Photos – Fall Colors With Pretty Horses

I took these photos a couple of years ago. It was a very good year for fall color. I was out taking photos and on my way from one location to another when I came across this field with a beautiful spread of trees. I parked alongside the road and got out and as I did, these two horses came galloping from off in the distance towards me. I started shooting photos. They ran right up to the fence and I started talking to them as if they were models, seriously — and they were responding to me. It was a surreal experience. They struck many poses. Here are a few of the better ones.

Photos by Extreme Liberal

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles

Respect Our President, Damn it!

You may or may not have heard about the absolute insanity of some schools asking students to bring permission slips in order for them to watch the President of the United States deliver his Back-to-School speech to school children. I remember when this happened in 2009 and then again in 2010 and it absolutely made my blood boil. I am by no means a nationalistic type, a patriotic, flag waving zealot…but I’ve always respected the office of the presidency. And even though I had nothing but problems with George W. Bush as president, I wouldn’t even think about disrespecting him when he is doing his job as President and giving a speech to school children.

This pisses me off beyond belief. Let me hand the microphone over to the incredible Angry Black Lady who wrote a great piece about this, go read it. Within her post, she referred back to an earlier piece she wrote when this ugly, blatant, disrespect reared it’s ugly head before. Go ABL…

He wants to turn your children black (and once they go black, they’ll never ever go back)

Holy shit, y’all.  Did you hear about what Obama did last week?  He gave a back-to-school speech to our nation’s childrenses!  And you know what else?  He like, totally tried to turn your child into a black person.  BEHIND YOUR BACK.  (He also pulled the plug on your grandma, but we can talk about that later.)

This aggression will not STAND, man.   I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the news. Obama addressed a nation of young impressionable children and filled their heads with balderdash and poppycock.  (That’s British for BULLSHIT.)  He told kids that they should stay in school!  And that they should do their homework!  And that they should pass on grass!

I mean, what kind of crap is he trying to pull?  How dare he tell your children to put down that X Box Virtual 3000 2.0, stop sniffing glue, and open a book? How dare he tell your children that they need to study hard and not give up on their dreams and life in general?

I mean, what’s next?  I know I don’t want my kids to go to college.***  Or get a job.  Or learn shit.  I want my kids to become one of the next generation of idiotic fuckwits, like the ones at the townhall meetings, talkin’ ’bout “Hello, Hitler!”

I’ll tell you what, people: I can’t decide if this shit is hilarious or really really sad.  I mean, exactly how stupid are people?  I really want to know.  On a scale of 1 to fucking idiotic, HOW STUPID ARE PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY?

Better yet, how stupid do people think we are?  The Hannitys, and Limbaughs, and the Becks.  The members of the Washington Asshat Brigade who PRAISED Reagan and Bush when they gave their speeches to students nationwide?  Do they really think we’re so stupid?  Do they think that we don’t know that the only reason they’re protesting Obama’s speech is because he’s ::gasp:: BLACK!!??

Render unto me a fucking break.

Insert string of expletives here!

The American Jobs Act Will Prevent A Recession – Pass It NOW!

Since President Obama announced his American Jobs Act, economists have almost unanimously predicted that it would boost GDP and create jobs. Here is a sampling of what has been said.

• This headline at Bloomberg says it all, Obama Jobs Plan Prevents 2012 Recession in Survey of Economists. John Herrmann, a senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets LLC said “The plan ‘prevents a contraction of the economy in the first quarter” of next year.” Another quote from that article said ‘“The important thing to consider is: What happens if we don’t do anything?’ said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida. He said the program ‘very well could” forestall a recession in early 2012.’”

• Moody’s Analytics – Mark Zandi predicted that the act would boost economic growth by 2% and create 2 million jobs, “Something like this is much needed” for an economy grappling with 9.1 percent unemployment, Zandi says. “The economy is on the edge of recession.”

• The Economic Policy Institute assessment of the jobs bill said, “So, how did President Obama do by our criteria? Very well, as the package provides a substantial boost to the economy in addition to continuing the important efforts already underway (providing unemployment compensation and the payroll tax holiday).”

• Macroeconomic Advisors thinks the effect will be significant,  “We estimate that the American Jobs Act (AJA), if enacted, would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term.”

• Susan Wachter, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, figures that the Social Security tax cuts alone would add 1 percentage point to economic growth and create 1 million jobs next year.

• Michael Hanson, a senior economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and a former Federal Reserve economist, predicts similar benefits. He thinks the additional jobs would lower the unemployment rate by nearly half a percentage point in 2012.

• Menzie Chinn, an economist at the University of Wisconsin said, “the measures Obama proposed Thursday night ‘might prevent the economy from dropping below stall speed — at which point it would be vulnerable to another recession.’”

What this comes down to is — Republicans have to choose between politics and helping the American people, who are clamoring for Washington to do something about creating jobs. The GOP is up against a wall and this is a test of whether or not the Republican party cares at all about American workers. I think I know the answer, but I’m still clinging to a shred of hope that they will do what is right for the country.

PASS THE BILL NOW!

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles

President Obama Talks To Real Americans – Minus The Media Filter

Turn off the cable networks! They are getting more desperate to bring President Obama down as he storms across the country talking to real people. We must not let cable news divert us from helping to get the truth out. Now do it, turn off CNN or MSNBC and watch this instead. Then share it with others.

The Republican’s Solyndra Problem!

Even though President Obama’s green-jobs initiative was responsible for the loan guarantees to the solar energy company Solyndra, which went belly up recently, it turns out that it was another leftover from the Bush Administration that was a time bomb. Check out this press release in 2007 by President Bush’s Energy Secretary.

“Loan guarantees aim to stimulate investment and commercialization of clean energy technologies to reduce our nation’s reliance on foreign sources of energy,” Bush’s energy secretary, Sam Bodman, announced in a press release on Oct. 4, 2007. The release said the Energy Department had received 143 pre-applications for the guarantees and narrowed the list down to 16 finalists — including Solyndra. Bodman said the action put “Americans one step closer to being able to use new and novel sources of energy on a mass scale to reduce emissions and allow for vigorous economic growth and increased energy security.”

But that isn’t the only thing, it seems that the Bush administration changed it’s regulations at the last minute to the benefit of ONLY Solyndra.

Bush’s Energy Department apparently adjusted its regulations to make sure that Solyndra would be eligible for the guarantees. It hadn’t originally contemplated including the photovoltaic-panel manufacturing that Solyndra did but changed the regulation before it was finalized. The only project that benefited was Solyndra’s.

Here are some facts about Solyndra that I’m sure aren’t being discussed at Fox News or any of the other right-wing publications jumping all over this in an attempt to say, “see, clean energy sucks”.

• Solyndra was a very small piece of the policy picture – Solyndra’s $535M loan is just 1.2% of the total $38.6B loan guarantees issued by DOE. (Source: DOE.)

• All energy is subsidized and loan guarantees are equal opportunity – Guess who the biggest loan guarantee went to? Some big wind or solar boondoggle? Guess again: an $8.3B loan guarantee for a nuclear plant down in Georgia. (Source: DOE.)

• Solyndra is not the ‘solar industry’ – Solyndra failed precisely because conventional silicon-based solar is doing so well–the solar industry has reduced the cost of solar by 70% in since 2009. Solyndra had a $2/Watt technology trying to compete against $1/Watt silicon PV.

I doubt that this was a ticking time-bomb left on purpose by the Republicans, but when you look at the history of this mess, Republicans share in the culpability and might want to just shut up about it.

H/T Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly

Self-Defeatism On The Left!

Liberals have derided conservative voters who vote against their own self interests for decades. The perfect example of this self-defeatism is middle and low income people voting for Republicans — who want to shift the nations wealth from poor and working folks to the wealthy in this country. They have been convinced by the very effective brainwashing that began in the Reagan supply-side era, when we were all told that it would trickle down to us, or rather on us.

Many of these very same liberals who deride that group on the right, are doing it themselves. In 2011, the best example of this can be seen in the efforts by Cornel West, Tavis Smiley and Ralph Nader. Eric L. Wattree helps us understand the stupidity of the self-defeatist left, who in my opinion, don’t give a shit about the people they claim to represent. (emphasis mine)

Obama has caused me tremendous frustration on several issues, but simple common sense dictates that my being frustrated is far preferable to allowing the GOP to come into power and turn the United States into a nation of corporate feudalism. That’s a level of common sense that Ralph Nader, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West seems to be lacking. Tavis seems to be keeping a low profile in this effort, by the way, but somehow I still visualize West sitting on his knee with Tavis’ hand in his back.

Isn’t it curious how all of their criticism is directed at Obama while, this point, it has become abundantly clear that the GOP has turned into a group of radical lunatics with absolutely no sense of limits, or any respect for the United States Constitution?

[...]

Anyone – and I do mean ANYONE – who would do that is either stupid, insane, think they’ll benefit from a GOP victory in some way, or are so blinded by an oversized ego that they’ve lost all connection with reality. It is clear to most thinking people that President Obama, flaws and all, is our best defense against turning the nation over to a GOP who want’s to drag us back into the Middle Ages. If that wasn’t the case, Nader and West wouldn’t have to mount a talent search. Thus, it’s one thing to have individual principles, but placing the entire nation in jeopardy to indulge those principles suggests an egomania that, at the very least, borders on psychosis.

[...]

Again, this is not the first time that Nader and West have engaged in this failed strategy. West supported Nader in his self-serving and childishly petulant campaign during the 2000 election that led to the appointment of George W. Bush. So while West is running around claiming to be so outraged over the economy and lack of jobs for the poor and middle class in this country, he’s partially responsible for it.

Elections have consequences and this country can’t afford the consequences of another Republican presidency.

A Nuke Plant In Michigan Released Radiation Into The Air Early This Morning!

At 3:09 am this morning, Tuesday September 27, the Palisades Nuclear plant near South Haven Michigan began releasing radioactive steam into the air. I guess I won’t breath today.

Nuclear Event in USA on Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 03:09 (03:09 AM) UTC, RSOE EDIS [Hungarian National Association of Radio Distress-Signalling and Infocommunications (RSOE) operates Emergency and Disaster Information Service (EDIS)]:

Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant near South Haven is venting radioactive steam into the environment as part of an unplanned shutdown triggered by an electrical accident. This shutdown, which began Sunday evening, came just five days after the plant restarted from a shutdown that was caused by a leak in the plant’s cooling system.

I had CNN on for a while this morning and didn’t hear a peep about it, but I only had it on for about an hour so they may very well have mentioned it.

Pass The Bill Now – We Can’t Wait 14 Months

Please, take action. Make a call or send a letter, talk to people. This is serious business, people need help right away. Show your support for American jobs.

Chris Christie – Should A Bully Be Given The Bully Pulpit?

[This was a post I did a while back that I think is timely now that there is talk of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey jumping into the Presidential race.]

In a poll of New Jersey voters released on April 20, 2011, the people were asked for a word to describe their Governor, Chris Christie. Overwhelmingly the voters chose the word “Bully” to best describe him (140 people). Coming in a distant second was “Arrogant” (41 people), which was tied with “Good”. So 181 people referred to him as either a bully or arrogant. My first introduction to the Bully Governor was on Morning Joe on MSNBC, they love them some Gov. Christie on that show. My impression of him was that he was trying way too hard to be a blunt, straight talker, turning trite phrases and clever word plays and topping them off with a little smirk, because he is so proud of himself. I also noticed that it was ALL words, no substance to what he was saying, just platitudes and clever rhetoric. It wore thin on me within a few seconds, but I could see how those with little brain matter would fall for it.

Let’s travel back in time a bit and look at this man’s history of bullying, lying and going on the offensive whenever challenged on his “straight talk”. There is definitely a pattern with this man and god I hope he gets in the presidential race, because I would like nothing more than to see President Obama chew him up and spit him out with disgust. We might just as well start with a blatant example of his bullying, from The Ed Show…

The gentleman who was shouted down was Ed Buck, a retired multi-millionaire who simply wanted to ask Meg Whitman a question when the misogynistic Gov. Christie had to step in for the poor helpless woman (snark), even saying “You wanna yell, yell at me.” Because we wouldn’t want a mere woman running for governor of the largest state in the union to be subjected to someone “yelling”, which was really someone asking a tough question of a candidate who had been dodging them. The yelling part may have been due to him not having a microphone. Here is an exchange between Ed Schultz and Ed Buck, from Politicususa, that gets to the heart of Christie’s tactics…(emphasis mine)

The Pragmatic Progressive Saturday Reading List!

There was so much going on this week and so much emotion with the fight to save Troy Davis from being killed, I know I missed a lot of great articles that I’m just getting caught up on. As always, please add your links in the comments and let’s talk about shit!

• I just came across this post minutes ago called EMO-lution, or Quiting Before You’re Ahead which features a comment from @vcthree on a post at Angry Black Lady Chronicles. It’s an absolute must read and share as is the original post that inspired it here at ABLC.

• In my research for the Cornel and Tavis post from earlier in the week, I stumbled upon Eric L. Wattree’s blog and spent a lot of time getting caught up on his writings. I highly recommend you go and read all of these posts that are generally on West and Smiley, you will see why:

1.  ”Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Reign of Fools is Over”;

2.  ”Does the West/Obama Controversy Constitute Blacks Airing Dirty Laundry?”;

3.  ”Is the Attack on Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Article Criticizing Prof. Cornel West Due to Male Academic Cronyism?”;

4.  ”How Do Politicians Get People to Vote Against Their Own Interest?”;

5.  ”Tavis/West: We Know We’re Hurting, Now Tell Us the Truth About Why”;

6.  ”The Tavis/West Poverty Pimp Tour“;

7.  ”Dr. Cornel West and Intellectual Rice Cake”;

8.  Is the GOP Manipulating Black Intellectuals to destroy the First Black President?”

• This op-ed by Bill Keller, former Executive Editor of the New York Times on President Obama is very good, I don’t agree with all of it, but I still highly recommend it.

• One of my blogging heroes, Steve Benen, has a podcast that he does with Bill Simmon every Sunday from 4 – 6 pm live, with chat. But of course you can download and stream them anytime from the website. It’s a combination of brilliant Benen politics and nerdy Sci-Fi talk.

• One of my favorite reads this week was from one of the best bloggers around, Eclectablog and it annihilates the Professional Left’s trying to claim credit for President Obama’s fight for the American Jobs Act.

• James Carville spouted off a bunch of criticism of the Obama administration and offered his outsider opinions, which he is entitled to. But it also means Scott Bateman might also take your words and make a cool animation out of it which pokes holes in your crazy ideas. Here is Scott’s website.

• Joy Reid wrote a very good piece that highlights Glenn Greenwald’s 3rd party dreaming and his other not-so-liberal ideas.

• And just ICYMI, my transcription of the Bob and Chez podcast “Stop Whining” is an absolute must read for those interested in understanding what is really happening in the firebagger left.

• The one and only @Shoq took a break from Twitter and penned an awesome piece on the Professional Left ” pushing their latest vanity meme”. Read it!

• If you are wondering what you can do to help keep Troy Davis’s memory alive, go to the Innocence Project and donate something. And if you only read one more article about Troy Davis, make it this one from Emily Hauser who worked her ass off to try and save Troy who was put to death on her birthday, of all days.

• Deaniac83 at The People’s View wrote an incredible post that explores the nuances of President Obama’s political and governing strategy that I think is dead on. It also helps to expose why others may not be able to grasp it, nuance and double reverse psychology eludes some people.

And lastly, I’ll leave you with this quote from Elizabeth Warren, who I hope gets a lot of face time on cable news networks in the next couple of years and beyond.

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles

Elizabeth Warren On Class Warfare – Must See!

I’m really liking Elizabeth Warren, at least as much as I’ve learned about her so far. Check out this short clip, she destroys a couple of Republican memes. Go Elizabeth!

Photos Of The Day – For Healing

Photos by Extreme Liberal

Cornel West And Tavis Smiley Have Never Supported President Obama!

As Dr. Cornel West continues his crusade to undermine our President, I keep hearing how he was once a supporter of President Obama. If he did claim to be a supporter, it was just that — a claim.

I decided to go back in time with the help of Google and find out if he ever REALLY supported Barack Obama and exactly when it was that Dr. West and his sidekick, Tavis Smiley, began their assault on our first black president.

I typed into the search bar the words “Cornel West Supports Obama” and then proceeded to weed through hundreds of hits about Cornel’s criticism of President Obama, page after page after page of links to stories about “black mascots” and “oligarchs and plutocrats” and “fear of free black men”. There were articles by conservatives and liberals, all using Cornel West to justify their own hatred and dislike for our President.

I came across one transcript from an interview he did with Amy Goodman about 2 weeks after the election where Dr. West very cautiously applauds the election of President Obama, but you can already begin to see the formulation of his strategy to undermine him.

I looked at hundreds of results from my Google search and that one transcript was about the extent of the “support” I found for President Obama. I challenge any defenders of West to provide more, besides people saying he supported the president.

FDR Returns From The Dead To Warn Us About Republicans!

Our Mission, if We Choose to Accept it…

Guest Blogger: Joan Ruaiz

I remember quite well the beginning of each Mission Impossible episode, way back in the day. There, on that miniature tape recording, in the phone booth with the handsome super secret agent leader, was the team’s instruction for a particularly dangerous mission, deemed impossible.

After providing all of the required  background information, and the reasons why the mission was necessary to the national security of the country, the tape would  self-destruct. Then the famous Mission Impossible music would cue up.

There is a reason the show was a hit with all demographics and is now a classic that represents Americana’s (ask what you can do for your country)  finest. It was the recurring story of a group of fearless individuals willing to take on insurmountable odds, via a set of carefully planned actions, for the benefit of  the ultimate greater good. Each  member of the designated team was to utilize tried and true classic methods and/or  cutting edge technology, depending on the individual’s forte. But each role within the team had a specific irreplaceable value; each as important as the next; each interconnected; and if one’s actions faltered, the entire mission could fail.