Repeated second guessing of President Obama

Former President Bush lied to America to start wars Afghanistan and Iraq. The media sucked up the lies without question or investigation. Bush talked tough using sound bite language.  He was always good for a bumper sticker slogan. The media thought he was a Texas cowboy who carried a big stick. The media absolutely loved him!

But Bush and VP Dick Cheney hated the media. They used it for their own purpose, and only did interviews with Fox news and hate talk radio, mainly Rush Limbaugh. The media and pundits did not complain for fear of losing the limited access they had to the president and vice president.

Bush neglected the economy. He did not add the cost of the wars into the annual budget. Americans thought the economy was solid as a rock. Bush blindsided them with a smile. He vacationed more than another media darling, Ronald Reagan. 

Republicans, the media and hot shot pundits did not complain out loud. Long vacations, state dinners, traveling on Air Force One were not questioned. The presidential perks were all a part of running the country.

Not so with President Barack Obama. When he hosted his first state dinner and the menu was published, hate radio talker Laura Ingram had a Texas size hissy fit! She felt the president should have had a less expensive cut of meat, given the economy was in such bad shape. People were jobless and being evicted from their homes. She said when she youngster, at home, she and her mother, who was a waitress, ate chopped beef.

Mark Levine, another hate talker who loathes the President, went stock raving mad on radio; yelling and screaming about President Obama travels on Air Force One. He calculated how much gas Air Force One required in state travel and out of the country. He felt that President Obama and his staff should fly commercial. He said people were suffering, and the president was living too high off the hog. He said the President and his family are living better now than they ever lived in their lives. He said the President should stop having state dinners and parties until the economy is back on track.

Pray tell why all the second guessing, analyzing and investigating the President’s every word and decision? These are the same media and pundits that acted like water boys for Bush and Cheney. If Bush and Cheney pissed in their faces and told them it was raining, they would pull out their umbrellas and continue standing in the "rain."

The media are upset because President Obama does not get angry and blow up. His coolness, which is his personality, is disconcerting. He appears not to care, copy cat media and pundits say. He's weak and indecisive, they decided.  They are practically demanding that President Obama paint his face black and perform a minstrel show. They say he is an angry black man, who cannot control his temper.  The proof? There is none. Does not matter. The media and pundits want him to be average like them.

President Obama is constantly compared to dead presidents, and what they would do about the economic crisis. Solutions of yesterday are not workable solutions to fix today’s problems. But that does not matter. The media and pundits think he should channel dead presidents anyhow. When Obama was running for president he campaigned on what he thought was wrong with the country and the economy. He offered solutions. Like all the candidates, he had no inside information regarding the economy, the two wars and the approaching economic disaster that he was about to inherit from George Bush. The media and pundits thought he should have known the economic disaster was coming.

I recall the media  and pundits getting very angry at  the president-elect. They strongly proposed he overthrow Bush, and take control of the White House before January 20. They forget that Obama was a Constitutional professor. They did not want him to wait until inauguration day. Suddenly the media  and pundits were concerned about the economyand wanted candidate Obama to fix it. How quickly the media forgot that in this country, we have one president at a time. That did not stop their ranting at the president-elect.

Since he as been president, no legislation that Obama signed into law is acceptable. Supposedly the general public hates the legislation, especially health care reform. Teabaggers and Republicans say the President does not understand their “values." In searching for a definition of values as touted by Republicans, I found they believe Democrats are sinful, do not believe in God, are not religious, are Satan worshipers, haters of unborn life, America and the Constitution.

Republicans, on the other hand, are the bearers of all that is good: God, guns, religious, love of family and country and the Constitution. None of what I read about Republican values  explained why so many “family values” spouting Republicans cheat on their wives and willfully indulge in homosexual acts with young men, or have affairs with an assortment of women, married and single.

President Barack Obama is faithful to his wife, who he loves and admires. He does not hide that love from the public. After 16 years they still have a date night. The president lights up when she walks into a room. Sometimes she blushes, acting like a high school girl on her first date. The president listens to her. He loves his daughters and his mother-in-law, who he respects. He has faith in God and attends church whenever he can. Since leaving the church he belonged to for 20 years, he explained that he does not want to put another church through the hassle his attendance will cause. He stands on what he believes, whether it’s popular or not. Are these the character traits of a man who has no “values?”

And now right wing pundits, hate talk radio and the media are second guessing Michele Obama’s motives for the White House garden, and wanting to find a solution to obesity in children. Right wings nuts say it’s a government take over! Hate talkers say Michele Obama has no right to tell parents what to feed their children. In other words, if children suffer high blood pressure and diabetes at young ages, so be it.

Laura Ingram bragged on her show about the fatty foods she eats. The reason? She’s showing First Lady Michelle Obama that she cannot tell her what to eat! That is so silly and childish. Ingram is also jealous of Michele Obama. She has compared herself to the First Lady. She's even toned up her arms so she could go sleeveless on TV. One night when she was on Bill O'Reilly she pulled off her jacket. O'Reilly asked if she was stripping. She pulled off her jacket to show off her arms. He did not notice.

The second guessers are trying to rewrite the President’s agenda. When he does not follow their suggestions, they attack him. As I watched Keith Olberman’s Countdown on MSNBC s tonight, he and his guest complained that the President does understand the enormity of the BP oil spill crisis. He left all the power in the hands BP, Olbermann said. He feels that in allowing BP to clean up its own mess, the President is letting the fox guard the hen house.

Last week Chris Matthews suggested the president rent a submarine, gather some divers, go 5,000 leagues under the sea and plug the oil spill! He says the President's coolness scares him.  Matthews wants to see anger from this President. Chris Matthews looks at too many movies. He is always comparing life issues to movies. This spill is not an instant fixer-upper. Who is the wiser: Matthews and the media, or President Obama who first analyzes, holds discussions with experts, and then reaches a sensible conclusion?

I go with the "cool" guy. He is the wisest of them all.

To post or not to post your thoughts, that is the question

Everyday I read lots of news stories, various columnists and editorials in a variety of online newspapers and magazines. On "news" blog sites I love posting comments after reading the writers. I stay away from profanity. I can express myself without getting vulgar, missing the point of the story or editorial. If someone responds to what I post, I do not get into an online-argument with them.

When you post an opinion online that makes you fair game. There is no reason to get angry when you are responded to negatively. I have read posts that were totally disconnected to the news story or editorial. I find myself saying: “Where did that come from? It's not in this story!” If the writer is talking about green eggs, some posters delve into a jaw-jacking rant about liberals, socialism, the president, 2012, Democrats and Republicans.

I think commenters show their true personalities because they can hide behind screen names. If the angry posters had to write using their real names, I doubt their words would be so critical and acrimonious. On the other hand, some posts are quite pleasant and funny to read.

It amazes me when posters complain about civility, particularly in politics. The same posters then express themselves in the vilest, partisan language permissible. On some sights there does not appear to be restrictions on profanity. If what these posters write is true, especially in regard to President Obama, I find the writing extremely troubling.

A rash of responses I recently read in a Texas newspaper ranted about President Obama's religion. I wish I could say I did not know this much hate existed in the United Stated. Alas! I cannot tell that lie with a straight face. I hear it and read it every day from people who preface their statements with: “I am not a racist.” And then they go on to write comments transparently vile, racist and derogatory.

They take pride in calling President Obama names. I was not a big fan of President Bush, but I never questioned his religion. I got a chance to participate in an interview with him when George Bush was governor of Texas. I shook his hand, but I could not look into his eyes and see what was in his heart like he with Vladmir Putin. I find it odd that people can write--without an ounce of proof--that President Obama is not a Christian. They must be psychic. I'm not.

I'm just saying.

In-school corporal punishment is an extremely bad idea

Wait a holy crap filled minute! You mean there are parents who want their children paddled at school? I do not keep up with the corporal punishment trends, so I plead stupidity. I assumed that all public schools in the U.S. had banned paddling. Suffice it to say I was somewhat surprised when I read that “nostalgic” parents in Temple, Texas wants the return of paddling. They believe a couple of whacks on a student’s backside will force them to act respectfully in the classroom.

When I attended elementary school, I witnessed several of my classmates getting whipped with a strap. Fortunately, none of us girls fell victim to the strap. One afternoon we watched in horror as our homeroom teacher whipped a male student so long, we were scared for him. I ran home and told my mother what happened. The next day she went to the school to talk to the teacher, warning her to never whip me. She told my teacher if there was a problem with me in the classroom, she should send home a note. She would do the punishing. The boy’s mother never came to the school. We felt so sorry for him.

The teacher and her sister, who taught at the near-by high school, was also known for punishing students by whipping them with a strap. Their favorite statement to misbehaving students was: “I will knock you into the middle of another week.” Both of the sisters were top heavy and unattractive.

Maybe my young eyes were fooling me, but I saw anger in the whacks landing on my classmate's behind. He did not always complete his homework; many times he was the class clown. But the punishment we witnessed was uncalled for. We did not call it paddling. We called it whipping, a half notch away from a beating. We did not know the technical term was “corporal punishment.”

The US Supreme Court declared in 1977 that paddling was lawful in schools. Thirty states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico were included in that number. Ohio outlawed the practice in 2009. In 2002, almost 1.4 of all corporal punishment took place in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. It should be noted that Black males were most likely to get paddled as opposed to females and White males.

Today when parents spank or hit their own children they are asking for trouble. The law labels them child abusers, and they are hauled off to jail and fined. The time they spend in jail depends on the kids’ story of alleged abuse. Kids have been told to call 9-1-1 if they are hit, whipped or beat by their parents. I have heard kids threaten to call the police if they cannot have their way. This kiddy style blackmail has consequences for parents and children, many of whom are teenagers. They do not want to be disciplined or told what to do. Children can curse and hit parents with no consequences to suffer. The law is more on the kids' side than upholding the parents right to discipline their youngsters.

Temple, Texas parents are asking for a huge problem they may not be prepared to accept. They want schools to take over the responsibility of raising and disciplining their children and educating them at the same time. Paddling a student in 2010 can present a dangerous situation for the person who does the paddling. Students do not take kindly to getting hit by their parents, let a teacher. They may associate paddling with disrespect. Of course, incessant teasing will follow the paddling. This can cause anger in the student to swell, manifesting itself in a dangerous, deadly way. This is especially true if the student seeks revenge against the teacher. Angry students do not think in terms of cause and effect and consequences.

Problems that I have with a teacher or principal 

administering corporal punishment are:

(A) Who trained this person to paddle a student?

(B) What will cause the paddler to increase, or decrease the paddling?

(C) What if the paddler is angry, taking the anger out on a student?

(D) Will someone be in the room with the paddler and the student? Or will it be done in the privacy of the principal's office?

(E) How quickly will the students' parents be notified of the paddling?

(F) What behavior will require corporal punishment?

(G) Will a female paddle a female student?

(H) Will a male paddle a male student?

(I) What about psychologists claiming that hitting makes a child violent? Does that assessment only apply to parents hitting their kid?

And lastly, the most dreaded subject no one wants to discuss: Race.

(A) Will White parents be unhappy if their kid is paddled by a Black teacher or principal?

(B) Will Black parents be equally unhappy if a White teacher or principal paddles their child?

(C) Will corporal punishment be administered evenly, with neither Black, White, Hispanic or other students getting paddled the most?

The same parents who requested that the school paddle their kid will be the first parents to file a lawsuit if their child complains about getting hit too hard. Paddling is a bad idea. It should be completely outlawed in the school system. Respect should be taught in the home. Discipline should be practiced in the home. Schools are for teaching. Teachers cannot teach and be parents to unruly children who refuse to control their behavior.

The minority vs the majority in National Day of Prayer

I agree with President Barack Obama’s statement when he said: "I invite all people of faith to join me in asking for God's continued guidance, grace, and protection as we meet the challenges before us."

Amen.

I am not a scripture spewing hypocrite, who sees wrong in everyone except myself. I have flaws. I am not a regular churchgoer, nor do I tolerate anyone telling me that I disappoint God, because I do not give 10 percent of my income to the church. It's that flaw thing, again.

God knows my heart and mind better than I do; therefore, I trust him to know that I do not approve of preacher’s living the high life with the help of 10 percent offerings. Preachers with mega-churches declare that God wants them to build these huge houses of worship in his name.

There are times I have walked, talked and prayed to God. My spirit let me know that he listened. He did not need my help in solving my problem. I let it go. That’s my personal relationship with God. No preacher or Constitution can interfere with that relationship. My faith is such that nothing has replaced it.

I am sure everyone has heard a preacher say (especially true of TV evangelists): “God put this message on my heart to tell you.” The message is always related to monetary donations; how large they should be. Apparently God does not worshipers to be stingy. My attitude is: I have that same hot line to God and or Jesus. I can pick up the phone at any hour, any day and make the call.

God also gave me the precious gifts of discernment and choice. I try to use these gifts everyday. Slick talking preachers force me to use these gifts every time I listen to them. I will not try to spend that wooden nickel these preachers offer as an admittance fee into heaven.

When I attended elementary school I lead students in the Lord’s Prayer each morning. It never occurred to me, the teacher and my fellow classmates that our praying would some day be called into questions by the courts. It never occurred to us that we could not start the day with a prayer.

People pray all the time. We pray when there is no light in the tunnel of sorrow, grief, pain. For some of us prayer is the medicine we need to get through a day, especially when we feel hopeless and broken. So what is wrong with a National Day of Prayer? Who is so threatened that he or she cannot stand next to someone who prays to a different God? If I am a Christian and you are of the Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish faith ... will the spirit we pray to weaken our faith? Weaken our belief?

And now a judge says the Constitution does not have a law calling for a day of prayer. A National Day of Prayer is not calling for a mandated, nationalized religion. No one is going to prison or be sentenced to death if he or she refuses to participate. This is America. Nonbelievers say that a government sanctioned national prayer day violates the First Amendment. In this particular instance, when the day concludes, so ends the national event until next year.

The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Screaming fire in a crowded theater is not freedom of speech. I guess a National Day of Prayer has become the fire in the crowed theater. The minority doused the flames, leaving the majority with smoke filled throats, unable to speak or pray freely.

It's a bully world

When I learned of the First Lady and President Obama were holding a discussion about bullying, I thought of this editorial that I wrote last year. Adults have been debating the bully dilemma for years. The recent suicide of a 15-year old girl has gotten lots of attention. The guilty culprits were girls attending the same high school. A popular boy and jealousy turned into a toxic mixture for the pretty victim. She was the new kid on the block, and a popular football player was attracted to her. That's the tragic summary to this story.

As everyone knows a bully does not govern his or her behavior according to politically correct rules. Bullies have this mode of operation in common: intimidating and tormenting a targeted victim who is vulnerable and helpless against their harassment. 

Ruffians do not select just any person to target. They tend to stay away from strong personality types. Attempting to intimidate a strong “victim” requires too much time and energy. They might bully back. With the help of the Internet, bullies successfully utilize this electronic tool to further damage the lives of bullied girls and boys. The cyber attacks are far more vicious and violent than a real physical attack.

If a student confronts the bully, he or she might have to fight a group of stand-by bullies. True bullies will not to be ignored. Like a shark in water, bullies smell fear and they want their pound of flesh. The targeted victim cannot sit and talk with a bully. They have a tough guy/ bad girl reputation to protect.

Whereas students can complain about bullying to teachers and principals, it is not likely they will get the results they are seeking. School administrators are afraid of being sued by parents, who will say their off-spring is being defamed by the school. Parents do not believe their children are bullies. Denying the allegations, parents angrily proclaim that administrators and teachers have their child confused with another student.

During my three years as a substitute teacher I witnessed parents bullying school staff if their child was sent to the principal’s office, or suspended due to inappropriate behavior. Not only did parents threaten to sue the school system, students made the same threats. Students felt free to taunt, tease, curse and strike, even kill staff. This attitude was prevalent in elementary, middle and high schools.

Because I subbed at different schools, I slowly realized that principals did not want to wet their hands with student bullying, and bad behavior. It was easier to avoid and ignore bullies. Without the principal’s support, teachers turned their heads. Principals feared losing their jobs if the superintendent received too many complaints.

During my second year of subbing I was quizzed like a criminal when I reported seeing a screw driver in a student’s backpack. I had read a news story about a student getting stabbed to death with a screw driver at a high school in Houston. The assistant principal took me to an empty classroom, and demanded to know how I knew the student had a screw driver in his backpack.

I told her that he left the backpack open, sitting next to me. She wanted to know why I looked in the backpack! She told me what students have in their backpacks is their business. I attempted to explain the deadly stabbing. She did not want to hear it. I was told in polite language to mind my business, and keep my eyes out of students’ backpacks. The student in question was never called to the principal’s office, or questioned. I saw him later that day showing the screw driver to another student.

Discussing this with another teacher, I was told that substitutes were less listened to than certified teachers. Her advice to me was to hear no evil; see no evil. It was difficult for me to see a student taunted or bullied in the classroom or in the hallways, and not interfere. I could not turn my head, pretending I did not see or hear. Eventually my complaining, plus complaints against me from teachers I had subbed for, parents and students--led to my termination.

The bully problem in public schools is difficult to resolve. Students, parents, principals, superintendents and teachers have to work together as a unit. School rules and guidelines have to be strictly adhered to. But even if bullying is curtailed at school, can it stopped on the Internet? Therein lies the hardest question to answer.

Texas becomes main underground railroad for New Orleans’ citizens in search of a new home

A boat load of victims seeking dry ground and safety.

Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans levees ripped open the underbelly of poverty in the Big Easy, exposing its insides to the world. It was a rawness that politicians fail talk about when they are making pretty speeches to get elected or reelected. 

The world was watching days after the hurricane hit, observing the treatment of African Americans in dire stress, many of them just minutes away from death, homelessness, depression and despair.

Naked, raw poverty has a way of marring pretty pictures, empty words, and a president that observed the mean spirited disaster while flying over the watery ruins in Air Force One a few days later. President George Bush cut short his vacation at his Crawford, Texas ranch after an aide produced a video of the disaster, showing it to Bush.

Bush's pretend concern was too late. Hurricane Katrina revealed in an unapologetic way that something is terribly amiss in the United States of America, the land of plenty. But the questions have to be asked: How can this kind of poverty exist in a country as rich as America? How can Americans be treated like refugees standing on roofs, signaling and screaming for help after such a full scale disaster?

America is standing naked. Where can she hide her shame and hypocrisy?

From the beginning I watched Mother Nature at work, uncaring about who had the misfortune of getting in her way. I watched destruction unfold in disbelief. I had to ask myself repeatedly: Am I watching a Third World catastrophe, where lifeless, face down bodies are floating freely among the living in streets that have turned into small rivers in New Orleans? 

No one, as they watched bodies floating by, had time to add more panic to their already traumatized minds. They had to think straight ahead or run the risk of not surviving. In the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a fight for control between the Tutsi and Hutu, bodies floated down rivers and lay scattered on land. There was no slow responding FEMA coming to their rescue. The Rwandans were on their own. I watched that violent, man-made act of genocide on the evening news, just as I watched the New Orleans hurricane acting like it was at war with that state.

Here in America, FEMA failed the Gulf Coast states because of bureaucratic incompetence, leaving everybody to wonder: Who's in charge? Who's on first base? Who's on second base? I can answer those questions with confidence: No one. The in-charge people are still lost in left field; befuddled and unable to tell which way is up, one month later.

WHY POOR FOLK, KATRINA?

Intellectually, I know that Hurricane Katrina did not selectively discriminate, choosing to skip over wealthy neighborhoods just to attack communities where less salaried people lived. But Mother Nature, in her anger, is noted for going into a tirade resembling a scorned woman, paving a new road to purgatory for anyone who gets in her way.

New Orleans, unlike the other destroyed states, was all about levees that everyone knew were going to crumble, subsequently releasing flood waters that the Big Easy could not swallow. Death and destruction rode piggyback wherever the raging waters rushed. I heard the media liken the watery destruction to the flood in the Bible, but I did not hear the media say that God was sending Noah to man an Ark to safety.

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN TEXAS and OTHER STATES

As I watched African Americans treading the flood waters in New Orleans, my mind shot back to the past; to a time that I have often read about, and have seen brutally depicted in movies and documentaries. In true reality, the media brought the nonstop scenes into our living rooms. Some of them did a great job.

The flood victims resembled hundreds of slaves attempting to escape to the North, heading to freedom and a better life. This time around there was no secret Underground Railroad, and each head of household had to take on the role of Harriet Tubman in order to save their own lives, and the lives of their loved ones.

The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad operating underground. It was a secret network of safe houses, where escaping slaves were warmly greeted, given shelter, food and clothing before making their way North. In the instance of Hurricane Katrina, Texas found itself a North stand-in, becoming a temporary safe haven for those running away from the deadly flood.

Ironically, when the media talked to African Americans who had “escaped” to Texas and other states, many of them said they had lost everything they owned, and they had no plans to return to New Orleans. Many of them said they had fallen in love with Texas, and the generosity of Texans, who readily showed concern for their well-being and recovery.

President Bush in Air Force One, observing Katrina

Perhaps their reluctance to return hinges on the fact that New Orleans, where the population is (was) 67 percent African American, is one of the poorest states in the U.S. Almost 30 percent of its citizens live below the poverty line. Ten other states in the U.S. are also sitting on the porch of extreme poverty. The majority populations in these states are White.

THAT WAS THEN, 

THIS IS NOW

I know there are African Americans who say they cannot relate to the plight of former slaves in America. They are living in a different time, where there is a different mind-set, different opportunities and the sweet feel of freedom. If African Americans, strapped to the bottom rung of the economic ladder, would seriously commit to reading their history, coupling that discovery with critical thinking, analyzing where the slaves were, and where they are as the 21st century descendants of slaves, they would be shocked at the comparing results.

I think they will either make serious changes in their lives, or they will continue to live in a fool’s paradise, unable to understand that when one door closes, another door opens, as did the Big Easy flood victims. There is a reason many of the evacuees are saying they are not returning to New Orleans. Texas is their new home. Is this their chance to escape extreme poverty? Yes.

When the rebuilding commences in New Orleans, big questions will have to be answered: How much will it cost to live in the new Big Easy? Will the haves buy out the have-nots? Will the returning poor be scattered throughout the city, or will they be thrown back into the same poverty stacked neighborhoods? We will have to wait and see.

That’s the difference between then and now. African Americans out of New Orleans will have to decide for themselves if the glass of opportunity is completely empty or half full. Will they pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or by flimsy shoe strings that are subject to breaking? We will have to wait and see.

Whose sin is the greatest?

Triple Tsk. And shame on the catholic bishop in Providence, Rhode Island recently removed two hospitals from its membership roll. The blasphemous hospitals had the unmitigated gall to supported health care reform! The hospitals favored the Affordable Health Care Act,  as I’m sure Jesus would have done. I'm not trying to speak for Jesus. I'm just saying.

The bishop’s crystal ball warned him that the hospitals would perform abortions with public funding, sneaking through the back door, using health care reform to pay for an abortion. The bishop is not letting the truth stand in the way of his misinformed truth. God forgot to tell him to take notes on this issue.

The bishop is concentrating on the unborn fetus. He says God is against abortions.  That ain't news! One of the Ten Commandments says: "Thou shall not kill." It does not state abortion specifically. There should have been another longer commandment: "Catholic priests shall not molest and rape children. Any head of church caught protecting pedophiles and child rapists shall be punished."

Every raped and molested girl and boy is forced to live with the death of their spirit. Their spirit and sense of self was bloodlessly aborted by pedophile priests. Even though the priests did not murder them physically, they successfully murdered everything the victims might have become. The young victims have to live with the guilt and shame that came to them uninvited.

Catholic churches need to sanitize their places of worship, ridding them of lustful priests who dare touch a child in a sexual way. The churches should stop telling pregnant women, young girls and doctors what constitutes murder in God's eyes. If abortion is murder, then the doctor, the woman or young girl are the ones who will have to answer to God for their transgressions.

God is watching the molestation and raping of helpless children who depend on men (and women) of the cloth for spiritual guidance. The Catholic church forgot that God said: "Suffer not the little children. . . ." No one in his or her right mind can argue that molestation and raping causes these children to suffer greatly.

How will the child rapists, pedophiles and protective church heads explain their murdering and hurtful sins on judgment day? I'd love to be in the welcoming line to hear their explanations. I would love to hear God ask: "Who did you remove from your church?"

$650 billion is big government any calendar year

The tea party bug was planted February 19, 2009 by CNBC’s Rick Santelli. In one of his rants against President Obama’s plan for a tax-payers funded mortgage bailout. He announced loudly that there ought to be a tea party revolt against the government.

In November 2009, the newly formed tea party held a protest in Harrisburg, PA to protest the stimulus package. On February 7, 2009 and March 9, 2010, PA received $1, 878, 240. 00 (billion) out of a promised $7,443, 950. 00. Allocation of the funds is set for a two year period, providing each state adheres to the guidelines. President Obama made it clear early on that the money would not be issued in one lump sum. The media and pundits forget to throw in that one important fact when looking for reasons to fault the stimulus package.

The tea partiers should have known this when they commenced their protests.

They had plans to reorganize the government by blocking the President’s economic and environmental agenda, and proposed health care reform. They plan to replace any politician who does not agree with their stance on the stimulus package, bailouts (government loans), the size of government, how it should be run, higher taxes.

At some of their protests they have called for the impeachment of President Obama. Asked to cite the basis for impeachment, the response was they do not know. They will find a reason later, some said. Some protesters suggested that the President be charged with treason, all the while proclaiming he is not an American.

That’s what talking points will do for information challenged protesters who are not on top of the issues. They have no idea what impeachment entails.

Originally, the tea partiers named themselves after the Boston Tea Party protest of 1773. Of course they are nowhere close to the 1773 Tea Revolution, nor have they researched the meaning of “teabagger.” From what I have read, “teabagger” has a sexual connotation that does not lend itself to much imagination.

Definition: A man who dips his testicles into the mouth of another man (as if dipping a tea bag into hot water.)

The word has became a joke for comedians, and somewhere along the way, someone informed the 'teabaggers' what they are really saying about themselves, as opposed to what they thought  they were calling themselves. Some comedians, bloggers, pundits and journalists still refer to the groups as 'teabaggers', even though they are now calling themselves the Tea Party.

It is common to see tea parteirs protesters carrying provocative signs: They are losing their First Amendment rights as Americans. This is not the American they remember or know. They claim President Obama–a year and four months into his presidency--has systemically destroyed America. Tea partiers say they want the government to listen to them. They want to pay less taxes (which they are) and cut "unnecessary" programs from the budget. They want Social Security and Medicare left as is. Both sacred cows are hanging out in their back yards and fed by "the big government."

In 2009 almost 51 million Americans received $650 billion in benefits. Just think of the money that would add to the federal coffer if the acid tongued protesters returned their monthly checks, along with a letter stating they no longer need the big government benefits. 

Don't count on that happening! It is easier to be hate mongrels and hypocrites.

Mathematically, no matter what the Tea Party folks paid into FICA during their work history, after two or three years they become wards of the state, receiving welfare in the form of Social Security and Medicare. Their monetary add-in and take-out do not break even.

Glenn Beck, the Tea Party's educator-in-chief, got these folk riled about those Russian “czars” in the Obama administration. Neither Professor Beck, nor conservative hate talk radio and TV have opened their mouths about the number of czars the Bush administration employed, way outnumbering those in Obama’s administration. Having czars in presidential administrations dates back to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Comedian Jeannie Garofulo, on Keith Olberman’s show, got it right when she said: “When Tea Partiers scream ‘I want my country back’ it’s code for ‘I want my White guy back.’”

Tea Part folk are not angry about the government. Their hate for a Black president is making them angry. They should read the 1773 Boston Tea Party history to learn the real reason for the revolt. The colonies felt they had a right to refuse paying the taxes required by the Townsend Act. They felt they had no obligation to pay the taxes imposed on them by the parliament, because they had no representation. It seems the crown’s attempt to tax tea catapulted the colonists into action. It laid the groundwork for the American Revolution.

The protesters should rename themselves The Frauds. Their feigned anger is nothing short of fraud. The media are trying to legitimize them as creditable "grassroots" organizations. American revolutionists? Naw. Too much of a stretch.