One of these things really is like the other

By now, we've all heard about Mitt Romney getting booed at an NAACP event recently. Well, after that, he spoke  to a crowd at a fundraiser in Hamilton, Montana:

"By the way, I had the privilege of speaking today at the NAACP convention in Houston and I gave them the same speech I am giving you. I don't give different speeches to different audiences alright. I gave them the same speech. When I mentioned I am going to get rid of Obamacare they weren't happy, I didn't get the same response. That's ok, I want people to know what I stand for and if I don't stand for what they want, go vote for someone else, that's just fine. But I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy-more free stuff. But don't forget nothing is really free."

Shortly after the speech, Rachel Maddow reported on Romney's remark, noting its problematic undertones in the context of racial politics.

"It seemed like Mitt Romney wanted to get booed at the NAACP this morning," Maddow said. "He wanted to wear that around his neck like a badge of courage. It looks like he is not wasting any time in doing so."
Romney has used similar language throughout his presidential bid. During an event in Florida earlier this year, when confronted by a young voter who voice support for "free birth control," Romney quipped:

"If you’re looking for free stuff you don’t have to pay for? Vote for the other guy, that’s what he’s all about, okay? That’s not, that’s not what I’m about."

Criticism of Obama's Affordable Care Act has proved to be an uncomfortable line of attack for Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts introduced comprehensive health care reform that has drawn comparisons to Obama's. The state law includes provisions for much of the same "free stuff" that Obamacare does, including an individual mandate.

if only

• We could read minds


• Money did grow on trees

• I could get my bi-weekly paycheck weekly instead

• The women I want found me irresistible

• I made better choices in my past

• I had eyes in the back of my head

• People would stop lying

• Everyone who lived in ivory towers could live like the average person for a month

• People would reap what they had sown more expediently

• Certain people would deal with the fact  that a black man is the President Of This United States

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle cover the upcoming March issue of Essence Magazine.

History is expecting you.

This is for my nephew and my God-daughter, and all your children and my future children and every child out there.

History is expecting you

to be leaders of the free world, to cure Cancer and Aids and Diabetes and Heart Disease, etc., to create beautiful music that will be timeless classics like Mozart, Tchaikovsky, & Chopin, to create Picassos, to write your own The Catcher In The Rye, to be the next William Shakespeare, or equally as important,

to be great mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts and God-parents to inspire your children to be whatever they dream of being.

I'm pretty sure that if President Obama, as a child, told his mother that he wanted to be President of the Unites States, she might have said to herself that that was highly unlikely.

but,

History expects you.

 "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears,however measured, or far away" --Henry David Thoreau

The Haves and the Have-Nots

In 1776, the independence of the United States foreshadowed what would occur later on from Mexico south.
To remove any doubts about the place of the Indians in the new nation, George Washington proposed "the total destruction and devastation of their settlements." Thomas Jefferson voiced the opinion that "this unfortunate race has justified its extermination." And Benjamin Franklin suggested that rum could be the "appointed means" to get rid of the savages.
To remove any doubts about the place of women, the Constitution of the State of New York added the adjective "masculine" to the right to vote.
To remove any doubts about the place of poor whites, the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were all rich whites.
And to remove any doubts about the place of blacks in the newborn nation, six-hundred and fifty thousand slaves remained enslaved. Black hands built the White House.  

And now, over 300 years later, a Black man and his family, live there.