Police Brutality. Only A Problem If We Talk About It

Whoever say's riots don't work is fooling themselves.

Riots start conversations.  Conversations start change.

They have worked for years.  Sometimes they work to get a bunch of people drunk from the looted liquor stores that often happen behind the peaceful backdrop of organized dissent. They have also worked on freeing some people to lash out at the looters instead of joining the protest against needless deaths at the hands of those we hire to serve and protect us.

Why Talk About A 
Problem That Doesn't Exist?

The behavior of the guilty is usually to first assign blame elsewhere.  This seemingly comes across as a smart and balanced response except that people only respond to matters that concern them.  If the senseless death of blacks at the hands of white cops is not a problem worthy of conversation, it is not a problem worthy of demeaning- especially by virtue of the actions of looters.

That thought came to mind for me while doing my best to ingest white guilt in the nature of distorted statistics designed to pretend that police brutality is a myth. One blogger say's that looting is a silly way to get people to listen to your message while the other says police kill and brutalize more whites than blacks, but none of the black people are complaining about white deaths via cop.

The best of them actually dared to ask me directly:

Baltimore riots are likely to expedite chest cams for cops.
Would it happen as fast without looting and burning?

"Why do blacks end up on the wrong side of the law?"

as if he had uncovered the underlying problem to the matter by smashing that tennis ball squarely on my side of the court, since I'm the black he expected to answer this question.

My Answer?:

I know you think you've asked the million dollar question, but you've only revealed why we don't want you to ever be a cop.  Your engrained belief is what many levy at police who assume blacks to be criminals as well.

Even if your statistics bear out, it doesn't mean a hill of beans to that family with an innocent person that is the victim of perception. Every American should be invested in the lives of innocent victims- not just those who share the same color.

This particular blogger, whom I often find myself at odds with, generated the initial post that challenged the value of burning and looting your own neighborhood.  In my initial response I totally agree with him on the foolishness of the behavior, yet, I can't help but notice that the foolishness becomes the topic and the topic falls to the background every time people employ their Constitutional right to protest against patterned behaviors of abuse. Does anyone recognize the peaceful crowd or is fire and mayhem the only way to insure the intense focus of the camera? The more we watch endless hours of the criminals who come out durings protests, all fingers are pointing towards a stronger impact from the Hennesey theives than the peaceful protesters.

For a while, every station felt compelled to place the heat on Hillary or show compassion in Nepal but nothing beats an opportunity to film that fat brother with his pants falling down while running with a hand full of new clothes.

This should be a wake up call for old school protesting that seems to be nothing more than the smokescreen that malcreants will use to benefit themselves.  These people don't start out in the peaceful protest and find themselves loading their trunks up with Hennesey.  They come out of their house in the hopes that some Hennesey shakes loose from all of this uproar.  If police can take some knowledge from the cycle, they would place a few cops, the elected officials and lots of public services like out-houses and free water and bouncey houses for the kids at the site of a protest, while the armed police proceed towards the business districts to quickly lock up every ass-hole that hopes to gain from another unexplained death. Unexplained means that protesters should not let a spotted history of policing allow them to automatically assume that every unexplained death was unnecessary per se. As for abhored whites who are embarrassed by the onslaught of video abuse, they need to remove their color and their guilt from the trail we are trying to track towards a solution.

One right leaning blogger tried to track a trail that explains the unrest in Baltimore in this way:

The first Democrat mayor of Baltimore was Nancy Pelosi’s brother.
He became mayor in 1967. They’ve had a Democrat in office since then.
How’s that working out? 

To which I responded:

The moment we attempt to free ourselves from the misplaced anger of our young people by pretending politics has something to do with America's deplorable history relative to racial issues, we don't actually point out the problem- we become it.

Yet, even those who misdirect their complaints are complaining their hearts out and revealing them as well.  Would we hear from guilty whites if not for the stupidity of looting? I think not.

Looting must work, otherwise we would see it regularly in the same neighborhoods instead of every several decades or more.  No one appreciates the result of looting and burning during a protest that was intended to be peaceful at the start.  In fact, they dislike it to the degree that they put their heads together towards avoiding its occurance in the future.  Some of the businesses that were burned in Baltimore recently, only came to Baltimore as a result of public brainstorming from interested parties. Those disgusted with the results of Baltimore's recent riot will have to determine if its been 50 years since the last one because of bad people and bad policing or good people and good policing?  

Would Mike Brown Jr. be alive today if he were white?

Mysteriously, every really bad police force in America with a history of a problem in the area of police brutality is one by one becoming exposed by video.  Those of us who understand the power of the spirit and the manner in which it brings us all to the end of our sinful ways find all of this to be far from mysterious and even further from over.

If This Is Not America's Problem, 

then it's not a problem at all.

WE will continue to see video ass-kicking or police murders that cause looting  until WE understand that we are all we got. There is no answer absent the brainstorming of everyone who cares to talk about it.  Once you no longer care to criticize the rioter's or stand by the protester's, then you are finally exempt from this problem.  

For the rest of US, we've got work to do.

Doc, Pop and LeBron. Which One Name Will Prevail?

It's no longer March, but even the best sports tournament in the land doesn't finish in March these days so maybe the Madness and the magic have found their way to an LA doctor.

Hall Of Fame Coach? Doc Rivers.

Before I go all in on butt kissing the legendary coach Glenn "Doc" Rivers, I was concerned that he was using way too much of his coaching capital on the resurrection project called Austin "Doc's son" Rivers. After an impressive double digit win in Game 4, the San Antonio Spurs had better hope "Baby Doc" or whatever nickname we'll be working on for Austin doesn't stick during this playoff season. Baby Doc might stick if he keeps performing as he did to help the Los Angeles Clippers defeat the defending champion Spurs on their home court last night. Along the way, we all got another one of those magical father son moments like Georgia State provided in this years NCAA Final Four tournament.

The win not only ties this series at two games apiece, it reminds avid fans that the NBA will always be owned by legends with one name, even if they all don't shoot baskets.  Over the past decade, a few players and a couple of coaches have elevated themselves into championship contention in such a way that smart money would bet on them every time. Is it just a coincidence that each of them can be identified with a one name description? Maybe not.

Last night's Clipper victory signifies that the decade of the one named legends is poised to continue. Kobe may never get back to the top, but he won two rings in the past decade and joins the2 one name coaches and 2 other one name players to create a list of five one name champions in 10 years (Doc, Pop, Kobe Dirk and LeBron). Dirk (Nowitzki) might not be the same Dirk who upset the one-name legend LeBron to win his own crown, but he is still championship dangerous and desperate to put a cherry on the top of his stellar career as he almost did while pushing the Spurs to 7 games last season.  LeBron also has Dirk to thank for the awful taste that propelled him to finally drink from the cup of victory and rinse the taste of defeat from his mouth, yet he also has Pop and the gang to blame for reintroducing defeats flavor last year.

'Timmy' could also be that South Park kid,
not a one name legend like LeBron.

Greg "Pop" Popovich

Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli and Tony Parker are all really good two name players that embody teamwork, but do so as they credit their one name coach on the sideline. Greg "Pop" Popovich has found a way to keep each of his Spurs teams championship relevant for the bulk of his career, all while being the only one name person during the storied run of the Spurs organization.

This morning, Pop will need a doc after getting popped by Doc.  Although Doc Rivers captured his own crown a few years back while being the only one name person for the Boston Celtics during his tenure, his return to the top has been tasking, to say the least. No one, especially the LA Clippers who paid Doc handsomely to leave the Celtics and resurrect the Clippers, thinks that this Doc can't operate. In fact, he has pulled off the typed of coaching surgery that only adds to his legacy and his public persona-  but also his expectations.

Game 4 outtakes

During the key moments of the Spurs .vs. Clippers game 4, Doc had his son defending Tony Parker, forcing him to struggle from the field, adding to his struggle from the free throw line as well.  This season, Pop has officially handed the reigns of the Spurs over to Kawhi Leonard, who began to trigger a comeback for his team as the heated game 4 battle neared the end.  Leonard's play making ability engineered a running right hander and two long range three's down the stretch of the game forcing a response from the Clippers coach, desperate for a win to even the series.

When Kawhi Leonard got hot, Doc sent the double team forcing him to attack the basket or find the open man. Leonard had never been a playoff double teamed player before this game, and frankly seemed overwhelmed by the respect it represents. When Leonard adjusted to the double by trailing the offense, he hit two 3's before the double could arrive, but seemed more awed by the moment than wide mouthed fans who keep wondering if we are all watching the second coming of Kobe, Jordan, and LeBron all wrapped into one player.

Good players never get doubled in the NBA playoffs because everybody's good in the NBA.  If a coach doesn't have the ability to counter a good player with a good defender, then his coaching days are numbered.  The challenge of the elite basketball league in America is what to do with the elite basketball players in the league.  Kawhi Leonard has officially been added to the elite list because last night, Doc added him.

He should have been added last season when he won the championship MVP for himself, but the Spurs' ball movement was so precise that LeBron and the Miami Heat couldn't chase fast enough to double anyone safely. Shot clock basketball forces the isolation of the elite players, and Leonard has consistently proven that he is now among the group of elites. Pop uncovered his future star during last year's series, and seems poised to turn him into something that very few players ever become.

One name.      

LeBron James

With a name like Kawhi, it seems plausible that we can soon drop the Leonard  from this year's Defensive MVP's name and send him into all time greatness without confusion between the world famous boxer, Sugar Ray. Unfortunately, right now he is up against a one name coaching legend that just elevated his legend a bit.  You might say that Kawhi forced Doc to double team him with the way he's performed for the Spurs throughout the series thus far. Whatever the reason, Doc did it and it was like placing a defibrilator on a team whose fading double digit lead was their last sign of a heart beat in this series.  To lose that lead could have meant  losing the game and certain death.

Doc not only resurrected his son's career while taking the ire off of his own from the insanity of acquiring him in the first place, he neutralized the vaunted Spurs passing game and has forced them into one on one isolation basketball in which he has the younger, hungrier team with a strong defensive force in the middle (DeAndre Jordan) if things break down.  Even when his force in the middle breaks down at the free throw line and has to sit down next to the coaches as it happened in last night's game, Doc steals minutes from his bench while also resting Chris Paul through crucial moments of the fourth quarter as it happened in last night's game. All of it worked because he recognized the need to double Kawhi.

The move uncovered youthfully inspired legs in Austin "don't call me Doc's son" Rivers- who used last night's game to go make a name for himself in the NBA. It also humbled Paul to the point that I hardly recognized him in the post game interview.  It seems Doc has finally converted the Clipper's apostle Paul into a River's evangelist.  Paul quickly creditted (Austin) Rivers with capturing a win for his Clipper team, but his tone was so calm and serene, that I would worry as a Spurs fan that the one name coach with a young and hungry team lead by a humbled Chris Paul represents a serious threat to their repeat.

Paul is no longer a young player, but he is younger than Tony Parker who is starting to reveal the mileage of being in the mix for so long.  Paul is also the undisputed king of the short jump shot, which makes him the undisputed king of the pick and roll that creates the open shots for him.  The poison of playing against the Clippers is the alley-oop ability of Deandre Jordan and Blake Griffin, players who demand attention in the paint.  Until this series is over, the Spurs will have to hope Paul misses his short jump shot- which he won't- or force him to make the extra pass for the WIDE open 3-point shot that JJ. Reddick and Austin Rivers are nailing.

Well- they nailed it during the games that the Clippers have won, but they will need to keep nailing the shots when or if the Spurs finally resurrect their own shooters who have been mostly absent in this up and down series. Pop used his defensive MVP to shut down Reddick's floor stretching ability which made Doc counter by inserting his son who can shoot and penetrate equally. Pop is formulating his counter at this very moment. Doc and Pop are now front and center down the stretch of this series, and their ability to counter each other will be on full display for NBA fans lifting the underbelly of a series that could be the prelude to a championship run.

Neither coach has won a game with all guns ablazing which might also be a credit to their coaching prowess.  Neither of these teams lack counterpunching skills either, so the fatal blow could happen from an attack or a counter.  In losing, Pop wouldn't fall from grace although he might insure the dismantling of a team that is sorely in need of an overhaul. If Doc wins, however, he will secure his place in history as one of the best to ever get it done.  His championship caliber teams have certainly been talented, but they have also been amalgamations of traveling stars trying to connect at the end of their career, and sorely needing a coach capable of making that happen.  Doc does what Pop has never bothered with.  Pop certainly turned his Spurs into the disciplined fighting unit that his military background inspires, but he has never done what Doc has done once, and is trying to do once again.

Doing it like Doc just doesn't happen in today's NBA because it seems Doc is the only one capable of doing it.  On one hand, he is biting off more than he can chew with trying to take down the defending champion Spurs in the first round of the playoffs, but on the other hand that is precisely how legends grow. If Doc can humble Chris Paul into the kind of team play that he has never relaxed enough to take advantage of, Paul becomes a player with twice the late game energy than what he usually carries into the fourth quarter.  In other words, sitting and watching Austin Rivers do your job is supremely inspiring.

I'm rooting for Doc this season.  Besides, Pop should have skin blisters from too many days under the sun.  It might be a dark cloud for the Spurs to bow out in the first round of the playoff after winning a title last season, but a little shade is what it takes to heal those blisters and to make you hungry for the sun again.

Although he's touched the sun during his career, Doc knows about the chill of the shade and has used every trick in his book, including his son, for a chance to bask in the sun once again. Doc has his Clippers shining bright and on the rise. Although these teams are both shining brightly before our eyes, from what I can see, this championship chase will come down to Doc, Pop and LeBron.

Which ONE name will prevail?

Why Trust A Nation Still Waiting For Their Jesus?

Every one of my biggest problems in this world- even complex topic writer's block- seems to get resolved at the seat of GRACE. It was a problem trying to make sense of  an inspiration that felt a bit too complex to properly chew and digest- even for my overactive mental digestive tract.

You ask, how might the spirit of forgiveness unto salvation help a struggling writer?  What I discovered is that, in all things, don't take yourself too seriously.  In other words, forgiving yourself can be liberating towards self expression and also towards experiencing the liberating change we often expect from others.

In the spirit of GRACE, it has been a very long time since I've journalistically pricked the conscious of those prescribed as atheist or agnostic mostly because the elevating intolerance of those prescribed as Christian (me) has pricked my angst against pointing a finger at anti religion people who have religiously organized themselves to say that they want no part of religion's nonsense.


I get it.

I totally empathize with the damaging impact religion has had on God's favorability numbers. Skepticism towards God always makes sense until I find myself outside each spring pulling up the undesirables in the lawn, hoping for the prize of best grass on the block.  I have yet to win the title, but not for the lack of sincere effort.  My hours of gripping and grinding give me ample time to marvel at the majesty of life as well as the doubt of God's disbelievers.  Seeing the circle and cycle of life makes it hard to imagine that everything came without the conscious design of something greater than the designs themselves, so even my seasonal attempts at broad leaf genocide reminds me of the resiliency of life in a way that humbles me to the core.

Children killed in Syrian chemical attack

Chemical Weapon's Don't Work

I no longer spray chemicals to fight the war with weeds because, for aesthetic reasons, even shriveled and dying weeds have to be pulled up. I figure, if I've gotta pull the damn things regardless, then I will pass on the pesticides and keep on pulling.  Not to mention, my neighbor made me curious about a recipe of dandelion soup that his family in Oklahoma has mastered. My love of cooking and a Google search could certainly justify an attempt at repurposed dandelions, except my pesticide shriveled dandelions might not be soup suitable for a few years.

The impact of chemicals is clearly pronounced on the leaf pattern and on the overall size of my dandelion's, yet the three seasons of Syrian style chemical warfare on all the broad leaf weeds that inhabit my lawn has yet to eliminate them from the landscape.  Those who are familiar with chemical lawn warfare must be certain not to employ weapons that might eliminate every form of vegetation, so chemicals designed to kill broad leafs, and not your grass, have to be humane enough to kill strategically and slowly.

Within our inherant DNA for survival, every life form must modify and adapt itself.  The weed modification's from chemical lawn warfare produces a dandelion that flowers without broad leaves and actually flowers (seeds) below ground level if necessary. In essence, chemicals kill many existing weeds, but only alter the survival nature of the weeds that continue to grow in the future- especially those dandelions.

If you are no longer a little kid who picks dandelions for a bouquet for mom, or blows the seeds all over the yard because they literally invite you to do so, dandelions seem offensive.  In reality, dandelions tend to coexist with grass fairly well and will only overtake grass with the severe neglect of not cutting down the yellow soldiers whenever their heads pop out of the trench. Crabgrass, on the other hand, starts out looking similar to grass, but changes as it grows and will eventually overtake grass if allowed to stay.

Unlike the dreaded crabgrass.
Pulling up dandelions....

I mostly stopped the chemicals because I started seeding, which makes chemicals counterproductive to the young grass shoots, and mild chemicals only work on broad leaf weeds anyway, not crabgrass. One blast of crabgrass killing chemicals, and  an entire area of young grass will likely be the biggest victim.  The weakest, slowest, least of these will always be the worse victims of war, especially something so subversive and stealthy as chemical war.

.....leaves very few blemishes

In part, its the 
death of the least of these that forces 
the end of most war, because the death of children strikes a blow at society. 
That was the calculation of Syrian president Bashir Al-Assad, or whoever will be held responsible for the recent chlorine gas attacks

Syrian children killed by chemicals

on Syrian areas thought to be subversive to the Al-Assad government. Striking a blow at the heart of a society was certainly what WE had in mind when we dropped bombs in Japan to end their opposition during WWII. In the effort to finally address the ISIS threat, Al-Assad will have to soon become an ally or be removed like Sadaam Hussein.  If, on the other hand, the world community is asking Al-Assad to deal with the ISIS weeds in his own lawn, he must have the freedom to use any of the means and methods that every conscientious lawn owner has employed to varying degree's of success- since ALL weed removal bears retributive damage.

No more crabgrass.....for now.

Al-Assad appears to be a dandelion to me, and eventually the world might be forced to remove him one way or another.  In my experience, you must snatch crabgrass up by the root to  eliminate the problem.  I can pull dandelions all day long with minimal damage to the surrounding grass, but crabgrass has to be snatched at the root- which will be at the expense of some of the least of these.

What Becomes Of Those Who Deny Christ?

I realize ISIS is of major concern, but I need GRACE to help me with Benjamin Netanyahu and the nation of Israel- the shameless middle eastern Jewish caliphate that is anxiously waiting for the messiah most of the world accepts in the form of Jesus Christ.  That sometimes seems like a small religious dispute which should be easily overlooked in a world full of varying religions, but most Americans rarely stop to think about what happens when Israel's messiah arrives, and how will he impact the lawn in the middle east.  True Christian GRACE does not stack rank sin, even the sin of denial that occurs with atheists, agnostics and more fearfully, Jews like Benjamin Netanyahu who consider the Jewish messiah, Christ, a lie.

ISRAEL'S ROLE FOR HUMANITY

There is no answer without a call.  Therefore, the very purpose of humanity might be connected to the call of Abram to be the father of a people chosen for a purpose greater than themselves.  If society is searching for an answer to the middle east, we should begin with the call of Israel.

GENESIS 12 

The Call of Abram

12 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”[b]

Seperate our world into its major religious components (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), and all roads point back to Abraham, the undenied father of each religion.  Genesis 12 began the call of Israel, but the doctrine of Israel and eventual dogma of Judaism has little connection with God's call.  Israel, the founding nation of father Abraham, considers themselves worthy by virtue of a religious doctrine that the Christian messiah claims to have nullified through the act of GRACE. Stated more clearly, kosher, not Christ, is king.

Outside of the spirit of GRACE, religions and opinion bloggers with mental hurdles fall victimized by the very thing Christ hoped to save us all from, dogmatic illusions of righteousness that leave us governed more by rules and rituals (The Law) and less by the spirit (GRACE).  The Law code is perfectly fine except for its rejection of rule by the spirit.  In ancient times, dogmatic illusion of righteousness became married to the Law of Moses, which God originally gave to man to serve as a mirror for sin until the marriage of GRACE which freed man from the guilt of his sinful shortcomings.

Pastor Joseph Prince creatively describes the Law of Moses in this way.  If a glass of water has lots of dirt and sediment in it, the silver spoon (the law) can stir it and reveal the sediment.  If you let the glass sit for some time, the dirt (sin) might settle to the bottom and make the water appear worthy of consumption.  The spoon will easily stir and reveal the dirt once again, but the spoon did not cause the dirt just as the mirror doesn't cause the reflection to appear ugly- they both only show you what was already there.

GRACE came to place the silver spoon and the mirror behind a door of mystery. Every mystery door has its lure, and the curious will typically turn at the knob. Behind the door, however, is nothing more than the mirror of sin or that silver spoon (the Law).  When Christ took every sin upon himself, he locked the mirror and the spoon behind that door. Our guilt and shame can easily unlock the door, however, their power is married to the revelatory Law of Moses which, once again, came only to bring each of us to the end of ourselves (salvation by achievement) until the beginning of salvation through the simple acceptance of the complete sacrifice of Christ- the embodiment of GRACE.

Man is now dead to the demand of the law upon receiving the gift of GRACE even though sin remains fully intact in our flesh waiting to be stirred by the spoon or revealed in the mirror. Does staring in the mirror make your pimples go away or just aware that you've got them? Does stirring the dirty water produce holiness or the opposite?

Let's connect the dots.

Does stirring sin or revealing sin's reflection remove sin or increase its power? Those who live by the law are bound by its power, which means Israel is not just married to the Law of Moses, they are a nation constantly being stirred- or cornered by sin's inescapable reflection.

How do you define sin and evil in a kosher society?  Everything that doesn't comport to the code of the Law- even America- becomes potentially evil if you live in a way in which the very food you eat comports a belief of righteousness.  How does a kosher world leader comport with men and women so defiled as to actually consume swine?  Ironically, Jews and Muslims totally agree on this point of contention as well as the necessity of religious justification by virtue of other dogmatic expectations.  GRACE, on the other hand, declares a view of sin and of the Law of Moses that is more radical than even some Christian religion's can fully accept.

Pastor Prince expands his view of the law by explaining that the very first sin illustrated in the 10 Laws of Moses (Have No Other God's Before Me) was not committed by the Jews until the moment that the law was given.  In other words, the Jews simultaneously decided to melt down their gold and build the golden calf exactly at the moment that God sent instructions through Moses not to do it. From then until now, Jews have been desperately seeking  a true expression of God, including an anticipation of God's promised messianic return.  Since ancient Jewish doctrine promises a coming messiah, modern Jews can not transition from the demands of the previous Law of Moses or the present complex doctrine it generated, until a messiah arrives to document a new law. If the Law of Moses is not fulfilled in the form of a new Jewish messiah, Jews remain married to a law that was only designed to function as the bridge to salvation, not salvation itself.

What that means to me is that Netanyahu and Israel is not only a nation trapped inside of the law of Moses, waiting for THEIR messiah to arrive to prove OUR messianic theory a lie, they are geographically designed for military peril while they wait. If ever there were a nation in need of the non-judgemental hand of GRACE, it is Israel.  Upon the arrival of the Jewish messiah, how do we connect and conclude the story from Deuteronomy to the coming of the new Jewish messiah instead of the Jesus story we've heard about?  Which Jewish official will chronicle their messiah to fill in the untold portions of the Jewish bible that other Jewish forefathers (Isaiah, Jeremiah or John the Baptist) describe another way?

Will there be a manger to fulfill prophecy?  Do manger's even exist anymore?

Someday, in our life time or in the life time of our children, Israel must eventually find their messiah, and their continued search (aka., rejection of GRACE's provision) is not something to take lightly. Until Israel receives expanded instruction from the new Jewish messiah, they remain a nation governed by mirrors, silver spoons and an  unfinished bible. Jew's who believe in Jesus seem to recognize the challenge of waiting for the correct Jesus to come and finish their bible story, but few of them live in Israel.  Of the 161,000 Christian Jews living in Israel (2.1% of the population), 127,000 are actually Arab Christians.  What happens when the new messiah arrives?  Will he be called Christ too, and which Christ will prevail among the current people of Israel?

The Grass Is Always Greener

Every nation, Israel included, has the duty of its own lawn.  America's lawn might be seen as the best on the block, but from an aerial view, we are reminded that police brutality and unabashed Hillary abuse remain brown spots. Nations with a lawn full of violent weeds must do the grueling work of uprooting some of them to establish balance and order-  and grass will be sacrificed.

The middle east represents one big giant desert landscape with winds that blow your neighbors problems directly into your yard.  Whatever choice your neighbor employs in the fight to create the type of yard they prefer will impact everyone in the middle eastern community at large- which is why nuclear weapons are a major risk to the entire region.

Much like nuclear weapons, chemicals can be more problematic than useful.

Trust US.  WE know from experience.  Chemicals only appear to get rid of your problem when they actually exacerbate the width, breadth and resolve of your opponents. Your problem might relocate for a spell, but the war will resume another day.

Needing to borrow dandelions from my pesticide free neighbor is the least of the worries- for my soup recipe or the middle east.  Even a ground force of American soldiers will ignite the struggle between  middle eastern vegetation trying to fill the vacuum from the American removed undesirables, be that Al-Assad of the future or the vacuum created from Hussein and Ghaddafi of the past. However kosher they claim themselves to be, at this point, I am not entirely certain that a nation  lead by Netanyahu and still in search of their own Jesus is not a form of crabgrass themselves.

Without intervention, crabgrass, which thrives on minimum moisture, will overtake a lawn.  Al-Assad won't be able to keep the lid on Syria without chemical intimidation or something similarly heinous. Eventually, Iran, Iraq, Israel or someone in the middle east will be forced to address Syria simply to address the ISIS threat and the need to fill the vacuum when or if Al-Assad is removed. Because of Israel- the kosher crabgrass of the middle east- no matter how we achieve a military victory over ISIS and Al-Assad, there will NEVER be room for a continued US presence that doesn't ruin the landscape and make the middle eastern weed problem worse.

Grass is losing popularity, even in America, because it comes at the cost of lots of water and constant weed pulling. In the dry middle eastern landscape, even kosher crabgrass deserves a place, but achieving a peaceful balance will be at the expense of the least of these, and to the benefit of those who mock the very GRACE that keeps them the blessed and not cursed nation they are. Although this is a problem for American's (me) tired of being pulled into the middle east because of Israel, its not too big for GRACE. In the eyes of God- and the command of Genesis 12- the challenge of being God's chosen people is a journey wrought with opposition and demanding of radical forgiveness.

How to handle Israel is sort of like that problem some of us married men suffer from.  It seems many of us complain of wives who rarely admit to being wrong.  The certainty I've gained this spring lawncare season is that the marvel and majesty of life is similar to the marvel and majesty of GRACE. When I found myself complaining to God that husband's (me) have to forgive our wives like we do Israel, as if she's never done anything wrong, he say's back to me:

"Now You Understand GRACE".

Charlotte's Web Used To Be A Children's Book

Sometimes those who write a lot search eagerly for inspiration. Charlotte is mine for today.

I met Charlotte Figi the same way a lot of people might have met her.  CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta's reported on a little girl who was severely suffering from seizure's from the beginning of her life, and had to find an alternative to all of the drugs that were not working to keep her from having any less than 300 seizures per day.

When the family made their way to a Colorado dispensary that had a grade of marijuana high in CBD (cannabidiol)- considered the medicinal part of marijuana- but low in THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the element that makes you high, the Figi's had found an option that they hoped would work.

It did.

Within no time at all, Charlotte's seizures were reduced to one per week and her brain functions slowly but surely began to improve- not degrade as is typically believed of marijuana, especially with young brains. Charlotte's update on the CNN special has my eyes clean of all dust and pollen in the air.  Not tears just from the improvement she enjoyed, but because the little girl that seizures were totally hiding has been revealed to two loving parents who are joyfully getting to know the daughter they were only hoping to save from the damage of seizures and typical seizure medicine.

Eventually, Charlotte ran that local shop out of the strain that they couldn't sell very well anyway since it doesn't get you high, so the Figi's had to research another answer for little Charlotte.  Enter the RoC (Realm of Caring) marijuana foundation in Colorado.  RoC, run by the Stanley family, had been growing a breed of high CBD marijuana that took YEARS to develop because of the generation it took to master the process of cross breeding, and the time it took to cross breed THC out of the plant.

Mostly, the cross breeding stuff has created a bunch of really high THC weed.  However, research into the effects of marijuana has also uncovered that CBD is not only medicinal, it is the activator of THC, thus nearly every plant has some percentage (usually very low) of the CBD which produces the euphoric effect of the drug.  Without getting you high- researcher's have discovered something believed to improve crippling medical conditions that run the gamut.

Domestic research might be in its infancy , but American doctors have discovered that Israel has been researching weed for years and are currently prescribing it for a wide list of conditions, with some excellent results in the area of PTSD. The expansive list of people who are able to rid themselves of a deadly pharmaceuticals in exchange of marijuana is something that any person who takes a cocktail of drugs, or loves someone who does, should look into.

Research has found a way to remove the psychoactive elements from marijuana, yet, the federal government still maintains a federal ban on marijuana, while simultaneously holding patent number 6630507, the trump card for turning marijuana into the medicine minus the puff that its become for so many.  Marijuana might be known to have many medicinal benefits, but it can't be patented as a plant, since all plants are natural and can be grown by anyone.  Extracting the valuable aspects of marijuana into a pill that would replace so many other pills comes with the risk of replacing so many other pills and the billions of dollars they generate.

To the credit of research, medicinal edible marijuana products are advancing rapidly, but without the support of the federal lead. Families desperate for answers for epileptic children or other medical challenges have to find high CBD weed and process it into oil all by themselves or move to medical marijuana states like Colorado and hope for help from Charlotte. (Recent laws have allowed for Charlotte's Web to be transported across certain state lines).

My oldest brother grew up with seizures, and hated the medication that was supposed to fix the problem too much to take it on the regular.  Over time, he seemed to get a little control over the seizures, but I remember him squirming and moving at times in a way that I can now connect back to the condition he suffered from.  Nobody knew of very many meds to deal with seizures during the 70' and 80's, but they damn sure knew weed.  How many epileptic people unknowingly found relief in marijuana is worthy of research?  Absent a consent from my big brother, I can only say that I think I know how he occasionally avoided the medication that he was supposed to take more often than he did.

What the 80's and street weed doesn't offer is a great way to determine species or grade, so some relief  becomes a lucky shake of the dice. With today's deliberate selling of known species of marijuana, even recreational smokers who shake uncontrollably from time to time, can choose a species of marijuana that deals with the shake and the gloom all in one puff.

DOES IT REALLY WORK?

If you need to really know what the government thinks about the potential for medical marijuana, read the details (below) of the patent that WE've owned since 2003, which describes something clearly valuable, justifying the worthiness of a patent.

God Bless you RoC and the Figi family for seeking an answer for Charlotte, and helping to spread her sticky icky web across the land.  Maybe one day this patent will be used to save lives and not to insure corporate stability in the pharmaceutical industry.

United States Patent	6,630,507
Hampson ,   et al.	October 7, 2003

**Please see images for: ( Certificate of Correction ) **

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Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants 

Abstract Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia. Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention. A particular disclosed class of cannabinoids useful as neuroprotective antioxidants is formula (I) wherein the R group is independently selected from the group consisting of H, CH.sub.3, and COCH.sub.3. ##STR1##

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Inventors:	Hampson; Aidan J. (Irvine, CA), Axelrod; Julius (Rockville, MD), Grimaldi; Maurizio (Bethesda, MD)
Assignee:	The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC)
Family ID:	26767641

 

Hillary's Scooby Van Plan Includes Finance Reform

Poking the bear might be one method of training, but I imagine that a few bear trainers have died trying that approach.

Change is hard on all of us, and the reality is that we've asked a lot from conservative white America over these years with a communist black president.  Asking angry white men to put up with 4-8 years of a leftist woman might be the equivalent of poking a political polar  bear when it comes to deepening the polarization that has been exposed by the Obama presidency.

Have I got a plan for you. 

My greatest hesitation for a Hillary Clinton presidency is the fear that she will be forced to absorb the worst parts of Obama hatred while grappling with her own disdain from the public. Though she is playing the media like a fiddle, powerful entities hate getting played.  I've come out in support of Jeb Bush because I know that he is genuinely different than his father and brother and time will reveal this version of the Bush family to everyone in a way that will increase his popularity.  As it stands, my belief is that the most capable white male republican would be the best way to stop poking that angry polar bear, finally snapping Washington gridlock. Jeb seems eager and capable of doing the job of also calming that angry bear and finally coalescing congressional votes into collective change and not obstructionism.

Jeb, however, had better drop a hand on the table as impressive as the one Hillary just laid down with her Scooby Van tour through Iowa.  Not  a hand like the staged burrito bowl talk or wearing the sunglasses as night.  Even Hillary's support of the middle class is rather typical as each of the current candidates have observed the same illness while differing on the route to the cure.  I'm also not terribly impressed with her support of the free college ideal that Obama already offered up because it will only change things for middle class kids whose family didn't save for college but make too much money for our current financial aid system. Only a very small portion of these kids will jump all over the small/free college route. Middle class kids coming out of high school are NOT likely to embrace the value of such an approach since they've fought for 4 years to get into a "good" school- not the cheap community college option that only poor kids have to go to. Poor kids already go to these schools for free, so the plan means nothing to them.

The idea that will make Hillary the game changer is the idea of reforming campaign finance- even if it means modifying the Constitution, she claims.  Hillary is too savvy to not know that she's walking down a dangerous road with such a suggestion because her own campaign finance becomes open season- which means she's ready for a universal healthcare type fight like the one she took on years ago as a first lady.

Barack has cherry picked several important domestic and international agenda's from the left and right, but he hasn't really challenged the money engine that has taken over politics.  In many ways, he morphed it into the beast that its become.  Not that his internet based coalition building comes close to impropriety, but it did force the opposition to up the ante in response.  What happened when republicans up'd the ante? It forced the entire issue of campaign finance reform to be heard in a landmark Supreme Court case between the government and the conservative group Citizen's United. (Citizen's United .v. FEC (Federal Election Commission).  This case involved a District Court block against Citizen's United who wanted to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton close to the time of the 2008 Democratic primaries.  This film was interpreted by the FEC as a violation against the BRCA (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) commonly known as the McCain/Feingold agreement, however, the upper and lower level of the judiciary are at odds.

In their ruling, the Supreme Court struck down the lower court, opening the door for free spending by PAC's (Political Action Committee) like Citizen's United.  With a de facto SCOTUS green light, congress passed  an overstuffed Omnibus bill in December (and Obama signed it) that lifted the lid on spending limits of individual donors from 32,400 per year to 324,000.  At this rate, congress will add another zero in a year or two.  Though the Supreme Court verbally agreed with McCain Feingold language that attempts to insure donor disclosure,  they assumed congress would ultimately solidify the language to insur donor disclosure.

They did not!

What they did do was add a zero to the donor limit making the hope for disclosure more dim than ever before. Only a couple of notable voices in congress (Elizabeth Warren  and Bernie Sanders) spoke out against the change. President Obama accepted the change as a necessary evil of the business of campaign finance, and to bring the government away from the edge of another shutdown.

If Hillary wins this election on the strength of campaign finance reform, she will have to lay in bed with the same evil that she is trying to commit to Sheol. Simply hearing this tired suggestion felt like the highest level of pandering until she said two things.  Amending the Constitution away from big money and/or forcing every American to vote, another Obama idea that Hillary could push as president. The first fix she has repeated more often than the mandatory vote idea, which blew up social media when Obama first mentioned it in March.

Achieving a Constitutional amendment would be challenging for sure because the forces that fund elections will not let go of their grip very easily.  Individual donations to Super PAC's were already being protested before the recent bill blew them up exponentially.  A roll back to half of new levels still represents over a 500% increase from last election limits. Fighting the fight to limit the wealth driven grip on American politics must be a TRUE democratic effort.

Written before they added a zero,
raising the limits on donors.

To date, America has never achieved its democratic dreams because we've never advanced beyond the limitations of representative politics.  Even in the socially enraged town of Ferguson, Missouri, where recent elections added two new black Americans to the Ferguson city council, the election turnout was only 30%.  In a town where 67% of the population is black, a 30% election turnout was all it took to achieve the kind of demographic shift that black community members had been begging to see for years.  Ferguson can, and should be functionally governed by more than half black Americans, but less than 30% (some of the turnout was whites) of the black community in Ferguson recognizes their role in change.

To the defense of the new age voters, recent studies say that  polarized older Americans and congressional gridlock have soured them on the belief that the poll booth is the right place to invoke change. Instead, they use social media as their primary political tool.  They could be right, but WE have never tried to assume control of our nation by taking control of the vote. In fact, most of the nationwide efforts to suppress minority votes are aided by the reality that  way too few minorities bother with voting anyway.

In our desperation to deal with healthcare, we've found the value in mandating coverage.  In our desperation to recapture our nation from Big Money,  simplifying and eventually mandating the voting process is probably our best hope. So, if Hillary has plans that will move us closer to that mark, she has my ear.

Don't worry Jeb. I'm only listening.

Capital Punishment Is Necessary But Complicated

A quarter century ago I met the woman who would provide me the love of 5 beautiful daughters and the benefit of 25 years of wedded bliss.

I knew that she was the one for me when our first phone conversation became a 12 hour marathon that ended with the sun rise and ran the gamut from marriage to capital punishment.  The former we both seemed agreeable to, the latter I have recently agreed that she was right and I was wrong (the secret to 25 years marriage).

9-11 might have been an act of terrorism against America, but the response was the equivalent of capital punishment, and even a pacifist like me could relate to the emotion.  I never believed Sadaam Hussein was the right person to hold accountable for the crime, nor were the already war tattered mountains of Afghanistan a worthy place to chase after Bin Laden, the presumed mastermind of it all. What I did believe is that seeing bombs on television would help vulnerable Americans feel like they'd responded to the highest level of evil- enacting a version of retaliatory capital punishment, and it felt good to me too.

Years after we married, a dear friend came to me for support of her golf tournament designed to honor the memory of her murdered son and his girlfriend who were killed because he was scheduled to testify against a  killing that he witnessed at a party.  When Sir Mario Owens was finally convicted for the murder of Javad Marshall-Fields and his girlfriend Vivien Wolfe,
I didn't change my view of capital punishment, but I found myself suddenly eager to shoot her son's killer dead just to ease the pain of her loss.

In the wake of the recent Dzhokhar Tsarnaev conviction in the Boston marathon killings, we return to the mirrored reflection we always confront every time we decide that killing a man is the best way to deal with killing a man.  Places like Boston become more challenged in their moral convictions since they are a state firmly opposed to capital punishment. Yet, even Boston found a way to try Tsarnaev in a jurisdiction (federal) that would allow a jury to kill him if they saw fit.  Once again, even this pacifist would happily put the bullet into the brain of Tsarnaev to ease the pain of those most harmed by his brutality.

Personally, I have never seen death as a worse option to being beaten or molested for years in a prison, but Tsarnaev would likely miss out on that form of prison life even if he avoids death.  If sentenced to life, he likely gets sent to ADX near Florence, Colorado, a VERY expensive maximum security prison that is built to avoid escape, or the kind of prisoner interaction that might encourage escape attempts.  Extra heinous criminals that find their way to ADX are secured and separated in a manner that isn't quite as interactive or vicious as traditional prison.  With six levels of security, ADX inmates have to earn their way into general population interaction. Critics of this location have called the prison the Alcatraz of the Rockies or a cleaner version of hell.

Will Colorado sentence James Holmes to death?

Our uneasiness with disposing of dead weight made us give Tsarnaev the best lawyering we could imagine for the pursuit of saving his life. For the man who was partially responsible for the worst act of terrorism on American soil since 9-11, we give the best representation our system can imagine. In addition to super lawyer Judy Clarke, Tsarnaev received 3 additional public defenders including one who speaks Russian, Tsarnaev's native language.   If sentenced to life in prison, Tsarnaev will join another of defense attorney Clarke's popular clients, Ted Kaczynski (the unabomber), who was saved from death himself thanks to Clarke, and is currently residing in Florence, Colorado as well.

Killing Tsarnaev will not come without years of delay and appeal, both on our dime and at our expense.  Once the appeals run out, finding the drugs to kill Tsarnaev will be a challenge too.  Currently, the states that love to kill people are down to their last few doses of capital punishment cocktails since drug companies that make these meds don't want to be associated with the botched killings that are becoming more prevalent from our lack of skill at capital punishment.  By the time Tsarnaev gets his just deserts, medicated capital punishment's might go by the wayside unless some medicine company gets into the death business soon.


Although any medication can be fatal when used in dangerous doses or combinations, medications of all sorts are originally designed for the opposite purpose of capital punishment.  Even when they help capital punishment achieve its purpose, no medication  or combination of  meds will ever react the same given to different people.  Just as alcohol effects each of us differently, so do murderous cocktails, and these repeated botched killings are an embarrassment to any forward thinking society.

My bullet to the head idea is rather risky too, in that killing the brain doesn't insure that the body will immediately follow, yet we find this method to be the most humane way of killing cattle.  The guillotine is another oldie but goodie, though I doubt our stomachs will endure rolling heads or spurting blood since we can't handle the convulsive agony with the medicinal route we currently administer.

Way back when I first started courting my wife and challenging her on the question of capital punishment, I asked the question of "who wants the blood on their hands anymore".  Way back when, my would be wife said she would kill them herself, so that angle of argument proved hollow against my boo- but it worked with most.  The killing panels were popular a quarter century ago in which several people took part in the process so that no one knew exactly who administered the lethal injection, thus minimizing the potential for personal guilt.  When the first person sentenced to a medicated death began to slobber and convulse for a few minutes longer than expected, we instantly lost this freedom from guilt as well.

Way back when, my wife didn't argue about marrying me, so I put my energy into trying to convince her  that we should stop spending so much money on capital punishment.  I've dreamed forever of an island of ill repute where those sentenced to death could option to live and survive in an environment where we only provide access to  fresh water.  Every other aspect of survival would be the responsibility of the  islands criminal inhabitants. A new age Alcatraz of sorts, but much further from civilization and built, organized and maintained by the convicts themselves.  If a man can not be reformed to live within the order of society, this idea would force him to conform to societal order in a graphic first hand experience.  The most unruly would likely be killed and disposed of a lot faster than they are within our current system of law and justice, leaving the murderous side of capital punishment to be done by those most comfortable with doing it already.

I know what you're thinking.  WE are way too humane for that sort of idea.  Which is the same thing that I used to say about capital punishment.

Aaron Hernandez Guilty Of Murdering Uncle Odin

Nearly all of us grew up with that special uncle who was a hero in your eyes.

Odin Lloyd was the first born and the only son of three children.  His younger sisters and his mother Ursula Ward, were important and special to him as he was the man of the house growing up, and became that special uncle to all the kids of the family.

Today, a jury in Boston found Aaron Hernandez guilty of murdering uncle Odin Lloyd in the first degree.  Hernandez, the former New England Patriot tight end, did not deny the wealth of evidence that said he watched the death of Ursula's baby boy but intimates that he was not the trigger man of this crime.

In the eyes of the law,  everybody who attended the execution of Odin Lloyd is culpable to the crime of murder.  If Hernandez ordered and witnessed the murder, he is fully culpable in the eyes of the law and the eyes of the jury that convicted him.  In the eyes of the family of Lloyd, Uncle Odin was a special person that had a special place in the life of a family who can't understand why Uncle Odin is gone.  Hernandez may never admit to his crime, so understanding why it happened will be elusive.  Nothing about the WHY will change WHAT impact losing Odin will have on his close knit family. His smile was his signature, and he was known for declaring that, 'as long as he had life he would keep on smiling'.

Popular opinion is that loose lips sink ships and Lloyd was suspected of knowing too much regarding the upcoming double murder trial that Hernandez will face next.  When not blazing a trail up and down the NFL fields, Hernandez is a notorious Boston area hot head and a part time thug suspected of killing two other men over a spilled drink in the club. As an insider within the Hernandez circle, (Lloyd was dating the sister of Hernandez' fiance) smiling faced Odin simply got too close the tight lipped world that Hernandez pursued as a side gig.  Video evidence during the trial showed the fiance  of Hernandez disposing of a big trash bag with a box inside of it.  Prosecutors believed the murder weapon to be inside while the fiance claimed to be discarding a bag of marijuana.  Either answer says Hernandez was not living a life content with the wealth of sports stardom.

Upon his conviction, Hernandez struggled to keep his own tight lips shut as the shock of the moment evoked noteworthy responses from him. Like the baller he believes himself to be, Hernandez focused more on his game face than anything- even mouthing to the jury that they "got it wrong", representing some of the few words he's spoken during the course of a trial that was essentially his words against a pile of circumstantial evidence.

Based upon his reaction, Hernandez seemed to suspect the same thing that many legal experts expected as well.  The defense had presented a credible pathway towards a reasonable doubt exit for their client, but the jury was surprisingly unwilling to unlock that door.

In fact, in post trial interviews we discovered that jurors were finally given the background information of the double murder trial motive that they did not have throughout this trial. Apparently, Judge E. Susan Garsh was not willing to allow this murder trial to have ANY risk of mistrial, which included excluding any juror that already knew about the other case that Hernandez was facing.

Garsh even slapped down the prosecutions attempt to share evidence from the phone of Lloyd himself.  While feeling uneasy as he was heading off to his own execution, Lloyd sent a couple of messages to his sister explaining that he was in the company of "NFL", (presumably referring to Hernandez) "just so you know".  Judge Garsh ruled that these text messages did not automatically prove that Lloyd knew he would be killed, so she rejected them.  To the rational mind, these would be slam dunk inclusions, so their exclusion only added to the assumption that the week long jury deliberation would find Hernandez acquitted or free from a hung jury.

Had Hernandez chosen to snuff out the life of some evil heart street thug similar to himself, there may have never been a trial and almost certainly not a conviction.  The notion that money and intimidation have value in shady places is not a far fetched idea.  Hernandez, however, wasn't smart enough, rich enough or tough enough (too much gun play- not enough knuckle) to survive very long in the world he was trying to conquer. Eventually, someone would have returned the gun play on Hernandez because ignorance and arrogance force most thugs to slip up and kill the wrong person.

Like Uncle Odin. 

RIP Odin Lloyd.

Rubio Could Carry Republican Banner...if they trusted him enough.

If you're looking for the best spokesperson in the realm of politics, he just entered the race.

While listening closely to the Marco Rubio announced entrance into the presidential race, I couldn't help but notice one unmistakable truth.  Rubio is the best message deliverer in the game, and Barack Obama would already be considered the best president ever if he had had Rubio to deliver his message over the years of his presidency.

Like a slick player of 3 card monte,  Rubio can suck you into a game that you already know the outcome of and hustle you nonetheless.  If given the chance, his advanced gift of gab will make him a formidable opponent for anyone. For example, when the question of why young Rubio would be a better selection than more seasoned Hillary Clinton or even Jeb Bush for that matter, Rubio posed the question and turned the question into a campaign declaration that "Yesterday Is Over".

When he followed up his announcement with a couple of interviews, his ability to spin every question in his favor proved that he wasn't using a speech writing trick as he maintained his deft slight of hand. Whatever your cause might be, Marco Rubio could be the best person to deliver the message in your favor. Rubio wrestled every known hurdle or potential blind spot with a reasonable response that will work sufficiently while on the stump, and he seems ready for the challenge of running to be president.

Disregard the message of Marco (if you can) and Mr. Rubio appears like gold.  Take a moment to get past his dazzling image and delivery and you realize that Mr. Tomorrow's Child might not be the president to remind us that yesterday is truly over.  In fact, if Marco Rubio were elected president tomorrow, he would have to undo yesterday's mess since  today, president Obama just released Rubio's home of Cuba from the government sponsored terror list.  Yesterday is over, but apparently yesterday's 50 year old agenda on Cuba will be just fine for Rubio.

If that's not confusing enough, Rubio is running from his natural ability to win the Hispanic vote by joining yesterday's message of blocking immigration. Republicans didn't always offer a vote on immigration, but now they will consider a vote if they can fix the border first. Fix the border (which will NEVER happen) and then republicans will consider voting to resolve America's immigration problem?  Since this obstructionist posture forced the current president to make an executive action on immigration, president Rubio would likely re-write that action to resemble yesterday's policies towards immigration as well.  As of yet, Rubio nor any other republican has offered a reasonable solution for the millions of Hispanics already living in America because they believe the steady trickle of South American immigrants are a more pressing matter? Although the future should offer this voting block to Rubio and the republican party, republicans seem resigned to continually reject today's Hispanic voters due to their stronger fear of tomorrow's Hispanic voters.

 Would be president Rubio was among the group of republicans that signed their name to the "Open Letter To Iran" and he seems just as resigned against Iranian negotiations as he is against South American immigrants and the well being of the people from his family's Cuban homeland. When you are raised with Castro hatred, you can't quite rationalize the fact that America has never caused the Castro boys to miss a meal due to our sanctions- just those left behind friends and family of the Rubio's.

Rubio never said that he preferred the broken health insurance system of yesterday, but he seems none to please with the insurance system of today as he insists on being one of those people who wants to "REPEAL AND REPLACE" ObamaCare tomorrow, because modify and improve sounds too much like the offer that Obama already requested of congress.  ObamaCare could use some obvious fixes that have arisen with the new law- like allowing interstate purchasing to drive pricing down even further. Rubio offered up that suggestion, but seemed oblivious how this idea only improves the strength of OUR new healthcare law- it does nothing towards repealing it.  So long as Rubio needs to sell his plan to republicans that want someone to do something about all of the Change that Obama keeps Hoping to leave as his legacy, Rubio's message needs only to convince them. Some of the people who Rubio still thinks he'll need in his corner still need to hear someone carry the repeal and replace banner, and Rubio can sell a dead horse to a cowboy if you force him to.

Rubio dazzled his way on and off of the stage and never offered any nuanced idea for tomorrow, but reminded us that yesterday is over nonetheless.  He did prove his ability to deliver a message, but he still seems absent of a unique vision for America and of proper hydration (what's with the water dude?). Rubio will be challenged through several cases of water as he fights to win the republican primary which will toughen him up to give Hillary hell, or bruise him so bad that he will never rise to the level of his promise.

Is now too soon for Rubio?

Who knows if now is Rubio's time because Rubio is not clearly defined as a leader as much as he is a great spokesperson for the message of leadership. Rubio will easily avoid a growing flip flop label because he can flip and flop so well.  He won't have the Christian conviction of Ted Cruz or the Libertarian resistance of Rand Paul, but he could be convinced to marry these ideologies and the republican party as well if his party trusted (or knew) his personal views enough to let him be their poster child.   They don't- so he won't.

But he could.