Trump Presidency Forcing Congressional Integrity

John McCain might be sounding the alarm to return to the regular order of business in Congress, but the truth is that he is asking a bunch of political combatants to do something they've done very little of lately.


I say very little because of that landmark sanctions bill that smacked Putin for playing with our election while blocking Trump's potential subversion of the sanctions and/or Robert Meuller from achieving the purpose both were employed for.

The near unanimity on the vote against Putin and Trump required the kind of irregular order of business that McCain actually is suggesting because the GOP hasn't taken full advantage of the power levers they control in Washington DC.

Can Congress figure out another trick beyond obstruction?

What McCain isn't directly saying is that the GOP needs to work across the isle not only to work against the agenda of a president gone rogue but to subvert the division emanating from the oval office to try and unite America via the power of a determined, veto-proof Congress.


Establishing such bipartisan control over America is also the most reasonable way for Republicans and Democrats to salvage their political reputations being crushed by the lack of utilizing their control of Congress and the White House, and by a lack of cogent messaging respectively.


At this point, in a somewhat youthful presidency, neither party can recognize what party Trump is flying the flag for, nor are they interested in claiming his accomplishments as theirs in fear of guilt by Alt-Right association. While Trump's lies have served no political benefit, his occasional truths are mostly toxic and less useful even if entertaining on a Twitter level.


Trump's current stand against the DACA program is masquerading as an effort to force Congress to fix it- or else- something Democrats could applaud if they thought Republicans were willing to fix it, not hide behind Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals of immigrants as the easiest way to deal with Dreamers but not put their name on a permanent solution. Ending their access to legal documents that create a pathway to school and eventually, a good job (every DACA recipient is required to complete their schooling just to qualify), does not determine what happens if they are returned to the shadows of an undocumented status. Is Trump actually posturing to deport people back to a place most never really knew? Will Congress ignore their duty in all of this?


Trump is just the kind of president that the balance of powers was intended to temper, and he is now waking up the Congress to their uniquely crafted strength and ability to neuter the worst of electoral college winners. And not a moment too soon as N. Korea, DACA, Houston, our debt limit and a few other matters could use a little congressional unity and integrity.

Millions "Taking A Knee" On Presidential Vote. Aren't They Making US Choose For Them?

How will that "don't vote for any
of them" plan work out actually?

I had a rather heated response to this question that I posed when I posed it in a FB post, but I think it deserves to be asked again, and in a more thoughtful way.

In order to frame this question, it's important that I ignore the defense of Hillary because I'm doing my darndest to be more sensitive to those of you who've decided that nobody is worth your vote this time around.

I'm going to disregard that Bush (the son) had 13 embassy attacks resulting in 66 deaths including 3 American diplomats and 22 embassy workers. I'll do the same ignoring of the 10 attacks under Ronald Reagan resulting in 318 deaths including 1 US Ambassador, 18 CIA officers and 254 Marines. I can even forget the fact that Bush never had an investigation as a result of the deaths, and Reagan only had one.

None of that matters when the people telling you that Hillary is a murderer are convinced that she is the reason they are dead. The 13 investigations have taken these Hillary haters off of her email trail for the purpose of finding blame over Benghazi, but they still need a Wikileaks to prove some form of pay to play with their very charitable organization, CGI (Clinton Global Initiative).

Keep in mind that the email Hillary's opponents are seeking for pay to play proof is a connection only made possible because THE CLINTON'S HAVE RELEASED THEIR TAXES AND THE BOOKS TO THE CHARITY.

Let me say this again in another way.

In order for me to believe what you are saying about that evil Hillary and her horny husband Bill, I have to connect some yet to be found email, or yet to be authenticated Wikileaks, to the open books that they've provided for everyone to see, just like most presidential candidates do.

I am suspending belief in all that I've just mentioned about Hillary's open documents, and I will equate this yet to be found open book crime with whatever Donald has told us about his closed books. For the sake of argument, I am trusting what a Russian dictator has shared from people's private files (will it be okay if they release any nude photo's since some of you are okay with the rest of this stuff?) and I am scouring through all of it like the gospel truth, trying to connect it all back to THE OPEN DOCUMENTS THAT THE CLINTON'S PROVIDED TO EVERYONE.

For the purpose of this article, and this question, I am ignoring the obvious differences between these two candidates and taking them to be the exact same Bozo's that some dear friends and family have called them.

Now that I've separated myself from my own distorted reality in exchange for your more realistic one, I am now truly, really and sincerely ready to consider the idea of doing the exact same thing as some of you and not vote for anyone as well.

My question is- before I make protest posters or write up blogs to sell the rest of America on the value and virtue of this approach- what is the value and virtue of this approach?

What would be gained if only me and about 600 more people that I can convince join in the "No Vote" ideology? What happens if every American finally see's the light and bows out of the presidential vote too? Other than the Congress being forced to choose for US, doesn't the process of bowing out allow the remaining voters- whoever they may be- to decide which president the rest of US lives with?

That's not really a question because the answer is obvious. Of course, the people that vote are the people that choose for all of us.  That is not really a debatable topic even though it sounds like extortion if you are as firm about the right to "Not Vote" as Colin Kaepernick is about taking a knee.

I am not debating the right to take a knee on an anthem or an election. I am asking the value of it so that I can decide if I will join in myself.  As it stands, I am willing and ready to sell the benefits of not voting just as I've sold the value of taking a knee and every other protest that came before it.

I'm not personally interested in taking a knee against the flag as my way to improve it, but I appreciate the knee people for the conversations and the situational awareness that must happen every time someone gets into another heated debate over the virtue of saluting the flag versus protesting the ways in which the flag has failed.

Protest is important, and comes in many forms and fashions.
I just don't understand this "Not Voting" protest, very much.

I can advocate for this not voting thing in the same vein of free expression if I could just put into words what this decision expresses. With barely 50% of Americans voting these days, how does reducing those numbers to less than 50% and allowing less than a majority decide for all of the rest make sense? What is the magical percent of lack of involvement that will finally make bureaucrats listen and respond to our frustration?

Like it or not, we are all stuck with the president that the majority (or plurality) selects. voters who sit out might hope for more obstructionist government, but even that doesn't change the impact and direction of the Executive Orders that will ensue or the Supreme Court selections that are still the privilege of whoever wins the presidency.

Should Bashir Al-Assad be removed and what happens with Russia if we do it.
Our next president must soon decide if America will honor the Syrian no-fly
zone that Russia claimed to establish against ISIS.......who has no aircraft. 

No, you do not have to exercise your privilege to vote because freedom provides you that privilege. You will, however, have to accept Roe v Wade if the wrong side wins but you want abortion to become a crime. Conversely, your gay friends who recently got married may have their nuptials annulled by the results of this election, depending on who wins.

You don't have to choose from the best of the bunch or write in your own choice if that seems like too much of a long shot. You don't even need to show up if none of this seems like it's worth your time, but you will live with whoever WE choose for you, so please don't curse and whine at friends and family that choose your next president for you. WE invited you to come to the store with US and pick out the best watermelon available. Sorry if we choose the sour one over the seedy one.

We'll be heading back to the store in four years, just so you know.
 

The Gags On US As Donald Trump Pretends To Pivot

Very few people seem to realize that we already built a wall on the southern
border, and its actually working fairly well. Until recent surges from growth
in the economy, more Mexican were leaving than coming in.

You young folks may not recall these days because of cell phones and Netflix, but we used to eagerly wait for the Harlem Globetrotters to come to town so we could rush to the convention center to take in the show, even though the show never really changed at all.

To this day, the Globetrotters are still somehow big time entertainment despite coming to town with essentially the exact same act every single time- for decades.

Of all the magical moments associated with a Harlem Globetrotter game, we all seemed to be on the edge of our seats while wondering, waiting and hoping for that old bucket of water trick that they still do.

You remember the one.  One mischievous teammate chases down another mischievous teammate with a bucket that appears to be water, but is usually just a bunch of paper confetti each time they throw the bucket. Until the very last time, of course, in which they actually throw water on some totally suspecting patron.

You may not suspect it will be you, but you always know someone would get all wet. Aside from the tricks the Globetrotters display on the court, this one is their Russian roulette of show gags, and we just can't get enough of blowing our brains out with anticipation.

This is the equivalent scenario I think about when I try to make sense of what were experiencing with Putin's friend Donald Trump and this stage of the presidential election. Donald Trump does too many interviews for this stage of fund raising, while Hillary does to much fundraising while the press keeps pressing her for interviews. They both seem to do more for the other side than to help themselves when they speak, however, Trump refuses to be gagged while pulling a gag on US.


 Assuming Jill Stein (Green Party) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian) actually get included in the presidential debate, four people debating on stage for one job will turn this basketball game into a circus show, with more dog and pony acts than we've ever seen on a single televised presidential debate stage. The circus is plenty fun, but kind of smelly and it's really risky to work with so many animals.

Neither the Democrats or the Republicans will take the circus risk of sharing their political market share with an outside party by sharing the stage with them and assisting them in the process of stealing the show.

So they won't.

They won't give stage room to their own external damage, even if the externals achieve the 15% threshold that is required by television networks, as both democrats and republicans fully collude on this ball game we are watching and will find a way to box out the other party's candidates one way or another. If Johnson and Stein are really hoping for a stage to perform, they'll both need to build their own.

From my perspective, whether Hillary is the Washington Generals and Trump is the Harlem Globetrotters, or vice versa, I 've long since believed that they are in this game together essentially playing on separate teams but working for the same measured result.

That result being Hillary gets quietly elected and Trump gets to keep yelling and selling a lot of hats and t-shirts. Rumor says that he is also in this thing most likely to make more money via a television network with his fired Fox friend Roger Ailes and  former Breitbart braniac Steve Bannon, not to take a 4-8 year pay cut of epic proportions by becoming our president.

Though we will never see his taxes to know if he is "that" rich or friends with Putin, $400,000 dollars a year is a good job for Obama the community organizer, not Trump. If the Clinton's are expected to dissolve their relationship with their own organization CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) to avoid conflicts of interest while in office, why doesn't Donald have to do the same thing? Wouldn't his presidential photo ops taken from his own golf course  or Trump towers represent a conflict of interest for him too?

It's All About Money

Donald is currently conducting this presidential election like a concert/speaking tour because it was just too damn lucrative to miss the economic opportunity presented to him. As Hillary runs a conventional presidential campaign in which you avoid media interviews until you step on the gas starting after Labor Day, Trump is running a conventional campaign in which you rent out convention halls, even in states that you have NO CHANCE AT WINNING, and milk the media for free marketing so you can sell hats t-shirts and raucous rhetoric.

This Globetrotter comparison explains why the Trumpians are continuing to rush to the convention halls across the nation, hoping to get their shirt and hat, and to have that bucket of confetti tossed all over them too. Mostly they are afraid that a country that was never only theirs, feels like it's slipping from their grip nonetheless.

Wayne Allyn Root for Foxnews.com wrote these words in response to Trump's immigration speech.

"As a conservative, I’ve waited a lifetime for this speech. Why? Because it was a speech that didn’t back down by even one inch. It was a speech aimed at Americans, for Americans, delivered by a proud American, who values American exceptionalism".  In other words, it was a speech for us...not them.

If you are curious why Trump can't, or won't pivot to the softer center, it's because that old bucket gag is what they came to see. It really doesn't matter how many times we've seen that same old gag, it never gets old. Even to this day it remains a mainstay of the Harlem Globetrotters routine, and is the secret, silent reason that people still can't get enough of this team or their act. If for some odd reason they were to eliminate that bucket gag from the act, I'm not sure that people would be as eager to watch the show, or forced to remain on the edge of their seats while doing it.

Build that wall, and make Mexico pay for it has become the bucket gag for Trumpians eager to feel like they are behind a president smart enough and tough enough to fix the problems besetting our land. When you peel back the layers on this mystery, you discover that these folks just want to be entertained. They don't care about a real wall or that the plentiful employers (the true criminals) in America are what generates the migration demand, they just love the comforting passion of a convention hall full of people screaming the same noise as the guy or gal next to him.

What they also probably don't already know is that we've got a wall on the southern border. Granted, all of the wall is actually fencing, and half of the fencing is actually fencing designed to stop vehicles while the other half is taller, barbed pedestrian fencing. But the wall is there and it is complete.

Apparently, the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was originally designated to be handled by the Department of Homeland Security who started the project but quickly went back to congress when the original double fencing requirement proved unreasonable across the entire 700 mile stretch of border.  As a result, they had the Fence Act amended allowing for reasonable adjustments (vehicle fencing) where Homeland Security deemed appropriate.

Before the amendment to the Fence Act, Homeland Security had only produced 36 miles of double fencing and then realized that is was simply overkill to double fence the entire border. Bush passed and amended his own law, yet the wall finally got finished (so to speak) under Obama. (politifact.com)

If and when Trump finally finishes his bigger and better version of a fence, he will need to build unto the existing fencing on our southern border, or build his behind the existing fencing since placing the wall in front would be a real waste of the current fence including all of the time and money spent to put it there.

Don't forget that every time Mexico talks back to Trump about his wall, he will make them pay for the additional 10 feet he'll add to help quench his anger from their defiance. Given his quick tempered nature and the number of years it took to finally build our first fence, Trump's 50 foot wall construction project could be a never ending story.

Sort of like that bucket gag.

Why do we keep running back to see that same song and dance over and over and over, as if there is a mystery to what we are witnessing or what might happen next?  Actually, there is a bit of mystery involved because we never really know when that bucket of confetti will suddenly become water, so you to have to anxiously wait and wonder if this time it will be real.

If you are waiting for Trump to get real and actually appear as if he wants to win the presidency instead of indirectly forcing us to vote for Hillary in fear of him, it won't happen.  In fact, Trump has thrown that real bucket of water a long time ago, and WE're all wet.

Those people who keep going back for more just like to be entertained.

Tolerance Was Always Too Low A Standard

We the People, in the hopes of forming a More Perfect Union, have settled for a society of tolerance.

Wasn't it tolerance that created segregation?

What's the problem with tolerance?

Let me provide an example or two.

Did you know that the United Nations believes that we can eliminate AIDS by 2030
(AIDS epidemic can be eradicated by 2030)

AIDS that is, not HIV as a virus can never be truly eradicated.  If the difference between those two confuses you still, it is because we've moved from laughing at the word during my 1987 graduation benediction speech, to now probably knowing someone who lives with or died from AIDS, yet that's about the extent of our progress.

People rarely die from AIDS anymore but millions of US still have no clue about the advances in medicine, or the continuing risks that still exists relative to the disease.  If we understood AIDS and didn't try to tolerate it as only a homosexual or drug addict problem, I would not be still shaking my head 30 years later at the stupidity of such a smart nation.

Several of our presidential candidates are partially victims of this disease of tolerance that has infected us into apathy, while some are using moments of real humanitarian crisis to tap into the unfounded fears of people.  How do I know these are unfounded fears?

Because every migrant who already risked their lives in leaving home would hardly feel slighted by ANY help that America's congress could agree to. Forget Syria for a moment. Any idea of fixing our Mexican immigration issue would be 100% better than nothing at all or dying in the desert.  Yet, a basic agreement driven by human understanding is exactly what got Eric Cantor fired from politics forever.

What exactly did we hope to achieve in becoming a more tolerant nation?  A marriage that looks something like the separate bedroom marriages that used to exist prior to this push to be tolerant?

I wish I didn't have this happy sadness every time thousands of people crowd around Donald Trump to listen to him lie about thousands of New Jersey Muslims having a tailgate style party over the fall of our Twin Towers.

To Trumps credit (and his thousands of followers), a Washington Post article helped to generate the confusion that Trump is capitalizing on now.  The article was wrong, but it wasn't unseemly to capitalize on our misdirected anger back then, and it's obviously not so hard to do now either.

My sadness with all of this comes from all of the living that we've done since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with so little change to show for it.  My happiness comes from the reality that most change begins when the bottom becomes clear.  In my mind, this is exactly what you get when you allow tolerance to be the height of your social pursuit.

Plenty of US have lived with this misconceived notion that WE actually used the tears from watching Martin and Malcolm and those Kennedy brothers die for a more perfect union, to actually become a more perfect union.

Mostly WE pursued tolerance.

Tolerance like they had in seemingly Happy Days or the world of Leave It To Beaver. When folks stayed together forever, but not always in the same bedroom and not with the magnetic passion that created the union, but with the tolerance and acceptance that you  probably won't be too bothered by someone who sleeps in another room.

Tolerance has value- but it doesn't insure understanding.  Respect is cool too, but it wasn't the reason for the orgasmic bliss that built this great family of people United by a common belief and emboldened by an acceptance of the intense necessity of understanding family to perfect the Union and insure the hope for tomorrow.

If WE the People are agreeable to tolerance, WE are essentially retreating to our separate rooms.
If nothing else, Trump is helping us see how very little WE have learned about each other while retreating to our own rooms in this pursuit of tolerance.

Even back in the day, Dad always needed Mom to help adorn the space while Mom probably needed Dad to redecorate from time to time without back pain to follow.  Trump is uncovering our segregated dusty rooms and the damage to our carpets from not redecorating and moving things around a bit.  He's also showing how separate is rarely equal and how ignorance is rarely bliss.

Plenty of Americans can totally relate to every sentiment that is driving the GOP presidential election leader, while plenty of the rest of US who mistakenly believed WE were better than this are witnessing the sad truth.

The Truth Is Never Bad 

Leave It To Beaver didn't prepare us for neighbors like Archie Bunker or George Jefferson, although Archie and George tried like hell to prepare us for today by saying
"Hey!...Like it or  not, this is America too"

Meanwhile, most of us who could, ran to recreate that Leave It To Beaver dream that never was as valuable as it appeared in the first place.  It was fairly tolerant, but segregation will always be tolerant.

Today, WE the People still need integration and understanding to form a more perfect union.  Tolerance has never allowed for too much integration, or the red states and suburbs of America wouldn't be crafted as they are. The word suburb should basically mean "that community where diversity doesn't exist".

Show me a truly integrated community with lots of race mixing and racial understanding and I'll show you an expanding urban trap in which tolerance is still the agenda even if understanding is messing things up a bit and driving the red to be purple or blueish. Everywhere else, tolerance doesn't have to matter as much, and to hell with understanding.

Even WE who claim to be understanding are fooling ourselves a bit and need to recognize what Trump is revealing to us each and every day. WE are all just as confused about each other as ever, and more shocked by our lack of progress than WE should be.

Plenty of nations practice tolerance to some degree or other.  This more perfect union dream demands a new and different understanding.

Immigrants Are Not Our Greatest Problem. Republicans Are.

I wouldn't beat up on Republicans so often if it weren't for the fact that they always stick their chin out every time I'm feeling politically punchy.

I consider myself "THE" Conservative Socialist because I stand firmly for the destruction of the welfare state and I love God and the Bible just like Donald Trump.  I firmly believe that proactive health care and education investments (socialism) have the power to disintegrate all other forms of social welfare since educated and healthy people rarely need welfare (conservatism). I believe we owe it to our future generations to eliminate the welfare mentality more so than welfare itself, which is actually hard as hell to get and keep these days.

Welfare is an ugly word that started in the 20's but became any ugly blight on its recipients during the politically polarized and economically challenged years of the late 60's and  early 70's.  Once Bill Clinton got his hands all over it, it got rightfully relabeled into TANF (TEMPORARY Assistance for Needy Families) .  Consequently, it is no longer the stereotypical handout that it used to be.  Those who get any services these days get them because they are American born or have American born children (anchor or whatever you like to call babies who could be our president one day).

Benefits are temporary because Bill Clinton insured that all welfare recipients return to work via services designed to connect people to jobs. Some poor folks will tell you that welfare is currently the best way for the needy to get connected to a good job because it insure access to the additional (free) training support (education) and (free) health care connections that are needed to make a the transition from welfare to work a success.

In this post-Clinton era, food stamp benefits in particular demand part time work or volunteer hours just to maintain them or get them at all in between any proven period  of absence or reduction of work.  As a result of the Clinton clamp down on welfare,  (almost no one remains on welfare for more than 5 years) because the system NO LONGER ALLOWS IT.

The challenges with getting and keeping any welfare benefit these days is immense for an actual American citizen. Any non-citizen without American born children has no access to anything accept emergency medical benefits, and this only helps to reduce overall health care increases from the proliferation of unpaid emergency care.  In other words, paying a premium for the emergency room or clinic is immensely cheaper than absorbing the entire unpaid bill on the back side.

Welfare in America does insure that American children are eating, but focuses these benefits towards the children only, so even the families who try to hang from the "Anchor" must try diligently to under report the entire household size and incomes just to avoid weighing the anchor down and losing benefits altogether.

Most poor working families that could probably use a little help with food and bills don't care to bother with the struggle Clinton created getting Food Stamps or TANF  because they are dehumanized by the challenge to constantly jump through hoops to prove you really need help.

In some ways welfare has always been dehumanizing for very proud people.
Now it is only worse.

Because of  the diminishing size of all families in America- even poor ones- the old theory of broke and downtrodden welfare recipients bleeding the system and having more and more babies is totally mythical as well.

Yet, if you listen to the current patch of republican leaders (leaders for the lack of a better word), you start to wonder if regular poor people who actually can use welfare are still the target of republicans anymore who now seem more apt to blame the ruination of this nation on the welfare state that immigrants create?

Minorities rarely vote so they typically make for great political targets.  Immigrants can't vote but are assumed to be eligible for welfare so they are also an easy target for blame when a little inspirational blame becomes necessary during voting season.  Women, on the other hand, vote in droves and have exercised their voting privileges for as long as they've had them (1920).

I guess I understand the calculation of upsetting immigrants and inspiring ignorant's who think welfare and the illegals are destroying our nation; although I don't quite understand what message such an attack sends to the mass proliferation of legal Mexicans and Asians who can vote and didn't vote particularly strong for republicans last time around.

You Call This Outreach?

If there is one thing that makes me think that Donald Trump is in fact an internal plant from the Hillary Clinton campaign, it might be his single handed destruction of the republican platform promise to reach out to MINORITIES as a result of the last two presidential campaign failures; failures that Trump criticizes but is doomed to repeat without Hispanics or Asians or Blacks or Women or any strong support from minority groups.

 Among organized American minorities, women lead the power rankings list but remain at the back of the pack in the perception of way too many republicans. Say for example, those foolish republicans who are co-signing the video terror attack being leveled at Planned Parenthood.  These attacks falsely assume that WOMEN who believe choice is important also HAD NO CLUE THAT FETAL RESEARCH EXISTED IN AMERICA. Fetal research has never been a field that we hire women to have babies exclusively for research purposes, and smart women have NEVER been stupid about abortion or fetal research.

In fact, many clueless republicans all throughout the land think welfare is mostly for illegals because they actually tried to get help during these trying years; help that hardworking people who really need temporary help can't really get it anymore, so they blame immigrants for changing our job market and for our stringent temporary assistance laws.

In reality, the conservative Clinton's are responsible for welfare stringency, our job market transition (caused primarily when NAFTA forced Mexican farm workers into America), and might be responsible for finally getting that Keystone Pipeline drilled and all of those infrastructure jobs since Hillary, who's been very vocally opposed to drilling in Alaska, won't tip her hat on Keystone one way or another.  If she's shutting up about Keystone though vocal about Alaska, it's because the distorted structure of today's Super PAC's allows her to get secret donation's (10 time's more than ever before in case you forgot) that a few of her conservative oil loving friends (maybe even Trump) won't regret once she gets elected.


WE Didn't Create Capitalism Nor Do WE Control Its Advance

The Clinton's are not only neo-conservatives just like me and Donald Trump for that matter, they are Global Initiative capitalistic conservatives with a mission to expand capitalism to a universally hyper level in which the nation at the top will ultimately gain the most from capitalism's destined design.  A globalized mission is maniacal  in some ways but so is capitalism.

If capitalism's global advance is inevitable (and it is), America may as well be positioned to benefit the most, since often times WE are asked to sacrifice the most for the sake of capitalism too.

I totally support the make a buck to help me rub more backs approach that the Clinton's are using towards worldwide diplomacy because the nation who gains the most from capitalism will always be challenged by the existence and the needs of the needy.  Even Christ was bestowed with wealth though he shunned it. Because our power to perform Christ-like miracles is limited, our need for money is great if in fact we are to do greater things as Christ' suggested we will.


Make America Great Again By Redefining Conservatism

 I wish the Clinton's could help me recapture the conservative label so that it goes back to only meaning God(Grace....forgiveness...tolerance) and Country(that place made up of a bunch of immigrants) instead of  this distorted meaning of conservatism that republicans are crafting for their own purpose. I'm not sure if republicans or conservatives are driving the Trump frenzy, but I know for certain that they are not the same group of people since the same people who are voting for Donald Trump could never be willing to settle for Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush instead.

 (check out Trump's performance with evangelical's)

I would totally be on board the Hillary bandwagon if not for the Run Hillary Run prelude to this kiss. Hillary is trying to give us her best smooch while avoiding the Jeb Bush label of being dry and flat. Bush is fighting for energy because he too was encouraged into doing all of this by a crowd of normal conservatives like me who keep searching for an electable candidate while wondering why the republicans can only uncover the best of a bad bunch of options.

Now we've got the Draft Biden camp working hard to encourage another presidential run from somebody who wasn't already encouraged to be our president.  While I TOTALLY understand the hesitation to run for this job that produces Teleprompter Hillary or SuperDry Jeb, I also find myself a bit leery of anyone who is already justifiably weary.  I hope Jeb Bush survives to go head to head with Donald so us neo-conservatives can rest assured of holding office like we basically have since way back when trickle-down economics didn't stop the Bush boys from raising taxes anyway.

I am Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and every neo-conservative socialist that appreciates immigrants and enjoys praise and worship service too much to accept that kids started struggling in school right about the same time they kicked God out the door. From the sounds of it, I am Jeb Bush too.  All of us neo-conservatives want to do something RIGHT NOW about immigration, but none of us cared for gay marriage until we discovered that our gay friends and family had been struggling to breathe for years. Abortion is hardly preferable to neo-conservatives, but we certainly accept the intelligence of both women and the Roe .v. Wade decision enough to leave that topic alone too.

The Clinton's and I are in lock step on the importance of a global economy for the sake of diplomatic outreach and for America's vibrancy over time. Trump clearly agrees, and we all know how the Bush family reacts to the word oil.  Whether we like it or not, the global economy WE resist already exists but begrudgingly, which is what creates so much counter productive competitive corporate sabotage like the Chinese did with their inflated market valuations in the hopes of helping themselves and hurting the dollar at the same time.

As we recently discovered ourselves, all balloons will eventually pop. What we are now waiting to uncover is how attached to the struggling Chinese market are WE really, and what long term impact does China's market struggles have on U.S. economic strength?

My market hunch is that our economy has inflated enough rich Americans in recent years for US to totally exploit the self off in China, of China.  Aside from cheap loans from China that our economy is fully positioned to re-pay if necessary, we are disconnected to China just enough to use them more than they use us since their citizens do the back breaking work that allows us to enjoy the benefits of The Dollar Tree, and our farmers export enough products to insure the health of the American farmer and the long term necessity of farm work in America.


Now That Oil Has Fallen, Are Cheap Workers The Greatest World Commodity?

In reality, rich Americans are perfectly positioned to take full advantage of Mexicans or Asians, including the one's who stay in America on visa's and are now working illegally all over America as we speak.  Since the common immigrant flies into America, none of them will be stopped by Donald's big wall or Donald's big rhetoric that keeps placing the most valuable assets in the American economy in full opposition to the republican party and its fence building, gobble up and deport, change the 14th Amendment and, oh yeah- defund Planned Parenthood agenda. (did I miss anything)

Donald Trump might be really good at pretending that he doesn't call anyone a bimbo except Rosie O'Donnell and Megan Kelly (via retweet), but the rest of the republican field is not so good at this media trick.  They will be held to account for the direction that the lead polling republican candidate took the entire party when it comes time to really address immigration instead of temporarily using it just to drive primary poll numbers.

These same republicans are currently being asked to own the false fear that they've created of immigrants on welfare just like they are being asked to own the unsubstantiated fear they created of ObamaCare; a fear that they mysteriously refuse to address now even while a few of those fear mongering republican governors gave in already and adopted the very program they denigrated.

A real conservative would have quickly taken advantage of the opportunity to receive federal financial support for the vital duty of providing health care access to the people who need it the most and who elected officials are duty bound to serve.  A real conservative would never accept poor schools that don't offer EVERY American citizens the best of America's educational opportunity.  Most importantly, a real conservative would never give a man a fish, or not share one, when he could feed that man while teaching the skills to acquire a good job in the fishing or food processing industries.


Republicans Are Not Necessarily Conservatives

I'm drawing the lines between those republicans and US conservatives because I want to make it clear that creating free benefits to insure life long healthy and educated Americans who don't need welfare or excuses makes me much more a conservative than socialist. Once Hillary comes clean on Keystone,  I will probably decide to join her in support of the Keystone Pipeline because creating really good pipelines that don't actually burst open and spill everywhere will someday minimize the environmental impact on our roads and railways- that just so happen to need to be rebuilt as they've become human death traps. These bills have long since been jammed together as one.  Both need to move forward and get Americans back to work.
        _______________________

Trump Supports Rebuilding Roads & Bridges Too (does he know about that jobs bill that republicans jammed up in Congress over the Keystone pipeline?)
      _________________________

Continuing to destroy our roads and rails with oil transport won't be a great way to fix or maintain our infrastructure,  or achieve cleaner air, an initiative we've promise to lead the world in as well.

Why do we have droughts in California at the same time we have
floods in Colorado?  Can't one problem address the other?...
..and whatever happened to that jobs bill to fix our roads and bridges?
Are republicans using the Keystone Pipeline to get people killed?

In the long run, increasing oil production to the point of extreme saturation is the best way to devalue the price of the commodity and usher in the era of alternative fuels and the era of alternative thinking. Smart companies who currently produce oil, have already anticipated the coming change and are transitioning into the future of alternative fuels,



Being A Conservative Is A Good Thing.

My greater vision relative to alternative thinking is the day when we consider the greater good of people and the economy as mutually achievable; when we embrace conservative sensibilities like pipeline technology for its value and its worth instead of run from it and never use it to mitigate the impact of oil transport or the floods in Colorado at the same time we deal with droughts in California.

Or when we realize that you don't have to agree with climate change to recognize the value of destroying the grip of oil and dominating the alternative energy industry at the same time we minimize the emissions
causing this debate.

It seems plausible to my small brain that people who are dying to carry humans into space or dirty oil across risky pipelines could also transform floods from immigrants or water into resources and not problems.

There will probably come a time when we have no choice with either.

Donald Decides To Deport Them. Are You Serious?

I know we are supposed to stop talking so much about Donald Trump for similar reasons to why we stopped reporting gang violence so much in the 90's.  Donald Trump thrives on our need to talk about him, however, Hillary needs to mess her hair up a bit because she is sounding like a boring version of Bernie Sanders; Sanders is an unelectable Socialist, and The Donald has cast a shadow so wide over the rest of the republican field I keep forgetting their names- which means Trump is all the entertainment we've got left.

Chronicler's of Trump might appear to be unwitting puppets of the Donald's marketing skill, but we aren't deaf, dumb or blind.  We hear what Trump is saying as much as we see what he is not saying or doing, and both are telling statements into the psyche of a man that is refreshingly transparent while being aloof and close to the vest at the same time. If it looks like we are stuck with our mouths wide open, its not a statement of our lack of intelligence, though we are being schooled by the man who wrote the book.

In his history as a best selling author, Donald once described the business of fine art as a big con game in which the best artist is often nothing more than the best negotiator in fact.  If achieving the greatest negotiation of his lifetime is actually possible for Trump, it will take the most artistic deal he's every pulled off.  To Trump, the entire process of negotiating a deal is a work of art.  In the process of painting it, you may have to scratch the back of both political left and right in order to center in and close the deal.

Trump has dodged his flip flopping label with a dose of business man's ethics that essentially means profit is the only ethic. He's avoided enlisting into the republican war on women by straddling the fence on Planned Parenthood, letting the world know that

"WE HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF WOMEN".

Let him tell it, Trump is all about "the women" and doesn't seem as eager  as some republicans to join this dubious debate in the GOP against abortion and women's reproductive rights which could alienate the vast majority of female voters who appreciate having control over when to be a parent or not. Trump claims that he's a friend of Mexico too and has showered Hispanic voters with enough back handed compliments towards Mexico's leaders to actually be the top poller in the GOP amongst Hispanic voters as well.

Trump is adamant about a fence and even more adamant that Mexico must pay for it.  Oddly, Trump is also talking vociferously against amnesty, meaning he is ready and willing to send 11 million South American immigrants back to somewhere in South America, since Mexico's portion is not the entire enchilada anymore.

This all sounds somewhat straight forward until you ask Trump about the broken families that he's likely to create during the deportation process as Chuck Todd did during Sunday's Meet The Press (NBC).  To that, Trump says "we have to keep the families together".

Keep them together?  If you happen to save a little money by forcing Mexico to pay for the fence- a fence that Trump says won't cost very much anyway-  you'll lose it all and then some by deporting families with a self imposed challenge of keeping families intact as part of the mission. If Hispanics trust Trump and his plan, this could be the way to a comfortable two or three week vacation in a Mexican Holiday Inn before returning to America to finally get legal. Or not.

Is this really a plan or is it just the art of the deal?

For whatever unpractical reason, republicans seems inspired by the deport those Mexicans rhetoric that keeps firing up the base and driving up the poll numbers for Donald Trump.  From a GOP perspective, the plan seems to be working brilliantly for Trump but not for the rest of the field who would much rather talk about how bad Obama has been for America than immigration and abortion.


Putting aside for now the fact that most of America's voters are women, the American electorate gains 1 million NEW Hispanic voters every year, and a growing Hispanic electorate can not be excited by the less than compassionate deportation plan that the lead Republican candidate just put forth, even if it's twice as compassionate as the self deportation idea that sprouted from the last republican primary winner.

Trump is really good at more aspects of the business of politics than most of us previously anticipated. Now, he's even developing the skill of talking away policy positions that have changed over the years. resorting to a overriding doctrine that no Republican will ever be able to challenge him on. Trump has recently resorted to reminding republicans that the god of Republicans, Ronald Reagan, used to be a Democrat.  If Reagan can finally come into the light, even Trump can be excused for his days of darkness.

Nonetheless, how can Trump track back to the center after unveiling an eliminate birthright citizenship, 'deport the Mexicans and build a fence to keep them out' platform?

Donald understands the art of the deal and the power of a poker face, but does he realize the demand of tracking back to the center during a general election?  Building fences and deporting Mexican families is a radical position that could only benefit Donald during the GOP primary negotiation which is only half of Trump's ultimate goal.

Could a man so charismatic and economically brilliant be so foolish when it comes to alienating such an important part of the American general electorate?

He's not foolish or stupid. So Why Is He Doing This?  

If Trump is using the same immigrants that he intends to deport as a dangling jalapeno against a spicy hot conservative electorate, it's because his deal making skill says he doesn't really need them to close this part of the deal. 

By the time Trump finishes off the republican field, he'll simply invoke Reagan once again to explain his change of heart against deporting immigrant families- maybe even blame Mexico for not cooperating.  By going this route, general election voters can forgive him for offending the Mexicans and move on to the next deal, a deal that he will never be able to close if he remains on this futile path towards deporting instead of embracing Hispanic culture.

Attention all undocumented workers. "You're Fired!"

You're Donald Trump.  

Just Fire Them!  

If Trump convinces America to stop allowing birthright citizenship, will he retro activate the law so a few of his birthright citizen rivals get deported or disqualified for president?

How exactly do we round up 11 million undocumented workers and millions more of their legal family members who we may not be able to find, instead of tracking down employers of undocumented workers whose whereabouts we know for certain?

Anyone who really is interested in fixing the high powered job magnet that is American immigration by putting up a fence instead of shutting off the magnet is unrealistic and frankly stupid.  The biggest crime of immigration is the complicit thirst for cheap labor that WE keep pretending didn't begin with slavery.

From houses to fast food; most things Made In America are produced by low waged Mexicans, and most things sold in America are produced by low waged Asians.Neither of these realities exists because a bunch of eager Americans were doing the job for less already.  If high paid American workers were worth it to American corporations, they would have kept domestic production and English speaking drive through workers or cell phone repair technicians instead of changing these faces and voices for profit reasons alone.

Deport Them?  ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Trump will never do a thing about immigration because he won't have to.  No candidate without a serious plan for the largest growing segment of America will ever have to seriously worry about getting elected as America's president because immigration is a swing issue that America expects its next president to seriously resolve one way or another.

Deportation is not a serious plan.

SCOTUS Victimized By "Do Nothing" Congress

I was listening to a radio segment from the Christian group Focus on The Family as they expressed obvious disappointment with the Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage.

I keep hoping for someone, anyone, who can offer a measured dissent that doesn't describe the majority opinion as mysticism or applesauce. What I really don't want to hear is another Supreme court justice crying about living during these days of Do Nothing.

If the founding fathers can be credited for one very important thing, it's having the wisdom to recognize the wicked heart of man. By virtue of their recognition, disagreements by moral compass and disagreements by political tactic are masked motives that don't have to cripple our democracy. According to justice Antonin Scalia, "Any country that lets 9 unelected officials create laws, hardly deserves to be called a democracy". Would that be the case if the 5-4 decision was in your favor Scalia? Was it the case when that same nine sided with you in deciding that a cruel and unusual lethal injection capital punishment is now nothing more than "we know its bad, but do you have something better?"

A few of us out here had questions about America's democracy label long before the recent decision on marriage, but I can feel your pain Scalia. I would like to ask, how can the congressional representative's in our republic consider themselves caretaker's of democracy while way too afraid to do their jobs in fear of adding to Obama's legacy?

Inaction from Congress has catapulted Obama into the hero republicans hoped to avoid instead of sharing some good stuff with the current Congress, which just so happens to be a majority republican.  Something similar is happening to the judiciary branch who showed their hands long ago when initial concerns over the ObamaCare, "established by the state" language first arose, and the SCOTUS worried that Congress would quibble instead of do the normal work of clarifying laws with language adjustments and amendments.

Somehow, the SCOTUS was supposed to pretend that political forces weren't trying to use them and a loophole to circumvent a law that congress can overturn with their current majority.  It would require an override of Obama's certain veto, but it would also signal to America that Congress understands and intends to use the fullness of their legislative powers: power that the Supreme Court prefers in the hands of legislators, a loose description for America's current Congress.

Did anyone notice that Congress isn't threatening to override the Supreme Court's decision on marriage the same way that they threaten ObamaCare? They could if they thought that the Supreme Court went too far. Focus on The Family think so. They teased that aforementioned program so well, that I couldn't wait to hear why the rule of law had truly been compromised instead of another angry dissent. Ten seconds into the program and the host says this:

"First of all, it doesn't matter what the Supreme Court recognizes as marriage. What matters is what God recognizes."

End of story. I changed the radio station to a baroque symphony so I could post this reminder that executive orders and Supreme Court laws supporting same-sex marriage come when civil, productive congressional discourse doesn't. 

And that's all by design.

Immigration Reform Bill Being Blocked By Pure Politics

From the moment he stepped foot into office, it has been clear what the agenda against him has been. Hope he fails, help him fail and make any success look like a failure What does Obama's failure and America's success look like simultaneously? The picture has obstructionism at the core, but obstruction measures forgot to account for Obama's pen and phone.

John Boehner is none to pleased with the compromise to his power that the executive order creates. Modern obstructionist' seem to think obstructionism is a new and novel idea. Congressional inaction, of any kind, is the reason for the executive order and only congress, or the next president, can override them.

Ironically, the very power that Boehner believes Obama is taking from he and his cohorts is still firmly wrapped within the majority agreement design that used to embody his group.

  

Meanwhile, Mexico and its neighbors remain on the edge of destruction. Losing thousands of children is a recipe for disaster in the future of any nation. Even Japan is facing a desperate crossroad created by population reduction efforts of the past. People are the wealth of a nation, and America is not worse for the influx, we are only worse from the downward spiral we are silently allowing in South America. At some point, our silence becomes complicit. History shows that evil refuses to remain contained. Once South America loses its hope for the future, it becomes a nation of no consequences.  Terrorism could benefit from such an environment

This idea of presidential complicity seems to be the angle that angry Obama opponents are taking. Despite immigration being a very old problem, Obama has been accused of ushering in the next generation of democrats via immigration. If they are correct, disengaging the American job magnet which finances the coyote rings seems smarter than building a wall or turning the National Guard into full time border control agents.

Turned back migrants will try again and again. If staying home wasn't more risky than crossing the desert, no one would risk it. Clearly they must set out realizing that hundreds never make it alive. Yet, the alternative must be worse. Unless I am wrong, the National Guard will be stuck at the border forever.

Or, until we fix the real problem.  Comprehensive legislation (like the one Boehner is blocking) must be a part of our holistic approach to immigration reform. Save the bandaid, this bleeding is profuse.

If Race Is our #1 Issue, Should It Be Our #1 Conversation?

Electing Barack Obama not only represented the beginning of Hope and Change, it allowed America an opportunity to ease long standing guilt.  The White House of only white men  gave race critics plenty of room to complain.  When president Obama moved his family in to the White House, he ushered in a term called post-racial America; an America where race no longer is the limiting stigma that it used to be.  The America that asks, "how did Oprah and Obama happen if America is so racist"?

Whether you chuckle at the very notion of post-racial America, or you believe that we can never move on until we simply move on, America is constantly making a topic out of matters of race while simultaneously running from any genuine conversation about it.  

The truth about the Obama presidency is that Obama has closely followed Clinton's moderate, to right leaning policies, so it seems reasonable to expect that republicans could find as much common ground with this President as they did with Bill.  Shunning the single payer option for a Federal version of RomneyCare  is as right leaning as is the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), Obama's NAFTA equivalent.  To many black people (including me), going through life answering to the name "Barry" instead of Barack is a sign of Barack's propensity towards anglo assimilation instead of the black power persona given to him via connections to Jeremiah Wright or My Brothers Keeper.

Barack Hussein Obama, who has family roots from Kenya, was always going to have a hard time bridging the racial divide in America.  I have a hunch that Barry Obama, the Harvard Graduate who deports more Mexican's than Bush ever dreamed of, might have been received in a different way by those still hung up on his skin tone. During the Bush year's, the KKK was dying into a marginalized group.  Under Obama they are alive and kicking and a group that is back on the move. The fear that white America is becoming a minority speaks to the ear of many  white Americans, even if extremism isn't how they express this concern.

As Black America evolves politically, we remain largely unified on the idea that we have yet to reach the place that Martin Luther King Jr. had dreamed of for America.  Even Herman Cain, once seen as a republican front runner for the presidency, cried racism when seedy stories from his past curtailed his run at the white house. For every moment that we feel progressed as a nation relative to matters of discrimination, we are constantly taken back by stories of voter suppression and of states who've flipped their "white only" signs around in order to write the words "heterosexual's only"

Not every apparent racial debate is naturally divided along racial lines.  Voter suppression, immigration, entitlement reform (which now includes the ACA) are all matters of public policy that do not differentiate on racial lines but  have been primarily drawn on lines of social status (the givers versus the takers).  Yet, when you separate the masses and look at the faces, race can not be ignored as an obvious element within these stories too.  Nancy Pelosi says that immigration reform would have already been signed if the said immigrants were Irish. The difference of course has much to do with the opened border we share with Mexico versus Ireland, but many people would say that Pelosi is right.

Race has conspired against America from the day that it was allowed to be a dividing line between its citizens. Yes Mitch McConnell.  The opposing party to a seated president has always fought the good fight of legislative give and take.  Never have they done it using kamikaze warfare.  To educated observers, the end game of this republican power play will resemble that of Jim Jones during the Jonestown massacre.  It is virtually impossible to explain away your "true motives" when your end game seems to disregard your own safety.  Wallowing in the mud just to get a little of it on your enemy might be a way to cloud the waters on Obama's legacy, but at what cost.? Republican's have always opposed Democrat policy,...... just not like this.  Are they truly attacking the left, or are they left with no other explanations for their intense focus on the failure of America's first brother?

If it is fair to say that the race of Barack Obama has conspired to grind politics (immigration, ACA repair, entitlement reform) to a halt, then it is probably fair to say that race remains our number one issue.

While no one wishes to be labeled a complainer, only unresolved complainers get offended by the label.  (I am personally a classism complainer ) No matter how right you think you might be,  the challenge is to find a way to address issues that matter to you without sounding like a complainer, even when complaining is your only recourse.  Martin Luther King Jr. complained about the nature of this nation and his complaining got him memorialized. Yet, even Dr. King saw the lines between poverty and color blur as he pressed towards a better America for blacks, who's primary challenge was the impact of racism (poverty) and not simply  the viciousness of hate.

There are black people who will falsely tell you that minorities can not be racist' (by definition) because racism is an act of powerful people against weaker ones. Whether the crime is racism or bigotry, there are plenty of examples of how we all let stereotypes of race taint our image of the world, leading to our abuse towards the people in it. As a result, we all expand racism and classism in our own way.  In effect, no one cares to address something that everybody practices.

With as much as we discussed these things in grade school, why is America still full of  racial stereotypes?  

The easy answer is that we forgot the lessons we learned.  We  limited our conversation to those mandatory classes, and forgot to reinforce that, while stereotypes are generally true, they are viciously dangerous to employ.  Our teachers always told us that there are no stupid question because they knew that the height of human ignorance is a question unasked. By asking questions about geometry we indirectly master the language of the craft.  

Race is no different. Without a healthy conversation surrounding race, we do not have the strength of vocabulary needed to further the discussion. In the absence of the proper words for discussions of race, most of us mess up when seeking to learn about others.  Eventually we came up with a term called political correctness (which means the other guy is simply way too sensitive) and refuse to go down that road ever again.

Political correctness has been the fuel to the growth of racial division, but now it is high tide. We must link arms and test these waters for change.  Change is necessary because we take way too much comfort in our stereotypes. Absent of our stereotypes, we are forced to do the work it takes to get to know people independent of their persona, which is largely driven by race and class.  

When it comes to genuine discussion, our reluctance to "go there" as it relates to race is because it is a sensitive scab that just doesn't heal quickly.  Some say that our problem is that we won't leave the scab alone long enough for it to fully heal and fall away.  Some believe that in time, racial division might heal itself because technology has joined people together in a way that removes the ignorance, and thus the fear that we have towards one another.  Unfortunately, this method of racial progress demands the death of several generations of ignorant people who continue to proliferate racial division by breeding the same fear that was bred into them.

President Barack Obama has been extremely aware of the presence of the racial extreme's in America.  Obama needed a significant turnout from his base, so he has tried to be as cool a black man as he knows to be without being a President of just the black people.  As a result, he has offended many of those who voted for him to represent their unheard voices, while simultaneously offending those who generally oppose cool black guys.

It is hard to ever say that 'the time is now' to have this discussion because it is not easy to get any one of the races to embrace their role towards change.  What is an obvious reality is that the Obama family forces everyone (even other blacks) to see black people in a different light.  Before the Obama's, it has been nearly impossible for America to see any black man as smart and passionate and articulate enough to outshine the white guys who have dominated the white house.  Now that the Obama family has come along, the world has an opportunity to see black Americans in a much less monolithic way.  We are more than entertainers.

It is also very hard to gain an understanding about someone else when you start with too many preconceived notions (stereotypes).  Every action that a person does when cast beneath the shadow of a stereotype is darkened by that shadow. Even your positive traits can be rationalized away by someone who generally see’s you in a negative light.  Whites and blacks and all races do this to each other; holding securely to our stereotypes until we meet someone who forcefully snatches them from our grip by defying them all, and then we simply count them as an exception to the rule as we continue to discriminate against the rest. 

Obama has shattered many stereotypes of black people, but he has not removed common questions. Barack Obama has unsettled dust that had long since found a comfortable resting place. He has been a steroid to the leadership journey that  other black leaders started years ago.  Sometimes, their is a legitimate curiosity as to what a black man might do in the face of leadership. Other times, people just want to see what your hair actually feels like. In the end, we haven't given enough black leaders a fair chance to know what the data will show, and we haven't given enough white people a chance to touch our hair. One day we might finally discover that black leaders succeed and fail just the same as others.  One day we might realize that the only true difference does lie in the skin tone and hair texture.

The Obama’s are cool and smart and composed and charismatic and black.  They are the Huxtables who made it to the very top of the mountain.  They make many people have to observe and rethink their impressions of all blacks because if there is one family  like this, there has to be two.   Most importantly, while they help us to accept that we have come a long way, they remind us daily of how far we have yet to go. Especially with matters of race.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
When is the right time to stage an intervention?  

The time is ripe for this debate that we have long since tip-toed around.  We are more polarized than ever because those who are most benefited by divisions of race and class are afraid of what happens when these institutions fall.  The KKK was able to thrive for years by feeding off of the contrived fear that had been developed against blacks and Jews.  As that fear dissipated, so did their power base.  Racism and racist organizations survive from fear. Fear is a funny thing because the less man fears God, the more likely we are to become fearful of one another stifling the quality of our conversation.  In my mind, racism grows because it continues to be fertilized by fear and watered by ignorance.

When race is implicated as a contributor or an impediment to social class, minorities develop class envy breeding a widespread inclination for unhealthy consumerism (keeping up with the Joneses) that only increases the class divide.  Classism is the ugly institution that feeds off of our pursuit to afford an unhealthy version of the American Dream.  Classism thrives from our inability to define the dream for ourselves and not succumb to a force fed dreamlike illusion.  In the end, classism wins if it convinces anyone of us that what I lack is directly related to what you have.  When you then associate this same notion to skin color, you create a destructive convergence which some are describing as the most intense polarization of modern history.

We first allowed fear to polarize us, but now we are letting the fear of our dying familiarity (aka stereotypes) overwhelm the fear of impending change. Our stereotypes are not only easy and familiar to us all, they keep us safe from the unknown and the uncomfortable.   Every black man you once feared isn't necessarily your opponent anymore.  Some of them are like Herman Cain and a few are like Spike Lee who both moved away from city folks when their money elevated their class, but are probably  similarly stereotyped by the suburbanites who they call neighbors.  

Racism may not be gone, but it finds a way to temper itself when confronted by wealth. For people without money, racism seems the same as it ever was.  For those who have money, racism is a taboo topic that most will shun within every environment that money controls.   A person's color might influence our initial impression, but a keenly purchased watch or pair of shoes can offer a sufficient head fake.  Thanks to black conservatism, electing a black president and nice watches and shoes, racism is no longer painted on the face of America even if it remains in our bloodline.

So is racism a legitimate problem worthy of a legitimate conversation, or is the alleged abuse of Barack (because he's a brother) much to do about nothing?....and what do black people's hair actually feel like? 

Who know's because we just won't 'go there.  In order to get a check up, you have to be willing to visit the doctor.  When it comes to getting a checkup on racism, America has yet to make the appointment.

What I know for certain is this.

When you seek to find common ground, you quickly discover how easy it is for any two people moving towards each other to close the gap between them. My hope is for the death of fear and the hope of change wherein lies the conversations of a brighter tomorrow.