Sad America

May 12th Obama proposed that the government give $1.25 billion to settle discrimination claims by Black farmers against the Agriculture Department. (Source Associated Press)

This is part of a 10 year old class action lawsuit against the government. Obama was quoted as saying “My hope is that the farmers and their families who were denied access to USDA loans and programs will be made whole and will have the chance to rebuild their lives and their businesses.”

Don’t stop reading yet… John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association said this is a nice start but expects that additional funds would be needed. John feels this is a starting point in the negotiation process. He said that we need to make sure none of the Black farmers are left out.

So you have to look back in your history books to see how this all started. It was Obama who as a senator led the charge to pass a bill allowing black farmers to see new discrimination claims against the Agriculture Department. The deal is that this has already been addressed once before when in 1999 the government settled and paid out almost $1 billion dollars against almost 16,000 claims. That works out to be $62,500 each if you split the money evenly.

Why reopen the claims? Well some farmers (thousands of them) missed the deadline so they didn’t get paid. Obama reintroduced the Pigford legislation about six months into his presidential campaign. No doubt to boost his support by the black farmers community. Now you must fast forward to today, and the new 65,000 claims that have rolled in if you were to pay out the same amount as you did back in 1999 it would be over 4 billion dollars (not taking into consideration inflation)

Really you can’t make this stuff up. Now I do not know all of the details around this discrimination claim. I can say that both of my parents grew up very poor children of farmers, and they often would get turned away when going to get loans to buy seed etc. I think it is wrong to just say we are going to hand you some money because (a) you are black and (b) your job is a farmer. If someone was discriminated against and we have proof of the offense, then we should do the right thing. However you can not just say that all Black farmers were discriminated against just because they are black. And what about the Latino farmers, Asian farmers, Indian farmers where do we stop?

Obama must have liked what George was doing down in Cuba. Looks like he has changed one of his promises to do away with the military tribunals created by President George Bush to try terrorism suspects.

So instead of getting rid of the tribunals he will simply change them a little. See it looks like he is starting to realize he does not have all of the answers.

It seems that even the American Civil Liberties Union is turning against him by calling him out and using is own words against him. What was it that he said…oh “You can’t put lipstick on a pig”.

For those of you following along at home lets recap a bit shall we?
Obama has done the following SINCE taking office.

• Backed warrantless wiretapping
• Expanded the war in Afghanistan
• Opposed prosecution of the individuals who were involved in torture of detainees
• Continue the military tribunals
• etc… etc… etc…

In his own words he said that the military commissions were an “enormous failure” and that “I have faith in America’s courts.” (Obama Aug 7th 2008)

Obama stood in front of the world with one hand on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible and the other raised high as he repeated the sacred oath of the President of the United States of America. Well not all went as planed as Justice Roberts flubbed up the words. 15 seconds later everyone was celebrating however many wondered if the flub would somehow call into question if Obama is actually the president or not. See as it turns out the person taking the oath must repeat the oath exactly as it is written otherwise it doesn’t count. (It’s the law).

So in order to cover himself Obama retook the oath in a more private setting and this time he made sure no Bible was present. For someone who wants to make sure the oath was taken correctly he was fine with skipping the whole Bible part because it’s not required by law.

It has been a little while since I last posted, mostly because I wanted to hold back and see how everything was going to unfold with the new President. Now that Obama has been swore in and his agenda posted to whitehouse.gov lets take a look.

Obama ran on the promise of change and from what I read on http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/ change is coming.

For example and I quote: “Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.”

and: “Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.”

and: “Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.”

For anyone calling themselves a Christian, or Muslim that voted for Obama because of his race, and not for his agenda, we thank you!

With boat loads of seamen already a float Newsweek is reporting that Obama might appoint Bill White to the post of president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space  Museum.

As it turns out Bill would be the first openly gay chief of a military branch. What about the military ban on gays?  Don’t work the post Bill would occupy is actually a civilian job.

Don’t worry he will not be changing the uniform or anything like that. He will just be the creepy old dude that hangs out in the museum talking to all of the little kids. 

If we were to profile people not based on their race but on weather or not they look crazy we might have been able to save a couple of innocent kids.

Kaushik Patel, doused his two sons ages 7 and 4 with gasoline and set them on fire in their home. Both boys suffered for months in the hospitals burn unit before passing away.

Patel, a native of India that came to the US back in 1992 claims that he was trying to commit suicide and somehow his sons injuries were accidental. (I am not sure how pouring gasoline on your kids and setting them on fire is an accident). The Tribune reported that Patel didn’t remember lighting the fire.

I guess it slipped his mind because he was too busy running out of the burning house. Do you think he should get the death penalty?

We have all learned about inflation growing up but now we are about to learn about deflation. What is deflation well it is defined as a presistent decline in general price levels, typically accompanied by a severe contraction in employment and economic output. It might be a little early to declare that deflation is occurring but the signs of it are starting to pop up in the market. For example Gold is down 27% from its high this summer, and next year it is most likely that the Fed will cut the key interest rate to 0 percent.

We have a new president going into office that campaigned on the promise of “Change” however his definition of change is to put the same politicians in power. By his desire to have Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, and his seeking out of all of Bill Clinton’s old gang it would seem that change is just a flavor of Kool-Aid.

I am not saying that the current economic problem is because of Obama but you might want to look back a bit and you will realize that this all started during Bill Clinton’s administration

As Obama gets ready to take up a new address for his mail. Africa might see their hopes fade into the night. Obama knows that he needs to leave Africa alone because simply put he has no money and no really good reason to help them out.

Now will Obama step up and let all of the people of Africa know he has no intentions of reaching across the pond to help them out with free money from the US?  When you look at the numbers Africa wasn’t hit hard with the credit crunch the rest of the world is facing. Africa did benefit from the high oil prices that have plagued consumers,  but this really benefited oil companies more than it did the average person. Currently Africa still faces problems with food supply, and they still see the occasional riot break out by very hungry Africans.   

It’s really a very sad thing to think about, and their hope in Obama is so misguided it makes one sick.

Well everyone that that having Obama in the white house would usher in a new emphases on education but not so fast… He is not in the white house and already he has brought about “change”. Change in his view on education. He has decided to take the approach of tinkering with education rather than making a bunch of radical “changes”.

Obama once called for increased funding for teacher training and better testing of the students. Obama stated that he wanted to INCREASE SPENDING on early-childhood education by about $10 billion dollars, at the same time turn around and offer up a 4k tax credit for college students who do 100 hours of community service that was voluntary.

Now that the reality of a poor economy is staring him in the face, and he need to rescue business rather than children the money isn’t there to increase spending. It really makes you wonder if all of those other wonderful campaign promises will come true… (oh the ones about increasing taxes I am sure that one will come true…)

Europe welcomed the black and white half’s of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States. But over the past week many of the European lawmakers and journalist have made off hand comments about his race. A Austrian TV journalist even said “on camera” that he “Wouldn’t want the Western world to be directed by a black man”.

A Polish lawmaker even stood up in front of Parliament and made the following statement about the election resutls : “this is the end of the white man’s civilization.”

the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made the following statement about Obama: “young, handsome and even suntanned”.  He defended his comment that this is a compliment.  As you might imagine the news of Obama didn’t go over well in Germany I will just leave that to your imagination.  Personally I find this all offensive and I again want to restate it’s not his skin color that people should fear it’s his policies.  I really hope that I am wrong about him and that 1/2 of the things he wants to accomplish never happen.