I knew this was going to happen

All of my political instincts told me there was going to be huge black, I mean backlash when Barack Hussein Obama won the 2008 Presidential election.

I knew all the talk of a post racial America, and the Abraham Lincoln narrative was just media driven bullpoop.

I knew the red,republican, confederate,slave states weren't going to let President Obama govern.

I knew the democrats would be spineless.

Based on this country's rich southern heritage and history I just knew it was going to be bad news for African Americans, our LBGT sisters and brothers, immigrants, labor,public schools,women's reproductive rights, voting rights, and health care reform.

As Bill Maher said, democrat is the new republican.

Last week Bill Maher called out Obama for pussy-footing around in the face of an audacious onslaught from Corporate America. He made clear that the President needs to show a little audacity of his own if he hopes to beat the health care companies, the energy companies, and the legions of powerful lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill.

I tried to tell y'all how this was going to play out way back when President Obama was first elected with one of my first blogs at Left in Alabama

Here is a quick Civics lesson so the right wing media talking points can be refuted. Democrats make a big mistake believing most people know how our Government works.

Although Democrats are in the majority in Congress it is a small majority, therefore Democrats CAN NOT OVER RIDE A VETO. This means any BILLS passed by Congress a VETO by the President or NOT SIGNED does NOT become LAW.

Democrats do have enough votes in the Senate to stop a filibuster, which in fact will KILL legislation. Democrats DO NOT have enough votes to remove the President or Vice President after Impeachment. Congress needs an over riding majority to pass legislation the President does not want.

Well we know how that story ended, democrats pussy footed around and lost the filibuster proof majority.

Then came the stimulus bill despite the gop and the right wing media's efforts to derail it. republican'ts gambled (pun intended) on the stimulus bill failing because they believed the American people will be stupid enough to vote them into power again.Oh wait...the America people were stoopid enough to vote them into power again! How did that happen you ask? Republican governors controlled the stimulus spending and they made sure the funds went to the people who didn't need it and not to the people it was intended to help so they could yell out of control,big government, spending, and ask where are the jobs,instead of the fact the economic stimulus package included one of the largest tax cuts in American history -- $282 billion in tax cuts over two years.

Of course the stimulus bill could not pass without some capitulation,I mean compromise on the part of POTUS,which a lot of folks,including moi tried to tell y'all was not a good idea.

Congressional leaders scale down plan to about $789 billion, a smaller package than versions of bill passed earlier by either body. Translation; Less spending for the poor and the middle class more tax cuts for the rich.

How did the winners become the losers and the losers become the winners? Check out this answer from my inbox;

These cuts were the price the Senate Democrats had to pay to get the three republican votes to filibuster proof the senate bill.. Without these three votes(giving the majority Democrats 61 votes) the Republican minority would still be filibustering on the floor of the Senate. Now the "conference " of the house and senate is hammering out a bill that can be supported by a simple majority of both bodies. And we'll have a bill for the President to sign. How wonderful it would have been for the Democrats to have elected 60 senators, so they would not have had to compromise with Republicans. Now Obama and the House democrats had to give up education and state incentive stimulus to have a bill at all, while the Republicans got additional tax cuts for the rich. It may not be the best system, but it beats hands down any other option.

To be clear republicans voted against the jobs bill, unemployment extension, and raising the minimum wage then campaigned and won on a where are the jobs,and we are going to create jobs meme, and the majority of the American people fell for it. Of course the gop infused,media enabled Tea Party helped.

To be clear, this is what Sessions and Shelby in the Senate and Griffith, Bright, Aderholt, Bacchus and the entire Bama House delegation (sans Davis) voted against on behalf of the Alabama citizens;

Impact on Alabama

Creating or saving 55,000 jobs over the next two years.
Providing a making work pay tax cut of up to $1,000 for 1,770,000 workers and their families
Making 70,000 families eligible for a new American Opportunity Tax Credit to make college affordable.
Offering an addition $100 per month in unemployment insurance benefits to 247,000 workers in Alabama who have lost their jobs this recession.
Providing funding to modernize at least 156 schools in Alabama so our children have the labs, classrooms and libraries they need to compete in the 21st century economy.
President Obama has made it clear that his recovery package is just one component of what we need to to to get the economy moving again. He knows that we also need to make sure we have better financial regulation, and that we act swiftly to get credit flowing again. And of course, we going to have to engage with our partners around the world.

Which brings me to the sad,sorry state of the democratic party in the reddest state in the union. Democrats are jumping ship like rats off the Titanic and republicans now have a super majority in the state house and the state senate. They aren't even pretending anymore because they now have the power to do anything they want to do. And what is the Alabama democratic party doing about it? When they aren't bashing and smashing Joe Reed they are standing around with their hands in their pockets whistling Dixie. Everybody was hollering at state Senator Hank Sanders because he sounded the alarm instead of listening to him. Or maybe they did listen to him but didn't care...per DaleJackson;

"The African American vote is a powerful voting block. Both parties realize they can't win elections without the African American vote, so is their plan to neutralize it's block voting strength? Really, the GOP did pretty good without them last election. Fsct(sic): The 90+% Dem vote for blacks regardless of behavior has rendered that block feckless. You get lip-service and nothing more. The GOP won't get you and the Dems got ya.

Were we punk'd? You betcha. Are we in trouble yet? You betcha. How did we get here, and where do we go from here? God only knows.

Redeye tiptoeing away from the computer still waiting to exhale...

I won't exhale until our sons and daughters are bought home from Iraq. I won't exhale until torture is stopped. I won't exhale until Gitmo is closed. I won't exhale until the next Attorney General is named. I won't exhale until all Americans have access to quality healthcare. I won't exhale until all children have equal access to a quality education. I won't exhale until won't until we have peace and prosperity again. I won't exhale until we get our democracy back.

The uniformed and the misinformed

Thanks, teabaggers and ill-informed Alabamians for letting the "haves" gain control of the "have nots" once again!"

If you need proof the media we have are responsible for the ill-informed Alabamians/Americans letting the "haves" gain control of the "have nots once again", check out this discussion thread;

DM: “Racism as a natural and inescapable part of a power structure which protects the wealthy and powerful”

So if I wish to protect what is mine and not ‘redistribute” my wealth as Obama would like, that makes me racist?

Here is a fact for ya:

Winners tend to hang with winners (colorless) and losers tend to hang with losers and think of ways to take away what the winners have without the prerequisite knowledge/work that it took to get there.


Redeye: How is President Obama trying to make you re-distribute your wealth?

DM “So if I wish to protect what is mine and not ‘redistribute” my wealth as Obama would like, that makes me racist?”

Be advised I just stop replying to idiotic or obtuse questions/comments.

He taxes SUCCESS. Make too much he wants more than you currently pay, your health care program is too good he wants to tax it or replace it with something inferior. At the same time raising entitlement programs and paying off labor union bosses while the workers get nothing.

Support him all you wish (as I know you will), I know evil and incompetence when I see it. The evil is my opinion, the incompetence is a fact. How did asking those earning over 250 thousand to pay their fair share, and giving those who earn less than 250 per year a tax cut translate into He taxes SUCCESS and redistribution of wealth?

How did passing a bill that offered quality, affordable health care to those without insurance translate into taking from the haves and giving to the have nots, and forcing people who were happy with their insurance coverage to be replaced with something inferior?

How did the stimulus and the bailouts translate into raising entitlement programs and paying off labor union bosses?

How did saving the country from economic ruin and making it so if you get sick you can see a Doctor translate into evil and incompetence?

This is what 27/4 right-wing talk radio and Fox News will get you. It's the media.

Few in the press seem to want to educate the public about how we got into this fiscal crisis in the first place or why projected budget surpluses at the beginning of the Bush years were so needlessly squandered. And remember, those surpluses were turned into deficits through "bipartisan" agreements, such as the Bush tax cuts, the wars, and the bailouts. There's also precious little mention of the grotesque inequality in American society these days, which is worse than even during the Gilded Age. The establishment press seems determined to avoid the obvious conclusion: The rich, the super-rich, and the super-duper rich (as well as the conglomerates) must pay more in taxes to get the United States through the crisis. Ending the two debilitating wars and rolling back what Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex" should be next. And the billions of dollars wasted in corporate welfare each year must be diverted to human needs.

It ought to be against the law to use the public airways to misinform the American people.

What's that you say? The chickens are coming home to roost?

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! NOT. In a previous diary I wondered how long it was going to take for the Tea Baggers to realize they'd been p'unked, or IF they would realize they had been p'unked. Looks it's happening sooner rather than later. *Snicker* This is what happens when you put party over people. Think of it as the dog who chased the car and finally caught it. H/T Brian

Madison County got a new coroner, Craig Whisenant, thanks to the Republican tsunami. And it appears he got way more than he expected.

And it's not just happening in Madison County either

Same thing happened in Cullman. Folks elected a preacher with no experience coroner...
over a guy who'd been in place thirty years. Now, the coroner-elect is running around like a chicken with it's head cut off complaining about the lack of funding and everything else. It will be interesting to see what happens when these folks actually have to govern.

Yep it's going to be real interesting to see what happens, I just hope we the people are survivors, get it?

Remember how the Tea Baggers ran on the platform of cutting out of control government spending and the stimulus didn't work nor did it not create jobs? Well that's a brazen lie. Rep. Daryl Issa (r.delusional) was on TeeVee the other day saying he was going to hold investigations regarding how and where the stimulus money was dispersed, hinting there was some bribery/corruption involved. Well Rep. Issa won't have to investigate far to find out where every penny of the stimulus went. All he has to do is type in recovery.gov right click.

To date Sweet Home Alabama was awarded 3485 contracts totaling $3,378,018,137.00=10,192.35 jobs.

HERE is a complete breakdown of Alabama Stimulus Money. The top 5 are;
Alabama Dept. of Transportation-$522,464,373.00

University of Alabama Birmingham-$134,061,054.00

Office of the Governor-$132,685,529.00

Auburn University-$82,458,430.00

Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County-$82,085,535.00

Alabama Power Company-$74,558,860.00

I wonder if the red republican Alabama Congress Critters are going to return all that guvvermint money and stop expecting the guvvermint to take care of them?

Nahhhhh, that would be to much like right (no pun).

Instead of bashing President Obama republicans should have been praising him.

Thanks, teabaggers and ill-informed Alabamians for letting the "haves" gain control of the "have nots" once again!

Back to the "good old days"...here we come. The doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs will have it all, and the common man will work his/her fingers to the bone. H/T MathProf

What I learned on the Sunday Talk Shows

Once upon a time I subscribed to Pundit Pap, a weekly, online analysis of the Sunday Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads. This is my version.

This is gop plan if they regain control of Congress in the midterm elections;

1. Repeal the health care reform bill.

2. Repeal the stimulus bill.

3. Maintain Bush's tax cut for the rich so they can/will hire people.

Translation;
The rich have access to health care, get richer, and the rest get the shaft.

Been there done that. It's all class warfare all the time.

It's not class warfare. Don't you dare call it class warfare. The Republicans may relentlessly pursue policies that favor the wealthy and hurt everyone else, but it most emphatically is not class warfare. The arbiters of appropriate political discourse will be most put out if you call it class warfare. You will not be welcome in the Village. You will not be invited to appear on the Sunday talk shows.

The gop solution for America is to Privatize It

The teabaggers and right wing party want to privatize the whole government! That is exactly what all this hollering about less government is really about. It is not just about cutting taxes for the rich, it's about making the pot sweeter for the future CEO's of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION nicknamed Uncle Sam. This is what their future plans for America are if they get back in power.

Call it a conspiracy theory and go back to sleep.

Once upon a time, if The Birmingham News got out of line, the Birmingham Post-Herald was there to offer a contrary perspective. Likewise with The Huntsville News, and the historically Democratic Decatur Daily used to circulate more widely in Huntsville. (Things were less helpful in Mobile, where the Mobile Press and Mobile Register were co-owned by Newhouse even before their 1997 consolidation.) Even in the absence of alternate news sources from the Internet, these correctives kept a significant number of voters aware of alternate perspectives and narratives. But we now live in the age of the one-newspaper town.

The gop is pro life as long as it's in the womb. After that all bets are off and baby you are on your own.

On Fox News Sunday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) called for a nationwide moratorium on foreclosures, saying “it’s absolutely imperative that we keep people in their homes.” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) disagreed strongly, however, saying he was “just perplexed” at Wasserman Schultz’s answer, and that “people have to take responsibility for themselves.”

Thought for the day courtesy of chris_i_am

"There is nothing that we cannot face together! There is nothing we cannot overcome together! There is nothing we cannot accomplish together! For together we are strongest! For together we are whole! For together we ARE VICTORIOUS...!"

Yes we can have HOPE for CHANGE we can believe in!

VOTE!

Redeye's Week in Review

Well what do you know? Tea Party Candidates Benefit From Stimulus and Federal Spending.

Tea party backed Republican candidates -- indeed most Republican candidates -- base their campaigns largely on opposition to President Obama's agenda, and an imprecise pledge to reduce the federal deficit. Perhaps no single issue encapsulates that pledge better than the Democrats' stimulus bill -- one of the President's signature initiatives that is, by design, a big deficit booster. Government can't create jobs, they say, the stimulus wasted tax payer dollars, and simply bloated the federal government.

Scratch under the surface a bit, though, and these candidates' opposition to government spending isn't very deep at all -- particularly when they benefit directly.

Why am I not surprised? The gop rolled out their whites only vision for America.

What’s interesting is that up until now, the GOP has been so careful to cloak their deep unpopularity with people of color by featuring them prominently whenever possible. Thus we are forced to endure the sorry spectacles of GOP.com’s bizarre photos, Black Tea Party members, the black people paid to be on Glenn Beck’s show and the entire careers of Michael Steele and Clarence Thomas.

So the photos from the GOP’s Pledge to America specifying how they plan to take back America and destroy it all over again (except for the rich, of course) are a fascinating departure from the norm and a telling shift in tactics. I think this tells us all we need to know about who the Tea Party and GOP plan to take America back from and who they plan to give it to — the KKK. It’s pretty dang sinister and terribly honest about their real agenda. If you squint real hard, you might see an Hispanic here and one black person there. And maybe that cowboy in silhouette — that guy could totally be black maybe!

Question. Why would we the voters want to fire the people who are trying to get the country out of the ditch and re-hire the people who drove the country into the ditch? I'm just saying...

What's that you say? The Iraq War was planned pre 9/11? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! NOT.

Newly declassified documents published at the National Security Archive prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the Bush administration planned to topple Saddam Hussein and invade Iraq as early as January, 2001, and were making strategic plans and resource allocations as early as November, 2001.

Will they or won't the gop shut down the government again? Only the Orange Boehner knows for sure.

Boehner, in an interview following the release of the House Republicans' "Pledge to America," said he would not rule out a government shutdown, but he would look to avoid it should his party take control of Congress in the fall.

Peace!

Sunday Blog Stroll

Mitchell Howie Makes the Move---A PROGRESSIVE CHALLENGER for Congress. Yippie!!!! Let's support this man, he is the one we have been waiting for.

Judging from the first two candidates in the field, we can see how Alabama’s Fifth District got stuck with a turncoat like Parker Griffith. Luckily, there is a better option.

Now this is what I'm talking about! Obama, Arnold, Petreus finally kick some GOP Butt! It's about damn time! Arnold Schwarzenegger (r.CA) slammed the GOP stimulus hyprocrisy. The Terminator is back!

What part of you can't reason with the gop doesn't Obama understand?

CPAC had their little convention this weekend. The Revolution Is Being Televised for our viewing displeasure. Too bad they didn't televise the anti Iraq W-ar protest.

Skeptical Brother has a great diary about what the numbers tell us about race in Alabama.

Yo Tiger, get on with your life. I mean,really. You don't owe anyone an apology or an explanation but your wife and mother. If anyone needs to apologize publically it's the hussies that slept with you knowing you were a married man. It takes two to tango.

Redeye's Sunday Morning Roundup and Recap

Who says the stimulus isn't working in Alabama?

One of the problems President Barack Obama’s administration is having in convincing the nation — particularly the Republicans and those in the so-called Tea Party movement — that his economic policies are sound is that it is difficult to prove a negative.

Little know Alabama black history fact h/t Ashley Boyd, staff writer for the Tuscaloosa Times.

It's been 60 years since the death of Tuscaloosa's first — and Alabama's second — formally educated black architect, and only a few remember his name.

Baptist minister Allen Durough was first introduced to Wallace Rayfield after he cut his leg on one of Rayfield's old printing plates while cleaning out his barn in McCalla in 1993.

Durough, who had purchased the property from an antiques dealer, found several hundred of Rayfield's drawings, floor plans, business advertisements, portraits and graphic art pieces that were housed in the barn. He did some research and discovered Rayfield's range of accomplishments.

“Wallace Rayfield is arguably one of the most important architects in Alabama,” said Amber Baker, a University of Alabama graduate assistant who helped write the introduction to Durough's book “The Rayfield Architectural Legacy.”

In honor of Howard Zinn, who died this past week, please read Dissent as Democracy.

The indefatigable Zinn maintained a prolific activist and academic jab fueled by his political and social activism nurtured during The Civil Rights Movement. The esteemed historian and controversial rabble rouser's seminal work, "The People's History of the United States," endures as a popular and beloved history book giving voice to the often marginalized, oppressed and downtrodden members of our society conveniently edited out of the textbooks. Despite his advanced age, he was still touring, giving lectures, and showed no signs of stopping.

Nance Gregg has compiled and excellent week in review Just THIS about THAT.

My favorite;

While Obama continues to play chess, the GOP continues to demonstrate that tiddly-winks are beyond their skill set – and besides, nonny-nonny, they ain’t playing at all. And if there was any doubt about the matter, the American public was educated, in no uncertain terms, by the Smartest Guy in the Room (and surrounding environs, including the universe as we know it) on Wednesday night. Smirkless and heh-heh-less, President Smackdown was generous with handing out the rope – lest the Republicans not already have enough to hang themselves.

There's lots more good stuff!

Peace Out.