December 2011 Archives

The Iowa caucus is a sideshow, a good one, but a sideshow nonetheless. The one man who knows that is President Obama. He, and his reelection team, publicly slam the only challenger that can make the 2012 presidential race competitive, if not an actual horse race. That's Mitt Romney. It doesn't much matter how hard ultra-conservatives, Christian evangelicals, tea party leaders and followers rail at him for being too moderate, too vacillating, too establishment, and too bland. The hard reality is that not one of his GOP presidential rivals is electable, no matter how close they hue to the social and fiscal conservative political faith line.

The GOP conservative base just simply doesn't have the votes to put any of them in the White House. Independents do. The 20012 election will be won as the 2008 election was on whether Obama or his GOP presidential rival can do the best sell job with them. Obama did it in 2008 and he won.
There's some truth to the contention that independents conform pretty close to a party affiliation be it Democrat or Republican, and tend to reflect their views and vote for one or another of the parties that they identify with. In other words if an independent is pro-Democrat, the Democratic candidate is likely to get their vote. If they are pro-GOP leaning, the GOP candidate is likely to get their vote. But that doesn't change three facts. One is that independents are independents because they have serious doubts, criticism, and conflicts with Democrats and Republicans and prefer to keep their vote option open. The other is that they back a candidate based on their positions on the issues first. And they have made it plain that the two issues they will judge Obama and his GOP rival on are the economy and budget deficits and how each one handles both. The other is that independents are inching closer and closer to making up nearly half of the total American voters. This is a staggering number.

In 2008, McCain had a good shot at winning the majority of independent voters with his maverick, bucking the party, restore fiscal responsibility line. The fiscal meltdown on a GOP president Bush's watch wrecked any chance he had to make the case that he could do a better jon than Obama on the economy and the fiscal crisis. Nothing has changed in 2012. In repeated polls Obama has hit crushing lows and at times inched back up all on the basis of what independents thought of his handling of the economy.
But there's more. Independents also are fickle, and scare easy. The bare hint that a presidential contender is an ideological hard liner on waging wars, torpedoing abortion, imposing iron-clad religious dogmatism, reinforcing gender and sexual preference inequities, and backs a radical slash and restructure of government will drive them into the opposing candidate's camp faster than a skyrocketing sonic missile. Romney understood that and has took great pain to make sure that he has stood slightly to the center of the often times, wacky pronouncements from the successive GOP flavor of the month presidential candidates. He's done this even though this further stokes the ABR (Anybody but Romney) mania from GOP ultra-conservatives.

In 2008, Romney was the first GOP presidential candidate to publicly warn that Obama would be the likely GOP opponent, and then say that he could beat him. This was not mere political braggadocio. He like Obama sold himself as the change guy who can go to Washington cut the cronyism, bureaucratic and congressional inertia, and restore public confidence. But more importantly, Obama was then and is now a cash cow and again will have a king's ransom campaign war chest. And the 2012 presidential race will be the costliest in American history, with some estimates putting the price of winning the White House at more than two billion dollars. Romney is every bit the corporate cash cow as Obama. He pumped tens of millions into and virtually self-bankrolled his campaign in 2008. He can do what no other GOP contender can do and that's open the GOP's corporate money spigot in 2012.

The one policy issue that GOP ultra conservatives have pounded Romney and say that makes him unfit to be the GOP presidential nominee is his much harangued health care plan he helped craft as Massachusetts governor. But that won't scare independents away in the general election. In fact it could be an asset since polls showed that more Americans supported some or all aspects of the health reform law than opposed it, and lambasted Congressional Republicans for their hysteria in opposing the health care reform law, and for continuing to snipe at it.
The presidential race will be a year-long slog. The winner must have lots of cash, feed the perception that he can best handle the economy, and not give any hint that he will pander to the GOP or Democratic hardliners in how they will govern. Romney is the only GOP candidate that comes close to fulfilling that bill. And President Obama knows that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

is here @ wordpress.

Thank you to my two readers and Blessings!

G. Tz. ; )

There were two stories major national stories this year. One captured our hearts, the other our wallets.

The first was Casey Anthony's acquittal. But my legal analyst knew that she'd be acquitted all along because the state filed the wrong charges against her to begin with. "A jury is going to have a hard time giving someone the death penalty without knowing the cause of death," he said, and my legal analyst was right. I don't think that Casey Anthony set out to kill her child; I believe she accidentally did with an overdose of medication, though she wasn't too upset when it happened because it set her free. Regardless of the trial's outcome, she didn't get off scot-free. She was convicted in the court of public opinion and will have to spend years, if not the rest of her life, in hiding.

The other was the economy and the offshoot OWS movement. Although the movement morphed into crime and chaos and a haven for those with questionable hygiene, its intended message was clear. We need to stop the greed and corruption to get this country back on track to where it once was and to where it could be. And the best way to do this is to vote for the saner politicians. The experts are predicting a tumultuous 2012. Let's prove the experts wrong.

Now that we've somehow reached the year's end, it's time for my Shameless Plug Series, though I have plugged it in for anytime of the year. These are the business owners who go above and beyond the call of duty. They are the ones who infuse new life into the term customer service, who are scrupulously honest with their opinions, even if it means losing a sale. These are the ones who act more like a friend rather than a business acquaintance.

And this year's winners are:

Automotive: Prestige Auto, 17544 Ventura Boulevard, Ste B, Encino, CA 91316. (818) 995-4272

Even during the recession when many businesses lost 30% of their business, Prestige managed to stay in business. Perhaps their customers who commented on Yelp can help explain why:

"I have been taking my car to Prestige for about a year now," Candice G. of Tarzana wrote. "They were able to recognize a problem on my vehicle that 4 other mechanics wrongly diagnosed."

"Great service. Never had so much confidence in an auto mechanic," Jonathan K. wrote.

And I can corroborate. Sako and Harry helped me when my car died and insisted that I bring any prospective car by for them to check out, even if it meant that it would be under warranty to a competitor. And when someone hit my car, they wanted to know why I didn't come to them for advice. It doesn't get much better than that.

Locksmith: Grigor's Key Service (818) 997-7475

Somehow my car key got bent into the letter L. The dealer wanted over three hundred big ones for it, as did AAA, so I called Harry at Prestige, and he referred me to Grigor's in one of those six degrees of separation things. They showed up at my place, did the work and left while only charging me a less than half of that. And they were polite, kind and professional and didn't mind when my dog jumped into their truck and tried leaving with them.

Real Estate: Kathleen Finnegan, Prudential Realty, (818) 876-3111

Kathleen is more than a real estate agent; she is also a friend. She is warm and gracious and kind and keeps the best interests of her client in mind. She is also thorough, well connected, and a joy to do business with in the process of buying or selling a home.

Shoe Repair: Joe's Shoe Repair, 5557 Reseda Blvd., Ste E, Tarzana, CA (818) 881-1870.

If you want to see another definition of honest, look in the dictionary because their picture will be there. A father and son team that have managed to stay afloat, their formula for success is simple: They do outstanding work, are reasonable and honest.

Veterinary Services: PetVet, 19748 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA (818) 346-2455

Dr. Brown is the Dr. Dolittle of the Valley, as he not only has a way with animals but with people as well. I once saw him coax a large-breed dog back into the examining room by cocking his head to one side and gently calling its name, and he is just as good with people.

And those are my shameless plugs for now. So until the next round, a bientot, if you see me at any of these businesses, let me go first and have a happy and safe New Year.

In a year filled with great events, many stories present themselves for consideration as the biggest of 2011. Though the Royal Wedding was compelling and the Arnold Schwarzenegger divorce disgusting, the reality game show of Republican debates as attractive as a slow-motion train wreck and the threats of the Republican controlled congress to commit acts of self-immolation as a matter of principle fascinating, I have to go with: The Arab Spring.

There is a movement for change spreading throughout the Arab World. The past decade of intervention should teach us that we might not know enough to understand our interests, their interests and the limits of our power. We don't like being spectators but maybe the take away from this year is the international version of the Hippocratic Oath: First do no harm. International restraint is a great challenge for both our political parties.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Talk about a stunted cerebral cortex. Jacquetta Simmons, 26, punched 70 year-old Walmart greeter, Grace Suozzi, in the face after the Walmart employee asked to see a copy of Simmons' sales receipt upon exiting the New York store with some purchases. Rather than produce the receipt, as one with a fully developed and functioning hypothalamus would do, Simmons, who is built like Muhammed Ali in his prime fighting days, punched the Walmart employee in the face and fled.

The good Samaritan shoppers and employees followed her and surrounded her until the police arrived. Hopefully, she won't get help from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton because I don't think I could stand for another round of tales of discrimination, racism and all those other things when I have problems of my own and a crazy bank to contend with.

Maybe I should be shock-proof after all these years of working in a school system and living in a big city, but I am not. Though some of the postings on the message boards indicate what I have been thinking all along; that we are just too darned soft.

Susan C Mulrooney Eagle wrote, and I'm quoting verbatim because if I wrote something like this, I'd expect someone to confiscate my computer.

"For the record Walmart's police on asking to see your receipt is VOLUNTARY per corporate, I had a similar situation at a local Walmart I was asked to see my receipt I politely refused and started towards the dor I was then assaulted by the Walmart Greeter I showed great restraint in not assaulting her back the video tape was revied by the store manager, corporates attorneys and the employee was terminated. If you have no problem being accused everytime you go into a wa Walmart then go ahead stop & show your receipt to the greeter."

Perhaps Miss Mulrooney should shop online if she can't abide by the store's policies and make more room for the rest of us who understand the reasons behind them.

Or this little ditty from Danielgomez4:

"If you paid for it its yours it don't belong to walmart anymore I never show my receipts anymore an if you touch me your asking for it you could get maced or hurt so if walmart wants to see a receipt you need to arrest them."

Yeah, arrest them. What a grand idea. If he had spent half as much time paying attention in school as he did posting on message boards, then he may be able to write better than the average kindergartner.

And Sultry wrote:

"If a shopping trip or social outing turned to people making false accusations against me, I would let my lawyers throw a knock out punch in court."

Is she referring to the ones she hired to defend her in criminal court?

Many others tried turning it into a discrimination issue, which it is. Simmons, who is black, discriminated with a white woman old enough to be her grandmother and who is probably working at the only job she could get because she needs the money.

Hopefully, some smart and ethical lawyer will come knocking on Grace Suozzi's door so she can sue both Simmons and the store. And maybe Walmart will smarten up and hire beefy security guards or veterans to stand at the door. As for me, I'm going to start a petition to send the zombies and cretins to Somalia or to some other war zone to serve in the military. That ought to make the rebels retreat real quickly. If it doesn't pass, I'll move to the war zone myself. It might be saner.

I was stunned today when I walked into a local Chinese restaurant. Today is Christmas and so, naturally, I'm having Chinese food. This is a long-standing tradition among American Jews. So prevalent is this in the non-Orthodox, non-Kosher community that Kosher Chinese restaurants have spread through Jewish neighborhoods--observant and not quite so observant alike.

Today Chinese food and a movie are traditional forms of observing Christmas for much of the Jewish community. So, you're asking, what stunned me when I walked into my local Chinese? It was filled with Chinese people! Who knew that they eat Chinese on Christmas too? Now if we could just even the playing field and entice them into Jewish delis on New Years day!
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Things got worse for GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul when his GOP presidential rival Newt Gingrich called Paul on the carpet for purported racially inflammatory utterances he made in the 1990s in his officially approved newsletters, Ron Paul's Political Report and Ron Paul's Freedom Report which brought in a considerable haul of cash. Paul's purported half-baked racial scribbles are by now well known. He bashed blacks as chronic welfare grifters, thugs, lousy parents, and said they are inherently racist toward whites. Paul issued a terse denial that he authored or even read any of the racial slanders at the time but there is no evidence that he wrote a correction, or issued a clarification.

Paul was back at it again in 2008. On his campaign website ronpaul2008.com, Paul spotlighted race as "Issue: Racism." "Government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combat bigotry." In short, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of education school desegregation decision, the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and legions of court decisions and state laws that bar discrimination are worthless. Worse, said Paul, they actually promoted bigotry by dividing Americans into race and class. None of this would have much mattered to Gingrich or much of the media if Paul hadn't become a front runner in the Iowa Caucus.
His kind of sort of, let's drop the subject retort to the press challenge to forcefully repudiate the past writings was the standard Paul dodge. The jury then and now is still out on whether those views truly represent his feelings or not. He loudly protests that he's not a racist now because he has to if he is to have any credibility as a serious presidential contender. But protests and dodges, don't change the reasons for Paul's seemingly out of the pale attacks. They likely did accurately reflect Paul's thoughts about racial matters, if not in the crude wording, as he protests wasn't his wording, but in political sentiment. That's the operative word, "sentiment" because this sentiment can easily morph into lethal and incendiary public policy advocacy.
Paul's boast that he would not have voted for the landmark 1964 civil rights bill that's been the law of the land for nearly six decades is a textbook case in point.
Paul's rap against the bill is just as absurd and tortured as the rap that Southern Democrats and Northern GOP conservatives who bottled the bill up for more than a year in Congress used to pretty up their opposition to it. It violated property rights. Paul, nearly six decades after their efforts failed in a interview reiterated, "...I'm for property rights and for state's rights, and therefore I'm a racist, that's just outlandish."
The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment wiped away the bogus claim that property rights trumps racial discrimination a century before Paul and Jim Crow maintenance proponents used this ploy to torpedo the civil rights bill. But his anti-civil rights position linked directly to the old property rights canard fits neatly into the stock libertarian argument that the best thing that government can do is stay out of the affairs of private citizens and private business. That the root of America's woes -- bloated spending, soaring deficits, congressional gridlock, crippling energy dependence, massive tax disparities, the drug plague, and even America's wars are the result of top heavy government interference and intrusion in the lives of Americans. Paul also knows that spicing up the horribly distorted Jeffersonian principle of limited government with race has broad implications for scrapping regulations on environmental and civil liberties, and consumer protections, gutting regulations to prevent corporate abuses, and of course, slashing funding or eliminating government health services, education, welfare, and labor rules and laws. He has drilled home in his talks, lectures, and innumerable GOP presidential debates. Paul's seeming anti-establishment, anti-party, maverick position plays well to the legions of frustrated, disgusted, even enraged GOP rank and filers and purported libertarians that are desperate to have an alternative to the GOP establishment anointed presidential contenders.

Paul can be magnanimous and apologize for the racist rants while deftly deflecting blame to someone else and then quickly lecturing the press to get over it and talk about the "substantive" issues. But the dredge up of the newsletters gave him what he wanted. He is a near household name and a viable force in the GOP. A slash and burn assault on government, even when its race tinged, doesn't hurt Paul one bit. It gets media and public attention, draws denunciations from his defenders as hitting below the belt, and quiet cheers from the multitudes that happen to agree with Paul, his racial suspect views notwithstanding. In other words, Paul flunks the R (Racism) test for good reason.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

I do and will not say Happy Holidays, or Merry Winter Solstice. I do not and will not write "xmas." I do not and will not denigrate Christmas as a derivative of a Roman pagan celebration. I do not poke fun at the notion of a fat faced, fat bellied, white bearded (and white skinned) Santa Claus, reindeer, or a sleigh piled high with toys careening through the skies on Christmas Eve night. I cannot imagine my house without lights, a Christmas tree, Christmas stockings, egg nog (with a spike or two for good measure), and non stop playing of the old time Christmas classics. I can't imagine not wishing any and all in the most full throated tone, a Merry Christmas. I will again this year rail at anyone who wants to take the Christ, the spirit, joy, and tradition out of Christmas.

Yes, yes, I know this all sounds practically Stone Ageish in the era of love everybody's traditions and where it's practically a state mandated edit to pay homage to religious and cultural and ethnic diversity when it comes to a holiday celebration. But you see I was raised in the most traditional of traditional blend of Catholic and Protestant homes. And in that home it was sacrilege not to revel in the time tested etched in rock standard celebration of Christmas that generations of Americans observed, and like it or not admit it or not, still do. I am a bit past adolescent age, and wide eyed kid wonderment at a tree filled with presents on Christmas day. Yet the tradition, the magic and most of all the thrill and enjoyment of keeping Christmas the way I and millions have always kept Christmas is still alive and well in me on December 25. So I say Hands off Christmas.

As an MOT, AKA for a member of the tribe, of the Hebrew persuasion, a Jew, I'm probably not supposed to admit this, but I like Christmas. I like the lights and the decorations, the chill in the air, the candy canes and the general holiday spirit. But I have never celebrated it and don't intend to. There are no trees with tinsel and lights in my house, no presents under a tree and no goose in the oven. In fact, if I opened the door and found a tree in my living room, I'd either think I'd been punk'd or that I was in the wrong house. Then I'd haul it outside.

Though I never felt short shifted because we had other things growing up. At Hanukkah time, we'd usually go to my great-grandparents' apartment where we'd get plastic dreidels with Hebrew letters symbolizing the holiday on the outside and gold covered chocolate coins on the inside, and I'd spin the dreidl after emptying it of the chocolates. And we'd light the menorah and eat potato pancakes. I never felt cheated or short shifted even though I knew that other kids had presents under a tree and wreaths on their door, though my mother did let us hang store-bought stockings filled with toys on a bathroom cabinet.

But that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate what is someone else's, and I have no problem wishing others a Merry Christmas because there is something so generic and whitewashed, so politically correct about wishing someone a Happy Holiday. It's like only being allowed white bread when there is wheat and challah and rye. If I get wished a Merry Christmas back, I simply say that I celebrate Hanukkah, and then I get wished that. After all, isn't that what it is about, appreciating what is yours and respecting what belongs to someone else?

Every year we have allegations of a "War on Christmas." As with virtually everything else in our divided land, this is couched in partisan political terms. The "liberals" are the Grinches. This is mostly silly stuff and the politicizing of it even sillier.

And if I get my category wrong or if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, why should there be offense? It is the thought that counts. Besides Christmas is a birthday party. So what if the birthday child was not a member of my family, can't I still enjoy the party? But, of course, he was a member of my family. Merry Christmas!
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Even during the craziest times, there is always something to be thankful for. Even in the sadness of loss, we can always be thankful for having known that person, even through the tears.

Even me. I am thankful for my life, for second chances, for do-overs and the chance to start over again.

I am thankful to my parents for bringing me into this world where I can find my purpose and for taking care of me and providing for me when I was growing up, for buying me those silly Halloween costumes with masks, for sending me to college, to my father for teaching me to drive while maintaining your calm and composure and for throwing me all those birthday parties.

I am thankful to Sister Barbara for listening to me and encouraging me, to Jack for helping me when I barely had a dime to my name, to Pam for offering to pick me up at the airport when I came to Chicago and for offering to help me on my flight back, if there wasn't a hidden motive there, to Karen for being my friend. I wish you were still here. To Mariel, my editor at the Los Angeles Daily News for asking me to blog for them a few years ago. It's been a fun ride, to Niki at the Area Wide News for supporting me and for her graciousness and humor and to many more.

Even though it's harder to say and much harder to see, in ways I am thankful to those who have been utter skanks to me and have thrown me curve balls in one way or another. Through them, I have learned that some things aren't a function of me; they are a function of them and that their snarkiness, ill will and general all-around lousy humor are a function of who they are rather than what I am. It's been a hard lesson, and in the end, I thank them.

We all have a list of things that we can gripe about, and if I could unveil mine, it would be longer than a phone book of these United States, but even though it is hard, life goes down more smoothly when we view it with an air of gratitude and thanks because things happen how they are supposed to and for the best even if it may not seem so at the time. Happy, Happy, Merry, Merry.

Ron Paul will win the Iowa Caucus no matter whether he actually comes out on top or not. A win for him simply means a solid showing which he'll make. He'll accomplish that feat because he has a legion of young, and not so young, fanatical true believer devotees that have anointed him as the political second coming of St. Paul and Mother Teresa. They do three things that are absolutely indispensable to a successful campaign and that's organize, organize, organize.

They do it with zest because they buy hard into his off-beat views, from slashing government down to virtually nothing to his controversial off beat quips on race matters. During the 2008 presidential campaign, they rabidly defended Paul against all comers even after he was unceremoniously dumped from the ballots. This created a huge problem not for the Democrats, but for the GOP. The millions that went into a swoon over Paul were in no mood to mob the polls to vote for another placid, corporate, Beltway insider GOP presidential candidate. John McCain was that candidate. The absence of Paul on any ballot meant an absence of thousands of voters who in any other season might have cast a vote for the GOP. GOP mainstream leaders thought then that they had seen the last of the aged party gadfly and his fanatical hordes. They assured that his extreme choke the eyes out of government view would not cloud the GOP's tunnel vision drive to make President Obama a one term president in 2012. They were dead wrong. Paul not only refused to go quietly into the night but has emerged scarier than ever in 2012.

Paul's fanatical backers have been enthralled from the moment that Paul got a national platform to yap about the issues. He is their lone Jeremiah crying in the wilderness against big government, big taxes, big corporate domination, big socialized medicine, big wars, and demanding a return to unfettered liberty and freedom (conservative interpretation of it that is). But that's not the only thing they like about Paul. He fanned anti-immigrant flames. In a 30 second TV spot that ran in New Hampshire during the 2008 campaign, he demanded that students from alleged terrorist countries be denied visas into the U.S. Paul offered no proof that there are hordes of students pouring into America to commit terrorist acts. The ad was more than just a cheap ploy to fan terrorism fears. This reinforced the worst in racial and religious stereotyping and negative typecasting. The stereotype is that anyone in America who is a Muslim with a non-white face is a terrorist.

Paul topped that with the infamous slavery quip that he made on Meet the Press during the campaign. He claimed the Civil War was an unnecessary bloodbath that could and should have been avoided. All Lincoln had to do was buy the slaves. Other slave promoting countries, asserts Paul, didn't fight wars and they ended slavery peacefully. Paul's historical dumbness could and should have been laughed off. It wasn't. It was intently debated, and defended. The scarier point was that it was taken seriously at all.

Paul's intrepid band of true believers was unfazed by the controversy; they reveled in it. Paul gave them plenty more ammunition. He asserted that blacks are criminally inclined, political dumb bells, and chronic welfare deadbeats. There was also the alleged Paul hobnob with a noted white supremacist. Here's what Paul on his campaign website ronpaul2008.com had to say about race. In fact he even highlighted this as "Issue: Racism" on the site. "Government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combat bigotry." In other words, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of education school desegregation decision, the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and legions of court decisions and state laws that bar discrimination are worthless. Worse, says Paul, they actually promote bigotry by dividing Americans into race and class.

Paul's views are an arcane blend of libertarianism, know-nothing Americanism, and ultra conservative laissez faire limited government. In the four years since Paul rammed himself on the national scene as a name force that line has gripped the imagination of millions of Americans who believe that Congress and the GOP and the Democrats are hopelessly insular, corrupt, inept, and that they are rushing headlong to spend the nation into free fall debt. This they say will ultimately reduce the country to backwash penury nation status.

Paul made sure that he would stay within reach of grabbing the GOP presidential contender brass ring in Iowa by never wavering from his stock call in the debates for a debt free, bare bones government, and a neo-isolationist foreign policy. This has been a surefire formula to stir the juices of the frustrated, angry, and naive flock. This is the nightmare Paul adroitly poses for the GOP and the nation in Iowa and beyond.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

After the lie of threatened mushroom clouds over our cities ten years ago, after the lie of major military operations being completed eight years ago, now we are really leaving. Or is this too a lie?

With our largest embassy in the world in Baghdad being staffed eventually by close to 15,000 potential targets, hostages and victims, we don't seem to be leaving. Yes, our official soldiers are going, but with Marines and private contractors aka mercenaries, we are still going to be in Iraq. Why?

This misadventure has been an unmitigated disaster and tragedy. Saddam and his rotten sons are dead but the far more dangerous Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs are both empowered and emboldened by our multiple failures.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

is here at wordpress.

G. Tz ; )

You all have seen the English language bookshop in Paris, Shakespeare & Company. If you're a writer, you've visited it. If you were ever an American in Paris, you went in. If you saw this year's Woody Allen movie, Midnight in Paris, it was one of the last shots. It has been an institution forever. Both the store and the owner are of some sentimental value to me because I ran the store, if only for about 2 hours.

Whether productive in word-count or not, I have joined in a large group of grateful American writers who have been touched by the grace and generosity of George Whitman. We will remember him in our thoughts and in our work.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

One thing that can't be said about erstwhile GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is that he doesn't lack gall. His quip that the Palestinians are an "invented" people was so galling that even some of his GOP presidential sparring partners had to blanche. Keep in mind the GOP contenders all to a person are about as staunch of supporters of Israel that you'll find on the planet. But they also recognized that the foot-in-the mouth, headline grabbing, a historical absurdity that Gingrich uttered about the Palestinians and coming from a leading GOP presidential contender no less, simply tosses more kerosene, on the always inflammatory Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Gingrich's silliness comes at a time when diplomats of all stripes are working hard to break the logjam in Middle East talks and jumpstart negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials.

It does everything to taint and jade the Middle East peace process, while further increasing tensions and strains in the region. But considering that the dumb "invention" quip comes from a guy who's gone through every tortured gyration in recent months to unload his mountainous baggage, and to retract, sanitize, and contradict his statements and positions uttered over the past two decades, and that includes his smiling embrace with Yasser Arafat in 1997 and his sympathetic words about the Palestinians, then nothing that comes out of his mouth should surprise.

Gingrich got the word "invention" right. He just got the group he applied it to wrong. He really meant himself.

My, my. What politicians won't do to throw dirt at each other during election time. It would make a war zone look like a yoga retreat.

The fact is that GOP hopeful Newt Gingrich did hug Yasser Arafat, but then Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, shook hands with him at the Oslo Accords. Does that mean that he would have done the same now if both were alive. Not at all.

The truth about Gingrich is that the man has more skeletons in his closet that a biology professor at Yale. We know that he did the down and dirty by serving his wife with divorce papers when she was in the hospital with cancer. We know that self-discipline and self-control were never his nicknames unless someone was being sarcastic, and we know that he would get nominated for Miss Congeniality in a beauty pageant.

But given how things have played out in this country, we may not need that. I like that he called Palestinians terrorists because that's what those who lob rockets and grenades at children and civilians are. I liked it when he said that the Palestinians are invented people, because before 1968, they were just your garden-variety hostile Arabs. And I like a politician who has the temerity to tell it like it is. He may be just what we need in these times.

There's general agreement, even in these toxically partisan times, that Newt is the most entertaining and interesting candidate anywhere. He's a provocateur, and I'm happy he's strutting and not fretting his hour upon our political stage.

So, while he won't get my vote, I'm not so stuck in partisanship as to refuse to give this devil his due.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

It's time to start nominatinf the poster children for birth control. This minute's nominees are Karen Francis Severson and Laura Ann Doyle, both 44, of the San Fernando Valley.

Their nomination, a long time coming, started in 1985 when the two women were teens and got miffed because they believed that their supposed long-time neighbor and childhood "friend" Michelle "Missy" Avila, was sleeping with their boyfriends. Though they took out their anger and concern in ways that the average person wouldn't. They coaxed Avila into the Angeles National Forest and beat her, cut off her hair and drowned her before covering her neck with a one hundred pound.

Doyle sent Avila's mother, Irene Avila, a condolence card along with twenty dollars. But Severson did something more reprehensible and sinister. She moved into the Avila's home with her two year-old son under the guise of helping the family find the killer.

The pair was arrested in 1990 after a teenager reported seeing three women go into the forest and only two come out. Both were convicted and given 15 years to life. Severson, who now has multiple sclerosis and has gone to Bible studies, tutored others and managed to obtain a PhD in theology in prison, has been paroled and Doyle's parole hearing is set for July 3, 2012.

But neither one deserves to mingle with the general public because there were many ways they could have handled their anger. They could have split up with the boys on the mere suspicion that they had strayed, or they could have stopped talking to Missy Avila. That's what a sane person would have done, and that's what they didn't do.

How well they behaved in prison, who they helped or what kind of degrees they earned doesn't matter. They were not only conniving and continued to mislead the Avila family until their arrest, but they were in their late teens when they committed the crime and certainly old enough to know better

Not only are they a strong argument for strong birth control but for what's wrong with our system.

Black voters will again give President Obama a sky high percentage of their vote in 2012. That was never in doubt. What is in doubt is how many will make up that percentage. It is the number, not percentage of black voters that turn out that will again ease the President's path back to the White House or make that path rocky. The 2008 election decisively proved that the presidential reelection bid is a pure numbers game.
If black voters had not turned the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries into a virtual holy crusade for Obama, and if Obama had not openly in the South Carolina primary and subtly in primaries thereafter stoked the black vote, he could easily have been just another failed Democratic presidential candidate. Through its voter education, awareness, and mobilization campaigns, the NAACP played a huge role in galvanizing and boosting the numbers of black voters, nearly all votes for Obama. It was part race, part pride, and all sense of history in the making and being a part of Obama's epic win.
The mass rush by blacks to the polls was the single biggest reason that Obama carried the traditional must win states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and broke the GOP presidential grip on North Carolina and Virginia. There's no certainty that will be the case this time around. The GOP dominates the state legislatures in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Virginia. Four of these five states have GOP governors and there's warfare between the GOP and the Democrats over GOP concocted remapping plans in Florida and Ohio, and other states. The plans would virtually insure a spate of redrawn GOP friendly voting districts in the 2012 presidential election. The GOP aim is to gain greater dominance in the House and win majority control in the Senate. But the biggest prize is the White House, and the more GOP controlled districts in the states that Obama won in 2008, the greater the odds are of rolling those states back into the GOP win column. GOP strategists almost certainly will spend massive sums and mount a relentless, intensive blitz in these states to paint Obama and the Democrats as the cause of the economic woes of the middle-class, with the always subtle undertone of soft pitch racial code language to prick the lingering unease of many conservative white voters toward Obama and the Democrats
This political ploy is even more worrisome. Obama's centrist appeal to independents played a significant role in getting many of them to punch the Democratic ticket and augment the huge black vote he got in 2008. But a repeat of that in 2012 is questionable. Polls consistently show that a majority of independents are disappointed, dismayed, or hostile to Obama's handling of the economy, always the Achilles Heel for any incumbent who wants to keep his presidential job.
The good news is that polls are showing the enthusiasm level for Obama is still as high as it was in 2008 among a majority of black voters. Polls also show that blacks are the most optimistic that the country is heading in the right direction. That's due almost exclusively to their backing of Obama. This is the key factor in getting numbers of voters to show up at the polls on Election Day.
Obama has done two things to keep the enthusiasm level high. In November, he held a black leadership conference and unveiled what is as close yet to a white paper the White House has issued on race. It ticked off a checklist of initiatives from health care, job stimulus and small business aid that have benefited blacks. The position paper was an obvious counter to the shouts from some black activists, and on occasion the Congressional Black Caucus, that he hasn't said or done enough about the chronic high unemployment, failing public schools, high incarceration rates, and worries about home foreclosures, and poverty crisis facing black communities.
Obama strategists recognize that the novelty of his history making election has worn off with many blacks. This realization and in some cases, frustration and impatience, set in among many blacks, caused far more second guessing about Obama's priorities then the White House found comfortable.

The backstabbing, infighting, and clownish antics of the pack of GOP presidential contenders and the constant hectoring of them as weak and ineffectual at this stage of the election game should not be cause for the Democrats to uncork the champagne and declare the 2012 election a cakewalk for Obama. Despite fielding arguably one of the weakest GOP presidential tickets in recent history in 2008, the GOP contenders still got the bulk of the white vote. There's no guarantee that this can't happen again. The GOP will rally its fractious base when the Election chips are down. The black vote is still Obama's trump card, but only if the numbers are there.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

is here at wordpress.

Thank you, nostrovia and a bientot.

G. Tz. ; )

See first part as referenced on LA Observed:
Thanks to the state Fair Political Practices Commission, California lobbyists are now allowed to screw the public as long as they are also screwing the politicians. No, I'm not kidding.

Well, I've gotten some push back concerning my derisive column on allowing lobbyists to give gifts, meals and experiences to elected officials and bureaucrats as long as there is romance in the air. I am accused of being anti-love and failing to recognize that humans--and even politicians--can fall in love.

When there is a potential conflict of power, as well as of interest, if the chemistry is strong enough, one should resign, disclose and have a waiting period--as with lawyers and clients. Under our new rules (which seem to be written by Bill Maher's staff) we cannot distinguish between relationships of romantic merit and those that are merely meretricious.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

Lobbyists have been frustrated in California because they have not been able to openly bribe elected officials--or even bureaucrats. Their gifts and services have been so restricted that not even cheap crooks would be tempted to sell out. A hot dog and soft drink just don't entice to vice our officials, not even in a recession.

Any lobbyist caught giving gifts or meals to an official is now safe if he or she claims a romantic intent. And, of course and properly, the genders can be the same or different. We can mix and match as long as our intent is in fact lustful. So I can give either or both Diane Feinstein and Antonio Villaraigosa expensive gifts if I claim lust in my heart. But just to be safe, if I try to buy them an expensive meal, I'll cover myself completely by ordering it from room service. Our Fair Commission has truly put the Cupid into cupidity.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

is featured here on wordpress.

Shalom and a bientot,

G. Tz. ; )

Even before President Obama publicly announced that he would tap Eric Holder for Attorney General, he knew Holder would be a tough sell job. So he quietly asked key Senate Republicans whether they would go to war to block his confirmation. The GOP response was at best a tepid, and a far from satisfactory no. The last thing Obama needed was a bitter, partisan, and contentious fight over Holder. Yet during the confirmation hearing, Holder was grilled over his role as Deputy Attorney General in Bill Clinton's administration in a handful of controversial Clinton pardons. The panel also dug at him for lobbying on behalf of telecom giant Global Crossing after the company went belly up in 2002. Global Crossing incurred millions in debt. The Republican National Committee first brought this up and claimed it would push to make it a campaign issue in the 2008 election, because Holder was an advisor to the Obama campaign. The RNC didn't say just what the issue was. It didn't matter since the issue was really to hit Holder, on any and everything it could to sully Obama. Then there was the Elian Gonzalez case. In 1999 Cuban leaders in Florida were furious at Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno for enforcing a court order requiring that the 6-year-old Gonzalez be removed from his relatives' home in Miami's Little Havana and returned to Cuba. Holder took some heat for enforcing the court order.

The same year Holder drew more fire for his role in approving the clemency request for 16 members of the radical Puerto Rican independence group FALN, convicted of a string of terrorist bombings and murders. The FBI, Bureau of Prisons and U.S. state attorneys opposed clemency for the 16. Holder refused to comment on what part he played in the clemency action. This charge against him also went nowhere.
Holder was overwhelmingly confirmed as AG. But there was always the sense that GOP leaders were just watching, waiting, and marking time until they could pounce on him again. He was clearly seen as a pawn in their relentless attack plan on Obama. If they could discredit, taint, and tarnish Holder for even the most picayune act, it would be another slap at Obama.
Since the GOP got back in the saddle in the House, Holder was back in their gun sights. The issue is Holder's alleged duplicity in the botched ATF's Mexican gun sting operation "fast and furious." The issue is just as partisan politically vengeful as the other GOP ploys to taint Obama through Holder.
The ATF gun sting is nothing new. Former President W. Bush's DOJ ran a similar gun sting a year before Obama took office. The program resumed in 2010 with no evidence that Holder knew all the details or the problems with the sting operation. Many of which as he testified were not disclosed to him by operatives. The program ultimately was not a DOJ operation but a local law enforcement program that should have drawn fire but should not have been blown up into a manic partisan crusade against Holder.
A distressed Holder made that exact point during the sweating he got from Congressional GOP attackers when he bluntly called the attacks "politically motivated gotcha games." The implication is that the attacks are just another in the saber rattle against him and by extension Obama. Holder has enough GOP partisan lashes on his back to know that no matter how many facts he cites to bolster his case that he didn't know or certainly approve any illicit doings in the sting operation, the issue won't go away. The GOP will toss out empty threats such as demands for his firing, or resignation, and even talk about impeachment. It won't happen. But it's media catchy and sensational enough to keep Holder on the hot seat. The issue will be bandied about even more in 2012 to paint Holder as an incompetent, conniving political hack who supposedly typifies the poor and untrustworthy judgment of Obama in picking his political appointees.

Holder has tried to stay out front of the GOP attack dogs by spending hours in testimony before the GOP controlled House panels. He has repeatedly publicly admitted that mistakes were made, calling the ATF's tactics "unacceptable," and has accepted blame for them, calling them "inexcusable." But with the start of the 2012 presidential election weeks away and with the GOP's manic vow to make Obama a one term president, if the GOP can keep the heat on Holder, the nation's top law enforcement official, and an official close to Obama, it will serve as a red herring to toss more mud on Obama and hope that it sticks. In the end the hit on Holder is no different than the others. It's a hit on Obama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

I wish I could agree with Gail that gun violence could be ameliorated by good therapy and that guns don't kill people, crazy people kill people. While I would like to see good counseling, therapy and gun safety courses, tragically most killers are not legally insane, and many kill spouses or friends.

Over 30,000 people in our country die every year from gun violence. This is the tragedy of 9-11 ten times over every year--only without the property damage. Are we just going to give up and not see most of these as potentially preventable? Over the past 5 years of the average of total gun deaths, the single largest category was suicide--at nearly 50%. The second highest was homicide at around 35%. This grim number is followed by accidental shootings at 12% (cleaning gun, playing with gun or shooting a family member coming home unexpectedly). The final 3% is law enforcement related.

©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

The Virginia Tech killing rampage again stokes public fear and outrage over the relentless wave of deadly shootings that have taken a disastrous toll in lives and human suffering. Yet despite the Virginia Tech shootings and the daily gun carnage an obstructionist Congress continues to did its heel in and resists nearly every attempt to pass tougher gun control legislation. The best that Congress has mustered is the relatively tepid measure requiring stricter background checks on all gun buyers who purchase weapons at gun shows and pawnshops.

The answer to reducing the carnage of gun violence is still to pass tougher gun laws. Officials in dozens of cities nationally realize this and have not waited for state legislatures or Congress to act. They have passed ordinances to severely restrict or outright ban the sale of cheap handguns, the so-called Saturday night special, and assault weapons. This appears to have had some affect in reducing gun related violence especially among teens. California lawmakers defied the powerful NRA lobby and a few years ago passed landmark legislation that bans assault guns and high capacity ammunition magazines, limits the number of gun sales, requires child safety locks on new guns, and outlaws the sale of cheap handguns. While the California law is a good model for other states to follow, it still does not significantly limit the massive trafficking in guns across state lines. Ultimately only Congress can do that.

So far it has played hard ball and resisted the demands from the public and many state and local elected officials to pass a uniform federal standard to restrict the manufacture, sale and transport of guns. Without such a law, gun buyers can simply purchase guns in states with less restrictive gun laws and cart them back into states with tougher gun laws. Or they can order them by mail or on the internet. The Virginia Tech rampage is yet another wake-up call for the top guns (pun intended) in Washington to do something now to halt America's killing fields.

What this country needs is not good gun control laws but a national psychotherapy program. The laws we have only put the weapons into the waiting hands of the criminals, who aren't exactly great at following the rules anyway, so about the only ones who pay attention and pony up are the law abiding citizens.

Having worked in a school system for many years, I saw enough up and coming suspects for "America's Most Wanted" to add a special task force to the police department. There were many kids with mothers who were more like buddies rather than a parent or who had multiple fathers coming in and out of their lives in revolving-door fashion. Unfortunately, the school system is not equipped to handle them because they can get away with doing the bare-bones minimum and pat themselves on the back. In many schools, there is only one counselor for 600 kids. That's one counselor to handle class schedules, grades, graduation and problems at home.

Plus the counselors that are in the schools are often about as equipped to handle any emergencies as Frosty the Snowman is to attend a luau. I worked with one who had no idea one of his counselees was a twin, even though he had been counseling her for several years. She later went to jail, had a baby and is trying to get her life back together. Another failed to show up half of the time and wouldn't follow through when physically present and yet another in a counseling credential program refused to report child abuse if she was tired. Their counselees never even finished high school and Lord only knows where they are now.

But if these and other troubled souls had gotten good guidance, then the sky rather than the jailhouse would have been the limit. Surely, the Virginia tech shooter must have been in a system like this when he was growing up.

I'm as violence, justice, vengeance and retribution oriented as the next guy. I want to see the monsters given an express pass to hell. I feel that I could cheerfully and righteously pull the switch, inject the poison, drop the hammer on the murderers, rapists, arsonists and child-molesters of the world. Then I'd seriously consider going after graffiti "artists," thieves who take Christmas Toys donated for poor children from warehouses, steal wheelchairs and mug old ladies. Maybe even before offing this category of miscreant, I'd chase down Wall Street crooks (Bernie Madoff would not be being fed on my dime), scam artists who prey on old people and anyone who vandalizes a piece of art, a synagogue, church or mosque.

I can only resolve this by understanding that my feelings, though both real and legitimate, should be tempered by law, reason and history. I believe that we, as a society, cannot be trusted with the death penalty since we impose it disproportionately on the poor, minorities and men. This is why my urge and my values are in tension--and I'm fine with this. Like Gail, I want to execute really bad people. If you hurt one of my family, I might even try to act out my rage. But I accept that the law and my higher values should outweigh my impulses.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

If ever there were beings that deserved having the switch pulled, it is Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes who were convicted of murdering the wife and children of Dr. William Petit after a 2007 invasion in their Connecticut home.

It began when they spotted Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, at a market, figured they had money and followed them home and returned the next day. They broke in early in the morning and shot the doctor in the head, beat him and tied him up and put him in the basement.

They then made Hawke- Petit go to the bank and withdraw $15,00 with the promise that they would leave once they had the money. After returning home, they tied her up and raped and strangled her, then tied her daughters to their beds and Hayes raped the youngest child while Komisarjevsky took pictures on his cell phone. Afterwards, they doused the women and the house with gasoline, lit a match and fled in the family's car. Unbeknownst to them, Dr. Petit was still alive and had crawled through the basement window and to get help. Barely recognizing him, a neighbor called the police who arrived half an hour later.

Like any good state-appointed employee, their lawyers argued the same old defense, that they were damaged after being abused as children. Let's face it. We all have damages, but that isn't an excuse to harm others because we also have free will. Oprah Winfrey was sexually abused as a child, Lady Gaga was taunted by her classmates and dumped in a garbage can and Steven Spielberg was taunted with anti-Semitic insults by his peers and submerged in water where he could have drowned. They could have taken a different path and become like their tormentors, but instead they summoned their inner strength and resources and enriched and empowered not only themselves but many others in the process.

They say that an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth will make the world blind and toothless or that two wrongs don't make a right, but it isn't about that; it's about bringing justice to the victims and their families. Or that keeping the felons alive is cheaper due to the appeal process, but there is the expense of fostering something that only lives to destroy and the appeal process can be shortened. Or they argue that jail is a worse punishment, but there they not only get state-paid room and board but another day, which is something their victims never got.

Hayes, 48, wanted the death penalty, though his lawyer argued that because it was what (he said) he wanted, then life in prison would have been worse because he is remorseful and would have the rest of his life to think about what he did, but he didn't seem so remourseful while he was snuffing the lives and dignity out of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters. Besides, if he wanted to die that much, then he could have taken his own life instead.

Hayes smiled when the jury gave him the death penalty, and if Komisarjevsky, 31, suffers the same fate, then the state of Connecticut would be treating them rather well, considering.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident," our Founders said. These truths were about equality, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and ultimately the benefits of a pluralistic democracy. These are all values to which I personally subscribe and would wish them for all. But they are clearly not universally self-evident.

Yes, I prefer our system, but this is after looking at many others and living in many lands. This is for me a chosen value, an examined value, but it is both arrogant and false to believe that its worth is self-evident to all.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com

With GOP presidential contender Herman Cain's presidential candidacy effectively dead, now's a good time to turn a hard glare on the suddenly surging GOP Presidential contender Newt Gingrich's racial skeletons. His closet is stuffed with them. The first reminder of that was his off the cuff crack at Harvard that ghetto children are lazy and chronic thieves and should be dumped into menial jobs early on to break their alleged ghetto slothful habits. This racially loaded slur was vintage Gingrich. More than any other major party office contender he has never shied away from spewing some of the most bigoted, racially charged, digs on and off the campaign trail. The crack about ghetto kids having "no habits of working" was a near verbatim repeat of Gingrich's jab at poor blacks nearly two decades ago.

Then he chided a group of black journalists that blacks were poor because of their "habits." Gingrich didn't stop there. The habits that he said held blacks back were that they were too religious, and too law suit happy (meaning mounting legal challenges to discrimination), rather than acquiring the good old habits of business and professional skills to lift them out of poverty. In his ill famed Contract with America he touted as Congressional House Speaker in the 1990s, he moved to encode his obsession with the presumed "habits" of social and personal dysfunctionality that supposedly pervades all black communities when he proposed lopping off all welfare benefits for poor teen mothers and taking some of that money saved and dumping their kids into orphanages.

This harsh throwback to 19th century poor houses and workhouses was mocked, laughed at and sneered at the time by critics but a part of the proposal wove its way into law when then President Bill Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act. The law contained rigid time frame limits and top heavy work requirement provisions for welfare recipients.
Private citizen Gingrich was out of the news for the decade after his House tenure ended. But that didn't mean he had toned down, let alone, altered his thinking, about minorities and how society should deal with them. With the 2008 presidential election close at hand a politically reenergized Gingrich was back on the media's radar scope, and he didn't miss a beat. He trotted out his obsession with alleged ghetto pathology and lambasted bilingual education as "the language of living in the ghetto." Gingrich claimed this posed a grave danger to the nation and would undermine the American way of life. The quip didn't get much attention in the wake of the presidential duel between Obama and GOP Presidential contender John McCain. But Gingrich didn't go away and neither did his compulsion to ram race into any public issue he could. In 2009, his race bait target was then Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Gingrich mocked Sotomayor's comment about being a "wise Latina" and said that if a white man had made a similar remark he'd be summarily drummed out of the nomination. Gingrich branded her a Latina racist and called for her to be dumped. But Gingrich at that point was still a bad joke in most political circles and whatever he had to say could be easily shrugged or laughed off as irrelevant. However, things changed in 2010. Gingrich announced that he was tossing his hat back into the presidential ring, and though he was still stuck at the tail end of the pack of GOP hopefuls he had a national platform. He wasted little time in putting his race baiting act back on full display. He dredged up the old slur of President Obama as an alien in the White House with the odd ball charge that he engaged in Kenyan anti-colonial behavior. This drew howls of protest that Gingrich was pandering to the bizarre Birther sentiment. Gingrich in reality was just being Gingrich, and as in the past simply took another opening to race bait in the public arena.

In a Meet the Press interview last May he did double duty on racial bigotry. He slammed Obama with racist code name calling, branding him the "food stamp president." He double downed on racist coding by huffing that Obama's policies would turn the country into Detroit. Gingrich may have preferred to lambaste blacks again for the alleged "bad habits" of the ghetto--sloth, poverty, and dependence on government handouts--but Detroit is universally recognized as the poster city for urban decay, the mere mention of the city was enough to make the point about alleged black dysfunctionality.
While blacks are a favorite target of his, Gingrich has spread his bigotry around. He's gone after Muslims, railing at the notion of putting a mosque near the twin towers, and endorsed racially profiling them under the guise of fighting terrorism, and likened gay activists to fascists. Gingrich gets an occasional mild rebuke in the press, and quiet cheers from his supporters, whose numbers have climbed with the crash and burn of Bachman, Perry, and Cain, and the fear and loathing of Romney by ultra conservatives. This insures that Gingrich's blatant bigotry will continue to get headline coverage. If Gingrich forbid should make it to or near the White House race baiting would be back on the nation's table. Before that happens turn the glare on Gingrich's bigotry.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

is here on wordpress.

Blessings,

G. Tz.

is here on wordpress.

G. Tz.