DarkStar Spouts Off

News & Notes

I was on News & Notes today. Here's the link.
"You know..."

Let Me Understand This

Joe Horn is in his own home, looking at thugs rob HIS NEIGHBOR'S HOME, a home that is empty. He calls 911, tells the dispatcher what is going on, tells the dispatcher that he has a gun, and asks the dispatcher if he should go out there. The dispatcher, A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, tells him no but Joe Horn goes out there anyway.

He kills the thugs and the grand jury refuses to indict.

A Harris County grand jury decided today that Joe Horn should not be charged with a crime for shooting two suspected burglars he confronted outside his neighbor's home in Pasadena last fall.

The decision to clear Horn of wrongdoing came two weeks after the grand jury began considering evidence in the case, including Horn's testimony last week.

Horn, a 62-year-old retiree, became the focus of an intense public debate after the Nov. 14 shootings. Many supporters praised him as a hero for using deadly force to protect property, while others dismissed him as a killer who should have heeded a 911 operator's instructions to stay in his house and wait for police.

Let a Black man defend the life of his son and the man is convicted of a crime.

Ain't this some BULLSHIT!

A Slightly Raised Eye Brow

I'm not saying I have sympathies for those suspected of killing policemen, but this raises an eye brow for me.

A 19-year-old man accused of running down a Prince George's County police officer died yesterday in custody, less than 36 hours after he was charged in connection with the slaying.

Ronnie L. White was pronounced dead at Prince George's Hospital Center about an hour after he was found sitting on the floor of his cell beside his bunk, unresponsive and with no detectable pulse, officials at the county jail said.

White, of the 9100 block of Tumbleweed Run in the Laurel area of Howard County, had been charged with first-degree murder in Friday's death of Cpl. Richard S. Findley, 39. Two men in a pickup police believe was stolen hit Findley as they fled an apartment complex in Laurel. Police say White was the driver. Findley suffered massive head trauma and died a short time later.

Col. Gregory O. Harris, deputy director of operations for the county's Corrections Department, said he could not rule out the possibility that White committed suicide, but he stressed that there were no visible signs of trauma on him. He also said White had passed a medical and psychological evaluation when he entered the Upper Marlboro jail early Saturday and at that time "showed no signs of suicide or depression at all."

[UPDATE!]

It looks like the coronor is going to have to go into federal protective custody. He/she ruled the alleged police killer's death a homicide.

The death of a 19-year-old man who was found unresponsive yesterday in a jail cell less than 36 hours after he was charged with killing a Prince George's County police officer has been ruled a homicide, sources familiar with the investigation said today.

The state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has determined that Ronnie L. White had two broken bones in his neck and that he died from asphyxiation, according to a law enforcement official who was briefed in a telephone conference by the medical examiner's office.

Jail officials have said White was in solitary confinement and was last checked by a guard 15 minutes before he was found on the floor of his cell, not breathing and with no pulse.

Cops can't kill indiscriminately and get away with it. Otherwise there will be a breakdown in trust of the police from the population and this will spiral down into caos.

Tim Wise: New Orleans vs. Iowa

Tim Wise

A Flood of Bigotry

In hard-hit Linn County Iowa, 2400 households receive cash public assistance, out of 85,000 total households, meaning that 2.8 percent of all households in the County receive cash welfare. In New Orleans, prior to Katrina, and contrary to popular belief, only 2.6 percent of households received cash welfare (4600 households out of 180,000). So in truth, a slightly higher percentage of Linn Countians were on the dole than New Orleanians. In Black Hawk County (also hard hit by the recent deluge), 2.5 percent of all households receive cash assistance: again, suggesting no real difference between the mostly white and rural folks there, and the mostly black and urban folks in Orleans Parish at the time of Katrina.

And it should be noted, the average amount of welfare received in the Iowa counties was higher than that for recipients in New Orleans. So whereas the average annual amount of cash assistance received in New Orleans prior to Katrina was only $2800, in Linn County it's $3200 and in Black Hawk County, the average amount received is over $4600. Bottom line: those supposedly harder-working, more self-reliant white folks in the heartland are just as likely to receive public assistance as black folks in New Orleans, and when they do, they actually get more than the latter in raw dollar terms.

As with cash, food stamp participation is roughly the same in the hard hit Iowa counties as in New Orleans before Katrina. In 2004, about 11 percent of New Orleans households received food stamps, as did 8 percent of Linn County households and 10 percent of Black Hawk County households in 2006.

In addition to traditional government assistance, let it also be remembered that Iowans are quite dependent on another form of public handout: agricultural subsidies. Indeed, Iowa - that place of hard working, self-reliant folks who are now being contrasted with the supposedly government-dependent laggards in New Orleans - receives the second highest amount of agricultural crop subsidies of any state in the country, according to data compiled by the Environmental Working Group. From 1995-2006, Iowa farmers raked in $16 billion in subsidies, with 7 in 10 farmers in the state receiving some form of subsidy from the federal government. Even those small family farmers at the bottom of the subsidy pile, who receive far less than the large corporate giants who take a disproportionate amount of the loot, still received a little more than $2000 per household: not much less than the amount received in cash welfare by those in New Orleans, prior to Katrina, who received such assistance.

To put the amounts received from government in perspective, in Black Hawk County, farmers get about $15 million in crop subsidies, while in Linn County the annual take is about $17 million. In New Orleans, prior to Katrina, residents there were receiving about $13 million per year in cash assistance under the program for dependent children and their mothers. So putting aside the cash welfare received by Iowans, which as noted above was actually more, per household, than that received by New Orleanians, crop subsidies indicate that Iowans were and are more government dependent than the residents of New Orleans, no matter what the racist and classist perceptions of the general public may be.

More at the link provided.

Free Moment For Quick Brain Pellets

Supreme Court 2nd Amendment Ruling - I like the ruling, especially them striking down the requirement for trigger locks. I think trigger locks on guns in a home with children make sense and I think keeping guns loaded with kids around is foolish. But don't mandate, as does Maryland, that if the gun doesn't have integrated trigger locks, they can't be sold. The next stage of the fight will be to define what are "good gun regulations."

And I still wonder how Black people can be against gun ownership when many Blacks live in neighborhoods where police response is DOCUMENTED to be slower than in other areas.

Mugabe - Gangsta. Straight. Gangsta.

Bush Tax Cuts - Why should I be for the repeal, or should I say, supportive of letting the tax cuts sunset when, as the head of a family which a child, the tax cuts get to "allow" me to keep more of my money?

Mortgage Issues - I say again, let the people who got mortgage loans they couldn't afford in the long run, sink or swim. The current relief plans being discussed bail out the companies who made the loans based on bad business decisions, and puts the bad debt on the backs of U.S. taxpayers. There is no incentive to force change on the people getting the loans nor those making the loans. If big daddy government is going to bail out these businesses, what is going to stop them from doing it again? (Isn't that the same rationale used against welfare?)

Corn - From Cobb's post, I responded with this:

There is a documentary about 2 people who farm 1 acre of corn and follow the corn path through the markets that is eye opening. Everything stated here and more.

I've stopped drinking soda because of the movie. That movie did it. I don't each much beef anyway. But all of the food allergies people are developing is really starting to become an issue to look at for me.

Dirty Jobs - Dirty Jobs is one of the best shows on television. Cable television really is challenging, and many times surpassing, traditional broadcast shows. Mike Rowe is off but has to be one of the best overall in shape persons on television.

Politics and the Presidential Race - I'm going to do a series of posts about political things/ideas/theories that interest me and how they will affect how I vote and who I vote against, more so than who I vote for. I'll end it by stating who will not get my vote and who will, by default, get my vote. I think it's going to be interesting.

Blogger's Round Table -- I return on Monday.

Trigger Locks

Good news for gun owners!

Here is a big thing being overlooked right now.

The court said on Thursday that the law's requirement that lawful weapons be rendered essentially inoperable, by trigger locks or disassembly, was unconstitutional because it rendered the weapons useless for self-defense.

Hooooooraaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy!

Hard Times...

I don't have much time but that documentary laid it out very clearly. Parents/guardians/students are a major component in the failures of Douglass High School.

The entire household saw the show. Mrs. D.S. and I are STILL talking about it. It confirms EVERY. DAMN. THING. I have said about the Baltimore city school system, plus some. Passing kids along to pass them along! What the hell are the degrees worth? Nothing! I've also mentioned the parents/grandparents/guardians not doing what is required for their children.

And then to say NCLB is to blame? There is no way a school can meet the NCLB requirements under those circumstances. None. But even saying that, the movie did a SEVERE injustice in not going into the details of the attempted take over of the school by the state and how the state assembly blocked the plan simply because the assembly is dominated by Democrats and the take over was attempted during a Republican governor's administration.

Like I said before, to hell with the students! Democrats can't look bad!

Or was NCLB really just a hook to really show "inner city school" dysfunction and non-participation by students and parents/grandparents/guardians without having cries of "racism!" being made?

Hmmmmm.....

NCLB Failure

This hurts because every older adult in my family who grew up in Baltimore went to the high school profiled in the HBO documentary. This show was about failure of a school because of failure by the students and the parents/guardians of the students.

Hard Times At Douglass High

If you missed it, you have to catch it.

George Carlin

From a past post on comedy:

• George Carlin -- Irreverent or topical or "angry" it doesn't matter. The man is just funny. The 2 of his top routines that come to mind are "Stuff"
  

  and "The 7 Dirty Words". OK, it's full of "dirty words" but it's funny.
  

Mugabe Is Gangsta

'nuff said.

HARARE, Zimbabwe, June 23 -- Heavily armed police officers on Monday raided the headquarters of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party, dragging away about 60 people -- including children -- on a day when world leaders condemned violence by the Zimbabwean government in increasingly strong terms.

Katrina Myths, Again

This is the 2nd time doing this. I lost the first one and it pisses me the #&%$&%^$&## off! They "updated" Typepad and the new rich text editor SUCKS! It takes twice as long to create a post than the prior interface. And this is the 3rd damn time I've "lost" a post since the "upgrade"! Any damn way, from P6 I saw this:

Limbaugh: I want to know. I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois—I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property…I don’t see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don’t see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street. I don’t see a bunch of people doing everything they can…whining and moaning—where’s FEMA, where’s BUSH. I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

I remember when he ranted about the media misreporting of Katrina. Let me remind you of some things.

NEW ORLEANS - On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: "We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten."

Five days later, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told Oprah Winfrey: "They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."

The ugliest reports — children with slit throats, women dragged off and raped, corpses piling up in the basement — soon became a searing image of post-Katrina New Orleans.

The stories were told by residents trapped inside the Superdome and convention center and were repeated by public officials. Many news organizations carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attribution.

But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact.

And then the reporters tried to cover their behinds with pieces like this:

As I walked briskly through the dimly lit area inside the food service entrance of New Orleans' Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the thought of pulling back the sheets covering the four stinking, decomposing corpses in front of me seemed wrong, even perverse. Before I'd even thought to ask, one of the two soldiers who escorted me, Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks, nixed the prospect of looking inside the freezer he and another soldier said contained "30 or 40" bodies.

"I ain't got the stomach for it, even after what I saw in Iraq," he said.

I didn't push it. Now I wish I had, as gruesome as that may seem. The soldiers might have branded me a morbid fiend and run me the hell out of there, but my story in the September 6 edition of the Times-Picayune would have been right, or at least included a line saying I'd been denied the opportunity to lay eyes on the freezer.

Instead, I quoted Brooks and another soldier, by name, about the freezer's allegedly grim inventory, including the statement that it contained a "7-year-old with her throat cut."

Neither the mass of bodies nor the allegedly expired child would ever be found. As I later reported, an internal review by Arkansas Guard Lt. Col. John Edwards found that Brooks and others who repeated the freezer story had heard it in the food line at Harrah's Casino, a law enforcement and military staging area a block away. Edwards told me no soldier had actually seen bodies in a freezer.

Do I need to write more?

City's Men Heed A Call To Action

City's Men Heed 'A Call to Action'

Fathers, sons, community activists, job seekers and thousands of others filed into the Baltimore Convention Center for the "A Call to Action" meeting, a mobilization effort organizers say was designed to rebuild and restore positive black men in the community.

The assembly, which its leaders said they hoped would galvanize 5,000 men at the convention center but appeared to have fallen short, was modeled after a similar effort in Philadelphia. In October, groups of men from across Pennsylvania showed up for more than two hours into an auditorium at Temple University for 10,000 Men Philly, a street-level mobilization.

Similar to Baltimore, Philadelphia's homicide number swells well into the hundreds, and the city's leaders are searching for ways to curb the violence.

More at the link provided.

Comments R Us: Commentary On Black Republicans MAYBE Supporting Obama

People are having "a fit" over a few Black conservative Republicans mentioning they like the idea of Obama running for president and a few mentioning they are thinking about voting for Obama. Was that article representative of most Black conservatives or Black conservative Republicans or Black Republicans? Who knows? However, the media is playing head games and people went for it. What follows is alot of the comments I've left in other blogs. I'll start with this one and add more later. I'm late and busy and shouldn't even do this:

Comments left on Baldilocks' blog

So, what's the problem with Black conservatives thinking independently? :)

OK, seriously, I laughed at the article and I'm laughing, sort of, at the response only because it is a few Black Republicans/conservatives who are mentioned, not a scientific representative sample. From my view, it's the typical media misrepresentation of Black thought and Black people.

At this point I have to ask, again, why is it not big news when Blacks vote for whites over other Black candidates?

And, if you, Baldi, don't agree with identity politics, why care or even expect heat upon your for the actions of others? (OK, I admit that is utopian in thinking, but I think I make a point here).

Can I state, again, at this point hat all politics is based on "us" vs. "them" which is identity politics at the core?

Another comment on her blog:

I don't believe this to be true. I have never seen the black community unify behind a black conservative in politics.

Tavis Smiley had a Black woman, a Republican, a state legislator, at the "State of the Black Union" event who got most of the Black vote. Her name is Jackie Winters

I this point I'll add to the comment. Prior to the last election, Ken Blackwell received slightly more than 50% of the Black vote. The last election he didn't do as well and it has to do with his rejecting voting applications of people who submitted applications that were available on line. The paper used to print the applications wasn't weighted properly and Blackwell stuck to the letter of the law and rejected a lot of new applications.

This From Mr. Phone Sex Himself

This from Mr. Phone Sex himself?

O'REILLY: Do you think 13- and 14-year-olds or 15-year-olds are smart enough to understand they put themselves at risk when they do this kind of behavior? The girls that you talked to, do they have any idea or are they just stone cold dumb?

BRODY: Well, bear in mind some of these pictures were taken two or three years ago and they surfaced now. But some of these girls were 11, so they could be, perhaps, understood as being a little more innocent or thoughtless. Some kids, perhaps, are looking for attention. Some see Lindsay Lohan doing this kind of thing and want to do it themselves. Some are impulsive.

O'REILLY: But it's an amazing amount of kids involved with this -- 20 -- in an affluent school district. This isn't, you know, the inner city; you would think that these kids would have some kind of a values system. It's not that it's so horrendous. You know, it's not murder or rape. But it's so stupid.

What do you mean by calling him Mr. Phone Sex, D.S.? Here it is.

Friday Brain Pellets

I don't have much time. My week turned out to be the week from almost hell and I have a busy weekend. So while I have about 30 minutes of free time, let me spout off on things I wanted to say during the week.

Tim Russert

Tim Russert has died at the age of 58 of an apparent heart attack. I agree with what the news pundits talking heads are saying. He was the be prepared interviewer around and he was the fairest interviewer around.

R. Kelly

Of course R. Kelly was found not guilty. What else do you expect? Relatives of the "girl" said it wasn't her. She said it wasn't her although not in the court room. The woman who was the main witness had credibility problems. And he has enough money to buy a great legal team, but for this case, a good enough team would have done and Kelly's legal team was really just good enough.

After this mess first broke, R. Kelly came out with a song where he called himself the Pied Piper. And he has a song now where he mentions honey and it sure seems like he's singing about...

Writ of Habeas Corpus

I don't like the recent Supreme Court decision to allow "enemy combatants" to seek access to U.S. courts to get a hearing on charges against them. On the other hand, it seems like the President and Congress tried to get around the seemingly improper means of indefinite detention of people. In a classic war it could be said that the people would be released when the war is over. But this "war" is different in that it will not end.

Enough Is Enough

Let's tell the truth.

Jews should be grateful that the Holocaust occurred, otherwise, many of them would not have come to America nor would they have created Israel. Not only that, but because of natural selection, only the stupid Jews were killed in the Holocaust because the smart ones left before they were sent to concentration camps!

Was that over the top?

Hagee got in trouble for saying that Jewish people should be grateful for the Holocaust.

Compare that to what happened when Pat Buchanan spewed forth:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

There was outrage, but only from Blacks, well some Blacks.

Today as I was listening to The Larry Young Morning Show on WOLB, he mentioned that he was part of a panel discussion on race and talk media. Rev. Mushmouth Jesse Lee Peterson said Blacks should be grateful that we were brought over as slaves and that the ride over was rough but no rougher than a crowed airline flight. Larry Young played an audio clip to prove the statement made.

Enough is enough. The next time some fool says something like this, I'm firing back rhetorically with the Hagee rhetorical nuke!

Grit And Strength

People are commenting on Hillary's "grit and strength" in running her campaign. Why isn't that sexist? Aren't politicians EXPECTED to display grit and strength in running a campaign?

$4 and $300

I just saw that regular unleaded gasoline is $4.00 99/100 at the gas station which I frequent.

My home gas and electric bill is $300 and some odd change.

Solution

• Drill in ANWAR.
• Drill off the coast of the U.S., right next to all of the other countries who are drilling off the coast of the U.S. in international waters.
• Put nuclear electricity generators online.

That is all.

Passing Gas, I

I hate to be the one who farts in a crowed, hot, and poorly vented room, but has anyone else noticed how hard Obama is flip flopping? He and McCain are acting like live fish on land.

"Too Black"

For years there has been, for lack of a better word, debate within the Black community concerning "what it means to be Black" or if a person is "Black enough." That concept, "Black enough," has been rightly criticized by some within the Black community. But why is the idea of whites thinking a Black person is "too Black" not something that should be criticized?

This opinion article, "Color Test Where Whites Draw The Line", I think, puts it all out there. I've heard this said and written about before, and on conservative talk radio, I've heard the comment defended. I think it's a comment that can't be honestly defended.

How black is too black?

Millions of African-Americans celebrated Barack Obama’s historic victory, seeing in it a reflection — sudden and shocking — of their own expanded horizons. But whether Mr. Obama captures the White House in November will depend on how he is seen by white Americans. Indeed, some people argue that one of the reasons Mr. Obama was able to defeat Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was that a large number of white voters saw him as “postracial.”

In other words, Mr. Obama was black, but not too black.

But where is the line? Does it change over time? And if it is definable, then how black can Mr. Obama be before he alienates white voters? Or, to pose the question more cynically, how black do the Republicans have to make him to win?

If the last quoted paragraph, the paragraph emphasized, does not make it plain, I don't know what does. This is also something I pointed out here when Michael Steele said, if he faced Mfume in the general election, he would use Mfume's association with the NAACP to say to white voters Steele speaks for all people not some people.

Check this out:

Mr. Buchanan said Mr. Obama’s monolithic support among blacks was likely to stoke such white animosity.

“There’s a sense among some folks that if African-Americans are voting 90 percent for ‘one of us;’ then you’re going to vote for ‘one of us,’ ” he said. When Norm Kagan, a white 62-year-old supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s, was asked in St. Paul, Minn., if white voters in the state would support a black man, he immediately raised the specter of crime, as if the mere mention of blacks brought it to mind. “We’ve all had our problems,” he said. “Every now and then someone gets mugged or robbed. The most economically challenged — which are mostly black — are most often the criminals and not to be trusted.”

Isn't it interesting that conservatives, who claim to be for the individual and say they judge the individual on individual merits, regularly bring up certain group statistics about Blacks to castigate the entire race? Do those same people mention that most Blacks are not involved in crime?

Individuality?

Race Pundits Spewing Crap

Two years ago, The Washington Post did a series of articles on Black Men. I referred to it as the Black Men series and I wrote about it here. The first article covered the results of a poll that was taken for the series. I wrote about it here. At this point, I'm going to provide something that caught my attention in the article that I referenced:

Six in 10 black men said their collective problems owe more to what they have failed to do themselves rather than "what white people have done to blacks." At the same time, half reported they have been treated unfairly by the police, and a clear majority said the economic system is stacked against them.

...

Three in four said they value being successful in a career, more than either white men or black women. Yet majorities also said that black men put too little emphasis on education and too much emphasis on sports and sex.

The poll surveyed 2,864 people and had a sample size of 1,328 Black men. If you believe in polls, those are interesting results, especially given the over sample of Black men. But what does this have to do with race pundits or crap being spewed?

[Obama's] victory demonstrates the main platform of my race writing. The guiding question in everything I have ever written on race is: Why do so many people exaggerate about racism?

...

In any case, to insist that we are hamstrung until every vestige of racism, bias, or inequity is gone indicates a grievous lack of confidence, which I hope any person of any history would reject.

I have been consistent is stating that certain pundits on race deliberately over state what is being said and over state the proportion of people stating it. I've stated before, and showed, where certain pundits, including John McWhorter, have written things that don't stand up to the light of scrutiny. I've also stated that it appears they are as bad as the public pundits they most often criticize and call race baiters.

I find it hard to believe that McWhorter has never read the Black Man series nor has never read the poll. And, again, I state that since McWhorter is a linguist, he knows exactly how "so many people" is going to be read. Yet, if you believe in polls and believe the poll represents the attitude of most Black men, then why does McWhorter not quantify "so many people"? My opinion is that he does not want to do so because, for some reason, he has a vested interest in continuing misinformation about race in the public sphere.

Stating The Obvious, aka N.S.S.

This is stating the obvious, but at least a Fed member said it.

A senior Federal Reserve policymaker on Thursday warned that US central bank moves this year to extend credit to Wall Street investment banks carried a significant danger of “moral hazard” and could encourage risky behaviour in the future.

Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said in a speech at the European Economics and Financial Centre in London: “The danger is that the effect of recent credit extension on the incentives of financial markets participants might induce greater risk-taking, which in turn could give rise to more frequent crises, in which case it might be difficult to resist further expanding the scope of central bank lending.”

You don't say!

D.C. Police Say, "Your Papers Please!"

Oh, hell no!

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area.

Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers' identification and ask whether they have a "legitimate purpose" to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away.

...

The checkpoint will stop vehicles approaching the 1400 block of Montello Avenue NE, a section of the Trinidad neighborhood that has been plagued with homicides and other violence. Police will search cars if they suspect the presence of guns or drugs, and will arrest people who do not cooperate, under a charge of failure to obey a police officer, officials said.

OH, HELL NO!!! The emphasis was added because the "failure to obey a police officer" is a straight up, bullish, HUMBLE charge!

I'm EXTREMELY BUSY but more later...

[ Update ]

I understand that when things get out of hand, the police have to clamp down to try to regain an appearance of order, but this is too much. Why not implement and/or increase foot patrols? Why not use overtime to have police in the area more? Why not working with people in the area to gain confidence so they can tell you what's happening?

This is so wrong.

Viral Video Of The Moment

Ain't no way this fool would be alive he lived in my nuclear or extended family!

Call the morgue to collect his body if he did that to any mother in my family.

A Note On Race And Political Parties

This is a note to all about race and political parties.

It is true:

• The Democratic party was the party that supported slavery.
• A founding principal of the Republican party was abolition of slavery.
• The Democratic party was the party that fought to maintain white supremacy after Reconstruction.
• Many southern Democrats fought civil rights legislation.
• Republicans were vital to the passing of civil rights legislation.
• Democrats were vital to the passing of civil rights legislation.
• At one time the majority of Blacks were Republicans.

However, all of that is in the past forms of the Democratic and Republican parties. That is not the present makeup of both parties. I'm not saying the Republican party would support slavery today, however, the Southern Strategy, as Michael Steele has stated, was real and it was wrong. Today, I contend the Republican party, largely, actively avoids going after the Black vote. This is not the Republican party of years gone by. Nor is the segregationist roots of the Democratic party the Democratic party of today.

Today, the Democratic party is Barack Obama's party. By winning the Democratic presidential nomination, he is the effective leader of the party.

My fellow Republicans, no matter what, at this point, it cannot be said the Democratic party is the party of racists. They have shed that past, Sen. Robert Bryd not withstanding.