THE TEA LEAF READERS OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

Patrick Buchanan calls them “Our Judicial Dictatorship.”  Our Supreme Court and Federal Court judges. Liberal judges are more like tea leaf readers. Something very different from the Tea Party.

While it has been said many times that their duty is to “interpret” the law, they have for decades been interpreting the meaning of “interpret” along the lines of President Bill Clinton’s infamous “What the meaning of is is”?

Like cheesy fortune-tellers who gaze into a cup of wet tea leaves, divining in the patterns whatever they want to see, our judges seem to whisper secret incantations, finding in the Constitution whatever tortured evidence bolsters their ideology.

For example, somehow the Preamble’s “...Promote the general welfare,” is “interpreted” as meaning the Founding Fathers intended for the government to create a bloated, counter-productive welfare system, taking over America’s healthcare system, handing out food stamps to over-fed people, and providing free birth control to a new generation of liberated young women.

On the other hand,  “...Maintaining a well-armed militia” means citizens have no right to bear arms for their own protection.

If Leftists don’t like the Constitution the way it was written and intended, they might at least have the honesty to propose amendments and revisions as their judges read them in the tea leaves. Then put it to a vote to change it... if they can. Meanwhile, they could render a great national service by stopping the torture of the Constitution (not to mention the rest of us)!

THE SECOND BEST CHRISTMAS STORY EVER TOLD

Based on an inspirational true story by Thomas J. Burns

which appeared in Reader’s Digest® Christmas issue 1989

It was late evening in London. A handsome young man with flowing brown hair and normally sparkling eyes, stepped from the brick-and-stone portico of his home near Regent’s Park. This evening he was deeply troubled. The cool air of dusk was a relief from the day’s unseasonal humidity as he began his routine walk through what he called “the black streets” of the old city.

The 31-year-old father of four had thought he was at the peak of his career. But just as the Christmas season was upon him, he was facing a serious loss of income. The news stunned him. It seemed his very talent was being questioned. He was supporting a large, extended family, and his expenses were already nearly more than he could handle. His father and brothers were pleading for loans. His wife was expecting their fifth child.

He had trouble sleeping so had taken to walking the streets at night, hoping it would somehow spark his usually prolific imagination. He needed an idea that would earn him a large sum of money, and he needed the idea quickly. But depression makes invention even more difficult.

The glow from street lamps lit his way through London’s better neighborhoods.

Then, as he neared the Thames, only the dull light from tenement windows illuminated the streets, litter-strewn and smelling of sewage. The gentry of his neighborhood were replaced by bawdy streetwalkers, pickpockets, and beggars.

It all reminded him of the nightmare that often troubled his sleep: A 12-year-old boy sits at a worktable piled high with pots of black boot paste. For 12 hours a day, six days a week, he attaches labels on the endless stream of pots to earn the six shillings that will keep him alive.

The boy in the dream looks through the rotting warehouse floor into the cellar, where swarms of rats scurry about. Then he raises his eyes to the dirt-streaked window, seeing only London’s wintry fog. The window light fades along with the boy’s hopes.

This was no scene from his imagination. It was a period from his early life when his father was in debtor’s prison, and the youngster was receiving only an hour of school lessons during his dinner break at the warehouse. The boy feels helpless, abandoned. He fears he may never know joy or hope again. Fortunately, his father inherited a modest amount of money, enabling him to pay off his debts and get out of prison – thus was the boy able to escape a dreary fate.

Now the fear of being unable to pay his own debts haunted him. He was no closer to the idea he desperately needed. But in the midst of self-doubt, a man sometimes does his best work. From the storm of tribulation comes a gift.

As he neared his own home, Charles Dickens felt a sudden flash of inspiration. A Christmas story! One for the very people he passed on the bleak streets of London. People who lived and struggled with the same fears and longings he was feeling, people who hungered for a bit of cheer and hope.

Christmas, 1843, was less than three months away! Could he manage to write this story in so brief a time? The book would have to be short. It would have to be finished by the end of November to be printed and distributed in time for Christmas.

He recalled a theme of a very successful story which he had previously published, “The Pickwick Papers.” He would fill his Christmas story with scenes and characters he knew his readers already loved. The basic plot would be simple enough for children to understand, but evoke warm memories and emotions in the heart of an adult.

But what began as a desperate, calculated plan to rescue himself from debt – “a little scheme,” as he described it – soon began to work a change in Dickens’ own spirit. As he wrote about the kind of Christmas he loved – joyous family parties with clusters of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling; cheerful carols, games, dances and gifts; delicious feasts of roast goose, plum pudding, fresh breads, all enjoyed in front of a blazing Yule log – the joy of the season he cherished began to alleviate his depression.

“A Christmas Carol” captured his heart. And his soul. It became a labor of love. As he began to scrawl each new paragraph with his quill pen, the characters seemed magically, as if on their own, to come to life: Tiny Tim with his crutches, Scrooge cowering in fear before ghosts, Bob Cratchit drinking Christmas cheer in the face of poverty. “I was very much affected by the little book,” he later commented, “Reluctant to lay it aside for a moment.”

After retiring alone to his cold, barren apartment on Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly London businessman, is visited by the spirit of his dead partner, Jacob Marley. Doomed by his greed and insensitivity to his fellow man when alive, Marley’s ghost wanders the world in chains forged of his own indifference. He warns Scrooge that he must change, or suffer the same fate.

The ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come appear and show Scrooge poignant scenes from his life and what will occur if he doesn't mend his ways. Filled with remorse, Scrooge renounces his former selfishness and becomes a kind, generous person, showing particular kindness to his employee Bob Cratchit, and to Tiny Tim. Scrooge finally experiences the true spirit of Christmas.

A friend and Dickens’ future biographer, John Forster, took note of the “strange mastery” the story held over the author. Dickens told a professor in America how, when writing, he “Wept, and laughed, and wept again.” He even took charge of the design of the book, deciding on a gold-stamped cover, a red-and-green title page with colored endpapers, four hand-colored etchings, and four engraved woodcuts. To make the book affordable to the widest audience possible, he priced it at only five shillings.

As December rolled around, the manuscript went to printing. Barely one week before Christmas Eve, the author’s copies were delivered to him, and Dickens was delighted. He never doubted that “A Christmas Carol” would be popular. But neither he nor his publisher was ready for the overwhelming response... the first edition of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve! As the little book’s heartwarming message spread, Dickens later recalled, he received “By every post, all manner of strangers writing all manner of letters about their homes and hearths, and how the ‘Carol’  is read aloud there, and kept on a very little shelf by itself.” Thackeray said, “It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness.”

Because of the quality of production he demanded, and the low price he placed on the book, it did not turn into the immediate financial success Dickens hoped for. Nevertheless, “A Christmas Carol’s” enormous popularity revived his audience for subsequent novels, while giving a fresh, new direction to his life and career.

Although Dickens would write many other well-received and financially profitable books – David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations – nothing ever equaled the soul-satisfying joy he derived from his universally loved little novel. In time, some would call him the Apostle of Christmas.

At his death in 1870, a poor child in London was heard to ask: “Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?”

In a very real sense, Dickens popularized many aspects of the Christmas we celebrate today; family gatherings, seasonal drinks and dishes, and gift giving. Even our language has been enriched by the tale. Who has not known a “Scrooge,” or uttered “Bah! Humbug!” Even “Merry Christmas!” gained wider usage after the story was published.

And in the spirit of Tiny Tim, “A Merry Christmas to us all. God bless us, every one!”

 Images courtesy Disney® and others unknown

LINCOLN, SLAVERY, AND AMERICA’S WORST DEAL

“...As long as blacks live with whites
they constitute a threat to national life.”

             ~Abraham Lincoln

 













Nowadays, few question Abraham Lincoln’s great fulfilled ambition, the emancipation of America’s slaves. His is one of the greatest monuments in Washington, DC.


Does any civilized man doubt that the enslavement of a human being is evil, pure and simple? But read on, perhaps you will find a view of historical facts which has so far escaped you.
 
Like many Yankees leading up to America’s Civil War, we despise slavery of any kind. However our respect for Mr. Lincoln begins to wobble when it comes to his methods. In a despicable example of how some believe ends justify means, Lincoln set into motion a tidal wave of death, destruction and economic strife which affects America to this very day. The War was avoidable! Lincoln could have brought about the emancipation of America’s slaves by other means, probably avoiding his own untimely death. Not just the North, but World sentiment was turning sharply against the very notion of slavery. It was only a matter of time. Had Lincoln’s willingness to negotiate with his adversaries been as determined as his willingness to take America to war against itself, today’s America might find itself in a better place at least as regards race relations.
 

Lincoln’s controversial wave began surging with a great disagreement as to whether or not America’s newly acquired western territories would be allowed by Constitutional law to hold slaves. This disagreement led to the secession of seven southern states, including Texas, and then several others, which went on to form the Confederacy. Secession was not allowed by the Constitution, Lincoln insisted, and so as Commander-in-Chief he believed he was authorized by that document to bring the Confederacy back to the Union by the force of war. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. He plunged America into its Civil War.
 

Lincoln’s rationale for America’s Civil War seems to be something of a self-contradiction. In his letter to Horace Greeley dated August 22, 1862, Lincoln writes: “...My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that...”


Lincoln continues with this non-sequitur, “What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union...”


According to many today, our Union is still in need of saving. In Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, and so many of our cities, the freed have wrought within certain precincts of their own community a new kind of slavery; that of fear, poverty and dissolution of the soul.
 

In his famous 1858 debates, Lincoln repeatedly rejected the idea of permitting blacks to vote, serve as jurors, hold office or intermarry with whites. “There is a physical difference between the two,” he said on more than one occasion, “which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.” Could he truly have believed this? I can only hope he was using it to win over some Southern support.


According to many ill-informed Northern leaders in Washington at that time, this war would be over in a matter of months, the emancipation of slaves completed, and the Confederate States back in the Union shortly thereafter. But the South wasn’t buying Lincoln’s dream, what the Confederacy lacked in numbers and industrial capacity, it more than made up for in courage. Because of Europe’s hunger for cotton, some in the “plantation states” expected France or England to come to their aid. But anti-slavery sentiment in Europe trumped even its love of cotton; Europe stayed out of it. Except for selling arms to both sides, of course. When it comes to arms dealing, principles are always the first casualties.


As we shall show, there were many Southern whites who despised the idea of slavery as much as anyone. Perhaps the North felt this group would be far less inclined to fight against the Union. Never-the-less the Confederate Army under command of General P.G.T. Beauregard delivered a stinging rebuke at Fort Sumpter. Lincoln and his supporters were shocked: the South and the Confederate flag would not be taken down so easily.
 

Committed now, and with continued support of the majority in Congress, Lincoln was forced to grow the Union army, adding to its original volunteer forces new draftees who would serve for “three years or the duration of the war.”


Some say the Union fought with one hand tied behind its back. If so, the tragedy is even worsened. Lincoln’s war – America’s most costly in our dearest blood – resulted in the deaths of somewhere between 620,000 and (recent studies suggest) 850,000 – mostly young white men on both sides. A total of 1,500,000 casualties! By comparison, WWII resulted in 405,000 American deaths. The nation was not prepared  for slaughter of this magnitude. Families of the dead walked through the killing fields in an attempt to identify and bury their own. Many were left for nature to reclaim.
 

In the 1860 census, taken just before the War, there were about 3.9 million slaves in bondage in the United States, mostly in the southern States. This represented about 12% of the total population.
 

Not to put too fine a point on it, historically, there were many more whites brought to America as slaves than there ever were blacks! Historian Oscar Hardlin observes that in America, white “servants” were bartered for profit, sold to the highest bidder for the unpaid debts of their masters, and otherwise transferred like movable goods or chattels. In every civic, social and legal attribute, these victims were set apart. Despised. The condition of the first negroes in America must be viewed within the perspective of these conceptions and realities of white servitude.


Lincoln wrote that he was repulsed by the sight of black Africans, chained together, being transported by a boat he too was on, to plantations. Was Lincoln aware that white slaves were treated much worse? Or was his sympathy reserved, as it was with myopic European ladies, for black skin only. Dickens describes in Bleak House this brand of evangelical telescopic philanthropy in the person of Mrs. Jellyby, “a do‑gooder so absorbed in the welfare of the African natives of Borrioboola‑Gha that she fails to notice her own family sinking into ruin.”  With white slaves dying in ditches, it was the worst sort of rose‑pink sentimentalism to worry oneself about West Indian Negroes.

In earlier years, white slaves drained the swamps, cleared the for­ests, built the roads. They worked and died in greater num­ber than anyone else. During much of the Civil War, politicians and military leaders of the Confederacy could not travel in certain parts of the Deep South without armed escorts for fear of attack from “upcountry” Southern whites who hated the planter aristocracy and the war they saw as being for the sole benefit of the plantation owners. “Upcountry” Southern whites consisted in large part of survivors of white slavery, and their children, who had taken to the hills, mountains and Piedmont regions of the South, living in frontier conditions.


About this, scholars wrote that “In the antebellum 19th Century South, many white Southerners lived in the upcountry, an area of small farms and herdsmen engaged largely in subsistence agriculture. Little currency circulated, barter was common and upcountry families dressed in home‑spun cloth, the product of the spinning wheel and the hand‑loom.”


They were characterized thusly; “Humanity can scarce forbear to drop a tear on reflecting on the circumstances of many of them. With a poor wretched hut crowded with children, naked, hungry and miserable without bread or a penny of money to buy any, in short they appear as objects almost too contemptible to excite the public sympathy.”


Lincoln appears to have had little interest in these whites, and so they continued in poverty. White skin, apparently, excites little in the way of public sympathy even today.

Few groups emerge unstained by the debacle of slavery. According to the few rabbinical scholars with courage enough to search deep within the recesses of the Jewish historical record, there is irrefutable evidence that white slaves were brought to the Americas at a rate of about ten whites to one black. Jewish slave traders participated in every aspect of the international slave trade. One of the sources of the immense wealth of Jews was the subjugation of black Africans.

In the end, the price of Abraham Lincoln’s dream was 1.5 million casualties to free 3.9 million slaves, many of whom, as we shall show, were not terribly inclined to be “freed” in the first place. A nightmarish cost in human life – a terrible deal by any standard.


To make matters worse, plans to create new territories, or for the transport to places outside the States for this huge number of “instant freemen” quickly fell apart. Lincoln signed a contract with businessman Bernard Kock to establish a colony near Haiti. 453 freed slaves departed for the island. But a government investigation deemed Kock untrustworthy, and Secretary of State William Seward stopped the plan from going further. Poor planning, an outbreak of smallpox, and financial mismanagement by Kock left the colonists under-supplied and starving. Some moved to Haiti. The U.S. Navy arrived at the island to rescue survivors. Most freed slaves were left to fend for themselves in America, a nation completely upheavaled by the terrible War, which left scars and rifts between North and South, black and white; rifts which continue to this day.


Today, many African-Americans suffer the misconception that only white Americans held their ancestors in bondage. The 1860 census determined that even if all slave owners had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country holding slaves. 1.4 percent!


But all slave owners were not white. The reality is many black freemen were slave owners. Contrary to liberal opinion, the majority of these black slave masters were not “sub-contractors” of white masters or those who had purchased the freedom of their children, they were independent plantation owners. In fact, many free blacks in South Carolina owned as many as 30 or more slaves. In 1860, there were a good number of free blacks in Louisiana who owned 65 or more slaves. The largest number, 152 slaves, was owned by an African-American widow and her son, who were owners of a large sugar cane plantation. Another black freeman who owned over 100 slaves, was Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter whose estate was valued (in 1860 dollars) at $264,000. In comparison, that year, the average wealth of a southern white man was $3,978. There are many more examples of black slave owners who were doing just fine in the years leading to the Civil War.


The argument today’s race hustlers put forth, that somehow all whites are responsible for the plight of African-Americans, is without merit and baseless. Lincoln spent the lives of at least 620,000 white men to free black slaves whose offspring to this very day largely remain, economically and spiritually in a poor state.


Consider that those white families who owned small numbers of slaves shared their meals and worked the fields side-by-side with them. They were more than just chattel before their emancipation. Afterward, whatever good intentions the North might have had faded in the light of its great debt; freed slaves were pretty much left to fend for themselves. The end result is what we have today, a nation with racial tension boiling just below the surface, with wounds reopened over and over by race-baiters who profit from the divide.


Had Lincoln been less ideologically driven, he could have crafted a far better deal. He certainly might have considered emancipation by attrition. The slave-holding States would have been allowed to keep whatever slaves they had, but not add any more. As a slave reached a certain age, he would be freed. Children of slaves would all be freemen, full citizens of the United States. Economic incentives could have been employed to add a bit of sugar to the medicine. Gradually, slave owners would become acclimated to the idea that new mechanical inventions replaced slaves. This, or other alternatives never considered, might have avoided the terrible spectacle of American killing American.


Consider the speech delivered on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Senator Cowan of Pennsylvania, on March 4th of 1862. The subject up for debate was the pending Confiscation of Property of the Confederate Rebels (edited for brevity):
 
   “We are standing now squarely face to face with questions of most pregnant significance,” began Cowan. “Shall we stand or fall by the Constitution, or shall we leave it and adventure ourselves upon the wide sea of revolution? Shall we attempt to liberate the slaves of the people of the rebellious states, or shall we leave them to regulate their domestic institutions the same as before the rebellion?
    ...This bill proposes, at a single stroke, to strip four million white people of all their property, real and personal, and mixed, of every kind whatsoever, and reduce them at once to absolute poverty...
    Now, Sir, it does seem to me that if there was anything in the world calculated to make that four million people and their four hundred thousand soldiers in the field now and forever hostile to us and our Government, it would be the promulgation of a law such as this.
    ...This bill would liberate, perhaps, three millions of slaves; surely the most stupendous stroke for universal emancipation ever before attempted in the world.
    Those who favor this bill seem determined to impose yet a greater project, of procuring a home for these emancipated millions in some tropical country, and of transporting, colonizing, and settling them there. Surely, sir... can we for a moment entertain this proposition seriously?
    At a time... when we are in great debt, is it not strange that this scheme... should be so coolly presented... with a kind of surprise that anyone should oppose it?
    The bill is in direct conflict with the Constitution... which guarantees the... property of the citizen...
    Pass this bill, sir, and all that is left of the Constitution is not worth much...
    ...We have here in these Halls of Congress solemnly declared that the war was for no such purpose as conquest and subjugation; but that it was for the purpose of compelling obedience to the Constitution and the law. ...Is this law one of them?
    ...People have been duped into rebellion by being told that we of the North were all abolitionists, intent... on the emancipation of their slaves, and the destruction of their social system. That slander, sir, was the moving cause of the war.
    ...We have said we had no right, and we claimed none, to meddle with slaves or slavery in the slave States.
    ...I know that many people suppose that our powers under the Constitution have been indefinitely enlarged by the fact that a civil war is now raging, calling into play what is called the ‘war power’ of Congress, by virtue of which we can pass any law we choose which tends or is supposed to tend toward the suppression of the rebellion, and that under it this Bill is warranted by the Constitution.
    I think all this will be found a delusion and a snare... Nobody pretends that if Jefferson Davis alone had been guilty of treason... and had escaped the jurisdiction of the courts, that Congress could have attained him as a traitor, or forfeited his property, or emancipated his slaves. Even the simplest man would have known that in such case he must be tried, convicted, and punished by law. Nor can the case be altered if one hundred thousand other traitors were in the same category. The grants of power to us in the Constitution were fixed in it from the beginning.
    ...But the case has arisen where the laws are inadequate to the preservation of the order of society, and the question is, what remedy? ...Since the law is of no avail it resorts to...war, and those who resist are treated as enemies.
    ...The Constitution declares that the President shall be the Commander-in-Chief, or, in other words, the force of the nation is put into his hands ...In this case the President has the right to take, by way of capture, all the public property of the rebels used in the war, such as forts, ships, ammunition, stores of every kind, but he could not do as this bill proposes to do; he could not follow the rebel after his surrender and take from his house the private property which he had left there for his wife and children while he was at war. And all this because a Christian civilization has taught the nations that such mode of making war is mischievous and injurious. The modern rule of the law of nations is plainly understood by all: ‘Private property on land is exempt from confiscation, with the exception when taken from enemies in the field or besieged towns, and of military contributions levied upon the inhabitants of hostile territory.
    ...Several millions of negros are now in bondage. Where are the signs of their [demanding] emancipation? Have not hundreds of thousands of these had ample opportunity to throw off their chains within the last few months? Have they done so? [No!] And if they have not done so, can you compel them to exchange voluntary servitude for involuntary freedom? I thought the world was old enough for everyone to know, if you want freedom, you must strike the blow which is to secure it.”

    The good Senator was right. The economic cost of freeing the slaves by other means would have been far less than the cost of the War, which, by the time it was over, broke the backs of Federal, State and municipal budgets across the country, forcing the institution of an annual income tax of “3% of personal earnings over $800.”


Historians create mythical heroes. Lincoln’s grand monument stands as a symbol for all who demand freedom for all, regardless of the color of their skin. I do not debate this end. There is no compromise here. Men must be free. But I despise Lincoln’s terrible means and its cost in blood and lasting hate. Having spent the lives of at least 620,000 white men, far too many of the generations of those they fought so gallantly to free remain now in self-imposed psychological bondage.

THE TRAGEDY OF GARNER AND BROWN

Would you expect a plumber to arrive at your home with no tool other than a wrench? Or an electrician outfitted with no tool but a screwdriver? How useful is a carpenter with no tool but a hammer? Yet, we routinely send police officers out to patrol the neighborhoods of America, alone, with virtually no other tool but his badge and a gun. And we expect this cop to be able to deal with every sort of situation imaginable.

Take the case of Officer Wilson in Ferguson: a police officer on duty. Alone. Confronted by a law breaker who refuses to cooperate, who is belligerent, and who is significantly larger than he is, the cop is left with few options. His badge and the force of law have no effect upon the law breaker other than to instill rebellious anger, actually goading the officer. Would you be happy to be in his shoes? What do you expect the officer to do! Run? Hide? He represents the law. Unable to reason with the larger man who has already attacked him, the officer fears he has few options other than to use the only tool he has been given to deal with these situations... his gun. And there-in lies the trigger for tragedy.

Wilson knows his “back-up” will not arrive in time to be of any help. Monday morning quarterbacks expect the officer to psychologically out-wit or reason with an angry law breaker in the heat of the moment. Assuming Wilson even had them, pepper spray and taser cannot be relied upon to stop an arrestee intent on fleeing or further harming the officer. Yet the officer’s duty is to arrest the law breaker. He cannot simply allow the perp to run away. His verbal commands to stop do not suffice; so, a warning shot. If this doesn’t work, he is forced to escalate. The autopsy suggests that Wilson’s first shots were aimed to disable, not to kill. Even they did not stop Brown. So...

I suppose quarterbacks could argue that even before the officer confronted Brown and his accomplice, the he might have stayed in his vehicle, out of sight until back-up arrived. Or, failing that, let the suspects run away, following them, unseen, until back-up arrives. But allowing the public to see the law backing down is an unseemly sight. Cops are out there sworn to protect the community from law breakers.

What is missing here is an alternative non-lethal tool which will guarantee to stop a belligerent arrestee without doing serious bodily harm to him. Something more restrained but more effective than a bullet. Something which will enable a cop to disable and cuff even the most maniacal perp. If only there were such a tool.

Such a device might have also avoided tragedy in the Garner incident. Still, how does an officer get a mountain of a man, even if cuffed, to voluntarily walk to a police car if he does not want to? Asking politely? Beg? Promise a burger? Threats? Of what? Cranes or other force seem to be the only options.

Murphy’s Law of unintended consequences is always at work. So even if officers had such a device, chances are that an arrestee would find a way to get himself injured, with all the attendant accusations of police brutality, and legal suits.

Cops are human beings. Putting on a badge and a uniform does not make you non-human, or super-human. No sane cop goes to work looking to hassle, abuse or kill a citizen, black or white. That takes a genuine nut. If there are such nuts or known bigots in any police force in the nation, they must be weeded out, and quickly. Preferably before they are sworn in.

Serious questions remain about both these real-life cases. In watching the video of the incredibly clumsy arrest of Eric Garner, I can’t help but wonder about the African-American female police sergeant who appears to the rear of the fallen Garner. There she is, supervising the “take down” as if she were a wrestling referee, hunched down watching to see if a wrestler’s shoulder has been pinned down. Why isn’t the media asking why she, hearing Garner yell that he could not breathe, didn’t command her men to stop that awful business on the spot? She couldn’t possibly have believed Garner would jump up and run away at that point. Obviously she thought it was a good take-down. Doesn’t she bear at least some responsibility for this needless death? How does the supervision of this arrest by a black cop fit the “white cops hate black men” narrative served up by Sharpton et al.?

No cop should be patrolling alone in precincts where crime is at a high level. Firstly, law breakers are far less likely to try to challenge two cops and avoid arrest. Secondly, there are two pairs of eyes on each situation. Thirdly, if one cop loses his cool under pressure, the second one can cool him down, perhaps avoiding decisions made under duress, which lead to tragedy.

If the rationalization for solo patrols is budgetary, compare the cost in dollars of sitting an additional officer in Wilson’s cruiser with the cost in dollars and public relations of the ruination rained down upon Ferguson and its residents and leaders by an avoidable killing.

THE GRUBER SYNDROME

Oh, I understand Obamacare “architect” Jonathan Gruber only too well.

Over the decades of my career, I met many Grubers while I worked for and/or consulted with many large, international corporations. Often, in the course of their work, my colleagues would agree on “solutions” which to my way of thinking were either wrong-headed, unethical or in some other way “not right.”

I objected on factual, ethical or legal grounds, if there were any. The usual response was along the lines of “Shh. Don’t be so negative. Don’t rock the boat; our client CEO approved it; or, who cares, it’ll be fun to do and there’s profit to be made.” I also was well aware that my own adversaries would paint me as a pain in the corporate ass.

“The CEO approved it.” That one was my favorite. Because I knew it was probably only conditionally true that the CEO actually approved these ideas. Some people read approval into anything a CEO might do, including blinking, fiddling with his pen, or sipping water. When I had access to the CEO or other corporate officer, I would present my objections. Reasonable CEOs would reconsider. They have stock-holders and boards to answer to, and little Mainstream Media to protect them. Missteps they may make, however minor, almost always make big business news.

In the case of Mr. Gruber and his “consultation” with the White House on Obamacare, it appears that POTUS, in his role as CEO of America, and not Gruber, was the driving force behind getting this legislation passed, no matter what. By his own admission, Gruber was obviously more than pleased to go along with the direction to cook the numbers, given by the President’s simple wink and nod. Perhaps the President was fiddling with his famous pen. Gruber’s public rationalization for doing something he clearly understood to be at least “unethical” was the same as what I encountered among my own business colleagues. Hoodwinking the American public? Does that sound ethical? Gruber’s rationalization was “The CEO approved it.” His reaction at that critical moment, in the Oval Office, wasn’t along the lines of “No, Mr President, that won’t work.” Or “That’s not true, sir.” No. Either he was intimidated by the Office, or more likely, he was one of those who saw the opportunity to score a ton in personal profit as far outweighing personal ethics. And then, there are all those bragging rights. “We” screwed the stupid American voter... aren’t we the clever ones? Hahahahaha!

Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Mr. Gruber. It’s just the way things are today in America. Money talks. Big money screams louder than anything else. I am told it’s nice to be rich. Everybody seems to want to be a celebrity today, famous or infamous, what difference does it make. Only old fools like me care about arcane standards of right and wrong. And, hey, for the likes of Gruber, fame, fleeting as his may be, may be more important to him than his personal reputation.

Senator Rand Paul suggests that “we” (whoever that may be) should try to get our money back from Mr. Gruber. I have no objection to that. As far as The White House has doled out your tax dollars to its friends and cronies...websites which don’t work, for example...Gruber’s share is a drop in a mighty big bucket. I would like to see us get it all back.

But money is inanimate. It’s the unethical mindset of contemporary America which is at issue. The Gruber Syndrome, not barbarians at the gates, is what brought down Rome.

HILLARY WAY OVER HER HEAD IN ECONOMICS

“You take my life

when you take the means

whereby I live.”

                  ~Shakespeare



          I am rarely surprised by anything vintage Alinskyites have to say, but Hillary Clinton’s take on job creation in the U.S. is so absurd as to make me think she is every bit out of touch with reality as her ex-boss, President “If-you-own-a-business---you-didn't-build-that” Obama.
          According to Daniel Nussbaum, while appearing at a Boston rally for Democrat gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley on Oct 24, 2014, Hillary told the crowd gathered at the Park Plaza Hotel not to listen to anybody who says that “businesses create jobs.”
          “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses create jobs (sic),” Secretary Clinton said. And many Democrats on the unemployment lines are still planning to vote for the poor little rich girl. Granted, technically she didn’t say that business doesn’t create jobs, she said just don’t listen to anyone who tells you that. After all, maybe they do create jobs. Just don’t listen to them. Because they are probably Republicans. Or conservatives. Or people who have jobs. Or people who run businesses and hire others. Or maybe Donald Trump, who creates lots of jobs. Don’t listen to any of them. They are all liars, but I, one of the world’s most-respected experts in economics – wife of Bill Clinton – am telling the truth. Do you sometimes wonder if the Clintons actually know what the definition of “truth” is?
          To paraphrase Bill, maybe it depends on what the meaning of “jobs” is. But here’s a very short list (as of 10/14) of companies and the jobs they, according to Hillary, don’t create:

          Walmart has 2,200,000 employees. Last we heard, it is a corporation and runs a business. And guess what, Hillary... each and every one of these 2.2 million employees has a job which was created by that business, and each gets paid a salary.
          And how about “Yum! Brands” (owner of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut)? They employ 523,000 folks, each of whom is paid a salary.
          IBM employs 434,246.
          McDonald’s 440,000.
          UPS 399,000.
          Target 361,000.
          Home Depot 340,000.
          Hewlett-Packard 331,800.
          General Electric 305,000.
          Space and patience don’t allow for listing the millions of other companies and the jobs they have created, lifting America’s Post-WWII families to a new Middle Class status... at that time the envy of the world. Meanwhile, Alinskyites have not wasted any opportunity to “bring it all down” as best they can.
          
But think of it, Ms. Clinton; some of the hundreds of thousands of small businesses make and sell the very things that you seem to prize. Pantsuits. Scarfs, hair products, cosmetics, jewelry, fancy homes, travel, wine, entertainment and all the slop of tv appearances.
          Where in hell do people like Mrs. Clinton think everyday products and services come from? The Judicial Branch of the government? They wouldn't even have robes and gavels if it were not for the employees of companies which make these things. Homeland Security? They wouldn’t have stockpiles of hollow-point bullets, fancy SUV’s or uniforms if employees of some company didn’t make these things.
          Who builds the offices that house government agencies? Who provides the electronics, landscaping, elevators, air conditioning and heating? Other government agencies? No. Wage earners of companies with names we all know. Companies which hire thousands, millions of Americans.
          
If jobs are getting much harder to find, it’s because corporate profits, stockholders who demand results, extremely high corporate taxes, and an increasingly apathetic and ill-educated generation of Americans force CEO’s to look to other nations to fill jobs. Or to import labor at lower wages. Because, as we all have heard the Alinskyites tell us for years now... “These are jobs Americans won't do...” Thanks to the Alinskyites in the White House, we now have a permanent underclass; jobless, dependent upon government hand-outs, lay-abouts. No jobs wanted. Gang-infested cities. No jobs wanted, thank you, we’ll make out on our own.  

          Hillary said “You know, one of the things my husband says when people ask him ‘Well, what did you bring to Washington?’ Bill says, ‘Well, I brought arithmetic,’ ” which elicited loud laughs from the crowd.

          Laughs for sure. Frankly, I like Bill Clinton personally. What Bill brought to Washington was not arithmetic, it was a sleazy culture of corruption – and not just with sexual shenanigans in the White House – he allowed our nation’s precious secrets to flow like water through a sieve to China and other adversarial nations. There has been some very good arithmetic there for the Clintons.

          One thing elected officials and appointees like Mrs. Clinton don’t seem to grasp is that, unlike public company employees (those are folks who have jobs, Hillary) who get promotions, raises or demotions, or lose their jobs, (usually based on their performance), elected officials rarely get impeached, fired, demoted or suffer any financial consequences for their mistakes, lies, corruption, cronyism or nepotism. They only get in trouble if they are caught while thie Party doesn’t control the Justice Department, or if the mainstream media calls them on it – another rarity for the Left in the Alinskyite era.


          Mrs. Clinton, do you want to know who makes jobs? Ask yourself; who do you think made that famous blue dress, or the beret and G-string that led to it becoming infamous? Companies which hire people to do the work. Who built the compound at Benghazi? Companies which hire people to build things. Who designed and made that smart Kelly green suit you wore when you famously blurted out “What difference does it make!?” Companies which hire people to design, sew, ship and sell products. Who made those web servers you kept your secrets on before acid-washing tens of thousands of them? Who makes all those cameras and prints the magazines Chelsea is plastered all over? Who made the vehicles which brought you to the Boston rally where you made those absurd comments about businesses not creating jobs? Your bloated government?
          No. 
The only thing you and your Alinskyite cohorts have made is a mess of them all.

ON PRODUCING THE PROPER DREAD IN WASHINGTON, DC

In 1742, Scottish philosopher David Hume described the importance of a free press; “The spirit of the people must frequently be roused, in order to curb the ambition of the court; and the dread of rousing the spirit must be employed to prevent that ambition. Nothing so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation, may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense.”

“The ambition of the court” today is beyond unacceptable – it is venal. Hume was not referring to a “court” of law, but the royal court... in our parlance, the U.S. Government. Its ugly tentacles have invaded virtually every facet of our lives, playing with trillions of tax dollars which disappear, without much objective scrutiny from the press, into a dark abyss. Ambition? If increasing our national debt to unprecedented levels... if deliberately, cynically, creating new generations of dependents just for votes... if “fundamentally changing” our nation and the way it works isn’t the kind of ambition Hume would say needs to be curbed, I don’t know what is.

“...The dread of rousing the spirit must be employed to prevent that ambition...” Obviously, there is little if any sense of dread in Washington, DC. If there is, it’s only the dread of not being invited to the next posh political party, or that lobbyists have lost your phone number. Our royals no longer fear the mainstream media will turn the people against them. If anything, they know the main stream media operates in full support of DC’s unbridled ambition. When mistakes are made, the MSM invents excuses. When plots are uncovered, the MSM buries them. Ever since it became ideologically dominated by the Left, America’s MSM has become a tool for that ideology, soul mates of Stalin’s “useful idiots,” working toward the day when one of their own would capture the White House. That day came with the election of our current Commander-in-Chief, President Obama, whose only dread seems to be using the military he supposedly commands.

A 2014 study by Indiana University School of Journalism found that just 7% of all journalists identified themselves as Republican, or conservative. That’s about one conservative among every 15 journalists! If it were not for the internet and one cable channel, we would have a virtual one-sided view of the machinations of Washington, DC. A situation even Joe Stalin might envy.

But, we are told, the internet is full of conservative sites spinning like unscrewing right wing nuts. May be. Unfortunately they are only preaching to their choir. It’s the vaunted “independent” voter who needs to at least hear what the right side has to say. “Conservatism” may be a word which frightens many, but surely – before this nation becomes a one-party, one-philosophy nation – the Right deserves to be at least heard by the nation’s independent voters.

“...Nothing so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation, may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense.” 

The safety of the hive should not be the driving force behind the press... a search for truth, or at least facts, should be. The press is the medium by which the genius of our nation (now buried under mountains of regulations) is roused to the cause of freedom and progress. It is now working diligently to repress any such progress outside the rigid orthodoxy of the Left.

Edmund Burke said “There are Three Estates in Parliament; but in the reporters’ gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.” We do not need a political revolution in America so much as we need a revolutionary demand for an unbiased Fourth Estate. A boycott of bias! The press has been dominated by that 93% for so many decades now that the spirit of the American people has become inured, numbed, no longer willing or able to produce proper dread in Washington, DC.

America’s mainstream media, which too many voters still believe is telling them the truth, has become an out-and-out propaganda mill, a willing partner in the unbridled ambition of Washington, DC. Owned by a small number of wealthy elites, the corporate news has sold itself to the royal court for a ride on its gravy train, which Hume and all sensible people know is never free.

BUSHWHACKED AGAIN

President Obama claims he is dedicated to avoiding the mistakes his predecessor George Bush made in the Middle East. Obama is looking at the mistakes, but he is looking at the wrong mistakes.

GW showed his gall by telling Israel to hurry up and get the job done in Lebanon. Lord! This is the same cowboy who early on wouldn’t pull his own trigger in Iraq because he was concerned about matters of conscience, or history, or how many people on both sides may have been killed. Yes, I’ll say what I have always thought – “Shock and Awe” was just a pr phrase. Few were shocked because it was announced beforehand. And I wasn’t awed like I was when I saw the fire-bombing of Dresden or the mushroom clouds on Bikini.

Maybe it was GW’s business school training... like the coarse where CEOs of large corporations order a subsidiary company to do their dirty work so the CEOs can look good at the next annual meeting of the stockholders. Yet all this hesitancy did was cause another protracted pretend-war, where we try to train the untrainable, where the number of casualties was likely to be the same had he gotten serious about winning. The difference is GW’s way spread the funerals out for all sides over years instead of weeks.

In the ways of war, this is indefensible. Slow, casualty-free victory is, in itself, a stupid strategy based only on polling politics. In the end, casualties mount on both sides; the war on the ground, and the war in the polls are both lost.

When Bush finally listened to his military leaders, the Iraq “surge” worked. But what was won, was then lost by the new “President elected to end wars, not start them.”

President Obama is playing a variation of this stupid, dangerous game. The Iraq action lasted longer than World War II when the US defeated the combined forces of the Nazis and the Japanese. And now a wider Middle Eastern conflict has flared up right under Obama’s upturned nose.

Granted, in WWII we had Churchill and Stalin’s help. Two very big guns. FDR and Harry Truman would certainly tell Obama there is no victory in a pretend war, and not to take his gun out of its holster unless he has the will to pull the trigger. Don’t be waving your pea-shooter around like Deputy Barney Fife, expecting your enemy to quake in fear. They won't. Don’t tell your enemy the gun isn’t fully loaded, and on exactly which date you will re-holster it. The enemy will snap at your ankles and bloody you up because they believe you won’t pull the trigger for fear of criticism from abroad and from within.

Hitler and Tojo’s generals may have believed America didn’t have the stomach for war. But FDR fooled them, and when it came to High Noon, Harry Truman, that old haberdasher from Missouri, didn’t give a damn what the world thought – he pulled the biggest damn trigger that had ever been pulled in the history of war, scaring the bejeezus out of them all. Voila! The war ended. And America emerged as the most powerful nation in the history of the world. A status which seems to so upset our current president.

Ever since WWII, many of America’s males have been so emasculated by their PC mommies, PC teachers, PC girlfriends and PC media, that they find it impossible to put their finger on the trigger, no less actually pull it. So our presidents send our military forces here and there but with their hands tied behind their backs. Our presidents seem to fear it is they, not our enemies, who will face “justice” in some World Kangaroo Court. President Truman and his Generals Eisenhower, MacArthur and Patton undoubtedly would think we have lost all sense of reason if they could see what we have done to the American military.

Of course some claim that had Gore or Kerry been president instead of Bush, we would not be in these wars. Why, they seem to believe, even Israel and her neighbors would all be at peace today. Because the Left gives the enemy everything it wants just to calm the savage beast. But we all know the ways of Middle Eastern radical politics. As soon as they cash your check, they buy better rockets and start in again until you give more. The same with North Korea. All enemies of liberal States have learned the drill. Countries like America, who can afford it, will try to pacify you with gifts. If history is any predictor, that’s what Gore or Kerry would have done. Funnel money and whatever else it took to Middle Eastern radicals and all the others around the world. Money, technology – recall the “secret” technology transferred to our adversaries in one way or another during the Clinton years – whatever they could have hidden under the table, while on top of the table the conflicts are debated endlessly at the UN whose only real expertise is raping our treasury.

So, while President Bush may have acted like a bumbling breakfast of cornpone – he at least recognized that you can’t buy peace from terrorists.

Don't get me wrong. Don't go to war except as a last resort! I would prefer to see us revise our laws and assassinate radical leaders and despots in their sleep than to see more of our boys die or be physically and mentally disfigured for life. But if you have to go to war, the best way to do it is fast. Get it done as quickly and as devastatingly as possible.

GW should have taken a clue from Harry Truman and his generals – even from his own father! And now President Obama needs to think about this. When you are in a real war, not a pretend war, you are going to lose men and you are unavoidably going to kill civilians. You can spread it out over time and maybe pr-wise it doesn’t look as bad as if you do it all at once. But doing it all at once has the uncanny effect of scaring your enemy into submission. When Harry Truman sent the Enola Gay over Hiroshima, he believed even the most war hardened Japanese would cave when that B29 unleashed the light in God's eye, and they felt the blistering shockwave which changed the world forever. Oh, some still argue that Little Boy and Fat Man weren't the determining factors that ended the war. Maybe it was augmented by the USSR’s declaration of war against Japan which by that time had been pounded mercilessly by convention bombs. Either way, faced with the certainty of an apocalypse, the proud Japanese decided enough death was enough. There can be no doubt dread of B29s overhead hastened the end of the war.

Our current president might take a lesson from Harry Truman. When faced with the choice between funerals on our side or the other side, he chose them. Harry had the guts to pull the trigger and get it over with. Our president might at least try to find his manhood, stop listening to the mommy-thinkers who surround him; he should pay attention to his generals, and to history.

~

GRILLING REV AL SHARPTONGUE

WHITE INTERVIEWER: Reverand Al, welcome... you’re lookin’ good... all that weight loss... and I love that coat. Is it ermine?

AL: Dat’s racist! This ain’t Herman’s coat. It’s mine, sucker.

No, it was a sincere compliment. Honest.

 Sincere? Then where’s my fresh veggie plate? I axed fo fresh veggies. I cain’t do no interview widdout celery. And just a tahnny bit o’ foie gras. I gotta have my pâté.

It’s on the way, Reverend. But I thought you cut out eating meat...

It’s liver, igonamus, educate yo’seff.

Goose liver is meat, Reverend

Long as it ain’t white meat (heheh).

Good one, Rev.

Now, before I ask about all your visits to the Obama White House, I’ve heard you’ve been having trouble reading your teleprompter. Is it time for you to brush up on your English? Here’s a recent example:

Das disrestressfil! Is it my fall if the show producers cain’t spell ebonicals correctilly. Well? Ain-it? And what business is it of y’all’s how miny tahms I been to the White House?

It’s everybody’s White House.

Not now it ain’t.

Now Reverend, we’ve heard over and over again from black leaders that we need to have an honest conversation about race in this country, but we never seem to be able to do it. Why do you think that is?

They right. We cain’t! Oh, carrots too. I need carrots. Peeled. Now all that aside, we cain’t have no honest diamalog wit white folks. All y’all wants is to keep us down.

Way-way-wait. Keeping you down? What about the fancy limo that drove you here. You’re wearing an expensive suit... and I like your tie... is that one of Trump’s exclusive designs?

I wouldn’t wear no ugly ass tie with that dude’s name on it. He a rich white racist like all you white folks. Axing for Obama’s birth certi– certi– filate like he done. Ain’t that racism? Well?

If all of us are racist, how did a black man ever get elected President? I mean a lot of whites had to vote for him.

Sure! They voted fo’ his white half. Millins o’ dumb-ass rednecks figgered a dude named Mitt... Mitt! ...must be some kind o’ black pimp... so they votes fo’ the lesser evil. A half-white guy.

I see. But it sounds like maybe you have a stake in keeping all this racial animus going. After all, if we all get along, you’d be out on the street again finding crimes wherever you see a white man, right? Who’s going to pay for the limos then?

Look, if y’all invited me here just to call me names... okay fine... knock yo’sef out. This be something whites just cain’t understand. ‘Cause you wasn’t slaves!

C’mon Al, neither were you. No African-American living today was ever a slave – except, if you want to believe Rush Limbaugh and others, blacks are slaves to the Democratic Party. No African-American’s parents or even grandparents were slaves. I know you don’t subscribe to facts, Reverend, but the Civil War was in the 1860’s... you know... a hundred and fifty years ago. Not to mention the fact that in America’s past, there were more white slaves here than black! How can we have an honest conversation when you won’t even accept reality?

White reality. 
(Al’s iPhone plays Dixie)
‘Scuse me, I got a impotent call here...
(Al turns his head and whispers into his phone)
Hey, Brotha Barack, whaddup?
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeh, okay, bro.
Ah’ll take care of it, done-choo worry.
Meanwhile, can y’all get that damn IRS off my back? Yeh... like you did Gite-ner. Right!
Later.
(turns back to the interview)
Now where was we? Oh yeh, pass the salsa.

Didn’t Rosa Parks and Dr. King and that whole ‘60s civil rights movement start to correct racial injustices of the past?

Black folks still cain’t git jobs. The unreployment rate be high in the hood. Thass why young black men gits into gangs and drugs and shit. Now who fault that? Rich whites, like that Trump and his ties and golf crosses.

Golf courses?

That’s what I said, stupid.

You claim young black men can’t get jobs? Maybe they don’t want jobs? After all, even new immigrants are able to get jobs?

What are you, stupid? Soon as them rich white racists see a job appricant be black, f’get it... they don’t git no job.

Employers say it’s not skin color but the way they dress, the gang tatt’s, ridiculous hats, doing weed during the interview, not being able to read or write well enough, bad attitude and that sort of thing?

How dare you! I don’t see nothin wrong with that. If a white racist cain’t look past super– super– uh– facial fashion, it show a narrow mind. Besides, no self-respectacle black man want to dress like a Trump.

But you’re wearing a nice suit, like The Donald.

It ain’t simular! Mine got cool pain-stripes... and see this little hidden pocket fo’ my piece. I mean if I was carryin’. Not that I carryin’ now, I don’t wanna give yo’ audience the wrong depression. Now look here whitey, where my mo-fo carrots!

Let’s talk serious. You have been criticized for rushing to every site of a tragedy involving white and black; they say you foment confrontations.

There’s a lot of ‘em, tha’s why! And I not inna bidnness of foaming nothin’! The stupid nig... I mean my black brothus and sistuhs... invites me to come.

So that’s why you went to Ferguson?

Damn right. No justice, no peace.

And Trayvon?

Damn right. That handsome young black teenage honor student was cut down in his pride.

Prime?

Whatever. That racist Zimm’en treat him like a sen-class sitzen ‘cause he black. Treat him like a slave. He jus a innocent little boy lookin forwards to a career in astrophys... uh... asso-physicals with a bag o’ Skiltens... uh... Skippits... Sliktins... freakin bag o candy. Then ‘at racist bastid Zimmin cuts him down and leave him to die in the street like a dog.

And the phony Duke rape case?

That was simular. The whole white racist cop sitchy-ayshun need to be over-alled. An don’t bring up that old Tar-wanna Brawley bidness. Thass jus plain race-baitin’.

Over-hauled?

Agreed. They’s too much conflick. White racist po-leece is trigger-happy. They looks at a black man and sees a giant seven-foot gorilla. Okay, maybe the bruthas is a little high on PCP, is that any reason to shoot him twelve times in the haid? No justice, no peace. Mmmm, this pâté is delicious. But I has to watch my diet.

Now, Reverend, I hate to say this, but it really seems that, in your eyes as well as in the eyes of most blacks, no matter how bad the crime, you simply will not admit a black suspect is ever guilty of anything. It’s always the white guy’s fault. White people have no problem admitting another white person is guilty.

Hahaha! That’s cause y’all are guilty allatime. White devils. Hahaha!

What about O.J.?

No thanks, this Pellegrino goes very good with my pâté.

Well, I meant O.J. Simpson, but let’s move along. Why do you think the races can’t seem to get along?

Bush.

George Bush!? Reverend, that was over six years ago.

All that sea-gestation destroyed the newcular black family.

No no no. It wasn’t sequestration. Experts point to Democratic welfare programs, especially those which specified if there was no father in the home, the mother would receive more benefits the more children she had. So fathers abandoned their offspring, left them to the mothers.

Who you callin’ a mutha?

What about the legions of American blacks who are doing very well nowadays? Millionaire sports stars, recording stars, tv personalities, politicians, judges, business leaders and all the rest? Can’t you at least agree there has been some progress?

They all Toms. Uncle Toms. Prolly had white grand-daddies hepping. Except sports stars and rappers. They cool.

Sorry we’re out of time, Reverand. It’s been real, uh, well... wish I could say I learned something.

That cause you cain’t reason with white folks. See. Y’all jus’ don’t unstand what it like to be black and how we sees things diffent. We got soul. White folk is like white bread. Bland. Not like this pâté.

Amen, Reverend... uh... you... you dropped a little mayo on your Trump tie...

Damn! An me needin’ to run over to the White House now. Better sen my seckaterry to Bloomies to git me a new tie.

Well, let me miss ya, Whitey.