What I want to hear President Obama say in the State of the Union

I want President Obama to have one of those Harrison Ford/Air Force One Moments when he tells the republicans to get the hell out of the way.

I want President Obama to have one of those Michael Douglas/An American President Moments when he tells the country he was so busy trying to keep his job he forgot to do his job.

I want a Josh Bartlett/West Wing State of the Union address.

I want President Obama to have one of those defining moments. And not just on TeeVee or on the big screen, but in real life.


Will he say this? h/t Alan Grayson

“My fellow Americans. Two years ago, 69 million of us voted for me to be our President. It was the largest vote for President that any person has ever received. But I understand that you did not support me merely because I have an unusual name. Especially the middle one. No, you supported me because I promised the change we need.

“We have been through two hard years, with many people losing their jobs, and many people losing their homes. You know that I did nothing to cause these problems, and I tried hard to solve them. Although our accomplishments have been substantial, an intransigent Republican minority in the Senate has blocked much of my legislative program.

“But a President is more than a legislative program. Although my title is ‘President,’ you did not elect me to preside. You elected me to lead.

“We are at a fork in the road. The Republican House Leadership demonstrated last week that its highest legislative priority is to prevent 30 million Americans from seeing a doctor when they are sick. We can let Republican control of the House of Representatives doom us to no progress, no change, for the next two years. Or I can exercise my powers under the Constitution and our laws to deliver the change we need.

“I choose the latter. As for the Republican leaders, they can lead, follow, or just get out of the way.

“These are the things that I will do now, to give us the good government that we Americans deserve, and the change we need:

“First, to give the economy an immediate boost, I will direct the executive agencies to accelerate the obligation of federal contracts and grants, rather than waiting until the end of the fiscal year.

“Second, I will recognize the obvious, declare China a ‘currency manipulator,’ and end the forced currency union with China that we never asked for and we don’t want, which has cost us 5 million manufacturing jobs in the last decade. I will institute ‘anti-dumping’ actions to protect American jobs.

“Third, I will direct Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA and the VA to include in every home loan that they issue or finance a provision that requires mandatory mediation, at the bank’s expense, before foreclosure. Families who are in danger of losing their homes deserve at least that much.

“Fourth, I will direct both the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department to break up any financial institution that is considered ‘too big to fail.’ Too big to fail should mean too big to exist. There will be no more bailouts, no more Wall Street welfare.

“Fifth, I will ask the FBI to investigate and DOJ to prosecute anyone who committed criminal misconduct in connection with the collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Bear Stearns, Countrywide, Merrill Lynch, and all the rest. I will ask the SEC to bar such people from publicly traded companies and the capital markets. In the 18 months before I took office, twenty percent of our national wealth was wiped out, and no one has been punished for that. If we leave the same people doing the same things, then those same disasters may well happen again. We can’t take that chance.

“Sixth, because corporate income tax revenues have dropped by half in the past decade, while Big Business is enjoying record profits, I will ask the IRS to audit every one of the Fortune 500. This will ensure that they are paying the taxes that are due, rather than evading taxes through transfer pricing and offshore tax havens. And I will ask FASB and the SEC to mandate that public companies keep one set of books, rather than one set for investors and a different one for the IRS.

“Seventh, I will direct the EPA to exercise its authority to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant. I expect to be able to reduce our emissions and pollution as much as other countries do. If they can do it, then so can we.

“Eighth, I will ask the SEC to direct that shareholders in public companies must authorize all campaign expenditures in advance, and that public companies disclose all such expenditures within 48 hours. We cannot allow trillion-dollar multinational companies to dictate the outcome of our elections secretly. We have to keep sewer money out of politics.

“Ninth, I ask the NLRB to take all available steps to ensure that the right of employees to organize, which is rooted in the Constitution’s ‘freedom of association,’ be defended – including the promulgation of ‘card check’ by regulation under the National Labor Relations Act.

“Finally, as Commander in Chief, I will bring all of our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of this year, if not sooner. After a decade of war, it’s time for peace.

“Many of you heard me for the first time six years ago, when I said that I believe not in a Blue America or a Red America, but rather, I believe in America. I still do. Americans deserve a good government, which delivers public services effectively and economically. America also deserves leadership that recognizes our problems, attacks them, and solves them. That’s the change we need, and the change we deserve. I won’t settle for less.”

Southern strategy today, Southern strategy tomorrow, Southern strategy forever

In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to a Republican Party (GOP) method of winning Southern states in the years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by exploiting the racism of southern white voters.

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Ni**er, ni**er, ni**er,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘ni**er’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”



Don't let Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Haley Barbour fool you, The Southern Strategy is alive and well; The gop infused, media enabled, Tea Party Movement is the New Southern Strategy.

I’ve seen a few ostensible “liberals” get all upset when some of us suggest that the use of the Southern Strategy is as racist as it ever was, and the intensity of it now might have something to do with our black President. Which makes me wonder what their grasp on history must be. After all, mowing down civil rights protesters with hoses happened within the lifetime of the majority of Americans. Granted, as the years go by the people who openly supported segregation are becoming fewer in number. But still. Do people really think that Dr. King made a speech and suddenly all those mean racists just evaporated into thin air?

Despite being  bashed and smeared by the right wing/media for having the audacity to pass a resolution calling out the racist elements of the Tea Party, The NAACP has started a Tea Party Tracker to monitor and document right wing racism.

The tracker's launch comes a month and a half after NAACP members voted overwhelmingly to condemn "racist elements" within the tea party. Members of the conservative movement responded by saying that the civil rights group was "attempting to silence" the tea party with "inflammatory name-calling."

Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart said the NAACP's resolution was the instigation for his release of a selectively edited video that made it appear that federal agriculture official Shirley Sherrod had discriminated against a white farmer. Sherrod was fired and condemned by the NAACP before the full video was released, which showed that Sherrod had actually helped the farmer and was telling a story of racial redemption. President Obama and NAACP officials apologized to Sherrod, who said she was targeted because the NAACP had called out the tea party.

If republicans regain control of the government it will be proof of a blacklash as the result of the election of an African American President.

Over the last year and a half, many Americans have begun to see a deeper message in President Obama’s inauguration — the end of the white majority.

How many times have you heard the right wing republicans blame Minorities for the current Mortgage crisis because the government made the banks give them loans they couldn't afford? Actually the banks got away with gutting the black middle class.

Black and Latino minorities have been disproportionately targeted and affected by sub prime loans. In California, one-eighth of all residences, or 702,000 homes, are in foreclosure. Black and Latino families make up more than half that number. Latino and African-American borrowers in California, according to figures from the Center for Responsible Lending, have foreclosure rates 2.3 and 1.9 times that of non-Hispanic white families.

The Minority mortgage defaults are a new form of racial discrimination;

These days, Latinos and blacks get loans, but the loans typically are at a higher rate than what whites pay. Although the majority of families (an estimated 56%) who lost homes were non-Hispanic whites, Latino and African-American families disproportionately received the most expensive and risky types of loans during the sub prime lending boom, according to the study, making them more heavily affected.

When blacks and Latinos then turn to the banks for help refinancing or modifying the terms of their loans, the banks aren’t so willing to help unless a nonprofit counseling agency intervenes on their behalf, according to a study by the Urban Institute. Without outside intervention, the homeowner is more likely to lose their home.

New York 10th Congressional district candidate Kevin Powell is struggling to maintain his home due to the mortgage crisis.

I have been struggling to maintain my own home due to the sub prime mortgage crisis and the resulting recession. As an author and a community activist, I have made a living promoting change through various mediums, but this crisis has been very hard on those of us trying to positively impact our communities from outside of government.
Unlike Congressman Towns, I am attempting to right the disclosure issue. We are doing what we can to make things right with Washington. It will take time and remains out of our hands as they have the filing and we await their response. My opponent, on the other hand, has the power to hold up processes in Washington, just as he did as Chairman last summer when he stalled the investigation into Countrywide’s “Friends of Angelo” preferable mortgage treatment as he and other members of Congress had benefited from to obtain luxurious homes at reduced rates.

There is no center between right and wrong.

There is a constant attempt, usually in the establishment media, to frame our politics along a left-right-center spectrum. This is convenient code in some respects. Like shorthand, it prevents us from having to spell out every single position on every single issue every time we discuss someones politics. But unfortunately, that shorthand is inaccurate.

One of the consequences of this spectrum frame, however, is that it creates the impression that both sides have merit and by finding a happy medium, the magical center, one make stake out the most sensible position. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We progressives have been cowed by a constant barrage of messaging that tries to tell us that our views are extreme and outside the norm of mainstream America. Like our counter-part of the radical right, they say, we should not be taken seriously because, again, the center is where sensibility resides.

You are either with the Southern strategy/Tea Party or you are against the Southern strategy/Tea Party.

If you're a conservative, then you've heard about the "Tax Day Tea Parties" being held nationwide this Wednesday, April 15th and sponsored by TCOT (Top Conservatives on Twitter), DontGo Movement, and Smart Girl Politics. The rally is to send a message to Congress, to "Repeal the Pork; Cut Taxes" and protesting the massive spending that has been happening on the national level over the last several months, as well as the government's interference in the economy. The Huntsville Tea Party will be from 12 pm noon until 1 pm in the vacant lot across the street from the post office on Clinton Ave. There will be four speakers: Mo Brooks (Madison Country District 5 Commissioner), Paul Sanford (in the Republican primary run off for Senate Seat in District 7), Sam Givhan (also in the Republican primary run off for Senate Seat in District 7), and Chuck Bailey (with FairTax.org)

Do we really want the Southern strategy/Tea Party in control of our government again?

2010 is shaping up to be the Year of the Hate Crime in America, thanks in large part to right-bent Republicans and their Tea Party allies who have nothing to run on in the upcoming midterms. Think about it; would you want to run for office as a Republican these days? Their dearest economic ideas gave us the current recession, their foreign policies resulted in a war we lost in Iraq and a war we're losing in Afghanistan, their environmental designs have resulted in yet another oil rig detonation in the Gulf of Mexico, a great many of their supporters don't believe in dinosaurs because the Bible doesn't mention them, and their biggest national superstar is Sarah Palin, who by all appearances is so drastically stupid that she couldn't figure out how to pour piss out of a boot if there were directions on the heel.
So, yeah, not much to hang your hat on there. In the absence of anything substantive to give the American people, the right has gone home to their mothership: sowing discord, fear and hatred to distract people from the fact that, while Republicans are good at campaigning, they are walking cancer cells to the body politic if and when they actually win.

The only thing standing between us and having elected representative who who demonize minorities, deny reality, and use fear to mislead American voters is Y-O-U.

Do Alabamians want a Governor who believes every child regardless of race, gender or circumstance should have equal access to a quality education or a republican one that believes the privileged should have that right (pun intended).


VOTE like it's 1963 all over again. The progeny of Lee, Jackson, Forrest, and Davis, that bought us a Civil War are at it again under the guise of the Tea Party movement and troll concern for out of control spending , the size of government and taxes.

If you hired a contractor to paint your house and they totally f*cked it up, would you hire them to fix it? Why should the party who has been wrong on just about everything be listened to? Stupid is as stupid does.

What is troubling to me about the current trend of candidates especially the teabaggers is not that they are less than scholarly but the fact that their lack of knowledge is what makes them appealing to their constituents.

If the Dems are going to survive and keep the momentum now is not the time for timidity, instead it is the time for bold visions and actions. The Republicans have shown that they are devoid of any new ideas to address the major challenges we face as a nation. So rather than cowering in the corner waiting for the day of reckoning the Dems must provide the American people with a stark contrast of the future of America. If the Dems cannot defeat the rehashed ideas of the past then they are not worthy to lead into the future. ~The Disputed Truth

Are the majority of the American people FOR the Southern strategy, or AGAINST the Southern strategy.
Time will tell the truth.