Important Information Regarding The Logan Act.

Edmond Charles Genet
Edmond Charles Genet

In April 1793, “Citizen Edmond Charles Genet,” then just 29 years old, arrived to great fan­fare in Charleston har­bor. He bore diplo­mat­ic papers announc­ing him the new min­is­ter (ambas­sador) to the United States from France and instruc­tions from his Girondist patrons to excite American fer­vor in France’s war against England and Spain.

With tac­it encour­age­ment from Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, the new French min­is­ter incit­ed American pri­va­teers to invade Spanish ter­ri­to­ries in the old south­west, ran a full cir­cuit of bur­geon­ing Democrat-Republican Societies that formed in oppo­si­tion to George Washington’s admin­is­tra­tion, recruit­ed American sailors in the French cause and out­fit­ted and armed American ships for war against English colo­nial posi­tions. All of these activ­i­ties con­sti­tut­ed a mas­sive breach with diplo­mat­ic norms and vio­lat­ed the American government’s firm com­mit­ment to remain neu­tral in European wars.

Federalists ago­nized over Genet’s con­temp­tu­ous inter­fer­ence in American pol­i­cy. The stal­wart Federalist John Adams, who was vice pres­i­dent at the time, was hor­ri­fied by Genet’s attempts to ral­ly the American peo­ple against their own president.Writing many years after the fact, he shud­dered at the mem­o­ry of “Ten thou­sand People in the Streets of Philadelphia, day after day, threaten[ing] to drag Washington out of his House and effect a Revolution in the Government, or com­pel it to declare War in favour of the French Revolution, and against England.”

As was his wont, Adams exag­ger­at­ed. But Genet cer­tain­ly knew how to push the enve­lope. The final straw came when the min­is­ter rechris­tened an impound­ed British ship the Petite Démocrate and launched it on its way to France in open defi­ance of George Washington. Adding insult to injury, Genet — who thought he under­stood American pol­i­tics, but didn’t — threat­ened to cir­cum­vent the pres­i­dent alto­geth­er and appeal direct­ly to the peo­ple. Surely they would endorse his project to expand the “Empire de la Liberté” through­out the North American con­ti­nent by seiz­ing British and Spanish possessions.

Is the Minister of the French Republic to set the Acts of this Government at defi­ance, with impuni­ty?” asked an enraged Washington. “And then threat­en the Executive with an appeal to the People? [What] must the world think of such con­duct, and of the Government of the U. States in sub­mit­ting to it.”

Ultimately, Washington proved the bet­ter stu­dent of American pol­i­tics than Genet, whose Republican allies even acknowl­edged the dam­age he did for his cause. (The ver­dict is still out on Ron Dermer.)

The “Citizen Genet Affair” ulti­mate­ly end­ed as bizarrely as it orig­i­nal­ly unfold­ed. In 1794, after the admin­is­tra­tion demand­ed that the French min­is­ter be recalled, the Jacobin fac­tion— by then ful­ly in con­trol and unleash­ing its “reign of ter­ror” —issued a call for Genet’s return. Realizing that his prob­a­ble fate was the guil­lo­tine, Genet pled for asy­lum, and George Washington, the same pres­i­dent whom he so open­ly defied, allowed the for­mer diplo­mat to remain in the United States. He lived out his days as a pros­per­ous gen­tle­man farmer in the Hudson Valley, where he died in 1834.

***

Of course, in 1793 as today, the tumult over Citizen Genet was less about France than it was about domes­tic politics.

Americans in the 1790s were sharply divid­ed over con­crete ques­tions con­cern­ing polit­i­cal econ­o­my. Federalists tend­ed to sup­port a mixed soci­ety of small farm­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers. They were tol­er­ant of paper mon­ey, a per­ma­nent fed­er­al debt and tar­iffs that would — all at once — fund that debt, sup­port home­grown indus­try and forge alle­giance to a cen­tral state. Many Republicans, on the oth­er hand, pre­ferred an agrar­i­an soci­ety of small, inde­pen­dent farm­ers; they dis­trust­ed banks, per­ma­nent debt, stand­ing armies and cen­tral­ized authority.

On a more fun­da­men­tal lev­el, Federalists adhered to increas­ing­ly archa­ic ideas about the social com­po­si­tion of the nation. They saw the body politic as organ­ic and unbro­ken: There was one com­mon good, and men of edu­ca­tion and achieve­ment could be count­ed on to act with dis­in­ter­est and virtue in fur­ther­ing the needs of the whole. Republicans were, in some ways, more real­is­tic about what America had become. They believed the coun­try was too diverse, too pop­u­lous and too advanced to enter­tain a sin­gle, com­mon inter­est. More to the point, they saw noth­ing wrong with var­i­ous inter­ests com­pet­ing with each oth­er on an even and lev­el play­ing field.
Josh Zeitz has taught American his­to­ry and pol­i­tics at Cambridge University and Princeton University and is the author of Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image. He is cur­rent­ly writ­ing a book on the mak­ing of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Follow him @joshuamzeitz.

President Obama Ashamed For Republicans Who Sent Letter To Iran

President Obama ashamed for Republicans
President Obama ashamed for Republicans

I’m embar­rassed for them. For them to address a let­ter to the aya­tol­lah who they claim is our mor­tal ene­my, and their basic argu­ment to them is ‘don’t deal with our pres­i­dent ‘cause you can’t trust him to fol­low through on agree­ment,” Obama said in a trail­er for a Vice News inter­view sched­uled to run in full on Monday. “That’s close to unprece­dent­ed,” he said.

The let­ter, warn­ing Iranian lead­ers that any agree­ment reached in nuclear nego­ti­a­tions would mere­ly con­sti­tute an “exec­u­tive agree­ment,” gen­er­at­ed a sig­nif­i­cant back­lash in Washington and beyond.

Iran’s for­eign min­is­ter called the let­ter “unprece­dent­ed and undiplo­mat­ic,” while a mes­sage from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Twitter account said it “is indica­tive” of an American “col­lapse in ethics.”

Germany’s for­eign min­is­ter weighed in Thursday, say­ing that to call the let­ter unhelp­ful would be “an understatement.”

It was kind of a very rapid process. Everybody was look­ing for­ward to get­ting out of town because of the snow­storm,” said Sen. John McCain (R‑Ariz.), who also signed, in an inter­view with POLITICO ear­li­er this week. “I think we prob­a­bly should have had more dis­cus­sion about it, giv­en the blow­back that there is.”

Republican sup­port for the let­ter has extend­ed beyond the Senate, with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal sign­ing it Tuesday. Others also have backed the warn­ing to Iran’s lead­er­ship, includ­ing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, for­mer Texas Gov. Rick Perry and for­mer Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, all of whom are prospec­tive can­di­dates for the party’s pres­i­den­tial nomination.

Read more: http://​www​.politi​co​.com/​s​t​o​r​y​/​2​0​1​5​/​0​3​/​o​b​a​m​a​-​i​r​a​n​-​l​e​t​t​e​r​-​r​e​a​c​t​i​o​n​-​1​1​6​0​5​6​.​h​t​m​l​#​i​x​z​z​3​U​O​K​l​s​hzN

Televangelist Launches Fundraising Plea For $65 Million Private Jet

Creflo Dollar
Creflo Dollar

A well-known tel­e­van­ge­list is attempt­ing to raise $60 mil­lion for the pur­chase of one of the most cov­et­ed pri­vate jets on the mar­ket — one that he and his min­istry will use to “con­tin­ue to spread the gospel of grace around the world.”

Pastor Creflo Dollar, founder of World Changers Church International, has launched Project G650, an effort to encour­age 200,000 peo­ple to donate $300 or more so that he can pur­chase a jet that Business Insider recent­ly called, the “biggest, fastest, and over­all best pri­vate jet mon­ey can buy.”

The Gulfstream G650 jet, which runs for around $65 mil­lion, would replace the cur­rent air­plane that the min­istry has been using, as it was built in 1984, and, accord­ing to a video accom­pa­ny­ing the fundrais­ing appeal, the plane, which Dollar has used since 1999, recent­ly expe­ri­enced seri­ous tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties that put Dollar and his fam­i­ly in danger.

Recently on an over­seas trip to a glob­al con­fer­ence, one of the engines failed,” the web­site explains. “By the grace of God, the expert pilot, who’s flown with Creflo for almost 20 years, land­ed the plane safe­ly with­out injury or harm to any passengers.”

With the old air­plane offi­cial­ly out of ser­vice, the fundrais­ing appeal explains that it is time to replace the aircraft.

We believe it is time to replace this air­craft so that our Pastors and staff can con­tin­ue to safe­ly and swift­ly share the Good News of the Gospel world­wide,” the expla­na­tion con­tin­ues. “We need your help to con­tin­ue reach­ing a lost and dying world for the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Watch the video appeal here.

The G650 was called a “gold stan­dard” in an October Business Insider report, which also said that the plane takes pas­sen­gers “faster and high­er than on any com­mer­cial jet” and fea­tures nat­ur­al light and rich­er air.

Dollar, who has been crit­i­cized in the past by some for preach­ing pros­per­i­ty ser­mons, reg­u­lar­ly trav­els the world to speak about bib­li­cal themes. Some, though, aren’t too hap­py about his cur­rent quest for a G650. What do you think? http://​www​.the​blaze​.com/​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​5​/​0​3​/​1​3​/​f​a​m​e​d​-​t​e​l​e​v​a​n​g​e​l​i​s​t​-​l​a​u​n​c​h​e​s​-​f​u​n​d​r​a​i​s​i​n​g​-​p​l​e​a​-​f​o​r​-​6​5​-​m​i​l​l​i​o​n​-​p​r​i​v​a​t​e​-​j​e​t​-​s​o​-​h​e​-​a​n​d​-​h​i​s​-​s​t​a​f​f​-​c​a​n​-​s​a​f​e​l​y​-​a​n​d​-​s​w​i​f​t​l​y​-​s​h​a​r​e​-​t​h​e​-​g​o​s​p​e​l​-​w​o​r​l​d​w​i​de/

You Get Respect When You Act Respectful

As a kid I got into fights occa­sion­al­ly , it’s prob­a­bly safe to say most if not all kids get into fights now and then, it’s as if fight­ing is a right of passage.
What hap­pened in that Brooklyn McDonalds recent­ly was not a fight. 
It was anoth­er instance of what has been hap­pen­ing all across America late­ly, sheer barbarism.
Aniah Ferguson, 16, and oth­ers pum­meled a  15-year-old girl until she went limp on the floor even then Ferguson con­tin­ued to kick the wound­ed girl while scores of oth­ers howled in delight or par­tic­i­pat­ed in the assault.

Mele in Brooklyn McDonalds
Mele in Brooklyn McDonalds


This was not white on black, this was black on black, a sce­nario which plays out in black com­mu­ni­ties all across America dai­ly result­ing in death and mas­sive injuries.

In fair­ness, this bar­barism is not con­fined to the slaugh­ter which occur on the streets of Detroit Michigan, Chicago Illinois, Camden New Jersey or any oth­er city for that matter.
It includes packs of young black men and women engag­ing in what are called flash robberies.
This is a kind of Robbery where gangs of young peo­ple run into busi­ness-places and grab what they want, dam­age the busi­ness estab­lish­ment then leave quick­ly before author­i­ties arrive.

It is no won­der then that they turn on each oth­er when they can­not find oth­ers to victimize.
These are truths from which we can­not afford to turn our back.
At a time when we are wit­ness­ing raw and some­times unpro­voked and even unwar­rant­ed aggres­sion from law-enforce­ment, the behav­ior of these young peo­ple does noth­ing to help the case against law-enforce­ment excess.

In fact those with big­ot­ed agen­das point to these occur­rences as rea­son for more law enforce­ment aggression.
We must begin then to look at what is going on with­in the black home that is fuel­ing this kind of behavior.
The moth­er of 16-year-old Aniah Ferguson report­ed­ly said she did not raise her daugh­ter to act in that way. 
Notwithstanding Ferguson is already a moth­er to a one-year-old baby, and a mem­ber of a gang called the young sav­ages, pros­e­cu­tors claim.
How is that for perspective.
Which leaves us to won­der what are the under­ly­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal issues at play which caus­es not just this young lady who by the way has an exten­sive rap sheet to act this way, but the tens of thou­sands of oth­er black teens and young adults who think this is accept­able behavior.

I don’t want to hear that not only black peo­ple act that way.
It does­n’t mat­ter who else acts that way it does not make it right or acceptable.
Secondly it is up to us to fix our house not the oth­er guy’s house.

When some of us with­in the black com­mu­ni­ty dare to speak out at the cri­sis of unwed moth­ers hav­ing babies, some with­in the com­mu­ni­ty take issue with our criticism.
We hear all kinds of kook-like expla­na­tions for the rea­sons why black America is in deep crisis.
Recently CNN’ Don Lemon point­ed to the fact that over 70% of black babies are born out of wedlock.
Lemon was round­ly con­demned for point­ing to what is a fact.
Does run­ning from the num­bers, make them any less true?
“If Lemon real­ly want­ed to help the black com­mu­ni­ty, he could start by adopt­ing a deep­er under­stand­ing of the his­to­ry, soci­ol­o­gy and psy­chol­o­gy of his own peo­ple,” wrote Washington Post blog­ger Rahiel Tesfamariam. “Offering made-for-TV analy­sis about deeply com­plex social issues in the man­ner in which he did is irre­spon­si­ble and lacks intel­lec­tu­al rigor.”
Clearly when you have apol­o­gists like Rahiel Tesfamariam com­ing up with smart sound­ing goobly-gook, it is no won­der many with­in our com­mu­ni­ty take com­fort in victimhood.
Even as Rahiel Tesfamariam accus­es Lemon of a lack of intel­lec­tu­al rig­or, he engages in what could be con­strued to be intel­lec­tu­al dis­hon­esty or at best Intellectual elitism.
Maybe Rahiel Tesfamariam is quite hap­py that there are peo­ple that oth­ers like him­self look down on.
http://​www​.poli​ti​fact​.com/​t​r​u​t​h​-​o​-​m​e​t​e​r​/​s​t​a​t​e​m​e​n​t​s​/​2​0​1​3​/​j​u​l​/​2​9​/​d​o​n​-​l​e​m​o​n​/​c​n​n​s​-​d​o​n​-​l​e​m​o​n​-​s​a​y​s​-​m​o​r​e​-​7​2​-​p​e​r​c​e​n​t​-​a​f​r​i​c​a​n​-​a​m​e​r​i​ca/

Frankly you know you have a prob­lem when even those who hate you tell you what ails you.
We can no longer accept the tran­quil drug of ratio­nal­iz­ing. We can­not con­tin­ue to nuance our response to events which war­rants no spec­u­la­tion ratio­nal­iza­tion or nuancing.

We must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for our children.
We can­not con­tin­ue to believe the lie that hav­ing chil­dren at the ten­der age of 15 is okay . It isn’t.
We can­not con­tin­ue to invent rea­sons why 12, 13, and 15 year-old kids are hav­ing babies.
It is a fail­ure of parenting.
It is a fail­ure of under­stand­ing that each house­hold which con­tributes to this enig­ma of teen birth out of wed­lock is con­tribut­ing to the blight of the entire com­mu­ni­ty and maybe our entire existence.
Who in their right mind expect that when 71% of all babies born in the African-American com­mu­ni­ty are born to unwed moth­ers, that there are not seri­ous con­se­quences for those statistics?

Who does­n’t both­er to rec­og­nize that the epi­dem­ic of unwed birth has become a pro­duc­tion line for the prison indus­tri­al complex.
And no, it does not mat­ter in this con­text that not all end up in prison.
If one does it is one too many.
The fact is that the vast major­i­ty do end up in the crim­i­nal jus­tice system.
Is it dis­re­spect­ful or dis­loy­al to point out that we are direct­ly con­tribut­ing to some of the prob­lems plagu­ing our community?
Is it rea­son­able for us to demand oth­ers show us respect, when we act like rav­en­ous Wolves tear­ing away at the car­cass­es of each other?

We can only tru­ly expect respect when we act respectful.
Not for any­one else but for our own selves.
For our own dignity.
For our own survival.

Really Now ?

Rodner Figueroa,
Rodner Figueroa,

Univision has fired one of its most pop­u­lar talk show hosts after he said on air that Michelle Obama looked like she was part of “the cast of ‘Planet of the Apes.’ ”

The grow­ing American Spanish-lan­guage net­work ter­mi­nat­ed the employ­ment of Rodner Figueroa on Thursday after­noon, less than one day after he made the racist com­ment on his pop­u­lar “El Gorda y la Flaca” program.

In a state­ment pro­vid­ed to People en Español, the net­work said there was “no room for racism” at Univision.

Yesterday dur­ing the enter­tain­ment pro­gram ‘El Gordo y La Flaca,’ Rodner Figueroa made some com­ments about First Lady Michelle Obama that were com­plete­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble and in no way a reflec­tion of the val­ues and opin­ions of Univision. As a result, Mr. Figueroa was fired imme­di­ate­ly,” the net­work said.

On Wednesday, dur­ing a seg­ment on his show about the use of make­up by celebri­ties, Figueroa, an Emmy award-win­ner, said that “Michelle Obama looks like she is from the cast of the ‘Planet Of The Apes.’ ”

The deroga­to­ry remarks were wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed on social media.

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FOOL-IANI

You can't make this up
You can’t make this up

Just when you thought Rudy Giuliani could­n’t get cra­zier, the for­mer NYC may­or blamed Obama for the bru­tal beat­down at a Brooklyn McDonalds —and said the pres­i­dent should be more like Bill Cosby.

Obama is ignor­ing “enor­mous amounts of crime” com­mit­ted by African-Americans, Giuliani said Thursday. And he said President Obama is to blame for the brawl inside a McDonald’s in Brooklyn as well as the shoot­ing of two cops in Ferguson because of the anti-police “tone” com­ing from the White House. The for­mer may­or, speak­ing on AM970 radio this morn­ing, was asked what he thought about a num­ber of dis­turb­ing issues in the news. Host John Gambling asked for Giuliani’s take on the vicious McDonald’s fight, the recent police shoot­ings in Ferguson and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton get­ting booed Thursday at a City Council hear­ing by protesters.

It all starts at the top. It’s the tone that’s set by the President,” Giuliani said. He added he just returned from a mul­ti-city trip over­seas and the United States is con­stant­ly derid­ed there as a “racist state.” “It is the oblig­a­tion of the President to explain … that our police are the best in the world,” said Giuliani. He also said Obama should have used his “bul­ly pul­pit” to stop protests in Ferguson over the sum­mer, but didn’t.

Obama is also not address­ing the “enor­mous amount of crime” that’s being com­mit­ted by African-Americans due to “his­tor­i­cal” rea­sons, Giuliani said.

I hate to men­tion it because of what hap­pened after­wards, but (he should be say­ing) the kinds of stuff Bill Cosby used to say,” said Giuliani.

Cosby, before his pub­lic image was tar­nished with a slew of rape alle­ga­tions, had spo­ken fre­quent­ly and often in blunt terms about how African-Americans need­ed to focus more on edu­ca­tion, be bet­ter par­ents and avoid lives of crime.

Giuliani, who was round­ly crit­i­cized for say­ing Obama wasn’t patri­ot­ic, made a point of say­ing a few nice things about the President.

I dis­agree with Barack Obama on almost every­thing, but I think he’s a good fam­i­ly man and a good man,” said Giuliani.http://​www​.nydai​lynews​.com/

Hall Of Shame.…..An International Disgrace

Gallery of shame
Gallery of shame

Forty (47) Republicans Senators attached their sig­na­ture to a Letter which they sent to the Iranian Government.
The gist of the mes­sage to the Iranian Government is that what­ev­er deal President Obama (America’s sit­ting President and com­man­der in chief) strikes with them, can and may be wiped away after the pres­i­dent demit office.
Please take a moment to absorb , and assim­i­late the impact and the pos­si­ble con­se­quences of this unprece­dent­ed move.
Pundits and his­to­ri­ans alike have stat­ed there is no prece­dent for this.
Some argue this bor­ders on treason.
Never before in the his­to­ry of the Republic , his­to­ri­ans lament, has the con­gress or parts of it,ever attempt­ed to usurp the author­i­ty of the President in this way much less on for­eign affairs.

Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton

Former Democratic Senator and pres­i­den­tial front run­ner Hillary Clinton said quote<one has to ask, what was the pur­pose of this let­ter?

There appear to be two log­i­cal answers,” Clinton said. “Either these sen­a­tors were try­ing to be help­ful to the Iranians or harm­ful to the com­man­der-in-chief in the midst of high-stakes inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy. Either answer does dis­cred­it to the let­ter’s signatories.”

Well Hillary, this is not the first time they have been dis­re­spect­ful or tried to under­mine this President . Remember Joe Wilson’s “You lie”?
Since then it has been inces­sant, just recent­ly Boehner invit­ed Israel’s prime min­is­ter Benjamin Netanyahu to use the US house of Representatives to blast the Iran pol­i­cy of the sit­ting President.
So there is prece­dent for their behavior.
They would rather col­lude with a for­eign pow­er against this President, that try to find com­mon ground toward secur­ing America’s future, and the future of the planet.
Which means they col­lude against their own country.
I am not a Lawyer, and cer­tain­ly not a Constitutional lawyer by any stretch , but if it looks like treason,smells like trea­son behaves like trea­son, oh well.….…..

President Barack Obama slammed the let­ter on Monday, accus­ing the GOP of mak­ing “com­mon cause with the hard-lin­ers in Iran” by attempt­ing to under­cut ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions that face a first dead­line for a frame­work agree­ment at the end of the month.

Tom Cotton
Tom Cotton

The Republican point man on this lat­est affront to Presidential author­i­ty is Arkansas fresh­man sen­a­tor Tom Cotton. The fact that Cotton would be point man on this is even more unprece­dent­ed. According to sen­ate tra­di­tions Cotton who just took the oath has­n’t even fig­ured out his way around the sen­ate build­ing yet, much less to have inject­ed him­self into inter­na­tion­al nego­ti­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly one this del­i­cate and one which real­ly is the purview of the President.

Only Seven Republican Senators did not sign Cotton’s let­ter to the Mullahs. They are Sens. Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander, Dan Coats, Thad Cochran, Susan Collins and Bob Corker.
Guaranteed each had their own self serv­ing rea­son not to, which did not include their alle­giance to the Republic.

Under pres­sure to explain his unprece­dent­ed actions Cotton insist­ed there was noth­ing unprece­dent­ed about what they did, argu­ing that the let­ter was not intend­ed as a par­ti­san move and was instead aimed at keep­ing the U.S. from reach­ing a bad and “dan­ger­ous” deal.

This let­ter is about stop­ping Iran from get­ting a nuclear deal,” Cotton said. “One way that we make sure that we get a bet­ter deal is that we stand strong.”
Here’s the hypocrisy of Cotton and repub­li­cans, if they want­ed to stand strong they would do so stand­ing with the Commander in chief of their coun­try and the oth­er Nuclear armed pow­ers behind the deal being worked out with Iran. They would stand as Democrats did with George Bush after the events of September 11th 2001.
It is not unusu­al for the Political par­ties in this coun­try to be con­tentious. It is also not out of the ordi­nary that there are grave and seri­ous dif­fer­ences when issues of seri­ous import are being con­sid­ered. Never for­get this coun­try fought a civ­il war to decide its way forward.
What is out of the ordi­nary is that Americans would give aid and com­fort to oth­er pow­ers rather than sup­port their own twice elect­ed leader.

You do not stand strong by telling a for­eign pow­er that you are against your own leader.
That is not patri­o­tism, there are oth­er names for that kind of action, and they are not sim­i­lar in mean­ing to patriotism.
Cotton is a for­mer sol­dier and a Harvard edu­cat­ed lawyer. He is also a right-wing hawk who wants war. Republicans want war with Iran.
Expect that there will be far worse than Netanyahu’s speech and Cotton’s let­ter, they will not stop until they get anoth­er war with anoth­er mid­dle east­ern country.

Their goal is to neu­tral­ize any coun­try in that region that has the gall to stand up to the nuclear armed apartheid bas­tion of white suprema­cy we now know as Israel.
Obama will not insti­gate a war against Iran and that makes Obama dan­ger­ous. Waging war against Iraq using lies and dis­tor­tions was not enough. The con­se­quences of Republican lies and decep­tion result­ed in the cre­ation of ISIS and has rad­i­cal­ized young men across the Globe.
They see America as wag­ing war against Islam. President Obama who thank­ful­ly have seen the World out­side as com­pared to his Republican coun­ter­parts , some of whom have nev­er seen any­one out­side their coun­ty of birth,refuses to fall into that trap of mak­ing it seem that America is wag­ing a chris­t­ian cru­sade against Islam.
And for that the idi­ot­ic and idi­ot­ic repub­li­cans crit­i­cize him.

The New York Daily news did not bother with pleasantries
The New York Daily news did not both­er with pleasantries

During the American Civil War Lincoln did not want to free the slaves, con­trary to what you hear today. Lincoln was a slave owner.
Eventually Lincoln had to make the war about some­thing big­ger that him­self, even big­ger than the Union.
There need­ed to be a high­er moral argu­ment for this war…
Lincoln signed the Emancipation declaration.
Not because he was a man of high moral con­vic­tion on the issue of slav­ery as some revi­s­i­tion­ist his­to­ri­an would have you believe.
Lincoln need­ed men to fight, he need­ed a grand idea on which to ral­ly the Union, he also need­ed to pre­vent the French from com­ing in, in defense of it’s Louisiana territory.

It was the moral and right thing for Lincoln to do, the North won the war and the Union survived.
Obama under­stands the con­se­quences of the per­cep­tion of an American cru­sade against Islam, and is doing his lev­el best to avoid that perception.
Unfortunately that lev­el of com­pre­hen­sion can­not be expect­ed from the racist bunch of white suprema­cists which is now the Republican party.

Even those who have seen com­bat, Cotton included,and the car­nage of war, are in no way dis­suad­ed from the fal­la­cy and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive nature of con­stant­ly man­u­fac­tur­ing new enemies.
Instead they con­vince them­selves that brute-force and heavy hand­ed­ness are appro­pri­ate tools in deal­ing with Sovereign powers.
Then they wring their hands and won­der whats behind the think­ing of young peo­ple who head to Syria and Iraq to fight along­side ISIS.

SELMA 50 YEARS LATER

President Obama speaks at the Edmund Pettus bridge
President Obama speaks at the Edmund Pettus bridge

U.S. President Obama speaks at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in SelmaIt is inter­est­ing to note that not one of these racist war mon­gers who signed Cotton’s let­ter to Iran both­ered to show up in Selma Alabama to com­mem­o­rate the 50th Anniversary of the march across the Edmund Pettus bridge.
Black America’s tri­umphant march across that bridge was sym­bol­ic of more them pre­vail­ing against the raw big­otry of Racist oppression.
They braved bil­ly-clubs, dogs and bul­lets know­ing they were writ­ing the indeli­ble sto­ry of America. The America which still, is an evolv­ing saga yet to be completed.
They had their heads bashed in , bones splin­tered ‚flesh gnarled by vis­cous dogs, because they believed in the phrase ” all men are cre­at­ed equal” and that they too deserve to live as equal men on this land blacks occu­pied before Europeans real­ized the world was not flat.
The big­otry and racism of 1965 has not died or gone away , it dwells just below the sur­face, forced there by strong Federal laws which guar­an­teed that peo­ple were not to be imped­ed when they want­ed to vote.
Laws which guar­an­teed that all Americans , regard­less of race, class, or creed, reli­gious or sex­u­al per­sua­sion should be able to study in the same schools.
Yet the very insti­tu­tion charged with the sacred trust of pro­tect­ing the fun­da­men­tal rights of all the peo­ple is the very insti­tu­tion tear­ing away at the fab­ric of the vot­ing rights act and the right for peo­ple to go to school where they please and con­gre­gate where they please.

When our President speak of the America of his dreams with euphor­ic ora­to­ry and bril­liance, I shud­der to think of what America will be under the likes of Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, and others.
We may hide our heads in the sand and pre­tend all is well, or we may con­front the real­i­ty of what those like Cotton and his band of 46 dim-wits mean. These are elect­ed offi­cials who hold high office, yet they sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly missed, or chose to miss that whether they like it or not the African-American sto­ry is the sto­ry of America.
Choosing to stay away makes it clear they do not care to respect, rep­re­sent, or relate the black sto­ry, America’s story.
By so doing they have cast them­selves as incon­se­quen­tial foot­notes in the dust-bin of his­to­ry. Rendering them­selves and their par­ty incon­se­quen­tial to the con­ver­sa­tion going forward.
By turn­ing their backs on black America they turned their backs on America.
By turn­ing to Netanyahu and Iran they declared their das­tard­ly dis­loy­al­ty to America in no uncer­tain terms.
That my friends is what the Republican par­ty has become.
An inter­na­tion­al disgrace.….….

Fifty Years Later The Struggle Continues

A truly historic moment adpted
A tru­ly his­toric moment
[adapt­ed]
Fifty years after Police blud­geoned black Americans march­ing across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the site of the “Bloody Sunday” demon­stra­tion of March 7, 1965 , the Nation’s 44th President a black man, com­mem­o­rat­ed the event with a sea of Americans of all stripes to include President Bush 43rd and his wife Laura.

The President’s speech.

It is a rare hon­or in this life to fol­low one of your heroes. And John Lewis is one of my heroes.

Now, I have to imag­ine that when a younger John Lewis woke up that morn­ing 50 years ago and made his way to Brown Chapel, hero­ics were not on his mind. A day like this was not on his mind. Young folks with bedrolls and back­packs were milling about. Veterans of the move­ment trained new­com­ers in the tac­tics of non-vio­lence; the right way to pro­tect your­self when attacked. A doc­tor described what tear gas does to the body, while marchers scrib­bled down instruc­tions for con­tact­ing their loved ones. The air was thick with doubt, antic­i­pa­tion and fear. And they com­fort­ed them­selves with the final verse of the final hymn they sung:

No mat­ter what may be the test, God will take care of you;
Lean, weary one, upon His breast, God will take care of you.”

And then, his knap­sack stocked with an apple, a tooth­brush, and a book on gov­ern­ment — all you need for a night behind bars — John Lewis led them out of the church on a mis­sion to change America.

President and Mrs. Bush, Governor Bentley, Mayor Evans, Sewell, Reverend Strong, mem­bers of Congress, elect­ed offi­cials, foot sol­diers, friends, fel­low Americans:

As John not­ed, there are places and moments in America where this nation’s des­tiny has been decid­ed. Many are sites of war — Concord and Lexington, Appomattox, Gettysburg. Others are sites that sym­bol­ize the dar­ing of America’s char­ac­ter — Independence Hall and Seneca Falls, Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral.

Selma is such a place. In one after­noon 50 years ago, so much of our tur­bu­lent his­to­ry — the stain of slav­ery and anguish of civ­il war; the yoke of seg­re­ga­tion and tyran­ny of Jim Crow; the death of four lit­tle girls in Birmingham; and the dream of a Baptist preach­er — all that his­to­ry met on this bridge.

It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a con­test to deter­mine the true mean­ing of America. And because of men and women like John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Hosea Williams, Amelia Boynton, Diane Nash, Ralph Abernathy, C.T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and so many oth­ers, the idea of a just America and a fair America, an inclu­sive America, and a gen­er­ous America — that idea ulti­mate­ly triumphed.

As is true across the land­scape of American his­to­ry, we can­not exam­ine this moment in iso­la­tion. The march on Selma was part of a broad­er cam­paign that spanned gen­er­a­tions; the lead­ers that day part of a long line of heroes.

We gath­er here to cel­e­brate them. We gath­er here to hon­or the courage of ordi­nary Americans will­ing to endure bil­ly clubs and the chas­ten­ing rod; tear gas and the tram­pling hoof; men and women who despite the gush of blood and splin­tered bone would stay true to their North Star and keep march­ing towards justice.

They did as Scripture instruct­ed: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribu­la­tion, be con­stant in prayer.” And in the days to come, they went back again and again. When the trum­pet call sound­ed for more to join, the peo­ple came –- black and white, young and old, Christian and Jew, wav­ing the American flag and singing the same anthems full of faith and hope. A white news­man, Bill Plante, who cov­ered the march­es then and who is with us here today, quipped that the grow­ing num­ber of white peo­ple low­ered the qual­i­ty of the singing. To those who marched, though, those old gospel songs must have nev­er sound­ed so sweet.

In time, their cho­rus would well up and reach President Johnson. And he would send them pro­tec­tion, and speak to the nation, echo­ing their call for America and the world to hear: “We shall over­come.” What enor­mous faith these men and women had. Faith in God, but also faith in America.

The Americans who crossed this bridge, they were not phys­i­cal­ly impos­ing. But they gave courage to mil­lions. They held no elect­ed office. But they led a nation. They marched as Americans who had endured hun­dreds of years of bru­tal vio­lence, count­less dai­ly indig­ni­ties –- but they didn’t seek spe­cial treat­ment, just the equal treat­ment promised to them almost a cen­tu­ry before.

What they did here will rever­ber­ate through the ages. Not because the change they won was pre­or­dained; not because their vic­to­ry was com­plete; but because they proved that non­vi­o­lent change is pos­si­ble, that love and hope can con­quer hate.

As we com­mem­o­rate their achieve­ment, we are well-served to remem­ber that at the time of the march­es, many in pow­er con­demned rather than praised them. Back then, they were called Communists, or half-breeds, or out­side agi­ta­tors, sex­u­al and moral degen­er­ates, and worse –- they were called every­thing but the name their par­ents gave them. Their faith was ques­tioned. Their lives were threat­ened. Their patri­o­tism challenged.

And yet, what could be more American than what hap­pened in this place?What could more pro­found­ly vin­di­cate the idea of America than plain and hum­ble peo­ple –- unsung, the down­trod­den, the dream­ers not of high sta­tion, not born to wealth or priv­i­lege, not of one reli­gious tra­di­tion but many, com­ing togeth­er to shape their country’s course?

What greater expres­sion of faith in the American exper­i­ment than this, what greater form of patri­o­tism is there than the belief that America is not yet fin­ished, that we are strong enough to be self-crit­i­cal, that each suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tion can look upon our imper­fec­tions and decide that it is in our pow­er to remake this nation to more close­ly align with our high­est ideals?

That’s why Selma is not some out­lier in the American expe­ri­ence. That’s why it’s not a muse­um or a sta­t­ic mon­u­ment to behold from a dis­tance. It is instead the man­i­fes­ta­tion of a creed writ­ten into our found­ing doc­u­ments: “We the People…in order to form a more per­fect union.” “We hold these truths to be self-evi­dent, that all men are cre­at­ed equal.”

These are not just words. They’re a liv­ing thing, a call to action, a roadmap for cit­i­zen­ship and an insis­tence in the capac­i­ty of free men and women to shape our own des­tiny. For founders like Franklin and Jefferson, for lead­ers like Lincoln and FDR, the suc­cess of our exper­i­ment in self-gov­ern­ment rest­ed on engag­ing all of our cit­i­zens in this work. And that’s what we cel­e­brate here in Selma. That’s what this move­ment was all about, one leg in our long jour­ney toward freedom.

A historic day for America
A his­toric day for America
A historic day for America
A his­toric day for America

The American instinct that led these young men and women to pick up the torch and cross this bridge, that’s the same instinct that moved patri­ots to choose rev­o­lu­tion over tyran­ny. It’s the same instinct that drew immi­grants from across oceans and the Rio Grande; the same instinct that led women to reach for the bal­lot, work­ers to orga­nize against an unjust sta­tus quo; the same instinct that led us to plant a flag at Iwo Jima and on the sur­face of the Moon.

It’s the idea held by gen­er­a­tions of cit­i­zens who believed that America is a con­stant work in progress; who believed that lov­ing this coun­try requires more than singing its prais­es or avoid­ing uncom­fort­able truths. It requires the occa­sion­al dis­rup­tion, the will­ing­ness to speak out for what is right, to shake up the sta­tus quo. That’s America.

That’s what makes us unique. That’s what cements our rep­u­ta­tion as a bea­con of oppor­tu­ni­ty. Young peo­ple behind the Iron Curtain would see Selma and even­tu­al­ly tear down that wall. Young peo­ple in Soweto would hear Bobby Kennedy talk about rip­ples of hope and even­tu­al­ly ban­ish the scourge of apartheid. Young peo­ple in Burma went to prison rather than sub­mit to mil­i­tary rule. They saw what John Lewis had done. From the streets of Tunis to the Maidan in Ukraine, this gen­er­a­tion of young peo­ple can draw strength from this place, where the pow­er­less could change the world’s great­est pow­er and push their lead­ers to expand the bound­aries of freedom.

They saw that idea made real right here in Selma, Alabama. They saw that idea man­i­fest itself here in America.

Because of cam­paigns like this, a Voting Rights Act was passed. Political and eco­nom­ic and social bar­ri­ers came down. And the change these men and women wrought is vis­i­ble here today in the pres­ence of African Americans who run board­rooms, who sit on the bench, who serve in elect­ed office from small towns to big cities; from the Congressional Black Caucus all the way to the Oval Office.

Because of what they did, the doors of oppor­tu­ni­ty swung open not just for black folks, but for every American. Women marched through those doors. Latinos marched through those doors. Asian Americans, gay Americans, Americans with dis­abil­i­ties — they all came through those doors. Their endeav­ors gave the entire South the chance to rise again, not by reassert­ing the past, but by tran­scend­ing the past.

What a glo­ri­ous thing, Dr. King might say. And what a solemn debt we owe. Which leads us to ask, just how might we repay that debt?

First and fore­most, we have to rec­og­nize that one day’s com­mem­o­ra­tion, no mat­ter how spe­cial, is not enough. If Selma taught us any­thing, it’s that our work is nev­er done. The American exper­i­ment in self-gov­ern­ment gives work and pur­pose to each generation.

Selma teach­es us, as well, that action requires that we shed our cyn­i­cism. For when it comes to the pur­suit of jus­tice, we can afford nei­ther com­pla­cen­cy nor despair.

Just this week, I was asked whether I thought the Department of Justice’s Ferguson report shows that, with respect to race, lit­tle has changed in this coun­try. And I under­stood the ques­tion; the report’s nar­ra­tive was sad­ly famil­iar. It evoked the kind of abuse and dis­re­gard for cit­i­zens that spawned the Civil Rights Movement. But I reject­ed the notion that nothing’s changed. What hap­pened in Ferguson may not be unique, but it’s no longer endem­ic. It’s no longer sanc­tioned by law or by cus­tom. And before the Civil Rights Movement, it most sure­ly was.

President Bush and first lay Michelle Obama
President Bush and first lay Michelle Obama

We do a dis­ser­vice to the cause of jus­tice by inti­mat­ing that bias and dis­crim­i­na­tion are immutable, that racial divi­sion is inher­ent to America. If you think nothing’s changed in the past 50 years, ask some­body who lived through the Selma or Chicago or Los Angeles of the 1950s. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the sec­re­tar­i­al pool if nothing’s changed. Ask your gay friend if it’s eas­i­er to be out and proud in America now than it was thir­ty years ago. To deny this progress, this hard-won progress -– our progress –- would be to rob us of our own agency, our own capac­i­ty, our respon­si­bil­i­ty to do what we can to make America better.

Of course, a more com­mon mis­take is to sug­gest that Ferguson is an iso­lat­ed inci­dent; that racism is ban­ished; that the work that drew men and women to Selma is now com­plete, and that what­ev­er racial ten­sions remain are a con­se­quence of those seek­ing to play the “race card” for their own pur­pos­es. We don’t need the Ferguson report to know that’s not true. We just need to open our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts to know that this nation’s racial his­to­ry still casts its long shad­ow upon us.

We know the march is not yet over. We know the race is not yet won. We know that reach­ing that blessed des­ti­na­tion where we are judged, all of us, by the con­tent of our char­ac­ter requires admit­ting as much, fac­ing up to the truth. “We are capa­ble of bear­ing a great bur­den,” James Baldwin once wrote, “once we dis­cov­er that the bur­den is real­i­ty and arrive where real­i­ty is.”

There’s noth­ing America can’t han­dle if we actu­al­ly look square­ly at the prob­lem. And this is work for all Americans, not just some. Not just whites. Not just blacks. If we want to hon­or the courage of those who marched that day, then all of us are called to pos­sess their moral imag­i­na­tion. All of us will need to feel as they did the fierce urgency of now. All of us need to rec­og­nize as they did that change depends on our actions, on our atti­tudes, the things we teach our chil­dren. And if we make such an effort, no mat­ter how hard it may some­times seem, laws can be passed, and con­sciences can be stirred, and con­sen­sus can be built.

With such an effort, we can make sure our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem serves all and not just some. Together, we can raise the lev­el of mutu­al trust that polic­ing is built on –- the idea that police offi­cers are mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty they risk their lives to pro­tect, and cit­i­zens in Ferguson and New York and Cleveland, they just want the same thing young peo­ple here marched for 50 years ago -– the pro­tec­tion of the law. Together, we can address unfair sen­tenc­ing and over­crowd­ed pris­ons, and the stunt­ed cir­cum­stances that rob too many boys of the chance to become men, and rob the nation of too many men who could be good dads, and good work­ers, and good neighbors.

With effort, we can roll back pover­ty and the road­blocks to oppor­tu­ni­ty. Americans don’t accept a free ride for any­body, nor do we believe in equal­i­ty of out­comes. But we do expect equal oppor­tu­ni­ty. And if we real­ly mean it, if we’re not just giv­ing lip ser­vice to it, but if we real­ly mean it and are will­ing to sac­ri­fice for it, then, yes, we can make sure every child gets an edu­ca­tion suit­able to this new cen­tu­ry, one that expands imag­i­na­tions and lifts sights and gives those chil­dren the skills they need. We can make sure every per­son will­ing to work has the dig­ni­ty of a job, and a fair wage, and a real voice, and stur­dier rungs on that lad­der into the mid­dle class.

And with effort, we can pro­tect the foun­da­tion stone of our democ­ra­cy for which so many marched across this bridge –- and that is the right to vote. Right now, in 2015, 50 years after Selma, there are laws across this coun­try designed to make it hard­er for peo­ple to vote. As we speak, more of such laws are being pro­posed. Meanwhile, the Voting Rights Act, the cul­mi­na­tion of so much blood, so much sweat and tears, the prod­uct of so much sac­ri­fice in the face of wan­ton vio­lence, the Voting Rights Act stands weak­ened, its future sub­ject to polit­i­cal rancor.

How can that be? The Voting Rights Act was one of the crown­ing achieve­ments of our democ­ra­cy, the result of Republican and Democratic efforts. President Reagan signed its renew­al when he was in office. President George W. Bush signed its renew­al when he was in office. One hun­dred mem­bers of Congress have come here today to hon­or peo­ple who were will­ing to die for the right to pro­tect it. If we want to hon­or this day, let that hun­dred go back to Washington and gath­er four hun­dred more, and togeth­er, pledge to make it their mis­sion to restore that law this year. That’s how we hon­or those on this bridge.

Of course, our democ­ra­cy is not the task of Congress alone, or the courts alone, or even the President alone. If every new vot­er-sup­pres­sion law was struck down today, we would still have, here in America, one of the low­est vot­ing rates among free peo­ples. Fifty years ago, reg­is­ter­ing to vote here in Selma and much of the South meant guess­ing the num­ber of jelly­beans in a jar, the num­ber of bub­bles on a bar of soap. It meant risk­ing your dig­ni­ty, and some­times, your life.

What’s our excuse today for not vot­ing? How do we so casu­al­ly dis­card the right for which so many fought? How do we so ful­ly give away our pow­er, our voice, in shap­ing America’s future? Why are we point­ing to some­body else when we could take the time just to go to the polling places? We give away our power.

Fellow marchers, so much has changed in 50 years. We have endured war and we’ve fash­ioned peace. We’ve seen tech­no­log­i­cal won­ders that touch every aspect of our lives. We take for grant­ed con­ve­niences that our par­ents could have scarce­ly imag­ined. But what has not changed is the imper­a­tive of cit­i­zen­ship; that will­ing­ness of a 26-year-old dea­con, or a Unitarian min­is­ter, or a young moth­er of five to decide they loved this coun­try so much that they’d risk every­thing to real­ize its promise.

President Obama delivers speech for the ages
President Obama deliv­ers speech for the ages

That’s what it means to love America. That’s what it means to believe in America. That’s what it means when we say America is exceptional.

For we were born of change. We broke the old aris­toc­ra­cies, declar­ing our­selves enti­tled not by blood­line, but endowed by our Creator with cer­tain inalien­able rights. We secure our rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties through a sys­tem of self-gov­ern­ment, of and by and for the peo­ple. That’s why we argue and fight with so much pas­sion and con­vic­tion — because we know our efforts mat­ter. We know America is what we make of it.

Look at our his­to­ry. We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pio­neers who braved the unfa­mil­iar, fol­lowed by a stam­pede of farm­ers and min­ers, and entre­pre­neurs and huck­sters. That’s our spir­it. That’s who we are.

We are Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, women who could do as much as any man and then some. And we’re Susan B. Anthony, who shook the sys­tem until the law reflect­ed that truth. That is our character.

We’re the immi­grants who stowed away on ships to reach these shores, the hud­dled mass­es yearn­ing to breathe free –- Holocaust sur­vivors, Soviet defec­tors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. We’re the hope­ful strivers who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a bet­ter life. That’s how we came to be.

We’re the slaves who built the White House and the econ­o­my of the South. We’re the ranch hands and cow­boys who opened up the West, and count­less labor­ers who laid rail, and raised sky­scrap­ers, and orga­nized for work­ers’ rights.

We’re the fresh-faced GIs who fought to lib­er­ate a con­ti­nent. And we’re the Tuskeegee Airmen, and the Navajo code-talk­ers, and the Japanese Americans who fought for this coun­try even as their own lib­er­ty had been denied.

We’re the fire­fight­ers who rushed into those build­ings on 911, the vol­un­teers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge.

We are sto­ry­tellers, writ­ers, poets, artists who abhor unfair­ness, and despise hypocrisy, and give voice to the voice­less, and tell truths that need to be told.

We’re the inven­tors of gospel and jazz and blues, blue­grass and coun­try, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all the sweet sor­row and reck­less joy of freedom.

We are Jackie Robinson, endur­ing scorn and spiked cleats and pitch­es com­ing straight to his head, and steal­ing home in the World series.

https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​N​V​A​Z​p​1​j​0​tKc

We are the peo­ple Langston Hughes wrote of who “build our tem­ples for tomor­row, strong as we know how.” We are the peo­ple Emerson wrote of, “who for truth and honor’s sake stand fast and suf­fer long;” who are “nev­er tired, so long as we can see far enough.”

That’s what America is. Not stock pho­tos or air­brushed his­to­ry, or fee­ble attempts to define some of us as more American than oth­ers. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some frag­ile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, con­tain­ing mul­ti­tudes. We are bois­ter­ous and diverse and full of ener­gy, per­pet­u­al­ly young in spir­it. That’s why some­one like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march.

And that’s what the young peo­ple here today and lis­ten­ing all across the coun­try must take away from this day. You are America. Unconstrained by habit and con­ven­tion. Unencumbered by what is, because you’re ready to seize what ought to be.

For every­where in this coun­try, there are first steps to be tak­en, there’s new ground to cov­er, there are more bridges to be crossed. And it is you, the young and fear­less at heart, the most diverse and edu­cat­ed gen­er­a­tion in our his­to­ry, who the nation is wait­ing to follow.

Because Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one per­son. Because the sin­gle-most pow­er­ful word in our democ­ra­cy is the word “We.” “We The People.” “We Shall Overcome.” “Yes We Can.” That word is owned by no one. It belongs to every­one. Oh, what a glo­ri­ous task we are giv­en, to con­tin­u­al­ly try to improve this great nation of ours.

Fifty years from Bloody Sunday, our march is not yet fin­ished, but we’re get­ting clos­er. Two hun­dred and thir­ty-nine years after this nation’s found­ing our union is not yet per­fect, but we are get­ting clos­er. Our job’s eas­i­er because some­body already got us through that first mile. Somebody already got us over that bridge. When it feels the road is too hard, when the torch we’ve been passed feels too heavy, we will remem­ber these ear­ly trav­el­ers, and draw strength from their exam­ple, and hold firm­ly the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on [the] wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint.”

We hon­or those who walked so we could run. We must run so our chil­dren soar. And we will not grow weary. For we believe in the pow­er of an awe­some God, and we believe in this country’s sacred promise.

May He bless those war­riors of jus­tice no longer with us, and bless the United States of America. Thank you, everybody.

Unarmed 19-year-old Killed By Madison Wisconsin Police…

A Madison, Wis., police offi­cer who fatal­ly shot an unarmed 19-year-old African American man Friday had been exon­er­at­ed in a pre­vi­ous fatal shoot­ing, offi­cials dis­closed Saturday.

Nineteen-year-old Tony Robinson was not armed when a Madison, Wisconsin, police offi­cer fatal­ly shot him, Police Chief Mike Koval said Saturday.
The 2007 shoot­ing involv­ing Matt Kenny, 45, was ruled a “sui­cide by cop,” said Madison Police Chief Mike Koval in a Saturday press con­fer­ence. The case was reviewed and audit­ed at the time by the dis­trict attor­ney’s office in Dane County, he said. Kenny, a 12-year depart­ment vet­er­an, was the pri­ma­ry respond­ing offi­cer in the inci­dent Friday that result­ed in the shoot­ing death of Tony Robinson.

Police said they received sev­er­al calls about a man who had “bat­tered someone“and had been “out in traf­fic” and then gone inside an apart­ment, Koval said Friday. Kenny heard a dis­tur­bance in the apart­ment, forced his way in, and after a scuf­fle with Robinson in which Kenny received a “blow to the head,” the offi­cer shot Robinson, Koval said.Robinson lat­er was pro­nounced dead of gun­shot wounds at a near­by hos­pi­tal. Koval did not dis­close how many shots were fired, say­ing the infor­ma­tion was part of the shoot­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, which will be han­dled by the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation.

Kenny was placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave with pay pend­ing results of the inves­ti­ga­tion, Koval said. He said that Kenny received a com­men­da­tion of val­or for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2007 fatal shooting.
The state agency will han­dle the probe of the new shoot­ing in line with a 2014 Wisconsin law that requires all offi­cer-involved shoot­ings to be reviewed by an out­side agency. Findings will be turned over to the Dane County dis­trict attor­ney’s office, which will also review the case, Koval said.

Koval said he went to the home of Robinson’s fam­i­ly ear­ly Saturday morn­ing to express his con­do­lences and “remorse for the loss of life.” He met Robinson’s grand­par­ents in the dri­ve­way, and they spoke for about 45 min­utes and prayed togeth­er, he said. “To his fam­i­ly, and to his friends, and to this com­mu­ni­ty, that is a loss,” Koval said. “Nineteen years old is too young.”

LAtimes​.com.

Netanyahu Canard More Of The Same.….….

Republicans who never rises and clay for their own President gives Netanyahu several standing ovations
Republicans who nev­er ris­es and clap for their own President gives Netanyahu sev­er­al stand­ing ovations

I deeply regret that some per­ceive my being here as polit­i­cal. That was nev­er my inten­tion,” Netanyahu said in an address before Congress. “I know that no mat­ter on which side of the aisle you sit, you stand with Israel.”
“Don’t be fooled – the bat­tle between Iran and ISIS doesn’t turn Iran into a friend for America; Iran and ISIS are com­pet­ing for the crown of mil­i­tant Islam,” said Netanyahu. The prob­lem with America’s poten­tial deal with Iran is twofold, said the Israeli leader. “The first major con­ces­sion,” he said, is that it “would leave Iran with a vast nuclear infra­struc­ture.” Second, he con­tin­ued, the restric­tions imposed on Iran’s nuclear pro­gram would not effec­tive­ly bar vio­la­tions. “Iran has proven time and again that it can­not be trust­ed,” said Netanyahu. “That’s why this deal is so bad – it doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”

President Obama said there was noth­ing new in the speech deliv­ered before the American Congress by the Republican Senator from Israel. President 
Obama, mean­while told reporters lat­er in the day that he read the tran­script of Netanyahu’s speech and found “noth­ing new.” He not­ed that the Israeli leader did not offer any “viable alter­na­tives” to pre­vent­ing Iran from obtain­ing a nuclear weapon, and defend­ed his administration’s pur­suit of a nuclear deal with the Middle Eastern country.
Does it seem strange that a President, any pres­i­dent, would be forced to defend his poli­cies as the duly twice elect­ed head of his coun­try, while a for­eign leader attacks his poli­cies in his coun­try’s high­est leg­isla­tive body, as that leader vis­its, all unbe­knownst to him ?
I digress, maybe it’s just me.….

Netanyahu
Netanyahu

[A]s one who val­ues the U.S.-Israel rela­tion­ship, and loves Israel, I was near tears through­out the Prime Minister’s speech – sad­dened by the insult to the intel­li­gence of the United States as part of the P5+1 nations, and sad­dened by the con­de­scen­sion toward our knowl­edge of the threat posed by Iran and our broad­er com­mit­ment to pre­vent­ing nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion,” said Pelosi in a statement.

Pelosi
Pelosi

No Republican would have sat through a con­tro­ver­sial speech giv­en by a for­eign leader when a Republican President in the White Hose was not noti­fied that that for­eign leader would be invit­ed to address the coun­try and con­gress. On that basis the com­ments of Pelosi is incon­se­quen­tial and has no bear­ing, it should not be con­sid­ered. Any Democrat Jew or not, who attend­ed that speech is dis­loy­al to the President and should hang their heads in shame, they are all a disgrace.

Netanyahu wants war.
As President Obama stat­ed there was noth­ing new in the speech. We have all heard Netanyahu’s drum­beat for war against Iran before. If Netanyahu did not prof­fer any­thing new what is the rea­son for the speech ?
As Pelosi lament­ed qoute,“I was near tears through­out the Prime Minister’s speech – sad­dened by the insult to the intel­li­gence of the United States as part of the P5+1 nations, and sad­dened by the con­de­scen­sion toward our knowl­edge of the threat posed by Iran and our broad­er com­mit­ment to pre­vent­ing nuclear proliferation”.
Well why would he not be condescending? 
He was brought in with­out the knowl­edge of the sit­ting President and Commander-in-chief, to chal­lenge the President and oth­er nation’s lead­ers work toward a peace­ful set­tle­ment to the per­ceived prob­lem of Iran’s nuclear program.

President Obama
President Obama

Simply put Netanyahu is a war-mon­ger, if he was to be believed the World would have come to an end years ago based on his pre­dic­tions on Iran’s intentions. 
Netanyahu did not offer any­thing new, because he has noth­ing new. He wants war but he wants America to fight that war with Iran, and he wants American sol­diers to die so he can have hege­mo­ny in the region. 
Republican war-mon­gers do not mind get­ting into a war with Iran , which by the way would be a grave mis­take. Their only prob­lem is that there is only one Commander-in-chief at a time. 
So it seem that the strat­e­gy is to paint Obama as a weak President who is actu­al­ly paving the way for Iran acquir­ing a nuclear bomb, even as he speaks niceties about the pres­i­dent from the cor­ner of his mouth.

ISIS is not a reli­gious group of Muslim fun­da­men­tal­ists, they are a bunch of mur­der­ous sav­ages. Netanyahu does not mind play­ing up the ISIS threat to get what he wants. What Netanyahu and his sup­port­ers will not say is that some sup­posed lead­ers of ISIS have been revealed to be Jewish oper­a­tives pre­tend­ing to be Arabs.
Those who want to bomb oth­er nations must avail them­selves to the duplic­i­tous canard being fed the world by Netanyahu. Ask the Palestinian peo­ple who live under the boot-heels of Israeli occu­pa­tion. However none of that mat­ters, even as the sin­gu­lar largest issue at the cen­ter of most con­flicts in the mid­dle east, is Israel’s occu­pa­tion of Palestine.
The fact is that Netanyahu knows that come what may , America will con­tin­ue to sup­port the nuclear armed Israel. In fact he bragged about it in his speech, quote,” I deeply regret that some per­ceive my being here as polit­i­cal, that was nev­er my inten­tion, I know that no mat­ter on which side of the aisle you sit, you stand with Israel. There you have it, no mat­ter what President is in the White House Jewish mon­ey will ensure that he stays in line and do the bid­ding of Israel.

Many peo­ple in the state of Israel dis­agrees with Netanyahu’s inces­sant drum-beat for war. A large per­cent­age of Israeli’s also dis­agree with Israel’s treat­ment of the Palestinian peo­ple. So too do they dis­agree with the idea that Israeli should be at war with Iran.
Netanyahu wants war with Iran just on American dime and with American blood.
The war­mon­ger­ing clowns on the right are too stu­pid to fig­ure it out.
Israeli’s going to the polls in two weeks can show Netanyahu the door, that is their best hope for peace.

The Rules Have Changed And No One Bothered To Tell Us

Images in black communities when they dared stand up for their rights...
Images in black com­mu­ni­ties when they dared stand up for their rights…

Despite mas­sive street protest and retal­ia­to­ry vio­lence against Police in 2014 the rash of police killing of unarmed civil­ians con­tin­ue unabated.

Jan.23rd , 2015 .-An Oklahoma cop wear­ing a body cam record­ed him­self shoot­ing and killing a man who was run­ning from him after the sus­pect stopped to pick up an object he had dropped dur­ing the pur­suit before con­tin­u­ing fleeing.

PASCO, Wash. — Residents angry that police shot and killed an orchard work­er accused of throw­ing rocks at offi­cers are plan­ning more protests in an agri­cul­tur­al area of south­east­ern Washington. Some of the dozens of peo­ple who saw the shoot­ing at a busy inter­sec­tion Tuesday evening video­taped the con­fronta­tion in Pasco, a city of about 68,000 peo­ple where more than half the res­i­dents are Hispanic.

March2nd 2015 .-Three Los Angeles police offi­cers fired at and killed a man on the city’s Skid Row dur­ing a strug­gle over one of the offi­cers’ guns, and author­i­ties said they planned to use video cap­tured by a bystander in their investigation.

The killings hap­pen almost dai­ly, yet Authorities turn a blind eye to what is clear­ly a pan­dem­ic of exces­sive police use of force. In shoot­ing after shoot­ing, police brass declare that the shoot­ings are jus­ti­fied and done with­ing police use of force guidelines.
Politicians jump on the police band-wag­on and declare that they stand with police , even when the actions of police are clear­ly beyond the pale.
Those who do not auto­mat­i­cal­ly default toward the police, remain in duplic­i­tous silence. New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo read­i­ly comes to mind.

So what is behind the con­tin­ued and unabat­ed killing by police, despite nation-wide protest? The answer is sim­ple. They are not being held account­able. In some cas­es the killings don’t even make sense.
A for­mer Florida A&M foot­ball play­er was shot and killed as he approached police offi­cers, look­ing for assis­tance after get­ting into a car accident.
Jonathan Ferrell, 24, crashed his car ear­ly one Saturday morn­ing, and approached a home, look­ing for help. The res­i­dents, unsure of who was out­side, called the police. When the offi­cers arrived, Ferell ran towards them, only to be shot sev­er­al times. Ferell, who might have been bad­ly shak­en up by the acci­dent, died on the scene.
Police said in a state­ment. “Our inves­ti­ga­tion has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a law­ful right to dis­charge his weapon dur­ing this encounter. ”
How does a man get killed run­ning toward the peo­ple who are paid hand­some­ly to pro­tect and pro­vide help?
As I have said it is becom­ing increas­ing­ly evi­dent that the police have no inter­est in serv­ing cer­tain seg­ments of the pub­lic. In most if not all cas­es where exces­sive lethal force was employed the vic­tim is black or brown and the cop is white.

If as police say when these shoot­ings occur , that “offi­cers fol­lowed pro­ce­dure” then the pub­lic must be told that the police have a right to kill you whether you are armed or not. The cop only need to say he/​she was in fear for his/​her life and that fear is no longer based on rea­son­able­ness , but is total­ly left up to the poten­tial­ly irra­tional mind of the cop.

As a police offi­cer I would nev­er con­tem­plate un-hol­ster­ing my weapon to sub­due a sin­gle unarmed indi­vid­ual if I was in the com­pa­ny of one or more officers.
How four offi­cers end up using lethal force on one unarmed indi­vid­ual is galling , uncon­scionable and frightening.
What is even more fright­en­ing is the cal­lous dis­patch with which peo­ple deal with these wan­ton acts of mur­der because the vic­tims do not look like them nor live like them.
Have the police now become exter­mi­na­tors of those soci­ety deem disposable?
If so who are the dis­pos­able dregs and who decide when they die?
It is incred­i­bly scary that so many cit­i­zens unwit­ting­ly cede their free­doms to the state, through their cold uncar­ing dis­re­gard for oth­ers they deem less than them or other.

Police offi­cers are issued batons, taz­ers, pep­per-spray, hand-cuffs, and yes guns.The Gun was sup­posed to be the last weapon an offi­cer uses.
It’s use has always been con­tin­gent on the life of the offi­cer or that of anoth­er being in immi­nent dan­ger. The threat to life and limb was once sup­posed to be real and rea­son­able. It was nev­er sup­posed to be con­coct­ed or contrived.

Today cops tell cit­i­zens I will F*****g shoot you as they walk up to them, they then make good on their threats and they are not held accountable.
These are the new real­i­ties, the rules have changed and nobody both­ered to tell us.
Welcome to the new world order.

Netanyahu A Republican Operative.….

Netanyahu
Netanyahu

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not even mak­ing an attempt to respect American President Obama and his administration.
The New York Daily News report­ed that Sens. Dick Durbin, D‑Ill., and Dianne Feinstein, D‑Calif., on Monday invit­ed Netanyahu to meet in a closed-door ses­sion with Democrats dur­ing his vis­it. He declined the invi­ta­tion on Tuesday and expressed regret about the polit­i­cal­ly fraught tone of his trip.

I regret that the invi­ta­tion to address the spe­cial joint ses­sion of Congress has been per­ceived by some to be polit­i­cal or par­ti­san,” Netanyahu wrote. “I can assure you that my sole inten­tion in accept­ing it was to voice Israel’s grave con­cerns about a poten­tial nuclear agree­ment with Iran that could threat­en the sur­vival of my country.”

Who are the “some” of whom Netanyahu speak is it the President? The President has said he will not meet with Netanyahu because it would be a break with tra­di­tion of the white house not to meet with for­eign lead­ers who are engaged in elec­tion cam­paign­ing. Netanyahu faces the Israeli elec­torate in just a cou­ple of weeks from his sched­uled March 3rd address.

Frankly President Obama should stop beat­ing around the bush and tell the world he refus­es to meet with the dis­re­spect­ful Republican Senator from Israel because he does not like him. Netanyahu all but endorsed Mitt Romney for President dur­ing the last Presidential elec­tions . Who is Netanyahu fool­ing , he does not like Obama and Obama does not like him . 

The report went on to say more than a half dozen House and Senate Democrats have said they will skip the speech, call­ing it an affront to President Barack Obama and the admin­is­tra­tion as they engage in high-lev­el nego­ti­a­tions with Iran over its nuclear pro­gram. Vice President Joe Biden will be trav­el­ing and has no plans to attend the speech.
Well there you have it, half a dozen house and sen­ate democ­rats? What of the rest? Not only is this address a deeply offen­sive breach of pro­to­col, it is an affront to the Nation’s first black pres­i­dent. Democrats who make the deci­sion to sit through this affront will sig­nal that they join repub­li­cans in giv­ing aid and com­fort to the inso­lent Netanyahu over a sit­ting American pres­i­dent who just hap­pens to be black.

YouTube player

Israel is an apartheid state which has pre­cious lit­tle respect for black people.
Netanyahu and his admin­is­tra­tion has led a vicious cam­paign against Ethiopian Jews and and oth­er Africans who ven­ture into the state of Israel. Netanyahu and many in his Government and Country labels blacks who ven­ture into Apartheid Israel “Infiltrators”. They call them can­cers on Israeli society.
Many African Jews,(real decen­dants of bib­li­cal jews) are harassed and round­ed up like cat­tle and herd­ed into a mas­sive prison in the Negev desert. 
Why would a repub­li­can sup­port­ing Netanyahu respect our pres­i­dent, when he sees Africans in Israel as infiltrators? 

The trav­es­ty of the blind sup­port some have for the Apartheid state of Israel, includ­ing some reli­gious lead­ers in the black com­mu­ni­ty, is their igno­rance to the real­i­ties of the Biblical Israel and this char­la­tan Apartheid state.
The tragedy is that even though they hate blacks , they ben­e­fit from black peo­ple’s mon­ey the American Government takes in tax­es and gives to them to the tune of Billions of dol­lars annually.

Durbin said in a state­ment that he regret­ted that Netanyahu could not meet with the Democrats.

We offered the Prime Minister an oppor­tu­ni­ty to bal­ance the polit­i­cal­ly divi­sive invi­ta­tion from Speaker (John) Boehner with a pri­vate meet­ing with Democrats who are com­mit­ted to keep­ing the bipar­ti­san sup­port of Israel strong,” Durbin said. “His refusal to meet is dis­ap­point­ing to those of us who have stood by Israel for decades.

Well there you have it, Netanyahu is not a diplo­mat, he is not a man who respects pro­to­cols. He is a war-mon­ger­ing hawk who will not rest until America is engaged in a war with Iran over nuclear weapons even as Israel pos­s­eses stock­piles of nuclear weapons of it’s own.
What makes Israel exempt from the same rules oth­er coun­tries are sub­ject to?
Who does Netanyahu think he is that President Obama should bow to his demands for war, fail­ing which he will protest the President’s poli­cies using the con­gress as a polit­i­cal platform?
This is the kind of raw dis­re­spect that we have come to expect from repub­li­cans in the congress. 
Hiding our heads in the sand does not negate the fact that con­gres­sion­al repub­li­cans want war with Iran. Netanyahu also want war with Iran.

This pres­i­den­t’s pol­i­cy of peace through nego­ti­a­tions and mutu­al respect, does not line up with the per­pet­u­al war-mon­ger­ing of repub­li­cans and Netanyahu.
This is the rea­son the weak John Boehner invit­ed Netanyahu to speak .
Never before have we seen such egre­gious dis­play of dis­re­spect to pres­i­den­tial lead­er­ship. We will wait to see which demo­c­rat sit and lis­ten to Netanyahu’s bull.

Certainly Obama Was Not Like Giuliani He Did Not Have A Stick-up Man For A Dad…

Giuliani
Giuliani

Rudolph Giuliani the man some dubbed America’s may­or dou­bled down on the inflam­ma­to­ry com­ment he made about the nation’s pres­i­dent not lov­ing America as oth­ers do.
On the face of it, the pub­lic­i­ty-hound Giuliani would have to have some sort of access to the brain of all Americans in order to mea­sure their degree of love of country.
There is no need to guess about the method Giuliani used in arriv­ing at the President’s patri­o­tism lev­els, he spelled it out when he made it clear he was not sor­ry about mak­ing an ass of himself.

Look, this man was brought up basi­cal­ly in a white fam­i­ly, so what­ev­er he learned or didn’t learn, I attribute this more to the influ­ence of com­mu­nism and social­ism” than to his race, Giuliani told the Daily News. “I don’t (see) this President as being par­tic­u­lar­ly a prod­uct of African-American soci­ety or some­thing like that. He isn’t,” the for­mer may­or added. “Logically, think about his back­ground… The ideas that are trou­bling me and are lead­ing to this come from com­mu­nists with whom he asso­ci­at­ed when he was 9 years old” through fam­i­ly connections.

Okay so now we under­stand the for­mu­la for Obama’s com­mu­nism, the rea­son for Giuliani’s igno­rance is made clear­er. his father had been arrest­ed in 1934 for rob­bing a milk­man at gun­point and had spent a year and a half in jail. This hap­pened when young Rudolph was about 7 years.
So if a 9‑year-old Obama is a com­mu­nist for being intro­duced to Communist, then it nat­u­ral­ly fol­lows that Giuliani is indeed a gun-tot­ing-stick up felon for his time spent with and being his father’s son.
It is a fair analy­sis to make using Giuliani’s logic.

I must admit I am no fan of El Deuce, that much must be clear by now. Why? Because he is a hyp­o­crit­i­cal racist.
He is nar­cis­sis­tic glo­ry hound.
There are ample exam­ples of Giuliani’s glo­ry hunting.
As a U.S. Attorney Giuliani devel­oped the rep­u­ta­tion as some­thing of a pub­lic­i­ty seek­er, some­times pub­licly hand-cuff­ing mob boss­es and busi­ness lead­ers on trumped up charges only to qui­et­ly drop the charges later.

The façade he pre­sent­ed as some kind of great American Mayor fed by the swoon­ing New York Press and a Nation look­ing for heroes after September 11th 2001 could nev­er stand the smell test, or with­stand scruti­ny when the scab is peeled back.
It is laugh­able when tele­vi­sion talk­ing heads tell us Giuliani is sul­ly­ing his image as America’s Mayor with this far right rhetoric.
The truth is Giuliani had no record to sul­ly, he made the deci­sion to place the city’s com­mand cen­ter in the world trade cen­ter build­ing after the build­ing had already expe­rienxced one ter­ror­ists attack in 1993.
If incom­pe­tence and bad judge­ment qual­i­fies one as a good American Mayor then Obama’s sol­id lead­er­ship since he took the reins of America’s col­lapsed econ­o­my cer­tain­ly makes him a can­di­date for sainthood.
Giuliani’s hor­ri­ble judge­ment and arro­gance far exceeds the deci­sion to house the con­trol cen­ter in the world trade center.
President Bush tapped Kerik, as his nom­i­nee for home­land secu­ri­ty sec­re­tary, but Kerik abrupt­ly with­drew his name after reveal­ing that he had not paid all required tax­es for a fam­i­ly nan­ny-house­keep­er and that the woman may have been in the coun­try illegally.

Kerik a for­mer NYPD com­mis­sion­er appoint­ed by Giuliani and lat­er his busi­ness part­ner was rec­om­mend­ed to Bush by none oth­er than Giuliani.
Bernard Kerik was lat­er to do time in a fed­er­al prison.
Giuliani’s abuse of his office through police pro­tec­tion he received as he trekked to Long Island to see his mis­tress Judith Nathan at the cost of tens of thou­sands of dol­lars to the city’s tax-pay­ers is well documented.

These are just a few of the trans­gres­sions we know of the hyp­o­crit­i­cal glo­ry-hound Giuliani. We also know that he gets paid hand­some­ly as a con­sul­tant and speak­er com­mand­ing up to 80K per speak­ing engage­ment where he pro­vides strate­gic coun­sel in emer­gency preparedness. 
If ever there was an irony.
Giuliani needs to be in the news, that’s how the mon­ey keep rolling in. He is pre­pared to say and do any­thing to be in the news and he is doing just that.

This guy is not run­ning for dog-catch­er yet every­one is talk­ing about him and that’s exact­ly what he craves.

The Cowardice And Betrayal Of Cuomo And Other Democrats To America’s Blacks

Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo

No one expects any par­tic­u­lar Democrat to defend our President from the vile dis­gust­ing and con­cert­ed rhetoric com­ing from his ene­mies on the right,but blacks must remem­ber the likes of Hillary Clinton and prob­a­bly most impor­tant­ly Andrew Coumo.

Coumo New’s York Governor, gave a long mean­der­ing speech at the funer­al for his late father Mario Coumo a for­mer Governor whom some viewed as a lib­er­al lion and a cham­pi­on for those with­out mon­ey and pow­er. As I lis­tened to the speech, I thought to myself the

The late Mario Cuomo
The late Mario Cuomo

speech made one thing clear Andrew Coumo was no Mario Coumo.
Real lead­ers lead from the front , not hide behind and do what is polit­i­cal­ly expe­di­ent. Cuomo hid while Mayor deBlasio stood and took heat for his stance on Police abuse.
As the state’s Governor, Cuomo did not have to defend the state’s black cit­i­zens, God for­bid, but he could have stood with deBlasio anoth­er white man who did the right thing.
Andrew Cuomo chose to remain silent.

Unfortunately though Cuomo ben­e­fit­ed immense­ly from black votes in the last elec­tions he could not muster up the balls or the char­ac­ter to stand with them in their moment of travail. 

Both Cuomos
Both Cuomos

Though Cuomo won the last elec­tions beat­ing Republican rival Rob Astorino by 13 per­cent­age points, the National review report­ed that Astorino col­lect­ed 1.3 mil­lion votes — or 49 per­cent — com­pared to Cuomo’s 1.2 mil­lion, or 46 per­cent, in a low-turnout elec­tion. Three third-par­ty can­di­dates were also on the bal­lot. Cuomo’s 13-per­cent­age-point win over Republican chal­lenger Rob Astorino on Nov. 4 was fueled by a large mar­gin of vic­to­ry in New York City, where he took home 77 per­cent of the near­ly 1 mil­lion bal­lots cast, accord­ing to the state Board of Election’s unof­fi­cial results.

He did not do well in white Democratic lib­er­al strong­holds ‚gen­er­al­ly speak­ing Cuomo did best in the

Cuomo and Clinton
Cuomo and Clinton

ADs that are pre­dom­i­nant­ly black.”
 Democrats have tak­en the black vote for grant­ed for decades. They prob­a­bly will for decades more, unless blacks cease vot­ing, or avail them­selves to the real­i­ties they face. The fact is that Democrats know that blacks can­not run to the Republican par­ty, so they do not have to earn the votes of their most loy­al vot­ers, nei­ther do they have to stand with them.
So Cuomo did not feel the need to stand up for black peo­ple in New York City.
nei­ther does he feel the need to repu­di­ate the vile crea­ture Rudolph Giuliani on his bot­tom feed­ing gut­ter attack on our President.

Giuliani
Giuliani

Chances are Andrew Cuomo is not will­ing to ruf­fle the feath­ers of anoth­er Italian, a repub­li­can who crossed par­ty line and endorsed his father when he ran for a fourth term in 1994.

On the occa­sion of cross­ing par­ty lines to endorse the elder Cuomo, Guiliani said.George Pataki’s only essen­tial char­ac­ter­is­tic is that he offers an alter­na­tive. “Strangely, how­ev­er, after lengthy analy­sis and a lot of soul-search­ing, I’ve come to the con­clu­sion that it is George Pataki who best per­son­i­fies the sta­tus quo of New York pol­i­tics — a can­di­date tak­ing as few posi­tions as pos­si­ble, all of them as gen­er­al as pos­si­ble, tak­ing no risks and being guid­ed and script­ed by oth­ers. He has sim­ply not made the case that he is the agent of change.”
This is the very first time I con­cur with any­thing Giuliani has to say, only this time the very words

George  Pataki
George Pataki

Giuliani used to described George Pataki as he bat­tled Mario Cuomo, are now total­ly appro­pri­ate in describ­ing Andrew Cuomo.
New York’s black vot­ers should nev­er for­get the cow­ardice of Andrew Cuomo when they need­ed their Governor to stand with them.
They should nev­er for­get the cow­ardice of Andrew Cuomo when he refused to stand against the vile naked big­otry of his fel­low Italian, Rudolph Giuliani in his inces­sant attacks against the Nation’s first black chief-executive.
But I will not hold my breath that this will hap­pen, chances are many of the state’s black vot­ers don’t even both­er to hold Coumo account­able, or know they should.
Given the chance they will once again go into vot­ing booths and vote for Andrew Cuomo again and again, and again.

Racial Publicity Whore On President’s Love For America

Rudolph Giuliani
Rudolph Giuliani

I do not believe, and I know this is a hor­ri­ble thing to say, but I do not believe that the pres­i­dent loves America,” Giuliani said dur­ing the din­ner at the 21 Club, a for­mer Prohibition-era speakeasy in mid­town Manhattan. “He does­n’t love you. And he does­n’t love me. He was­n’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

Anyone who thought the war against President Obama was any­thing but racial is liv­ing a delud­ed exis­tence. President Barack Obama can­not run for anoth­er elect­ed office in America. He has rough­ly two years left in office. So one would have thought that even at fund-rais­ers oppo­nents would have sought to talk about poten­tial adver­saries , not the guy who can non longer beat them.
So what moti­vates the oppo­si­tion to Obama you ask?
Race does.
For a sick dement­ed swath of the Republican right, President Obama rep­re­sents a gross depar­ture from the foun­da­tion tenets and teach­ings of white suprema­cy and could only have attained the office through fraud, or evil des­ig­na­tion such as their charge he is an impos­tor from Kenya and worse, a dev­il Manchurian candidate.
Whether you assign cre­dence to the pub­lic­i­ty whore Rudolph Giuliani, or you believe as the National Review’s Kevin D Williamson does that,“Barack Obama spent years in the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church as the church­man ful­mi­nat­ed: “God Damn America!” The Reverend Wright’s infa­mous “God Damn America!” ser­mon charges the coun­try with a litany of abus­es: slav­ery, mis­treat­ment of the Indians, “treat­ing cit­i­zens as less than human,” etc. A less rav­ing ver­sion of the same indict­ment can be found in the president’s own speech­es and books. His social cir­cle includes such fig­ures as Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn, who expressed their love of coun­try by par­tic­i­pat­ing in a mur­der­ous ter­ror­ist cam­paign against it”.
You must divorce your­self from the facts of those atroc­i­ties, suck up the abuse and nev­er men­tion it but be grate­ful that they live in the utopia of American exceptional-ism.
nev­er mind the inde­fen­si­ble atroc­i­ties met­ed out to peo­ple of col­or, the issue is not the abuse is that you dare ques­tion the method­ol­o­gy used on the path to American exceptionalism.

As loathe as I am to acknowl­edge Giuliani’s exis­tence, I do so to high­light the fact that even though they know they lie they can­not resist the lure to lie to fur­ther their agenda.
“I do not believe, and I know this is a hor­ri­ble thing to say, but I do not believe that the pres­i­dent loves America,”.
It is a hor­ri­ble thing to say because it’s a lie. The truth demands no apol­o­gy. It is hor­ri­ble that even though the despi­ca­ble Giuliani knows he was lying he could not tame his vile tongue. He knew it was the thing that would play well in that room of equal­ly vile crea­tures of hate and lies.
They gath­er using lies and deceit as they eat the meat of con­tra­dic­tion. Because on the right, right is what’s right for them. Truth is a dis­pens­able option used for expe­di­en­cy. The ide­o­log­i­cal fight around Immigration , Voting Rights and Budget allo­ca­tions are not fights they wage on right­eous prin­ci­ples. They are ide­o­log­i­cal fights waged around the con­cept of white suprema­cy and white entitlements.

In two years they will not have Obama to kick around any more,but their hate­ful rhetoric will con­tin­ue on bud­get, vot­ing, immi­gra­tion, and on police abuse so the next demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­dent will be no less a bogey-man/­woman, just not the Kenyan-born, Manchurian can­di­date sent to destroy their repub­lic.

Israel’s Control Of America.…

A very seri­ous breach of diplo­mat­ic pro­to­col is about to be com­mit­ted by

Netanyahu
Netanyahu

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu .
The Israeli Prime Minister was invit­ed by the United States Speaker of the House John Boehner to address the American Congress. 
Netanyahu is sched­uled to address the con­gress on the talks between the Obama Administration and oth­er pow­ers, includ­ing Britain, Germany, France,China, Russia and Iran , on Iran’s nuclear program.
Initially Netanyahu was slat­ed to address the House in February but the speech has been pushed back to March 3rd.

President Obama
President Obama

The prob­lem with the speech is that no one in the speak­er’s office both­ered to noti­fy the White House that Netanyahu was sched­uled to address the con­gress just two weeks pri­or to that coun­try’s elec­tions to pick a new leader.
The White House insists that the Israeli Ambassador recent­ly met with Secretary of state John Kerry for two hours but did not both­er to men­tion that Netanyahu was com­ing to address congress.
In fact Boehner made it clear that his invite to Netanyahu was intend­ed to be a dis­re­spect­ful ges­ture to President Obama.
Boehner said quote: The Republicans are inter­est­ed in send­ing a “clear mes­sage to the White House — and the world — about our com­mit­ment to Israel and our allies,”.
Boehner who did not even both­er to tell mem­bers of the demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus in

Boehner and Netanyahu
Boehner and Netanyahu

the house of his deci­sion to invite Netanyahu,sees noth­ing wrong with usurp­ing nor­mal pro­to­cols to make anoth­er polit­i­cal statement.
Netantahu a right wing hawk who crave war with Iran, is anx­ious to use the American Congress two weeks before a tight elec­tion in Israel to lift his own profile.
Most of all how­ev­er, Netanyahu no fan of Obama, seem to rel­ish the oppor­tu­ni­ty to poke a fin­ger into Obama’s eye as the American pres­i­dent enters the fourth quar­ter of his presidency.
Republicans for their part are not con­cerned about any dis­re­spect to Obama, in fact that seem to be exact­ly their intention.
President Obama has inti­mat­ed he will not meet with Netanyahu.
There is a long stand­ing pro­to­col not to meet with for­eign lead­ers that close to elec­tions in their own coun­tries, the pres­i­dent said.
No one believes those are the rea­sons the pres­i­dent will not meet with Netanyahu however.

The office of Vice pres­i­dent Biden said, Biden will not be attend­ing the speech either.
Members of the con­gres­sion­al black cau­cus have also indi­cat­ed they will not be attend­ing the speech.
In Israel there is very lit­tle sup­port for the speech, the Times of Israel pub­lished a poll which shows In response to the ques­tion, “Do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu should trav­el to speak before the US Congress?” a major­i­ty of 52% said no, com­pared to 36% in favor. A fur­ther 12% said that they didn’t know whether Netanyahu should go.

Set aside the breach of diplo­mat­ic pro­to­col for a sec­ond then ask yourselves

Obama and Netanyahu
Obama and Netanyahu

why would Netanyahu do some­thing so poten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing to American Israeli relations?
Never mind the actions of Republicans, any­one still doubt­ful that their actions toward pres­i­dent Obama are any­thing but racial need to have their heads examined.
Netanyahu must have cal­cu­lat­ed that his vis­it will give him a boost in polls at home. He prob­a­bly sees this as an oppor­tune time to stick it to Obama, whom he clear­ly has very lit­tle love for.
Netanyahu does not believe there are any dan­gers to the bi-lat­er­al rela­tions between the two coun­tries. Why would he ?America has pledged unequiv­o­cal sup­port to the Zionist state, that will not change because he is dis­re­spect­ful to it’s first black pres­i­dent, if any­thing it will bol­ster that relationship.

Garrisons Don’t All Have Walls.…..

Allan Douglas
Allan Douglas

In an Observer Article dat­ed Feb 3rd 2015, retired Jamaica Defense Force Colonel Allan Douglas wrote an Article which could only be con­strued to be in defense of Garrisons. In his Article Douglas said this.
Regrettably, through­out my mil­i­tary career, I have often heard from civil­ians the solu­tion of “flat­ten­ing” areas over and over; ‘Just flat­ten Rema, Tivoli, etc, and the crime prob­lem would be solved!’ they say. So, I have become very sus­pi­cious with pro­posed solu­tions like “dis­man­tling polit­i­cal gar­risons”. What exact­ly do peo­ple mean when they speak of dis­man­tling garrisons?
Clearly Douglas miss­es the feel­ing of exas­per­a­tion of cit­i­zens who make those state­ments. It appears that despite a car­rear in the JDF and hav­ing attained the rank of Colonel, Douglas has very lit­tle under­stand­ing of what obtains on the streets of Jamaica’s Garrisons, or what are often referred to as zones of polit­i­cal exclusions. 
It could be either that Douglas did not spend enough time out­side Duppy Gate, or that he is once again act­ing as a de-fac­to defend­er of the People’s National Party’s failures.
See Article here. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​c​o​l​u​m​n​s​/​W​e​-​c​a​n​-​t​-​j​ust – flat­ten – garrisons_18340450
C
olonel Douglas in what could eas­i­ly be mis­in­ter­pret­ed as a stout defense of the poor, unwit­ting­ly showed his Orange col­ors ‚Quote:  I have become very sus­pi­cious with pro­posed solu­tions like “dis­man­tling polit­i­cal gar­risons”. What exact­ly do peo­ple mean when they speak of dis­man­tling garrisons?

Technically only the rul­ing peo­ple’s National Party has true gar­risons remain­ing . Having held state pow­er for most of the time since inde­pen­dence, the PNP is the sole par­ty with scarce resources to dole out. This has allowed the par­ty to increase and con­sol­i­date it’s hold on state pow­er because of it’s abil­i­ty to dish out scarce resources. This means that in actu­al­i­ty each elec­tion cycle less and less seats are actu­al­ly in play. 

Incredibly after a car­rear in the Nation’s secu­ri­ty forces, Allan Douglas could speak on the issue of Garrisons as if in defense of them. If the good­ly Colonel had spent some time out­side of the Banana Republic type con­fines of Up-Park Camp, where sub­or­di­nates cater to his demands, he would cer­tain­ly have rec­og­nized that the prob­lem of Jamaica’s Garrisons was nev­er the func­tion of the young sol­diers and police offi­cers who police and die in these gar­risons , but are well designed strate­gies aimed at divid­ing and con­quer­ing so that the archi­tects may hold state power.
Just maybe if Colonel Douglas had a sin­gle mod­icum of real empa­thy for those con­demned to a life­time of incar­cer­a­tion with­in the imag­i­nary walls of Jamaica’s gar­risons, he would be using his voice and posi­tion to trum­pet.….….. yes the dis­man­tling process of all garrisons.

These demonic  urban terrorists  are not innocent children
These demon­ic urban ter­ror­ists are not inno­cent children

They are not gar­risons in the strict mil­i­tary dic­tio­nary mean­ing of the word. The com­mu­ni­ties can’t be “flat­tened” as if one was strik­ing a mil­i­tary tent­ed camp or shut­ting down a mil­i­tary strong­hold and reduc­ing the build­ings to rub­ble. So just how is this dis­man­tling exer­cise to be done?I sus­pect that there are many who would still advo­cate and have imple­ment­ed some sort of “eth­nic cleans­ing” type of oper­a­tion. I also sus­pect that those advo­cat­ing dis­man­tling of gar­risons haven’t the slight­est clue as to how they are going to go about doing so. What are the fac­tors to be con­sid­ered in this dis­man­tling exer­cise? If the social, polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic fac­tors of this dis­man­tling exer­cise have been thor­ough­ly thought out, it cer­tain­ly must be one of Jamaica’s best-kept secrets. It is my opin­ion that, for far too long we have treat­ed these com­mu­ni­ties and the peo­ple who live there­in with scorn and deri­sion. We have tram­pled all over their rights, mur­dered their inno­cent young­sters, and so often com­fort­ed our­selves with the thought that they are all just a bunch of crim­i­nals and are deserv­ing of death by any means. And, if by chance a baby in a crib is slaugh­tered — and these things do hap­pen — col­lat­er­al death is accept­able. If the bod­ies of young­sters shot by our secu­ri­ty forces are left to rot on the road for dogs and crows to take their pick, then so be it, because they are all a bunch of hor­ri­ble crim­i­nals and deserve it. Their voic­es are very rarely lis­tened to when they cry out for jus­tice, and their lead­ers and defend­ers of their rights are demonised. Despite all of that, they sur­vive and are real, and out of what we regard as the cesspit of our coun­try, they have pro­duced many who have gone on to bring fame and glo­ry to Jamaica — and, oh, how we love them then!

My point is, if we are anx­ious, as Jamaicans, to stop the obvi­ous rot from with­in our soci­ety, we must be more car­ing of each oth­er, regard­less of our sta­tions in life. Our laws must be just and admin­is­tered fair­ly. If one inno­cent Jamaican is killed, it must be the busi­ness of all Jamaicans. If we “flat­ten” with­out a con­science, the back-blast is bound to hurt all Jamaicans in the long run, not just the criminals.

They are not gar­risons in the strict mil­i­tary dic­tio­nary mean­ing of the word so they can’t be flat­tened” . Well Colonel they can be , but no one, no sane per­son at least, is sug­gest­ing that they be lit­er­al­ly flat­tened. Not because it is a bad idea to flat­ten them phys­i­cal­ly, does not mean they should not be dismantled.
The mind­set of depen­den­cy and enti­tle­ment which fer­til­izes and nur­tures the gar­ri­son cul­ture, does noth­ing to advance the pros­per­i­ty and well being of those who reside with­in those con­fines . Voting with una­nim­i­ty for one par­ty or the oth­er, believ­ing that scarce resources will come flow­ing is nev­er a sus­tain­able path to true inde­pen­dence and pros­per­i­ty. The prob­lem is that there is nev­er enough to go around after the prin­ci­pal play­ers have gouged them­selves with the slop

Jamaica's Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller
Jamaica’s Prime Minister
Portia Simpson Miller

stolen from the pub­lic trough.
On that basis ‚the only true option for the poor and dis­pos­sessed is the utter dis­man­tling of all gar­risons and a return to the true entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it of the free and unencumbered.. 
You see Colonel as you stat­ed, Jamaica’s gar­risons are cer­tain­ly not Garrisons in the mil­i­tary sense. So no ‚flat­ten­ing them would be ill-advised. However, it is evi­dent that you suf­fer from the same type of blind­ness which struck Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller. After all she famous­ly stat­ed that her par­ty has no gar­risons because she does­n’t not see any walls. 
Yes Colonel, the walls are not lit­er­al they are men­tal, so yes, we must begin the slow painstak­ing process of dis­man­tling the mind­set of Garrison dwellers.
Then and only then, will all Jamaicans have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to live out the full promise of their lives, free and unshack­led from the promise of state fund­ed largess. In the end the only true bene­fac­tors are those with polit­i­cal pow­er and those who exert mus­cle on their behalf.