Graze King: From Welfare Queens to Simple Scofflaws

What a day April 15th was!

First, of course, it's the day we settle up with Uncle Sam. And for anyone who procrastinated, you bad. You got penalties now.

O yeah, and about that health care thing? If you haven't squared that yet, get yourself over to ObamaCareS, er, oops! It's last call (and I'm not talkin' alcohol!): Open enrollment is over for 2014! See if you can still get coverage! Come on now, spread the word! Did you get an email, holding your place?

Critics of the Affordable Care Act call it welfare. You know, like the fraudster reportedly zipping around in her Caddie. She rollin' ya know?

That description of the fictional "welfare queen" was first used by President Ronald Reagan.

But this week, another of President Reagan's legacies sprang into the forefront of national politics. It might be termed "Crazed Graze King."

President Obama, and/or one of his cabinet members, prudently decided to spare our nation and world of the debacle of massacring "women in front" over a 20 year old range fight. Stagecraft.

And the rumor mill can stop spinning: it has nothing to do with Harry Reid and cattle and solar.

America on Cruz Control Day 7

The GOP infused, media enabled, Tea Party has been planning the government shutdown since last year.  They knew they could count on the Suckers from the Gerrymandered districts to waive their right to have access to quality, affordable, healthcare, while waiving their Confederate Flags.  Republicans take Soreloserdom to a different level.  I wish the democrats had closed down the government until all the votes in Florida were counted in 2001.

Today's Must Read

The "Welfare Queen", The "Homeless by Choice" Reagan's Toxic Legacy

You remember the Welfare Queen, don't you? The welfare queen stereotype (circa 1976) is a picture that some whites still have in their heads about black women.
The Welfare Queen lived very comfortably (after all, she had 35 different IDs and 35 monthly checks from welfare, plus child support), and raised her many children without a husband or partner.  All of the children had different fathers.  The pervasive stereotype was that black women are unwilling to work, unwilling to control our insatiable sexual appetites, and unwilling to better ourselves (because the world, or the federal government to be precise, owes us a living). 

“You and other journalists have a real shortcoming in that you are trying so hard to be fair that you are unfair,” Reid said. “Democrats have had almost nothing to do with the problems here. It’s all Republicans.”

You think?

America's Working Poor and People of Color Held Hostage Day 3

The white, male dominated, republican congress is holding America's working poor and people of color hostage, but  let's not talk about it and pretend this whole media enabled government shut down isn't about putting President Obama in his place, and making those who voted for him suffer.

 The partial shutdown of the federal government has entered its third day. More than 800,000 federal workers are furloughed, and numerous governmental programs have been forced to stop running. For example, the government shutdown has already caused as many as 19,000 children to lose access to Head Start. Many recipients of Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, more commonly known as WIC, will lose assistance.

Our Congress Critters try to get the poop off their shoes by claiming they are not going to accept (key word) their pay check(s) as long as the government is shut down.  They must think we are stoopid.  How are we going to know if they accept (key word) their pay check(s) or not?  How are we going to know if they deposit their check(s) in the bank or not?  And even if they don't accept (key word) their check(s), it's not going to hurt them one bit.

Mo Brooks, the incoming congressman from north Alabama's 5th District, filed in May and listed a $229,000 salary last year from his Huntsville law firm of Leo and Brooks. As a Madison County commissioner, he also was paid $63,617. He did not disclose his spouse's salary with Huntsville city schools.
He and his wife jointly own accounts worth between $100,000 and $250,000 with the Redstone Federal Credit Union, plus multiple bond and stock accounts, most of them valued at between $1,000 and $15,000. He and has wife each also have several IRAs, and he did not list any liabilities.
Brooks' filing said compensation he received in excess of $5,000 from any one source is confidential because of a privileged relationship, so he did not disclose his legal clients.

Black Agenda Report's Glenn Ford calls it the Shut Down Game.

The government shutdown battle is more like a Civil War reenactment than the real thing. A face-saving bargain will soon be struck, returning 825,000 furloughed federal employees to their jobs at wages that have been frozen for the past two years – not by the Republicans, but on President Obama’s orders. The clock has been stuck with both hands on “austerity” since Obama came fully out of the closet as a GOP fellow-traveler following the 2010 midterm elections. From that moment on, Republican-imposed gridlock has been the only barrier to Obama’s long-sought Grand Bargain to eviscerate entitlement programs. When the current theatrics are over, Obamacare will remain intact and the president will be back on his ever-rightward stride. The GOP will take Obama up on his offer, earlier this year, to cut Social Security and will probably be offered other bits and pieces of the social safety net in the interest of “shared sacrifice” and domestic peace.

 Either way, We the Little People are screwed.

Ever since Barack Obama appeared onstage in Chicago's Grant Park on Nov. 4, 2008, to claim his place as president-elect, many Americans, including a majority of current House Republicans, have fixated on his political destruction at the expense of their own basic functionality.

Biting off your nose to spite your face, Proceed Republiklans

These days, there are two kinds of Republicans: Millionaires, and suckers.
— Barracks O'Bama (@P0TUS) February 8, 2014

Armed with rightous indignation, misinformation, and down right hatred, the republican controlled house of mis representatives voted to cut food stamps to cut $40 billion dollars in food stamps with the misguided misconception they are sticking it to the food stamp President in the name of the Lord.

Psst!  President Obama is not on food stamps, will never need food stamps and has access to the best, quality, affordable, health care our tax dollars can buy.  So do the Congress, Senate, The Koch Brothers, and the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads.

You see, Right-wing Snake Oil Salesmen and greed driven Hucksters like Ru$h, $ean,, Bill O'Rielly, and other RW Lords of Loud,  have convinced their base  the majority of welfare recipients are lazy promiscuous black women in the inner city, popping out babies like rabbits and turning government cheese vouchers into gold chains and plasma screen televisions.

But here's the rub, more red state white people  depend on the Government to take care of them than black and brown people.  You know why?  Because white people make up the majority of the population in the south.

 The actual facts about welfare have always been pretty clear; whites and children are the greatest recipients and beneficiaries of various programs, but that’s not good fodder for talk radio.  From the beginning of government sponsored welfare programs, discriminatory policies were enacted to keep blacks off the rolls (like excluding farm workers and domestics in the 1950’s) and even once those policies were removed media and politicians, especially on the right, insisted on maintaining the myth that the face of poverty in America was a black thing.

I wonder how long it's going to take for the Suckers to realize they've been Suckered?  I wonder when the House of Reps GOP grow a pair and take their party back from the TeaPublicans?   I can't wait for their base to start feeling the pain and suffering black/brown/poor people have been feeling for decades.  I don't think their gerrymandered districts are going to be able to save them from the wrath of We the People this time.

"For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are constantly experiencing it." - Barbara Smith

"Dear Republicans: If you're trying not to be the Stupid Party, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG"

Fist Dap What Would Jack Do  for the title.

Never let it be said there isn't a failed, stupid idea the AL GOP won't duplicate, especially if it means attacking welfare recipients. 

As I pointed out, while the Alabama Democratic Party was splitting in two, the red, republican, Super Majority in the state Senate were up to their old tricks.

The Republican leader of the Senate, Del Marsh of Anniston, moved to pass a drug testing bill immediately after the Senate convened at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Most of the Republican senators and all of the Democrats had not yet entered the chamber. Marsh asked to have the bill passed using the roll call from a previously passed bill. No one objected, and the bill automatically passed 22-10.

When "democrats" point out this bill is a proven waste of tax dollars, Righty's, enabled by the media, get it twisted and spin it into Alabama democrats turn fiscally responsible...arguing for drug addicts to get welfare.  See how they operate?

Stupid, right wing, republican argument of the decade;

If even ONE person is receiving public aid and using that aid to purchase drugs, it’s one person too many. Taxpayer money should not go to financing destructive and irresponsible choices. The argument isn’t that welfare recipients use more or less drugs, just that the state wants to ensure NO ONE does!

Hate to tell republicans this, but people receiving public aid aren't using their aid to purchase drugs because they can't afford to buy drugs.  I agree taxpayer money should not go to financing destructive and irresponsible choices, you know, like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, or the bank bailouts.  But that's just me.

 Again, if Welfare recipients have to drug tested, the *ahem*lawmakers who receive public money, and Radio/TeeVee Talking Pundit Heads who use the public airways, ought be drug  tested too.

Today's Must Read/See
I'm Not a Bum, I'm a Human Being

Watch as Ronald Davis tells of his time on the streets of Chicago. As more people find themselves out of work and out of a home, they're left to fend for themselves and struggle on the streets.

 Funny how republicans want welfare recipients to under go drug testing but they are against gun safety regulations  and banning assault weapons.   I'll be if people receiving public aid were buying assault rifles and ammo republicans wouldn't say a mumbling word.  Strike that.  Republicans would argue it's their second amendment right to use public money to buy an assault rifle and ammo.

"Stupid is as Stupid does" The Trifecta

 

Let's see, where to start....oh I know, let's start with stupid and evil Alabama State Representative Mary Sue McClurkin (r. Pelham) .  You would think someone with a BA from Huntingdon College and a MA from Auburn University would know better than to say something this stupid to support her effort to drive abortion clinics out of business , so poor Alabama women, not to be confused with women like Mary Sue, won't have access to a safe legal abortion.

“When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body,” McClurkin said in an interview Thursday. “That’s a big thing. That’s a big surgery. You don’t have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that.”

 Let's move on to Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange (yes you read it right) and his all out war against grown folks playing BINGO with their own damn money in Alabama.  With all the problems facing Alabama why is he so concerned about closing down Victoryland and stopping the operation of slot machines at casinos owned by the Porch Band of Creek Indians?  I mean, really?   It's not like Victoryland provides jobs or anything so people won't be Moochers who want the government to take care of them. What about my right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness Mr. Strange?

 Last but not least we have Congress Critter Mo (anything short of shooting them) Brooks (AL O5) who told hundreds of people at a town hall meeting who are worried about loosing their jobs don't blame him, blame the Senate and of course the Socialist, I mean President.

For now, though, Brooks said the House's position "seems to be" not to act on sequestration unless the Senate passes a bill first and then sends it to the House. But Brooks said history indicates the Senate has no interest in developing a sequestration bill.

Hmmm...looks like that republican bill to test the body fluids of welfare recipients is going to come in handy.

  Remember when Florida  made headlines for passing a law to drug screen welfare recipients? And then a little later, a judge ruled it was unconstitutional? And then remember when everyone found out the law cost the taxpayers more money than it saved? Haha! Good times!

Now Alabama wants in on it too! Those fruity Tax and Spend Liberal Democrats are at it again, pissing our cash away, right into a little plastic cup. Just kidding! It’s not the Liberals (this time); it’s those Constitutional-minded Deficit-obsessed Conservative Republican Mavericks.

Sweet Home Alabama, where there is nothing more dangerous than ignorance in action!

RedEye's Week in Review

In an effort to sucker, I mean convince African Americans the GOP is not Full of "Cranks, Haters and Bigots"  the chair of the Republican National Committee is going to pow wow with black leaders in Atlanta.  I guess they think they can put the Genie back in bottle.  I wonder if they are going to serve watermelon and fried chicken? 

One high-profile Republican strategist, who refused to be named in order to avoid inflaming the very segments of the party he wants to silence, said there is a deliberate effort by party leaders to “marginalize the cranks, haters and bigots — there’s a lot of underbrush that has to be cleaned out."

Good luck with that. It's not about locking the crazy uncle/aunt in the attic, or putting a black face on the racism,  it's about changing the mentality of the GOP.

Contrary to popular GOP opinion African Americans are not stupid.  We know who has our best interest at heart, and who doesn't.

There’s a reason why the Postal Service was targeted folks, it was a source of tens of thousands of middle-class jobs, especially for minorities. Since We Can’t Have Nice Things, the PAEA was passed and BLAMMO, a recession coupled with structural failure in the Postal Service all but guaranteed a massive loss of jobs. And the USPS still has another 4 years to go to pay off the $22 billion or so it has left to pay off, thanks to Dubya. On top of all this, there are plenty of folks who keep saying the only way to save the USPS is to privatize the mail system completely.

This Week in the GOP dominated Alabama State Legislature

Pro embryo republicans introduced 13 gun bills out of fear the scary black man in the White House is plotting to take their money, TeeVees, and their daughters (not necessarily in that order) away.

Senate republicans approved a right to work bill  (NOT), and Rep. Kurt Wallace (r. HD 42)  basically told Alabama women to stop having sex with men if they didn't want to get pregnant. 

Psst Alabama GOP!  You are doing a great job of being a voice for the unborn, but what about the born?  What are they....Moochers?

• Child poverty rate: 28%
• Senior poverty rate: 14%
• Women in poverty: 21%
• Percent of single-parent families with related children that are below poverty: 45%

Edit~I don't think George Zimmerman will be arrested~Redux

I don't think George Zimmerman will be arrested, much less tried and convicted, for killing  Trayvon Martin. After all, Trayvon is just another one of them there government nig, I mean bluh,  who wants the government to take care of him, and everyone knows the government doesn't care about very poor/bluh people who would rather have food stamps than jobs.

Like this

This

This

And this

Nothing to see here, move along.


Snark

Senator Clay Scofield pulls out of Vaginal Probe Ultrasound bill

Snark intended. After being the top story on The Rachael Maddow Show, the Ed Show and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, the dishonorable state Senator Clay Scofield is withdrawing  the Let's make State Senator Greg Reed  Richer Bill.  Yep, now Clay say's he will clarify the language and give women the choice between a forced vaginal probe ultra sound, or an abdominal ultrasound before she can obtain a safe, legal abortion.  Bless his heart.

Psst Clay...we choose neither.   Just pull out of our reproductive choices.  You got that?

Let's get something straight about the GOP war on women....it's a war on poor/black/brown women without access to health insurance.   Rich women, or women with access to health insurance won't have to jump through hoops to obtain a safe, legal, abortion.   Nope, it's the poor/black/brown women republicans refer to as having babies so the government can take care of them.  The poor/black/brown  women they don't want to have access to contraceptives or access to quality, affordable health care.

Either the republicans hate poor/brown/black women, or, they want them turn them into Breeders.

Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders tried to tell some of y'all if the republicans took over they were going to take us back to the days of Jim Crow and Slavery.

Hope and Change for everyone but black folks

Black Agenda Report's managing editor Bruce Dixon ask, once black America gets over bragging rights what difference have presidential and congressional politics made lately?  The answer is none. Despite the recent drop in unemployment figures, everyone gains while black folks lose.  President Obama's agenda is working for some, but not for ALL.

 According to gop ,  black folks are  lazy, plantation democrats and welfare queens on food stamps, who want the government to take care of them.  Yet this is the same party who behaved like young thugs extorting democrats to get what they want, forcing them to make cuts in programs intended to help the American people in their time of need.

The gop is not solely to blame for the condition of black folks... those who advised the President to move to the center are also to blame.   His advisers were afraid if the first African American addressed issues relating to black folks it would look like blacks were getting special treatment like this.

President Obama didn't help the situation by listening to them, ignoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. , pandering to conservatives at the expense of the traditional democratic base.

Blacks voted in record number for HOPE for CHANGE we could BELIEVE in, not bragging rights.

Today's must reads
Rachael Maddow Exposes The Republican Party's Election Fraud Hypocrisy

Will the Supreme Court strike down part of the Voting Rights Act?

Newt Gingrich at the NAACP Convention (Satire)

Newt;  Good morning all you Darkies, you don't have to bow and scrape, just bow


Audience bends over, drops their pants, and show Newt their backsides in unison


Newt;  More of you lazy black folks are on food stamps under President Obama than ever before.  


Audience  You Lie!


Newt:  Y'all need to make some more babies so they can grow up to be janitors.


Audience  Yo Mama

Today's Must Read God's candidates

You want blacks to work where Massa Rick" DOG Whistle" Santorum?

 gop presidential candidate Rick Santorum (r. Pennsylvania) says he want to stop making black folks lives better by giving them white folks money for doing nothing.  Santorum wants black folks to get off their lazy, shiftless, Donkey's and work for their  money.  

Uh, you want blacks to work and earn money where Massa Santorum Suh?

I guess Rick forgot how his republican brethren shipped all the jobs over seas, then blocked President Obama's jobs bill.

You won't hear it on TeeVee or Talk Radio but, more white Americans are on welfare than black Americans,  thanks to republican follies like all war all the time,   raiding the surplus, giving the rich a  tax cut,  massive deficits , bank bailouts, and chronic unemployment, which lead to record mortgage foreclosures.

Not only does Santorum not want to make black folks lives better, he doesn't want women to have control of their uterus and reproductive organs.  How any self respecting woman could vote for him or any of the other gop a$$ clowns is a mystery to me.

Psst Rick!  The next time you want to blow your dog whistle, get someone else to do it for you.

Quote of the day 

Choosy Moms choose Jiff.....

....and likely republican voters prefer zealots, homophobes, and hypocritical lying sacks of sh#t.

Today's Must Read

Next!

Catching Up on the News

In case regular readers haven't noticed I didn't post a diary last week. Don't blame me. Blame Direct TV. I'm here to tell you moving with Direct TV is so NOT easy. Customers are at the mercy of under staffed Installers, who contract with Direct TV. Without Direct TV there is no cable television and no Internet, so you are basically at cut off from the outside world.

Being cut off cable television wasn't so bad, but being without the Internet was torture. I'm still playing catch up to see what's been happening in the world. I see the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads are still talking up Rick Perry and distorting what we decide,while ignoring the right wing terrorist threat.

Gooberner Rick might want to get off the campaign trail and head on home to Texas Burning.

A very strong, cool norther blew into Texas yesterday finally bringing relief from scorching all time record triple digit temps. But it did not bring desperately needed rain and the entire state is a tinder box waiting to ignite. Well it ignited in a big way in Central Texas yesterday in and around Austin, destroying HUNDREDS of homes (at least 400 in the county of Bastrop alone), with fires still completely out of control in many areas. Evacuations are extensive.

You know we are in trouble when Democrats start referring to Social Security and Medicare as Entitlements.

"Entitlement" has a negative sound in colloquial English: somebody who is "entitled" selfishly claims something he doesn't really deserve. Why not call them "earned benefits," which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? That would never occur to the Democrats. Republicans don't make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the "estate tax," it is the "death tax."

Talking about biting off your nose to spite your face, 8 out of the 10 states with the worst economies are red, republican, confederate, slave states. Sweet Home Alabama is #5. Three out of three red, republican states almost made the cut. Maybe if democrats stopped pandering to the right and tell them like it is, voters would stop voting against their self interest.

Republicans will do whatever it takes, by any means necessary, to win. When faced with the same situation, Democrats will agonize, wring their hands, rack themselves with guilt, and seek "fairness" and "compromise." Maybe, just maybe, that's why Republicans seem to win most of the battles, while Democrats lose them.

Which brings me President Obama's upcoming address to congress, which thanks to Ru$h Limbaugh will competes with the NFL season opener. I HOPE I have Direct TV by Thursday night so I can TIVO the game. If not, I'll watch POTUS until he starts talking about compromise and bipartisanship. Here is a prep for the speech.

I will be listening to Obama’s speech. I love his use of mixed metaphors, his attempt at dazzling you with brilliance while baffling you all the while with baloney…which BTW is about the most Americans can afford nowadays. I can not wait for him to use FDR’s acronym “they hate me and I welcome that hatred” and then he will be launching his “tour” to sell his jobs program. More “change we can believe in” …we have no where to go but up….now that the August jobs report is a big fat ZERO. I can picture this… “next month I will create 1000 new jobs and every month there after”…”oops I mean 100,000 new jobs”…I think, maybe let’s hope.
“God bless America…EAT YOUR PEAS NOW!” “Oh…BTW Don’t forget to enter the drawing for dinner with the President along with a donation to my campaign”

I wonder if Florida Guverner Rick Scott is going to apologize to the welfare recipients he made undergo drug testing after he reimburses them? Naah! That would be too much like right (pun intended).

Since the state began testing welfare applicants for drugs in July, about 2 percent have tested positive, preliminary data shows.

Ninety-six percent proved to be drug free -- leaving the state on the hook to reimburse the cost of their tests.

To be continued.

Being a recipient of Welfare is NOT probable cause

Once upon a time in the land of the free and the home of the brave, aka The United States of America, there used to be this little thingy called Probable Cause to protect we the peeps from Big Government.

In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which an officer or agent of the law has the grounds to make an arrest, to conduct a personal or property search, or to obtain a warrant for arrest, etc. when criminal charges are being considered. It is also used to refer to the standard to which a grand jury believes that a crime has been committed. This term comes from the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That was the case before the start of TeaPublican Revolution with Florida Gooverner Rick Scott(TeaPublican) firing the first shot.

Florida's Republican governor has invoked the fury of privacy advocates after signing into law a bill requiring welfare recipients to undergo drugs tests.
Rick Scott is already facing a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida seeking to half a similar order mandating drug testing for state employees.
The ACLU has slammed the law as an 'extreme overreach' of his powers. Officials are considering a similar lawsuit over the welfare bill, which he signed into law yesterday.

I wonder what part of

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized don't the TeaPublicans understand?

This is the same group who is always screaming about the 2nd amendment and accusing the Guvermint of trying to disarm them.

Stoopid argument of the decade

If even ONE person is receiving public aid and using that aid to purchase drugs, it’s one person too many. Taxpayer money should not go to financing destructive and irresponsible choices. The argument isn’t that welfare recipients use more or less drugs, just that the state wants to ensure NO ONE does!

I say if welfare recipients have to drug tested, the *ahem* Lawmakers who receive public money, and Radio/TeeVee Talking Pundit Heads who use the public airways, ought be tested too. Taxpayer money should not go to financing destructive, irresponsible choices and using the public airways to misinform the public.

Redeye's Week in Review~edited

If you are not a millionaire you shouldn't be a republican.
Isn't it funny how the republican status quo is using the poor to wage a war against the middle class and to get out of paying their fair share of taxes? There are some republicans who argue the poor should pay the same if not more taxes than the rich, and to ask the rich to pay their fair share is "punishing them for being successful" and, that tax cuts for the rich increase revenues and create jobs. Uh, if that were true the Bush tax cut for the rich wouldn't have resulted in a multi trillion deficit and 22 million jobs lost.

It's getting to the point where it's hard to shovel the gop hypocrisy.
Republicans are pro life and pro war.
They are pro life and anti welfare.
They are pro life and anti public education
They are pro life and pro death penalty.
They are anti government but want to tell you how to live, how to die, who to marry, who you can have sex with, and who to worship.

The ALA GOP is up in arms because the democratic candidate for Attorney General quipped how can anyone be a Christian and a republican. I guess the same way they can not be rich and be a republican. Either they don't know the rich are getting richer and the rest are getting the shaft or they don't care. I don't know which is worse.

The war against public education and public school teachers escalated this week with a full court press in the media.

We are seeing a concerted and organized effort to make the new film "Waiting for Superman" the means of defining the discussion on education. When combined with the corporate sponsorship and interconnections with NBC's Education Nation effort, it is perhaps worthwhile to examine some of the interconnections which are tying all this together.

Let the media tell it, public schools for all should be replaced with charter schools for a few. Public school teachers/unions and tenure laws are the reason public schools are failing. The National Education Association says they don't make the state and federal budgets and that charter schools aren't the cure all, as a matter of fact they are the problem.

Despite the heavy promotion of charter schools in Waiting For Superman, research shows that they are no panacea. (Read the full statement of NEA President Dennis Van Roekel on the movie.) Improving lower-performing schools does not require a silver bullet, but a multi-faceted approach that involves teachers, support staff, administrators, parents, and community members. This holistic approach has yielded results in places like Putnam City West High School in Oklahoma City, where educators have engaged parents and the community to boost the graduation rate of Hispanic students by 70 percent; and Denver, where the teacher-led Math and Science Leadership Academy is taking a collaborative approach that focuses on mentoring and professional development to boost student achievement; and in Las Vegas, where a teacher empowerment program has led to remarkable gains, including at Culley Elementary School, a “high achieving” school where only five years ago, less than a quarter of students were at grade level.

The media is ignoring the elephant (pun intended) in the room. Charter schools' growth promoting segregation.

"We don't want the Race to the Top to become a race to the past," said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, alluding to the era of enforced segregation.

Of course if they really wanted to fix the economy they would invest in public education instead of bashing public education.

Last week, the Republicans released their so-called “Pledge to America.” This pledge contained more glossy photos than policy proposals, much like $290,900 taxpayer funded mailers my opponent, Congressman Lance, sent out in August. Their entire promise to America is that they will systematically undo what Democrats have done in Congress during the past two years. No new ideas, no proposals to actually help the millions of Americans struggling everyday.

In America being a macho man and a professional homophobe is big business,

In America being a macho man and a professional homophobe is big business, one that jeopardizes the lives and mental health and wellness of thousands of gays and lesbians. Regardless of whether the allegations against Long are true or not, his prosperity gospel of gay-bashing and robber baron profiteering at the expense of poor black people is another indictment of the moral injustice that happens on "God's" watch.

Is there a Psychiatrist in the House?
The more I read the latest of Glen Beck and Teabagger's insane babblings and what they are about the more I think that they might need to see a good head shrink. And to think they represent those on the right's values and ideals. Scary! Or are Americans that stressed out that they are just not thinking straight these days.

Under the radar, California just took a huge step in ending the drug wars.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Thursday signed into law a bill that decriminalizes the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana. The bill reduces simple possession from a misdemeanor to an infraction.

Rham Emmanuel is out Pete Rouse is in as Chief of Staff to President Obama. Let's HOPE it's some change we can believe in. Will Press Secretary Robert Gibbs be next? God I hope so.

Have a great weekend!