Gil Scott-Heron (born April 1, 1949) is an American poet, musician, and author known primarily for his late 1970s and early 1980s work as a spoken word performer and his collaborative soul works with musician Brian Jackson. His collaborative efforts with Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues and soul music, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. The music of these albums, most notably Pieces of a Man and Winter in America in the early 1970s, influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul. Scott-Heron’s recording work is often associated with black militant activism and has received much critical acclaim for one of his most well-known compositions “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised“. On his influence, Allmusic wrote “Scott-Heron’s unique proto-rap style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists”.[1]
Regarding Deficit Commission panel:
“Instead, about one in four commission staffers is paid by outside entities, many of which have strong ideological points of view about how to tackle the deficit.
For example, the salaries of two senior staffers, Marc Goldwein and Ed Lorenzen, are paid by private groups that have previously advocated cuts to entitlement programs. Lorenzen is paid by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, while Goldwein is paid by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is also partly funded by the Peterson group.
The outsourcing has come under sharp criticism from seniors’ organizations and liberal activists, who say the strategy is part of a broader conservative bias favoring painful entitlement cuts over other solutions. The fears of some liberal groups appeared to come true on Wednesday, when the commission’s two leaders recommended significant reductions for Social Security and other social-welfare programs.
Bruce Reed, the panel’s executive director, defended the staffing arrangement as fiscally responsible and said the staff includes a broad range of views. Other staffers paid by outside entities include an analyst from the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute and a Clinton administration official who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University, he said.
“We’ve got wonks from across the spectrum who have been working on this issue for years,” Reed said. “Every possible voice from left, right or center has a voice on the commission.”
But Barbara B. Kennelly, a former Democratic House member from Connecticut who heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said the commission’s staffing structure is “unprecedented” and casts further doubt on its fairness.
“Taxpayers fund the commission and they should work independently of Washington lobbyists and power brokers,” Kennelly said. “This is the type of shenanigans that average Americans are so upset about right now – that money talks and everyone else is left out.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/10/AR2010111006850.html
Folks that voted for these people are really gonna get shoved down in the mud!
Margaret and Helen..tellin it like it is!
“You live and you learn. And at my age you learn too much. For instance, I have learned that when Democrats over-reach, we end up providing health insurance coverage for children who have pre-existing conditions. When Republicans over-reach, we go to war.
When a liberal activist judge over-reaches, a disenfranchised group of Americans have their constitutional rights restored. When a conservative activist judge over-reaches, the country’s elections get handed to corporations on a silver platter.
Sour grapes? Maybe. I never said I was without prejudice. In fact, I have openly admitted to being a bitch. But the difference between my being a bitch and Sarah Palin being a bitch is huge. When I am a bitch, a few people get a good laugh over an old lady’s blog writing. When Sarah Palin is a bitch, some of God’s most beautiful handiwork gets reduced to a line item on Exxon’s annual report.
I have lived all my life speaking my mind. And I don’t intend to stop now. You want to know what I really think? I think Fox News has no problem telling lies. And I think a whole lot of white people don’t like having a black President. And I think gay people scare straight people. And religious people forget the basic teachings handed down by the founders of their religion. At the crossroads of every major religion, you’ll find the Golden Rule. Too bad they’ve deleted it from their GPS.
Do you really expect me to believe that a bunch of Republicans were swept into office because Democrats covered pre-existing conditions for children? Or because Health Insurance Companies can’t drop you when you are no longer profitable? Or that Cap and Trade is killing our country? Please. I bet you can’t find 10 Tea Party voters who can even tell you what Cap and Trade is. I know for damn sure that bitch from Alaska can’t.
Michele Bachmann is a lunatic who wants Democrats investigated. Sarah Palin quit her job as Governor so she could get rich. Sharron Angle told a bunch of hispanic students that they looked a little Asian – as if the Asians got together with the Hispanics to create a bigger voting block ??? I mean what the hell was that all about anyway?
Wake up America. John Boehner is orange for goodness sakes. Orange people don’t have to be asked because you can tell just by looking at them. Where is Michele Bachmann’s investigation on orange people?
And this lot is better than Obama? I’m not buying it.
Ten percent of the vote came out of a nation frustrated by unemployment. The other 90% remains divided. As soon as the jobs return we’ll be back to dealing with the hard problems: Racism. Sexism. Ageism. Religious fanaticism. Ignorance…ism. And Sarah Palin.
Two years ago, the pundits predicted that the Republican party had become a regional party reduced to the southern states. Clearly they were wrong. Why? Because hate has no boundaries and Sarah Palin found a flight out of Wasilla.
Today the pundits are saying that Democrats are out of touch with the main stream. Guess what? So were abolitionists. Pundits come and pundits go. I’ve been around for more than 80 years. Deal with it.
For everyone who is currently considering removing their Obama sticker from the back of their car… for every Democrat who made the effort to get out the vote and today is feeling a little down… for every progressive American who is thinking about moving to Canada…. I say this:
Christine O’Donnell might not have been a witch, but Sarah Palin is definitely a bitch. Three steps forward. One step back. “
‘Larry Sabato notes the pundits who think President Obama will be a one-term president ignore some pretty compelling evidence: “It turns out that there is no statistical relationship between a midterm result and the outcome of the next presidential election.”
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ljs2010111101/
Oh they’d love for the Black guy to get out now, but sorry, folks, POTUS got work to do, so get over yourselves.
Just look at where Lou Dobbs has landed..who would’ve guessed? snark
“Though former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs was mulling a bid for U.S. Senate or President, he tells Howard Kurtz he’s headed to the Fox Business Network instead.
Said Dobbs: “I spent about six, seven months really entertaining a lot of thoughts, discussing it with people who were urging me to do it. My wife and I thought about it long and hard. It seemed clear that wasn’t what would be satisfying to me.”
“Nobody hates Eliot Spitzer more than Ken Langone, the Home Depot founder whom Spitzer pursued over the compensation of New York Stock Exchange chief Dick Grasso. And it’s a mark of just how far — that is, as far as possible — Andrew Cuomo is from Spitzer that he just appointed Langone to his Economic and Fiscal Advisory Council.”
As you’ll recall, Spitzer said some very unflattering things about Cuomo during the campaign. \
Pew Research: “The public, voters and non-voters alike, has a subdued reaction to the Republican Party’s midterm election victory. Four years ago, the response to the Democrats regaining full control of Congress was far more positive, as it was in 1994 when the GOP won a historic victory. Fewer people today say they are happy about the Republican victory, approve of the GOP’s plans for the future, and far fewer believe Republicans will be successful in getting their programs passed into law.”
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1798/poll-less-enthusiasm-gop-2010-victory-policy-more-negative-campaign-no-compromise
See these idiots are creating such negative press for Obama that S. Korea balked at the Trade Deal which would have been a huge jump start for the economy. These fools that voted in the GOP, that want jobs are going to remain jobless. And those trying to collect unemployment will not have any cause those same folks they voted for will not vote for unemployment benefits.
They gonna reap what they sowed!!!
….and WTF is FordMotor whinning about and backstabbing the President to cockblock the auto deal with S. Korea?
*************
“From Seoul to Washington, business leaders, foreign policy analysts and diplomats were convinced that President Obama would wrap up a free trade accord during a meeting with President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea on Thursday.
Instead, the two leaders emerged empty-handed, arriving at their joint news conference to say that they had instructed their negotiators to keep at it a little while longer.
“We need to make sure that over the next several weeks, we are crossing all the t’s, dotting all the i’s, being able to make the case to both the Korean people and the United States population that this is good for both countries,” said Mr. Obama, who is in Seoul for the Group of 20 conference. “And if we rush something that then can’t garner popular support, that’s going to be a problem. We think we can make the case, but we want to make sure that that case is airtight.”
It was a concession to the fact that Mr. Obama is dealing with a new and unpredictable Congress. White House officials said that the president would rather suffer a one-day loss of face here than bring home a deal that would be unacceptable on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Obama made that clear in a meeting with his advisers after his arrival in Seoul on Wednesday evening, after Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative and chief negotiator, told Mr. Obama there were sticking points he had yet to overcome. “I’d rather get this right than get it rushed,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Kirk, according to a senior administration official who was present.
The accord — aimed primarily at expanding American exports of automobiles and beef — is an update of one signed in 2007 by President George W. Bush. It would represent one of the biggest such pacts since the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s, and analysts say it is an important underpinning for other deals the administration is seeking, including a regional agreement with Asia-Pacific nations.
The Bush-negotiated pact has languished in the Democratic-controlled Congress. But at the Group of 20 conference in Toronto in June, Mr. Obama very publicly threw his weight behind it, while calling for technical modifications that would be more favorable to American automakers and industrial unions.
In Toronto, Mr. Obama said he wanted the deal “lined up properly” by the time he arrived in Seoul. But after furious negotiations over the past week — including all-night talks Wednesday — his self-imposed deadline passed. Mr. Obama said on Thursday that he expected an agreement “in a matter of weeks.”
But analysts agree that the president’s moment of maximum leverage — his meeting with Mr. Lee — has come and gone. The changed political landscape in Washington could give the deal new momentum. Yet, even with Republicans, who are more favorable toward free trade, controlling the House, Mr. Obama will still have to deal with a Democratic Senate, as well as a Republican Tea Party caucus whose members might be hostile to working with him and are skeptical of trade deals.
He is also under intense pressure from the auto industry. Just last week, the Ford Motor Company, the only one of the big three Detroit automakers to have survived the economic downturn without resorting to a government bailout, placed newspaper advertisements calling the deal unfair.
Auto imports were the big sticking point in the talks, American officials said. Mr. Obama and Mr. Lee met for two hours, with 40 minutes of the meeting devoted to the free trade pact, officials said. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/asia/12seoul.html?_r=1&hp
Bush’s Waterboarding Admission Prompts Calls For Criminal Probe
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/11/calls-for-criminal-invest_n_782354.html
WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday joined a growing chorus in the human rights community calling for a special prosecutor to investigate whether former president George W. Bush violated federal statutes prohibiting torture.
In his new memoir and ensuing book tour, Bush has repeatedly admitted that he directly authorized the waterboarding of three terror suspects. Use of the waterboard, which creates the sensation of drowning, has been an iconic and almost universally condemned form of torture since the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
Except for a brief period during which a handful of Bush administration lawyers insisted that the exigencies of interrogating terror suspects justified its use, waterboarding has always been considered illegal by the Justice Department. It is also a clear violation of international torture conventions.
The ACLU is urging Attorney General Eric Holder to ask Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate Bush. For nearly three years now, Durham has been acting as a special prosecutor investigating a variety of torture-related matters involving government officials considerably lower on the food chain. Just this Tuesday, it was widely reported that Durham had cleared the CIA’s former top clandestine officer and others in the destruction of agency videotapes showing waterboarding of terror suspects — but that he would continue pursuing other aspects of his investigation.
Placing GW and Darth Vader Cheney on trial for war crimes would be a dream come true, but PBo’s admin’s not going there. They’ve already said theyr’e moving forward.
Exactly!
And no one has time for these tribunals when they are hunger, wet and angry..cause they don’t have a job.
Check out the soundtrack for a new song, “Yes We Can” it’s nice:
http://www.nathanielcalaway.com/
Nice & smooth! Thanks, Granny.
As expected, Democratic losses last week led to certain Professional Asshats squealing with glee: “OMG OBAMA IS SO FAIL LOL.”
“See!” They shouted asshattily. “I told you so! Why didn’t you listen to meeeeeeee. I told you that everybody wants a public option or a pony or the right to [be gay, to not be gay, to be gay on Tuesdays, or to wear jean shorts and not be called gay]. Didn’t I say everyone should have a right to [insert issue].”
“And by the way!” –they just kept on talking and wouldn’t shut up, “I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty sure I also told you that everybody wanted a bigger stimulus and nobody wanted any sort of stimulating if it wasn’t going to be the biggest hardest stimulus EVAR!”
Finally, on November 2 and 3, these asshats laughed and laughed and immediately joined together in one giant circle jerk to give each other the happy ending they’d been yearning for ever since Obama slapped that smirky public option off of the health care reform bill’s face with his giant pimp hand.
Knowing that my reaction to the post-election shenanigans would run the gamut of “oh kindly STFU” to “If you don’t STFU, I’m going to stab you in the neck with my pen,” I promised myself that after the election I was done: I was done reading comment fuckery, and I was done even attempting ironic responses to idiotic comments. (To understand why this is a big deal, you have to know me. I’m an argumentative person by nature. Just ask my friends. I will argue and argue until you concede simply because you want me to shut the hell up.) But I couldn’t. I didn’t have it in me.
Read the rest here…it is REALLY good!!
http://www.angryblacklady.com/2010/11/10/fuckin-midterms-how-do-they-work-the-lawrence-odonnell-glenn-greenwald-slapfight/
I do not like this one bit. Not one bit. It is unacceptable for society to bend to the religious rules…heck…we use to say Merry Xmas, and have Xmas music in stores…during Xmas…but we don’t anymore..we can’t even have nativity scenes in civic venues/bldgs…the greeting now is Happy Holidays.
So I say Hell No..to this swim hour. No troughs in public schools for foot washing and no prayer rooms in places of employment, either! Pray at home..stay home and pray.
“At George Washington University, the Muslims Students Association this year successfully lobbied to create a weekly women-only swim hour at the pool. Once a week, a dark tarp is hung over the glass door, a female lifeguard watches the pool and only female swimmers are allowed in.
The program, called “Sisters Splash,” went unnoticed by the larger GWU community — until the school paper wrote about it.
By all accounts, the GWU community has been, for the most part, supportive of the swim hour.
But there has been some blowback since TBD.com and the Washington Post picked it up, including questions over the program’s legality and vicious Internet comments that veer into the Islamophobic. ”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/female-only_swim_hour_for_muslim_students_sparks_d.php#more
I’m with you on the prayer, Opulent. Spirituality/religion is a private thing. No prayer in school, no foot washing and private canopy swimming either.
According to the Code of Conduct for United States Judges
a justice should not “solicit funds for, pay an assessment to, or make a contribution to a political organization or candidate, or attend or purchase a ticket for a dinner or other event sponsored by a political organization or candidate.”
Supreme Court Justice Alito: My fundraising for conservative causes is ‘not important’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/supreme-court-justice-alito-fundraising-conservatives-not-important/
Statement and fundraising appear to conflict with Code of Conduct for United States Judges
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. said his involvement with a conservative fundraiser was “not important” after being confronted by a Think Progress blogger Tuesday night.
At a fundraising event for the right-wing magazine American Spectator, Lee Fang of Think Progress asked Alito why he thought it was appropriate to attend such a highly political fundraiser.
“It’s not important that I’m here,” Alito reportedly told Fang.
“You also helped headline this same event two years ago, obviously helping to raise political money as the keynote,” Fang shot back, only to receive the same response from Alito before he walked away. “It’s not important.”
The American Spectator fundraising event featured Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, Republican Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), US Chamber of Commerce board member William Walton, and major Republican donor Paul Singer.
According to the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, a justice should not “solicit funds for, pay an assessment to, or make a contribution to a political organization or candidate, or attend or purchase a ticket for a dinner or other event sponsored by a political organization or candidate.”
What? It’s outrageous. Impeach him.
Is this why Alito isn’t going to attend the State of the Union address next year?
Alito needs to either step down or be impeached. This is an outrage. I’m tired of republicans not abiding by the rule of law.
Ex-Giant Meggett gets 30-year sentence
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/David-Meggett-30-years-sexual-assault-Giants-Patriots-111010?GT1=39002
Former NFL player David Meggett was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday after his conviction in a South Carolina court on charges of criminal sexual conduct and burglary, authorities said.
Meggett was convicted in a case involving an encounter with a college student at her house in North Charleston in January 2009, according to authorities.
Meggett, who attended high school in North Charleston, was a running back and punt returner in the National Football League between 1989 and 1998. Meggett played six years with the New York Giants, three with the New England Patriots and one with the New York Jets. He had nearly 1,700 yards rushing and just over 3,000 receiving during his career.
30 years for the black guy but Ben Roethlisberger gets a slap on the wrist…TWICE!
I’ve all but shut out the talking heads the last few days. It’s good for my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well being.
Ditto!!!
Tennessee Republican: Illegal Immigrants Will Multiply ‘Like Rats’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/11/curry-todd-illegal-immigrants_n_782102.html
Tennessee State Rep. Curry Todd took his dissatisfaction with the birthright citizenship clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to a strange level this week, when he suggested that pregnant immigrants will “multiply” like “rats” if they are not asked about their citizenship status.
During a discussion about procedures for approving patients for health care access, Todd asked a panel of prenatal health care officials if they require potential patients to show proof of citizenship in order to be accepted for treatment.
One woman then explained that such a process is not necessary — and is in fact prohibited — because unborn children will become United States citizens upon birth.
“There’s a technical guidance letter that states that, for covering the unborn child, we are not permitted to determine citizenship because the child, once born, is a U.S. citizen,” the woman explained.
“They can go out there like rats and multiply, then,” Todd responded.
According to the Associated Press, Rep. Todd later agreed that he had used harsh wording.
“I was actually wrong, and I admit when I’m wrong,” Todd said, before clarifying that he should have used the term “anchor babies” instead — presumably in an entirely different sentence.
These mofos have no shame. Their hoods are off and they don’t give a damn anymore. It’s open season on black and brown people. Todd can take his half ass apology and shove it deep. He knew what he was saying from the beginning. The election of President Obama broke their brain.
LOL Tranlastion: THERE WILL BE MORE POC VOTING FOR DEMS!
Girl, my husband has been writing and reading poetry to me. I refuse to watch tee vee. It’s online videos or other news sources. The BBC has some factual reporting. It’s Damn shame, we don’t have free media here in America any more.
Listen to that rat, Todd!! Set out the rat poison for him.
FLOTUS VISITS RAMSTEIN AIR FORCE BASE
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/_S73rbZ4znd/Michelle+Obama+Visits+Ramstein+Air+Force+Bace/ZUCr5Fnevqo/Michelle+Obama?pa=1&u=qnCWEWf6YrN&tb=C&e=alert&l=title
PHOTOS DAY 1 G20 SEOUL SUMMIT
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/Eee3neSeNee/World+Leaders+Attend+G20+Seoul+Summit+Day/abEkvebIMmw/Barack+Obama?pa=1&u=qnCWEWf6YrN&tb=C&e=alert&l=title
Very touching and what an AWESOME thanks!!
His jet was as huge as AF One…and the interior was as large as some folks home.
I watched this segment Sunday morning. Great way to start the day without the usual Sunday talking heads.
Obama Will Veto GOP Attempts To Repeal Health Care Reform
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/11/health-care-repeal-unpopu_n_782111.html
WASHINGTON — White House senior adviser David Axelrod was adamant on Wednesday night that the president will go to the mat in defense of his cherished health care reform law, even as Republicans threaten to repeal it or strip it of funding.
Obama, he told the Huffington Post, would veto any legislative effort to overturn the measure. As for the forthcoming budget battles over health care, the administration is prepared to make its case in Congress and to the public. And while he’s not in the business of providing political advice to the GOP, Axelrod did just that.
“The notion of spending the next two years fighting over this, I think, is a complete misreading of what the American people want,” he said. “They want us to focus on the economy. They don’t want us to fight the battles of the last two years. But we are not going to stand by and go back to allowing people with preexisting conditions to be discriminated against, go back to the situation where people can be thrown off their insurance simply because they become seriously ill or you can’t get on your parents’ insurance after the age of 20. There are so many things that are just central.”
That’s the way to keep working it, Mr. President!
HAPPY VETERAN’S DAY!
http://www.abc123homeloan.com/xSites/Mortgage/CoreMortgageFinancial/Content/UploadedFiles/Veterans%20Day.jpg
White House White Board: The President in Asia & the National Export Initiative
Posted by Jesse Lee on November 10, 2010 at 02:33 PM EST
In the third edition of White House White Board, Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, discusses the President’s trip to Asia and the importance of the National Export Initiative.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/11/10/white-house-white-board-president-asia-national-export-initiative?utm_source=111110&utm_medium=intro&utm_campaign=daily
good Morning, Everybody! :-)
Good Morning, Ametia, Vettte & 3 Chics!
Happy Thursday!
How U B, SG2?
Moving slowly.
pace yourself..
I’m trying to.
Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best selling author.
Obama Will Triumph — So Will America
By Frank Schaeffer
Before he’d served even one year, President Obama lost the support of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and ideological backgrounds — including this white, straight, 57-year-old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader) this unlikely Obama supporter — are sticking with our President.
Why?– because he is succeeding.
We, faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.Obama’s steady supporters will be proved right. Obama’s critics
will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.
The Context of the Obama Presidency
Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe , the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any President faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully ignorant opposition – from both the right and left.
As the President’s poll numbers have fallen so has his support from some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago; all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 2008 election.
The left’s lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling “prophecy”–snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and then pretend you didn’t have anything to do with it!
Here is what Obama faced when he took office– none of which was his fault:
1. An ideologically divided country to the point that America was really two countries
2. Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that was unnecessary and immoral
3. The worst economic crisis since the depression
4. America ‘s standing in the world at the lowest point in history
5. A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture of prisoners of war
6. A health care system in free fall
7. An educational system in free fall
8. A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done nothing)
9. An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left
10. A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible Bush administration.
And those were only some of the problems sitting on the President’s desk!
“Help” from the Right?:
–What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and half-baked conspiracy theorists — that is what the Republicans were reduced to by the time Obama took office — do to “help” our new president (and our country) succeed?
–They claimed that he wasn’t a real American, didn’t have an American birth certificate, wasn’t born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating “racist”, was secretly a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted “death panels” to kill the elderly!
–They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized “tea parties” to sound off against imagined insults and all government in general and gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) “commentators” from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.
–The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the utterly discredited, evangelical leaders to denounce a President who was trying to actually do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish the number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick! And in Congress, the Republican leadership only knew one word: “No!”
–In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far right,combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent “bishops”, frontier loons and
evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at all costs!
“Help” from the Left?:
–What did the left do to help their newly elected President? Some of them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan that he’d inherited from the worst President in modern history!
–Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President’s economic policies had “failed” before the President even instituted them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won within virtually minutes of the President taking office, they’d been “betrayed”! (Never mind that Obama’s vocal support to the gay community is stronger than any other president’s has been. Never mind that he signed a new hate crimes law!)
–Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how “disappointed” they were that they’d not all immediately been translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House! Where was the “change”? Contrary to their expectations they were still mere mortals!
–And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay attention for longer than a nanosecond. “Governing”?! What the hell does that word, uh, like mean?”
The President’s critics, Left and Right all had one thing in common: impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone reality) thrown in for good measure. Then, of course there were the white, snide, know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just couldn’t imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren’t as smart as they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their President. He hadn’t consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!
The Obama critics’ ideological ideas defined their idea of reality rather than reality, defining their ideas-say, about what is possible in one year in office after the hand that the President had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation that voted Bush into office. Twice!
Meanwhile back in the reality-based community – in just 12 short months — President Obama:
1. Continued to draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
2. Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices regarding the war in Afghanistan
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
3. Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
4. Restored America ‘s image around the globe
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
5. Banned torture of American prisoners
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
6. Stopped the free fall of the American economy
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
7. Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
8. Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to halt global warming
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
9. Stood up for educational reform
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
10. Won a Nobel peace prize
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
11. Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and balances
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
12. Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost impossible process of health care reform that 7 Presidents had failed to even begin
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
13. Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good humor and patience
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
14. Stopped the free fall of job losses
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
15. Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and
carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the “blood of tyrants” needing to “water the tree of liberty”.
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
16. Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but explain and defend them brilliantly
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
Other than those “disappointing” accomplishments — IN ONE YEAR — President Obama “failed”! Other than that, he didn’t “live up to ‘their’ expectations”!
Who actually has failed…
Who failed – are the Americans that can’t see the beginning of a miracle of national rebirth right under their jaded noses.
Who failed – are the smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their dire and morbid predictions.
Who failed – are the movers and shakers behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned “news” into just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted infantile country.
Here’s the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the help of his lefty “supporters” or hate-filled Republican detractors!
The Future Looks Good!
After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on all fronts — with a canny and calculating eye to the possible succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.
Just because we didn’t get everything we wanted in the first short and fraught year Obama was in office, not all of us gave up. Some of us stayed the course. And we will be proved right!!!
P.S. If you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president, please pass this on and hang in there! Pass it on anyway to ensure that his “report card” gets the attention it deserves.
Hi Vette. Thank you, for posting this. Can you provide a link? ;-)
Here’s the link to the article.
http://frank-schaeffer.blogspot.com/2009/12/obama-will-triumph-so-will-america.html
Well it certainly does take someone like Frank to call out his white bretheren, lefties and righties.