Wow, simply wow. I was going to title this "The Founding Fathers on Israel" (and briefly "Bibi's Poodle"), since obviously those great men had to foresee the unbreakable bonds we would have with Israel, and recognize the already evident shared values and common ideals.

And even though Herzl & Co. had courted the Ottomans, Brits and Russia/Soviet Union for this Big Brother role,  it's important that she finally settled on us, the U-S of effin' A. Let's not bicker over who she slept with on the way to the altar - the important thing is she settled on us - and for that reason, she's always been true.

I firmly believe the two party system, as it currently exists, lacks the ability and will to structurally better the lives of everyday people. Much of my critique revolves around the grotesque amount of money in politics and the corporate media's failure to accurately report on economic, political, and social events. The democratic component of our republic has been circumvented, and we (as a nation) need an intellectual awakening (or reawakening) to recover it. Since it would be virtually impossible to remove money from politics or make the corporate media do it's job, I'm led to believe a few moderate changes could lead us down the road to a higher political discourse. One of these ideas is to embrace "authentic" black conservatives. The "authentic" is an appropriation of a thesis offered by Chidike Okeem (a writer and conservative commentator). Chidike calls for authentic black conservatives to push back against the "artificial" black conservatives who parrot talking points given to them by the conservative media noise machine.

Rudy Giuliano is the son of an organized crime enforcer for loan sharks and gamblers who spent time in Sing Sing for felony assault and gambling - as the great Casey Stengel said, "you can look it up".

How Giuliano then gets to lecture Obama on his Hawaiian upbringing is anyone's guess, but yes, Rudy - Obama wasn't raised like you - his idea of "Family" doesn't equal "Mafia".

Pass it on.

If our current political deadlock, amplified by the market forces of technology and capitalism are projected without modification into the future, a world of extreme inequality, overwhelming local taxes and religiously contrived restrictions on personal behavior awaits us. The invention of cheap and home made weapons including drones, 3-D printed guns, and cyber blackouts will make an ever angry electorate turn more violent.

Chris Matthews says that the American People are morally humiliated when, in Syria, ISIS burns an allied pilot alive, or in Libya a gang not actually part of the Islamic State (but soi-disant nonetheless), beheads 45 Egyptians for being Christian.

And that's before today's episode in Iraq, where some captured members of the Iraqi government forces were burned alive.

There is not a moment's introspection into the monstrous hubris this entails.  

How does a producer decide whether to employ additional units of a resource? This question is posed in the 6th edition of a textbook titled "Economics: Private and Public Choice". We (the collective labor force) have been reduced to "units of a resource".

Another election cycle is upon us, and the crowded field of Republican candidates are pushing the same truncated arguments from past elections. “It will be different this time." “If we stick to our conservative principles we can't lose.” Tragically, most of the solutions they offer don't address the root cause of many of our socioeconomic problems. The labor force (at all levels) has been relegated to being nothing more than an appendage. That's a systemic problem that no one on the right is going to address.

In theory it would be easy to raise the minimum wage and help millions of people in poverty. There is, however, a consequence that comes with doing this: a small percentage of those who need the most help would be hurt as some jobs would be reduced or eliminated. There's enough Prima facie evidence for us to admit that low wages and depressed living standards are a structural part of our economy. Many industries are dependent on a supply of low skilled and immobile labor. I'm not sure if we can untangle the necessity for human suffering from our economic equation.

In part two I focused on the psychological war being waged by some inside the black community. I intentionally avoided discussing issues related specifically to black women. The level of disrespect they deal with is deserving of its own discussion. I know black men who have never dated a black woman; they love the women in their family, but look to other races to find a mate. I know black men who show outward animosity, if not contempt, towards black women. I often wonder; If black men don't value black women why should anyone else?

Imagine a world series which was fixed. Not by the players  ("say it ain't so, Joe") but- much more efficiently-  by the umpires.

Which is what was happening in the run up to the Financial Crisis.

That's the conclusion to be drawn from the $1.5 Billion Standard& Poor's settlement.

If you Google black on black crime you'll be bombarded by statistics detailing inner city violence, pictures of chalk outlines and countless stories about the lives that have been destroyed. What you won't find are many stories chronicling the history of the black bourgeois attacking poorer and less educated blacks. This form of black on black crime is used by reactionaries to validate the criminalization of blacks. The most tasteless form of these attacks are leveled by "elites" who seek to distance themselves from the negative imagery associated with black life. There's a very lucrative conservative media market for blacks willing to denigrate other blacks.