America’s True Welfare Queens and Kings: Congress

As the Republican legislatures throughout America are cutting or eliminating welfare benefits, many Americans that need those services are falling way below the poverty level.

The very group that criticizes citizens for welfare benefits because they believe it makes people lazy and that no one deserves a free lunch should pause the next time they walk across a mirror and take a long hard look at who is truly lazy and getting a free lunch.

Elected officials used to work to get things done. They used to pass meaningful legislation such as creating jobs but they do nothing of the sort these days. What this new group of lazy politicians now do is spend millions of dollars voting down Obamacare, a piece of legislation that is the law of the land and will benefit millions of people. They spend time writing laws attempting to restrict women and voting rights, defund education, eliminate the postal service and other social services beneficial to all of us.

No. The true "Welfare Kings and Queens" are our government. They are a "do nothing" group and are destroying our nation by doing just that...Nothing. The current congress is setting records for all the wrong reasons. This is the least accomplished congress in its 230 years, and not since Reconstruction have we witnessed politicians introducing legislation that promotes racism, bigotry, sexism, and xenophobia.

Not only are they receiving welfare for rendering no service to the public, but their entire rhetoric is based upon hubris and hypocrisy.

Foolishly Flawed

Last week, Bill O'Reilly went on a racist, fact-less rant about the number of Black babies being born out of wedlock. He then said Black people commit the most crime in America all the while foolishly attempting to connect the dots of what's failing the Black community and what happened to Trayvon Martin.

What O'Reilly purposely didn't mention in his baseless rant is that more than 35% of Caucasian children are born out of wedlock and that Caucasian men commit crimes against other Caucasian men in almost the same proportion as Blacks.

But in step, CNN Anchor, Don Lemon supported O'Reilly and didn't think O'Reilly went far enough.

Was Don Lemon speaking out and providing effective solutions to the problems in the Black communities before O'Reilly started spewing his buffoonery? No. Don Lemon doesn't spend any significant time on his show talking about those in the Black and Latino communities each day--365 days-a-year creating and implementing solutions to stopping Black-on-Black and Latino-on-Latino crime. Nor does he highlight the mentoring efforts to the youth in making better life decisions. Don Lemon is entitled to his opinion, albeit, foolishly flawed but his opinion, nonetheless.

Equally, embarrassing was Lemon's cookie cutter asinine 5 basic principles of being a successful Black person:

1. Pull you pants up
2. Finish your education
3. Stop using the N-word
4. Fix your communities
5. Stop having babies out of wedlock

Here are some stats that Mr. Lemon should keep in mind:

1. Guns are more accessible in the Black communities than food and shelter.

2. Unemployment in Black communities is as high as 25-30 percent.

3. As schools are closing, the penal system is the new education system for America's Black youth.

4. Black youth homelessness is at its highest now than at any other time in U.S. history, including during the Great Depression.

Violence, poverty and apathy have engulfed our communities for some time now, and Don Lemon has been glaringly silent. When he finally has an opportunity to speak what does he do? He supports and validates an individual who gleefully bathes in the waters of racism, bigotry, xenophobia and hypocrisy.

 

Anthony Johnson

“Crab in the Barrel" 2013

I was watching what I thought was the Cartoon Network on my cell phone while going to meet with some clients. I couldn't stop laughing at what I was witnessing. There were people, sharply dressed and speaking gibberish, buffoonery, and just plain silliness. But as I was enjoying the show, someone leaned over me and said, "That's not the Cartoon Network; that's the CPAC event."

In March, extremists were the toast of the CPAC event where they united and voiced their disdain for the beltway media, President Obama, and all that's democratic and progressive. They sent an urgent message that America is going in the wrong direction.

The CPAC debacle was a cornucopia of incohesive, incoherent, and a divisive group of incapable people, who are incomplete opposition to where the nation and its citizenry is moving.

How can we take a political party seriously when it attempts to bludgeon the rest of us with racist, fear mongering, bigotry, anti-women, anti-Latino, anti-LGBT, anti-American, and secessionist rhetoric?

One of the speakers in attendance was Dr. Ben Carson, one of the most brilliant surgeons of any century, who took the opportunity to label President Obama as one who is dividing the nation. What was ghastly apparent to me was that the good doctor is drinking the same Kool-Aid as his extremist colleagues. After his rant...uh...speech, I learned that I've taught 5th graders with a vastly superior knowledge of politics and Presidential history than Dr. Carson.

I guess when Reagan was calling women "Welfare Queens," Black women in particular, Reagan was in no way dividing America. When Bush, Sr., allowed Lee Atwater to pull a Willie Horton to inspire fear in Caucasians against Black people, I guess Bush was in no way creating division in America. When Bush 2 moved slower than molasses to help the poor people during Katrina, Bush 2 was in noooo way dividing Americans.

I find it interesting that a Black man is in the White House and he is transformed from Hitler to Mao, from Stalin to Marx, to the Anti-Christ. I'm curious as to where was Dr. Carson when those former Presidents were destroying and dividing the nation?

My father used to say, "Anthony, even the most educated and brilliant African American is not immune to being fed the "crab in the barrel" philosophy.

"Lobbying Firm of Smoke and Mirrors"

I recently read where it cost more than $10,000,000 to operate a campaign for a senate run. I keep hearing politicians state that our government needs an infusion of youth participation in the political process as well as someday seeking elected office. But how can they?

How can little Mike, Erica, Vaughn, Eric, or Skree Rock who comes from humble beginnings ever aspire to become a senator, a mayor, city council member, or President when they can barely afford bus fare? How can the youth participate and bring much needed fresh ideas to save our government from being currently water boarded by extremist politicians when the political system has been taken over by lobbyist and billionaires whose sole purpose is to provide these same political extremists with millions of dollars to destroy the middle class and poor?

I get it. Career politicians don't want the likes of little Mike, Erica, Vaughn, Eric or Skree Rock from humble beginnings to hold elected office. Its foolish talk brought to you by the lobbying firm of "Smoke and Mirrors."

As long as this system of government is focused on who has the most money to mount a political campaign instead of who can provide good government, the closest thing to elected office little Skree Rock will get to is a soap box on a street corner.

"Since the Docking of the Mayflower"

Abraham Lincoln once said, “If destruction be our lot we must first be its author.” There is a moment in our lives when we make a decision to stand up and be accounted for, and in the process we take a stand for what we believe to be decent and fair. It has always been within us to decide right from wrong--and racism is wrong

Racism can be eliminated in America for the most part, but it will take more than words. It will take common sense and action to terminate this virus that has been ingrained in the nation since the docking of the Mayflower.

I have and will always be an idealist. I believe in achieving the impossibility, but I'm not a fool. Of course there will always be pockets of racism in America by those who find comfort thinking they and their ethnicity is superior to others. I get it. But I also believe that we have the ingenuity to make racism so ineffective and insignificant that it would be relegated to the back pages of America's history that has yet to be written.

We can make racism a non-factor, but to do so, we must be willing to part ways within our comfort zone, meaning our indoctrinated belief system.


Anthony Johnson

"A Circus of Simpletons"

There comes a time when we as citizens must come to the conclusion that we must hold our elected officials responsible for their irresponsible behavior and the utter shame they display and project to the world.

Secretary State Hillary Clinton went to Capital Hill to speak with elected officials about the Benghazi tragedy in which four Americans were murdered. However, what I saw was a circus of simpletons--a group of bitter, angry, and chauvinistic men attempting to belittle, berate, and browbeat Secretary Clinton into submission.

The GOP is dead, and if you're still not convinced of its extinction, simply watch what transpired during the hearing. What has spawned from the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower is a viral, putrid group of individuals who thought it was better to grandstand, denigrate, and desecrate Americans who were murdered in Benghazi rather than seeking solutions to ensure that a tragedy of this magnitude never occurs again.

Just remember, those elected officials of Ron Johnson, John McCain and Rand Paul to name a few are a cancer in our government and to the Republic, but they were elected by you. Yes you. We are asked to drink responsibly to avert accidents to ourselves and the public. I ask that beginning today we vote responsibly, to protect the nation from irresponsible elected officials.


Anthony Johnson

The Real Culprit

Pennsylvania Governor Corbett is suing the NCAA, which according to the governor overstepped its authority by inflicting stiff penalties on Penn State University, claiming that those sanctions are hurting the state. It's hubris of Governor Corbett to find time in his schedule to sue the NCAA over the sanctions he initially supported levied at Penn State for covering and giving free reign to a sexual predator to abuse children on the campus of the institution.

As governor, Mr. Corbett has no capacity on how to effectively manage Pennsylvania's affairs. He is clueless at stopping the flow of unregistered guns coming in the state; he is woefully impotent at creating jobs for Pennsylvanians; he callously de-funded public schools; and he gleefully signed-off on the voter suppression law that had to be overturned by the State's Supreme Court.

As Attorney General, Governor Corbett moved at a snail's pace in bringing the Sandusky issue to light, and in this writer's opinion, the newly elect Attorney General should be investigating him.

Consequently, if Governor Corbett is looking for the real culprit who's hurting the state of Pennsylvania, all he has to do is look in the mirror.

 

 

 

Anthony Johnson