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Friday, February 5, 2010
Bail out Could Cost Taxpayers Thirty Times more than Reported
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
In 2008 and 2009, 50 separate Federal programs offered $23 trillion in loans, grants, or asset guarantees to the financial sector. Huh! This item was buried in paragraph 11 of 12 paragraphs in a joint statement that California Senator Barbara Boxer and Virginia Senator Jim Webb issued demanding taxing TARP monies executives used to compensate themselves. That’s more than 30 times more than the official $700 billion that Congress authorized to bail out the big banks and failed Wall Street financial houses. The $700 billion figure tossed out quickly became etched in financial stone. Then President Bush, President Obama, Congress, and the Wall Street and banking industry and every financial pundit cited the $700 billion payout as the maximum that taxpayers would be stuck with. Now almost as an afterthought, Webb and Boxer casually toss out the $23 trillion number.
Boxer and Webb made mention of it in a press statement to bolster their call for passage of the Taxpayer Fairness Act. This would levy a one time 50 percent surtax on bonuses on amounts over $400,000 in compensation and bonuses that the big banks and firms ladled out to their executives. Don’t hold your breath on this one, though. Boxer, Webb and the Senate was unwilling to impose this tax on the obscene bonuses that the big bank execs paid each other as a condition of getting the TARP money. The only thing that’s changed since then is that public fury at the non-stop record bonuses they pay each other has risen to fever pitch. And even if there was a congressional epiphany and payment required, the big banks that got the taxpayer cash will argue as they have every time a squawk is made about their obscene money that they’ve paid the money back.
Boxer and Webb’s move smacks of yet another empty gesture by two Senators feeling election heat to tap into popular rage at the bankers by appearing to be anti-Wall Street crusaders.
The outrage, though, should be over whether Boxer, Webb, the White House and Congress have come clean over how much the banks and financial houses dinged taxpayers for. One, two, or three federal agencies involved in the fed giveaway is one thing but fifty different agencies is another. The agencies that may have shoved more money to the banks and houses were known as early as April, 2009. In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Tarp’s Inspector General listed the agencies and the projected dollar amounts.
Federal Reserve 6.8 trillion
Treasury –Non-Tarp 4.4 trillion
National Credit Union, Veterans Affairs, the Government National Mortgage Assn, the Federal Housing Administration, Federal Housing Finance Agency
7.2 trillion
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) 2.3 Trillion
US Treasury 7.4 trillion
Several house reps screamed loud then that the treasury was mute silent or had stonewalled every effort made to find out exactly how much of the cash that the treasury actually doled out to the banks and financial houses. Nearly a year later they still really don’t know. The issue from the beginning has been transparency or the absence of it by the treasury. Congress has failed to force the federal agencies to tell what they have spent, and how they spent it. At the time of his congressional testimony last April, the Tarp inspector general had 35 criminal and civil investigations of banks and financial houses for accounting fraud, securities fraud, insider trading, mortgage service misconduct, mortgage fraud and public corruption false statement and tax investigations going. This wasn’t enough to trigger bells and whistles that treasury had grossly low balled the figures on the bailout.
Boxer and Webb had ample opportunity to demand and fight that the treasury and other federal agencies fully open their books on the amounts that were being spent. The White House and Congress have repeatedly publicly assured that bail out money ladled out came in way under the official $700 billion that Congress authorized, and that much of the money has been repaid. That still doesn’t tell what other help the big banks and financial houses got in the form of loans, grants, insurance or asset guarantees, and what federal agencies were involved. Boxer and Webb haven’t told us that either.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Thursday, February 4, 2010
NAACP GIVES Harry Reid Score of A - Blacks Not Happy
According to The Washington Post even after the racial firestorm last month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scored an A on the latest report card from the NAACP.
AAPP says: The National office of the NAACP should do more to address the real crisis impacting black America, rather than providing report cards in support of color aroused Senators who's votes mean nothing if black folks are stilling losing their homes, unemployed at rates of 35-50% for some segments, and have the highest cancer, AIDS, Breast Cancer, and infant mortality rates.
According to the Washington Post, the Nevada Democrat may have gotten in trouble for his pre-election comments describing President Obama as "light-skinned" with no "Negro accent," but his voting record was something the 100-year-old civil rights group cheered in its report card of the first session of the 111th Congress released Thursday.
The association ranked each member of Congress on support of NAACP's policy positions based on 21 key votes cast last year in the Senate and 25 votes in the House. Fifty-nine percent of senators and 47 percent of House members received an A, and 29 percent of senators and 34 percent of House members received an F.
On the whole, Democrats were far more likely to get high marks than Republicans. The exception were centrist Blue Dog Democrats, many of whom received Cs and Ds.
AAPP says: I would like to know what Harry Reid has done to address the root causes of black men’s difficulties in the labor market, including high rates of incarceration, limited education, and discrimination. What has Harry Reid done to ensure that all communities have fair access to jobs? What has Harry Reid actually done to reduce inequities and promote equal opportunity in the labor market and promote access to meaningful employment opportunities for black men and women?
That's What I would like to know NAACP? The fact of the matter Harry Reid is no, LBJ. Harry Reid is no Edward M. Kennedy!
Read more on how the youthful NAACP President Benjamin Jealous is turning into just another NAACP look alike of Julian Bond and other old school NAACP president's who think the best strategy for the NAACP is to continue to act like 2010 Steppin Fetchit's.
I can see why black folks are responding to the washington Post article in this way:
AAPP: Surprise, Surprise! "The NAACP is still smiling and saying "Yes Um Boss," to the soon to be "all white Senate" who are full of southern and northern bigots, who have done little of nothing over the past 40 years to address poverty in America, or any real issues impacting the black communities across America." The Fact of the matter is the subprime mortgage crisis will cause African-Americans to experience wealth losses of between $72 billion and $93 billion over its duration. For people of color in general, the racial bias of subprime mortgage lenders accounts for nearly double the wealth losses for people of color as for whites. This all happened while Harry Reid was in office. I guess the NAACP does not understand that Black America is getting foreclosed on, and are losing between $72-93 Billion dollars, while they are giving out A's out like there is no tomorrow.
Recession
AAPP says: The National office of the NAACP should do more to address the real crisis impacting black America, rather than providing report cards in support of color aroused Senators who's votes mean nothing if black folks are stilling losing their homes, unemployed at rates of 35-50% for some segments, and have the highest cancer, AIDS, Breast Cancer, and infant mortality rates.
According to the Washington Post, the Nevada Democrat may have gotten in trouble for his pre-election comments describing President Obama as "light-skinned" with no "Negro accent," but his voting record was something the 100-year-old civil rights group cheered in its report card of the first session of the 111th Congress released Thursday.
The association ranked each member of Congress on support of NAACP's policy positions based on 21 key votes cast last year in the Senate and 25 votes in the House. Fifty-nine percent of senators and 47 percent of House members received an A, and 29 percent of senators and 34 percent of House members received an F.
On the whole, Democrats were far more likely to get high marks than Republicans. The exception were centrist Blue Dog Democrats, many of whom received Cs and Ds.
AAPP says: I would like to know what Harry Reid has done to address the root causes of black men’s difficulties in the labor market, including high rates of incarceration, limited education, and discrimination. What has Harry Reid done to ensure that all communities have fair access to jobs? What has Harry Reid actually done to reduce inequities and promote equal opportunity in the labor market and promote access to meaningful employment opportunities for black men and women?
That's What I would like to know NAACP? The fact of the matter Harry Reid is no, LBJ. Harry Reid is no Edward M. Kennedy!
Read more on how the youthful NAACP President Benjamin Jealous is turning into just another NAACP look alike of Julian Bond and other old school NAACP president's who think the best strategy for the NAACP is to continue to act like 2010 Steppin Fetchit's.
I can see why black folks are responding to the washington Post article in this way:
RVZ555 wrote:
Please don't condemn me for my comment. I didn't said anything that any leading liberals haven't said in the last 2 weeks. Hilary Shelton is also very clean and articulate.
2/5/2010 12:56:51 AM
Concerned3 wrote:
Who made NAACP the gate keeper of Black interests--Negro interest maybe. The only Black senator Roland Burris is totally shunned by Reid and is not running for re-election.
2/5/2010 12:54:32 AM
djwinfield wrote:
rvz555 you speak with an idiot dialect and sorry for you that you are white!!!!
2/5/2010 12:49:50 AM
djwinfield wrote:
Ward4DC we all know what the name is-- what you forgot is that your crazy ancestors call us everything else but our names and the NAACP was founded using that name and it does not bother us so why are you making fun of it you stupid idiot???
2/5/2010 12:46:41 AM
RVZ555 wrote:
I really like Hilary Shelton. She doesn't speak with a negro dialect. In fact, when she talks I forget she is black.
2/4/2010 11:59:01 PM
Ward4DC wrote:
NAACP is a useless Negro organizaton and their membership is down. Most blacks have little interest in the colored organization.
2/4/2010 11:28:51 PM
bandmom22 wrote:
Thank goodness Reid's a democrat otherwise the NAACP would have had to give him an F.
2/4/2010 11:28:12 PM
GladToBeInVA1 wrote:
The fix was in.
2/4/2010 11:01:15 PM
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Matthews May Have Almost Forgot Obama Was Black But Many Others Haven’t
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Chris Matthews got a mini-version of the Harry Reid treatment for his honest slip that he almost forgot Obama was black when he watched him during the State of the Union Speech. Matthew’s operative word is not black but “almost.” But it really wouldn’t have made much difference if Matthews had dropped the almost. The meaning, or at least the thought behind it, would still have been the same. Matthews just couldn’t stop thinking about race when Obama spoke.
Can’t be too hard on him, though, for his foot-in-the mouth blurt. Matthews, as Reid, simply muttered an uncomfortable but tormenting reality for Obama; and that’s that Obama’s presidency, eloquence, political acumen, and still sky high personal likeability has not buried thoughts about Obama and race in the skulls of many.
The racial pillorying of the president has been ruthless and relentless. There are countless active anti-Obama websites filled with demeaning racist cartoons, depictions, characterizations and racially poisonous verbal bashes and attacks. The sites have received millions of hits and posts—almost all unflattering.
The digs have worked. Polls show that a majority of Republicans and a significant percent of other respondents still think there's something to the charge that Obama is an illegal alien. On the eve of Obama’s State of the Union Address, and fully one year after his election, a California Field Poll found that, fully one-third of Californians nation's most populous state are not satisfied that Obama was U.S.-born. More than ten percent have convinced themselves that he's a Constitution-violating foreigner and nearly one-quarter aren’t sure.
The silly talk about a post-racial America after Obama’s presidential win was not merely exercises in self-delusion, honest wish and hope, or deliberately disinformed media chatter. Race, Obama or no, is and continues to be America's oldest, deepest and touchiest issue. Politicians know it. And they can subtly work the race card to inflame passions, deepen divisions, and bag votes. Or they can ignore it and hope that it goes away, at least until the votes are counted. With presidential candidates, and as we’ve seen with Obama in the White House, race has been a taboo subject for presidents and their challengers on the campaign trail for the past two decades. No president or presidential challenger, especially a Democrat, can risk being tarred as pandering to minorities for the mere mention of racial problems.
The double standard on race is troublesome to Obama. He backpedalled fast from his first, and impulsive, quip that the white Cambridge officer who man handled and cuffed Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was out of line. The reaction to Obama’s Gate’s defense was savage and the backlash momentarily sent his poll numbers down. When the Congressional Black Caucus saber rattled Obama in December with the threat of voting against one of his financial reform measures if he didn’t do more to help black businesses and the black unemployed, Obama was unfazed. He told an interviewer that he would not do anything special to help blacks. He had too. He has one eye always nervously fixed on public opinion. The Gates flap reminded him again in no uncertain terms that race is a deadly minefield that can blow up at any time and the explosion can fatally harm him, his image, and his presidency.
But polls, white voter wariness over race and Obama's nervous eye on them can't magically make racial issues disappear. In each of its annual State of Black America reports the past decade the National Urban League found rampant discrimination and gaping economic disparities between Latinos and whites in every area of American life. In the past decade, the income, and education performance gaps between blacks and Latinos and whites have only marginally closed, or actually widened. Discrimination remains the major cause of the disparities.
Shunting race to the back burner of presidential campaigns invariably means that presidents shunt them to the backburner of their legislative agenda. Yet, presidents have not been able to tap dance around racial problems. Reagan's administration was embroiled in affirmative action battles. Bush Sr.'s administration was tormented by urban riots following the beating of black motorist Rodney King. Clinton's administration was saddled with conflicts over affirmative action, police violence and racial profiling. W. Bush's administration was confronted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, voting rights, reparations, and affirmative action battles, gang violence, and failing inner city public schools.
The pile of racial or race leaden problems that always lurk just under the surface haven’t and won’t go kapoof and vanish. Matthews’s “almost forgot” crack about Obama’s blackness was just one more reminder from a windy, and obnoxious, talking head of that.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Chris Matthews got a mini-version of the Harry Reid treatment for his honest slip that he almost forgot Obama was black when he watched him during the State of the Union Speech. Matthew’s operative word is not black but “almost.” But it really wouldn’t have made much difference if Matthews had dropped the almost. The meaning, or at least the thought behind it, would still have been the same. Matthews just couldn’t stop thinking about race when Obama spoke.
Can’t be too hard on him, though, for his foot-in-the mouth blurt. Matthews, as Reid, simply muttered an uncomfortable but tormenting reality for Obama; and that’s that Obama’s presidency, eloquence, political acumen, and still sky high personal likeability has not buried thoughts about Obama and race in the skulls of many.
The racial pillorying of the president has been ruthless and relentless. There are countless active anti-Obama websites filled with demeaning racist cartoons, depictions, characterizations and racially poisonous verbal bashes and attacks. The sites have received millions of hits and posts—almost all unflattering.
The digs have worked. Polls show that a majority of Republicans and a significant percent of other respondents still think there's something to the charge that Obama is an illegal alien. On the eve of Obama’s State of the Union Address, and fully one year after his election, a California Field Poll found that, fully one-third of Californians nation's most populous state are not satisfied that Obama was U.S.-born. More than ten percent have convinced themselves that he's a Constitution-violating foreigner and nearly one-quarter aren’t sure.
The silly talk about a post-racial America after Obama’s presidential win was not merely exercises in self-delusion, honest wish and hope, or deliberately disinformed media chatter. Race, Obama or no, is and continues to be America's oldest, deepest and touchiest issue. Politicians know it. And they can subtly work the race card to inflame passions, deepen divisions, and bag votes. Or they can ignore it and hope that it goes away, at least until the votes are counted. With presidential candidates, and as we’ve seen with Obama in the White House, race has been a taboo subject for presidents and their challengers on the campaign trail for the past two decades. No president or presidential challenger, especially a Democrat, can risk being tarred as pandering to minorities for the mere mention of racial problems.
The double standard on race is troublesome to Obama. He backpedalled fast from his first, and impulsive, quip that the white Cambridge officer who man handled and cuffed Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was out of line. The reaction to Obama’s Gate’s defense was savage and the backlash momentarily sent his poll numbers down. When the Congressional Black Caucus saber rattled Obama in December with the threat of voting against one of his financial reform measures if he didn’t do more to help black businesses and the black unemployed, Obama was unfazed. He told an interviewer that he would not do anything special to help blacks. He had too. He has one eye always nervously fixed on public opinion. The Gates flap reminded him again in no uncertain terms that race is a deadly minefield that can blow up at any time and the explosion can fatally harm him, his image, and his presidency.
But polls, white voter wariness over race and Obama's nervous eye on them can't magically make racial issues disappear. In each of its annual State of Black America reports the past decade the National Urban League found rampant discrimination and gaping economic disparities between Latinos and whites in every area of American life. In the past decade, the income, and education performance gaps between blacks and Latinos and whites have only marginally closed, or actually widened. Discrimination remains the major cause of the disparities.
Shunting race to the back burner of presidential campaigns invariably means that presidents shunt them to the backburner of their legislative agenda. Yet, presidents have not been able to tap dance around racial problems. Reagan's administration was embroiled in affirmative action battles. Bush Sr.'s administration was tormented by urban riots following the beating of black motorist Rodney King. Clinton's administration was saddled with conflicts over affirmative action, police violence and racial profiling. W. Bush's administration was confronted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, voting rights, reparations, and affirmative action battles, gang violence, and failing inner city public schools.
The pile of racial or race leaden problems that always lurk just under the surface haven’t and won’t go kapoof and vanish. Matthews’s “almost forgot” crack about Obama’s blackness was just one more reminder from a windy, and obnoxious, talking head of that.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
An Open Letter to David Brooks on Haiti
An Open Letter to David Brooks on Haiti
Dear Mr. Brooks,
In your January 15, 2010 opinion piece in The New York Times, “The Underlying Tragedy,” you present what you seem to believe is a bold assessment of the situation in Haiti and what you certainly know is a provocative recommendation for Haiti’s future. You also offer some advice to President Obama. In order to successfully keep his promise to the people of Haiti that they “will not be forsaken” nor “forgotten” the President, you say, has to “acknowledge a few difficult truths.” What follows, however, is so shockingly ignorant of Haitian history and culture and so saturated with the language and ideology of cultural imperialism that no valuable “truths” remain. Please allow us, therefore, to present you with some more accurate truths.
First, Haiti is not a clear-cut case of the failure of international aid to achieve poverty reduction. For almost its entire existence Haiti has been shouldered with a load of immense international debt. The Haitian people had the audacity to break their chains and declare independence in 1804 but were later forced by France to re-purchase their freedom for 150 million Francs, a burden that the country has had to carry throughout the twentieth century.
What’s more, the “aid” Haiti has received from its powerful neighbor to the North has never been the sort that would help the country reduce poverty or achieve meaningful development. In the early-twentieth century the principle “aid” Haiti received from the United States came in the form of a brutal military occupation that lasted from 1915 to 1934. After “Papa Doc” Duvalier ascended to power “aid” meant assistance to a ruthless (but conveniently anti-communist) dictator. The U.S. gave Duvalier $40.4 million in his first four years in power, briefly suspended military and economic assistance to the dictator in 1963, but resumed shortly thereafter, restoring full military and economic aid to Duvalier by 1969. In the early 1970s and 1980s when “Baby Doc” Duvalier was at the helm, the “aid” the United States and other international agencies contributed failed to reduce poverty but did enrich foreign investors in the newly constructed assembly industry. Economic policies that the U.S. forced upon Haiti decimated its agriculture for the benefit of American farming while driving Haiti’s peasants into Port-au-Prince and other cities where they found few jobs and scarce housing. Four years after Baby Doc’s departure the Haitian people decided to help themselves by democratically electing a new leader, but the United States aided Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s domestic opponents in the coup of 1991 and did so again in 2004. It is no wonder then that that such “aid” from the United States has failed to lift Haiti out of poverty.
Equally unconvincing is your argument about “progress-resistant cultural influences,” which brings us to important truth number two: Haitian culture is not “progress-resistant” as anyone familiar with the examples you yourself provide can attest to. If Vodou or “the voodoo religion” as you put it, “spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile,” how do the majority of Haitians manage to survive on scant resources and less than two dollars-a-day? How do so many Haitians manage to travel abroad, find and maintain difficult jobs, and send money back home if not through careful planning and a fierce defense of precious life? How do the nationwide customers of Fonkoze, the Haitian banking operation that teaches literacy and business practices to curbside marketers to whom it makes small loans, achieve such strong records of loan repayment? In fact, it might be Haitian culture itself (and even Vodou) which allows Haitians to persist. After all, the Vodou spirit Ogou (St. Jacques) is honored as a clever planner and master of skills. So was the champion of Haiti’s war of independence, General Toussaint L’Ouverture, a onetime slave who entered history as a military and diplomatic genius.
The third important truth we have to offer (and we hope President Obama is listening as well) is the opposite of your call for “intrusive paternalism” as the solution to Haiti’s woes: Haiti does not need nor does it want the paternalism of the United States. Haiti is literally dying of cultural imperialism.
Whenever America’s leaders and pundits speak of subordinate peoples, the ideology of imperialism shines through. As it does in your words, Mr. Brooks, so it has done for far too many earlier Americans. President William McKinley, for example, facing the difficult question of how he was to govern the newly-conquered Filipinos worried that left “to themselves they are unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule . . . [So] there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.”
Closer to home, those who worried about an earlier form of “progress-resistant cultural influences” decided it was better to remove the children of Native American families than to let them absorb the backwardness of their pagan and uncivilized parents and community. A common refrain by these “reformers” was “kill the Indian, save the man.” And now, Mr. Brooks, you propose to save the Haitians from themselves by replacing Haitian cultural values and institutions with “middle-class assumptions, an achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.” Imperialism, whether economic or military, is the primary reason for the conditions that so worsened the impact of the earthquake on January 12. Haitians need less imperialism, not more.
During the Vietnam War an American officer famously stated that “it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.” Today Haiti is virtually destroyed. The earthquake having done the hard part, Mr. Brooks, you think “intrusive paternalism” will save it. Lacking a foundational understanding of Haitian history and culture, and bearing the familiar colors of American imperialism you and your ilk will do vastly more harm than good.
Tom F. Driver
Paul Tillich Professor Emeritus of Theology and Culture
Union Theological Seminary
Carl Lindskoog
Doctoral Candidate, Dept. of History
The Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York
To see the list of signatories please click here, http://bit.ly/6H39HA
Dear Mr. Brooks,
In your January 15, 2010 opinion piece in The New York Times, “The Underlying Tragedy,” you present what you seem to believe is a bold assessment of the situation in Haiti and what you certainly know is a provocative recommendation for Haiti’s future. You also offer some advice to President Obama. In order to successfully keep his promise to the people of Haiti that they “will not be forsaken” nor “forgotten” the President, you say, has to “acknowledge a few difficult truths.” What follows, however, is so shockingly ignorant of Haitian history and culture and so saturated with the language and ideology of cultural imperialism that no valuable “truths” remain. Please allow us, therefore, to present you with some more accurate truths.
First, Haiti is not a clear-cut case of the failure of international aid to achieve poverty reduction. For almost its entire existence Haiti has been shouldered with a load of immense international debt. The Haitian people had the audacity to break their chains and declare independence in 1804 but were later forced by France to re-purchase their freedom for 150 million Francs, a burden that the country has had to carry throughout the twentieth century.
What’s more, the “aid” Haiti has received from its powerful neighbor to the North has never been the sort that would help the country reduce poverty or achieve meaningful development. In the early-twentieth century the principle “aid” Haiti received from the United States came in the form of a brutal military occupation that lasted from 1915 to 1934. After “Papa Doc” Duvalier ascended to power “aid” meant assistance to a ruthless (but conveniently anti-communist) dictator. The U.S. gave Duvalier $40.4 million in his first four years in power, briefly suspended military and economic assistance to the dictator in 1963, but resumed shortly thereafter, restoring full military and economic aid to Duvalier by 1969. In the early 1970s and 1980s when “Baby Doc” Duvalier was at the helm, the “aid” the United States and other international agencies contributed failed to reduce poverty but did enrich foreign investors in the newly constructed assembly industry. Economic policies that the U.S. forced upon Haiti decimated its agriculture for the benefit of American farming while driving Haiti’s peasants into Port-au-Prince and other cities where they found few jobs and scarce housing. Four years after Baby Doc’s departure the Haitian people decided to help themselves by democratically electing a new leader, but the United States aided Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s domestic opponents in the coup of 1991 and did so again in 2004. It is no wonder then that that such “aid” from the United States has failed to lift Haiti out of poverty.
Equally unconvincing is your argument about “progress-resistant cultural influences,” which brings us to important truth number two: Haitian culture is not “progress-resistant” as anyone familiar with the examples you yourself provide can attest to. If Vodou or “the voodoo religion” as you put it, “spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile,” how do the majority of Haitians manage to survive on scant resources and less than two dollars-a-day? How do so many Haitians manage to travel abroad, find and maintain difficult jobs, and send money back home if not through careful planning and a fierce defense of precious life? How do the nationwide customers of Fonkoze, the Haitian banking operation that teaches literacy and business practices to curbside marketers to whom it makes small loans, achieve such strong records of loan repayment? In fact, it might be Haitian culture itself (and even Vodou) which allows Haitians to persist. After all, the Vodou spirit Ogou (St. Jacques) is honored as a clever planner and master of skills. So was the champion of Haiti’s war of independence, General Toussaint L’Ouverture, a onetime slave who entered history as a military and diplomatic genius.
The third important truth we have to offer (and we hope President Obama is listening as well) is the opposite of your call for “intrusive paternalism” as the solution to Haiti’s woes: Haiti does not need nor does it want the paternalism of the United States. Haiti is literally dying of cultural imperialism.
Whenever America’s leaders and pundits speak of subordinate peoples, the ideology of imperialism shines through. As it does in your words, Mr. Brooks, so it has done for far too many earlier Americans. President William McKinley, for example, facing the difficult question of how he was to govern the newly-conquered Filipinos worried that left “to themselves they are unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule . . . [So] there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.”
Closer to home, those who worried about an earlier form of “progress-resistant cultural influences” decided it was better to remove the children of Native American families than to let them absorb the backwardness of their pagan and uncivilized parents and community. A common refrain by these “reformers” was “kill the Indian, save the man.” And now, Mr. Brooks, you propose to save the Haitians from themselves by replacing Haitian cultural values and institutions with “middle-class assumptions, an achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.” Imperialism, whether economic or military, is the primary reason for the conditions that so worsened the impact of the earthquake on January 12. Haitians need less imperialism, not more.
During the Vietnam War an American officer famously stated that “it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.” Today Haiti is virtually destroyed. The earthquake having done the hard part, Mr. Brooks, you think “intrusive paternalism” will save it. Lacking a foundational understanding of Haitian history and culture, and bearing the familiar colors of American imperialism you and your ilk will do vastly more harm than good.
Tom F. Driver
Paul Tillich Professor Emeritus of Theology and Culture
Union Theological Seminary
Carl Lindskoog
Doctoral Candidate, Dept. of History
The Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York
To see the list of signatories please click here, http://bit.ly/6H39HA
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Where Was the World When Haiti Really Needed It?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The heartbreaking and pathetic scene I and a group of other American visitors witnessed at the small beach town in Northern Haiti still haunt me. We had no sooner arrived at the beach when a contingent of Haitian police and local officials frantically waved away a throng of the town’s residents who had poured onto to the beach to hawk food, trinkets, and carvings, and tattered clothing items, but mostly to beg. Their torn tee shirts and ragged shorts, and emaciated, hollow eyed looks bespoke of more than Haiti’s legendary, world leading poverty. It spoke of the sheer, utter desperation to get anything from those they regarded as rich foreign tourists.
The tormenting scene that I and thousands of other visitors to Haiti have routinely witnessed routinely during the past decade has become the national emblem of Haiti. Yet, it took a murderous earthquake, clips of bodies sprawled in the streets, a collapsed palace and shanties, torn streets, and the shocked expressions on children’s faces for the US and legions of public agencies and private donors to leap over themselves to promise to send an armada of food, medical supplies, clothing, building materials, construction teams, security forces and cash to Haiti.
Why did it take a natural tragedy for this? Haiti’s sorry history of American occupation, brutal dictatorial and military rule, the flood of refugees trying to escape the nation’s destitution, the perennial food crisis’s, the wave of devastating hurricanes that tore through the country in one month in 2008, the US, Canada and France’s meddling in the nation’s internal politics , and the grinding poverty is well known.
Haiti’s corrupt, repressive military rulers and government officials get standard blame for the country’s chronic poverty and bankruptcy. There’s much truth to that. But Haiti is also a relentless victim of crushing and never ending debt servitude to the IMF and foreign banks, vicious labor exploitation, and the blind eye US aid policies that stunt Haiti’s farm and manufacturing growth.
The nation’s debt burden would sink virtually any developing nation. Haiti is compelled to shell out nearly $1 million a week to pay off its debt to the World Bank and the IMF; debt incurred by the Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier regimes and their successor military governments in the early 1990s propped up by the US. Half of the loans were given to the Duvaliers and the other dictatorships. They squandered the cash on presidential luxuries with barely a cent going to development programs for the poor.
In 2008, World Bank President Robert Zoellick in reaction to massive outcry from government officials and Haitian activist groups publicly pledged to forgive part of the nation’s the debt totaling a half billion dollars. The Bank reneged on the promise. The money could have bankrolled a vast expansion of healthcare, nutrition and feeding programs, supplies of clean water, and rebuilding the country’s badly frayed infrastructure.
The United Nations has hardly been a benevolent force to aid the country’s development and Democratic rule. The UN yearly shells out $600 million to maintain its 8000 peace keepers.
Yet when the hurricanes ravaged the country the UN force did not dispatch amphibious units, build temporary bridges, or provide trucks or equipment to provide emergency help to Haitians in distress.
US AID has come under intense fire for turning a blind eye to corporations and contractors who ignore basic Haitian labor, human rights, minimum wage and environmental laws, shun service providers, and invest only a relative pittance of profit back into Haitian small businesses, manufacturing, and food production. This is a particular sore point given Haiti’s near total reliance on foreign food imports has resulted in famine, near starvation, and food riots.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report that with proper investment in food production the country is more than capable of feeding its 8.5 million population.
In 2008, a coalition of US and Haitian human rights groups flatly accused the US of aiding and abetting corruption in the country. It demanded that then President Bush and Congress determine which US corporations and Haitian officials pocketed and benefited from the more than $4 billion USAID and their sub-contractors spent from 1994 to 1998. They demanded to know who profited and enriched themselves from the over $8 billion dollars spent following the US engineered overthrown of democratically elected President Jean Aristide. The groups charged that the systematic looting of the country’s treasury did not end with his ouster. Their demands fell on deaf ears.
A colossal earthquake brought the world to Haiti’s doorstep. The questions though are why did it take that? And what will it take for the world to stick around after the rubble is cleared and help transform Haiti into the democratic, self-supporting nation it can be?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
The heartbreaking and pathetic scene I and a group of other American visitors witnessed at the small beach town in Northern Haiti still haunt me. We had no sooner arrived at the beach when a contingent of Haitian police and local officials frantically waved away a throng of the town’s residents who had poured onto to the beach to hawk food, trinkets, and carvings, and tattered clothing items, but mostly to beg. Their torn tee shirts and ragged shorts, and emaciated, hollow eyed looks bespoke of more than Haiti’s legendary, world leading poverty. It spoke of the sheer, utter desperation to get anything from those they regarded as rich foreign tourists.
The tormenting scene that I and thousands of other visitors to Haiti have routinely witnessed routinely during the past decade has become the national emblem of Haiti. Yet, it took a murderous earthquake, clips of bodies sprawled in the streets, a collapsed palace and shanties, torn streets, and the shocked expressions on children’s faces for the US and legions of public agencies and private donors to leap over themselves to promise to send an armada of food, medical supplies, clothing, building materials, construction teams, security forces and cash to Haiti.
Why did it take a natural tragedy for this? Haiti’s sorry history of American occupation, brutal dictatorial and military rule, the flood of refugees trying to escape the nation’s destitution, the perennial food crisis’s, the wave of devastating hurricanes that tore through the country in one month in 2008, the US, Canada and France’s meddling in the nation’s internal politics , and the grinding poverty is well known.
Haiti’s corrupt, repressive military rulers and government officials get standard blame for the country’s chronic poverty and bankruptcy. There’s much truth to that. But Haiti is also a relentless victim of crushing and never ending debt servitude to the IMF and foreign banks, vicious labor exploitation, and the blind eye US aid policies that stunt Haiti’s farm and manufacturing growth.
The nation’s debt burden would sink virtually any developing nation. Haiti is compelled to shell out nearly $1 million a week to pay off its debt to the World Bank and the IMF; debt incurred by the Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier regimes and their successor military governments in the early 1990s propped up by the US. Half of the loans were given to the Duvaliers and the other dictatorships. They squandered the cash on presidential luxuries with barely a cent going to development programs for the poor.
In 2008, World Bank President Robert Zoellick in reaction to massive outcry from government officials and Haitian activist groups publicly pledged to forgive part of the nation’s the debt totaling a half billion dollars. The Bank reneged on the promise. The money could have bankrolled a vast expansion of healthcare, nutrition and feeding programs, supplies of clean water, and rebuilding the country’s badly frayed infrastructure.
The United Nations has hardly been a benevolent force to aid the country’s development and Democratic rule. The UN yearly shells out $600 million to maintain its 8000 peace keepers.
Yet when the hurricanes ravaged the country the UN force did not dispatch amphibious units, build temporary bridges, or provide trucks or equipment to provide emergency help to Haitians in distress.
US AID has come under intense fire for turning a blind eye to corporations and contractors who ignore basic Haitian labor, human rights, minimum wage and environmental laws, shun service providers, and invest only a relative pittance of profit back into Haitian small businesses, manufacturing, and food production. This is a particular sore point given Haiti’s near total reliance on foreign food imports has resulted in famine, near starvation, and food riots.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report that with proper investment in food production the country is more than capable of feeding its 8.5 million population.
In 2008, a coalition of US and Haitian human rights groups flatly accused the US of aiding and abetting corruption in the country. It demanded that then President Bush and Congress determine which US corporations and Haitian officials pocketed and benefited from the more than $4 billion USAID and their sub-contractors spent from 1994 to 1998. They demanded to know who profited and enriched themselves from the over $8 billion dollars spent following the US engineered overthrown of democratically elected President Jean Aristide. The groups charged that the systematic looting of the country’s treasury did not end with his ouster. Their demands fell on deaf ears.
A colossal earthquake brought the world to Haiti’s doorstep. The questions though are why did it take that? And what will it take for the world to stick around after the rubble is cleared and help transform Haiti into the democratic, self-supporting nation it can be?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Reid Spoke the Awful Truth about Obama’s Racial Exceptionalism
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid apologized profusely for his unguarded quip that Obama’s light skin and non-Negro dialect stood him well with him and by implication other whites. President Obama graciously accepted his apology and applauded him as a supporter and friend. But the embattled leader spoke the awful truth that millions did give Obama a racial pass. The pass did not win the White House for him; money, timing, a skillful campaign, and most importantly Bush blunders and GOP disgrace ultimately tipped the White House his way. But Obama’s racial pass made a difference, maybe a crucial difference.
Two months before the presidential campaign wrapped, a survey found that one quarter of whites held negative views of blacks that were laced with the standard stereotypes. The respondents said that blacks use race as a crutch, are not as industrious as whites, they opposed interracial marriage, and are terrified of black crime (Obama mildly chided his white grandmother in his so-called race speech in March 2008 for saying she feared black men). Yet nearly a quarter of them claimed they'd vote for Obama. In every poll taken from the instant he declared his candidacy the overwhelming majority of whites were adamant that race had absolutely nothing to do with whether they’d vote for him or not. The difference was not just his lighter coloring, but his words, demeanor and political approach. His race neutral campaign was widely perceived as a soothing departure from the race baiting antics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But others liked him because of, and were plainly fascinated by his racially exotic background. It supposedly didn't fit that of the typical African American. This was Reid’s point.
Obama’s light color, the downplay of his blackness, his clipped King’s English delivery, and his tireless pitch as the blank slate, every person’s candidate, made him personally and politically attractive. It also made him the textbook racial exceptional. This is the penchant for some whites to make artificial distinctions between supposedly good and bad blacks. It’s apparent in the unthinking infuriating, insulting, and just plain dumb crack made to some articulate, well-educated blacks in business and the professions that they are different than other blacks. Or that they are not like other blacks.
Racial exceptionalism stems from the ingrained, but terribly misplaced, belief that blacks are perennially disgruntled, hostile, and rebellious, and are always on the lookout for any real or perceived racial slight, and they etch to pick a fight over it. African-Americans who don't fit this brash, outspoken, faintly threatening type have been touted, praised, even anointed over time by some as the reasoned voice of black America. A century ago the mantle of the reasoned, exceptional African-American was bestowed on famed educator, Booker T. Washington. He was showered with foundation and corporate money, honors, and fame.
In the 1920s and 1930s, NAACP leaders always found a ready welcome at the White House. They were praised in the press and bankrolled by some industrialists. In the 1960s Urban League President Whitney Young, NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins, and Martin Luther King Jr. before he fell out of favor with Lyndon Johnson after his too vocal opposition to the Vietnam War and turn to economic radicalism, were lionized for their reason and racial moderation.
In the 1980s, Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. actively cultivated and promoted a pack of younger GOP friendly academics, black business leaders, and black conservatives. Reagan and Bush Sr. plainly saw them as a leadership alternative to the black Democrats and the old guard civil rights leaders. The black conservatives were appointed to government posts, bagged foundation grants, were feted by conservative think tanks, and their columns were routinely published in major newspapers. They were continually cited by writers and reporters as a breath of fresh air among African-Americans mostly for their willingness to break ranks with and to blister Jackson, Sharpton, and the civil rights establishment.
Obama hardly fits the mold of a black conservative. And at no point during the campaign, and certainly at no point during his tenure in the White House has he said or done anything to personally distance himself from his blackness.
He has on occasion bristled publicly at the notion that he's in competition with or a critic of civil rights leaders, or that he is immune from racial jabs. He cited countless instances and times in his books where he felt the pang of discrimination, even racial profiling. He has repeatedly praised past civil rights leaders for their heroic battle against racial injustice.
But Reid and millions others didn’t give Obama a racial pass because he put race at arm’s length. He got it because of the nagging penchant to elevate some blacks above the racial fray, and declare them the exception. Reid, apology or no, simply spoke the awful truth and confirmed that.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
NEGRO - Harry Reid: Obama “light-skinned” and “no Negro dialect" that's why he is President
So is Harry Reid a color aroused bigot? Did he say "code words" that we would expect out of Republicans, skinheads, and birthers. Is he bring up memories of Jim Crow and slavery? Why is using the word ""Negro" ? Why is negro coming in vogue by whites, and the Obama administration. Read more HERE
No Harry Reid didn't say, Obama “light-skinned” and has “no Negro dialect" that's why he could be President.
Damn, did the Senate President just call the President of the United States, a light skinned house negro, who knows how to talk with whites? Did the president of the United States, just say, "that's OK Boss."
Now we have a former black man, now, what some blacks consider the next generation "uncle tom," - Al Sharpton standing with Reid. I guess "The magical negro" is the operative word in 2010.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
The NY Times, Washington Post, Politico, Huffington Post, Chicago Sun Times are reporting that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, apologized on Saturday for saying that he believed Barack Obama could become the country’s first black president because he was “light-skinned” and had the advantage of carrying “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” More HERE
Get this, as reported by the NY Times, the apology was prompted by the release of a new book on the 2008 presidential campaign, which reported that Mr. Reid privately urged Mr. Obama to seek the presidency more than three years ago despite his limited experience and the historical obstacles to making a successful bid for the White House.
Harry Reid says:
I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” Mr. Reid said in a statement. “I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans for my improper comments.”
The remarks from Mr. Reid were the latest in a long-running series of statements that several political figures have made about Mr. Obama, which have underscored the uneasy evolution of race and politics in the United States. Mr. Reid telephoned Mr. Obama on Saturday to apologize.
AAPP: "That apology is not accepted, not by this African American Political Pundit. You should resign." What are you saying, black folks that are dark skin should not be President? And what is this word "Negro" and "Negro dialect."
Question No. 9 on this year's census form asks about race, with one of the answers listed as "black, African-Am. or Negro."
But, Barack Obama accepted Harry Reid's comments saying:
“I accepted Harry’s apology without question because I’ve known him for years, I’ve seen the passionate leadership he’s shown on issues of social justice and I know what’s in his heart,” Mr. Obama said in a statement released by the White House. “As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.”
AAPP: "Ouch! Mr. President, with all due respect, “As far as I am concerned, the book is not closed.” - “You have accepted Harry’s apology without question because you have known him for years." Well Mr. President, you have known a bigot for years. This man, Harry Reid needs to resign." He is part of a culture in America that should be alarming to all reasonable people in America. I urge you to watch this video and then ask the qurestion, does Mr. Reid add fuel to the fire of these bigots:
NOTE: Harry Reid's comments about Barack Obama are contained in a passage of the book “Game Change,” by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, which is set to be released by Harper on Monday.
You can contact AAPP via email at: africanamericanpoliticalpundit@gmail.com
Friday, January 8, 2010
Shocking Pain: Limiting Police Taser Abuse
Here is a great post on the whole tasering issue. I'm glad international anti-taser activist, Francis Holland is working on the Tasers and Miranda rights issue. Black folks, who seem to be the biggest victims of taser torture need to pay attention to this Tasers and Miranda rights issue that Francis Holland is addressing. I only wish the NAACP, and the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights were up on this taser torture and miranda rights issue. But that would be positive wishing, dreaming and too much like right - right?
Colin Starger writes: If pop culture were your only guide, you'd probably think that tasers are hilarious. Scenes of hapless souls squirming after being "tased" often play with a laugh track in Hollywood comedies. Real-world taser bloopers get thousands of hits on on the net. These images, however, are deeply deceptive. Tasers actually cause excruciating pain and police abuse of the weapon is a deadly serious problem. For this reason, I welcome the recent federal civil rights ruling that may help reform police taser policies.
The federal case arose out of a particular encounter in California between a police officer and a motorist during a traffic stop for a seat belt violation. The driver, Carl Bryan, was unarmed and indeed wore only boxer shorts and tennis shoes. Bryan was agitated, upset, and muttering gibberish. He exited his car but did not attempt to flee. Neither did he physically or verbally threaten the cop. However, because Bryan allegedly failed to obey an order to return to his car, the officer -- who was standing 20 feet away -- discharged his taser. The electric current made Bryan fall flat on his face, fracturing four teeth and causing contusions. Read more on Shocking Pain: Limiting Police Taser Abuse
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tiger Stereotypes Tiger, and Black Males Too
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Vanity Fair made it official. Tiger is now a member in good standing in the pantheon of gang banging, drive by shooting, menacing, thug life, sexually on the make, young black males. At least that’s what the lengthy pack of Tiger bashers quickly branded the pumping iron, buffed, ghetto trademark ski cap wearing Tiger that ungraces the cover of Vanity Fair. They and a handful of black commentators gloated that the magazine dumped on Tiger something that Tiger allegedly spent the better part of a decade fleeing in horror from, namely his blackness. The nonsensical talk of Calabanasian, as he coined his mixed-race (Caucasian, black, Native American and Asian) heritage, and his public duck and dodge of any identification with black causes, supposedly was final proof that Tiger had danced down the OJ Simpson path, and of course, we know what happened to him. The Tiger baiters bet that now that he’s been scorned, trashed, and battered by corporate, and Golf World America he’ll suddenly have an OJ racial epiphany.
Any other time, the Vanity Fair shot would be laughed away or shrugged off as just fun and games stuff. It would do little to change the universal perception of the carefully honed Wheaties Box, wholesome, image of the Golf World’s reigning superstar. Indeed, when the photo was snapped in 2006, the devoted family man, clean Gene image of Tiger was still deeply frozen in the public’s psyche. The parade of porn figures, lap dancers, cocktail waitresses, and call girls who allegedly wound up in Tiger’s lair have rendered that image laughable, even pitiable. That makes the Vanity Fair cover thug life looking Tiger totally believable.
Still, the Tiger as racial martyr, closet thug, and America’s new racial bad boy is silly stuff. The racial stereotypes that the Vanity Fair-Tiger shot reinforces is not. It’s the shortest of short steps to think that if a fallen from the perch Tiger can be depicted as a caricature of the terrifying image that much of the public still harbors about young black males, then that image seems real, even more terrifying, and the consequences are just as dangerous.
The thought was that Obama's election buried once and for all negative racial typecasting and the perennial threat racial stereotypes posed to the safety and well-being of black males. It did no such thing. Immediately after Obama's election teams of researchers from several major universities found that many of the old stereotypes about poverty and crime and blacks remained just as frozen in time. The study found that much of the public still perceived those most likely to commit crimes are poor, jobless and black. The study did more than affirm that race and poverty and crime were firmly rammed together in the public mind. It also showed that once the stereotype is planted, it's virtually impossible to root out. That's hardly new either.
In 2003 Penn State University researchers conducted a landmark study on the tie between crime and public perceptions of who is most likely to commit crime. The study found that many whites are likely to associate pictures of blacks with violent crime. This was no surprise given the relentless media depictions of young blacks as dysfunctional, dope peddling, gang bangers and drive by shooters. The Penn State study found that even when blacks didn't commit a specific crime; whites still misidentified the perpetrator as an African-American.
Five years later university researchers wanted to see if that stereotype still held sway, even as white voters were near unanimous that race made difference in whether they would or did vote for Obama. Researchers still found public attitudes on crime and race unchanged. The majority of whites still overwhelmingly fingered blacks as the most likely to commit crimes, even when they didn't commit them.
The bulging numbers of blacks in America's jails and prisons seem to reinforce the perception that crime and violence in America invariably comes with a young, black male face. And it doesn't much matter how prominent, wealthy, or celebrated the black is, Tiger again. The overkill frenzy feeding on the criminal or borderline criminal antics of a litany of black NFL and NBA stars, that run afoul of the law or are poorly behaved, and of course, everyone's favorite stomping boy, the rappers and hip hop artists, further implant the negative image of black males. None of them, like Tiger, are hardly poor, downtrodden, ghetto dwelling young black males.
Tiger didn’t commit any crime, and the only one that he hurt was his wife, family, sponsors, and the fantasy image of him as the Simon pure sportsman. For that he’s paid and will continue to pay a dear price. The Vanity Fair cover just assured that the price he’ll pay will be even steeper.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
New 'Miranda Rights' against taser abuse,"
"These are new 'Miranda Rights' against taser abuse,"
says Atty. Francis L. Holland
says Atty. Francis L. Holland
There's been a ground-breaking decision by the 9th Circuit US Federal Court of Appeals against taser abuse, entitled Bryan v. McPherson. This decision was announced on December 29th, between Christmas and New Years holidays but it deserves our immediate attention and dissemination via our EasyWidgets:
The decision writes into federal caselaw many of the arguments and advocacy that we afrosphere bloggers have been making at our Days (months and years) of Blogging for Justice Against Police Pre-Trial, Extra-Judicial "Taser" Shock, Electrocution and Execution devices. The Easy-Widget HTML code below enables us to educate the public of their newly announced rights.
The 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals agreed with us that:
". . . we must “balance the amount of force applied against the need for that force.” Bryan v. McPherson, 9th Cir. Fd. Ct. App., December 29, 2009.
This decision has direct legal effect throughout the 9th Circuit, consisting of populous California, Alaska, Washington, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Hawaii and Guam, and influential in other parts of the country. Nearly 20% of America's population is within the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit. The Court announced what we have long insisted:"A reasonable police officer . . . would have foreseen these physical injuries when confronting a shirtless individual standing on asphalt. We have held that force can be unreasonable even without physical blows or injuries." Bryan v. McPherson
"The presence of non-minor physical injuries like those suffered by Bryan, however, is certainly relevant in evaluating the degree of the Fourth Amendment intrusion." Bryan v. McPherson
Let's celebrate! Here's a new EasyWidget that takes readers to our anti-electrocution blogs. This Easy-Widget HTML (immediately below) links to Electrocuted While Black, but there are visibly identical widgets below that lead to Tasered While Black and the Police Brutality Blog.
Afrosphere bloggers and the Ninth Circuit encourage other circuits to follow this example by observing that:
"We, along with our sister circuits, have held that tasers and stun guns fall into the category of non-lethal force. Non-lethal, however, is not synonymous with non-excessive; all force—lethal and non-lethal—must be justified by the need for the specific level of force employed." Bryan v. McPherson
Not everyone -- blogger or reader -- has had a chance to read the whole Bryan v. McPherson case. So, the Easy-Widget quotes the most powerful language of the decision and links to our afrosphere blogs for more information.In Bryan v. McPherson, the 9th Circuit Federal Appeals Court basically wrote into federal caselaw many of the arguments that we taser opponents have been arguing. But this is better than what many of us had sought, because instead of it being a change in local optionally enforced "guidelines," it's a change in obligatorily obeyed federal case law for the states in the 9th Circuit, and also, as the decision alludes, the 9th Circuit has enormous influence on other "sister" circuits courts.
Please join Electrocuted While Black in celebrating this decision by posting a widget that tells readers their rights and takes them to a blog where they can learn more, be it Electrocuted While Black or the Police Brutality Blog. Installation of the Easy-Widget below is a quick and easy way to quote some of the best parts of the case for your readers.
References:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/
http://www.widgetbox.com/
http://police-brutality-blog.
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/
http://francislholland.
http://stoptasertorture.
http://www.google.com/search?
http://www.google.com/search?
http://www.google.com/search?
Monday, January 4, 2010
And so it begins - the 2010 mid-term elections
Written by Michael Vass
This will be the first in a series of posts I will be making addressing the mid-term elections that will be taking place this year. Much of my focus will be on the New York State politicians, but I will also be looking at races in other critical parts of the nation. In addition I look forward to hearing from my readers in other parts of the nation about races in their area that they feel is important to them.
Overall I will be as fair as I can be on this issue. I will present facts, pose questions and ultimately leave the final decision up to you. Much like my extensive coverage of the 2008 Presidential election cycle, I will not be taking sides until the last minute.
I admit that I am a Conservative, and Republican. I do not hide from the fact that many of my views, as found in my 1000's of posts convey the views I hold on many issues. Still that does not preclude me from looking at facts and making a decision based on those facts, and not a blanket party-line vote like a lemming.
Beyond it all I advocate that every reader be registered to vote. Whether you agree or disagree with any or all aspects of what I have said and will say, the only thing that matters is your vote. It is that vote that will ensure the politicians will be more or less akin to the points of view that you have on any subject. Voting is a Right of every American citizen, one that has been paid for in blood of our soldiers long before even my oldest reader was born. Excersice that Right.
Through the coming months I will be speaking extensively about Senator Gillibrand, Senator Schumer, Representative Hinchey, Senator Harry Reid and others in Congress up for re-election. I will also be looking at the various candidates in both parties that oppose those up for re-election. While I will try to be comprehensive, I suggest that you always check out information on the issues important to you from multiple sources and points of view. Only then can you be sure to have made the right choice when you vote in November.
The mid-term elections will be more than just a rote inbetween act. The voice of the people will either confirm the path America is on, or change that path to something new. Every American will be affected by the outcome, no matter the income, race, location or other criteria. Thus the choice is to either be part of what will be affecting your life, or to be lead like a bound captive. I for one prefer the former.
This will be the first in a series of posts I will be making addressing the mid-term elections that will be taking place this year. Much of my focus will be on the New York State politicians, but I will also be looking at races in other critical parts of the nation. In addition I look forward to hearing from my readers in other parts of the nation about races in their area that they feel is important to them.
Overall I will be as fair as I can be on this issue. I will present facts, pose questions and ultimately leave the final decision up to you. Much like my extensive coverage of the 2008 Presidential election cycle, I will not be taking sides until the last minute.
I admit that I am a Conservative, and Republican. I do not hide from the fact that many of my views, as found in my 1000's of posts convey the views I hold on many issues. Still that does not preclude me from looking at facts and making a decision based on those facts, and not a blanket party-line vote like a lemming.
Beyond it all I advocate that every reader be registered to vote. Whether you agree or disagree with any or all aspects of what I have said and will say, the only thing that matters is your vote. It is that vote that will ensure the politicians will be more or less akin to the points of view that you have on any subject. Voting is a Right of every American citizen, one that has been paid for in blood of our soldiers long before even my oldest reader was born. Excersice that Right.
Through the coming months I will be speaking extensively about Senator Gillibrand, Senator Schumer, Representative Hinchey, Senator Harry Reid and others in Congress up for re-election. I will also be looking at the various candidates in both parties that oppose those up for re-election. While I will try to be comprehensive, I suggest that you always check out information on the issues important to you from multiple sources and points of view. Only then can you be sure to have made the right choice when you vote in November.
The mid-term elections will be more than just a rote inbetween act. The voice of the people will either confirm the path America is on, or change that path to something new. Every American will be affected by the outcome, no matter the income, race, location or other criteria. Thus the choice is to either be part of what will be affecting your life, or to be lead like a bound captive. I for one prefer the former.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
12 predictions for 2010
Written by Michael Vass
What way better to start the new year than by making a prediction? Considering the mid-term elections later this year, the Bills facing Congress, and the uncertainty of the economy it seems like this is a great time to make an educated guess.
So without further ado I present the 12 predictions I expect to see in some form and degree in 2010. I must add though that I do hope to be wrong on several of these predictions.
What do you think? Comment at VASS.
What way better to start the new year than by making a prediction? Considering the mid-term elections later this year, the Bills facing Congress, and the uncertainty of the economy it seems like this is a great time to make an educated guess.
So without further ado I present the 12 predictions I expect to see in some form and degree in 2010. I must add though that I do hope to be wrong on several of these predictions.
What do you think? Comment at VASS.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Something Special for Everyone from Obama, But Not for Blacks
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
President Obama’s repeat lecture to black critics that blacks shouldn’t expect anything special from him is disingenuous at best, and an insult at worst. Here are two quick political reality checks. He would not have won the White House if he had not won Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina. Three out of these four states gave Bush his crucial margin of victory over Al Gore and John Kerry. Obama won these four states because black voters turned his election into a holy crusade and stormed the polls on Election Day. The voting percentage and numbers in every other state that Obama won was equally off the charts.
The unrequited political love black voters showed for Obama didn’t stop with them giving him a top heavy vote with no strings attached. For practically his entire first year in office they’ve also given him their mute silence. This despite chronic double digit unemployment among blacks and 1930s Great Depression joblessness among young African-American males, higher percentages of homelessness, home foreclosures, school drop out rates, incarceration rates, and higher incidences of every major medical maladies among blacks than any other group in the country. African-Americans are still the prime victims of hate crimes, housing, employment and business loan discrimination than any other group.
Special interests, be they lobbyists, big money campaign contributors, corporate, labor, and political interest and ethnic groups, are the key to election victories. No politician, and I mean no politician, has a prayer of winning a major political office in America without their money, power, influence, and support. All politicians make promises to special interest groups to pocket their money and votes, and if they don’t keep them, or displease them, they will hear about it either through loud vocal protest, or their greater threat to fold up the check book, and their votes.
Obama knows this. His campaign war chest bulged with millions from the Wall Street financial houses, banking interest groups and their CEOs, as well as insurance industry and pharmaceutical groups. Wall Street has been amply rewarded with billions of taxpayer bailout money. Big Pharma and private insurers have been rewarded with the dump of the public option, guaranteed mandates, with government subsidies, to private insurers, and no effective caps on drug costs in the health care reform bill.
Labor, environmentalists, and gay groups were rewarded with a guarantee to fight for Employee Free Choice Act to do away with private-ballot union elections in the workplace, reduction of greenhouse emissions, and ramped up green investment spending, the scrapping of don’t ask don’t tell, passage of the expansion of the hate crimes law, and support of gay marriage. Even religious fundamentalists who Obama had absolutely no hope of winning any substantial support from even got a small payoff from him when he pledged not to scrap Bush’s Faith Based Initiative.
Obama took umbrage at the light handslap from the Congressional Black Caucus to do a little more for the black unemployed and dire cash strapped black businesses and broadcasters, while making the ridiculous claim that the poorest and neediest will be helped by him helping everyone else. He should just level with them. And tell them that he can’t and won’t do anything special for blacks, because he’s scared stiff he’ll be even more shrilly race baited by the GOP and Sarah Palin and the tea bagger ultraconservatives as a stealth Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in the White House.
He ran for and won the White House with the mantra that any real or perceived tilt toward blacks by a black presidential candidate, let alone a black president, would be tantamount to committing political suicide with white voters. The majority of them did not vote for him, and if polls are any indication, still wouldn’t vote for him. Expect more calls from the black critics for Obama to do more for blacks, and expect more lectures from him why he won’t.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
President Obama says Stimulus 2 will cost at least $150,000,000,000
Written by Michael Vass
Another thought I had about the new $150 billion proposal that President Obama has just announced (see Cash for Refridgerators is as bad an idea as Obama Stimulus version 2 for more) - which is an Obama Stimulus part 2 in all but a name. President Obama spent a great deal of time discussing how a huge part of the new money will be spent on infrastructure jobs. Building roads, bridges, and such. Does that sound familiar to anyone?
In fact that's EXACTLY what President Obama said about the Obama Stimulus that was rammed through Congress by Democrats in February. The argument was that by re-building infrastructure new long-term job growth would be acheived. And roughly less than 10% of the entire Obama Stimulus was spent on this "vital" part of the recovery plan.
Yes, infrastructure was so important that it was virtually ignored. Most of the infrastructure jobs won't even happen until some point in 2010 or later. This was so important, we must conclude, that it was obviously underfunded and delayed by at least a year. Because a road really brings in revenue to all sorts of families. Nevermind that President Obama plans to "skyrocket" the cost of energy so driving will not be an option. Nevermind that jobs bring in revenue and a road once fixed does nothing more than allow people to get from point A to B.
A similar realization can be made about tax cuts for small business. They also recieved a pittence from the Obama Stimulus, roughly $2 billion as I recall. Such a small amount, portioned out over 4 years and most not happening until 2010 at the earliest, obviously had no effect. So President Obama is now focusing more money on it. Suddenly it's a priority.
But again there is an issue. If you own a small business what exactly are you supposed to do? The tax cut is temporary, lasting just 1 year as currently proposed. That means that after that year, small businesses will be faced with not only the current tax burdens, but all the goodies that will kick in for 2011.
Rememeber that the Health Care Reform that is being shoved through Congress by Democrats alone (and due to the Democrat super majority cannot be stopped or affected by Republicans) will create a NEW tax burden on businesses. Plus there is the proposed increase in capital gains taxes. Plus the increase in income taxes for anyone who is successful enough to earn a living in their business. Plus there is the increased cost of energy (some 150 - 200% by some estimates) due to the Cap & Trade Bill that President Obama promised would "necessarily skyrocket" energy prices. Plus, yep there is more, there is the loss of the Bush tax cuts.
If you are a small business owner like me, does the potential gain for 1 year in small business tax cuts outweigh the multitude of tax increases that are waiting for me once we hit 2011? How much growth must my business have to offset all those increased costs in a year, while the economy remains sluggish and unemployment remains in the 11% -10% range - as stated by White House economists - for the next 5 years?
Seriously, who is President Obama kidding. Who does he believe is buying all this? Perhaps all those acedemics at the Job Summit. You know the people in the Obama Administration that never held a private sector job, all 92% of them.
I'm sure this all sounds fantastic on paper. I bet this is an exciting experiment on a purely theoretical and cerebral level. But sadly my business, like those of thousands of others, does not operate in a theoretical world nor is it backed by Government spending. I suppose if I could rely on the ability to print money on demand I would be all for this, but I don't. Do you?
So in thinking about all the aspects that have been proposed in this renamed Obama Stimulus 2, I come to a conclusion that seems apparent. President Obama, along with the Democrat led Congress, have no clue about the economy or business. They have every intention to sound like they have a plan, and in a speech without details it sounds nice. But in the world where citizens have to pay the taxes to fund this hair-brained idea, and to operate a business and employ people, none of this works for me.
The Obama Stimulus is a complete failure. If it weren't, none of this would be necessary. That's $787 billion down the drain for an acedemic think-tank experiment. Now President Obama plans to shove another $150 billion down the same drain. I can only hope that some Democrat politician can do math (not the Government math that creates and "saves" jobs in congressional districts that don't exist) and votes against this along with Republicans. Otherwise it will pass like the first one did.
Anyone want to bet on how many Democrat read this one?
Another thought I had about the new $150 billion proposal that President Obama has just announced (see Cash for Refridgerators is as bad an idea as Obama Stimulus version 2 for more) - which is an Obama Stimulus part 2 in all but a name. President Obama spent a great deal of time discussing how a huge part of the new money will be spent on infrastructure jobs. Building roads, bridges, and such. Does that sound familiar to anyone?
In fact that's EXACTLY what President Obama said about the Obama Stimulus that was rammed through Congress by Democrats in February. The argument was that by re-building infrastructure new long-term job growth would be acheived. And roughly less than 10% of the entire Obama Stimulus was spent on this "vital" part of the recovery plan.
Yes, infrastructure was so important that it was virtually ignored. Most of the infrastructure jobs won't even happen until some point in 2010 or later. This was so important, we must conclude, that it was obviously underfunded and delayed by at least a year. Because a road really brings in revenue to all sorts of families. Nevermind that President Obama plans to "skyrocket" the cost of energy so driving will not be an option. Nevermind that jobs bring in revenue and a road once fixed does nothing more than allow people to get from point A to B.
A similar realization can be made about tax cuts for small business. They also recieved a pittence from the Obama Stimulus, roughly $2 billion as I recall. Such a small amount, portioned out over 4 years and most not happening until 2010 at the earliest, obviously had no effect. So President Obama is now focusing more money on it. Suddenly it's a priority.
But again there is an issue. If you own a small business what exactly are you supposed to do? The tax cut is temporary, lasting just 1 year as currently proposed. That means that after that year, small businesses will be faced with not only the current tax burdens, but all the goodies that will kick in for 2011.
Rememeber that the Health Care Reform that is being shoved through Congress by Democrats alone (and due to the Democrat super majority cannot be stopped or affected by Republicans) will create a NEW tax burden on businesses. Plus there is the proposed increase in capital gains taxes. Plus the increase in income taxes for anyone who is successful enough to earn a living in their business. Plus there is the increased cost of energy (some 150 - 200% by some estimates) due to the Cap & Trade Bill that President Obama promised would "necessarily skyrocket" energy prices. Plus, yep there is more, there is the loss of the Bush tax cuts.
If you are a small business owner like me, does the potential gain for 1 year in small business tax cuts outweigh the multitude of tax increases that are waiting for me once we hit 2011? How much growth must my business have to offset all those increased costs in a year, while the economy remains sluggish and unemployment remains in the 11% -10% range - as stated by White House economists - for the next 5 years?
Seriously, who is President Obama kidding. Who does he believe is buying all this? Perhaps all those acedemics at the Job Summit. You know the people in the Obama Administration that never held a private sector job, all 92% of them.
I'm sure this all sounds fantastic on paper. I bet this is an exciting experiment on a purely theoretical and cerebral level. But sadly my business, like those of thousands of others, does not operate in a theoretical world nor is it backed by Government spending. I suppose if I could rely on the ability to print money on demand I would be all for this, but I don't. Do you?
So in thinking about all the aspects that have been proposed in this renamed Obama Stimulus 2, I come to a conclusion that seems apparent. President Obama, along with the Democrat led Congress, have no clue about the economy or business. They have every intention to sound like they have a plan, and in a speech without details it sounds nice. But in the world where citizens have to pay the taxes to fund this hair-brained idea, and to operate a business and employ people, none of this works for me.
The Obama Stimulus is a complete failure. If it weren't, none of this would be necessary. That's $787 billion down the drain for an acedemic think-tank experiment. Now President Obama plans to shove another $150 billion down the same drain. I can only hope that some Democrat politician can do math (not the Government math that creates and "saves" jobs in congressional districts that don't exist) and votes against this along with Republicans. Otherwise it will pass like the first one did.
Anyone want to bet on how many Democrat read this one?
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Obama Again Reminds He’s Not Black President Obama
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The Congressional Black Caucus got another painful reminder that President Obama is not black President Obama. In a press interview Obama bluntly said that he would not propose any special initiatives for blacks. Obama’s sharp retort was in direct response to questions about how he’d solve a glaring problem and a glaring demand from the Caucus. The problem is the astronomical high unemployment rate for blacks, especially young black males. Latest job figures show joblessness for young black males matches and in some parts of the country tops the unemployment rate at the height of the 1930s Great Depression.
The Congressional Black Caucus demanded that Obama specifically shell out more money and formulate more programs to help the black jobless and to aid cash strapped minority broadcasters and minority businesses. The Caucus lightly saber rattled Obama with the threat of delaying or even opposing his financial regulation plan if he didn’t play ball. The Caucus is about as likely to buck Obama on the financial legislation when the final House vote is taken as the American Bankers Association is to back it. But the Caucus made its point. And so did Obama when he reiterated that he won’t propose any new programs for blacks.
Obama set that in stone from the first day of his presidential campaign. In his candidate declaration speech in Springfield, Illinois in February 2007, he made only the barest mention of race. The focus was on change, change for everyone. He had little choice. The institution of the presidency, and what it takes to get it, demands that racial typecasting be scrapped. Obama would have had no hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, let alone the presidency, if there had been any hint that he embraced the race-tinged politics of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. His campaign would have been marginalized and compartmentalized as merely the politics of racial symbolism. The month after he got in the White House he mildly chided Attorney General Eric Holder for calling Americans cowards for not candidly talking about race.
Obama got a bitter taste of the misery that race can cause a president him when in an unscripted moment he spoke his mind and blasted a Cambridge cop for cuffing and manhandling Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates. The loud squeals that he was a bigot, racist and anti police for siding with Gates bounced off the Oval Office walls. A chagrined Obama back pedaled fast and asked all for forgiveness. There would no White House repeat of the Gates fiasco.
Obama has clung tightly to the centrist blueprint Bill Clinton laid out for a Democratic presidential candidate to win elections, and to govern after he won. The blueprint required that the Democratic presidential candidate tout a strong defense, the war against terrorism, a vague plan for winding down the Iraq War, tepid proposals to control greenhouse emissions, mild tax reform for the middle class, a cautious plan for affordable health care, pro business solutions to joblessness, and make only the most genteel reproach of Wall Street.
The Clinton blueprint also required a Democratic presidential candidate to formulate a moderate agenda on civil rights, poverty, failing inner city public schools, the HIV-AIDS crisis, and the racially skewed criminal justice system in written policy statements. And then say virtually nothing about any of these things on the campaign trail. Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry followed the Clinton blueprint to the letter during their campaign and if either had won, the likelihood is they would not made these problems priority items in their White House.
Obama is tugged hard by corporate and defense industry lobbyists, the oil and nuclear power industry, government regulators, environmental watchdog groups, conservative family values groups, conservative GOP senators and house members, foreign diplomats and leaders. They all have their priorities and agendas and all vie hard to get White House support for their pet legislation, or to kill or cripple legislation that threatens their interests. The health care reform battle and the decision to escalate in Afghanistan or near textbook examples of this. The two dozen back door meetings Obama had with the major pharmaceuticals and private insurers at the White House in February virtually guaranteed that a big chunk of the health care reform package would reflect the interests and the wishes of the health care industry. This is the price to be paid to get their backing.
It’s the same with Afghanistan. The Pentagon wanted and demanded a huge ramp up in American ground forces in the country. Given the pressure to win the war, and the power of the military and the defense industry, Obama was in no real position to say no.
Obama’s no to the Congressional Black Caucus on black joblessness and a beef up of minority businesses has everything to do with the price of White House governance. That price is a cautious, conciliatory, and above all, a race neutral presidency.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
Obama Again Reminds He’s Not Black President Obama
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The Congressional Black Caucus got another painful reminder that President Obama is not black President Obama. In a press interview Obama bluntly said that he would not propose any special initiatives for blacks. Obama’s sharp retort was in direct response to questions about how he’d solve a glaring problem and a glaring demand from the Caucus. The problem is the astronomical high unemployment rate for blacks, especially young black males. Latest job figures show joblessness for young black males matches and in some parts of the country tops the unemployment rate at the height of the 1930s Great Depression.
The Congressional Black Caucus demanded that Obama specifically shell out more money and formulate more programs to help the black jobless and to aid cash strapped minority broadcasters and minority businesses. The Caucus lightly saber rattled Obama with the threat of delaying or even opposing his financial regulation plan if he didn’t play ball. The Caucus is about as likely to buck Obama on the financial legislation when the final House vote is taken as the American Bankers Association is to back it. But the Caucus made its point. And so did Obama when he reiterated that he won’t propose any new programs for blacks.
Obama set that in stone from the first day of his presidential campaign. In his candidate declaration speech in Springfield, Illinois in February 2007, he made only the barest mention of race. The focus was on change, change for everyone. He had little choice. The institution of the presidency, and what it takes to get it, demands that racial typecasting be scrapped. Obama would have had no hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, let alone the presidency, if there had been any hint that he embraced the race-tinged politics of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. His campaign would have been marginalized and compartmentalized as merely the politics of racial symbolism. The month after he got in the White House he mildly chided Attorney General Eric Holder for calling Americans cowards for not candidly talking about race.
Obama got a bitter taste of the misery that race can cause a president him when in an unscripted moment he spoke his mind and blasted a Cambridge cop for cuffing and manhandling Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates. The loud squeals that he was a bigot, racist and anti police for siding with Gates bounced off the Oval Office walls. A chagrined Obama back pedaled fast and asked all for forgiveness. There would no White House repeat of the Gates fiasco.
Obama has clung tightly to the centrist blueprint Bill Clinton laid out for a Democratic presidential candidate to win elections, and to govern after he won. The blueprint required that the Democratic presidential candidate tout a strong defense, the war against terrorism, a vague plan for winding down the Iraq War, tepid proposals to control greenhouse emissions, mild tax reform for the middle class, a cautious plan for affordable health care, pro business solutions to joblessness, and make only the most genteel reproach of Wall Street.
The Clinton blueprint also required a Democratic presidential candidate to formulate a moderate agenda on civil rights, poverty, failing inner city public schools, the HIV-AIDS crisis, and the racially skewed criminal justice system in written policy statements. And then say virtually nothing about any of these things on the campaign trail. Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry followed the Clinton blueprint to the letter during their campaign and if either had won, the likelihood is they would not made these problems priority items in their White House.
Obama is tugged hard by corporate and defense industry lobbyists, the oil and nuclear power industry, government regulators, environmental watchdog groups, conservative family values groups, conservative GOP senators and house members, foreign diplomats and leaders. They all have their priorities and agendas and all vie hard to get White House support for their pet legislation, or to kill or cripple legislation that threatens their interests. The health care reform battle and the decision to escalate in Afghanistan or near textbook examples of this. The two dozen back door meetings Obama had with the major pharmaceuticals and private insurers at the White House in February virtually guaranteed that a big chunk of the health care reform package would reflect the interests and the wishes of the health care industry. This is the price to be paid to get their backing.
It’s the same with Afghanistan. The Pentagon wanted and demanded a huge ramp up in American ground forces in the country. Given the pressure to win the war, and the power of the military and the defense industry, Obama was in no real position to say no.
Obama’s no to the Congressional Black Caucus on black joblessness and a beef up of minority businesses has everything to do with the price of White House governance. That price is a cautious, conciliatory, and above all, a race neutral presidency.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
546 days and counting
Written by Michael Vass
So after much thought I’ve come to conclude this about President Obama’s speech at West Point. In one of the shortest speeches ever uttered by President Obama (including during the 2007 – 2008 election cycle) the world was told
A) America will surge in Afghanistan
B) President Obama has no confidence in winning
C) The bluster of the 2008 election cycle has fully dissipated.
I realize that adding 30,000 troops is no minor action. But at no time was there any comment that rose to the level of ‘this is the war we need to fight’. A theme that was use constantly to berate President Bush’s stance on Iraq, and seperate then candidate Obama from the pack of Democrat hopefuls. Instead we have been given a well worded set of reasons why President Obama is taking the political middle ground (and preparing to lose).
This speech took less time than 1 minute for each day that president Obama delayed in giving it. Considering the impact of sending American troops into harm’s way I would have expected a speech that would have lasted at least as long as any of those given (repeatedly) to justify/support the Obama Stimulus, Health Care Reform, Cap & Trade, getting the Olympics to Chicago, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, taking over the auto industry, and explaining why police were wrong in arresting his collegiate colleague. But I suppose any more time would have required details, a subject that President Obama is remiss to give the public on any subject.
The emphasis of the speech was not on victory. it was on how America was wrong in Iraq and will leave Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as is politically possible. I cannot name a single conflict in the history of the world that was won where a definitive timelime to the cestation of aggression was first stated. Not one. And I cannot imagine victory if such a timeline had been attached to WWI, WWII, the Civil War, the Independance War and so on.
This speech was thus political – implying the decision on the troop levels and deployment was as well. It was an appeal to the far-left political base of President Obama. It seems to have been meant to console those that oppose any conflict with American troops (an isolationist viewpoint) while holding on to those that support our military and the reason behind this War through the 2010 mid-term elections.
President Obama filled the speech with distractions, and laid the seeds for a retreat from Afghanistan. President Obama blamed President Bush, the Afghan political structure, and the Afghan people for what will come in 546 days or so. He gave up on victory and used the political prop of the economy to justify his inaction.
And I want to review something here. President Obama stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost over $1 trillion in 8 years. He made it clear that such a cost was too high to continue. Yet since his inauguration President Obama has spent $787 billion on a flawed stimulus package that no one read and has since failed. He spent upwards of $60 billion dollars to buy the auto industry. He spent $3 billion on new car purchases. He created a budget that spends $3.5 trillion and is guaranteed to place the nation into $9 trillion in debt (by his own estimates). Which does not include the $1.2 trillion for a Health Care Reform that the public overwhelmingly does not want and no politician can explain (and cannot even live up to the purpose it was created for as stated by the CBO). It also does not include the costs associated with Cap & Trade, the greenhouse gas emmission reductions he wants to impose on the nation, and the long-rumored 2nd Obama Stimulus (which again I expect to fail).
Spending money that the Government does not have is NOT an issue for President Obama.
Overall the speech, made at West Point to score political points with military families, was well-worded. Yet it failed to inspire the public on a war that is in question but championed on the campaign trail. It showed a lack of confidence in our troops, something that allies and enemies alike will not fail to notice. It stomps on the campaign promises and high ideals promoted just a few months earlier this year. Worst of all it manipulates national security and the lives of our soldiers for political juggling games.
I cannot see how this response to a request for 40,000 (to 60,000 at the maximum) troops to be deployed in Afghanistan in 2009 required 4 months of delay that was classified as “deliberation”. Remember that this was a deliberation that took place as the President flew to Copenhagen to talk about the Olympics. It was a delay that sat while the President went golfing. It lay dormant as President Obama went on fundraising trips for Democrats and himself. There were of course other issues of the natio that did occur in the time that went past, but there is no denying that there were as many days with nothing being done and no reason for inaction either.
I recently stated that I felt the delay in giving a response to General McChrystal showed President Obama as mostly gutless. After listening to this speech 2x and long thought I believe I was right. This is not a speech that troops across the world would want to hear. This is not a rally call for support to our allies. This is not a statement of victotry that can drive fear into the hearts of our enemies. This can only be called a speech that makes President Carter look courageous by comparison (and if you weren’t alive to know, ask those that were).
America has 546 days left. In those days we can either prepare for a complete loss and the return of our soldiers in shame since they were not allowed to do their duty, or we can reshape the planned failure as outlined today at West Point. No matter which choice is finally made, there isn’t much time left.
So after much thought I’ve come to conclude this about President Obama’s speech at West Point. In one of the shortest speeches ever uttered by President Obama (including during the 2007 – 2008 election cycle) the world was told
A) America will surge in Afghanistan
B) President Obama has no confidence in winning
C) The bluster of the 2008 election cycle has fully dissipated.
I realize that adding 30,000 troops is no minor action. But at no time was there any comment that rose to the level of ‘this is the war we need to fight’. A theme that was use constantly to berate President Bush’s stance on Iraq, and seperate then candidate Obama from the pack of Democrat hopefuls. Instead we have been given a well worded set of reasons why President Obama is taking the political middle ground (and preparing to lose).
This speech took less time than 1 minute for each day that president Obama delayed in giving it. Considering the impact of sending American troops into harm’s way I would have expected a speech that would have lasted at least as long as any of those given (repeatedly) to justify/support the Obama Stimulus, Health Care Reform, Cap & Trade, getting the Olympics to Chicago, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, taking over the auto industry, and explaining why police were wrong in arresting his collegiate colleague. But I suppose any more time would have required details, a subject that President Obama is remiss to give the public on any subject.
The emphasis of the speech was not on victory. it was on how America was wrong in Iraq and will leave Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as is politically possible. I cannot name a single conflict in the history of the world that was won where a definitive timelime to the cestation of aggression was first stated. Not one. And I cannot imagine victory if such a timeline had been attached to WWI, WWII, the Civil War, the Independance War and so on.
This speech was thus political – implying the decision on the troop levels and deployment was as well. It was an appeal to the far-left political base of President Obama. It seems to have been meant to console those that oppose any conflict with American troops (an isolationist viewpoint) while holding on to those that support our military and the reason behind this War through the 2010 mid-term elections.
President Obama filled the speech with distractions, and laid the seeds for a retreat from Afghanistan. President Obama blamed President Bush, the Afghan political structure, and the Afghan people for what will come in 546 days or so. He gave up on victory and used the political prop of the economy to justify his inaction.
And I want to review something here. President Obama stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost over $1 trillion in 8 years. He made it clear that such a cost was too high to continue. Yet since his inauguration President Obama has spent $787 billion on a flawed stimulus package that no one read and has since failed. He spent upwards of $60 billion dollars to buy the auto industry. He spent $3 billion on new car purchases. He created a budget that spends $3.5 trillion and is guaranteed to place the nation into $9 trillion in debt (by his own estimates). Which does not include the $1.2 trillion for a Health Care Reform that the public overwhelmingly does not want and no politician can explain (and cannot even live up to the purpose it was created for as stated by the CBO). It also does not include the costs associated with Cap & Trade, the greenhouse gas emmission reductions he wants to impose on the nation, and the long-rumored 2nd Obama Stimulus (which again I expect to fail).
Spending money that the Government does not have is NOT an issue for President Obama.
Overall the speech, made at West Point to score political points with military families, was well-worded. Yet it failed to inspire the public on a war that is in question but championed on the campaign trail. It showed a lack of confidence in our troops, something that allies and enemies alike will not fail to notice. It stomps on the campaign promises and high ideals promoted just a few months earlier this year. Worst of all it manipulates national security and the lives of our soldiers for political juggling games.
I cannot see how this response to a request for 40,000 (to 60,000 at the maximum) troops to be deployed in Afghanistan in 2009 required 4 months of delay that was classified as “deliberation”. Remember that this was a deliberation that took place as the President flew to Copenhagen to talk about the Olympics. It was a delay that sat while the President went golfing. It lay dormant as President Obama went on fundraising trips for Democrats and himself. There were of course other issues of the natio that did occur in the time that went past, but there is no denying that there were as many days with nothing being done and no reason for inaction either.
I recently stated that I felt the delay in giving a response to General McChrystal showed President Obama as mostly gutless. After listening to this speech 2x and long thought I believe I was right. This is not a speech that troops across the world would want to hear. This is not a rally call for support to our allies. This is not a statement of victotry that can drive fear into the hearts of our enemies. This can only be called a speech that makes President Carter look courageous by comparison (and if you weren’t alive to know, ask those that were).
America has 546 days left. In those days we can either prepare for a complete loss and the return of our soldiers in shame since they were not allowed to do their duty, or we can reshape the planned failure as outlined today at West Point. No matter which choice is finally made, there isn’t much time left.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Tiger Beatdown
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Beat em' when they're down and beat em' again for good measure before they can get up. The beat down supposedly is not the American way of dealing with those who are down. The ground rules radically changed the moment Tiger Woods did life threatening damage to a tree and a fire hydrant. With that the beat down started with a vengeance. No matter that the only body damage done was to Woods. There was no allegation or hint of drugs or alcohol. No matter that that the law did not compel Woods to talk to police just to provide his license, registration and proof on insurance. No matter that he publicly accepted responsibility for whatever damage he caused, called the gossip “malicious,” and pleaded for the media and public to respect his privacy.
None of this has mattered. It’s irrelevant not because a sex, celebrity gossip, rumor and innuendo starved and obsessed mainstream media salivates at the prospect of scandal and titillation at the mishaps of celebrities. Nor have Woods’ pleadings that the accident is a non-issue been sloughed off because he is one of the sports world’s most bankable, best known noblesse oblige goody two shoes role model for the sporting world.
The truth is that the Tiger Woods beatdown began ages ago. The whispers, innuendoes, and back biting began the instant that he exploded on the golf scene. He wasn’t black enough. He was too black. He was too arrogant. He was too aloof. He was too selfish. The more green Masters Tounament winners jackets that he donned and world class tournaments he won, and the fatter his bank account grew, the undertow of carping about him continued unabated. There have even been personal and race tinged digs and cracks that golfer Fuzzy Zoeller (“fried chicken”) and Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman (“lynch him”) made about him.
Woods graciously and diplomatically shrugged off the inanities and kept doing what he does best and that’s win tournaments. It didn’t stop the gossip mongers. Woods was simply too big, too good, and too rich for the tastes of a wide swath of the public and the celebrity crazed media.
Despite Woods careful and cautious downplay of race, for another swath of the public he was still a black sports icon who dominated what for decades was a gentlemanly, high brow, near sport of kings, white man’s game. The price a black sports icon pays for resting on that high perch can be steep. One misstep and he or she can become the instant poster child for all that's allegedly wrong with celebriity, sport and society.
There are two reasons for that. When Woods tore up the greens he became the gatekeeper for the storehouse of fantasies and delusions of a sports crazed public as well as advertisers, sportswriters, and TV executives in desperate need of vicarious escape, titillation, excitement, and profits. Woods was the ultimate in the sports hero who fulfilled that empty need.
He was expected to move in the rarified air above the fray of human problems while raising society's expectation of what's good and wholesome. He’s been handsomely rewarded for fulfilling that fantasy even though as he admitted in his statement about the accident on his website tigerwoods.com, he is only human. He reminded the world the obvious. He has the same flaws and foibles as anyone else, and that certainly includes sports icons.
The other reason for the Woods beat down is his fame and fortune. Black super stars cause much media and public hurt when they supposedly betray the collective self delusion of sport as pure and pristine. That stirs even greater jealousy and resentment. That's evident in the constant fan and sportswriter carping about how spoiled, pampered and over paid Woods and black athletes supposedly are. The first hint of any bad behavior by them ignites a torrent of self-righteous columns and commentary on the supposed arrogant, above the law black athlete.
Woods has not had nor will he have a day in court. He hasn’t done anything to warrant one. But he squirms on the hook in the other court, the court of public opinion. Many in that court have tried, convicted and sentenced him. His sentence is cruel. That is having to cancel golf tournaments, hearing whispers from sponsors and ad persons about his image, and of course, the drumbeat tabloid gossip. But given who he is the sentence is not unusual. It's called the Tiger beat down.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
4 Days Until Blogging For Justice
The Stop Taser Torture blog is the official blog that coordinates the annual December 4th event called, “Stop Taser Torture, blogging for Justice.”
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Glenn Beck asks - win or leave Afghanistan
Written by Michael Vass
For some time now I have been discussing the indecision of President Obama in regard to our troops in Afghanistan (as well as Iraq with President Bush). I believe I have made my views very clear on this issue. America needs to take a strong position and fight to win this war, or we must run away in retreat. There is no other option.
I am not one for defeat. I do not believe that our soldiers, that have volunteered to fight on behalf of the nation (right or wrong regardless), have done so with the thought of loss at the hands of Osama Bin Laden or anyone else. As a Marine, I believe in removing the enemies willingness and ability to continue to fight. I have no doubt, that if allowed to do so - without political naysayers holding our troops back - America can win in any battle or war against any foe.
At this point I believe it is obvious that President Obama does not share this same belief. I believe it is clear that President Obama does not have the personal conviction to lead our military on a course for victory, however a politician might define that.
Yet at the same time President Obama is unwilling to have history mark him as a coward that fled from a fight. That he is fearful of the political ramifications of retreat to his political party and to his hopes of re-election in 2012. That his agenda of change cannot be completed with the citizens of the nation seeing him as far less than the leader he propped himself up as during the election campaign where he boasted of wresting victory from Afghanistan.
But my voice is not as powerful as others on this subject. I may reach 125 countries every month, but I do not have the marketing power of a MSNBC or Fox News. Blogging may involve 15% of all internet traffic, but it is still not (yet) the equal of cable or broadcast news. Many still prefer to hear these very same words from someone on a television rather than read the words (or watch a video commentary) on a blog. And so I present the following video for those individuals.
Other than about 1:30 of Glenn Beck discussing the national debt (which is skyrocketing and is as much the fault of President Obama as President Bush) I have not altered this. It is broken into 2 parts to meet the time constraints of Youtube. And I agree fully with the opinion expressed here. In fact, you can browse VASS and find similar statements (with my personal bias towards winning) going back months, if not years.
I suggest to everyone, pass this on to those you know. No matter their political opinion I think it is clear at this point. America must either decide to fight or retreat. The indecision of President Obama over the past months benefits neither Party nor any American.
For some time now I have been discussing the indecision of President Obama in regard to our troops in Afghanistan (as well as Iraq with President Bush). I believe I have made my views very clear on this issue. America needs to take a strong position and fight to win this war, or we must run away in retreat. There is no other option.
I am not one for defeat. I do not believe that our soldiers, that have volunteered to fight on behalf of the nation (right or wrong regardless), have done so with the thought of loss at the hands of Osama Bin Laden or anyone else. As a Marine, I believe in removing the enemies willingness and ability to continue to fight. I have no doubt, that if allowed to do so - without political naysayers holding our troops back - America can win in any battle or war against any foe.
At this point I believe it is obvious that President Obama does not share this same belief. I believe it is clear that President Obama does not have the personal conviction to lead our military on a course for victory, however a politician might define that.
Yet at the same time President Obama is unwilling to have history mark him as a coward that fled from a fight. That he is fearful of the political ramifications of retreat to his political party and to his hopes of re-election in 2012. That his agenda of change cannot be completed with the citizens of the nation seeing him as far less than the leader he propped himself up as during the election campaign where he boasted of wresting victory from Afghanistan.
But my voice is not as powerful as others on this subject. I may reach 125 countries every month, but I do not have the marketing power of a MSNBC or Fox News. Blogging may involve 15% of all internet traffic, but it is still not (yet) the equal of cable or broadcast news. Many still prefer to hear these very same words from someone on a television rather than read the words (or watch a video commentary) on a blog. And so I present the following video for those individuals.
Other than about 1:30 of Glenn Beck discussing the national debt (which is skyrocketing and is as much the fault of President Obama as President Bush) I have not altered this. It is broken into 2 parts to meet the time constraints of Youtube. And I agree fully with the opinion expressed here. In fact, you can browse VASS and find similar statements (with my personal bias towards winning) going back months, if not years.
I suggest to everyone, pass this on to those you know. No matter their political opinion I think it is clear at this point. America must either decide to fight or retreat. The indecision of President Obama over the past months benefits neither Party nor any American.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
It’s Official: Afghanistan Is Now Obama’s Baby
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
There was never doubt the moment General Stanley McChrystal flatly told President Obama last summer that the US must deploy up to 45,000 more troops in Afghanistan that’d he heed his command. The Pentagon had officially spoken through McChrystal. With the rare exception of JFK’s pushback against the generals during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the Pentagon speaks presidents listen. It’s been a costly listen. Vietnam, Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq, and now Afghanistan has cost countless America lives, squandered billions, frayed relations with the European allies, and reinforced the US’s global reputation as a swaggering, bombs and bullets first bully. Afghanistan is no exception.
The apparent tussle between Obama and the Pentagon over a massive new troop build-up was never anything more than a game of political timing and numbers. It was simply bad politics to dump nearly 50,000 more troops in the country at a time when polls showed the American public has overwhelmingly soured on the war, and the majority of his base, liberal Democrats and progressives, scream for a withdrawal. With the GOP counterinsurgency gathering a head of steam Obama also cast a nervous eye on the recent off year elections. There was too much uncertainty about how Democrats would fare in state elections A double down on troops at a cost of billions more, and the almost certainty of bigger casualties demanded delay.
But there was no doubt that Obama would up the Afghan ante. This has as much to do with the Pentagon’s relentless demand to escalate as with his unshakeable belief that the war can actually be won, no matter the cost.
Obama was willing to stake the credibility of his administration on that even before taking office. In his August 2009 speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars at their convention, Obama sounded his it’s the right time, right place and right war mantra line. “This is not a war of choice. “This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again.”
There are of course better options to fight terrorism than a big, costly, and controversial Afghan occupation. Vice President Joe Biden for one urged a drastic scale back of the troop commitment in the country and to concentrate on targeted attacks against Al Qaeda wherever it was found. Biden’s pitch for a less costly, more rationale approach to achieving Obama’s aims was for the most part ignored.
Obama’s buzz words are reforms, and anti-corruption measures, exit strategies, Afghan government, tight afghan security forces, and NATO partnerships. This is part fawn hope and part political script to sell the massive troop build-up to fight an unpopular war. The US hasn’t come anywhere close to achieving any of these goals. Pouring 30 to 50,000 more troops in the country won’t change that.
Aghanistan is a near impossible war to wage let alone win for reasons that go beyond simply finding a democratic government and shoring up a stable, corruption free governnment. It blends religious fanaticism, medieval beliefs, territorial imperative, and deeply flawed political assumptions about terrorism into a nightmare cauldron. Afghans, whether fighting the British a century ago and later the Russians, waged the wars spurred by a rigid, uncompromising Islamic fundamentalism that reached way beyond the tenets of traditional Islam. God was always on their side.
Even if there were any validity to the fantasy that Afghanistan could be cleared of the Taliban by military action alone, that would hardly end the threat of terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups can easily regroup in a host of other safe havens in places such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, the Sudan, Lebanon, and Iran and continue to receive financial backing through drugs, illicit arms sales, and covert state government backing. Then there are the terror targets themselves.
A study of suicide attacks by Robert Pape of the Chicago Project in 2005, found that almost all terror attacks and targets are aimed at getting the occupying forces to pull their troops out of a disputed territory whether it’s Iraq, the West Bank, Israel, or Afghanistan. A bigger US occupation far from diminishing the prospect of more terror attacks assures that there will be more of them with US forces being in the terrorist bulls eye.
Military analysts seem genuinely surprised that the US build-up hadn’t achieved the goal of reducing the influence and numbers of Taliban fighters and supporters within Afghanistan and Pakistan and by extension diminishing the threat of more terror attacks. Yet, there is a direct inverse correlation between the military ramp up in rural areas and the ramp up in support for the radicals. The obvious conclusion is that thousands more US troops will stir even greater resistance.
Obama declares that he will finish the job in Afghanistan. But thirty thousand more troops won’t guarantee a finish, just a bigger bill, more lives at risk, and a potential political disaster. No matter, Obama’s made it official, Afghanistan is now his baby.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
There was never doubt the moment General Stanley McChrystal flatly told President Obama last summer that the US must deploy up to 45,000 more troops in Afghanistan that’d he heed his command. The Pentagon had officially spoken through McChrystal. With the rare exception of JFK’s pushback against the generals during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the Pentagon speaks presidents listen. It’s been a costly listen. Vietnam, Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq, and now Afghanistan has cost countless America lives, squandered billions, frayed relations with the European allies, and reinforced the US’s global reputation as a swaggering, bombs and bullets first bully. Afghanistan is no exception.
The apparent tussle between Obama and the Pentagon over a massive new troop build-up was never anything more than a game of political timing and numbers. It was simply bad politics to dump nearly 50,000 more troops in the country at a time when polls showed the American public has overwhelmingly soured on the war, and the majority of his base, liberal Democrats and progressives, scream for a withdrawal. With the GOP counterinsurgency gathering a head of steam Obama also cast a nervous eye on the recent off year elections. There was too much uncertainty about how Democrats would fare in state elections A double down on troops at a cost of billions more, and the almost certainty of bigger casualties demanded delay.
But there was no doubt that Obama would up the Afghan ante. This has as much to do with the Pentagon’s relentless demand to escalate as with his unshakeable belief that the war can actually be won, no matter the cost.
Obama was willing to stake the credibility of his administration on that even before taking office. In his August 2009 speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars at their convention, Obama sounded his it’s the right time, right place and right war mantra line. “This is not a war of choice. “This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again.”
There are of course better options to fight terrorism than a big, costly, and controversial Afghan occupation. Vice President Joe Biden for one urged a drastic scale back of the troop commitment in the country and to concentrate on targeted attacks against Al Qaeda wherever it was found. Biden’s pitch for a less costly, more rationale approach to achieving Obama’s aims was for the most part ignored.
Obama’s buzz words are reforms, and anti-corruption measures, exit strategies, Afghan government, tight afghan security forces, and NATO partnerships. This is part fawn hope and part political script to sell the massive troop build-up to fight an unpopular war. The US hasn’t come anywhere close to achieving any of these goals. Pouring 30 to 50,000 more troops in the country won’t change that.
Aghanistan is a near impossible war to wage let alone win for reasons that go beyond simply finding a democratic government and shoring up a stable, corruption free governnment. It blends religious fanaticism, medieval beliefs, territorial imperative, and deeply flawed political assumptions about terrorism into a nightmare cauldron. Afghans, whether fighting the British a century ago and later the Russians, waged the wars spurred by a rigid, uncompromising Islamic fundamentalism that reached way beyond the tenets of traditional Islam. God was always on their side.
Even if there were any validity to the fantasy that Afghanistan could be cleared of the Taliban by military action alone, that would hardly end the threat of terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups can easily regroup in a host of other safe havens in places such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, the Sudan, Lebanon, and Iran and continue to receive financial backing through drugs, illicit arms sales, and covert state government backing. Then there are the terror targets themselves.
A study of suicide attacks by Robert Pape of the Chicago Project in 2005, found that almost all terror attacks and targets are aimed at getting the occupying forces to pull their troops out of a disputed territory whether it’s Iraq, the West Bank, Israel, or Afghanistan. A bigger US occupation far from diminishing the prospect of more terror attacks assures that there will be more of them with US forces being in the terrorist bulls eye.
Military analysts seem genuinely surprised that the US build-up hadn’t achieved the goal of reducing the influence and numbers of Taliban fighters and supporters within Afghanistan and Pakistan and by extension diminishing the threat of more terror attacks. Yet, there is a direct inverse correlation between the military ramp up in rural areas and the ramp up in support for the radicals. The obvious conclusion is that thousands more US troops will stir even greater resistance.
Obama declares that he will finish the job in Afghanistan. But thirty thousand more troops won’t guarantee a finish, just a bigger bill, more lives at risk, and a potential political disaster. No matter, Obama’s made it official, Afghanistan is now his baby.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Standards For police Taser Use supported By Publisher of Tasered While Black Blog
I just finished reading the Police Executive Research Forum's Taser policy guidelines. The forum is a research group for police chiefs and administrators funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. There are 52 standards that were released in 2005. It was an attempt to standardize police department Taser policy nationally. The guidelines are a good start, and should be adopted in State Legislatures across America. Hopeful Canada would do the same. Do I want tasered outlawed, yes. Yet in the interim, strict policy must be created and enforced.
Some of the police forum's standards provide stricter guidelines for Taser use and improve internal oversight, training and medical care for people shot with a Taser. These standards cover issues not adequately addressed in thousands of police department across the United States, Canada and other countries.
Blogger, African American Political Pundit, who also publishes the blogs, Stop Taser Torture, Tasered While Black said, "every police department in the United States should compare it's Police Department's Taser policy with the forum's standards." He also said, there is a need for all police departments to establish a clear policy on providing medical treatment from medical professionals to people shot with Tasers." The bottom line is police agencies should be required to contact emergency responders whenever the police respond to a call where they believe a Taser might be used." The blogger said, "It's time for police departments to take corrective action and it's time for Congressional and state legislators, along with state police agencies to take the lead in developing strict requirements, such as those spelled out in the Police Executive Research Forum's Taser policy guidelines."
Don't forget to join us on December 4th. “Stop Taser Torture, blogging for Justice.” as we raise awareness and trigger a global discussion. Contact us at: StopTaserTorture@gmail.com to register your blog.
Please place a button on your blog.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
America Must Join the Civilized World on Teen Life Sentences
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
In 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court took a huge step toward joining nearly all nations on the globe when it banned teen executions. But it was only a step. The U.S. still locks up more juveniles for life without the possibility of parole than all nations combined. The High Court will rule on two Florida cases where juvenile offenders got no-parole life sentences. In those cases as well as tens of others, the juvenile offenders received life without parole sentences for crimes that did not involve murder. The offenders ranged in age from 13 to 16 years old. There are about 100 juvenile offenders incarcerated for life in eight states with no chance for parole. Nineteen states in all still have no-parole sentences for juveniles on their books.
The 100 offenders who are serving the draconian no-parole sentences though are only the tip of a more terrifying iceberg. A year ago Human Rights Watch found that more than 2,000 juvenile offenders are serving life without possibility of parole sentences. A significant number of the juveniles sentenced to no-parole sentences did not actually commit murder but were participants in a robbery or were at the scene of the crime when the death occurred. The majority of the teens slapped with the sentence had no prior convictions, and a substantial number were age 15 or under.
The stock argument against a blanket ban on no-parole sentences is that violence is violence no matter the age of the perpetrator, and that punishment must be severe to deter crime. Prosecutors and courts in the states that convict and impose no-parole life sentences on juvenile offenders have vigorously rejected challenges that teen no-parole sentences are a violation of the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Hollywood movie sensationalism and media-driven myths about rampaging youth not to mention the very real horror stories of gang violence and young persons who do commit horrendous crimes also reinforce the popular notion that juveniles are violent predators. This has done much to damp down public sentiment that juvenile offenders can be helped with treatment and rehabilitation and deserve a second chance rather than a prison cell for life.
This is not to minimize the pain, suffering and trauma, juvenile offenders cause to their victims and their loved ones with their crimes. However, a society that slaps the irrevocable punishment of life without parole on juvenile offenders sends the terrible message that it has thrown in the towel on turning the lives of young offenders around. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Kennedy hinted at just that in his majority opinion that scrapped teen executions. Kennedy noted that, "the punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is itself a severe sanction, in particular for a young person."
Kennedy acknowledged, as have legions of child violence experts, that juveniles don't have the same maturity, judgment, or emotional development as adults. Child experts agree that children are not natural-born predators and that if given proper treatment, counseling, skills training and education, most juvenile offenders can be turned into productive adults.
In a report on juveniles and the death penalty, Amnesty International found that a number of child offenders sentenced to death suffered severe physical or sexual abuse. Many others were alcohol or drug impaired, or suffered from acute mental illness or brain damage. Nearly all were below average intelligence. Some of the juvenile offenders were goaded, intimidated, or threatened with violence by adults who committed their violent crimes and forced them to be their accomplices.
Then there’s the issue of race. The no-parole sentences are hardly race neutral. Black teens are 10 times more likely to receive a no-parole life sentence than white youths. They are even more likely to get those sentences when their victims are white. This was the case in the two Florida cases the Supreme Court will look at. They are often tried by all-white or mostly-white juries. Those same juries seldom consider their age as a mitigating factor. The racial gap between black and white juvenile offenders is vast and troubling. The rush to toss the key on black juveniles has had terrible consequences in black communities. It has increased poverty, fractured families, and further criminalized a generation of young black men.
The Supreme Court in its decision to ban juvenile executions recognized that a civilized nation can’t call itself that if it executes its very young. The Supreme Court should recognize that a nation that locks up its very young and tosses the key away on them also can’t be called a civilized nation. It should scrap the no-parole life sentences for juveniles.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
In 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court took a huge step toward joining nearly all nations on the globe when it banned teen executions. But it was only a step. The U.S. still locks up more juveniles for life without the possibility of parole than all nations combined. The High Court will rule on two Florida cases where juvenile offenders got no-parole life sentences. In those cases as well as tens of others, the juvenile offenders received life without parole sentences for crimes that did not involve murder. The offenders ranged in age from 13 to 16 years old. There are about 100 juvenile offenders incarcerated for life in eight states with no chance for parole. Nineteen states in all still have no-parole sentences for juveniles on their books.
The 100 offenders who are serving the draconian no-parole sentences though are only the tip of a more terrifying iceberg. A year ago Human Rights Watch found that more than 2,000 juvenile offenders are serving life without possibility of parole sentences. A significant number of the juveniles sentenced to no-parole sentences did not actually commit murder but were participants in a robbery or were at the scene of the crime when the death occurred. The majority of the teens slapped with the sentence had no prior convictions, and a substantial number were age 15 or under.
The stock argument against a blanket ban on no-parole sentences is that violence is violence no matter the age of the perpetrator, and that punishment must be severe to deter crime. Prosecutors and courts in the states that convict and impose no-parole life sentences on juvenile offenders have vigorously rejected challenges that teen no-parole sentences are a violation of the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Hollywood movie sensationalism and media-driven myths about rampaging youth not to mention the very real horror stories of gang violence and young persons who do commit horrendous crimes also reinforce the popular notion that juveniles are violent predators. This has done much to damp down public sentiment that juvenile offenders can be helped with treatment and rehabilitation and deserve a second chance rather than a prison cell for life.
This is not to minimize the pain, suffering and trauma, juvenile offenders cause to their victims and their loved ones with their crimes. However, a society that slaps the irrevocable punishment of life without parole on juvenile offenders sends the terrible message that it has thrown in the towel on turning the lives of young offenders around. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Kennedy hinted at just that in his majority opinion that scrapped teen executions. Kennedy noted that, "the punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is itself a severe sanction, in particular for a young person."
Kennedy acknowledged, as have legions of child violence experts, that juveniles don't have the same maturity, judgment, or emotional development as adults. Child experts agree that children are not natural-born predators and that if given proper treatment, counseling, skills training and education, most juvenile offenders can be turned into productive adults.
In a report on juveniles and the death penalty, Amnesty International found that a number of child offenders sentenced to death suffered severe physical or sexual abuse. Many others were alcohol or drug impaired, or suffered from acute mental illness or brain damage. Nearly all were below average intelligence. Some of the juvenile offenders were goaded, intimidated, or threatened with violence by adults who committed their violent crimes and forced them to be their accomplices.
Then there’s the issue of race. The no-parole sentences are hardly race neutral. Black teens are 10 times more likely to receive a no-parole life sentence than white youths. They are even more likely to get those sentences when their victims are white. This was the case in the two Florida cases the Supreme Court will look at. They are often tried by all-white or mostly-white juries. Those same juries seldom consider their age as a mitigating factor. The racial gap between black and white juvenile offenders is vast and troubling. The rush to toss the key on black juveniles has had terrible consequences in black communities. It has increased poverty, fractured families, and further criminalized a generation of young black men.
The Supreme Court in its decision to ban juvenile executions recognized that a civilized nation can’t call itself that if it executes its very young. The Supreme Court should recognize that a nation that locks up its very young and tosses the key away on them also can’t be called a civilized nation. It should scrap the no-parole life sentences for juveniles.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
Afghanistan - the war President Obama wanted
Written by Michael Vass
Since there seems to be plenty of time before President Obama takes any action in the war America should be fighting (Afghanistan according to his campaign promises), I thought I might take a look at who is doing something there.
There are 39 countries with troops in Afghanistan. That includes the U.S. But there is also: Demark, Canada, England, Romania, Australia, Poland, France Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain, Norway, Czech Republic, Croatia, Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Latvia, Azerbaijan, New Zealand, Albania, Greece, Finland, Estonia, Slovenia, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Iceland, Ireland, Jordan, Austria and Georgia. (though 8 really don't count since they have 10 or less troops)
The U.S. of course has the most troops. And there is a standing request for 40,000 more troops waiting for President Obama. He may get to that request sometime before Christmas, but don't count on it. He's put off the answer for more than 90 days now and there seems to be no rush to give an answer. Besides, we don't want to interupt his trips to Europe and Asia for something as silly as being Commander-and-Chief.
But without the leadership of America, which almost sounds like an oxymoron these days, Germany decided to move forward with it's plans to stay in Afghanistan, and add more troops (about 3% more). It may not be much, and it isn't, but it is more than what America has done.
Britain has suggested adding 500 to 5,000 more troops depending on what America does. That's on top of the 900 they added earlier this year along with Spain and France adding troops. Though France will not add more (probably a good thing since the last time they won a war was... Napoleon?).
So since many of the allies of America have enough balls to step forward and either commit to staying in Afghanistan or adding troops I was wondering what was on the mind of President Obama. He campaigned like he had the balls to lead a war. He promised to take the war right to Osama Bin Laden. He made it clear beyond question this was the fight he wanted to win.
Now unlike others on the net I will not say that President Obama is a coward that only made empty promises so he could be elected. I will say that the cowtowing to foreign leaders (how low can you go in Saudi Arabia and Japan) - minus our biggest ally England (the Queen obviously didn't deserve the respect given lesser allies) - does give the impression that America is weak with Democrat leaders at the helm. The recent examples of President Carter (Iran fiasco) and President Clinton (wouldn't take out bin Laden or Saddam when he had the chance) mirror the apparent frailty of President Obama.
Perhaps this is just a big plan. Maybe President Obama wants other countries to fight our war, using his rockstar status and apologetic nature to make them feel bad for the nerd across the seas. Maybe he thinks that cowering in a corner hoping no one will notice he can't make a decision without the Liberal left telling him what to do, will force Al Quaeda to come out of hiding from the sheer boredom of waiting.
I don't know what is motivating President Obama. For all I know it could be that he doesn't want to miss out on getting more frequent flyer miles and a couple of extra international stamps in his passport on taxpayers money. But the net result is very clear. President Obama is not the Commander-and-Chief that he puffed up for cameras during the election campaign and proclaimed to be.
At this point I think President Obama should be honest. He should take all the troops out of Afghanistan and say that he does not have the stomach to lead a nation at war. He should ask, bowing optional, Al Quida and other terrorists to wait for him to leave office before killing more Americans. He's a friend to radical fanatical Islam, so it would be the nice thing to do.
At least if he did that, we all would know what to expect and wouldn't have to worry about our brave soldiers overseas. We could just worry about the next plane hitting innocent Americans somewhere down the road. And for the Obamaaniacs, I'm sure there would be a way to blame President Bush for that too.
Since there seems to be plenty of time before President Obama takes any action in the war America should be fighting (Afghanistan according to his campaign promises), I thought I might take a look at who is doing something there.
There are 39 countries with troops in Afghanistan. That includes the U.S. But there is also: Demark, Canada, England, Romania, Australia, Poland, France Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain, Norway, Czech Republic, Croatia, Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Latvia, Azerbaijan, New Zealand, Albania, Greece, Finland, Estonia, Slovenia, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Iceland, Ireland, Jordan, Austria and Georgia. (though 8 really don't count since they have 10 or less troops)
The U.S. of course has the most troops. And there is a standing request for 40,000 more troops waiting for President Obama. He may get to that request sometime before Christmas, but don't count on it. He's put off the answer for more than 90 days now and there seems to be no rush to give an answer. Besides, we don't want to interupt his trips to Europe and Asia for something as silly as being Commander-and-Chief.
But without the leadership of America, which almost sounds like an oxymoron these days, Germany decided to move forward with it's plans to stay in Afghanistan, and add more troops (about 3% more). It may not be much, and it isn't, but it is more than what America has done.
Britain has suggested adding 500 to 5,000 more troops depending on what America does. That's on top of the 900 they added earlier this year along with Spain and France adding troops. Though France will not add more (probably a good thing since the last time they won a war was... Napoleon?).
So since many of the allies of America have enough balls to step forward and either commit to staying in Afghanistan or adding troops I was wondering what was on the mind of President Obama. He campaigned like he had the balls to lead a war. He promised to take the war right to Osama Bin Laden. He made it clear beyond question this was the fight he wanted to win.
Now unlike others on the net I will not say that President Obama is a coward that only made empty promises so he could be elected. I will say that the cowtowing to foreign leaders (how low can you go in Saudi Arabia and Japan) - minus our biggest ally England (the Queen obviously didn't deserve the respect given lesser allies) - does give the impression that America is weak with Democrat leaders at the helm. The recent examples of President Carter (Iran fiasco) and President Clinton (wouldn't take out bin Laden or Saddam when he had the chance) mirror the apparent frailty of President Obama.
Perhaps this is just a big plan. Maybe President Obama wants other countries to fight our war, using his rockstar status and apologetic nature to make them feel bad for the nerd across the seas. Maybe he thinks that cowering in a corner hoping no one will notice he can't make a decision without the Liberal left telling him what to do, will force Al Quaeda to come out of hiding from the sheer boredom of waiting.
I don't know what is motivating President Obama. For all I know it could be that he doesn't want to miss out on getting more frequent flyer miles and a couple of extra international stamps in his passport on taxpayers money. But the net result is very clear. President Obama is not the Commander-and-Chief that he puffed up for cameras during the election campaign and proclaimed to be.
At this point I think President Obama should be honest. He should take all the troops out of Afghanistan and say that he does not have the stomach to lead a nation at war. He should ask, bowing optional, Al Quida and other terrorists to wait for him to leave office before killing more Americans. He's a friend to radical fanatical Islam, so it would be the nice thing to do.
At least if he did that, we all would know what to expect and wouldn't have to worry about our brave soldiers overseas. We could just worry about the next plane hitting innocent Americans somewhere down the road. And for the Obamaaniacs, I'm sure there would be a way to blame President Bush for that too.
Success of the Obama Stimulus
Written by Michael Vass
Since there have been so many that are imploring everyone to just be happy with the success of the Obama Stimulus, I thought I might take a moment to list the benefits that have come to the nation. The gains since President Obama enacted the stimulus package have been numerous and widespread.
Besides creating several skate parks and artist walks in multiple cities across the nation, the Obama Stimulus has also helped curb homelessness in cities in Upstate New York without a homeless problem. It has helped increase consumer spending, thus ending the recession this summer. Except that the $25 a week actually didn't affect the consumer spending at all, and the only thing that did improve the numbers was the $3 billion spent on Cash for Clunkers - which was additional spending by the Government. Well at least there is no dispute that the Obama Stimulus created or "saved" 1 million jobs.
Except that it didn't make it to 1 million. According to the numbers reported by the White House, which were triple checked, only some 600,000 jobs were created. But that's not quite right either. The White House, via recovery.gov, quietly reduced the number of jobs created or "saved" by 60,000 - because of human errors.
Human errors. That's a critical statement. Because it has nothing to do with the Obama Administration instructing those that got stimulus money to count a raise as a percentage of a "saved" job. So if anyone got a raise of .05 cents from Stimulus money, their entire job and income was multiplied by 1.8% and used to determine a job that was created. This lead to several reports like from Massachuesetts where a company with 500 employees reported 900 jobs "saved". Because Government math is the right math.
Of course that has nothing to do with the at least 4 states that had reports of jobs created or "saved" in congressional districts that don't exist. Yep, there are places that only exist in a map made by the Obama Stimulus, and recovery.gov, that got stimulus money and employed people that live in these other dimensional places. Take for example the Florida 86th Congressional district.
The 86th Florida congressional district does not exist. Anywhere. Yet they contacted recovery.gov and reported that they received $3,000,000 to create 5 jobs. So money was spent on a place that is imaginary and gave work to people that are best identified as illusions. Or more hopefully someone made a major mistake. Over and over again as this has happened repeatedly in multiple states with multiple fictional districts.
But don't worry, this report was triple checked before being released to the public. The White House said so as late as October 28th.
And be reassured that President Obama will not let this "side issue" (as stated in an interview with Major Garett of Fox News - the people that weren't real news remember?) clutter up the success of the stimulus. I mean he has the unemployment rate to brag about. It's just 10.2% - according to Government figures because the real unemployment data shows 18% if you include those people no longer able to get unemployment checks, which the Government doesn't. That's only 2% over the absolute ceiling that President Obama promised the public, and even White House economists now state that the numbers can go higher by next year. (My early guess was 11.5% but I may be wrong - to the low end)
Plus President Obama has the ability to brag about the cost per job from the Stimulus. Let's just assume that even the fictional places and people, plus all the Government math, are all right. That means there is roughly 600,000 jobs. We spent roughly $166,000 on each job, and each job will generate roughly $30,000 a year. That's only a loss of $136,000 a job, which by Government standards is pretty good.
The best part may be something I just learned about today. Remember Florida? Well Representative Ginny Brown-Waite wanted to see just how much money President Obama spent on creating the recovery.gov website that has been so accurate and outstanding. How much do you think it was worth to have this site created with such pinpoint accuracy and authenticity?
Well the answer, as given to a member of Congress, is who knows? Yes, I will repeat that. There is no known cost for creating the website Recovery.gov. Made for the Obama Administration, the contract is redacted so as to completely obscure what the original cost was. Since this has nothing to do with national security, and since just a member of Congress was asking I'm glad we got to know this minor "side issue".
But the news gets better. We also know, thanks to Representative Brown-Waite, that it cost a mere $18 million to update the Recovery.gov site. That's barely enough money to have created (or "saved") 15 jobs - by Obama Stimulus standards. And I know all those web designers like M V Consulting, Inc are thinking that they might have been able to bid lower than $18 million dollars to UPDATE a website. But it wouldn't have worked as the CBO offered to do it for $600,000 (not even enough to create - or "save" - even 1 job) and they were turned down.
So don't you feel happy? Feel a tingle up you leg? Due to the Obama Stimulus, which is completely a Democrat idea and passed by Democrats well after President Bush was gone, every American can be proud to say they have paid for what I believe is the most expensive website in the world to date. Perhaps ever.
And it is so accurate that if it were a clock it would be right twice a day - sometimes. It's so transparent that only reading details with your eyes closed would be more informative. It's created so many jobs that only the number saved is more effective at reversing unemployment. It's so cost-effective that it inspires trust in Health Care Reform and Cap & Trade (and the more than whispered 2nd Stimulus for 2010) that only the utter brilliance in planning that was Cash for Clunkers could achieve.
Yes, President Obama along with Democrats and Vice President Biden should be basking in the joy that the Obama Stimulus has succeeded in creating. They have really proved me and all other detractors wrong.
Since there have been so many that are imploring everyone to just be happy with the success of the Obama Stimulus, I thought I might take a moment to list the benefits that have come to the nation. The gains since President Obama enacted the stimulus package have been numerous and widespread.
Besides creating several skate parks and artist walks in multiple cities across the nation, the Obama Stimulus has also helped curb homelessness in cities in Upstate New York without a homeless problem. It has helped increase consumer spending, thus ending the recession this summer. Except that the $25 a week actually didn't affect the consumer spending at all, and the only thing that did improve the numbers was the $3 billion spent on Cash for Clunkers - which was additional spending by the Government. Well at least there is no dispute that the Obama Stimulus created or "saved" 1 million jobs.
Except that it didn't make it to 1 million. According to the numbers reported by the White House, which were triple checked, only some 600,000 jobs were created. But that's not quite right either. The White House, via recovery.gov, quietly reduced the number of jobs created or "saved" by 60,000 - because of human errors.
Human errors. That's a critical statement. Because it has nothing to do with the Obama Administration instructing those that got stimulus money to count a raise as a percentage of a "saved" job. So if anyone got a raise of .05 cents from Stimulus money, their entire job and income was multiplied by 1.8% and used to determine a job that was created. This lead to several reports like from Massachuesetts where a company with 500 employees reported 900 jobs "saved". Because Government math is the right math.
Of course that has nothing to do with the at least 4 states that had reports of jobs created or "saved" in congressional districts that don't exist. Yep, there are places that only exist in a map made by the Obama Stimulus, and recovery.gov, that got stimulus money and employed people that live in these other dimensional places. Take for example the Florida 86th Congressional district.
The 86th Florida congressional district does not exist. Anywhere. Yet they contacted recovery.gov and reported that they received $3,000,000 to create 5 jobs. So money was spent on a place that is imaginary and gave work to people that are best identified as illusions. Or more hopefully someone made a major mistake. Over and over again as this has happened repeatedly in multiple states with multiple fictional districts.
"I [Rep. Brown-Waite of Florida] was alarmed to see that Democrats have spent $3,582,587 to create five jobs in Florida's 86th congressional district. In the fighting 53rd they spent $460,000 of your taxpayer dollars to create zero jobs," she said. Florida has 25 U.S. Congressional Districts."
But don't worry, this report was triple checked before being released to the public. The White House said so as late as October 28th.
And be reassured that President Obama will not let this "side issue" (as stated in an interview with Major Garett of Fox News - the people that weren't real news remember?) clutter up the success of the stimulus. I mean he has the unemployment rate to brag about. It's just 10.2% - according to Government figures because the real unemployment data shows 18% if you include those people no longer able to get unemployment checks, which the Government doesn't. That's only 2% over the absolute ceiling that President Obama promised the public, and even White House economists now state that the numbers can go higher by next year. (My early guess was 11.5% but I may be wrong - to the low end)
Plus President Obama has the ability to brag about the cost per job from the Stimulus. Let's just assume that even the fictional places and people, plus all the Government math, are all right. That means there is roughly 600,000 jobs. We spent roughly $166,000 on each job, and each job will generate roughly $30,000 a year. That's only a loss of $136,000 a job, which by Government standards is pretty good.
The best part may be something I just learned about today. Remember Florida? Well Representative Ginny Brown-Waite wanted to see just how much money President Obama spent on creating the recovery.gov website that has been so accurate and outstanding. How much do you think it was worth to have this site created with such pinpoint accuracy and authenticity?
Well the answer, as given to a member of Congress, is who knows? Yes, I will repeat that. There is no known cost for creating the website Recovery.gov. Made for the Obama Administration, the contract is redacted so as to completely obscure what the original cost was. Since this has nothing to do with national security, and since just a member of Congress was asking I'm glad we got to know this minor "side issue".
But the news gets better. We also know, thanks to Representative Brown-Waite, that it cost a mere $18 million to update the Recovery.gov site. That's barely enough money to have created (or "saved") 15 jobs - by Obama Stimulus standards. And I know all those web designers like M V Consulting, Inc are thinking that they might have been able to bid lower than $18 million dollars to UPDATE a website. But it wouldn't have worked as the CBO offered to do it for $600,000 (not even enough to create - or "save" - even 1 job) and they were turned down.
So don't you feel happy? Feel a tingle up you leg? Due to the Obama Stimulus, which is completely a Democrat idea and passed by Democrats well after President Bush was gone, every American can be proud to say they have paid for what I believe is the most expensive website in the world to date. Perhaps ever.
And it is so accurate that if it were a clock it would be right twice a day - sometimes. It's so transparent that only reading details with your eyes closed would be more informative. It's created so many jobs that only the number saved is more effective at reversing unemployment. It's so cost-effective that it inspires trust in Health Care Reform and Cap & Trade (and the more than whispered 2nd Stimulus for 2010) that only the utter brilliance in planning that was Cash for Clunkers could achieve.
Yes, President Obama along with Democrats and Vice President Biden should be basking in the joy that the Obama Stimulus has succeeded in creating. They have really proved me and all other detractors wrong.
"How can we expect the administration to run stimulus when they can't even run a Web site?" - Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida
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