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Sunday, September 21, 2014

For Those Who Think African-Americans Are at a Disadvantage

Forget Slavery: Too Uncle Tom Even for Conservatives?

Even a few white conservative radio hosts became uncomfortable and pushed back against my saying that slavery happened a ga-zillion years ago and it is time for black America to get over it. Apparently, they considered such a statement coming from a black person too Uncle Tom-ish for even them. Their retort is “Surely, you must admit that being African American in America is challenging.” When my reply is, “No, it is not.” their reply is, “Thanks for coming on the show Lloyd. And we'll be right back.”
I am in my sixties and America has come a very long way since my youth. Mary, my beautiful awesome white wife of 38 years, and I began dating over 40 years ago. We caught heck from both sides; severe pushback from our families. We were chased in our car by a carload of angry white boys. On another occasion, we were waiting at a traffic light when a white man got out of his car, cursed at us and spat on our car. A white landlord revealed to me that her black maid advised her not to rent to us because any black man who dates a white woman is no good.
Then, there was the time at a family restaurant, a white man approached our table and smashed a beer bottle on my forehead and fled the restaurant. I was not severely injured and he was later apprehended. Back in those days, being black in America had its challenges.

Today, in terms of living a happy and fulfilled life; achieving one's American dream, racism is not serious enough to block anyone. As a matter of fact, America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet. I am extremely grateful to God for blessing me to be born an American. Cut the victim crap and go for your dreams.

Is racism alive and well in America? Absolutely, on both sides. People have a variety of prejudices. Is racial prejudice in America prevalent enough to stop anyone from achieving? No.

The Bible says “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Wow, what a powerful truth, able to empower or destroy you. If you see yourself as a victim, you are. But, if you see yourself powerful and free, you are.

Can someone please explain to me how viewing themselves as victims of slavery empowers black Americans today? It does not; quite the opposite. Liberals love to lay the serious economic and moral problems devastating the black community at the feet of white America and America's sin of slavery. This mindset weakens black America because it places their salvation in the hands of someone other than themselves, contingent on white behavior and intervention. Are we slaves on a national plantation waiting for our masters to better manage our lives?

Throughout American history there are countless inspiring tales of blacks using their will to succeed. Born in 1885, A'Lelia Walker was a black businesswoman. She was the first self-made female millionaire in the United States and also one of the first black millionaires.

Imagine Miss Walker's life had she obsessed about slavery and reparations.

My black college buddy Joe Ford was a wonderful role model of focus and determination. Joe had every excuse to fail. He lived in a Baltimore ghetto, raised by his grandmother, and spent a year in jail for stealing.

A black tech school teacher taught Joe how to earn a living painting signs. Joe and I were students at the Maryland Institute College of Art. It was the 70s. Black power was the rage. All of our black college friends where heavily involved in the movement, successfully pressuring the college to allow the Black Panthers to rally on campus. Joe did not have time for any of that stuff.

No matter how hard our black associates tried to convince Joe that whitey had stacked the deck against him, Joe refused to embrace their hopeless self-defeating victim mindset. He worked and studied hard. After graduating college, Joe drove a school bus, putting himself through grad school at Cranbrook.

Joe Ford was the first black art director hired at W.B. Doner Advertising Agency in Baltimore. I was blown away. I do not know if Affirmative Action got Joe in the door. I do know that Joe Ford was and still is reliable, responsible, thorough, talented and professional.

As a Christian, I believe my success or failure is totally in the hands of God and me. This mindset is empowering. Thus, I refuse to embrace a self-sabotaging victim mindset. I feel a bit resentful when white conservatives say while they appreciate my independence and self-reliance, it is challenging to be black in America. First of all, how would they know? And secondly, their assumption has the distinct foul odor of condescension.

The most powerful thing advocates for black America can do to help them achieve their American dream is to stop reinforcing a victim self image; forget reparations and blaming others.

I am delighted to report that over the years, blacks have branched out to become successful in every area of the American experience.

A victim mindset keeps many black Americans down, dependent and enslaved to government. Advocates for blacks must push self-reliance, education, hard work and responsible choices.

These conservative principles build real self-esteem, not living in the ancient past whining about slavery and demanding handouts.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/09/forget_slavery_too_uncle_tom_even_for_conservatives.html#ixzz3Ci8q7E9c

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Is Obama Just Clueless or Is He Anti-Israel?

Words matter. ISIL implies that Israel shouldn't exist. Obama continues to be hostile to Israel as he has for his entire presidency. One would think he's more sympathetic to Radical Islamists than Israel.

http://threepercenternation.com/2014/09/isis-or-isil/

ISIS or ISIL? There is a BIG difference!

By Thomas Madison
I posted this peculiarity last week. It has become increasingly conspicuous, annoying even, that while the rest of the world refers to the cockroaches beheading innocent people, including children, across Syria and Iraq, as ISIS, or IS, King Hussein, and the rest of his administration insist on referring to the lice-ridden scumbags as ISIL.
“Tomaytoes/tomahtoes?” I don’t think so. If you look closely at the literal, geographical difference between the two acronyms, it appears that there is much more to the story.
ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which includes only territory within the clear borders of those two sovereign countries. ISIL is an acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The “Levant” includes Israel.
Ostensibly, anyone referring to this nest of rats as ISIL, and only as ISIL, while the rest of the civilized world refers to them as ISIS, is denying the existence of Israel, a point much harder to support had not that talking point made its way to every official mouthpiece of every agency and department within the federal government.

From retired Army captain Terry Hestilow:
From Gabe Zolna:

Friday, September 19, 2014

A Sign That America Is Going To Hell

Bazooka Joe and friends were iconic characters in the past. When you would look up "Americana" in the dictionary you would find a Bazoola Joe comic. Every piece of gum was an adventure. What would the gang get into next? This great tradition was part of childhood for generations.

Looking to invoke memories of childhood, I bought some Bazooka gum. When I opened the comic with anticipation as I enjoyed my gum, I saw this:


Puzzles? What the hell? What happened to the comics? Where is my childhood? This is a tragedy. Can we please have a moment of silence in remembrance of when America used to be great?

Religion of Peace? -Or- Religion of Pieces?

Pure hate. Please pay attention to the line at :41, and the final 3 seconds.  Almost as disturbing is that, in the name of the left's preeminent god (political correctness), this will be minimized and shrugged off, and the left will condemn us for not being more tolerant.


Thursday, September 11, 2014

In Remembrance of 13 years ago today

It is amazing how time flies, and how a seminal event like 9/11 fades into distant memory of many folks.  Each year there are fewer "where were you?" conversations, which in some respects is normal. After all, how many Pearl Harbor conversations do you hear in December anymore? That doesn't make it any less disappointing though.

So the Nobel Peace Price recipient gave a speech last night about how we're going to war again. What a buffoon.  If it were me, I would have waited until 8:46 a.m. eastern time today and cut in with an announcement that the destruction of ISIS has begun.  I would have already approved the use of B-52s for that special touch.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Couldn't Have Said it Better Myself

President Obama now says he will wait until after the November elections to implement an "executive amnesty" for 11 million illegal aliens, so as not to hurt Democrats' chances this year.


Instead of waiting to be enraged in December, voters, could you please be enraged now? Once the holiday season kicks off, you'll be too busy going to parties and Christmas shopping to notice that you're suddenly living in Mexico.


Getting Obama to postpone a rancid idea isn't something to celebrate. Yay! We did it! We forced him to delay doing something the country doesn't want for SIX WEEKS! Every Republican candidate better be jamming Obama's threat down the throats of their Democratic opponents.


Obama is claiming to have the powers of a dictator. Amnesty was considered by Congress, but -- here's the important thing: It didn't pass. It only passed the Senate, with the votes of all Democrats and 14 not-bright Republicans. After that, widespread public revulsion prevented Marco Rubio's amnesty bill from even being considered in the House.


But according to Obama, the only reason illegals haven't already been given amnesty is that Congress is not "doing its job."


What does Obama imagine Congress' "job" is? Being his errand boys? Their job is to represent their districts. I promise you, House members are doing a better job representing their districts than at least a dozen senators are at representing their states -- or than Obama is doing representing the country. It's called the "People's House" for a reason.


Noticeably, every Republican senator running for re-election this year claims to oppose amnesty -- even the ones who voted for it. (Let's hope they remember how unpopular mass immigration is when it's time to vote, not just when they're running.)


Obama's base isn't even looking for representation. We could have a 1929-level stock market crash, Obama could commit a murder on the White House lawn -- and they would still support the first minority president!



But Obama says he can do whatever he wants on immigration because it's "a serious issue and Congress chooses to do nothing."


If bills became law provided only the Senate and president agreed, the Nicaraguan Contras would have been funded out of the U.S. Treasury, Reagan would have gotten his MX missiles in 1982 and the Soviet Union would have fallen five years sooner, school busing would have been eliminated without waiting for the courts to act a decade later, and most of George W. Bush's tax cuts would have been made permanent. In all those cases, a president wanted to do something -- and the Senate agreed! But the House said no, so it never happened.


Obama can't ignore the House and make amnesty happen either. That's why he's talking about an "executive amnesty," which sounds like the top-tier donation category at one of the 4 million fundraisers Obama has held since becoming president, where the dinner starts at $25,000 per couple and you might bump into Jay-Z in the men's room. Actually, it just means Obama publicly, openly, officially stops enforcing immigration law.


Except in his own mind, Obama can't make illegals legal. But he can direct the entire immigration apparatus of the federal government to act as if amnesty has passed. The theory is that once they've been treated as if they're legal for a few years, it's a fait accompli, and no future president will resume enforcement of the law.


Although consistent with historical practice, it's not where the country is at all. This election is our first referendum on amnesty.


Not only do we have Obama's promise that he'll refuse to execute the law -- it's not as if he took some kind of oath, after all -- but there's good reason to believe him: After this election, he's got nothing to lose. Democrats will have two years to sign up 30 million illegal immigrants for Social Security benefits, food stamps and voting cards.


There is no more important political issue than this: Republicans must take the Senate this year.


You know how much you've been enjoying the courts overturning state referendums prohibiting gay marriage? Get ready for a lot more of your hard-won political victories to be nullified by the courts if Republicans don't take a Senate majority.


Remember how the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare on a 5-4 vote? Obama could have a shot at replacing another Supreme Court justice in the next two years. As a senator, he voted against both of Bush's nominees, so he can't very well complain if Republicans reject his loony-bird nominees.


Have you heard about the federal judge conspiring with Attorney General Eric Holder and the ACLU to bring deported illegal aliens back from Mexico? Yes, he's bringing them back. That judge, John A. Kronstadt, can't be impeached unless Republicans take the Senate.


With Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, Congress should just keep passing bills and sending them to the White House -- or whatever golf course Obama's on, busily not executing the law. If Obama vetoes their bills, Republicans can denounce him as a "do-nothing" president.


And keep in mind, this election will determine whether President Ted Cruz or President Mitt Romney will have a Republican Congress in 2017. They won't -- unless Republicans win every possible Senate race this year. The Senate seats up for election two years from now are not nearly as favorable to Republicans as the Senate seats up this year.


Unforced Republican errors in Delaware, Indiana, Missouri, Connecticut and West Virginia in the last few election cycles have already cost Republicans five Senate seats. (See my last book for the heart-breaking details.)


Five! Think of that! Republicans would have 50 seats in the Senate right now -- maybe 51, if they could flip Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia -- but for Republican stupidity, arrogance and narcissism. Instead of desperately hoping to win a bare majority, we would be one "wave election" away from a veto-proof majority.


Surveying the wreckage of a mere two years of a Democratic president with a Democratic Congress, all Americans should be focused like a laser beam on putting the Senate in Republican hands.


Won't you be angry if our power-mad president grants millions of illegal immigrants "executive amnesty" on the basis of his nonexistent constitutional authority to ignore the law? The surge of needy foreigners across our Southern border, so far, will be nothing compared to what's coming if Obama does this.


He says he will. He thinks voters are too stupid to notice.


Prove him wrong.


COPYRIGHT 2014 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Dumb D.O.T. Projects

Consider this very old, concrete, 4-lane road.

 

It was in such bad condition that it needed to be totally re-paved. But what do they do? As you can see, they patched it so now there is a washboard effect when you drive. It is worse than before. I don't want to hear that tight budgets wouldn't allow re-paving since there are much newer roads in better shape that seem to be re-done every few years. SMH

Then consider this situation, which I see happening repeatedly:



A great re-paving job making for a smooth, beautiful ride. Now here come the utility companies to screw it up once the project is finished. They will be digging, and putting cheap filler in the holes that become repeating pot holes. You know the routine: Someone complains, they fill the hole with blacktop filler, after a few days it settles down into the hole and you are back to square one. Why the hell can't they plan with the utility companies so that the utilities don't come after and screw everything up. A big F-you to the utility companies for screwing up our roads as soon as they are re-paved. Why can't they be held accountable? This is but one of many examples.