Game of Numbers

Tomorrow the so called Sequester cuts are due to hit.  Is this yet another manufactured crisis?  I don't know...but public opinion is not on the side of this majority Republican congress!

With automatic, across-the-board spending cuts set to begin tomorrow, majorities of Americans believe that approach is not a good idea and also say the contentious budget negotiations make them less confident about the U.S. economy, according to several polls.

But just to show you how bizzare the minds of some Americans are, despite those findings, a majority of people still supports Congress moving ahead with either the current cuts or a plan containing even more cuts as a way to reduce the deficit, suggesting the public’s general appetite for reducing spending..

I'm certain that most people have no idea how this could affect them personally...They think that it will just affect those other people.

As my mother used to say..."Just wait"

These polls also show that as the nation’s political actors once again quarrel over these automatic cuts totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years – commonly referred to as sequestration or the sequester – President Barack Obama finds himself in a much stronger position than his Republican adversaries.

“If the president needs some tweaks and adjustments, the Republican Party is pretty much in need of a major makeover,” says Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Hart Research Associates, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.
“The Republicans don’t need a silver lining; they need a whole new playbook,” Fred Yang adds.

In the poll, 52 percent of respondents say the sequester cuts are a bad idea, versus just 21 percent who say they’re a good deal. What? Go figure!!

What’s more, 51 percent believe that the budget negotiations between President Obama and congressional Republicans make them feel less confident about the economy, which is unchanged from when this question was first asked in last month’s polls.

Just 16 percent say the negotiations make them more confident about the economyBut a combined 53 percent prefer that Congress move ahead with the current sequester cuts or a plan that contains even more cuts. Thirty-seven percent want a plan with fewer cuts.

And in a separate question, exactly half of respondents say that President Obama and congressional Republicans should work together to avoid the sequester cuts from taking place, while 46 percent believe the cuts – while not perfect – should go into effect.

Of course, all of these numbers could change if these sequester cuts take place and are as dire as critics say they will be. “A month from now, we might find a very different dynamic at play,” says Fred Yang “When you feel [these cuts], that’s a different story.” Indeed !!

I don't know about you...but I'm worried...In this city and in my paycheck I'm feeling some kind of way...How bout you?

That said, strong majorities support the broad outlines of President Obama’s top domestic priorities – on immigration, gun control and raising the minimum wage.

Fifty-four percent favor giving undocumented immigrants the ability to apply for legal status, which is up two points from last month’s poll numbers.

Also, 61 percent believe the laws covering the sale of firearms should be stricter, which is up five points since January.

And nearly six in 10 support President Obama’s proposal from his State of the Union address to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.00.

Asked which of President Obama’s proposals Republicans in Congress should offer a helping hand, 36 percent answer eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthy; 28 percent say expanding background checks for guns; 23 percent cite making preschool available for every child; 17 percent say giving illegal immigrants a path to legal status; and 11 percent say addressing climate change and global warming.

If these figures aren't making John Boehner tear up perhaps this might.. While President Obama's poll numbers may have dropped slightly..His ratings are still higher than the Republicans overall...

Only 29 percent of respondents say they agree “with most” of what Republicans in Congress have proposed (versus 45 percent for President Obama and 40 percent for congressional Democrats).

An identical 29 percent have a favorable view of the Republican Party (compared with 49 percent for  President Obama and 41 percent for the Democratic Party).

And the public believes the GOP is more interested in partisanship than President Obama is: 48 percent say PresidentObama is pursuing a path on unifying the country in a bipartisan way, while 43 percent say he's taking a partisan approach that doesn't unify the country.

By comparison, 64 percent say Republicans are taking a partisan approach, versus 22 percent who say it's focused on unity.

What’s more, the polls shows the Democratic Party beats the Republican Party on almost every issue – looking out for middle class (by 22 points), Medicare (by 18 points), health care (16 points), reducing gun violence (15 points), Social Security (14 points), immigration (7 points) and even taxes (3 points) and the economy (2 points).

The only issues where the GOP holds the advantage in the survey are reducing the federal deficit (by 6 points), controlling government spending (16 points) and ensuring a strong national defense (26 points).

So the Republicans appear to be losing the numbers game....for now...I think in wake of what may happen tomorrow and who will be blamed (from the polls, them!) It would be time for some house cleaning...don't you think???

My mom also used to tell me.."Don't let your house get so dirty that you have no choice but to clean it...." Repubs...Take heed!

Don't Forget!

It's been a year since we lost him....Don't forget....Don't allow this travesty to go unpunished!  Zimmerman's trial begins June 10,2013...Bookmark it!

Oh Must We? (The Sequester Blues!)

Oh must we always have to go to the brink of disaster?? while most of you (myself included) have had our attention on who was going to take home the Oscar and who made who's dress and whose boobs were showing through their dress...The President and Congress are once again battling and on the brink of what could be some very painful cuts...

It's what's being called -THE SEQUESTER!  And if you don't know exactly what that entails...Read on..I'll do my best to explain it to you.


The $85 billion worth of cuts - known as the sequester (there's that term again!!)- were designed to be painful in a bid to force congress to reach a more palatable compromise to rein in the massive debt.
But  Democrats and rival Republicans have yet to reach a deal and have been trading blame instead.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the impact of the sequester, according to the latest White House report:

DEFENSE: Some 800,000 civilian employees of the Defense Department will go on a mandatory furlough one day per week and see their salaries cut by 20 percent.
The navy will decrease the amount of time its vessels remain at sea by 30-35 percent and the deployment of a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf has already been canceled.
The maintenance budget for bases and equipment will also be reduced, forcing the dismissal of some subcontractors.
The military, however, will not see its salaries cut.
EDUCATION: The federal government will reduce aid to schools by the equivalent of salaries for 10,000 teachers and 7,200 specialists for children with disabilities.
About 70,000 children under the age of five would be cut from the Head Start preschool program, resulting in the elimination of another 14,000 teaching positions.
AIRPORTS: The average wait time for passengers arriving in the United States to pass through immigration at major airports will increase by 30-50 percent and may exceed four hours during peak times at major hubs.
Security lines will grow longer as the Transportation Security Administration enacts a hiring freeze, eliminates overtime and furloughs its 50,000 employees for up to seven days.Temporary layoffs will also be imposed on air traffic controllers and other airport staff, leading to summer travel delays and forcing the closure of more than 200 small airports, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
RESEARCH: The National Institutes of Health and other federally-funded scientists will have to delay or halt research, including into chronic diseases and new treatments.
The Food and Drug Administration will also have to cut back, resulting in a slower approval process for new medicines. Up to 12,000 scientists and students could be affected.
FOOD: The FDA will have to conduct 2,100 fewer inspections, escalating the risk of food-borne illnesses and costing the food and agriculture sector millions of dollars in lost production.

NATIONAL PARKS: Many of the country's 398 national parks would be partially or completely closed, resulting in fewer visitors and less revenues for communities that rely on them.

If Congressional Democrats and Republicans can't come to some type of deal by this Friday, this is what we are looking at...I'm certain that if we hadn't been so concerned with the Grammys last week and the Oscars this week...People would have been out in the streets demanding that Congress get off of it's ass and instead of reading George Washington's farewell speech as it did on the floor yesterday, start some serious negotiations...

My paycheck is already $11.00 dollars lighter because Congress failed to vote on the social security bill by years end....yet my bills haven't dropped $11.00 dollars in the meanwhile....When will this foolishness end?
Republicans hate President Obama so much that they just fight him on every proposal. They hate him more than they love America...This has got to stop...It's killing us all... It's a sort of scorched earth theory I believe.

For now.. President Obama is beating the Republicans in the court of public opinion on the big federal spending cuts that, on paper, are expected to take effect on Friday.

Republicans are even conceding that  for now, the president’s bully pulpit strategy on the “sequester” is working. He has been doing local media interviews, leaning on the governors, and holding campaign-style events around the country – including Tuesday’s visit to Newport News, Va. – to highlight cuts in defense spending. And his team is flooding the zone with data aimed at sowing concern about how the cuts would affect real people. On Sunday night, the White House released numbers on the sequester’s impact, state-by-state.

The problem is...you aren't paying attention.  Despite intensive media coverage, only 27 percent of Americans say they have heard a lot about the sequester, according to a poll released last week by the Pew Research Center and USA Today. In addition, not surprisingly, most Americans don’t understand the sequester. When asked what it is, only 36 percent of Americans selected the right answer, a recent poll by
 The Hill newspaper found.

And this is what scares me...We won't care until after all of this hits....when it's too late...But isn't that what we usually do anyway?

Still ,I place the blame on a partisan congress that is still living by party first, instead of country first....It shames me, it disgusts me? OH MUST WE?

Weekend Update

My Church had something called the "Me and My Boo" Bowling night out this past Saturday...I haven't bowled in close to a year and a half...and it showed... My "Boo" or rather my wife beat me in four straight games... Never tossed so many gutter balls in my life. A good time was had by all!!

I'll do better next time...Provided next time be in the next few weeks....I was a little rusty....That was just a work out, a trial run....Yeahhhh, right!

Weekend Humor

A man with no ears is trying to find a new reporter for their news show.

The first guy walks in and the boss says, "This job requires you noticing a lot of details. What is one thing you notice about me?" And the guy says, "Well hell, You got no ears man!"

So the boss yells "Get the hell out!". 

So the next guy comes in and the boss says to him, "This job requires you noticing a lot of details. What is something you notice about me?"

And the guy says, "That's easy. You got no ears!" So the boss says, to him, "Get the hell out"

As the second guy leaves he sees the third guy about to go in and says to him, "Yo dude,The boss has no ears so don't say anything about them, he is really sensitive about it." 

"Thanks for pullin my coat about that man." he says.

"No problem!"

So the guy goes in and the boss says, "This job requires you to notice a lot of details. What is one that you notice about me?"

So the guy says, "You're wearing contacts!"

And the boss says, "Yeah, how did you know?" So the guy replies, "Well damn man, you can't wear glasses cause you ain't got no ears."



Have a great weekend everybody!

THINGS OUR MOTHERS TAUGHT US

1. My mother taught me to appreciate A JOB WELL DONE. "If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning."

2. My mother taught me RELIGION. "You better pray that comes out of the carpet."

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL. "If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"

4. My mother taught me LOGIC. “Because I said so, that’s why.”

5. My mother taught me MORE LOGIC. “If you fall  and break your neck, you’re not going to the store with me.”

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT. “Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident.”

7. My mother taught me IRONY. “Keep crying and I’ll give you something to cry about.”

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS. “Shut your mouth and eat your dinner.”

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM. “Just look at all that dirt on the back of your neck!”

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA. “You’ll sit there until all that food on your plate is gone.”

11. My mother taught me about WEATHER. “This room of yours looks like a tornado went through it.”

12. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION. “Just wait until we get home.”

13. My mother taught me about RECEIVING. “You are going to get it when you get home.”

14. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE. “If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they are going to stay that way.”

15. My mother taught me ESP. “Put your sweater on. Don’t you think I know when you are cold?”

16. My mother taught me HUMOR. “When you fall and bust your behind, don’t come running to me.”

17. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT. “If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.”

18. My mother taught me GENETICS. “You’re just like your father.”

19. My mother taught me about my ROOTS. “Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?”

20. My mother taught me WISDOM. “When you get to be my age, you’ll understand.”

21. And, my favorite: My mother taught me about JUSTICE. “One day, you’ll have kids and I hope they turn out just like you!”

Is The Post Office Being Stuck Up?

The first news I got that something was wrong was when I heard that it has been planned to stop Saturday deliveries....Then was when I, who must have been living under a rock all this time began to look a little deeper and realize that the Post Office as I knew it, the Post Office my grandmother used to tell me to seek employment at because...(You know your Grandmother or some older relative has said it to you..)

"There is always work at the Post Office!"

That has probably been true for generations...but it's not true now...I mean, I pay all of my bills on line now...I do my banking on line now and I don't write letters to anyone anymore.....Haven't written a letter since the 80's.... With email, texting and social media (Facebook, Twitter,Blogger) who does anymore???

Maybe around Christmas I still mail Christmas cards and I do ocassionally mail Birthday cards off, but that's it....Even the things I order from Amazon, et al are delivered by FEDEX ....And if I am like most Americans....then that cuts into the Post Office's business...I get magazines in the mail and bills(I like to keep hard copies..) but that's about it..

But here's the rub..It's true the post office faces financial challenges. But the financial problems are in large part a direct result of an onerous and ill-considered 2006 law called the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act" (PAEA) that mandates pre-funding the postal service retiree health care and pension benefits for 75 years — something that no other government agency or private company is forced to do.

The vast majority — 85% — of the budget red ink comes from this pre-funding mandate despite the fact that, according to the post office Inspector General, the pension is over-funded and reserves for retiree health care are far higher than the federal government as a whole, the military and almost all Fortune 1000 companies.

Bet you didn't know that?   I didn't know it until I started doing some research...I'm a closet nerd, what can I say?

Even with the declining levels of "snail mail," the post office still manages to deliver to every household in America a total of 563 million pieces of mail for an incredibly low cost.

It does it efficiently, and without a penny of taxpayer money.

But it's that very self-sufficiency that drove Congressional Republicans to hatch a long term plan to destroy the agency by starving it of the ability to maintain services. By forcing the USPS to save an outrageous and unneeded nest-egg, the agency has been increasingly removed from revenues which would help it keep pace with the innovation of FedEx and UPS.

As a result of this, the post office has closed branches in some of the most rural areas, where it was the only government-affiliated location for miles around. Rural and small town  post offices in particular are important institutions. Closing them, especially in areas with little or no access to broadband internet service, could have a major impact on the communities they serve. And check this out..regardless of what some politician tells you, closing them won't save much if any money.

I know that's hard to believe....That a politician would lie...I know...but it's true.

Undermining public services is exactly what some  Republicans have been doing since the Reagan-era, by cutting off normal, healthy revenues for any reason they can find — even if it requires doing something that in any other circumstance would be branded as total lunacy.

FedEx and UPS would never be required to meet the same savings requirements as the United States Post Office. By making the public believe that government services are underfunded and poorly managed, Republicans can force more cuts, and eventually privatize services altogether, handing over public goods to private corporations that enrich a select few at the expense of many. Sound Familiar??

 If the United States Post Office dies, FedEx and UPS will have been delivered an entire, centuries-old industry at wholesale cost. But all of this can be avoided by making simple and popular reforms to the postal service like those proposed last year in a bill by Delaware Senator Thomas Carper.

His bill would have allowed the US Postal Service to stretch out payments for future retirees for the next 40 years, while recouping $11 billion the government has overcharged the postal service.

If Congress can't get its act together and implement these necessary and simple reforms, the postal service will be forced to continue cutting staff and services. Legislators must act now to repeal the PAEA and put the post office back on equal footing.

Question is...Will this Congress do anything for the public good?  It all remains to be seen..

Hard Days (To be Black)

As much as I like and am so proud of our first African-American President, Barack Obama...I sometimes wish for the day when he is out of office so that white people will start acting a little saner....I'm joking of course, but it seems as if his being president is provoking one mindless racist incident after another...

What happened to Post Racial America?? Was it all an illusion??? These are hard days to be Black in America... My Grandmother...If she was alive would ask me when has it not been hard days to be Black in America?

Yesterday, I talked to you about the drunken white man who slapped the adopted African-American baby of  ironically a white woman on a plane...Now I'm writing about what happened to Actor Forest Whitaker in New York City this weekend....

Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker was left fuming on Friday after he was wrongly accused of shoplifting from a New York City delicatessen.  Of course this type of thing has happened to me all of my life...If I was somewhere where it didn't look like I was supposed to be, I was often stopped, thrown up against a wall and frisked...then asked what my business in this particular place was and then told to go on about my business..

Most Black males (and some females) know that this is the nature of the beast in America...Just something that is bound to happen to you sooner or later..Last time it happened to me..I was about 35 years old, had just bought a house...and was wearing a suit...I was in one of the towns on what they call the "Mainline" in the suburbs of Philadelphia, waiting for a meeting with my realtor....Of course...I was someplace that I didn't look as if I belonged...So...the police put me through the paces... They were very polite ,I must say...

I don't expect this type of thing to happen to an Oscar Award winning actor though....His represenative said
"This was an upsetting incident given the fact that Forest did nothing more than walk into the deli. What is most unfortunate about this situation is the inappropriate way store employees are treating patrons of their establishment."

 "Frisking individuals without proof/evidence is a violation of rights. Forest did not call the authorities at the request of the worker who was in fear of losing his employment. Forest asked that, in the future, the store change their behavior and treat the public in a fair and just manner." he continued.


Representatives of the market have yet to comment on the incident.  I'm sure that they didn't know who he was when the incident occurred...They thought it was me.

Shut That Baby Up!

When I first heard this story, I didn't believe it was true....I thought it was a hoax....I couldn't believe that in 2013...There was still this type of bigotry, still this type of ignorance in these decidedly Un-United Staes...but alas,my countrymen...some of them have never failed to disapoint and dis-illusion me with their boorish behavior..

By now you've heard the story..In Minneapolis , a white man ,Joe Rickey Hundly...got drunk and slapped the adopted African-American baby of a white woman on the plane...The problem?? The child was crying too much or too loud...Hell, that's what babies (of all races do last time I checked..)

That was bad enough...but he drunkenly said to her..."Shut that nigger baby up.."

Pause...

Why is he still alive?

Surely this woman's momma bear instincts should have gone into over drive and he should have been severely pummelled, right??? Or maybe that's what ignorant me would have done...  At any rate...Joe Rickey is going to pay for what he did...


Joe Rickey Hundley, 60, of Hayden, Idaho, is no longer an employee of AGC Aerospace and Defense, Composites Group, Daniel Keeney of DPK Public Relations confirmed Sunday night.

Al Haase, president and CEO of AGC, issued a statement early Sunday that, while not referring to Hundley by name, called reports of behavior by one of its executives on recent personal travel “offensive and disturbing” and said he “is no longer employed with the company.” Keeney would not say whether Hundley was fired or resigned. Hundley was president of AGC’s Unitech Composites and Structures unit.

He also faces a year in prison.

I guess that is some consulation and proof for me that this is indeed 2013 and not 1953....

When will the madness end?

Keith's Music SpotLight

Can Alicia Keys be any sexier? Any More talented than she already is?? I don't know the answers to any of those questions. I've been a big fan of hers since her debut CD and she just gets better with each release...
I'm spotlighting her latest single from the "Girl on Fire" CD.. "Brand New Me"

Weekend Humor

After shopping for most of the day, a couple returns to find their car has been stolen. They go to the police station to make a full report. Then, a detective drives them back to the parking lot to see if any evidence can be found at the scene of the crime. To their amazement, the car has been returned.

There is an envelope on the windshield with a note of apology and two tickets to a music concert. The note reads,  

"I apologize for taking your car, but my wife was having a baby and I had to hot-wire your ignition to rush her to the hospital. Please forgive the inconvenience. Here are two tickets for tonight's Beyonce concert!"

Their faith in humanity restored, the couple attend the concert and return home late. They find their house has been robbed. Valuable goods have been taken from thoughout the house, from basement to attic. And, there is a note on the door reading, 

"Well, you still have your car. I have to put my newly born kid through college somehow, don't I?"




Have a great weekend everybody!

The Way It Had To End

And in the end...it appears to have ended the only way..it could have possibly ended...With more death! More tragic , senseless death...What was going on in Christopher Dorner's troubled mind?? What drove him to this?

Was this really going out in a "Blaze of Glory"?? or just being burned to death in a blaze??  Whatever, the strange events that led to all of this began this way...

Supposedly at sometime on Tuesday afternoon,a mother-daughter team startled Christopher Dorner in his mountainside hideout..When the pair arrived to tidy a rental cabin not far from a police command post, they allegedly found Christopher Dorner holed up inside ,.and he might have had a chance to flee the Big Bear ski resort area where scores of police had conducted a door-to-door search for him – except one of the women got free, called 911 and alerted cops that a man who looked like Dorner was on the run, the officials said.

That call set in motion a dramatic and tragic tragic chain of events in which one sheriff’s deputy was killed in a gun battle outside a second cabin where the suspect’s charred body would be found before the day’s end.

“It was like a war zone and our deputies continued to go in to that area,” San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. “The rounds kept coming, but our deputies didn’t give up."

There have been several conflicting stories...Police have not officially determined that the corpse found in the burned-out county was in fact, Christopher Dorner, who kept southern California in fear for a week as, authorities say, he carried out a murderous campaign of revenge against the LAPD. They are waiting for forensics.

The San Bernardino Sheriff’s office has said they don’t believe the gunman who barricaded himself inside the cabin escaped before it erupted in flames.

“We believe that this investigation is over at this point and we’ll need to move on from here,” said Sheriff John McMahon.

Sheriff John McMahon said police did not intentionally set the cabin ablaze, but the pyrotechnic tear gas canisters — commonly referred to as “burners,” he said — generate a high level of heat.
It was when police began using the pyrotechnic canisters to flush out the suspect that the fire began.Hmmmmm!  I'm just saying!

The LAPD, which had been under a series of tactical alerts while Dorner was on the lam has returned to normal operations on Wednesday, although a dozen people on hit list remained under guard, said Lt. Andy Neiman.

"Thanks to the brave men and women of the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, it looks like we have our man," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" early Wednesday.

Investigators had been combing the ski resort area since Thursday, when Christopher Dorner’s burned out Nissan truck was found there hours after he allegedly ambushed cops in two cities, killing Officer Michael Crain.

Days earlier, police believe,Christopher  Dorner executed the daughter of a retired police captain and her fiancé in Irvine to kick off a killing spree that sowed fear across the region and in the ranks of law-enforcement.

After the man believed to be  Christopher Dorner fled the cabin where he had encountered the two women, wardens from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the purple Nissan and gave chase.


Chris Dorner lost them and, it appears, he also ditched the Nissan and carjacked a white pickup.
Rick Heltebrake, 61, told TODAY on Wednesday that he was driving near the Boy Scout camp he operates when a heavily armed man he recognized as Christopher  Dorner, 33, crawled out of the woods, pointing a rifle at him.

He said the hulking former Navy reservist was wearing camouflage and a ballistics vest and told Heltebrake, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“He was dressed for action,” Heltebrake said.

Chris Dorner commandeered the pickup, but let the man and his dog go. Shortly after Chris Dorner sped off, Heltebrake said that he heard gunshots.

That may have been the brief exchange of fire between  Chris Dorner and another game warden who spotted the pickup and pursued it. The warden’s truck was riddled with bullets, but he was not hurt, officials said.

Chris Dorner then “fled into the forest and barricaded himself inside a cabin,” the San Bernardino Sheriff’s office said. “A short time later there was an exchange of gunfire between law enforcement and the suspect.”

As you might expect, TV commentator, (and lawyer) Nancy Grace has been having a field day as well as a ratings bananza with this....She ridiculed Chris Dorner's manifesto and all of the usual "pop psych experts have been on CNN and surprisingly MSNBC giving their spin on the state of this man's mind...

He's been reffered to as an "Urban Terrorist", while The Batman shooter in Aurora was a"troubled young man"...Okay......

I think his manifesto should be read and some of the charges looked into....It's not a far stretch to say that there probably is the racism he talked about within the LAPD and probably within any law enforcement agency in any metropolis...

But I digress...Two deputies were shot and taken to Loma Linda University Hospital, where officials later confirmed sheriff’s deputy Jeremiah MacKay had died and another had surgery but was expected to survive.

MacKay, 35, joined the department in 1998 and was father to a 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son.
“Our department is grieving from this event,” said  Sherrif McMahon.

No further shots were fired from the Angelus Oaks cabin before police began to storm the building, according to a sheriff’s spokesman.

Deputies smashed the cabin’s windows, fired in tear gas, and tore through the structure’s walls using an armored personnel carrier, a source close to the probe told NBCLosAngeles.com. A single gunshot then rang out, according to a source, and flames and smoke began to emerge from the remains of the building.
It was hours before police were able to enter the cabin and find the body they believe to be Christopher Dorner.

 Investigators continued to scour the crime scene yesterday as other police gathered in Riverside for the funeral of Officer Crain.

Neiman said it was difficult to celebrate the apparent end to the rampage given the loss of four lives, two of them lawmen.

“This has been a very trying time,” he said. “To hear those words ‘officer down’ is the most gut-wrenching experience you can have as a police officer,” Neiman said.

I am not one of these misguided people who has turned Christopher Dorner into some type of hero...He is not..He has killed people, innocent people and I can't condone that or UNDERSTAND!  as some misguided folks who want to worship this guy as some kind of cult figure are doing....

Still I feel for him somehow...Racism can beat you down, can stress you and can take you to your breaking point...Especially when you lose your job behind it...That's another blog post for another day though...And it's not an excuse to go on a killing spree...

  I keep thinking about the final scene in the movie "Ragtime" and in the movie "Set it Off"....and also a snowball fight I had with my friends once where they all turned against me...and it was just me...I was in a situation that day..If it hadn't started raining...I would have been cooked that day...

I keep wishing that whatever grievences he had against the LAPD , real or imagined ...He could have found another way...a better way to address them or have them addressed...I'm just sorry that had to end like this...But maybe they left him no choice...Maybe this is the only way it could end!

State Of The Union 2013

It was a long night...I was following the coverage of the Christopher Dorner situation...The rogue cop in Los Angelas who killed four people in an atteempt to bring attention to racism and corruption in the LAPD and his own personal demons.... I didn't agree with the way he went about it and I knew it was only going to end one way...The way it did...With his death...

The other news I followed last night was the President's state of the Union Address...This was supposed to be the big story....The Prez kind of got upstaged a little bit...for awhile anyway.


President Barack Obama challenged Republicans on major tax and entitlement proposals in Tuesday's State of the Union address, unveiling sweeping new initiatives to boost the middle class while taking aim at GOP recalcitrance.

The president traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for the annual speech, where he pressed Republicans to allow his proposals on issues ranging from taxes and entitlements to guns and immigration to move forward. While Obama seemed determined to advance his ambitious agenda, he must race against a window of opportunity that often closes quickly on president in their second terms.

Moreover, the president's plans will have to survive the brier patch of Capitol Hill, where Republicans have strenuously opposed much of President Obama’s agenda and are girding for a major springtime showdown on budgets and the swift, automatic spending cuts known as the sequester. Nothing new about that!

“Let's be clear: deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan,” said President Obama, who argued that his second term priorities did not represent “bigger government,” but rather, “smarter government.”

President Obama spent much of the first half of his speech challenging Republicans on that central issue after two years of legislating in Washington that saw the government lurch from the brink of a shut down to the brink of a debt-limit default to the brink of automatic tax hikes.

“Let’s agree, right here, right now, to keep the people’s government open, pay our bills on time, and always uphold the full faith and credit of the United States of America,” the president said.
The assertive rhetoric from President Obama recalled the themes on which he successfully campaigned for re-election last fall. Tuesday’s speech mostly lived up to its billing by the White House as a coda to the liberal call-to-arms in  President Obama's second inaugural address on issues ranging from government spending to gay rights and immigration reform.

One issue on which President Obama did not campaign -- stricter gun controls -- featured more poignantly in Tuesday's speech. Gun violence has unwittingly become a cornerstone of President Obama's second term agenda following the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. last December.

Gun control is an issue on which President Obama faces stiffer Republican resistance, and the president took a much more personal tack in pressing lawmakers to take up his proposals. He turned victims of high-profile shootings in attendance at Tuesday’s speech in urging lawmakers to, at the very least, allow his gun proposals a vote.

"Gabby Giffords deserves a vote," he said, referring to the critically injured former Arizona congresswoman in the House chamber. "The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote."

President Obama’s speech on Tuesday was delivered in the same vein; the president embraced proposals that might encounter resistance in this Congress, such as new legislation to address climate change. But, in a reflection of  President Obama’s new found feistiness in a second term, the president vowed to take executive action if Congress would not act.I loved it...Some Republicans in attendance looked like they wanted to slit the presidents throat.

President Obama made other proposals. He said would bolster the middle class. Among  President Obama’s proposals were: Universal access to preschool for all four-year-olds, increasing the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour by the end of 2015, $50 billion in infrastructure spending, and partnerships to promote cleaner energy and improved manufacturing.
Those initiatives, the president pledged, should not increase the deficit “by a single dime.”
To help finance those initiatives, President Obama called for broad individual and corporate tax reforms, as well as savings from entitlement programs like Medicare – changes to which have been a lightning rod in recent election cycles. Those proposals carefully track with President Obama's previous demands to close loopholes and deductions to raise new revenue in tax reform.

But Republicans have argued that the matter of new revenue is “settled” following a fiscal cliff deal that saw the GOP relent to higher taxes on household income above $450,000. To that end, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, in the official Republican response, called on the President to “abandon his obsession with raising taxes and instead work with us to achieve real growth in our economy.”

President Obama’s ambitious plans come as he’s asking lawmakers to approve two other major proposals: comprehensive immigration reform that gives undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, and a series of tighter controls on firearms as part of a broader effort to curb gun violence.

On immigration, the president lauded a bipartisan Senate group’s work on immigration.

“As we speak, bipartisan groups in both chambers are working diligently to draft a bill, and I applaud their efforts,” he said. “Now let’s get this done. Send me a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the next few months, and I will sign it right away."

But for as much as fiscal matters and economic policy have dominated discussion in Washington, President Obama devoted a good part of his State of the Union speech to foreign policy – highlighting in particular the planned withdrawal of 34,000 American troops from Afghanistan in the next year, a tangible symbol of how that war is winding to its end.

President  Obama also used his speech to address some of the emergent national security issues. He condemned North Korea’s nuclear test on Tuesday and pledged to work with Congress to develop rules for the use of unmanned aerial drones in targeting terrorists for assassination. The administration has faced new scrutiny on that latter issue amid the revelation of a new White House memo arguing that the president has wide latitude to target Americans for assassination if they’re deemed to be assisting terrorist actors.


The President additionally announced a new executive order to inoculate U.S. infrastructure from a cyber-attack, by enabling greater information-sharing between the government and its partners and calling for the development of a National Infrastructure Protection Plan within 240 days.

The event, as always, was filled with Washington pomp and circumstance, including lawmakers to arrived hours earlier to reserve prime seats for themselves. Also, in keeping with tradition, outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu was kept spirited away from the Capitol to ensure continuity of government in case of a security incident.

It was indeed a very long and interesting night...

This Isn't Going To End Good

Christopher Dorner, the rogue Black ex-LAPD officer ,alleged to have killed four people, two police officers and a young engaged couple has been in the news for a week now...I admit..I hadn't wanted to write about him until the entire story was over....but as current events are breaking...that may be soon...

As I write this , he is surrounded by police and in a cabin....A shootout and standoff began after police received a report around 12:22 p.m. that someone fitting Dorner’s description had stolen a car from a home near the ski resort area of Big Bear, police said.


A ground and air search ensued, and authorities located the pickup on Highway 38.
A spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game said one of its wardens was the “very first person to spot Mr. Dorner … They both got out of the vehicles and exchanged gunfire.”

The warden was not hurt and Christopher Dorner, who was already wanted for three slayings linked to a revenge-fueled rampage, was not captured, agency spokesman Andrew Hughan told NBC LosAngeles.com.

“The suspect fled into the forest and barricaded himself inside a cabin,” said a statement from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s office.


“A short time later there was an exchange of gunfire between law enforcement and the suspect ... Two law enforcement officers are being airlifted to a local hospital with unknown injuries.”
The wounded officers were taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center. Law enforcement officials confirmed one died.

Meanwhile the suspect – identified as Christopher Dorner by high-ranking LAPD sources – remained holed up in the cabin with heavily armed cops surrounding the area.

Hundreds of investigators have spent a week searching for Christopher Dorner – who is accused of killing a retired captain’s daughter and her fiancé on Feb. 3 and a police officer on Feb. 7 while allegedly carrying out a twisted revenge plot.

Christopher Dorner’s burned-out truck, a Nissan Titan, was found in Big Bear last week and scores of officers have been combing the mountain, going door-to-door to see if they could find signs of forced entry.
At an afternoon press conference, LAPD commander Andy Smith wouldn't confirm the ex-LAPD officer was holed-up in the cabin, but said he had a message for Dorner: “Enough is enough. It’s time to turn yourself in.”

“Everyone is very hopeful that this thing ends without any further bloodshed,” Smith said. “The best thing for him now would be to surrender…and he can face the criminal justice system.”

LAPD officers rushed to the scene to assist San Bernardino deputies and were also sifting through hundreds of clues about Dorner’s activities in recent days.

“Until this guy is in handcuffs … none of the people in our department are going to rest,” Smith said.

I don't wish to speculate too early...but I wonder if the LAPD really wants to take him alive?  I don't know..call it the old radical conspiracy theorist in me, but I feel as though this man was wounded psychologically by the LAPD and his claims in his manifesto last week of rampant racism in the department..
(No real shock or surprise there!) and his subsequent dismisal.

I wish he had gone about this in a different way, without killing innocents....I wish he wasn't surrounded by law enforcement who might say he is too dangerous to be taken alive, who have already labeled him a ''Domestic Terrorist"  and who might kill him as soon as they get a clear shot...

I wish it didn't have to be this way...I for one would like to see him have his day in court and hear what he has to say....The conspiracy theorist in me is saying that the LAPD doesn't want his story told...

I wish they would prove me wrong...I'd love to be wrong on this one.

POST SCRIPT-

At 10;26 PM, It has been reported that Christopher Dorner's body was removed from a burning cabin...
He's dead....This is just the way I thought this was going to end!

Time To Die!

I was riding the Elevated train recenty..(No, I don't drive everywhere! Occasionally I do take public transportation.)

There was a teenaged girl begging a young man not to resort to violence in a situation with another young man he apparently had beef with. (Why are young people so loud? They never know who is listening to their conversation!!)

Anyway this young girl was begging this young man to reconsider...He told her.. "Nah ,I'm gone handle this...Aint nobody gonna fight...People don't fight no more...They go for they guns...I aint got no time to be fist fightin nobody." he said.

The young lady replied... "But you got time to die though.."

And there it was... A voice of reason...I wanted to applaud her...She had said it all in a nut shell...Plenty of time to die... It has occurred to me that our young people and our adults are so desensitized to violence..and violence is such a part of our culture that they just don't understand the consequences of violence.

Temple University , here in Philadelphia is trying to do something about that....

In a darkened classroom, 15 eighth graders gasped as a photograph appeared on the screen in front of them. It showed a dead man whose jaw had been destroyed by a shotgun blast, leaving the lower half of his face a shapeless, bloody mess.

Next came a picture of the bullet-perforated legs of someone who had been shot with an AK-47 assault rifle, and then one of the bloated abdomen of a gunshot victim with internal injuries so grievous that the patient had to be fitted with a colostomy bag to replace intestines that can no longer function normally. 

These are among about 500 gunshot victims who are treated each year at Temple University Hospital, an institution in the heart of impoverished, crime-ridden North Philadelphia. While President Obama and Congressional leaders debate legislation intended to prevent mass killings like the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., the hospital is trying to slow the rate of street killings by helping teenagers understand the realities of gun violence. 

The unusual program, called Cradle to Grave, brings in youths from across Philadelphia in the hope that an unflinching look at the effects that guns have in their community will deter young people from reaching for a gun to settle personal scores, and will help them recognize that gun violence is not the glamorous business sometimes depicted in television shows and rap music. 

The program is open to all schools in the city, but about two-thirds of the participants were referred by officials from the juvenile justice system. Children younger than 13 are not normally admitted. So far, about 7,000 teenagers have participated since it began in 2006, and despite the graphic content, no parent has ever complained, said Scott P. Charles, the hospital’s trauma outreach coordinator. 

“In seven and a half years, I have never had a parent say, ‘I can’t believe what you just showed my child,’ ” Mr. Charles said.

On a recent day the eighth graders, students from nearby Kenderton School, gathered around Mr. Charles at the start of a two-hour visit. Most said they knew someone who had been shot.

“Our goal here isn’t to scare you straight,” Mr. Charles told them. “We’re just trying to give you an education.” 

According to police statistics, 331 people were killed in the city in 2012, equaling the highest total since 2008, and the fourth consecutive year of increase. Eighty-six percent of them were killed by firearms, the police say. 

Still, the number of killings in the city of about 1.5 million residents has dropped from a high of 406 in 2006, when national news media started calling the city Killadelphia. 

In a 2010 paper published in the medical journal Injury, Dr. Amy J. Goldberg, the hospital’s chief of trauma and surgical critical care, and others cited data showing that students’ inclination toward violence decreased after participating in the Cradle to Grave program, especially among those classified as having an “aggressive response to shame.”

“These results suggest that hospitals offer a unique opportunity to address the public health crisis posed by inner-city firearm violence,” the study said.

The program starts with a visit to the hospital’s trauma bay, the first stop for gunshot victims — half of them under 25 — who are brought to the hospital from North Philadelphia’s streets at an average rate of more than one a day.

As the 13- and 14-year-olds gathered around a gurney on a recent visit, Mr. Charles told the story of Lamont Adams, 16, who died at the hospital after being shot 14 times by another boy who believed Lamont had snitched about a street dice game that was broken up by police officers.

Lamont arrived in the trauma bay with 24 gunshot wounds, 10 more than the 14 rounds that had been emptied into him, because some of the shots had also exited his body, in some cases leaving indentations in the sidewalk, Mr. Charles told the students. 

In case his verbal description was not sufficiently vivid, Mr. Charles asked Justin Robinson, 13, to play the part of Lamont. The boy lay down on an empty body bag. Mr. Charles attached 24 circular red stickers to Justin’s clothing to represent the wounds in Lamont’s body. 

Mr. Charles told the students that the wounds he finds most moving were those in the boy’s hands. “He holds up his hands and begs the boy to stop shooting,” Mr. Charles said. “He had not prepared himself for how terrible this would be.” 

The narrative was then taken up by Dr. Goldberg, who told the children that by the time Lamont arrived in the trauma bay, he was not breathing, so surgeons — without the use of anesthetics — quickly inserted a breathing tube into his windpipe.

Neither did he have a pulse but that did not stop the doctors from inserting a tube into his groin to replace the blood he was losing, and then to open his chest in the hope of restarting his heart — which turned out to have three or four holes in it, Dr. Goldberg said. She held up a stainless steel rib-spreader. 

As the details of Lamont’s story unfolded, one girl struggled to keep her composure. Another hid her face in her friend’s shoulder. Lamont died about 15 minutes after arriving at the hospital, underscoring that prevention of gun violence is a lot better than trying to cure its effects, Dr. Goldberg concluded.

“Who do you think has the best chance of saving your life?” she asked the students. “You do.” 

Despite the grisly images, most of the students said afterward that people should still be allowed to own guns for self-defense, although not assault weapons. Mahogany Johnson, 14, said she is in favor of a street ban on semiautomatic weapons like AK-47 assault rifles, which she said should be used “only in the woods.” Jabriel Steward, 14, said, “Everybody should be allowed to have one gun for protection, for self-defense.”

But Feliciana Asada, 14, said more students should be given the opportunity to participate in Cradle to Grave. “Programs like this need to be installed in schools,” she said. 

 Kudos to Temple U. for this program...If it can disuade a few kids from violence, if it saves a few lives, it has been a major success..

TIME FOR SENSIBLE GUN LAWS NOW!

Keith's Favorite Quotations

And Soooo The Hood Comes Off!

It turns out....The Ku Klux Klansman that I saw in center city Philadelphia on Thursday was not a Kluxer at all, but a Black man trying to make a point about Black on black crime...

This Philadelphia man caused a bit of a stir on Tuesday morning and through out the week when he posed in the middle of a busy Philadelphia intersection in a KKK robe and holding a sign saying: “The KKK KILLED 3,446 Blacks in 88 years. Black on black murders surpass that number every 6 months.” The man,known only as  Sixx King (shown above), is the director of a documentary titled “Mothers of No Tomorrow.”


The film follows three women who have lost their sons to gang violence. When asked why he stood at a busy section dressed as a member of the KKK, King said “I’m protesting black-on-black murder. I’m making a stance that the number of African Americans killed have surpassed the number of victims in the Iraq and Afghanistan war.” He added: ”And African Americans have killed more of their own people than the KKK.”

A valid point indeed....I'm not mad at him at all....In fact ,I admire his guts...I sure wouldn't have and couldn't have done what he did....Sheeeesh...People will do anything to be on Television....LOL...I'm just kidding of course....

Point Taken!

Weekend Humor

A lonely woman, aged 70, decided that it was time to get married.

She put an ad in the local paper that read: HUSBAND WANTED! MUST BE IN MY AGE GROUP (70's), MUST NOT BEAT ME, MUST NOT RUN AROUND ON ME, AND MUST STILL BE GOOD IN BED! ALL APPLICANTS PLEASE APPLY IN PERSON. 


 On the second day she heard the doorbell. Much to her dismay, she opened the door to see a gray- haired gentleman with no arms or legs sitting in a wheelchair.


The old woman said, "You're not really asking me to consider you, are you? Just look at you ... you have no legs!"

The old man smiled, "Therefore I cannot run around on you!"


She snorted. "You don't have any hands either!"

Again the old man smiled, "Nor can I beat you!"

She raised an eyebrow and gazed intently. "Are you still good in bed?" With that, the old gentleman leaned back, beamed a big broad smile and said, "I rang the doorbell, didn't I?"

Enjoy your weekend everybody!

A Funny Thing Happened In Downtown Philly Yesterday!

A funny thing happened in downtown Philadelphia yesterday... Philadelphia Pa. mind you... The North...A city that is 49% African-American, with a huge Latino and Asian population to boot... A Lone Ku Klux Klansmen stood on the corner with a placard!

That's right...A Kluxer!  There was a guy dressed in full Ku Klux Klan garb standing on the corner of 16th and Market Streets today at lunch...He was holding a poster that said.."The KKK killed 3649 Blacks over 86 years..(I'm still unsure of his count) Black on Black violence has killed far more than that in a period of months." The majority of the people snapping photos of this guy were ironically enough Black people... Amazingly...No one got lynched, no one got sucker punched and not one insult was hurled... Truly amazing...Now if that's not proof that there is indeed a GOD , I don't know what is!

I gotta hand it to whoever was under that hood for pure chutzpah...guts!!  He could have been killed.. Surrounded by THAT many Blacks and dressed like that.. The true irony was that his sign raised a valid point..

In the inner cities of Philly, Chicago,Los Angelas, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis,Miami ,Atlanta...young black men are killing other young Black men at a more alarming rate than the amount of young black men, lynched from 1900 until the sixties...It's a gun problem that is even more serious than the mass murders at Aurora and Newtown... Those don't happen everyday....But everyday...somebody gets shot in Chicago......or hell, right here in Philly!

And in Washington, D.C.  where urban gun violence is also very prevalent..House Democrats will unveil 15 gun control proposals, a package that resembles President Barack Obama’s plans and will include a ban on assault weapons.

People familiar with the proposal described the plan Wednesday, a day before House Democratic leaders planned to release it. These people were not authorized to discuss the plan publicly.


The plan was written by a dozen House Democrats led by California Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson.
Two-thirds of group had to back an item for it to be recommended. That means there could be Democratic dissenters for some proposals.

Among the task force’s members are Rep. John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat and the House’s longest serving member. Dingell has been a strong ally of the National Rifle Association, though he has clashed with them on some issues.

While we wait on a new round of laws to be passed to ease up the gun problem...Let's remember that that is only the surface of the issue...The pathology  that exists in Black and poor communities and in America in general...This glorification of violence and guns et al has to be dealt with...You can't legislate every single problem...

We've got to deal with issues such as self hatred, poverty, lack of opportunites, the psychosis of hopelessness that prevail amongst too many people, regardless of race...There is no easy answer...No easy solution....

Sad, but that Ku Klux Klansman was right!  So Sad!