Posts Made By: Jack Day

Going back to Jim's point about a potential disaster in California, this warning was issued not long ago. Pretty interesting / convincing. California is SCREWED!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2FHAg5TnB4

I am in Washington, and going to start getting prepared ASAP!

Way to go Harry! 8O

What's even better:


HARRY REID, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Nevada, for 20 years, was at the top of the economic food chain. If you wanted a good job, come to Nevada. If you wanted to invest in real estate, no place better in America than Nevada. If you wanted to get a good job, come to Nevada.

Well, when Wall Street collapsed, which, by the way, she said it was caused because of too much regulation -- we had farther to fall than any other state.

(Gee, Obama telling people / corporations not to go to Las Vegas was likely not much help either don't 'cha think Harry?)

ED SCHULTZ, HOST: The state (Nevada) has dropped farther than any other state?

REID: Oh yes, because we were at the top and (because of some stupid comments by the POTUS) we`ve fallen very hard. So people have been hurting, and I understand that, and it doesn`t give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me we'd be in a worldwide depression. They want to know what I've done for them, and that`s why it's important for me, any chance I get, to say that my number one job is to create jobs. And she says that it's not her job to create jobs.

Time to just agree to disagree. Let's move-on.org already. There is an election going on, let's talk about that!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/11/03/inam.soledad.book.excerpt/index.html?hpt=C2


Below is an excerpt from Soledad O'Brien's memoir "The Next Big Story," published November 2 by Penquin Books. The story begins in 2006, just after she has obtained exclusive access to Martin Luther King Jr.'s papers and has reported on them for CNN's America Morning.

On this American Morning, I have an exclusive look at a man at least half the world admires. I feel like what he is saying speaks to me. I am energized, a new member of the quarter million people who joined him on the mall, and a new recipient of the grace he handed out in Selma.

Then, out of nowhere, The Reverend Jesse Jackson calls with an invitation to meet and talk and it brings my reverie to a halt. We greet warmly and sit. A young, clean-cut security guy hovers near by. He stays close enough to be summoned for a quick question but not close enough to overhear. I notice the china is clinking, like real good china. I have four small kids so I never hear that particular sound. The restaurant is on the first floor of a famous hotel and the place is nice. The Reverend Jackson begins talking in his strong Southern accent. His voice is very low. He says "call me Jesse," but that's something I feel like I cannot do. I am confident he doesn't remember the first time we met. It was my job in 1989 to escort him through his live shots at WBZ TV around Boston Nelson Mandela's historic visit to the U.S. I was his "babysitter," the one making sure no other media plucked him away. He was our contributor. He whispers something. He is speaking so low I can barely hear him. I strain to get closer.

Even though I am not sure what he is saying, I can tell he is angry. Today he is angry because CNN doesn't have enough black anchors. It is political season. There are billboards up sporting Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper. He asks after the black reporters. Why are they not up there? I share his concern and make a mental note to take it back to my bosses. But then he begins to rage that there are no black anchors on the network at all. Does he mean covering the campaign, I wonder to myself? The man has been a guest on my show. He knows me, even if he doesn't recall how we met. I brought him on at MSNBC, then again at Weekend Today. I interrupt to remind him I'm the anchor of American Morning. He knows that. He looks me in the eye and reaches his fingers over to tap a spot of skin on my right had. He shakes his head. "You don't count," he says. I wasn't sure what that meant. I don't count -- what? I'm not black? I'm not black enough? Or my show doesn't count?

I was both angry and embarrassed, which rarely happens at the same time for me. Jesse Jackson managed to make me ashamed of my skin color which even white people had never been able to do. Not the kids in the hallways at Smithtown or the guys who wouldn't date me in high school. I remember the marchers behind me at the trial about the black youth/kid who beat the Latino baby. The folks that chanted "biracial whore for the white man's media," even they didn't even make feel this way. I would just laugh. Biracial, sure, whore, not exactly, white man's media, totally! Whatever. But Reverend Jesse Jackson says, "I don't count?"

I am immediately upset and annoyed and the even more annoyed that I am upset and pissed off. If Reverend Jesse Jackson didn't think I was black enough, then what was I? My parents had so banged racial identity into my head that the thoughts of racial doubt never crossed my mind. I'd suffered an Afro through the heat of elementary school. I'd certainly never felt white. I thought my version of black was as valid as anybody else's. I was a product of my parents (black woman, white man) my town (mostly white), multiracial to be sure, but not black? I felt like the foundation I'd built my life on was being denied, as if someone was telling me my parents aren't my parents. "You know those people you've been calling mom and dad -- they aren't really your parents. What?" The arbiter of blackness had weighed in. I had been measured and found wanting.

It knocked me off my equilibrium for a bit, the first time that had happened to me since that guy in a bar back on the West Coast pinched my butt during my first live shot.

After two weeks of stewing, I sat upright one day and made a decision. This man is wrong. I am a product of my own life. That's one of the wonders of America, you have the right to define yourself regardless of what little box someone wants to shove you in. He is certainly right that CNN doesn't have enough people of color on the air, even the bosses say that and spend their time trying to fix it. But "you don't count"? Screw that. Of course I count. Who is he to say that? My experience is not universal -- no one's is -- but it is legitimate. I get to be whom I am outside and in. But I was embarrassed that I didn't call him back and ask what he meant. I (like my mother) like a good fight. So I should have called him up and said, "What the heck does that mean"? But I didn't. I slunk away. Annoyed. And more annoyed that I never forgot his words. I look at other mixed race people now and wonder. Did their parents slam their identity into their head as mine did? Or do they get to drift around in some amorphous category. Jesse Jackson caught me off balance.

It wasn't until recently that I called him and reminded him of what he'd said to me that day. I had done 4 documentaries on race in between the two conversations. He was totally surprised and barely remembered the details. He had not known I was black! He said he honestly did not know, that when he said I didn't count he was alluding to the fact that he thought I was a dark-skinned someone else. That is how precise the game of race is played in our country, that we are so easily reduced to our skin tone. That even someone as prominent in African American society as Rev. Jackson has a box to check for black and one for white. No one gets to be in between. I thanked him for his candor.

But that day I couldn't say a word to Rev. Jackson. I run into the man all the time. We are invited to the same events. We kiss at functions but still I say nothing. I see how deeply people respect him. Al Sharpton tells me Jackson taught him civil disobedience. Roland Martin credits him with paving the way for Obama. Jackson sat at lunch with me telling me how he hates always being asked to talk only about black issues, hates to be tagged as only the black expert, never the guy negotiating peace or brokering deals with Wall Street. He lashes out at people who define him by the color of his skin. It matters that they don't see inside him. It mattered to me that he didn't see outside me.

******

Associated Press

HOUSTON -- Police say a Houston jewelry store owner has shot and killed three men who tried to rob his business.

Houston police spokesman Kese Smith says two men were in the store Thursday afternoon pretending to be customers when a third man burst into the store and stated, "This is a robbery."

All three men then pulled out pistols, tied up the store owner's wife and took her to a back room.

They were trying to tie up the owner, when he took a handgun from his waistband and fatally shot one of the suspects. Smith said he then grabbed a shotgun and shot and killed the other two suspects.

The store owner was shot in the stomach and taken to a Houston hospital. Smith says his wife was not hurt.

Now that is what I call gun control!

ACLU Sues to Protect Immigrant's Gun Rights From Change in South Dakota Law

The ACLU of South Dakota filed the lawsuit this week on behalf of U.K. citizen Wayne Smith alleging the state's concealed weapons law is unconstitutional. Smith -- who legally immigrated 30 years ago -- was able to get a concealed license for years, but in 2002 South Dakota amended the law, making U.S. citizenship a requirement to carry a concealed weapon. When Smith went to renew his long-held permit last July, he was denied because he is permanent legal resident, not a citizen.

The ACLU says that's a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment which it says prevents states from being able to make such "arbitrary designations."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/06/new-aclu-lawsuit-expand-south-dakota-gun-rights/

My take: If you are in the U.S. leagally, and can pass the background check / other requirements then I don't have a problem with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6sNlO1eVFU

He should be locked up!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110118/ap_on_re_us/us_supreme_court_gun_arrest

Fortunately they caught the guy before anyone was hurt in this case. Kudo's to the TSA and local / state authorities for their handling of the situation.

CNN) – Rep. Steve Cohen, the Tennessee Democrat who compared Republican efforts to criticize health care to the works of a famous Nazi propagandist, is [COLOR="Red"]standing by his heated rhetoric [/COLOR]on the House Floor Tuesday night.

"They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie, just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie and eventually people believe it," Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/19/house-democrat-compares-republican-lies-to-nazi-propagandist/

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/20/dem-stands-by-nazi-comparison/

Really Guys? Any of you Liberals / Democrats / Rupublican Haters want to defend this?

Since she apparently is not saying enough dumb things, let's just make some up!

http://www.usmagazine.com/moviestvmusic/news/sarah-palin-tells-us-i-never-bashed-christina-aguilera-2011102

Nice...