


Walker dismissed it as a partisan witch hunt and cites rulings from two judges that have already vindicated his innocence.


Here’s what Walker had to say on Twitter:


✔ @ScottWalker Follow

The accusation of any wrongdoing written in the complaint by the office of a partisan Dem DA by me or by my campaign is categorically false.

6:52 PM - 19 Jun 2014 "

We will see Governor, we will see.

Finally, I saw Dick (if I only had a heart) Cheney and his daughter on television the other night ripping Obama a new one for botching the war in Iraq. Let me repeat that: DICK CHENEY WAS ON NATIONAL TELEVISION CRITICIZING THE PRESIDENT'S IRAQI POLITICS!  Now that, my friends, is called chutzpah.

It's so bad that one of the hosts on the republican news network had to check him on it.  If you are a republican that's when you know that you have officially gone over the top. When a FOX Views host confronts you about something.

 

Honestly, I have seen some pretty good and constructive criticism of the president over the past few days, but what Cheney did and said was baffling; even for him.

I bet W is somewhere in Texas just wishing that he would shut up and just go away.

But we all know that he can't. Not until that heart of his stops ticking.

*Pic from Brad Blog.

    

Can you give us the last two years?

Dear President Obama:


I feel compelled to write you this letter because of various developments in your presidency. A presidency, which for the record, has been declared officially "over" by some in the chattering class from the majority population.


I know that you officially have almost two years left to go, but let's face it, most of these folks in America have already made up their minds about you, and, for whatever reason, they are not feeling you anymore.


Your approval rating stands at 41% and your disapproval ratings stand at 52%. Then there is this number: 54%. That's the amount of people here in America who do not believe that you can do the job you were elected to do.


But enough of that. I am sure that you are well aware of these numbers and the mood of the country.


Personally, (with all due respect to my friend Bruce Dixon) I don't think that you have been any worse than all of the other presidents that led this country. The Dow is at record levels; unemployment is down; OBL is dead, home values are going up; you brought back an economy that was in the tank; we are finally closer to having a better health care system; and you pulled the troops out of Iraq as promised. (Please don't go back.)


But all of this means nothing to the typical American, the narrative has already been painted of you by your political enemies , and most (not all) of the masses are buying it.


But here is the good news: Your approval rating is not below 13%. Why is this good news? Because that is approximately the percentage of black folks in this country, and I am pretty sure that if you were to poll blacks folks, your approval ratings would still be in the eighties nineties. This is in spite of the fact that you have pretty much ignored black folks and tried to be the president for ALL Americans. That was an honorable and well meaning pursuit, but as I am sure that you have learned by now, some people are just never satisfied.   


Sadly, you have surrounded yourself with Ivy League sycophants and Washington politicians, whose lives are lived in the political fishbowl in and around Washington. These people don't care about the things that you should  be caring about. They are there to enhance their careers and move on to the next cushy job, so they would never tell you what I am going to tell you now.


Again, the good news: You have almost two years left to work on issues that primarily concern black folks. This is the time to do it. Forget the rest of America, they have already moved on from you. Time to serve the people who are pushing your approval ratings to 41%. And as bad as that seems, trust me when I tell you, it could be worse.


Mr. President, I need you to start using the bully pulpit to talk about things such as an unfair justice system as it relates to minorities in this country. Heck Rand Paul of all people is talking about it; it's time you do the same. 


I need you to start talking about the high unemployment rate for black folks, and the need to focus on job training in inner city communities as well as investment dollars to start small businesses that can hire some of these folks once they get the proper training.


You can't just give lip service to helping black folks and have token meetings with the CBC to address these issues.


I need you to go on inner city tours and spend time in places like Detroit, Cleveland, Houston, New Orleans, and Memphis. Walk the streets of these cities (Trust me, you will be safe. Gangbangers will assist the Secret Service if they need them to.) And let the main stream media follow you every step of the way.
They need to see that there are parts of this country that could be mistaken for *pick a city* in a Third World country. (I have seen Richard Engel in every war torn country in the Middle East. I have never seen him in Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood on a Saturday night.)


It's time to start talking about gun violence and the killing of young black men by other young black men. It's not enough to get on television every time there is a school shooting in the majority population and wag your finger at the NRA and remain quiet at the carnage in the streets of our cities on any given weekend.


I have a lot more, but I will stop now, because I know that you don't have the time to read everything that I want to stay. Let's face it; you have been a little busy these days.


Just think about what I said.


These folks can't hate you anymore, and no matter what you do for them they won't be satisfied.


Besides, what are they going to do if you go black? Impeach you?


Sincerely,




The Field Negro


  


















































 


   

A killing in Texas, and "taunts and mockery" in Washington.

Did you hear about the case in Texas where the po po shot a man to death who was handcuffed and it was caught on camera?


"Earlier this year a grand jury declined to charge an El Paso police officer in the shooting death of a prisoner. A video of the incidenct  was published on Monday, after the Texas Attorney General instructed the city to fulfill a request processed by the El Paso Times. The events of the video are deeply unsettling, showing a police officer essentially executing a handcuffed man." [Story]


The most shocking part of this story, besides the obvious of course, is that a "grand jury declined to charge" the police officer. You Texans I swear.


But it's not only those folks in Texas. Right here in Pistolvania the justice system can be just as harsh.


"A Pennsylvania woman died in a jail cell over the weekend while serving a 48-hour sentence for her children’s unpaid school fines. Eileen DiNino was found dead on Saturday in a Berks County jail cell where she was midway through the sentence that would have eliminated around $2,000 in fines and related court fees related to her children’s attendance at school. Police have said her death is not considered suspicious, but the cause has yet to be determined. She was 55 years old and a mother to seven children.


“This lady didn’t need to be there,” District Judge Dean Patton — who said he was “reluctant” to sentence DiNino — told the Associated Press. ”We don’t do debtors prisons anymore. That went out 100 years ago.” More than 1,600 people have been jailed in Berks County alone — the majority of them women — because of similar fines. [Source]


Lord have mercy! This really is no country for poor folks.


If you are rich and kill someone with your car you don't spend a day in jail. If you are poor and owe the school district money you die in jail.


Finally, thank goodness for the video camera. It exposed the cold blooded killing of that poor man in El Paso, and it has also vindicated Dana Milbank.


"On Monday evening, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank live-blogged the Heritage Foundation’s Benghazi panel and described a lengthy exchange between panelists and a Muslim student as “ugly” and having descended into taunts and mockery."


Of course wingnuts were quick to call the report  a lie and declare hat Milbank was exaggerating.


Well, as it turns out, he was not. Those tolerant right-wing Christians were giving the lone female Muslim in their midst the business. All that was missing was the post and the fire to burn the heretic.


Real tolerant folks over there at the Heritage Foundation.


“Are you an American?” Gabriel demanded of Ahmed, after accusing her of taking “the limelight” and before informing her that her “political correctness” belongs “in the garbage.”


“Where are the others speaking out?” Ahmed was asked. This drew an extended standing ovation from the nearly 150 people in the room, complete with cheers.
The panel’s moderator, conservative radio host Chris Plante, grinned and joined in the assault. “Can you tell me who the head of the Muslim peace movement is?” he demanded of Ahmed.


“Yeah,” audience members taunted, “yeah.”


Ahmed answered quietly, as before. “I guess it’s me right now,” she said." [Source]






 


  




 

Openly crazy.

These "open carry" gun nuts are getting out of control. Wait...did I say getting out of control? I take that back. They are out of control.


Take this clown up in Michigan for example.


"Just-released police footage showed a tense standoff between Kalamazoo, MI cops and a man carrying a rifle down the street last month, a situation eventually required the entire block to be shut down as a SWAT negotiator tried to convince the man to surrender his firearm.


Michigan laws allow residents to carry firearms but not to brandish them. After several emergency calls reporting an elderly man, possibly intoxicated and definitely in pajama pants, wandering down the street with an automatic rifle, cops responded and tried to detain him for jaywalking. He resisted the officers, gave his name as “Joe Schmoe,” yelled about open carrier rights, yelled about revolution, accused the officers of being gang members, at one point repeatedly grabbed his crotch, and dared the officers, “Why don’t you fucking shoot me?”“ I am not going to die because you’re angry with me,” the negotiator told him. At one point an officer is heard to say that the man had “far exceeded” his open carry rights.


The negotiator eventually convinced the man to surrender his rifle, which was returned to him the next day." {See video}


Sir, thank your lucky stars that you are not a Negro in America, because, if you were, your family would still be in mourning.


If a Negro asked the po po to shoot him they would have certainly obliged.


Still, something has to be done about these "open carry" fanatics. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't like the idea of going out to eat with my beautiful wife and having to worry about some clown with an AR-15 at the next table choking on his salad and accidentally popping off some shots in the direction of my table.


If I am at the local Target the last thing I want to see is one of these fanatics strolling the toy aisle. And yet, if I lived in Dallas, Texas, there is  a strong chance that I would be unlucky enough to run into one.


"On Saturday in the Dallas suburb of Irving, a group of men armed with semi-automatic rifles gathered in a parking lot outside a Target store for a demonstration led by the group Open Carry Texas, whose goal is the loosening and abolishment of gun regulations. (It's legal in Texas to carry rifles on display in public, but not handguns.) As I reported recently, Open Carry Texas drew Target into the ongoing political battle over gun laws by encouraging its armed supporters to parade through the store's toy aisles, tote Oreos along with their ammo, and boast that "Target is very 2A friendly." (The group and its allies have also been involved in some disturbing intimidation tactics and recently were rebuked by the National Rifle Association.)" [Source] 


You know that you have officially gone over into crazy-land when the NRA says that you are too extreme for their taste. The NRA called them "scary" and "weird" . But then they realized that most of their members actually support these fanatics, and thus were forced to apologize to their crazy gun-toting cousins.


 "The National Rifle Association is walking back its recent criticism of pro-gun activists in Texas, apologizing to protesters for the "confusion" over the powerful gun lobby's position on open carry of firearms."


Combine  the "stand your ground" laws and this open carry trend, and what we have is a recipe for disaster.
 
"The man was not charged with brandishing a firearm. “After reviewing the report, the detectives felt the officer was right in taking the gun for safe keeping for that time because of the response they got back from the gentlemen who was walking down the street actually carrying the gun and moving it from shoulder to shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to present to the prosecutor’s office,”


That might be the scariest part of this story.


Finally,  a couple of more things.


First, why isn't everyone who got us involved in the war in Iraq not sitting in a bench in The Hague and being tried for war crimes?


Every time I see one of W's merry men on television (I see you Mr. Bremer) telling us why we should go back in Iraq or why we shouldn't have left in the first place, I think about that.


Second, you will probably never see me write anything like this again, but shout out to Rand Paul for bringing attention to a serious problem in this country. It's nice to know that there is at least one elected republican official who cares about some of the same issues that I do.


We get on Rand Paul when he says and does dumb s**t. So we have to praise him when he does the right thing as well.






















 

The politics of fear.

Lindsey Graham believes that the next 911 type attack on our home soil will come from Iraq or Syria. I disagree.


With all due respect to the very disrespectful senator, the next 911 style attack on our home front will not come from the Middle East; it will come from home grown terrorists. (Think anti-government white supremacist groups.)


But I see why he is saying this. Better to scare the base about the Muslim bogeyman and score cheap political points than to call out groups that actually include members of your base.


Some of these folks on the right get very defensive when you focus on trying to stop these groups, but you can't blame law enforcement for being concerned.


"Remember in 2009, right at the start of the Obama era, when then-Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano issued a report (PDF) entitled: “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”? The report was truly prescient. It alerted us to the rise of right-wing extremism, such as from white supremacist groups, and warned that unchecked, it could lead to violence.


How did Republicans respond? They went ballistic attacking the report. John Boehner was especially upset that Napolitano would use the term “terrorist” to “describe American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation,” adding, “using such broad-based generalizations about the American people is simply outrageous.”


Well it's not looking so "outrageous" now. It's a fact that since 911 home grown extremists have killed more people in the United States than "extremists motivated by al Qaeda's ideology".


So why did Lindsey Graham make these bold and frightening statements, now?


Well it's politics season here in America. Time to put fear in the mind of Joe Voter so that he will vote for the party who he believes can best protect him  from all the evil out there.


Sadly, by the time Joe Voter realizes that the "evil-doer" was his neighbor or his neighbor's child, it will be too late.


"Today in the United States, al Qaeda-type terrorism is the province of individuals with no real connection to foreign terrorists, aside from reading their propaganda online. Given this, it becomes harder to explain, in terms of American national security, why violence by homegrown right wing extremists receives substantially less attention than does violence by homegrown jihadist militants."


Because "right wing extremists" vote too. 


    

Caption Saturday.

I need a caption for this pic.


No profanity, please.

Are we ready for round two?

With the latest news out of Iraq, it must feel like a sick version of "Groundhog Day" to most Americans.


(And you thought that we had seen the last of the Shiites and Sunnis.)


The neocons and right-wing chicken hawks in America are itching for a fight. "We should never have left when we did" they cry. "The job was not finished. We should have kept boots on the ground." Over at FOX Views they are trotting out Judith Miller again for crying out loud.


If this wasn't such a serious issue it would all be very funny.


These are the same people who got us into this never ending war in the first place. We toppled a dictator who was holding the country together and who (although he was no doubt evil) was just what the doctor ordered for this unstable and volatile country.


So what now? Do we listen to the people that lied about WMDs to get us there in the first place and cost us an enormous sacrifice in blood and treasure?
Or do we wash our hands of the region and let whatever generational beefs they have with each other work itself out?


Before we decide what to do, remember this: America hasn't recovered economically or emotionally from W's war, and the usual suspects are at it again.


"The senator [McCain] wasted no time snapping back, hammering Stein for his “confusion”:

I think you are confused because you didn’t know what happened with the surge where we basically had the country pacified. We had a stable government in Baghdad, and we had the conflict basically — for all intents and purposes — won. We still got troops in Bosnia, a residual force would have stabilized the country. Most military experts will tell you that. So I’m sorry about your confusion, but the facts on the ground were that al Qaeda had been defeated almost completely and with the residual American force and at that time, a strong Iraq. Now, [Iraqi PM Nouri] al-Maliki is very weak. Maliki got worse after we left. And again, I knew this was going to happen, because we didn’t leave that force behind. And so I’m sorry about your confusion, but anybody who was there will tell you we had the conflict won.

Had it won? The daily bombings and non-stop carnage from that country ever since W's war started until now says something different.


“I guess I shouldn’t myself confused, because it would be used against me,” Stein remarked. He then pressed once more: “What is the end date for our forces in Iraq? Is it open-ended? And if that’s the case, because we need to have a residual force there to prop up the Iraq government indefinitely, is that how you see it?”


In return, McCain cited residual American troops stationed in Germany, Japan, Korea, and Bosnia as having successfully stabilized regions American forces have previously occupied."


Senator there is no stabilizing this region. And if you of all people aren't aware of that, well then we are in some serious trouble.