Monroe Anderson

Hey, Blue States, why don't we secede from the Union?

       We're got an old wound that Sarah Palin and her running buddy, John McCain, have ripped off the scab and torn open and exposed for all the world to see: The Divided States of America.
    Although George W. Bush contributed mightily to the whole Red State/Blue State development and, before him, Ronald Reagan launched the Southern Strategy, until recently we sorta, kinda thought of ourselves as the United States of America.
    No more. Thanks to McPalin, we've now come to realize there are real Americans and the rest of us. We now know there are pro-American parts of America and then there are those other parts in our nation.
   Channeling Joseph McCarthy, Michele Bachmann, a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, even pointed out that Barack and Michelle Obama are anti-American and called for the MSM to do a congressional investigation to discover which of her Democratic colleagues were anti-American.
    This may sound like a bunch of nonsense to many of you, but I suggest we think about it. If the McCain, Palin, Bachmann crowd really don’t think we’re one of them—then maybe we shouldn’t be.
   I’m startin to believe that the First Dude, Todd Palin, was on to somethin when he was pallin around with members of the Alaska Independence Party and lookin into the movement to have his and Sarah's state secede from the Lower 48.  I’m now believin that he was right in spirit, but wrong in who ought to be leavin who.
   I'm figurin that those of us in the Blue States should let all those true Americans in the Red States keep it real. And I just received a viral email from my Jewish, suspected socialist-sympathizing friend, Chuck Halevi, spelling out just what we should do and what we'll get in the process and what we'll be leavin to the not anti-Americans.

   Read it and smile:

Dear Red States:
We've decided we're leaving.  We intend to form our
own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with
us.  In case you aren't aware, that includes California , Hawaii ,
Oregon , Washington , Minnesota , Wisconsin , Michigan ,
Illinois and the entire Northeast.
We believe this split will be beneficial to the
nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New
California

To sum up briefly:
You get Texas , Oklahoma and all the slave states.  We
get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty.  You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft.  You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard.  You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85 percent of America 's venture capital and
entrepreneurs. You get Alabama .
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make
the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower
than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy
families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be
pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back
from Iraq at once.
If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals.
They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for
  no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their
 children's caskets coming home.
 We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs
  turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's
Quagmire.
  With the Blue States in hand, we will have:
 firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh
 water more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce
92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit
95 percent of America 's quality wines (you can serve
 French wines at state dinners)
90 percent of all cheese
90 percent of the high tech industry - most of the
  U.S. low-sulfur coal all living redwoods, sequoias and condors all the
Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus ... - Stanford , Cal
Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have
 to cope with:
   -  88 percent of all obese  Americans (and their
 projected health care costs)
   -  92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes,
   -  nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes,
  -  90 percent of the hurricanes,
  -  virtually 100 percent of all televangelists and
their buddies like Rush Limbaugh, as well as Bob Jones University ,
Clemson College and the Univ. of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite , thank you very much.
Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states
believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe
 life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws,
44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that
Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you nincompoops believe
you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
 
 
Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have the Mexican stuff when they knock your wall down.

 
Peace out, 

     Oh, and one last thing. Keeping in the spirit of who gets the short end of the stick, y'all can have Mavericks John McCain and Sarah Palin. We get Vice-President Joe Biden and, the Leader of the Really Free World, President Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.

 

For GOP, scary is as scary does

 
    Pity the poor right. The party faithful's fear and smear machine that has worked in the past--quicker than you could say Swift boating or Willie Horton--just doesn’t possess that same old white magic.
    Right wing-imagined Bogey men Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers ain’t scarin’ ‘em this Halloween season. Nor are those old, tried but untrue Republican boos about higher taxes and big government. Bald-faced lying doesn’t even work—Did you hear the ones about the Michelle Obama tape where she speaks ill of whitey or that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. was born in a village in Kenya, not the good ol’ USA?
    It must be frustrating. For the longest the Right has had a bulging bag of dirty tricks and a mountain of mud it summoned at will to muck things up.
    This time, it’s not working.

  "All of a sudden, the economy was on life-support and the Republicans were still prescribing that we take two aspirins and a tax cut for the rich."

    Obama just isn't as scary as they believe he should be.
    The Democrat is cleaning McPalin’s clock in Red states that should readily be in the taken-for-granted column.  In Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the Democrat enjoys a commanding lead in the polls. In Florida and North Carolina, he and John McCain are tied. Even bloody red Indiana is in play.
    This time, real-world fears got in the way of the Right’s manufactured ones: The housing crisis, the credit collapse and the plunging stock market.
    All of a sudden, the economy was on life-support and the Republicans were still prescribing that we take two aspirins and a tax cut for the rich. Why worry about what might be, when you’re trying to survive what is?
    Spooky tales about Obama raising your capitol gains tax just aren’t the same when you’re staring at your portfolio and seeing equities that have lost all their gains.  Screaming “welfare” sounds dumb when you’re worried about how well you and your family are faring. Crying wolf has no bite once you realized that it’s the foxes in the hen house who have ruined the day. Or that George W. Bush is our national gremlin. 
    That’s why the Republicans are running scared. Paper-tiger warnings and scary tales of yore sound like off-key whistling in the graveyard while the Repo man and the sheriff with an eviction notice are both banging on your door.  And then there’s Sarah Palin—the thought of her sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office is the most frightening thing of all.

 (If the photo-shopped pix of Obama as a tattooed gang member didn't scare you enough, perhaps this viral YouTube video of Obama as Hitler will. BOO!)

(This post, minus the YouTube video, is also on Huffingtonpost.com.)

Obama unmasked as terrorist

    You wouldn’t think that being a terrorist in America would have much commercial appeal. The very thought of one—whether he’s hiding in the badlands of Pakistan, just a rocket launch from the Afghanistan border, or is a well-respected educator who did bad, bad things four decades ago—is enough for any true, blue American to want to spill a little blood.
    So why would Amazon.com expect to get $49.95 for a terrorist Halloween mask? That price is more than the change we need. Could it be because, in this case, the “terrorist” was none other than the man poised to win the U.S. presidential election by a landslide?
    You betcha, my friends.  If you were willing to shell out more than half a C note, after shipping and handling, you could have bought a terrorist mask that has an uncanny likeness to Barack Obama—the guy McPalin and their hateful hordes have been  mislabeling for the past few weeks.

    We don’t know if this is more wingnut subterfuge or an honest mistake, but the folks at Amazon.com have since removed the classification, thanks to the L.A. Times blog, Top of the Ticket. (Hat tip to the Black Political Thought blog.)

Amazon.com listing had Barack Obama Halloween mask under 'terrorist'

You know that argument the John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign has been relentlessly making that Barack Obama "pals" around with terrorists such as '60s ex-radical William Ayers?

And they say this reflects on his poor judgment because of other associates such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and newly-convicted Tony Rezko?

And worried Obama PR folks jump right on the e-mail whenever Obama and Ayers and the word "friend" appear together anywhere, even though Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Obama chief strategist David Axelrod have called them friends or friendly.

Anyway, a listing on Amazon.com, one of the largest and most successful online merchandisers in the world, seemed to come down even beyond the Republicans' side -- for a while anyway. With Halloween just days away, they're making a bundle off a $49.95 Barack Obama mask.
Which was displayed on the "terrorist costume" page.

You read that right!

To read the rest of the Top of the Ticket post, click here.

    As it turns out, the Democrat Presidential Candidate Barrack Obama Full Vinyl Mask, which is listed as a Jerkyll and Hyde item, can be purchased for a mere $19.95.

    Hurry, All Hallow's Eve is just five nights away--although April Fool's Day is about 10 weeks after the presidential inauguration. 

McPalin's Ayn Rand economics

            As usual, John McCain and Sarah Palin are attempting to take a good thing and turn it inside out. This time it’s Barack Obama’s tax plan, which would increase income taxes for anyone making a quarter of a million a year and cut income taxes for the other 95 percent of us.
      In explaining his proposal, Obama, the McPalins point out, had the audacity to say that he wanted to “spread the wealth.” 
     McCain labeled that generous notion welfare and socialistic. The Republican wants to make sure that the ubber-rich get ubber richer. Rather than having Big Government take a little of the fat cat money to help the homeless, McCain would rather see swells like him have enough money to assure that their seven, or eight or nine homes are all well maintained and lavishly furnished. Many conservatives are quick to make the pitch that the top one percent of America's richest pay almost 35 percent of the nation's taxes, but they fail to mention that the same richest of the rich own nearly 35 percent of the nation's net worth or that the top 10 percent own 71 percent of the nation's wealth.
      That doesn't count to the GOP. For the last few days, McCain and his trusty Pitbull, Palin, have been on the stump, scolding Obama for being some kind of Robin Hood.
     I suggest that anyone tempted to buy into McPalin’s Ayn Rand economics--The Virtue of Selfishness--read an article about a United Nations report that’s just been posted by the Guardian, a publication out of England. The headline and the first few paragraphs explain exactly why the filthy rich ought to be willing to share the wealth more.
     Check it out.

Wealth gap creating a social time bomb

• By John Vidal, environment editor
• The Guardian,
• Thursday October 23 2008

Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest and increased mortality, says a new United Nations report on the urban environment.

In a survey of 120 major cities, New York was found to be the ninth most unequal in the world and Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, and Miami had similar inequality levels to those of Nairobi, Kenya Abidjan and Ivory Coast. Many were above an internationally recognised acceptable "alert" line used to warn governments.

"High levels of inequality can lead to negative social, economic and political consequences that have a destabilising effect on societies," said the report. "[They] create social and political fractures that can develop into social unrest and insecurity."

According to the annual State of the World's cities report from UN-Habitat, race is one of the most important factors determining levels of inequality in the US and Canada.

"In western New York state nearly 40% of the black, Hispanic and mixed-race households earned less than $15,000 compared with 15% of white households. The life expectancy of African-Americans in the US is about the same as that of people living in China and some states of India, despite the fact that the US is far richer than the other two countries," it said.

Disparities of wealth were measured on the "Gini co-efficient", an internationally recognised measure usually only applied to the wealth of countries. The higher the level, the more wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer people.

"It is clear that social tension comes from inequality. The trickle down theory [that wealth starts with the rich] has not delivered. Inequality is not good for anybody," said Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat, in London yesterday. 

To read the rest of the Guardian article, click here.

Of course, the McPalins, the Bushites and other wingnuts may not be the least bit concerned because, according to some of my more paranoid friends, they already have contingency plans to control the teeming, angry masses. The solution, brought to you by FEMA, the Federal government organization that failed New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, is--concentration camps.

Here's a viral video claiming that FEMA has set up concentration camps. My friend, Bob Tutman sent me this video that's been making for rounds for two years now.

Obama at the bottom of his graduating class...what if?

      

    

     I get my fair share of viral emails like everyone else.      But I particularly like this one because it so adroitly flips the script, encouraging us to reconsider circumstances. It's something the right-wingers who so vehemently charge that Barack Obama isn't qualified to run this nation--and that Sarah Palin is--should think about. That applies to the undecided voters who question Obama's skills while blithely accepting McCain's as well:

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched
around?....think about it.

Would the country's collective point of view be different?
Could racism be the culprit?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including
a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating
class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his
standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair
while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only bec ame addicted to
painkillers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable
organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five
were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting
a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis
of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included
discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer
distribution?


You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected
reality,do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as
they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes
positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in
another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:

Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study University of Idaho -
2 semesters -journalism Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in
the land as well as our standing in the world.

You make the call.

    After you give it a little thought.

In Search of Intelligence in the Multiverse--Not in Minnesota where Michele Bachmann represents

          Right-wingers pine for the days when we liked Ike, uppity-Negroes could be put in their place and commie witch-hunts were a national sport. So it should come as no surprise that a congresswoman that was molded in the state next door to the one that gave us Joe McCarthy harkens back to the days when the Wisconsin senator waged "The Fight for America."

          For the millions and millions of us who aren't in the know, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota believes we ought to get a clue:  Barack Obama "may have anti-America views" and the MSM should "take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America or anti-America."

        The first Republican woman to represent Minnesota in the House of Representatives made these moronic statements on the MSNBC show Hardball while being interviewed by Chris Matthews. Bachmann's charge was just one more piece of prima fascia evidence that the wingnuts think that they only know what is America values, that they only know who is pro-American and that they only what they think is the only true American way to think.

       Bachmann came to her conclusions based on the false assertion that Obama "had a very strong association with Bill Ayers" and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, both Democrats, have "far-leftist views."

       Right, and from the front-window of my house in Chicago, I can see Minnesota--but I can see Joe McCarthy with lipstick.

 

Last best chance ends with McLoss

           John McCain is not George W. Bush. We know that because he told us so.
          “I am not George Bush.” McCain said last night in the last of the presidential debates. “If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”
         And Barack Obama is not John Kerry.
         We know that because this year’s Democratic presidential nominee fired back with just the right retort at just the right moment: “If I occasionally mistaken your policies for George Bush’s policies, it’s because on the core economic policies that matter to the American people, on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities, you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush.”

          "Although the Arizona senator had promised to “whip Obama’s ass” in last night’s debate, he failed to deliver. By the time the 90-minutes were over, it was obvious that McCain was suffering from a bad case of whupped ass."

        And that’s pretty much how it went for much of the presidential smackdown at Hofstra University with an angry, aggressive McCain attacking and a cool, calm and collected Obama deflecting his rabbit punches.
      Although the Arizona senator had promised to “whip Obama’s ass” in last night’s debate, he failed to deliver. By the time the 90-minutes were over, it was obvious that McCain was suffering from a bad case of whupped ass.
      A CNN snap poll reported that among undecided likely voters, Obama won by 58 to 31 percent.
     That was despite McCain’s desperate attempt to turn his last best chance to his advantage by questioning the content of Obama’s character.
     The 72-year-old presidential candidate weaved back and forth between scowling and smiling as he faithfully repeated the tired old right-wing bromides that have played well for Republicans in election after election past.
      We know them when we hear them if not by heart: Obama is planning on raising taxes and that would cripple the economy. Obama is a tax and spend liberal who is waging class warfare with his health insurance plan because he wants “to spread the wealth around.” 
      And Obama was hit with that predictable Republican ruse of guilt by association with McCain trotting out the right-wing’s trumped up claims that Obama and 1960s anti-war radical Bill Ayers were in the habit of hanging out together.
      Looking presidential, while carefully protecting his double-digit lead in the national opinion polls by not saying the anything that would make today’s headlines, Obama counterpunched McCain’s charges: As president, he would only raise taxes on those Americans who make $250,000 a year or more. If McCain becomes president, for the first time ever Americans would have to pay taxes on their insurance benefits. "Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign, he has never been involved in this campaign, and he will not advise me in the White House,” Obama explained before listing the brand name, highly respected Americans would advise him.
     Obama’s presidential performance was not an easy thing for McCain to take. You could hear the Arizona senator grunting off camera as the Democrat laid out his program cuts. You could see the former war hero fighting to control his temper as Obama confidently explained his health insurance plan in detail. And, you could see—as McCain finally looked at Obama in the final debate—steely eyes shooting nothing but contempt.
     So while he told us he wasn’t George Bush early in the debate, McCain never got around to explaining how his financial policies would be different.
     And that, for all of us who don’t make a quarter mil a year or more, was the greatest guilt by association of all.

(You can watch the final presidential debate on the C-Span video below.)

Black minister preaches Obama hate to whites

           “What every white person should know and hear” read the subject line to an email forwarded to me. It came from one of my white, right email pals.  I have several conservatives I correspond with because I like to know what my philosophical opposites are thinking, because I like to prick them with my solid-left observations and because, beyond the politics, we somehow, someway recognize each other’s humanity.
     So I opened the YouTube video, “A Call to Arms For White People of Truth,” that my electronic pen pal, Gene, had forwarded to me.  As it turned out, it was another diatribe from Rev. James David Manning, who has a string of these uninformed, self-hating, self-aggrandizing virals. In this one, the Atlah Worldwide Ministries pastor preaches that "black people always walk around with a chip on their shoulder, because they're black, daring anybody to say anything to them" and that "black men are full of abandonment, they're full of murder, they're full of robbery..."

        I posted one of his earlier videos, "Obama's Bra 54 Double 'D'," on March 23. In that one, fulminating about the viral video, "I Got a Crush On Obama," Rev. Manning starts off with “Obama is a Mac Daddy,” before describing as a “big-chested white woman” Obama Girl. "who must be a 54 D, double D."

       He gets more nutty and less correct from there.
       Rev. Manning claims to be a Ph.D.  He was featured ranting on Obama on Fox Cable News' Sean Hannity's show.  Dr. Manning has also theorized that black people have no honor, that Obama is a homosexual drug user forever and that Obama is a test tube baby.
     While the misguided minister has no street, religious or academic cred, he does have cyberspace appeal: His viral untruths are out.
     Those who are capable of walkin and spittin tobacco at the same time know that Rev. Manning is talkin electronic cow chips. Those that think his message meritorious are still working their way through the pictures in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel.

      And that really is something every white person should know and hear.

With Rep. Jefferson, third time's a curse

   

     The Democratic U.S. congressman from New Orleans, William J. Jefferson,  turned a silk purse into a sow’s ear.  The first black congressman from Louisiana since Reconstruction, a Harvard Law graduate, had the world on a string. And in many instances, it could be argued, he served his congressional district well.
    But, then again, he did not.

    When Hurricane Katrina struck, the congressman found it more pressing to commandeer the National Guard so they could help him remove some precious items from his home while some of his constituents were sitting on their roofs tops begging to be rescued.
    There was also that little incident where the Feds found $90,000 in marked bills in Jefferson’s freezer in his D.C. home.
    The New Orleans politician faces a run-off for his congressional seat on Nov. 4. On that day, Louisiana voters ought to make sure that they send Barack Obama to the White House and Rep. Jefferson to the retirement home.

     The congressman had his chance and blew it. Wayne Hicks at the Electronic Village agrees. Here’s some of what he had to say about the Louisiana congressman:

Rep. William Jefferson .... Please, Just Go Away!

Do you believe that things come in threes? If so, perhaps there is still hope that New Orleans congressman William Jefferson will fade from sight soon. First, Kwame Kilpatrick was forced from his position as mayor of Detroit. Second, OJ Simpson was forced from his position as a sports icon.

Perhaps U.S. Rep. William Jefferson will be #3 on this list. Jefferson, seeking his 10th term in Congress, faces a December trial on charges that he took bribes, laundered money and misused his congressional office for business dealings in Africa.

Of course, the people of New Orleans can end his career on November 4 when his congressional district holds a runoff. Jefferson was the first Black elected to Congress from Louisiana since Reconstruction. But, it is time for him to go away. Since he won't retire, it is up to the people to put him away.

OJ Simpson had false hope before he was found guilty by Las Vegas jury. Perhaps Jefferson is a wee bit too confident. He addressed a few dozen family members and supporters at a restaurant in a section of eastern New Orleans still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina. “We look forward to a rigorous campaign but a successful outcome,” Jefferson said.

A victory in the Nov. 4 runoff would send Jefferson to a Dec. 6 general election in the heavily Democratic district against a little-known Republican.

     Read the rest of the Electronic Village post here.

      And, this is what I had to say about Jefferson in my Chicago Sun-Times op-page column more than a year a ago.

Rep. Jefferson a Bad Actor

Chicago Sun-Times

January 21, 2007
BY MONROE ANDERSON

 

 

I'd bet my bottom dollar that William Jennings Jefferson's folks taught him what all perceptive parents taught their black baby boomer children about the secret of succeeding in the racially challenged U.S. of A.: ''You've got to be twice as good as the white man.''

Somewhere along the line, the 60-year-old Harvard Law graduate forgot his upbringing.

U.S. Rep. Jefferson was arraigned Friday in federal court on charges of racketeering, money-laundering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In total, the Louisiana Democrat racked up 16 violations of federal law and if convicted, he could face 235 years in federal prison.

A politically potent, well-connected African-American man taking a criminal legal hit that big, unquestionably failed to do something right. Jefferson, who has been fairly mum publicly about the case but has maintained his innocence, is either bad at appearing to be a good public servant or has acted badly as charged.

The congressman's got some powerful proof to overcome. The feds have successfully flipped two co-conspirators and established a solid paper trail for good measure. Last year, Brett Pfeffer, a former congressional aide, admitted soliciting bribes on Jefferson's behalf and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Another Jefferson associate, Vernon Jackson, the former chief executive of the telecom firm iGate Inc., was sentenced to 87 months in prison for paying $400,000 to a company controlled by Jefferson's wife in hopes of landing contracts from the U.S. Army and a number of African nations. Both Pfeffer and Jackson agreed to cooperate in the case against Jefferson.

From all appearances, Jefferson has been caught red-handed -- on video and by wire as well as live and in living color. Federal investigators say they videotaped the congressman on July 30, 2005, receiving a briefcase containing $100,000 from an FBI informant. A few days later, the FBI executed search warrants to examine Jefferson's homes and car, seizing a number of items, including $90,000 in marked bills stuffed in a home freezer.

Cold cash aside, I'm painfully aware that one of the great American pastimes is locking up black men. Our nation boasts the world record, with more than 1 million African-American men in prison and jail. That's more than all the black men in all the prisons and all the jails in all the other countries on the planet combined. Our imprisoned black men, as a rule, are uneducated, poor and powerless. Jefferson is none of that. Ideally, as a duly elected national lawmaker and leader, you'd think he'd be about setting a good example.

Jefferson, whose 2nd District includes New Orleans, won reelection in a runoff last year partly because of Louisiana's legendary quirky politics and partly because Mayor C. Ray Nagin and other prominent black politicians endorsed him. In 1990, he became the first black member of Congress from that state since Reconstruction.

Last week, Jefferson garnered a similar but more dubious distinction: He is the first U.S. official to face charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. nationals and corporations from corrupting foreign officials.

One of the foreign officials allegedly was Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who recently resigned. Just how good do you have to be to corrupt a Nigerian official? Only Russian palms are less difficult to grease.

This is not the first time Jefferson has received bad press. He was criticized in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Five days after the hurricane made landfall, Jefferson commandeered a National Guard detachment to recover personal property from his home. When the truck that was chauffeuring him to his home got stuck, Jefferson called on more Guardsmen, a helicopter and a second truck to help him out as untold numbers of his constituents sat on the rooftops begging to be rescued.

While it's easy to harbor bad suspicions, I imagine the good congressman was simply checking on his laundry.

McCain-Palin appealing to ugly Americans

      Sarah Palin and John McCain are trash talkin and rummagin through the trash bin of the American electorate.

     To provide the Values Voters  with an excuse beyond "he's black," the two Republicans are painting their Democratic opponent as unAmerican and unpatriotic--someone who may be an uncover agent for the Holy Jihad.

      In McCain and Palin's desperate drive to brake their free fall to defeat, they're appealing to the lowest, ugliest elements of our nation's underbelly: what Chris Matthews calls "the low information voters" and  what I call the losers, bigots and haters. On the day the Dow Jones fell another 678 points, McCain and Palin were sticking to their back story about Obama "palling around" with '60s radical Bill Ayers.

     The Arizona senator and Alaska governor's lure is surfacing at their political rallies where their supporters have been overheard yelling "kill him," "off with his head" and "terrorist" when Barack Hussein Obama's name was mentioned.

    Their so-called culture pitch is resonating. Take a look at this video shot at a McCain-Palin political rally in Strongsville, Ohio by Tim, a citizen journalist, on Blogger Interrupted. (Hat tip to Alimum.)

    With 26 days left before we go to the poll booth and with the Gallup tracking poll reporting that Obama is leading 52 to 41 percent, the freshly-minted Mavericks are going to get as ugly as the Americans they're out to attract.