Obama Hates New York?

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  Back on January 14, Michael Goodwin of the New York Post wrote a front page op-ed that said that the President of the United States hates New Yorkers. He sites 4 reasons for this: tax hikes because of the health care law, telling the governor to drop out of this year’s race, trying to block or dissuade anybody from running against Sen Kirsten Gillibrand, & for coming down hard on Wall Street & bankers.

     I’ll take these points one at a time. While it may or may not be true that there will be tax hikes because of the health care bill, I highly doubt that New Yorkers are targeted for an abnormal amount of it. If it’ll make Mr Goodwin feel better, he can think that everybody’s being targeted with higher taxes.

     As for getting the governor to drop out of the race, there’s a simple reason for that. The guy’s less popular than a Red Sox Fan at Yankee Stadium. If he were to somehow get the Democratic nomination, he’d go down in flames extremely badly.

     Goodwin trying to make people feel bad for Obama coming down on Wall Street & bankers with tough regulations is really stretching things. If any group deserves to be slammed with tough regulations right now, it’s the financial sector. After all, they’re one of the main reasons why we’re all in this mess. Therefore, me felling any sort of pity for those guys? Not gonna happen.

     The only point that Goodwin has is the White House’s interference in the senatorial race by trying to dissuade Harold Ford from running for senator. Personally, I’m supporting Mr Ford. He’s a moderate, like myself, with a very good track record. If the White House thinks that Senator Gillibrand is such a good candidate, then she should be able to win on her own credentials & not because of any heavy handed tactics from Team Obama.

     Overall, Michael Goodwin’s op-ed is way off target & definitely was not good fodder for a front page screaming headline about how Obama hates New Yorkers. Even for the New York Post, that one was low.

The End of the Tea Party?

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     Over the past few days, I've been reading a sudden influx of articles about the end of the "populist" tea parties. These articles are reacting to the many troubles the Tea Party Convention seems to be having. Perhaps the convention organizers are beginning to find out that it's easy to be angry but it's difficult to organize that anger into a legitimate political force.
     Of course, the same people who are saying that the party is over are the same people who said that the Republican Party was dead after the election of 2008. Instead, in the major political races within the last 5 months, the Republicans have made a clean sweep, including two governorships, a mayoral race in the largest city in America, & the senate seat of the man who was the Liberal Lion of the Senate for over 50 years.
     There may be a little truth to this death theory, though. Within the last few days, President Obama has been sounding like a populist. He's been going hard after the banks & has now even ordered a bipartisan committee to attack the outrageous federal deficit. If the President's latest tone catches on, the Tea Party people may be backed into a corner.

Ebony Power 150

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     A couple of months ago, Ebony Magazine put out its issue of the 150 most powerful African Americans in the country. There were the obvious people on the list. President & Mrs Obama, Jay Z, Beyonce, etc. However, there were two names that I believe were purposely left off of the list, mainly due to their conservative politics.
     Michael Steele is the chairman of the Republican party. Think about this for a minute. A Black man is the head of the Republican party. That means that Black men are the leaders of the two biggest political parties in America. Only one made Ebony's list, though.
     The other man who's missing from this list is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He's the only African American on the most powerful court in America. Yet, he doesn't make the Power 150.
     I'm not a big fan of either of these two men; far from it. However, Ebony should respect the fact that both men made it to posts that African Americans had only dreamed about not too many years ago. Both deserve to be on Ebony's list. Shame on Ebony for not even considering them.