Different Day, Same Shit.

If you're anything like yours truly and walked in on the ending segment of this year's State of the Union address, here's your chance to see it again in its entirety.

The White House recently broke tradition by releasing the full text of the speech to the public shortly before the address. Of course, there's also an official transcript of the full address available on the White House website.

Also:

For those who didn't get a chance to catch the 2014 State of the Union address or just want to watch it again, here it is in its entirety.

The White House also has a transcript of the full address. Thoughts from yours truly are forthcoming.

As Field Negro, Redeye and countless others have pointed out, this wasn't necessary. And the same courtesies asked of liberals by conservatives are seldom returned. Just look at what most conservatives have to say about the president's family.

Jason Easley says it best:

"Harris-Perry took responsibility for the segment, even though she never said what the right accused her of saying. Her apology was heartfelt, intelligent, and insightful. It was typical of what viewers see on her program every weekend. What it wasn’t was necessary.

MHP brought up a great point about families being off limits, but that is something that the same critics that have called for her to be fired have ignored when it comes to President Obama and his family. The fact that Harris-Perry has now apologized multiple times raises the question why do those on the left have to apologize multiple times for things that Republicans get away with daily?

Please spare me the argument that the left is somehow morally superior to the right, and thus held to a higher standard. The left, right, and center are all the same. Partisans like to think that they are morally superior, but each are still human being expressing political views that should be held to the same standard.

The problem is that there is a basic hypocrisy in the media that allows the right to not be held accountable bad behavior. Not only is the right allowed to get away with worse things than the MHP segment on a daily basis, but no one on the left is ever cut the same slack.

Harris-Perry turned her apology into a teaching moment. She demonstrated once again why she is one of the best on cable news. However, the apology was unnecessary. The left should resolve to only apologize when the right is held to the same standard of accountability for their behavior. The only way that the media will ever treat them fairly is if it is demanded. "

The bolded reminds me of how a maligned school administration deals with bullies and their victims - the bully can punch as hard as they want for as long as they want (but not in complete clear view of the admins), but if the victim so much as draws back a fist, the administration comes down on them like a ton of bricks. As long as conservatives insist that liberals follow the schoolhouse paradigm, things like this will continue.

In lieu of a fleshed-out post on the impending shutdown, here's Bill Clinton recounting his own experience with government shutdowns and a few bits of advice for President Obama:

Clinton would not negotiate, he said. “The current price of stopping it is higher than the price of letting the Republicans do it and taking their medicine,” he said. “If they’re going to change the way the Constitution works and fundamentally alter the character of our country and damage the future of a lot of kids, you just have to say no.”

We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that's a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly.

The above quoted is President Barack Obama warning the Syrian government and its president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad, what would happen if it used chemical weapons to fight and neutralize the various rebel factions in its ongoing civil war.

It's also a quote that's been rehashed, reheated and given it's own unique garnish by countless other officials in and around the White House. So much so that the original intent was quickly lost to the winds:

The idea was to put a chill into the Assad regime without actually trapping the president into any predetermined action,” said one senior official, who, like others, discussed the internal debate on the condition of anonymity. But “what the president said in August was unscripted,” another official said. Mr. Obama was thinking of a chemical attack that would cause mass fatalities, not relatively small-scale episodes like those now being investigated, except the “nuance got completely dropped.

That's the thing about tough talk in the geopolitical arena - it makes you and your country appear strong and resolute, but it gives you little room to wiggle out of a showdown if and when the time comes, which in turn makes you look like a complete chump.

And damned if someone in Syria didn't go ahead and use those chemical weapons. U.S. intelligence points to the Syrian government as the responsible party. However, recent reports weave a much different narrative, from a Saudi-sourced delivery from intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan intended for Al-Queda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, to numerous rebels who simply didn't know what they had their hands on, leading to their deaths and approximately 1,400 others.

Even more intriguing is Saudi Arabia's role in the anti-Assad column. According to various sources, Prince Bandar went into talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin using a classic carrot-and-stick approach: kick Assad to the curb and we'll give you some sweet, sweet crude and look after your gas contracts. Otherwise, we know plenty of Chechens who'd love to ruin your winter Olympics. Meanwhile, Putin dismissed U.S. claims of chemical attacks as "utter nonsense."

But the big story isn't how Turkey, once a significant backer of Jabhat al-Nusra is now having second thoughts about having its Seal of Approval on a wayward product. Or how Syria is lining up to be yet another stepping stone in the U.S. geopolitical game of hopscotch towards its true target, Iran. Or even the possibility of anti-Assad rebel groups pinning the blame for the chemical attacks on the Assad regime in hopes of some good ol' fashioned American intervention.

Nope, it's about how Congress has suddenly found its principles, forcing the president to go through it to authorize any military action whatsoever on Syria.

---

The whole issue of congressional approval for military operations has been, for lack of a better word, iffy. World War II was, by most counts, the last major war that received congressional approval. Since then, running these sorts of things past Congress was more of a formality rather than an absolute necessity, as proven at various points by Reagan, Clinton and both Bush the Elder and Younger. And thanks to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, U.S. leaders have as much as a 90-day window to commit military forces wherever needed sans said congressional approval.

This isn't to say that clearing these sorts of things through Congress isn't the proper thing to do. Even the president thought it was fitting and proper to go to war only after Capitol Hill gives the OK. But the sudden objections against unilateral military activity from the right wing seems a tad hypocritical given the relative lack of formality concerning the junior Bush's military forays into Iraq and Afghanistan. It all has less to do with any actual concerns that House and Senate GOP members may have and more to do with political posturing and a continuing case of Obama Derangement Syndrome.

From the left wing comes the usual concerns about Syrian blood on American hands. People who are already disappointed over the president's stance on drones will likely be further disappointed if the U.S. enters the conflict. Those who thought the president would base his time in office as someone who'd completely eschew overseas conflict in favor of more peaceful and non-interventionist solutions may also be disappointed with his actions. Between disillusioned liberals and disgruntled conservatives, the president is in between a rock and a hard place.

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there are no "known knowns" when it comes to Syria. U.S. military intervention here means diving into the unknown. At best, the president will end up with a replay of the recent Iraq War and its aftermath on his hands. At worst, the debacle of yet another "unwinnable war" will likely have him facing impeachment by emboldened Republicans. It's little wonder the president has so far only committed to aerial strikes - fighter jets and drones sound more appealing than putting actual boots on the ground.

Of course, that doesn't count the wide-ranging geopolitical effects that are sure to reverberate throughout the Middle East and the world. Who's to say that a U.S. military strike against Assad's forces won't set off a new wave of terrorist attacks against the U.S., or if Russia decides that the U.S. presence in Syria is a bridge too far and plans some sort of retributive measure in response? What if Israel sees the president's supposed indecisiveness on Syria as a sign of weakness and initiate their own course of military action? What about the implications of Saudi involvement in trafficking chemical weapons for use against the Assad regime? Is that something that the U.S. is secretly in on?*

Drawing a line in the sand in the first place might have bolstered the president's credentials as a tough, fearless leader among many, but it also comes with its consequences. Fortunately for him, asking Congress for official permission to act on behalf of anti-Assad forces gives him an out. In the event that GOP congressmen give the thumbs down on a U.S. intervention into Syrian affairs, the political fallout lands squarely on Congress while the president avoids any backlash for his bold rhetoric. Also, he won't look too much like a chump for having his hands tied by the good folks on Capitol Hill.

* Seems far-fetched, but it doesn't hurt asking, considering the CIA's lengthy and storied history.

While the president's citizenship eligibility has always been a bone of contention among conservatives throughout his term, there's not much ado about Ted Cruz's Canadian heritage:

When Democrat Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, Republican voter Christina Katok of Walden said she believed he was ineligible for the job.

She reasoned that he was born in Kenya and therefore wasn’t a “natural born” American — one of a handful of constitutional requirements for the job. (Obama's birth certificate shows that he was born in Hawaii, but some critics do not accept that as fact.)

Fast forward six years and another freshman U.S. senator, Canadian-born Tea Party firebrand Ted Cruz of Texas, is being mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential candidate. But Katok, who would vote for Cruz in a heartbeat, doesn’t have any concerns about his eligibility.

“As far as I’m concerned, Canada is not really foreign soil,” she said. Katok said she was more disturbed by Obama's "strong ties to Kenya," the African country where his father was born. She also said she didn’t like the fact that Obama did not release his long-form birth certificate during the 2008 race.

Cruz, who recently released his Canadian birth certificate, is at least “up front about it,” she said.

No wonder the alternative spelling for "hypocrisy" involves the letters G, O and P.

What's being left out of the conversation is the real reason why the so-called "birthers" were up in arms over the president's alleged Kenyan origin, despite his fulfillment of all the constitutional requirements for presidential eligibility. Cruz's Canadian birth certificate is of as little issue to conservatives as his heritage or his appearance, both which are sufficiently American enough to pass muster with birthers and Teabaggers who are chafing under Barack Obama's leadership.

Canada isn't as foreign as Hawaii, nor is it as "dark" or "exotic," if you get my drift. Also, Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson Darragh didn't commit the cardinal sin of cavorting with black men or giving birth to a "half-breed," as Stanley Ann Dunham had done. As for his father, Rafael, he managed to bribe his way into the U.S. after realizing that a post-revolution existence in Cuba wasn't as appealing as he previously thought. After his student visa evaporated, so did the elder Cruz's residency in the U.S. Only in 2005 did he remember that his Canadian citizenship would pose problems for his son's political ambitions.

Which should make the younger Cruz's views on immigration a bit softer than those of his contemporaries:

"The 11 million who are here illegally would be granted legal status once the border was secured — not before — but after the border was secured, they would be granted legal status," he says. "And indeed, they would be eligible for permanent legal residency. But they would not be eligible for citizenship."

Or maybe not. The above would turn today's illegal immigrant into an ersatz version of Japan's Zainichi Koreans - able to live in the U.S. as permanent residents, but not able to vote or otherwise participate in politics. It's fortunate for the younger Cruz that such a policy didn't exist during his younger days, otherwise his political ambitions would have been as limited as the average illegal immigrant's hopes of getting U.S. citizenship the safe and legal way.

Out of consideration for the birthers, the younger Cruz not only released a copy of his birth certificated, but he also announced that he would renounce his Canadian citizenship - he has yet to visit a Canadian Embassy and get it all done in writing, for good.

Being the antithesis of Barack Obama in some respects is Cruz's strongest appeal among conservatives. He's neither a "Negroid half-breed" nor was he born in some seemingly exotic locale. Unlike Mitt Romney, he's not some neo-aristocratic nitwit whom conservatives of all stripes had to hold their nose to support, nor is he a visibly batshit insane wet dream for the teabagger types. As long as there aren't any skeletons flying out of his closet, he's a shoe-in as a 2016 GOP candidate.

Some of us have an Inner Child. Others have an Inner Nigger. Is Holder the president’s conscience? Or his Inner Nigger?

A lot of people went off on the fine chap in the above photo for that quoted line. And why not? "Inner Nigger"? Come on, son. It was the fact that he dropped the dreaded N-word on a relatively mainstream Internet site that was beyond the pale for most folks. And I'll admit, I got caught up in the initial outrage over it, too.

My first inclination was to jump on the laptop, piggyback on whatever open Wi-Fi hotspot I could find and just go with the flow. In the immediate days after Rich Benjamin's assessment of President Obama's post-Zimmerman trial introspective, I would have verbally whipped this D.L. Hughley-lookin' mofo's behind up and down the block like your momma did that one time, with the Hot Wheels race track.*

But life outside of DDSS got in the way of that. So now I'm approaching this with a clearer head. Pangs of spoon-fed outrage subside with time and distance from the subject at hand.

So let's see what this Rich Benjamin feller's piece is all about:

Finally the president has spoken about George Zimmerman’s acquittal. Even as the country waited for his singular response – the nation’s leader and a law professor who once looked like Trayvon Martin – the president danced around the issues. And what a dramatic anti-climax, listening to the president refuse to say anything insightful or profound about the acquittal. In signature professorial style, the president gave us the “context” to the episode and to black people’s “pain.” But he didn’t offer a meaningful opinion on the episode’s hot molten core: racial profiling, vigilantism, and “Stand Your Ground” laws.

The one complaint I noticed from those in the black community about President Obama's speech is how he didn't get down deep into the nitty gritty of what's ailing the community. He wasn't as aggressive as some folks wanted him to be. Instead of jolting America awake over the unending saga of racism towards blacks (young males especially), his speech remained, as Benjamin puts it, "safe and airy."

I did my own review of the president's speech and what I said within still stands: the president is not just the president - he's "America's President™" and any attempt to voice his own deep-down personal outrage over this injustice would cause many Americans to tune him out. As Benjamin himself notes:

From a tactical standpoint, it’s wise for the president to avoid discussing race and Trayvon Martin. Many white Americans don’t want that discussion. Many whites avoid that discussion due to their sincere ethical desire to wash the stain of racial differentiation from our nation; they see themselves as Reverend King’s color- blind disciples. Still others avoid the topic because they suffer from racial fatigue. They feel harassed and hectored by so-called race hustlers. Enough with that: They want to focus on the technical and legal aspects of Zimmerman’s acquittal.**

So the president, as always, remained as presidential as he could be while attempting to address his own frustrations over Trayvon Martin's death, Zimmerman's trial and everything in between.

But Eric Holder doesn't have to be so presidential, which is Benjamin's point:

Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder delivered trenchant thoughts on the acquittal, demanding action. Before an audience of supporters, Holder recently called for a full investigation of Martin’s death after Zimmerman’s acquittal. Holder vowed that the Justice Department will act “in a manner that is consistent with the facts and the law. We will not be afraid.”

“We must stand our ground,” he told supporters.

And this is where the whole "Inner Nigger" thing comes into play. In Benjamin's assessment, Holder's playing the role of Obama's so-called "blacker conscience," someone who's able to speak truth to power without worrying about being tarred and feathered with the "angry black man" moniker. But I have a bit of a problem with that.

What if Eric Holder's just being his own man? What if the above words aren't Holder playing point man for Obama's innermost thoughts, but rather Holder's own commitment towards insuring that justice is actually served on this matter? And how come the media constantly attempts to force the attorney general into that role?

---

Of course, Holder's been outspoken before. After all, this is the same guy who called America a "nation of cowards" for studiously avoiding any serious conversation on ethnic relations. After countless well-meaning white Americans patted themselves on the back for being so forward thinking in voting for a black president, this came as a grievous insult. To many whites, the whole thing just smacked of utter ungratefulness from a black community that not only didn't seem to appreciate their efforts, but went out of its way to chastise their many, often times misguided, attempts in accepting and empathizing with black Americans.

As a result, I sense many white Americans have decided to throw in the towel on black rapport and instead are retreating into a unique form of racial cynicism. Because their often insincere, paternalistic and patronizing attempts often went over like a solid tungsten balloon, many white Americans have decided to shed their "white guilt" and instead call a spade a spade, if you get the drift.

That's where things like "race realism" and the constant arguments about the N-word and its usage come from. It's also where guys like Rand Paul get their allure - instead of incessant black appeasement that seems to get white Americans nowhere, there's the refreshing libertarian perspective that isn't afraid to accept certain interpretations of crime stats and the belief in natural black criminality as gospel. They're no longer afraid to tell blacks to "stop whining" or wonder why blacks simply can't do as various immigrants have done and blend into the greater American fabric instead of, and I believe I'm quoting some of the darker corners of the Internet, "wallow in their own filth." Ultimately, they're free to tell themselves "it's okay to be white," as though it was some sort of curse imposed upon them as other minority groups take advantage of their generous nature.

But enough about that. In summation, Holder's reputation as "rogue Negro" to the president's "magic Negro," whether actually deserved or not, continues to ring true in many corners. I don't think that deserves him being referred to as the president's "Inner Nigger," "repressed Id," "blacker conscience" or anything of the sort. If the president wants to break character to have a "real talk" moment, that's entirely his prerogative.

As for Rich Benjamin, I'm not as upset with him as I was before. I understand where he's coming from. Like many folks, I wish he didn't have to resort to the N-word just to get his point across.

On the other hand, it is what it is. How he makes his point is his own prerogative. After all, it got people's attention, mine included.

*That shit hurts.
**Note the bolded. When Americans claim to want a colorblind perspective of the case, this is what they mean. However, sticking to the technical and legal while disregarding the racial paints a completely different picture of the entire case, one that disregards over four centuries of ingrained and institutionalized prejudices, bigotry and anger - things that often lead to the Emmit Tills of the world being exposed to a unique and deadly form of "justice."

Privileged individuals have a knack for making themselves known and every once in a while, they get a little exposure on DDSS. Gene Marks, John Derbyshire, Glenn Greenwald and most recently, David Sirota. Between them, every single one has made the cardinal sin of adopting a particularly privileged view of ethnic relations between themselves and their black American counterparts. It's a particular view that's far removed from the realities of everyday black American life and more rooted in an idealized and pre-packaged conceptualization easily influenced by deliberate and subconscious pre-judgements, as well as by their own personal experiences, some of which are also easily influenced by deliberate and subconscious pre-judgements.

If you've somehow construed the above as yet another "racist" rant from a man still wearing his "race goggles," chances are you'd probably find yourself in some form of agreement with Victor Davis Hanson's piece on the president's most recent speech on the Zimmerman trial and Trayvon Martin. Hanson immediately opens up with a salvo that sets the tone of the article:

Last week President Obama weighed in again on the Trayvon Martin episode. Sadly, most of what he said was wrong, both literally and ethically.

Pace the president, the Zimmerman case was not about Stand Your Ground laws. It was not a white-on-black episode. The shooting involved a Latino of mixed heritage in a violent altercation with a black youth.

Which leads you to wonder exactly what was it all about, if it wasn't any of these things. Removing "Stand Your Ground" and the deep-set racial components from the event, it devolves into a mere altercation between two individuals that got out of hand and resulted in a loss of life on one side. Distilling the case of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman down to that anodyne reasoning obviates the need for an uncomfortable discussion about race or even gun control, for that matter. Everyone gets to go home without putting too much thought in a case that's now become worthy of a below-the-fold mention somewhere in the extreme lower right-hand corner of the Sanford Herald, with a brief blurb buried somewhere on A7.

Hanson also manages to squeeze in the question of George Zimmerman's ethnic background, black America's insistence on identifying him as white and the outrage of those who wanted to play up Zimmerman's Hispanic origins, most notably those on his Peruvian mother's side of the family, to disarm and de-fang the "white-on-black" aspect of the case. Nevermind that his father comes from German-American stock. It's something that's rarely, if ever mentioned by the mainstream.

Nevertheless, this sets the stage for Hanson to question the president's involvement in the case via his recent speech, along with Eric Holder's involvement via civil rights probe:

Is it ethical for the president to weigh in on a civil-rights case apparently being examined by his own Justice Department? The president knows that if it is true that African-American males are viewed suspiciously, it is probably because statistically they commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime. If that were not true, they might well be given no more attention as supposed suspects than is accorded to white, Asian, or Latino youths. Had George Zimmerman been black, he would have been, statistically at least, more likely to have shot Trayvon Martin — and statistically likewise less likely to have been tried.

Barack Obama knows that if non-African-Americans were to cease all inordinate scrutiny of young African-American males, the latters’ inordinate crime rates would probably not be affected — given other causation for disproportionate incidences of criminality. Yet should their statistical crime profiles suddenly resemble those of other racial and ethnic groups, the so-called profiling would likely cease.

Like many others, Hanson zeros in on black crime rates to justify Zimmerman's rationale for confronting Martin, but with the added twist of condemning the president's interest in the case. If Zimmerman was just another black guy or a visible Hispanic (as opposed to one that appears roughly as white as his father), neither the president nor the U.S. Attorney General would have bothered with any attention. After all, it's not like they or their fellow blacks pay attention to black-on-black crime, which is yet another argument others used to condemn the president's interest in Trayvon Martin.

Hanson's claims of black crime rates remaining unaffected by a cessation in racial profiling would be dis-proven once the NYPD, LAPD and other law enforcement agencies across the country cease their profiling efforts. Further still with the advent of the end of drug sentencing guidelines weighted heavily towards drug activities most likely performed by minority groups and the impoverished.

Finally, Hanson goes in for the kill:

The president, I think, spoke out for three reasons: 1) He is an unbound, lame-duck president, with a ruined agenda, facing mounting ethical scandals; from now on, he will say things more consonant with being a community organizer than with being a nation’s president; 2) he knows the federal civil-rights case has little merit and cannot be pursued, and thus wanted to shore up his bona fides with an aggrieved black community; and 3) as with the ginned-up “assault-weapons ban” and the claim that Republicans are waging a “war on women,” Obama knows, as a community activist, that tension can mask culpability — in his case, the utter failure to address soaring unemployment in the inner city, epidemic black murder rates, the bankruptcy of Detroit, and the ways his failed economic policies disproportionately affect inner-city youth.

In short, Hanson distills the president's concern about the state of his country in the aftermath of a game-changing case and verdict not as any sort of genuine concern for the nation's welfare, but as an opportunity moment for a mere lame-duck desperate to mask his own policy and leadership failures with a last-minute rapport with "his people," to both allay their grievances and improve his own appearance.

And it would be a most brutal deconstruction of the president's supposed political chess-move, if it wasn't for three simple and salient facts.

That America has a very real institutionalized problem with race.
That aspects of the Zimmerman case were steeped in it, whether people wanted to admit it or not.
That the president did the right thing by reminding people of the first and that people should try to work out why the second matters and ultimately, how to not let a future case be influenced in that manner again.

Then again, I didn't expect Hanson to have a clue in the first place.

The following puts a choke-hold on that point:

Attorney General Eric Holder earlier gave an address to the NAACP on the Zimmerman trial. His oration was likewise not aimed at binding wounds. Apparently he wanted to remind his anguished audience that because of the acquittal of Zimmerman, there still is not racial justice in America.

Holder noted in lamentation that he had to repeat to his own son the lecture that his father long ago gave him. The sermon was about the dangers of police stereotyping of young black males. Apparently, Holder believes that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Yet I fear that for every lecture of the sort that Holder is forced to give his son, millions of non-African-Americans are offering their own versions of ensuring safety to their progeny.

In my case, the sermon — aside from constant reminders to judge a man on his merits, not on his class or race — was very precise.

First, let me say that my father was a lifelong Democrat. He had helped to establish a local junior college aimed at providing vocational education for at-risk minorities, and as a hands-on administrator he found himself on some occasions in a physical altercation with a disaffected student. In middle age, he and my mother once were parking their car on a visit to San Francisco when they were suddenly surrounded by several African-American teens. When confronted with their demands, he offered to give the thieves all his cash if they would leave him and my mother alone. Thankfully they took his cash and left.

I think that experience — and others — is why he once advised me, “When you go to San Francisco, be careful if a group of black youths approaches you.” Note what he did not say to me. He did not employ language like “typical black person.” He did not advise extra caution about black women, the elderly, or the very young — or about young Asian Punjabi, or Native American males. In other words, the advice was not about race per se, but instead about the tendency of males of one particular age and race to commit an inordinate amount of violent crime.

It was after some first-hand episodes with young African-American males that I offered a similar lecture to my own son. The advice was born out of experience rather than subjective stereotyping. When I was a graduate student living in East Palo Alto, two adult black males once tried to break through the door of my apartment — while I was in it. On a second occasion, four black males attempted to steal my bicycle — while I was on it. I could cite three more examples that more or less conform to the same apprehensions once expressed by a younger Jesse Jackson. Regrettably, I expect that my son already has his own warnings prepared to pass on to his own future children.

I remember when John Derbyshire tried his own version of The Talk™. Like Derbyshire, Hanson doesn't quite grasp the actual reason why black Americans had to devise life-saving rules of conduct for their young black children, boys and young men, especially, to survive life in this country at a most basic level.



This is why.

The story of Emmit Till was an example of what happens when a young black male strays outside of the rules of conduct laid down within The Talk™, thereby bringing eventual harm to himself by offending the sensibilities of a shockingly violent mainstream white society. Till's story was just one of the few out of thousands that managed to be immortalized and documented.

These days, the reward for not following the rules of conduct as explained in The Talk™ is much of the same - possible expulsion, possible jail time and in many cases, possible death, whether administered by an officer of the law or by someone whose sensibilities were as offended as the people responsible for transforming Emmit Till's face into the infamous visual that shocked and deservedly shamed the rest of America into giving black America's plight larger consideration.

This isn't to say that George Zimmerman's intentions were as vicious and venal as Till's murderers. At this point, readers sympathetic to the man have likely clicked away in disgust, denouncing yours truly as "a sick racist who only sees race and nothing else" or "just another race-hustling pimp just like his idol Sharpton (or Jackson) and Holder." That is, if they've even made it to this point.

Hanson justifying his own trepidation around blacks by comparing the black community's need for "The Talk™" with his own, notably tamer experiences, smack of privileged stupidity. Neither Hanson nor his father had to bear the worries of traversing an institutionalized and deeply-ingrained minefield of racially-motivated antagonism. Nor did they have to worry about "night riders" assaulting and killing them in the dead of night just because or being publicly murdered in the town square, their bodies left up for decoration by a bemused yet thrilled crowd.

Victor Davis Hanson doesn't have to worry about his ethnic background being a factor in his sudden death at the hands of someone whose sensibilities were offended by his appearance.

I'll let Ta-Nehisi Coates offer his own explanation:

Let us be direct -- in any other context we would automatically recognize this "talk" as stupid advice. If I were to tell you that I only employ Asian-Americans to do my taxes because "Asian-Americans do better on the Math SAT," you would not simply question my sensitivity, but my mental faculties. That is because you would understand that in making an individual decision, employing an ancestral class of millions is not very intelligent. Moreover, were I to tell you I wanted my son to marry a Jewish woman because "Jews are really successful," you would understand that statement for the stupidity which it is.

It would not be acceptable for me to make such suggestions (to say nothing of policy) in an enlightened society -- not simply because they are "impolite" but because they betray a rote, incurious and addled intellect. There is no difference between my argument above and the notion that black boys should be avoided because they are overrepresented in the violent crime stats. But one of the effects of racism is its tendency to justify stupidity.

Those of who have spent much of our lives living in relatively high crime neighborhoods grasp this particular stupidity immediately. We have a great many strategies which we employ to try to protect ourselves and our children. We tell them to watch who they are walking with, to not go to neighborhoods where they don't know anyone, that when a crowd runs toward a fight they should go the other way, to avoid blocks with busted street-lights, to keep their heads up while walking, to not daydream and to be aware of their surroundings.

When you start getting down to particular neighborhoods the advice gets even more specific -- don't cut through the woods to get to school, stay away from Jermaine Wilks, don't got to Mondawmin on the first hot day of the year, etc. There is a great scene in the film The Interruptors when one of the anti-violence workers notes that when she sees a bunch of people in a place, and then they all suddenly clear out, she knows something is coming down. My point is that parents who regularly have to cope with violent crime understand the advantages of good, solid intelligence. They know that saying '"stay away from black kids" is the equivalent of looking at 9/11, shrugging one's shoulders and saying, "It was them Muslims."

It should come as no surprise that Victor Davis Hanson's generational advice has met with mixed results. But when you are more interested in a kind of bigoted nationalism than your actual safety, this is what happens.

When it comes to ethnic relations, Hanson couldn't recognize systemic, institutionalized racial antagonism if it had surrounded his car and demanded his cash, jewelry and smartphone. That's what privileged stupidity does to a man. It leaves him without a clue and it doesn't have the common decency to let him know it's gone.

Being the President of the United States is already hard work. Being one who happens to be a man of color in the aftermath of one out of a long string of horrific miscarriages of justice is a task of nearly-Herculean proportions, especially when countless people have their own expectations of what should or shouldn't be said.

As someone occupying a seat of immense global power, you'd think that a man like the president would have a great deal of latitude over how to publicly express his feelings on Trayvon Martin. Unfortunately, the man's obligated to play the role of "America's President™" and any attempt to voice his true feelings in a way that seemingly sides with one side of the aisle would be conflated into favoritism.

One commentator over at Abagond felt that the president did not show the outpouring of emotion or the fluidity of speech that he displayed during the Sandy Hook tragedy. Watching the speech myself in its entirety, what I saw was a man who's literally walking on oratorical eggshells - a man attempting to voice how he feels about the Zimmerman trial and its effects on the black community without disrupting, diluting or invalidating the message in the eyes of a mainstream audience that's sensitive to perceived judgement and slights, despite being more than comfortable with issuing their own.

I've taken the time to unpack my own thoughts and feelings about the president's speech, highlighting sections that stood out to me as I see fit, thanks to the convenient transcript posted in its entirety over at Huffington Post:

The second thing I want to say is to reiterate what I said on Sunday, which is there’s going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case -- I'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues. The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works.

Unlike former president Jimmy Carter, the president never says he thought the jury made the right call or that he agrees with the jury's decision. He only mentions that the above is how the system "works" in this country. The matter of whether the trial was actually conducted in a manner resembling professionalism is left up for debate.

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

Here, the president highlights the history of suspicion being cast upon black Americans regardless of activity or intention. He's right - 35 years ago, he would have been just another Trayvon Martin, more so if he grew up in a place like central Florida. He doesn't go into the infamous "talk" that every black male gets as he gets of age - in my opinion, that's a missed opportunity.

Now, this isn't to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.

The president responds to the old chestnut of black-on-black crime by saying, in essence, "yes, we realize it's a problem. We're not stupid." He deftly links the problem to poverty and America's own screwed-up history, not to any sense of innate black criminality. He also goes on to explain how the assumption of black criminality affects and frustrates to no end young black men who are most definitely not criminals, but are assumed to be by America at large.

I think it’s understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family. But beyond protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do.

Considering how there have been relatively few, if any riots in the aftermath of the case, I find this bit of preemptive advisory from the highest authority of the land to be a bit...unnecessary.

Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it -- if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations.

I know that there's been commentary about the fact that the "stand your ground" laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case. On the other hand, if we're sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see?

At one time, most states featured a "duty to retreat" clause in their self-defense laws. With the advent of "Stand Your Ground," the duty to remove oneself from a dangerous situation before resorting to lethal force went out the window. The end result has been a string of cases where one side or another would have lived had it not been for the over-zealousness that a SYG policy offers to those involved.

What I and many others would like to see is SYG be suspended or preferably terminated across the board until a saner self-defense policy can be developed.

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these "stand your ground" laws, I'd just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

As I said before, if Trayvon Martin had been an actual, visible threat - armed or not - it's likely that Zimmerman would have gladly followed the 911 dispatcher's advice to leave the "heroics" to the police. Seeing someone who was not only defenseless and not surrounded by people who could, at the very least, scare him off, Zimmerman took an opportunity only rank cowards could love - the opportunity to harass and scare someone who was visibly weaker than he was to justify his own preconceptions. When it became apparent that Trayvon Martin would put up some kind of defense, Zimmerman escalated to lethal force.

To answer the question as it was intended, the realities of Trayvon Martin's racial background and standing, combined with a deceased Zimmerman's resources (in the form of his father, Judge Robert Zimmerman, Sr.) and America's own opinions of armed or potentially armed black males, it's likely he would end up with the same or worse treatment that Marissa Alexander suffered at the hands of the justice system for a mere warning shot. 20 years for Ms. Alexander, a possible life sentence - or the death penalty - for Mr. Martin.

There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have. On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

America has never been comfortable with discussing race or any policies that have anything to do with race. The president wants the people to carry on dialog among themselves and their families. I don't see that working too well, either. People are often locked into what they want to think unless it touches them in an extraordinarily personal way.

I think we could use an honest, national dialogue about race, but that's a long time coming, if it ever comes. In the meantime, it's my personal opinion that the black community should do everything it can to protect itself and its most precious commodity - its children - as much as possible. That's about the only thing that can be realistically done.

At least until the president or someone else decides to risk the political capital and do something to bring about a fundamental positive change in ethnic relations and civil rights.

And that's the thing that I think pisses off many people more than anything else. The fact that the president has the most powerful platform in the world to bring about genuine social change as he pleases, yet he seemingly does nothing with it. Of course, he does well when it comes to quietly bringing game-changing mandates and bills into play through the so-called "11-dimensional chess" game. Unfortunately, people want change they can readily see and immediately feel.

President Obama was voted into office based on that desire for change and for the first three months, it seemed like he was in a position to do anything he damn well pleased. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to grab the bull by the horns, but instead guide the bull around with carefully placed feed, Americans expecting swift change were miffed, to say the least. He seemed like a lame duck long before his second term.

Lyndon Baines Johnson understood exactly what he was risking when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the end, it cost the Democrat party its entire wing of Dixiecrat hangers-on.* In light of the GOP's various attempts to ensure monolithic power throughout America, would it really be wise and prudent for the president to risk his own political capital and the possibility of complete GOP dominance for the foreseeable future by, say, ushering in Universal Heathcare whole-hog? That's a good question for anyone to ask...

---

Not too many people are happy with the president's speech. White conservative commentators felt the president should shut the hell up about race. Black talking heads feel he should talk about it more and in a much more direct manner. Those on the "professional left," the so-called "emoprogs" and "puritopians," are extremely offended over the possible implication that they are not as "colorblind" or "post-racial" as they thought and extraordinarily miffed over black media being more preoccupied with the outcome of the Zimmerman trial than with drones, the NSA or Edward Snowden's next cross-continental stop as he searches for asylum.

Nevertheless, the president said what he was able to say and he still managed to bring his message forward in a clear and concise manner. No, I'm not completely satisfied with his speech, but I feel he did exactly what was required of him as President of these United States.

*Some say that it eventually worked out for the better. Too bad we got Reagan's right-wing revolution out of it.

- Detroit is officially bankrupt. Or at least it would be hadn't a judge ruled the city's Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing unconstitutional:

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie E. Aquilina issued the orders Thursday and Friday, including a temporary restraining order, in an attempt to halt the Chapter 9 filing by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. The judge says the bankruptcy filing “…will cause irreparable injury” to the pensioners.

“In order to rectify his unauthorized and unconstitutional actions described above,” wrote Judge Aquilina, the Governor must (1) direct the Emergency Manager to immediately withdraw the Chapter 9 petition filed on July 18, and (2) not authorize any further Chapter 9 filing which threatens to diminish or impair accrued pension benefits.”

- Fiery White House journalist and former correspondent Helen Thomas has died at the age of 92. Being a mainstay of the White House press pool through 10 presidencies is no small feat.

- A man walks into a bank and gets swindled:

(Philip L. Ramatlhware, an immigrant from Botswana) was 48 years old at the time and disabled, after being hurt in an accident as a passenger on a Greyhound bus. His English wasn’t good, he had no college education and his last job had been at a fast-food kiosk at the Philadelphia airport. In April 2008, he received $225,000 in a settlement for his injuries, part of which went to pay legal fees. He was holding the settlement check when he walked into the branch.

Immediately he was referred to a broker for a “financial consultation,” according to an arbitration claim he filed against Citigroup. The broker assured him the money would be invested in “guaranteed” funds and that he could have access to them whenever the need arose, the complaint said. Ramatlhware gave him $150,000 to invest. The broker put $5,000 into a bank certificate of deposit, bought a $133,000 variable annuity and invested the rest in a series of mutual funds.

Less than six months later, Ramatlhware had lost $40,000, according to the complaint. Citigroup settled the case in 2010 for $22,500, without admitting liability, according to a report on the case by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

- Scottie Nell Hughes, Director of the Tea Party News Network and unabashed ultra-conservative*, thinks that rape victims who abort their pregnancies should be locked up and serve the same amount of prison time as their rapists:

FUGELSANG: “Let’s say Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortion becomes illegal. If a woman is raped and she goes to a doctor, and the doctor terminates the pregnancy – Please tell me who deserves the longest jail sentence? The rapist,the doctor or the woman? In order.”

HUGHES: “Across the board.”

FUGELSANG: “All three of them?”

HUGHES: “Go for it!”

Let's just say if Scottie Nell Hughes found herself in that position, she'd find any and every excuse that makes her exempt from the above. That's just what conservatives do.

- George Zimmerman won't be getting his gun back thanks to the DOJ. However, a Florida gun store has kindly stepped in to give him another one, free of charge. Now if someone would be so kind as to give Trayvon Martin his life back...

- Rush Limbaugh doesn't think the N-word is racist anymore. Neither does David Sirota. Hans von Spakovsky, John Nolte, Ben Shapiro, Dan Riehl, Joe Walsh and Todd Starnes all think that racism is "dead" and the president is a "race baiter" of the highest order. All deserve the DDSS Award for Excellence in Rank Stupidity, lovingly crafted out of pigeon droppings, old Klansman robe cloth and discarded anti-abortion bill clippings.

By the way, if you can turn your sink faucet into a flamethrower, thank your local gas-drilling operation for giving you a neat party trick to impress friends. It's not like you actually drink tap water...

*Considering you have to be ultra-conservative for that gig, a bit of an oxymoron there.

While the rest of the Twitterverse pays close attention to the self-important wordsmithings of both Glenn Greenwald and David Sirota, yours truly has never been up for watching both intellectually masturbate themselves and each other into smug, self-satisfied ecstasy. It's only when one or both do or say something so irretrievably stupid that The Man bothers to take a closer look.

Today, Sirota performed that epic feat of intellectual stupidity with one of his Salon articles. Seriously, Sirota thinks that a racially-motivated killing done under the cloak of a flawed law and institutional racism is the equivalent of the president's decision to eliminate a top-ranking American-Yemeni terrorist via Predator drone:

Remember, in the same year that saw Zimmerman kill Martin, Zimmerman’s president, Barack Obama, extra-judicially executed Anwar al-Awlaki and then his 16-year-old son, without charging either of the two U.S. citizens with a single crime. The two were simply presumed guilty, without any evidence being officially marshaled against them. Not only that, such a presumption wasn’t hidden from view in shame, as if it was something to be embarrassed about. Instead, Obama openly touted the extra-judicial killing of the father and then his spokesman haughtily justified the extra-judicial killing of the child.

Explaining the Zimmerman-like aggression against the Awlakis and thousands of others who find themselves targeted by U.S. drone strike missiles, the federal government later offered up the Zimmerman Principle, repeating the same sentiment that Zimmerman expressed during his cellphone call to non-emergency responders.

Whereas Zimmerman told non-emergency responders that Martin “looks like he’s up to no good,” the New York Times reported that Obama’s indiscriminate drone bombing, which “counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants,” presumes that people in a targeted area are “probably up to no good.” In other words, when it comes to military policy, the Obama administration is George Zimmerman perceiving the world as filled with Trayvon Martins supposedly “up to no good” — and who supposedly therefore deserve to die.

It is, of course, no coincidence that, whether African-Americans like Martin or Arabs like the Awlakis, those most affected by the Zimmerman Principle’s presumption of guilt tend to be people of color.

So, whereas all Zimmerman had to do was stay in the car until the police could arrive and roust Trayvon Martin with legal sanction, all the president had to do was put the drones away and apparently commit billions of dollars and thousands of troops to a manhunt and hopeful arrest of al-Awlaki, where he could then be tried and convicted in a civilian court (given his status as a U.S. citizen) as Sirota apparently intended.

According to Sirota, America, or the president, to be more precise, is that neighborhood watch doofus with his fat finger wrapped around the trigger, waddling towards al-Awalaki as he walks home with Skittles and Arizona iced tea in hand.

Whereas Trayvon Martin was just an ordinary 17-year-old young man, conservatives, Zimmerman supporters and other unreconstructed love painting Martin as some sort of weed-smoking thug-in-training for whom Zimmerman did the world a favor of ridding. Meanwhile, al-Awlaki willingly integrated himself into the Al-Qaeda network, calling for the deaths of American civilians and soldiers alike. Perhaps that was just bluster to make his American-Yemeni self appear more palatable to his backers. Not Safe For Work Corp had a story on this very premise of image and communication to bolster one's image as a "true believer," but that's beside the point. Point is, Sirota attempts to rehab al-Awlaki's image into a Martin-like bystander who's only true vice was being in the path of the president's Zimmerman-like drone-assisted rage.

One always runs into comparisons of one highly charged event or historical figure to another, sometimes as a springboard for someone's pet causes. The constant comparisons of the LGBT movement to the Civil Rights movement for black American equality is one. The GOP's constant attempts to repaint Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a conservative figure for their own purposes is another. Sirota's attempt to conflate Zimmerman's current state of freedom to the president's freedom to call on as many drone strikes as he pleases fits the bill to a tee.

I don't think Davy here understands his history well enough to understand that (1) there's centuries of racial antagonism behind Zimmerman's actions that serve as a round hole to his square peg of a drone narrative and (2) it is highly offensive to use Martin's death at the hands of Zimmerman to push forward a message attacking the president for his use of drones in the waning War on Terror, as opposed to keeping thousands of active troops on the ground.

Speaking of which, I think I get Davy's premise. With drones, there are no U.S. casualties covered with flags on homebound transport for Sirota and others to use in order to pressure the president to cut the War on Terror short and bring the troops home. With drones, the incentive for any sort of immediate withdrawal nearly vanishes. Fewer dead U.S. soldiers means less pressure to pack it all up and bring everything home, just as they thought the president promised back in 2008/2009.

It's no surprise that Sirota thinks the president is just as much of an unabashed racist and failure as George Zimmerman is. As far as he's concerned, the president failed to bring home the emoprog bacon when he decided to push forward with the War on Terror instead of putting an immediate end to it. These and other non-actions on part of the president managed to land him on the emoprog shitlist. So much so, in fact, that guys like Cenk Uygur have called for the president's arrest and conviction as a war criminal. Sound familiar?

Bob Cesca's Daily Banter piece points out three important things:

1. The above is the latest attempt for Sirota and his fellow emoprogs to step all over the president for being just another George Bush, in their own humble opinions.
2. Yet these same morons are more than willing to stand with the likes of Ron and Rand Paul. Sirota loves Rand's stand on drones (at least when it comes to terrorists overseas) while blithely ignoring Rand's position on the Civil Rights Act, states' rights and a whole slew of classic Dixiecrat views and opinions on race.
3. Sirota and the anti-Obama emoprog collective's misappropriation of Martin's image further isolates them from the remainder of the left, while making them the perfect patsies for any milquetoast conservative wanting to lead anyone from the fringe left off the proverbial cliff.

Like Cesca, I won't explicitly say that any of these jokers are racists. But it's safe to say that these self-important morons are...well, just that.

Next thing you know, Glenn Greenwald will start crying about how the Trayvon Martin case sucked all the oxygen out of the room in an attempt to distract people from Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.

The above video (sadly dead as of 2014) serves as a recap of the events surrounding the five-hour attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Criticisms surrounding the attack included the claimed lack of sufficient security at the compound, as well as why additional Army forces were nowhere to be found when the consulate needed help most.* Some claimed that not only did the White House delay their response to the attack, officials also seemed reluctant to immediately pin responsibility on the usual suspect in the region (Al Qaeda). Republicans attempted to parlay these criticisms into a scandal that would hopefully leave the Obama administration tarred and feathered.

This was supposed to be an impeachable moment for the president. In Benghazi, the GOP saw Barack Obama finally meeting his very own Watergate or better still, Iran Hostage Crisis. So far, that seems about as likely as New Coke being reintroduced on the soft drink market. So Republicans simply changed targets - instead of striking at a lame duck with a seemingly unimpeachable image, they're focused on scuttling Hillary Clinton's possible 2016 presidential candidacy, notably by returning a favor:

The brief period of bipartisan peace initiated by 9/11 ended for good in May 2002. CBS News reported that the president had received an intelligence briefing in early Aug. 2001 that "specifically alerted him of a possible airliner attack in the US."

Th CBS report left much open to question, but that mattered little to Democratic leaders in Congress. They saw an opportunity to attack the president's strong suit--his leadership in the war on terrorism.

The Democrat who most aroused the ire of the White House was Hillary Clinton. She declared, "Bush had been informed last year, before 9/11, of a possible al Qaeda plot to hijack a US airliner." She held up a newspaper headline, "BUSH KNEW." "The president knew what?" Clinton asked.

To the White House, Clinton's remarks seemed calculated to manipulate the narrative concerning who should be blamed for 9/11, trying to shield the legacy of her husband's presidency by shifting blame for overlooking available intelligence away from him & onto his successor.

GOP talking heads suggest that the president had prior knowledge of an impending attack and, for whatever reason, decided to sit on that intel and let the chips fall where they did. Of course, few people asked the magic question: exactly how would the Obama administration profit by allowing such an attack to happen? Even the talking heads over at Fox & Friends are backing away from the conspiratorial mayhem surrounding Benghazi:

On Monday, the morning show hosted cable news all-star Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), for his latest in a long string of attempts to prove that the U.S. government engaged in a massive cover-up of the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. Although hosts Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade are normally happy to promote a good conspiracy theory — for example, they recently seriously questioned whether or not NBC is replacing Jay Leno on The Tonight Show because he made a joke about President Obama — even they’re fed up with Chaffetz’s unsupported claims that “we were certainly misled every step of the way.”

“Are you saying that admirals Pickering and Mullen are complicit because they did the review board?” Kilmeade asked of Chaffetz’s suggestion that the government manipulated the findings of the Accountability Review Board report on the attack. “Are you saying that the CIA is complicit because they allowed their talking points to be edited?”

“What were they trying to cover up?” Doocy asked.

“You had the former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta — who was revered by both sides of the fence — coming out and saying, ‘Hey, we couldn’t have gotten anybody there.’ So you have him on the line. You have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, President Obama, Admiral Mullen. Would all of these people go to bat just to get President Obama re-elected?” Carlson asked.

"I hear all the time the expression 'the good old days'," Leon said. "Well, the good old days, we forget they have been good for some, but they weren't good for everybody.

"You can't go back, you can't live in the past," he added. "It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling people back...for Blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants to be on their side of the border."

"What you and I understand," Leon said, "is that when Jesus says, 'You can't hang onto me,' he says, 'You know it's not about the past, it's not about the before, it's not about the way things were, but about the way things can be in the now.'"

The above comes from a sermon delivered by Dr. Luis Leon at St. John's Episcopal Church on Easter Sunday. It just so happened that the president and First Family were in attendance. You can see where this is going.

Predictably, folks on the right aren't taking Dr. Leon's moment of "real talk" too well - in fact, they're having flashbacks of Dr. Jeremiah Wright's infamous sermon and they're looking forward to seeing the president toss the good pastor under the bus in the same manner. I doubt that'll happen, but you can count on conservatives grinding their axes on this particular stone for the next few months. And you can count on CNN, NPR and other mainstream outlets politely tut-tut the president for encouraging this sort of thing.

Look beyond the consternation and manufactured outrage and you'll see a blinding, glaring truth that very few want to acknowledge or embrace:

"You can't go back, you can't live in the past," he added. "It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling people back...for Blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants to be on their side of the border."

Which is what conservatives have been asking for all along, only in various ways that easily pass muster in a polite society where blatant talk is absolutely unacceptable. If it isn't curtailing women's rights by leaving their reproductive faculties under the control of state legislatures via abortion and birth control bans, then its putting an end to GLBT rights, same-sex marriages and fair treatment of illegal immigrants. I won't even mention the designs these folks have for black Americans - needless to say, it ain't pretty.

Thing is, conservatives absolutely hate it when these things are put out in the open. They hate it even more when they get called out on it. Some folks even resort to unabashed projection - anointed conservative mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh called the president "a racist" who "promotes racist behavior whenever he can" and "inspires racism":

“Obama’s presence inspires this guy to go all divisive, all racist. And start jamming on the Republicans for wanting blacks in the back of the bus, women back in the kitchen, when he can’t name a single person who does.”

I think he means the president can't name a single Person That Matters™ who's stupid enough to openly ask for these things - that's something you'd do only via dog whistles and codewords.

Truth isn't something that can be borne lightly; some people can't stand to bear it at all. Nevertheless, offering truth at every opportunity is the key to changing society for the better. If that means conservatives and their mouthpieces catch the vapors over it, then so be it.

By the way, the president looked rather dapper on this Sunday outing.

Many men, wish death upon me
Blood in my eye dog and I can't see
I'm tryin' to be what I'm destined to be
And niggas tryin' to take my life away

It's not every day that yours truly would lead a blog post with lyrics from a rap song, but after listening to 50 Cent's urban lament, it felt somewhat appropriate. After all, many men and women have wished death on the president, from ordinary citizens to militia members and even U.S. servicemen. And now we can add a law enforcement official to that ever-growing list:

A sheriff in Massachusetts is refusing to apologize for joking that President Barack Obama could best serve the country by being assassinated.

Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald, Jr. made the joke during a local St. Patrick’s Day breakfast for Republicans on Sunday. He said that the ghost of Lincoln appeared to Obama in a dream and advised him to go to the theater, where the former president was shot in the head.

Of course, invoking the imagery of Abraham Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theatre in April 1865 is considered a "joke," one made "in jest," to boot. Perhaps the president should just lighten up and shrug off this latest threat to his and his family's well-being.

Both of Barack Obama's terms as President of the United States have been marked by a thorough and unrelenting disrespect of his being and the office he holds, on both racial and ideological grounds. Through thoughts, words and actions, that unending disrespect constantly oozes out of the pores of people who see the president as an aberration, as someone who neither deserves the office he currently occupies nor deserves to lead a nation populated by men and women of a certain ideological bent. This seething, unrelenting disrespect manifests itself most noticeably in calls for the president's life, his wife's life or (and I shudder at the thought) his childrens' lives.

Sheriff MacDonald should not only be heaved away from his department with great force, he should also be prevented from taking on any more jobs within the law enforcement sector. By all indications, this is what's least likely to happen. If the trials and tribulations of countless men and women are anything to go by, it's a given that those within law enforcement not only tolerate, but also welcome and perpetuate the ideologies and rhetoric that drives people to threaten the president's life. As long as the good sheriff is tolerated by his constituency and the Powers That Be™ above his own pay grade, he and others like him will continue to exist as a part of law enforcement.

It's interesting to note that news of Sheriff MacDonald's "joke" was included in an initial report by the Boston Globe, only for any and all mentions of said "joke" to be scrubbed without so much as an editorial note. Perhaps someone didn't want to become a target of the Plymouth County authorities or perhaps the good sheriff had some good friends in all the right places. Nevertheless, sources like the Boston Globe end up making themselves irrelevant and unimportant to ordinary people as they stray from reporting actual news and gravitate towards issuing stories that read more like the latest public relations news wire.

With a press that's all too willing to cover for the disrespect of others who "don't belong" and the willingness of people to look the other way and remain silent during these fragrant acts of disrespect, it's little wonder the president has to tolerate having death threats hurled his way on a constant basis by people who feel entitled to do just that. At least until the Secret Service shows up.

Speaking of the Secret Service, I hope the sequester isn't hitting them too hard. The last thing we need is for the people who actively seek to neutralize assassination plots to be underpaid.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS), also known as drones, are aircraft either controlled by ‘pilots’ from the ground or increasingly, autonomously following a pre-programmed mission. (While there are dozens of different types of drones, they basically fall into two categories: those that are used for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes and those that are armed with missiles and bombs.

The use of drones has grown quickly in recent years because unlike manned aircraft they can stay aloft for many hours (Zephyr a British drone under development has just broken the world record by flying for over 82 hours nonstop); they are much cheaper than military aircraft and they are flown remotely so there is no danger to the flight crew.

While the British and US Reaper and Predator drones are physically in Afghanistan and Iraq, control is via satellite from Nellis and Creech USAF base outside Las Vegas, Nevada. Ground crews launch drones from the conflict zone, then operation is handed over to controllers at video screens in specially designed trailers in the Nevada desert. One person ‘flies’ the drone, another operates and monitors the cameras and sensors, while a third person is in contact with the “customers”, ground troops and commanders in the war zone. While armed drones were first used in the Balkans war, their use has dramatically escalated in Afghanistan, Iraq and in the CIA’s undeclared war in Pakistan.

- Sourced from Drone Wars UK

The new face of the ongoing forever war to root out suspected terrorists, further cement American hegemony in the Middle East and South Asia and to make the guys running Iran feel rather uncomfortable is what at first glance appears to be an overgrown RC plane with funny-looking fins. It's also an ever-growing bone of contention between the president, numerous Democrats, pundits fascinated with "poutrage" and the art of martyrdom for purity's sake and ordinary Americans who don't want to see some overgrown RC plane loitering over their house while grilling burgers in the backyard. Or get taken off this mortal coil by one.

The president's taken a beating over the use of drone warfare in the War on Terror time and again, mostly on the grounds of what he can and can't do in regards to using them and where. Most recently, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued a letter to the administration demanding a little more transparency when it comes to drone use and the declassification of several DOJ memos that discuss the legal ramifications of targeting Americans in the commission of counterterrorism drone strikes. Some Senate Democrats are also asking questions:

President Barack Obama faced a tough question on drone policy from a fellow Democrat during a Senate meeting Tuesday and defended his administration's program, according to sources in the meeting.

The administration's drone program captured national attention last week when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) carried out a nearly 13-hour filibuster to protest elements of it.

Rand specifically wanted clarification from the White House as to whether it believes it has the authority to use a drone to kill an American citizen on American soil who is not engaged in combat, as it feels it does when a citizen is on foreign soil. The day after Rand's filibuster, Attorney General Eric Holder answered that no, the president does not have such authority.

Senate Democrats were largely absent from Paul's filibuster last week. But on Monday, a group of progressive Senate Democrats pressed Obama on the issue. Details of the exchange so far are scarce.

"There was an exchange, but I don't want to get into the specifics," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

"Basically, the president said that they're doing everything they can to comply with the law and to give information to members of the Intelligence Committee," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who paused for a long moment before answering. "And he said they would continue on that path."

A source in the meeting said one question was posed by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a member of the Committee on Intelligence. A spokesperson for Rockefeller didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

I'm all for a little clarification and a definite restraint on power, in this case. Getting comfortable with the idea of drone warfare opens the doors to drones as a general solution for every "problem." Law enforcement agencies are chomping at the bit for a chance to deploy drones for surveillance and the FAA's accommodating them with a law that will, among other things, open up the nation's airspace to drones. A few states are attempting to put a damper on that fun before it even begins.

The White House has posted a photo of President Obama skeet shooting at Camp David this past August. Asked recently whether he had ever fired a gun, Obama told the New Republic, “Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time.”

In light of the pernicious narrative of the president personally confiscating AR-15s and other "scary" weaponry from the barbecue-stained hands of full-blooded American citizens, the White House had to do something to remind us all that President Obama is just as American as an American can be. After all, just look at that photo op. What pastime is more American than spending some quality time with a quality firearm?

Given the type of gun he's using and the sport, the photo op seems geared towards the responsible game/sport shooter and not the type of gun owner who loads up their AR-15 with as many tactical add-ons as possible. Still, it's a bit disconcerting in light of the president's address on Sandy Hook and his recent push for better gun control laws.

As I type this, I'm wondering when and where I'll encounter the inevitable snide comments about the president expecting a whole different concept of "skeet." I'm sure there'll also be questions from right-wing conspiracy theorists about the authenticity of the photo itself.

Meanwhile, scores of Americans are buying guns at a rapid clip. Between President Obama's 2009 inauguration and his re-election, over 67 million firearms found themselves a new home in the U.S. That number happens to dwarf the number of firearms sold in the seven years prior to the Obama Administration. The number of NICS background checks surpassed the 2 million mark in November 2012 and over 2.7 million background checks the following month.

The shop-worn narrative of Obama taking everyone's guns away is what keeps plenty of gun-owning Americans loyal customers of their local gun stores, expos and garage sales. Really, the NRA and gun manufacturers should be thanking the president for being the best gun salesman they've had in years.