Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Election 2006. Republicans get their asses handed to them.

Well that was an ass kicking if I ever saw one.

From coast to coast, there were Republicans that just got tossed out, flung out, beat down and otherwise just abused by the electorate. Can't say I didn't see it coming. I wouldn't claim Rush Limbaugh's accuracy but I could see this coming if I was Stevie Wonder. Now, it's time to look at where the wheels came off the bus for the Republicans. Where to start? Where to start?

For the Republican leadership, here's a tip: If I take you to a party and catch you in the corner all over another guy, there's a good chance I'm not driving you home. And if that guy also isn't driving you home at the end, you're walking. The Republican leadership left all of us standing on the side as they tried to court their new guy, the latino vote, which will never vote with them because Republicans aren't giving out freebies. You ticked off enough people across the country that you lost your normal base and when the latino vote didn't suddenly make up the gap, you were screwed. Frankly, you don't know how to act right. Now my question to the Republican leadership is simple: Was this a bad enough beating for you, nationally? Is this going to be a normal thing every two years or will the Republicans remember who brought them to the party and learn to act right before the bulk of their support leaves?

The Democrats walked in and won it the best way possible, by letting the Republicans self destruct and show their own flaws but at the same time, not showing theirs. How many times have you seen the Democratic candidate walk out and say that their going to raise taxes, jack up the troops and give the money to pregnant tree frogs in Brazil, only to get laughed off to defeat on election day? This time, the only thing they did was keep saying there's a better way and keeping their talking points that they do talk about as vanilla as possible. Just smile, nod and shut up. It worked. All that needed to be pointed out was the Republicans had become spending whores, closet gay, page chasing, red state liberals and that's not what the voters asked for.

The strategy to go to Iraq and not follow the Powell doctrine by putting overwhelming force on the ground and then letting the pot simmer until it was ready to boil over was plain stupid. Having a quarter million troops on the ground and locking it up completely would have been better than leaving the borders open so all of the jihadists can slip and keep fighting.

Thinking about borders, how in the hell do you fight a war against possible terrorists coming here to kill us and not close down the most obvious port of ingress? I mean, come on. Do you think that Al Qaeda is going to Fed Ex the bomb materials and send the terrorist into JFK on United or will they pay a coyote a few thousand to haul the whole group across in a van? You lock your doors at night because you don't want people to walk in and steal your things or to kill you. Mexico locks its southern border because they don't want people to come in from Central America but is mad that some of us want to do the same. They don't even want us to stop the illegal alien drug smuggler (Read Ramos and Compean).

There were so many mixed signals that it was almost assured the Republican base that got them there in the past would sit this dance out. The aftermath is that the Republicans have left control of the house to a Northern California liberal Democrat. Now the country will get to see how the California state legislature works everyday. Do they have a plan? I'm sure they do. Will they say it out loud? No way in hell because people would lose their minds and say, "I voted for this @%$!?" Over the next two years, the answer is yep. There's a guest on Air America that is talking about supeonas and investigations of Halliburton in Iraq. All I can say is "let the congressional witchhunt begin!"

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Reperations. Why do people wanna be Hos for a check?

I was listening to the radio this morning when a brother started talking about getting reperations. I work and this was the only time I had to respond to that. Reperations make no sense but if Nancy Pelosi somehow gets traction to make that happen, I'll be first in line to bid for the contract to design the database the goverment will need to track the geneology and bloodlines. The guy who does that will make billions!

I'm a black man. I didn't go to college on an affirative action quota. I went to college because I was in the top 12% of my graduating class and I blew the doors off the SAT. At 18, I had a choice of 5 colleges because they looked at my records and said "We want this kid here!" I work for an international corporation not because I'm black. The man who interviewed and offered me my job never met me before my phone interview. He looked at my resume and skill set and said, "I want that guy running the servers in my department." 15 minutes after I hung up the phone. I'm starting my own company soon. Video game sales and an online magazine. I don't need anyone to hand anything to me. Well, maybe a business loan but I plan to pay that back. I had the best excuse in the world if I wanted to limp around and say poor me. My dad was a drunk who left when I was 2. My mom worked 12-16 hr days to raise 4 kids. My oldest brother was an OG Crip back in 1975, way before the term OG came to be. I excelled in school because that's what my mother expected of us all. All four of us went to college, even my OG brother, who's now an army vet and a doctor in Nevada. It would have been very easy for us to have said, "That's the back man's plight" and piss our lives away. But we didn't. I made it through college, my last two years, working full time and studying full time. I learned from my mother that opportunity doesn't know my address so if I want something I have to make my opportunities happen.

I think that wasting my life while waiting for a paycheck on my ancestor's past labor does them a cruel disservice. What slave wouldn't have killed to have the freedoms this man is pissing away today, waiting to get paid for work he didn't do? When my great grandfather shot a klansman and left Louisiana over a century ago, do I think he'd look at my life, where I am able to raise a family in a house I own and work anywhere I want to for more money in a year than he might have seen in a lifetime and say, "Boy, I hope he gets paid for the work we did on the plantation." To answer, no. He'd probably be just as excited that we all excelled. Slavery was horrible. It's a stain on the history that will never go away. But I don't need governemnt money like some cheap ass Ho. My history is worth more to me than whatever the US Mint can churn out in a day and it should be to them too.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Ramos and Compean

There is no way in hell I could be a Border Patrol agent here. None! They are understaffed so they can't do their work. They are outgunned so if they try to stop anyone there's a good chance that they aren't going home that night. And now, if you stop the wrong drug smuggler, you may be going to prison and watching your family get torn apart. Now, I have no sympathy for the Border Patrol agents who are out there taking bribes to let loads of illegal aliens or drugs through the border, but when Ramos and Compean left for work that night, I'm sure they had no idea that they'd be facing the full power of the American legal system for doing their jobs too well.

Picture this: You're a border patrol agent. It's nighttime. You see a suspicious van leaving Mexico so you follow it. Soon the guy in the van panics and he pulls over. You partner gets out faster than you and you think you hear gunfire. You catch up to your partner and see he's on the ground. You don't know if the guy ahead of you has a gun or not so you draw your weapon and shoot at the shadowy figure. He gets away back into Mexico and on inspection of the vehicle he left, you discover over 700 lb. of Marijuana. You come to find out months later that the guy you were pursuing has been given immunity to testify against you.

Fast forward to the courthouse: You've turned down the plea deals because you've done nothing wrong, so you go to trial. The guy you shot comes in with a story about "Oh I was just trying to go back home and this mean agent threatened me with his shotgun and the other agent shot me in the butt and I've been traumatized by this..." Then imagine your horror as multiple people you worked with perjure themselves on the stand to convict you. Your family is in debt to its eyeballs. You and your partner will leave six kids without a dad when you are to report to Prison in January. You come to find out that it's the President that has greased the wheels so that you go away for 11 years and a day in federal prison. Your partner gets 12 years. Does this seem jacked up to anyone else here, or is it just me?

This is an open letter sent to the White House this morning.

Dear sirs,

I mean this with all due respect to your office but right now your actions in this case truly disgust me. I can't believe that you have turned your back on Ramos and Compean, two men who have served this country with distinction in what has got to be the most difficult positions in federal service, the Border Patrol. It is truly mindboggling how you have decided to ignore the populous, who have been screaming for border security for years and in this instance, thumb your nose at us by putting two men in prison for doing their sworn job. By contrast, Reagan would have had these men at the White House as visiting heroes. Bush 1 or Clinton would have held these men up as examples of what is going right in the drug war. Only you would take great glee at making these men pariahs and stripping them of everything they have.

How is a question on the status of these two heroes a nonsensical question as Tony Snow would put it? How is asking for a straight answer on two border patrol agents who shot an illegal alien drug smuggler and are now going to prison for 11-12 years for doing their job, nonsensical? All we ask from our elected officials and in turn their appointed spokesmen is straight answers, not dancing around the question like a coy school girl out on her first date. These men's families and the rest of the country you serve deserve that much.

These men are tasked with along with stopping illegal aliens, stopping the flow of drugs from that corrupt cesspool called Mexico. They come across Aldrete-Davila carrying over 700 lbs. of Marijuana and give chase. Aldrete-Davila pulls a weapon according to Ramos and Compean. Ramos shoots the illegal alien drug smuggler in the butt as he flees back to Mexico. They were doing their job. They may not have filed all of the paperwork in time but 700 lbs. of dope didn't end up in my neighborhood and for that I'm thankful.

While this is a reason for almost 300,000,000 Americans to celebrate, you somehow have decided that the time was right for the political crucifiction of these men. Why you choose to back Vicente Fox's plan to export both his poor and his associates' drug across the border at the detriment of your country is beyond me. Whatever your reasoning, two families are devastated, the bulk of the remaining Border Patrol agents I'm sure have your message to "just let everything through or you'll be sitting in Federal prison too" and I guess we'll just have to get used to the fact that answers to the illegal alien situation or for that matter the drug war will not be coming from Washington for the next couple of years.

That being said, while i wish him luck, I will let my Republican congressman, Duncan Hunter know that I will not be voting for him in the upcoming November election in protest of your nonsensical policy on the border and will encourage my family, friends and neighbors to do the same. I will also be pushing for my city and county to push for ordinances to combat the errors in illegal immigration that your administration has been so quick to ignore.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Stinkbomb politics

When you were a kid, were you ever around stinkbombs or that yellow stuff that smell like rotten eggs? What happened when it went off what happens? Everybody scatters. No body wants to be in the area of the blast either. The same is true of politics. If you smell up the room, suddenly all of your friend are Poof! Gone! C'ya wouldn't want to be ya! Later! Pick your favorite phrase.

These past two years have been a banner year for stinkbomb politics, especially if you're a Republican. You've got Trent Lott, congratulating Strom Thurmond and losing his Senate leadership post. You have Randy Duke Cunningham, the posterboy for bribery in my area. You've got Mark, "Talk dirty to me" Foley with his antics. And now you have the closet Ku Klux Tan Nguyen up in Orange county with probably the DUMBEST letter he could have released before an election. It really calls into question if this was the best candidate that Republicans had to offer in this race or just the guy who signed up. Now Tan Nguyen is saying he didn't know about the letter. Come on now. Either you said it and you regret it or you have no idea what your underlings are doing. The latter makes you too freakin dangerous to hold the office. But, the stinkbomb has already gone off and who wants to be in the room after that. Frankly, I'd rather he sacked up, decided to be a man and defended his letter. That way at least you can say he went down swinging.


What do all three of these things have in common, besides the Republican party shooting itself in the foot, knee and thigh with a mid term election races less than a month away? The fact that everybody in the Republican party immediately lost that person's phone number and let them twist in the political wind. Still the stench is incredible. Don't be surprised if the stink holds up through November and we end up with a new speaker in the House. Gridlock will be the word of the day in Washington until Bush is out of office. If the Republicans lose the House, they only have this past year's stinkbombs to blame.

This is not to say that I'm looking forward to Democrats taking over the house. As a former union guy (Comm Workers of America), I can tell you that the Democratic party is pretty much whored out to the union management. The average guy would get nothing out of Speaker Pelosi taking over the House. What I wouldn't give for a viable 3rd party right now.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Video Game Legislation or why tackle real issues when a straw dog is available for beating?

It never ceases to amaze me what our State and Federal legislatures will attempt to score points with. Take for example the attacks on the video game industry. These neo-prudes that have sprung up on both sides of the aisle, led by Hillary Clinton and several Right Wing nut burgers have decided that they need to step in and legislate how video games are sold for the sake of public decency.

Now, the video game industry has for the most part been a model citizen. They have self regulated themselves, in order to help responsible parents control what games their kids have access to. It's not like they're peddling games like drugs on the street. They're sold in the stores and depending on the title and age range they are regulated.

The problem with the video game self regulated system is that it is not foolproof and there are highly talented fools who walk amongst us. Case in point Florence Cohen from last year went out and bought her 14 year old grandson GTA San Andreas. Clearly on the cover, if she bothered to read it at all was a Black M which means Mature audiences, which also means he couldn't buy it for four more years himself. But grandma is just inattentive enough to run out and pick this up to make her grand baby happy. I wonder if he also got her to pick him up the players guide (in a Hustler cover) and a six pack Sam Adams sports drink too. Anyway, when she discovered what was in the game, (Something she could have done if she actually looked beyond the title. Maybe 10 more seconds of effort) she sued the game maker for false advertising

???

Anywhere that game was advertised the M for mature warning was displayed. Commercials it was spoken. Print it was in the lower corner. Even in Game stop, it was a constant graphic in the lower corner. Everybody but the elderly Cohen knew this was a game filled with sex and violence and therefore not for children but at her grandson's request, she went out and bought it. It's no more Rockstar's fault, than it would be her cable provider's fault if she ordered her grandson a night of Pay Per View porn. She bypassed the safeguards in place. She shouldn't be rewarded for her stupidity.

Still the Federal and some state governments are attempting to legislate to protect the stupid at the detriment of the thinking citizenry and picking on an industry that has gone out of its way to keep things like this from happening. Funny, I guess if they have time to work on this, then they must have figured out that whole war on terror thing, we've stopped all the real violence in the streets, the poverty and homelessness issues are completely resolved and our children are now the best educated children in the world. If they have this type of time, all of our problems must have gone away.

Wait. They're still here?

Oh yeah. We still have all these problems but since those things would take some effort and hell, who wants to actually put in effort at work, they pick little straw dog topics to whip and then BAM! They have something to put on their website so they can say they've done something like this:

http://www.clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=240603

New oppressive legislation and a call to crack down on the video game industry, which already regulates itself. There are some times, I wonder what George Washington would do if he saw the way government worked now. Would he be proud of it or would he shout out for his Grove Street peeps and go "Carl Johnson" on all them hos.

src="http://www.videogamevoters.org/images/vgvn_ad_468x60.jpg" alt="Video Game Voters Network" title="Video Game Voters Network" />

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Never have dead hookers or live boys in your bed

I was wondering where to start this blog. I figure the best place to start is with gay congressmen and possible sexual misconduct. It can only go up from here.

I was taught years ago in Poli Sci that you don't want to know how sausage or law is made. The concept being that the process is so disgusting that you'd never want to be exposed to it again. That being said, it's important to note what is going on with former Congressman Foley and realize that we're seeing something that is disgusting on so many levels.

We'll start with the obvious: What Mark Foley was doing, whether it comes out that he was having sex with the pages or just playing with himself while he talked to them, the fact is that it was wrong on several levels. He violated the public trust and without speculating on who else he violated over his tenure in Congress, his removal is warranted. Frankly, if he just went away and never came back, no one would miss him.

Next, let's look at who knew. Since the mid 90s, pages had nicknamed FFF or "Foley, the Fag from Florida." This was not a secret. Someone had to know that he was gay and into teenage boys. And you've got to assume that pages talk to one another. So, since everybody knew, why wasn't this guy drummed out in the 90s, when he obviously thought it was ok to proposition high school boys?

For the Democrats, the reason is obvious: This is a perfect scandal to destroy the Republican majority in Congress. Politics, being the beast it is, will consume whatever flesh it can and Foley was an awesome weak link. The best way to weaken Clinton was to expose the fact that Monica Lewinsky serviced him in the Oval office. That tactic gave the Republicans full control of Congress, the Presidency and say over who sits on the Supreme Court.

For years the Democrats sat back, kind of impotent to do anything on the National stage. Anytime they spoke, their voices were shrill at best. The people who stepped up to lead it, were so far out of step with the populous that their candidacy was laughable. I'll cover this in more detail in a different post.

But the Democrats weren't sitting there with their thumbs in their asses. I remember James Carville talking about Louisiana politics one day, when he said something along the lines of "You're safe, unless you're caught with a dead hooker or a live boy in your bed." While the Republicans were finding ways to completely alienate the entire country whether by doing a half ass job securing the border or not working to fix the mess the Republicans created in Iraq, someone was cultivating the Foley story, getting all of the evidence together and trying to find just the right place to drop this "live boy" scandal on the press.

What fascinates me is that the Republicans didn't try to get rid of him themselves, when the damage could have been controlled. Again, the pages knew Foley's reputation. Obviously, the Democrats did too. This didn't happen in a vacuum. Still the Reublicans are standing around shocked that this has happened and trying to say they didn't know.

???

I don't expect them to be all knowing, but damn, man. Pull your heads out of your asses! Did anyone figure out that he was a little TOO interested in the pages? If this is the attention to detail that they show to things AROUND them, does anyone feel safe with these people making decisions that affect national security?

But getting back to the truly disgusting part, this only came out because someone saw the opportunity to make political points. Not from some deep felt, "Dear God. I must do something to save the kids." sentiment. If the Democrats were in power and pretty much running away with it, would this have made the light of day? Be honest now. You know we wouldn't have known about it. It wouldn't have been expedient to divulge that info. And who's to say Foley is the only one? If the pages all got together and talked, there's a good chance that this scandal would grow huge in no time. 537 people are on Capitol Hill. You can't say only one of them looked at the pages and say "I want to hit that!" If there's one perv, there's probably 10-20 that keep it quiet. Maybe those men and women will bow out quietly and not get caught. Maybe we're just setting up for round two, in which case get your popcorn. This will be better than Lost! No idea how long this will go on but I've got to say one thing's true: At least this isn't a boring run up to a November election.