Define the single most important political issue of the approaching presidential election.

Although there are so many political issues that are important to the approaching election, I feel that the most important issue right now, is the economic status of the country. There are so many things to do, that there will be no change overnight nor in the next 2 years, but there has to be a long-term plan put into place that will NOT change even with the presidency of the country. It is important to realize that the country is in crisis right now because of corruption in the corporate and federal government. When “the people” realize that the government has, for such a long time, been bought by corporations to do their bidding and not the bidding of the majority of the country, and demand a change—only then will the change for the better begin.

While it is important to know that the presidents of this country have been nothing but pawns and have no real control, it is vital to support and re-elect President Obama because he is the only candidate that supports and fights for social justice and change. He is the only president that is really working hard on getting Americans back to work and getting the country out of the depression that we’ve been in for too long. The reason that what he does isn’t so visible, is because the corporations, along with the GOP have fought every move that he has tried to make. They are only wishing to stop his progress so they may be the first to do it and look like the heroes.

The American people are sick of the fighting between the parties and want to see sustainable changes, so we need to elect the tools for helping out our president. This means that anyone that is opposed to the president for no apparent reasons, that have no real plans of their own that the people are going to go for, that are only opposing him because of the fact that he is a Democrat, or because he is black—needs to be replaced by those on the same page as he.

More importantly than that, when the American people have decided to stop being distracted by the party wars, we can see that the problem has nothing to do with such. The problem starts with the secret societies and corporations that are selling off this country and selling out the American people for their own personal fortune. This is the only time that we can really begin to fight the real fight. This is taking back our government and being the government that this country was founded upon.

What have the GOP done for you lately?

So as I am reading around on the web, I come past a picture that said so much that I could ever say, along with a comment from a person who put what I wanted to put into words, but because of my anger when seeing this picture, I couldn't even begin to speak. What the person had to say was so true and should be put out there for everyone to see.

The Republicans are leading the biggest attack on jobs and our political and economic freedom in history. Most of us understand the Republican led failed trickle down economic policies are destroying our economy and the middle class. What most of us don't realize is what a strong ally we have in President Obama and the Democratic Leadership.

The Secret to Creating Jobs is electing President Obama and Democrats in 2012 and keeping the pressure on. Democrats consistently give us stronger economic growth and security, greater equality and political freedom and lower budget deficits. Wall Street doesn't want you to know because Democrats will not give them free reign to crash our economy and pay little or nothing in taxes.

Franklin Roosevelt gave us Social Security and lifted us out of the Great Recession. Lyndon Johnson gave us the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act and Medicare and Medicaid.
The 3 Presidents since FDR with the greatest job growth are the past three Democratic Presidents - Clinton (2.9 million per year), Carter (2.6 million) and LBJ (2.3 million).

Our next Democratic President was Barack Obama. Our President and the Democratic Congress inherited 2 wars, record budget deficits and Bush's Great Recession. Obama also faced historic
opposition from day one including record Senate filibusters which
meant it required 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. What did they accomplish during their 2 years in power?

President Obama created millions of jobs (up to 3.5 million according to CBO estimates and Labor Dept jobs data) with the Recovery Act and other decisive actions while turning around Bush's Great Recession by achieving jobs and GDP growth in 13 months or less. Although unemployment remains at 9%, Obama has maintained jobs and GDP growth for the past 19 months.
Obama saved the now thriving Auto Industry and quadrupled oil drilling saving and creating more jobs. The Dow Jones increased over 50% from 8000 to over 12000 in Obama's first 2 years in Office.

President Obama has done more for Veterans than any President in many decades. Obama passed the Veteran Benefits Act, Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act and fully funds the Post-911 GI Bill. Obama works tirelessly to give veterans and their spouses the assistance they deserve when facing so many challenges: including unemployment, homelessness, PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injuries and other disabilities. Obama and Michelle are presently challenging the private sector to commit to hire 100,000 returning veterans and their spouses in the next 2 years.

President Obama achieved Healthcare Reform, Financial Reform with the Consumer Protection Bureau, Patent Reform, Equality
Protections (including Equal Pay for Women, Repealing of DADT and Enforcing Union Rights), Expanded Environmental Protection, Fairer Taxation, Vital Investments in our future and much more. Obama achieved the most far-reaching, progressive legislation and administrative accomplishments since the 1960's. We all wanted more. The truth is with a 60 vote majority needed in the Senate and strong corporate opposition these accomplishment were a remarkable start to the change we need.

President Obama now offers us the only credible plan to begin creating more jobs and spur our sluggish economic recovery. As we see every day, Republicans continue to make their top priority stopping Obama rather the serving the American people.

As the country gets sick of what's going on in our political and financial systems. . .a Revolution begins

45K Verizon workers strike after labor talks fail

NEW YORK (AP) — Stalled contract negotiations led thousands of workers in Verizon Communication Inc.'s wireline division to go on strike Sunday, potentially affect landline operations as well as installation of services like FiOS, its fiber-optic television and Internet lines.

The contract for the 45,000 employees from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., expired at midnight Saturday with the company and the workers unable to come to terms on issues including health care costs and pensions.

The dispute does not affect the company's wireless division. Verizon is the nation's largest wireless carrier.

Verizon employees who are members of the Communication Workers of America union picketed headquarters in New York City on Sunday morning, wearing red and holding signs with messages including "CWA on strike for middle-class jobs."

Vinnie Galvin, 56, said he and his fellow workers are the backbone of the industry. "Everybody needs to be wired and we're the people who do that," said the three-decades-plus veteran of the company.

"They're trying to bust us. ... This is stuff that it took us 40, 50 years to get."

The affected workers are responsible for maintaining and repairing traditional landlines, as well as installing FiOS, union spokesman Bob Master said.

Workers covered by the expired contract also include 10,000 represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who serve as telephone and repair technicians, customer service representatives, operators and more. Contract negotiations began June 22.

New York-based Verizon has 196,000 workers; 135,000 are non-union.

The company is asking for changes in the contract because it says its wireline business has been in decline for more than a decade as more people switch to using cellphones exclusively. It had 25 million landlines at the end of the second quarter, down from 26 million at the end of 2010. It has been selling off some of its landlines to other phone companies.

"It's not reflective of today's marketplace," Verizon spokesman Rich Young said of the contract. "Our union employees pay nothing toward their health care premiums. That's virtually unheard of."

Master said the company wanted worker concessions at a time when it was making billions in profits and top executives were making millions in salary.
"We have never seen such a sweeping attack on the quality of life of our members," he said. "This is an unprecedented and in our opinion completely unjustified attack on middle-class jobs."
Young refuted the union's contentions on Verizon's profits, saying that the wireline unit was declining overall despite the growth of products like FiOS.
Master said the strike could impact customers looking for installations or repairs to their service, but Young said Verizon had taken steps like training managers and retirees.
Young said Verizon would return to the table at any point, that it was up to the union. The union said workers would be prepared to return to work when Verizon demonstrated a willingness to bargain seriously.

In Philadelphia on Sunday morning, about a dozen red-shirted strikers and union officials were outside two downtown buildings.

Helga Weber, 45, of Abington, Pa., came prepared with the chair she bought for the workers' last strike in 2000, which lasted 18 days.

"We're just making a regular living, middle class — we're not making a fortune. We just want to keep what we have," said Weber, a 13-year employee.

Cliff Beckham, 55, of Upper Darby, said the walkout, his second in his more than 12 years with the company, would "definitely" be a hardship.

"I've got a mortgage to pay," he said. In addition to the $200 to $300 he said the union will provide, he hopes a part-time position with UPS will tide him over.

"Luckily, I have a night job," he said. "I'm glad I kept it."
___

Associated Press writers Samantha Gross in New York and Ron Todt in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

The Civil Rights Movement needs to WAKE UP!

How many people would agree with me that 1. Racism is VERY much alive and well in this day and age and 2. That the racism and disrespect towards our Commander-in-Chief has gotten way out of hand? 3. Do you believe that this calls for action? If your answer is yes to all of the questions, what would be your input as to starting a solution or counter-acting it?

WHO PAYS TAXES?

WHO PAYS TAXES? ...

Not America's Richest Companies

Listed below are the top 10 corporate freeloaders(compiled by the U.S. Senate Research Staff).

10. Carnival Cruise Lines over the past five years made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

9. ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks.

8. Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes.

7. Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion.

6. Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS.

5. Boeing got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

4. Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

3. General Electric made $26 billion in profits over the last five years and not only paid no federal income tax, it got a $4.1 billion refund.

2. Bank of America got a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, though it made $4.4 billion in profits.

1. Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009 and paid no federal income taxes. It did receive a $156 million rebate from the IRS.

Long time no see

I've been tweeting, and facbooking like crazy and I've neglected this page for quite some time.  I've found a new toy. . .so I've been playing on Tumblr and I'm sure that its something that I will get tired of, when I get sick of staring at the pictures. 


I've notice nothing but a bunch of picture posts. I feel like I'm in grade school or some shit like that sometimes.  Half the pics are of the most retarded shit. . .which does crack me up. . .and the other half is of something gross that I'd rather not see. . .but oh well. . .who the hell am I do judge. . .back to Tumblr! Lehhgooo!

Rep. Paul Broun gets town hall query: 'Who is going to shoot Obama?'

A constituent at a town hall for Georgia Rep. Paul Broun drew laughter on Tuesday when asked, “Who is going to shoot Obama?” and the Republican didn’t come anywhere near condemning the question in his response.
“The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president,” Broun said, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. “We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president … who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.”

The question came after Broun asked who had driven the farthest to be at the Oglethorpe County event, and let that person ask the first question.

Brown’s press secretary, Jessica Morris, confirmed to the paper that the question was asked. “Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on,” she said. Morris did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment Friday morning.
Last month, Broun live-tweeted Obama’s State of the Union address and drew criticism for one in particular. “Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution,” he wrote. “You believe in socialism.”
On the day after the speech, Broun told CBS News, “I stick by that tweet.”
“Everything he does is bigger government, more central control from Washington, D.C. That’s not what our founding fathers envisioned the government to be,” he said. “Mr. Obama believes in a big central government, where the federal government controls everything in our lives. That’s socialism. And so I stick by that tweet.”

When are we going to learn? When are we going to have taken more than we can take anymore? When are we going to stop turning the other cheek? When are we going to fight back? 

Well I say enough is enough.  Had this been on the opposite foot, someone would have been imprisoned BEFORE trial! We as Democrats, as Black Americans, as the working class need to take a lesson from Egypt and the citizens of Wisconsin and stand the hell up! This shit is getting utterly ridiculous as White America continues losing its fucking mind!

Guild, other unions protest Mexican attacks on labor

Guild protesters include (r to l) Jay West, Bernie Lunzer and Tim Schick.

Add caption

   Citing Mexican government complicity with big businesses there – especially with mine and metal companies – a group of more than 100 U.S. unionists demonstrated outside the Mexican Embassy in Washington on Feb. 16, demanding justice for Mexican workers.

    Led by Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts and Josh Williams, President of the AFL-CIO’s Metropolitan Washington Council, the U.S. unionists demanded Mexico end its complicity with big business, bring perpetrators of crimes against unionists to justice and allow free and independent unions to operate.

    Mexico’s record also drew protests in other cities worldwide, according to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, which co-organized the D.C. demonstration.  The protests mark the 5th anniversary of the Pasta de Conchos coal mine explosion near Urrutia.  That blast killed 65 miners.

    The explosion, the fact that nobody has been brought to justice for it and Mexico’s crackdown on the independent miners-metalworkers and electrical workers unions – unions strongly supported by the Mine Workers and the Steel Workers – brought Roberts into the fray.  Unionists from UMW, the Steelworkers, CWA and The Newspaper Guild, among others, joined him in presenting demands to the embassy.

    “Mines don’t just explode,” said coal mine veteran Roberts, who is also a preacher in what little spare time he has.  “Miners don’t have to die,” he told the crowd while standing on the steps of the Mexican Embassy, just blocks from the White House.

    “If the laws were being enforced, miners could come home to their families every night.  What happened that day (in Urrutia) was industrial homicide,” he declared.

    The group not only had strong words for the Mexican government, but also for the Obama administration.  After praising Obama for taking the side of Egyptian workers in pro-democracy protests that toppled dictatorial President Hosni Mubarak, Roberts urged Obama to “look a little closer,” just across the southern U.S. border.
     
    “We should not stand for the exploitation of these workers in Mexico,” Roberts said, after reading four names of dead workers there – including Santiago Cruz, an organizer of Mexican workers for the AFL-CIO affiliated Farm Labor Organizing Committee.  Cruz was killed in his Monterrey, Mexico, and office.

“We’ll deliver a formal message to the embassy of Mexico,” Williams said, referring to the letter, which he handed to an embassy representative – who replied the Mexicans would try to meet AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka about the issue.  “But this is not a one-time visit.  If we don’t hear something positive, we’ll be back.” 

Say It Wit Me Nah. . . We Need More of this!

So you can laugh all you want.  Hell, I was even laughing, but at the end of the day. . that's one less ignorant teen getting into bullshit. I cannot reiterate how much the world needs this now, more than ever.  I cannot say that I am upset and I certainly hope that the uncle faces nothing that will get him in trouble.  You guys know how the law works these days.  They try to stop you from disciplining these damn kids. Big ups to uncle for stepping in on some senseless shit.  Why the parents didn't, I cannot understand, but at this point at least we know that his uncle loves him and cares enough to put a stop to his ignorance, perhaps even saving this kids life.

We need more parents out there taking control of the shit their kids post online.

Beat his ass!!

2011. . . can you believe it?

You know, growing up in the 80's, the last thing from our mind was, when we turned 30, we would be in the year 20 something. never did it dawn on us that the world would grow past 1999.  And here we are in the year 20 damn 11.

I haven't got much to say in this post other than HAPPY NEW YEAR. I've never been one into the new years resolution, although I actually do have a plan this year to do something different.  Only one can hope that it works out.

So I want to start working out again. Over the past few years I've packed on weight (which is actually a good thing), but I want to be comfortable with that weight. I want it to be the right kind, so I need to get that in check. So for the year 2011, focusing on my health is of the utmost importance.  I mean I am not getting any younger and it will be harder to take the weight off or work it out, so I may as well get it started.  Wish me luck!

What are your New Year's resolutions?