Modern Conservatives Make Us All Miss George W. Bush

       "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice?.......well you ain't gonna get to do that again"

       Back when he was our president we made it tough on him.  Not so tough that he couldn't get re-elected, but tough.  George W. Bush moved from being president Bush in to dub-ya, the much maligned leader of the free world with a tendency to speak with a less than stellar grasp of the English language.  Some of the verbal gaffs that he spewed make Sarah Palin appear scholarly.

     By the time we saw his presidency come to an end, we were weary of a couple of wars that we could no longer justify and staring face to face with the next great depression.  The first black president might have won the election anyway, but it was not a hard sell at the time to try something different.

      Bush committed himself to ending Apartheid.  His dedication in the nation of Africa sparked one of the cable news shows to bring up the Jay Leno show clips of George W. Bush dancing in Africa and it prompted me to reflect on how comfortable he was in his own skin.  If he ran into a curtain trying to exit a room after a press conference he would flash that sheepish, boyish grin that made you join him in laughter.  He was a serious man, that never took himself too seriously

      He got us into a war that we all wanted as the anger from 9-11 boiled into a fever for retribution.  We needed a place to spill our anger and 'W' understood that.  He shared the same sentiment.  With all that we complain about from presidents when they are in office (especially as they reach the end of terms) it is a lot easier to see the truth in hindsight.

      The truth about George W. Bush is that he loves America....deeply.  He was party driven, but not blinded by party.  If he became the disgraced face of the Republican party than his opponents owe him and all of America an apology for the new faces who've surfaced in his absence.

       I would take another George Bush over Ted Cruz any day of the week. We miss ya president dub-ya.

Northwestern University Athletes Take On NCAA and Federal Labor Laws

The battle has begun.

Well, actually the battle has been going on for some time now.  Northwestern University and a group of its  current and former players have stormed the beach at Normandy in an attempt to get the NCAA (and probably one really inspirational labor law professor) to stand up and take notice.

I struggle with fully engaging in this debate because my anger towards the herd mentality of major college sports seriously infuriates me.  When people are involuntarily treated like cattle we invoke laws to fix it.  When it is our "so-called" student athletes, we pretend that access to an education is a fair trade off even though we don't insure they get the support they need to succeed in school.  Sports scholarships are not even guaranteed, but are a year to year evaluation of the herd to determine who you keep and who gets sent to slaughter.

Don't be mistaken.  Success in college takes preparation that begins long before college.  Success in college is often the by product of a lot of prodding and pushing from family and someone to push you pass that "I want to quit" wall.  In fact, success in college is a lot like success in sports.  Somehow we invest highly in the cost of creating top notch college athletes, and then we sugar coat their class schedule and slap them on the head to make sure they are staying on top of Basket Weaving 101.

It is fairly clear that every college is much more invested in the financial return of the athlete and not the resource drain of the student, even though we will never have one without the other.  This system is rigged against the success of the student, especially if they never had the foundation for success to begin with.  Some endure as long as they can and run off to make the money that they crossed the college bridge to make in the first place. Most fight like hell to get educated because going pro is a real long shot, staying pro even longer.  Every one of them performs a service to the university that demands better compensation.

Even the worst of college coaches can make a sizable penny in the job.  The upper echelon make pro coaches look like they are in the wrong line of work. As for the schools?  Some schools cover all of their sports budget on the backs of the major sports, with money to spare.  Every few years the NCAA negotiates a new deal, and the television ratings for college sports have given them true negotiation power.

They don't call it March Madness for nothing.   Famous Jameis Winston is a household name now, and for more than his scandal.  Now that the NFL and NBA (both sports with large minority populations) are fully in cahoots with the NCAA by restricting access ONLY to US high school kids, our student athletes are now forced to run with the herd before they can make money for themselves.  The NFL and the NBA win because they are not paying for potential (which can cost too much). The NCAA wins because they get to force a herd of young people through their turnstiles and leech a penny or two from them before freeing them to get a fair share of the pie.

Title 9, which legislates an equity of treatment between all athletes on a college campus, was created to improve sports standards in college for women, but creates another challenge.  Money maker sports in college support the money taker sports that do not generate a profit.  The NCAA sports revenue model involves dumping the lion share of the money into a bucket and dividing it up among the masses.  If this pie it to be divided any further, Title 9 says it has to be divided equally among all athletes in a school.

Despite this hurdle, some believe that it can be done.  I believe that it can only be done at the schools who have enough to do it.  The rest of the schools will struggle from such a mandate creating a scenario worse than the one we currently have. This is where I usually disengage because its a reality that is not easy to fix and I struggle with rehashing debates that have no sensible resolution.  I honor the efforts of those Northwestern players, but what they earned for themselves could not work for that Division 3 school just down the road.

Scholarships are an awesome thing when they fulfill their complete purpose.   They succeed in luring a herd of talent onto the college campus but fail to insure they succeed.  Since schools do not have to honor any commitment towards achievement, they are free to cut the athlete and evict the student as well.

I say no more.  Colleges can not pay student athletes, so they must be held to account for their graduation rates.  Only an athlete that earns three years of professional income will be exempted from a school's athletic graduation rate.  If you don't invest into the success of your athletes, you will sacrifice a portion of your NCAA payment as a penalty.   The NCAA is making lots of money here too and should be forced to intervene with resource support for any school that is not achieving a minimum graduation rate among athlete's.  The penalty underachieving schools will pay can go directly to an athlete education assistance fund to insure proper resources for this effort.

As a special caveat, students should have a reasonable window to complete their degree.  I think 5 years of paid education and 10 years to complete it.  Student athletes with life disruptions (illness, injury, family emergency) should get the opportunity to return to school in a reasonable timeline and cash in on the only benefit that their athletic prowess can earn them.  Labor laws are going to struggle to encompass the role of a student athlete for various reason's.  However, if the college can't be called an employer, they must make sure that they tend to the cattle.

Black History Month Is Dying......But That's A Good Thing

My wife spent about 2 hours online this morning clicking on the Google link below before it dawned on her that it was in commemoration of Black History month. For me it took 30 minutes to figure it out.

Celebrating Harriet Tubman

When I was a young man growing up through the evolution of this historical time of the year, it was a major bone of contention that blacks were not getting the proper historical treatment that they deserved.  Black history month was an acceptance and an admission of the failed representation of America's full history.  It was the opportunity to include what the history books had left out.

The history books told part of the story, but they did not paint black people in the most positive light.  During the lifetime of Martin Luther King, he himself was treated like a rebel of America and had more negative pockets of opinion towards him than positive.  Today, republicans and democrats are arguing over which party gets to claim the great leader.

Dr. Justina Ford attended the birth of my mother and many others in Denver.Census records for 1910, 1920, and 1930, show that she was Denver’s only female doctor. 

Today, little white kids get to put on black history month reenactments dressed as whatever historical black figure has been chosen for the new year.  Today, the history books have been revised to at least mention blacks, and Google search does the rest. Black people and black history is fully within the mainstream of America.

By the time we finish marching in January for MLK, and watching special programs on television to honor blacks in February, I find myself happy for blacks but totally oblivious to the reason we fought so hard.  Not that blacks have arrived to the promise land we sought to attain, but our history has. Knowing our history will certainly direct our future.

In the minds of blacks like me who fought to bring this month to higher importance in America, black history month is dying.  But that's a good thing.

Is There More Good Than Bad With Hillary Clinton?

If you have a dog in the fight, there is an inherent danger in counting your political chickens before they come home to roost (or hatch).  It is easy to anoint Hillary Clinton as our likely next president for more reason's than our love of Hillary Clinton. In fact, the reason's for Hillary may have nothing to do with Hillary at all.

First and foremost, Hillary Clinton is looking more an more like the beneficiary of republican division.  The challenge that exists between internal factions of the conservative movement will need a quick and definitive resolution.  Quick because 2014 and 2016 have already begun.  Definitive because the war will not end until someone defines the conservative agenda.  Ask Bill Clinton.  It is easy to declare the end of the era of big government, but impossible to agree on what should go away first.

As republicans try to recapture a national government equal to the beginning of the industrial revolution, the realist are hoping to do a little less killing abroad and reduce our deficit over the next several years by simply stopping the bleeding.  Meanwhile, Hillary will benefit from the "all president for all people" image that her husband Bill currently enjoys.  History informs us of both the left leaning failed proposals of the Clinton years and the actual center shifted legislation's like NAFTA that make conservatives love Bill as much as liberals do.

If we did not have enough intangible reason's for a president Hillary Clinton, here is one more to try on for size.  Sexism is harder to disguise than racism. If Hillary confronts the same unexplained obstructionism that Obama couldn't figure out, then the obstructionist' may no longer be able to hide behind a made up war against liberalism, fascism, communism and narcissism.

When bills that have the requisite number of votes are held up in congress in order to stonewall a man's legacy, then it might be time for a woman. Hillary can finish immigration for Obama like he did with healthcare for her.

Apparently the bad part is her husband.....the predator.

Hillary Clinton Is Front Runner For Feel Good Story Part Two

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton

You may not like the delay in the Keystone Pipeline or bungled ObamaCare.  You may not appreciate all of the food stamps we've given away over the past few years or trust drone warfare.  No matter how disappointed you are with the status of America and the role that Barack Obama has played in it all, you can't deny how surreal it was to wake up the next day after we elected the first black president.

Before Barack Obama, racist couldn't declare the absence of racism by the presence of a black president.  Now they snap it out like a badge of honor.  Good for them.  No person should have to live in the despair of guilt along the journey towards being better.  Grace insures this freedom to every racist.  Even myself.

As for a sexist like myself, I have to admit that I can't wait to declare the end of sexism by electing a female president. Every other sexist is eager to do the same.  The early coronation of Hillary is more of a declaration that we like the feeling of shattering social mores.  Unless someone comes to the surface that offers a greater opportunity to feel good in 2016 (you know, like an Hispanic female), then Hillary might want to start shopping for an amazing inauguration dress.

Imagine that.  An inauguration dress

Blue Ivy Blasted By Blogosphere For Black Facial Features

Is black bravado insecurity in disguise?  Why do blacks attack black features?

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2011/12/22/happy-to-be-nappy-barbie/

The racial identity complaint we blacks leveled against Michael Jackson was not a problem that Michael dealt with alone. Way too many blacks hate looking  black.


Last week, the article I read on this topic involved the issue of black women in the workplace having to decide if natural hair is an impediment to corporate mobility.  This week we find black people leaving blog posts attacking Beyonce for marrying a black man with African features.  Apparently, Blue Ivy is starting to look way too much like her daddy.

If you are a black person who has these type of "Jay-Z" features (big lips and nose) and despise them for some apparent stigma towards those who possess them, you immediately notice these features in others.  It would be nice if we all realized that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For every person that does not like your features, there are others who do.

The reality is that it is too late for all of that.  No matter how often fashion magazines attempt to deviate from our normal view of beauty, they quickly return to the mold.  Barbie defined beauty for way too many young people who have now chiseled her hand picked features into the psyche of the American conscience.  Even the black and brown skinned kids whose parents bought the ethnic dolls noticed that she looked just like the white version but with darker skin color ( and now nappy hair).

American's have allowed popular culture to define beauty for all of us, and the minority is rapidly being assimilated into the majority image.  Black American's are in a social tug-o-war over principle or economic mobility.  You can absolutely take the activist route, but you do so realizing the automatic stigma that accompanies the happy to be nappy movement.  Moreover, conforming to popular demand makes all of us an accomplice to social conformity. Anyone can be made to look pretty, but it takes something divine and natural to define beauty.  As a result, real beauty is becoming endangered.

As for all of you big lipped blacks that are blasting Blue Ivy, I would remind you that thanks to ObamaCare, mental health is more accessible than ever.

Obama Isn't The Only One That CARES. GOP Offers Twisted Alternative To ACA

When the healthcare.gov roll out got botched, the republican party saw some daylight.

https://www.healthcare.gov/

The second term election of Barack Obama was a signature achievement alone.  Republicans may not have put as much support into Romney as was needed for victory, but they certainly staked all of their hope on him winning.  When he didn't win, the disappointment became bitterness rather quickly.

Nothing like a botched roll out to sweeten sour puss conservatives.  The opposition against ObamaCare was virtually silent prior to the roll out, and suddenly the passions peaked once again.  Websites that don't work well are certainly a cause for controversy, but they are also fixable, and the fervor for an ObamaCare repeal has died with increased enrollment.

Chicken Little has declared the sky to be falling for so long that he has now lost his audience.  If you need a new audience to listen to you fight the Affordable Care Act, you create an alter ego to the Affordable Care Act.  Enter, stage right, the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, Empowerment Act (nicknamed CARE).  The PCAREA (nicknamed care?) is a peculiar solution to the ACA because it does many of the same things, but eliminates the mandates and many protections of the ACA.  It is also a failed attempt to create a cool acronym.

After reading about the plan, I found a few elements that could be cherry picked into the ACA, but the general idea feels like ObamaCare light with the feel of repeal.  My real hunch is that republicans will  not push this agenda forward to repeal the ACA, they will push it forward to silence the critics (some from their own camp) who say they do not have a formal plan.

Up until now, if you asked a republican for an alternative to ObamaCare they would simply say, 'there are a lot of ideas out there to consider'.  What they failed to accept is that a lot of ideas is code for none worth speaking about.  Until you can refer to a specific plan, and offer up details that represent a difference, then you sound like you are arguing for the sake of argument.

Now republicans can say "we CARE too".  Disregard that the Patient choice affordability responsibility empowerment Act requires you ignore the patient and the act to create the CARE.  This kind of CARE is not like healthcare.  It is like political care which only cures soundbites and polling numbers.

If you would actually like healthcare,  sign up at healthcare.gov while you still can.

Romney Film Exposes Washington D.C.'s Taste For Roasted Duck...(especially lame duck)

The Netflix documentary on the Romney campaign came out and offered a revealing exposure to a strong man enduring a trying process (full video).  Some have said this film could have bridged the gap in offering the humanity that Romney lacked.  Others believe it was way too revealing of his vulnerabilities and makes him unable to ever run for president again.  While I have yet to see the film (see link above), I keep thinking about Romney as a candidate when I stretch my mind towards who will be our next president.

If not Romney or Christie or Ryan or Rubio, than who?  Republicans are not tingling over any candidate because they are terrified about the fantastic four, Bill and Hillary, Barack and Michelle.  Obama has already handed over his campaign engine to the Hillary for president prospect team even though she has yet to announce.

Obamacare is more than a signature piece of legislation, it is an historical marker.  It's success will return credibility to the president that was lost during the ACA roll out.  Its failure will return the republicans to the white house with little demand for an opposing agenda outside of a repeal.  No matter what opposing idea that conservatives offer over the next two years, they will still have the demand of getting it to the office of the president for approval.  Way too much of the republican agenda has been attached to deficit reduction anyway. Deficit reduction is always reasonable in theory but does not gain much bi-partisan support in the midst of a sputtering economy.

Despite the screams from the masses for a solution to the healthcare crises, republicans must double down on the destruction of Obamacare and put a little more heat on Obama in the process.  The botched roll out put this duck on the fire and those who crave roasted lame duck are determined to throw every log they have at this fire to make sure Obama's goose gets fully cooked. A powerful president in any election has the risk of overwhelming republicans in every election, including the upcoming elections of 2014 and 2016.

The house will remain in the hands of republicans, but the senate and the white house are up for grabs.  Grab them all and the game changes for republicans.  Lose any two and the republican goose will be cooked and  feasted on by democrats for a few years.

In Washington D.C., roasted foul is the rave, especially from the hind quarters of the opposition.

Richard Sherman: He's the man, he's the man, he's the man....and we've all been duped.

To all of us who met Richard Sherman for the first time in the NFC Championships game, he did his best to impersonate the thug that he's been wrongly accused of all of his life.

Ironically, Sherman either ran out to tell everybody that he's the man, he's the man, in the locker room after the game winning play, or he already cut that commercial for the Beats by Dr. Dre headphones.  Before he and Dre' made it clear that he doesn't like that thug label, he told us in a poignant interview how guys from Compton that go to Stanford are an oxymoron.

Where did this Richard Sherman come from?  Given the odd release of that commercial and the coordinated misbehavior to support the marketing effort, I am left to wonder if that street smart, book smart oxymoron with dreads is pulling a fast one on us all.  Disregard that last sentence.  I know for certain that he is pulling a fast one on us.  He would be under utilizing his book and streets smarts to do any less.

Football is a game of big guys hitting other big guys and hoping you're the one who gets up in the end.  If you survive to have a long career, you are the beneficiary of luck and blessings that defy the typical career of an NFL player.  The NFL is not a guaranteed contract world like other pro sports, so you better front load your contract, and bleed the life out of any endorsement opportunity that you get.

When I wrote that the Richard  who made the amazing play, and later correctly used the word oxymoron in a sentence, was Dick'd by the loud mouth with vibrado, little did I know that he had already cashed the check that vibrado earned him.

Sherman will make a load of money before his days are done and could go down as one of the best who every played if he remains on this current path.  His game continues to cash the checks that his mouth writes for him, and his notoriety has gone viral with both lovers and haters joining together to justify his publicity stunt.

The beauty of intelligence is its power of self expression.  Richard Sherman is a beautifully self expressive person. To simply call him intelligent would miss the mark. His power of self expression is as impressive on the field as it is at the podium.  If by the end of his career he has maintained his thug image, than thugs should be proud.

Did Obama Succeed With The Iranian Nuclear Agreement? What About Syria?

Iran will have to dismantle and halt a significant part of their nuclear program within six months. This is a victory for America and for our allies, but you wouldn't know it if you listened to the Iranian officials.


The six month timeline is both an element of the negotiation and an acceptance of our total lack of trust in Iran.  In the journey to make America safe by making the world safer, are we falling down on the job?  Let John McCain tell it, Barack Obama is worse than Jimmy Carter.

Before Iran, there was the Syrian issue that McCain is referring to. Obama chose to spray the blood of the Syrian decision all over congress by testing them for congressional approval before taking military action as other presidents have done in the past.  Congress had cold feet too.

Barack Obama has done the absolute next best thing that you can do when you declare to the world that you have cold feet to war. We have functionally declared to all of our enemies that this is a great time to test our limits and spread your wings a bit (which explains the al Qaeda resurgence).  Is Iran really content with the victory that they are claiming over Obama or is this simple political rhetoric?  Here's the CNN report on this one.

Sunday at 10 a.m. on "Fareed Zakaria GPS"

(CNN) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted Wednesday that the Obama administration mis-characterizes concessions by his side in the six-month nuclear deal with Iran, telling CNN in an exclusive interview that "we did not agree to dismantle anything."

To me the question is laughable.  Zarif has to ease sanctions without losing control over a politically volatile nation.  How do you satisfy the skepticism of Americans who insisted on longer, tougher, harder sanctions without sacrificing your own image at home?  There is simply not much Zarif could have said differently and there should be no one who expected otherwise.  As white house press secretary Jay Carney declared "we are much more interested in what they do......"

Carney is right, but I  almost agree with John McCain.  Despite his back handed compliment of Jimmy Carter, Carter was our best international relations president in modern history and none of those who followed, including Obama, accomplished more in this area. The stock market and our entire way of life changes when our enemies discover how to bring the war to America's soil like 9-11.  Sometimes you must negotiate with your enemy (Iran) and other times you must insist that they realize where the line is drawn (Syria).

Barack Obama has failed America in part because he verbalized our weariness.Our military action against Syria needed to be for the sake of humanity at large and even Russia must be made to realize where society will draw the line. 
 

To Obama's credit, he declared that he would act without congress, causing Russia to force Syria to give up the weapons.  Yet, have we uncovered them all, and will those who did these crimes against humanity  be prosecuted accordingly?   Our role in the world should be as the negotiator until the hour of negotiation has passed.  Within a righteous nation, war should never be a choice, but the responsibility of privilege.

Mental Health Should Become Focus Of Affordable Care Act

I realize that most of our debate over healthcare has been an unhealthy debate over health insurance premiums and provider networks, but I suspect that we might move past all of this stuff when it becomes a normal part of everyday life.

For now I will simply dream of the day that healthcare, as a matter of debate, brings us closer to healthcare as a matter of civic responsibility.  More importantly, it might be time to closely examine the healthcare conversation as it relates to mental health.  Many of our current societal shortcomings can be traced back to the root cause of mental illness.

Mental illness appears in the PTSD of homeless soldiers or personality disorder for their homeless friend.  We have mental illness with our children who are shooting up schools  when they commit suicide, or the mental illness of those who haphazardly allow kids access to guns.  We recognize the need and offer free mental healthcare for the surviving children, even if only for a short time.

Mental illness is impacting the parents who are suffering from the depression of a lost career.  Mental illness  extends itself into our children who continue to see the destruction of the American family happening before their eyes, and grow up blaming themselves for it.  Even our physical health, which has suffered due to the lack of affordable healthcare options, is better than our mental health which, by and large, gets ignored as a separate problem and not the actual root. We won't even begin to discuss mental healthcare for convicted felons (another blog for another day).

When we stop yelling about the cause and discuss ideas for a solution, we may finally agree on the problem.  Abortion will never be removed by laws so must be minimized through mental health support.  School shootings will never be eliminated with tougher gun laws but could improve with better mental health screening of at risk children.  Depression, PTSD, personality disorders are all common problems with common solutions that begin in the office of a mental health professional.

The physical health of our nation is connected to the mental health of each individual.  Affordable care is important, but proper care is vital.  It would be exceedingly sad for us to usher in the era of universal care for all and remain functionally just as sick as before.

In fact it would be more than sad.  It would be crazy.

If Preserving Life Matters, Should We Re-examine The Womb To Tomb Debate?

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named
Samuel Alexander Armas, who grabs a finger while being
operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner. 

I am a Christian and fully torn over the abortion issue, especially in this era of knowledge.  Our claim of ignorance does not ring to be true in this enlightened age.  Access to birth control and even the day after pill should allow us to reconsider the conversation about abortion and consider setting limits.

Unfortunately, that is probably as likely to happen as getting the NRA to support a gun ban.  While I use that analogy partly in jest, I am starting to believe that we may need to connect these issues together like a rope.  If preserving life matters, do we need to re-examine the womb to tomb ideology.  After all, life is precious from beginning to end even if we debate over when the beginning begins.

Moreover, the voices of those who long for comprehensive gun legislation have been known to support women's reproductive freedoms. Conversely, gun rights advocates scream hypocrisy at their opponents who support abortions while fighting for the lives school children.

The voices are singing a similar message, just not in harmony.  If the genuine motive of each side is to save lives, then the agenda of each has matrimonial potential.

We seriously do not need to allow every form of abortion anymore.  This notion becomes restrictive of more people than one imagines when attempting to legislate it.  Some people who get abortions are poor and disadvantaged, but abortions are not cheap so I have a hunch that more than just poor people are keeping this industry alive.  Gender selection abortions?  Late term abortions? There must be some way to save more lives than we currently do.

Especially in our schools. Even if we arm ourselves at every entrance of our school, we do so in order to shoot down our mentally ill kids. Is this a knee jerk reaction or a long term solution?  Will we persist in shooting at suicidal children instead of rescuing them if we can?  I wouldn't care if gun's became less restrictive for most as long as they become more restrictive for the people who need such restrictions.

When it gets down to it, the only way we save lives from womb to tomb is to offer mental health education
and intervention efforts.  If preserving life matters, that is.

Mental illness is addressed in the aftermath of school shootings but rarely before.

Official press release for recent school shooting in Pennsylvania.

When I researched this recent school shooting, I was listening to a news report that spoke of 5 school shootings in the past week.  

Towards the end of this letter, the school promises ongoing mental health personnel for all of the students and a heightened security posture.  Within a short while, the mental health workers will leave and assume all is well and the security standards will drop back to normal awareness levels.

If you ask the conservatives what the solution is, they don't really offer one, they simply point out that these shootings are happening in gun free zone's.  Somehow the rule that seeks to keep the potential for gun violence away from our schools is getting in the way of the shootout with crazy children who kill.  The goal inherent to this idea is keeping deaths to a smaller number.   Hopefully just one or a few people (and the gunmen) would be considered a success I imagine.  

Opponents of guns have questioned the reason that children have access to guns and whether or not we should simply deal with gun access through proper background checks and an examination of gun safety in the home. Gun advocates defy the connection between suicide killers and access to guns because suicide killers could use knives or any other means of murder.  It is hard to imagine them gaining access to something more dangerous than a gun, but the point is legitimate.

Here is where I get really confused by proponents of guns.  Often they blame the absence of God in our schools for the loss of morality and the subsequent killings, but then they declare that opponents are foolish if they think we can rid evil from our schools.  Apparently, only God can intervene in the lives of mentally ill children who might be considering suicide by mass murder.  Mental health professionals are only useful after someone gets killed in the school.  

Mental illness and the killing it causes may not be preventable, but it is detectable.

Freedom won't allow us to profile our own children in this way, but I am sure that we could.  We must be free from scrutiny and free to bear arms anywhere we want and we need to be free from religious oppression and free to worship in our schools as well. The land of the free, but are we very brave? With all of these freedoms, we sacrifice our children's freedom to feel safe at school . 

I sense a rise in home schooling soon.

Obama Blames Racism For Low Polls. Is racism the town that we grew up in but never like to visit?

Should Obama remind us of  black and white America?

For many years, Barack Obama carried the duty to usher in the notion of a post racial society in order to convince enough white people, whom he desperately needed to win the white house, that he would not be the guy to remind them of this shame.

Black media pundits across the spectrum screamed at the notion of a post racial America and even balked at the term, but there is both a legitimacy and a  fallacy to this notion.  I recently watched a host on  the 5pm Fox news program admit that to be called a racist these days is so hurtful to whites that it often will end the conversation before it starts.  At that moment, I started to understand the extent of white guilt relative to race.

We are in post racial America, but only to the extent that political correctness demands.  The anger towards any person who invokes the issue of race is something that works to silence the conversation in more ways than the Fox host realizes.  It is unfair to be judgmental of white America for the tendency towards this anger because they are inspired by the same spirit that divides us all through racial intolerance.  These divisive spirits work to keep most blacks FAR away from their real feelings about race in fear that they will be accused of using the race card when expressing genuine concerns.

Black Americans have been forced into skillful expressions of  feelings on racism because it is clear that most white people are still incapable of objectively dealing with it. The most insecure of whites have learned how to turn the mirror of racism around towards race accusers pointing out another absolute truth to deflect from their own shortcoming.

What I have learned in marriage is that there are a lot of issue's that legitimately deserve to be addressed, but it simply isn't smart to try and cover them all in one sitting.  If black racism towards whites is an issue that requires conversation (and it does) in order to freely turn the mirror around as the president has done, then lets finish one of these conversations and stop pretending that two wrongs makes it not worth discussing.

If America did not experience financial meltdown, would we have voted for a black man?  If a white man had achieved similar accomplishments since the days of the meltdown, would he have gained better poll numbers?  These feel like legitimate questions, but maybe only because my skin is brown as well.  Maybe the mere election of Obama is enough of a transcending of race to say that race is no longer enough of an issue to reference anymore.  Maybe there is a new post racial reality that deserves a legitimate examination to help advance black America out of needless contempt.

What I know for sure is there are some people who do not wish to travel down this road ever again and are enraged that the president would dare take us into the black and white neighborhood of our past.  It simply is a town that some just don't care to visit anymore.

2016 Campaign Is Under Way. With or Without The Candidates.

Elections are beginning to feel like Christmas.  They begin too early and last too long.

Ready or not, here comes Clinton .vs. Christie.  Currently the campaign posters say Benghazi versus Bridgegate.  Soon it will sound like ObamaCare; the good, the bad and the ugly.  Two of those three images will benefit conservatives and should not be hard to accentuate unless the good of Obamacare gets pretty darn good.  Christie is certainly a fast enough talker to sale the bad and the ugly, but will he get the chance and will it be enough?

Benghazi is a dead story that will play to the ear of the electorate for no other reason than the dead that were involved.  Bridgate will become a continued series of "no comments" from Christie until it finally fades a bit.  My hunch is that Clinton and Christie will functionally silence their own sides by agreeing not to talk about these matters.

Sadly, that moratorium is at least another year away.  In the mean time, we had best prepare for each side of the media war to prematurely litigate the case for their candidates.  Both political party's are prone to follow the winds created by today's media, and today's media has spoken.

This race is on.  With or without the candidates.

Related Posts:

• GOP Goes All In Against ObamaCare.  How much is at stake?
• Libertarians Carrying Conservative Message into political jungle.
• Why Did Christie Shut Down The Bridge?
• Will 3 month UI extension take 3 months to pass?

Obama NSA Speech Offers No Real Change Except More Oversight

NSA records about 5 billion cellphone locations daily.
"We can and should be more transparent" says Obama.

Every morning president Barack Obama wakes up to national security intelligence updates.  Every morning for the past 5 years (1825 days).

When you and I are wishing our coffee could automatically find its way into our veins, he has already ingested potential threats to the safety of America. Every morning.

No wonder Obama and Bush mirror each other on this issue.

If there is anything of real value that we can take away from his speech, it is the reality that everything we wish to recapture from before 9-11 is no longer coming back.  Our world is now subject to the impact of terrorism and is thus subject to the demand of diligence and vigilance.


President Obama did a fabulous job at easing the concerns of our citizens and our allies, even as he reminded everyone of our leadership role concerning technology and or duty relative to technological security worldwide.  By March 28th, the NSA program will come under congressional review demanding they vote to end or extend the program.  Since this program  was a reactionary response to a social crisis, the NSA data collection practices and procedures have never been subject to a reasonable debate.  In today's speech, president Obama encouraged that debate, and offered a few other basic proposals that will end up informing us of what we should already know.

There is nothing we can do about curtailing this governmental power because we have yet to discover the extent of its necessity in the worldwide battle against terrorism.  We know that out of control powers can abuse this information, but there is really no way of closing pandora's meta data box or breaching the confidentiality demands of those we've entrusted with our safety and security.

In the war of protecting ourselves from the unknown, the standard for what should remain unknown has yet to be determined.

Related Topics:  Drones and Cellphones.  Is the cost of freedom too high?

Related Topics:  NSA Phone Records Debate Ignites Government Conspiracy Theories

Why Did Christie Shut Down The Bridge? Find Out Now!

The reason may never come to light because the powers that hide these things are working harder than those working to uncover them.  Criminals usually do stay ahead of the good guys, and this is no different. Christie did his due diligence way back when and chose the best route that his lawyer mind could conspire. Deniability.

If redacted information in emails does not gain the release that executive privilege demands, then the story probably remains too blurry to prosecute Christie. If the heat rises, he will always be able to resign and hide from the worst of this mess, so we may never get to the root of why.

So I will tell you why in advance.

Chris Christie is not only a presumed  presidential candidate,  Christie is running and began the process somewhere during his last campaign for governor.  In that campaign, Christie had to overcome some sizable hurdles.  First he had to prove that he was not too fat to be trusted from a health perspective.   He had to prove that he has the gravitas that is demanded from any prospective presidential candidate.

The last and greatest challenge for Chris Christie in preparation for a run at the presidency was the challenge of proving that he could deal with the most toxic and polarized congress that we have seen in America in a long time.  To achieve this goal, Christie needed to be more than a bully.  In order to create the illusion of bi-partisan influence, Christie needed coercion.

When Christie took to national airwaves during the past election season and declared that he is the bi-partisan champion of the century, he did so realizing that he had already put in motion the engine of forced collaboration.  Christie probably never got involved with the planning of the Fort Lee retaliation plan. He didn't have to.  Anyone who worked for Christie the great collaborator already understood his nature and his agenda.

New Jersey opponents of Christie are finally coming to the light to say that they all felt that there was a risk involved with opposing Christie and everyone understood it.  Even Christie himself admits to playing political hardball, but he denies being a bully at the same time.

Christie might be right.  Bullying is bad, but it is also something we typically use to refer to that stupid kid on the school playground.  In reality, we all understand bullying because we all take to the role as it suits us.  Wives bully husbands, fathers bully children, rude people bully timid retail workers.  If we are honest, we can all remember that time when we decided to be the bully we dislike.

What Christie did has crossed the line of bullying and has risen to the status of coercion.  Federal prosecutors have tried for years to stick mafia bosses with the crime of coercion with limited success.  I expect a similar result in this case.

Related Posts:

•     Christie's 111 Minutes Of Contrition Has Holes That 

                Investigators Will Discover

•     Christie Claims No Contact With David Wildstein. 

          Photo's Say Otherwise

•     Buono Says: "I Told You So" Regarding Chris                      Christie Scandal 

• Christie Falls Upon The Stupid Blade Instead of 

        Claiming Prior Knowledge

Atheist' May Be Mad At God. Agnostics Don't Care Either Way

Which scares you the most?  Atheism or Agnosticism?

Atheism is spreading rapidly across the world, especially in America.  In my heart I have a certain level of respect for the modern atheist because of their commitment to something.  Often times these days you will find that an atheist is more knowledgeable about the bible than some Christian's.

 I understand that their goal is to only discount the bible, but the truth is a powerful message.  Even the spirit that attempts to discredit truth has to bath in its presence and be held accountable for distorting its meaning.  To the believer, an atheist is doing the same thing that Jim Jones did; or Saul who was also Paul.

But do they study the bible for ammunition or are atheist' simply a growing number of former (learned) Christian's?  My hunch is that you will uncover a fair amount of both, which declares to me that they have spent, and are spending, some time bathing in the spirit of truth.

The discipline to study our bible is the greatest challenge of Christianity. The difficulty in understanding its content forces many of us to disregard its value, especially as a road map towards prayer and towards the simple message of righteousness through Christ.  If you would like to use the modern canonized bible to confuse people, that is hardly a difficult task.

However, the truth is like a double edged sword and the bible is a document that you would be safer to never have read at all.  Revelation doctrine declares that civilization hangs on the balance from those who have yet to learn about the gospel of grace contained within the Christian bible.  Atheist have organized their own religion around the notion that none of this even exists.  The problem with their effort is that they offer no incentive to those who conclude that atheism is right.  What is the consequence if there is no God and no Jesus Christ our savior?  There is no consequence, so why bother?

The religious fervor of modern atheism has forced the really smart fence straddlers (called agnostics) into a virtual pool of collective freedom from this tug-o-war of righteousness.  Smart people who listen to the skeptical view of God can easily be convinced that there simply is no proof one way or another.  All of those Moses stories and Jesus miracles could simply be like Greek mythology after all, and no one is alive to verify the truth.

The agnostic remains straddled on the fence because the flower and the humming bird, the sunrise and the sunset make it hard to discount God altogether.  Yet, even these miracles are hardly proof.   The agnostic considers both sides of this religious tug-o-war to be a strain on their enjoyment of life and freedom from religious oppression.  They are right because religion, and its oppression, is the very thing that Christ came to save us all from.  Religion is entirely of the devil. When worshiping God, or denying his existence becomes a burden, you have probably been overrun by religious indignation.

Agnostics and Atheist' are, by design, educated objectors. They are not the ignorant of God or of the gospel. Never fear the danger to those truly ignorant of Christ, for every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, and every man on earth will be given the opportunity to know the Son of man. At the risk of minimizing the atheist religion, they are nothing more than people who are mad at God and gather together to deny his existence in response.  God can use the angry one's in the end just like he used Paul.

Agnostics on the other hand have the idea that we have no way of knowing (or caring to know) either way.  Agnostics are among the lukewarm fence straddlers that lack passion either way.  There is a thin line between love and hate because they come from the same emotional passion. To organize people together in atheism takes a passion for your cause.  Indifference is the highest expression of not having love, and agnostics may be the modern idealist' in the greatest realm of spiritual danger.

Christie Claims No Contact With David Wildstein. Photo's Say Otherwise

The man who had the power to shut down the roads was named Wildstein.  David Wildstein.

During the 111 minutes of contrition, Chris Christie took some time out to remind everyone about people that he did not really know at all.  He made it clear that he did not even know or recognize the mayor of Fort Lee who his office was exacting revenge upon.  According to Christie, before the crisis broke loose, he would not have been able to recognize the Fort Lee mayor in a photo line-up.

Whether or not he was telling the truth in this odd statement is largely immaterial.  Whether or not he knew Wildstein matter's a little bit more because Wildstein was the man who received the go ahead email from Bridget Anne Kelly saying "time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee", and was a Christie appointee to the Port Authority.  When asked about his relationship to Wildstein, Christie became nearly indignant and spoke for some time to explain that, "David and I were not friends in high school........I met him (David) on the Tom Cain for governor campaign in 1977.........I have had no contact with David Wildstein in a long time".

From MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show
Wildstein(in shades) and Christie

Pictures of Christie and Wildstein together on 9-11 last year are sure to force a new round of questions from those investigating this matter, and from the citizens of New Jersey.

But is this another death nail in the coffin of Christie's hope for the 2016 presidential election?  The man who has displayed himself as the supreme manager has a huge mess to manage now.  The longer he remains in office, the more he will be subjected to the scrutiny that will eventually force his hand one way or another.  When Richard Nixon left office in shame, he did so in part to avoid further shame from a deeper investigation.  Is this the last card that Christie has to play or does he have an ace up his sleeve?

West Virginia Water Is Safe To Drink......We Think

The water in West Virginia is contaminated.  A federal emergency has been declared.

I hesitate to disregard the pain of real life tragedies to focus on the politics that creates them, but there is an importance to understanding why this happened and what can be done to make sure that West Virginian's have clean water to drink and bathe in.

When Exxon spills oil in arctic waters we need government forces to rectify corporate messes.  When BP does the same in the Gulf Coast we need similar government intervention.  When many people talk about smaller government, they often insist on less corporate regulations like the one's that allowed for the West Virginia disaster. Now of course government will be held to account for this and to explain what regulations will be in place to insure it doesn't happen again. Both parties will move towards photo op's to claim credit for these needed regulations, but the small government people will continue to demand smaller government without realizing the cost of less regulators and regulations.

To the defense of the mining industry, it appears that bad mining waste control has destroyed underground wells all over West Virginia for years destroying ground water and forcing most people to have to use public water access in order to have clean water.  When the public system got contaminated recently in West Virginia, citizens were left without one of the greatest necessities that we all take for granted each day.  Clean running water.

More and more our world is confronted with disasters that only the collective wisdom of government can handle.  When the water is running safely through our faucets it is easy to blog hatred for the government and conspiracy theories of corruption.  The moment we experience a crisis, we'll demand the arms of government before we rest in those of God.  Every American loses their political party line and will allow government to be as big as possible when they personally experience the kind of tragedy that only government can repair. You know, like the one in West Virginia.

Somehow in most of these industry created disasters, corporations always seem to find the money to repair the damage that they've caused.  The cost of increased wages  is often a fraction of what corporations will pay to repair the aftermath of  their unregulated capitalism.  Last I heard, it is hard to find a good paying job in West Virginia.  Corporations may gain more profit through less regulations, but absent certain regulations the public health concern is a risk that makes freedom less valuable.
.

What is freedom without fresh water to bathe in?