The First National Conference Call for Black Women for Obama Members!

Yes We CAN Do It Again!!!

Announcing the first national conference call for members of Black Women for Obama, September 1, 2011 at 8PM EST. Join us that evening as we begin to discuss the goals of the organization, and how we can begin to get the word out among not only Black women, but women and men of all races all over the country who want to see President Barack Obama re-elected as we do!

To Join The Call:

Conference Call Dial-in: 1-712-432-3066
Conference Code: 245220

Let’s do it again in 2012, so that President Obama can finish the important work he’s started! Don’t be fooled by a political climate in which a Republican-controlled House of Representatives has done little or nothing to come to the table with solutions, and even worse, has blocked any real attempts at bi-partisan compromise! President Obama is still the right choice for America – let’s give him the time he needs to turn this nation around and restore civility to our political discourse by sending him back to the White House. We’re looking for leaders from every state who want to serve as Directors and coordinate activities for other BWFO members in your state – if you’re interested, please email us at StateChapters@blackwomenforobama.org, and then join us on September 1, 2011 at 8PM and let your voice be heard!

The meeting will be moderated by Patricia Wilson-Smith, the Executive Director of Black Women for Obama. See you there!

Here's How To Help: Text JOPLIN to 90999 to Donate $10.00 To Their Relief Fund

Joplin Missouri Tornado Devastation

As a native Missourian, it’s been heart-breaking watching the almost total devastation of Sunday’s tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri. The stories of pain and loss are gut-wrenching, and if you’re far away from the Midwest, especially in these shaky economic times, it would be easy to feel helpless. But the American Red Cross makes it easy to play a small part in helping the people that are suffering re-build, and it couldn’t be easier.

To donate $10 through the American Red Cross to help recovery in Joplin, MO, text JOPLIN to 90999 from your cell phone.

The additional information that follows came directly from Missouri’s Department of Public Safety on the best way to make a difference in helping Joplin—volunteer, donations, ways to contact family in the area, and the United Way 2-1-1:

-Missourians interested in volunteering to assist should first call (800) 427-4626 or 2-1-1, instead of reporting directly to a command post or the disaster area. Those with medical skills interested in volunteering should go to:https://www.showmeresponse.org/.

-Missourians who need disaster information, shelter information or referrals are urged to call:
The United Way’s 2-1-1 service number is now available for most areas in Missouri. In areas where the 211 number is not operational, citizens can call 800-427-4626.

-Missourians wishing to make donations to help with the relief effort can go to http://www.sema.dps.mo.gov/recover/donations.asp or call (800) 427-4626 or 2-1-1.

-Residents affected by the tornado who wish to notify their friends and family that they are safe should go to:https://safeandwell.communityos.org/cms/index.php. Friends and family who would like to check on their loved ones in the affected area can use the same site.

Please do what you can to help – $10 from millions of Americans will make all the difference once the media has gone home, and the next newsworthy event takes hold to our collective attentions. The people in this ravaged area will still need help then, so do your part now.

Republicans Let New York's 26th Go – Over Medicare?

New York's 26th House District Race

Update: 10:02pm EST – MSNBC has just called the race for Kathy Hochul, the Democrat in the race. Booyah!

Deeply Republican district – the 26th in New York, going down in flames for Repulicans because of Paul Ryan’s “Kill Medicare” bill. Yikes.

As of this writing, with 5% of precincts reporting, Democrat Kathy Hocul is in the lead with 48% of the vote, Jane Corwin is trailing with 43% of the vote, and dark horse Jack Davis is bringing up the rear as expected with 8% of the vote.

A little background. This is the congressional district vacated earlier this year by Republican and very married Representative Christopher Lee, who gave up his seat right after he gave up his shirt on Craig’s List trying to pick up…somebody. The thing is, unlike almost all of the rest of New York, this little district has voted consistently Republican in every race in recent history. Apparently, until tonight.

Tonight, voters in that district are voicing their deep dissapointment over the Republican candidates endorsement of the Ryan Medicare blaster bill. Hochul, the Democratic candidate held firm to her opposition of the bill, and made it a centerpiece of her campaign. Corwin, the Republican, hitched her wagon to the Ryan bill, that is until the polls started to mock her, and she tried to back off of her position. Too late, though, it looks like.

Alas and alack – I have to call it a night before we get the final results, but even if Ms. Corwin somehow manages to pull this one off (which looks truly doubtful at this point), Republicans all over the country HAVE to be re-thinking this whole “Medicare as sacrificial deficit lamb” stuff. If indeed Ms. Hochul takes this district tonight, it’s going to be endlessly entertaining tomorrow watching how the Conservative spin machine squirms out of this. Stay tuned.

A Letter to Jan

Beloved BWFO Readers,

On Friday, May 20th, I received a response to a Craig’s List ad soliciting contributors for this blog.  The response came from a woman named Jan B. who is an apparent supporter of Herman Cain’s. I thought her email to me was fascinating, and my response to her even more fascinating (I kid), and both are included below. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

=================================================================

Jan’s Email:

Why are you supporting him, because he has African roots?  Please get educated on his policies and do a background check on his chosen czars.    I believe if you do this you might change your mind.  Study the health care bill.  Are there somethings you would not like to suffer or your love ones that could happen to you. How about going to jail if you don’t pay for your health insurance? Or, you have a major disease and the government will not pay for your illness because of expenses?  These are true facts. His policies and the corrupted individuals who co-side with  him are here to destroy the America you live in.

A better candidate for 2012 election is our own  Herman Cain  check him out. True Black America!

My Response:

Dear Jan,

I absolutely love it when total strangers email me making a bunch of assumptions about what I do or don’t know. I think one of my biggest problems with Conservatives (of all varieties) is the tendency some of you have to spout rhetorical nonsense about “Czars”, and the Government threatening to arrest people for not maintaining their health care for no other reason than to scare people. But you want to talk about health care? Let’s.

My mother lived with me for 5 years, after she lost her kidney function and was later diagnosed with breast cancer. After 60+ years of paying into the Medicare and Social Security systems as a contributing member of society, her medical bills were so high that she and I were both forced into bankruptcy. She was too sick to walk, but she had to suffer the humiliation of going to court to speak on her own behalf regarding her astronomical medical bills. It was horrible – we were defenseless against the high costs of her care, and powerless to do anything about the skyrocketing costs as they mounted.

The truly sad thing is, my mother’s is not the worst story I’ve heard regarding the state of health care in America. People are literally dying because they don’t have access to health care, in the RICHEST NATION IN THE WORLD! If you can’t see why that’s a problem, then you’re soul-less, and it’s a waste of time to debate you. I’m not saying that the Health Care bill is perfect – far from it. But beleaguering the fact that one might potentially be fined for not maintaining health coverage in a society where you can literally be jailed for not maintaining liability insurance on your CAR is a little silly.

You dilute your point by saying things like “His [Obama's] policies and the corrupted individuals who co-side with  him are here to destroy the America you live in.” It makes you sound like a zealot intent on turning everyone you meet against Obama just because. And as for Herman Cain – I’m very familiar with Mr. Cain. I listened to his show here locally in Atlanta when he was still on the air. I respect him as a business man, and a fellow technologist, but he supports most of the same policies that nearly drove this country into a ditch over the last decade, so I can’t support him. I don’t care what his race is. And I think that’s the most offensive thing of all about your email.

You assume I support President Obama because of his race. That demeans me, and him. If you’d wandered across my blog back in 2007, you’d have found that in the beginning, I was quite torn between Obama and Clinton, and in fact, only made my decision to support Obama after researching his policies, reading his book, and a whole lot of soul searching, since even I back then didn’t hold out a lot of hope that he could win in this country. So, again – you minimize the effectiveness of your argument by making blanket assumptions – let’s debate the issues, not hurl baseless accusations. It doesn’t help the collective dialog.

Thanks for responding to my Craig’s List ad, though it certainly was not the kind of response I was after. It’s even more important now than ever that we have these conversations, but we also all must do what we can to make sure our conversations are productive and responsible. I hope you’ll join me in that. I await your response.

Patricia Wilson-Smith
Executive Director, Black Women for Obama

Political Stunner: Donald Trump NOT Running For President!

Donald Trump

I hope you can all see the sarcasm dripping from my keyboard as I typed the headline for this post. It boggles the mind that the mainstream media and many political pundits who at one time were actually respected in their field, actually believed that Donald Trump was serious about anything but boosting the ratings on his goofy reality show. But alas and alack, that’s exactly what they did believe. Or did they?

Unlike my friend at MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell, I believe that what’s really going on is that the 24 hour news cycle has become no different than the endless sea of hokey reality shows that fill the airwaves. It seems to me that rather than just report the good old boring news, they’d rather hand over all the air time to lunatics with salacious things to say in the name of garnering ratings for their television shows, or to empty-headed politicians with pretty faces and big mouths with nothing real coming out of them (read Palin/Bachmann). The media is in the business of making us believe that non-reality is reality. Just like all the stupid reality shows that pour into our living rooms from every channel in an endless sea of staged lunacy.

I didn’t need Lawrence O’Donnell to tell me that Donald Trump was not running for President. I don’t care how many Trump towers the man has managed to build, there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING about him that says he has an intellect that could stand up to Barack Obama’s. Though I’m certain he’s at least smart enough to know that, and smart enough to know that by reviving the much maligned ‘Birther’ issue, he could get ratings for his show without paying a red cent for it. In that way, I suppose, the man is some form of media genius. But President material? Hell no.

And so, that the news media would seriously consider that he really was planning to run for President does not bode well for the future of journalistic news in this country. I mean, think of it – how many real stories went untold while CNN and Fox News followed Donald Trump around listening to him rant and rave about President Obama’s long-form, blah, blah, blah? And how many legitimate crises around the world went unreported while professional interviewers probed Donald Trump for more information about a potential presidential run that was never a real possibility? And worst of all, how many important tasks did President Obama have to put aside to deal with ‘Side-Show Donald’ and his traveling ‘birther’ act? Even if he spent five minutes on it, it was too much. All because the media didn’t know where to draw the line between the truth and a dumb, counter-productive lie.

It’s not good that the news media is so easily duped. They serve an important purpose – we need them to be lucid, and not running after every shiny, entertaining object that’s waved in their collective faces. We need them focused on real issues, real candidates, and real stories. Oh, if only this were the only time they had victimized us by giving countless news cycles to political circus acts, but no – regrettably, it is this same news media that gave Donald Trump his weeks and weeks of free, fake publicity that gave us the likes of Michelle Bachmann – a woman famous only for her shocking lack of intellect and the enthusiasm with which she puts it on display. If it was not for the shake-your-head-at-her-stupidity quality she brings to every public appearance, and the news media’s need to put showcase it, she would not now be listed among those who are considering a run for the highest office in the land. I mean, wow – really?

Well – at least as of today we can cross Donald Trump off the list of the loonies who would be President. With any luck, after the public flogging he got at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, this time he’ll hang up his fake stump speeches for good. And to steal a line from the hilarious Seth Myers, if the desire to run should rise up in him again, maybe the fox on his head will eat it.