Debt Ceiling Talks: Reign Of Misinformation

My solace is in the fact that Americans are finally paying attention and making their feelings heard on the ongoing debt-ceiling debacle playing out in Washington DC.  Every available poll indicates that 80% of Americans favor the termination of the Bush tax cut for the rich.  President Barrack Obama alluded to this fact in his Friday’s press conference.  When political observers accuse Democrats of being horrible with messaging, you may not appreciate the gravity of this comment until you realize that of the 14.3 trillion dollar deficit, Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, Bush Senior down to George Bush junior incurred 10 trillion.  Then you begin to wonder why is the DNC not jumping on this with two legs?  Can you imagine just what the Republican Party will do with this revelation if the contrary is the case? 

In his last press conference earlier mentioned, Obama introduced Americans to the origin of the country’s indebtedness, which included the 2 wars, Medicare part 2, Bush tax cut for the rich, and oil subsidies. None of these colossal money devourers was paid for.  In his characteristics “let’s be friend” attitude, President Obama failed or refused to blame the Republican Party for the larger bulk of the debt thereby opening the door for Americans to pass a joint guilty verdict on both parties. A GOP President will never allow a blurry line as to the debt created by a Democratic Party President. But just remember that while George Bush was busy fertilizing  growing our debts, former VP Dick Cheney made his infamous comment, that deficit do not matter. We now know that deficit only matters when the Dems are in the White House because it rallies the GOP base while painting the Democratic Party as fiscal rascals.

Let me join Texas Congresswoman Sheila Lee Jackson who, on the floor of the House, lamented what many Americans have long known that the Republican intransigence and hatred for President Obama and his policies were race inspired. No President in the history of this great country has been subjected to such scrutiny, such resentment, such derision like Barrack Obama, independent of the fact that he just might be the most intellectually versatile of all those who have occupied the Oval Office.  For seven times under George Bush, the debt ceiling was increased to accommodate further borrowing, without the madness of today.  Not many Americans are aware that debt became an issue with the presidency of Ronald Reagan whose government supervised the first debt ceiling talk. Prior, the United State was fiscally solvent, with enough money to throw around.  President Obama has been in office for less than three years, but one would think he created the financial dilemma that has engulfed this country, if you listen to the Republicans. “What is different about this president that should put him in a position that he should not receive the same kind of respectful treatment of when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay our bills, something required by both statutes and the 14^th amendment,” Jackson said. “He is no different than any other president that has served, and I beg this House and I beg this Congress to treat him with the dignity that that office deserves,” she concluded. “Get on with our work. Get on with solving the problems of the American people – a diversely, multicultural nation.”  

The GOP and its Fox megaphone, as well as a litany of other conservative rabble-rousers have done a great job muddling the airwave much that many recipients of government largesse could swear to God they have received any benefits at all.  Little wonder then that FOX viewers are the ignoramus of our time. For the first time, some Americans are dumb and relishing it.  Renowned political scientist Suzanne Mettler recently in a survey found that over 44 percent of Social Security recipients say they "have not used a government social program." More than half of families receiving government-backed student loans said the same thing, as did 60 percent of those who get the mortgage interest deduction, 43 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries, and almost 30 percent of recipients of Social Security Disability.

Speaker Boehner on the Slammer

As default looms in the horizon, the macabre dance that is the deficit reduction talks has hit a crescendo with President Obama calling the bluff of the Republicans, while Speaker John Boehner and majority leader Eric Canter are at daggers drawn.  Quite recently, Speaker Boehner has indicated that, left to him alone, the nation would not be risking default to protect the wealthiest two percent of Americans. He was obviously alluding to the position of the tea-party caucus of his party personified in majority leader, Eric Canter who believes the interests of wealthy Americans must be protected at all cost, even if that means walking over the carcasses of the poor and the elderly.

When two weeks ago House majority leader and some members of his party abandoned the negotiating talks with the vice president, Senator Joe Biden, he made it clear that he would only negotiate with the president.  This grand standing made political observers sympathetic to the cause of the left nervous for good reason. President Obama has not been a great negotiator, and Eric Canter and the Republican Party would once again arm-twist him to cave in to their desire of solving the nation’s budget and deficit issues on the back of the middleclass, the poor, and the elderly.

If Speaker Boehner had gone to the talks with the President hoping to get him to capitulate, he was the one who left with his tail in-between his legs mesmerized.  President Obama had offered to make significant cuts to the federal government and the social safety nets: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in exchange for a tax hike on the wealthiest Americans totaling $100 billion every year spread over 10. Speaker Boehner and the Republican Party rejected this offer even when it is clear that under the President’s offer, cuts on government spending would have amounted to over $200 billion annually, much more than revenue from sealing of tax loopholes, and unnecessary subsidies in the system. Now all eyes are on President Obama to see whether his newfound negotiating prowess is a fluke or an inherent part of his characteristics he chooses to suppress until now.

ARE CONSERVATIVES CONNING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE...?

                I was once part of the production of a comical theater that sought to provide a comic relief to the question of poverty eradication in Nigeria.  It was at the height of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) imposed on Nigeria by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a way to address the issues of currency over-evaluation, hyperinflation, and other economic dysfunctions that besieged that country at the time.  The various policies as enunciated by the military junta (the IBB administration) had failed miserably to scratch the issues let alone solving them. Desperation became the norm, and Nigerians were looking for answers from everywhere but comedians.

                On this eventful day, prominent comedians, and others gifted with the skill to satirize burning national issues with impunity got together in a first-of-its-kind summit to brainstorm over the issue of poverty eradication and try to provide remedies.  Speakers after speakers drew elongated laughter and general hilarity. Chief Koko, known for his audacious and sometimes harsh approach to national discourse lived up to his notoriety.  In his contribution, Chief Koko opined that eradicating poverty in Nigeria and elsewhere would mean the extermination of individuals who fall within a defined poverty range.  To identify these people, Koko called on government to conduct an immediate headcount and respondents incentivized to disclose their true financial and social class.

                Quite unlike Chief Koko, the Republican Party in the United States is covertly inching toward the direction of systemic annihilation of the poor.  Under various dubious ruses, the GOP has mounted concerted attacks on government programs designed to cushion the fall of the poor.  They brand them socialism, and entitlement.  They stood resolutely against unemployment benefits, and universal health care.  The GOP has not disguised its plan to privatize the social security program, the Medicare, and Medicaid.  The gambit is to turn the two healthcare systems, which have worked wonderfully well for the elderly and disabled into some voucher scheme.  Should the GOP succeed, only the rich would have healthcare coverage, and the poor would slowly die off.  Former Congressman Allen Grayson of Florida called them out with his hilarious rant on the floor of the House.  “The GOP has no healthcare plan for the country, but to ask that you die quickly when you get sick.”  Perhaps that is why Mr. Grayson is no longer in the house today.  Working for the GOP, the corporations threw him out in a massively monetized election.

                Congressman Anthony Weiner obviously walked into the dragnet of GOP operatives whose attention he innocuously attracted with that heroic tantrum on the floor of the House, defying order and legislative decorum.  Weiner was incensed by the GOP’s mischaracterization of Obama care, and the reign of lies, and half-truths that over-shadowed the healthcare debate.   He described the Republican Party as a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporations, which to many Americans captures the true face and modus operandi of the GOP as a political entity.  In all intents and purposes, the GOP has done a lot to ensure the corporate take-over of the American system, while systematically pushing the middle-class and the poor to extinction.  For the first in decades, one political party is tying the debt ceiling extension to the deficit.  The Republican Party is insisting that the debt ceiling would not be extended without significant cuts to the funding of major social safety nets (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) that benefit the poor and elderly, but ignoring the need to raise taxes on the ultra-rich.  The party conveniently forgets that Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and the result was instant budget surpluses, which President George Bush squandered with his Republican legislature.

                Me thinks a pattern has emerged in the political process of our country.  The Republican is conspicuous as to its agenda, and we know the party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the rich and corporations. We know the GOP is committed to defunding education, and outsourcing our jobs to Asia and South America.  We know that these jobs are gone for good, but can only come back if we agree to the slave labor that was the attraction in the first place.  We also know that collective bargaining is under severe attacks in the red states, and if the Republican nefarious effort succeeds, workers would work for pittance in the United States.  We now know that the attack on education is a deliberate attempt to dis-empower and emasculate the society and make us mentally feeble and ill-informed to challenge the fascist government, we know the Republican Party and its corporate cronies are articulating for the country.

               

THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA (USA)

On September 11, 2001 America’s invincibility as super power was mercilessly deflated when a band of ragtag Muslim jihadists flew two powerful air planes into the twin towers of the famous World Trade Center in New York: America’s symbols of economic power, incinerating the magnificent structures with over 3000 occupants. It was a gory sight, as frightened workers at the Trade Center fell to their death, jumping from the 80^th floor or higher of the burning edifice. Americans soon forgot their political persuasions, and racial divide to rally round a grieving nation. The rallying cry then was to bring the perpetrators to justice. The manhunt for Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaida criminals began in earnest the moment the subterranean organization claimed responsibility for the attacks.  It was a gruesome and expensive campaign to bring Bin Laden to justice: two wars, growing debts and sluggish economy.

I am therefore, amazed at the hysteria coming from the conservative Republicans accusing the Obama administration of “killing an unarmed man.” Nothing could be more hypocritical. Why did the Bush administration take us to these wars, if all we wanted is to arraign the 911 attackers in court, and nothing more?  Right now, the Obama justice ministry cannot even prosecute KSM because the Republican Party argues and continues to insist that our judicial system cannot handle the security implication of trying the 911 criminal in an open court.  I concur with President Obama that whoever questions the killing of Bin Laden should have his head examined.  How else would an army go about the attack on OBL, knowing in all probability, he could be wearing a suicide vest if not to liquidate him before he does them in? You do not take chances with an individual who openly canvases dying a martyr, for he is already a dead man, and would stop at nothing to claim more innocent lives on his way to martyrdom. Personal notes and other materials confiscated from the Al-Qaida leader indicated that he was planning to attack our rail system with catastrophic consequences. My question therefore, is how many more Americans would this individual kill before we allow him to receive a dose of his own medicine. How many?

We all do seem to be under some degree of amnesia. We seem to have forgotten the bickering that rocked our polity when the Obama’s justice ministry decided it would try KSM in New York in an open court, and not a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay prison facility.  Conservative commentators could not contend themselves as they scampered for who could paint the most dire picture of the “dangerous” consequence of that decision.  Short of casting aspersion on the country’s ability to protect the people of New York, the impression was that Al-Qaida operatives would try to reenact the 911 attacks.  The same Republican Party who described trying KSM in an open court as naïve and insensitive, now wanted Bin Laden captured alive to face justice. The truth of the matter is that the killing of Bin Laden in the hands of a Democratic president, and not a Republican has severely diminished from that party’s refrain as the stronger on national security, and that sudden reversal of role has rubbed the party on the wrong side.

The hypocrisy and lies of conservatives have reached a new low, and the corporate media appear complacent, as they are not being called out. At the height of his presidential charade, Donald Trump bragged about his personal investigators related to the true birthplace of the President.. “You cannot believe what they have found.”  The media went after Trump, giving him the entire vehicle to spew his diatribe against the President day in day out as if the country’s financial and economic morass would disappear the day the President discloses his true birth place. If it is news worth for Trump to unleash a team of investigators to chase after the birth certificate of the President of the United States, it is incumbent on a responsible media to investigate the investigators to, at least let Americans have an idea of the caliber of people running for the highest office in the world.  Mike Huckabee knew the lies he told about the President would hurt his presidential bid, hence his decision not to run. Everybody knows Huckabee is letting himself open for 2016, counting on us to forget.

Newt Gingritch is the African proverbial antelope who danced itself lame before the real competition; the woodpecker who bragged about falling a mighty tree with his bare peak upon the death of his aged mother. His mom eventually died and a huge tumor on his peak scuttled his pride.     He is a buddle of hypocritical energy; an individual who speaks from both sides of his mouth and recant them just as quickly. Before the Trump tragedy, Newt was the fire-eater who made a career of senselessly antagonizing President Obama. Nothing he would not say about the President just to appease the ultra-right (the Tea Party) and curry their favor.  Newt accused Obama of harboring a Kenyan anti-colonial mentality, as if that was not what proudly propelled America’s war with the British. Today, no other country is more qualified to be part of the commonwealth nations than the United States. This is an example of a deep-rooted anti-colonial mentality.  The disgraced former speaker has just warned the Democratic Party against using his own words against him come 2012; his words about Congressman Ryan’s budget as being antithetical to the American dream.  Newt could afford to sound a senseless warning like this one because experience has taught him that in one year Americans would vouch on his behalf that he never uttered those words, and with a conniving media, whoever used those words becomes the villain.

BIN LADEN’S KILLING …END OF GOP’S FEAR MONGERING

For too long, the GOP has falsely positioned itself as tough in national security, high in patriotism, and lately, the real Americans. The Democratic Party on the other hand, grapples daily, with little success the stigma of weak in national security; not really committed to the “American values.” Unfortunately, this is independent of clear evidences to the contrary. For too long, the GOP has ran and won elections not on their vision for the country, but by merely raising the terror alert at the appropriate time, and heavily terrified Americans scurry for cover. Ironically, The GOP has done more to strategically endanger the national security of our country than the Democratic Party. For instance, the war against Saddam Hussein was a war of choice by the Bush Administration to deplete resources from the effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden. It is on record that President Bush declined request by Army commanders for additional marines to help seal off the exit route of Bin Laden at the height of military campaign to apprehend of annihilate the 9/11 culprit-in-chief. The Iraqi war could pass for an extension of the war on terror, but do not tell me it has anything to do with the hunt for the Al-Qaida leader.


In 2005, President Bush dissolved a special squad dedicated for the capture and or killing of Osama bin Laden by former President Bill Clinton in 1995. It was also on record that Bush at the twilight of his administration alluded to what we all have known a long time ago, that he never taken the hunt for Bin Laden any seriously. “The man is on the run, I do not know where the man is hiding. To be frank with you I do not lose sleep about him, I’m not worried about this man,” Bush said dismissively. The war against Saddam has not made us any safer, rather it has made us more vulnerable, impoverished, and ridiculed internationally. With Saddam under the influence of the United States, Iran was sufficiently weakened. Today, Iran is a regional “super power,” and a potential nuclear contender. Prior to the Iraqi invasion, the government under Saddam was a secular one. With the death of Saddam via hanging, America has thus, created a full-fledged Islamic country, the likes of Iran and Syria, thereby inadvertently watering the fountain of suicide bombing.

As a senator, Mr. Barrack Obama described the Iraqi war as senseless and dumb. As a presidential candidate, Obama vowed to end the Iraqi campaign, reinvigorate the Afghan war and refocus our efforts at hunting down OBL. Candidate Obama was ridiculed and dismissed as naïve, when in one of the presidential debates, he suggested that he would not hesitate to move into Pakistan to capture or kill OBL following any actionable intelligence. Most of the criticisms coming from the GOP make no sense at all. They make fun of the fact that he is professorial. They caricature the fact that he was humble enough to operate as a community organizer, living and working amongst the downtrodden of society, while his contemporaries chose the Wall Street. They reduced the President of the greatest country in the world to an undocumented alien who has to show some papers to qualify for employment. The GOP accused him of not following the security policies of former President George Bush in tracking down Bin Laden. With his death in the hands of President Obama and company, the GOP now claims George Bush’s policies made that possible. The truth of the matter is that there were no such policies from 2006.

You would think that a party that prides itself as security hawks would embrace the death of the individual who orchestrated the worst attack against America on American soil, and congratulate the President, the intelligence community and the military. That would not be. For the GOP, everything is politics. The assertions coming from the ranks of GOP members regarding the killing of OBL are troubling. Just as they are against anything the President is for, they appear to be sympathetic to Bin Laden, and against the President and the men and women of the military. They accused the military brass who pulled off this heroic fit of killing an unarmed man. It is a shame that any American irrespective of political persuasion could describe Bin Laden as “unarmed.” The conservatives who have consistently bashed Muslims and Islam are now sudden defenders of Islamic religion and jurisprudence, describing the burial at sea of OBL as against Islamic tenets. Because the President is disinclined to release the graphic photos of the killing citing security reasons, the GOP is clamoring for the photos not because they seriously doubt Bin Laden’s death, but for two reasons. (1) The photos if released now would upset Muslim sensibilities, with catastrophic effect on America and its interests, and (2) If released now, it would not have the same punch when used as election tool come November 2012.

It is mind boggling that for eight years, while President Bush told Americans that OBL might be hiding in a cave somewhere on the mountains along Pakistani/Afghan borders, OBL was comfortably wallowing in opulence in a million dollar mansion with wives and children. One would think that Bin Laden would be armed to the teeth in view of his notoriety as world’s most wanted terrorist. However, he was not, and the question for me is what was he thinking? He must have been under the impression that America has forgotten about him. Was the de-emphasis put on his hunt by the Bush administration, any indication of his seemingly relaxed, and comfortable living in a city close to an army installation? From reports, OBL moved into his mansion in 2006, just one year after George Bush dismounted the Bin Laden squad. Is there any connection? In killing Bin Laden, President Hussein Obama kept a campaign promise, and I just hope that his critics would look beyond his color, and only then, will they see and appreciate the gift he is for America. I must be frank with you and say just as quickly that the frantic attempt, which we are seeing now by the GOP, scratching for credit in the death of OBL is their last hope at ascribing a semblance of achievement to a completely failed administration. Bin Laden’s death has demystified the myth that the GOP is better in national security, and therefore, has totally annihilated the Party’s only political plank. With Bin Laden gone, the bogeyman is out of the picture, and there goes the fear of the unknown known.

THE CLOCK TICKS … as Detroit Marches against Tyranny

Detroit council member, JoAnn Watson has thrown her weight behind a number of events planned to protest what is being seen as the dictatorial tendency of the state governor, Rick Snyder.  Speaking with the Ethnic Examiner in a telephone chat, sources close to the indefatigable council woman said she was horrified at the Emergency Financial Manager Bills.

According to the bill, the state treasurer and the chief administrative officer of a local unit of government would be compelled to enter into an agreement that could give city manager, city superintendent, township manager, or county executive the authority to, amongst other things:

Ø  Rewrite entire contracts that were bargained in good faith

Ø  Put a local unit of government into receivership allowing a receiver to take over the entire government

Ø  Void all contracts

Ø  Abolish elected local units of government

Ø  A receivership would mean eliminating the rights of the people to collective bargaining for 5 years and allow a receiver to write local government’s budget for two years after a financial emergency is long over.

Ø  The receiver would have total control over everything the local government does and be accountable to only one appointed state official

Ø  And that the receiver would act with immunity from any civil liability and be afforded representation in any criminal prosecution by the Attorney General.

Council woman, JoAnn Watson described the bill as undemocratic, and capable of creating the first ever dictator in the country’s political history. She was of the view that the bill was in bad faith, calculated to subjugate the will of the people and therefore, subject them to the whims and caprices of an over-reaching and over-bearing state chief executive.  Mrs. Watson said that the danger with the bill is that appointees would serve at the pleasure of the governor and not taxpayers.  JoAnn Watson, known for her unremitting advocacy for the people of Detroit therefore, called on all Detroiters to join her and the organizers of the protest march AFSCME on April 13 2011, at the state capital Lansing between 12noon – 5pm. According to the council woman, history is always on the side of the people, “for when we fight, we win.”

AFRICANS LOV 'EM FAT

This may sound bizarre, but it is true that African men do love fat women. This may have a legacy implication. In Africa, being fat has only one nuance: wealth. And parents pass this indulgence down the generations. A culture in Cross River State of Nigeria, West Africa, demands that a young bride be kept in a native fattening facility to be fattened prior to her wedding day. It is easy to understand, because African marriages are pure carnivals, featuring colorful costumes decked with fanciful beads and ornaments. It is believed that the beads and ornaments are better appreciated if they grace the waist of a dancing bride with protruding love-handles.
This weird obsession with wife fatness is perhaps the reason for the longevity of African marriages. Africans consummate marriages with the consents of both parents. Young people do not marry “the love of their lives”; rather they settle for the choices of their parents which take months, and months of background scrutiny. Upon marriage, it becomes incumbent on the husband to ensure that his wife gets bigger, and bigger. This allows him to visit his in-laws as a hero. A slender or little wife draws anger and resentment to her husband who is seen as not caring, and miserly.
Somehow, this preference for big women by African men has made the rounds in Detroit, and big women (and they are many) are cashing in. There are two hot spots Africans frequent in Detroit: The Archers, and the Tropical Hut night clubs and these two clubs attract the biggest of women than any other night hangouts in Detroit. Back home in Africa, stories about these two night clubs and their unique female clientele are told with relish on the streets of Lagos, Dakar, Abidjan, Accra and so on, and young men are left salivating, in utter amazement. It is easy to understand therefore, that when some of these men found themselves in the United States, either through Diversity lottery, visitor or student visas they gravitate to Detroit for obvious reasons.