Can I get a Billionaire friend ? ? ?

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife have given GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's super-PAC $10 million, the biggest cash infusion in the race for the White House. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports on the couple behind the contribution.

“I don’t think it’s buying a presidency any more than it was when Joe Kennedy helped his son,” Sig Rogich, a veteran Republican operative who serves as Adelson’s government affairs consultant, said in an interview about the massive donations that the casino mogul has made to Gingrich’s super PAC.

Adelson, 78, who has a personal fortune estimated at $21 billion, “plays to win” and “puts his money where his mouth is,” Rogich added. 

In the last three weeks,Adelson and his Israeli-born wife Miriam have pumped $10 million into the Winning Our Future Super PAC. Those donations provided a critical cash infusion that helped revive Gingrich’s candidacy, bankrolling attack ads againstMitt Romney in South Carolina and now Florida.  They’ve also made the Adelsons the largest known donors so far in a presidential race awash with money under new rules allowing unlimited donations to so-called super PACs

But the contributions have also raised new questions about Adelson’s outside role in influencing the campaign.  Those questions could intensify as a result of potentially provocative comments he has made about Israel uncovered by NBC News. 

Slave Ship Republican Ad..... 2012

Help turn this ship around! Go to http://MarkOxnerForCongress.com to stopObama and his pet progressive parrot,  ALAN GRAYSON......

Tuskegee Men and Women

The Root:  


In 1941 Eleanor Roosevelt, at Bethune's urging, convinced theRosenwald Fund (which had a long history of supporting various kinds of projects aimed at ameliorating American race relations, and on whose board she served) to help expand the pilot-training program at Tuskegee. 


And then in March of that year, Roosevelt not only visited the Tuskegee Institute's Moton Airfield but, incredibly, also asked the chief flight instructor, Charles A. "Chief" Anderson, to take her on a flight, against the adamant objections of the Secret Service.

This is quite likely the first time a black man flew a plane with a white woman as his passenger. Roosevelt spent over an hour in the skies above Tuskegee. She returned to Washington and lobbied her husband to integrate America's aviation forces. 

According to the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, she declared that all the statements she had heard that blacks couldn't fly planes were bunkum.

Flying Through the Open Doors: Willa Beatrice Brown

The Tuskegee Airmen also owed a debt to Willa Beatrice Brown, one of two women in the all-black Challenger Air Pilots Association, founded in 1935. Brown was one of about 100 licensed black pilots in the entire country. She also became the first African-American woman to receive a commission as a lieutenant in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol.

An expert in business administration and public relations and a dedicated aviator, Brown played a critical role in promoting the image of black aviators to help fight racial prejudice and expand opportunities for all blacks. She became chair of the association's education committee and appeared in the offices of the Chicago Defender, the famed black paper of the era, to convince the paper to cover the association's air shows.

Enoch Waters, one of the paper's editors, visited an air show and became so impressed with the talent he saw that the Defender became a sponsor of the association. The paper, because of Brown's appeal, also began covering all aspects of black aviation, and soon other black papers followed suit, especially the influential Pittsburgh Courier.

Because several American black aviators had gone to fight the Italian fascists in Ethiopia in 1935, national interest in black pilots had increased. Brown exploited the growing fame of black pilots and helped organize Chicago's National Airmen's Association of America in 1937, which chartered branches across the country (except in the Deep South). 

Without Brown's work, African-American interest in aviation could have languished.

When black activists urged Truman to desegregate the military in 1948, they could point to the heroism of the "Red Tails" pilots to prove that black servicemen had earned the equal treatment that they deserved as loyal Americans. But without the bold imagination of Mary McLeod Bethune, the persistent advocacy of Willa Beatrice Brown and the sheer stubbornness of her friend Eleanor Roosevelt, it is doubtful that Tuskegee Airmen 

would have come into being.

And while I found the depiction of the relationship between one of the airmen and his Italian fiancée quite touching (in a nod to a similar romance depicted in Spike Lee's Miracle at Santa Ana), it is a pity that the contributions of these three women -- two black, one white -- couldn't have been called up to frame the action of this very important film.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, and editor-in-chief of The Root.

Great statements from a fellow blogger!!!

Another debate.  Gee, South Carolinians have been looking for anyone but Willard.  They have made up their minds (it's hard to use the word mind in association with South Carolina Trogs).  They seem to have selected the intellectual Visigoth from Georgia as Perry went back to being a full time asshole from El Paso.

The crowd loved Groingich's attack on the press.  They did not care that the basis of the question was his basic amoral hypocritical nature.  One of his former wives claims that Newt wanted to be a swinger, didn't get his way, and dumped her for #3 after six years of adultery.  Newt is a real piece of work.  I have trouble with the words devout and Catholic being used in association with either of the current Groingichs.  Do you?

Willard proved, once again, to be tone deaf to the 99%.  We still don't know when we'll see his 1040.  If he had opened the "debate" with a statement along the lines of "I have decided to do as my Dad did in 1967.  As we speak 12 years of my tax records are being released..." he might have kept his lead.  To most folks he's just one more rich prick who'd look real good with a pitchfork stuck in his ass.  Bain may be his bane, after all a proper capitalist is not a vulture.

All in all, the "debate" confirmed that South Carolina's Trogs don't want a Mormon, a libertarian, or an holier than thou prig from Pennsylvania.  It has to frustrate folks in SC, all they are left to vote for is a Catholic (at least he once was a Baptist ).  The edge goes to Newt.  Willard's lead after New Hampshire didn't make sense, I forgot how slow folks are in the Palmetto state

South Carolina Primary

The conservative vote in South Carolina remains split between Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Gov. Rick Perry going into the closing days before the Jan. 21 primary in the state. 

Each has been rallying voters behind their candidacy as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who would see as the heavy favorite to win the nomination if he were to score a victory in South Carolina. 

"It is now long ago that I resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

- Booker T. Washington
1856-1915, Educator and Author

And the beat goes on . . . . . . Primary Elections 2012

In the past 25 years, the state has thrown 11th hour curve balls to many well-funded front-runners who were expected to win its primary. Among them: Walter Mondale in 1984, Bill Clinton in 1992,George W. Bush in 2000, Howard Dean in 2004, and Obama.

This year, it’s Romney who’s looking over his shoulder, as he approaches Tuesday’s first-in-the nation primary.


Santorum and Huntsman need a strong showing to springboard into South Carolina for its Jan. 21 primary—and both say a strong second finish is possible. Pollster Smith says Huntsman may have the best chance of surging into second, although he cautions that the former Utah governor doesn’t seem to be attracting the Republican base, but Independents and “undeclared” voters who may not be as committed to turn out Tuesday.

Voters here detest coronations, and they have a very long history of taking contrarian positions in elections. 

......Just ask Barack Obama, who was leading Hillary Clinton in 2008 by 13 points the day before the primary. He was gliding into rallies like a rock star as thousands of people waited in freezing weather to see him. She was tearing up in a diner, looking like loser. Pundits were writing her obituary.

Just when it seemed Clinton was finished, New Hampshire gave her a stunning upset victory, throwing the Obama campaign into chaos.

These folks do not want to feel the fix is in. And they don’t pay attention to the horse race.

“I don’t want to be told to vote for a candidate because he’s ahead in the polls—I want to get up close and personal and decide for myself,”

WSJ.... really anti-Obama news point of view....

Mr Obama's signature accomplishments.....(I know they hate to have to call a black man...Mr... instead of boy!"...... His stimulus plan didn't produce the results he promised....  His health-care plan, signed into law on March 23, 2010 (yippee from me!) is the only major piece of modern social legislation to become less popular after passed.   According to Huffington Posts Pollster......is this their sister newspaper with same opinion/slant on the news?

The President seems to relish being an attack dog!  He'll label Republicans want to harm the nation...he'll label any dissent as unpatriotic....(I thought that was Sarah Palin's role).....   this article was written by Karl Rove!

Current Position: 44th President of the United States (since January 2009)

Career History: Member of the U.S. Senate (Jan. 2005 to Nov. 2008); Member of the Illinois State Senate(1996 to 2004); Attorney for Miner, Barnhill & Galland (1993 to 1996)

Birthday: Aug. 4, 1961

Hometown: 

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia and lived in Chicago, Illinois

Alma Mater: Occidental College, attended, 1981 to 1983; Columbia University, B.A., 1985; 

Harvard Law School, J.D., 1991

Spouse: Michelle

Religion: Trinity United Church of Christ

DC Office: The White House

Email 

So how many black friends does Ron Paul have???? hmnnnn

"It is ridiculous to imply that Ron Paul is a bigot, racist, or unethical,"

'He's not as conservative as people would hope for'

Romney faces doubts in South Carolina over issues that have plagued him elsewhere, including his support for a health care mandate in Massachusetts that is similar to President Obama's health care law, and the perception that because he has changed his mind, he cannot be trusted on key social issues, including abortion.

Paul Thurmond, a Charleston attorney whose father was Strom Thurmond, chaired Romney's grassroots coalition efforts in South Carolina four years ago. This time around, he has told the campaign he won't support Romney because he can't get past his "inconsistencies."

"He's got this background on health care, which has been problematic for him, and his message is really not that new. He's not as conservative as people would hope for," Thurmond, who is neutral in the race, told Yahoo News. "I know he has a history of success with business, but show us some unique ideas, something that can get people back to work. His message, so far, just really isn't resonating."

A lingering concern among Romney aides and supporters is how the candidate's Mormon faith will play in South Carolina, where the evangelical-Christian voting bloc is influential, even if it isn't quite as large as it is Iowa. But Haley said she doesn't believe Romney's religion will be an issue.

"South Carolina just elected a 38-year-old Indian female for governor of South Carolina," Haley told reporters, referring to herself. "What the people of South Carolina care about are values, and family and faith and what you do and results. And I think you can look at the Romneys and you can see this is a family of faith, this is a family of values, and a source of pride for anything they've ever done. I have faith in the people of South Carolina."

Yet Bob Taylor, a dean at Bob Jones University—who gave Romney one of his biggest endorsements in the state four years ago but, like many '08 supporters, is neutral today—said Romney's faith will be a concern for some evangelicals. Still, Taylor said, that doesn't mean they won't vote for him.

"If people are undecided when they head into that voting booth, I think they will cast their vote on who has the best chance of winning," Taylor told Yahoo News. "On that basis, they might well vote for Romney."

our years ago, Romney invested millions of dollars in organization and advertising in the state, only to finish in fourth place in the Palmetto State's traditionally decisive primary. South Carolina has chosen the eventual winner of the Republican nomination in every election since 1980, when Ronald Reagan took the state's delegates.

Yet this time around, Romney has virtually ignored the state, in favor of concentrating on New Hampshire and Florida—the two early states his campaign considers crucial to his quest to become the Republican Party's nominee for president in 2012.

That strategy may be changing, however, as Romney seeks new ways to block the rise of Newt Gingrich, who is now his chief competitor in the race for the nomination. The Romney campaign does not expect to win in Iowa, and his advisers are growing concerned that the winner of the first-in-the-nation caucuses could surge in the polls in New Hampshire, which holds its primary only one week later.

Romney is still expected to win New Hampshire, but the consensus among political observers is that he must win by a large margin, given that he's maintained a 20-point lead or more in the polls there for months. A disappointing finish in New Hampshire would make South Carolina's first-in-the-South primary pivotal for Romney, as it comes before the contests in Florida and Nevada, the two states the Romney campaign considers his best opportunity to crush the momentum of the insurgent candidate—Gingrich or whomever—who emerges from Iowa.


The most telling sign of the uphill battle Romney faces in South Carolina is the skepticism he faces among many leading Republicans who backed his bid four years ago. At this point in the 2008 campaign, Romney had announced more than 100 endorsements among key public officials, political operatives and fundraisers in the state. By comparison, he has announced fewer than 10 endorsements in the state, including Haley's, this year. And many of his key staffers from 2008 remain neutral.

Racial injustices..... will they never end....????

Congressman apologizes for criticizing Michelle Obama’s ‘large posterior’

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner was overheard loudly complaining on the phone in the Delta Lounge at Reagan National Airport outside Washington about Obama's healthy food initiative.

Election GOP in a nutshell 2011

For Romney, the stakes are equally high, as he is now in virtually the same position he was four years ago, when he was an early frontrunner for the Republican nomination but lost ground in the polls as the Iowa caucuses approached. In trying to contain Gingrich's surge, the Romney team is using the same playbook they used in 2008 when they tried to take down Mike Huckabee's insurgent candidacy, by carpet-bombing TV and radio with negative ads.

That approach backfired for Romney four years ago—and could do so again. Many Republican voters remain skeptical about Romney, polls show. For months, the race has been about voters looking for an alternative to the former Massachusetts governor, with Gingrich being the latest candidate to rise into that role.

If Gingrich falters, there are others who could step into his shoes. Rick Perry, who raised a lot of money before his campaign faltered this fall, is spending millions of dollars on TV ads in Iowa and seems to have finally found his footing in the debates—though it may be too late. Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are trying to fight not only for the divided support of social conservatives in Iowa, but also for Herman Cain's supporters, who are now looking for a new candidate in the race.

The biggest question mark in Iowa could be Ron Paul, who has steadily risen in the polls in the state in recent weeks and has been drawing the biggest crowds of the 2012 contenders there. Paul's candidacy has been dismissed by many mainstream Republicans, but he is second only to Romney in his ability to raise campaign cash, which makes him a very real player in the race.

Adding to the chaos and uncertainty of the primaries are factors that weren't in place four years ago, including super PACs that have already spent millions on TV ads to boost specific candidates and attack others. In New Hampshire, Jon Huntsman, a moderate Republican who is aiming for a surprise showing in the state, is being aided by a super PAC funded by his father.

The way the race looks today could be completely changed by the time voters head to the polls. Iowa and New Hampshire are home to voters who are known for being late deciders and for changing their minds at the last minute. In January, those voters could break for anyone.

Politics, politics...... and more politics.... I'm living America's history!

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz underscored the new line of messaging in a statement following the debate, calling the former Speaker "a Tea Party politician even before there was a Tea Party."

"He supported gutting funding for education and Medicare to fund a tax cut for millionaires and shut down the government over it and those are the same policies he supports today," she said.

Earlier this week, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod launched the first direct Democratic attacks on Gingrich, labeling him the "godfather of gridlock" for his role in the federal government shutdown of 1995 and the partisan battle to impeach President Bill Clinton.

R.C. Hammond, a spokesman for the Gingrich campaign said it's  "always a nice gesture of the DNC to recognize Newt's efforts to advance the conservative agenda."

Well Spoken Article of the ROOT.com

For quite a long spell in African-American history, each of us has had to bear the burden of the race on our shoulders. Custom and tradition -- and intense desire for equality -- dictated that we mind our manners and avoid personal acts and activity that would make the entire race look bad. Thus, we were skittish about eating chitterlings and watermelon, especially in public. Washington activist Petey Green eased some of that with a riotous routine on how to eat watermelon (not properly with a knife and fork). Amos 'n' Andy was booted from both radio and television, a banishment spearheaded by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that persists to this day.

We were also saddled with guilt about poor grammar and incorrect English, "bad" hair that we tried to ameliorate with conks (remember Malcolm X?), processes and other straighteners, skin whiteners and certain cuss words (in particular, the dreaded 12-letter, four-syllable insult that begins with "m"), and we were to avoid or chastise those who violated the unwritten rules of deportment.

We even tolerated and laughed along with a white comedian, Lenny Bruce, who evoked laughter with his shtick mocking Joe Louis' inarticulate interviews after dispatching the white hope of the week.
"Well, Joe, what do you think about the fight?" went Bruce in his nightclub performance.
"Ahhhh, arrrrrah, ughhh, I glad I win ... blah, blah, blah, Deetroit."
Indeed, we were embarrassed.

But no more. That was then. In the interim, we progressed to the point where not even the buffoonery of a Herman Cain can make us shudder and shrink into the shadows to hide our faces. There was a time when such antics would have been comparable to Amos 'n' Andy. But declaring ultraconservative billionaires the Koch brothers his "brothers from another mother" and describing himself as "black-walnut ice cream" only drew snide snickers and disdain from many nonsupportive African Americans.
His ignorance of the war in Libya and President Obama's foreign policy fell only on his shoulders, not the rest of us. His long pauses and poor answers to questions about policy issues that presidents confront daily reflected solely on him. http://www.theroot.com


I've found no one who pays much serious attention to his comments and behavior, certainly no one who has felt embarrassed by them. Cain is on his own to say what he wants and act as he pleases. He does not burden an entire race. He may be straight out of central casting for black exploitation, but that does not bother most of us.

"He's just stupid," a black, politically savvy grandfather in Chattanooga, Tenn., told me. "He knew he had all that baggage in his background before he ran. He is not qualified to be president."

No embarrassment there.

I attribute the change to a general maturing of the African-American community. We all settle down and take life in stride as we grow older. But probably, more significant was the advent of hip-hop and rap, the music and culture beaten into the rest of us by youngsters of the inner cities. Their steady, loud, pounding sounds and harsh words, along with a huge popularity, literally forced the rest of us to take notice and to accept the inescapable barrage of profanity and racist, sexist ranting and raving -- in fact, to look beyond the trappings and see the serious side.

In an op-ed in the New York Times titled, "Amos 'n' Andy in Nikes," with a subhead, "Gangster rappers vs. the rest of us," I noted that E. Franklin Frazier's observation that the black bourgeoisie represented the "manners and morals" of the black community had been undermined by rappers.

Nevertheless, the hard-core softening blows of rap inured us for the coming antics of the Herman Cains of the world. When late-night television hosts and other comedians lampoon him, we know they're after Cain, not us. Most of us knew he was never a viable candidate for the Republican nomination; it seemed everybody but right-wingers was aware of that.


And what did Herman Cain get out of it? A lot of attention to grease his outsize ego, a lot of money from speaking engagements and book sales, and bragging rights to say that not only did he run for president, but for a brief moment, he was actually the leader in his race. But now he'll have to assess, with his family, whether the ride was worth it.
The rest of us are not embarrassed one way or the other. Free at last?

Man oh man.... this saga is really over!!!

How Herman Cain Killed Black Republicanism

One day the GOP will get a legitimate black conservative voice. That day hasn't come.

• By: David Swerdlick | Posted: December 4, 2011 at 10:41 PM

This past Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, the once jocular and front-running, now defiant and rapidly crumbling GOP presidential contender Herman Cain announced that he's indefinitely "suspending" his bid for the White House -- and in the process he killed black Republicanism.
That probably wasn't his plan, but after running a race filled with gaffes and gimmicks and lacking any humility or substance, Cain left the conservative movement unharmed and the mainstream GOP alive and well, but he may have finally laid to rest the peculiar strain of political thought that's been driving black Republicans ever since the kinder, gentler Rockefeller Republicanism of former Sen. Edward Brooke and the late NAACP President Benjamin Hooks was replaced by the talking-point parroting brand that found its ultimate distillation in Cain.

After Cain's woeful run, American politics may have finally seen the last of the "I'm-not-like-those-other-blacks" candidate -- and good riddance.

Cain called himself conservative, but he mostly encouraged supporters to see him as the ultimate anti-Obama -- claiming to be the "real black man" in the presidential race and saying America needed "a leader, not a reader." Yet when the time came, Cain couldn't back those claims up.

He tried to be the "likable" candidate in the Republican field but went about it by indulging in a faux-folksiness unbecoming of a serious contender -- kicking off stump speeches by exclaiming "Aw, shucky-ducky!" and wishing aloud that he'd get the Secret Service codename "Cornbread."

He quickly tried to revamp his 9-9-9 plan as a 9-0-9 plan after learning that a 9 percent income tax would raise taxes on 84 percent of Americans.

He backed Donald Trump's suspicions about President Barack Obama's birth certificate until Obama went ahead and produced his birth certificate.

He said he'd refuse to appoint any Muslim Americans in a Cain administration because they might try to "force their Shari'a law on the rest of us."

He was considered staunchly anti-choice until he told CNN's Piers Morgan that on abortion, it comes down to "a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president."

When he was asked to offer his thoughts on American involvement in Libya, he gave an answer so convoluted that it really has to be seen to be believed.

Having never been elected to public office, Cain's selling point was that he's first and foremost a businessman, and not a politician. But to sum up his demise in corporate-speak that the candidate himself would be all too familiar with, Cain -- the fast-food exec and talk-radio host -- ultimately succumbed to the Peter Principle: He was finally promoted to the level of his own incompetence.

Cain decided to go to the voters with "the fundamentally un-conservative case that experience and preparation don't count." The result was that for every die-hard Tea Party voter enamored with Cain's "bootstrap" success story, there was a swing voter turned off by his absurd stances on issues. And rather than trying to persuade some of the 95 percent of black voters who went for Obama in 2008 to try the Republican alternative, Cain pushed aside black voters by calling them "brainwashed" and becoming the one thing they wouldn't tolerate: an embarrassment.

But Cain wound up unintentionally providing an important public service. His campaign was so awful that he's made it pretty unlikely that the next black Republican who emerges on the national scene will try to do it by saying, in essence, "Vote for me -- I'm not like that other guy." Thanks to Cain, that strategy, hopefully, is done for good. And as Comcast's Robert Traynham consolingly tells black Republicans, "there will be another serious candidate from their ranks."

But the emphasis has to be on the "serious" part.

After Cain, in order for the next black Republican or black conservative to make an impact, she can't just settle for being another Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- George W. Bush's elegant rubber stamp – and he also can't settle for being another Michael Steele -- the perpetually cheerful but ideologically inconsequential former Republican National Committee chair who once joked that he'd try to diversify Republican ranks by telling blacks and others: "Y'all come."

No, the next time around, voters -- black or otherwise -- will demand more than they did from Cain. Next time, whoever that black Republican is, she'll have to win votes with real ideas about war, foreign trade, promoting entrepreneurship, taxation, immigration and school reform. Thanks to Cain, the next time around, if a black conservative wants to win, it won't be good enough just to be the black conservative in the field. He'll have to be the best conservative in the field.

Next time around, he'll have to win votes the old-fashioned way -- he'll actually have to earn them. And what could be more conservative than that?

Herman Cain..... Bye Guy

Herman Cain was NEVER a REAL contender for President, He KNEW it and EVERYONE else KNEW it! Cain was running to represent a party that elected 2 Black members to Congress, no Black Senators, 1/2% Black party membership with less than 2% Black delegates at their convention. So seriously, what chance did Cain have to be the GOP nominee for President?  
 
Besides, ANY serious candidate KNOWS about opposition research and Cain KNEW all this sexual harassment/long-term affair crap was going to come to light. Heck, Cain told a senior staffer about one of the harassment charges against him when he ran for the Senate.  
 
And if you go by what Cain himself said, "being Black doesn't make ANY difference"  
 
But the REAL truth is Cain wanted to sell books, get lucrative speaking engagements and a possible show on Fox Noise PERIOD!!!