The Augustus Blog

PRESIDENT OBAMA, JUDGE CEBULL AND THE COMFORTABLE AGE OF RACISM

2012-03-02T16:27:00.001-05:00

For those wonderful and inclusive Americans who had hoped that with the election of President Barack Obama as America’s first African-American President that this country had moved into a post racial era, please allow me to welcome you back from Alice in Wonderland. No President in the history of this country has had to endure the enormous level of perpetual public disrespect as the 44^th President of the United States has. If there were only a few incidences here and there, then it would be more tolerable for those of us who support, respect and love our president. However, there has been a long litany of pathetic and pitiful incidences where angry white males have just purely disrespected President Barack Obama.

Remember in September of 2009 while in the middle of his healthcare speech to a joint session of Congress, President Obama was interrupted by Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina who blurted out loud, “You lie.” This blurt out was heard around the world as it was on live TV and later went viral on the internet. To this day Joe has never apologized. Republicans refused to censor Wilson which gave a green light to others to disrespect the president.

Remember what I call “The Birther Baloney?” For two full years the rowdy and rough Right swore up and down that President Obama was not born in the United States. This was a sick and subtle attempt to disqualify him from being president. Even after the president presented his birth certificate which he did not have to do, the 44^th haters were still not satisfied. In fact a judge in my beloved Georgia had to reject a group’s attempt to keep Mr. Obama off this state’s ballot for Super Tuesday and the general election. This Birther baloney refuses to subside as is evident by the High Sheriff of Maricopa County Joe Arpaio contention this week that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery. In fact the gangsta sheriff has assigned a cold case squad to verify the authenticity of the president’s birth certificate. Say it "ain’"t so Joe! Couldn’t those resources be used to help America’s hurting?

Remember when Orange County Republican Party Official Marilyn Davenport emailed blasted a picture of the President and his family as chimpanzees? Here is what she had to say, “Basically, I want people to know that I humbly apologize and ask for forgiveness for my unwise behavior.” “Before I sent that email, I should have stopped to think about the historical implications [of depicting a black man as an ape]. That can be offensive. Obviously, I have unintentionally offended others, and I am so sorry.” Then Ms. Davenport pulls the Christianity card out of her back pocket and says, “Basically, what I'm saying is that as a Christian I won't ever repeat this.” “I will be much wiser from now on.” But wasn’t she a Christian BEFORE she sent the email knowing full well this nation’s history of racial insensitivity?

Remember three weeks before President Obama was sworn in and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “We have to say no to everything that the President puts forth.” Then in a 2010 speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation, he PUBLICLY said, “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.” But Mitch what about creating jobs, tackling the immigration issue, out of control gas prices and clean energy? Oops that was what you were elected to do, my bad!

Remember just recently when Arizona Governor Jan Brewer put her finger in the President’s FACE almost as soon as he had walked down the steps of Air Force One. Had this not been the president and just another man, this may have had a different ending as we were taught as children not to point our finger in anyone’s face.

There are more remembers but I only listed these to lead up to a new remember that was revealed this week. Montana U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull, who was named to the bench by President George W. Bush in 2001, sent a “racist” email referencing President Barack Obama. Before I dive into this, I want to let my readers know that not only is this man a federal judge appointed for life but he is the chief judge for Montana He has been chief judge since 2008 which means that he oversees two other full-time district judges, three senior or part-time judges and five magistrates. In other words his influence and authority are far reaching.

Here is the email that he received from his brother and forwarded to his “white” friends: “Normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine. A little boy said to his mother, 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're white?' His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'”

Let the Augustus Blog respond to the email first. 1) Judge Cebull knew that this was racist when he received the email and he forwarded it anyway because he would later admit that he is not a fan of the president. 2) He wanted his forwarded recipients to laugh with him and co-sign his racist endorsement. 3) I bet this is NOT the 1^st time that he has done something like this BUT it is the first time that he got caught. 4) The judge and his friends devalue black people! The estimated population of Montana is 998,199. The white population stands at a staggering 89.4% while the black population is a paltry 0.4%. These numbers indicate that racially insensitive whites in Montana feel comfortable with passing along racist emails.

After the judge was ratted out for his racist actions, here is what he had to say: [It was] “a hard lesson to learn.” “To say it's inappropriate and stupid is an extreme understatement,” Cebull said. “There is no doubt it's racist. It wasn't forwarded for that purpose. If anything, it was political.”

The only reason that this man thinks that his actions were inappropriate and stupid is because he got CAUGHT! In the hidden recesses of his chamber after he read it and decided to forward it, he did not think that it was inappropriate and stupid. I am willing to bet that he was laughing and holding his stomach when he push the send button on his computer, laptop, iPad, tablet or droid device.

He ADMITS that it was racist but he said that was not his intent. “If anything, it was political.” Dear Judge Cebull judges are supposed to be non-partisan. Thank you for reminding us that judges being non-partisan is a myth that is as old as racism. Republicans cry about activist judges so you are living proof that they are hypocritical just like you are by your own admission. The fact of the matter is Democratic and Republican presidents appoint judges that have political leanings that line up with their views which they have the right to do. This is why we currently have a 5-4 Republican United States Supreme Court. This is why Senate Republicans are holding up the Senate confirmation of more than 100 of President Obama’s judges. This is why I hope that President Obama is reelected so that we can change the balance of the Supreme Court.

Federal judges are appointed for life and can only be removed from the bench via retirement/resignation, death or impeachment. Judge Cebull deserves to be impeached. He has violated his oath of office. Every case that has ever come before him regarding a Black, Hispanic, Asian or other minority that was unfavorable should be overturned because he has admitted that he is a racist. At the very minimum Judge Cebull who appears to be full of a lot of bull should be forced to take racial sensitivity classes.

Like most people who do not want to be labeled as racists, Cebull said in an interview his conduct in court over many years has shown he is not a racist, but he admitted the public got that impression from the e-mail. “And I don't blame them,” he added.

The judge also separately told the Great Falls Tribune, “The only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president, but this goes beyond not being a fan. I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's anti-Obama.” Dear Judge not being a fan of the president is one thing and you have the right to not be a fan of his but to be a judge and forward racist emails is bad. You deserve a judicial timeout.

Look it is ok to disagree with the president’s policies. This is our American right. However, respect the office and do not engage in racism. I am black and I question some of the president’s actions but I didn’t vote for him so that I can tell him what to do. I voted for him because I trusted him to do what is best for all of America. It kind of works like prayer for me. I can pray to God but I have no control over how He will answer my prayer.

I do give the judge credit for acknowledging his racial insensitivity even if it is the result of him being busted and recognizing that his behavior will not go unchecked. “Cebull has publicly acknowledged that he has acted inappropriately,” Appellate Court executive Cathy Catterson said in a statement. “Judge Cebull has initiated the process by which a complaint of judicial misconduct will be brought against him. The Judicial Council is expected to act expeditiously in investigating and resolving this matter.”

There are already cries for the judge to step down. “If he has any respect for his office and for ideals of equality and human dignity on which our country was founded, Judge Cebull will step down today,” said Bob Edgar, president and CEO of the left-leaning nonprofit Common Cause. “The message he has acknowledged circulating demonstrates a lack of judicial temperament that ought to disqualify him from further service.”

If Richard Cebull gets a pass, then I am going to organize a march on Montana! Our voices will be heard in this matter.

In America we must never allow admitted racists to feel comfortable about their racism whether they are black or white. Racism is wrong. Racism is unhealthy. Racism is ugly.

All of these “remembers” that I asked you about have a common thread that runs and rips through them and that is racism. Much of the chronic criticism of President Obama is rooted and grounded in racism. I contend that in the Age of Obama that racism has not gotten better but instead it has become worse. The aforementioned “remembers” are living proof. If people display acts of racism against the president, then what about minorities who are not the president and especially in the South?

One reason that racism continues to cloud and crowd our lives is because America had never had an honest national dialogue about racism. The scars and stench of racism are still seen and smelled all across this great nation of ours. I applaud South Africa a country that I love to visit for getting it right by establishing the truth and reconciliation commission to talk about the agonizing ache of apartheid. America should follow suit.

Judge Cebull is yet another reminder that America is not racially healthy. He is yet another one of those “remembers” who simply refuse to get beyond the color of one’s skin and do what Martin King challenged us to do and that is to judge a person by the content of our character.

All white people are not evil and not all black people are good and not all Hispanics are lazy. We judge each other because: 1) We do not take the time to get to know each other i.e. I bet Judge Cebull has never sat down and talk to President Obama 2) A deep history of American racism.

America is the greatest nation on the earth. However, her raunchy racism threatens her greatness. The imperial Roman period is my favorite in history. Caesar Augustus established the Pax Romana (Roman Peace) which lasted for 500 years. These were the most glorious years in Rome’s storied history. Yet, as the empire grew and stretched to include ¼ of the known world’s population at its greatest height under the Emperor Hadrian, Rome embraced men and women of other races for many years until bad emperors tampered with Augustus’ system. Rome eventually fell and her fall is well chronicled and catalogued in Edward Gibbon’s The Rise and Decline of the Roman Empire.

Our nation is too comfortable with racism. We need to be more tolerant of each other. America would do well to learn some race relation lesson from Rome.

WHITNEY HOUSTON GONE TOO SOON AND KILLING OUR DEMONS

2012-02-13T16:36:00.000-05:00

I remember three years ago when I was sitting inside a conference room in downtown Atlanta’s Ritz Carlton Hotel discussing with attorneys and music executives issues relative to James Brown’s estate. For the first time all month I did not browse CNN on my cell phone during a meeting. As I drove home, I kept feeling like something had happened and that I had missed it. True enough when I got home and turned the TV to CNN, Wolf Blizter was announcing that Michael Jackson had been rushed to the hospital. Even though that is all that I heard at the moment, something inside of me told me that MJ was not going to make it. True enough, about an hour later Wolf was attempting to hold back his emotions for his audience said, “CNN can confirm that Michael Jackson has died.”

I grew up a huge MJ fan. In High School I imitated his every move from every one of his videos especially Billie Jean. In college I choreographed my fraternity step show from the song Bad. So stunned was I when Michael died that it did not hit me that he was dead until I was about to enter The Staples Center in Los Angeles for his memorial service. While his music is immortal, MJ is missed. When I hear his music here, there and everywhere, it is still hard to believe that one of the greatest musical voices in human history has fallen silent and that this really is This is It!

Three years after MJ’s death, I was sitting in the gymnasium of T. W. Josey High School in Augusta, Georgia at Paine College’s Homecoming Step Show where my beloved fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha came hard and shut it all the way down. In the middle of the show the DJ picked up his mic and said, “Whitney Houston is gone.” Moments later I received a text alert from CNN announcing Whitney’s death.

Whitney Houston possessed a rare voice that could instantly prime and pump out some of the sweetest notes ever heard in the most effortless manner. It was as if angels were lodged in her throat and she had the power to summons them at her call to sing moving melodies that lifted our souls to new heights escaping the hum-drum of life and transporting us to a place of musical bliss.

All of us have own favorite Whitney song. My favorite Houston song is “I Will Always Love You.” When I first heard her sing it in the move The Bodyguard, the song stuck and stayed in my head for a month. Since this was a pre-iPod song, I played it over and over on my cd player at home and in my car. I would blast the song at the highest decibel level and even attempt to sing along with the Universal Songbird. That song epitomized the gift and greatness of Whitney Houston. She took a little known Dolly Parton song and made it her immortal singing signature.

Now Whitney is dead. We will never hear that once in a lifetime voice again on this side of the Jordan River. What a tragedy. What a loss. What a cruel and callous twist of fate. What a harsh raging reality. What a hard reminder that the great and gifted are not immune from sudden death.

As of 3:25PM Eastern Standard Time, we do not know the exact cause of Houston’s death. While an autopsy has been performed by the coroner and they are now awaiting toxicology reports, they do have an ideal of an official cause of death. Therefore, while many cannot forego speculation and have drawn our own conclusions about what killed her, we should wait for the official medical reports.

In the meantime it is a known public fact that Whitney battled various drug and alcohol addictions. Sometimes when the rich and famous die, we often tend to deify them and elevate them to a level of sainthood that they are not deserving of. As much as I love Michael Jackson, I had to accept that he was still human and not a saint. None of us are saints in the sense that we are perfect and immune from trials and temptations that come with being average or exceptional as in the case of Michael and Whitney and including me as a pastor.

We all wrestle with something. We all battle with something. The Apostle Paul who is a saint said, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19 – NIV). Paul was in essence saying that he knew what was good but he had problems doing what was good and from time to time evil won out over good. I challenge you to read the rest of that chapter to see how Paul’s deals with this.

Back to the wonderful and wildly gifted Houston. She was a tremendously tall talent in the world of music having sold a combined 170 million singles, videos and albums. She is the only musician with seven consecutive number one hits and seven consecutive multi-platinum albums. Her voice was a cultural bridge transcending race, color, creed and nationality. Who among us will ever forget her rendition of The Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida? Her version of our national anthem rivaled for me the late great Marvin Gaye’s version at the 1984 NBA All Star Game at the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles, California.

All of talent is gone far too soon at 48 years old. We will never again hear her sing “I Wanna to Dance with Somebody”, “Yes, Jesus Love Me,” “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” or “Saving All of My Love for You.” A voice of angels has now been silenced. This is terribly tragic.

What happened to Houston, a talented life cut short is not a new happening in the entertainment world. She joins a select infamous fraternity of entertainers whose talents gave way to the tragic. Without passing any shape, form or fashion of judgment, one has to ask the following questions: Why is Marvin Gaye gone but Smokey Robinson is still with us? Why is Amy Winehouse gone but Celine Dion is still with us? Why is Elvis Presley gone but Paul McCartney is still with us? Why is Whitney Houston gone but my girl Pattie LaBelle is still with us?

The answer is that Marvin, Amy, Elvis and Whitney could not kill their demons before their demons killed them. In life we must kill our demons before our demons kill us. Everyone fights their own demons. Sometimes the greater our successes in life the greater our demons are. Demons follow money, fame and fortune like bees follow honey. The more money that we have the more demons we inevitably attract. These demons come in many forms and shapes. They come in the form of drugs, alcohol, groupies, easy enablers and sometimes most prominently in the bad belief that “I can beat it syndrome because it’s not gonna happen to me.”

While we may not be recording artist like Marvin, Michael, Elvis and Whitney, we do have our demons and we must kill them before they kill us.

God bless Whitney Houston. God bless Bobbi Christina. Whitney, we will always love you. I am about to jump in my SUV and click on The Bodyguard soundtrack on my iPod.

KING EDDIE LONG?

2012-02-03T03:09:00.000-05:00

Rome in all of its splendor and grandeur went through three colossal periods: Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire. The Kingdom period lasted from 753 BC- 509 BC. Roman is famous for its seven hills of imperial glory: Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal and the Viminal Hill. Ironically, the Roman Kingdom had seven kings. The citizens of Rome grew to have a perpetual disdain for her kings and as a result the last two men who held the title did not fare well in the end. Servius Tullius was murdered while he occupied the throne and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus the last of the seven kings was forced into exile. When Superbus died, so did the notion of having kings to rule Rome and Rome later became a Republic in 509 B.C. and remained so until 27 B. C. when Augustus moved her from Republic to Empire.

After the rule and reign of King Superbus, Romans did not even like to hear the word king mentioned. One reason that Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 B. C. was that there was a prevailing but untrue rumor in Rome that after he had been named “Dictator perpetus” (Dictator in perpetuity) that he had planned to name himself the new King of Rome. Again, the Romans had a disdain for kings. To be a king in Rome was the kiss of death.

On January 31, 2012 a new King was born in the world and in Atlanta in particular by the name of Bishop Eddie Long, the chronically crenelated pastor of Atlanta’s New Birth Cathedral. During an incredibly shocking, sad and surreal service, Long was elevated to the status of King by a self-proclaimed Rabbi by the name of Ralph Messer. Messer proceeded to wrapped King Eddie in a Torah Scroll which supposedly came from Auschwitz and Birkenau. He also draped the new king in a tallit which is a prayer shawl. I watched this YouTube video in hurt and horror because what I saw next defied reason or rhythm. Messer directed Long to sit in a chair where four men lifted him up as high as they could and paraded him around in the pulpit announcing that Bishop Eddie Long had risen from commoner to King. Long then waved to a cheering crowd who co-signed this madness.

This is the most vile ministerial promoting, godless, ignorant and self-serving act that I have ever seen a supposedly preacher of the Gospel ever perform in my entire 46 years of being a resident of planet earth. There are several disturbing and destructive elements of this pathetic and pitiful show in God’s house of worship. However, before I launch into what they are, I do want to say that the Augustus Blog on two occasions gave advice to Bishop Long in two distinct blogs. In both blogs we spoke forgiveness and restoration for Long. The first blog http://theaugustusblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-bishop-eddie-long-must-do-tomorrow.html was written when the sex scandals that would later define his ministry and tumble his religious empire were merely accusations. We suggested in that blog that Long should address his congregation in the following manner: “My humanity has gotten me to this point and I ask for your forgiveness. I also ask for forgiveness from my victims. While I love New Birth and all that New Birth represents, as of today, I am going to take an indefinite leave of absence from the Church and go and get the help and healing that I have needed for a very long time and have been in denial about for far too long.” Of course Long never did this and he later settled the lawsuit filed by the victims.

In a second blog after he settled the lawsuit, we wrote in “What Eddie Long Must Do Now” http://theaugustusblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/what-bishop-eddie-long-must-do-now.html that he should express some kind of sincere and pure public repentance to his congregation. Of course he did not do that either. Instead he proceeded to make himself King.

Here goes:

1. Eddie Long managed in one fell swoop to simultaneously offend the religions of Judaism and Christianity. There was nothing Jewish or Christian about the ceremony. It was as one of my close friends said, “blasphemous.” This was a self-serving circus

2. This had nothing to do with God at all! God did not sanction one iota of this. Please understand that God does not sanction everything that happens in a church. God gives free will and as a result a lot of foolish things happen in churches every week that have nothing to do with God. The “King Eddie Ceremony” was the quintessential example of foolish things happening in the church.

3. Ralph Messer brands and builds himself as a Jewish Rabbi yet Rabbi after Rabbi is coming out rejecting the notion that this man is a Rabbi. Messer should be ashamed of himself for pimping and prostituting Judaism and Christianity. The fluidity with which he did it was deeply disturbing.

4. This was staged. Long and Messer allegedly have known each other for about six months. They co-planned and co-signed this disgraceful ceremony. Long sanctioned this sickness and then in the video pretends like he does not know what is about to happen when Messer says, “Bishop, come here.”

5. Messer says the four men who lift Long in the chair represent the four corners of the earth. We disagree. These four men represent four blindly loyal robotic puppets that were in on this grand and gross display of sacrilegious silliness.

6. The congregation applauds, cheers, co-signs and approves the insulting of Judaism and Christianity. This shows the sick and shallowness of biblical knowledge by Long’s congregants which begs one to ask what has this man been preaching all of these years because nothing that occurred on that stage was biblical in any shape form or fashion.

7. The last two Kings under Israel’s divided Kingdom in the Old Testament were Hoshea in the North and Zedekiah in the South. Not counting the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties, Israel had not had a Jewish King since Hoshea and Zedekiah. Therefore, this alleged Rabbi Messer and Long is mocking what is sacred to every Jew in the world.

8. There is no such ceremony as the one Long and Messer participated in recorded Jewish history. This is some made up mess!

9. Jesus Christ, the great carpenter from Nazareth, and my focal point as a Christian was a Jew by birth and He never sat in a chair allowing Peter, James, John and Matthew to parade Him before His followers as a King. In fact Jesus rejected the title of King when people tried to bestow it upon Him. Jesus rejected the title but Eddie Long embraces the title.

10. It is troubling that Long would participate in an open pitiful and pathetic public display of religious desecration but to this day he has refused to stand before his congregation and admit that he has demons that he cannot control but with their prayer and support he is going to get help and prove to the world that God is a restorer because he loves God and New Birth and does not want to lose his ministry. Instead of doing this, he would rather become King Eddie.

11. New Birth has been called a cult in the past and all of those arguments lacked any merit until Long’s King video was showcased for the world via YouTube showing the blind and confused loyalty of his congregation.

12. If you accept #11 above, then is the next logical progression in King Long’s kingdom a Jim Jones or David Koresh movement?

There is a powerful line in the movie Red Tails when the Colonel played by Terrence Howard, says to one of the young and headstrong Tuskegee airmen, “Everything to you is a fight. It must be exhausting to be you.” It has to be exhausting to be Eddie Long now. Here is a man who once held the religious world in his hand and now he is barely holding on to what God allowed him to build. His world is crumbling around him. He has lost half of his active membership and as a result, the architectural monstrosity that he built in Lithonia remains half empty. He has lost his wife. He has lost his religious standing. He has lost all of the pomp, power and pageantry that was once synonymous with the name Bishop Eddie Lee Long. Long is fading fast. He was once like a massive meteor at its highest point traveling heaven’s stellar staircase. Now that meteor has finally crashed and his light has been reduced to a frightening flickering glow stuck in some hellish hole.

Who is to blame for this fall? Long is. While he does not owe anyone a personal explanation for what did or did not happen with those four young men, he did and still does owe his congregation a sense of repentance. King Solomon once said in the Jewish Old Testament that pride goes before destruction. A careful exegesis of this passage can lead one to say that self-destruction is the result of pride. Therefore, the demise of Eddie Long and his accepting of a kingship are the result of the Bishop’s self-destructive pride.

If God forgave King David of simultaneous self-destructive behavior in the form of a made for Hollywood soap operetic adultery and murder, then surely He will forgive Long and restore him. Psalm 51, another great Jewish text, is one of the greatest restoration passages in the entire Bible. Long cannot fix his life by himself. Only the God that he preaches about can do that but Long can take a step in that direction by submitting to God and truly repenting. The argument that he has not repented is strengthened by this kingly masquerade.

When the Kingdom of Israel came crashing down and went into Babylonian exile, there was an awful and ominous precursor to that moment. Yahweh removed His spirit from the Temple. The Jewish Temple built by King Solomon was the powerful pulse and healthy heartbeat of Israel’s religious life. God taking His spirit away from the Temple meant that God had left Israel and not because He no longer loved them but because of their self-destructive pride. One has to ask has or will God take His spirit away from New Birth behind this recent coronation of Long as King.

Finally, there is a scary story in the Christian New Testament book of Acts in the 12^th Chapter that should cause every religious leader to shudder upon reading this power passage. Beginning in the 20^th verse of the aforementioned chapter, King Herod gave an incredible speech and the crowd was so moved by this superior oratory skills that they shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” “Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.”

On that fateful day Herod was wearing his royal robes and sitting on a throne. He elevated himself to God status and he was immediately struck down by one of God’s angels. Men and women should never seek the praise that only belongs to God. When a man or woman elevates themselves to God status, then they inevitably place themselves in a position for the worms to eat them.

King Eddie Long is approaching his worm moment. He should renounce his kingship, repent and ask God to restore him before the worms eat him.

STOP NEWT AT ALL COSTS?

2012-01-31T01:51:00.002-05:00

At one point in American political history, Newt Gingrich was the most powerful politician on Capitol Hill. He wrote the much heralded “Contract with America” and did the unthinkable by leading a Republican revolution that saw the GOP sweep to a majority in the House and Senate for the first time in eons and become a perpetual fly in President Bill Clinton’s political ointment. Newt became Speaker of the movement that he led and eventually led the House in impeaching Clinton. Speaker Gingrich became the darling symbol of the conservative movement that caused a seismic political shift in American politics.

In every non Democratic circle Newt was being praised. In fact in 1995, Time Magazine named him its Man of the Year for bringing the Republicans out of a 40 year political wilderness to complete dominance of Capitol Hill with the exception being 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. As Speaker, Newt lead the House in enacting welfare reform, passed a capital gains tax cut, and in 1998 passed the first balanced budget since 1969. However, Gingrich’s personal and political dislike of President Clinton combined with his combative personality eventually led to the shutting down of the federal government and a gradual erosion of his power and popularity. He was disciplined in January 1997 by the House of Representatives for an ethics violation. As a result of the Republicans losing seats in the 1998 mid-term elections and only maintaining a five seat majority, Newt was forced to resign from Congress after pressure from his fellow Republicans whom had ridden his coattails to power only four years earlier.

Newt’s brilliant and bright rise as king of the Republicans was met with mutiny from within. He exited the stage in a most disgraceful manner while the man he sought to destroy went on to become one of the most popular presidents in America’s history.

Newt is back. This time he is running for President. There is no question that he is the most intelligent, forward thinking and skilled candidate in the Republican field. He pulled off an improbable win in South Carolina’s Republican primary. Yet, he trails Mitt Romney in every poll for Florida’s prize on today. Why is Newt being rejected? Why like Julius Caesar is he being stabbed in the back by his own party?

David Horsey writing for the Los Angeles Times answers the aforementioned questions. “Gingrich is not well-liked by many of the people he worked with in Congress. In fact, loathing may better characterize their feelings.” Look people Newt Gingrich is a very mean spirited politician. He wears a scowl on his face. He talks mean. He seeks not to just like to defeat his opponents but he loves to obliterate them and takes great joy in doing so. He was known to punish those in his own party who disagreed with or spoke less than kind words about him. That same Newt is showing himself in debates with Romney.

Horsey offers the following quote. Ron Bonjean, a long-time aide to the Republican leadership, told CNN that folks on Capitol Hill are very nervous about Gingrich’s candidacy. “It sends a shiver down a lot of Republican spines,” Bonjean said. “You can actually feel the nervousness from Republicans around town that Gingrich could actually bring the craziness back of his speakership from the 1990s.” While Republicans enjoyed the perks of power that Newt led them to, it is clear that they thought that the man who led them there was crazy. Obviously, they think that he is still crazy because they are fighting him like a bobcat. If you throw one punch at Newt, he will throw three back at you.

Joe Scarborough, who served with Gingrich in the House, wasted no words in describing how much he dislikes the former speaker. “He is a bad person when it comes to demonizing opponents,” Scarborough said on a recent show. “When he puts on his political helmet, he is a terrible person…. The Republicans I talk to say he cannot win the nomination at any cost. He will destroy the party. He will reelect Barack Obama and we’ll be ruined.”

The bottom line here is that all the way from freshman House Republicans to Republicans who served with Newt to Republicans across the board, they are trying to stop Newt from winning the nomination. Why? Horsey says, “They have seen the polling data indicating Gingrich is disliked by suburban women – even conservatives -- and is broadly unpopular in the Northeast.” The women data is very accurate because in Florida Newt is tied for the male vote with Romney but he trails him by 19% women. Newt’s past has come back to haunt him.

When it comes to Newt Gingrich, Republicans are breaking Ronald Wilson Reagan’s famous 11^th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of your fellow Republican.” They are speaking ill of him in every corner of the country. The Republican Party heralds themselves as the party of God but that talk his lined and laced with hyper hypocrisy. They talk forgiveness but they have not practiced forgiveness when it comes to the former speaker. Newt has been married three times and his party has not forgiven him for multiple marriages. This is a contributing factor to his poor showing among women.

Newt rode into Florida on a wonderful wave only to come crashing ashore. Mitt Romney and his Super-Pacs have given him a nasty dose of his own medicine and Newt is crying foul. Yet, it was Newt who taught Republicans how to demonize their opponents. Now that he is on the receiving end of the attacks, Newt dislikes both the medicine and the method by which the medicine is being adminstered.

Republicans rightfully fear that if Newt beats Romney, then they could conceivably lose the House, fail to retake the Senate and that President Obama will walk back in for four more years. What is ironic is that they do not like Romney either but they like his chances of beating Obama and lifting their boats better than they do Newt’s chances to do the same thing. As a result, Republicans have pulled a 21^st Century Pharisee and Sadducee moment. Both parties hated Jesus but they set aside those differences because Jesus was their common enemy. The powers that be have decided that Newt is the common enemy.

Having the endorsement of Herman Cain and Rick Perry does not help. While endorsements today do not mean what they meant 20 years ago, who in their right mind running for president would want Herman Cain and Rick Perry’s endorsement? One man is just like Newt, an adulterer. The other man’s IQ leaves a lot to be desired.

Things do not look good for Newt because Republicans want him out at all costs. If Newt cannot beat Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination, then he will almost certainly help President Barack Obama beat him because Mitt will be bruised and battered beyond belief by the time that he makes it to November. Newt will unleash the hounds of hell against Mitt. His ego will allow him to stay in this race until the Republican convention in Tampa and his ego will allow him to take shot after shot at Romney until he cripples his candidacy. Romney will win Florida today but Newt will not go away quietly in the night.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN WASHINGTON D. C. (Based on the world famous Christmas poem)

2011-12-24T18:41:00.000-05:00

Twas the night before Christmas in Washington D. C., when all through America

not a Democrat or a Republican was stirring, not even an Independent or a Tea Party Member.

The preparations were hung in Washington, D.C. with care,

we are so glad that all of those politicians are out of there!

The country was nestled all snug in anticipation,

while visions of relief from the Washington madness danced in our heads.

And Democrats and Republicans are now home,

we just want them to go to bed.

All they have done all year is to make us shake our heads,

from the South, the North, the East and the West.

In every corner of America,

we just want some rest from your mess.

The weather was cold and the wind was brisk in the capitol of the nation

but our hearts were warm with hope and inspiration.

Because we finally get a break from all of that irritation,

that leads to political constipation.

Now John Boehner! Now, Eric Cantor! Now, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer!,

On, Kevin McCarthy! On, Tom Price! On, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell!

Go home!

There you can run and roam!

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

We are so glad to be able to tell you bye,

because most of the time all you do is lie,

But you want us to believe that you really try.

And then, in a twinkling, we heard on the roof

the prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As we drew our heads and were turning around,

down the chimney came those bloody thirsty political hounds.

They were dressed all in self-serving gear, from head to foot,

And their clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.

A bundle of broken promises they had flung on their backs,

and they looked like political peddlers just opening their packs.

Their eyes--how they twinkled! Their dimples, how mischievous!

their cheeks were like roses, their noses like a beaver!

Their mouths were drawn up like a bow,

and they had no idea we wanted to kick them out the door.

Some of them were chubby and plump,

and on the American people all of their junk had they dumped.

A wink of their eyes and a twist of their heads,

soon let us know that we had something to dread.

They spoke not a word, but went straight to their work,

and tried to empty our stockings because they are real jerks.

And laying their fingers on their noses,

and giving a nod, up the chimney they rose.

They sprang to their sleigh; to their team they gave a whistle,

and away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

Much to the American people’s delight,

because we did not want them to ruin our night.

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

PAYROLL TAX VICTORY: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA IS STILL PRESIDENT

2011-12-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

Remember those immortal words of that great southern novelist Mark Twain when a local newspaper prematurely printed his obituary, “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated?” How about when the front page of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948 ran the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” the day after incumbent President Harry S. Truman beat Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey in a political upset victory? Ok, let me give you a sports example. On December 28, 1975 the Minnesota Vikings had their playoff game wrapped up against the Dallas Cowboys and were on the way to the Super Bowl until quarterback Roger Staubach threw what is now known as a “Hail Mary” pass to Drew Pearson that won the game.

Mark Twain, President Truman and the Dallas Cowboys all defied premature deaths in life, an election and a football game. Enter President Barack Obama. How many times have Republicans, the Tea Party, haters, radicals, conservatives and rowdy right wingers prematurely written the President’s obituary? How many columnists and analysts have put Obama’s presidency on life support? How many political pundits have shoveled dirt on his reelection chances? The answer is all too many way too many times.

Mr. Obama has methodically fought his way back from seemingly political purgatory and on today he final got a major victory over his Republican nagging nemesis by winning the payroll tax extension battle. The Senate passed the bill 89-10 with Republicans crossing the aisle to cast their vote with Democrats. When the bill made its way to the House, Boehner and his grinches killed the bill and adjourned the House for the holidays until they finally came to their senses late this afternoon.

The President finally stood firm and refused to blink. He stood up for the millions of middle class Americans who need all of the relief that we can get. He stood up the little man and the little woman whose voices are usually drowned by the noise of the rich, the lobbyists and the powerful. He stood up for seniors. He stood up for doctors who depend on Medicare reimbursements. He stood up for an extension of unemployment benefits for those Americans who still have not been able to find work. He stood up for Aunt Jane and Uncle Simon who need every penny of their Social Security check.

This was more than a victory for the President individually. This was more than a victory for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his democratic cohorts. This was more than a loss for House Republicans. This was a victory for the American people. This was a victory for middle America. This was a victory for everyday working people. This was a victory for people who just want a level playing field. This was a victory for those of us who want our slice of the American pie. This was a victory for those who have seen the American dream turn into the American nightmare.

By standing and not blinking and delaying his Hawaiian vacation, the President has restored hope in his supporters. He proved that talk of his political funeral was premature. For those who said that he had no fight in him, they received a rude awakening today. Like Maximus in Gladiator, he entered the political Coliseum and fought Commodus and defeated Commodus. Oh yeah, Speaker John Boehner reprised the role of Commodus, a weak puppet in the empire who in the words of his Emperor father Marcus Aurelius said, “Commodus cannot rule! Commodus must not rule!”

Marcus Aurelius who history remembers as one of the five good Emperors of Rome preceded by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius all of whom ruled from 96-180 AD, knew that his son was incapable of leading Rome. Likewise, Mr. Boehner has proven that he is incapable of leading the House. He is by far the weakest Speaker in the last 40 years.

Boehner’s inability to coral the rough and rigid ultraconservative wing of his caucus as well as the terrifying Tea Party has led to unnecessary political tension. The House did not relent today because they wanted to. They relented because they had to.

Forget partisan politics for a moment and look at the reality of the situation. House Republicans wanted their way or no way but Obama and Reid called their bluff. The real problem here is that there should not be any bluffing when it comes to doing the right thing for the American people. We are people and not pawns in anybody’s political game.

Obama showed steady and significant leadership on this issue and refused to bow to the barking wolves and howling hounds. Sometimes as a leader you have to block out the noise and stay your course. Again, the President and Leader Reid fought for the middle class and for a day revived hope that our badly broken and battered political system can get it right and do something that matters and makes a difference in the lives of those who need this system not as a handout but as a guardian of good.

I have often told my Republican friends that it is a long time before we cast ballots in November 2012. A lot will happen before then. A lot will change before then. There will be a shift in the political atmosphere before then. In my 22 years of being involved with politics there is one rule that reigns supreme for me. In politics there are no permanent friends and there are no permanent enemies because things change. Whoever would have thought that Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would become an Obama ally on today? Even though he said that his job is ensure that Obama is a one term President, on today he helped to give Barack Obama a great boost toward reelection in November 2012. Heck, even the often vilified Karl Rove agreed with Obama on today!

Today talk of Obama’s political death proved to be premature. Today a headline reading Romney/Gingrich defeats Obama is a misprint. Today like Staubach Obama threw a Hail Mary and John Boehner unwillingly played the role of Drew Pearson and crossed the goal line for the American people.

RON PAUL THE RACIST?

2011-12-22T12:48:00.000-05:00

The Republican Party has a great detestation for anyone who calls them racist. They howl and scowl like wild wolves in a deep dark forest at midnight whenever the racial litmus test is applied to any of their members. They go to great lengths to prove that agonizing axiom so loosely used by white people who are labeled as racists, “we have black friends.”

They will even roll out a Representative J. C. Watts and Michael Steele here and there as exhibits of racial inclusivity. Please note that when give a chance to make J. C. Watts the first black Speaker of the House, they balked. Oh yeah, while Michael Steele was his own worst enemy, Repubs expedited his simultaneous crucifixion and ouster as National Chairman of the Republican Committee.

Each time Republicans “think” that they have turned the racial corner one among them sticks his foot in their mouth or worse someone digs of a 20 year plus story showcasing Republican racial insensitivities towards blacks and other minorities.

Once again history upholds this venomous verdict. This time the rowdy ranting racial rascal is 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul who by the way is leading in the Iowa Caucus slated for January 3.

Just what did Paul do or say? If you awaken to CNN this morning, you now know that some very explosive racially insensitive comments have been attributed to Mr. Paul and he has neither denied the remarks nor apologized for them which is simultaneously disturbing and devilish for a man who would president of these United States of America.

So just what did Paul say? Drumroll at the highest decimal please. Here you go:

After the Los Angeles riots in 1992 he said, “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.”

Commenting on the Washington, D. C. black male population he said, “Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

Speaking on the white fear of black males he blurted, “We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational.”

He once referred to Barbara Jordan, an iconic civil rights activist and congresswoman as “Barbara Morondon,” the “archetypical half-educated victimologist.”

Of course someone with this racial orientation would naturally take shot at the immortal Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In a shot at President Ronal Reagan for signing into law legislation creating the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Paul thanked Reagan for creating what he called “National Hate Whitey Day.”

He went on to refer to King as “the world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours” and who “seduced underage girls and boys.”

Let’s not forget that he also said, “We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational.”

After the Los Angeles riots, one article in a newsletter claimed, “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.”

Stop the presses! This man wants to be the President of the United States of America? A man whose very language and racial stereotypes are the quintessential example of a racial purist at the heart level who has neither a proclivity nor a predilection for inclusivity?

CNN gave Paul a chance to refute, reject and repudiate this pathetic, poisonous and pitiful perusal of blacks in America but he balked. His negative and nasty comments come from the heart. Jesus once in countering a Pharisaic argument on what a person eats defiling them duly noted, “It is not that which goes into a man’s mouth that defiles him.” The issues of life proceed from the heart.” Paul’s racist and rowdy comments portend toward Paul having a defiled heart.

To further illustrate his defiled heart when CNN’s Political Analyst Gloria Borger asked Paul whether he looked at these comments when they were published and decided they did not represent him accurately, he said “not all the time.” Borger asked him whether he read them and he said, “Not all the time. Well, on occasion, yes.”

Given space and place to repent and re-represent, the man who would be President never denied that these were his words. Given a chance to apply stitches to America’s great and gapping racial wound, Paul instead poured alcohol on the wound causing it to burn even more.

Escalating the matter as Borger pressed him harder; Paul promptly unplugged his microphone and ended the interview. Guilty? Hit dog hollering? “I don’t care.” “So what, I am leading in the Iowa Caucuses now.” Whatever the answer Paul’s actions made matters worse.

Honestly, Paul is getting as pass. If Mitt Romney or Slick Rick Perry had been guilty of making any of these racially inflammatory comments, their campaigns would have been over long time ago. Ooops, Paul’s campaign is already over because he is not going to be President now or in the future.

Is Ron Paul a racist or just a mean old white man who never took a chance to get to know black people? His views of people who look like me are skewered and scandalous. Perhaps the man who would be President needs some racial sensitivity training.

HOUSE REPUBLICANS: THE GRINCHES WHO STOLE THE PAYROLL TAX CUT

2011-12-21T12:40:00.000-05:00

America is sick and tired of the petty and pathetic paralyzing politics of the majority party House Republicans. Just when you think that these radical and ruthless right wingers have shown their truest worst color, they top that move with an even worse move. On yesterday Speaker John Boehner stood with 150 House Republicans to announce that they were not going to vote on the bi-partisan Senate payroll tax bill passed 89-10 by Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber of Congress on last Saturday.

The Washington Post aptly sums up this renegade move by the outlaw legislators in the House of Representatives. “By turning down a bill that was overwhelmingly supported by both parties in the Senate as well as the White House, the conservative House majority that has spent the year inciting combative legislative showdowns is now staring over the brink, standing fast against legislation with significant financial consequences for nearly every American household.”

Boehner and the rest of grinches tried to bully President Obama into forcing the Senate back into session to negotiate. For once the President stood his ground and said no thank you. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said no thank you as well. Every Republican who voted with the Senate Democrats joined the no thank you chorus to make it a three voice no thank you.

160 million Americas could possibly see a tax increase in 11 days all because House grinches have walked off their jobs instead of doing the job that Americans sent them to Washington to do. Americans did not give House Repubs a mandate for madness and meanness.

Like the Grinch who stole Christmas, House Republicans are stealing from the middle class. They are stealing food off the tables of the middle class. They are stealing Christmas toys from children. They are stealing Medicare reimbursements from doctors. They are stealing stability from all of us. Who do these grinches think that they are?

Former Democratic House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland correctly summed up this walk-away political gangsta move. “This is the walk-away caucus with the walk-away leadership that are walking away from 160 million Americans.”

Even the sometimes mercurial maverick Senator John McCain disapproves of the grinches. “It is harming the Republican Party. It is harming the view, if it’s possible anymore, of the American people about Congress. And we’ve got to get this thing resolved and with the realization that the payroll tax cut must remain in effect.”

A sound and resounding chorus of “Don’t do it" has not swayed Boehner’s boys and girls. Because they held a defiant press conference in which they made demands of the President and the Senate. “The arrogance of this place is outstanding. It’s unbelievable,” said Representative Tom Reed, Republican of New York. What is arrogant is to continue to attack the middle class and to put in place measures to make the rich richer. Now that’s unbelievable Mr. Reed.

150 House Republican stood together at this rushed press conference. However, in my opinion they are alone because they stand united to destroy the middle class. Standing at the press conference, they do not look like the America that I live in. As they stood, there stood 150 white men and women. Not one African-American, not one Hispanic-American, not one Asian-American and not one American who was not white! Now you know whose country the forgotten Sarah Palin was talking about when she said, “Let’s take our country back.”

The Augustus Blog joins the call of everyday Americans, the 99%, the Occupy Warriors and Aunt Jane and Uncle Johnnie in asking House Republicans to stop being grumpy grinches and get back to work.

P. S. You will pay at the polls in 2012.

TEARS FOR KIM JONG IL?

2011-12-19T20:42:00.000-05:00

In ancient Rome each funeral had professional mourners who were paid to cry as they followed the funeral processional through the best streets and roads of the world of antiquity. As the funeral dirge melodiously echoed throughout the city, the paid mourners could be heard weeping and wailing similar to the lady on “Good Times” who cried at the death of people whether she knew them or not. This was a death rite of passage in the world of the past. The most famous and largest being the procession that moved Caesar Augustus’ body from Nola where he died on August 19, 14AD to the heartbeat of Rome which was the ancient Forum whose ruins now lie neatly compacted in downtown Rome on the Via dei Fori Imperali.

Today as I was watching CNN there was film footage showing North Koreans in a millennium version of the funeral dirge shedding tears for one of the most ruthless leaders of the 20^th century, Kim Jong IL. While we cannot know if the tears of those whom we saw crying was real, there is an air of suspension because some of the mourners appeared to be looking for the camera to ensure that their moment was captured. There was even one man who seemed to manipulate his tear ducts the moment the camera panned to him.

There is a raging and real reality that reaches beyond the mourners and the dirge heard around the world when Kim Jong IL died on Saturday. We must make no mistake about it. This was the death of one of the most ruthless leaders of the century whose people forced and or affectionately called him “Dear Leader.” Some dear leader he was. While he wined and dined on fine food and consumed cognac as though it was water, he starved his people to death. Jong Il ran the most repressive and reclusive regime in the world since the death of the Great Bear knows as the former U.S.S.R.

The “Dear Leader” beat his people into the ground. During his ruthless reign one million North Koreans died from starvation at the cost of his nuclear arms race. Writing for the Washington Post, Adam Bernstein called Kim Jong Il the strangely antic and utterly ruthless heir to North Korea’s Stalinist dictatorship. “During his reign, he menaced the world with his nuclear ambitions and presided over a famine that killed hundreds of thousands of his subjects.”

To say that he presided over a famine means that he caused it, allow it to continue and purposefully refused to do anything about it. Who in their right mind would cry over this man unless they were professional mourners? The average North Korean makes $5 per day. Who can have a meaningful life on $5 per day? Things are so bad that the country appears as a black hole at night because North Korea cannot afford electricity to light up at night.

Mr. Kim’s people lived in fear of him. In fact the people were raised not to believe in religion. They saw Kim as their god. He became something of a demi-god and people actually worshipped him.

Not only was Mr. Kim a nuisance to the people of North Korea but he purposefully irritated the world with his nuclear taunts and out of bounds bullying. He was famous for staging war games in the Korean Peninsula. Without hesitation he sold missiles to Iran, Syria and Pakistan. “From 1988 to October 2008 — when a new agreement was reached on nuclear inspections — North Korea kept company with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.” He wanted to be bigger than he really was.

In America our presidents are measured for effectiveness and legacy when they come out of office. A president may not be popular while occupying the office but can achieve presidential immortality while out of office. Case in point President Jimmy Carter who was not popular as president but who won a Nobel Peace Prize after he left the White House.

So what will be the legacy of Kim Jong IL? Professor Andre Lankov, a Russian scholar and expert on Korea, said that Jong IL will be remembered as the person responsible for terrible things [in his country]. Another commentator said that he would be remembered as stubborn and impossible to negotiate with.

North Korea is now turning the page from Jong IL to his son Kim Jong Eun who is his 28 year old successor. Jong Eun is being dubbed the “Great Successor.” North Korean state-run television told the nation, “Under the leadership of Kim Jong Eun “we should turn our sorrow into strength.”

The country has only had two leaders in 63 years. Kim Jong IL and his father Kim IL Sung who was known as the “Eternal President.” The brutal baton of oppression has now been passed to an heir that the world knows little of. Is Jong Eun prepared? Will he be worse than his grandfather and father? Will he actually run the country or merely be a puppet. Stay tuned because I do not think that this kid will make it.

The Washington Post makes an interesting assessment of the “Great Successor.” “Kim Jong Eun will be one of the world’s most unknown — and significant — power-holders, potentially capable of reforming the country, maintaining it, or letting it slip into chaos.”

“The youngest of Kim Jong Il’s three sons, he has neither the resume nor the experience to control the country in the rigid manner of his father and grandfather, experts say.”

Jong Eun reminds me of the mad and tyrannical Roman Emperor Nero who assumed the regal and royal purple of the empire at the age of 17. Of course he was too young and too inexperienced to rule and run the Caput Mundi (Latin for Capitol of the world). As a result, able and caretaking men guided the young Emperor. Marcus Antonius Pallas and Burris provided him with a path forward as leader of the world’s greatest empire. However, as time progressed Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus became so drunk with power that he even had his own mother killed.

When Rome could no longer stomach his tyranny and extravagance, a move was made to assassinate Nero. Sensing his time was up, the man who presided over the Great Fire of 64AD which burned the “Eternal City,” committed suicide at the age of 31.

Will Jong Eun be a Neroic prototype? Let’s hope not as the people of North Korea have suffered enough the past 63 years.

Back to the “Dear Leader” one last time. Isn’t it ironic that he died of a heart attack on a train after he broke the hearts of so many of his people? So we ask again, tears for Kim Jong Il?

TIM TEBOW: THE NFL’S KING DAVID

2011-12-13T01:42:00.000-05:00

Let there be no mistake, I am a huge football fan and have been since I was ten years old. I grew up an unshakeable Dallas Cowboys fan. Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Drew Pearson, “Hollywood” Henderson and Ed “Too Tall” Jones still occupy immortal status in my football life. They were coached by the immortal Tom Landry whose legendary brimmed hat is invisibly superimposed over Jerry Jones’ $1billion stadium.

Ok, enough of the Dallas Cowboy nostalgia because the mental video of the ugly memory of Jackie Smith dropping that touchdown in the back of the end zone in the Super Bowl XIII in the Orange Bowl in Miami against the Pittsburgh Steelers. That horrific drop caused Dallas a possible Super Bowl victory against Terry Bradshaw and that ferocious Steel Curtain defense and still haunts Cowboy fans like the ghosts of Christmas past.

All of the aforementioned serves as the lead to talk about arguably the most fascinating player in the National Football League, Tim Tebow. Let me add this disclaimer. As a Georgia Bulldog fan, it was painful to watch Tebow run rampant over my “Dawgs.” However, we were not alone because all of the SEC and the nation came up short against “Super Saved Tim.” He would eventually leave Gainesville, Florida with two Bowl Championship Series national titles as well as college’s most covet award: The Heisman Trophy.

Before the ink was dry on his college diploma, the critics took great pride in saying that Tebow would never make it in the NFL because he as a running quarterback whose unorthodox release of the football when passing was too ugly to watch. Critic after critic crucified the saved, young and gifted quarterback.

Josh McDaniel, the former Denver coach took a lot of heat for drafting Tebow with a first round pick. McDaniel would eventually get fired and the new coach, John Fox was content to bury Tim on the roster as the 3^rd string quarterback almost ensuring that he would walk around with a clipboard for the next few years unless he eventually moved to another position. Tebow never complained because was confident in his abilities and in his heart he knew that his day would come.

Alas, something strange happened on the way to the football stadium. 8 weeks ago. Kyle Orton the Denver starting quarterback, was benched for poor play and Tebow was named the starter eight weeks ago against the Miami Dolphins. Since that game, he has led his team to 6 consecutive weeks and he has gone 7-1 as a starter.

After the first few weeks of victories, the critics still dismissed him. The anointed voices of ESPN ripped him high and hard but after Sunday’s stunning comeback against the Chicago Bears, there were ESPN conversions. Now ESPN and others are singing a new song. Analysts and former Chicago Bears coach Mike Dikita said, “We have never seen anything like this before.” To reverse paraphrase a line from Shakespeare’s version of Mark Anthony’s funeral oration of Julius Caesar, “They have come to praise Tebow, not to bury him.” But first they were burying him.

Why is this seemingly unorthodox QB by traditional standards enjoying such success playing the most difficult position in all of sport? Because of his faith in God. Tim Tebow wears his faith in God on his right and left sleeves. He is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ that incredible carpenter from Nazareth.

Unlike many players and rappers who win awards and say, “Um first of all I would like to thank that big man upstairs,” Tebow’s faith has been a part of his life since he was a little child. He has been saved a long time. He has followed God for a long time. He has practiced his faith for a long time. He has gone on mission trips most of his life.

His faith has been mocked. Welcome to the club Tim and don’t sweat it because Jesus said watch out if everyone speaks well of you!

All of this drinking of haterade on Tebow reminds me of King David in the Bible. When God told Samuel to go to Jesse’s house to anoint a new king for Israel, the oil did not stick on any of Jesse’s likely king candidate sons until the unlikely son David came in from the field after tending to sheep.

David was only about 17. He had no outwardly kingly predilection and propensity. He did not look like a king. He did not walk like a king. The only thing that he could rule over was sheep in a pasture. Yet, when Samuel poured the oil on David it stuck. Jesse and David’s brothers stood in complete disbelief because David did not did not fit the kingly profile. Samuel would later pen, “God does not look at the outward appearance like man. God looks at the heart!”

David would later become the greatest king in all of Jewish history to the very posting of this blog.

Tim Tebow according to his critics does not fit the traditional QB profile. There is no way that the QB anointing oil was supposed to fit a running quarterback. Tim blocked out the hate and believed in the gift that God had put in him because he knew that his day would come. With all of the critics and possibly some of his teammates and Coach Fox doubting him, Tim knew who he was.

While people may doubt you, you should never doubt yourself. You can never control what lense others look at you through. However, you can control who and what you are. Tebow is a great example of this by the way that he plays the game.

The parallels between David and Tebow are striking. David defeated Goliath. Tebow has defeated: Miami, Oakland, Kansas City, New York Jets, San Diego, Minnesota and Chicago. David led Israel to 1^st place in the Old Testament world. Tebow has led Denver to 1^st place in the NFL’s AFC Western Division. David worked overtime in many of his battles against the Philistines, Hittites, Amorites and others. Tebow has led his team to 3 overtime wins. David was a man of the people. Tebow is a man of the people. David lifted his soldiers in their lowest moments. No matter the score, Tebow is able to lift his teammates.

A person’s faith is usually the difference between their success and their failure. Tebow’s faith is at an incredible level for a young person. His faith is the stabilizing factor in his life. It keeps him from getting too high or becoming too low. He lives a balanced life.

There are scores of people who do not understand his faith and it does not make sense to many. However, your personal faith is just that and it does not have to make sense to others as long as it makes sense to you.

The phenom that is Tim Tebow is more than football. He is a vehicle that God is using to bring glory to God which is something that we all should desire to be used to do. While there is no empirical proof that God sits in His throne room in heaven watching football, there is evidence that Tebow and God know each other.

The rise of Tim Tebow has given birth to a new word in the sports lexicon. It is called Tebowing which means to kneel and pray after a touchdown or a great play.

Tim will not lead his team to victory in every game. At some point his winning streak will come to an end. That is how football and life works. However, he has already been a success and all of his haters have chocked on haterade.

While my favorite teams are the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons, I am a huge Tim Tebow fan. I am pulling for him even against my Patriots because I believe in Tebow. He is a clean cut kid. In an ESPN poll tonight 61% of those polled agreed that Tim Tebow’s story is bigger than the Green Bay Packer’s 13-0 record.

Not only does the Augustus Blog salute the King David of the NFL, we also salute the way in which he carries himself. No gold teeth. No 1000 tattoos. No gaudy gold particles hanging from his neck to the floor. No bad grammar where subject and verb are constantly on a collision course. No row of gold teeth in his mouth.

Go Tebow. Run Tebow. Pass Tebow. Win Tebow. Keep sharing your faith Tebow. Keep Tebowing us.

David or someone close to David penned these immortal words in Psalm 124:1 “If the Lord had not been on our side….” There is no doubt that because of his faith that God is on Tim Tebow’s side.

THE CRUCIFIXION OF HERMAN CAIN

2011-11-01T02:34:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite Presidents was the late and incredible Franklin Delano Roosevelt who held the presidency longer than any man before him and longer than any man after him. After being elected to serve four terms in part because he guided America out of the Great Depression and into her great economic prosperity, the constitution was changed to limit the president of the United States to two terms. I remember joking with President Bill Clinton at the White House in 2000 while we were discussing how the African-American clergy could help to get the vote out for Al Gore; that we should change the 22^nd amendment so that he could run again. He replied, “Get it done” as we both laughed.

President Roosevelt once said, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” This quote is applicable to Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. Explosive allegations have surfaced accusing Cain of sexual harassment way back in the late 90’s. Hithertofore, no one had heard of these Cain claims. However, since Cain is now the frontrunner in the republican field and he is gaining incredible traction with the Tea Party and other conservative groups, this bomb has been dropped to stop his meteoric rise in the national polls and to put out the fire that fuels his meteorite.

Roosevelt and Cain never met, but Roosevelt’s quote is certainly on point here. This “Cainian” leak did not come out by accident. “You can bet it was planned that way.” His political enemies strategically timed the release of this story. Prior to now, there was no need to release it. But over the last month Mr. Cain has been climbing Jacob’s political ladder and this “on purpose leak” was designed to break some rungs on that ladder so that he would fall back to earth in his attempt to reach his political heaven.

Let me be clear. I am not a Herm Cain supporter. We are cut from a different political cloth. Our ideologies are written in different ink. Our view of good government is looked at through a different lense. The only thing that Cain and I have in common is that we both are a part of the greatest African-American Fraternity in world, Alpha Phi Alpha, Fraternity, Inc. Oh; yeah we both are members of the clergy.

While Cain and I have little in common, I do respect Herman and I support his right to run for the president of the greatest nation in the land. However, I do not like this Clarence Thomas, Gary Hart (by the way has anyone heard from him and his Monkey Business boat) and Bill Clinton move to destroy a man and his chance to chase his dream. This is the nagging and nasty side of politics which seeks to run a man off the stage and into political oblivion to ensure that he will forever be irrelevant.

This is the nasty norm in politics. The higher the office one seeks the acidic the attacks. Even though this is the norm, this does not make it right. Every man or woman who has ever run for political office has some kind of past ranging from a speeding ticket to telling a lie. There are no pure and perfect people in politics. Many of the men and women in politics wear masks to work only to have to take them off once the camera and cell phone camcorder is no longer running. Furthermore, they are akin to the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz. They are not really wizards. Instead they are men and women who live behind curtains pulling strings all day long almost every day until some Toto comes along and pulls up the curtain to reveal them as a mere mortal.

We do not know who Cain’s Toto is but boy did he pull the curtain up on the man who would be president. While I do not like this nasty side of politics and I abhor it, I cannot bring myself to cry a river for Cain because whenever you want to sit in the King’s chair, there is a price to be paid. While Cain tried to detonate this bomb today, he did not do a great job and he cannot fan this fire out with a church funeral home fan or even a fire-hose. He will need some water from Georgia’s Chattahoochee River because this fire has the potential to do to Cain what Sherman did to Georgia when he burned the state from Atlanta to Savannah.

Jim Rutenberg and Michael D. Shear point out in the New York Times that Mr. Cain’s shifting explanations and the gaps in the story make it hard to determine the impact of the revelations on his long-term prospects in states like Iowa, whose crucial caucuses are just two months away.

They go on to note that in the early afternoon, Mr. Cain told a gathering at the National Press Club in Washington that “I am unaware of any sort of settlement” related to harassment accusations, which he called “a witch hunt.” But in an interview with Greta Van Susteren of the Fox News Channel shown Monday night, he acknowledged that in at least one case “there was some sort of settlement or termination,” worth “maybe three months’ salary.”

With that kind of Mitt Romney zigzagging, Cain does more harm to his position than he does good. In a Deep South intonation “this thang ain’t going away no time soon.” Mr. Cain should prepare himself for a meteor shower in the next few days. Here is what he has to hope for:

1. That neither of the women calls a press conference to talk about this.

2. That the two women do not call a joint press conference to talk about this.

3. That there are no damaging documents that are waiting to be uploaded to the internet.

4. That it later comes out that he was intricately involved in the settlement negotiations.

5. That there are no matching cases out there.

If any of the above five “can nots” come out, then Cain’s star will come crashing to earth and “great shall be the fall of it.”

In a further attempt to refute the allegations, Mr. Cain said, ““I told you this bulls-eye on my back has gotten bigger," he said. “We have no idea of the source of this witch hunt. Which is really what it is.” If it is a witch hunt then Herman better hurry up and find the witch and borrow Dorothy’s pail of water from the Wizard of Oz and melt that witch like yesterday because if that witch ever mounts her broomstick and rides over Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, then all of the winged monkeys in Oz cannot fly him to safety.

To be sure key conservatives are rallying behind Cain in a bid to keep his unorganized campaign afloat. Penny Nance, CEO of the Christian-influenced conservative group Concerned Women for America said, “Herman Cain was very believable and straight forward in his statement today. I believe that barring any new revelations he has put the issue to rest.”

The rambunctious and rowdy Rush Limbaugh said, “"Herman Cain is obviously making some people nervous for this kind of thing to happen.”

The other side of this thin tightrope suggests that if Cain is being less than forthcoming, then there is grave danger ahead for him.

Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University said, “Several months ago he said, ‘They are going to come after me,’ whoever ‘they' are. If no one else comes forward, he’ll keep banging that drum,” she said. “But if there is something more to it, then this will probably sink him,” she said

Emory University, political science professor Andra Gillespie said, “If it turns out he is disingenuous and has misrepresented the facts in this case, then he looks like everybody else and it undermines his candidacy.”

Again, I do not like how Cain is being treated. He like any politician should be allowed to run on what they plan to do and not based on what they have done because they have all done something.

Like that song by the immortal Michael Jackson says, “This is It” for the Cain campaign. The fact of the matter is that Cain and the women know what really happened. Somebody is lying and somebody is telling the truth. When you negotiate a settlement, then you are non-verbally admitting that something happened. Cain knows what happened and so do those two women. Whatever happened, Cain may need a different version of that Bill Clinton moment when he said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

The question that Herman will have to answer because this is the nature of politics is what did he do and when did he do it and what did he mean by doing it.

While Cain cannot click his shoes three times and get back home, he must find a way out of Oz and back to Kansas.

Run Herman run!

THE DEATH OF MOAMMAR GADHAFI BY HIS OWN SWORD

2011-10-20T17:37:00.000-04:00

Jesus told Peter on a Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemane that if he chose to live by the sword, then he would die by the sword. While Peter was trying to protect Jesus from the arresting officers, Jesus asked him to put his sword up. For 42 years Mommar Gadhafi lived by the sword. He lived by the sword so much so that it was rumored that he never slept in the same bed or house more than two consecutive nights for fear of his life.

Gadhafi came to power in 1969 by the sword when he overthrew the current government led by King Idris. He lived by the sword when he ordered a bombing at “La Belle” nightclub in West Berlin which killed three people and injured almost 230. He lived by the sword when he had a hand in the Lockerbie bombing which killed 189 Americans. The Colonel would later give safe sanctuary to convicted Libyan Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

As the Arab Spring made a tour of the Middle East, it eventually made its way to Libya where Gadhafi tried to beat it back. Once again, he lived by the sword and had snipers to shoot peaceful protesters and took to the airwaves and denied that a revolution was occurring in his county. Even when NATO rode to the rescue of the protesters, Gadhafi ordered the death of more and more of his people as their blood spilled into the streets from Tripoli to Surt.

Gadhafi thought that he would wield his sword forever. Many Libyans who had lived in 42 years of perpetual fear also thought that perhaps Muammar would wield his sword forever because he had crushed and killed so many of their family members. Today, 10.20.11 the self-proclaimed “King of Kings” died by the same sword that he had lived by for four decades.

In a March 2, 2011 blog entitled “Muammar Gadhafi the New Caligula,” we called Qaddafi the new Caligula and we predicted his end. “Caligula did not have a good ending because of his barbaric acts against his own people. Muammar Qaddafi will not have a good ending for the same reasons. He has said that he will die a martyr. The Colonel will not be able to earn that honor which is bestowed upon worthy men and women who have given their lives for a right and just cause. There is nothing right or just about the “New Caligula.”

Today in the streets of Surt a rebel or some rebels or someone bravely and justifiably so took the sword from the Colonel and killed him with a gunshot wound to the head. When people get tired of being oppressed by their leaders, they will rise up and kill them. History is replete with a plethora of nations from antiquity to today who took out their leaders. This is one of the chief reasons that I was against President George W. Bush’s occupation of Iraq because eventually the Iraqi people would have eventually killed Saddam Hussein.

Gadhafi’s sword wielding reign outlived the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The “mad dog of the middle east” exceeded the life span of 7 U.S. Presidents. However, his sword could not escape the reach of President Barack Obama. In the early days of Libya’s Arab Spring, President Obama approved our pilots to lead the NATO led airstrikes and today it was an American drone that struck the convoy that Gadhafi was traveling in.

It has been reported that when Gadhafi was captured that he had a golden gun in his hand and in almost demented language asked, “What is going on and why are you here?” He was always defiant and pretended to ignore reality. However, in the end, this cruel, callous and crazed man was found hiding in a sewer. To say that he came to an inglorious end would be a huge understatement.

Colonel Gaddafi can no longer harm and hurt the people of Libya. They have shown extraordinary bravery in the face of a terrible tyrant who held them as prisoners of fear. The Libyan people deserve to be liberated from the ruthless reign of Gadhafi. They are elated and rightfully so. “We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Muammar Qaddafi has been killed,” Mahmoud Jibril, the prime minister of the Transitional National Council, the interim government said. Mahmoud Shammam, the council’s chief spokesman, called it “the day of real liberation. We were serious about giving him a fair trial. It seems God has some other wish.”

These Arab autocrats are falling like flies. “The People” are standing up for what is right and relevant. Their cry for freedom can be heard around the globe. While their blood has been shed in the cause and case for freedom, they see the shedding of blood as a down payment for future generations to ensure that they will not have to live under the sword of a dictatorial autocrat.

The Augustus Blog salutes the Libyan people on winning their freedom. While there is a lot of work ahead to build a new nation, today is your day so celebrate because you deserve it.

The great British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” Libya now has freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy and hope.

THE MIS-EDUCATION OF HERMAN CAIN

2011-10-11T19:09:00.000-04:00

In 1933 Dr. Carter G. Woodson wrote a powerful and thought provoking book entitled The Mis-Education of the Negro. Woodson’s presupposition in the book was that Blacks in his era suffered from cultural indoctrination over and against being taught in schools. As a result, Blacks became dependent and accepted inferiority in the greater society. At the end of the day Woodson argued that Blacks “do for themselves” regardless of what they had been taught.

Here is a quote from Woodson that the Augustus Blog would like to lift: “When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”

Let’s fast forward to 2011 and talk about the mis-education of Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. All of a sudden Cain has experienced a meteoric rise in the polls leaving the likes of Rick Perry, Michelle Bauchman and Newt Gingrich in the dust. Cain’s rise can in part be attributed to the weak field of Republican candidates. The reason for his rise is that die heart conservatives do not have a “true candidate” that they can rally behind. “Slick Rick” from Texas was supposed to have been the answer.

Cain has come along and temporary filled that void. How has he been able to do this? In large part because he has been saying a lot of things that he cannot possibly believe in as a black man in America but things that the far right and ultra-conservatives want to hear. While the mis-education of Cain has been stage center ranging from his attacks on Muslims, the middle class and minorities, nothing causes the fins to rise to incredible stiffness on the backs of fish, than his recent outlandish claim that “racism doesn’t hold anybody back, in any way now.”

Remember that GEICO commercial where the guy had been living under a rock for a long time and climbed up out of his hole? Well Cain needs to crawl back in his. Racism is alive and well in America today. We are not in a post-racial America. In all 50 states you can find the raw regiments of unabashed racism. Sure we have made some great and gallant strides in racial diversity but not nearly enough.

Here are some facts Cain ignores as he tries to score points with Republican voters. First, the number of African-Americans in prison is the highest percentage of any other racial group in the world. Granted some of them have committed crimes and need to be locked up. However, many of my brothers and sisters are locked up because of the color of their skin and last month the state of Georgia killed/executed a black man by the name of Troy Davis.

Second, Mr. Cain ignores the fact that black unemployment is double that of our white counterparts. That’s right Mr. Godfather pizza, the black unemployment rate sits at an unbelievable and whopping 16%.

While the “Hermanator” has his blinders on, here is another fact. We have 50 states in these great United States of America and only one state has an African-America governor and that is Massachusetts which is a liberal state that embraces minorities. There are 100 United States Senators who form the most elite governmental fraternity on the planet and not one of them is black. The United States of House of Representatives has 435 members and not one African-American has ever been elected Speaker of the House or Majority Leader. Even as we write this blog, the Republican led House does not have one African-America in a leadership position of power.

In recently completed Congressional and Legislative Reapportionment special sessions all across the South in Republican controlled statehouses, white Democrats were intentionally drawn in majority African-American districts in order to oust white Democrats who have traditionally formed alliances with black Democrats. The United States Justice Department and federal courts are looking into nine southern states where this occurred.

These are only a few of the examples of rampant racism that is a daily burden for all too many African-Americans.

Cain’s comments have caused a firestorm in the African-American community. First up is Princeton Professor Cornell West. Dr. West said, “Well for one, black people have been working hard for decades. I think he needs it get off the symbolic crack pipe and acknowledge that the evidence is overwhelming.” Herman has to be smoking something to make such an asinine and aggravating statement. The fumes from whatever he is smoking are rendering him increasingly incompetent in the matters of race.

Legendary actor and activist Harry Belafonte really put Cain’s craziness in context when he said, “It’s very hard to comment on somebody who is so denied intelligence – and certainly who is denied a view of history, such as he reveals. He knows very little. Because he happened to have good fortune, because he happened to have had a moment when he broke through — the moment someone blinked – does not make him the authority on the plight of people of color.”

Cain made his millions as the czar of Godfather’s Pizza and he deserves every penny that he has earned because he worked hard for them. However, his good fortune came on the backs of blacks who marched, were mauled and even murdered in the South so that Herman Cain could become an entrepreneur and one day run for president. Somewhere along the way someone helped Cain to get where he is today and at the same time some other black person who was just as smart as Cain and had a great business plan was denied the opportunity to get their slice of the American pie not because they were not good enough but because of the color of their skin!

Mr. Belafonte makes another good point that we at The Augustus Blog embrace. “The Republican party, the tea party, all those forces to the extreme right, have consistently tried to come up with representation for what they call black, for what they call the real Negroes, and try to push these images as the kinds of voices that Americans should be listening to.”

The reason that we embrace Belafonte’s view is because is tantalizingly true. Republicans like to embrace and endorse what they call safe “Negroes.” They see these “polished” blacks as safe, sound and submissive. These handpicked blacks are viewed as non-threatening conformists who will dance to their music and jump through hoop after hoop just to be excepted by what they believe are the powers that be. Like Faust’s Mephistopheles, they sell their souls and when they have been used up their phones stop ringing.

Belafonte even named names. “So we have Condoleezza Rice, we’ve got Colin Powell – they’re heroes for some people. But for a lot us, they’re not.” While Condi and Colin deserved the positions that they held in the Bush administration, we cannot give them a pass on supporting two Bush wars that have almost bankrupted America, left thousands of our best and brightest soldiers dead and over 46,000 and counting wounded. At least you have to give General Powell credit for jumping off Bush’s titanic after he realized the damage that he was doing.

Condi is on record as having said that a black man cannot do anything for her. Okay, we will pass on that.

“And Herman Cain is the latest incarnation of what is totally false to the needs of our community, and the needs of our nation. I think he’s a bad apple, and people should look at his hole card. He’s not what he says he is.” This is a hard but true indictment by Belafonte.

In response to Mr. Belafonte’s criticism of him, Cain responded by saying, “As far as Harry Belafonte’s comment, look, I left the Democratic plantation a long time ago. And all that they try to do when someone like me — and I’m not the only black person out there that shares these conservative views — the only tactic that they have to try and intimidate me and shut me up is to call me names, and this sort of thing. It just simply won’t work,” Cain said.”

If Cain left what he calls the Democratic plantation, then what does he think that he joined when we crossed over to a party that is racially, socially and religiously intolerant? Yes, there are blacks who are conservative. However, where do you draw the line between conservative and crazy?

Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly and Herman Cain are the epitome of black men who are only black in pigmentation and not in reality but are still shunned by many of the white people that they wanted to be validated by. They want to be validated, accepted and affirmed by the majority culture that only uses them for their purposes.

This trifling trinity of ungrateful and misguided men has every right to belong to whatever party they desire. However, do not have the right to mis-educate, misinform and mislead in order to elevate themselves.

Cain is doing well in the polls right now because conservatives are still in search of their candidate. They are not sold on Mitt and “Slick Rick” is slipping so Herman in hanging for now. The Augustus Blog would like to redirect you to our May 25 blog entitled “On Herman Cain’s Chances of Winning the Republican Nomination.”

Herman Cain has about as much of a chance of winning the Republican nomination for President of the United States as he does of delivering a slice of pizza to Osama bin Laden in the Northern Arabian Sea. It is just not going to happen.

When Mark Anthony gave the funeral oration for Julius Gaius Caesar, he said among many other things, “Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.” Just what stuff does Cain think that he is made of that makes him think that he can win.

When you decide to run for president, you cannot allow other people to make you a legend in your own mind. Fellow Republican Jack Kemp has described Cain as having “the voice of Othello, the looks of a football player, the English of Oxfordian quality and the courage of a lion.” In all of his polished and poetic language Kemp never said anything about Cain’s chances of winning his party’s nomination much less the presidency.

Yes, Cain has right to run for president. However, right and reality are so juxtaposed to each other that even a miracle would not want to associate itself with Cain’s chances to even get out of his own primary.

If Republicans were not willing to support another African-American for their party’s nomination in the person of Colin Powell who still has a powerful political pedigree, then what of Cain?

Herman, keep running because it will help your radio show and your candidacy will open some other doors. However, stop running by selling your soul for votes because at the end of the day those who you are trying to impress are only hanging with you for a season.

TROY DAVIS: THE FUNERAL THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN

2011-10-04T19:49:00.000-04:00

On Saturday in Savannah Georgia scoresof mourners came to the Jonesville Baptist Church to say goodbye to the questionablyconvicted and wrongly executed Troy Davis. Around 1,000 people filled the pewsto show their support for a man who now is immortalized in the annals of themany sad chapters of Georgia’s awful judicial past. NAACP President BenjaminJealous and Ebenezer Baptist Church Senior Pastor Raphael Warnock led a localand national contingency with professional and the everyday people who camefrom near and far to be with “Troy” for a final time.

The problem is that the JonesvilleBaptist Church should not have had a funeral on Saturday. Troy Davis shouldstill be alive. Troy Davis should have been a freed man. Mr. Davis had beenconvicted of killing an off duty cop some twenty years ago. He alwaysmaintained his innocence which most convicted criminals do any way. However,there was something different with Troy’s case. Over half of the eyewitnessesrecanted their testimony and swore in a court of law and before the GeorgiaBoard of Pardons and Parole that Troy did not kill Mark MacPhail.

Davis was issued a stay of execution atleast four times as he waited on death row like a chicken in a coop waiting forthe ax to fall on his neck and he won a final stay by the United States SupremeCourt a few hours before his eventual execution. In the end the Supreme Court turnedits back on Troy and allowed Georgia to kill and not execute him.

The law in jurisprudence says that whenthere is a reasonable doubt then an accused person must be freed. The evidenceof innocence in this case echoed and reverberated like an African lion roaringin the jungle in the pitch black night with his voice rising to such decibelsthat even the farthest star in the heavens can hear him because he is thatloud.

The reasonable doubt in this case wasoverwhelming. It was so overwhelming that both a national and internationalchorus of men who do not easily attach their names to controversial publiccauses without careful reflection because of the risk of their influence beingwatered down in future instances; became advocates for Troy. Men like PresidentJimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop DesmondTutu. Not only did this titular trinity of voices for the voiceless support Mr.Davis but so did innumerable nameless people who had never met Troy fromGeorgia to Spain from the United Kingdom to Germany from France to Johannesburgand from Rome to Australia and they all sang the song, “Free Troy Davis.”

In the end Troy was killed and not executedby the state of Georgia. I want to look at Troy’s death through the lenses of racein America relative to death penalty cases. While I refuse to play the racecard, you have to look at the racial disparity regarding the death penalty inAmerica when a black kills a white versus when a white kills a black. Statisticsshow that when a black is convicted of killing a white, blacks receive thedeath penalty at a much higher rate than do whites who are convicted ofmurdering blacks. Davis was black and MacPhail was white.

Location in death penalty cases is alsoimportant. Troy Davis was convicted in the South. The South has a sad and sickhistory ranging from lynching black men to kangaroo courts to simply labeling ablack man as guilty because of the color of his skin. In the South it is verychallenging for a black man to get a fair trial period but especially when hehas been accused of killing a white person. That is just the way that it is andhas always been in the South and especially in my beloved Georgia. Davis wasprosecuted by a white southern District Attorney. He was tried by a white southernjudge. His motion for a new trial was denied by a white southern federal judge.A request for clemency was denied by a majority white Georgia Board of Pardonsand Parole. His final request for a stay on the day of his execution wasrejected by a majority white U. S. Supreme Court. I personally reject any andall arguments that Clarence Thomas is a black man. Thus, our nation’s highestcourt is made up of 9 white persons.

By the way, Georgia has 159 counties andonly 2 Black District Attorneys. Troy Davis never had a fair legal chance basedon the racial disparity and history of southern injustice for black menespecially in Georgia. Blacks tried for similar crimes as Davis in the North orthe West are more likely to receive life in prison rather than the deathpenalty.

The evidence and facts in this case werefatally flawed. Famed lawyer Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project whichattempts to free innocent people from prison intervened to save Davis. Whenasked if he thought that there was a time that he thought Davis’ sentence wouldbe commuted, replied, “I did believe that the Georgia Board of Pardons andParoles would act favorably because the evidence was so obviously weak andsubject to doubt. I’m talking about the forensic evidence, the ballisticevidence, one of the worst cases of eyewitness misidentification that anyonecould find. When you sort through all of that, what’s left of the case?

In the end we witnessed the millenniallynching of a black man in the year 2011. Billie Holiday’s lyrics in her bitterbut realistic song from a dark and devastating chapter in the American storyare applicable in the Troy Davis story:

“Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at theroot,

Black body swinging in the Southernbreeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplartrees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind tosuck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.”

Instead of being lynched and hung in atree, Davis was lynched by the judicial system and hung on a gurney in thedeath chamber in Jackson, Georgia. Rather than having his blood spilled, Davis’heart stopped beating due to a lethal cocktail of deadly drugs being pumpedinto his body. There was no burning flesh to smell. The only smell was thestrong odor of injustice in every courtroom that Troy’s case appeared in.

Supporters of Davis cannot allow the sunof injustice to rot his legacy. Rather they must do what he requested among hislast dying words “Don't let me die in vain. Don't let my name die in vain.”

In short there should have never been afuneral for Troy Davis at the Jonesville Baptist Church. President Carter saidafter the execution, “if one of our fellow citizens can be executed with somuch doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our countryis unjust and outdated.”

It seems that fate is cruel and callousbecause Casey Anthony is free and Troy Davis is dead in the quintessential irreversibleact: death. Even Amanda Knox’s appeal was heard thousands of miles away in Italyand she is now free and sleepless in Seattle. Sometimes our justice system issimply unjust especially when you are black.

Scheck drives the nail deeper into thewood again when he says “I think the infirmities of this case and the weaknessof the evidence against Troy Davis were just obvious. It involves the shootingof a police officer — who by all accounts was acting valiantly, the victim iswhite, the person charged is black and the forensic evidence has proven to beunreliable by everyone’s admission. Put all those things together, and it’sjust an obvious case where there was an unacceptably high risk of executing aninnocent man.

Davis now belongs to ages joining apantheon of black men in America who have been killed by an unjust justicesystem. Troy’s supporters who are left behind must fight to the bitter end toclear his name in their march for his justice.

PRESIDENT OBAMA AND RUDYARD KIPLING’S “IF.”

2011-09-13T12:58:00.000-04:00

The master English poet, short-story guru and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Rudyard Kipling penned some great works that are still with us today such as The Jungle Book and The Man Who Would Be King. However, he left one immortal poem that still reaches across the eons entitled “If.” “If” consists of four stanzas of life directional compasses for defining manhood through Kipling’s eyes.

Inevitably every man who aspires to lead or to be great must pass Mr. Kipling’s “If” test. One man who is the called the most powerful man in the free world has the weight of “If” on his shoulders like Atlas holding up the world in Greek mythology. In fact this man’s grappling with “If” is akin to one of the 12 labors of Hercules. This man feels the daily pressure of trying to meet the “If” test. That man is President Barack Obama.

These are tough, turbulent and trying times for America. The unemployment rate is still at 9%, jobs are scarce and the poverty rate just jumped to all all-time high. According to the Census Bureau, the U. S. poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010 which is up from 14.3% in 2009 which means that this is the highest level since 1993. College grads are filing for bankruptcy at an astronomic rate.

The number one issue in America is J.O.B.S! Feeling the pressure of the people and keeping a big eye on his sinking poll numbers, President Obama has unveiled a $447 Billion jobs package to jumpstart and pump life into our anemic economy. Last week he gave a fiery, substantive and powerful speech as he called for an end to the Barnum and Bailey political circus atmosphere in Washington between Democrats, Republicans and members of the Tea Party.

While the speech was well received, the reality is that voters chose a divided government and moving from Obama’s speech to the brick and mortar of his proposal will be yet another herculean task for the president unless he can go to the American people as well as apply the “If” principle.

Please allow me to make “If” applicable to President Obama by keeping the original poem while putting my emphasis in parenthesis.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

(Mr. President, you have to keep your head in the midst of the worst circus of our time. They even blame you for the sun not coming up on time but that’s cool.)

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

(Mr. President, you cannot and you will not please everyone. We did not elect you to make everyone happy. We elected you because we trust you. We already knew that men would doubt you. The question is do you trust you!)

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

(Mr. President, patience is a virtue because you will not be in the fiery furnace forever.)

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

(Mr. President, do not allow them to tire/wear you out. Michelle Bauchman even lied on you last night and accused you of stealing $500 million from Medicare. Of course we know that you did not but being lied on is a side effect of your job. Just make sure that you do not lie or deal in political lies.)

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

(Mr. President, you have a lot of haters. They hate your policies, they hate your intellect, they hate your power and most of all even though you cannot talk about it publicly, and they hate you because you are black! Guess what, they hated Jesus too!)

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

(Mr. President, you must make America dream again. Dream of jobs! Dream of jobs! Dream of jobs! Then you must turn that dream into a reality.)

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

(Mr. President, you have had great triumphs such as pulling the economy back from the brink of a complete collapse when you took office. Oh yeah, you deposited Osama bin Laden in the North Sea. You have also had some disasters but hey, you are human. We all have disasters. Just ask God for balance! That works for me.)

And treat those two imposters just the same;

(Mr. President, never get too high or too low! Find the middle of the road and shout “Thank you Jesus!)

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

(Mr. President, I know that when you hear how they twist and turn some of your words you get ticked off to the highest level of ticktivity. A word of wisdom from my grandmother: “You cannot control what people say about you but you can control if it is true or not!)

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

(Mr. President, life is about repackaging, restructuring and relaunching!)

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

(Mr. President, your job’s proposal is a truly making a heap of all your winnings moment at the worst time. This has to work and this must work and this will work!)

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

(Mr. President fatal Fridays can become resurrection Sundays! Just ask Jesus!)

And never breath a word about your loss;

(Mr. President, this is no time to hold your head down and rethink your past decisions. This is the time to LEAD!)

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

(Mr. President, holding on can be challenging but you have no choice!)

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

(Mr. President, they keep saying that you cannot relate to the common American. You can prove them wrong by hanging in the hood one day. Hang in the black hood, white hood and Latino hood and shock your haters!)

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

(Mr. President, you have more foes than any President has had in modern times. Never bow to howling wolves when there are hungry sheep that need to be fed!)

If all men count with you, but none too much;

(Mr. President, please watch the men around you! Julius Gaius Caesar ignored the Ides of March and it shortened his life.)

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run –

(Mr. President, time is still on your side so please make every minute count!)

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

(Mr. President, if you can master “IF” you will be re-elected. I plan to vote for you.)

EARTHQUAKES, HURRICANES AND MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DEDICATION

2011-08-28T14:39:00.000-04:00

Today’s date is 8.28.11 and I am safe in my hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. a few blocks from the White House. Usually followers of the Augustus Blog which we are humbled to have, tune in to read my political analysis and occasionally my synopsis of a movie with social implications. However, today readers will get a taste of my prophetic offering for the first time.

Like many members of my beloved fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, we along with many Americans began to descend upon our nation’s capital Washington, D.C. for a festive celebration of the dedication of the long awaited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the mall in Washington. People had come from every corner of the country and from various nooks and crannies of the world to witness this once in a lifetime event where a man of color would take his long delayed and rightful place in the national pantheon reserved for the founding fathers of the greatest nation on the earth.

As Alphas, we were filled with excitement and anticipation that the greatest and grandest of our fraternity brothers, a son of the South, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would take his seat at the table of the greatest pantheon this side of Mt. Olympus where Zeus and Hera reigned supreme over the Greek gods of ancient mythology.

Many black people in America never dreamed that they would live to see the day when this country would honor a black man with such a prestigious and prominent place in the pages of America’s dark and glorious history. A history that is replete with racism, classism and sexism. On the other side of that coin, America has a history which is also packed and piled with a plethora of good will, diversity, acceptance and progress.

All of our anticipation was momentarily muted because of events beyond our control. Washington, D.C. experienced two natural disasters in the same week. The first being an earthquake and the second was Hurricane Irene.

Earthquake and D.C. are very oxymoronic because when you think of earthquakes you think of California which sits on a fault and not D.C. When you think of hurricanes, you think of Florida and/or the Gulf and not D.C.

Why did this happen? I am glad you asked because this gives me a chance to step into my prophetic office. I am not asking you to buy what I am about to write as it is merely the theological offering of one trained black Baptist preacher from Washington, Georgia who now resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

Jesus’ disciples once asked Him to give them signs of the coming of ending of the world. He then proceeded to list a slew of “happenings” that would signal the beginning of the end of the world as we know it today. In Matthew 24:7-8 he says, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All of these are the beginning of birth pains.” (NIV).

Jesus said that earthquakes would be an indicator of the close out of a chapter in human history. I know that you are saying but look at how many earthquakes we have had since He said that. I agree but how many earthquakes and hurricanes have we had in one week in D. C. since He said that? Also, how many of those earthquakes caused a split in the Washington Cathedral which is the symbolic center of our national worship?

I argue from a theological stand point that in God’s permissive will, He allowed the earthquake and the hurricane to pass by the political heartbeat of America, Washington, D. C. Permissive will means that God did not cause it but He did not stop it from happening, thus He permitted it.

Why was God permissive of this? He showed His dissatisfaction with America’s politics. God is neither Democrat, Republican nor a member of the Tea Party. God is independent of man’s political order because He alone is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. God is tired to the pathetic partisan bickering that is eroding the American dream. He is tired of the mistreatment of the least of these as Jesus called them. He is tired of the greed, glitz and glamour of the rich at the expense of the poor. God does not hate rich people but He does hate it when Congress tries to help the rich by crushing the poor.

Just as God shook up King Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel. He is now shaking up Washington. God permitted that earthquake to shake up D. C. politics. He is not pleased with Democrats, Republicans or the Tea Party. Washington acts as if this nation was not founded as a Christian nation. Our politics have descended into dark and devilish shenanigans that now do more harm than good. Yes, in 2010 America voted for a divided government but we did not vote for a demonic government.

When Jesus was crucified on Friday, the veil of the Jewish Temple was split in two. Here we are about 2,000 years later and the earthquake that hit D. C. caused the National Cathedral to crack in various places. This is major because perhaps God is saying that not only is He displeased with our national politics but He is also displeased with our national worship. As I often say from the pulpit, now look at your neighbor and say, “Repent America, Repent!”

Washington’s politics and Washington’s worship are in need of genuine repentance. To repent means to change directions. Democrats, Republicans and the Tea Party need to repent for their wild ways which are drowning the American dream, hanging hope and plummeting promises for all too many Americans. If America does not change directions, then the American dream will become the American nightmare.

The Washington Monument was also damaged. It was built in honor of our 1^st President George Washington who was our nation’s founding father and led us to independence. God was permissive of the cracking of the monument to remind America that He is our founding father and our God!

As if the earthquake were not enough, a 2^nd natural disaster affected Washington, D. C. in the form of Hurricane Irene. As a result the Martin Luther King, Jr., Foundation was forced to cancel our Sunday, August 28, 2011 official dedication. Of course we were deflated but not defeated. As Dr. Joseph Lowery said during the King National Prayer Service on yesterday, “With all that we have been through as black people, a hurricane cannot stop us.”

All of this happened in the same week as we were scheduled to officially dedicate the King Monument. From a theological standpoint, I do not find any of this to be coincidental. One can argue that it was very Kingian that it happened because King never really wanted all of the attention on him anyway.

Washington was shaken by an earthquake and a hurricane on the same week that we were supposed to dedicate the King Monument because King was a shaker himself. King shook up the South in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. King shook up America as he led the fight for justice and equality for all as he reminded us that “We shall overcome.” King shook up the world as he beat the drum for justice.

I was privy to be a part of a small group of people who received a private viewing of the King Monument on Friday morning after the Thursday night announcement that the dedication was cancelled. One word describes my feeling as I stared at the stone of hope: S.P.E.E.C.H.L.E.S.S! I am a man of many words but seeing King’s body’s protrude from that granite left me unable to express the power of God in words as I marveled at something that only God could make happen with Harry Johnson, President of King Memorial Foundation leading the way.

This was followed by fellowshipping with some of the stalwarts of the Civil Rights Movement and men who had been in Washington, D. C. on August 28, 1968. To be able to break bread with C. T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Joe Lowery, Rev. Amos Brown, Jesse Jackson and Rev. Wyatt T. Walker at the same time in the same room was I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E!

So God used King Week to shake America once again. I hope that the politicians look at this through their spiritual lenses and do better in the days and months to come and heed one of the quotes that line the King Monument: INJUSTICE ANYWHERE IS A THREAT TO JUSTICE EVERYWHERE. WE ARE CAUGHT IN AN INESCAPABLE NETWORK OF MUTUALITY. TIED IN A SINGLE GARMENT OF DESTINY. WHATEVER AFFECTS ONE DIRECTLY, AFFECTS ALL INDIRECTLY.

Why did I select this quote? Today marks the 48^th anniversary of King’s immortal “I Have a Dream” speech here in Washington and this quote is still relevant. Democrats, Republicans and the Tea Party whether we like it or not are caught in the inescapable network of mutuality that King spoke about. Like it or not our destinies are tied to each other. The quake and the hurricane was a permissive not so subtle reminder from God that we belong to Him and to each other.

This time God was permissive of an earthquake and a hurricane. Let’s not push Him to the point of locusts and frogs!

P. S. Don’t you find it a little strange that the King Monument was not damaged and it is very close to Washington’s Monument which was damaged?

WHY I LOVED THE MOVIE THE HELP

2011-08-15T12:21:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I had a chance to go and see the much heralded and hyped movie “The Help.” I am glad that I did. The scenes, scenarios and situations were ripped out of a dark and devastating chapter in America’s history and rewritten fifty years later. The movie was packed and piled with a plethora of examples of what life was like for black maids living and working in the Southern United States during the sad and sadistic period of segregation where “separate but equal” was a slick way to keep slavery alive and well in a new form after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.

As you watch the movie, 1961 Mississippi is brilliantly brought to the screen by Hollywood’s magic. The bridges, cars, buses, country downtown, hairstyles, outhouses, plantations, racism, fear, submission and dirt roads all come to life for those who lived in that era as well as for those of us who were yet to be born.

“The Help” is gripping and gut wrenching for the viewer who has a conscious and cares about people. While the movie is fictional relative to the maids actually having their chance to tell their story, it is based in the reality of what life was like for maids in the South. Jim Crow and Segregation were tough and turbulent times for black people all across the South. They lived in fear of and at the mercy of white people who hated them because of the color of their skin and daily worked to psychologically make blacks think that they were inferior to whites in every way.

While this blog will not give a scene by scene analysis of the movie, we would like to lift some themes that stood out for us.

The first theme is that while the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery on paper, you cannot legislate what is in a person’s heart and what they inherit from their parents. The disrespect and disdain for the maids was deeply rooted in the hearts of the white women that they worked for. Aibileen, the main character in the movie and brilliantly played by Viola Davis in an Oscar worthy way, comments that even the white children that they raised treated them the same way that their parents did once they became adults.

A second theme is the degrading of the maids from that era. Minny, who works as a maid for the villainous and heartless Hily Holbrook, is not allowed to use Hily’s toilet unless she is taking Hily’s daughter to the bathroom. Hily tells all of her white friends that if you allow blacks to use your toilet and you use it after them, then you will get a disease. Hily goes as far as to use a pencil to mark each piece of toilet paper to determine if Minny has used her bathroom.

Maids were human enough to work for white women, human enough to cook for white women and human enough to raise white women’s children but they were too inhumane to use their toilets?

A third theme is the fear in which the black maid was forced to live in. The maids were intimidated and scared for their lives. To say that they walked on eggshells each time that they went to work is a gross understatement of their reality. They could not give their opinion because this would be seen as “talking back.” The only right they had was the right to come to work and eat in the back of the house. They were not allowed to express themselves because this would be a violation of the “white way.” Therefore, in order to keep their jobs, the maids had to suck it up and live in daily fear and say “yes maam” and “no maam.” This was courage under fire because living in fear outweighed the horror of being unemployed.

Okay, let’s get to some positive themes in the movie. The one that jumps out at me is one that was a catalyst in the Civil Rights Movement and that is the impact of good willed white people. The Civil Rights Movement would not have been successful without the aide and assistance of good willed white women and men who looked beyond race and accepted the reality that black people count too. These good willed white people risked excommunication from their communities and even their lives in their efforts to help liberate black people.

In “The Help” Skeeter, the character brilliantly played by Emma Stone, is the quintessential good willed white woman who recognizes that to devalue and to debase a person because of the color of their skin is one of the worst forms of man’s inhumanity towards man. Skeeter breaks ranks from her cruel and callous cohorts and looks for ways to let the maids tell their story and also to reprogram them with a sense of worth.

It is through Skeeter that the movie goer sees how intelligent, witty, wonderful and human the black maids really are in the midst of an environment that they had no control over. The brilliance of blacks was always suppressed during this era. Thank God for all of the Skitters in the Civil Rights Movement.

Joining Skeeter in liberating the maids is the character of Celia Foote. Celia is a “dizzy blond” who has been excommunicated from the white social elite for suspicion of “messing around” with a married man. However, Minny tells her “they don’t like you because they think that you are white trash.” In that era and even today white people have their inter-racial caste system.

However “blond” Celia appears to be, she reaches out to Minny and gives her a second chance as a maid and in the process Celia is made whole through Minny from the pain of her past and her inability to have a full term pregnancy. This illustrates how therapeutic black maids were to white women in this era who needed someone to talk to because in many cases they were reduced to baby making factories for their husbands who were in search of a male successor to their empire. Celia was reborn as a woman because of her maid Minny.

The common thread that links Celia Foote and Skeeter is that these were moderate to liberal white women who would dare do what their conservative sisters would never dream of doing and what most white men would never consider during that period in the American pageantry apart from the influence of the moderate to liberal white woman.

Skeeter is to be further applauded for redeeming her mother. Skeeter’s mother fired her maid Constantine played by the immortal Cicely Tyson because her daughter dared to come through the front door to visit her mother at work while the Daughters of the American Revolution were seated at the table. A wicked look from one of the Daughters causes Charlotte to crumble and out goes Constantine.

When Skeeter finally asked what the deal with Constantine was many years later, the truth comes out. Skeeter is disappointed that her mother bowed to the forces of evil. Then her mother tells her “courage sometimes skips a generation – thank you for bringing it back to this family.”

Skeeter and Celia represented good willed white women who displayed courage and took risks to stand with and for black people.

Let’s take a moment to take a snapshot of the strength of the black maids. With all that these maid had to endure, they displayed an incredible show of strength in the face of ignorance and indignity from their white bosses.

First, they showed incredible paternal strength. Black maids raised two families. They raised their own children and the children of white families. Who besides a black woman had the strength to do this knowing that there were some things that they could not give their own children that they saw in the homes of their white bosses?

Second, they held to their faith in God! The church scenes in the movie are very representative of the great repository of hope that helped and still helps black people find and feel faith in the face of social ills and evils.

Third, after their work day ended, the maids found refuge in their homes. Abileen’s house was an escape from the horrors and hell of working on the “plantation.” Here they could use the toilet. Here they could laugh. Here they could talk about who they worked for. All of what was locked up inside of them was able to come out in the safety of their homes.

A great movie!

Atlanta radio personality Dr. Lorraine Jacques White asked me what the value of “The Help” was in 2011. I told her that sometimes we have to look back to live forward. What does this mean? This means that sometimes we have to revisit the past to evaluate how much progress we have made and also to understand the scars and stains of our past.

This is more important now than ever because many people are under the misnomer that we entered a colorblind era with the election of the first black president of the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Barack Obama won with a coalition of blacks, whites and Hispanics coming together to vote for him, that did not end racism. The 1961 Mississippi mentality is alive and well today in the hearts of many conservatives and Tea Party members.

The movie is also of value because it speaks to recent events. “The Help” was not set in some great distant past era. We are only talking about 50 years ago! For all of those in the black community who think that we have arrived nothing could be farther from the truth. We have turned many corners but we have many more corners to turn.

Perhaps the greatest value of the movie to me is that in America blacks and white are inextricably bound by a mutual thread in the American dream. We need each other. We are inseparable. If you cut a black or a white, we both bleed red blood. When we cry, we do not cry in black or white. We just cry.

Let me repeat this. We need each other. In the movie Hily needed Aibileen to show illustrate to her the biblical scripture “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.” Abileen needed Hily to show her that you do not have to trade evil for evil. Celia needed Minny to show her that you can write a new chapter in your life story. Minny needed Celia to prove that there are white people with good hearts who can look beyond race and accept a person for the “content of their character.”

“The Help” also reminded me that all of us have a lot to forgive each other for. Aibileen closes with a powerful line. “God said love your enemy. Sometimes it hard to do but it starts with telling them the truth.”

The truth is that we have a lot of healing to do. Thank you to “The Help” for helping us to see this truth.

TWO PACIFIERS PLEASE, ONE FOR TAVIS SMILEY AND ONE FOR CORNEL WEST

2011-08-11T19:00:00.000-04:00

The hip hop language in the African-American community to describe jealousy is known as “hating.” When an individual engages in consistent “hating,” we refer to that as “drinking haterade.” Perpetual “hating” is described as “choking on haterade.” Sadly, jealousy runs rampant in the African-American community. It always has and it always will until Jesus makes his grand re-entrance on planet earth.

Black on black jealousy (“hating”) roots runs all the way back to that dark and disgusting era in the American pageantry known as slavery. Blacks were often pitted against each other based on the color of their skin. The master in many cases did this on purpose in order to gain the allegiance of one group of slaves over the other. As a result, light skinned slaves were allowed to work in the master’s house while the dark skinned slave was relegated to tedious work in the master’s field. The light skinned slave became known as a “house negro” and the dark skinned slave became known as a “field negro.” Centuries later, filmmaker Spike Lee would explore this light skinned vs. dark skinned interracial civil war in his popular film School Daze.

Today on CNN with Suzanne M. Malveaux two millennial “haters” who have been on a 16-city “Poverty Tour: a Call to Conscience,” continued drinking from a fountain of haterade. These two revered men but who are now losing some of their reverence, has gone on a national “hating” tour. They are not “hating” on Republicans or Tea Party members. They are not “hating” on Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. Are you sitting down? PBS talk-show host/radio host Tavis Smiley and the legendary Dr. Cornel West are continuing to engage in a perpetual hate campaign against President Barack Obama.

Over the past few months both men have made outrageous claims against and even called President Obama various names. While I do not think that the president should be immune from critique, I do hold the thought that two intelligent men like Tavis and Cornell should know better than to talk about a black president in a public forum the way that they are. They are all too familiar with the perils and poison that emanates from such loose mouth messiness.

This is like Ralph Abernathy ratting out Martin Luther King, Jr. just before Ralph trades mortality for immortality. This is akin to Julius Gaius Caesar expecting to be stabbed by some of the Senators in the Curia when the stabbing starts but he cannot help but to give up the ghost when he realizes that Brutus is among the stabbers. It is from Caesar’s shock and disbelief that Shakespeare left us these immortal words, “Et Tu, Brute.”

Meet the new age Ralph Abernathy and Brutus in the persons of Tavis and Cornel. While both men have the right to disagree with Obama, they should not do it in public forums and fuel the fire for the president’s fierce political enemies. They have violated the African-American version of Reagan’s 12^th Republican commandment by publicly speaking evil of another black man.

They have called him a “Wall Street puppet.” In typical emotional verbal showmanship they also said, “He raised the debt ceiling but took the floor from under the poor.” “There was a declaration of war on the poor by this particular piece of debt-ceiling legislation,” Smiley said.

On yesterday Smiley said, “Even his own base, black people, the most loyal part of his base, are getting concerned about his handling of the economy. “They may very well lose this election, this re-election bid, by a margin of black absence at the polls.” So Tavis you are a part of “they?”

In Dr. West’s hate tirade he even blamed the president's negotiating tactics for giving rise to independents and the Tea Party. Festus the Roman Governor once said to the Apostle Paul, “much learning has made you mad.” Has much learning made Cornell West mad? Independents existed before Obama became president and the Tea Party was born during Bush II’s presidency. The Tea Party was anti-Obama from the jump and their antipathy towards him grows with each passing day.

Check this out, “He’s rightly associated much more with the oligarchs than with poor people,” says West. Adds Smiley, “I don’t think the President would be hurt, necessarily—the country certainly would not be hurt—by a primary challenge that would refocus him on what really matters. It would refocus him on what’s happening to too many people in this country. It would refocus him on a more progressive agenda.” Since these two men feel this way, then they should both vacate their jobs and run in the primary against President Obama.

West went on to issue this 2012 election threat, “We hope he gets a progressive economic team, even though, as you know, many of us are exploring other kinds of possibilities in the coming election, given his lukewarmness.” This is the quintessential example of West drinking haterade and approaching massive choking.

In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracynow.org West proudly said, “It’s very clear that President Obama caves in over and over and over again. He punts on first down. If you’re in a foxhole with him, you’re in trouble, because he wants to compromise, you want to fight. He doesn’t have the kind of backbone he ought to have.” Even if West feels this way, should he have said it out loud?

To further illustrate how petty Smiley is all you have to do is look at his recent boo-hooing because President Obama did not invite him to the White House. Who wants to invite their “hater” to dinner?

So where did all this “hating” come from? Tavis has been ticked off to the highest level of ticktivity ever since then candidate Obama could not attend his town hall meeting because he was on the campaign trail. Senator Obama desiring to have representation, opted to send Mrs. Michelle Obama. Tavis has been holding a grudge since that moment band it has metastasized into full blown hate.

Cornel West’s venture into “hateration” began when he noted that he did not receive tickets to the Obama's inauguration. This is “hate” at its height. Did George H. Bush, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush invite West to their inaugurations? If West didn’t “hate” then, then why is he hating now? He had a chance to blast three white men for not giving him inauguration tickets and he passed and opted to blast the first black president. “Hate.” “Hateration.” “Haterade.”

We at the Augustus Blog have two questions. 1) Who is bank rolling this bus tour for Smiley and West? 2) Why didn’t they go on a 25-city bus tour during the Bush presidency when the economic began a meteoric downturn?

What Smiley and West need are pacifiers and about a month in adult timeout.

SENATOR MITCH MCCONELL COMES TO HIS SENSES ON THE DEBT CEILING

2011-07-26T20:14:00.000-04:00

As the madness over the nation’s debt ceiling rages on, an unlikely voice of reason is emerging from an unlikely candidate: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Listen to what McConnell said a few hours ago: “We are going to have to get back together and get a solution here,” McConnell said of formal talks with the White House and congressional Democrats. “We cannot get a perfect solution, from my point of view, controlling only the House of Representatives. So I am prepared to accept something less than perfect because perfect is not achievable.”

This is the same McConnell who told his fellow Republicans to say no to everything that President Obama proposed three weeks before he was sworn in as President. This is the same Mitch McConnell who mounts the Senate rostrum and bashes the president over healthcare, the national debt, the sun rising in the East and setting in the West, the fact that the grass is green and for inviting a rapper to the White House.

Yet, on today, the Augustus Blog salutes Mitch for being a voice of reason and reality for his party. He has stepped out of silliness and into seriousness. Senator McConnell is correct in saying that all sides need to come back together and come up with a solution to this national disgrace. He is right that there is no perfect solution because we have a divided government. He is also correct again when he says “So I am prepared to accept something less than perfect because perfect is not achievable.”

If an ultra-conservative like McConnell can step up to the plate, then Speaker John Boehner and the Tea Party need to heed his voice of reason and throw their irritating ideology out of the window. This is not about parties. This is about people. Mitch gets it even though he already knew it. Also, this is a Pontius Pilate moment where McConnell does not want the blood of defeated Republicans on his hands in 2012.

While McConnell is only one voice, we believe that many of his Senate colleagues will also see the light. However, the bigger problem is with the circus in the House of Representatives where the political heathen yet rages. Bad boy Boehner cannot reign in his herd of out of control political apocalyptic horses. Word from Washington is that his plan is in danger of failing to get passed by his own Republican-controlled House, which would weaken his party's negotiating influence on a final deal. According to breaking news on CNN a few moments ago, Boehner is now rewriting his plan.

Quick prediction, Boehner will not be the Speaker of the House after the 2012 elections.

Even with a temporary conversion by Sen. McConnell, conservatives including some House and Senate Republicans and the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group, have attacked Boehner’s plan for not doing enough to tackle the nation's mounting deficits and debt.

“I'm not voting against the speaker, but I'm voting against this plan,” Rep. Jim Jordan, a fellow Ohioan who heads the conservative Republican Study Committee, told CNN. Asked if Boehner had the votes to pass the measure in the chamber he leads, Jordan said: "I don't think so now."

CNN is reporting that in a letter to their House colleagues, a group of conservative senators harshly criticized the Boehner plan as insufficient and called on Republicans to reject it in favor of the "cut, cap and balance" plan previously passed by the House and dismissed by the Senate.

“For many reasons, we cannot support this bill and urge you to protect the American taxpayers by strongly opposing this bill,” said the letter from Republican Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah and David Vitter of Louisiana.

Even with McConnell daring to use a word that has been absent from the Republican lexicon, compromise, the loose cannons in Washington are still putting their personal interests above the interests of every day America.

Americans are rightly putting pressure on Washington to do what McConnell is suggesting. Capitol Hill phone lines were jammed all day long and the websites of key lawmakers -- including House Speaker John Boehner – came crashing to cyber-earth as citizens from sea to shining sea let their voices be heard after President Obama urged them to action on last night.

Phone calls to House offices were about 35,000 an hour. America is sick and tired of sandbox politicians. Grow up already.

Today we agree with Mitch. One more time: “We are going to have to get back together and get a solution here.” “We cannot get a perfect solution, from my point of view, controlling only the House of Representatives. So I am prepared to accept something less than perfect because perfect is not achievable.”

Congress accept something less than perfect so that poor children can still eat, so that seniors can get their Social Security checks, so that Medicare recipients can go to the doctor, so that our veterans can get their checks and so that the American dream can come off of life support.

DEBT CEILING SHOWDOWN: A STRONG PRESIDENT AND A SCARED SPEAKER

2011-07-26T13:44:00.000-04:00

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Caesar is warned not to go to the Roman Curia on the Ides of March by both a soothsayer and his wife Calpurnia to which Julius Gaius Caesar replied, “Cowards die many times before their death but the valiant taste of death but once.” While he was stabbed around 23 times, only one of those blows was fatal.

In death Caesar became immortal through Mark Anthony’s oration “Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar not to praise him….” However, his adopted son Octavian who later became Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus deified him and all succeeding emperors after Augustus took the name Caesar. History does not record Julius Caesar as a coward. Instead he is remembered as the founding father of the new Rome upon which Augustus remarked, “I found Rome clay and left it marble.”

President Barack Obama has been accused of being weak and afraid to stand up to the Republican Party. While the Augustus Blog has never thought that, but for those who did, on last night the president had a Julius Caesar moment and he stood tall before the American people as he made his debt ceiling argument to a nervous public and a petrified wall street along with nervous world markets.

Mr. Obama laid the blame at the feet of the people who need to take the blame for driving America to the brink of a complete catastrophic collapse of our financial system: The Republican Party. America is in this embarrassing posture because the Republican Party signed a blood oath with the Tea Party that they would not raise taxes. While moderate and sensible Republicans know that the debt ceiling vote is a routine act of Congress and many of them raised it for Presidents Reagan (18 times), Bush I, (9 times) Clinton (4 times) and Bush II (7 times) on multiple occasions, they are balking at Obama because of their Mephistopheles move with the Tea Party.

The President looked the American people in the face and told us that he is doing the best that he can and that it is irresponsible for Congress to let this great nation default.

“The only reason this balanced approach isn’t on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a different approach, a cuts-only approach — an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all,” Mr. Obama said in his address. “And because nothing is asked of those at the top of the income scales, such an approach would close the deficit only with more severe cuts to programs we all care about — cuts that place a greater burden on working families.”

The fact of the matter is that Republicans want the president to fail. They want to defeat him in 2012. They want the White House and the Senate so that they can force a conservative agenda down the throats of the American people. They want to turn the clock back. They want “their country back.” They want to incite fear and rage. As a result, they have found a willing co-conspirator to assist them: The Tea Party.

President Obama was correct on last night when he said that America voted for a divided government but they did not vote for a dysfunctional government. To say that this government is dysfunctional would be to disrespect the word dysfunctional. Whatever comes after dysfunctional would be more appropriate for this Congress. Let’s try: mean spirited, divisive, ignorant, self-centered, self-serving, childish, hypocritical and horrible.

Washington is no longer the seat of our national government. The national Capitol has become the seat of a pathetic poisonous partisan cesspool that is sending a stink from sea to shining sea as well as around the globe. As Mr. Obama said on last night, “This is “no way to run the greatest country of Earth.”

Republicans have put party above the people! They have placed ideology above rationality. In their marriage to the Tea Party, they have placed their values above the needs of Americans. In their quest to destroy President Obama they are systematically and knowingly destroying the American dream. In their America unless we have the mark of the Republican beast, then we are cut off from “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

If you are a minority, a woman, gay, lesbian, homosexual, illegal immigrant or even worse if you are black you need not apply for human dignity in the Republican American dream!

These people are out of control. They do not have a mandate for their madness. Republicans have not created one job since they became the majority party in the House of Representatives. All they have created is more and more madness which is why we have the debt ceiling crisis.

America is watching. America is paying attention just like they were during the healthcare debate. According to a CNN poll 51 percent of those surveyed said that would blame Republicans if the debt ceiling weren’t raised, compared with 30 percent who would blame Obama.

“If this goes past a deadline and people feel the impact of that, then I think they will want to hold somebody accountable,” Michael Dimock, associate director at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, said yesterday in a telephone interview. The Washington-based nonpartisan center studies attitudes toward politics and policy issues.

Americans are crying out in a loud voice. “They’re not in touch with reality,” said Cheryl Carroll, 51, who lives in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, with her two daughters and has been subsisting off her family’s investments since her husband died last year while applying for jobs in retail. “They should really get an average American in Congress who knows how to balance their checkbook,” Carroll said. “It would be fixed in a week.”

Obama was right for ripping House Republicans for pushing a “cuts-only approach” that ask that gives the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations another “hall pass” which allows them not to contribute anything at all. He renewed his call for a “balanced approach” that would include no extension of Bush-era tax cuts for families making over $250,000 a year.

However, Speaker John Boehner blasted Obama in his nationally televised response and accused the president of engaging in a “spending binge” that contributed to “a national debt that has gotten so out of hand it has sparked a crisis without precedent in my lifetime or yours.”

Obviously not only is Mr. Boehner a cry baby but he also suffers from selective amnesia. It was Boehner and his buddies under Bush II who put America in this financial crisis. Furthermore, Boehner voted to raise the debt ceiling each time that “Dubya” asked him to do so. Boehner takes big for the cameras but behind closed doors with his party he is like the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz. He knows what the right thing to do is but he is in the Tea Party doghouse.

Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have put forth competing plans to resolve the debt ceiling nightmare. “I hope my colleagues on the other side will still know a good deal when they see it. I hope they'll remember how to say yes,” Reid said. “Democrats have done more than just meet Republicans in the middle. We've met them all the way.”

Boehner, however, argued at a Monday afternoon news conference that Reid's plan is “full of gimmicks.” The package “doesn't deal with the biggest drivers of our deficits and debt, and that's entitlement programs,” Boehner said. There it is! Republicans want to raid and dismantle Social Security and Medicare.

Not one time in last night’s press conference did Boehner mention the word compromise. The debt ceiling cannot be raised without a compromise. Republican President Ronald Reagan raised it with Democratic Speaker of the House “Tip” O’Neil and Democratic President Bill Clinton raised it with Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

Reagan, “Tip.”, “Big Bill” and Newt all understood that the needs of ordinary Americans were more important than the need of petty politicians to prove a point.

Our President has shown the courage of Julius Gaius Caesar even with Speaker Boehner playing the role of Marcus Junius Brutus and Eric Cantor reprising the role of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus or simply Pompey.

Today’s editorial in the New York Times is on target. “House Republicans have lost sight of the country’s welfare. It’s hard to conclude anything else from their latest actions, including the House speaker’s dismissal of President Obama’s plea for compromise Monday night. They have largely succeeded in their campaign to ransom America’s economy for the biggest spending cuts in a generation. They have warped an exercise in paying off current debt into an argument about future spending. Yet, when they win another concession, they walk away.”

So what will happen? While the Augustus Blog does not have a crystal ball, we predict that Reid’s plan will pass the Senate and Boehner’s plan will pass the House. Since they are competing bills, they will go to a conference committee and create a compromised bill which will pass both chambers and then go to President Obama for his signature and both parties will claim victory. We believe that the Reid plan will figure prominently into the final passage of a bill to raise the debt ceiling and all will be well in Rome. I mean AmericaJ

While we sit on the edge of our political seats awaiting the debt ceiling’s fate, the Augustus Blog would like to encourage Congress to grow up, get out of the sandbox, stop pointing fingers and do your jobs!

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SHOOTOUT WITH REPUBLICANS ON RAISING THE DEBT CEILING

2011-07-15T10:16:00.000-04:00

Growing up in my beloved and beautiful Washington, Georgia I loved watching Westerns on Saturdays with my grandmother. Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and anything with Clint Eastwood in it and others ranked and reigned among my favorites.

I watched with zoomed in intensity the scenes in which there were shootouts. Men with dueling pistols would huddle behind buildings and water wells and duke it out until only the good guys were left standing.

One of the most infamous and real shootouts occurred at The O. K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona October 26, 1881. This was a showdown between outlaws and law enforcement and became the stuff of western folklore.

Since they did not have cell phones, text messaging and YouTube in 1881, we cannot speak with any accuracy of the actual facts of the shootout. However, some of the names from that that day achieved western folklore immortality. Ike and Billy Clanton, Billy Claiborne, Frank and Tom McLaury, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday became instant legends.

Fast forward with me to 7.14.11 and allow me to introduce you to a 21^st century O. K. Corral. On one side we have the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi firing from behind a well of hope. On the other side we have House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor hiding behind a collapsing building of flaw and foolish ideology. These opposing executive and legislative gunslingers are dueling it out over America’s debt ceiling.

The stakes are high and the impact will be far reaching. America for the first time in modern history runs the risk of defaulting on her debt. The domino that will fall if no deal is reached will be far reaching. For example Social Security recipients might not get their checks after 8.2.11. Our troops who are duking it out in Afghanistan and Iraq might not get paid after 8.2.11. Medicare and Medicaid payments might come to a grinding halt. Food stamps and the FBI will be impacted. In other words failure to raise the debt ceiling will result in an Economic Armageddon.

The shootout at White House Corral became very tense on yesterday with President Obama getting up and walking out of dodge. Mr. 44^th showed some much needed bravado for all of those individuals who keep calling him weak. He even chastised the guys hiding behind the collapsing building.

According to confirmed reports the president told the gunslingers that the political pettiness which is trumping patriotism is what the public considers to be the worst of Washington.

Obama really fired off at the cantankerous Eric Cantor when he said, “'Eric, don't call my bluff.” “I'm going to the American people with this.”

Just before Barack Obama put his gun back in his holster, he laid this bullet on the table, “I've sat here long enough -- no other president -- Ronald Reagan -- would sit here like this.”

The fact of the matter here is that Republicans are not negotiating in good faith. The hyper-hypocrisy here is almost incredulous. During the Bush presidency, Repubs raised the debt ceiling at least 12-15 times. This is pure politics. The Repubs want to defeat Obama in 2012. They want to campaign on a terrible trifecta: Obama-care, Obama-economy and Obama-debt. Essentially the Republicans want America to believe that every problem in America is the result of Barack Obama being America’s president.

We have to hit the rewind button for a moment. Shortly before the president was sworn in, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his colleagues that they had to work hard to say no to everything that Mr. Obama would propose. This was BEFORE the man even took office. Mr. McConnell revised his political idiocy by saying that a deal will never get done as long as Barack Obama is president. Is this what prompted Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri to say, “I believe that Mitch McConnell has lost his mind?

The debt ceiling is personal politics at its worst. In their shootout to defeat the president, Republicans have put every sector of American at risk: children at risk, seniors at risk, the middle class at risk, the working poor at risk, the poor at risk and most importantly, the American Dream runs the risk of becoming an American Nightmare.

Having presupposed all of that, I must admit that I do not quite understand why the president did not include raising the debt ceiling in his December package when he got almost everything that he wanted in the not so “lame duck” session of Congress. To the Augustus Blog that would have been the most logical move because he had some monumental momentum after that nasty November shellacking.

Nevertheless, we are witnessing a shootout at The White House Corral. It is petty. It is pitiful. It is selfish. It is the epitome of political sandbox silliness. It reveals the worst of pathetic partisan politics. This is what happens when you have a deeply divided government with one party’s goal of ousting the other party out of the White House in the next election.

Speaker Boehner has to know that he and Cantor are wrong on this one. While the problem is multi-faceted, the underlying and ugly truth is that the Repubs made a deal with the devil when they got in bed with the Tea Party to win back the House of Representatives. The Tea Party made them sign a blood oath not to raise taxes.

You cannot raise the debt ceiling on the backs of the middle class, working poor, seniors, Medicare and Social Security. There must be some share balancing like getting the rich to pay more in taxes. President Bill Clinton said as much.

To default when there is a solution is to let every American down.

Voters are finally tuning into this wicked wild western standoff. Not only are they tuning in but according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted July 5-11, a clear majority of registered voters are laying the blame for “no deal” at the feet of congressional Republicans.

When voters were asked to whom they would assign responsibility should the limit not be raised, 48 percent of respondents chose the congressional Republicans; 34 percent said they would blame the Obama administration. “The findings highlight the political repercussions that the GOP could confront should default occur.”

Could this be why Mitch McConnell has suggested a plan that would place the burden for raising the debt ceiling squarely on President Obama, by giving him the power to continue to borrow money, which could only be vetoed by a two-thirds majority in Congress?

“If we go into default he [Obama] will say Republicans are making the economy worse,” McConnell concluded. “And all of a sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy.” Mitch obviously suffers from political amnesia because it was his support of Bush’s policies that created this “bad economy.”

Conversely, the White House has seemingly convinced the public of the president’s willingness to compromise on the debt ceiling even as Obama continues to seek a mega-deal that raises revenue in addition to cutting spending.

While the polls send a screaming message, this should not be about Obama, Democrats or Republicans. This should be about Americans. This should be about hard working everyday people who believe in and are living the American dream. This should be about Americans who want access to the American dream. Sadly, this has become about pathetic partisan politics.

The world is watching America from England to Greece to China to Brazil to India and many places in between. We are America and we are bigger than this. Pettiness should not trump patriotism.

President Obama was correct to stand up to the Republicans who have shown consistent disrespect to him even before he was sworn into office. President Obama was right to shut Mr. Cantor down. He has given Democrats and Republicans 24 to 36 hours to finalize a path forward for raising the debt ceiling during.

“It’s decision time,” the president said on yesterday. “We need concrete plans to move this forward.”

On Thursday a major credit rating agency, Standard and Poor's, said it was placing the United States' sovereign rating on “CreditWatch with negative implications.”

Owing to the dynamics of the political debate on the debt ceiling, there is at least a one-in-two likelihood that we could lower the long-term rating on the U.S. within the next 90 days,” Standard and Poor's said in a statement.

It is time for Washington to put America above partisan politics and elections and raise the debt ceiling to keep our nation from defaulting and destroying both the American dream and our credit rating.

This can get done and it will get done but the path to getting it done has turned into a nasty shootout. President Obama will address America at 11AM EST on today. The Augustus Blog will be listening.

Back to the Westerns one last time. Who will be the good guys left standing after this White House version of O. K. Corral?

ATLANTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS: A NATIONAL DISGRACE

2011-07-07T00:55:00.002-04:00

7.5.11 is a day that will live in educational infamy for the Atlanta Public Schools. A scathing report that reads like a RICO indictment from a special investigation into cheating on state tests administered by the Atlanta Public Schools is a new shot heard around the world. Atlanta national rising star Mayor Kasim Reed said the findings “confirms our worst fears.” “Yesterday morning was really the hardest day I have had as mayor of Atlanta or anytime,” Reed said. “Just to hear all of it laid out in a fashion, that is almost irrefutable, by a serious person (Gov. Deal) is really, very hard.”

The report revealed that 178 educators, including 38 principals, had participated in cheating with 82 individuals confessing that they cheated. The report also concluded that then APS Superintendent Beverly Hall knew or should have known that cheating was occurring and that she and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct and claimed ignorance of wrongdoing.

Investigators paint a terrible picture of an educational criminal enterprise where unethical — and possibly illegal — behavior was present at every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to lead a deceptive public persona wherein they were praise and even earned bonuses while they misled the children, parents and community they served.

This is a shame. This is embarrassing. This is unethical. This is unacceptable. This is U.N.B.E.L.I.V.A.B.L.E! This is the epitome of the intentional and purposeful mis-education of our precious students in the Atlanta Public School System.

Who would embezzle test scores at the peril of precious students? The troubling answer is 178 educators and sadly among them 38 principals. While a superintendent whose star has fallen out of the educational firmament, administrators, principals and teachers bragged and boasted about rising test scores, our children were being cheated out of an education.

Students were promoted to maintain a public image when they were not academically prepared. “The cheating cut off struggling students from the extra help they would have received if they’d failed.” What is troubling here is that apparently neither Hall nor the educators cared anything about struggling students and the students who needed help with reading, writing and arithmetic.

Based on this report none of the 178 poor excuses for educators cared about one single student. These people chose to purposefully and willfully created an educational criminal enterprise that relegated students to pawns in a wicked web of test score embezzlement.

“In some schools, the report said, cheating became a routine part of administering the annual state Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests.” “The investigators describe highly organized, coordinated efforts to falsify tests when children could not score high enough to meet the district’s self-imposed goals.”

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t. APS thought that it was Don Corleone but the Godfather did not harm children. APS played the role of Al Capone but Capone never cheated children. What APS did was worse than any Corleone act because it involves horrific educational crimes against kids. And that is hard to forgive.

Whose fault is it that this has happened to the most vulnerable members of our community, our children. There is enough blame to go around. However, you have to start with the Empress of APS, disgraced former superintendent Beverly Hall who is now chilling in Hawaii while APS burns. While Rome burned in 64 A. D. Nero watched from his palace on the Palatine. While APS burned, Hall is on a beach.

Hall’s lawyer Richard Deane said, “Apparently, not one of the 82 persons who allegedly ‘confessed' to cheating told the investigators that Dr. Hall at any time instructed, encouraged or condoned cheating.” “The report’s conclusion that Dr. Hall actually knew of any such cheating is based entirely on supposition. The further conclusion that Dr. Hall 'should have known' rests on negative inferences from selective, circumstantial evidence.”

At the Augustus Group we do not agree with this assessment by Hall’s counsel. He is her paid lawyer and is supposed to spin in her favor. However, when you are the empress you are responsible for what happens on your watch. Maybe Hall did not order anyone to cheat but there is no way that she did not know something. It is appropriate to apply here what was said about President Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon regarding Watergate, “What did Beverly Hall know and when did she know it?”

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Hall preferred to spend her time networking with philanthropic and business leaders rather than walking the halls of her schools, the investigators found. But when the scandal erupted, she withheld key information — state data on the suspicious erasures — even from executives and civic leaders who the school board, at Hall’s urging, appointed to conduct the inquiry.

If this is true, then Hall may end up having to explain her actions to a jury.

Next up for blame is the Atlanta School Board. These folk were elected to serve and protect our children. Yet, their bickering and battling among themselves over the years has helped to create this environment because while they suing each other and arguing over who should be the chairman, our children were being taken advantage up. The School Board could not call for an investigation into to APS when the rumor first broke because they were engaged in sandbox silliness.

Finally, you have to blame the 178 named in the report. Would they have done this to their own children? What this worth a bonus? Was this worth a promotion? Was this worth a plaque or trophy? Was this worth personal recognition? Was this worth notoriety at the cost of what amounts to educational racketeering at the expense of children?

A lot of people do not believe that this has happened. Some people are crying racism and politics. We REJECT those cries. This is not about race or politics. This is about unethical educators whose actions demonstrate that they do not care about children.

AJC reports that investigators conducted more than 2,100 interviews and examined more than 800,000 documents in what is likely the most wide-ranging investigation into test-cheating in a public school district ever conducted in United States history. That many interviews and that many documents have nothing to do with racism or politics.

Here is a sampling of some of the alleged acts of educational racketeering that occurred according to the report.

At Venetian Hills, a group of teachers and administrators who dubbed themselves “the chosen ones” convened to change answers in the afternoons or during makeup testing days, investigators found. Principal Clarietta Davis, a testing coordinator told investigators, wore gloves while erasing to avoid leaving fingerprints on answer sheets.

At Kennedy Middle, children who couldn’t read not only passed the state reading test, but scored at the highest level possible. At Perkerson Elementary, a student sat under a desk, then randomly filled in answers and still passed.

At East Lake Elementary, the principal and testing coordinator instructed teachers to arrange students’ seats so that the lower-performing children would receive easier versions of the Fifth Grade Writing Tests.

If this is true, would you want your children educated by these people?

So what is next? We predict charges, indictments and revocation of teaching certificates and possible jail time for somebody or probation at the least. Somebody has to pay and somebody will pay. Of course the big fish is Hall. Will she get caught in the prosecutorial net? Stay tuned.

The prosecutors in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties will decide if criminal charges will be brought.

While we wait to see if criminal charges will be brought, Interim Atlanta Superintendent Erroll Davis vowed that cheating educators found guilty of having cheated “are not going to be put in front of children again.”

This good because none of the 178 deserve to be in front of children or making decisions for children again in the Atlanta Public School System ever again. As the aged Emperor Marcus Aurelius said to Maximus in Gladiator of his wild and wicked son Commodus, “Commodus cannot rule! He must not rule!” These 178 cannot educate! They must not educate!

These 178 will not walk away without any consequences. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal (R) who released the report said, “There will be consequences” for educators who cheated. “The report’s findings are troubling,” he said, “but I am encouraged this investigation will bring closure to problems that existed.”

The real tragedy here is no one is talking about what will happen to the kids who were cheated. How can we make them whole? How can we help them? How can we ensure that they do not become statistics and fall through the cracks of life? What about their future? How do you explain this to their parents? Did the tainted 178 ever think about any of these questions?

Finally, we salute Mayor Reed for fighting for the children in APS even though he has no direct power as Mayor over the school board or the school system but he smelled a dead cat on the line and now we see where that smell was coming from: The Atlanta Public School System. What an embarrassment to the children, their families, our city, our state and our country.

God please help the children!

ANALYZING TONIGHT’S REPUBLICAN DEBATE

2011-06-13T23:37:00.000-04:00

Let me begin this blog post by asking a very serious question. Where are the African-Americans in New Hampshire? I looked long and hard for just one and did not see anyone who looked like me in the audience. Not all African-Americans are Democrats.

Tonight the road to the White House began for 7 Republicans who have their eyes eagerly set on ensuring that President Barack Obama only gets to take up residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for four years and not one day more.

The 7 are U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

I watched this debate from beginning to end and here is the Augustus Blog’s analysis of the debate in the Opera House in Rochester, New Hampshire:

1. There were no gotcha moments. This was a balanced debate. We were shocked that the other six did not go after perceived frontrunner Mitt Romney. The Ronald Reagan commandment that “thou shall not attack thy fellow republican” remained intact tonight.

2. This was clearly a debate that revealed the Republican path forward in their attempt to capture the White House: attack President Obama and “Obamacare.” Each candidate went after Mr. Obama and his much maligned healthcare overhaul. Currently there is support for the repeal of “obamacare.” In fact Gov. Romney said that he would repeal the current law on day one in office. Yet, Romney never stated what new healthcare plan he would propose. Once the Republican nominee is selected, he or she will make “obamacare” the hallmark of their platform.

3. JOBS! Newt Gingrich came out of the gate pointing out that 14 million Americans are jobless and we need to find jobs for them. Again, President Obama will have to defend his jobs record when he debates the Republican nominee. It will not be enough to lay the blame at the feet of former President George W. Bush. The 2012 election will come down to jobs. No president has been re-elected since Franklin D. Roosevelt when the unemployment rate has been above 8%.

4. The candidates tried to “out-conservative” each other. We are talking about trying to see how far to the right these right wingers could go! The sad fact here is that all they did was to revive the hate and hurt that has become their brand by attacking gays in the military and suggesting the reintroduction of “a loyalty test.” Most Americans have gotten beyond one’s individual sexuality and sexual preferences. One’s sexuality has nothing to do with our nation’s unemployment and joblessness.

5. While attacking every policy that President Obama has introduced, the candidates vying for his job failed to offer one complete plan to replace the policies that they detest so much.

6. Romney failed to acknowledge that he was wrong about the auto industry bailout and that President Obama was right. The former governor said that Mr. Obama should have allowed GM to file for bankruptcy. What Romney failed to mention was that GM has almost paid back every dollar of their government loan and is set to overtake Toyota later this month in world auto sales. Obama was right and Romney was wrong.

7. Sarah Bachman was better prepared than many thought that she would be. She was sharp and deliberate in her answers.

8. Mitt Romney will not get another pass from his opponents like he did tonight. This was be nice to Mitt night and slam Obama instead. Even Gov. Pawlenty backed off his “Obamromney care” comment which was his way of tying Obama and Romney’s healthcare plans together. CNN host John King gave him two chances to own his Sunday talk show comment. Pawlenty would not take the bone. Romney will not be so fortunate in succeeding debates.

9. While Newt is on life support, he is not dead yet. While major players in Newt’s campaign jumped ship over the weekend including former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, Newt held his own on tonight. He knows the issues. He is very politically intelligent. His ego will keep him in the race as long as he and his wife feel like spending money. However, Republicans will say no to Newt.

10. Herman Cain has a lot of work to do. He has to learn the issues and then he has to articulate the issues.

11. Why is Ron Paul really in this race?

12. Why does Gov. Pawlenty come off as so mean?

13. Who talked Senator Rick Santorum into getting into this race?

14. Is Sarah Palin seething because of Bachman’s performance on tonight? When will Palin and her circus join this field?

15. What was going through former presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani and Texas Governor Rick Perry minds as they contemplate joining this weak field?

16. President Obama can sleep well tonight because none of the candidates was even able to fear in their fellow debaters.

There is a long way to go before the Republican nominee is selected. The debates will get better as time goes on. However, tonight left a lot to be desired.

WHAT BISHOP EDDIE LONG MUST DO NOW

2011-05-27T19:14:00.001-04:00

On September 25, 2010 the Augustus Blog posted on the Bishop Eddie Long sex scandal in DeKalb County, Georgia. That blog instantly became our most read. On today the lawsuit filed against Long by Anthony Flagg, Spencer LeGrande, Jamal Parris and Maurice Robinson was dismissed with “prejudice” exactly one day after both parties agreed to a settlement. The term with prejudice means that the four young men cannot sue Long for the same charges again in the future.

First, we would like to refresh the hard drive of your memory by referring you to our initial blog post on this subject entitled “What Bishop Eddie Long Must Do Tomorrow” by following this link: http://theaugustusblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-bishop-eddie-long-must-do-tomorrow.html.

Second, the question becomes what should Bishop Eddie Long do now? The suit lawsuit has been officially settled. There was no way even under hypnosis that this case would ever end up in court before a judge and jury. Long simply could not afford to have the alleged salacious details publicly revealed in a DeKalb County courtroom.

Settling was in the best interest of Long. Thomas Eaton, a law professor at the University of Georgia, said two-thirds to three-fourths of all civil suits are resolved out of court “by settlements just like this.”

We can understand why some people feel that you do not settle a case if you are truly innocent. This is especially true in Long’s case because shortly after the allegations surfaced, he took to the pulpit with his iPad in hand and declared that he was going to “vigorously” defend himself against the charges. He also famously stated “This thing I'm gonna fight.”

Conflicted member former member Barbara Chumbler said she always believed the allegations were false, “although a settlement to me makes you look guilty.” She said that she was disappointed that case was settled.

Settling this case in the minds of some people is an admission of some sort of guilt at an incredible level by a man who has presented himself a gladiatorial defender of masculinity. At the end of the day four men charged him with coercing them into having sex with him. Their charges had to have some kind of merit at some level because they were successful in their lawsuit against him.

New Birth Church released a statement through spokesperson Art Franklin which said the settlement “is the most reasonable road for everyone to travel.” This is going to be a rocky road. “This decision was made to bring closure to this matter and to allow us to move forward with the plans God has for this ministry.”

Surely there is life after every church storm. However, in this case while the church and Longfellows Academy can turn the legal page in this matter, Long cannot so easily turn the page personally.

So what must Long do now?

First, he must express some kind of sincere and pure public repentance to his congregation. He does not owe New Birth or the public any of the details but he does owe them an apology for bringing shame on his flock. Perhaps he could say “Look, I like many men and women of God before me I am the embodiment of the Apostle Paul’s words to the Church at Rome.” “I have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

“I like you have my demons too. Those demons have gotten the best of me and I need some help.” “I have failed God. I have failed my wife. I have failed my children and I have failed my church and I have failed my community.”

“My humanity has gotten me to this point and I ask for your forgiveness. I also ask for forgiveness from my victims. While I love New Birth and all that New Birth represents, as of today, I am going to take an indefinite leave of absence from the Church and go and get the help and healing that I have needed for a very long time and have been in denial about for far too long.”

Second, the Bishop must avoid coming off as arrogant, cocky and vindictive. He should not target the alleged victims in his sermons. He should also consider letting the toupee go along with the tight muscle shirts. Appearance and perception are very important when you stand in the pulpit.

Third, while we are not in a position to tell any Pastor what to preach, Long may want to consider returning to preaching about Jesus in a substantive and “other than” prosperity Gospel manner. The Bishop is a theologically trained man so it should be easy for him to preach Jesus.

If Bishop Eddie Long follows this prescription, then he may be able to salvage more of his ministry than you would think that he could under these circumstances.

Remember when we said that while New Birth and Longfellows Academy could turn the page on the civil suit but Long cannot do so easily? One reason that it will be more challenging for Long to turn the page is because of the fact that his supporters have to decide how they are going to react to him settling the case because attendance at New Birth had fallen dramatically before the settlement.

I have always maintained that as Christians we can choose our sins but we cannot choose the consequences of our sins. Long cannot choose the consequences of his settling this case. A large part of those consequences will be decided by New Birth members.

Shayne Lee, a sociology professor at Tulane University in Louisiana and an authority on televangelists, said Long’s out of court settlement may erode some of his support.

“To the average congregation in the black church, those are some very serious charges,” Lee said, referring to the men’s charges against Long. “You can’t settle outside of court. You have to fight and roll up your sleeves, be defiant and fight it.”

Looking at it from another view Atlanta Pastor Tim McDonald said, “Black folks have very short memories.” “We are the most forgiving people on the planet.”

Pastor McDonald has good intentions but his presentation in the aforementioned statement would lead the casual reader to the poor assumption that all of the black people at New Birth will automatically opt to dismiss this entire drama without any discussion and return to business as usual.

Forgiveness does not mean a return to business as usual. Forgiveness means that we are moving forward with a new understanding. New Birthers will have a huge say in how New Birth moves forward.

McDonald did say something that we agree with after he revealed that he had met with Long. “I found him opening up,” McDonald said. “If he can pick that back up and humble himself and stop saying things like, ‘I ain’t just another chicken-eating preacher,’ he’ll survive.”

Before the scandal erupted, Long would often publicly criticize other black pastors, and once said they “major in storefront buildings,” suggesting that they lacked the smarts to build a megachurch like he had.

Humility will have to become a constant companion of Long’s if he is to survive. He can never again criticize other black pastors. King Solomon wisely said in the book of Proverbs “Pride goes before destruction.”

In order for Long to turn the page he must repent, apologize, humble himself and return to preaching Jesus and then he can recover. It is all on Eddie now. He can have life after the settlement.

The Holy Bible is packed and piled with a plethora of people who recovered from the horror of their wayward ways. Moses recovered from murdering an Egyptian and became Israel’s liberator. David repented and is remembered as Israel’s most beloved King and more importantly he is the only man in the Bible labeled as “a man after God’s own heart.” Peter repented and became head of the Church. There is room for Long in this long lineage of biblical survivors.

Will Long repent and recover? Only Long knows and time will tell. Surely he has to be humbled by what he has gone through. As a close friend of mine said on last night, “Eddie must ask God to help him to strengthen what remains.”

The Bishop Eddie Long that we once knew we will never know again. He must reinvent and reintroduce himself first to himself, then to his family and finally to his Church.

Lee says, “He can say ‘I still have my anointing and I still have my ministry.’ ’’ “He can say that God is working out the weeds so that the tree has a stronger foundation.”

Pastors can be anointed but anointing does not equate to perfection. Anointing is an empowerment from God to carry out the assignment that God has given you. The pastor can taint the anointing but the pure anointing from God can never be tainted. The question becomes two-fold. First, what is Long’s assignment now and how tainted is he?

While people may be slow to forgive or never forgive, Long needs to understand that God does forgive and gives 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and even more chances.

We will continue to pray for the victims, Bishop Long, Bishop’s family, the New Birth family and LongFellows Academy.

This is what the Augustus Blog suggests what Bishop Eddie Long must do now.

OMINOUS SIGN FROM NEW YORK FOR HOUSE REPUBLICANS

2011-05-26T01:12:00.000-04:00

House District #26 in upstate New York nestled between Buffalo and Rochester is one of the most conservatively reliable safe Republican seats in all of congress. This has been the case with a few exceptions here and there for Republicans since the Civil War. That is a long time for one party to hold a seat.

On Tuesday there was a special election to fill this seat which became open after disgraced former Republican Representative Chris Lee resigned after his Craigslist nocturnal escapade.

Republican state assembly woman Jane Corwin was supposed to be a shoo-in for victory and thus keeping #26 in the Republican column. In fact Corwin was up so big in the polls that her campaign people began to quietly plan her victory party. However, somebody forgot to tell Democratic contender Kathy Hochul that the race was already over.

Something strange happened on the way to the polls in upstate New York Tuesday. Hochul trounced Corwin and a third party candidate. How could a democrat win in this ultra-far right conservative republican political haven? What happened?

Medicare happened. This race was about Medicare. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has put forth a destructive and devilish Medicare plan that passed the House and people outside of Washington have attacked Ryan’s plan as a war against senior citizens.

Dan Balz of the Washington Post correctly assesses the election results. “Call it a wake-up call or a major setback. Whatever, the victory by Democrat Kathy Hochul in a heavily Republican congressional district, in a race in which Medicare was a major issue, reinforced the reality that the GOP plunged into a debate over entitlements reform without a strategy for winning the battle for public opinion.”

Let me interpret Balz for you. Once again when they have gained power, the Republican Party has overreached and attacked the everyday man and the everyday woman. Republicans have once again misread the reason why they regained the House in the ’10 political tsunami. 2010 was a referendum on the President Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act and spending and not a referendum on Medicare.

Balz supports this view when he says “Politicians can lead only as far and as fast as public opinion allows. House Republicans, emboldened by their success in the 2010 elections, made the same miscalculation that other politicians in both parties have made, which is to assume a mandate when one doesn’t exist.”

George “Dubya” made the same mistake in 2005 when he attempted to privatize Social Security only to have that idea jettisoned by Democrats and politically intelligent republicans especially in the Senate.

Let’s listen to Balz one more time.

“Ryan earned plaudits for putting a bold proposal on the table to deal with what is genuinely a national problem. But without significant debate and discussion, House Republicans pressed ahead and voted to embrace it, including the Medicare reforms, as it was delivered from the Budget Committee chairman.”

“Many Republicans not in the House have sought to keep some distance between themselves and the Ryan Medicare plan — offering general support and praise for Ryan’s approach without backing the details. GOP presidential candidates in particular have been wary about tying their futures to Ryan’s particulars and, in coming months, will spell out their own ideas for reforming entitlements.”

“That’s one reason why former House speaker Newt Gingrich, burned by previous battles over Medicare, said what he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” two weeks ago, which was that it is risky to impose radical reform without strong support from the public.”

Interpretation of Balz: Republicans pulled the trigger but the gun was pointed at them. The Grand Old Party has shot themselves in both feet and the wound is now open and Democrats are pouring salt in it as quickly as they can.

National Democrats are ecstatic over Hochul’s stunning victory. In fact they have vowed to use the same formula in swing districts across the country in 2012.

“We served notice to the Republicans that we will fight them anywhere in America when it comes to defending and strengthening Medicare,” DCCC chair Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) said in a statement. “Even in one of the most Republican districts, seniors and independent voters rejected the Republican plan to end Medicare.”

Remember when Mark Twain famously wrote “Talk of my demise is premature?” After Hochul’s hail-mary, Democrats are feeling like Tuesday’s win is a political resurrection after that unforgettable “shellacking” in the 2010 mid-term elections.

“If the election of a Democrat in one of the most conservative Republican districts in the country isn't a flashing warning to Republicans, I don't know what would be,” Representative Steve Israel, head of the House Democratic campaign committee, told Reuters.

One special election victory in 2011 is a long way from winning enough elections in 2012 to regaining the House. However, the significance of this one victory is not lost on Democrats including the chief of them all, Barak Obama.

Even though he was receiving rock star treatment in the United Kingdom, when now Representative-Elect Kathy Hochul’s victory news reached the president, he wrote her a quick note which said, “I want to extend my congratulations to Congresswoman-elect Kathy Hochul for her victory in New York's 26th Congressional District. Kathy and I both believe that we need to create jobs, grow our economy, and reduce the deficit in order to outcompete other nations and win the future. Kathy has shown, through her victory and throughout her career, that she will fight for the families and businesses in western New York, and I look forward to working with her when she gets to Washington.”

Of course this Hollywood Joe Namath upset Super Bowl victory was not lost on Mrs. Hochul. She clearly connected her victory with Medicare when she said, “Yes, we are all future seniors, that's for sure. It's the future seniors they were going after, and we didn't like that did we?”

Republicans are spinning the results like a ball on a Vegas roulette table. Their argument is that they lost the seat because it was a three-way race therefore Medicare wasn't the decisive factor in the outcome. Spin on Repubs.

As Frank James points out in writing for NPR, “Nevertheless, the result was sure to be interpreted by Democrats as a repudiation of the Republican agenda as surely as Republicans said the election of Sen. Scott Brown in January 2010 was a repudiation of the new health care law.”

The 2012 elections will be very interesting and the Augustus Blog will provide wall to wall coverage.

ON HERMAN CAIN’S CHANCES OF WINNING THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION

2011-05-25T23:57:00.001-04:00

Cain, a former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, said, “I came here to declare my candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States of America.” “And, just to be clear, just to be clear, in case you accidentally listen to a skeptic out there, let me say it again: I’m running for President of the United States and I’m not running for second. I’m not running for second.”

“Now, let me tell you, because I’ve had reporters ask me sometimes, ‘well, are you running just to get attention and maybe come in second or maybe to get a cabinet position?’ I said you don’t know very much about me,” Cain said. “I don’t run for second. I’m running to be number one.”

While we understand the dearth of viable candidates to take on President Barack Obama in November of 2012, any Republican candidate for their party’s nomination must realistically assess their chances in their own primary.

Cain has no substantive political pedigree. He has never held elected office and yet he wants to hold the nation’s highest office. He like Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Newt overestimated the vulnerability of President Obama. Like many political pundits and would be presidential candidates, Cain thought that Obama’s political obituary for November 2012 had already been written.

Mr. Cain like other would be presidential contenders should look at former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and see that it takes more than ambition to run for president. It takes some kind of political pedigree of which Cain has none. Huckabee recognized this and decided that he wanted to remain Rev. Huckabee and not President Huckabee.

His supporters affectionately call him the “Hermanator.” Not only has Kemp pumped him but he is also an African-American Tea Party darling. “I just love him,” said Laura Miller, a self-described “Cainiac” from Jessup, Georgia. “What he says makes so much sense.”

Excuse me but just what does he say that makes so much sense when the former Godfather Pizza CEO couldn’t even answer a simple friendly question about the “right of return” when asked by Fox’s Chris Wallace. Wallace was shocked and tried to help him out. Here is the exchange:

WALLACE: Where do you stand on the right of return?

CAIN: The right of return? The right of return?

WALLACE: The Palestinian right of return.

CAIN: That is something that should be negotiated. That is something that should be negotiated.

WALLACE: Do you think the Palestinian refugees, the people who were kicked out of the land in 1948, should be able or should have any right to return to Israeli land?

CAIN: Yes. But under -- but not under Palestinian conditions. Yes. They should have a right to come back, if that is a decision that Israel wants to make.

Fox’s Sean Hannity asked Cain the next day how should people process his answer to the “right of return since they perceived that he was unfamiliar with the issue.” Cain replied, “They are exactly right, Sean. Chris caught me off guard. I didn't understand the right of return. That came out of left field. And, of all the questions that I anticipated him asking me, I didn't even conceive of him asking me about the right of return. I now know what that is. The thing that you're going to learn about Herman Cain, if he doesn't know something, he's not going to try and fake it or give an answer that he doesn't know what he's talking about.”

Anyone who aspires to be president should be familiar with all of the issues all of the time or at least sound like you are familiar with the issues a la George “Dubya.”

If Republicans were not willing to support another African-American for their party’s nomination in the person of Colin Powell who still has a powerful political pedigree, then what of Cain?

Maybe Cain should consider sticking with his radio show or perhaps he is running to benefit his show kind of like Trump did for his show?

CONGRATS TO THE CLAYTON COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM

2011-05-25T22:56:00.000-04:00

Those of us who live in metropolitan Atlanta were pulling for the Clayton County School system in 2008 when they lost their accreditation after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools yanked it away. For a school system to lose its accreditation is equivalent to the death penalty in collegiate sports. You are out of the game.

Clayton County had the dubious distinction of becoming the first school system in the United States in more than 40 years to lose its accreditation. The domino that fell as the result of losing their accreditation had colossal consequences. Some 3,500 students abandoned the district and landed in places where they could graduate with their degree being worth something. The system also lost $23 million in state aid and 300 teachers rode off into the sunset.

So whose fault was it that the system’s accreditation was sunk? All roads led back to a bickering and embattled school board who failed to put the children above their pitiful and petty personal politics.

No one knew what the future would hold for Clayton County. However, a new Superintendent, new school board members, dedicated staff, talented teachers, serious students, concerned community leaders and caring parents formed a formidable coalition and put together a plan to work their way back to regaining their accreditation.

Their efforts were rewarded when SACS czar Mark Elgar recently announced that the system had regained its accreditation. “It doesn’t' mean they don't have challenges…but they are better positioned than they were two years ago” Elgar pointed out. What a great way to end the academic year in “Clayco!”

To say that parents and students alike were euphoric at the news is a gross understatement of the facts. Victoria Johnson, a junior at Lovejoy High said, “We were thinking not many scholarships would be offered to a student from a system [not fully accredited].

“I just kept the faith that we’d get it back,” she said. “Thank God we did.”

Parent Tammy Walker with much adulation said, “Oh my God! This is the best news we have had in years.” “They [the school board] have truly put in the hard work to make this happen. I’m excited. I’m so glad.”

Clayton Superintendent Edmond Heatley said administrators can now concentrate on building performance. “It's just a stepping stone,” he said. “We are still not where we want to be, but we are no longer where we used to be.” Heatley is correct. Like the space shuttle shedding its orange rocket boosters, Clayton convincingly shed the stigma of losing its accreditation.

Heatley is to be commended for sitting at the helm of this educational ship and guiding it out of stormy and uncertain waters and docking it in a safe haven.

What happened in Clayton is a great lesson in the importance of a team approach to a terrible situation. Heatley knew who to put on base and in the end the aforementioned coalition drove in the winning run. No one sector of the community could have helped Clayton regain what it should have never lost. This had to be a team approach and team Clayton hit a grand slam.

There are many great lessons to be learned from Clayton as they regained their accreditation but perhaps one of the greatest lessons is to fire out of control school boards members. The voters made a wise choice in ousting the bickering board and electing a better board.

The best thing that came out of this debacle is lifted from a press release by John Lyles from the Office of Public Communications. “Clayton County Public Schools students graduating this year will receive a diploma from an SACS accredited school system.”

We at the Augustus Blog pray and hope that both the Atlanta Public School Board of Education and the DeKalb County Board of Education are learning from Clayton County.

Again, congratulations to the Clayton County Board of Education, Superintendent, administrators, staff, teachers, parents, community leaders and most importantly, the STUDENTS! You have taught all of us the importance and the results of team work.

DONALD TRUMP THE COWARD

2011-05-17T00:39:00.000-04:00

When Julius Gaius Caesar was warned not to go to the Curia Julia on March 15, 44 A.D., he famously said, “Cowards die many times before their death but the valiant taste of death but once.” Caesar’s coward analogy applies to Donald John Trump, Jr. as it turns out that the man is a political coward.

Today the “Trump” fired himself and ended his public flirtation with a run for the Republican nomination for president of the United States of America. Over the past month television, radio, social media and bloggers were fixated on this coward. They hung to his every word even when his words were laced with lunacy.

Trump rode into the presidential debate on the heels of reviving the Obama “birther” debate. Back in March “The Donald” famously said on “Good Morning America” “The reason I have a little doubt — just a little — is because he grew up, and nobody knew him.” In April as he continued to feed into the birther baloney, he called on President Obama to show proof of his United States citizenship.

This foolishness consumed the public and made national headlines. Trump rose in the polls. In fact he only trailed former presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Can you believe that a man with zero political experience could be taken serious in polls? This lends itself to one or two conclusions: 1) the lack of voter literacy and 2) the sad lot of Republican presidential candidates.

Ever the entertainer whose ego exceeds his presidential pedigree, Trump methodically played his hand well and gained more and more attention until Mr. Obama decided to shut him down by releasing the long form of his Hawaii birth certificate. To mask his humiliation Mr. Trump proclaimed “I got Barack Obama to do something that no one has been able to do and [that is to release his birth certificate.”]

The president did not release the long form of his birth certificate because he had too. He released it to show that even a billionaire can be simultaneously ignorant as well as a coward.

You would think that Trump would go away but he did not. He kept his flawed and foolish flirtation with the presidency alive by keeping those who would listen hanging on awaiting for an announcement regarding his intentions.

Stringing his new fan base along, Trump began to claim that President Obama was not smart enough to be president. He questioned Obama’s academic credentials. President Obama is an intellectual giant in many areas of knowledge while Donald Trump’s is an intellectual entertainer. Mr. Obama is smarter while he is asleep than Mr. Trump is while he is wide awake.

Still riding a weakened wave of support and ever the soaker of attention he even showed up at annual White House Press Corps Dinner. This was the beginning of the end for the host of “The Apprentice.” President Obama and Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers publicly tagged team to make Trump the butt end of jokes. While the entire room laughed, the coward sat stoned face which told us that he can give a joke but he cannot take a joke.

William Shakespeare once said, “He who laughs last laughs best.” President Barack Obama got the last laugh regarding Trump because less than 24 hours after that dinner Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs on the order of Mr. Obama in the heretofore unheard of Abbottabad, Pakistan.

This was a political death blow to Trump as he died when bin Laden died. As the president rose in the polls after bin Laden’s death, Donald Trump’s poll numbers plummeted. An astounding 64% of voters said that they would not vote for Trump. So what does he do?

The faux presidential president reached for a faux parachute today. “I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election,” Trump said in a statement. “Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.” Translation: Man I cannot beat Obama plus NBC is pressuring me about renewing “The Apprentice.”

He actually told the truth because his failed flirtation with the presidency has been good business for him personally and the ratings for his show have increased.

However, no matter what Trump says he knows what any intelligent person knows and that is that he never had a chance to become President of the United States of America. Can you imagine him in a debate with President Obama? You think Kennedy made Nixon look bad!

Can you image how President Trump would have handled race relations in America? If you want some insight all you have to do is read the transcript from a radio interview when he was asked about African-Americans. He replied, “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a very great relationship with the blacks.” What comes to my mind is that Trump e uses the term “blacks” in the same way that Don Zaluchi does in the Godfather when the heads of the five families were discussing how to move drugs.

Zaluchi said, “In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people, the coloreds. They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.”

Nothing irks African-Americans more than hearing a white person say “I have black friends.” This is basically what Trump was saying. The Augustus Blog believes that we should avoid categorizing our friends by the color of their skin.

If he really had a relationship with African-Americans, then he would have known that it was offensive to every thinking African-American for a white man to question the intellectual capacity of the nation’s first African-American president.

Donald Trump was never and will never be qualified to be president of our great country. He knows this which is why he quietly exited the stage like the cowardly lion running from the wicked witch of the West.

As Alexandra Petri notes in the Washington Post “The Trump flirtation was the national equivalent of that drunken conversation with an alluring stranger in a bar that makes us rethink our marriages. Of course we weren’t actually going to do anything! Look at the guy! His hair looks like an [insert joke about roadkill, mops, ham loafs or Tribbles].”

Mr. Trump does not owe President Obama or America an apology. However, he does owe all us an explanation as to where he got his hair from. Can he provide us with a receipt? Is the hair American made or did it come from in China like his line of Trump shirts and ties?

Maybe after this failed flirtation with the White House Trump will take a page out of the cowardly lion’s book from the “The Wizard of Oz” and find himself some courage because America fired him before he even applied for the job.

A Response to E. J. Dionne’s “Who Is Obama? Now We Know”

2011-05-04T23:39:00.001-04:00

In an extraordinarily well written op-ed piece written in today’s Washington Post by E. J. Dionne, he manages to pull back the curtain like Toto did in “The Wizard of Oz” so that we can see the man behind the curtain.

Dionne reveals the president behind the curtain of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He paints a powerful portrait of the 44^th President of the United States of America. “E. J.” asks the question “Who Is Obama” and then methodically answers it looking through the lenses of Obama’s decisions since he has been in the Oval Office.

The point of departure for Mr. Dionne’s thought provoking piece is the killing of world public enemy number one: the late and lousy Osama bin Laden who now in those immortal words of Sal Tessio in “The Godfather” sleeps with the fish. Not only does he sleep with the fish but he has probably been eaten by the fish by now. Osama has no one to blame because he is the one who chose to live that life instead of living a legitimate life.

For Dionne the window into which Mr. Obama can clearly be seen is by him giving the order to kill the mad mastermind who was responsible for killing 3,000 innocent and brave Americans on that fateful day in September of 2001.

E. J. proves this in the opening lines of his piece when he says “The sheer audacity of the successful operation against Osama bin Laden has forced Obama’s friends and foes alike to reassess what they make of a chief executive who defies easy categorization and reveals less about himself than politicians are typically drawn to do.”

The Augustus Blog will now respond to some of the excerpts from the op-ed piece.

“Barack Obama is not the man many Americans thought he was. This sudden realization has transformed American politics.” We totally agree. For various senseless reasons both critics and supporters have repeatedly called President Barack Obama weak and indecisive. In ordering the “killing or capture” of bin Laden, Mr. Obama proved that he will pull the trigger, shoot a duck in the pond and will not run out of a hot kitchen.

The president put his presidency on the line by making the gut wrenching decision to send his commandos into bin Laden’s compound. Do you realize all of the things that could have gone wrong including Osama killing some of the Navy Seals? Yet, this president no doubt prayed and asked God to allow him to “make his enemy his footstool.” As a result, nothing went wrong outside of a helicopter malfunctioning and everything else went right because Obama is not who some people thought that he was.

“Obama is hard to understand because he is many things and not just one thing. He has now proved that he can be bold at an operational level, even as he remains cautious at a philosophical level.” This is true because Obama pundits on both sides of the aisle in Congress and in the American public have wrestled with trying to “define” and “label” our President.

Many have argued that he lacks the leadership skills to lead the world’s greatest democracy. They have even argued that he is too impersonal, professorial and boring to occupy the Oval. I bet you that if bin Laden could release one of those infamously obnoxious video tapes of his from the bottom of the Northern Arabian Sea that he would beg to differ and argue that not only can the man lead but he can also finish the job.

“His proclivity to gather facts and weigh alternatives does not lead automatically, in the venerable phrase, to the paralysis of analysis. It can also end in daring action tempered by prudence — for example, making sure that additional helicopters were available to our Navy SEALs.”

What Dionne is responding to here is the submission by some in the political populous who have maintained that Mr. Obama takes too long to make a decision. On the surface the president’s critics have some validity in submitting this argument. Remember how long it appeared to take for the president to weigh in on the healthcare and budget debates?

However, when you look at this through the lenses of a rearview mirror, you have to argue that this is an asset and an attribute of Barack Obama because it means that he does not pull the trigger too early. It also shows how brilliant he is i.e. the ordering of an extra helicopter for the mission just in case. Just in case happened when one of the copters crashed but “just in case” did not have any effect on the mission. The proof is at the bottom of the Northern Arabian Sea.

“The president’s rhetoric has often emphasized caring, compassion and community, the language one expects from a moderately liberal politician. Yet as one of his close aides told me long ago, there is inside a very cool, tough, even hard man.”

Critics have argued that President Obama is too liberal and that he is too compassionate. Yet we submit that Mr. Obama is the epitome of that line in The Music of the Night from the “Phantom of the Opera” – “Music is deceiving Hard as lightning Soft as candle light.” Our president is balanced. He knows when to be soft and Sunday night he proved that he knows when to be hard. The survivors from that shocking Sunday can tell you how hard Mr. Obama can be.

Dionne proves our Music of the Night analogy when he says “He was not at all queasy about authorizing the killing of an American enemy and the disposal of the body at sea to ensure that there would be no memorial to rally bin Laden’s followers.” Not only did Mr. Obama dump bin Laden in the sea but he also ensured that no one would visit his grave and to leave flowers or worship him there as a martyr.

Remember during the presidential campaign of 2008 when opponent after opponent accused Obama of not being American enough and jumped on his wife Michelle Obama when she commented that she had never been more proud of America? Well our new friend E. J. pulled up the curtain and dealt with that in his piece.

“Obama’s conceptual complexity means that he rejects the idea that there are just two alternatives: the United States as the world’s sole superpower or an America slinking off into weakness and irrelevance. Binary choices are not for him.”

Instead, he sees a world in which new powers — China most obviously, but also India and, someday, Brazil — inevitably rise to challenge American dominance. The United States’ task is not to prevent the ineluctable emergence of other strong nations. Its imperative is to remain an enormously powerful force fully capable of shaping the globe’s new arrangements, defending its interests and values, and prospering in an ever more competitive environment.”

Barack Obama loves America just as much if not more than the American who loves America the most. He is daily committed to ensuring that America remains the leader of democracy in the free world. He is also committed to working to make the American dream attainable by the least and the lost in our great country.

The piece moves on to address America’s military strength. “And anyone who doubted our willingness to project our might as we see fit will have second thoughts after the events in Abbottabad.”

Translation: If you attack America, if you threaten America or if you mess with America we will defend ourselves. We will hunt you down and justice will be done! Would you like proof of this? Exhibit A: Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Exhibit B: The body bag that was slid from the U. S. S Carl Vinson and now rests at the bottom of the Northern Arabian Sea.

So what is Dionne’s conclusion? “This single action does not “change everything,” because nothing ever changes everything. Killing one man does not settle two messy wars. Obama’s political standing will ultimately rise or fall largely on the basis of domestic issues and economic circumstances. The president’s supporters will again experience bouts of frustration when his philosophical caution prevails over his bold streak in the less martial work of negotiating budgets and promoting the general welfare at home. His opponents will not suddenly embrace his priorities.”

We agree that the killing of American public enemy #1 does not end two wars but it is a heck of a huge down payment on ending them and bringing our troops home.

Since this blog is a response to E. J.’s op-ed piece, we will let him have the last word about the man behind 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s curtain: “But because he ordered this attack, and because it was successful, no one will ever view Barack Obama in quite the same way again.”

A Response to E. J. Dionne’s “Who Is Obama? Now We Know”

2011-05-04T23:37:00.000-04:00

The Augustus Blog will now respond to some of the excerpts from the op-ed piece.

The piece moves on to address America’s military strength. “And anyone who doubted our willingness to project our might as we see fit will have second thoughts after the events in Abbottabad.”

We agree that the killing of American public enemy #1 does not end two wars but it is a heck of a huge down payment on ending them and bringing our troops home.